These winged tormentors are not, like most of our apterous enemies,
calculated to excite disgust and nausea when we see or speak of them;
nor do they usually steal upon us during the silent hours of repose
(though the gnat or mosquito must be here excepted), but are many of
them very beautiful, and boldly make their attack upon us in open day,
when we are best able to defend ourselves.
The active fly, so frequently an unbidden guest at your table (Mouffet,
56), whose delicate palate selects your choicest viands, at one time
extending his proboscis to the margin of a drop of wine, and then
gaily flying to take a more solid repast from a pear or a peach--now
gambolling with his comrades in the air, now gracefully carrying his
furled wings with his taper feet--was but the other day a disgusting
grub, without wings, without legs, without eyes, wallowing, well
pleased, in the midst of a mass of excrement.
“The common house-fly,” says Kirby, “is with us sufficiently annoying
at the close of summer, so as to have led the celebrated Italian Ugo
Foscolo, when residing here, to call it one of the ‘three miseries of
life.’” But we know nothing of it as a tormentor, compared with the
inhabitants of southern Europe. “I met,” says Arthur Young, in his
interesting _Travels through France_, between Pradelles and Thurytz,
“mulberries and flies at the same time. By the term _flies_, I mean
those myriads of them which form the most disagreeable circumstances
of the southern climates. They are the first torments in Spain, Italy,
and the olive district of France; it is not that they bite, sting, or
hurt, but they buzz, teaze, and worry; your mouth, eyes, ears, and
nose are full of them: they swarm on every eatable--fruit, sugar,
everything is attacked by them in such myriads, that if they are not
incessantly driven away by a person who has nothing else to do, to eat
a meal is impossible. They are, however, caught on prepared paper, and
other contrivances, with so much ease and in such quantities, that
were it not for negligence they could not abound in such incredible
quantities. If I farmed in these countries, I should manure four or
five acres every year with dead flies. I have been much surprised
that the learned Mr. Harmer should think it odd to find, by writers
who treated of southern climates, that driving away flies was of
importance. Had he been with me in Spain and in Languedoc in July and
August, he would have been very far from thinking there was anything
odd in it.”--(_Young’s Travels in France_, i. 298.)
It is a remarkable, and, as yet, unexplained fact, that if nets of
thread or string, with meshes a full inch square, be stretched over the
open windows of a room in summer or autumn, when flies are the greatest
nuisance, not a single one will venture to enter from without; so that
by this simple plan, a house may be kept free from these pests, while
the adjoining ones which have not had nets applied to their windows
will swarm with them. In order, however, that the protection should
be efficient, it is necessary that the rooms to which it is applied
should have the light enter by _one side_ only; for in those which have
a thorough light, the flies, strange to say, pass through the meshes
without scruple.
For a fuller account of these singular facts, the reader is referred
to a paper by W. Spence, in _Trans. Ent. Soc._ vol. i. p. 1, and also
to one in the same work by the Rev. E. Stanley, late Lord Bishop of
Norwich, who, having made some of the experiments suggested by Mr.
Spence, found that by extending over the outside of his windows nets
of a very fine pack-thread, with meshes one inch and a quarter to the
square, so fine and comparatively invisible that there was no apparent
diminution either of light or the distant view, he was enabled for
the remainder of the summer and autumn to enjoy the fresh air with
open windows, without the annoyance he had previously experienced from
the intrusion of flies--often so troublesome that he was obliged on
the hottest days to forego the luxury of admitting the air by even
partially raising the sashes.
“But no sooner,” he observes, “had I set my nets than I was relieved
from my disagreeable visitors. I could perceive and hear them hovering
on the other side of my barriers; but though they now and then settled
on the meshes, I do not recollect a single instance of one venturing to
cross the boundary.”
“The number of house-flies,” he adds, “might be greatly lessened in
large towns, if the stable-dung in which their larvæ are chiefly
supposed to feed were kept in pits closed by trap-doors, so that the
females could not deposit their eggs in it. At Venice, where no horses
are kept, it is said there are no house-flies; a statement which I
regret not having heard before being there, that I might have inquired
as to its truth.”--(_Kirby and Spence’s Entom._ i. 102, 3.)
This short account of flies would be incomplete without a description
of their mode of proceeding when they regale themselves upon a piece
of loaf-sugar, and an account of the apparatus with which the Creator
has furnished them in order to enable them to walk on bodies possessing
smooth surfaces, and in any position.
