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 ENGLISH K5K. 
 
 ^^ 
 
 ALMANACKS 
 
 DURING THE FIRST THIRD OF THE 
 NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 A Paper Read Before The Manxhester Literary Club, 
 
 January 15TH, igoo. 
 
 BY 
 
 ABEL HEYWOOD 
 
 Manchester : 
 
 Privately Printed.
 
 
 English Almanacks 
 
 DURING THE FIRST THIRD OF THE CENTURY 
 
 In considerinj; the history of tliis important period, it is 
 necessary that we should bear in mind two or three matters 
 tiiat are material to our subject, and which, thouij;h they do 
 not strictly belong to the period, still so materially affect it, 
 that we must of necessity dwell for a time upon them, in order 
 that what follows may be intellifrible. 
 
 It will, perhaps, be remembered that the publication of 
 ahuanacks was a monopoly shared in by the Company of 
 Stationers and the Universities of Oxford and Cambrid<j;e. This 
 monopoly was fjranted in the time of Elizabeth to two members 
 of the Stationers' Company,* and was extended to the Univer- 
 sities of Oxford and Cambridge by James I. For the last three 
 years prior to 1775, a printer named Thomas Carnan, in defiance 
 of the monopoly, published several almanacks on his own ac- 
 count, and in the course of the above-named year, was arraigned 
 before the Court of Common Pleas for his offence. 
 
 " The Court, doubting the validity of the King's Charter, on 
 which the right of the Universities and the Stationery Company 
 was founded, directed a question upon its legality to be argued 
 before the Court of Common Pleas, whose judges, after two 
 arguments before them, certified that the patent was void in 
 law ; the Court of Exchequer thereupon dismissed the Bill, and 
 the injimction was dissolved. 
 
 " Carnan, having obtained this judgment, prosecuted his trade 
 for a time with increased activitv, when a Bill was introduced 
 
 30 
 
 Ency. Brit., edit. 76. 

 
 4 ENGLISH ALMANACKS. 
 
 into the House of Commons by the Earl of Guilford, then Lord 
 North, Prime Minister, and Chancellor of the University of 
 Oxford, To REVKST, BY Act op Parliament, the monopoly in 
 Almanacks which had fallen to the ground by the above- 
 mentioned JUDQMEKT.S IN THE KiNG's CoURTS."t 
 
 Mr. Erskine, aftex'wards Lord Erskine, appeared at the Bar 
 of the House, as Counsel for Mr. Carnan, to oppose the Bill, 
 and the speech he delivered on the occasion is in itself an im- 
 portant chapter in the history of almanacks, but it is too 
 len<2;thy for us to do more than take a few extracts from. 
 
 After some general remarks on the relation between the Press 
 iind the Crown, Erskine proceeded : 
 
 " When, therefore, the Stationers' Company, claiming the 
 exclusive riglit of printing almanacks under a charter of King 
 James I., applied to the Court of Exchequer for an injunction 
 against the petitioner at your bar, the question submitted by 
 the Barons to the learned judges of the Common Pleas, namely, 
 ' Whether the Crown could grant such exclusive right ?' was 
 neither more nor less than this question. Whether almanacks 
 were such public oi'dinances, such matters of state, as belonged 
 to the king by his prerogative, so as to enable him to communi- 
 cate an exclusive right of printing them to a grantee of the 
 Crown? . . The question so submitted was twice sclenudy 
 argued in the Court of Common Pleas, when the judges 
 unanimously certified that the Crown had no such 
 power ; and their determination, as evidently appears from 
 the arguments of the Counsel, which the Chief Justice recog- 
 nised with the strongest remarks of approbation, was plainly 
 founded on this — that almanacks had no resemblance to tliose 
 public acts, religious or civil, which on principle fall under tlie 
 superintendence of the Crown. The Counsel who argued the 
 case for the plaintiffs . . . felt that the judges had no other 
 standard by which to determine whether it was a prerogative 
 copy, than by settling, upon principles of good sense, whether it 
 ' iiiKjliI ill })!■ line; they laboured, therefore, to show the pro- 
 priety of the revision of almanacks by public authority ; they 
 said they contained the regulation of time, which was matter of 
 
 t Erskine's Works.
 
 ENGLI>SH ALMANACKS. G 
 
 public institution, having a reference to all laws and ordinances ; 
 that they were part of the prayer book, which belonged to the 
 king as head of the Church ; that they contained matters which 
 were received as conclusive evidence in Courts of Justice, and 
 therefore ought to be published by authority ; that the trial by 
 almanack was a mode of decision not unknown ; that many in- 
 conveniences might arise to the public from mistakes in the 
 matters they contained.- Many other arguments of the like 
 nature were relied on, which it is unnecessary for me to enu- 
 merate in this place, as they were rejected by the Court ; and 
 likewise, because the only reason of my mentioning them at all 
 is to show that the public expediency and propriety of subjecting 
 almanacks to revision by authority, appeared to those eminent 
 lawyers, and to the Court which approved of their arguments, 
 as only the standard by which the king's prerogative over them 
 was to be measured. . . Thus, sir, the exclusive right of 
 printing almanacks, which from the bigotry and slavery of for- 
 mer times had so long been monopolised as a prerogative copy, 
 was at last thrown open to the subject, as not falling within 
 the reason of those laws which still remain, and ever must 
 remain, the undisputed property of the Crown. The only two 
 questions, therefore, that arise on the Bill before .you are. First : 
 Whether it be wise or expedient for Parliament to revive a 
 monopoly, so recently condemned by the Courts of Law as unjust, 
 from not being a fit subject of a monopoly, and to give it to 
 the very same parties who have so long enjoyed it by usurpation , 
 and who had, besides, grossly abused it? Secondly: Whether 
 Parliament can consistently with the first principles of justice, 
 overlook the injury which will be sustained by the petitioner, as 
 AN iNDiviDXTAL, from liis being deprived of the exercise of the 
 lawful trade by which he lives ; a trade which he began with the 
 free spirit of an Englishman, in contempt of an illegal usurpa- 
 tion ; a trade supported and sanctioned by a decree of one of the 
 highest judicatures known to the Constitution ?" 
 
 After an jirs^ument as to the power of the legislature and the 
 Crown to create monopolies, he proceeds : 
 
 "And if the patent be void. Parliament cannot set it up again 
 without a dangerous infringement of the general liberty of the 
 press." He continues : " Sir, when I reflect that this proposed 
 monopoly is a monopoly in printing, and that it gives, or I'ather
 
 6 ENGLISH ALMANACKS. 
 
 continues it to the Company of Stationers — the very same body 
 of men who were the literary constables to the Star Chamber to 
 suppress all the science and information to which we owe our 
 freedom — I confess I am at a loss to account for the reason or 
 motive of the indulgence, but get the right who may, the prin- 
 ciple is so dangerous, that I cannot yet consent to part with 
 this view of the subject." 
 
 Then, after arguing that Parliament is arraigning legal 
 judgment, lie proceeds to say that other matters are of much 
 greater importance for Parliament to interfere with than 
 almanacks. 
 
 " Are not," he says, ' misconstructions of the arguments 
 and characters of the Members of this High Assembly 
 more important in their consequences, than mistakes 
 in the calendar of those wretched saints which still, to 
 the wonder of all wise men, infest the liturgy of a reformed 
 Protestant Church? Prophesies of famine, pestilence, national 
 ruin and bankruptcy, are surely more dangerous to reign un- 
 checked, than prognostications of rain or dust ; yet they are the 
 daily uncontrolled offspring of {^very private author, and I 
 trust will ever continue to be so. . . ." 
 
