This trade is carried on both by itinerants and at stands, or “pitches.” The itinerants, of whom I will first treat, are about forty in number (thirty women and ten men). They usually carry their lace in boxes, or cases. It is not uncommon for the women to represent themselves as lacemakers from Marlow, or some other place in Buckinghamshire, or from Honiton, in Devonshire, while the men assert they are from Nottingham. I am informed that there are among these itinerant lace-sellers two women and one man who really have been lacemakers. They all buy their wares at the haberdashery swag-shops.
The lace, which is the principal staple of this trade, is “edgings,” or the several kinds of cheap lace used for the bordering of caps and other female requirements. Among street-people the lace is called “driz,” and the sellers of it “driz-fencers.” It gained this slang name, I was informed, many years ago, when it was sold, and often to wealthy ladies, as rare and valuable lace, smuggled from Mechlin, Brussels, Valenciennes, or any foreign place famous, or once famous, for its manufacture. The pretended smuggled lace trade is now unknown in London, and is very little practised in the country. There is, however, still some smuggling connected with lace-selling. Two, and sometimes three, female lace-sellers are also “jigger-workers.” They carry about their persons pint bladders of “stuff,” or “jigger stuff” (spirit made at an illicit still). “I used to supply them with it until lately,” one street-trader told me, “from a friend that kept a ‘jigger,’ and a tidy sale some of them had. Indeed, I’ve made the stuff myself. I knew one woman, six or seven years back, that did uncommon well at first, but she got too fond of the stuff, and drank herself into the work’us. They never carried gin, for brandy was most asked for. They sold the brandy at 2s. 6d. the pint; rum at 1s. 6d.; and whiskey at 2s.; sometimes higher, and always trying for 6d. a pint profit, at least. O yes, sir; I know they got the prices I’ve mentioned, though they seem high; for you must remember that the jigger spirit is above proof, and a pint will make two pints of gin-palace stuff. They sold it, I’ve heard them say, to ladies that liked a drop on the sly; and to some as pretended they bought that way for economy; yes, and to shopkeepers and publicans too. One old lady used to give 3s. for three yards of driz, and it was well enough understood, without no words, that a pint of brandy was part of them three yards. But the trade that way is nothing to what it was, and gets less and less every year.”
From a middle-aged woman selling laces I had the following account:—
“I’ve been in the trade about six years, sir. Ten years back or more I was in place, and saved a little money, as a servant of all work. I married a house-painter, but trade got bad, and we both had illnesses; and my husband, though he’s as good a man as need be, can’t stick to anything very long at a time.” (A very common failing, by the bye, with the street-folk.) “It seems not in his nature. When we was reduced very low he got on a cab—for he can turn his hand to almost anything—and after that we came to street-selling. He’s now on jewellery, and I think it suits him as well or better than anything he’s tried; I do my part, and we get on middling. If we’re ever pushed it’s no use fretting. We had one child, and he died when he wanted just a month of three years old, and after I’d lost him I said I would never fret for trifles no more. My heart was broke for a long time—it was indeed. He was the loveliest boy ever seen, and everybody said so. I went into lace, because my husband got to know all about it, and I had no tie at home then. I was very shy and ashamed at first to go into houses, but that wears off, and I met with some nice people that bought of me and was very civil, so that encourages one. I sell nothing but lace. I never cleared more than 2s. 6d. in a day, and that only once. I suppose I clear from 3s. 6d. to 4s. 6d. a week now; perhaps, take it altogether, rather more than 4s. I have a connection, and go to the houses in and about the Regent’s Park, and all the small streets near it, and sometimes Maida Hill way. I once tried a little millinery made-up things, but it didn’t suit somehow, and I didn’t stick to it. You see, sir, I sell my lace to very few but servant maids and small shopkeepers’ wives and daughters; but then they’re a better sort of people than those as has to buy everything ready made like servants has. They can use their own needles to make themselves nice and smart, and they buy of such as me to do it cheap, and they’re not often such beaters down as them that buys the ready-made. I can do nothing, or next to nothing, in very wet weather. If I’m in the habit of going into a nice kitchen, perhaps the housemaid flies at me for ‘bringing in all that dirt.’ My husband says all women is crossest in bad weather, and perhaps servants is.
“I buy my lace near Shoreditch. It’s a long walk, but I think I’m best used there. I buy generally a dozen yards, from 3½d. to 1s., and sometimes up to 2s. I sell the commoner at 1d. a yard, and three yards 2d.; and the better at 2d. and 3d. a yard. It’s a poor trade, but it’s doing something. My husband seldom earns less than 12s. a week, for he’s a good salesman, and so we pay 2s. rent regular every Monday for an unfurnished room, and has the rest to live on. I have sold in the Brill on a Saturday night, but not often, nor lately I don’t like it; I haven’t tongue enough.”
In addition to the itinerants there are about seventy stationary lace sellers, and not less than eighty on the Saturday evenings. The best pitches are, I am told, near the Borough-market; in Clare-market; the New Cut (on Saturday nights); Walworth-road; Tooley-street; and Dockhead, Bermondsey. From the best information at my command, it appears that at least half of these traders sell only lace, or rarely anything else. The others sell also net for making caps and “cauls,” which are the plain portion at the back, to be trimmed or edged according to the purchaser’s taste. Some sell also, with their lace, cap ribbons—plain or worked collars—and muslin, net, or worked undersleeves. Braid and gimp were formerly sold by them, but are now in no demand. The prices run from 2d. to 6d. for lace articles, and about the same for net, &c. per yard; the lowest priced are most sold.
In this stationary trade are as many men and youths as women and girls. One woman, who had known street-selling for upwards of twenty years, said she could not do half so well now as she could twenty years ago, for the cheaper things got the cheaper people would have them. “Why, twenty year ago,” she exclaimed, “I bought a lot of ‘leno’ cheap—it was just about going out of fashion for caps then, I think—and one Saturday night in the Cut, I cleared 15s. on it. I don’t clear that in a fortnight now. I have sold to women of the town, as far as I’ve known them to be of that sort, but very seldom. It’s not often you’ll catch them using a needle for theirselves. They do use their needles, I know. You can see some of them sewing at their doors and windows in Granby-street, Waterloo-road, or could lately—for I haven’t passed that way for some time—but I believe it’s all for money down, for the slop-shops. It suits the slop-shops to get work cheap anyway; and it suits the women to have some sort of occupation, which they needn’t depend upon for their living.”
The stationary lace sellers, for the most part, display their goods on stalls, but some spread them on a board, or on matting on the ground. Some of the men gather an audience by shouting out, “Three yards a penny, edging!” As at this rate the lace-seller would only clear ½d. in a dozen yards, the cry is merely uttered to attract attention. A few who patter at the trade—but far fewer than was once the case—give short measure. One man, who occasionally sold lace, told me, that when he was compelled to sell for “next to no profit, and a hungry Sunday coming,” he gave good shop measure, thirty full inches to a yard. His yard wand was the correct length, “but I can do it, sir,” he said with some exultation, “by palming,” and he gave a jerk to his fingers, to show how he caught in the lace, and “clipped it short.”
Calculating that 100 persons in this trade each take 10s. 6d. weekly, the profit being about cent. per cent., we find 2,730l. expended in the streets in lace and similar commodities.
This trade, like several others, as soon as the new commodities became in established demand, and sufficiently cheap, was adopted by street-sellers. It has been a regular street-trade between four and five years. Previously, when the covers were dearer, the street-sellers were afraid to speculate much in them; but one man told me that he once sold a table-cover for 8s., and at another time for 10s.
