Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 August 1885 — SOME LONDON CRIES. [ARTICLE]

SOME LONDON CRIES.

A Chapter on Sounds More or Fegs Familiar to Tourists’ Furs. “Saloop—loop—loop!” was formerly a well-known cry in London. The decoction sold nnder this name seems,, however, to have been superseded by coffee when that article became cheap. Saloop seems to have been hold down to modern times at street stalls, from a late hour at night to early morning, jnst as coffee is sold now. Charles Lamb says of it: “There is a composition, the groundwork of which I have understood to be sweet woody cel pt sassafras. This wood boiled down to a kind of tea, and tempered wiih an infusion pf milk and sugar, hath to some tastes a delicacy beyond the China luxury. This is saloop, the precious herb-woman’s darling; the delight of the early gardener; the delight, and oh! I fear, too often the envy of-the unpennied sweep.” He goes on to speak of those “who from stalls and under open sky, dispense the same savory mess to humble customers, at that dead time of dawn, when (as extremes meet) the rake reeling home from his midnight cups, and the hardhanded artisan leaving his bed to resume the premature labors of the day, jostle one another.” We have a large number of street venders of flowers, and their cry, “Penny a bunch, violets 1” “Wall flowers —sweet wall flowers!” are not unwelcome 4 while the cry of “Lavender—sweet lavender!” reminds us that summer is drawing to a close. A writer of the first quarter of the present century says: “To the east of Temple Bar the flower girl is the herald of spiing. She cries ‘Cowslips!’ then she scSeams ‘Bow pots—sweet and pretty bow pots!’ When I was a child I got a bow pot of as many wall flowers and harebells a3 l could then hold in my. hand, with a sprig of sweet briar at the back of the bunch, for a halfpenny—such a handful 1” The quieter streets and sqtxares of London are occasionally roused in winter evenings by men (generally in couples) who shout out “Alarming nows!” They generally contrive, by crying a different portion of their news, (as in a singing round) to confuse their hearers with such stray items as “orful trajerdeo!” “neighborhood!” “square,” or “street,” “five children,” “trajerdee,” “orful,” etc.; and they always demand a high price for their paper, which seldom contains any very special information. Formerly it was the custom for newsmen to cry their papers through the streets, anil they carried a tin horn wherewith to attract notice. Hone, in his “Everyday Book,” says: “Bloody news! Great victory! or more frequently, Extraordinary gazette! were, till recently, the usual loud bellowings of fellows with stentorian lungs, accompanied by a loud blast of a long tin horn, which announced to the delighted populace of London Ihe martial achievements of the modern Marlborough.” A copy of the gazette or newspaper they were crying was generally aflixed under their hatband in front, and their demand for a newspaper was generally one shilling. The use of a horn was soon afterwatd prohibited. In the days of the original Marlborough the news was cried in the same fashion, for we read in the Spectator : “A bloody battle alarms the town from one end to another in an instant. Every motion of the French is published in so great a hurry that one would think the enemy were at our gates.”— All the Year Bound.