“It is a remark[2] which will be found to hold good, both in animals
and vegetables, that no important motion or feeling can take place
without the presence of moisture. In man, the part of the eye which
is the seat of vision is always bedewed with moisture; the skin is
softened with a delicate oil; the sensitive part of the ear is filled
with a liquid; but moisture is still more abundant in our organs of
taste and smell than in any of the other senses. In the case of taste,
moisture is supplied to our mouth and tongue from several reservoirs
(_glands_) in their neighbourhood, whence pipes are laid and run to
the mouth. The whole surface, indeed, of the mouth and tongue, as
well as the other internal parts of our body, give out more or less
moisture; but besides this, the mouth, as we have just mentioned, has
a number of fountains expressly for its own use. The largest of these
fountains lies as far off as the ear on each side, and is formed of
a great number of round, soft bodies, about the size of garden-peas,
from each of which a pipe goes out, and all of these uniting together,
form a common channel on each side. This runs across the cheek, nearly
in a line with the lap of the ear and the corner of the mouth, and
enters the mouth opposite to the second or third of the double teeth
(_molares_) by a hole, into which a hog’s bristle can be introduced.
There are, besides, several other pairs of fountains, in different
parts adjacent, for a similar purpose.
[2] “Insect Miscellanies,” p. 36.
“We have been thus particular in our description, in order to
illustrate an analogous structure in insects, for they also seem to
be furnished with salivary fountains for moistening their organs of
taste. One of the circumstances that first awakened our curiosity with
regard to insects, was the manner in which a fly contrives to suck
up through its narrow sucker (_haustellum_) a bit of dry lump-sugar;
for the small crystals are not only unfitted to pass, from their
angularity, but adhere too firmly together to be separated by any
force the insect can exert. Eager to solve the difficulty, for there
could be no doubt of the fly’s sucking the dry sugar, we watched its
proceedings with no little attention; but it was not till we fell upon
the device of placing some sugar on the outside of a window, while
we looked through a magnifying-glass on the inside, that we had the
satisfaction of repeatedly witnessing a fly let fall a drop of fluid
upon the sugar, in order to melt it, and thereby render it fit to be
sucked up; on precisely the same principle that we moisten with saliva,
in the process of mastication, a mouthful of dry bread, to fit it for
being swallowed--the action of the jaws, by a beautiful contrivance of
Providence, preparing the moisture along the channels at the time it is
most wanted. Readers who may be disposed to think the circumstance of
the fly thus moistening a bit of sugar fanciful, may readily verify the
fact themselves in the way we have described. At the time when we made
this little experiment, we were not aware that several naturalists of
high authority had actually discovered by dissection the vessels which
supply the saliva in more than one species of insect.”
“In the case of their drinking fluids, like water, saliva is not
wanted; and it may be remarked, when we drink cold water it actually
astringes and shuts up the openings of the salivary pipes. Hence it is
that drinking does not quench thirst when the saliva is rendered viscid
and scanty by heat, by fatigue, or by the use of stimulant food and
liquor; and sometimes a draught of cold water, by carrying off all the
saliva from the mouth, and at the same time astringing the orifices
of the ducts, may actually produce thirst. Ices produce this effect
on many persons. It is, no doubt, in consequence of their laborious
exertions, as well as of the hot nature of their acid fluids producing
similar effects, that ants are so fond of water. We have seen one quaff
a drop of dew almost as large as its whole body; and when we present
those in our glass formicaries with water, they seem quite insatiable
in drinking it.”[3]
[3] “Insect Miscellanies,” p. 38.
