1 note
Dave Waller (i) says "The first powered hopper I know of was RTC NO 1 built by Wigham Richardson at Walker in 1862...being the first she might be called the great hopper".
(i) webmaster of the Tyne Tugs website
In 1857/58 Indians rebelled against the British rule. It shocked the British population and would still have been clearly in the public memory when the Great Eastern was launched.
Donkey could be a reference to a hairstyle.
Jack Sheppard (hanged 1724) was a notorious London thief. He returned to the public consciousness, as the subject of a popular novel published in 1839 and reprinted in 1862 A jack Sheppard hat was presumably a tricorn of the style associated with highwaymen.
The implication is that Peggy is a pick-pocket. The heroine of Dark Girl Dressed in Blue {Roud 7022} published in 1862 is a petty criminal