TURPIN - he was a right bastard

The Resurrectionist:

2009-12-08T14:55:00.003Z

The remains of more than twenty dead bodies were discovered in a shed in Tottenham-Court Road, supposed to have been deposited there by traders to the surgeons; of whom there is one, it is said, in the Borough, who makes an open profession of dealing in dead bodies, and is well known by the name of the resurrectionist.

March 1776

Pop goes...

2009-12-07T17:46:00.003Z

... the weasel.

Not a mammal from the mustelidae family, but a tailor's flat-iron, common in Turpin's time. You knew it was hot enough when your spittle sizzled.

Morecambe & Wise do Dick Turpin

2009-12-04T10:33:00.002Z

Let's hear it for Richard O'Sullivan

2009-12-02T20:41:00.001Z

Dick Turpin and the Restless Dead:

2009-12-02T19:30:00.004Z

"When notorious highwayman Dick Turpin stumbles across a deserted village following his latest highway robbery it seems the ideal place to hide out. But the village is not as empty as it first appears - and Turpin soon finds himself surrounded by hordes of rotting, hungry zombies!"

Available from SMALLZONE online comic shop

How to get Ahead...

2009-12-02T17:21:00.005Z

... steal one: a practice known as cranioklepty.

One of my favourite blogs, Morbid Anatomy (http://morbidanatomy.blogspot.com/) relates that:

"With the rise of phrenology, the early 19th century saw a host of bizarre grave robberies, in which the graves of famous men were plundered for their owners’ skulls. Both scientific curiosities and morbid fetishes, the skulls became subject to extended legal battles between religious and secular authorities over who owns these remains, while phrenologists continued to study them for visible proof of genius. "

Among the famous heads to have enjoyed a longer stay on earth than their shoulders, we find Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Swedenborg, Goya, Cromwell, Petrarch, Ned Kelly and Sir Thomas Browne, who had famously written what a “tragical abomination” it is to be “gnawed out of one’s grave,” a century and a half before his own cranium was half-inched in 1840.

It has not been publicly noted before, but to this list we can now perhaps add Dick Turpin.

York City Archives include, in a 19thC vicar's diary, the intriguing entry:

"A London paper published in June 1861 relates the following statement -

The skull of Dick Turpin under a glass shade many years in possession of the 'Morley family of York' that was one of the lots put up to auction at the sale of 'genuine furniture' last Friday in Church Street Soho, the piece of bone sold for 4s - glass shade and all."

This could have been quite true, an accidental fraud or a deliberate hoax. And we may never know which.

Still, needless to say, I will be investigating this further and will keep you posted as to my findings.

Rising up in panic:

2009-12-01T13:07:00.005Z

... not that Fragonard:

... dear old Jean-Honoré, creator of cutesy-twee prettiness that really does disturb my stomach. No - this is plain Honoré, his cousin, and made of much darker stuff.

And what was Palmes planning?

2009-12-01T12:30:00.010Z

A little light anatomizing - this sort of thing:

The body of such an infamous criminal as Turpin must have been an object of some medical curiosity, and the seat of his courage and persistent recidivism sought in the gory mystery of his internal organs.

But whatever Mr. Palmes had in mind, it's unlikely that he would have done anything as ambitious as Honoré Fragonard.

Fragonard spent nine years in the 1760s preparing his écorchés: elaborate anatomical teaching models, made by flaying and injecting wax, dyes and stiffening agents into prepared dehydrated human and animal corpses.

The unsettling (and to me, rather beautiful) results, which can be seen in the Museé Fragonard, Maisons-Alfort, fall somewhere between sculpture and dissection. If he had taken his knife to Turpin and produced something like his Cavalier (horseman) below, I might almost have approved:

It's not the cough that carries you off...

2009-12-01T12:12:00.002Z

It's Marmaduke Palmes of the city of York, surgeon; assisted by a labourer named Richard Hogg.

From the York City Archives:

2009-12-01T12:00:00.002Z

"After the execution the corpse of Turpin was brought to the Blue Boar, in Castlegate, where it remained till the next morning & then interred in the church-yard of St. George - the grave was made remarkably deep & the people who acted as mourners took such measures as they thought would secure the body, yet about three o'clock in the following morning some persons were observed in the church-yard, who carried it off."

Routously:

2009-12-01T11:45:00.003Z

in a routous or disorderly manner.

As: 'he did riotously, unlawfully, routously and tumultously assembled with intent to break open the said gaol.'

(From documents relating to the 1792 Great Yarmouth riots).

Dutch Dick

2009-12-01T11:19:00.000Z

bang bang - you're dead

2009-12-01T10:46:00.004Z

a shooter, similar in principle but quite different in design to anything Dick would have shot.

much more the sort of thing a young Turpin would have hidden in his waistcoat

A Visit to the Archives

2009-11-26T21:24:00.003Z

Tomorrow I am hot-footing it to York City Archives, for a little last-minute Turpin research.

The Archives house some interesting documents I want to check out there while there is still time to add them to the Chronology I've created for inclusion at the end of the novel.

Here's what I'll be perusing:

- The Records of York Castle by Twyford and Griffiths

- York Courant execution etc 10.4.1739

- Richard Turpin, otherwise John Palmer - his naked body taken from a surgeon's house and carried through the streets - indictment 1739 E37/252

- Indictment for rescuing a person being conveyed to the House of Correction for retrieving the body of Richard Turpin 1739 E37/252-3

- Indictment of those who recovered his body from a surgeon's garden house and carried it naked through the streets 1739 E37/251-2

- recognizances to give evidence on above 4 May 1739 F 15

- 10 April 1739 Labourer surgeon for appearing re body E 81

- Note on burial and sale of skull, 1867 - James Raine Collection Acc 28: 13 & 47 YL/Ant

Baker's (Half) Dozen:

2009-11-23T21:21:00.004Z

Bread and butter fashion - one slice upon the other ('Tom and his maid were lying bread and butter fashion'). To quarrel with one's bread and butter: to act contrary to one's interest. To know on which sideone's bread is buttered: to know one's interest, or what is best for one. It is no bread and butter of mine: I have no business with it; or rather, I won't intermeddle, because i shall get nothing by it.

Bread - Employment. Out of bread: out of employment. In bad bread: in a disagreeable scrape, or situation.

Bread basket - The stomach: a term used by boxers. I took him a blow in his bread basket: ie. I gave him a blow in the stomach.

Kissing crust - the part where the loaves have touched the oven.

Loaf - to be 'in bad loaf'; to be in a disagreeable situation, or in trouble.

Master of the Rolls - slang term for a baker.

Dick: a portrait

2009-11-23T13:47:00.005Z

Dick's portrait was never painted in his lifetime, although his image has been imaginatively reconstructed many, many times since his death in 1739.

Though images like the one below were produced while he was still alive there is sadly no evidence that they were anything but imaginative exercises to satisfy a Turpin-hungry public.

The absense of a contemporary portrait is even more disappointing given the vogue of the times for drawing gaolbirds.

The official diary of General Williamson, Deputy Lieutenant of the Tower of London (1722-47) describes one such incident. The criminal Plunket in question was a pro-Pretender plotter, not the highwayman of the same name:

'I got Mr. James Mace a Lad not thirteen years of age to draw Mr. Plunket the Prisoner's picture, and behind him in Shade John Tuder his Warder, who was a very faithfull and carefull fellow.'

James Maclaine, the ladies' favourite rogue and partner to the other Plunkett, was depicted in his cell the night before his hanging, surrounded by female visitors. The image was sold on the London streets for thruppence.

And so in 'Dick - or, the Hempen Jig' I remedy the regretful absense by having Turpin's picture drawn in his last days, in York Castle:

"“I suppose people are bound to take an interest,” Hanway muses to Langton. “Even strangers. Look at that! – oh, he has caught him superbly!”
“It is a good likeness, Mr. Hanway?” the elder Miss Porter asks.
“Yes indeed… That really is excellent, you know; excellent!”
He bends down to address this last remark to a sturdy lad, sitting with his back to them in the middle of the room, a vast drawing board propped on his splayed knees. Apparently oblivious to Hanway’s compliment, the young man lurches forward with such intense purpose that he seems about to spring up out of the chair. Instead his arm moves rapidly over the paper pinned to his board for a few minutes, before he sits back again to appraise it. Only then does he turn to Hanway and say:
“I’m sorry, sir! Thank you.”
“You have a talent, there. Keepsake, is it?”
“Not for myself. I’m William Mace, sir: apprentice draughtsman. Mr. Griffiths the governor wishes to commemorate Richard Turpin’s stay in the castle, so he sent for me to draw the prisoner’s picture. It’s my hope he’ll permit me to return tomorrow…”
His eye falling back on his work, the lad tilts his board to a better angle with his left arm; he hunches forward again with the chalk, brows raised, eyes darting between the paper and its subject.
The drawing shows Dick in a chair of dark glossy wood, its carved arms terminating in lion heads. Beside him stands Jacks, awkward and solemn; one hand tucked inside his waistcoat, the other dangling at his hip, gripping his bunch of keys to indicate his office.
Though he faces forward, Turpin’s gaze has been caught askance, resentment and scorn glittering in his narrowed eyes and a vein bulging from his temple as he frowns. His shaved scalp is dark with stubble. With no wig or hat to soften his features the light falls harshly on his cheeks: dimpling into the pitted shadows of small-pox scars, darkening the lines that run from his nose to the down-turned corners of his compressed mouth. Though it is a chilly day he is coatless. The neck of his shirt is open, revealing his naked throat and the curls of hair at its base; the top buttons of his waistcoat are undone. His left arm rests on his thigh, his drooping fingers leading the eye to the heavy chains circling his waist and running down his stockinged legs, enclosing his ankles in iron cuffs. His right clutches the chair arm, his hand curling over the lion’s head, his rent sleeve falling open to reveal a thick powerful forearm.
“Don’t you think he has – the air of a gentleman,” the younger Miss Porter whispers breathlessly to her sister.
“Oh, yes!”

Introducing the Author (and her Subject)

2009-11-23T13:31:00.005Z

Rebecca Riley, aka in postings here:

Rebecca Stephens, Archie Pullen

For any of you who've ever experienced curiosity regarding the appearance of me or Mr. Turpin, I refer you to our recently-taken mugshots.

