Bill-Sticking
IF I had an enemy whom I hated - which Heaven forbid! - and if I
knew of something which sat heavy on his conscience, I think I
would introduce that something into a Posting-Bill, and place a
large impression in the hands of an active sticker. I can scarcely
imagine a more terrible revenge. I should haunt him, by this
means, night and day. I do not mean to say that I would publish
his secret, in red letters two feet high, for all the town to read:
I would darkly refer to it. It should be between him, and me, and
the Posting-Bill. Say, for example, that, at a certain period of
his life, my enemy had surreptitiously possessed himself of a key.
I would then embark my capital in the lock business, and conduct
that business on the advertising principle. In all my placards and
advertisements, I would throw up the line SECRET KEYS. Thus, if my
enemy passed an uninhabited house, he would see his conscience
glaring down on him from the parapets, and peeping up at him from
the cellars. If he took a dead wall in his walk, it would be alive
with reproaches. If he sought refuge in an omnibus, the panels
thereof would become Belshazzar's palace to him. If he took boat,
in a wild endeavour to escape, he would see the fatal words lurking
under the arches of the bridges over the Thames. If he walked the
streets with downcast eyes, he would recoil from the very stones of
the pavement, made eloquent by lamp-black lithograph. If he drove
or rode, his way would be blocked up by enormous vans, each
proclaiming the same words over and over again from its whole
extent of surface. Until, having gradually grown thinner and
paler, and having at last totally rejected food, he would miserably
perish, and I should be revenged. This conclusion I should, no
doubt, celebrate by laughing a hoarse laugh in three syllables, and
folding my arms tight upon my chest agreeably to most of the
examples of glutted animosity that I have had an opportunity of
observing in connexion with the Drama - which, by-the-by, as
involving a good deal of noise, appears to me to be occasionally
confounded with the Drummer.
The foregoing reflections presented themselves to my mind, the
other day, as I contemplated (being newly come to London from the
East Riding of Yorkshire, on a house-hunting expedition for next
May), an old warehouse which rotting paste and rotting paper had
brought down to the condition of an old cheese. It would have been
impossible to say, on the most conscientious survey, how much of
its front was brick and mortar, and how much decaying and decayed
plaster. It was so thickly encrusted with fragments of bills, that
no ship's keel after a long voyage could be half so foul. All
traces of the broken windows were billed out, the doors were billed
across, the water-spout was billed over. The building was shored
up to prevent its tumbling into the street; and the very beams
erected against it were less wood than paste and paper, they had
been so continually posted and reposted. The forlorn dregs of old
posters so encumbered this wreck, that there was no hold for new
posters, and the stickers had abandoned the place in despair,
except one enterprising man who had hoisted the last masquerade to
a clear spot near the level of the stack of chimneys where it waved
and drooped like a shattered flag. Below the rusty cellar-grating,
crumpled remnants of old bills torn down, rotted away in wasting
heaps of fallen leaves. Here and there, some of the thick rind of
the house had peeled off in strips, and fluttered heavily down,
littering the street; but, still, below these rents and gashes,
layers of decomposing posters showed themselves, as if they were
interminable. I thought the building could never even be pulled
down, but in one adhesive heap of rottenness and poster. As to
getting in - I don't believe that if the Sleeping Beauty and her
Court had been so billed up, the young Prince could have done it.
Knowing all the posters that were yet legible, intimately, and
pondering on their ubiquitous nature, I was led into the
reflections with which I began this paper, by considering what an
awful thing it would be, ever to have wronged - say M. JULLIEN for
example - and to have his avenging name in characters of fire
incessantly before my eyes. Or to have injured MADAME TUSSAUD, and
undergo a similar retribution. Has any man a self-reproachful
thought associated with pills, or ointment? What an avenging
spirit to that man is PROFESSOR HOLLOWAY! Have I sinned in oil?
