several persons, “a living for a man now-a-days.” Ten years ago it was
common to find men in the streets offering “half-crown pocket-books”
for 1_s._, and holding them open so as to display the engravings, if
there were any. The street-sale usually takes place in March, when the
demand for the regular trade has ceased, and the publishers dispose
of their unsold stock. The trade is now, I am assured, only about a
tenth of its former extent. The reason assigned for the decline is that
almanacks, diaries, &c., are so cheap that people look upon 1_s._ as
an enormous price, even for a “beautiful morocco-bound pocket-book,”
as the street-seller proclaims it. The binding is roan (a dressed
sheep-skin, morocco being a goat-skin), an imitation of morocco, but
the pocket-books are really those which in the October preceding have
been published in the regular way of trade. Some few of them may,
however, have been damaged, and these are bought by the street-people
as a “job lot,” and at a lower price than that paid in the regular
way; which is 4_s._ 6_d._ to 5_s._ 6_d._ the dozen, thirteen to the
dozen. The “job lot” is sometimes bought for 2_s._ 6_d._ a dozen, and
sold at 6_d._ each, or as low as 4_d._,--for street-sellers generally
bewail their having often to come down to “fourpenny-bits, as they’re
going so much now.” One man told me that he was four days last March in
selling a dozen pocket-books, though the weather was not unfavourable,
and that his profit was 5_s._ Engravings of the “fashions,” the same
man told me, were “no go now.” Even poorly-dressed women (but they
might, he thought, be dress-makers) had said to him the last time he
displayed a pocket-book with fashions--“They’re out now.” The principal
supplier of pocket-books, &c., to the street-trade is in Bride-lane,
Fleet-street. Commercial diaries are bought and sold at the same rate
as pocket-books; but the sale becomes smaller and smaller.
I am informed that “last season” there were twenty men, all
street-traders in “paper,” or “anything that was up,” at other times,
selling pocket-books and diaries. For this trade Leicester-square is a
favourite place. Calculating, from the best data I can command, that
each of those men took 15_s._ weekly for a month (half of it their
profit), we find 60_l._ expended in the streets in this purchase.
Ledgers are sometimes sold in the streets; but as the sale is more a
hawker’s than a regular street-seller’s, an account of the traffic is
not required by my present subject.
OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF SONGS.
These street-traffickers, with the exception, in a great degree,
of the “pinners-up,” are of the same class, but their callings are
diversified. There are long song-sellers, ballad-sellers (who are
generally singers of the ballads they vend, unless they are old and
infirm, and offer ballads instead of begging), chaunters, pinners-up,
and song-book-sellers. The three first-mentioned classes I have already
described in their connection with the patterers; and I now proceed to
deal with the two last-mentioned.
The “pinners-up” (whom I have mentioned as an exceptional body), are
the men and women--the women being nearly a third of the number of
the men--who sell songs which they have “pinned” to a sort of screen
or large board, or have attached them, in any convenient way, to a
blank wall; and they differ from the other song-sellers, inasmuch as
that they are not at all connected with patter, and have generally been
mechanics, porters, or servants, and reduced to struggle for a living
as “pinners-up.”
OF THE STREET “PINNERS-UP,” OR WALL SONG-SELLERS.
These street-traders, when I gave an account of them in the winter
of 1849, were not 50 in number; they are now, I learn, about 30. One
informant counted 28, and thought “that was nearly all.”
I have, in my account of street song-sellers, described the character
of the class of pinners-up. Among the best-accustomed stands are
those in Tottenham-court Road, the New-road, the City-road, near the
Vinegar-works, the Westminster-road, and in Shoreditch, near the
Eastern Counties Station. One of the best-known of the pinners-up was a
stout old man, wearing a great-coat in all weathers, who “pinned-up” in
an alley leading from Whitefriars-street to the Temple, but now thrown
into an open street. He had old books for sale on a stall, in addition
to his ballads, and every morning was seen reading the newspaper,
borrowed from a neighbouring public-house which he “used,” for he was
a keen politician. “He would quarrel with any one,” said a person who
then resided in the neighbourhood--an account confirmed to me at the
public-house in question--“mostly about politics, or about the books
and songs he sold. Why, sir, I’ve talked to him many a time, and have
stood looking through his books; and if a person came up and said, ‘Oh,
Burn’s Works, 1_s._; I can’t understand him,’--then the old boy would
abuse him for a fool! Suppose another came and said--for I’ve noticed
it myself--‘Ah! Burns--he was a poet!’ that didn’t pass; for the jolly
old pinner-up would say, ‘Well, now, I don’t know about that.’ In my
opinion, he cared nothing about this side or that--this notion or the
opposite--but he liked to _shine_.” The old man was carried off in the
prevalence of the cholera in 1849.
