University of Virginia Library

Search this document 
  
  
  
  
  
  

expand section1. 
expand section2. 
expand section3. 
expand section4. 
expand section5. 
expand section6. 
expand section7. 
expand section8. 
expand section9. 
expand section10. 
collapse section11. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
expand section 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
expand section 
  
  
  
  
OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF SONGS.
  
  
  
  
  
  
expand section 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
expand section12. 
expand section13. 
expand section14. 
expand section15. 

  
  

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 con-
nection 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 num-
ber 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 re-
duced to struggle for a living as "pinners-up."