A cursory observation might lead an inexperienced person to the conclusion, that these old clothes traders who are standing by the bundles of gowns, or lines of coats, hanging from their door-posts, or in the place from which the window has been removed, or at the sides of their houses, or piled in the street before them, are drowsy people, for they seem to sit among their property, lost in thought, or caring only for the fumes of a pipe. But let any one indicate, even by an approving glance, the likelihood of his becoming a customer, and see if there be any lack of diligence in business. Some, indeed, pertinaciously invite attention to their wares; some (and often well-dressed women) leave their premises a few yards to accost a stranger pointing to a “good dress-coat” or “an excellent frock” (coat). I am told that this practice is less pursued than it was, and it seems that the solicitations are now addressed chiefly to strangers. These strangers, persons happening to be passing, or visitors from curiosity, are at once recognised; for as in all not very extended localities, where the inhabitants pursue a similar calling, they are, as regards their knowledge of one another, as the members of one family. Thus a stranger is as easily recognised as he would be in a little rustic hamlet where a strange face is not seen once a quarter. Indeed so narrow are some of the streets and alleys in this quarter, and so little is there of privacy, owing to the removal, in warm weather, even of the casements, that the room is commanded in all its domestic details; and as among these details there is generally a further display of goods similar to the articles outside, the jammed-up places really look like a great family house with merely a sort of channel, dignified by the name of a street, between the right and left suites of apartments.
In one off-street, where on a Sunday there is a considerable demand for Jewish sweet-meats by Christian boys, and a little sly, and perhaps not very successful gambling on the part of the ingenuous youth to possess themselves of these confectionaries at the easiest rate, there are some mounds of builders’ rubbish upon which, if an inquisitive person ascended, he could command the details of the upper rooms, probably the bed chambers—if in their crowded apartments these traders can find spaces for beds.
It must not be supposed that old clothes are more than the great staple of the traffic of this district. Wherever persons are assembled there are certain to be purveyors of provisions and of cool or hot drinks for warm or cold weather. The interior of the Old Clothes Exchange has its oyster-stall, its fountain of ginger-beer, its coffee-house, and ale-house, and a troop of peripatetic traders, boys principally, carrying trays. Outside the walls of the Exchange this trade is still thicker. A Jew boy thrusts a tin of highly-glazed cakes and pastry under the people’s noses here; and on the other side a basket of oranges regales the same sense by its proximity. At the next step the thoroughfare is interrupted by a gaudy-looking ginger-beer, lemonade, raspberryade, and nectar fountain; “a halfpenny a glass, a halfpenny a glass, sparkling lemonade!” shouts the vendor as you pass. The fountain and the glasses glitter in the sun, the varnish of the wood-work shines, the lemonade really does sparkle, and all looks clean—except the owner. Close by is a brawny young Irishman, his red beard unshorn for perhaps ten days, and his neck, where it had been exposed to the weather, a far deeper red than his beard, and he is carrying a small basket of nuts, and selling them as gravely as if they were articles suited to his strength. A little lower is the cry, in a woman’s voice, “Fish, fried fish! Ha’penny; fish, fried fish!” and so monotonously and mechanically is it ejaculated that one might think the seller’s life was passed in uttering these few words, even as a rook’s is in crying “Caw, caw.” Here I saw a poor Irishwoman who had a child on her back buy a piece of this fish (which may be had “hot” or “cold”), and tear out a piece with her teeth, and this with all the eagerness and relish of appetite or hunger; first eating the brown outside and then sucking the bone. I never saw fish look firmer or whiter. That fried fish is to be procured is manifest to more senses than one, for you can hear the sound of its being fried, and smell the fumes from the oil. In an open window opposite frizzle on an old tray, small pieces of thinly-cut meat, with a mixture of onions, kept hot by being placed over an old pan containing charcoal. In another room a mess of batter is smoking over a grate. “Penny a lot, oysters,” resounds from different parts. Some of the sellers command two streets by establishing their stalls or tubs at a corner. Lads pass, carrying sweet-stuff on trays. I observed one very dark-eyed Hebrew boy chewing the hard-bake he vended—if it were not a substitute—with an expression of great enjoyment. Heaped-up trays of fresh-looking sponge-cakes are carried in tempting pyramids. Youths have stocks of large hard-looking biscuits, and walk about crying, “Ha’penny biscuits, ha’penny; three a penny, biscuits;” these, with a morsel of cheese, often supply a dinner or a luncheon. Dates and figs, as dry as they are cheap, constitute the stock in trade of other street-sellers. “Coker-nuts” are sold in pieces and entire; the Jew boy, when he invites to the purchase of an entire nut, shaking it at the ear of the customer. I was told by a costermonger that these juveniles had a way of drumming with their fingers on the shell so as to satisfy a “green” customer that the nut offered was a sound one.
Such are the summer eatables and drinkables which I have lately seen vended in the Petticoat-lane district. In winter there are, as long as daylight lasts—and in no other locality perhaps does it last so short a time—other street provisions, and, if possible, greater zeal in selling them, the hours of business being circumscribed. There is then the potato-can and the hot elder-wine apparatus, and smoking pies and puddings, and roasted apples and chestnuts, and walnuts, and the several fruits which ripen in the autumn—apples, pears, &c.
Hitherto I have spoken only of such eatables and drinkables as are ready for consumption, but to these the trade in the Petticoat-lane district is by no means confined. There is fresh fish, generally of the cheaper kinds, and smoked or dried fish (smoked salmon, moreover, is sold ready cooked), and costermongers’ barrows, with their loads of green vegetables, looking almost out of place amidst the surrounding dinginess. The cries of “Fine cauliflowers,” “Large penny cabbages,” “Eight a shilling, mackarel,” “Eels, live eels,” mix strangely with the hubbub of the busier street.
Other street-sellers also abound. You meet one man who says mysteriously, and rather bluntly, “Buy a good knife, governor.” His tone is remarkable, and if it attract attention, he may hint that he has smuggled goods which he must sell anyhow. Such men, I am told, look out mostly for seamen, who often resort to Petticoat-lane; for idle men like sailors on shore, and idle uncultivated men often love to lounge where there is bustle. Pocket and pen knives and scissors, “Penny a piece, penny a pair,” rubbed over with oil, both to hide and prevent rust, are carried on trays, and spread on stalls, some stalls consisting of merely a tea-chest lid on a stool. Another man, carrying perhaps a sponge in his hand, and well-dressed, asks you, in a subdued voice, if you want a good razor, as if he almost suspected that you meditated suicide, and were looking out for the means! This is another ruse to introduce smuggled (or “duffer’s”) goods. Account-books are hawked. “Penny-a-quire,” shouts the itinerant street stationer (who, if questioned, always declares he said “Penny half quire”). “Stockings, stockings, two pence a pair.” “Here’s your chewl-ry; penny, a penny; pick ’em and choose ’em.” [I may remark that outside the window of one shop, or rather parlour, if there be any such distinction here, I saw the handsomest, as far as I am able to judge, and the best cheap jewellery I ever saw in the streets.] “Pencils, sir, pencils; steel-pens, steel-pens; ha’penny, penny; pencils, steel-pens; sealing-wax, wax, wax, wax!” shouts one, “Green peas, ha’penny a pint!” cries another.
