I have now to describe the uses to which the several kinds of garments
which constitute the commerce of the Old Clothes Exchange are devoted,
whether it be merely in the re-sale of the apparel, to be worn in its
original form or in a repaired or renovated form; or whether it be
“worked up” into other habiliments, or be useful for the making of
other descriptions of woollen fabrics; or else whether it be fit merely
for its last stages--the rag-bag for the paper-maker, or the manure
heap for the hop-grower.
* * * * *
Each “left-off” garment has its peculiar after _uses_, according to
its material and condition. The practised eye of the old clothes man
at once embraces every capability of the apparel, and the amount which
these capabilities will realize; whether they be woollen, linen,
cotton, leathern, or silken goods; or whether they be articles which
cannot be classed under any of those designations, such as macintoshes
and furs.
A _surtout_ coat is the most serviceable of any second-hand clothing,
originally good. It can be re-cuffed, re-collared, or the skirts
re-lined with new or old silk, or with a substitute for silk. It can
be “restored” if the seams be white and the general appearance what is
best understood by the expressive word “seedy.” This restoration is a
sort of re-dyeing, or rather re-colouring, by the application of gall
and logwood with a small portion of copperas. If the under sleeve be
worn, as it often is by those whose avocations are sedentary, it is
renewed, and frequently with a second-hand piece of cloth “to match,”
so that there is no perceptible difference between the renewal and
the other parts. Many an honest artisan in this way becomes possessed
of his Sunday frock-coat, as does many a smarter clerk or shopman,
impressed with a regard to his personal appearance.
In the last century, I may here observe, and perhaps in the early
part of the present, when woollen cloth was much dearer, much more
substantial, and therefore much more durable, it was common for
economists to have a good coat “turned.” It was taken to pieces by
the tailor and re-made, the inner part becoming the outer. This
mode prevailed alike in France and England; for Molière makes his
miser, _Harpagon_, magnanimously resolve to incur the cost of his
many-years’-old coat being “turned,” for the celebration of his
expected marriage with a young and wealthy bride. This way of dealing
with a second-hand garment is not so general now as it was formerly in
London, nor is it in the country.
If the surtout be incapable of restoration to the appearance of a
“respectable” garment, the skirts are sold for the making of cloth
caps; or for the material of boys’ or “youths’” waistcoats; or for
“poor country curates’ gaiters; but not so much now as they once
were. The poor journeymen parsons,” I was told, “now goes for the new
slops; they’re often green, and is had by ’vertisements, and bills,
and them books about fashions which is all over both country and town.
Do you know, sir, why them there books is always made so small? The
leaves is about four inches square. That’s to prevent their being any
use as waste paper. I’ll back a coat such as is sometimes sold by a
gentleman’s servant to wear out two new slops.”
_Cloaks_ are things of as ready sale as any kind of old garments. If
good, or even reparable, they are in demand both for the home and
foreign trades, as cloaks; if too far gone, which is but rarely the
case, they are especially available for the same purposes as the
surtout. The same may be said of the great-coat.
_Dress-coats_ are far less useful, as if cleaned up and repaired they
are not in demand among the working classes, and the clerks and shopmen
on small salaries are often tempted by the price, I was told, to buy
some wretched new slop thing rather than a superior coat second-hand.
The dress-coats, however, are used for caps. Sometimes a coat, for
which the collector may have given 9_d._, is cut up for the repairs of
better garments.
_Trousers_ are re-seated and repaired where the material is strong
enough; and they are, I am informed, now about the only habiliment
which is ever “turned,” and that but exceptionally. The repairs to
trousers are more readily effected than those to coats, and trousers
are freely bought by the collectors, and as freely re-bought by the
public.
_Waistcoats_--I still speak of woollen fabrics--are sometimes used
in cap-making, and were used in gaiter-making. But generally, at the
present time, the worn edges are cut away, the buttons renewed or
replaced by a new set, sometimes of glittering glass, the button-holes
repaired or their jaggedness gummed down, and so the waistcoat is
reproduced as a waistcoat, a size smaller. Sometimes a “vest,” as
waistcoats are occasionally called, is used by the cheap boot-makers
for the “legs” of a woman’s cloth boots, either laced or buttoned, but
not a quarter as much as they would be, I was told, if the buttons and
button-holes of the waistcoat would “do again” in the boot.
Nor is the woollen garment, if too thin, too worn, or too rotten
to be devoted to any of the uses I have specified, flung away as
worthless. To the traders in second-hand apparel, or in the remains
of second-hand apparel, a dust-hole is an unknown receptacle. The
woollen rag, for so it is then considered, when unravelled can be made
available for the manufacture of cheap yarns, being mixed with new
wool. It is more probable, however, that the piece of woollen fabric
which has been rejected by those who make or mend, and who must make
or mend so cheaply that the veriest vagrant may be their customer,
is formed not only into a new material, but into a material which
sometimes is made into a new garment. These garments are inferior to
those woven of new wool, both in look and wear; but in some articles
the re-manufacture is beautiful. The fabric thus snatched, as it
were, from the ruins of cloth, is known as shoddy, the chief seat of
manufacture being in Dewsbury, a small town in Yorkshire. The old
material, when duly prepared, is torn into wool again by means of fine
machinery, but the recovered wool is shorter in its fibre and more
brittle in its nature; it is, indeed, more a woollen pulp than a wool.