My own was snapped by resident genius of this site, 'Renaissance' John Coombes; and will be appearing in April on the back of 'Dick, or the Hempen Jig' in all good bookshops.

Dick's was put together earlier in 2009 by North Yorkshire police, as publicity for York Castle's (excellent) refurbishment of its dungeons, Dick's prison cell included.

Richard Turpin, aka John Palmer

Soon to hit a book shop near you...

2009-11-08T21:13:00.003Z

Dick, or the Hempen Jig, by Rebecca Riley

True Research

2006-08-09T17:41:00.000+01:00

I went back to Amsterdam, with a view to gaining more of an insight into the Life and Times of Mr Turpin, and got rather more verisimilitude than I bargained for. Half an hour after checking into the hotel No-good Theiving Robbers broke into the room and stole everything, passport, money, camera, phone, watch, tickets - the lot!

Now I know what it feels like to be held up on the Queen's Highway and fleeced. And to be perfectly honest if wish I didn't. I could have used my imagination chaps! Come on, give me the stuff back you right bastards.

The Bellman's Chant

2006-06-21T08:45:00.000+01:00

'In no country,' wrote Sir T. Smith, a distinguished lawyer of the time, 'do malefactors go to execution more intrepidly than in England'; and assuredly, buoyed up by custom and the approval of their fellows, [they] made a brave show at the gallows. Nor was their bravery the result of a common callousness. They understood at once the humour and the delicacy of the situation....

As twelve o'clock approached--their last midnight upon earth--they would interrupt the most spirited discourse, they would check the tour of the mellowest bottle to listen to the solemn doggerel. 'All you that in the condemn'd hole do lie,' groaned the Bellman of St. Sepulchre's in his duskiest voice, and they who held revel in the condemned hole prayed silence of their friends for the familiar cadences:

All you that in the condemn'd hole do lie,
Prepare you, for to-morrow you shall die,
Watch all and pray, the hour is drawing near,
That you before th' Almighty must appear.
Examine well yourselves, in time repent
That you may not t' eternal flames be sent;
And when St. Pulchre's bell to-morrow tolls,
The Lord above have mercy on your souls.
Past twelve o'clock!

Delivered nightly to the prisoners of Newgate

From Charles Whibley, A Book of Scoundrels (1897)

The Dick Turpin Cottage

2006-06-20T12:13:00.000+01:00

What was I saying about glamour?

I don't doubt it's a lovely place to stay, just somewhat oddly-named; for, call me an old fusspot, but the words 'Dick Turpin' and 'warm, friendly welcome', 'advice and assistance' and 'courtesy and service' sit ill together for me:

The charm of THE DICK TURPIN COTTAGE with its many features of architectural and historic interest has been carefully preserved. You will receive a warm welcome and enjoy a high standard of accommodation. THE DICK TURPIN COTTAGE is featured in "Special Places to Stay in Britain", Awarded the top English Tourist Board quality rating- "Five Stars", De-luxe 5 Keys, and "Gold Award". Our aims are to: -

Offer a warm, friendly welcome to guests.
Ensure a high standard of accommodation, courtesy, and service.
Respond promptly and properly to any complaints or criticism.
Offer our guests all advice and assistance they require.

Allurements and Fascinations

2006-06-20T10:30:00.000+01:00

Richard Turpin was an angry, unsuccessful butcher who became a housebreaker, a fence, a robber, a murderer and a horsethief. Though he was successfully prosecuted in York, he could have been tried in Essex, Middlesex, Kent, Leicestershire or the Cities of London and Westminster.

There was no gentility about the man.

Nevertheless, even those who should know better gloss the highway robber with sophistication. James Clavell, a 17th-century highwayman pardonned and exiled to Ireland for writing the equivalent of a public-information pamphlet exposing the tricks of his trade, called it: 'An Art, as would forever make him a Gentleman.'

Dickens, criticised for the 'criminal heroes' of his Oliver Twist, rightly pointed out that they were nothing of the sort. He had taken pains to avoid the fashion for vesting 'such characters' in 'certain allurements and fascinations': moonlit canters, embroidery, lace, jack-boots, crimson coats and ruffles.

Yes, it was 300 years ago. People wore swirly cloaks, rode horses, danced and sighed, fainted and fluttered.

Thanks, William. This is A Midnight Modern Conversation (from 1733: when Dick would have been 28). Thank Heaven for Hogarth. Without him we'd see the 18th century as all neat, ordered, polite and brushed-off - a static Thomas Gainsborough world:

Very lovely. But as posed, artificial and political an image as the airbrushed covers of Vogue or Hello. You get closer to 18th-century Man walking through Leeds City Centre on a Saturday night.

People don't really become more polite, better dressed and more lovely as you go further back into the past. This is the myth of social entropy, a Grumpy Old Men-view of the universe passed off as truth. We have always mourned a great 'Golden Age' and correspondingly always derided the Youth of Today. It seems to be human nature.

Old Crime was once True Crime, Modern Crime, Crime-next-Door. Highway robbery was about as genteel and seductive as car-jacking or street-robbery are not.

And Turpin - he was a right bastard.

Moral Duties

2006-06-18T11:45:00.000+01:00

Writing a novel with a violent theme - more: writing a novel whose protagonist is an infamous criminal - you inevitably must consider the question of your intent.

Dick Turpin is a man who has been glamourised in quite literally every artistic form - verse, song, film, tv, art. Given that this veneer of heroism was applied even while Turpin was still alive, when there were dozens of householders and travellers to hand who could attest to his being quite otherwise, it is difficult to blame the 19th-century romancers who continued and amplified this work.

Charles Dickens was one of the first authors to consciously attempt to redress the balance. Not with regard to Turpin specifically, though in Barnaby Rudge he did include a very un-glamourous highwayman; but his aim as a novellist from the outset was to show crime and criminals in their social context and all their human ugliness - and I have very much wanted to follow his example in this matter.

It is a fine line to walk along: as soon as you begin to understand the social or psychological background to a crime, it becomes more difficult to describe it: it is detestable, but comprehensible. Some little part of it has entered into you, in your imagination, and so you feel a degree of pity even for the unpitiable and pitiless Mr. Turpin.

I have begun, in short, to feel sorry for him; and as my narrative draws ever-nearer its close, I even begin to dread having to kill him off. But I must be honest and true, which means not drawing back from showing him in his brutality. He is no hero.

As the Animals sang: "I'm just a soul whose intentions are good"... but, as Dr. Johnson would reply, that is not enough.

BOSWELL: [of Rousseau] "I don't deny, Sir, but that his novel may, perhaps, do harm; but I cannot think his intention was bad."
JOHNSON: "Sir, that will not do. We cannot prove any man's intention to be bad. You may shoot a man through the head, and say you intended to miss him; but the Judge will order you to be hanged. An alleged want of intention, when evil is committed, will not be allowed in a court of justice."

Boswell's Life of Johnson

Vol. 1 1709-1776

Amsterdam redux

2006-06-16T16:15:00.000+01:00

Should Dick have walked back from the dockside in Amsterdam, beyond Dam Square, down Herengracht and across to Spuistraat he would have walked past these two buildings:

The houses in Amsterdam didn't have numbers, instead they were identified by the type of decoration at the top of the house.

Idleness

2006-06-15T15:18:00.000+01:00

In one of his letters to his son, the Earl of Chesterfield (a Man of Manners if ever there was one) gives what must be the first ever description of a toilet book:

I knew a gentleman, who was so good a manager of his time, that he would not even lose that small portion of it, which the calls of nature obliged him to pass in the necessary-house; but gradually went through all the Latin poets, in those moments.
He bought, for example, a common edition of Horace, of which he tore off gradually a couple of pages, carried them with him to that necessary place, read them first, and then sent them down as a sacrifice to Cloacina: this was so much time fairly gained; and I recommend you to follow his example. It is better than only doing what you cannot help doing at those moments; and it will make any book, which you shall read in that manner, very present in your mind.
Books of science, and of a grave sort, must be read with continuity; but there are very many, and even very useful ones, which may be read with advantage by snatches, and unconnectedly; such are all the good Latin poets, except Virgil in his "AEneid": and such are most of the modern poets, in which you will find many pieces worth reading, that will not take up above seven or eight minutes.
Bayle's, Moreri's, and other dictionaries, are proper books to take and shut up for the little intervals of (otherwise) idle time, that everybody has in the course of the day, between either their studies or their pleasures. Good night.

London, December 18 1747

In that sleep

2006-06-15T12:20:00.000+01:00

Give him to swift conveyors
to bear with them,
even to the twin brethren,
Sleep and Death.

Homer: Iliad

Enjoy...

2006-06-14T08:48:00.000+01:00

... the honey-heavy dew of slumber:

Thou hast no figures nor no fantasies

Which busy care draws in the brains of men;

Therefore thou sleep'st so sound.

William Shakespeare: Julius Cæsar

Awakenings

2006-06-12T10:19:00.000+01:00

It was the heat on his boots that had woken him: while the rest of him still lay in shadow, the sunlight had broken through a gap in the trees to shine hotly on his legs. Dick had ridden through the night from the City to Epping Forest, where he shivered and worried through the lonely dawn, eventually dropping into a confused and anxious doze that deepened after a time into a dreamless sleep. Now, he is awake again.

He squints upward, trying to estimate the hour. The sun has passed from overhead but has not sunk far yet toward the horizon. The air is hot and still, the sky so bright and heavy that it seems to be pressing down on the leaves that shade him, parting them with its weight.

Excerpt from DICK Chapter 12: Study of Figure in a Landscape

zzzzz

2006-06-09T19:21:00.000+01:00

Dick's a' kip after his exertions in Amsterdam and is preparing for a new life of crime in Yorkshire.

Rechtub Klat

2006-05-27T08:54:00.000+01:00

In Australia, butchers have a secret language called 'Rechtub Klat' - Butchers' Talk - which enables them to conduct private conversations while leaving their customers unawares. It is essentially a form of Pig Latin, involving reversing words and sometimes letters within words. The language has been reduced to a core vocabulary of about 20-30 words nowadays, but it is said that older butchers could have entire conversations in it.

