_To the Editor._
I hastily transcribe the following, originally written for the Hull
Advertiser, and printed in that paper for September 27, 1827, and
subsequently in some of the London and provincial newspapers.
On Saturday, September 22, 1827, the inhabitants and visitants of
Bridlington Quay, by a fatal accident, were suddenly deprived of the
services of Richard Fletcher, the facetious and well-known bellman of
that place, whose singular appearance, rhyming propensity, peculiar
manner of pronunciation, and drawling and general originality, have so
long been a source of amusement. In the forenoon of the above-mentioned
day he was following his usual vocation, with that accustomed gaiety and
cheerfulness for which he was remarkable, when having occasion to call
at the lodging-house of Mr. Gray, he accidentally fell down the steps of
a cellar-kitchen and broke his neck. The death of “poor Dickey,” and the
shocking manner in which it occurred, excited much commiseration. The
deceased was seventy-nine years of age, and left a widow at the age of
eighty-nine, the relict of a former bellman, to whom he had been united
about four years--during which period the antiquated pair formed a
striking pattern of attachment. Dickey was a freeman of Hull, and the
manner in which he made up his mind to vote for a candidate is deserving
of mention. In the event of a contested election he was uniformly for
the “third man;” as, he would say, “the other two would not think of
looking after _me_, but for _him_.”
A specimen of Dickey’s rhyming eccentricities appeared in the Hull
Advertiser of August 5th, 1825; a copy of which, and the paragraph
accompanying it, is here given:--
“The company at Bridlington Quay are often highly amused by that
eccentric little creature, yclep’d ‘the bellman.’ He is quite a
lion;--being a poet as well as a crier. His poetry is uncommonly
original, and if his pronunciation, when _improvising_, be not so too,
it is uncommonly _Yorkshire_, which is as good. The following lines are
a very faithful imitation of the ‘cry’ this singular-looking being
drawled forth on Saturday morning, July 30:--
‘Tack’n oop this forenoon a pod noarth sans
Two keyes, wich I ev i’ my ans;--
Wo-hever as lost ’um mus coom te mea,
An they sal ev ’um agean an we can agrea.’”
“Dickey’s late marriage was one of the ‘largest and the funniest’ known
in Bridlington for a long time; a barouche and pair were gratuitously
provided on the occasion, as well as a wedding-dinner and other _et
cæteras_. Since ‘they twain became one flesh,’ Dickey has been very
proud of walking abroad, at fair times and public occasions, with ‘his
better part,’ when they generally formed objects of considerable
attraction to those to whom they were not particularly known.”