great experience in the business thinks there must be some hundreds
employed in it throughout London. He says he meets many at the swag
warehouses on the evenings that he goes there. He is often half an
hour before he can be served. There are seven or eight swag warehouses
frequented by the hucksters, and at the busy time my informant has
often seen as many as twenty-five at each house, and he is satisfied
that there must be three or four hundred hucksters of china and glass
throughout the metropolis. The china and glass in which they deal are
usually purchased at the east end of the town, upon the understanding
that if the huckster is unable to dispose of them in the course of the
day the articles will be taken back in the morning, if uninjured, and
the money returned. The hucksters usually take out their goods early
in the day. Their baskets are commonly deposited at the warehouse, and
each warehouse has from thirty to forty baskets left there over-night,
when the unsold articles are returned. The baskets are usually filled
with china and glass and ornaments, to the amount of from 5_s._ to
15_s._, according to the stock-money of the huckster. A basket filled
with 15_s._ worth of china is considered, I am told, “a very tidy
stock.” In the same neighbourhood as they get the crockery, are made
the baskets in which it is carried. For these baskets they pay from
2_s._ to 6_s._, and they are made expressly for the hucksters; indeed,
on one side of a well-known street at the east end, the baskets made in
the cellars may be seen piled outside the houses up to the second-floor
windows. The class of persons engaged in hawking china through the
metropolis are either broken-down tradesmen or clerks out of place,
or Jews, or they may be Staffordshire men, who have been regularly
bred to the business. They carry different kinds of articles. The
Staffordshire man may generally be known by the heavy load of china
that he carries with him. He has few light or fancy articles in his
basket; it is filled chiefly with plates and dishes and earthenware
pans. The broken-down tradesmen carries a lighter load. He prefers tea
services and vases, and rummers and cruet-stands, as they are generally
of a more delicate make than the articles carried by the Staffordshire
men. The Jew, however, will carry nothing of any considerable weight.
He takes with him mostly light, showy, Bohemian goods--which are
difficult “to be priced” by his customers, and do not require much
labour to hawk about. The hucksters usually start on their rounds about
nine. There are very few who take money; indeed they profess to take
none at all. “But that is all flam,” said my informant. “If any one was
to ask me the price of an article in an artful way like, I shouldn’t
give him a straight-forward answer. To such parties we always say,
‘Have you got any old clothes?’” The hucksters _do_ take money when
they can get it, and they adopt the principle of exchanging their goods
for old clothes merely as a means of evading the licence. Still they
are compelled to do a great deal in the old clothes’ line. When they
take money they usually reckon to get 4_d._ in the shilling, but at
least three-fourths of their transactions consist of exchanges for old
clothes. “A good tea-service we generally give,” said my informant,
“for a left-off suit of clothes, hat, and boots--they must all be in
a decent condition to be worth that. We give a sugar-basin for an old
coat, and a rummer for a pair of old Wellington boots. For a glass
milk-jug I should expect a waistcoat and trowsers, and they must be
tidy ones too. But there’s nothing so saleable as a pair of old boots
to us. There is always a market for old boots, when there is not for
old clothes. You can any day get a dinner out of old Wellingtons; but
as for coats and waistcoats--there’s a fashion about them, and what
pleases one don’t another. I can sell a pair of old boots going along
the streets if I carry them in my hand. The snobs will run after us to
get them--the backs are so valuable. Old beaver hats and waistcoats
are worth little or nothing. Old silk hats, however, there’s a tidy
market for. They are bought for the shops, and are made up into new
hats for the country. The shape is what is principally wanted. We
won’t give a farden for the polka hats with the low crowns. If we can
double an old hat up and put it in our pockets, it’s more valuable
to us than a stiff one. We know that the shape must be good to stand
that. As soon as a hatter touches a hat he knows by the touch or the
stiffness of it whether it’s been ‘through’ the fire or not; and if so,
they’ll give it you back in a minute. There is one man who stands in
Devonshire-street, Bishopsgate-street, waiting to buy the hats of us as
we go into the market, and who purchases at least thirty dozen of us a
