London Labour and the London Poor, Volume 1
Mayhew, Henry
1861
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 -mentioned classes I have already described in their connection with the patterers; and I now proceed to deal with the last-mentioned. | |
The "pinners-up" (whom I have mentioned as an exceptional body), are the men and women —the women being nearly a 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 reduced to struggle for a living as "pinners-up." | |