376 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 12 P. 



Hales. The handles of a plough, 

 Hethud. A viper. 

 Kedge, Trash ; rubbish. 

 Kelp. The handles of a pail, 

 Ketlack. Wild mustard. 

 Kittlin, A kitten. 



Lew. A word used in driving geese. 

 Livery. Sad; heavy; said of treshly-ploughed soil. 

 M'2zzcn. To stupify ; to make dizzy. 

 Meant. Meaning of. 

 Only. 



Nothing. 

 The spout of a pump. 



To revile. 



Saail-shelley. Cankered ; said of wood. 

 Tod. Dung. 



K. P. D. E. 



Nobuf. 

 Nout. 

 Nozzel. 

 Mate. 



LONDON' STREET CHARACTERS. 



(Vol. v., p. 270.) 



I believe more than one of the courts to be 

 haunted by persons who may have suggested 

 Mr. Dickens's "Little Old Lady." More than 

 twenty years ago a female of about fifty was a 

 constant attendant on the Court of Queen's Bench 

 in Banco : I never saw her at a Nisi Prius sitting. 

 Slie was meanly but tidily dressed, quiet and un- 

 obtrusive in manners, but much gratified by notice 

 from any barrister. It was said she had been 

 ruined by a suit, but I could not learn anything 

 authentic about her ; though I several times spoke 

 and listened to her, partly from curiosity and 

 partly from the pleasure which she showed at 

 being spoken to. Her thoughts seemed fixed 

 upon the business of the day, and I never ex- 

 tracted more than, " Will they take motions ? 

 — Will it come on next ? — I hope he will bring it 

 on to-day ! " but who was " he," or what was " it," 

 I could not learn ; and when I asked, she would 

 pause as if to think, and pointing to the bench, say, 

 " That's Lord Tenterden." I have seen her rise, 

 as about to address the court, when the judges 

 were going out, and look mortified as if she felt 

 neglected. I cannot say when she disappeared, 

 but I do not remember having seen her for the last 

 eight years. 



I have heard that an old woman frequented 

 Doctors' Commons about seven years ago. She 

 appeared to listen to the arguments, but was re- 

 served and mopish, if spoken to. She often threw 

 herself in the way of one of the leading advocates, 

 and always addressed him in the same words : 

 " Dr. , I am vii'go intactaJ'' 



The sailor-looking man described by Charles 

 Lamb lasted a long time. I remember \m\\ in 

 Fleet Street and the Strand when I was a boy, 

 and also an account which appeared in the news- 

 papei's of his vigorous resistance when appre- 

 hended as a vagrant ; but I cannot fix the dates. 



I think, however, it was about 1822. His portrait 

 is in Kirby's Wonderful and Eccentric Museum, 

 vol. i. p. 331. Below it is, " Samuel Horsey, 

 aged fifty-five, a singular beggar in the streets of 

 London." The date of the engraving is August 30, 

 1803. As the accompanying letter-press is not 

 long, I copy it : 



" This person, who has so long past, that is to say, 

 during nineteen years, attracted the notice of the public, 

 by the severity of his misfortunes, in the loss of both 

 his legs, and the singular means by which he removes 

 himself from place to place, by the help of a wooden 

 seat constructed in the manner of a rocking-horse, and 

 assisted by a pair of crutches, first met with his calamity 

 by the falling of a piece of timber from a house at the 

 lower end of Bow Lane, Cheapside. He is now fifty- 

 five years of age, and commonly called the King of the 

 Beggars : and as he is very corpulent, the facility he 

 moves with is very singular. From his general ap- 

 pearance and complexion, he seems to enjoy a state of 

 health remarkably good. The frequent obtrusion of a 

 man naturally stout and well made, but now so miser- 

 ably mutilated as he is, having excited the curiosity of 

 great numbers of people daily passing through the most 

 crowded thoroughfares of the metropolis, has been the 

 leading motive of this account, and the striking repre- 

 sentation of his person here given." 



The likeness is very good. Among the stories 

 told of him, one was that his ample earnings en- 

 abled him to keep two wives, and, what is more^ 

 to keep them from quarrelling. He presided in 

 the evenings at a " cadgers' club," planted at the 

 liead of the table, with a wifij on each side. Not 

 having been present at these meetings I do not 

 ask anybody to believe this report. H. B. C. 



U. U. Club. 



I believe Mr. Dickens's sketch, in the Bleak 

 House, of the woman who haunts the various Inns 

 of Court, to be a clever combination of different 

 real characters. It is principally taken from a 

 stout painted old woman, long since dead, and who 

 I believe was really ruined by some suit in Chan- 

 cery, and went mad in consequence, and used to 

 linger about the Courts, expecting some judg- 

 ment to be given in her favour. Mr. Dickens 

 seems to have combined this woman's painful his- 

 tory with the person and appearance of the dimi- 

 nutive creature mentioned by Mr. Alfred Gatty. 

 This latter personage is the daughter of a man for 

 many years bedmaker in one of the Inns of 

 Court (I think Gray's Inn), and much of her 

 eccentricity is assumed, as, when begging from 

 the few lawyers who are old enough to remember 

 her father as their bedmaker, no one is more 

 rational and collected. Though this little woman 

 is well known from her singular appearance and 

 demeanour, there is no romance about her real 

 history, and her craziness (if it really exists) is not 

 to be attributed to the Court of Chancery, — at 

 which, as it is in the position of the dying lion ia 



