JANETS ORATION. 3
thing but prick and few, and fling their feet when the fidle plays, so they become a parcel of yellow-faced female taylors, unequal matches for countrymen, Flanders babies, brought up in a box, and must be carried in a basket, knows nothing but pinching poverty, hunger and pride, can neither milk kye, muck a byre, card, spin, nor yet keep a cow ! from a corn-rigg ; the most of such are as blind penny-worths, as buying pigs in pocks, and ought only to be matched with Tacket-makers, Tree-trimmers, and Male-taylors, that they may be male and female agreeable in trade, since their piper faced fingers are not for hard labour; yet they might also pass on a pinch for a black Sutor’s wife, for the stitching of white seams round the mouth of a lady’s shoe, or with Barbers or Bakers they might be buckled, because of their muslin mouth and pinch-beck speeches, when barm is scant they can blow up their bread with fair wind, and when the razor is rough, can trim their chaffs with a fair tale, oil. their peruke with her white lips, and powder the beaus pow with a French puff; they are all versed in all the sciences of flatter, musical tunes, horn-pipes, and country dance the <<illegible>> in none but the reel of Gammon. <<illegible>> they, the fickle farmer fixes his fancy <<illegible>> bundle of clouts, a skeleton of bones, Maggy and the mutch, like twa fir sticks and a pickle tow, neither for his plate nor his pow very unproper plenishing, neither for his profit nor her pleasure, to plout her hands thro’ Hawkey’s caff-cog is a hateful hardship for Mammy’s pet, and will hack a’ her bands. All this have I seen and heard, and been witness to, but my pen being a-goose-quill, cannot expose their names nor place of abode, but warns I the working men out of their way. Secondly, I see another sort, who can work and maun work till they be married-and become mistress themselves but as the husband receives them, the thrift leaves them; before that, they wrought as for a wager, they span as for a premium, busked as for a brag, scoured their din-skins as a wauker does wo-
