Of furs the street-sale is prompt enough, or used to be prompt; but
not so much so, I am told, last season, as formerly. A fur tippet
is readily bought for the sake of warmth by women who thrive pretty
well in the keeping of coffee-stalls, or any calling which requires
attendance during the night, or in the chilliness of early morning,
even in summer, by those who go out at early hours to their work. By
such persons a big tippet is readily bought when the money is not an
impediment, and to many it is a strong recommendation, that when new,
the tippet, most likely, was worn by a real lady. So I was assured by a
person familiar with the trade.
One female street-seller had three stalls or stands in the New Cut
(when it was a great street market), about two years back, and all for
the sale of second-hand furs. She has now a small shop in second-hand
wearing apparel (women’s) generally, furs being of course included.
The business carried on in the street (almost always “the Cut”) by
the fur-seller in question, who was both industrious and respectable,
was very considerable. On a Monday she has not unfrequently taken
3_l._, one-half of which, indeed more than half, was profit, for the
street-seller bought in the summer, when furs “were no money at all,”
and sold in the winter, when they “were really tin, and no mistake.”
Before the season began, she sometimes had a small room nearly full of
furs.
This trade is less confined to Petticoat-lane and the old clothes
district, as regards the supply to retail customers, than is anything
else connected with dress. But the fur trade is now small. The money,
prudence, and forethought necessary to enable a fur-seller to buy in
the summer, for ample profit in the winter, as regards street-trade, is
not in accordance with the habits of the general run of street-sellers,
who think but of the present, or hardly think even of that.
The old furs, like all the other old articles of wearing apparel,
whether garbs of what may be accounted primary necessaries, as shoes,
or mere comforts or adornments, as boas or muffs, are bought in the
first instance at the Old Clothes Exchange, and so find their way to
the street-sellers. The exceptions as to this first transaction in the
trade I now speak of, are very trifling, and, perhaps, more trifling
than in other articles, for one great supply of furs, I am informed, is
from their being swopped in the spring and summer for flowers with the
“root-sellers,” who carry them to the Exchange.
Last winter there were sometimes as many as ten persons--three-fourths
of the number of second-hand fur sellers, which fluctuates, being
women--with fur-stands. They frequent the street-markets on the
Saturday and Monday nights, not confining themselves to any one market
in particular. The best sale is for _Fur Tippets_, and chiefly of the
darker colours. These are bought, one of the dealers informed me,
frequently by maid-servants, who could run of errands in them in the
dark, or wear them in wet weather. They are sold from 1_s._ 6_d._
to 4_s._ 6_d._, about 2_s._ or 2_s._ 6_d._ being a common charge.
Children’s tippets “go off well,” from 6_d._ to 1_s._ 3_d._ _Boas_
are not vended to half the extent of tippets, although they are
lower-priced, one of tolerably good gray squirrel being 1_s._ 6_d._
The reason of the difference in the demand is that boas are as much
an ornament as a garment, while the tippet answers the purpose of a
shawl. _Muffs_ are not at all vendible in the streets, the few that are
disposed of being principally for children. As muffs are not generally
used by maid-servants, or by the families of the working classes, the
absence of demand in the second-hand traffic is easily accounted for.
They are bought sometimes to cut up for other purposes. _Victorines_
are disposed of readily enough at from 1_s._ to 2_s._ 6_d._, as are
_Cuffs_, from 4_d._ to 8_d._
One man, who told me that a few years since he and his wife used to
sell second-hand furs in the street, was of opinion that his best
customers were women of the town, who were tolerably well-dressed,
and who required some further protection from the night air. He could
readily sell any “tidy” article, tippet, boa, or muff, to those
females, if they had from 2_s._ 6_d._ to 5_s._ at command. He had so
sold them in Clare-market, in Tottenham-court-road, and the Brill.