The Peranakan or Straits-Born Chinese are well-known for the intricacy of the items and accessories which were used in their homes and daily lives, from the batik-patterned sarongs, shirts, and blouses, to the brightly coloured porcelain crockery used in their dining rooms, and the pastel paint-schemes of traditional Peranakan townhouses.
One area of Peranakan craftsmanship which is particularly prized is traditional “Baba Silverware”, as it’s called. The items of metalware used in a Straits-Chinese home which were manufactured by Peranakan silversmiths and goldsmiths in Singapore, Malaya, Indonesia and the southern part of Thailand, in the 1800s and early 1900s.
Peranakan silverware and goldware covered all kinds of areas, from chopsticks to curtain-hooks, belts to keychains, kebaya brooches (“kerongsang”), hairpins (“cucuk sanggul”), jewelry, and even little silver and gold mesh purses. And even something like this…
Peranakan Silver Bolster Plates
In traditional Peranakan marriage-beds, a long tubular pillow with a circular or rectangular cross-section, known as a bolster – or more colloquially as a “Dutch Wife” – was a common feature. They served as shared head-pillows for the husband and wife when in bed, or as a body-pillow when one party of the couple was sleeping alone without the other (hence the ‘wife’ nickname, since it took the place of the absent spouse).
In Peranakan families, bolster pillows, which were so heavily associated with the marriage bed, were often given as gifts to newlyweds upon their wedding days. The idea was that the large bolster stretching across the bed symbolised the joining of two families, and the union of one couple.
As they were intended as wedding-gifts, the bolsters were often adorned with sterling silver decorative end-plates which were sewn onto the small panels at either end of the bolster. These panels might be purely decorative, and carry no further significance, or they might, as in this case, hold extra symbolism connected with a healthful, happy, and hopefully, long-lasting marriage.
The decorations on this particular set of bolster-plates hold rather more significance than mere ornamentation, and are actually meant to be symbolic of longevity (the eternal phoenix), wealth, or prosperity (the peonies) and beauty, purity, and status (the peacock) – all things that one would want in a happy marriage!
What is the Point of Silver Bolster Plates?
…ehm…nothing…really.
And yes, I’m being absolutely serious when I say that.
Absolutely nothing.
These thin, embossed sheets of silver were added to bolsters purely for the sake of decoration. They were not there to protect the fabric, to reinforce the seams, to guard against rubbing or wear…they served exactly NO practical purpose whatsoever! Their only function was decorative – to look nice on the bed, and to embellish the bed-linens of the newlywed couple. Awwww!!
How are they Made?
Made of thin sheets or plates of solid silver, bolster plates came in a variety of shapes. The most common ones are rectangular, circular, or hexagonal or octagonal. They’re either left as plain silver, or are further embellished with gilding.
Once the design has been traced on the silver plates, then it’s the job of the silversmith to work it into the metal. In most cases, this was done through what the French call “repousse” – literally pressing-out the design from the back, to the front of the piece, using a punch and hammer to work the silver into shape. It’s a very slow, delicate, fiddly task, that requires the metal to be annealed and cooled several times to deal with work-hardening, when the metal becomes brittle from too much pounding.
Once the design had been finalised and hammered out into the silver, the final step was to punch the holes all around the borders of the two plates, one for each side of the bolster. The holes are, of course, to pass the needle and thread through, so that the plates can be sewn onto the ends of the bolster.
Where Did They Come From?
This set of plates was purchased from a dealer at the local flea-market who sold all kinds of Asian antiques. I recognised the pieces at once for what they were, and asked about their history. They were originally from Georgetown, in Penang, off the west coast of Malaysia, which only doubly-confirmed that I knew what they were. This makes a lot of sense – Penang was a big Peranakan stronghold back in the day with a vibrant community – so things like silver bolster plates would definitely be found there.
Displaying the Bolster Plates
After I got the two silver plates home – which was done very delicately, I might add – then I had to figure out how to display them. First step was to straighten them out, make sure they were flat and even, and then to polish them – not too much – but enough to lift the surface tarnish and give the silver crisp, lustrous glow.
Once that was done, the final step was to find some way of both displaying them and protecting them in a practical manner. In the end, I settled on just simply framing the plates inside a standard, glass-fronted picture-frame – once I found one which was of a suitable size, of course. I centered them as best I could, and because I didn’t want to potentially damage them any further, I left it up to friction (and there’s plenty of that!) to hold the plates in place, inside the frame.
If you wait long enough, almost anything will show up at the flea-market – even stuff you might never imagine.
I bought this really nifty silver belt from one of the regular dealers at my local market. Lovely person, beautiful stuff for sale…but that didn’t mean they had a clue about what this item was. But then, with something like this, that’s not very surprising.
Belts worn by the Peranakan-Chinese (both men and women, although it was more common with women) were largely made of high-grade silver, high-grade gold, or else cheap, nickel-silver, for costume jewelry. They were found up and down the Malay peninsula, from southern Thailand or Siam, through Malaysia, Singapore, and around the Indonesian Islands.
Because of this wide spread, there are many different styles of Peranakan belts. Panel-belts, layered belts, chain belts, coin belts, mesh belts…there are even Peranakan belts which aren’t silver at all (except, perhaps for the buckle) – but are instead, made of the same beadwork embroidery which was used to produce Peranakan slippers, handbags and other such decorative items.
My friend at the market didn’t know anything about this belt. It was surmised that it was made in China during the Qing Dynasty, that it was an export-piece, and that it was solid silver…and that was all they knew, despite my questioning.
I examined the belt and the more I looked at it and how it was made, and what it was made of (if, indeed, that was true), the more I began to doubt the idea that this was made in China, for foreign export. Yes, it has Chinese hallmarks on it, but just because marks are in Chinese doesn’t mean it was made there…or even that it’s silver.
For one thing, Qing-Dynasty Chinese export-silver was mostly sold to the European and North American markets. I’ve never heard of a Chinese export-silver belt. Trays, tea-sets, coffee-sets, silverware dinner-sets, walking-stick handles, cigar/cigarette cases, even cruet-sets, sure…but belts? Eeehh…never.
Not saying they don’t exist, but in 20 years of messing around with antiques, and ten years of selling them, I’ve never heard of such a thing.
Despite these misgivings, I decided to buy the belt. It was offered at a good price, so I bought it on the off-chance that it might be something more than it seemed.
Researching the Belt
I started by looking up Chinese export-silver belts, and as I initially expected – there really wasn’t much to be found. The only silver belts I could find with an even tangential link to anything approaching China, were those manufactured, and worn, by the Straits-Chinese…also known as the Peranakan. Then I started finding belts almost identical to mine, which I started recognising as distinctly Peranakan styles…which made me stop and think.
From the moment of purchasing the belt, I hadn’t really considered the possibility that the belt was Peranakan – it just seemed an idea too far-fetched to be true, but now I began thinking that perhaps it was!
Increasingly curious about this turn of events, I started asking questions from other dealers and collectors online, who all confirmed my suspicions, but I still had one area of uncertainty, which was the Chinese hallmark stamped into the belt.
Researching the Hallmark
There were what appeared to be two hallmarks on the belt, both stamped on the back of the buckle. The only mark which was halfway recognisable was a two-character mark, which after researching, I found was the Chinese mark of “Zu Yin” (“Pure Silver”). The problem is that Chinese silver marks like this can (and are) faked, and can be applied to other things like pewter or nickel to con unsuspecting buyers. Because of that, I wasn’t going to be sure about anything without getting the belt assayed, first.
To allay all doubts, I took the belt to a jeweler I know, for a professional opinion. He conducted a couple of small, non-invasive tests and was sure the belt was 93.5% silver – 1% higher than sterling. Not exactly the “pure silver” of the hallmark, but high enough to dispel any lingering concerns I had!
Where did the Belt Come From?
To sum up, all indications are that the belt was manufactured in southern Thailand (indicated by the style of the buckle, and belt-strap), by a Peranakan-Chinese silversmith (indicated by the Chinese hallmarks), during the late 1800s (suggested by the size of the belt and the purity of the silver). It truly is a beautiful piece of history, and a fascinating Peranakan cultural artifact, which I’m so glad to add to my collection, small as that collection may be.
With the rise of internet gaming, gaming consoles, and PC gaming, traditional tabletop games such as card-games, chess, checkers, carom, etc, are starting to lose out in the face of stiff competition from their more hip, on-screen counterparts. However, one game which has never seemed to die out, even in the digital age, is the age-old Chinese favourite called…Mahjong!
The most famous of all Chinese traditional games, in this blog-posting, we’ll be looking at the history of mahjong, how it’s played, where it came from, where it went, and what happened to it along the way.
So, shuffle your tiles, build your walls, form your melds, and place your bets!
It’s time to go mahjonging…
Mahjong – What’s in a Name?
‘Mahjong’ is the accepted modern spelling of the traditional Chinese game known as “Mah Jiang”. The most literal translation of the word ‘mahjong’ is ‘sparrows’ (‘Mah’ in Chinese), or ‘chattering sparrows’. This is believed to have been derived from the clattering, chattering, clacking noise produced by traditional mahjong tiles, which sound like chittering, fluttering birds.
An alternative spelling of the game – chiefly used in the United States – is “Mah Jongg” – for some reason, with two ‘g’s on the end. This is actually a trademarked name, and is not in any way related to the traditional Chinese pronunciation, Wade-Giles Romanisation, or pinyin spelling. I’ll explain how it got its “two-g’s” spelling, further on down in the article.
The History of Mahjong
The exact origins of mahjong are unknown. Where, when and by whom the game was invented have been lost to history. Creative marketing, myths, and legend, will tell you that mahjong is an ancient game, invented thousands of years ago, by the great Chinese philosopher, Confucius, as a way to train the mind, that it was played by the concubines and empresses in the Forbidden City in Peking, and that from these lofty beginnings, the game was gradually democratised over the passing centuries to the Chinese peasantry, to become the national game of China!
…Right?
I’m very sorry to disappoint you, but…none of that is even slightly true! Not one bit of it.
Detective-work and educated guesses by Chinese historians seem to have traced the game’s roots to Chinese card-games played in the 17th and 18th centuries. Such games were similar to modern Poker, or Gin-Rummy, which are the closest European equivalents to modern mahjong, in terms of gameplay.
The problem was, of course, that paperboard playing-cards did not last very long. They were easily prone to damage, warping, tearing, and splitting. These thin, paper cards were difficult to hold, fiddly to handle, and lightweight, which means they can blow away in the wind…hardly ideal when you’re in the middle of a game.
The game that’s most similar to mahjong, before mahjong itself was invented, is known as Yezipai, or simply “Yezi”. It was played using small slivers or slices of ivory, bone, or wood, an improvement on paper cards, but still not as hard-wearing as modern mahjong tiles. The thin sheets of ivory and bone were easily broken and could be snapped in half, ruining an entire deck due to one person’s clumsiness!
It’s for this reason that someone – nobody knows who – decided to transfer the designs on the cards onto durable, heavyweight bone and ivory tiles – solid blocks which could be stacked, stood up, laid down, packed and unpacked easily, and which could withstand years of heavy-handed playing.
When this transition took place, nobody seems to know, but it appears to have happened by the early 1800s. As for where the game was invented, that’s a bit more straightforward: In the first half of the 19th century, when mahjong was likely in its infancy, the game was only really being played in one location in China: Ningpo.
A port city in Zhejiang Province, Ningpo was one of several “treaty ports” opened by the British as a result of the unequal Treaty of Nanking, which ended the 1839-1842 First Opium War.
The chief British diplomat stationed in Ningpo in the mid-1800s was a man named Frederick E.B. Harvey. Harvey’s official title was British Consul to Ningpo, and he was in charge of the British Consulate within the city.
Frederick E. Harvey, British Consul to Ningpo. Ca. 1855.
Harvey’s diplomatic career in China started in Hong Kong. Thereafter he was transferred to the International Settlement of Shanghai, and finally, to Ningpo, in 1859.
It was while living in Ningpo that Harvey met a man named Chen Yumen – the person who would introduce him to the relatively new game called ‘Mahjong’.
Harvey’s letters home to England, and diary-entries while living in Ningpo, are the first written English records detailing the gameplay, rules, and culture surrounding mahjong. His writings are also among the first references, in any language – to the existence of mahjong in any capacity, giving us a fairly accurate starting date for mahjong in the early 1800s.
From its creation in Ningpo, mahjong spread to Shanghai, Peking, Tientsin, and eventually, to all of China.
Mahjong in the 20th Century
For most of the 1800s, mahjong remained a largely Chinese game, played wherever four Chinese people could be found to fill a mahjong table, but this started to change at the end of the 19th century.
Chinese migration in the second half of the 1800s, and the turn of the 1900s saw the game being exported to ethnic Chinese communities overseas, such as those in San Francisco and New York in the United States, to the British Asian colonies of Hong Kong and Singapore, and to other cities with large Chinese populations such as London in England, or Toronto, in Canada. Western exposure to mahjong started largely in the early 1900s – and a lot of it had to do with one city:
Shanghai.
As mentioned previously, mahjong is believed to have been invented in, or near, the city of Ningpo, on the southern shores of Hangzhou Bay in Zhejiang Province.
Well, if you study a map of China, you’ll find out that the nearest major city to Ningpo is just across the bay, and a few miles north – the city of Shanghai – built around the Huangpu River, which leads to the Yangtze nearby.
By the late 1800s, knowledge of mahjong had spread to Shanghai. This larger, more cosmopolitan city adopted the game, and made it their own. Mahjong was played everywhere in Shanghai, from inside peoples’ homes, to public parks, teahouses, private clubs, and even in dedicated mahjong houses. Mahjong manufacturing was also centered around Shanghai. The large, urban population meant that there were loads of off-cuts of the materials used to make mahjong sets: Wood, bone, ivory, and bamboo, so the city was the natural location where mahjong sets would be produced.
Four men playing mahjong. Fuxin, China. 1956. Getty Images.
It was from Shanghai that mahjong was exported, either physically, or by word-of-mouth, around the world. It was in Shanghai, or more specifically, within the confines of the International Settlement, that mahjong was first exposed in a big way to Western audiences. British, American, French, Russian, and Jewish expats living in Shanghai (known as “Shanghailanders”) became fascinated with the game, and started playing it with their Chinese friends.
At the same time, Western tourists visiting Shanghai were purchasing sets of mahjong, and taking them home as souvenirs, or writing about them in letters and postcards, and posting these back to loved ones and friends in Europe and North America. Expats who had lived in Shanghai for some number of years, and who had come to love the game, purchased mahjong sets as mementos of their Chinese adventures, and likely played mahjong during the long steamer-journeys home to the USA, Canada, or Europe, exposing the game to even more foreigners.
Mahjong in the West
It was in this way that mahjong started catching on in Western countries – particularly Britain, Canada, the United States, and countries in Western Europe which had extensive contact with China. Mahjong started being imported to the USA in the early 1920s by Standard Oil Company executive Joseph Park Babcock. Babcock had headed up the Standard Oil office in Shanghai, operating out of the International Settlement. While living in China, Babcock and his wife had developed a taste for mahjong, and he got the notion into his head that if he marketed it correctly – mahjong could become huge in the United States!
