The Book of Wonderful Characters; Memoirs and Anecdotes of Remarkable and Eccentric Persons in All Ages and Countries (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1869 edition. Excerpt: ... yard. The funeral was characteristically a walking one, from New Inn, through Fleet Street, and up Ludgate Hill. The followers were twenty, on foot, in black gowns, and after them came three mourning coaches. The attendants were all men of respectability; the ceremony was conducted with much decency, and a very great concourse of people attended. He was buried nearly under the only tree in the church-yard. His age, which was fifty-nine years, was inscribed on his coffin. HIS impostor, whose real name is unknown, frequented .*. the streets of London in the early part of the present century, and lived upon the credulity of the too charitable metropolis, in which place he was only known by the familiar appellation of Toby. He was a negro, and during a passage from Bermuda to Memel, while on board a merchantman, lost all his toes; this accident was, however, of great service, by rendering him an object of pity and compassion, during his daily perambulations. The use of his own language was also of great help to him, in fixing the attention of passengers, and a great inducement to many to extend their charity to this apparently distressed stranger; indeed, he left no method untried to work upon the various dispositions of those he supplicated. Very often he would preach to the spectators gathered round him, and sometimes would amuse another sort of auditors with a song; and when begging, he always appeared almost bent double, as if with excessive pain and fatigue. But when his day's business was done, he laid aside all constraint and walked upright; and at the beggars' meeting there was not a more jovial member than he. From these midnight revels he adjourned to a miserable lodging, from which in the morning he again sallied Toby, A Begging...