Waterbury Democrat., 1901-08-29
LONDON STREET CRIES.
Some of the Oldest Explanations oi
 Their Meaning and Origin.

Some of the Oldest Explanations of
 Their Meaning and Origin.
 Among the signs of the last days of the London season not one is more convincing than the cry of the law ender vendor in the streets.
 His cry is so familiar to Londoners I that even when his words are not audible his wares are well known to be the odorous purple flowers that housewives love to scent their napery with, shredded from their gray stalks into muslin bags tied up with ribbon, { bows. It is a pathetic lit, with q ! touch of reproach in it, as who should say, if you don't buy my pretty laven-' der, sixteen spikes for penny, what 1 is to become of men when all of you. have gone away into the country Where 1 my pretty lavender grows!
 One of the last of hundreds of old | Sing-song hawkerS' cries is this. It has. survived, perhaps. because the layen=. der harvest has never been garnered so exclusively into the shops as nave. the rest of the wares the itinerant hawlzer used to monopolize, and also | because it is still i'll demand among women, for it's appearance synchronlzes 1 with that of the house moth, pesti- l lent thief whose taste for Wolens and l furs does not include one for scents. | The lavender chant is believed to have | originated in the days of the plague, | when London was sore stricken with l the dire disease, for then it was con I sidered salutory among the poor to I wear certain herbs and balsams just as it was modish among the wealthy l to carry gold pouncets or yinaigrettes I saturated with the pungent dlstllla- l tions of herbs and roots, which 1t was I hoped would act as disinfectant. I Such being the derivation of the cry, l it would be reasonable to suppose 1t set in the minor key on account of the n1ournful character of the times, for in 1865 London was q sad city and panic stricken.
 Some students of old-time cries, how I ever, think that the lavender hawker was product of still more antique l times, when shops were few and far between in many parts of the metrop- l oils and everything was borne about in the streets and proclaimed in musical l terms that some enterprising .yender invented, introduced and made success l ful.
 In the days of Henry Vit is recorded that an open-air tradesman used to
 stand at the door of Westminster hall
 singing in rhyme the praise of his fine
 felt hats and spectacles, and that i'll
 Eastcheap even the restaurant keepers
 of the day cried their viands. Ribs of
 beef and many pie!' "Hot sheeps I feet!'' ''Hot peascodv' and straw berries ripe and cherries in the rise!H Pepper and saffron were veiaded to gether; s'rushes green" for covering
 the floors were hawSed i'll their sea- I son, and when, oranges were first
 brought over to this country they were
 carried by women in big baskets, one
 on the left arm and another on the head, whose musical distich rang through the streets Fair lemons and | oranges-oranges and citrons!
 There are people now who are clam
 orous to stop the cry of the miIkman 1 which certainly has degenerated into q
 merely harsh and Eaucous shout, in- l stead of the melodious cry it once was,
 and it is the counterparts of these low
 CTS of peace who are responsible for the battle that has been waged for
 centuries against the street cries of l London and the consequent decrease of l tl1em This and the enmity of the shop I Keepers to the street haWker has grad 1 ually eliminated him from the thor l oughfares and swept into oblivion his old customs. The muffin mans bell and the lavender mans song are two of the last surviving remnants of London
 at it's noisiest. The police act of 1889 I did very lnlIch to StoI1 the bedIam that prevailed before and with it's passing l went the newsboy's horn.
 I When the last blare. of the horn was
 heard the familiar cry of the newsboy
 ill the streets began, and it has con- | tinued all these years until quiterecent- 1 ly, when the crying of news also had l restrictions placed upon it. The low l pitched cry of the lavender seller re-
 mains the same. It will probably
 never be interfered with. 1t is too
 old, and by many too cherished--Lon-
 don Mail