Part 92
The itinerant saw-sellers offer their goods to any one in the street as well as at the shops, and are at the street markets on Saturday evenings with small saws for use in cookery. With the butchers they generally barter rather than sell, taking any old saw in exchange with so much money, for a new one. “I was brought up a butcher,” said one of these saw-sellers, “and worked as a journeyman, off and on, between twenty and thirty year. But I grew werry delicate from rheumaticks, and my old ’ooman was bad too, so that we once had to go into Marylebone work’us. I had no family living, perhaps they’re better as it is. We discharged ourselves after a time, and they gave us 5_s._ I then thought I’d try and sell a few saws and things. A master-butcher that’s been a friend to me, lent me another 5_s._, and I asked a man as sold saws to butchers to put me in the way of it, and he took me to a swag-shop. I do werry badly, sir, but I’ll not deny, and I can’t deny--not anyhow--when you tell me Mr. ---- told you about me--that there’s ’elps to me. If I make a bargain, for so much; or for old saws or cleavers, or any old butcher thing, and so much; a man wot knows me says, ‘Well, old boy, you don’t look satisfied; here’s a bit of steak for you.’ Sometimes it’s a cut off a scrag of mutton, or weal; that gives the old ’ooman and me a good nourishing bit of grub. I can work at times, and every Saturday a’most I’m now a porter to a butcher. I carries his meat from Newgate, when he’s killed hisself, and wants no more than a man’s weight from the market; and when he ’asn’t killed hisself in course he hires a cart. I makes 1_s._ a day the year round, I think, on saws, and my old ’ooman makes more than ’arf as much at charing, and there’s the ’elps, and then I gets 18_d._ and my grub every Saturday. It’s no use grumbling; lots isn’t grubbed ’arf so well as me and my old ’ooman. My rent’s 20_d._ a week.”
The articles vended by the second class of the street-sellers of tools, or those whose purchasers are mostly connected with the docks and warehouses, consist of iron-handled claw-hammers, spanners, bed-keys, and corkscrews. Of these street-traders there are ten or twelve, and the greater portion of them are blacksmiths out of employ. Some make their own hammers, whereas others purchase the articles they vend at the swag-shops. “We sell more hammers and bed-keys than other things,” said one, “and sometimes we sells a corkscrew to the landlord of a public-house, and then we have perhaps half-a-pint of beer. Our principal customers for spanners are wheelwrights. Those for hammers are egg-merchants, oilmen, wax and tallow-chandlers, and other tradesmen who receive or send out goods in wooden cases; as well as chance customers in the streets.” The amount of capital required to start in the line is from 5_s._ to 15_s._: “it is not much use,” said one, “to go to shop with less than 10_s._”
A third class of the street-sellers of tools are the vendors of curry-combs and brushes, mane-combs, scrapers, and clipping instruments; and these articles are usually sold at the several mews, stable-yards, and jobbing-masters’ in and about the metropolis. The sellers are mostly broken-down grooms, who, not being able to obtain a situation, resort to street-selling as a last shift. “It is the last coach, when a man takes to this kind of living,” said one of my informants, a groom in a “good place;” “and it’s getting worse and worse. The poor fellows look half-starved. Why, what do you think I gave for these scissors? I got ’em for 6_d._ and a pint of beer, and I should have to give perhaps half-a-crown for ’em at a shop.” The trade is fast declining, and to gentlemen’s carriage mews the street-sellers of such tools rarely resort, as the instruments required for stable-use are now bought, by the coachmen, of the tradesmen who supply their masters. At the “mixed mews,” as I heard them called, there are two men who, along with razors, knives, and other things, occasionally offer “clipping” and “trimming” scissors. Four or five years ago there were four of these street-sellers. The trimming-scissors are, in the shops, 1_s._ 6_d._ to 2_s._ 6_d._ a pair. There is one trade still carried on in these places, although it is diminutive compared to what it was: I allude to the sale of curry-combs. Those vended by street-sellers at the mews are sold at 7_d._ or 6_d._ The best sale for these curry-combs is about Coventry-street and the Haymarket, and at the livery-stables generally. Along with curry-combs, the street-vendors sell wash-leathers, mane-combs (horn), sponges (which were like dried moss for awhile, I was told, got up by the Jews, but which are now good), dandy-brushes (whalebone-brushes, to scrape dirt from a horse’s legs, before he is groomed), spoke-brushes (to clean carriage-wheels), and coach-mops. One dweller in a large West-end mews computed that 100 different street-traders resorted thither daily, and that twenty sold the articles I have specified. In this trade, I am assured, there are no broken-down coachmen or grooms, only the regular street-sellers. A commoner curry-comb is sold at 2_d._ (prime cost 1_s._ 3_d._ a dozen), at Smithfield, on market-days, and to the carmen, and the owners of the rougher sort of horses; but this trade is not extensive.
