Lives of Famous London Beggars: With Forty Portraits of the Most Remarkable.Smith, John Thomas
History
Lives of Famous London Beggars: With Forty Portraits of the Most Remarkable.
Smith, John Thomas
Beggars -- England -- London
At the time he was drawn, he was so sickly that his person was not
recognised as a vender of matches, in which character he had two years
before been selected as a subject for this work, and whose portrait as
such is given in the following plate. The boy occasionally sings the old
match song, and at certain hours finds it his interest to exercise his
broom at the above station.
[Illustration: PLATE XXII.
Vendor of matches.]
The subjects of the next two plates are unfortunate mendicants. The
first is a silver-haired man, of the name of Lilly, who lost his leg in
some repairs at Westminster. Poets' Corner, in the Abbey, is the place
where he is mostly to be seen.
[Illustration: PLATE XXIII.
"Lilly," who lost his leg in some repairs at Westminster. Mostly to be
seen at Poets' Corner in the Abbey.]
The second plate is the portrait of William Frasier, deprived of both
his hands in the field of battle. His allowance as a maimed soldier not
being sufficient to maintain his large family, he is obliged to depend
on the benevolence of such of the public who purchase boot-laces of him.
When this poor fellow's portrait was taken, he lodged in Market Lane, in
the house formerly occupied by Torre, the print-seller, who was the
original fireworker at Mary-le-bone Gardens.
[Illustration: PLATE XXIV.
William Frasier, deprived of both his hands in the field of battle.
Maintains his family by the sale of boot-laces.]
London has of late been gradually losing many of its old street customs,
particularly that pleasing one of the milkmaid's garland, so richly
decorated with articles of silver and bunches of cowslips. The garland
was of a pyramidal form, and placed upon a horse carried by two
chairmen, adorned with ribbons and tulips. The plate consisted of pint
mugs, quart tankards, and large dishes, sometimes to the value of five
hundred pounds, hired of silversmiths for the purpose. The milkwoman and
her pretty maids, in their Nancy Dawson petticoats, would dance to the
fiddler's jigs of "Paddy O'Rafferty," or "Off she goes," before the
doors of their customers; but now, instead of this innocent scene of
May-day gaiety, the streets are infested by such fellows as the one
exhibited in the adjoining plate, who have been dismissed, perhaps for
their indecent conduct, from the public places of entertainment. These
men hire old dresses, and join the Chimney Sweeper's, Cinder-sifter's,
or Bunter's Garland, or Jack in the Green, &c., and exhibit all sorts of
grimace and ribaldry to extort money from their numerous admirers.
[Illustration: PLATE XXV.
May-Day Gaiety.--These men hire old dresses, and join the
Cinder-sifter's or Bunter's Garland, or Jack in the Green, &c., and
exhibit all sorts of grimace and ribaldry, to extort money from their
numerous admirers.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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