Part 57

It is very easy to stigmatise the death-hunter when he sets off all the attractions of a real or pretended murder,--when he displays on a board, as does the standing patterer, “illustrations” of “the ’dentical pick-axe” of Manning, or the stable of Good,--or when he invents or embellishes atrocities which excite the public mind. He does, however, but follow in the path of those who are looked up to as “the press,”--as the “fourth estate.” The conductors of the _Lady’s Newspaper_ sent an artist to Paris to give drawings of the scene of the murder by the Duc de Praslin,--to “illustrate” the blood-stains in the duchess’s bed-chamber. The _Illustrated London News_ is prompt in depicting the locality of any atrocity over which the curious in crime may gloat. The _Observer_, in costly advertisements, boasts of its 20 columns (sometimes with a supplement) of details of some vulgar and mercenary bloodshed,--the details being written in a most honest deprecation of the morbid and savage tastes to which the writer is pandering. Other weekly papers have engravings--and only concerning murder--of any wretch whom vice has made notorious. Many weekly papers had expensive telegraphic despatches of Rush’s having been hung at Norwich, which event, happily for the interest of Sunday newspapers, took place in Norwich at noon on a Saturday. [I may here remark, that the patterers laugh at telegraphs and express trains for rapidity of communication, boasting that the press strives in vain to rival _them_,--as at a “hanging match,” for instance, the patterer has the full particulars, dying speech, and confession included--if a confession be feasible--ready for his customers the moment the drop falls, and while the criminal may still be struggling, at the very scene of the hanging. At a distance he sells it before the hanging. “If the _Times_ was cross-examined about it,” observed one patterer, “he must confess he’s outdone, though he’s a rich _Times_, and we is poor fellows.” But to resume--]

A penny-a-liner is reported, and without contradiction, to have made a large sum by having hurried to Jersey in Manning’s business, and by being allowed to accompany the officers when they conducted that paltry tool of a vindictive woman from Jersey to Southampton by steamer, and from Southampton to London by “special engine,” as beseemed the popularity of so distinguished a rascal and homicide; and next morning the daily papers, in all the typographical honour of “leads” and “a good place,” gave details of this fellow’s--this Manning’s--conversation, looks, and demeanour.

Until the “respectable” press become a more healthful public instructor, we have no right to blame the death-hunter, who is but an imitator--a follower--and that for a meal. So strong has this morbid feeling about criminals become, that an earl’s daughter, who had “an order” to see Bedlam, would not leave the place until she had obtained Oxford’s autograph for her album! The rich vulgar are but the poor vulgar--without an excuse for their vulgarity.

* * * * *

“Next to murders, fires are tidy browns,” I was told by a patterer experienced both in “murders” and “fires.” The burning of the old Houses of Parliament was very popular among street-sellers, and for the reason which ensures popularity to a commercial people; it was a source of profit, and was certainly made the most of. It was the work of incendiaries,--of ministers, to get rid of perplexing papers,--of government officers with troublesome accounts to balance,--of a sporting lord, for a heavy wager,--of a conspiracy of builders,--and of “a unsuspected party.” The older “hands” with whom I conversed on the subject, all agreed in stating that they “did well” on the fire. One man said, “No, sir, it wasn’t only the working people that bought of me, but merchants and their clerks. I s’pose they took the papers home with ’em for their wives and families, which is a cheap way of doing, as a newspaper costs 3_d._ at least. But stop, sir,--stop; there wasn’t no threepennies then,--nothing under 6_d._, if they wasn’t more; I can’t just say, but it was better for us when newspapers was high. I never heard no sorrow expressed,--not _in_ the least. Some said it was a good job, and they wished the ministers was in it.” The burning of the Royal Exchange was not quite so beneficial to the street-sellers, but “was uncommon tidy.” The fire at the Tower, however, was almost as great a source of profit as that of the Houses of Parliament, and the following statement shows the profit reaped.

