Mudie's

The expense of books in the Victorian era was such that even the middle-classes would struggle to build a library of favourite works. In the 1840s, Charles Edward Mudie (1818-1890), son of a secondhand bookseller and newsagent, began to lend books from his bookshop. It was not an original idea, but Mudie was in the right time and right place and set the right price. In the 1850s, he moved to a large new premises on New Oxford Street, and 'Mudie's Circulating Library' soon became a major force in Victorian publishing. Like Waterstone's in the UK today, a book being taken in hundreds (even thousands) by Mudie's could make or break an author; and Mudie himself was not above excluding books from his library on moral grounds, much to the chagrin of authors and publishers alike. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography notes 'His business also serviced readers overseas, shipping tin trunks of books to India, Cape Colony, Egypt, and other British colonies.'  It's remarkable now to think that a subscription lending library - admittedly one that was willing to despatch books across the length and breadth of the British Empire - was once the major force in publishing.

Here's a relevant article from the Leisure Hour of 1861:

FOR a number of years past, the name which stands at the head of this article has been growing more and more widely diffused, and more and more familiar in the mouths of the reading public. It greets us now, whichever way we turn--within doors and without, at our firesides in winter, at the tables of our friendly hosts when we visit, in our country trips and excursions, and on summer sea-side rambles. It is a part of the nomenclature of our domestic circles at all seasons, and whenever we hear it mentioned it is associated with some agreeable recollection or pleasant anticipation. Not a few of us, probably, have ceased to connect it with any idea of an individual ; it is rather to us the representative of an inexhaustible store of recreative literature -- a never-failing quarry of entertainment and information of all kinds, ever available for our use.
    We call to remembrance a very different state of things as regards books, in the domain of home, and the domestic appreciation of them; for we have recollections, dating very far back, of the old- fashioned circulating libraries of the days when the romance, gory and ghostly, and the novel, too often indecent and immoral, formed the principal if not the sole stock of the proprietors. These were clad in one stereotyped uniform of marbled paper covers ; and although they were constantly circulating, they may be said, so far as the more staid and sober part of the community meddled with them, to have circulated rather surreptitiously than openly. Even if the fashionable fair one read novels, she did not always care to make a boast of so doing ; if she pulled the check-string and drew up at the library for them, it was perhaps with the ostensible purpose of purchasing stationary, or even of giving orders for a new dress; for the marble-papered volumes were sometimes seen in those days ranged on the shelves of the mantua- maker, and Miss Gopher, who dabbled quite as much in sentiment as she did in quilted satin, was a distinguished judge of the merits of fashionable authors as well as of fashions. The capacious muff of those days was a convenient receptacle for three delicious volumes; and we have known them to be sent home in a parcel purporting to contain stuffs and bombazines. Frequently my lady's Abigail was the medium of transport, and then there was no attempt at disguising facts, as she would be pretty sure to dip into them, and pounce upon the tender passages, as she carried them through the streets.
    It was in those days that reading first became a passion with us ; and we remember well that the marble-covered books were expressly and most strictly forbidden—and not without reason, though we were sometimes guilty of transgressions against the parental law. With shame now we remember the contrivances to smuggle the contraband literature indoors. Once within the house, by hook or by crook, we had to lug it off secretly to some garret or lumber-room, there to "snatch a fearful joy" in devouring it alone. Thanks to an improved moral tone in our popular writers, the youth of our time have less temptation to practise such evasions. The supervision which their forefathers often exercised in vain, has become far less necessary than it was in their time; partly because the critical censors of the present day are less tolerant of immoral and questionable productions than their predecessors were, but chiefly because the public, which is the arbiter of a writer's reputation and fortune, will resent in an emphatic way any marked laxity in morals or breach of the social proprieties. It is, in fact, owing to the  improved common sentiment of the paying classes of the people, that, while books have multiplied so amazingly within the last two or three decades, they have become to so large a degree the instruments of good and not of evil not, however, but what there is still abundant room for improvement in this respect.
    Standing in front of Mudies counter, in that huge intellectual repository, (which, by the way, con- fronts its material antithesis, the grandiose slop emporium of Messrs. Moses,) one sees something of the operation of the great circulating system of which this is the centre, and something too which is very different from the experiences of those old days in the same walk. It is not madame, with her capacious and convenient muff, or the tripping Abigail in second-hand finery, who summons with a tap-tap on the counter the spectacled bibliopole from the back parlour, and whispers a solicitation for the third volume of the "Mystery of the Haunted Dell ;" but it is all the world and all the world's wife, in want of everything worth reading that has been published for these seven years past, keeping the swivelled doors in a perpetual swing, and a dozen or two of ministrant Mercuries perpetually on the alert. Books of all dimensions and hues