Benasses, who were “licensed to deal in tobacco,” and vended good
articles. When they relinquished the open-air business, they supplied
the other street-sellers, whose numbers increased very rapidly. The
itinerant cigar-vending was always principally in the hands of the
Jews, but the general street-traders resorted to the traffic on all
occasions of public resort,--“sich times,” observed one, “as fairs and
races, and crownations, and Queen’s weddings; I wish they came a bit
oftener for the sake of trade.” The manufacture of the cigars sold at
the lowest rates, is now almost entirely in the hands of the Jews,
and I am informed by a distinguished member of that ancient faith,
that when I treat of the Hebrew children, employed in _making_ cigars,
there will be much to be detailed of which the public have little
cognisance and little suspicion.
The cigars in question are bought (wholesale) in Petticoat-lane,
Rosemary-lane, Ailie-street, Tenter-ground, in Goodman’s-fields, and
similar localities. The kinds in chief demand are Pickwicks, 7_s._
and 8_s._ per lb.; Cubas, 8_s._ 6_d._; common Havannahs and Bengal
Cheroots, the same price; but the Bengal Cheroots are not uncommonly
smuggled.
“The best places for cigar-selling,” one man stated, “I’ve always
found to be out of town; about Greenwich and Shooter’s Hill, and to
the gents going to Kensington Gardens, and such like places. About
the Eagle Tavern was good, too, as well as the streets leading to the
Surrey Zoological--one could whisper, ‘cheap cigar, sir, half what
they’ll charge you inside.’ I’ve known young women treat their young
men to cigars as they were going to Cremorne, or other public places;
but there’s next to no trade that way now, and hasn’t been these five
or six years. I don’t know what stopped it exactly. I’ve heard it was
shop-keepers that had licences, complaining of street people as hadn’t,
and so the police stopped the trade as much as they could.”
At all the neighbouring races and fairs, and at any great gathering of
people in town, cigars are sold, more with the affectation than the
reality of its being done, “quite on the sly.” The retail price is
1_d._ each, and three for 2_d._ Some of the cheap cigars are made to
run 200, and even as high as 230 to the pound. A fuzee is often given
into the bargain.
I am told that, on all favourable opportunities, there are still 100
persons who vend cigars in the streets of London, while a greater
number of “London hands” carry on the trade at Epsom and Ascot races.
At other periods the business is all but a nonentity. To clear 1_l._ a
week is considered “good work.” At one period, on every fine Sunday,
there were not, I am assured, fewer than 500 persons selling cigars in
the open air in London and its suburbs.
OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF SPONGE.
This is one of the street-trades which has been long in the hands of
the Jews, and, unlike the traffic in pencils, sealing-wax, and other
articles of which I have treated, it remains so principally still.
In perhaps no article which is a regular branch of the street-trade,
is there a greater diversity in the price and quality than in sponge.
The street-sellers buy it at 1_s._ (occasionally 6_d._), and as high as
21_s._ the pound. At one time, I believe about 20 years back, when fine
sponge in large pieces was scarce and dear, some street-sellers gave
28_s._ the pound, or, in buying a smaller quantity, 2_s._ an ounce.
“I have sold sponge of all sorts,” said an experienced street-seller,
“both ‘fine toilet,’ fit for any lady or gentleman, and coarse stuff
not fit to groom a ass with. That very common sponge is mostly 1_s._
the lb. wholesale, but it’s no manner of use, it’s so sandy and gritty.
It weighs heavy, or there might be a better profit on it. It has to
be trimmed up and damped for showing it, and then it always feels
hask (harsh) to the hand. It rubs to bits in no time. There was a old
gent what I served with sponges, and he was very perticler, and the
best customer I ever had, for his housekeeper bought her leathers
of me. Like a deal of old coves that has nothing to do and doesn’t
often stir out, but hidles away time in reading or pottering about a
garden, he was fond of a talk, and he’d give me a glass of something
short, as if to make me listen to him, for I used to get fidgety, and
he’d talk away stunning. He’s dead now. He’s told me, and more nor
once, that sponges was more of a animal than a wegetable,” continued
the incredulous street-seller, “I do believe people reads theirselves
silly. Such ---- nonsense! Does it look like a animal? Where’s its
head and its nose? He’d better have said it was a fish. And it’s not a
wegetable neither. But I’ll tell you what it is, sir, and from them as
has seen it where its got with their own eyes. I have some relations
as is sea-farin’-men, and I went a woyage once myself when a lad--one
of my relations has seen it gathered by divers, I forget where, from
the rocks at the bottom and shores of the sea, and he says it’s just
sea-moss--stuff as grows there, as moss does to old walls in England.
