DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16516#0100
96 PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
PHYSIOLOGY OF THE LONDON IDLER.
CHAPTER IX.--OF THE MOONER {continued).
0 keep company with the pro-
gress of the Mooner from Picca-
dilly to Lincoln's Inn, we must not
now walk beside him across St.
Martin's Lane.
When the sugar-plum shop was
existing in New Street, it proved,
next to the book-stall, his grand
resting-place. He was riveted by
the lollipops, oyster-shells, rashers
of saccharine bacon, eggs, calves'
heads,legs of mutton, Albert rock,
and brandy-balls, which were so temptingly displayed therein. But
now the shop has gone—whither we know not, but incline to the idea
that it was gradually sucked away by the legion of sweet-toothed
little boys who whilome clustered round its windows—so the Mooner
passes on without stopping, except for a minute at the Lilliputian
warehouse, where the tiny socks and shoes call forth all his admira- j nised at these resorts, by the length of time he takes up in perusing
have an antique air; they are evidently not of the same race that
bustle about Verey's windows, amongst the cakes and bonbons ; but
these march about the table amidst the crumbs with an important
gravity, induced by their having used the house a long time, and thus*
established themselves upon terms of the most intimate familiarity
with the frequenters.
A rash landlord once made an attempt at innovation by hanging a
play-bill upon one of the hat-pegs; but it was met with intense
indignati on on the part of his regular customers, and was forthwith
taken down—the void thus occasioned being filled up again by a
framed advertisement of some pale ale of peculiar merit. Elsewhere
a portrait of some favourite waiter of other days may be seen
"delivered in trust to the landlord;" and there is a vision of
numerous punchbowls through the window of the bar, which looks
into the room, and sometimes discloses a young beaming face, belong-
ing to the guardian nymph of the lemons and lumps of sugar, in
pleasing contrast with the antique fittings-up of the room.
Embryo Templars, sharp puking attorneys, quiet men of business
pertaining to Fleet-street who live out of town, and verdant
clerks, here refresh themselves; together with young men of orderly
and precise bearing, who are slow at taking a joke, and incline to-
stewed cheese by way of dessert. The Mooner may soon be recep-
tion ; and he cannot exactly understand how the little gloves, that
appear to be flying all about the window like so many kid butterflies,
are attached to the panes of glass. His only other source of delay
may be to listen to the catalogue of a perambulating melodist, who
appears anxious to dispose of many yards of new and favourite songs
for a penny. We would give a report of the merchant's oration, but
the subject is worn out.
When the Mooner has once entered the middle thoroughfare of
Covent Garden Market, half-an-hour elapses before he makes his
appearance at the other end of the avenue. He raises or depresses
his nose to smell every plant and bouquet that he may chance to
pass, and inquires the price of every pottle of early potatoes on his
road. This he does with an earnestness of manner that almost
inclines the seller to think he is about giving a fashionable dinner-
party, where, of course, the greatest point to make it go off well is,
to persuade each of your guests to eat nine immature French beans,
and two small potatoes about the size of birds' eggs, with an appa-
rent indifference as to the extent of consumption that may induce
your friends to believe you are in the habit of dining from such dainties
every day, as long as they are out of season—or, at least, sufficiently
removed from their proper time of perfection to render them extra-
ordinary delicacies.
The rest of the journey is performed by the Mooner in an uncer-
tain space of time, varying in accordance with the number of play-
bills he may encounter, the accidental upset of a patent safety-cab, or
the sudden outbreak of a street-row. If the latter of these causes
should be drawn to a sudden close by the interference of the police,
he may possibly digress to the left, as far as the Bow-street Office ;
but should it pass off quietly, his only other grand delay will be at
the stage-door of Drury-lane, where he passes away a pleasant half-
hour in endeavouring to recognise the histrionic talent that passes in
and out that mysterious portal in the unambitious toilet of a morning
rehearsal.
We have occasionally encountered many of these Mooners in the
quiet taverns of Fleet-street, where they are apt to dine, because the
gravity and absence of anything like bustle in those steady eating-
houses harmonises well with their disposition. They are comfortable
places too—those old Fleet-street taverns — and they carry the
thoughts back to the days when Dr. Johnson blew his cloud—we are
not exactly following his lexicographical definition of words—by the
side of the old-fashioned fire-place, and occasionally floored some
unhappy wight with the sledge-hammer of his conversation—speci-
mens of which are so agreeably brought in amongst the anecdotes of
the Colossus of our language which sparkle in Boswell's autobiography.