At the period I have specified, I received the following statement from
a man who at that time pinned-up by Harewood-place, Oxford-street:
“I’m forty-nine,” he said. “I’ve no children, thank God, but a
daughter, who is eighteen, and no incumbrance to me, as she is in
a ‘house of business;’ and as she has been there nine years, her
character can’t be so very bad. (This was said proudly.) I worked
twenty-two years with a great sculptor as a marble polisher, and
besides that, I used to run errands for him, and was a sort of porter,
like, to him. I couldn’t get any work, because he hadn’t no more
marble-work to do; so nine or ten years back I went into this line. I
knew a man what done well in it--but times was better then--and that
put it into my head. It cost me 2_l._ 10_s._ to stock my stall, and
get all together comfortable; for I started with old books as well as
songs. I got leave to stand here from the landlord. I sell ballads and
manuscript music (beautifully done these music sheets were), which is
‘transposed’ (so he worded it) from the nigger songs. There’s two does
them for me. They’re transposed for the violin. One that does them is a
musicianer, who plays outside public-houses, but I think his daughter
does most of it. I sell my songs at a halfpenny,--and, when I can get
it, a penny a piece. Do I yarn a pound a week? Lor’ bless you, no. Nor
15_s._, nor 12_s._ I don’t yarn, one week with another, not 10_s._,
sometimes not 5_s._ My wife don’t yarn nothing. She used to go out
charing, but she can’t now. I am at my stall at nine in the morning,
and sometimes I have walked five or six miles to buy my ‘pubs’ before
that. I stop till ten at night oft enough. The wet days is the ruin of
us; and I think wet days increases. [This was said on a rainy day.]
Such a day as yesterday now I didn’t take, not make,--but I didn’t
_take_ what would pay for a pint of beer and a bit of bread and cheese.
My rent’s 2_s._ 3_d._ a week for one room, and I’ve got my own bits of
sticks there. I’ve always kept _them_, thank God!”
Generally, these dealers know little of the songs they sell,--taking
the printer’s word, when they purchase, as to “what was going.” The
most popular comic songs (among this class I heard the word _song_
used far more frequently than _ballad_) are not sold so abundantly as
others,--because, I was told, boys soon picked _them_ up by heart,
hearing them so often, and so did not buy them. Neither was there a
great demand for nigger songs, nor for “flash ditties,” but for such
productions as “A Life on the Ocean Wave,” “I’m Afloat,” “There’s a
Good Time coming,” “Farewell to the Mountain,” &c., &c. Three-fourths
of the customers of these traders, one man assured me, were boys.
Indecent songs are not sold by the pinners-up. One man of whom I made
inquiries was quite indignant that I should even think it necessary to
ask such questions. The “songs” cost the pinners-up, generally, 2_d._ a
dozen, sometimes 2-1/2_d._, and sometimes less than 2_d._, according to
the quality of the paper and the demand.
On fine summer days the wall song-sellers take 2_s._ on an average. On
short wintry days they may not take half so much, and on very foggy or
rainy days they take nothing at all. Their ballads are of the same sort
as those I proceed to describe under especial heads, and I have shown
what are of readiest sale. Reckoning that each pinner-up, thirty in
number, now takes 10_s._ 6_d._ weekly (7_s._ being the profit), we find
that 780 guineas are yearly expended in London streets, in the ballads
of the pinners-up.
OF ANCIENT AND MODERN STREET BALLAD MINSTRELSY.
Mr. Strutt, in his “Sports and Pastimes of the People of England,”
shows, as do other authorities, that in the reigns subsequent to the
Norman Conquest the minstrels “were permitted to perform in the rich
monasteries, and in the mansions of the nobility, which they frequently
visited in large parties, and especially upon occasions of festivity.
They entered the castles without the least ceremony, rarely waiting for
any previous invitation, and there exhibited their performances for the
entertainment of the lord of the mansion and his guests. They were, it
seems, admitted without any difficulty, and handsomely rewarded for the
exertion of their talents.”
Of the truth of this statement all contemporary history is a
corroboration. The minstrels then, indeed, constituted the theatre, the
opera, and the concert of the powerful and wealthy. They were decried
by some of the clergy of that day,--as are popular performers and opera
singers (occasionally) by some zealous divine in our own era. John of
Salisbury stigmatizes minstrels as “ministers of the devil.”
