Part 12
“No, sir, we’re very little troubled with people larking. I have had young fellows come, half drunk, even though it might be Sunday morning, and say, ‘Guv’ner, what’ll you give me to wear that coat for you, and show off your cut?’ We don’t stand much of their nonsense. I don’t know what such coves are. Perhaps ’torneys’ journeymen, or pot-boys out for a Sunday morning’s spree.” [This was said with a bitterness that surprised me in so quiet-speaking a man.] “In greatcoats and cloaks I don’t do much, but it’s a very good sale when you can offer them well worth the money. I’ve got 10_s._ often for a greatcoat, and higher and lower, oftener lower in course; but 10_s._ is about the card for a good thing. It’s the like with cloaks. Paletots don’t sell well. They’re mostly thinner and poorer cloth to begin with at the tailors--them new-fashioned named things often is so--and so they show when hard worn. Why no, sir, they can be done up, certainly; anything can be touched up; but they get thin, you see, and there’s nothing to work upon as there is in a good cloth greatcoat. You’ll excuse me, sir, but I saw you a little bit since take one of them there square books that a man gives away to people coming this way, as if to knock up the second-hand business, but he won’t, though; I’ll tell you how them slops, if they come more into wear, is sure to injure us. If people gets to wear them low-figured things, more and more, as they possibly may, why where’s the second-hand things to come from? I’m not a tailor, but I understands about clothes, and I believe that no person ever saw anything green in my eye. And if you find a slop thing marked a guinea, I don’t care what it is, but I’ll undertake that you shall get one that’ll wear longer, and look better to the very last, second-hand, at less than half the money, plenty less. It was good stuff and good make at first, and hasn’t been abused, and that’s the reason why it always bangs a slop, because it was good to begin with.
“Trousers sells pretty well. I sell them, cloth ones, from 6_d._ up to 4_s._ They’re cheaper if they’re not cloth, but very seldom less or so low as 6_d._ Yes, the cloth ones at that is poor worn things, and little things too. They’re not men’s, they’re youth’s or boy’s size. Good strong cords goes off very well at 1_s._ and 1_s._ 6_d._, or higher. Irish bricklayers buys them, and paviours, and such like. It’s easy to fit a man with a pair of second-hand trousers. I can tell by his build what’ll fit him directly. Tweeds and summer trousers is middling, but washing things sells worse and worse. It’s an expense, and expenses don’t suit my customers--not a bit of it.
“Waistcoats isn’t in no great call. They’re often worn very hard under any sort of a tidy coat, for a tidy coat can be buttoned over anything that’s ‘dicky,’ and so, you see, many of ’em’s half-way to the rag-shop before they comes to us. Well, I’m sure I can hardly say what sort of people goes most for weskets” [so he pronounced it]. “If they’re light, or there’s anything ‘fancy’ about them, I thinks it’s mothers as makes them up for their sons. What with the strings at the back and such like, it aint hard to make a wesket fit. They’re poor people as buys certainly, but genteel people buys such things as fancy weskets, or how do you suppose they’d all be got through? O, there’s ladies comes here for a bargain, I can tell you, and gentlemen, too; and many on ’em would go through fire for one. Second-hand satins (waistcoats) is good still, but they don’t fetch the tin they did. I’ve sold weskets from 1-1/2_d._ to 4_s._ Well, it’s hard to say what the three-ha’pennies is made of; all sorts of things; we calls them ‘serge.’ Three-pence is a common price for a little wesket. There’s no under-weskets wanted now, and there’s no rolling collars. It was better for us when there was, as there was more stuff to work on. The double-breasted gets scarcer, too. Fashions grows to be cheap things now-a-days.
“I can’t tell you anything about knee-breeches; they don’t come into my trade, and they’re never asked for. Gaiters is no go either. Liveries isn’t a street-trade. I fancy all those sort of things is sent abroad. I don’t know where. Perhaps where people doesn’t know they was liveries. I wouldn’t wear an old livery coat, if it was the Queen’s, for five bob. I don’t think wearing one would hinder trade. You may have seen a black man in a fine livery giving away bills of a slop in Holborn. If we was to have such a thing we’d be pulled up (apprehended) for obstructing.
“I sells a few children’s (children’s clothes), but only a few, and I can’t say so much about them. They sells pretty freely though, and to very decent people. If they’re good, then they’re ready for use. If they ain’t anything very prime, they can be mended--that is, if they was good to begin with. But children’s woollen togs is mostly hardworn and fit only for the ‘devil’ (the machine which tears them up for shoddy). I’ve sold suits, which was tunics and trousers, but no weskets, for 3_s._ 6_d._ when they was tidy. That’s a common price.
