Modern Street Ballads

The majority were illustrated--if, indeed, any can be called illustrated--for the woodcuts were generally served out with a charming impartiality, and without the slightest regard to the subject of the ballad. What previous work these blocks had served, goodness only knows; they were probably bought at trade sales, and had illustrated books that were out of date or unsaleable. They vary from the sixteenth century to Bewick, some of whose works are occasionally met with; but, taking them as a whole, we must fain confess that art as applied to these Ballads was at its very lowest. Their literary merit is not great--but what can you expect for half-a-crown? which was the price which Jemmy Catnach,[1] of Monmouth Court, Seven Dials, used to pay for their production. Catnach issued a large number from his press (in fact, his successor, Fortey, advertised that he had four thousand different sorts for sale), and his name is used as a “household word” to designate this class of Ballad. But, in fact, he only enjoyed the largest share of the London trade, whilst the Provinces were practically independent--Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Newcastle, Preston, Hull, Sheffield, Durham, etc., had their own ballad-mongers, who wrote somewhat after the manner of the author of “The Bard of Seven Dials.”

“And it’s my plan, that some great man Dies with a broken head, Sirs, Vith a bewail, I does detail His death ’afore e’s dead, Sirs. And while his friends and foes contends, They all my papers buy, Sirs, Yes, vithout doubt, I sells ’em out, ’Cos there my talent lies, Sirs.”

The Ballad singers and vendors made money rapidly over any event which took the popular fancy--a good blood-curdling murder being very profitable; and the business required very little capital, even that being speedily turned over. Generally, the singers worked singlehanded, but sometimes two would join, and then the Ballad took an antiphonal form, which must have relieved them very much, and the crowd which gathered round them was the surest proof that their vocal efforts were appreciated.

They are gone--probably irrevocably--but a trace of the vendor still lingers amongst us. One or two still remain about Gray’s Inn Road, Farringdon Road, and other neighbourhoods; but I venture to say, as they drop out, they will find no successors. You may know them, if ever lucky enough to meet with one, by their canvas screens, on which are pinned the ballads--identical with that immortal screen of which Mr. Silas Wegg (in Dickens’s “Our Mutual Friend”) was the proud proprietor; but these modern Ballads are mostly reproductions of Music Hall songs, and have very little in common with those about which I write.

I have taken the first fifty years of this century, when this style of Street Ballad was at its best, but I have liberally interpreted my fifty years, by extending its margin by a year or two either way--thus, I include the Mutiny at the Nore in 1798, and the Great Exhibition of 1851, and I have selected those that bear on most, and elucidate best, the social manners and customs of that period.

RIGHT JOHN ASHTON.