or the several kinds of cheap lace used for the bordering of caps and
other female requirements. Among street-people the lace is called
“driz,” and the sellers of it “driz-fencers.” It gained this slang
name, I was informed, many years ago, when it was sold, and often to
wealthy ladies, as rare and valuable lace, smuggled from Mechlin,
Brussels, Valenciennes, or any foreign place famous, or once famous,
for its manufacture. The pretended smuggled lace trade is now unknown
in London, and is very little practised in the country. There is,
however, still some smuggling connected with lace-selling. Two, and
sometimes three, female lace-sellers are also “jigger-workers.” They
carry about their persons pint bladders of “stuff,” or “jigger stuff”
(spirit made at an illicit still). “I used to supply them with it
until lately,” one street-trader told me, “from a friend that kept a
‘jigger,’ and a tidy sale some of them had. Indeed, I’ve made the stuff
myself. I knew one woman, six or seven years back, that did uncommon
well at first, but she got too fond of the stuff, and drank herself
into the work’us. They never carried gin, for brandy was most asked
for. They sold the brandy at 2_s._ 6_d._ the pint; rum at 1_s._ 6_d._;
and whiskey at 2_s._; sometimes higher, and always trying for 6_d._
a pint profit, at least. O yes, sir; I know they got the prices I’ve
mentioned, though they seem high; for you must remember that the jigger
spirit is above proof, and a pint will make two pints of gin-palace
stuff. They sold it, I’ve heard them say, to ladies that liked a drop
on the sly; and to some as pretended they bought that way for economy;
yes, and to shopkeepers and publicans too. One old lady used to give
3_s._ for three yards of driz, and it was well enough understood,
without no words, that a pint of brandy was part of them three yards.
But the trade that way is nothing to what it was, and gets less and
less every year.”
From a middle-aged woman selling laces I had the following account:--
“I’ve been in the trade about six years, sir. Ten years back or more
I was in place, and saved a little money, as a servant of all work. I
married a house-painter, but trade got bad, and we both had illnesses;
and my husband, though he’s as good a man as need be, can’t stick to
anything very long at a time.” (A very common failing, by the bye, with
the street-folk.) “It seems not in his nature. When we was reduced very
low he got on a cab--for he can turn his hand to almost anything--and
after that we came to street-selling. He’s now on jewellery, and I
think it suits him as well or better than anything he’s tried; I do
my part, and we get on middling. If we’re ever pushed it’s no use
fretting. We had one child, and he died when he wanted just a month of
three years old, and after I’d lost him I said I would never fret for
trifles no more. My heart was broke for a long time--it was indeed. He
was the loveliest boy ever seen, and everybody said so. I went into
lace, because my husband got to know all about it, and I had no tie
at home then. I was very shy and ashamed at first to go into houses,
but that wears off, and I met with some nice people that bought of me
and was very civil, so that encourages one. I sell nothing but lace.
I never cleared more than 2_s._ 6_d._ in a day, and that only once. I
suppose I clear from 3_s._ 6_d._ to 4_s._ 6_d._ a week now; perhaps,
take it altogether, rather more than 4_s._ I have a connection, and go
to the houses in and about the Regent’s Park, and all the small streets
near it, and sometimes Maida Hill way. I once tried a little millinery
made-up things, but it didn’t suit somehow, and I didn’t stick to it.
You see, sir, I sell my lace to very few but servant maids and small
shopkeepers’ wives and daughters; but then they’re a better sort of
people than those as has to buy everything ready made like servants
has. They can use their own needles to make themselves nice and smart,
and they buy of such as me to do it cheap, and they’re not often such
beaters down as them that buys the ready-made. I can do nothing, or
next to nothing, in very wet weather. If I’m in the habit of going into
a nice kitchen, perhaps the housemaid flies at me for ‘bringing in all
that dirt.’ My husband says all women is crossest in bad weather, and
perhaps servants is.
“I buy my lace near Shoreditch. It’s a long walk, but I think I’m best
used there. I buy generally a dozen yards, from 3-1/2_d._ to 1_s._,
and sometimes up to 2_s._ I sell the commoner at 1_d._ a yard, and
three yards 2_d._; and the better at 2_d._ and 3_d._ a yard. It’s a
poor trade, but it’s doing something. My husband seldom earns less
than 12_s._ a week, for he’s a good salesman, and so we pay 2_s._ rent
regular every Monday for an unfurnished room, and has the rest to live
on. I have sold in the Brill on a Saturday night, but not often, nor
lately I don’t like it; I haven’t tongue enough.”
