artizans, who, from want of employment in their own trade, take to make
up small things (as clothes-horses, tin-ware, cutlery, brushes, pails,
caps, and bonnets) on their own account. The number of artizans in the
London streets speaks volumes for the independence of the working-men
of this country; as well as for the difficulty of their obtaining
employment at their own trades. Those who are unacquainted with the
sterling pride of the destitute English mechanic, know not what he will
suffer before becoming an inmate of a workhouse, or sinking to the
debasement of a beggar. That handicraftsmen do occasionally pass into
“lurkers” I know well; but these, I am convinced, have gradually been
warped to the life by a long course of tramping, aided by the funds
of their societies, and thus becoming disused to labour, have, after
forfeiting all claims upon the funds of their trade, adopted beggary as
a means of subsistence. But, that this is the exception rather than the
rule, the following is sufficient to show:
“The destitute mechanics,” said the Master of the Wandsworth and
Clapham Union to me, “are entirely a different class from the regular
vagrants; they have different habits, and indeed different features.
During the whole of my experience I never knew a distressed artizan
who applied for a night’s shelter, commit an act of theft; and I have
seen them,” he added, “in the last stage of destitution. Occasionally
they have sold the shirt and waistcoat off their backs before they
applied for admittance into the workhouse, while some of them have been
so weak from long starvation that they could scarcely reach the gate,
and indeed had to be kept for several days in the Infirmary before
their strength was recruited sufficiently to continue their journey.”
“The poor mechanic,” said another of my informants, “will sit in the
casual ward like a lost man, scared. It’s shocking to think a decent
mechanic’s houseless. When he’s beat out he’s like a bird out of a
cage; he doesn’t know where to go, or how to get a bit.”
I shall avail myself of another occasion to discuss the means of
improving the condition of the street-people.
OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF MANUFACTURED ARTICLES.
These traders consist of: (1) The vendors of metal articles; (2) Of
chemical articles; (3) Of China, glass, and stone articles; (4) Of
linen, cotton, and other textile fabrics; and (5) Of miscellaneous
articles. In this classification I do not include second-hand articles,
nor yet the traffic of those who make the articles they sell, and who
are indeed street-artizans rather than street-sellers.
Under the first head are included, the vendors of razors, table
and penknives, tea-trays, dog-collars, key-rings, articles of
hardware, small coins and medals, pins and needles, jewellery,
snuffers, candlesticks, articles of tin-ware, tools, card-counters,
herring-toasters, trivets, gridirons, pans, tray-stands (as in the
roasting of meat), and Dutch ovens.
Of the second description are the vendors of blacking, black-lead,
lucifer matches, corn-salves, grease-removing compositions, china
and glass cements, plating-balls, rat and beetle poisons, crackers,
detonating-balls, and cigar-lights.
Under the third head come all street-sold articles of China, glass,
or stone manufacture, including not only “crockery,” but vases,
chimney-ornaments, and stone fruit.
The fourth head presents the street-vending of cotton, silken, and
linen-manufactures; such as sheetings, shirtings, a variety of laces,
sewing cotton, threads and tapes, articles of haberdashery and of
millinery, artificial flowers, handkerchiefs, and pretended smuggled
goods.
Among the fifth class, or the “miscellaneous” street-sellers, are
those who vend cigars, pipes, tobacco and snuff-boxes and cigar-cases,
accordions, spectacles, hats, sponge, combs and hair-brushes,
shirt-buttons and coat-studs, “lots,” rhubarb, wash-leather,
paper-hangings, dolls, Bristol and other toys, saw-dust, fire-wood, and
pin-cushions.
There are many other manufactured articles sold in the streets, but
their description will be more proper under the head of Street Artisans.
The street-sellers of manufactured articles present, as a body, so many
and often such varying characteristics, that I cannot offer to give a
description of them as a whole, as I have been able to do with other
and less diversified classes.
Among them are several distinct and peculiar street-characters, such
as the pack-men, who carry their cotton or linen goods in packs on
their backs, and are all itinerants. Then there are duffers, who vend
pretended smuggled goods, handkerchiefs, silks, tobacco or cigars;
also, the sellers of sham sovereigns and sham gold rings for wagers.
