Although the execution broad-sheet I have cited may be the best, taken altogether, which has fallen under my observation, nearly all I have seen have one characteristic—the facts can be plainly understood. The narrative, embracing trial, biography, &c., is usually prepared by the printer, being a condensation from the accounts in the newspapers, and is perhaps intelligible, simply because it is a condensation. It is so, moreover, in spite of bad grammar, and sometimes perhaps from an unskilful connection of the different eras of the trial.

When the circumstances of the case permit, or can be at all constrained to do so, the Last Sorrowful Lamentation contains a “Love Letter,” written—as one patterer told me he had occasionally expressed it, when he thought his audience suitable—“from the depths of the condemned cell, with the condemned pen, ink, and paper.” The style is stereotyped, and usually after this fashion:

If it be not feasible to have a love-letter—which can be addressed to either wife or sweetheart—in the foregoing style, a “last letter” is given, and this can be written to father, mother, son, daughter, or friend; and is usually to the following purport:

I have hitherto spoken of the Last Sorrowful Lamentation sheets. The next broad-sheet is the “Life, Trial, Confession, and Execution.” This presents the same matter as the “Lamentation,” except that a part—perhaps the judge’s charge at the trial, or perhaps the biography—is removed to make room for the “Execution,” and occasionally for a portion of the “Condemned Sermon.” To judge by the productions I treat of, both subjects are marvelously similar on all occasions. I cite a specimen of the Condemned Sermon, as preached, according to the broad-sheet, before Hewson, condemned for the murder of a turnkey. It will be seen that it is of a character to fit any condemned sermon whatever:

The “Execution” is detailed generally in this manner. I cite the “Life, Trial, Confession and Execution of Mary May, for the Murder of W. Constable, her Half-brother, by Poison, at Wix, near Manningtree:”

I cannot refrain from calling the reader’s attention to the “copy of verses” touching Mary May. I give them entire, for they seem to me to contain all the elements which made the old ballads popular—the rushing at once into the subject—and the homely reflections, though crude to all educated persons, are, nevertheless, well adapted to enlist the sympathy and appreciation of the class of hearers to whom they are addressed:

COPY OF VERSES.

This mode of procedure in “gallows” literature, and this style of composition, have prevailed for from twenty to thirty years. I find my usual impossibility to fix a date among these street-folk; but the Sorrowful Lamentation sheet was unknown until the law for prolonging the term of existence between the trial and death of the capitally-convicted, was passed. “Before that, sir,” I was told, “there wasn’t no time for a Lamentation; sentence o’ Friday, and scragging o’ Monday. So we had only the Life, Trial, and Execution.” Before the year 1820, the Execution broad-sheets, &c., were “got up” in about the same, though certainly in an inferior and more slovenly manner than at present; and one copy of verses often did service for the canticles of all criminals condemned to be hung. These verses were to sacred or psalm tunes, such as Job, or the Old Hundredth. I was told by an aged gentleman that he remembered, about the year 1812, hearing a song, or, as he called it, “stave,” of this description, not only given in the street with fiddle and nasal twang, to the tune of the Old Hundredth, but commencing in the very words of Sternhold and Hopkins—

These “death-verses,” as they were sometimes called, were very frequently sung by blind people, and in some parts of the country blind men and women still sing—generally to the accompaniment of a fiddle—the “copy of verses.” A London chaunter told me, that, a few years back, he heard a blind man at York announce the “verses” as from the “solitudes” of the condemned cell. At present the broad-sheet sellers usually sing, or chaunt, the copy of verses.

An intelligent man, now himself a street-trader, told me that one of the latest “execution songs” (as he called them) which he remembered to have heard in the old style—but “no doubt there were plenty after that, as like one another as peas in a boiling”—was on the murder of Weare, at Elstree, in Hertfordshire. He took great interest in such things when a boy, and had the song in question by heart, but could only depend upon his memory for the first and second verses:

Another street paper-worker whom I spoke to on the subject, and to whom I read these two verses, said: “That’s just the old thing, sir; and it’s quite in old Jemmy Catnach’s style, for he used to write werses—anyhow, he said he did, for I’ve heard him say so, and I’ve no doubt he did in reality—it was just his favourite style, I know, but the march of intellect put it out. It did so.”

In the most “popular” murders, the street “papers” are a mere recital from the newspapers, but somewhat more brief, when the suspected murderer is in custody; but when the murderer has not been apprehended, or is unknown, “then,” said one Death-hunter, “we has our fling, and I’ve hit the mark a few chances that way. We had, at the werry least, half-a-dozen coves pulled up in the slums that we printed for the murder of ‘The Beautiful Eliza Grimwood, in the Waterloo-road.’ I did best on Thomas Hopkins, being the guilty man—I think he was Thomas Hopkins—’cause a strong case was made out again him.”

I received similar accounts of the street-doings in the case of “mysterious murders,” as those perpetrations are called by the paper workers, when the criminal has escaped, or was unknown. Among those leaving considerable scope to the patterer’s powers of invention were the murders of Mr. Westwood, a watchmaker in Prince’s-street, Leicester-square; of Eliza Davis, a bar-maid, in Frederick-street, Hampstead-road; and of the policeman in Dagenham, Essex. One of the most successful “cocks,” relating to murders which actually occurred, was the “Confession to the Rev. Mr. Cox, Chaplain of Aylesbury Gaol, of John Tawell the Quaker.” I had some conversation with one of the authors of this “Confession,”—for it was got up by three patterers; and he assured me that “it did well, and the facts was soon in some of the newspapers—as what we ’riginates often is.” This sham confession was as follows:

The “confession” of Rush to the chaplain of Norwich Castle, was another production which was remunerative to the patterers. “There was soon a bit of it in the newspapers,” said one man, “for us and them treads close on one another’s heels. The newspapers ‘screeved’ about Rush, and his mother, and his wife; but we, in our patter, made him confess to having murdered his old grandmother fourteen years back, and how he buried her under the apple-tree in the garden, and how he murdered his wife as well.”

