spurious intelligence, but for that the editors of the journals were
responsible--or the stock-jobbers who had imposed upon them. Any
one who has consulted a file of newspapers of the period to which
I have referred, will remember how frequent, and how false, were
the announcements, or the rumours, of the deaths of Bonaparte, his
brothers, or his marshals, in battle or by assassination.
As there was no man who was personally conversant with this traffic in
what is emphatically enough called the “war-time,” I sought out an old
street-patterer who had been acquainted with the older hands in the
trade, whose experience stretched to the commencement of the present
century, and from him I received the following account:
“Oh, yes,” he began, “I’ve worked ‘seconds.’ We used to call the
editions generally seconds, and cry them sometimes, as the _latest_
editions, whatever it was. There was Jack Griffiths, sir,--now wasn’t
he a hand at a second edition? I believe you. I do any kind of patter
now myself, but I’ve done tidy on second editions, when seconds was to
be had. Why, Jack Griffiths, sir--he’d been a sailor and was fond of
talking about the sea--Jack Griffiths--you would have liked to have
heard him--Jack told me that he once took 10_s._ 6_d._--it was Hyde
Park way--for a second edition of a paper when Queen Caroline’s trial
was over. Besides Jack, there was Tom Cole, called the Wooden Leg
(he’d been a soldier I believe), and Whitechapel, and Old Brummagem,
and Hell-fire Jack. Hell-fire Jack was said to be something to a
man that was a trainer, and a great favourite of the old Duke of
Queensberry, and was called Hell-fire Dick; but I can’t say how it was.
I began to work second editions, for the first time when George IV.
died. They went off pretty well at 1_s._ a piece, and for three or four
I got 2_s._ 6_d._ If it’s anything good I get 1_s._ still, but very
seldom any more. I always show anybody that asks that the paper _is_
just what I’ve cried it. There’s no regular cry; we cries what’s up:
‘_Here’s_ the second edition of the _Globe_ with the full perticlers of
the death of his Majesty King George IV.’ We work much in the same way
as the running patter. Three of us shouts in the same spot. I was one
of three who one night sold five quires, mostly _Globe_ and _Standard_.
It was at the Reform Bill time, and something about the Reform Bill. I
never much heeded what the paper was about. I only wanted the patter,
and soon got it. A mate, or any of us, looks out for anything good in
the evening papers, to be ready. Why that night I speak of I was kept
running backards and for’ards to the newspaper offices--and how they
does keep you waiting at times!--mostly the _Globe_ and _Standard_;
we worked them all at the West End. There’s twenty-seven papers to a
quire, and we gave 4_d._ a piece for ’em and sold none, as well as I
mind, for under 1_s._ I carried them mostly under my arm or in my hat,
taking care they wasn’t spoiled. Belgrave-square way, and St. George’s,
Hanover-square way, and Hyde Park way, are the best. The City’s no
good. There’s only sixpences there. The coffee-shops has spoiled the
City, as I’m afeard they will other parts. Murders in second editions
don’t sell now, and aren’t tried much, beyond a few, if there’s a late
verdict. Curviseer (Courvoisier) was tidy. The trial weren’t over ’til
evening, and I sold six papers, and got 7_s._ for them, to gentlemen
going away by the mail. I’ve heard that Greenacre was good in the same
way, but I wasn’t in town at the time. The French Revolution--the last
one--was certainly a fairish go. Lewis Fillup was good many ways. When
he used to be shot at--if the news weren’t too early in the day--and
when he got to England, and when he was said to have got back, or to
have been taken. Why, of course he wern’t to compare with Rush in the
regular patter, but he was very fair. I have nothing to say against
him, and wish he was alive, and could do it all over again. Lord
Brougham’s death wern’t worth much to us. You remember the time, I
dare say, sir, when they said he killed hisself in the papers, to see
what folks would say on him. The resignation of a prime minister is
mostly pretty good. Lord Melbourne was, and so was Sir Robert Peel.
There’s always somebody to say, ‘Hurra! that’s right!’ and to buy a
paper because he’s pleased. I had a red paper in my hat when I worked
the French Revolution. French news is generally liked in a fashionable
drag. Irish news is no good, for people don’t seem to believe it. Smith
O’Brien’s battle, though, did sell a little. It’s not possible to tell
you exactly what I’ve made on seconds. How can I? One week I may have
cleared 1_l._ in them, and for six months before not a blessed brown.
Perhaps--as near as I can recollect and calculate--I’ve cleared 3_l._
(if that) each year, one with another, in second editions in my time,
and perhaps twenty others has done the same.”
