“Misery had not had that wasting influence on my companion as it had on me. I was at this time a complete skeleton; a puff of wind would cause me to stagger. I continued stone-breaking, but about noon of the third day I sunk exhausted on the heap of stones before me. Poverty had done its work, and I anticipated with pleasure approaching dissolution. I was assisted to my lodging by my companion, and went to bed. When the woman at the lodging-house discovered that I was ill, she ordered some of her domestics to dress me and put me in the street, alleging that she was under a penalty of 20l. were it discovered that she lodged a sick stranger. I was, therefore, cast into the street at 12 o’clock at night. My companion then gave me the 3d. he had earned that day to procure me a lodging if possible, and he slept in the streets the remainder of the night. I went to another lodging, concealing as much as possible my illness; my money was taken, and I was conducted to bed. I spent a wretched night, and next morning I was very bad. The landlady led me to the workhouse; I was admitted directly; had they detained me asking questions I should have sunk on the floor. My disorder was pronounced English cholera. I lay three weeks in a precarious state, but at the end of seven weeks was recovered sufficiently to walk about. I was then discharged; but on going towards the Abbey in Westminster I fainted, and on recovery found myself surrounded by a number of persons. I was advised to return to the house; I did so, and was admitted for a short time, after which I was again discharged, but I received out-door relief twice a week; and for some time a small portion of bread and cheese as well. I had now lost not only all hope, but even desire of bettering my condition; during these trials I made none acquainted with my privations, save those situated as I was. I now altered my condition as regards sleeping; I walked about during the night, and slept a portion of the day on a heap of sand near Westminster-bridge. I then remembered to have a poor relative in Kensington; I did not plead distress, but merely asked whether she knew where I might procure employment. I had a cup of tea, the first I had tasted since I was in the workhouse, a period of five weeks. Being asked some question by my relative, I could not help making reference to some of my sufferings. At this place I found a young man of whom I had had a previous acquaintance; I told him of my inability to procure a lodging, and he allowed me without the knowledge of his parents to sleep in the stable-loft; the bed was hard, but the coal sacks kept me warm. Here I had many opportunities of earning a few pence, and I began to regain my spirits. On one occasion, seeing a lad illtreated by a young man who was much his superior in size and strength, I interposed, and it may be conjectured in what manner. This circumstance procured me a friend, for, with the assistance of the lad I had protected, I was enabled to live tolerably well, and after a short while I got a situation at a coal-shed at 10s. a week. I continued in this place eighteen months, but, my master giving up the business, I was again cast on the world. I then began to think seriously of some way of living, and for the first time asked for the loan of 15s. With this I purchased a few articles of furniture, laid out 7s. 6d. for two hundred of oranges, with which I walked and hawked about two days, taking but 4d. during the time. I disposed of the remainder of my stock, wholesale, for 6s.; with this I purchased a small tin saucepan, a piece of marble slab, and commenced sugar-boiling. I retailed my manufacture in the streets. By dint of perseverance and economy I managed to live this way through the winter and a portion of the spring; but summer being now come, people needed none of my compounds to warm their mouths, so it was necessary for me to change my hand. What should I do? Thoughts came and vanished at their births. I recollected having seen a person selling rings at a penny each; I made up my mind to try the same. I laid out 5s. in a tray and stock; after arranging the goods to the best advantage I sallied into the streets. The glittering baubles took for a while, but when discoloured were useless. Having once a considerable stock of these soiled rings, I was prompted to begin “lot selling.” After calculating the profits, I commenced selling in that line. As this continued for seven weeks I managed to get a living. The system then became general; every street in the metropolis contained a lot seller, so I was determined to change my hand. One day in the street I saw a girl with a bundle of old umbrellas going towards a marine store shop; I asked if the umbrellas were for sale; she replied in the affirmative; the price she asked was 4d.; I became a purchaser. With these old umbrellas I commenced a new life. I bought some trifling tools necessary for repairing umbrellas, and, after viewing well the construction of the articles, I commenced operations. I succeeded, and in a little time could not only mend an old umbrella, but make a new one. This way of living I followed three years. In one of my walks through the streets crying old umbrellas to sell, I saw a street tinker repairing a saucepan; he seemed so very comfortable with his fire-pan before him, that I resolved from that moment to become a tinker, and for that purpose I bought a few tools, prepared a budget, and sallied into the streets with as much indifference as if I had been at the business since my birth. After a little practice I fancied I was fit for better things than mending old saucepans, and flattered myself that I was able to make a new one. This I resolved to attempt, and succeeded so well, that I at once abandoned the rainy-day system, and commenced manufacturing articles in tin-ware, such as are now sold in the streets, namely funnels, nutmeg-graters, penny mugs, extinguishers, slices, savealls, &c. I soon became known to the street-sellers and swag-shop proprietors. The prices I get are low, and I am deficient in some of the tools necessary to forward the work, with the required speed to procure returns adequate to my expenses; but thanks to the Lord I am better off than ever I expected to be, with the difference only of a somewhat shattered constitution. There are many at the present day suffering as I have done, and they may be found in and about the different markets of the metropolis.”

Of the Street-sellers of Dog-Collars.

