Second-Hand Curtains, but only good ones, I was assured, can now be
sold in the streets, “because common new ones can be had so cheap.”
The “good second-hands,” however, sell readily. The most saleable of
all second-hand curtains are those of chintz, especially old-fashioned
chintz, now a scarce article; the next in demand are what were
described to me as “good check,” or the blue and white cotton curtains.
White dimity curtains, though now rarely seen in a street-market,
are not bought to be re-used as curtains--“there’s too much washing
about them for London”--but for petticoats, the covering of large
pincushions, dressing-table covers, &c., and for the last-mentioned
purpose they are bought by the householders of a small tenement who let
a “well-furnished” bed-room or two.
The uses to which the second-hand chintz or check curtains are put,
are often for “Waterloo” or “tent” beds. It is common for a single
woman, struggling to “get a decent roof over her head,” or for a
young couple wishing to improve their comforts in furniture, to do so
piece-meal. An old bedstead of a better sort may first be purchased,
and so on to the concluding “decency,” or, in the estimation of some
poor persons, “dignity” of curtains. These persons are customers of the
street-sellers--the second-hand curtains costing them from 8_d._ to
1_s._ 6_d._
Moreen curtains have also a good sale. They are bought by working
people (and by some of the dealers in second-hand furniture) for the
re-covering of sofas, which had become ragged, the deficiency of
stuffing being supplied with hay (which is likewise the “stuffing” of
the new sofas sold by the “linen-drapers,” or “slaughter-houses”).
Moreen curtains, too, are sometimes cut into pieces, for the
re-covering of old horse-hair chairs, for which purpose they are sold
at 3_d._ each piece.
Second-hand curtains are moreover cut into portions and sold for the
hanging of the testers of bedsteads, but almost entirely for what
the street-sellers call “half-teesters.” These are required for the
Waterloo bedsteads, “and if it’s a nice thing, sir,” said one woman,
“and perticler if it’s a chintz, and to be had for 6_d._, the women’ll
fight for it.”
The second-hand curtains, when sold entire, are from 6_d._ to 2_s._
6_d._ One man had lately sold a pair of “good moreens, only faded, but
dyeing’s cheap,” for 3_s._ 6_d._
OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF SECOND-HAND CARPETING, FLANNELS,
STOCKING-LEGS, &c., &c.
I class these second-hand wares together, as they are all of woollen
materials.
_Carpeting_ has a fair sale, and in the streets is vended not as an
entire floor or stair-carpet, but in pieces. The floor-carpet pieces
are from 2_d._ to 1_s._ each; the stair-carpet pieces are from 1_d._ to
4_d._ a yard. Hearth-rugs are very rarely offered to street-customers,
but when offered are sold from 4_d._ to 1_s._ Drugget is also sold in
the same way as the floor-carpeting, and sometimes for house-scouring
cloths.
“I’ve sold carpet, sir,” said a woman street-seller, who called all
descriptions--rugs and drugget too--by that title; “and I would like to
sell it regular, but my old man--he buys everything--says it can’t be
had regular. I’ve sold many things in the streets, but I’d rather sell
good second-hand in carpet or curtains, or fur in winter, than anything
else. They’re nicer people as buys them. It would be a good business
if it was regular. Ah! indeed, in my time, and before I was married,
I have sold different things in a different way; but I’d rather not
talk about that, and I make no complaints, for seeing what I see.
I’m not so badly off. Them as buys carpet are very particular--I’ve
known them take a tape out of their pockets and measure--but they’re
honourable customers. If they’re satisfied they buy, most of them does,
at once; without any of your ‘is that the lowest?’ as ladies asks in
shops, and that when they don’t think of buying, either. Carpet is
bought by working people, and they use it for hearth-rugs, and for
bed-sides, and such like. I know it by what I’ve heard them say when
I’ve been selling. One Monday evening, five or six years back, I took
10_s._ 9_d._ in carpet; there had been some great sales at old houses,
and a good quantity of carpet and curtains was sold in the streets.
