In the following accounts of street-selling, I shall not mix up any
account of the retailers’ modes of buying, collecting, repairing, or
“restoring” the second-hand garments, otherwise than incidentally. I
have already sketched the systems pursued, and more will have to be
said concerning them under the head of STREET-BUYERS. Neither have
I thought it necessary, in the further accounts I have collected,
to confine myself to the trade carried on in the Petticoat and
Rosemary-lane districts. The greater portion relates to those places,
but my aim, of course, is to give an account which will show the
character of the second-hand trade of the metropolis generally.
“People should remember,” said an intelligent shoemaker (not a
street-seller) with whom I had some conversation about cobbling for
the streets, “that such places as Rosemary-lane have their uses this
way. But for them a very poor industrious widow, say, with only 2_d._
or 3_d._ to spare, couldn’t get a pair of shoes for her child; whereas
now, for 2_d._ or 3_d._, she can get them there, of some sort or other.
There’s a sort of decency, too, in wearing shoes. And what’s more,
sir--for I’ve bought old coats and other clothes in Rosemary-lane, both
for my own wear and my family’s, and know something about it--how is a
poor creature to get such a decency as a petticoat for a poor little
girl, if she’d only a penny, unless there were such places?”
In the present state of the very poor, it may be that such places as
those described have, on the principle that half a loaf is better than
no bread, their benefits. But whether the state of things in which an
industrious widow, or a host of industrious persons, _can_ spare but
1_d._ for a child’s clothing (and nothing, perhaps, for their own), is
one to be lauded in a Christian country, is another question, fraught
with grave political and social considerations.
The man from whom I received the following account of the sale of men’s
wearing apparel was apparently between 30 and 40 years of age. His face
presented something of the Jewish physiognomy, but he was a Christian,
he said, though he never had time to go to church or chapel, and Sunday
was often a busy day; besides, a man must live as others in his way
lived. He had been connected with the sale of old clothes all his
life, as were his parents, so that his existence had been monotonous
enough, for he had never been more than five miles, he thought, from
Whitechapel, the neighbourhood where he was born. In winter he liked a
concert, and was fond of a hand at cribbage, but he didn’t care for the
play. His goods he sometimes spread on the ground--at other times he
had a stall or a “horse” (clothes-horse).
“My customers,” he said, “are nearly all working people, some of them
very poor, and with large families. For anything I know, some of them
works with their heads, though, as well, and not their hands, for I’ve
noticed that their hands is smallish and seems smoothish, and suits a
tight sleeve very well. I don’t know what they are. How should I? I
asks no questions, and they’ll tell me no fibs. To such as them I sell
coats mostly; indeed, very little else. They’re often very perticler
about the fit, and often asks, ‘Does it look as if it was made for
me?’ Sometimes they is seedy, very seedy, and comes to such as me,
most likely, ’cause we’re cheaper than the shops. They don’t like to
try things on in the street, and I can always take a decent customer,
or one as looks sich, in there, to try on (pointing to a coffee-shop).
Bob-tailed coats (dress-coats) is far the cheapest. I’ve sold them
as low as 1_s._, but not often; at 2_s._ and 3_s._ often enough; and
sometimes as high as 5_s._ Perhaps a 3_s._ or 3_s._ 6_d._ coat goes off
as well as any, but bob-tailed coats is little asked for. Now, I’ve
never had a frock (surtout or frock coat), as well as I can remember,
under 2_s._ 6_d._, except one that stuck by me a long time, and I sold
it at last for 20_d._, which was 2_d._ less than what it cost. It was
only a poor thing, in course, but it had such a rum-coloured velvet
collar, that was faded, and had had a bit let in, and was all sorts
of shades, and that hindered its selling, I fancy. Velvet collars
isn’t worn now, and I’m glad of it. Old coats goes better with their
own collars (collars of the same cloth as the body of the coat). For
frocks, I’ve got as much as 7_s._ 6_d._, and cheap at it too, sir.
Well, perhaps (laughing) at an odd time they wasn’t so very cheap, but
that’s all in the way of trade. About 4_s._ 6_d._ or 5_s._ is perhaps
the ticket that a frock goes off best at. It’s working people that buys
frocks most, and often working people’s wives or mothers--that is as
far as I knows. They’re capital judges as to what’ll fit their men;
and if they satisfy me it’s all right, I’m always ready to undertake
to change it for another if it don’t fit. O, no, I never agree to
give back the money if it don’t fit; in course not; that wouldn’t be
business.