Rennie, in his _Insect Miscellanies_, after describing the pedestrian
contrivances with which various insects are furnished, says,[4]--“The
most perfect contrivance of this kind, however, occurs in the domestic
fly (_Musca domestica_), and its congeners, as well as in several other
insects. Few can have failed to remark that flies walk with the utmost
ease along the ceiling of a room, and no less so upon a perpendicular
looking-glass; and though this were turned downwards, the flies would
not fall off, but could maintain their position undisturbed with their
backs hanging downwards. The conjectures devised by naturalists to
account for this singular circumstance, previous to the ascertaining of
the actual facts, are not a little amusing. ‘Some suppose,’ says the
Abbé de la Pluche, ‘that when the fly marches over any polished body,
on which neither its claws nor its points can fasten, it sometimes
compresses her sponge and causes it to evacuate a fluid, which fixes
it in such a manner as prevents its falling without diminishing the
facility of its progress; but it is much more probable that the sponges
correspond with the fleshy balls which accompany the claws of dogs and
cats, and that they enable the fly to proceed with a softer pace, and
contribute to the preservation of the claws, whose pointed extremities
would soon be impaired without this prevention.’ (_Spect. de la
Nat._ vol. i. p. 116.) ‘Its ability to walk on glass,’ says S. Shaw,
‘proceeds partly from some little ruggedness thereon, but chiefly from
a tarnish, or dirty, smoky substance, adhering to the surface; so that,
though the sharp points on the sponges cannot penetrate the surface of
the glass, it may easily catch hold of the tarnish.’ (_Nature Displ._
vol. iii. p. 98, Lond. 1823.) But,” adds Rennie, “it is singular
that none of these fanciers ever took the trouble to ascertain the
existence of either a gluten squeezed out by the fly, or of the smoky
tarnish on glass. Even the shrewd Réaumur could not give a satisfactory
explanation of the circumstance.”
[4] Ibid, p. 368.
“The earliest correct notion on this curious subject was entertained
by Derham, who, in mentioning the provision made for insects that
hang on smooth surfaces, says, ‘I might here name divers flies and
other insects who, besides their sharp-hooked nails, have also skinny
palms to their feet, to enable them to stick to glass and other smooth
bodies by means of the pressure of the atmosphere--after the manner
as I have seen boys carry heavy stones with only a wet piece of
leather clapped on the top of the stone.’ (_Physico-Theology_, vol.
ii. p. 194, note _b_, 11th edit.) The justly-celebrated Mr. White, of
Selborne, apparently without the aid of microscopical investigation,
adopted Derham’s opinion, adding the interesting illustration, that in
the decline of the year, when the flies crowd to windows and become
sluggish and torpid, they are scarcely able to lift their legs, which
seem glued to the glass, where many actually stick till they die;
whereas they are, during warm weather, so brisk and alert, that they
easily overcome the pressure of the atmosphere.”--(_Nat. Hist. of
Selborne_, vol. ii. p. 274.)
“This singular mechanism, however,” continues Rennie, “is not peculiar
to flies, for some animals a hundred times as large can walk upon glass
by the same means.” St. Pierre mentions “a very small lizard, about a
finger’s length, which climbs along the walls, and even along glass, in
pursuit of flies and other insects” (_Voyage to the Isle of France_,
p. 73); and Sir Joseph Banks noticed another lizard, named the Gecke
(_Lacerta Gecha_, LINN.), which could walk against gravity, and which
made him desirous of having the subject thoroughly investigated. On
mentioning it to Sir Everard Home, he and Mr. Bauer commenced a series
of researches, by which they proved incontrovertibly, that in climbing
upon glass, and walking along the ceilings with the back downwards, a
vacuum is produced by a particular apparatus in the feet, sufficient to
cause atmospheric pressure upon their exterior surface.
“The apparatus in the feet of the fly consists of two or three
membranous suckers, connected with the last joint of the foot by a
narrow neck, of a funnel-shape, immediately under the base of each
jaw, and movable in all directions. These suckers are convex above and
hollow below, the edges being margined with minute serratures, and the
hollow portion covered with down. In order to produce the vacuum and
the pressure, these membranes are separated and expanded, and when the
fly is about to lift its foot, it brings them together, and folds them
up, as it were, between the two claws. By means of a common microscope,
these interesting movements may be observed when a fly is confined in a
wine-glass.” (_Phil. Trans. for 1816_, p. 325.)
“It must have attracted the attention of the most incurious to see,
during the summer, swarms of flies crowding about the droppings of
cattle, so as almost to conceal the nuisance, and presenting instead a
display of their shining corslets and twinkling wings. The object of
all this busy bustle is to deposit their eggs where their progeny may
find abundant food; and the final cause is obviously both to remove
the nuisance, and to provide abundant food for birds and other animals
which prey upon flies or their larvæ.
“The same remarks apply with no less force to the ‘blow-flies,’ which
deposit their eggs, and in some cases their young, upon carcases. The
common house-fly (the female of which generally lays 144 eggs) belongs
to the first division, the natural food of its larvæ being horse-dung;
consequently, it is always most abundant in houses in the vicinity
of stables, cucumber-beds, &c., to which, when its numbers become
annoying, attention should be primarily directed, rather than having
recourse to fly-waters.”--(RENNIE’S _Insect Miscellany_, p. 265.)
