the streets, overturned omnibusses, and made preparations for a
vigorous assault, or a protracted resistance.
* * * * *
“Five o’Closk--At this moment the Rue St. Honore is blockaded by a
detachment dragoons, who fill the market-place near the Rue des Petits
Champs, and are charging the people sword in hand, carriages full of
deople are being taken to the hospitals.
“In fact the maddest excitement reigns throughout the capital.
* * * * *
“Half past Six.--During the above we have instituted enquiries at the
Foreign office, they have not received any inteligence of the above
report, if it has come, it must have been by pigeon express. We have
not given the above in our columns with a view of its authenticity,
any further information as soon as obtained shall be immediately
announced to the public.”
OF “STRAWING.”
I have already alluded to “strawing,” which can hardly be described
as quackery. It is rather a piece of mountebankery. Many a
quack--confining the term to its most common signification, that of a
“quack doctor”--has faith in the excellence of his own nostrums, and so
proffers that which he believes to be curative: the strawer, however,
sells what he _knows_ is not what he represents it.
The strawer offers to _sell_ any passer by in the streets a straw and
to _give_ the purchaser a paper which he _dares not_ sell. Accordingly
as he judges of the character of his audience, so he intimates that the
paper is political, libellous, irreligious, or indecent.
I am told that as far back as twenty-five or twenty-six years, straws
were sold, but only in the country, with leaves from the _Republican_,
a periodical published by Carlile, then of Fleet-street, which had
been prosecuted by the government; but it seems that the trade died
away, and was little or hardly known again until the time of the trial
of Queen Caroline, and then but sparingly. The straw sale reached
its highest commercial pitch at the era of the Reform Bill. The most
successful trader in the article is remembered among the patterers as
“Jack Straw,” who was oft enough represented to me as the original
strawer. If I inquired further, the answer was: “He was the first in my
time.” This Jack Straw was, I am told, a fine-looking man, a natural
son of Henry Hunt, the blacking manufacturer. He was described to me
as an inveterate drunkard and a very reckless fellow. One old hand was
certain that this man was Hunt’s son, as he himself had “worked” with
him, and was sometimes sent by him when he was “in trouble,” or in
any strait, to 32, Broadwall, Blackfriars, for assistance, which was
usually rendered. (This was the place where Hunt’s “Matchless Blacking”
and “Roasted Corn” were vended.) Jack Straw’s principal “pitch” was
at Hyde Park Corner, “where,” said the man whom I have mentioned as
working with him, “he used to come it very strong against Old Nosey,
the Hyde Park bully as he called him. To my knowledge he’s made 10_s._,
and he’s made 15_s._ on a night. O, it didn’t matter to him what he
sold with his straws, religion or anything. There was no three-pennies
(threepenny newspapers) then, and he had had a gentleman’s education,
and knew what to say, and so the straws went off like smoke.” The
articles which this man “durst not sell” were done up in paper, so that
no one could very well peruse them on the spot, as a sort of stealth
was implied. On my asking Jack Straw’s co-worker if he had ever drank
with him, “Drank with him!” he answered, “Yes, many a time. I’ve gone
out and pattered, or chaunted, or anything, to get money to buy him two
glasses of brandy--and good brandy was very dear then--before he could
start, for he was all of a tremble until he had his medicine. If I
couldn’t get brandy, it was the best rum, ’cause he had all the tastes
of a gentleman. Ah! he’s been dead some years, sir, but where he died I
don’t know. I only heard of his death. He was a nice kindly fellow.”
The _ruse_ in respect of strawing is not remarkable for its
originality. It was an old smuggler’s trick to _sell_ a sack and _give_
the keg of contraband spirit placed within it and padded out with straw
so as to resemble a sack of corn. The hawkers, prior to 1826, when Mr.
Huskisson introduced changes into the Silk Laws, _gave_ “real Ingy
handkerchiefs” (sham) to a customer, and _sold_ him a knot of tape for
about 4_s._ The price of a true Bandana, then prohibited, and sold
openly in the draper’s shops, was about 8_s._ The East India Company
imported about a million of Bandanas yearly; they were sold by auction
for exportation to Hamburgh, &c., at about 4_s._ each, and were nearly
all smuggled back again to England, and disposed of as I have stated.
