I class all these articles under one head, for, on inquiry, I find no
individual supporting himself by the trading in any one of them. I
shall, therefore, describe the buyers of rags, broken metal, bottles,
glass, and bones, as a body of street-traders, but take the articles in
which they traffic seriatim, pointing out in what degree they are, or
have been, wholly or partially, the staple of several distinct callings.
The traders in these things are not unprosperous men. The poor
creatures who may be seen picking up rags in the street are
“street-finders,” and not buyers. It is the same with the poor old men
who may be seen bending under an unsavoury sack of bones. The bones
have been found, or have been given for charity, and are not purchased.
One feeble old man whom I met with, his eyes fixed on the middle of
the carriage-way in the Old St. Pancras-road, and with whom I had some
conversation, told me that the best friend he had in the world was a
gentleman who lived in a large house near the Regent’s-park, and gave
him the bones which his dogs had done with! “If I can only see hisself,
sir,” said the old man, “he’s sure to give me any coppers he has in
his coat-pocket, and that’s a very great thing to a poor man like me.
O, yes, I’ll buy bones, if I have any ha’pence, rather than go without
them; but I pick them up, or have them given to me mostly.”
The street-buyers, who are only buyers, have barrows, sometimes even
carts with donkeys, and, as they themselves describe it, they “buy
everything.” These men are little seen in London, for they “work” the
more secluded courts, streets, and alleys, when in town; but their most
frequented rounds are the poorer parts of the populous suburbs. There
are many in Croydon, Woolwich, Greenwich, and Deptford. “It’s no use,”
a man who had been in the trade said to me, “such as us calling at fine
houses to know if they’ve any old keys to sell! No, we trades with the
poor.” Often, however, they deal with the servants of the wealthy; and
their usual mode of business in such cases is to leave a bill at the
house a few hours previous to their visit. This document has frequently
the royal arms at the head of it, and asserts that the “firm” has been
established since the year ----, which is seldom less than half a
century. The hand-bill usually consists of a short preface as to the
increased demand for rags on the part of the paper-makers, and this is
followed by a liberal offer to give the very best prices for any old
linen, or old metal, bottles, rope, stair-rods, locks, keys, dripping,
carpeting, &c., “in fact, no rubbish or lumber, however worthless, will
be refused;” and generally concludes with a request that this “bill”
may be shown to the mistress of the house and preserved, as it will be
called for in a couple of hours.
The papers are delivered by one of the “firm,” who marks on the door
a sign indicative of the houses at which the bill has been taken in,
and the probable reception there of the gentleman who is to follow him.
The road taken is also pointed by marks before explained, see vol. i.
pp. 218 and 247. These men are residents in all quarters within 20
miles of London, being most numerous in the places at no great distance
from the Thames. They work their way from their suburban residences
to London, which, of course, is the mart, or “exchange,” for their
wares. The reason why the suburbs are preferred is that in those parts
the possessors of such things as broken metal, &c., cannot so readily
resort to a marine-store dealer’s as they can in town. I am informed,
however, that the shops of the marine-store men are on the increase in
the more densely-peopled suburbs; still the dwellings of the poor are
often widely scattered in those parts, and few will go a mile to sell
any old thing. They wait in preference, unless very needy, for the
_visit_ of the street-buyer.
A good many years ago--perhaps until 30 years back--_rags_, and
especially white and good linen rags, were among the things most
zealously inquired for by street-buyers, and then 3_d._ a pound was a
price readily paid. Subsequently the paper-manufacturers brought to
great and economical perfection the process of boiling rags in lye and
bleaching them with chlorine, so that colour became less a desideratum.
A few years after the peace of 1815, moreover, the foreign trade in
rags increased rapidly. At the present time, about 1200 tons of woollen
rags, and upwards of 10,000 tons of linen rags, are imported yearly.
These 10,000 tons give us but a vague notion of the real amount. I may
therefore mention that, when reduced to a more definite quantity, they
show a total of no less than twenty-two millions four hundred thousand
pounds. The woollen rags are imported the most largely from Hamburg
and Bremen, the price being from 5_l._ to 17_l._ the ton. Linen rags,
which average nearly 20_l._ the ton, are imported from the same places,
and from several Italian ports, more especially those in Sicily. Among
these ports are Palermo, Messina, Ancona, Leghorn, and Trieste (the
Trieste rags being gathered in Hungary). The value of the rags annually
brought to this country is no less than 200,000_l._ What the native
rags may be worth, there are no facts on which to ground an estimate;
but supposing each person of the 20,000,000 in Great Britain to produce
one pound of rags annually, then the rags of this country may be valued
at very nearly the same price as the foreign ones, so that the gross
value of the rags of Great Britain imported and produced at home,
would, in such a case, amount to 400,000_l._ From France, Belgium,
Holland, Spain, and other continental kingdoms, the exportation of rags
is prohibited, nor can so bulky and low-priced a commodity be smuggled
to advantage.