That’s what it is, sir. As it’s grown in the water, it holds water
you see. I’ve made 15_s._ on sponge alone, in a good week, when I had
a good stock; but oftener I’ve made only 10_s._, and sometimes not
5_s._ My best trade is at private houses a little ways out of town.
I’ve heard gents say, ‘A good sponging’s as good as a bath,’ and when
I could get good things cheap they’d be sure to sell. No, I never did
much at the mews.”
Another man told me that he once bought a large quantity of sponge at
6_d._ the lb., trimmed it up as well as he could, and got a man to help
him, and the two “worked it off” in barrows; there was six barrows
full, and as one was emptied it was replenished. It was sold at 1_d._
and 2_d._ a lump; about twenty lumps, or pieces, going to a pound, so
that there was 14_d._ profit on what cost 6_d._, even on the penny
lumps. He had forgotten the exact amount he cleared, and he and his
mate sold it all in one summer’s evening, but it was somewhere about
10_s._ This happened some years ago, when the common sponge, which I
heard called also “honeycomb” sponge, was not so “blown upon,” as my
informant expressed it, as it is now. On my asking this man as to the
proportion of Jews in this trade, he answered: “Well, many a day I’m
satisfied there’s 100 people selling sponge, and I should say that
for every ten or twelve Jews is one Christian, and half of them, or
more, has been in some sort of service, I mean the Christians has,
most likely stable-helpers, and they supplies the mews and the job and
livery stables, such of them as requires men to find their own sponges,
but that’s only a few; sponges is mostly bought for such places at
the saddlers’ and other shops. In my opinion, sir, Jews is better
Christians than Christians themselves, for _they_ help one another,
and we don’t. I’ve been helped by a Jew myself, without any connection
with them. They’re terrible keen hands at a bargain, though.”
The sponge in the street-trade is purchased, wholesale, chiefly in
Houndsditch. The wholesale trade in sponge, I may add, is also in the
hands of the Jews. The great mart is Smyrna, the best qualities being
gathered in the islands of the Greek Archipelago. The sponge is carried
by the street-traders in baskets, the bearer holding a specimen piece
or two in his hand. Smaller pieces are sometimes carried in nets, and
nets were more frequently in use for this purpose than at present. It
is nearly all sold by itinerants, in the business parts as well as the
suburbs, the purchasers being “shopkeepers, innkeepers, gentlemen,
and gentlemen’s servants.” Sometimes low-priced sponge is offered in
a street-market on a Saturday or Monday night, but very rarely, as it
is a thing little used by the poor. A little is sold to the cabmen
at their stands. The sponge-sellers, I may add, when going a regular
round, offer their wares to any passer-by. A little is done by the Jews
in bartering sponge for old clothes. There are five or six women in the
trade.
I have reason to believe that the estimate of my informant, as to
the number of sponge-sellers, is correct. But some sell sponge only
occasionally, some make it only a portion of their business, and others
vend it only when they “have it a bargain.” Calculating, then, that
only fifty persons (so allowing for the irregularities in the trade)
vend sponge daily, and that each takes 15_s._ weekly,--some taking
25_s._, and others but 5_s._--with about half profit on the whole (the
common sponge is often from 200 to 300 per cent. profit), we find the
outlay to be 1,950_l._
OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF WASH-LEATHERS.
The wash-leathers, sometimes called “shammys” (chamois), now sold
extensively in the streets, are for the most part the half of a
sheep-skin, or of a larger lamb-skin. The skin is “split” by machinery,
and to a perfect nicety, into two portions. That known as the “grain”
(the part to which the fleece of the animal is attached) is very thin,
and is dressed into a “skiver,” a kind of leather used in the commoner
requirements of book-binding, and for such purposes as the lining of
hats. The other portion, the “flesh,” is dressed as wash-leather. These
skins are bought at the leather-sellers and the leather-dressers,
at from 2_s._ to 20_s._ the dozen. The higher priced, or those from
12_s._ are often entire, and not “split” skins. The great majority
of the street-sellers of wash-leathers are women, and principally
Irishwomen. They offer their wash-leathers in all parts of town,
calling at shops and inns; and at private houses offering them through
the area rails, or knocking at the door when it is accessible. Many
of these street-sellers are the wives of Irish labourers, employed by
bricklayers and others, who are either childless, or able to leave
their younger children under the care of an older brother or sister,
or when the poverty of the parents, or their culpable neglect, is
extreme, allow them to run at large in the court or street, untended.
