![]() If lagg'd we should get, we can gammon the Beak, Up with the lanterns, and down with the Charleys: Go it ye cripples! come tip us your mauleys, Milling the day-lights, or cracking the head By tip-top sawyers:Ĭoming it strong with a Spree and a spread, The rhyme itself is headed Quick work without a contract. Another of those "bloods" is making a stroke with his brush at the back of a flying watchman two others, like regular gutter-bullies, are engaged in personal contest with two watchmen, and three MEN in scarlet have a single watchman down and are daubing his face with paint. In that intitled "Quick work without a Contract, by tip-top Sawyers," three gentlemen (?) in scarlet coats, small-clothes, and silk stockings, - comme il faut, - are seen engaged in painting the sign of the White Swan red and two others of the same class are perceived painting the window of the Post Office in the same manner. Ackermann, 191, Regent Street, has just published two more of the series of Sporting Anecdotes, illustrative of certain disgraceful proceedings termed "sprees," which took place at Melton Mowbray last season. The date of the painting is certainly contemporary with the alleged incident and was reported on in the the New Sporting Magazine, in July 1837: ![]() The picture is labelled A Spree at Melton Mowbray and subtitled Or doing the Thing in a Sporting-like manner. If that event really were the source of the phrase, why would anyone, or in this case everyone, wait fifty years before mentioning it?įurther evidence for the event, but against it being the phrase's origin, comes from a text below a picture of the revellers, dated 1837. The phrase isn't recorded in print until fifty years after the nefarious Earl's night out. ![]() Unfortunately, plausibility is as far as it goes. It is at least plausible that it came from there of course, but no more plausible than Stony Stratford, Buckinghamshire being the source of 'cock and bull story' or Ashbourne, Derbyshire being the source of 'local derby' (which they aren't). The town's claim to be the source of 'painting the town red' is more doubtful. Melton Mowbray is the origin of the well-known Melton Mowbray pork pie - which could hardly have originated anywhere else. ![]() He was notorious enough to have been suspected by some of being 'Spring Heeled Jack', the strange, semi-mythical figure of English folklore. His misdeeds include fighting, stealing, being 'invited to leave' Oxford University, breaking windows, upsetting (literally) apple-carts, fighting duels and, last but not least, painting the heels of a parson's horse with aniseed and hunting him with bloodhounds. In the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography he is described as 'reprobate and landowner'. To his friends he was Henry de la Poer Beresford to the public he was known as 'the Mad Marquis'. That event is well documented, and is certainly in the style of the Marquis, who was a notorious hooligan. It is said that year is when the Marquis of Waterford and a group of friends ran riot in the Leicestershire town of Melton Mowbray, painting the town's toll-bar and several buildings red. The one most often repeated, especially within the walls of the Melton Mowbray Tourist Office, is a tale dating from 1837. There are several suggestions as to the origin of the phrase. Refers to the practice of using a fragrant smoked fish to distract hunting or tracking dogs from the track they are meant to follow.The allusion is to the kind of unruly behaviour that results in much blood being spilt. "red herring." A false clue that leads investigators off the track.It was popularized in the 19th century by the writer Thomas Carlyle, who complained about "red-tapism". It became a term for excessive bureaucratic regulation. In England red tape was used by lawyers and government officials to identify important documents. "to catch someone red-handed" (in the act of doing something wrong, such with blood on his hands after a murder or poaching game)."to lay out the red carpet" or "give red-carpet treatment" (to treat someone royally as a very special person)."to print in red ink" (for emphasis or easy identification)."a red letter day" (a special or important event, from the medieval custom of printing the dates of saints' days and holy days in red ink.)."to be in the red" (to be losing money, from the accounting habit of writing deficits and losses in red ink)."like a red rag to a bull" (to cause someone to be enraged)."to raise a red flag" (to signal that something is problematic)."to paint the town red" (to have an enjoyable evening, usually with a generous amount of eating, drinking, dancing)."to have red ears / a red face" (to be embarrassed)."to see red" (to be angry or aggressive).Many idiomatic expressions exploit the various connotations of red: Expressing emotion
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