Volume 1 — OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF STATIONERY, LITERATURE, AND THE FINE ARTS. (continued 4)

Bury St. Edmund’s.—“Old Jack Something’s. He was a publican for forty years. But he broke, and I’ve heard him say that if he hadn’t been a player on the fiddle, he should have destroyed his-self. But his fiddle diverted him in his troubles. He has a real Cremona, and can’t he play it? He’s played at dances at the Duke of Norfolk’s. I’ve heard him give the tune he played on his wedding night, years and years back, before I was born. He’s a noble-looking fellow; the fac-simile of Louis Philippe. It’s a clean and comfortable, hard and honest place.” Twelve beds.

Mildenhall.—“A private house; I forget the landlord’s name. The magistrates is queer there, and so very little work can be done in my way. I’ve been there when I was the only lodger.” Seven beds.

Ely.—“The Tom and Jerry. Very queer. No back kitchen or convenience. A regular rough place. Often quarrelling there all night long. Any caper allowed among men and women. The landlord’s easy frightened.” Five beds.

St. Ives.—“Plume of Feathers. Passable.” Eleven beds.

St. Neot’s.—“Bell and Dicky, and very dicky too. Queer doings in the dos (sleeping) and everything. It’s an out-of-the-way place, or the town’s people might see to it, but they won’t take any notice unless some traveller complains, and they won’t complain. They’re a body of men, sir, that don’t like to run gaping to a beak. The landlord seems to care for nothing but money. He takes in all that offer. Three in a bed often; men, women, and children mixed together. It’s anything but a tidy place.” Thirteen beds.

Bedford.—The Cock. “Life in London, sir; I can’t describe it better. Life in Keate-street, Whitechapel.” Fifteen beds.

Irchester.—“I don’t mind the name. A most particular place. You must go to bed by nine, or be locked out. It’s hard and honest; clean and rough.” Six beds.

Wellingborough.—“A private house. Smith or Jones, I know, or some common name. Ducker, the soldier that was shot in the Park by Annette Meyers, lived there. I worked him there myself, and everybody bought. I did the gun-trick, sir, (had great success.) It’s an inferior lodging place. They’re in no ways particular, not they, who they admit or how they dos. At a fair-time, the goings on is anything but fair.” Ten beds.

Northampton.—“Mrs. Bull’s. Comfortable and decent. She takes in the Dispatch, to oblige her travellers. It’s a nice, quiet, Sunday house.” Twelve beds.

Market Harborough.—“There’s a good lady there gives away tracts and half-a-crown. A private house is the traveller’s house, and some new name. Middling accommodation.” Nine beds.

Lutterworth.—“A private house, and I’ll go there no more. Very queer. Not the least comfort or decency. They’re above their business, I think, and take in too many, and care nothing what the travellers do. Higgledy-piggledy together.” Ten beds.

Leicester.—“The Rookery. Rosemary-lane over again, sir, especially at Black Jack’s. He shakes up the beds with a pitchfork, and brings in straw if there’s more than can possibly be crammed into the beds. He’s a fighting man, and if you say a word, he wants to fight you.” Twelve beds.

Hinckley.—“The Tea-board. Comfortable.” Eight beds.

Nuneaton.—“The same style as Hinckley. A private house.” Eight beds.

Coventry.—“Deserves to be sent further. Bill Cooper’s. A dilapidated place, and no sleep, for there’s armies of bugs,—great black fellows. I call it the Sikh war there, and they’re called Sikhs there, or Sicks there, is the vermin; but I’m sick of all such places. They’re not particular there,—certainly not.” Twenty beds.

Birmingham.—“Mrs. Leach’s. Comfortable and decent, and a good creature. I know there’s plenty of houses in Birmingham bad enough,—London reduced, sir; but I can’t tell you about them from my own observation, ’cause I always go to Mrs. Leach’s.” Thirty beds.

Here, then, in the route most frequented by the pedestrian “travellers,” we find, taking merely the accommodation of one house in each place (and in some of the smaller towns there is but one), a supply of beds which may nightly accommodate, on an average, 489 inmates, reckoning at the rate of 12 sleepers to every 8 beds. At busy times, double the number will be admitted. And to these places resort the beggar, the robber, and the pickpocket; the street-patterer and the street-trader; the musician, the ballad-singer, and the street-performer; the diseased, the blind, the lame, and the half-idiot; the outcast girl and the hardened prostitute; young and old, and of all complexions and all countries.

Nor does the enumeration end here. To these places must often resort the wearied mechanic, travelling in search of employment, and even the broken-down gentleman, or scholar, whose means do not exceed 4d.

A curious history might be written of the frequenters of low lodging-houses. Dr. Johnson relates, that when Dean Swift was a young man, he paid a yearly visit from Sir William Temple’s seat, Moor Park, to his mother at Leicester. “He travelled on foot, unless some violence of weather drove him into a waggon; and at night he would go to a penny lodging, where he purchased clean sheets for sixpence. This practice Lord Orrery imputes to his (Swift’s) innate love of grossness and vulgarity; some may ascribe it to his desire of surveying human life through all its varieties.” Perhaps it might not be very difficult to trace, in Swift’s works, the influence upon his mind of his lodging-house experience.

The same author shows that his friend, Richard Savage, in the bitterness of his poverty, was also a lodger in these squalid dens: “He passed the night sometimes in mean houses, which are set open at night to any casual wanderer; sometimes in cellars, among the riot and filth of the meanest and most profligate of the rabble.” A Richard Savage of to-day might, under similar circumstances, have the same thing said of him, except that “cellars” might now be described as “ground-floors.”

The great, and sometimes the only, luxury of the frequenters of these country lodging-houses is tobacco. A man or women who cannot smoke, I was told, or was not “hardened” to tobacco smoke, in a low lodging-house was half-killed with coughing. Sometimes a couple of men, may be seen through the thick vapour of the tobacco-smoke, peering eagerly over soiled cards, as they play at all-fours. Sometimes there is an utter dulness and drowsiness in the common sitting-room, and hardly a word exchanged for many minutes. I was told by one man of experience in these domiciles, that he had not very unfrequently heard two men who were conversing together in a low tone, and probably agreeing upon some nefarious course, stop suddenly, when there was a pause in the general conversation, and look uneasily about them, as if apprehensive and jealous that they had been listened to. A “stranger” in the lodging-house is regarded with a minute and often a rude scrutiny, and often enough would not be admitted, were not the lodging-house keeper the party concerned, and he of course admits “all what pays.”

One patterer told me of two “inscriptions,” as he called them, which he had noticed in country lodgings he had lately visited; the first was:—

“He who smokes, thinks like a philosopher, and feels like a philanthropist.”—Bulwer’s Night and Morning.

The second was an intimation from the proprietor of the house, which, in spite of its halting explanation, is easily understood:—

“No sickness allowed, unles by order of the Mare.”

Of the Street Stationers, and the Street Card-sellers.

I have before mentioned that the street-stationers—the sellers of writing-paper, envelopes, pens, and of the other articles which constitute the stationery in the most general demand—were not to be confounded with the pattering “paper-workers.” They are, indeed, a different class altogether. The majority of them have been mechanics, or in the employ of tradesmen whose callings were not mechanical (as regards handicraft labour), but what is best described perhaps as commercial; or as selling but not producing; as in the instances of the large body of “warehousemen” in the different departments of trade. One street-stationer thought that of his entire body, not more than six had been gentlemen’s servants. He himself knew four who had been in such employment, and one only as a boy—but there might be six.

