“I’ve been in the business more than a dozen years. Before that, I
was an auctioneer’s, and then a furniture broker’s, porter. I wasn’t
brought up to any regular trade, but just to jobbing about, and a bad
trade it is, as all trades is that ain’t regular employ for a man. I
had some money when my father died--he kept a chandler’s shop--and I
bought a marine.” [An elliptical form of speech among these traders.]
“I gave 10_l._ for the stock, and 5_l._ for entrance and good-will,
and agreed to pay what rents and rates was due. It was a smallish
stock then, for the business had been neglected, but I have no reason
to be sorry for my bargain, though it might have been better. There’s
lots taken in about good-wills, but perhaps not so many in my way of
business, because we’re rather ‘fly to a dodge.’ It’s a confined sort
of life, but there’s no help for that. Why, as to my way of trade,
you’d be surprised, what different sorts of people come to my shop.
I don’t mean the regular hands; but the chance comers. I’ve had men
dressed like gentlemen--and no doubt they was respectable when they was
sober--bring two or three books, or a nice cigar case, or anythink that
don’t show in their pockets, and say, when as drunk as blazes, ‘Give me
what you can for this; I want it sold for a particular purpose.’ That
particular purpose was more drink, I should say; and I’ve known the
same men come back in less than a week, and buy what they’d sold me at
a little extra, and be glad if I had it by me still. O, we sees a deal
of things in this way of life. Yes, poor people run to such as me. I’ve
known them come with such things as teapots, and old hair mattresses,
and flock beds, and _then_ I’m sure they’re hard up--reduced for a
meal. I don’t like buying big things like mattresses, though I do
purchase ’em sometimes. Some of these sellers are as keen as Jews at
a bargain; others seem only anxious to get rid of the things and have
hold of some bit of money anyhow. Yes, sir, I’ve known their hands
tremble to receive the money, and mostly the women’s. They haven’t been
used to it, I know, when that’s the case. Perhaps they comes to sell to
me what the pawns won’t take in, and what they wouldn’t like to be seen
selling to any of the men that goes about buying things in the street.
“Why, I’ve bought everythink; at sales by auction there’s often ‘lots’
made up of different things, and they goes for very little. I buy of
people, too, that come to me, and of the regular hands that supply such
shops as mine. I sell retail, and I sell to hawkers. I sell to anybody,
for gentlemen’ll come into my shop to buy anythink that’s took their
fancy in passing. Yes, I’ve bought old oil paintings. I’ve heard of
some being bought by people in my way as have turned out stunners, and
was sold for a hundred pounds or more, and cost, perhaps, half-a-crown
or only a shilling. I never experienced such a thing myself. There’s
a good deal of gammon about it. Well, it’s hardly possible to say
anything about a scale of prices. I give 2_d._ for an old tin or metal
teapot, or an old saucepan, and sometimes, two days after I’ve bought
such a thing, I’ve sold it for 3_d._ to the man or woman I’ve bought
it of. I’ll sell cheaper to them than to anybody else, because they
come to me in two ways--both as sellers and buyers. For pictures I’ve
given from 3_d._ to 1_s._ I fancy they’re among the last things some
sorts of poor people, which is a bit fanciful, parts with. I’ve bought
them of hawkers, but often I refuse them, as they’ve given more than I
could get. Pictures requires a judge. Some brought to me was published
by newspapers and them sort of people. Waste-paper I buy as it comes.
I can’t read very much, and don’t understand about books. I take the
backs off and weighs them, and gives 1_d._, and 1-1/2_d._, and 2_d._ a
pound, and there’s an end. I sell them at about 1/4_d._ a pound profit,
or sometimes less, to men as we calls ‘waste’ men. It’s a poor part of
our business, but the books and paper takes up little room, and then
it’s clean and can be stowed anywhere, and is a sure sale. Well, the
people as sells ‘waste’ to me is not such as can read, I think; I don’t
know what they is; perhaps they’re such as obtains possession of the
books and what-not after the death of old folks, and gets them out of
the way as quick as they can. I know nothink about what they are. Last
week, a man in black--he didn’t seem rich--came into my shop and looked
at some old books, and said ‘Have you any black lead?’ He didn’t speak
plain, and I could hardly catch him. I said, ‘No, sir, I don’t sell
black lead, but you’ll get it at No. 27,’ but he answered, ‘Not black
lead, but black letter,’ speaking very pointed. I said, ‘No,’ and I
haven’t a notion what he meant.
