Part 74
The same informant told me that he had lived near an old man who died twenty-five years ago, or it might be more, with whom he was somewhat intimate. This old man had been all his life familiar with the street trade in books, which he had often hawked--a trade now almost unknown; his neighbour had heard him say that fifty to seventy years ago, he made his two guineas a week “without distressing hisself,” meaning, I was told, that he was drinking every Monday at least. This old man used to tell that in his day, the “Whole Duty of Man,” and the “Tale of a Tub,” and “Pomfret’s Poems,” and “Pamela,” and “Sir Charles Grandison” went off _well_, but “Pamela” the best. “And I’ve heard the old man say, sir,” I was further told, “how he had to tread his shoes straight about what books he showed publicly. He sold ‘Tom Paine’ on the sly. If anybody bought a book and would pay a good price for it, three times as much as was marked, he’d _give_ the ‘Age of Reason’ in. I never see it now, but I don’t suppose anybody would interfere if it was offered. A sly trade’s always the best for paying, and for selling too. The old fellow used to laugh and say his stall was quite a godly stall, and he wasn’t often without a copy or two of the ‘Anti-Jacobin Review,’ which was all for Church and State and all that, though he had ‘Tom Paine’ in a drawer.”
The books sold at the street-stalls are purchased by the retailers either at the auctions of the regular trade, or at “chance,” or general auctions, or of the Jews or others who may have bought books cheap under such circumstances. Often, however, the stall-keeper has a market peculiarly his own. It is not uncommon for working men or tradesmen, if they become “beaten-down and poor” to carry a basket-full of books to a stall-keeper, and say, “Here, give me half-a-crown for these.” One man had forty parts, each issued at 1_s._, of a Bible, offered to him at 1_d._ a part, by a mechanic who could not any longer afford to “take them in,” and was at last obliged to sell off what he had. Of course such things are nearly valueless when imperfect. Very few works are bought for street-stall sale of the regular booksellers.
OF THE EXPERIENCE OF A STREET BOOK-SELLER.
I now give a statement, furnished to me by an experienced man, as to the nature of his trade, and the class of his customers. Most readers will remember having seen an account in the life of some poor scholar, having read--and occasionally, in spite of the remonstrances of the stall-keeper--some work which he was too needy to purchase, and even of his having read it through at intervals. That something of this kind is still to be met with will be found from the following account:
“My customers, sir, are of all sorts,” my informant said. “They’re gentlemen on their way from the City, that have to pass along here by the City-road. Bankers’ clerks, very likely, or insurance-office clerks, or such like. They’re fairish customers, but they often screw me. Why only last month a gentleman I know very well by sight, and I see him pass in his brougham in bad weather, took up an old Latin book--if I remember right it was an odd volume of a French edition of Horace--and though it was marked only 8_d._, it was long before he would consent to give more than 6_d._ And I should never have got my price if I hadn’t heard him say quite hastily, when he took up the book, ‘The very thing I’ve long been looking for!’ Mechanics are capital customers for scientific or trade books, such as suit their business; and so they often are for geography and history, and some for poetry; but _they’re_ not so screwy. I know a many such who are rare ones for searching into knowledge. Women buy very little of me in comparison to men; sometimes an odd novel, in one volume, when its cheap, such as ‘The Pilot,’ or ‘The Spy,’ or ‘The Farmer of Inglewood Forest,’ or ‘The Monk.’ No doubt some buy ‘The Monk,’ not knowing exactly what sort of a book it is, but just because it’s a romance; but some young men buy it, I know, because they have learned what sort it’s like. Old three vol. novels won’t sell at all, if they’re ever so cheap. Boys very seldom buy of me, unless it’s a work about pigeons, or something that way.
