ner than it had done in the memory of man. This quiet, however, was only temporary, for on the 23rd of August, 1749, a gallery in Phillips's booth broke down, and four persons were killed; a silversmith, a plasterer, a woman, and a child, and many others were dangerously bruised; one of the maimed had his leg cut off the next morning. This accident seems to have aroused the citizens: on the 10th of July, 1750, a petition was presented to the lord mayor and court of aldermen, signed by above one hundred graziers, salesmen, and inhabitants in and near Smithfield, against erecting booths for exhibiting shows and entertainments there, during Bartholomew Fair, as not only annoying to them in their callings, but as giving the profligate and abandoned opportunity to debauch the innocent, defraud the unwary, and endanger the public peace. On the 17th of July, 1798, the court of common council referred it to the committee of city lands, to consider the necessity and expediency of abolishing Bartholomew Fair: in the course of the previous debate it was proposed to shorten the period to one day, but this was objected to on the ground that the immense crowd from all parts of the metropolis would endanger life.§ In September, 1825, Mr. Alderman Joshua Jonathan Smith, previous to entering on an examination of forty-five prisoners charged with felonies, misdemeanours, assaults, &c. committed in Smithfield during the Fair of that year, stated, that its ancient limits had been extended into several adjoining streets beyond Smithfield; he said he had particularly noticed this infringement in St. John-street, Clerkenwell on the north side, and nearly half-way down the Old Bailey, on the south; and he was determined, with the aid of his coadjutors, to take such further steps as would in future "lessen the criminal extension which had arisen, if not abolish the degrading scene altogether."|| At other periods besides these, there were loud complaints against Bartholomew Fair; and as in 1825, the corporation of London appears seriously to have been engaged in considering the nuisance, its end may be contemplated as near at hand. It is to the credit of the civic autho rities, that though shows and interludes were permitted, the Fair of that year was more orderly than any other within memory. Yet even these regulations are inefficient to the maintenance of the reputation the city ought to hold in the estimation of other corporations. The Fair was instituted for the sale of cloth, cattle, and other necessary commodities: as these have, for many years past, wholly disappeared from it, the use of the Fair has wholly ceased; its abuse alone remains, and that abuse can only be destroyed by the utter extinction of the Fair. To do this is not to "interfere with the amusements of the people," for the people of the metropolis do not require such amusements; they are beyond the power of deriving recreation from them. The wellbeing of their apprentices and servants, and the young and the illiterate, require protection from the vicious contamination of an annual scene of debauchery, which contributes nothing to the city funds, and nothing to the city's character but a shameful stain. Bartholomew Fair must and will be put down. It is for this reason that so much has been said of its former and present state. No person of respectability now visits it, but as a curious spectator of an annual congregation of ignorance and depravity. FLORAL DIRECTORY. Mushroom. Agaricus Campestris. Dedicated to St. Laurence Justinian. September 6. St. Pambo of Nitria, A.D. 385. St. Eleu therius, Abbot. St. Bega, or Bees, 7th Cent. St. Eleutherius. Alban Butler boldly says, that this saint raised a dead man to life. He died at Rome, in St. Andrew's monastery, about the year 585. FLORAL DIRECTORY. Autumnal Dandelion. Apargia Autumnalis. Dedicated to St. Pambo. September 7. St. Cloud, A. D. 560. St. Regina, or St. Reine, A. D. 251. St. Evurtius, A. D. 340. St. Grimonia, or Germana. St. Madelberte, A. d. 705. Sts. Alchmund and Tilberht, Bps. of Hexham, A. D. 780 and 789. St. Eunan, first Bp. of Raphoe. St. Enurchus, or Evurtius. This saint is in the church of England calendar, and therefore in the English almanacs, but on what ground it is difficult to conjecture; for Butler himself merely mentions him as a bishop of Orleans, who lived in the reign of Constantine, and died about 340:-he adds, that "his name is famous, but his history of no authority." "Fine Feathers make fine Birds." The subjoined letter, dated the 7th of September, 1825, appears in The Times newspaper of the following day : To the Editor of the Times. Sir, I consider it necessary to inform the public, through your paper, that there is a fellow going about the town, (dressed like a painter,) imposing upon the unwary, by selling them painted birds, for foreign ones. He entered my house on Monday last, and after some simple conversation with the customers in the room, he introduced the topic of his birds, which he had in a paper bag, stating that he had been at work in a gentleman's family at the west end of the town, and the gentleman being on the point of