Old London Street Cries and the Cries of Today
Tuer, Andrew W.
1885
The Illustrations.
The Illustrations.
Ten of the illustrations by that great master of the art of caricature, Thomas Rowlandson, are copied in from a scarce set, fifty-four in all, published in , entitled to which there is a powerful preface, as follows:- | |
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The two illustrations- with a background representing Temple Bar, and with a view of Covent Garden-are from The set is chiefly interesting as representing London scenes of the period; many parts of which are now no longer recognisable. | |
The crudely drawn, but picturesquely treated cuts, from the celebrated Catnach press in Seven Dials, now owned by Mr. W. S. Fortey, hardly require separately indicating. | |
The four oval cuts, squared by the addition of perpendicular lines,
and are facsimiled from a little twopenny book, entitled, published in by J. Lumsden and Son, of Glasgow. It has a frontispiece representing a curious little four-in-hand carriage with dogs in place of horses, underneath which is printed this triplet:- See, girls and boys who learning prize, Round London drive to hear the cries, Then learn your Book and ride likewise. | |
The quaint cuts,
(frontispiece), and the three ballad singers, apparently taken from one of the earliest chap-books, are really but of yesterday. For these the writer is indebted to his friend, Mr. Joseph Crawhall, of Newcastle-on-Tyne, who uses his cutting tools direct on the wood without any copy. Mr. Crawhall's and quaint quartos each with many hundreds of hand-coloured cuts in his own peculiar and inimitable style, and are fair examples of his skill in this direction. | |
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Two plates unenclosed with borders- and are from that once common and now excessively scarce child's book, , published in by J. Harris, the successor of , the well-known St. Paul's Churchyard bookseller and publisher. |
George Cruikshank's London Barrow-woman ( ), and other cuts, are from the original illustrations to Hone's delightful recently republished by Messrs. Ward, Lock & Co. | |
The cuts illustrating modern cries- ; ; ; ; and are from the facile pencil of Mr. D. McEgan. | |
Finally, in regard to the business card of pussy's butcher, the veracious chronicler is inclined to think that an antiquarian might hesitate in pronouncing it to be quite so genuine as it looks. This opinion coincides with his own. In fact he made it himself. As a set-off, however, to the confession, let it be said that this is the sole set down herein. | |