These ulterior Confessions are very rarely introduced, in lieu of some matter displaced, into the broad-sheet, but form separate bills. It was necessary to mention them here, however, and so preserve the sequence of the whole of the traffic consequent upon a conviction for murder, in this curious trade.

Sometimes the trial, &c., form also separate bills, as well as being embodied afterwards in the Sorrowful Lamentation. This is only, however, in cases which are deemed important. One of the papers I obtained, for instance, is the “Trial of Mr. and Mrs. Manning for the Murder of Mr. Patrick O’Connor.” The trial alone occupies a broad-sheet; it is fairly “got up.” A portrait of Mr. Patrick O’Connor heads the middle column. From the presence of a fur collar to the coat or cloak, and of what is evidently an order with its insignia, round the neck, I have little doubt that the portrait of Mr. O’Connor was originally that of the sovereign in whose service O’Connor was once an excise-officer—King William IV.

The last publication to which the trade has recourse is “the book.” This is usually eight pages, but sometimes only four of a larger size. In authorship, matter, or compilation, it differs little from the narratives I have described. The majority of these books are prepared by one man. They are in a better form for being preserved as a record than is a broad-sheet, and are frequently sold, and almost always offered by the patterers when they cry a new case on a sheet, as “people that loves such reading likes to keep a good account of the best by them; and so, when I’ve sold Manning’s bills, I’ve often shoved off Rush’s books.” The books, like the bills, have generally the letters and the copy of verses.

Some of these books have the title-page set forth in full display,—for example: “Horrible Murder and Mutilation of Lucy Game, aged 15, by her Cruel Brother, William Game, aged 9, at Westmill, Hertfordshire. His Committal and Confession. With a Copy of Letter. Also, Full Particulars of the Poisonings in Essex.” Here, as there was no execution, the matter was extended, to include the poisonings in Essex. The title I have quoted is expanded into thirteen lines. Sometimes the title-page is adorned with a portrait. One, I was told, which was last employed as a portrait of Calcraft, had done severe service since Courvoisier’s time,—for my informant thought that Courvoisier was the original. It is the bust of an ill-looking man, with coat and waistcoat fitting with that unwrinkled closeness which characterises the figures in tailors’ “fashions.”

The above style of work is known in the trade as “the book;” but other publications, in the book or pamphlet form, are common enough. In some I have seen, the title-page is a history in little. I cite one of these:—“Founded on Facts. The Whitby Tragedy; or, the Gambler’s Fate. Containing the Lives of Joseph Carr, aged 21, and his sweetheart, Maria Leslie, aged 19, who were found Dead, lying by each other, on the morning of the 23rd of May. Maria was on her road to Town to buy some Ribbon, &c., for her Wedding Day, when her lover in a state of intoxication fired at her, and then run to rob his prey, but finding it to be his Sweetheart, reloaded his Gun, placed the Muzzle to his Mouth, and blew out his Brains, all through cursed Cards, Drink, &c. Also, an affectionate Copy of Verses.”

To show the extent of the trade in execution broad-sheets, I obtained returns of the number of copies relating to the principal executions of late, that had been sold:

Of Thurtell I could obtain no accounts—“it was so long ago;” but the sale, I was told, was enormous. Reckoning that each copy was sold for 1d. (the regular price in the country, where the great sale is,) the money expended for such things amounts to upwards of 48,500l. in the case of the six murderers above given. All this number was printed and got up in London; a few “broad-sheets” concerning Rush were printed also in Norwich.

Touching the issue of “cocks,” a person connected with the trade calculated for me, from data at his command, that 3,456 copies were struck off weekly, and sold in the streets, in the metropolis; and reckoning them at only a ½d. each, we have the sum of 7l. 4s. spent every week in this manner. At this rate, there must be 179,712 copies of “cocks” printed in a year, on which the public expend no less than 374l. 8s.

Of the style of illustrations usually accompanying this class of street literature the two large engravings here given are fac similes—while the smaller ones are faithful copies of the average embellishments to the halfpenny ballads. On another occasion I shall speak at length on “Street-Art.”

Of the Street-sellers of Conundrums.

Among the more modern street sales are “conundrums,” generally vended, both in the shops and the streets, as “Nuts to Crack,” when not in the form of books. This is another of the “broad-sheets,” and is sufficiently clever and curious in its way.

In the centre, at the top, is the “Wonderful Picture,” with the following description: “This Picture when looked at from a particular point of view, will not only appear perfect in all respects and free from distortion, but the figures will actually appear to stand out in relief from the paper.” The wonderful picture, which is a rude imitation of a similar toy picture sold in a box, “with eye-piece complete,” at the shops, presents a distorted view of a church-spire, a light-house, a donjon-keep, castellated buildings backed by mountains, a moat on which are two vessels, an arch surmounted by a Britannia, a palm-tree (I presume), and a rampart, or pier, or something that way, on which are depicted two figures, with the gestures of elocutionists. The buildings are elongated, like shadows at sunset or sunrise. What may be the “particular point of view” announced in the description of the Wonderful Picture, is not described in the “Nuts,” but the following explanation is given in a little book, published simultaneously, and entitled, “The Nutcrackers, a Key to Nuts to Crack, or Enigmatical Repository:”

Below the “Wonderful Picture” are other illustrations; and the border of the broad-sheet presents a series of what may be called pictorial engravings. The first is,

