Immediately connected with the trade of the central mart for old
clothes are the adjoining streets of Petticoat-lane, and those of the
not very distant Rosemary-lane. In these localities is a second-hand
garment-seller at almost every step, but the whole stock of these
traders, decent, frowsy, half-rotten, or smart and good habiliments,
has first passed through the channel of the Exchange. The men who sell
these goods have all bought them at the Exchange--the exceptions being
insignificant--so that this street-sale is but an extension of the
trade of the central mart, with the addition that the wares have been
made ready for use.
[Illustration: SCENE IN PETTICOAT-LANE.]
A cursory observation might lead an inexperienced person to the
conclusion, that these old clothes traders who are standing by the
bundles of gowns, or lines of coats, hanging from their door-posts,
or in the place from which the window has been removed, or at the
sides of their houses, or piled in the street before them, are
drowsy people, for they seem to sit among their property, lost in
thought, or caring only for the fumes of a pipe. But let any one
indicate, even by an approving glance, the likelihood of his becoming
a customer, and see if there be any lack of diligence in business.
Some, indeed, pertinaciously invite attention to their wares; some
(and often well-dressed women) leave their premises a few yards to
accost a stranger pointing to a “good dress-coat” or “an excellent
frock” (coat). I am told that this practice is less pursued than it
was, and it seems that the solicitations are now addressed chiefly
to strangers. These strangers, persons happening to be passing, or
visitors from curiosity, are at once recognised; for as in all not very
extended localities, where the inhabitants pursue a similar calling,
they are, as regards their knowledge of one another, as the members
of one family. Thus a stranger is as easily recognised as he would
be in a little rustic hamlet where a strange face is not seen once a
quarter. Indeed so narrow are some of the streets and alleys in this
quarter, and so little is there of privacy, owing to the removal, in
warm weather, even of the casements, that the room is commanded in all
its domestic details; and as among these details there is generally a
further display of goods similar to the articles outside, the jammed-up
places really look like a great family house with merely a sort of
channel, dignified by the name of a street, between the right and left
suites of apartments.
In one off-street, where on a Sunday there is a considerable demand for
Jewish sweet-meats by Christian boys, and a little sly, and perhaps not
very successful gambling on the part of the ingenuous youth to possess
themselves of these confectionaries at the easiest rate, there are
some mounds of builders’ rubbish upon which, if an inquisitive person
ascended, he could command the details of the upper rooms, probably the
bed chambers--if in their crowded apartments these traders can find
spaces for beds.
It must not be supposed that old clothes are more than the great staple
of the traffic of this district. Wherever persons are assembled there
are certain to be purveyors of provisions and of cool or hot drinks
for warm or cold weather. The interior of the Old Clothes Exchange
has its oyster-stall, its fountain of ginger-beer, its coffee-house,
and ale-house, and a troop of peripatetic traders, boys principally,
carrying trays. Outside the walls of the Exchange this trade is still
thicker. A Jew boy thrusts a tin of highly-glazed cakes and pastry
under the people’s noses here; and on the other side a basket of
oranges regales the same sense by its proximity. At the next step
the thoroughfare is interrupted by a gaudy-looking ginger-beer,
lemonade, raspberryade, and nectar fountain; “a halfpenny a glass,
a halfpenny a glass, sparkling lemonade!” shouts the vendor as you
pass. The fountain and the glasses glitter in the sun, the varnish of
the wood-work shines, the lemonade really does sparkle, and all looks
clean--except the owner. Close by is a brawny young Irishman, his red
beard unshorn for perhaps ten days, and his neck, where it had been
exposed to the weather, a far deeper red than his beard, and he is
carrying a small basket of nuts, and selling them as gravely as if they
were articles suited to his strength. A little lower is the cry, in a
woman’s voice, “Fish, fried fish! Ha’penny; fish, fried fish!” and so
monotonously and mechanically is it ejaculated that one might think
the seller’s life was passed in uttering these few words, even as a
rook’s is in crying “Caw, caw.” Here I saw a poor Irishwoman who had
a child on her back buy a piece of this fish (which may be had “hot”
or “cold”), and tear out a piece with her teeth, and this with all the
eagerness and relish of appetite or hunger; first eating the brown
outside and then _sucking_ the bone. I never saw fish look firmer or
whiter. That fried fish is to be procured is manifest to more senses
than one, for you can hear the sound of its being fried, and smell
the fumes from the oil. In an open window opposite frizzle on an old
tray, small pieces of thinly-cut meat, with a mixture of onions, kept
hot by being placed over an old pan containing charcoal. In another
room a mess of batter is smoking over a grate. “Penny a lot, oysters,”
resounds from different parts. Some of the sellers command two
streets by establishing their stalls or tubs at a corner. Lads pass,
carrying sweet-stuff on trays. I observed one very dark-eyed Hebrew
boy chewing the hard-bake he vended--if it were not a substitute--with
an expression of great enjoyment. Heaped-up trays of fresh-looking
sponge-cakes are carried in tempting pyramids. Youths have stocks of
large hard-looking biscuits, and walk about crying, “Ha’penny biscuits,
ha’penny; three a penny, biscuits;” these, with a morsel of cheese,
often supply a dinner or a luncheon. Dates and figs, as dry as they
are cheap, constitute the stock in trade of other street-sellers.
