" '....All are asleep, snug and warm in their beds
For a horrid molrow to be heard on the leads....,'
".... is extremely inconvenient. - A sun-burnt Apollo was accordingly charged with a breach of the peace, in having 'sung to the listening moon' on the previous night. It did not transpire whether the defendant was at the time engaged in serenading the charms of some fair inhabitant, or whether he was under the influence of liquor; though it was the opinion of the watchman (no indifferent judge in such matters) that he was celebrating the praises of Bacchus. And as the officer thought that 'it wasn't by no means proper' that the gen'l'man should select midnight and the public streets for his vocal exertions, the unlucky songster was confined to the Station House.
"He was however dismissed , with an intimation that another offence of a similar nature would prove injurious to his liberties as well as suppressive of his nocturnal rites."
This, from The Exeter and Plymouth Gazette court report of 28th May 1842, leads one to believe that the Victorian watchman was rather more efficient in dealing with street-drinkers than his modern counterpart, the Exeter policewoman, or man. Every weekend midnight, and not only, the High Street rings with the sounds of drunken sojourners in a passion (or out of one) and such behaviour, in my opinion, is not by no means proper!
We tolerate the intolerable!
A 'molrow' is here a misquotation within a somewhat inept misquotation from contemporary bad verses by one 'Davus'.(Bentley's Miscellany Volume 9) 'Davus' has a 'molrowing'. I can't find either of these wonderful words in my dictionaries but it looks to me like it should rather mean a row inflicted on us by women. - Well, we get plenty of that too on the streets of Exeter!
I wonder if 'sun-burnt Apollo' might be a 'racial slur'. I sincerely hope not!
No comments:
Post a Comment