The crockery-ware and glass-sellers (known in the street-trade as
“crocks”), are peculiar from their principle of _bartering_. They
will sell to any one, but they _sell_ very rarely, and always clamour
in preference for an exchange of their wares for wearing-apparel of
any kind. They state, if questioned, that their reason for doing this
is--at least I heard the statement from some of the most intelligent
among them--that they do so because, if they “sold outright,” they
required a hawker’s license, and could not sell or “swop” so cheap.
Some of the street-sellers of manufactured articles are also patterers.
Among these are the “cheap Jacks,” or “cheap Johns;” the grease and
stain removers; the corn-salve and plate-ball vendors; the sellers of
sovereigns and rings for wagers; a portion of the lot-sellers; and the
men who vend poison for vermin and go about the streets with live rats
clinging to, or running about, their persons.
This class of street-sellers also includes many of the very old and
the very young; the diseased, crippled, maimed, and blind. These poor
creatures sell, and sometimes obtain a charitable penny, by offering to
sell such things as boxes of lucifer-matches; cakes of blacking; boot,
stay, and other laces; pins, and sewing and knitting-needles; tapes;
cotton-bobbins; garters; pincushions; combs; nutmeg-graters; metal
skewers and meat-hooks; hooks and eyes; and shirt-buttons.
The rest of the class may be described as merely street-sellers;
toiling, struggling, plodding, itinerant tradesmen.
OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF MANUFACTURED ARTICLES IN METAL.
These street-sellers are less numerous than might be imagined,
when--according to my present division--the class is confined to the
sellers of articles which they do not manufacture. The metal wares
thus sold I have already enumerated, and I have now to describe the
characteristics of the sellers.
The result of my inquiries leads me to the conclusion, that the
street-vendors of any article which is the product of the skill of the
handicraftsman, have been, almost always, in their first outset in a
street life, connected in some capacity or other with the trade, the
manufactures of which they vend.
One elderly man, long familiar with this branch of the street-trade,
expressed to me his conviction that when a mechanic sought his
livelihood in the streets, he naturally “gave his mind to sell what
he understood. Now, in my own case,” continued my informant, “I was
born and bred a tinman, and when I was driven to a street-life, I
never thought of selling anything but tins. How could I, if I wished
to do the thing square and proper?--it would be like trying to speak
another language. If I’d started on slippers--and I knew a poor man
who was set up in the streets by a charitable lady on a stock of
gentlemen’s slippers--what could I have done? Why, no better than he
told me he did. He was a potter down at Deptford, and knew of nothing
but flower-pots, and honey-jars for grocers, and them red sorts of
pottery. Poor fellow, he might have died of hunger, only the cholera
came quickest. But when I’m questioned about my tins, I’m my own man;
and it’s a great thing, I’m satisfied, in a street-trade, when there’s
so many cheap shops, and the police and all again you, to understand
the goods you’re talking about.”
This statement, I may repeat, is undoubtedly correct, so far as
that a “beaten-out” mechanic, when driven to the streets, in the
first instance offers to the public wares of which he understands
the value and quality. Afterwards, in the experience or vagaries of
a street-life, other commodities may be, or may appear to be, more
remunerative, and for such the mechanic may relinquish his first
articles of street-traffic. “Why, sir,” I was told, “there was one man
who left razors for cabbages; ’cause one day a costermonger wot lived
in the same house with him and was taken ill, asked him to go out with
a barrow of summer cabbages--the costermonger’s boy went with him--and
they went off so well that Joe [the former razor-seller] managed to
start in the costering line, he was so encouraged.”
The street-trade in metal manufactured articles is principally
itinerant. Perhaps during the week upwards of three-fourths of those
carrying it on are itinerant, while on a Saturday night, perhaps, all
are stationary, and almost always in the street-markets. The itinerant
trade is carried on, and chiefly in the suburbs, by men, women, and
children; but the children are always, or almost always, the offspring
of the adult street-sellers.
The metal sold in the street may be divided into street-hardware,
street-tinware, and street-jewellery. I shall begin with the former.
