I quote the following from the current issue of South Riding Folk Network News (no.36, Autumn 2002):

Hugh Waterhouse discovered the following in one of his extensive trawls through local newspapers:

Sheffield Independent, 7 Dec. 1833.

Ballad Singing in the Streets

To the Editor of the Sheffield Independent

Sir,

I would wish, through the medium of your interesting journal, to call the attention of our town officers to a very common nuisance, regularly practised at the top of Bower-spring, two or more evenings in the week. It is that of ballad-singing, a nuisance which abounds more especially on a Saturday night, when the thoughts of shopkeepers ought to be otherwise employed, than in being forced to hear lewd songs continually rung in their ears.
Trusting that this will speedily be put a stop to,

I remain, Sir, &c.

A. SHOPKEEPER

Sheffield, Dec. 5, 1833.

Although the name sounds positively sylvan, Bower Spring is a short street in what was in those days an industrial area of shops, public houses and small workshops, forges and so on. It's still there, but the ballad singers aren't.