Broadsides; Chapbooks; Street literature -- Great Britain
17.--No milkman will be allowed to mix more than two gallons of water
with one of milk, excepting when the said milk is over-proof, and has a
creamy appearance.
18th.--And no baker shall employ any man who is capable of eating more
than four pounds of meat for his dinner, as we have had many complaints
about people’s joints looking in a state of rapid consumption after
coming from the oven, as if they had taken to fretting.
19th.--And all persons contemplating suicide, are earnestly requested
not to drown themselves, as bodies lying too long in the Thames cause
the water to become very unwholesome.
20th and last.--And by virtue of the Reform Bill, any married couple
who can prove that they have never quarrelled since they were first
married, will be entitled to the blessings of universal suffrage.
So says the Reform Bill.
HENRY DISLEY, Printer, 57, High Street, St. Giles.
THE NEW ACT OF PARLIAMENT.
[Illustration]
The First Clause in this new intended Act of Parliament is relating to
the Bakers. It says: Be it enacted that all master bakers who shall
mix, or cause to be any spurious ingredient in his bread, in the shape
of bean-flour, pea-flour, starch or alum, or use more than six stone of
potatoes with one sack of flour, thereby robbing the poor man of part
of his hard earnings, he shall be popped in his own oven directly after
the batch is drawn, and not come out till he is half-baked. And every
journeyman who dips his fingers into the people’s dishes, shall not be
allowed to have more than three dead men for the next month.
2. Any Butcher who is known to give short weight, or sell, or cause to
be sold, any part of any ox, cow, calf, sheep, or pig, that shall have
died with the measles, erysipelas, hooping cough, or any other disease,
he is to be fattened and fed on sheep’s blood and sawdust for three
months.
3. Any Publican that makes more than three butts of beer out of one; or
use nux vomica, salt, treacle, or horses’ liver in doctoring the same,
or not filling his pots within one inch and a half of the top, he must
drink eight quarts of his stale beer, directly after a thunderstorm.
4. Any Teetotaler who drinks more than seven quarts of double stout,
or one pint of gin, rum, or brandy, unless so ordered by his medical
adviser, he must be chained to the nearest drinking fountain for
twenty-four hours.
5. Any Tailor who is so fond of garden-stuff, as to cabbage half the
cloth entrusted to him by any customer to make up, it shall be in the
power of any magistrate to compel him either to walk nine times round
St. Paul’s with a sleeve-board tied to his back, or to sit on his hot
goose for one hour.
6. Any Shoemaker, Bootmaker, or Cobler, who is known to put less than
three stitches to the inch, or leave more than one score of pegs
sticking up in his customers’ boots, must live upon lumps of wax for
three days, and pay 5s. to the hospital for cripples.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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