The goods are supplied to the street-folk principally by three manufacturers—in Long-lane, Smithfield, Whitechapel-road, and Petticoat-lane. The venders of the glazed table-covers are generally considered among the smartest of the street-folk, as they do not sell to the poor, or in poor neighbourhoods, but “at the better sort of houses, and to the wealthier sort of people.” Table-covers are now frequently disposed of by raffle. “I very seldom sell in the streets,” said one man, “though I one evening cleared 4s. by standing near the Vinegar-works, in the City-road, and selling to gents on their way home from the city. The public-house trade is the best, and indeed in winter evenings, and after dark generally, there’s no other. I get rid of more by raffling than by sale. On Saturday evening I had raffles for two covers, which cost me 1s. 4d. each. I had some trouble to get 1s. 9d. for one; but I got up a raffle for the other, and it brought me 2s.; six members at 4d. each. It’s just the sort of thing to get off in a raffle on Saturday night, or any time when mechanics have money. A man thinks—leastways I’ve thought so myself, when I’ve been in a public-house raffle—now I’ve spent more money than I ought to, and there’s the old woman to face; but if I win the raffle, and take the thing home, why my money has gone to buy a nice thing, and not for drink.” I may remark that in nearly all raffles got up in this manner, the article raffled for is generally something coveted by a working man, but not so indispensably necessary to him, that he feels justified in expending his money upon it. This fact seems well enough known to the street-sellers who frequent public-houses with their wares. I inquired of the informant in question if he had ever tried to get up a raffle of his table-covers in a coffee-shop as well as a public-house. “Never, with table-covers,” he said, “but I have with other things, and find it’s no go. In a coffee-shop people are quiet, and reading, unless it’s one of them low places for young thieves, and such like; and they’ve no money very likely, and I wouldn’t like to trust them in a raffle if they had. In public-houses there’s talk and fun, and people’s more inclined for a raffle, or anything spicy that offers.”
There are now fifteen regular street-sellers, or street-hawkers of these table-covers, in London, four of whom are the men’s wives, and they not unfrequently go a round together. Sometimes, on fine days, there are twenty. I heard of one woman who had been very successful in bartering table-covers for old clothes. “I’ve done a little that way myself,” said a man in the trade, “but nothing to her, and people sees into things so now, that there’s hardly a chance for a crust. The covers is so soft and shiny, and there’s such fine parrots and birds of paradise on them, that before the price was known there was a chance of a good bargain. I once got for a cover that cost me 2s. 9d. a great coat that a Jew, after a hard bargaining, gave me 6s. 3d. for.”
The prices of the table-covers (wholesale) run from 8s. a dozen to 30s.; but the street-sellers rarely go to a higher price than 18s. They can buy a dozen, or half a dozen—or even a smaller quantity—of different sizes. Some of these street-traders sell, with the table-covers, a few wash-leathers, of the better kind. Calculating that fifteen street-sellers each take 25s. weekly the year round—one-half being the profit, including their advantages in bartering and raffling—we find 975l. expended yearly upon japanned table-covers, bought in the streets.
The street-sellers of braces are a numerous and a mixed class. They are nearly all men, and the majority are Irishmen; but this relates only to the itinerant or public-house brace-sellers. These wares are sold also by street-traders, who make other articles the staple of their trade—such as the dog-collar-sellers.
The braces sold thirty years ago were of a very different manufacture from those vended in the streets at present. India-rubber web was then unknown as a component part of the street braces. The braces, which in some parts of the country are called “gallowses,” were, at the time specified, made of a woollen web, both washable and durable. “One pair of such braces, good ones,” said an old tailor with whom I had some talk on the subject, “would last a poor man his lifetime. Now they’re in a rope or in rags in no time.” These woollen braces were sold at from 1s. to 2s. the pair in the streets; the straps being of good firm leather. Not long after this period a much cheaper brace-web was introduced—a mixture of cotton with the woollen—and the cheap manufacture gradually supplanted the better article, as respects the street trade. The cheaper braces were made with sheepskin straps, which soon yielded to friction, and were little serviceable. The introduction of the India-rubber web was another change in the trade, and the manufacture has become lower and lower-priced until the present time.
The braces sold in the streets, or hawked in the public-houses, are, however, not all of the very inferior manufacture. Some are called “silk,” others “buck-leather,” and others “knitted cotton.” The “silk” are of a silken surface, with an admixture of cotton and India-rubber; the “buck-leather” (a kind now very little known in street sale) are of strong sheepskin, dressed buck-leather fashion; and the “knitted” cotton are woven, some kinds of them being very good and strong.
The street brace-sellers, when trying to do business in the streets, carry their goods generally with a few belts, and sometimes with hose in their hands and across their arms. They stretch them from end to end, as they invite the custom of passers by, to evince the elasticity and firmness of the web. Sometimes the braces are slung from a pole carried on the shoulder. The sellers call at the public-house bars and tap-rooms; some are admitted into the parlours; and at a well-frequented gin-palace, I was informed by a manager of one, a brace-seller will call from twelve to twenty times a day, especially on a Monday; while on a Saturday evening they will remain two, three, or four hours, accosting fresh customers. At the gin-palaces, the young and strong Irishmen offering these wares—and there are many such—are frequently scoffed at for selling “braces and things a baby can carry.”
The following account, which I received from a street brace-seller, shows the class who purchase such articles:—
“I was put to a carriage-lamp maker,” the man said, “at Birmingham, but soon ran away. Nobody saw after me, for I had only an uncle, and he left me to the parish. It was all my own fault. I was always after some idle end, though I can read very well. It seems as if I couldn’t help it, being wild, I mean. I ran away to Worcester, without knowing where I was going, or caring either. I was half starved in Worcester, for I lived as I could. I found my way to London afterwards. I’ve been in the streets ever since, at one thing or the other; how many years I can’t say. Time goes so quick sometimes, and sometimes so slow, and I’m never long in one place. I’ve sold braces off and on ever since Amato won the Derby, if you know when that was. I remember it because I went to Epsom races that year to sell race cards. When I came to London after the races I laid out 12s. in braces. I hardly remember how many pairs I bought for it, but they wasn’t such common things as I’m carrying now. I could sell a few then at from 9d. to 1s. 3d. a pair, to the ‘cads’ and people at such places as the ‘Elephant,’ and the ‘Flower Pot’ in Bishopsgate-street, which was a great ‘’bus’ place then. I used to sell, too, to the helpers in inn-yards, and a few in the mews. The helpers in the mews mostly buys knitted cotton. I’ve got 1s. and sometimes 1s. 6d. for an extra article from them, but now I don’t carry them; there’s no demand there. You see, many of them work in their shirts, and the head coachmen and grooms, which is often great Turks, would blow up if the men had dirty braces hanging to their buttons, so they uses what’ll wash. Nearly all my business now is done at public-houses. I go from one tavern to another on my round all day long, and sell in the street when I can. I think I sell as many at 5d. and at 10d. as at all other prices together, and most at 5d.; but when I have what I call a full stock I carry ’em from 4d. to 20d. The poorer sort of people, such as wears braces—for there’s a many as does without ’em—likes the 1d. out of 6d., and the others the 2d. out of the 1s.; it tempts them. It’s a tiresome life, and not so good as costermongering, for I once did tidy well in apples. But in the brace trade you ar’n’t troubled with hiring barrows, and it’s easy carried on in public-houses in wet weather, and there’s no stock to spoil. I sell all to working-people, I think. Sometimes an odd pair or two at 1s. 6d., or so, to a tradesman, that may happen to be in a bar, and likes the look and the price; or to a gentleman’s servant. I make from 1s. to 1s. 6d. a day; full 1s. 6d. if I stick close to it. I may make 2s. or 2s. 6d. a week, too, in selling belts and stockings; but I only sometimes carry stockings. Perhaps I clear 9s. a week the year round. There’s lots in the trade don’t clear 1s. a day, for they only carry low-priced things. I go for 4d. profit on every shilling’s worth I sell. I’ve only myself to keep. I pay 3d. a night at a lodging-house, and nothing on Sundays. I had a young woman with me when I was a coster, but we didn’t agree, and parted. She was too fond of lifting her hand to her mouth (‘tippling’) to please me. I mean to live very near this week, and get a few shillings if I can to try something at Greenwich next Monday.” This was said on the Tuesday in Passion-week.
