Old London Street Cries and the Cries of To-day: With Heaps of Quaint Cuts Including Hand-coloured FrontispieceTuer, Andrew White
History
Old London Street Cries and the Cries of To-day: With Heaps of Quaint Cuts Including Hand-coloured Frontispiece
Tuer, Andrew White
Cries -- England -- London
slow, as they not uncommonly are, his cry culminates in a storm of
muttered abuse; after which mental refreshment he calmly proceeds as
before, "The boot laces--AND the boot laces." Most of us know by sight
the penny Jack-in-the-box seller, whose cry, as Jack pops up, on the
spring of the lid being released, is a peculiar double squeak, emitted
without movement of the lips. The cry is supposed to belong to the
internal economy of the toy, and to be a part of the penn'orth; but,
alas! Jack, once out of the hands of his music-master, is voiceless. The
numerous street sellers of pipe and cigar lights must have a hard time
of it. Following the lucifer match, with its attendant choking
sulphurous fumes, came the evil-smelling, thick, red-tipped, brown paper
slip charged with saltpetre, so that it should smoulder without flaming.
These slips, in shape something like a row of papered pins, were divided
half through and torn off as required. Like the brimstone match which
preceded, and the Vesuvian which followed, these lights (which were sold
in the shops at a penny a box, but in the streets at two and sometimes
three boxes for the same sum) utterly spoilt the flavour of a cigar;
hence the superiority of the now dominant wax vestas. The matches of a
still earlier period were long slips of dry wood smeared at either end
with brimstone.
[Illustration: _Rowlandson Delin 1819_
"_Letters for post?_"]
They would neither "light only on the box," nor off it, unless aided by
the uncertain and always troublesome flint, steel, and tinder, or the
direct application of flame. "Clean yer pipe; pipe-cleaner, a penny for
two!" is a cry seldom absent from the streets. The pipe-cleaner is a
thin, flexible, double-twisted wire, about a foot long, with short
bristles interwoven at one end, and now, "when everybody smokes who
doesn't," the seller is sure of a more or less constant trade.
The buyers of the so-called penny ices sold in the London streets during
the summer months are charged only a halfpenny; and the numerous
vendors, usually Italians, need no cry; for the street _gamins_ and
errand boys buzz around their barrows like flies about a sugar barrel.
For obvious reasons, spoons are not lent. The soft and half-frozen
delicacy is consumed by the combined aid of tongue and fingers.
Parti-coloured Neapolitan ices, vended by unmistakable natives of
Whitechapel or the New Cut, whose curious cry of "'Okey Pokey"
originated no one knows how, have lately appeared in the streets. Hokey
Pokey is of a firmer make and probably stiffer material than the penny
ice of the Italians, which it rivals in public favour; and it is built
up of variously flavoured layers. Sold in halfpenny and also penny
paper-covered
[Illustration: "_Knives and Scissors to Grind?_"]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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