University of Virginia Library

OF THE RECENT EXPERIENCE OF A RUNNING
PATTERER.

From the same man I had the following ac-
count of his vocation up to the present time:

"Well, sir," he said, "I think, take them
altogether, things hasn't been so good this
last year as the year before. But the Pope,
God bless him! he's been the best friend I've
had since Rush, but Rush licked his Holiness.
You see, the Pope and Cardinal Wiseman is a
one-sided affair; of course the Catholics won't
buy anything against the Pope, but all religions
could go for Rush. Our mob once thought of
starting a cardinal's dress, and I thought of
wearing a red hat myself. I did wear a shovel
hat when the Bishop of London was our racket;
but I thought the hat began to feel too hot, so I
shovelled it off. There was plenty of paper
that would have suited to work with a cardinal's
hat. There was one, — `Cardinal Wiseman's
Lament,' — and it was giving his own words
like, and a red hat would have capped it. It
used to make the people roar when it came to
snivelling, and grumbling at little Jack Russell
— by Wiseman, in course; and when it comes
to this part — which alludes to that 'ere thun-
dering letter to the Bishop of Durham — the
people was stunned:

"They shod me, sir. Who's they? Why,
the Pope and Cardinal Wiseman. I call my
clothes after them I earn money by to buy
them with. My shoes I call Pope Pius; my
trowsers and braces, Calcraft; my waistcoat and
shirt, Jael Denny; and my coat, Love Letters.
A man must show a sense of gratitude in the
best way he can. But I didn't start the cardi-
nal's hat; I thought it might prove disagreeable
to Sir Robert Peel's dress lodgers." [What my
informant said further of the Pope, I give under
the head of the Chaunter.] "There was very
little doing," he continued, "for some time
after I gave you an account before; hardly a
slum worth a crust and a pipe of tobacco to us.
A slum's a paper fake, — make a foot-note of
that, sir. I think Adelaide was the first thing
I worked after I told you of my tomfooleries.
Yes it was, — her helegy. She weren't of no
account whatsomever, and Cambridge was no
better nor Adelaide. But there was poor Sir
Robert Peel, — he was some good; indeed, I
think he was as good as 5s. a day to me for
the four or five days when he was freshest.
Browns were thrown out of the windows to us,
and one copper cartridge was sent flying at us
with 13½d. in it, all copper, as if it had been
collected. I worked Sir Robert at the West
End, and in the quiet streets and squares.
Certainly we had a most beautiful helegy.
Well, poor gentleman, what we earned on him
was some set-off to us for his starting his new
regiment of the Blues — the Cook's Own. Not
that they've troubled me much. I was once
before Alderman Kelly, when he was Lord
Mayor, charged with obstructing, or some hum-
bug of that sort. `What are you, my man?'
says he quietly, and like a gentleman. `In the
same line as yourself, my lord,' says I. `How's
that?' says he. `I'm a paper-worker for my
living, my lord,' says I. I was soon discharged;
and there was such fun and laughing, that if
I'd had a few slums in my pocket, I believe I
could have sold them all in the justice-room.

"Haynau was a stunner, and the drayman
came their caper just in the critical time for us,
as things was growing very taper. But I did
best with him in chaunting; and so, as you
want to hear about chaunting, I'll tell you
after. We're forced to change our patter — first
running, then chaunting, and then standing —
oftener than we used to.

"Then Calcraft was pretty tidy browns. He
was up for starving his mother, — and what better
can you expect of a hangman? Me and my
mate worked him down at Hatfield, in Essex,
where his mother lives. It's his native, I believe.
We sold her one. She's a limping old body. I
saw the people look at her, and they told me
arterards who she was. `How much?' says
she. `A penny, marm,' say I. `Sarve him
right,' says she. We worked it, too, in the
street in Hoxton where he lives, and he sent out
for two, which shows he's a sensible sort of
character in some points, after all. Then we
had a `Woice from the Gaol! or the Horrors

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of the Condemned Cell! Being the Life of
William Calcraft, the present Hangman.' It's
written in the high style, and parts of it will
have astonished the hangman's nerves before
this. Here's a bit of the patter, now:

"Isn't that stunning, sir? Here it is in print
for you. `Mark him for her own!' Then, poor
dear, he's so sorry to hang anybody. Here's
another bit:

"You may believe me, sir, and I can prove
the fact — the author of that beautiful writing
ain't in parliament! Think of the mental flame,
sir! O, dear.

"Sirrell was no good either. Not salt to a
herring. Though we worked him in his own
neighbourhood, and pattered about gold and
silver all in a row. `Ah!' says one old
woman, `he was a 'spectable man.' `Werry,
marm,' says I.