Besides the _common_ house-fly, and the other genera of the dipterous
order of insects, there is another not unfrequent intruding visitor
of the fly kind which we must not omit to mention, commonly known as
the _blue-bottle_ (_Musca vomitoria_, LINN.). The disgust with which
these insects are generally viewed will perhaps be diminished when our
readers are informed that they are destined to perform a very important
part in the economy of nature. Amongst a number of the insect tribe
whose office it is to remove nuisances the most disgusting to the eye,
and the most offensive to the smell, the varieties of the blue-bottle
fly belong to the most useful.
“When the dead carcases of animals begin to grow putrid, every one
knows what dreadful miasmata exhale from them, and taint the air
we breathe. But no sooner does life depart from the body of any
creature--at least from any which, from its size, is likely to become
a nuisance--than myriads of different sorts of insects attack it, and
in various ways. First come the _histers_, and pierce the skin. Next
follow the _flesh-flies_, covering it with millions of eggs, whence in
a day or two proceed innumerable devourers. An idea of the despatch
made by these gourmands may be gained from the combined consideration
of their numbers, voracity, and rapid development. The larvæ of many
flesh-flies, as Redi ascertained, will in twenty-four hours devour
so much food, and gnaw so quickly, as to increase their weight two
hundred-fold! In five days after being hatched they arrive at their
full growth and size, which is a remarkable instance of the care of
Providence in fitting them for the part they are destined to act;
for if a longer time was required for their growth, their food would
not be a fit aliment for them, or they would be too long in removing
the nuisance it is given them to dissipate. Thus we see there was
some ground for Linnæus’s assertion, under _Musca vomitoria_, that
three of these flies will devour a dead horse as quickly as would a
lion.”--(KIRBY and SPENCE, i.)
The following extraordinary fact, given by Kirby and Spence, concerning
the voracity of the larvæ of the blow-fly, or blue-bottle (_Musca
vomitoria_), is worth while appending:--
“On Thursday, June 25th, died at Asbornby, Lincolnshire, John Page,
a pauper belonging to Silk-Willoughby, under circumstances truly
singular. He being of a restless disposition, and not choosing to
stay in the parish workhouse, was in the habit of strolling about the
neighbouring villages, subsisting on the pittance obtained from door to
door. The support he usually received from the benevolent was bread and
meat; and after satisfying the cravings of nature, it was his custom to
deposit the surplus provision, particularly the meat, between his shirt
and skin. Having a considerable portion of this provision in store, so
deposited, he was taken rather unwell, and laid himself down in a field
in the parish of Stredington; when, from the heat of the season at that
time, the meat speedily became putrid, and was of course struck by
the flies. These not only proceeded to devour the inanimate pieces of
flesh, but also literally to prey upon the living substance; and when
the wretched man was accidentally found by some of the inhabitants, he
was so eaten by the maggots, that his death seemed inevitable. After
clearing away, as well as they were able, these shocking vermin, those
who found Page conveyed him to Asbornby, and a surgeon was immediately
procured, who declared that his body was in such a state that dressing
it must be little short of instantaneous death; and, in fact, the man
did survive the operation but for a few hours. When first found, and
again when examined by the surgeon, he presented a sight loathsome in
the extreme. White maggots of enormous size were crawling in and upon
his body, which they had most shockingly mangled, and the removal of
the external ones served only to render the sight more horrid.” Kirby
adds, “In passing through this parish last spring, I inquired of the
mail-coachman whether he had heard this story; and he said the fact was
well known.”
One species of fly infests our houses (_Stomoxys calcitrans_), which
so nearly resembles the common house-fly (_Musca domestica_), that the
difference is not easily detected except by an entomologist; indeed
the resemblance is so close as to have led to the vulgar error that
the common house-fly occasionally indulges itself by a feast upon our
blood, after it has fed to satiety upon the delicacies which it picks
from our tables. It is even a greater torment than the horse-fly.
“This little pest,” says Kirby, referring to the _Stomoxys_, “I speak
feelingly, incessantly interrupts our studies and comfort in showery
weather, making us even stamp like the cattle by its attacks on our
legs, and if we drive it away ever so often, returning again and again
to the charge.” In Canada they are infinitely worse. “I have sat down
to write,” says Lambert, (who, though he calls it the house-fly, is
evidently speaking of the Stomoxys), “and have been obliged to throw
away my pen in consequence of their irritating bite, which has obliged
me every moment to raise my hand to my eyes, nose, mouth, and ears, in
constant succession. When I could no longer write, I began to read,
and was always obliged to keep one hand constantly on the move towards
my head. Sometimes, in the course of a few minutes, I would take
half-a-dozen of my tormentors from my lips, between which I caught them
just as they perched.”--(_Travels._ &c. i. 126.)
