Twice round the clock; or, The hours of the day and night in London . roy, the old ballad tells us, hada breed of stout bold men;;; but these seem stouter and bolder. Andthey drive away, these stalwart, bold-spoken varlets, standing erect intheir huge vans, and adjuring, by the name of i; slow coach, seeminglyimmoveable market-carts to mind their eye; wearing out theLondon macadam with their fierce wheels, to the despair of the com-missioners of paving (though my private opinion is, that the pavingcommissioners like to see the paving worn out, in order that theymay have the street up ? again):
Twice round the clock; or, The hours of the day and night in London . roy, the old ballad tells us, hada breed of stout bold men;;; but these seem stouter and bolder. Andthey drive away, these stalwart, bold-spoken varlets, standing erect intheir huge vans, and adjuring, by the name of i; slow coach, seeminglyimmoveable market-carts to mind their eye; wearing out theLondon macadam with their fierce wheels, to the despair of the com-missioners of paving (though my private opinion is, that the pavingcommissioners like to see the paving worn out, in order that theymay have the street up ? again): threading their way in a surpris-ingly dexterous though apparently reckless manner through the mazeof vehicles, and finding themselves, in an astonishingly short space oftime, in Tottenham Court Road, and Union Street, Borough. Whatgives these men their almost superhuman velocity, strength, confidence ?Tney do but carry cabbages, like other market-folk : but look on thelegends inscribed on these vans, and the mystery is at once explained. 44 TWICE ROUND THE SIX 0 CLOCK —COTENT GARDEN MAPwKET. 4o Chaplin and Home, Pickford and Co/ railway carriers. Thesevegetable Titans are of the rail, and raily. They have brought theirhorns of plenty from the termini of the great iron roads. Carts andcarts, trucks and trucks have journeyed through the dense night, ladenwith vegetable produce : locomotives have shrieked over Chatmoss,dragging cabbages and carrots after them : the most distant countieshave poured the fatness of their lands at the feet of the Queen-city;but she, like the daughter of the horse-leech, still cryeth, Give !give! and, like Oliver Twist, asks for more. So they send hermore, even from strange countries beyond the sea. Black steamersfrom Rotterdam and Antwerp belch forth volumes of smoke at theTower stairs, and discharge cargoes of peas and potatoes. The Queen-city is an hungered, and must be fed: and it is no joke, I need scarcelytell you, to feed London.
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Keywords: ., bookauthormcconnel, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1850, bookyear1859
