London Labour and the London Poor (part 6 of 6)

London Labour and the London Poor (part 6 of 6)

“I have been familiar, unfortunately for me, with low lodging-houses, both in town and country, for more than ten years. I consider that, as to the conduct of those places, it is worse in London than in the country--while in the country the character of the keeper is worse than in London, although but a small difference can be noted. The worst I am acquainted with, though I haven’t been in it lately, is in the neighbourhood of Drury-lane--this is the worst both for filth and for the character of the lodgers. In the room where I slept, which was like a barn in size, the tiles were off the roof, and as there was no ceiling, I could see the blue sky from where I lay. That may be altered now. Here I slept in what was called the single men’s room, and it was confined to men. In another part of the house was a room for married couples, as it was called, but of such apartments I can tell you more concerning other houses. For the bed with the view of the blue sky I paid 3_d._ If it rained there was no shelter. I have slept in a room in Brick-lane, Whitechapel, in which were fourteen beds. In the next bed to me, on the one side, was a man, his wife, and three children, and a man and his wife on the other. They were Irish people, and I believe the women were the men’s wives--as the Irish women generally are. Of all the women that resort to these places the Irish are far the best for chastity. All the beds were occupied, single men being mixed with the married couples. The question is never asked, when a man and woman go to a lodging-house, if they are man and wife. All must pay before they go to bed, or be turned into the street. These beds were made--as all the low lodging-house beds are--of the worst cotton flocks stuffed in coarse, strong canvas. There is a pair of sheets, a blanket, and a rug. I have known the bedding to be unchanged for three months; but that is not general. The beds are an average size. Dirt is the rule with them, and cleanliness the exception. They are all infested with vermin. I never met with an exception. No one is required to wash before going to bed in any of these places (except at a very few, where a very dirty fellow would not be admitted), unless he has been walking on a wet day without shoes or stockings, and then he must bathe his feet. The people who slept in the room I am describing were chiefly young men, almost all accompanied by young females. I have seen girls of fifteen sleep with ‘their chaps’--in some places with youths of from sixteen to twenty. There is no objection to any boy and girl occupying a bed, even though the keeper knows they were previously strangers to each other. The accommodation for purposes of decency is very bad in some places. A pail in the middle of a room, to which both sexes may resort, is a frequent arrangement. No delicacy or decency is ever observed. The women are, I think, worse than the men. If any one, possessing a sense of shame, says a word of rebuke, he is at once assailed, by the women in particular, with the coarsest words in the language. The Irish women are as bad as the others with respect to language, but I have known them keep themselves covered in bed when the other women were outraging modesty or decency. The Irish will sleep anywhere to save a halfpenny a night, if they have ever so much money.” [Here he stated certain gross acts common to lodging-houses, which cannot be detailed in print.] “It is not uncommon for a boy or man to take a girl out of the streets to these apartments. Some are the same as common brothels, women being taken in at all hours of the day or night. In most, however, they must stay all night as a married couple. In dressing or undressing there is no regard to decency, while disgusting blackguardism is often carried on in the conversation of the inmates. I have known decent people, those that are driven to such places from destitution, perhaps for the first time, shocked and disgusted at what they saw. I have seen a decent married pair so shocked and disgusted that they have insisted on leaving the place, and have left it. A great number of the lodging-houses are large old buildings, which were constructed for other purposes; these houses are not so ill-ventilated, but even there, where so many sleep in one room, the air is hot and foul. In smaller rooms, say twelve feet by nine, I have seen four beds placed for single men, with no ventilation whatsoever, so that no one could remain inside in warmish weather, without every door and window open; another room in the same house, a little larger, had four double beds, with as many men and women, and perhaps with children. The Board of Health last autumn compelled the keepers of these places to whitewash the walls and ceilings, and use limewash in other places; before that, the walls and ceilings looked as if they had been blackwashed, but still you could see the bugs creeping along those black walls, which were not black enough to hide that. In some houses in the summer you can hardly place your finger on a part of the wall free from bugs. I have scraped them off by handfulls.

“Nothing can be worse to the health than these places, without ventilation, cleanliness, or decency, and with forty people’s breaths perhaps mingling together in one foul choking steam of stench. [The man’s own words.] They are the ready resort of thieves and all bad characters, and the keepers will hide them if they can from the police, or facilitate any criminal’s escape. I never knew the keepers give any offender up, even when rewards were offered. If they did, they might shut up shop. These houses are but receptacles, with a few exceptions, for beggars, thieves, and prostitutes, and those in training for thieves and prostitutes--the exceptions are those who must lodge at the lowest possible cost. I consider them in every respect of the worst possible character, and think that immediate means should be adopted to improve them. Fights, and fierce fights too, are frequent in them, and I have often been afraid murder would be done. They are money-making places, very. One person will own several--as many as a dozen. In each house he has one or more ‘deputies,’ chiefly men. Some of these keepers are called respectable men; some live out in the country, leaving all to deputies. They are quite a separate class from the keepers of regular brothels. In one house that I know they can accommodate eighty single men; and when single men only are admitted, what is decent, or rather what is considered decent in such places, is less unfrequent. Each man in such houses pays 4_d._ a night, a bed to each man or boy; that is 26_s._ 8_d._ nightly, or 486_l._ 13_s._ 4_d._ a year, provided the beds be full every night--and they are full six nights out of seven. Besides that, some of the beds supply double turns; for many get up at two to go to Covent-garden or some other market, and their beds are then let a second time to other men; so that more than eighty are frequently accommodated, and I suppose 500_l._ is the nearest sum to be taken for an accurate return. The rent is very trifling; the chief expense to be deducted from the profits of the house in question is the payment of three and sometimes four deputies, receiving from 7_s._ to 12_s._ a week each--say an average of from 30_s._ to 40_s._ a week--as three or four are employed. Fire (coke being only used) and gas are the other expenses. The washing is a mere trifle. Then there are the parochial and the water-rates. The rent is always low, as the houses are useable for nothing but such lodgings. The profits of the one house I have described cannot be less than 300_l._ a year, and the others are in proportion. Now, the owner of this house has, I believe, 10 more such houses, which, letting only threepenny beds (some are lower than that), may realise a profit of about 200_l._ a year each. These altogether yield a clear profit of 2300_l._ for the eleven of them; but on how much vice and disease that 2300_l._ has been raised is a question beyond a schoolmaster. The missionaries visit these lodging-houses, but, judging from what I have heard said by the inmates in all of them, when the missionaries have left, scarcely any good effect has resulted from the visits. I never saw a clergyman of any denomination in any one of these places, either in town or country. In London the master or deputy of the low lodging-house does not generally meddle with the disposal of stolen property, as in the country. This is talked about, alike in the town and country houses, very openly and freely before persons known only to be beggars, and never stealing: it is sufficient that they are known as tramps. In London the keepers must all know that stolen property is nightly brought into the house, and they wink at its disposal, but they won’t mix themselves up with disposing of it. If it be provisions that have been stolen, they are readily disposed of to the other inmates, and the owner or deputy of the house may know nothing about it, and certainly would not care to interfere if he did. I never heard robberies planned there, but there are generally strangers present, and this may deter. I believe more robberies are planned in low coffee-shops than in lodging-houses. The influence of the lodging-house society on boys who have run away from their parents, and have got thither, either separately or in company with lads who have joined them in the streets, is this:--Boys there, after paying their lodgings, may exercise the same freedom from every restraint as they see the persons of maturer years enjoy. This is often pleasant to a boy, especially if he has been severely treated by his parents or master; he apes, and often outdoes, all the men’s ways, both in swearing and lewd talk, and so he gets a relish for that sort of life. After he has resorted to such places--the sharper boys for three, and the duller for six months--they are adepts at any thieving or vice. Drunkenness, and even moderate drinking, is very rare among them. I seldom or never see the boys drink--indeed, thieves of all ages are generally sober men. Once get to like a lodging-house life, and a boy can hardly be got out of it. I said the other day to a youth, ‘I wish I could get out of these haunts and never see a lodging-house again;’ and he replied, ‘If I had ever so much money I would never live anywhere else.’ I have seen the boys in a lodging-house sit together telling stories, but paid no attention to them.”

STATEMENT OF A YOUNG PICKPOCKET.

To show the class of characters usually frequenting these lodging-houses, I will now give the statement of a boy--a young pickpocket--without shoes or stockings. He wore a ragged, dirty, and very thin great coat, of some dark jean or linen, under which was another thin coat, so arranged that what appeared rents--and, indeed, were rents, but designedly made--in the outer garment, were slits through which the hand readily reached the pockets of the inner garment, and could there deposit any booty. He was a slim, agile lad, with a sharp but not vulgar expression, and small features. His hands were of singular delicacy and beauty. His fingers were very long, and no lady’s could have been more taper. A burglar told me that with such a hand he ought to have made his fortune. He was worth 20_l._ a week, he said, as a “wire,” that is, a picker of ladies’ pockets. When engaged “for a turn,” as he told me he once was by an old pickpocket, the man looked minutely at his fingers, and approved of them highly. His hands, the boy said, were hardly serviceable to him when very cold. His feet were formed in the same symmetrical and beautiful mould as his hands. “I am 15,” he said. “My father was a potter, and I can’t recollect my mother” (many of the thieves are orphans or motherless). “My father has been dead about five years. I was then working at the pottery in High-street, Lambeth, earning about 4_s._ a week; in good weeks, 4_s._ 6_d._ I was in work eight months after my father died; but one day I broke three bottles by accident, and the foreman said ‘I shan’t want you any more;’ and I took that as meant for a discharge; but I found afterwards that he did’nt so mean it. I had 2_s._ and a suit of clothes then, and tried for work at all the potteries; but I couldn’t get any. It was about the time Smithfield fair was on. I went, but it was a very poor concern. I fell asleep in a pen in the afternoon, and had my shoes stolen off my feet. When I woke up, I began crying. A fellow named Gyp then came along (I knew his name afterwards), and he said, ‘What are you crying for?’ and I told him, and he said, ‘Pull off your stockings, and come with me, and I’ll show you where to sleep.’ So I did, and he took me to St. Olave’s workhouse, having first sold my stockings. I had never stolen anything until then. There I slept in the casual ward, and Gyp slept there too. In the morning we started together for Smithfield, where he said he had a job to sweep the pens, but he couldn’t sweep them without pulling off his coat, and it would look so queer if he hadn’t a shirt--and he hadn’t one. He promised to teach me how to make a living in the country if I would lend him mine, and I was persuaded--for I was an innocent lad then--and went up a gateway and stripped off my shirt and gave it to him, and soon after he went into a public-house to get half a pint of beer; he went in at one door and out at another, and I didn’t see him for six months afterwards. That afternoon I went into Billingsgate market and met some boys, and one said, ‘Mate, how long have you been knocking about; where did you doss?’ I didn’t know what they meant, and when they’d told me they meant where did I sleep? I told them how I’d been served. And they said, ‘Oh! you must expect that, until you learn something,’ and they laughed. They all know’d Gyp; he was like the head of a Billingsgate gang once. I became a pal with these boys at Billingsgate, and we went about stealing fish and meat. Some boys have made 2_s._ in a morning, when fish is dear--those that had pluck and luck; they sold it at half-price. Billingsgate market is a good place to sell it; plenty of costermongers are there who will buy it, rather than of the salesmen. I soon grew as bad as the rest at this work. At first I sold it to other boys, who would get 3_d._ for what they bought at 1_d._ Now they can’t do me. If I can get a thing cheap where I lodge, and have the money, and can sell it dear, that’s the chance. I carried on this fish rig for about two years, and went begging a little, too. I used to try a little thieving sometimes in Petticoat-lane. They say the ‘fliest’ is easy to take in sometimes--that’s the artfullest; but I could do no good there. At these two years’ end, I was often as happy as could be; that is, when I had made money. Then I met B----, whom I had often heard of as an uncommon clever pickpocket; he could do it about as well as I can now, so as people won’t feel it. Three of his mates were transported for stealing silver plate. He and I became pals, and started for the country with 1_d._ We went through Foot’s Cray, and passed a farm where a man’s buried at the top of a house; there’s something about money while a man’s above ground; I don’t understand it, but it’s something like that. A baker, about thirty miles from London, offended us about some bread; and B---- said ‘I’ll serve him out.’ We watched him out, and B---- tried at his pocket, saying, ‘I’ll show you how to do a handkerchief;’ but the baker looked round, and B---- stopped; and just after that I flared it (whisked the handkerchief out); and that’s the first I did. It brought 1_s._ 3_d._ We travelled across country, and got to Maidstone, and did two handkerchiefs. One I wore round my neck, and the other the lodging-housekeeper pawned for us for 1_s._ 6_d._ In Maidstone, next morning, I was nailed, and had three months of it. I didn’t mind it so much then, but Maidstone’s far worse now, I’ve heard. I have been in prison three times in Brixton, three times in the Old Horse (Bridewell), three times in the Compter, once in the Steel, and once in Maidstone--thirteen times in all, including twice I was remanded, and got off; but I don’t reckon that prison. Every time I came out harder than I went in. I’ve had four floggings; it was bad enough--a flogging was--while it lasted; but when I got out I soon forgot it. At a week’s end I never thought again about it. If I had been better treated I should have been a better lad. I could leave off thieving now as if I had never thieved, if I could live without.” [I am inclined to doubt this part of the statement.] “I have carried on this sort of life until now. I didn’t often make a very good thing of it. I saw Manning and his wife hung. Mrs. Manning was dressed beautiful when she came up. She screeched when Jack Ketch pulled the bolt away. She was harder than Manning, they all said; without her there would have been no murder. It was a great deal talked about, and Manning was pitied. It was a punishment to her to come on the scaffold and see Manning with the rope about his neck, if people takes it in the right light. I did 4_s._ 6_d._ at the hanging--two handkerchiefs, and a purse with 2_s._ in it--the best purse I ever had; but I’ve only done three or four purses. The reason is, because I’ve never been well dressed. If I went near a lady, she would say, ‘Tush, tush, you ragged fellow!’ and would shrink away. But I would rather rob the rich than the poor; they miss it less. But 1_s._ honest goes further than 5_s._ stolen. Some call that only a saying, but it’s true. All the money I got soon went--most of it a-gambling. Picking pockets, when any one comes to think on it, is the daringest thing that a boy can do. It didn’t in the least frighten me to see Manning and Mrs. Manning hanged. I never thought I should come to the gallows, and I never shall--I’m not high-tempered enough for that. The only thing that frightens me when I’m in prison is sleeping in a cell by myself--you do in the Old Horse and the Steel--because I think things may appear. You can’t imagine how one dreams when in trouble. I’ve often started up in a fright from a dream. I don’t know what might appear. I’ve heard people talk about ghosts and that. Once, in the County, a tin had been left under a tap that went drip--drip--drip. And all in the ward were shocking frightened; and weren’t we glad when we found out what it was! Boys tell stories about haunted castles, and cats that are devils; and that frightens one. At the fire in Monument-yard I did 5_s._ 7_d._--3_s._ in silver and 2_s._ 3_d._ in handkerchiefs, and 4_d._ for three pairs of gloves. I sell my handkerchiefs in the Lane (Petticoat-lane). I carry on this trade still. Most times I’ve got in prison is when I’ve been desperate from hunger, and have said to B----, ‘Now I’ll have money, nailed or not nailed.’ I can pick a woman’s pocket as easy as a man’s, though you wouldn’t think it. If one’s in prison for begging, one’s laughed at. The others say, ‘Begging! Oh, you cadger!’ So a boy is partly forced to steal for his character. I’ve lived a good deal in lodging-houses, and know the ways of them. They are very bad places for a boy to be in. Where I am now, when the place is full, there’s upwards of 100 can be accommodated. I won’t be there long. I’ll do something to get out of it. There’s people there will rob their own brother. There’s people there talk backward--for one they say eno, for two owt, for three eerht, for four ruof, for five evif, for six exis. I don’t know any higher. I can neither read nor write. In this lodging-house there are no women. They talk there chiefly about what they’ve done, or are going to do, or have set their minds upon, just as you and any other gentlemen might do. I have been in lodging-houses in Mint-street and Kent-street, where men and women and children all slept in one room. I think the men and women who slept together were generally married, or lived together; but it’s not right for a big boy to sleep in the same room. Young men have had beds to themselves, and so have young women there; but there’s a deputy comes into the room, every now and then, to see there’s nothing wrong. There’s little said in these places, the people are generally so tired. Where I am there’s horrid language--swearing, and everything that’s bad. They are to be pitied, because there’s not work for honest people, let alone thieves. In the lodging-houses the air is very bad, enough to stifle one in bed--so many breaths together. Without such places my trade couldn’t be carried on; I couldn’t live. Some though would find another way out. Three or four would take a room among them. Anybody’s money’s good--you can always get a room. I would be glad to leave this life, and work at a pottery. As to sea, a bad captain would make me run away--sure. He can do what he likes with you when you’re out at sea. I don’t get more than 2_s._ a week, one week with the other, by thieving; some days you do nothing until hunger makes your spirits rise. I can’t thieve on a full belly. I live on 2_s._ a week from thieving, because I understand fiddling--that means, buying a thing for a mere trifle, and selling it for double, or for more, if you’re not taken in yourself. I’ve been put up to a few tricks in lodging-houses, and now I can put others up to it. Everybody must look after themselves, and I can’t say I was very sorry when I stole that 2_s._ from a poor woman, but I’d rather have had 1_s._ 6_d._ from a rich one. I never drink--eating’s my part. I spend chief part of my money in pudding. I don’t like living in lodging-houses, but I must like it as I’m placed now--that sort of living, and those lodging-houses, or starving. They bring tracts to the lodging-houses--pipes are lighted with them; tracts won’t fill your belly. Tracts is no good, except to a person that has a home; at the lodging-houses they’re laughed at. They seldom are mentioned. I’ve heard some of them read by missionaries, but can’t catch anything from them. If it had been anything bad, I should have caught it readily. If an innocent boy gets into a lodging-house, he’ll not be innocent long--he can’t. I know three boys who have run away, and are in the lodging-houses still, but I hope their father has caught them. Last night a little boy came to the lodging-house where I was. We all thought he had run away, by the way he spoke. He stayed all night, but was found out in two or three falsehoods. I wanted to get him back home, or he’ll be as bad as I am in time, though he’s nothing to me; but I couldn’t find him this morning; but I’ll get him home yet, perhaps. The Jews in Petticoat-lane are terrible rogues. They’ll buy anything of you--they’ll buy what you’ve stolen from their next-door neighbours--that they would, if they knew it. But they’ll give you very little for it, and they threaten to give you up if you won’t take a quarter of the value of it. ‘Oh! I shee you do it,’ they say, ‘and I like to shee him robbed, but you musht take vot I give.’ I wouldn’t mind what harm came to those Petticoat-laners. Many of them are worth thousands, though you wouldn’t think it.” After this I asked him what he, as a sharp lad, thought was the cause of so many boys becoming vagrant pickpockets? He answered, “Why, sir, if boys runs away, and has to shelter in low lodging-houses--and many runs away from cruel treatment at home--they meet there with boys such as me, or as bad, and the devil soon lays his hand on them. If there wasn’t so many lodging-houses there wouldn’t be so many bad boys--there couldn’t. Lately a boy came down to Billingsgate, and said he wouldn’t stay at home to be knocked about any longer. He said it to some boys like me; and he was asked if he could get anything from his mother, and he said ‘yes, he could.’ So he went back, and brought a brooch and some other things with him to a place fixed on, and then he and some of the boys set off for the country; and that’s the way boys is trapped. I think the fathers of such boys either ill-treat them, or neglect them; and so they run away. My father used to beat me shocking; so I hated home. I stood hard licking well, and was called ‘the plucked one.’” This boy first stole flowers, currants, and gooseberries out of the clergyman’s garden, more by way of bravado, and to ensure the approbation of his comrades, than for anything else. He answered readily to my inquiry, as to what he thought would become of him?--“Transportation. If a boy has great luck he may carry on for eight years. Three or four years is the common run, but transportation is what he’s sure to come to in the end.” This lad picked my pocket at my request, and so dexterously did he do his “work,” that though I was alive to what he was trying to do, it was impossible for me to detect the least movement of my coat. To see him pick the pockets, as he did, of some of the gentlemen who were present on the occasion, was a curious sight. He crept behind much like a cat with his claws out, and while in the act held his breath with suspense; but immediately the handkerchief was safe in his hand, the change in the expression of his countenance was most marked. He then seemed almost to be convulsed with delight at the success of his perilous adventure, and, turning his back, held up the handkerchief to discover the value of his prize, with intense glee evident in every feature.

STATEMENT OF A PROSTITUTE.

The narrative which follows--that of a prostitute, sleeping in the low-lodging houses, where boys and girls are all huddled promiscuously together, discloses a system of depravity, atrocity, and enormity, which certainly cannot be paralleled in any nation, however barbarous, nor in any age, however “dark.” The facts detailed, it will be seen, are gross enough to make us all blush for the land in which such scenes can be daily perpetrated. The circumstances, which it is impossible to publish, are of the most loathsome and revolting nature.

A good-looking girl of sixteen gave me the following awful statement:--

“I am an orphan. When I was ten I was sent to service as maid of all-work, in a small tradesman’s family. It was a hard place, and my mistress used me very cruelly, beating me often. When I had been in place three weeks, my mother died; my father having died twelve years before. I stood my mistress’s ill-treatment for about six months. She beat me with sticks as well as with her hands. I was black and blue, and at last I ran away. I got to Mrs. ----, a low lodging-house. I didn’t know before that there was such a place. I heard of it from some girls at the Glasshouse (baths and washhouses), where I went for shelter. I went with them to have a halfpenny worth of coffee, and they took me to the lodging-house. I then had three shillings, and stayed about a month, and did nothing wrong, living on the three shillings and what I pawned my clothes for, as I got some pretty good things away with me. In the lodging-house I saw nothing but what was bad, and heard nothing but what was bad. I was laughed at, and was told to swear. They said, ‘Look at her for a d---- modest fool’--sometimes worse than that, until by degrees I got to be as bad as they were. During this time I used to see boys and girls from ten and twelve years old sleeping together, but understood nothing wrong. I had never heard of such places before I ran away. I can neither read nor write. My mother was a good woman, and I wish I’d had her to run away to. I saw things between almost children that I can’t describe to you--very often I saw them, and that shocked me. At the month’s end, when I was beat out, I met with a young man of fifteen--I myself was going on to twelve years old--and he persuaded me to take up with him. I stayed with him three months in the same lodging-house, living with him as his wife, though we were mere children, and being true to him. At the three months’ end he was taken up for picking pockets, and got six months. I was sorry, for he was kind to me; though I was made ill through him; so I broke some windows in St. Paul’s-churchyard to get into prison to get cured. I had a month in the Compter, and came out well. I was scolded very much in the Compter, on account of the state I was in, being so young. I had 2_s._ 6_d._ given to me when I came out, and was forced to go into the streets for a living. I continued walking the streets for three years, sometimes making a good deal of money, sometimes none, feasting one day and starving the next. The bigger girls could persuade me to do anything they liked with my money. I was never happy all the time, but I could get no character and could not get out of the life. I lodged all this time at a lodging-house in Kent-street. They were all thieves and bad girls. I have known between three and four dozen boys and girls sleep in one room. The beds were horrid filthy and full of vermin. There was very wicked carryings on. The boys, if any difference, was the worst. We lay packed on a full night, a dozen boys and girls squeedged into one bed. That was very often the case--some at the foot and some at the top--boys and girls all mixed. I can’t go into all the particulars, but whatever could take place in words or acts between boys and girls did take place, and in the midst of the others. I am sorry to say I took part in these bad ways myself, but I wasn’t so bad as some of the others. There was only a candle burning all night, but in summer it was light great part of the night. Some boys and girls slept without any clothes, and would dance about the room that way. I have seen them, and, wicked as I was, felt ashamed. I have seen two dozen capering about the room that way; some mere children, the boys generally the youngest. * * * * There were no men or women present. There were often fights. The deputy never interfered. This is carried on just the same as ever to this day, and is the same every night. I have heard young girls shout out to one another how often they had been obliged to go to the hospital, or the infirmary, or the workhouse. There was a great deal of boasting about what the boys and girls had stolen during the day. I have known boys and girls change their ‘partners,’ just for a night. At three years’ end I stole a piece of beef from a butcher. I did it to get into prison. I was sick of the life I was leading, and didn’t know how to get out of it. I had a month for stealing. When I got out I passed two days and a night in the streets doing nothing wrong, and then went and threatened to break Messrs. ------ windows again. I did that to get into prison again; for when I lay quiet of a night in prison I thought things over, and considered what a shocking life I was leading, and how my health might be ruined completely, and I thought I would stick to prison rather than go back to such a life. I got six months for threatening. When I got out I broke a lamp next morning for the same purpose, and had a fortnight. That was the last time I was in prison. I have since been leading the same life as I told you of for the three years, and lodging at the same houses, and seeing the same goings on. I hate such a life now more than ever. I am willing to do any work that I can in washing and cleaning. I can do a little at my needle. I could do hard work, for I have good health. I used to wash and clean in prison, and always behaved myself there. At the house where I am it is 3_d._ a night; but at Mrs. ----’s it is 1_d._ and 2_d._ a night, and just the same goings on. Many a girl--nearly all of them--goes out into the streets from this penny and twopenny house, to get money for their favourite boys by prostitution. If the girl cannot get money she must steal something, or will be beaten by her ‘chap’ when she comes home. I have seen them beaten, often kicked and beaten until they were blind from bloodshot, and their teeth knocked out with kicks from boots as the girl lays on the ground. The boys, in their turn, are out thieving all day, and the lodging-housekeeper will buy any stolen provisions of them, and sell them to the lodgers. I never saw the police in the house. If a boy comes to the house on a night without money or sawney, or something to sell to the lodgers, a handkerchief or something of that kind, he is not admitted, but told very plainly, ‘Go thieve it, then.’ Girls are treated just the same. Any body may call in the daytime at this house and have a halfpennyworth of coffee and sit any length of time until evening. I have seen three dozen sitting there that way, all thieves and bad girls. There are no chairs, and only one form in front of the fire, on which a dozen can sit. The others sit on the floor all about the room, as near the fire as they can. Bad language goes on during the day, as I have told you it did during the night, and indecencies too, but nothing like so bad as at night. They talk about where there is good places to go and thieve. The missioners call sometimes, but they’re laughed at often when they’re talking, and always before the door’s closed on them. If a decent girl goes there to get a ha’porth of coffee, seeing the board over the door, she is always shocked. Many a poor girl has been ruined in this house since I was, and boys have boasted about it. I never knew boy or girl do good, once get used there. Get used there, indeed, and you are life-ruined. I was an only child, and haven’t a friend in the world. I have heard several girls say how they would like to get out of the life, and out of the place. From those I know, I think that cruel parents and mistresses cause many to be driven there. One lodging-house keeper, Mrs. ----, goes out dressed respectable, and pawns any stolen property, or sells it at public-houses.”

As a corroboration of the girl’s statement, a wretched-looking boy, only thirteen years of age, gave me the following additional information. He had a few rags hanging about him, and no shirt--indeed, he was hardly covered enough for purposes of decency, his skin being exposed through the rents in his jacket and trowsers. He had a stepfather, who treated him very cruelly. The stepfather and the child’s mother went “across the country,” begging and stealing. Before the mother died, an elder brother ran away on account of being beaten:--

“Sometimes (I give his own words) he (the stepfather) wouldn’t give us a bit to eat, telling us to go and thieve for it. My brother had been a month gone (he’s now a soldier in Gibraltar) when I ran away to join him. I knew where to find him, as we met sometimes. We lived by thieving, and I do still--by pulling flesh (stealing meat). I got to lodge at Mrs. ----, and have been there this eight months. I can read and write a little.” [This boy then confirmed what the young girl had told me of the grossest acts night by night among the boys and girls, the language, &c., and continued]--“I always sleep on the floor for 1_d._ and pay a 1/2_d._ besides for coke. At this lodging-house cats and kittens are melted down, sometimes twenty a day. A quart pot is a cat, and pints and half pints are kittens. A kitten (pint) brings 3_d._ from the rag shops, and a cat 6_d._ There’s convenience to melt them down at the lodging-house. We can’t sell clothes in the house, except any lodger wants them; and clothes nearly all goes to the Jews in Petticoat-lane. Mrs. ---- buys the sawney of us; so much for the lump, 2_d._ a pound about; she sells it again for twice what she gives, and more. Perhaps 30 lb. of meat every day is sold to her. I have been in prison six times, and have had three dozen; each time I came out harder. If I left Mrs. ----’s house I don’t know how I could get my living. Lots of boys would get away if they could. I never drink, I don’t like it. Very few of us boys drink. I don’t like thieving, and often go about singing; but I can’t live by singing, and I don’t know how I could live honestly. If I had money enough to buy a stock of oranges I think I could be honest.”

The above facts require no comment from me.

STATEMENT OF A BEGGAR.

A beggar decently attired, and with a simple and what some would call even a respectable look, gave me the following account:--

“I am now twenty-eight, and have known all connected with the begging trade since I was fourteen. My grandfather (mother’s father) was rich, owning three parts of the accommodation houses in St. Giles’s; he allowed me 2_s._ a week pocket-money. My grandfather kept the great house, the old Rose and Crown, in Church-lane, opposite Carver-street, best known as the ‘Beggar’s Opera.’ When a child of seven, I have seen the place crowded--crammed with nothing but beggars, first-rates--none else used the house. The money I saw in the hands of the beggars made a great impression upon me. My father took away my mother’s money. I wish my mother had run away instead. He was kind, but she was always nagging. My father was a foreman in a foundry. I got a situation in the same foundry after my father cut. Once I was sent to a bank with a cheque for 38_l._ to get cashed, in silver, for wages. In coming away, I met a companion of mine, and he persuaded me to bolt with the money, and go to Ashley’s. The money was too much for my head to carry. I fooled all that money away. I wasn’t in bed for more than a fortnight. I bought linnets in cages for the fancy of my persuader. In fact, I didn’t know what use to put the money to. I was among plenty of girls. When the money was out I was destitute. I couldn’t go back to my employers, and I couldn’t face my mother’s temper--that was worse; but for that nagging of hers I shouldn’t have been as I am. She has thrashed me with a hand broom until I was silly; there’s the bumps on my head still; and yet that woman would have given me her heart’s blood to do me a good. As soon as I found myself quite destitute, I went wandering about the City, picking up the skins of gooseberries and orange peel to eat, to live on--things my stomach would turn at now. At last my mother came to hear that I tried to destroy myself. She paid the 38_l._, and my former employers got me a situation in Paddington. I was there a month, and then I met him as advised me to steal the money before--he’s called the ex-king of the costermongers now. Well he was crying hareskins, and advised me again to bolt, and I went with him. My mind was bent upon costermongering and a roving life. I couldn’t settle to anything. I wanted to be away when I was at work, and when I was away I wanted to be back again. It was difficult for me to stick to anything for five minutes together; it is so now. What I begin I can’t finish at the time--unless it’s a pot of beer. Well, in four days my adviser left me; he had no more use for me. I was a flat. He had me for a “go-along,” to cry his things for him. Then, for the first time in my life, I went into a low lodging-house. There was forty men and women sleeping in one room. I had to sleep with a black man, and I slept on the floor to get away from the fellow. There were plenty of girls there; some playing cards and dominoes. It was very dirty--old Mother ----, in Lawrence-lane--the Queen of Hell she was called. There was one tub among the lot of us. I felt altogether disgusted. Those who lived there were beggars, thieves, smashers, coiners, purchasers of begged and stolen goods, and prostitutes. The youngest prostitute was twelve, and so up to fifty. The beastliest language went on. It’s done to outrival one another. There I met with a man called Tom Shallow (shallow is cant for half-naked), and he took me out ballad-singing, and when we couldn’t get on at that (the songs got dead) he left me. I made him 10_s._ or 12_s._ a day in them days, but he only gave me my lodgings and grub (but not half enough), and two pipes of tobacco a day to keep the hunger down, that I mightn’t be expensive. I then ’listed. I was starving, and couldn’t raise a lodging. I took the shilling, but was rejected by the doctor. I ’listed again at Chatham afterwards, but was rejected again. I stayed jobbing among the soldiers for some weeks, and then they gave me an old regimental suit, and with that I came to London. One gave me a jacket, and another a pair of military trowsers, and another a pair of old ammunition boots, and so on. About that time a batch of invalids came from Spain, where they had been under General Evans. On my way up from Chatham, I met at Gravesend with seven chaps out on ‘the Spanish lurk’ as they called it--that is, passing themselves off as wounded men of the Spanish Legion. Two had been out in Spain, and managed the business if questions were asked; the others were regular English beggars, who had never been out of the country. I joined them as a serjeant, as I had a sergeant’s jacket given me at Chatham. On our way to London--‘the school’ (as the lot is called) came all together--we picked up among us 4_l._ and 5_l._ a day--no matter where we went. ‘The school’ all slept in lodging houses, and I at last began to feel comfortable in them. We spent our evenings in eating out-and-out suppers. Sometimes we had such things as sucking pigs, hams, mince pies--indeed we lived on the best. No nobleman could live better in them days. So much wine, too! I drank in such excess, my nose was as big as that there letter stamp; so that I got a sickening of it. We gave good victuals away that was given to us--it was a nuisance to carry them. It cost us from 6_d._ to 1_s._ a day to have our shoes cleaned by poor tramps, and for clean dickies. The clean dodge is always the best for begging upon. At Woolwich we were all on the fuddle at the Dust Hole, and our two spokesmen were drunk; and I went to beg of Major ----, whose brother was then in Spain--he himself had been out previously. Meeting the major at his own house, I said, ‘I was a sergeant in the 3rd Westminster Grenadiers, you know, and served under your brother.’ ‘Oh! yes, that’s my brother’s regiment,’ says he. ‘Where was you, then, on the 16th of October?’ ‘Why, sir, I was at the taking of the city of Irun,’ says I--(in fact, I was at that time with the costermonger in St. Giles’s, calling cabbages, ‘white heart cabbages, oh!’) Then said the major, ‘What day was Ernani taken on?’ ‘Why,’ said I (I was a little tipsy, and bothered at the question), ‘that was the 16th of October, too.’ ‘Very well, my man,’ says he, tapping his boots with a riding whip he held, ‘I’ll see what I can do for you;’ and the words were no sooner out of his mouth than he stepped up to me and gave me a regular pasting. He horsewhipped me up and down stairs, and all along the passages; my flesh was like sassages. I managed at last, however, to open the door myself, and get away. After that ‘the school’ came to London. In a day we used to make from 8_l._ to 10_l._ among us, by walking up Regent-street, Bond-street, Piccadilly, Pall-mall, Oxford-street, the parks--those places were the best beats. All the squares were good too. It was only like a walk out for air, and your 25_s._ a man for it. At night we used to go to plays, dressed like gentlemen. At first the beaks protected us, but we got found out, and the beaks grew rusty. The thing got so overdone, every beggar went out as a Spanish lurksman. Well, the beaks got up to the dodge, and all the Spanish lurksmen in their turns got to work the universal staircase, under the care of Lieutenant Tracy (Tothill-fields treadmill). The men that had really been out and got disabled were sent to that staircase at last, and I thought I would try a fresh lurk. So I went under the care and tuition of a sailor. He had been a sailor. I became a turnpike sailor, as it’s called, and went out as one of the Shallow Brigade, wearing a Guernsey shirt and drawers, or tattered trowsers. There was a school of four. We only got a tidy living--16_s._ or 1_l._ a day among us. We used to call every one that came along--coalheavers and all--sea-fighting captains. ‘Now, my noble sea-fighting captain,’ we used to say, ‘fire an odd shot from your larboard locker to us, Nelson’s bull-dogs;’ but mind we never tried that dodge on at Greenwich, for fear of the old geese, the Collegemen. The Shallow got so grannied (known) in London, that the supplies got queer, and I quitted the land navy. Shipwrecks got so common in the streets, you see, that people didn’t care for them, and I dropped getting cast away. I then took to screeving (writing on the stones). I got my head shaved, and a cloth tied round my jaws, and wrote on the flags--

‘Illness and Want,’

though I was never better in my life, and always had a good bellyfull before I started of a morning. I did very well at first: 3_s._ or 4_s._ a day--sometimes more--till I got grannied. There is one man who draws Christ’s heads with a crown of thorns, and mackerel, on the pavement, in coloured chalks (there are four or five others at the same business); this one, however, often makes 1_l._ a day now in three hours; indeed, I have known him come home with 21_s._, besides what he drank on the way. A gentleman who met him in Regent-street once gave him 5_l._ and a suit of clothes to do Christ’s heads with a crown of thorns and mackerel on the walls. His son does Napoleon’s heads best, but makes nothing like so much as the father. The father draws cats’ heads and salmon as well--but the others are far the best spec. He will often give thirteen-pence, and indeed fourteen-pence, for a silver shilling, to get rid of the coppers. This man’s pitch is Lloyd-square, not far from Sadler’s Wells. I have seen him commence his pitch there at half-past eleven, to catch the people come from the theatre. He is very clever. In wet weather, and when I couldn’t chalk, as I couldn’t afford to lose time, I used to dress tidy and very clean for the ‘respectable broken-down tradesman or reduced gentleman’ caper. I wore a suit of black, generally, and a clean dickey, and sometimes old black kid gloves, and I used to stand with a paper before my face, as if ashamed--

‘_To a Humane Public. ‘I have seen better days._’

This is called standing pad with a fakement. It is a wet-weather dodge, and isn’t so good as screeving, but I did middling, and can’t bear being idle. After this I mixed with the street patterers (men who make speeches in the streets) on the destitute mechanics’ lurk. We went in a school of six at first, all in clean aprons, and spoke every man in his turn. It won’t do unless you’re clean. Each man wanted a particular article of dress. One had no shirt--another no shoes--another no hat--and so on. No two wanted the same. We said:--

“‘Kind and benevolent Christians!--It is with feelings of deep regret, and sorrow and shame, that us unfortunate tradesmen are compelled to appear before you this day, to ask charity from the hands of strangers. We are brought to it from want--I may say, actual starvation.’ (We always had a good breakfast before we started, and some of us, sir, was full up to the brim of liquor.) ‘But what will not hunger and the cries of children compel men to do.’ (We were all single men.) ‘When we left our solitary and humble homes this morning, our children were crying for food, but if a farthing would have saved their lives, we hadn’t it to give them. I assure you, kind friends, me, my wife, and three children, would have been houseless wanderers all last night, but I sold the shirt from off my back as you may see (opening my jacket) to pay for a lodging. We are, kind friends, English mechanics. It is hard that you wont give your own countrymen a penny, when you give so much to foreign hurdy-gurdies and organ-grinders. Owing to the introduction of steam and machinery and foreign manufactures we have been brought to this degraded state. Fellow countrymen, there are at this moment 4000 men like ourselves, able and willing to work, but can’t get it, and forced to wander the streets. I hope and trust some humane Christian within the sound of my voice will stretch out a hand with a small trifle for us, be it ever so small, or a bit of dry bread or cold potato, or anything turned from your table, it would be of the greatest benefit to us and our poor children.’ (Then we would whisper to one another, ‘I hope they won’t bring out any scran--only coppers.’) ‘We have none of us tasted food this blessed day. We have been told to go to our parishes, but that we cannot brook; to be torn from our wives and families is heart-rending to think of--may God save us all from the Bastile!’ (We always pattered hard at the overseers).

The next of the school that spoke would change the story somehow, and try to make it more heart-rending still. We did well at first, making about 5_s._ a day each, working four hours, two in the morning and two in the afternoon. We got a good deal of clothing too. The man who went without a shirt never went to a door to ask for one; he had to show himself in the middle of the road. The man that did go to the door would say, ‘Do bestow a shirt on my poor shopmate, who hasn’t had one for some days.’ It’s been said of me, when I had my shirt tied round my waist all the time out of sight. The man who goes without his shirt has his pick of those given; the rest are sold and shared. Whatever trade we represented we always had one or two really of the trade in the school. These were always to be met at the lodging-houses. They were out of work, and had to go to low lodging-houses to sleep. There they met with beggars who kiddied them on to the lurk. The lodging-houses is good schools for that sort of thing, and when a mechanic once gets out on the lurk he never cares to go to work again. I never knew one return. I have been out oft and oft with weavers with a loom, and have woven a piece of ribbon in a gentleman’s parlour--that was when we was Coventry ribbon weavers. I have been a stocking weaver from Leicester, and a lacemaker too from Nottingham. Distressed mechanics on their way to London get initiated into beggar’s tricks in the low lodging-houses and the unions. This is the way, you see, sir. A school may be at work from the lodging-house where the mechanic goes to, and some of the school finds out what he is, and says, ‘Come and work with us in a school: you’ll do better than you can at your business, and you can answer any questions; we’ll lurk on your trade.’ I have been out with a woman and children. It’s been said in the papers that children can be hired for that lurk at 4_d._ or 6_d._ a day--that’s all fudge, all stuff, every bit of it--there’s no children to be hired. There’s many a labouring man out of work, who has a wife and three or more children, who is glad to let them go out with any patterer he knows. The woman is entitled to all the clothes and grub given, and her share of the tin--that’s the way it’s done; and she’s treated to a drink after her day’s work, into the bargain. I’ve been out on the respectable family man lurk. I was out with a woman and three kids the other day; her husband was on the pad in the country, as London was too hot to hold him. The kids draws, the younger the better, for if you vex them, and they’re oldish, they’ll blow you. Liverpool Joe’s boy did so at Bury St. Edmund’s to a patterer that he was out with, and who spoke cross to him. The lad shouted out so as the people about might hear, ‘Don’t you jaw me, you’re not my father; my father’s at home playing cards.’ They had to crack the pitch (discontinue) through that. The respectable family dodge did pretty well. I’ve been on the clean family lurk too, with a woman and children. We dressed to give the notion that, however humble, at least we were clean in all our poverty. On this lurk we stand by the side of the pavement in silence, the wife in a perticler clean cap, and a milk-white apron. The kids have long clean pinafores, white as the driven snow; they’re only used in clean lurk, and taken off directly they come home. The husband and father is in a white flannel jacket, an apron worn and clean, and polished shoes. To succeed in this caper there must be no rags, but plenty of darns. A pack of pawn-tickets is carried in the waistcoat pocket. (One man that I know stuck them in his hat like a carman’s.) That’s to show that they’ve parted with their little all before they came to that. They are real pawn-tickets. I have known a man pay 2_s._ 6_d._ for the loan of a marriage certificate to go out on the clean lurk. If a question is asked, I say--‘We’ve parted with everything, and can get no employment; to be sure, we have had a loaf from the parish, but what’s that among my family?’ That takes the start out of the people, because they say, why not go to the parish? Some persons say, ‘Oh, poor folks, they’re brought to this, and how clean they are--a darn is better than a patch any time.’ The clean lurk is a bare living now--it was good--lots of togs came in, and often the whole family were taken into a house and supplied with flannel enough to make under clothing for them all; all this was pledged soon afterwards, and the tickets shown to prove what was parted with, through want. Those are some of the leading lurks. There’s others. ‘Fits,’ are now bad, and ‘paralytics’ are no better. The lucifer lurk seems getting up though. I don’t mean the selling, but the dropping them in the street as if by accident. It’s a great thing with the children; but no go with the old ’uns. I’ll tell you of another lurk: a woman I knows sends out her child with 1/4 oz. of tea and half a quarter of sugar, and the child sits on a door step crying, and saying, if questioned, that she was sent out for tea and sugar, and a boy snatched the change from her, and threw the tea and sugar in the gutter. The mother is there, like a stranger, and says to the child:--‘And was that your poor mother’s last shilling, and daren’t you go home, poor thing?’ Then there is a gathering--sometimes 18_d._ in a morning; but it’s almost getting stale, that is. I’ve done the shivering dodge too--gone out in the cold weather half naked. One man has practised it so much that he can’t get off shivering now. Shaking Jemmy went on with his shivering so long that he couldn’t help it at last. He shivered like a jelly--like a calf’s foot with the ague--on the hottest day in summer. It’s a good dodge in tidy inclement seasons. It’s not so good a lurk, by two bob a day, as it once was. This is a single-handed job; for if one man shivers less than another he shows that it isn’t so cold as the good shiverer makes it out--then it’s no go. Of the maimed beggars, some are really deserving objects, as without begging they must starve to death; that’s a fact, sir. What’s a labouring man to do if he’s lost any of his limbs? But some of these even are impostors. I know several blind men who have pensions; and I know two who have not only pensions, but keep lodging-houses, and are worth money, and still go out a begging--though not near where they live. There’s the man with the very big leg, who sits on the pavement, and tells a long yarn about the tram carriage having gone over him in the mine. He does very well--remarkable well. He goes tatting and billy-hunting in the country (gathering rags and buying old metal), and comes only to London when he has that sort of thing to dispose of. There’s Paddy in the truck too; he makes a good thing, and sends money home to Ireland; he has a decrepit old mother, and it’s to his credit. He never drinks. There’s Jerry, the collier, he has lost both arms, and does a tidy living, and deserves it; it’s a bad misfortune. There’s Jack Tiptoe, he can’t put one heel to the ground--no gammon; but Mr. Horsford and he can’t agree, so Jack takes to the provinces now. He did very well indeed here. There used to be a society among us called the Cadger’s Club; if one got into a prison there was a gathering for him when he came out, and 6_s._ a week for a sick member, and when he got out again two collections for him, the two amounting perhaps to 1_l._ We paid 3_d._ a week each--no women were members--for thirteen weeks, and then shared what was in hand, and began for the next thirteen, receiving new members and transacting the usual business of a club. This has been discontinued these five years; the landlord cut away with the funds. We get up raffles, and help one another in the best way we can now. At one time we had forty-five members, besides the secretary, the conductor, and under-conductor. The rules were read over on meeting nights--every Wednesday evening. They were very strict; no swearing, obscene or profane language was permitted. For the first offence a fine of 1_d._ was inflicted, for the second 2_d._, and for the third the offender was ejected the room. There was very good order, and few fines had to be inflicted. Several respectable tradesmen used to pay a trifle to be admitted, out of curiosity, to see the proceedings, and used to be surprised at their regularity. Among the other rules were these: a fine of 1_d._ for any member refusing to sing when called on; visitors the same. All the fines went to the fund. If a member didn’t pay for five meeting nights he was scratched. Very few were scratched. The secretary was a windmill cove (sold children’s windmills in the streets), and was excused contributing to the funds. He had 1_d._ from each member every sharing night, once a quarter, for his labour; he was a very good scholar, and had been brought up well. The landlord generally gave a bob on a sharing night. The conductor managed the room, and the under-conductor kept the door, not admitting those who had no right to be there, and putting out those who behaved improperly. It was held in the Coachmakers’ Arms, Rose-street, Longrave-street; tip-top swells used to come among us, and no mistake; real noblemen, sir. One was the nephew of the Duke of ----, and was well-known to all of us by the nick-name, Facer.

