 | CRIES OF NEW YORK. Sporting scenes and sundry sketches |  |
8. CRIES OF NEW YORK.
AN UNPUBLISHED CHAPTER OF MRS. TROLLOPE.
PRIVATELY ADDRESSED TO THE PAINTER,
But intercepted and sent to the “Spirit of the Times” for exposure.
One of the most singular characteristics of this extraordinary
race of semi-barbarians, after mentioning their horrid
cannibal fashion of taking the shell off their eggs before they
inthroat their contents, and buying tooth-brushes by wards—
seventeen to a city of three hundred thousand mouths,—and
hiring a Street Inspector to clean their teeth, once, every Fall
and Spring, before “election day,” is their “Cries.” The
most profitable book that Washington Irving ever wrote was
entitled “Cries of New York.” It was embellished with pictures,—which
are very taking in America,—of a man crying
“Clams! clams! Rockaway clams!” dragging along a spavined
horse—no, hide, I should say,—spread over a lean hog,—for
they have no horses proper in America;—an Irish Loafer—one
of our countrymen, dear,—bawling “Vatermelings”—watermelons,
my love;—a low Dutchman, with a two bushel basket
on his shoulder, vociferating “T-Oak”—tea-rusk, sweetest;—a
mule, with a Yankee pulling him, and conclamating
“Sand, sand, any sand!”—which last mentioned article is a
great commodity in a country where they have no carpets.
I am told that Johannes Jacobus Constellatio, the Rothschild
of Columbia, made all his money by carrying around the
streets rat skins, and crying “buy some beaver, Sir? Fresh
from Oregon!”[6]
Every thing here is done by crying. I got
kindest,—they called him “a police-officer,” I believe, by
mere vehement clamor. It was something about one of the
smallest silver spoons—you could take ninety like them in
your mouth, and I only borrowed this single one to show the
people in England how little things are in America.
Joy of my heart! how I wish to see, to hold, to love you!
This brief bed-quilt of my soul will reach you per the British
Queen Steamer in fourteen days. For four nights, then,
about that time, look upon the Moon, throw arrowy glances
into her face:—she will feel the puncture, and laugh, and
make her reflections on me. So shall we meet, in spirit, animally
magnetised. I cannot be with you, bodily for some
time to come. I am taking lessons, from a Yankee Editor,
in Coolness, Sympathy and Gammon.
I wish, my love, to call your particular attention to this
system of “Cries.” A well got up pamphlet addressed to
Lord Melbourne—say by “Anti-Radical,”—dont spell it
Aunty,—might move great force for you, and I may yet see
you in Parliament, the proud representative of the borough of
Snake Hill. Do try, dear!
The Worshipful Corporation of the City of New York have
done wonderful work in this behalf. They have established,
and honorably maintain, schools for “Cries.” “Bellevue,”
“the Long Island Farms,” and “the Egyptian Tombs,” are
the favorite colleges. Private schools, under good protection,
are plentiful. But the birch-holder is chosen in reference to
his strength of lungs. To be able to “sing out,” as they call
it,—that is the great required qualification of a school-master.
A boy, in this republic, has got his education when he can
hurra, squeal, and scream at a political meeting, so as to be
heard five miles off;—not before that maturity.
