"FANCY MEETING YOU!"

Otago Daily Times, Issue 11197, 20 August 1898, Page 6

"FANCY MEETING YOU!"

Fortunes made from catch phbases,

A "password," in the slang of the London slums, is a short, pithy'phrase which, for some occult'reason, catches the ear of the populace, and is repeated from one to the other until it spreads right round the globe wherever the English language is spoken. "Now we sha'n't be long !" was a password. So was •' Have you seen the Scab?" "Whoa. Emma, mind the paint!" "Orsfc your 'air cut," " Wink the other eye," "We never speak as we pajss by," " Where did you get that 'at?" and a whole host of similar gutter aphorisms now consigned to the Hrabb of the past., There is always a password on the tapis, Jnst at present, as most people are painfully aware, it is " Fancy meeting, you!" ■ are worth money, and sometimes^ a great deal of money. The people who utilise them are the writers of comic Bongs. These cast their nets in the Flams of the East End of London, for here, anil nowhere else, as a rule, is, the password originated. It is its breeding-place. Everywhere else the strange

product is at best buta partially acclimatised exotic;' in^Whitechapel, in-Bethnal Green, . and in* Shoreditch it is endemic. " V, 12 To catch and tame a wild password is by no means.so difficult a task as the uninitiated — might imagine.r',;There are always plentyfloating about. Where the art conies'in1 1b in determining whether 6i "no a/promisipg specimen is really,going toi ?.'.catch.on.": Once this is settled it. is.^a "jcompaTatively easy matter.tp snare the:'.crefiture and embody it in a ditty before It is;'ias^t were, half-fledged. After this manner didi Herbert Campbell with "Now we sha'n't be.long," the,result beingthat be reaped for .himself1 a miniature for-' tune, and—but. this-iis a detail—drove the Eoglish-spsaking races.wild for the space of six months or thereabout?.' ''Similarly,-in the same way, at this present moment Nat Clifford is using ."Fancy;meeting, ym!" ias a ,' lever wherewith to raise himselfi to fame and fortune. Nat caught the phrase, .late one evening at an East End merrymaking. Ho I thought nothing of it at the time.-The f olio wing morning he heard one street gamin shout it,, to another. A few minutes * later] %i stopped to purchase, a buttonhole from; a flower girl. "Fancy, meeting ypu.l'; roguishly,^exclaimed.''the/:damsel,' -as'-';she j pinned the: spray in ;|the comedian's coat- ' lapel. "Hallo 1" thought, Clifford to himself, "thia thing is going toxatch; on/." And forthwith' he had a song written ?with'-the then comparatively unknown phrase, worked in as a refrain.' j Result': In six weeks,or thereabouts he was earning treble salaries! and engagements were rolling in a good deal faster than his agent waa able to book them. ' ■' • ■■ .','' ■-' :.-' :■. ■•■••. ■ '

The first. password of' which history or tradition has any cognisance was,!' You are a;', perfect cure,." wb.icb.l embodied into', a popular song by the late far.J. H.Steady s|t ail; London; crazy.in the.cearly sixties. ( 3?he phrase was on everybody's lips, andithe ditty, witn itn peculiar: jumping1 accompaniment^ vrafi.sUng ;ind whistled everywhere. Thjit single paia77ord, picked up haphazard at a Jewish ".Earim," ball,.is said to bave netted Stead several thousands of pounds,l But^tfor fellow, he conld not keep it: - It was the old story of money easily" comeJb^ soon, spent; and the roan who bad, excited -the risible faculties of millidns^and whos>'name waß on everybody's lips, died some few years ago in jibject-poyerbj;.'^ ;'^j-'",.; t':,^ ' '.-('f" ['-'■ V'-/'; Ifb one; ever, knows who originates any particular password. As has been previously intimated,.it .usually seems to, ieyolye its*alf from 'some corner of slumland, mcch in' the same way that the cholera microbe is said to evolve itself from the' unknown horrors of nastiness that reek and fester amid the solitudes of the SnnderbundfO v • ■ '■■..'"■;•

s Some day, perhaps, somewhere someone will- discover the bacteria responsible 'for password fever, and :we shall then be; able to inbculatß buraelves against .the mafa.dy. Bob' until that much-to-be-desired consummation is arrived at, it is to be feared that it will continue unchecked its ravages among pbor defenceless humanity; /■. v ' ;." s

—An act-of Parliament'was passed in;th» reign of Edward HI prohibiting any one from being1 served at'dinner or supper with more than two courses, except on some great holidays therein specified, on which he;inight; 'ie served with three. ■"■•-.; .:[ ':':■'-:■:,.: •■'.■;y.- : <-y-'-'-(x. : — True humour is only found; in the deadly serious. The native home of liumour'is Scotland.' Witty people: are never humonrous; the Irish aye as devoid jof humour as :tiie Scotch are of wit.—Mler. '.' .•' ;, \V -'■';.;;.;;:•