Sam Hall

[Wilson Gray]

FWIW, some sixty years ago, I read a science-fiction story entitled,
"Sam Hall," in the old pulp mag, Astounding Science-Fiiction, in which
it was the cover story, IIRC. Some verses of a "folksong," The Ballad
of Sam Hall, "inspired by the life of the title character," were
included:

Oh, my name it is Sam Hall
And I hate you one and all

It's taken till now for me to discover that the author didn't simply
make up the story out of whole cloth. However, again, IIRC, the "Sam
Hall" of the ASF story was a union organizer or one whose story was
used as inspiration by people who were union organizers, the story
being loosely based on the (science-fictionalized) history of the IWW.

I have no idea why this
hardly-at-all-interesting-to-me-at-the-time-or-even-now story has
remained lodged in the back of my thinking cap for over half a
century. But, "there it is," as we used to say, during the Viet-Nam
Era.

I'm absolutely (yeah, right) certain that I correctly recall the mag,
the title of the story, the couplet, and, perhaps, even the cover
artist: Van Dongen(??). The rest is only slightly better than a WAG.

-Wilson

On Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 7:42 AM, Robin Hamilton
<robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton2 at BTINTERNET.COM>
> Subject:      Sam Hall
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> For some time it has been accepted that the singer W.G.Ross was responsible
> for the transition of Jack Hall into the more familiar Sam Hall, when he
> sang a song about the Sam Hall in London in the 1840s.  V.A.C.Gatrell in
> _The Hanging Tree_ (1994), p. 142, further notes a link with the song
> intitled "Sam Hall, chimney sweep" found in the Madden Collection, II.687.
>
> The final three (of five) stanzas which Gatrell prints from the Madden
> version are identical to the final three (of six) stanzas of two copies of
> the ballad with that title found in the Bodleian Collection -- Harding B
> 15(274b) and Harding B 20(27).
>
> That this was the very ballad as Ross sang it in the Cider Cellars in London
> in the nineteenth century can be shown from a description to be found in
> _Punch_, Vol. 16 (Jan-June 1874), p. 114, in "Mr. Pips his Diary" (printed
> above a drawing of Ross singing the ballad in "A Cydere Cellare" [sic])
> which parallels stanza by stanza the text found in the Bodleian broadsheet:
>
> "
> But the thing that did most take me was to see and hear one Ross sing the
> song of SAM HALL the chimney-sweep, going to be hanged: for he had begrimed
> his muzzle to look unshaven, and in rusty black clothes, with a battered old
> Hat on his crown  and a short Pipe in his mouth, did sit upon the platform,
> leaning over the back of a chair: so making believe that he was on his way
> to Tyburn.  And then he did sing to a dismal Psalm-tune, how that his name
> was SAM HALL, and that he had been a great Thief, and was now about to pay
> for all with his life [1];  and thereupon he swore an Oath  [CHORUS line],
> which did make me somewhat shiver, though divers laughed at it.  Then, in so
> many verses, how his Master had badly taught him and now he must hang for it
> [2];  how he should ride up Holborn Hill in a Cart [3], and the Sheriffs
> ["sheriff" in the Bodleian text] would come and preach to him [4], and after
> them would come the Hangman [5]; and at the end of each verse he did repeat
> his Oath [CHORUS line].  Last of all, how that he should go up to the
> Gallows; and desired the Prayers of his Audience [6], and ended by cursing
> them all round [CHORUS line].
>
> "
>
> I've inserted numbers in square brackets indicating the particular stanza of
> Harding b15 (276b) to which the comment corresponds -- all and only the six
> stanzas appear in this description in _Punch_, which is remarkably specific
> and entirely consistent with the broadside text.
>
> http://books.google.com/books?id=WShXAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA114&dq=punch+%22sam+hall%22&ei=piTrSs6nK4PUM5SciPEL#v=onepage&q=punch%20%22sam%20hall%22&f=false
>
> Taking the link between Ross and "Sam Hall, chimney sweep" as a given allows
> certain observations to be made.  Whoever was responsible for the actual
> composition of this version of the ballad, whether Ross or A.N.Other, was
> familiar with both contemporary London Flash speech and the history of
> Tyburn.  The version introduces Flash terms not present before.  Newly
> introduced terms which suggest an intrusion of Flash would be "flam", "bam",
> and "tip", more probably "sheriff" as used in the ballad, and certainly the
> term "gallows" used as an intensifying adverb.
>
> Moreover, the ballad has Hall take the correct (for 1707) route from Newgate
> to Tyburn, pausing at St. Giles for a final drink.  Some versions,
> (re)written presumably after 1783 when hangings shifted from Tyburn to
> outside Newgate itself, rather absurdly have Hall going up a non-existent
> Tyburn Hill rather than the geographically correct Holborn Hill.
>
> Robin Hamilton
>
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>



--
-Wilson
–––
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"––a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
–Mark Twain

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