Touching this peculiar branch of manufacture, I will here cite from the
_Morning Chronicle_ a brief description of a Shoddy Mill, so that the
reader may have as comprehensive a knowledge as possible of the several
uses to which his left-off clothes may be put.
“The small town of Dewsbury holds, in the woollen district, very
much the same position which Oldham does in the cotton country--the
spinning and preparing of waste and refuse materials. To this stuff
the name of “shoddy” is given, but the real and orthodox “shoddy” is a
production of the woollen districts, and consists of the second-hand
wool manufactured by the tearing up, or rather the grinding, of woollen
rags by means of coarse willows, called devils; the operation of which
sends forth choking clouds of dry pungent dirt and floating fibres--the
real and original “devil’s dust.” Having been, by the agency of the
machinery in question, reduced to something like the original raw
material, fresh wool is added to the pulp in different proportions,
according to the quality of the stuff to be manufactured, and the
mingled material is at length reworked in the usual way into a little
serviceable cloth.
“There are some shoddy mills in the neighbourhood of Huddersfield, but
the mean little town of Dewsbury may be taken as the metropolis of the
manufacture. Some mills are devoted solely to the sorting, preparing,
and grinding of rags, which are worked up in the neighbouring
factories. Here great bales, choke full of filthy tatters, lie
scattered about the yard, while the continual arrival of loaded waggons
keeps adding to the heap. A glance at the exterior of these mills shows
their character. The walls and part of the roof are covered with the
thick clinging dust and fibre, which ascends in choky volumes from the
open doors and glassless windows of the ground floor, and which also
pours forth from a chimney, constructed for the purpose, exactly like
smoke. The mill is covered as with a mildewy fungus, and upon the gray
slates of the roof the frowzy deposit is often not less than two inches
in depth.
“In the upper story of these mills the rags are stored. A great
ware-room is piled in many places from the floor to the ceiling with
bales of woollen rags, torn strips and tatters of every colour peeping
out from the bursting depositories. There is hardly a country in
Europe which does not contribute its quota of material to the shoddy
manufacturer. Rags are brought from France, Germany, and in great
quantities from Belgium. Denmark, I understand, is favourably looked
upon by the tatter merchants, being fertile in morsels of clothing,
of fair quality. Of domestic rags, the Scotch bear off the palm; and
possibly no one will be surprised to hear, that of all rags Irish rags
are the most worn, the filthiest, and generally the most unprofitable.
The gradations of value in the world of rags are indeed remarkable.
I was shown rags worth 50_l._ per ton, and rags worth only 30_s._
The best class is formed of the remains of fine cloth, the produce
of which, eked out with a few bundles of fresh wool, is destined
to go forth to the world again as broad cloth, or at all events as
pilot cloth. Fragments of damask and skirts of merino dresses form
the staple of middle-class rags; and even the very worst bales--they
appear unmitigated mashes of frowzy filth--afford here and there
some fragments of calico, which are wrought up into brown paper. The
refuse of all, mixed with the stuff which even the shoddy-making devil
rejects, is packed off to the agricultural districts for use as manure,
to fertilize the hop-gardens of Kent.
“Under the rag ware-room is the sorting and picking room. Here the
bales are opened, and their contents piled in close, poverty-smelling
masses, upon the floor. The operatives are entirely women. They sit
upon low stools, or half sunk and half enthroned amid heaps of the
filthy goods, busily employed in arranging them according to the colour
and the quality of the morsels, and from the more pretending quality
of rags carefully ripping out every particle of cotton which they can
detect. Piles of rags of different sorts, dozens of feet high, are the
obvious fruits of their labour. All these women are over eighteen years
of age, and the wages which they are paid for ten hours’ work are 6_s._
per week. They look squalid and dirty enough; but all of them chatter
and several sing over their noisome labour. The atmosphere of the room
is close and oppressive; and although no particularly offensive smell
is perceptible, there is a choky, mildewy sort of odour--a hot, moist
exhalation--arising from the sodden smouldering piles, as the workwomen
toss armfuls of rags from one heap to another. This species of work is
the lowest and foulest which any phase of the factory system can show.