But of all the insect-tormentors of man, none are so loudly and
universally complained of as the species of the genus _Culex_, L.,
whether known by the name of gnats or mosquitos. It has been generally
supposed by naturalists that the mosquitos of America belong to the
Linnæan genus _Culex_; but Humboldt asserts that the term _mosquito_,
signifying _a little fly_, is applied there to a _Senicilium_, LATR.
(_Senicilia_, MEIG.), and that the _Culices_, which are equally
numerous and annoying, are called _Zancudoes_, which means _long-legs_.
The former, he says, are what the French call _Moustiques_, and the
latter _Maringouins_. (_Personal Narrative_, E. T., v. 93.)
Humboldt’s remark, however, refers only to South America. Mr. Westwood
informs us that _Mosquito_ is certainly applied to a species of _Culex_
in the United States, the inhabitants giving the name of _black_-fly
to a small _Senicilium_. Pliny, after Aristotle, distinguishes well
between _Hymenoptera_ and _Diptera_, when he says the former have their
sting in the _tail_, and the latter in the _mouth_; and that to the one
this instrument is given as the instrument of vengeance, and to the
other of avidity.
But the instrument of avidity in the genus of which I am speaking is
even more terrible than that of vengeance in most insects that are
armed with it. It instils into its wound a poison (as appears from the
consequent inflammation and tumour), the principal use of which is to
render the blood more fluid and fitter for suction. This weapon, which
is more complex than the sting of hymenopterous insects, consisting
of five pieces besides the exterior sheath--some of which seem simply
lancets, while others are barbed like the spiculæ of a bee’s sting--is
at once calculated for piercing the flesh and forming a syphon adapted
to imbibe the blood. There are several species of this genus whose
bite is severe; but none is to be compared to the common gnat (_Culex
pipiens_, L.), if, as has been generally affirmed, it be synonymous
with the mosquito, though, in all probability, several species are
confounded under both names.
In this country they are justly regarded as no trifling evil; for they
follow us to all our haunts, intrude into our most secret retirements,
assail us in the city and in the country, in our houses and in our
fields, in the sun and in the shade; nay, they pursue us to our
pillows, and keep us awake by the ceaseless hum of their rapid wings
(which, according to the Baron C. de Latour, are vibrated 3000 times
per minute), and their incessant endeavours to fix themselves upon our
face, or some uncovered part of our body; whilst, if in spite of them
we fall asleep, they awaken us by the acute pain which attends the
insertion of their oral stings, attacking with most avidity the softer
sex, and trying their temper by disfiguring their beauty.
In Marshland in Norfolk, the inhabitants are said to be so annoyed by
the gnats, that the better sort of them, as in many hot climates, have
recourse to a gauze covering for their beds, to keep them off during
the night.
“CATCH-’EM-ALIVE” SELLERS.
I discovered a colony of “catch-’em-alive” boys residing in
Pheasant-court, Gray’s-inn-lane.
From the pleasing title given to this alley, one might almost be led
to imagine it was a very delightful spot, though it is only necessary
to look down the little bricken archway that marks its entrance, and
see the houses--dirty as the sides of a dust-bin, and with the patched
counterpanes and yellow sheets hanging from the windows--to feel
assured that it is one of the most squalid of the many wretched courts
that branch out from Gray’s-inn-lane.
I found the lads playing at “pitch and toss” in the middle of the paved
yard. They were all willing enough to give me their statements; indeed,
the only difficulty I had was in making my choice among the youths.
“Please, sir, I’ve been at it longer than him,” cried one with teeth
ribbed like celery.
“Please, sir, he ain’t been out this year with the papers,” said
another, who was hiding a handful of buttons behind his back.
“He’s been at shoe-blacking, sir; I’m the only reg’lar fly-boy,”
shouted a third, eating a piece of bread as dirty as London snow.
