A History of the Cries of London Part 24

as well as "Original," until, at last, one of the two proclaimed itself to be "The Real Old Original Bun House." These two houses did a roaring trade during the whole of Good Friday, their piazzas being crowded, from six in the morning to six in the evening, by crowds of purchasers, loungers, and gossipers. Good King George the Third would come there with his children; and, of course, the n.o.bility and gentry followed his example. These two bun-houses were swallowed up, in the march of improvement, some forty years ago; but on Good Friday, 1830, 240,000 hot cross buns were sold there.

The cross bun is not without its folk-lore. Country folks attach much virtue to the Good Friday buns; and many are kept for "luck's sake" in cottages from one Good Friday to another. They are not only considered to be preservatives from sickness and disease, but also as safeguards from fire and lightning. They are supposed never to get mouldy, as was noted by "Poor Robin," in his Almanack for 1733, under the head of March:--

"Good Friday comes this month: the old woman runs With one a penny, two a penny hot cross-buns; Whose virtue is, if you'll believe what's said, They'll not grow mouldy like the common bread."

Furthermore, be it known, then, in the interests of suffering humanity, that if a piece of a Good Friday bun is grated and eaten, it will cure as many diseases as were ever cured by a patent pill; moreover, the animal world is not shut out from sharing in its benefits, for it will cure a calf from "scouring," and mixed in a warm mash, it is the very best remedy for your cow. Thus the bun is good for the _boun_; in fact, it is good both for man and beast.

The sellers of the Good Friday buns are composed of old men and young men, old women and young women, big children and little children, but princ.i.p.ally boys, and they are of mixed cla.s.ses, as, costers' boys, boys habitually and boys occasionally street-sellers, and boys--"some cry now who never cried before," and for that occasion only. One great inducement to embark in the trade is the hope of raising a little money for the Easter holidays following.

The "cry" of the Hot Cross Bun vendor varies at times and in places--as thus:--

"One-a-penny, two-a-penny, hot cross-buns!

One-a-penny, two for _tup'ence_, hot cross buns!"

While some of a humorous turn of mind like to introduce a little bit of their own, or the borrowed wit of those who have gone before them, and effect the _one_ step which is said to exist from the sublime to the ridiculous, and cry--

"One-a-penny, poker; two-a-penny, tongs!

One-a-penny; two-a-penny, hot cross buns.

One-a-penny, two-a-penny, hot cross-buns!

If your daughters will not eat them, give them to your sons.

But if you haven't any of those pretty little elves, You cannot then do better than eat them up yourselves; One-a-penny, two-a-penny, hot cross buns: All, hot, hot, hot, all hot.

One-a-penny, two-a-penny, hot cross buns!

Burning hot! smoking hot, r-r-r-roking hot-- One-a-penny, two-a-penny, hot cross buns."

But the street hot-cross-bun trade is languis.h.i.+ng--and languis.h.i.+ng, will ultimately die a natural death, as the master bakers and pastrycooks have entered into it more freely, and now send round to their regular customers for orders some few days before each succeeding Good Friday.

A capital writer of NOTES, COMMENT and GOSSIP, who contributes every week to the _City Press_, under the _nom de plume_ of "Dogberry," gave--_inter alia_--a few "_Good Words_," the result of his "_Leisure Hours_" in that journal, on the subject of "Good Friday Customs." March 24, 1883, thus:--

"That the buns themselves are as popular as ever they were when the Real Original Bun Houses existed in Chelsea, was manifest on Thursday evening, though the scene is now changed from the west to the east.

Bishopsgate-street was indeed all alive with people of high and low degree crowding in and out of Messrs. Hill & Sons, who, I am told, turned no less than 47 sacks of flour, representing over 13,000 lbs., into the favourite Good Friday cakes. This ma.s.s was sweetened by 2,800 lbs. of sugar, moistened with 1,500 quarts of milk, and 'lightened'

with 2,200 lbs. of b.u.t.ter. Something like 25,000 paper bags were used in packing the buns, and upwards of 150 pairs of hands were engaged in the making and distribution of the tasty morsels at Bishopsgate and at the West-end branch of Messrs. Hill, at Victoria. The customary business of the firm must have been interrupted considerably by Good Friday, and the forty-seven sacks of flour made into buns represented, I presume, a considerable deduction from the hundred and ninety to two hundred which the firm work up in one form or another every week. But then you can't eat your (Good Friday) cake and have it. There were other bakers and confectioners in the City, too, who appeared to do a thriving trade in buns--notably Messrs. Robertson & Co., in Aldersgate-street. Long live the Good Friday bun!"

DOGBERRY.

HOT CROSS BUNS.

BY MISS ELIZA COOK.

"The clear spring dawn is breaking, and there cometh with the ray, The stripling boy with 's.h.i.+ning face,' and dame in 'hodden grey:'

Rude melody is breathed by all--young--old--the strong, and weak; From manhood with its burly tone, and age with treble squeak.

Forth come the little busy 'Jacks' and forth come little 'Jills,'

As thick and quick as working ants about their summer hills; With baskets of all shapes and makes, of every size and sort; Away they trudge with eager step, through alley, street, and court.

A spicy freight they bear along, and earnest is their care, To guard it like a tender thing from morning's nipping air; And though our rest be broken by their voices shrill and clear, There's something in the well-known 'cry' we dearly love to hear.

'Tis old, familiar music, when 'the old woman runs'

With 'One-a-penny, two-a-penny, Hot Cross Buns!'