“The devils are upon the ground floor. The choking dust bursts out from
door and window, and it is not until a minute or so that the visitor
can see the workmen moving amid the clouds, catching up armfuls of the
sorted rags and tossing them into the machine to be torn into fibry
fragments by the whirling revolutions of its teeth. The place in which
this is done is a large bare room--the uncovered beams above, the rough
stone walls, and the woodwork of the unglazed windows being as it were
furred over with clinging woolly matter. On the floor, the dust and
coarse filaments lie as if ‘it had been snowing snuff.’ The workmen are
coated with the flying powder. They wear bandages over their mouths,
so as to prevent as much as possible the inhalation of the dust, and
seem loath to remove the protection for a moment. The rag grinders,
with their squalid, dust-strewn garments, powdered to a dull grayish
hue, and with their bandages tied over the greater part of their faces,
move about like reanimated mummies in their swathings, looking most
ghastly. The wages of these poor creatures do not exceed 7_s._ or 8_s._
a week. The men are much better paid, none of them making less than
18_s._ a week, and many earning as much as 22_s._ Not one of them,
however, will admit that he found the trade injurious. The dust tickles
them a little, they say, that is all. They feel it most of a Monday
morning, after being all Sunday in the fresh air. When they first take
to the work it hurts their throats a little, but they drink mint tea,
and that soon cures them. They are all more or less subject to ‘shoddy
fever,’ they confess, especially after tenting the grinding of the
very dusty sorts of stuff--worsted stockings, for example. The shoddy
fever is a sort of stuffing of the head and nose, with sore throat, and
it sometimes forces them to give over work for two or three days, or
at most a week; but the disorder, the workmen say, is not fatal, and
leaves no particularly bad effects.
“In spite of all this, however, it is manifestly impossible for
human lungs to breathe under such circumstances without suffering.
The visitor exposed to the atmosphere for ten minutes experiences
an unpleasant choky sensation in the throat, which lasts all the
remainder of the day. The rag grinders, moreover, according to the
best accounts, are very subject to asthmatic complaints, particularly
when the air is dull and warm. The shoddy fever is said to be like a
bad cold, with constant acrid running from the nose, and a great deal
of expectoration. It is when there is a particularly dirty lot of rags
to be ground that the people are usually attacked in this way, but the
fever seldom keeps them more than two or three days from their work.
“In other mills the rags are not only ground, but the shoddy is worked
up into coarse bad cloth, a great proportion of which is sent to
America for slave clothing (and much now sold to the slop-shops).
“After the rags have been devilled into shoddy, the remaining processes
are much the same, although conducted in a coarser way, as those
performed in the manufacture of woollen cloth. The weaving is, for the
most part, carried on at the homes of the workpeople. The domestic
arrangements consist, in every case, of two tolerably large rooms, one
above the other, with a cellar beneath--a plan of construction called
in Yorkshire a “house and a chamber.” The chamber has generally a bed
amid the looms. The weavers complain of irregular work and diminished
wages. Their average pay, one week with another, with their wives to
wind for them--_i. e._, to place the thread upon the bobbin which
goes into the shuttle--is hardly so much as 10_s._ a week. They work
long hours, often fourteen per day. Sometimes the weaver is a small
capitalist with perhaps half a dozen looms, and a hand-jenny for
spinning thread, the workpeople being within his own family as regular
apprentices and journeymen.”
Dr. Hemingway, a gentleman who has a large practice in the shoddy
district, has given the following information touching the “shoddy
fever”:--
“The disease popularly known as ‘shoddy fever,’ and which is of
frequent occurrence, is a species of bronchitis, caused by the
irritating effect of the floating particles of dust upon the mucous
membrane of the trachea and its ramifications. In general, the
attack is easily cured--particularly if the patient has not been for
any length of time exposed to the exciting cause--by effervescing
saline draughts to allay the symptomatic febrile action, followed by
expectorants to relieve the mucous membrane of the irritating dust;
but a long continuance of employment in the contaminated atmosphere,
bringing on as it does repeated attacks of the disease, is too apt,
in the end, to undermine the constitution, and produce a train of
pectoral diseases, often closing with pulmonary consumption. Ophthalmic
attacks are by no means uncommon among the shoddy-grinders, some of
whom, however, wear wire-gauze spectacles to protect the eyes. As
regards the effect of the occupation upon health, it may shorten life
by about five years on a rough average, taking, of course, as the point
of comparison, the average longevity of the district in which the
manufacture is carried on.”
“Shoddy fever” is, in fact, a modification of the very fatal disease
induced by what is called “dry grinding” at Sheffield; but of course
the particles of woollen filament are less fatal in their influence
than the floating steel dust produced by the operation in question.
At one time shoddy cloth was not good and firm enough to be used for
other purposes than such as padding by tailors, and in the inner
linings of carriages, by coach-builders. It was not used for purposes
which would expose it to stress, but only to a moderate wear or
friction. Now shoddy, which modern improvements have made susceptible
of receiving a fine dye (it always looked a dead colour at one
period), is made into cloth for soldiers’ and sailors’ uniforms and
for pilot-coats; into blanketing, drugget, stair and other carpeting,
and into those beautiful table-covers, with their rich woollen look,
on which elegantly drawn and elaborately coloured designs are printed
through the application of aquafortis. Thus the rags which the beggar
could no longer hang about him to cover his nakedness, may be a
component of the soldier’s or sailor’s uniform, the carpet of a palace,
or the library table-cover of a prime-minister.
There is yet another use for old woollen clothes. What is not good
for shoddy is good for manure, and more especially for the manure
prepared by the agriculturists in Kent, Sussex, and Herefordshire,
for the culture of a difficult plant--hops. It is good also for corn
land (judiciously used), so that we again have the remains of the old
garment in our beer or our bread.