“Well, really, I hardly know how much I make every week; far too little, I know that. I could no more tell you how many coats I sell in a year, or how many weskets, than I could tell you how many days was fine, and how many wasn’t. I can carry all in my head, and so I keeps no accounts. I know exactly what every single thing I sell has cost me. In course I must know _that_. I dare say I may clear about 12_s._ bad weeks, and 18_s._ good weeks, more and less both ways, and there’s more bad weeks than good. I have cleared 50_s._ in a good week; and when it’s been nothing but fog and wet, I haven’t cleared 3_s._ 6_d._ But mine’s a better business than common, perhaps. I can’t say what others clears; more and less than I does.”
The profit in this trade, from the best information I could obtain, runs about 50 per cent.
OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF SECOND-HAND BOOTS AND SHOES.
The man who gave me the following account of this trade had been familiar with it a good many years, fifteen he believed, but was by no means certain. I saw at his lodgings a man who was finishing his day’s work there, in cobbling and “translating.” He was not in the employ of my informant, who had two rooms, or rather a floor; he slept in one and let the other to the “translator” who was a relation, he told me, and they went on very well together, as he (the street-seller) liked to sit and smoke his pipe of a night in the translator’s room, which was much larger than his own; and sometimes, when times were “pretty bobbish,” they clubbed together for a good supper of tripe, or had a “prime hot Jemmy a-piece,” with a drop of good beer. A “Jemmy” is a baked sheep’s head. The room was tidy enough, but had the strong odour of shoemaker’s wax proper to the craft.
“I’ve been in a good many street-trades, and others too,” said my informant, “since you want to know, and for a good purpose as well as I can understand it. I was a ’prentice to a shoemaker in Northampton, with a lot more; why, it was more like a factory than anything else, was my master’s, and the place we worked in was so confined and hot, and we couldn’t open the window, that it was worse than the East Ingees. O, I know what they is. I’ve been there. I was so badly treated I ran away from my master, for I had only a father, and he cared nothing about me, and so I broke my indentures. After a good bit of knocking about and living as I could, and starving when I couldn’t, but I never thought of going back to Northampton, I ’listed and was a good bit in the Ingees. Well, never mind, sir, how long, or what happened me when I was soldier. I did nothing wrong, and that ain’t what you was asking about, and I’d rather say no more about it.”
I have met with other street-folk, who had been soldiers, and who were fond of talking of their “service,” often enough to grumble about it, so that I am almost tempted to think my informant had deserted, but I questioned him no further on the subject.
“I had my ups and downs again, sir,” he continued, “when I got back to England. God bless us all; I’m very fond of children, but I never married, and when I’ve been at the worst, I’ve been really glad that I hadn’t no one depending on me. It’s bad enough for oneself, but when there’s others as you must love, what must it be then? I’ve smoked a pipe when I was troubled in mind, and couldn’t get a meal, but could only get a pipe, and baccy’s shamefully dear here; but if I’d had a young daughter now, what good would it have been my smoking a pipe to comfort her? I’ve seen that in people that’s akin to me, and has been badly off, and with families. I had a friend or two in London, and I applied to them when I couldn’t hold out no longer, and they gave me a bit of a rise, so I began as a costermonger. I was living among them as was in that line. Well, now, it’s a pleasant life in fine weather. Why it was only this morning Joe (the translator) was reading the paper at breakfast time;--he gets it from the public-house, and if it’s two, three, or four days old, it’s just as good for us;--and there was 10,000 pines had been received from the West Ingees. There’s a chance for the costermongers, says I, if they don’t go off too dear. Then cherries is in; and I was beginning to wish I was a costermonger myself still, but my present trade is _surer_. My boots and shoes’ll keep. They don’t spoil in hot weather. Cherries and strawberries does, and if it comes thunder and wet, you can’t sell. I worked a barrow, and sometimes had only a bit of a pitch, for a matter of two year, perhaps, and then I got into this trade, as I understood it. I sells all sorts, but not so much women’s or children’s.
“Why, as to prices, there’s two sorts of prices. You may sell as you buy, or you may sell new soled and heeled. They’re never new welted for the streets. It wouldn’t pay a bit. Not long since I had a pair of very good Oxonians that had been new welted, and the very first day I had them on sale--it was a dull drizzly day--a lad tried to prig them. I just caught him in time. Did I give him in charge? I hope I’ve more sense. I’ve been robbed before, and I’ve caught young rips in the act. If it’s boots or shoes they’ve tried to prig, I gives them a stirruping with whichever it is, and a kick, and lets them go.