To this end, Babcock wrote a simplified rule-book for mahjong, and started marketing it aggressively as “Mah-Jongg” (with two g’s) in the USA.
A mahjong demonstration at Selfridges Department Store, London. Ca. 1925.
Mahjong was already starting to gain traction in the U.S., because of, as I mentioned previously – written references to the game in letters and postcards, and because foreign tourists were bringing back mahjong sets from China as souvenirs of their travels. However, it was Joseph P. Babcock’s creative streak that really set the ball rolling when it came to the arrival of mahjong in the United States.
Along with the simplified rules and importing new sets directly from Shanghai, Babcock came up with a whole fanciful “history” for the game. In the early 1900s, all things “Oriental” were highly en-vogue in the Western world. Chinese-style clothing, dresses, furniture, food, Chinese decorative elements and colour-schemes, were all the rage. Look no further than the reconstruction of Chinatown in San Francisco, post-1906, as one example.
“Since Ma is Playing Mahjong!”, from 1924. Notice that the title is spelled the conventional way – “Mah Jong”.
It was into this heady mix of fried rice, silk robes, chopsticks, and a blur of red, black, and yellow hues, that the first large-scale Western contact with mahjong had entered. Mahjong was seen as being mysterious, new, exciting, dangerous, hedonistic, and exotic! No game like it had existed in the West before, and Americans bought up mahjong so fast that importers working with manufacturers in Shanghai couldn’t keep up with demand! Luxurious mahjong sets made of beautiful woods, with inlaid cases decorated with polished metalwork, and intricately carved tiles were bought and sold by, and from big-name department stores and gaming-products manufacturers, such as Parker Brothers in the US (more famous these days for selling “CLUE”).
Mahjong became so popular in America that there was even a song written about it! “Ma is Playing Mahjong”, from 1924! The lyrics are, perhaps, not very politically correct, 100 years later, but its existence speaks to the incredible impact that mahjong had on American culture. You can listen to it here…
It was in this way that mahjong became incredibly popular in the United States, starting in the 1910s and 20s, and going right through the 1930s, 40s, and 50s, and well into the present-day!
Four men playing mahjong. 1947.Getty Images.
While mahjong thrived in the West, mahjong in China was under attack! During the Cultural Revolution – the ten-year period between 1966-1976, mahjong was banned in China for being a decadent, wasteful extravagance, and an “old idea” that had no place in the “New China”! The ban was lifted upon the end of the Revolution, when Chairman Mao died in 1976.
The Mahjong Set
Obviously, to play mahjong, you need a mahjong set. A traditional mahjong set comes with dice (at least two, and sometimes up to four), a wind-disc or indicator, with wind-directions engraved or printed on it in Chinese characters, tally-sticks (for scoring) or tokens / coins (again, for scoring), and last, but not least – the tiles!
A full mahjong set contains 144 tiles, divided into suits. The suits are:
The Circles Suit of mahjong.
Circles, Bamboo, Wan (or ‘characters’), Winds, Dragons, Honours, and Bonuses, also called Flowers and Seasons. Unless you’re playing competitive mahjong, the bonuses/flower tiles, can be discarded, as they won’t affect play unless you’re actually scoring the game. Because of this, mahjong sets which are bought just to enjoy the fun of the game, rather than for competition, usually exclude these tiles, for a set of 136 tiles, instead.
Each suit has four sets of tiles with numbers going from 1-9, for circles, bamboo, the wan/characters, and four-each, of the winds, and dragons. By tradition, One of Bamboo is indicated by a bird (usually a peacock, or similar). The “Wan” tiles have numbers in Chinese characters, with another character (the “wan”) underneath. “Wan” is the Chinese word for “10,000”, so for example, a two-wan tile is actually “20,000”. Again, this is used in scoring the game, but when playing for fun, most people ignore this stuff. There are four-each, of the honours and bonus tiles.
To play the game effectively, at the very least, you will require a pair of dice, and a full set of mahjong tiles (which, again, is 144 pieces).
In the 1800s and during the first half of the 20th century, when mahjong was at its height of international popularity, mahjong sets were sold in fantastically elaborate cases. These cases or cabinets had handles, sliding doors, and tile-drawers to hold the tiles and paraphernalia for playing. Today, such cabinets (there’s usually 4-5 drawers – one for each suit, and a fifth drawer for the bits and pieces), in good condition, complete with their sets of playing tiles and accessories, cost hundreds, or even thousands of dollars each.
Modern mahjong sets, usually made of melamine plastic (unless you’re rich enough to afford a handmade set which is produced the old-fashioned way using bone and bamboo!) are sold in simple briefcase-style boxes for ease of storage and transport. Some modern-day manufacturers, looking to recapture the beauty of the antique cases from the 1900s, will produce modern-day sets in vintage-style cases, complete with the handles, sliding doors and pull-out drawers.
How to Play Mahjong!
Now that you have your mahjong set, you need to know how to use it! How do you play with it? How do you win? What’s the POINT OF THE GAME!?
The following instructions are given based on the use of a traditional mahjong set – which has 144 tiles– and gameplay as followed using traditional Chinese/Hong-Kong-style rules.
The aim of a game of mahjong is to build a winning hand of tiles (14 in number) comprised of FOUR MELDS and ONE PAIR.
A “meld” is a grouping of tiles, and a pair is…a…pair! Two matched, identical tiles.
There are three traditional melds:
Pong, Kong, and Chow, also spelled as “Pung”, “Gung”, “Chi”, and various other spellings, depending on Chinese dialects. For the sake of simplicity, I will use “Pong, Kong and Chow”.
A “Pong” is three identical tiles. For example – three white dragons.
A “Kong” is four identical tiles. For example – four West Winds.
A “Chow” is three suited tiles in-sequence. For example – one-two-three of bamboo, circles, or wans, or 2, 3, 4, or 4, 5, 6…you get the idea.
Once you have built four melds (which would usually be 12 tiles), then you have to get your “pair” – two identical tiles. Once you’ve got that, you’ve won the game! Traditionally, the winner will clamp their winning hand together between their fingers, and then slam them down on the table in triumph, to announce their winning hand! (trust me, you should totally do this. It’s a lot of fun!).
And that’s basically it. There are other details, which I’ll go into later on, so keep reading…
Setting up the Game
To play a game of mahjong, you need at least two people (and ideally, four), a square, or circular table, and plenty of time to enjoy a leisurely afternoon of gossip, gameplay, tea-drinking, and shouted profanity, when you find out that someone has beat you at the table!
First, you have to “wash” or shuffle the tiles. Once the tiles are shuffled, you have to build your walls.
There are four walls. If you’re using a traditional 144-tile set, then the walls are 36 tiles each, or two rows of 18 tiles, double-stacked.
The ritual of building the walls is one of the reasons why mahjong was so fascinating to Europeans when they first saw the game. The customs and intricacies of gameplay were unlike anything they had ever seen with cards, or chess, or checkers. It simply had no comparison to anything in the West. In the American version of mahjong (and yes, there is an American version), this stage of the game is known as “Building the Great Wall of China” (because, why not, right?). It’s another element of the game which harks back to the Western exoticism of mahjong in the early-20th-century.
Once the four walls are built, they’re set out in a square. Then you throw the pair of dice into the square, and count around the players going anti-clockwise until you reach the number of the dice. The person you land on is the dealer.
You throw the dice again, and then count along the dealer’s wall. You break the wall at that number, and then each player takes three stacks of four tiles (so, 12) from that break in the wall, again, going anticlockwise around the walls.
The dealer takes an additional stack, giving them 14 tiles. Every other player takes ONE extra tile (so, 13 tiles). The tiles that you’re given (or have taken) form your “hand”. These are the tiles you will concentrate on for the duration of the game. Got all that? Right! The game is now ready to start.
Playing a Game of Mahjong
To begin, if anybody has “bonus” tiles – Seasons, or Flowers – toss them out. You won’t need them in gameplay unless you’re doing a professional game with scoring. Replace those tiles with fresh tiles from the wall. Take a minute to set up your tiles and arrange them in a way that makes sense to you, and see if you have any patterns emerging, or any melds or pairs you can form. When setting up your tiles, they’re stood up on-end, facing you. This conceals your hand from other players, displays your tiles easily for quick manipulation, and allows you to slide, part, or push your tiles together as required, to build melds and pairs.
Got all that? Right! Next step…
Now, the dealer casts out his first tile to kick the game off. By tradition, a game of mahjong moves in an anticlockwise direction around the table.
A four-player game of mahjong in progress…
Each player TAKES one tile, sets it into their hand, and then CASTS OUT one tile that they don’t need. That is considered one turn. Once a player has done that, play moves to the next participant, and so-on, around the table.
As the game progresses, you’ll end up with two “piles” on the table. One is the “draw pile” or the “wall”, and the other pile (in the middle of the table) is the “discard pile”. These are all the tiles that people have chucked out of their hands that they don’t need. As a courtesy to other players, keep the discard pile neat and tidy, as it helps people to know which tile was freshly discarded, and prevents later confusion during gameplay.
You may take a tile from the discard pile to form a meld, or to complete a winning hand and end the game. However, if you do this, then you must “open” the meld to the rest of the table. So, for example, if someone throws out a tile and you find that taking that tile produces a meld for you, you can grab it and shove it into your hand. But then, you have to drop those tiles down onto the table to show the other players the meld that you’ve built from that discard.
You don’t have to do this if you form a meld from a tile taken from the wall-tiles, during your turn.
And so the game continues until a person has a winning hand of FOUR MELDS and ONE PAIR. A winning hand is typically 14 tiles – four groups of three, and one pair, or 18 tiles – four groups of four, and a pair – although this is much harder to attain, so most people will stick to a 14-tile winning hand.
When you have built your winning hand, line up your tiles in a row, grip them together firmly, and then slam them down onto the table, all together, in one, swift, sure, satisfying, and smug move, to show that you’ve won the game!
And that is how mahjong works! It’s really that simple.
Of course, there are complexities – for example – what type of mahjong are you playing? There’s three main styles – Japanese-style mahjong, also known as “Richii Mahjong” (“Richii!” is what you shout when you’re one tile away from winning!), American-style mahjong, which developed in the 1920s and 30s, and finally, the oldest, and most authentic version – Hong-Kong-style mahjong. Most Asians who play mahjong will have grown up learning Hong Kong-style mahjong.
Buying a Mahjong Set
So – you wanna buy a mahjong set, huh?
Sure! I mean they’re not that hard to buy, are they? There’s loads of them on eBay, AliExpress, and other websites. You can probably buy one in any Chinatown in the world, or while visiting countries with large Chinese populations such as Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, etc. Or, you might just find one at your local weekend flea-market.
If you do buy a set, it’s likely to be a modern set, with plastic tiles, counters, tally-sticks, dice, and other accessories, in a briefcase-style box. If you buy a secondhand set, make sure that the case is in good condition, that all the pieces are present and correct, and that you can open and close the case smoothly and securely – the last thing you want is to pick up the case and have everything spill out! Whoops…
But, I hear you say…
“I Want to Buy one of those Fancy Antique Mahong Sets!”
No problem! You can still buy one of those – but there are a lot more things to think about. Antique sets are more likely to have missing pieces, have structural damage, and of course – have higher prices! Depending on age, condition, completeness and rarity, an antique mahjong set can be had for a few hundred dollars, all the way up to a few thousand dollars!
When buying an antique set, make sure that you have all the tiles – a full set is 144 tiles. A set without the “bonus” or “honour” tiles is 136 tiles. Most sets are one, or the other. If it has less than 136 or 144 tiles, then there’s tiles missing!
Check the case for damage. Splitting, cracking, dovetail-joinery coming apart, and so-on. Check any inlays for fit – if they’re getting loose, you’ll have to poke them out, and glue them back in to prevent loss. Check the drawers to make sure they slide in and out smoothly, and that the handles and doors work properly. A lot of these old cases have split wood, cracks, and faulty joinery, so it pays to check literally every square inch of the case, front and back, side to side, top and bottom. Some faults are repairable with glue, clamping, and reinforcement, others are a total loss.
Check the metalwork, as well. Handles, pull-tabs on the drawers, and the corner-tabs on the sides of the case. Usually, these are brass, or nickel-silver. They’re riveted or hammered into place, so check the nails to make sure that nothing’s coming apart. If it is, nail it back in and glue it in place. Traditionally, these cases were meant to be picked up and carried by their handles – you might not want to do that if it’s a rickety case. A case in good condition should be able to be carried without fear of anything coming apart!
Last but not least – check the tiles themselves. Antique mahjong tiles are made in two parts: An upper tile-face, and a lower tile-base. On the majority of antique sets, these were BONE on top and BAMBOO on the base. Other sets used ivory, or special hardwoods, etc. The tiles are spliced together using dovetail joints. High-quality sets will have solid, firm, secure joints, well carved and tight-fitting. Cheap sets have joints which are loose or in danger of falling apart! Traditionally, no glue was used to hold the tiles together. Simple friction was all that kept them as one.
Antique mahjong sets were manufactured by hand. That means that all the woodwork is hand-cut and joined, and the tiles are hand-cut and dovetailed together. Likewise, the tile-faces are carved or engraved by hand. The more intricate the engraving, the higher-quality the set is. Similarly, the more bone-content you have on each tile, the higher quality the set. Sets with hardly any bone on the tiles are cheap and tacky. Sets with loads of bone in each tile are higher quality, as they can withstand higher-quality, more intricate engravings.
My Antique Mahjong Set
In closing this article, I feel it only proper to write one last chapter – with which to introduce to my readers, my own personal mahjong set.
I bought this at auction back in 2018, and paid what some thought, was a rather exorbitant price, at the time. However, recent developments have shown that I basically paid peanuts for something so valuable that it’s basically irreplaceable…certainly for the price I paid!
Comprised of a rosewood case, complete with brass fittings, a sliding door, and four tile-drawers, my mahjong set is one of my absolute pride-and-joys! I would never sell this, and I love being able to use it. The tiles are made in the traditional way – bone and bamboo, dovetailed together, and carved by hand. I don’t know how old it is, but my guess would be early-to-mid 20th century.
The entire case – including the door, and the four, sliding tile-drawers – is made of Chinese rosewood, or what is known as “huanghuali“, in Chinese. The pull-tabs on the lid, and the tile-drawers are little brass butterflies.
Each drawer holds one suit of tiles. Circles, bamboo, wans, and then the dragons, winds and bonuses all live in one drawer by themselves, for a total of 144 tiles. There’s also two tiny bone dice which go with the set.
One thing you may not have noticed about the set is how incredibly SMALL it is! The case measures just 5.5in. x. 5.5in. x 9in! I’ve seen tissue-boxes bigger than that! The tiles are all half-sized, and they’re absolutely adorable! Here are the various suits of tiles…
The Bamboo Suit, with the peacocksThe Circles SuitThe Wans or Characters Suit. The characters are 1-9, in Chinese, and the red character underneath is “Wan”, which is “10,000”.Last but not least, the Winds, Dragons, and Bonuses. They are East (“Dong”), South (“Nan”), West (“Xi”), and North (“Bei”).
