Part 95
The glass wares are so very rarely sold--being the most attractive articles of barter--that I could hardly get any street-seller to state his prices. “Swop, sir,” I was told repeatedly, “they all goes in swop.” The glass goods, however, which are the most sold in the streets, I ascertained to be cream-jugs, those vended at 6_d._ each, costing 4_s._ the dozen; and flower-glasses, the most frequent price being 1_s._ a pair, the prime cost 7_d._
I have estimated the sum turned over by the general swag-shops at 3000_l._ each. From what I can learn, the crock swag-shops, averaging the whole, turn over a larger sum, for their profits are smaller, ranging from 10 to 30 per cent., but rarely 30. Calculating, then, that each of these swag-shops turns over 4000_l._ yearly, we find 80,000_l._ expended, but this includes the sales to shopkeepers and to shippers, as well as to street-folk.
OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF SPAR AND CHINA ORNAMENTS, AND OF STONE FRUIT.
“Spars,” as spar ornaments are called by the street-sellers, are sold to the retailers at only four places in London, and two in Gravesend (where the hawkers are for the most part supplied). The London spar-houses are--two in Westminster, one in Shoreditch, and one on Battle-bridge. None of them present any display of their goods which are kept in large drawers, closets, and packages. At Gravesend the spar-shops are handsome.
These wares are principally of Derbyshire spar, and made in Matlock; a few are German. The “spars” are hawked on a round, and are on fine Saturday nights offered for sale in the street and markets. The trade was unknown as a street, or a hawking trade in London, I am informed, until about twenty-five years ago, and then was not extensive, the goods, owing to the cost of carriage, &c., being high-priced. As public conveyance became more rapid, certain and cheap, the trade in spars increased, and cheaper articles were prepared for the London market. From ten to fifteen years ago the vendors of spars “did well in swop” (as street-sellers always call barters). The articles with which they tempted housewives were just the sort of article to which it was difficult for inexperienced persons to attach a value. They were massive and handsome ornaments, and the spar-sellers did not fail to expatiate on their many beauties. “God rest Jack Moody’s soul,” said an Irishman, now a crock-seller, to me; “Jack Moody was only his nick-name, but that don’t matter; God rist his sowl and the hivens be his bid. He was the boy to sell the spar-r’s. They was from the cavrents at the bottom of the say, he towld them, or from a new island in the frozen ocean. He did well; God rist him; but he died young.” The articles “swopped” were such as I have described in my account of the tradings of the crock-sellers; and if the “swop” were in favour of the spar-seller, still the customer became possessed of something solid, enduring, and generally handsome.
At the outset of the street or hawking trade, the spar-sellers carried their goods done up in paper, in strong baskets on their heads; the man’s wife sometimes carrying a smaller basket, with less burdensome articles, on her arm. Men have been known to start on a round, with a basket of spars, which would weigh from 1 cwt. to 1-1/2 cwt. (or 12 stone). This, it must be remembered, might have to be borne for three or four miles into the suburbs, before its weight was diminished by a sale. One of these traders told me that twelve years ago he had sold spar watch-stands, weighing above 15 lbs. These stands were generally of a square form; the inner portion being open, except a sort of recess for the watch. “The tick sounds well on spar, I’ve often heard,” said one spar-seller.
Some of the spar ornaments are plain, white, and smooth. Of these many have flowers, or rims, or insects, painted upon them, and in brilliant colours. Those which are now in demand for the street sales, or for itinerant barterings, are--Small microscopes, candlesticks, inkstands, pin-cushions, mugs, paper-holders, match perfumery, and shaving-boxes, etc. The general price of these articles is 6_d._ to the street-seller or hawker, some of the dealers being licensed hawkers. The wholesale price varies from 2_s._ 6_d._ to 5_s._ per dozen; or an average of 3_s._ 9_d._ or 4_s._ Of the larger articles the most saleable are candlesticks, at from 1_s._ to 2_s._ 6_d._ each; from 1_s._ to 1_s._ 6_d._ being the most frequent price. Watch-stands and vases are now, I am told, in small demand. “People’s got stocked, I think,” one man said, “and there’s so much cheap glass and chaney work, that they looks on spars as heavy and old-fashioned.”
Some street-sellers have their spars in covered barrows, the goods being displayed when the top of the barrow is removed, so that the conveyance is serviceable whether the owner be stationary or itinerant. The spar-sellers, however, are reluctant to expose their goods to the weather, as the colours are easily affected.
In this trade I am informed that there are now twelve men, nine of whom are assisted by their wives, and that in the summer months there are eighteen. Their profits are about 15_s._ per week on an average of the whole year, including the metropolis and a wide range of the suburbs. What amount of money may be expended by the public in the street purchase of “spars” I am unable to state, so much being done in the way of barter; but assuming that there are fourteen sellers throughout the year, and that their profits are cent. per cent., there would appear to be about 1000_l._ per annum thus laid out.