I used to smoke a very short and very black pipe, and the honourable gent has often snatched it from my mouth, and has given me a dozen cigars for it. My face has been washed in the gin by a noble lord after he’d made me drunk, and I felt as if it was vitriol about my eyes. The beggars are now dispersed and broken up. They live together now only in twos and threes, and, in plain truth, have no money to spend; they can’t get it. Upon an average, in former days a cadger could make his two or three guineas per week without working overtime; but now he can hardly get a meal, not even at the present winter, though it’s been a slap up inclement season, to be sure. The Mendicity Society has ruined us--them men took me and gave me a month, and I can say from my conscience, that I was no more guilty of begging at that time than an unborn baby. The beggars generally live in the low lodging-houses, and there of a night they tell their tales of the day, and inform each other of the good and bad places throughout London, and what ‘lurks’ do the best. They will also say what beats they intend to take the next day, so that those who are on the same lurk may not go over the same ground as their pals. It is no use telling a lie, but the low lodging-houses throughout London and the country are nests for beggars and thieves. I know some houses that are wholly supported by beggars. In almost every one of the padding kens, or low lodging-houses in the country, there is a list of walks written on a piece of paper, and pasted up over the kitchen mantel-piece. Now at St. Alban’s, for instance, at the ----, and at other places, there is a paper stuck up in each of the kitchens. This paper is headed ‘WALKS OUT OF THIS TOWN,’ and underneath it is set down the names of the villages in the neighbourhood at which a beggar may call when out on his walk, and they are so arranged as to allow the cadger to make a round of about six miles, each day, and return the same night. In many of those papers there are sometimes twenty walks set down. No villages that are in any way ‘gammy’ are ever mentioned in these papers, and the cadger, if he feels inclined to stop for a few days in the town, will be told by the lodging-house keeper, or the other cadgers that he may meet there, what gentleman’s seats or private houses are of any account on the walk that he means to take. The names of the good houses are not set down in the paper, for fear of the police. Most of the lodging-house keepers buy the ‘scran’ (broken victuals) of the cadgers; the good food they either eat themselves or sell to the other travellers, and the bad they sell to parties to feed their dogs or pigs upon. The cadgers’ talk is quite different now to what it was in the days of Billy. You see the flats got awake to it, so in course we had to alter the patter. The new style of cadgers’ cant is nothing like the thieves’ cant, and is done all on the rhyming principle. This way’s the caper. Suppose I want to ask a pal to come and have a glass of rum and smoke a pipe of tobacco, and have a game at cards with some blokes at home with me, I should say, if there were any flats present, ‘Splodger, will you have a Jack-surp_ass_ of finger-and-thumb, and blow your yard of tripe of nosey me knacker, and have a touch of the broads with me and the other heaps of coke at my drum. [In this it will be observed that every one of the ‘cant’ words rhymes with the words ordinarily used to express the same idea.] I can assure you what little we cadgers do get we earn uncommon hard. Why, from standing shaking--that is, being out nearly naked in the hardest frosts--I lost the use of my left side for nearly three years, and wasn’t able to stir outside the door. I got my living by card-playing in the low lodging-houses all that time. I worked the oracle--they were not up to it. I put the first and seconds on and the bridge also. I’d play at cards with any one. You see, sir, I was afeard to come to you at first because I had been ‘a starving’ on the pavement only a few days ago, not a hundred yards from your very door, and I thought you might know me.”

MEETING OF THIEVES.

As a further proof, however, of the demoralizing influences of the low lodging-houses, I will now conclude my investigations into the subject with a report of the meeting of vagrants, which I convened for the express purpose of consulting them generally upon several points which had come under my notice in the course of my inquiries. The Chronicle reporter’s account of this meeting was as follows:--

A meeting of an unprecedented character was held at the British Union School-room, Shakspeare-walk, Shadwell, on Monday evening last. The use of the school-room was kindly granted by Mr. Fletcher, the proprietor, to whose liberality we stand indebted for many similar favours. It was convened by our Metropolitan Correspondent, for the purpose of assembling together some of the lowest class of male juvenile thieves and vagabonds who infest the metropolis and the country at large; and although privately called, at only two days’ notice, by the distribution of tickets of admission among the class in question at the various haunts and dens of infamy to which they resort, no fewer than 150 of them attended on the occasion. The only condition to entitle the parties to admission was that they should be vagrants, and under twenty years of age. They had all assembled some time before the hour for commencing the proceedings arrived, and never was witnessed a more distressing spectacle of squalor, rags, and wretchedness. Some were young men, and some mere children; one, who styled himself a “cadger,” was six years of age, and several who confessed themselves “prigs” were only ten. The countenances of the boys were of various characters. Many were not only good-looking, but had a frank, ingenuous expression that seemed in no way connected with innate roguery. Many, on the other hand, had the deep-sunk and half-averted eye which are so characteristic of natural dishonesty and cunning. Some had the regular features of lads born of parents in easy circumstances. The hair of most of the lads was cut very close to the head, showing their recent liberation from prison; indeed, one might tell by the comparative length of the crop, the time that each boy had been out of gaol. All but a few of the elder boys were remarkable, amidst the rags, filth, and wretchedness of their external appearance, for the mirth and carelessness impressed upon their countenances. At first their behaviour was very noisy and disorderly: coarse and ribald jokes were freely cracked, exciting general bursts of laughter; while howls, cat-calls, and all manner of unearthly and indescribable yells threatened for some time to render the object of the meeting utterly abortive. At one moment a lad would imitate the bray of a jack-ass, and immediately the whole hundred and fifty would fall to braying. Then some ragged urchin would crow like a cock, whereupon the place would echo again with a hundred and fifty cock-crows. Then, as a black boy entered the room, one of the young vagabonds would shout out “swe-ee-op.” This would be received with peals of laughter, and followed by a general repetition of the same cry. Next, a hundred and fifty cat-calls of the shrillest possible description would almost split the ears. These would be succeeded by cries of “Strike up, you catgut scrapers,” “Go on with your barrow,” “Flare up, my never-sweats,” and a variety of other street sayings. Indeed, the uproar which went on before the meeting began will be best understood if we compare it to the scene presented by a public menagerie at feeding time. The greatest difficulty, as might be expected, was experienced in collecting the subjoined statistics of their character and condition. By a well-contrived and persevering mode of inquiry, however, the following facts were elicited:--

With respect to their ages, the youngest boy present was 6 years old. He styled himself a “cadger,” and said that his mother, who is a widow, and suffering from ill-health, sends him into the streets to beg. There were seven of 10 years of age, three of 12, three of 13, ten of 14, ten of 15, eleven of 16, twenty of 17, twenty-six of 18, and forty-five of 19.

Nineteen had fathers and mothers still living; thirty-nine had only one parent, and eighty were orphans in the fullest sense of the word, having neither father nor mother alive.

Of professed beggars there were fifty, and sixty-six who acknowledged themselves to be habitual thieves. The announcement that the greater number present were thieves pleased them exceedingly, and was received with three rounds of applause.

Twelve of the youths assembled had been in prison once (two of these were but 10 years of age); 5 had been in prison twice; 3, thrice; 4 four times; 7, five times; 8, six times; 5, seven times; 4, eight times; 2, nine times (1 of them 13 years of age); 5, ten times; 5, twelve times; 2, thirteen times; 3, fourteen times; 2, sixteen times; 3, seventeen times; 2, eighteen times; 5, twenty times; 6, twenty-four times; 1, twenty-five times; 1, twenty-six times; and 1, twenty-nine times. The announcements in reply to the questions as to the number of times that any of them had been in prison were received with great applause, which became more and more boisterous as the number of imprisonments increased. When it was announced that one, though only 19 years of age, had been in prison as many as twenty-nine times, the clapping of hands, the cat-calls, and shouts of “brayvo!” lasted for several minutes, and the whole of the boys rose to look at the distinguished individual. Some chalked on their hats the figures which designated the sum of the several times that they had been in gaol.

As to the causes of their vagabondism, it was found that 22 had run away from their homes, owing to the ill-treatment of their parents; 18 confessed to having been ruined through their parents allowing them to run wild in the streets, and to be led astray by bad companions; and 15 acknowledged that they had been first taught thieving in a lodging-house.

Concerning the vagrant habits of the youths, the following facts were elicited: 78 regularly roam through the country every year, 65 sleep regularly in the casual wards of the unions, and 52 occasionally slept in tramper’s lodging-houses throughout the country.

Respecting their education, according to the popular meaning of the term, 63 of the 150 were able to read and write, and they were principally thieves. Fifty of this number said they had read “Jack Sheppard,” and the lives of Dick Turpin, Claude du Val, and all the other popular thieves’ novels, as well as the “Newgate Calendar” and “Lives of the Robbers and Pirates.” Those who could not read themselves, said they’d had “Jack Sheppard” read to them at the lodging-houses. Numbers avowed that they had been induced to resort to an abandoned course of life from reading the lives of notorious thieves, and novels about highway robbers. When asked what they thought of “Jack Sheppard,” several bawled out “He’s a regular brick”--a sentiment which was almost universally concurred in by the deafening shouts and plaudits which followed. When asked whether they would like to be Jack Sheppards, they answered, “Yes, if the times was the same now as they were then.” Thirteen confessed that they had taken to thieving in order to go to the low theatres; and one lad said he had lost a good situation on the Birmingham Railway through his love of the play.

Twenty stated they had been flogged in prison,--many of them two, three, and four different times. A policeman in plain clothes was present; but their acute eyes were not long before they detected his real character notwithstanding his disguise. Several demanded that he should be turned out. The officer was accordingly given to understand that the meeting was a private one, and requested to withdraw. Having apologised for intruding, he proceeded to leave the room--and, no sooner did the boys see the policeman move towards the door, than they gave vent to several rounds of very hearty applause, accompanied with hisses, groans, and cries of “throw him over.”

The process of interrogating them in the mass having been concluded, the next step was to call several of them separately to the platform, to narrate, in their peculiar style and phraseology, the history of their own career, together with the causes which had led them to take up a life of dishonesty. The novelty of their position as speech-makers seemed peculiarly exciting to the speakers themselves, and provoked much merriment and interest amongst the lads. Their antics and buffoonery in commencing their addresses were certainly of the most ludicrous character. The first speaker, a lad 17 years of age, ascended the platform, dressed in a torn “wide-a-awake” hat, and a dirty smock-frock. He began:--Gentlemen [immense applause and laughter], I am a Brummagem lad [laughter]. My father has been dead three years, and my mother seven. When my father died I had to go and live along with my aunt. I fell out of employment, and went round about the town, and fell into the company of a lot of chaps, and went picking ladies’ pockets. Then I was in prison once or twice, and I came to London, and have been in several prisons here. I have been in London three years; but I have been out of it several times in that time. I can’t get anything honest to do; and I wish I could get something at sea, or in any foreign land. I don’t care what or where it is [cheers and yells].

Another lad about 16, clad in a ragged coat, with a dirty face and matted hair, next came forward and said--My father was a soldier, and when I growed up to about ten years I joined the regiment as a drummer in the Grenadier Guards. I went on and got myself into trouble, till at last I got turned away, and my father left the regiment. I then went out with some more chaps and went thieving, and have been thieving about two years now. [Several voices--“Very good;” “that’s beautiful;” “I hope you do it well.”]

The third boy, who stated that he had been twenty-four times in prison, said he belonged to Hendon, in Middlesex, and that his father left his mother seventeen years ago, and he did not know whether he was dead or alive. He went to Christchurch school for some time, but afterwards picked up with bad companions, and went a thieving. He went to school again, but again left it to go a thieving and cadging with bad companions. He had been doing that for the last five years; and if he could get out of it he would be very glad to leave it [cheers].

The fourth lad (who was received with loud cheering, evidently indicating that he was a well-known character) said, he came from the city of York, and was a farrier. His father died a few years ago, and then he took to work; but “the play” led him on to be a thief, and from that time to the present he had done nothing but beg or thieve. If he could go to Australia he would be very glad; as if he stopped in England he feared he should do nothing but thieve to the end [laughter, with cries of “well done,” “very well spoken”].

The next speaker was about 18 years of age, and appeared a very sharp intelligent lad. After making a very grave but irresistibly comical prefatory bow, by placing his hand at the back of his head, and so (as it were) forcing it to give a nod, he proceeded: My father is an engineer’s labourer, and the first cause of my thieving was that he kept me without grub, and wallopped me [laughter]. Well, I was at work at the same time that he was, and I kept pilfering, and at last they bowled me out [loud cheers]. I got a showing up, and at last they turned me away; and, not liking to go home to my father, I ran away. I went to Margate, where I had some friends, with a shilling in my pocket. I never stopped till I got to Ramsgate, and I had no lodging except under the trees, and had only the bits of bread I could pick up. When I got there my grandfather took me in and kept me for a twelvemonth. My mother’s brother’s wife had a spite against me, and tried to get me turned away. I did not know what thieving was then; and I used to pray that her heart might be turned, because I did not know what would become of me if my grandfather turned me away. But she got other people to complain of me, and say I was a nuisance to the town; but I knowed there was no fault in me; but, however, my grandfather said he could put up with me no longer, and turned me away. So after that I came back to London, and goes to the union. The first night I went there I got tore up [cheers and laughter]. Everything was torn off my back, and the bread was taken away from me, and because I said a word I got well wallopped [renewed laughter]. They “small-ganged” me; and afterwards I went seven days to prison because others tore my clothes. When I went in there--this was the first time--a man said to me, “What are you here for?” I said, “For tearing up.” The man said to another, “What are you here for?” and the other made answer, “For a handkerchief.” The man then said, “Ah, that’s something like;” and he said to me, “Why are you not a thief--you will only get to prison for that.” I said, “I will.” Well, after that I went pilfering small things, worth a penny or twopence at first; but I soon saw better things were as easy to be got as them, so I took them [laughter]. I picked up with one that knowed more than me. He fairly kept me for some time, and I learnt as well as him. I picked him up in a London workhouse. After that I thought I would try my friends again, and I went to my uncle at Dover, but he could do nothing for me, so I got a place at a butcher’s, where I fancied myself fairly blessed, for I had 2_s._ a week and my board and washing. I kept a twelvemonth there honest, without thieving. At last my master and I fell out and I left again, so I was forced to come up to London, and there I found my old companions in the Smithfield pens--they were not living anywhere. I used to go to the workhouse and used to tear up and refuse to work, and used to get sent to “quod,” and I used to curse the day when it was my turn to go out. The governor of the prison used to say he hoped he wouldn’t see my face there again; but I used to answer, “I shall be here again to night, because it’s the only place I’ve got.” That’s all I’ve got to say.

The next lad, who said he had been fourteen times in prison, was a taller, cleaner, and more intelligent-looking youth than any that had preceded him. After making a low affected bow, over the railing, to the company below, and uttering a preliminary a-hem or two with the most ludicrous mock gravity, he began by saying:--“I am a native of London. My father is a poor labouring man, with 15_s._ a week--little enough, I think, to keep a home for four, and find candlelight [laughter]. I was at work looking after a boiler at a paper-stainer’s in Old-street-road at 6_s._ a week, when one night they bowled me out. I got the sack, and a bag to take it home in [laughter]. I got my wages, and ran away from home, but in four days, being hungry, and having no money, I went back again. I got a towelling, but it did not do me much good. My father did not like to turn me out of doors, so he tied me to the leg of the bedstead [laughter]. He tied my hands and feet so that I could hardly move, but I managed somehow to turn my gob (mouth) round and gnawed it away. I run down stairs and got out at the back door and over a neighbour’s wall, and never went home for nine months. I never bolted with anything. I never took anything that was too hot for me. The captain of a man-of-war about this time took me into his service, where I remained five weeks till I took a fever, and was obliged to go to the hospital. When I recovered, the captain was gone to Africa; and not liking to go home, I stepped away, and have been from home ever since. I was in Brummagem, and was seven days in the new ‘stir’ (prison), and nearly broke my neck. When I came out, I fell into bad company, and went cadging, and have been cadging ever since; but if I could leave off, and go to the Isle of Dogs, the Isle of Man, or the Isle of Woman [laughter], or any other foreign place, I would embrace the opportunity as soon as I could. And if so be that any gentleman would take me in hand, and send me out, I would be very thankful to him, indeed. And so good night” [cheers].

A dirty little boy, fourteen years of age, dressed in a big jacket, next stood forward. He said his father was a man-of-war’s man, and when he came home from sea once his father, his mother, and all of them got drunk. The lad then stole 4_d._ from his father’s pocket. After this, when he was sent for sixpenny rum he used to fetch fourpenny, and for fourpenny gin threepenny; and for fourpenny beer he used to fetch threepenny, and keep the difference to himself. His mother used to sell fruit, and when she left him at the stall he used to eat what he could not sell, and used to sell some to get marbles and buttons. Once he stole a loaf from a baker’s shop. The man let him off, but his father beat him for it. The beating did him no good. After that he used to go “smugging” [running away with] other people’s things. Then one day his father caught him, and tied his leg to the bedstead, and left him there till he was pretty near dead. He ran away afterwards, and has been thieving ever since.

A lad about twenty was here about to volunteer a statement concerning the lodging-houses, by which he declared he had been brought to his ruin, but he was instantly assailed with cries of “come down!” “hold your tongue!” and these became so general, and were in so menacing a tone, that he said he was afraid to make any disclosures, because he believed if he did so he would have perhaps two or three dozen of the other chaps on to him [great confusion].

MR. MAYHEW: Will it hurt any of you here if he says anything against the lodging-houses [yes, yes]? How will it do so?

A Voice: They will not allow stolen property to come into them if it is told.

MR. MAYHEW: But would you not all gladly quit your present course of life [yes, yes, yes]? Then why not have the lodging-house system, the principal cause of all your misery, exposed?

A Voice: If they shut up the lodging-houses, where are we to go? If a poor boy gets to the workhouse he catches a fever, and is starved into the bargain.

MR. MAYHEW:--Are not you all tired of the lives you now lead? [Vociferous cries of “yes, yes, we wish to better ourselves!” from all parts of the room.] However much you dread the exposure of the lodging-houses, you know, my lads, as well as I do, that it is in them you meet your companions, and ruin, if not begun there, is at least completed in such places. If a boy runs away from home he is encouraged there and kept secreted from his parents. And do not the parties who keep these places grow rich on your degradation and your peril? [Loud cries of “yes, yes!”] Then why don’t you all come forward now, and, by exposing them to the public, who know nothing of the iniquities and vice practised in such places, put an end to these dens at once? There is not one of you here--not one, at least, of the elder boys, who has found out the mistake of his present life, who would not, I verily believe, become honest, and earn his living by his industry, if he could. You might have thought a roving life a pleasant thing enough at first, but you now know that a vagabond’s life is full of suffering, care, peril, and privation; you are not so happy as you thought you would be, and are tired and disgusted with your present course. This is what I hear from you all. Am I not stating the fact? [Renewed cries of “yes, yes, yes!” and a voice: “The fact of it is, sir, we don’t see our folly till it is too late.”] Now I and many hundreds and thousands really wish you well, and would gladly do anything we could to get you to earn an honest living. All, or nearly all, your misery, I know, proceeds from the low lodging-houses [“yes, yes, it does, master! it does”]; and I am determined, with your help, to effect their utter destruction. [A voice, “I am glad of it, sir--you are quite right; and I pray God to assist you.”]

The elder boys were then asked what they thought would be the best mode of effecting their deliverance from their present degraded position. Some thought emigration the best means, for if they started afresh in a new colony, they said they would leave behind them their bad characters, which closed every avenue to employment against them at home. Others thought there would be difficulties in obtaining work in the colonies in sufficient time to prevent their being driven to support themselves by their old practices. Many again thought the temptations which surrounded them in England rendered their reformation impossible; whilst many more considered that the same temptations would assail them abroad which existed at home.

MR. MAYHEW then addressed them on another point. He said he had seen many notorious thieves in the course of his investigations. Since then he had received them at all hours into his house--men of the most desperate and women of the most abandoned characters--but he had never lost a 6_d._ worth of his property by them. One thief he had entrusted with a sovereign to get changed, and the lad returned and gave him back the full amount in silver. He had since gone out to America. Now he would ask all those present whether, if he were to give them a sovereign, they would do the same? [Several voices here called out that they would, and others that they would not. Others, again, said that they would to him, but to no one else.]

Here one of the most desperate characters present, a boy who had been twenty-six times in prison, was singled out from the rest, and a sovereign given to him to get changed, in order to make the experiment whether he would have the honesty to return the change or abscond with it in his possession. He was informed, on receiving it, that if he chose to decamp with it, no proceedings should be taken against him. He left the room amid the cheers of his companions, and when he had been absent a few moments all eyes were turned towards the door each time it opened, anxiously expecting his arrival, to prove his trustworthiness. Never was such interest displayed by any body of individuals. They mounted the forms in their eagerness to obtain the first glimpse of his return. It was clear that their honour was at stake; and several said they would kill the lad in the morning if he made off with the money. Many minutes elapsed in almost painful suspense, and some of his companions began to fear that so large a sum of money had proved too great a temptation for the boy. At last, however, a tremendous burst of cheering announced the lad’s return. The delight of his companions broke forth again and again, in long and loud peals of applause, and the youth advanced amidst triumphant shouts to the platform, and gave up the money in full.

The assemblage was then interrogated as to the effect of flogging as a punishment; and the general feeling appeared to be that it hardened the criminal instead of checking his depravity, and excited the deadliest enmity in his bosom at the time towards the person inflicting it. When asked whether they had seen any public executions, they almost all cried out that they had seen Manning and his wife hung; others said that they had seen Rush and Sarah Thomas executed. They stated that they liked to go a “death-hunting,” after seeing one or two executed. It hardened them to it, and at last they all got to thieve under the gallows. They felt rather shocked at the sight of an execution at first; but, after a few repetitions, it soon wore off.

Before the meeting broke up several other lads expressed a strong desire to make statements.

A young man, 18 years of age, and of a miserable and ragged appearance, said he first left home from bad usage; and could not say whether it was the same with his sister or not, but she left her home about nine months ago, when he met her while he was getting his living as a costermonger. With the stock-money that he had, rather than she should be driven to prostitution and the streets, he bought as many things as he could to furnish a room. This exhausted his stock-money, and then his furniture had to go a little at a time to support him and his sister in food. After this he was obliged to take a furnished room, which put him to greater expense. To keep her off the streets, he was compelled to thieve. His father, if he ever had the feeling of a Christian, would never have treated him as he had done. Could a father (he asked) have any feeling, who chained his son up by the leg in a shed, as his father had done to him, and fed him on bread and water for one entire month: and then, after chaining him up all day, still chain him in bed at night. This it was that drove him into the streets at first. It was after his mother died, and he had a step-mother, that his father treated him thus. His mother-in-law ill-treated him as well as his father. If he had been a transport he could not have been treated worse. He told his father that he was driving him on the road to transportation, but he took no notice of it; and he was obliged to leave his roof. He had been in Newgate since.

A little boy, dressed in the garb of a sailor, came up to Mr. Mayhew crying bitterly, and implored him to allow him to say a word. He stated--I am here starving all my time. Last night I was out in the cold and nearly froze to death. When I got up I was quite stiff and could hardly walk. I slept in Whitechapel under a form where they sell meat. I was an apprentice on board of a fishing smack, and ran away because I was ill-treated. After I ran away I broke into my master’s house because I was hungry. He gave me twelve months, and now he is in the union himself; he failed in business and got broken up. I have been out of prison three months, starving; and I would rather do anything than thieve. If I see a little thing I take it, because I can’t get anything to eat without it. [Here the child, still weeping piteously, uncovered his breast, and showed his bones starting through his skin. He said he was anxious to get out of the country.]

The following statement respecting the lodging-houses was made, after the others had left, by another lad. He left home when about thirteen, and never thieved before that. His father was dead, and his mother was unable to keep him. He got a situation and held it for three years and nine months, until he picked up with a man from a lodging-house, and through keeping late hours he was obliged to leave his place and sleep in a lodging-house himself. The lodging-house is in Short’s-gardens. This he considered to have been the commencement of his downfall. About forty thieves lived in the house, and they brought in stolen property of every description, and the deputies received it and took it to other people to sell it again, and get the price and pay the thieves. They got double as much as the thieves did, or else they would have nothing to do with it. Several housebreakers lived at the house, and he heard them there plan the robbery of Bull and Wilson, the woollen-drapers in St. Martin’s-lane. One of the men secreted himself in the house in the daytime, and the other two were admitted by him at night. If he had stated this at the meeting the persons present would have killed him. He was sure that more might be done by giving proper encouragement to virtue, and by reforming the criminal, than by rigorous prosecution. He said (with tears in his eyes) that he should be very willing and happy to work for an honest living if he could only get it to do. He showed a letter of recommendation for good conduct to his former master, and a Bible; both of which had been given him by the chaplain of the gaol which he had just left, after undergoing an imprisonment of twelve months. It was useless (he said) for a young man like him to apply to the parish for relief; he might just as well stand in the street and talk to a lamp-post. Then what was a man to do after he left prison? He must go a thieving to live. He was persuaded that if there was an institution to give employment to the homeless, the friendless, and the penniless, after being liberated from prison, it would be the means of rescuing thousands.

The proceedings then terminated. The assemblage, which had become more rational and manageable towards the close, dispersed, quite peaceably it should be added, and the boys were evidently sincerely grateful for the efforts being made to bring their misfortunes before the notice of those in whose power it may be to alleviate them.

Before they were dismissed, as much money was dispensed to each as would defray his night’s lodging.

OF THE COUNTRY LODGING-HOUSES.

Concerning the lodging-houses, more especially in the country, I give the statement of a middle-aged man, familiar with them for twenty years. He was recommended to me as possessed of much humour and a great master of humourous slang:--

“I can tell you all about it, sir; but one lodging-house is so like another that I can’t draw much distinction. In small country towns, especially agricultural towns, they are decent places enough, regular in their hours, and tidy enough. At these places they have what they call ‘their own travellers,’ persons that they know, and who are always accommodated in preference. As to the characters that frequent these places, let us begin with the Crocusses. They carry about a lot of worms in bottles, what they never took out of anybody, though they’ll tell you different, or long pieces of tape in bottles, made to look like worms, and on that they’ll patter in a market place as if on a real cure, and they’ve got the cheek to tell the people that that very worm was taken from Lady ----, near the town, and referring them to her to prove it. The one I knew best would commence with a piece of sponge in a bottle, which he styled the stomach wolf. That was his leading slum, and pretty well he sponged them too. When he’d pattered on about the wolf, he had another bottle with what he called a worm 200 inches long, he bounced it was, which the day before yesterday he had from Mrs. ----’s girl (some well-known person), and referred them to her. While he’s going on, a brother Crocus will step up, a stranger to the people, and say, ‘Ah, Doctor ----, you’re right. I had the pleasure of dining with Mr. ---- when the worm was extracted, and never saw a child so altered in my life.’ That’s what the Crocus’s call giving a jolly; and after that don’t the first Crocus’s old woman serve out the six-pennyworths? The stuff is to cure every mortal thing a man can ail--ay, or a woman either. They’d actually have the cheek to put a blister on a cork leg. Well, when they’re done pattering on the worm racket, then come the wonderful pills. Them are the things. These pills, from eight to a dozen in a box, are charged 4_d._ to 6_d._ according to the flat’s appearance--as the Crocus call his customers. The pills meet with a ready sale, and they’re like chip in porridge, neither good nor harm. It’s chiefly the bounciful patter, the cheek they have, that gets them Crocusses on. It’s amazing. They’ll stare a fellow in the face, and make him believe he’s ill whether he is or no. The man I speak of is a first-rate cove; he trains it and coaches it from market to market like any gentleman. He wears a stunning fawny (ring) on his finger, an out-and-out watch and guard, and not a duffer neither--no gammon; and a slap-up suit of black togs. I’ve seen the swell bosmen (farmers) buy the pills to give the people standing about, just to hear the Crocus patter. Why they’ve got the cheek to pitch their stall with their worms opposite a regular medical man’s shop, and say, ‘Go over the way and see what he’ll do--he’ll drive up in a horse and gig to your door, and make you pay for it too; but I don’t--I’ve walked here to do you good, and I will do you good before I leave you. One trial is all I ask’--and quite enough too (said my informant). I’ll warrant they won’t come a second time; if they do, it’s with a stick in their hands. If he does much business in the worm-powder way (some have it in cakes for children), the Crocus never gives them a chance to catch him. But if it’s only pills, he’ll show next market day, or a month after, and won’t he crack about it then? He says, ‘One trial is all I ask,’ and one of them got it and was transported. I knew one of these Crocusses who was once so hard up from lushing and boozing about that he went into a field and collected sheep dung and floured it over, and made his pills of it, and made the people swallow it at Lutterworth market, in Leicestershire; because there they’ll swallow anything. If the Crocus I have mentioned see this in the paper--as he will, for he’s a reading-man--won’t he come out bouncefull? He’ll say, ‘Why am I thus attacked--why don’t the proprietor and the editor of this paper come forward--if he’s among you? Who made this report? let him come forward, and I’ll refute him face to face.’ And no doubt (my informant remarked), he’d give him a tidy dose, too, the Crocus would. For myself, I’d far rather meet him face to face than his medicine, either his blue or his pink water. There’s another sort who carry on the crocussing business, but on a small scale; they’re on the penny and twopenny racket, and are called hedge crocusses--men who sell corn salve, or ‘four pills a penny,’ to cure anything, and go from house to house in the country. But as the hedge crocus is shickery togged, he makes poorly out. Respectable people won’t listen to him, and it’s generally the lower order that he gulls. These hedge fellows are slow and dull; they go mouching along as if they were croaking themselves. I’ve seen the head crocus I’ve mentioned at four markets in one week, and a town on a Saturday night, clear from 5_l._ to 7_l._--all clear profit, for his fakement costs him little or nothing. For such a man’s pound, the hedge fellow may make 1_s._ The next I’ll tell you about is durynacking, or duryking. The gipsies (and they’re called Romanies) are the leading mob at this racket, but they’re well known, and I needn’t say anything about those ladies. But there’re plenty of travelling women who go about with a basket and a bit of driss (lace) in it, gammy lace, for a stall-off (a blind), in case they meet the master, who would order them off. Up at a bosken (farm-house) they’ll get among the servant girls, being pretty well acquainted with the neighbourhood by inquiries on the road, as to the number of daughters and female servants. The first inquiry is for the missus or a daughter, and if they can’t be got at they’re on to the slaveys. Suppose they do get hold of one of the daughters, they commence by offering the driss, which, as it is queer stuff, wouldn’t be picked up by an agricultural young lady, as the durynacker very well knows. Then she begins, ‘Ah! my sweet young lady, my blessed looking angel’--if she’s as ugly as sin, and forty; they say that, and that’s the time you get them to rights, when they’re old and ugly, just by sweetening them, and then they don’t mind tipping the loaver (money)--‘I know you dont want this stuff (she’ll continue), there’s something on your mind. I see you’re in love; but the dear handsome gentleman--he’ll not slight you, but loves you as hard as a hammer.’ This is thrown out as a feeler, and the young lady is sure to be confused; then the durrynacker has hold of her mauly (hand) in a minute. It’s all up with the girl, once the woman gets a grip. She’s asked in directly, and of course the sisters (if she has any) and the slavey are let into the secret, and all have their fortunes told. The fortune-teller may make a week’s job of it, according as the loaver comes out. She’ll come away with her basket full of eggs, bacon, butter, tea and sugar, and all sorts of things. I have seen them bring the scran in! Every one is sure to have handsome husbands, thumping luck, and pretty children. The durrynacker, too, is not particular, if there’s a couple of silver spoons--she doesn’t like odd ones; and mind you, she alway carries a basket--big enough too. I know a man on this lurk, but he works the article with a small glass globe filled full of water, and in that he shows girls their future husbands, and kids them on to believe they do see them--ay, and the church they’re to be married in--and they fancy they do see it as they twist the globe this way and that, while he twists the tin out of them, and no flies. He actually had the cheek, though he knew I was fly to every fake, to try to make me believe that I could see the place where Smith O’Brien had the fight in Ireland! ‘Don’t you see them cabbages, and a tall man in a green velvet cap among them, holloring out, “I’m the King of Munster?”’ I don’t know any other male durrynacker worth noticing; the women have all the call. Young women won’t ask their fortunes of men. The way the globe man does is to go among the old women and fiddle (humbug) them, and, upon my word, three-parts of them are worse than the young ones. Now I’ll tell you about the tat (rag) gatherers; buying rags they call it, but I call it bouncing people. Two men I lodged with once, one morning hadn’t a farthing, regularly smashed up, not a feather to fly with, they’d knocked down all their tin lushing. Well, they didn’t know what to be up to, till one hit upon a scheme. ‘I’ve got it, Joe,’ says he. He borrows two blue plates from the lodging-house keeper, a washing jug and basin. Off they goes, one with the crockery, and the other with a bag. They goes into the by-courts in Windsor, because this bouncing caper wouldn’t do in the main drag. Up goes the fellow with a bag, and hollas out, ‘Now, women, bring out your copper, brass, white rags, old flannel, bed-sacking, old ropes, empty bottles, umbrellas--any mortal thing--the best price is given;’ and the word’s hardly out, when up comes his pal, hollaring, ‘Sam, holloa! stop that horse,’ as if he’d a horse and cart passing the court, and then the women bring out their umbrellas and things, and they’re all to be exchanged for crockery such as he shows, and all goes into the bag, and the bagman goes off with the things, leaving the other to do the bounce, and he keeps singing out for the horse and cart with the load of crockery, gammoning there is one, that the ladies may have their choice, and he then hurries down to quicken his cart-driver’s movements, and hooks it, leaving the flats completely stunned. Oh! it does give them a ferry-cadouzer. Two other men go about on this lurk, one with an old cracked plate under his waistcoat, and the other with a bag. And one sings out, ‘Now, women, fourpence a pound for your white rags. None of your truck system, your needles and thread for it. I don’t do it that way; ready money, women, is the order of the day with me.’ Well, one old mollesher (woman), though she must have known her rags would only bring 2_d._ a lb. at a fair dealer’s, if there be one, brought out 8 lbs. of white rags. He weighs them with his steelyards, and in they went to the bag. The man with the bag steps it immediately, and the other whips out his flute quite carelessly, and says--‘Which will you have marm, Jem Crow, or the Bunch of Roses?’ The old woman says directly, ‘What do you mean, 8 times 4 is 32, and 32 pence is 2_s._ 8_d._; never mind, I won’t be hard, give me half-a-crown.’ Well, when she finds there’s no money, out she hollars, and he plays his distracted flute to drown her voice, and backs himself manfully out of the court. I have known these men get on so that I have seen them with a good horse and cart. There’s another class of rag bloaks, who have bills printed with the Queen’s Arms at the top, if you please, ‘By royal authority’--that’s their own authority, and they assume plenty of it. Well, this bill specifies the best prices for rags, left-off clothes, &c. One fellow goes and drops these bills at the kens (houses), the other comes after him, and as the man who drops marks every house where a bill has been taken, the second man knows where to call. Any house where he gets a call commences the caper. Well, anything to be disposed of is brought out, often in the back yard. The party of the house produces the bill, which promises a stunning tip for the old lumber. The man keeps sorting the things out, and running them down as not so good as he expected; but at the same time he kids them on by promising three times more than the things are worth. This is a grand racket--the way he fakes them, and then he says, ‘Marm (or sir, as it may be), I shall give you 15_s._ for the lot,’ which stuns the party, for they never expected to get anything like that--and their expectations is not disappointed, for they don’t. Then he turns round directly, and commences sorting more particularly than before, putting the best and the easiest to carry altogether. He starts up then, and whips a couple of bob, or half a bull (2_s._ 6_d._) into the woman’s hand, saying, ‘I always like to bind a bargain, marm--one of the fairest dealing men travelling. Do save all your old lumber for me.’ Of a sudden he begins searching his pockets, and exclaims, ‘Dear me, I haven’t enough change in my pocket, but I’ll soon settle that--my mate has it outside. I’ll just take a load out to the cart, and come back for the others with the money;’ and so he hooks it, and I’ve no occasion to tell you he never comes back; and that’s what he calls having them on the knock.”

The other inmates at the lodging-houses which my informant described are of the class concerning whom full information is or will be given in other portions of this or the following letters. His description of the lodging-houses, too, was a corroboration of the statement I give to-day. All the classes described meet and mix at the lodging-houses.

I shall reserve what I have to say concerning the influence of the low lodging-houses of London and the country till the conclusion of the present volume.

OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF CHEMICAL ARTICLES OF MANUFACTURE.

The street purveyors of blacking, of the different preparations of black lead, of plating-balls, of corn-salves, of grease-removing compositions, of china and glass cements, of rat poisons, of fly-papers, of beetle-wafers, of gutta-percha heads, of lucifer-matches, and of cigar-lights, may be classed generally under two heads. They are either very old or very young persons, or else they are men who recommend their wares by patter.

Among the first-mentioned class are the vendors of cakes of blacking, papers of black-lead, and lucifer matches. Of blacking and black-lead the street-sellers are more frequently old women; of lucifer matches they are usually women and children, and of all ages. It is not uncommon, in the quieter roads of the suburbs especially, to see a young woman extend her bare red arm from beneath a scanty ragged shawl, and with an imploring look, a low curtsey, and a piteous tone, proffer a box of matches for sale; while a child in her arms, perhaps of two or three years old, extends in its little hand another box. There are also in the street sale of lucifer matches very many girls and boys, parentless or uncared for, and many old or infirm women and men.

The street-sellers of chemically-manufactured articles, who feel it necessary to recommend their wares by a little street oratory, or patter, (the paper-worker, whose humorous remarks I have before quoted, once described it to me as “advertising by word of mouth,”) are the vendors of the articles which are to cure, to repair, to renovate, or to kill. Any other itinerant vendors of chemical articles are of the ordinary class of street traders.

OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF BLACKING, BLACK LEAD, ETC.

I specify these two commodities jointly, because they are frequently sold by the same individual. In Whitechapel and Spitalfields are eight establishments, where the street-sellers of blacking are principally supplied with their stock. It is sold in cakes, which are wrapped in a kind of oil paper, generally printed on the back, so as to catch the eye, with the address of some well-known blacking manufacturer. Thus some which a street-seller of blacking showed me were printed, in large type, as a sort of border, “Lewis’s India Rubber Blacking,” while in the middle was a very black and very predominant 30, and beneath it, in small and hardly distinguishable type, “Princess-st., Portman-market.” Any shopkeeper, who “supplies the trade,” if he be a regular customer of the manufacturer, can have his name and address printed on the cover of the blacking-cakes. The 30 is meant to catch the eye with the well-known flourish of “30, Strand.”

The quality of these cakes of blacking, the street-sellers whom I questioned told me was highly approved by their customers, and, as blacking is purchased by the classes who aim at a smartness and cleanliness above that of the purchasers of many street commodities, there is no reason to doubt the assertion. The sale of this blacking, indeed, is chiefly on a round, and it would be hopeless as to future custom to call a second time at any house where bad blacking had been sold on a previous visit. The article is vended wholesale, in “gross boxes,” and “half-gross boxes.” The half-gross boxes are 1_s._ 9_d._, and capital, even in this trifling trade, has its customary advantages, for the “gross boxes” are but 3_s._ It should be remembered, however, that to the buyer of two “half-gross” a couple of the plain wooden boxes, in which the blacking is sold, and often hawked, must be supplied; but to the buyer of a “gross box” only one of these cases is furnished. I may mention, to the credit of the vendors, that of the wholesale blacking makers, two have themselves been street-sellers, and one still, but only at intervals, goes “on a blacking-round” among his old customers. There are other blacking-makers, but those I have specified, as to number, are more particularly the providers for the street trade. The poor people who sell blacking at a distance from the manufacturer’s premises--as in the case of the “30, Princess-st., Portman-market”--are supplied by oilmen, chandlers, and other shopkeepers, who buy largely of the manufacturers, and can consequently supply the purchasers by the dozen, for street sale or hawking, as cheaply as they would be supplied by the manufacturer himself. A dozen is generally charged 3-1/2_d._, and as the cakes are sold at 1/2_d._ each (occasionally 1_d._, both by the street people and more frequently the small shopkeepers) the profit is moderate enough. The cakes, however, which are regularly retailed at 1_d._, are larger, and cost nearly twice the amount of the others wholesale.

This trade presents the peculiarity of being almost entirely a street “door-to-door” trade, as I heard it described. Blacking is not presented for purposes of begging, as are lucifer-matches, tracts, memorandum-books, boot-laces, &c.; for the half-trading, half-begging, is carried on in the quieter parts of town, and more extensively in the suburbs, ladies being principally accosted, and to them blacking is not offered.

There are now, I learn from good authority, never fewer than 200 persons selling cake blacking, “from door to door.” More than half of them are elderly women, and more than three-fourths women of all ages and girls. The other sellers are old men and boys. None of the blacking-sellers make the article they vend. To sell eight dozen cakes a week is a full average, and of these the “pennies” and the “half-pennies” are about equally divided. This gives a weekly outlay of 6_s._ to each individual seller, with an average profit of about 2_s._ 6_d._, and shows a yearly street-expenditure by the public of 3120_l._ The profit, however, is not in equal apportionment among the traders in blacking, for the “old hands” on a regular round will do double the business of the others.

In liquid blacking the trade is now small. It is occasionally sold in the street markets on Saturday nights, but the principal traffic is in the public-houses. This kind of blacking is retailed at 2_d._ a bottle, and, I was informed by a man who had sold it, was “rather queer stuff.” It is labelled “equal to” (in very small letters) “DAY AND MARTIN” in very large letters. One of the manufacturers a few years ago told my informant that he had been threatened “with being sued for piracy, but it was no use sueing a mouse.” There are sometimes none, and sometimes twenty persons hawking this blacking, and they are principally, I am informed, the servants of showmen, “out of employ,” or “down on their luck.” Some of these men “raffle” their blacking in public-houses. They are provided with tickets, numbered from one to six, which are thrown, the blank sides upwards on a table, and the drawer of number six wins a two-penny bottle of blacking for 1/2_d._; for this the raffler receives 3_d._ Few of these traders sell more than one dozen bottles in a day, the principal trade being in the evening, and “one-and-a-half dozen is a very good day.” The goods are carried in a sack, slung from the shoulder, and are a very heavy carriage, as two-and-a-half dozen, which are often carried, weigh about 100 lbs. If ten men, the year through, take each 6_s._ weekly (about half the amount being profit), which, I am assured, is the average extent of the trade, we find 156_l._ yearly expended in this liquid blacking. “Ten years ago,” said one blacking seller to me, “it was three times as much as it is now.” At the mews blacking is sold by men who are for the most part servants out of place, or who have become known to the denizens of the mews, from having been “helpers” in some capacity, if they have not worn a livery. Here the article vended is what it is announced to be,--“Hoby’s” or “Everett’s” blacking. The sellers are known to the coachmen and grooms, many of whom have to “find their own blacking,” or there would be no business done in the mews, the dwellers there being great sticklers for “a good article.” The profit to the vendors is 3_s._ in 12_s._ Shilling bottles are vended as numerously as “sixpennies.” An old coachman, who had lived in mews in all parts of town, calculated that, take the year through, there was every day twenty men selling blacking in the mews, with an average profit of 10_d._ a day, or 5s. a week, so taking 15_s._ each. This gives a mews expenditure, yearly, of 780_l._

Black-Lead, for the polishing of grates, is sold in small paper packets, the half ounce being a 1/2_d._, and the ounce a 1_d._ The profit is cent. per cent. Nearly all the women who sell blacking, as I have described, sell black-lead also. In addition to these elderly traders, however, there are from twenty to thirty boys and girls who vend black-lead in the street markets, but chiefly on Saturday nights, and on other days offer it through the area rails--their wretched plight, without any actual begging, occasionally procuring them custom.

The black-lead sold in the streets has often a label in imitation of that of established shop-keepers, as “Superfine Pencil Black-Lead, prepared expressly for, and sold by T. H. Jennings, Oil-Colour and Italian Warehouse, 25, Wormwood-street, City.” The name and address must of course be different, but the arrangement of the lines, and often the type, is followed closely, as are the adornments of the packet, which in the instance cited are heraldic. In other parts of town, the labels of tradesmen are imitated in a similar way, but not very closely; and in nearly half the quantity sold a bonâ fide label is given, without imitation or sham. “There would be more sold in that way,” I was told by a sharp lad, “quite the real ticket, if the dons as wholesales the black-lead, would make it up to sell in ha’porths and penn’orths, with a proper ’lowance to us as sells.” This boy and a young sister went on a round; the boy with black-lead, the girl with boot-laces, in one direction, the mother going in another, and each making for their room at six in the evening, or as soon as “sold out.”

There are, I am informed, 100 to 150 persons selling and hawking black-lead in the streets, and it may be estimated that they take 4_s._ each weekly (the adults selling other small articles with the black-lead); thus we find, averaging the number of sellers at 125, that 1,300_l._ is yearly expended in this article, half of which sum forms the profit of the street-folk.

OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF FRENCH POLISH.

The greater part of the French polish vended in the streets is bought at oil and varnish-shops in Bethnal-green and Whitechapel, the wholesale price being 1_s._ a pint. The street-vendors add turpentine to the polish, put it into small bottles, and retail it at 1_d._ a bottle. They thus contrive to clear 5_d._ on each shilling they take.

There are now five and sometimes six men selling French polish in the streets and public-houses. “But the trade’s getting stale,” I was told; “there was twice as many in it three or four years back, and there’ll be fewer still next year.” When French polish first became famous there were, I was informed, several cabinet-makers who hawked it--some having prepared it themselves--and they would occasionally clear 5_s._ in a day. Of these street-traders there are now none, the present vendors having been in no way connected with the manufacture of furniture. These men generally carry with them pieces of “fancy wood,” such as rose, or sandal wood, which they polish up in the streets to show the excellence of the varnish. The chief purchasers are working people and small tradespeople, or their wives, who require trifling quantities of such a composition when they re-polish any small article of furniture.

The French polish-sellers, I am assured by a man familiar with the business, take 2_s._ a day each, or rather in an evening, for the sales are then the most frequent: the 2_s._ leaves a profit of 10_d._ The street expenditure is, therefore (reckoning five regular sellers), 156_l._ yearly. None of the French polish-sellers confine themselves entirely to the sale of it.

OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF GREASE-REMOVING COMPOSITIONS.

The persons engaged in this trade carry it on with a regular patter. One man’s street announcement is in the following words: “Here you have a composition to remove stains from silks, muslins, bombazeens, cords, or tabarets of any kind or colour. It will never injure nor fade the finest silk or satin, but restore it to its original colour. For grease on silks, &c., only rub the composition on dry, let it remain five minutes, then take a clothes’ brush and brush it off, and it will be found to have removed the stains. For grease in woollen cloths spread the composition on the place with a piece of woollen cloth and cold water; when dry rub it off, and it will remove the grease or stain. For pitch or tar use hot water instead of cold, as that prevents the nap coming off the cloth. Here it is. Squares of grease-removing composition, never known to fail, only 1_d._ each.”

This street-traffic, I was informed, was far more extensively carried on when silks and woollen cloths, and textile manufactures generally, were more costly and more durable than at present, and when to dye, and scour, and “turn” a garment, was accounted good housewiveship. The sellers then told wonders of their making old silk gowns, or old coats, as good as new, by removing every discolouration, no matter from what cause. Now a silk dress is rarely, if ever, subjected to the experiment of being renovated by the virtues of grease-removing compositions sold in the streets. The trade, at present, is almost confined to the removing of the grease from coat-collars, or of stains from contact with paint, &c., with which boys (principally) have damaged their garments.

The grease-remover generally carries his wares on a tray slung in front of him, and often illustrates the efficacy of his composition, by showing its application to the very greasy collar of a boy’s old jacket, which is removed with admirable facility. The man patters as he carries on this work. “You would have thought now that jacket was done for, and only fit for the rag-bag, or to go to make up a lot for a Jew; but with my composition--only 1_d._ a cake--it has acquired a new nap and a new gloss, and you’ve escaped a tailor’s bill for awhile for 1_d._ You can use your own eyes. You’ve seen me do it, and here’s the very same stuff as I have proved to you is so useful and was never known to fail. No mother, or wife, or mistress, or maid, that wishes to be careful and not waste money, should be without it in the house. It removes stains from silks, &c., &c.”

Notwithstanding these many recommendations, the street trade in grease-removing cakes is a very poor one. It cannot be carried on in bad weather, for an audience cannot then be collected, and to clear 1_s._ 6_d._ in a day is accounted fair work. No grease-remover confines his trade to that commodity. One of the best known sells also plate balls, and occasionally works conundrums and comic exhibitions. The two brothers, who were formerly Grecians at the Blue Coat School, are also in this line. There are now seven men who sell grease-removing compositions, which they prepare themselves. The usual ingredients are pipe clay, two pennyworth of which is beat up and “worked with two colours,” generally red lead and stone blue. This gives the composition a streaky look, and takes away the appearance of pipe clay.

The purchasers of this article are, I am told, women and servants, but the trade is one which is declining. One of the best localities for sale is Ratcliff Highway and the purchasers there are sailors. One man told me that he once made a pound’s worth for a sailor, who took it to sea with him. The street-seller did not know for what purpose, but he conjectured that it was as a matter of speculation to a foreign country.

Calculating that the seven grease-removers carry on the sale of the article 3 days each week, and clear 1_s._ 6_d._ per day, we find 78 guineas yearly expended in the streets for the removal of grease. Nearly the whole is profit.

Plating Balls are generally sold by the grease-removers, but sometimes they are proffered for sale alone. There are four men whose principal dependance is on the sale of plating balls. One announces his wares as “making plate as good as silver, and all inferior metals equal to the best plated. No tarnish can stand against my plate balls,” he goes on, “and if, in this respectable company, there should chance to be any lady or genl’man that has no plate, then let him make an old brass candlestick shine like gold, or his tin candlestick, extinguisher and all, shine like silver. Here are the balls that can do it, and only 4 a penny. You have only to rub the ball on your wash-leather, or dry woollen cloth, and rub it on what has to be restored. Four a penny!”

These balls, which are prepared by the street-sellers, are usually made of a halfpennyworth of whitening, a farthing’sworth of red-lead, and an ounce of quicksilver, costing 7_d._ A gross of balls costs 7-3/4_d._, as regards the materials. The receipts of the plating ball sellers are the same as those of the grease-removers, but with a somewhat smaller profit.

OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF CORN-SALVE.

The street purveyors of corn-salve, or corn-plaster, for I heard both words used, are not more than a dozen in number; but, perhaps, none depend entirely upon the sale of corn-salve for a living. As is the wont of the pattering class to which they belong, these men make rounds into the country and into the suburbs, but there are sometimes, on one day, a dozen “working the main drags” (chief thoroughfares) of London: there are no women in the trade. The salve is most frequently carried on a small tray, slung in front of the street professional; but sometimes it is sold at a small stall or stand. Oxford-street, Holborn, Tottenham-court-road, and Whitechapel, are favourite localities for these traders; as are Blackfriars-road and Newington-causeway on the Surrey side of the Thames. On the Saturday evening the corn-salve sellers resort to the street markets.

The patter of these traders is always to the same purport (however differently expressed)--the long-tested efficacy and the unquestionable cheapness of their remedies. The vendors are glib and unhesitating; but some, owing, I imagine, to a repetition of the same words, as they move from one part of a thoroughfare to another, or occupy a pitch, have acquired a monotonous tone, little calculated to impress a street audience--to effect which a man must be, or appear to be, in earnest. The patter of one of these dealers, who sells corn-salve on fine evenings, and works the public-houses, “with anything likely,” on wet evenings, is, from his own account, in the following words:--

“Here you have a speedy remedy for every sort of corn! Your hard corn, soft corn, blood corn, black corn, old corn, new corn, wart, or bunion, can be safely cured in three days! Nothing further to do but spread this salve on a piece of glove-leather, or wash-leather, and apply it to the place. Art and nature does the rest. Either corns, warts, or bunions, cured for one penny.”

This, however, is but as the announcement of the article on sale, and is followed by a recapitulation of the many virtues of that peculiar recipe; but, as regards the major part of these street-traders, the recapitulation is little more than a change of words, if that. There are, however, one and sometimes two patterers, of acknowledged powers, who every now and then sell corn-salve--for the restlessness of this class of people drives them to incessant changes in their pursuits--and their oratory is of a higher order. One of the men in question speaks to the following purport:--

“Here you are! here you are! all that has to complain of corns. As fast as the shoemaker lames you, I’ll cure you. If it wasn’t for me he dursn’t sing at his work; bless you, but he knows I’ll make his pinching easy to you. Hard corn, soft corn, any corn--sold again! Thank you, sir, you’ll not have to take a ’bus home when you’ve used my corn-salve, and you can wear your boots out then; you can’t when you’ve corns. Now, in this little box you see a large corn which was drawn by this very salve from the honourable foot of the late lamented Sir Robert Peel. It’s been in my possession three years and four months, and though I’m a poor man--hard corn, soft corn, or any corn--though I’m a poor man, the more’s the pity, I wouldn’t sell that corn for the newest sovereign coined. I call it the free-trade corn, gen’l’men and leddis. No cutting and paring, and sharpening penknives, and venturing on razors to level your corns; this salve draws them out--only one penny--and without pain. But wonders can’t be done in a moment. To draw out such a corn as I’ve shown you, the foot, the whole foot, must be soaked five minutes in warm soap and water. That makes the salve penetrate, and draw the corn, which then falls out, in three days, like a seed from a flower. Hard corn, soft corn, &c., &c.”

The corn from “the honourable foot” of Sir Robert Peel, or from the foot of any one likely to interest the audience, has been scraped and trimmed from a cow’s heel, and may safely be submitted to the inspection and handling of the incredulous. “There it is,” the corn-seller will reiterate--“it speaks for itself.”

One practice--less common than it was, however,--of the corn-salve street-seller, is to get a friend to post a letter--expressive of delighted astonishment at the excellence and rapidity of the corn-cure--at some post-office not very contiguous. If the salve-seller be anxious to remove the corns of the citizens, he displays this letter, with the genuine post-mark of Piccadilly, St. James’s-street, Pall-mall, or any such quarter, to show how the fashionable world avails itself of his wares, cheap as they are, and fastidious as are the fashionable! If the street-professional be offering his corn-cures in a fashionable locality, he produces a letter from Cheapside, or Cornhill--“there it is, it speaks for itself”--to show how the shrewd city-people, who were never taken in by street-sellers in their lives, and couldn’t be, appreciated that particular corn-salve! Occasionally, as the salve-seller is pattering, a man comes impetuously forward, and says loudly, “Here, doctor, let me have a shilling’s-worth. I bought a penn’orth, and it cured one corn by bringing it right out--here the d----d thing is, it troubled me seven year--and I’ve got other corns, and I’m determined I’ll root out the whole family of them. Come, now, look sharp, and put up a shilling’s-worth.” The shilling’s-worth is gravely handed to the applicant as if it were not only a boná fide, but an ordinary occurrence in the way of business.

One corn-salve seller--who was not in town at the time of my inquiry into this curious matter--had, I was assured, “and others might have” full faith in the efficacy of the salve he vended. One of his fellow-traders said to me, “Ay, sir, and he has good reason for trusting to it for a cure; he cured me of my corns, that I’m sure of; so there can be no nonsense about it. He has a secret.” On my asking this informant if he had tried his own corn-salve, he laughed, and said “No! I’m like the regular doctors that way, never tries my own things.” The same man, who had no great faith in what he sold being of any use in the cure of “corn, wart, or bunion,” assured me--and I have no doubt with truth--that he had sold his remedy to persons utter strangers to him, who had told him afterwards that it had cured their corns. “False relics,” says a Spanish proverb, “have wrought true miracles,” and to what cause these corn-cures were attributable, it is not my business to inquire.

I had no difficulty in acquiring a knowledge of the ingredients of a street corn-salve. “Anybody,” said one man, “that understands how to set about it, can get the recipe for 2_d._” Resin, 1 lb., (costing 2_d._); tallow, 1/4 lb. (1-1/2_d._); emerald green (1_d._); all boiled together. The emerald green, I was told, was to “give it a colour.” The colour is varied, but I have cited the most usual mode of preparation. Attempts have been made to give an aromatic odour to the salve, but all the perfumes within the knowledge, or rather the means, of the street-sellers, were overpowered by the resin and the tallow, “and it has,” remarked one dealer, “a physicky sort of smell as it is, which answers.” The quantity I have cited would supply a sufficiency of the composition for the taking of “a sovereign in penn’orths.” In a week or so the stuff becomes discoloured, often from dust, and has to be re-boiled. Some of the traders illustrate the mode of applying the salve by carrying a lighted candle, and a few pieces of leather, and showing how to soften the composition and spread it on the leather. “After all, sir,” said the man, who had faith in the virtues of his fellow street-trader’s salve, “the regular thing, such as I sell, may do good; I cannot say; but it is very likely that the resin will draw the corn, just as people apply cobbler’s wax, which has resin in it. The chemists will sell you something of the same sort as I do.”

The principal purchasers are working men, who buy in the streets, and occasionally in the public-houses. The trade, however, becomes less and less remunerative. To take 15_s._ in a week is a good week, and to take 10_s._ is more usual; the higher receipt is no doubt attributable to a superior patter being used, as men will give 1_d._ to be amused by this street work, without caring about the nostrum. Calculating that eight of these traders take 10_s._ weekly--so allowing for the frequent resort of the patterers to anything more attractive--we find 208_l._ expended in the streets on this salve. The profits of the seller are about the same as his receipts, for 240 pennyworths can be made out of materials costing only 4-1/2_d._ The further outlay necessary to this street profession is a tray worth 1_s._ or 1_s._ 6_d._, but a large old backgammon board, which may be bought at the second-hand shops for 1_s._ and sometimes for 6_d._, is more frequently used by the street purveyors of corn-salve.

OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF GLASS AND CHINA CEMENT, AND OF RAZOR PASTE.

The sale of glass and china cement is an old trade in the streets, but one which becomes less and less followed. Before the finer articles of crockeryware became cheap as they are now, it was of importance to mend, if possible, a broken dish of better quality, and of more importance to mend a china punch-bowl. Dishes, however, are now much cheaper, and china punch-bowls are no longer an indispensable part of even tavern festivity.

The sellers of this cement proclaim it as one which will “cure any china, stone, or earthenware, and make the broken parts adhere so firmly, that if you let it fall again, it will break, not at the part where it has been cemented, but at some other. Only a halfpenny, or a penny a stick.” These traders sometimes illustrate the adhesive strength of the composition by producing a plate or dish which has been cemented in different places, and letting it fall, to break in some hitherto sound part. This they usually succeed in doing. For the cementing of glass the street article is now perhaps never sold, and was but scantily sold, I am informed, at any time, as the junction was always unsightly.

There are now four men who sell this cement in the streets, one usually to be found in Wilderness-row, Goswell-street, being, perhaps, the one who carries on the trade most regularly. They all make their own cement; one of the receipts being--1 lb. shellac (5_d._), 1/4 lb. brimstone (1/2_d._), blended together until it forms a thick sort of glue. This quantity makes half-a-crown’s-worth of the cement for the purposes of retail. The sellers do not confine themselves to one locality, but are usually to be found in one or other of the street-markets on a Saturday night. If each seller take 5_s._ weekly (of which 4_s._ may be profit), we find 52_l._ expended yearly by street customers in this cement.

I include razor paste under this head, as sometimes, and at one time more frequently than now, the same individual sold both articles, though not at the same time.

There are twelve street-sellers of razor-paste, but they seem to prefer “working” the distant suburbs, or going on country rounds, as there are often only three in London. It is still vended, I am told, to clerks, who use it to sharpen their pen-knives, but the paste, owing to the prevalence of the use of steel pens, is now almost a superfluity, compared to what it was. It is bought also, and frequently enough in public-houses, by working men, as a means of “setting” their razors. The vendors make the paste themselves, except two, who purchase of a street-seller. The ingredients are generally fuller’s earth (1_d._), hog’s lard (1_d._), and emery powder (2_d._). The paste is sold in boxes carried on a tray, which will close and form a sort of case, like a backgammon board. The quantity I have given will make a dozen boxes (each sold at 1_d._), so that the profit is 7_d._ in the 1_s._, for to the 4_d._ paid for ingredients must be added 1_d._, for the cost of a dozen boxes. The paste is announced as “warranted to put an edge to a razor or pen-knife superior to anything ever before offered to the public.” The street-sellers offer to prove this by sharpening any gentleman’s pen-knife on the paste spread on a piece of soldier’s old belt, which sharpening, when required, they accomplish readily enough. One of these paste-sellers, I was told, had been apprenticed to a barber; another had been a cutler, the remainder are of the ordinary class of street-sellers.

Calculating that 6 men “work” the metropolis daily, taking 2_s._ each per day (with 1_s._ 2_d._ profit), we find 187_l._ the amount of the street outlay.

OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF CRACKERS AND DETONATING BALLS.

This trade, I am informed by persons familiar with it, would be much more frequently carried on by street-folk, and in much greater numbers, were it not the one which of all street callings finds the least toleration from the police. “You must keep your eyes on both corners of the street,” said one man, “when you sell crackers; and what good is it the police stopping us? The boys have only to go to a shop, and then it’s all right.”

The trade is only known in the streets at holiday seasons, and is principally carried on for a few days before and after the 5th of November, and again at Christmas-tide. “Last November was good for crackers,” said one man; “it was either Guy Faux day, or the day before, I’m not sure which now, that I took 15_s._, and nearly all of boys, for waterloo crackers and ball crackers (the common trade names), ‘waterloo’ being the ‘pulling crackers.’ At least three parts was ball crackers. I sold them from a barrow, wheeling it about as if it was hearthstone, and just saying quietly when I could, ‘Six a penny crackers.’ The boys soon tell one another. All sorts bought of me; doctors’ boys, school boys, pages, boys as was dressed beautiful, and boys as hadn’t neither shoes nor stockings. It’s sport for them all.” The same man told me he did well at what he called “last Poram fair,” clearing 13_s._ 6_d._ in three days, or rather evenings or nights. “Poram fair, sir,” he said, “is a sort of feast among the Jews, always three weeks I’ve heard, afore their Passover, and I then work Whitechapel and all that way.”

I inquired of a man who had carried on this street trade for a good many years, it might be ten or twelve, if he had noticed the uses to which his boy-customers put his not very innocent wares, and he entered readily into the subject.

“Why, sir,” he said, “they’re not all boy-customers, as you call them, but they’re far the most. I’ve sold to men, and often to drunken men. What larks there is with the ball-crackers! One man lost his eye at Stepney Fair, but that’s 6 or 7 years ago, from a lark with crackers. The rights of it I never exactly understood, but I know he lost his eye, from the dry gravel in the ball-cracker bouncing into it. But it’s the boys as is fondest of crackers. I sold ’em all last Christmas, and made my 5_s._ and better on Boxing-day. I was sold out before 6 o’clock, as I had a regular run at last--just altogether. After that, I saw one lad go quietly behind a poor lame old woman and pull a Waterloo close behind her ear; he was a biggish boy and tidily dressed; and the old body screamed, ‘I’m shot.’ She turned about, and the boy says, says he, ‘Does your grandmother know you’re out? It’s a improper thing, so it is, for you to be walking out by yourself.’ You should have seen her passion! But as she was screaming out, ‘You saucy wagabone! You boys is all wagabones. People can’t pass for you. I’ll give you in charge, I will,” the lad was off like a shot.

“But one of the primest larks I ever saw that way was last winter, in a street by Shoreditch. An old snob that had a bulk was making it all right for the night, and a lad goes up. I don’t know what he said to the old boy, but I saw him poke something, a last I think it was, against the candle, put it out, and then run off. In a minute, three or four lads that was ready, let fly at the bulk with their ball-crackers, and there was a clatter as if the old snob had tumbled down, and knocked his lasts down; but he soon had his head out--he was Irish, I think--and he first set up a roar like a Smithfield bull, and he shouts, ‘I’m kilt intirely wid the murthering pistols! Po-lice! Po-o-lice!’ He seemed taken quite by surprise--for they was capital crackers--I think he couldn’t have been used to bulks, or he would have been used to pelting; but how he did bellow, surely.

“I think it was that same night too, I saw a large old man, buttoned up, but seeming as if he was fine-dressed for a party, in a terrible way in the Commercial-road. I lived near there then. There was three boys afore me--and very well they did it--one of ’em throws a ball-cracker bang at the old gent’s feet, just behind him, and makes him jump stunning, and the boy walks on with his hands in his pocket, as if he know’d nothing about it. Just after that another boy does the same, and then the t’other boy; and the old gent--Lord, how he swore! It was shocking in such a respectable man, as I told him, when he said, I’d crackered him! ‘Me cracker you,’ says I; ‘it ’ud look better if you’d have offered to treat a poor fellow to a pint of beer with ginger in it, and the chill off, than talk such nonsense.’ As we was having this jaw, one of the boys comes back and lets fly again; and the old gent saw how it was, and he says, ‘Now, if you’ll run after that lad, and give him a d----d good hiding, you shall have the beer.’ ‘Money down, sir,’ says I, ‘if you mean honour bright;’ but he grumbled something, and walked away. I saw him soon after, talking to a Bobby, so I made a short cut home.”

At the fairs near London there is a considerable sale of these combustibles; and they are often displayed on large stalls in the fair. They furnish the means of practical jokes to the people on their return. “After last Whitsun Greenwich Fair,” said a street-seller to me, “I saw a gent in a white choker, like a parson, look in at a pastry-cook’s shop, as is jist by the Elephant (and Castle), a-waiting for a ’bus, I s’pose. There was an old ’oman with a red face standing near him; and I saw a lad, very quick, pin something to one’s coat and the t’other’s gown. They turned jist arter, and bang goes a Waterloo, and they looks savage one at another; and hup comes that indentical boy, and he says to the red faced ’oman, a pointing to the white choker, ‘Marm, I seed him a twiddling with your gown. He done it for a lark arter the fair, and ought to stand something.’ So the parson, if he were a parson, walked away.”

There are eight makers, I am told, who supply the street-sellers and the small shops with these crackers. The wholesale price is 4_d._ to 6_d._ a gross, the “cracker-balls” being the dearest. The retail price in the streets is from six to twelve a penny, according to the appearance and eagerness of the purchaser. Some street traders carry these commodities on trays, and very few are stationary, except at fairs. I am assured, that for a few days last November, from 50 to 60 men and women were selling crackers in the streets, of course “on the sly.” In so irregular and surreptitious a trade, it is not possible even to approximate to statistics. The most intelligent man that I met with, acquainted, as he called it, “with all the ins and outs of the trade,” calculated that in November and Christmas, 100_l._ at least was expended in the streets in these combustibles, and another 100_l._ in the other parts of the year. About Tower-hill, Ratcliff-highway (or “the Highway,” as street-sellers often call it), and in Wapping and Shadwell, the sale of crackers is the best. The sellers are the ordinary street-sellers, and no patter is required.

OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF LUCIFER-MATCHES.

Under this head I shall speak only of those who sell the matches, apart from those who, in proffering lucifer boxes, mix up trade with mendicancy. The latter class I have spoken of, and shall treat of them more fully under the head of “the London Poor.”

Until “lucifers” became cheap and in general use, the matches sold by the street-folks, and there were numbers in the trade, were usually prepared by themselves. The manufactures were simple enough. Wooden splints, twice or thrice the length of the lucifer matches now in use, were prepared, and dipped into brimstone, melted in an iron ladle. The matches were never, as now, self-igniting, or rather ignitable by rapid friction; but it was necessary to “strike a light” by the concussion of a flint and steel, the sparks from which were communicated to tinder kept in a “box.”

The brimstone match-sellers were of all ages, but principally, I am told, old people. Many of them during, and for some years after the war, wore tattered regimentals, or some remains of military paraphernalia, and had been, or assumed to have been, soldiers, but not entitled to a pension; the same with seamen. I inquired of some of the present race of match-sellers what became of the “old brimstones,” as I heard them called, but from them I could gain little information. An old groundsel-gatherer told me that some went into his trade. Others, I learned, “took to pins,” and others to song or tract selling. Indeed the brimstone match-sellers not unfrequently carried a few songs to vend with their matches. It must be borne in mind that, 15 years ago, those street trades, into which any one who is master of a few pence can now embark, were less numerous. Others of the match-sellers, with rounds, or being known men, displaced their “brimstones” for “lucifers,” and traded on as usual. I heard of one old man, now dead, who made a living on brimstone-matches by selling a good quantity in Hackney, Stoke Newington, and Islington, and who long refused to sell lucifer-matches; “they was new-fangled rubbish,” he said, “and would soon have their day.” He found his customers, however, fall off, and in apprehension of losing them all, he was compelled to move with the times.

“I believe, sir,” said one man, still a street-seller, but not having sold matches of any kind for years,--“I believe I was the first who hawked ‘Congreves,’ or ‘instantaneous lights;’ they weren’t called ‘lucifers’ for a good while after. I bought them at Mr. Jones’s light-house in the Strand, and if I remember right, for it must be more than 20 years ago, between 1820 and 1830, Mr. Jones had a patent somehow about them. I bought them at 7_s._ a dozen boxes, and sold them at 1_s._ a box. I’m not sure how many matches was in a box, but I think it was 100. You’ll get as much for a farthing now, as you would for a shilling then. The matches were lighted by being drawn quickly through sand-paper. I sold them for a twelvemonth, and had the trade all to myself. As far as I know, I had; for I never met with or heard of anybody else in it all that time. I did decent at it. I suppose I cleared my 15_s._ a week. The price kept the same while I was in the business. I sold them at city offices. I supplied the Phœnix in Lombard-street, I remember, and the better sort of shops. People liked them when they wanted to light a candle in a hurry, in places where there was no fire to seal a letter, or such like. There was no envelopes in them days. The penny-postage brought them in. I was sometimes told not to carry such things there again, as they didn’t want the house set on fire by keeping such dangerous things in it. Now, I suppose, lucifers are in every house, and that there’s not a tinder-box used in all London.” Such appears to have been the beginning of the extensive street-trade in these chemical preparations now carried on. At the twelvemonth’s end, my informant went into another line of business.

The “German Congreves” were soon after introduced, and were at first sold wholesale at the “English and German” swag-shops in Houndsditch, at 2_s._ the dozen boxes, and were retailed at 3_d._, 4_d._, and sometimes as high as 6_d._ the box. These matches, I am told, “kept their hold” about five years, when they ceased to be a portion of the street trade. The German Congreves were ignited by being drawn along a slip of sand-paper, at the bottom of the box, as is done at present; with some, however, a double piece of sand-paper was sold for purposes of igniting.

After this time cheaper and cheaper matches were introduced, and were sold in the streets immediately on their introduction. At first, the cheaper matches had an unpleasant smell, and could hardly be kept in a bed-room, but that was obviated, and the trade progressed to its present extent.

The lucifer-match boxes, the most frequent in the street-trade, are bought by the poor persons selling them in the streets, at the manufacturers, or at oil-shops, for a number of oilmen buy largely of the manufacturers, and can “supply the trade” at the same rate as the manufacturer. The price is 2-1/4_d._ the dozen boxes, each box containing 150 matches. Some of the boxes (German made) are round, and many used to be of tin, but these are rarely seen now. The prices are proportionate. The common price of a lucifer box in the streets is 1/2_d._, but many buyers, I am told, insist upon and obtain three a penny, which they do generally of some one who supplies them regularly. The trade is chiefly itinerant.

One feeble old man gave me the following account of his customers. He had been in the employ of market-gardeners, carmen, and others, whose business necessitated the use of carts and horses. In his old age he was unable to do any hard work; he was assisted, however, by his family, especially by one son living in the country; he had a room in the house of a daughter, who was a widow, but his children were only working people, with families, he said, and so he sold a few lucifers “as a help,” and to have the comfort of a bit of tobacco, and buy an old thing in the way of clothing without troubling any one. Out of his earnings, too, he paid 6_d._ a week for the schooling of one of his daughter’s children.

“I sell these lucifers, sir,” he said, in answer to my inquiries, “I never beg with them: I’d scorn it. My children help me, as I’ve told you; I did my best for them when I was able, and so I have a just sort of claim on them. Well, indeed, then, sir, as you ask me, if I had only myself to depend upon, why I couldn’t live. I must beg or go into the house, and I don’t know which I should take to worst at 72. I’ve been selling lucifers about five years, for I was worn out with hard work and rheumatics when I was 65 or 66. I go regular rounds, about 2 miles in a day, or 2-1/2, or if it’s fine 3 miles or more from where I live, and the same distance back, for I can sometimes walk middling if I can do nothing else. I carry my boxes tied up in a handkerchief, and hold 2 or 3 in my hand. I’m ashamed to hold them out on any rail where I aint known; and never do if there isn’t a good-humoured looking person to be seen below, or through the kitchen window. But my eyesight aint good, and I make mistakes, and get snapped up very short at times. Yesterday, now, I was lucky in my small way. There’s a gentleman, that if I can see him, I can always sell boxes to at 1_d._ a piece. That’s his price, he says, and he takes no change if I offer it. I saw him yesterday at his own door, and says he, ‘Well, old greybeard, I haven’t seen you for a long time. Here’s 1_s._, leave a dozen boxes.’ I told him I had only 11 left; but he said, ‘O, it’s all the same,’ and he told a boy that was crossing the hall to take them into the kitchen, and we soon could hear the housekeeper grumbling quite loud--perhaps she didn’t know her master could hear--about being bothered with rubbish that people took in master with; and the gentleman shouts out, ‘Some of you stop that old ---- mouth, will you? She wants a profit out of them in her bills.’ All was quiet then, and he says to me quite friendly, ‘If she wasn’t the best cook in London I’d have quitted her long since, by G--.’” The old man chuckled no little as he related this; he then went on, “He’s a swearing man, but a good man, I’m sure, and I don’t know why he’s so kind to me. Perhaps he is to others. I’m ashamed to hold my boxes to the ary rails, ’cause so many does that to beg. I sell lucifers both to mistresses and maids. Some will have 3 for a 1_d._, and though it’s a poor profit, I do it, for they say, ‘O, if you come this way constant, we’ll buy of you whenever we want. If you won’t give 3 a penny, there’s plenty will.’ I sell, too, in some small streets, Lisson-grove way, to women that see me from their windows, and come down to the door. They’re needle-workers I think. They say sometimes, ‘I’m glad I’ve seen you, for it saves me the trouble of running out.’

“Well, sir, I’m sure I hardly know how many boxes I sell. On a middling good day I sell 2 dozen, on a good day 3 dozen, on a bad day not a dozen, sometimes not half-a-dozen, and sometimes, but not often, not more than a couple. Then in bad weather I don’t go out, and time hangs very heavy if it isn’t a Monday; for every Monday I buy a threepenny paper of a newsman for 2_d._, and read it as well as I can with my old eyes and glasses, and get my daughter to read a bit to me in the evening, and next day I send the paper to my son in the country, and so save him buying one. As well as I can tell I sell about 9 dozen boxes a week, one week with another, and clear from 2_s._ to 2_s._ 6_d._ It’s employment for me as well as a help.”

It is not easy to estimate the precise number of persons who really sell lucifer matches as a means of subsistence, or as a principal means. There are many, especially girls and women, the majority being Irishwomen, who do not directly solicit charity, and do not even say, “Buy a box of lucifers from a poor creature, to get her a ha’porth of bread;” or, “please a bit of broken victuals, if it’s only cold potatoes, for a box of the best lucifers.” Yet these match-sellers look so imploringly down an area, or through a window, some “shouldering” a young child the while, and remain there so pertinaciously that a box is bought, or a halfpenny given, often merely to get rid of the applicant.

An intelligent man, a street-seller, and familiar with street-trading generally, whom I questioned on the subject, said: “It’s really hard to tell, sir, but I should calculate this way. It’s the real sellers you ask about; them as tries to live on their selling lucifers, or as their main support. I have worked London and the outside places--yes, I mean the suburbs--in ten rounds, or districts, but six is better, for you can then go the same round the same day next week, and so get known. The real sellers, in my opinion, is old men and women out of employ, or past work, and to beg they are ashamed. I’ve read the Bible you see, sir, though I’ve had too much to do with gay persons even to go to church. I should say that in each of those ten rounds, or at any rate, splicing one with another, was twenty persons really selling lucifers. Yes, and depending a good deal upon them, for they’re an easy carriage for an infirm body, and as ready a sale as most things. I don’t reckon them as begs, or whines, or sticks to a house for an hour, but them as sells; in my opinion, they’re 200, and no more. All the others dodges, in one way or other, on pity and charity. There’s one lurk that’s getting common now. A man well dressed, and very clean, and wearing gloves, knocks at a door, and asks to speak to the master or mistress. If he succeeds, he looks about him as if he was ashamed, and then he pulls out of his coat-pocket a lucifer box or two, and asks, as a favour, to be allowed to sell one, as reduced circumstances drive him to do so. He doesn’t beg, but I don’t reckon him a seller, for he has always some story or other to tell, that’s all a fakement.” Most dwellers in a suburb will have met with one of these well-dressed match-sellers.

Adopting my informant’s calculation, and supposing that each of these traders take, on lucifers alone, but 4_s._ weekly, selling nine dozen (with a profit to the seller of from 1_s._ 9_d._ to 2_s._ 6_d._), we find 2080_l._ expended in this way. The matches are sold also at stalls, with other articles, in the street markets, and elsewhere; but this traffic, I am told, becomes smaller, and only amounts to one-tenth of the amount I have specified as taken by itinerants. These street-sellers reside in all parts of town which I have before specified as the quarters of the poor.

OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF CIGAR LIGHTS, OR FUZEES.

This is one of the employments to which boys, whom neglect, ill-treatment, destitution, or a vagrant disposition, have driven or lured to a street life, seem to resort to almost as readily as to the offers, “Old your ’os, sir?” “Shall I carry your passel, marm?”

The trifling capital required to enter into the business is one cause of its numbering many followers. The “fuzees,” as I most frequently heard them called, are sold at the “Congreve shops,” and are chiefly German made. At one time, indeed, they were announced as “German tinder.” The wholesale charge is 4-1/2_d._ per 1000 “lights.” The 1000 lights are apportioned into fifty rows, each of twenty self-igniting matches; and these “rows” are sold in the streets, one or two for 1/2_d._, and two, three, or four 1_d._ It is common enough for a juvenile fuzee-seller to buy only 500; so that 2-1/4_d._ supplies his stock in trade.

The boys (for the majority of the street-traders who sell only fuzees, are boys) frequent the approaches to the steam-boat piers, the omnibus stands, and whatever places are resorted to by persons who love to smoke in the open air. Some of these young traders have neither shoes nor stockings, more especially the Irish lads, who are at least half the number, and their apology for a cap fully displays the large red ears, and flat features, which seem to distinguish a class of the Irish children in the streets of London. Some Irish boys hold out their red-tipped fuzees with an appealing look, meant to be plaintive, and say, in a whining tone, “Spend a halfpenny on a poor boy, your honour.” Others offer them, without any appealing look or tone, either in silence, or saying--“Buy a fuzee to light your pipe or cigar, sir; a row of lights for a 1/2_d._”

I met with one Irish boy, of thirteen or fourteen years of age, who was offering fuzees to the persons going to Chalk Farm fair on Easter Tuesday, but the rain kept away many visitors, and the lad could hardly find a customer. He was literally drenched, for his skin, shining with the rain, could be seen about his arms and knees through the slits of his thin corduroy jacket and trowsers, and he wore no shirt.

“It’s oranges I sell in ginral, your honour,” he said, “and it’s on oranges I hopes to be next week, plaze God. But mother--it’s orange-selling she is too--wanted to make a grand show for Aister wake, and tuk the money to do it, and put me on the fuzees. It’s the thruth I’m telling your honour. She thought I might be after making a male’s mate” (meal’s meat) “out of them, intirely; but the sorra a male I’ll make to day if it cost me a fardin, for I haven’t tuk one. I niver remimber any fader; mother and me lives together somehow, glory be to God; but it’s often knowin’ what it is to be hungry we are. I’ve sould fuzees before, when ingans, and nuts, and oranges was dear and not for the poor to buy, but I niver did so bad as to-day. A gintleman once said to me: ‘Here, Pat, yer sowl, you look hungry. Here’s a thirteener for yez; go and get drunk wid it.’ Och, no, your honour, he wasn’t an Irish gintleman; it was afther mocking me he was, God save him.” On my asking the boy if he felt hurt at this mockery, he answered, slily, with all his air of simplicity, “Sure, thin, wasn’t there the shillin’? For it was a shillin’ he gave me, glory be to God. No, I niver heard it called a thirteener before, but mother has. Och, thin, sir, indeed, and it’s could and wet I am. I have a new shirt, as was giv to mother for me by a lady, but I wouldn’t put it on sich a day as this, your honour, sir. I’ll go to mass in it ivery Sunday. I’ve made 6_d._ a day and sometimes more a sellin’ fuzees, wid luck, God be praised, but the bad wither’s put me out intirely this time.”

The fuzee-sellers frequently offer their wares at the bars of public-houses in the daytime, and sometimes dispose of them to those landlords who sell cigars. From the best information I can command there are now upwards of 200 persons selling fuzees in the streets of the metropolis. But the trade is often collateral. The cigar-seller offers fuzees, play-bill sellers (boys) do so sometimes at the doors of the theatres to persons coming out, the pipe-sellers also carry them; they are sometimes sold along with lucifer matches, and at miscellaneous stalls. It will, I believe, be accurate to state that in the streets there are generally 100 persons subsisting, or endeavouring to subsist, on the sale of fuzees alone. It may be estimated also that each of these traders averages a receipt of 10_d._ a day (with a profit exceeding 6_d._), so that 1300_l._ is yearly laid out in the streets in this way.

Of the fuzee-selling lads, those who are parentless, or runaway, sleep in the lodging-houses, in the better conducted of which the master or deputy takes charge of the stock of fuzees or lucifer-matches during the night to avert the risk of fire; in others these combustibles are stowed anywhere at the discretion, or indiscretion, of the lodgers.

OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF GUTTA-PERCHA HEADS.

There are many articles which, having become cheap in the shops, find their way to the street-traders, and after a brief, or comparatively brief, and prosperous trade has been carried on in them, gradually disappear. These are usually things which are grotesque or amusing, but of no utility, and they are supplanted by some more attractive novelty--a main attraction being that it is a novelty.

Among such matters of street-trade are the elastic toys called “gutta-percha heads;” these, however, have no gutta-percha in their composition, but consist solely of a composition made of glue and treacle--the same as is used for printer’s rollers. The heads are small coloured models of the human face, usually with projecting nose and chin, and wide or distorted mouth, which admit of being squeezed into a different form of features, their elasticity causing them to return to the original caste. The trade carried on in the streets in these toys was at one time extensive, but it seems now to be gradually disappearing. On a fine day a little after noon, last week, there was not one “head” exposed for sale in any of the four great street markets of Leather-lane, the Brill, Tottenham-court-road including the Hampstead-road, and High-street, Camden-town.

The trade became established in the streets upwards of two years ago. At first, I am told by a street-seller, himself one of the first, there were six “head-sellers,” who “worked” the parks and their vicinity. My informant one day sold a gross of heads in and about Hyde-park, and a more fortunate fellow-trader on the same day sold 1-1/2 gross. The heads were recommended, whenever opportunity offered, by a little patter. “Here,” one man used to say, “here’s the Duke of Wellington’s head for 1_d._ It’s modelled from the statty on horseback, but is a improvement. His nose speaks for itself. Sir Robert Peel’s only 1_d._ Anybody you please is 1_d._; a free choice and no favour. The Queen and all the Royal Family 1_d._ apiece.” As the street-seller offered to dispose of the model of any eminent man’s head and face, he held up some one of the most grotesque of the number. Another man one Saturday evening sold five or six dozen to costermongers and others in the street markets “pattering” them off as the likenesses of any policeman who might be obnoxious to the street-traders! This was when the trade was new. The number of sellers was a dozen in the second week; it was soon twenty-five, all confining themselves to the sale of the heads; besides these the heads were offered to the street-buying public by many of the stationary street-folk, whose stock partook of a miscellaneous character. The men carrying on this traffic were of the class of general street-sellers.

“The trade was spoiled, sir,” said an informant, “by so many going into it, but I’ve heard that it’s not bad in parts of the country now. The sale was always best in the parks, I believe, and Sundays was the best days. I don’t pretend to be learned about religion, but I know that many a time after I’d earned next to nothing in a wet week, it came a fine Sunday morning, and I took as much as got me and my wife and children a good dinner of meat and potatoes, and sometimes, when we could depend on it, smoking hot from the baker’s oven; and I then felt I had something to thank God for. You see, sir, when a man’s been out all the week, and often with nothing to call half a dinner, and his wife’s earnings only a few pence by sewing at home, with three young children to take care of, you’re nourished and comforted, and your strength keeps up, by a meat dinner on a Sunday, quietly in your own room. But them as eats their dinner without having to earn it, can’t understand about that, and as the Sunday park trade was stopped, the police drive us about like dogs, not gentlemen’s dogs, but stray or mad dogs. And it seems there’s some sort of a new police. I can’t understand a bit of it, and I don’t want to, for the old police is trouble enough.”

The gutta-percha heads are mostly bought at the “English and German” swag-shops. A few are made by the men who sell them in the streets. The “swag” price is 1_s._ the gross; at one time the swag man demurred to sell less than half a gross, but now when the demand is diminished, a dozen is readily supplied for 8_d._ The street price retail, is and always was 1_d._ a head. The principal purchasers in the street are boys and young men, with a few tradesmen or working people, “such as can afford a penny or two,” who buy the “gutta-percha” heads for their children. There used to be a tolerable trade in public houses, where persons enjoying themselves bought them “for a lark,” but this trade has now dwindled to a mere nothing. One of the “larks,” an informant knew to be practised, was to attach the head to a piece of paper or card, write upon it some one’s name, make it up into a parcel, and send it to the flattered individual. The same man had sold heads to young women, not servant-maids he thought, but in some not very ill paid employment, and he believed, from their manner when buying, for some similar purpose of “larking.” When the heads were a novelty, he sold a good many to women of the town.

There are now no street-folks who depend upon the sale of these gutta-percha heads, but they sell them occasionally. The usual mode is to display them on a tray, and now, generally with other things. One man showed me his box, which, when the lid was raised, he carried as a tray slung round his neck, and it contained gutta-percha heads, exhibition medals, and rings and other penny articles of jewellery.

There are at present, I am informed, 30 persons selling gutta-percha heads in the streets, some of them confining their business solely to those articles. In this number, however, I do not include those who are both makers and sellers. Their average receipts, I am assured, do not exceed 5_s._ a week each, for, though some may take 15_s._ a week, others, and generally the stationary head-sellers, do not take 1_s._ The profit to the street retailer is one third of his receipts. From this calculation it appears, that if the present rate of sale continue, 390_l._ is spent yearly in these street toys. At one time it was far more than twice the amount.

OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF FLY-PAPERS AND BEETLE-WAFERS.

Fly-Papers came, generally, into street-traffic, I am informed, in the summer of 1848.

The fly-papers are sold wholesale at many of the oil-shops, but the principal shop for the supply of the street-traders is in Whitechapel. The wholesale price is 2-1/4_d._ a dozen, and the (street) retail charge 1/2_d._ a paper, or three 1_d._ A young man, to whom I was referred, and whom I found selling, or rather bartering, crockery, gave me the following account of his experience of the fly-paper trade. He was a rosy-cheeked, strong-built young fellow, and said he thought he was “getting on” in his present trade. He spoke merrily of his troubles, as I have found common among his class, when they are over.

“My father had a milk-walk,” he said, “and when he died I was without money and had nothing to do, but I soon got a place with a single gentleman. He had a small house, and kept only me and a old housekeeper. I was to make myself generally useful, but when I first went, the most I had to do was to look after a horse that master had. Master never was on horseback in his life, but he took Skipjack--that was the horse’s name, he was rising six--for a debt, and kept him two months, till he could sell him to his mind. Master took a largeish garden--for he was fond of growing flowers and vegetables, and made presents of them--just before poor Skipjack went, and I was set to work in it, besides do my house-work. It was a easy place, and I was wery comfable. But master, who was a good master and a friend to a poor man, as I know, got into difficulties; he was something in the City; I never understood what; and one night, when I’d been above a year and a-half with him, he told me I must go, for he couldn’t afford to keep me any longer. Next day he was arrested, quite sudden I believe, and sent to prison for debt. I had a good character, but nobody cared for one from a man in prison, and in a month my money was out, and my last 3_s._ 6_d._ went for an advertisement, what was no good to me. I then took to holding horses or anything that way, and used to sleep in the parks or by the road-sides where it was quiet. I did that for a month and more. I’ve sometimes never tasted food all day, and used to quench myself (so he worded it) with cold water from the pumps. It took off the hunger for a time. I got to know other boys that was living as I was, and when I could afford it I slept at lodging-houses, the boys took me to or told me about. One evening a gentleman gave me 1_s._ for catching his horse that he’d left standing, but it had got frightened, and run off. Next morning I went into the fly-paper trade,--it’s nearly two years ago, I think--because a boy I slept with did tidy in it. We bought the papers at the first shop as was open, and then got leave of the deputy of the lodging-house to catch all the flies we could, and we stuck them thick on the paper, and fastened the paper to our hats. I used to think, when I was in service, how a smart livery hat, with a cockade to it, would look, but instead of that I turned out, the first time in my life that ever I sold anything, with my hat stuck round with flies. I felt so ashamed I could have cried. I was miserable, I felt so awkerd. But I spent my last 2_d._ in some gin and milk to give me courage, and that brightened me up a bit, and I set to work. I went Mile-end way, and got out of the main streets, and I suppose I’d gone into streets and places where there hadn’t often been fly-papers before, and I soon had a lot of boys following me, and I felt, almost, as if I’d picked a pocket, or done something to be ’shamed of. I could hardly cry ‘Catch ’em alive, only a halfpenny!’ But I found I could sell my papers to public-houses and shopkeepers, such as grocers and confectioners, and that gave me pluck. The boys caught flies, and then came up to me, and threw them against my hat, and if they stuck the lads set up a shout. I stuck to the trade, however, and took 2_s._ 6_d._ to 3_s._ every day that week, more than half of it profit, and on Saturday I took 5_s._ 6_d._ The trade is all to housekeepers. I called at open shops and looked up at the windows, or held up my hat at private houses, and was sometimes beckoned to go in and sell my papers. Women bought most, I think. ‘Nasty things,’ they used to say, ‘there’s no keeping nothing clean for them.’ I stuck to the trade for near two months, and then I was worth 13_s._ 6_d._, and had got a pair of good shoes, and a good second-hand shirt, with one to change it; and next I did a little in tins and hardware, at the places where I used to go my fly rounds, and in the winter I got into the crock-trade, with another young fellow for a mate, and I’m in it yet, and getting a tidy connection, I think.”