These things, however, are but the accompaniments of the main traffic. But as such things accompany all traffic, not on a small scale, and may be found in almost every metropolitan thoroughfare, where the police are not required, by the householders, to interfere, I will point out, to show the distinctive character of the street-trade in this part, what is not sold and not encouraged. I saw no old books. There were no flowers; no music, which indeed could not be heard except at the outskirts of the din; and no beggars plying their vocation among the trading class.
Another peculiarity pertaining alike to this shop and street locality is, that everything is at the veriest minimum of price; though it may not be asked, it will assuredly be taken. The bottle of lemonade which is elsewhere a penny is here a halfpenny. The tarts, which among the street-sellers about the Royal Exchange are a halfpenny each, are here a farthing. When lemons are two a-penny in St. George’s-market, Oxford-street, as the long line of street stalls towards the western extremity is called—they are three and four a-penny in Petticoat and Rosemary lanes. Certainly there is a difference in size between the dearer and the cheaper tarts and lemons, and perhaps there is a difference in quality also, but the rule of a minimized cheapness has no exceptions in this cheap-trading quarter.
But Petticoat-lane is essentially the old clothes district. Embracing the streets and alleys adjacent to Petticoat-lane, and including the rows of old boots and shoes on the ground, there is perhaps between two and three miles of old clothes. Petticoat-lane proper is long and narrow, and to look down it is to look down a vista of many coloured garments, alike on the sides and on the ground. The effect sometimes is very striking, from the variety of hues, and the constant flitting, or gathering, of the crowd into little groups of bargainers. Gowns of every shade and every pattern are hanging up, but none, perhaps, look either bright or white; it is a vista of dinginess, but many coloured dinginess, as regards female attire. Dress coats, frock coats, great coats, livery and game-keepers’ coats, paletots, tunics, trowsers, knee-breeches, waistcoats, capes, pilot coats, working jackets, plaids, hats, dressing gowns, shirts, Guernsey frocks, are all displayed. The predominant colours are black and blue, but there is every colour; the light drab of some aristocratic livery; the dull brown-green of velveteen; the deep blue of a pilot jacket; the variegated figures of the shawl dressing-gown; the glossy black of the restored garments; the shine of newly turpentined black satin waistcoats; the scarlet and green of some flaming tartan; these things—mixed with the hues of the women’s garments, spotted and striped—certainly present a scene which cannot be beheld in any other part of the greatest city of the world, nor in any other portion of the world itself.
The ground has also its array of colours. It is covered with lines of boots and shoes, their shining black relieved here and there by the admixture of females’ boots, with drab, green, plum or lavender-coloured “legs,” as the upper part of the boot is always called in the trade. There is, too, an admixture of men’s “button-boots” with drab cloth legs; and of a few red, yellow, and russet coloured slippers; and of children’s coloured morocco boots and shoes. Handkerchiefs, sometimes of a gaudy orange pattern, are heaped on a chair. Lace and muslins occupy small stands or are spread on the ground. Black and drab and straw hats are hung up, or piled one upon another and kept from falling by means of strings; while, incessantly threading their way through all this intricacy, is a mass of people, some of whose dresses speak of a recent purchase in the lane.
I have said little of the shopkeepers of Petticoat-lane, nor is it requisite for the full elucidation of my present subject (which relates more especially to street-sale), that I should treat of them otherwise than as being in a great degree connected with street-trade. They stand in the street (in front of their premises), they trade in the street, they smoke and read the papers in the street; and indeed the greater part of their lives seems passed in the street, for, as I have elsewhere remarked, the Saturday’s or Sabbath’s recreation to some of them, after synagogue hours, seems to be to stand by their doors looking about them.
In the earlier periods of the day—the Jewish Sabbath excepted, when there is no market at all in Petticoat-lane, not even among the Irish and other old clothes people, or a mere nothing of a market—the goods of these shops seem consigned to the care of the wives and female members of the families of the proprietors. The Old Clothes Exchange, like other places known by the name—the Royal Exchange, for example—has its daily season of “high change.” This is, in summer, from about half-past two to five, in winter, from two to four o’clock. At those hours the crockman, and the bartering costermonger, and the Jew collector, have sought the Exchange with their respective bargains; and business there, and in the whole district, is at its fullest tide. Before this hour the master of the shop or store (the latter may be the more appropriate word) is absent buying, collecting, or transacting any business which requires him to leave home. It is curious to observe how, during this absence, the women, but with most wary eyes to the business, sit in the street carrying on their domestic occupations. Some, with their young children about them, are shelling peas; some are trimming vegetables; some plying their needles; some of the smaller traders’ wives, as well as the street-sellers with a “pitch,” are eating dinners out of basins (laid aside when a customer approaches), and occasionally some may be engaged in what Mrs. Trollope has called (in noticing a similar procedure in the boxes of an American theatre) “the most maternal of all offices.” The females I saw thus occupied were principally Jewesses, for though those resorting to the Old Clothes Exchange and its concomitant branches may be but one-fourth Jews, more than half of the remainder being Irish people, the householders or shopkeepers of the locality, when capital is needed, are generally Israelites.
It must be borne in mind that, in describing Petticoat-lane, I have described it as seen on a fine summer’s day, when the business is at its height. Until an hour or two after midday the district is quiet, and on very rainy days its aspect is sufficiently lamentable, for then it appears actually deserted. Perhaps on a winter’s Saturday night—as the Jewish Sabbath terminates at sunset—the scene may be the most striking of all. The flaring lights from uncovered gas, from fat-fed lamps, from the paper-shaded candles, and the many ways in which the poorer street-folk throw some illumination over their goods, produce a multiplicity of lights and shadows, which, thrown and blended over the old clothes hanging up along the line of street, cause them to assume mysterious forms, and if the wind be high make them, as they are blown to and fro, look more mysterious still.
On one of my visits to Petticoat-lane I saw two foreign Jews—from Smyrna I was informed. An old street-seller told me he believed it was their first visit to the district. But, new as the scene might be to them, they looked on impassively at all they saw. They wore the handsome and peculiar dresses of their country. A glance was cast after them by the Petticoat-lane people, but that was all. In the Strand they would have attracted considerable attention; not a few heads would have been turned back to gaze after them; but it seems that only to those who may possibly be customers is any notice paid in Petticoat-lane.