The wives by this street-trade add to the husbands’ earnings. In the
respects of honesty and chastity, these women bear good characters.
The wash-leathers are sold for the cleaning of windows, and of plate
and metal goods. Sixpence is a common price for a leather, the higher
priced being sold at the mews and at gentlemen’s houses. The “chamois”
sold at the mews, however, are not often sold by the Irishwomen, but
by the class I have described as selling scissors, &c., there. The
leathers are also cut into pennyworths, and these pennyworths are
sometimes sold on Saturday evenings in the street-markets.
There are, I am assured, 100 individuals selling little or nothing else
but wash-leathers (for these traders are found in all the suburbs) in
London, and that they take 10_s._ weekly, with a profit of from 4_s._
to 5_s._ There are, also, 100 other persons selling them occasionally,
along with other goods, and as they vend the higher-priced articles,
they probably receive nearly an equal amount. Hence it would appear
that upwards of 5000_l._ is annually expended in the streets in this
purchase.
OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF SPECTACLES AND EYE-GLASSES.
Twenty-five years ago the street-trade in spectacles was almost
entirely in the hands of the Jews, who hawked them in their boxes of
jewellery, and sold them in the streets and public-houses, carrying
them in their hands, as is done still. The trade was then far more
remunerative than it is at the present time to the street-folk carrying
it on. “People had more money then,” one old spectacle-seller, now
vending sponges, said, “and there wasn’t so many forced to take to the
streets, Irish particularly, and opticians’ charges were higher than
they are now, and those who wanted glasses thought they were a take-in
if they wasn’t charged a fair price. O, times was very different then.”
The spectacles in the street-trade are bought at swag-shops in
Houndsditch. The “common metal frames,” with or without slides, are
2_s._ 6_d._ to 3_s._ 6_d._ the dozen wholesale, and are retailed from
4_d._ to 1_s._ The “horn frames” are 6_s._ to 7_s._ 6_d._ the dozen,
and are retailed from 9_d._ to 18_d._, and even 2_s._ The “thin steel”
are from 10_s._ 6_d._ to 21_s._ the dozen, and are retailed from 1_s._
6_d._ to 3_s._ There are higher and lower prices, but those I have
cited are what are usually paid by the street-traders. The inequality
of the retail prices is accounted for by there being some difference
in the spectacles in a dozen, some being of a better-looking material
in horn or metal; others better finished. Then there is the chance of
which street-sellers are not slow to avail themselves--(“no more nor
is shopkeepers,” one man said)--I mean, the chance of obtaining an
enhanced price for an article, with whose precise value the buyer is
unacquainted.
“The patter,” said the street-trader I have before quoted, “is
nothing now, to what I’ve known it. You call it patter, but I don’t.
I think it’s more in the way of persuasion, and is mostly said in
public-houses, and not in the streets. Why, I’ve persuaded people,
when I was in the trade and doing well at it--for that always gives
you spirits--I’ve persuaded them in spite of their eyes that they
wanted glasses. I knew a man who used to brag that he could talk people
blind, and then they bought! It wasn’t old people I so much sold to as
young and middle-aged. I think perhaps I sold as many because people
thought they looked better, or more knowing in them, than to help
their eyesight. I’ve known my customers try my glasses, one pair after
another, in the chimney glass of a public-house parlour. ‘They’re real
Scotch pebbles,’ I used to say sometimes--and I always had a fair
article,--‘and was intended for a solid silver frame but the frame
was made too small for them, and so I got them and put them into this
frame myself, for I’m an optician, out of work, by trade. They’re worth
15_s._, but you may have them, framed and all, for 7_s._ 6_d._’ I got
5_s._ for one pair once that way but they were a superior thing; I had
them a particular bargain.” One man told me that not long ago he asked
10_d._ for a pair of spectacles, and a journeyman slop-tailor said to
him, “Why I only gave 1_s._ for this pair I’m wearing a few years back,
and they ought to be less than 10_d._ now, for the duty’s off glass.”
