jacks-in-the-green

Updated: June 10, 2025

They then collected money from the passers-by, making usually quite a good haul. There were dozens of these "Jacks-in-the-green" to be seen then on Mayday in the London streets, each one with his attendant band of little black familiars. I summoned up enough courage once to ask a small inky-black urchin whether he had disobeyed his nurse very often in order to be condemned to sweep chimneys.

Lord Frederick Spencer Hamilton - The Days Before Yesterday