It is not possible to give anything like statistics as to the money
realised by strawing. A well-informed man calculated that when the
trade was at its best, or from 1832 to 1836, there might be generally
fifty working it in the country and twenty in London; they did not
confine themselves, however, to strawing, but resorted to it only on
favourable opportunities. Now there are none in London--their numbers
diminished gradually--and very rarely any in the country.
OF THE SHAM INDECENT STREET-TRADE.
This is one of those callings which are at once repulsive and
ludicrous; repulsive, when it is considered under what pretences the
papers are sold, and ludicrous, when the disappointment of the gulled
purchaser is contemplated.
I have mentioned that one of the allurements held out by the strawer
was that his paper--the words used by Jack Straw--could “not be
admitted into families.” Those following the “sham indecent trade” for
a time followed his example, and professed to sell straws and give away
papers; but the London police became very observant of the sale of
straws--more especially under the pretences alluded to--and it has, for
the last ten years, been rarely pursued in the streets.
The plan now adopted is to sell the sealed packet itself, which the
“patter” of the street-seller leads his auditors to believe to be some
improper or scandalous publication. The packet is some coloured paper,
in which is placed a portion of an old newspaper, a Christmas carol, a
religious tract, or a slop-tailor’s puff (given away in the streets for
the behoof of another class of gulls). The enclosed paper is, however,
never indecent.
From a man who had, not long ago, been in this trade, I had the
following account. He was very anxious that nothing should be said
which would lead to a knowledge that he was my informant. After having
expressed his sorrow that he had ever been driven to this trade from
distress, he proceeded to justify himself. He argued--and he was not an
ignorant man--that there was neither common sense nor common justice
in interfering with a man like him, who, “to earn a crust, pretended
to sell what _shop-keepers_, that must pay church and all sorts of
rates, sold without being molested.” The word “shopkeepers” was uttered
with a bitter emphasis. There are, or were, he continued, shops--for
he seemed to know them all--and some of them had been carried on for
years, in which shameless publications were not only sold, but exposed
in the windows; and why should he be considered a greater offender
than a shopkeeper, and be knocked about by the police? There are,
or lately were, he said, such shops in the Strand, Fleet-street, a
court off Ludgate-hill, Holborn, Drury-lane, Wych-street, the courts
near Drury-lane Theatre, Haymarket, High-street, Bloomsbury, St.
Martin’s-court, May’s buildings, and elsewhere, to say nothing of
Holywell-street! Yet _he_ must be interfered with!
[I may here remark, that I met with no street-sellers who did not
disbelieve, or affect to disbelieve, that they were really meddled
with by the police for obstructing the thoroughfare. They either
hint, or plainly state, that they are removed solely to please the
shop-keepers. Such was the reiterated opinion, real or pretended, of my
present informant.]
I took a statement from this man, but do not care to dwell upon the
subject. The trade, in the form I have described, had been carried
on, he thought, for the last six years. At one time, 20 men followed
it; at present, he believed there were only 6, and they worked only
at intervals, and as opportunities offered: some going out, for
instance, to sell almanacs or memorandum books, and, when they met with
a favourable chance, offering their sealed packets. My informant’s
customers were principally boys, young men, and old gentlemen; but old
gentlemen chiefly when the trade was new. This street-seller’s “great
gun,” as he called it, was to make up packets, as closely resembling as
he could accomplish it, those which were displayed in the windows of
any of the shops I have alluded to. He would then station himself at
some little distance from one of those shops, and, if possible, so as
to encounter those who had stopped to study the contents of the window,
and would represent--broadly enough, he admitted, when he dared--that
he could sell for 6_d._ what was charged 5_s._, or 2_s._ 6_d._, or
whatever price he had seen announced, “in that very neighbourhood.” He
sometimes ventured, also, to mutter something, unintelligibly, about
the public being imposed upon! On one occasion, he took 6_s._ in the
street in about two hours. On another evening he took 4_s._ 8_d._ in
the street and was called aside by two old gentlemen, each of whom
told him to come to an address given (at the West-end), and ask for
such and such initials. To one he sold two packets for 2_s._; to the
other, five packets, each 1_s._--or 11_s._ 8_d._ in one evening. The
packets were in different coloured papers, and had the impressions of
a large seal on red wax at the back; and he assured the old gents., as
he called them, one of whom, he thought, was “silly,” that they were
all different. “And very likely,” he said, chucklingly, “they were
different; for they were made out of a lot of missionary tracts and old
newspapers that I got dirt cheap at a ‘waste’ shop. I should like to
have seen the old gent.’s face, as he opened his 5_s._ worth, one after
another!” This trade, however, among old gentlemen, was prosperous for
barely a month: “It got blown then, sir, and they wouldn’t buy any
more, except a very odd one.”