In addition to the itinerants there are about seventy stationary lace
sellers, and not less than eighty on the Saturday evenings. The best
pitches are, I am told, near the Borough-market; in Clare-market;
the New Cut (on Saturday nights); Walworth-road; Tooley-street;
and Dockhead, Bermondsey. From the best information at my command,
it appears that at least half of these traders sell only lace, or
rarely anything else. The others sell also net for making caps and
“cauls,” which are the plain portion at the back, to be trimmed or
edged according to the purchaser’s taste. Some sell also, with their
lace, cap ribbons--plain or worked collars--and muslin, net, or worked
undersleeves. Braid and gimp were formerly sold by them, but are now in
no demand. The prices run from 2_d._ to 6_d._ for lace articles, and
about the same for net, &c. per yard; the lowest priced are most sold.
In this stationary trade are as many men and youths as women and girls.
One woman, who had known street-selling for upwards of twenty years,
said she could not do half so well now as she could twenty years ago,
for the cheaper things got the cheaper people would have them. “Why,
twenty year ago,” she exclaimed, “I bought a lot of ‘leno’ cheap--it
was just about going out of fashion for caps then, I think--and one
Saturday night in the Cut, I cleared 15_s._ on it. I don’t clear that
in a fortnight now. I have sold to women of the town, as far as I’ve
known them to be of that sort, but very seldom. It’s not often you’ll
catch _them_ using a needle for theirselves. They do use their needles,
I know. You can see some of them sewing at their doors and windows in
Granby-street, Waterloo-road, or could lately--for I haven’t passed
that way for some time--but I believe it’s all for money down, for the
slop-shops. It suits the slop-shops to get work cheap anyway; and it
suits the women to have some sort of occupation, which they needn’t
depend upon for their living.”
The stationary lace sellers, for the most part, display their goods
on stalls, but some spread them on a board, or on matting on the
ground. Some of the men gather an audience by shouting out, “Three
yards a penny, edging!” As at this rate the lace-seller would only
clear 1/2_d._ in a dozen yards, the cry is merely uttered to attract
attention. A few who patter at the trade--but far fewer than was once
the case--give short measure. One man, who occasionally sold lace, told
me, that when he was compelled to sell for “next to no profit, and a
hungry Sunday coming,” he gave good shop measure, thirty full inches to
a yard. His yard wand was the correct length, “but I can do it, sir,”
he said with some exultation, “by palming,” and he gave a jerk to his
fingers, to show how he caught in the lace, and “clipped it short.”
Calculating that 100 persons in this trade each take 10_s._ 6_d._
weekly, the profit being about cent. per cent., we find 2,730_l._
expended in the streets in lace and similar commodities.
OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF JAPANNED TABLE-COVERS.
This trade, like several others, as soon as the new commodities
became in established demand, and sufficiently cheap, was adopted by
street-sellers. It has been a regular street-trade between four and
five years. Previously, when the covers were dearer, the street-sellers
were afraid to speculate much in them; but one man told me that he once
sold a table-cover for 8_s._, and at another time for 10_s._
The goods are supplied to the street-folk principally by three
manufacturers--in Long-lane, Smithfield, Whitechapel-road, and
Petticoat-lane. The venders of the glazed table-covers are generally
considered among the smartest of the street-folk, as they do not sell
to the poor, or in poor neighbourhoods, but “at the better sort of
houses, and to the wealthier sort of people.” Table-covers are now
frequently disposed of by raffle. “I very seldom sell in the streets,”
said one man, “though I one evening cleared 4_s._ by standing near the
Vinegar-works, in the City-road, and selling to gents on their way home
from the city. The public-house trade is the best, and indeed in winter
evenings, and after dark generally, there’s no other. I get rid of more
by raffling than by sale. On Saturday evening I had raffles for two
covers, which cost me 1_s._ 4_d._ each. I had some trouble to get 1_s._
9_d._ for one; but I got up a raffle for the other, and it brought me
2_s._; six members at 4_d._ each. It’s just the sort of thing to get
off in a raffle on Saturday night, or any time when mechanics have
money. A man thinks--leastways I’ve thought so myself, when I’ve been
in a public-house raffle--now I’ve spent more money than I ought to,
and there’s the old woman to face; but if I win the raffle, and take
the thing home, why my money has gone to buy a nice thing, and not for
drink.” I may remark that in nearly all raffles got up in this manner,
the article raffled for is generally something coveted by a working
man, but not so indispensably necessary to him, that he feels justified
in expending his money upon it. This fact seems well enough known to
the street-sellers who frequent public-houses with their wares. I
inquired of the informant in question if he had ever tried to get up a
raffle of his table-covers in a coffee-shop as well as a public-house.
