Part 118

The “swag-men” are often confounded with the “lot-sellers”; so that I proceed to show the difference.

The _Lot-Sellers_ proper, are those who vend a variety of small articles, or “a lot,” all for 1_d._ A “lot” frequently consists of a sheet of songs, a Chinese puzzle, a 5_l._ note (Bank of Elegance), an Exhibition snuff-box (containing 6 spoons), a half jack (half sovereign), a gold ring, a silver ring, and a chased keeper with rose, thistle, and shamrock on it. The lots are diversified with packs of a few cards, little pewter ornaments, boxes of small wooden toys, shirt-buttons, baby thimbles, beads, tiny scent bottles, and such like.

The “penny apiece” or “swag” trade, as contradistinguished from the “penny lots” vended by the lot-sellers, was originated by a man who, some 19 years ago, sold a variety of trifles from a tea-tray in Petticoat-lane. My informant had heard him say--for the original “penny apiece” died four years ago--that he did it to get rid of the odds and ends of his stock. The system, however, at once attracted popularity, and the fortunate street-seller prospered and “died worth money.” At that period penny goods (excepting such things as sweet-stuffs, pastry, &c.) were far less numerous in the streets, and yet I have never met with an old street-trader (a statement fully borne out by old and intelligent mechanics) who did not pronounce spare pennies to be far more abundant in those days among the poorer and even middle classes. There were, moreover, far fewer street chapmen, so that this novel mode of business had every chance to thrive.

The origin of “lot-selling,” or selling “penny lots” instead of penny articles, was more curious. It was commenced by an ingenious Swiss (?) (about a year after the “penny apiece” trade), known in the street circles as “Swede.” He was a refugee, a Roman Catholic, and a hot politician. He spoke and understood English well, but had no sympathy with the liberal parties in this country. “He was a republican,” he would say, “and the Chartists were only milk and water.” When he established his lot-selling he used to place to his mouth an instrument, which was described to me as “like a doubled card,” and play upon it very finely. This would attract a crowd, and he would then address them in good English, but with a slight foreign accent: “My frents; come to me, and I will show you my musical instruments, which will play Italian, Swiss, French, Scotch, Irish, or any tunes. And here you see beautiful cheap lots of useful tings, and elegant tings. A penny a lot, a penny a lot!” The arrangement of the “lots” was similar to what it is at present, but the components of the pennyworth were far less numerous. This man carried on a good trade in London for two or three years, and then applied his industry to a country more than a town career. He died about five or six years ago, at his abode in Fashion-street, Spitalfields, “worth money.” At the time of his decease he was the proprietor of two lodging-houses; one in Spitalfields, the other in Birmingham, both I am told, well conducted; the charge was 4_d._ a night. He did not reside in either, but employed “deputies.” I may observe that he sold his “musical instruments,” also, at 1_d._ each, but the sale was insignificant. “Only himself seemed master of ’em,” said one man; “with other people they were no better nor a Jew’s-harp.”

Of the “penny apiece” street-vendors, there are about 300 in London; 250 having barrows, and 50 stalls or pitches on the ground. Some even sell at “a halfpenny apiece,” but chiefly to get rid of inferior wares, or when “cracked up,” and unable to “spring” a better stock. The barrows are 7 feet by 3; are well built in general, and cost 50_s._ each. These barrows, when fully stocked, are very heavy (about 4 cwt.), so that it requires a strong man to propel one any distance, and though occasionally the man’s wife officiates as the saleswoman, there is always a man connected with the business. In my description of a stock of penny goods, I have mentioned that there were 225 articles; these were counted on a barrow in a street near the Brill--but probably on another occasion (when there appeared a better chance of selling) there might be 500 articles, such things as rings and the like admitting of being stowed by the hundred in very small compass. The great display, however, is only on the occasion of holidays, or “when a man starts and wants to stun you with a show.” At Maidstone Fair the other day, a London street-seller, rather well to do, sold his entire stock of penny articles to a shopkeeper of the town, and when counted there were exactly fifteen gross, or 2160 “pieces” as they are sometimes called. These, vended at 1_d._ each, would realize just 9_l._, and would cost, wholesale, about 6_l._, or for ready money, at the swag-shops, where they may be bought, from 10_s._ to 20_s._ less, according to the bargaining powers of the buyer. The man’s reason for selling was that the Fair was “no good;” that is to say, the farmers had no money, and their labourers received only 7_s._ a week, so there was no demand; the swag-seller, therefore, rather than incur the trouble and expense of having to carry his wares back to London, sold at a loss to a shopkeeper in Maidstone, who wanted a stock.

