There is a passage quoted in Chambers's 'Book of Days,' which I should like to transfer with acknowledgments to this page. It is from the 'Connoisseur' of 1755, and discusses a Vauxhall slice of ham.
'When it was brought, our honest friend twirled the dish about three or four times, and surveyed it with a settled countenance. Then taking up a slice of the ham on the point of his fork, and dangling it to and fro, he asked the waiter how much there was of it. "A shilling's worth, sir," said the fellow. "Prithee," said the cit, "how much dost think it weighs?" "An ounce, sir." "Ah! a shilling an ounce, that is sixteen shillings per pound; a reasonable profit, truly! Let me see. Suppose, now, the whole ham weighs thirty pounds: at a shilling per ounce, that is sixteen shillings per pound. Why, your master makes exactly twenty-four pounds off of every ham; and if he buys them at the best hand, and salts and cures them himself, they don't stand him in ten shillings a-piece!"'
In 1841 there seemed every prospect that the gardens would be closed; they were not closed, however, but were reopened and continued open until the year 1859, where they were finally closed and the farewell night was celebrated.
The scare, however, in 1841 produced in June a brief history of Vauxhall Gardens in one of the morning papers--I do not know which--I have it as a cutting only. It is as follows: