Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] Part 50

Stanza I, line 1. _Dyots Isle, i.e.,_ Dyot St., St. Giles, afterwards called George St. Bloomsbury, was a well-known rookery where thieves and their a.s.sociates congregated.

Stanza II, line 3. _And I my reading learnt betime From studying pocket-books._ "Pocket-book" = reader.

Stanza IV, line 1. _To work capital_ = to commit a crime punishable with death. Previous to 1829 many offences, now thought comparatively trivial, were deemed to merit the extreme penalty of the law.

_The Milling Match_

_Tom Cribb's Memorial to Congress_: With a Preface, Notes, and Appendix. By One of the Fancy. London, Longmans & Co., 1819. There were several editions. Usually, with good reason, ascribed to Thomas Moore. It may be remarked that, though the Irish Anacreon's claim to fame rests avowedly on his more serious contributions to literature, he was, nevertheless, never so popular as when dealing with what, in the early part of the present century, was known as THE FANCY.

Pugilism then took the place, in the popular mind, that football and cricket now occupy. Tom Cribb was born at Hanham in the parish of Bitton, Gloucesters.h.i.+re, in 1781, and coming to London at the age of thirteen followed the trade of a bell-hanger, then became a porter at the public wharves, and was afterwards a sailor. From the fact of his having worked as a coal porter he became known as the 'Black Diamond,'

and under this appellation he fought his first public battle against George Maddox at Wood Green on 7 Jan. 1805, when after seventy-six rounds he was proclaimed the victor, and received much praise for his coolness and temper under very unfair treatment. In 1807 he was introduced to Captain Barclay, who, quickly perceiving his natural good qualities, took him in hand, and trained him under his own eye.

He won the champions.h.i.+p from Bob Gregson in 1808 but in 1809 he was beaten by Jem Belcher. He subsequently regained the belt. After an unsuccessful venture as a coal merchant at Hungerford Wharf, London, he underwent the usual metamorphosis from a pugilist to a publican, and took the Golden Lion in Southwark; but finding this position too far eastward for his aristocratic patrons he removed to the King's Arms at the corner of Duke Street and King Street, St. James's, and subsequently, in 1828, to the Union Arms, 26 Panton Street, Haymarket.

On 24 Jan. 1821 it was decided that Cribb, having held the champions.h.i.+p for nearly ten years without receiving a challenge, ought not to be expected to fight any more, and was to be permitted to hold the t.i.tle of champion for the remainder of his life. On the day of the coronation of George IV, Cribb, dressed as a page, was among the prizefighters engaged to guard the entrance to Westminster Hall. His declining years were disturbed by domestic troubles and severe pecuniary losses, and in 1839 he was obliged to give up the Union Arms to his creditors. He died in the house of his son, a baker in the High Street, Woolwich, on 11 May 1848, aged 67, and was buried in Woolwich churchyard, where, in 1851, a monument representing a lion grieving over the ashes of a hero was erected to his memory. As a professor of his art he was matchless, and in his observance of fair play he was never excelled; he bore a character of unimpeachable integrity and unquestionable humanity.

_Ya Hip, My Hearties!_

Stanza III, line 8. _Houyhnhnms_. A race of horses endowed with human reason, and bearing rule over the race of man--a reference to Dean Swift's _Gulliver's Travels_ (1726).

_Sonnets For The Fancy_

Pierce Egan, the author of the adventures of Tom and Jerry was born about 1772 and died in 1849. He had won his spurs as a sporting reporter by 1812, and for eleven years was recognised as one of the smartest of the epigrammatists, song-writers, and wits of the time.

