CONCLUSION.

The foregoing survey, brief though it is, may be sufficient to indicate the varied nature, as well as the poverty and riches, of the productions that went to the formation of our chapbook literature. Every one of the five divisions was supplemented by publications from beyond the Border; and even though Professor Fraser’s opinion, that the English chapbook was inferior to the Scottish, be true, no student of the subject can fail to be struck with the variety which the English compositions gave to the publications of the north. We have nothing, for example, to take the place of The Comical History of the King and the Cobbler; and there is no doubt that the Scot would laugh as hilariously as the Englishman over the “entertaining and merry tricks” that were enacted in the Strand in the early hours of the morning, when the King of all England discussed a pot of ale with the poor follower of St. Crispin. The wonder is that we have nothing. These tales of King Henry the Eighth are in line with the adventures of King James the Fifth, and it does seem strange that Harry Tudor never suggested The Gudeman of Ballengeich to a Scottish author as a subject for chapbook treatment. Again, our romances and fairy tales would make a poor show were it not for the classics imported from south of Tweed; and our sermons and religious verse would lose much in bulk at least if we expunged the tractates of English ministers and the simple rhymes of Isaac Watts. Mother Bunch and Mrs. Shipton were not native born. The adventures of Dick Turpin, George Barnwell, and James Allan the Northumberland Piper, were pleasing variants to those of Rob Roy, Paul Jones the Pirate, and Gilderoy.

It has been said that the chapbook existed in all its vigour down to the early years of the nineteenth century, and George Mac Gregor, clearly confounding a part with the whole, says: “An impression of their vulgarity got abroad, they were regarded by public moralists as pestilential, and therefore deserving extinction.”⁠[50] Such a remark can only apply to the broadly humorous effusions of Graham and productions of a similar kind, and we must look elsewhere for an explanation of the passing away of the distinctive chapbook. The introduction of periodical literature had as much to do with the matter as anything. A notable printer and publisher of chapbooks in Haddington was Mr. G. Miller, who sought to impart something new to the cheap literature in existence by the starting of a penny literary paper. This he entitled The Cheap Magazine, and readers of A Window in Thrums will remember that it was in the pages of that periodical that Tammas Haggart read the account of the origin of cock-fighting. But the natives of Thrums and other places appreciated the old familiar booklets better than The Cheapy, and, after a short existence, it expired. Other publishers endeavoured to succeed where Miller had failed, but they, too, were unsuccessful, until the Messrs. Chambers took the matter in hand. The first number of Chambers’s Edinburgh Journal was produced on 4th February, 1832. From the beginning its success was phenomenal. Fifty thousand copies of the first issue were put in circulation, and, so heartily was the new venture taken up, that the third number totalled the remarkable figure of eighty thousand. Chambers’s Journal was followed by other publications of a similar kind, such as Hogg’s Instructor and the Scottish Reader, which have collapsed, and The People’s Friend, which was founded in 1869, and still flourishes vigorously.

To keep pace with this newer form of cheap literature, some of the chapbook firms began the issue of “New and Improved Series.” Reference has already been made to the “Caledonian Classics of the Common People.” Another series, “illustrated with fine wood-cuts,” was issued by James Watt, Montrose; and publishers in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and elsewhere, hoping to gratify popular taste, set about the preparation of emasculated versions of Graham’s works. But the public that might have gone on enjoying the realistic pictures of Scottish life which amused their fathers would not tolerate the colourless outlines, and ere long they ceased to sell in any great quantity.

