A History of the Cries of London Part 22

[Ill.u.s.tration]

_Peas and Beans._

Four pence a peck, green Hastings!

And fine garden beans.

They are all morning gathered, Come hither, my queens.

Come buy my Windsor beans and peas, You'll see no more this year like these.

_Young Lambs to Sell._

Get ready your money and come to me, I sell a young lamb for a penny.

Young lambs to sell! young lambs to sell!

If I'd as much money as I could tell, I never would cry young lambs to sell.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Here's your toys for girls and boys, Only a penny, or a dirty phial or bottle.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

_Strawberries._

Rare ripe strawberries and Hautboys, sixpence a pottle.

Full to the bottom, hautboys.

Strawberries and Cream are charming and sweet, Mix them and try how delightful they eat.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

When Good Friday comes, The old woman runs With Hot Cross Buns, One a penny, Buns, Two a penny, Buns, All Hot Buns.

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 cla.s.ses. 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, ent.i.tled 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 ill.u.s.trated 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 s.h.i.+p in full sail; "Cherry Ripe," by Death's Head and Cross Bones; "Jack at the Windla.s.s," 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:--

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Smuggler King.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Let me like a Soldier fall.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fair Phoebe and her Dark-Eyed Sailor.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: My Pretty Jane.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Thorn.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Saucy Arethusa.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Gipsy King.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Hearts of Oak.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Harry Bluff.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Death of Nelson.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: John Anderson, my Jo.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Old English Gentleman.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Bleeding Heart.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Wapping Old Stairs.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Poor Bessy was a Sailor's Bride.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Poor Mary Anne.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Muleteer.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Tom Bowling.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Ye Banks an' Braes.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Mistletoe Bough.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Woodp.e.c.k.e.r.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Soldier's Tear.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: LONG-SONG SELLER.]

Besides the chanters, who sing the songs through the streets of every city, town, village, and hamlet in the kingdom--the long-song seller, who shouts their t.i.tles on the kerb-stone, and the countless small shop-keepers, who, in swag-shops, toy-shops, sweetstuff-shops, tobacco-shops, and general shops, keep them as part of their stock for the supply of the street boys and the servant girls--there is another important functionary engaged in their distribution, and who is well known to the inhabitants of large towns, this is the pinner-up, who takes his stand against a dead wall or a long range of iron railings, and first festooning it liberally with twine, pins up one or two hundred ballads for public perusal and selection. Time was when this was a thriving trade: and we are old enough to remember the day when a good half-mile of wall fluttered with the minstrelsy of war and love, under the guardians.h.i.+p of a scattered file of pinners-up, along the south side of Oxford-street alone.

Thirty years ago the dead walls gave place to shop fronts, and the pinners-up departed to their long homes. As they died out very few succeeded to their honours and emoluments. There is one pinner-up, seemingly the last of his race, who makes his display on the dead wall of the underground railway in Farringdon road.

Catnach, to the day of his retirement from business in 1838, when he purchased the freehold of a disused public-house, which had been known as the Lion Inn, together with the grounds attached at Dancer's-hill, South Mimms, near Barnet, in the county of Middles.e.x, worked and toiled in the office of the "Seven Dials Press," in which he had moved as the pivot, or directing mind, for upwards of a quarter of a century. He lived and died a bachelor. His only idea of all earthly happiness and mental enjoyment was now to get away in retirement to a convenient distance from his old place of business, so to give him an opportunity occasionally to go up to town and have a chat and a friendly gla.s.s with one or two old paper-workers and ballad-writers, and a few others connected with his peculiar trade who had shown any disposition to work when work was to be done. To them he was always willing to give or advance a few pence or s.h.i.+llings, in money or stock, and a gla.s.s.

Catnach left the whole of the business to Mrs. Anne Ryle, his sister, charged, nevertheless, to the amount of 1,000, payable at his death to the estate of his niece, Marion Martha Ryle. In the meanwhile Mr. James Paul acted as managing man for Mrs. Ryle. This Mr. Paul--of whom Jemmy was very fond, and rumour saith, had no great dislike to the mother--had grown from a boy to a man in the office of the "Catnach Press." He was, therefore, well acquainted with the customers, by whom he was much respected; and it was by his tact and judgment that the business was kept so well together. At Catnach's death he entered into partners.h.i.+p with Mrs.