There may be ten men, I am told, selling common “currys;” and they also sell other articles (often horse oil-cloths and nose-bags) along with them.
The last class of street-sellers is the beaten-out mechanic or workman, who, through blindness, age, or infirmities, is driven to obtain a livelihood by supplying his particular craft with their various implements. Of this class, as I have before stated, there are six men in London who were brought up as tailors, but are now, through some affliction or privation, incapacitated from following their calling. These men sell needles at four and five for 1_d._; thimbles 1_d._ to 2_d._ each; scissors from 1_s._ to 2_s._ 6_d._; and wax 1_d._ the lump. There are also old and blind shoemakers, who sell a few articles of grindery to their shopmates, as they term them, as well as a few decayed members of other trades, hawking the implements of the handicraft to which they formerly belonged. But as I have already given a long account of one of this class, under the head of the blind needle-seller, there is no occasion for me to speak further on the subject.
From one of the street-traders in saws I had the following account of his struggles, as well as the benefit he received from teetotalism, of which he spoke very warmly. His room was on the fourth floor of a house in a court near Holborn, and was clean and comfortable-looking. There were good-sized pictures, in frames, of the Queen, the Last Supper, and a Rural Scene, besides minor pictures: some of these had been received in exchange for saws with street-picture-sellers. A shelf was covered with china ornaments, such as are sold in the streets; the table had its oil-skin cover, and altogether I have seldom seen a more decent room. The rent, unfurnished, was 2_s._ a week.
“I’ve been eight years in this trade, sir,” the saw-seller said, “but I was brought up to a very different one. When a lad I worked in a coal-pit along with my father, but his behaviour to me was so cruel, he beat me so, that I ran away, and walked every step from the north of England to London. I can’t say I ever repented running away--much as I’ve gone through. My money was soon gone when I got to London, and my way of speaking was laughed at. [He had now very little of a provincial accent.] That’s fourteen year back. Why, indeed, sir, it puzzles me to tell you how I lived then when I did live. I jobbed about the markets, and slept, when I could pay for a lodging, at the cheap lodging-houses; so I got into the way of selling a few things in the streets, as I saw others do. I sold laces and children’s handkerchiefs. Sometimes I was miserable enough when I hadn’t a farthing, and if I managed to make a sixpence I got tipsy on it. For six weeks I slept every night in the Peckham Union. For another five or six weeks I slept every night in the dark arches by the Strand. I’ve sometimes had twenty or thirty companions there. I used to lie down on the bare stones, and was asleep in a minute, and slept like a top all night, but waking was very bad. I felt stiff, and sore, and cold, and miserable. How I lived at all is a wonder to me. About eleven years ago I was persuaded to go to a Temperance Meeting in Harp Alley (Farringdon-street), and there I signed the pledge; that is, I made my mark, for I can’t read or write, which has been a great hinder to me. If I’d been a scholard a teetotal gent would have got me into the police three years ago, about the time I got married. I did better, of course, when I was a teetotaller--no more dark arches. I sold a few little shawls in the streets then, but it was hardly bread and butter and coffee at times. Eight year ago I thought I would try saw-selling: a shopkeeper advised me, and I began on six salt saws, which I sold to oilmen. They’re for cutting salt only, and are made of zinc, as steel would rust and dirty the salt. The trade was far better at first than it is now. In good weeks I earned 16_s._ to 18_s._ In bad weeks 10_s._ or 12_s._ Now I may earn 10_s._, not more, a week, pretty regular: yesterday I made only 6_d._ Oilmen are better customers than chance street-buyers, for I’m known to them. There’s only one man besides myself selling nothing but saws. I walk, I believe, 100 miles every week, and that I couldn’t do, I know, if I wasn’t teetotal. I never long for a taste of liquor if I’m ever so cold or tired. It’s all poisonous.”