Overall, the set is in fantastic condition. There’s no damage to speak of, and everything is in perfect, working, usable condition. And I do use it! When my friends and I play mahjong, this is the set we use, and we have a lot of fun with it.
A amicable game of mahjong with two of my friends…
Anyway – this concludes this rather lengthy posting, all about mahjong! Its history, how it’s played, and how to buy and use your very own mahjong set.
Happy playing!
Want to Find out More?
Information for this article was gleamed from the website of mahjong historian Gregg Swain, which may be found at Mahjong Treasures.
Additional information was gleamed from the CCTV documentary about the history of mahjong, which may be found on YouTube (or at least, it could be, at the time of writing this posting).
Father Christmas, Santa Claus, Pere Noel, St Nicholas…he goes by many names…but who exactly is this mystical, mythical, legendary being, who flies around the world once a year, delivering chocolates and candies, toys and treasure, and…lumps of coal…to good boys and girls of all ages?
Who, or what is Santa Claus? Where does he come from? And where did he get the name “Santa Claus”, anyway?
Well, get yourself some milk and cookies, because we’re about to find out.
A Visit from St. Nicholas
The origins of Santa Claus go back centuries! In fact, the origins of Santa go back nearly 2,000 years!
Weren’t expecting that, were you?
Nicholas of Myra was a Christian bishop who lived in what is today – Turkey – between the years 270 – 343A.D. After his death, he was canonised as a saint, and became known as St. Nicholas of Myra. His patronages included pawnbrokers, fishermen, repentant thieves, pharmacists, single people, and…children!
The most famous story about St. Nicholas involves an old man who had three daughters who were about to be married. Not having any money for their dowries, he prayed for deliverance, and St. Nicholas threw three sacks of gold down the chimney of the man’s house, which landed in the stockings which his daughters had hung by the fire to dry that evening.
This is the origin of hanging out Christmas stockings.
It’s also the origin of the three balls of gold, which is the traditional symbol of pawnbrokers.
As the patron saint of children, it became the tradition for people to commemorate St Nicholas on the anniversary of his passing: the 6th of December, 343A.D.
Religious observances of St Nicholas eventually blended with the Christian rebranding of ancient Pagan year-end customs, celebrating the birth of Jesus, and the two quickly became inseparable. This is what led to the traditional “12 Days of Christmas” (which, in case you’re wondering, starts on the 25th of December, and ends on the 5th of January).
For centuries, people celebrated St Nicholas as the patron saint of children every December, and it became the custom for people to dress up as St Nicholas, wearing traditional bishop’s robes and hats…which were red!
As the custom of observing St Nicholas’s Feast Day, as it became known, spread across Europe, elements to his lore were added. In the Netherlands, Saint Nicholas became “Sint Niklaas”, in the Dutch language, and he was believed to ride around across the rooftops every December, dispensing sweets and presents to all the good boys and girls, with the aid of his magical flying horse, and his assistant!
Yep – Santa’s first little elf was a blackface boy named “Zwarte Piet” (“Black Peter”). Originally an African slave-boy, his image was later gentrified to be a child chimney-sweep (his blackness the result of all the soot and ash), who sat on the chimney-stacks around the Netherlands, eavesdropping on children throughout the year. At the end of the year, Zwarte Piet wrote up a report for Sint Niklaas, declaring which children had been naughty, and which ones had been nice, and had deserved treats for their good behaviour through the year.
Thus was born the custom of Santa Claus visiting houses, delivering treats, and having little helpers!
As this custom grew, the Dutch “Sint Niklaas” was corrupted into “Sint’er’klaas”…which eventually became “Santa Claus”.
Santa Claus is Coming to Town
Into the 17th and 18th centuries, the Dutch tradition of Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet, their flying horse, and their pre-Amazon home-deliveries, continued to grow, and eventually spread across the world, reaching the United States.
At this time, St Nicholas, or his alter-ego, Santa Claus, had not yet been fully established. It was still the custom in Europe (and is still to this day, in some places) to depict St Nicholas in entirely religious garb, with long, flowing robes, religious headgear, and a bishop’s staff. It wasn’t until 1823 that the first description of Santa Claus as we might recognise him today, was made.
And I say ‘description’ because that’s exactly what it is – a literary description.
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound. He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot, And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot; A bundle of Toys he had flung on his back, And he looked like a pedler just opening his pack. His eyes—how they twinkled! his dimples how merry! His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry! His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow; The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth, And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath; He had a broad face and a little round belly, That shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly. He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf, And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself; A wink of his eye and a twist of his head, Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread
“A Visit from St Nicholas”, by Clement Clarke Moore. 1823.
That’s an excerpt from the famous poem “A Visit from St Nicholas”, written in 1823, better known as “The Night before Christmas”.
This was the first literary text to give us much of what we recognise today as being standard Santa lore – the fact that he flies through the sky on a sleigh, that this sleigh is pulled by eight reindeer – Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, and Blitzen – that he only delivers toys to good boys and girls when they are ASLEEP, and that he wears a fur-lined suit against the sharp winter cold.
But most importantly – this is the first literary description of Santa as a person – a short, cheery little toymaker with a big, white bushy beard and a fat, round belly that wobbles when he laughs.
The first page of Clement Clarke Moore’s famous poem, written in his own hand
Before this time, Santa was still depicted as a stern, religious figure. Moore’s description of Santa in his poem made him appear to be a more genial, cheerful, personable fellow, much more like a patron saint of good boys and girls should be. Moore’s poem became massively popular, and it wasn’t until 1832 that Moore even admitted to writing it! Today, there are four original handwritten copies of ‘A Visit from St Nicholas’, all penned by Moore himself.
I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus
By the mid-1800s, the modern image of Santa Claus was breaking further and further away from his original religious roots in the 3rd century, but right up until the time of the American Civil War in the 1860s, there was still no generally-agreed-upon “look” for Santa. Exactly what he was and what he could look like was still largely up to individual taste and preference, and where and how you grew up, and what version of Santa you were taught about as a child.
This all changed in the 1870s.
It was in the late 1860s and through the 1870s, 80s, 90s and the early 1900s, that one man would change our entire perception of what, and how, Santa Claus was, and would look like – forever.
And that man was a German-American immigrant named Thomas Nast:
Born in Germany in 1840, Thomas Nast attained great fame in the United States starting in the 1860s, and which lasted until his death in 1902. His celebrity came from his skills as a cartoonist and caricaturist, and his artworks were published in many newspapers and magazines throughout the United States. In the 1870s, Nast started drawing images of Santa Claus for Christmas issues of the various magazines and newspapers which published his works. It was during this time – possibly inspired by Clement Clarke Moore’s famous poem – that Nast started drawing Santa as described in the famous literary work.
Nast’s cartoon: “Jolly old Santa Claus“, from 1881, is just one of several cartoons that he drew between the early 1870s up until the late 1890s, depicting Santa as we would know him today: A fat old toymaker with a red, fur-lined suit, white beard, red cap, and a large belt!
“Santa Reading his Mail” by Thomas Nast. 1871. The piles of letters are divided into “Naughty Children” and “Good Children”
While Nast was certainly not the first person to try and draw a depiction of Santa Claus or St Nicholas, Nast is the first person to draw Santa as he is imagined in the modern world. Our popular image of Santa is, in many ways – Nast’s Santa, and without him, the image of a plump, cheery old man with a white beard in a red suit, would likely not exist…because apart from anything else…Santa used to be depicted wearing a suit of green!
Coca-Cola and Santa Claus
In the 1920s, the Coca Cola Company started an aggressive advertising campaign featuring Santa Claus drinking its iconic beverage, with the red label on Coca-Cola bottles matching the red dye in Santa’s famous suit. This led to the often-touted, but false belief that Santa’s red suit is because of his association with Coke!
Right?
Wrong.
As mentioned earlier, Santa wearing a red suit with a belt and hat and boots goes all the way back to Thomas Nast in the 1870s. Coca Cola may have refined the image to more of what we’d think of today as being Santa Claus, but it certainly didn’t originate the idea of Santa in his red suit. Regardless, the association between Santa Claus and Coca-Cola continues to this day.
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer!
…is not one of the original reindeer!
Don’t believe me? Read the Clement Clarke Moore poem from 1823 again. The literary work that gave birth to so much of our Santa Claus lore makes no mention of him.
In the poem, Santa has eight reindeer: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, and Blitzen!
But no Rudolph.
Why not?
Because Rudolph wasn’t added until nearly 100 years later, in 1939! He was born in the pages of a children’s colouring storybook written by author Robert L. May for the Montgomery Ward department store in Chicago. May recounted how he used his daughter, Barbara May, as the guinea-pig for his new story, testing out names and rhymes on her, to see which ones she liked the most. May tried several different names, from Rollo to Reginald, to Rupert!…but Rudolph won out.
May got the idea for Rudolph having a glow-in-the-dark nose after seeing a heavy fog rolling across Lake Michigan, which inspired the whole thing about “one foggy Christmas Eve”, and the rest, as they say, is history!
Santa Claus Today
Santa Claus continues to morph and change into the 21st century, even if his basic outfit of red, black and white hasn’t changed since the mid-1800s. It’s now customary for kids to leave out milk, cookies and carrots for Santa and his reindeer at Christmas (or, if one meme is to be believed, pizza, and a pint of beer). Either way, Santa is here to stay. And remember kids – if anybody ever tells you that Santa isn’t real – remember that he was born nearly 2,000 years ago in Turkey. So yes – Santa really was a real person.
Want to Know More?
Here’s a few sources I used to get my facts straight…
From powder-monkeys to newsboys, climbing boys to pages, what are some other jobs that kids used to do back in the days? Join us once more as we go through the job-listings available to young children throughout history…
Tweenies
Since time immemorial, children have had jobs in domestic service.
One of those jobs was that of the “Tweenie”.
“Tweeny” or “Tweenie” came from the job’s actual title: a Between Maid.
A between maid was the maid or servant-girl who worked down in the servants’ quarters of a large household, passing messages and orders around between the butler and the housekeeper, or the housekeeper and the cook, or between the cook and the butler, or between the under-butler and the butler…you get the idea. She also had to move between the pantry and the kitchen, between the kitchen and the servants’ hall, for setting and clearing awy the dining table, or to help serve meals, and so on.
Having to constantly move from one part of the house to the other to pass messages, fetch, carry, move, watch something or follow various orders, usually between one senior servant and another, it’s little wonder that the girls became known as “Tweenies”.
The “tweenie” died out in the early 1900s when grand houses with large staff started becoming obsolete, but in their heyday, a tweenie was almost always a young girl, between the ages of 10-15.
The Hallboy
If the poor tweenie ever felt lonely in her job, then she at least had companionship from another youth in the same position: The hallboy.
The hallboy was the lowest-paid and lowest-ranking male servant in a grand household. And he was almost always one of the youngest. Unlike the pageboy, the hallboy could only ever dream of dressing up in a smart uniform, and swanning about upstairs answering summons to deliver letters, collect parcels, fold the newspapers and deliver the master’s telegrams.
The hallboy did all the unenviable grunt-work in the house. In fact, he did so much work that he didn’t even get his own room! The name “hallboy” comes from the fact that he worked (and sometimes even slept!) in the servants’ hall, the dining-room or common-room where servants hung out for their meals or relaxed during their off-time.
Other servants – the butler, cook, housekeeper, valet, etc, all got their own rooms. Hallboys were lucky enough to get a bed! Not that they used it much – hours were long and the work was never-ending.
The stove needs more coal? Get the hallboy to do it.
The study fireplace needs more wood? Get the hallboy to do it.
The trash needs emptying in the kitchen? Hallboy.
The boots and shoes need cleaning up? Hallboy.
Polishing the brassware? Cleaning the windows? Sweeping the floors of the servants’ quarters? Fill the lamps? Trim the wicks? Replace the candles? Hallboy, hallboy, hallboy.
It was an exhausting and thankless occupation, but compared with some of the other jobs that kids did back in the 1800s, it was at least relatively safe and clean. If they showed aptitude, some hallboys might one day become footmen, and then butlers or valets, earning more money, and gaining more trust and privileges from the family which they served. Hallboys, like Tweenies, died out in the 1900s when wealthy families with huge private staffs started to dwindle.
The Coal Hurriers
In my previous posting about the jobs that children have done throughout history, one of the most dangerous I mentioned was that of the climbing boys, or the child chimney-sweeps which scrambled up inside chimney-flues to sweep and knock down the ash and soot that had clogged up the insides of chimneys.
Well – at the other end of the chain was another boy!
Coal hurriers were children – some as young as three or four years old! – who used to drag, push, and pull carts or sleds of hacked-off coal from the coalface to the mouth of a mine-tunnel…for up to twelve hours a day. Full carts or sleds out, and empty ones back in. Back and forth, over and over, in near pitch-blackness, covered in dust and breathing in fumes. And just like their adult-counterparts, these children were in constant danger of things like fires, coal-dust explosions, suffocation from gas-leaks, drowning if they dug below the water-table and the pumps failed – and the most feared fate of all: A cave-in.
Just like their brethren, the climbing boys, the hurriers worked in amazingly filthy environments. The sweat, the dust, the grime, the heat, the jagged rocks and coal-seams all made working in the mines extremely dangerous and unpleasant. So, like the climbing boys – the hurriers had a solution for that – and it was the same one the climbing boys had – work butt-naked!
Sending kids down the mines remained a common practice right up until 1842 in the UK, when the practice was finally outlawed.
Sweated Tailor
Sweated tailors were the poor (usually immigrant) tailors who worked in making clothing for the poor and working-classes. The places where they worked is where we get the term ‘sweatshop’ from today. Back in the 1800s, they were given piecework jobs to do by big clothing factories, and it was often the job, not only of the tailor, but of his wife, and yes – his kids – to turn out the orders.
Piecework is very simple: The more pieces you make, the more money you earn. This meant that you could be working for hours and hours and hours! Factories often sent out massive piecework orders or quotas which had to be fulfilled. These factories recycled clothing and cloth which had been thrown out or discarded in some other way (like off-cuts from the more fashionable tailoring houses in Saville Row!), and the fabric was shredded, washed, sorted, and then respun into new cloth.
This cloth was called “shoddy” and was used to make clothes for the lower-classes – clothes cut and sewn by the sweated tailors and their children.
Ever heard the term “Shoddy”, meaning something cheap, poorly-made, something of no real quality, and which just falls apart? This is where it comes from – cheap, secondhand cloth, used to make cheap, secondhand clothes.
Being a pieceworker was one of the safer jobs that kids used to do, but the work was fiddly, long, boring and tedious. That said, tailors were among the better-paid pieceworkers – with their earnings, they could save up a few pennies or shillings after each work-order and eventually buy a sewing-machine which would speed up their output. The real drudgery with piecework came from things like toy-making, or making fake flowers, or other pointless fripperies which were sold dirt cheap anyway – the kinds of jobs which took no skill at all. Tailors at least, had the pride of knowing that they were skilled labourers who did specialised work. But it was still hard.
Piecework for children started dying out in the later 1800s, when the education acts came in. The first of these was the 1870 Education Act, which said that schooling was now compulsory for all kids between the ages of 5 – 13.