“Never, with table-covers,” he said, “but I have with other things, and
find it’s no go. In a coffee-shop people are quiet, and reading, unless
it’s one of them low places for young thieves, and such like; and
they’ve no money very likely, and I wouldn’t like to trust them in a
raffle if they had. In public-houses there’s talk and fun, and people’s
more inclined for a raffle, or anything spicy that offers.”
There are now fifteen regular street-sellers, or street-hawkers of
these table-covers, in London, four of whom are the men’s wives, and
they not unfrequently go a round together. Sometimes, on fine days,
there are twenty. I heard of one woman who had been very successful
in bartering table-covers for old clothes. “I’ve done a little that
way myself,” said a man in the trade, “but nothing to her, and people
sees into things so now, that there’s hardly a chance for a crust. The
covers is so soft and shiny, and there’s such fine parrots and birds of
paradise on them, that before the price was known there was a chance of
a good bargain. I once got for a cover that cost me 2_s._ 9_d._ a great
coat that a Jew, after a hard bargaining, gave me 6_s._ 3_d._ for.”
The prices of the table-covers (wholesale) run from 8_s._ a dozen to
30_s._; but the street-sellers rarely go to a higher price than 18_s._
They can buy a dozen, or half a dozen--or even a smaller quantity--of
different sizes. Some of these street-traders sell, with the
table-covers, a few wash-leathers, of the better kind. Calculating that
fifteen street-sellers each take 25_s._ weekly the year round--one-half
being the profit, including their advantages in bartering and
raffling--we find 975_l._ expended yearly upon japanned table-covers,
bought in the streets.
OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF BRACES, BELTS, HOSE, TROWSER-STRAPS, AND
WAISTCOATS.
The street-sellers of braces are a numerous and a mixed class. They are
nearly all men, and the majority are Irishmen; but this relates only
to the itinerant or public-house brace-sellers. These wares are sold
also by street-traders, who make other articles the staple of their
trade--such as the dog-collar-sellers.
The braces sold thirty years ago were of a very different manufacture
from those vended in the streets at present. India-rubber web was then
unknown as a component part of the street braces. The braces, which in
some parts of the country are called “gallowses,” were, at the time
specified, made of a woollen web, both washable and durable. “One pair
of such braces, good ones,” said an old tailor with whom I had some
talk on the subject, “would last a poor man his lifetime. Now they’re
in a rope or in rags in no time.” These woollen braces were sold at
from 1_s._ to 2_s._ the pair in the streets; the straps being of good
firm leather. Not long after this period a much cheaper brace-web
was introduced--a mixture of cotton with the woollen--and the cheap
manufacture gradually supplanted the better article, as respects the
street trade. The cheaper braces were made with sheepskin straps, which
soon yielded to friction, and were little serviceable. The introduction
of the India-rubber web was another change in the trade, and the
manufacture has become lower and lower-priced until the present time.
The braces sold in the streets, or hawked in the public-houses, are,
however, not all of the very inferior manufacture. Some are called
“silk,” others “buck-leather,” and others “knitted cotton.” The “silk”
are of a silken surface, with an admixture of cotton and India-rubber;
the “buck-leather” (a kind now very little known in street sale) are
of strong sheepskin, dressed buck-leather fashion; and the “knitted”
cotton are woven, some kinds of them being very good and strong.
The street brace-sellers, when trying to do business in the streets,
carry their goods generally with a few belts, and sometimes with
hose in their hands and across their arms. They stretch them from
end to end, as they invite the custom of passers by, to evince the
elasticity and firmness of the web. Sometimes the braces are slung from
a pole carried on the shoulder. The sellers call at the public-house
bars and tap-rooms; some are admitted into the parlours; and at a
well-frequented gin-palace, I was informed by a manager of one, a
brace-seller will call from twelve to twenty times a day, especially on
a Monday; while on a Saturday evening they will remain two, three, or
four hours, accosting fresh customers. At the gin-palaces, the young
and strong Irishmen offering these wares--and there are many such--are
frequently scoffed at for selling “braces and things a baby can carry.”