The saws sold are 8 inch, which cost at the swag-shops 8_s._ and 8_s._ 6_d._ a dozen; 10 inch, 9_s._ and 9_s._ 6_d._; and so on, the price advancing according to the increased size, to 18 inch, 13_s._ 6_d._ the dozen. Larger sizes are seldom sold in the streets. The second man’s earnings, my informant believed, were the same as his own.
The wife of my informant, when she got work as an embroideress, could earn 11_s._ and 12_s._ At present she was at work braiding dresses for a dressmaker, at 2-1/2_d._ each. By hard work, and if she had not her baby to attend to, she could earn no more than 7-1/2_d._ a day. As it was she did not earn 6_d._
OF THE BEGGAR STREET-SELLERS.
Under this head I include only such of the beggar street-sellers as are neither infirm nor suffering from any severe bodily affliction or privation. I am well aware that the aged--the blind--the lame and the halt often _pretend_ to sell small articles in the street--such as boot-laces, tracts, cabbage-nets, lucifer-matches, kettle-holders, and the like; and that such matters are carried by them partly to keep clear of the law, and partly to evince a disposition to the public that they are willing to do something for their livelihood. But these being really objects of charity, they belong more properly to the second main division of this book, in which the poor, or those that can’t work, and their several means of living, will be treated of.
Such, though beggars, are not “lurkers”--a lurker being strictly one who loiters about for some dishonest purpose. Many modes of thieving as well as begging are termed “lurking”--the “dead lurk,” for instance, is the expressive slang phrase for the art of entering dwelling-houses during divine service. The term “lurk,” however, is mostly applied to the several modes of plundering by representations of sham distress.
It is of these alone that I purpose here treating--or rather of that portion of them which pretends to deal in manufactured articles.
In a few instances the street-sellers of small articles of utility are also the manufacturers. Many, however, _say_ they are the producers of the things they offer for sale, thinking thus to evade the necessity of having a hawker’s licence. The majority of these petty dealers know little of the manufacture of the goods they vend, being mere tradesmen. Some few profess to be the makers of their commodities, solely with the view of enlisting sympathy, and thus either selling the trifles they carry at an enormous profit, or else of obtaining alms.
An inmate of one of the low lodging-houses has supplied me with the following statement:--“Within my recollection,” says my informant, “the great branch of trade among these worthies, was the sale of sewing cotton, either in skeins or on reels. In the former case, the article cost the ‘lurkers’ about 8_d._ per pound; one pound would produce thirty skeins, which, sold at one penny each, or two for three halfpence, produced a heavy profit. The lurkers could mostly dispose of three pounds per day; the article was, of course, damaged, rotten, and worthless.
“The mode of sale consisted in the ‘lurkers’ calling at the several houses in a particular district, and representing themselves as Manchester cotton spinners out of employ. Long tales, of course, were told of the distresses of the operatives, and of the oppression of their employers; these tales had for the most part been taught them at the padding-ken, by some old and experienced dodger of ‘the school;’ and if the spokesman could patter well, a much larger sum was frequently obtained in direct alms than was reaped by the sale.”
Cotton on reels was--except to the purchaser--a still better speculation; the reels were large, handsomely mounted, and displayed in bold relief such inscriptions as the following:--
PIKE’S PATENT COTTON. 120 YARDS.
The reader, however, must divide the “120 yards,” here mentioned, by 12, and then he will arrive at something like the true secret as to the quantity; for the surface only was covered by the thread.