Perhaps I cleared 3_s._ 6_d._ on that 10_s._ 9_d._ But to take 4_s._
or 5_s._ is good work now, and often not more than 3_d._ in the 1_s._
profit. Still, it’s a pretty good business, when you can get a stock of
second-hands of different kinds to keep you going constantly.”
What in the street-trade is known as “_Flannels_,” is for the most part
second-hand blankets, which having been worn as bed furniture, and then
very probably, or at the same time, used for ironing cloths, are found
in the street-markets, where they are purchased for flannel petticoats
for the children of the poor, or when not good enough for such use, for
house cloths, at 1_d._ each.
The trade in _stocking legs_ is considerable. In these legs the feet
have been cut off, further darning being impossible, and the fragment
of the stocking which is worth preserving is sold to the careful
housewives who attach to it a new foot. Sometimes for winter wear a
new cheap sock is attached to the footless hose. These legs sell from
1/2_d._ to 3_d._ the pair, but very rarely 3_d._, and only when of the
best quality, though the legs would not be saleable in the streets at
all, had they not been of a good manufacture originally. Men’s hose are
sold in this way more largely than women’s.
The trade in second-hand stockings is very considerable, but they form
a part of the second-hand apparel of street-commerce, and I shall
notice them under that head.
OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF SECOND-HAND BED-TICKING, SACKING, FRINGE, &c.
For _bed-ticking_ there is generally a ready sale, but I was told “not
near so ready as it was a dozen year or more back.” One reason which
I heard assigned for this was, that new ticking was made so cheap
(being a thin common cotton, for the lining of common carpet-bags,
portmanteaus, &c.), that poor persons scrupled to give any equivalent
price for good sound second-hand linen bed-ticking, “though,” said a
dealer, “it’ll still wear out half a dozen of their new slop rigs. I
should like a few of them there slop-masters, that’s making fortins out
of foolish or greedy folks, to have to live a few weeks in the streets
by this sort of second-hand trade; they’d hear what was thought of them
then by all sensible people, which aren’t so many as they should be by
a precious long sight.”
The ticking sold in the street is bought for the patching of beds and
for the making of pillows and bolsters, and for these purposes is
sold in pieces at from 2_d._ to 4_d._ as the most frequent price. One
woman who used to sell bed-ticking, but not lately, told me that she
knew poor women who cared nothing for such convenience themselves, buy
ticking to make pillows for their children.
_Second-hand Sacking_ is sold without much difficulty in the
street-markets, and usually in pieces at from 2_d._ to 6_d._ This
sacking has been part of a corn sack, or of the strong package in which
some kinds of goods are dispatched by sea or railway. It is bought for
the mending of bedstead sacking, and for the making of porters’ knots,
&c.
_Second-hand Fringe_ is still in fair demand, but though cheaper than
ever, does not, I am assured, “sell so well as when it was dearer.”
Many of my readers will have remarked, when they have been passing the
apartments occupied by the working class, that the valance fixed from
the top of the window has its adornment of fringe; a blind is sometimes
adorned in a similar manner, and so is the valance from the tester of
a bedstead. For such uses the second-hand fringe is bought in the
street-markets in pieces, sometimes called “quantities,” of from 1_d._
to 1_s._
_Second-hand Table-cloths_ used to be an article of street-traffic
to some extent. If offered at all now--and one man, though he was a
regular street-seller, thought he had not seen one offered in a market
this year--they are worn things such as will not be taken by the
pawnbrokers, while the dolly-shop people would advance no more than the
table-cloth might be worth for the rag-bag. _The glazed table-covers_,
now in such general use, are not as yet sold second-hand in the streets.
I was told by a street-seller that he had heard an old man (since
dead), who was a buyer of second-hand goods, say that in the old times,
after a great sale by auction--as at Wanstead-house (Mr. Wellesley
Pole’s), about 30 years ago--the open-air trade was very brisk, as the
street-sellers, like the shop-traders, proclaimed all their second-hand
wares as having been bought at “the great sale.” For some years no such
“_ruse_” has been practised by street-folk.