The London fashionable season is also the parliamentary season, and is
the “briskest” from about the end of February to the middle of July.
The workmen most affected by the aristocratic, popular, or general
fashions, are--
Tailors, ladies’ habit-makers, boot and shoe-makers, hatters,
glovers, milliners, dress-makers, mantua-makers, drawn and straw
bonnet-makers, artificial flower-makers, plumassiers, stay-makers,
silk and velvet weavers, saddlers, harness-makers, coach-builders,
cabmen, job-coachmen, farriers, livery stable keepers, poulterers,
pastry-cooks, confectioners, &c., &c.
The above-mentioned classes may be taken, according to the Occupation
Abstract of the last Census, at between 500,000 and 600,000; and,
assuming the same ratio as to the difference of employment between the
brisk and the slack seasons of the trades, or, in other words, that
25 per cent. less hands are required at the slack than at the brisk
time of these trades, we have another 150,000 people, who, with their
families, may be estimated altogether at say 500,000, who are thrown
out of work at a certain season, and have to starve on as best they can
for at least three months in the year.
The last-mentioned of the causes inducing briskness or slackness of
employment are--