“Coker-nuts” are sold in pieces and entire; the Jew boy, when he
invites to the purchase of an entire nut, shaking it at the ear of the
customer. I was told by a costermonger that these juveniles had a way
of drumming with their fingers on the shell so as to satisfy a “green”
customer that the nut offered was a sound one.
Such are the summer eatables and drinkables which I have lately seen
vended in the Petticoat-lane district. In winter there are, as long
as daylight lasts--and in no other locality perhaps does it last so
short a time--other street provisions, and, if possible, greater zeal
in selling them, the hours of business being circumscribed. There is
then the potato-can and the hot elder-wine apparatus, and smoking pies
and puddings, and roasted apples and chestnuts, and walnuts, and the
several fruits which ripen in the autumn--apples, pears, &c.
Hitherto I have spoken only of such eatables and drinkables as are
ready for consumption, but to these the trade in the Petticoat-lane
district is by no means confined. There is fresh fish, generally of the
cheaper kinds, and smoked or dried fish (smoked salmon, moreover, is
sold ready cooked), and costermongers’ barrows, with their loads of
green vegetables, looking almost out of place amidst the surrounding
dinginess. The cries of “Fine cauliflowers,” “Large penny cabbages,”
“Eight a shilling, mackarel,” “Eels, live eels,” mix strangely with the
hubbub of the busier street.
Other street-sellers also abound. You meet one man who says
mysteriously, and rather bluntly, “Buy a good knife, governor.” His
tone is remarkable, and if it attract attention, he may hint that he
has smuggled goods which he _must_ sell anyhow. Such men, I am told,
look out mostly for seamen, who often resort to Petticoat-lane; for
idle men like sailors on shore, and idle uncultivated men often love
to lounge where there is bustle. Pocket and pen knives and scissors,
“Penny a piece, penny a pair,” rubbed over with oil, both to hide
and prevent rust, are carried on trays, and spread on stalls, some
stalls consisting of merely a tea-chest lid on a stool. Another
man, carrying perhaps a sponge in his hand, and well-dressed, asks
you, in a subdued voice, if you want a good razor, as if he almost
suspected that you meditated suicide, and were looking out for the
means! This is another ruse to introduce smuggled (or “duffer’s”)
goods. Account-books are hawked. “Penny-a-quire,” shouts the itinerant
street stationer (who, if questioned, always declares he said “Penny
half quire”). “Stockings, stockings, two pence a pair.” “Here’s your
chewl-ry; penny, a penny; pick ’em and choose ’em.” [I may remark that
outside the window of one shop, or rather parlour, if there be any such
distinction here, I saw the handsomest, as far as I am able to judge,
and the best cheap jewellery I ever saw in the streets.] “Pencils, sir,
pencils; steel-pens, steel-pens; ha’penny, penny; pencils, steel-pens;
sealing-wax, wax, wax, wax!” shouts one, “Green peas, ha’penny a pint!”
cries another.
These things, however, are but the accompaniments of the main traffic.
But as such things accompany all traffic, not on a small scale, and may
be found in almost every metropolitan thoroughfare, where the police
are not required, by the householders, to interfere, I will point out,
to show the distinctive character of the street-trade in this part,
what is _not_ sold and not encouraged. I saw no old books. There were
no flowers; no music, which indeed could not be heard except at the
outskirts of the din; and no beggars plying their vocation among the
trading class.
Another peculiarity pertaining alike to this shop and street locality
is, that everything is at the veriest minimum of price; though it may
not be asked, it will assuredly be taken. The bottle of lemonade which
is elsewhere a penny is here a halfpenny. The tarts, which among the
street-sellers about the Royal Exchange are a halfpenny each, are
here a farthing. When lemons are two a-penny in St. George’s-market,
Oxford-street, as the long line of street stalls towards the western
extremity is called--they are three and four a-penny in Petticoat
and Rosemary lanes. Certainly there is a difference in size between
the dearer and the cheaper tarts and lemons, and perhaps there is a
difference in quality also, but the rule of a minimized cheapness has
no exceptions in this cheap-trading quarter.
