We have AGREED with you and Professor Child on numerous occasions that the bulk of the material printed on broadsides is of no interest to folksong researchers except for comparison perhaps. But to taint the whole genre with this attitude is actually detrimental to our cause. To criticise the whole of any genre in this way is extremely prejudiced and contains not a vestige of scholarship. As I've stated on this thread before, by and large I agree with Child about the grubbing through mountains of this stuff. I've been there. The 'moderate jewel' reference I don't agree with, but that's a matter of opinion not fact. What is a fact is that Child included a whole section on ballads from broadsides mostly that show not a vestige of oral tradition.