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 next is in the centre of that truly-curious and more rare sheet
wood-cut, entitled, "Tittle-Tattle," which from the dresses of the figures
must have been engraved either in the latter part of the reign of Queen
Elizabeth, or the beginning of that of James the First. In this wood-cut
the maid servants are at a Conduit, where they hold their tittle-tattle,
while the Water-carriers are busily engaged in filling their buckets and
conveying them on their shoulders to the places of destination.
The figure of a Water-carrier, introduced in the Fourth Plate, is copied
from one of a curious and rare set of cries and callings of London,
published by Overton, at the White Horse without Newgate. The figure
retains the dress of Henry the Eighth's time; his cap is similar to that
usually worn by Sir Thomas More, and also to that given in the portrait of
Albert Durer, engraved by Francis Stock. It appears by this print, that
the tankard was borne upon the shoulder, and, to keep the carrier dry, two
towels were fastened over him, one to fall before him, the other to cover
his back. His pouch, in which we are to conclude he carried his money, has
been thus noticed in a very curious and rare tract, entitled, "_Green's
Ghost_, with the merry Conceits of Doctor Pinch-backe," published 1626:
"To have some store of crownes in his purse, coacht in a faire trunke
flop, like a boulting hutch."
Ben Jonson, in his admirable comedy of "Every Man in his Humour," first
performed in 1598, has made Cob the water-carrier of the Old Jewry, at
whose house Captain Bobadil lodges, a very leading and entertaining
character. Speaking of himself before the Justice, he says, "I dwell, Sir,
at the sign of the Water-tankard, hard by the Green Lattice; I have paid
scot and lot there many time this eighteen years."
The first notice which the writer has been able to obtain of the
introduction of the New River water into public buildings in London, he
found in the Archives of Old Bethlem, in which it appears, that "on the
26th of February, 1626, Mr. Middleton conveyed water into Bethlem." This
must have been, according to its date, the old Bethlem Hospital that stood
in Bishopsgate-street, near St. Botolph's Church, on the site of the
streets which are at this time under the denomination of Old Bethlem; as
the building lately taken down in London Wall, Moorfields, was begun in
April 1675, and finished in July 1676. It should seem therefore that this
magnificent building, which had more the appearance of a palace than a
place of confinement, most substantially built with a centre and two
wings, extending in length to upwards of 700 feet, was only one year in
building; a most extraordinary instance of manual application.
In 1698, when Cheapside Conduit was no longer used for its original
purpose, it became the place of call for chimney-sweepers, who hung up
their brooms and shovels against it, and there waited for hire.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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