The work of destruction begun by Chambers’s Journal and other similar periodicals was assisted by the increase of daily and weekly newspapers. The abolition of the duty on this form of literature gave an impetus to journalism, and soon organs of all kinds began to issue from all parts of the country. The bi-weekly of the city became a daily, sometimes with several editions; and soon every town with a few thousand inhabitants could boast as many rival newspapers as churches. The circulation of these sheets demanded the institution of the newsagent, who soon made his (or her) appearance in town and village and hamlet.⁠[51] The Advertiser, or the Journal, or the Gazette, penetrated with the mail-coach into rural parts, and was displayed in the window of the local post-office beside ginger-bread horses and double-strong peppermints. By and by the local newsagent found that she could sell song-sheets and dream-books, almanacs and penny-histories as well as newspapers; and then the “Flying Stationer” awoke to find his occupation gone. The business of vending popular literature was silently transferred from one agency to another, and the chapman became the occasional character he is to-day. He could still push his trade at farm-towns remote from hamlets, and follow his vocation at fairs and centres of interest, but as a permanent and general means of supply he had outlived his time.

Something has already been said of the nature and character of the literary chapman, and, in taking leave of him here, a few notes may be added. Like his great prototype, John Cheap, he was seldom a respectable being, and not unfrequently turned pedlar when he had failed in a higher line of merchandise. The able-bodied man who makes Saturday night hideous in our busy streets with his raucous rendering of “the newest and popular songs of the day,” and spends his profits in the nearest tavern, is not an unworthy successor to, as he certainly maintains the inglorious traditions of, the “Flying Stationer” of a century ago. Hawkie describes two of them as being “as ‘kittle’ neighbours as Glasgow could produce,” and the description might apply to many, including Cameron himself. Of course, in the city, amid the excitement of fairs and hangings, the pedlar was seen at his worst, and to those who may incline to the opinion that the outline here given is lurid rather than just, the following sketch of the chapman as he appeared in rural places will be more acceptable. It is taken from a volume of Scottish sketches, which was published in 1872, under title, Round the Grange Farm; or, Good Old Times.

