Familiar Songs - Their Authors & Histories

300 traditional songs, inc sheet music with full piano accompaniment & lyrics.

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	178	OUR FAMILIAR SONGS.
	POOR JACK. Oite of the first of a series of entertainments given by Charles Dibdin, was called "The Whim of the Moment." In it "Poor Jack" made his appearance, and instantly caught the public ear. The song brought its publishei twenty-five thousand dollars. Dibdin, of course, was its author and composer, and he says that he sold " Poor Jack" and eleven other songs for three hundred dollars. The foUowing incident is told of Dibdin's powers. He was in the hair-dresser's hands, preparing for his evening entertainment, when the lamp-lighter mounted his ladder in front, and sent a cheery flood of light upon the night. " A good notion for a song," he exclaimed, and, as soon as he could escape from the hair-dresser, he went to the piano and soon finished the words and music of "The Lamp-lighter," which he sang with fine effect upon the stage that very night. While the fame of "Poor Jack" forbids its exclusion, I can not admit it here without a protest against its pernicious moral doctrine.