Lyr Add: March of Intellect in the Butchering Line

Subject: Lyr Add: MARCH OF INTELLECT IN THE BUTCHERING LINE
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 04 Oct 02 - 01:49 PM

I ran across a reference to this broadside while I was looking for something else. A professor Michael Hancher at the University of Minnesota wrote a scholarly paper about it. The paper apparently isn't available online, so I haven't read it, but I did look up the ballad in the Bodleian collection. It certainly is an unusual and interesting one, so I transcribed it here (with punctuation modernized):

MARCH OF INTELLECT IN THE BUTCHERING LINE

I keep a snug shop, which once had good stock in,
But the life I now lead is indeed very shocking.
I contrive to get money by industry's plan.
My family spend it as fast as they can.
My spouse, who once worked hard as any wife going,
By this "march of intellect's" so genteel growing.
She dresses herself and her daughters up fine,
Although I am but in the butchering line.

SPOKEN: She takes in all the penny publications, though she can't read without spelling the hard words; makes poetry though she can't write; and as to blank verse, makes nothing of it. She has made herself a HALRUM (?) out of an old daybook, and [she and] my eldest daughter write down all the good things they can scrape together. If she goes into the shop to serve a quarter of a pound of suet, or a pennyworth of lights, she puts on a pair of white kid gloves with the fingers cut off--and it's all through the march of intellect.

She dresses herself and her daughter so fine,
Although I am but in the butchering line.
I get back from market each morning at seven,
But wifey ne'er rises till after eleven.
She don't condescend to take breakfast with me,
For chocolate's much more genteeler than tea.
She quarrels with what she calls my vulgar manner.
She's just ordered home a brand new PYE-ANNER.
Of course, we must have a music master so fine,
Although I am but in the butchering line.

SPOKEN: We've got two daughters and one son: Georgiana Matilda learns the pye-anner and singing, 'cause she's got a voice! And there she is a-strumming and so-fa-ing from morning till night, enough to drive all the customers out of the shop. Isabella Caroline also learns French, and parlez-vous like a good 'un, only we don't understand her. The music master has hard cash for his notes, but the French teacher having got on the books "for sundry legs of mutton and beef," we takes it out in lessons. The girls are all their mother's delight, while the poor little boy, Augustus Henry William, runs about in ragged breeches, and his mother don't like him at all, because he never wipes his nose--and it's all through the march of intellect.

The mother and daughters together combine,
And cock up their noses at the butchering line.
In vain but (?) extravagant whims I do rate her.
'Tis useless, for if I go to the theathre (sic),
In dress circle boxes her feather she nods,
While I has a sixpen'worth along with the gods.
Though my daughters are young, they have each got a lover.
They wear long frilled trousers their ankles to cover.
Their mother's determined to make them both shine,
Although I'm but in the butchering line.

SPOKEN: She scolds me for drinking porter, 'cause it's so vulgar; drinks Cape Madiera at 18 pence the bottle. She puts all the washing out 'cause the steam's unwholesome. All her gowns are made like frocks, and all the girls' frocks like gowns. Milliners' bills come in by the dozen. She has a new front from the barber's every month 'cause the fashion changes so, and she wants me to order a pair of false whiskers for Sundays, and 'cause I won't, she never gives me a civil word. And what d'ye think? Though we've been married 18 years, she says it's very vulgar to sleep together, and so we have separate beds--and it's all through the march of intellect.

These genteel ideas may be very fine,
But she'll soon make an end of the butchering line.

[This is the only broadside ballad I have ever seen that includes spoken "patter." Its themes--class distinctions, social climbing, vanity, money, marital difficulty--all suggest it would appeal to modern audiences.

You can see the original here:
http://bodley24.bodley.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/acwwweng/ballads/image.pl?ref=Harding+B+17(189a)&id=07512.gif&seq=1&size=1 ]