“Oh, yes, I remember you, remember you well; particularly when I see you down at Brighton: when you treated me to that hot rum and water; when I was so wet and cold, at a little snug public-house in one of the streets that leads off the main street. I don’t remember the name on it now, but I remembers the rum and water well enough; it was good. You said it would be, and so it was, and no mistake. How old am I now? Why, 59. How long have I been at it? Why, hard on fifty years. I was about nine or ten year old—no, perhaps I might have been 12 year old, when I come to think on it. Yes, about 12 year old; my mother was a widow with five children, and there was a boy in our street as used to go out singing ballads, and his mother said to my mother, ‘Why don’t you let your boy (that’s me) go out and sing ballads like my boy.’ And I said I didn’t mind, and I did go out, and I’ve been at it ever since, so you see ’aint far short of 50 year. How many do I sell in a day? Well, not so many as I used to do, by a long way. I’ve sold me four and five quires a-day, but I don’t sell above two and three dozen a-day now. That’s all the difference you see, sir—dozens against quires. How do I live then? Why, you see I am so well-known in different parts of London, that lots and lots of people comes up to me like you always do—and say’s—‘How do you do, old fellow? I remember you when I was a boy, if it’s a man, and when I was a girl, if it’s a woman.’ And says, ‘So you are still selling songs, eh?’ Then they give me a few coppers; some more and some less than others, and says they don’t want the songs. Some days—very often—I’ve had more money given me than I’ve took for the ballads. Yes, I have travelled all over England—all over it I think—but the North’s the best—Manchester, Liverpool, and them towns; but down Bath and Cheltenham way I was nearly starved. I was coming back from that way, I now remember, when I met you, sir, at Brighton that time. I buy my ballads at various places—but now mostly over the water, because I live there now and it’s handiest. Mr. Such, the printer, in Union-street in the Borough. Oh! yes, some at Catnach’s—leastways, it ain’t Catnach’s now, it’s Fortey’s. Yes, I remember ‘old Jemmy Catnach’ very well; he wa’n’t a bad sort, as you say; leastways, I’ve heard so, but I never had anything of him. I always paid for what I had, and did not say much to him, or he to me—Writing the life of him, are you indeed? No, I can’t give you no more information about him than that, because, as I said before, I bought my goods as I wanted them, and paid for them, then away on my own account and business. Well he was a man something like you—a little wider across the shoulders, perhaps, but about such a man as you are. I did know a man as could have told you a lot about “old Jemmy,” but he’s dead now; he was one of his authors, that is, he wrote some of the street-ballads for him, and very good ones they used to be, that is, for selling. Want some old ‘Dying Speeches’ and ‘Cocks,’ do you indeed; well, I a’nt got any—I don’t often ‘work’ them things, although I have done so sometimes, but I mostly keep to the old game—‘Ballads on a Subject.’ You see them other things are no use only just for the day, then they are no use at all, so we don’t keep them—I’ve often given them away. You’d give sixpence a piece for them, would you, indeed, sir; then I wish I had some of them. Now I come to think of it I know a man that did have a lot of them bye him, and I know he’d be glad to sell them, I don’t know where he lives, but I sometimes see him. Oh! yes, a letter would find me. My name is Samuel Milnes, and I live at No. 81, Mint-street, that’s in the Borough; you know, Guagar is the name at the house. Thank you, sir, I’m much obliged. Good day sir.”

——“Well, governor, how does the cock fight?” “Oh, pretty well, sir; but it ain’t a cock; its a genuine thing—the days for cocks, sir, is gone bye—cheap newspapers ’as done ’em up.” “Yes; we see this is a Brighton Newspaper of to-day.” “Oh, yes, that’s right enough—but its all true.” “Yes; we are aware of that and knew the unfortunate man and his family; but you are vending them after the old manner.” “That’s all right enough, sir,—you see I can sell ’em better in that form than as a newspaper—its more natural like for me: I’ve sold between ten and twelve dozen of ’em to-day.” “Yes; but how about to-morrow?” “Oh, then it will be all bottled up—and I must look for a new game, I’m on my way to London, but a hearing of this suicide job, I thought I’d work ’em just to keep my hand in and make a bob or two.” To our question of “Have you got any real old ‘cocks’ by you?” He replied, “No, not a bit of a one; I’ve worked ’em for a good many years, but it ’aint much of a go now. Oh, yes, I know’d ‘old Jemmy Catnach’ fast enough—bought many hundreds, if not thousands of quires of him. Not old enough? Oh, ’aint I though; why I’m turned fifty, and I’ve been a ‘street-paper’ seller all my life. I knows Muster Fortey very well; him as is got the business now in the Dials—he knows his way about, let him alone for that; and he’s a rare good business man let me tell you, and always been good and fair to me; that I will say of him.”