_Boxiana_, a monthly serial, was commenced in 1818. It consisted of 'Sketches of Modern Pugilism', giving memoirs and portraits of all the most celebrated pugilists, contemporary and antecedent, with full reports of their respective prize-fights, victories, and defeats, told with so much spirited humour, yet with such close attention to accuracy, that the work holds a unique position. It was continued in several volumes, with copperplates, to 1824. At this date, having seen that Londoners read with avidity his accounts of country sports and pastimes, he conceived the idea of a similar description of the amus.e.m.e.nts pursued by sporting men in town. Accordingly he announced the publication of _Life in London_ in s.h.i.+lling numbers, monthly, and secured the aid of George Cruikshank, and his brother, Isaac Robert Cruikshank, to draw and engrave the ill.u.s.trations in aquatint, to be coloured by hand. George IV had caused Egan to be presented at court, and at once accepted the dedication of the forthcoming work.

This was the more generous on the king's part because he must have known himself to have been often satirised and caricatured mercilessly in the _Green Bag_ literature by G. Cruikshank, the intended ill.u.s.trator. On 15 July 1821 appeared the first number of _Life in London_; or, 'The Day and Night Scenes of Jerry Hawthorn, Esq., and his elegant friend, Corinthian Jem, accompanied by Bob Logic, the Oxonian, in their Rambles and Sprees through the Metropolis.' The success was instantaneous and unprecedented. It took both town and country by storm. So great was the demand for copies, increasing with the publication of each successive number, month by month, that the colourists could not keep pace with the printers. The alternate scenes of high life and low life, the contrasted characters, and revelations of misery side by side with prodigal waste and folly, attracted attention, while the vivacity of dialogue and description never flagged.

Stanza III, line 10. _New Drop_. The extreme penalty of the law, long carried out at Tyburn (near the Marble Arch corner of Hyde Park), was ultimately transferred to Newgate. The lament for "Tyburn's merry roam" was, without doubt, heart-felt and characteristic. Executions were then one of the best of all good excuses for a picnic and jollification. Yet the change of scene to Newgate does not appear to have detracted much from these functions as shows. "Newgate to-day,"

says a recent writer in _The Daily Mail_, is little wanted, and all but vacant, as a general rule. In former days enormous crowds were herded together indiscriminately--young and old, innocent and guilty, men, women, and children, the heinous offender, and the neophyte in crime. The worst part of the prison was the "Press Yard," the place then allotted to convicts cast for death. There were as many as sixty or seventy sometimes within these narrow limits, and most were kept six months and more thus hovering between a wretched existence and a shameful death. Men in momentary expectation of being hanged rubbed shoulders with others still hoping for reprieve. If the first were seriously inclined, they were quite debarred from private religious meditation, but consorted, perforce, with reckless ruffians, who played leap-frog, and swore and drank continually. Infants of tender years were among the condemned; lunatics, too, raged furiously through the Press Yard, and were a constant annoyance and danger to all. The "condemned sermon" in the prison chapel drew a crowd of fas.h.i.+onable folk, to stare at those who were to die, packed together in a long pew hung with black, and on a table in front was placed an open coffin.

Outside, in the Old Bailey, on the days of execution, the awful scenes nearly baffle description. Thousands collected to gloat over the dying struggles of the criminals, and fought and roared and trampled each other to death in their horrible eagerness, so that hundreds were wounded or killed. Ten or a dozen were sometimes hanged in a row, men and women side by side.

_The True Bottomed Boxer_

_The Universal Songster_, or Museum of Mirth; forming the most complete collection of ancient and modern songs in the English language, with a cla.s.sified Index... Embellished with a Frontispiece and wood cuts, designed by George Cruikshank etc. 3vols. London, 1825- 26. 8vo.

Stanza I, line 1. _Moulsey-Hurst rig_ = a prize-fight: Moulsey- Hurst, near Hampton Court, was long a favorite _venue_ for pugilistic encounters. Line 3. _Fibbing a n.o.b is most excellent gig_ = getting in a quick succession of blows on the head is good fun. Line 4. _Kneading the dough_ = a good pummelling. Line 6.

_Belly-go-firsters_ = an initial blow, generally given in the stomach. Line 8. _Measuring mugs for a chancery job_ = getting the head under the arm or 'in chancery'.

Stanza II, line 1. _Flooring_ = downing (a man). _Flus.h.i.+ng_ = delivering a blow right on the mark, and straight from the shoulder.

