It will have been noticed that in the accounts I have given of the
former street-transactions in dogs, there is no mention of the
_sellers_. The information I have adduced is a condensation of the
evidence given before the Select Committee of the House of Commons, and
the inquiry related only to the stealing, finding, and restoring of
dogs, the selling being but an incidental part of the evidence. Then,
however, as now, the street-sellers were not implicated in the thefts
or restitution of dogs, “just except,” one man told me, “as there was
a black sheep or two in every flock.” The black sheep, however, of
this street-calling more frequently meddled with restoring, than with
“finding.”
Another street dog-seller, an intelligent man,--who, however did not
know so much as my first informant of the state of the trade in the
olden time,--expressed a positive opinion, that no dog-stealer was
now a street-hawker (“hawker” was the word I found these men use).
His reasons for this opinion, in addition to his own judgment from
personal knowledge, are cogent enough: “It isn’t possible, sir,” he
said, “and this is the reason why. We are not a large body of men. We
stick pretty closely, when we are out, to the same places. We are as
well-known to the police, as any men whom they most know, by sight at
any rate, from meeting them every day. Now, if a lady or gentleman has
lost a dog, or it’s been stolen or strayed--and the most petted will
sometimes stray unaccountably and follow some stranger or other--why
where does she, and he, and all the family, and all the servants, first
look for the lost animal? Why, where, but at the dogs we are hawking?
No, sir, it can’t be done now, and it isn’t done in my knowledge, and
it oughtn’t to be done. I’d rather make 5_s._ on an honest dog than
5_l._ on one that wasn’t, if there was no risk about it either.” Other
information convinces me that this statement is correct.
Of these street-sellers or hawkers there are now about twenty-five.
There may be, however, but twenty, if so many, on any given day in the
streets, as there are always some detained at home by other avocations
connected with their line of life. The places they chiefly frequent
are the Quadrant and Regent-street generally, but the Quadrant far the
most. Indeed before the removal of the colonnade, one-half at least of
all the dog-sellers of London would resort there on a very wet day, as
they had the advantage of shelter, and generally of finding a crowd
assembled, either lounging to pass the time, or waiting “for a fair
fit,” and so with leisure to look at dogs. The other places are the
West-end squares, the banks of the Serpentine, Charing-cross, the Royal
Exchange, and the Bank of England, and the Parks generally. They visit,
too, any public place to which there may be a temporary attraction of
the classes likely to be purchasers--a mere crowd of people, I was
told, was no good to the dog-hawkers, it must be a crowd of people
that had money--such as the assemblage of ladies and gentlemen who
crowd the windows of Whitehall and Parliament-street, when the Queen
opens or prorogues the houses. These spectators fill the street and
the Horse-guards’ portion of the park as soon as the street mass has
dispersed, and they often afford the means of a good day’s work to the
dog people.
Two dogs, carefully cleaned and combed, or brushed, are carried in a
man’s arms for street-vending. A fine chain is generally attached to a
neat collar, so that the dog can be relieved from the cramped feel he
will experience if kept off his feet too long. In carrying these little
animals for sale--for it is the smaller dogs which are carried--the men
certainly display them to the best advantage. Their longer silken ears,
their prominent dark eyes and black noses, and the delicacy of their
fore-paws, are made as prominent as possible, and present what the
masses very well call “quite a pictur.” I have alluded to the display
of the _Spaniels_, as they constitute considerably more than half of
the street trade in dogs, the “King Charleses” and the “Blenheims”
being disposed of in nearly equal quantities. They are sold for
lap-dogs, pets, carriage companions or companions in a walk, and are
often intelligent and affectionate. Their colours are black, black and
tan, white and liver-colour, chestnut, black and white, and entirely
white, with many shades of these hues, and inter-blendings of them, one
with another, and with gray.
The small _Terriers_ are, however, coming more into fashion, or, as
the hawkers call it, into “vogue.” They are usually black, with tanned
muzzles and feet, and with a keen look, their hair being short and
smooth. Some, however, are preferred with long and somewhat wiry hair,
and the colour is often strongly mixed with gray. A small Isle of Skye
terrier--but few, I was informed know a “real Skye”--is sometimes
carried in the streets, as well as the little rough dogs known as
Scotch terriers. When a street-seller has a litter of terrier pups, he
invariably selects the handsomest for the streets, for it happens--my
informant did not know why, but he and others were positive that so
it was--that the handsomest is the worst; “the worst,” it must be
understood as regards the possession of choice sporting qualities, more
especially of pluck. The terrier’s education, as regards his prowess in
a rat-pit, is accordingly neglected; and if a gentleman ask, “Will he
kill rats?” the answer is in the negative; but this is no disparagement
to the sale, because the dog is sold, perhaps, for a lady’s pet, and is
not wanted to kill rats, or to “fight any dog of his weight.”