 After reciting the preamble of the Bill he proceeds to give 
 what the preamble would have been had it recited the truth. 
 
 " The Bill must have commenced thus : Whereas the 
 Stationers' Company and the two Universities, have 
 for above a century last past, contrary to law, 
 usurped the right of printing almanacks, in exclusion 
 of the rest of His Majesty's faithful people, and have 
 from time to time harassed and vexed divers good subjects of 
 our Lord the King for printing the same, till checked by a late 
 decision of the Courts of Law. Be it therefore enacted that 
 this usurpation be made legal, and be confirmed to them in 
 future. This, sir, would have been curiosity indeed, and would 
 have made some noise in the House, yet it is nothing but the 
 plain and simple truth ; the Bill could not pass, without making 
 a sort of bolus of the preamble to swallow it in."
 
 ENGLISH ALMAXACKS. 7 
 
 Continuing that it cannot be for the sake of correctness and 
 decency that the monopoly exists, he says, as proving the asser- 
 tion : 
 
 " The Stationers' C'ompanj' ... to increase the sale 
 of ahnanacks among the vulgar, published, under the auspices 
 of religion and learning, the most senseless absurdities. T 
 should really have been glad to have cited some sentences from 
 tile L13th edition of Poor Robin's Almanack, published under the 
 revision of the Archbishop of Canterbui-y and the Bishop of 
 London, but I am prevented from doing it by a just respect for 
 the House. Indeed, I know no house — but a brothel — that 
 could suffer the quotation." 
 
 After giving a number of ridiculous errors in the Calendar, 
 committed in the authorised almanacks, he contrasts Scotch 
 and Irish publications : 
 
 " Whereas in Scotland, and in Ireland, where the trade in 
 almanacks has been free and unrestrained, they have been 
 eminent for exactness and useful information. The Act re- 
 cognises the truth of this i-emark, and prohibits the importation 
 . of them." 
 
 He then contrasts Carnan's almanacks with the Company's, 
 
 and says : 
 
 " I challenge the framsr of this Bill (even though he should 
 happen to be at the head of His Majesty's Govei'nment) to pro- 
 duce to the House a single instance of immorality, or of any 
 mistake or uncertainty, or any one inconvenience arising to the 
 public from this general trade which he had the merit of redeem- 
 ing from a disgraceful and illegal monopoly." 
 
 Erskine then passes to the interest the two Universities had 
 in the monopoly, saying : 
 
 "And now, Mr. Speaker, I retire from your Bar, I wish I could 
 say with confidence of having prevailed. If the wretched 
 Company of Stationers had been my only opponents, my confi- 
 dence had been perfect ; indeed, so perfect that I should not have 
 wasted ten minutes of your time on the ruling, but should have 
 left the Bill to dissolve in its own weakness ; but when I reflect 
 that Oxford and Cambridge are suitors here, I owii to you I am
 
 8 ENGLISH ALMANACKS. 
 
 alarmed, and I feel myself called upon to say something which 
 I know your indulgence will forgive. The House is filled with 
 their most illustrious sons, who no doubt feel an involuntary 
 zeal for the interest of their parent Universities. Sir, it is an 
 influence so natural, and so honourable, that I trust there is no 
 indecency in my hinting the possibility of its operation. Yet I 
 persuade myself that these learned bodies have effectually 
 defeated their own interests, by the sentiments which their 
 liberal sciences have disseminated amongst you ; their wise and 
 learned institutions have erected in your minds the august 
 image of an enlightened statesman, which, trampling down all 
 personal interests and affections looks steadily forward to the 
 great ends of public and private justice, unawed by authority 
 and unbiassed by favour." 
 
 " It is from thence my hopes for my clients revive. If the 
 Universities have lost an advantage enjoyed contrary to law, 
 and at the expense of sound policy and liberty, you will rejoice 
 that the Courts below have pronounced that wise and liberal 
 judgment against them, and will not set the evil example of 
 reversing it here. But you need not, therefore, forget that the 
 Universities have lost an advantage, and if it be a loss that can 
 be felt by bodies so liberally endowed, it may be repaired to 
 them by the bounty of the Crown, or by your own. It were 
 much better that the people of England should pay ten thousand 
 pounds a year to each of them, than suffer them to enjo.v one 
 farthing at the expense of the ruin of a free citizen, or the 
 monopoly of a free trade." 
 
 A note appended to this in the 1810 edition of Erskine's 
 Speeches udds : 
 
 "According to the seasonable hint at the conclusion of the 
 speech which, perhaps, had some weight in the decisions of the 
 House to reject the Bill, a parliamentary compensation was 
 afterwards made to the Universities, and remains as a monument 
 erected by a British Parliament to a free press." 
 
 The result of the appeal was that the Bill was not proceeded 
 with, and as the Universities lost their annual pension, they 
 X'eceived in its place a parliamentaiy grant. The printing of 
 almanacks became nominally free, though, as Ave shall see, they 
 Avero really far from being so, and Carnan liimseli' only con-
 
 ENGLISH ALMANACKS. 9 
 
 tinned publication for a few years. For the reason of this, ue 
 have to p:o back a considerable time, to 1711, in Anne's reifrn, 
 when the first tax of twopence, in the shape of an impressed 
 stamp, was imposed upon every almanack printed. It seems to 
 us, long after the event, to be somewhat singular that the im- 
 position of this tax -which was destined to keep almanacks in a 
 miserable subjection to ignorance and cheatery for 120 years, 
 the influence of which was indeed not to die in the 19th century, 
 was received with no great resentment. Possibly the poetesses 
 whose opinion of the duty I am about to quote, foresaw by the 
 l)rophetic power which was common to all framers of almanacks, 
 how the stamp would by and bye come to be looked upon, as 
 we are assured it was even in this present century in the case 
 of the arch quack Moore, as a hall mark guaranteeing excellence 
 and trustworthiness. I suppose to this day the patent medicine 
 stamp is regarded by the ignorant as a similar testimony and 
 guarantee. I have not seen the act of Parliament imposing the 
 tax, but we may presume from one of the verses I quote, that it 
 was imposed under the promise that it should last for 32 years 
 only. 
 
 In the Ladies' Diary, or the WoiiKtii'i Almanack, iov 1713, 
 appear a number of answers to an enigma set in the almanack 
 of the previous year, i.e., 1712. This is the first year of the 
 stamp, the act having been passed in 1711. The subject of the 
 enigma was the almanack stamp itself. The editor of the Diary 
 savs : "The Prize Ennima was Avrote when the act of Parlia- 
 ment was passed for Laymr/ a Duty k pon Almanacks, ordering 
 a Stamj) to be impress'd on the Title Page of every one of them ; 
 and several Months before they vere iwinied, or the Stamps 
 yrepartd, and which again I here tliink it convenient to repeat." 
 
 'Tis ten to one within this hour, 
 
 That you have seen me o'er and o'er ; 
 
 And yet, before this present year, 
 
 I ne'er to mortal did appear. 
 
 In so rich Garbs as now I wear, etc., etc.
 
 10 ENGLISH AL2IANACKS. 
 
 Several rhyming answers are printed, from which I take the 
 following selections as indicating the indifference of the public 
 of the time to the rise in price the stamp would cause. The 
 book is advertised as 2s. in sheep, or 2s. 6d. in calf, but there is 
 no advertisement of price before the imposition of the duty. 
 