The card-sellers are, in the instances I shall show, more akin to the class of patterers, and I shall, therefore, give them first. The more especially as I can so preserve the consecutiveness of the accounts, in the present number, by presenting the reader with a sketch of the life of an informant, in whose revelations I find that many have taken a strong interest.

Of the Seller of the Penny Short-hand Cards.

All ladies and gentlemen who “take their walks abroad,” must have seen, and of course heard, a little man in humble attire engaged in selling at one penny each a small card, containing a few sentences of letter-press, and fifteen stenographic characters, with an example, by which, it is asserted, anybody and everybody may “learn to write short-hand in a few hours.” With the merits of the production, self-considered, this is not the place to meddle; suffice it that it is one of the many ways of getting a crust common to the great metropolis, and perhaps the most innocent of all the street performances. A kind of a street lecture is given by the vendor, in which the article is sufficiently puffed off. Of course this lecture is, so to speak, stereotyped, embracing the same ideas in nearly the same words over and over and over again. The exhibitor, however, pleads that the constant exchange and interchange of passengers, and his desire to give each and all a fair amount of information, makes the repetition admissible, and even necessary. It is here given as a specimen of the style of the educated “patterer.”

The Lecture.

“Here is an opportunity which has seldom if ever been offered to the public before, whereby any person of common intellect may learn to write short-hand in a few hours, without any aid from a teacher. The system is entirely my own. It contains no vowels, no arbitrary characters, no double consonants, and no terminations; it may therefore properly be called ‘stenography,’ an expression which conveys its own meaning; it is derived from two Greek words; stenos, short, and grapho, I write, or graphi, the verb to write, and embraces all that is necessary in fifteen characters. I know that a prejudice obtains to a great extent against anything and everything said or done in the street, but I have nothing to do with either the majority or minority of street pretenders. I am an educated man, and not a mere pretender, and if the justice or genuineness of a man’s pretensions would always lead him to success I had not been here to-day. But against the tide of human disappointment, the worthy and the undeserving are so equally compelled to struggle, and so equally liable to be overturned by competition, that till you can prove that wealth is the gauge of character, it may be difficult to determine the ability or morality of a man from his position. I was lately reading an account of the closing life of that leviathan in literature, Dr. Johnson, and an anecdote occurred, which I relate, conceiving that it applies to one of the points at issue—I mean the ridicule with which my little publication has sometimes been treated by passers-by, who have found it easier to speculate on the texture of my coat, than on the character of my language. The Doctor had a niece who had embraced the peculiarities of Quakerism; after he had scolded her some time, and in rather unmeasured terms, her mother interfered and said, ‘Doctor, don’t scold the girl—you’ll meet her in heaven, I hope.’—‘I hope not,’ said the Doctor, ‘for I hate to meet fools anywhere.’ I apply the same observation to persons who bandy about the expressions ‘gift of the gab,’ ‘catch-penny,’ &c., &c., which in my case it is somewhat easier to circulate than to support. At any rate they ought to be addressed to me and not to the atmosphere. The man who meets a foe to the face, gives him an equal chance of defence, and the sword openly suspended from the belt is a less dangerous, because a less cowardly weapon than the one which, like that of Harmodius, is concealed under the wreaths of a myrtle.

“If you imagine that professional disappointment is confined to people out of doors, you are very much mistaken. Look into some of the middle-class streets around where we are standing: you will find here and there, painted or engraved on a door, the words ‘Mr. So-and-so, surgeon.’ The man I am pre-supposing shall be qualified,—qualified in the technical sense of the expression, a Member of the College of Surgeons, a Licentiate of Apothecaries’ Hall, and a Graduate of some University. He may possess the talent of Galen or Hippocrates; or, to come to more recent date, of Sir Astley Cooper himself, but he never becomes popular, and dies unrewarded because unknown: before he dies, he may crawl out of his concealed starvation into such a thoroughfare as this, and see Professor Morrison, or Professor Holloway, or the Proprietor of Parr’s Life Pills, or some other quack, ride by in their carriage; wealth being brought them by the same waves that have wafted misfortune to himself; though that wealth has been procured by one undeviating system of Hypocrisy and Humbug, of Jesuitism and Pantomime, such as affords no parallel since the disgusting period of Oliverian ascendancy. Believe me, my friends, a man may form his plans for success with profound sagacity, and guard with caution against every approach to extravagance, but neither the boldness of enterprise nor the dexterity of stratagem will always secure the distinction they deserve. Else that policeman would have been an inspector!

“I have sometimes been told, that if I possessed the facilities I professedly exhibit, I might turn them to greater personal advantage: in coarse, unfettered, Saxon English, ‘That’s a LIE;’ for on the authority of a distinguished writer, there are 2,000 educated men in London and its suburbs, who rise every morning totally ignorant where to find a breakfast. Now I am not quite so bad as that, so that it appears I am an exception to the rule, and not the rule open to exception. However, it is beyond all controversy, that the best way to keep the fleas from biting you in bed is to ‘get out of bed;’ and by a parity of reasoning, the best way for you to sympathize with me for being on the street is to take me off, as an evidence of your sympathy. I remember that, some twenty years ago, a poor man of foreign name, but a native of this metropolis, made his appearance in Edinburgh, and advertised that he would lecture on mnemonics, or the art of memory. As he was poor, he had recourse to an humble lecture-room, situated up a dirty court. Its eligibility may be determined by the fact that sweeps’ concerts were held in it, at ½d. per head, and the handbill mostly ended with the memorable words: ‘N.B.—No gentleman admitted without shoes and stockings.’ At the close of his first lecture (the admission to which was 2d.), he was addressed by a scientific man, who gave him 5s.—(it will relieve the monotony of the present address if some of you follow his example)—and advised him to print and issue some cards about his design, which he did. I saw one of them—the ink on it scarcely dry—as he had got it back at the house of a physician, and on it was inscribed: ‘Old birds are not caught with chaff. From Dr. M——, an old bird.’ The suspicious doctor, however, was advised to hear the poor man’s twopenny lecture, and was able, at the end of it, to display a great feat of memory himself. What was the result? The poor man no longer lectured for 2d. But it is tedious to follow him through a series of years. He was gradually patronised throughout the kingdom, and a few months ago he was lecturing in the Hanover-square Rooms, with the Earl of Harrowby in the chair. Was he not as clever a man when he lectured in the sweeps’ concert-room? Yes; but he had not been brought under the shadow of a great name. Sometimes that ‘great name’ comes too late. You are familiar with the case of Chatterton. He had existed, rather than lived, three days on a penny loaf; then he committed suicide, and was charitably buried by strangers. Fifty years or more had elapsed, when people found out how clever he had been, and collected money for the erection of that monument which now stands to his memory by St. Mary Redcliff Church, in Bristol. Now, if you have any idea of doing that for me, please to collect some of it while I am alive!”

On occasions when the audience is not very liberal, the lecturer treats them to the following hint:

“When in my golden days—or at the least they were silver ones compared to these—I was in the habit of lecturing on scientific subjects, I always gave the introductory lecture free. I suppose this is an ‘introductory lecture,’ for it yields very little money at present. I have often thought, that if everybody a little richer than myself was half as conscientious, I should either make a rapid fortune, or have nobody to listen to me at all; for I never sanction long with my company anything I don’t believe. Now, if what I say is untrue or grossly improbable, it does not deserve the sanction of an audience; if otherwise, it must be meritorious, and deserve more efficient sanction. As to any insults I receive, Christianity has taught me to forgive, and philosophy to despise them.”

