University of Virginia Library

EXPERIENCE OF A RUNNING PATTERER.

From a running patterer, who has been
familiar with the trade for many years, I
received, upwards of a twelvemonth ago, the
following statement. He is well known for his
humour, and is a leading man in his fraternity.
After some conversation about "cocks," the
most popular of which, my informant said, was
the murder at Chigwell-row, he continued:

"That's a trump, to the present day. Why,
I'd go out now, sir, with a dozen of Chigwell-
rows, and earn my supper in half an hour off of
'em. The murder of Sarah Holmes at Lincoln
is good, too — that there has been worked for the
last five year successively every winter. Poor
Sarah Holmes! Bless her! she has saved me
from walking the streets all night many a time.
Some of the best of these have been in work
twenty years — the Scarborough murder has full
twenty years. It's called `The Scarborough
Tragedy.' I've worked it myself. It's about
a noble and rich young naval officer seducing a
poor clergyman's daughter. She is confined in
a ditch, and destroys the child. She is taken up
for it, tried, and executed. This has had a great
run. It sells all round the country places, and
would sell now if they had it out. Mostly all
our customers is females. They are the chief

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dependence we have. The Scarborough Tra-
gedy is very attractive. It draws tears to the
women's eyes to think that a poor clergyman's
daughter, who is remarkably beautiful, should
murder her own child; it's very touching to
every feeling heart. There's a copy of verses
with it, too. Then there's the Liverpool Tra-
gedy — that's very attractive. It's a mother
murdering her own son, through gold. He had
come from the East Indies, and married a rich
planter's daughter. He came back to England
to see his parents after an absence of thirty
years. They kept a lodging-house in Liverpool
for sailors; the son went there to lodge, and
meant to tell his parents who he was in the
morning. His mother saw the gold he had got
in his boxes, and cut his throat — severed his
head from his body; the old man, upwards of
seventy years of age, holding the candle. They
had put a washing-tub under the bed to catch his
blood. The morning after the murder, the old
man's daughter calls and inquires for a young
man. The old man denies that they have had
any such person in the house. She says he had
a mole on his arm, in the shape of a strawberry.
The old couple go up-stairs to examine the
corpse, and find they have murdered their own
son, and then they both put an end to their
existence. This is a deeper tragedy than the
Scarborough Murder. That suits young people
better; they like to hear about the young woman
being seduced by the naval officer; but the
mothers take more to the Liverpool Tragedy —
it suits them better. Some of the `cocks' were
in existence long before ever I was born or
thought of. The `Great and important battle
between the two ladies of fortune,' is
what we calls `a ripper.' I should like to have
that there put down correct," he added, "'cause
I've taken a tidy lot of money out of it."

My informant, who had been upwards of
20 years in the running patter line, told me
that he commenced his career with the "Last
Dying Speech and Full Confession of Wil-
liam Corder." He was sixteen years of age,
and had run away from his parents. "I
worked that there," he said, "down in the very
town (at Bury) where he was executed. I
got a whole hatful of halfpence at that.
Why, I wouldn't even give 'em seven for six-
pence — no, that I wouldn't. A gentleman's
servant come out and wanted half a dozen
for his master and one for himself in, and I
wouldn't let him have no such thing. We often
sells more than that at once. Why, I sold six
at one go to the railway clerks at Norwich about
the Manning affair, only a fortnight back. But
Steinburgh's little job — you know he murdered
his wife and family, and committed suicide after
— that sold as well as any `die.' Pegsworth
was an out-and-out lot. I did tremendous with
him, because it happened in London, down Rat-
cliff-highway — that's a splendid quarter for
working — there's plenty of feelings — but, bless
you, some places you go to you can't move no
how, they've hearts like paving-stones. They
wouldn't have `the papers' if you'd give them
to 'em — especially when they knows you.
Greenacre didn't sell so well as might have
been expected, for such a diabolical out-and-out
crime as he committed; but you see he came
close after Pegsworth, and that took the beauty
off him. Two murderers together is never no
good to nobody. Why there was Wilson Glee-
son, as great a villain as ever lived — went and
murdered a whole family at noon-day — but
Rush coopered him — and likewise that girl at
Bristol — made it no draw to any one. Daniel
Good, though, was a first-rater; and would
have been much better if it hadn't been for that
there Madam Toosow. You see, she went down to
Roehampton, and guv 2l. for the werry clogs as
he used to wash his master's carriage in; so, in
course, when the harristocracy could go and see
the real things — the werry identical clogs — in
the Chamber of 'Orrors, why the people wouldn't
look at our authentic portraits of the fiend in
human form. Hocker wasn't any particular
great shakes. There was a deal expected from
him, but he didn't turn out well. Courvoisier
was much better; he sold wery well, but nothing
to Blakesley. Why I worked him for six weeks.
The wife of the murdered man kept the King's
Head that he was landlord on open on the morn-
ing of the execution, and the place was like a
fair. I even went and sold papers outside the
door myself. I thought if she war'n't ashamed,
why should I be? After that we had a fine
`fake' — that was the fire of the Tower of Lon-
don — it sold rattling. Why we had about forty
apprehended for that — first we said two soldiers
was taken up that couldn't obtain their dis-
charge, and then we declared it was a well-
known sporting nobleman who did it for a spree.
The boy Jones in the Palace wasn't much
of an affair for the running patterers; the
ballad singers — or street screamers, as we calls
'em — had the pull out of that. The patter
wouldn't take; they had read it all in the news-
papers before. Oxford, and Francis, and Bean
were a little better, but nothing to crack about.
The people doesn't care about such things as
them. There's nothing beats a stunning good
murder, after all. Why there was Rush — I
lived on him for a month or more. When I com-
menced with Rush, I was 14s. in debt for rent,
and in less than fourteen days I astonished the
wise men in the east by paying my landlord all
I owed him. Since Dan'el Good there had
been little or nothing doing in the murder line
— no one could cap him — till Rush turned up a
regular trump for us. Why I went down to
Norwich expressly to work the execution. I
worked my way down there with `a sorrowful
lamentation' of his own composing, which I'd
got written by the blind man expressly for the
occasion. On the morning of the execution we
beat all the regular newspapers out of the field;
for we had the full, true, and particular account
down, you see, by our own express, and that can
beat anything that ever they can publish; for
we gets it printed several days afore it comes off,

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and goes and stands with it right under the drop;
and many's the penny I've turned away when
I've been asked for an account of the whole
business before it happened. So you see, for
herly and correct hinformation, we can beat the
Sun — aye, or the moon either, for the matter of
that. Irish Jem, the Ambassador, never goes to
bed but he blesses Rush the farmer; and many's
the time he's told me we should never have such
another windfall as that. But I told him not to
despair; there's good time coming, boys, says
I, and, sure enough, up comes the Bermondsey
tragedy. We might have done very well, indeed,
out of the Mannings, but there was too many
examinations for it to be any great account
to us. I've been away with the Mannings in
the country ever since. I've been through Hert-
fordshire, Cambridgeshire, and Suffolk, along
with George Frederick Manning and his wife —
travelled from 800 to 1,000 miles with 'em, but
I could have done much better if I had stopped
in London. Every day I was anxiously looking
for a confession from Mrs. Manning. All I
wanted was for her to clear her conscience afore
she left this here whale of tears (that's what I
always calls it in the patter), and when I read
in the papers (mind they was none of my own)
that her last words on the brink of heternity
was, `I've nothing to say to you, Mr. Rowe, but
to thank you for your kindness,' I guv her up
entirely — had completely done with her. In
course the public looks to us for the last words
of all monsters in human form, and as for Mrs.
Manning's, they were not worth the printing."