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Caricature de Dando, 1830

Edward Dando (c. 1803 – 28 août 1832) est un voleur qui s'est fait connaitre en Bretagne par son habitude de manger à des auberges avant de révéler qu'il n'avait pas d'argent pour payer. Bien que la nourriture qu'il consommait était variée, il était particulièrement friand des huîtres : une fois, il en mangea 25 douzaines avec une miche et demie de pain et du beurre.

Dando commença ses vols vers 1826 et se fit arrêter pour la première fois au minimum dès 1828. Il partirait souvent d'une maison de correction pour partir la même journée sur une frénésie alimentaire, avant d'être immédiatement arrêté et jugé quelques jours plus tard, pour finalement être ré-emprisonné (il disait habituellement pour sa défense qu'il avait faim). Il fut placé au moins une fois en isolement pour avoir volé les rations de ses compagnons prisonniers. La majorité de ses méfaits ont eu lieu à Londres, bien qu'il ait également été à Kent (la plupart du temps dans les prisons du comté). Dans la prison de Coldbath Fields, Dando attrapa le choléra en août 1832, soit pendant la deuxième pandémie de choléra, et mourut.

Tout comme ses exploits, son décès fut rapporté de manière sympathique aussi bien dans la presse quotidienne Londonienne que dans les journaux locaux. Son nom est devenu un argot public pour désigner une personne qui mange de manière excessive et qui ne paie pas. Il fut également le sujet de nombreux poèmes et ballades. En 1837, William Makepeace Thackeray écrivit une courte histoire librement basée sur Dando. Edward Stirling adapta le récit au théâtre. Charles Dickens écrivit lui-aussi sur Dando et le compara à Alexandre le Grand.

Biographie

Peu d'information publiée sur les débuts de Dando existe, bien qu'il soit né vers 1803 et qu'il était chapelier (possiblement un apprenti). Plusieurs sources indiquent qu'il s’appelait Edward Dando et qu'il était britannique, bien que le British Museum le décrit comme étant « John Dando », un Américain.

Vers 1826, Dando commença sa pratique de manger et de boire chez des marchands de nourriture sans pouvoir payer le repas. Bien qu'étant au chômage, he refused poor relief, saying he despised it because he "had a soul above it". La première arrestation de Dando remonte au plus tôt vers 1828. Lors d'une comparution devant la cour en avril 1830, le policier qui avait procédé à son arrestation dit que Dando avait été arrêté il y a deux ans après avoir consommé deux chopes d'ale ainsi qu'un Rumsteck de presqu'un kilo avec des oignons puis de refuser de payer. Dando's April 1830 arrest followed his eating 1,75  ( ) of ham and beef, a half-quartern loaf, seven pats of butter and eleven cups of tea, coming to 3s 6d, at a time when the average weekly wage for agricultural labourers was between eight and twelve shillings. Le magistrat le condamna à passer un mois à la maison de correction à Brixton, Surrey, under the Vagrancy Act 1824. Dando passa du temps en isolement après avoir volé du pain et du boeuf de ses compagnons prisonniers some time in solitary confinement after he stole bread and beef from his fellow prisoners.

Le jour de sa libération, il entra dans un magasin d'huitres et mangea treize douzaines (156) huitres et un demi-pain, qu'il arrosa avec cinq bouteilles de bière de gingembre (la bière de gingembre, dit-il, parce qu'il était troublé par les flatulences). Il fut arrêté et comparut à la cour: il expliqua que « J'étais très affamé, votre Honneur, après avoir vécu si longtemps sur une indemnité de prison, et j'ai pensé que je me ferais plaisir avec une huitre ». Ce fut le deuxième magasin d'huitres qu'il visita ce jour-là: dans le premier magasin, il avait mangé des huitres et du pain pour la somme de 3 shillings et 5 deniers; le propriétaire le botta et le vira de son magasin. Le magistrat condamna Dando à trois mois de prison, et jugea que la condamnation devrait se dérouler à la maison de correction de Guildford à Surrey, qui était considérée comme ayant une discipline plus stricte que Dando avait vécue à Brixton. Il avertit Dando que s'il devait commettre son crime une autre fois, il ferait face à déportation pénale.