These very curious, and perhaps unique, specimens of street elocution are of course interrupted by the occasional sale of a card, and perhaps some conversation with the purchaser. The stenographic card-seller states that he has sometimes been advised to use more commonplace language. His reply is germane to the matter. He says that a street audience, like some other audiences, is best pleased with what they least understand, and that the way to appear sublime is to be incomprehensible. He can occasionally be a little sarcastic. A gentleman informed me that he passed him at Bagnigge-wells on one occasion, when he was interrupted by a “gent.” fearfully disfigured by the small-pox, who exclaimed: “It’s a complete humbug.” “No, sir,” retorted Mr. Shorthand, “but if any of the ladies present were to call you handsome, that would be a humbug.” On another occasion a man (half-drunk) had been annoying him some time, and getting tired of the joke, said: “Well—I see you are a learned man, you must pity my ignorance.” “No,” was the reply, “but I pity your father.” “Pity my father!—why?” was the response. “Because Solomon says, ‘He that begetteth a fool shall have sorrow of him.’” This little jeu-d’ésprit, I was told, brought forth loud acclamations from the crowd, and a crown-piece from a lady who had been some minutes a listener. These statements are among the most curious revelations of the history of the streets.

The short-hand card-seller, as has partly appeared in a report I gave of a meeting of street-folk, makes no secret of having been fined for obstructing a thoroughfare,—having been bound down to keep the peace, and several times imprisoned as a defaulter. He tells me that he once “got a month” in one of the metropolitan jails. It was the custom of the chaplain of the prison in which he was confined, to question the prisoners every Wednesday, from box to box (as they were arranged before him) on some portion of Holy Writ, and they were expected, if able, to answer. On one occasion, the subject being the Excellence of Prayer, the chaplain, remarked that, “even among the heathen, every author, without exception, had commended prayer to a real or supposed Deity.” The card-seller, I am told, cried out “Question!” “Who is that?” said the chaplain. The turnkey pointed out the questioner. “Yes,” said the card-seller, “you know what Seneca says:—‘Quid opus votis? Fac teipsum felicem, vel bonum.’ ‘What need of prayer? Make thou thyself happy and virtuous.’ Does that recommend prayer?” The prisoners laughed, and to prevent a mutiny, the classical querist was locked up, and the chaplain closed the proceedings. It is but justice, however, to the worthy minister to state, his querist came out of durance vile better clothed than he went in.

The stenographic trade, of which the informant in question is the sole pursuer, was commenced eleven years ago. At that time 300 cards were sold in a day; but the average is now 24, and about 50 on a Saturday night. The card-seller tells me that he is more frequently than ever interrupted by the police, and his health being delicate, wet days are “nuisances” to him. He makes an annual visit to the country, he tells me, to see his children, who have been provided for by some kind friends. About two years ago he was returning to London and passed through Oxford. He was “hard up,” he says, having left his coat for his previous night’s lodging. He attended prayers (without a coat) at St. Mary’s church, and when he came out, seated himself on the pavement beside the church, and wrote with chalk inside an oval border.

“Δε λίμῳ απολλυμαί.”—Lucam xv. 17. “I perish with hunger.”

He was not long unnoticed, he tells me, by the scholars; some of whom “rigged him out,” and he left Oxford with 6l. 10s. in his pocket.

“Let us indulge the hope,” writes one who knows this man well, “that whatever indiscretions may have brought a scholar, whom few behold without pity, or converse with without respect for his acquirements, to be a street-seller, nevertheless his last days will be his best days, and that, as his talents are beyond dispute and his habits strictly temperate, he may yet arise out of his degradation.”

Of this gentleman’s history I give an account derived from the only authentic source. It is, indeed, given in the words of the writer from whom it was received.—

“The Reverend Mr. Shorthand” [his real name is of no consequence—indeed, it would be contrary to the rule of this work to print it] “was born at Hackney, in the county of Middlesex, on Good Friday, the 15th of April, 1808; he is, therefore, now in his 43rd year. Of his parents very little is known; he was brought up by guardians, who were ‘well to do,’ and who gave him every indulgence and every good instruction and example. From the earliest dawn of reason he manifested a strong predilection for the church; and, before he was seven years old, he had preached to an infant audience, read prayers over a dead animal, and performed certain mimic ceremonies of the church among his schoolfellows.

“The directors of his youthful mind were strong Dissenters, of Antinomian sentiments. With half-a-dozen of the same denomination he went, before he was thirteen, to the anniversary meeting of the Countess of Huntingdon’s College, at Cheshunt. Here, with a congregation of about forty persons, composed of the students and a few strangers, he adjourned, while the parsons were dining at the ‘Green Dragon,’ to the College Chapel, where, with closed doors, the future proprietor of the ‘penny short-hand’ delivered his first public sermon.

“Before he was quite fourteen, the stenographic card-seller was apprenticed to a draper in or near Smithfield. In this position he remained only a few months, when the indentures were cancelled by mutual consent, and he resumed his studies, first at his native place, and afterwards as a day-scholar at the Charterhouse. He was now sixteen, and it was deemed high time for him to settle to some useful calling. He became a junior clerk in the office of a stock-broker, and afterwards amanuensis to an ‘M.D.,’ who encouraged his thirst for learning, and gave him much leisure and many opportunities for improvement. While in this position he obtained two small prizes in the state lottery, gave up his situation, and went to Cambridge with a private tutor. As economy was never any part of his character, he there ‘overrun the constable,’ and to prevent,” he says, “any constable running after him. He decamped in the middle of the night, and came to London by a waggon—all his property consisting of a Greek Prayer-book, Dodd’s Beauties of Shakspere, two shirts, and two half-crowns.

“At this crisis a famous and worthy clergyman, forty years resident in Hackney (the Rev. H. H. N——, lately deceased), had issued from the press certain strictures against the Society for promoting Christianity among the Jews. The short-hand seller wrote an appendix to this work, under the title of the ‘Church in Danger.’ He took it to Mr. N——, who praised the performance and submitted to the publication. The impression cast off was limited, and the result unprofitable. It had, however, one favourable issue; it led to the engagement of its author as private and travelling tutor to the children of the celebrated Lady S——, who, though (for adultery) separated from her husband, retained the exclusive custody of her offspring. While in this employment, my informant resided chiefly at Clifton, sometimes in Bath, and sometimes on her ladyship’s family property in Derbyshire. While here, he took deacon’s orders, and became a popular preacher. In whatever virtues he might be deficient, his charities, at least, were unbounded. This profusion ill suited a limited income, and a forgery was the first step to suspension, disgrace, and poverty. In 1832 he married; the union was not felicitous.

“About this date my informant relates, that under disguise and change of name he supplied the pulpits of several episcopal chapels in Scotland with that which was most acceptable to them. Unable to maintain a locus standi in connexion with the Protestant church, he made a virtue of necessity, and avowed himself a seceder. In this new disguise he travelled and lectured, proving to a demonstration (always pecuniary) that ‘the Church of England was the hospital of Incurables.’