“Old Dauvit was a middle-sized, broad-shouldered man, with a keen, pawky eye, and a very sleek, worldly face. He was always clad in a blue coat like a large surtout, with big metal buttons, homespun grey vest and trousers, while his head was surmounted by a huge broad bonnet with a red top; round his neck he wore a green and yellow Indian neckerchief, which encircled his unbleached shirt collar. The lappels of his coat and vest pockets were the only fanciful parts of his dress; his pack was tied in a linen table-cover and slung over his shoulders, but Dauvit strode on as if he felt no burden, planting his staff firmly on the ground, and keeping a sharp eye on business. His stock consisted, perhaps, of hardware goods, comprising five-bawbee knives, needles, pins of all sizes, from the small ‘mannikin’ to the large ‘Willie Cossar;’ thimbles, scissors, bone-combs, specks; also ballads such as ‘Gill Morice’ and ‘Sir James the Rose,’ or four and eight page pamphlets generally comprehending among the number ‘John Cheap the Chapman,’ ‘The King and the Cobbler,’ and ‘Ali Baba or the Forty Thieves.’ Dauvit had his regular ‘rounds,’ which he traversed twice, or it might be many times a year, usually contriving at nightfall to reach some friendly farmhouse, where the cog of porridge and bed of straw were cheerfully given in return for his budget of news, his packet of chapbooks, or small parcel of tea and sugar, bespoken on his last visit. Every person, from the peer to the peasant, welcomed and encouraged Dauvit to castle and cot. When he entered a house he had always a suitable remark to set off his rustic bow and confident familiar smile. ‘Uncommon fine weather, mistress,’ was his favourite salutation, varying the ‘fine’ with ‘coarse,’ ‘cauld,’ ‘dry,’ ‘wat,’ or ‘changeable,’ to suit the weather. Then followed some complimentary remark, such as, ‘I needna ask if ye’re weel the day, for ye’re the very picture o’ health;’ or some decidedly pleasant observation, especially to the young lasses, as ‘fair fa’ your bonny face, I haena seen your match in a’ the borders;’ or, ‘Eh, now! but a sight of you’s a gude thing, I wonder if I hae ony nice ribbon in my pack for you the day,’ with, it might be, ‘Ye’re a comely lassie; I wish he saw you the noo that likes ye best.’ Of course, after such flattering speeches Dauvit was asked to lay down his pack and give them his news; and then he, nothing loath, opened up his budget of information, told the mistress when he last saw her married daughter, and how she was looking; delivered the message to Jenny the kitchen-maid, received from some far-away brother; or told the master all about the various ‘craps’ upon the different farms he passed through, generally ending with—‘I hae seen nae pasture to compare wi’ your ain,’ or, ‘Ye’ve braw corn, maister, in the park down there.’ He was generally asked to join the family of the small farmer at meals; but he was a very moderate eater and well bred in his own fashion, handing all the plates of bread to the company at table till told again and again ‘that he was eatin’ nane his sel’ but only watchin’ other folk.’ Dauvit learned about all the marriages likely to take place, and, throwing himself in the way of the bridegroom or bride, would make him or her a present of a ribbon or neckerchief; then, after a joke and an encomium on the absent one, expressing his certainty that two such ‘weel-doin’ industrious young folk couldna but be happy,’ he would inform them that he ‘was aye at hame frae the last Monday o’ the ae month to the first Monday o’ the other; or, if they wad either write what they wanted or come owre, he wad gie them some grand bargains,’ adding ‘that he wad tak’ the siller as they could gie him it?’ But Geordie Johnston o’ the Shaw remarked, after doing, as he termed it, a ‘gude stroke wi’ Dauvit,’ that ‘he wasna sae accommodatin’ as he made believe.’ When business was over, if he could reach another farm-town before dark, he would roll up the pack, and, wishing them all ‘a gude afternoon,’ speed on his way; but, if it was near nightfall, he remained and spent the evening, sitting with the assembled household round the fire, retailing his news, or it might be slyly, but faithfully, delivering a message or letter to some lad or lass amongst the company from an absent sweetheart. The fore supper was the best time for gossip, and this, during winter, was from lowsin’ time, about five o’clock, until eight, when the cows were milked and the horses suppered. All eagerly listened to Dauvit’s summary of news, as well they might, for his budget was varied, extending from Parliamentary discussion to domestic cookery, the bairns listening so intently and so quietly that they generally fell asleep on their stools, while the older part of the audience, unwilling to break the thread of his narrative, scarcely interrupted him with a single question.”

This picture is more pleasing than that of the drunken crew with whom Hawkie and the Glasgow police hob-nobbed, and it presents what is the most favourable sketch that could be drawn of the travelling pedlar. But it is not essentially different from the coarser portrait to be found in John Cheap the Chapman. Both characters are wily merchants, ever ready to watch the main chance, and to further their interests by a word in season or a remark that is flattering rather than complimentary. The life they live is the same, and when one is a little more decently clad—in tongue and manner—than the other, it is due to the fact that the portrait came from a feminine pen. Dauvit doubtless broke as many commandments as John Cheap, and it was well for him that his author, being a woman, had not, presumably, so intimate a knowledge of her subject and his sins as had Dougal Graham of “John Cheap” and his shortcomings.

It is to be feared—perhaps regretted—that the “Flying Stationer” seldom acquired wealth. If he had watched his business, it could have made him a man of money. There were large profits on his wares. William Cameron tells us that he could buy eight-page ballads at twopence a dozen, and states that, out of a capital of twopence, he made six shillings in about three hours. On another occasion, he bought tracts at three half-pence a dozen and sold them so well that by night he had nine shillings, and was drunk into the bargain. Sometimes, when there was a ready purchase, the price of the chapbook went up a hundred per cent., and, notwithstanding the increase, sold by the ream.