“Men’s shoes, the regular sort, isn’t a very good sale. I get from 10_d._ to 4_s._ 6_d._ a pair; but the high priced ’uns is either soled and heeled, and mudded well, or they’ve been real well-made things, and not much worn. I’ve had gentlemen’s shooting-shoes sometimes, that’s flung aside for the least thing. The plain shoes don’t go off at all. I think people likes something to cover their stocking-feet more. For cloth button-boots I get from 1_s._--that’s the lowest I ever sold at--to 2_s._ 6_d._ The price is according to what condition the things is in, and what’s been done to them, but there’s no regular price. They’re not such good sale as they would be, because they soon show worn. The black ‘legs’ gets to look very seamy, and it’s a sort of boot that won’t stand much knocking about, if it ain’t right well made at first. I’ve been selling Oxonian button-overs (‘Oxonian’ shoes, which cover the instep, and are closed by being buttoned instead of being stringed through four or five holes) at 3_s._ 6_d._ and 4_s._ but they was really good, and soled and heeled; others I sell at 1_s._ 6_d._ to 2_s._ 3_d._ or 2_s._ 6_d._ Bluchers is from 1_s._ to 3_s._ 6_d._ Wellingtons from 1_s._--yes, indeed, I’ve had them as low as 1_s._, and perhaps they weren’t very cheap at that, them very low-priced things never is, neither new nor old--from 1_s._ to 5_s._; but Wellingtons is more for the shops than the street. I do a little in children’s boots and shoes. I sell them from 3_d._ to 15_d._ Yes, you can buy lower than 3_d._, but I’m not in that way. They sell quite as quick, or quicker, than anything. I’ve sold children’s boots to poor women that wanted shoeing far worse than the child; aye, many a time, sir. Top boots (they’re called ‘Jockeys’ in the trade) isn’t sold in the streets. I’ve never had any, and I don’t see them with others in my line. O no, there’s no such thing as Hessians or back-straps (a top-boot without the light-coloured top) in my trade now. Yes, I always have a seat handy where anybody can try on anything in the street; no, sir, no boot-hooks nor shoe-horn; shoe-horns is rather going out, I think. If what we sell in the streets won’t go on without them they won’t be sold at all. A good many will buy if the thing’s only big enough--they can’t bear pinching, and don’t much care for a fine fit.
“Well, I suppose I take from 30_s._ to 40_s._ a week, 14_s._ is about my profit--that’s as to the year through.
“I sell little for women’s wear, though I do sell their boots and shoes sometimes.”
OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF OLD HATS.
The two street-sellers of old coats, waistcoats, and trousers, and of boots and shoes, whose statements precede this account, confined their trade, generally, to the second-hand merchandize I have mentioned as more especially constituting their stock. But this arrangement does not wholly prevail. There are many street-traders “in second-hand,” perhaps two-thirds of the whole number, who sell indiscriminately anything which they can buy, or what they hope to turn out an advantage; but even they prefer to deal more in one particular kind of merchandize than another, and this is most of all the case as concerns the street-sale of old boots and shoes. Hats, however, are among the second-hand wares which the street-seller rarely vends unconnected with other stock. I was told that this might be owing to the hats sold in the streets being usually suitable only for one class, grown men; while clothes and boots and shoes are for boys as well as men. Caps may supersede the use of hats, but nothing can supersede the use of boots or shoes, which form the _steadiest_ second-hand street-trade of any.
There are, however, occasions, when a street-seller exerts himself to become possessed of a cheap stock of hats, by the well-known process of “taking a quantity,” and sells them without, or with but a small admixture of other goods. One man who had been lately so occupied, gave me the following account. He was of Irish parentage, but there was little distinctive in his accent:--
“Hats,” he said, “are about the awkwardest things of any for the streets. Do as you will, they require a deal of room, so that what you’ll mostly see isn’t hats quite ready to put on your head and walk away in, but to be made ready. I’ve sold hats that way though, I mean ready to wear, and my father before me has sold hundreds--yes, I’ve been in the trade all my life--and it’s the best way for a profit. You get, perhaps, the old hat in, or you buy it at 1_d._ or 2_d._ as may be, and so you kill two birds. But there’s very little of that trade except on Saturday nights or Sunday mornings. People wants a decent tile for Sundays and don’t care for work-days. I never hawks hats, but I sells to those as do. My customers for hats are mechanics, with an odd clerk or two. Yes, indeed, I sell hats now and then to my own countrymen to go decent to mass in. I go to mass myself as often as I can; sometimes I go to vespers. No, the Irish in this trade ain’t so good in going to chapel as they ought, but it takes such a time; not just while you’re there, but in shaving, and washing, and getting ready. My wife helps me in selling second-hand things; she’s a better hand than I am. I have two boys; they’re young yet, and I don’t know what we shall bring them up to; perhaps to our own business; and children seems to fall naturally into it, I think, when their fathers and mothers is in it. They’re at school now.