“The large gratuities collected by these artists,” the same antiquarian
writer further says, “not only occasioned great numbers to join their
fraternity, but also induced many idle and dissipated persons to assume
the characters of minstrels, to the disgrace of the profession. These
evils became at last so notorious, that in the reign of King Edward
II. it was thought necessary to restrain them by a public edict, which
sufficiently explains the nature of the grievance. It states, that many
indolent persons, under the colour of minstrelsy, intruded themselves
into the residences of the wealthy, where they had both meat and drink,
but were not contented without the addition of large gifts from the
householder. To restrain this abuse, the mandate ordains, that no
person should resort to the houses of prelates, earls, or barons, to
eat, or to drink, who was not a professed minstrel; nor more than three
or four minstrels of honour at most in one day (meaning, I presume, the
king’s minstrels of honour and those retained by the nobility), except
they came by invitation from the lord of the house.”
The themes of the minstrels were the triumphs, victories, pageants, and
great events of the day; commingled with the praise, or the satire of
individuals, as the humour of the patron or of the audience might be
gratified. It is stated that Longchamp, the favourite and justiciary of
Richard Cœur-de-lion, not only engaged poets to make songs and poems in
his, Bishop Longchamp’s, praise, but the best singers and minstrels to
sing them in the public streets!
In the ninth year of the reign of Edward IV. another royal edict was
issued, as little favourable to the minstrels as the one I have given
an account of; and those functionaries seem to have gradually fallen
in the estimation of the public, and to have been contemned by the
law, down to the statute of Elizabeth, already alluded to, subjecting
them to the same treatment as rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars. A
writer of the period (1589) represents the (still-styled) minstrels,
singing “ballads and small popular musickes” for the amusement of boys
and others “that passe by them in the streete.” It is related also that
their “matters were for the most part stories of old time; as the tale
of Sir Topas, Bevis of Southampton, Guy of Warwick, Adam Bell, and
Clymme of the Clough, and such other old romances or historical rhymes,
made purposely for the recreation of the common people at Christmas
dinners and bride ales, and in tavernes and alehouses, and such other
places of base resort.”
These “stories of old time” are now valuable as affording illustrations
of ancient manners, and have been not unfertile as subjects of
antiquarian annotation.
Under the head of the “Norman Minstrels,” Mr. Strutt says: “It is very
certain that the poet, the songster, and the musician were frequently
united in the same person.”
From this historical sketch it appears evident that the ballad-singer
and seller of to-day is the sole descendant, or remains, of the
minstrel of old, as regards the business of the streets; he is, indeed,
the minstrel having lost caste, and being driven to play cheap.
The themes of the minstrels were wars, and victories, and revolutions;
so of the modern man of street ballads. If the minstrel celebrated with
harp and voice the unhorsings, the broken bones, the deaths, the dust,
the blood, and all the glory and circumstance of a tournament,--so does
the ballad-seller, with voice and fiddle, glorify the feelings, the
broken bones, the blood, the deaths, and all the glory and circumstance
of a prize-fight. The minstrel did not scoff at the madness which
prevailed in the lists, nor does the ballad-singer at the brutality
which rules in the ring. The minstrels had their dirges for departed
greatness; the ballad-singer, like old Allan Bane, also “pours his
wailing o’er the dead”--for are there not the street “helegies” on
all departed greatness? In the bestowal of flattery or even of praise
the modern minstrel is far less liberal than was his prototype; but
the laudation was, in the good old times, very often “paid for” by
the person whom it was sung to honour. Were the same measure applied
to the ballad-singer and writer of to-day, there can be no reason
to doubt that it would be attended with the same result. In his
satire the modern has somewhat of an advantage over his predecessor.
The minstrel not rarely received a “largesse” to satirize some one
obnoxious to a rival, or to a disappointed man. The ballad-singer (or
chaunter, for these remarks apply with equal force to both of these
street-professionals), is seldom hired to abuse. I was told, indeed, by
a clever chaunter, that he had been sent lately by a strange gentleman
to sing a song--which he and his mate (a patterer) happened at the
time to be working--in front of a neighbouring house. The song was on
the rogueries of the turf; and the “move” had a doubly advantageous
effect. “One gentleman, you see, sir, gave us 1_s._ to go and sing; and
afore we’d well finished the chorus, somebody sent us from the house
another 1_s._ to go away agin.” I believe this to be the only way in
which the satire of a ballad-singer is rewarded, otherwise than by sale
to his usual class of customers in the streets or the public-houses.