Some of the fly-paper sellers make their stock-in-trade, but three-fourths of the number buy them ready-made. The street-sellers make them of old newspapers or other waste-paper, no matter how dirty. To the paper they apply turpentine and common coach varnish, some using resin instead of varnish, and occasionally they dash a few grains of sugar over the composition when spread upon the paper.

Last summer, I was informed, there were fifty or sixty persons selling fly-papers and beetle wafers in the streets; some of them boys, and all of them of the general class of street-sellers, who “take” to any trade for which 1_s._ suffices as capital. Their average earnings may be estimated at 2_s._ 6_d._ a day, about one-half being profit. This gives a street outlay, say for a “season” of ten weeks, of 375_l._, calculating fifty sellers.

A few of these street traders carried a side of a newspaper, black with flies, attached to a stick, waving it like a flag. The cries were “Catch ’em alive! Catch ’em alive for 1/2_d._!” “New method of destroying thousands!”

OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF MISCELLANEOUS MANUFACTURED ARTICLES.

In addition to the more staple wares which form the street trade in manufactured articles of a miscellaneous character, are many, as I said before, which have been popular for a while and are now entirely disused. In the course of my inquiry it was remarkable how oblivious I found many of the street-sellers as to what they had sold at various periods. “O dear, yes sir, I’ve sold all sorts of things in the streets besides what I’m on now; first one and then another as promised a few pence,” was the substance of a remark I frequently heard; but what was meant by the one and the other thing thus sold they had a difficulty to call to mind, but on a hint being thrown out they could usually give the necessary details. From the information I acquired I select the following curious matter.

Six or seven years ago Galvanic Rings were sold extensively by the street-folk. These were clumsy lead-coloured things, which were described by the puffing shop-keepers, and in due course by the street-sellers, as a perfect amulet; a thing which by its mere contact with the finger would not only cure but prevent “fits, rheumatics, and cramps.” On my asking a man who had sold them if these were all the ailments of which he and the others proclaimed the galvanic rings an infallible cure, he answered: “Like the quack medicines you read about, sir, in ’vertisements, we said they was good for anything anybody complained of or was afraid was coming on them, but we went mostly for rheumatics. A sight of tin some of the shopkeepers must have made, for what we sold at 1_d._ they got 6_d._ a piece for. Then for gold galvanics--and I’ve been told they was gilt--they had 10_s._ 6_d._ each. The streets is nothing to the shops on a dodge. I’ve been told by people as I’d sold galvanics to, that they’d had benefit from them. I suppose that was just superstitious. I think Hyams did the most of any house in galvanics.”

The men selling these rings--for the business was carried on almost entirely by men--were the regular street-traders, who sell “first one thing and then another.” They were carried in boxes, as I have shown medals are now, and they generally formed a portion of the street-jeweller’s stock, whether he were itinerant or stationary. The purchasers were labourers in the open air, such as those employed about buildings, whose exposure to the alternations of heat and cold render them desirous of a cure for, or preventive against rheumatism. The costermongers were also purchasers, and in the course of my inquiries among that numerous body, I occasionally saw a galvanic ring still worn by a few, and those chiefly, I think, fish-sellers.

Nor was the street or shop trade in these galvanic rings confined to amulets for the finger. I heard of one elderly woman, then a prosperous street-seller in the New Cut, who slept with a galvanic ring on every toe, she suffered so much from cramp and rheumatism! There were also galvanic shields, which were to be tied round the waist, and warranted “to cure all over.” They were retailed at 6_d._ each. Galvanic earrings were likewise a portion of this manufacture. They were not “drops” from the ear, but filled behind and around it as regards the back of the skull, and were to avert rheumatic attacks, and even aching from the head. The street price was 1_s._ the pair. Galvanic bracelets, handsomely gilt, were 2_s._ 6_d._ the pair. But the sale of all these higher-priced charms was a mere nonentity compared to that of the penny rings.

Another trade--if it may be classed under this head--carried on by great numbers and with great success for a while, was that of cards with the Lord’s Prayer in the compass of a sixpence. This was an engraving--now and then offered in the streets still--strictly fulfilling the announcement as to the compass in which the Prayer was contained, with the addition of a drawing of the Bible, as part of the engraving, “within the sixpence.” This trade was at first, I am told, chiefly in the hands of the patterers: “Grand novelty!” they said; “splendid engraving! The Lord’s Prayer, with a beautiful picture of the Bible, all legible to the naked eye, in the compass of a sixpence. Five hundred letters, all clear, on a sixpence.” One man said to me: “I knew very well there wasn’t 500, but it was a neat number to cry. A schoolmaster said to me once--‘Why, there isn’t above half that number of letters.’ He was wrong though; for I believe there’s 280.” This card was published six or seven years ago, and the success attending the sale of the Lord’s Prayer, led to the publication of the Belief in the same form. “When the trade was new,” said one man, “I could sell a gross in a day without any very great trouble; but in a little time there was hundreds in the trade, and one might patter hard to sell four dozen.”

The wholesale price was 8_s._ the gross, and as thirteen cards went to the dozen, the day’s profit when a gross was sold was 5_s._ When the sale did not extend to beyond four dozen the profit was 1_s._ 8_d._ A few cards “in letters of gold” were vended in the streets at 6_d._ each. They had large margins and presented a handsome appearance. The wholesale price was 3_s._ 6_d._ the dozen.

When this trade was at its height, there were, I am told, from 500 to 700 men, women and children engaged in it; selling the cards both with and without other articles. The cards had also a very extensive sale in the country.

Pen-holders with glass or china handles are another commodity which appeared suddenly, about six months ago, in street commerce, and at once became the staple of a considerable traffic. These pens are eight or nine inches long, the “body,” so to speak, being of solid round glass, of almost all colours, green, blue, and black predominating, with a seal (lacquered white or yellow) at the top, and a holder of the usual kind, with a steel pen at the bottom. Some are made of white pot and called “China pens,” and of these some are ornamented with small paintings of flowers and leaves. These wares are German, and were first charged 9_s._ 6_d._ the gross, without pens, which were an additional 3_d._ at the swag-shops. The price is now 5_s._ the gross, the pens being the same. The street-sellers who were fortunate enough to “get a good start” with these articles did exceedingly well. The pen-holders, when new, are handsome-looking, and at 1_d._ each were cheap; some few were at first retailed at 2_d._ One man, I am told, sold two-and-a-half gross in one day in the neighbourhood of the Bank, purchasers not seldom taking a dozen or more. As the demand continued, some men connected with the supply of goods for street sale, purchased all the stock in the swag-shops, expending about 170_l._, and at once raised the price to 10_s._ 6_d._ the gross. This amount the poorer street-sellers demurred to give, as they could rarely obtain a higher price than 1_d._ each, and 2_d._ for the ornamented holders, but the street-stationers (who bought, however, very sparingly) and the small shopkeepers gave the advance “as they found the glass-holders asked for.” On the whole, I am told, this forestalling was not very profitable to the speculators, as when fresh supplies were received at the “swags,” the price fell.

At first this street business was carried on by men, but it was soon resorted to by numbers of poor women and children. One gentleman informed me that in consequence of reading “London Labour and the London Poor,” he usually had a little talk with the street-sellers of whom he purchased any trifle; he bought these pen-holders of ten or twelve different women and girls; all of them could answer correctly his inquiry as to the uses of the pens; but only one girl, of fifteen or sixteen, and she hesitatingly, ventured to assert that she could write her own name with the pen she offered for sale. The street-trade still continues, but instead of being in the hands of 400 individuals--as it was, at the very least, I am assured, at one period--there are now only about fifty carrying it on itinerantly, while with the “pitched” sales-people, the glass-holders are merely a portion of the stock, and with the itinerants ten dozen a week (a receipt of 10_s._, and a profit of 4_s._ 9_d._) is now an average sale. The former glass-holder sellers of the poorer sort are now vending oranges.

Shirt Buttons form another of the articles--(generally either “useful things” or with such recommendation to street-buyers as the galvanic amulets possessed)--which every now and then are disposed of in great quantities in the streets. If an attempt be made by a manufacturer to establish a cheaper shirt button, for instance, of horn, or pot, or glass, and if it prove unsuccessful, or if an improvement be effected and the old stock becomes a sort of dead stock, the superseded goods have to be disposed of, and I am informed by a person familiar with those establishments, that the swag-shopkeepers can always find customers, “for anything likely,” with the indispensable proviso that it be cheap. In this way shirt buttons have lately been sold in the streets, not only by the vendors of small wares in their regular trade, but by men, lads, and girls, some of the males shirtless themselves, who sell them solely, with a continuous and monotonous cry of “Halfpenny a dozen; halfpenny a dozen.” The wholesale price of the last “street lot,” was 3_d._ the gross, or 1/4_d._ the dozen. To clear 6_d._ a day in shirt buttons is “good work;” it is more frequently 4_d._

OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF WALKING-STICKS.

The walking-sticks sold in the streets of London are principally purchased at wholesale houses in Mint-street and Union-street, Borough, and their neighbourhoods. “There’s no street-trade,” said an intelligent man, “and I’ve tried most that’s been, or promised to be, a living in the streets, that is so tiresome as the walking-stick trade. There is nothing in which people are so particular. The stick’s sure to be either too short or too long, or too thick or too thin, or too limp or too stiff. You would think it was a simple thing for a man to choose a stick out of a lot, but if you were with me a selling on a fine Sunday at Battersea Fields, you’d see it wasn’t. O, it’s a tiresome job.”

The trade is a summer and a Sunday trade. The best localities are the several parks, and the approaches to them, Greenwich-park included; Hampstead Heath, Kennington Common, and, indeed, wherever persons congregate for pedestrian purposes, Battersea Fields being, perhaps, the place where the greatest Sunday trade is carried on. Some of the greater thoroughfares too, such as Oxford-street and the City-road, are a good deal frequented by the stick-sellers.

This trade--like others where the article sold is not of general consumption or primary usefulness--affords, what I once heard a street-seller call, “a good range.” There is no generally recognised price or value, so that a smart trader in sticks can apportion his offers, or his charges, to what he may think to be the extent of endurance in a customer. What might be 2_d._ to a man who “looked knowing,” might be 6_d._ to a man who “looked green.” The common sticks, which are the “cripples,” I was told, of all the sorts of sticks (the spoiled or inferior sticks) mixed with “common pines,” are 15_d._ the dozen. From this price there is a gradual scale up to 8_s._ the dozen for “good polished;” beyond that price the street-seller rarely ventures, and seldom buys even at that (for street-trade) high rate, as fourpenny and sixpenny sticks go off the best; these saleable sticks are generally polished hazel or pine. “I’ve sold to all sorts of people, sir,” said a stick-seller. “I once had some very pretty sticks, very cheap, only 2_d._ a piece, and I sold a good many to boys. They bought them, I suppose, to look like men, and daren’t carry them home; for I once saw a boy I’d sold a stick to, break it and throw it away just before he knocked at the door of a respectable house one Sunday evening. I’ve sold shilling sticks to gentlemen, sometimes, that had lost or broken or forgot their own. Canes there’s nothing done in now in the streets; nor in ‘vines,’ which is the little switchy things that used to be a sort of a plaything. There’s only one stick-man in the streets, as far as I know, I think--that has what you may call a capital in sticks. Only the other day I saw him sell a registered stick near Charing-cross. It was a beauty. A Bath cane, with a splendid ivory head, and a compass let into the ivory. The head screwed off, and beneath was a map of London and a Guide to the Great Exhibition. O, but he has a beautiful stock, and aint he aristocratic! ‘Ash twigs,’ with the light-coloured bark on them, not polished, but just trimmed, was a very good sale, but they’re not now. Why, as to what I take, it’s such a uncertain trade that it’s hard to say. Some days I haven’t taken 6_d._, and the most money I ever took was one Derby day at Epsom--I wish there was more Derby days, for poor people’s sakes--and then I took 30_s._ The most money as ever I took in London was 14_s._--one Sunday, in Battersea Fields, when I had a prime cheap stock of bamboos. When I keep entirely to the stick trade, and during the summer, I may take 35_s._ in a week, with a profit of 15_s._”

The street stick-sellers are, I am assured, sometimes about 200 in number, on a fine Sunday in the summer. Of these, some are dock-labourers, who thus add to their daily earnings by a seventh day’s labour; others, and a smarter class, are the “supers” (supernumeraries) of theatres, who also eke out their pittance by Sunday toil; porters, irregularly employed, and consequently “hard pushed to live,” also sell walking-sticks on the Sundays; as do others who “cannot afford”--as a well-educated man, a patterer on paper, once said to me--“to lose a day if they were d----d for it.” The usual mode of this street-trade is to carry the bundle of sticks strapped together, under the arm, and deposit the ends on the ground when a sale is to be effected. A few, however, and principally Jews, have “stands,” with the walking-sticks inclosed in a sort of frame. On the Mondays there are not above a third of the number of stick-sellers there are on the Sundays; and on the other days of the week not above a seventh, or an eighth. Calculating that for 12 weeks of the year there are every day 35 stick-sellers, each taking, on an average, 30_s._ a week (with a profit, individually, of about 12_s._), we find 630_l._ expended in walking-sticks in the streets.

On clear winter days a stick-seller occasionally plies his trade, but on frosty days they are occupied in letting out skates in the parks, or wherever ponds are frozen.

OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF WHIPS, ETC.

These traders are a distinct class from the stick-sellers, and have a distinct class of customers. The sale is considerable; for to many the possession of a whip is a matter of importance. If one be lost or stolen, for instance, from a butcher’s cart at Newgate-market, the need of a whip to proceed with the cart and horse to its destination, prompts the purchase in the quickest manner, and this is usually effected of the street-seller who offers his wares to the carters at every established resort.

The commonest of the whips sold to cart-drivers is sometimes represented as whalebone covered with gut; but the whalebone is a stick, and the flexible part is a piece of leather, while the gut is a sort of canvas, made to resemble the worked gut of the better sort of whips, and is pasted to the stock; the thong--which in the common sort is called “four strands,” or plaits--being attached to the flexible part. Some of these whips are old stocks recovered, and many are sad rubbish; but for any deceit the street-seller can hardly be considered responsible, as he always purchases at the shop of a wholesale whipmaker, who is in some cases a retailer at the same price and under the same representations as the street-seller. The retail price is 1_s._ each; the wholesale, 8_s._ and 9_s._ a dozen. Some of the street whip-sellers represent themselves as the makers, but the whips are almost all made in Birmingham and Walsall.

Of these traders very few are the ordinary street-sellers. Most of them have been in some way or other connected with the care of horses, and some were described to me as “beaten-out countrymen,” who had come up to town in the hope of obtaining employment, and had failed. One man, of the last-mentioned class, told me that he had come to London from a village in Cambridgeshire, bringing with him testimonials of good character, and some letters from parties whose recommendation he expected would be serviceable to him; but he had in vain endeavoured for some months to obtain work with a carrier, omnibus proprietor, or job-master, either as driver or in charge of horses. His prospects thus failing him, he was now selling whips to earn his livelihood. A friend advised him to do this, as better than starving, and as being a trade that he understood:--

“I often thought I’d be forced to go back home, sir,” he said, “and I’d have been ashamed to do ’t, for I would come to try my luck in London, and would leave a place I had. All my friends--and they’re not badly off--tried to ’suade me to stop at home another year or two, but come I would, as if I must and couldn’t help it. I brought good clothes with me, and they’re a’most all gone; and I’d be ashamed to go back so shabby, like the prodigal’s son; you know, sir. I’ll have another try yet, for I get on to a cab next Monday, with a very respectable cab-master. As I’ve only myself, I know I can do. I was on one, but not with the same master, after I’d been six weeks here; but in two days I was forced to give it up, for I didn’t know my way enough, and I didn’t know the distances, and couldn’t make the money I paid for my cab. If I asked another cabman, he was as likely to tell me wrong as right. Then the fares used to be shouting out, ‘I say, cabby, where the h---- are you going? I told you Mark-lane, and here we are at the Minories. Drive back, sir.’ I know my way now well enough, sir. I’ve walked the streets too long not to know it. I notice them on purpose now, and know the distances. I’ve written home for a few things for my new trade, and I’m sure to get them. They don’t know I’m selling whips. There would be such a laugh against me among all t’ young fellows if they did. Me as was so sure to do well in London!

“It’s a poor trade. A carman’ll bid me 6_d._ for such a whip as this, which is 4_s._ 3_d._ the half dozen wholesale. ‘I have to find my own whips,’ my last customer said, ‘though I drives for a stunning grocer, and be d----d to him.’ They’re great swearers some of them. I make 7_s._ or 8_s._ in a week, for I can walk all day without tiring. I one week cleared 14_s._ Next week I made 3_s._ I have slept in cheap lodging-houses--but only in three: one was very decent, though out of the way; one was middling; and the t’other was a pig-sty. I’ve seen very poor places in the country, but nothing to it. I now pay 2_s._ a week for a sort of closet, with a bed in it, at the top of a house, but it’s clean and sweet; and my landlord’s a greengrocer and coal-merchant and firewood-seller;--he’s a good man--and I can always earn a little against the rent with him, by cleaning his harness, and grooming his pony--he calls it a pony, but it’s over 15 hands--and greasing his cart-wheels, and mucking out his stable, and such like. I shall live there when I’m on my cab.”

Other carmen’s whips are 1_s._ 6_d._, and as high as 2_s._ 6_d._, but the great sale is of those at 1_s_. The principal localities for the trade are at the meat-markets, the “green markets,” Smithfield, the streets leading to Billingsgate when crowded in the morning, the neighbourhood of the docks and wharfs, and the thoroughfares generally.

The trade in the other kind of whips is again in the hands of another class, in that of cabmen who have lost their licence, who have been maimed, and the numerous “hands” who job about stables--especially cab-horse stables--when without other employment. The price of the inferior sort of “gig-whips” is 1_s._ to 1_s._ 6_d._, the wholesale price being from 9_s._ 6_d._ to 14_s._ 6_d._ the dozen. Some are lower than 9_s._ 6_d._, but the cabmen, I am told, “will hardly look at them; they know what they’re a-buying of, and is wide awake, and that’s one reason why the profit’s so small.” Occasionally, one whip-seller told me, he had sold gig-whips at 2_s._ or 2_s._ 6_d._ to gentlemen who had broken their “valuable lance-wood,” or “beautiful thorn,” and who made a temporary purchase until they could buy at their accustomed shops. “A military gent, with mustachers, once called to me in Piccadilly,” the same man stated, “and he said, ‘Here, give me the best you can for half-a-crown, I’ve snapped my own. I never use the whip when I drive, for my horse is skittish and won’t stand it, but I can’t drive without one.’”

In the height of the season, two, and sometimes three men, sell handsome gig-whips at the fashionable drives or the approaches. “I have taken as much as 30_s._ in a day, for three whips,” said one man, “each 10_s._; but they were silver-mounted thorn, and very cheap indeed; that’s 8 or 9 years back; people looks oftener at 10_s._ now. I’ve sold horse-dealers’ whips too, with loaded ends. Oh, all prices. I’ve bought them, wholesale, at 8_s._ a dozen, and 7_s._ 6_d._ a piece. Hunting whips are never sold in the streets now. I have sold them, but it’s a good while ago, as riding whips for park gentlemen. The stocks were of fine strong lancewood--such a close grain! with buck horn handles, and a close-worked thong, fastened to the stock by an ‘eye’ (loop), which it’s slipped through. You could hear its crack half a mile off. ‘Threshing machines,’ I called them.”

All the whip-sellers in a large way visit the races, fairs, and large markets within 50 miles of London. Some go as far as Goodwood at the race-time, which is between 60 and 70 miles distant. On a well-thronged race-ground these men will take 3_l._ or 4_l._ in a day, and from a half to three-fourths as much at a country fair. They sell riding-whips in the country, but seldom in town.

An experienced man knew 40 whip-sellers, as nearly as he could call them to mind, by sight, and 20 by name. He was certain that on no day were there fewer than 30 in the streets, and sometimes--though rarely--there were 100. The most prosperous of the body, including their profits at races, &c., make 1_l._ a week the year through; the poorer sort from 5_s._ to 10_s._, and the latter are three times as numerous as the others. Averaging that only 30 whip-sellers take 25_s._ each weekly (with profits of from 5_s._ to 10_s._) in London alone, we find 1,950_l._ expended in the streets in whips.

Some of the whip-sellers vend whipcord, also, to those cabmen and carters who “cord” their own whips. The whipcord is bought wholesale at 2_s._ the pound (sometimes lower), and sold at 1/2_d._ the knot, there being generally six dozen knots in a pound.

Another class “mend” cabmen’s whips, re-thonging, or “new-springing” them, but these are street-artisans.

OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF PIPES, AND OF SNUFF AND TOBACCO BOXES.

The pipes now sold in the streets and public-houses are the “china bowls” and the “comic heads.” The “china-bowl” pipe has a bowl of white stone china, which unscrews, from a flexible tube or “stem,” as it is sometimes called, about a foot long, with an imitation-amber mouth-piece. They are retailed at 6_d._ each, and cost 4_s._ a dozen at the swag-shops. The “comic heads” are of the clay ordinarily used in the making of pipes, and cost 16_d._ the dozen, or 15_s._ the gross. They are usually retailed at 2_d._ Some of the “comic heads” may be considered as hardly well described by the name, as among them are death’s-heads and faces of grinning devils. “The best sale of the comic heads,” said one man, “was when the Duke put the soldiers’ pipes out at the barracks; wouldn’t allow them to smoke there. It was a Wellington’s head with his thumb to his nose, taking a sight, you know, sir. They went off capital. Lots of people that liked their pipe bought ’em, in the public-houses especial, ’cause, as I heerd one man--he was a boot-closer--say, ‘it made the old boy a-ridiculing of hisself.’ At that time--well, really, then, I can’t say how long it’s since--I sold little bone ‘tobacco-stoppers’--they’re seldom asked for now, stoppers is quite out of fashion--and one of them was a figure of ‘old Nosey,’ the Duke you know--it was intended as a joke, you see, sir; a tobacco-stopper.”

There are now nine men selling pipes, which they frequently raffle at the public-houses; it is not unusual for four persons to raffle at 1/2_d._ each, for a “comic head.” The most costly pipes are not now offered in the streets, but a few are sold on race-courses. I am informed that none of the pipe-sellers depend entirely upon their traffic in those wares, but occasionally sell (and raffle) such things as china ornaments or table-covers, or tobacco or snuff-boxes. If, therefore, we calculate that four persons sell pipes daily the year through, taking each 25_s._ (and clearing 10_s._), we find 260_l._ yearly expended upon the hawkers’ pipes.

The snuff and tobacco-boxes disposed of by street-traders, for they are usually sold by the same individual, are bought at the swag-shops. In a matter of traffic, such as snuff-boxes, in which the “fancy” (or taste) of the purchaser is freely exercised, there are of course many varieties. The exterior of some presents a series of transverse lines, coloured, and looking neat enough. Others have a staring portrait of the Queen, or of “a young lady,” or a brigand, or a man inhaling the pungent dust with evident delight; occasionally the adornment is a ruin, a farm-house, or a hunting scene. The retail price is from 4_d._ to 1_s._, and the wholesale 3_s._ to 7_s._ 6_d._ the dozen. The Scotch boxes, called “Holyroods” in the trade, are also sold in the streets and public-houses. These are generally the “self-colour” of the wood; the better sort are lined with horn, and are, or should be, remarkable for the closeness and nice adjustment of the hinges or joints. They are sold--some I was told being German-made--at the swag-shops at 3_s._ the dozen, or 4_d._ each, to 6_s._ the dozen, or 8_d._ each. “Why, I calc’lated,” said one box-seller, “that one week when I was short of tin, and had to buy single boxes, or twos, at a time, to keep up a fair show of stock, the swags got 2_s._ more out of me than if I could have gone and bought by the dozen. I once ventured to buy a very fine Holyrood; it’ll take a man three hours to find out the way to open it, if he doesn’t know the trick, the joints is so contrived. But I have it yet. I never could get an offer for what it cost me, 5_s._”

The tobacco-boxes are of brass and iron (though often called “steel”). There are three sizes: the “quarter-ounce,” costing 3_s._ the dozen; the “half-ounce,” 4_s._ 3_d._; and “the ounce,” 5_s._ 6_d._ the dozen, or 6-1/2_d._ each. These are the prices of the brass. The iron, which are “sized” in the same way, are from 2_s._ to 3_s._ 6_d._ the dozen, wholesale. They are retailed at from 3_d._ to 6_d._ each, the brass being retailed at from 4_d._ to 1_s._ All these boxes are opened and shut by pressure on a spring; they are partly flat (but rounded), so as to fit in any pocket. The cigar-cases are of the same quality as the snuff-boxes (not the Holyroods), and cost, at the German swag-shops, 3_s._ 6_d._ the dozen, or 4-1/2_d._ each. They are usually retailed, or raffled for on Saturday and Monday nights, at 6_d._ each, but the trade is a small one.

One branch of this trade, concerning which I heard many street-sellers very freely express their opinions, is the sale of “indecent snuff-boxes.” Most of these traders insisted, with a not unnatural bitterness, that it would be as easy to stop the traffic as it was to stop Sunday selling in the park, but then “gentlemen was accommodated by it,” they added. These boxes and cigar-cases are, for the most part, I am told, French, the lowest price being 2_s._ 6_d._ a box. One man, whose information was confirmed to me by others, gave me the following account of what had come within his own knowledge:--

“There’s eight and sometimes nine persons carrying on the indecent trade in snuff-boxes and cigar-cases. They make a good bit of money, but they’re drunken characters, and often hard up. They’ve neither shame nor decency; they’ll tempt lads or anybody. They go to public-houses which they know is used by fast gents that has money to spare. And they watch old and very young gents in the streets, or any gents indeed, and when they see them loitering and looking after the girls, they take an opportunity to offer a ‘spicy snuff-box, very cheap.’ It’s a trade only among rich people, for I believe the indecent sellers can’t afford to sell at all under 2_s._ 6_d._, and they ask high prices when they get hold of a green ’un; perhaps one up on a spree from Oxford or Cambridge. Well, I can’t say where they get their goods, nor at what price. That’s their secret. They carry them in a box, with proper snuff-boxes to be seen when its opened, and the others in a secret drawer beneath; or in their pockets. You may have seen a stylish shop in Oxford-street, and in the big window is large pipe heads of a fine quality, and on them is painted, quite beautiful, naked figures of women, and there’s snuff-boxes and cigar-cases of much the same sort, but they’re nothing to what these men sell. I must know, for it’s not very long since I was forced, through distress, to colour a lot of the figures. I could colour 50 a day. I hadn’t a week’s work at it. I don’t know what they make; perhaps twice as much in a day, as in the regular trade can be made in a week. I was told by one of them that one race day he took 15_l._ It’s not every day they do a good business, for sometimes they may hawk without ever showing their boxes; but gentlemen will have them if they pay ever so much for them. There’s a risk in the trade, certainly. Sometimes the police gets hold of them, but very very seldom, and it’s 3 months. Or if the Vice Society takes it up, it may be 12 months. The two as does best in the trade are women; they carry great lots. They’ve never been apprehended, and they’ve been in the trade for years. No, I should say they was not women of the town. They’re both living with men, but the men’s not in the same trade, and I think is in no trade; just fancy men. So I’ve understood.”

I may observe that the generality of the hawkers of indecent prints and cards are women.

There are about 35 persons selling snuff and tobacco-boxes--the greatest sale being of tobacco-boxes--and cigar-cases, generally with the other things I have mentioned. Of these 35, however, not one-half sell snuff-boxes constantly, but resort to any traffic of temporary interest in the public or street-public estimation. Some sell only in the evenings. Reckoning that 15 persons on snuff and tobacco and cigar boxes alone take 18_s._ weekly (clearing 7_s._ or 8_s._), we find 702_l._ thus expended.

OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF CIGARS.

Cigars, I am informed, have constituted a portion of the street-trade for upwards of 20 years, having been introduced not long after the removal of the prohibition on their importation from Cuba. It was not, however, until five or six years later that they were at all extensively sold in the streets; but the street-trade in cigars is no longer extensive, and in some respects has ceased to exist altogether.

I am told by experienced persons that the cigars first vended in the streets and public-houses were really smuggled. I say “really” smuggled, as many now vended under that pretence never came from the smuggler’s hands. “Well, now, sir,” said one man, “the last time I sold Pickwicks and Cubers a penny apiece with lights for nothing, was at Greenwich Fair, on the sly rather, and them as I could make believe was buying a smuggled thing, bought far freer. Everybody likes a smuggled thing.” [This remark is only in consonance with what I have heard from others of the same class.] “In my time I’ve sold what was smuggled, or made to appear as sich, but far more in the country than town, to all sorts--to gentlemen, and ladies, and shopkeepers, and parsons, and doctors, and lawyers. Why no, sir, I can’t say as how I ever sold anything in that way to an exciseman. But smuggling’ll always be liked; it’s sich a satisfaction to any man to think he’s done the tax-gatherer.”

The price of a cigar, in the earlier stages of the street-traffic, was 2_d._ and 3_d._ One of the boxes in which these wares are ordinarily packed was divided by a partition, the one side containing the higher, and the other the lower priced article. The division was often a mere trick of trade--in justification of which any street-seller would be sure to cite the precedent of shopkeepers’ practices--for the cigars might be the same price (wholesale) but the bigger and better-looking were selected as “threepennies,” the “werry choicest and realest Hawanners, as mild as milk, and as strong as gunpowder,” for such, I am told, was the cry of a then well-known street-trader. The great sale was of the “twopennies.” As the fuzees, now so common, were unknown, and lucifer matches were higher-priced, and much inferior to what they are at present, the cigar seller in most instances carried tow with him, a portion of which he kept ignited in a sort of tinder-box, and at this the smokers lighted their cigars; or the vender twisted together a little tow and handed it, ignited, to a customer, that if he were walking on he might renew his “light,” if the cigar “wouldn’t draw.”

A cheaper cigar soon found its way into street commerce, “only a penny apiece, prime cigars;” and on its first introduction, a straw was fitted into it, as a mouth-piece. “Cigar tubes” were also sold in the streets; they were generally of bone, and charged from 2_d._ to 1_s._ each. The cigar was fitted into the tube, and they were strongly recommended on the score of economy, as “by means of this tube, any gen’l’man can smoke his cigar to half a quarter of an inch, instead of being forced to throw it away with an inch and a half left.” These tubes have not for a long time been vended in the streets. I am told by a person, who himself was then engaged in the sale, that the greatest number of penny cigars ever sold in the streets in one day was on that of her Majesty’s coronation (June 28, 1838). Of this he was quite positive from what he had experienced, seen, and heard.

“In my opinion,” said another street-seller, “the greatest injury the street-trade in such things had was when the publicans took to selling cigars. They didn’t at first, at least not generally; I’ve sold cigars myself, at the bars of respectable houses, to gentlemen that was having their glass of ale with a friend, and one has said to another, ‘Come, we’ll have a smoke,’ and has bought a couple. O, no; I never was admitted to offer them in a parlour or tap-room; that would have interfered with the order for ‘screws’ (penny papers of tobacco), which is a rattling good profit, I can tell you. Indeed, I was looked shy at, from behind the bar; but if customers chose to buy, a landlord could hardly interfere. Now, it’s no go at all in such places.”

One common practice among the smarter street-seller, when “on cigars,” was, until of late years, and still is, occasionally at races and fairs, to possess themselves of a few really choice “weeds,” as like as they could procure them to their stock-in-trade, and to smoke one of them, as they urged their traffic.

The aroma was full and delicate, and this was appealed to if necessary, or, as one man worded it, the smell was “left to speak for itself.” The street-folk who prefer the sale of what is more or less a luxury, become, by the mere necessities of their calling, physiognomists and quick observers, and I have no reason to doubt the assertion of one cigar-vendor, when he declared that in the earlier stages of this traffic he could always, and most unerringly in the country, pick out the man on whose judgment others seemed to rely, and by selling him one of his choice reserve, procure a really impartial opinion as to its excellence, and so influence other purchasers. When the town trade “grew stale”--the usual term for its falling-off--the cigar-sellers had a remunerative field in many parts of the country.

In London, before railways became the sole means of locomotion to a distance, the cigar-sellers frequented the coaching-yards; and the “outsides” frequently “bought a cigar to warm their noses of a cold night,” and sometimes filled their cases, if the cigar-seller chanced to have the good word of the coachman or guard.

The cigar street-trade was started by two Jews, brothers, named Benasses, who were “licensed to deal in tobacco,” and vended good articles. When they relinquished the open-air business, they supplied the other street-sellers, whose numbers increased very rapidly. The itinerant cigar-vending was always principally in the hands of the Jews, but the general street-traders resorted to the traffic on all occasions of public resort,--“sich times,” observed one, “as fairs and races, and crownations, and Queen’s weddings; I wish they came a bit oftener for the sake of trade.” The manufacture of the cigars sold at the lowest rates, is now almost entirely in the hands of the Jews, and I am informed by a distinguished member of that ancient faith, that when I treat of the Hebrew children, employed in making cigars, there will be much to be detailed of which the public have little cognisance and little suspicion.

The cigars in question are bought (wholesale) in Petticoat-lane, Rosemary-lane, Ailie-street, Tenter-ground, in Goodman’s-fields, and similar localities. The kinds in chief demand are Pickwicks, 7_s._ and 8_s._ per lb.; Cubas, 8_s._ 6_d._; common Havannahs and Bengal Cheroots, the same price; but the Bengal Cheroots are not uncommonly smuggled.

“The best places for cigar-selling,” one man stated, “I’ve always found to be out of town; about Greenwich and Shooter’s Hill, and to the gents going to Kensington Gardens, and such like places. About the Eagle Tavern was good, too, as well as the streets leading to the Surrey Zoological--one could whisper, ‘cheap cigar, sir, half what they’ll charge you inside.’ I’ve known young women treat their young men to cigars as they were going to Cremorne, or other public places; but there’s next to no trade that way now, and hasn’t been these five or six years. I don’t know what stopped it exactly. I’ve heard it was shop-keepers that had licences, complaining of street people as hadn’t, and so the police stopped the trade as much as they could.”

At all the neighbouring races and fairs, and at any great gathering of people in town, cigars are sold, more with the affectation than the reality of its being done, “quite on the sly.” The retail price is 1_d._ each, and three for 2_d._ Some of the cheap cigars are made to run 200, and even as high as 230 to the pound. A fuzee is often given into the bargain.

I am told that, on all favourable opportunities, there are still 100 persons who vend cigars in the streets of London, while a greater number of “London hands” carry on the trade at Epsom and Ascot races. At other periods the business is all but a nonentity. To clear 1_l._ a week is considered “good work.” At one period, on every fine Sunday, there were not, I am assured, fewer than 500 persons selling cigars in the open air in London and its suburbs.

OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF SPONGE.

This is one of the street-trades which has been long in the hands of the Jews, and, unlike the traffic in pencils, sealing-wax, and other articles of which I have treated, it remains so principally still.

In perhaps no article which is a regular branch of the street-trade, is there a greater diversity in the price and quality than in sponge. The street-sellers buy it at 1_s._ (occasionally 6_d._), and as high as 21_s._ the pound. At one time, I believe about 20 years back, when fine sponge in large pieces was scarce and dear, some street-sellers gave 28_s._ the pound, or, in buying a smaller quantity, 2_s._ an ounce.

“I have sold sponge of all sorts,” said an experienced street-seller, “both ‘fine toilet,’ fit for any lady or gentleman, and coarse stuff not fit to groom a ass with. That very common sponge is mostly 1_s._ the lb. wholesale, but it’s no manner of use, it’s so sandy and gritty. It weighs heavy, or there might be a better profit on it. It has to be trimmed up and damped for showing it, and then it always feels hask (harsh) to the hand. It rubs to bits in no time. There was a old gent what I served with sponges, and he was very perticler, and the best customer I ever had, for his housekeeper bought her leathers of me. Like a deal of old coves that has nothing to do and doesn’t often stir out, but hidles away time in reading or pottering about a garden, he was fond of a talk, and he’d give me a glass of something short, as if to make me listen to him, for I used to get fidgety, and he’d talk away stunning. He’s dead now. He’s told me, and more nor once, that sponges was more of a animal than a wegetable,” continued the incredulous street-seller, “I do believe people reads theirselves silly. Such ---- nonsense! Does it look like a animal? Where’s its head and its nose? He’d better have said it was a fish. And it’s not a wegetable neither. But I’ll tell you what it is, sir, and from them as has seen it where its got with their own eyes. I have some relations as is sea-farin’-men, and I went a woyage once myself when a lad--one of my relations has seen it gathered by divers, I forget where, from the rocks at the bottom and shores of the sea, and he says it’s just sea-moss--stuff as grows there, as moss does to old walls in England. That’s what it is, sir. As it’s grown in the water, it holds water you see. I’ve made 15_s._ on sponge alone, in a good week, when I had a good stock; but oftener I’ve made only 10_s._, and sometimes not 5_s._ My best trade is at private houses a little ways out of town. I’ve heard gents say, ‘A good sponging’s as good as a bath,’ and when I could get good things cheap they’d be sure to sell. No, I never did much at the mews.”

Another man told me that he once bought a large quantity of sponge at 6_d._ the lb., trimmed it up as well as he could, and got a man to help him, and the two “worked it off” in barrows; there was six barrows full, and as one was emptied it was replenished. It was sold at 1_d._ and 2_d._ a lump; about twenty lumps, or pieces, going to a pound, so that there was 14_d._ profit on what cost 6_d._, even on the penny lumps. He had forgotten the exact amount he cleared, and he and his mate sold it all in one summer’s evening, but it was somewhere about 10_s._ This happened some years ago, when the common sponge, which I heard called also “honeycomb” sponge, was not so “blown upon,” as my informant expressed it, as it is now. On my asking this man as to the proportion of Jews in this trade, he answered: “Well, many a day I’m satisfied there’s 100 people selling sponge, and I should say that for every ten or twelve Jews is one Christian, and half of them, or more, has been in some sort of service, I mean the Christians has, most likely stable-helpers, and they supplies the mews and the job and livery stables, such of them as requires men to find their own sponges, but that’s only a few; sponges is mostly bought for such places at the saddlers’ and other shops. In my opinion, sir, Jews is better Christians than Christians themselves, for they help one another, and we don’t. I’ve been helped by a Jew myself, without any connection with them. They’re terrible keen hands at a bargain, though.”

The sponge in the street-trade is purchased, wholesale, chiefly in Houndsditch. The wholesale trade in sponge, I may add, is also in the hands of the Jews. The great mart is Smyrna, the best qualities being gathered in the islands of the Greek Archipelago. The sponge is carried by the street-traders in baskets, the bearer holding a specimen piece or two in his hand. Smaller pieces are sometimes carried in nets, and nets were more frequently in use for this purpose than at present. It is nearly all sold by itinerants, in the business parts as well as the suburbs, the purchasers being “shopkeepers, innkeepers, gentlemen, and gentlemen’s servants.” Sometimes low-priced sponge is offered in a street-market on a Saturday or Monday night, but very rarely, as it is a thing little used by the poor. A little is sold to the cabmen at their stands. The sponge-sellers, I may add, when going a regular round, offer their wares to any passer-by. A little is done by the Jews in bartering sponge for old clothes. There are five or six women in the trade.

I have reason to believe that the estimate of my informant, as to the number of sponge-sellers, is correct. But some sell sponge only occasionally, some make it only a portion of their business, and others vend it only when they “have it a bargain.” Calculating, then, that only fifty persons (so allowing for the irregularities in the trade) vend sponge daily, and that each takes 15_s._ weekly,--some taking 25_s._, and others but 5_s._--with about half profit on the whole (the common sponge is often from 200 to 300 per cent. profit), we find the outlay to be 1,950_l._

OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF WASH-LEATHERS.

The wash-leathers, sometimes called “shammys” (chamois), now sold extensively in the streets, are for the most part the half of a sheep-skin, or of a larger lamb-skin. The skin is “split” by machinery, and to a perfect nicety, into two portions. That known as the “grain” (the part to which the fleece of the animal is attached) is very thin, and is dressed into a “skiver,” a kind of leather used in the commoner requirements of book-binding, and for such purposes as the lining of hats. The other portion, the “flesh,” is dressed as wash-leather. These skins are bought at the leather-sellers and the leather-dressers, at from 2_s._ to 20_s._ the dozen. The higher priced, or those from 12_s._ are often entire, and not “split” skins. The great majority of the street-sellers of wash-leathers are women, and principally Irishwomen. They offer their wash-leathers in all parts of town, calling at shops and inns; and at private houses offering them through the area rails, or knocking at the door when it is accessible. Many of these street-sellers are the wives of Irish labourers, employed by bricklayers and others, who are either childless, or able to leave their younger children under the care of an older brother or sister, or when the poverty of the parents, or their culpable neglect, is extreme, allow them to run at large in the court or street, untended. The wives by this street-trade add to the husbands’ earnings. In the respects of honesty and chastity, these women bear good characters.

The wash-leathers are sold for the cleaning of windows, and of plate and metal goods. Sixpence is a common price for a leather, the higher priced being sold at the mews and at gentlemen’s houses. The “chamois” sold at the mews, however, are not often sold by the Irishwomen, but by the class I have described as selling scissors, &c., there. The leathers are also cut into pennyworths, and these pennyworths are sometimes sold on Saturday evenings in the street-markets.

There are, I am assured, 100 individuals selling little or nothing else but wash-leathers (for these traders are found in all the suburbs) in London, and that they take 10_s._ weekly, with a profit of from 4_s._ to 5_s._ There are, also, 100 other persons selling them occasionally, along with other goods, and as they vend the higher-priced articles, they probably receive nearly an equal amount. Hence it would appear that upwards of 5000_l._ is annually expended in the streets in this purchase.

OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF SPECTACLES AND EYE-GLASSES.

Twenty-five years ago the street-trade in spectacles was almost entirely in the hands of the Jews, who hawked them in their boxes of jewellery, and sold them in the streets and public-houses, carrying them in their hands, as is done still. The trade was then far more remunerative than it is at the present time to the street-folk carrying it on. “People had more money then,” one old spectacle-seller, now vending sponges, said, “and there wasn’t so many forced to take to the streets, Irish particularly, and opticians’ charges were higher than they are now, and those who wanted glasses thought they were a take-in if they wasn’t charged a fair price. O, times was very different then.”

The spectacles in the street-trade are bought at swag-shops in Houndsditch. The “common metal frames,” with or without slides, are 2_s._ 6_d._ to 3_s._ 6_d._ the dozen wholesale, and are retailed from 4_d._ to 1_s._ The “horn frames” are 6_s._ to 7_s._ 6_d._ the dozen, and are retailed from 9_d._ to 18_d._, and even 2_s._ The “thin steel” are from 10_s._ 6_d._ to 21_s._ the dozen, and are retailed from 1_s._ 6_d._ to 3_s._ There are higher and lower prices, but those I have cited are what are usually paid by the street-traders. The inequality of the retail prices is accounted for by there being some difference in the spectacles in a dozen, some being of a better-looking material in horn or metal; others better finished. Then there is the chance of which street-sellers are not slow to avail themselves--(“no more nor is shopkeepers,” one man said)--I mean, the chance of obtaining an enhanced price for an article, with whose precise value the buyer is unacquainted.

“The patter,” said the street-trader I have before quoted, “is nothing now, to what I’ve known it. You call it patter, but I don’t. I think it’s more in the way of persuasion, and is mostly said in public-houses, and not in the streets. Why, I’ve persuaded people, when I was in the trade and doing well at it--for that always gives you spirits--I’ve persuaded them in spite of their eyes that they wanted glasses. I knew a man who used to brag that he could talk people blind, and then they bought! It wasn’t old people I so much sold to as young and middle-aged. I think perhaps I sold as many because people thought they looked better, or more knowing in them, than to help their eyesight. I’ve known my customers try my glasses, one pair after another, in the chimney glass of a public-house parlour. ‘They’re real Scotch pebbles,’ I used to say sometimes--and I always had a fair article,--‘and was intended for a solid silver frame but the frame was made too small for them, and so I got them and put them into this frame myself, for I’m an optician, out of work, by trade. They’re worth 15_s._, but you may have them, framed and all, for 7_s._ 6_d._’ I got 5_s._ for one pair once that way but they were a superior thing; I had them a particular bargain.” One man told me that not long ago he asked 10_d._ for a pair of spectacles, and a journeyman slop-tailor said to him, “Why I only gave 1_s._ for this pair I’m wearing a few years back, and they ought to be less than 10_d._ now, for the duty’s off glass.”

The eye-glasses sold in the streets are “framed” in horn. They are bought at the same places as the spectacles, and cost, wholesale, for “single eyes” 4_s._ 6_d._ to 7_s._ 6_d._ the dozen. The retail price is from 6_d._ to 1_s._ The “double eyes,” which are jointed in the middle so that the frame can be fitted to the bridge of the nose, are 10_s._ 6_d._ to 15_s._ the dozen, and are retailed by the street-folk from 1_s._ 3_d._ to 2_s._ each.

The spectacles are sold principally to working men, and are rarely hawked in the suburbs. The chief sale is in public-houses, but they are offered in all the busier thoroughfares and wherever a crowd is assembled. “The eye-glasses,” said a man who vended them, “is sold to what I calls counter-hoppers and black-legs. You’ll see most of the young swells that’s mixed up with gaming concerns at races--for there’s gaming still, though the booths is put down in many places--sport their eye-glasses; and so did them as used to be concerned in getting up Derby and St. Leger ‘sweeps’ at public-houses; least-ways I’ve sold to them, where sweeps was held, and they was busy about them, and offered me a chance, sometimes, for a handsome eye-glass. But they’re going out of fashion, is eye-glasses, I think. The other day I stood and offered them for nearly five hours at the foot of London-bridge, which used to be a tidy pitch for them, and I couldn’t sell one. All that day I didn’t take a halfpenny.”