When a clever patterer “works conundrums”—for the trade is in the hands of the pattering class—he selects what he may consider the best, and reads or repeats them in the street, sometimes with and sometimes without the answer. But he does not cripple the probable quickness of his sale by a slavish adherence to what is in type. He puts the matter, as it were, personally. “What gentleman is it,” one man told me he would ask, “in this street, that has—

You can learn for a penny. Or sometimes I’ll go on with the patter, thus,” he continued, “What lady is it that we have all seen, and who can say truly—

More than once people have sung out ‘the Queen,’ for they seem to think that the momentum of might couldn’t fit any one else. It’s ‘thought’ as is the answer, but it wouldn’t do to let people think it’s anything of the sort. It must seem to fit somebody. If I see a tailor’s name on a door, as soon as I’ve passed the corner of the street, and sometimes in the same street, I’ve asked—

‘Because he’s always cutting out.’ I have the same questions for other tradesmen, and for gentlemen and ladies in this neighbourhood, and no gammon. All for a penny. Nuts to Crack, a penny. A pair of Nutcrackers to crack ’em, only one penny.”

Sometimes this man, who perhaps is the smartest in the trade, will take a bolder flight still, and when he knows the residence of any professional or public man, he will, if the allusion be complimentary, announce his name, or—if there be any satire—indicate by a motion of the head, or a gesture of the hand, the direction of his residence. My ingenuous, and certainly ingenious, informant obliged me with a few instances:—“In Whitechapel parish I’ve said—it ain’t in the print, it was only in the patter—‘Why won’t the Reverend Mr. Champneys lay up treasures on earth?’—‘Because he’d rather lay up treasures in heaven.’ That’s the reverend gentleman not far from this spot; but in this sheet—with nearly 100 engravings by the first artists, only a penny—I have other questions for other parsons, not so easy answered; nuts as is hard to crack. ‘Why is the Reverend Mr. Popjoy,’ or the Honourable Lawyer Bully, or Judge Wiggem,—and then I just jerks my thumb, sir, if it’s where I know or think such people live—‘Why is the Reverend Mr. Popjoy (or the others) like two balloons, one in the air to the east, and the ’tother in the air to the west, in this parish of St. George’s, Hanover-square?’ There’s no such question, and as it’s a sort of a ‘cock,’ of course there’s no answer. I don’t know one. But a gentleman’s servant once sung out: ‘’Cause he’s uppish.’ And a man in a leather apron once said: ‘He’s a raising the wind,’ which was nonsense. But I like that sort of interruption, and have said—‘You’ll not find that answer in the Nutcrackers,’ only a penny—and, Lord knows, I told the truth when I said so, and it helps the sale. No fear of any one’s finding out all what’s in the sheet before I’m out of the ‘drag.’ Not a bit. And you must admit that any way it’s a cheap pennorth.” That it is a cheap harmless pennyworth is undeniable.

The street-sale of conundrums is carried on most extensively during a week or two before Christmas; and on summer evenings, when the day’s work is, or ought to be, over even among the operatives of the slop employers. As the conundrum patterer requires an audience, he works the quieter streets, preferring such as have no horse-thoroughfare—as in some of the approaches from the direction of Golden-square to Regent-street. The trade is irregularly pursued, none following it all the year; and from the best information I could acquire, it appears that fifteen men may be computed as working conundrums for two months throughout the twelve, and clearing 10s. 6d. weekly, per individual. The cost of the “Nuts to Crack” (when new) is 5d. a doz. to the seller; but old “Nuts” often answer the purpose of the street-seller, and may be had for about half the price; the cost of the “Nut-crackers” 2s. to 2s. 6d. It may be calculated, then, that to realize the 10s. 6d., 15s. must be taken. This shows the street expenditure in “Nuts to Crack” and “Nut-crackers” to be 90l. yearly.

Of the Street-sellers of Comic Exhibitions, Magical Delusions, &c.

The street sale of “Comic Exhibitions” (properly so called) is, of course, as modern as the last autumn and winter; and it is somewhat curious that the sale of any humorous, or meant to be humorous sheet of engravings, is now becoming very generally known in the street sale as a “Comic Exhibition.” Among these—as I have before intimated—are many caricatures of the Pope, the Church of Rome, Cardinal Wiseman, the Church of England, the Bishop of London (or any bishop or dignitary), or of any characteristic of the conflicting creeds. In many of these, John Bull figures personally, and so does the devil.

The Comic Exhibition (proper) is certainly a very cheap pennyworth. No. 1 is entitled, “The Ceremonial of the Opening of the Great Exhibition, in 1851, with Illustrations of the Contributions of All Nations.” The “contributions,” however, are reserved for Nos. 2 and 3. Two larger “cuts,” at the head of the broad-sheet, may be considered geographical, as regards the first, and allegorical as regards the second. “Table Bay” presents a huge feeder (evidently), and the “Cape of Good Hope” is a spare man obsequiously bowing to the table and its guest in good hope of a dinner. Of the Sandwich Islands and of Hung(a)ry, the “exhibition” is of the same description. The second larger cut shows the Crystal Palace ascending by the agency of a balloon, a host of people of all countries looking on. Then comes the “Procession from Palace-yard to Hyde Park.” The first figure in this procession is described as “Beefeaters piping hot and well puffed out,” though there is but one beefeater, with head larger than his body and legs ridiculously small, (as have nearly all the sequent figures), smoking a pipe as if it were a trombone, duly followed by “Her Majesty’s Spiritual Body-guard” (five beefeaters, drunk), and by “Prince Albert blowing his own trumpet” (from the back of a very sorry steed), with “Mops and brooms,” and a “Cook-oo” (a housemaid and cook) as his supporters. Then follow figures, grotesque enough, of which the titles convey the character: “A famous Well-in-Town;” “Nae Peer-ye;” “Humorous Estimates” (Mr. Hume); “A Jew-d’ esprit” (Mr. D’Israeli); “An exemplification of Cupidity in Pummicestone” (Lord Palmerston); “Old Geese” and “Young Ducks” (old and angry-looking and young and pretty women); “Some gentlemen who patronise Moses in the Minories” (certainly no credit to the skill of a tailor); “A Jew Lion” (M. Jullien); “Fine high screams” (ice-creams) and “Capers” (chorister boys and ballet-girls); “Hey-day, you don’t take advantage here” (Joseph Ady); and “Something to give the milk a head” (a man with a horse’s head on a tray). These, however, are but a portion of the figures. The Comic Exhibition-sheet contains ninety such figures, independent of those in the two cuts mentioned as headings.