“Always in delicate health, he found continued journeys inconvenient. The oversight of a home missionary station, comprising five or six villages, was advertised; the card-seller was the successful candidate, and for several years performed Divine service four times every Sunday, and opened and taught gratuitously a school for the children of the poor. Here report says he was much beloved, and here he ought to have remained; but with that restlessness of spirit which is so marked a characteristic of the class to which he now belongs, he thought otherwise, and removed to a similar sphere of labour near Edinburgh. The town, containing a population of 14,000, was visited to a dreadful extent with the pestilence of cholera. The future street-seller (to his honour be it spoken) was the only one among eight or ten ministers who was not afraid of the contagion. He visited many hundreds of cases, and, it is credibly asserted, added medicine, food, and nursing to his spiritual consolations. The people of his charge here embraced the Irving heresy; and unable, as he says, to determine the sense of ‘the unknown tongues,’ he resigned his charge, and returned to London in 1837. After living some time upon his money, books, and clothes, till all was expended, he tried his hand at the ‘begging-letter trade.’ About this time, the card-seller declares that a man, also from Scotland, and of similar history and personal appearance, lodged with him at a house in the Mint, and stole his coat, and with it his official and other papers. This person had been either a city missionary or scripture-reader, having been dismissed for intemperance. The street card-seller states that he has ‘suffered much persecution from the officers of the Mendicity Society, and in the opinion of the public, by the blending of his own history with that of the man who robbed him.’ Be the truth as it may, or let his past faults have been ever so glaring, still it furnishes no present reason why he should be maltreated in the streets, where he is now striving for an honest living. Since the card-seller’s return to London, he has been five times elected and re-elected to a temporary engagement in the Hebrew School, Goodman’s-fields; so that, at the worst, his habits of life cannot be very outrageous.”

The “pomps and vanities of this wicked world,” have, according to his own account, had very little share in the experience of the short-hand parson. He states, and there is no reason for doubting him, that he never witnessed any sort of public amusement in his life; that he was a hard student when he was young, and now keeps no company, living much in retirement. He “attends the ministry,” he says, “of the Rev. Robert Montgomery,—reads the daily lessons at home, and receives the communion twice every month at the early service in Westminster Abbey.”

Of course these are matters that appear utterly inconsistent with his present mode of life. One well-known peculiarity of this extraordinary character is his almost idolatrous love of children, to whom, if he “makes a good Saturday night,” he is very liberal on his way home. This is, perhaps, his “ruling passion” (an acquaintance of his, without knowing why I inquired, fully confirmed this account); and it displays itself sometimes in strong emotion, of which the following anecdote may be cited as an instance:—One of his favourite spots for stenographic demonstration is the corner of Playhouse-yard, close to the Times office. Directly opposite lives a tobacconist, who has a young family. One of his little girls used to stand and listen to him; to her he was so strongly attached, that when he heard of her death (he had missed her several weeks), he went home much affected, and did not return to the spot for many months. At the death of the notorious Dr. Dillon, the card-seller offered himself to the congregation as a successor; they, however, declined the overture.

Of the Sellers of Race Cards and Lists.

This trade is not carried on in town; but at the neighbouring races of Epsom and Ascot Heath, and, though less numerously, at Goodwood, it is pursued by persons concerned in the street paper-trade of London.

At Epsom I may state that the race-card sale is in the hands of two classes (the paper or sheet-lists sale being carried on by the same parties)—viz. those who confine themselves to “working” the races, and those who only resort to such work occasionally. The first-mentioned sellers usually live in the country, and the second in town.

Between these two classes, there is rather a strong distinction. The country race-card sellers are not unfrequently “sporting characters.” The town professor of the same calling feels little interest in the intrigues or great “events” of the turf. Of the country traders in this line some act also as touters, or touts; they are for the most part men, who having been in some capacity or other, connected with racing or with race-horses, and having fallen from their position or lost their employment, resort to the selling of race-cards as one means of a livelihood, and to touting, or watching race-horses, and reporting anything concerning them to those interested, as another means. These men, I am assured, usually “make a book” (a record and calculation of their bets) with grooms, or such gentlemen’s servants, as will bet with them, and sometimes one with another.

The most notorious of the race-card selling fraternity is known as Captain Carrot. He is the successor, I am told, of Gentleman Jerry, who was killed some time back at Goodwood races—having been run over. Gentleman Jerry’s attire, twenty-five to thirty-five years ago, was an exaggeration of what was then accounted a gentleman’s style. He wore a light snuff-coloured coat, a “washing” waistcoat of any colour, cloth trowsers, usually the same colour as his coat, and a white, or yellow white, and ample cravat of many folds. His successor wears a military uniform, always with a scarlet coat, Hessian boots, an old umbrella, and a tin eye-glass. Upon the card-sellers, however, who confine their traffic to races, I need not dwell, but proceed to the metropolitan dealers, who are often patterers when in town.

It is common, for the smarter traders in these cards to be liberal of titles, especially to those whom they address on the race-ground. “This is the sort of style, sir,” said one race-card-seller to me, “and it tells best with cockneys from their shops. ‘Ah, my lord. I hope your lordship’s well. I’ve backed your horse, my lord. He’ll win, he’ll win. Card, my lord, correct card, only 6d. I’ll drink your lordship’s health after the race.’ Perhaps this here ‘my lord,’ may be a barber, you see, sir, and never had so much as a donkey in his life, and he forks out a bob; but before he can get his change, there always is somebody or other to call for a man like me from a little distance, so I’m forced to run off and cry, ‘Coming, sir, coming. Coming, your honour, coming.’”

The mass of these sellers, however, content themselves with the customary cry: “Here’s Dorling’s Correct Card of the Races.—Names, weights, and colours of the Riders.—Length of Bridle, and Weight of Saddle.”

One intelligent man computed that there were 500 men, women, and children, of all descriptions of street-callings, who on a “Derby day” left London for Epsom. Another considered that there could not be fewer than 600, at the very lowest calculation. Of these, I am informed, the female sellers may number something short of a twentieth part from London, while a twelfth of the whole number of regular street-sellers attending the races vend at the races cards. But card-selling is often a cloak, for the females—and especially those connected with men who depend solely on the races—vend improper publications (usually at 6d.), making the sale of cards or lists a pretext for the more profitable traffic.

If a man sell from ten to twelve dozen cards on the “Derby day,” it is accounted “a good day;” and so is the sale of three-fourths of that quantity on the Oaks day. On the other, or “off” days, 2s. is an average earning.

The cards are all bought of Mr. Dorling, the printer, at 2s. 6d. a dozen. The price asked is always 6d. each. “But those fourpenny bits,” said one card-seller, “is the ruination of every thing. And now that they say that the threepenny bits is coming in more, things will be wuss and wuss.” The lists vary from 1s. 6d. to 2s. 6d. the dozen, according to size. To clear 10s. and 8s. on the two great days is accounted “tidy doings,” but that is earned only by those who devote themselves to the sale of the race-cards, which all the sellers do not. Some, for instance, are ballad-singers, who sell cards immediately before a race comes off, as at that time they could obtain no auditory for their melodies. Ascot-heath races, I am told, are rather better for the card seller than Epsom, as “there’s more of the nobs there,” and fewer of the London vendors of cards. The sale of the “lists” is less than one-eighth that of the sale of cards. They are chiefly “return lists,” (lists with a specification of the winning horses, &c., “returned” as they acquitted themselves in each race), and are sold in the evening, or immediately after the conclusion of the “sport,” for the purpose of being posted or kept.