are raining in and rippling out under a system of registration, by means of little scraps of paper hurriedly written, which are the vouchers for delivery. The applicants are the young and the old—the well-dressed and the "seedy"—the clergyman, the student, the author, the critic—forming a large section of the ever-reading and seldom-purchasing public. Then there are the representatives of May Fair and Belgravia, in the shape of a file of tall footmen, each with a whole shelf of mauve and magenta-coloured volumes, for which each expects and intends to carry away the change in a corresponding number of new ones, the list of which he has brought with him. Subscribers, or their messengers, who have trudged a long distance, are resting on the benches and looking on until their turn comes. Others, who have not made up their mind what to read next, are poring over the catalogue, and endeavouring to come to a decision. Meanwhile, the business does not slacken ; books come in and go out as fast as ever ; carriages draw up at the door, and gentle-folks alight to execute their own commissions and chose for themselves. It seems odd, amidst such a continuous influx of counter business, to hear no jingling of cash ; but that is a sound which one has no objection to miss.
    After all, this continuous influx and reflux over the counter gives but an imperfect and probably inadequate notion of the extent of the circulation radiating from this point. Much of the business is done by correspondence instead of personal application ; thousands of the books travel by rail, and cargoes are daily delivered in the suburbs of the metropolis by flying carts. Then there are the suburban agencies, where the well-known yellow label figures in the window, and invites you to the perusal of a new work almost before the newspapers have made you aware of its publication.
    The subscribers to Mudie's are not merely individuals, reading for pleasure or profit ; they are families ; they are friendly co-operating coteries, who combine together to pay the subscription, and pass on the books from one to another ; they are societies for mutual instruction ; they are publishers distributing the books among their compilers and editors ; they are institutes, reading-rooms, book-clubs, business-clubs, and social•clubs ; they are bankers subscribing for the benefit of their clerks, and they are heads of establishments concerned in the intellectual advancement of their " hands" and employees. Looking to the nature of the reading appetite, and recognising what a devouring element it is, we may be sure that when demands of such a multitudinous kind have to be met, it is not a limited selection from the literature of the country that will satisfy them ; and the difficulty must be with the man who caters for all classes of readers, and who is expected to provide nearly everything that issues from the press -- not what he shall choose, so much as what, for the sake of the general well-being, he shall reject. When Perthes, the famous Hamburg patriot and book-seller, first began business, he formed a resolution, which he never allowed to be shaken, that he would for no consideration be the instrument of producing or of circulating a work of questionable tendency. Whether Mr. Mudie has adopted any similar resolution we do not pretend to know ; but it would appear, from a late discussion in the literary organs of the day, that he has had the temerity to exercise some sort of supervision over the works he circulates, and, for reasons which we should be the last to impeach, has declined to place certain volumes upon his shelves. We cannot see that this affords to any man a just ground of com- plaint. A librarian, like any other tradesman, has a right to deal in what wares he chooses, and, if he have extraordinary facilities for disseminating them, is not only justified in making such a use of his facilities as shall be concordant with his own sense of right, but is morally bound so to do : he would not be an honest man if he did otherwise. It is open to objectors to such a course, to organize machinery for the dissemination of their own opinions and principles, if they choose : if they are  wronged, the public will assuredly set them right. But we have no desire to enter the arena in this battle of the books.
    Of the number of volumes which form the floating stock of this everybody's library, we can form not even an approximate idea, much less of the numbers annually passing from hand to hand. Some notion, however, of the amount of business may be gathered from the fact that frequently a large edition of a popular work is required for the use of this house alone. Sometimes as many as from two to three thousand copies have not been more than sufficient to meet the demand ; and even of works quite ephemeral in their character, hundreds of copies often have to be purchased.
    To meet the requirements of the increasing business, a large hall has lately been added to the premises, and appropriated to exclusively business purposes. It is an elegant structure in the Ionic style of architecture, affording space for some fifteen to twenty thousand volumes on the shelves, which run round the walls and galleries above.
    It is not easy to estimate at once the influence and effects of such an establishment as this. Perhaps no mere business speculation ever before produced results so pervading and so generally agreeable. After having Mudie in the house for the last ten years—often the last guest at night, and frequently the first in the morning---by the fireside in winter, by the open garden window and under the talking foliage in summer ; after travelling with him abroad, and sulking with him at home after reading hundreds of volumes which, but for him, we should never have had the chance of reading at all—we sometimes ask ourselves what we should do without him? Really we don't know; one thing we must do—we must make more use of that Museum Reading-room ticket which has grown almost mouldy in our pocket ; for we should not be able to transport the advantages of the Museum to our armchair at home.