The _Pugs_, for which, 40 to 50 years ago, and, in a diminished
degree, 30 years back, there was, in the phrase of the day, “quite a
rage,” provided only the pug was hideous, are now never offered in the
streets, or so rarely, that a well-known dealer assured me he had only
sold one in the streets for two years. A Leadenhall tradesman, fond of
dogs, but in no way connected with the trade, told me that it came to
be looked upon, that a pug was a fit companion for only snappish old
maids, and “so the women wouldn’t have them any longer, least of all
the old maids.”
_French Poodles_ are also of rare street-sale. One man had a white
poodle two or three years ago, so fat and so round, that a lady, who
priced it, was told by a gentleman with her, that if the head and the
short legs were removed, and the inside scooped out, the animal would
make a capital muff; yet even _that_ poodle was difficult of sale at
50_s._
Occasionally also an _Italian Greyhound_, seeming cold and shivery on
the warmest days, is borne in a hawker’s arms, or if following on foot,
trembling and looking sad, as if mentally murmuring at the climate.
In such places as the banks of the Serpentine, or in the Regent’s-park,
the hawker does not carry his dogs in his arms, so much as let them
trot along with him in a body, and they are sure to attract attention;
or he sits down, and they play or sleep about him. One dealer told me
that children often took such a fancy for a pretty spaniel, that it
was difficult for either mother, governess, or nurse, to drag them
away until the man was requested to call in the evening, bringing with
him the dog, which was very often bought, or the hawker recompensed
for his loss of time. But sometimes the dog-dealers, I heard from
several, meet with great shabbiness among rich people, who recklessly
give them no small trouble, and sometimes put them to expense without
the slightest return, or even an acknowledgment or a word of apology.
“There’s one advantage in my trade,” said a dealer in live animals, “we
always has to do with principals. There’s never a lady would let her
most favouritest maid choose her dog for her. So no parkisits.”
The species which I have enumerated are all that are now sold in the
streets, with the exception of an odd “plum-pudding,” or coach-dog
(the white dog with dark spots which runs after carriages), or an odd
bull-dog, or bull-terrier, or indeed with the exception of “odd dogs”
of every kind. The hawkers are, however, connected with the trade in
sporting dogs, and often through the medium of their street traffic, as
I shall show under the next head of my subject.
There is one peculiarity in the hawking of fancy dogs, which
distinguishes it from all other branches of street-commerce. The
purchasers are all of the wealthier class. This has had its influence
on the manners of the dog-sellers. They will be found, in the majority
of cases, quiet and deferential men, but without servility, and with
little of the quality of speech; and I speak only of speech which
among English people is known as “gammon,” and among Irish people as
“blarney.” This manner is common to many; to the established trainer
of race-horses for instance, who is in constant communication with
persons in a very superior position in life to his own, and to whom he
is exceedingly deferential. But the trainer feels that in all points
connected with his not very easy business, as well, perhaps, as in
general turf knowingness, his royal highness (as was the case once),
or his grace, or my lord, or Sir John, was inferior to himself; and so
with all his deference there mingles a strain of quiet contempt, or
rather, perhaps, of conscious superiority, which is one ingredient in
the formation of the manners I have hastily sketched.
The customers of the street-hawkers of dogs are ladies and gentlemen,
who buy what may have attracted their admiration. The kept mistresses
of the wealthier classes are often excellent customers. “Many of ’em,
I know,” was said to me, “dotes on a nice spaniel. Yes, and I’ve known
gentlemen buy dogs for their misses; I couldn’t be mistaken when I
might be sent on with them, which was part of the bargain. If it was
a two-guinea dog or so, I was told never to give a hint of the price
to the servant, or to anybody. _I_ know why. It’s easy for a gentleman
that wants to please a lady, and not to lay out any great matter
of tin, to say that what had really cost him two guineas, cost him
twenty.” If one of the working classes, or a small tradesman, buy a dog
in the streets, it is generally because he is “of a fancy turn,” and
breeds a few dogs, and traffics in them in hopes of profit.
The homes of the dog-hawkers, as far as I had means of
ascertaining--and all I saw were of the same character--are comfortable
and very cleanly. The small spaniels, terriers, &c.,--I do not now
allude to sporting dogs--are generally kept in kennels, or in small
wooden houses erected for the purpose in a back garden or yard. These
abodes are generally in some open court, or little square or “grove,”
where there is a free access of air. An old man who was sitting at
his door in the summer evening, when I called upon a dog-seller, and
had to wait a short time, told me that so quiet were his next-door
neighbour’s (the street-hawker’s) dogs, that for some weeks, he did not
know his newly-come neighbour was a dog-man; although he was an old
nervous man himself, and couldn’t bear any unpleasant noise or smell.
