For some pitches the foregoing was sufficient, for a street auditory “hates too long a patter;” but where a favourable opportunity offered, easily tested by the pecuniary beginnings, the “Lesson of the Day” was given in addition, and was inserted after the second “Answer” in the foregoing parody, so preceding the “Let us say:”

In the course of my inquiries touching this subject I had more than once occasion to observe that an acute patterer had always a reason, or an excuse for anything. One quick-witted Irishman, whom I knew to be a Roman Catholic, was “working” a “patter against the Pope,” (not the one I have given), and on my speaking to him on the subject, and saying that I supposed he did it for a living, he replied: “That’s it then, sir. You’re right, sir, yes. I work it just as a Catholic lawyer would plead against a Catholic paper for a libel on Protestants—though in his heart he knew the paper was right—and a Protestant lawyer would defend the libel hammer and tongs. Bless you, sir, you’ll not find much more honour that way among us (laughing) than among them lawyers; not much.” The readiness with which the sharpest of those men plead the doings not only of tradesmen, but of the learned and sacred professions, to justify themselves, is remarkable.

Sometimes a dialogue is of a satirical nature. One man told me that the “Conversation between Achilles and the Wellington Statue,” of which I give the concluding moiety, was “among the best,” (he meant for profit), “but no great thing.” My informant was Achilles—or, as he pronounced it, Atchilees—and his mate was the statue, or “man on the horse.” The two lines, in the couplet form, which precede every two paragraphs of dialogue, seem as if they represent the speakers wrongfully. The answer should be attributed, in each case, to Achilles.

Of parodies other than the sort of compound of the Litany and other portions of the Church Service, which I have given, there are none in the streets—neither are there political duets. Such productions as parodies on popular songs, “Cab! cab! cab!” or “Trip! trip! trip!” are now almost always derived, for street-service, from the concert-rooms. But they relate more immediately to ballads, or street song; and not to patter.

Of “Cocks,” etc.

These “literary forgeries,” if so they may be called, have already been alluded to under the head of the “Death and Fire Hunters,” but it is necessary to give a short account of a few of the best and longest known of those stereotyped; no new cocks, except for an occasion, have been printed for some years.

One of the stereotyped cocks is, the “Married Man Caught in a Trap.” One man had known it sold “for years and years,” and it served, he said, when there was any police report in the papers about sweethearts in coal-cellars, &c. The illustration embraces two compartments. In one a severe-looking female is assaulting a man, whose hat has been knocked off by the contents of a water-jug, which a very stout woman is pouring on his head from a window. In the other compartment, as if from an adjoining room, two women look on encouragingly. The subject matter, however, is in no accordance with the title or the embellishment. It is a love-letter from John S—n to his most “adorable Mary.” He expresses the ardour of his passion, and then twits his adored with something beyond a flirtation with Robert E—, a “decoyer of female innocence.” Placably overlooking this, however, John S—n continues:—

“Many a turn in seductions talked about in the papers and not talked about nowhere,” said one man, “has that slum served for, besides other things, such as love-letters, and confessions of a certain lady in this neighbourhood.”

Another old cock is headed, “Extraordinary and Funny Doings in this Neighbourhood.” The illustration is a young lady, in an evening dress, sitting with an open letter in her hand, on a sort of garden-seat, in what appears to be a churchyard. After a smart song, enforcing the ever-neglected advice that people should “look at home and mind their own business,” are two letters, the first from R. G.; the answer from S. H. M. The gentleman’s epistle commences:—

“Madam,
“The love and tenderness I have hitherto expressed for
you is false, and I now feel that my indifference towards
you increases every day, and the more I see you the more
you appear ridiculous in my eyes and contemptible—
I feel inclined & in every respect disposed & determined
to hate you. Believe me, I never had any inclination
to offer you my hand.”

The lady responds in a similar strain, and the twain appear very angry, until a foot-note offers an explanation: “By reading every other line of the above letters the true meaning will be found.”

