questions; “I am 73 years of age. My father and mother were poor
people; I never went to school; my father died while I was young;
my mother used to go out charing; she couldn’t afford to pay for
schooling, and told me, I must look out and _yearn_ my own living
while I was a mere chick. At ten years of age I went to sea in the
merchant sarvice. While I was in the merchant sarvice, I could get
good wages, for I soon knowed my duty. I was always of an industrious
turn, and never liked to be idle; don’t you see what I mean. In ’97
I was pressed on board the INCONSTANT frigate; I was paid off six
months arterwards, but hadn’t much to take, and that, like all other
young men who hadn’t larned the dodges of life, I spent very soon;
but I never got drunk--thank God!” said the old man, “I never got
drunk, or I shouldn’t ha been what I am now at 73 years of age. I was
drafted into the Woolwich 44-gun ship; from her to the OVERISAL.” I
inquired how the name of the ship was spelt; “Oh I am not scholard
enough for that there,” he replied, “tho’ I did larn to read and write
when abord a man of war. I larned myself. But you must look into a
_Dutch dictionary_, for it’s a Dutch name. I then entered on board the
AMPHINE frigate, and arter I had sarved some months in her, I entered
the merchant sarvice again, and arter that I went to Greenland to the
whale-fishery--they calls me here in the college” (he is now an inmate
of Greenwich Hospital) “‘_Whaler Ben_,’ but I arnt affronted--most
on ’em here have nicknames. I went three voyages besides to the West
Ingees. I never got drunk even there, though I was obliged to drink
rum; it wouldn’t ha done to ha drunk the water NEAT, there was so many
insects in it. When my sailor’s life was over I comes to Liverpool
and marries a wife--aye and as good a wife as any poor man ever had
in England. I had saved a goodish bit o’ money, nearly 300_l._, for I
was not so foolish as some of the poor sailors, who yearns their money
like horses and spends it like asses, I say. Well we sets up a shop--a
chandler shop--in Liverpool: me and my old ’ooman does; and I also
entered into the pig-dealing line. I used to get some of my pigs from
Ireland, and some I used to breed myself, but I was very misfortunate.
You recollect the year when the disease was among the cattle, in course
you recollects that; well, sir, I lost 24 pigs and a horse in one year,
and that was a good loss for a poor man, wer’n’t it? I thought it werry
hard, for I’d worked hard for my money at sea, and I was always werry
careful, arter I knowed what life was. My poor wife too used to trust a
good deal in the shop and by-and-by, behold you, me and my old ’ooman
was on our beam ends. My wife was took ill too--and, for the purpose
of getting the best adwice, I brings her to London, but her cable had
run out, and she died, and I’ve been a poor forlorned creatur’ ever
since. You wouldn’t think it, but arter that I never slept on a bed
for seven years. I had blankets and my clothes--but what I means is
that I never had a bed to lie on. I sold most of my bits o’ things to
bury my wife. I didn’t relish applying to the parish. I kept a few
sticks tho’, for I don’t like them ere lodging-houses. I can’t be a
werry bad kerackter, for I was seven years under one landlord, and I
warrant me if I wanted a room agin he would let me have one. Arter my
wife died, knowing some’at about ropes I gets work at Maberley’s, the
great contractors--in course you knows _him_. I made rope traces for
the artillery; there’s a good deal of leather-work about the traces,
and stitching them, you see, puts me up to the making of dogs’-collars.
I was always handy with my fingers, and can make shoes or anythink. I
can work now as well as ever I could in my life, only my eyes isn’t so
good. Ain’t it curious now, sir, that wot a man larns in his fingers he
never forgets? Well being out o’ work, I was knocking about for some
time, and then I was adwised to apply for a board to carry at one of
them cheap tailors, but I didn’t get none; so I takes to hawking link
buttons and key rings, and buys some brass dog-collars; it was them
brass collars as made me bethought myself as I could make some leather
ones. Altho’ I had been better off I didn’t think it any disgrace to
get a honest living. The leather collars is harder to make than the
brass ones, only the brass ones wants more implements. There are about
a dozen selling in the streets as makes brass-collars--there’s not much
profit on the brass ones. People says there’s nothing like leather, and
I thinks they are right. Well, sir, as I was a telling you, I commences
the leather-collar making,--in course I didn’t make ’em as well at
first as I do now. It was werry hard lines at the best of times. I
used to get up at 4 o’clock in the morning in the summer time, and
make my collars; then I’d turn out about 9, and keep out until 7 or 8
at night. I seldom took more than 2_s._ per day. What profit did I get
out of 2_s._? Why, lor’ bless you, sir! if I hadn’t made them myself,
I shouldn’t have got no profit at all. But as it was, if I took 2_s._,
the profits was from 1_s._ to 1_s._ 6_d._; howsomever, sometimes I
didn’t take 6_d._ Wet days too used to run me aground altogether; my
rheumatics used to bore me always when the rain come down, and then I
couldn’t get out to sell. If I’d any leather at them times I used to
make it up; but if I hadn’t none, why I was obligated to make the best
on it. Oh, sir! you little knows what I’ve suffered; many a banyan day
I’ve had in my little room--upon a wet day--aye, and other days too.