For people not poor enough to go upon the town, and for
that sort of democrats who advocate the honor of trade because
they cannot get a dinner without it,—and I assure you,
the country is full of such,—night meetings, caucuses they
call them, or carcases,—are held. I was at one, night before
last, drest in male attire, smuggled in by one of your friends,
I can't tell you, now. Mercy! mercy! mercy!—the mixed
up impudence, gin, patriotism and tobacco! Talk of the
State of Maine—why, if those Orators had their prophecies
fulfilled, not a single estate in England would remain, and
Jack Cade would be made lawyer for the whole kingdom—
Jack on both sides, or something worse. Nevertheless, it
was pleasant to hear their sonorous throats rolling out
“Hurra!” I confess I think that word far beyond our Parliamentary,
shrill, argute “Hear,” mixed up with the country
and cockney discord of “Hee,” and “Hea,” and “E.” The
cry of “Hurra for Jackson!” made him President of the
United States. It happened that the old man's message about
the claims of the country on France, full of powder and ball,
got out to Byzantium just before a young man named Stephens,
who was returning from a mission to the Sultan of Petrea,
started in a small privateer for New York. The lad
opened, read, and explained the paper, and at the close, carried
away by his enthusiasm, leaped up six feet, nine times,
threw his cap on top of a five story brick house, and cried out
what he called the old fashioned WAR Cry of “Hurra for
Jackson!” That burst of soul, converted ten Arabs to Christianity
on the spot. They immediately took berths in the
forward cabin with John, crossed the Atlantic, got naturalized
in the Marine Court, and voted the Loco-foco ticket. Their
suffrages turned the election. Two of the Justices, I regret
to hear, have since been “turned out.” The Arabs said, on
—the rascally foreigners are bought over, and are owned by
the other party now. Money and a popular CRY can do
any thing in this wild country. They cry “Log Cabin,” and
“Hard Cider,” now, for General Harrison. They cry “Cider,”
but they drink Rum.
You have heard much of American politics; but you have
no conception of how much they do by cries. The two parties
which I call,—leaving adopted technicalities to the natives,—“Snug
in office,” and “Bleating for office,”—that's
the genius of this republic,—each train their young men, sons,
apprentices, and all, how to halloo. For this purpose, they
establish schools which they call “General Committees of
young men,” employ some forty-five-year-old-colt to sweat
himself down and look thin, to write their resolutions, and
copy extracts from speeches in Congress, and seem to be
youthful, and then to teach the real juvenals how to roar.
Such has been the crying up of this self-righteousness, and
crying down the iniquity of the candidates on the other side,
that several large gathering places have had their walls
cracked, and it is seriously feared by the mortgagees of the
“Masonic” and “Tammany” Halls that they will fall in and
smash the security furnished by the party speakers. But I
never heard the watchword cry of battle more gloriful than in
“the Park.” There needed no torches, though they were
there, for the stars attended that meeting thick, and sang,
though I don't think those democrats heard them. I did.
And when the boisterous ocean of base went up to the treble
of the blessed sky, after some humble flower-planter had sown
his seed, I heard, distinctly, the mingled chorus of seraphic
harps, hymning composite harmony with Loco-Foco shouts
of Hope. O! I am sorry you left this country so soon! If
Don't stop to fish, dear—Codfish are coppery at this season
of the year.
Hang politics! Let me simply speak of the music of the
country, which the democrat simpletons call Cries. In doing
this I do not mean to encroach upon the investments of
Charles Horn, who has entered into great engagements to
diapason and appogiature the street cries, and the yells of
the suffering slaves as their mistresses beat their sculls in with
the kitchen shovel; nor to deprive the poor poets of Gotham
of their glorious gathering up under the butchers' stalls in
market, of things “long time ago.” I speak from my own
gathering. * * *
But, for a simple, lone woman, to lie in bed and hear the
glorious festivals of the early birds of New York! it is rapture
to open your windows and let in the operatic sweetnesses.
If I had musical talent I would save expense, and not trouble
you;—but you will have to engage Horn to furnish the music.
I can give you only the words. E. G. “Hea!—s! adishes!
—raydishers!—raydishus!—watermylions! Harcoal!—charcoal!
Sawbries!—strawburruos!—sawbris! Sun! Morning
Hayold!—Heruld! and Brother Jonathin! Ha-aiep! yep!
hinc! yop! wick! wo! mil-ick!” Then right afterwards,
“Butter-my-leg! or buttermillock! Journal of Commerce,
ma'am? Here's the Courier and Enquirer!” —The last two
cries sotto voce, as those publishers stand upon their dignity,
and employ boys who can whisper so as not to be heard above
the noise of the steam they are letting loose from the delaying
river-crafts.—Ba-a! A-a-a-ah! go the calves and lambs,
half starved on a North River sloop close by. “Go 'board
the Constitution, sir?” cries a fellow in a boat, pulling out
alongside. Next—“Passengers an't paid their passage please
negro pokes you in the ribs, with, “Carriage, ma'am?”—
“Take your baggage?” cry out fifty licensed runaways, hired
by the Corporation out of the House of Refuge—the only
legitimate opera house in the city. Get into Broadway, and
a Greenwich coach runs over you, while a Bowery omnibus
heals your wounds with, “Bowery! right up! take a
seat, ma'm!” while you are rolling in the mud. “Hot corn!
ho-ut co-orn!” cries a muddy-faced Abyssinian, as she pokes
into your amazed eye an ear of maize. “Hot corn, piping
hot! come and buy my lillywhite corn and let me go home.”
