I have mentioned that the Jewesses and the young Jew girls, compared
with the adult Jews and Jew boys, are not street-traders in anything
like the proportion which the females were found to bear to the males
among the Irish street-folk and the English costermongers. There are,
however, a few Jewish females who are itinerant street-sellers as
well as stall keepers, in the proportion, perhaps, of one female to
seven or eight males. The majority of the street Jew-girls whom I saw
on a round were accompanied by boys who were represented to be their
brothers, and I have little doubt such was the facts, for these young
Jewesses, although often pert and ignorant, are not unchaste. Of this
I was assured by a medical gentleman who could speak with sufficient
positiveness on the subject.
Fruit is generally sold by these boys and girls together, the lad
driving the barrow, and the girl inviting custom and handing the
purchases to the buyers. In tending a little stall or a basket at a
regular pitch, with such things as cherries or strawberries, the little
Jewess differs only from her street-selling sisters in being a brisker
trader. The stalls, with a few old knives or scissors, or odds and ends
of laces, that are tended by the Jew girls in the streets in the Jewish
quarters (I am told there are not above a dozen of them) are generally
near the shops and within sight of their parents or friends. One little
Jewess, with whom I had some conversation, had not even heard the
name of the Chief Rabbi, the Rev. Dr. Adler, and knew nothing of any
distinction between German and Portuguese Jews; she had, I am inclined
to believe, never heard of either. I am told that the whole, or nearly
the whole, of these young female traders reside with parents or
friends, and that there is among them far less than the average number
of runaways. One Jew told me he thought that the young female members
of his tribe did not tramp with the juveniles of the other sex--no,
not in the proportion of one to a hundred in comparison, he said with
a laugh, with “young women of the Christian persuasion.” My informant
had means of knowing this fact, as although still a young man, he had
traversed the greater part of England hawking perfumery, which he had
abandoned as a bad trade. A wire-worker, long familiar with tramping
and going into the country--a man upon whose word I have every reason
to rely--told me that he could not remember a single instance of his
having seen a young Jewess “travelling” with a boy.
There are a few adult Jewesses who are itinerant traders, but very
few. I met with one who carried on her arm a not very large basket,
filled with glass wares; chiefly salt-cellars, cigar-ash plates, blue
glass dessert plates, vinegar-cruets, and such like. The greater part
of her wares appeared to be blue, and she carried nothing but glass.
She was a good-looking and neatly-dressed woman. She peeped in at
each shop-door, and up at the windows of every private house, in the
street in which I met her, crying, “Clo’, old clo’!” She bartered her
glass for old clothes, or bought the garments, dealing principally in
female attire, and almost entirely with women. She declined to say
anything about her family or her circumstances, except that she had
nothing that way to complain about, but--when I had used some names I
had authority to make mention of--she said she would, with pleasure,
tell me all about her trade, which she carried on rather than do
nothing. “When I hawk,” she said with an English accent, her face being
unmistakeably Jewish, “I hawk only good glass, and it can hardly be
called hawking, as I swop it for more than I sell it. I always ask for
the mistress, and if she wants any of my glass we come to a bargain if
we can. O, it’s ridiculous to see what things some ladies--I suppose
they must be called ladies--offer for my glass. Children’s green or
blue gauze veils, torn or faded, and not worth picking up, because no
use whatever; old ribbons, not worth dyeing, and old frocks, not worth
washing. People say, ‘as keen as a Jew,’ but ladies can’t think we’re
very keen when they offer us such rubbish. I do most at the middle kind
of houses, both shops and private. I sometimes give a little money for
such a thing as a shawl, or a fur tippet, as well as my glass--but only
when I can’t help it--to secure a bargain. Sometimes, but not often,
I get the old thing and a trifle for my glass. Occasionally I buy
outright. I don’t do much, there’s so many in the line, and I don’t go
out regularly. I can’t say how many women are in my way--very few; O, I
do middling. I told you I had no complaints to make. I don’t calculate
my profits or what I sell. My family do that and I don’t trouble
myself.”