The braces are bought by the street-sellers at the swag-shops I have described. The prices range from 1s. 6d. (for common children’s) to 12s. a dozen; 3s., 3s. 6d., 6s. 6d., and 7s. being the most frequent prices. Higher-priced articles are also sold at the swags and by the street-sellers, but not one in twenty of these compared with the lower priced.
In London and its suburbs, and on “rounds,” of which the metropolis forms the central point, and at stands, there are, I am assured, not fewer than 500 persons vending braces. Of these a twentieth portion may be women, and a tenth old and sometimes infirm men. There are few children in the trade. The stall-keepers, selling braces with other articles, are about 100, and of the remainder of this class, those who are not Irishmen are often impoverished mechanics, such as tailors—brace-vending being easily resorted to, and carried on quietly in public-houses, and it does not entail the necessity of bawling aloud, to which a working-man, driven to a street-life, usually feels repugnance. Calculating that 500 brace-sellers clear 5s. a week each on those articles alone, and estimating the profit at 33 per cent., it shows a street expenditure of 3900l. One brace-seller considered that 500 such sellers was too low a number; but the most intelligent I met with agreed on that estimate.
The Belts sold in the street are nearly all of stout cotton web, “with India-rubber threads,” and usually of a drab colour, woollen belts being rarely ever seen now. They are procured in the same way, and sold by the same parties, as are braces. The amount expended on belts is, from the best information I can command, about an eighth of that expended on braces. The belts are sold at 1s. each, and cost 8s. the dozen, or 9d. each, if only one be purchased.
The street-sale of hose used to be far more considerable than it is now, and was, in a great measure, in the hands of a class who had personal claims to notice, independent of the goodness of their wares. These were old women, wearing, generally, large white aprons, and chintz-patterned gowns, and always scrupulously clean. They carried from door to door, in the quieter streets, and in the then suburbs, stockings of their “own knitting.” Such they often were; and those which were not were still knitted stockings, although they might be the work of old women in the country, who knitted by the fireside, needing no other light on winter evenings and at the doors of their cottages in the sunshine in summer. Of these street-sellers some were blind. Between thirty and forty years ago, I am told, there were from twelve to twenty blind knitters, but my informant could not speak with certainty, as he might probably observe the same women in different parts. The blind stocking-sellers would knit at a door as they waited. The informant I have quoted thought that the last of these knitters and street-sellers disappeared upwards of twenty years ago, as he then missed her from his door, at which she used to make her regular periodical appearance. The stockings of this trade were most frequently of white lamb’s-wool, and were sold at from 3s. 6d. to 5s. 6d. They were long in the leg, and were suited “for gentle-people’s winter wear.” The women-sellers made in those days, I am assured, a comfortable livelihood.
The sale of stockings is now principally in the hands of the men who vend braces, &c. The kind sold is most frequently unbleached cotton. The price to a street-buyer is generally from 6d. to 9d.; but the trade is of small extent. “It’s one of the trades,” a street-seller said to me, “that we can’t compete with shop-keepers in. You shall go to a haberdashery swag-shop, and though they have ‘wholesale haberdashers,’ and ‘hawkers supplied’ on the door-post, you’ll see a pair of stockings in the window marked with a very big and very black 6, and a very little and not half black ¾; and if I was to go in, they’d very likely ask me 6s. 6d. a dozen for an inferior thing. They retail themselves, and won’t be undersold if they can help it, and so they don’t care to accommodate us in things that’s always going.”
A few pairs of women’s stockings are hawked by women, and sold to servant-maids; but the trade in these goods, I am informed, including all classes of sellers—of whom there may be fifty—does not exceed (notwithstanding the universality of the wear), the receipt of 6s. weekly per individual, with a profit of from 1s. 4d. to 2s., and an aggregate expenditure of about 800l. in the year. The trade is an addition to some other street trade.
The brace-sellers used to carry with their wares another article, of which India-rubber web formed the principal part. These were trowser-straps, “with leather buttonings and ingy-spring bodies.” It was only, however, the better class of brace-sellers who carried them; those who, as my informant expressed it, “had a full stock;” and their sale was insignificant. At one time, the number of brace-sellers offering these straps was, I am informed, from 70 to 100. “It was a poor trade, sir,” said one of the class. “At first I sold at 4d., as they was 6d. in middling shops, and 1s. in the toppers, if not 1s. 6d.; but they soon came down to 3d., and then to 2d. My profit was short of 3d. in 1s. My best customers for braces didn’t want such things; plain working-men don’t. And grooms, and stable-keepers generally, wears boots or knee-gaiters, and footmen sports knee-buckles and stockings. All I did sell to was, as far as I can judge, young mechanics as liked to turn out like gents on a Sunday or an evening, and real gents that wanted things cheap. I very seldom cleared more than 1s. a week on them. The trade’s over now. If you see a few at a stand, it’s the remains of an old stock, or some that a swag-shop has pushed out for next to nothing to be rid of them.”
The sale of waistcoats is confined to Smithfield, as regards the class I now treat of—the sellers of articles made by others. Twelve or fourteen years back, there was a considerable sale in what was a branch of duffing. Waistcoats were sold to countrymen, generally graziers’ servants, under the pretence that they were of fine silk plush, which was then rather an object of rustic Sunday finery. A drover told me that a good many years ago he saw a countryman, with whom he was conversing at the time, pay 10s. 6d. for a “silk plush waistcoat,” the vendor having asked 15s., and having walked away—no doubt remarking the eagerness of his victim—when the countryman refused to give more than 10s. “He had a customer set for it,” he said, “at half-a-guinea.” On the first day the waistcoat was worn—the drover was afterwards told by the purchaser—it was utterly spoiled by a shower of rain; and when its possessor asked the village tailor the value of the garment, he was told that it had no value at all; the tailor could not even tell what it was made of, but he never saw anything so badly made in his life; never. Some little may be allowed for the natural glee of a village tailor on finding one of his customers, who no doubt was proud of his London bargain, completely taken in; but these waistcoats, I am assured by a tailor who had seen them, were the veriest rubbish. The trade, however, has been unknown, unless with a few rare exceptions at a very busy time—such as the market for the show and sale of the Christmas stock—since the time specified.
The waistcoats now sold in Smithfield market, or in the public-houses connected with it, are, I am told, and also by a tailor, very paltry things; but the price asked removes the trade from the imputation of duffing. These garments are sold at from 1s. to 4s. 6d. each; but very rarely 4s. 6d. The shilling waistcoats are only fit for boys—or “youths,” as the slop-tailors prefer styling them—but 1s. 6d. is a common price enough; and seven-eighths of the trade, I am informed, is for prices under, or not exceeding, 2s. The trade is, moreover, very small. There are sometimes no waistcoat-sellers at all; but generally two, and not unfrequently three. The profits of these men are 1s. on a bad, and 2s. 6d. on a good day. As, at intervals, these street-sellers dispose of a sleeve-waistcoat (waistcoat with sleeves) at from 4s. 6d. to 6s., we may estimate the average earnings in the trade at 5s. per market day, or 10s. in the week. This shows an outlay of 78l. in the year, as the profits of these street traders may be taken at 33 per cent.; or, as it is almost invariably worded by such classes, “4d. in the 1s.” The material is of a kind of cotton made to look as stout as possible, the back, &c., being the commonest stuff. They are supplied by a slop-house at the East End, and are made by women, or rather girls.