And here's some detail of how it all worked c.1908 (Dickens's Dictionary of London)

LIBRARIES (CIRCULATING).
The principal circulating libraries for general literature, especially the more recently published works, are -W. H. SMITH AND SONS'S, 186, Strand; chief London exchange office Kingsway, W.C.; MUDIE'S, 30 to 34 New Oxford-st. Terms for W. H. Smith and Son's, payable in advance at any of the branches or the head office:-
    FOR EXCHANGING AT A LONDON BRANCH OR HEAD OFFICE.    Class A.-The newest and all books in circulation

	Six Months	Twelve Months
One vol.	£0 12s 0	£1 1s 0
Two vols.	£0 17s 6	£1 11s 0
Four vols.	£1 3s 0	£2 2s 0
Eight vols.	£1 15s 0	£3 3s 0
Fifteen vols.	£3 0s 0	£5 5s 0

    For these terms, also, books can be exchanged by post, rail, or any other available means desired from the Head Office to any part of the United Kingdom. A deposit, for cost of postage forward, is required for this. The expense of carriage and postage to and from is home by the subscriber.
    FOR DELIVERY AND COLLECTION (WEEKLY) TO AND FROM SUBSCRIBERS' RESIDENCES IN LONDON - Class A.-The newest and all books in circulation.

	Six Months	Twelve Months
Three vols.	£1 3s 0	£2 2s 0
Six vols.	£1 15s 0	£3 3s 0
Twelve vols.	£3 0s 0	£5 5s 0
For every additional 3 vols.	£0 12s 6	£1 1s 0

    PROVINCIAL BRANCHES - FOR EXCHANGING AT ANY OF THE SUBURBAN AND COUNTRY DEPOTS - Class A-The newest and ill books in circulation.

	Six Months	Twelve Months
One vol.	£0 12s 0	£1 1s 0
Two vols.	£0 17s 6	£1 11s 6
Three vols.	£1 3s 0	£2 2s 0
Four vols.	£1 8s 0	£2 10s 0
Six vols.	£1 15s 0	£3 3s 0
Twelve vols.	£3 0s 0	£5 5s 0

    SPECIAL TRAVELLING SUBSCRIPTIONS - Entitling subscribers to exchange at any depot without previous notice.

	Six Months	Twelve Months
One vol.	£0 17s 6	£1 10s 0
Two vols.	£1 3s 0	£2 2s 0
Three vols.	£1 8s 6	£2 12s 6

