03. Come Blowens its past four O'Clock
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No. 3.
Another began thus.
Come Blowens its past four o Clock1
Its time to repair to the Dog and Duck2
And if with a cull you chance to meet3
Bowl him down & to Catherine Street
Rol de riddle lol. Rhi tol roll
Rhi tol, iddle iddle, ri tol, ra.
Editor's Notes:
1. Blowen: prostitute
2. The Dog and Duck was a notorious tavern in St George's Fields
3. Cull: A prostitute's client
Annotations
I've been unable to trace this ballad. There are many ballads that mention the Dog and Duck Tavern, including one in the Madden Collection called the “Dog and Duck Rig”. It’s not the one Place remembers but it’s full of flash language, and concludes with a hanging. Place mentions the Dog and Duck in his testament to the Select Committee on Education (1835, vii 70): "I have see the flashy women come out to take leave of the thieves at dusk, and wish them success. Elsewhere in the Place's paper's he reports: "I have seen two or three horse at the door of the Dog and Duck in St. George's Fields on a summer evening, and people waiting to see the Highwaymen Mount" (BL Add. MSS 27826, fo 189).
Further Reading:
V.A.C. Gatrell, The Hanging Tree, (Oxford UP) p.129.