“The ‘cotton Lurk’ is now ‘cooper’d’ (worn out); a more common dodge--and, of course, only an excuse for begging--is to envelope a packet of ‘warranted’ needles, or a few inches of ‘real Honiton lace’ in an envelope, with a few lines to the ‘Lady of the House,’ or a printed bill, setting forth the misery of the manufacturers, and the intention of the parties leaving the ‘fakement’ to presume to call for an answer in a few hours. I subjoin a copy of one of these documents.
‘_THE LACE-MAKERS’ APPEAL._
‘It is with extreme regret we thus presume to trespass on your time and attention, we are Lace Makers by trade, and owing to the extensive improvements in Machinery, it has made hand labour completely useless.
‘So that it has thrown hundreds of honest and industrious men out of employment, your petitioners are among the number. Fifteen men with their families have left their homes with the intention of emigrating to South Australia, and the only means we have of supporting ourselves till we can get away, is by the sale of some Frame Thread and Traced Lace Collars of our own manufacture, at the following low prices--Fashionable Frame Lace Collars 3d. each, warranted to wash and wear well; Frame Thread Collars 6d. each, Traced Lace Collars 1s. each, the best that can be made, and we trust we shall meet with that encouragement from the Friends of Industry which our necessities require.
‘The enclosed two 6d.
‘The party calling for this, will have an assortment of the Newest Patterns of Frame Thread Lace and Edgings for your inspection, and the smallest purchase will be thankfully received and gratefully remembered by G. DAVIS, Lace Makers.
‘We beg to state that a number of the families being destitute of clothing, the bearer is authorised to receive any articles of such in exchange for Lace, Edgings or Collars.
‘ALLEN, Printer, Long-row, Nottingham.’
“These are left by one of ‘the school’ at the houses of the gentry, a mark being placed on the door post of such as are ‘bone’ or ‘gammy,’ in order to inform the rest of ‘the school’ where to call, and what houses to avoid. As the needles cost but a few pence per thousand, and the lace less than one halfpenny per yard--a few purchasers of the former at 1_s._ per packet (25 needles), or of the latter at 2_s._ 6_d._ per yard, is what these ‘lurkers’ term a ‘fair day’s work for a fair day’s wages.’
“Another and very extensive branch of the pseudo-‘manufacturing’ fraternity is to be found among the sham street-sellers of cutlery.
“At some of the least respectable of the swag-shops may be bought all the paraphernalia requisite in order to set up as the real manufacturer of Sheffield and ‘Brummagem’ goods--including, beside the cutlery, chamois-leather aprons, paper caps (ready crushed, to give them the appearance of age and usage), and last, but not least, a compound of black lead and tallow, to ‘take the granny’ off them as has white ’ands, so as the flat’s shan’t ‘tumble’ to the ‘unworkmanlike’ appearance of the palms of the ‘lurker.’
“Thus ‘got up’ for the part,” continues my informant, “and provided with a case of razors, which perhaps has cost him two groats, and (if he can raise as much) a noggin o’ rum to ‘give him cheek’ and make him ‘speak up’ to his victims--‘Jack Beaver,’ the ‘king of the street-cutlers,’ will sally forth, and meet, intercept, and follow any gentleman who seems a ‘likely spec,’ till worried perhaps by importunity, the ‘swell’ buys what he does not want, and, I need scarcely add, what he cannot use. Next, in importance, to ‘Jack Beaver,’ is the notorious ‘Pat Connor.’ Pat ‘does nothing on the blob,’ that is to say (he does not follow people and speak to them on the streets). His ‘dodge’--and it has been for years a successful one--is to go round to the public offices, dressed as before described, with the exception of being in his shirt sleeves (he has every day a _clean_ shirt), and teaze the clerks till they purchase a pen-knife. He has been known to sell from fifteen to twenty knives in one day, at two shillings each, the first cost being about threepence-halfpenny. Of course he is often interrupted by porters and other officials, but he always carries in one hand a roll of wire, and a small hammer in the other, and having got the name of some gentleman up stairs, he pretends that he is going to mend Mr. So-and-so’s bell. This worthy, a short time ago, made free--in the Custom House--with a timepiece, belonging to one of the clerks, for which the ‘Sheffield manufacturer’ got twelve months in Newgate. I have not seen him since,” adds my informant, “and therefore imagine that he is now taking a provincial tour.”