Rosemary-lane, which has in vain been re-christened Royal Mint-street, is from half to three-quarters of a mile long—that is, if we include only the portion which runs from the junction of Leman and Dock streets (near the London Docks) to Sparrow-corner, where it abuts on the Minories. Beyond the Leman-street termination of Rosemary-lane, and stretching on into Shadwell, are many streets of a similar character as regards the street and shop supply of articles to the poor; but as the old clothes trade is only occasionally carried on there, I shall here deal with Rosemary-lane proper.
This lane partakes of some of the characteristics of Petticoat-lane, but without its so strongly marked peculiarities. Rosemary-lane is wider and airier, the houses on each side are loftier (in several parts), and there is an approach to a gin palace, a thing unknown in Petticoat-lane: there is no room for such a structure there.
Rosemary-lane, like the quarter I have last described, has its off-streets, into which the traffic stretches. Some of these off-streets are narrower, dirtier, poorer in all respects than Rosemary-lane itself, which indeed can hardly be stigmatized as very dirty. These are Glasshouse-street, Russell-court, Hairbrine-court, Parson’s-court, Blue Anchor-yard (one of the poorest places and with a half-built look), Darby-street, Cartwright-street, Peter’s-court, Princes-street, Queen-street, and beyond these and in the direction of the Minories, Rosemary-lane becomes Sharp’s-buildings and Sparrow-corner. There are other small non-thoroughfare courts, sometimes called blind alleys, to which no name is attached, but which are very well known to the neighbourhood as Union-court, &c.; but as these are not scenes of street-traffic, although they may be the abodes of street-traffickers, they require no especial notice.
The dwellers in the neighbourhood or the off-streets of Rosemary-lane, differ from those of Petticoat-lane by the proximity of the former place to the Thames. The lodgings here are occupied by dredgers, ballast-heavers, coal-whippers, watermen, lumpers, and others whose trade is connected with the river, as well as the slop-workers and sweaters working for the Minories. The poverty of these workers compels them to lodge wherever the rent of the rooms is the lowest. As a few of the wives of the ballast-heavers, &c., are street-sellers in or about Rosemary-lane, the locality is often sought by them. About Petticoat-lane the off-streets are mostly occupied by the old clothes merchants.
In Rosemary-lane is a greater street-trade, as regards things placed on the ground for retail sale, &c., than in Petticoat-lane; for though the traffic in the last-mentioned lane is by far the greatest, it is more connected with the shops, and fewer traders whose dealings are strictly those of the street alone resort to it. Rosemary-lane, too, is more Irish. There are some cheap lodging-houses in the courts, &c., to which the poor Irish flock; and as they are very frequently street-sellers, on busy days the quarter abounds with them. At every step you hear the Erse tongue, and meet with the Irish physiognomy; Jews and Jewesses are also seen in the street, and they abound in the shops. The street-traffic does not begin until about one o’clock, except as regards the vegetable, fish, and oyster-stalls, &c.; but the chief business of this lane, which is as inappropriately as that of Petticoat is suitably named, is in the vending of the articles which have often been thrown aside as refuse, but from which numbers in London wring an existence.
One side of the lane is covered with old boots and shoes; old clothes, both men’s, women’s, and children’s; new lace for edgings, and a variety of cheap prints and muslins (also new); hats and bonnets; pots, and often of the commonest kinds; tins; old knives and forks, old scissors, and old metal articles generally; here and there is a stall of cheap bread or American cheese, or what is announced as American; old glass; different descriptions of second-hand furniture of the smaller size, such as children’s chairs, bellows, &c. Mixed with these, but only very scantily, are a few bright-looking swag-barrows, with china ornaments, toys, &c. Some of the wares are spread on the ground on wrappers, or pieces of matting or carpet; and some, as the pots, are occasionally placed on straw. The cotton prints are often heaped on the ground; where are also ranges or heaps of boots and shoes, and piles of old clothes, or hats, or umbrellas. Other traders place their goods on stalls or barrows, or over an old chair or clothes-horse. And amidst all this motley display the buyers and sellers smoke, and shout, and doze, and bargain, and wrangle, and eat and drink tea and coffee, and sometimes beer. Altogether Rosemary-lane is more of a street market than is Petticoat-lane.
This district, like the one I have first described, is infested with young thieves and vagrants from the neighbouring lodging-houses, who may be seen running about, often bare-footed, bare-necked, and shirtless, but “larking” one with another, and what may be best understood as “full of fun.” In what way these lads dispose of their plunder, and how their plunder is in any way connected with the trade of these parts, I shall show in my account of the Thieves. One pickpocket told me that there was no person whom he delighted so much to steal from as any Petticoat-laner with whom he had professional dealings!
In Rosemary-lane there is a busy Sunday morning trade; there is a street-trade, also, on the Saturday afternoons, but the greater part of the shops are then closed, and the Jews do not participate in the commerce until after sunset.
The two marts I have thus fully described differ from all other street-markets, for in these two second-hand garments, and second-hand merchandize generally (although but in a small proportion), are the grand staple of the traffic. At the other street-markets, the second-hand commerce is the exception.
In the following accounts of street-selling, I shall not mix up any account of the retailers’ modes of buying, collecting, repairing, or “restoring” the second-hand garments, otherwise than incidentally. I have already sketched the systems pursued, and more will have to be said concerning them under the head of Street-Buyers. Neither have I thought it necessary, in the further accounts I have collected, to confine myself to the trade carried on in the Petticoat and Rosemary-lane districts. The greater portion relates to those places, but my aim, of course, is to give an account which will show the character of the second-hand trade of the metropolis generally.
“People should remember,” said an intelligent shoemaker (not a street-seller) with whom I had some conversation about cobbling for the streets, “that such places as Rosemary-lane have their uses this way. But for them a very poor industrious widow, say, with only 2d. or 3d. to spare, couldn’t get a pair of shoes for her child; whereas now, for 2d. or 3d., she can get them there, of some sort or other. There’s a sort of decency, too, in wearing shoes. And what’s more, sir—for I’ve bought old coats and other clothes in Rosemary-lane, both for my own wear and my family’s, and know something about it—how is a poor creature to get such a decency as a petticoat for a poor little girl, if she’d only a penny, unless there were such places?”
In the present state of the very poor, it may be that such places as those described have, on the principle that half a loaf is better than no bread, their benefits. But whether the state of things in which an industrious widow, or a host of industrious persons, can spare but 1d. for a child’s clothing (and nothing, perhaps, for their own), is one to be lauded in a Christian country, is another question, fraught with grave political and social considerations.
The man from whom I received the following account of the sale of men’s wearing apparel was apparently between 30 and 40 years of age. His face presented something of the Jewish physiognomy, but he was a Christian, he said, though he never had time to go to church or chapel, and Sunday was often a busy day; besides, a man must live as others in his way lived. He had been connected with the sale of old clothes all his life, as were his parents, so that his existence had been monotonous enough, for he had never been more than five miles, he thought, from Whitechapel, the neighbourhood where he was born. In winter he liked a concert, and was fond of a hand at cribbage, but he didn’t care for the play. His goods he sometimes spread on the ground—at other times he had a stall or a “horse” (clothes-horse).
