Perhaps it may add to the completeness of the information here given
concerning the trading in old refuse articles, and especially those
of a miscellaneous character, the manner in which, and the parties
by whom the business is carried on, if I conclude this branch of the
subject by an account of the shops of the second-hand dealers. The
distance between the class of these shopkeepers and of the stall and
barrow-keepers I have described is not great. It may be said to be
merely from the street to within doors. Marine-store dealers have
often in their start in life been street-sellers, not unfrequently
costermongers, and street-sellers they again become if their ventures
be unsuccessful. Some of them, however, make a good deal of money in
what may be best understood as a “hugger-mugger way.”
On this subject I cannot do better than quote Mr. Dickens, one of the
most minute and truthful of observers:--
“The reader must often have perceived in some by-street, in a poor
neighbourhood, a small dirty shop, exposing for sale the most
extraordinary and confused jumble of old, worn-out, wretched articles,
that can well be imagined. Our wonder at their ever having been bought,
is only to be equalled by our astonishment at the idea of their ever
being sold again. On a board, at the side of the door, are placed about
twenty books--all odd volumes; and as many wine-glasses--all different
patterns; several locks, an old earthenware pan, full of rusty keys;
two or three gaudy chimney ornaments--cracked, of course; the remains
of a lustre, without any drops; a round frame like a capital O, which
has once held a mirror; a flute, complete with the exception of the
middle joint; a pair of curling-irons; and a tinder-box. In front of
the shop-window, are ranged some half-dozen high-backed chairs, with
spinal complaints and wasted legs; a corner cupboard; two or three
very dark mahogany tables with flaps like mathematical problems; some
pickle-bottles, some surgeons’ ditto, with gilt labels and without
stoppers; an unframed portrait of some lady who flourished about the
beginning of the thirteenth century, by an artist who never flourished
at all; an incalculable host of miscellanies of every description,
including armour and cabinets, rags and bones, fenders and street-door
knockers, fire-irons, wearing-apparel and bedding, a hall-lamp, and
a room-door. Imagine, in addition to this incongruous mass, a black
doll in a white frock, with two faces--one looking up the street, and
the other looking down, swinging over the door; a board with the
squeezed-up inscription ‘Dealer in marine stores,’ in lanky white
letters, whose height is strangely out of proportion to their width;
and you have before you precisely the kind of shop to which we wish to
direct your attention.
“Although the same heterogeneous mixture of things will be found at
all these places, it is curious to observe how truly and accurately
some of the minor articles which are exposed for sale--articles of
wearing-apparel, for instance--mark the character of the neighbourhood.
Take Drury-lane and Covent-garden for example.
“This is essentially a theatrical neighbourhood. There is not a potboy
in the vicinity who is not, to a greater or less extent, a dramatic
character. The errand-boys and chandlers’-shop-keepers’ sons, are
all stage-struck: they ‘get up’ plays in back kitchens hired for the
purpose, and will stand before a shop-window for hours, contemplating
a great staring portrait of Mr. somebody or other, of the Royal Coburg
Theatre, ‘as he appeared in the character of Tongo the Denounced.’
The consequence is, that there is not a marine-store shop in the
neighbourhood, which does not exhibit for sale some faded articles of
dramatic finery, such as three or four pairs of soiled buff boots with
turn-over red tops, heretofore worn by a ‘fourth robber,’ or ‘fifth
mob;’ a pair of rusty broad-swords, a few gauntlets, and certain
resplendent ornaments, which, if they were yellow instead of white,
might be taken for insurance plates of the Sun Fire-office. There are
several of these shops in the narrow streets and dirty courts, of
which there are so many near the national theatres, and they all have
tempting goods of this description, with the addition, perhaps, of a
lady’s pink dress covered with spangles; white wreaths, stage shoes,
and a tiara like a tin lamp reflector. They have been purchased of some
wretched supernumeraries, or sixth-rate actors, and are now offered
for the benefit of the rising generation, who, on condition of making
certain weekly payments, amounting in the whole to about ten times
their value, may avail themselves of such desirable bargains.
“Let us take a very different quarter, and apply it to the same
test. Look at a marine-store dealer’s, in that reservoir of dirt,
drunkenness, and drabs: thieves, oysters, baked potatoes, and pickled
salmon--Ratcliff-highway. Here, the wearing-apparel is all nautical.
Rough blue jackets, with mother-of-pearl buttons, oil-skin hats,
coarse checked shirts, and large canvass trousers that look as if
they were made for a pair of bodies instead of a pair of legs, are
the staple commodities. Then, there are large bunches of cotton
pocket-handkerchiefs, in colour and pattern unlike any one ever saw
before, with the exception of those on the backs of the three young
ladies without bonnets who passed just now. The furniture is much the
same as elsewhere, with the addition of one or two models of ships,
and some old prints of naval engagements in still older frames. In the
window are a few compasses, a small tray containing silver watches in
clumsy thick cases; and tobacco-boxes, the lid of each ornamented with
a ship, or an anchor, or some such trophy. A sailor generally pawns or
sells all he has before he has been long ashore, and if he does not,
some favoured companion kindly saves him the trouble. In either case,
it is an even chance that he afterwards unconsciously repurchases the
same things at a higher price than he gave for them at first.
“Again: pay a visit, with a similar object, to a part of London, as
unlike both of these as they are to each other. Cross over to the Surry
side, and look at such shops of this description as are to be found
near the King’s Bench prison, and in ‘the Rules.’ How different, and
how strikingly illustrative of the decay of some of the unfortunate
residents in this part of the metropolis! Imprisonment and neglect have
done their work. There is contamination in the profligate denizens of
a debtors’ prison; old friends have fallen off; the recollection of
former prosperity has passed away; and with it all thoughts for the
past, all care for the future. First, watches and rings, then cloaks,
coats, and all the more expensive articles of dress, have found their
way to the pawnbroker’s. That miserable resource has failed at last,
and the sale of some trifling article at one of these shops, has been
the only mode left of raising a shilling or two, to meet the urgent
demands of the moment. Dressing-cases and writing-desks, too old to
pawn but too good to keep; guns, fishing-rods, musical instruments, all
in the same condition; have first been sold, and the sacrifice has been
but slightly felt. But hunger must be allayed, and what has already
become a habit, is easily resorted to, when an emergency arises. Light
articles of clothing, first of the ruined man, then of his wife, at
last of their children, even of the youngest, have been parted with,
piecemeal. There they are, thrown carelessly together until a purchaser
presents himself, old, and patched and repaired, it is true; but the
make and materials tell of better days: and the older they are, the
greater the misery and destitution of those whom they once adorned.”