There is a similar character pertaining to all these haunts,—an
antique room with a sanded floor, and adorned with a smoke-disco-
loured paper, which, if removed a t any time with a view towards beau-
tifying the apartment,has invariably injured the business of the house,
and driven away the customers. Some have faded curtains between the
feeding-stalls ; and on the mantelpiece, before the old looking-glass,
may possibly be placed two tumblers full of wooden pipelights
—allumettes is the more refined term—and a pewter inkstand, con-
taining a black dry coagulum which was once ink, and a nibless pen.
There is a clock that ticks with a solemn and subdued beat, and a
weatherglass of grave aspect, celebrated for its inverse predictions of
coming change. Even the flies that linger about these localities
the Standard.
Two or three other customers are waiting for it, but he heeds them
not; he goes regularly through the paper, from the first advertisement
to the imprint, with a prolixity that induces expectants to think lie-
either cannot spell very fluently, or that his comprehension is not
over rapid, much to the annoyance of the others, some of whom have
refreshed themselves with the advertisements of the outside half of
the Times for the last twenty minutes.
There are various parts of London frequented by the Mooners,
where, like roach pitches in the Thames, you are almost certain to
find a specimen of the tribe. On fine days they delight to bask in the
sun upon the floating piers of the fourpenny steam-boats ; and at all
times the erection of a new club-house, or foundation of a new lamp-
post, is a sure piece of ground-bait to entice them. They collect in
great numbers round the Houses of Parliament on favourable after-
noons, gazing listlessly at the cabs and led horses of the honourable
members ; and above all, they love to lean over the parapet of London
Bridge, loitering away the hours in watching the bustle of the Pool, the
slow progress of the lighters, and the departure of the Gravesend,
Woolwich, and Boulogne steamers. The Mooner does not often
venture on board these latter craft, because, once there, whatever
may be the inducement to stop, he must go on—a species of comparative
progression which does not at all suit his habits; and for this very
reason, he prefers the most obsolete stage-coach to the whisking
railway.
A u reste, the Mooner is a harmless being; not susceptible of any
extreme pleasure; but, on the other hand, equally insensible with
PHYSIOLOGY OF THE LONDON IDLER.
CHAPTER IX.--OF THE MOONER {continued).
0 keep company with the pro-
gress of the Mooner from Picca-
dilly to Lincoln's Inn, we must not
now walk beside him across St.
Martin's Lane.
When the sugar-plum shop was
existing in New Street, it proved,
next to the book-stall, his grand
resting-place. He was riveted by
the lollipops, oyster-shells, rashers
of saccharine bacon, eggs, calves'
heads,legs of mutton, Albert rock,
and brandy-balls, which were so temptingly displayed therein. But
now the shop has gone—whither we know not, but incline to the idea
that it was gradually sucked away by the legion of sweet-toothed
little boys who whilome clustered round its windows—so the Mooner
passes on without stopping, except for a minute at the Lilliputian
warehouse, where the tiny socks and shoes call forth all his admira- j nised at these resorts, by the length of time he takes up in perusing
have an antique air; they are evidently not of the same race that
bustle about Verey's windows, amongst the cakes and bonbons ; but
these march about the table amidst the crumbs with an important
gravity, induced by their having used the house a long time, and thus*
established themselves upon terms of the most intimate familiarity
with the frequenters.
A rash landlord once made an attempt at innovation by hanging a
play-bill upon one of the hat-pegs; but it was met with intense
indignati on on the part of his regular customers, and was forthwith
taken down—the void thus occasioned being filled up again by a
framed advertisement of some pale ale of peculiar merit. Elsewhere
a portrait of some favourite waiter of other days may be seen
"delivered in trust to the landlord;" and there is a vision of
numerous punchbowls through the window of the bar, which looks
into the room, and sometimes discloses a young beaming face, belong-
ing to the guardian nymph of the lemons and lumps of sugar, in
pleasing contrast with the antique fittings-up of the room.
Embryo Templars, sharp puking attorneys, quiet men of business
pertaining to Fleet-street who live out of town, and verdant
clerks, here refresh themselves; together with young men of orderly
and precise bearing, who are slow at taking a joke, and incline to-
stewed cheese by way of dessert. The Mooner may soon be recep-
tion ; and he cannot exactly understand how the little gloves, that
appear to be flying all about the window like so many kid butterflies,
are attached to the panes of glass. His only other source of delay
may be to listen to the catalogue of a perambulating melodist, who
appears anxious to dispose of many yards of new and favourite songs
for a penny. We would give a report of the merchant's oration, but
the subject is worn out.