Oysters were widely available to rich and poor alike

Street food for the poor

Speciality oyster bars for the rich

Les huitres étaient bon marché dans les années 1820 et 1830 et représentaient une source de nourriture de base pour les pauvres, qui les achetèrent dans des étals d'huitres ou dans des tonneaux; in The Pickwick Papers (1836), Dickens has the character Sam Weller relate that "poverty and oysters always seem to go together", continuing "the poorer a place is, the greater call there seems to be for oysters. Look here, sir; here's a oyster-stall to every half-dozen houses. The street's lined vith 'em. Blessed if I don't think that ven a man's wery poor, he rushes out of his lodgings, and eats oysters in reg'lar desperation". In the 1830s oysters could be bought three for a penny, or for up to 1d each. By 1840 Londoners ate 496 million oysters a year—a quarter of which were sold by street sellers.

News of his next arrest and court appearance—in August 1830—was published in The Times, and followed Dando's eating eleven dozen (132) large oysters, a half-quartern loaf and eleven pats of butter without being able to pay for them. His defence was that he was hungry after his release from Guildford prison that day: "I am here at your mercy, and prepared to undergo the punishment that awaits me, whatever it may be; but I again say, that I must satisfy my hunger." The magistrate did not impose a sentence on Dando and allowed him to leave. Outside the court, the owner of the oyster stall threw a bucket of water over him and beat him with his cane, "to the infinite amusement of a throng of persons who had assembled outside and who were aware of the prisoner's transgressions", according to The Times.

Dando remained out of prison until mid-September, when he was again arrested for eating oysters without being able to pay for them. The owner of the oyster shop in Vigo Street, Piccadilly, was suspicious after Dando consumed two dozen oysters. She challenged him to pay and handed him over to the police when he admitted he could not. Dando was again sent to the house of correction.

In early December 1830, when he was back in court again, one newspaper took to calling him "Dando, the celebrated oyster eater". His notoriety was spreading and a number of oyster sellers and food shop owners were present in court to see him. They heard that the day after Dando had been released from prison, he visited a tavern in Knightsbridge and drank sixpennyworth of brandy with two Abernethy biscuits and a pint of ale. He did not pay and was caught after fleeing; he was taken to the police station where the landlord forgave him and he was released. He went to a coffee shop where he consumed bread, butter and coffee worth 1s 6d, then ran off without paying. He went to two further inns and drank two pints of ale and 0,25  ( ) of rum. The magistrate was not sympathetic to the innkeepers and said they should have asked for their money in advance of providing the food and drink; Dando was released.

In early January 1831 Dando was, once again, back in court for non-payment for food—on this occasion soup and bread—and once again he was imprisoned. He was back in court at the end of February, in front of the magistrate Sir Richard Birnie. Having drunk two glasses of brandy in one public house in Queen Street before being thrown out, Dando then moved on to a restaurant near Temple Bar. Here he ate two plates of beef à la mode and drank brandy before it was established that he could not pay. Before sentencing him to three months in prison, Birnie asked Dando about his clothing, which had been acquired at prisons; to laughter in the court, Dando explained

After his release Dando was arrested again and served a second three-month sentence in prison before being released in October 1831. The day after his release he went into an oyster shop in Long Lane, Bermondsey, and consumed nine dozen (108) oysters with a half-quartern loaf of bread and butter. As he had no residence, he was committed to three months' imprisonment at the Guildford House of Correction for vagrancy.

Dando was found drunk in January 1832, having been released from prison four days previously. Covered in mud and with a noticeable black eye, he was imprisoned for eight days for public drunkenness. At the end of March he was again arrested, but was discharged. Some attendees in court gave him money to tell them his story, and his tale was duly reported in the press. He explained that he had begun living by stealing food some six years previously and that, if he had a respectable suit of clothes, he could make his way in the world. He reported that he had received numerous beatings for his actions, including one a few weeks previously at Kennington that he would never forget. He received the punishment when he had eaten four dozen (48) oysters with bread and butter and could not pay; he was dragged through a pond, beaten with cudgels and kicked. He said that the tales of his extravagant eating had been exaggerated, and that the most he had ever eaten was 25 dozen (300) oysters with a loaf and a half of bread with butter; he thought he could probably eat 30 dozen (360) oysters. Dando thought he did no wrong in his actions which he justified by stating:

I refuse to starve in a land of plenty. Instead I shall follow the example of my betters by running into debt without having the means of paying. Why, some men live in great extravagance and luxury, owe money and cheat their creditors, yet they are still considered respectable and honest. I only run into debt to satisfy the craving of hunger, and yet I am despised and beaten.