“My customers,” he said, “are nearly all working people, some of them very poor, and with large families. For anything I know, some of them works with their heads, though, as well, and not their hands, for I’ve noticed that their hands is smallish and seems smoothish, and suits a tight sleeve very well. I don’t know what they are. How should I? I asks no questions, and they’ll tell me no fibs. To such as them I sell coats mostly; indeed, very little else. They’re often very perticler about the fit, and often asks, ‘Does it look as if it was made for me?’ Sometimes they is seedy, very seedy, and comes to such as me, most likely, ’cause we’re cheaper than the shops. They don’t like to try things on in the street, and I can always take a decent customer, or one as looks sich, in there, to try on (pointing to a coffee-shop). Bob-tailed coats (dress-coats) is far the cheapest. I’ve sold them as low as 1s., but not often; at 2s. and 3s. often enough; and sometimes as high as 5s. Perhaps a 3s. or 3s. 6d. coat goes off as well as any, but bob-tailed coats is little asked for. Now, I’ve never had a frock (surtout or frock coat), as well as I can remember, under 2s. 6d., except one that stuck by me a long time, and I sold it at last for 20d., which was 2d. less than what it cost. It was only a poor thing, in course, but it had such a rum-coloured velvet collar, that was faded, and had had a bit let in, and was all sorts of shades, and that hindered its selling, I fancy. Velvet collars isn’t worn now, and I’m glad of it. Old coats goes better with their own collars (collars of the same cloth as the body of the coat). For frocks, I’ve got as much as 7s. 6d., and cheap at it too, sir. Well, perhaps (laughing) at an odd time they wasn’t so very cheap, but that’s all in the way of trade. About 4s. 6d. or 5s. is perhaps the ticket that a frock goes off best at. It’s working people that buys frocks most, and often working people’s wives or mothers—that is as far as I knows. They’re capital judges as to what’ll fit their men; and if they satisfy me it’s all right, I’m always ready to undertake to change it for another if it don’t fit. O, no, I never agree to give back the money if it don’t fit; in course not; that wouldn’t be business.
“No, sir, we’re very little troubled with people larking. I have had young fellows come, half drunk, even though it might be Sunday morning, and say, ‘Guv’ner, what’ll you give me to wear that coat for you, and show off your cut?’ We don’t stand much of their nonsense. I don’t know what such coves are. Perhaps ’torneys’ journeymen, or pot-boys out for a Sunday morning’s spree.” [This was said with a bitterness that surprised me in so quiet-speaking a man.] “In greatcoats and cloaks I don’t do much, but it’s a very good sale when you can offer them well worth the money. I’ve got 10s. often for a greatcoat, and higher and lower, oftener lower in course; but 10s. is about the card for a good thing. It’s the like with cloaks. Paletots don’t sell well. They’re mostly thinner and poorer cloth to begin with at the tailors—them new-fashioned named things often is so—and so they show when hard worn. Why no, sir, they can be done up, certainly; anything can be touched up; but they get thin, you see, and there’s nothing to work upon as there is in a good cloth greatcoat. You’ll excuse me, sir, but I saw you a little bit since take one of them there square books that a man gives away to people coming this way, as if to knock up the second-hand business, but he won’t, though; I’ll tell you how them slops, if they come more into wear, is sure to injure us. If people gets to wear them low-figured things, more and more, as they possibly may, why where’s the second-hand things to come from? I’m not a tailor, but I understands about clothes, and I believe that no person ever saw anything green in my eye. And if you find a slop thing marked a guinea, I don’t care what it is, but I’ll undertake that you shall get one that’ll wear longer, and look better to the very last, second-hand, at less than half the money, plenty less. It was good stuff and good make at first, and hasn’t been abused, and that’s the reason why it always bangs a slop, because it was good to begin with.
“Trousers sells pretty well. I sell them, cloth ones, from 6d. up to 4s. They’re cheaper if they’re not cloth, but very seldom less or so low as 6d. Yes, the cloth ones at that is poor worn things, and little things too. They’re not men’s, they’re youth’s or boy’s size. Good strong cords goes off very well at 1s. and 1s. 6d., or higher. Irish bricklayers buys them, and paviours, and such like. It’s easy to fit a man with a pair of second-hand trousers. I can tell by his build what’ll fit him directly. Tweeds and summer trousers is middling, but washing things sells worse and worse. It’s an expense, and expenses don’t suit my customers—not a bit of it.
“Waistcoats isn’t in no great call. They’re often worn very hard under any sort of a tidy coat, for a tidy coat can be buttoned over anything that’s ‘dicky,’ and so, you see, many of ’em’s half-way to the rag-shop before they comes to us. Well, I’m sure I can hardly say what sort of people goes most for weskets” [so he pronounced it]. “If they’re light, or there’s anything ‘fancy’ about them, I thinks it’s mothers as makes them up for their sons. What with the strings at the back and such like, it aint hard to make a wesket fit. They’re poor people as buys certainly, but genteel people buys such things as fancy weskets, or how do you suppose they’d all be got through? O, there’s ladies comes here for a bargain, I can tell you, and gentlemen, too; and many on ’em would go through fire for one. Second-hand satins (waistcoats) is good still, but they don’t fetch the tin they did. I’ve sold weskets from 1½d. to 4s. Well, it’s hard to say what the three-ha’pennies is made of; all sorts of things; we calls them ‘serge.’ Three-pence is a common price for a little wesket. There’s no under-weskets wanted now, and there’s no rolling collars. It was better for us when there was, as there was more stuff to work on. The double-breasted gets scarcer, too. Fashions grows to be cheap things now-a-days.
“I can’t tell you anything about knee-breeches; they don’t come into my trade, and they’re never asked for. Gaiters is no go either. Liveries isn’t a street-trade. I fancy all those sort of things is sent abroad. I don’t know where. Perhaps where people doesn’t know they was liveries. I wouldn’t wear an old livery coat, if it was the Queen’s, for five bob. I don’t think wearing one would hinder trade. You may have seen a black man in a fine livery giving away bills of a slop in Holborn. If we was to have such a thing we’d be pulled up (apprehended) for obstructing.
“I sells a few children’s (children’s clothes), but only a few, and I can’t say so much about them. They sells pretty freely though, and to very decent people. If they’re good, then they’re ready for use. If they ain’t anything very prime, they can be mended—that is, if they was good to begin with. But children’s woollen togs is mostly hardworn and fit only for the ‘devil’ (the machine which tears them up for shoddy). I’ve sold suits, which was tunics and trousers, but no weskets, for 3s. 6d. when they was tidy. That’s a common price.