OF THE “HOUSE OF LORDS,” A STREET-SELLER’S DEFUNCT CLUB.
I have given an account of a defunct club, of which the “paper workers” were the chief members; and I have now to do the same of a society not very dissimilar in its objects, of which the street-sellers of manufactured articles constituted the great majority. It was called the “house of lords,” and was established about eight years ago, at the Roebuck-tavern, Holborn, and existed three years. Its object was to relieve its members in sickness. The subscription was 2_d._ a week, and the relief to a sick member was as many pennies a week as the club contained members, with, in any pressing case, an additional halfpenny, which the members paid into the fund, over and above their weekly subscription. For the greater part of its existence the club contained ninety members (a few of them honorary), and there were very few cases of “declaring on the fund” by sick members. At one period for many weeks there were no such declarations, and the “house of lords” had 30_l._ in hand. One of the leading members, a very intelligent man, who had “a good connection in hardware,” had taken great pains to prepare a code of rules, which, having been approved by the other members, it was considered time that the “house of lords” should be enrolled. Delays, however, intervened. “To tell you the truth, sir,” one of them said, “we were afraid to employ an attorney, and thought of waiting upon Mr. Tidd Pratt ourselves, but it wasn’t to be.”
The club was, moreover, looked upon as somewhat select. “No costers were admitted, sir,” I was told by a hardware seller in the streets; “not but what there’s many very industrious and honest men among them, but they’re in a different line, and are a different sort of people to us.” The members met once a week, and, though they were merry and talkative enough, drunkenness was strongly discouraged. It was common for the subscribers who were regarded as the “geniuses” of the trade, to take counsel together, and “invent any new move.” They were reputed to be knowing among the most knowing, in all street arts and dodges, and the way in which the club came to an end, considering the strong claims to knowingness of its members, was curious enough.
One Saturday evening a member who was considered a respectable man, and was sufficiently regular in his payments, appeared at the weekly meeting, introducing his landlord, who, as a non-member, had to pay 1_d._ for admission. The man told how his family had suffered from illness, and how he had been ill, and got into arrears of rent, for he did not like to distress the fund; and how his landlord was then in possession of his “sticks,” which must be sold in the morning if he could not pay 15_s._; and, moreover, how his landlord--a very kind-hearted, indulgent man--was forced to do this, for he himself was in difficulties. The members voted that the 15_s._ should be advanced; but before the next meeting night it was discovered that the statement of the poor member in arrears was an imposition. The landlord was merely a confederate; the worthy couple had been drinking together, and, to prolong their tippling, had hit upon the roguish scheme I have mentioned.
This, among other things, lowered the confidence of the members. The numbers fell off until it was thought best to “wind up the concern.” The small funds in hand were fairly apportioned among the remaining members, and the club ceased to exist.
Another Street-sellers’ Club has recently been formed by the men themselves, of which the following is the prospectus, and it is to be hoped that this attempt on the part of the street-folk to better their condition will meet with a better fate than its predecessor:--
Our motto is “To live honestly by daily perseverance and industry.”
_Street Mechanics, Labourers, Hawkers, &c._ PROTECTION ASSOCIATION, HELD AT THE LAMB TAVERN, NEW TURNSTILE, HOLBORN, Proprietor, Mr. White.
The above-named classes are kindly invited to attend a Meeting convened for
SUNDAY EVENING NEXT,
And every succeeding Sunday Evening, at the above house, to carry out the object unanimously agreed to by the Enrolled Members and the General Committee. Furthermore, to take into consideration the most appropriate means whereby we may be enabled to assist each other in the time of adversity.
COMMITTEE: