The tread-mill!! – or – stage-struck heroues, black-legs, & cadgers, steping it; to the tune of “Mill mill o”

Isaac Robert Cruikshank

The tread-mill!! – or – stage-struck heroues, black-legs, & cadgers, steping it; to the tune of “Mill mill o”

London , J Fairburn, Nov 1822

Etching

Original hand colouring

245 x 350 mm

£220

Prisoners on a treadmill, the wheel (normally boarded over) on the right, the steps receding slightly in perspective from right to left. A jailer, smartly dressed, and wearing top-hat and top-boots, lashes one of them with a scourge. A black prisoner at the extreme left of the steps looks at him over his shoulder with a grin, saying, Go it my Tulip.. The next man wears quasi-fashionable dress. The next is an actor, in (ragged) Spanish costume; he says: This is the worst Stage I ever acted on, O! that I cou’d exit O P or P S. The jailer says: I say do you call that Acting your part? If you dont move your pins quicker, I’ll soon make you. The next is a tattered coat-less dandy; he has slipped backwards on his knee, and says: I’ve Mill’d many a Charley  in my time, but now I’m Mill’d myself. The next is a card-sharper or ‘Greek’; on his coat are large diamonds and hearts, his head is formed of a (trefoil) club. From his pocket issues a label: Lost the Game by Tricks; he says: I have Trick’d many, but I am Trick’d at last, the Duce take them. A woman: This Roundabout is the Devil all over, I’d rather be in Shore Ditch. I’ll quit the Stage. A ragged quasi-fashionable, with pocket inside out, says: This d-n’d Tread-Mill is worse than Milling Doll in Bridewell. On the right a dejected group wait their turn. A man in fur cap and striped jersey sits with folded arms, saying, I wish the fellow who invented this Infernal Machine was made a Cubit shorter. Next him sits a woman of St. Giles’s type, wearing a soldier’s tunic; she says: I vishes I had never a Leg to valk with. A battered-looking rake standing behind them says: These Steps of Reform are the worst Steps I ever took. I wish I cou’d step out.