The eye-glasses sold in the streets are “framed” in horn. They are
bought at the same places as the spectacles, and cost, wholesale, for
“single eyes” 4_s._ 6_d._ to 7_s._ 6_d._ the dozen. The retail price is
from 6_d._ to 1_s._ The “double eyes,” which are jointed in the middle
so that the frame can be fitted to the bridge of the nose, are 10_s._
6_d._ to 15_s._ the dozen, and are retailed by the street-folk from
1_s._ 3_d._ to 2_s._ each.
The spectacles are sold principally to working men, and are rarely
hawked in the suburbs. The chief sale is in public-houses, but they
are offered in all the busier thoroughfares and wherever a crowd is
assembled. “The eye-glasses,” said a man who vended them, “is sold to
what I calls counter-hoppers and black-legs. You’ll see most of the
young swells that’s mixed up with gaming concerns at races--for there’s
gaming still, though the booths is put down in many places--sport their
eye-glasses; and so did them as used to be concerned in getting up
Derby and St. Leger ‘sweeps’ at public-houses; least-ways I’ve sold to
them, where sweeps was held, and they was busy about them, and offered
me a chance, sometimes, for a handsome eye-glass. But they’re going out
of fashion, is eye-glasses, I think. The other day I stood and offered
them for nearly five hours at the foot of London-bridge, which used
to be a tidy pitch for them, and I couldn’t sell one. All that day I
didn’t take a halfpenny.”
There are sometimes 100 men, the half of whom are Jews and Irishmen in
equal proportions, now selling spectacles and eye-glasses. Some of
these traders are feeble from age, accident, continued sickness, or
constitution, and represent that they must carry on a “light trade,”
being incapable of hard work, even if they could get it. Two women
sell spectacles along with Dutch drops. As in other “light trades,”
the spectacle sellers do not, as a body, confine themselves to those
wares, but resort, as one told me, “to anything that’s up at the time
and promises better,” for a love of change is common among those who
pursue a street life. It may be estimated, I am assured, that there
are thirty-five men (so allowing for the breaks in regular spectacle
selling) who vend them daily, taking 15_s._ a week (with a profit of
10_s._), the yearly expenditure being thus 1365_l._
OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF DOLLS.
The making of dolls, like that of many a thing required for a mere
recreation, a toy, a pastime, is often carried on amidst squalor,
wretchedness, or privation, or--to use the word I have frequently heard
among the poor--“pinching.” Of this matter, however, I shall have to
treat when I proceed to consider the manufacture of and trade in dolls
generally, not merely as respects street-sale.
Dolls are now so cheap, and so generally sold by open-air traders whose
wares are of a miscellaneous character, as among the “swag-barrow” or
“penny-a piece” men of whom I have treated separately, that the sale of
what are among the most ancient of all toys, as a “business of itself,”
is far smaller, numerically, than it was.
The dolls are most usually carried in baskets by street-sellers (who
are not makers) and generally by women who are very poor. Here and
there in the streets most frequented by the patrons of the open-air
trade may be seen a handsome stall of dolls of all sizes and fashions,
but these are generally the property of makers, although those makers
may buy a portion of their stock. There are also smaller stalls which
may present the stock of the mere seller.
The dolls for street traffic may be bought at the swag-shops or of
the makers. For the little armless 1_d._ dolls the maker charges the
street-seller 8_s._, and to the swag-shop keeper who may buy largely,
7_s._ 6_d._ the dozen. Some little stalls are composed entirely of
penny dolls; on others the prices run from 1_d._ to 6_d._ The chief
trade, however, among the class I now describe, is carried on by the
display of dolls in baskets. If the vendor can only attract the notice
of children--and more especially in a private suburban residence, where
children are not used to the sight of dolls on stalls or barrows, or
in shops--and can shower a few blessings and compliments, “God be wid
your bhutiful faces thin--and yours too, my lady, ma’am (with a curtsey
to mistress or maid). Buy one of these dolls of a poor woman: shure
they’re bhutiful dolls and shuted for them angels o’ the worruld;”
under such circumstances, I say, a sale is almost certain. I may add
that the words I have given I myself heard a poor Irishwoman, whom I
had seen before selling large pincushions in the same neighbourhood
(that of the Regent’s Park), address to a lady who was walking round
her garden accompanied by two children.