Full many a cake of dainty make has gained a great renown, We all have lauded 'Gingerbread' and 'Parliament' done brown; But when did luscious 'Banburies,' or dainty 'Sally Lunns,'

E'er yield such merry chorus theme as 'One-a-penny buns!'

The pomp of palate that may be like old Vitellius fed, Can never feast as mine did on the sweet and fragrant bread; When quick impatience could not wait to share the early meal, But eyed the pile of 'Hot Cross Buns,' and dared to s.n.a.t.c.h and steal.

Oh, the soul must be uncouth as a Vandal's Goth's, or Hun's, That loveth not the melody of 'One-a-penny Buns!'"

And so, awaking in the early morning, we hear the streets ringing with the cry, "Hot Cross Buns." And perhaps when all that we have wrought shall be forgotten, when our name shall be as though it had been written on water, and many inst.i.tutions great and n.o.ble shall have perished, this little bun will live on unharmed. Others, as well as ourselves, will, it may be, lie awake upon their beds, and listen to the murmurs going to and fro within the great heart of London, and, thinking on the half-forgotten days of the nineteenth century, wonder perhaps whether, in these olden times, we too heard the sound of "Hot Cross Buns."

The street Pieman with his "cry," of "Pies all hot! hot!! hot!!!--Penny pies, all hot! hot!!--fruit, eel, beef, veal or kidney pies! pies, all hot-hot-hot," is one of the most ancient of street callings, and to London boys of every degree, "Familiar in their mouths as household words." Nor is the itinerant trade in pies--"Eel, beef, veal, kidney or fruit,"

confined to the great metropolis. All large provincial towns have, from a time going back much farther than even the proverbial "oldest inhabitant"

can recollect, had their old and favourite "Penny Pieman," or, "_Old-all-Hot!_" as folks were ever wont to call him. He was generally a merry dog, and mostly to be found where merriment was going on, he scrupled not to force his way through the thickest of the crowd, knowing that the very centre of action was the best market for his wares.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE PIEMAN; OR, O LORD! WHAT A PLACE IS A CAMP.

"O Lord! what a place is a camp, What wonderful doings are there; The people are all on the tramp, To me it looks devilish queer: Here's ladies a swigging of gin, A crop of macaronies likewise: And I, with my 'Who'll up and win?

Come, here is your hot mutton pies.'

Here's gallopping this way and that, With, 'Madam, stand out of the way;'

Here's, 'O fie! sir, what would you be at?-- Come, none of your impudence pray:'

Here's 'Halt--to the right-about-face,'

Here's laughing, and screaming, and cries: Here's milliners'-men out of place, And I with my hot mutton pies.

Here's the heath all round like a fair, Here's butlers, and sutlers, and cooks; Here's popping away in the air, And captains with terrible looks: Here's 'How do you do?'--'Pretty well; The dust has got into my eyes,'

There's--'Fellow what have you to sell?'

'Why, only some hot mutton pies.'"]

History informs us, through the medium of the halfpenny plain and penny coloured chap book, editions issued by the "Catnach Press," that, one:--

"Simple Simon met a Pieman, Going to the fair; Says simple Simon to the Pieman, 'Let me taste your ware.'

Says the Pieman unto Simon, 'First give me a penny;'

Says Simple Simon to the Pieman, 'I have not got any.'"

But history is silent as to the birth, parentage, or, even place and date of the death of the said Simple Simon, or of this very particular pieman.

Halliwell informs us, through one of the "Nursery Rhymes of England," that on one occasion:--

"Punch and Judy Fought for a pie; Punch gave Judy A sad blow on the eye."

James Lackington--1746-1816--one of the most celebrated of our early cheap booksellers, lived at the "Temple of Muses," Finsbury-place--the shop, into which a coach and six could be driven. This curious mixture of cobbler's wax, piety, vanity, and love of business, has left us in his autobiography, which he published under the t.i.tle of his "_Memoirs and Confessions_," his experience as a pie-boy! or seller of pies, thus:--

"At ten years old I cried apple pies in the street. I had noticed a famous pieman, and thought I could do it better myself. My mode of crying pies soon made me a street favourite, and the old pie merchant left off trade. You see, friend, I soon began to make a noise in the world. But one day I threw my master's child out of a wheelbarrow, so I went home again, and was set by my father to learn his trade, continuing with him for several years. My fame as a pieman led to my selling almanacks on the market days at Christmas. This was to my mind, and I sorely vexed the [regular] vendors of 'Moore,' 'Wing,' and 'Poor Robin.' My next move was to be bound apprentice for seven years."

We frequently meet with the pieman in old prints; and in Hogarth's "March to Finchley," there he stands in the very centre of the crowd, grinning with delight at the adroitness of one robbery, while he is himself the victim of another. We learn from this admirable figure by the greatest painter of English life, that the pieman of the last century perambulated the streets in professional costume; and we gather further, from the burly dimensions of his wares that he kept his trade alive by the laudable practice of giving "a good pennyworth for a penny." Justice compels us to observe that his successors of a later generation have not been very conscientious observers of this maxim.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HOGARTH'S PIEMAN.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: NICE NEW! NICE NEW!

All hot! All Hot Hot! All Hot!

_Here they are, two sizes bigger than last week._]

At this date there was James Sharpe England, a noted flying pieman, who attended all the metropolitan festive gatherings; he walked about hatless, to sell his savoury wares, with his hair powdered and tied _en queue_, his dress neat, ap.r.o.n spotless, jesting wherever he went, with a mighty voice in recommendation of the puddings and pies, which, for the sake of greater oddity he sometimes carried on a wooden platter.

[Ill.u.s.tration: JAMES SHARPE ENGLAND, _The Flying Pieman_.]