The chapman had various ways of going to work. A great deal of his success lay in his being able to “patter” well. If he could give an attractive rendering of the song or ballad he was selling, he was sure to draw a crowd of customers. Sometimes recourse was had to the practice of vending straw. The “Flying Stationer,” pretending that the books he carried were of a particularly interesting nature, informed his audience that he dared not “call” them, but that he would sell them a straw for a penny and give them a copy of the book to the bargain. This “catch” seldom failed. The selling of the straw was more or less a piece of imposition, but sometimes the unscrupulous chapman descended to even greater fraud. When the worst came to the worst, he did not hesitate to “patter” one thing and sell another. Cameron, in his interesting reminiscences of a pedlar’s life, affords an illustration of this, and the good folks of Paisley were his victims.

“Paisley,” he writes, “was the first town that ever I imposed on, by selling useless paper for books. One Saturday night I could get no books to buy, as there was only one bookseller in Paisley who sold them, George Caldwell, residing in Dyer’s Wynd, Moss Street, who had retired from business; and in a room of his dwelling-house was selling off the remainder of his stock.

“That night he was out, and had taken the key of the room along with him; I wearied waiting for him, and seeing a number of papers lying on the kitchen table, I bargained for them with Mrs. Caldwell; and she, honest woman, not knowing the purpose for which I wanted them, sold them to me. I went out into the street, told a long tale, and sold the papers. Times were good then. I drew upwards of four shillings. None challenged me that night, but on the Monday following, when I was at the ‘Cross,’ a young woman came to me and said, ‘You rascal, you cheated me on Saturday night; you sold me a newspaper instead of a book.’ I asked her, ‘What she gave for it?’ She said, ‘A halfpenny.’ And I told her ‘She could never be cheated with a newspaper for a halfpenny.’”⁠[52]

John Milne, a poet-pedlar of Aberdeenshire, who sold his own effusions over a wide tract of the East of Scotland, always pleaded his cause in a verse of doggerel. He was one of the later-day chapmen. His poems frequently dealt with incidents connected with the great religious struggle that culminated in the Disruption of 1843, and these he recited at fairs and markets, always concluding with the following lines:—

The chapman was not always dealt with in life in a kindly fashion, and it is to be feared that he frequently found himself deserted and alone in the hour of death. Sometimes in the gloaming of his days he found “a hained rig” in the shelter of a city hospital, but it is likely that more often he died,

Mr. Alan Reid, writing of John Burness, the author of Thrummy Cap, says his end was unutterably sad. “His occupation was anything but lucrative; his spirit was broken, and his physique impaired through struggles and disappointments; and at Portlethen, in 1826, the toiling wayfarer was overtaken in a snowstorm and literally ‘driven to the wall’ by the conqueror Death.”⁠[54] The shroud of many, like that of Burness, was woven by the snowy flakes of a wintry blast.

The flying-stationer did not lack his elegist. Part of a lament for Dougal Graham has been preserved, but it is more in relation to the bellman than the pedlar side of his character, and a few lines from the “Elegy on Peter Duthie”⁠[55] may be quoted in preference to it. Duthie, who flourished from 1721 to 1812, was a flying-stationer for “upwards of eighty years,” and when at length he passed away his memory was embalmed in elegaic verse, from which the following is an extract:—

If “Jackey” took up the business where Peter Duthie left it, and lived to anything like the age of his predecessor, the chances are that his elegist—if he had one—would not be under the necessity of looking for somebody to succeed him. By that time, the newsagent would be supplanting the “Flying Stationer.”