A similar method is used to create 'Largonji' or 'Loucherbem', the French butchers' slang first recorded in the nineteenth century; though it is doubtless much older. This is a little more complex than the Aussie version: the first letter of the word is moved to the end and one of a wide variety of suffixes is attached, such as -é, -em, -gue, -i, -ic, -iche, -oque, -ot, -qué, or -uche. An L is then placed at the beginning of the word: all Largonji words start with L.

Thus 'boucher' (butcher) becomes Loucherbem, 'jargon' Largonji, 'à poil' (naked) is à loilpé or à loilpuche, and 'marteau' (hammer; crazy person) is un larteaumic.

In the UK, the dodgier class of butcher used Cant, the 'Flash Language' - a criminal slang originating in the 18th century or earlier. Hiding their doings behind this jingo, they would unwittingly 'bite' (con) the 'rum chubs' (gullible customers).

One rural Essex butcher who had reason to know Cant both from working out his apprenticeship in Whitechapel for six years, and from afterwards becoming an associate of the Gregory Gang - perhaps the most violent gang of housebreakers known in the 18th century - was Dick Turpin.

Learning Cant to write 'Dick' has been a real joy for me. I adore words anyway - languages, synonyms, argots, patois, dialects, gibberish. But private tongues, and especially criminal languages, are particularly exciting: they wear metaphor and allegory at their very heart; one of the many Canting phrases for being hanged, for example, is to 'stick your head in the Sheriff's picture frame'. They are naturally poetic. Small wonder that the street-thug balladeer, Francois Villon, used thieves' argot in his 'Seven Ballads'.

Transportation of Britain's criminals led to the transportation of their language. Cant travelled to Australia with the Botany Bay exiles, where it eventually metamorphosed into the Rechtub Klat still spoken today. In the UK, with some additions from the Romany language, it became Polari, the secret dialect of gays.

Fresh Brains Every Day...

2006-05-26T09:54:00.000+01:00

... the sign above his head reads;

well: we do our best.

Humble Pie

2006-05-26T09:01:00.000+01:00

Humble Pie was made from the numbles of deer.
Which were basically the offal, the cheap cuts.
From the Middle English: nombles fillet of venison,
which in turn is a dissimilated variation of lomble
from the latin lumbulus
itself a diminutive of lumbus loin.

Humble Pie was also a band in the sixties,
with Steve Marriott and Peter Frampton.
and very good they were too.

Beef Language

2006-05-25T18:23:00.000+01:00

Rostbiff, D-Rump, Striploin, Neck,

Eye Round, Silverside, Topside, Flank,

Rib Set, Cube Roll, Knuckle, Blade,

Outside Flat, Chuck, Butt,

Brisket Navel End.

Interloquutars R and M

2006-05-24T17:54:00.000+01:00

R: With this and that like talk consumed was our dinner, and after the table was removed, in came one of the waiters with a fair silver bowl full of Dice and Cards. "Now masters," quoth the goodman, "who is so disposed, fall to: here is my 20 li., win it and wear it." Then each man chose his game, some kept the good man company at the Hazard, some matched themselves as a new game called Primero.

M: And what did you the while?

R: They egged me to have made one at Dice, and told me it was a shame for a gentleman not to keep gentlemen company for his 20 or 40 crowns. Nevertheless because I alleged ignorance, the gentlewoman said I should not sit idle all the rest being occupied, and so we 2 fell to Saunt five games a Crown.

M: And how sped you in the end?

R: In good faith, I passed not for the loss of 20 or 40 s., for acquaintance, and so much I think it cost me, and then I left off, marry, the Diceplayers stack well by it and made very fresh play, saving one or two that were clean shriven, & had no more money to lose.

A Manifest Detection of the Most Vile and Detestable Use of Diceplay,

and Other Practices

Gilbert Walker (1550)

and the knuckle bone connects to...

2006-05-24T10:52:00.000+01:00

The Distal Phalanx connects to the Middle Phalanx
And the Middle Phalanx connects to the Proximal Phalanx
And the Proximal Phalanx connects to Fifth Metacarpal

Oh! Hear the word of the Lord.

Dice were one time fashioned from knuckles, hence the nickname bones

Bare Bones

2006-05-23T09:59:00.000+01:00

BONES. Dice.
TO COG. To cheat with dice; also to coax or wheedle, To cog a die; to conceal or secure a die. To cog a dinner; to wheedle one out of a dinner.
DISPATCHERS. Loaded or false dice.
DOCTORS. Loaded dice, that will run but two or three chances. They put the doctors upon him; they cheated him with loaded dice.
DOWN HILLS. Dice that run low.
DRIBBLE. A method of pouring out, as it were, the dice from the box, gently, by which an old practitioner is enabled to cog one of them with his fore-finger.
ELBOW SHAKER. A gamester, one who rattles Saint Hugh's bones, i.e. the dice.
FULHAMS. Loaded dice are called high and lowmen, or high and low fulhams, by Ben Jonson and other writers of his time; either because they were made at Fulham, or from that place being the resort of sharpers.
HIGH JINKS. A gambler at dice, who, having a strong head, drinks to intoxicate his adversary, or pigeon.
LONG GALLERY. Throwing, or rather trundling, the dice the whole length of the board.
MUMCHANCE. An ancient game like hazard, played with dice: probably so named from the silence observed in playing at it.
TO NAP. To cheat at dice by securing one chance.
To NICK. To win at dice, to hit the mark just in the nick of time, or at the critical moment.
PASSAGE. A camp game with three dice: doublets, making up ten or more, to pass or win; any other chances lose.
RATTLE. A dice-box.
SHAKE. To shake one's elbow; to game with dice.
SHARPER. A cheat, one that lives by his wits. Sharpers tools; a fool and false dice.
SLUR. To slur, is a method of cheating at dice: also to cast a reflection on any one's character, to scandalize.
STAMP. A particular manner of throwing the dice out of the box, by striking it with violence against the table.
TATS. False dice.
TAT MONGER. One that uses false dice.
UPHILLS. False dice that run high.

From: DICTIONARY OF THE VULGAR TONGUE:

A DICTIONARY OF BUCKISH SLANG, UNIVERSITY WIT,

AND PICKPOCKET ELOQUENCE

compiled by Captain Francis Grose (1811)

The Names of Dice:

2006-05-22T19:03:00.000+01:00

A bale of bard sink deuces
A bale of flat sink deuces
A bale of flat sixe aces
A bale of bard sixe aces
A bale of bard cater treys
A bale of flat cater treys
A bale of fullans of the best making
A bale of light graniers
A bale of Langrets contrary to the vantage
A bale of Gourds with as many high men as low men for passage
A bale of demies
A bale of long dice for even and odd
A bale of bristles
A bale of direct contraries

LOCKIT:

2006-05-22T18:33:00.000+01:00

Thus gamesters united in friendship are found,

Though they know that their industry all is a cheat;

They flock to their prey at the dice-box's sound,

And join to promote one another's deceit.

But if by mishap

They fail of a chap,

To keep in their hands, they each other entrap.

Like pikes, lank with hunger, who miss of their ends,

They bite their companions, and prey on their friends.

John Gay, THE BEGGAR'S OPERA (1728)

Dutch Dick

2006-05-16T21:49:00.000+01:00

Just been following the footsteps of Mr Turpin to Amsterdam, not on the run it has to be said, but an enjoyable weekend, dancing the night away, as Dick must often have done, on the eleventh floor of the old Post Office headoffices to a throbbing beat set up by London DJs. [There was a lot of Drum and Bass in the eighteenth century, I've been told]

If he stayed, or worked, on the waterfront, this might have been his view, give or take a few curtains and the new licks of paint.

On Wednesday Night last...

2006-05-16T19:24:00.000+01:00

... a Servant to Mr. Thompson one of the Keepers on Epping Forest (who lives at Fair Maid Bottom) saw the famous Turpin in the Forest, and suspecting he was going to steal some Particular Horse in that Neighbourhood, went to a House at King's Oak and borrowed a Gun, and charged it, and said he would go and take Turpin, who was not far off, and accordingly went with the Gun after him; but approaching with his Gun too near (apprehending, it is supposed, he had only Pistols) Turpin saw him, and immediately discharged a Carbine at him loaded with Slugs, and shot him into the Belly dead on the Spot, and he now lies at Forest Oak: Turpin rode away and quitted his Horse, which was on Thursday Night at the Pound at Waltham Abbey. The same Day all that Part of the Country was up in Arms in pursuit of him, but it's supposed he is gone Northwards. If the Laws were more severe on the Harbourers of known Highwaymen, this desperate Fellow could not have escaped so long.

We hear that a Royal Proclamation, with a Reward of £200, will be issued for the apprehending and taking of Turpin, the famous Robber and Murderer.

LONDON EVENING POST, Thursday 5-Saturday 7 May 1737

Port to Port

2006-05-16T10:46:00.000+01:00

Why Dick went to Amsterdam is no real mystery - then as now, those who had made Britain too hot for themselves found the air a little cooler on the other side of the Channel. His former associates in the Essex Gang, the ringleader Sam Gregory and his brother Jerry, had been attempting to get to Boulogne when they were captured on the road.

What Dick did in Holland - friendless, poor, without a word of Dutch - we'll never know. It was at the time perhaps the most truly cosmopolitan of Europe's cities, vibrant with trade - trade both authorised and unauthorised. Smuggling flourished there, and I suspect that after five years of criminal activity Dick had become too enmeshed in the habits of the criminal world to remember how to live a 'normal' life again.

Whatever precipitated his return, in February 1737 he took a passage to Harwich and within a month was back in London with two new croneys, making the suburbs dangerous for anyone with jingly pockets.

Amsterdamnation

2006-05-15T18:46:00.000+01:00

When things got too hot for him in London, round about Christmas 1735, Dick headed for Holland. Amsterdam, to be precise.

Normal Service...

2006-05-15T10:21:00.000+01:00

... is now resumed.

It's been a bit of a funny old week, that's seen me to-ing, fro-ing and sometimes jumping up and down on the spot. All of which activity has kept me from the computer. But I'm back now - and it's personal.

One of the events of my week was sorting out a niggling health scare that turned out to be nothing of anything very important. Just a sign of AGE...

But the worry and the subsequent relief did make me sit up and consider mortality face to face as it were, for a time.

I was left with this thought: I'm 34. Dick never made it that far - he was a few months short of his 34th birthday when he was turned off the gallows.