There are sometimes 100 men, the half of whom are Jews and Irishmen in equal proportions, now selling spectacles and eye-glasses. Some of these traders are feeble from age, accident, continued sickness, or constitution, and represent that they must carry on a “light trade,” being incapable of hard work, even if they could get it. Two women sell spectacles along with Dutch drops. As in other “light trades,” the spectacle sellers do not, as a body, confine themselves to those wares, but resort, as one told me, “to anything that’s up at the time and promises better,” for a love of change is common among those who pursue a street life. It may be estimated, I am assured, that there are thirty-five men (so allowing for the breaks in regular spectacle selling) who vend them daily, taking 15_s._ a week (with a profit of 10_s._), the yearly expenditure being thus 1365_l._

OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF DOLLS.

The making of dolls, like that of many a thing required for a mere recreation, a toy, a pastime, is often carried on amidst squalor, wretchedness, or privation, or--to use the word I have frequently heard among the poor--“pinching.” Of this matter, however, I shall have to treat when I proceed to consider the manufacture of and trade in dolls generally, not merely as respects street-sale.

Dolls are now so cheap, and so generally sold by open-air traders whose wares are of a miscellaneous character, as among the “swag-barrow” or “penny-a piece” men of whom I have treated separately, that the sale of what are among the most ancient of all toys, as a “business of itself,” is far smaller, numerically, than it was.

The dolls are most usually carried in baskets by street-sellers (who are not makers) and generally by women who are very poor. Here and there in the streets most frequented by the patrons of the open-air trade may be seen a handsome stall of dolls of all sizes and fashions, but these are generally the property of makers, although those makers may buy a portion of their stock. There are also smaller stalls which may present the stock of the mere seller.

The dolls for street traffic may be bought at the swag-shops or of the makers. For the little armless 1_d._ dolls the maker charges the street-seller 8_s._, and to the swag-shop keeper who may buy largely, 7_s._ 6_d._ the dozen. Some little stalls are composed entirely of penny dolls; on others the prices run from 1_d._ to 6_d._ The chief trade, however, among the class I now describe, is carried on by the display of dolls in baskets. If the vendor can only attract the notice of children--and more especially in a private suburban residence, where children are not used to the sight of dolls on stalls or barrows, or in shops--and can shower a few blessings and compliments, “God be wid your bhutiful faces thin--and yours too, my lady, ma’am (with a curtsey to mistress or maid). Buy one of these dolls of a poor woman: shure they’re bhutiful dolls and shuted for them angels o’ the worruld;” under such circumstances, I say, a sale is almost certain. I may add that the words I have given I myself heard a poor Irishwoman, whom I had seen before selling large pincushions in the same neighbourhood (that of the Regent’s Park), address to a lady who was walking round her garden accompanied by two children.

A vendor of dolls expresses an opinion that as long as ever there are children from two years old to ten, there will always be purchasers of dolls; “but for all that,” said he, “somehow or another ’t is nothing of a trade to what it used to be. I’ve seen the time when I could turn out in the morning and earn a pound afore night; but it’s different now there’s so many bazaars, and so many toy shops that the doll hawker hasn’t half the chance he used to have. Sartinly we gets a chance now and then--fine days is the best--and if we can get into the squares or where the children walks with their nurses, we can do tidy; but the police are so very particular there’s not much of a livelihood to be got. Spoiled children are our best customers. Whenever we sees a likely customer approaching--we, that is, those who know their business--always throw ourselves in the way, and spread out our dolls to the best advantage. If we hears young miss say she will have one, and cries for it, we are almost sure of a customer, and if we see her kick and fight a bit with the nuss-maid we are sure of a good price. If a child cries well we never baits our price. Most of the doll-sellers are the manufacturers of the dolls--that is, I mean, they puts ’em together. The heads are made in Hamburgh; the principal places for buying them in London are at Alfred Davis’s, in Houndsditch; White’s, in Houndsditch; and Joseph’s, in Leadenhall-street. They are sold as thus:--The heads that we sell for 3_d._ each, when made up, cost us 7_s._ 6_d._ per gross, or 7-1/2_d._ per dozen; these are called 1--O’s. No. 2--O’s., are 8_s._ 6_d._ per gross, and No. 3--O’s. 10_s._ per gross. One yard and half of calico will make a dozen bodies, small size. These we get sewn for three halfpence, and we stuffs and finishes them ourselves.

“When our 3_d._ dolls are made up, they cost about 1_s._ per dozen--so there is 2_d._ profit on every doll, which I thinks is little enough; but we often sells ’em at 2_d._; we lays ’em out to the best advantage in a deep basket, all standing up, as it were, or leaning against the sides of the basket. The legs and bodies is carefully wrapped in tissue paper, not exactly to preserve the lower part of the doll, for that isn’t so very valuable, but in reality to conceal the legs and body, which is rather the reverse of symmetrical; for, to tell the truth, every doll looks as if it were labouring under an attack of the gout. There are, however, some very neat articles exported from Germany, especially the jointed dolls, but they are too dear for the street-hawker, and would not show to such advantage. There is also the plaster dolls, with the match legs. I wonder how they keep their stand, for they are very old-fashioned; but they sell, for you never see a chandler’s shop window without seeing one of these sticking in it, and a falling down as if it was drunk. Then there’s the wax dolls. Some of ’em are made of wax, and others of ‘pappy mashy,’ and afterwards dipped in wax. The cheapest and best mart for these is in Barbican; it would astonish many if they knew exactly what was laid out in the course of a year in dolls. It would be impossible, I think, to ascertain exactly; but I think I could guess something near the mark. There are, at least, at this time of year, when the fairs are coming on, fifty doll-hawkers, who sell nothing else. Say each of these sells one dozen dolls per day, and that their average price is 4_d._ each. That is just 10_l._ a day, and 60_l._ per week. In the winter time so many are not sold; but I have no doubt that 50_l._’s worth of dolls are sold each week throughout the year by London hawkers alone, or just upon 3000_l._ per annum. The shops sell as many as the hawkers, and the stalls attending fairs half the amount; and you may safely say that the sum taken for dolls in and around London in one year amounts to 7500_l._ A doll-merchant can begin business with a trifle,” continued my informant; “a shilling will obtain a dozen 3_d._ dolls. If you have no basket, carry them in your arms, although they don’t show off to such advantage there as they do when nicely basketed; however, if you’ve luck, you may soon raise a basket; for 3_s._ 6_d._ you can get a very nice one; and although the doll trade is not what it used to be, there are,” said my informant, “worse games than that yet, I know. One man, who is now in a very respectable way of business--‘a regular gentleman’--was a very few years ago only a doll-hawker. Another man, who had two hands and only one arm--poor fellow! he was born with one arm, and had two hands, one appended to his arm in the usual way, and the other attached to his shoulder--a freak of nature, I think, they called it. However, my one-armed friend keeps now a very respectable little swag-shop at North Shields, in Northumberland.”

I inquired of my informant whether he objected to relate a little of his history? He replied, “not the least,” and recounted as follows:--

“They call me Dick the Dollman. I was, I believe, the first as ever cried dolls three a shilling in the streets. Afore I began they al’ays stood still with ’em; but I cried ’em out same as they do mackrel; that is twenty years ago. I wasn’t originally a doll-seller. My father was a pensioner in Greenwich College. My mother used to hawk, and had a licence. I was put to school in St. Patrick’s-school, Lanark’s-passage, where I remained six years, but I didn’t learn much. At thirteen years of age I was apprenticed to a brush and broom maker’s, corner of C---- Street, Spitalfields. My master was not the honestest chap in the world, for he bought hair illegal, was found out, and got transported for seven years. A man who worked for my master took me to finish my apprenticeship; this man and his wife was very old people. I used to work four days in the week, two for them and two for myself; the other two days I went out hawking brooms and brushes, and very often would earn 7_s._ or 8_s._ on a Saturday, but times was better then than they are now. Arter that, for sake of gain, I left the old people, I was offered 20_s._ to make and hawk; and in course I took it. I remained with this master five months; he was afflicted with rheumatic fever--went into the hospital--and I was left to shift for myself. When my master went to the hospital I had 7_s._ 6_d._ in my pocket; I knew I must do something, and, to tell you the truth, I didn’t like the brush-making; I would rather have hawked something without the trouble of making it. I think now I was a little afflicted with laziness. I was passing London-bridge and saw a man selling Marshall’s pocket-books; I knowed him afore; I thought I should like to try the pocket-book selling, and communicated my wishes to the man; he told me they cost eight shillings a dozen, if I liked we would purchase a dozen a’twixt us; we did so; I received half a dozen, but I afterwards learned that my friend obtained seven for his share, as they were sold thirteen to the dozen. I went to Chancery-lane with my lot and was very lucky; I sold the six books to one gentleman for six shillings: in course I soon obtained another supply; that day I sold four dozen, and earned 20_s._ I was such a good seller that Marshall let me have 3_l._ or 4_l._’s worth on credit--and I never paid him. I know that was wrong now; but I was such a foolish chap, and used to spend my money as fast as I got it. I would have given Marshall a shilling the other day if I had had one, for I see him selling penny books in the street. I thought it was hard lines, and had been such a gentleman too. Somerset-house corner was a capital stand for selling pocket-books. The way I took to the dolls was this; I met a girl with a doll basket one day as I was standing at Somerset-house corner; she and I got a talking. ‘Will you go to the ’Delphy to night?’ says I; she consented. They was a playing Tom and Jerry at this time, all the street-sellers went to see it, and other people; and nice and crabbed some on ’em was. Well, we goes to the ’Delphy--and I sees her often arter that, and at last gets married. She used to buy her dolls ready made; I soon finds out where to get the heads--and the profits when we made them ourselves was much greater. We began to serve hawkers and shops; went to Bristol--saved 47_l._--comes to London and spends it all; walks back to Bristol, and by the time we got there we had cleared more than 20_l._ We were about a month on the journey, and visited Cheltenham and other towns. We used to spend our money very foolishly; we were too fond of what was called getting on the spree. You see we might have done well if we had liked, but we hadn’t the sense. My wife got very clever at the dolls and so did I. Then I tried my hand at the wax dolls, and got to make them very well. I paid a guinea to learn.

“I was selling wax-dolls one day in London, and a gentleman asked me if I could mend a wax figure whose face was broken. I replied yes, for I had made a few wax heads, large size, for some showmen. I had made some murderers who was hung; lately I made Rush and Mr. and Mrs. Manning; but the showmen can’t afford to get new heads now-a-days, so they generally makes one head do for all; sometimes they changes the dress. Well, as I was telling you, I went with this gentleman, and proposed that he should have a new head cast, for the face of the figure was so much broken. It was Androcles pulling the thorn out of the lion’s foot, and was to be exhibited. I got 20_s._ for making the new head. The gentleman asked me if I knew the story about Androcles. Now I had never heard on him afore, but I didn’t like to confess my ignorance, so I says ‘yes;’ then he offers me 30_s._ a week to describe it in the Flora Gardens, where it was to be exhibited. I at once accepted the engagement; but I was in a bit of a fix, for I didn’t know what to say. I inquired of a good many people, but none on ’em could tell me; at last I was advised to go to Mr. Charles Sloman--you know who I mean--him as makes a song and sings it directly; I was told he writes things for people. I went, and he wrote me out a patter. I asked him how much he charged; he said, ‘Nothing my man.’ Sartinly he wasn’t long a-doing it, but it was very kind of him. I got what Mr. Sloman wrote out for me printed, and this I stuck inside my hat; the people couldn’t see it, though I dare say they wondered what I was looking in my hat about. However, in a week or so, I got it by heart, and could speak it well enough. After exhibiting Androcles I got an engagement with another waxwork show--named Biancis--and afterwards at other shows. I was considered a very good doorsman in time, but there’s very little to be got by that now; so we keeps to the dolly business, and finds we can get a better living at that than anything else. Me and the old woman can earn 1_l._ a week, bad and all as things are; but we’re obliged to hawk.”

OF THE “SWAG-BARROWMEN,” AND “LOT-SELLERS.”

The “swag” (miscellaneous) barrow is one of the objects in the streets which attracts, perhaps more readily than any other, the regards of the passer-by. There are so many articles and of such various uses; they are often so closely packed, so new and clean looking, and every here and there so tastefully arranged, that this street-trader’s barrow really repays an examination. Here are spread on the flat part of the barrow, pepper-cruets or boxes, tea-caddies, nutmeg-graters, vinegar-cruets, pen-cases, glass or china-handled pens, pot ornaments, beads, ear-rings, finger-rings (plain or with “stones”), cases of scent-bottles, dolls, needle-cases, pincushions, Exhibition medals and “frames” (framed pictures), watches, shawl-pins, extinguishers, trumpets and other toys, kaleidoscopes, seals, combs, lockets, thimbles, bone tooth-picks, small playing-cards, teetotums, shuttle-cocks, key-rings, shirt-studs or buttons, hooks and eyes, coat-studs, money-boxes, spoons, boxes of toys, earthenware-mugs, and glass articles, such as salt-cellars and smelling-bottles. On one barrow were 225 articles.

At the back and sides of the swag-barrow are generally articles which are best displayed in an erect position. These are children’s wooden swords, whips, climbing monkeys, and tumblers, jointed snakes twisting to the wind from the top of a stick, kites, and such things as tin egg-holders.

Perhaps on very few barrows or stalls are to be seen all the articles I have enumerated, but they are all “in the trade,” and, if not found in this man’s stock, may be found in his neighbour’s. Things which attain only a temporary sale, such as galvanic rings, the Lord’s Prayer in the compass of a sixpence, gutta-percha heads, &c., are also to be found, during the popular demand, in the miscellaneous trader’s stock.

Each of the articles enumerated is retailed at 1_d._ “Only a penny!” is the cry, “pick ’em out anywhere; wherever your taste lies; only a penny, a penny, a penny!” But on a few other barrows are goods, mixed with the “penny” wares, of a higher price; such as knives and forks, mustard pots, sham beer glasses (the glasses which appear to hold beer frothing to the brim), higher-priced articles of jewellery, skipping-ropes, drums, china ornaments, &c. At these barrows the prices run from 1_d._ to 1_s._

The practice of selling by commission, the same as I have shown to prevail among the costers, exists among the miscellaneous dealers of whom I am treating, who are known among street-folk as “swag-barrowmen,” or, in the popular ellipsis, “penny swags;” the word “swag” meaning, as I before showed, a collection--a lot.

The “swag-men” are often confounded with the “lot-sellers”; so that I proceed to show the difference.

The Lot-Sellers proper, are those who vend a variety of small articles, or “a lot,” all for 1_d._ A “lot” frequently consists of a sheet of songs, a Chinese puzzle, a 5_l._ note (Bank of Elegance), an Exhibition snuff-box (containing 6 spoons), a half jack (half sovereign), a gold ring, a silver ring, and a chased keeper with rose, thistle, and shamrock on it. The lots are diversified with packs of a few cards, little pewter ornaments, boxes of small wooden toys, shirt-buttons, baby thimbles, beads, tiny scent bottles, and such like.

The “penny apiece” or “swag” trade, as contradistinguished from the “penny lots” vended by the lot-sellers, was originated by a man who, some 19 years ago, sold a variety of trifles from a tea-tray in Petticoat-lane. My informant had heard him say--for the original “penny apiece” died four years ago--that he did it to get rid of the odds and ends of his stock. The system, however, at once attracted popularity, and the fortunate street-seller prospered and “died worth money.” At that period penny goods (excepting such things as sweet-stuffs, pastry, &c.) were far less numerous in the streets, and yet I have never met with an old street-trader (a statement fully borne out by old and intelligent mechanics) who did not pronounce spare pennies to be far more abundant in those days among the poorer and even middle classes. There were, moreover, far fewer street chapmen, so that this novel mode of business had every chance to thrive.

The origin of “lot-selling,” or selling “penny lots” instead of penny articles, was more curious. It was commenced by an ingenious Swiss (?) (about a year after the “penny apiece” trade), known in the street circles as “Swede.” He was a refugee, a Roman Catholic, and a hot politician. He spoke and understood English well, but had no sympathy with the liberal parties in this country. “He was a republican,” he would say, “and the Chartists were only milk and water.” When he established his lot-selling he used to place to his mouth an instrument, which was described to me as “like a doubled card,” and play upon it very finely. This would attract a crowd, and he would then address them in good English, but with a slight foreign accent: “My frents; come to me, and I will show you my musical instruments, which will play Italian, Swiss, French, Scotch, Irish, or any tunes. And here you see beautiful cheap lots of useful tings, and elegant tings. A penny a lot, a penny a lot!” The arrangement of the “lots” was similar to what it is at present, but the components of the pennyworth were far less numerous. This man carried on a good trade in London for two or three years, and then applied his industry to a country more than a town career. He died about five or six years ago, at his abode in Fashion-street, Spitalfields, “worth money.” At the time of his decease he was the proprietor of two lodging-houses; one in Spitalfields, the other in Birmingham, both I am told, well conducted; the charge was 4_d._ a night. He did not reside in either, but employed “deputies.” I may observe that he sold his “musical instruments,” also, at 1_d._ each, but the sale was insignificant. “Only himself seemed master of ’em,” said one man; “with other people they were no better nor a Jew’s-harp.”

Of the “penny apiece” street-vendors, there are about 300 in London; 250 having barrows, and 50 stalls or pitches on the ground. Some even sell at “a halfpenny apiece,” but chiefly to get rid of inferior wares, or when “cracked up,” and unable to “spring” a better stock. The barrows are 7 feet by 3; are well built in general, and cost 50_s._ each. These barrows, when fully stocked, are very heavy (about 4 cwt.), so that it requires a strong man to propel one any distance, and though occasionally the man’s wife officiates as the saleswoman, there is always a man connected with the business. In my description of a stock of penny goods, I have mentioned that there were 225 articles; these were counted on a barrow in a street near the Brill--but probably on another occasion (when there appeared a better chance of selling) there might be 500 articles, such things as rings and the like admitting of being stowed by the hundred in very small compass. The great display, however, is only on the occasion of holidays, or “when a man starts and wants to stun you with a show.” At Maidstone Fair the other day, a London street-seller, rather well to do, sold his entire stock of penny articles to a shopkeeper of the town, and when counted there were exactly fifteen gross, or 2160 “pieces” as they are sometimes called. These, vended at 1_d._ each, would realize just 9_l._, and would cost, wholesale, about 6_l._, or for ready money, at the swag-shops, where they may be bought, from 10_s._ to 20_s._ less, according to the bargaining powers of the buyer. The man’s reason for selling was that the Fair was “no good;” that is to say, the farmers had no money, and their labourers received only 7_s._ a week, so there was no demand; the swag-seller, therefore, rather than incur the trouble and expense of having to carry his wares back to London, sold at a loss to a shopkeeper in Maidstone, who wanted a stock.

The swag-barrowmen selling on commission have 3_s._ in every 20_s._ worth of goods that they sell. The commission may average from 9_s._ to 12_s._ a week in tolerable weather, but as in bad, and especially in foggy weather, the trade cannot be prosecuted at all, 7_s._ 6_d._ may be the highest average, or 10_s._ the year through.

The character of the penny swag-men belongs more to that of the costermongers than to any other class of street-folk. Many of them drink as freely as their means will permit. I was told of a match between a teetotaller and a beer-drinker, about nine years ago. It was for 5_s._ a side, and the “Championship.” Each man started with an equal stock, alike in all respects, but my informant had forgotten the precise number of articles. They pattered, twenty-five yards apart one from another, three hours in James-street, Covent-garden; three hours in the Blackfriars-road; and three hours in Deptford. The teetotaller was “sold out” in seven-and-a-half hours; while his opponent--and the contest seems to have been carried on very good-humouredly--at the nine hours’ end, had four dozen articles left, and was rather exhausted, or, as it was described to me, “told out.” The result, albeit, was not looked upon, I was assured, as anything very decisive of the relative merits of beer or water, as the source of strength or inspiration of “patter.” The teetotaller was the smarter, though he did not appear the stronger, man; he abandoned the championship, and went into another trade four years ago. The patter of the swag-men has nothing of the humour of the paper-workers; it is merely declaratory that the extensive stock offered on such liberal terms to the public would furnish a wholesale shop; that such another opportunity for cheap pennyworths could never by any possibility occur again, and that it was a duty on all who heard the patterer to buy at once.

The men having their own barrows or stalls (but the stall-trade is small) buy their goods as they find their stock needs replenishment at the swag-shops. “It was a good trade at first, sir,” said one man, “and for its not being a good trade now, we may partly blame one another. There was a cutting down trade among us. Black earrings were bought at 14_d._ the dozen, and sold at a loss at 1_d._ each. So were children’s trap-bats, and monkeys up sticks, but they are now 9_d._ a dozen. Sometimes, sir, as I know, the master of a swag-barrow gets served out. You see, a man may once on a time have a good day, and take as much as 2_l._ Well, next day he’ll use part of that money, and go as a penny swag on his own account; or else he’ll buy things he is sold out of, and work them on his own account on his master’s barrow. All right, sir; his master makes him a convenience for his own pocket, and so his master may be made a convenience for the man’s. When he takes the barrow back at the week’s end, if he’s been doing a little on his own dodge, there’s the stock, and there’s the money. It’s all right between a rich man and a poor man that way; turn and turn about’s fair play.”

The lot-sellers are, when the whole body are in London, about 200 in number; but they are three times as itinerant into the country as are the traders in the heavier and little portable swag-barrows. The lot-sellers nearly all vend their goods from trays slung from their shoulders. The best localities for the lot-sellers are Ratcliffe-highway, Commercial-road, Whitechapel, Minories, Tower-hill, Tooley-street, Newington-causeway, Walworth, Blackfriars and Westminster-roads, Long-acre, Holborn, and Oxford-street. To this list may be added the Brill, Tottenham-court-road, and the other street-markets, on Saturday evenings, when some of these places are almost impassable. The best places for the swag-barrow trade are also those I have specified. Their customers, alike for the useful and fancy articles, are the working-classes, and the chief sale is on Saturdays and Mondays. One swag-man told me that he thought he could sell better if he had a less crowded barrow, but his master was so keen of money that he would make him try everything. It made selling more tiresome, too, he said, for a poor couple who had a penny or two to lay out would fix on half the things they saw, and change them for others, before they parted with their money.

Of the penny-a-piece sellers trading on their own account, the receipts may be smaller than those of the men who work the huge swag-barrows on commission, but their profits are greater. Calculating that 100 of these traders are, the year round, in London (some are absent all the summer at country fairs, and on any favourable opportunity, while a number of swag-barrowmen leave that employment for costermongering on their own account), and that each takes 2_l._ weekly, we find no less than 10,400_l._ thus expended in the streets of London in a year.

The lot-sellers also resort largely to the country, and frequently try other callings, such as the sale of fruit, medals, &c. Some also sell lots only on Saturday and Monday nights. Taking these deductions into consideration, it may be estimated that only fifty men (there is but one female lot-seller on her own account) carry on the trade, presuming it to be spread over the six days of the week. Each of them may take 13_s._ weekly (with a profit of 7_s._ 6_d._), so showing the street outlay to be 1,690_l._ The “lots” are bought at the German and English swag-shops; the principal supply, however, is procured from Black Tom in Clerkenwell.

OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF ROULETTE BOXES.

In my account of the street-trade in “China ornaments” I had occasion to mention a use to which a roulette box, or portable roulette table, was put. I need only repeat in this place that the box (usually of mahogany) contains a board, with numbered partitions, which is set spinning, by means of a central knob, on a pivot; the lid is then placed on the box, a pea is slipped through a hole in the lid, and on the number of the partition in which the pea is found deposited, when the motion has ceased, depends the result. The table, or board, is thus adapted for the determination of that mode of raising money, popular among costermongers and other street-folk, who in their very charities crave some excitement; I mean a “raffle;” or it may be used for play, by one or more persons, the highest number “spun” determining the winner. These street-sold tables may still be put to another use: In the smaller sort, “going no higher than fourteen,” one division is blank. Thus any one may play against another, or several others spinning in turns, the “blank” being a chance in the “banker’s” favour. Some of the tables, however, are numbered as high as 36, or as a seller of them described it, “single and double zero, bang; a French game.”

This curious street-trade has been carried on for seven years, but with frequent interruptions, by one man, who, until within these few weeks, was the sole trader in the article. There are now but two selling roulette-boxes at all regularly. The long-established salesman wears mustachios, and has a good deal the look of a foreigner. During his seven years’ experience he has sold, he calculates, 12,000 roulette-boxes, at a profit of from 175_l._ to 200_l._ The prices (retail) are from 1_s._ to 2_l._, at which high amount my informant once disposed of “a roulette” in the street. He has sold, however, more at 1_s._ than at all other rates together. The “shilling roulette” is about three inches in diameter; the others proportionately larger. These wares are German made, bought at a swag-shop, and retailed at a profit of from 15 to 33 per cent. They are carried in a basket, one being held for public examination in the vendor’s hand.

“My best customers,” said the experienced man in the business, “are stock-brokers, travellers, and parsons; people that have spare time on their hands. O, I mean by ‘travellers,’ gentlemen going on a railway who pass the time away at roulette. Now and then a regular ‘leg,’ when he’s travelling to Chester, York, or Doncaster, to the races, may draw other passengers into play, and make a trifle, or not a trifle, by it; or he will play with other legs; but it’s generally for amusement, I’ve reason to believe. Friends travelling together play for a trifle to pass away time, or who shall pay for breakfasts for two, or such like. I supplied one gaming-house with a large roulette-table made of a substance that if you throw it into water--and there’s always a pail of ‘tepid’ ready--would dissolve very quickly. When it’s not used it’s hung against the wall and is so made that it looks to be an oil-painting framed. It cost them 10_l._ I suppose I have the ‘knock’ of almost every gaming-house in London. There’s plenty of them still. The police can drive such as me about in the streets or out of the streets to starve, but lords, and gentlemen, and some parsons, I know, go to the gaming-houses, and when one’s broke into by the officers--it’s really funny--John Smith, and Thomas Jones, and William Brown are pulled up, but as no gaming implements are found, there’s nothing against them. Some of these houses are never noticed for a long time. The ‘Great Nick’ hasn’t been, nor the ‘Little Nick.’ I don’t know why they’re called ‘Nicks,’ those two; but so they are. Perhaps after Old Nick. At the Great Nick I dare say there’s often 1000_l._ depending. But the Little Nick is what we call only ‘brown papermen,’ low gamblers--playing for pence, and 1_s._ being a great go. I wonder the police allow that.”

OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF POISON FOR RATS.

The number of Vermin-Destroyers and Rat-Catchers who ply their avocation in London has of late years become greatly diminished. One cause which I heard assigned for this was that many ruinous old buildings and old streets had been removed, and whole colonies of rats had been thereby extirpated. Another was that the race of rat-catchers had become distrusted, and had either sought some other mode of subsistence, or had resorted to other fields for the exercise of their professional labours.

The rat-catcher’s dress is usually a velveteen jacket, strong corduroy trowsers, and laced boots. Round his shoulder he wears an oil-skin belt, on which are painted the figures of huge rats, with fierce-looking eyes and formidable whiskers. His hat is usually glazed and sometimes painted after the manner of his belt. Occasionally--and in the country far more than in town--he carries in his hand an iron cage in which are ferrets, while two or three crop-eared rough terriers dog his footsteps. Sometimes a tamed rat runs about his shoulders and arms, or nestles in his bosom or in the large pockets of his coat. When a rat-catcher is thus accompanied, there is generally a strong aromatic odour about him, far from agreeable; this is owing to his clothes being rubbed with oil of thyme and oil of aniseed, mixed together. This composition is said to be so attractive to the sense of the rats (when used by a man who understands its due apportionment and proper application) that the vermin have left their holes and crawled to the master of the powerful spell. I heard of one man (not a rat-catcher professionally) who had in this way tamed a rat so effectually that the animal would eat out of his mouth, crawl upon his shoulder to be fed, and then “smuggle into his bosom” (the words of my informant) “and sleep there for hours.” The rat-catchers have many wonderful stories of the sagacity of the rat, and though in reciting their own feats, these men may not be the most trustworthy of narrators, any work on natural history will avouch that rats are sagacious, may be trained to be very docile, and are naturally animals of great resources in all straits and difficulties.

One great source of the rat-catcher’s employment and emolument thirty years ago, or even to a later period, is now comparatively a nonentity. At that time the rat-catcher or killer sometimes received a yearly or quarterly stipend to keep a London granary clear of rats. I was told by a man who has for twenty-eight years been employed about London granaries, that he had never known a rat-catcher employed in one except about twenty or twenty-two years ago, and that was in a granary by the river-side. The professional man, he told me, certainly poisoned many rats, “which stunk so,” continued my informant--but then all evil odours in old buildings are attributed to dead rats--“that it was enough to infect the corn. He poisoned two fine cats as well. But I believe he was a young hand and a bungler.” The rats, after these measures had been taken, seem to have deserted the place for three weeks or a month, when they returned in as great numbers as ever; nor were their ravages and annoyances checked until the drains were altered and rebuilt. It is in the better disposition of the drains of a corn-magazine, I am assured, that the great check upon the inroads of these “varmint” is attained--by strong mason work and by such a series and arrangement of grates, as defy even the perseverance of a rat. Otherwise the hordes which prey upon the garbage in the common sewers, are certain to find their way into the granary along the drains and channels communicating with those sewers, and will increase rapidly despite the measures of the rat-catcher.

The same man told me that he had been five or six times applied to by rat-catchers, and with liberal offers of beer, to allow them to try and capture the black rats in the granary. One of these traders declared that he wanted them “for a gent as vas curous in them there hinteresting warmint.” But from the representations of the other applicants, my informant was convinced that they were wanted for rat-hunts, the Dog Billy being backed for 100_l._ to kill so many rats in so many minutes. “You see, sir,” the corn merchant’s man continued, “ours is an old concern, and there’s black rats in it, great big fellows; some of ’em must be old, for they’re as white about the muzzle as is the Duke of Wellington, and they have the character of being very strong and very fierce. One of the catchers asked me if I knew what a stunning big black rat would weigh, as if I weighed rats! I always told them that I cared nothing about rat-hunts and that I knew our people wouldn’t like to be bothered; and they was gentlemen that didn’t admire sporting characters.”

The black rat, I may observe, or the English rat, is now comparatively scarce, while the brown, or Hanoverian, rat is abundant. This brown rat seems to have become largely domiciled in England about the period of the establishment of the Hanoverian dynasty; whence its name. “A Hanover rat” was a term of reproach applied by the Jacobites to the successful party.

The rat-catchers are also rat-killers. They destroy the animals sometimes by giving them what is called in the trade “an alluring poison.” Every professional destroyer, or capturer, of rats will pretend that as to poison he has his own particular method--his secret--his discovery. But there is no doubt that arsenic is the basis of all their poisons. Its being inodorous, and easily reducible to a soft fine powder, renders it the best adapted for mixing with anything of which rats are fond--toasted cheese, or bacon, or fried liver, or tallow, or oatmeal. Much as the poisoner may be able to tempt the animal’s appetite, he must, and does, proceed cautiously. If the bait be placed in an unwonted spot, it is often untouched. If it be placed where rats have been accustomed to find their food, it is often devoured. But even then it is frequently accounted best to leave the bait unpoisoned for the first night; so that a hungry animal may attack it greedily the second. With oatmeal it is usual to mix for the first and even second nights a portion of pounded white sugar. If this be eaten it accustoms the jealous pest to the degree of sweetness communicated by arsenic. The “oatmeal poison” is, I am told, the most effectual; but even when mixed only with sugar it is often refused; as “rats is often better up to a dodge nor Kirstians” (Christians).

Another mode of killing rats is for the professional destroyer to slip a ferret into the rats’ haunts wherever it is practicable. The ferret soon dislodges them, and as they emerge for safety they are seized by terriers, who, after watching the holes often a long time, and very patiently, and almost breathlessly, throttle them silently, excepting the short squeak, or half-squeak, of the rat, who, by a “good dog,” is seized unerringly by the part of the back where the terrier’s gripe and shake is speedy death; if the rat still move, or shows signs of life, the well-trained rat-killer’s dog cracks the vermin’s skull between his teeth.

If the rats have to be taken alive, they are either trapped, so as not to injure them for a rat-hunt (or the procedure in the pit would be accounted “foul”), or if driven out of their holes by ferrets, they can only run into some cask, or other contrivance, where they can be secured for the “sportsman’s” purposes. Although any visible injury to the body of the rat will prevent its reception into a pit, the creatures’ teeth are often drawn, and with all the cruelty of a rough awkwardness, by means of pinchers, so that they may be unable to bite the puppies being trained for the pit on the rats. If the vermin be not truly seized by the dog, the victim will twist round and inflict a tremendous bite on his worrier, generally on the lip. This often causes the terrier to drop his prey with a yell, and if a puppy he may not forget the lesson from the sharp nip of the rat. To prevent this it is that the rat-catchers play the dentist on their unfortunate captives.

I heard many accounts of the “dodges” practised by, or imputed to, the rat-catchers: that it was not a very unusual thing to deposit here and there a dead rat, when those vermin were to be poisoned on any premises; it is then concluded that the good poison has done its good work, and the dead animal supplies an ocular demonstration of professional skill. These men, also, I am informed, let loose live rats in buildings adapted for the purpose, and afterwards apply for employment to destroy them.

I am informed that the principal scene of the rat-catcher’s labours in London is at the mews, and in private stables, coach-houses, and out-buildings. It is probable that the gentlemen’s servants connected with such places like the excitement of rat-hunting, and so encourage the profession which supplies them with that gratification. In these places such labours are often necessary as well as popular; for I was informed by a coachman, then living with his family in a West End mews, and long acquainted with the mews in different parts of town, that the drainage was often very defective, and sanitary regulations--except, perhaps, as regarded the horses--little cared for. Hence rats abounded, and were with difficulty dislodged from their secure retreats in the ill-constructed drains and kennels.

The great sale of the rat-catchers is to the shops supplying “private parties” with rats for the amusement of seeing them killed by dogs. With some “fast” men, one of these shopkeepers told me, it was a favourite pastime in their own rooms on the Sunday mornings. It is, however, somewhat costly if carried on extensively, as the retail charge from the shops is 6_d._ per rat. The price from the catcher to the dealer is from 2_s._ 6_d._ to 7_s._ the dozen. Rats, it appears, are sometimes scarce, and then the shopkeeper must buy, “to keep up his connection,” at enhanced cost. One large bird-seller, who sold also plain and fancy rats, white mice, and live hedgehogs, told me that he had, last winter, been compelled to give 7_s._ a dozen for his vermin and sell them at 6_d._ each.

The grand consumption of rats, however, is in Bunhill-row, at a public-house kept by a pugilist. A rat-seller told me that from 200 to 500 rats were killed there weekly, the weekly average being, however, only the former number; while at Easter and other holidays, it is not uncommon to see bills posted announcing the destruction of 500 rats on the same day and in a given time, admittance 6_d._ Dogs are matched at these and similar places, as to which kills the greatest number of these animals in the shortest time. I am told that there are forty such places in London, but in some only the holiday times are celebrated in this small imitation of the beast combats of the ancients. There is, too, a frequent abandonment of the trade in consequence of its “not paying,” and perhaps it may be fair to estimate that the average consumption of this vermin-game does not exceed, in each of these places, 20 a week, or 1040 in a year; giving an aggregate--over and above those consumed in private sport--of 52,000 rats in a year, or 1000 a week in public amusement alone.

To show the nature of the sport of rat-catching, I print the following bill, of which I procured two copies. The words and type are precisely the same in each, but one bill is printed on good and the other on very indifferent paper, as if for distribution among distinct classes. The concluding announcement, as to the precise moment at which killing will commence, reads supremely business-like:--

RATTING FOR THE MILLION!

A SPORTING GENTLEMAN, Who is a Staunch Supporter of the destruction of these VERMIN WILL GIVE A GOLD REPEATER WATCH, TO BE KILLED FOR BY _DOGS Under 13-3/4lbs. Wt. 15 RATS EACH!_ TO COME OFF AT JEMMY MASSEY’S, KING’S HEAD, COMPTON ST., SOHO, On Tuesday, May 20, 1851.

☞ To be Killed in a Large Wire Pit. A chalk Circle to be drawn in the centre for the Second.--Any Man touching Dog or Rats, or acting in any way unfair his dog will be disqualified.

TO GO TO SCALE AT Half past 7 KILLING TO COMMENCE At Half past 8 PRECISELY.

A dealer in live animals told me that there were several men who brought a few dozens of rats, or even a single dozen, from the country; men who were not professionally rat-catchers, but worked in gardens, or on farms, and at their leisure caught rats. Even some of the London professional rat-catchers work sometimes as country labourers, and their business is far greater, in merely rat-catching or killing, in the country than in town. From the best information I could command, there are not fewer than 2000 rats killed, for sport, in London weekly, or 104,000 a year, including private and public sport, for private sport in this pursuit goes on uninterruptedly; the public delectation therein is but periodical.

This calculation is of course exclusive of the number of rats killed by the profession, “on the premises,” when these men are employed to “clear the premises of vermin.”

There are, I am told, 100 rat-catchers resorting, at intervals, to London, but only a fourth of that number can be estimated as carrying on their labours regularly in town, and their average earnings, I am assured, do not exceed 15_s._ a week; being 975_l._ a year for London merely.

These men have about them much of the affected mystery of men who are engaged on the turf. They have their “secrets,” make or pretend to “make their books” on rat fights and other sporting events; are not averse to drinking, and lead in general irregular lives. They are usually on intimate terms with the street dog-sellers (who are much of the same class). Many of the rat-catchers have been brought up in stables, and there is little education among them. When in London, they are chiefly to be found in Whitechapel, Westminster, and Kent-street, Borough; the more established having their own rooms; the others living in the low lodging-houses. None of them remain in London the entire year.

These men also sell rat-poison (baked flour or oatmeal sometimes) in cakes, arsenic being the ingredient. The charge is from 2_d._ to 1_s._, “according to the circumstances of the customer.” In like manner the charge for “clearing a house of vermin” varies from 2_s._ to 1_l._: a very frequent charge is 2_s._ 6_d._

OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF RHUBARB AND SPICE.

From the street-seller whose portrait has already been given I received the following history. He appeared to be a very truthful and kindly-disposed old man:--

“I am one native of Mogadore in Morocco. I am an Arab. I left my countree when I was sixteen or eighteen year of age. I forget, sir. I don’t know which, about eighteen, I tink it was. My fader was like market man, make de people pay de toll--he rent de whole market, you see, from de governemen, and make de people pay so much for deir stands. I can’t tell you what dey call dem dere. I couldn’t recollect what my fader pay for de market; but I know some of de people pay him a penny, some a ha’penny, for de stands. Dere everyting sheap, not what dey are here in England. Dey may stop all day for de toll or go when de market is over. My fader was not very rish--not very poor--he keep a family. We have bread, meat, shicken, apples, grapes, all de good tings to eat, not like here--tis de sheapest countree in de world. My fader have two wifes, not at once you know, he bury de first and marry anoder. I was by second wife. He have seven shildren by her, four sons and tree daughters. By de first I tink dere was five, two sons and tree daughters. Bless you, by de time I was born dere was great many of ’em married and away in de world. I don’t know where dey are now. Only one broder I got live for what I know, wheder de oders are dead or where dey are I can’t tell. De one broder I speak of is in Algiers now; he is dealer dere. What led me to come away, you say? Like good many I was young and foolish; like all de rest of young people, I like to see foreign countries, but you see in my countree de governemen don’t like de people to come away, not widout you pay so mush, so Gibraltar was de only port I could go to, it was only one twenty miles across de water--close to us. You see you go to Gibraltar like smuggling--you smuggle yourself--you talk wid de Captain and he do it for you.

“My fader been dead years and years before I come away, I suppose I was about ten year old when he die. I had been at school till time I was grown up, and after dat I was shoemaker. I make de slippers. Oh yes! my moder was alive den--she was dead when I was here in England. I get about one penny a pair for de slippers in my countree; penny dere as good as shilling here amost. I could make tree, four, five pair in one day. I could live on my gains den better dan what I could do here wid twelve times as mush--dat time I could. I don’t know what it is now. Yes, my moder give me leave to go where I like. She never see me since” (sighing). “Oh yes, I love her very mush. I am old man now, but I never forgot her yet;” here the old man burst into tears and buried his face in his handkerchief for several minutes. “No, no! she don’t know when I come away dat she never see me again, nor me neider. I tell I go Gibraltar, and den I tell her I go to Lisbon to see my broder, who was spirit merchant dere. I didn’t say noting not at all about coming back to her, but I tought I should come back soon. If I had tought I never see no more, not all de gold in de world take me from her. She was good moder to me. I was de youngest but one. My broders kept my moder, you see. Where I came from it is not like here, if only one in de family well off, de oders never want for noting. In my country, you see, de law is you must maintain your fader and moder before you maintain your own family. You must keep dem in de house.” Here he repeated the law in Hebrew. “De people were Mahomedans in Mogadore, but we were Jews, just like here, you see. De first ting de Jews teesh de shildren is deir duty to deir faders and deir moders. And dey love one anoder more than de gold; but dey love de gold more dan most people, for you see gold is more to dem. In my countree de governemen treat de Jews very badly, so de money all de Jews have to help dem. Often de government in my country take all deir money from de Jews, and kill dem after, so de Jews all keep deir money in secret places, put de gold in jars and dig dem in de ground, and de men worths hundreds go about wid no better clothes dan mine.

“Well, you see I leave my poor moder, we kissed one anoder, and cry for half an hour, and come away to Gibraltar. When I get dere, my broder come away from Lisbon to Gibraltar; dat time it was war time, and de French was coming to Lisbon, so everybody run. When I come away from Mogadore, I have about one hundred dollars--some my moder give me, and some I had save. When I got to Gibraltar, I begin to have a little stand in de street wid silk handkershiefs, cotton handkershiefs, shop goods you know. I do very well wid dat, so after I get licence to hawk de town, and after dat I keep shop. Altogeder, I stop in Gibraltar about six year. I had den about five or six hundred dollars. I live very well all de time I dere. I was wid my broder all de time. After I am six year in Gibraltar, I begin to tink I do better in England. I tink, like good many people, if I go to anoder part dat is risher--’t is de rishest countree in de world--I do better still. So I start off, and get I here I tink in 1811, when de tree shilling pieces first come out. I have about one hundred and tirty pound at dat time. I stop in London a good bit, and eat my money; it was most done before I start to look for my living. I try to look what I could do, but I was quite stranger you see. I am about fourteen or fifteen month before I begin to do anyting. I go to de play house; I see never such tings as I see here before I come. When I come here, I tink I am in heaven altogether--God a’mighty forgive me--such sops (shops) and such beautiful tings. I live in Mary Axe Parish when I first come; same parish where I live now. Well, you see some of my countreemen den getting good living by selling de rhubarb and spices in de street. I get to know dem all; and dat time you see was de good time, money was plenty, like de dirt here. Dat time dere was about six or seven Arabians in de street selling rhubarb and spices, five of ’em was from Mogadore, and two from not far off; and dere is about five more going troo de country. Dey all sell de same tings, merely rhubarb and spice, dat time; before den was good for tem tings--after dat dey get de silks and tings beside. I can’t tell what first make dem sell de rhubarb and de spice; but I tink it is because people like to buy de Turkey rhubarb of de men in de turbans. When I was little shild, I hear talk in Mogadore of de people of my country sell de rhubarb in de streets of London, and make plenty money by it.

“Dere was one very old Arabian in de streets wen I first come; dey call him Sole; he been forty year at de same business. He wear de long beard and Turkish dress. He used to stand by Bow Shursh, Sheapside. Everybody in de street know him. He was de old establish one. He been dead now, let me see--how long he been dead--oh, dis six or seven and twenty year. He die in Gibraltar very poor and very old--most ninety year of age. All de rhubarb-sellers was Jews. Dere was anoder called Ben Aforiat, and two broders; and anoder, his name was Azuli. One of Aforiat’s broders use to stand in St. Paul’s Shurshyard. He was very well know; all de oders hawk about de town like I do myself. Now dey all gone dead, and dere only four of us now in England; dey all in London, and none in de country. Two of us live in Mary Axe, anoder live in, what dey call dat--Spitalfield, and de oder in Petticoat-lane. De one wat live in Spitalfield is old man, I dare say going for 70. De one in Petticoat-lane not mush above 30. I am little better dan 73, and de oder wat live in Mary Axe about 40. I been de longest of all in de streets, about tirty-eight or tirty-nine year. All dat was here when I first come, die in London, except dat old man Sole wat I was telling you of, dat die in Gibraltar. About tirteen or fourteen die since I come to England; some die in de Hospital of de Jews at Mile End; some die at home--not one of dem die worth no money. Six of dem was very old people, between 60 and 70; dere was some tirty, some forty. Some of dem die by inshes. Dere was one fine fellow, he was six foot two, and strong man, he take to his bed and fall away so; at last you see troo his hand; he was noting but de carcase; oders die of what you call de yellow jaundice; some have de fever, but deir time was come; de death we must be.