“I can’t say that odd vols. of Annual Registers are anything but a bad sale, but odd vols. of old Mags. (magazines), a year or half-year bound together, are capital. Old London Mags., or Ladies’, or Oxford and Cambridges, or Town and Countrys, or Universals, or Monthly Reviews, or Humourists, or Ramblers, or Europeans, or any of any sort, that’s from 40 to 100 years old, no matter what they are, go off rapidly at from 1_s._ 6_d._ to 3_s._ 6_d._ each, according to size, and binding, and condition. Odd numbers of Mags. are good for little at a stall. The old Mags. in vols. are a sort of reading a great many are very fond of. Lives of the Princess Charlotte are a ready penny enough. So are Queen Carolines, but not so good. Dictionaries of all kinds are nearly as selling as the old Mags., and so are good Latin books. French are only middling; not so well as you might think.”
My informant then gave me a similar account to what I had previously received concerning English classics, and proceeded: “Old religious books, they’re a fair trade enough, but they’re not so plentiful on the stalls now, and if they’re black-letter they don’t find their way from the auctions or anywhere to any places but the shops or to private purchasers. Mrs. Rowe’s ‘Knowledge of the Heart’ goes off, if old. Bibles, and Prayer-books, and Hymn-books, are very bad.” [This may be accounted for by the cheapness of these publications, when new, and by the facilities afforded to obtain them gratuitously.] “Annuals are dull in going off; very much so, though one might expect different. I can hardly sell ‘Keepsakes’ at all. Children’s books, such as are out one year at 2_s._ 6_d._ apiece, very nicely got up, sell finely next year at the stalls for from 6_d._ to 10_d._ Genteel people buy them of us for presents at holiday times. They’ll give an extra penny quite cheerfully if there’s ‘Price 2_s._ 6_d._’ or ‘Price 3_s._ 6_d._’ lettered on the back or part of the title-page. School-books in good condition don’t stay long on hand, especially Pinnock’s. There’s not a few people who stand and read and read for half an hour or an hour at a time. It’s very trying to the temper when they take up room that way, and prevent others seeing the works, and never lay out a penny theirselves. But they seem quite lost in a book. Well, I’m sure I don’t know what they are. Some seem very poor, judging by their dress, and some seem shabby genteels. I can’t help telling them, when I see them going, that I’m much obliged, and I hope that perhaps next time they’ll manage to say ‘thank ye,’ for they don’t open their lips once in twenty times. I know a man in the trade that goes dancing mad when he has customers of this sort, who aren’t customers. I dare say, one day with another, I earn 3_s._ the year through; wet days are greatly against us, for if we have a cover people won’t stop to look at a stall. Perhaps the rest of my trade earn the same.” This man told me that he was not unfrequently asked, and by respectable people, for indecent works, but he recommended them to go to Holywell-street themselves. He believed that some of his fellow-traders _did_ supply such works, but to no great extent.
An elderly man, who had known the street book-trade for many years, but was not concerned in it when I saw him, told me that he was satisfied he had sold old books, old plays often, to Charles Lamb, whom he described as a stuttering man, who, when a book suited him, sometimes laid down the price, and smiled and nodded, and then walked away with it in his pocket or under his arm, without a word having been exchanged. When we came to speak of dates, I found that my informant--who had only conjectured that this was Lamb--was unquestionably mistaken. One of the best customers he ever had for anything old or curious, and in Italian, if he remembered rightly, as well as in English, was the late Rev. Mr. Scott, who was chaplain on board the Victory, at the time of Nelson’s death at Trafalgar. “He had a living in Yorkshire, I believe it was,” said the man, “and used to come up every now and then to town. I was always glad to see his white head and rosy face, and to have a little talk with him about books and trade, though it wasn’t always easy to catch what he said, for he spoke quick, and not very distinct. But he was a pleasant old gentleman, and talked to a poor man as politely as he might to an admiral. He was very well known in my trade, as I was then employed.”