I did never climbe

Parnassus Hill

To tread the Muses' Mazes

And Shooter's Hill was fitter farre for me.

John Clavell, pardonned Highwayman (1601-1643)

R.I.P

Lock, Stock...

2006-05-10T08:41:00.000+01:00

Sorry for the silence, guys - I've been a bit busy with my new Ebay purchase...

Traditional Pillory

Heavy Duty Design

Will last years

Finished in Dark Wood

Quick &Easily Assembled / Disassembled
Dimensions
height 150cm
width 110cm

This item will be shipped in two packages due to the weight of the item.
Feet included - not shown on the picture

Turpin TM

2006-05-05T09:44:00.000+01:00

Recently two little birds suggested that our man Dick was not born a Turpin. It was a nickname, they reasoned, bestowed on him because the amalgam of its meanings seemed to sum him up - a foul-mouthed, violent, frequently injured, fast-running, soldierly, fearful, gold-loving man.

The truth is stranger even than that, and will make sense to any of you marvelling at the huge number of Dick Turpin pubs, inns and other hostelries liberally sprinkled around the UK, often in counties not readily associated with him.

The name 'Turpin' was a franchise.

There were actually dozens of Dick Turpins, due to the law of supply and demand. As Reid's Weekly Journal commented on 14 May 1737:

"On Tuesday a single highwayman robbed four coaches and several passengers at different times on Hounslow Heath and they gave out it was Turpin, but that fellow having done so much mischief of late runs in everybody's head."

Everyone was talking - and often singing, too - about Turpin. There was no point in being held up by anyone else. Give a small sum to Turpin, and it was free drinks from your friends and a story you could dine out on for a month. He was the Real Thing.

Who would admit to being held up by anyone less? Who would with a straight face declare that they'd handed over their third-best snuffbox to some nameless, fameless highwaybod? No; it was Turpin and none other.

And so, due to the huge requirement for Turpin's services, a clever wag in the London Underworld came up with the Turpin scam: for a small sum, you bought the rights to trade under the name of Turpin along a given stretch of highway on the London periphery. As it became more and more popular, regional Turpins were also appointed.

No one man could have managed it: not only is it impossible to be in so many places at once, no horse could run under the weight of so much loot.

It was a sweet deal. The Turpins pooled the cash, divided it equally, and were all happy men. Many of them had secret passages dug in suburban villages between the tavern and the church - even, sometimes, directly to the bed-chamber of the lady of the manor - and hid spare guns and horses up and down the country.

Sadly, when one of the Northern Dicks got himself hanged for horse-stealing it spoiled the game for the rest of them, who all took to innkeeping to support their old age, which is why there are so many Turpin-related pubs still trading today.

Family Pride

2006-05-05T09:01:00.000+01:00

If genealogy websites are to be believed, before the Norman conquest, the Turpin family resided in the town of Turpin au Boas in France. After 1066, when William granted them lands in Dorset, they settled in Britain.

The family were armigers, bearing a family crest. You can purchase it online printed onto almost anything you might imagine...

Only In America, People. Only.

I think, having visited a number of online family-crest vendors now, that the arms above belong to the Irish/British Turpins, while the crest below belonged to the French branch of the family, but I am sure John could design something more appropriate. Who knows, in time you may be able to clothe your pets from this site too...

Monsieur Turpin

2006-05-05T08:19:00.000+01:00

Francois Henri Turpin was born in Caen, France in 1709 and died, possibly in Paris, in 1799. So he was a contemporary of Mr. Richard Turpin.

He was a professor at the University of Caen, then moved to Paris, as so many did in the 18th century, to seek his fortune. He spent his days philosophising with the likes of Claude Helvetius, himself a man of letters, mathematics and philosophy enjoying an allowance of 100,000 crowns a year from the Queen of France. Francois Turpin was not so lucky and "he was only enabled with difficulty to earn a livelyhood by putting his pen at the service of the booksellers".

Claude Adrien Helvetius - a man of the Enlightenment and wigs

His most famous essay was La France illustre, ou Le Plutarque Francais but its critics were harsh and claimed Turpin was "ni Plutarque ni Francais" - so, not a very good writer then.

source: Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc. 1926
appologies to French speakers, this software doesn't seem to support accents, or if it does I haven't found them. Francois should have a cedilla on the c, as should Francais, and Helvetius has an accute on the second e.

More Dirty Talk

2006-05-04T18:05:00.000+01:00

turpido, a nastily wounded place.

turpiloquium, foul (obscene) language.

turpilucrus, basely covetous of gain.

turpio, a base (dishonourable) fellow.

turpitudo = PVDENDA (hinder parts).

A Glossary of Later Latin, comp. Alexander Souter (1949)

So, if we put them all together à la Daphne, we have: a foul-mouthed cove sporting an injury or two, still hankering after loot and ladies.

Sound about right?

Turpin of Reims

2006-05-04T12:48:00.000+01:00

Turpin, the 8th century warlike archbishop of Reims, was for many years regarded as the author of the legendary Historia de vita Caroli Magni et Rolandi:

Charles the Great taking a bath, in his wonderful boat-shaped bath and in his robes and crown because he was, after all, King of France

But this great historic work has been declared a fiction [cf: Black Bess, Da Vinci Code etc.] and ascribed to a Monk in Compostella who is considered to have written the first five chapters in the 11th century [the rest of the work being completed by another monk, this time in Vienne, between 1109 and 1119].

However Turpin, archbishop of Reims is probably one and the same person as Tilpin, archbishop of Reims 753AD to 800AD - handwriting wasn't always easy to read in those days, even if you could read.

the cathedral at Reims

According to Flodoard, Charles Martel drove Rigobert [archbishop of Reims] from his office and replaced him with an upstart warrior clerk going by the name of Milo, who was bishop of Trier at the time, and became archbishop of Reims in 717. Milo, being aggressive, then set about the good people of Vascones in a military way. So it is generally thought that the warlike legends surrounding Turpin, archbishop of Reims, are due to confusion with his aggressive predecessor: Milo. Lot of confusion going on in the 8th century, which is probably why it was called: The Dark Ages.

Tilpin on the other hand was a monk from St Denis [the Westminster Abbey of France] before he was made archbishop of Reims in 753, and is now known to have spend his appointment clearing up the mess left by Milo, re-establishing the revenues and prestige of his church, and going down in history as being called Turpin.

see also: Turpini historia Karoli magni et Rotholandi, F. Castets [Paris 1880], the History of Charles the Great and Orlando, ascribed to Turpin, T. Rodd [London 1812] and De pseudo-Turpino, G. Paris [Paris 1865]

source: Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc. 1926

Them's fightin' words

2006-05-04T09:47:00.000+01:00

turpin n.m. (1204, R. de Moil; orig. obsc.) Sorte de soldat: Cloistriers ont lor robe escourtee; Escuiier sanlent et turpin (R. de Moil.).

LAROUSSE DICTIONNAIRE de l'ancien français

(ed. A.J. Greimas, 1995)

2006-05-04T08:50:00.000+01:00

turpiculus a. ugly, little, slightly indecent

turpificatus a. debased

turpilucricupidus a. fond of filthy lucre.

turpis a. ugly, deformed, unsightly; base, disgraceful.

turpiter ad. repulsively; shamefully.

turpitudo deformity; disgrace, infamy.

Collins Latin Dictionary, D.A.Kidd MA 1957

Filthy Language

2006-05-03T23:56:00.000+01:00

turpeyl, var. TIRPEIL Obs., fear.

turph, -y, obs. ff. TURF, TURFY.

'turpid a. rare [irreg. f. L. turp-is ugly, unsightly, foul, disgraceful + ID, after torpid, etc.] Base, filthy, worthless. Hence 'turpidly adv

'turpie, a. Obs. rare [f. L. turpi-s in quot. after the L. phrase turpe lucrum (see FILTHY a. 4b).] Filthy.

'turpify, v. rare [ad. L. turpificare (recorded only in pa. pple. turpificatus) to make filthy, foul, or bad, f. L. turpi-s + ficare: see prec. and -FY] trans. To make foul or filthy; to befoul, besmirch.

turpin. Obs. rare. A fanciful name for, or appellation of, the hare.

from The Oxford English Dictionary

Depravity and Purgatives

2006-05-03T17:11:00.000+01:00

turpeth, (tur/pith), n. the root of a convolvulaceous plant, Operculina turpethum, formerly used as a purgative.

Turpin, (tur/pin) n. Richard (Dick), 1706-1739 English highwayman.

turpitude,(tur/pi tyood), n. vile, shameful or base of character; depravity.

The Random House Dictionary of the English Language, The Unabridged Edition [1966]

This little Wiggy...

2006-05-02T22:04:00.000+01:00

In the 18th Century the choice of wig for chaps was between the perruke (left), the tie-wig (middle) and the bob-wig (right), all of which could be made in any colour of hair from black to grey.

As the century progressed shorter, more natural-looking wigs predominated, but earlier in the 1700s the wigs were large, curly and grand, as the portrait of Voltaire below amply demonstrates.

Bob-wigs were worn by professional men, citizens, and even apprentices; lawyers sported a high frontlet and a long bag at the back tied in the middle, undergraduates a wig with a flat top to allow for the academic cap.

Below Denis Diderot (aka, Mr. Encyclopedia) is modelling a subtle little number:

Where Hogarth and Chardin (see yesterday's post) bravely flaunted convention by depicting themselves unwigged, their stubbly skulls draped intimately in soft furnishings (not, Mr. Coombes, lady-bedcaps, as you suggested), tonight we go a step further in the strip-tease.

I give you the naked cranium of Denis Diderot, flaunting the protrusion of his frontal lobes for all to see:

What a man!

Hatless and fancy-free

2006-05-01T10:42:00.000+01:00

In the matter of hats, one thing has not yet been addressed: that, beneath all those hats - tricorn, bicorn or just plain floppy - your average gentleman would have been sporting a wig.

Wigs are a fascinating subject and deserve a number of posts to themselves. If fashion is a language, the 18th century developed an entire semiotics of wigs.

If you were poor or a child, however, you wore your own hair, which was a statement in itself. As we can see, the lad in Chardin's The Governess below has had his hair combed into the same style as the wig his papa would be sporting. (Note, by the way, the lovely detail of the hat, a particularly fine silver-ribbon trimmed tricorn):

But what, pray, lay beneath the wig?