Of this class of cocks I need cite no other specimens, but pass on to one of another species—the “Cruel and Inhuman Murder Committed on the Body of Capt. Lawson.” The illustration is a lady, wearing a coronet, stabbing a gentleman, in full dress, through the top button of his waistcoat. The narrative commences:—

The writer then deplores Miss Guard’s fall from virtue, and her desertion by her betrayer, “on account of her fortune being small.” Capt. Lawson, or Mr. James Lawless, next woos a wealthy City maiden, and the banns are published. What follows seems to me to be a rather intricate detail:—

Lawson visits Miss Guard to wheedle her out of his letters, but “she drew a large carving-knife and stabbed him under the left breast.” At the latest account the man was left without hope of recovery, while “the valiant victress” was “ordered to submit to judicial decorum in the nineteenth year of her age.” The murders and other atrocities for which this “cock” has been sponsor, are—I was informed emphatically—a thundering lot!

I conclude with another cock, which may be called a narrative “on a subject,” as we have “ballads on a subject” (afterwards to be described), but with this difference, that the narrative is fictitious, and the ballad must be founded on a real event, however embellished. The highest newspaper style, I was told, was aimed at. Part of the production reads as if it had done service during the Revolution of February, 1848.

Of “Strawing.”

I have already alluded to “strawing,” which can hardly be described as quackery. It is rather a piece of mountebankery. Many a quack—confining the term to its most common signification, that of a “quack doctor”—has faith in the excellence of his own nostrums, and so proffers that which he believes to be curative: the strawer, however, sells what he knows is not what he represents it.

The strawer offers to sell any passer by in the streets a straw and to give the purchaser a paper which he dares not sell. Accordingly as he judges of the character of his audience, so he intimates that the paper is political, libellous, irreligious, or indecent.

I am told that as far back as twenty-five or twenty-six years, straws were sold, but only in the country, with leaves from the Republican, a periodical published by Carlile, then of Fleet-street, which had been prosecuted by the government; but it seems that the trade died away, and was little or hardly known again until the time of the trial of Queen Caroline, and then but sparingly. The straw sale reached its highest commercial pitch at the era of the Reform Bill. The most successful trader in the article is remembered among the patterers as “Jack Straw,” who was oft enough represented to me as the original strawer. If I inquired further, the answer was: “He was the first in my time.” This Jack Straw was, I am told, a fine-looking man, a natural son of Henry Hunt, the blacking manufacturer. He was described to me as an inveterate drunkard and a very reckless fellow. One old hand was certain that this man was Hunt’s son, as he himself had “worked” with him, and was sometimes sent by him when he was “in trouble,” or in any strait, to 32, Broadwall, Blackfriars, for assistance, which was usually rendered. (This was the place where Hunt’s “Matchless Blacking” and “Roasted Corn” were vended.) Jack Straw’s principal “pitch” was at Hyde Park Corner, “where,” said the man whom I have mentioned as working with him, “he used to come it very strong against Old Nosey, the Hyde Park bully as he called him. To my knowledge he’s made 10s., and he’s made 15s. on a night. O, it didn’t matter to him what he sold with his straws, religion or anything. There was no three-pennies (threepenny newspapers) then, and he had had a gentleman’s education, and knew what to say, and so the straws went off like smoke.” The articles which this man “durst not sell” were done up in paper, so that no one could very well peruse them on the spot, as a sort of stealth was implied. On my asking Jack Straw’s co-worker if he had ever drank with him, “Drank with him!” he answered, “Yes, many a time. I’ve gone out and pattered, or chaunted, or anything, to get money to buy him two glasses of brandy—and good brandy was very dear then—before he could start, for he was all of a tremble until he had his medicine. If I couldn’t get brandy, it was the best rum, ’cause he had all the tastes of a gentleman. Ah! he’s been dead some years, sir, but where he died I don’t know. I only heard of his death. He was a nice kindly fellow.”

The ruse in respect of strawing is not remarkable for its originality. It was an old smuggler’s trick to sell a sack and give the keg of contraband spirit placed within it and padded out with straw so as to resemble a sack of corn. The hawkers, prior to 1826, when Mr. Huskisson introduced changes into the Silk Laws, gave “real Ingy handkerchiefs” (sham) to a customer, and sold him a knot of tape for about 4s. The price of a true Bandana, then prohibited, and sold openly in the draper’s shops, was about 8s. The East India Company imported about a million of Bandanas yearly; they were sold by auction for exportation to Hamburgh, &c., at about 4s. each, and were nearly all smuggled back again to England, and disposed of as I have stated.

