London Misses Its Muffins

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 78, 2 April 1938, Page 5

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 muftin man also no longer lives in Drury Lane, and hardly anybody knows him. It seems probable that in a few years’ time ho 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 an ancient order were counted in the last “muffin man census,” undertaken by an interested party in 19.55. 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 : y of muffins on his head. In case you should bo lucky enough to meet him this is what ho looks like. A tray balanced on his head, a green baizo cloth over the tray, a gray-whito coat, a "cockney’s muffler, and a big brass bell. The hell has been the cause of most of the trouble. Anti-noise edicts have called the bell to silence and muffin 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 I after having been told to stop by a [policeman. The muffin man felt that his ancient trade was privileged and that he might toll his bell despite everything just as Londoners are permitted, by custom and tradition, io 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 Loudon ring their bells as seldom as possible but just often enough to gain custom. They take (he 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 1 heard”— has fallen off and that in the more plebeian cousin crumpet has increased. And for no good reason at all Londoners seem to enjoy eating crumpets in cafes more than at home. So the muffin men desert their trays ami take to baking, pure and simple. What docs injure (he pride of the mullin man is the matter of the bell. That rankles. Ice-cream Iricyclists 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 erv "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, mo