“When I first come to dis countree me make plenty of money by selling de rhubarb in de street. Five-and-twenty year ago I make a pound a day some time. Take one week wid another, I dare say I clear, after I pay all de cost of my living, tirty shillings; and now, God help me, I don’t make not twelve shilling a week, and all my food to pay out of dat. One week wid anoder, when I go out I clear about twelve shilling. Everyting is so sheep now, and dere is so many sops (shops), people has no money to buy tings with. I could do better when everyting was dear. I could live better, get more money, and have more for it. I have better food, better lodging, and better clothes. I don’t know wat is de cause, as you say. I only know dat I am worse, and everybody is worse; dat is all I know. Bread is sheeper, but when it was one and ninepence de loaf I could get plenty to buy it wid, but now it is five pence, I can’t no five pence to have it. If de cow is de penny in de market what is de use of dat, if you can’t get no penny to buy him? After I been selling my rhubarb for two years, when I fust come here, I save about a hundred and fifty pound, and den you see I agree wid tree oder of my countrymen to take a sop (shop) in Exeter. De oder tree was rhubarb-sellers, like myself, and have save good bit of money as well. One have seven hundred pound; but he have brought tree or four hundred pound wid him to dis countree. Anoder of de tree have about two hundred, and de oder about one hundred; dey have all save deir money out of de rhubarb. We keep our sop, you see, about five year, and den we fall in pieces altogeder. We take and trust, and lose all our money. T’oders never keep a sop before, and not one of us was English scholar; we was forced to keep a man, and dat way we lose all our money, so we was force to part, and every one go look for hisself. Den we all go selling rhubarb again about de country, and in London; and I never able to hold up my head since. When I come back to de rhubarb times is getting bad, and I not able to save no more money. All I am worth in de world is all I got in my box, and dat altogether is not more dan ten shilling. Last week I havn’t a pound of meat in de house, and I am obliged to pawn my waistcoat and handkerchief to get me some stock. It easy to put dem in, but very hard to get dem out.

“I had two wives. After two or tree year when I come I marry my first. I had two shildren by my first, but both of dem die very young; one was about five year old and de oder about tree. When I travel the countree, my first wife she go wid me everywhere. I been to all parts--to Scotland, to Wales, but not Ireland. I see enough of dem Irish in dis countree, I do no want no more of dem dere. Not one of my countree I tink ever been to Ireland, and only one beside myself been to Scotland; but dat no use, de Scotsh don’t know wat de spice is. All de time I am in Scotland I can’t get no bread, only barley and pea meal, and dat as sour as de winegar--and I can’t get no flour to make none too--so I begin to say, by God I come to wrong countree here. When I go across de countree of England I never live in no lodging-houses--always in de public--because you see I do business dere; de missus perhaps dere buy my spices of me. I lodge once in Taunton, at a house where a woman keep a lodging-house for de Jewish people wat go about wid de gold tings--de jewellery. At oder towns I stop at de public, for dere is de company, and I sell my tings.

“I buy my rhubarb and my spice of de large warehouse for de drugs; sometime I buy it of my countreemen. We all of us know de good spice from de bad. You look! I will show you how to tell de good nutmeg from de bad. Here is some in de shell: you see, I put de strong pin in one and de oil run out; dat is because dey has not been put in de spirit to take away de oil for to make de extract. Now, in de bad nutmeg all de oil been took out by de spirit, and den dere is no flavour, like dose you buy in de sheep sops (cheap shops). I sell de Rhubarb, East Indy and Turkey, de Cloves, Cinnamons, Mace, Cayenne Pepper, White Pepper--a little of all sorts when I get de money to buy it wid. I take my solemn oat I never sheat in scales nor weight; because de law is, ‘take weight and give weight,’ dat is judge and justice. Dere is no luck in de sort weight--no luck at all. Never in my life I put no tings wid my goods. I tell you de troot, I grind my white pepper wid my own hands, but I buy me ginger ground, and dat is mixed I know. I tink it is pea flour dey put wid it, dere is no smell in dat, but it is de same colour--two ounces of ginger will give de smell to one pound of pea flour. De public-houses will have de sheap ginger and dat I buy. I tell you de troot. How am I tell what will become of me. Dat is de Almighty’s work” (here he pointed to Heaven). “De Jews is very good to deir old people. If it was not for my old woman I be like a gentleman now in de hospital at Mile End; but you see, I marry de Christian woman, and dat is against our people--and I would never leave her--no not for all de good in de world to come to myself. If I am poor, I not de only one. In de holiday times I send a petition, and perhaps dere is five shillings for me from de hospital. In de Jews’ Hospital dere is only ten--what you call de Portuguese Jews. We have hospital to our ownselves. Dere de old people--dey are all above sixty--are all like noblemen, wid good clothes, plenty to eat, go where you like, and pipe of tobacco when you want. But I wont go in no hospital away from my old woman. I will get a bit of crust for her as long as I can stand--but I can hardly do that now. Every one got his feeling, and I will feel for her as long as I live. When dere is de weather I have de rheumatis--oh! very bad--sometime I can scarcely stand or walk. I am seventy-tree, and it is a sad time for me now. I am merry sometime tho’. Everyting wid de pocket. When de pocket is merry, den I am merry too. Sometime I go home wid one shilling, and den I tink all gets worse and worse, and what will become of me I say--but dat is de Almighty’s work, and I trust in him. Can I trust any better one? Sometime I say I wish I was back in my countree--and I tink of my poor moder wat is dead now, and den I am very sad. Oh yes, bless your heart, very sad indeed!”

The old man appears to sell excellent articles, and to be a very truthful, fair-dealing man.

OF THE HAWKING OF TEA.

“Persons hawking tea without a licence” (see Chitty’s Edition of “Burn’s Justice,” vol. ii. p. 1113) “are liable to a penalty, under 50 Geo. III., cap. 41.; and, even though they had a licence, they would be liable to a penalty for selling tea in an unentered place.” The penalty under this act is 10_l._, but the prohibition in question has long been commonly, if not very directly, evaded.

The hawking of tea in London cannot be considered as immediately a street-trade, but it is in some respects blended with street callings and street traffic, so that a brief account is necessary.

I will first give a short history of what is, or was, more intimately a portion of the street-trade.

Until about eight or ten years ago, tea was extensively hawked--from house to house almost--“on tally.” The tally system is, that wherein “weekly payments” are taken in liquidation of the cost of the article purchased, and the trade is one embodying much of evil and much of trickery. At the present time the tallymen are very numerous in London, and in the tally trade there are now not less than 1000 hawkers of, or travellers in, tea; but they carry on their business principally in the suburbs. When I come to treat of the class whom I have called “distributors,” I shall devote an especial inquiry to the tally trade, including, of course, the tea trade. Mr. M’Culloch mentions that a Scotchman’s “tally-walk”--and the majority of the tallymen are Scotchmen--is worth 15 per cent. more than an Englishman’s.

The branch of the tea trade closely connected with the street business is that in tea-leaves. The exhausted leaves of the tea-pot are purchased of servants or of poor women, and they are made into “new” tea. One gentleman--to whose information, and to the care he took to test the accuracy of his every statement, I am bound to express my acknowledgments--told me that it would be fair to reckon that in London 1500 lbs. of tea-leaves were weekly converted into new tea, or 78,000 lbs. in the year! One house is known to be very extensively and profitably concerned in this trade, or rather manufacture, and on my asking the gentleman who gave me the information if the house in question (he told me the name) was accounted respectable by their fellow-citizens, the answer was at once, “Highly respectable.”

The old tea-leaves, to be converted into new, are placed by the manufacturers on hot plates, and are re-dried and re-dyed. To give the “green” hue, a preparation of copper is used. For the “black” no dye is necessary in the generality of cases. This tea-manufacture is sold to “cheap” or “slop” shopkeepers, both in town and country, and especially for hawking in the country, and is almost always sold ready mixed.

The admixture of sloe-leaves, &c., which used to be gathered for the adulteration of tea, is now unknown, and has been unknown since tea became cheaper, but the old tea-leaf trade, I am assured, carried on so quietly and cleverly, that the most vigilant excise-officers are completely in the dark; a smaller “tea-maker” was, however, fined for tea-leaf conversion last year.

Into this curious question, concerning the purposes for which the old tea-leaves are now purchased by parties in the street, I shall enter searchingly when I treat of the street-buyers. The information I have already received is of great curiosity and importance, nor shall I suppress the names of those dishonest traders who purchase the old dried tea-leaves, as a means of cheating their customers.

Into the statistics of this strange trade I will not now enter, but I am informed that great quantities of tea-leaves are sent from the country to London. Perhaps of the 1500 lbs. weekly manufactured, three quarters may be collected in the metropolis.

I may here add, that the great bulk of the tea now hawked throughout the metropolis is supplied from the handsome cars, or vans, of well-known grocers and tea-dealers. Of these--it was computed for me--there are, on no day, fewer than 100 in the streets of London, and of its contiguous and its more remote suburbs, such as Woolwich, and even Barnet. One tradesman has six such cars. The tea is put up in bags of 7, 14, and 21 lbs., duly apportioned in quarter, half, and whole pounds; a quarter of a pound being the smallest quantity vended in this manner. The van and its contents are then entrusted to a driver, who has his regular round, and very often his regular customers. The customers purchase the tea from their faith in the respectability of the firm--generally well known through extensive advertising. The teas are supplied by the house which is pronounced to supply them; for the tradesman is the capitalist in the matter, his carman is the labourer, and the house is responsible for the quality of the article. When a new connection has to be formed, or an “old connection” to be extended, circulars (bonâ fide) are sent round, and the carman afterwards calls: and, “in some genteel streets,” I was told, “calls, oft enough, at every house, and, in many districts, at every decent-looking house in every street.” So far, then, even this part of the traffic may be considered one of the streets. The remuneration of the street-traveller in, or hawker of, tea, is usually 1_d._ per lb. on the lower-priced kinds, 2_d._ on the higher (but more often 1_d._) and, very rarely indeed, 3_d._ on the highest. The trade is one peculiar to great cities--and most peculiar, I am assured, to London--for the tradesman does not know so much as the name of his customer; nor, perhaps, does the carman, but merely as “Number such-an-one.” The supply is for ready money, or, if credit be given, it is at the risk of the carman, who has a weekly wage in addition to his perquisites. Every evening, when the vehicle is driven back to the premises of its owner, “stock is taken,” and the money taken by the carman--minus what may be called the “poundage”--is paid over to the proper party.

A man who had driven, or, as he called it, “managed,” one of these vans, told me that he made this way, 2_s._ to 2_s._ 6_d._ a day; “but,” he added, “if you make a good thing of it that way, you have all the less salary.” These carmen are men of good character and good address, and were described to me, by a gentleman familiar with the trade, as “of the very best class of porters.”

As this vehicular-itinerant business has now become an integral part of the general tea-trade, I need not further dwell upon it, but reserve it until I come to treat of the shopmen of grocers and tea-dealers, and thence of the tea-trade in general. I may add, however, that the tea thus hawked is, as regards, perhaps, three-fourths of the quantity sold, known as “mixed,” and sold at 4_s._ per lb.--costing, at a tea-broker’s, from 2_s._ 11_d._ to 3_s._ 3_d._ It is announced, as to its staple or entire compound, to be “congou,” but is in reality a tea known as “pouchong.” Some old ladies are still anxious, I was told, for a cup of good strong bohea; and though bohea has been unknown to the tea-trade since the expiration of the East India Company’s Charter in 1834, the accommodating street-traveller will undertake to supply the genuine leaf to which the old lady had been so long accustomed. The green teas thus sold (and they are not above a fiftieth part of the other) are common twankays and common young hysons, neither of them--I can state on excellent authority--accounted in the trade to be “true teas,” but, as in the case of some other green tea, “Canton made.” The “green” is sold from the vans generally at 4_s._ 6_d._; sometimes, but rarely, as high as 5_s._ 6_d._ What is sold at 4_s._ 6_d._ may cost, on the average, 3_s._ 5_d._ I may add, also, that when a good article is supplied, such profits in the tea-trade are not accounted at all excessive.

But the more usual mode of tea hawking is by itinerant dealers who have a less direct connection with the shop whereat they purchase their goods. To this mode of obtaining a livelihood, the hawkers are invited by all the persuasive powers of advertising eloquence: “To persons in want of a genteel and lucrative employment”--“To Gentlemen of good address and business habits,” &c., &c. The genteel and lucrative employment is to hawk tea under the auspices of this “company” or the other. The nature of this business, and of the street tea-trade generally, is shown in the following statement:--“About twelve years ago I came to London in expectation of a situation as tide-waiter; I did not succeed, however, and not being able to obtain any other employment, and trusting to the promises of gentlemen M.P.s for too long a time, my means were exhausted, and I was at length induced to embark in the tea business. To this I was persuaded by a few friends who advanced me some money, considering that it would suit me well, while my friends would endeavour to get me a connection, that is, procure me customers. I accordingly went to a well-known Tea Company in the City, a firm bearing a great name. Their advertisements put forth extraordinary statements, of so many persons realizing independencies from selling their teas, and in very short spaces of time. I was quite pleased at the prospect presented to me in such glowing terms, and, depending not a little on my own industry and perseverance, I embraced the opportunity and introduced myself forthwith to the Company. They advised me in the first place to take out a licence for selling teas, to secure me against any risk of fines or forfeitures. The cost of a licence, after payment of 2_s._ 11-1/2_d._ preliminary expenses, is 11_s._ per annum, to be paid quarterly, as it becomes due, and it is paid by the Company for their agents. The licence is granted for the place of abode of the ‘traveller,’ and strictly prohibits him from hawking or exposing his wares for sale at places other than at such place of abode, but he may of course supply his customers where he will, and serve them at their places of abode respectively. Everything thus prepared, I commenced operations, but soon found that this tea dealing was not so advantageous as I had anticipated. I found that the commission allowed by the Company on cheap teas was very low. For those generally used by the working people, ‘4_s._ tea,’ for instance, or that at 4_s._ per pound, I had to pay to the Company 3_s._ 6_d._ per pound, thus allowing the travelling dealer or agent for commission only 6_d._ in the pound, or 1-1/2_d._ per quarter. Now 80 or 100 customers is considered a fair connection for a dealer, and allowing each customer to take a quarter of a pound at an average, 80 good customers at that rate would bring him 10_s._, or 100 customers 12_s._ 6_d._ clear profit weekly. But many customers do not require so much as a quarter of a pound weekly, while others require more, so that I find it rather awkward to subdivide it in portions to suit each customer, as the smallest quantity made at the warehouse is a quarter of a pound, and every quarter is done up in a labelled wrapper, with the price marked on it. So that to break or disturb the package in any way might cause some customers to suspect that it had been meddled with unfairly.

“Another disadvantage was in dealing with the ‘Tea Company.’ No sugars are supplied by them, which makes it more inconvenient for the travelling dealer, as his customers find it difficult to get sugars, most retail grocers having an objection to sell sugars to any but those who are purchasers of teas as well. However, I was not confined to deal with this Company, and so I tried other places, and found a City house, whose terms were preferable. Here I could get tea for 3_s._ 3_d._, as good as that for which the Company charged 3_s._ 6_d._, besides getting it done up to order in plain paper, and in quantities to suit every variety of customer. There were also sugars, which must be had to accommodate the customers, at whatever trouble or inconvenience to the traveller; for it is very lumbersome to carry about, and leaves scarcely any profit at all.

“The trade is anything but agreeable, and the customers are often exacting. They seem to fancy, however cheaply and well they may be supplied, that the tea-seller is under obligations to them; that their custom will be the making of him, and, therefore, they expect some compliment in return. The consequence is, that very often, unless he be willing to be accounted a ‘shabby man,’ the tea-dealer is obliged, of a Saturday night, to treat his customers, to ensure a continuance of their custom. Other customers take care to be absent at the time he calls. Those who are anxious to run up bills, perhaps, keep out of the way purposely for two or more successive nights of the dealer’s calling, who, notwithstanding, cannot very well avoid serving such customers. This is another evil, and if the tea-man’s capital be not sufficient to enable him to carry on the business in this manner, giving credit (for it is unavoidable), he is very soon insolvent, and compelled to give up the business. I had to give it up at last, after having carried it on for four years, leaving 8_l._ or 9_l._ due to me, in small sums, varying from 1_s._ to 10_s._, one shilling of which I never expect to be paid. I could not have continued it so long, for my means would not allow me to give credit; but getting partial employment at the last-mentioned house, where I dealt, enabled me to do so. When, however, I got permanently employed, I grew tired of tea-dealing, and gave it up.

“In my opinion the business would best suit persons casually employed, such as dockmen and others, who might have leisure to go about; those also who get other commissions and hawk about other commodities, such as soft wares, might do very well by it; otherwise, in most cases, ’t is only resorted to as a make-shift where no other employment can be obtained.

“I do not know how many persons are in the trade. I have, however, heard it asserted, that there were between 4000 and 5000 persons in London engaged in the business, who are, with but few exceptions, Scotchmen; they, of all others, manage to do the best in this line.

“A man, to undertake the tea business, requires a double capital, because in the first place, he has to purchase the tea, then he must give credit, and be able to support himself till such time as he can get in his money. Some of the tea-dealers manage to eke out their profits by mixing tea-leaves, which have been used, with the genuine commodity. They spread the old tea-leaves on tins which they have for the purpose, and, by exposing them either to the action of the air or the heat of the fire, the leaves crisp up as they had been before they were used, and are not distinguishable from the rest. I never vended such an article, and that may be one reason why I could not succeed in the business.”

I believe the career thus detailed is a common one among the hawkers of tea, or rather the “travellers” in the tea trade. Many sell it on tally.

OF THE WOMEN STREET-SELLERS.

AS the volume is now fast drawing to a close, and a specific account has been furnished of almost every description of street-seller (with the exception of those who are the makers of the articles they vend), I purpose giving a more full and general history and classification than I have yet done of the feminine portion of the traders in the streets.

The women engaged in street-sale are of all ages and of nearly all classes. They are, however, chiefly of two countries, England and Ireland. There are (comparatively) a few Jewesses, and a very few Scotchwomen and Welchwomen who are street-traders; and they are so, as it were, accidentally, from their connection, by marriage or otherwise, with male street-sellers. Of foreigners there are German broom-women, and a few Italians with musical instruments.

The first broad and distinctive view of the female street-sellers, is regarding them nationally, that is to say, either English or Irish women--two classes separated by definite characteristics from each other.

The Irishwomen--to avoid burthening the reader with an excess of subdivisions--I shall speak of generally; that is to say, as one homogeneous class, referring those who require a more specific account to the description before given of the street-sellers.

The Englishwomen selling in the streets appear to admit of being arranged into four distinct groups, viz.:--

1. The Wives of Street-Sellers.

2. Mechanics’ or Labourers’ Wives, who go out Street-Selling (while their husbands are at work) as a means of helping out the family income.

3. Widows of former Street-Sellers.

4. Single Women.

I do not know of any street-trade carried on exclusively by women. The sales in which they are principally concerned are in fish (including shrimps and oysters), fruit and vegetables (widows selling on their own account), fire-screens and ornaments, laces, millinery, artificial flowers (but not in any great majority over the male traders), cut flowers, boot and stay-laces and small wares, wash-leathers, towels, burnt linen, combs, bonnets, pin-cushions, tea and coffee, rice-milk, curds and whey, sheeps’-trotters, and dressed and undressed dolls.

What may be called the “heavier” trades, those necessitating the carrying of heavy weights, or the pushing of heavily-laden barrows, are in the hands of men; and so are, even more exclusively, what may be classed as the more skilled trades of the streets, viz. the sale of stationery, of books, of the most popular eatables and drinkables (the coffee-stalls excepted), and in every branch dependent upon the use of patter. In such callings as root-selling, crock-bartering, table-cover selling, mats, game, and poultry, the wife is the helpmate of her husband; if she trade separately in these things, it is because there is a full stock to dispose of, which requires the exertions of two persons, perhaps with some hired help just for the occasion.

The difference in the street-traffic, as carried on by Englishwomen and Irishwomen, is marked enough. The Irishwoman’s avocations are the least skilled, and the least remunerative, but as regards mere toil, such as the carrying of a heavy burthen, are by far the most laborious. An Irishwoman, though not reared to the streets, will carry heavy baskets of oranges or apples, principally when those fruits are cheap, along the streets while her English co-trader (if not a costermonger) may be vending laces, millinery, artificial flowers, or other commodities of a “light,” and in some degree of street estimation a “genteel” trade. Some of the less laborious callings, however, such as that in wash-leathers, are principally in the hands of young and middle-aged Irishwomen, while that in sheeps’-trotters, which does not entail heavy labour, are in the hands mostly of elderly Irishwomen. The sale of such things as lucifer-matches and water-cresses, and any “stock” of general use, and attainable for a few pence, is resorted to by the very poor of every class. The Irishwoman more readily unites begging with selling than the Englishwoman, and is far more fluent and even eloquent; perhaps she pays less regard to truth, but she unquestionably pays a greater regard to chastity. When the uneducated Irishwoman, however, has fallen into licentious ways, she is, as I once heard it expressed, the most “savagely wicked” of any.

After these broad distinctions I proceed to details.

1. From the best information at my command it may be affirmed that about one-half of the women employed in the diverse trades of the streets, are the wives or concubines (permanently or temporarily) of the men who pursue a similar mode of livelihood--the male street-sellers. I may here observe that I was informed by an experienced police-officer--who judged from his personal observation, without any official or even systematic investigation--that the women of the town, who survived their youth or their middle age, did not resort to the sale of any commodity in the streets, but sought the shelter of the workhouse, or died, he could not tell where or under what circumstances. Of the verity of this statement I have no doubt, as a street-sale entails some degree of industry or of exertion, for which the life of those wretched women may have altogether unfitted them.

In the course of the narratives and statements I have given, it is shown that some wives pursue one (itinerant or stationary) calling, while the husband pursues another. The trades in which the husband and wife (and I may here remark that when I speak of “wives,” I include all, so regarded in street life, whether legally united or not)--the trades in which the woman is, more than in any others, literally the help-mate of the man, are the costermonger’s (including the flower, or root, sellers) and the crockery-ware people. To the costermonger some help is often indispensable, and that of a wife is the cheapest and the most honest (to say nothing of the considerations connected with a home) which can be obtained. Among the more prosperous costermongers too, especially those who deal in fish, the wife attends to the stall while the husband goes “a round,” and thus a greater extent of business is transacted. In the root and crockery-trades the woman’s assistance is necessary when barter takes place instead of sale, as the husband may be ignorant of the value of the old female attire which even “high-hip ladies,” as they were described to me, loved to exchange for a fuchsia or a geranium; for a glass cream-jug or a china ornament. Of the married women engaged in any street-trade, I believe nineteen-twentieths are the wives of men also pursuing some street avocation.

2. There are, however, large classes of female street-sellers who may be looked upon as exceptions, the wife selling in the streets while the husband is engaged in some manual labour, but they are only partially exceptions. In the sale of wash-leathers, for instance, are the wives of many Irish bricklayers’ labourers; the woman may be constantly occupied in disposing of her wares in the streets or suburbs, and the man labouring at any building; but in case of the deprivation of work, such a man will at once become a street-seller, and in the winter many burly Irish labourers sell a few nuts or “baked taties,” or a few pairs of braces, or some article which seems little suitable for the employment of men of thews and muscle. In the course of my present inquiry I have, in only very rare instances, met with a poor Irishman, who had not a reason always at his tongue’s end to justify anything he was doing. Ask a bricklayer’s labourer why, in his youth and strength, he is selling nuts, and he will at once reply: “Sure thin, your honnur, isn’t it better than doin’ nothing? I must thry and make a pinny, ’til I’m in worruk again, and glory be to God, I hope that’ll be soon.”

An experienced man, who knows all the street-folk trading in Whitechapel and its neighbourhood, and about Spitalfields, told me that he could count up 100 married women, in different branches of open-air commerce, and of them only two had husbands who worked regularly in-doors. The husband of one woman works for a slop-tailor, the other is a bobbin turner; the tailor’s wife sells water-cresses every morning and afternoon; the turner’s wife is a “small-ware woman.” The tailor, however, told my informant that his eyesight was failing him, that his earnings became less and less, that he was treated like dirt, and would go into some street-trade himself before long. When the man and his wife are both in the street-trade, it is the case in three instances out of four (excluding of course the costermongers, root-sellers, and crock-man’s pursuits) that the couple carry on different callings.

In the full and specific accounts I gave of the largest body of street-sellers, viz., the costermongers, I showed that concubinage among persons of all ages was the rule, and marriage the exception. It was computed that, taking the mass of costermongers, only one couple in twenty, living together, were married, except in Clerkenwell, where the costers are very numerous, and where the respected incumbent at certain seasons marries poor persons gratuitously; there one couple in ten were really man and wife.

Of the other classes of women street-sellers, directly the reverse is the case; of those living as man and wife, one couple in twenty may be unmarried. An intelligent informant thought this average too high, and that it was more probably one in sixteen. But I incline to the opinion of one in twenty, considering how many of the street-traders have “seen better days,” and were married before they apprehended being driven to a street career. In this enumeration I include only street-traders. Among such people as ballad singers, concubinage, though its wrongfulness is far better understood than among ignorant costermongers, is practised even more fully; and there is often among such classes even worse than concubinage--a dependance, more or less, on the wages of a woman’s prostitution, and often a savage punishment to the wretched woman, if those wages of sin are scant or wanting.

3. The widows in the street-trades are very generally the widows of street-sellers. I believe that very few of the widows of mechanics, when left unprovided for on their husbands’ demise, resort to street traffic. If they have been needle-women before marriage, they again seek for employment at needle-work; if they have been servants, they become charwomen, or washerwomen, or again endeavour to obtain a livelihood in domestic service.

There are some to whom those resources are but starvation, or a step from starvation, or whom they fail entirely, and then they “must try the streets,” as they will describe it. If they are young and reckless, they become prostitutes; if in more advanced years, or with good principles, they turn street-sellers; but this is only when destitution presses sharply.

4. The single women in the street-callings are generally the daughters of street-sellers, but their number is not a twentieth of the others, excepting they are the daughters of Irish parents. The costermongers’ daughters either help their parents, with whom they reside, or carry on some similar trade; or they soon form connections with the other sex, and easily sever the parental tie, which very probably has been far too lax or far too severe. I made many inquiries, but I did not hear of any unmarried young woman, not connected with street-folk by birth or rearing, such as a servant maid,--endeavouring to support herself when out of work or place by a street avocation. Such a person will starve on slop millinery or slop shirt-making; or will, as much or more from desperation than from viciousness, go upon the town. With the Irish girls the case is different: brought up to a street-life, used to whine and blarney, they grow up to womanhood in street-selling, and as they rarely form impure connections, and as no one may be induced to offer them marriage, their life is often one of street celibacy. A young Irishwoman, to whom I was referred in the course of my inquiry among fruit-sellers, had come to London in the hopes of meeting her brother, with whom she was to emigrate; but she could learn nothing of him, and, concluding that he was dead, became an apple-seller. She sat, when I saw her, on cold wintry days, at the corner of a street in the Commercial-road, seemingly as much dead as alive, and slept with an aunt, also a single woman, who was somewhat similarly circumstanced; and thus these two women lived on about 6_d._ a day each. Their joint bed was 1_s._ a week, and they contrived to subsist on what remained when this shilling was paid. The niece referred me, not without a sense of pride, to her priest, as to her observance of her religious duties, and declared that where she lodged there were none but women lodgers, and those chiefly her own countrywomen. I believe such cases are not uncommon. A few, who have had the education of ladies (as in the case of an envelope-seller whose statement I gave), are driven to street-trading, but it is as a desperate grasp at something to supply less bitter bread, however little of it, than is supplied in the workhouse. I have many a time heard poor women say: “God knows, sir, I should live far better, and be better lodged and better cared for in the house (they seldom call it workhouse), but I’d rather live on 2_d._ a day.” Into the question of out and in-door relief I need not now enter, but the prevalent feeling I have indicated is one highly honourable to the English poor. I have heard it stated that the utter repugnance to a workhouse existence was weaker than it used to be among the poor, but I have not met with anything to uphold such an opinion.

Such constitute the several classes of women street-sellers. I shall now proceed to speak of the habits and characters of this peculiar portion of the street-folk.

As regards the religion of the women in street-trades, it is not difficult to describe it. The Irishwomen are Roman Catholics. Perhaps I am justified in stating that they are all of that faith. The truth of this assertion is proved, moreover, to as full a demonstration as it very well can be proved without actual enumeration, by the fact that the great majority of the Irishwomen in the streets are from the Catholic provinces of Connaught, Leinster, and Munster; there are very few from Ulster, and not one-twentieth of the whole from any one of the other provinces. Perhaps, again, it is not extravagant to estimate that three-fourths of the women and girls from the sister island, now selling things in the streets, have been, when in their own country, connected through their husbands or parents with the cultivation of the land. It is not so easy to speak of what the remaining fourth were before they became immigrants. Some were the wives of mechanics, who, when their husbands failing to obtain work in London became street-traders, had adopted the same pursuits. I met with one intelligent man having a stall of very excellent fruit in Battle-bridge, who had been a brogue-maker. He had been in business on his own account in Tralee, but mended the indifferent profits of brogue-making by a little trade in “dry goods.” This, he told me with a cautious glance around him and in a half whisper, though it was twenty-eight years since he left his country, meant smuggled tobacco. He found it advisable, on account of being “wanted” by the revenue officers, to leave Tralee in great haste. He arrived in London, got employment as a bricklayer’s labourer, and sent for his wife to join him. This she did, and from her first arrival, sold fruit in the streets. In two or three years the husband’s work among the builders grew slack, and he then took to the streets. Another man, a shoemaker, who came from Dublin to obtain work in London, as he was considered “a good hand,” could not obtain it, but became a street-seller, and his wife, previously to himself, had resorted to a street-trade in fruit. He became a widower and married as “his second,” the daughter of an Irish carpenter who had been disappointed in emigrating from London, and whose whole family had become fruit-sellers. A third man, who had worked at his trade of a tailor in Cork, Waterford, Wicklow, and Dublin (he “tramped” from Cork to Dublin) had come to London and been for many years a street-seller in different capacities. His wife and daughter now assist him, or trade independently, in selling “roots.” “Rayther,” this man said, “than put up wid the wages and the ter-ratement (said very emphatically) o’ thim slop masters at the Aist Ind, I’d sill myself as a slave. The sthraits doesn’t degrade a man like thim thieves o’ the worruld.” This man knew, personally, ten Irish mechanics who were street-sellers in London, as were their wives and families, including some five-and-twenty females.

I adduce these and the following details somewhat minutely, as they tend to show by what class of Irish immigrants the streets of the imperial metropolis are stocked with so large a body of open-air traders.

There is also another class of women who, I am informed on good authority, sometimes become street-sellers, though I met with no instance myself. The orphan children of poor Irish parents are, on the demise of their father and mother sometimes taken into a workhouse and placed out as domestic servants. So, as regards domestic servants, are the daughters of Irish labourers, by their friends or the charitable. As the wages of these young girls are small and sometimes nominal, the work generally hard, and in no few instances the food scanty and the treatment severe, domestic service becomes distasteful, and a street life “on a few oranges and limmons” is preferred. There is, moreover, with some of this class another cause which almost compels the young Irish girl into the adoption of some street calling. A peevish mistress, whose numerous family renders a servant necessary, but whose means are small or precarious, becomes bitterly dissatisfied with the awkwardness or stupidity of her Irish handmaiden; the girl’s going, or “teasing to go,” every Sunday morning to mass is annoying, and the girl is often discharged, or discharges herself “in a huff.” The mistress, perhaps, with the low tyranny dear to vulgar minds, refuses her servant a character, or, in giving one, suppresses any good qualities, and exaggerates the failings of impudence, laziness, lying, and dirtiness. Thus the girl cannot obtain another situation, and perforce perhaps she becomes a street-seller.

The readiness with which young Irish people thus adapt themselves to all the uncertainties and hardships of a street life is less to be wondered at when we consider that the Irish live together, or at any rate associate with one another, in this country, preserving their native tastes, habits, and modes of speech. Among their tastes and habits, a dislike to a street life does not exist as it does among English girls.

The poor Irish females in London are for the most part regular in their attendance at mass, and this constant association in their chapels is one of the links which keeps the street-Irish women so much distinct from the street-English. In the going to and returning from the Roman Catholic chapels, there is among these people--I was told by one of the most intelligent of them--a talk of family and secular matters,--of the present too high price of oranges to leave full 6_d._ a day at two a penny, and the probable time when cherries would be “in” and cheap, “plaze God to prosper them.” In these colloquies there is an absence of any interference by English street-sellers, and an unity of conversation and interest peculiarly Irish. It is thus that the tie of religion, working with the other causes, keeps the Irish in the London streets knitted to their own ways, and is likely to keep them so, and, perhaps, to add to their number.

It was necessary to write somewhat at length of so large a class of women who are professors of a religion, but of the others the details may be brief; for, as to the great majority, religion is almost a nonentity. For this absence of religious observances, the women street-sellers make many, and sometimes, I must confess, valiant excuses. They must work on a Sunday morning, they will say, or they can’t eat; or else they tell you, they are so tired by knocking about all the week that they must rest on a Sunday; or else they have no clothes to go to church in, and ar’n’t a-going there just to be looked down upon and put in any queer place as if they had a fever, and for ladies to hold their grand dresses away from them as they walked in to their grand pews. Then, again, some assert they are not used to sit still for so long a time, and so fall asleep. I have heard all these causes assigned as reasons for not attending church or chapel.

A few women street-sellers, however, do attend the Sunday service of the Church of England. One lace-seller told me that she did so because it obliged Mrs. ------, who was the best friend and customer she had, and who always looked from her pew in the gallery to see who were on the poor seats. A few others, perhaps about an equal number, attend dissenting places of worship of the various denominations--the Methodist chapels comprising more than a half. If I may venture upon a calculation founded on the result of my inquiries, and on the information of others who felt an interest in the matter, I should say that about five female street-sellers attended Protestant places of worship, in the ratio of a hundred attending the Roman Catholic chapels.

The localities in which the female street-sellers reside are those (generally) which I have often had occasion to specify as the abodes of the poor. They congregate principally, however, in the neighbourhood of some street-market. The many courts in Ray-street, Turnmill-street, Cow-cross, and other parts of Clerkenwell, are full of street-sellers, especially costermongers, some of those costermongers being also drovers. Their places of sale are in Clerkenwell-green, Aylesbury-street, and St. John-street. Others reside in Vine-street (late Mutton-hill), Saffron-hill, Portpool Lane, Baldwin’s-gardens, and the many streets or alleys stretching from Leather-lane to Gray’s-inn-lane, with a few of the better sort in Cromer-street. Their chief mart is Leather-lane, now one of the most crowded markets in London. The many who use the Brill as their place of street-traffic, reside in Brill-row, in Ossulston-street, Wilstead-street, Chapel-street, and in the many small intersecting lanes and alleys connected with those streets, and in other parts of Somers-town. The saleswomen in the Cripplegate street-markets, such as Whitecross-street, Fore-street, Golden-lane, &c., reside in Play-house-yard, and in the thick congregation of courts and alleys, approximating to Aldersgate-street, Fore-street, Bunhill-row, Chiswell-street, Barbican, &c., &c. Advancing eastward, the female street-sellers in Shoreditch (including the divisions of the Bishopsgate-streets Within and Without, Norton Folgate, and Holywell-street) reside in and about Artillery-lane, Half-moon-street, and the many narrow “clefts” (as they are called in one of Leigh Hunt’s essays) stretching on the right hand as you proceed along Bishopsgate-street, from its junction with Cornhill; “clefts” which, on my several visits, have appeared to me as among the foulest places in London. On the left-hand side, proceeding in the same direction, the street-sellers reside in Long-alley, and the many yards connected with that, perhaps narrowest, in proportion to its length, of any merely pedestrian thoroughfare in London. Mixed with the poor street-sellers about Long-alley, I may observe, are a mass of the tailors and shoemakers employed by the east-end slop-masters; they are principally Irish workmen, carrying on their crafts many in one room, to economise the rent, while some of their wives are street-sellers.

The street-sellers in Spitalfields and Bethnal-green are so mixed up as to their abodes with the wretchedly underpaid cabinet-makers who supply the “slaughter-houses;” with slop-employed tailors and shoemakers (in the employ of a class, as respects shoemakers, known as “garret-masters” or middle-men, between the workman and the wholesale warehouse-man), bobbin-turners, needle-women, slop-milliners, &c., that I might tediously enumerate almost every one of the many streets known, emphatically enough, as the “poor streets.” These poor streets are very numerous, running eastward from Shoreditch to the Cambridge-road, and southward from the Bethnal-green-road to Whitechapel and the Mile End-road. The female street-sellers in Whitechapel live in Wentworth-street, Thrawl-street, Osborne-street, George-yard, and in several of their interminglements with courts and narrow streets. The Petticoat-lane street-dealers are generally Jews, and live in the poorer Jewish quarters, in Petticoat-lane and its courts, and in the streets running on thence to Houndsditch. Rosemary-lane has many street-sellers, but in the lane itself and its many yards and blind alleys they find their domiciles. Westward in the metropolis one of the largest street-markets is in Tottenham-court-road; and in the courts between Fitzroy-market and Tottenham-court-road are the rooms of the women vending their street goods. Those occupying the Hampstead-road with their stalls--which is but a continuation of the Tottenham-court-road market--live in the same quarters. In what is generally called the St. George’s-market, meaning the stalls at the western extremity of Oxford-street, the women who own those stalls reside in and about Thomas-street, Tom’s-court, and the wretched places--the very existence of which is perhaps unknown to their aristocratic neighbourhood--about Grosvenor-square; some of them lamentably wretched places. It might be wearisome to carry on this enumeration further. It may suffice to observe, that in the populous parts of Southwark, Lambeth, and Newington, wherever there is a street-market, are small or old streets inhabited by the street-sellers, and at no great distance. From the Obelisk at the junction, or approximate junction, of the Westminster, Waterloo, Blackfriars, Borough, and London-roads, in pretty well every direction to the banks of the Thames, are a mass of private-looking streets--as far as the absence of shops constitutes the privacy of a street--old and half-ruinous, or modern and trim, in all of which perhaps may be found street-sellers, and in some of which are pickpockets, thieves, and prostitutes.

Of course it must be understood that these specified localities are the residence of the male, as well as the female street-sellers, both adults and children.

The proportion of female street-traders who reside in lodging-houses may be estimated at one-tenth of the entire number. This may appear a small proportion, but it must be remembered that the costermongering women do not reside in lodging-houses--so removing the largest class of street-folk from the calculation of the numbers thus accommodated--and that the Irish who pursue street callings with any regularity generally prefer living, if it be two or three families in a room, in a place of their own. The female street-folk sleeping in lodging-houses, and occasionally taking their meals there, are usually those who are itinerant; the women who have a settled trade, especially a “pitch,” reside in preference in some “place of their own.” Of the number in lodging-houses one half may be regular inmates, some having a portion of a particular room to themselves; the others are casual sojourners, changing their night’s shelter as convenience prompts.

Of the female street-sellers residing in houses of ill fame there are not many; perhaps not many more than 100. I was told by a gentleman whose connection with parochial matters enabled him to form an opinion, that about Whitecross-street, and some similar streets near the Cornwall-road, and stretching away to the Blackfriars and Borough-roads--(the locality which of any in London is perhaps the most rank with prostitution and its attendant evils)--there might be 600 of those wretched women and of all ages, from 15 to upwards of 40; and that among them he believed there were barely a score who occupied themselves with street-sale. Of women, and more especially of girl, street-sellers, such as flower-girls, those pursuing immoral courses are far more numerous than 100, but they do not often reside in houses notoriously of ill-fame, but in their own rooms (and too often with their parents) and in low lodging-houses. For women who are street-sellers, without the practice of prostitution, to reside in a house of ill-fame, would be a reckless waste of money; as I am told that in so wretched a street as White-horse-street, the rent of a front kitchen is 4_s._ 6_d._ a week; of a back kitchen, 3_s._ 6_d._; of a front parlour, 6_s._; and of a back parlour, 4_s._ 6_d._; all being meagrely furnished and very small. This is also accounted one of the cheapest of all such streets. The rent of a street-seller’s unfurnished room is generally 1_s._ 6_d._ or even 1_s._ a week; a furnished room is 3_s._ or 2_s._ 6_d._

The state of education among the female street-sellers is very defective. Perhaps it may be said that among the English costers not one female in twenty can read, and not one in forty can write. But they are fond of listening to any one who reads the newspaper or any exciting story. Among the street-selling Irish, also, education is very defective. As regards the adults, who have been of woman’s estate before they left Ireland, a knowledge of reading and writing may be as rare as among the English costerwomen; but with those who have come to this country sufficiently young, or have been born here, education is far more diffused than among the often more prosperous English street children. This is owing to the establishment of late years of many Roman Catholic schools, at charges suited to the poor, or sometimes free, and of the Irish parents having availed themselves (probably on the recommendation of the priest) of such opportunities for the tuition of their daughters, which the English costers have neglected to do with equal chances. Of the other classes whom I have specified as street-sellers, I believe I may say that the education of the females is about the average of that of “servants of all work” who have been brought up amidst struggles and poverty; they can read, but with little appreciation of what they read, and have therefore little taste for books, and often little leisure even if they have taste. As to writing, a woman told me that at one time, when she was “in place,” and kept weekly accounts, she had been complimented by her mistress on her neat hand, but that she and her husband (a man of indifferent character) had been street-sellers for seven or eight years, and during all that time she had only once had a pen in her hand; this was a few weeks back, in signing a petition--something about Sundays, she said--she wrote her name with great pain and difficulty, and feared that she had not even spelled it aright! I may here repeat that I found the uneducated always ready to attribute their want of success in life to their want of education; while the equally poor street-sellers, who were “scholars,” are as apt to say, “It’s been of no manner of use to me.” In all these matters I can but speak generally. The male street-sellers who have seen better days have of course been better educated, but the most intelligent of the street class are the patterers, and of them the females form no portion.

The diet of the class I am describing is, as regards its poorest members, tea and bread or bread and grease; a meal composed of nothing else is their fare twice or thrice a day. Sometimes there is the addition of a herring--or a plaice, when plaice are two a penny--but the consumption of cheap fish, with a few potatoes, is more common among the poor Irish than the poor English female street-sellers. “Indeed, sir,” said an elderly woman, who sold cakes of blacking and small wares, “I could make a meal on fish and potatoes, cheaper than on tea and bread and butter, though I don’t take milk with my tea--I’ve got to like it better without milk than with it--but if you’re a long time on your legs in the streets and get to your bit of a home for a cup of tea, you want a bit of rest over it, and if you have to cook fish it’s such a trouble. O, no, indeed, this time of year there’s no ’casion to light a fire for your tea--and tea ’livens you far more nor a herring--because there’s always some neighbour to give a poor woman a jug of boiling water.” Married women, who may carry on a trade distinct from that of their husbands, live as well as their earnings and the means of the couple will permit: what they consider good living is a dinner daily off “good block ornaments” (small pieces of meat, discoloured and dirty, but not tainted, usually set for sale on the butcher’s block), tripe, cow-heel, beef-sausages, or soup from a cheap cook-shop, “at 2_d._ a pint.” To this there is the usual accompaniment of beer, which, in all populous neighbourhoods, is “3_d._ a pot (quart) in your own jugs.” From what I could learn, it seems to me that an inordinate or extravagant indulgence of the palate, under any circumstances, is far less common among the female than the male street-sellers.

During the summer and the fine months of the spring and autumn, there are, I am assured, one-third of the London street-sellers--male and female--“tramping” the country. At Maidstone Fair the other day, I was told by an intelligent itinerant dealer, there were 300 women, all of whose faces he believed he had seen at one time or other in London. The Irish, however, tramp very little into the country for purposes of trade, but they travel in great numbers from one place to another for purposes of mendicancy; or, if they have a desire to emigrate, they will tramp from London to Liverpool, literally begging their way, no matter whether they have or have not any money. The female street-sellers are thus a fluctuating body.

The beggars among the women who profess to be street-traders are chiefly Irishwomen, some of whom, though otherwise well-conducted, sober and chaste, beg shamelessly and with any mendacious representation. It is remarkable enough, too, that of the Irishwomen who will thus beg, many if employed in any agricultural work, or in the rougher household labours, such as scouring or washing, will work exceedingly hard. To any feeling of self-respect or self-dependence, however, they seem dead; their great merit is their chastity, their great shame their lying and mendicancy.

The female street-sellers are again a fluctuating body, as in the summer and autumn months. A large proportion go off to work in market-gardens, in the gathering of peas, beans, and the several fruits; in weeding, in hay-making, in the corn-harvest (when they will endeavour to obtain leave to glean if they are unemployed more profitably), and afterwards in the hopping. The women, however, thus seeking change of employment, are the ruder street-sellers, those who merely buy oranges at 4_d._ to sell at 6_d._, and who do not meddle with any calling mixed up with the necessity of skill in selection, or address in recommending. Of this half-vagrant class, many are not street-sellers usually, but are half prostitutes and half thieves, not unfrequently drinking all their earnings, while of the habitual female street-sellers, I do not think that drunkenness is now a very prevalent vice. Their earnings are small, and if they become habituated to an indulgence in drink, their means are soon dissipated; in which case they are unable to obtain stock-money, and they cease to be street-sellers.

If I may venture upon an estimation, I should say that the women engaged in street sale--wives, widows, and single persons--number from 25,000 to 30,000, and that their average earnings run from 2_s._ 6_d._ to 4_s._ a week.

I shall now proceed to give the histories of individuals belonging to each of the above class of female street-sellers, with the view of illustrating what has been said respecting them generally.

OF A SINGLE WOMAN, AS A STREET-SELLER.

I had some difficulty, for the reasons I have stated, in finding a single woman who, by her unaided industry, supported herself on the sale of street merchandise. There were plenty of single young women so engaged, but they lived, or lodged, with their parents or with one parent, or they had some support, however trifling, from some quarter or other. Among the street Irish I could have obtained statements from many single women who depended on their daily sale for their daily bread, but I have already given instances of their street life. One Irishwoman, a spinster of about 50, for I had some conversation with her in the course of a former inquiry, had supported herself alone, by street sale, for many years. She sat, literally packed in a sort of hamper-basket, at the corner of Charles-street, Leather-lane. She seemed to fit herself cross-legged, like a Turk, or a tailor on his shop-board, into her hamper; her fruit stall was close by her, and there she seemed to doze away life day by day--for she usually appeared to be wrapped in slumber. If any one approached her stall, however, she seemed to be awake, as it were, mechanically. I have missed this poor woman of late, and I believe she only packed herself up in the way described when the weather was cold.