“I have sold hats from 6_d._ to 3_s._ 6_d._, but very seldom 3_s._ 6_d._ The 3_s._ 6_d._ ones would wear out two new gossamers, I know. It’s seldom you see beaver hats in the street-trade now, they’re nearly all silk. They say the beavers have got scarce in foreign parts where they’re caught. I haven’t an idea how many hats I sell in a year, for I don’t stick to hats, you see, sir, but I like doing in them as well or better than in anything else. Sometimes I’ve sold nothing but hats for weeks together, wholesale and retail that is. It’s only the regular-shaped hats I can sell. If you offer swells’ hats, people’ll say: ‘I may as well buy a new “wide-awake” at once.’ I have made 20_s._ in a week on hats alone. But if I confined my trade to them now, I don’t suppose I could clear 5_s._ one week with another the year through. It’s only the hawkers that can sell them in wet weather. I wish we could sell under cover in all the places where there’s what you call ‘street-markets.’ It would save poor people that lives by the street many a twopence by their things not being spoiled, and by people not heeding the rain to go and examine them.”
OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF WOMEN’S SECOND-HAND APPAREL.
This trade, as regards the sale to retail customers in the streets, is almost entirely in the hands of women, seven-eighths of whom are the wives, relatives, or connections of the men who deal in second-hand male apparel. But gowns, cloaks, bonnets, &c., are collected more largely by men than by women, and the wholesale old clothes’ merchants of course deal in every sort of habiliment. Petticoat and Rosemary-lanes are the grand marts for this street-sale, but in Whitecross-street, Leather-lane, Old-street (St. Luke’s), and some similar Saturday-night markets in poor neighbourhoods, women’s second-hand apparel is sometimes offered. “It is often of little use offering it in the latter places,” I was told by a lace-seller who had sometimes tried to do business in second-hand shawls and cloaks, “because you are sure to hear, ‘Oh, we can get them far cheaper in Petticoat-lane, when we like to go as far.’”
The different portions of female dress are shown and sold in the street, as I have described in my account of Rosemary-lane, and of the trading of the men selling second-hand male apparel. There is not so much attention paid to “set off” gowns that there is to set off coats. “If the gown be a washing gown,” I was informed, “it is sure to have to be washed before it can be worn, and so it is no use bothering with it, and paying for soap and labour beforehand. If it be woollen, or some stuff that wont wash, it has almost always to be altered before it is worn, and so it is no use doing it up perhaps to be altered again.” Silk goods, however, are carefully enough re-glossed and repaired. Most of the others “just take their chance.”
A good-looking Irishwoman gave me the following account. She had come to London and had been a few years in service, where she saved a little money, when she married a cousin, but in what degree of cousinship she did not know. She then took part in his avocation as a crockman, and subsequently as a street-seller of second-hand clothes.
“Why, yis, thin and indeed, sir,” she said, “I did feel rather quare in my new trade, going about from house to house, the Commercial-road and Stepney way, but I soon got not to mind, and indeed thin it don’t matter much what way one gets one’s living, so long as it’s honest. O, yis, I know there’s goings on in old clothes that isn’t always honest, but my husband’s a fair dealing man. I felt quarer, too, whin I had to sell in the strate, but I soon got used to that, too; and it’s not such slavish work as the ‘crocks.’ But we sometimes ‘crocks’ in the mornings a little still, and sells in the evenings. No, not what we’ve collected--for that goes to Mr. Isaac’s market almost always--but stock that’s ready for wear.
“For _Cotton Gowns_ I’ve got from 9_d._ to 2_s._ 3_d._ O, yis, and indeed thin, there’s gowns chaper, 4_d._ and 6_d._, but there’s nothing to be got out of them, and we don’t sell them. From 9_d._ to 18_d._ is the commonest price. It’s poor people as buys: O, yis, and indeed thin it is, thim as has families, and must look about thim. Many’s the poor woman that’s said to me, ‘Well, and indeed, marm, it isn’t my inclination to chapen anybody as I thinks is fair, and I was brought up quite different to buying old gowns, I assure you’--yis, that’s often said; no, sir, it isn’t my countrywomen that says it (laughing), it’s yours. ‘I wouldn’t think,’ says she, ‘of offering you 1_d._ less than 1_s._, marm, for that frock for my daughter, marm, but it’s such a hard fight to live.’ Och, thin, and it is indeed; but to hear some of them talk you’d think they was born ladies. _Stuff-gowns_ is from 2_d._ to 8_d._ higher than cotton, but they don’t sell near so well. I hardly know why. Cotton washes, and if a dacent woman gets a chape second-hand cotton, she washes and does it up, and it seems to come to her fresh and new. That can’t be done with stuff. _Silk_ is very little in my way, but silk gowns sell from 3_s._ 6_d._ to 4_s._ Of satin and velvet gowns I can tell you nothing; they’re never in the streets.