The same man once sold to a gentleman, he told me, and he believed it was somewhere about twenty-five years ago, if not more, a Spanish or Portuguese work, but what it was he did not know. It was marked 1_s._ 9_d._, being a good-sized book, but the stall-keeper was tired of having had it a long time, so that he gladly would have taken 9_d._ for it. The gentleman in question handed him half-a-crown, and, as he had not the change, the purchaser said: “O, don’t mind; it’s worth far more than half-a-crown to me.” When this liberal customer had walked away, a gentleman who had been standing at the stall all the time, and who was an occasional buyer, said, “Do you know him?” and, on receiving an answer in the negative, he rejoined, “That’s Southey.”
Another stall-keeper told me that his customers--some of whom he supplied with any periodical in the same way as a newsvendor--had now and then asked him, especially “the ladies of the family,” who glanced, when they passed, at the contents of his stall, why he had not newer works? “I tell them,” said the stall-keeper, “that they haven’t become cheap enough yet for the streets, but that they would come to it in time.” After some conversation about his trade, which only confirmed the statements I have given, he said laughingly, “Yes, indeed, you all come to such as me at last. Why, last night I heard a song about all the stateliest buildings coming to the ivy, and I thought, as I listened, it was the same with authors. The best that the best can do is the book-stall’s food at last. And no harm, for he’s in the best of company, with Shakespeare, and all the great people.”
Calculating 15_s._ weekly as the average earnings of the street book-stall keepers--for further information induces me to think that the street bookseller who earned 18_s._ a week regularly, cleared it by having a “tidy pitch”--and reckoning that, to clear such an amount, the bookseller takes, at least, 1_l._ 11_s._ 6_d._ weekly, we find 5,460 guineas yearly expended in the purchase of books at the purely street-stalls, independently of what is laid out at the open-air stalls connected with book-shops.
OF STREET BOOK-AUCTIONEERS.
The sale of books by auction, in the streets, is now inconsiderable and irregular. The “auctioning” of books--I mean of new books--some of which were published principally with a view to their sale by auction, was, thirty to forty years ago, systematic and extensive. It was not strictly a street-sale. The auctioneer offered his books to the public, nine cases out of ten, in town, in an apartment (now commonly known as a “mock-auction room”), which was so far a portion of the street that access was rendered easier by the removal of the door and window of any room on a ground-floor, and some of the bidders could and did stand in the street and take part in the proceedings. In the suburbs--which at that period were not so integral a portion of the metropolis as at present--the book-auction sales were carried on strictly in the open air, generally in front of a public-house, and either on a platform erected for the purpose, or from a covered cart; the books then being deposited in the vehicle, and the auctioneer standing on a sort of stage placed on the propped-up shafts. In the country, however, the auction was often carried on in an inn.
The works thus sold were generally standard works. The poems were those of Pope, Young, Thomson, Goldsmith, Falconer, Cowper, &c. The prose writings were such works as “The Pilgrim’s Progress,” “The Travels of Mr. Lemuel Gulliver,” “Johnson’s Lives of the Poets,” “The Vicar of Wakefield,” the most popular of the works of Defoe, Fielding, and Smollett, and “Hervey’s Meditations among the Tombs” (at one time highly popular). These books were not correctly printed, they were printed, too, on inferior paper, and the frontispiece--when there _was_ a frontispiece--was often ridiculous. But they certainly gave to the public what is called an “impetus” for reading. Some were published in London (chiefly by the late Mr. Tegg, who at one time, I am told, himself “offered to public competition,” by auction, the works he published); others were printed in Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Ipswich, Bungay, &c.
One of my informants remembered being present at a street-sale, about twenty or thirty years ago; he perfectly remembered, however, the oratory of the auctioneer, of whom he purchased some books. The sale was in one of the streets in Stoke Newington, a door or two from a thoroughfare. My informant was there--as he called it--“accidentally,” and knew little of the neighbourhood. The auctioneer stood at the door of what appeared to have been a coach-house, and sold his books, which were arranged within, very rapidly: “Byron,” he exclaimed; “Lord Byron’s latest and best po’ms. Sixpence! Sixpence! Eightpence! I take penny bids under a shilling. Eightpence for the poems written by a lord--Gone! Yours, sir” (to my informant). The auctioneer, I was told, “spoke very rapidly, and clipped many of his words.” The work thus sold consisted of some of Byron’s minor poems. It was in the pamphlet form, and published, I have no doubt, surreptitiously; for there was, in those days, a bold and frequent piracy of any work which was thought distasteful to the Government, or to which the Court of Chancery might be likely to refuse the protection of the law of copyright.