The following account, which I received from a street brace-seller,
shows the class who purchase such articles:--
“I was put to a carriage-lamp maker,” the man said, “at Birmingham,
but soon ran away. Nobody saw after me, for I had only an uncle, and
he left me to the parish. It was all my own fault. I was always after
some idle end, though I can read very well. It seems as if I couldn’t
help it, being wild, I mean. I ran away to Worcester, _without knowing
where I was going, or caring either_. I was half starved in Worcester,
for I lived as I could. I found my way to London afterwards. I’ve been
in the streets ever since, at one thing or the other; how many years
I can’t say. Time goes so quick sometimes, and sometimes so slow, and
I’m never long in one place. I’ve sold braces off and on ever since
Amato won the Derby, if you know when that was. I remember it because
I went to Epsom races that year to sell race cards. When I came to
London after the races I laid out 12_s._ in braces. I hardly remember
how many pairs I bought for it, but they wasn’t such common things as
I’m carrying now. I could sell a few then at from 9_d._ to 1_s._ 3_d._
a pair, to the ‘cads’ and people at such places as the ‘Elephant,’ and
the ‘Flower Pot’ in Bishopsgate-street, which was a great ‘’bus’ place
then. I used to sell, too, to the helpers in inn-yards, and a few in
the mews. The helpers in the mews mostly buys knitted cotton. I’ve
got 1_s._ and sometimes 1_s._ 6_d._ for an extra article from them,
but now I don’t carry them; there’s no demand there. You see, many of
them work in their shirts, and the head coachmen and grooms, which is
often great Turks, would blow up if the men had dirty braces hanging to
their buttons, so they uses what’ll wash. Nearly all my business now
is done at public-houses. I go from one tavern to another on my round
all day long, and sell in the street when I can. I think I sell as
many at 5_d._ and at 10_d._ as at all other prices together, and most
at 5_d._; but when I have what I call a full stock I carry ’em from
4_d._ to 20_d._ The poorer sort of people, such as wears braces--for
there’s a many as does without ’em--likes the 1_d._ out of 6_d._, and
the others the 2_d._ out of the 1_s._; it tempts them. It’s a tiresome
life, and not so good as costermongering, for I once did tidy well in
apples. But in the brace trade you ar’n’t troubled with hiring barrows,
and it’s easy carried on in public-houses in wet weather, and there’s
no stock to spoil. I sell all to working-people, I think. Sometimes an
odd pair or two at 1_s._ 6_d._, or so, to a tradesman, that may happen
to be in a bar, and likes the look and the price; or to a gentleman’s
servant. I make from 1_s._ to 1_s._ 6_d._ a day; full 1_s._ 6_d._ if
I stick close to it. I may make 2_s._ or 2_s._ 6_d._ a week, too, in
selling belts and stockings; but I only sometimes carry stockings.
Perhaps I clear 9_s._ a week the year round. There’s lots in the trade
don’t clear 1_s._ a day, for they only carry low-priced things. I go
for 4_d._ profit on every shilling’s worth I sell. I’ve only myself to
keep. I pay 3_d._ a night at a lodging-house, and nothing on Sundays. I
had a young woman with me when I was a coster, but we didn’t agree, and
parted. She was too fond of lifting her hand to her mouth (‘tippling’)
to please me. I mean to live very near this week, and get a few
shillings if I can to try something at Greenwich next Monday.” This
was said on the Tuesday in Passion-week.
The braces are bought by the street-sellers at the swag-shops I have
described. The prices range from 1_s._ 6_d._ (for common children’s) to
12_s._ a dozen; 3_s._, 3_s._ 6_d._, 6_s._ 6_d._, and 7_s._ being the
most frequent prices. Higher-priced articles are also sold at the swags
and by the street-sellers, but not one in twenty of these compared with
the lower priced.
In London and its suburbs, and on “rounds,” of which the metropolis
forms the central point, and at stands, there are, I am assured, not
fewer than 500 persons vending braces. Of these a twentieth portion
may be women, and a tenth old and sometimes infirm men. There are
few children in the trade. The stall-keepers, selling braces with
other articles, are about 100, and of the remainder of this class,
those who are not Irishmen are often impoverished mechanics, such as
tailors--brace-vending being easily resorted to, and carried on quietly
in public-houses, and it does not entail the necessity of bawling
aloud, to which a working-man, driven to a street-life, usually feels
repugnance. Calculating that 500 brace-sellers clear 5_s._ a week each
on those articles alone, and estimating the profit at 33 per cent., it
shows a street expenditure of 3900_l._ One brace-seller considered that
500 such sellers was too low a number; but the most intelligent I met
with agreed on that estimate.