Of this large sum of rags, which is independent of what is collected in
the United Kingdom, the Americans are purchasers on an extensive scale.
The wear of cotton is almost unknown in many parts of Italy, Germany,
and Hungary; and although the linen in use is coarse and, compared to
the Irish, Scotch, or English, rudely manufactured, the foreign rags
_are_ generally linen, and therefore are preferred at the paper mills.
The street-buyers in this country, however, make less distinction than
ever, as regards price, between linen and cotton rags.
The linen rag-buying is still prosecuted extensively by itinerant
“gatherers” in the country, and in the further neighbourhoods of
London, but the collection is not to the extent it was formerly. The
price is lower, and, owing to the foreign trade, the demand is less
urgent; so common, too, is now the wear of cotton, and so much smaller
that of linen, that many people will not sell linen rags, but reserve
them for use in case of cuts and wounds, or for giving to their
poor neighbours on any such emergency. This was done doubtlessly to
as great, or to a greater extent, in the old times, but linen rags
were more plentiful then, for cotton shirting was not woven to the
perfection seen at present, and many good country housewives spun their
own linen sheetings and shirtings.
A street-buyer of the class I have described, upon presenting himself
at any house, offers to buy rags, broken metal, or glass, and for rags
especially there is often a serious bargaining, and sometimes, I was
told by an itinerant street-seller, who had been an ear-witness, a
little joking not of the most delicate kind. For coloured rags these
men give 1/2_d._ a pound, or 1_d._ for three pounds; for inferior white
rags 1/2_d._ a pound, and up to 1-1/2_d._; for the best, 2_d._ the
pound. It is common, however, and even more common, I am assured, among
masters of the old rag and bottle shops, than among street-buyers, to
announce 2_d._ or 3_d._, or even as much as 6_d._, for the _best_ rags,
but, somehow or other, the rags taken for sale to those buyers never
are of the best. To offer 6_d._ a pound for rags is ridiculous, but
such an offer may be seen at some rag-shops, the figure ~6~, perhaps,
crowning a painting of a large plum-pudding, as a representation of
what may be a Christmas result, merely from the thrifty preservation
of rags, grease, and dripping. Some of the street-buyers, when working
the suburbs or the country, attach a similar “illustration” to their
barrows or carts. I saw the winter placard of one of these men, which
he was reserving for a country excursion as far as Rochester, “when the
plum-pudding time was a-coming.” In this pictorial advertisement a man
and woman, very florid and full-faced, were on the point of enjoying a
huge plum-pudding, the man flourishing a large knife, and looking very
hospitable. On a scroll which issued from his mouth were the words:
“From our rags! The best prices given by ---- ----, of London.” The
woman in like manner exclaimed: “From dripping and house fat! The best
prices given by ---- ----, of London.”
This man told me that at some times, both in town and country, he did
not buy a pound of rags in a week. He had heard the old hands in the
trade say, that 20 or 30 years back they could “gather” (the word
generally used for buying) twice and three times as many rags as at
present. My informant attributed this change to two causes, depending
more upon what he had heard from experienced street-buyers than upon
his own knowledge. At one time it was common for a mistress to allow
her maid-servant to “keep a rag-bag,” in which all refuse linen, &c.,
was collected for sale for the servant’s behoof; a privilege now rarely
accorded. The other cause was that working-people’s wives had less
money at their command now than they had formerly, so that instead of
gathering a good heap for the man who called on them periodically,
they ran to a marine store-shop and sold them by one, two, and
three pennyworths at a time. This related to all the things in the
street-buyer’s trade, as well as to rags.
