of “those handsome men, the French Grenadiers.” Another recommended beer as a remedy for low spirits; and thus the harmony of the evening is continued till twelve, when the landlord closes his establishment, to the great grief of the few who have any money left, who would only be too happy to keep it up all night. Let me say a word about costermonger literature. I see Mr Manby Smith calculates its pecuniary value at twelve thousand a year. It is wretched in every way,—in composition, in printing, in cuts, and paper. These street ballads—we are all familiar with them—are sold by a class of men called patterers, and are written so as to bear on the events of the day. Thus, at the last Lord Mayor’s day we had a song sung in the streets, of which the following is a specimen:— “Away they go, the high and low, Such glorious sights was never seen, But still the London Lord Mayor’s show Is not as it has former been, When old Dick Whittington was mayor, And our forefathers had to go; They had not got no Peelers there, To guard great London’s Lord Mayor’s show.” And we are told in another verse that— “They will talk of Russia, France, and that, And mention how the money goes; Each man will eat a pect of sprats, That’s the fashion at the Lord Mayor’s show.” Some of these songs are indecent; almost all of them have a morbid sympathy with criminals. Thus Redpath in the following lines is almost made a martyr to his benevolence and Christian life. “Alas! I am convicted, there’s no one to blame— I suppose you all know Leopold Redpath is my name; I have one consolation, perhaps I’ve more, All the days of my life _I ne’er injured the poor_. “I procured for the widow and orphan their bread, The naked I clothed, and the hungry I fed; But still I am sentenced, you must understand, Because I had broken the laws of the land. “A last fond adieu to my heart-broken wife— Leopold Redpath, your husband, ’s transported for life; Providence will protect you, love, do not deplore, _Since your husband never hurted or injured the poor_. * * * * * “In London and Weybridge _I in splendour did dwell_, _By the rich and the poor was respected right well_; But now I’m going—oh! where shall I say— A convict from England, oh! far, far away. * * * * * “I might have lived happy with my virtuous wife, Kept away from temptation, from tumult and strife, I’d enough to support me in happiness to live, _But I wanted something more poor people for to give_.” The street singers of the metropolis seized upon the Waterloo Bridge Tragedy as a fit subject for the exercise of their dismal strains. The following is printed verbatim, from an illustrated broadsheet vended “at the charge of one halfpenny:”—