The Cries of London Part 4

[Ill.u.s.tration: _"Marking Stones"_]

MARKING STONES.

PLATE X.

The rare wood-cut, from which the present etching was made, is one of the curious set of twelve figures engraved in wood of the time of James the First. Under the figure are the following lines:

"Buy Marking Stones, Marking Stones buy, Much profit in their use doth lie: I've marking stones of colour red, Pa.s.sing good,--or else black lead."

The cry of Marking Stones is also noticed in the play of "Tarquin and Lucrece." These Marking Stones, as the verses above state, are either of a red colour, or composed of black lead. They were used in marking of linen, so that was.h.i.+ng could not take the mark out. Every one knows that water will not take effect upon black lead, particularly if the stick of that material, which is denominated "a Marking Stone," be heated before it be stamped. The stone, of a red colour, was probably of a material impregnated with the red called "ruddle," a colour never to be washed out.

It is used by the graziers for the marking of their sheep, is of an oily nature, and made in immense quant.i.ties, for the use of graziers, at the Ruddle Manufactory, near the Nine Elms, on the Battersea Road. It was a red known in the reign of Edward the Third, and much used by the painters employed in the decorations of St. Stephen's Chapel, Westminster.

About fifty years ago it was the custom of those persons who let lodgings in St. Giles's, above the Two-penny admission, where sheets were afforded at sixpence the night, to stamp their linen with sticks of marking stones of ruddle, with the words "Stop Thief," so that, if stolen, the thief should at once be detected and detained. For this, and many other curious particulars respecting the lowest cla.s.ses of the inhabitants of St. Giles in the Fields, the writer is much indebted to his truly respectable friend, the late William Packer, Esq. of Charlotte Street, Bloomsbury, and afterwards of Great Baddow, in Ess.e.x, who was born, and resided for the great part of his life, upon the spot. For the honour of this gentleman's family, it may be here acknowledged that his father, who was also a truly respectable man, was one of the promoters of the building of Middles.e.x Hospital, which, before the erection of the present building, was an establishment held in Windmill Street, leading from Tottenham Court Road to Percy Chapel, in Charlotte Street, Rathbone Place. The house which the Hospital occupied, standing on the South side of the street, has since been made use of as a French charity school.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _"Buy a Brush"_]

BUY A BRUSH, OR A TABLE BOOK.

PLATE XI.

The Engraving from which the accompanying Plate was copied was one of a set published by Overton, but without date. Judging from the dress, it must have been made either in the reign of King James the First or in that of the succeeding monarch. The inscription over the figure is, "Buy a Brush or a Table Book." The floors were not wetted, but rubbed dry, even until they bore a very high polish, particularly when it was the fas.h.i.+on to inlay staircases and floors of rooms with yellow, black, and brown woods. On the landing places of the great staircase in the house built by Lord Orford, now the Grand Hotel, at the end of King Street in Covent Garden, such inlaid specimens are still remaining, in a beautiful state of preservation. There are many houses of the n.o.bility where the floors consist of small pieces of oak arranged in tessellated forms. The room now occupied by the servants in waiting, and that part of the house formerly a portion of the old gallery, at Cleveland House, St. James's; the floors of the state rooms of Montagu House, now the British Museum; and the floor of the Library in St. Paul's Cathedral, all retain their tessellated forms.

These floors were rubbed by the servants, who wore brushes on their feet, and they were, and indeed are, so highly polished, in some of the country mansions, that in some instances they are dangerous to walk upon. This mode of dry-rubbing rooms by affixing the brush to the feet, is still practised in France, chiefly by men-servants.

The Table Book is of very ancient use. Shakspeare thus notices it in his play of Hamlet:

_Ham._ My tables: meet it is I set it down.

It was a book consisting of several small pieces of slate set in frames of wood, fastened together with hinges, and closed, as a book for the pocket: for a representation of one, with a pencil attached to a string, as used in 1565, see Douce's "Ill.u.s.trations of Shakspeare and of Ancient Manners,"

vol. II. p. 227. It was taken, says that writer, from Gesner's Treatise De rerum fossilium figuris, &c. Tigur. 1565. The Almanacs of that time likewise contained tables of a composition like a.s.ses skin. One of these was in the possession of Mr. Douce.

