London Milk Woman

London Milk Woman. She is carrying milk in pewter pails suspended from wooden yoke, and hanging from the pails are vessels of various official capacities from measuring out the milk for her customers. These vessels would be tested and stamped by the authorities to ensure that short measure was not given. In the background is a pyramid of vessels decorated with ribbons and flowers being carried through the streets of London accompanied by a fiddler, an ancient custom revived for the first few days of May each year. From "Costume of Great Britain" by William Henry Pyne (London, 1808). Aquatint.