week. There will be three or four there besides him looking out for us
as we return from our rounds, and they’ll either outbid one another,
according as the demand is, or they’ll all hold together to give one
price. The same will be done by other parties wanting the old umbrellas
that we bring back with us. These are valuable principally for the
whalebone. Cane ribbed ones are worth only from 1_d._ to 2_d._, and
that’s merely the value of the stick and the supporters. Iron skewers
are made principally out of the old supporters of umbrellas.” The china
and crockery bought by the hucksters at the warehouses are always
second-rate articles. They are most of them a little damaged, and the
glass won’t stand hot water. Every huckster, when he starts, has a bag,
and most of them two--the one for the inferior, and the other for the
better kind of old clothes he buys. “We purchase gentlemen’s left-off
wearing apparel. This is mostly sold to us by women. They are either
the wives of tradesmen or mechanics who sell them to us, or else it
is the servant of a lodging-house, who has had the things given to
her, and with her we can deal much easier than the others. She’s come
to ’em light, and of course she parts with ’em light,” said the man,
“and she’ll take a pair of sugar basins worth about 6_d._, you know,
for a thing that’ll fetch two or three shillings sometimes. But the
mistresses of the houses are she-dragons. They wants a whole dinner
_chany_ service for their husband’s rags. As for plates and dishes,
they think they can be had for picking up. Many a time they sells
their husband’s things unbeknown to ’em, and often the gentleman of
the house coming up to the door, and seeing us make a deal--for his
trowsers maybe--puts a stop to the whole transaction. Often and often
I’ve known a woman sell the best part of her husband’s stock of clothes
for _chany_ ornaments for her mantelpiece. And I’m sure the other day a
lady stripped the whole of her passage, and gave me almost a new great
coat, that was hanging up in the hall, for a few trumpery tea-things.
But the greatest ‘screws’ we has to deal with are some of the ladies
in the squares. They stops you on the sly in the streets, and tells
you to call at their house at sitch a hour of the day, and when you
goes there they smuggles you quietly into some room by yourselves, and
then sets to work Jewing away as hard as they can, pricing up their own
things, and downcrying yourn. Why, the other day I was told to call at
a fashionable part of Pimlico, so I gave a person 3_d._ to mind the
child, and me and my good woman started off at eight in the morning
with a double load. But, bless you, when we got there, the lady took
us both into a private room unbeknown to the servants, and wanted me
to go and buy expressly for her a green and white chamber service all
complete, with soap trays and brush trays, together with four breakfast
cups--and all this here grand set-out she wanted for a couple of old
washed-out light waistcoats, and a pair of light trowsers. She tried
hard to make me believe that the buttons alone on the waistcoats was
worth 6_d._ a piece, but I knowed the value of buttons afore she was
borned; at first start off I’m sure they wouldn’t have cost 1_d._ each,
so I couldn’t make a deal of it no how, and I had to take all my things
back for my trouble. I asked her even for a pint of beer, but she
wouldn’t listen to no such thing. We generally cry as we go, ‘any old
clothes to sell or exchange,’ and I look down the area, and sometimes
knock at the door. If I go out with a 15_s._ basket of crockery, may
be after a tidy day’s work I shall come home with 1_s._ in my pocket
(perhaps I shall have _sold_ a couple of tumblers, or half a dozen
plates), and a bundle of old clothes, consisting of two or three old
shirts, a coat or two, a suit of left-off livery, a woman’s gown may
be, or a pair of old stays, a couple of pair of Wellingtons, and a
waistcoat or so. These I should have at my back, and the remainder
of my _chany_ and glass on my head, and werry probably a humberella
or two under my arm, and five or six old hats in my hand. This load
altogether will weigh about three quarters of a cwt., and I shall have
travelled fifteen miles with that, at least; for as fast as I gets
rid on the weight of the crockery, I takes up the weight of the old
clothes. The clothes I hardly know the value on till I gets to the
Clothes Exchange, in Houndsditch. The usual time for the hucksters
arriving there is between three and four in the winter, or between
five and six in the summer. In fact, we must be at the Exchange at
them hours, because there all our buyers is, and we can’t go out the
next day until we’ve sold our lot. We can’t have our baskets stocked