The following are the addresses of bookstalls and bookshops London at which subscriptions can be paid and books obtained:-
    Brompton-rd Railway Station
    Brondesbury, 352, High-rd.
    Camden Town, Tube Station.
    Cannon-st Railway Station.
    Chalk Farm, 168, Regents-pk rd, N.W.
    Charing +, Railway Station.
    Dover-st, Piccadilly.
    Down-st Tube Station.
    Earl's Court Railway Station
    Earl's Court, 166, Earls-ct-rd
    Fenchurch-st Railway Station
    Finsbury-pk Railway Station
    Finsbury-pk City Electric Railway Station.
    Golder's Green Tube Station
    Hampstead, 483, Finchley-rd
    Hampstead, 12, Swiss-ter, N W
    Hampstead Heath, 34, Rosslyn- hill.
    17, Hanover-st, W.
    Holborn Viaduct Railway Station
    Hyde-pk-corner Tube Station.
    King's Cross Railway Station.
    Kensington, Addison-rd, 4, Russsel-gdns.
    Kilburn, 103, High-rd.
    Kingsway, W.C.
    Liverpool-st Railway Station.
    London-br, L.B & S.C. Ry Statn.
    London-br, S.E. Railway Station.
    London-br, S. London Ry. Stat.
    Ludgate-hill Railway Station.
    Mansion House Railway Station.
    Marylebone Railway Station.
    Moorgate-st G.N. & C.R. Station.
    Mornington-cres. Tube Station.
    Monument Railway Station.
    Paddington, 19, Craven-rd, W.
    Salisbury House, London Wall, E.C.
    South Kensington Tube Station.
    St. Pancras Railway Station.
    St. Paul's Railway Station.
    Sloane-sq, No. 36.
    Tufnell-pk Railway Station.
    Uxbridge-rd, 161, Holland-rd, W.
    Victoria B. & S.C. Railway Statn.
    Victoria S.E. & C. Railway Statn.
    Waterloo-rd Railway Station.
    Waterloo-rd Loop Line Railway Station.
    Waterloo-rd South Railway Stat.
    West Kensington Railway Station.
    Willesden Green, 76, Walm-la.
    With 800 branches throughout England and Wales.

MUDIE'S SELECT LIBRARY, 30 to 34, Oxford-st, is probably the oldest institution of its kind in the world, being started in 1842 by Mr. C. K. Mudie. It claims to be to-day the largest, best equipped and most widely-known lending library in existence, and notes that it has in addition to current publications an unrivalled collection of standard works, accumulated over sixty years. Classified catalogues are issued at the beginning of each year, one of English and the other of foreign books, 1s. 6d. each, or 2s. 6d. the two. Supplementary lists are issued monthly, free to subscribers. It is probable that the advantage of getting the latest modern books of fiction is a great branch of all libraries' business, and certainly of Messrs. Mudies. The yellow label has been known now for generations. Terms for subscribers obtaining their books from the chief offices, i.e. 30 to 34, Oxford-st; 48, Queen Victoria-st, E.C., 241, Brompton-rd, exchanging as often as they like:

	Three Months	Six Months	Twelve Months
1 vol.	£0 7s 0	£0 12s 0	£1 1s 0
2 vols.	£0 10s 6	£0 18s 0	£1 11s 6
3 "	£0 12s 0	£1 1s 0	£1 17s 0
4 "	£0 14s 0	£1 4s 0	£2 2s 0
8 "	£1 8s 0	£2 8s 0	£4 4s 0
10 "	£1 15s 0	£3 0s 0	£5 5s 0

    Books are delivered once a week in the suburbs at an additional fee to the above, and arrangements are made by which provincial subscribers may have them forwarded by rail as often as required.

The death of Mudie's was, of course ... the public library.

The Cab-stand

Sarcastic Peeler. "GOING TO 'AVE A NEW 'ORSE THEN, CABBY?"
Cabby. "NEW OSS, 'OW D'YE MEAN?"
Sarcastic Peeler. "WHY YOU'VE GOT THE FRAMEWORK TOGETHER ALREADY!"

A marvellous piece from the Leisure Hour of 1860, on that topic of perennial fascination to Victorian reporters of low-life ... the cabbie and the humble cab-stand.

THE CAB-STAND.