Why, I think I’d a starved if it hadn’t a been for the ’bus-men about
Hungerford-market. They are good lads them there ’bus lads to such as
me; they used to buy my collars when they didn’t want them. Ask any on
’em if they know anything about old Tom, the collar-maker, and see if
they don’t flare up and respect me. They used sometimes to raffle my
collars and give ’em back to me. Mr. Longstaff too, the landlord of
the Hungerford Arms--I believe it’s called the Hungerford Hotel--has
given me something to eat very often when I was hungry, and had nothing
myself. There’s what you call a hor’nary there every day. You knows
what I mean--gentlemen has their grub there at so much a head, or so
much a belly it should be, I says. I used to come in for the scraps,
and werry thankful I was for them I can assure you. Yes, Mr. Longstaff
is what you may call a good man. He’s what you calls a odd man, and
a odd man’s always a good man. All I got to say is, ‘God bless him!’
he’s fed me many time when I’ve been hungry. I used to light upon other
friends too,--landlords of public-houses, where I used to hawk my
collars; they seemed to take to me somehow; it wer’n’t for what I spent
in their houses I’m sure, seeing as how I’d nothing to spend. I had no
pension for my sarvice, and so I was adwised to apply for admission
to ‘the house here’ (Greenwich Hospital). I goes to Somerset-House;
another poor fellow was making a application at the same time; but
I didn’t nothing till one very cold day, when I was standing quite
miserable like with my collars. I’d been out several hours and hadn’t
taken a penny, when up comes the man as wanted to get into the house,
running with all his might to me. I thought he was going to tell me he
had got into the house, and I was glad on it, for, poor fellow, he was
werry bad off; howsomever he says to me, ‘Tom,’ says he, ‘they wants
you at the Admirality.’ ‘Does they?’ says I, and ’cordingly away I
goes; and arter telling the admiral my sarvice, and answering a good
many questions as he put to me, the admiral says, says he, ‘The order
will be made out; you shall go into the house.’ I think the admiral
knowed me or somethink about me, you see. I don’t know his name, and it
would’nt ha’ done to have axed. God bless him, whoever he is, I says,
and shall say to my dying day; it seemed like Providence. I hadn’t
taken a ha’penny all that day; I was cold and hungry, and suffering
great pain from my rheumatics. Thank God,” exclaimed the old man in
conclusion, “I am quite comfortable now. I’ve everythink I want except
a little more tea and shuggar, but I’m quite content, and thank God for
all his mercies.”
[Illustration: THE STREET-SELLER OF DOGS’ COLLARS.
[_From a Daguerreotype by_ BEARD.]]
The old man informed me moreover that he did not think there were more
than half-a-dozen street-sellers besides himself who made leather
collars; it was a poor trade, he said, and though the other makers
were younger than he was, he “could lick them all at stitching.” He
did not believe, he told me, that any of the collar-sellers sold more
than he did--if as many--for he had friends that perhaps other men
had not. He makes collars now sometimes, and wishes he could get some
shopkeeper to sell them for him, and then maybe, he says, he could
obtain a little more tea and shuggar, and assist a sister-in-law of his
whom he tells me is in great distress, and whom he has been in the
habit of assisting for many years, notwithstanding his poverty. The old
man, during the recital of his troubles, was affected to tears several
times--especially when he spoke of his wife, and the distress he had
undergone--and with much sincerity blessed God for the comforts that he
now enjoys.
OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF TOOLS.
These people are of the same class as the sellers of hardware articles,
though so far a distinct body that they generally sell tools only.
The tools are of the commonest kind, and supplied by the cheapest
swag-shops, from which establishments the majority of the
street-traders derive their supplies. They are sometimes displayed on a
small barrow, sometimes on a stall, and are mostly German-made.