“Galleries of Comicalities,” or series of figures sometimes satirically, sometimes grotesquely given without any aim at satire, are also sold by the same parties, and are often announced as a “Threepenny gallery for a penny!—and dirt cheap at threepence. As big as a newspaper.”

Another broad-sheet sold this winter in the streets is entitled, “Optical and Magical Delusions,” and was announced as “Dedicated to and Prepared for his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales—the only original copy.” The engravings are six in number, and are in three rows, each accompanying engraving being reversed from its fellow: where the head is erect on one side, it is downward on the other. The first figure is a short length of a very plain woman, while on the opposite side is that of a very plain man, both pleased and smirking in accordance with a line below: “O what joy when our lips shall meet!” “Cat-a-gorical” is a spectacled and hooded cat. “Dog-matical” is a dog with the hat, wig, and cane once held proper to a physician. “Cross purposes” is an austere lady in a monster cap, while her opposite husband is pointing bitterly to a long bill. The purport of these figures is shown in the following

Then there are the “Magical Figures,” or rude street imitations of Dr. Paris’ ingenious toy, called the “Thaumascope.” Beside these are what at the first glance appear mere black, and very black, marks, defining no object; but a closer examination shows the outlines of a face, or of a face and figure. Of such there are sometimes four on a broad-sheet, but they are also sold separately, both in the streets and the small stationers’ shops. When the white or black portion of the paper is cut away (for both colours are so prepared), what remains, by a disposition of the light, throws a huge shadow of a grotesque figure on the wall, which may be increased or diminished according to the motions of the exhibitor. The shadow-figures sold this winter by one of my informants were of Mr. and Mrs. Manning, the Queen, Prince Albert, the Princess Royal, and the Prince of Wales; “but you see, sir,” observed the man, “the Queen and the Prince does for any father and mother—for she hasn’t her crown on—and the Queen’s kids for anybody’s kids.”

I mention these matters more particularly, as it certainly shows something of a change in the winter-evenings’ amusements of the children of the working-classes. The principal street customers for these penny papers were mechanics, who bought them on their way home for the amusement of their families. Boys, however, bought almost as many.

The sale of these papers is carried on by the same men as I have described working conundrums. A superior patterer, of course, shows that his magical delusions and magical figures combine all the wonders of the magic lantern and the dissolving views, “and all for one penny.” The trade is carried on only for a short time in the winter as regards the magical portion; and I am informed that, including the “Comic Exhibitions,” it extends to about half of the sum taken for conundrums, or to about 45l.

Of the Street-sellers of Play-Bills.

The sellers of play-bills carry on a trade which is exceedingly uncertain, and is little remunerative. There are now rather more than 200 people selling play-bills in London, but the number has sometimes been as high as 400. “Yes, indeed,” a theatrical gentleman said to me, “and if a dozen more theatres were opened to-morrow, why each would have more than its twenty bill-sellers the very first night. Where they come from, or what they are, I haven’t a notion.”

The majority of the play-bill sellers are either old or young, the sexes being about equally engaged in this traffic. Some of them have followed the business from their childhood. I met with very few indeed who knew anything of theatres beyond the names of the managers and of the principal performers, while some do not even enjoy that small modicum of knowledge, and some can neither read nor write. The boys often run recklessly alongside the cabs which are conveying persons to the theatre, and so offer their bills for sale. One of these youths said to me, when I spoke of the danger incurred, “The cabman knows how to do it, sir, when I runs and patters; and so does his hoss.” An intelligent cabman, however, who was in the habit of driving parties to the Lyceum, told me that these lads clung to his cab as he drove down to Wellington-street in such a way, for they seemed never to look before them, that he was in constant fear lest they should be run over. Ladies are often startled by a face appearing suddenly at the cab window, “and thro’ my glass,” said my informant, “a face would look dirtier than it really is.” And certainly a face gliding along with the cab, as it were, no accompanying body being visible, on a winter’s night, while the sound of the runner’s footsteps is lost in the noise of the cab, has much the effect of an apparition.

I did not hear of one person who had been in any way connected with the stage, even as a supernumerary, resorting to play-bill selling when he could not earn a shilling within the walls of a theatre. These bill-sellers, for the most part, confine themselves, as far as I could ascertain, to that particular trade. The youths say that they sometimes get a job in errand-going in the daytime, but the old men and women generally aver they can do nothing else. An officer, who, some years back, had been on duty at a large theatre, told me that at that time the women bill-sellers earned a trifle in running errands for the women of the town who attended the theatres; but, as they were not permitted to send any communication into the interior of the house, their earnings that way were insignificant, for they could only send in messages by any other “dress woman” entering the theatre subsequently.