The chapbook was issued from many towns in Scotland, and Dr. Robert Chambers—though his figure is believed to be well within the mark—put the annual circulation at 200,000. The leading presses were those of Glasgow, Edinburgh, Falkirk, Stirling, and Paisley. Many of the chapbooks were issued without printer’s name, and cannot therefore be assigned to any particular office. In Edinburgh, the great places of publication were Niddery’s Wynd and Cowgate, and the most notable printers were J. Morren and Alexander Robertson. In Glasgow, the firm of James and Matthew Robertson did an extensive business, and are understood to have realised £30,000 from the work. Their premises were situated in the historic Saltmarket. Other printers of the same locality were R. Hutchison and Thomas Duncan. Francis Orr, who started business in 1790, was a notable Glasgow printer. In 1825, he assumed his three sons as partners, and his firm has since been known as that of Francis Orr & Sons. James, the last of the three sons, died so recently as 1899, leaving wealth to the value of about a million sterling. Paisley and Falkirk had two outstanding publishers. In the former town, George Caldwell carried on business, and was the original printer of many of Dougal Graham’s productions; in the latter place, T. Johnston issued a numerous collection of chapbooks. Stirling had no fewer than four printers engaged in the business. There were the two separate firms of C. Randall and M. Randall, and J. Fraser and W. Macnie, one or another of whose imprints appear on many publications. A number of other towns throughout Scotland—Leith, Dundee, Aberdeen, Kilmarnock, Irvine, Newton-Stewart, Haddington, Montrose, Airdrie—contributed to the general stock, and endeavoured to meet the demands of the “Flying Stationer.”

In criticising our chapbook literature, the prevailing tone has been either—as in the case of George MacGregor—to say that “no one need regret that the days of chapbooks are gone⁠[56];” or—as in the case of Professor Fraser—to say that they “should be read in the light of the age that gave them birth.”⁠[57] Neither position is quite just to the literature itself. In the mass that circulated over Scotland there was a considerable leaven of indecency, just as there is more than a suggestion of filth in the literature of to-day. Writing of what was virtually the chapbook era, Mr. Henley described Scotland, out of the fulness of his ignorance and epigram, as a land of “fornication and theology.” To the Southron mind, therefore, it will not appear strange that Erskine’s Sermons were sandwiched between The Comical Adventures of Lothian Tom and Jockey and Maggy’s Courtship, or that Isaac Watts’s Divine Songs lay cheek for jowl with The Coalman’s Courtship of the Creelwife’s Daughter. There were many tastes to be suited, and in this direction we are probably as diverse as our fathers were. Any bookseller will supply you with Newman’s Apologia and Jude the Obscure.

The distinctive chapbook—that is, the broadly humorous production of which Dougal Graham was author-in-chief—affords a faithful reflex of life as it really was. Graham was an early “kailyairder,” who reared his plants from a stronger and more strictly Scottish soil than Barrie or Maclaren or Crockett. These later workers in the same field met uncommon Scots who knew more about Hell than the sins that fit a man for it, and who were religious to the point of extravagance. Their narrowness of view and their feeling for sanctity are insisted on, and only a glimpse of their normal condition is given here and there by way of comedy or burlesque. The weavers of Thrums, and the villagers of Drumtochty, and the rustics around Cairn Edward lived in the time when, as the old Scotswoman said, swearing was regarded as “a grand set-aff to the conversation,” and yet not one of them could say “Damn it!” to save his life. It may be that the exigencies of modern taste, or the sympathies of the authors, demanded that their mouths be closed against the “aith that wad relieve” them, but to that extent many readers may think them less truthfully Scottish in their walk and conversation. The authors of some of the chapbooks felt no such scruples; and in their desire to paint life as they saw it, had no inclination to tone down that forceful beauty of our native tongue which is not taught at school. Their wish was like that of old Oliver—to have warts and all. It may be also, so far as Graham at least is concerned, that the old author was more intimately acquainted than the new with the life portrayed. The modern “kailyairder” writes from his study—it may be in London or in Liverpool—of a life he only knows by hearsay or from observation in long past years; Dougal Graham condescended on scenes and manners, customs and traits which he himself had witnessed or experienced—he was neither a son of the soil nor a chapman for nothing. What Fraser says of him, in comparison with the historian, is true of him as compared with J. M. Barrie or Ian Maclaren.