The sale of waistcoats in the street, markets, &c., is of second-hand goods, or otherwise in the hands of a distinct class. There are other belts, and other portions of wearing apparel, which, though not of textile fabrics, as they are often sold by the same persons as I have just treated of, may be described here. These are children’s “patent leather” belts, trowser-straps, and garters.
The sellers of children’s and men’s belts and trowser-straps are less numerous than they were, for both these things, I am told, but only on street authority, are going out of fashion. From one elderly man who had “dropped belts, and straps, and all that, for oranges,” I heard bitter complaints of the conduct of the swag shop-keepers who supplied these wares. The substance of his garrulous and not very lucid complaint was that when boys’ patent leather belts came into fashion, eleven, twelve, or thirteen years back, he could not remember which, the usual price in the shops was 1s., and they were soon to be had in the streets for 6d. each. The belt-sellers “did well” for a while. But the “swags” who, according to my informant, at first supplied belts of patent horse-leather, came to substitute patent sheep-leather for them, which were softer, and looked as well. The consequence was, that whenever the sheep-leather belts were wet, or when there was any “pull” upon them, they stretched, and “the polish went to cracks.” After having been wet a few times, too, they were easily torn, and so the street trade became distrusted. It was the same with trowser-straps.
The belt trade is now almost extinct in the streets, and the strap trade, which was chiefly in the hands of old and infirm, and young people, is now confined to the sellers of dog-collars, &c. The trowser-straps are not glazed or patent-leather, now, but “plain calf;” sold at 2d. a pair generally, and bought at from 1s. 2d. to 1s. 4d. the dozen pairs. Many readers will remember how often they used to hear the cry, “Three pair for sixpence! Three pair for sixpence!” A cry now, I believe, never heard.
Among the belt and strap-sellers were some blind persons. One man counted to me three blind men whom he knew selling them, and one sells them still, attached to the rails by St. Botolph’s church, Bishopsgate.
The same persons who sold straps, &c., not including the present sellers, the dog-collar men, &c., had lately no small traffic in the vending of garters. The garter-sellers were, however, far more numerous than ever were the strap-sellers. At one time, I am told, there were 200 garter sellers; all old or infirm, or poor women, or children, and chiefly Irish children. As these children were often stockingless and shoeless, their cry of “Penny a pair! India-rubber garters, penny a pair!” was sometimes pitiful enough, as they were offering a cheap article, unused by themselves. The sudden influx of garters, so to speak, was owing, I am told, to a manufacturer having discovered a cheap way of “working the India-rubber threads,” and having “thrown a lot into the market through the swag shops.” The price was at first 8s. a gross (8d. a dozen), but as the demand increased, it was raised to 9s. and 9s. 6d. The trade continued about six weeks, but has now almost entirely ceased. The stock of garters still offered for sale is what stall-keepers have on hand, or what swag shop-keepers tempt street-sellers to buy by reducing the price. The leather garter-trade, 1d. a pair being the usual price for sheep-skin garters, is now almost unknown. It was somewhat extensive.
Like many street-callings which can be started on the smallest means, and without any previous knowledge of the article sold being necessary to the street-vendor, the boot and stay-lace trade has very many followers. I here speak of those who sell boot-laces, and subsist, or endeavour to subsist, by the sale, without mixing it up with begging. The majority, indeed the great majority, of these street traders are women advanced in years, and, perhaps, I may say the whole of them are very poor. An old woman said to me, “I just drag on, sir, half-starving on a few boot-laces, rather than go into the workhouse, and I know numbers doing the same.”
The laces are bought at the haberdashery swag-shops I have spoken of, and amongst these old women I found the term “swag-shop” as common as among men who buy largely at such establishments. The usual price for boot-laces to be sold in the streets is 1d. a dozen. Each lace is tagged at both ends, sufficing for a pair of boots. The regular retail price is three a penny, but the lace-sellers are not unfrequently compelled to give four, or lose a customer. A better quality is sold at 1½d. and 2d. a dozen, but these are seldom meddled with by the street lace-sellers. It is often a matter of strong endeavour for a poor woman to make herself mistress of 11d., the whole of which she can devote to the purchase of boot-laces, as for 11d. she can procure a gross, so saving 1d. in twelve dozen.
The stay-laces, which are bought at the same places, and usually sold by the same street-traders, are 2d. and 2½d. the dozen. I am told that there are as many of the higher as of the lower priced stay-laces bought for street sale, “because,” one of the street-sellers told me “there’s a great many servant girls, and others too, that’s very particular about their stay-laces.” The stay-laces are retailed at ½d. each.
These articles are vended at street-stalls, along with other things for female use; but the most numerous portion of the lace-sellers are itinerant, walking up and down a street market, or going on a round in the suburbs, calling at every house where they are known, or where, as one woman expressed it, “we make bold to venture.” Those frequenting the street-markets, or other streets or thoroughfares, usually carry the boot-laces in their hands, and the stay-laces round their necks, and offer them to the females passing. Their principal customers are the working-classes, the wives and daughters of small shop-keepers, and servant-maids. “Ladies, of course,” said one lace-seller, “won’t buy of us.” Another old woman whom I questioned on the subject, and who had sold laces for about fourteen years, gave me a similar account; but she added:—“I’ve sold to high-up people though. Only two or three weeks back, a fine-dressed servant maid stopped me and said, ‘Here, I must have a dozen boot-laces for mistress, and she says, she’ll only give 3d. for them, as it’s a dozen at once. A mean cretur she is. It’s grand doings before faces, and pinchings behind backs, at our house.’”
Among the lace-sellers having rounds in the suburbs are some who “have known better days.” One old woman had been companion and housekeeper to a lady, who died in her arms, and whose legacy to her companion-servant enabled her to furnish a house handsomely. This she let out in apartments at “high-figures,” and anything like a regular payment by her lodgers would have supplied her with a comfortable maintenance. But fine gentlemen, and fine ladies too, went away in her debt; she became involved, her furniture was seized, and step by step she was reduced to boot-lace selling. Her appearance is still that of “the old school;” she wears a very large bonnet of faded black silk, a shawl of good material, but old and faded, and always a black gown. The poor woman told me that she never ventured to call even at the houses where she was best received if she saw any tax-gatherer go to or from the house: “I know very well what it is,” she continued, “it’s no use my calling; they’re sure to be cross, and the servants will be cross too, because their masters or mistresses are cross with them. If the tax-gatherer’s not paid, they’re cross at being asked; if he is paid, they’re cross at having had to part with their money. I’ve paid taxes myself.”
The dress of the boot lace-sellers generally is that of poor elderly women, for the most part perhaps a black chip, or old straw bonnet (often broken) and a dark-coloured cotton gown. Their abodes are in the localities in all parts of the metropolis, which I have frequently specified as the abodes of the poor. They live most frequently in their own rooms, but the younger, and perhaps I may add, coarser, of the number, resort to lodging-houses. It is not very uncommon, I was told by one of the class, for two poor women, boot-lace sellers or in some similar line, “to join” in a room, so saving half the usual rent of 1s. 6d. for an unfurnished room. This arrangement, however, is often of short duration. There is always arising some question, I was told, about the use or wear of this utensil or the other, or about washing, or about wood and coals, if one street-seller returned an hour or two before her companion. This is not to be wondered at, when we bear in mind that to these people every farthing is of consequence. From all that I can learn, the boot-lace sellers (I speak of the women) are poor and honest, and that, as a body, they are little mixed up with dishonest characters and dishonest ways. The exceptions are, I understand, among some hale persons, such as I have alluded to as sojourning in the lodging-houses. Some of these traders receive a little parochial relief.