A woman of about 26 or 27--I may again remark that the regular street-sellers rarely know their age--made the following statement. She was spare and sickly looking, but said that her health was tolerably good.

“I used to mind my mother’s stall,” she stated, “when I was a girl, when mother wasn’t well or had a little work at pea-shelling or such like. She sold sweet-stuff. No, she didn’t make it, but bought it. I never cared for it, and when I was quite young I’ve sold sweet-stuffs as I never tasted. I never had a father. I can’t read or write, but I like to hear people read. I go to Zion Chapel sometimes of a Sunday night, the singing’s so nice. I don’t know what religion you may call it of, but it’s a Zion Chapel. Mother’s been dead these--well I don’t know how long, but it’s a long time. I’ve lived by myself ever since, and kept myself, and I have half a room with another young woman who lives by making little boxes. I don’t know what sort of boxes. Pill-boxes? Very likely, sir, but I can’t say I ever saw any. She goes out to work on another box-maker’s premises. She’s no better off nor me. We pays 1_s._ 6_d._ a-week between us; it’s my bed, and the other sticks is her’n. We ’gree well enough. I haven’t sold sweet stuff for a great bit. I’ve sold small wares in the streets, and artificials (artificial flowers), and lace, and penny dolls, and penny boxes (of toys). No, I never hear anything improper from young men. Boys has sometimes said, when I’ve been selling sweets, ‘Don’t look so hard at ’em, or they’ll turn sour.’ I never minded such nonsense. I has very few amusements. I goes once or twice a month, or so, to the gallery at the Wick (Victoria Theatre), for I live near. It’s beautiful there. O, it’s really grand. I don’t know what they call what’s played, because I can’t read the bills.

“I hear what they’re called, but I forgets. I knows Miss Vincent and John Herbert when they come on. I likes them the best. I’m a going to leave the streets. I have an aunt a laundress, because she was mother’s sister, and I always helped her, and she taught me laundressing. I work for her three and sometimes four days a-week now, because she’s lost her daughter Ann, and I’m known as a good ironer. Another laundress will employ me next week, so I’m dropping the streets, as I can do far better. I’m not likely to be married and I don’t want to.”

OF A MECHANIC’S WIFE, AS A STREET-SELLER.

A middle-aged woman, presenting what may be best understood as a decency of appearance, for there was nothing remarkable in her face or dress, gave me the following account of her experience as a street-seller, and of her feelings when she first became one:--

“I went into service very young in the country,” she said, “but mistress brought me up to London with her, where master had got a situation: the children was so fond of me. I saved a little money in that and other places as girls often does, and they seems not to save it so much for themselves as for others. Father got the first bit of money I saved, or he would have been seized for rent--he was only a working man (agricultural labourer)--and all the rest I scraped went before I’d been married a fortnight, for I got married when I was 24. O no, indeed, I don’t mean that my money was wasted by my husband. It was every farthing laid out in the house, besides what he had, for we took a small house in a little street near the Commercial-road, and let out furnished rooms. We did very well at first with lodgings, but the lodgers were mates of vessels, or people about the river and the docks, and they were always coming and going, and the rooms was often empty, and some went away in debt. My husband is a smith, and was in middling work for a good while. Then he got a job to go with some horses to France, for he can groom a horse as well as shoe it, and he was a long time away, three or four months, for he was sent into another country when he got to France, but I don’t understand the particulars of it. The rooms was empty and the last lodger went away without paying, and I had nothing to meet the quarter’s rent, and the landlord, all of a sudden almost, put in the brokers, for he said my husband would never come back, and perhaps I should be selling the furniture and be off to join him, for he told me it was all a planned thing he knew. And so the furniture was sold for next to nothing, and 1_l._ 6_s._ was given to me after the sale; I suppose that was over when all was paid, but I’d been forced to part with some linen and things to live upon and pay the rates, that came very heavy. My husband came back to an empty house three days after, and he’d been unlucky, for he brought home only 4_l._ instead of 10_l._ at least, as he expected, but he’d been cheated by the man he went into the other country with. Yes, the man that cheated him was an Englishman, and my poor John was put to great trouble and expense, and was in a strange place without knowing a word of the language. But the foreigners was very kind to him, he said, and didn’t laugh at him when he tried to make hisself understood, as I’ve seen people do here many a time. The landlord gave us 1_l._ to give up the house, as he had a good offer for it, and so we had to start again in the world like.

“Our money was almost all gone before John got regular work, tho’ he had some odd jobs, and then he had for a good many months the care of a horse and cart for a tradesman in the City. Shortly after that he was laid up a week with a crushed leg, but his master wouldn’t wait a week for him, so he hired another: ‘I have nothing to say against John,’ says he, when I told his master of the accident, ‘and I’m sorry, very sorry, but my business can’t be hindered by waiting for people getting better of accidents.’ John got work at his own business next, but there was always some stopper. He was ill, or I was ill, and if there was 10_s._ in the house, then it went and wasn’t enough. And so we went on for a good many years, I don’t know how many. John kept working among horses and carts, or at his own business, but what with travelling abroad, I suppose, and such like, he got to like best to be in the streets, and he has his health best that way.” (The husband, it is evident, was afflicted with the restlessness of the tribe.) “About seven years ago we were very badly off--no work, and no money, and neither of us well. Then I used to make a few women’s plain night-caps and plain morning caps for servants, and sell them to a shopkeeper, but latterly I couldn’t sell them at all, or get no more than the stuff cost me, without any profit for labour. So at last--and it was on a Friday evening of all unlucky times--my gold wedding-ring that cost 8_s._ 6_d._, and that I’d stuck to all along, had to be pawned for 4_s._ 6_d._ for rent and bread. That was a shocking time, sir. We’ve sat in the dark of an evening, for we could get neither coals nor a candle as we was a little in debt, and John said, it was a blessing after all perhaps that we hadn’t no family, for he often, both joking and serious, wished for children, but it wasn’t God’s will you see that we should have any. One morning when I woke very early I found my husband just going out, and when I asked him what sent him out so soon, he says: ‘It’s for nothing bad, so don’t fret yourself, old gal.’ That day he walked all over London and called on all the masters as had employed him, or knowed him, and told them how he was situated, and said that if he could borrow 20_s._ up and down, he could do a little, he knew--the thought of it came into his mind all of a sudden--in going about with a horse and cart, that he could hire, and sell coals to poor people. He raised 8_s._ 6_d._, I think it was, and started with a quarter of a ton of coals, and then another quarter when the first was sold, and he carried it on for three or four weeks. But the hire of the horse and cart took all the profit, and the poor people wanted credit, besides people must cheat to thrive as sells coals in the street. All this time I could do nothing--though I tried for washing and charing, but I’m slow at washing--but starve at home, and be afraid every knock was the landlord. After that John was employed to carry a very heavy board over his shoulder, and so as to have it read on both sides. It was about an eating-house, and I went with him to give little bills about it to all we met, for it was as much as a man could do to carry the board. He had 1_s._ a day, and I had 6_d._ That was my first time in the streets and I felt so ’shamed to come to that. I thought if I met any people I knew in Essex, or any of my old mistresses, what would they think. Then we had all sorts of jokes to stand. We both looked pinched, and young gents used to say, ‘Do you dine there yourselves?’ and the boys--O, of all the torments!--they’ve shouted out, ‘Excellent Dining-rooms’ that was on the board, sir, ‘and two jolly speciments of the style of grub!’ I could have knocked their saucy heads together. We was resting in the shade one day--and we were anxious to do our best, for 1_s._ 6_d._ a day was a great thing then--and an old gentleman came up and said he was glad to get out of the sun. He looked like a parson, but was a joky man, and he’d been having some wine, I think, he smelled of it so. He began to talk to us and ask us questions, such as you have, sir, and we told him how we was situated. ‘God bless you,’ says he, ‘for I think you’re honest folks. People that lie don’t talk like you; here’s some loose silver I have,’ and he gave John 5_s._ 6_d._ and went away. We could hardly think it was real; it seemed such a lot of money just then, to be got clear all at once. I’ve never seen him since, and never saw him, as I knows of, before, but may God Almighty bless him wherever he is, for I think that 5_s._ 6_d._ put new life into us, and brought a blessing. A relation of John’s came to London not long after and gave him a sovereign and sent him some old clothes, and very good ones, when he went back. Then John hired a barrow--it’s his own now--and started as a costermonger. A neighbour of ourn told him how to do it, and he’s done very well at it since.

“Well, you know, sir, I could’nt like to stay at home by myself doing of a nothing, and I couldn’t get any charing; besides John says, ‘Why, can’t you sell something?’ So I made some plain women’s caps, and as we lived in Ann’s-place, Waterloo-road, then, I went into the New Cut with them on a Saturday night. But there was such crowding, and shoving, and shouting, that I was kept under and sold only one cap. I was very much nervoused before I went and thought again--it was very foolish, I know--‘if I saw anybody from Essex,’ for country people seem to think all their friends in London are making fortunes! Before I went my landlady would treat me to a little drop of gin to give me spirits, and ‘for luck,’ but I think it made me more nervoused. I very seldom taste any. And John’s very good that way. He takes his pint or two every now and then, but I know where he uses, and if it gets late I go for him and he comes home. The next time I went to sell in the Cut I got bold, for I knew I was doing nothing but what was honest; I’ve sold caps, and millinery, and laces, and artificial flowers, and such like ever since. We’ve saved a little money now, which is in the bank, thank God, but that’s not done by costering, or by my trade. But my husband buys a poney every now and then, and grooms and fattens it up well, and makes it quite another thing, and so clears a pound or two; he once cleared 3_l._ 15_s._ on it. We don’t go to church or chapel on a Sunday, we’re so tired out after the week’s work. But John reads a tract that a young lady leaves ’till he falls asleep over it.”

OF AN IRISHWOMAN, AS A STREET-SELLER.

I have before had occasion to remark the aptitude of the poor Irish in the streets of London not so much to lie, which may be too harsh a word when motives and idiosyncrasy are considered, but to exaggerate, and misrepresent, and colour in such a way that the truth becomes a mere incident in the narrative, instead of being the animating principle throughout. I speak here not as regards any direct question or answer on one specific point, but as regards a connected statement. Presuming that a poor Irishwoman, for instance, had saved up a few shillings, very likely for some laudable purpose, and had them hidden about her person, and was asked if she had a farthing in the world, she would reply with a look of most stolid innocence, “Sorra a fardin, sir.” This of course is an unmitigated lie. Then ask her why she is so poor and what are her hopes for the future, and a very slender substratum of truth will suffice for the putting together of a very ingenious history, if she think the occasion requires it.

It is the same when these poor persons are questioned as to their former life. They have heard of societies to promote emigration, and if they fancy that any inquiries are made of them with a view to emigration, they will ingeniously shape their replies so as to promote or divert that object, according to their wishes. If they think the inquiries are for some charitable purpose, their tale of woe and starvation is heart-rending. The probability is that they may have suffered much, and long, and bravely, but they will still exaggerate. In one thing, however, I have found them understate the fact, and that I believe principally, or wholly, when they had been previously used to the most wretched of the Irish hovels. I mean as to their rooms. “Where do you live,” may be asked. “Will, thin, in Paraker-street (Parker-street) Derwry-lane?” “Have you a decent room?” “Shure, thin, and it is dacint for a poor woman.” On a visit, perhaps the room will be found smoky, filthy, half-ruinous, and wretched in every respect. I believe, however, that if these poor people could be made to comprehend the motives which caused their being questioned for the purposes of this work, the elucidation of the truth--motives which they cannot be made to understand--they would speak with a far greater regard to veracity. But they will suspect an ulterior object, involving some design on the part of the querist, and they will speak accordingly. To what causes, social or political, national, long-rooted, or otherwise, this spirit may be owing, it is not now my business to inquire.

At the outset of my inquiries amongst the poor Irish, whose civility and often native politeness, where there is a better degree of intelligence, makes it almost impossible to be angry with them even when you listen to a story of which you believe not one-sixth--at the outset of my inquiries, I say, I was told by an Irish gentleman that I was sure to hear the truth if I had authority to use the name of their priest. I readily obtained the consent of reverend gentlemen to use their names and for any purpose of inquiry, a courtesy which I thankfully acknowledge. I mention this more especially, that it may not be thought that there has been exaggeration in my foregoing or in the following statement, where the Irish are the narrators. I have little doubt of their truth.

It may be but proper to remark, in order that one class of poor people may not be unduly depreciated, while another class is, perhaps, unduly appreciated, that the poor Irishman is much more imaginative, is readier of wit and far readier of speech, than an Englishman of a corresponding grade; and were the untaught Englishman equally gifted in those respects, who will avouch that his regard for the truth would be much more severe?

Of the causes which induced a good-looking Irish woman to become a street-seller I had the following account, which I give in its curious details:--

“’Deed thin, sir, it’s more than 20 long years since I came from Dublin to Liverpool wid my father and mother, and brother William that’s dead and gone, rest his soul. He died when he was fourteen. They was masons in Ireland. Was both father and mother masons, sir? Well, then, in any quiet job mother helped father, for she was a strong woman. They came away sudden. They was in some thrubble, but I never knew what, for they wouldn’t talk to me about it. We thravelled from Liverpool to London, for there was no worruk at Liverpool; and he got worruk on buildings in London, and had 18_s._ a week; and mother cleaned and worruked for a greengrocer, as they called him--he sold coals more than anything--where we lodged, and it wasn’t much, she got, but she airned what is such a thrubble to poor people, the rint. We was well off, and I was sent to school; and we should have been better off, but father took too much to the dhrop, God save him. He fell onste and broke his leg; and though the hospital gintlemen, God bless them for good Christians, got him through it, he got little worruk when he came out again, and died in less than a year. Mother wasn’t long afther him; and on her death-bed she said, so low I could hardly hear her, ‘Mary, my darlint, if you starruve, be vartuous. Rimimber poor Illen’s funeral.’ When I was quite a child, sir, I went wid mother to a funeral--she was a relation--and it was of a young woman that died after her child had been borrun a fortnight, and she wasn’t married; that was Illen. Her body was brought out of the lying-in hospital--I’ve often heard spake of it since--and was in the churchyard to be buried; and her brother, that hadn’t seen her for a long time, came and wanted to see her in her coffin, and they took the lid off, and then he currused her in her coffin afore him; she’d been so wicked. But he wasn’t a good man hisself, and was in dhrink too; still nobody said anything, and he walked away. It made me ill to see Illen in her coffin, and hear him curruse, and I’ve remimbered it ever since.

“I was thin fifteen, I believe, and hadn’t any friends that had any tie to me. I was lone, sir. But the neebours said, ‘Poor thing, she’s left on the shuckrawn’ (homeless); and they helped me, and I got a place. Mistress was very kind at first, that’s my first mistress was, and I had the care of a child of three years old; they had only one, because mistress was busy making waistcoats. Master was a hatter, and away all day, and they was well off. But some women called on mistress once, and they had a deal of talkin’, and bladherin’, and laughin’, and I don’t know how often I was sent out for quarterns of gin. Then they all went out together; and mistress came home quite tipsy just afore master, and went up-stairs, and had just time to get into bed; she told me to tell master she had one of her sick head-aches and was forced to go to bed; she went on that way for three or four days, and master and she used to quarrel of a night, for I could hear them. One night he came home sooner than common, and he’d been drinking, or perhaps it might be thrubble, and he sent me to bed wid the child; and sometime in the night, I don’t know what time, but I could only see from a gas-lamp that shined into the room, he came in, for there was no fastenin’ inside the door, it was only like a closet, and he began to ask me about mistress. When he larned she’d been drinking wid other women, he used dreadful language, and pulled me out of bed, and struck me with a stick that he snatched up, he could see it in the gas-light, it was little Frank’s horse, and swore at me for not telling him afore. He only struck me onste, but I screamed ever so often, I was so frightened. I dressed myself, and lay down in my clothes, and got up as soon as it was light--it was summer time--and thought I would go away and complain to some one. I would ask the neebours who to complain to. When I was going out there was master walking up and down the kitchen. He’d never been to bed, and he says, says he, ‘Mary, where are you going?’ So I told him, and he begged my pardon, and said he was ashamed of what he’d done, but he was half mad; then he began to cry, and so I cried, and mistress came home just then, and when she saw us both crying together, she cried, and said she wasn’t wanted, as we was man and wife already. Master just gave her a push and down she fell, and he ran out. She seemed so bad, and the child began to cry, that I couldn’t lave thin; and master came home drunk that night, but he wasn’t cross, for he’d made out that mistress had been drinking with some neebours, and had got to her mother’s, and that she was so tipsy she fell asleep, they let her stay till morning, and then some woman set her home, but she’d been there all night. They made it up at last, but I wouldn’t stay. They was very kind to me when I left, and paid me all that was owing, and gave me a good pair of shoes, too; for they was well off.

“I had a many places for seven years; after that, and when I was out of a place, I stayed wid a widder, and a very dacint woman, she was wid a daughter working for a bookbinder, and the old woman had a good pitch with fruit. Some of my places was very harrud, but shure, again, I met some as was very kind. I left one because they was always wanting me to go to a Methodist chapel, and was always running down my religion, and did all they could to hinder my ever going to mass. They would hardly pay me when I left, because I wouldn’t listen to them, they said--the haythens!--when they would have saved my soul. They save my soul, indeed! The likes o’ thim! Yes, indeed, thin, I had wicked offers sometimes, and from masters that should have known better. I kept no company wid young men. One mistress refused me a karackter, because I was so unhandy, she said; but she thought better of it. At last, I had a faver (fever), and wasn’t expected for long (not expected to live); when I was getting well, everything went to keep me. What wasn’t good enough for the pawn went to the dolly (dolly-shop, generally a rag and bottle shop, or a marine store). When I could get about, I was so shabby, and my clothes hung about me so, that the shops I went to said, ‘Very sorry, but can’t recommend you anywhere;’ and mistresses looked strange at me, and I didn’t know what to do and was miserable. I’d been miserable sometimes in place, and had many a cry, and thought how ‘lone’ I was, but I never was so miserable as this. At last, the old woman I stayed along wid--O, yes, she was an Irishwoman--advised me to sill fruit in the streets, and I began on strawberries, and borrowed 2_s._ 6_d._ to do it wid. I had my hilth better than ever thin; and after I’d sold fruit of all kinds for two years, I got married. My husband had a potato can thin. I knew him because he lived near, and I saw him go in and out, and go to mass. After that he got a porter’s place and dropped his can, and he porters when he has a chance still, and has a little work in sewing sacks for the corn-merchants. Whin he’s at home at his sacks, as he is now, he can mind the children--we have two--and I sells a few oranges to make a thrifle. Whin there’s nothing ilse for him to do, he sills fruit in the sthreets, and thin I’m at home. We do middlin, God be praised.”

There is no doubt my informant was a modest, and, in her way, a worthy woman. But it may be doubted if any English girl, after seven years of domestic service, would have so readily adapted herself to a street calling. Had an English girl been living among, and used to the society of women who supported themselves by street labour, her repugnance to such a life might have been lessened; but even then, I doubt if she, who had the virtue to resist the offers told of by my Irish informant, could have made the attempt to live by selling fruit. I do not mean that she would rather have fallen into immoral courses than honestly live upon the sale of strawberries, but that she would have struggled on and striven to obtain any domestic labour in preference to a street occupation.

OF A WIDOW, A STREET-SELLER.

A woman, apparently about 50, strong-built and red-faced, speaking in a loud tone, and what people of her class account a hearty manner, gave me the following account. I can readily condense it, for in her street career there was nothing very novel. She was the daughter of a costermonger, and she married a costermonger before she was 20. On my hinting that sometimes the marriage ceremony was not considered indispensable, the good woman laughed and said, “married, or as good, it’s hall as one--but we was married.” The marriage was not one of unalloyed happiness, for the couple often wrangled and occasionally fought. This was told to me with some laughter, and with perfect good humour; for the widow seemed interested to have a listener. She did not, I feel confident, exaggerate the merits of the deceased, nor, perhaps, his failings. He was the best judge of fish in the streets, she said, and was the neatest hand in cutting it up, or showing it off; he was not “a bad sort,” and was very fond of his children. When sober and at work he was a quiet fellow, without a cross word for a whole morning, but when drunk, which was far too often (unless very drunk, and then he was silly), he went about tearing and swearing “like one o’clock.” But if he saw his wife take but a glass or two, to do her good, he went on like a madman, and as if he never touched it himself. He never had nothing to say to other women--if he had she would have clawed their eyes out, and his’n too--he was as good that way as any nobleman could be, and he was a fine man to look at; and on a Sunday, when he dressed hisself, he was beautiful. He was never in a church in his life, and didn’t trouble hisself about such things; they was no concern of his’n.

It may be thought that I have treated this matter too lightly, but the foregoing is really the substance, and certainly it is the tone, of the widow’s talk, which she poured forth freely, without expressing wonder why any one, a perfect stranger, cared to listen to such a history. She needed but a few hints and leading questions to make her talk on. Nor is this an uncommon quality even among classes who would be shocked to be classed, in any respect, with the Widowed Street-Seller. Their own career, their own sayings and doings, hopes and disappointments, alone interest masses of people, and with the simplicity which not seldom pertains to selfishness, they will readily talk of all that interests themselves, as if it must necessarily interest others. On the whole, though the departed costermonger was greatly deplored by his widow and family, they did very well without him, and carry on the business to this day. He died four or five years back.

I have no doubt this widow is a shrewd saleswoman enough. I have heard her cry “mack’rel, live mack’rel, eight a shilling, mack’rel!” and at other times, “Eight a bob, fine mack’rel, mack’rel, eight a bob, eight a bob!” On my inquiring as to the cause of this difference in her cries, the fish-seller laughed and said, “I cries eight a bob when I sees people as I thinks is likely to like slang; to others I cries eight a shilling, which no doubt is the right way of talking.”

OF THE CHILDREN STREET-SELLERS OF LONDON.

When we consider the spirit of emulation, of imitation, of bravado, of opposition, of just or idle resentment, among boys, according to their training, companionship, natural disposition, and, above all, home treatment, it seems most important to ascertain how these feelings and inclinations are fostered or stimulated by the examples of the free street-life of other lads to be seen on every side. There is no doubt that to a large class of boys, whose parents are not in poverty, the young street ruffian is a hero.

If this inquiry be important, as it unquestionably is, concerning boys, how much more important is it, when it includes the female children of the streets; when it relates to the sex who, in all relations of life, and in all grades of society, are really the guardians of a people’s virtue.

The investigation is, again, rendered more interesting and more important, when it includes those children who have known no guidance from parent, master, or relative, but have been flung into the streets through neglect, through viciousness, or as outcasts from utter destitution. Mixed with the children who really sell in the streets, are the class who assume to sell that they may have the better chance to steal, or the greater facility to beg.

Before I classify what I consider to be the causes which have driven children to a street career, with all its hardening consequences, I may point out that culpability cannot be imputed to them at the commencement of their course of life. They have been either untaught, mistaught, maltreated, neglected, regularly trained to vice, or fairly turned into the streets to shift for themselves. The censure, then, is attributable to parents, or those who should fill the place of parents--the State, or society. The exceptions to this culpability as regards parents are to be found in the instances where a costermonger employs his children to aid him in his business occupation, which the parents, in their ignorance or prejudices, may account as good as any other, and the youths thus become unfit, perhaps, for any other than a scrambling street life. A second exception may be where the children in a poor family (as continually happens among the Irish in London) must sell in the streets, that they may eat in any place.

In the following details I shall consider all to be children who are under fifteen years of age. It is just beyond that age (or the age of puberty) that, as our prison statistics and other returns show, criminal dispositions are developed, “self-will” becomes more imperious and headstrong, that destructive propensity, or taste, which we term the ruling passion or character of the individual is educed, and the destiny of the human being, especially when apart from the moulding and well-directed care of parents or friends, is influenced perhaps for life.

The Causes, then, which fill our streets with children who either manifest the keen and sometimes roguish propensity of a precocious trader, the daring and adroitness of the thief, or the loutish indifference of the mere dull vagabond, content if he can only eat and sleep, I consider to be these:--

1. The conduct of parents, masters, and mistresses.

2. The companionship and associations formed in tender years.

3. The employment of children by costermongers and others who live by street traffic, and the training of costermongers’ children to a street life.

4. Orphanhood, friendlessness, and utter destitution.

5. Vagrant dispositions and tastes on the part of children, which cause them to be runaways.

After this I shall treat of (a) the pursuits of the street-trading children; (b) their earnings; (c) the causes or influences which have induced children to adopt some especial branch of a street life; (d) their state of education; (e) their morals, religion, opinions, and conduct; (f) places and character of dwellings; (g) diet; (h) amusements; (i) clothing; (j) propensities.

Concerning cause 1, viz., “The conduct of parents, masters, and mistresses,” I should have more to say were I treating of the juvenile criminals, instead of sellers in the streets. The brute tyranny of parents, manifested in the wreaking of any annoyances or disappointments they may have endured, in the passionate beating and cursing of their children, for trifling or for no causes, is among the worst symptoms of a depraved nature. This conduct may be the most common among the poor, for among them are fewer conventional restraints; but it exists among and debases other classes. Some parents only exercise this tyranny in their fits of drunkenness, and make that their plea in mitigation; but their dispositions are then only the more undisguisedly developed, and they would be equally unjust or tyrannical when sober, but for some selfish fear which checks them. A boy perhaps endures this course of tyranny some time, and then finding it increase he feels its further endurance intolerable, and runs away. If he have no friends with whom he can hope to find a shelter, the streets only are open to him. He soon meets with comrades, some of whom perhaps had been circumstanced like himself, and, if not strongly disposed to idleness and vicious indulgencies, goes through a course of horse-holding, errand-running, parcel-carrying, and such like, and so becomes, if honestly or prudently inclined, a street-seller, beginning with fuzees, or nuts, or some unexpensive stock. The where to buy and the how to sell he will find plenty to teach him at the lodging-houses, where he must sleep when he can pay for a bed.

When I was collecting information concerning brace-selling I met with a youth of sixteen who about two years previously had run away from Birmingham, and made his way to London, with 2_s._ 6_d._ Although he earned something weekly, he was so pinched and beaten by a step-mother (his father was seldom at home except on Sunday) that his life was miserable. This went on for nearly a year, until the boy began to resist, and one Saturday evening, when beaten as usual, he struck in return, drawing blood from his step-mother’s face. The father came home before the fray was well ended; listened to his wife’s statement, and would not listen to the boy’s, and in his turn chastised the lad mercilessly. In five minutes after the boy, with aching bones and a bitter spirit, left his father’s house and made his way to London, where he was then vending cheap braces. This youth could neither read nor write, and seemed to possess no quickness or intelligence. The only thing of which he cared to talk was his step-mother’s treatment of him; all else was a blank with him, in comparison; this was the one burning recollection.

I may here observe, that I heard of several instances of children having run away and adopted a street life in consequence of the violence of step-mothers far more than of step-fathers.

I cite the foregoing instance, as the boy’s career was exactly that I have described; but the reader will remember, that in the many and curious narratives I have collected, how often the adult street-seller has begun such a life by being a runaway from domestic tyranny. Had this Birmingham boy been less honest, or perhaps less dull, it would have been far easier for him to have become a thief than a street-trader. To the gangs of young thieves, a new boy, who is not known to the police is often (as a smart young pickpocket, then known as the Cocksparrow, described it to me) “a God-send.”

My readers will remember that in the collected statements of the street-folk, there are several accounts of runaways, but they were generally older than the age I have fixed, and it was necessary to give an account of one who comes within my classification of a child.

I did not hear of any girls who had run away from their homes having become street-sellers merely. They more generally fall into a course of prostitution, or sometimes may be ostensibly street-sellers as a means of accosting men, and, perhaps, for an attractive pretence to the depraved, that they are poor, innocent girls, struggling for an honest penny. If they resort to the low lodging-houses, where the sexes are lodged indiscriminately, their ruin seems inevitable.

2. That the companionship and associations formed in tender years lead many children to a street life is so evident, that I may be brief on the subject. There are few who are in the habit of noting what they may observe of poor children in the streets and quieter localities, who have not seen little boys playing at marbles, or gambling with halfpennies, farthings, or buttons, with other lads, and who have laid down their basket of nuts or oranges to take part in the play. The young street-seller has probably more halfpence at his command, or, at any rate, in his possession, than his non-dealing playmates; he is also in the undoubted possession of what appears a large store of things for which poor boys have generally a craving and a relish. Thus the little itinerant trader is envied and imitated.

This attraction to a street career is very strong, I have ascertained, among the neglected children of the poor, when the parents are absent at their work. On a Saturday morning, some little time since, I was in a flagged court near Drury-lane, a wretched place, which was full of children of all ages. The parents were nearly all, I believe, then at work, or “on the look out for a job,” as porters in Covent Garden-market, and the children played in the court until their return. In one corner was a group of four or five little boys gambling and squabbling for nuts, of which one of the number was a vendor. A sharp-looking lad was gazing enviously on, and I asked him to guide me to the room of a man whom I wished to see. He did so, and I gave him a penny. On my leaving the court I found this boy the most eager of the players, gambling with the penny I had given him. I had occasion to return there a few hours after, and the same lad was leaning against the wall, with his hands in his pockets, as if suffering from listlessness. He had had no luck with the nut covey, he told me, but he hoped before long to sell nuts himself. He did not know his age, but he appeared to be about eleven. Only last week I saw this same lad hawking a basket, very indifferently stocked with oranges. He had raised a shilling, he said, and the “Early Bird” (the nickname of a young street-seller) had put him up to the way to lay it out. On my asking if his father (a journeyman butcher) knew what he was doing, he replied that so long as he didn’t bother his father he could do what he pleased, and the more he kept out of his (the father’s) way the better he would be liked and treated.

The association of poor boys and girls with the children of the costermongers, and of the Irish fruit-sellers, who are employed in itinerant vending, is often productive of a strong degree of envy on the part of unemployed little ones, who look upon having the charge of a basket of fruit, to be carried in any direction, as a species of independence.

3. “The employment of children by costermongers, and others who live by street traffic; and the training of costermongers’ children to a street life, is the ordinary means of increase among the street-folk.”

The children of the costermongers become necessarily, as I have already intimated, street-dealers, and perhaps more innocently than in any other manner, by being required, as soon as their strength enables them, to assist their parents in their work, or sell trifles, single-handed, for the behoof of their parents. The child does but obey his father, and the father does but rear the child to the calling by which his daily bread is won. This is the case particularly with the Irish, who often have large families, and bring them with them to London.

There are, moreover, a great number of boys, “anybody’s children,” as I heard them called, who are tempted and trained to pursue an open-air traffic, through being engaged by costermongers or small tradesmen to sell upon commission, or, as it is termed, for “bunse.” In the curious, and almost in every instance novel, information which I gave to the public concerning the largest body of the street-sellers, the costermongers, this word “bunse” (probably a corruption of bonus, bone being the slang for good) first appeared in print. The mode is this: a certain quantity of saleable, and sometimes of not very saleable, commodities is given to a boy whom a costermonger knows and perhaps employs, and it is arranged that the young commission-agent is to get a particular sum for them, which must be paid to the costermonger; I will say 3_s._, that being somewhere about the maximum. For these articles the lad may ask and obtain any price he can, and whatever he obtains beyond the stipulated 3_s._ is his own profit or “bunse.” The remuneration thus accruing to the boy-vendor of course varies very materially, according to the season of the year, the nature of the article, and the neighbourhood in which it is hawked. Much also depends upon whether the boy has a regular market for his commodities; whether he has certain parties to whom he is known and upon whom he can call to solicit custom; if he has, of course his facilities for disposing of his stock in trade are much greater than in the case of one who has only the chance of attracting attention and obtaining custom by mere crying and bawling “Penny a piece, Col-ly-flowers,” “Five bunches a penny, Red-dish-es,” and such like. The Irish boys call this “having a back,” an old Hibernian phrase formerly applied to a very different subject and purpose.

Another cause of the abundance of street-dealers among the boyish fraternity, whose parents are unable or unwilling to support them, is that some costers keep a lad as a regular assistant, whose duty it is to pull the barrow of his master about the streets, and assist him in “crying” his wares. Sometimes the man and the boy call out together, sometimes separately and alternately, but mostly the boy alone has to do this part of the work, the coster’s voice being generally rough and hoarse, while the shrill sound of that of the boy re-echoes throughout the street along which they slowly move, and is far more likely to strike the ear, and consequently to attract attention, than that of the man. This mode of “practising the voice” is, however, perfectly ruinous to it, as in almost every case of this description we find the natural tone completely annihilated at a very early age, and a harsh, hoarse, guttural, disagreeable mode of speaking acquired. In addition to the costers there are others who thus employ boys in the streets: the hawkers of coal do so invariably, and the milkmen--especially those who drive cows or have a cart to carry the milk-pails in. Once in the streets and surrounded with street-associates, the boy soon becomes inured to this kind of life, and when he leaves his first master, will frequently start in some branch of costermongering for himself, without seeking to obtain another constant employment.

This mode of employing lads, and on the whole perhaps they are fairly enough used by the costermongers, and generally treated with great kindness by the costers’ wives or concubines, is, I am inclined to think, the chief cause of the abundance and even increase of the street-sellers of fish, fruit, and vegetables.

4. To “orphanhood, friendlessness, and utter destitution,” the commerce of the streets owes a considerable portion of its merchants. A child finds himself or herself an orphan; the parents having been miserably poor, he or she lives in a place where street-folk abound; it seems the only road to a meal and a bed, and the orphan “starts” with a few lucifer-matches, boot-laces, nuts, or onions. It is the same when a child, without being an orphan, is abandoned or neglected by the parents, and, perhaps without any injunctions either for or against such a course, is left to his or her own will to sell or steal in the streets.

5. The vagrant dispositions and tastes of lads, and, it may be, now and then somewhat of a reckless spirit of adventure, which in our days has far fewer fields than it once had, is another cause why a street-life is embraced. Lads have been known to run away from even comfortable homes through the mere spirit of restlessness; and sometimes they have done so, but not perhaps under the age of fifteen, for the unrestrained indulgence of licentious passions. As this class of runaways, however, do not ordinarily settle into regular street-sellers, but become pickpockets, or trade only with a view to cloak their designs of theft, I need not further allude to them under this head.

* * * * *

I now come to the second part of my subject, the Pursuits, &c., of the children in street avocations.

As I have shown in my account of the women street-sellers, there is no calling which this body of juveniles monopolize, none of which they are the sole possessors; but some are principally in their hands, and there are others, again, to which they rarely incline.

Among the wares sold by the boys and girls of the streets are:--money-bags, lucifer-match boxes, leather straps, belts, firewood (common, and also “patent,” that is, dipped into an inflammable composition), fly-papers, a variety of fruits, especially nuts, oranges, and apples; onions, radishes, water-cresses, cut flowers and lavender (mostly sold by girls), sweet-briar, India rubber, garters, and other little articles of the same material, including elastic rings to encircle rolls of paper-music, toys of the smaller kinds, cakes, steel pens and penholders with glass handles, exhibition medals and cards, gelatine cards, glass and other cheap seals, brass watch-guards, chains, and rings; small tin ware, nutmeg-graters, and other articles of a similar description, such as are easily portable; iron skewers, fuzees, shirt buttons, boot and stay-laces, pins (and more rarely needles), cotton bobbins, Christmasing (holly and other evergreens at Christmas-tide), May-flowers, coat-studs, toy-pottery, blackberries, groundsel and chickweed, and clothes’-pegs.

There are also other things which children sell temporarily, or rather in the season. This year I saw lads selling wild birds’-nests with their eggs, such as hedge-sparrows, minnows in small glass globes, roots of the wild Early Orchis (Orchis mascula), and such like things found only out of town.

Independently of the vending of these articles, there are many other ways of earning a penny among the street boys: among them are found--tumblers, mud-larks, water-jacks, Ethiopians, ballad-singers, bagpipe boys, the variety of street musicians (especially Italian boys with organs), Billingsgate boys or young “roughs,” Covent Garden boys, porters, and shoeblacks (a class recently increased by the Ragged School Brigade). A great many lads are employed also in giving away the cards and placards of advertising and puffing tradesmen, and around the theatres are children of both sexes (along with a few old people) offering play-bills for sale, but this is an occupation less pursued than formerly, as some managers sell their own bills inside the house and do not allow any to pass from the hands of the printer into those of the former vendors. Again: amid the employments of this class may be mentioned--the going on errands and carrying parcels for persons accidentally met with; holding horses; sweeping crossings (but the best crossings are usually in the possession of adults); carrying trunks for any railway traveller to or from the terminus, and carrying them from an omnibus when the passenger is not put down at his exact destination. During the frosty days of the winter and early spring, some of these little fellows used to run along the foot-path--Baker-street was a favourite place for this display--and keep pace with the omnibuses, not merely by using their legs briskly, but by throwing themselves every now and then on their hands and progressing a few steps (so to speak) with their feet in the air. This was done to attract attention and obtain the preference if a job were in prospect; done, too, in hopes of a halfpenny being given the urchin for his agility. I looked at the hands of one of these little fellows and the fleshy parts of the palm were as hard as soling-leather, as hard, indeed, as the soles of the child’s feet, for he was bare-footed. At the doors of the theatres, and of public places generally, boys are always in waiting to secure a cab from the stand, their best harvest being when the night has “turned out wet” after a fine day. Boys wait for the same purpose, lounging all night, and until the place closes, about the night-houses, casinos, saloons, &c., and sometimes without receiving a penny. There are, again, the very many ways in which street boys employed to “help” other people, when temporary help is needed, as when a cabman must finish the cleaning of his vehicle in a hurry, or when a porter finds himself over-weighted in his truck. Boys are, moreover, the common custodians of the donkeys on which young ladies take invigorating exercise in such places as Hampstead-heath and Blackheath. At pigeon-shooting matches they are in readiness to pick up the dead birds, and secure the poor fluttering things which are “hard hit” by the adventurous sportsman, without having been killed. They have their share again in the picking of currants and gooseberries, the pottling of strawberries, in weeding, &c., &c., and though the younger children may be little employed in haymaking, or in the more important labours of the corn harvest, they have their shares, both with and without the company of their parents, in the “hopping.” In fine there is no business carried on to any extent in the streets, or in the open air, but it will be found that boys have their portion. Thus they are brought into contact with all classes; another proof of what I have advanced touching the importance of this subject.

It will be perceived that, under this head, I have had to speak far more frequently of boys than of girls, for the boy is far more the child of the streets than is the girl. The female child can do little but sell (when a livelihood is to be gained without a recourse to immorality); the boy can not only sell, but work.

* * * * *

The many ramifications of child-life and of child-work in our teeming streets, which I have just enumerated, render it difficult to arrive at a very nice estimation of the earnings of the street boys and girls. The gains of this week are not necessarily the gains of the next; there is the influence of the weather; there may be a larger or a smaller number of hands “taking a turn” at any particular calling this week than in its predecessor; and, above all, there is that concatenation of circumstances, which street-sellers include in one expressive word--“luck.” I mean the opportunities to earn a few pence, which on some occasions present themselves freely, and at others do not occur at all. Such “luck,” however, is more felt by the holders of horses, and the class of waiters upon opportunity (so to speak), than by those who depend upon trade.

I believe, however, both in consequence of what I have observed, and from the concurrent testimony of persons familiar with the child-life of London streets, that the earnings of the children, when they are healthful and active, are about the same in the several capacities they exercise. The waiter on opportunity, the lad “on the look-out for a job,” may wait and look out all day bootlessly, but in the evening some fortunate chance may realize him “a whole tanner all in a lump.” In like manner, the water-cress girl may drudge on from early morning until “cresses” are wanted for tea, and, with “a connection,” and a tolerably regular demand, earn no more than the boy’s 6_d._, and probably not so much.

One of the most profitable callings of the street-child is in the sale of Christmasing, but that is only for a very brief season; the most regular returns in the child’s trade, are in the sale of such things as water-cresses, or any low-priced article of daily consumption, wherever the youthful vendor may be known.

I find it necessary to place the earnings of the street-children higher than those of the aged and infirm. The children are more active, more persevering, and perhaps more impudent. They are less deterred by the weather, and can endure more fatigue in walking long distances than old people. This, however, relates to the boys more especially, some of whom are very sturdy fellows.

The oranges which the street-children now vend at two a-penny, leave them a profit of 4_d._ in the shilling. To take 1_s._ 6_d._ with a profit of 6_d._ is a fair day’s work; to take 1_s._ with a profit of 4_d._ is a poor day’s work. The dozen bunches of cut-flowers which a girl will sell on an average day at 1_d._ a bunch, cost her 6_d._, that sum being also her profit. These things supply, I think, a fair criterion. The children’s profits may be 6_d._ a day, and including Sunday trade, 3_s._ 6_d._ a week; but with the drawbacks of bad weather, they cannot be computed at more than 2_s._ 6_d._ a week the year through. The boys may earn 2_d._ or 3_d._ a week on an average more than the girls, except in such things (which I shall specify under the next head) as seem more particularly suited for female traffic.

* * * * *

Of the causes which influence children to follow this or that course of business when a street career has been their choice or their lot, I have little to say. It seems quite a matter of chance, even where a preference may exist. A runaway lad meets with a comrade who perhaps sells fuzees, and he accordingly begins on fuzees. One youth, of whom I have given an account (but he was not of child’s estate), began his street career on fly-papers. When children are sent into the streets to sell on account of their parents, they, of course, vend just what their parents have supplied to them. If “on their own hook,” they usually commence their street career on what it is easiest to buy and easiest to sell; a few nuts or oranges bought in Duke’s-place, lucifer-boxes, or small wares. As their experience increases they may become general street-sellers. The duller sort will continue to carry on the trades that any one with ordinary lungs and muscles can pursue. “All a fellow wants to know to sell potatoes,” said a master street-seller to me, “is to tell how many tanners make a bob, and how many yenaps a tanner.” [How many sixpences make a shilling, and how many pence a sixpence.] The smarter and bolder lads ripen into patterers, or street-performers, or fall into theft. For the class of adventurous runaways, the patterer’s, or, rather, the paper-working patterer’s life, with its alternations of town and country, fairs and hangings, the bustle of race-grounds and the stillness of a village, has great attractions. To a pattering and chaunting career, moreover, there is the stimulus of that love of approbation and of admiration, as strong among the often penniless professionals of the streets as on the boards of the opera house.

Perhaps there is not a child of either sex, now a street-seller, who would not to-morrow, if they thought they could clear a penny or two a day more by it, quit their baskets of oranges and sell candle-ends, or old bones, or anything. In a street career, and most especially when united with a lodging-house existence, there is no daintiness of the senses and no exercise of the tastes: the question is not “What do I like best to sell?” but “What is likely to pay me best?” This cannot be wondered at; for if a child earn but 5_d._ a day on apples, and can make 6_d._ on onions, its income is increased by 20 per cent.

The trades which I have specified as in the hands of street-children are carried on by both sexes. I do not know that even the stock in trade which most taxes the strength is more a boy’s than a girl’s pursuit. A basket of oranges or of apples is among the heaviest of all the stocks hawked by children; and in those pursuits there are certainly as many, or rather more, girls than boys. Such articles as fly-papers, money-bags, tins, fuzees, and Christmasing, are chiefly the boys’ sale; cut-flowers, lavender, water-cresses, and small wares, are more within the trading of the girls.

The callings with which children do not meddle are those which require “patter.” Some of the boys very glibly announce their wares, and may be profuse now and then in commendations of their quality, cheapness, and superiority, but it requires a longer experience to patter according to the appreciation of a perhaps critical street audience. No child, for instance, ventures upon the sale of grease-removing compositions, corn-salve, or the “Trial and Execution of Thomas Drory,” with an “Affecting Copy of Werses.”

A gentleman remarked to me that it was rather curious that boys’ playthings, such as marbles and tops, were not hawked by street juveniles, who might be very well able to recommend them. I do not remember to have seen any such things vended by children.

* * * * *

Education is, as far as I have been able to ascertain, more widely extended among street children than it was twelve or fifteen years ago. The difficulty in arriving at any conclusion on such a subject is owing to the inability to find any one who knew, or could even form a tolerably accurate judgment of what was the state of education among these juveniles even twelve years back.

Perhaps it may be sufficiently correct to say that among a given number of street children, where, a dozen years ago, you met twenty who could read, you will now meet upwards of thirty. Of sixteen children, none apparently fifteen years of age, whom I questioned on the subject, nine admitted that they could not read; the other seven declared that they could, but three annexed to the avowal the qualifying words--“a little.” Ten were boys and six were girls, and I spoke to them promiscuously as I met them in the street. Two were Irish lads, who were “working” oranges in company, and the bigger answered--“Shure, thin, we can rade, your honour, sir.” I have little doubt that they could, but in all probability, had either of those urchins thought he would be a penny the better by it, he would have professed, to a perfect stranger, that he had a knowledge of algebra. “Yis, sir, I do, thin,” would very likely be his response to any such inquiry; and when told he could not possibly know anything about it, he would answer, “Arrah, thin, but I didn’t understand your honour.”

To the Ragged Schools is, in all probability, owing this extension of the ability to read. It appears that the attendance of the street children at the Ragged School is most uncertain; as, indeed, must necessarily be the case where the whole time of the lad is devoted to obtaining a subsistence. From the best information I can collect, it appears that the average attendance of these boys at these schools does not exceed two hours per week, so that the amount of education thus acquired, if education it may be called, must necessarily be scanty in the extreme; and is frequently forgotten as soon as learned.

With many of these little traders a natural shrewdness compensates in some measure for the deficiency of education, and enables them to carry on their variety of trades with readiness and dexterity, and sometimes with exactness. One boy with whom I had a conversation, told me that he never made any mistake about the “coppers,” although, as I subsequently discovered, he had no notion at all of arithmetic beyond the capability of counting how many pieces of coin he had, and how much copper money was required to make a “tanner” or a “bob.” This boy vended coat-studs: he had also some metal collars for dogs, or as he said, “for cats aither.” These articles he purchased at the same shop in Houndsditch, where “there was a wonderful lot of other things to be had, on’y some on ’em cost more money.”

