University of Virginia Library

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 " se-
cond 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 sail-
ors, and others who have simulated it — sur-
viving 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"

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(as they were generally called) sold in the
streets, and who had often bought them up-
wards 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 com-
mencement of the sixth canto of his poem, Sir
Walter, somewhat too grandiloquently, in the
judgment of his reviewer, asks —

" 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 dis-
cordant " 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 re-
sponsible — 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 empha-
tically 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 commence-
ment of the present century, and from him I
received the following account:

" Oh, yes," he began, " I've worked ` se-
conds.' We used to call the editions generally
seconds, and cry them sometimes, as the latest editions, whatever it was. There was Jack Grif-
fiths, 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 edi-
tions, 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 10s. 6d. — 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 White-
chapel, and Old Brummagem, and Hell-fire
Jack. Hell-fire Jack was said to be some-
thing 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 1s. a piece, and for three
or four I got 2s. 6d. If it's anything good I
get 1s. 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 4d. a piece for 'em and sold none,
as well as I mind, for under 1s. 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 7s. 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 resig-
nation of a prime minister is mostly pretty
good. Lord Melbourne was, and so was Sir
Robert Peel. There's always somebody to say,

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` 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
1l. in them, and for six months before not a
blessed brown. Perhaps — as near as I can
recollect and calculate — I've cleared 3l. (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 Grif-
fiths tell how he cried his gazettes: ` He-ere's the London Gazette Ex-terornary, containing
the hof-ficial account of the bloody and deci-
sive 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 men-
tions Jack's crying Gazettes and getting 5s. 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 6d. each this last go. I ven-
tured 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:

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' re-
signations 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 news-
paper 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:

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