Two Kissing Girls of Spitalfields

A couple of years ago I was desperate to get hold of a copy of Rictor Norton's book Mother Clap’s Molly House: the Gay Subculture in England 1700–1830. But the first edition, which came out in 1992, was out of print and the tiny number of secondhand copies being offered on the web were going for prices well beyond my pocket. So I was very happy to notice recently that a revised edition appeared last year, at a very affordable price. My copy came this morning.

The following lines are a spur to my imagination:

Two Kissing Girls of Spitalfields

That one’s a Man is false, they’ve both been felt,
Tho’ Jolly swears, Bess is, or sh’ has been gelt.
She bullies, whistles, sings, and rants and swears
Beyond the Plyers at St. Katern’s Stairs;
She kisses all, but Jenny is her dear,
She feels her Bubbies, and she bites her ear:
They to the Garret or the Cellar sneak.
Play tricks, and put each other to the Squeak.
What Pity ’tis, in such a case as this,
One does not pass a Metamorphosis,
Then they’d not stop the flowing Breach of Dagnum
With Digitus vel instrumentum magnum.

Anon.

from Weekly Journal or British Gazetteer, Saturday, 10 August 1728


Rictor’s website contains a huge amount of fascinating source material of this kind, and a number of his essays; also, an annotated text of the verses above.


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