Well, most gentlemen would shudder at the thought of revealing that to anyone but his intimate family and his dressing-table mirror, but artists are hardy souls, always pushing the envelope (for artists who POST the envelope, see John Coombes Unstuck Diaries).

Below we can see William Hogarth and Jean Simeon Chardin, contemporaries across the Channel. Their skulls are shaved, but they are at home.

Feeling relaxed.

The wig...

... is off.

They want to disturb cosy conventionality.

So they invite us, the viewer, into their private world, their wigless intimacy.

Hogarth, padding about the house with his pug for company, appears to have sported a soft velvety beret arrangement.

Chardin did not paint himself until he was 72. When he did, he decided to show himself unbolstered by brocade, wig, and expensive fripperies. He is wearing his glasses, soft comfortable clothing and a cotton headscarf bound with a ribbon, and, sometimes, a draughtsman's eyeshade. Stripped of his defences, he is ready to work.

And the honesty of these portraits, the nakedness of these men without hats or wigs, the bald, vulnerable humanity of them, stares timelessly at us down through the centuries.

The Pre-tricorn Era

2006-04-30T17:47:00.000+01:00

This was where hats were going before the population started pinning the brim up:

Which could only lead to this sort of thing:

which, though fine for a portrait, would clearly flop down and generally obscure your vision when galloping through Epping Forest, on a sweating mare, in hot pursuit of the 10:15 from Colchester.

So who was it that first pinned a brim up? Someone must have been first. Someone must have been perhaps struggling to light the fire, their brim getting the way and them knocking it back with a casual back-handed gesture, then it flopping down again blowing the matches out until they got fed up and set to with a needle and thread.

Did they get ridiculed in the street? Did their friends stop buying them drinks in the pub? Did their wife refuse to sleep with them? You bet - it is a hard life for a fashion-monger. But eventually the efficacy of their needlework became apparent and, like a careless match discarded in the Australian Outback, it caught on and spread - from London, England to the New World.

rare colour photograph of American Minutemen preparing for the War of Independance

And did your man receive a penny for his troubles? Nah. He sat in the corner of the pub muttering to himself under his breath "mmnnnarrgg I thought of that mmmnn rrrrr" and he continued to be ridiculed, not bought drinks, and not get laid.

[And Thomas Dolby didn't invent that noise reduction system by the way.]

Cocked hats and the tricorn.

2006-04-29T18:48:00.000+01:00

No self-respecting Highwaymen would go out on the road and attempt to relieve the aristocracy of their pocket money, without his tricorn. Mind you everyone wore them, including the military.

It came about as the brims of felt hats became fashionably large and at the same time unfeasibly floppy, so folk took to pinning them up at the sides and the back, creating a three cornered hat. Usually worn with a point pointing forwards. It is, in fact, the orientation of the point that defined headgear [and which side you were on in the war with France] for nearly a hundred years.

For after the tricorn came, not surprisingly, the bicorn, where the brim was even bigger and was pinned up front and back only, being worn with the points facing left and right. Your man Napoleon made this particular chapeau popular.

Not wanting to copy the French Emperor, with whom we were at war, the British turned their bicorns through ninety degrees et voila! le cocked hat was born.

Robbing the Cheapside Coach

2006-04-29T15:10:00.000+01:00

For the BENEFIT of SEVERAL VIEWERS
MR. CURTIS & MR. ELTON'S
Much admir'd Comedy
B L A C K A D D E R
T h e T H I R D
OR
AMY and AMIABILITY

SALLY CHEAPSIDE: Honestly Papa. Ever since Mother died you've tried to stop me growing up. I'm not a little girl, I'm a grown woman. In fact I might as well tell you now Papa: I'm pregnant, and I'm an opium fiend, and I'm in love with a poet called Shelley who's a famous whoopsy, and Mother didn't die, I killed her!

DUKE OF CHEAPSIDE: Oh. (cheerily) Well, never mind.

EDMUND: Stand and deliver! (the coach starts to pull up)

DUKE OF CHEAPSIDE: Oh no! Oh no no no no no, disaster! It's the Shadow. We're doomed, doomed!

EDMUND: (draws up outside the window) Ah, good evening Duke, and the lovely Miss Cheapside. Your cash bags please. (the Duke hands him a bag of money) There we are.

DUKE OF CHEAPSIDE: You'll never get away with this, you scoundrel, you'll be caught and damn well hung!

SALLY CHEAPSIDE: I think he looks pretty well-

EDMUND: Madam, please, no jests about me looking pretty well hung already, we have no time.

SALLY CHEAPSIDE: Pity.

EDMUND: Now sir, turn out your pockets.

DUKE OF CHEAPSIDE: Never sir. A man's pockets are his own private kingdom. I'll protect them with my life!

EDMUND: Oh I see, you've got something embarrassing in there have you? Perhaps a particularly repulsive handkerchief, hmm? One of those fellows who has a big blow and then doesn't change it for a week? Let's have a look shall we? (takes the handkerchief and pulls out a jewel) Aha!

SALLY CHEAPSIDE: Highwayman, I also have a jewel. I fear however that I have placed it here, beneath my petticoats, for protection.

EDMUND: Well in that case madam, I think I'll leave it. I'm not sure I fancy the idea of a jewel that's been in someone's pants. A single kiss of those soft lips is all I require.

DUKE OF CHEAPSIDE: Never sir! A man's soft lips are his own private kingdom. I shall defend them with my life.

EDMUND: I'm not talking to you, Grandad.

SALLY CHEAPSIDE: (kisses him long and hard) Oh, I'm overcome. Take me with you to live the life of the wild rogue, cuddling under haystacks and making love in the branches of tall trees!

EDMUND: Madam, sadly I must decline. I fear my horse would collapse with you on top of him as well as me!

A View from the Office:

2006-04-28T10:00:00.000+01:00

Highwaymen

- Nature's Free-Market Economists -

have gone Big Business.

Stats and Maps and Pie Charts - oh my.

NOW THAT STUFF REALLY SCARES ME!

A View from 1939...

2006-04-28T09:46:00.000+01:00

When the Highwayman became...

... The Saint.

The View from the 1850s...

2006-04-28T09:15:00.000+01:00

... though the daily reality of highwaymen was within living memory:

the past was already turning rosy.

"As to the profession of robber in those days exercised on the roads of England, it was a liberal profession, which required more accomplishments than either the bar or the pulpit... - strength, health, agility and exquisite horsemanship, intrepidity of the first order, presence of mind, courtesy, and a general ambidexterity of powers for facing all accidents...

The mounted robber on the highways of England, in an age when all gentlemen travelled with firearms, lived in an element of danger and adventurous gallantry; which, even from those who could least allow him any portion of their esteem, extorted sometimes a good deal of their unwilling admiration."

Thomas de Quincey

"At Manchester Grammar School"

Collected Writings

A View from Huddersfield

2006-04-27T09:15:00.000+01:00

All the Highwaymen, and Highwaywomen, have gone inside because it looks like rain and soon the road will just be a sticky muddy quagmire and what with the rain dripping from the overhanging trees and the wind blowing in under the cape, Highway Robbery will be a miserable business. Sooner they were all round a log fire in a smoky tavern* with a bowl of good tobacco and a glass or six of Mother's Ruin.

*not shown in this photograph

A View from France

2006-04-26T17:54:00.000+01:00

Highwaymen are generally well mounted; one of them will stop a coach containing six or seven travellers. With one hand he will present a pistol, with the other his hat, asking the unfortunate passengers most politely for their purses or their lives... If he receives a reasonable contribution, he retires without doing you any injury.

When there are several highwaymen together, they will search you thoroughly and leave nothing. Others take only a part of what they find; but all these robbers ill-treat only those who try to defend themselves.

I have been told that some highwaymen are quite polite and generous, begging to be excused for being forced to rob, and leaving passengers the wherewithal to continue their journey.

César de Saussure (letter to his family, 1726)

The English, prejudiced in favour of their nation, defend with the utmost warmth their most vicious customs, as well as their wisest laws, and are as sanguine for the defects of their constitution, as for the most essential advantages attached to it.

They will rather joke upon this want of security on their roads, if you reproach them with it, than own it is a scandalous thing, in a government otherwise so well regulated, that a man cannot travel in safety.

There are some Englishmen not less vain in boasting of the address of their highwaymen, than of the bravery of their troops.

Jean Bernard le Blanc (letter, 1738)

Turpin No 593

2006-04-26T12:48:00.000+01:00

On 7th September 2002, Carolyn Rauen of Turpin High School, Cincinnati, Ohio, won the Varsity Individual Girls at the Midwest Meet of Champions - hoorah!

and her team won overall 2nd place.

Dick Turpin, though he did a lot of running - mainly through dark streets whilst being chased by various Custodians of the Law, it has to be said - never entered a Cross Country event. Shame, he probably would've won.

Hogarth-ho!

2006-04-25T21:23:00.000+01:00

When I suggested yesterday that the subjects of William Hogarth's art were drink-sodden, depraved and lowly citizens of the British Crown, I wasn't thinking of these.

Though, of course, they could be. That baby on the far left appears unsteady on his feet, the two girls look rather befuddled if not positively raddled, and the young gentleman with the 'bird-organ' (no insult; a 'bird-organ' is a musical box designed to imitate the chirping of our feathered friends) is clearly is not in any fit state to be operating machinery. Not to metion the sottish light in the kitten's eyes.

But no. These are the Graham children as they appeared in 1742, progeny of the Doctor of the same name, resident of Pall Mall and apothecary to King George II (God Bless 'im).

Well, look - William had to eat.

No, the sort of thing I had in mind was much more like this:

In tomorrow's post, I intend to explore with you the following conundrum: while, in the 18th century, England's poor were notorious as being the aforementioned drink-sodden, depraved and lowly etc., her highwaymen were praised throughout Europe for the excellence and all-round gentility of their manner...

Riding to York

2006-04-24T22:01:00.000+01:00

"Some vain attempts were made to take this notorious offender into custody; and among the rest, the huntsman of a gentleman in the neighbourhood went in search of him with blood-hounds.

Turpin perceiving them, and recollecting that King Charles II evaded his pursuers under covert of the friendly branches of the oak, mounted one of those trees under which the hounds passed, to his inexpressible terror, so that he determined to make a retreat into Yorkshire."

