Charles Hindley

“ Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy Name, thy Kingdom come, thy Will be done on Earth, as it is in Heaven, Give us this Day our daily Bread, and forgive us our Trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us, and lead us not into Temptation, but deliver us from Evil. For thine is the Kingdom, the power and the Glory, for ever and ever. ”

“ London:
Published by Ryle and Paul,
2 & 3, Monmouth Court, Seven Dials.
Text of Image on page 206.
A Pair of Snuffers.
A mouth I have got, that’s not whiter than ink.
And all I devour doth most nauseously stink;
So much valued am I, that by none I’m refused,
And the light shines the brighter whenever I’m used.
A Watch.
My form is beauteous to allure the sight
My habit gay, of colour gold & white,
When ladies take the air, it is my pride,
To walk with equal paces by their side,
I near their persons constantly remain,
A favourite slave, bound in a golden chain. ”

“ One class of literature which Jemmy Catnach made—by reason of greater mechanical skill and a larger capital than his rivals—almost his own, was children’s farthing, halfpenny, and penny books. Among the great many that he published we select from our own private collection, those that follow as a fair sample.
Many other nursery books of a similar kind might be mentioned as some of the chief attractions that emanated from the “Catnach Press,” and which, to the juvenile population, were more eagerly welcomed than the great sensational three-volume novels are by many in our day. ”

“ I did tremendous with him, because it happened in London, down Ratcliff Highway—that’s a splendid quarter for working—there’s plenty of feeling—but, bless you, some places you go to you can’t move nohow, they’ve hearts like paving stones. They wouldn’t have ‘the papers’ if you’d give them to ’em—especially when they knows you. Greenacre didn’t sell so well as might have been expected, for such a diabolical out-and-out crime as he committed; but you see he came close after Pegsworth, and that took the beauty off him. Two murderers together is no good to nobody. ”

“ Printed at the “Catnach Press” by W. FORTEY, Monmouth Court,
Bloomsbury, the Oldest House in the World for Ballads (4,000 sorts) Song
Books, &c. &c.
Hark! I hear the drums a beating—no longer can I stay,
I hear the trumpets sounding, my love I must away,
We are ordered from Portsmouth many a long mile,
For to join the British soldiers on the banks of the Nile.
Willie, dearest Willie, don’t leave me here to mourn,
You’ll make me curse and rue the day that ever I was born,
For the parting of my own true love is parting of my life,
So stay at home dear Willie, and I will be your wife. ”

“ Such is a brief résumé of the latter years of John Catnach’s life. It is apparent that, by a little application and self-denial, this man might have made for himself a name and position in the world. He possessed all the necessary talents for bringing success within his reach. The ground which he took is the same which in after years proved to be of inestimable value to hundreds of publishers who never possessed half the amount of ability and good taste in printing and embellishing books that was centred in him. ”

“ He requested the executioner to give him as little pain as possible in the process of pinioning his arms and wrists; he uttered not a word in allusion to his crime; neither did he make any dying request, except that his spectacles might be given to Sarah Gale; he exhibited no sign of hope; he showed no symptom of reconciliation with his offended God! When the venerable ordinary preceded him in the solemn procession through the vaulted passage to the fatal drop, he was so overcome and unmanned, that he could not support himself without the aid of the assistant executioner. ”

“ From a small beginner in the world, Catnach was soon able to see his way clear to amass a fortune. He had now established his reputation as a man of enterprise, and he was very sensitive to maintain a sort of shabby-genteel appearance. It was amusing, especially when over his glass, to hear him describe the effect the “awfuls” had on the public. The proprietor of any of our leading journals could not have felt prouder than did Catnach, as he saw drafted from his press the many thousands of varied productions. ”

“ Copy of Verses.
Come all you feeling hearted christians, wherever you may be,
Attention give to these few lines, and listen unto me;
Its of this cruel murder, to you I will unfold,
The bare recital of the same will make your blood run cold.
[Pg 279]
Confined within a lonely cell, with sorrow I am opprest,
The very thought of what I’ve done, deprives me of rest;
Within this dark and gloomy cell in the County Gaol I lie,
For murder of my dear wife I am condemned to die. ”