In the course of my inquiries last year, I met with a lame woman of sixty-eight, who had been selling play-bills for the last twelve years. She had been, for six or eight months before she adopted that trade, the widow of a poor mechanic, a carpenter. She had first thought of resorting to that means of a livelihood owing to a neighbouring old woman having been obliged to relinquish her post from sickness, when my informant “succeeded her.” In this way, she said, many persons “succeeded” to the business, as the recognised old hands were jealous of and uncivil to any additional new comers, but did not object to a “successor.” These parties generally know each other; they murmur if the Haymarket hands, for instance, resort to the Lyceum for any cause, or vice versâ, thus over-stocking the business, but they offer no other opposition. The old woman further informed me that she commenced selling play-bills at Astley’s, and then realized a profit of 4s. per week. When the old Amphitheatre was burnt down, she went to the Victoria; but “business was not what it was,” and her earnings were from 6d. to 1s. a week less; and this, she said, although the Victoria was considered one of the most profitable stations for the play-bill seller, the box-keeper there seldom selling any bill in the theatre. “The boxes,” too, at this house, more frequently buy them outside. Another reason why “business” was better at the Victoria than elsewhere was represented to me, by a person familiar with the theatres, to be this: many go to the Victoria who cannot read, or who can read but imperfectly, and they love to “make-believe” they are “good scholards” by parading the consulting of a play-bill!

On my visit the bill-sellers at the Victoria were two old women (each a widow for many years), two young men, besides two or three, though there are sometimes as many as six or seven children. The old women “fell into the business” as successors by virtue of their predecessors’ leaving it on account of sickness. The children were generally connected with the older dealers. The young men had been in this business from boyhood; some sticking to the practice of their childhood unto manhood, or towards old age. The number at the Victoria is now, I am informed, two or three more, as the theatre is often crowded. The old woman told me that she had known two and even four visitors to the theatre club for the purchase of a bill, and then she had sometimes to get farthings for them.

A young fellow—who said he believed he was only eighteen, but certainly looked older—told me that he was in the habit of selling play-bills, but not regularly, as he sometimes had a job in carrying a board, or delivering bills at a corner, “or the likes o’ that;”—he favoured me with his opinion of the merits of the theatres he was practically acquainted with as regarded their construction for the purposes of the bill-seller. His mother, who had been dead a few years, had sold bills, and had put him into the business. His ambition seemed to be to become a general bill-sticker. He could not write but could read very imperfectly.

“Vy, you see, sir,” he said, “there’s sets off. At the Market (Haymarket), now, there’s this: there’s only one front, so you may look sharp about for there goes, boxes, pit, and gallery. The ’Delphis as good that way, and so is the Surrey, but them one’s crowded too much. The Lyceum’s built shocking orkered. Vy, the boxes is in one street, and the pit in another, and the gallery in another! It’s true, sir. The pit’s the best customer in most theatres, I think. Ashley’s and the Wick is both spoiled that way—Ashley’s perticler—as the gallery’s a good step from the pit and boxes; at the Wick it’s round the corner. But the shilling gallery aint so bad at Ashley’s. Sadler’s Wells I never tried, it’s out of the way, and I can’t tell you much about the ’Lympic or the Strand. The Lane is middling. I don’t know that either plays or actors makes much difference to me. Perhaps it’s rather vorser ven it’s anything werry prime, as everybody seems to know every think about it aforehand. No, sir, I can’t say, sir, that Mr. Macready did me much good. I sometimes runs along by a cab because I’ve got a sixpence from a swell for doing it stunnin’, but werry seldom, and I don’t much like it; though ven you’re at it you don’t think of no fear. I makes 3s. or rather more a week at bill-selling, and as much other vays. I never saw a play but once at the Wick. I’d rather be at a Free and Heasy. I don’t know as I knows any of the actors or actresses, either hes or shes.”

The sellers of play-bills purchase their stock of the printer, at 3s. 4d. the hundred, or in that proportion for half or quarter-hundreds. If a smaller quantity be purchased, the charge is usually thirteen for 6d.; though they used to be only twelve for 6d. These sellers are among the poorest of the poor; after they have had one meal, they do not know how to get another. They reside in the lowest localities, and some few are abandoned and profligate in character. They reckon it a good night to earn 1s. clear, but upon an average they clear but 3s. per week. They lose sometimes by not selling out their nightly stock. What they have left, they are obliged to sell for waste-paper at 2d. per lb. Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide are generally their best times—they will then make 9d. per night clear. The printer of the play-bills prints but a certain number, the demand being nearly ascertained week by week. These are all sold (by the printer or some person appointed) to the regular customers, in preference to others, but the “irregulars” can get supplied, though often not without trouble. The profit on all sold is rather more than cent. per cent. As I have intimated, when some theatres are closed, the bill-sellers are driven to others; and as the demand is necessarily limited, a superflux of sellers affects the profits, and then 2s. 6d. is considered a good week’s work. During the opera season, I am told, a few mechanics, out of work, will sell bills there and books of the opera, making about 6s. a week, and doing better than the regular hands, as they have a better address and are better clad.

Taking the profits at 3s. a week at cent. per cent. on the outlay, and reckoning 200 sellers, including those at the saloons, concert-rooms, &c., we find that 60l. is now expended weekly on play-bills purchased in the streets of London.

Of the Street-sellers of Periodicals, Pamphlets, Tracts, Books, etc.

These street-sellers are a numerous body, and the majority of them show a greater degree of industry and energy than is common to many classes of street-folk. They have been for the most part connected with the paper, newspaper, or publishing trade, and some of them have “known better days.” One intelligent man I met with, a dealer in “waste” (paper), had been brought up as a compositor, but late hours and glaring gas-lights in the printing-office affected his eyes, he told me; and as a half-blind compositor was about of as little value, he thought, as a “horse with a wooden leg,” he abandoned his calling for out-of-door labour. Another had been a gun-smith, and when out of his apprenticeship was considered a “don hand at hair triggers, for hair triggers were more wanted then,” but an injury to his right hand and arm had disabled him as a mechanic, and he had recourse to the streets. A third had been an ink-maker’s “young man,” and had got to like the streets by calling for orders, and delivering bottles of ink, at the shops of the small stationers and chandlers, and so he had taken to them for a living. Of the book-stall-keepers I heard of one man who had died a short time before, and who “once had been in the habit of buying better books for his own pleasure than he had afterwards to sell for his bread.” Of the book-stall proprietors, I have afterwards spoken more fully.