It is a very curious fact that the farmers, graziers, and horse dealers, use at this day a Table Book consisting of slates bound in wood, with a pencil attached to it, exactly of the same make as that referred to as used in 1565, and such are now regularly sold at the toy shops. We may conclude that persons in the higher ranks of life used sheets of ivory put together as a book, for we frequently meet with such, elegantly adorned with clasps, of very old workmans.h.i.+p.

Howell, in his "Familiar Letters," 4to. p. 7, published 1645, says, "This return of Sir Walter Raleigh from Guiana puts me in minde of a facetious tale I read lately in Italian, (for I have a little of that language already,) how Alphonso King of Naples sent a Moor, who had been his captive a long time, to Barbary, to buy horses, and to return by such a time. Now there was about the King a kinde of buffon or jester who had a Table Book, wherein he was used to register any absurdity, or impertinence, or merry pa.s.sage, that happened about the Court. That day the Moor was dispatched for Barbary, the said jester waiting upon the King at supper, the King called for his journall, and askt what he had observed that day; thereupon he produced his Table Book, and amongst other things he read how Alphonso King of Naples had sent Beltran the Moor, who had been a long time his prisoner, to Morocco, his own country, with so many thousand crowns to buy horses. The King asked him 'why he inserted that?'

'Because,' said he, 'I think he will never come back to be a prisoner again, and so you have lost both man and money.' 'But, if he do come, then your jest is marr'd,' quoth the King. 'No, sir; for if he return, I will blot out your name, and put him in for a fool.'"

FIRE-SCREENS.

PLATE XII.

The next plate is a copy from the same set of prints from which the preceding one was taken, and has the following inscription engraved above it:

"I have screenes if you desier, To keepe yr butey from ye fire."

It appears from the extreme neatness of this man, and the goods which he exhibits for sale, that they were of a very superior quality, probably of foreign manufacture, and possibly from Leghorn, from whence hats similar to those on his head were first brought into England. These Leghorn hats were originally imported and sold by our Turners, who generally had the Leghorn hat for their sign. England certainly can boast of superiority in almost every description of manufacture, over those of most parts of the world; but it never successfully rivalled the Basket-makers and Willow-workers of France and Holland, either for bleaching or weaving; nor perhaps is it possible for any skill to exceed that of the French in their present mode of making baskets and other such ware. Even the children's rattles of the Dutch and French, surpa.s.s anything of the kind made in this country. The willow is common in most parts of Holland, so that they have a great choice of a selection of wood, and the females are taught the art of twisting it at a very early age. It must be acknowledged, that the natives of Hudson's Bay are very curious workers of baskets and other useful articles made of the barks of trees, and even the most uncultivated nations often display exquisite neatness in their modes of making them.

The French carry their basket ware either in small barrows or in little carts, and sell them at so cheap a rate, by reason of the few duties they have to pay to Government, that it would be impossible for an Englishman, were he master of the art of producing them, to sell them for less than ten times the sum.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _"I have Screenes if you desier to keepe yr Buty from ye fire."_]

That very wonderful people the Chinese probably were the first who thought of hand-screens to protect the face from the sun. We find them introduced in their earliest delineations of costume. The feathered fans of our Elizabeth might occasionally have been used as fire screens, in like manner as those now imported from the East Indies, also composed of feathers, and which frequently adorn our chimney pieces. It is possible, however, that as our vendor of Fire-screens has particularly acquainted us with the use of his screens, they might have been the first that were introduced decidedly for that purpose.

SAUSAGES.

PLATE XIII.

The female vendor of Sausages exhibited in the following Plate, is of the time of Charles II. and has here been preferred to a similar character belonging to the preceding reign, her dress and general appearance being far more picturesque. Under the original print are the following lines:

"Who buys my Sausages! Sausages fine!

