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The First of May
George Cruikshank
1839
Copper engraving
12.2 by 9.5 vignetted
"The First of May" — the twentieth chapter in "Scenes," by Charles Dickens in Sketches by Boz, facing p. 125.
[Click on image to enlarge it and mouse over text for links.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
Judge of our virtuous indignation, when the street-door of the shed opened, and a party emerged therefrom, clad in the costume and emulating the appearance, of May-day sweeps!
The first person who appeared was"my lord,"habited in a blue coat and bright buttons, with gilt paper tacked over the seams, yellow knee-breeches, pink cotton stockings, and shoes; a cocked hat, ornamented with shreds of various-coloured paper, on his head, a bouquet the size of a prize cauliflower in his button-hole, a long Belcher handkerchief in his right hand, and a thin cane in his left. A murmur of applause ran through the crowd (which was chiefly composed of his lordship’s personal friends), when this graceful figure made his appearance, which swelled into a burst of applause as his fair partner in the dance bounded forth to join him. Her ladyship was attired in pink crape over bed-furniture, with a low body and short sleeves. The symmetry of her ankles was partially concealed by a very perceptible pair of frilled trousers; and the inconvenience which might have resulted from the circumstance of her white satin shoes being a few sizes too large, was obviated by their being firmly attached to her legs with strong tape sandals.
Her head was ornamented with a profusion of artificial flowers; and in her hand she bore a large brass ladle, wherein to receive what she figuratively denominated "the tin."The other characters were a young gentleman in girl's clothes and a widow's cap; two clowns who walked upon their hands in the mud, to the immeasurable delight of all the spectators; a man with a drum; another man with a flageolet; a dirty woman in a large shawl, with a box under her arm for the money,—and last, though not least, the"green,"animated by no less a personage than our identical friend in the tarpaulin suit.
The man hammered away at the drum, the flageolet squeaked, the shovels rattled, the"green"rolled about, pitching first on one side and then on the other; my lady threw her right foot over her left ankle, and her left foot over her right ankle, alternately; my lord ran a few paces forward, and butted at the"green,"and then a few paces backward upon the toes of the crowd, and then went to the right, and then to the left, and then dodged my lady round the "green;"and finally drew her arm through his, and called upon the boys to shout, which they did lustily—for this was the dancing.
We passed the same group, accidentally, in the evening. We never saw a "green" so drunk, a lord so quarrelsome (no: not even in the house of peers after dinner), a pair of clowns so melancholy, a lady so muddy, or a party so miserable.
How has May-day decayed!— "Scenes," Chapter 20, "The First of May," p. 130.
According to Nicolas Bentley et al., the sketch entitled "The First of May," a very late addition to the series, was
originally published as "A Little Talk about Spring and the Sweeps" in the Library of Fiction, no. 3 (1836) [;] this sketch was included in Sketches by Boz Second Series in the 1839 edition. It is a series of humorous and ironic reflections on the decline of the traditional street dancing and festive procession organized by chimney-sweepers on May-day. [92]
Michael Slater mentions that the impetus for this essay was Dickens's witnessing such a parade in May 1836. As is the case with Guy Fawkes' Day in the fall, the boys' object in the procession seems to have been to solicit money from passers-by, the collectors being the young man in the leafy costume (The Jack-in-the-Green) and the maiden with the ladle. The celebration of the first rites of spring, May Day, had deteriorated by Dickens's time into the festival of the city's chimney sweeps: "the ludicrous caperings of the sooty tribe, who fantastically attire themselves on such occasions, with their faces smeared with brick-dust, by way of paint, and with gilt and coloured paper ornaments in profusion" (Sussex Advertiser 14 May 1827).
Lamenting the disappearance of many English traditions associated with la Primavera, twenty-four-year-old reporter Charles Dickens describes the most important part of the festival for the chimney-sweeping boys, the remnant of the ceremonial awakening of spring signified by the Jack-in-the-Green, an adolescent chimney-sweep dressed in recently-cut foliage on a framework (depicted by Cruikshank as nearly eight feet in height, and about to fall over, right of centre). The other important element of the festival, the traditional English folk dance called "The Morris Dance," is not present in the sweeps' parade depicted by Cruikshank. However, the illustration conveys a considerable amount about the procession through the city streets (both houses and shops establish an urban context), including the leaders (the glum-faced maiden with the ladle and parasol and the young man in regency dress and military hat), the adult chimney-sweep carrying a military drum (left), the soot-covered lad (right of centre), the pair of clowns, and the woman carrying the collection box. By the expressions of the celebrants, nobody appears to be enjoying himself. And in the March 1837 instalment of Oliver Twist Dickens had exposed the practice of letting orphans and foundlings out as chimney sweeps. Rochester, Kent, near Dickens's mansion of Gadshill Place, still celebrates the 1st of May in the way described here. However, when the Climbing Boys' Act 1868 forbade the employment of boys as sweeps because it was an egregious and dangerous example of exploitative child labour, the traditional first of May procession faded quickly in most English cities, leaving as its vestige the Morris Dance.
Left: George Cruikshank's realisation of the sweep's pleading his case before the Guardians of the Workhouse, Oliver escapes being bound apprentice to the Sweep (1837). Right: John Leighton's exposé of the use of foundlings as sweeps, The Foundling Hospital — Sweep! — Soot Oh! (1847). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
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Last modified 6 May 2017