A Book for a Rainy Day; or, Recollections of the Events of the Years 1766-1833Smith, John Thomas
History
A Book for a Rainy Day; or, Recollections of the Events of the Years 1766-1833
Smith, John Thomas
Great Britain -- Social life and customs -- 18th century; Great Britain -- Social life and customs -- 19th century
But when he came to man’s estate,
His mind it ran on something great,
A-thieving then he scorn’d to tramp;
So hir’d a pad and went on the scamp.
At clubs he all Flash Soup did sing.
And they all allow’d he was just the thing.
His manual exercise gone through,
Of Bridewell, Pump, and Horse Pond too,
His back had often felt the smart
Of Tyburn strings at the tail of a cart.
He stood the patter, but that’s no matter,
He gammon’d the Twelve, and work’d on the water,
Then a pardon he got from his gracious King,
And swaggering Jack was just the thing.
Like a captain bold, well arm’d for war.
With bludgeon stout, or iron bar,
At heading a mob, he never did fail,
At burning a mass-house, or gutting a jail;
But a victim he fell to his country’s laws,
And died at last in religion’s cause.
NO POPERY! made the blade to swing,
And when tuck’d up he was just the thing.”
[54] Mr. George Clinch, in his _Marylebone and St. Pancras_,
says that there is some reason to think that a portion at least
of Capper’s farm still remains. A large furniture establishment
at Nos. 195-198, Tottenham Court Road, exhibits on a wall in the
rear two tablets marking the boundary of St. Pancras and St.
Giles-in-the-Fields, and bearing eighteenth-century dates. An old
lease of the property, Mr. Clinch adds, contains a clause binding
the tenant to keep stabling for forty head of cattle, and it is
known that the premises were once used as a large livery stable.
[55] Hanway Street now boasts only one milliner, but has several
art and curiosity shops of the kind Smith loved. The “Blue Posts”
(rebuilt) is still at the corner of Hanway Street. Mr. Joshua
Sturges’ book, published in 1800, was on draughts, not chess. It
was entitled _Guide to the Game of Draughts_, and was dedicated by
permission to the Prince of Wales. It has an engraved frontispiece,
“Figure of the Draught Table.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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