Of these street-traders there are now regularly twelve; one man counted to me fourteen, but two of these only sold dog-collars occasionally, when they could not get employment in their trade as journeymen brass-founders. Of the regular hands, one, two, and sometimes three sell only dog-collars (with the usual adjuncts of locks, and sometimes chains, and key-rings), but even these, when their stock-money avails, prefer uniting to the collars some other trifling article.

Two of the most profitable pitches for the sale of these articles are in the neighbourhood of the Old Swan Pier, off Thames-street, and at a corner of the Bank. Neither of these two traders confines his stock to dog-collars, though they constitute the most valuable portion of it. The one sells, in addition to his collars, key-rings, keys and chains, dog-whistles, stamps with letters engraved upon them, printer’s type, in which any name or initials may be set up, shaving-brushes, trowser-straps, razors, and a few other light articles. The other sells little more than “dog” articles, with the addition of brass padlocks and small whips. But the minor commodities are frequently varied, according to the season and to the street-seller’s opinion of what may “sell.”

Some of these traders hang their wares against the rails of any public or other building in a good situation, where they can obtain leave. Others have stalls, with “a back,” from the corners of which hang the strings of dog-collars, one linked within another. The manner in which one street-seller displays his wares is shown in the illustration before given. Of the whole number, half are either itinerant on a round, or walk up and down a thoroughfare and an adjacent street or two. “Dog-collars,” said one man, “is no good at Saturday-night markets. People has said to me—for I was flat enough to try once—‘Dogs! pooh, I’ve hardly grub enough for the kids.’ For all that, sir, some poor people has dogs, and is very fond of them too; ay, and I’ve sold them collars, but seldom. I think it’s them as has no children has dogs.”

The collars most in demand are brass. One man pointed out to me the merits of his stock, which he retailed from 6d. each (for the very small ones) to 3s.—for collars seemingly big enough for Pyrenean sheep dogs. Some of the street-sold collars have black and red rims and linings; others are of leather, often scarlet, stitched ornamentally over a sort of jointed iron or wire-work. A few are of strong compact steel chain-work; “but them’s more the fashion,” said one seller, “for sporting dogs, like pointers and greyhounds, and is very seldom bought in the streets. It’s the pet dogs as is our best friends.”

The dog-collar sellers have, as regards perhaps one-half, been connected in their youth with some mechanical occupation in metal manufacture. Four, I am told, are or were pensioners to a small amount, as soldiers or sailors.

Some further particulars of the business will be found in the following statement given me by a man in the trade. He was sickly-looking, seemed dispirited at first, but to recover his spirits as he conversed, and spoke with a provincial (I presume a Warwickshire or Staffordshire) accent.

“I served my time, sir; my relations put me—for my parents died when I was a boy—to a harness furniture maker, in Wa’sall (Walsal), who supplied Mr. Dixon, a saddler’s ironmonger, in a good way. I had fair makings, and was well treated, and when I was out of my time I worked for another master, and I then found I could make my pad territs” (the round loops of the harness pad, through which the reins are passed), “my hooks, my buckles, my ornaments (some of ’em crests), as well as any man. I worked only in brass, never plated, but sometimes the body for plating, and mostly territs and hooks. Thinking I’d better myself, I came to London. I was between five and six weeks before I got a stroke of work, and my money had gone. I found that London harness makers and coachmakers’ names was put on Walsal-made goods, and ‘London made’ and ‘town made’ was put too. They might be as good, but they wasn’t town made no more nor I am. I can’t tell what I suffered, and felt, and thought, as at last I walked the streets. I was afraid to call at any brass-worker’s—for I can do many sorts of brass work—I was so shabby. I called once at Mr. A——’s, near Smithfield, and he, or his foreman perhaps it was, says to me, ‘Give that tug-buckle a file.’ I’d had nothing to eat but an apple I found in the street that day, and my hand trembled, and so he told me that drunkards, with trembling hands, wouldn’t do there. I was never a drinking man; and at that time hadn’t tasted so much as beer for ten days. My landlady—I paid her 1s. a week for half a bed with a porter—trusted me my rent, ’cause I paid her when I had it; but I walked about, narvussed and trembling, and frightened at every sudden sound. No, sir, I’ve stood looking over a bridge, but, though I may have thought of suicide, I never once had really a notion of it. I don’t know how to tell it, but I felt stupified like, as much as miserable. I felt I could do nothing. Perhaps I shouldn’t have had power of mind to drown myself if I’d made up my resolution; besides, it’s a dreadful wickedness. I always liked reading, and, before I was fairly beaten out, used to read at home, at shop-windows, and at book-stalls, as long as I dared, but latterly, when I was starving, I couldn’t fix my mind to read anyhow. One night I met a Wa’s’ll friend, and he took me to his inn, and gave me a good beef-steak supper and some beer, and he got me a nice clean bed in the house. In the morning he gave me what did me most good of all, a good new shirt, and 5s. I got work two days after, and kept it near five years, with four masters, and married and saved 12l. We had no family to live, and my poor wife died in the cholera in 1849, and I buried her decently, thank God, for she was a good soul. When I thought the cholera was gone, I had it myself, and was ill long, and lost my work, and had the same sufferings as before, and was without soles to my shoes or a shirt to my back, ’till a gentleman I’d worked for lent me 1l., and then I went into this trade, and pulled up a little. In six weeks I paid 15s. of my debt, and had my own time for the remaining 5s. Now I get an odd job with my master sometimes, and at others sell my collars, and chains, and key-rings, and locks, and such like. I’m ashamed of the dog-collar locks; I can buy them at 2d. a dozen, or 1s. 6d. a gross; they’re sad rubbish. In two or three weeks sometimes, the wire hasp is worn through, just by the rattling of the collar, and the lock falls off. I make now, one way and another, about 10s. a week. My lodging’s 2s. a week for a bed-room—it’s a closet tho’, for my furniture all went. God’s good, and I’ll see better days yet. I have sure promise of regular work, and then I can earn 30s. to 40s. I do best with my collars about the docks. I’m sure I don’t know why.”