My informant had been a gentleman’s servant, his last place being with a gentleman in Russell-square, who went to the East Indies, and his servant was out of a situation so long that he “parted with everything.” When he was at the height of his distress, he went to see the fire at the Tower, as he “had nothing better to do.” He remained out some hours, and before he reached his lodging, men passed him, crying the full and true particulars of the fire. “I bought one,” said the man, “and changed my last shilling. It was a sudden impulse, for I saw people buy keenly. I never read it, but only looked at the printer’s name. I went to him at the Dials, and bought some, and so I went into the paper trade. I made 6_s._ or 7_s._ some days, while the Tower lasted; and 3_s._ and 4_s._ other days, when the first polish was off. I sold them mostly at 1_d._ a piece at first. It was good money then. The Tower was good, or middling good, for from 14 to 20 days. There was at least 100 men working nothing but the Tower. There’s no great chance of any more great buildings being burnt; worse luck. People don’t care much about private fires. A man in this street don’t heed so much who’s burnt to death in the next. But the foundation-stone of the new Royal Exchange--fire led to that--was pretty fair, and portraits of Halbert went off, so that it was for two or three days as good as the Tower. Fires is our best friends next to murders, if they’re _good_ fires. The hopening of the Coal Exchange was rather tidy. I’ve been in the streets ever since, and don’t see how I could possibly get out of them. At first I felt a great degradation at being driven to the life. I shunned grooms and coachmen, as I might be known to them. I didn’t care for others. That sort of feeling wears out though. I’m a widower now, and my family feels, as I did at first, that what I’m doing is ‘low.’ They won’t assist--though they may give me 1_s._ now and then--but they won’t assist me to leave the streets. They’ll rather blame me for going into them, though there was only that, or robbing, or starving. The fire at Ben. Caunt’s, where the poor children was burnt to hashes, was the best of the private house fires that I’ve worked, I think. I made 4_s._ on it one day. He was the champion once, and was away at a fight at the time, and it was a shocking thing, and so people bought.”

After the burning of York Minster by Jonathan Martin, I was told by an old hand, the (street) destruction of the best known public buildings in the country was tried; such as Canterbury Cathedral, Dover Castle, the Brighton Pavilion, Edinburgh Castle, or Holyrood House--all known to “travelling” patterers--but the success was not sufficiently encouraging. It was no use, I was told, firing such places as Hampton Court or Windsor Castle, for unless people _saw_ the reflection of a great fire, they wouldn’t buy.

OF THE SELLERS OF SECOND EDITIONS.

These “second editions” are, and almost universally, second or later editions of the newspapers, morning and evening, but three-fourths of the sale may be of the evening papers, and more especially of the _Globe_ and _Standard_.

I believe that there is not now in existence--unless it be in a workhouse and unknown to his fellows, or engaged in some other avocation and lost sight of by them--any one who sold “second editions” (the _Courier_ evening paper being then in the greatest demand) at the time of the Duke of York’s Walcheren expedition, at the period of the battle of the Nile, during the continuance of the Peninsular war, or even at the battle of Waterloo. There were a few old men--some of whom had been soldiers or sailors, and others who have simulated it--surviving within these 5 or 6 years, and some later, who “worked Waterloo,” but they were swept off, I was told, by the cholera.

I was assured by a gentlemen who had a perfect remembrance of the “second editions” (as they were generally called) sold in the streets, and who had often bought them upwards of forty years ago, that a sketch in the “Monthly Review,” in a notice of Scott’s “Lord of the Isles” (published in 1815), gave the best notion he had met with of what the second edition sale really was. At the commencement of the sixth canto of his poem, Sir Walter, somewhat too grandiloquently, in the judgment of his reviewer, asks--

“O who, that shared them, ever shall forget The emotions of the spirit-rousing time, When breathless in the mart the couriers met, Early and late, at evening and at prime?”

“Who,” in his turn asks the reviewer, “can avoid conjuring up the idea of men with broad sheets of foolscap, scored with ‘VICTORIES’ rolled round their hats, and horns blowing loud defiance in each other’s mouth, from the top to the bottom of Pall-mall or the Haymarket, when he reads such a passage? We actually hear the Park and Tower guns, and the clattering of ten thousand bells, as we read, and stop our ears from the close and sudden intrusion of some hot and _horn-fisted_ patriot, blowing ourselves, as well as Bonaparte to the devil!”

The horn carried by these “_horn_-fisted” men was a common tin tube, from two to three feet long, and hardly capable of being made to produce any sound beyond a sudden and discordant “trump, trump.” The men worked with papers round their hats, in a way not very dissimilar to that of the running patterers of to-day.

The “editions” cried by these men during the war-time often contained spurious intelligence, but for that the editors of the journals were responsible--or the stock-jobbers who had imposed upon them. Any one who has consulted a file of newspapers of the period to which I have referred, will remember how frequent, and how false, were the announcements, or the rumours, of the deaths of Bonaparte, his brothers, or his marshals, in battle or by assassination.

