PULL DEVIL, PULL BAKER.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sin—The origin of the proverbial phrase, "Pull baker, pull devil," is confidently stated by a correspondent of Notes and Queries (April 18th, 1857) to be as follows :-
A certain baker in London had supplied a Smyrna 'trading vessel with biscuit so bad as to occasion sickness and death among the crew. On her passage home she was becalmed under the Island of Stromboli, and while thus stationary the crew saw a figure like the wicked baker struggling hard with some- body on the verge of the burning crater, who was seen, on the smoke clearing away, to be the devil himself. The crew, whose sympathies were at first not with the baker, seeing him make so good a fight of it, cheered both com- batants impartially, shouting, "Pull baker, pull devil," as each in his turn made a bid for the mastery. The struggle, however, was too one-sided, and the baker was finally dragged over the edge of the crater to his doom.—I am, Sir, &c.,
H. J. AYLIFFE.
68 Marmora Road, Honor Oak, S.E.
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