The auctioneer went on: “Coop’r--Coop’r! Published at 3_s._ 6_d._, as printed on the back. Superior to Byron--Coop’r’s ‘Task.’ No bidders? Thank you, sir. One-and-six,--your’s, sir. Young--‘Young’s Night Thoughts. Life, Death, and Immortality,’--great subjects. London edition, marked 3_s._ 6_d._ Going!--last bidder--two shillings--gone!” The purchaser then complained that the frontispiece--a man seated on a tombstone--was exactly the same as to a copy he had of “Hervey’s Meditations,” but the auctioneer said it was impossible.
I have thus shown what _was_ the style and nature of the address of the street book-auctioneer, formerly, to the public. If it were not strictly “patter,” or “pompous oration,” it certainly partook of some of the characteristics of patter. At present, however, the street book-auctioneer may be described as a true patterer.
[Illustration: THE STREET-STATIONER.
[_From a Daguerreotype by_ BEARD.]]
It will be seen from the account I have given, that the books were then really “sold by auction”--knocked down to the highest bidder. This however was, and is not always the case. Legally to sell by auction, necessitates the obtaining of a licence, at an annual cost of 5_l._; and if the bookseller conveys his stock of books from place to place, a hawker’s licence is required as well,--which entails an additional expenditure of 4_l._ The itinerant bookseller evades, or endeavours to evade, the payment for an auctioneer’s licence, by “putting-up” his books at a high price, and _himself_ decreasing the terms, instead of offering them at a low price, and allowing _the public_ to make a series of “advances.” Thus, a book may be offered by a street-auctioneer at half-a-crown--two shillings--eighteenpence--a shilling--tenpence, and the moment any one assents to a specified sum, the volume handed to him; so that there is no competition--no bidding by the public one in advance of another. Auction, however, is resorted to as often as the bookseller dares.
One experienced man in the book-stall trade calculated that twenty years ago there might be twelve book-auctioneers in the streets of London, or rather, of its suburbs. One of these was a frequenter of the Old Kent-road; another, “Newington way;” and a third resorted to “any likely pitch in Pimlico”--all selling from a sort of van. Of these twelve, however, my informant thought that there were never more than six in London at one time, as they were all itinerant; and they have gradually dwindled down to two, who are now not half their time in town. These two traders are brothers, and sell their books from a sort of platform erected on a piece of waste-ground, or from a barrow. The works they sell are generally announced as new, and are often uncut. They are all recommended as explanatory of every topic of the day, and are often set forth as “spicy.” Three or four years ago, a gentleman told me how greatly he was amused with the patter of one of these men, who was selling books at the entrance of a yard full of caravans, not far from the School for the Blind, Lambeth. One work the street-auctioneer announced at the top of his voice, in the following terms, as far as a good memory could retain them: “‘The Rambler!’ Now you rambling boys--now you young devils, that’s been staring those pretty girls out of countenance--here’s the very book for you, and more shame for you, and perhaps for me too; but I must sell--I must do business. If any lady or gen’lman’ll stand treat to a glass of brandy and water, ‘warm with,’ I’ll tell more about this ‘Rambler’--I’m too bashful, as it is. Who bids? Fifteen-pence--thank’ee, sir. Sold again!” The “Rambler” was Dr. Johnson’s!
The last time one of my informants heard the “patter” of the smartest of the two brothers, it was to the following effect: “Here is the ‘History of the Real Flying Dutchman,’ and _no_ mistake; no fiction, I assure you, upon my honour. Published at 10_s._--who bids half-a-crown? Sixpence; thank you, sir. Ninepence; going--going! Any more?--gone!”