One intelligent woman could count up 100 persons depending chiefly upon the sale of boot and stay-laces, in what she called her own neighbourhood. This comprised Leather-lane, Holborn, Tottenham Court-road, the Hampstead-road, and all the adjacent streets. From the best data at my command, I believe there are not fewer than 500 individuals selling these wares in London. Several lace-sellers agreed in stating that they sold a dozen boot-laces a-day, and a dozen stay-laces, and 2 dozen extra on Saturday nights; but the drawbacks of bad weather, &c., reduce the average sale to not more than 6 dozen a week, or 1,872,000 boot-laces in a year, at an outlay to the public of 3,900l. yearly; from a half to three-fourths of the receipts being the profit of the street-sellers.
The same quantity of stay-laces sold at 6d. a dozen shows an outlay of 3,900l., with about an equally proportional profit to the sellers.
Most of these traders sell tapes and other articles as well as laces. The tapes cost 3d. and 3½d. the dozen, and are sold at ½d. a knot. A dozen in 2 days is an average sale, but I have treated more expressly of those who depend principally upon boot-lace selling for their livelihood. Their average profits are about 3s. a week, on laces alone. The trade, I am told, was much more remunerative a few years back, and the decline was attributed “to so many getting into the trade, and the button boots becoming as fashionable as the Adelaides.”
I now give an account of the street-trade, the feelings, and the life of a poor blind woman, who may be seen nearly every fine day, selling what is technically termed “small-ware,” in Leather-lane, Holborn. The street “small-wares” are now understood to be cotton-tapes, pins, and sewing cotton; sometimes with the addition of boot and stay-laces, and shirt-buttons.
I saw the blind small-ware seller enter her own apartment, which was on the first floor of a small house in a court contiguous to her “pitch.” The entrance into the court was low and narrow; a tall man would be compelled to stoop as he entered the passage leading into the court. Here were unmistakeable signs of the poverty of the inhabitants. Soapsuds stood in the choked gutter, old clothes were hung out to dry across the court, one side being a dead wall, and the windows were patched with paper, sometimes itself patched with other paper. In front of one window, however, was a rude gate-work, behind which stood a root of lavender, and a campanula, thriving not at all, but yet, with all their dinginess, presenting a relief to the eye.
The room of the blind woman is reached by a very narrow staircase, on which two slim persons could not pass each other, and up old and worn stairs. Her apartment may be about ten feet square. The window had both small and large panes, with abundance of putty plastering. The furniture consisted of a small round deal table (on which lay the poor woman’s stock of black and white tapes, of shirt-buttons, &c.), and of four broken or patched chairs. There were a few motley-looking “pot” ornaments on the mantel-shelf, in the middle of which stood a doctor’s bottle. The bust of a female was also conspicuous, as was a tobacco-pipe. Above the mantel-piece hung some pictureless frames, while a pair of spectacles were suspended above a little looking-glass. Over a cupboard was a picture of the Ethiopian serenaders, and on the uncoloured walls were engravings of animals apparently from some work on natural history. There were two thin beds, on one of which was stowed a few costermonger’s old baskets and old clothes (women’s and boys’), as if stowed away there to make room to stir about. All the furniture was dilapidated. An iron rod for a poker, a pair of old tongs, and a sheet-iron shovel, were by the grate, in which glimmered a mere handful of fire. All showed poverty. The rent was 1s. a week (it had been 1s. 9d.), and the blind woman and a lodger (paying 6d. of the rent) slept in one bed, while a boy occupied the other. A wiry-haired dog, neither handsome nor fat, received a stranger (for the blind woman, and her guide and lodger, left their street trade at my request for their own room) with a few querulous yelps, which subsided into a sort of whining welcome to me, when the animal saw his mistress was at ease. The pleasure with which this poor woman received and returned the caresses of her dog was expressed in her face. I may add that owing to a change of street names in that neighbourhood, I had some difficulty in finding the small-ware seller, and heard her poor neighbours speak well of her as I inquired her abode; usually a good sign among the poor.
The blind tape-seller is a tall and somewhat strongly-formed woman, with a good-humoured and not a melancholy expression of face, though her manner was exceedingly quiet and subdued and her voice low. Her age is about 50. She wore, what I understand is called a “half-widow’s cap;” this was very clean, as indeed was her attire generally, though worn and old.
I have already given an account of a female small-ware seller (which account formerly appeared in one of my letters in the Morning Chronicle) strongly illustrating the vicissitudes of a street life. It was the statement, however, of one who is no longer in the streets, and the account given by the blind tape and pin seller is further interesting as furnishing other habitudes or idiosyncracies of the blind (or of an individual blind woman), in addition to those before detailed; more especially in its narrative of the feelings of a perhaps not very sensitive woman who became “dark” (as she always called it) in mature age.
“It’s five years, sir,” she said, “since I have been quite dark, but for two years before that I had lost the sight of one eye. Oh, yes, I had doctors but they couldn’t save my eyesight. I lost it after illnesses and rheumatics, and from want and being miserable. I felt very miserable when I first found myself quite dark, as if everything was lost to me. I felt as if I’d no more place in the world; but one gets reconciled to most things, thank God, in time; but I’m often low and sad now. Living poorly and having a sickly boy to care about may be one reason, as well as my blindness and being so bad off.
“I was brought up to service, and was sent before that to St. Andrew’s school. I lost my parents and friends (relatives) when I were young. I was in my first place eighteen months, and was eight or nine years in service altogether, mostly as maid of all work. I saved a little money and married. My husband was a costermonger, and we didn’t do well. Oh, dear no, sir, because he was addicted to drinking. We often suffered great pinching. I can’t say as he was unkind to me. He died nine years or more since. After that I supported myself, and two sons we had, by going out to wash and ‘chair.’ I did that when my husband was living. I had tidy work, as I ‘chaired’ and washed for one family in Clerkenwell for ten years, and might again if I wasn’t dark. My eldest son’s now a soldier and is with his regiment at Dover. He’s only eighteen, but he could get nothing to do as hard as he tried; I couldn’t help him; he knew no trade; and so he ’listed. Poor fellow! perhaps I shall never see him again. Oh, see him! That I couldn’t if he was sitting as near me as you are, sir; but perhaps I may never hear his voice again. Perhaps he’ll have to go abroad and be killed. It’s a sad thought that for a blind widow; I think of it both up and in bed. Blind people thinks a great deal, I feel they does. My youngest son—he’s now fourteen—is asthmatical; but he’s such a good lad, so easily satisfied. He likes to read if he can get hold of a penny book, and has time to read it. He’s at a paper-stainer’s and works on fancy satin paper, which is very obnicious” (the word she used twice for pernicious or obnoxious) “to such a delicate boy. He has 5s. a week, but, oh dear me, it takes all that for his bit of clothes, and soap for washing, and for shoes, and then he must carry his dinner with him every day, which I makes ready, and as he has to work hard, poor thing, he requires a little meat. I often frets about his being so weakly; often, as I stands with my tapes and pins, and thinks, and thinks. But, thank God, I can still wash for him and myself, and does so regularly. No, I can’t clean my room myself, but a poor woman who lives by selling boot-laces in the streets has lodged with me for many years, and she helps me.”
“Lives!” interrupted the poor boot-lace woman, who was present, “starves, you mean; for all yesterday I only took a farthing. But anything’s better than the house. I’ll live on 4d. a day, and pay rent and all, and starve half my time, rather nor the great house” (the Union).