 In the dead time of Night, when Sleep I did lack, 
 
 In thinking and pausing on your Almanack ; 
 
 I straightway arose and lighted my Lamp, 
 
 And reading your riddle, I found it a Stamp, 
 
 Which by a late Act was enjoin'd to appear. 
 
 Upon every Diary you put out this year. 
 
 Thus richly adorn'd, 'tis in value the more, 
 
 Yet fewer Friends therefore, it has than before ; 
 
 But why should we think the Book Th rccpcnce too dear, 
 
 When again at the aid rate you'll have it so near 
 
 For the tax it is laid hut for Thiify-iwo Year. 
 
 Within the Hour before I read 
 Your Prize-Enig. last published, 
 The Bookseller shew'd me the fair 
 And new-born Stamp your Diaries wear ; 
 And made me pay for It Threepence, 
 (Tho' stamp'd for Twii), on a pretence. 
 They scarcer were, and that this Year, 
 Not half the number printed were : 
 Well may your Diaries lose their Dames, 
 Made doubly dearer by these Shams, etc. 
 
 It is evident that the Ijooksellers were putting a profit on tlic 
 twopenny duty. 
 
 The history of the growth of the tax is this, as made out 
 from the impressed stamp on the almanacks themselves, though 
 this account does not tally with the published lists I have seen. 
 1712 are the first stamped with a twopenny stamp, another 
 twopence followed in George II.'s reign, appearing u!i 
 the almanacks for 1758, and fourpence more followed on those 
 for 1798. These three lie in layers around the crown, etc., 
 one beyond the other. In 1801 the tax became one shilling.
 
 UNdlJSll ALMANACKS. 11 
 
 ^•ith a new stamp without the hiyers, and tinally in 181G it 
 culminated in one shillinf^j and threepence, which sum had to be 
 paid until 1835 on every almanack, sheet or book, published in 
 Enfjland. 
 
 During a great })art of the same period the tax on perpetual 
 almanacks was ten shillings. 
 
 At the beginning of the century then, we find practically all 
 the English almanacks to l)e published l)y Ihc Company of 
 Stationers, and each to be paying a duty of one shilling, and 
 the duty realising something over £30,000 per annum. 
 A Parliamentary return of the yield of the almanack stamp 
 during 20 years, viz., 1810 to 1830, was published, and from 
 this I find that in 1810 it yielded £32,929 9s. Id. ; and in 1830 
 £31,908, 15s. lOd. The Companion to the British Almanack for 
 1833 gives the total annual issue of almanacks, taken from a 
 Parliamentary paper, from 1821 to i830, as from 481,690 to 
 528,254, the highest number being that of the earliest year. 
 In 1898, the publishers of one penny book almanacks informed 
 me that they had printed 1,054,248 copies, and the book was 
 then (the November preceding) out of print ! 
 
 In former papers read to this Club, I reviewed with a toler- 
 able amount of fulness, the contents of English-printed alman- 
 acks, from the earliest to the close of the reign of William III., 
 and in the interval of rather more than a century from that 
 time to the one I am now considering, several matters of very 
 great importance occur, ])ut will have to 1)6 barely mentioned 
 here. Partridge's glory shone refulgent until quenched by 
 Swift's witty attack. Swift insisted that Partridge was dead. 
 but the latter said he wasn't, and his almanack, though it 
 ceased for a year or two, came out again, written though, 1 
 believe, by another prophet, with the motto '• Etiam moituus 
 loquitur." Partridge's almanack lasted far into the present 
 century, dying a lingering death in my time. The other great 
 prophet was Moore, " Francis Moore, Physician," who came into 
 a printed existence in 1080, and who still lives, though in tho
 
 12 ENGLISH ALMANACKS. 
 
 refined, not to say etherealised and angelic form one would 
 expect to find him after a life of 220 years. A year or two ago 
 he ceased to be published by the Company of Stationers, and 
 his glory may now be said to have departed, for he no longer 
 ] ivies into the future. 
 
 One more matter of great importance happened within the 
 period we are skipping, viz., the Correction of the Calendar, in 
 1752, when the dates from the 3rd to the 13th September were 
 skipped, and the civil year was made to commence on January 
 1st, instead of March 21st. These important and most interest- 
 ing matters must be left. 
 
 This in brief, then, is the condition of affairs when the 
 century opens. Partridge and Moore are alive and prophesying, 
 and the Comj^any of Stationers is still virtually in possession 
 of the almanack monojioly. In an article in the Athenaeum, 
 in 1828, the continuance of the monopoly is thus described, and 
 the Company is thus spoken of : 
 
 '• The Worshipful Company then proceeded upon their 
 twilight career in another mode (that is, after the failure of 
 their attempt to re-establish the legal monopol.y). They boiighf 
 up the almanacks which individuals from time to time endea- 
 voured to establish, and they either surpressed them altogether, 
 or, having adopted them into their list, insintiafal their ovm 
 pnis<i7} into the really useful matter they contained, so as to 
 degrade them to the level of their oldest and most successful, 
 because their worst publications. They did this in the case of 
 ' IMoore's Almanack Improved,' which was originally published 
 by a large wholesale consumer of almanacks, of the name of 
 Wills. That book lunr contains astrological predictions of the 
 same stupid and impudent character as its prototype, ' Francis 
 Moore, Physician.' It is thus that the monopoly has been as 
 effectually preserved as if it had been legally sanctioned. In- 
 deed, it is difficult to establish any rival work, from the large 
 expenditure of capital required in the outlay of ready money 
 for the stamp duty." 
 
 The London Magazine, 1828, speaking of the Company of 
 Stationers, savs :
 
 ENGLISH ALMANACKS. 13 
 
 " Francis Moore, physician, began his career of importance in 
 1698 [this is not correct], and by the condensation within himself 
 of all the evil qualities of his contemporaries, he gradually 
 contrived to extinguish the lives, and then with true vampire 
 spirit, to prey upon the carcases, even up to the i)resent year, 
 of Lilly, Gadbury, Lord, Andrews, Woodhousc, Dade, Pond, 
 Bucknall, Pearse, Couston, Perkins, and Parker, the illustrious 
 and the obscure cheats of the seventeenth century. A hundi'ed 
 and thirty years is a pretty long career of imposture. Poor 
 Robin, the hoary jester of the fraternity, has just given up the 
 ghost, after a life of iniquity longer than that of old Parr, or 
 Henry Jenkins. Heaven avert the orvr--- from Francis Moore." 
 
 But if almanacks in England were in this disgraceful condition 
 of ignorance and superstition, the nation was astir, though the 
 governing powers had openly declared that an informed people 
 was a public danger, and that the '* taxes on knowledge " existed 
 to pi'event the spread of intelligence. The people were arraying 
 themselves against ignorance and oppression. The Reform Bill 
 of 1832 came at last, and before long the crusade against the 
 newspaper tax rose ; some of the men, like Carlile, Hetherington, 
 Watson, Cleave, and I may add my father, being actuated by 
 the highest motives in the action they took. Some of these 
 men, as Ave shall see, combated the ridiculous almanack tax, 
 which was repealed at last in 183J:, coming into operation in 
 1835. 
 
 In 1828, the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, 
 puljlished for the first time the British Almanack and Com- 
 panion. Writing of this event, the Gentleman's Magazine said : 
 
 "Mr. Charles Knight joined forces with Mr. M. D. Hill. 
 Lord Brougham, Sir J. Lubbock, the late Lord Wrottesley, and 
 Admiral Beaufort, and, aided by some wranglers of Cambridge, 
 produced in a month the first volume of the British Almanack 
 which has appeared yearly since that date, revised, not by in- 
 dolent and ignorant prelates, but by able and sensible mathe- 
 maticians, and telling us the tides and eclipses, leaves the rest 
 of the future in the hands of Providence. Thanks to Mr. C. 
 Knight, the prestige of ' Old Moore ' is gone, though he is 
 neither dead nor buried. From that day forward, however, the
 
 14 ENGLISH ALMANACKS. 
 
 day of the old almanacks was gone ; their sun was set ; ' useful 
 knowledge ' beat ' useless ignorance ' out of the field." 
 
