Broadside ballad entitled 'A Broken Down Saint I Shall Be'

Commentary

This ballad begins: 'I'm a man so religious & yet full of trouble, / This world I'm afraid is all squeak and bubble, / In trying to part the wheat from the stubble, / What a row they kick up to be sure'. It is to be sung to the tune of 'What Can the Matter Be?'

The ballad is about the Salvation Army, and the fact that, in England, Salvationists were generally perceived as a 'queer lot of beings'. It must have been published after 1878, when The Christian Mission adopted its new name.

An interesting woodcut depicting a man wearing a large hat with a white bow around his neck decorates the top of the sheet. He looks uncomfortable, standing praying with his toes turned inward. Two women in large bonnets, also praying, are in the background in front of a church, just visible in the distance. It is likely, because of their appearance and demeanour, that they are supposed to be Salvationists.

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