The beadles out a boxing went, So did old women too, The dustman out a boxing went, A whistling--Dust O! Some would dance, and some would sing, And some a noise would keep, And some would in the watch house go, To get a lodging cheap. In grandfather’s and grandmother’s days, Folks through the streets were led, There were no police with rolling pins, To break the people’s heads; They did not Polka dresses wear, Or bustles on their rumps, And shop boys did not smoke cigars, Made out of Cabbage Stumps. Now up and down old London Town, In windows every where, There are bills that say, No Christmas boxes Will be given here. They may put their Christmas boxes up, Said Bet to her old man, And then she boxed him round the room, And broke the frying pan. Now all old ancient customs will Be quickly done away, Here’s a happy new Year, and may you live Till another Boxing day: But may Old Nick a visit pay To them both far and near, Who in their windows put, No Christmas Boxes given here. THE illustration to this ballad has evidently done duty for a portion (most probably Macheath’s song of “How happy could I be with either”) of the “Beggar’s Opera,” first played at Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre, 1728. The _Commode_, or cap, of the ladies is that of the reign of Queen Anne; but it is probable that highwaymen’s female friends did not dress in the height of the fashion. [Illustration] _ST. JAMES’S AND ST. GILES’S._ TO the tourist of London, who’s curious in fact, I’ll point out some things in the principal tracts. Two places there are, where the poor and the rich, Live so like each other, there’s no telling which. One parish, St. James’s, _par excellence_ call’d, The West end of town and the fashionable world; The other St. Giles’s, if true rumour speaks, Is inhabited solely by Emigrant Greeks. _Chorus._ So don’t be astonished at what I shall say, St. James and St. Giles I have seen in my day, In the former they live on the National Debt, In the latter they live on what they can get. In St. James’s there is but one Palace, I swear, In St. Giles’s Gin Palaces everywhere, At the Court of St. James’s they hang out the flags, Up a Court at St. Giles’s they hang out the rags. The Swells at St. James’s go shooting at noon, In St. Giles’s the people go shooting the moon.[72] In St James’s Hotel, boots are welted by nobs, In St. Giles’s the welting is done by the snobs.