CABBURN pursues me. Have I a dark remembrance associated with any
gentlemanly garments, bespoke or ready made? MOSES and SON are on
my track. Did I ever aim a blow at a defenceless fellow-creature's
head? That head eternally being measured for a wig, or that worse
head which was bald before it used the balsam, and hirsute
afterwards - enforcing the benevolent moral, 'Better to be bald as
a Dutch cheese than come to this,' - undoes me. Have I no sore
places in my mind which MECHI touches - which NICOLL probes - which
no registered article whatever lacerates? Does no discordant note
within me thrill responsive to mysterious watchwords, as 'Revalenta
Arabica,' or 'Number One St. Paul's Churchyard'? Then may I enjoy
life, and be happy.
Lifting up my eyes, as I was musing to this effect, I beheld
advancing towards me (I was then on Cornhill, near to the Royal
Exchange), a solemn procession of three advertising vans, of first-
class dimensions, each drawn by a very little horse. As the
cavalcade approached, I was at a loss to reconcile the careless
deportment of the drivers of these vehicles, with the terrific
announcements they conducted through the city, which being a
summary of the contents of a Sunday newspaper, were of the most
thrilling kind. Robbery, fire, murder, and the ruin of the United
Kingdom - each discharged in a line by itself, like a separate
broad-side of red-hot shot - were among the least of the warnings
addressed to an unthinking people. Yet, the Ministers of Fate who
drove the awful cars, leaned forward with their arms upon their
knees in a state of extreme lassitude, for want of any subject of
interest. The first man, whose hair I might naturally have
expected to see standing on end, scratched his head - one of the
smoothest I ever beheld - with profound indifference. The second
whistled. The third yawned.
Pausing to dwell upon this apathy, it appeared to me, as the fatal
cars came by me, that I descried in the second car, through the
portal in which the charioteer was seated, a figure stretched upon
the floor. At the same time, I thought I smelt tobacco. The
latter impression passed quickly from me; the former remained.
Curious to know whether this prostrate figure was the one
impressible man of the whole capital who had been stricken
insensible by the terrors revealed to him, and whose form had been
placed in the car by the charioteer, from motives of humanity, I
followed the procession. It turned into Leadenhall-market, and
halted at a public-house. Each driver dismounted. I then
distinctly heard, proceeding from the second car, where I had dimly
seen the prostrate form, the words:
'And a pipe!'
The driver entering the public-house with his fellows, apparently
for purposes of refreshment, I could not refrain from mounting on
the shaft of the second vehicle, and looking in at the portal. I
then beheld, reclining on his back upon the floor, on a kind of
mattress or divan, a little man in a shooting-coat. The
exclamation 'Dear me' which irresistibly escaped my lips caused him
to sit upright, and survey me. I found him to be a good-looking
little man of about fifty, with a shining face, a tight head, a
bright eye, a moist wink, a quick speech, and a ready air. He had
something of a sporting way with him.
He looked at me, and I looked at him, until the driver displaced me
by handing in a pint of beer, a pipe, and what I understand is
called 'a screw' of tobacco - an object which has the appearance of
a curl-paper taken off the barmaid's head, with the curl in it.
'I beg your pardon,' said I, when the removed person of the driver
again admitted of my presenting my face at the portal. 'But -
excuse my curiosity, which I inherit from my mother - do you live
here?'
'That's good, too!' returned the little man, composedly laying
aside a pipe he had smoked out, and filling the pipe just brought
to him.
'Oh, you DON'T live here then?' said I.
He shook his head, as he calmly lighted his pipe by means of a
German tinder-box, and replied, 'This is my carriage. When things
are flat, I take a ride sometimes, and enjoy myself. I am the
inventor of these wans.'
His pipe was now alight. He drank his beer all at once, and he
smoked and he smiled at me.
'It was a great idea!' said I.
'Not so bad,' returned the little man, with the modesty of merit.
'Might I be permitted to inscribe your name upon the tablets of my
memory?' I asked.
'There's not much odds in the name,' returned the little man, ' -
no name particular - I am the King of the Bill-Stickers.'
'Good gracious!' said I.