This man--and he believed it was the same with all the others in the
trade--never visited the public-houses, for a packet would soon have
been opened and torn there, which, he said, people was ashamed to do
in the public streets. As well as he could recollect, he had never
sold a single packet to a girl or a woman. Drunken women of the town
had occasionally made loud comments on his calling, and offered to
purchase; but on such occasions, fearful of a disturbance, he always
hurried away.
I have said that the straw trade is now confined to the country, and
I give a specimen of the article vended there, by the patterer in the
sham indecent trade. It was purchased of a man, who sold it folded in
the form of a letter, and is addressed, “On Royal Service. By Express.
Private. To Her Royal Highness, Victoria, Princess Royal. Kensington
Palace, London. Entered at Stationer’s Hall.” The man who sold it had
a wisp of straw round his neck, and introduced his wares with the
following patter:
“I am well aware that many persons here present will say what an absurd
idea--the idea of selling straws for a halfpenny each, when there are
so many lying about the street; but the reason is simply this: I am not
allowed by the authorities to sell these papers, so I give them away
and sell my straws. There are a variety of figures in these papers for
gentlemen; some in the bed, some on the bed, some under the bed.” The
following is a copy of the document thus sold:--
“Bachelors or Maidens, Husbands and Wives,
Will love each other and lead happy lives;
If both these Letters to read are inclined,
Secrets worth knowing therein they will find.
“Dated from the Duchy of Coburg.
“MY DEAREST VICTORIA,
----never did I enjoy greater bliss, than when I sat down to the
delightful task of writing a love letter to thy royal highness--my
sweetest angel, oh! how I do adore thy lovely form, and long for
the happy hour when I shall clasp thee in my arms--My bosom heaves,
my heart pants, my senses wander, my hair stands on end, my head is
on fire, my feet stumbles--yea, my arms and my legs refuse to do
their office; every one of my members are tantalised with varied and
conflicting emotions, and my whole body is being consumed in the
furnase of everlasting love! Then hasten my glorious cherub--thou
heavenly samaritan, pass not away from thy adoring albert; but come
and pour thy healing balsam into my smarting wounds--Then will I
pleasantly repose myself on my _now_ sleepless couch, and resining my
soul to the enjoyment of that balmy sleep I have been long wanting,
I shall be enchanted with the most beautiful visions of futurity,
and continue to dream of love and thee! My amiable Victoria, the
most pure and spotless of virgins, come to my longing arams--it is
only thy dear Albert who like a bird of paradise, is calling thee to
listen to his charming notes, and with fluttering wings wishes to
bury himself within thy own downy plumage! Most amiable of England’s
princesses--and the most virtuous of all heirs to a british diadem--I
implore thee on ny bended knees, to favour my suit, above any other
prince in christendom; and when thou hast deigned to exhalt me to
that envied station of being thy husband, rest assured on my princely
honour, that I will award to my royal bride and future sovereign,
very many and living pledges of affection--anxiously awaiting your
royal-Highnesses’ answer, I beg leave to subscribe myself
“Your adored Lover,
“ALBERT,
“PRINCE OF COBURG.”