I ha' fine Sausages of the best, As good they are as e'er was eat, If they be finely drest.

Come, Mistris, buy this daintie pound, About a Capon rost them round."

Almost every county has some peculiar mode of making sausages, but as to their general appearance they are tied up in links. There are several sorts which have for many years upheld their reputation, such as those made at Bewdley in Oxfords.h.i.+re, at Epping, and at Cambridge, places particularly famous for them. The sausages from Bewdley, Epping, and Cambridge, are mostly sold by the poulterers, who are in general very attentive in having them genuine. They are brought to Leadenhall, Newgate, and other markets, neatly put up in large flat baskets, similar to those in which fresh b.u.t.ter is sent to town. The Oxford gentlemen frequently present their London friends with some of the sausage meat put up in neat brown pans; this is fried in cakes, and is remarkably good.

The pork-shops of Fetter Lane have been for upwards of 150 years famous for their sausages; indeed the pork-shops throughout London are princ.i.p.ally supported by a most extensive sale of sausages.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _"Sausages"_]

Ben Jonson, in his play of Bartholomew Fair, exhibits sausage stalls, their contents being prime articles of refreshment at that very ancient festival. In a very curious tract, ent.i.tled, "A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Charlotte Charke, (_youngest daughter_ of Colley Cibber, Esq.) written by herself, the second edition, printed for W. Reeve, in Fleet Street, 1759," the auth.o.r.ess, after experiencing some of the most curious vicissitudes, in the midst of her greatest distress, says, "I took a neat lodging in a street facing _Red Lyon Square_, and wrote a letter to Mr.

_Beard_, intimating to him the sorrowful plight I was in; and, in a quarter of an hour after, my request was obligingly complied with by that worthy gentleman, whose bounty enabled me to set forward to _Newgate Market_, and bought a considerable quant.i.ty of pork at the best hand, which I converted into sausages, and with my daughter set out laden with each a burden as weighty as we could well bear; which, not having been used to luggages of that nature, we found extremely troublesome. But _Necessitas non habeat legem_, we were bound to that or starve.

"Thank heaven, our loads were like aesop's, when he chose to carry the bread, which was the weightiest burden, to the astonishment of his fellow-travellers; not considering that his wisdom preferred it, because he was sure it would lighten as it went: so did ours, for as I went only where I was known, I soon disposed, among my friends, of my whole cargo; and was happy in the thought, that the utmost excesses of my misfortunes had no worse effect on me, than an industrious inclination to get a small livelihood, without shame or reproach; though the Arch-Dutchess of our family, who would not have relieved me with a halfpenny roll or a draught of small-beer, imputed this to me as a crime; I suppose she was possessed with the same dignified sentiments Mrs. Peachum is endowed with, and THOUGHT THE HONOUR OF THEIR FAMILY WAS CONCERNED; if so, she knew the way to have prevented the disgrace, and in a humane, justifiable manner, have preserved her own from that taint of cruelty I doubt she will never overcome."

The wretched vendors of sausages, who cared not what they made them of, such as those about forty years back who fried them in cellars in St.

Giles's, and under gateways in Drury Lane, Field Lane, commonly called "Food and Raiment Alley, or Thieving Lane, alias Sheep's Head Alley," with all its courts and ramifications of Black Boy Alley, Saffron Hill, Bleeding Heart Yard, and Cow Cross, were continually persecuting their unfortunate neighbours, to whom they were as offensive as the melters of tallow, bone burners, soap boilers, or cat-gut cleaners. This "Food and Raiment Alley," so named from the cook and old clothes shops, was in former days so dangerous to go through, that it was scarcely possible for a person to possess his watch or his handkerchief by the time he had pa.s.sed this ordeal of infamy; and it is a fact, that a man after losing his pocket-handkerchief, might, on his immediate return through the Lane, see it exposed for sale, and purchase it at half the price it originally cost him, of the mother of the young gentleman who had so dextrously deprived him of it. Watches were, as they are now in many places in London, immediately put into the crucible to evade detection.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _"New Elegy"_]

NEW ELEGY.