The street-sellers of hardware are, I am assured, in number about 100,
including single men and families; for women “take their share” in
the business, and children sell smaller things, such as snuffers or
bread-baskets. The people pursuing the trade are of the class I have
above described, with the exception of some ten or twelve who formerly
made a living as servants to the gaming-booths at Epsom, Ascot, &c.,
&c., and “managed to live out of the races, somehow, most of the year;”
since the gaming-booths have been disallowed, they have “taken to the
street hardware.”
All these street-sellers obtain their supplies at “the swag-shops;”
of which I shall speak hereafter. The main articles of their trade
are tea-boards, waiters, snuffers, candlesticks, bread-baskets,
cheese-trays, Britannia metal tea-pots and spoons, iron kettles, pans,
and coffee-pots. The most saleable things, I am told by a man who has
been fifteen years in this and similar street trades, are at present
18-in. tea-boards, bought at “the swags” at from 10_s._ 6_d._ a doz.,
to 4_s._ each; 24-in. boards, from 20_s._ the doz. to 5_s._ each;
bread-baskets, 4_s._ 6_d._ the doz.; and Britannia metal tea-pots,
10_s._ the doz. These tea-pots have generally what is called “loaded
bottoms;” the lower part of the vessel is “filled with composition, so
as to look as if there was great weight of metal, and as if the pot
would melt for almost the 18_d._ which is asked for it, and very often
got.”
I learned from the same man, however, and from others in the trade,
that it is far more difficult now than it was a few years ago, to sell
“rubbish.” There used to be also, but not within these six or eight
years, a tolerable profit realised by the street-sellers of hardware in
the way of “swop.” It was common to take an old metal article, as part
payment for a new one; and if the old article were of good quality,
it was polished and tinkered up for sale in the Saturday evening
street-markets, and often “went off well.” This traffic, however, has
almost ceased to exist, as regards the street-sellers of hardware,
and has been all but monopolised by the men who barter “crocks” for
wearing-apparel, or any old metal. Some hardware-men who have become
well known on their “rounds”--for the principal trade is in the
suburbs--sell very good wares, and at moderate profits.
“It’s a poor trade, sir, is the hardware,” said one man carrying it
on, “and street trades are mostly poor trades, for I’ve tried many a
one of them. I was brought up a clown, I may say; my father died when
I was a child, and I might have been a clown still but for an accident
(a rupture). That’s long ago,--I can’t say how long; but I know that
before I was fifteen, I many a time wished I was dead, and I have many
a time since. Why the day before yesterday, from 9 in the morning to 11
at night, I didn’t take a farthing. Some days I don’t earn 1_s._, and
I have a mother depending upon me who can do little or nothing. I’m a
teetotaller; if I wasn’t we shouldn’t have a meal a day. I never was
fond of drink, and if I’m ever so weary and out of sorts, and worried
for a meal’s meat, I can’t say I ever long for a drop to cheer me up.
Sometimes I can’t get coffee, let alone anything else. O, I suffer
terribly. Day after day I get wet through, and have nothing to take
home to my mother at last. Our principal food is bread and butter, and
tea. Not fish half so often as many poor people. I suppose, because we
don’t care for it. I know that our living, the two of us, stands to
less than 1_s._ a day,--not 6_d._ a piece. Then I have two rents to
pay. No, sir, not for two places; but I pay 2_s._ a week for a room,
a tidy bit of a chamber, furnished, and 1_s._ a week rent,--I call it
rent, for a loan of 5_s._ I’ve paid 1_s._ a week for four weeks on it,
and must keep paying until I can hand over the 5_s._, with 1_s._ for
rent added to it, all in one sum. If I could tip up the 5_s._ the day
after I’d paid the last week’s 1_s._, I must pay another shilling. The
man who lends does nothing else; he lives by lending, and by letting
out a few barrows to costermongers, and other street-people. I wish I
could take a farewell sight of them.”