A big lad with a dirty face, and hair like hemp, was the first of
the “catch-’em-alive” boys who gave me his account of the trade. He
was a swarthy-featured boy, with a broad nose like a negro’s, and
on his temple was a big half-healed scar, which he accounted for by
saying that “he had been runned over” by a cab, though, judging from
the blackness of one eye, it seemed to have been the result of some
street-fight. He said:--
“I’m an Irish boy, and near turned sixteen, and I’ve been silling
fly-papers for between eight and nine year. I must have begun to sill
them when they first come out. Another boy first tould me of them, and
he’d been silling them about three weeks before me. He used to buy them
of a party as lives in a back-room near Drury-lane, what buys paper and
makes the catch ’em alive himself. When they first came out they used
to charge sixpence a-dozen for ’em, but now they’ve got ’em to twopence
ha’penny. When I first took to silling ’em, there was a tidy lot of
boys at the business, but not so many as now, for all the boys seem
at it. In our court alone I should think there was above twenty boys
silling the things.
“At first, when there was a good time, we used to buy three or four
gross together, but now we don’t do more than half a gross. As we
go along the streets we call out different cries. Some of us says,
‘Fly-papers, fly-papers, ketch ’em all alive.’ Others make a kind of
song of it, singing out, ‘Fly-paper, ketch ’em all alive, the nasty
flies, tormenting the baby’s eyes. Who’d be fly-blow’d, by all the
nasty blue-bottles, beetles, and flies?’
“People likes to buy of a boy as sings out well, ’cos it makes ’em
laugh.
“I don’t think I sell so many in town as I do in the borders of the
country, about Highbury, Croydon, and Brentford. I’ve got some regular
customers in town about the City-prison and the Caledonian-road; and
after I’ve served them and the town custom begins to fall off, then I
goes to the country.
“We goes two of us together, and we takes about three gross. We keep
on silling before us all the way, and we comes back the same road.
Last year we sould very well in Croydon, and it was the best place for
gitting a price for them; they’d give a penny a-piece for ’em there,
for they didn’t know nothing about them. I went off one day at tin
o’clock and didn’t come home till two in the morning. I sould eighteen
dozen out in that d’rection the other day, and got rid of them before I
had got half-way.
“But flies are very scarce at Croydon this year, and we haven’t done so
well. There ain’t half as many flies this summer as last.
“Some people says the papers draws more flies than they ketches, and
that when one gets in, there’s twenty others will come to see him.
“It’s according to the weather as the flies is about. If we have a fine
day it fetches them out, but a cold day kills more than our papers.
“We sills the most papers to little cook-shops and sweetmeat-shops.
We don’t sill so many at private-houses. The public-houses is pretty
good customers, ’cos the beer draws the flies. I sould nine dozen at
one house--a school--at Highgate, the other day. I sould ’em two for
three-ha’pence. That was a good hit, but then t’other days we loses. If
we can make a ha’penny each we thinks we does well.
“Those that sills their papers at three a-penny buys them at St.
Giles’s, and pays only three-ha’pence a dozen for them, but they an’t
half as big and good as those we pays tuppence-ha’penny a dozen for.
“Barnet is a good place for fly-papers; there’s a good lot of flies
down there. There used to be a man at Barnet as made ’em, but I can’t
say if he do now. There’s another at Brentford, so it ain’t much good
going that way.
“In cold weather the papers keep pretty well, and will last for months
with just a little warming at the fire; for they tears on opening
when they are dry. You see we always carry them with the sticky sides
doubled up together like a sheet of writing-paper. In hot wither, if
you keep them folded up, they lasts very well; but if you opens them,
they dry up. It’s easy opening them in hot weather, for they comes
apart as easy as peeling a horrange.
“We generally carries the papers in a bundle on our arm, and we ties a
paper as is loaded with flies round our cap, just to show the people
the way to ketch ’em. We get a loaded paper given to us at a shop.
“When the papers come out first, we used to do very well with
fly-papers; but now it’s hard work to make our own money for ’em. Some
days we used to make six shillings a-day regular. But then we usen’t
to go out every day, but take a rest at home. If we do well one day,
then we might stop idle another day, resting. You see, we had to do our
twenty or thirty miles silling them to get that money, and then the
next day we was tired.
“The silling of papers is gradual fallen off. I could go out and sill
twenty dozen wonst where I couldn’t sill one now.
“I think I does a very grand day’s work if I yearns a shilling. Perhaps
some days I may lose by them. You see, if it’s a very hot day, the
papers gets dusty; and beside, the stuff gets melted and oozes out;
though that don’t do much harm, ’cos we gets a bit of whitening and
rubs ’em over.
“Four years ago we might make ten shillings a-day at the papers, but
now, taking from one end of the fly-paper sason to the other, which is
about three months, I think we makes about one shilling a-day out of
papers, though even that aint quite certain. I never goes out without
getting rid of mine, somehow or another, but then I am obleeged to walk
quick and look about me.