“ He did a small and very humble trade as a jobbing master, printing and publishing penny histories, street-papers, and halfpenny songs, relying for their composition on one or two out of the known “Seven Bards of the Seven Dials,” and when they were on the drink, or otherwise not inclined to work, being driven to write and invent them himself.
The customers who frequented his place of business were for the most part of the lowest grades of society:—those who by folly, intemperance, and crime, had been reduced to the greatest penury. ”

“ Catnach, like many others connected with the getting up of news broadsides and fly-sheets, did not always keep clear of the law. The golden rule is a very fine one, but, unfortunately, it is not always read aright; in some cases injured innocence flies at extremes. Jemmy Catnach for a long time had been living upon unfriendly terms with a party connected with the management of one of Mother Cummins’s lodging-house establishments in the immediate neighbourhood, so out of spite printed a pamphlet, purporting to be the “Life and Adventures of Old Mother Cummins.” ”

“ THE CATNACH PRESS.
——There can be little doubt that Jemmy Catnach, the printer, justly earned the distinction of being one of the great pioneers in the cause of promoting cheap literature—he was for a long time the great Mæcenas and Elzevir of the Seven Dials district. We do not pretend to say that the productions which emanated from his establishment contained much that was likely to enlighten the intellect, or sharpen the taste of the ordinary reader ”

“ But although the sale was very large, it only occupies one “short month.” This enabled them to make Carols a stock job, so that when trade in the Ballad, Sensational, “Gallows,” or any other line of business was dull, they used to fill up every spare hour in the working off or colouring them, so as to be ready to meet the extraordinary demand which was sure to be made at the fall of the year.
Like most of the old English customs, Christmas-carol singing is fast dying out. Old peripatetic stationers well remember the rich harvest they once obtained at Christmas times by carol selling. ”

“ Catnach was now at the height of his fame as a printer of ballads, Christmas-pieces, carols, lotteries, execution papers, dying speeches, catchpennies, primers and battledores, and his stock of type and woodcuts had very considerably increased to meet his business demands. And it may be said that he was the very Napoleon of buyers at sales by auction of “printers’ stock.” On one occasion, when lot after lot was being knocked down to him, one of the “Littlejohn crew” of “knock-out-men” of the period, observed to the auctioneer, “Why, sir, Mr. Catnach is buying up all the lots.” ”

“ But more than that, it was he who first conceived and carried into effect, the idea of publishing collections of songs by the yard, and giving to purchasers, for the small sum of one penny (in former days the cost of a single ballad) , strings of poetry, resembling in shape and length the list of Don Juan’s mistresses, which Leporello unrolls on the stage before Donna Anna. ”

“ The horrible crime of “Burking,” or murdering the unwary with the intention of selling their bodies at a high price to the anatomical schools, for the purpose of dissection, has unfortunately obtained a notoriety which will not be soon or easily forgotten. It took its horrifying appellation from the circumstances which were disclosed on the trial of the inhuman wretch Burke, who was executed at Edinburgh in 1829, for having wilfully and deliberately murdered several persons for the sole purpose of profiting by the sale of their dead bodies. ”

“ Now, my friends, you have here just printed and pub—lish—ed, the Full, True, and Particular account of the Life, Trial, Character, Confession, Condemnation, and Behaviour, together with an authentic copy of the last Will and Testament: or Dying Speech, of that eccentric individual “Old Jemmy Catnach,” late of the Seven Dials, printer, publisher, toy-book manufacturer, dying-speech merchant, and ballad-monger. Here, you may read how he was bred and born the son of a printer, in the ancient Borough of Alnwick, which is in Northumberlandshire. How he came to London to seek his fortune. ”