But Petticoat-lane is essentially the old clothes district. Embracing
the streets and alleys adjacent to Petticoat-lane, and including the
rows of old boots and shoes on the ground, there is perhaps between
two and three miles of old clothes. Petticoat-lane proper is long and
narrow, and to look down it is to look down a vista of many coloured
garments, alike on the sides and on the ground. The effect sometimes
is very striking, from the variety of hues, and the constant flitting,
or gathering, of the crowd into little groups of bargainers. Gowns of
every shade and every pattern are hanging up, but none, perhaps, look
either bright or white; it is a vista of dinginess, but many coloured
dinginess, as regards female attire. Dress coats, frock coats, great
coats, livery and game-keepers’ coats, paletots, tunics, trowsers,
knee-breeches, waistcoats, capes, pilot coats, working jackets, plaids,
hats, dressing gowns, shirts, Guernsey frocks, are all displayed. The
predominant colours are black and blue, but there is every colour;
the light drab of some aristocratic livery; the dull brown-green of
velveteen; the deep blue of a pilot jacket; the variegated figures of
the shawl dressing-gown; the glossy black of the restored garments;
the shine of newly turpentined black satin waistcoats; the scarlet and
green of some flaming tartan; these things--mixed with the hues of the
women’s garments, spotted and striped--certainly present a scene which
cannot be beheld in any other part of the greatest city of the world,
nor in any other portion of the world itself.
The ground has also its array of colours. It is covered with
lines of boots and shoes, their shining black relieved here and
there by the admixture of females’ boots, with drab, green, plum
or lavender-coloured “legs,” as the upper part of the boot is
always called in the trade. There is, too, an admixture of men’s
“button-boots” with drab cloth legs; and of a few red, yellow, and
russet coloured slippers; and of children’s coloured morocco boots and
shoes. Handkerchiefs, sometimes of a gaudy orange pattern, are heaped
on a chair. Lace and muslins occupy small stands or are spread on the
ground. Black and drab and straw hats are hung up, or piled one upon
another and kept from falling by means of strings; while, incessantly
threading their way through all this intricacy, is a mass of people,
some of whose dresses speak of a recent purchase in the lane.
I have said little of the shopkeepers of Petticoat-lane, nor is it
requisite for the full elucidation of my present subject (which
relates more especially to _street-sale_), that I should treat of them
otherwise than as being in a great degree connected with street-trade.
They stand in the street (in front of their premises), they trade in
the street, they smoke and read the papers in the street; and indeed
the greater part of their lives seems passed in the street, for, as I
have elsewhere remarked, the Saturday’s or Sabbath’s recreation to some
of them, after synagogue hours, seems to be to stand by their doors
looking about them.
In the earlier periods of the day--the Jewish Sabbath excepted, when
there is no market at all in Petticoat-lane, not even among the Irish
and other old clothes people, or a mere nothing of a market--the
goods of these shops seem consigned to the care of the wives and
female members of the families of the proprietors. The Old Clothes
Exchange, like other places known by the name--the Royal Exchange, for
example--has its daily season of “high change.” This is, in summer,
from about half-past two to five, in winter, from two to four o’clock.
At those hours the crockman, and the bartering costermonger, and the
Jew collector, have sought the Exchange with their respective bargains;
and business there, and in the whole district, is at its fullest tide.
Before this hour the master of the shop or _store_ (the latter may be
the more appropriate word) is absent buying, collecting, or transacting
any business which requires him to leave home. It is curious to observe
how, during this absence, the women, but with most wary eyes to the
business, sit in the street carrying on their domestic occupations.
Some, with their young children about them, are shelling peas; some are
trimming vegetables; some plying their needles; some of the smaller
traders’ wives, as well as the street-sellers with a “pitch,” are
eating dinners out of basins (laid aside when a customer approaches),
and occasionally some may be engaged in what Mrs. Trollope has called
(in noticing a similar procedure in the boxes of an American theatre)
“the most maternal of all offices.” The females I saw thus occupied
were principally Jewesses, for though those resorting to the Old
Clothes Exchange and its concomitant branches may be but one-fourth
Jews, more than half of the remainder being Irish people, the
householders or shopkeepers of the locality, when capital is needed,
are generally Israelites.
It must be borne in mind that, in describing Petticoat-lane, I have
described it as seen on a fine summer’s day, when the business is at
its height. Until an hour or two after midday the district is quiet,
and on very rainy days its aspect is sufficiently lamentable, for then
it appears actually deserted. Perhaps on a winter’s Saturday night--as
the Jewish Sabbath terminates at sunset--the scene may be the most
striking of all. The flaring lights from uncovered gas, from fat-fed
lamps, from the paper-shaded candles, and the many ways in which the
poorer street-folk throw some illumination over their goods, produce a
multiplicity of lights and shadows, which, thrown and blended over the
old clothes hanging up along the line of street, cause them to assume
mysterious forms, and if the wind be high make them, as they are blown
to and fro, look more mysterious still.
On one of my visits to Petticoat-lane I saw two foreign Jews--from
Smyrna I was informed. An old street-seller told me he believed it
was their first visit to the district. But, new as the scene might be
to them, they looked on impassively at all they saw. They wore the
handsome and peculiar dresses of their country. A glance was cast
after them by the Petticoat-lane people, but that was all. In the
Strand they would have attracted considerable attention; not a few
heads would have been turned back to gaze after them; but it seems
that only to those who may possibly be customers is any notice paid in
Petticoat-lane.