No. 135: Robert Street, WC2
Adelphi Building, Robert Street, London, WC2. Photo © Roger Dean 2010
London, Volume 5 – Edited by Charles Knight, 1843:
The Englishman cannot exist without his newspaper. Foreigners laugh sometimes at the Englishman and his tea-kettle. “They are inseparable,” they say. “If he goes to the top of Mont Blanc, to the North Pole, or to Central Africa, ’tis all the same: he must carry it with him.”
The newspaper is, however, a still more indispensable necessary of life. Give the working-man his pint of beer, and he will not ask for tea, but he must have his newspaper.
[ “Eeevnin’ Staaaaaaahdid!”, the cry that one so often heard upon exiting the Tube, seems almost to have died out since the Standard became a freebie. Many of the old-time newspaper vendors seem to have disappeared along with the cover price. R.D.]
Yes, it’s a shame, Roger – they went free to compete with the other freebies, which then promptly vanished. When you think about it that way it seems that “Eeevnin’ Staaaaaaahdid!” may have been the last of the street cries.
And when’s the last time you saw someone with a placard predicting the end of the world? Telling you not to eat meat?