Of the Street-sellers of Gelatine, of Engraved, and of Playing Cards, &c.

There are yet other cards, the sale of which is carried on in the streets; of these, the principal traffic has lately been in “gelatines” (gelatine cards). Those in the greatest demand contain representations of the Crystal Palace, the outlines of the structure being given in gold delineation on the deep purple, or mulberry, of the smooth and shining gelatine. These cards are sold in blank envelopes, for the convenience of posting them as a present to a country friend; or of keeping them unsoiled, if they are retained as a memento of a visit to so memorable a building. The principal sale was on Sunday mornings, in Hyde Park, and to the visitors who employed that day to enjoy the sight of the “palace.” But on the second Sunday in February—as well as my informant could recollect, for almost all street-traders will tell you, if not in the same words as one patterer used, that their recollections are “not worth an old button without a neck”—the police “put down” the sale of these Exhibition cards in the Park, as well as that of cakes, tarts, gingerbread, and such like dainties. This was a bitter disappointment to a host of street-sellers, who looked forward very sanguinely to the profits they might realise when the Great Exhibition was in full operation, and augured ill to their prospects from this interference. I am inclined to think, that, on this occasion, the feelings of animosity entertained by the card-sellers towards the police and the authorities were even bitterer than I have described as affecting the costermongers. “Why,” said one man, “when I couldn’t be let sell my cards, I thrust my hands into my empty pockets, and went among the crowd near the Great Exhibition place to look about me. There was plenty of ladies and gentlemen—say about 12 o’clock at Sunday noon, and as many as could be. Plenty of ’em had nice paper bags of biscuits, or cakes, that, of course, they’d bought that morning at a pastrycook’s, and they handed ’em to their party. Some had newspapers they was reading—about the Exhibition, I dare say—papers which was bought, and, perhaps, was printed that very blessed morning; but for us to offer to earn a crust then—oh, it’s agen the law. In course it is.”

Some of the gelatine cards contain pieces of poetry, in letters of gold, always—at least, I could hear of no exceptions—of a religious or sentimental character. “A Hymn,” “The Child’s Prayer,” “The Christian’s Hope,” “To Eliza,” “To a Daisy,” “Forget-me-not,” and “Affection’s Tribute,” were among the titles. Some contained love-verses, and might be used for valentines, and some a sentimental song.

In the open-air sale, nearly all the traffic was in “Exhibition gelatines,” and the great bulk were sold in and near Hyde Park. For two or three months, from as soon as the glass palace had been sufficiently elevated to command public attention, there were daily, I am told, 20 persons selling those cards in the Park and its vicinity, and more than twice that number on Sundays. One man told me, that, on one fine bright Sunday, the sale being principally in the morning, he had sold 10 dozen, with a profit of about 5s. On week-days three dozen was a good sale; but on wet, cold, or foggy days, none at all could be disposed of. If, therefore, we take as an average the sale of two dozen daily per each individual, and three dozen on a Sunday, we find that 180l. was expended on street-sold “gelatines.” The price to the retailer is 5d. a dozen, with 1d. or 1¼d. for a dozen of the larger-sized envelopes, so leaving the usual profit—cent. per cent. The sellers were not a distinct class, but in the hands of the less enterprising of the paper-workers or patterers. The “poetry gelatines” were hardly offered at all in the streets, except by a few women and children, with whom it was a pretext for begging.

Of “engraved” Exhibition-cards, sold under similar circumstances, there might be one third as many sold as of the gelatines, or an expenditure of 60l.

The sale of playing-cards is only for a brief interval. It is most brisk for a couple of weeks before Christmas, and is hardly ever attempted in any season but the winter. The price varies from 1d. to 6d., but very rarely 6d.; and seldom more than 3d. the pack. The sellers for the most part announce their wares as “New cards. New playing-cards. Two-pence a pack.” This subjects the sellers (the cards being unstamped) to a penalty of 10l., a matter of which the street-traders know and care nothing; but there is no penalty on the sale of second-hand cards. The best of the cards are generally sold by the street-sellers to the landlords of the public-houses and beer-shops where the customers are fond of a “hand at cribbage,” a “cut-in at whist,” or a “game at all fours,” or “all fives.” A man whose business led him to public-houses told me that for some years he had not observed any other games to be played there, but he had heard an old tailor say that in his youth, fifty years ago, “put” was a common public-house game. The cheaper cards are frequently imperfect packs. If there be the full number of fifty-two, some perhaps are duplicates, and others are consequently wanting. If there be an ace of spades, it is unaccompanied by those flourishes which in the duly stamped cards set off the announcement, “Duty, One Shilling;” and sometimes a blank card supplies its place. The smaller shop-keepers usually prefer to sell playing-cards with a piece cut off each corner, so as to give them the character of being second-hand; but the street-sellers prefer vending them without this precaution. The cards—which are made up from the waste and spoiled cards of the makers—are bought chiefly, by the retailers, at the “swag shops.”

Playing cards are more frequently sold with other articles—such as almanacks—than otherwise. From the information I obtained, it appears that if twenty dozen packs of cards are sold daily for fourteen days, it is about the quantity, but rather within it. The calculation was formed on the supposition that there might be twenty street playing-card sellers, each disposing (allowing for the hinderances of bad weather, &c.), of one dozen packs daily. Taking the average price at 3d. a pack, we find an outlay of 42l. The sale used to be far more considerable and at higher prices, and was “often a good spec. on a country round.”

There is still another description of cards sold in the streets of London; viz., conversation-cards; but the quantity disposed of is so trifling as to require no special comment.

Of the Street-sellers of Stationery.

Of this body of street-traders there are two descriptions, the itinerant and the “pitching.” There are some also who unite the two qualities, so far as that they move a short distance, perhaps 200 yards, along a thoroughfare, but preserve the same locality.

Of the itinerant again, there are some who, on an evening, and more especially a Saturday evening, take a stand in a street-market, and pursue their regular “rounds” the other portions of the day.

The itinerant trader carries a tray, and in no few cases, as respects the “display” of his wares, emulates the tradesman’s zeal in “dressing” a window temptingly. The tray most in use is painted, or mahogany, with “ledges,” front and sides; or, as one man described it, “an upright four-inch bordering, to keep things in their places.” The back of the tray, which rests against the bearer’s breast, is about twelve inches high. Narrow pink tapes are generally attached to the “ledges” and back, within which are “slipped” the articles for sale. At the bottom of the tray are often divisions, in which are deposited steel pens, wafers, wax, pencils, pen-holders, and, as one stationer expressed it, “packable things that you can’t get much show out of.” One man—who rather plumed himself on being a thorough master of his trade—said to me: “It’s a grand point to display, sir. Now, just take it in this way. Suppose you yourself, sir, lived in my round. Werry good. You hear me cry as I’m a approaching your door, and suppose you was a customer, you says to yourself: ‘Here’s Penny-a-quire,’ as I’m called oft enough. And I’ll soon be with you, and I gives a extra emphasis at a customer’s door. Werry good, you buys the note. As you buys the note, you gives a look over my tray, and then you says, ‘O, I want some steel pens, and is your ink good?’ and you buys some. But for the ‘display,’ you’d have sent to the shopkeeper’s, and I should have lost custom, ’cause it wouldn’t have struck you.”[12]

The articles more regularly sold by the street-sellers of stationery are note-paper, letter-paper, envelopes, steel pens, pen-holders, sealing-wax, wafers, black-lead pencils, ink in stonebottles, memorandum-books, almanacks, and valentines. Occasionally, they sell India-rubber, slate-pencil, slates, copy-books, story-books, and arithmetical tables.