“I’ve known this trade ten years or so,” said my informant, “I was a
costermonger before that, and I work coster-work now in the summer,
and buy things in the winter. Before Christmas is the best time for
second-hand trade. When I set out on a country round--and I’ve gone as
far as Guildford and Maidstone, and St. Alban’s--I lays in as great a
stock of glass and crocks as I can raise money for, or as my donkey
or pony--I’ve had both, but I’m working a ass now--can drag without
distressing him. I swops my crocks for anythink in the second-hand way,
and when I’ve got through them I buys outright, and so works my way
back to London. I bring back what I’ve bought in the crates and hampers
I’ve had to pack the crocks in. The first year as I started I got hold
of a few very tidy rags, coloured things mostly. The Jew I sold ’em to
when I got home again gave me more than I expected. O, lord no, not
more than I asked! He told me, too, that he’d buy any more I might
have, as they was wanted at some town not very far off, where there was
a call for them for patching quilts. I haven’t heard of a call for any
that way since. I get less and less rags every year, I think. Well, I
can’t say what I got last year; perhaps about two stone. No, none of
them was woollen. They’re things as people’s seldom satisfied with the
price for, is rags. I’ve bought muslin window curtains or frocks as was
worn, and good for nothink but rags, but there always seems such a lot,
and they weighs so light and comes to so little, that there’s sure to
be grumbling. I’ve sometimes bought a lot of old clothes, by the lump,
or I’ve swopped crocks for them, and among them there’s frequently been
things as the Jew in Petticoat-lane, what I sells them to, has put o’
one side as rags. If I’d offered to give rag prices, them as I got
’em of would have been offended, and have thought I wanted to cheat.
When you get a lot at one go, and ’specially if it’s for crocks, you
must make the best of them. This for that, and t’other for t’other.
I stay at the beer-shops and little inns in the country. Some of the
landlords looks very shy at one, if you’re a stranger, acause, if the
police detectives is after anythink, they go as hawkers, or barrowmen,
or somethink that way.” [This statement as to the police is correct;
but the man did not know how it came to his knowledge; he had “heard of
it,” he believed.] “I’ve very seldom slept in a common lodging-house.
I’d rather sleep on my barrow.” [I have before had occasion to remark
the aversion of the costermonger class to sleep in low lodging-houses.
These men, almost always, and from the necessities of their calling,
have rooms of their own in London; so that, I presume, they hate
to sleep _in public_, as the accommodation for repose in many a
lodging-house may very well be called. At any rate the costermongers,
of all classes of street-sellers, when on their country excursions,
resort the least to the lodging-houses.] “The last round I had in the
country, as far as Reading and Pangbourne, I was away about five weeks,
I think, and came back a better man by a pound; that was all. I mean I
had 30 shillings’ worth of things to start with, and when I’d got back,
and turned my rags, and old metal, and things into money, I had 50_s._
To be sure Jenny (the ass) and me lived well all the time, and I bought
a pair of half-boots and a pair of stockings at Reading, so it weren’t
so bad. Yes, sir, there’s nothing I likes better than a turn into the
country. It does one’s health good, if it don’t turn out so well for
profits as it might.”
My informant, the rag-dealer, belonged to the best order of
costermongers; one proof of this was in the evident care which he had
bestowed on Jenny, his donkey. There were no loose hairs on her hide,
and her harness was clean and whole, and I observed after a pause to
transact business on his round, that the animal held her head towards
her master to be scratched, and was petted with a mouthful of green
grass and clover, which the costermonger had in a corner of his vehicle.
_Tailor’s cuttings_, which consist of cloth, satin, lining materials,
fustian, waistcoatings, silk, &c., are among the things which the
street-buyers are the most anxious to become possessed of on a country
round; for, as will be easily understood by those who have read the
accounts before given of the Old Clothes Exchange, and of Petticoat and
Rosemary lanes, they are available for many purposes in London.
_Dressmaker’s cuttings_ are also a portion of the street-buyer’s
country traffic, but to no great extent, and hardly ever, I am told,
unless the street-buyer, which is not often the case, be accompanied
on his round by his wife. In town, tailor’s cuttings are usually sold
to the piece-brokers, who call or send men round to the shops or
workshops for the purpose of buying them, and it is the same with the
dressmaker’s cuttings.
_Old metal_, or _broken metal_, for I heard one appellation used as
frequently as the other, is bought by the same description of traders.