The ancient professors of street minstrelsy unquestionably played and
sung satirical lays, depending for their remuneration on the liberality
of their out-of-door audience; so is it precisely with the modern. The
minstrel played both singly and with his fellows; the ballad-singer
“works” both alone (but not frequently) and with his “mates” or his
“school.”
In the persons of some of these modern street professionals, as I have
shown and shall further show, are united the functions of “the poet,
the songster, and the musician.” So in the days of yore. There are now
female ballad-singers; there were female minstrels, or glee-women. The
lays which were poured forth in our streets and taverns some centuries
back, either for the regalement of a miscellaneous assemblage, or of a
select few, were sometimes of an immoral tendency. Such, it cannot be
denied, is the case in our more enlightened days at our Cyder-cellars,
Coal-holes, Penny Gaffs, and such like places. Rarely, however, are
such things sung in the streets of London; but sometimes at country
fairs and races.
In one respect the analogy between the two ages of these promoters of
street enjoyment does not hold. The minstrel’s garb was distinctive.
It was not always the short laced tunic, tight trousers, and russet
boots, with a well plumed cap,--which seems to be the modern notion
of this tuneful itinerant. The king’s and queen’s minstrels wore the
royal livery, but so altered as to have removed from its appearance
what might seem menial. The minstrels of the great barons also assumed
their patron’s liveries, with the like qualification. A minstrel of
the highest class might wear “a fayre gowne of cloth of gold,” or a
military dress, or a “tawnie coat,” or a foreign costume, or even an
ecclesiastical garb,--and some of them went so far as to shave their
crowns, the better to resemble monks. Of course they were imitated
by their inferiors. The minstrel, then, wore a particular dress; the
ballad-singer of the present day wears no particular dress. During the
terrors of the reign of Henry VIII., and after the Reformation, a large
body of the minstrels fell into meanness of attire; and in that respect
the modern ballad-singer _is_ analogous.
It must be borne in mind that I have all along spoken--except when the
description is necessarily general--of the _street_, or itinerant,
minstrel of old. The highest professors of the art were poets and
composers, men often of genius, learning, and gravity, and were no
more to be ranked with the mass of those I have been describing than
is Alfred Tennyson with any Smithfield scribbler and bawler of some
Newgate “Copy of Verses.”
How long “Sir Topas” and the other “old stories” continued to be
sung in the streets there are no means of ascertaining. But there
are old songs, as I ascertained from an intelligent and experienced
street-singer, still occasionally heard in the open air, but more in
the country than the metropolis. Among those still heard, however
rarely, are the Earl of Dorset’s song, written on the night before a
naval engagement with the Dutch, in 1665:
“To all you ladies now on land,
We men at sea indite.”
I give the titles of the others, not chronologically, but as they
occurred to my informant’s recollection--“A Cobbler there was, and he
liv’d in a Stall”--Parnell’s song of “My Days have been so wond’rous
Free,” now sung in the streets to the tune of “Gramachree.” A song (of
which I could not procure a copy, but my informant had lately heard it
in the street) about the Cock-lane Ghost--
“Now ponder well, you parents dear
The words which I shall write;
A doleful story you shall hear,
In time brought forth to light.”
the “Children in the Wood” and “Chevy-chase.” Concerning this old
ditty one man said to me: “Yes, sir, I’ve sung it at odd times and
not long ago in the north of England, and I’ve been asked whereabouts
Chevy-chase lay, but I never learned.”
“In Scarlet towne, where I was borne,
There was a faire maid dwellin’,
Made every youth crye, Well-awaye!
Her name was Barbara Allen.”
“Barbara Allen’s selling yet,” I was told. “Gilderoy was a Bonnie Boy,”
is another song yet sung occasionally in the streets.
“The ballad,” says a writer on the subject, “may be considered as the
native species of poetry of this country. It very exactly answers the
idea formerly given of original poetry, being the rude uncultivated
verse in which the popular tale of the time was recorded. As our
ancestors partook of the fierce warlike character of the northern
nations, the subjects of their poetry would chiefly consist of the
martial exploits of their heroes, and the military events of national
history, deeply tinctured with that passion for the marvellous, and
that superstitious credulity, which always attend a state of ignorance
and barbarism. Many of the ancient ballads have been transmitted to the
present times, and in them the character of the nation displays itself
in striking colours.”
The “Ballads on a Subject,” of which I shall proceed to treat, are
certainly “the rude uncultivated verse in which the popular tale of the
times is recorded,” and what may be the character of the nation as
displayed in them I leave to the reader’s judgment.