A vendor of dolls expresses an opinion that as long as ever there are
children from two years old to ten, there will always be purchasers
of dolls; “but for all that,” said he, “somehow or another ’t is
nothing of a trade to what it used to be. I’ve seen the time when I
could turn out in the morning and earn a pound afore night; but it’s
different now there’s so many bazaars, and so many toy shops that the
doll hawker hasn’t half the chance he used to have. Sartinly we gets
a chance now and then--fine days is the best--and if we can get into
the squares or where the children walks with their nurses, we can do
tidy; but the police are so very particular there’s not much of a
livelihood to be got. Spoiled children are our best customers. Whenever
we sees a likely customer approaching--we, that is, those who know
their business--always throw ourselves in the way, and spread out our
dolls to the best advantage. If we hears young miss say _she will_
have one, and cries for it, we are almost sure of a customer, and if
we see her kick and fight a bit with the nuss-maid we are sure of a
good price. If a child _cries well_ we never baits our price. Most of
the doll-sellers are the manufacturers of the dolls--that is, I mean,
they puts ’em together. The heads are made in Hamburgh; the principal
places for buying them in London are at Alfred Davis’s, in Houndsditch;
White’s, in Houndsditch; and Joseph’s, in Leadenhall-street. They are
sold as thus:--The heads that we sell for 3_d._ each, when made up,
cost us 7_s._ 6_d._ per gross, or 7-1/2_d._ per dozen; these are called
1--O’s. No. 2--O’s., are 8_s._ 6_d._ per gross, and No. 3--O’s. 10_s._
per gross. One yard and half of calico will make a dozen bodies, small
size. These we get sewn for three halfpence, and we stuffs and finishes
them ourselves.
“When our 3_d._ dolls are made up, they cost about 1_s._ per dozen--so
there is 2_d._ profit on every doll, which I thinks is little enough;
but we often sells ’em at 2_d._; we lays ’em out to the best advantage
in a deep basket, all standing up, as it were, or leaning against
the sides of the basket. The legs and bodies is carefully wrapped in
tissue paper, not exactly to preserve the lower part of the doll, for
that isn’t so very valuable, but in reality to conceal the legs and
body, which is rather the reverse of symmetrical; for, to tell the
truth, every doll looks as if it were labouring under an attack of
the gout. There are, however, some very neat articles exported from
Germany, especially the jointed dolls, but they are too dear for the
street-hawker, and would not show to such advantage. There is also the
plaster dolls, with the match legs. I wonder how they keep their stand,
for they are very old-fashioned; but they sell, for you never see a
chandler’s shop window without seeing one of these sticking in it, and
a falling down as if it was drunk. Then there’s the wax dolls. Some
of ’em are made of wax, and others of ‘_pappy mashy_,’ and afterwards
dipped in wax. The cheapest and best mart for these is in Barbican;
it would astonish many if they knew exactly what was laid out in
the course of a year in dolls. It would be impossible, I think, to
ascertain exactly; but I think I could guess something near the mark.
There are, at least, at this time of year, when the fairs are coming
on, fifty doll-hawkers, who sell nothing else. Say each of these sells
one dozen dolls per day, and that their average price is 4_d._ each.
That is just 10_l._ a day, and 60_l._ per week. In the winter time so
many are not sold; but I have no doubt that 50_l._’s worth of dolls are
sold each week throughout the year by London hawkers alone, or just
upon 3000_l._ per annum. The shops sell as many as the hawkers, and the
stalls attending fairs half the amount; and you may safely say that
the sum taken for dolls in and around London in one year amounts to
7500_l._ A doll-merchant can begin business with a trifle,” continued
my informant; “a shilling will obtain a dozen 3_d._ dolls. If you
have no basket, carry them in your arms, although they don’t show off
to such advantage there as they do when nicely basketed; however, if
you’ve luck, you may soon raise a basket; for 3_s._ 6_d._ you can get
a very nice one; and although the doll trade is not what it used to
be, there are,” said my informant, “worse games than that yet, I know.
One man, who is now in a very respectable way of business--‘_a regular
gentleman_’--was a very few years ago only a doll-hawker. Another man,
who had two hands and only one arm--poor fellow! he was born with one
arm, and had two hands, one appended to his arm in the usual way, and
the other attached to his shoulder--a freak of nature, I think, they
called it. However, my one-armed friend keeps now a very respectable
little swag-shop at North Shields, in Northumberland.”
I inquired of my informant whether he objected to relate a little of
his history? He replied, “not the least,” and recounted as follows:--