It is said that when the "Songs--_Three-yards-a-penny_"--first came out and had all the attractions of novelty, some men sold twelve or fourteen dozen on fine days during three or four of the summer months, so clearing between 6s. and 7s. a day, but on the average about 25s. per week profit. The "long songs," however, have been quite superseded by the "Monster" and "Giant Penny Song Books." Still there are a vast number of halfpenny ballad-sheets worked off, and in proportion to their size, far more than the "Monsters" or "Giants." One song book, entitled the "Little Warbler," was published in parts, and had an enormous sale. There are invariably but two songs printed on the half-penny ballad-sheets--generally a new and popular song with another older ditty, or a comic and sentimental, and "adorned" with two woodcuts. These are selected without any regard to their fitness to the subject, and in most cases have not the slightest reference to the ballad of which they form the headpiece. For instance:--"The Heart that can feel for another" is illustrated by a gaunt and savage-looking lion; "When I was first Breeched," by an engraving of a Highlander _sans culotte_; "The Poacher" comes under the cut of a youth with a large watering-pot, tending flowers; "Ben Block" is heralded by the rising sun; "The London Oyster Girl," by Sir Walter Raleigh; "The Sailors Grave," by the figure of Justice; "Alice Grey" comes under the very dilapidated figure of a sailor, or "Jolly Young Waterman;" "Bright Hours are in store for us yet" is _headed_ with a _tail-piece_ of an urn, on which is inscribed FINIS. (?) "Watercresses," with the portrait of a Silly Billy; "The Wild Boar Hunt," by two wolves chasing a deer; "The Dying Child to its Mother," by an Angel appearing to an old man; "Crazy Jane," by the Royal Arms of England; "Autumn Leaves lie strew'd around," by a ship in full sail; "Cherry Ripe," by Death's Head and Cross Bones; "Jack at the Windlass," falls under a Roadside Inn; while "William Tell" is presented to the British public in form and style of an old woman nursing an infant of a squally nature. Here are a few examples:-- [Illustration: The Smuggler King.] [Illustration: Let me like a Soldier fall.] [Illustration: Fair Phoebe and her Dark-Eyed Sailor.] [Illustration: My Pretty Jane.] [Illustration: The Thorn.] [Illustration: The Saucy Arethusa.] [Illustration: The Gipsy King.] [Illustration: Hearts of Oak.] [Illustration: Harry Bluff.] [Illustration: Death of Nelson.] [Illustration: John Anderson, my Jo.] [Illustration: Old English Gentleman.] [Illustration: The Bleeding Heart.] [Illustration: Wapping Old Stairs.] [Illustration: Poor Bessy was a Sailor's Bride.] [Illustration: Poor Mary Anne.] [Illustration: The Muleteer.] [Illustration: Tom Bowling.] [Illustration: Ye Banks an' Braes.] [Illustration: The Mistletoe Bough.] [Illustration: The Woodpecker.] [Illustration: The Soldier's Tear.] [Illustration: LONG-SONG SELLER.]