“Well, really, I hardly know how much I make every week; far too little, I know that. I could no more tell you how many coats I sell in a year, or how many weskets, than I could tell you how many days was fine, and how many wasn’t. I can carry all in my head, and so I keeps no accounts. I know exactly what every single thing I sell has cost me. In course I must know that. I dare say I may clear about 12s. bad weeks, and 18s. good weeks, more and less both ways, and there’s more bad weeks than good. I have cleared 50s. in a good week; and when it’s been nothing but fog and wet, I haven’t cleared 3s. 6d. But mine’s a better business than common, perhaps. I can’t say what others clears; more and less than I does.”
The profit in this trade, from the best information I could obtain, runs about 50 per cent.
The man who gave me the following account of this trade had been familiar with it a good many years, fifteen he believed, but was by no means certain. I saw at his lodgings a man who was finishing his day’s work there, in cobbling and “translating.” He was not in the employ of my informant, who had two rooms, or rather a floor; he slept in one and let the other to the “translator” who was a relation, he told me, and they went on very well together, as he (the street-seller) liked to sit and smoke his pipe of a night in the translator’s room, which was much larger than his own; and sometimes, when times were “pretty bobbish,” they clubbed together for a good supper of tripe, or had a “prime hot Jemmy a-piece,” with a drop of good beer. A “Jemmy” is a baked sheep’s head. The room was tidy enough, but had the strong odour of shoemaker’s wax proper to the craft.
“I’ve been in a good many street-trades, and others too,” said my informant, “since you want to know, and for a good purpose as well as I can understand it. I was a ’prentice to a shoemaker in Northampton, with a lot more; why, it was more like a factory than anything else, was my master’s, and the place we worked in was so confined and hot, and we couldn’t open the window, that it was worse than the East Ingees. O, I know what they is. I’ve been there. I was so badly treated I ran away from my master, for I had only a father, and he cared nothing about me, and so I broke my indentures. After a good bit of knocking about and living as I could, and starving when I couldn’t, but I never thought of going back to Northampton, I ’listed and was a good bit in the Ingees. Well, never mind, sir, how long, or what happened me when I was soldier. I did nothing wrong, and that ain’t what you was asking about, and I’d rather say no more about it.”
I have met with other street-folk, who had been soldiers, and who were fond of talking of their “service,” often enough to grumble about it, so that I am almost tempted to think my informant had deserted, but I questioned him no further on the subject.
“I had my ups and downs again, sir,” he continued, “when I got back to England. God bless us all; I’m very fond of children, but I never married, and when I’ve been at the worst, I’ve been really glad that I hadn’t no one depending on me. It’s bad enough for oneself, but when there’s others as you must love, what must it be then? I’ve smoked a pipe when I was troubled in mind, and couldn’t get a meal, but could only get a pipe, and baccy’s shamefully dear here; but if I’d had a young daughter now, what good would it have been my smoking a pipe to comfort her? I’ve seen that in people that’s akin to me, and has been badly off, and with families. I had a friend or two in London, and I applied to them when I couldn’t hold out no longer, and they gave me a bit of a rise, so I began as a costermonger. I was living among them as was in that line. Well, now, it’s a pleasant life in fine weather. Why it was only this morning Joe (the translator) was reading the paper at breakfast time;—he gets it from the public-house, and if it’s two, three, or four days old, it’s just as good for us;—and there was 10,000 pines had been received from the West Ingees. There’s a chance for the costermongers, says I, if they don’t go off too dear. Then cherries is in; and I was beginning to wish I was a costermonger myself still, but my present trade is surer. My boots and shoes’ll keep. They don’t spoil in hot weather. Cherries and strawberries does, and if it comes thunder and wet, you can’t sell. I worked a barrow, and sometimes had only a bit of a pitch, for a matter of two year, perhaps, and then I got into this trade, as I understood it. I sells all sorts, but not so much women’s or children’s.
“Why, as to prices, there’s two sorts of prices. You may sell as you buy, or you may sell new soled and heeled. They’re never new welted for the streets. It wouldn’t pay a bit. Not long since I had a pair of very good Oxonians that had been new welted, and the very first day I had them on sale—it was a dull drizzly day—a lad tried to prig them. I just caught him in time. Did I give him in charge? I hope I’ve more sense. I’ve been robbed before, and I’ve caught young rips in the act. If it’s boots or shoes they’ve tried to prig, I gives them a stirruping with whichever it is, and a kick, and lets them go.
“Men’s shoes, the regular sort, isn’t a very good sale. I get from 10d. to 4s. 6d. a pair; but the high priced ’uns is either soled and heeled, and mudded well, or they’ve been real well-made things, and not much worn. I’ve had gentlemen’s shooting-shoes sometimes, that’s flung aside for the least thing. The plain shoes don’t go off at all. I think people likes something to cover their stocking-feet more. For cloth button-boots I get from 1s.—that’s the lowest I ever sold at—to 2s. 6d. The price is according to what condition the things is in, and what’s been done to them, but there’s no regular price. They’re not such good sale as they would be, because they soon show worn. The black ‘legs’ gets to look very seamy, and it’s a sort of boot that won’t stand much knocking about, if it ain’t right well made at first. I’ve been selling Oxonian button-overs (‘Oxonian’ shoes, which cover the instep, and are closed by being buttoned instead of being stringed through four or five holes) at 3s. 6d. and 4s. but they was really good, and soled and heeled; others I sell at 1s. 6d. to 2s. 3d. or 2s. 6d. Bluchers is from 1s. to 3s. 6d. Wellingtons from 1s.—yes, indeed, I’ve had them as low as 1s., and perhaps they weren’t very cheap at that, them very low-priced things never is, neither new nor old—from 1s. to 5s.; but Wellingtons is more for the shops than the street. I do a little in children’s boots and shoes. I sell them from 3d. to 15d. Yes, you can buy lower than 3d., but I’m not in that way. They sell quite as quick, or quicker, than anything. I’ve sold children’s boots to poor women that wanted shoeing far worse than the child; aye, many a time, sir. Top boots (they’re called ‘Jockeys’ in the trade) isn’t sold in the streets. I’ve never had any, and I don’t see them with others in my line. O no, there’s no such thing as Hessians or back-straps (a top-boot without the light-coloured top) in my trade now. Yes, I always have a seat handy where anybody can try on anything in the street; no, sir, no boot-hooks nor shoe-horn; shoe-horns is rather going out, I think. If what we sell in the streets won’t go on without them they won’t be sold at all. A good many will buy if the thing’s only big enough—they can’t bear pinching, and don’t much care for a fine fit.
“Well, I suppose I take from 30s. to 40s. a week, 14s. is about my profit—that’s as to the year through.
“I sell little for women’s wear, though I do sell their boots and shoes sometimes.”
