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,
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Dickens, Charles – Reprinted Pieces
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!
These are the minutes of my conversation with His Majesty, as I
noted them down shortly afterwards. I am not aware that I have
been betrayed into any alteration or suppression. The manner of
the King was frank in the extreme; and he seemed to me to avoid, at
once that slight tendency to repetition which may have been
observed in the conversation of His Majesty King George the Third,
and – that slight under-current of egotism which the curious
observer may perhaps detect in the conversation of Napoleon
Bonaparte.
I must do the King the justice to say that it was I, and not he,
who closed the dialogue. At this juncture, I became the subject of
a remarkable optical delusion; the legs of my stool appeared to me
to double up; the car to spin round and round with great violence;
and a mist to arise between myself and His Majesty. In addition to
these sensations, I felt extremely unwell. I refer these
unpleasant effects, either to the paste with which the posters were
affixed to the van: which may have contained some small portion of