“Yes, indeed,” resumed the blind woman, “for when I first went dark, I was forced to send to my parish, and had 6d. twice a week, and a half-quartern loaf, and that was only allowed for three weeks, and then there was the house for me. Oh dear, after that I didn’t know what I could do to get a bit of bread. At first I was so frightened and nervous, I was afraid of every noise. That was when I was quite dark; and I am often frightened at nothing still, and tremble as I stand in the lane. I was at first greatly distressed, and in pain, and was very down-hearted. I was so put about that I felt as if I was a burden to myself, and to everybody else. If you lose your sight as I did, sir, when you’re not young, it’s a long time before you learns to be blind. [So she very expressly worded it.] A friend advised me to sell tapes and cottons, and boot-laces, in the street, as better than doing nothing; and so I did. But at first I was sure every minute I should be run on. The poor woman that lodges with me bought some things for me where she buys her own—at Albion-house, in the Borough. O, I does very badly in my trade, very badly. I now clear only 2d., 3d., or 4d. a day; no, I think not more than 1s. 6d. a week; that is all. Why, one day this week I only sold a ha’porth of pins. But what I make more than pays my rent, and it’s a sort of employment; something to do, and make one feel one’s not quite idle. I hopes to make more now that nights are getting long, for I can then go into the lane (Leather-lane) of an evening, and make 1d. or 2d. extra. I daren’t go out when it’s long dark evenings, for the boys teases me, and sometimes comes and snatches my tapes and things out of my hands, and runs away, and leaves me there robbed of my little stock. I’m sure I don’t know whether it’s young thieves as does it, or for what they calls a lark. I only knows I loses my tapes. Do I complain to the police, do you say, sir? I don’t know when a policeman’s passing, in such a crowded place. Oh yes, I could get people to complain for me, but perhaps it would be no good; and then I’m afraid of the police; they’re so arbitry. [Her word.] It’s not very long since one of them—and I was told afterwards he was a sergeant, too—ordered me to move on. ‘I can’t move on, sir,’ said I, ‘I wish I could, but I must stand still, for I’m blind.’ ‘I know that,’ says he, ‘but you’re begging.’ ‘No, I’m not,’ says I, ‘I’m only a trying to sell a few little things, to keep me out of the work’us.’ ‘Then what’s that thing you have tied over your breast?’ says he. ‘If you give me any more of your nonsense, I’ll lock you up;’ and then he went away. I’m terrified to think of being taken to the station.”
The matter which called forth the officer’s wrath, was a large card, tied from the poor woman’s shoulders, on which was printed, in large letters, “PLEASE TO BUY OF THE POOR BLIND.” “Ay,” said the blind woman’s companion, with a bitterness not uncommon on the part of street-sellers on such occasions, “and any shopkeeper can put what notice he likes in his window, that he can, if it’s ever such a lie, and nothing’s said if he collects a crowd; oh dear, no. But we mus’n’t say our lives is our own.”
“Yes, sir,” said the blind woman, as I questioned her further, “there I stands, and often feels as if I was half asleep, or half dreaming; and I sometimes hardly knows when I dreams, and what I thinks; and I think what it was like when I had my eyesight and was among them, and what it would be like if I had my eyesight again; all those people making all that noise, and trying to earn a penny, seems so queer. And I often thinks if people suffered ever so much, they had something to be thankful for, if they had their eyesight. If I’d been dark from a child, I think I shouldn’t have felt it so much. It wouldn’t have been like all that lost, and I should be handier, though I’m not bad that way as it is, but I’m afraid to go out by myself. Where I lives there’s so many brokers about, I should run against their furniture. I’m sometimes not spoken to for an hour and more. Many a day I’ve only took 1d. Then I thinks and mopes about what will become of me, and thinks about my children. I don’t know who buys of me, but I’m sure I’m very thankful to all as does. They takes the things out of my hands, and puts the money into them. I think they’re working-people as buys of me, but I can’t be sure. Some speaks to me very kind and pleasant. I don’t think they’re ladies that speaks kind. My husband used to say that if ladies went to places like the Lane, it was on the sly, to get something cheap, and they did’nt want to be seen there, or they might be counted low. I’m sure he was right. And it ain’t such as them as buys of a poor blind woman out of kindness. No, sir, it’s very seldom indeed that I get more than the regular price. A halfpenny a knot for my tapes; and a halfpenny and a farthing for pins; and a halfpenny and a penny a dozen for shirt-buttons; and three a penny when I sells boot-laces; and a halfpenny a piece when I has stay-laces. I sells good things, I know, for the friend as gets them wouldn’t deceive me, and I never has no complaints of them.
“I don’t know any other blind woman in the trade besides myself. No, I don’t associate with blind people. I wasn’t brought up, like, to such a thing, but am in it by accident. I can’t say how many blind women there may be in my line in the streets. I haven’t the least notion. I took little notice of them, God forgive me, when I had my eyesight, and I haven’t been thrown among them since. Whether there’s many of them or not, they’re all to be pitied.
“On a Sunday I never stirs out, except to chapel, with my lodger or my son. No, sir, not a Roman Catholic chapel, but a Protestant. When it’s not very fine weather we goes to the nearest, but you hears nothing but what’s good in any of them. Oh dear, no.
“I lives on tea and bread and butter all the week—yes, I can make it ready myself—except on Sundays, when my son has his dinner here, and we has a bit of cheap meat; not often fish; it’s troublesome. If bread and things wasn’t cheap I couldn’t live at all, and it’s hardly living as it is. What can any one do on all that I can earn? There’s so many in the streets, I’m told, in my line, and distress drives more and more every week—everybody says so, and wages is so bad, and there’s such under-selling, that I don’t know whatever things will come to. I’ve no ’spectation of anything better in the time that has to come, nothing but misery, God help me. But I’m sure I should soon fret to death in a work’us.”
The poor woman lodging with the blind street-seller is herself in the same trade, but doing most in boot and stay-laces. She has a sharp and pinched outline of countenance, as if from poverty of diet, and is indeed wretchedly poor, earning only about 6d. a day, if so much. She is about the same age as her landlady, or somewhat younger, and has apparently been good-looking, and has still an intelligent expression. She lodged with the blind woman during her husband’s lifetime, when he rented two rooms, letting her one, and she had lived with the present widow in this way about fourteen years. She speaks cheerfully and seems an excellent companion for a blind person. On my remarking that they could neither of them be very cross-tempered to have lived so long together, the lodger said, laughingly, “O, we have a little tiff now and then, sir, as women will, you know; but it’s not often, and we soon are all right again. Poor people like us has something else to think of than tiffs and gossipping.”
The character, thoughts, feelings, regrets, and even the dreams, of a very interesting class of street-folk—the blind—are given in the narratives I now proceed to lay before the reader, from blind street-folk; but a few words of general introduction are necessary.
It may be that among the uneducated—among those whose feelings and whose bodies have been subjected to what may be called the wear and tear of poverty and privation—there is a tendency, even when misfortunes the most pitiable and undeserved have been encountered, to fall from misery into mendicancy. Even the educated, or, as the street people more generally describe them, those “who have seen better days,” sometimes, after the ordeal of the streets and the low lodging-houses, become trading mendicants. Among such people there may be, in one capacity or other, the ability and sometimes the opportunity to labour, and yet—whether from irrepressible vagabondism, from utter repugnance to any settled mode of subsistence (caused either by the natural disposition of the individual, or by the utter exhaustion of mind and body driving him to beg)—yet, I say, men of this class become beggars and even “lurkers.”
As this is the case with men who have the exercise of their limbs, and of the several senses of the body, there must be some mitigating plea, if not a full justification, in the conduct of those who beg directly or indirectly, because they cannot and perhaps never could labour for their daily bread—I allude to those afflicted with blindness, whether “from their youth up” or from the calamity being inflicted upon them in maturer years.
By the present law, for a blind man to beg is to be amenable to punishment, and to be subjected to perhaps the bitterest punishment which can be put upon him—imprisonment; to a deprivation of what may be his chief solace—the enjoyment of the fresh air; and to a rupture of the feeling, which cannot but be comforting to such a man, that under his infirmity he still has the sympathies of his fellow-creatures.