I am told that each of the street-sellers of dog-collars sell on the average a dozen a week, at a medium receipt of 12s. (“sometimes 20s., and sometimes 6s.”), though some will sell three and even four dozen collars in the week. Any regular dog-collar seller will undertake to get a name engraved upon it at 1d. a letter. The goods are bought at a swag-shop, or an establishment carried on in the same way. The retailer’s profit is 35 per cent.

Reckoning 12s. weekly taken by twelve men, we find 374l. expended yearly in the streets in dog-collars.

Of the Life of a Street-Seller of Dog-Collars.

From the well-known vendor of these articles whose portrait was given in No. 10 of this work, I had the following sketch of his history:—

“I was born in Brewer-street, St. James,” he said, in answer to my questions; “I am 73 years of age. My father and mother were poor people; I never went to school; my father died while I was young; my mother used to go out charing; she couldn’t afford to pay for schooling, and told me, I must look out and yearn my own living while I was a mere chick. At ten years of age I went to sea in the merchant sarvice. While I was in the merchant sarvice, I could get good wages, for I soon knowed my duty. I was always of an industrious turn, and never liked to be idle; don’t you see what I mean. In ’97 I was pressed on board the Inconstant frigate; I was paid off six months arterwards, but hadn’t much to take, and that, like all other young men who hadn’t larned the dodges of life, I spent very soon; but I never got drunk—thank God!” said the old man, “I never got drunk, or I shouldn’t ha been what I am now at 73 years of age. I was drafted into the Woolwich 44-gun ship; from her to the Overisal.” I inquired how the name of the ship was spelt; “Oh I am not scholard enough for that there,” he replied, “tho’ I did larn to read and write when abord a man of war. I larned myself. But you must look into a Dutch dictionary, for it’s a Dutch name. I then entered on board the Amphine frigate, and arter I had sarved some months in her, I entered the merchant sarvice again, and arter that I went to Greenland to the whale-fishery—they calls me here in the college” (he is now an inmate of Greenwich Hospital) “‘Whaler Ben,’ but I arnt affronted—most on ’em here have nicknames. I went three voyages besides to the West Ingees. I never got drunk even there, though I was obliged to drink rum; it wouldn’t ha done to ha drunk the water NEAT, there was so many insects in it. When my sailor’s life was over I comes to Liverpool and marries a wife—aye and as good a wife as any poor man ever had in England. I had saved a goodish bit o’ money, nearly 300l., for I was not so foolish as some of the poor sailors, who yearns their money like horses and spends it like asses, I say. Well we sets up a shop—a chandler shop—in Liverpool: me and my old ’ooman does; and I also entered into the pig-dealing line. I used to get some of my pigs from Ireland, and some I used to breed myself, but I was very misfortunate. You recollect the year when the disease was among the cattle, in course you recollects that; well, sir, I lost 24 pigs and a horse in one year, and that was a good loss for a poor man, wer’n’t it? I thought it werry hard, for I’d worked hard for my money at sea, and I was always werry careful, arter I knowed what life was. My poor wife too used to trust a good deal in the shop and by-and-by, behold you, me and my old ’ooman was on our beam ends. My wife was took ill too—and, for the purpose of getting the best adwice, I brings her to London, but her cable had run out, and she died, and I’ve been a poor forlorned creatur’ ever since. You wouldn’t think it, but arter that I never slept on a bed for seven years. I had blankets and my clothes—but what I means is that I never had a bed to lie on. I sold most of my bits o’ things to bury my wife. I didn’t relish applying to the parish. I kept a few sticks tho’, for I don’t like them ere lodging-houses. I can’t be a werry bad kerackter, for I was seven years under one landlord, and I warrant me if I wanted a room agin he would let me have one. Arter my wife died, knowing some’at about ropes I gets work at Maberley’s, the great contractors—in course you knows him. I made rope traces for the artillery; there’s a good deal of leather-work about the traces, and stitching them, you see, puts me up to the making of dogs’-collars. I was always handy with my fingers, and can make shoes or anythink. I can work now as well as ever I could in my life, only my eyes isn’t so good. Ain’t it curious now, sir, that wot a man larns in his fingers he never forgets? Well being out o’ work, I was knocking about for some time, and then I was adwised to apply for a board to carry at one of them cheap tailors, but I didn’t get none; so I takes to hawking link buttons and key rings, and buys some brass dog-collars; it was them brass collars as made me bethought myself as I could make some leather ones. Altho’ I had been better off I didn’t think it any disgrace to get a honest living. The leather collars is harder to make than the brass ones, only the brass ones wants more implements. There are about a dozen selling in the streets as makes brass-collars—there’s not much profit on the brass ones. People says there’s nothing like leather, and I thinks they are right. Well, sir, as I was a telling you, I commences the leather-collar