This trade, however, is prosecuted in town by the street-buyers more
largely than in the country, and so differs from the rag business. The
carriage of old iron bolts and bars is exceedingly cumbersome; nor can
metal be packed or stowed away like old clothes or rags. This makes
the street-buyer indifferent as to the collecting of what I heard one
of them call “country iron.” By “metal” the street-folk often mean
copper (most especially), brass, or pewter, in contradistinction to
the cheaper substances of iron or lead. In the country they are most
anxious to buy “metal;” whereas, in town, they as readily purchase
“iron.” When the street-buyers give merely the worth of any metal by
weight to be disposed of, in order to be re-melted, or re-wrought
in some manner, by the manufacturers, the following are the average
prices:--Copper, 6_d._ per lb.; pewter, 5_d._; brass, 5_d._; iron, 6
lbs. for 1_d._, and 8 lbs. for 2_d._ (a smaller quantity than 6 lbs. is
seldom bought); and 1_d._ and 1-1/4_d._ per lb. for lead. Old zinc is
not a metal which “comes in the way” of the street-buyer, nor--as one
of them told me with a laugh--old silver. Tin is never bought by weight
in the streets.
It must be understood that the prices I have mentioned are those given
for old or broken metal, valueless unless for re-working. When an old
metal article is still available, or may be easily made available,
for the use for which it was designed, the street-purchase is by “the
piece,” rather than the weight.
The broken pans, scuttles, kettles, &c., concerning one of the uses
of which I have quoted Mr. Babbage, in page 6 of the present volume,
as to the conversion of these worn-out vessels into the light and
japanned edgings, or clasps, called “clamps,” or “clips,” by the
trunk-makers, and used to protect or strengthen the corners of boxes
and packing-cases, are purchased sometimes by the street-buyers, but
fall more properly under the head of what constitutes a portion of the
stock-in-trade of the street-finder. They are not bought by weight,
but so much for the pan, perhaps so much along with other things;
a halfpenny, a penny, or occasionally two-pence, and often only a
farthing, or three pans for a penny. The uses for these things which
the street-buyers have more especially in view, are not those mentioned
by Mr. Babbage (the trunk clamps), but the conversion of them into the
“iron shovels,” or strong dust-pans sold in the streets. One street
artisan supports himself and his family by the making of dust-pans from
such grimy old vessels.
As in the result of my inquiry among the street-_sellers_ of old
metal, I am of opinion that the street-_buyers_ also are not generally
mixed up with the receipt of stolen goods. That they may be so to some
extent is probable enough; in the same proportion, perhaps, as highly
respectable tradesmen have been known to buy the goods of fraudulent
bankrupts, and others. The street-buyers are low itinerants, seen
regularly by the police and easy to be traced, and therefore, for
one reason, cautious. In one of my inquiries among the young thieves
and pickpockets in the low lodging-houses, I heard frequent accounts
of their selling the metal goods they stole, to “fences,” and in one
particular instance, to the mistress of a lodging-house, who had
conveniences for the melting of pewter pots (called “cats and kittens”
by the young thieves, according to the size of the vessels), but I
never heard them speak of any connection, or indeed any transactions,
with street-folk.
Among the things purchased in great quantities by the street-buyers
of old metal are keys. The keys so bought are of every size, are
generally very rusty, and present every form of manufacture, from
the simplest to the most complex wards. On my inquiring how such a
number of keys without locks came to be offered for street-sale, I
was informed that there were often duplicate or triplicate keys to
one lock, and that in sales of household furniture, for instance,
there were often numbers of odd keys found about the premises and sold
“in a lump;” that locks were often spoiled and unsaleable, wearing
out long before the keys. Twopence a dozen is an usual price for a
dozen “mixed keys,” to a street-buyer. Bolts are also freely bought
by the street-people, as are holdfasts, bed-keys, and screws, “and
everything,” I was told, “which some one or other among the poor is
always a-wanting.”
A little old man, who had been many years a street-buyer, gave me an
account of his purchases of _bottles_ and _glass_. This man had been a
soldier in his youth; had known, as he said, “many ups and downs;” and
occasionally wheels a barrow, somewhat larger and shallower than those
used by masons, from which he vends iron and tin wares, such as cheap
gridirons, stands for hand-irons, dust-pans, dripping trays, &c. As
he sold these wares, he offered to buy, or swop for, any second-hand
commodities. “As to the bottle and glass buying, sir,” he said, “it’s
dead and buried in the streets, and in the country too. I’ve known
the day when I’ve cleared 2_l._ in a week by buying old things in a
country round. How long was that ago, do you say, sir? Why perhaps
twenty years; yes, more than twenty. Now, I’d hardly pick up odd glass
in the street.” [He called imperfect glass wares “odd glass.”] “O, I
don’t know what’s brought about such a change, but everything changes.