All the street-sellers in question are what street estimation pronounces to be educated men; they can all, as far as I could ascertain, read and write, and some of them were “keenish politicians, both free-traders, and against free-trade when they was a-talking of the better days when they was young.” Nearly all are married men with families.

The divisions into which these street traffickers may be formed are—Odd Number-sellers—Steamboat Newsvendors—Railway Newsvendors, (though the latter is now hardly a street traffic),—the Sellers of Second Editions (which I have already given as a portion of the patterers)—Board-workers (also previously described, and for the same reason)—Tract-sellers (of whom I have given the number, character, &c., and who are regarded by the other street-sellers as the idlers, beggars, and pretenders of the trade),—the Sellers of Childrens’ Books and Song Books—Book-auctioneers, and Book-stall-keepers.

Of the Street-sale of Back Numbers.

This trade is carried on by the same class of patterers as work race-cards, second editions, &c. The collectors of waste-paper frequently find back numbers of periodicals in “a lot” they may have purchased at a coffee-shop. These they sell to warehousemen who serve the street-sellers. The largest lot ever sold at one time was some six or seven years ago, of the Pictorial Times, at least a ton weight. A dealer states—

“I lost the use of this arm ever since I was three months old. My mother died when I was ten years of age, and after that my father took up with an Irishwoman, and turned me and my youngest sister (she was two years younger than me) out into the streets. My youngest sister got employment at my father’s trade, but I couldn’t get no work because of my crippled arm. I walked about, till I fell down in the streets for want. At last, a man, who had a sweetmeat-shop, took pity on me. His wife made the sweetmeats, and minded the shop while he went out a juggling in the streets, in the Ramo Samee line. He told me as how, if I would go round the country with him and sell a few prints while he was a juggling in the public-houses, he’d find me in wittles, and pay my lodging. I joined him, and stopped with him two or three year. After that I went to work for a werry large waste-paper dealer. He used to buy up all the old back numbers of the cheap periodicals and penny publications, and send me out with them to sell at a farden’ a piece. He used to give me 4d. out of every shilling, and I done very well with that, till the periodicals came so low, and so many on ’em, that they wouldn’t sell at all. Sometimes I could make 15s. on a Saturday night and a Sunday morning, a-selling the odd numbers of periodicals,—such as tales; ‘Tales of the Wars,’ ‘Lives of the Pirates,’ ‘Lives of the Highwaymen,’ &c. I’ve often sold as many as 2,000 numbers on a Saturday night in the New-cut, and the most of them was works about thieves, and highwaymen, and pirates. Besides me, there was three others at the same business. Altogether, I dare say my master alone used to get rid of 10,000 copies of such works on a Saturday night and a Sunday morning. Our principal customers was young men. My master made a good bit of money at it. He had been about eighteen years in the business, and had begun with 2s. 6d. I was with him fifteen year, on and off, and at the best time. I used to earn my 30s. a week full at that time. But then I was foolish, and didn’t take care of my money. When I was at the ‘odd number business,’ I bought a peep-show, and left the trade to go into that line.”

Of the Sale of Waste Newspapers at Billingsgate.

This trade is so far peculiar that it is confined to Billingsgate, as in that market alone the demand supplies a livelihood to the man who carries it on. His principal sale is of newspapers to the street-fishmongers, as a large surface of paper is required for the purposes of a fish-stall. The “waste” trade—for “waste” and not “waste-paper” is the word always applied—is not carried on with such facility as might be expected, for I was assured that “waste” is so scarce that only a very insufficient supply of paper can at present be obtained. “I hope things will change soon, sir,” said one collector, gravely to me, “or I shall hardly be able to keep myself and my family on my waste.”

This difficulty, however, does not affect such a street-seller as the man at Billingsgate, who buys of the collectors—“collecting,” however, a portion himself at the neighbouring coffee-shops, public houses, &c.; for the wants of a regular customer must, by some means or other, be supplied.

The Billingsgate paper-seller carries his paper round, offering it to his customers, or to those he wishes to make purchasers; some fishmongers, however, obtain their “waste” first-hand from the collectors, or buy it at a news-agent’s.

The retail price varies from 2d. to 3½d. the pound, but 3½d. is only given for “very clean and prime, and perhaps uncut,” newspapers; for when a newsvendor has, as it is called, “over-stocked” himself, he sells the uncut papers at last to the collector, or the “waste” consumer. This happens, I was told, twenty times as often with the “weeklys” as the “dailys;” for, said my informant, “suppose it’s a wet Sunday morning—and all newsvendors as does pray, prays for wet Sundays, because then people stays at home and buys a paper, or some number, to read and pass away the time. Well, sir, suppose it’s a soaker in the morning, the newsman buys a good lot, an extra nine, or two extra nines, or the like of that, and then may be, after all, it comes out a fine day, and so he’s over-stocked; in which case there’s some for the waste.”

When they consider it a favourable opportunity, the workers carry waste to offer to the Billingsgate salesmen; but the chief trade is in the hands of the regular frequenter of the market.

From the best information I could obtain, it appears that from 70 to 100 pounds weight of “waste”—about three-fourths being newspapers, of which some are foreign—is supplied to Billingsgate market and its visitants. Two numbers of the Times, with their supplements, one paper-buyer told me, “when cleverly damped, and they’re never particularly dry,” will weigh about a pound. The average price is not less than 2½d. a pound, or from that to 3d. A single paper is 1d. At 2½d. per pound, and 85 pounds a day, upwards of 275l. is spent yearly in waste paper at Billingsgate, in the street or open-air purchase alone.