The cab-stand, as an institution long established in London and in other large towns, must be familiar to most of our readers, though, few of them, probably, regard it as an object of any peculiar interest. A string of cabs in single file, each with its "speculative" steed, drowsily resting his weary legs one at a time; a few drivers, some asleep on the box, others in straggling groups, exchanging rough compliments, or, with hands buried in their pockets, and coats buttoned to the chin, padding the sloppy ground, and peering wistfully about for customers; some fifty yards of macadam in solution, or of granite paving-stones ankle-deep in mud, on the surface of which lie fragmentary whisps of hay and patches of scattered chaff, with here and there a pewter pot and scraps of tobacco-pipe; such, and nothing more, is the cab-stand to the common eye. Perhaps, if we look at it it little nearer, we may see a little more. Let us try.
    The cab-stand which is the subject of our contemplation stands a little way in the suburbs — it matters not in what direction — and its site runs parallel, not with a row of shops, of private houses, or even with a brick wall, but with the wooden palings which divide the garden-grounds of a nursery-man from the public road, The vehicles, in close rank, touch the kerb, and the long narrow avenue between that and the palings is, to all intents and purposes, cabbie's private domain and park ; the "public in general" having by tacit consent made it over to him, and chosen the other side of the way for themselves. We have noticed, for years past, that this particular Stand is a favourite with the professors of the whip, and that, let the weather be what it will, and though the cabs may have vanished from all other Stands, you are pretty certain to meet with one there. There are, in truth, more reasons than one for this preference. In the first place, the spot is rural and pleasant; a the second place, it is situate at a point just over the mile from the two great railway stations, and therefore is hardly liable to the abomination of a sixpenny fare; in the third place, the beer at the neighbouring "public" is of the kind for which cabmen have a predilection ; and fourthly, the Stand is not plagued by a table of fares and distances stuck up on a board, which at other places is apt, by its gratuitous information, to mar the speculations of the members of the brotherhood. We might add, as another reason, that the site is almost clear of the omnibus routes, and thus the cab-drivers suffer little from the competition of conductors.
    The above reasons may perhaps account for the partiality of the cabmen for this particular Stand. At any rate, here you will find them in considerable force all the day long, and, for the matter of that, all the night too. What they do in the pauses—and they are very long pauses sometimes—between the fares, it is not easy to declare. There is a good deal of barter going on at times; we have seen exchanges of a rather singular kind. take place, which have quite puzzled. our powers of valuation; such as two capes from a many-caped coat, in compensation for a dog-collar — a catch-'em-alive rat-trap against a nose-bag — a pair of gaiters, rather shreddy from wear, for a curry-comb — and a razor, not by any means warranted to shave, in lieu of a tobacco-box, The occupations of an industrial kind are many, but are all pursued in an off-hand kind of way, as though it did not much matter if they were neglected in toto. There is polishing of plate harness, a little greasing of wheels, some dusting of cushions, ditto cleaning of panels and muddy spokes, with a show at least of sweeping out and ventilating their vehicles, which are, for the most part, sadly in want of renovation. Then there is the plaiting of whips, and the renewal of whip-ends, and much chaffering on the score of whip-handles. But the chief pastime of all is conversation, and exchange of; ideas on matters public and private. We are or opinion that it would be extremely difficult for any other than a cabman to come at the real sentiments of the fraternity, even if he were admitted to these open-air but private conclaves ; because the discussions are carried on in a phraseology so wonderfully abbreviated as to be intelligible only to themselves. Their utterances are the veriest samples of the multum in parvo ever met with. Take a specimen which we overheard accidentally the other day.
    "Seen Brimble, Ned ?"
    " Reyther !"
    "How about his old 'ooman?
    "All right four o'clock 's mornin."
    "Bwoy?"
    " Gal."
    "That makes five on 'em ?"
    "Six."
     "Wh-whew !"
    Thus is the narrative of Mr. Brimble's domestic felicity shorn of its fair proportions on the cab-stand, and thus curtly is expressed the brotherly sympathy in his paternal embarrassments. There s a valid ground, however, for this brevity of speech and it will be found in the peculiar circumstances of the man who drives a cab. He cannot dwell at any length upon details, or indulge in the luxury of exordium or peroration, for a very obvious reason: he is liable to be called off the Stand at any moment to take up a fare. The cry of "Cab— cab!" or the uplifted finger of a patron a furlong down the street, would cut short his argument, however long, and spoil his logic in an instant; so he steers clear of such contingencies by avoiding circumlocutions, and talking plump at the bull's eye. He deals much in monosyllables am in significant ejaculations, and will express himself at times in a kind of short-hand, which is partly speech and partly gesticulation, but all wonderfully comprehensive and perfectly intelligible to the initiated. When on duty at night, however, he can afford to relax a little, and wag his tongue at any length he likes. Truth to say, he is apt to do this rather too much on occasions, and to expatiate with a warmth inconvenient to the slumbering inmates of the genteel dwellings over the way; and the police have been more than once obliged to interfere to abate these nocturnal discussions.
