kin hat.

These nautical melodists, with voices as rough as their beards, are to be
met with everywhere; but they abound chiefly in the neighbourhood of
Deptford and Wapping, where they seem to be indigenous. The most
remarkable specimen of the class may, however, frequently be seen about
the streets of London, carrying at his back a good-sized box, inside
which, and peeping through a sort of port-hole, a pretty little girl of
some two years old exhibits her chubby face. Surmounting the box, a small
model of a frigate, all a-tant and ship-shape, represents "Her Majesty's
(God bless her!) frigate Billy-ruffian, on board o' which the exhibitor
lost his blessed limb."

Jack--we call him Jack, though we confess we are uncertain of his
baptismal appellation--because Jack is a sort of generic name for his
species--Jack prides himself on his little Poll and his little ship, which
he boasts are the miniature counterparts of their lovely originals; and
with these at his back, trudges merrily along, trusting that Providence
will help him to "keep a southerly wind out of the bread-bag." Jack's
songs, as we have remarked, all relate to the sea--he is a complete
repository of Dibdin's choice old ballads and fok'sl chaunts. "Tom
Bowling," "Lovely Nan," "Poor Jack," and "Lash'd to the helm," with
"Cease, rude Boreas," and "Rule Britannia," are amongst his favourite
pieces, but the "Bay of Biscay" is his crack performance: with this he
always commenced, when he wanted to enlist the sympathies of his
auditors,--mingling with the song sundry interlocutory notes and comments.

Having chosen a quiet street, where the appearance of mothers with blessed
babbies in the windows prognosticates a plentiful descent of coppers, Jack
commences by pitching his voice uncommonly strong, and tossing Poll and
the Billy-ruffian from side to side, to give an idea of the way Neptune
sarves the navy,--strikes, as one may say, into deep water, by plunging
into "The Bay of Biscay," in the following manner;--

"Loud roar'd the dreadful thunder--
The rain a deluge pours--
Our sails were split asunder,
By lightning's vivid pow'rs.

"Do, young gentleman!--toss a copper to poor little Poll. Ah! bless you,
master!--may you never want a shot in your locker. Thank the gentleman,
Polly--

"The night both drear and dark,
Our poor desarted bark,
There she lay--(lay quiet, Poll!)

"There she lay--Noble lady in the window, look with pity on p