Of the Sale of Periodicals on the Steam-boats and Steam-boat Piers.

In this traffic are engaged about 20 men, “when the days are light until eight o’clock;” from 10 to 15, if the winter be a hard winter; and if the river steamers are unable to run—none at all. This winter, however, there has been no cessation in the running of the “boats,” except on a few foggy days. The steam-boat paper-sellers are generally traders on their own account (all, I believe, have been connected with the newsvendors’ trade); some few are the servants of newsvendors, sent out to deal at the wharfs and on board the boats.

The trade is not so remunerative that any payment is made to the proprietors of the boats or wharfs for the privilege of selling papers there (as in the case of the railways), but it is necessary to “obtain leave,” from those who have authority to give it.

The steam-boat paper-seller steps on board a few minutes before the boat starts, when there are a sufficient number of voyagers assembled. He traverses the deck and dives into the cabins, offering his “papers,” the titles of which he announces: “Punch, penny Punch, real Punch, last number for 3d.—comic sheets, a penny—all the London periodicals—Guide to the Thames.”

From one of these frequenters of steam-boats for the purposes of his business, I had the following account:

“I was a news-agent’s boy, sir, near a pier, for three or four year, then I got a start for myself, and now I serve a pier. It’s not such a trade as you might think, still it’s bread and cheese and a drop of beer. I go on board to sell my papers. It’s seldom I sell a newspaper; there’s no call for it on the river, except at the foreign-going ships—a few as is sold to them—but I don’t serve none on ’em. People reads the news for nothing at the coffee-shops when they breakfasts, I s’pose, and goes on as if they took in the Times, Chron, and ’Tiser—pubs. we calls the ’Tiser—all to their own cheek. It’s penny works I sell the most of; indeed, it’s very seldom I offer anything else, ’cause it’s little use. Penny Punches is fair sale, and I calls it ‘Punch’—just Punch. It’s dead now, I believe, but there’s old numbers; still they’ll be done in time. The real Punch—I sell from six to twelve a week—I call that there as the reel Punch. Galleries of Comicalities is a middling sale; people take them home with them, I think. Guides to the Thames is good in summer. They’re illustrated; but people sometimes grumbles and calls them catchpennies. It ain’t my fault if they’re not all that’s expected, but people expects everything for 1d. Joe Millers and ’Stophelees” (Mephistopheles) “I’ve sold, and said they was oppositions to Punch; that’s a year or more back, but they was old, and to be had cheap. I sell Lloyd’s and Reynolds’s pennies—fairish, both of them; so’s the Family Herald and the London Journal—very fair. I don’t venture on any three-halfpenny books on anything like a spec., acause people says at once: ‘A penny—I’ll give you a penny.’ I sell seven out of eight of what I do sell to gents.; more than that, perhaps; for you’ll not often see a woman buy nothing wots intended to improve her mind. A young woman, like a maid of all work, buys sometimes and looks hard at the paper; but I sometimes thinks it’s to show she can read. A summer Sunday’s my best time, out and out. There’s new faces then, and one goes on bolder. I’ve known young gents. buy, just to offer to young women, I’m pretty well satisfied. It’s a introduction. I have met with real gentlemen. They’ve looked over all I offered for sale and then said: ‘Nothing I want, my good fellow, but here’s a penny for your trouble.’ I wish there was more of them. I do sincerely. Sometimes I’ve gone on board and not sold one paper. I buy in the regular way, 9d. for a dozen (sometimes thirteen to the dozen) of penny pubs. I don’t know what I make, for I keep no count; perhaps a sov. in a good week and a half in another.”

I am informed that the average earnings of these traders, altogether, may be taken at 15s. weekly; calculating that twelve carry on the trade the year through, we find that (assuming each man to sell at thirty-three per cent. profit—though in the case of old works it will be cent. per cent.) upwards of 1,500l. are expended annually in steam-boat papers.

Of the Sale of Newspapers, Books, &c., at the Railway Stations.

Although the sale of newspapers at the railway termini, &c., cannot strictly be classed as a street-sale, it is so far an open-air traffic as to require some brief notice, and it has now become a trade of no small importance.

The privilege of selling to railway-passengers, within the precincts of the terminus, is disposed of by tender. At present the newsvendor on the North-Western Line, I am informed, pays to the company, for the right of sale at the Euston-square terminus, and the provincial stations, as large a sum as 1,700l. per annum. The amount usually given is of course in proportion to the number of stations, and the traffic of the railway.

The purchaser of this exclusive privilege sends his own servants to sell the newspapers and books, which he supplies to them in the quantity required. The men thus engaged are paid from 20s. to 30s. a week, and the boys receive from 6s. to 10s. 6d. weekly, but rarely 10s. 6d.

All the morning and evening papers are sold at the Station, but of the weekly press, those are sent for sale which in the manager’s judgment are likely to sell, or which his agent informs him are “asked for.” It is the same with the weekly unstamped publications. The reason seems obvious; if there be more than can be sold, a dead loss is incurred, for the surplusage, as regards newspapers, is only saleable as waste paper.

The books sold at railways are nearly all of the class best known as “light reading,” or what some account light reading. The price does not often exceed 1s.; and among the books offered for sale in these places are novels in one volume, published at 1s.—sometimes in two volumes, at 1s. each; “monthly parts” of works issued in weekly numbers; shilling books of poetry; but rarely political or controversial pamphlets. One man, who understood this trade, told me that “a few of the pamphlets about the Pope and Cardinal Wiseman sold at first; but in a month or six weeks, people began to say, ‘A shilling for that! I’m sick of the thing.’”

