Sexual meaning of chimney and chimney sweeps in the 18th century?

[Judy Prince]

Robin Hamilton wrote about Farmer:  "He virtually never left the
house other than to attend meetings of the Spiritualist Society."

Robin, he didn't *have to* leave home much, then---presumably he had
spirit-visitors.

Best,

Judy

On 29 March 2010 14:53, Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton2 at BTINTERNET.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Sexual meaning of chimney and chimney sweeps in the 18th
>              century?
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> > Citation: [1720 date given for Masquerade Ballad] 1897, Merry Songs
> > and Ballads: Volume 3 edited by John S. Farmer, Privately Printed for
> > Subscribers Only.
>
> I'd be very bloody careful about any date that tracks back to an origin in
> John Stephen Farmer -- he was well ahead of his time, but he could
> sometimes
> be quite catastrophically wrong.  (As, for instance, dating a version of
> The
> Stalling of the Rogue to 1756 (?) from Bampfield Moore Carew when it's
> actually from Harrison Ainsworth in 1848.)
>
> Tracking the actual mechanism of quite why and how Farmer screwed up so
> royally is a joke and a half.  Part of it is that he was (as another person
> on this list said) pathologically sociopathic.  He virtually never left the
> house other than to attend meetings of the Spiritualist Society.
>
> Why there's a hole the size of a mountain in _Musa Pedestris_ around the
> years 1725-1800.  When the buggers were hymning Jack Sheppard on the
> Street,
> Farmer had cotton wool resolutely stuffed in his ears.
>
> Just a stray thot.
>
> Robin
>
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