Part 100

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.”

The sale of waistcoats is confined to Smithfield, as regards the class I now treat of--the sellers of articles made by others. Twelve or fourteen years back, there was a considerable sale in what was a branch of duffing. Waistcoats were sold to countrymen, generally graziers’ servants, under the pretence that they were of fine silk plush, which was then rather an object of rustic Sunday finery. A drover told me that a good many years ago he saw a countryman, with whom he was conversing at the time, pay 10_s._ 6_d._ for a “silk plush waistcoat,” the vendor having asked 15_s._, and having walked away--no doubt remarking the eagerness of his victim--when the countryman refused to give more than 10_s._ “He had a customer set for it,” he said, “at half-a-guinea.” On the first day the waistcoat was worn--the drover was afterwards told by the purchaser--it was utterly spoiled by a shower of rain; and when its possessor asked the village tailor the value of the garment, he was told that it had no value at all; the tailor could not even tell what it was made of, but he never saw anything so badly made in his life; never. Some little may be allowed for the natural glee of a village tailor on finding one of his customers, who no doubt was proud of his London bargain, completely taken in; but these waistcoats, I am assured by a tailor who had seen them, were the veriest rubbish. The trade, however, has been unknown, unless with a few rare exceptions at a very busy time--such as the market for the show and sale of the Christmas stock--since the time specified.

The waistcoats now sold in Smithfield market, or in the public-houses connected with it, are, I am told, and also by a tailor, very paltry things; but the price asked removes the trade from the imputation of duffing. These garments are sold at from 1_s._ to 4_s._ 6_d._ each; but very rarely 4_s_. 6_d_. The shilling waistcoats are only fit for boys--or “youths,” as the slop-tailors prefer styling them--but 1_s._ 6_d._ is a common price enough; and seven-eighths of the trade, I am informed, is for prices under, or not exceeding, 2_s._ The trade is, moreover, very small. There are sometimes no waistcoat-sellers at all; but generally two, and not unfrequently three. The profits of these men are 1_s._ on a bad, and 2_s._ 6_d._ on a good day. As, at intervals, these street-sellers dispose of a sleeve-waistcoat (waistcoat with sleeves) at from 4_s._ 6_d._ to 6_s._, we may estimate the average earnings in the trade at 5_s._ per market day, or 10_s._ in the week. This shows an outlay of 78_l._ in the year, as the profits of these street traders may be taken at 33 per cent.; or, as it is almost invariably worded by such classes, “4_d._ in the 1_s._” The material is of a kind of cotton made to look as stout as possible, the back, &c., being the commonest stuff. They are supplied by a slop-house at the East End, and are made by women, or rather girls.

The sale of waistcoats in the street, markets, &c., is of second-hand goods, or otherwise in the hands of a distinct class. There are other belts, and other portions of wearing apparel, which, though not of textile fabrics, as they are often sold by the same persons as I have just treated of, may be described here. These are children’s “patent leather” belts, trowser-straps, and garters.

The sellers of children’s and men’s belts and trowser-straps are less numerous than they were, for both these things, I am told, but only on street authority, are going out of fashion. From one elderly man who had “dropped belts, and straps, and all that, for oranges,” I heard bitter complaints of the conduct of the swag shop-keepers who supplied these wares. The substance of his garrulous and not very lucid complaint was that when boys’ patent leather belts came into fashion, eleven, twelve, or thirteen years back, he could not remember which, the usual price in the shops was 1_s._, and they were soon to be had in the streets for 6_d._ each. The belt-sellers “did well” for a while. But the “swags” who, according to my informant, at first supplied belts of patent horse-leather, came to substitute patent sheep-leather for them, which were softer, and looked as well. The consequence was, that whenever the sheep-leather belts were wet, or when there was any “pull” upon them, they stretched, and “the polish went to cracks.” After having been wet a few times, too, they were easily torn, and so the street trade became distrusted. It was the same with trowser-straps.

The belt trade is now almost extinct in the streets, and the strap trade, which was chiefly in the hands of old and infirm, and young people, is now confined to the sellers of dog-collars, &c. The trowser-straps are not glazed or patent-leather, now, but “plain calf;” sold at 2_d._ a pair generally, and bought at from 1_s._ 2_d._ to 1_s._ 4_d._ the dozen pairs. Many readers will remember how often they used to hear the cry, “Three pair for sixpence! Three pair for sixpence!” A cry now, I believe, never heard.

Among the belt and strap-sellers were some blind persons. One man counted to me three blind men whom he knew selling them, and one sells them still, attached to the rails by St. Botolph’s church, Bishopsgate.

The same persons who sold straps, &c., not including the present sellers, the dog-collar men, &c., had lately no small traffic in the vending of garters. The garter-sellers were, however, far more numerous than ever were the strap-sellers. At one time, I am told, there were 200 garter sellers; all old or infirm, or poor women, or children, and chiefly Irish children. As these children were often stockingless and shoeless, their cry of “Penny a pair! India-rubber garters, penny a pair!” was sometimes pitiful enough, as they were offering a cheap article, unused by themselves. The sudden influx of garters, so to speak, was owing, I am told, to a manufacturer having discovered a cheap way of “working the India-rubber threads,” and having “thrown a lot into the market through the swag shops.” The price was at first 8_s._ a gross (8_d._ a dozen), but as the demand increased, it was raised to 9_s._ and 9_s._ 6_d._ The trade continued about six weeks, but has now almost entirely ceased. The stock of garters still offered for sale is what stall-keepers have on hand, or what swag shop-keepers tempt street-sellers to buy by reducing the price. The leather garter-trade, 1_d._ a pair being the usual price for sheep-skin garters, is now almost unknown. It was somewhat extensive.

OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF BOOT AND STAY-LACES, &C.