Another man who also knew the old hands said to me: “Lord bless us,
how times is changed! you should have heard Jack Griffiths tell how
he cried his gazettes: ‘_He-ere’s_ the _London Gazette_ Ex-terornary,
containing the hof-ficial account of the bloody and decisive wictory
of Sally-manker.’ Something that way. Patter wern’t required then; the
things sold theirselves. Why, the other day I was talking to a young
chap that conceits hisself to be a hout-and-houter in patter, and I
mentions Jack’s crying Gazettes and getting 5_s._ apiece for many a one
on ’em, and this young chap says, says he: ‘_Gazettes!_ What did they
cry _Gazettes_?--bankrupts, and all that?’ ‘Bankrupts be blowed!’ said
I, ‘wictories!’ I heerd Waterloo cried when I was a little ’un. The
speeches on the opening of parliament, which the newspapers has ready,
has no sale in the crowd to what they had. I only sold two papers at
6_d._ each this last go. I ventured on no more, or should have been
a loser. If the Queen isn’t there, none’s sold. But we always has a
speech ready, as close as can be got from what the morning papers says.
One gent. said to me: ‘But that ain’t the real speech!’ ‘It’s a far
better,’ says I, and so it is. Why now, sir, there’s some reading and
spirit in this bit. The Queen says:
‘It is my determination by the assistance of divine providence to
uphold and protect the Protestant Church of the British Empire, which
has been enjoyed three hundred years without interuption, the Religion
which our ancestors struggled to obtain. And as long as it shall
please God to spare me, I will endeavour to maintain the rights and
perogatives of our holy Protestant Church. And now my Lords, I leave
you to your duties, to the helm of the state, to the harbour of peace,
and happiness.’”
This man showed me the street speech, which was on a broad sheet set
off with the royal arms. The topics and arrangement were the same as
those in the speech delivered by her Majesty.
On Monday morning last (Feb. 24), I asked the man who told me
that prime ministers’ resignations were “pretty good” for the
street traffic, if he had been well remunerated by the sale of the
evening papers of Saturday, with the account of Lord John Russell’s
resignation. “It wern’t tried, sir,” he answered; “there was nothing
new in the evenings, and we thought nobody seemed to care about it.
The newspaper offices and their boarders (as he called the men going
about with announcements on boards) didn’t make very much of it, so
we got up a song instead, but it was no good,--not salt to a fresh
herring--for there was some fresh herrings in. It was put strong,
though. This was the last verse:
‘From the House to the Palace it has caused a bother,
Old women are tumbling one over another,
The Queen says it is with her, one thing or ’tother,
They must not discharge Little John;
Her Majesty vows that she is not contented,
And many ere long will have cause to repent it,
Had she been in the house she would nobly resent it,
And fought like a brick for Lord John.’”
Adopting the calculation of my first informant, and giving a profit
of 150 per cent., we find 150_l._ yearly expended in the streets, in
second editions, or probably it might be more correct to say 200_l._ in
a year of great events, and 50_l._ in a year when such events are few.
OF THE STANDING PATTERERS.
The standing patterer I have already described in his resemblance to
the mountebank of old, and how, like his predecessor, he required
a “pitch” and an audience. I need but iterate that these standing
patterers are men who remain in one place, until they think they have
exhausted the custom likely to accrue there, or until they are removed
by the police; and who endeavour to attract attention to their papers,
or more commonly pamphlets, either by means of a board with coloured
pictures upon it, illustrative of the contents of what they sell, or
else by gathering a crowd round about them, in giving a lively or
horrible description of the papers or books they are “working.” The
former is what is usually denominated in street technology, “board
work.” A few of the standing patterers give street recitations or
dialogues.
Some of the “illustrations” most “in vogue” of late for the boards
of the standing patterers were,--the flogging of the nuns of Minsk,
the blood streaming from their naked shoulders, (anything against
the Emperor of Russia, I was told, was a good street subject for a
painting); the young girl, Sarah Thomas, who murdered her mistress
in Bristol, dragged to the gallows by the turnkeys and Calcraft, the
hangman; Calcraft himself, when charged with “starving his mother;”
Haynau, in the hands of the draymen; the Mannings, and afterwards the
Sloanes. The two last-mentioned were among the most elaborate, each
having a series of “compartments,” representing the different stages of
the events in which those heroes and heroines flourished. I shall speak
afterwards of street-artists who are the painters of these boards,
and then describe the pictures more fully. There are also, as before
alluded to, what may be called “cocks” in street paintings, as well as
street literature.
Two of the most favourite themes of the standing patterers were,
however, the “Annals of the White House in Soho-square,” and the
“Mysteries of Mesmerism.” Both supplied subjects to the boards.
The White House was a notorious place of ill fame. Some of the
apartments, it is said, were furnished in a style of costly
luxury; while others were fitted up with springs, traps, and other
contrivances, so as to present no appearance other than that of an
ordinary room, until the machinery was set in motion. In one room,
into which some wretched girl might be introduced, on her drawing a
curtain as she would be desired, a skeleton, grinning horribly, was
precipitated forward, and caught the terrified creature in his, to all
appearance, bony arms. In another chamber the lights grew dim, and then
seemed gradually to go out. In a little time some candles, apparently
self-ignited, revealed to a horror stricken woman, a black coffin, on
the lid of which might be seen, in brass letters, ANNE, or whatever
name it had been ascertained the poor wretch was known by. A sofa, in
another part of the mansion, was made to descend into some place of
utter darkness; or, it was alleged, into a room in which was a store of
soot or ashes.