leaving England for a foreign country, he made him a present of them; "but," says he, "I'm as bad as himself, for I'm going down to Canterbury to-morrow morning myself, to work, and they being of no use to me, I shall take them down to Whitechapel and sell them for what I can get." Taking one out of the bag, he described it as a Virginia nightingale, which sung four distinct notes or voices: the colour certainly was most beautiful; its head and neck was a bright vermilion, the back betwixt the wings a blue, the lower part to the tail a bright yellow, the wings red and yellow; the tail itself was a compound mixture of the above colours, the belly a clear green-he said it was well worth a sovereign to any gentleman. However, after a good deal of lying, bidding, and argument, one of the party offered five shillings, which he at last took; and disposing of the others much in the same way, he quickly decamped. In the course of an hour after, a barber, a knowing hand in the bird way, who lives in the neighbourhood, came in, and taking a little water, with his white apron he transferred the variegated colours of the nightingale to the white flag of his profession. The de. ception was visible the swindler had fled-and the poor hedge-sparrow had his unfortunate head severed from his body, for being forced to personate a nightin gale. A LICENSED Victualler. Upper Thames-street. By the preceding letter in The Times, a great number of persons were first acquainted with a fraud frequently prac tised. As a useful and amusing communication it has a place here. It may, however, be as well to correct an error which the intelligent" Licensed Victualler" falls into by venturing beyond a plain account, to indulge in figurative expression. It is not doubted that his “barber, a knowing hand in the bird way," wore 26 a white apron;" but when the "Licensed Victualler" calls the barber's white apron "the white flag of his profession," he errs; a white apron may be the "flag" of the "Licensed Victualler's profession," but it is not the barber's "flag." The Barber. Randle Holme, an indisputable authority, in his great work on "Heraldry," figures a barber as above. "He beareth argent," says Holme; "a barber bare-headed with a pair of cisers in his right hand, and a comb in his left, clothed in russet, his apron checque of the first, and azure; a barber is always known by his checque party-coloured apron, therefore it needs not mentioning." Holme emphatically adds, "neither can he be termed a barber, (or poler, or shaver,) as anciently they were called, till his apron be about him;" that is to say, "his checque party-coloured apron." This, and this only, is the "flag of his profession," Holme derives the denomination barber from barba, a beard, and describes him as a cutter of hair; he was also anciently termed a poller, because in former times to poll was to cut the hair: to trim was to cut the beard, after shaving, into form and order. The instrument-case of a barber, and the instruments in their several divisions, are particularly described by Holme. It contained his looking-glass, a set of horn combs with teeth on one side and wide, "for the combing and readying of long, thick, and stony heads of hair, and such like perriwigs," a set of box combs, a set of ivory combs with fine teeth on both sides, an ivory beard-comb, a beard-iron called the forceps, being a curling iron for the beard, a set of razors, tweezers with an earpick, a rasp to file the point of a tooth, a hone for his razors, a bottle of sweet oil for his hone, a powder box with sweet powder, a puff to powder the hair, a four square bottle with a screwed head for sweet water, wash balls and sweet balls, caps for the head to keep the hair up, trimming cloths to put before a man, and napkins to put about his neck, and dry his hands and face with. After he was shaved and barbed, the barber was to hold him the glass, that he might see "his new-made face," and instruct the barber where it was amiss: the barber was then to "take off the linens, brush his clothes, present him with his hat, and, according to his hire, make a bow, with your humble servant, sir.' The same author thus figures The Barber's Candlestick. He describes it to be "a wooden turned stick, having a socket in the streight peece, and another in the cross or overthwart peece; this he sticketh in his apron strings on his left side or breast when he useth to trim by candlelight." Without going into every particular concerning the utensils and art of " Barbing and Shaving," some may be deemed curious, and therefore worthy of notice. It is to be observed, however, that they This is a figure of the old razor of a superior kind, tipped with silver; "that is," says Holme, "silver plates engraven are fixed upon each end of the haft, to make the same look more gent and rich." The old man, being fidgetted by this ornament, declares, "it is very oft done by yong proud artists who adorne their instruments with silver shrines, more then seting themselves forth by the glory that attends their art, or praise obtained by skill." Before English manufactures excelled in cutlery, razors