* * * * *
I have hitherto spoken of _woollen_ fabrics. The garments of other
materials are seldom diverted from their original use, for as long as
they will hold together they can be sold for exportation to Ireland,
though of course for very trifling amounts.
The black _Velvet_ and _Satin Waistcoats_--the latter now so commonly
worn--are almost always resold as waistcoats, and oft enough, when
rebound and rebuttoned, make a very respectable looking garment.
Nothing sells better to the working-classes than a _good_ second-hand
vest of the two materials of satin or velvet. If the satin, however,
be so worn and frayed that mending is impossible, the back, if not in
the same plight, is removed for rebacking of any waistcoat, and the
satin thrown away, one of the few things which in its last stage is
utterly valueless. It is the same with silk waistcoats, and for the
most part with velvet, but a velvet waistcoat may be thrown in the
refuse heap with the woollen rags for manure. The coloured waistcoats
of silk or velvet are dealt with in the same way. At one time,
when under-waistcoats were worn, the edges being just discernible,
quantities were made out of the full waistcoats where a sufficiency
of the stuff was unworn. This fashion is now becoming less and
less followed, and is principally in vogue in the matter of white
under-waistcoats. For the jean and other vests--even if a mixture of
materials--there is the same use as what I have described of the black
satin, and failing that, they are generally transferable to the rag-bag.
_Hats_ have become in greater demand than ever among the street-buyers
since the introduction into the London trade, and to so great an
extent, of the silk, velvet, French, or Parisian hats. The construction
of these hats is the same, and the easy way in which the hat-bodies are
made, has caused a number of poor persons, with no previous knowledge
of hat-making, to enter into the trade. “There’s hundreds starving at
it,” said a hat-manufacturer to me, “in Bermondsey, Lock’s-fields, and
the Borough; ay, hundreds.” This facility in the making of the bodies
of the new silk hats is quite as available in the restoration of the
bodies of the old hats, as I shall show from the information of a
highly-intelligent artisan, who told me that of all people he disliked
rich slop-sellers; but there was another class which he disliked more,
and that was rich slop-buyers.
The bodies of the stuff or beaver hats of the best quality are made
of a firm felt, wrought up of fine wool, rabbits’ hair, &c., and at
once elastic, firm, and light. Over this is placed the nap, prepared
from the hair of the beaver. The bodies of the silk hats are made of
calico, which is blocked (as indeed is the felt) and stiffened and
pasted up until “only a hat-maker can tell,” as it was expressed to
me, “good sound bodies from bad; and the slop-masters go for the cheap
and bad.” The covering is not a nap of any hair, but is of silk or
velvet (the words are used indifferently in the trade) manufactured for
the purpose. Thus if an old hat be broken, or rather crushed out of
all shape, the body can be glazed and sized up again so as to suit the
slop hatter, if sold to him as a body, and that whether it be of felt
or calico. If, however, the silk cover of the hat be not worn utterly
away, the body, without stripping off the cover, can be re-blocked
and re-set, and the silk-velvet trimmed up and “set,” or re-dyed, and
a decent hat is sometimes produced by these means. More frequently,
however, a steeping shower of rain destroys the whole fabric.
_Second-hand Caps_ are rarely brought into this trade.
Such things as _drawers_, _flannel waistcoats_, and what is sometimes
called “inner wear,” sell very well when washed up, patched--for
patches do not matter in a garment hidden from the eye when worn--or
mended in any manner. Flannel waistcoats and drawers are often in
demand by the street-sellers and the street-labourers, as they are
considered “good against the rheumatics.” These habiliments are often
sold unrepaired, having been merely washed, as the poor men’s wives may
be competent to execute an easy bit of tailoring; or perhaps the men
themselves, if they have been reared as mechanics; and they believe
(perhaps erroneously) that so they obtain a better bargain. _Shirts_
are repaired and sold as shirts, or for old linen; the trade is not
large.
_Men’s Stockings_ are darned up, but only when there is little to be
done in darning, as they are retailed at 2_d._ the pair. The sale is
not very great, for the supply is not. “Lots might be sold,” I was
informed, “if they was to be had, for them flash coves never cares what
they wears under their Wellingtons.”
_The Women’s Apparel_ is sold to be re-worn in its original form quite
as frequently, or more frequently, than it is mended up by the sellers;
the purchasers often preferring to make the alterations themselves. A
gown of stuff, cotton, or any material, if full-sized, is frequently
bought and altered to fit a smaller person or a child, and so the
worn parts may be cut away. It is very rarely also that the apparel
of the middle-classes is made into any other article, with the sole
exception, perhaps, of _silk gowns_. If a silk gown be not too much
frayed, it is easily cleaned and polished up, so as to present a new
gloss, and is sold readily enough; but if it be too far gone for this
process, the old clothes renovator is often puzzled as to what uses to
put it. A portion of a black silk dress may be serviceable to re-line
the cuffs of the better kind of coats. There is seldom enough, I was
told, to re-line the two skirts of a surtout, and it is difficult to
match old silk; a man used to buying a good second-hand surtout, I was
assured, would soon detect a difference in the shade of the silk, if
the skirts were re-lined from the remains of different gowns, and say,
“I’ll not give any such money for that piebald thing.” Skirts may be
sometimes re-lined this way on the getting up of frock coats, but very
rarely. There is the same difficulty in using a coloured silk gown
for the re-covering of a parasol. The quantity may not be enough for
the gores, and cannot be matched to satisfy the eye, for the buyer of
a silk parasol even in Rosemary-lane may be expected to be critical.