again until we’ve got the money for our old clothes.” The Exchange is
a large square plot of damp ground, about an acre in extent, enclosed
by a hoarding about eight feet high, on the top of which is a narrow
sloping roof, projecting sufficiently forward to shelter one person
from the rain. Across this ground are placed four rows of double seats,
ranged back to back. Here meet all the Jew clothesmen, hucksters,
dealers in second-hand shoes, left-off wardrobe keepers, hareskin
dealers, umbrella dealers and menders, and indeed buyers and sellers
of left-off clothes and worn-out commodities of every description. The
purchasers are of all nations, and in all costumes. Some are Greeks,
others Swiss, and others Germans; some have come there to buy up old
rough charity clothing and army coats for the Irish market, others
have come to purchase the hareskins and old furs, or else to pick up
cheap old teapots and tea-urns. The man with the long flowing beard
and greasy tattered gaberdine is worth thousands, and he has come to
make another sixpence out of the rags and tatters that are strewn about
the ground in heaps for sale. At a little before three o’clock the
stream of rag-sellers sets in in a flood towards this spot. At the gate
stands “Barney Aaron,” to take the half-penny admission of every one
entering the ground. By his side stands his son with a leather pouch
of half-pence, to give change for any silver that may be tendered.
The stench of the old clothes is positively overpowering. Every one
there is dressed in his _worst_. If he has any good clothes he would
not put them on. Almost each one that enters has a bag at his back,
and scarcely has he passed the gate before he is surrounded by some
half dozen eager Jews--one feels the contents of the bundle on the
huckster’s back--another clamours for the first sight. A third cries,
“I’m sure you have something that’ll suit me.” “You know me,” says
a fourth, “I’m a buyer, and give a good price.” “Have you got any
breaking?” asks this Jew, who wants an old coat or two to cut up into
cloth caps--“Have you got any fustian, any old cords, or old boats?”
And such is the anxiety and greediness of the buyers, that it is as
much as the seller can do to keep his bundle on his back. At length
he forces his way to a seat, and as he empties the contents of his
sack on the ground, each different article is snapped up and eagerly
overhauled by the different Jews that have followed him to his seat.
Then they all ask what sum is wanted for the several things, and they,
one and all, bid one quarter of the price demanded. I am assured that
it requires the greatest vigilance to prevent the things being carried
off unpaid in the confusion. While this scene is going on, a Jew,
perched upon a high stage in the centre of the ground, shouts aloud
to the multitude, “Hot wine, a half-penny a glass, here.” Beside him
stands another, with smoking cans of hot eels; and next to this one is
a sweet-meat stall, with a crowd of Jew boys gathered round the keeper
of it, gambling with marbles for Albert rock and hardbake. Up and down
between the seats push women with baskets of sheep’s trotters on their
arms, and screaming, “Legs of mutton, two for a penny; who’ll give me a
handsel--who’ll give me a handsel?” After them comes a man with a large
tin can under his arm, and roaring, “Hot pea, oh! hot pea, oh!” In
one corner is a coffee and beer shop. Inside this are Jews playing at
draughts, or settling and wrangling about the goods they have bought of
one another. In fact, in no other place is such a scene of riot, rags,
and filth to be witnessed. The cause of this excitement is the great
demand on the part of the poor, and the cheap clothiers as well, for
those articles which are considered as worthless by the rich. The old
shoes are to be cobbled up, and the cracks heel-balled over, and sold
out to the working-classes as strong durable articles. The Wellingtons
are to be new fronted, and disposed of to clerks who are expected
to appear respectable upon the smallest salaries. The old coats and
trowsers are wanted for the slop-shops; they are to be “turned,” and
made up into new garments. The best black suits are to be “clobbered”
up--and those which are more worn in parts are to be cut up and made
into new cloth caps for young gentlemen, or gaiters for poor curates;
whilst others are to be transformed into the “best boys’ tunics.” Such
as are _too_ far gone are bought to be torn to pieces by the “devil,”
and made up into new cloth--or “shoddy” as it is termed--while such as
have already done this duty are sold for manure for the ground. The old
shirts, if they are past mending, are bought as “rubbish” by the marine
store dealers, and sold as rags to the paper-mills, to be changed
either into the bank-note, the newspaper, or the best satin note-paper.