were imported from Palermo + Razors are mentioned by Homer. "This is a small chafer which they use to carry about with them, when they make any progress to trim or barb gentiles at a distance, to carry their sweet water (or countreyman's broth) in; the round handle at the mouth of the chafer is to fall down as soon as their hand leaves it;" so says Holme. Mr. J. T. Smith remarks, that "the flying barber is a character now no more to be seen in London, though he still remains in some of our country villages; he was provided with a napkin, soap, and pewter bason, the form of which may be seen in many of the illustrative prints of Don Quixote." The same writer speaks of the barber's chafer as being-"A deep leaden vessel, something like a chocolate pot, with a large ring, or handle, at the top; this pot held about a quart of water boiling hot, and thus equipped, he flew about to his customers." These chafers are no longer made in London; the last mould which produced them was sold in Newstreet, Shoe-lane, at the sale of Mr. Richard Joseph's moulds for pewter utensils, in January, 1815: it was of brass and broken up for metal.* the blades, and rounded towards the long handles. respects from others; for instance, the Beards. Barber's Chafing Dish. This was a metal firepot, with a turning handle, and much used during winter, especially in shops without fire-places. It was carried by the handle from place to place, but generally set under a brass or copper basin with a flat broad bottom, whereon if linen cloths were rubbed or let remain, they in a little time became hot or warm for the barber's use. Barber's Crisping Irons. Smith's Anc. Topog. Lond. This Holme calls "the broad or cathedral beard, because bishops and grave men of the church anciently did wear such beards." Besides this, and the picka-devant, he says there are several sorts and fashions of beards, viz. "the British beard hath long mochedoes, (mustachios) on the higher lip, hanging down either side the chin, all the rest of the face being bare:-the forked beard is a broad beard ending in two points :-the mouse-eaten beard, when the beard groweth scatter ingly, not together, but here a tuft and there a tuft," &c. Guillaume Duprat, bishop of Clermont, who assisted at the council of Trent, and built the college of the Jesuits at Paris, had the finest beard that ever was seen. It was too fine a beard for a bishop, and the canons of his cathedral, in full chapter assembled, came to the barbarous resolution of shaving him. Accordingly, when next he came to the choir, the dean, the prevot, and the chantre approached with scissors and razors, soap, basin and warm water. He took to his heels at the sight, and escaped to his castle of Beauregard, about two leagues from Clermont, where he fell sick for vexation, and died.* Ancient monuments represent the Greek heroes to have worn short curled beards. Among the Romans, after the year 454, c. B., philosophers alone constantly wore a beard; the beard of their military men was short and frizzed. The first emperors with a long and thick beard were Hadrian, who wore it to hide his wounds, and Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius, who wore it as philosophers: a thick beard was afterwards considered an appendage that obtained for the emperors veneration from the people.† Wigs. He further gives the following as A long Perriwig, with a Pole-lock. This he puts forth as being "by artists called a long-curled-wig, with a suffloplin, or with a dildo, or pole-lock;" and he affirms, that "this is the sign or cognizance of the perawick-maker." That the peruke was anciently a barber's sign, is verified by a very rare, and perhaps an unique engraving of St. Paul's cathedral when building, with the scaffolding poles and boards up. This print, in the possession of the editor of the Every-Day Book, represents a barber's shop on the north-side of St. Paul's churchyard, with the barber's pole out at the door, and a of the house, a peruke being painted on swinging sign projecting from each side each. A Peruke. It is figured as seen above by Holme, who also calls it in his peculiar orthography a "perawicke," and says it was likewise called "a short bob, a head of hair-a wig that hath short locks and a hairy crown." He describes it with some feeling. "This is a counterfeit hair which men wear instead of their own; a thing much used in our days by the generality of men; contrary to our forefathers who got estates, loved their wives, and wore their own hair; but," says he, "in these days (1688) there is no such things!" *Athenæum. † Fosbroke's Ency, of Antiq. A Travelling Wig. This peruque, with a "curled foretop and bobs," was " a kind of travelling wig," having the side or bottom locks turned up into bobs or knots tied up with ribbons." Holme further calls it "a campaign-wig," and says, "it hath knots or bobs, or a dildo, on each side, with a curled forehead." A Grafted Wig is described by Holme as "a perawick with a turn on the top of the head, in imitation of a man's hairy crown." A Border of Hair. This is so called by Holme; he also calls it "a peruque, with the crown or |