Closing Remarks
So, were these all the jobs done by kids in the past? Certainly not. But they are some of the most memorable, notorious, and infamous ones. There were loads of others, from match-sellers to cotton-mill boys and girls, to the telegraph boys who pedaled around on their bicycles delivering messages. When it came to labouring jobs of almost every description, children (usually, but not always boys) were expected to work alongside men – for the same hours, doing similar work, but for half the pay.
In many cases, it took generations and decades of effort to end the practice of child labour – in the developed world, at least. some of the children who grew up as child-labourers became social reformers and campaginers in the 1900s, and fought for the right of children not to be exploited and abused. To give you an idea of how long this took – in the UK, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to…Animals – the RSPCA – was founded in 1824.
By comparison, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) was not founded until…1884.
Want to Know More?
Much of the information used in these postings came from:
“The Children Who Built Victorian Britain” “SERVANTS: The True Story of Life below Stairs” “The Worst Jobs in History”.
All excellent documentary film series, and well worth watching.
In developed nations in the 21st century, we expect children to have a pleasant fun-filled, loving childhood, to go to school, to learn, develop and blossom, to be safe and carefree, and to enjoy life, build memories, skills and experiences.
We’re so used to this idea of childhood that it’s easy to forget that as recently as two or three generations ago, children having to work for a living, to earn money at a job to support themselves or their families, was not only common, but legal – something which certainly isn’t true, or encouraged in the modern world.
In this posting, we’ll be exploring the wide variety of jobs that children have done throughout history (Ah! See that? That’s why this blog has the title that it does!), and what happened to make these jobs obsolete or illegal.
These jobs will not be in any particular order, and can come from any period of history. Let us begin!
Link Boys
It’s after sundown. The streets are cold and damp and windy, and you need to head home after a long night out at the theater, or at your club, or perhaps you spent the evening at a tavern or restaurant with friends. Either way, it’s time that you made your uncertain way back to your own front door.
In the dark.
With nothing to light your way.
No candles, no oil lamps, no streetlamps, no moon…how on earth are you going to make it even six feet without tripping over something?
Enter the link boy.
A link boy and his customer
From the Middle Ages, right into the early 19th century, streetlamps were few and far between…if they existed at all…and after sunset, it was extremely common for streets to be plunged into near complete-darkness. Traveling through town at night was a perilous business. You could be run over by a horse and carriage, you could be mugged, raped, stabbed, or even murdered! It was in this environment that young boys carrying flaming torches or flambeaus, could earn a living by lighting streets and pathways, walking alongside their customers to light their ways home in the dark. They became known as “link boys”, after the “links” (flaming torches) which they carried.
Being a link boy was a cold, dangerous, thankless job. You spent all night outside, sometimes in miserable weather, you survived on tips, and you ran the constant risk of being assaulted, raped or molested. Despite this, link boys could earn a decent wage, if they worked in a busy part of town. They were nicknamed “Moon Cursers” because on nights when there was strong starlight or a full moon, their services were less likely to be required, and so they would earn less money.
Link boys died out in the later 1800s, when oil (and later, gas)-fired streetlamps became commonplace.
Climbing Boys
These days, chimney-sweeping is a highly romanticised job. It’s considered good luck for a bride to spot, meet, shake hands, or even be kissed by a chimney-sweep on their wedding day (and some sweeping companies even hire themselves out for this purpose!), but back in the 18th and 19th centuries, being a chimney-sweep was one of the most dangerous, and demonised occupations out there, and one of the most notorious child labouring jobs of all time was that of climbing boy.
Climbing boys were child apprentices of adult chimney-sweeps, purchased from workhouses, or adopted from poor families, and raised to be the master sweep’s assistant.
These child chimney-sweeps led miserable, dangerous, and tragically short lives. Although laws were supposed to limit the age at which a boy could be hired for this sort of work, it wasn’t uncommon for children as young as six, five, or even four years old, to be used in this way.
Climbing boys had the unenviable task of scrambling up inside a fireplace, and climbing up into the flue, with a brush in one hand, to scrape, brush and knock down all the soot and ash which had caked the interior of the chimney. The ash and soot was then collected by the sweep, bagged up, and carried out of the house.
Sweeps didn’t actually charge for their services – they went around town offering to sweep chimneys for free. The money they made was from selling-on the ash, dust and other waste-products generated by millions of fireplaces across big cities such as London, Paris, and New York to farmers, gardeners and brick-makers.
Climbing boys worked in phenomenally cramped, dusty, dangerous and claustrophobic conditions. They suffered from skin-rashes, breathing conditions, burns, infections, falls, and the most feared of all – being trapped inside a chimney and suffocating to death. If a child did get trapped inside – well – that was it. There was almost no way of getting the boy out, short of smashing the wall apart with axes and sledgehammers. As Sir Arthur Conan Doyle observed in one of his famous Sherlock Holmes stories:
“The wind cried and sobbed like a child in the chimney”.
– Dr. Watson, “The Adventure of the Five Orange Pips”
To try and protect themselves from this terrifying fate, climbing boys did everything possible to reduce their chances of being trapped inside chimneys. Clothes were a particularly dangerous hazard. They could tear, they could snag, they could get caught on rough brickwork and they could cause a boy to be irretrievably wedged inside a chimney-flue. To try and get around these risks it was common practice for climbing boys to work sans-clothing. That’s right – they worked butt-naked, with nothing to cover them except a thick layer of soot once they were done.
As if this wasn’t bad enough, climbing boys were often horribly abused. Kids who couldn’t climb or work fast enough were often punished by their masters. If a boy couldn’t climb up the chimney fast enough to sweep down all the soot, then the master sweep might start a fire in the grate…yes, in the fireplace that was having its chimney being cleaned…right now…and the heat of the fire and the smoke would ‘encourage’ the boy to climb faster, and work harder.
Ever heard of the expression of “lighting a fire under your ass” to get someone to work faster?
Now you know where it comes from.
If that wasn’t bad enough, climbing boys even had to climb up chimneys which were…wait for it…on fire! An uncleaned chimney was a fire-hazard because the cinders and sparks going up the chimney could ignite the creosote and soot that was stuck to the insides of the flue. This would start a fire in a part of the chimney where no fire was ever supposed to be. The extreme heat could set the roof on fire, and eventually burn down the whole building!
Putting out these chimney-fires with a wet towel or blanket was another terrifying duty of climbing boys.
The conditions for child chimney-sweeps were so dangerous that over a period of nearly 100 years, between 1788-1875, at least FIVE acts were passed through the British Houses of Parliament to try and outlaw the practice, but every time a new law was introduced…it was simply ignored! As was observed in Charles Dickens’ famous novel ‘Oliver Twist’:
“Young boys have been smothered in chimneys before now!”
– Oliver Twist, by Charles Dickens.
One of those young boys was George Brewster, who got trapped inside a chimney in a ward at Fulbourn Mental Hospital. His screaming could be heard all over the hospital and despite attempts to get him out (they smashed the wall open with sledgehammers to get him free) he died shortly after. This was the last straw. His master sweep was convicted of manslaughter, and a law was finally passed to make the act of sending people up chimneys illegal.
Powder Monkeys
The 1700s and 1800s was the heyday of sailing warships. This was the time when Britannia really did rule the waves. The British Royal Navy was the most powerful entity in the world, taking on the French, the Dutch, the Spanish and the Americans in wars that stretched across Europe and the world. Cannonballs and grapeshot, canisters and chains were fired from the muzzles of English guns, obliterating their enemies and destroying their ships!
British gun-crews were trained brutally hard, and were expected to be able to load and fire a cannon every ninety seconds! But all this speed, efficiency and fighting prowess relied not on sweat or muscle or timing…but on the shoulders of a little boy.
To fire a gun, you first need gunpowder. On a sailing warship, gunpowder was stored in the Magazine, a copper-lined room at the bottom of the ship below the waterline. To get the powder (stored in casks and bags) from the magazine to the gun-decks required dozens of children running back and forth between the magazine and the gun-deck with their little powder-flasks, carrying charges of gunpowder.
Their constant scurrying and running around earned these boys the nickname of “powder monkeys”, and it was their job to be as efficient as possible when it came to getting powder from the magazine up to the guns. When the ship wasn’t fighting, the boys served as cabin-boys or stewards’ mates, or servants to senior officers, but the moment the call to action was announced, they were expected to drop everything and run for the magazine. Powder monkeys risked being blown up, maimed, being injured and having their limbs amputated, or else killed outright, but they worked knowing that if their actions led to the enemy ship being captured or put out of action – they could win a share of the prize-money!
While their job could be extremely dangerous, powder monkeys were vital to the running of a fighting frigate, so they were often well cared-for, well-fed, and even taught their lessons by a senior officer who would’ve doubled as a schoolmaster when aboard ship. The chance of making their fortunes at sea was what encouraged many of them to sign on. If they were lucky enough to work for a skilled and successful captain, their share in the prize-money could set them up for life, and they could rise through the ranks and become a captain themselves one day.
Midshipmen
Powder-monkeys and cabin-boys weren’t the only kids to be found aboard warshpis in the days of fighting sail – oh no! Some of the youngest kids around actually held officer rank!
In the Royal Navy in the late 1700s and early 1800s, if you wanted to become a captain and commander, you had to climb the slippery slope of officer training and pass the tests to prove that you had the smarts and the know-how to be able to manage your own ship. And this all started as a Midshipman at the wizened age of…twelve. In fact, it was so common for midshipmen to be teenaged or even pre-teen boys, that they were nicknamed “Snotties” by the crew!
A midshipman was a junior or trainee-officer aboard a fighting frigate or Man o’ War sailing ship. Their jobs included passing orders between other officers (such as the captain and his lieutenants), directing sailors, or even ordering the firing of the cannons and controlling their gun-crews during battle. And they were expected to do all this starting at the age of twelve!
By the late 1700s and early 1800s, midshipman training lasted for three years, and to be eligible to stand for examinations for the next rank up (Lieutenant) those same midshipmen had to have had at least six years’ experience at sea. Given that the average age of midshipmen was between 10-13 when they started, that meant that they could become a lieutenant before they reached their 21st birthdays!
As almost all midshipmen started as children or young teens, you might wonder how they ever ended up on ship in the first place? Most midshipmen came from families with money, status, or with a naval or military background. Usually, their fathers, uncles, older brothers, or cousins, also served in the Navy, and put in a good word with their commanding officer that here was a likely lad who desired a life at sea! This was how Horatio Nelson started at sea in 1771, when, at the age of twelve, he began life as an ordinary seaman aboard the HMS Raisonnable, under the command of Captain Maurice Suckling!…who also happened to be young Horatio’s uncle.
So what happened to the boy-officers of the Royal Navy?
Well, the practice was eventually phased out. In the early Victorian era, boys had to be at least 12 years old to sign up as a midshipman. By the middle of the century it was 14. By the 1940s it was 16, and by the 1950s, a midshipman had to be at least 18, and be a highschool graduate.
Crossing Sweepers
So far, we’ve covered jobs which were dangerous, wet, hot, dirty and explosive. Now, we’re going to cover a job that – by comparison – was a bit of a cakewalk!
Before the 20th century, when automobiles started to take over, the only way for people to travel around town was by horse and carriage. Carts, carriages, coaches, broughams, barouches, Clarences, Hansom cabs, fire-wagons, paddy-wagons and countless other horse-drawn vehicles turned the city streets of the world into an open sewer, with dust, mud, straw, horse-dung and god knows what else, all over the streets. To cross the street without getting your shoes, breeches, trousers, overcoats or long dresses muddied up was an expedition in and of itself!
To assist these pedestrians – up sprang the crossing-boy!
Although this job could be done by almost anybody, it was most commonly associated with young boys, and the job is exactly what it sounds like – sweeping or shoveling a path through the street-muck to allow people to cross the road without muddying up their clothes. Looking at modern streets, you might wonder if there was ever any call for this – but in Victorian London (and in other major cities) there were so many people employed in this task (usually as freelancers) that some people saw them as a public nuisance!
Vagrancy and begging laws dictated that you could not ask for payment as a crossing-sweeper, but it was still common practice, and basic decency, to give the crossing-sweeper a tip for his efforts. If a sweeper had loads of customers, he could earn himself quite a tidy sum for a day’s effort in keeping the streets clean. Boys who worked in particularly busy parts of town could obviously earn more, and the job was not dangerous, or even that unpleasant. A bit smelly perhaps, but so long as you could walk, talk, and were able-bodied, just about anybody could do this job.
The job was not without its perils – you could get run over by an out-of-control carriage, you could freeze in winter if you had to shovel or sweep snow off the streets, or you could catch some horrible bout of influenza from being out in all weathers, but at least it was out in the open air, and away from any serious dangers.
Crossing-sweepers were demonised as pickpockets, beggars, vagrants and street-urchins. However, just as they had many people pouring scorn upon them, the humble crossing-sweepers also had a lot of supporters. Many members of the walking public were only too eager to praise them for their work, their industriousness and their eagerness to serve, and were only too happy to give a young lad their spare change as a tip for services rendered.
The Printer’s Devil
A printer’s ‘Devil’, as he was called, was a young boy or apprentice (typically seven or eight years old) who worked for a master printer. The printing devil’s job involved doing all kinds of menial and easy tasks around the print-shop – sweeping, dusting, cleaning, but also cleaning the print-type, lifting the printed pages off the press, and maintaining the ink-balls (the padded, leather paddles used to press fresh ink onto the movable-type between each operation of the printing press).
This last job required the devil to remove the old, worn-out or cracked leather from the ink balls, and to replace it with fresh leather…which had been treated in urine to soften it!
Eventually, the devil would learn how to do other things like how to apply ink to the type, and how to operate the press. As children’s jobs go, it wasn’t particularly demanding, and could come with a free education.
Pageboy
The occupation of page has existed literally for centuries. The original meaning of a ‘page’ or a pageboy, was of an apprentice knight – as in a knight-in-shining-armour kind of knight. A page was a boy of about seven or eight years old who was destined to one day, become a knight himself. Being a page meant serving an actual knight, and learning the tools of the trade – such as how to ride a horse, how to swing a sword, how to joust, how to deflect, block or parry an attack with a sword or shield, and how to look after plate-armour, such as repairing it, cleaning it and polishing it. It was one of the main jobs of pageboys to ensure that their masters were literally knights in shining armour.
As the age of knights and horses, of shields, plate-armour and heraldry started to die away, the term ‘pageboy’ became synonymous with that of a junior servant-boy. A page typically served a large institution of some kind, such as a grand manor house or townhouse, an ocean-liner, a luxury hotel, a grand railway station, or a fancy gentleman’s club. Their hours might be long, but the work was generally light. It involved things like fetching, carrying, running errands, delivering newspapers and parcels, delivering the mail, making purchases for hotel-guests, and delivering notes. The main difficulty in their job was just walking. Lots, and lots, and lots of walking!
Pageboys were a bit of a status-symbol in their own way – only the largest and wealthiest of households or public institutions had them, and usually more than one. They had their own uniforms and hours of work, and the position lasted well into the 20th century. Some places today (such as hotels) still have the position of pageboy, although the position is now given to older males in their teens or early-adult years.