making,—in course I didn’t make ’em as well at first as I do now. It was werry hard lines at the best of times. I used to get up at 4 o’clock in the morning in the summer time, and make my collars; then I’d turn out about 9, and keep out until 7 or 8 at night. I seldom took more than 2s. per day. What profit did I get out of 2s.? Why, lor’ bless you, sir! if I hadn’t made them myself, I shouldn’t have got no profit at all. But as it was, if I took 2s., the profits was from 1s. to 1s. 6d.; howsomever, sometimes I didn’t take 6d. Wet days too used to run me aground altogether; my rheumatics used to bore me always when the rain come down, and then I couldn’t get out to sell. If I’d any leather at them times I used to make it up; but if I hadn’t none, why I was obligated to make the best on it. Oh, sir! you little knows what I’ve suffered; many a banyan day I’ve had in my little room—upon a wet day—aye, and other days too. Why, I think I’d a starved if it hadn’t a been for the ’bus-men about Hungerford-market. They are good lads them there ’bus lads to such as me; they used to buy my collars when they didn’t want them. Ask any on ’em if they know anything about old Tom, the collar-maker, and see if they don’t flare up and respect me. They used sometimes to raffle my collars and give ’em back to me. Mr. Longstaff too, the landlord of the Hungerford Arms—I believe it’s called the Hungerford Hotel—has given me something to eat very often when I was hungry, and had nothing myself. There’s what you call a hor’nary there every day. You knows what I mean—gentlemen has their grub there at so much a head, or so much a belly it should be, I says. I used to come in for the scraps, and werry thankful I was for them I can assure you. Yes, Mr. Longstaff is what you may call a good man. He’s what you calls a odd man, and a odd man’s always a good man. All I got to say is, ‘God bless him!’ he’s fed me many time when I’ve been hungry. I used to light upon other friends too,—landlords of public-houses, where I used to hawk my collars; they seemed to take to me somehow; it wer’n’t for what I spent in their houses I’m sure, seeing as how I’d nothing to spend. I had no pension for my sarvice, and so I was adwised to apply for admission to ‘the house here’ (Greenwich Hospital). I goes to Somerset-House; another poor fellow was making a application at the same time; but I didn’t nothing till one very cold day, when I was standing quite miserable like with my collars. I’d been out several hours and hadn’t taken a penny, when up comes the man as wanted to get into the house, running with all his might to me. I thought he was going to tell me he had got into the house, and I was glad on it, for, poor fellow, he was werry bad off; howsomever he says to me, ‘Tom,’ says he, ‘they wants you at the Admirality.’ ‘Does they?’ says I, and ’cordingly away I goes; and arter telling the admiral my sarvice, and answering a good many questions as he put to me, the admiral says, says he, ‘The order will be made out; you shall go into the house.’ I think the admiral knowed me or somethink about me, you see. I don’t know his name, and it would’nt ha’ done to have axed. God bless him, whoever he is, I says, and shall say to my dying day; it seemed like Providence. I hadn’t taken a ha’penny all that day; I was cold and hungry, and suffering great pain from my rheumatics. Thank God,” exclaimed the old man in conclusion, “I am quite comfortable now. I’ve everythink I want except a little more tea and shuggar, but I’m quite content, and thank God for all his mercies.”

The old man informed me moreover that he did not think there were more than half-a-dozen street-sellers besides himself who made leather collars; it was a poor trade, he said, and though the other makers were younger than he was, he “could lick them all at stitching.” He did not believe, he told me, that any of the collar-sellers sold more than he did—if as many—for he had friends that perhaps other men had not. He makes collars now sometimes, and wishes he could get some shopkeeper to sell them for him, and then maybe, he says, he could obtain a little more tea and shuggar, and assist a sister-in-law of his whom he tells me is in great distress, and whom he has been in the habit of assisting for many years, notwithstanding his poverty. The old man, during the recital of his troubles, was affected to tears several times—especially when he spoke of his wife, and the distress he had undergone—and with much sincerity blessed God for the comforts that he now enjoys.

Of the Street-Sellers of Tools.

These people are of the same class as the sellers of hardware articles, though so far a distinct body that they generally sell tools only.

The tools are of the commonest kind, and supplied by the cheapest swag-shops, from which establishments the majority of the street-traders derive their supplies. They are sometimes displayed on a small barrow, sometimes on a stall, and are mostly German-made.

The articles sold and the price asked—and generally obtained, as no extravagant profit is demanded—is shown by the following:—

Claw hammers, 6d. Large claw, black and glaze-faced, 1s. Pincers, 4d.; larger ones, 6d. Screw-drivers, from 2d. to 1s.! Flat-nose pliers, 6d. a pair; squares, 6d. to 1s. Carpenters’ oil-cans, from 9d. to 1s. 3d. Nests of brad-awls (for joiners, and in wooden cases), 6d. to 2s. Back saws, 1s. to 2s. 6d.