“Metal (copper) that I give 5_d._ or 5-1/2_d._ for, I can sell to the
merchants from 6-1/2_d._ to 8_d._ the pound. It’s no great trade, for
they’ll often throw things out of the lot and say they’re not metal.
Sometimes, it would hardly be a farthing in a shilling, if it war’n’t
for the draught in the scales. When we buys metal, we don’t notice the
quarters of the pounds; all under a quarter goes for nothink. When we
buys iron, all under half pounds counts nothink. So when we buys by the
pound, and sells by the hundredweight, there’s a little help from this,
which we calls the draught.
“Glass bottles of all qualities I buys at three for a halfpenny, and
sometimes four, up to 2_d._ a-piece for ‘good stouts’ (bottled-porter
vessels), but very seldom indeed 2_d._, unless it’s something very
prime and big like the old quarts (quart bottles). I seldom meddles
with decanters. It’s very few decanters as is offered to me, either
little or big, and I’m shy of them when they are. There’s such a change
in glass. Them as buys in the streets brings me next to nothing now
to buy; they both brought and bought a lot ten year back and later. I
never was in the street-trade in second-hand, but it’s not what it was.
I sell in the streets, when I put things outside, and know all about
the trade.
“It ain’t a fortnight back since a smart female servant, in slap-up
black, sold me a basket-full of doctor’s bottles. I knew her master,
and he hadn’t been buried a week before she come to me, and she said,
‘missus is glad to get rid of them, for they makes her cry.’ They often
say their missusses sends things, and that they’re not on no account to
take less than so much. That’s true at times, and at times it ain’t.
I gives from 1-1/2_d._ to 3_d._ a dozen for good new bottles. I’m
sure I can’t say what I give for other odds and ends; just as they’re
good, bad, or indifferent. It’s a queer trade. Well, I pay my way, but
I don’t know what I clear a week--about 2_l._ I dare say, but then
there’s rent, rates, and taxes to pay, and other expenses.”
The _Dolly_ system is peculiar to the rag-and-bottle man, as well as
to the marine-store dealer. The name is derived from the black wooden
doll, in white apparel, which generally hangs dangling over the door
of the marine-store shops, or of the “rag-and-bottles,” but more
frequently the last-mentioned. This type of the business is sometimes
swung above their doors by those who are not dolly-shop keepers. The
dolly-shops are essentially pawn-shops, and pawn-shops for the very
poorest. There are many articles which the regular pawnbrokers decline
to accept as pledges. Among these things are blankets, rugs, clocks,
flock-beds, common pictures, “translated” boots, mended trowsers,
kettles, saucepans, trays, &c. Such things are usually styled “lumber.”
A poor person driven to the necessity of raising a few pence, and
unwilling to part finally with his lumber, goes to the dolly-man, and
for the merest trifle advanced, deposits one or other of the articles
I have mentioned, or something similar. For an advance of 2_d._ or
3_d._, a halfpenny a week is charged, but the charge is the same if the
pledge be redeemed next day. If the interest be paid at the week’s end,
another 1_d._ is occasionally advanced, and no extra charge exacted
for interest. If the interest be not paid at the week or fortnight’s
end, the article is forfeited, and is sold at a large profit by the
dolly-shop man. For 4_d._ or 6_d._ advanced, the weekly interest is
1_d._; for 9_d._ it is 1-1/2_d._; for 1_s._ it is 2_d._, and 2_d._ on
each 1_s._ up to 5_s._, beyond which sum the “dolly” will rarely go; in
fact, he will rarely advance as much. Two poor Irish flower girls, whom
I saw in the course of my inquiry into that part of street-traffic, had
in the winter very often to pledge the rug under which they slept at
a dolly-shop in the morning for 6_d._, in order to provide themselves
with stock-money to buy forced violets, and had to redeem it on their
return in the evening, when they could, for 7_d._ Thus 6_d._ a week
was sometimes paid for a daily advance of that sum. Some of these
“_illicit_” pawnbrokers even give tickets.
This incidental mention of what is really an immense trade, as regards
the number of pledges, is all that is necessary under the present head
of inquiry, but I purpose entering into this branch of the subject
fully and minutely when I come to treat of the class of “distributors.”
The _iniquities_ to which the poor are subject are positively
monstrous. A halfpenny a day interest on a loan of 2_d._ is at the rate
of 7280 _per cent. per annum!_