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Updated: May 8, 2025
An hour or so before, the gas was turned on; lamplighters scoured the city; in every house, from kitchen to attic, the windows kindled and gleamed forth into the dusk. And so now, although the town lies blue and darkling on her hills, innumerable spots of the bright element shine far and near along the pavements and upon the high facades.
An early lamplighter for this was in September, 1853 passed along the street with a ladder, dropping stars as he went. There are no lamplighters now, no real ones that run up ladders. Their ladders vanished first, leaving them with a magic wand that lighted the gas as soon as you got the tap turned; only that was ever so long, as often as not.
The lamplighter who did the company this honour, was seated in the chimney-corner of a certain tavern, which has been, time out of mind, the Lamplighters' House of Call. He sat in the midst of a circle of lamplighters, and was the cacique, or chief of the tribe.
The postmen and the lamplighters have left, at every house in their districts, a copy of vernacular verses, asking and thanking in a breath; and it is characteristic of Scotland that these verses may have sometimes a touch of reality in detail of sentiment and a measure of strength in the handling. All over the town, you may see comforter'd schoolboys hastening to squander their half-crowns.
Tom's family, gentlemen, were all lamplighters. 'Not the ladies, I hope? asked the vice. 'They had talent enough for it, Sir, rejoined the chairman, 'and would have been, but for the prejudices of society. Let women have their rights, Sir, and the females of Tom's family would have been every one of 'em in office.
Children with orange coloured hair sold matches and were followed down suspicious alleys; a strange hurried life, full of complexity, had begun in the twilight before the lamplighters went by. Girls and boys scrambled after each other quarrelling and selling newspapers. The spectacle helped the time away between four o'clock and seven.
"They have not broken the gas-pipes always for the sake of not doing unnecessary damage. They confine themselves to requisitioning the gasmen's keys, and the lamplighters' winches in order to open the pipes. In this manner they control the lighting or extinguishing. "This group of barricades is strong, and will play an important part.
He watched the lamplighters kindling the lamps, and the shopkeepers lighting up their gas; and then he heard the great solemn clock of St. Paul's strike six. Tea would be quite over now, and Tony turned down a narrow back street, which would prove a nearer way home than the thronged thoroughfares, and set off to run as fast as he could in his awkward and unaccustomed boots.
"The night was as dark as pitch so dark, faiks, that they had to get long pieces of bog fir, which they lit, and held in their hand, like the lights that Ned there says the lamplighters have in Dublin to light the lamps with. "At last, with a good dale of trouble, they got to the still-house; and, as they had all taken a drop before, you may be sure they were better inclined, to take another now.
The postman and the lamplighters have left, at every house in their districts, a copy of vernacular verses, asking and thanking in a breath; and it is characteristic of Scotland that these verses may have sometimes a touch of reality in detail or sentiment and a measure of strength in the handling. All over the town, you may see comforter'd schoolboys hasting to squander their half-crowns.
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