It is not possible to give anything like statistics as to the money realised by strawing. A well-informed man calculated that when the trade was at its best, or from 1832 to 1836, there might be generally fifty working it in the country and twenty in London; they did not confine themselves, however, to strawing, but resorted to it only on favourable opportunities. Now there are none in London—their numbers diminished gradually—and very rarely any in the country.

Of the Sham Indecent Street-trade.

This is one of those callings which are at once repulsive and ludicrous; repulsive, when it is considered under what pretences the papers are sold, and ludicrous, when the disappointment of the gulled purchaser is contemplated.

I have mentioned that one of the allurements held out by the strawer was that his paper—the words used by Jack Straw—could “not be admitted into families.” Those following the “sham indecent trade” for a time followed his example, and professed to sell straws and give away papers; but the London police became very observant of the sale of straws—more especially under the pretences alluded to—and it has, for the last ten years, been rarely pursued in the streets.

The plan now adopted is to sell the sealed packet itself, which the “patter” of the street-seller leads his auditors to believe to be some improper or scandalous publication. The packet is some coloured paper, in which is placed a portion of an old newspaper, a Christmas carol, a religious tract, or a slop-tailor’s puff (given away in the streets for the behoof of another class of gulls). The enclosed paper is, however, never indecent.

From a man who had, not long ago, been in this trade, I had the following account. He was very anxious that nothing should be said which would lead to a knowledge that he was my informant. After having expressed his sorrow that he had ever been driven to this trade from distress, he proceeded to justify himself. He argued—and he was not an ignorant man—that there was neither common sense nor common justice in interfering with a man like him, who, “to earn a crust, pretended to sell what shop-keepers, that must pay church and all sorts of rates, sold without being molested.” The word “shopkeepers” was uttered with a bitter emphasis. There are, or were, he continued, shops—for he seemed to know them all—and some of them had been carried on for years, in which shameless publications were not only sold, but exposed in the windows; and why should he be considered a greater offender than a shopkeeper, and be knocked about by the police? There are, or lately were, he said, such shops in the Strand, Fleet-street, a court off Ludgate-hill, Holborn, Drury-lane, Wych-street, the courts near Drury-lane Theatre, Haymarket, High-street, Bloomsbury, St. Martin’s-court, May’s buildings, and elsewhere, to say nothing of Holywell-street! Yet he must be interfered with!

[I may here remark, that I met with no street-sellers who did not disbelieve, or affect to disbelieve, that they were really meddled with by the police for obstructing the thoroughfare. They either hint, or plainly state, that they are removed solely to please the shop-keepers. Such was the reiterated opinion, real or pretended, of my present informant.]

I took a statement from this man, but do not care to dwell upon the subject. The trade, in the form I have described, had been carried on, he thought, for the last six years. At one time, 20 men followed it; at present, he believed there were only 6, and they worked only at intervals, and as opportunities offered: some going out, for instance, to sell almanacs or memorandum books, and, when they met with a favourable chance, offering their sealed packets. My informant’s customers were principally boys, young men, and old gentlemen; but old gentlemen chiefly when the trade was new. This street-seller’s “great gun,” as he called it, was to make up packets, as closely resembling as he could accomplish it, those which were displayed in the windows of any of the shops I have alluded to. He would then station himself at some little distance from one of those shops, and, if possible, so as to encounter those who had stopped to study the contents of the window, and would represent—broadly enough, he admitted, when he dared—that he could sell for 6d. what was charged 5s., or 2s. 6d., or whatever price he had seen announced, “in that very neighbourhood.” He sometimes ventured, also, to mutter something, unintelligibly, about the public being imposed upon! On one occasion, he took 6s. in the street in about two hours. On another evening he took 4s. 8d. in the street and was called aside by two old gentlemen, each of whom told him to come to an address given (at the West-end), and ask for such and such initials. To one he sold two packets for 2s.; to the other, five packets, each 1s.—or 11s. 8d. in one evening. The packets were in different coloured papers, and had the impressions of a large seal on red wax at the back; and he assured the old gents., as he called them, one of whom, he thought, was “silly,” that they were all different. “And very likely,” he said, chucklingly, “they were different; for they were made out of a lot of missionary tracts and old newspapers that I got dirt cheap at a ‘waste’ shop. I should like to have seen the old gent.’s face, as he opened his 5s. worth, one after another!” This trade, however, among old gentlemen, was prosperous for barely a month: “It got blown then, sir, and they wouldn’t buy any more, except a very odd one.”