On the back of this page is the following cool initiation of the
purchaser into the mysteries of the epistle:
“Directions for the purchasers to understand the _Royal Love Letters_,
and showing them how to practise the art of Secret Letter Writing:--
“Proceed to lay open ‘Albert’s Letter’ by the side of ‘Victoria’s,’
and having done so, then look carefully down them until you have come
to a word at the left hand corner, near the end of each Letter, having
two marks thus -- --, when you must commence with that word, and read
from left to right after you have turned them bottom upwards before a
looking glass so that you may peruse the copy reflected therein. But
you must notice, throughout all the words every other letter is upside
down, also every other word single; but the next two words being
purposely joined together, therefore they are double; and in addition
to those letters placed upside down, makes it more mysterious in the
reading. The reader is recommended to copy each word in writing,
when he will be able to read the letters forward, and after a little
practice he can soon learn to form all his words in the same curious
manner, when he wants to write a ‘secret letter.’
“Be sure when holding it up side down before a looking-glass, that the
light of a candle, is placed between then by the reflection it will
show much plainer, and be sooner discovered.
“If you intend to practise a _Joke_ and make it answer the purpose
of a Valentine, write what you think necessary on the adjoining
_blank page_; then post it, with the superscription filled up in this
manner:--After the word To, _write the name and address of the party_
also place the word FROM _before_ ‘VICTORIA’S’ name: then the address
on the outside of this letter will read somewhat after the following
fashion:--To Mr. or Mrs. so and so, (with the number if any,) in such
and such a street: at the same time your letter will appear as if it
came from Royalty.
“N.B. You must first buy both the letters, as the other letter is
an answer to this one; and because, without the reader has got both
letters, he will not have the secrets perfect.”
Notwithstanding the injunction to buy _both_ letters, and the seeming
necessity of having both to understand the “directions,” the patterer
was selling only the one I have given.
That the trade in sham indecent publications was, at one time, very
considerable, and was not unobserved by those who watch, as it is
called, “the signs of the times,” is shown by the circumstance that the
Anti-Corn-Law League paper, called the _Bread Basket_, could only be
got off by being done up in a sealed packet, and sold by patterers as a
pretended improper work.
The really indecent trade will be described hereafter.
For a month my informant thought he had cleared 35_s._ a week; for
another month, 20_s._; and as an average, since that time, from
5_s._ to 7_s._ 6_d._ weekly, until he discontinued the trade. It is
very seldom practised, unless in the evening, and perhaps only one
street-seller depends entirely upon it.
Supposing that 6 men last year each cleared 6_s._ weekly, we find
upwards of 93_l._ expended yearly in the streets on this rubbish.
The capital required to start in the business is 6_d._ or 1_s._, to be
expended in paper, paste, and sometimes sealing-wax.
OF RELIGIOUS TRACT SELLERS.
The sellers of religious tracts are now, I am informed, at the least,
about 50, but they were at one time, far more numerous. When penny
books were few and very small, religious tracts were by far the
cheapest things in print. It is common, moreover, for a religious
society, or an individual, to give a poor person, children especially,
tracts for sale. A great many tract sellers, from 25 to 35 years ago,
were, or pretended to be, maimed old soldiers or sailors. The traffic
is now in the hands of what may be called an anomalous body of men.
More than one half of the tract sellers are foreigners, such as Malays,
Hindoos, and Negros. Of them, some cannot speak English, and some--who
earn a spare subsistence by selling Christian tracts--are Mahometans,
or worshippers of Bramah! The man whose portrait supplies the
daguerreotyped illustration of this number is unable to speak a word
of English, and the absence of an interpreter, through some accident,
prevented his statement being taken at the time appointed. I shall give
it, however, with the necessary details on the subject, under another
head.
With some men and boys, I am informed, tract-selling is but a pretext
for begging.
OF A BENEFIT SOCIETY OF PATTERERS.
In the course of my inquiries, I received an account of an effort made
by a body of these people to provide against sickness,--a step so
clearly in the right direction, and perhaps so little to be expected
from the habits of the class, that I feel bound to notice it. It was
called the “Street-sellers’ Society;” but as nearly all the _bonâ-fide_
members (or those who sought benefit from its funds) were patterers
in paper, or ballad-singers, I can most appropriately notice their
proceedings here.