As there was no man who was personally conversant with this traffic in what is emphatically enough called the “war-time,” I sought out an old street-patterer who had been acquainted with the older hands in the trade, whose experience stretched to the commencement of the present century, and from him I received the following account:

“Oh, yes,” he began, “I’ve worked ‘seconds.’ We used to call the editions generally seconds, and cry them sometimes, as the _latest_ editions, whatever it was. There was Jack Griffiths, sir,--now wasn’t he a hand at a second edition? I believe you. I do any kind of patter now myself, but I’ve done tidy on second editions, when seconds was to be had. Why, Jack Griffiths, sir--he’d been a sailor and was fond of talking about the sea--Jack Griffiths--you would have liked to have heard him--Jack told me that he once took 10_s._ 6_d._--it was Hyde Park way--for a second edition of a paper when Queen Caroline’s trial was over. Besides Jack, there was Tom Cole, called the Wooden Leg (he’d been a soldier I believe), and Whitechapel, and Old Brummagem, and Hell-fire Jack. Hell-fire Jack was said to be something to a man that was a trainer, and a great favourite of the old Duke of Queensberry, and was called Hell-fire Dick; but I can’t say how it was. I began to work second editions, for the first time when George IV. died. They went off pretty well at 1_s._ a piece, and for three or four I got 2_s._ 6_d._ If it’s anything good I get 1_s._ still, but very seldom any more. I always show anybody that asks that the paper _is_ just what I’ve cried it. There’s no regular cry; we cries what’s up: ‘_Here’s_ the second edition of the _Globe_ with the full perticlers of the death of his Majesty King George IV.’ We work much in the same way as the running patter. Three of us shouts in the same spot. I was one of three who one night sold five quires, mostly _Globe_ and _Standard_. It was at the Reform Bill time, and something about the Reform Bill. I never much heeded what the paper was about. I only wanted the patter, and soon got it. A mate, or any of us, looks out for anything good in the evening papers, to be ready. Why that night I speak of I was kept running backards and for’ards to the newspaper offices--and how they does keep you waiting at times!--mostly the _Globe_ and _Standard_; we worked them all at the West End. There’s twenty-seven papers to a quire, and we gave 4_d._ a piece for ’em and sold none, as well as I mind, for under 1_s._ I carried them mostly under my arm or in my hat, taking care they wasn’t spoiled. Belgrave-square way, and St. George’s, Hanover-square way, and Hyde Park way, are the best. The City’s no good. There’s only sixpences there. The coffee-shops has spoiled the City, as I’m afeard they will other parts. Murders in second editions don’t sell now, and aren’t tried much, beyond a few, if there’s a late verdict. Curviseer (Courvoisier) was tidy. The trial weren’t over ’til evening, and I sold six papers, and got 7_s._ for them, to gentlemen going away by the mail. I’ve heard that Greenacre was good in the same way, but I wasn’t in town at the time. The French Revolution--the last one--was certainly a fairish go. Lewis Fillup was good many ways. When he used to be shot at--if the news weren’t too early in the day--and when he got to England, and when he was said to have got back, or to have been taken. Why, of course he wern’t to compare with Rush in the regular patter, but he was very fair. I have nothing to say against him, and wish he was alive, and could do it all over again. Lord Brougham’s death wern’t worth much to us. You remember the time, I dare say, sir, when they said he killed hisself in the papers, to see what folks would say on him. The resignation of a prime minister is mostly pretty good. Lord Melbourne was, and so was Sir Robert Peel. There’s always somebody to say, ‘Hurra! that’s right!’ and to buy a paper because he’s pleased. I had a red paper in my hat when I worked the French Revolution. French news is generally liked in a fashionable drag. Irish news is no good, for people don’t seem to believe it. Smith O’Brien’s battle, though, did sell a little. It’s not possible to tell you exactly what I’ve made on seconds. How can I? One week I may have cleared 1_l._ in them, and for six months before not a blessed brown. Perhaps--as near as I can recollect and calculate--I’ve cleared 3_l._ (if that) each year, one with another, in second editions in my time, and perhaps twenty others has done the same.”

Another man who also knew the old hands said to me: “Lord bless us, how times is changed! you should have heard Jack Griffiths tell how he cried his gazettes: ‘_He-ere’s_ the _London Gazette_ Ex-terornary, containing the hof-ficial account of the bloody and decisive wictory of Sally-manker.’ Something that way. Patter wern’t required then; the things sold theirselves. Why, the other day I was talking to a young chap that conceits hisself to be a hout-and-houter in patter, and I mentions Jack’s crying Gazettes and getting 5_s._ apiece for many a one on ’em, and this young chap says, says he: ‘_Gazettes!_ What did they cry _Gazettes_?--bankrupts, and all that?’ ‘Bankrupts be blowed!’ said I, ‘wictories!’ I heerd Waterloo cried when I was a little ’un. The speeches on the opening of parliament, which the newspapers has ready, has no sale in the crowd to what they had. I only sold two papers at 6_d._ each this last go. I ventured on no more, or should have been a loser. If the Queen isn’t there, none’s sold. But we always has a speech ready, as close as can be got from what the morning papers says. One gent. said to me: ‘But that ain’t the real speech!’ ‘It’s a far better,’ says I, and so it is. Why now, sir, there’s some reading and spirit in this bit. The Queen says:

‘It is my determination by the assistance of divine providence to uphold and protect the Protestant Church of the British Empire, which has been enjoyed three hundred years without interuption, the Religion which our ancestors struggled to obtain. And as long as it shall please God to spare me, I will endeavour to maintain the rights and perogatives of our holy Protestant Church. And now my Lords, I leave you to your duties, to the helm of the state, to the harbour of peace, and happiness.’”