The stationery is purchased, for the most part, in Budge-row and Drury-lane. The half-quires (sold at 1d.) contain, generally, 10 sheets; if the paper, however, be of superior quality, only 8 sheets. In the paper-warehouses it is known as “outsides,” with no more than 10 sheets to the half quire, the price varying from 4s. to 6s. the ream (20 quires); or, if bought by weight, from 7d. to 9d. the pound. The envelopes are sold (wholesale) at from 6d. to 15d. the dozen; the higher-priced being adhesive, and with impressions—now, generally, the Crystal Palace—on the place of the seal. The commoner are retailed in the streets at 12, and the better at 6, a penny. Sometimes “a job-lot,” soiled, is picked up by the street-stationer at 4d. a pound. The sealing, a pound, retailed at ½d. each; the “flat” wax, however, is 1s. 4d. per lb., containing from 30 to 36 sticks, retailed at 1d. each. Wafers (at the same swag shops) are 3d. or 4d. the lb.—in small boxes, 9d. the gross; ink, 4½d. or 5d. the dozen bottles; pencils, 7d. to 8s. a gross; and steel pens from 4d. (waste) to 3s. a gross; but the street-stationers do not go beyond 2s. the gross, which is for magnum bonums.

Of the Experience of a Street-stationer.

A middle-aged man gave me the following account. He had pursued the trade for upwards of twelve years. He was a stout, cosey-looking man, wearing a loose great coat. The back of his tray rested against his double-breasted waistcoat; the pattern of which had become rather indistinct, but which was buttoned tightly up to his chin, as if to atone for the looseness of his coat. The corner of his mouth, toward his left ear, was slightly drawn down, for he seemed in “crying” to pitch his voice (so that it could be heard a street off) out of the corner of his only partially-opened mouth.

“Middlin’, sir,” he said, “times is middlin’ with me; they might be better, but then they might be worse. I can manage to live. The times is changed since I was first in the business. There wasn’t no ’velops (envelopes) then, and no note-paper—least I had none; but I made as good or a better living than I do now; a better indeed. When the penny-postage came in—I don’t mind the year, but I hadn’t been long in the trade [it was in 1840]—I cried some of the postage ’velops. They was big, figured things at first, with elephants and such like on them, and I called them at prime cost, if anything was bought with ’em. The very first time, a p’liceman says, ‘You mustn’t sell them covers. What authority have you to do it?’ ‘Why, the authority to earn a dinner,’ says I; but it was no go. Another peeler came up and said I wasn’t to cry them again, or he’d have me up; and so that spec. came to nothing. I sell to ladies and gentlemen, and to servant-maids, and mechanics, and their wives; and indeed all sorts of people. Some fine ladies, that call me to the door on the sly, do behave very shabby. Why, there was one who wanted five half-quire of note for 4d., and I told her I couldn’t afford it, and so she said ‘that she knew the world, and never gave nobody the price they first asked.’ ‘If that’s it, ma’am,’ says I, ‘people that knows your plan can ’commodate you.’ That knowing card of a lady, sir, as she reckons herself, had as much velvet to her body—such a gown!—as would pay my tailor’s bills for twenty year. But I don’t employ a fashionable tailor, and can patch a bit myself, as I was two years with a saddler, and was set to work to make girths and horse-clothes. My master died, and all went wrong, and I had to turn out, without nobody to help me,—for I had no parents living; but I was a strong young fellow of sixteen. I first tried to sell a few pairs of girths, and a roller or two, to livery-stable keepers, and horse-dealers, and job-masters. But I was next to starving. They wouldn’t look at anything but what was good, and the stuff was too high, and the profit too little—for I couldn’t get regular prices, in course—and so I dropped it. There’s no men in the world so particular about good things as them as is about vallyable horses. I’ve often thought if rich people cared half as much about poor men’s togs, that was working for them for next to nothing, as they cared for their horse-clothes, it would be a better world. I was dead beat at last; but I went down to Epsom and sold a few race-cards. I’d borrowed 1s. of a groom to start with, and he wouldn’t take it back when I offered it; and that wax is bought at general warehouses, known as “swag shops” (of which I may speak hereafter), at 8d. the pound, there being 48 round sticks in, was my beginning in the paper trade. I felt queer at first, and queerer when I wasn’t among horses, as at the races like—but one get’s reconciled to anything, ’cept, to a man like me, a low lodging-house. A stable’s a palace to it. I got into stationery at last, and it’s respectable.

“I’ve heard people say how well they could read and write, and it was no good to them. It has been, and is still, a few pence to me; though I can only read and write middlin’. I write notes and letters for some as buys paper of me. Never anything in the beggin’ way—never. It wouldn’t do to have my name mixed up that way. I’ve often got extra pennies for directing and doing up valentines in nice ’velops. Why, I spoke to a servant girl the other day; she was at the door, and says I, ‘Any nice paper to-day, to answer your young man’s last love-letter, or to write home and ask your mother’s consent to your being wed next Monday week?’ That’s the way to get them to listen, sir. Well, I finds that she can’t write, and so I offers to do it for a pint of beer, and she to pay for paper of course. And then there was so many orders what to say. Her love to no end of aunts, and all sorts of messages and inquiries about all sorts of things; and when I’d heard enough to fill a long ‘letter’ sheet, she calls me back and says, ‘I’m afraid I’ve forgot uncle Thomas.’ I makes it all short enough in the letter, sir. ‘My kind love to all inquiring friends,’ takes in all uncle Thomases. I writes them when I gets a bite of dinner. Sometimes I posts them, if I’m paid beforehand; at other times I leaves them next time I pass the door. There’s no mystery made about it. If a missus says, ‘What’s that?’ I’ve heard a girl answer, ‘It’s a letter I’ve got written home, ma’am. I haven’t time myself,’ or ‘I’m no scholar, ma’am.’ But that’s only where I’m known. I don’t write one a week the year round—perhaps forty in a year. I charge 1d. or 2d., or if it’s a very poor body, and no gammon about it, nothing. Well, then, I think I never wrote a love-letter. Women does that one for another, I think, when the young housemaid can’t write as well as she can talk. I jokes some as I knows, and says I writes all sorts of letters but love-letters, and for them, you see, says I, there’s wanted the best gilt edge, and a fancy ’velop, and a Dictionary. I take more for note and ’velops than anything else, but far the most for note. Some has a sheet folded and fitted into a ’velop when they buys, as they can’t fit it so well theirselves, they say. Perhaps I make 2s. a day, take it all round. Some days I may make as much as 3s. 6d.; at others, ’specially wet days, not 1s. But I call mine a tidy round, and better than an average. I’ve only myself, and pays 1s. 9d. a week for a tidy room, with a few of my own sticks in it. I buy sometimes in Budge-row, and sometimes in Drury-lane. Very seldom at a swag-shop (Birmingham house), for I don’t like them.

“Well, now, I’ve heard, sir, that poor men like me ain’t to be allowed to sell anything in the Park at the Great Exhibition. How’s that, sir?” I told him I could give no information on the subject.