This man—and he believed it was the same with all the others in the trade—never visited the public-houses, for a packet would soon have been opened and torn there, which, he said, people was ashamed to do in the public streets. As well as he could recollect, he had never sold a single packet to a girl or a woman. Drunken women of the town had occasionally made loud comments on his calling, and offered to purchase; but on such occasions, fearful of a disturbance, he always hurried away.

I have said that the straw trade is now confined to the country, and I give a specimen of the article vended there, by the patterer in the sham indecent trade. It was purchased of a man, who sold it folded in the form of a letter, and is addressed, “On Royal Service. By Express. Private. To Her Royal Highness, Victoria, Princess Royal. Kensington Palace, London. Entered at Stationer’s Hall.” The man who sold it had a wisp of straw round his neck, and introduced his wares with the following patter:

“I am well aware that many persons here present will say what an absurd idea—the idea of selling straws for a halfpenny each, when there are so many lying about the street; but the reason is simply this: I am not allowed by the authorities to sell these papers, so I give them away and sell my straws. There are a variety of figures in these papers for gentlemen; some in the bed, some on the bed, some under the bed.” The following is a copy of the document thus sold:—

On the back of this page is the following cool initiation of the purchaser into the mysteries of the epistle:

Notwithstanding the injunction to buy both letters, and the seeming necessity of having both to understand the “directions,” the patterer was selling only the one I have given.

That the trade in sham indecent publications was, at one time, very considerable, and was not unobserved by those who watch, as it is called, “the signs of the times,” is shown by the circumstance that the Anti-Corn-Law League paper, called the Bread Basket, could only be got off by being done up in a sealed packet, and sold by patterers as a pretended improper work.

The really indecent trade will be described hereafter.

For a month my informant thought he had cleared 35s. a week; for another month, 20s.; and as an average, since that time, from 5s. to 7s. 6d. weekly, until he discontinued the trade. It is very seldom practised, unless in the evening, and perhaps only one street-seller depends entirely upon it.

Supposing that 6 men last year each cleared 6s. weekly, we find upwards of 93l. expended yearly in the streets on this rubbish.

The capital required to start in the business is 6d. or 1s., to be expended in paper, paste, and sometimes sealing-wax.

Of Religious Tract Sellers.

The sellers of religious tracts are now, I am informed, at the least, about 50, but they were at one time, far more numerous. When penny books were few and very small, religious tracts were by far the cheapest things in print. It is common, moreover, for a religious society, or an individual, to give a poor person, children especially, tracts for sale. A great many tract sellers, from 25 to 35 years ago, were, or pretended to be, maimed old soldiers or sailors. The traffic is now in the hands of what may be called an anomalous body of men. More than one half of the tract sellers are foreigners, such as Malays, Hindoos, and Negros. Of them, some cannot speak English, and some—who earn a spare subsistence by selling Christian tracts—are Mahometans, or worshippers of Bramah! The man whose portrait supplies the daguerreotyped illustration of this number is unable to speak a word of English, and the absence of an interpreter, through some accident, prevented his statement being taken at the time appointed. I shall give it, however, with the necessary details on the subject, under another head.

With some men and boys, I am informed, tract-selling is but a pretext for begging.

Of a Benefit Society of Patterers.

In the course of my inquiries, I received an account of an effort made by a body of these people to provide against sickness,—a step so clearly in the right direction, and perhaps so little to be expected from the habits of the class, that I feel bound to notice it. It was called the “Street-sellers’ Society;” but as nearly all the bonâ-fide members (or those who sought benefit from its funds) were patterers in paper, or ballad-singers, I can most appropriately notice their proceedings here.