“He possessed this advantage over the ordinary historian,” writes Fraser, “that the latter, from his superior height and position, seldom condescended to enter the huts of the poor; and when he did enter, the inmates were frightened into their ‘Sunday clothes and manners’ by his stately and majestic presence. But Dougal, being himself one of the poorest, introduces us into the most secret, domestic, and everyday life and thoughts of the lower classes of the last [the eighteenth] century. Nothing is hidden from him. He is treated with a familiarity which shows that his hosts have no wish to hide anything.”⁠[58]

But if the recent “kailyairder” has not repeated the expressive Scots of the Skellat Bellman and his compeers, it cannot be said that the modern novelist has forgotten the incidents which bulk in the chapbook pages. The dominie, or the minister, is still occasionally “deposed” for the old lechery to help out an attractive plot, and even the prim, semi-religious authoress can insinuate a good deal about the nameless “Pleasures of Matrimony.” And although it is sometimes embellished with art and occasionally obscured with indifferent grammar, the incident round which much of Jockey and Maggy’s Courtship circles is so frequently turned to account that one wonders what the average novelist would do if it were an impossibility for children to be born out of wedlock. The newspaper, too, often provides all the naked realism of the chapbook; and the generation which supports the journal supplying the longest account of the obscenities of the Breach of Promise and Divorce Courts, is hardly entitled to pronounce a very strong judgment against the indecencies of the antiquated chapbook. If there must be filth, the vulgar frankness of Graham is preferable to the insinuated suggestiveness of the present-day romancist.

Mention has already been made of the suppression of the chapbook by the literary periodical and of the abolition of the flying-stationer by the resident newsagent. Alongside these factors, there was a third, which had much to do with altering the tone of the compositions which circulated among the working classes. This was the wide distribution of religious tracts. Many of these—issued by the Religious Tract Society which was instituted in 1799—came from south the Border. Others were of Scottish production. During the forties of last century the land was deluged with pamphlets and tracts, many of which had reference to the Morisonian controversy. Series were issued at different towns, such as Perth, Edinburgh, Kelso, and Falkirk, and in 1848 Stirling revived the position it held in the dissemination of the older chapbooks by the establishment of a Tract Depot. This organisation, which is now known as “The Stirling Tract Enterprise,” originated in the hobby and Free Church leanings of a Stirling seed merchant. It began in a very casual way—its inception was almost unconscious—but when it attained its jubilee, in October, 1898, the trustees were able to state that they had circulated something like four hundred and seventy millions of publications during the fifty years. These productions are distributed over all the world, and, so far as Scotland is concerned, they must have largely taken the place of the old religious chapbook.

In its other departments, chapbook literature has equally developed. The old romances were followed by a succession of lurid penny and twopenny dreadfuls issued at Glasgow, but chiefly dealing with American life. An attempt was made to counteract the influence of these by the issue of a series of religious tales under title, “The Stirling Stories.” A more recent Scottish publication with a similar aim, though not ostensibly religious, is the series of “People’s Penny Stories,” issued by Messrs. John Leng & Co., Dundee. In addition to these Scottish issues, there is a bewildering plethora of productions of English growth. Penny romances abound, and weekly miscellanies of the Tit-Bits order are legion. The advertising fiend, too, does much towards this multiplication of books. Enterprising soap-boilers now add literature to their business, and a man may shave himself into possession of a library of shabby editions of famous authors. The free distribution of almanacs and dream-books is carried on wholesale by pushing patent-medicine vendors. Mother Shipton and Mother Bunch have given place to Mother Seigel, and Dr. Williams and his pink pills have superseded Dr. Faustus and Major Weir. When this gratis circulation and the gorgeous array of cheap literature are compared with the chapbooks of an earlier time, one may be inclined to commiserate the old-world reader. And yet he had compensating advantages. If he did not have the newest discoveries in photography or the latest achievements in colour-printing, neither was he invited to buy soap that wouldn’t wash clothes, or tempted to gorge himself on pills worth a guinea a box.

The Last Day—from “The New Pictorial Bible.”