The monarch informed me, with a smile, that he had never been
crowned or installed with any public ceremonies, but that he was
peaceably acknowledged as King of the Bill-Stickers in right of
being the oldest and most respected member of 'the old school of
bill-sticking.' He likewise gave me to understand that there was a
Lord Mayor of the Bill-Stickers, whose genius was chiefly exercised
within the limits of the city. He made some allusion, also, to an
inferior potentate, called 'Turkey-legs;' but I did not understand
that this gentleman was invested with much power. I rather
inferred that he derived his title from some peculiarity of gait,
and that it was of an honorary character.
'My father,' pursued the King of the Bill-Stickers, 'was Engineer,
Beadle, and Bill-Sticker to the parish of St. Andrew's, Holborn, in
the year one thousand seven hundred and eighty. My father stuck
bills at the time of the riots of London.'
'You must be acquainted with the whole subject of bill-sticking,
from that time to the present!' said I.
'Pretty well so,' was the answer.
'Excuse me,' said I; 'but I am a sort of collector - '
''Not Income-tax?' cried His Majesty, hastily removing his pipe
from his lips.
'No, no,' said I.
'Water-rate?' said His Majesty.
'No, no,' I returned.
'Gas? Assessed? Sewers?' said His Majesty.
'You misunderstand me,' I replied, soothingly. 'Not that sort of
collector at all: a collector of facts.'
'Oh, if it's only facts,' cried the King of the Bill-Stickers,
recovering his good-humour, and banishing the great mistrust that
had suddenly fallen upon him, 'come in and welcome! If it had been
income, or winders, I think I should have pitched you out of the
wan, upon my soul!'
Readily complying with the invitation, I squeezed myself in at the
small aperture. His Majesty, graciously handing me a little three-
legged stool on which I took my seat in a corner, inquired if I
smoked.
'I do; - that is, I can,' I answered.
'Pipe and a screw!' said His Majesty to the attendant charioteer.
'Do you prefer a dry smoke, or do you moisten it?'
As unmitigated tobacco produces most disturbing effects upon my
system (indeed, if I had perfect moral courage, I doubt if I should
smoke at all, under any circumstances), I advocated moisture, and
begged the Sovereign of the Bill-Stickers to name his usual liquor,
and to concede to me the privilege of paying for it. After some
delicate reluctance on his part, we were provided, through the
instrumentality of the attendant charioteer, with a can of cold
rum-and-water, flavoured with sugar and lemon. We were also
furnished with a tumbler, and I was provided with a pipe. His
Majesty, then observing that we might combine business with
conversation, gave the word for the car to proceed; and, to my
great delight, we jogged away at a foot pace.
I say to my great delight, because I am very fond of novelty, and
it was a new sensation to be jolting through the tumult of the city
in that secluded Temple, partly open to the sky, surrounded by the
roar without, and seeing nothing but the clouds. Occasionally,
blows from whips fell heavily on the Temple's walls, when by
stopping up the road longer than usual, we irritated carters and
coachmen to madness; but they fell harmless upon us within and
disturbed not the serenity of our peaceful retreat. As I looked
upward, I felt, I should imagine, like the Astronomer Royal. I was
enchanted by the contrast between the freezing nature of our
external mission on the blood of the populace, and the perfect
composure reigning within those sacred precincts: where His
Majesty, reclining easily on his left arm, smoked his pipe and
drank his rum-and-water from his own side of the tumbler, which
stood impartially between us. As I looked down from the clouds and
caught his royal eye, he understood my reflections. 'I have an
idea,' he observed, with an upward glance, 'of training scarlet
runners across in the season, - making a arbour of it, - and
sometimes taking tea in the same, according to the song.'
I nodded approval.
'And here you repose and think?' said I.
'And think,' said he, 'of posters - walls - and hoardings.'
We were both silent, contemplating the vastness of the subject. I
remembered a surprising fancy of dear THOMAS HOOD'S, and wondered
whether this monarch ever sighed to repair to the great wall of
China, and stick bills all over it.
'And so,' said he, rousing himself, 'it's facts as you collect?'
'Facts,' said I.
'The facts of bill-sticking,' pursued His Majesty, in a benignant
manner, 'as known to myself, air as following. When my father was
Engineer, Beadle, and Bill-Sticker to the parish of St. Andrew's,
Holborn, he employed women to post bills for him. He employed
women to post bills at the time of the riots of London. He died at
the age of seventy-five year, and was buried by the murdered Eliza
Grimwood, over in the Waterloo Road.'