The principal traffic carried on by these street-sellers is in the
suburbs. Women constitute their sole customers, or nearly so. Their
profits fluctuate from 20 per cent. to 100 per cent. The bread-baskets,
which they buy at 4_s._ 6_d._ the doz., they retail at 6_d._ each;
for it is very difficult, I have frequently been told, to get a
price between 6_d._ and 1_s._ This, however, relates only to those
things which are not articles of actual necessity. Half of these
street-sellers, I am assured, take on an average from 20_s._ to 25_s._
weekly the year through; a quarter take 15_s._, and the remaining
quarter from 7_s._ 6_d._ to 10_s._ Calculating an average taking of
15_s._ each per week, throughout the entire class, men, women, and
children, we find 3,900_l._ expended in street-sold hardwares. Ten
years ago, I am told, the takings were not less than 2,000_l._
The following is an extract from accounts kept, not long ago, by a
street-seller of hardware. His principal sale was snuffers, knives and
forks, iron candlesticks, padlocks, and bed-screws. His stock cost him
35_s._ on the Monday morning, and his first week was his _best_, which
I here subjoin:
Receipts. Profits.
Monday 8_s._ 3_s._ 0_d._
Tuesday 5 2 3
Wednesday 4 1 6
Thursday (always a slack day) 3 ---------
Friday (a better day about the
docks, when people are paid) 7 3 0
Saturday Morning and Even. 23 6 1
-- ----------
50 15 10
The following is the _worst_ week in the account-books. The
street-seller after this (about half a year ago) sold his stock to a
small shopkeeper, and went into another business.
Receipts. Profits.
_s._ _d._ _s._ _d._
Monday (very cold) a common bed-screw 0 4 0 1-1/4
Tuesday ------- ---------
Wednesday 1 0 0 5
Thursday (sold cheap) 1 1 0 3
Friday ------- ----------
Saturday 1 7 0 8
------- ----------
4 0 1 5-1/4
OF THE CHEAP JOHNS, OR STREET HANSELLERS.
This class of street-salesmen, who are perhaps the largest dealers
of all in hardware, are not so numerous as they were some few years
ago--the Excise Laws, as I have before remarked, having interfered
with their business. The principal portion of those I have met are
Irishmen, who, notwithstanding, generally “hail” from Sheffield, and
all their sales are effected in an attempt at the Yorkshire dialect,
interspersed, however, with an unmistakeable brogue. The brogue is the
more apparent when cheap John gets a little out of temper--if his sales
are flat, for instance, he’ll say, “By J--s, I don’t belaive you’ve any
money with you, or that you’ve lift any at home, at all, at all. Bad
cess to you!”
There are, however, many English cheap Johns, but few of them are
natives of Sheffield or Birmingham, from which towns they invariably
“hail.” Their system of selling is to attract a crowd of persons by an
harangue after the following fashion: “Here I am, the original cheap
John from Sheffield. I’ve not come here to get money; not I; I’ve
come here merely for the good of the public, and to let you see how
you’ve been imposed upon by a parcel of pompous shopkeepers, who are
not content with less than 100 per cent. for rubbish. They got up a
petition--which I haven’t time to read to you just now--offering me
a large sum of money to keep away from here. But no, I had too much
friendship for you to consent, and here I am, cheap John, born without
a shirt, one day while my mother was out, in a haystack; consequently
I’ve no parish, for the cows eat up mine, and therefore I’ve never no
fear of going to the workhouse. I’ve more money than the parson of
the parish--I’ve in this cart a cargo of useful and cheap goods; can
supply you with anything, from a needle to an anchor. Nobody _can_
sell as cheap as me, seeing that I gets all my goods upon credit, and
never means to pay for them. Now then, what shall we begin with? Here’s
a beautiful guard-chain; if it isn’t silver, it’s the same colour--I
don’t say it isn’t silver, nor I don’t say it is--in that affair use
your own judgment. Now, in the reg’lar way of trade, you shall go
into any shop in town, and they will ask you 1_l._ 18_s._ 6_d._ for
an article not half so good, so what will you say for this splendid
chain? Eighteen and sixpence without the pound? What, that’s too
much! Well, then say 17, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10 shillings; what,
none of you give ten shillings for this beautiful article? See how it