Newgate Calendar:

Or, Malefactor's Bloody Register

1760

I have been away in London since Friday, busy about the work of a very different man: a 14th century German Dominican teacher and preacher, known as Meister Eckhart.

Returning to York, and to Dick, is like entering a different world. Away with the Middle Ages! - and back to the 18th century - the Age of Reason, where the bright light of Scientific Enquiry sends the black beetles of superstition scurrying away...

Hmmm.

Except, of course, it didn't.

As a medievalist, I always considered the Enlightenment - such a smug name! - as my particular enemy. In a way the Rennaissance had not, it rang the death knell of the murky, passionate Middle Ages, which always seemed to me healthily carnal and visceral; somehow more in touch with the brevity of life, and all the more honest for it.

But for the past year now I have been up to my ears in Enlightenment, and found - of course - that nothing really changed. January 1, 1700 did not see the dawn of a brighter age, or at least not in any way that mattered to your average gin-soaked sop weaving his way through the dark streets of London. In the salons and lecture theatres of Europe's capitals, doubtless a new shiny life was being heralded.

Hogarth, and those he painted, did not see it.

The Great North Road

2006-04-24T16:12:00.000+01:00

Once the haunt of Highwaymen and connecting London with Edinburgh some 409 miles later, the Great North Road was the first road in Britain to incur a toll. In 1663 turnpike gates were errected in Hertfordshire, though of the three gates used, two were easily avoidable apparently. Unlike Highwaymen.

For most of its length the Great North Road is accompanied by the East Coast Main Line. But unlike the Great North Road, which was mainly a muddy track having evolved through time and trees, the East Coast Main Line was run by three companies: the North British Railway, the North Eastern Railway and the Great Northern Railway.

In 1860 they formed the East Coast Joint Stock to allow passengers to travel the entire route without changing carriages. Unlike the Great North Road which sported great coaching inns along its route where travellers would rest for the night while horses and carriages were changed and Highwaymen went through their luggage.

In 1923 the three railway companies merged to form the London and North Eastern Railway, the famous LNER. Today the East Coast Main Line is mainly operated by the Great North Eastern Railway, GNER.

The East Coast Main Line was the route for the record breaking non-stop run of the Flying Scotsman, which sported the green livery of the LNER.

the Flying Scotsman

The other Green Livery came from Lincoln and was mainly sported by Merry Men as they went their merry way following Robin of Loxleigh about in the Forests of Sherwood.

a forest similar to one containing Merry Men

Both the Great North Road and the East Coast Main Line would pass through Sherwood Forest if Sherwood Forest was the wood it was. Robin Hood has a train named after him, unlike Dick Turpin, who doesn't.

Midland mailine: The Robin Hood

The Great North Road was the route of the famous ride by Dick Turpin from London to York, on his trusty steed Black Bess. But unlike the Flying Scotsman this was entirely fictitious, being made up by one William Harrison Ainsworth for his novel Rookwood [1834]

Though Highwaymen plagued the travellers of the Great North Road, they didn't cause much disruption to the East Coast Main Line, largely due to the excessive speeds and general unstoppableness of the trains, but mainly due to the protagonists [Highwaymen and Trains] missing each other by about 100 years. The main disruption to the East Coast Main Line is caused by the wind blowing down power lines.

conclusion of the foregoing:

The Flying Scotsman weighs nearly 100 tonnes and could reach speeds of 100mph. In its working life the engine has travelled some 2.4 million miles. It has recently been sold for 2.2 million pounds to the National Railway Museum, in York, the city in which Dick Turpin was hanged.

Though he hasn't got a train named after him Dick Turpin has a lot of pubs he never visited named after him.

Though Robin Hood stopped travellers on the highway and demanded all their money, he is not generally considered a Highwayman.

Robin Hood was played throughout this post by Errol Flynn.

Unlike Dick Turpin, who was played by Richard O'Sullivan.

A TABLE of Proper Names written very different from their Pronunciation.

2006-04-21T16:18:00.000+01:00

Agmondesham - Amersham
Birmingham - Brummigum
Berwick - Barrick
Bristol - Bristo
Christmas - Crismus
Depford - Dedfurd
Dorothy - Dorroty
England - Inglan
February - Feburrery
Guild-Hall - Yeel Hall
Humphry - Umfry
Katharine - Katturn
London - Lunnun
Margaret - Margate
Rotherhith - Redriff
Sarah - Sarey
Southwark - Suthrick
Thames - Tems
Westminster - Westmistur

Extract from: EVERY Young Man's Companion, W GORDON Teacher of Mathematics, 1759

Bang Bang

2006-04-21T11:02:00.000+01:00

While legend has it that Dick killed two men - his partner, Matthew King and gamekeeper's servant, Thomas Morris - it is in fact only poor Tom that Turpin caused to bite the Big One. The illustration above, taken from an early edition of the Newgate Calendar, shows Turpin shooting - in self-defence, it might be argued - Morris, the man who had come to take him in.

Matthew King was actually shot by Richard Bayes, a bankrupt innkeeper from Leytonstone who was after a spot of notoriety and ready cash by bagging himself a Turpin.

The shooting occurred during a hectic fracas in the middle of the night in Red Lion Street, Whitechapel, where the two highwaymen had fallen into an ambush. They had returned to the stable of the Red Lion to collect Whitestockings, a racehorse King had stolen. King, on foot, was blasted by Bayes to prevent him from running away. Turpin, on horseback, galloped off to safety. King was told that it was Turpin who had betrayed him, and in the days it took him to die from his stomach-wound he spilled the beans on his former comrade.

Bayes never got the Blood Money he had been banking on, but after Turpin's execution two years later in 1739, he capitalised on his - however brief - association with Dick, by writing the highwayman's biography...

... a shameless piece of glamourised true-crime from beginning to end.

Sic transit gloria mundi!

Our Man Flint

2006-04-20T11:03:00.000+01:00

A 1718 breech-loading magazine-primed flintlock fowling piece by Robert Rowland.

Of course, when it came to guns, the really scary part wasn't so much the pieces themselves, though the choice for your average highwayman in the mid-18th century was quite extensive:

blunderbusses : two-barreled weapons, good on the short range, set off by flint-lock ignition;

pistols : smaller guns, not much used on horseback;

muskets : non-rifled barrels, good on the short range;

rifles : long guns with rifled barrels, making them more accurate;

carbines : evolved as a cavalry weapon, more accurate than muskets, good for close range from horseback.

No, the really scary part was what you put inside them: nails, glass, lead-shot and whatever else came to hand. Projected 25-50 feet in a scatter-formation, this lacerating miscellany could and did do lethal harm to their targets.

But the highwayman preferred, on the whole, not to shoot. It was far more effective to continue your career as a robber than be hunted down as a murderer... Which is why the night of Wednesday 4 May 1737 was so unlucky for Richard Turpin and one Thomas Morris.

Lock, Stock and Barrel

2006-04-20T08:14:00.000+01:00

After the Matchlock - a complicated affair involving a Galiver, a Pan, a Serpentine, a Burning Match, a Priming Flask and an Apostle - the Wheellock - less complicated but still complex involving a Wheel Spring, a Spinning Wheel, a Spanning Lever and a Flash Pan - and the Snaplock, in 1630 we got the Flintlock. [Hoorah! ].

This revloutionised the act of projecting pieces of metal into those you didn't like, and for two hundred years the flintlock hurled steel and lead into people on land and on sea.

Until one autumn morning in 1807 that is, when the Rev.A.J.Forsyth was out on a misty Scottish heath, trying to shoot pigeons for the housekeeper to cook his favourite pie. He noticed, somewhat to his annoyance, that the pigeons invariably flew off before his shot arrived at their plump breasts. This, he determined, was due to the flash of the powder and puff of smoke that prempted the rapid forward movement of lead shot in his flintlock musket, startling said birds and enabling them to make hasty egress and escape the pastry and potatoes.

Luckily for the Rev. A.J.Forsyth, but unluckily for the pigeons it has to be said, in 1800 Edward Charles Howard had discovered fulminates [friction-sensitive pseudohalic anions, if you must know]. So, for many days, down the damp moss-creeping steps, in his back kitchen and much to the annoyance of his housekeeper who was fed up with clearing away the broken glass and tending to his wounds, The Good Reverend, in the great tradition of the church, developed a better way of killing people.

By combining fulminate of mercury with chlorate of potash, sulphur and charcoal, he invented a Percussive Cap which exploded when hit. Across the world, in arsenals and gunrooms everywhere, Flintlocks were converted to Caplocks.

Not that caplocks weren't complicated, they were. Here's a list of parts:

Mainspring retainer
Lockplate
Hammer Nose recess
Tumbler screw
Upper limb of mainspring
Lower limb of mainspring
Claw of mainspring
Lower pivot stud
Stirrup
Upper pivot stud
Tumbler axle pivot
Tumbler
Fly
Half-cock notch
Pawl of sear
Sear pivot screw
Body of the sear
Arm of the sear
Sear spring
Sear spring screw
Bridle
Bridle screws
Hammer
Bolster
Retainer stud
Hammer spur
Hammer head
Stirrup arm of tumbler
Bolster

His Nibs

2006-04-19T22:24:00.000+01:00

Handwriting is an art which demands "all the forms which spirit can furnish and hand can execute."

Denis Diderot

Pictorial Encyclopedia of Trade and Industry

Art of Penmanship

2006-04-19T09:28:00.000+01:00

Writing a Letter?...

2006-04-18T22:52:00.000+01:00

... first, make your Quill.

After you have gotten you a good pen-knife well edg'd and smooth'd upon a hoane, and a good second quill, either of goose or raven, scraped with the backe of your knife, begin to make your pen thus:

1. First, holding your quill the right side upwards, cut off about the third part of it flat along the end.

2. And turning it on the backe side, cut off the very end of it asloape; which being done, it will be forte.

3. Then, holding it still on the backe, make a little cut in the very midst of the quill.

4. When you -have done so, take the end of your knife if it have a pegg, or else another quill, and make a slit up suddenly, even in the cut you gave before.

5. Which being done, turne your quill on the right side againe, and begin to cut a little thought above the slit, on the side which is next to your left hand, and so continue cutting by degrees, till you thinke you have sufficiently cut that side. But herein you must be very wary you cut not off too much of the slit; for then your pen will be too hard, and if you leave too much also, it will be too soft.