    Part and parcel of the Stand is the waterman, who, however is anything but a fixture, and is given to sudden appearances and disappearances, and who has a scarecrow of a deputy in of an unkempt lad, who makes a show the shape of doing duty in his absence. Waterman, we suspect, is a pluralist, keeping this ragged curate as temporary locum tenens ; we happen to know that the man of tubs has a connection in the carpet-beating line, and have, further, caught him in the act both of putting up and pulling down shutters in the long business street round the corner, which runs at right angles with the road. Then he is not above sweeping the crossing, or making his deputy do it, when foul weather renders it impassable to clean boots, and there is a chance of remuneration for the job. If you do see our waterman at the Stand, it is because there is something to be done there, though he is often unaccountably absent even at a busy time.
    Far more of a fixture than the waterman is the Stand-dog, Smut. Smut is an ill-looking mongrel, close-haired, and of a black-brown hue, whom the refinements of civilization have deprived of the best part of his tail, while the chances of war have rent his flap ears into shreds. He belongs to the Stand in general, and to nobody in particular. How he became naturalized there originally, we cannot say; probably a born vagabond, doomed to wander the world without a master, he found among the scraps and leavings of the cabmen, who are of necessity often diners-out, a solace for his hunger, and beneath the shelter of their wheels a substitute for what he had never yet possessed — a home. Be that as it may, Smut has long been free of the Stand, and a privileged favourite of the drivers. In fine weather he roams the neighbourhood on foraging expeditions, or starts on a hunt or vermin over the palings and into the nursery-ground. When the season is inclement, he is given to leaping up to the foot-board beneath the driver's seat, where, pillowing his ugly head on a nose-bag, he will doze away as much of the dreary time as he may. One thing will rouse him from his lair, and bring him down like a tiger, and that is, the intrusion of any other vagabond dog on his peculiar domain: trim spaniels, genteel puppies, lapdogs, and promenading pets, he takes no notice of, knowing well enough that he needs expect no rivalry from them ; but should any stray mongrel or unmastered cur come prowling that way, woe betide him if he want either pluck or power to defend himself, for Smut will descend upon him like an avalanche, and he must either fight or run. If Smut happens to be asleep when the cab in which he has taken shelter rolls off with a fare, the motion wakes him up, and then no blandishments will induce him to retain his position ; down he leaps, and returns to the Stand, of which he has constituted himself the guardian.
    On a close tropical day in July or August, the picture of our Stand is one of almost still life. Look down the long avenue, and you see the drowsy cabbies, with the doors of their vehicles opened on the shady side, each sitting on the step, (if he does not happen to be curled up asleep inside,) smoking his short pipe and spelling over the columns of a cheap newspaper. The waterman is absent, perhaps thrashing away at some dusty carpet ; but there lies his tattered deputy, fast asleep and snoring, with his back against the rails. Smut, whose tongue has been hanging out to dry all day, comes lazily up to the water tubs, laps a mouthful or two, and, curling himself round, snores in his turn. But let that black cloud sail up from the horizon, and the big spattering thunder-drops come splashing on the pavement and lo! what a sudden change. Up leaps Smut, shaking his remnants of ears and barking in triplets; up jumps the deputy, and begins detaching the nose-bags from .the heads of the mumbling hacks; up jumps every cabman to his box, whip in hands; the whole rank is galvanized into sudden motion ; there is a clattering of hoofs, a jarring of rusty axles, a creaking of panels from one end of the rank to the other, and a slow progressive motion of the vehicles forward and forward, as one moves away after the other, and the whole site is clear ; the avenue has vanished, and all that is left of the Stand is three or four tubs of water, the ragged deputy counting his coppers over and over, and Smut wagging a forlorn stump of tail in the midst of his desolate home.
    There is no power so effectual in the clearance of a cab-stand as a sudden and drenching shower. Other causes, such as the break-up of a popular assembly, or the advent of its hour of meeting, may diminish its numbers more or less ; but a good tempest of rain is the grand blessing for the cabs man, who laughs at the wetting of his skin that comes with the silver lining for his pocket.
    Such are some of the aspects of our Stand. There are other aspects, however, presented by the Stand, wherever it may be, which may not be of so picturesque a character. When Brimble, for instance, with his " six young 'uns," dependent on his whip, "puts on" at the tail-end of the rank in the morning, only to move off after he has worked up to the head, the Stand can hardly appear so amusing to him as it does to us, What will Providence send to-day for him and his little ones ? After waiting an hour or two, when his time to move off does come, to what sort of a tune will he have to drive his cab? He may have to trot away for sixpence, or he may do business to the amount of as many shillings. Brimble, it is plain, must regard the Stand as very speculative ground and it need not be wondered at if with him and his congeners there should be prejudices and predilections in regard to lucky and unlucky Stands, as we have good reason to know there are ; nor need we marvel that, weary of the fortune of some unpropitious Stand, Brimble, recalling to mind his hungry family, dashes out of the Stand in despair, and, albeit it is contrary to the regulations, commences crawling the road for customers, and competing with the omnibuses along their routes.
    Meanwhile, it is time we should pull up, and come to a stand ourselves.