The swag-barrowmen selling on commission have 3_s._ in every 20_s._ worth of goods that they sell. The commission may average from 9_s._ to 12_s._ a week in tolerable weather, but as in bad, and especially in foggy weather, the trade cannot be prosecuted at all, 7_s._ 6_d._ may be the highest average, or 10_s._ the year through.

The character of the penny swag-men belongs more to that of the costermongers than to any other class of street-folk. Many of them drink as freely as their means will permit. I was told of a match between a teetotaller and a beer-drinker, about nine years ago. It was for 5_s._ a side, and the “Championship.” Each man started with an equal stock, alike in all respects, but my informant had forgotten the precise number of articles. They pattered, twenty-five yards apart one from another, three hours in James-street, Covent-garden; three hours in the Blackfriars-road; and three hours in Deptford. The teetotaller was “sold out” in seven-and-a-half hours; while his opponent--and the contest seems to have been carried on very good-humouredly--at the nine hours’ end, had four dozen articles left, and was rather exhausted, or, as it was described to me, “told out.” The result, albeit, was not looked upon, I was assured, as anything very decisive of the relative merits of beer or water, as the source of strength or inspiration of “patter.” The teetotaller was the smarter, though he did not appear the stronger, man; he abandoned the championship, and went into another trade four years ago. The patter of the swag-men has nothing of the humour of the paper-workers; it is merely declaratory that the extensive stock offered on such liberal terms to the public would furnish a wholesale shop; that such another opportunity for cheap pennyworths could never by any possibility occur again, and that it was a duty on all who heard the patterer to buy at once.

The men having their own barrows or stalls (but the stall-trade is small) buy their goods as they find their stock needs replenishment at the swag-shops. “It was a good trade at first, sir,” said one man, “and for its not being a good trade now, we may partly blame one another. There was a cutting down trade among us. Black earrings were bought at 14_d._ the dozen, and sold at a loss at 1_d._ each. So were children’s trap-bats, and monkeys up sticks, but they are now 9_d._ a dozen. Sometimes, sir, as I know, the master of a swag-barrow gets served out. You see, a man may once on a time have a good day, and take as much as 2_l._ Well, next day he’ll use part of that money, and go as a penny swag on his own account; or else he’ll buy things he is sold out of, and work them on his own account on his master’s barrow. All right, sir; his master makes him a convenience for his own pocket, and so his master may be made a convenience for the man’s. When he takes the barrow back at the week’s end, if he’s been doing a little on his own dodge, there’s the stock, and there’s the money. It’s all right between a rich man and a poor man that way; turn and turn about’s fair play.”

The lot-sellers are, when the whole body are in London, about 200 in number; but they are three times as itinerant into the country as are the traders in the heavier and little portable swag-barrows. The lot-sellers nearly all vend their goods from trays slung from their shoulders. The best localities for the lot-sellers are Ratcliffe-highway, Commercial-road, Whitechapel, Minories, Tower-hill, Tooley-street, Newington-causeway, Walworth, Blackfriars and Westminster-roads, Long-acre, Holborn, and Oxford-street. To this list may be added the Brill, Tottenham-court-road, and the other street-markets, on Saturday evenings, when some of these places are almost impassable. The best places for the swag-barrow trade are also those I have specified. Their customers, alike for the useful and fancy articles, are the working-classes, and the chief sale is on Saturdays and Mondays. One swag-man told me that he thought he could sell better if he had a less crowded barrow, but his master was so keen of money that he _would_ make him try everything. It made selling more tiresome, too, he said, for a poor couple who had a penny or two to lay out would fix on half the things they saw, and change them for others, before they parted with their money.

Of the penny-a-piece sellers trading on their own account, the receipts may be smaller than those of the men who work the huge swag-barrows on commission, but their profits are greater. Calculating that 100 of these traders are, the year round, in London (some are absent all the summer at country fairs, and on any favourable opportunity, while a number of swag-barrowmen leave that employment for costermongering on their own account), and that each takes 2_l._ weekly, we find no less than 10,400_l._ thus expended in the streets of London in a year.

The lot-sellers also resort largely to the country, and frequently try other callings, such as the sale of fruit, medals, &c. Some also sell lots only on Saturday and Monday nights. Taking these deductions into consideration, it may be estimated that only fifty men (there is but one female lot-seller on her own account) carry on the trade, presuming it to be spread over the six days of the week. Each of them may take 13_s._ weekly (with a profit of 7_s._ 6_d._), so showing the street outlay to be 1,690_l._ The “lots” are bought at the German and English swag-shops; the principal supply, however, is procured from Black Tom in Clerkenwell.

OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF ROULETTE BOXES.

