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!
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