Street cry

Street cries are the short lyrical calls of merchants hawking their products and services in open-air markets. The custom of hawking led many vendors to create custom melodic phrases to attract attention. At a time when a large proportion of the population were illiterate, the cries of street vendors and town criers provided the public with important messages, whether those messages were commercial in nature or of more general public interest. Street cries were part of the aural fabric of street life from antiquity.

Street cries have been known since antiquity and possibly earlier. During the 18th and 19th century, as urban populations grew, the street cries of major urban centers became one of the distinctive features of city life. Street cries became popular subject matter for poets, musicians, artists and writers of the period. Many of these street cries were catalogued in large collections or incorporated into larger musical works, preserving them from oblivion.