Newsboys
“Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Newsboy Strike Cripples Millionaires!”
In the 1800s, almost the only way to get reliable news of any kind was to go out and buy a newspaper. Printed in the morning, afternoon and evening, newspapers were sold in their trillions all over the world. Once read, newspapers were used for packing, padding, wrapping, lighting fires and even to serve fish and chips!…until they realised that the grease in fish and chips caused the ink to run in the newspaper…and that newspaper ink contained lead.
Uh…whoops.
But questionable fish and chips aside, newspapers were vital for disseminating information, and then, as now, big media moguls guarded their news-networks jealously.
A major part of these networks fell upon the shoulders of little boys between the ages of seven to twelve, whose job it was to flog the papers printed by these moguls every single day of the week, for as long as they possibly could.
These were the newsboys, or “newsies” as they were also called.
Probably the most famous newsboy in history, Edward Parfett is eternally remembered as the youth standing on the street-corner holding the iconic sign: “TITANIC DISASTER – GREAT LOSS OF LIFE”
Newsboys worked phenomenally long hours. While morning papers were usually delivered door-to-door, afternoon and evening editions were sold on the streets by newsboys – typically as an after-school job. Newsstands, news-agencies and such didn’t really exist back then, and it was easier to have thousands of newsboys selling papers on the street than it was to try and run around town all day, looking for places that would sell your papers for you.
The boys were expected to buy their bundles of newspapers – 100 papers in a bundle – at 50c each (or 1/2-cent a newspaper), and then sell them for at least 1c each. If 1/2-a-cent profit on every newspaper doesn’t sound like much…well…it wasn’t.
Newsboys were a common sight around town, calling out the headlines, waving their papers around, and doing anything to get a sale, even jumping on and off streetcars to try and flog their papers to the passengers. Newsboys worked long, hard hours – emphasis on long – from three or four o’clock until past midnight in some cases!
Like a lot of child-labourers, the newsboys were horribly exploited by their employers, and in 1899, this all came to a head…because of a war.
The Spanish-American War of 1898 caused a spike in newspaper readership, as wars are want to do, and this caused newspaper companies to crank up the prices that newsboys paid for their bundles of papers – not 50c a hundred anymore – oh no – now they would pay the princely sum of…60c a hundred!
Newsboys objected to this exploitation, and once the Spanish-American War was over, the majority of newspapers went back to the pre-war price of 50c per-hundred newspapers.
The majority. But the minority did not.
The Minority being the papers run by William Randolph Hearst, and Joseph Pulitzer, of Pulitzer-Prize fame. Their newspapers, the New York Journal and New York World, continued being sold to newsboys at 60c a hundred, to be sold at just one cent each! If this wasn’t bad enough, any papers they didn’t sell at the end of the day would be taken out of the newsboys’ wages!…Meaning that the pittances that they could earn were being scooped up by the fat cats. The newsboys, already hacked-off about the prices, and who were mostly homeless or from struggling, working-class families, now had to worry about what would happen if they couldn’t sell all their papers!
On top of this, Manhattan newsboys discovered in July, 1899, that a delivery-driver who distributed the paper-bundles that they had to buy for their jobs, was shortchanging the boys by giving them underweight newspaper-bundles. This meant that the newsboys had to pay more money for less papers to sell for lower prices for less profit! Enraged, the newsboys had finally had enough, and went on strike!
Not one or two or half a dozen. Hundreds of them! Thousands of them! The city of New York went into a media blackout the likes of which it had never seen before.
The Striking New York Newsboys of 1899
Between the 20th of July until the 2nd of August of 1899, almost all the newsboys in New York refused to sell so much as a roll of toilet-paper! While they started out by simply protesting unfair working practices, the little newsboys had no idea just how much power they really had: without them, neither Hearst, nor Pulitzer were able to get their papers out to their reading public.
The effect of the newsboy strike was far-reaching, and surprisingly immediate! Readership of the New York Journal and The World plummeted by as much as 65% as people purchased papers from other news-sources. Apart from the loss of physical newspaper sales, Hearst and Pulitzer were also hurting from the steep drop in advertising revenue. When companies and businesses realised that the fees they’d paid were for ads that went into papers that weren’t being sold – well – they stopped paying their advertising fees, causing even more money to stop coming in! Through the simple act of refusing to sell newspapers, the newsies had crippled two of the most powerful men in the country. They had the media moguls by the balls, and the kids were determined to hold on for dear life!
To get back at the media fat-cats who were ripping them off, the newsboys sold their labour to other newspaper companies which provided their papers at more reasonable wholesale prices, and which allowed the newsboys to print their own articles highlighting their struggle. New Yorkers were outraged at the actions of two media moguls bullying a crowd of homeless street-kids, and began boycotting the NY World and NY Journal, siding with the newsboys. The boys and their older teenaged colleagues formed a newsboys’ union, and held rallies and speeches demanding change.
The NYPD were powerless to intervene because, in a further act of petty cunning, the newsboys had planned their strike to coincide with the more publicised New York Streetcar Strike of 1899. Unable to handle the striking trolley-drivers, and round up thousands of conniving kids who were up to no good, the police left the boys alone while they tried to do battle with the much more formidable challenge of the streetcar-drivers. When scab-workers tried to pitch in and sell the newspapers that the boys refused to touch – the newsboys fought back!
As in they literally FOUGHT back – they trashed delivery-wagons, stole newspapers, threw bundles of newspapers into the rivers, soaked them with buckets of water to make them unreadable and tore them to shreds in the streets!
And remember that these were newsboys! Not teenagers, not college students – they were KIDS! – While some were teenagers, the vast majority of them weren’t more than twelve years old!
Their actions were so destructive that in the end, the media moguls had no choice. It was either agree to the demands of the newsboys and mounting public pressure, or else be forever known as the heartless tyrants who drove thousands of children to violence and protesting…over a paltry ten cents. The fact that the strike was over in just under two weeks is proof of just how effective it was, and of how badly the news-publishers relied on the boys to get the news out.
In the end, Pulitzer and Hearst, two of the richest men in America at the time, were forced to start labour-negotiations in an effort to save both their companies…and their reputations …with a bunch of kids!
And the kids won, too.
After two weeks of strike-action, the following resolutions took effect: Newspaper-bundles would remain at 60c a hundred. This was unacceptable, but in a compromise, Hearst and Pulitzer agreed that any papers which remained unsold at the end of each day would be purchased back from the boys by the publishers at retail-price. This way, the boys would no longer be out of pocket and going into debt. It also meant that they no longer had to stay up to 2:00am trying to flog papers that nobody wanted anymore, for fear of losing out on their earnings. The newsboys agreed, and the strike ended on the 2nd of August, 1899.
Newsboys continued selling papers for decades afterwards, and for a long time, being a newsboy was a common occupation for youngsters, although they were free from the shady business-practices which their predecessors had fought so hard to overturn.
A traditional eight-panel tweed flat-cap…better known as a “newsboy” cap
Newsboys were such a common sight in the streets that they even had an article of clothing named after them: Those old-fashioned style six-and-eight-panel flat-caps with the semicircular brims with a button sewn into the middle of the top?
They’re called “newsboy” caps.
Closing Remarks
This has been a hell of a write-up! It was a lot of fun to write, and to research. There are more child-jobs that I’ll be covering in a future posting, but I’ll stop it here, for now.
Information for these jobs came from the Weird History website and YouTube Channel, the documentary film “The Children who Built Victorian Britain”, and the “Worst Jobs in History” series hosted by Sir Tony Robinson.
In the 21st century, with keyboards, laptops, PCs and other electronic devices being the main means of non-verbal communications, more emphasis these days is placed on the importance of fast, accurate and smooth touch-typing, than upon almost any other computing skill. Being able to type fast and smoothly, with a minimal of errors, using both hands and all ten fingers across a keyboard is seen as both an essential skill, and as a desirable trait in our increasingly connected online world.
But as little as a hundred years ago, another skill was held up to a standard just as high as that of fast and accurate typing is today – the art of penmanship!
So, what exactly is penmanship? Where did it come from? How was it taught? How did it evolve over the centuries, and what’s happened to the art of penmanship in the 21st century? This, and other, related topics, will be the subject of this posting.
A Brief History of Writing
Before we explore the history of penmanship, we first need to explore the history of writing as an activity. The first evidence of writing of any kind took place in the Sumerian civilisation of the Middle East, and was comprised largely of cuneiform – a type of wedge-shaped text produced by pressing a stylus into a soft medium which could be used to record the marks – such as clay, or wax. Erasing or reusing the tablet was simply a matter of pressing out the incorrect marks, and re-marking the correct cuneiform marks on top.
Writing with ink started with the reed pen and sheets made from the reeds of the papyrus plant (which gives us the word ‘paper’ today).
Originally, writing was largely pictographic in nature – a person draw small images or representations of images, to express words and thoughts – similar to ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. This led to what became known as the “Rebus Principle”.
In its most basic form, the ‘Rebus Principle’ involved the use of homophonic words joined to other words or sounds, to create new words. For example, the symbol or picture of a bee, plus the symbol for a tray or platter, could be written together to form the word ‘betray’, for which no other symbol existed. In this way, each individual sound within a given language could be represented by its own symbol – which became known as letters – and these letters could be combined to form modern text and writing.
The Evolution of Writing to Penmanship
Throughout much of history, literacy of any kind was limited to those with access to books, writing materials and educational sources – largely monasteries, wealthy noble families, universities, schools and churches. Emphasis on writing was less about learning how to write, as it was on simply copying texts. Before the age of the printing press in the 1450s, texts of any kind had to be laboriously copied out by hand, word by word, line by line, stroke by individual stroke.
This slow, methodical pace made for elegant, flowery and highly elaborate texts – but it took people ages to write anything, and the end-result could be nigh impossible to read! It’s for this reason that cursive script – that is – handwriting with letters formed swiftly, and joined together cleanly with loops and connectors to form a single, continuous stroke – started becoming common. It was just easier to write everything in a series of smooth, connected movements, rather than individual stop-and-start motions.
Cursive of any kind dates back centuries, but in this posting, we’ll be looking at the development of modern cursive script. So – where did it come from?
The first cursive script used by English speakers for which there was an established style, and which was recognised by name, was known as the ‘Secretary Script’ or ‘Secretary Hand’, developed in the 1500s, and was one of several styles of cursive then in use across Europe. Others included ‘Court Hand’, and even the ‘Italic Hand’ – and yes – it was the sloping angle of this style which gave this kind of Italic its name.
The problem with these hands or scripts was that there was really no solid uniformity, and while they were fast to write, they were equally difficult to read! To show just how hard, here’s an example of Secretary Script:
How much of that can you read? Not much, huh? And yet, this was written by one of the most famous people in the world – you’re looking at William Shakespeare’s handwriting. Secretary script, or a variant of it, is how he learned to write.
Advances in Cursive Script
The lack of uniformity in handwriting was clear for all to see. It’s for this reason that in the 1600s and 1700s, solid efforts were made to improve handwriting, and to make it smoother, and neater. This led to the rise of English Roundhand, a type of cursive which spawned many imitators, and a style which is still popular today.
“Roundhand” referred to a collection of script-types developed in the 1600s and 1700s. This all came about because of the frustration of French court officials in the 17th century – after all – you try and read important legal documents handwritten in six or more different styles of cursive! This became so intolerable that they demanded something be done about it! This led to the Controller-General of Finances in France, at the time – Jean-Baptiste Colbert – to decree that from then on, only three types of handwriting were to be used in legal documents! Probably much to the relief of everybody around him.
One of these three scripts was known as the ‘Ronde’ style, which, when it came to England, was anglicised as ‘Round’ or ‘Roundhand’, and started being publicised in copybooks printed as guides to people wishing to learn the newest, most stylish, and effective ways of writing by hand! This is probably the first instance of a uniform cursive script being spread around a given population.
Here, we can see a variation of French Ronde script. Still elaborate, but much easier to read! Or at least, much more-so than the cramped Secretary Script that preceded it in the 1500s. Curly letter-shapes were artistic, but also easily recognisable, making handwritten documents much easier to read. It was from this script that English ‘Roundhand’ and ‘Copperplate’ styles evolved, and which spread to places like the North American colonies, and Canada in the 1700s.
Above, we can see an example of Roundhand Script, inspired by the French ‘Ronde’ script of the 17th century. It was the first style of cursive handwriting really designed to improve both the speed of the writer, and the legibility of what was written, for the reader. Texts like the American Declaration of Independence were first handwritten in Roundhand.
Writing Enters the Machine Age
The invention of the electric telegraph in the 1830s and 40s, and the rise of steam-powered technology such as trains and steamships meant that correspondence started to grow rapidly. For the first time in history, efficient postal-systems allowed letters and documents to be spirited around the world in hours or days, instead of weeks, or even months, just a generation before. This led to further improvements and refinements to the art of cursive handwriting.
One of the biggest developments in the history of cursive script happened during this time – the arrival of Spencerian.
Spencerian, developed by American teacher Platt Rogers-Spencer, was, like most scripts which preceded it – a rounded cursive script, designed to be neat, fast, and legible. To make handwriting easier and faster, Mr. Spencer looked through various examples of previous styles of handwriting to see what he wished to keep and what he desired to discard. His aim was to have a script that was both fast to write, but neat to read. To this end, he largely eliminated most of the excessive curls, swirls and flourishes found in earlier handwriting styles, such as English Roundhand.
Spencer recognised that business was starting to grow, and aimed his new style of writing at businesspeople and others in professional occupations, as a type of cursive which anybody could understand, and to ensure this, he simplified it a great deal.
Here we can see an example of Spencerian script from 1884, roughly twenty years after Spencer’s death. While still fairly elaborate, it is uniform, neat and quite legible to modern eyes, barring a few stylistic changes between then and now.
Spencerian script remained de-rigeur in much of the English-speaking world for the better part of a hundred years and lasting well into the 20th century, only dying out with the rise of typewriters in the mid-1900s. Before then, it was held up as a prime example of neat, professional cursive handwriting. One of the most famous examples of Spencerian script still seen emblazoned upon millions of cans and bottles all over the world today is the Coca Cola logo!
Designed by bookkeeper Frank Mason Robinson in 1885, the logo is simply a variation of his own Spencerian handwriting – and has remained virtually unchanged for over 130 years!
The Palmer Method of Writing
Efforts to improve cursive script continued throughout the 1800s, and by the 1880s and 90s, a new script had emerged: The Palmer Script.
Like Roundhand and Spencerian which preceded it, Palmer was an attempt to cut down on needless frivolity and improve legibility. Lowercase letters such as ‘s’ and ‘r’ were given more distinctive shapes to make them stand out, and flourishes on capitals and ending-letters were kept to a minimum to ensure clarity of text. As with other scripts, the aim was to improve the flow of writing, without introducing needless frivolity, leading to a cleaner end-result.
Developed by Austin Palmer in the 1880s and 90s, the “Palmer Method” as it became known, relied on ease of motion, and muscle-memory to produce good handwriting. Palmer reasoned that the easiest shapes for people to draw in quick succession were circles and loops.