The society “sprung up accidental,” as it was expressed to me. A few paper-workers were conversing of the desirableness of such an institution, and one of the body suggested a benefit club, which it was at once determined to establish. It was accordingly established between six and seven years ago, and was carried on for about four years. The members varied in number from 40 to 50; but of a proportion of 40, as many as 18 might be tradesmen who were interested in the street-trade, either in supplying the articles in demand for it, or from keeping public-houses resorted to by the fraternity, or any such motive, or who were merely curious to mix in such society. Mr. C—— was conductor; Mr. J. H—— (a poet, and the writer of “Black Bess,” “the Demon of the Sea,” and other things which “took” in the streets), secretary; and a well-known patterer was under-conductor, with which office was mixed up the rather onerous duties of a kind of master of the ceremonies on meeting-nights. None of the officers were paid.

The subscription was 2d. a week, and meetings of the members were held once a week. Each member, not an officer, paid ½d. for admission to the fund, and could introduce a visitor, who also paid ½d. No charge was made for the use of the club-room (in a public-house), which was entirely in the control of the members. Every one using bad language, or behaving improperly, was fined ½d., and on a second offence was ejected, and sometimes, if the misbehaviour was gross, on the first. Any one called upon to sing, and refusing, or being unable, was fined ½d., and was liable to be called upon again, and pay another fine. A visitor sometimes, instead of ½d., offered 6d. when fined; but this was not accepted,—only ½d. could be received. The members’ wives could and did often accompany their husbands to the meetings; but women of the town, whether introduced by members or not, were not permitted to remain. “They found their way in a few times,” said the man who was under-conductor to me, “but I managed to work them out without any bother, and without insulting them—God forbid!”

The assistance given was 5s. weekly to sick members, who were not in arrear in their subscriptions. If the man had a family to support, a gathering was made for him, in addition to his weekly allowance,—for the members were averse to “distress the box” (fund). There was no allowance for the burial of a member, but a gathering took place, and perhaps a raffle, to raise funds for a wake (sometimes) and an interment; and during the existence of the society, three members, I was told, were buried that way “comfortably.” The subscriptions were paid up regularly enough; “indeed,” said a member to me, “if a man earned anything, his mates knew of it: we all know how the cat jumps that way, so he must either pay or be scratched.” The members not unfrequently lent each other money to pay up their subscriptions. Fashionable young “swells,” I was told, often visited the house, and stayed till 3 or 4 in the morning, but were very seldom in the club-room, which was closed regularly at 12. After that hour, the “swells” who were bent upon seeing life—(and they are a class whom the patterers, on all such occasions, not so very unreasonably consider “fair game” for bamboozling)—could enjoy the society congenial to their tastes or gratifying to their curiosity. On one occasion two policemen were among the visitors, and were on friendly terms enough with the members, some of whom they had seen before.

From the beginning there seems to have been a distrust of one another among the members, but a distrust not invincible or the club would never have been formed. Instead of the “box,” or fund (the money being deposited in a box), being allowed to accumulate, so that an investment might be realised, available for any emergency, the fund was divided among the members quarterly, and then the subscription went on anew. The payments, however, fell off. The calling of the members was precarious, their absence in the country was frequent, and so the society ceased to exist, but the members were satisfied that every thing was done honourably.

The purpose to which the funds, on a quarterly division, were devoted, was one not confined to such men as the patterers—to a supper. “None of your light suppers, sir,” said a member; “not by no means. And we were too fly to send anybody to market but ourselves. We used to go to Leadenhall, and buy a cut off a sirloin, which was roasted prime, and smelt like a angel. But not so often, for its a dear jint, the bones is heavy. One of the favouritest jints was a boiled leg of mutton with caper trimmings. That is a good supper,—I believe you, my hero.”

Of the Abodes, Tricks, Marriage, Character, and Characteristics of the Different Grades of Patterers.

Having now giving an account of those who may be called the literary patterers (proper), or at any rate of those who do not deem it vain so to account themselves, because they “work paper,” I proceed to adduce an account of the different grades of patterers generally, for patter has almost as many divisions as literature. There is patter pathetic, as from beggars; bouncing, to puff off anything of little or no value; comic, as by the clowns; descriptive, as in the cases where the vendor describes, however ornately, what he really sells; religious, as occasionally by the vendors of tracts; real patter (as it is understood by the profession) to make a thing believed to be what it is not; classical, as in the case of the sale of stenographic cards, &c.; and sporting, as in race cards.

