streets in triumph, and give the people notice of our sport.” Such a procession was, of course, a noisy one, and for that reason it was one of the plagues the mischievous page sent to torment Morose, “the gentleman that loves no noise,” in Ben Jonson’s “Silent Woman.” “I entreated a bearward one day,” says the page, “to come down with the dogs of some four parishes that way, and I thank him he did, and cried his game under Master Morose’s window.” And in Howard’s “English Monsieur” (1674), William, a country youth, says, “I saw two rough-haired things led by the nose with two strings, and a bull like ours in the country, with a brave garland about his head, and an horse, and the least gentleman upon him that ever I saw in my life, and brave bagpipes playing before ’um;” which is explained by Comely as occasioned by its being “bearbaiting day, and he has met with the bull, and the bears, and the jack-an-apes on horseback.” Trials of skill in the noble art of self-defence were announced in a similar manner, by the combatants promenading the streets divested of their upper garments, with their sleeves tucked up, sword or cudgel in hand, and preceded by a drum. Finally, for the use of the community at large, there was the bellman or town crier, a character which occupies a prominent place in all the old sets of “Cries of London.” In one of the earliest collections of that kind,8 engraved early in the seventeenth century, we see him represented with a bunch of keys in his hand, which he no doubt proclaims as “found.” Underneath is the following “notice:”—
This was an old joke, which, more or less varied, occurs always under the print of the town crier. The prototype of this venerable witticism may be found in the tragedy of “Soliman and Perseda” (1599), where one of the characters says that he
Notwithstanding the immense development of advertising since the spread of newspapers, the services of the bellman are still used in most of the country towns of the United Kingdom, and even in London there are still bellmen and parish criers, though their offices would appear to be