When there is enough of good silk for the purposes I have mentioned,
then, it must be borne in mind, the gown may be more valuable, because
saleable to be re-worn as a gown. It is the same with satin dresses,
but only a few of them, in comparison with the silk, are to be seen at
the Old Clothes’ Exchange.
Among the purposes to which portions of worn silk gowns are put are
the making of spencers for little girls (usually by the purchasers,
or by the dress-maker, who goes out to work for 1_s._ a day), of
children’s bonnets, for the lining of women’s bonnets, the re-lining
of muffs and fur-tippets, the patching of quilts (once a rather
fashionable thing), the inner lining or curtains to a book-case, and
other household appliances of a like kind. This kind of silk, too, no
matter in how minute pieces, is bought by the fancy cabinet-makers (the
small masters) for the lining of their dressing-cases and work-boxes
supplied to the warehouses, but these poor artisans have neither means
nor leisure to buy such articles of those connected with the traffic
of the Old Clothes’ Exchange, but must purchase it, of course at an
enhanced price, of a broker who has bought it at the Exchange, or in
some establishment connected with it. The second-hand silk is bought
also for the dressing of dolls for the toy-shops, and for the lining of
some toys. The hat-manufacturers of the cheaper sort, at one time, used
second-hand silk for the padded lining of hats, but such is rarely the
practice now. It was once used in the same manner by the bookbinders
for lining the inner part of the back of a book. If there be any part
of silk in a dress not suitable for any of these purposes it is wasted,
or what is accounted wasted, although it may have been in wear for
years. It is somewhat remarkable, that while woollen and even cotton
goods can be “shoddied”--and if they are too rotten for that, they are
made available for manure, or in the manufacture of paper--no use is
made of the refuse of silk. Though one of the most beautiful and costly
of textile fabrics, its “remains” are thrown aside, when a beggar’s
rags are preserved and made profitable. There can be little doubt that
silk, like cotton, could be shoddied, but whether such a speculation
would be remunerative or not is no part of my present inquiry.
There is not, as I shall subsequently show, so great an exportation of
female attire as might be expected in comparison with male apparel; the
poorer classes of the metropolis being too anxious to get any decent
gown when within their slender means.
_Stays_, unless of superior make and in good condition, are little
bought by the classes who are the chief customers of the old-clothes’
men in London. I did not hear any reason for this from any of the
old-clothes’ people. One man thought, if there was a family of
daughters, the stays which had became too small for the elder girl were
altered for the younger, and that poor women liked to mend their old
stays as long as they would stick together. Perhaps, there may be some
repugnance--especially among the class of servant-maids who have not
had “to rough it”--to wear street-collected stays; a repugnance not,
perhaps, felt in the wearing of a gown which probably can be washed,
and is not worn so near the person. The stays that are collected are
for the most part exported, a great portion being sent to Ireland. If
they are “worn to rags,” the bones are taken out; but in the slop-made
stays, it is not whalebone, but wood that is used to give, or preserve
the due shape of the corset, and then the stays are valueless.
_Old Stockings_ are of great sale both for home wear and foreign trade.
In the trade of women’s stockings there has been in the last 20 or 25
years a considerable change. Before that period black stockings were
worn by servant girls, and the families of working people and small
tradesmen; they “saved washing.” Now, even in Petticoat-lane, women’s
stockings are white, or “mottled,” or some light-coloured, very rarely
black. I have heard this change attributed to what is rather vaguely
called “pride.” May it not be owing to a more cultivated sense of
cleanliness? The women’s stockings are sold darned and undarned, and
at (retail) prices from 1_d._ to 4_d._; 1_d._ or 2_d._ being the most
frequent prices.
The _petticoats_ and other under clothing are not much bought
second-hand by the poor women of London, and are exported.
_Women’s caps_ used to be sold second-hand, I was told, both in the
streets and the shops, but long ago, and before muslin and needlework
were so cheap.
I heard of one article which formerly supplied considerable “stuff”
(the word used) for second-hand purposes, and was a part, but never
a considerable part, of the trade at Rag-fair. These were the
“_pillions_,” or large, firm, solid cushions which were attached to a
saddle, so that a horse “carried double.” Fifty years ago the farmer
and his wife, of the more prosperous order, went regularly to church
and market on one horse, a pillion sustaining the good dame. To the
best sort of these pillions was appended what was called the “pillion
cloth,” often of a fine, but thin quality, which being really a sort of
housing to the horse, cut straight and with few if any seams, was an
excellent material for what I am informed was formerly called “making
and mending.” The colour was almost exclusively drab or blue. The
pillion on which the squire’s lady rode--and Sheridan makes his _Lady
Teazle_ deny “the pillion and the coach-horse,” the butler being her
cavalier--was a perfect piece of upholstery, set off with lace and
fringes, which again were excellent for second-hand sale. Such a means
of conveyance may still linger in some secluded country parts, but it
is generally speaking obsolete.