While many of the street-sellers of tools travel the several thoroughfares and suburbs of the metropolis, others vend tools of a particular kind in particular localities. These localities and sellers may be divided into four distinct classes:—(1) The street-sellers of tools in the markets; (2) The street-sellers of tools at the docks and warehouses; (3) The street-sellers of tools at mews, stable-yards, and job-masters’; and (4) The street-sellers of tools to working men at their workshops.

The markets which are usually frequented by the vendors of tools are Newgate and Leadenhall. There are, I am informed, only five or six street-sellers who at present frequent these markets on the busy days. The articles in which they deal are butchers’ saws, cleavers, steels, meat-hooks, and knives; these saws they sell from 2s. to 4s. each; knives and steels, from 9d. to 1s. 3d. each; cleavers, from 1s. 6d. to 2s. each; and meat-hooks at 1d., 2d., and 3d. each, according to the size. It is very seldom, however, that cleavers are sold by the street-sellers, as they are too heavy to carry about. I am told that the trade of the tool-sellers in Newgate and Leadenhall markets is now very indifferent, owing chiefly to the butchers having been so frequently imposed upon by the street-sellers, that they are either indisposed or afraid to deal with them. When the itinerant tool-sellers are not occupied at the markets they vend their wares to tradesmen at private shops, but often without success. “It is a poor living,” said one of the hawkers to me; “sometimes little better than starving. I have gone out a whole day and haven’t taken a farthing.” I am informed that the greater portion of these street-sellers are broken-down butchers. The tools they vend are purchased at the Brummagem warehouses. To start in this branch of the street-business 5s. or 10s. usually constitutes the amount of capital invested in stock, and the average takings of each are about 2s. or 2s. 6d. a day.

“A dozen years back twenty such men offered saws at my shop,” said a butcher in a northern suburb to me; “now there’s only one, and he seems half-starving, poor fellow, and looks very hungrily at the meat. Perhaps it’s a way he’s got to have a bit given him, as it is sometimes.”

The only street-seller of tools at present frequenting Billingsgate-market is an elderly man, who is by trade a working cutler. The articles he displays upon his tray are oyster-knives, fish-knives, steels, scissors, packing-needles, and hammers. This tradesman makes his own oyster-knives and fish-knives; the scissors and hammers are second-hand; and the packing-needles are bought at the ironmongers. Sometimes brad-awls, gimlets, nails, and screws form a part of his stock. He informed me that he had frequented Billingsgate-market upwards of ten years. “Wet or dry,” he said, “I am here, and I often suffer from rheumatics in the head and limbs. Sometimes I have taken only a few pence; on other occasions I have taken 3s. or 4s., but this is not very often. However, what with the little I take at Billingsgate, and at other places, I can just get a crust, and go on from day to day.”

The itinerant saw-sellers offer their goods to any one in the street as well as at the shops, and are at the street markets on Saturday evenings with small saws for use in cookery. With the butchers they generally barter rather than sell, taking any old saw in exchange with so much money, for a new one. “I was brought up a butcher,” said one of these saw-sellers, “and worked as a journeyman, off and on, between twenty and thirty year. But I grew werry delicate from rheumaticks, and my old ’ooman was bad too, so that we once had to go into Marylebone work’us. I had no family living, perhaps they’re better as it is. We discharged ourselves after a time, and they gave us 5s. I then thought I’d try and sell a few saws and things. A master-butcher that’s been a friend to me, lent me another 5s., and I asked a man as sold saws to butchers to put me in the way of it, and he took me to a swag-shop. I do werry badly, sir, but I’ll not deny, and I can’t deny—not anyhow—when you tell me Mr. —— told you about me—that there’s ’elps to me. If I make a bargain, for so much; or for old saws or cleavers, or any old butcher thing, and so much; a man wot knows me says, ‘Well, old boy, you don’t look satisfied; here’s a bit of steak for you.’ Sometimes it’s a cut off a scrag of mutton, or weal; that gives the old ’ooman and me a good nourishing bit of grub. I can work at times, and every Saturday a’most I’m now a porter to a butcher. I carries his meat from Newgate, when he’s killed hisself, and wants no more than a man’s weight from the market; and when he ’asn’t killed hisself in course he hires a cart. I makes 1s. a day the year round, I think, on saws, and my old ’ooman makes more than ’arf as much at charing, and there’s the ’elps, and then I gets 18d. and my grub every Saturday. It’s no use grumbling; lots isn’t grubbed ’arf so well as me and my old ’ooman. My rent’s 20d. a week.”

The articles vended by the second class of the street-sellers of tools, or those whose purchasers are mostly connected with the docks and warehouses, consist of iron-handled claw-hammers, spanners, bed-keys, and corkscrews. Of these street-traders there are ten or twelve, and the greater portion of them are blacksmiths out of employ. Some make their own hammers, whereas others purchase the articles they vend at the swag-shops. “We sell more hammers and bed-keys than other things,” said one, “and sometimes we sells a corkscrew to the landlord of a public-house, and then we have perhaps half-a-pint of beer. Our principal customers for spanners are wheelwrights. Those for hammers are egg-merchants, oilmen, wax and tallow-chandlers, and other tradesmen who receive or send out goods in wooden cases; as well as chance customers in the streets.” The amount of capital required to start in the line is from 5s. to 15s.: “it is not much use,” said one, “to go to shop with less than 10s.”

