Shrove Tuesday was until late years the great holiday of the
apprentices; why it should have been so is easy to imagine, on
recollecting the sports that boys were allowed on that day at school.
The indulgencies of the ancient city ’prentices were great, and their
licentious disturbances stand recorded in the annals of many a fray.
Mixing in every neighbouring brawl to bring it if possible to open riot,
they at length assumed to determine on public affairs, and went in
bodies with their petitions and remonstrances to the bar of the house of
commons, with as much importance as their masters of the corporation. A
satire of 1675 says,
They’r mounted high, contemn the humble play
Of trap or foot-ball on a holiday
In Finesbury-fieldes. No, ’tis their brave intent,
Wisely t’ advise the king and parliament.
But this is not the place to notice their manners further. The
successors to their name are of another generation, they have been
better educated, live in better times, and having better masters, will
make better men. The apprentices whose situation is to be viewed with
anxiety, are the out-door apprentices of poor persons, who can scarcely
find homes, or who being orphans, leave the factories or work-rooms of
their masters, at night, to go where they can, and do what they please,
without paternal care, or being the creatures of any one’s solicitude,
and are yet expected to be, or become good members of society.