No small part of the second-hand trade of London is carried on in
the market-place of Smithfield, on the Friday afternoons. Here is
a mart for almost everything which is required for the harnessing
of beasts of draught, or is required for any means of propulsion or
locomotion, either as a whole vehicle, or in its several parts, needed
by street-traders: also of the machines, vessels, scales, weights,
measures, baskets, stands, and all other appliances of street-trade.
The scene is animated and peculiar. Apart from the horse, ass, and
goat trade (of which I shall give an account hereafter), it is a grand
Second-hand Costermongers’ Exchange. The trade is not confined to that
large body, though they are the principal merchants, but includes
greengrocers (often the costermonger in a shop), carmen, and others. It
is, moreover, a favourite resort of the purveyors of street-provisions
and beverages, of street dainties and luxuries. Of this class some of
the most prosperous are those who are “well known in Smithfield.”
The space devoted to this second-hand commerce and its accompaniments,
runs from St. Bartholomew’s Hospital towards Long-lane, but
isolated peripatetic traders are found in all parts of the space
not devoted to the exhibition of cattle or of horses. The crowd on
the day of my visit was considerable, but from several I heard the
not-always-very-veracious remarks of “Nothing doing” and “There’s
nobody at all here to-day.” The weather was sultry, and at every few
yards arose the cry from men and boys, “Ginger-beer, ha’penny a glass!
Ha’penny a glass,” or “Iced lemonade here! Iced raspberriade, as cold
as ice, ha’penny a glass, only a ha’penny!” A boy was elevated on a
board at the end of a splendid affair of this kind. It was a square
built vehicle, the top being about 7 feet by 4, and flat and surmounted
by the lemonade fountain; long, narrow, champagne glasses, holding a
raspberry coloured liquid, frothed up exceedingly, were ranged round,
and the beverage dispensed by a woman, the mother or employer of the
boy who was bawling. The sides of the machine, which stood on wheels,
were a bright, shiny blue, and on them sprawled the lion and unicorn in
gorgeous heraldry, yellow and gold, the artist being, according to a
prominent announcement, a “herald painter.” The apparatus was handsome,
but with that exaggeration of handsomeness which attracts the high
and low vulgar, who cannot distinguish between gaudiness and beauty.
The sale was brisk. The ginger-beer sold in the market was generally
dispensed from carts, and here I noticed, what occurs yearly in
street-commerce, an innovation on the established system of the trade.
Several sellers disposed of their ginger-beer in clear glass bottles,
somewhat larger and fuller-necked than those introduced by M. Soyer for
the sale of his “nectar,” and the liquid was drank out of the bottle
the moment the cork was undrawn, and so the necessity of a glass was
obviated.
Near the herald-painter’s work, of which I have just spoken, stood
a very humble stall on which were loaves of bread, and round the
loaves were pieces of fried fish and slices of bread on plates, all
remarkably clean. “Oysters! Penny-a lot! Penny-a-lot, oysters!” was
the cry, the most frequently heard after that of ginger-beer, &c.
“Cherries! Twopence a-pound! Penny-a pound, cherries!” “Fruit-pies!
Try my fruit-pies!” The most famous dealer in all kinds of penny pies
is, however, not a pedestrian, but an equestrian hawker. He drives a
very smart, handsome pie-cart, sitting behind after the manner of the
Hansom cabmen, the lifting up of a lid below his knees displaying his
large stock of pies. His “drag” is whisked along rapidly by a brisk
chestnut poney, well-harnessed. The “whole set out,” I was informed,
poney included, cost 50_l._ when new. The proprietor is a keen Chartist
and teetotaller, and loses no opportunity to inculcate to his customers
the excellence of teetotalism, as well as of his pies. “Milk! ha’penny
a pint! ha’penny a pint, good milk!” is another cry. “Raspberry cream!
Iced raspberry-cream, ha’penny a glass!” This street-seller had a
capital trade. Street-ices, or rather ice-creams, were somewhat of a
failure last year, more especially in Greenwich-park, but this year
they seem likely to succeed. The Smithfield man sold them in very
small glasses, which he merely dipped into a vessel at his feet, and
so filled them with the cream. The consumers had to use their fingers
instead of a spoon, and no few seemed puzzled how to eat their ice, and
were grievously troubled by its getting among their teeth. I heard one
drover mutter that he felt “as if it had snowed in his belly!” Perhaps
at Smithfield-market on the Friday afternoons every street-trade in
eatables and drinkables has its representative, with the exception
of such things as sweet-stuff, curds and whey, &c., which are bought
chiefly by women and children. There were plum-dough, plum-cake,
pastry, pea-soup, whelks, periwinkles, ham-sandwiches, hot-eels,
oranges, &c., &c., &c.
These things are the usual accompaniment of street-markets, and I
now come to the subject matter of the work, the sale of second-hand
articles.
In this trade, since the introduction of a new arrangement two months
ago, there has been a great change. The vendors are not allowed to vend
barrows in the market, unless indeed with a poney or donkey harnessed
to them, or unless they are wheeled about by the owner, and they are
not allowed to spread their wares on the ground. When it is considered
of what those wares are composed, the awkwardness of the arrangement,
to the sales-people, may be understood. They consist of second-hand
collars, pads, saddles, bridles, bits, traces, every description of
worn harness, whole or in parts; the wheels, springs, axles, &c., of
barrows and carts; the beams, chains, and bodies of scales;--these,
perhaps, are the chief things which are sold separately, as parts of a
whole. The traders have now no other option but to carry them as they
best can, and offer them for sale. You saw men who really appear clad
in harness. Portions were fastened round their bodies, collars slung
on their arms, pads or small cart-saddles, with their shaft-gear, were
planted on their shoulders. Some carried merely a collar, or a harness
bridle, or even a bit or a pair of spurs. It was the same with the
springs, &c., of the barrows and small carts. They were carried under
men’s arms, or poised on their shoulders. The wheels and other things
which are too heavy for such modes of transport had to be placed in
some sort of vehicle, and in the vehicles might be seen trestles, &c.
The complaints on the part of the second-hand sellers were neither few
nor mild: “If it had been a fat ox that had to be accommodated,” said
one, “before he was roasted for an alderman, they’d have found some way
to do it. But it don’t matter for poor men; though why we shouldn’t be
suited with a market as well as richer people is not the ticket, that’s
the fact.”
These arrangements are already beginning to be infringed, and will be
more and more infringed, for such is always the case. The reason why
they were adopted was that the ground was so littered, that there was
not room for the donkey traffic and other requirements of the market.
The donkeys, when “shown,” under the old arrangement, often trod on
boards of old metal, &c., spread on the ground, and tripped, sometimes
to their injury, in consequence. Prior to the change, about twenty
persons used to come from Petticoat-lane, &c., and spread their old
metal or other stores on the ground.
Of these there are now none. These Petticoat-laners, I was told by a
Smithfield frequenter, were men “who knew the price of old rags,”--a
new phrase expressive of their knowingness and keenness in trade.
The statistics of this trade will be found under that head; the prices
are often much higher and much lower. I speak of the regular trades.
I have not included the sale of the superior butchers’ carts, &c.,
as that is a traffic not in the hands of the regular second-hand
street-sellers. I have not thought it requisite to speak of the hawking
of whips, sticks, wash-leathers, brushes, curry-combs, &c., &c., of
which I have already treated distinctively.
The accounts of the Capital and Income of the Street-Sellers of
Second-Hand Articles I am obliged to defer till a future occasion.