6. Then even against the place you baganne to cut the first side, cut the other likewise, till you have made them both of an equall thinnesse: and then trying it by lifting up the slit upon the nail of your thumbe, you shall see whether it be too soft or too hard: if either, bring it to a meane by adding more slit to it, if you see it bee too hard; or by taking some away, if you perceive it to be too soft.

7. Lastly, herein lies the difficulty, viz. in the nibbling of the pen, wherein I observe this rule, that placing it on the naile of my thumb, or middle finger I hold my knife somewhat sloaping, and cut the end of the nibbe, not quite off, but before my knife comes off, I turne him downe-right, and so cut the nibbe clean away, on both sides alike; contrary to that old rule, dextra pars penna, &c. Now if my pen be to write full, I cut off so much more of the nibbe; if small, so much less.

Martin Billingsley
The Pens Excellencie: Or, the Secretaries Delighte (1618)

The three-legged mare

2006-04-17T11:11:00.000+01:00

Gallows Humour

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ACORN. You will ride a horse foaled by an acorn, i.e. the gallows, called also the Wooden and Three-legged Mare. You will be hanged.--See THREE-LEGGED MARE.
CHATTS, CHATES. According to the canting academy, the gallows.
CLIMB. To climb the three trees with a ladder; to ascend the gallows.
To DANGLE. To be hanged: I shall see you dangle in the sheriff's picture frame; I shall see you hanging on the gallows.
DEADLY NEVERGREEN, that bears fruit all the year round. The gallows, or three-legged mare. DERRICK. The name of the finisher of the law, or hangman about the year 1608.--'For he rides his circuit with the Devil, and Derrick must be his host, and Tiburne the inne at which he will lighte.' Vide Bellman of London, in art. PRIGGIN LAW.--'At the gallows, where I leave them, as to the haven at which they must all cast anchor, if Derrick's cables do but hold.' Ibid.
DISMAL DITTY. The psalm sung by the felons at the gallows, just before they are turned off.
To DIE DUNGHILL. To repent, or shew any signs of contrition at the gallows.
DIE HARD, or GAME. To die hard, is to shew no signs of fear or contrition at the gallows; not to whiddle or squeak. This advice is frequently given to felons going to suffer the law, by their old comrades, anxious for the honour of the gang.
GREGORIAN TREE. The gallows: so named from Gregory Brandon, a famous finisher of the law; to whom Sir William Segar, garter king of arms (being imposed on by Brooke, a herald), granted a coat of arms.
HOLBORN HILL. To ride backwards up Holborn hill; to go to the gallows: the way to Tyburn, the place of execution for criminals condemned in London, was up that hill. Criminals going to suffer, always ride backwards, as some conceive to increase the ignominy, but more probably to prevent them being shocked with a distant view of the gallows; as, in amputations, surgeons conceal the instruments with which they are going to operate. The last execution at Tyburn, and consequently of this procession, was in the year 1784, since which the criminals have been executed near Newgate.
KETCH. Jack Ketch; a general name for the finishers of the law, or hangmen, ever since the year 1682, when the office was filled by a famous practitioner of that name, of whom his wife said, that any bungler might put a man to death, but only her husband knew how to make a gentleman die sweetly. This officer is mentioned in Butler's Ghost, page 54, published about the year 1682, in the following lines:

Till Ketch observing he was chous'd,
And in his profits much abus'd.
In open hall the tribute dunn'd,
To do his office, or refund.

Mr. Ketch had not long been elevated to his office, for the name of his predecessor Dun occurs in the former part of this poem, page 29:

For you yourself to act squire Dun,
Such ignominy ne'er saw the sun.

The addition of 'squire,' with which Mr. Dun is here dignified, is a mark that he had beheaded some state criminal for high treason; an operation which, according to custom for time out of mind, has always entitled the operator to that distinction. The predecessor of Dun was Gregory Brandon, from whom the gallows was called the Gregorian tree, by which name it is mentioned in the prologue to Mercurius Pragmaticus, tragi-comedy acted at Paris, &c. 1641:

This trembles under the black rod, and he
Doth fear his fate from the Gregorian tree.

Gregory Brandon succeeded Derrick. See DERRICK.
MORNING DROP. The gallows. He napped the king's pardon and escaped the morning drop; he was pardoned, and was not hanged.
NEWMAN'S LIFT. The gallows.
NUBBING. Hanging. Nubbing cheat: the gallows. Nubbing cove; the hangman. Nubbing ken; the sessions house.
PIT. The hole under the gallows, where poor rogues unable to pay the fees are buried.
SCAPEGALLOWS. One who deserves and has narrowly escaped the gallows, a slip-gibbet, one for whom the gallows is said to groan.
SUSPENCE. One in a deadly suspence; a man just turned off at the gallows.
THREE-LEGGED MARE, or STOOL. The gallows, formerly consisting of three posts, over which were laid three transverse beams. This clumsy machine has lately given place to an elegant contrivance, called the NEW DROP, by which the use of that vulgar vehicle a cart, or mechanical instrument a ladder, is also avoided; the patients being left suspended by the dropping down of that part of the floor on which they stand. This invention was first made use of for a peer.
TOPPING CHEAT. The gallows.
TOPPING COVE. The hangman.

from A Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue

Captain Grose (1811)

Silly boys

2006-04-15T16:11:00.000+01:00

... after reading the adventures of Jack Sheppard or Dick Turpin, pillage the stalls of unfortunate apple-women, break into sweet-shops at night, and alarm old gentlemen who are returning home from the city by leaping out on them in suburban lanes, with black masks and unloaded revolvers.
This interesting phenomenon, which always occurs after the appearance of a new edition of either of the books I have alluded to, is usually attributed to the influence of literature on the imagination. But this is a mistake.
The imagination is essentially creative, and always seeks for a new form. The boy-burglar is simply the inevitable result of life's imitative instinct. He is Fact, occupied as Fact usually is, with trying to reproduce Fiction, and what we see in him is repeated on an extended scale throughout the whole of life.

OSCAR WILDE

The Decay of Lying

Diptych

2006-04-15T15:41:00.000+01:00

"Let's bung our Eyes in Drink."

A tall, fresh-coloured Man, very much marked

with the Small Pox, about 26 Years of Age,

about five Feet nine Inches high.

He wears a blue-grey Coat and a natural Wig.

"Only detain our Bird five Minutes at the Star,

and if I don't pluck him to the Pin-Feathers,

call me a Bungler, that's all."

They gave out it was Turpin, but that Fellow,

having done much Mischief of late,

runs in Everybody's Head.

"You have done Wrong in shooting your

Landlord's Cockerel."

"If you'll stay till I reload, I'll shoot you too."

“It having been represented to the King,
that Richard Turpin did,

on Wednesday, the 4th of May last,
barbarously murder Thomas Morris,

Servant to Henry Thompson,
one of the Keepers of Epping Forest,

and commit other Notorious Felonies
and Robberies, near London,

his Majesty is pleased to promise
His most gracious Pardon to

any of his Accomplices, and a Reward of 200 l.
to any Person or Persons

that shall discover him,
so that he may be apprehended and convicted.

Turpin was born at Thackstead, in Essex, is about thirty,

by Trade a Butcher, about five Feet nine Inches high,

very much marked with the Small-Pox, his Cheek-Bones broad,

his Face thinner towards the bottom; his Visage short,

pretty Upright, and broad about the Shoulders.”

The Shadow

2006-04-15T13:55:00.000+01:00

There was a rustle,
a snap of a twig,
then a glimpse
a shape behind a tree.

I walked on
holding the few coins I had
tight in my hand
as it grew darker.

There it was again
a scuff on stone
a moving branch
then stillness.

I felt watched
who was waiting for me?
who was watching?
behind the trees.

I pulled my cloak
around me
and my hat, down hard.
over my eyes.

A sudden flurry
bustle of leaves
in front of me.
a thump
a dash,
a trip
soft sickening sweet
disappearing pink

Fuck! - it was the Easter Bunny
I thought it was Dick Turpin.

Mud, blood and horse

2006-04-14T10:51:00.000+01:00

A Welcome Inn...

2006-04-13T18:37:00.000+01:00

... the hillside.

Bucket Hill-side, to be precise.

Dick, son and grandson of landlords, was landlord of a little pub of his own for about eighteen months while the majority of the Gregory Gang were singing the jailhouse rock. For the purposes of fiction, and as a doff of the cap to Mr. Dickens (who put it in Barnaby Rudge), in Dick I make this inn the King's Head on Epping High Street. It is still going - a fine building, boasting even more gables today than when Dickens marvelled at their profusion.

In Real Life the location of Dick's pub is disputed, as the shorthand writing expert taking down Turpin's trial verbatim had problems hearing the name. He thought it sounded like 'Boxhill or some such Name'. Derek Barlow, Turpin-scholar, thinks Bookers Hill, alias Buckhurst Hill, alias Bucket Hill, in the parish of Chigwell, might have been the place.

This 18th Century map by Cary shows an inn in the right lcoation called the Rain Deer.

Land Pyrates:

2006-04-12T21:29:00.000+01:00

Arch-Rogue
Bully Ruffin
Captain
Colt
Collector
Dimber-Damber
Gentleman's Master
High Pad
Kiddey
Knight of the Road
Land Pirate
Rank Rider
Royal Scamp
Rum Padder
Scamp
Snaffler
Toby Gill
Uprightman

HIGHWAYMEN

Highseamen

2006-04-12T16:55:00.000+01:00

or as most people call them: PIRATES

Robbing from the Rich at the same time as our man Turpin was.

John Rackam, called Calico Jack because of his loud striped trousers [though when this picture was taken they must have been in the wash]

Edward Teach - more commonly known as Blackbeard

Mary Read, one of two known female pirates

When we've finished Turpin, and Rebecca's written her series of 18th Century crime thrillers, and everyone's forgotten the Black Pearl [though not of course the Black Pig] we might tackle the mighty subject of Robbery on the High Seas.

Last Seen At...

2006-04-11T21:42:00.000+01:00

... virtually the centre of this Map.

REWARD OFFERED:

2006-04-11T17:28:00.000+01:00

STOLEN on Saturday 30 April near the Green Man inn at Leytonstone:

Whitestockings

a Thoroughbred Racehorse, property of Mr. Joseph Major.

