[Note 339.1] The front page of the song sheet in the British Library shows Dan in the corduroy and brass buttons typical of the 1890s [Ref: Simmonds, J. & Biddle, G; Eds. The Oxford Companion to British Railway History, p387] The price of 3 shillings suggests that the sheet was aimed at a middle-class customer.

[Note 339.2] "My wages are a pound a week which isn't very fat" :-Glynn Waites analysis of the wages paid to staff employed at a rural Midland Railway station suggest that a porter would have been fortunate to earn a pound a week and that 15 shillings (75 new pence) would have been more typical. [ref: Waite, G. Whatstandwell Station Staff 1871 - 1908. Crich Parish website http://www.crichparish.co.uk/webpages/whatstandwellstationstaff.html]

[Note 339.3] "And I should have no dinners but for my gratuities" :-Tips were essential extra income for porters. In 1888 in an article entitled "Life on a Guinea a Week" in The Nineteenth Century (1888), Four years after the publication of this song, the Average weekly expenditure of a family was £1-10 shillings and 6 pence ; so even if Dan earned the £1 per week he claimed, he had much less to spend than did the average family. [Ref: The Victorian Web http://www.victorianweb.org/economics/wages4.html]

[Note 339.4] "Gratuities are sixpences, and threepences and bobs" Coins to the value of three, six, or 12 old pence (one shilling) were in circulation until decimalisation of currency in 1971. The passenger could thus tip the porter using a single coin. Convenient for the passenger and easy to pass without it being noticed by more senior staff. Railway companies discouraged tipping. The vexed practice of tipping is the subject of bar590~Railway Porter