_Boots_ and _Shoes_ are not to be had, I am told, in sufficient
quantity for the demand from the slop-shops, the “translators,” and
the second-hand dealers. Great quantities of second-hand boots and
shoes are sent to Ireland to be “translated” there. Of all the wares
in this traffic, the clothing for the feet is what is most easily
prepared to cheat the eye of the inexperienced, the imposition having
the aids of heel-ball, &c., to fill up crevices, and of blacking to
hide defects. Even when the boots or shoes are so worn out that no
one will put a pair on his feet, though purchaseable for about 1_d._,
the insoles are ripped out; the soles, if there be a sufficiency of
leather, are shaped into insoles for children’s shoes, and these
insoles are sold in bundles of two dozen pairs at 2_d._ the bundle.
So long as the boot or shoe be not in many holes, it can be cobblered
up in Monmouth-street or elsewhere. Of the “translating” business
transacted in those localities I had the following interesting account
from a man who was lately engaged in it.
“Translation, as I understand it (said my informant), is this--to
take a worn, old pair of shoes or boots, and by repairing them make
them appear as if left off with hardly any wear--as if they were
only soiled. I’ll tell you the way they manage in Monmouth-street.
There are in the trade ‘horses’ heads’--a ‘horse’s head’ is the foot
of a boot with sole and heel, and part of a front--the back and the
remainder of the front having been used for refooting boots. There
are also ‘stand-bottoms’ and ‘lick-ups.’ A ‘stand-bottom’ is where
the shoe appears to be only soiled, and a ‘lick-up’ is a boot or shoe
re-lasted to take the wrinkles out, the edges of the soles having
been rasped and squared, and then blacked up to hide blemishes, and
the bottom covered with a ‘smother,’ which I will describe. There
is another article called a ‘flyer,’ that is, a shoe soled without
having been welted. In Monmouth-street a ‘horse’s head’ is generally
retailed at 2_s._ 6_d._, but some fetch 4_s._ 6_d._--that’s the
extreme price. They cost the translator from 1_s._ a dozen pair to
8_s._, but those at 8_s._ are good, and are used for the making up
of Wellington boots. Some ‘horses’ heads’--such as are cut off that
the boots may be re-footed on account of old fashion, or a misfit,
when hardly worn--fetch 2_s._ 6_d._ a pair, and they are made up as
new-footed boots, and sell from 10_s._ to 15_s._ The average price
of feet (that is, for the ‘horse’s head,’ as we call it) is 4_d._,
and a pair of backs say 2_d._; the back is attached loosely by chair
stitching, as it is called, to the heel, instead of being stitched to
the in-sole, as in a new boot. The wages for all this is 1_s._ 4_d._
in Monmouth-street (in Union-street, Borough, 1_s._ 6_d._); but I was
told by a master that he had got the work done in Gray’s-inn-lane at
9_d._ Put it, however, at 1_s._ 4_d._ wages--then, with 4_d._ and 2_d._
for the feet and back, we have 1_s._ 10_d._ outlay (the workman finds
his own grindery), and 8_d._ profit on each pair sold at a rate of
2_s._ 6_d._ Some masters will sell from 70 to 80 pairs per week: that’s
under the mark; and that’s in ‘horses’ heads’ alone. One man employs,
or did lately employ, seven men on ‘horses’ heads’ solely. The profit
generally, in fair shops, in ‘stand-bottoms,’ is from 1_s._ 6_d._ to
2_s._ per pair, as they sell generally at 3_s._ 6_d._ One man takes,
or did take, 100_l._ in a day (it was calculated as an average) over
the counter, and all for the sort of shoes I have described. The profit
of a ‘lick-up’ is the same as that of a ‘stand-bottom.’ To show the
villanous way the ‘stand-bottoms’ are got up, I will tell you this. You
have seen a broken upper-leather; well, we place a piece of leather,
waxed, underneath the broken part, on which we set a few stitches
through and through. When dry and finished, we take what is called a
‘soft-heel-ball’ and ‘smother’ it over, so that it sometimes would
deceive a currier, as it appears like the upper leather. With regard
to the bottoms, the worn part of the sole is opened from the edge, a
piece of leather is made to fit exactly into the hole or worn part, and
it is then nailed and filed until level. Paste is then applied, and
‘smother’ put over the part, and that imitates the dust of the road.