To this end, his system of cursive relied heavily on letters and letter-forms being made up of curls, curves, circles and loops. This made the script easier to remember, easier to flow, and easier to read, since there would be greater uniformity between the letters. This is clearly seen in this writing sample from a Palmer textbook:
The Palmer method, and similar styles of cursive which followed after it, became the preferred methods of writing because they were fast, easy, and without the time-wastage of needless embellishments like loops, curls, and excessive flourishes which were seen in preceding handwriting styles, such as Spencerian from the the 1820s.
The A to Z of American Zanerian Script
American calligrapher Charles Paxton Zaner invented Zanerian script in the 1880s, which led to the establishment of the Zanerian College of Penmanship. This turned into the Zaner-Bloser Company, which offered instruction manuals, copybooks and writing guides, as well as penmanship courses, to people in professional careers looking for an effective and clear style of cursive writing.
As with other styles of cursive at the time, Zaner was inspired by the clear, but overly flowery Spencerian script, and sought to simplify it, especially when it came to giving instruction to school-children in their penmanship classes. A more clean-cut script would be easier and faster to learn, and would help students produce consistent handwriting. A variant of Zanerian script – D’Nealian script, invented nearly 100 years later in the 1970s, is the style of cursive which I learned at school in the early 1990s.
Teaching Cursive Script – How Was it Done?
I’m sure most of us can think back to our days in school when penmanship was one of the main classes that we had to take. Copybooks and pencils, slates and chalk, or even sand-trays – were used to teach children how to write effectively!
Before the 20th century, and even for the vast majority of it, teaching children the art of neat and efficient cursive writing was seen as a core part of any educational system’s curriculum. Teaching penmanship was essential, and for almost everybody, ‘penmanship’ meant ‘cursive’.
So, how was it done?
For children to be taught their letters effectively, schools needed easy, cheap, and effective methods for teaching students the repetitive tasks of letter-formation over and over again, without wasting huge amounts of money on paper, ink or pencils. To achieve this, they had some pretty ingenious solutions!
Back in Victorian times, writing of any kind started with copying down letter-shapes which were drawn on the blackboard by the teacher. Copying of basic letter-shapes was done using a sand-tray – which is literally exactly what it sounds like – a wooden tray filled with soft, fine-grained sand. Using their fingers, or a stick, children could trace the shapes of letters in the sand to get a feel for how to draw them correctly. Resetting the tray for a new letter was a simple matter of smoothing out the sand and starting again.
Once students had learned the basics of letter-formation, next came the task of learning how to do this with an actual writing instrument. In most cases, this involved a slate tablet and a pencil, or even a piece of chalk. Using a slate and pencil allowed students to familiarise themselves with the act of writing, and not just trying to get letter-shapes. Penmanship classes using pencils and slates would last until the children were deemed to be old enough to handle a pen and ink, and to write on paper.
For the longest time, learning how to write in ink involved a dip-pen and an inkwell – even after fountain pens became commonplace. This was largely due to cost – it was cheaper to buy cheap dip-pen ink in-bulk by huge bottles, and to issue students with simple wooden pen-holders, than it was for students to buy fountain pens and bring them to school. At the turn of the 20th century, fountain pens were still extremely expensive luxury items, and certainly not something that a parent (or teacher, for that matter) would wish to spend on a child who was only just learning how to write! Well into the 1900s, hundreds of schools around the world still relied on dip-pens, inkwells, pen-holders…and the services of an ink-monitor – a student nominated by the teacher to walk around the classroom and refill each student’s desk inkwell with fresh ink at the start of the school day.
Writing with a dip-pen and inkwell was rather more involved than today’s practice of just yoinking the cap off of a pen and scribbling away with it. Knowing how to correctly orient a nib, how to control the ink-flow, stopping to re-dip your pen every few words, and not dribbling ink everywhere meant that writing with a pen was a much more daunting prospect for a child than it might at first appear to be.
For this reason, teachers would give out penmanship certificates, or pen licenses to children as an incentive, to show that a particular child had mastered writing enough to be allowed to use a pen, since it meant that they could be relied upon not to make a huge, godawful mess on the page when they reached for the latest prize in their quest for cursive greatness! I still remember being ten years old, and being given my pen license in school – a rectangular sheet of thin cardboard – sky-blue in colour – with the teacher’s name, signature and date on it, and a brief message saying that I had qualified to use a pen!
Once students had graduated to using a dip pen and inkwell, the next step was familiarising themselves with their copybooks. A copybook is exactly what it sounds like – a book where you copied out the letters, letter-combinations, words, and sentences within to build up muscle-memory, and to train your hand to produce neat, legible handwriting. The exercises inside the book taught students how to form letters, common pairs or groups of letters, like th, ing, sc, and so-on, and common words, phrases and sentences.
Apart from being practice, a copybook also served as a record of the student’s progress in improving their handwriting. Students who were clumsy, inattentive or otherwise careless might dribble ink across their penmanship homework, resulting in them ‘blotting their copybook’, an expression which would later evolve to mean taking part in (or having rumored to have taken part in) any activity which might leave an indelible mark upon one’s personal character and reputation.
Writing Right with the Right Hand
You’ve probably heard this in a hundred books, been told this by your grandparents, or seen it mentioned in movies and TV shows all over the world.
In schools, left-handed children were forced to learn how to write using their right hands.
But why? What’s the point of it? Why bother?
While loads of people will tell you all kinds of elaborate stories and myths and biblical passages and so on…the truth of the matter was that kids were taught to write with their right hands as opposed to their left, due to the materials given to them to practice with.
The human eye naturally looks from left to right, which is why the vast majority of languages are written in this direction. A right-handed writer therefore writes away from the text that they’re putting down on the page. A left-handed writer, by comparison, writes towards the text as they go along the page. This means that their hand hovers over the freshly written text as they write. Doing this with a slate and pencil, or even worse, a sheet of paper, a pen and fresh ink, could cause stains, smudges and streaks across the page…and across the student’s palm.
It was in an effort to prevent this from happening, that teachers insisted that all students had to write with their right hands, whether they actually could, or not. Fortunately, such practices no longer exist, and today, lefties can write as they wish!
The Decline of Quality Penmanship
Emphasis on quality penmanship, and, especially – cursive script – has been on a steep decline since the turn of the 21st century. While handwriting, out of necessity has remained part of most school curriculums, teaching students more than the basics in penmanship tends to have fallen by the wayside, with greater emphasis being placed on computing skills, typing, and keyboarding, in our much more digital and online-oriented world.
Last but not least…
Throughout this posting we’ve covered various styles of cursive handwriting, watching the gradual evolution from 1500s to the 1900s. But, practice as you might, nobody’s handwriting is going to be exactly like the exercises in their copybooks, and nobody’s handwriting is going to be exactly like any other person’s.
We change strokes, letter-forms and styles according to what is most comfortable to our hand-movements, our grips, and our personal tastes, to form something which is entirely unique to our own personality and preferences. So what exactly do you call a person’s individual style of writing? Ever wondered?
The answer is “hand“! This is the name given to a person’s individual style of script or longhand writing, and is as unique as a person’s fingerprint. And now you know!
These days with everything that’s going on with gender-identities, pronouns, titles and how you should address a person, trying to juggle everything without making some real, or imagined faux-pas, can become increasingly challenging.
But what about traditional titles, or forms of address? Mister, Missus, Miss, gentleman, layman…where did these all come from? What did they originally mean? Today we’ll find out.
A “form of address”, or an “honorific”, is defined as the most formal, polite, or correct method for addressing a person, and which usually precedes a person’s surname. So, let’s begin.
“Mister” (Mr.)
Dating back to the mid-16th century, “Mister” emerged as a variation of “Master”, and is the honorific given to men who hold no other titles or positions, and is usually followed by their last name. (“Mr. Smith”).
In times past, however, this was not always the case. In earlier times, the prefix “Mister” did not always come before a person’s surname. For example, in a family, where you had a father, mother, and two grown sons, only the head of the household would be “Mr. Smith”. As it was considered rude (and overly familiar) to address someone by their given names, Mr. Smith’s sons would also be called “Mister” – but ahead of their first names, as opposed to their last names (“Mr James”, “Mr. Richard”, etc). In the 1700s and 1800s, and most of the 1900s, this was considered the most proper usage of the term.
If you were addressing multiple men (eg., for a company name), then the convention was to use the contraction “Messrs.”, instead (eg. “Messrs. Wilkins, Wilkins, Entwhistle & Dodd. Solicitors”). “Messrs.” was a contraction of the French “Messieurs”, the plural of the French male honorific, “Monsieur” (typically contracted as “M.”, as in “M. Hercule Poirot”).
In the medical field, male surgeons are traditionally known by the honorific of “Mr.”, as opposed to “Dr.”, because in times past, you didn’t need to earn a medical degree to become a surgeon. And because you didn’t need to earn the degree, it also meant you didn’t earn the privilege of being titled “Doctor”. This tradition started all the way back in the Middle Ages when surgeons were barber-surgeons, and the convention just…stuck.
“Missus” (Mrs.)
“Missus”, the prefix usually given to a married woman, is a contraction of “Mistress”, although the prefix of “Mrs.” before a woman’s surname did not necessarily mean that she was married.
A married woman was traditionally titled as “Mrs. John Doe”, taking her husband’s full name, which was later on contracted to just “Mrs. Doe”. The convention of a wife taking a husband’s full name is now largely dead, except in the most formal of circumstances, such as with official invites (“Mr. & Mrs. John Doe are cordially invited…” etc, etc.).
That said, just because a lady was called “Mrs.” did not always mean that she was married. In some instances, the prefix “Mrs.” was given as a sign of respect. This is most often seen in the 1700s and 1800s with high-ranking female servants.
Mrs. Hughes and Mrs. Patmore, the housekeeper and the cook, in “Downton Abbey” were not married, but by convention, were given the prefixes “Mrs.”, to acknowledge the fact that they held important positions within a nobleman’s household – that of housekeeper – the most senior female servant – and of head cook – the most senior servant in charge of the kitchens. This convention has largely fallen by the wayside these days, but if you’ve ever wondered why in old novels or movies, you see it being used – now you know why. The same goes for Mrs. Bridges, the cook in “Upstairs, Downstairs“. As Hudson the butler said:
“To my certain knowledge…there has been no ‘Mister’ Bridges, the title ‘Missus’ being the usual honorarium enjoyed by cooks of a certain class”.
Another contraction of “Mistress”, “Miss” has always been the traditional form of address for unmarried ladies (spinsters), and young girls. Only when there were multiple ‘Miss’es in a family, would the prefix be placed before a girl’s first name, however (“Miss Jane”, “Miss Lucy”), in order to differentiate them, similar to the convention with placing ‘Mr’ before a man’s first name. If there was only one woman and no need for further distinction, then it’d be before the person’s surname (“Miss Marple”).
“Master” (Mast., or Mstr.)
Here’s one you haven’t heard of before!…Or at least, not recently. You’d have to be pretty old to remember the days when the term “Master” was used in everyday correspondence.
Back in the 1700s and 1800s, and right into the early 1900s, the title ‘Master’ was given to prepubescent boys – typically, boys who were below the age of thirteen. A boy of twelve or below was always titled “Master”, while a boy over the age of twelve (and into adulthood) was titled as “Mister”. One of the reasons for this convention was to easily tell at a glance, in a written document, which people mentioned were children, and which were not. On the passenger list of an ocean liner, for example, a family traveling together might be listed as:
“Mr. & Mrs. John Smith Miss Amelia Smith. Mast. Edward Smith”
“Master” isn’t as often used today as it once was, but the convention continues to exist, nonetheless. Exactly when a boy transitioned between ‘Master’ and ‘Mister’ is a bit unclear, however. The convention was that ‘Master’ referred to a child or youth below the age of legal adulthood, and that ‘Mister’ referred to a legal adult. In some instances, a boy switched from being a ‘Master’ to a ‘Mister’ at the age of 13. This convention dates back to the Middle Ages, when boys were considered men beyond the age of twelve. Depending on where you read, however, a boy might continue to be addressed as ‘Master’ all the way up until their 18th birthday. The most traditional use of the term generally refers to boys below the age of 13.
Examples of boys being called ‘Master’ include the comic books, TV series and movies featuring the cartoon character Richie Rich, whom his butler, Cadbury, invariably addresses as ‘Master Richie’ – not because he’s the master of the household, but because he’s a little boy, and in ‘To Kill a Mockingbird‘ by Harper Lee, where Calpurnia calls Scout’s older brother ‘Mister Jem’.
“MISTER Jem!?” Scout says.
“Well, he’s just about ‘Mister’ now”, Calpurnia tells her, indicating that Jem Finch is growing up, and as a teenager, can no longer be called ‘Master’ Jem, as he once was.
Gentleman/Gentlewoman
These days, the term ‘gentleman’ (and its less-used counterpart, gentlewoman), usually refers to a person’s behaviour. You might have heard of the expression of “conduct unbecoming an officer, and a gentleman!” as they used to say in military regulations, or a “gentleman’s agreement”.
But what exactly IS a “gentleman”?
Originally, the term ‘gentleman’ referred to a rank in society. At the top you had royalty, below that came the nobility or the aristocracy, and below that, came the gentry. Beneath that were the yeomanry.
A ‘gentleman’ was therefore a person of the gentry class, which typically included people who held no titles of their own (i.e. dukes, earls, counts, viscounts, baron/etc, etc)., but who might be of the mercantile or professional classes – basically what we’d call the upper middle-class today – learned men – teachers, doctors, learned professionals, etc.
Over time, the term ‘gentleman’ became more general, and referred to any well-behaved, cultured male from the upper echelons of society. Since ‘gentlemen’ were usually landowners who earned an income through collecting rent from their landholdings, properties and estates, there was no need to hold down a regular job. This is why, for a long time, the belief was that “gentlemen don’t work! Not real gentlemen!” – as Miss O’Brien says in “Downton Abbey“. Being a gentleman therefore implied being rich enough that you could simply live off the rent from your properties, and the dividends from your investments, and not having to lift a finger otherwise.
“Sire”
A now, rather outdated term used to address a male monarch, or other, high-ranking noblemen, “Sire” is a corruption of the word ‘Senior’ (much in the same way that ‘Alder’ – as in ‘Alderman’, was a corruption of the word ‘Elder’).
“Sir”
A contraction of ‘Sire’, which again, came from ‘Senior’.
“Sirrah”
Unless you read a lot of old books, or novels, or watch TV shows or movies set in the 1700s or 1800s, or even before then, you’re not likely to have come across this title. At the top was ‘Sire’, below that was ‘Sir’…and at the very bottom was ‘Sirrah’ – a derogatory form of address for a man, or boy, who was either younger than you, or of inferior social status. “Sirrah” was often used as an insult or to express contempt or disgust. (“Out of my way, Sirrah!”).
“Esquire” (Esq.)
Although not as often used today as it once was, ‘Esquire’ still remains popular in formal circles. It is what’s known as a “courtesy title” – a title given for the sake of decorum and good manners, to show respect to a person (in this case, a man) who held no other title. A good example is Mr. Sherlock Holmes, Esq., consulting detective!
A Note on Names
These days, it’s extremely common to call just about anybody by their first name, regardless of rank, title, position, or level of acquaintance, but this was not always the case.