In my account of the street-trade in “China ornaments” I had occasion to mention a use to which a roulette box, or portable roulette table, was put. I need only repeat in this place that the box (usually of mahogany) contains a board, with numbered partitions, which is set spinning, by means of a central knob, on a pivot; the lid is then placed on the box, a pea is slipped through a hole in the lid, and on the number of the partition in which the pea is found deposited, when the motion has ceased, depends the result. The table, or board, is thus adapted for the determination of that mode of raising money, popular among costermongers and other street-folk, who in their very charities crave some excitement; I mean a “raffle;” or it may be used for play, by one or more persons, the highest number “spun” determining the winner. These street-sold tables may still be put to another use: In the smaller sort, “going no higher than fourteen,” one division is blank. Thus any one may play against another, or several others spinning in turns, the “blank” being a chance in the “banker’s” favour. Some of the tables, however, are numbered as high as 36, or as a seller of them described it, “single and double zero, bang; a French game.”

This curious street-trade has been carried on for seven years, but with frequent interruptions, by one man, who, until within these few weeks, was the sole trader in the article. There are now but two selling roulette-boxes at all regularly. The long-established salesman wears mustachios, and has a good deal the look of a foreigner. During his seven years’ experience he has sold, he calculates, 12,000 roulette-boxes, at a profit of from 175_l._ to 200_l._ The prices (retail) are from 1_s._ to 2_l._, at which high amount my informant once disposed of “a roulette” in the street. He has sold, however, more at 1_s._ than at all other rates together. The “shilling roulette” is about three inches in diameter; the others proportionately larger. These wares are German made, bought at a swag-shop, and retailed at a profit of from 15 to 33 per cent. They are carried in a basket, one being held for public examination in the vendor’s hand.

“My best customers,” said the experienced man in the business, “are stock-brokers, travellers, and parsons; people that have spare time on their hands. O, I mean by ‘travellers,’ gentlemen going on a railway who pass the time away at roulette. Now and then a regular ‘leg,’ when he’s travelling to Chester, York, or Doncaster, to the races, may draw other passengers into play, and make a trifle, or not a trifle, by it; or he will play with other legs; but it’s generally for amusement, I’ve reason to believe. Friends travelling together play for a trifle to pass away time, or who shall pay for breakfasts for two, or such like. I supplied one gaming-house with a large roulette-table made of a substance that if you throw it into water--and there’s always a pail of ‘tepid’ ready--would dissolve very quickly. When it’s not used it’s hung against the wall and is so made that it looks to be an oil-painting framed. It cost them 10_l._ I suppose I have the ‘knock’ of almost every gaming-house in London. There’s plenty of them still. The police can drive such as me about in the streets or out of the streets to starve, but lords, and gentlemen, and some parsons, I know, go to the gaming-houses, and when one’s broke into by the officers--it’s really funny--John Smith, and Thomas Jones, and William Brown are pulled up, but as no gaming implements are found, there’s nothing against them. Some of these houses are never noticed for a long time. The ‘Great Nick’ hasn’t been, nor the ‘Little Nick.’ I don’t know why they’re called ‘Nicks,’ those two; but so they are. Perhaps after Old Nick. At the Great Nick I dare say there’s often 1000_l._ depending. But the Little Nick is what we call only ‘brown papermen,’ low gamblers--playing for pence, and 1_s._ being a great go. I wonder the police allow _that_.”

OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF POISON FOR RATS.

The number of Vermin-Destroyers and Rat-Catchers who ply their avocation in London has of late years become greatly diminished. One cause which I heard assigned for this was that many ruinous old buildings and old streets had been removed, and whole colonies of rats had been thereby extirpated. Another was that the race of rat-catchers had become distrusted, and had either sought some other mode of subsistence, or had resorted to other fields for the exercise of their professional labours.

The rat-catcher’s dress is usually a velveteen jacket, strong corduroy trowsers, and laced boots. Round his shoulder he wears an oil-skin belt, on which are painted the figures of huge rats, with fierce-looking eyes and formidable whiskers. His hat is usually glazed and sometimes painted after the manner of his belt. Occasionally--and in the country far more than in town--he carries in his hand an iron cage in which are ferrets, while two or three crop-eared rough terriers dog his footsteps. Sometimes a tamed rat runs about his shoulders and arms, or nestles in his bosom or in the large pockets of his coat. When a rat-catcher is thus accompanied, there is generally a strong aromatic odour about him, far from agreeable; this is owing to his clothes being rubbed with oil of thyme and oil of aniseed, mixed together. This composition is said to be so attractive to the sense of the rats (when used by a man who understands its due apportionment and proper application) that the vermin have left their holes and crawled to the master of the powerful spell. I heard of one man (not a rat-catcher professionally) who had in this way tamed a rat so effectually that the animal would eat out of his mouth, crawl upon his shoulder to be fed, and then “smuggle into his bosom” (the words of my informant) “and sleep there for hours.” The rat-catchers have many wonderful stories of the sagacity of the rat, and though in reciting their own feats, these men may not be the most trustworthy of narrators, any work on natural history will avouch that rats _are_ sagacious, may be trained to be very docile, and are naturally animals of great resources in all straits and difficulties.