The large sum given for the privilege of an exclusive sale, shows that the number of books and papers sold at railway stations must be very considerable. But it must be borne in mind, that the price, and consequently the profit on the daily newspapers, sold at the railways, is greater than elsewhere. None are charged less than 6d., the regular price at a news-agent’s shop being 5d., so that as the cost price is 4d. the profit is double. Nor is it unusual for a passenger by an early train, who grows impatient for his paper, to cry out, “A shilling for the Times!” This, however, is only the case, I am told, with those who start very early in the morning; for the daily papers are obtained for the railway stations from among the earliest impressions, and can be had at the accustomed price as early as six o’clock, although, if there be exciting news and a great demand, a larger amount may be given.

Of the Street Booksellers.

The course of my inquiry now leads me to consider one of the oldest, and certainly not least important of the street traffics—that of the book-stalls. Of these there are now about twenty in the London streets, but in this number I include only those which are properly street-stalls. Many book-stalls, as in such a locality as the London-road, are appendages to shops, being merely a display of wares outside the bookseller’s premises; and with these I do not now intend to deal.

The men in this trade I found generally to be intelligent. They have been, for the most part, engaged in some minor department of the book-selling or newspaper trade, in the regular way, and are unconnected with the street-sellers in other lines, of whose pursuits, habits, and characters, they seem to know nothing.

The street book-stalls are most frequent in the thoroughfares which are well-frequented, but which, as one man in the trade expressed himself, are not so “shoppy” as others—such as the City-road, the New-road, and the Old Kent-road. “If there’s what you might call a recess,” observed another street book-stall-keeper, “that’s the place for us; and you’ll often see us along with flower-stands and pinners-up.” The stalls themselves do not present any very smart appearance; they are usually of plain deal. If the stock of books be sufficiently ample, they are disposed on the surface of the stall, “fronts up,” as I heard it described, with the titles, when lettered on the back, like as they are presented in a library. If the “front” be unlettered, as is often the case with the older books, a piece of paper is attached, and on it is inscribed the title and the price. Sometimes the description is exceeding curt, as, “Poetry,” “French,” “Religious,” “Latin” (I saw an odd volume, in Spanish, of Don Quixote, marked “Latin,” but it was at a shop-seller’s stall,) “Pamphlets,” and such like; or where it seems to have been thought necessary to give a somewhat fuller appellation, such titles are written out as “Locke’s Understanding,” “Watts’s Mind,” or “Pope’s Rape.” If the stock be rather scant, the side of the book is then shown, and is either covered with white paper, on which the title and price are written, or “brushed,” or else a piece of paper is attached, with the necessary announcement.

Sometimes these announcements are striking enough, as where a number of works of the same size have been bound together (which used to be the case, I am told, more frequently than it is now); or where there has been a series of stories in one volume. One such announcement was, “Smollett’s Peregrine Pickle Captain Kyd Pirate Prairie Rob of the Bowl Bamfyeld Moore Carew 2s.” Alongside this miscellaneous volume was, “Wilberforce’s Practical View of Christianity, 1s.;” “Fenelon’s Aventures de Télémaque, plates, 9d.;” “Arres, de Predestinatione, 1s.” (the last-mentioned work, which, at the first glance, seems as if it were an odd mixture of French and Latin, was a Latin quarto); “Coronis ad Collationem Hagiensem, &c. &c., Gulielmo Amesio.” Another work, on another stall, had the following description: “Lord Mount Edgecumbe’s Opera What is Currency Watts’s Scripture History Thoughts on Taxation only 1s. 3d.” Another was, “Knickerbocker Bacon 1s.” As a rule, however, the correctness with which the work is described is rather remarkable.

At some few of the street-stalls, and at many of the shop-stalls, are boxes, containing works marked, “All 1d.,” or 2d., 3d., or 4d. Among these are old Court-Guides, Parliamentary Companions, Railway Plans, and a variety of sermons, and theological, as well as educational and political pamphlets. To show the character of the publications thus offered—not, perhaps, as a rule, but generally enough, for sale—I copied down the titles of some at 1d. and 2d.

“All these at 1d.—‘Letters to the Right Honourable Lord John Russell, on State Education, by Edward Baines, jun.;’ ‘A Pastoral Letter to the Clergy and Members of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America;’ ‘A Letter to the Protestant Dissenters of England and Wales, by the Rev. Robert Ainslie;’ ‘Friendly Advice to Conservatives;’ ‘Elementary Thoughts on the Principles of Currency and Wealth, and on the Means of Diminishing the Burthens of the People, by J. D. Basset, Esq., price 2s. 6d.’” The others were each published at 1s.

“All these at 2d.—‘Poems, by Eleanor Tatlock, 1811, 2 vols., 9s.;’ ‘Two Sermons, on the Fall and Final Restoration of the Jews, by the Rev. John Stuart;’ ‘Thoughts and Feelings, by Arthur Brooke, 1820;’ ‘The Amours of Philander and Sylvia, being the third and last part of Love-letters between a Nobleman and his Sister. Volume the Second. The Seventh Edition. London.’”

From a cursory examination of the last-mentioned twopenny volume, I could see nothing of the nobleman or his sister. It is one of an inane class of books, originated, I believe, in the latter part of the reign of Charles II. Such publications professed to be (and some few were) records of the court and city scandal of the day, but in general they were works founded on the reputation of the current scandal. In short, to adopt the language of patterers, they were “cocks” issued by the publishers of that period; and they continued to be published until the middle of the eighteenth century, or a little later. I notice this description of literature the more, particularly as it is still frequently to be met with in street-sale. “There’s oft enough,” one street-bookseller said to me, “works of that sort making up a ‘lot’ at a sale, and in very respectable rooms. As if they were make-weights, or to make up a sufficient number of books, and so they keep their hold in the streets.”