Warning about Dando, published in The Kentish Gazette and reprinted in The Observer, June 1832.

In June 1832 Dando was arrested in Kent after drinking at an inn in the parish of Chilham without paying; he was imprisoned for vagrancy and a description of him appeared in the press, describing him as 5 pieds ( ), brown haired with a pale complexion and lame in the right foot.

After spending time in Kent, Dando returned to London and, after a few days, was arrested and sent to Coldbath Fields Prison. He caught cholera there—part of the long-running pandemic—and died on 28 August 1832. His burial was the following day; Dickens later imagined that Dando "was buried in the prison yard and they paved his grave with oyster shells". His death was noted in the press, including The Times and The Observer.

Cultural legacy

Dando's exploits were widely reported in the press, both in the London dailies and reprinted in local newspapers. The historian Christopher Impey describes much of the reportage as "romanticised"; the academic Ann Featherstone considers their tone "was half-amused, half amazed". Featherstone believes that Dando "had a sharp wit and an easy manner and provided reporters with striking quotes", which helped their sympathetic tone, and his "audacity [which] drew a sneaking admiration from the more cynical newspaper men".

Dando, as perceived by William Makepeace Thackeray in his short story "The Professor"

In addition to the newspaper eulogies and obituaries, mostly humorous or whimsical, after Dando's death there were numerous poems and street ballads written about him, as well as several caricatures. Among the ballads published was "The Life and Death of Dando, the Celebrated Oyster Glutton" by James Catnach:

In 1837 William Makepeace Thackeray wrote "The Professor", a short story loosely based on Dando. The short story was made into a play, Dandolo; or, the Last of the Doges, by Edward Stirling in 1838, which was staged at the City of London Theatre.

Dando's name entered common argot as a word to describe someone who ate at food outlets and did not pay. An 1878 dictionary of slang terms described a dando as "a great eater, who cheats at hotels, eating shops, oyster-cellars, etc, from a person of that name who lived many years ago, and who was an enormous oyster eater". In 1850 the Whig politician Thomas Macaulay wrote "I was a Dando at a pastry-cook's, and then at an oyster shop", although he did not clarify whether he just ate too much, or whether he also did not pay. In The Book of Aphorisms, published by the Scottish writer Robert Macnish in 1834, Dando appears four times, including in aphorism 405, which states that oysters should be eaten raw: "depend upon it, this is the approved method among gourmands. My lamented friend, the late Dando, never swallowed them in any other form".

The academic Rebecca Stott considers that Dando is often portrayed "as a kind of folk hero, transgressing the law to follow his singular passions. A kind of oyster-eating pirate living outside the law." During the period when Dando was active, Britain's social and economic situation was in upheaval, with high unemployment, poverty and civil unrest such as the Swing Riots. Featherstone, commenting on Dando's "I refuse to starve in a land of plenty" philosophy, sees the background of the Swing Riots as pertinent to his lifestyle. In 1867 the Tory-leaning literary journal Fraser's Magazine wrote that it thought Dando's philosophy had been plagiarised by the Tory politician Benjamin Disraeli. The journal quoted Dando: "oysters were meant for mankind; don't talk to me of a property acquired by paying for them. So long as oysters exist, I will eat as many as I see fit" and compared this philosophy unfavourably with what they perceived to be Disraeli's flexible political positions: "Principles were meant for mankind; don't talk to me of a property acquired by believing in them. So long as principles exist, I will use them in any way, profess them or disclaim them, as I see fit."

The writer Charles Dickens, a great lover of oysters and oyster culture, kept up a correspondence with the American educator Cornelius Felton. In a letter from July 1842, Dickens gave Felton a potted history of Dando, in which he wrote "he has been known to eat twenty dozen at one sitting, and would have eaten forty, if the truth had not flashed upon the shopkeeper". In his literary magazine All the Year Round Dickens compared Dando with Alexander the Great, writing that "Alexander wept at having no more worlds to conquer, and Dando died because there were no more oyster-shops to victimise." One anonymous writer chose to celebrate Dando with the lines:

See also

• Dine and dash
• Making off without payment, offence introduced by the Theft Act 1978
• Tarrare
• Charles Domery

Notes and references