The pattering tribe is by no means confined to the traffic in paper, though it may be the principal calling as regards the acuteness of its professors. Among these street-folk are the running and standing patterers (or stationers as they are sometimes, but rarely, styled)—and in these are included, the Death and Fire Hunters of whom I have spoken; Chaunters; Second Edition-sellers; Reciters; Conundrum-sellers; Board-workers; Strawers; Sellers of (Sham) Indecent Publications; Street Auctioneers; Cheap Jacks; Mountebanks (quacks); Clowns; the various classes of Showmen; Jugglers; Conjurors; Ring-sellers for wagers; Sovereign-sellers; Corn-curers; Grease-removers; French-polishers; Blacking-sellers; Nostrum-vendors; Fortune-tellers; Oratorical-beggars; Turnpike-sailors; the classes of Lurkers; Stenographic Card-sellers, and the Vendors of Race-cards or lists.

The following accounts have been written for me by the same gentleman who has already described the Religion, Morals, &c., of patterers. He has for some years resided among the class, and has pursued a street calling for his existence. What I have already said of his opportunities of personal observation and of dispassionate judgment I need not iterate.

“I wish,” says the writer in question, “in the disclosures I am now about to make concerning the patterers generally, to do more than merely put the public on their guard. I take no cruel delight in dragging forth the follies of my fellow-men. Before I have done with my subject, I hope to draw forth and exhibit some of the latent virtues of the class under notice, many of whom I know to sigh in secret over that one imprudent step (whatever its description), which has furnished the censorious with a weapon they have been but too ready to wield. The first thing for me to do is to give a glance at the habitations of these outcasts, and to set forth their usual conduct, opinions, conversation and amusements. As London (including the ten mile circle), is the head quarters of lodging-house life, and least known, because most crowded, I shall lift the veil which shrouds the vagrant hovel where the patterer usually resides.

“As there are many individuals in lodging-houses who are not regular patterers or professional vagrants, being rather, as they term themselves, ‘travellers’ (or tramps), so there are multitudes who do not inhabit such houses who really belong to the fraternity, pattering, or vagrant. Of these some take up their abode in what they call ‘flatty-kens,’ that is, houses the landlord of which is not ‘awake’ or ‘fly’ to the ‘moves’ and dodges of the trade; others resort to the regular ‘padding-kens,’ or houses of call for vagabonds; while others—and especially those who have families—live constantly in furnished rooms, and have little intercourse with the ‘regular’ travellers, tramps, or wanderers.

“The medium houses the London vagrant haunts, (for I have no wish to go to extremes either way,) are probably in Westminster, and perhaps the fairest ‘model’ of the ‘monkry’ is the house in Orchard-street—once the residence of royalty—which has been kept and conducted for half a century by the veteran who some fifty years ago was the only man who amused the population with that well-known ditty,

Mister (for that is the old man’s title) still manufactures lambs, but seldom goes out himself; his sons (obedient and exemplary young men) take the toys into the country, and dispose of them at fairs and markets. The wife of this man is a woman of some beauty and good sound sense, but far too credulous for the position of which she is the mistress.

“So much for the establishment. I have now to deal with the inmates.

“No one could be long an inmate of Mr. ——’s without discerning in the motley group persons who had seen better days, and, seated on the same bench, persons who are ‘seeing’ the best days they ever saw. When I took up my abode in the house under consideration, I was struck by the appearance of a middle-aged lady-like woman, a native of Worcester, bred to the glove trade, and brought up in the lap of plenty, and under the high sanction of religious principle. She had evidently some source of mental anguish. I believe it was the conduct of her husband, by whom she had been deserted, and who was living with a woman to whom, it is said, the wife had shown much kindness. By her sat a giant in size, and candour demands that I should say a ‘giant in sin.’ When Navy Jem, as he is called, used to work for his living (it was a long while ago) he drove a barrow at the formation of the Great Western Railway. At present the man lies in bed till mid-day, and when he makes his appearance in the kitchen,