“No, sir, we’re very little troubled with people larking. I have had
young fellows come, half drunk, even though it might be Sunday morning,
and say, ‘Guv’ner, what’ll you give me to wear that coat for you, and
show off your cut?’ We don’t stand much of their nonsense. I don’t
know what such coves are. Perhaps ’torneys’ journeymen, or pot-boys
out for a Sunday morning’s spree.” [This was said with a bitterness
that surprised me in so quiet-speaking a man.] “In greatcoats and
cloaks I don’t do much, but it’s a very good sale when you can offer
them well worth the money. I’ve got 10_s._ often for a greatcoat, and
higher and lower, oftener lower in course; but 10_s._ is about the
card for a good thing. It’s the like with cloaks. Paletots don’t sell
well. They’re mostly thinner and poorer cloth to begin with at the
tailors--them new-fashioned named things often is so--and so they show
when hard worn. Why no, sir, they can be done up, certainly; anything
can be touched up; but they get thin, you see, and there’s nothing to
work upon as there is in a good cloth greatcoat. You’ll excuse me, sir,
but I saw you a little bit since take one of them there square books
that a man gives away to people coming this way, as if to knock up the
second-hand business, but he won’t, though; I’ll tell you how them
slops, if they come more into wear, is sure to injure us. If people
gets to wear them low-figured things, more and more, as they possibly
may, why where’s the second-hand things to come from? I’m not a tailor,
but I understands about clothes, and I believe that no person ever saw
anything green in my eye. And if you find a slop thing marked a guinea,
I don’t care what it is, but I’ll undertake that you shall get one
that’ll wear longer, and look better to the very last, second-hand, at
less than half the money, plenty less. It was good stuff and good make
at first, and hasn’t been abused, and that’s the reason why it always
bangs a slop, because it was good to begin with.
“Trousers sells pretty well. I sell them, cloth ones, from 6_d._ up
to 4_s._ They’re cheaper if they’re not cloth, but very seldom less
or so low as 6_d._ Yes, the cloth ones at that is poor worn things,
and little things too. They’re not men’s, they’re youth’s or boy’s
size. Good strong cords goes off very well at 1_s._ and 1_s._ 6_d._,
or higher. Irish bricklayers buys them, and paviours, and such like.
It’s easy to fit a man with a pair of second-hand trousers. I can tell
by his build what’ll fit him directly. Tweeds and summer trousers is
middling, but washing things sells worse and worse. It’s an expense,
and expenses don’t suit my customers--not a bit of it.
“Waistcoats isn’t in no great call. They’re often worn very hard under
any sort of a tidy coat, for a tidy coat can be buttoned over anything
that’s ‘dicky,’ and so, you see, many of ’em’s half-way to the rag-shop
before they comes to us. Well, I’m sure I can hardly say what sort of
people goes most for weskets” [so he pronounced it]. “If they’re light,
or there’s anything ‘fancy’ about them, I thinks it’s mothers as makes
them up for their sons. What with the strings at the back and such
like, it aint hard to make a wesket fit. They’re poor people as buys
certainly, but genteel people buys such things as fancy weskets, or
how do you suppose they’d all be got through? O, there’s ladies comes
here for a bargain, I can tell you, and gentlemen, too; and many on ’em
would go through fire for one. Second-hand satins (waistcoats) is good
still, but they don’t fetch the tin they did. I’ve sold weskets from
1-1/2_d._ to 4_s._ Well, it’s hard to say what the three-ha’pennies is
made of; all sorts of things; we calls them ‘serge.’ Three-pence is a
common price for a little wesket. There’s no under-weskets wanted now,
and there’s no rolling collars. It was better for us when there was, as
there was more stuff to work on. The double-breasted gets scarcer, too.
Fashions grows to be cheap things now-a-days.
“I can’t tell you anything about knee-breeches; they don’t come into my
trade, and they’re never asked for. Gaiters is no go either. Liveries
isn’t a street-trade. I fancy all those sort of things is sent
abroad. I don’t know where. Perhaps where people doesn’t know they was
liveries. I wouldn’t wear an old livery coat, if it was the Queen’s,
for five bob. I don’t think wearing one would hinder trade. You may
have seen a black man in a fine livery giving away bills of a slop in
Holborn. If we was to have such a thing we’d be pulled up (apprehended)
for obstructing.
“I sells a few children’s (children’s clothes), but only a few, and
I can’t say so much about them. They sells pretty freely though, and
to very decent people. If they’re good, then they’re ready for use.
If they ain’t anything very prime, they can be mended--that is, if
they was good to begin with. But children’s woollen togs is mostly
hardworn and fit only for the ‘devil’ (the machine which tears them up
for shoddy). I’ve sold suits, which was tunics and trousers, but no
weskets, for 3_s._ 6_d._ when they was tidy. That’s a common price.
“Well, really, I hardly know how much I make every week; far too
little, I know that. I could no more tell you how many coats I sell in
a year, or how many weskets, than I could tell you how many days was
fine, and how many wasn’t. I can carry all in my head, and so I keeps
no accounts. I know exactly what every single thing I sell has cost me.
In course I must know _that_. I dare say I may clear about 12_s._ bad
weeks, and 18_s._ good weeks, more and less both ways, and there’s more
bad weeks than good. I have cleared 50_s._ in a good week; and when
it’s been nothing but fog and wet, I haven’t cleared 3_s._ 6_d._ But
mine’s a better business than common, perhaps. I can’t say what others
clears; more and less than I does.”
The profit in this trade, from the best information I could obtain,
runs about 50 per cent.