 How curiously the affairs of ihe world turn round ! By the 
 year 1870 this very British Almanack Avhich was to banish all 
 the rubbish of the Company of Stationers, came to be published 
 by that very Corporation Avhich had become, we may presume, 
 a purified and tolerably enlifrhtened body. In its original 
 form the almanack lived till 1897, when it, for the first time, 
 was published by one of the Letts family, as a popular bulky 
 shillins: annual, on the lines of Whittaker, Avhich had been in 
 existence since 1868 or 1869. 
 
 Speakinrj of the comins: of the British Almanack, the article 
 in the London Magazine, 1828, from which I have already 
 quoted, says : 
 
 " On a sudden a new almanack started up, under the super- 
 intendence and authority of a Society, distinguished for its great 
 and successful labours to improve the intellectual condition of 
 the people. For the first time in the memory of man, an 
 almanack at once rational and popular was produced. From 
 that hour the empire of astrology was at an end. The public 
 press, infinitely to their honour, took up the cause. The 
 blasphemy of Francis Moore, and the obscenity of Poor Robin, 
 were denounced and ridiculed through all quarters of the king- 
 dom. In one little year, the obscene book was discontinued, the 
 blasphemous book retreated into pure stupidity, and the pub- 
 lishers of the blasphemy and the obscenity applied themselves, in 
 imitation of the first powerful rival they had ever encountered, 
 to make a rational and useful almanack. By the year 1832 
 (even we prophesy) the whole delusion will have vanished before 
 the day-spring of knowledge, and the people will then wonder, 
 that for so many years they endured the insults habitually 
 offered to their morals and their understandings." 
 
 There are two errors in this extract Avhich it is proper we 
 .should correct. It was not the first time in the memory of 
 man that u sober almanack was published. Even the despised 
 Company published several, and an important series was pub- 
 lished at Aberdeen, a considerable number of which the learned
 
 ENGLISH ALMANACKS. 15 
 
 librarian of the Aberdeen Public Library has allowed me to 
 have for examination. In this series, befrinninjx (so far as I have 
 seen) in 1779, there is not a word of the idle nonsense that dis- 
 tinjjjuished English almanacks. In addition to the calendar, in 
 which the moon's age, moon's rising and setting, high water at 
 Aberdeen, etc., are given ; there is a list of Fairs, another of 
 Fiars — which few will know the meaning of — the great Roads, 
 House of Peers, Commons, Army List, Church, Scots List of 
 Peers, Earls, Barons, etc. Every line in the l)ook is such as is 
 proper in an annual publication to-day. 
 
 A similar almanack I have seen up to 1835, and we may, I 
 think, presume that the series has been continuous. 
 
 The Aberdeen Almanack is mentioned by Burns in one of his 
 letters, when he says : " For my own affairs, I am in a fair Avay 
 of becoming as eminent as Thomas a Kempis, or John Bunyan, 
 and you may expect henceforth to see my birthday inserted 
 among the Avonderful events in Poor Robin and Aberdeen 
 almanacks, along with Black Monday, and the Battle of Both- 
 well Bridge." 
 
 Scott, too, in Redgauntlet, has : " Old Turnpenny Avill answer 
 no questions on such a subject, without you give him the pass- 
 port, which at present you must do by asking hiui the age of 
 the moon ; if he answers, ' Not light enough to land a cargo,' 
 you are to answer, ' Then plague on Aberdeen almanacks.' " 
 
 It should be mentioned here that Aberdeen almanacks date 
 back so far as 1623. In Edmond's '"Aberdeen Printers" will be 
 found an analysis of the contents of a long series of these annual 
 ]>ublications from the above date to 1735. 
 
 The other error that the author of the London Matrazine's 
 article makes, is where he ventures to prophesy. By 1832, he 
 promised us, the almanacks prophets should be extinct, a pre- 
 diction as wide of the mark as any thing Francis Moore ever 
 Avrote. There are still lots of fools left (I think Carlyle said 
 that one was born every minute), and Zadkiel, Ixaphael, and 
 Orion are, to this very year, rampant as ever, selling their
 
 16 ENGLISH ALMANACKS. 
 
 rubbish annually by hundreds of thousands. Indeed, after the 
 repeal of the almanack duty in 1834, it is said in one of the 
 Financial Reform Tracts (No. 34), published by the Financial 
 Reform Association, and written, so the author told me, by 
 Alexander Somerville, well known fifty years ago as " The 
 whistler at the plough," that Moore's Almanack itself for 183."), 
 the first year of free printing, doubled the sale of previous 
 years. 
 
 May I here interpose a word about another tax which vanished 
 just before the almanack tax, and which is spoken of in the 
 same pamphlet by Mr. Somerville. It is the duty on pamphlets, 
 which most of us have forgotten, if we ever knew of. " It was 
 enacted by 55 George III., c. 185, that every book containing 
 one whole sheet, and not exceeding eight sheets in octavo, or 
 any lesser size, or not exceeding twelve sheets in quarto, or 
 twenty sheets in folio, should be deemed a pamphlet. The same 
 Act imposed a duty of three shillings upon each sheet of one 
 copy of all pamphlets published. This duty, which was at once 
 vexatious and unproductive, was repealed in 1833." 
 
 Of Moore's Almanack, Charles Knight wrote in his " Working 
 Life," 1812: 
 
 " The believers in Moore's Almanack — and they comprise 
 nearly all the rural population, and very many of the dwellers 
 in towns — would turn this year with deep anxiety to the won- 
 drous hieroglyphic which was to exhibit the destiny of nations. 
 When ' Master Moore,' as the good folks called him, uttered his 
 mystic sentences under the awful heading of ' Vox Coelorum, 
 Vox Dei, the voice of the Heavens is the voice of God,' how 
 small sounded the mundane reasonings of the newspaper writers. 
 If the great astrologer prophesied disaster, few would be the 
 believers in success. There was scarcely a house in southern 
 England in which this two shillings' worth of imposture was 
 not to be found. There was scarcely a farmer who would cut 
 his grass if the almanack predicted rain. No cattle-doctor 
 would give a drink to a cow, unless he considted the table in the 
 almanack showing what sign the moon is in, and what part of 
 the body it governs."
 
 ENGLISH ALMANACKS. 17 
 
 It was not all nonsense that Moore wrote, however, as in- 
 stance this in 1821 : "If Parliament men would make short 
 speeches, they would get through more business, and do it 
 better, too. I hope those Peers and Commoners who read my 
 almanack will take this hint kindly, and set a good example in 
 this respect." 
 
 A table of the rising, southing and setting of " the Pleiades, 
 or Seven Stars for every fifth day in the year ; of excellent use 
 to find the hour of the night," lingers even so late as 1821. 
 
 In 1835, under the head of Vulgar Errors, is one I do not 
 remember to have seen before, namely, " That when a man 
 designs to uiarrj^ a woman that is in debt, if he take her from 
 the priest clothed only in her shift, he will not be liable to her 
 engagements." 
 