The two street-sellers of old coats, waistcoats, and trousers, and of boots and shoes, whose statements precede this account, confined their trade, generally, to the second-hand merchandize I have mentioned as more especially constituting their stock. But this arrangement does not wholly prevail. There are many street-traders “in second-hand,” perhaps two-thirds of the whole number, who sell indiscriminately anything which they can buy, or what they hope to turn out an advantage; but even they prefer to deal more in one particular kind of merchandize than another, and this is most of all the case as concerns the street-sale of old boots and shoes. Hats, however, are among the second-hand wares which the street-seller rarely vends unconnected with other stock. I was told that this might be owing to the hats sold in the streets being usually suitable only for one class, grown men; while clothes and boots and shoes are for boys as well as men. Caps may supersede the use of hats, but nothing can supersede the use of boots or shoes, which form the steadiest second-hand street-trade of any.
There are, however, occasions, when a street-seller exerts himself to become possessed of a cheap stock of hats, by the well-known process of “taking a quantity,” and sells them without, or with but a small admixture of other goods. One man who had been lately so occupied, gave me the following account. He was of Irish parentage, but there was little distinctive in his accent:—
“Hats,” he said, “are about the awkwardest things of any for the streets. Do as you will, they require a deal of room, so that what you’ll mostly see isn’t hats quite ready to put on your head and walk away in, but to be made ready. I’ve sold hats that way though, I mean ready to wear, and my father before me has sold hundreds—yes, I’ve been in the trade all my life—and it’s the best way for a profit. You get, perhaps, the old hat in, or you buy it at 1d. or 2d. as may be, and so you kill two birds. But there’s very little of that trade except on Saturday nights or Sunday mornings. People wants a decent tile for Sundays and don’t care for work-days. I never hawks hats, but I sells to those as do. My customers for hats are mechanics, with an odd clerk or two. Yes, indeed, I sell hats now and then to my own countrymen to go decent to mass in. I go to mass myself as often as I can; sometimes I go to vespers. No, the Irish in this trade ain’t so good in going to chapel as they ought, but it takes such a time; not just while you’re there, but in shaving, and washing, and getting ready. My wife helps me in selling second-hand things; she’s a better hand than I am. I have two boys; they’re young yet, and I don’t know what we shall bring them up to; perhaps to our own business; and children seems to fall naturally into it, I think, when their fathers and mothers is in it. They’re at school now.
“I have sold hats from 6d. to 3s. 6d., but very seldom 3s. 6d. The 3s. 6d. ones would wear out two new gossamers, I know. It’s seldom you see beaver hats in the street-trade now, they’re nearly all silk. They say the beavers have got scarce in foreign parts where they’re caught. I haven’t an idea how many hats I sell in a year, for I don’t stick to hats, you see, sir, but I like doing in them as well or better than in anything else. Sometimes I’ve sold nothing but hats for weeks together, wholesale and retail that is. It’s only the regular-shaped hats I can sell. If you offer swells’ hats, people’ll say: ‘I may as well buy a new “wide-awake” at once.’ I have made 20s. in a week on hats alone. But if I confined my trade to them now, I don’t suppose I could clear 5s. one week with another the year through. It’s only the hawkers that can sell them in wet weather. I wish we could sell under cover in all the places where there’s what you call ‘street-markets.’ It would save poor people that lives by the street many a twopence by their things not being spoiled, and by people not heeding the rain to go and examine them.”
This trade, as regards the sale to retail customers in the streets, is almost entirely in the hands of women, seven-eighths of whom are the wives, relatives, or connections of the men who deal in second-hand male apparel. But gowns, cloaks, bonnets, &c., are collected more largely by men than by women, and the wholesale old clothes’ merchants of course deal in every sort of habiliment. Petticoat and Rosemary-lanes are the grand marts for this street-sale, but in Whitecross-street, Leather-lane, Old-street (St. Luke’s), and some similar Saturday-night markets in poor neighbourhoods, women’s second-hand apparel is sometimes offered. “It is often of little use offering it in the latter places,” I was told by a lace-seller who had sometimes tried to do business in second-hand shawls and cloaks, “because you are sure to hear, ‘Oh, we can get them far cheaper in Petticoat-lane, when we like to go as far.’”
The different portions of female dress are shown and sold in the street, as I have described in my account of Rosemary-lane, and of the trading of the men selling second-hand male apparel. There is not so much attention paid to “set off” gowns that there is to set off coats. “If the gown be a washing gown,” I was informed, “it is sure to have to be washed before it can be worn, and so it is no use bothering with it, and paying for soap and labour beforehand. If it be woollen, or some stuff that wont wash, it has almost always to be altered before it is worn, and so it is no use doing it up perhaps to be altered again.” Silk goods, however, are carefully enough re-glossed and repaired. Most of the others “just take their chance.”
A good-looking Irishwoman gave me the following account. She had come to London and had been a few years in service, where she saved a little money, when she married a cousin, but in what degree of cousinship she did not know. She then took part in his avocation as a crockman, and subsequently as a street-seller of second-hand clothes.
“Why, yis, thin and indeed, sir,” she said, “I did feel rather quare in my new trade, going about from house to house, the Commercial-road and Stepney way, but I soon got not to mind, and indeed thin it don’t matter much what way one gets one’s living, so long as it’s honest. O, yis, I know there’s goings on in old clothes that isn’t always honest, but my husband’s a fair dealing man. I felt quarer, too, whin I had to sell in the strate, but I soon got used to that, too; and it’s not such slavish work as the ‘crocks.’ But we sometimes ‘crocks’ in the mornings a little still, and sells in the evenings. No, not what we’ve collected—for that goes to Mr. Isaac’s market almost always—but stock that’s ready for wear.
“For Cotton Gowns I’ve got from 9d. to 2s. 3d. O, yis, and indeed thin, there’s gowns chaper, 4d. and 6d., but there’s nothing to be got out of them, and we don’t sell them. From 9d. to 18d. is the commonest price. It’s poor people as buys: O, yis, and indeed thin it is, thim as has families, and must look about thim. Many’s the poor woman that’s said to me, ‘Well, and indeed, marm, it isn’t my inclination to chapen anybody as I thinks is fair, and I was brought up quite different to buying old gowns, I assure you’—yis, that’s often said; no, sir, it isn’t my countrywomen that says it (laughing), it’s yours. ‘I wouldn’t think,’ says she, ‘of offering you 1d. less than 1s., marm, for that frock for my daughter, marm, but it’s such a hard fight to live.’ Och, thin, and it is indeed; but to hear some of them talk you’d think they was born ladies. Stuff-gowns is from 2d. to 8d. higher than cotton, but they don’t sell near so well. I hardly know why. Cotton washes, and if a dacent woman gets a chape second-hand cotton, she washes and does it up, and it seems to come to her fresh and new. That can’t be done with stuff. Silk is very little in my way, but silk gowns sell from 3s. 6d. to 4s. Of satin and velvet gowns I can tell you nothing; they’re never in the streets.