One great source of the rat-catcher’s employment and emolument thirty years ago, or even to a later period, is now comparatively a nonentity. At that time the rat-catcher or killer sometimes received a yearly or quarterly stipend to keep a London granary clear of rats. I was told by a man who has for twenty-eight years been employed about London granaries, that he had never known a rat-catcher employed in one except about twenty or twenty-two years ago, and that was in a granary by the river-side. The professional man, he told me, certainly poisoned many rats, “which stunk so,” continued my informant--but then all evil odours in old buildings are attributed to dead rats--“that it was enough to infect the corn. He poisoned two fine cats as well. But I believe he was a young hand and a bungler.” The rats, after these measures had been taken, seem to have deserted the place for three weeks or a month, when they returned in as great numbers as ever; nor were their ravages and annoyances checked until the drains were altered and rebuilt. It is in the better disposition of the drains of a corn-magazine, I am assured, that the great check upon the inroads of these “varmint” is attained--by strong mason work and by such a series and arrangement of grates, as defy even the perseverance of a rat. Otherwise the hordes which prey upon the garbage in the common sewers, are certain to find their way into the granary along the drains and channels communicating with those sewers, and will increase rapidly despite the measures of the rat-catcher.

The same man told me that he had been five or six times applied to by rat-catchers, and with liberal offers of beer, to allow them to try and capture the black rats in the granary. One of these traders declared that he wanted them “for a gent as vas curous in them there hinteresting warmint.” But from the representations of the other applicants, my informant was convinced that they were wanted for rat-hunts, the Dog Billy being backed for 100_l._ to kill so many rats in so many minutes. “You see, sir,” the corn merchant’s man continued, “ours is an old concern, and there’s black rats in it, great big fellows; some of ’em must be old, for they’re as white about the muzzle as is the Duke of Wellington, and they have the character of being very strong and very fierce. One of the catchers asked me if I knew what a stunning big black rat would weigh, as if I weighed rats! I always told them that I cared nothing about rat-hunts and that I knew our people wouldn’t like to be bothered; and they was gentlemen that didn’t admire sporting characters.”

The black rat, I may observe, or the English rat, is now comparatively scarce, while the brown, or Hanoverian, rat is abundant. This brown rat seems to have become largely domiciled in England about the period of the establishment of the Hanoverian dynasty; whence its name. “A Hanover rat” was a term of reproach applied by the Jacobites to the successful party.

The rat-catchers are also rat-killers. They destroy the animals sometimes by giving them what is called in the trade “an alluring poison.” Every professional destroyer, or capturer, of rats will pretend that as to poison he has his own particular method--his secret--his discovery. But there is no doubt that arsenic is the basis of all their poisons. Its being inodorous, and easily reducible to a soft fine powder, renders it the best adapted for mixing with anything of which rats are fond--toasted cheese, or bacon, or fried liver, or tallow, or oatmeal. Much as the poisoner may be able to tempt the animal’s appetite, he must, and does, proceed cautiously. If the bait be placed in an unwonted spot, it is often untouched. If it be placed where rats have been accustomed to find their food, it is often devoured. But even then it is frequently accounted best to leave the bait unpoisoned for the first night; so that a hungry animal may attack it greedily the second. With oatmeal it is usual to mix for the first and even second nights a portion of pounded white sugar. If this be eaten it accustoms the jealous pest to the degree of sweetness communicated by arsenic. The “oatmeal poison” is, I am told, the most effectual; but even when mixed only with sugar it is often refused; as “rats is often better up to a dodge nor Kirstians” (Christians).

Another mode of killing rats is for the professional destroyer to slip a ferret into the rats’ haunts wherever it is practicable. The ferret soon dislodges them, and as they emerge for safety they are seized by terriers, who, after watching the holes often a long time, and very patiently, and almost breathlessly, throttle them silently, excepting the short squeak, or half-squeak, of the rat, who, by a “good dog,” is seized unerringly by the part of the back where the terrier’s gripe and shake is speedy death; if the rat still move, or shows signs of life, the well-trained rat-killer’s dog cracks the vermin’s skull between his teeth.