OF STREET “BALLADS ON A SUBJECT.”
There is a class of ballads which may with perfect propriety be called
_street_ ballads, as they are written by street authors for street
singing (or chaunting) and street sale. These effusions, however,
are known in the trade by a title appropriate enough--“Ballads on a
Subject.” The most successful workers in this branch of the profession,
are the men I have already described among the patterers and chaunters.
The “Ballads on a Subject” are always on a political, criminal, or
exciting public event, or one that has interested the public, and
the celerity with which one of them is written, and then sung in the
streets, is in the spirit of “these railroad times.” After any great
event, “a ballad on the subject” is often enough written, printed, and
sung in the street, in little more than an hour. Such was the case
with a song “in honour,” it was announced, “of Lord John Russell’s
resignation.” Of course there is no time for either the correction
of the rhymes or of the press; but this is regarded as of little
consequence--while an early “start” with a new topic is of great
consequence, I am assured; “yes, indeed, both for the sake of meals and
rents.” If, however, the songs were ever so carefully revised, their
sale would not be greater.
I need not treat this branch of our street literature at any great
length, as specimens of the “Ballad on a Subject” will be found in many
of the preceding statements of paper-workers.
It will have struck the reader that all the street lays quoted as
popular have a sort of burthen or jingle at the end of each verse.
I was corrected, however, by a street chaunter for speaking of this
burthen as a jingle. “It’s a chorus, sir,” he said. “In a proper ballad
on a subject, there’s often twelve verses, none of them under eight
lines,--and there’s a four-line chorus to every verse; and, if it’s the
right sort, it’ll sell the ballad.” I was told, on all hands, that it
was not the words that ever “made a ballad, but the subject; and, more
than the subject,--the chorus; and, far more than either,--_the tune_!”
Indeed, many of the street-singers of ballads on a subject have as
supreme a contempt for words as can be felt by any modern composer. To
select a tune for a ballad, however, is a matter of deep deliberation.
To adapt the ballad to a tune too common or popular is injudicious; for
then, I was told, any one can sing it--boys and all. To select a more
elaborate and less-known air, however appropriate, may not be pleasing
to some of the members of “the school” of ballad-singers, who may feel
it to be beyond their vocal powers; neither may it be relished by the
critical in street song, whose approving criticism induces them to
purchase as well as to admire.
The license enjoyed by the court jesters, and, in some respects, by
the minstrels of old, is certainly enjoyed, undiminished, by the
street-writers and singers of ballads on a subject. They are unsparing
satirists, who, with a rare impartiality, lash all classes and all
creeds, as well as any individual. One man, upon whose information I
can rely, told me that, eleven years ago, he himself had “worked,” in
town and country, 23 different songs at the same period and on the same
subject--the marriage of the Queen. They all “sold,”--but the most
profitable was one “as sung by Prince Albert in character.” It was to
the air of the “Dusty Miller;” and “it was good,” said the ballad-man,
“because we could easily dress up to the character given to Albert.” I
quote a verse:
“Here I am in rags
From the land of All-dirt,
To marry England’s Queen,
And my name it is Prince Albert.”
“And what’s more, sir,” continued my informant, “not very long after
the honeymoon, the Duchess of L---- drove up in her carriage to the
printer’s, and bought all the songs in honour of Victoria’s wedding,
and gave a sovereign for them and wouldn’t take the change. It was a
duchess. Why I’m sure about it--though I can’t say whether it were the
Duchess of L---- or S----; for didn’t the printer, like an honest man,
when he’d stopped the price of the papers, hand over to us chaps the
balance to drink, and _didn’t_ we drink it! There can’t be a mistake
about _that_.”
Of street ballads on political subjects, or upon themes which have
interested the whole general public, I need not cite additional
instances. There are, however, other subjects, which, though not
regarded as of great interest by the whole body of the people are still
eventful among certain classes, and for them the street author and
ballad-singer cater.
I first give a specimen of a ballad on a Theatrical Subject. The best
I find, in a large collection of these street effusions, is entitled
“Jenny Lind and Poet B.” After describing how Mr. Bunn “flew to Sweden”
and engaged Miss Lind, the poet proceeds,--the tune being “Lucy Long”:
“After Jenny sign’d the paper,
She repented what she’d done,
And said she must have been a cake,
To be tempted by A. Bunn.
The English tongue she must decline,
It was such awkward stuff,
And we find ’mongst our darling dames,
That one tongue’s quite enough.
CHORUS.