A third class of the street-sellers of tools are the vendors of curry-combs and brushes, mane-combs, scrapers, and clipping instruments; and these articles are usually sold at the several mews, stable-yards, and jobbing-masters’ in and about the metropolis. The sellers are mostly broken-down grooms, who, not being able to obtain a situation, resort to street-selling as a last shift. “It is the last coach, when a man takes to this kind of living,” said one of my informants, a groom in a “good place;” “and it’s getting worse and worse. The poor fellows look half-starved. Why, what do you think I gave for these scissors? I got ’em for 6d. and a pint of beer, and I should have to give perhaps half-a-crown for ’em at a shop.” The trade is fast declining, and to gentlemen’s carriage mews the street-sellers of such tools rarely resort, as the instruments required for stable-use are now bought, by the coachmen, of the tradesmen who supply their masters. At the “mixed mews,” as I heard them called, there are two men who, along with razors, knives, and other things, occasionally offer “clipping” and “trimming” scissors. Four or five years ago there were four of these street-sellers. The trimming-scissors are, in the shops, 1s. 6d. to 2s. 6d. a pair. There is one trade still carried on in these places, although it is diminutive compared to what it was: I allude to the sale of curry-combs. Those vended by street-sellers at the mews are sold at 7d. or 6d. The best sale for these curry-combs is about Coventry-street and the Haymarket, and at the livery-stables generally. Along with curry-combs, the street-vendors sell wash-leathers, mane-combs (horn), sponges (which were like dried moss for awhile, I was told, got up by the Jews, but which are now good), dandy-brushes (whalebone-brushes, to scrape dirt from a horse’s legs, before he is groomed), spoke-brushes (to clean carriage-wheels), and coach-mops. One dweller in a large West-end mews computed that 100 different street-traders resorted thither daily, and that twenty sold the articles I have specified. In this trade, I am assured, there are no broken-down coachmen or grooms, only the regular street-sellers. A commoner curry-comb is sold at 2d. (prime cost 1s. 3d. a dozen), at Smithfield, on market-days, and to the carmen, and the owners of the rougher sort of horses; but this trade is not extensive.

There may be ten men, I am told, selling common “currys;” and they also sell other articles (often horse oil-cloths and nose-bags) along with them.

The last class of street-sellers is the beaten-out mechanic or workman, who, through blindness, age, or infirmities, is driven to obtain a livelihood by supplying his particular craft with their various implements. Of this class, as I have before stated, there are six men in London who were brought up as tailors, but are now, through some affliction or privation, incapacitated from following their calling. These men sell needles at four and five for 1d.; thimbles 1d. to 2d. each; scissors from 1s. to 2s. 6d.; and wax 1d. the lump. There are also old and blind shoemakers, who sell a few articles of grindery to their shopmates, as they term them, as well as a few decayed members of other trades, hawking the implements of the handicraft to which they formerly belonged. But as I have already given a long account of one of this class, under the head of the blind needle-seller, there is no occasion for me to speak further on the subject.

From one of the street-traders in saws I had the following account of his struggles, as well as the benefit he received from teetotalism, of which he spoke very warmly. His room was on the fourth floor of a house in a court near Holborn, and was clean and comfortable-looking. There were good-sized pictures, in frames, of the Queen, the Last Supper, and a Rural Scene, besides minor pictures: some of these had been received in exchange for saws with street-picture-sellers. A shelf was covered with china ornaments, such as are sold in the streets; the table had its oil-skin cover, and altogether I have seldom seen a more decent room. The rent, unfurnished, was 2s. a week.

“I’ve been eight years in this trade, sir,” the saw-seller said, “but I was brought up to a very different one. When a lad I worked in a coal-pit along with my father, but his behaviour to me was so cruel, he beat me so, that I ran away, and walked every step from the north of England to London. I can’t say I ever repented running away—much as I’ve gone through. My money was soon gone when I got to London, and my way of speaking was laughed at. [He had now very little of a provincial accent.] That’s fourteen year back. Why, indeed, sir, it puzzles me to tell you how I lived then when I did live. I jobbed about the markets, and slept, when I could pay for a lodging, at the cheap lodging-houses; so I got into the way of selling a few things in the streets, as I saw others do. I sold laces and children’s handkerchiefs. Sometimes I was miserable enough when I hadn’t a farthing, and if I managed to make a sixpence I got tipsy on it. For six weeks I slept every night in the Peckham Union. For another five or six weeks I slept every night in the dark arches by the Strand. I’ve sometimes had twenty or thirty companions there. I used to lie down on the bare stones, and was asleep in a minute, and slept like a top all night, but waking was very bad. I felt stiff, and sore, and cold, and miserable. How I lived at all is a wonder to me. About eleven years ago I was persuaded to go to a Temperance Meeting in Harp Alley (Farringdon-street), and there I signed the pledge; that is, I made my mark, for I can’t read or write, which has been a great hinder to me. If I’d been a scholard a teetotal gent would have got me into the police three years ago, about the time I got married. I did better, of course, when I was a teetotaller—no more dark arches. I sold a few little shawls in the streets then, but it was hardly bread and butter and coffee at times. Eight year ago I thought I would try saw-selling: a shopkeeper advised me, and I began on six salt saws, which I sold to oilmen. They’re for cutting salt only, and are made of zinc, as steel would rust and dirty the salt. The trade was far better at first than it is now. In good weeks I earned 16s. to 18s. In bad weeks 10s. or 12s. Now I may earn 10s., not more, a week, pretty regular: yesterday I made only 6d. Oilmen are better customers than chance street-buyers, for I’m known to them. There’s only one man besides myself selling nothing but saws. I walk, I believe, 100 miles every week, and that I couldn’t do, I know, if I wasn’t teetotal. I never long for a taste of liquor if I’m ever so cold or tired. It’s all poisonous.”