The Belts sold in the street are nearly all of stout cotton web, “with
India-rubber threads,” and usually of a drab colour, woollen belts
being rarely ever seen now. They are procured in the same way, and
sold by the same parties, as are braces. The amount expended on belts
is, from the best information I can command, about an eighth of that
expended on braces. The belts are sold at 1_s._ each, and cost 8_s._
the dozen, or 9_d._ each, if only one be purchased.
The street-sale of hose used to be far more considerable than it is
now, and was, in a great measure, in the hands of a class who had
personal claims to notice, independent of the goodness of their wares.
These were old women, wearing, generally, large white aprons, and
chintz-patterned gowns, and always scrupulously clean. They carried
from door to door, in the quieter streets, and in the then suburbs,
stockings of their “own knitting.” Such they often were; and those
which were not were still knitted stockings, although they might be
the work of old women in the country, who knitted by the fireside,
needing no other light on winter evenings and at the doors of their
cottages in the sunshine in summer. Of these street-sellers some were
blind. Between thirty and forty years ago, I am told, there were from
twelve to twenty blind knitters, but my informant could not speak with
certainty, as he might probably observe the same women in different
parts. The blind stocking-sellers would knit at a door as they waited.
The informant I have quoted thought that the last of these knitters
and street-sellers disappeared upwards of twenty years ago, as he
then missed her from his door, at which she used to make her regular
periodical appearance. The stockings of this trade were most frequently
of white lamb’s-wool, and were sold at from 3_s._ 6_d._ to 5_s._
6_d._ They were long in the leg, and were suited “for gentle-people’s
winter wear.” The women-sellers made in those days, I am assured, a
comfortable livelihood.
The sale of stockings is now principally in the hands of the men who
vend braces, &c. The kind sold is most frequently unbleached cotton.
The price to a street-buyer is generally from 6_d._ to 9_d._; but the
trade is of small extent. “It’s one of the trades,” a street-seller
said to me, “that we can’t compete with shop-keepers in. You shall
go to a haberdashery swag-shop, and though they have ‘wholesale
haberdashers,’ and ‘hawkers supplied’ on the door-post, you’ll see a
pair of stockings in the window marked with a very big and very black
6, and a very little and not half black 3/4; and if I was to go in,
they’d very likely ask me 6_s._ 6_d._ a dozen for an inferior thing.
They retail themselves, and won’t be undersold if they can help it, and
so they don’t care to accommodate us in things that’s always going.”
A few pairs of women’s stockings are hawked by women, and sold to
servant-maids; but the trade in these goods, I am informed, including
all classes of sellers--of whom there may be fifty--does not exceed
(notwithstanding the universality of the wear), the receipt of 6_s._
weekly per individual, with a profit of from 1_s._ 4_d._ to 2_s._, and
an aggregate expenditure of about 800_l._ in the year. The trade is an
addition to some other street trade.
The brace-sellers used to carry with their wares another article,
of which India-rubber web formed the principal part. These were
trowser-straps, “with leather buttonings and ingy-spring bodies.”
It was only, however, the better class of brace-sellers who carried
them; those who, as my informant expressed it, “had a full stock;” and
their sale was insignificant. At one time, the number of brace-sellers
offering these straps was, I am informed, from 70 to 100. “It was a
poor trade, sir,” said one of the class. “At first I sold at 4_d._,
as they was 6_d._ in middling shops, and 1_s._ in the toppers, if
not 1_s._ 6_d._; but they soon came down to 3_d._, and then to 2_d._
My profit was short of 3_d._ in 1_s._ My best customers for braces
didn’t want such things; plain working-men don’t. And grooms, and
stable-keepers generally, wears boots or knee-gaiters, and footmen
sports knee-buckles and stockings. All I did sell to was, as far as I
can judge, young mechanics as liked to turn out like gents on a Sunday
or an evening, and real gents that wanted things cheap. I very seldom
cleared more than 1_s._ a week on them. The trade’s over now. If you
see a few at a stand, it’s the remains of an old stock, or some that a
swag-shop has pushed out for next to nothing to be rid of them.”