An Offer ...

It's a long-standing niggle of mine that people who contact me via www.victorianlondon.org, with enquiries about family history, rarely seem to know about the local archives / local history libraries / small museums of London's boroughs. I have, therefore, an offer ...

If you are a librarian/archivist/similar in the London boroughs, and would like to promote your holdings on www.victorianlondon.org (gratis, naturally; no advertising surrounding) then get in touch. Something like 'picture of the week', showing a rare photograph of Victorian London, with some written context, could be featured widely on the site (and this blog, I suppose) and my guess is that it would bring you to a far greater web audience than at present.

My site is the no.1 on all search engines for 'victorian london'  - I'd love to say this brings me great wealth and prosperity (it doesn't) but I have the lingering suspicion that said visibility could be put to better use, for all those interested in London history.

Possibly my worry that local libraries are missed by the online audience is quite wrong. Possibily this won't appeal; and there are copyright issues with images (I'm a reformed librarian myself) and mine is a private site, rather than something in the public sector.

But if it does - please get in touch...

Idle Chatter

I recently found this letter to the Daily Examiner (29 February 1897), which throws an interesting light on an obscure subject:

Dear Sir,

I write to question the utility of certain peculiar abbreviations, which have become increasingly common in the written discourse of our nation. I refer, of course to the prevalence of such grotesque admixture of vowels and consonants as IEMMIAAF and WTDDYMS. Such (ab)uses of the English tongue are both loose and vulgar; and have no place in a national newspaper. These terms are believed to have originated in the idle chatter of lady telegraphists. It is my earnest request that they remain in the province of the 'dot-and-dashes' and I enjoin you to refrain from repeating them, in an organ with a wide circulation, which is frequently exposed to both servants and unprotected females.
    Yours,
           ACC (A Concerned Citizen.)

The editor of the paper, however, clearly found this complaint a source of amusement. Immediately below the letters section, there appears 'A Ready Guide to Popular Abbreviations'. I reproduce some of the more interesting examples below.

IEMMIAAF - I express my mirth in an audible fashion.
WTDDYMS - What the Devil do you mean, sir?
IPUTDWEMMIAAF - I pivot upon the drugget whilst expressing my mirth in an audible fashion.
MWTIQE - My word! That is quite extraordinary!
IEMMSFTMPIIDOCL - I express my mirth so forcibly that my posterior is in danger of coming loose.
ISRP - I shall return presently.
IIWTPAO - If I were to proffer an opinion
AYOTAOMPTMLAAMOTFPOH  - Are you of the age of majority, proximate to my location, and a member of the fairer portion of humanity?

This all reminds me of something, but I can't quite think what.

Blacking

A nice little piece on keeping your shoes clean (Leisure Hour 1861). Warren's Blacking Warehouse, also mentioned in my recent graffiti piece for their guerilla advertising, was famously where Dickens, in his childhood, was obliged to work, putting together pots of blacking in a window, for the admiration of the viewing public - a source of shame which haunted him for the rest of his life (although some claim otherwise).

BLACKING.