“It’s likely enough to be true,” he resumed; “the nobs’ll want to keep it all to theirselves. I read Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper on a Sunday, and what murders and robberies there is now! What will there be when the Great Exhibition opens! for rogues is worst in a crowd, and they say they’ll be plenty come to London from all arts and parts? Never mind; if I can see anything better to do in a fair way at the Exhibition, I’ll cut the streets.

“Perhaps my earnings is half from working people and half from private houses; that’s about it. But working people’s easiest satisfied.”

I have given this man’s statement more fully than I should have thought necessary, that I might include his account of letter-writing. The letter-writer was at one period a regular street-labourer in London, as he is now in some continental cities—Naples, for instance. The vocation in London seems in some respects to have fallen into the hands of the street-stationer, but the majority of letters written for the uneducated—and their letter-receiving or answering is seldom arduous—is done, I believe, by those who are rather vaguely but emphatically described as—“friends.”

I am told that there are 120 street-stationers in London, a small majority of whom may be itinerant, but chiefly on regular rounds. On a Sunday morning, in such places as the Brill, are two or three men, but not regularly, who sell stationery only on Sunday mornings. Taking the number, however, at 120, I am assured that their average profits may be taken at 8s. weekly, each stationer. On note-paper of the best sort the profit is sometimes only 50 per cent.; but, take the trade altogether, we may calculate it at cent. per cent. (on some things it is higher); and we find 4,992l. yearly expended in street-stationery.

Of a “reduced” Gentlewoman, and a “reduced” Tradesman, as Street-sellers of Stationery.

I now give two statements, which show the correctness of my conclusion, that among the street-stationers were persons of education who had known prosperity, and that, as a body, those engaged in this traffic were a better class than the mass of the “paper-workers.” They are also here cited as illustrations of the causes which lead, or rather force, many to a street-life.

The first statement is that of a lady:—

“My father,” she said, “was an officer in the army, and related to the Pitt family. After his death, I supported myself by teaching music. I was considered very talented by my profession, both as teacher and composer.” (I may here interrupt the course of the narrative by saying, that I myself have had printed proofs of the lady’s talents in this branch of art.) “A few years ago, a painful and protracted illness totally incapacitated me from following my profession; consequently, I became reduced to a state of great destitution. For many weeks I remained ill in my own room. I often, during that time, went without nourishment the day through. I might have gone into an hospital; but I seemed to dread it so much, that it was not until I was obliged to give up my room that I could make up my mind to enter one. From that time, until within a few weeks ago, I have been an inmate of several hospitals: the last I was in was the Convalescent Establishment at Carshalton. On my coming to London, I found I had to begin the world again, as it were, in a very different manner from what I have been accustomed to. I had no head to teach—I felt that; and what to do I hardly knew. I had no home to go to, and not a halfpenny in the world. I had heard of the House of Charity, in Soho-square, and, as a last resource, I went there; but before I could have courage to ask admittance, I got a woman to go in and see what kind of a place it was—I seemed to fear it so much. I met with great kindness there, however; and, by the time I left, the care they had bestowed upon me had restored my health in a measure, but not my head. The doctors advised me to get some out-door occupation (I am always better in the open air); but what to do I could not tell. At last I thought of a man I had known, who made fancy envelopes. I went to him, and asked him to allow me to go round to a few houses with some of them for a small per centage. This he did, and I am thereby enabled, by going along the streets and calling to offer my envelopes at any likely house, just to live. None but those who have suffered misfortunes (as I have done) can tell what my feelings were on first going to a house. I could not go where I was known; I had not the courage, nor would my pride allow me. My pupils had been very kind to me during my illnesses, but I could not bear the idea of going to them and offering articles for sale.

“My fear of strangers is so great, that I tremble when I knock at a door—lest I should meet with an angry word. How few have any idea of the privations and suffering that have been endured before a woman (brought up as I have been) can make up her mind to do as I am obliged to do! I am now endeavouring to raise a little money to take a room, and carry on the envelope business myself. I might do pretty well, I think; and, should my head get better, in time I might get pupils again. At present I could not teach, the distressed state of my mind would not allow me.”

The tradesman’s statement he forwarded to me in writing, supplying me with every facility to test the full accuracy of his assertions, which it is right I should add I have done, and found all as he has stated. I give the narrative in the writer’s words (and his narrative will be found at once diffuse and minute), as a faithful representation of a “reduced” tradesman’s struggles, thoughts, and endurances, before being forced into the streets.

“I was brought up,” he writes, “as a linen-draper. After filling every situation as an assistant, both in the wholesale and retail trade, I was for a considerable time in business. Endeavouring to save another from ruin, I advanced what little money I had at my banker’s, and became security for more, as I thought I saw my way clear. But a bond of judgment was hanging over the concern (kept back from me of course) and the result was, I lost my money to the amount of some hundreds, of which I have not recovered one pound. Since that time I have endeavoured to gain a livelihood as a town traveller. In 1845 I became very much afflicted, and the affliction continued the greater part of the following year. At one time I had fifteen wounds on my body, and lost the use of one side. I was reduced by bodily disease, as well as in circumstances. My wife went to reside among her friends, and I, after my being an out-patient of Bartholomew’s Hospital went, through necessity, to Clerkenwell Workhouse. When recovered, I made another effort to do something among my own trade, and thought, after about two years struggle, I should recover in a measure my position. In August, 1849, I sent for a few shillings-worth of light articles from London (being then at Dunstable). I received them, and sold one small part; I went the following day to the next village nearer London. There I had a violent attack of cholera; which once more defeated my plans, leaving me in a weak condition. I was obliged to seek the refuge of my parish, and consider that very harshly was I treated there. They refused me admittance, and suffered me to walk the street two days and two nights. I had no use of my arm, was ill and disabled. About half-past seven on the third night, a gentleman, hearing of my sufferings, knocked at the door of the Union, took me inside, and dared them to turn me thence. This was in October, 1849. I lay on my bed there for seven weeks nearly, and a few days before Christmas-day the parish authorities brought me before the Board, and turned me out, with one shilling and a loaf; one of the overseers telling me to go to h—ll and lodge anywhere. I came to lodge at the Model Lodging-house, King-street, Drury-lane; but being winter-time they were full. Although I remained there in the day-time, I was obliged to sleep at another house. At this domicile I saw how many ways there were of getting what the very poor call a living, and various suggestions were offered. I was promised a gift of 2s. 6d. by an individual, on a certain day,—but I had to live till that day, and many were the feelings of my mind, how to dispose of what might remain when I received the 2s. 6d., as I was getting a little into debt. My debt, when paid, left me but 9½d. out of the 2s. 6d. to trade with. I had never hawked an article before that time; to stand the streets was terrible to my mind, and how to invest this small sum sadly perplexed me. My mind was racked by painful anxiety; one moment almost desponding, the next finding so much sterling value in a shilling, that I saw in it the means of rescuing me from my degradation. Wanting many of the necessaries of life, but without suitable attire for my own business, and still weak from illness, I made up my mind. On the afternoon of 2nd Jan., 1850, I purchased 1½ doz. memorandum-books, of a stationer in Clerkenwell, telling him my capital. I obtained the name of ‘Ninepence-halfpenny Man’ (the amount of my funds) at that shop. The next step was how to dispose of my books. I thought I would go round to some coffee and public-houses, as I could not endure the streets. I went into one, where I was formerly known, and sold 6d.-worth, and meeting a person who was once in my own line, at another house, I sold 4d.-worth more. The first night, therefore, I got over well. The next day I did a little, but not so well, and I found out that what I had bought was not the most ready sale. My returns that week were only 6s. 2d. I found I must have something different,—one thing would not do alone; so I bought a few childrens’ books and almanacks—sometimes going to market with as little as seven farthings. I could not rise to anything better in the way of provisions during this time than dry toast and coffee, as the rent must be looked to. I struggled on, hoping against hope. At one period I had a cold and lost my voice. Two or three wet days in a week made me a bankrupt. If I denied myself food, to increase my stock, and went out for a day or two to some near town, I found that with small stock and small returns I could not stem the tide.

