Unlike many of his Georgian contemporaries, Joseph Addison had little love for famous Cries of London. He dreaded to imagine what tourists made of the medley of shrieks and shouts, and complained that the worst offenders were those whose wares were of least value; he was left wishing that voice-training was mandatory for them all.

In his complaint about the Cries of London, Addison told how one acquaintance had bribed one street-vendor into silence, only a dozen others to pester him for the same bribe. Addison also pleaded with news vendors to retail their news in a timely but not hasty fashion, keeping the city informed but not alarmed.

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