“When it’s a bad time for silling the papers, such as a wet, could day,
then most of the fly-paper boys goes out with brushes, cleaning boots.
Most of the boys is now out hopping. They goes reg’lar every year after
the sason is give over for flies.
“The stuff as they puts on the paper is made out of boiled oil and
turpentine and resin. It’s seldom as a fly lives more than five minutes
after it gets on the paper, and then it’s as dead as a house. The
blue-bottles is tougher, but they don’t last long, though they keeps on
fizzing as if they was trying to make a hole in the paper. The stuff is
only p’isonous for flies, though I never heard of any body as ever eat
a fly-paper.”
The second lad I chose from among the group of applicants was of a
middle age, and although the noisiest when among his companions, had no
sooner entered the room with me, than his whole manner changed. He sat
himself down, bent up like a monkey, and scarcely ever turned his eyes
from me. He seemed as nervous as if in a witness-box, and kept playing
with his grubby fingers till he had almost made them white.
“They calls me ‘Curley.’ I come from Ireland too. I’m about fourteen
year, and have been in this line now, sir, about five year. I goes
about the borders of the country. We general takes up the line about
the beginning of June, that is, when we gets a good summer. When we
gets a good close dull day like this, we does pretty well, but when we
has first one day hot, and then another rainy and could, a’ course we
don’t get on so well.
“The most I sould was one day when I went to Uxbridge, and then I sould
a gross and a half. I paid half-a-crown a gross for them. I was living
with mother then, and she give me the money to buy ’em, but I had to
bring her back again all as I took. I al’us give her all I makes,
except sixpence as I wants for my dinner, which is a kipple of pen’orth
of bread and cheese and a pint of beer. I sould that gross and a half
I spoke on at a ha’penny each, and I took nine shillings, so that I
made five and sixpence. But then I’d to leave London at three or four
o’clock in the morning, and to stop out till twelve o’clock at night.
I used to live out at Hammersmith then, and come up to St. Giles’s
every morning and buy the papers. I had to rise by half-past two in the
morning, and I’d get back again to Hammersmith by about six o’clock. I
couldn’t sill none on the road, ’cos the shops wasn’t open.
“The flies is getting bad every summer. This year they a’n’t half so
good as they was last year or the year before. I’m sure I don’t know
why there aint so many, but they aint so plentiful like. The best year
was three year ago. I know that by the quantity as my customers bought
of me, and in three days the papers was swarmed with flies.
“I’ve got regular customers, where I calls two or three times a week to
’em. If I was to walk my rounds over I could at the lowest sell from
six to eight dozen at ha’penny each at wonst. If it was nice wither,
like to-day, so that it wouldn’t come wet on me, I should make ten
shillings a-week regular, but it depends on the wither. If I was to put
my profits by, I’m sure I should find I make more than six shillings
a-week, and nearer eight. But the season is only for three months at
most, and then we takes to boot-cleaning. Near all the poor boys about
here is fly-paper silling in the hot weather, and boot-cleaners at
other times.
“Shops buys the most of us in London. In Barnet I sell sometimes as
much as six or seven dozen to some of the grocers as buys to sell
again, but I don’t let them have them only when I can’t get rid of ’em
to t’other customers. Butchers is very fond of the papers, to catch
the blue-bottles as gets in their meat, though there is a few butchers
as have said to me, ‘Oh, go away, they draws the flies more than they
ketches ’em.’ Clothes-shops, again, is very fond of ’em. I can’t tell
why they is fond of ’em, but I suppose ’cos the flies spots the goods.
“There’s lots of boys going silling ‘ketch ’em alive oh’s’ from
Golden-lane, and Whitechapel, and the Borough. There’s lots, too, comes
out of Gray’s-inn-lane and St. Giles’s. Near every boy who has nothing
to do goes out with fly-papers. Perhaps it aint that the flies is
falled off that we don’t sill so many papers now, but because there’s
so many boys at it.”
The most intelligent and the most gentle in his demeanour was a little
boy, who was scarcely tall enough to look on the table at which
I was writing. If his face had been washed, he would have been a
pretty-looking lad; for, despite the black marks made by his knuckles
during his last fit of crying, he had large expressive eyes, and his
features were round and plump, as though he were accustomed to more
food than his companions.
