The feud existing between these rival publishers, who have been somewhat aptly designated as the Colburn and Bentley of the “paper” trade, never abated, but, on the contrary, increased in acrimony of temper until at last not being content to vilify each other by words alone, they resorted to printing off virulent lampoons, in which Catnach never failed to let the world know that “Old Mother Pitts” had been formerly a bumboat woman, while the Pitts announced that--
“All the boys and girls around, Who go out prigging rags and phials, Know Jemmy _Catsnatch_!!! well, Who lives in a back slum in the Dials.
He hangs out in Monmouth Court, And wears a pair of blue-black breeches, Where all the “Polly Cox’s crew” do resort To chop their swag for badly printed Dying Speeches.
At length Catnach, from the possession of greater capital and business acumen, became--to use the words of our informant--“the Cock of the Walk,” and continued so until his retirement in 1839. In his Will--or LAST DYING SPEECH--which was proved April, 1842, “James Catnach, of Dancer’s Hill, South Mimms, in the county of Middlesex, gentleman, formerly of Monmouth Court, Monmouth Street, printer, bequeathed the whole of his estate to his sister Anne, the widow of Joseph Ryle, in trust, nevertheless, for her daughter, Marion Martha Ryle, until she obtain the age of twenty-one years. Witnesses--William Kinsey, 13, Suffolk St., Pall Mall, Solr. Wm. Tookey his clerk.”
The present street literature printers and publishers are Mr. W. S. Fortey (Catnach’s successor), of 2 and 3, Monmouth Court, Seven Dials. Mr. Henry Disley (formerly with Catnach), 57, High Street, St. Giles’s. Mr. Taylor, Brick Lane, Spitalfields. Mr. H. Such, 177, Union Street, Borough; and Mr. J. Harkness, 121, Church Street, Preston. From whose “establishments” upwards of two thousand street “papers” and “ballads” have been obtained, and from which--together with a private collection--we have made our selection to form “THE CURIOSITIES OF STREET LITERATURE.”
With such a vast amount of “material” to hand, it is somewhat difficult to know which to retain and which to reject. It being utterly impossible to reproduce the whole, the only thing to be done is to make the attempt to divide them into something like classes. We have, therefore, arranged our collection into four divisions, which may be briefly alluded to as--I. “COCKS,” OR “CATCHPENNIES.” II. ROYALTY AND POLITICAL. III. BALLADS ON A SUBJECT. IV. DYING SPEECH AND CONFESSIONAL PAPERS.