A History of the Cries of London Part 15

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CROWN AND HORSE SHOES INN, ENFIELD CHASE SIDE.]

The above represents one of the humble and wayside "Pubs" of the neighbourhood in which Charles Lamb is said to have tested the friendship of "fine" friends, by proposing to them a drink of unsophisticated porter from bright pewter pots. So did he treat Wordsworth, and that "Child of Nature" actress, Miss Frances Maria Kelly, who without hesitation entered the tavern, with:--

"The whitewash'd wall, the nicely sanded floor, The varnish'd clock that click'd behind the door, The chest contriv'd a double debt to pay,-- A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day."

About the Midsummer of 1833, Charles Lamb and his sister removed to Bay-cottage, Church-street, Edmonton, kept by Mr. Walden, whose wife acted as a professional nurse. There, in that poor melancholy looking tenement, the delightful humourist found the home in which he breathed his last on Sat.u.r.day, the 27th December, 1834. He was buried in:--

"Oh, Mirth and Innocence! Oh, Milk and Water!

Ye happy mixtures of more happy days!."

Byron's, _Beppo_. St. 80.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HOUSE AT EDMONTON WHERE CHARLES LAMB DIED.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: EDMONTON CHURCH.]

Time and circ.u.mstances have effectually disposed of the water-carrier, his occupation is gone, it is impossible London can ever again see a man bent beneath the weight of a yoke and two enormous pails, vociferating "_Any fresh and fair Spring Water here?_" But the cry of "Milk," or the rattle of the milk-pail will never cease to be heard in our streets. There can be no reservoirs of milk, no pipes through which it flows into the houses.

The more extensive the great capital becomes, the more active must be the individual exertion to carry about this article of food. The old cry was "_Any Milk here?_" and it was sometimes mingled with the sound of "_Fresh Cheese and Cream_;" and it then pa.s.sed into "_Milk, maids below_;" and it was then shortened into "_Milk below_;" and was finally corrupted into "_Mio_," which some wag interpreted into _mi-eau_--_demi-eau_--half water.

But it must still be cried, whatever be the cry. The supply of milk to the metropolis is perhaps one of the most beautiful combinations of industry we have. The days have long since pa.s.sed when Finsbury had its pleasant groves, and Clerkenwell was a village, and there were green pastures in Holborn, when St. Pancras boasted only a little church standing in meadows, and St. Martin's was literally in the fields. Slowly but surely does the baked clay of Mr. Jerry, "the speculative builder" stride over the clover and the b.u.t.tercup; and yet every family in London may be supplied with milk by eight o'clock every morning at their own doors.

Where do the cows abide? They are congregated in wondrous herds in the suburbs; and though in spring-time they go out to pasture in the fields which lie under the Hampstead and Highgate hills, or in the vales of Dulwich and Sydenham, and there crop the tender blade,--

"When proud pied April, dress'd in all his trim, Has put a spirit of youth in everything."

yet for the rest of the year the coa.r.s.e gra.s.s is carted to their stalls, or they devour what the breweries and distilleries cannot extract from the grain harvest. Long before "the unfolding star wakes up the shepherd" are the London cows milked; and the great wholesale vendors of the commodity, who have it consigned to them daily from more distant parts to the various railway stations in the metropolis, bear it in carts to every part of the town, and distribute it to the hundreds of shopkeepers and itinerants, who are anxiously waiting to receive it for re-distribution amongst their own customers. It is evident that a perishable commodity which everyone requires at a given hour, must be so distributed. The distribution has lost its romance. Misson, in his "Travels" published at the beginning of the last century, tells of May-games of the London milkmaids thus:--"On the first of May, and the five or six days following, all the pretty young country girls that serve the town with milk, dress themselves up very neatly, and borrow abundance of Silver-Plate, whereof they make a pyramid, which they adorn with ribbons and flowers, and carry upon their heads, instead of their common milk pails. In this equipage, accompanied with some of their fellow milkmaids, and a bagpipe or fiddle, they go from door to door, dancing before the houses of their customers, in the midst of boys and girls that follow them in troops, and everybody gives them something." Alas! the May-games and pretty young country girls have both departed, and a milk-woman has become a very unpoetical personage. There are few indeed of milkwomen who remain. So it is with most of the occupations that a.s.sociate London with the country.

[Ill.u.s.tration: KATE SMITH, _The Merry Milkmaid_.]

[Ill.u.s.tration:

"'Where are you going my pretty maid?'

'I'm going a milking, sir,' she said."]

Thirty years ago there appeared in the "Quarterly Review" a remarkable article on the Commissariat of London, from the pen of Dr. Andrew Wynter.