“I always avoided associating with any but those a step higher in the grades of society—a circumstance that caused me not to know as much of the market for my cheap articles as I might have done. I am perhaps looked on as rather an ‘aristocrat,’ as I am not often seen by the street-sellers at a stand. My difficulties have been of no ordinary kind; with a desire for more domestic comfort on one hand, and painful reflections from want of means on the other, I have had to call to my aid all the philosophy I possess, to keep up a proper equilibrium, lest I should be tempted to anything derogatory or dishonest. I am desirous of a rescue at the only time likely for it to take place with advantage, as I am persuaded when persons continue long in a course that endangers their principles and self-respect, a rescue becomes hopeless. Should I have one small start with health, the privations I have undergone show not what comforts I have had, or may hope ever to have, but what I can absolutely do without.

“I found the first six months not quite so good as the latter; March and May being the worst. The entire amount taken from January 2nd to December 31st, 1850; was 28l. 10s. 6d.,—an average of about 11s. 4d. a week; say for cost of goods, 6s. per week; and rent, 1s. 9d.; leaving me but 3s. 7d. clear for living. This statement, sir, is strictly correct, as I do not get cent. per cent. on all the articles; and yet with so small a return I am not behind one single crown at the present time.

“On New Year’s-day last, I had but the cost price of stock, 5d. Up to the evening of February 10th, I have taken 2l. 19s. 8d.;—having paid for goods, 1l. 10s. 5d.; and for rent, 8s. 10d.: leaving me 1l. 5d. to exist on during nearly six weeks. These facts and figures show that without a little assistance it is impossible to rise; and remember this circumstance—I have had to walk on some occasions as much as twenty or twenty-two miles in a day. If those whom Providence has blessed with a little more than their daily wants would only enter into the conflicts of the really reduced person, they would not be half so niggardly in spending a few coppers for useful articles, at least, nor overbearing in their requirements as to bulk, when purchasing of the itinerant vendor. Did they but reflect that they themselves might be in the same condition, or some of their families, I am sure they would not act as they do; for I would venture to say that the common street beggar does not get more rebuffs or insults than the educated and unfortunate reduced tradesmen in the streets. The past year has been one of the most trying and painful, yet I hope instructive, periods of my existence, and one of which I trust I never shall see the like again.”

I subjoin one of the testimonies that have been furnished me, as to this man’s character, and which I thought it right to procure before giving publicity to the above statement. It is from a minister of the gospel—the street-seller’s father-in-law.

“Dear Sir,—I received a letter, last Tuesday, from Mr. Knight, intimating that he was requested by you to inquire into the character of Mr. J—— N——.

“It is quite correct, as he states, that his wife is my daughter. They lived together several years in London; but eventually, notwithstanding her efforts in the millinery and straw-work, they became so reduced that their circumstances obliged my daughter to take her two little girls with herself to us.

“This was in the summer, 1845. His wife and children have been of no expense to Mr. N. since that time. The sole cause of their separation was poverty.

“I consider him to have acted imprudently in giving up his situation to depend on an income arising from a small capital; whereas, if he had kept in a place, whilst she attended to her own business, they might have gone on comfortably; and should they, through the interposition of a kind Providence, gain that position again, it is to be hoped that they will improve the circumstance to the honour and glory of the Author of all our mercies, and with gratitude to the instrument who may be raised up for their good.

“I am, dear Sir, respectfully yours, “J. D.”

Other vouchers have been received, and all equally satisfactory.

Of the Street-sale of Memorandum-books and Almanacks.

The memorandum-books in demand in street-sale are used for weekly “rent-books.” The payment of the rent is entered by the landlord, and the production of one of these books, showing a punctuality of payment, perhaps for years, is one of the best “references” that can be given by any one in search of a new lodging. They are bought also for the entrance of orders, and then of prices, in the trade at chandler’s shops, &c., where weekly or monthly accounts are run. All, or nearly all, the street-stationers sell memorandum-books, and in addition to them, there may be, I am told, sometimes as many as fifty poor persons, including women and children, who sell memorandum-books with other trifling articles, not necessarily stationery, but such things as stay-laces or tapes. If a man sell memorandum-books alone it is because his means limit him to that stock, he being at the time, what I heard a patterer describe as, a “dry-bread cove.” The price is 6d. the dozen, or 9d. (with almanacks pasted inside the cover), and thirteen to the dozen. No more than 1d. is obtained in the streets for any kind of memorandum-books.

The almanack street trade, I heard on all hands, had become a mere nothing. “What else can you expect, sir,” said one street-seller, “when so many publicans sends almanacks round, or gives them away to their customers; and when the slop tailors’ shilling-a-day men thrust one into people’s hands at every corner? It was a capital trade once, before the duty was taken off—capital! The duty wasn’t in our way so much as in the shop-keepers’, though they did a good deal on the sly in unstamped almanacks. Why of a night in October I’ve many a time cleared 5s. and more by selling in the public-houses almanacks at 2d. and 3d. a-piece (they cost me 1s. and 1s. 2d. a dozen at that time). Anything that way, when Government’s done, has a ready sale; people enjoys it; and I suppose no man, as ever was, thinks it much harm to do a tax-gatherer! I don’t pay the income-tax myself (laughing). One evening I sold, just by Blackfriars-bridge, fourteen dozen of diamond almanacks to fit into hat-crowns. I was liable, in course, and ran a risk. I sold them mostly at 1d. a piece, but sometimes got 6d. for three. I cleared between 6s. and 7s. The ‘diamonds’ cost me 8d. a dozen.”

The street almanack trade is now carried on by the same parties as I have specified in my account of memorandum-books. Those sold are of any cheap kind, costing wholesale 6d. a dozen, but they are almost always announced as “Moore’s.”

Of the Street-sale of Pocket-books and Diaries.

The sale of pocket-books, in the streets, is not, I was told by 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 1s., 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 1s. 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 4s. 6d. to 5s. 6d. the dozen, thirteen to the dozen. The “job lot” is sometimes bought for 2s. 6d. a dozen, and sold at 6d. each, or as low as 4d.,—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 5s. 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 15s. weekly for a month (half of it their profit), we find 60l. 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, 1s.; 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 2l. 10s. 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 15s., nor 12s. I don’t yarn, one week with another, not 10s., sometimes not 5s. 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 2s. 3d. 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, 2d. a dozen, sometimes 2½d., and sometimes less than 2d., according to the quality of the paper and the demand.

On fine summer days the wall song-sellers take 2s. 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 10s. 6d. weekly (7s. 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 1s. to go and sing; and afore we’d well finished the chorus, somebody sent us from the house another 1s. 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:

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—

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.”

“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.