"Hollest weren't no good either, 'cause the
wictim was a parson. If it had happened a little
later, we'd have had it to rights; the news-
papers didn't make much of it. We'd have
shown it was the `Commencement of a Most
Horrid and Barbarious Plot got up by the Pope
and Cardinal Wiseman for-r the Mas-ser-cree-ing
of all good Protestant Ministers.' That would
have been the dodge, sir! A beautiful idear,
now, isn't it? But the murder came off badly,
and you can't expect fellows like them murderers
to have any regard for the interest of art and
literature. Then there's so long to wait between
the murder and the trial, that unless the fiend
in human form keeps writing beautiful love-
letters, the excitement can't be kept up. We can write the love-letters for the fiend in human?
That's quite true, and we once had a great pull
that way over the newspapers. But Lord love
you, there's plenty of 'em gets more and more
into our line. They treads in our footsteps, sir;
they follows our bright example. O! isn't
there a nice rubbing and polishing up. This
here copy won't do. This must be left out, and
that put in; 'cause it suits the walk of the paper.
Why, you must know, sir. I know. Don't tell
me. You can't have been on the Morning
Chronicle for nothing.

"Then there was the `Horrid and Inhuman
Murder, Committed by T. Drory, on the Body
of Jael Denny, at Donninghurst, a Village in
Essex.' We worked it in every way. Drory
had every chance given to him. We had half-
sheets, and copies of werses, and books. A very
tidy book it was, setting off with showing how
`The secluded village of Donninghurst has been
the scene of a most determined and diabolical
murder, the discovery of which early on Sun-
day, the 12th, in the morning has thrown the
whole of this part of the country into a painful
state of excitement.' Well, sir, well — very well;
that bit was taken from a newspaper. Oh,
we're not above acknowledging when we conde-
scends to borrow from any of 'em. If you re-
member, when I saw you about the time, I told
you I thought Jael Denny would turn out as
good as Maria Martin. And without any joke
or nonsense, sir, it really is a most shocking
thing. But she didn't. The weather coopered
her, poor lass! There was money in sight, and
we couldn't touch it; it seemed washed away
from us, for you may remember how wet it was.
I made a little by her, though. For all that, I
haven't done with Master Drory yet. If God
spares my life, he shall make it up to me. Why,
now, sir, is it reasonable, that a poor man like
me should take so much pains to make Drory's
name known all over the country, and walk
miles and miles in the rain to do it, and get only
a few bob for my labour? It can't be thought
on. When the Wile and Inhuman Seducer
takes his trial, he must pay up my just claims.
I'm not going to take all that trouble on his
account, and let him off so easy."

My informant then gave me an account of
his sale of papers relating to the Pope and
Cardinal Wiseman, but as he was then a
chaunter, rather than a patterer (the distinc-
tion is shown under another head), I give his
characteristic account, as the statement of a
chaunter. He proceeded after having finished
his recital of the street business relating to the
Pope, &c.:

"My last paying caper was the Sloanes.
They beat Haynau. I declare to you, sir, the
knowingest among us couldn't have invented
a cock to equal the conduct of them Sloanes.
Why, it's disgusting to come near the plain
truth about them. I think, take it altogether,
Sloane was as good as the Pope, but he had
a stopper like Pius the Ninth, for that was a
one-sided affair, and the Catholics wouldn't
buy; and Sloane was too disgusting for the
gentry, or better sort, to buy him. But I've
been in little streets where some of the windows
was without sashes, and some that had sashes
had stockings thrust between the frames, and
I've taken half a bob in ha'pennies. Oh! you
should have heard what poor women said about

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him, for it was women that bought him most
They was more savage against him than
against her. Why, they had fifty deaths for
him. Rolling in a barrel, with lots of sharp
nails inside, down Primrose-hill, and turned out
to the women on Kennington-common, and
boiled alive in oil or stuff that can't be men-
tioned, or hung over a slow fire. `O, the poor
dear girl,' says they, `what she's suffered.'
We had accounts of Mistress Sloane's appre-
hension before the papers. We had it at
Jersey, and they had it at Boulogne, but we
were first. Then we discovered, because we
must be in advance of the papers, that Miss
Devaux was Sloane's daughter by a former
wife, and Jane Wilbred was Mrs. Sloane's
daughter by a former husband, and was entitled
to 1,000l. by rights. Haynau was a fool to Sloane.

" I don't know of anything fresh that's in
hand, sir. One of our authors is coming out
with something spicy, against Lord John, for
doing nothing about Wiseman; 'cause he says
as no one thing that he's written for Lord John
ever sold well, something against him may."