In it we were told for how many miles the beasts brought annually to the metropolis would stretch, if ranged ten abreast in a seemingly interminable column. In order to convey some notion of the stupendous quant.i.ties of ale, beer, and porter consumed, Dr. Wynter fixed upon Hyde Park as his exhibition ground, and piled together all the barrels containing the malt liquor drunk by what, in 1854, was a population of two million and a half souls. He came to the conclusion that these barrels would form a thousand columns not far short of a mile in perpendicular height. And among other statistics, Dr. Wynter calculated that there were at that time about twenty thousand cows in the metropolitan and suburban dairies, some of which establishments contained five hundred cows apiece.

He also noticed that, the London and suburban dairies could not alone supply the population of the metropolis, seeing that twenty thousand cows, giving on an average twelve quarts each per diem, would not yield more than two hundred and forty thousand quarts. If we suppose this quant.i.ty increased by the iron-tailed cow to three hundred thousand quarts, the allowance to each of the two millions and a half of human beings then living within the Bills of Mortality would be about a quarter of a pint per head. The "Quarterly" Reviewer, therefore, a.s.sumed that, to meet the existing demands of the tea-table, the nursery, and the kitchen, half as much again as three hundred thousand quarts was consumed annually in London. For this excess he looked to the country to supplement the efforts of the metropolis and of its suburbs as suppliers of milk, and noticed that the precious white liquid was brought daily to London from farms lying as far away as eighty miles from the metropolitan railway stations to which it was consigned.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Nothing can be more instructive and entertaining than to turn back in 1884 to facts, figures, calculations, estimates, and inferences which fitted the London of 1854. Instead of two millions and a half, the population resident at this moment within the metropolitan and city police districts amounts at least to four millions and three-quarters. The area already covered by the mighty town, which adds another big town to its entirety each successive year, is about four hundred and fifty thousand square acres, and there are more than seven hundred thousand houses to be provided for, of which it may be presumed that few can do without at least a pint of milk per diem. a.s.suming, however, that each member of this enormous population consumed no more than a quarter of a pint of milk--that is to say, a small tumblerful--per diem, we come to the astounding conclusion that nearly six hundred thousand quarts are wanted every day, nearly four million two hundred thousand quarts every week, and nearly two hundred and seventeen million quarts every year, to meet the demands of London. Few of us are able to fathom the meaning of two hundred million quarts of liquid until we are told what an immense reservoir, ten feet deep, it would take to hold such an amount. More intelligible are the calculations which tell us that, a.s.suming a cow to yield ten--not twelve--quarts of milk daily, it would require nearly sixty thousand milch cows to maintain this supply from year's end to year's end. If these patient and valuable milkers are estimated as being worth no more than twenty-pounds apiece, they would represent in their aggregate a capital of little less than one million four hundred thousand pounds. Pure milk of a reliable character, costs five-pence per quart, and therefore, on the above basis, there is spent on milk, in the metropolis and its circ.u.mjacent districts, twelve thousand four hundred pounds per day, nearly eighty-seven thousand pounds per week, and considerably more than four and a half million pounds per annum. There are States which have made a considerable noise in the world, whose total revenue does not reach what London spends annually in milk alone. As for the distribution of this inconceivable amount of liquid, which is delivered every morning and afternoon in small quant.i.ties all over the enormous area of bricks-and-mortar to which we have referred, it would utterly baffle the most marvellous organiser and administrator that ever existed upon earth, to extemporise human machinery for carrying on so minute and yet so gigantic a trade. Nevertheless, how smoothly and imperceptibly, not only in this one small detail, but throughout the whole of its vast and endless complications and ramifications, does the commissariat of London work! We are told, for instance, that to distribute every sixteen gallons of milk one person is necessary, and that, without counting managers, clerks, shopmen and shopwomen, nearly five thousand human beings, a.s.sisted by more than fifteen hundred horses and mules, are needed to furnish London with milk every twenty-four hours. More than a quarter of a million pounds go yearly in wages to milkmen and milkwomen with whom we are all so familiar, and who will doubtless, acquire additional importance in the eyes of those who reflect that these humble servitors are but, in Pope's words, "parts of that stupendous whole" without whose useful, patient, and unintermitted labours the faultless machinery of the grandest camp of men that ever yet existed would instantly stand still.

Then it must not be forgotten that the milk trade exacts constant and unintermitted work from its employes--work from which neither Sundays nor holidays bring any relief--and demanding very early rising in the morning, to say nothing of the greatest personal cleanliness, and of an immense array of cans, varying from those capable of holding many gallons down to those which contain no more than half-a-pint--the milk-pail and its daily history might well attract notice from writers not inferior in grasp and imagination to Defoe or d.i.c.kens. In 1854 Dr. Wynter calculated that, as regards distribution, the commissariat of London was carried on by an army of one hundred thousand persons. In thirty years the population has all but doubled, and the machinery of distribution has been so improved that its working at present approaches very nearly to perfection. This perfection is due solely to freedom of trade and to universal compet.i.tion, which so nicely adjust all the varying conditions of life, that, in serving themselves, they accomplish more than all the Governments on earth could effect by the most ingenious system of centralisation that human wit could devise.

[Ill.u.s.tration:

_Attic Poet_:--"There is a pleasure in poetic pains which only Poets know."]