—I particularly commend the last cry to your study before
Horn & Co. get hold of it.—“Baked pears! baked pears!',
chimes in an old wench, as she applies a pair each side of
your nose. “Eysters! here's your fine fat eysters! Try
one, ma'm.” Then some tender urchin ushers out his democratic
infidelity, and a third takes up the counter and screams
at the top of his alto, New Ery, Sir? New Ery, Sir?” and
seventy-ninthly chimes in some Conservative in base, jingling
harsh discord, against whom all cry out, “Keep your
Times, sir, keep your Times.” “Any soap fat? any ashes?”
cries a decent looking Yankee, who pretends to be an Irishman,
so that he may have the liberty of the town, and can steal
easily. His comrade at his side cries legitimate Tipperary,
vociferating in tripple allegretto, “Onny sopfat on oshes?”
“Toot! toot! toot!” goes a tin horn, while a little boy running
along side of it cries, “Here's your fine fresh mackerel!
—Toot! toot!—here they go-ey!” Then comes some sweet
minstrelsy from the sweeps,—all beautifully black, and with
the sweetest teeth, my love. I am told some of them are our
own emancipated, from Jamaica. Such music as they have
got! Such throat-rolls! Such eye-waves! It would be
becoming an advocate of anti-slavery. Listen, and put it
into poetry and sing it. “O! o-o-o-o-oh! O! o-o-o-oh-oh!
O! oh! ohi, ohi! oho!” It rolls from their angelic, sooty
tapanities, which the people of the States vulgarly call “lips,”
with such a pleasant grace, that it always reminds me of the
dying howl of my dear lap-dog Julio—whom you fed to death
with too much toast,—crying for another bathe in the milkpot
at breakfast.
I have not mentioned a tenth part of the parties in this
opera—I have given you but some of the principal characters;
you must fill up the under-actors, supernumeraries'
and spectators' names yourself. The Carnival in Rome, or
in Venice, is a fool to it. People there act—here they live
their parts. It is a chapter of their education and duty.
Every crier must be appointed by a court; auctioneers and
masters in Chancery are nominated by the Governor, and
elected by the Senate. Little-necked clam-boys are examined
and certificated by Chief Chamberlain and Lord High
Hospitaller Harry Van Cott, at the Golden City of Jim Acre.
Few, I am told, pass the test; the most being destined for
weeks—Cale.—i. e. Calendar—to improve for their desired
circuit. They get their throats in sweet order after this tuition,
and can sing like gypseys. Sweet monkeys one got my
cornelian off my finger Sunday afternoon, so innocently and
full of play! Poor thing, how sorry he was he couldn't find
it on the carpet! He was an English boy, my precious one,
born on the passage, crying all the way! Wasn't that funny?
But instinct taught his cry. His mother's thought at his conception
taught him New York. Your natural shrewdness
and good sense will readily find the reason why the Americans
have succeeded so desperately in gorging our best musicians;
their mobocratic stools. They love music, and they will have
it. They have a taste. They made Malibran, and gave
her a husband and a name. Every raspberry girl from Bergen
knows this, and when she pours out sound of “rarseburies”
from her wide-startling lips, she is careful to stream
from a deep-rushing throat, and to volume out the tone opposite
the house of the Alderman of the district, and sell to him a
penny a basket cheaper than to any of the commonalty. I
cry you mercy for this long epistle. Far, but faithful,
Believe me, I think their cries “Macedonian,”
| CRIES OF NEW YORK. Sporting scenes and sundry sketches | |