 It is curious to meet with an anecdote which would lead us to 
 believe that there were even people of position who believed— 
 at any rate to some extent — in the clap-trap of the almanacks. 
 In " Piatt's Gleanings " it is said, "A man high in office in the city 
 of London exclaimed confidentially to a friend of the Gleaner, 
 * By God, sir, there wull be no war ! Moore's Almanack predicts 
 a year of prosperity, and at this time sjieaks only of peace; 
 and I would sooner believe in Moore than in Bonaparte, or Mr. 
 Addington.' " 
 
 It is stated in Chambers's Book of Days that Moore's Alman- 
 ack, in 1753, sold to the extent of 75,000, and that the author 
 received five guineas for the " copy " from the liberal Stationers' 
 Company. Who was the author, however 1 From the following 
 obituary notices which are to be found in old Manchester papers, 
 he would seem to have been more than a single individual. 
 
 "A few days since died, at Nottingham, aged 62, Mr. John 
 Pearson, who for several years has written the following Alman- 
 acks for the Company of Stationers, viz., Poor Old Robin, 
 Moore, Wing, Season, and Partridge's.'" — Harrop's Mercury. 
 December 13th. 1791. 
 
 "On the 23rd ult., in the 82nd year of his age. Mr. Thomas 
 Wright, of Eaton, near Melton Mowbray, who for more than
 
 18 ENGLISH ALMANACKS. 
 
 half a century compiled a Moore's Almanack." — Harrop's 
 Mercury, December 19th. 1797. 
 
 This last is, perhaps, not Francis Moore's Almanack. 
 
 It is not necessary that I should quote further from Moore's 
 books to show the character of his work. The opinions I have 
 cojiied do that sufficiently, and it is less necessary that the 
 choicest verses of Poor Kobin should be broufrht before you. 
 Mr. Erskine has given them a character which in the main I am 
 prepared to accept, but it must, of course, always be remem- 
 bered that as well as tom-foolery and filth, there was sober 
 information, and the ordinary calendax'. 
 
 These two almanacks, Moore and Poor Robin, were the most 
 largely cix'culated during our century, up to the time of the 
 repeal of the stamp ; other almanacks were published by the 
 Company, but I could only give an imperfect list, and it would 
 serve no purpose to give the titles of the few nineteenth-century 
 taxed almanacks I have. 
 
 Of more interest are those published without the stamp, 
 which we must term contraband. As I have mentioned, some 
 i(i' the men who were concerned in publishing newspapers in 
 defiance of the fourpenny tax, took up the case of the almanacks, 
 and l)oth Richard Carlile and James Watson issued, the one a 
 sheet, and the other a book and also a sheet. 
 
 Carlile's Almanack was printed on calico, and I have one of 
 them in my possession. He contended that it was a printed 
 t alico, and that there was no duty on such material. It only 
 appeared for two years, and it Avould seem that the Excise had 
 considerable doubt as to Avhether Carlile's contention was not 
 sound, for they compromised with him, as the following letti-i- 
 explains : 
 
 ''Richard Caulile to Abel Heywood, December 30th, 1831. 
 
 " In complying with your request to send you six Almanacks, 
 I wish to be understood as not responsible, and not encouraging 
 you to sell them. I suppose you have a few particular friends 
 to whom yovi wish to give a copy, as a suppressed curiosit.y. We 
 now sell them stamped, at the additional cost of the stamp. I
 
 ENGLISH ALMANACKS. 19 
 
 rely on your honour not to compromise me. I have informed tlie 
 Commissioners of Stamps tliat we have sent out ten thousand 
 copies, and that a great nnmher may remain unsold ; but that T 
 have cautioned all my agents, which I hereby do with you. 
 
 'The Commissioners of Stamps will not enforce any penalties 
 for the past. The truth is, though not intended to be so, the 
 law is strictly on the side of the Cotton Unstamped Almanack. 
 
 " Respectfully, 
 
 " R. Carlile." 
 
 Carlile's Almanack was not particularly cheap, as the follow- 
 ing; advertisement from the " Poor Man's Guardian," l)eceiul)er 
 17th, 1831, will show: 
 
 " The Untaxed Cotton Almanack published at the General 
 Publishing Mart, 1, Bouverie Street, Fleet Street. This very 
 cheap and very useful publication is running through a very 
 extensive sale, and is affording a specimen of the advantages 
 to the people generally, of cheap useful knowledge. It merits 
 general encouragement, as it is a most useful ingredient in th*? 
 Warfare on the Taxes on Knowledge. It may be had on coloured 
 glazed cotton at one shilling ; on plain cotton at sevenpence ; 
 and may be ordered of Booksellers, Newsmen, and Linen- 
 drapers. 
 
 1 have another letter from Carlile to my father, which, thou;.--!! 
 not touching' on the subject of almanacks is, I think, interesting- 
 enoufjh to be introduced here, as a brief autobiography of one 
 who was a very important personable in the early history of the 
 campaign a*rainst the " Taxes on Knowledge." 
 
 '' RtCHAHD Carlile to Abel Heywood, February 16th. ISSo. 
 
 " Unless I go out of life prematurely, my career must end in a 
 triumpli. I have been working on steadily on one consistent 
 course, through good and through evil report, in the advocacy 
 of such political principles, not as were the most profitable for 
 the moment, but such as I thought the best; and such, as is 
 matter of notoriety, every other publisher and public man in tlie 
 island, aye, all over the earth, shrunk from, before me, because 
 of their portending danger or ruin to means of liveliliood. From 
 the year 1809 to the year 1824. a copy of Paine's Works could
 
 20 JENGLISH Al.MANACKS. 
 
 not be purchased on the continent of America, and it was alto- 
 gether my example here that restored them there ; and the 
 first reprinted edition there, was in part at my expense. It is a 
 fair question for consideration as to what would have been the 
 state of politics at this moment but for that conduct of mine. In 
 Wilkes, Junius, Home Tooke, and the corresponding Societies 
 of the last century, we had men of political spirit far 
 superior to what Hunt, Cobbett, and Political Societies of late 
 have been. The country in spirit in 1794 was much nearer a 
 Republic that it has been in this century, which I attribute 
 entirely to the bastard kind of politics that has been advocated 
 short of those of Thomas Paine. You may not remember, but 
 the state and spirit of the Press in 1817, was despicable in com- 
 parison with what it now is ; and even Cobbett's Twopenny 
 Register of that time would be, by himself, deemed trash now. 
 Who but myself, I should like to know, opened the way for his 
 return from America in 1819, after his flight in 1817? It was 
 his hearing of the successful publication of Paine's Works that 
 did it, and that has made or led to all the political change to 
 this moment. It was an example of extreme daring, under 
 which all the other political writers have sheltered, and saved 
 themselves from perpetual prosecutions. And what but that 
 broke the spirit of Castlereagh ? He had set his mind on putting 
 down Paine's Works. He had a long correspondence with the 
 late Lord Tenterden on the subject, in 1819, Tenterden — then 
 Abbott — advising him not to prosecute then. He saw me in 
 prison after having been stripped of everything. He saw my 
 wife in prison, my sister, half-a-dozen shopmen ; the Constitu- 
 tional Association and Vice Societj' fairly beaten by my perse- 
 verance. He saw Peel make a second seizure, house and all, 
 and my name up again in another shop in Fleet Street. He 
 had set his mind on beating me ; for he declared his determina- 
 tion to the Lord Chief Justice of the Court of King's Bench, in 
 1819, that at all hazards, my cai'eer must be stopped. He tried 
 to bribe me, through the Archdeacon of Dorset, in 1822, at mid- 
 summer, just after the second seizure was made, but found it 
 would not do ; and there is not another apparent reason or cir- 
 cumstance why he cut his throat ; for he was successful in every 
 other case he attempted, that of the Queen excepted, which was 
 not hisj but the King's private purpose, and rather the business 
 of Lord Liverpool."
 