As this was somewhat in the nature of a royal speech, I listened
with deference and silently. His Majesty, taking a scroll from his
pocket, proceeded, with great distinctness, to pour out the
following flood of information:-
'"The bills being at that period mostly proclamations and
declarations, and which were only a demy size, the manner of
posting the bills (as they did not use brushes) was by means of a
piece of wood which they called a 'dabber.' Thus things continued
till such time as the State Lottery was passed, and then the
printers began to print larger bills, and men were employed instead
of women, as the State Lottery Commissioners then began to send men
all over England to post bills, and would keep them out for six or
eight months at a time, and they were called by the London bill-
stickers 'TRAMPERS,' their wages at the time being ten shillings
per day, besides expenses. They used sometimes to be stationed in
large towns for five or six months together, distributing the
schemes to all the houses in the town. And then there were more
caricature wood-block engravings for posting-bills than there are
at the present time, the principal printers, at that time, of
posting-bills being Messrs. Evans and Ruffy, of Budge Row;
Thoroughgood and Whiting, of the present day; and Messrs. Gye and
Balne, Gracechurch Street, City. The largest bills printed at that
period were a two-sheet double crown; and when they commenced
printing four-sheet bills, two bill-stickers would work together.
They had no settled wages per week, but had a fixed price for their
work, and the London bill-stickers, during a lottery week, have
been known to earn, each, eight or nine pounds per week, till the
day of drawing; likewise the men who carried boards in the street
used to have one pound per week, and the bill-stickers at that time
would not allow any one to wilfully cover or destroy their bills,
as they had a society amongst themselves, and very frequently dined
together at some public-house where they used to go of an evening
to have their work delivered out untoe 'em."'
All this His Majesty delivered in a gallant manner; posting it, as
it were, before me, in a great proclamation. I took advantage of
the pause he now made, to inquire what a 'two-sheet double crown'
might express?
'A two-sheet double crown,' replied the King, 'is a bill thirty-
nine inches wide by thirty inches high.'
'Is it possible,' said I, my mind reverting to the gigantic
admonitions we were then displaying to the multitude - which were
as infants to some of the posting-bills on the rotten old warehouse
- 'that some few years ago the largest bill was no larger than
that?'
'The fact,' returned the King, 'is undoubtedly so.' Here he
instantly rushed again into the scroll.
'"Since the abolishing of the State Lottery all that good feeling
has gone, and nothing but jealousy exists, through the rivalry of
each other. Several bill-sticking companies have started, but have
failed. The first party that started a company was twelve year
ago; but what was left of the old school and their dependants
joined together and opposed them. And for some time we were quiet
again, till a printer of Hatton Garden formed a company by hiring
the sides of houses; but he was not supported by the public, and he
left his wooden frames fixed up for rent. The last company that
started, took advantage of the New Police Act, and hired of Messrs.
Grissell and Peto the hoarding of Trafalgar Square, and established
a bill-sticking office in Cursitor Street, Chancery Lane, and
engaged some of the new bill-stickers to do their work, and for a
time got the half of all our work, and with such spirit did they
carry on their opposition towards us, that they used to give us in
charge before the magistrate, and get us fined; but they found it
so expensive, that they could not keep it up, for they were always
employing a lot of ruffians from the Seven Dials to come and fight
us; and on one occasion the old bill-stickers went to Trafalgar
Square to attempt to post bills, when they were given in custody by
the watchman in their employ, and fined at Queen Square five
pounds, as they would not allow any of us to speak in the office;
but when they were gone, we had an interview with the magistrate,
who mitigated the fine to fifteen shillings. During the time the
men were waiting for the fine, this company started off to a
public-house that we were in the habit of using, and waited for us
coming back, where a fighting scene took place that beggars
description. Shortly after this, the principal one day came and
shook hands with us, and acknowledged that he had broken up the
company, and that he himself had lost five hundred pound in trying
to overthrow us. We then took possession of the hoarding in
Trafalgar Square; but Messrs. Grissell and Peto would not allow us
to post our bills on the said hoarding without paying them - and
from first to last we paid upwards of two hundred pounds for that
hoarding, and likewise the hoarding of the Reform Club-house, Pall
Mall."'
