time when there wasn't not no Cabs, nor no
Homnybusses nor no Hallways, nor no Steam Botes, nor no Perlice, in
all Lundon! And when there was grate droves of Cattel and Sheep druv
thro' the streets, and people used to have to put up bars at their
doors to keep 'em out. And menny and menny a time has he seen a reel
live Bullock march into his Master's Counting 'Ouse, with his two wild
horns a sticking out, and as it was to narrer for him to turn hisself
round, he used to have to be backed out tale foremost, with a fierce
dog a barking at his nose.
[Illustration]
Ah, them must have been rayther rum times, them must! How the peepel
got about he don't seem quite to remember; but he says, as how
as amost all on 'em lived at their warious shops and warehouses,
and so mostly walked. There was, it seems, a few ramshackel old
coaches, called Ackney Coaches--coz, they was all maid at Ackney, I
suppose--all drorn by two ramshackel old Osses, and with werry shabby
old drivers with wisps of stror round their shabby old hats. Then some
brite Genus went and inwented Cabs, and they soon cut out the Ackney
Coaches, which all went back to Ackney, and was never seen no more.
And then, sum ewen briter Genus went and inwented Homnybusses, and
they rayther estonished the Cabs, and what the next brite Genus will
inwent in that line, I don't know, and SAM don't know, and I don't
suppose as nobody else don't. But the most wunderfullest thing of all
must have bin the having of no Perlice! For SAM, acshally declares,
that before Perlice was inwented by Sir ROBERT PEEL--therefore
wulgarly called Bobbys and Peelers--the only pertecters as London
had at night was a lot of werry old men, all crissened CHARLEY, who
used to sit in little boxes, such as the Solgers has at the QUEEN's
Pallaces, with a little lantern hanging up in front, and when the
Church Clocks all struck the hour, they all used to git out of their
boxes and wark up and down the streets a calling out, "Parst Three
o'Clock!" or "Parst Five o'Clock!" as it mite happen to be, and then
go back to their little boxes, and hang up their lanterns, and quietly
go to sleep! Ah, them must have been werry nice times for Messrs.
DICK TUPPIN, JACK SHEPHARD, BILL SIKES, and Cumpny, unlimited. But,
SAM says, as they made up for it by hanging ewery body as stole amost
anythink, such as a sheep, or a fi-pound note, or a gold watch, and
that on Mondays, which was Hanging Days, he has offen and offen
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