 ENGLISH ALMANACKS. 21 
 
 Another calico almanack was i)rinted, for one year only. l)y 
 Mr. B. D. Cousins, who, durin<r part of my time, carried on the 
 business of printer at Helmet Court, Strand. I have not ston 
 a copy of this almanack, and there is probably not one in ex- 
 istence, but Mr. Cousins told me, in 1876, that he called it 
 "A political pocket handkerchief, a duster for the Whijrs." It 
 was, as he described it, about 26 by 16 inches. The first num- 
 ber had the almanack on one side and news on the other, 
 subsequent numbers, of which there were about twenty, contain- 
 ed news only. Cousins's contention was, like Carlile's, that the 
 sheet was a printed calico, but for the first number he was 
 summoned to Bow Street, and was discharged " with a caution. ' 
 on the ground that, being a young man, he did not imderstand 
 the enormity of the crime he was committing. He told me that 
 the prosecuting counsel, or solicitor, holding up a copy of the 
 '■ Duster," directed the attention of the Court to the fact that 
 the nation was being robbed to the extent of one shilling and 
 sevenpence, one shilling and threepence for the almanack and 
 fourpence for the news. The magistrate, taking a copy in his 
 hand, said he would like to have it, but Cousins told him that 
 was not possible unless it were stamj^ed, and he took it over to 
 Somerset House and had the stamps impressed, as an almanack 
 on one side, and a newspaper on the other. Then hu presented 
 his bill, "To almanack, 2d.; to stamping, Is. 7d. : total. 
 Is. 9d." ; and was duly paid. The calico news sheet cannot 
 have been a success, as Cousins gave it up ; but unlike most of 
 those engaged in the crusade, he escaped either fine or im- 
 prisonment. 
 
 Cousins printed also, he told me, " Franklin Moore's Alman- 
 ack," which professed to })e printed in America. He also 
 l)rinted, for the proprietor, " Zadkiel's Almanack," for a good 
 many years. 
 
 James Watson also published an almanack in book fomi for 
 two or three years, 18.32 the last ; this also professed to l)e 
 printed in America. It was a well-printed book, and was sold
 
 22 ENGLISH ALMANACKS. 
 
 for eightpence. The Ti/zies, bulicving it to be American, was 
 unwise enough to speak of it as " An almanack stitched up as 
 a pamphlet, beautifully printed on line paper, and besides the 
 calendar, containing several pages of useful information." This 
 opinion of the press was made abundant use of by Watson in 
 his advertisements. 
 
 The following " par " from the " Poor Man's Guardian," No. 7(J, 
 November 17th, 1832, signed H. H., which initials we may read 
 iis Henry Hetherington, refers to Watson's Almanack : 
 
 •'An Untaxed Almanack.— A friend of mine has kindly sent me 
 a Book Almanack. I have attentively examined its contents, 
 and though it is not ornamented with a stamp, I have no hesita- 
 tion in declaring it to be the i-.jst useful thing of the kind I 
 have ever seen. The price, too (eightpence), will, with its 
 other merits, obtain for it an extensive circulation." 
 
 How many people suffered for selling this almanack I do not 
 know ; many escaped, my father for one, for he told me he sold 
 it. All were not similarly fortunate, as the following account 
 from the •' Working Man's Friend," No. 1, December 22nd, 18.32 
 (published by J. Watson, 33, Windmill Street, Finsbury), will 
 show : 
 
 • Bow Street. — A young man named William Cooke was. on 
 the 8th instant, charged before Sir F. Roe and Mr. Minshull. 
 with exposing for sale an unstamped Almanack, called "The 
 Working Man's Almanack," printed and published in Liberty 
 Street, New York. 
 
 •' Mr. John Thomas, a clerk in the stamp office, proved, that 
 on the 28th of November last, he went to the shop of the defen- 
 dent, situate in Dorrington Street, Leather Lane, and asked 
 the price of '' The Working Man's Almanack," the defendant told 
 him tliey were 8d. each, and witness desired to be served with 
 a dozen, for which he paid 8s., receiving 13 of tlie almanacks 
 for that sum." 
 
 " The defandant complained of his not having had time to pre- 
 pare his defence, or apply to liis friends for assistance, as he did 
 not receive the summons until Wednesday evening; he wished, 
 therefore, that the case should be posponed. Sir F. Roo observed 
 tliat the charge against him was so plain tliat lie could no*^
 
 ENGLISH ALMANACKS. 23 
 
 conceive what defence he could make of it. Did he mean to 
 deny the fact of his having sold the almanacks to the witness? 
 The defendant said that he did not deny that, but he still wished 
 for time to make his defence." 
 
 " Mr. Hugh Tilsey, of the stamp office, said that there w as 
 another information against the defendant, for a similar offence. 
 The magistrates convicted the defendant in the full penalty, 
 £10 and costs, and in default of payment, he was committed for 
 two months to the House of Correction." 
 
 The foUowinir connuont was made liy the editor of " Work i nee 
 Man's Friend " : 
 
 " Who is he that objects to our saying ' there is one law for the 
 rich and another for the poor?' The case of the lady-like 
 thieves, the Miss Turtons, is in everybody's mouth ; they arc 
 allowed by the thief-takers to escape to France, whilst poor 
 Cooke is torn from his wife, young children, and aged mother, 
 for what? Let 'The Times' answer: for selling 'an almanack 
 stitched up as a pamphlet, beautifully printed on fine paper, and 
 besides the calendar, containing several pages of useful infor- 
 mation.' " 
 
 In the "Poor Man's duardian,"' No. 12:5, Octoljer 12th, 1S;5;5, 
 is this advertisement : 
 
 •THE AMERICAN ALMANACKS! 
 " Brother Joxath.\n Again. 
 
 '■Just imported (duty free) from Mr. Doyle, of New York, .i 
 splendid SHEET ALMANACK, price six cents, or threepeiite 
 British ; containing a vast quantity of the most useful informa- 
 tion, compiled on a new plan, and superior in paper and print to 
 the best taxed ones published in England for the benefit of 
 corruption and monopoly. 
 
 "Also may be had a BOOK AI>MANACK. price twelve cents, 
 or sixpence British ; containing tlie most correct and valiiaijle 
 tables, a Chronology of Events, and the usual matter so con- 
 venient to individuals and families. 
 
 '■ Printed and published by John Doyle, No. 12, Liberty Street, 
 New York, and sold in England by vendors of unstamped i)ub- 
 lications in town and counti"y,"
 
 '-24 ENGLISH ALMANACKS. 
 
 These are, of course, Watson's Almanacks, of which I have 
 seen one copy, described in the catalogue of a public library 
 as an American publication. 
 
 My father was very intimate with Watson, and he and his wife 
 occasionally visited at our house. Mr. W. J. Linton wrote in 
 1879, in America, a brief but very kindly and appreciative 
 memoir of Watson, which my father and I rejirinted and pub- 
 lished here in 1880. I remember Watson very well as a gentle, 
 mild-spoken man. fond of and good to children, and always 
 welcomed by them. Mrs. Watson, who survived her husband a 
 good many years, I knew more intimately, and about 20 or 25 
 years ago, I wrote asking her to let me know what she could 
 remember about the almanacks, and I also saw her upon the 
 same subject about 16 years ago. One of her admiral)le letters 
 I quote here : 
 
 " Mrs. Watson to Abel Heywood. 
 