His Majesty, being now completely out of breath, laid down his
scroll (which he appeared to have finished), puffed at his pipe,
and took some rum-and-water. I embraced the opportunity of asking
how many divisions the art and mystery of bill-sticking comprised?
He replied, three - auctioneers' bill-sticking, theatrical bill-
sticking, general bill-sticking.
'The auctioneers' porters,' said the King, 'who do their bill-
sticking, are mostly respectable and intelligent, and generally
well paid for their work, whether in town or country. The price
paid by the principal auctioneers for country work is nine
shillings per day; that is, seven shillings for day's work, one
shilling for lodging, and one for paste. Town work is five
shillings a day, including paste.'
'Town work must be rather hot work,' said I, 'if there be many of
those fighting scenes that beggar description, among the bill-
stickers?'
'Well,' replied the King, 'I an't a stranger, I assure you, to
black eyes; a bill-sticker ought to know how to handle his fists a
bit. As to that row I have mentioned, that grew out of
competition, conducted in an uncompromising spirit. Besides a man
in a horse-and-shay continually following us about, the company had
a watchman on duty, night and day, to prevent us sticking bills
upon the hoarding in Trafalgar Square. We went there, early one
morning, to stick bills and to black-wash their bills if we were
interfered with. We WERE interfered with, and I gave the word for
laying on the wash. It WAS laid on - pretty brisk - and we were
all taken to Queen Square: but they couldn't fine ME. I knew
that,' - with a bright smile - 'I'd only give directions - I was
only the General.' Charmed with this monarch's affability, I
inquired if he had ever hired a hoarding himself.
'Hired a large one,' he replied, 'opposite the Lyceum Theatre, when
the buildings was there. Paid thirty pound for it; let out places
on it, and called it "The External Paper-Hanging Station." But it
didn't answer. Ah!' said His Majesty thoughtfully, as he filled
the glass, 'Bill-stickers have a deal to contend with. The bill-
sticking clause was got into the Police Act by a member of
Parliament that employed me at his election. The clause is pretty
stiff respecting where bills go; but HE didn't mind where HIS bills
went. It was all right enough, so long as they was HIS bills!'
Fearful that I observed a shadow of misanthropy on the King's
cheerful face, I asked whose ingenious invention that was, which I
greatly admired, of sticking bills under the arches of the bridges.
'Mine!' said His Majesty. 'I was the first that ever stuck a bill
under a bridge! Imitators soon rose up, of course. - When don't
they? But they stuck 'em at low-water, and the tide came and swept
the bills clean away. I knew that!' The King laughed.
'What may be the name of that instrument, like an immense fishing-
rod,' I inquired, 'with which bills are posted on high places?'
'The joints,' returned His Majesty. 'Now, we use the joints where
formerly we used ladders - as they do still in country places.
Once, when Madame' (Vestris, understood) 'was playing in Liverpool,
another bill-sticker and me were at it together on the wall outside
the Clarence Dock - me with the joints - him on a ladder. Lord! I
had my bill up, right over his head, yards above him, ladder and
all, while he was crawling to his work. The people going in and
out of the docks, stood and laughed! - It's about thirty years
since the joints come in.'
'Are there any bill-stickers who can't read?' I took the liberty of
inquiring.
'Some,' said the King. 'But they know which is the right side
up'ards of their work. They keep it as it's given out to 'em. I
have seen a bill or so stuck wrong side up'ards. But it's very
rare.'
Our discourse sustained some interruption at this point, by the
procession of cars occasioning a stoppage of about three-quarters
of a mile in length, as nearly as I could judge. His Majesty,
however, entreating me not to be discomposed by the contingent
uproar, smoked with great placidity, and surveyed the firmament.