Line 5. _Crossing_ = unfair fighting; s.h.i.+rking.

Stanza III, line 5. _Victualling-office_ = the stomach. Line 6.

_Smeller and ogles_ = nose and eyes. Line 7. _Bread-basket_ = stomach. Line 8. _In twig_ = in form; ready.

_Bobby And His Mary_

[See _ante_ for note on _Universal Songster_].

Stanza I, line 1. _Dyot Street_, see note page 222.

Stanza II, line 16. _St. Pulchre's bell_, the great bell of St.

Sepulchre's Holborn, close to Newgate, always begins to toll a little before the hour of execution, under the bequest of Richard Dove, who directed that an exhortation should be made to "... prisoners that are within, Who for wickedness and sin are appointed to die, Give ear unto this pa.s.sing bell."

_Poor Luddy_

Thomas John Dibdin (1771-1841), the author of this song, was an actor and dramatist--an illegitimate son of Charles Dibdin the elder. He claimed to have written nearly 2000 songs.

_The Pickpocket's Chaunt_

Eugene Francois Vidocq was a native of Arras, where his father was a baker. From early a.s.sociations he fell into courses of excess which led to his flying from the paternal roof. After various, rapid, and unexampled events in the romance of real life, in which he was everything by turns and nothing long, he was liberated from prison, and became the princ.i.p.al and most active agent of police. He was made chief of the Police de Surete under Messrs. Delavau and Franchet, and continued in that capacity from the year 1810 till 1827, during which period he extirpated the most formidable gangs of ruffians to whom the excesses of the revolution and subsequent events had given full scope for daring robberies and iniquitous excesses. He settled down as a paper manufacturer at St. Mande near Paris.

Of Maginn (1793-1842) it may be said he was, without question, one of the most versatile writers of his time. He is, perhaps, best remembered in connection with the _Noctes Ambrosianae_, which first appeared in _Blackwood_, and with the idea of which Maginn is generally credited. He was also largely concerned with the inception of _Fraser's_. Maginn's English rendering of Vidocq's famous song first appeared in _Blackwood_ for July 1829. For the benefit of the curious the original is appended. It will be seen that Maginn was very faithful to his copy.

En roulant de vergne en vergne [1]

Pour apprendre a goupiner, [2]

J'ai rencontre la mercandiere, [3]

Lonfa malura dondaine, Qui du pivois solisait, [4]

Lonfa malura donde.

J'ai rencontre la mercandiere Qui du pivois solisait; Je lui jaspine en bigorne; [5]

Lonfa malura dondaine, Qu'as tu donc a morfiller? [6]

Lonfa malura donde.

Je lui jaspine en bigorne; Qu'as tu donc a morfiller?

J'ai du chenu pivois sans lance. [7]

Lonfa malura dondaine, Et du larton savonne [8]

Lonfa malura donde.

J'ai du chenu pivois sans lance Et du larton savonne, Une lourde, une tournante, [9]

Lonfa malura dondaine, Et un pieu pour roupiller [10]

Lonfa malura donde.

Une lourde, une tournante Et un pieu pour roupiller.

J'enquille dans sa cambriole, [11]

Lonfa malura dondaine, Esperant de l'entifler, [12]

Lonfa malura donde.

J'enquille dans sa cambriole Esperant de l'entifler; Je rembroque au coin du rifle, [13]

Lonfa malura dondaine, Un messiere qui pioncait, [14]

Lonfa malura donde.

Je rembroque au coin du rifle Un messiere qui pioncait; J'ai sonde dans ses vallades, [15]

Lonfa malura dondaine, Son carle j'ai pessigue, [16]

Lonfa malura donde.

J'ai sonde dans ses vallades, Son carie j'ai pessigue, Son carle et sa tocquante, [17]

Lonfa malura dondaine, Et ses attaches de ce, [18]

Lonfa malura donde.

Son carle et sa tocquante, Et ses attaches de ce, Son coulant et sa montante, [19]

Lonfa malura dondaine, Et son combre galuche Lonfa malura donde.