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.”