Of stone fruit there are now usually six street sellers, and in fine weather eight. Eight or ten years ago there were twenty. The fruit is principally made at Chesterfield in Derbyshire, and is disposed of to the London street-sellers in the swag-shops in Houndsditch. Some of the articles, both as regards form and colour, are well executed; others are far too red or too green; but that, I was told, pleased children best. The most saleable fruits are apples, pears, peaches, apricots, oranges, lemons and cucumbers. The cucumbers, which are sometimes of pot as well as of stone, are often hollow, and are sometimes made to serve for gin-bottles, holding about a quartern.
The price at the swag-shops is 4_s._ 3_d._ for a gross of fruit of all kinds in equal quantities; for a better quality the price is 7_s._ 6_d._ The street-seller endeavours to get 1_d._ each for the lower priced, and 2_d._ for the higher, but has most frequently to be content with 1/2_d._ and 1_d._ The stone fruitmen are itinerant during the week and stationary in the street markets on Saturday, and sometimes other evenings. They carry their stock both in baskets and barrows. One man told me that he always cried, “Pick ’em out! pick ’em out! Half-penny each! Cheapest fruit ever seen! As good to-morrow as last week! Never lose flavour! Ever-lasting fruit.”
Supposing that there are six persons selling stone fruit in the streets through the year, and that each earns--and I am assured that is the full amount--9_s._ weekly (one man said 7_s._ 6_d._ was the limit of his weekly profits in fruit), we find 140_l._ received as profit on these articles, and calculating the gains at 33 per cent., an outlay of 420_l._
The trade in China ornaments somewhat differs from the others I have described under the present head. It is both a street and a public-house trade, and is carried on both in the regular way and by means of raffles. At some public-houses, indeed, the China ornament dealers are called “rafflers.”
The “ornaments” now most generally sold or raffled are Joy and Grief (two figures, one laughing and the other crying); dancing Highlanders; mustard pots in the form of cottages, &c.; grotesque heads, one especially of an old man, which serves as a pepper-box, the grains being thrown through the eyes, nose, and mouth; Queen and Alberts (but not half so well as the others); and, until of late, Smith O’Briens. There are others, also, such as I have mentioned in my account of the general swag-shops, to the windows of many of which they form the principal furniture. Some of these “ornaments” sold “on the sly” can hardly be called obscene, but they are dirty, and cannot be further described.
The most lucrative part of the trade is in the raffling. A street-seller after doing what business he can, on a round or at a stand, during the day, will in the evening resort to public-houses, where he is known, and is allowed to offer his wares to the guests. The ornaments, in public-house sale, are hardly ever offered for less than 6_d._ each, or 6_d._ a pair. The raffling is carried on rapidly and simply. Dice are very rarely used new, and when used, provoke many murmurs from the landlords. The raffler of the China ornaments produces a portable roulette box or table--these tables becoming an established part of the street traffic--eight or ten inches in diameter. What may be called “the board” of some of these “roulettes” is numbered to thirty-two. It is set rapidly spinning on a pivot, a pea is then slipped through a hole in the lid of the box, and, when the motion has ceased, the pea is found in one of the numbered partitions. “Now, gentlemen,” a raffler told me he would say, “try your luck for this beautiful pair of ornaments; six of you at 1_d._ a piece. If you go home rather how came you so, show what you’ve bought for the old lady, and it’ll be all right and peaceful.” If six persons contribute 1_d._ each, the one “spinning” the highest number gains the prize, and is congratulated by the ornament seller on having gained for 1_d._ what was only too cheap at 6_d._ “Why, sir,” said a man who had recently left the trade for another calling, and who was anxious that I should not give any particular description of him, “in case he went back to the raffling,”--“Why, sir, I remember one Monday evening four or five months back, going into a parlour, not a tap-room, mind, where was respectable mechanics. They got to play with me, and got keen, and played until my stock was all gone. If one man stopped raffling, another took his place. I can’t recollect how many ornaments I raffled, but I cleared rather better than 3_s._ 6_d._ When there was no ornaments left they gave me 1_d._ a piece--there was eleven of them then--and a pint of beer to let them have the roulette till 12 o’clock; and away they went at it for beer and screws, and bets of 1_d._ and 2_d._ One young man that had been lucky in winning the ornaments got cleaned out, and staked his ornaments for 2_d._, or for a 1_d._ rather than not play. That sort of thing only happened to me once, to the same extent. If the landlord came into the room, of course they was only playing for drink, or he might have begun about his licence.”
