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Happy Day Newspaper sellers!

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In 1947, the government of Juan Domingo Peron declared November 7th as the day of the "Canillita" (newspaper seller) since this is the date of the death of the Uruguayan playwright, Florencio Sánchez.

Author of outstanding works in the rioplatense theater such as “M`hijo el dotor” and  “Barranca abajo” "his popular and deep language led him to write a one act play, centered on the character of a boy selling newspapers, making reference to so many children at the time with a packet of newspapers under their arm that crossed the streets shouting the news and climbed the trams trying to emphasize disasters and to sell more copies.

At the time of putting title to his work he drew his attention to the thin legs of those little sellers and titled the work "Canillita" (referring to the shins of the legs).

In a fragment of the same the protagonist says:

"I am a canillita / great character / with little money / and bad dress / A little Wicked / disaffected / comical and mischievous / big shameless.

I'm a liar / I'm perky / and even a storyteller /  byt not a bad boy ... "

Since then the term was in popular speech to refer to the newsboys.

Florencio Sanchez, was born in Montevideo in 1875 and died in Italy on November 7, 1910, at the age of 35.

The Canillitas and the Tango

The tangos took from their first lyrics the popular speech of Buenos Aires and of course the authors put in their characters many classic types of real life.

The newsboy, appears in many tangos of the twenties and thirties as a reflection of the Buenos Aires society and a complaint of unequal social classes:

  “Talán, talán, talán... the tram passes Tucumán: News, Nation, and Argentina, the kids shout from corner to corner. (lyrics of  "Talán, talán" by Alberto Vacarezza-1924)

"And I think in life, the suffering mothers, children wandering homeless and without food, selling La Prensa, winning two twines, how sad it all is, I mourn"

(Tango "Aquaforte" lyrics by Juan Carlos Marambio Catan - 1932)

Evaristo Carriego, wrote a tragic poem entitled "The death of the kid" in reference to a newspaper boy who died after falling from a tram " four newspaper boys of the tenement carried the handles of the coffin ".

This poem was set to music by the guitarists Juan Cisneros, Raymundo Cabarcos and Emilio Sola and recorded in 1935 as a tango-song by the singer Emilio Conte. Those verses said:

La muerte del pibe

El conventillo alegre cayó en la mala,
los inquilinos todos están de duelo;
ayer murió el pebete de la antesala,
que tenía unos ojitos color de cielo.

Según cuenta un vecino...
lo vio jugando...
Sin pensar, lo que al rato sucedería.
Nadie supo del pibe cómo, ni cuándo,
se coló del pescante de aquel tranvía.

La madre trabajaba fuerte a dos brazos,
no imaginó del pibe tanta imprudencia,
y sólo sintió el golpe del campanazo
que anunció la llegada de la asistencia.

Y pálida la cara como una muerta,
abandonó los trapos... y la canilla.
Y, cuando la pobre salió a la puerta,
al pibe lo llevaban en la camilla...

Se reúnen las chismosas y comentarios
siendo en una forma que se concibe.
Al rato llega un mozo que está en un diario
a informarse de cómo se murió el pibe.

Mientras tanto un vecino se fue hasta el puerto
para avisar al padre lo sucedido.
Y cuando le dijeron del pibe muerto,
el pobre no se daba por convencido.

Formó como un congreso toda la gente
para sacar al padre del tren funesto,
y así fue que juntaron escasamente,
gracias que el encargado les puso el resto.

Se velaron los restos del pobrecito,
al que todos querían porque era un pillo.
Llevaban las manijas del cajoncito
cuatro pibes diarieros del conventillo.

 From the early twentieth century there are some tangos that refer to these characters, "Canillita, canillita" by Tomas de Bassi and Antonio Botta and "Canillita" of Viergol and Perez Freire.

Let's remember that the great Francisco Canaro was newsboy in his childhood and with a few dollars and a can of crude oil he made a violin. Recalling those times he composed the instrumental  tango "Canillita" which he recorded with his orchestra and the quintet Pirincho.

The film deals in several films with the same topic, "Canillita" 1934, "The newsboy and the Lady" in 1938 and in the fifties the famous Toscanito plays a kid who sells newspapers hanging from the tram.

The word "Canillita" ceased to be exclusively for children, and after the fifties the neighborhood newsboys adopted that name as their own. Already in the eighties a television series renewed the character with the title "El Rafa" neighborhood paperboy played by Alberto De Mendoza, with codes, heart and courage.

But perhaps the tango that best describes this world is the one made up by Julio Gutierréz Martín and Horacio Quintana entitled "Para vos canilla", which was the first recording of Ruben Juarez in 1969.

Juaréz was then 22 years and to launch him this tango was made wich first appeared in a single record of the Odeon company. Such was its success that he immediately registerd his first long play titled “Mi bandoneon y yo”, where he also included the song:

Manos laburantes moldearon tu arcilla,
mezcla milagrera de obrero y gorrión,
quien nace diariero morirá canilla,
cumpliendo en la vida la ley del pregón.
Por vos Buenos Aires se despierta al alba,
colgando en el aire sus trapos al sol,
sos el estribillo de un tango que arranca
allá entre las teclas de una redacción.

Canilla
quien peina canas diarieras
habra soñao cien quimeras
que el tiempo hizo mil astillas.
Canilla
peleando la vida a gritos
ganaste un kilo de amigos
que tu parada acaudilla.
Hermano
la noche me dio un barato
pa’ estar en tu esquina un rato
y evocar con tu pregón
una leyenda sencilla
que cuenta como a un canilla
la vida lo hizo gorrión.

Pegao a tu silbo anda siempre un tango,
hijo de la noche que se arrima a vos,
porque sabe en fija que tiene un amigo
en todos los sitios donde hay un pregón.

Gabriel Soria

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