SOMETHING TO SING ABOUT
ee [HE "singing commercial" did not originate with the radio. Street vendors in Europe often sang to sell their wares. The Irish song "Molly Malone" tells of the fishmonger who sang "Cockles and mussels, Alive, alive, oh." And you'll all know "Who'll Buy My Violets?" And the Cuban "Peanut Vendor." In New Orleans they sang to sell shrimps. In old Philadelphia the Pepper Pot soup man used to sing to sell his wares, And, in Australia, of course, "Rabbito," says C. W. Vorhees, in "Tempo." London, as the most famous of all homes of street cries, seems to have been overlooked. New Zealand has had its vocal street salesmen and still has in some parts. Take, for instance, the call "Whitebait" on a_ descending scale, and in Wellington particularly, "Otaki Violets." And it’s not really so many years. since the butcher, sitting up on his twowheeled cart, with the scales hanging from the roof, cried, without a hint of boasttulness, "A leg o’ mutton for a bob th’ day."
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 775, 28 May 1954, Page 25
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173SOMETHING TO SING ABOUT New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 775, 28 May 1954, Page 25
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