The average earnings of the hucksters who exchange crockery, china and
glass for the above articles, are from 8_s._ to 10_s._ per week. Some
days, I am told, they will make 3_s._, and on others they will get only
6_d._ However, taking the good with the bad, it is thought that 10_s._
a week is about a fair average of the earnings of the whole class.
The best times for this trade are at the turn of the winter, and at
the summer season, because then people usually purchase new clothes,
and are throwing off the old ones. The average price of an old hat is
from 1_d._ to 8_d._; for an old pair of shoes, from 1_d._ to 4_d._;
an old pair of Wellingtons fetch from 3_d._ to 1_s._ 6_d._ (those of
French leather are of scarcely any value). An old coat is worth from
4_d._ to 1_s._; waistcoats are valued from 1_d._ to 3_d._; trowsers are
worth from 4_d._ to 8_d._; cotton gowns are of the same value; bonnets
are of no value whatever; shirts fetch from 2_d._ to 6_d._; stockings
are 1_d._ per pair; a silk handkerchief varies in value from 3_d._ to
1_s._ The party supplying me with the above information was originally
in the coal and greengrocery business, but, owing to a succession of
calamities, he has been unable to carry it on. Since then he has taken
to the vending of crockery in the streets. He is a man far above the
average of the class to which he at present belongs.
OF THE “SWAG,” CROCKERY, AND GLASS SHOPS.
In addition to the 150 general and particular “swag-shops,” or shops
having a large _collection_ of goods, of which I have spoken, there
are twenty establishments for the sale of crockery and china, which I
heard styled by persons in the trade “swag-crocks,” or “crock-shops.”
The principle on which the trade is conducted in these places is the
same as that of the swag-shops, inasmuch as the sales are wholesale,
to street-sellers, shop-keepers, and shippers, but rarely to private
individuals.
The crock swag-shops are to be found in the streets neighbouring
Spitalfields market, and in and near to Liquorpond-street. As at the
more general or miscellaneous swag-shops, the crock-swags make no
display. In one of the most extensive, indeed, two large windows are
filled with goods. Here are spirit-stands, with the invariable three
bottles (invariable in the cheap trade), blue, green, or uncoloured;
some lettered “gin,” “rum,” “brandy,” but most of them unlabelled.
Here, too, are cruet-stands, and “pot” or spar figures under glass
shades; and a number of many-coloured flower-glasses, some of them
profusely gilded; and small china vases; but the glass wares greatly
predominate. Although there are glass and colour and gilding enough to
make “an imposing display,” the display is nevertheless anything but
showy; the goods look dingy, and, if I may so speak of such things,
faded. Some of the coloured glass seems to be losing its colour, and
few of the wares have the bright look of newness.
The windows of these shops are, for the most part, literally _packed_
to a certain height, so as almost to exclude the light, with pitchers,
and basins, and cups, and jugs, and the sundry smaller articles of this
multifarious trade, all undusted, and seemingly uncared for. In one
“large concern” I saw a number of glass salt-cellars wrapped severally
in paper, which had changed from white to a dusty brown, and which from
age, and perhaps damp, seemed about to fall to tatters.
The “interiors” of some of these warehouses are very spacious. I saw
one large and lofty shop, into which two apartments and a yard had
been flung, the partitions having been taken down, and the ceilings
supported by pillars, in order to “extend the premises.” It was really
a hall of pots. On the floor were large crates, the tops removed so
that the goods might be examined, packed, one with cups, another
with saucers, a third with basins, and packed as only a potter could
pack them. Intermixed with them were piles of blue-and-white dishes
and plates, and, beside them, washing-pans, fitted one into another
like the old hats on a Jew’s head. The pillars had their festoons of
crockery, being hung with children’s white and gold mugs “for a good
boy,” and with white metal-lidded and brown-bodied mustard pots, as
well as other minor articles. The shelves were loaded with tea-services
of many shapes and hues, while the unoccupied space was what sufficed
to allow the warehousemen and the customers to thread the mazes of
this labyrinth of crockerywares. Of the glass goods there was little
display, as they are generally kept in cases and other packages, to
preserve their freshness of appearance.