If Any Man has Information as to the Whereabouts of this Sorrel Mare, with curled Tail and her two Hinder Feet White, he should apply either to Mr. Richard Bayes, propr. at the Green Man, to Constable Pullen of Tothill, Westminster, or to Mr. Major himself, currently residing in the parish of St. Sepulchre, London.

The Principal Suspects are Richard Turpin and Matthew King, Highwaymen.

a letter for...

2006-04-11T15:12:00.000+01:00

...wait a minute I know that handwriting...

Alias Palmer

2006-04-11T13:38:00.000+01:00

York, Feb. 6, 1739

Dear Brother,

I am sorry to acquaint you that I am now under Confinement in York Castle, for Horse-stealing. If I could procure an Evidence from London to give me a Character, that would go a Great Way towards my being acquitted. I had not been long in this Country before my being apprehended, so that it would pass off the Readier. For Heaven's Sake, dear Brother, do not neglect me; you will know what I mean, when I say,

I am yours,

John Palmer

Further Instructions in the Art of Penmanship

2006-04-11T09:14:00.000+01:00

a LETTER from an elder to a younger Brother, representing to him the fatal Consequences that must unavoidably attend him, in case he persists in his Extravagance.

Dear Dick,

AS you are my only Brother, you must imagine, if you give yourself the least Time for Reflection, that your Misfortunes affect me next to my own. You are sensible, tho' have aquaintence and association with some who are not, I have met with too many; but then you know very well, at the same Time, that they must be ascribed to unforeseen Accidents, and not to any wilful Acts of Profusion.

This consideration supports me under the Weight of them; but as to those that have befallen me on Account, they must be imputed indeed to my indiscretion. Whilst my Father and Mother were living, they both supplied you, not only with the Conveniences of Life, but indulged you, if I may be so free as to say so, in your Levity and Extravagance.

My Love for you inclines me, I must own, to serve you to the utmost in my Power; but, dear Dick, which Way can I effectually do it? Were I to send you the hundred Guineas according to your Request, of what real Advantage would it be to you? It would prove no other Service in the World, than to lengthen your Credit, and make you run deeper into Debt.

However, notwithstanding all your repeated Provocations, you may assure yourself, when I have any convincing Proof of your Reformation, no reasonable Assistance with be denied you, by

Your affectionate, tho' much injur'd Brother

General Instructions in the Art of Penmanship

2006-04-10T23:15:00.000+01:00

Some General Directions in regard to Epistolary Writing

The Style peculiar to such Letters as consist only of Compliment, Wit and Address, should be always gay indeed, but free and easy, void of all studied Graces, and as near a Copy of Nature as possible.

The Mannered Man

2006-04-10T10:38:00.000+01:00

In your person you must be accurately clean; and your teeth, hands, and nails, should be superlatively so; a dirty mouth has real ill consequences to the owner, for it infallibly causes the decay, as well as the intolerable pain of the teeth, and it is very offensive to his acquaintance, for it will most inevitably stink. I insist, therefore, that you wash your teeth the first thing you do every morning, with a soft sponge and warm water, for four or five minutes; and then wash your mouth five or six times. Mouton, whom I desire you will send for upon your arrival at Paris, will give you an opiate, and a liquor to be used sometimes.

Nothing looks more ordinary, vulgar, and illiberal, than dirty hands, and ugly, uneven, and ragged nails: I do not suspect you of that shocking, awkward trick, of biting yours; but that is not enough: you must keep the ends of them smooth and clean, not tipped with black, as the ordinary people's always are. The ends of your nails should be small segments of circles, which, by a very little care in the cutting, they are very easily brought to; every time that you wipe your hands, rub the skin round your nails backward, that it may not grow up, and shorten your nails too much.

The cleanliness of the rest of your person, which, by the way, will conduce greatly to your health, I refer from time to time to the bagnio. My mentioning these particulars arises (I freely own) from some suspicion that the hints are not unnecessary; for, when you were a schoolboy, you were slovenly and dirty above your fellows.

I must add another caution, which is that upon no account whatever, you put your fingers, as too many people are apt to do, in your nose or ears. It is the most shocking, nasty, vulgar rudeness, that can be offered to company; it disgusts one, it turns one's stomach; and, for my own part, I would much rather know that a man's fingers were actually in his breech,than see them in his nose. Wash your ears well every morning, and blow your nose in your handkerchief whenever you have occasion; but, by the way, without looking at it afterward.

There should be in the least, as well as in the greatest parts of a gentleman, 'les manieres nobles'. Sense will teach you some, observation others; attend carefully to the manners, the diction, the motions, of people of the first fashion, and form your own upon them. On the other hand, observe a little those of the vulgar, in order to avoid them: for though the things which they say or do may be the same, the manner is always totally different: and in that, and nothing else, consists the characteristic of a man of fashion.

The lowest peasant speaks, moves, dresses, eats, and drinks, as much as a man of the first fashion, but does them all quite differently; so that by doing and saying most things in a manner opposite to that of the vulgar, you have a great chance of doing and saying them right. There are gradations in awkwardness and vulgarism, as there are in everything else.

The Earl of Chesterfield, to his son

London, November 12 1750

Daylight Robbery

2006-04-10T09:18:00.000+01:00

Of DIFFICULTIES and DISEASES of the HORSE

2006-04-09T23:42:00.000+01:00

Of BLEEDING, PURGING and CLYSTERS
Of the PLEURISY and INFLAMMATION of the LUNGS
Of a BROKEN-WIND
Of the STAGGERS, CONVULSIONS and PALSEY
Of the STRANGLES and VIVES
Of the GLANDERS
Of the GRIPES
Of the LAX and SCOURING
Of WORMS and BOTS
Of the YELLOWS
Of the STRANGURY and PISSING of BLOOD
Of MOLTEN GREASE
Of SURFEITS, MANGE and being HIDE-BOUND
Of the FARCY
Of STRAINS
Of SPLENTS
Of the POLL-EVIL
Of WITHERS, WARBLES and SIT-FASTS
Of WIND-GALLS and the BLOOD-SPAVIN
Of the MALLENDERS and SALLENDERS
Of the GREASE
Of the CANKER
Of SAND-CRACKS and QUITTERS
Of the RUNNING FRUSH

Extract from: EVERY Young Man's Companion, W GORDON Teacher of Mathematics, 1759

Speed Demon

2006-04-09T17:02:00.000+01:00

Some people will tell you that slow is good -

and it may be, on some days -

but I am here to tell you that fast is better.

I've always believed this, in spite of the trouble it's caused me.

Hunter S. Thompson

Horseplay

2006-04-09T16:43:00.000+01:00

Flump - an abrupt or heavy fall
Send for a horse ladder - send on a fool's errand
Horse's meal - food served without drink
Who put that monkey on horseback without tying his tail? - said of a very bad horseman
Ride the forehorse - to be early
Saddle the wrong horse - lay blame on the wrong person
Saddle one's nose - wear spectacles
Go a snail's gallop - move very slowly
Scarlet horse - a hired horse

Whistlejacket

2006-04-09T14:37:00.000+01:00

George Stubbs, 1762
oil on canvas
2920mm x 2464mm
National Gallery London

Black Bess

2006-04-09T14:03:00.000+01:00

If blood can give nobility,
A noble steed was she;
Her sire was blood, and blood her dam,
And all her pedigree.

There was no redundancy of flesh, 'tis true; her flanks might, to please some tastes, have been rounder, and her shoulder fuller; but look at the nerve and sinew, palpable through the veined limbs! She was built more for strength than beauty, and yet she was beautiful. Look at that elegant little head; those thin tapering ears, closely placed together; that broad snorting nostril, which seems to snuff the gale with disdain; that eye, glowing and large as the diamond of Giamschid! Is she not beautiful? Behold her paces! How gracefully she moves! She is off! no eagle on the wing could skim the air more swiftly.

Rookwood
William Harrison Ainsworth, 1856

Hobbyhorse

2006-04-09T12:21:00.000+01:00

hobby (hob/ee) n. a small horse [Middle English: Hoby, derivation of Robin used as a horses' name as with Dobbin]

Black Bess
*
Horse
*
Pony
*
Hobby
*
Hobbyhorse
*
Dandyhorse
*
Boneshaker
*
Draisine
*
Bicycle
*
Triumph Bonneville

The Riot Act

2006-04-08T20:48:00.000+01:00

An act for preventing tumults and riotous assemblies, and for the more speedy and effectual punishing the rioters.

To be read to any group of twelve or more persons unlawfully, riotously, and tumultuously gathered together allowing them one hour to disperse:

Our Sovereign Lord the King chargeth and commandeth all persons being assembled immediately to disperse themselves, and peaceably to depart to their habitations or to their lawful business, upon the pains contained in the act made in the first year of King George for preventing tumultuous and riotous assemblies. God save the King.

not a riot

a riot

The Riot Act was repealed in 1973

Mind your Ps and Qs... peas and queues... piece and cues...

2006-04-08T13:05:00.000+01:00

PRISON, play, pretend, purse, pistol, PULLEN, poet, people, perverse/perversion/pervert, peace, period, PENALTY, planets, St. Peter, pamphlet, peddler, pick-pocket, popular, poplar, propensity ("Positive propensity to commit certain kinds of violent crime" - John Clavell, re. gentlemen), padding, polite, PRESTIGE, place, property, poor, profligate, "PULL'D TO HEAVEN ON A STRING" (= hanged), power, presence, pebble (in mouth to alter voice), presume, prayers, pardon, pass, pub, prepare, pronounce, pardon, pleasure, prize, price, pirate, pike, profession, pulpit, pliable, post-chaise, possibilities, PURSUE, PENITENT, Pompadour Rivernall (Dick's brother-in-law, husband of Dorothy Turpin - in 1739 he refuses Dick's letter, bringing about indirectly his unmasking and his death), path, pug, painter, posse, puzzled, pride, pound, pouch, paunch, punch, perch, piss, penis, prick, pock-mark, pox, pillory...

Thoughts for Chapter 7, DICK

Trumph T140 "Bonneville" flattracker

2006-04-07T21:19:00.000+01:00

"Although motorcycle riding is romantic, motorcycle maintenance is purely classic."

Robert M Pirsig