This trade, as regards the sale to retail customers in the streets,
is almost entirely in the hands of women, seven-eighths of whom
are the wives, relatives, or connections of the men who deal in
second-hand male apparel. But gowns, cloaks, bonnets, &c., are
collected more largely by men than by women, and the wholesale old
clothes’ merchants of course deal in every sort of habiliment.
Petticoat and Rosemary-lanes are the grand marts for this street-sale,
but in Whitecross-street, Leather-lane, Old-street (St. Luke’s), and
some similar Saturday-night markets in poor neighbourhoods, women’s
second-hand apparel is sometimes offered. “It is often of little use
offering it in the latter places,” I was told by a lace-seller who
had sometimes tried to do business in second-hand shawls and cloaks,
“because you are sure to hear, ‘Oh, we can get them far cheaper in
Petticoat-lane, when we like to go as far.’”
The different portions of female dress are shown and sold in the
street, as I have described in my account of Rosemary-lane, and of the
trading of the men selling second-hand male apparel. There is not so
much attention paid to “set off” gowns that there is to set off coats.
“If the gown be a washing gown,” I was informed, “it is sure to have
to be washed before it can be worn, and so it is no use bothering with
it, and paying for soap and labour beforehand. If it be woollen, or
some stuff that wont wash, it has almost always to be altered before it
is worn, and so it is no use doing it up perhaps to be altered again.”
Silk goods, however, are carefully enough re-glossed and repaired. Most
of the others “just take their chance.”
A good-looking Irishwoman gave me the following account. She had come
to London and had been a few years in service, where she saved a little
money, when she married a cousin, but in what degree of cousinship she
did not know. She then took part in his avocation as a crockman, and
subsequently as a street-seller of second-hand clothes.
“Why, yis, thin and indeed, sir,” she said, “I did feel rather quare
in my new trade, going about from house to house, the Commercial-road
and Stepney way, but I soon got not to mind, and indeed thin it don’t
matter much what way one gets one’s living, so long as it’s honest. O,
yis, I know there’s goings on in old clothes that isn’t always honest,
but my husband’s a fair dealing man. I felt quarer, too, whin I had
to sell in the strate, but I soon got used to that, too; and it’s not
such slavish work as the ‘crocks.’ But we sometimes ‘crocks’ in the
mornings a little still, and sells in the evenings. No, not what we’ve
collected--for that goes to Mr. Isaac’s market almost always--but stock
that’s ready for wear.
“For _Cotton Gowns_ I’ve got from 9_d._ to 2_s._ 3_d._ O, yis, and
indeed thin, there’s gowns chaper, 4_d._ and 6_d._, but there’s nothing
to be got out of them, and we don’t sell them. From 9_d._ to 18_d._
is the commonest price. It’s poor people as buys: O, yis, and indeed
thin it is, thim as has families, and must look about thim. Many’s the
poor woman that’s said to me, ‘Well, and indeed, marm, it isn’t my
inclination to chapen anybody as I thinks is fair, and I was brought up
quite different to buying old gowns, I assure you’--yis, that’s often
said; no, sir, it isn’t my countrywomen that says it (laughing), it’s
yours. ‘I wouldn’t think,’ says she, ‘of offering you 1_d._ less than
1_s._, marm, for that frock for my daughter, marm, but it’s such a hard
fight to live.’ Och, thin, and it is indeed; but to hear some of them
talk you’d think they was born ladies. _Stuff-gowns_ is from 2_d._ to
8_d._ higher than cotton, but they don’t sell near so well. I hardly
know why. Cotton washes, and if a dacent woman gets a chape second-hand
cotton, she washes and does it up, and it seems to come to her fresh
and new. That can’t be done with stuff. _Silk_ is very little in my
way, but silk gowns sell from 3_s._ 6_d._ to 4_s._ Of satin and velvet
gowns I can tell you nothing; they’re never in the streets.
“_Second-hand Bonnets_ is a very poor sale--very. The milliners, poor
craitchers, as makes them up and sells them in the strate, has the
greatest sale, but they makes very little by it. Their bonnets looks
new, you see, sir, and close and nice for poor women. I’ve sold bonnets
from 6_d._ to 3_s._ 6_d._, and some of them cost 3_l._ But whin they
git faded and out of fashion, they’re of no vally at all at all.
_Shawls_ is a very little sale; very little. I’ve got from 6_d._ to
2_s._ 6_d._ for them. Plaid shawls is as good as any, at about 1_s._
6_d._; but they’re a winter trade. _Cloaks_ (they are what in the
dress-making trade are called mantles) isn’t much of a call. I’ve had
them from 1_s._ 6_d._ as high as 7_s._--but only once 7_s._, and it was
good silk. They’re not a sort of wear that suits poor people. Will and
indeed thin, I hardly know who buys them second-hand. Perhaps bad women
buys a few, or they get men to buy them for them. I think your misses
don’t buy much second-hand thin in gineral; the less the better, the
likes of them; yis, indeed, sir. _Stays_ I don’t sell, but you can buy
them from 3_d._ to 15_d._; it’s a small trade. And I don’t sell _Under
Clothing_, or only now and thin, except _Children’s_. Dear me, I can
hardly tell the prices I get for the poor little things’ dress--I’ve a
little girl myself--the prices vary so, just as the frocks and other
things is made for big children or little, and what they’re made of.
I’ve sold frocks--they sell best on Saturday and Monday nights--from
2_d._ to 1_s._ 6_d._ Little petticoats is 1_d._ to 3_d._; shifts is
1_d._ and 2_d._, and so is little shirts. If they wasn’t so low there
would be more rags than there is, and sure there’s plinty.
“Will, thin and indeed, I don’t know what we make in a week, and if I
did, why should I tell? O, yes, sir, I know from the gentleman that
sent you to me that you’re asking for a good purpose: yis, indeed,
thin; but I ralely can’t say. We do pritty well, God’s name be praised!
Perhaps a good second-hand gown trade and such like is worth from
10_s._ to 15_s._ a week, and nearer 15_s._ than 10_s._ ivery week; but
that’s a _good_ second-hand trade you understand, sir. A poor trade’s
about half that, perhaps. But thin my husband sells men’s wear as well.
Yis, indeed, and I find time to go to mass, and I soon got my husband
to go after we was married, for he’d got to neglect it, God be praised;
and what’s all you can get here compared to making your sowl” [saving
your soul--_making_ your soul is not an uncommon phrase among some of
the Irish people]. “Och, and indeed thin, sir, if you’ve met Father
----, you’ve met a good gintleman.”
* * * * *
Of the street-selling of _women and children’s second-hand boots and
shoes_, I need say but little, as they form part of the stock of the
men’s ware, and are sold by the same men, not unfrequently assisted by
their wives. The best sale is for black _cloth boots_, whether laced
or buttoned, but the prices run only from 5_d._ to 1_s._ 9_d._ If the
“legs” of a second-hand pair be good, they are worth 5_d._, no matter
what the leather portion, including the soles, may be. Coloured boots
sell very indifferently. Children’s boots and shoes are sold from 2_d._
to 15_d._