I can’t say anything about the duty on glass. No, I never paid any
duty on my glass; it ain’t likely. I buy glass still, certainly I do,
but I think if I depended on it I should be wishing myself in the East
Injes again, rather than such a poor consarn of a business--d----n me
if I shouldn’t. The last glass bargain I made about two months back,
down Limehouse-way, and about the Commercial-road, I cleared 7_d._ by;
and then I had to wheel what I bought--it was chiefly bottles--about
five mile. It’s a trade would starve a cat, the buying of old glass. I
never bought glass by weight, but I’ve heard of some giving a halfpenny
and a penny a pound. I always bought by the piece: from a halfpenny
to a shilling (but that’s long since) for a bottle; and farthings and
halfpennies, and higher and sometimes lower, for wine and other glasses
as was chipped or cracked, or damaged, for they could be sold in them
days. People’s got proud now, I fancy that’s one thing, and must have
everything slap. O, I do middling: I live by one thing or other, and
when I die there’ll just be enough to bury the old man.” [This is
the first street-trader I have met with who made such a statement as
to having provided for his interment, though I have heard these men
occasionally express repugnance at the thoughts of being buried by
the parish.] “I have a daughter, that’s all my family now; she does
well as a laundress, and is a real good sort; I have my dinner with
her every Sunday. She’s a widow without any young ones. I often go to
church, both with my daughter and by myself, on Sunday evenings. It
does one good. I’m fond of the music and singing too. The sermon I
can very seldom make anything of, as I can’t hear well if any one’s a
good way off me when he’s saying anythink. I buy a little old metal
sometimes, but it’s coming to be all up with street glass-people;
everybody seems to run with their things to the rag-and-bottle-shops.”
The same body of traders buy also _old sacking, carpeting, and
moreen bed-curtains and window-hangings_; but the trade in them is
sufficiently described in my account of the buying of rags, for it is
carried on in the same way, so much per pound (1_d._ or 1-1/2_d._ or
2_d._), or so much for the lot.
Of _Bones_ I have already spoken. They are bought by any
street-collector with a cart, on his round in town, at a halfpenny
a pound, or three pounds for a penny; but it is a trade, on account
of the awkwardness of carriage, little cared for by the regular
street-buyers. Men, connected with some bone-grinding-mill, go round
with a horse and cart to the knackers and butchers to collect bones;
but this is a portion, not of street, but of the mill-owner’s,
business. These bones are ground for manure, which is extensively used
by the agriculturists, having been first introduced in Yorkshire and
Lincolnshire about 30 years ago. The importation of bones is now very
great; more than three times as much as it was 20 years back. The value
of the foreign bones imported is estimated at upwards of 300,000_l._
yearly. They are brought from South America (along with hides), from
Germany, Holland, and Belgium.
The men who most care to collect bones in the streets of London are
old and infirm, and they barter toys for them with poor children; for
those children sometimes gather bones in the streets and put them on
one side, or get them from dustholes, for the sake of exchanging them
for a plaything; or, indeed, for selling them to any shopkeeper, and
many of the rag-and-bottle-tradesmen buy bones. The toys most used for
this barter are paper “wind-mills.” These toy-barterers, when they have
a few pence, will buy bones of children or any others, if they cannot
become possessed of them otherwise; but the carriage of the bones is a
great obstacle to much being done in this business.
In the regular way of street-buying, such as I have described it, there
are about 100 men in London and the suburbs. Some buy only during a
portion of the year, and none perhaps (except in the way of barter) the
year round. They are chiefly of the costermonger class, some of the
street-buyers however, have been carmen’s servants, or connected with
trades in which they had the care of a horse and cart, and so became
habituated to a street-life.
There are still many other ways in which the commerce in refuse and the
second-hand street-trade is supplied. As the windmill-seller for bones,
so will the puppet-show man for old bottles or broken table-spoons,
or almost any old trifle, allow children to regale their eyes on the
beauties of his exhibition.
The trade expenditure of the street-buyers it is not easy to estimate.
Their calling is so mixed with selling and bartering, that very
probably not one among them can tell what he expends in _buying_,
as a separate branch of his business. If 100 men expend 15_s._ each
weekly, in the purchase of rags, old metal, &c., and if this trade be
prosecuted for 30 weeks of the year, we find 2250_l._ so expended. The
profits of the buyers range from 20 to 100 per cent.