improves a man’s appearance” (hanging the chain round his neck). “Any
young man here present wearing this chain will always be shown into
the parlour instead of the tap-room; into the best pew in church, when
he and--but the advantages the purchaser of this chain will possess
I haven’t time to tell. What! no buyers? Why, what’s the matter with
ye? Have you no money, or no brains? But I’ll ruin myself for your
sakes. Say 9_s._ for this splendid piece of jewellery--8, 7, 6, 5, 4,
3, 2, 1--a shilling, will anybody give a shilling? Well, here 11_d._,
10_d._, 9_d._, 8_d._, 7_d._, 6-1/2_d._, 6_d._! Is there ever a buyer
at sixpence? Now I’ll ask no more and I’ll take no less; sell it or
never sell it.” The concluding words are spoken with peculiar emphasis,
and after saying them the cheap John never takes any lower sum. A
customer perhaps is soon obtained for the guard-chain, and then the
vendor elevates his voice; “Sold to a very respectable gentleman, with
his mouth between his nose and chin, a most remarkable circumstance. I
believe I’ve just one more--this is better than the last; I must have
a shilling for this. Sixpence? To you, sir. Sold again, to a gentleman
worth 30,000_l._ a year; only the right owner keeps him out of it. I
believe I’ve just one more; yes, here it is; it’s brighterer, longerer,
strongerer, and betterer than the last. I must have at least tenpence
for this. Well then, 9, 8, 7, 6; take this one for a sixpence. Sold
again, to a gentleman, his father’s pet and his mother’s joy. Pray,
sir, does your mother know you’re out? Well, I don’t think I’ve any
more, but I’ll look; yes, here is _one_ more. Now this is better than
all the rest. Sold again, to a most respectable gentleman, whose mother
keeps a chandler’s shop, and whose father turns the mangle.” In this
manner the cheap John continues to sell his guard-chain, until he has
drained his last customer for that particular commodity. He has always
his remark to make relative to the purchaser. The cheap John always
takes care to receive payment before he hazards his jokes, which I
need scarcely remark are ready made, and most of them ancient and worn
threadbare, the joint property of the whole fraternity of cheap Johns.
After supplying his audience with one particular article, he introduces
another: “Here is a carving-knife and fork, none of your wasters,
capital buck-horn handle, manufactured of the best steel, in a regular
workmanlike manner; fit for carving in the best style, from a sparrow
to a bullock. I don’t ask 7_s._ 6_d._ for this--although go over to
Mr. ----, the ironmonger, and he will have the impudence to ask you
15_s._ for a worse article.” (The cheap Johns always make comparisons
as to their own prices and the shopkeepers, and sometimes mention their
names.) “I say 5_s._ for the carving-knife and fork. Why, it’s an
article that’ll almost fill your children’s bellies by looking at it,
and will always make 1 lb. of beef go as far as 6 lb. carved by any
other knife and fork. Well, 4_s._, 3_s._, 2_s._, 1_s._ 11_d._, 1_s._
10_d._, 1_s._ 9_d._, 1_s._ 8_d._, 1_s._ 7_d._, 18_d._ I ask no more,
nor I’ll take no less.” The salesman throughout his variety of articles
indulges in the same jokes, and holds out the same inducements. I give
a few.
“_This_ is the original teapot” (producing one), “formerly invented
by the Chinese; the first that ever was imported by those celebrated
people--only two of them came over in three ships. If I do not sell
this to-day, I intend presenting it to the British Museum or the Great
Exhibition. It is mostly used for making tea,--sometimes by ladies,
for keeping a little drop on the sly; it is an article constructed
upon scientific principles, considered to require a lesser quantity of
tea to manufacture the largest quantity of tea-water, than any other
teapot now in use--largely patronised by the tea-totallers. Now, here’s
a fine pair of bellows! Any of you want to raise the wind? This is a
capital opportunity, if you’ll try. I’ll tell you how; buy these of
me for 3_s._ 6_d._, and go and pawn them for 7_s._ Will you buy ’em,
sir? No! well, then, you be blowed! Let’s see--I said 3_s._ 6_d._; it’s
too little, but as I have said it, they must go; well--3_s._,” &c. &c.
“Capital article to chastise the children or a drunken husband. Well,
take ’em for 1_s._--I ask no more, and I’ll take no less.”