The articles sold and the price asked--and generally obtained, as no
extravagant profit is demanded--is shown by the following:--
Claw hammers, 6_d._ Large claw, black and glaze-faced, 1_s._ Pincers,
4_d._; larger ones, 6_d._ Screw-drivers, from 2_d._ to 1_s._! Flat-nose
pliers, 6_d._ a pair; squares, 6_d._ to 1_s._ Carpenters’ oil-cans,
from 9_d._ to 1_s._ 3_d._ Nests of brad-awls (for joiners, and in
wooden cases), 6_d._ to 2_s._ Back saws, 1_s._ to 2_s._ 6_d._
While many of the street-sellers of tools travel the several
thoroughfares and suburbs of the metropolis, others vend tools of a
particular kind in particular localities. These localities and sellers
may be divided into four distinct classes:--(1) The street-sellers of
tools in the markets; (2) The street-sellers of tools at the docks and
warehouses; (3) The street-sellers of tools at mews, stable-yards, and
job-masters’; and (4) The street-sellers of tools to working men at
their workshops.
The markets which are usually frequented by the vendors of tools are
Newgate and Leadenhall. There are, I am informed, only five or six
street-sellers who at present frequent these markets on the busy days.
The articles in which they deal are butchers’ saws, cleavers, steels,
meat-hooks, and knives; these saws they sell from 2_s._ to 4_s._ each;
knives and steels, from 9_d._ to 1_s._ 3_d._ each; cleavers, from 1_s._
6_d._ to 2_s._ each; and meat-hooks at 1_d._, 2_d._, and 3_d._ each,
according to the size. It is very seldom, however, that cleavers are
sold by the street-sellers, as they are too heavy to carry about. I
am told that the trade of the tool-sellers in Newgate and Leadenhall
markets is now very indifferent, owing chiefly to the butchers having
been so frequently imposed upon by the street-sellers, that they are
either indisposed or afraid to deal with them. When the itinerant
tool-sellers are not occupied at the markets they vend their wares to
tradesmen at private shops, but often without success. “It is a poor
living,” said one of the hawkers to me; “sometimes little better than
starving. I have gone out a whole day and haven’t taken a farthing.”
I am informed that the greater portion of these street-sellers are
broken-down butchers. The tools they vend are purchased at the
Brummagem warehouses. To start in this branch of the street-business
5_s._ or 10_s._ usually constitutes the amount of capital invested in
stock, and the average takings of each are about 2_s._ or 2_s._ 6_d._ a
day.
“A dozen years back twenty such men offered saws at my shop,” said
a butcher in a northern suburb to me; “now there’s only one, and he
seems half-starving, poor fellow, and looks very hungrily at the
meat. Perhaps it’s a way he’s got to have a bit given him, as it is
sometimes.”
The only street-seller of tools at present frequenting
Billingsgate-market is an elderly man, who is by trade a working
cutler. The articles he displays upon his tray are oyster-knives,
fish-knives, steels, scissors, packing-needles, and hammers. This
tradesman makes his own oyster-knives and fish-knives; the scissors
and hammers are second-hand; and the packing-needles are bought at
the ironmongers. Sometimes brad-awls, gimlets, nails, and screws
form a part of his stock. He informed me that he had frequented
Billingsgate-market upwards of ten years. “Wet or dry,” he said, “I
am here, and I often suffer from rheumatics in the head and limbs.
Sometimes I have taken only a few pence; on other occasions I have
taken 3_s._ or 4_s._, but this is not very often. However, what with
the little I take at Billingsgate, and at other places, I can just get
a crust, and go on from day to day.”
The itinerant saw-sellers offer their goods to any one in the street
as well as at the shops, and are at the street markets on Saturday
evenings with small saws for use in cookery. With the butchers they
generally barter rather than sell, taking any old saw in exchange with
so much money, for a new one. “I was brought up a butcher,” said one
of these saw-sellers, “and worked as a journeyman, off and on, between
twenty and thirty year. But I grew werry delicate from rheumaticks, and
my old ’ooman was bad too, so that we once had to go into Marylebone
work’us. I had no family living, perhaps they’re better as it is.