In the 1700s and 1800s, and indeed, most of the early 1900s, addressing a person by their given name was rarely done. It was considered rude and overly-familiar to mention a person’s first name – especially a person you didn’t know, or who was your social or professional superior! A person’s rank, title, or other appropriate prefix was used, along with their family name, except when there were multiple members of the same family present. Traditionally, the only people who used a person’s first name were immediate family, close relations, or very, very old friends, whom the person had usually known since childhood.
In instances where people were friends, it was still common for people not to use their first names, again because it was seen as being overly familiar, and something only done between siblings, parents, cousins and other close family. This convention is clearly visible in numerous works of literature written during the 19h century.
Sherlock Holmes never calls his friend ‘John’, and Dr. Watson never calls him ‘Sherlock’, despite being friends for over twenty years. In ‘Tom Brown’s School Days‘, Tom’s best friend, East, is only ever known by ‘East’ (even though his first name is Harry), and the school bully is only ever referred to by his surname – Flashman. Again, in ‘Pride and Prejudice‘, the male lead is almost exclusively called ‘Mr. Darcy’, even though his first name is Fitzwilliam.
Use in Everyday Life
In an age before telephones, telegraph, or high-speed internet, when the most common method for distance communication was through letters, formality of this kind, and adhering to such forms of address was very important, especially when communicating with someone with whom you weren’t particularly well-acquainted. It was all about decorum, not being overly-familiar, and keeping a respectful distance, in a time when rank, title, and social standing were placed on a much higher pedestal than they are today.
A letter written on the 23rd of December, 1882.
This is also why, in letter-writing and etiquette manuals of the era, you get those really elaborate openers and closures in letters, stuff like “I have the honour, sir, to remain your obedient servant“, and so on. Just like everything else, it was all about rank, title and social standing.
Closing Statements
Well – there you have it! A brief history of all the most common titles and forms of address still in use today.
But, what happened to all these niceties? Where did they go? What happened to them!?
The simple answer is – they were no longer seen as necessary! As communications got faster, people found it more convenient to dispense with all but the most rudimentary and necessary of titles. It saved time, and prevented confusion and delay. On top of that, it was seen as excessively formal, and even bordering on being pretentious! People felt more comfortable in being addressed by their first names rather than their surnames. Using titles, prefixes and family names sounded too impersonal, and in a world where people wanted to be more open, inviting and approachable.
There are loads of famous drugs in the world: Heroin, morphine, cocaine, amphetamines, absinthe, and marijuana, to name but a few, all taken for their relaxing, stimulating, or hallucinogenic effects on the human mind and body.
But of all the drugs ever discovered, used and abused over the centuries of mankind’s fascination with addictive substances, none has ever had quite the same allure, draw, mystique and romanticism as opium.
Used for literally thousands of years as a painkiller, opium has had a hold on the collective imagination of mankind unlike any other drug before or since. It conjures up images of hedonism, debauchery, corruption, conspicuous consumption, imperialism, hallucinations and crippling addiction. But what is opium and what is its history?
In this posting, we’ll find out together! So, find a bed, roll a pill, thread your pipe and let’s go opium-ing!
What IS Opium?
Opium is a “drug of addiction”, as they’d say today, which is taken from the latex sap of the opium poppy, or “Papaver somniferum“, to call it by its seductive, scientific Latin name. It’s the same plant from which the drugs morphine, heroin, and codeine are also extracted. It also produces poppy seeds!
Yes, those little black speckles that you find on those buns that you love to buy at the local bakery come from the same flowering plant that has produced one of mankind’s most notorious drugs for hundreds, and hundreds of years!
Delicious!
That said – you’d have to eat a hell of a lot of poppy-seed rolls to crank up any kind of positive drugs-test, so don’t worry! You can go back to enjoying your bagel, now.
The poppies from which opium and its cousin-drugs are derived is native, originally, to the Middle East, the Mediterranean, and parts of central and southern Asia – think Arabia, India, Persia, North Africa and Asia-Minor! Ooh, exotic! In these lands, opium had been known about as far back as the 1st Century C.E., by which time, its properties were already well-known, well-studied, and used extensively for treating a wide range of ailments, by processing the extracted poppy-sap in various forms, such as in poultices and rubs, pills or lozenges, or as a tincture (mixed with alcohol) so that it could be consumed orally – in a liquid form – more commonly known today as laudanum.
The opium sap was extracted from the un-flowered poppy-bulbs by slicing them open to release the sap. This was then collected, and dried. One acre of opium poppy bulbs could yield up to 4 or even 5kg of raw opium sap in a single harvest! Not bad, considering how small the bulbs are!
Once collected, the sap or latex, which is usually a pale yellow colour, is dehydrated to remove as much of the sap’s excess moisture as possible. This process causes the sap to darken and for the opium to become more refined or concentrated. The opium is further extracted until it has reached a dark, brown, sticky, claggy consistency – a sort of thick paste. This is raw, concentrated opium. In this state, the opium can be pressed or formed into cakes or bricks for packaging, storage, and transport.
Blocks of raw opium, seized in a drugs bust. After refinement and concentration, the opium sap ends up looking like this
After extraction, dehydration, refinement and concentration to produce pure opium which can be packaged and shipped, opium could then be sold on the open market.
For much of history, this is where the processing of opium stopped. Of course, it can be further refined, to extract the drug heroin, which is obviously, more potent, but the knowledge of how to do this was not gained until the 1870s, and even then, wasn’t commercially available until the 1890s. Because of this, for thousands of years, people took opium in its raw form, for all manner of uses.
What is Opium used For?
For centuries, opium was used largely as a medicine to treat all kinds of aches and pains, ranging from headaches or fevers, to the symptoms of various medical conditions, such as the pain caused by gout, muscle-cramps, or other conditions. It was even used to try and dull the pain of amputation surgeries! The most common way of taking opium for a long time was in a diluted form, a solution mixed with alcohol, known as Tincture of Laudanum (a ‘tincture’ being any solution including alcohol).
However, by far the most common use of opium in the 1700s, 1800s and 1900s was as a recreational drug to induce relaxation, sleep, or even hallucinations, and to relieve bodily aches and pains. This was usually done through the most common method of using opium – by smoking it! Smoking opium for pain-relief had been practiced before, but in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, what had once been a sideline rapidly became one of the most common methods for ingesting opium, either for its pain-killing and relaxing properties, or due to its addictive nature as a recreational drug.
Opium-Smoking Accessories
The smoking of opium became so popular that soon, much like smoking tobacco, all kinds of accessories and paraphernalia were created to try and make the whole pursuit seem more genteel and refined. What were these accessories, and how were they used?
The Opium Pipe
First and most importantly, was the opium pipe. Opium pipes were long and cylindrical, with a mouthpiece at one end, a long shaft, and a protruding (and detachable) pipe-bowl, usually (but not always) seated about 3/4 along the length of the shaft, near the end of the pipe. The bowls were detachable so that you could smoke multiple bowls at once, if desired. Pipes were made of all kinds of materials, from brass to bone to ivory, porcelain and bamboo. The position of the bowl (held in place with a metal collar or ‘saddle’ to stop it falling off when installed on the pipe-shaft) meant that it could be used to smoke the opium without damaging the rest of the pipe (I’ll explain this more, later).
The Opium Needle
Along with the pipe came the opium needle. Like the pipe having multiple bowls, you often had multiple needles, more for the sake of convenience, rather than anything else. Needles were used to scrape or roll up a tiny ball or “pill” of opium from the purchased cake or brick of solid opium. The pill being rolled, it was skewered on the sharp end of the needle, heated, and then ‘threaded’ into the tiny hole at the top of the pipe-bowl. This process was too fiddly to be done by hand, and some type of sharp quill or pin was needed. To make it easier, opium needles were usually pretty long – up to six inches – so that the opium could be handled carefully and packed into the pipe-bowl easily, without the needle also getting stuck inside (whoops!).
The Opium Lamp
You’ve rolled your pill, threaded your pipe-bowl, and put the bowl back onto the shaft of the opium pipe. Now you’re ready to smoke!…right?
Eh.
No.
See, you can’t actually smoke opium. You can’t light it, and you can’t burn it.
To “smoke” opium, you have to vapourise it!
Vapourising opium is done by heating it up. Once it’s hot, you then “smoke” the vapour or fumes that come off of the heated, melting opium pill that’s been stuffed into the bowl of your opium pipe. You suck the vapour down the pipe, and inhale it to “smoke” the opium.
In order to vapourise the opium mass inside your pipe and smoke it, you need something to heat and melt the opium.
This is where the opium lamp comes in.
Opium lamps are short, squat little lamps, usually made of brass, copper, or a Chinese metal alloy known as “paktong” (nickel, copper and zinc, basically nickel-silver). They have glass chimneys, short, round wicks, and narrow chimney-openings at the tops of the lamps. Some lamps had screw-on covers that went over the top when the lamps weren’t being used. This kept dust away, but also protected the glass chimney from breakage.
The point of these lamps was not to provide light, but rather, heat. It is impossible to smoke opium without one (or at least, without a reliable source of heat!). The lamp was lit, the chimney was placed on top, and then the smoker could hold or rest the bowl of the pipe over the opening at the top of the glass lamp-chimney. The heat from the lamp would warm the bowl, and the opium, thanks to its low melting point, would start to vapourise, allowing the smoker to inhale the fumes down the pipe and get their kick. The conical shape of the lamp’s glass chimney directed and concentrated the heat from the flame directly onto the pipe-bowl, speeding up the vaporisation process.
Remember how the pipe-bowl sticks up out of the shaft of the pipe? This is why. If it was built into the pipe (as with, say a conventional tobacco pipe), the heat from the lamp would damage the shaft. Because the bowl is held away from the shaft, it can be heated using the opium lamp relatively independent of the pipe-shaft. As a result, pipe-shafts, which were not exposed to heat, could be made out of almost anything. Pipe-bowls however, were usually made of heat-tolerant materials such as clay or bone, to prevent damage.
Since the bowl of the opium pipe had to be held over the top of the lamp for the opium inside the bowl to be smoked, the lamps were sometimes raised up on small stands or tables, this stopped the smoker’s arms from getting tired from always having to hold the pipe at an uncomfortable angle or height for long periods of time. It was because of the need to constantly heat the opium while smoking it, that opium smokers invariably laid down flat – either on a bed, or on the floor – to smoke. You simply couldn’t sit upright or stand and smoke and opium pipe, because you couldn’t hold the lamp and the pipe at the same time!
Accessories Tray
Along with the pipes, bowls, needles, lamp, lamp-stand, the containers holding the opium and the various other accessories used with opium (opium scales, pipe-cleaners, etc), another accessory was commonly used, to keep everything neat and tidy: The opium tray!
Really, anything could be used as an opium tray, but in especially elaborate smoking setups, the tray, pipe, lamp etc, would all match and be a complete set together. One reason for having the tray was to keep everything together – remember, pipes could have multiple bowls, and there were also the needles to consider…to stop things from going missing, everything was kept on a tray, and spare pipe-bowls were even kept on special stands to stop them from rolling away if the tray was lifted or moved.
How did you Smoke Opium?
Apart from taking opium in liquid form, as tincture of laudanum, opium was also (and increasingly) taken in vapourised form, by smoking it. We’ve seen what tools and accessories were used in smoking opium, but how was the whole process actually carried out? What did you have to do to actually have a solid round of opium smoking?
Smoking opium as a recreational drug became popular in the 1700s and 1800s, both in Asia, and in Europe, and to smoke it, you usually went to a uh…ahem…special establishment set aside for such exotic pastimes – an opium den!
It was in this den of inequity that the forbidden pleasure of smoking opium would be carried out. But how was it, exactly?
The first step was to prepare the pipe – colloquially known as a “dream stick” because it made you sleepy and gave you visions! You removed the bowl, and with an opium needle, you scraped off a small amount of solid opium from a cake or block of the stuff stored in a container. The scrapings were heated and rolled into a tiny ball, known as a “pill” of opium, again, using the needle.
Women smoking opium.
This pill was heated, and then very carefully threaded or poked down the tiny hole in the bowl of the opium pipe. This hole, designed to take only so much opium, and no more, was the main reason why you needed the opium needle – it would be physically impossible to stick the opium in there using just your fingers.
Once the bowl was prepared, the smoker would lay back on the couch or bed, and hold the mouthpiece of the pipe to the mouth, while the shaft of the pipe stretched out, with the bowl resting on, or over, the narrow glass chimney of a burning opium lamp.
The opium lamp was all-important during the smoking of opium, since the opium had to be heated and vapourised before the fumes from the opium could be inhaled down the pipe and taken into the body. It’s for this reason that opium had to be smoked lying down – nobody wants to stand up, or even sit upright, trying to balance a pipe over a flame, and smoke at the same time! Not very comfortable!
With the opium heated, the smoker could continue to huff and puff on their pipe until the vapours in the opium pill fed into their pipe bowl finally dissipated, by which time they were either asleep, or were reaching for another pre-filled pipe-bowl with which to continue the experience. Smoking opium relieved pain, and also caused drowsiness and hallucinations. It’s the origin of the term “pipe dream”.
Opium Around the World
Unsurprisingly, opium became highly popular, and was smoked as a recreational drug all across Eurasia, from London to Shanghai, Singapore to Saigon, Peking to Paris. In the 1700s and 1800s, and well into the 1900s, it was one of the most pervasive and destructive drugs ever, with dozens, if not hundreds, of opium dens likely to be found in any major city on earth.
Depictions of opium were included in films, TV, novels, short stories…everywhere. From “The Quiet American” by Grahame Greene, to “The Man with the Twisted Lip”, one of the several Sherlock Holmes short stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. But what happened to opium? Where did it go? How come you don’t have your friendly neighbourhood opium den anymore?
Opium started dying out in the later 1900s. In cities across the world, and especially in China, governments started cracking down on opium-smoking. Dens were raided, and opium paraphernalia was confiscated and destroyed. Pipes, lamps and stashes of opium were smashed, burned, trashed or otherwise destroyed, to make it impossible for people to smoke opium anymore.
Events like WWII, and the Korean, Vietnam, and Chinese Civil Wars, further broke down the opportunities to smoke opium. Opportunities to import or smuggle opium grew less and less. This, combined with opium-eradication campaigns, and the fact that heroin was stronger and required much less prep-time before getting your hit – meant that opium just fell out of fashion. That’s not to say that people don’t still smoke opium today, but not nearly as much as it used to be, 100-odd years ago.
And in case you’re wondering why I haven’t included anything in this posting about the opium wars between Britain and China, that’s because I made another posting about it, some time ago. If you’re interested, you can read it here!
Shimmering, ethereal, translucent and magical, for thousands upon thousands of years, pearls have been one of mankind’s most sought-after treasures, one of natures greatest mysteries, since the dawn of civilisation.
In this posting we’ll be looking at what pearls are, where they come from, how they’re formed, and how they have been cherished, treasured, and hunted for by countless millions of people across millennia of time.
What is a Pearl?
A ‘pearl’ is the name given to the hard, glossy, smooth and shimmering secretion formed inside of a hard-shelled mollusk (a type of shellfish), usually round in shape, and ranging between a few milimeters, to a couple of centimetres in diameter, depending on the size of the mollusk, and the age of the pearl.
