2-889-286 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Frozen-Out Gardeners and Snow Clearers - drawn by Foster, 1850. Illustration to a story by Thomas Miller. During winter, gardeners couldn't work because of the cold weather. Some opportunists posed as 'Frozen-Out Gardeners' in order to play on the sympathies of townsfolk. Depiction of a '...miserable chorus, bawled out by half a dozen wretched-looking fellows, bearing bunches of frozen greens on the tops of long poles, as they paraded the streets of London in winter - looking as much like real gardeners as a St. Giles's sailor looks like a real British tar...you know at a glance this is the nearest approach they ever made to gardening'. From "Illustrated London News", 1850.