The ornaments are bought at the swag shops I have described, and are nearly all of German make. They are retailed from 1_d._ and sometimes 1/2_d._ to 1_s._ each, and the profit is from 25 to 75 per cent. There are, I am informed, about thirty persons in this trade, two-thirds of them being rafflers, and their receipts being from 25_s._ to 30_s._ weekly. Most of them mix “fancy glass” goods and spars, and other articles, with their “ornament” trade, so that it is not easy to ascertain what is expended upon the china ornaments independently of other wares. If we calculate it at 10_s._ weekly (a low average considering the success of some of the raffles), we find 780_l._ expended in the streets in these ornamental productions.
OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF TEXTILE FABRICS.
These street-folk present perhaps as great a diversity of character as any of which I have been called upon to treat.
Among them are the strong persevering men, who carry rolls of linen or cotton manufacture in packs on their backs, and trudge along holding a yard-wand by the middle, which--it is a not uncommon joke against them--is always worn down an inch or two, by being used as a walking-stick in their long pedestrian journeys. Such, however, is not the case, for the packman--when measuring is resorted to--generally shows the justice of his measure, or invites the purchaser to use her own yard-wand (for women are now their most frequent customers). Some of these men love to tell of the many hundreds of miles they have walked in their time, and in the three kingdoms. The most of those who make London, or any large town their head-quarters, and take regular journeys into the country, are licensed hawkers; those who confine their sales exclusively to London and its immediate vicinity, frequently conduct their business without incurring the annual cost of a licence. The penalty for hawking without a licence is 10_l._, or an imprisonment (in default of payment) not exceeding three months, with a discretionary power of mitigation to the magistrates. Some of these men may be styled hereditary hawkers, having first accompanied and then succeeded their parents on a round; some were in their youth assistants to hawkers; some had been unsuccessful as tallymen when shopkeepers, or travellers for tally-shops, and have resorted to hawking or street-trading, occasionally, in their transactions with different
## parties, blending the tally system with the simple rules of sale for
ready money.
In striking contrast to these sturdy and often astute traders are the street-sellers of lace and millinery, the majority of whom are women. A walk through a street-market, especially on a Saturday evening, will show any one the frequent difference of the established street-milliner to the other female traders surrounding her stall. The milliner, as she is commonly called by the street-folk, wears a clean, and often tasty cap, beneath her closely-fitting bonnet, a cap in which artificial flowers are not wanting, should she sell those adornments. Her shawl is pinned beneath her collar; her gown, if it be old or of poor material, is clean; and she is rarely to be seen in boots or shoes made for men’s wear. Near her stall are stout, coarse-looking Irish girls, with unstringed bonnets, half-ragged shawls, thrown loose round their shoulders, necks red from exposure to the weather, coarse and never brushed, but sometimes scraped, shoes, when shoes are worn, and a general dirtiness of apparel. The street-milliners have been ladies’-maids, working milliners and dress-makers, the wives of mechanics who have been driven to the streets, and who add to the means of the family by conducting a street-trade themselves, with a sprinkling from other classes.
The street-sellers of lace are of the same class as the milliners, but with perhaps less smartness, and carrying on an inferior trade both as regards profit and display.
The street-sellers of boot and stay-laces and of such things as sewing cotton, threads and tapes, when sold separately from more valuable articles, are children and old people, some of whom are infirm, and some blind. The children have, in some instances, been bred to the streets; the old people probably are worn out in street-trades requiring health and strength, and so adopt a less laborious calling, or else they have been driven to it, either from comparatively better circumstances, or by some privation or affliction, in order to avoid the workhouse.
The sale of belts, stockings, braces, straps and garters, is mostly in the hands of men, who, from all that I can learn, are regular street-sellers, who “turn their hands first to this and then to that,” but this portion of street-traffic is often combined with the sale of dog-collars, chains, &c. The trade is more a public-house than a distinct traffic in the street. The landlord of a well-frequented inn in Lambeth told me that every day at least 100 of such street-sellers--not including match-girls and women--entered his house to offer their wares; the greatest number of such sellers was in the evening.
I have so far described what may be called the fair traders, but to them the street-sellers of textile fabrics are not confined. There are besides these, two other classes known as “Duffers” and as “Lumpers,” and sometimes the same man is both “Duffer” and “Lumper.” The two names are often confounded, but an intelligent street-seller, versed in all the arts and mysteries of this trade, told me that he understood by a “Duffer,” a man who sold goods under false pretences, making out that they were smuggled, or even stolen, so as to enhance the idea of their cheapness; whereas a “Lumper” would sell linens, cottons, or silks, which might be really the commodities represented; but which, by some management or other, were made to appear new when they were old, or solid when they were flimsy.
OF THE HABERDASHERY SWAG-SHOPS.