When we were again in motion, I begged to be informed what was the
largest poster His Majesty had ever seen. The King replied, 'A
thirty-six sheet poster.' I gathered, also, that there were about
a hundred and fifty bill-stickers in London, and that His Majesty
considered an average hand equal to the posting of one hundred
bills (single sheets) in a day. The King was of opinion, that,
although posters had much increased in size, they had not increased
in number; as the abolition of the State Lotteries had occasioned a
great falling off, especially in the country. Over and above which
change, I bethought myself that the custom of advertising in
newspapers had greatly increased. The completion of many London
improvements, as Trafalgar Square (I particularly observed the
singularity of His Majesty's calling THAT an improvement), the
Royal Exchange, &c., had of late years reduced the number of
advantageous posting-places. Bill-Stickers at present rather
confine themselves to districts, than to particular descriptions of
work. One man would strike over Whitechapel, another would take
round Houndsditch, Shoreditch, and the City Road; one (the King
said) would stick to the Surrey side; another would make a beat of
the West-end.
His Majesty remarked, with some approach to severity, on the
neglect of delicacy and taste, gradually introduced into the trade
by the new school: a profligate and inferior race of impostors who
took jobs at almost any price, to the detriment of the old school,
and the confusion of their own misguided employers. He considered
that the trade was overdone with competition, and observed speaking
of his subjects, 'There are too many of 'em.' He believed, still,
that things were a little better than they had been; adducing, as a
proof, the fact that particular posting places were now reserved,
by common consent, for particular posters; those places, however,
must be regularly occupied by those posters, or, they lapsed and
fell into other hands. It was of no use giving a man a Drury Lane
bill this week and not next. Where was it to go? He was of
opinion that going to the expense of putting up your own board on
which your sticker could display your own bills, was the only
complete way of posting yourself at the present time; but, even to
effect this, on payment of a shilling a week to the keepers of
steamboat piers and other such places, you must be able, besides,
to give orders for theatres and public exhibitions, or you would be
sure to be cut out by somebody. His Majesty regarded the passion
for orders, as one of the most unappeasable appetites of human
nature. If there were a building, or if there were repairs, going
on, anywhere, you could generally stand something and make it right
with the foreman of the works; but, orders would be expected from
you, and the man who could give the most orders was the man who
would come off best. There was this other objectionable point, in
orders, that workmen sold them for drink, and often sold them to
persons who were likewise troubled with the weakness of thirst:
which led (His Majesty said) to the presentation of your orders at
Theatre doors, by individuals who were 'too shakery' to derive
intellectual profit from the entertainments, and who brought a
scandal on you. Finally, His Majesty said that you could hardly
put too little in a poster; what you wanted, was, two or three good
catch-lines for the eye to rest on - then, leave it alone - and
there you were!
These are the minutes of my conversation with His Majesty, as I
noted them down shortly afterwards. I am not aware that I have
been betrayed into any alteration or suppression. The manner of
the King was frank in the extreme; and he seemed to me to avoid, at
once that slight tendency to repetition which may have been
observed in the conversation of His Majesty King George the Third,
and - that slight under-current of egotism which the curious
observer may perhaps detect in the conversation of Napoleon
Bonaparte.
I must do the King the justice to say that it was I, and not he,
who closed the dialogue. At this juncture, I became the subject of
a remarkable optical delusion; the legs of my stool appeared to me
to double up; the car to spin round and round with great violence;
and a mist to arise between myself and His Majesty. In addition to
these sensations, I felt extremely unwell. I refer these
unpleasant effects, either to the paste with which the posters were
affixed to the van: which may have contained some small portion of
arsenic; or, to the printer's ink, which may have contained some
equally deleterious ingredient. Of this, I cannot be sure. I am
only sure that I was not affected, either by the smoke, or the rum-
and-water. I was assisted out of the vehicle, in a state of mind
which I have only experienced in two other places - I allude to the
Pier at Dover, and to the corresponding portion of the town of
Calais - and sat upon a door-step until I recovered. The
procession had then disappeared. I have since looked anxiously for
the King in several other cars, but I have not yet had the
happiness of seeing His Majesty.
-THE END-
Charles Dickens' short story: Bill-Sticking
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