 "I do not remember how many were prosecuted, but I know 
 there were a great many. The person who printed our books, 
 Mr. W. Johnson, was the printer of the almanacks, and I have 
 heard Mr. J. and my dear husband laugh over the fun years after, 
 as the authorities never found out the printer. The almanacks 
 sold so well, that the sale of those published at Stationer's Hall 
 was much reduced, and then the Whig Government repealed the 
 stamp duty in 1834. I used to take to my dear one (then in 
 prison in Clerkenwell), a copy of all the pretty new almanacks 
 that were at once issued, and we used to rejoice together over 
 THAT victory when I went to him with his dinner (I never missed 
 but two days all the six months). The changes since those 
 days are very wonderful to look back upon. The sale of " The 
 People's Almanack " was greatly helped by private persons ; 
 gentlemen would call and purchase a quantity and dispose of 
 them among their private friends ; my dear one used to send 
 me a quantity when I was living at Stockton-on-Tees, in 1832- 
 34, and I disposed of them amongst friends. Some of the sheets 
 were 3d., and some books 6d., both were very well printed, and 
 we were pleased to cheat the Government. 
 
 ''When I w as a child living in Leeds, I remember the old people 
 who went about with tapes, thread, etc.. used to ask mysteriously
 
 ENGLISH ALMANACKS. 25. 
 
 ■ " Do you H-ant a ' Paddv's Watch ?* " (that was what .served tor 
 an almanack in those days among poor people). It was printed 
 on a sheet of very thin paper, adorned with cuts in the Catnach 
 stj'le ; the price was twoixMue, or what they couki get. T have 
 seen the okl woman produce it from under her cloak, and 
 wondered what the m.vstery was all about. It is a pity we did not 
 keep copies of the unstamped almanacks and our pamphlets, 
 etc. ; one never thinks of those things till too late. 
 
 " P.S. — I cannot find that the ' People's Almanack ' was pub- 
 lished before 1832, so it would be about three years that tliey 
 were on sale." 
 
 In this letter we have the first mention of " Paddj'^'s Watches,'' 
 and Mrs. Watson exactly describes their character and ajutcar- 
 nnce. They were printed in many places, Manchester amon^ 
 them, where a man named Jimmy Wheeler issued them. Jimmy 
 used to say that he had been imprisoned forty times for selling 
 them. His name appears more than once in a list of offenders 
 to which I shall allude presently, and the " Manchester Courier," 
 October 25th, 1828, records that Jimmy was convicted at the 
 New Bailey for selling' unstamped almanacks, and fined Ju\i) and 
 costs. My father told nae that on one occasion Jimmy was 
 visited by the police in Miller Street, where he lived, and when 
 the officers were walking; off with the almanack formes, he took 
 a " run punce " at the type, knocking it into hopeless " pie," 
 which the police probably would not care to carry away. Jimmy 
 was the owner, too, of the first advertisement van ft)r parading 
 the streets. I quite well remember seeing one of these A-ans 
 myself when I was a child. I have two copies of Jimmy's 
 
 ■ T^iddy's W^itches." 
 
 In the retiu'n of the number of persons committed by the 
 juagistrates, already alluded to, those convicted in the metro- 
 polis for selling almanacks are not distinguished from those 
 selling other unstamped publications, but of those convicted in 
 the country, the following are for almanacks: — Appleby, two 
 women 14 days each, '"Belfast Almanacks;" Exeter, one man 
 three days; Knutsford, 1.") persons, one of these, James Wheeler,
 
 26 ENGLISH ALMANACKS. 
 
 for two months, the rest for terms of seven days to three 
 months ; Monmouth, one man for one month ; Spilsby, two men 
 for one and three months ; Stafford, nineteen persons, fourteen 
 days to three months ; Warwick, fifteen persons for from fourteen 
 days to three months ; Edinburgh, two men, twenty days and 
 ten days, one of these named Love, who had the longer sentence, 
 was liberated by special order of the stamp office after two days. 
 
 The maximum time of imprisonment (16 George II., c. 26) was 
 three months, upon conviction before one justice on the oath of 
 one witness, the person a^jprehending an offender to receive 
 twenty shillings reward. 
 
 On the subject of contraband almanacks Mr. Alexander 
 Somerville (the Whistler at the Plough) wrote to me from 
 Toronto, May 17th, 1877: 
 
 "A Belfast man tells me that Sims and Maclntyre, of Belfast, 
 publislied almanacks, but I remember the Belfast Almanacks 
 of a time thirty years earlier than this informant speaks of. 
 Hawkers came to rural fairs and markets in Scotland, calling in 
 a musical cadence of voice, 'Belfast Almanacks;' 'Belfast 
 Almanacks for the new year ; ' ' Belfast Almanacks only a penny 
 apiece.' 
 
 "In rivalry Avith the Flying Stationers from Belfast, were 
 those from Aberdeen, with voices singing in the same musical 
 cadence, 'Aberdeen Almanacks, Aberdeen Almanacks for the new 
 year ; Aberdeen Almanacks only a bawbee.' 
 
 " These almanacks had no stamp. They were purchased by 
 everybody. The changes of the moon, rising and setting of the 
 Sim, lists of fairs, moral maxims, and weather prophesies filled 
 their pages. 
 
 " There were also Aberdeen and Belfast Almanacks sold in 
 shops, and at stalls in the market, bearing a red stamp, and at a 
 liigher price." 
 
 Mr. William Chambers, afterwards Sir William, wrote 
 September 26th, 1876, and after regretting that he could give 
 no information as to unstamped almanacks, said :
 
 ENGLISH ALMANACKS. 27 
 
 "I can, however, remember that the removal of the stamp 
 Avas greatly promoted by the vast number of penny almanacks 
 that were clandestinely printed and sold chiefly by hawkers in 
 the streets, in defiance of the law. Aberdeen and Belfast were 
 the places where these coarse-looking almanacks were produced 
 for sale in Scotland and the north of England.'' 
 
 I have not been able to meet m ith copies of these cheap 
 Aberdeen Almanacks, but by the kindness of Mr. A. Gibson, of 
 Belfast, I have had a considei-able number of those of Belfast 
 in my hands. These date back as far as 1786, and continue 
 until 1831. It is rather curious that in the earlier of 
 them, the sun's rising; and setting are evidently copied 
 from a table constructed for a place a good deal north of Belfast. 
 Pretty nearly all the Fairs, too, are Scotch, and I have no doubt 
 that the whole thing is copied from an Aberdeen book, if it 
 were not actually printed there. The book was very commonly 
 printed, and occasionally the calendar tables ax'e lifted from one 
 year to another without alteration. Among other things, there 
 are generally a few anecdotes of the Poor Bobin stamp. There 
 were a few prophecies such as this (1793), June : " The aspects 
 of this month are various, ^ome good and others bad, and will 
 display theii* effects in many places ;" but prophecies even of this 
 general and safe character are only used as till-ups. 
 
 Benn's History of Belfast, 1877, says on the subject of Belfast 
 Almanacks : 
 
 •' Of the old Almanacks of Belfast, a few words must be said. 
 The advertisement of the oldest one which is known, and that 
 but imperfectly, is expressed ' The Belfast and Poor Robin's 
 Almanack for 1753, Calculated for the New Style. H. and R. 
 JOY.' Almanacks were regularly published from this date, it 
 is probable, but no complete or uninterrupted series can be found 
 in the possession of any collector. Odd numbers of the last 
 century are not uncommon, but are without local information. 
 That for 1772 is described as 'much improved and enlarged, 
 and the most complete Almanack ever published.' The Belfast 
 Almanack was always esteemed, and so high was its repute, that 
 in towns of the west of Scotland, travelling chapmen might have
 
 28 ENGLISH ALMANACKS. 
 
 been heard calling it out for sale as soon as it could be procured 
 from the town in w hich it was printed." 
 