IT appears to have been customary to imbue shoes with an oily mixture before the time of Pliny, since it is stated by him, in the 15th book of his "Natural History," that Cato recommended the dregs of the olive (after the expression of the oil) to be used for anointing bridle-reins, leather thongs, and shoes, in order to render them supple. It must, however, be remarked, that a mixture somewhat similar to modern blacking is also described by the same author, in the 35th book. This mixture was used for ink, and it was composed of lampblack, gum, and vinegar, and only required, therefore, the addition of oil and honey to make it into a soluble blacking. This inference is rendered the more probable since the remains of leather, found in the Roman gravel-pit discovered in digging the foundation for the New Royal Exchange, appear to have been covered with a sort of blacking. They are thus described by Mr. Tite, the architect of that noble building, in his "Antiquities of the Royal Exchange :" "The fragments, in general, are of black leather; but there are some pieces which may possibly have been once of another colour. It is most probable that the upper surface was almost always shining and several instances may be noticed where it still retains a dull gloss, which appears usually to have protected that particular side."
    Modern blacking seems to have been originally composed chiefly of wax and tallow, and probably lampblack, and somewhat, similar, therefore, to harness-blacking. When and how the mixture now employed in this country was first discovered, have found impossible to decide ; but, according to a statement of Mr. W. C. Day, the recipe for its preparation was communicated to Mr. Richard Martin whilst he was travelling on the continent. Martin afterwards became associated with Mr. Charles Day, and in 1801 they commenced the manufacture of blacking. This firm has since acquired considerable celebrity, under the title of Day and Martin. Another important blacking manufactory was afterwards established by Mr. Robert Warren. Another was subsequently founded by Mr. Everett, who commenced business in King's Head Court, Holborn. All the parties connected in establishing these three firms acquired considerable fortunes. Each maker had, of course, proportions and methods of mixing peculiar to himself; but the chief materials, namely, a black colouring matter, and certain substances which acquire a gloss by friction, were the same in most cases. In England, they generally consist of bone-black, sugar, or molasses, sperm-oil, sulphuric acid, and strong vinegar. The bone-black, in the state of a very fine powder, and the sperm-oil, are first thoroughly incorporated ; the sugar or molasses, mixed with a small proportion of vinegar, is now added, and well stirred into the mass ; strong sulphuric acid is then gradually poured into the vessel. The mixture is then diluted with an additional quantity of vinegar. Paste blacking is now made in precisely the same way as liquid blacking, excepting that the last portion of vinegar is not added.
    Baron Liebig states that, in Germany, blacking is made in the following manner:—Powdered bone-black is mixed with half its weight of molasses, and one-eighth of its weight of olive-oil, to which are afterwards added one-eighth of its weight of muriatic acid and one-fourth of its weight of strong sulphuric acid. The whole is then mixed up with water to a sort of unctuous paste. To give some idea of the importance of this manufacture, it may be stated that on an average one hundred and fifty casks, containing a quantity of blacking equal to nine hundred dozen pint bottles, are sent out daily from one manufactory that of Day and Martin. The price of the stone-ware bottles for containing the blacking, varies with their size, the usual sizes costing 6s., 9s. and 12s. per gross, and the corks (bungs) costing 1s. 4d. per gross. There is also a large outlay for labels and sealing-wax.
    As one example of the means which have been employed to give notoriety to manufactured articles by means of advertisements, we copy the following from a number of the "Morning Advertiser" for 25th of November, 1807: it is an account of a burlesque company for making blacking. "Final Meeting of the Public Blacking Subscription Company, held at the 'Boot,' in Leather Lane, Anthony Varnish, Esq., in the chair, Sir John Blackwell, Knight, being indisposed. The chairman reported that Mr. Timothy Lightfoot, the treasurer, had brushed off with the old fund, and that the deputation who had waited on Mr. Fawcett (cunning Mr. Fawcett!) the proprietor of the Brilliant Fluid Blacking, at No. 76, Houndsditch, could not prevail on him to dispose of his right thereto in favour of this Company, although they had made him the, most liberal offers," etc. etc.
    The shoeblacks of the present day are only a re-appearance.  Some seventy or eighty years ago, shoeblacks were at the corner of almost every street, especially in great thoroughfares. As the pedestrians passed, the shoeblacks called out "Shoeblack, your honour! Black your shoes, sir!" They used an oleaginous, lustreless blacking. Some of them accommodated their patrons with an old pair of shoes to stand in, while they operated. Time came when their occupation was about to leave them. The first incursion against their business was by the makers of "patent cake-blacking," on sticks formed with a handle like a small battledore; they suffered a more fearful invasion from the makers of liquid blacking in bottles. Soon after this, Day and Martin commenced manufacturing their ne plus ultra of blacking, and private shoe-blacking became general, public shoeblacks rapidly disappeared, as became extinct for a time. The last shoeblack of "the old school" is said to have sat under the covered entrance of Red Lion Court, Fleet Street, in 1821.