A book-stall-keeper, who had sold goods to a book-auctioneer, and attended the sales, told me he was astonished to hear how his own books--“old new books,” he called them, were set off by the auctioneer: “Why, there was a vol. lettered ‘Pamphlets,’ and I think there _was_ something about Jack Sheppard in it, but it was all odds and ends of other things, I know. ‘Here’s the _real_ Jack Sheppard,’ sings out the man, ‘and no gammon!’ The real edition--no spooniness here, but set off with other interesting histories, valuable for the rising generation and all generations. This is the real Jack. This will
‘----put you up to the time o’ day, Nix, my dolly pals, _bid_ away.’
“Then he went on: ‘Goldsmith’s History of England. Continued by the first writers of the day--to the very last rumpus in the palace, and no mistake. Here it is; genuine.’ Well, sir,” the stall-keeper continued, “the man didn’t do well; perhaps he cleared 1_s._ 6_d._ or a little more that evening on books. People laughed more than they bought. But it’s no wonder the trade’s going to the dogs--they’re not allowed to have a pitch now; I shouldn’t be surprised if they was not _all_ driven out of London next year. It’s contrary to Act of Parliament to get an honest living in the streets now-a-days.”
A man connected with the street book-trade considered that if one of these auctioneers earned a guinea in London streets in the six days it was a “good week.” Half-a-guinea was nearer the average, he thought, “looking at the weather and everything.” What amount is expended to enable this street-dealer to earn his guinea or half-guinea, is so uncertain, from the very nature of an auction, that I can obtain no data to rely upon.
The itinerant book-auctioneer is now confined chiefly to the provincial towns, and especially the country markets. The reason for this is correctly given in the statement above cited. The street-auction requires the gathering of so large a crowd that the metropolitan police consider the obstruction to the public thoroughfares warrants their interference. The two remaining book-auctioneers in London generally restrict their operations to the outskirts--the small space which fronts “the George Inn” in the Commercial-road, and which lays a few yards behind the main thoroughfare, and similar suburban “retreats” being favourite “pitches.” The trade is, as regards profits, far from bad--the books sold consisting chiefly of those picked up in cheap “lots” at the regular auctions; so that what fetches 6_d._ in the streets has generally been purchased for less than a penny. The average rate of profit may be taken at 250_l._ per cent. at the least. Exorbitant however as this return may appear, still it should be remembered that the avocation is one that can be pursued only occasionally, and that solely in fine weather. Books are now more frequently sold in the London streets from barrows. This change of traffic has been forced upon the street-sellers by the commands of the police--that the men should “keep moving.” Hence the well-known light form of street conveyance is now fast superseding not only the book-auctioneer, but the book-stall in the London streets. Of these book-barrowmen there is now about fifty trading regularly in the metropolis, and taking on an average from 3_s._ to 5_s._ 6_d._ a day.
OF THE STREET-SALE OF SONG-BOOKS, AND OF CHILDREN’S BOOKS.
The sale of song-books in the streets, at 1_d._ and at 1/2_d._ each, is smaller than it was two years ago. One reason that I heard assigned was that the penny song-books--styled “The Universal Song-book,” “The National,” “The Bijou,” &c.--were reputed to be so much alike (the same songs under a different title), that people who had bought one book were averse to buy another. “There’s the ‘Ross’ and the ‘Sam Hall’ song-books,” said one man, “the ‘eighteenth series,’ and I don’t know what; but I don’t like to venture on working them, though they’re only a penny. There’s lots to be seen in the shop-windows; but they might be stopped in the street, for they an’t decent--’specially the flash ones.”
One of the books which a poor man had found the most saleable is entitled, “The Great Exhibition Song-book; a Collection of the Newest and Most Admired Songs. Embellished with upwards of one Hundred Toasts and Sentiments.” The toasts and sentiments are given in small type, as a sort of border to the thirty-two pages of which the book consists. The toast on the title-page is as follows:
“I’ll toast England’s daughters, let all fill their glasses, Whose beauty and virtue the whole world surpasses.”