We discharged ourselves after a time, and they gave us 5_s._ I then
thought I’d try and sell a few saws and things. A master-butcher
that’s been a friend to me, lent me another 5_s._, and I asked a man
as sold saws to butchers to put me in the way of it, and he took me
to a swag-shop. I do werry badly, sir, but I’ll not deny, and I can’t
deny--not anyhow--when you tell me Mr. ---- told you about me--that
there’s ’elps to me. If I make a bargain, for so much; or for old saws
or cleavers, or any old butcher thing, and so much; a man wot knows me
says, ‘Well, old boy, you don’t look satisfied; here’s a bit of steak
for you.’ Sometimes it’s a cut off a scrag of mutton, or weal; that
gives the old ’ooman and me a good nourishing bit of grub. I can work
at times, and every Saturday a’most I’m now a porter to a butcher. I
carries his meat from Newgate, when he’s killed hisself, and wants no
more than a man’s weight from the market; and when he ’asn’t killed
hisself in course he hires a cart. I makes 1_s._ a day the year round,
I think, on saws, and my old ’ooman makes more than ’arf as much at
charing, and there’s the ’elps, and then I gets 18_d._ and my grub
every Saturday. It’s no use grumbling; lots isn’t grubbed ’arf so well
as me and my old ’ooman. My rent’s 20_d._ a week.”
The articles vended by the second class of the street-sellers of
tools, or those whose purchasers are mostly connected with the docks
and warehouses, consist of iron-handled claw-hammers, spanners,
bed-keys, and corkscrews. Of these street-traders there are ten or
twelve, and the greater portion of them are blacksmiths out of employ.
Some make their own hammers, whereas others purchase the articles
they vend at the swag-shops. “We sell more hammers and bed-keys than
other things,” said one, “and sometimes we sells a corkscrew to the
landlord of a public-house, and then we have perhaps half-a-pint of
beer. Our principal customers for spanners are wheelwrights. Those for
hammers are egg-merchants, oilmen, wax and tallow-chandlers, and other
tradesmen who receive or send out goods in wooden cases; as well as
chance customers in the streets.” The amount of capital required to
start in the line is from 5_s._ to 15_s._: “it is not much use,” said
one, “to go to shop with less than 10_s._”
A third class of the street-sellers of tools are the vendors
of curry-combs and brushes, mane-combs, scrapers, and clipping
instruments; and these articles are usually sold at the several mews,
stable-yards, and jobbing-masters’ in and about the metropolis. The
sellers are mostly broken-down grooms, who, not being able to obtain
a situation, resort to street-selling as a last shift. “It is the
last coach, when a man takes to this kind of living,” said one of my
informants, a groom in a “good place;” “and it’s getting worse and
worse. The poor fellows look half-starved. Why, what do you think I
gave for these scissors? I got ’em for 6_d._ and a pint of beer, and I
should have to give perhaps half-a-crown for ’em at a shop.” The trade
is fast declining, and to gentlemen’s carriage mews the street-sellers
of such tools rarely resort, as the instruments required for stable-use
are now bought, by the coachmen, of the tradesmen who supply their
masters. At the “mixed mews,” as I heard them called, there are two men
who, along with razors, knives, and other things, occasionally offer
“clipping” and “trimming” scissors. Four or five years ago there were
four of these street-sellers. The trimming-scissors are, in the shops,
1_s._ 6_d._ to 2_s._ 6_d._ a pair. There is one trade still carried on
in these places, although it is diminutive compared to what it was:
I allude to the sale of curry-combs. Those vended by street-sellers
at the mews are sold at 7_d._ or 6_d._ The best sale for these
curry-combs is about Coventry-street and the Haymarket, and at the
livery-stables generally. Along with curry-combs, the street-vendors
sell wash-leathers, mane-combs (horn), sponges (which were like dried
moss for awhile, I was told, got up by the Jews, but which are now
good), dandy-brushes (whalebone-brushes, to scrape dirt from a horse’s
legs, before he is groomed), spoke-brushes (to clean carriage-wheels),
and coach-mops. One dweller in a large West-end mews computed that 100
different street-traders resorted thither daily, and that twenty sold
the articles I have specified. In this trade, I am assured, there are
no broken-down coachmen or grooms, only the regular street-sellers. A
commoner curry-comb is sold at 2_d._ (prime cost 1_s._ 3_d._ a dozen),
at Smithfield, on market-days, and to the carmen, and the owners of the
rougher sort of horses; but this trade is not extensive.
There may be ten men, I am told, selling common “currys;” and they also
sell other articles (often horse oil-cloths and nose-bags) along with
them.