The saws sold are 8 inch, which cost at the swag-shops 8s. and 8s. 6d. a dozen; 10 inch, 9s. and 9s. 6d.; and so on, the price advancing according to the increased size, to 18 inch, 13s. 6d. the dozen. Larger sizes are seldom sold in the streets. The second man’s earnings, my informant believed, were the same as his own.

The wife of my informant, when she got work as an embroideress, could earn 11s. and 12s. At present she was at work braiding dresses for a dressmaker, at 2½d. each. By hard work, and if she had not her baby to attend to, she could earn no more than 7½d. a day. As it was she did not earn 6d.

Of the Beggar Street-Sellers.

Under this head I include only such of the beggar street-sellers as are neither infirm nor suffering from any severe bodily affliction or privation. I am well aware that the aged—the blind—the lame and the halt often pretend to sell small articles in the street—such as boot-laces, tracts, cabbage-nets, lucifer-matches, kettle-holders, and the like; and that such matters are carried by them partly to keep clear of the law, and partly to evince a disposition to the public that they are willing to do something for their livelihood. But these being really objects of charity, they belong more properly to the second main division of this book, in which the poor, or those that can’t work, and their several means of living, will be treated of.

Such, though beggars, are not “lurkers”—a lurker being strictly one who loiters about for some dishonest purpose. Many modes of thieving as well as begging are termed “lurking”—the “dead lurk,” for instance, is the expressive slang phrase for the art of entering dwelling-houses during divine service. The term “lurk,” however, is mostly applied to the several modes of plundering by representations of sham distress.

It is of these alone that I purpose here treating—or rather of that portion of them which pretends to deal in manufactured articles.

In a few instances the street-sellers of small articles of utility are also the manufacturers. Many, however, say they are the producers of the things they offer for sale, thinking thus to evade the necessity of having a hawker’s licence. The majority of these petty dealers know little of the manufacture of the goods they vend, being mere tradesmen. Some few profess to be the makers of their commodities, solely with the view of enlisting sympathy, and thus either selling the trifles they carry at an enormous profit, or else of obtaining alms.

An inmate of one of the low lodging-houses has supplied me with the following statement:—“Within my recollection,” says my informant, “the great branch of trade among these worthies, was the sale of sewing cotton, either in skeins or on reels. In the former case, the article cost the ‘lurkers’ about 8d. per pound; one pound would produce thirty skeins, which, sold at one penny each, or two for three halfpence, produced a heavy profit. The lurkers could mostly dispose of three pounds per day; the article was, of course, damaged, rotten, and worthless.

“The mode of sale consisted in the ‘lurkers’ calling at the several houses in a particular district, and representing themselves as Manchester cotton spinners out of employ. Long tales, of course, were told of the distresses of the operatives, and of the oppression of their employers; these tales had for the most part been taught them at the padding-ken, by some old and experienced dodger of ‘the school;’ and if the spokesman could patter well, a much larger sum was frequently obtained in direct alms than was reaped by the sale.”

Cotton on reels was—except to the purchaser—a still better speculation; the reels were large, handsomely mounted, and displayed in bold relief such inscriptions as the following:—

PIKE’S
PATENT COTTON.
120 Yards.

The reader, however, must divide the “120 yards,” here mentioned, by 12, and then he will arrive at something like the true secret as to the quantity; for the surface only was covered by the thread.

“The ‘cotton Lurk’ is now ‘cooper’d’ (worn out); a more common dodge—and, of course, only an excuse for begging—is to envelope a packet of ‘warranted’ needles, or a few inches of ‘real Honiton lace’ in an envelope, with a few lines to the ‘Lady of the House,’ or a printed bill, setting forth the misery of the manufacturers, and the intention of the parties leaving the ‘fakement’ to presume to call for an answer in a few hours. I subjoin a copy of one of these documents.

“These are left by one of ‘the school’ at the houses of the gentry, a mark being placed on the door post of such as are ‘bone’ or ‘gammy,’ in order to inform the rest of ‘the school’ where to call, and what houses to avoid. As the needles cost but a few pence per thousand, and the lace less than one halfpenny per yard—a few purchasers of the former at 1s. per packet (25 needles), or of the latter at 2s. 6d. per yard, is what these ‘lurkers’ term a ‘fair day’s work for a fair day’s wages.’

