SHOW NOTES — for — MINISODE 36 (Season 5)

(April 30, 2026)

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• 01:30: STREET POETRY: From broadside ballad sheets: “Seventeen Come Sunday,” about a soldier who seduces a neighbourhood lass; “Lark in the Morning,” about the life of a country plough-boy (racy pun intended); and “Fanny Gray,” about love and jealousy. (1840s).
• 07:30: BLACK BESS; or, THE KNIGHT OF THE ROAD (starring HIGHWAYMAN DICK TURPIN), Chapter 68-70: Tom King settles in and tells his story. It turns out he actually is a man of some rank. But, a lifelong misunderstanding over how high a rank he occupied — involving the unexpected appearance of a previously unknown older half-brother — upended everything for him. Bitterly he went to London to lose himself in the crowds, and there became friends with — a man you don’t meet every day, let’s say, and leave it at that. — A few days later, a terrible storm comes in, and the smugglers put oilskins on and prepare to go out in it for some reason. By now, Dick and Tom suspect they know what that reason is, and it’s a very sinister one indeed ….
• 37:45: INTRODUCING MISS PAGE: One of the “ladies of the evening” listed and described in Harris’s List of Covent-garden Ladies, a directory for bucks and bloods out on the town in the early 1800s. Miss Page is described as a zestful woman of 20 and very pretty except for her mouth, which is a bit too wide when she laughs, as she often does.
• 42:00: A RATHER NAUGHTY COCK-AND-HEN-CLUB SONG: "The Crab-fish” (about an unfortunate accident that befalls a lady when she tries to use the chamber-pot, only to find out the hard way that her husband has filled it with cold water and put a live crab in it, intending to cook it for breakfast.)
• 45:00: A FEW MILDLY DIRTY JOKES from what passed in 1830 for a dirty joke book: "The Joke-Cracker" by Martin Merryman, Esq.

GLOSSARY OF EARLY-VICTORIAN SLANG USED IN THIS EPISODE:

• BON VIVANTS: (from intro) Happy-go-lucky partiers.
• HELL CATS: (ibid) Dangerous ladies who hang around in gambling “hells.”
• KNIGHTS OF THE ROAD: (ibid) Highway robbers.
• CORINTHIAN: (ibid) Sporting man of rank and fashion, most famously represented by Corinthian Tom from Pierce Egan’s “Life in London,” the story of the adventures of a wealthy Regency rake named Tom and his country cousin Jerry as they rampage through the streets of London on a continual spree.
• CYPRIANS: (From the introduction to our Ninepenny Naughties hostess) Ladies of easy virtue, a classical reference to the island of Cyprus, supposedly peopled with sexually frisky ladies.
• SPORTING THEIR BLUNT: (ibid) Throwing money around.
• BUMPER: (ibid) Liquor glass.
• BLUE DEADLY: (ibid) Gin.
• SLUICE YOUR TOMBSTONES: (ibid) Take a big drink.
• MORRIS OFF: (from outro) Run away at top speed.
• BEAKS ON THE NOSE: Police detectives or magistrates on an investigation.
• DIDDLE COVES: Bartender or landlord in a gin palace or dram shop.
• DAFFY DOXIES: Racy ladies who enjoy drinking daffy (gin).
• CAPTAIN LUSHINGTONS: Habitual drunks.
• BOOZING-KEN: Drinking den.
• SMITHFIELD: In the early 1800s a notoriously crowded and dangerous neighborhood in which a very unsanitary open-air livestock market was regularly held until the 1850s.