“Second-hand Bonnets is a very poor sale—very. The milliners, poor craitchers, as makes them up and sells them in the strate, has the greatest sale, but they makes very little by it. Their bonnets looks new, you see, sir, and close and nice for poor women. I’ve sold bonnets from 6d. to 3s. 6d., and some of them cost 3l. But whin they git faded and out of fashion, they’re of no vally at all at all. Shawls is a very little sale; very little. I’ve got from 6d. to 2s. 6d. for them. Plaid shawls is as good as any, at about 1s. 6d.; but they’re a winter trade. Cloaks (they are what in the dress-making trade are called mantles) isn’t much of a call. I’ve had them from 1s. 6d. as high as 7s.—but only once 7s., and it was good silk. They’re not a sort of wear that suits poor people. Will and indeed thin, I hardly know who buys them second-hand. Perhaps bad women buys a few, or they get men to buy them for them. I think your misses don’t buy much second-hand thin in gineral; the less the better, the likes of them; yis, indeed, sir. Stays I don’t sell, but you can buy them from 3d. to 15d.; it’s a small trade. And I don’t sell Under Clothing, or only now and thin, except Children’s. Dear me, I can hardly tell the prices I get for the poor little things’ dress—I’ve a little girl myself—the prices vary so, just as the frocks and other things is made for big children or little, and what they’re made of. I’ve sold frocks—they sell best on Saturday and Monday nights—from 2d. to 1s. 6d. Little petticoats is 1d. to 3d.; shifts is 1d. and 2d., and so is little shirts. If they wasn’t so low there would be more rags than there is, and sure there’s plinty.
“Will, thin and indeed, I don’t know what we make in a week, and if I did, why should I tell? O, yes, sir, I know from the gentleman that sent you to me that you’re asking for a good purpose: yis, indeed, thin; but I ralely can’t say. We do pritty well, God’s name be praised! Perhaps a good second-hand gown trade and such like is worth from 10s. to 15s. a week, and nearer 15s. than 10s. ivery week; but that’s a good second-hand trade you understand, sir. A poor trade’s about half that, perhaps. But thin my husband sells men’s wear as well. Yis, indeed, and I find time to go to mass, and I soon got my husband to go after we was married, for he’d got to neglect it, God be praised; and what’s all you can get here compared to making your sowl” [saving your soul—making your soul is not an uncommon phrase among some of the Irish people]. “Och, and indeed thin, sir, if you’ve met Father ——, you’ve met a good gintleman.”
Of the street-selling of women and children’s second-hand boots and shoes, I need say but little, as they form part of the stock of the men’s ware, and are sold by the same men, not unfrequently assisted by their wives. The best sale is for black cloth boots, whether laced or buttoned, but the prices run only from 5d. to 1s. 9d. If the “legs” of a second-hand pair be good, they are worth 5d., no matter what the leather portion, including the soles, may be. Coloured boots sell very indifferently. Children’s boots and shoes are sold from 2d. to 15d.
Of furs the street-sale is prompt enough, or used to be prompt; but not so much so, I am told, last season, as formerly. A fur tippet is readily bought for the sake of warmth by women who thrive pretty well in the keeping of coffee-stalls, or any calling which requires attendance during the night, or in the chilliness of early morning, even in summer, by those who go out at early hours to their work. By such persons a big tippet is readily bought when the money is not an impediment, and to many it is a strong recommendation, that when new, the tippet, most likely, was worn by a real lady. So I was assured by a person familiar with the trade.
One female street-seller had three stalls or stands in the New Cut (when it was a great street market), about two years back, and all for the sale of second-hand furs. She has now a small shop in second-hand wearing apparel (women’s) generally, furs being of course included. The business carried on in the street (almost always “the Cut”) by the fur-seller in question, who was both industrious and respectable, was very considerable. On a Monday she has not unfrequently taken 3l., one-half of which, indeed more than half, was profit, for the street-seller bought in the summer, when furs “were no money at all,” and sold in the winter, when they “were really tin, and no mistake.” Before the season began, she sometimes had a small room nearly full of furs.
This trade is less confined to Petticoat-lane and the old clothes district, as regards the supply to retail customers, than is anything else connected with dress. But the fur trade is now small. The money, prudence, and forethought necessary to enable a fur-seller to buy in the summer, for ample profit in the winter, as regards street-trade, is not in accordance with the habits of the general run of street-sellers, who think but of the present, or hardly think even of that.
The old furs, like all the other old articles of wearing apparel, whether garbs of what may be accounted primary necessaries, as shoes, or mere comforts or adornments, as boas or muffs, are bought in the first instance at the Old Clothes Exchange, and so find their way to the street-sellers. The exceptions as to this first transaction in the trade I now speak of, are very trifling, and, perhaps, more trifling than in other articles, for one great supply of furs, I am informed, is from their being swopped in the spring and summer for flowers with the “root-sellers,” who carry them to the Exchange.
Last winter there were sometimes as many as ten persons—three-fourths of the number of second-hand fur sellers, which fluctuates, being women—with fur-stands. They frequent the street-markets on the Saturday and Monday nights, not confining themselves to any one market in particular. The best sale is for Fur Tippets, and chiefly of the darker colours. These are bought, one of the dealers informed me, frequently by maid-servants, who could run of errands in them in the dark, or wear them in wet weather. They are sold from 1s. 6d. to 4s. 6d., about 2s. or 2s. 6d. being a common charge. Children’s tippets “go off well,” from 6d. to 1s. 3d. Boas are not vended to half the extent of tippets, although they are lower-priced, one of tolerably good gray squirrel being 1s. 6d. The reason of the difference in the demand is that boas are as much an ornament as a garment, while the tippet answers the purpose of a shawl. Muffs are not at all vendible in the streets, the few that are disposed of being principally for children. As muffs are not generally used by maid-servants, or by the families of the working classes, the absence of demand in the second-hand traffic is easily accounted for. They are bought sometimes to cut up for other purposes. Victorines are disposed of readily enough at from 1s. to 2s. 6d., as are Cuffs, from 4d. to 8d.
One man, who told me that a few years since he and his wife used to sell second-hand furs in the street, was of opinion that his best customers were women of the town, who were tolerably well-dressed, and who required some further protection from the night air. He could readily sell any “tidy” article, tippet, boa, or muff, to those females, if they had from 2s. 6d. to 5s. at command. He had so sold them in Clare-market, in Tottenham-court-road, and the Brill.
No small part of the second-hand trade of London is carried on in the market-place of Smithfield, on the Friday afternoons. Here is a mart for almost everything which is required for the harnessing of beasts of draught, or is required for any means of propulsion or locomotion, either as a whole vehicle, or in its several parts, needed by street-traders: also of the machines, vessels, scales, weights, measures, baskets, stands, and all other appliances of street-trade.