In our neighbourhood, which, as the lodging-house-keepers advertise in _The Kingsland and Shacklewell s...o...b..sin_, and _The Dalston Dusthole_, is situate close to "Bus, Tram, and Rail," we have a milkman who is given to Poetry! and he circulates his "verses" pretty freely in the areas and letter-boxes about once a month.--

[Ill.u.s.tration: GLORIOUS NEWS! GLORIOUS NEWS!]

HOW F. WILSON MEETS HIS CUSTOMERS' VIEWS.

My readers may credit the words of my muse.

When telling how Wilson meets Customers' Views; Wilson studies a straightforward system of trade, Whereby to elicit encouraging aid.

The pure farm-house Milk he daily brings out, Is such as we have no reason to doubt; Encouraged in business his course he pursues, And fails not in meeting his Customers' Views.

You'll not have occasion to doubt what I say, When testing his Pure Milk day after day; For cheapness and quality you'll find him in trade, As you did when he first asked the public for aid.

His farm-house Milk and Eggs, which thoroughly please, Are positive proofs of a.s.sertions like these; 'Tis certain that better can ne'er be supplied, He trusts that in this you'll all coincide.

The highest of interest his Milk doth possess, Thus boldly we state, for we cannot state less; F. Wilson supplies what all purchasers choose, And thus he is meeting his Customers' Views.

TERMS CASH.

Customers can have their Milk left in cans any time after 5 a.m.

Note the address * * *

All complaints to be addressed to Mr. F. Wilson.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TIDDY DIDDY DOLL-LOLL, LOLL, LOLL.]

This celebrated vendor of gingerbread, from his eccentricity of character, and extensive dealing in his particular way, was always hailed as the King of itinerant tradesmen. He was a constant attendant in the crowd at all metropolitan fairs, mob meetings, Lord Mayor's shows, public executions, and all other holiday and festive gatherings! In his person he was tall, well made, and his features handsome. He affected to dress like a person of rank; white and gold lace suit of clothes, lace ruffled shirt, laced hat and feather, white stockings, with the addition of a white ap.r.o.n.

Among his harangues to gain customers, take the following piece as a fair sample of the whole:--

"Mary, Mary, where are you _now_, Mary? I live, when at home, at the second house in Little diddy-ball-street, two steps under ground, with a wisc.u.m, risc.u.m, and a why-not. Walk in, ladies and gentlemen; my shop is on the second-floor backwards, with a bra.s.s knocker on the door, and steel steps before it. Here is your nice gingerbread, it will melt in your mouth like a red-hot brickbat, and rumble in your inside like Punch and his wheelbarrow." He always finished his address by singing this f.a.g end of some popular ballad:--

"Ti-tid-ty, ti-tid-ty. Ti-tid-ty--tiddy-loll.

Ti-tid-ty, ti-tid-ty. Ti-tid-ty--tiddy-doll."

Hence arose his nickname "_Tiddy-Doll_." In Hogarth's print of the "IDLE 'PRENTICE EXECUTED AT TYBURN," Tiddy-Doll is seen holding up a gingerbread cake with his left hand, his right hand within his coat, to imply that he is speaking the truth from his heart, while describing the superiority of his wares over those of any other vendor in the fair! while he still anxiously inquires:--

"Mary, Mary, where are you _now_, Mary?"

His proper name was Ford, and so well known was he that, on his once being missed for a week from his usual stand in the Haymarket, on the occasion of a visit which he paid to a country fair, a "Catch penny" account of his alleged murder was printed, and sold in the streets by thousands.

Allusions to Tiddy-Doll, and sayings derived from him, have reached to our own time, thus, we still say to an over-dressed person--"You are as tawdry as Diddy-doll," "You are quite Tiddy-doll, you look as fine as Tiddy-doll," he or she is said to be "All Tiddy-doll," &c.

The cla.s.s of men formerly well known to the citizens of London as News-criers, or Hornmen, must now be spoken of in the past sense, as the further use of the horn was prohibited long ago by the magistracy, subject to a penalty of ten shillings for the first offence, and twenty shillings on the conviction of repeating so heinous a crime.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"GREAT NEWS, b.l.o.o.d.y BATTLE, GREAT VICTORY!

EXTRAORDINARY GAZETTE!

SECOND EDITION!"

were the usual loud bellowing of fellows with stentorian lungs, accompanied by a loud blast of a long tin-horn, which announced to the delighted populace of London the martial achievements of a Marlborough, Howe, Hood, Nelson, or Wellington. A copy of the "Gazette" or newspaper they "cried" was usually affixed under the hatband, in front, and their demand was generally one shilling.

At least one of these news criers has been immortalized. In a volume of "Miscellaneous Poems," edited by Elijah Fenton, and printed by Bernard Lintot, without date, but anterior to 1720, there are the lines that follow, to one old Bennet, who seems to have made a great noise in the world of London during the early part of last century:--