Grievances of London [graphic]

"Frontispiece from 'Metropolitan Grievances; or, a serio-comic glance at minor mischiefs in London and its Vicinity', 1812. A crowded street scene, with the corner of a tripe-butcher's on the right: 'Gilbert. Gall Tripem[an]', a lean-to shop, in which the butcher bargains over sheeps' trotters and offal with an elderly woman. Outside this is a pavement along which a little boy bowls a hoop between the legs of an elderly lady on the extreme right who totters on high-heeled shoes, having dropped a lap-dog from her muff. A little chimney-sweep is much amused. Above the butcher's a woman at a window empties a pan: the contents splash on to the pent-house roof and pour through a spout over the white stockings of a fashionably dressed passer-by who registers horror, holding up an eyeglass. The stream splashes the unconscious woman who chaffers with the tripe-man. A street-lamp projecting from the corner of the house is broken. Over the uneven cobbles an old woman pushes a barrow of cat's-meat, shrieking her wares; two dogs bark at the barrow, a cat miaows. Near her stands a ragged, bare-legged man, with grievously twisted and misshapen legs (showing the effects of rickets); he sells 'The Last Dying Sp[eech] . . .', with a print of bodies on a gibbet, shouting from a cavernous mouth in a subhuman face. Behind him a jovial crossing-sweeper plies his broom. On the left is a caricature shop, the window-panes filled with prints, among which one of 'the Hottentot Venus', Saartjie Baartman, see No. 11577, &c., is conspicuous. There are also large comic heads. A fashionably dressed woman leaves the shop, holding her nose (assailed by the cat's-meat). Four men gaze at the window; one is a countryman whose pocket is being picked. Heavy flower-pots are about to fall on their heads from a projecting ledge. A woman leans from a first-floor window trying vainly to stop the fall, and letting her watering-pot discharge its contents on the still unconscious window-gazers. On the wall is the disk of the 'Sun' Fire Office, with the date '1812'. The next house is a small gin-shop with a bunch of grapes for its sign and the inscription '. . Arsnic--Best Cordial Gin'. Three dram-drinkers stand at the door. The last house, a corner one, is dilapidated and shored up with a beam. The ground floor belongs to 'D. Dip Tallow Chandler'; against the window is a stall or bulk. The top floor is that of 'Ling--Dyer &c'; a pole projects from a window with dyed garments and a length of material hanging out to dry. On the corner of the house is the notice: 'F P 20 Ft'. In the background the dome of St. Paul's rises above the roofs of houses in the middle distance."--British Museum online catalogue