It appears to me, then, that the blind have a right to ask charity of those whom God has spared so terrible an affliction, and who in the terms best understood by the destitute themselves, are “well to do;” those whom—in the canting language of a former generation of blind and other beggars—“Providence has blessed with affluence.” This right to solicit aid from those to whom such aid does not even approach to the sacrifice of any idle indulgence—to say nothing of any necessary want—is based on their helplessness, but lapses if it becomes a mere business, and with all the trickiness by which a street business is sometimes characterised.
On this question of moral right, as of political expediency, I quote an authority which must command attention, that of Mr. Stuart Mill:—
Apart from any metaphysical considerations respecting the foundation of morals or of the social union, he says, “It will be admitted to be right, that human beings should help one another; and the more so, in proportion to the urgency of the need; and none needs help so urgently as one who is starving. The claim to help, therefore, created by destitution, is one of the strongest which can exist; and there is primâ facie the amplest reason for making the relief of so extreme an exigency as certain, to those who require it, as, by any arrangements of society, it can be made.
“On the other hand, in all cases of helping, there are two sets of consequences to be considered; the consequences of the assistance itself, and the consequences of relying on the assistance. The former are generally beneficial, but the latter for the most part injurious; so much so, in many cases, as greatly to outweigh the value of the benefit. And this is never more likely to happen than in the very cases where the need of help is the most intense. There are few things for which it is more mischievous, that people should rely on the habitual aid of others, than for the means of subsistence, and unhappily there is no lesson which they more easily learn.” I may here mention, in corroboration of this statement, that I was told by an experienced parochial officer, that there was truth in the saying, “Once a pauper, and always a pauper;” which seems to show that the lesson of relying on the habitual aid of others may not only be learned with ease, but is forgotten with difficulty. “The problem to be solved,” continues Mr. Mill, “is, therefore, one of peculiar nicety, as well as importance; how to give the greatest amount of needful help, with the smallest encouragement to undue reliance on it.
“Energy and self-dependence are, however,” Mr. Mill proceeds to argue, and, in this respect, it seems to me, to argue to demonstration, “liable to be impaired by the absence of help, as well as by its excess. It is even more fatal to exertion to have no hope of succeeding by it, than to be assured of succeeding without it. When the condition of any one is so disastrous that his energies are paralyzed by discouragement, assistance is a tonic, not a sedative: it braces, instead of relaxing the active faculties: always provided that the assistance is not such as to dispense with self-help, by substituting itself for the person’s own labour, skill, and prudence, but is limited to affording him a better hope of attaining success by those legitimate means. This, accordingly, is a test to which all plans of philanthropy and benevolence should be brought, whether intended for the benefit of individuals or of classes, and whether conducted on the voluntary or on the government principle.
“In so far as the subject admits of any general doctrine or maxim, it would appear to be this—that if assistance is given in such a manner that the condition of the person helped is rendered as desirable as that of another (in a similar grade of society) who succeeds in maintaining himself without help, the assistance, if systematic and capable of being previously calculated upon, is MISCHIEVOUS: but if, while available to everybody, it leaves to all a strong motive to do without it if they can, it is then for the most part BENEFICIAL.”
That the workhouse should bring less comfort and even greater irksomeness and restraint to any able-bodied inmate, than is felt by the poorest agricultural labourer in the worst-paid parts of the country, or the most wretched slop tailor, or shoe-maker, or cabinet maker in London, who supports himself by his own labour, is, I think, a sound principle. However wretched the ploughman may be in his hut, or the tailor in his garret, he is what I have heard underpaid mechanics call, still “his own man.” He is supported by his labour; he has escaped the indignity of a reliance on others.
I need not now enter into the question whether or not the workhouse system has done more harm than good. Some harm it is assuredly doing, for its over-discipline drives people to beg rather than apply for parish relief; and so the public are twice mulct, by having to pay compulsorily, in the form of poor’s-rate, and by being induced to give voluntarily, because they feel that the applicant for their assistance deserves to be helped.
But although the dogma I have cited, respecting the condition of those in a workhouse, may be sound in principle as regards the able-bodied, how does it apply to those who are not able-bodied? To those who cannot work? And above all how does it apply to those to whom nature has denied even the capacity to labour? To the blind, for instance? Yet the blind man, who dreads the injustice of such a creed applied to his misfortune, is subject to the punishment of the mendacious beggar, should he ask a passer-by to pity his afflictions. The law may not often be enforced, but sometimes it is enforced—perhaps more frequently in country than in town—and surely it is so enforced against abstract right and political morality. The blind beggar, “worried by the police,” as I have heard it described, becomes the mendacious beggar, no longer asking, in honesty, for a mite to which a calamity that no prudence could have saved him gave him a fair claim, but resorting to trick in order to increase his precarious gains.
That the blind resort to deceitful representations is unquestionable. One blind man, I am informed, said to Mr. Child the oculist, when he offered to couch him, “Why, that would ruin me!” And there are many, I am assured, who live by the streets who might have their eyesight restored, but who will not.
The public, however, must be warned to distinguish between those determined beggars and the really deserving and helpless blind. To allow their sympathies to be blunted against all, because some are bad, is a creed most consolatory to worldly successful selfishness, and alien to every principle of pure morals, as well as to that of more than morals—the spirit of Christianity.
The feelings of the blind, apart from their mere sufferings as poor men, are well described in some of the narratives I give, and the account of a blind man’s dreams is full of interest. Man is blessed with the power of seeing dreams, it should be remembered, visionally; but the blind man, to whose statement I invite attention, dreams, it will be seen, like the rest of his fraternity, through the sense of hearing, or of feeling, best known as “touching;” that is to say, by audible or tactile representations.
Some of the poor blind, he told me, are polishers’ wheel-turners, but there is not employment for one in one hundred at this. My informant only knew two so engaged. People, he says, are glad to do it, and will work at as low wages as the blind. Some of the blind, too, blow blacksmiths’ forges at foundries; others are engaged as cutlers’ wheel-turners. “There was one talking to me the other day, and he said he’d get me a job that way.” Others again turn mangles, but at this there is little employment to be had. Another blind acquaintance of my informant’s chops chaff for horses. Many of the blind are basket-makers, learning the business at the blind school, but one-half, I am told, can’t make a living at this, after leaving the school; they can’t do the work so neatly, and waste more rods than the other workers. Other blind people are chair-bottomers, and others make rope mats with a frame, but all of these can scarcely make a living. Many blind people play church organs. Some blind men are shoemakers, but their work is so inferior, it is almost impossible to live by it.
The blind people are forced to the streets because, they say, they can do nothing else to get a living; at no trade, even if they know one, can they get a living, for they are not qualified to work against those who can see; and what’s more, labourers’ wages are so low that people can get a man with his eyesight at the same price as they could live upon. “There’s many a blind basket-weaver playing music in the streets ’cause he can’t get work. At the trade I know one blind basket-maker can make 15s. a-week at his trade, but then he has a good connection and works for hisself; the work all comes home. He couldn’t make half that working for a shop. At turning wheels there’s nothing to be done; there’s so many seeing men out of employment that’s glad to do the work at the same price as the blind, so that unless the blind will go into the workhouse, they must fly to the streets. The police, I am told, treat the blind very differently: some of the force are very good to them, and some has no feeling at all—they shove them about worse than dogs; but the police is just like other men, good and bad amongst them. They’re very kind to me,” said my blind informant, “and they have a difficult duty to perform, and some persons, like Colonel Cavendish, makes them harsher to us than they would be.” I inquired whether my blind informant had received one of the Census papers to fill up, and he told me that he had heard nothing about them, and that he had certainly made no return to the government about his blindness; but what it was to the government whether he was blind or not, he couldn’t tell. His wife was blind as well as himself, and there was another blind man living in his room, and none of his blind friends, that he had heard of, had ever received any of the papers.