The society “sprung up accidental,” as it was expressed to me. A
few paper-workers were conversing of the desirableness of such an
institution, and one of the body suggested a benefit club, which it was
at once determined to establish. It was accordingly established between
six and seven years ago, and was carried on for about four years. The
members varied in number from 40 to 50; but of a proportion of 40, as
many as 18 might be tradesmen who were interested in the street-trade,
either in supplying the articles in demand for it, or from keeping
public-houses resorted to by the fraternity, or any such motive, or who
were merely curious to mix in such society. Mr. C---- was conductor;
Mr. J. H---- (a poet, and the writer of “Black Bess,” “the Demon of the
Sea,” and other things which “took” in the streets), secretary; and a
well-known patterer was under-conductor, with which office was mixed
up the rather onerous duties of a kind of master of the ceremonies on
meeting-nights. None of the officers were paid.
The subscription was 2_d._ a week, and meetings of the members
were held once a week. Each member, not an officer, paid 1/2_d._
for admission to the fund, and could introduce a visitor, who also
paid 1/2_d._ No charge was made for the use of the club-room (in a
public-house), which was entirely in the control of the members. Every
one using bad language, or behaving improperly, was fined 1/2_d._, and
on a second offence was ejected, and sometimes, if the misbehaviour
was gross, on the first. Any one called upon to sing, and refusing,
or being unable, was fined 1/2_d._, and was liable to be called upon
again, and pay another fine. A visitor sometimes, instead of 1/2_d._,
offered 6_d._ when fined; but this was not accepted,--only 1/2_d._
could be received. The members’ wives could and did often accompany
their husbands to the meetings; but women of the town, whether
introduced by members or not, were not permitted to remain. “They found
their way in a few times,” said the man who was under-conductor to
me, “but I managed to work them out without any bother, and without
insulting them--God forbid!”
The assistance given was 5_s._ weekly to sick members, who were not in
arrear in their subscriptions. If the man had a family to support, a
gathering was made for him, in addition to his weekly allowance,--for
the members were averse to “distress the box” (fund). There was no
allowance for the burial of a member, but a gathering took place,
and perhaps a raffle, to raise funds for a wake (sometimes) and an
interment; and during the existence of the society, three members,
I was told, were buried that way “comfortably.” The subscriptions
were paid up regularly enough; “indeed,” said a member to me, “if a
man earned anything, his mates knew of it: we all know how the cat
jumps that way, so he must either pay or be scratched.” The members
not unfrequently lent each other money to pay up their subscriptions.
Fashionable young “swells,” I was told, often visited the house,
and stayed till 3 or 4 in the morning, but were very seldom in the
club-room, which was closed regularly at 12. After that hour, the
“swells” who were bent upon seeing life--(and they are a class whom the
patterers, on all such occasions, not so very unreasonably consider
“fair game” for bamboozling)--could enjoy the society congenial to
their tastes or gratifying to their curiosity. On one occasion two
policemen were among the visitors, and were on friendly terms enough
with the members, some of whom they had seen before.
From the beginning there seems to have been a distrust of one another
among the members, but a distrust not invincible or the club would
never have been formed. Instead of the “box,” or fund (the money
being deposited in a box), being allowed to accumulate, so that an
investment might be realised, available for any emergency, the fund was
divided among the members quarterly, and then the subscription went
on anew. The payments, however, fell off. The calling of the members
was precarious, their absence in the country was frequent, and so the
society ceased to exist, but the members were satisfied that every
thing was done honourably.
[Illustration: HINDOO TRACT-SELLER.
[_From a Daguerreotype by_ BEARD.]]
The purpose to which the funds, on a quarterly division, were devoted,
was one not confined to such men as the patterers--to a supper. “None
of your light suppers, sir,” said a member; “not by no means. And we
were too fly to send anybody to market but ourselves. We used to go to
Leadenhall, and buy a cut off a sirloin, which was roasted prime,
and smelt like a angel. But not so often, for its a dear jint, the
bones is heavy. One of the favouritest jints was a boiled leg of mutton
with caper trimmings. That _is_ a good supper,--I believe you, my hero.”
OF THE ABODES, TRICKS, MARRIAGE, CHARACTER, AND CHARACTERISTICS OF THE
DIFFERENT GRADES OF PATTERERS.