The last class of street-sellers is the beaten-out mechanic or workman,
who, through blindness, age, or infirmities, is driven to obtain
a livelihood by supplying his particular craft with their various
implements. Of this class, as I have before stated, there are six men
in London who were brought up as tailors, but are now, through some
affliction or privation, incapacitated from following their calling.
These men sell needles at four and five for 1_d._; thimbles 1_d._
to 2_d._ each; scissors from 1_s._ to 2_s._ 6_d._; and wax 1_d._
the lump. There are also old and blind shoemakers, who sell a few
articles of grindery to their shopmates, as they term them, as well
as a few decayed members of other trades, hawking the implements of
the handicraft to which they formerly belonged. But as I have already
given a long account of one of this class, under the head of the blind
needle-seller, there is no occasion for me to speak further on the
subject.
From one of the street-traders in saws I had the following account of
his struggles, as well as the benefit he received from teetotalism, of
which he spoke very warmly. His room was on the fourth floor of a house
in a court near Holborn, and was clean and comfortable-looking. There
were good-sized pictures, in frames, of the Queen, the Last Supper, and
a Rural Scene, besides minor pictures: some of these had been received
in exchange for saws with street-picture-sellers. A shelf was covered
with china ornaments, such as are sold in the streets; the table had
its oil-skin cover, and altogether I have seldom seen a more decent
room. The rent, unfurnished, was 2_s._ a week.
“I’ve been eight years in this trade, sir,” the saw-seller said, “but
I was brought up to a very different one. When a lad I worked in a
coal-pit along with my father, but his behaviour to me was so cruel, he
beat me so, that I ran away, and walked every step from the north of
England to London. I can’t say I ever repented running away--much as
I’ve gone through. My money was soon gone when I got to London, and my
way of speaking was laughed at. [He had now very little of a provincial
accent.] That’s fourteen year back. Why, indeed, sir, it puzzles me to
tell you how I lived then when I did live. I jobbed about the markets,
and slept, when I could pay for a lodging, at the cheap lodging-houses;
so I got into the way of selling a few things in the streets, as I saw
others do. I sold laces and children’s handkerchiefs. Sometimes I was
miserable enough when I hadn’t a farthing, and if I managed to make a
sixpence I got tipsy on it. For six weeks I slept every night in the
Peckham Union. For another five or six weeks I slept every night in
the dark arches by the Strand. I’ve sometimes had twenty or thirty
companions there. I used to lie down on the bare stones, and was asleep
in a minute, and slept like a top all night, but waking was very bad.
I felt stiff, and sore, and cold, and miserable. How I lived at all
is a wonder to me. About eleven years ago I was persuaded to go to
a Temperance Meeting in Harp Alley (Farringdon-street), and there I
signed the pledge; that is, I made my mark, for I can’t read or write,
which has been a great hinder to me. If I’d been a scholard a teetotal
gent would have got me into the police three years ago, about the time
I got married. I did better, of course, when I was a teetotaller--no
more dark arches. I sold a few little shawls in the streets then, but
it was hardly bread and butter and coffee at times. Eight year ago I
thought I would try saw-selling: a shopkeeper advised me, and I began
on six salt saws, which I sold to oilmen. They’re for cutting salt
only, and are made of zinc, as steel would rust and dirty the salt. The
trade was far better at first than it is now. In good weeks I earned
16_s._ to 18_s._ In bad weeks 10_s._ or 12_s._ Now I may earn 10_s._,
not more, a week, pretty regular: yesterday I made only 6_d._ Oilmen
are better customers than chance street-buyers, for I’m known to them.
There’s only one man besides myself selling nothing but saws. I walk,
I believe, 100 miles every week, and that I couldn’t do, I know, if I
wasn’t teetotal. I never long for a taste of liquor if I’m ever so cold
or tired. It’s all poisonous.”
The saws sold are 8 inch, which cost at the swag-shops 8_s._ and 8_s._
6_d._ a dozen; 10 inch, 9_s._ and 9_s._ 6_d._; and so on, the price
advancing according to the increased size, to 18 inch, 13_s._ 6_d._ the
dozen. Larger sizes are seldom sold in the streets. The second man’s
earnings, my informant believed, were the same as his own.
The wife of my informant, when she got work as an embroideress, could
earn 11_s._ and 12_s._ At present she was at work braiding dresses for
a dressmaker, at 2-1/2_d._ each. By hard work, and if she had not her
baby to attend to, she could earn no more than 7-1/2_d._ a day. As it
was she did not earn 6_d._
OF THE BEGGAR STREET-SELLERS.