The crockery of the swag-shops is made in Staffordshire; the glass
principally in Lancashire. At none of these establishments do they
issue circulars of prices, such as I have cited of the general
swag-shops. The articles are so very many, I was told, that to specify
all the sizes and prices “would take a volume and a half.” I give a
statement, however, of the prices of the goods most in demand, on the
occasions when the street vendors sell them without barter, and the
prices at which they are purchased wholesale: Blue-edged plates sold at
1_d._ each cost 1_s._ 8_d._ the dozen; this would appear to entail a
loss of 8_d._ on every dozen sold, but in this article “30 is a dozen.”
Dishes are bought at the “swag-crocks” in “nests,” which comprise 10
dishes, or 5 pairs, of different sizes. These the street crockman
sells, if possible, in pairs, but he will sell them singly, for he
can always make up the complement of his “nest” at the warehouse.
The prices run, chiefly according to size, from 8_d._ to 1_s._ 6_d._
(sometimes 1_s._ 8_d._) the pair. “The 8_d._ a pair,” said one street
crock-seller, “costs me 6_d._, not a farthing under, and the 18_d._ a
pair--it’s very seldom we can ‘draw’ 1_s._ 8_d._--costs 1_s._ 2_d._
That’s all, sir; and the profit’s so small, it makes us keen to swop.
I’ll swop for old clothes, or dripping, or grease, or anything. You
see the profit, when you sells downright down, _must_ be small, ’cause
there’s so many pot-shops with prices marked on the plates and other
things. They can buy better than us sometimes, and they’re hard to
stand up against. If a woman says to me--for I very seldom deal with
men--‘Why, they’re cheaper at D----’s, in Oxford-street,’--I answers,
‘And worser. I’ll tell you what it is, ma’am. The cheapest place was in
two houses, painted all red, in the London-road. But one fine morning
them two houses fell, and the pots was smashed as a matter of course.
It was a judgment on their bad pots.’ But it’s a fact, sir, that these
houses fell, about 7 or 8 years ago, I think, and I’ve seen goods, with
one or two of ’em broken, offered for sale when the place was re-built,
having been ‘rescued from the ruins; and at less than half price.’ Of
course that was gammon. I’ve cracked and broke a few plates, myself,
and sold them in the New Kent-road, and in Walworth and Newington, at
half price, from the ruins, and at a very tidy profit.” A stone china
tea-service, of 32 pieces--12 cups, 12 saucers, 4 bread-and-butter
plates, a tea-pot, a sugar-basin, a slop-basin, and a cream-jug--is
bought for 6_s._ 9_d._ while 9_s._ is asked for it, and sometimes
obtained. A “china set” costs, as the general price, 10_s._ 6_d._, and
for it 14_s._ is asked.
The glass wares are so very rarely sold--being the most attractive
articles of barter--that I could hardly get any street-seller to
state his prices. “Swop, sir,” I was told repeatedly, “they all goes
in swop.” The glass goods, however, which are the most sold in the
streets, I ascertained to be cream-jugs, those vended at 6_d._ each,
costing 4_s._ the dozen; and flower-glasses, the most frequent price
being 1_s._ a pair, the prime cost 7_d._
I have estimated the sum turned over by the general swag-shops at
3000_l._ each. From what I can learn, the crock swag-shops, averaging
the whole, turn over a larger sum, for their profits are smaller,
ranging from 10 to 30 per cent., but rarely 30. Calculating, then, that
each of these swag-shops turns over 4000_l._ yearly, we find 80,000_l._
expended, but this includes the sales to shopkeepers and to shippers,
as well as to street-folk.
OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF SPAR AND CHINA ORNAMENTS, AND OF STONE FRUIT.