 I think it evident that " Belfast " and "Aberdeen " are words 
 that were to a large extent interchangable on the title pages of 
 the cheap almanacks. 
 
 After the almanack was freed from the stamp it of course 
 sold in enormously increased numbers. Even the then existing 
 ones like Moore, sprang forward when the brake was removed, 
 as has already been related. 
 
 Blackie's Popular Encyclopedia says : '" In the report of the 
 Commissioners of Excise Inquiry on the subject, it is stated that 
 '200 new almanacks were started immediately on the repeal of 
 the stamp, and that some of them sold upwards of 250,00(1 
 copies, although the old ones maintained their ground." I do 
 not know when and where this inquiry was held. 
 
 The most largely circulated of the present books is Old 
 Moore's Penny Almanack. Mr. Nathaniel Cooke, partner with Mr. 
 Ingram (Ingram and Cooke), writing to me August 17th, 1870. 
 said that the almanack Avas first published in 1842, a crown 8vo., 
 of 16 pages. " In a year or two it was increased to 32 pages 
 and is now 36. The rate has been for the last ten or dozen 
 A-ears 600,000 to 700,000," but in November, 1897, at which time 
 the 1898 almanack was " out of print," the proprietors informed 
 me, as I have already mentioned, that they had sold 1,054,248 
 copies. I have copies of this almanack from 1845 to 1862. Mi\ 
 .T. M. Darton, once a publisher of children's books, of the late 
 firm J. M. Darton and Co., told me that the almanack was done 
 by Ingram at his (Barton's) suggestion, to advertise Parr's Life 
 Pills, of which medicine Ingram was then projirietor. The 
 paper was ordered from Crompton, then one of the largest 
 makers in the kingdom, and he was so alarmed at the great 
 ([uantity of paper required, that he sent a man to London to 
 make special inquiry into the cause. Out of the profits of the 
 abiianack and the pills came the " Illustrated London News.'' 
 The almanack is still itublished in the interest of Parr's Life 
 Pills.
 
 EXGL7SH ALMANACKS. 29 
 
 It is not easily pussihle to trace tlic liistory of almanacks 
 after the repeal of the stamii, nor would the story be nearly so 
 iiiterestinp: as that of the stamped period. After 1838 it is all 
 l)lain sailinj?, and there is not much interest in that ; you want 
 storms and shipwrecks to make a voyu<j;e interesting. The most 
 singular and even important item in the story since the aliove 
 date is that prophetic clap-trap has not disappeared ; far fium 
 it. Francis Moore's Almanack, as has been already related, has 
 tmlj quite recently broken its stafi' and drowned its book ; 
 Kaphael, Zadkiel, and Orion sell in increased and even increas- 
 ing numbers, and Moore's Penny Almanack, selling more than 
 all the others together, has its hieroglyphic and its monthly 
 prophecies. This is a very disheartening circumstance in 11)00, 
 Hs it must have been to Charles Knight, who had to write in 
 the following disappointed strain in an article which appeared 
 in the Hritish Almanack and Companion for 18G7. It is in a 
 review of Zadkiel's Almanack for the same year. 
 
 " Having been somewhat enthusiastic in my conviction tliat 
 education Avould gradually purify tlie moral and intellectual 
 atmosphere, I was scarcely prepared during the past thirty-six 
 years, to witness the continued existence of an almanack more 
 outrageously stupid than anything Partridge or Moore ever pro- 
 duced. . . The authors boast tliat seventy-five thousand 
 copies are annually sold. 1 have no doubt of it. The power of 
 imposture has increased, is increasing, and ought to be dimin- 
 ished." 
 
 Then he continues, and his words are no doubt true enough 
 to-day : 
 
 "The people of England are e-sentially as ignorant now as 
 they were in the palmy days of Francis Moore. Undouhtedly 
 a larger number can read and write ; hut this is not education.' 
 
 Zadkiel, in his preface to the aliuanaek for 1900, says tliat 
 it has been published for 70 years, edited for the fir.st 45 by 
 Commander R. J. Morrison, and for the subseipient '25 years 
 by "the writer" of the present year's book. His circulation 
 may probably be about 150.000, but it is not stated.
 
 30 ENGLISH ALMANACKS. 
 
 Raphael's Almanack for 1900 is the eightieth, and the editor 
 states that the circulation for the last five years has been from 
 158,000 to 162,000. In turning over its pages I find that it 
 is announced that Ave have commenced the 20th century, and 
 among lucky and unlucky days I find that this present day, 
 January 15th, is " a very unfortunate day for every purpose." 
 
 Finally then, we find in the last year of the 19th century, that 
 the number of publications issued as almanacks for sale is 
 much smaller than it was twenty years ago. The pictorial 
 almanacks have disappeared, the Illustrated London, CasselFs 
 Pictorial, and Bow Bells, which were profusely illustrated and 
 sold largely, have ceased to exist. Hosts of cheaper books have 
 also gone or are on their last legs. The prophetic almanacks 
 hold far away the best position in the field among those re- 
 maining. The chief reason for the falling off in the number 
 of legitimate books arises, of course, from the fact that number- 
 less papers and periodicals make the almanack part of their 
 contents, and that millions of almanacks are given away as 
 advertisements. The only reason why astrological almanacks 
 should sell in larger and larger numbers must be that as the 
 population increases the number of noodles increases too. 
 
 It does not come within the scope of this paper to attempt 
 to analyse or review any of these publications ; rather let uie 
 conclude by reading one of Punch's then annual reviews of 
 Zadkiel, which appeared in December, 186G. It is written in 
 Zadkiel's own manner, and I would much rather quote it than 
 copy from the arch-humbug himself. 
 
 " Mr. Punch has before him Zadkiel's own horoscope for 1867, 
 and a sad one it is. In January the persecution of the unlucky 
 creature will begin, for Jupiter is in the second house, and the 
 aspect of Sirius is lurid. About the middle of the montli, Zad- 
 kiel will nearly be choked by the tail of a shrimp, but will cough 
 it up. Without giving the astral configurations by which his 
 fate is made clear to the youngest student of the sublime science, 
 we briefly state the rest. In February, he will be terribly cut 
 in shaving. In March, a maid-servant will, out of spite, m;inage
 
 ENGLISH ALMANACKS. 31 
 
 to spill a kettle of boiling water over his left leg. and he will be 
 confined to his house until Ai)ril, when he will slide over a piece 
 of orange-peel, and severely damage his southern configuration. 
 In May, ho will have many things .stolen from his hou.se. and his 
 chimney will catch fire. In June, he will fall down-stairs. In 
 July, ho will be knocked down by a carriage. In August, he 
 will buy some toad-stools instead of mushrooms, and be awfully 
 ill for several days. In September he will .sit dou n upon a live 
 cat, and be severely bitten, but cauterisation may prevent evil 
 results. In October, the stars seem to indicate a treacherous 
 calm, but it will end early in November, when he will fall over 
 the coal-skuttle, break his shins, and knock his head against a 
 pewter beer-pot. And in December his medical attendant will 
 make a revelation to him wliioh we earnestly counsel him to take 
 into his serious consideration."
 
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