Broadsides; Chapbooks; Street literature -- Great Britain
Had that love-sick young lady, Miss Juliet, lived in these unromantic,
matter o’ fact times, when puffery and humbug lead men on to fame
and fortune, instead of integrity, honesty and fair dealing,--when
ignorant and worthless foreign quacks are fostered and encouraged, and
native merit and native talent left to starve,--she would certainly
have become duly impressed with the importance of a “name.” “The
Queen’s name is a tower of strength,” and so think the enterprising
commercial geniuses of the present day, inasmuch as the patronymic of
our gracious Sovereign is applied to all imaginable purposes. We have
_Victoria_ washing tubs, mouse-traps, and mustard-pots, and _Albert_
toasting-forks, shaving-brushes, and dung-barges, and last, though by
no means least, “Albert inexpressibles.” However, as the young lady
alluded to above says, “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”
Timothy Shaw, a bandy-legged “ninth part,” with a mouth sufficiently
capacious to admit the largest cabbage that ever flourished in field
or garden, summoned a knowing-looking specimen of the _genus homo_,
named Gilpin, before the commissioners, for the sum of 7s, for work and
labour performed in the manufacture of a certain pair of “_kicksies_,”
for the wear of a certain Mr Gilpin.
The defendant, an “artful card,” was described by the plaintiff as a
“’buss cove out of luck,” that is, he had been in the habit of doing
the amiable at the door of a Walworth omnibus, but had lost his place.
The tailor, having blown his nose in that peculiar and primitive manner
which gave rise to a certain riddle tending to show that the poor man
often throws away what the rich man puts in his pocket, proceeded to
“open his case” as follows:--“Please yer vorship, I’m a tailor by
trade.” And here we must slightly digress to remark that a disciple of
the bodkin and shears, upon being asked to describe himself, invariably
says, “I’m a tailor by _trade_.” A celebrated author is of opinion,
that this is to prevent his being considered a _tailor by nature_. “I’m
a tailor by trade,” said the plaintiff, “and von’t turn my back on the
best vorkman in the wicinity of Tooley street for a slap up fit in the
first stile of fashion, ’cause I regularly takes a trip to the vest-end
to pick ’em up. Twigged the ‘Prince’ t’other day with a new pair of
trousers on,--had the cut on ’em all right in the turn of a bodkin.”
Commissioner: Really you must be a very clever person to “take off” the
Prince’s inexpressibles so very expeditiously.--Plaintiff: Beg pardon,
yer vorship, but I vouldn’t be guilty of any sich indelicate hact, as
to “take off” anybody’s breeches.
The Commissioner finding that “snip” had the laugh on his own side,
adjustedhis wig, and requested him to keep to the question.--Tailor: So
I do, yer vorship; I’ll swear I never tuck not nobody’s breeches off
but me own.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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