London Misses Its Muffins

Manawatu Times, Volume 63, Issue 60, 12 March 1938, Page 11

London Misses Its Muffins

Do you know the Muffin Man, The Muffin Man, The Muffin Man, Do you know the Muffin Man, Who lives in Drury Lane 0? , LONDON—So is the London muffin man, street purveyor of soft dough cakes, immortalized in song. But London children no longer sing the song and dance to the tune of it. The inutLanc, and hardly anybody knows him. It seems probable that in a few years’ time he will belong entirely to London's picturesque past, instead of to its picturesque present. There are only a dozen muffin men in London nowadays. Not a "baker’s dozen.” A plain round dozen, where there used to be 100. These 12 survivors of au ancient order were counted in the last “muffin man census,” undertaken by au interested party in 1935. Occasionally the residents of Bayswater, among other privileged districts, still hear his bell and the smart claptrap of his heels on the pavement as he marches down the road, a ‘ay of muffins on his head. In case you should be lucky enough to meet him this is what he looks like. A tray balanced on his head, a green baize cloth over the tray, a gray-white coat, a "cockney’s muffler, and a big brass bell. The bell has been the cause of most of the trouble. Anti-noise edicts have called the bell to silence and muffiu men ringing bells are liable to arrest. Not so long ago a muffin man was arrested for making too much noise, or rather for persisting in making a noise after having been told to stop by a policeman. The muffiu man felt that iiis ancient trade was privileged and that he might toll his bell despite everything just as Londoners aro permitted, by custom and tradition, to shout their cries in the streets. The policeman felt otherwise. A sympathetic magistrate satisfied himself and the law by dismissing the arrested craftsman with a caution, as a first offender. Now the dozen muffin men of London ring their bells as seldom as possible but just often enough to gain custom. They take the disappearance of their calling philosophically. They shrug their shoulders and prepare for other things.

The trade in muffins, so popular in the middle of the eighteenth century, that a famous writer was able to say in a guide to the city of Bath. "I free-

ly will own, I the muffins preferred, to all the genteel conversation I heard”— lias fallen off and that in the more plebeian cousin crumpet has increased. And for no good reason at all Lon-

doners seem to enjoy eating crumpet in cafes more than at home. So th muffin men desert their trays and tak to baking, pure and simple.

What does injuro the pride of the muffin man is the matter of the bell. That rankles. Ice-cream tricyclists arc allowed to ring their cycle bells to announce their arrival in the street to prospective customers, so why not the muffin man? And surely if a wandering coalman may shout "Ooorrrow” to announce his presence, and a coster can cry "Orlaripafrooo,” a muffin may ring a bell. "My wife left me because I played so much golf.” "How much would a set of golf clubs cost me?”