“Another and very extensive branch of the pseudo-‘manufacturing’ fraternity is to be found among the sham street-sellers of cutlery.

“At some of the least respectable of the swag-shops may be bought all the paraphernalia requisite in order to set up as the real manufacturer of Sheffield and ‘Brummagem’ goods—including, beside the cutlery, chamois-leather aprons, paper caps (ready crushed, to give them the appearance of age and usage), and last, but not least, a compound of black lead and tallow, to ‘take the granny’ off them as has white ’ands, so as the flat’s shan’t ‘tumble’ to the ‘unworkmanlike’ appearance of the palms of the ‘lurker.’

“Thus ‘got up’ for the part,” continues my informant, “and provided with a case of razors, which perhaps has cost him two groats, and (if he can raise as much) a noggin o’ rum to ‘give him cheek’ and make him ‘speak up’ to his victims—‘Jack Beaver,’ the ‘king of the street-cutlers,’ will sally forth, and meet, intercept, and follow any gentleman who seems a ‘likely spec,’ till worried perhaps by importunity, the ‘swell’ buys what he does not want, and, I need scarcely add, what he cannot use. Next, in importance, to ‘Jack Beaver,’ is the notorious ‘Pat Connor.’ Pat ‘does nothing on the blob,’ that is to say (he does not follow people and speak to them on the streets). His ‘dodge’—and it has been for years a successful one—is to go round to the public offices, dressed as before described, with the exception of being in his shirt sleeves (he has every day a clean shirt), and teaze the clerks till they purchase a pen-knife. He has been known to sell from fifteen to twenty knives in one day, at two shillings each, the first cost being about threepence-halfpenny. Of course he is often interrupted by porters and other officials, but he always carries in one hand a roll of wire, and a small hammer in the other, and having got the name of some gentleman up stairs, he pretends that he is going to mend Mr. So-and-so’s bell. This worthy, a short time ago, made free—in the Custom House—with a timepiece, belonging to one of the clerks, for which the ‘Sheffield manufacturer’ got twelve months in Newgate. I have not seen him since,” adds my informant, “and therefore imagine that he is now taking a provincial tour.”

Of the “House of Lords,” a Street-Seller’s Defunct Club.

I have given an account of a defunct club, of which the “paper workers” were the chief members; and I have now to do the same of a society not very dissimilar in its objects, of which the street-sellers of manufactured articles constituted the great majority. It was called the “house of lords,” and was established about eight years ago, at the Roebuck-tavern, Holborn, and existed three years. Its object was to relieve its members in sickness. The subscription was 2d. a week, and the relief to a sick member was as many pennies a week as the club contained members, with, in any pressing case, an additional halfpenny, which the members paid into the fund, over and above their weekly subscription. For the greater part of its existence the club contained ninety members (a few of them honorary), and there were very few cases of “declaring on the fund” by sick members. At one period for many weeks there were no such declarations, and the “house of lords” had 30l. in hand. One of the leading members, a very intelligent man, who had “a good connection in hardware,” had taken great pains to prepare a code of rules, which, having been approved by the other members, it was considered time that the “house of lords” should be enrolled. Delays, however, intervened. “To tell you the truth, sir,” one of them said, “we were afraid to employ an attorney, and thought of waiting upon Mr. Tidd Pratt ourselves, but it wasn’t to be.”

The club was, moreover, looked upon as somewhat select. “No costers were admitted, sir,” I was told by a hardware seller in the streets; “not but what there’s many very industrious and honest men among them, but they’re in a different line, and are a different sort of people to us.” The members met once a week, and, though they were merry and talkative enough, drunkenness was strongly discouraged. It was common for the subscribers who were regarded as the “geniuses” of the trade, to take counsel together, and “invent any new move.” They were reputed to be knowing among the most knowing, in all street arts and dodges, and the way in which the club came to an end, considering the strong claims to knowingness of its members, was curious enough.

One Saturday evening a member who was considered a respectable man, and was sufficiently regular in his payments, appeared at the weekly meeting, introducing his landlord, who, as a non-member, had to pay 1d. for admission. The man told how his family had suffered from illness, and how he had been ill, and got into arrears of rent, for he did not like to distress the fund; and how his landlord was then in possession of his “sticks,” which must be sold in the morning if he could not pay 15s.; and, moreover, how his landlord—a very kind-hearted, indulgent man—was forced to do this, for he himself was in difficulties. The members voted that the 15s. should be advanced; but before the next meeting night it was discovered that the statement of the poor member in arrears was an imposition. The landlord was merely a confederate; the worthy couple had been drinking together, and, to prolong their tippling, had hit upon the roguish scheme I have mentioned.

This, among other things, lowered the confidence of the members. The numbers fell off until it was thought best to “wind up the concern.” The small funds in hand were fairly apportioned among the remaining members, and the club ceased to exist.

Another Street-sellers’ Club has recently been formed by the men themselves, of which the following is the prospectus, and it is to be hoped that this attempt on the part of the street-folk to better their condition will meet with a better fate than its predecessor:—