“ Anxious to learn how they were succeeding in the crowded metropolis, it was not many days before he again visited them, but this time he found them in a sorry plight; the landlady had distrained upon their all for arrears of rent. This was an awkward predicament; but the indomitable young Northumbrian, like the more burly Dr. Johnson of old, when his friend Oliver Goldsmith was similarly situated, resolved to do all he could to rescue him from the peril in which he was placed. ”

“ The old-established printing and publishing house formerly occupied by James Catnach, 2, Monmouth-court, Seven Dials, will soon be amongst the lost landmarks of London. The Metropolitan Board of Works have purchased the house, and it is to be pulled down to make the new street from Leicester-square to New Oxford-street. The business of the literature of the street was founded by James Catnach in 1813, who retired in 1840. The ballads and broadsides he printed, many of them illustrated with cuts by Bewick, helped to furnish the people with news and political and social ballads for generations. ”

“ I’ve worked ’em for a good many years, but it ’aint much of a go now. Oh, yes, I know’d ‘old Jemmy Catnach’ fast enough—bought many hundreds, if not thousands of quires of him. Not old enough? Oh, ’aint I though; why I’m turned fifty, and I’ve been a ‘street-paper’ seller all my life. I knows Muster Fortey very well; him as is got the business now in the Dials—he knows his way about, let him alone for that; and he’s a rare good business man let me tell you, and always been good and fair to me ”

“ During the whole of the time the Reform Bills of 1831-2 were before the Houses of Parliament, the “Catnach Press,” in common with other printing offices that produced street-literature, was very busy in publishing, almost daily, songs and papers in ridicule of borough-mongering and of the various rotten boroughs then in existence, but which were entirely swept away by the passing of this Bill; fifty-six boroughs in England being disfranchised, while thirty were reduced to one member only; twenty-two new boroughs were created to send two members, and twenty to send one member ”

“ Pegsworth was tried at the Central Criminal Court of London on the 12th of February, and found guilty of wilful murder, and was executed in front of the debtor’s door in the Old Bailey on the 9th of March following.
During the whole of the time that was occupied in the trial and execution of Pegsworth, a circumstance took place which excited an extraordinary sensation throughout the metropolis and its neighbourhood—namely, the discovery near the Pine Apple Gate, Edgware Road, of the trunk of a human being, tied up in a sack, dismembered of the arms, legs, and head. ”

“ The father had not carried out the heavenly injunction so much practised in Scotland, by giving to his son the best of blessings—“a good education.”
Jemmy had a tenacious love of money, and this propensity he retained throughout life. As a man of business he was rough and brusque in his manners, but this mattered little, as his trade lay amongst a class who were low and insensitive in their habits and modes of living.
The productions issued at the “Catnach Press” were not destined to rank high in the annals of literature ”

“ Old people talk to this day, with a degree of pride of “those good old times” that existed at the Parliamentary elections previous to the passing of the Reform Bill of 1832. As far as Catnach was concerned, he merely went to help to pay off a deep debt of gratitude owing by him to the Smith family for many past favours to his own family when they were in dire distress in auld lang syne. Besides, Jemmy was now getting towards that state known as being “comfortably well-to-do,” and the trip was a change of air—a bit of a holiday, and a visit to the town of his birth. ”

“ The feud existing between these rival publishers, who have been somewhat aptly designated as the Colburn and Bentley of the “paper” trade, never abated, but, on the contrary, increased in acrimony of temper, until at last not being content to vilify each other by “Words! words!! words!!!” alone, they resorted to printing off virulent lampoons, in which Catnach never failed to let the world know that “Old Mother Pitts” had been formerly a bumboat woman, while the Pitt’s party announced that:—
“All the boys and girls around,
Who go out prigging rags and phials,
Know Jemmy Catsnatch!!! ”

“ Mark Smith—who till the time of his death, on the 18th of May, 1881, aged 87—carried on the business of printer and bookseller at Alnwick—and James Catnach, were fellow apprentices, both being bound to learn the art of printing to the elder Catnach on the same day. This early-formed acquaintanceship continued throughout the remaining portion of Catnach’s life, and whenever Mr. Mark Smith came to London in after years, he always visited Jemmy’s house. ”