This man showed me the street speech, which was on a broad sheet set off with the royal arms. The topics and arrangement were the same as those in the speech delivered by her Majesty.

On Monday morning last (Feb. 24), I asked the man who told me that prime ministers’ resignations were “pretty good” for the street traffic, if he had been well remunerated by the sale of the evening papers of Saturday, with the account of Lord John Russell’s resignation. “It wern’t tried, sir,” he answered; “there was nothing new in the evenings, and we thought nobody seemed to care about it. The newspaper offices and their boarders (as he called the men going about with announcements on boards) didn’t make very much of it, so we got up a song instead, but it was no good,--not salt to a fresh herring--for there was some fresh herrings in. It was put strong, though. This was the last verse:

‘From the House to the Palace it has caused a bother, Old women are tumbling one over another, The Queen says it is with her, one thing or ’tother, They must not discharge Little John; Her Majesty vows that she is not contented, And many ere long will have cause to repent it, Had she been in the house she would nobly resent it, And fought like a brick for Lord John.’”

Adopting the calculation of my first informant, and giving a profit of 150 per cent., we find 150_l._ yearly expended in the streets, in second editions, or probably it might be more correct to say 200_l._ in a year of great events, and 50_l._ in a year when such events are few.

OF THE STANDING PATTERERS.

The standing patterer I have already described in his resemblance to the mountebank of old, and how, like his predecessor, he required a “pitch” and an audience. I need but iterate that these standing patterers are men who remain in one place, until they think they have exhausted the custom likely to accrue there, or until they are removed by the police; and who endeavour to attract attention to their papers, or more commonly pamphlets, either by means of a board with coloured pictures upon it, illustrative of the contents of what they sell, or else by gathering a crowd round about them, in giving a lively or horrible description of the papers or books they are “working.” The former is what is usually denominated in street technology, “board work.” A few of the standing patterers give street recitations or dialogues.

Some of the “illustrations” most “in vogue” of late for the boards of the standing patterers were,--the flogging of the nuns of Minsk, the blood streaming from their naked shoulders, (anything against the Emperor of Russia, I was told, was a good street subject for a painting); the young girl, Sarah Thomas, who murdered her mistress in Bristol, dragged to the gallows by the turnkeys and Calcraft, the hangman; Calcraft himself, when charged with “starving his mother;” Haynau, in the hands of the draymen; the Mannings, and afterwards the Sloanes. The two last-mentioned were among the most elaborate, each having a series of “compartments,” representing the different stages of the events in which those heroes and heroines flourished. I shall speak afterwards of street-artists who are the painters of these boards, and then describe the pictures more fully. There are also, as before alluded to, what may be called “cocks” in street paintings, as well as street literature.

Two of the most favourite themes of the standing patterers were, however, the “Annals of the White House in Soho-square,” and the “Mysteries of Mesmerism.” Both supplied subjects to the boards.

The White House was a notorious place of ill fame. Some of the apartments, it is said, were furnished in a style of costly luxury; while others were fitted up with springs, traps, and other contrivances, so as to present no appearance other than that of an ordinary room, until the machinery was set in motion. In one room, into which some wretched girl might be introduced, on her drawing a curtain as she would be desired, a skeleton, grinning horribly, was precipitated forward, and caught the terrified creature in his, to all appearance, bony arms. In another chamber the lights grew dim, and then seemed gradually to go out. In a little time some candles, apparently self-ignited, revealed to a horror stricken woman, a black coffin, on the lid of which might be seen, in brass letters, ANNE, or whatever name it had been ascertained the poor wretch was known by. A sofa, in another part of the mansion, was made to descend into some place of utter darkness; or, it was alleged, into a room in which was a store of soot or ashes.

Into the truth or exaggeration of these and similar statements, it is not my business to inquire; but the standing patterer made the most of them. Although the house in question has been either rebuilt or altered--I was told that each was the case--and its abominable character has ceased to apply to it for some years, the patterer did not scruple to represent it as still in existence (though he might change the venue as to the square at discretion) and that all the atrocities perpetrated--to which I have not ventured even to allude--were still the ordinary procedures of “high life.” Neither did the standing patterer scruple, as one man assured me, to “name names;” to attribute vile deeds to any nobleman or gentleman whose name was before the public; and to embellish his story by an allusion to a recent event. He not unfrequently ended with a moral exhortation to all ladies present to avoid this “abode of iniquity for the rich.” The board was illustrated with skeletons, coffins, and other horrors; but neither on it, nor in a hardly intelligible narrative which the patterer sold, was there anything indecent.