What are Pearls Made Of?
Pearls are made of a sticky, glossy secretion produced by the mollusk – a kind of slime or goo or gel, which is used by the mollusk as a defense mechanism. This secretion is known as ‘nacre’, or more commonly, as ‘Mother of Pearl’, because it’s the substance that ‘mothers’ or ‘births’ the pearls that are found inside oysters.
How are Pearls Formed?
Pearls – which may be freshwater, or saltwater, and which can vary greatly in size, colour, and shape, depending on the circumstances of their creation – are formed when an intruder (organic matter of some kind, such as a parasite, worm or other living creature) breaches the mollusk’s outer defenses (the shell), and tries to attack the mollusk itself.
To defend against infection, parasites or attack, the mollusk expels a gob of liquid nacre, which will drown and envelope the invading organism, stopping it from carrying out its dastardly deed of killing, or infecting the mollusk, or of trying to make the shell its new home. The nacre hardens, and the mollusk will continue to expel more and more nacre over the offending intruder over time. With each successive secretion, the nacre will harden, and form layers of glossy enamel over the top of existing layers.
Finally, the nacre shell over the intruding matter will grow large enough that the oyster will consider it safe enough to detach the nacre-encrusted organism (aka – a pearl!) from the interior wall of the shell in which the mollusk lives – and the pearl will simply sit in the oyster or mussel or abalone – until it is expelled if or when the oyster next opens its shell. If it isn’t, or can’t be removed by the mollusk, then the pearl remains inside the oyster until it might, possibly, be found by humans!
This is what creates pearls, and causes them to grow. The size of the pearl, and its colour, depends on the colour of the mollusk, the size of the shell which the mollusk lives in, and how long it decides it has to attack the intruder, before it feels safe again. The pearl’s shape is determined, again by the size of the mollusk, but also by the shape and size of the intruder which has triggered the mollusk’s defense mechanism.
Along with making the spherical baubles known as pearls, nacre is also the substance that creates the very shells themselves which the mollusks call home. The only difference between the shell, and the pearl, is that the shell is the hard, protective receptacle for the mollusk inside, whereas the pearl is formed (through similar processes) to protect the mollusk from anything that bypasses its first line of defense.
Diving for Pearls
With enough determination, anybody can find a gold mine, or a silver mine, or even a cluster of gemstones hidden inside the Earth. The veins of ore having been discovered, just need to be dug out, crushed, extracted and refined.
Finding pearls, by comparison, is much harder.
While there are countless millions of mollusks of all kinds in the world’s oceans, from oysters to abalones to mussels, only those which have been attacked, and have had their shells breached or otherwise compromised by an invader, might produce a pearl. Only those pearl-bearing mollusks which exist within the range of free-diving water-depths might be found by humans, and only a small percentage of those found will even have pearls inside them. In fact, the chances of finding a pearl in an oyster is something along the lines of 1 pearl per 10,000 mollusks – a 0.01% probability.
Along with the sheer randomness and rarity of pearls – especially – of finding enough pearls of the same size for use in jewelry-making – was the risk entailed in finding pearls.
Anybody can dig a hole and search for diamonds, or shovel the soil from a riverbed to pan for gold – but diving – sometimes several tens of meters – to find pearl-oysters and abalones – was a disorienting and dangerous profession – one which dates back to prehistory in many parts of the world, ranging from Madagascar to China, Greece and Italy, and Indonesia to the Philippines. The risk of drowning, decompression sickness, paralysis, disorientation, or being attacked by sea-creatures – all added to the mystique of pearls.
It is for all these reasons that pearls, for centuries and centuries and centuries, dating back for thousands of years – have been considered one of the most valuable gems ever. The sheer randomness of being able to find a pearl out there in the deep, swirling depths of the oceans is what made them so treasured.
Myths about Pearls
Given the rare and random nature of pearls, it is not surprising that there’s loads of myths about pearls, such as the fact that pearls are formed inside oysters from constant irritation of the mollusk inside. This is not strictly true – pearls are formed due to ONE irritant at a time entering the shell, against which the mollusk defends itself.
Another common myth is that all pearls are perfectly round spheres! Again, this is not true. In fact, it’s so not true that perfectly round pearls are probably the hardest types of pearls to find! In truth – pearls can be almost any shape. Being organically and naturally formed, the shape of pearls is dictated by the size of the mollusk, and by the size or shape of the irritant or invader which caused the mollusk to start forming a pearl in the first place.
Irregularly shaped pearls – which can be anything from flat discs to ovals, pill-shaped or pear-shaped – are called “Baroque” pearls – referring to their erratic shapes and lack of uniformity. In fact, finding enough perfectly round pearls of the same size, shape, and colour to form an entire pearl necklace is a feat so difficult to accomplish that for centuries, pearl necklaces were considered to be one of the greatest status symbols in the world! Literally hundreds of pearls would have to be found, sorted through, and finally, drilled and threaded – in order to create such a piece of jewelry – a feat which could take months, or even years to accomplish.
Pearls as Status Symbols
Because of the significant difficulties in finding pearls, and of finding enough of them to make jewelry with, pearls have been seen as a status symbol since the times of the Ancient Romans. Emperors, kings, queens, dukes and princes, have all used pearls as jewelry at one time or another. Indeed, pearls were so hard to find that they were often more highly prized than most other jewels – such as diamonds, for example!
Baroque pearls – those of irregular shapes – were often used to adorn crowns and coronets, because their odd shapes lent themselves to artistic creativity. This can be seen, for example, in the pearl tiara of the Empress Eugenie of France.
A String of Pearls
In the history of gems and jewelry, there are numerous famous stories. The Hope Diamond, the Star of India, and the Plant-Cartier Necklace!
…You’ve never heard of the Plant and Cartier necklace?
Morton F. Plant, a wealthy New York City financier and philanthropist, owned two houses in New York City in the early 20th century. Deciding that his original house was too close to Manhattan’s bustling commercial district of Fifth Avenue, Plant commissioned the building of another mansion (completed in 1916), further away, to give him more comfort and privacy.
The problem was finding a buyer for his original house – until his wife, Mae Plant – informed her darling husband that she wanted a new pearl necklace!
At the same time, Pierre Cartier, grandson of the founder of the famous, French jewelry house, was looking into expanding his family’s business further abroad. Cartier already had a commercial presence in Paris, and now London, but he was determined to go even further, and try and break into the American market! The only challenge was that he needed a commanding, central location on Fifth Avenue! Surely, nothing else would suffice!
When he heard that the Plant Mansion was up for sale, Cartier immediately became interested, but despite nonstop haggling and debating, neither Cartier, nor Plant, could come to an agreement on price – until Plant told Cartier that his wife was looking for a new pearl necklace!
Mrs. Plant wearing the Cartier double-strand pearl necklace that cost as much as a house!
Seizing on any opportunity to buy the Plant mansion, Cartier told Plant about a stunning pearl necklace that he had in his possession – 128 flawless matched pearls in a double-strand! The most perfect gift for Madame Plant, surely! As Cartier suspected, Plant was immediately interested. After all, the pearls only cost $1,000,000…
Finally, Plant agreed! $100 cash, and a $1,000,000 pearl necklace, in exchange for prime real estate on Fifth Avenue! Plant was happy because he got the pearl necklace that his wife was so eager for, and Cartier was happy, because he got the central New York location that he was so eager to buy! Mrs. Plant owned the necklace until her death in 1956!
The Morton F. Plant Mansion (AKA the Cartier Building) on Fifth Avenue, Manhattan.
As for the Plant mansion on Fifth Avenue? It has remained Cartier’s most famous New York location for over 100 years! The company took formal ownership of the building in 1917…and hasn’t left since!
Cultured Pearls
In 1917, a pearl necklace was enough to buy a house. A very, very nice house.
In 1918, a pearl necklace would be lucky to buy you a car!
This was because of something dramatic which happened in 1917, which turned the entire jewelry industry upside-down!
Since time immemorial, pearls had been naturally formed – discovered by chance on the seabed by divers and fishermen who scooped oysters and mussels up from the depths, to find these lustrous baubles shimmering inside their shells. Finding a pearl – any kind of pearl – was entirely a matter of luck. This immense rarity was what made them so incredibly valuable. But everything changed when, thousands of miles away from Plant, Cartier, and their New York real-estate deal, a man in Japan discovered how to grow pearls!
That man was Kokichi Mikimoto.
Building on discoveries made by Australian, and other Japanese researchers, that pearls are formed when an irritant enters an oyster, Mikimoto was one of the first people in history to successfully use this knowledge to create a pearl in an oyster through human intervention!
Thus began the age of cultured pearls.
Cultured pearls are created when a human agent inserts an irritant, or ‘nucleus’ (either shell fragments or pieces of mantle from another oyster) into a living oyster. The oyster, thus irritated, will start to secrete nacre around the intruder, growing a pearl, replicating what would have happened in nature anyway, but in a more controlled environment. This increases the yield of pearls, or at least, the chances of finding one – but it does not speed up the creation of pearls. You might still get a pearl, and you may get more than one, but they’ll still take months, or even years to form!
That said, creating cultured pearls is not nearly as easy as you might think! Remember – pearl formation is largely down to luck – even when human intervention takes place! Of 100 oysters manipulated in this way, maybe 50 might produce pearls, and of those fifty, maybe five might produce pearls of usable size and shape. There’s still a lot of guesswork and patience, even if you have tampered with the deck.
0.01% for natural pearls. 5.00% for cultured pearls. While that’s a significant jump in the chances of finding pearls, they’re still fairly rare. In the 21st century, natural pearls – those formed by chance – comprise just 1% of all pearls, and the other 99% are made up of cultured pearls.
While cultured pearls are cheaper because they can be produced more readily, differences in quality still remain. While on the outside, they might look the same, the difference is only seen when the pearls are cut open (or x-rayed). To increase the chances of pearl-formation, the irritant placed inside the living oyster is usually quite large – between 5-8mm across! This might not seem large, but when you consider that most pearls only grow to around 1.5 – 2.0cm in diameter, that irritant is taking up a lot of space!
So what’s the trade-off?
Pearl farming or oyster farming allows mankind to produce pearls more readily, and of a more uniform shape and size. It’s not an exact science – but it does greatly increase the chances of making pearls. The trade-off in manmade vs natural pearls is the quality of the pearls produced.
The impact of cultured pearls can be seen in this famous, 1928 photograph of actress Louise Brooks, one of the great screen stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood. Such a profusion of pearls would’ve been impossibly expensive just twenty years before, but by the 1920s…
Natural pearls, formed by chance in the ocean – usually have very small irritants – a wisp of organic matter or a tiny parasite entering a pearl-oyster might create a pearl – but when it does – the pearl formed will be comprised almost entirely of nacre, with the irritant that caused its creation being only a tiny, almost imperceptible speck inside the pearl.
By comparison, manmade, cultured pearls, rely on much larger irritants to greatly increase the chances of pearl-formation. The result is a pearl that will have a very large irritant or nucleus, buried under the nacre.
What’s the problem with this? Well – if the pearl cracks, or splits, or is damaged or altered while drilling or cutting (to make jewelry, for example), then the nucleus is much more evident (a speck 5mm across in a pearl only 10mm wide, is going to be pretty obvious!). Because of the size of the irritant or nucleus used to form cultured pearls, the layers of nacre over the top are much thinner, more fragile, and more prone to damage.
It is because of this that cultured pearls, while more common, are cheaper, and natural pearls, being extremely rare, are still very expensive.
The difference is most clearly noticeable under an x-ray, or when a pearl is sliced in half. A cultured pearl has a larger nucleus and a thin outer layer of nacre, while a natural pearl will have a tiny nucleus, and several overlapping layers of nacre – similar to the rings on a tree.
Although natural pearls are, of course, of much higher quality – the creation of cultured pearls flooded the market, and caused pearl values to plummet almost overnight!
Remember Mae Plant’s pearl necklace? Sold in 1917 for $1,000,000, 40 years later, when she died in 1956 and it was sold at auction by her children, it fetched just… $150,000. By then, cultured pearls were so common that even a large double-strand of natural pearls were not seen as being particularly valuable anymore.
Shells and Mother of Pearl
So. We’ve covered pearls, we’ve covered oysters, we’ve covered cultured pearls…but what about mother-of-pearl? What’s that?
Mother of Pearl, or nacre, the substance that forms pearls – is secreted by the mollusk (oyster, abalone, clam, etc) – inside its happy little home – the shell.
As nacre is the mollusk’s natural defense mechanism, there’s usually a lot of it lying around, and the insides (and even outsides!) of shells are often coated in thick layers of this shimmering, glimmering, literally pearlescent material.
The glistening interior of an abalone shell.
Because of this, mollusk shells (everything from large abalone shells, to smaller oyster shells, or even the shells of the mighty, chambered nautilus!), are often just as prized as the pearls they produce. Often called mother-of-pearl (to differentiate between the pearls themselves), mollusk shell nacre is commonly used in all kinds of applications, either for jewelry, or other types of decoration and embellishment.
A folding fan made out of thin slices of mother-of-pearl, taken from a (or likely, several) suitably large mollusk shells
Knife handles, razor scales, cutlery handles, jewelry, box-lids, cufflinks and countless other items can be made of (or decorated with) mother of pearl.
Mother of pearl for decorative purposes is sourced by using the leftover shells from mollusks. Once the shell has been emptied of its contents (the tasty, tasty mollusks, and any pearls that they might contain), the shell itself is cleaned, sanded, and polished. Almost every mollusk shell will have some sort of growth on the outside – barnacles, seaweed, etc, which will obscure the outermost layer of nacre on the surface of the outside of the shell, and with great care, this must be removed. Using progressively finer abrasives, the encrusted sand, barnacles and other detritus can be scraped and polished off of the shell’s surface, and the glimmering nacre underneath can be exposed! Now all the remains is to polish it to a glossy, reflective finish!
Especially large mollusk shells with beautiful nacre have been used to make everything from caskets and caddies, to trinket dishes, sewing cases, and even jewelry boxes.
The relative ease with which mother-of-pearl, as opposed to pearls themselves, may be found, has therefore made it one of the most popular decorative materials to work with for centuries. Easily carved and shaped, and able to be polished to a lustrous shine, it remains popular even today in everything from jewelry to pocketknives, buttons and hair-accessories.
Pearls in Fiction and Literature
Their rarity, size, colouration, shape and expense made pearls extremely popular plot-devices in fiction, myths, legends and ancient fables.
The very first work of fiction to feature the serial killer, Sweeney Todd, was titled ‘The String of Pearls’. Pearls are mentioned in the bible, and in the writings of Ancient Roman historian and statesman, Pliny the Elder (whose nephew, Pliny the Younger, wrote one of the most vivid eyewitness accounts of the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79AD).
Even Sherlock Holmes tangled with pearls, when, in 1904, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle published “The Six Napoleons”, which featured “the famous Black Pearl of the Borgias!” as the priceless jewel stolen from the hotel-room of an Italian nobleman.
Want to Know More?
There are many excellent videos on YouTube about pearls and oysters, some which I found particularly interesting, were…