By this name the street-sellers have long distinguished the warehouses, or rather shops, where they purchase their goods. The term _Swag_, or _Swack_, or _Sweg_, is, as was before stated, a Scotch word, meaning a large collection, a “lot.” The haberdashery, however, supplied by these establishments is of a very miscellaneous character; which, perhaps, can best be shown by describing a “haberdashery swag,” to which a street-seller, who made his purchases there, conducted me, and which, he informed me, was one of the most frequented by his fraternity, if not _the_ most frequented, in the metropolis.
The window was neither dingy, nor, as my companion expressed it, “gay.” It was in size, as well as in “dressing,” or “show”--for I heard the arrangement of the window goods called by both those names by street people--half-way between the quiet plainness of a really wholesale warehouse, and the gorgeousness of a retail drapery concern, when a “tremendous sacrifice” befools the public. Not a quarter of an inch of space was lost, and the announcements and prices were written many of them in a bungling school-boy-like hand, while others were the work of a professional “ticket writer,” and show the eagerness of so many of this class of trade to obtain custom. In one corner was this announcement: “To boot-makers. Boot fronts cut to any size or quality.” There was neither boot nor shoe visible, but how a boot front _can be_ cut “to any quality,” is beyond my trade knowledge. Half hidden, and read through laces, was another announcement, sufficiently odd, in a window decorated with a variety of combustible commodities: “Hawkers supplied with fuzees cheaper than any house in London.” On the “ledge,” or the part shelving from the bottom of the window, within the shop, were paper boxes of steel purses with the price marked so loosely as to leave it an open question whether 1_s._ 0-3/4_d._ or 10-3/4_d._ was the cost. There was also a good store of silk purses, marked 2-1/2_d._; bright-coloured ribbons, in a paper box, and done up in small rolls, 1-1/2_d._; cotton reels, four a penny; worsted balls, three a penny; girls’ night-caps, 1-3/4_d._; women’s caps, from 2-3/4_d._ to 7-3/4_d._; (the 3/4_d._ was always in small indistinct characters, but it was a very favourite adjunct); diamond patent mixed pins--London and Birmingham--1_d._ an oz. My companion directed my attention to the little packets of pins: “They’re well done up, sir, as you can see, and in very good and thick and strong pink papers, with ornamental printers’ borders, and plenty of paper for three ounces. The paper’s weighed with the pins, and the price is 1_d._ an oz.; so the paper fetches 1_s._ 4_d._ a pound.” There were also many papers of combs, and one tied outside the packet as a specimen, without a price marked upon them. “The price varies, sir;” said my guide and informant, and I heard the same account from others; “it varies from 1_d._ a pair to such as me; up to 6_d._ or perhaps 1_s._ to a servant-maid what looks innocent.”
From what appeared to be slender rods fitted higher up to the breadth of the window depended “black lace handkerchiefs, 4-3/4_d._;” and cap fronts, some being a round wreath of gauze ornamented with light rose-coloured artificial flowers, and marked “only 5-1/2_d._;” together with lace (or edgings) which hung in festoons, and filled every vacancy. Higher up were braces marked 5_d._; and more lace; and to the back of all was a sort of screen--for it shuts out all view of the inside of the shop--of big-figured shawls (the figures in purple, orange, and crimson) and of silk handkerchiefs: “They’re regular duffers,” I was told, “and very tidy duffers too--very, for it’s a respectable house.”
In the centre of the window ledge was a handsome wreath of artificial flowers, marked 2-1/2_d._ “If a young woman was to go in to buy it at 2-1/2_d._, I’ve seen it myself, sir,” said the street-seller “she’s told that the ticket has got out of its place, for it belonged to the lace beneath, but as she’d made a mistake without thinking of the value, the flowers was 1_s._ 6_d._ to her, though they was cheap at 2_s._ 6_d._”
From this account it will be seen that the swag or wholesale haberdashers are now very general traders; and that they trade “retail” as well as “wholesale.” Twenty or twenty-five years ago, I am informed, the greater part of these establishments were really haberdashery swags; but so fierce became the competition in the trade, so keen the desire “to do business,” that gradually, and more especially within these four or five years, they became “all kinds of swags.”
A highly respectable draper told me that he never could thoroughly understand where hosiery, haberdashery, or drapery, began or ended; for hosiers now were always glovers, and often shirt-makers; haberdashers were always hosiers (at the least), and drapers were everything; so that the change in the character of the shops from which the street-sellers of textile fabrics procure their supplies, is but in accordance with the change in the general drapery trade. The literal meaning of the word haberdashery is unknown to etymologists.
There are now about fifty haberdashery swags resorted to by street-sellers, but only a fifth part of them make the trade to street-sellers a principal, while none make it a sole feature of their business. In the enumeration of the fifty haberdashery “swags,” five are large and handsome shops carried on by “cutting” drapers. Some of these--one in the borough, especially--do not “serve” the street-sellers, except at certain hours, generally from four to six.