This ‘smother’ is obtained from the dust of the room. It is placed in
a silk stocking, tied at both ends, and then shook through, just like
a powder-puff, only we shake at both ends. It is powdered out into
our leather apron, and mixed with a certain preparation which I will
describe to you (he did so), but I would rather not have it published,
as it would lead others to practise similar deceptions. I believe
there are about 2000 translators, so you may judge of the extent of
the trade; and translators are more constantly employed than any other
branch of the business. Many make a great deal of money. A journeyman
translator can earn from 3_s._ to 4_s._ a day. You can give the average
at 20_s._ a week, as the wages are good. It must be good, for we have
2_s._ for soling, heeling, and welting a pair of boots; and some men
don’t get more for making them. Monmouth-street is nothing like what
it was; as to curious old garments, that’s all gone. There’s not one
English master in the translating business in Monmouth-street--they are
all Irish; and there is now hardly an English workman there--perhaps
not one. I believe that all the tradesmen in Monmouth-street make
their workmen lodge with them. I was lodging with one before I married
a little while ago, and I know the system to be the same now as it
was then, unless, indeed, it be altered for the worse. To show how
disgusting these lodgings must be, I will state this:--I knew a
Roman Catholic, who was attentive to his religious duties, but when
pronounced on the point of death, and believing firmly that he was
dying, he would not have his priest administer extreme unction, for
the room was in such a filthy and revolting state he would not allow
him to see it. Five men worked and slept in that room, and they were
working and sleeping there in the man’s illness--all the time that
his life was despaired of. He was ill nine weeks. Unless the working
shoemaker lodged there he would not be employed. Each man pays 2_s._ a
week. I was there once, but I couldn’t sleep in such a den; and five
nights out of the seven I slept at my mother’s, but my lodging had to
be paid all the same. These men (myself excepted) were all Irish, and
all teetotallers, as was the master. How often was the room cleaned
out, do you say? Never, sir, never. The refuse of the men’s labour
was generally burnt, smudged away in the grate, smelling terribly.
It would stifle you, though it didn’t me, because I got used to it.
I lodged in Union-street once. My employer had a room known as the
‘barracks;’ every lodger paid him 2_s._ 6_d._ a week. Five men worked
and slept there, and three were _sitters_--that is, men who paid 1_s._
a week to sit there and work, lodging elsewhere. A little before that
there were six sitters. The furniture was one table, one chair, and
two beds. There was no place for purposes of decency: it fell to bits
from decay, and was never repaired. This barrack man always stopped the
2_s._ 6_d._ for lodging, if he gave you only that amount of work in the
week. The beds were decent enough; but as to Monmouth-street! you don’t
see a clean sheet there for nine weeks; and, recollect, such snobs are
dirty fellows. There was no chair in the Monmouth-street room that
I have spoken of, the men having only their seats used at work; but
when the beds were let down for the night, the seats had to be placed
in the fire-place because there was no space for them in the room. In
many houses in Monmouth-street there is a system of sub-letting among
the journeymen. In one room lodged a man and his wife (a laundress
worked there), four children, and two single young men. The wife was
actually delivered in this room whilst the men kept at their work--they
never lost an hour’s work; nor is this an unusual case--it’s not an
isolated case at all. I could instance ten or twelve cases of two or
three married people living in one room in that street. The rats have
scampered over the beds that lay huddled together in the kitchen. The
husband of the wife confined as I have described paid 4_s._ a week,
and the two single men paid 2_s._ a week each, so the master was rent
free; and he received from each man 1_s._ 6_d._ a week for tea (without
sugar), and no bread and butter, and 2_d._ a day for potatoes--that’s
the regular charge.”
In connection with the translation of old boots and shoes, I have
obtained the following statistics. There are--
In Drury-lane and streets adjacent, about 50 shops.
Seven-dials do. do. 100 do.
Monmouth-street do. do. 40 do.
Hanway-court, Oxford-street do. 4 do.
Lisson-grove do. do. 100 do.
Paddington do. do. 30 do.
Petticoat-lane (shops, stands, &c.) do. 200 do.
Somers’-town do. do. 50 do.
Field-lane, Saffron-hill do. 40 do.
Clerkenwell do. 30 do.
Bethnal-green, Spitalfields do. 100 do.
Rosemary-lane, &c. do. 30 do.
---
774 shops,
employing upwards of 2000 men in making-up and repairing old boots and
shoes; besides hundreds of poor men and women who strive for a crust
by buying and selling the old material, previously to translating it,
and by mending up what will mend. They or their children stand in the
street and try to sell them.
Monmouth-street, now the great old shoe district, has been “sketched”
by Mr. Dickens, not as regards its connection with the subject of
street-sale or of any particular trade, but as to its general character
and appearance. I first cite Mr. Dickens’ description of the Seven
Dials, of which Monmouth-street is a seventh:--
“The stranger who finds himself in ‘The Dials’ for the first time,
and stands, Belzoni-like, at the entrance of seven obscure passages,
uncertain which to take, will see enough around him to keep his
curiosity and attention awake for no inconsiderable time. From the
irregular square into which he has plunged, the streets and courts
dart in all directions, until they are lost in the unwholesome vapour
which hangs over the house-tops, and renders the dirty perspective
uncertain and confined; and, lounging at every corner, as if they came
there to take a few gasps of such fresh air as has found its way so
far, but is too much exhausted already, to be enabled to force itself
into the narrow alleys around, are groups of people, whose appearance
and dwellings would fill any mind but a regular Londoner’s with
astonishment.
“In addition to the numerous groups who are idling about the gin-shops
and squabbling in the centre of the road, every post in the open
space has its occupant, who leans against it for hours, with listless
perseverance. It is odd enough that one class of men in London appear
to have no enjoyment beyond leaning against posts. We never saw a
regular bricklayer’s labourer take any other recreation, fighting
excepted. Pass through St. Giles’s in the evening of a week-day,
there they are in their fustian dresses, spotted with brick-dust and
whitewash, leaning against posts. Walk through Seven Dials on Sunday
morning: there they are again, drab or light corduroy trowsers, Blucher
boots, blue coats, and great yellow waistcoats, leaning against posts.
The idea of a man dressing himself in his best clothes, to lean against
a post all day!
“The peculiar character of these streets, and the close resemblance
each one bears to its neighbour, by no means tends to decrease the
bewilderment in which the unexperienced wayfarer through ‘the Dials’
finds himself involved. He traverses streets of dirty, straggling
houses, with now and then an unexpected court, composed of buildings
as ill-proportioned and deformed as the half-naked children that
wallow in the kennels. Here and there, a little dark chandler’s shop,
with a cracked bell hung up behind the door to announce the entrance
of a customer, or betray the presence of some young gentleman in
whom a passion for shop tills has developed itself at an early age;
others, as if for support, against some handsome lofty building, which
usurps the place of a low dingy public-house; long rows of broken
and patched windows expose plants that may have flourished when ‘The
Dials’ were built, in vessels as dirty as ‘The Dials’ themselves; and
shops for the purchase of rags, bones, old iron, and kitchen-stuff,
vie in cleanliness with the bird-fanciers and rabbit-dealers, which
one might fancy so many arks, but for the irresistible conviction
that no bird in its proper senses, who was permitted to leave one of
them would ever come back again. Brokers’ shops, which would seem to
have been established by humane individuals, as refuges for destitute
bugs, interspersed with announcements of day-schools, penny theatres,
petition-writers, mangles, and music for balls or routs, complete the
‘still-life’ of the subject; and dirty men, filthy women, squalid
children, fluttering shuttlecocks, noisy battledores, reeking pipes,
bad fruit, more than doubtful oysters, attenuated cats, depressed dogs,
and anatomical fowls, are its cheerful accompaniments.
“If the external appearance of the houses, or a glance at their
inhabitants, present but few attractions, a closer acquaintance with
either is little calculated to alter one’s first impression. Every room
has its separate tenant, and every tenant is, by the same mysterious
dispensation which causes a country curate to ‘increase and multiply’
most marvellously, generally the head of a numerous family.
“The man in the shop, perhaps, is in the baked ‘jemmy’ line, or the
fire-wood and hearth-stone line, or any other line which requires a
floating capital of eighteen pence or thereabouts: and he and his
family live in the shop, and the small back parlour behind it. Then
there is an Irish labourer and _his_ family in the back kitchen, and
a jobbing-man--carpet-beater and so forth--with _his_ family, in the
front one. In the front one pair there’s another man with another wife
and family, and in the back one-pair there’s ‘a young ’oman as takes
in tambour-work, and dresses quite genteel,’ who talks a good deal
about ‘my friend,’ and can’t ‘abear anything low.’ The second floor
front, and the rest of the lodgers, are just a second edition of the
people below, except a shabby-genteel man in the back attic, who has
his half-pint of coffee every morning from the coffee-shop next door
but one, which boasts a little front den called a coffee-room, with a
fire-place, over which is an inscription, politely requesting that,
‘to prevent mistakes,’ customers will ‘please to pay on delivery.’ The
shabby-genteel man is an object of some mystery, but as he leads a life
of seclusion, and never was known to buy anything beyond an occasional
pen, except half-pints of coffee, penny loaves, and ha’porths of ink,
his fellow-lodgers very naturally suppose him to be an author; and
rumours are current in the Dials, that he writes poems for Mr. Warren.
“Now any body who passed through the Dials on a hot summer’s evening,
and saw the different women of the house gossiping on the steps, would
be apt to think that all was harmony among them, and that a more
primitive set of people than the native Diallers could not be imagined.
Alas! the man in the shop illtreats his family; the carpet-beater
extends his professional pursuits to his wife; the one-pair front has
an undying feud with the two-pair front, in consequence of the two-pair
front persisting in dancing over his (the one-pair front’s) head, when
he and his family have retired for the night; the two-pair back _will_
interfere with the front kitchen’s children; the Irishman comes home
drunk every other night, and attacks every body; and the one-pair back
screams at everything. Animosities spring up between floor and floor;
the very cellar asserts his equality. Mrs. A. ‘smacks’ Mrs. B.’s child
for ‘making faces.’ Mrs. B. forthwith throws cold water over Mrs. A.’s
child for ‘calling names.’ The husbands are embroiled--the quarrel
becomes general--an assault is the consequence, and a police-officer
the result.”