When the Mooner has once entered the middle thoroughfare of
Covent Garden Market, half-an-hour elapses before he makes his
appearance at the other end of the avenue. He raises or depresses
his nose to smell every plant and bouquet that he may chance to
pass, and inquires the price of every pottle of early potatoes on his
road. This he does with an earnestness of manner that almost
inclines the seller to think he is about giving a fashionable dinner-
party, where, of course, the greatest point to make it go off well is,
to persuade each of your guests to eat nine immature French beans,
and two small potatoes about the size of birds' eggs, with an appa-
rent indifference as to the extent of consumption that may induce
your friends to believe you are in the habit of dining from such dainties
every day, as long as they are out of season—or, at least, sufficiently
removed from their proper time of perfection to render them extra-
ordinary delicacies.
The rest of the journey is performed by the Mooner in an uncer-
tain space of time, varying in accordance with the number of play-
bills he may encounter, the accidental upset of a patent safety-cab, or
the sudden outbreak of a street-row. If the latter of these causes
should be drawn to a sudden close by the interference of the police,
he may possibly digress to the left, as far as the Bow-street Office ;
but should it pass off quietly, his only other grand delay will be at
the stage-door of Drury-lane, where he passes away a pleasant half-
hour in endeavouring to recognise the histrionic talent that passes in
and out that mysterious portal in the unambitious toilet of a morning
rehearsal.
We have occasionally encountered many of these Mooners in the
quiet taverns of Fleet-street, where they are apt to dine, because the
gravity and absence of anything like bustle in those steady eating-
houses harmonises well with their disposition. They are comfortable
places too—those old Fleet-street taverns — and they carry the
thoughts back to the days when Dr. Johnson blew his cloud—we are
not exactly following his lexicographical definition of words—by the
side of the old-fashioned fire-place, and occasionally floored some
unhappy wight with the sledge-hammer of his conversation—speci-
mens of which are so agreeably brought in amongst the anecdotes of
the Colossus of our language which sparkle in Boswell's autobiography.
There is a similar character pertaining to all these haunts,—an
antique room with a sanded floor, and adorned with a smoke-disco-
loured paper, which, if removed a t any time with a view towards beau-
tifying the apartment,has invariably injured the business of the house,
and driven away the customers. Some have faded curtains between the
feeding-stalls ; and on the mantelpiece, before the old looking-glass,
may possibly be placed two tumblers full of wooden pipelights
—allumettes is the more refined term—and a pewter inkstand, con-
taining a black dry coagulum which was once ink, and a nibless pen.
There is a clock that ticks with a solemn and subdued beat, and a
weatherglass of grave aspect, celebrated for its inverse predictions of
coming change. Even the flies that linger about these localities
the Standard.
Two or three other customers are waiting for it, but he heeds them
not; he goes regularly through the paper, from the first advertisement
to the imprint, with a prolixity that induces expectants to think lie-
either cannot spell very fluently, or that his comprehension is not
over rapid, much to the annoyance of the others, some of whom have
refreshed themselves with the advertisements of the outside half of
the Times for the last twenty minutes.
There are various parts of London frequented by the Mooners,
where, like roach pitches in the Thames, you are almost certain to
find a specimen of the tribe. On fine days they delight to bask in the
sun upon the floating piers of the fourpenny steam-boats ; and at all
times the erection of a new club-house, or foundation of a new lamp-
post, is a sure piece of ground-bait to entice them. They collect in
great numbers round the Houses of Parliament on favourable after-
noons, gazing listlessly at the cabs and led horses of the honourable
members ; and above all, they love to lean over the parapet of London
Bridge, loitering away the hours in watching the bustle of the Pool, the
slow progress of the lighters, and the departure of the Gravesend,
Woolwich, and Boulogne steamers. The Mooner does not often
venture on board these latter craft, because, once there, whatever
may be the inducement to stop, he must go on—a species of comparative
progression which does not at all suit his habits; and for this very
reason, he prefers the most obsolete stage-coach to the whisking
railway.
A u reste, the Mooner is a harmless being; not susceptible of any
extreme pleasure; but, on the other hand, equally insensible with