“Spars,” as spar ornaments are called by the street-sellers, are sold
to the retailers at only four places in London, and two in Gravesend
(where the hawkers are for the most part supplied). The London
spar-houses are--two in Westminster, one in Shoreditch, and one on
Battle-bridge. None of them present any display of their goods which
are kept in large drawers, closets, and packages. At Gravesend the
spar-shops are handsome.
These wares are principally of Derbyshire spar, and made in Matlock;
a few are German. The “spars” are hawked on a round, and are on fine
Saturday nights offered for sale in the street and markets. The trade
was unknown as a street, or a hawking trade in London, I am informed,
until about twenty-five years ago, and then was not extensive, the
goods, owing to the cost of carriage, &c., being high-priced. As
public conveyance became more rapid, certain and cheap, the trade in
spars increased, and cheaper articles were prepared for the London
market. From ten to fifteen years ago the vendors of spars “did well
in swop” (as street-sellers always call barters). The articles with
which they tempted housewives were just the sort of article to which
it was difficult for inexperienced persons to attach a value. They
were massive and handsome ornaments, and the spar-sellers did not fail
to expatiate on their many beauties. “God rest Jack Moody’s soul,”
said an Irishman, now a crock-seller, to me; “Jack Moody was only his
nick-name, but that don’t matter; God rist his sowl and the hivens
be his bid. He was the boy to sell the spar-r’s. They was from the
cavrents at the bottom of the say, he towld them, or from a new island
in the frozen ocean. He did well; God rist him; but he died young.” The
articles “swopped” were such as I have described in my account of the
tradings of the crock-sellers; and if the “swop” were in favour of the
spar-seller, still the customer became possessed of something solid,
enduring, and generally handsome.
At the outset of the street or hawking trade, the spar-sellers carried
their goods done up in paper, in strong baskets on their heads; the
man’s wife sometimes carrying a smaller basket, with less burdensome
articles, on her arm. Men have been known to start on a round, with a
basket of spars, which would weigh from 1 cwt. to 1-1/2 cwt. (or 12
stone). This, it must be remembered, might have to be borne for three
or four miles into the suburbs, before its weight was diminished by a
sale. One of these traders told me that twelve years ago he had sold
spar watch-stands, weighing above 15 lbs. These stands were generally
of a square form; the inner portion being open, except a sort of recess
for the watch. “The tick sounds well on spar, I’ve often heard,” said
one spar-seller.
Some of the spar ornaments are plain, white, and smooth. Of these many
have flowers, or rims, or insects, painted upon them, and in brilliant
colours. Those which are now in demand for the street sales, or for
itinerant barterings, are--Small microscopes, candlesticks, inkstands,
pin-cushions, mugs, paper-holders, match perfumery, and shaving-boxes,
etc. The general price of these articles is 6_d._ to the street-seller
or hawker, some of the dealers being licensed hawkers. The wholesale
price varies from 2_s._ 6_d._ to 5_s._ per dozen; or an average of
3_s._ 9_d._ or 4_s._ Of the larger articles the most saleable are
candlesticks, at from 1_s._ to 2_s._ 6_d._ each; from 1_s._ to 1_s._
6_d._ being the most frequent price. Watch-stands and vases are now,
I am told, in small demand. “People’s got stocked, I think,” one man
said, “and there’s so much cheap glass and chaney work, that they looks
on spars as heavy and old-fashioned.”
Some street-sellers have their spars in covered barrows, the goods
being displayed when the top of the barrow is removed, so that the
conveyance is serviceable whether the owner be stationary or itinerant.
The spar-sellers, however, are reluctant to expose their goods to the
weather, as the colours are easily affected.
In this trade I am informed that there are now twelve men, nine of whom
are assisted by their wives, and that in the summer months there are
eighteen. Their profits are about 15_s._ per week on an average of the
whole year, including the metropolis and a wide range of the suburbs.
What amount of money may be expended by the public in the street
purchase of “spars” I am unable to state, so much being done in the way
of barter; but assuming that there are fourteen sellers throughout the
year, and that their profits are cent. per cent., there would appear to
be about 1000_l._ per annum thus laid out.