 | OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF STATIONERY, LITERATURE,
AND THE FINE ARTS. London Labour and the London Poor, volume 1 |  |
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 White-
friars-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 morn-
ing 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 chil-
dren, 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
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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 ma-
nuscript 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 some-
times 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 cus-
tomers 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. Reck-
oning that each pinner-up, thirty in number,
now takes 10s. 6d. weekly (7s. being the pro-
fit), we find that 780 guineas are yearly ex-
pended in London streets, in the ballads of the
pinners-up.
| OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF STATIONERY, LITERATURE,
AND THE FINE ARTS. London Labour and the London Poor, volume 1 | |