Whilst taking his statement I was interrupted by the entrance of a
woman, whose fears had been aroused by the idea that I belonged to the
Ragged School, and had come to look after the scholars. “It’s no good
you’re coming here for him, he’s off hopping to-morrow with his mother,
as has asked me to look after him, and it’s only your saxpence he’s
wanting.”
It was with great difficulty that I could get rid of this lady’s
company; and, indeed, so great appeared to be the fear in the court
that the object of my visit was to prevent the young gentlemen from
making their harvest trip into the country, that a murmuring crowd
began to assemble round the house where I was, determined to oppose me
by force, should I leave the premises accompanied by any of the youths.
“I’ve been longer at it than that last boy, though I’m only getting
on for thirteen, and he’s older than I’m; ’cos I’m little and he’s
big, getting a man. But I can sell them quite as well as he can, and
sometimes better, for I can holler out just as loud, and I’ve got
reg’lar places to go to. I was a very little fellow when I first went
out with them, but I could sell them pretty well then, sometimes three
or four dozen a-day. I’ve got one place, in a stable, where I can sell
a dozen at a time to countrypeople.
“I calls out in the streets, and I goes into the shops, too, and
calls out, ‘Ketch ’em alive, ketch ’em alive; ketch all the nasty
black-beetles, blue-bottles, and flies; ketch ’em from teazing the
baby’s eyes.’ That’s what most of us boys cries out. Some boys who is
stupid only says, ‘Ketch ’em alive,’ but people don’t buy so well from
them.
“Up in St. Giles’s there is a lot of fly-boys, but they’re a bad
set, and will fling mud at gentlemen, and some prigs the gentlemen’s
pockets. Sometimes, if I sells more than a big boy, he’ll get mad and
hit me. He’ll tell me to give him a halfpenny and he won’t touch me,
and that if I don’t he’ll kill me. Some of the boys takes an open
fly-paper, and makes me look another way, and then they sticks the
ketch ’em alive on my face. The stuff won’t come off without soap and
hot water, and it goes black, and looks like mud. One day a boy had a
broken fly-paper, and I was taking a drink of water, and he come behind
me and slapped it up in my face. A gentleman as saw him give him a
crack with a stick and me twopence. It takes your breath away, until a
man comes and takes it off. It all sticked to my hair, and I couldn’t
rack (comb) right for some time.
“When we are selling papers we have to walk a long way. Some boys go as
far as Croydon, and all about the country; but I don’t go much further
than Copenhagen-fields, and straight down that way. I don’t like going
along with other boys, they take your customers away; for perhaps
they’ll sell ’em at three a-penny to ’em, and spoil the customers for
you. I won’t go with the big boy you saw ’cos he’s such a blackgeyard;
when he’s in the country he’ll go up to a lady and say, ‘Want a
fly-paper, marm?’ and if she says ‘No,’ he’ll perhaps job his head in
her face--butt at her like.
“When there’s no flies, and the ketch ’em alive’s is out, then I
goes tumbling. I can turn a cat’enwheel over on one hand. I’m going
to-morrow to the country, harvesting and hopping--for, as we says, ‘Go
out hopping, come in jumping.’ We start at three o’clock to-morrow,
and we shall get about twelve o’clock at night at Dead Man’s Barn. It
was left for poor people to sleep in, and a man there was buried in a
corner. The man had got six farms of hops; and if his son hadn’t buried
him there, he wouldn’t have had none of the riches.
“The greatest number of fly-papers I’ve sold in a day is about eight
dozen. I never sells no more than that; I wish I could. People won’t
buy ’em now. When I’m at it I makes, taking one day with another, about
ten shilling a-week. You see, if I sold eight dozen, I’d make four
shillings. I sell them at a penny each, at two for three-ha’pence, and
three for twopence. When they gets stale I sells ’em at three a-penny.
I always begin by asking a penny each, and perhaps they’ll say, ‘Give
me two for three-ha’pence.’ I’ll say, ‘Can’t, ma’am,’ and then they
pulls out a purse full of money and gives a penny.
“The police is very kind to us, and don’t interfere with us. If they
sees another boy hitting us they’ll take off their belts and hit ’em.
Sometimes I’ve sold a ketch ’em alive to a policeman; he’ll fold it up
and put it in his pocket to take home with him. Perhaps he’s got a kid,
and the flies teazes its eyes.
“Some ladies like to buy fly-cages better than ketch ’em alive’s,
because sometimes when they’re putting ’em up they falls in their
faces, and then they screams.”