The scene is animated and peculiar. Apart from the horse, ass, and goat trade (of which I shall give an account hereafter), it is a grand Second-hand Costermongers’ Exchange. The trade is not confined to that large body, though they are the principal merchants, but includes greengrocers (often the costermonger in a shop), carmen, and others. It is, moreover, a favourite resort of the purveyors of street-provisions and beverages, of street dainties and luxuries. Of this class some of the most prosperous are those who are “well known in Smithfield.”
The space devoted to this second-hand commerce and its accompaniments, runs from St. Bartholomew’s Hospital towards Long-lane, but isolated peripatetic traders are found in all parts of the space not devoted to the exhibition of cattle or of horses. The crowd on the day of my visit was considerable, but from several I heard the not-always-very-veracious remarks of “Nothing doing” and “There’s nobody at all here to-day.” The weather was sultry, and at every few yards arose the cry from men and boys, “Ginger-beer, ha’penny a glass! Ha’penny a glass,” or “Iced lemonade here! Iced raspberriade, as cold as ice, ha’penny a glass, only a ha’penny!” A boy was elevated on a board at the end of a splendid affair of this kind. It was a square built vehicle, the top being about 7 feet by 4, and flat and surmounted by the lemonade fountain; long, narrow, champagne glasses, holding a raspberry coloured liquid, frothed up exceedingly, were ranged round, and the beverage dispensed by a woman, the mother or employer of the boy who was bawling. The sides of the machine, which stood on wheels, were a bright, shiny blue, and on them sprawled the lion and unicorn in gorgeous heraldry, yellow and gold, the artist being, according to a prominent announcement, a “herald painter.” The apparatus was handsome, but with that exaggeration of handsomeness which attracts the high and low vulgar, who cannot distinguish between gaudiness and beauty. The sale was brisk. The ginger-beer sold in the market was generally dispensed from carts, and here I noticed, what occurs yearly in street-commerce, an innovation on the established system of the trade. Several sellers disposed of their ginger-beer in clear glass bottles, somewhat larger and fuller-necked than those introduced by M. Soyer for the sale of his “nectar,” and the liquid was drank out of the bottle the moment the cork was undrawn, and so the necessity of a glass was obviated.
Near the herald-painter’s work, of which I have just spoken, stood a very humble stall on which were loaves of bread, and round the loaves were pieces of fried fish and slices of bread on plates, all remarkably clean. “Oysters! Penny-a lot! Penny-a-lot, oysters!” was the cry, the most frequently heard after that of ginger-beer, &c. “Cherries! Twopence a-pound! Penny-a pound, cherries!” “Fruit-pies! Try my fruit-pies!” The most famous dealer in all kinds of penny pies is, however, not a pedestrian, but an equestrian hawker. He drives a very smart, handsome pie-cart, sitting behind after the manner of the Hansom cabmen, the lifting up of a lid below his knees displaying his large stock of pies. His “drag” is whisked along rapidly by a brisk chestnut poney, well-harnessed. The “whole set out,” I was informed, poney included, cost 50l. when new. The proprietor is a keen Chartist and teetotaller, and loses no opportunity to inculcate to his customers the excellence of teetotalism, as well as of his pies. “Milk! ha’penny a pint! ha’penny a pint, good milk!” is another cry. “Raspberry cream! Iced raspberry-cream, ha’penny a glass!” This street-seller had a capital trade. Street-ices, or rather ice-creams, were somewhat of a failure last year, more especially in Greenwich-park, but this year they seem likely to succeed. The Smithfield man sold them in very small glasses, which he merely dipped into a vessel at his feet, and so filled them with the cream. The consumers had to use their fingers instead of a spoon, and no few seemed puzzled how to eat their ice, and were grievously troubled by its getting among their teeth. I heard one drover mutter that he felt “as if it had snowed in his belly!” Perhaps at Smithfield-market on the Friday afternoons every street-trade in eatables and drinkables has its representative, with the exception of such things as sweet-stuff, curds and whey, &c., which are bought chiefly by women and children. There were plum-dough, plum-cake, pastry, pea-soup, whelks, periwinkles, ham-sandwiches, hot-eels, oranges, &c., &c., &c.
These things are the usual accompaniment of street-markets, and I now come to the subject matter of the work, the sale of second-hand articles.
In this trade, since the introduction of a new arrangement two months ago, there has been a great change. The vendors are not allowed to vend barrows in the market, unless indeed with a poney or donkey harnessed to them, or unless they are wheeled about by the owner, and they are not allowed to spread their wares on the ground. When it is considered of what those wares are composed, the awkwardness of the arrangement, to the sales-people, may be understood. They consist of second-hand collars, pads, saddles, bridles, bits, traces, every description of worn harness, whole or in parts; the wheels, springs, axles, &c., of barrows and carts; the beams, chains, and bodies of scales;—these, perhaps, are the chief things which are sold separately, as parts of a whole. The traders have now no other option but to carry them as they best can, and offer them for sale. You saw men who really appear clad in harness. Portions were fastened round their bodies, collars slung on their arms, pads or small cart-saddles, with their shaft-gear, were planted on their shoulders. Some carried merely a collar, or a harness bridle, or even a bit or a pair of spurs. It was the same with the springs, &c., of the barrows and small carts. They were carried under men’s arms, or poised on their shoulders. The wheels and other things which are too heavy for such modes of transport had to be placed in some sort of vehicle, and in the vehicles might be seen trestles, &c.
The complaints on the part of the second-hand sellers were neither few nor mild: “If it had been a fat ox that had to be accommodated,” said one, “before he was roasted for an alderman, they’d have found some way to do it. But it don’t matter for poor men; though why we shouldn’t be suited with a market as well as richer people is not the ticket, that’s the fact.”
These arrangements are already beginning to be infringed, and will be more and more infringed, for such is always the case. The reason why they were adopted was that the ground was so littered, that there was not room for the donkey traffic and other requirements of the market. The donkeys, when “shown,” under the old arrangement, often trod on boards of old metal, &c., spread on the ground, and tripped, sometimes to their injury, in consequence. Prior to the change, about twenty persons used to come from Petticoat-lane, &c., and spread their old metal or other stores on the ground.
Of these there are now none. These Petticoat-laners, I was told by a Smithfield frequenter, were men “who knew the price of old rags,”—a new phrase expressive of their knowingness and keenness in trade.
The statistics of this trade will be found under that head; the prices are often much higher and much lower. I speak of the regular trades. I have not included the sale of the superior butchers’ carts, &c., as that is a traffic not in the hands of the regular second-hand street-sellers. I have not thought it requisite to speak of the hawking of whips, sticks, wash-leathers, brushes, curry-combs, &c., &c., of which I have already treated distinctively.
The accounts of the Capital and Income of the Street-Sellers of Second-Hand Articles I am obliged to defer till a future occasion.