The Cries of London: Exhibiting Several of the Itinerant Traders of Antient and Modern TimesSmith, John Thomas
History
The Cries of London: Exhibiting Several of the Itinerant Traders of Antient and Modern Times
Smith, John Thomas
Cries -- England -- London; London (England) -- Social life and customs -- Illustrations; Peddling -- England -- London
The Gazette of April 14, 1684, contains another order relative to these
licenses: "All persons concerned are hereby desired to take notice of and
suppress all mountebanks, rope-dancers, ballad-singers, &c. that have not
a license from the Master of his Majesty's Revels (which, for this present
year, are all printed with black letters, and the King's Arms in red) and
particularly Samuel Rutherford and ---- Irish, mountebanks, and William
Bevel and Richard Olsworth; and all those that have licenses with red and
black letters, are to come to the office to change them for licenses as
they are now altered."
The origin of our early cries might be ascribed to the parent of
invention. An industrious man finding perhaps his trade running slack,
might have ventured abroad with his whole stock, and by making his case
known, invited his neighbours to purchase; and this mode of vending
commodities being adopted by others, probably established the custom of
itinerant hawkers, to the great and truly serious detriment of those
housekeepers who contributed to support their country by the payment of
their taxes. An Act was passed in the reign of James the First, and is
thus noticed in a work entitled, "Legal Provisions for the Poor, by S. C.
of the Inner Temple, 1713." "All Pedlars, Petty-chapmen, Tinkers, and
Glass-men, _per Statute_ 21 _Jac._ 28, _abroad_, especially if they be
unknown, or have not a sufficient testimonial, and though a man have a
certain habitation, yet if he goes about from place to place selling small
wares, he is punishable by the 39 Eliz."
Hawkers and Pedlars are obliged at this time, in consequence of an Act
passed in the reign of King George the Third, to take out a license.
Originally the common necessaries of life were only sold in the _streets_,
but we find as early as the reign of Elizabeth that cheese-cakes were to
be had at the small _house_ near the Serpentine River in Hyde Park. It is
a moated building, and to this day known under the appellation of the
"Queen's Cheese-cake House."[5] There were also other houses for the sale
of cheese-cakes, and those at Hackney and Holloway were particularly
famous. The landlord of the latter employed people to cry them about the
streets of London; and within the memory of the father of the present
writer an old man delivered his cry of "Holloway Cheese-cakes," in a tone
so whining and slovenly, that most people thought he said "All my teeth
ache." Indeed among persons who have been long accustomed to cry the
articles they have for sale, it is often impossible to guess at what they
say.
An instance occurs in an old woman who has for a length of time sold
mutton dumplings in the neighbourhood of Gravel Lane. She may be followed
for a whole evening, and all that can be conjectured from her utterance is
"Hot mutton trumpery."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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