linkboy n : (formerly) an attendant hired to carry a torch for pedestrians in dark streets [syn: linkman]

English

Etymology

link 'torch, light' + boy 'man, servant'

Noun

1. male servant or other attendant (regardless of age), employed to bear a torch or other light abroad at night

Synonyms

• linkman
• torchbearer

References

A link-boy (or link boy or linkboy) was a boy who carried a flaming torch to light the way for pedestrians at night. Linkboys were common in London in the days before street lighting. The linkboy's fee was commonly one farthing, and the torch was often made from burning pitch and tow.

Link-boys and their torches also accompanied litter vehicles, known as sedan chairs, that were operated by chairmen. Where possible, the link boys escorted the fares to the chairmen, the passengers then being delivered to the door of their lodgings. Another appears in the first plate of William Hogarth's The Four Stages of Cruelty, putting out the eyes of a bird using a hot needle heated in the flame of his torch. Hogarth depicts a linkboy again, in plate four, Night, of his Four Times of the Day, this time huddled beneath a bench blowing on his torch.

In the mid-eighteenth century Laurence Casey, who was known as Little Cazey, became the personal linkboy of the famous courtesan Betsy Careless, and gained something of reputation as a troublemaker. He features L. P. Boitard's' 1739 picture The Covent Garden Morning Frolick, leading the sedan chair containing Betsy and being ridden by Captain "Mad Jack" Montague (seafaring brother of the Earl of Sandwich). Henry Fielding considered Montague, his companion Captain Laroun, and Casey "the three most troublesome and difficult to manage of all my Bow Street visitors". Casey was eventually transported to America in 1750.

In thieves' cant, a linkboy was known as a "Glym Jack" ("glym" meant "light") or a "moon-curser" (as their services would not be required on a moonlit night). Employing a linkboy could be dangerous, as some would lead their clients to dark alleyways, where they could be beset by footpads

Linkboys make brief appearances in the novels of William Thackeray and Charles Dickens, and are mentioned by Samuel Pepys in his diary. An anonymous illustrated serial novel, The Link Boy of Old London, was published in the penny dreadful Boys Standard from 4 November 1882.

The expression "cannot hold a candle to" (meaning "inferior to") may derive from a comparison to an inadequate linkboy. During the Renaissance, a person walking home after dark typically would have hired a linkboy to light the way with a candle or torch - then considered a low status position. If you could not hold a candle to somebody, that means you were not even good enough to be his linkboy.

References

External links

• Reynolds' Cupid as a Link Boy
• Linkboy from The Georgian Index
• The Link Boy of Old London
• The Link Boys