“Some blind people in the streets carry laces. There are some five men and one woman at the West-end do this, and three of these have dogs to lead them; one stands always on Langham-place. One carries cabbage-nets, he is an old man of seventy year, with white hair, and is likewise led by a dog. Another carries matches (he has a large family), and he is often led by one of his boys. There is a blind woman who always sits by the Polytechnic, and has indeed done so since it was built. She gets her living by sewing, making caps and things for ladies. Another blind woman obtains a livelihood by knitting garters and covers for bread trays and backs of chairs. She generally walks about in the neighbourhood of Baker-street, and Portman-square. Many recite a lamentation as they go along, but in many parts of London the police will not allow them to do so.
“It’s a very jealous place, is London. The police is so busy; but many recites the lamentation for all that. It’s a feeling thing—Oh, they’re very touching words.”
The greater part in the streets are musicians; five to one are, or ten to one. My informant thinks, last Thursday week, there were seven blind musicians all playing through the streets together in one band. There are four living in York-court; two in Grafton-court; two in Clement’s-lane; one in Orchard-place; two in Gray’s-buildings; two in Half-Moon-street, in the City, and two in a court hard by; one up by Ball’s-pond; two in Rose-court, Whitechapel; three in Golden-lane; two at Chelsea; three in Westminster; one up at Paddington; one (woman) in Marylebone; one in Westminster; one in Gray’s-inn-lane; one in Whitechapel: in all thirty-one; but my informant was satisfied there must be at least as many more, or sixty blind musicians in all.
In the course of a former inquiry into the character and condition of street performers, I received the following account from a blind musician:—
“The street blind tried, some years back, to maintain a burying and sick club of our own; but we were always too poor. We live in rooms. I don’t know one blind musician who lives in a lodging-house. I myself know a dozen blind men now performing in the streets of London. The blind musicians are chiefly married men. I don’t know one who lives with a woman unmarried. The loss of sight changes a man, he doesn’t think of women, and women don’t think of him. We are of a religious turn, too, generally.
“When we agreed to form the blind club there was not more than a dozen members. These consisted of two basket-makers; one mat-maker; four violin players; myself; and my two mates; and this was the number when it dropped for want of funds; that’s now sixteen years ago. We were to pay 1s. a month, and sick members were to have 5s. a week when they had paid two years. Our other rules were the same as other clubs. There’s a good many blind who play at sailors dances, Wapping and Deptford way. We seldom hire children to lead us in the streets; we have plenty of our own generally. I have five. Our wives are generally women that have their eyesight; but some blind men marry blind women.”
My informant was satisfied that there were at least 100 blind men and women getting their living in the streets, and about 500 throughout the country. There are many who stay continually in Brighton, Bristol, Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Plymouth, and indeed all large towns. “There are a great many blind people, I am told,” he said, “in Cornwall. It’s such a humane place for them; the people has great feeling for the blind; they’re very religious there, and a many lose their sight in the mines, and that’s what makes them have a feeling for others so.” This man heard a calculation made some time back, that there were 5000 blind people, including those in schools and asylums, within five miles round St. Paul’s. The most of the blind have lost their sight by the small-pox—nine out of every ten of the musicians have done so; since the vaccination has been discovered, I am told the cases of blindness from small-pox have been considerably increased. “Oh, that was a very clever thing—very,” said the blind boot-lace seller to me. Those who have not lost their sight by the small-pox, have gone blind from accidents, such as substances thrown or thrust in the eyes, or inflammation induced from cold and other ailments. My informant was not acquainted with one blind person in the streets who had been born blind. One of his acquaintance who had been blind from birth caught the small-pox, and obtained his sight after recovery at eight years old. “The great majority have lost their sight at an early age—when mere children, indeed; they have consequently been trained to no employment; those few who have” (my informant knew two) “been educated in the blind schools as basket-makers, are unable to obtain employment at this like a seeing person. Why, the time that a blind man’s feeling for the hole to have a rod through, a seeing man will have it through three or four times. The blind people in the streets mostly know one another; they say they have all a feeling of brotherly love for another, owing to their being similarly afflicted. If I was going along the street, and had a guide with me that could see, they would say, ‘Here’s a blind man or blind woman coming;’ I would say, ‘Put me up to them so as I’ll speak to them;’ then I should say, as I laid my hand upon them, ‘Holloa, who’s this?’ they’d say, ‘I’m blind.’ I should answer, ‘So am I.’ ‘What’s your name?’ would be the next question. ‘Oh, I have heard tell of you,’ most like, I should say. ‘Do you know so and so?’ I would say, ‘Yes, he’s coming to see me,’ or perhaps, ‘I’m going to see him on Sunday:’ then we say, ‘Do you belong to any of the Institutions?’ that’s the most particular question of all; and if he’s not a traveller, and we never heard tell of one another, the first thing we should ask would be, ‘How did you lose your sight?’ You see, the way in which the blind people in the streets gets to know one another so well, is by meeting at the houses of gentlemen when we goes for our pensions.”
The boot, shoe, and stay laces, are carried by the blind, I am told “seldom for sale;” for it’s very few they sell of them. “They have,” they say, “to prevent the police or mendicity from interfering with them, though the police do not often show a disposition to obstruct them.” “The officers of the Mendicity Society,” they tell me, “are their worst enemies.” These, however, have desisted from molesting them, because the magistrates object to commit a blind man to prison. The blind never ask anybody for anything, they tell me their cry is simply “Bootlace! Bootlace!” When they do sell, they charge 1½d. per pair for the leather boot-laces, 1d. per pair the silk boot-laces, and ½d. per pair for the cotton boot-laces, and ½d. each for the stay-laces. They generally carry black laces only, because the white ones are so difficult to keep clean. For the stay-laces they pay 2d. a dozen, and for the boot-laces 5d. a dozen, for the leather or for the silk ones; and 1¼d. for the cotton; each of the boot-laces is double, so that a dozen makes a dozen pair. They buy them very frequently at a swag-shop in Compton-street. My informant carried only the black-cotton laces, and doesn’t sell six-penny worth in a week. He did not know of a blind boot lace-seller that sold more than he did.
“Formerly the blind people in the street used to make a great deal of money; up to the beginning of the peace, and during all the war, the blind got money in handfuls. Where there was one blind man travelling then, there’s ten now. If they didn’t take 2l. and 2l. 10s. a day in a large town, it was reckoned a bad day’s work for the musicianers. Almost all the blind people then played music. In war time there was only one traveller (tramp); there are 100 now. There was scarcely a common lodging-house then in one town out of the three; and now there’s not a village hardly in the country but what there’s one, and perhaps two or three. Why the lodging-houses coin money now. Look at a traveller’s house where there’s twenty beds (two in each bed), at 3d. each, and that’s 10s. you know. There was very few blind beggars then, and what there was done well. Certainly, done well; they could get hatfuls of money almost, but then money was of no valley scarcely; you could get nothing for it most; but now if you get a little, you can buy a plenty with it. What is worth 6d. now fetched 2s. then. I wasn’t in the streets then, I wish I had been, I should have made a fortin, I think I should. The blind beggars then could get 2l. a day if they went to look for it.” “I myself,” said one, “when I first began, have gone and sat myself down by the side of the road and got my 1l., all in half-pence. When I went to Braintree, I stood beside a public-house, the ‘Orange Tree,’ just by where the foot-people went on to the fair ground, and I took 15s. a day for two days only, standing there a pattering my lamentation from 1 o’clock till the dusk in the evening. This is what I said:—