Into the truth or exaggeration of these and similar statements, it
is not my business to inquire; but the standing patterer made the
most of them. Although the house in question has been either rebuilt
or altered--I was told that each was the case--and its abominable
character has ceased to apply to it for some years, the patterer
did not scruple to represent it as still in existence (though he
might change the venue as to the square at discretion) and that all
the atrocities perpetrated--to which I have not ventured even to
allude--were still the ordinary procedures of “high life.” Neither
did the standing patterer scruple, as one man assured me, to “name
names;” to attribute vile deeds to any nobleman or gentleman whose
name was before the public; and to embellish his story by an allusion
to a recent event. He not unfrequently ended with a moral exhortation
to all ladies present to avoid this “abode of iniquity for the rich.”
The board was illustrated with skeletons, coffins, and other horrors;
but neither on it, nor in a hardly intelligible narrative which the
patterer sold, was there anything indecent.
The “Mysteries of Mesmerism” was an account of the marvels of that
“newly-discovered and most wonderful power in natur and art.” With
it Dr. Elliotson’s, or some well-known name, was usually associated,
and any marvel was “pattered,” according to the patterer’s taste and
judgment. The illustrations were of persons, generally women, in a
state of coma, but in this also there was no indecency; nor was there
in the narrative sold.
Of these two popular exhibitions there are, I am informed, none now in
town, and both, I was told, was more the speculations of a printer, who
sent out men, than in the hands of the regular patterers.
It may tend somewhat to elucidate the character of the patterers, if
I here state, that in my conversation with the whole of them, I heard
from their lips strong expressions of disgust at Sloane,--far stronger
than were uttered in abhorrence of any murderer. Rush, indeed, was, and
is, a popular man among them. One of them told me, that not long before
Madame Tussaud’s death, he thought of calling upon that “wenerable
lady,” and asking her, he said, “to treat me to something to drink the
immortal memory of Mr. Rush, my friend and her’n.”
It is admitted by all concerned in the exercise of street elocution,
that “the stander” must have “the best of patter.” He usually works
alone,--there are very rarely two at standing patter,--and beyond
his board he has no adventitious aids, as in the running patter, so
that he must be all the more effective; but the board is pronounced
“as good as a man.” When the standing patterer visits the country, he
is accompanied by a mate, and the “copy of werses” is then announced
as being written by an “under-paid curate” within a day’s walk. “It
tells mostly, sir,” said one man; “for it’s a blessing to us that
there always is a journeyman parson what the people knows, and what
the patter fits.” Sometimes the poetry is attributed to a sister of
mercy, or to a popular poetess; very frequently, by the patterers who
best understand the labouring classes, to Miss Eliza Cook. Sometimes
the verses are written by “a sympathising gent. in that parish,” but
his name wasn’t to be mentioned. Another intelligent patterer whom I
questioned on the subject, told me that my information was correct.
“It’s just the same in the newspapers,” he continued; “why the
‘sympathising gent.’ is the same with us as what in the newspapers is
called “other intelligence (about any crime), to publish which might
defeat the ends of justice.” That means, they know nothing at all about
it, and can’t so much as venture on a guess. I’ve known a little about
it for the papers, sir,--it doesn’t matter in what line.”
Some standing patterers are brought up to the business from childhood.
Some take to it through loss of character, or through their inability
to obtain a situation from intemperate habits, and some because “a
free life suits me best.” In a former inquiry into a portion of this
subject, I sought a standing patterer, whom I found in a threepenny
lodging-house in Mint-street, Southwark. On my inquiring what induced
him to adopt, or pursue, that line of life, he said:--
“It was distress that first drove me to it. I had learnt to make willow
bonnets, but that branch of trade went entirely out. So, having a wife
and children, I was drove to write out a paper that I called ‘The
People’s Address to the King on the Present State of the Nation.’ I got
it printed, and took it into the streets and sold it. I did very well
with it, and made 5_s._ a day while it lasted. I never was brought up
to any mechanical trade. My father was a clergyman” [here he cried
bitterly]. “It breaks my heart when I think of it. I have as good a
wife as ever lived, and I would give the world to get out of my present
life. It would be heaven to get away from the place where I am. I am
obliged to cheer up my spirits. If I was to give way to it, I shouldn’t
live long. It’s like a little hell to be in the place where we live”
[crying], “associated with the ruffians that we are. My distress of
mind is awful, but it won’t do to show it at my lodgings--they’d only
laugh to see me down-hearted; so I keep my trouble all to myself. Oh,
I am heartily sick of this street work--the insults I have to put up
with--the drunken men swearing at me. Yes, indeed, I am heartily sick
of it.”
This poor man had some assistance forwarded to him by benevolent
persons, after his case had appeared in my letter in the _Morning
Chronicle_. This was the means of his leaving the streets, and starting
in the “cloth-cap trade.” He seemed a deserving man.
EXPERIENCE OF A STANDING PATTERER.
From one of this body I received, at the period just alluded to, the
following information:--