London:
Printed by J. Catnach, 2, Monmouth
Court, 7 Dials.
“Songs! Songs! Songs! Beautiful songs! Love songs; Newest songs! Old songs! Popular songs! Songs, Three Yards a Penny!” was a “standing dish” at the “Catnach Press,” and Catnach was the Leo X. of street publishers. And it is said that he at one time kept a fiddler on the premises, and that he used to sit receiving ballad writers and singers, and judging of the merits of any production which was brought to him, by having it sung then and there to some popular air played by his own fiddler, and so that the ballad-singer should be enabled to start at once, not only with the new song, but also the tune to which it was adapted. His broad-sheets contain all sorts of songs and ballads, for he had a most catholic taste, and introduced the custom of taking from any writer, living or dead, whatever he fancied, and printing it side by side with the productions of his own clients.
Catnach, towards the latter part of his time and in his threefold capacity of publisher, compositor, and poet, was in the habit of taking things very easy, and always appeared to the best advantage when in his printing office, or stationed behind the ricketty counter which for a number of years had done good service in the shop in Monmouth-court. In this uncongenial atmosphere, where the rays of the sun are seldom or never seen, Jemmy was as happy as a prince. “A poor man’s home is his castle,” so says an old proverb, and no one could have been prouder than he was when despatching to almost every town in the kingdom some specialty in the printing department. He naturally had a bit of a taste for old ballads, music, and song writing; and in this respect he was far in advance of many of his contemporaries. To bring within the reach of all, the standard and popular works of the day, had been the ambition of the elder Catnach; whilst the son was, nolens volens, incessant in his endeavours in trying to promulgate and advance, not the beauty, elegance, and harmony which pervades many of our national airs and ballad poety, but very often the worst and vilest of each and every description—in other words, those most suitable for street sale. His stock of songs was very like his customers, diversified. There were all kinds, to suit all classes. Love, sentimental, and comic songs were so interwoven as to form a trio of no ordinary amount of novelty. At ordinary times, when the Awfuls and Sensationals were flat, Jemmy did a large stroke of business in this line.
It is said that when the “Songs—Three-yards-a-penny”—first came out and had all the attractions of novelty, some men sold twelve or fourteen dozen on fine days during three or four of the summer months, so clearing between 6s. and 7s. a day, but on the average about 25s. per week profit. The “long songs,” however, have been quite superseded by the “Monster” and “Giant Penny Song Books.” Still there are a vast number of halfpenny ballad-sheets worked off, and in proportion to their size, far more than the “Monsters” or “Giants.” One song book, entitled the “Little Warbler,” was published in parts, and had an enormous sale.
There are invariably but two songs printed on the half-penny ballad-sheets—generally a new and popular song with another older ditty, or a comic and sentimental, and “adorned” with two woodcuts. These are selected without any regard to their fitness to the subject, and in most cases have not the slightest reference to the ballad of which they form the headpiece. For instance:—“The Heart that can feel for another” is illustrated by a gaunt and savage-looking lion; “When I was first Breeched,” by an engraving of a Highlander sans culotte; “The Poacher” comes under the cut of a youth with a large watering-pot, tending flowers; “Ben Block” is heralded by the rising sun; “The London Oyster Girl,” by Sir Walter Raleigh; “The Sailors Grave,” by the figure of Justice; “Alice Grey” comes under the very dilapidated figure of a sailor, or “Jolly Young Waterman;” “Bright Hours are in store for us yet” is headed with a tail-piece of an urn, on which is inscribed Finis. (?) “Watercresses,” with the portrait of a Silly Billy; “The Wild Boar Hunt,” by two wolves chasing a deer; “The Dying Child to its Mother,” by an Angel appearing to an old man; “Crazy Jane,” by the Royal Arms of England; “Autumn Leaves lie strew’d around,” by a ship in full sail; “Cherry Ripe,” by Death’s Head and Cross Bones; “Jack at the Windlass,” falls under a Roadside Inn; while “William Tell” is presented to the British public in form and style of an old woman nursing an infant of a squally nature. Here are a few examples:—
The Smuggler King. | Let me like a Soldier fall. |
 Fair Phœbe and her Dark-Eyed Sailor. |  My Pretty Jane. | |
 The Thorn. |  The Saucy Arethusa. | |
 The Gipsy King. |  Hearts of Oak. |
 Harry Bluff. |  Death of Nelson. | |
 John Anderson, my Jo. | ||