The scrupulous observance of cleanliness is necessary in the rearing or
keeping of small fancy dogs, for without such observance the dog would
have a disagreeable odour about it, enough to repel any lady-buyer. It
is a not uncommon declaration among dog-sellers that the animals are
“as sweet as nuts.” Let it be remembered that I have been describing
the class of regular dog-sellers, making, by an open and established
trade, a tolerable livelihood.
The spaniels, terriers, &c., the stock of these hawkers, are either
bred by them--and they all breed a few or a good many dogs--or they
are purchased of dog-dealers (not street-sellers), or of people who
having a good fancy breed of “King Charleses,” or “Blenheims,” rear
dogs, and sell them by the litter to the hawkers. The hawkers also
buy dogs brought to them, “in the way of business,” but they are wary
how they buy any animal suspected to be stolen, or they may get into
“trouble.” One man, a carver and gilder, I was informed, some ten years
back, made a good deal of money by his “black-patched” spaniels. These
dogs had a remarkable black patch over their eyes, and so fond was
the dog-fancier, or breeder of them, that when he disposed of them to
street-sellers or others, he usually gave a portrait of the animals, of
his own rude painting, into the bargain. These paintings he also sold,
slightly framed, and I have seen them--but not so much lately--offered
in the streets, and hung up in poor persons’ rooms. This man lived in
York-square, behind the Colosseum, then a not very reputable quarter.
It is now Munster-square, and of a reformed character, but the seller
of dogs and the donor of their portraits has for some time been lost
sight of.
The prices at which fancy-dogs are sold in the streets are about the
same for all kinds. They run from 10_s._ to 5_l._ 5_s._, but are very
rarely so low as 10_s._, as “it’s only a very scrubby thing for that.”
Two and three guineas are frequent street prices for a spaniel or small
terrier. Of the dogs sold, as I have before stated, more than one-half
are spaniels. Of the remainder, more than one-half are terriers; and
the surplusage, after this reckoning, is composed in about equal
numbers of the other dogs I have mentioned. The exportation of dogs
is not above a twentieth of what it was before the appointment of the
Select Committee, but a French or Belgium dealer sometimes comes to
London to buy dogs.
It is not easy to fix upon any per-centage as to the profit of the
street dog-sellers. There is the keep and the rearing of the animal to
consider; and there is the same uncertainty in the traffic as in all
traffics which depend, not upon a demand for use, but on the caprices
of fashion, or--to use the more appropriate word, when writing on such
a subject--of “fancy.” A hawker may sell three dogs in one day, without
any extraordinary effort, or, in the same manner of trading, and
frequenting the very same places, may sell only one in three days. In
the winter, the dogs are sometimes offered in public houses, but seldom
as regards the higher-priced animals.
From the best data I can command, it appears that each hawker sells
“three dogs and a half, if you take it that way, splitting a dog like,
every week the year through; that is, sir, four or five one week in the
summer, when trade’s brisk and days are long, and only two or three
the next week, when trade may be flat, and in winter when there isn’t
the same chance.” Calculating, then, that seven dogs are sold by each
hawker in a fortnight, at an average price of 50_s._ each, which is
not a high average, and supposing that but twenty men are trading in
this line the year through, we find that no less a sum than 9100_l._ is
yearly expended in this street-trade. The weekly profit of the hawker
is from 25_s._ to 40_s._ More than seven-eighths of these dogs are bred
in this country, Italian greyhounds included.
A hawker of dogs gave me a statement of his life, but it presented
so little of incident or of change, that I need not report it. He
had assisted and then succeeded his father in the business; was a
pains-taking, temperate, and industrious man, seldom taking even a
glass of ale, so that the tenour of his way had been even, and he was
prosperous enough.
I will next give an account of the connection of the hawkers of dogs
with the “sporting” or “fancy” part of the business; and of the present
state of dog “finding,” to show the change since the parliamentary
investigation.
I may observe that in this traffic the word “fancy” has two
significations. A dog recommended by its beauty, or any peculiarity,
so that it be suitable for a pet-dog, is a “fancy” animal; so is he if
he be a fighter, or a killer of rats, however ugly or common-looking;
but the term “sporting dog” seems to become more and more used in
this case: nor is the first-mentioned use of the word “fancy,” at all
strained or very original, for it is lexicographically defined as “an
opinion bred rather by the imagination than the reason, inclination,
liking, caprice, humour, whim, frolick, idle scheme, vagary.”
[Illustration: THE STREET DOG-SELLER.]