In speaking of money, the slang phrases are constantly used by the street lads; thus a sixpence is a “tanner,” a shilling a “bob,” or a “hog;” a crown is “a bull;” a half-crown “a half bull,” &c. Little, as a modern writer has remarked, do the persons using these phrases know of their remote and somewhat classical origin, which may, indeed, be traced to the period antecedent to that when monarchs monopolized the surface of coined money with their own images and superscriptions. They are identical with the very name of money among the early Romans, which was pecunia, from pecus, a flock. The collections of coin dealers amply show, that the figure of a hog was anciently placed on a small silver coin, and that that of a bull decorated larger ones of the same metal: these coins were frequently deeply crossed on the reverse: this was for the convenience of easily breaking them into two or more pieces, should the bargain for which they were employed require it, and the parties making it had no smaller change handy to complete the transaction. Thus we find that the “half-bull” of the itinerant street-seller or “traveller,” so far from being a phrase of modern invention, as is generally supposed, is in point of fact referable to an era extremely remote. Numerous other instances might be given of the classical origin of many of the flash or slang words used by these people.

I now give the answers I received from two boys. The first, his mother told me, was the best scholar at his school when he was there, and before he had to help her in street sale. He was a pale, and not at all forward boy, of thirteen or fourteen, and did not appear much to admire being questioned. He had not been to a Ragged School, but to an “academy” kept by an old man. He did not know what the weekly charge was, but when father was living (he died last autumn) the schoolmaster used to take it out in vegetables. Father was a costermonger; mother minded all about his schooling, and master often said she behaved to him like a lady. “God,” this child told me, “was our Heavenly Father, and the maker of all things; he knew everything and everybody; he knew people’s thoughts and every sin they committed if no one else knew it. His was the kingdom and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever, Amen. Jesus Christ was our Lord and Saviour; he was the son of God, and was crucified for our sins. He was a God himself.” [The child understood next to nothing of the doctrine of the Trinity, and I did not press him.] “The Scriptures, which were the Bible and Testament, were the Word of God, and contained nothing but what was good and true. If a boy lied, or stole, or committed sins,” he said, “he would be punished in the next world, which endured for ever and ever, Amen. It was only after death, when it was too late to repent, that people went to the next world. He attended chapel, sometimes.”

As to mundane matters, the boy told me that Victoria was Queen of Great Britain and Ireland. She was born May 24, 1819, and succeeded his late Majesty, King William IV., July 20, 1837. She was married to his Royal Highness Prince Albert, &c., &c. France was a different country to this: he had heard there was no king or queen there, but didn’t understand about it. You couldn’t go to France by land, no more than you could to Ireland. Didn’t know anything of the old times in history; hadn’t been told. Had heard of the battle of Waterloo; the English licked. Had heard of the battle of Trafalgar, and of Lord Nelson; didn’t know much about him; but there was his pillar at Charing-cross, just by the candlesticks (fountains). When I spoke of astronomy, the boy at once told me he knew nothing about it. He had heard that the earth went round the sun, but from what he’d noticed, shouldn’t have thought it. He didn’t think that the sun went round the earth, it seemed to go more sideways. Would like to read more, if he had time, but he had a few books, and there was hundreds not so well off as he was.

I am far from undervaluing, indeed I would not indulge in an approach to a scoff, at the extent of this boy’s knowledge. Many a man who piques himself on the plenitude of his breeches’ pocket, and who attributes his success in life to the fulness of his knowledge, knows no more of Nature, Man, and God, than this poor street child.

Another boy, perhaps a few months older, gave me his notions of men and things. He was a thick-limbed, red-cheeked fellow; answered very freely, and sometimes, when I could not help laughing at his replies, laughed loudly himself, as if he entered into the joke.

Yes, he had heer’d of God who made the world. Couldn’t exactly recollec’ when he’d heer’d on him, but he had, most sarten-ly. Didn’t know when the world was made, or how anybody could do it. It must have taken a long time. It was afore his time, “or yourn either, sir.” Knew there was a book called the Bible; didn’t know what it was about; didn’t mind to know; knew of such a book to a sartinty, because a young ’oman took one to pop (pawn) for an old ’oman what was on the spree--a bran new ’un--but the cove wouldn’t have it, and the old ’oman said he might be d----d. Never heer’d tell on the deluge; of the world having been drownded; it couldn’t, for there wasn’t water enough to do it. He weren’t a going to fret hisself for such things as that. Didn’t know what happened to people after death, only that they was buried. Had seen a dead body laid out; was a little afeared at first; poor Dick looked so different, and when you touched his face, he was so cold! oh, so cold! Had heer’d on another world; wouldn’t mind if he was there hisself, if he could do better, for things was often queer here. Had heered on it from a tailor--such a clever cove, a stunner--as went to ’Straliar (Australia), and heer’d him say he was going into another world. Had never heer’d of France, but had heer’d of Frenchmen; there wasn’t half a quarter so many on ’em as of Italians, with their earrings like flash gals. Didn’t dislike foreigners, for he never saw none. What was they? Had heer’d of Ireland. Didn’t know where it was, but it couldn’t be very far, or such lots wouldn’t come from there to London. Should say they walked it, aye, every bit of the way, for he’d seen them come in, all covered with dust. Had heer’d of people going to sea, and had seen the ships in the river, but didn’t know nothing about it, for he was very seldom that way. The sun was made of fire, or it wouldn’t make you feel so warm. The stars was fire, too, or they wouldn’t shine. They didn’t make it warm, they was too small. Didn’t know any use they was of. Didn’t know how far they was off; a jolly lot higher than the gas lights some on ’em was. Was never in a church; had heer’d they worshipped God there; didn’t know how it was done; had heer’d singing and playing inside when he’d passed; never was there, for he had’nt no togs to go in, and wouldn’t be let in among such swells as he had seen coming out. Was a ignorant chap, for he’d never been to school, but was up to many a move, and didn’t do bad. Mother said he would make his fortin yet.

Had heer’d of the Duke of Wellington; he was Old Nosey; didn’t think he ever seed him, but had seed his statty. Hadn’t heer’d of the battle of Waterloo, nor who it was atween; once lived in Webber-row, Waterloo-road. Thought he had heerd speak of Buonaparte; didn’t know what he was; thought he had heer’d of Shakespeare, but didn’t know whether he was alive or dead, and didn’t care. A man with something like that name kept a dolly and did stunning; but he was sich a hard cove that if he was dead it wouldn’t matter. Had seen the Queen, but didn’t recollec’ her name just at the minute; oh! yes, Wictoria and Albert. Had no notion what the Queen had to do. Should think she hadn’t such power [he had first to ask me what ‘power’ was] as the Lord Mayor, or as Mr. Norton as was the Lambeth beak, and perhaps is still. Was never once before a beak and didn’t want to. Hated the crushers; what business had they to interfere with him if he was only resting his basket in a street? Had been once to the Wick, and once to the Bower: liked tumbling better; he meant to have a little pleasure when the peas came in.

The knowledge and the ignorance of these two striplings represent that of street children generally. Those who may have run away from a good school, or a better sort of home as far as means constitute such betterness, of course form exceptions. So do the utterly stupid.

The Morals, Religion, and Opinions of the street-trading children are the next topic. Their business morals have been indicated in the course of my former statements, and in the general tone of the remarks and conversation of street-sellers.

As traders their morals may be lax enough. They give short weight, and they give short measure; they prick the juice out of oranges; and brush up old figs to declare they’re new. Their silk braces are cotton, their buck-leather braces are wash-leather, their sponge is often rotten, and their salves and cures quackeries.

Speak to any one of the quicker-witted street-sellers on the subject, and though he may be unable to deny that his brother traders are guilty of these short-comings, he will justify them all by the example of shopkeepers. One man, especially, with whom I have more than once conversed on the subject, broadly asserts that as a whole the streets are in all matters of business honester than the shops. “It ain’t we,” runs the purport of his remarks, “as makes coffee out of sham chickory; it ain’t we as makes cigars out of rhubarb leaves; we don’t make duffers handkerchiefs, nor weave cotton things and call them silk. If we quacks a bit, does we make fortins by it as shopkeepers does with their ointments and pills! If we give slang weights, how many rich shopkeepers is fined for that there? And how many’s never found out? And when one on ’em’s fined, why he calculates how much he’s into pocket, between what he’s made by slanging, and what he’s been fined, and on he goes again. He didn’t know that there ever was short weight given in his shop: not he! No more do we at our stalls or barrows! Who ’dulterates the beer? Who makes old tea-leaves into new? Who grinds rice among pepper? And as for smuggling--but nobody thinks there’s any harm in buying smuggled things. What we does is like that pencil you’re writing with to a great tree, compared to what the rich people does. O, don’t tell me, sir, a gentleman like you that sees so much of what’s going on, must know we’re better than the shopkeepers are.”

To remarks such as these I have nothing to answer. It would be idle to point out to such casuists, that the commission of one wrong can never justify another. The ignorant reverse the doctrine of right, and live, not by rule, but by example. I have unsparingly exposed the rogueries and trickeries of the street people, and it is but fair that one of them should be heard in explanation, if not in justification. The trade ethics of the adult street-folk are also those of the juveniles, so on this subject I need dwell no longer.

What I have said of the religion of the women street-sellers applies with equal truth to the children. Their religious feelings are generally formed for them by their parents, especially their mothers. If the children have no such direction, then they have no religion. I did not question the street-seller before quoted on this subject of the want of the Christian spirit among his fraternity, old or young, or he would at once have asked me, in substance, to tell him in what class of society the real Christian spirit was to be found?

As to the opinions of the street-children I can say little. For the most part they have formed no opinions of anything beyond what affects their daily struggles for bread. Of politics such children can know nothing. If they are anything, they are Chartists in feeling, and are in general honest haters of the police and of most constituted authorities, whom they often confound with the police officer. As to their opinions of the claims of friendship, and of the duty of assisting one another, I believe these children feel and understand nothing about such matters. The hard struggles of their lives, and the little sympathy they meet with, make them selfish. There may be companionship among them, but no friendship, and this applies, I think, alike to boys and girls. The boy’s opinion of the girl seems to be that she is made to help him, or to supply gratification to his passions.

There is yet a difficult inquiry,--as to the opinions which are formed by the young females reared to a street-life. I fear that those opinions are not, and cannot be powerfully swayed in favour of chastity, especially if the street-girl have the quickness to perceive that marriage is not much honoured among the most numerous body of street-folk. If she have not the quickness to understand this, then her ignorance is in itself most dangerous to her virtue. She may hear, too, expressions of an opinion that “going to church to be wed” is only to put money into the clergyman’s, or as these people say the “parson’s,” pocket. Without the watchful care of the mother, the poor girl may form an illicit connection, with little or no knowledge that she is doing wrong; and perhaps a kind and indulgent mother may be herself but a concubine, feeling little respect for a ceremony she did not scruple to dispense with. To such opinions, however, the Irish furnish the exception.

* * * * *

The Dwelling-places of the street-children are in the same localities as I specified regarding the women. Those who reside with their parents or employers sleep usually in the same room with them, and sometimes in the same bed. Nearly the whole of those, however, who support themselves by street-trade live, or rather sleep, in the lodging-houses. It is the same with those who live by street-vagrancy or begging, or by street-theft; and for this lazy or dishonest class of children the worst description of lodging-houses have the strongest attractions, as they meet continually with “tramps” from the country, and keep up a constant current of scheming and excitement.

It seems somewhat curious that, considering the filth and noisomeness of some of these lodging-houses, the children who are inmates suffer only the average extent of sickness and mortality common to the districts crammed with the poor. Perhaps it may be accounted for by the circumstance of their being early risers, and their being in the open air all day, so that they are fatigued at the close of the day, and their sleep is deep and unbroken. I was assured by a well-educated man, who was compelled to resort to such places, that he has seen children sleep most profoundly in a lodging-house throughout a loud and long-continued disturbance. Many street-children who are either “alone in the world,” or afraid to return home after a bad day’s sale, sleep in the markets or under the dry arches.

There are many other lads who, being unable to pay the 1_d._, 2_d._, or 3_d._ demanded, in pre-payment, by the lodging-house keepers, pass the night in the streets, wherever shelter may be attainable. The number of outcast boys and girls who sleep in and about the purlieus of Covent Garden-market each night, especially during the summer months, has been computed variously, and no doubt differs according to circumstances; but those with whom I have spoken upon the subject, and who of all others are most likely to know, consider the average to be upwards of 200.

* * * * *

The Diet of the street-children is in some cases an alternation of surfeit and inanition, more especially that of the stripling who is “on his own hook.” If money be unexpectedly attained, a boy will gorge himself with such dainties as he loves; if he earn no money, he will fast all day patiently enough, perhaps drinking profusely of water. A cake-seller told me that a little while before I saw him a lad of twelve or so had consumed a shilling’s worth of cakes and pastry, as he had got a shilling by “fiddling;” not, be it understood, by the exercise of any musical skill, for “fiddling,” among the initiated, means the holding of horses, or the performing of any odd jobs.

Of these cakes and pastry--the cakes being from two to twelve a penny, and the pastry, tarts, and “Coventrys” (three-cornered tarts) two a penny--the street-urchins are very fond. To me they seemed to possess no recommendation either to the nose or the palate. The “strong” flavour of these preparations is in all probability as grateful to the palate of an itinerant youth, as is the high gout of the grouse or the woodcock to the fashionable epicure. In this respect, as in others which I have pointed out, the “extremes” of society “meet.”

These remarks apply far more to the male than to the female children. Some of the street-boys will walk a considerable distance, when they are in funds, to buy pastry of the Jew-boys in the Minories, Houndsditch, and Whitechapel; those keen traders being reputed, and no doubt with truth, to supply the best cakes and pastry of any.

A more staple article of diet, which yet partakes of the character of a dainty, is in great demand by the class I treat of--pudding. A halfpenny or a penny-worth of baked plum, boiled plum (or plum dough), currant or plum batter (batter-pudding studded with raisins), is often a dinner. This pudding is almost always bought in the shops; indeed, in a street apparatus there could hardly be the necessary heat diffused over the surface required; and as I have told of a distance being travelled to buy pastry of the Jew-boys, so is it traversed to buy pudding at the best shops. The proprietor of one of those shops, upon whom I called to make inquiries, told me that he sold about 300 pennyworths of pudding in a day. Two-thirds of this quantity he sold to juveniles under fifteen years of age; but he hadn’t noticed particularly, and so could only guess. This man, when he understood the object of my inquiry, insisted upon my tasting his “batter,” which really was very good, and tasted--I do not know how otherwise to describe it--honest. His profits were not large, he said, and judging from the size and quality of his oblong halfpenny and pennyworth’s of batter pudding, I have no doubt he stated the fact. “There’s many a poor man and woman,” he said, “aye, sir, and some that you would think from their appearance might go to an eating-house to dine, make a meal off my pudding, as well as the street little ones. The boys are often tiresome: ‘Master,’ they’ll say, ‘can’t you give us a plummier bit than this?’ or, ‘Is it just up? I likes it ’ot, all ’ot.’”

The “baked tatur,” from the street-dealer’s can more frequently than from the shops, is another enjoyable portion of the street child’s diet. Of the sale to the juvenile population of pickled whelks, stewed eels, oysters, boiled meat puddings, and other articles of street traffic, I have spoken under their respective heads.

The Irish children who live with their parents fare as the parents fare. If very poor, or if bent upon saving for some purpose, their diet is tea and bread and butter, or bread without butter. If not so very poor, still tea, &c., but sometimes with a little fish, and sometimes with a piece of meat on Sundays; but the Sunday’s meat is more common among the poor English than the poor Irish street-traders; indeed the English street-traders generally “live better” than the Irish. The coster-boys often fare well and abundantly.

The children living in the lodging-houses, I am informed, generally, partake only of such meals as they can procure abroad. Sometimes of a night they may partake of the cheap beef or mutton, purveyed by some inmate who has been “lifting flesh” (stealing meat) or “sawney” (bacon). Vegetables, excepting the baked potato, they rarely taste. Of animal food, perhaps, they partake more of bacon, and relish it the most.

Drinking is not, from what I can learn, common among the street boys. The thieves are generally sober fellows, and of the others, when they are “in luck,” a half-pint of beer, to relish the bread and saveloy of the dinner, and a pennyworth of gin “to keep the cold out,” are often the extent of the potations. The exceptions are among the ignorant coster-lads, who when they have been prosperous in their “bunse,” drink, and ape the vices of men. The girls, I am told, are generally fonder of gin than the boys. Elderwine and gingerbeer are less popular among children than they used to be. Many of the lads smoke.

* * * * *

The Amusements of the street-children are such as I have described in my account of the costermongers, but in a moderate degree, as those who partake with the greatest zest of such amusements as the Penny Gaff (penny theatre) and the Twopenny Hop (dance) are more advanced in years. Many of the Penny Gaffs, however, since I last wrote on the subject, have been suppressed, and the Twopenny Hops are not half so frequent as they were five or six years back. The Jew-boys of the streets play at draughts or dominoes in coffee-shops which they frequent; in one in the London-road at which I had occasion to call were eight of these urchins thus occupied; and they play for money or its equivalent, but these sedentary games obtain little among the other and more restless street-lads. I believe that not one-half of them “know the cards,” but they are fond of gambling at pitch and toss, for halfpennies or farthings.

* * * * *

The Clothing of the street-children, however it may vary in texture, fashion, and colour, has one pervading characteristic--it is never made for the wearers. The exceptions to this rule seem to be those, when a child has run away and retains, through good fortune or natural acuteness, the superior attire he wore before he made the choice--if choice he had--of a street life; and where the pride of a mother whose costermonger husband is “getting on,” clothes little Jack or Bill in a new Sunday suit. Even then the suit is more likely to be bought ready-made than “made to measure,” nor is it worn in business hours until the gloss of novelty has departed.

The boys and girls wear every variety of clothing; it is often begged, but if bought is bought from the fusty stocks of old clothes in Petticoat and Rosemary-lanes. These rags are worn by the children as long as they will hold, or can be tied or pinned together, and when they drop off from continued wear, from dirt, and from the ravages of vermin, the child sets his wits to work to procure more. One mode of obtaining a fresh supply is far less available than it was three or four years back. This was for the lads to denude themselves of their rags, and tearing them up in the casual-ward of a workhouse, as it were compel the parish-officers to provide them with fresh apparel.

This mode may be successful in parts of the country still, but it is not so, or to a very limited extent, in town. The largest, and what was accounted by the vagrants the most liberal, of all the casual wards of the metropolitan workhouses, that of Marylebone, has been closed above two years. So numerous were the applicants for admission, and so popular among the vagrants was Marylebone workhouse, that a fever resulted, and attacked that large establishment. It was not uncommon for the Irish who trudged up from Liverpool, to be advised by some London vagrant whom they met, to go at once, when they reached the capital, to Marylebone workhouse, and that the Irishman might not forget a name that was new to him, his friendly adviser would write it down for him, and a troop of poor wretched Irish children, with parents as wretched, would go to Marylebone workhouse, and in their ignorance or simplicity, present the address which had been given to them, as if it were a regular order for admission! Boys have sometimes committed offences that they might get into prison, and as they contrived that their apparel should be unfit for purposes of decency, or perhaps their rags had become unfit to wear, they could not be sent naked into the streets again, and so had clothing given to them. A shirt will be worn by one of those wretched urchins, without washing, until it falls asunder, and many have no shirts. The girls are on the whole less ragged than the boys, the most disgusting parts of their persons or apparel--I speak here more of the vagrant or the mixed vagrant trading and selling girl (often a child prostitute) than of the regular street-seller--the worst particular of these girls’ appearance, I repeat, is in their foul and matted hair, which looks as if it would defy sponge, comb, and brush to purify it, and in the broken and filthy boots and stockings, which they seem never to button or to garter.

* * * * *

The Propensities of the street-children are the last division of my inquiry, and an ample field is presented, alike for wonder, disgust, pity, hope, and regret.

Perhaps the most remarkable characteristic of these wretched children is their extraordinary licentiousness. Nothing can well exceed the extreme animal fondness for the opposite sex which prevails amongst them; some rather singular circumstances connected with this subject have come to my knowledge, and from these facts it would appear that the age of puberty, or something closely resembling it, may be attained at a much less numerical amount of years than that at which most writers upon the human species have hitherto fixed it. Probably such circumstances as the promiscuous sleeping together of both sexes, the example of the older persons indulging in the grossest immorality in the presence of the young, and the use of obscene expressions, may tend to produce or force an unnatural precocity, a precocity sure to undermine health and shorten life. Jealousy is another characteristic of these children, and perhaps less among the girls than the boys. Upon the most trivial offence in this respect, or on the suspicion of an offence, the “gals” are sure to be beaten cruelly and savagely by their “chaps.” This appears to be a very common case.

The details of filthiness and of all uncleanness which I gave in a recent number as things of course in certain lodging-houses, render it unnecessary to dwell longer upon the subject, and it is one from which I willingly turn to other matters.

In addition to the licentious, the vagabond propensities of this class are very striking. As soon as the warm weather commences, boys and girls, but more especially boys, leave the town in shoals, traversing the country in every direction; some furnished with trifling articles (such as I have already enumerated) to sell, and others to begging, lurking, or thieving. It is not the street-sellers who so much resort to the tramp, as those who are devoid of the commonest notions of honesty; a quality these young vagrants sometimes respect when in fear of a gaol, and the hard work with which such a place is identified in their minds--and to which, with the peculiar idiosyncrasy of a roving race, they have an insuperable objection.

I have met with boys and girls, however, to whom a gaol had no terrors, and to whom, when in prison, there was only one dread, and that a common one among the ignorant, whether with or without any sense of religion--superstition. “I lay in prison of a night, sir,” said a boy who was generally among the briskest of his class, “and think I shall see things.” The “things” represent the vague fears which many, not naturally stupid, but untaught or ill-taught persons, entertain in the dark. A girl, a perfect termagant in the breaking of windows and such like offences, told me something of the same kind. She spoke well of the treatment she experienced in prison, and seemed to have a liking for the matron and officials; her conduct there was quiet and respectful. I believe she was not addicted to drink.

Many of the girls, as well as the boys, of course trade as they “tramp.” They often sell, both in the country and in town, little necklaces, composed of red berries strung together upon thick thread, for dolls and children: but although I have asked several of them, I have never yet found one who collected the berries and made the necklaces themselves; neither have I met with a single instance in which the girl vendors knew the name of the berries thus used, nor indeed even that they were berries. The invariable reply to my questions upon this point has been that they “are called necklaces;” that “they are just as they sells ’em to us;” that they “don’t know whether they are made or whether they grow;” and in most cases, that they “gets them in London, by Shoreditch;” although in one case a little brown-complexioned girl, with bright sparkling eyes, said that “she got them from the gipsies.” At first I fancied, from this child’s appearance, that she was rather superior in intellect to most of her class; but I soon found that she was not a whit above the others, unless, indeed, it were in the possession of the quality of cunning.

Some of the boys, on their country excursions, trade in dominoes. They carry a variety of boxes, each differing in size and varying accordingly in price: the lowest-priced boxes are mostly 6_d._ each (sometimes 4_d._, or even 3_d._), the highest 1_s._ An informant told me that these boxes are charged to him at the rate of 20 to 25 per cent. less; but if, as is commonly the case, he could take a number at a time, he would have them at a smaller price still. They are very rudely made, and soon fall to pieces, unless handled with extreme care. Most of the boys who vend this article play at the game themselves, and with some skill; but in every case, I believe, there is a willingness to cheat, or take advantage, which is hardly disguised; one boy told me candidly that those who make the most money are considered to be the cleverest, whether by selling or cheating, or both, at the game; nor can it be said that this estimation of cleverness is peculiar to these children.

At this season of the year great numbers of the street-children attend the races in different parts of the country, more especially at those in the vicinity of a large town. The race-course of Wolverhampton, for instance, is usually thronged with them during the period of the sport. While taking these perigrinations they sometimes sleep in the low lodging-houses with which most of our provincial towns abound: frequently “skipper it” in the open air, when the weather is fine and warm, and occasionally in barns or outhouses attached to farms and cottages. Sometimes they travel in couples--a boy and a girl, or two boys or two girls; but the latter is not so common a case as either of the former. It is rare that more than two may be met in company with each other, except, indeed, of a night, and then they usually herd together in numbers. The boys who carry dominoes sometimes, also, have a sheet of paper for sale, on which is rudely printed a representation of a draught-board and men--the latter of which are of two colours (black and white) and may be cut out with a pair of scissors; thus forming a ready means of playing a game so popular in rustic places. These sheets of paper are sold (if no more can be got for them) at a penny each. The boy who showed them to me said he gave a halfpenny a piece for them, or 6_d._ for fifteen. He said he always bought them in London, and that he did not know any other place to get them at, nor had “ever heard any talk of their being bought nowhere else.”

The extraordinary lasciviousness of this class which I have already mentioned, appears to continue to mark their character during their vagabondizing career in the country as fully as in town; indeed, an informant, upon whom I think I may rely, says, that the nightly scenes of youthful or even childish profligacy in the low lodging-houses of the small provincial towns quite equal--even if they do not exceed--those which may be witnessed in the metropolis itself. Towards the approach of winter these children (like the vagrants of an older growth) advance towards London; some remain in the larger towns, such as Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield, &c., but the greater proportion appear to return to the metropolis, where they resume the life they had previously led, anything but improved in education, morals, manners, or social position generally, by their summer’s excursion.

The language spoken by this rambling class is peculiar in its construction: it consists of an odd medley of cockneyfied English, rude provincialisms, and a large proportion of the slang commonly used by gipsies and other “travellers,” in conveying their ideas to those whom they wish to purchase their commodities.

Among the propensities of the street-boys I do not think that pugnacity, or a fondness, or even a great readiness, for fighting, is a predominant element. Gambling and thieving may be rife among a class of these poor wretches; and it may not unfrequently happen that force is resorted to by one boy bigger than another to obtain the halfpence of which the smaller child is known to be possessed. Thus quarrels among them are very frequent, but they rarely lead to fighting. Even in the full swing and fury of their jealousy, it does not appear that these boys attack the object of their suspicions, but prefer the less hazardous course of chastising the delinquent or unjustly suspected girl. The girls in the low lodging-houses, I was told a little time since, by a woman who used to frequent them, sometimes, not often, scratched one another until the two had bloody faces; and they tried to bite one another now and then, but they seldom fought. What was this poor woman’s notion of a fight between two girls, it may not be very easy to comprehend.

The number of children out daily in the streets of London, employed in the various occupations I have named, together with others which may possibly have been overlooked--including those who beg without offering any article for sale--those who will work as light porters, as errand boys and the like, for chance passengers, has been variously calculated; probably nothing like exactitude can be hoped for, much less expected, in such a speculation, for when a government census has been so frequently found to fail in correctness of detail, it appears highly improbable that the number of those so uncertain in their places of resort and so migratory in their habits, can be ascertained with anything like a definite amount of certainty by a private individual. Taking the returns of accommodation afforded to these children in the casual wards of workhouses, refuges for the destitute and homeless poor; of the mendicity and other societies of a similar description, and those of our hospitals and gaols,--and these sources of information upon this subject can alone be confidently relied upon,--and then taking into the calculation the additional numbers, who pass the night in the variety of ways I have already enumerated, I think it will be found that the number of boys and girls selling in the streets of this city, and often dependent upon their own exertions for the commonest necessaries of life, may be estimated at some thousands, but nearer 10,000 than 20,000.

The consideration which I have devoted to this branch of my subject has been considerable, but still not, in my own opinion, commensurate to the importance of its nature. Steps ought most unquestionably to be taken to palliate the evils and miseries I have pointed out, even if a positive remedy be indeed impossible.

Each year sees an increase of the numbers of street-children to a very considerable extent, and the exact nature of their position may be thus briefly depicted: what little information they receive is obtained from the worst class--from cheats, vagabonds, and rogues; what little amusement they indulge in, springs from sources the most poisonous--the most fatal to happiness and welfare; what little they know of a home is necessarily associated with much that is vile and base; their very means of existence, uncertain and precarious as it is, is to a great extent identified with petty chicanery, which is quickly communicated by one to the other; while their physical sufferings from cold, hunger, exposure to the weather, and other causes of a similar nature, are constant, and at times extremely severe. Thus every means by which a proper intelligence may be conveyed to their minds is either closed or at the least tainted, while every duct by which a bad description of knowledge may be infused is sedulously cultivated and enlarged. Parental instruction; the comforts of a home, however humble--the great moral truths upon which society itself rests;--the influence of proper example; the power of education; the effect of useful amusement; are all denied to them, or come to them so greatly vitiated, that they rather tend to increase, than to repress, the very evils they were intended to remedy.

The costers invariably say that no persons under the age of fifteen should be allowed by law to vend articles in the streets; the reason they give for this is--that the children under that period of life having fewer wants and requiring less money to live than those who are older, will sell at a less profit than it is fair to expect the articles sold should yield, and thus they tersely conclude, “they pervents others living, and ruins theirselves.”

There probably is truth in this remark, and I must confess that, for the sake of the children themselves, I should have no objection to see the suggestion acted upon; and yet there immediately rises the plain yet startling question--in such a case, what is to become of the children?

I now cite the histories of street-lads belonging to the several classes above specified, as illustrations of the truth of the statements advanced concerning the children street-sellers generally.

OF CHILDREN SENT OUT AS STREET-SELLERS BY THEIR PARENTS.

Of the boys and girls who are sent out to sell in the streets by parents who are themselves street-traders, I need say but little under this head. I have spoken of them, and given some of their statements in other divisions of this work (see the accounts of the coster boys and girls). When, as is the case with many of the costermongers, and with the Irish fruit-sellers, the parents and children follow the same calling, they form one household, and work, as it were, “into one another’s hands.” The father can buy a larger, and consequently a cheaper quantity, when he can avail himself of a subdivision of labour as inexpensive as that of his own family--whom he must maintain whether employed or unemployed--in order to vend such extra quantity. I have already noticed that in some families (as is common with rude tribes) costermongering seems an hereditary pursuit, and the frequent and constant employment of children in street traffic is one reason why this hereditary pursuit is perpetuated, for street commerce is thus at a very early age made part and parcel of the young coster’s existence, and he very probably acquires a distaste for any other occupation, which may entail more of restraint and irksomeness. It is very rarely that a costermonger apprentices his son to any handicraft business, although a daughter may sometimes be placed in domestic service. The child is usually “sent out to sell.”

There is another class of children who are “sent out” as are the children of the costers, and sometimes with the same cheap and readily attained articles--oranges and lemons, nuts, chestnuts, onions, salt (or fresh) herrings, winks, or shrimps, and, more rarely, with water-cresses or cut-flowers. Sometimes the young vendors offer small wares--leather boot-laces, coat-studs, steel pens, or such like. These are often the children, not of street sales-people, but of persons in a measure connected with a street life, or some open-air pursuit; the children of cabmen deprived of their licences, or of the hangers-on of cabmen; of the “supers” (supernumeraries) of the theatres who have irregular or no employment, or, as they would call it, “engagement,” with the unhappy consequence of irregular or no “salary:” the children, again, of street performers, or Ethiopians, or street-musicians, are “sent out to sell,” as well as those of the poorer class of labourers connected with the river--ballast-heavers, lumpers, &c.; of (Irish) bricklayers’ labourers and paviours’ assistants; of market-porters and dock-labourers; of coal-heavers out of work, and of the helpers at coal-wharfs, and at the other wharfs; of the Billingsgate “roughs;” and of the many classes of the labouring, rather than the artisan poor, whose earnings are uncertain, or insufficient, or have failed them altogether.

With such classes as these (and more especially with the Irish), as soon as Pat or Biddy is big enough to carry a basket, and is of sufficiently ripened intellect to understand the relative value of coins, from a farthing to a shilling, he or she must do something “to help,” and that something is generally to sell in the streets. One poor woman who made a scanty living in working on corn sacks and bags--her infirmities sometimes preventing her working at all--sent out three children, together or separately, to sell lucifer-matches or small wares. “They like it,” she said, “and always want to be off into the streets; and when my husband (a labourer) was ill in the hospital, the few pence they brought in was very useful; but now he’s well and at work again and we want to send the eldest--she’s nine--to school; but they all will go out to sell if they can get hold of any stock. I would never have sent them at all if I could have helped it, but if they made 6_d._ a day among the three of them, perhaps it saved their lives when things were at the worst.” If a poor woman, as in this instance, has not been used to street-selling herself, there is always some neighbour to advise her what to purchase for her children’s hawking, and instruct her where.

From one little girl I had the following account. She was then selling boot-laces and offered them most perseveringly. She was turned nine, she said, and had sold things in the streets for two years past, but not regularly. The father got his living in the streets by “playing;” she seemed reluctant to talk about his avocation, but I found that he was sometimes a street-musician, or street-performer, and sometimes sung or recited in public houses, and having “seen better days,” had it appears communicated some feeling of dislike for his present pursuits to his daughter, so that I discontinued any allusion to the subject. The mother earned 2_s._ or 2_s._ 6_d._ weekly, in shoe-binding, when she had employment, which was three weeks out of four, and a son of thirteen earned what was sufficient to maintain him as an (occasional) assistant in a wholesale pottery, or rather pot-shop.

“It’s in the winter, sir, when things are far worst with us. Father can make very little then--but I don’t know what he earns exactly at any time--and though mother has more work then, there’s fire and candle to pay for. We were very badly off last winter, and worse, I think, the winter before. Father sometimes came home and had made nothing, and if mother had no work in hand we went to bed to save fire and candle, if it was ever so soon. Father would die afore he would let mother take as much as a loaf from the parish. I was sent out to sell nuts first: ‘If it’s only 1_d._ you make,’ mother said, ‘it’s a good piece of bread.’ I didn’t mind being sent out. I knew children that sold things in the streets. Perhaps I liked it better than staying at home without a fire and with nothing to do, and if I went out I saw other children busy. No, I wasn’t a bit frightened when I first started, not a bit. Some children--but they was such little things--said: ‘O, Liz, I wish I was you.’ I had twelve ha’porths and sold them all. I don’t know what it made; 2_d._ most likely. I didn’t crack a single nut myself. I was fond of them then, but I don’t care for them now. I could do better if I went into public-houses, but I’m only let go to Mr. Smith’s, because he knows father, and Mrs. Smith and him recommends me and wouldn’t let anybody mislest me. Nobody ever offered to. I hear people swear there sometimes, but it’s not at me. I sell nuts to children in the streets, and laces to young women. I have sold nuts and oranges to soldiers. They never say anything rude to me, never. I was once in a great crowd, and was getting crushed, and there was a very tall soldier close by me, and he lifted me, basket and all, right up to his shoulder, and carried me clean out of the crowd. He had stripes on his arm. ‘I shouldn’t like you to be in such a trade,’ says he, ‘if you was my child.’ He didn’t say why he wouldn’t like it. Perhaps because it was beginning to rain. Yes, we are far better off now. Father makes money. I don’t go out in bad weather in the summer; in the winter, though, I must. I don’t know what I make. I don’t know what I shall be when I grow up. I can read a little. I’ve been to church five or six times in my life. I should go oftener and so would mother, if we had clothes.”

I have no reason to suppose that in this case the father was an intemperate man, though some of the parents who thus send their children out are intemperate, and, loving to indulge in the idleness to which intemperance inclines them, are forced to live on the labour of their wives and children.

OF A “NEGLECTED” CHILD, A STREET-SELLER.

Of this class perhaps there is less to be said than of others. Drunken parents allow their children to run about the streets, and often to shift for themselves. If such parents have any sense of shame, unextinguished by their continued besottedness, they may feel relieved by not having their children before their eyes, for the very sight of them is a reproach, and every rag about such helpless beings must carry its accusation to a mind not utterly callous.

Among such children there is not, perhaps, that extreme pressure of wretchedness or of privation that there is among the orphans, or the utterly deserted. If a “neglected child” have to shift, wholly or partly, for itself, it is perhaps with the advantage of a shelter; for even the bare room of the drunkard is in some degree a shelter or roof. There is not the nightly need of 2_d._ for a bed, or the alternative of the Adelphi arches for nothing.

I met with one little girl ten or eleven years of age, whom some of the street-sellers described to me as looking out for a job every now and then. She was small-featured and dark-eyed, and seemed intelligent. Her face and hands were brown as if from exposure to the weather, and a lack of soap; but her dress was not dirty. Her father she described as a builder, probably a bricklayer’s labourer, but he could work, she said, at drains or such like. “Mother’s been dead a long time,” the child continued, “and father brought another woman home and told me to call her mother, but she soon went away. I works about the streets, but only when there’s nothing to eat at home. Father gets drunk sometimes, but I think not so oft as he did, and then he lies in bed. No, sir, not all day, but he gets up and goes out and gets more drink, and comes back and goes to bed again. He never uses me badly. When he’s drinking and has money, he gives me some now and then to get bread and butter with, or a halfpenny pudding; he never eats anything in the house when he’s drinking, and he’s a very quiet man. Sometimes he’s laid in bed two or three days and nights at a time. I goes to school when father has money. We lives very well then. I’ve kept myself for a whole week. I mind people’s stalls, if they’re away a bit, and run for them if they’re wanted; and I go errands. I’ve carried home flower-pots for a lady. I’ve got a halfpenny on a day, and a penny, and some bread perhaps, and I’ve lived on that. I should like very well to have a pitch of my own. I think I should like that better than place. But I have a sister who has a place in the country; she’s far older than I am, and perhaps I shall get one. But father’s at work now, and he says he’ll take the pledge. Five or six times I’ve sold oranges, and ingans as well, and carried the money to Mrs. ----, who gave me all I took above 4_d._ for myself.”

It could surprise no one if a child so neglected became so habituated to a street life, that she could not adapt herself to any other. I heard of other children thus or similarly neglected, but boys far more frequently than girls, who traded regularly in apples, oranges, &c., on their own account. Some have become regular street-sellers, and even in childhood have abandoned their homes and supported themselves.

OF A HIRED COSTER BOY.

One shell-fish seller, who has known street-commerce and street-folk for many years, thought, although he only hazarded an opinion, that there was less drinking among the young costers, and less swearing, than he had known in a preceding generation.

A young coster boy living with his parents, who had a good business, told me that he would never be nothing but a “general dealer,” (which among some of these people is the “genteel” designation for a costermonger,) as long as he lived, unless, indeed, he rose to a coal shed and a horse and cart; a consummation, perhaps with the addition of a green-grocery, a fried fish, and a gingerbeer trade, not unfrequently arrived at by the more prudent costermongers. This boy could neither read nor write; he had been sent to school, and flogged to school (he grinned as he told me) by his mother, who said his father wouldn’t have been “done” so often by fine folks, when he sold “grass” (asparagus) and such things as cost money, if he could have kept ’count. But his father only laughed, and said nothing, when the boy “cut away” from school, which he did so continuously, that the schoolmaster at length declined the charge of the young coster’s further education. This stripling, who was about fourteen, seemed very proud of a pair of good half-boots which his mother had bought him, and which he admired continually as he glanced at his feet. His parents, from his account, were indulgent, and when they got farthings in change or in any manner, kept them for him; and so he got treats, and smart things to wear now and then. “We expects to do well,” he said, for he used the “we” when he spoke of his parents’ business, “when it’s peas and new potatoes, cheap enough to cry. It’s my dodge to cry. I know a man as says, ‘May month ought to be ashamed on itself, or things ’ud a been herlier.’ Last week I sung out, it was the same man’s dodge, he put me up to it--‘Here’s your Great Exhibition mackarel.’ People laughed, but it weren’t no great good. I’ve been to Penny Gaffs, but not this goodish bit. I likes the singing best as has a stunnin chorus. There’s been a deal of hard up lately among people as is general dealers. Things is getting better, I think, and they must. It wouldn’t do at all if they didn’t. It’s no use your a-asking me about what I thinks of the Queen or them sort of people, for I knows nothing about them, and never goes among them.”

The Hired boys, for the service of the costermongers, whether hired for the day, or more permanently, are very generally of the classes I have spoken of. When the New Cut, Lambeth, was a great street-market, every morning, during the height of the vegetable and fruit seasons, lads used to assemble in Hooper-street, Short-street, York-street, and, indeed, in all the smaller streets or courts, which run right and left from the “two Cuts.” When the costermonger started thence, perhaps “by the first light,” to market, these boys used to run up to his barrow, “D’you want me, Jack?” or, “Want a boy, Bill?” being their constant request. It is now the same, in the localities where the costermongers live, or where they keep their ponies, donkeys, and barrows, and whence they emerge to market. It is the same at Billingsgate and the other markets at which these traders make their wholesale purchases. Boys wait about these marts “to be hired,” or, as they may style it, to “see if they’re wanted.” When hired, there is seldom any “wage” specified, the lads seeming always willing to depend upon the liberality of the costermonger, and often no doubt with an eye to the chances of “bunse.” A sharp lad thus engaged, who may acquit himself to a costermonger’s liking, perhaps continues some time in the same man’s employ. I may observe, that in this gathering, and for such a purpose, there is a resemblance to the simple proceedings of the old times, when around the market cross of the nearest town assembled the population who sought employment, whether in agricultural or household labour. In some parts of the north of England these gatherings are still held at the two half-yearly terms of May-day and Martinmas.

A lad of thirteen or fourteen, who did not look very strong, gave me the following account: “I helps, you see, sir, where I can, for mother (who sells sheep’s-trotters) depends a deal on her trotters, but they’re not great bread for an old ’oman, and there’s me and Neddy to keep. Father’s abroad and a soger. Do I know he is? Mother says so, sir. I looks out every morning when the costermongers starts for the markets and wants boys for their barrows. I cried roots last: ‘Here’s your musks, ha’penny each. Here’s yer all agro’in’ and all a blo’in’.’ I got my grub and 3_d._ I takes the tin home. If there’s a cabbage or two left, I’ve had it guv to me. I likes that work better nor school. I should think so. One sees life. Well, I don’t know wot one sees perticler; but it’s wot people calls life. I was a week at school once. I has a toss up sometimes when I has a odd copper for it. I ’aven’t ’ad any rig’lar work as yet. I shall p’raps when it’s real summer.” [Said, May 24th.] “This is the Queen’s birthday, is it, sir? Werry likely, but she’s nothing to me. I can’t read, in coorse not, after a week’s schooling. Yes, I likes a show. Punch is stunnin’, but they might make more on the dog. I would if I was a Punch. O, I has tea, and bread and butter with mother, and gets grub as I jobs besides. I makes no bargain. If a cove’s scaly, we gets to know him. I hopes to have a barrer of my own some day, and p’raps a hass. Can I manage a hass? In coorse, and he don’t want no groomin’. I’d go to Hepsom then; I’ve never been yet, but I’ve been to Grinnage fairs. I don’t know how I can get a barrer and a hass, but I may have luck.”

OF AN ORPHAN BOY, A STREET-SELLER.

From one of this class I had the following account. It may be observed that the lad’s statement contains little of incident, or of novelty, but this is characteristic of many of his class. With many of them, it may indeed be said, “one day certifieth another.” It is often the same tale of labour and of poverty, day after day, so that the mere uniformity makes a youth half oblivious of the past; the months, or perhaps years, seem all alike.

This boy seemed healthy, wore a suit of corduroy, evidently not made for him, and but little patched, although old; he was in good spirits.

“I believe I’m between fifteen and sixteen,” he said, “and mother died more than two year ago, nearer three, perhaps. Father had gone dead a long time afore; I don’t remember him.” [I am inclined to think that this story of the death of the father is often told by the mother of an illegitimate child to her offspring, through a natural repugnance to reveal her shame to her child. I do not know, however, that it was the case in this instance.] “I don’t remember about mother’s funeral, for I was ill myself at the time. She worked with her needle; sometimes for a dressmaker, on “skirts,” and sometimes for a tailor, on flannels. She sometimes worked all night, but we was wery badly off--we was so. She had only me. When mother died there was nothing left for me, but there was a good woman--she was a laundress and kept a mangle--and she said, ‘well, here’s a old basket and a few odd things; give the kid the basket and turn the bits of old traps into money, and let him start on muffins, and then he must shift for hisself.’ So she tuk me to a shop and I was started in the muffin line. I didn’t do so bad, but it’s on’y a winter trade, isn’t muffins. I sold creases next--no, not creases, cherries; yes, it was creases, and then cherries, for I remembers as ’ow ’Ungerford was the first market I ever was at; it was so. Since then, I’ve sold apples, and oranges, and nuts, and chestnuts--but they was dear the last time as I had ’em--and spring garters a penny a pair, and glass pens; yes, and other things. I goes to market, mostly to Common Gard’n, and there’s a man goes there what buys bushels and bushels, and he’ll let me have any little lot reas’nable; he will so. There’s another will, but he ain’t so good to a poor kid. Well, I doesn’t know as ’ow one trade’s better nor another; I think I’ve done as much in one as in another. But I’ve done better lately; I’ve sold more oranges, and I had a few sticks of rhubarb. I think times is mending, but others says that’s on’y my luck. I sleeps with a boy as is younger nor I am, and pays 9_d._ a week. Tom’s father and mother--he’s a coal-heaver, but he’s sometimes out of work--sleeps in the same room, but we has a good bed to ourselves. Tom’s father knew my mother. There’s on’y us four. Tom’s father says sometimes if his rheumatics continues, he and all on ’em must go into the house. Most likely I should then go to a lodging-house. I don’t know that some on ’em’s bad places. I’ve heer’d they was jolly. I has no amusements. Last year I helped a man one day, and he did so well on fruit, he did so, for he got such a early start, and so cheap, that he gave me 3_d._ hextra to go to the play with. I didn’t go. I’d rather go to bed at seven every night than anywhere else. I’m fond of sleep. I never wakes all night. I dreams now and then, but I never remembers a dream. I can’t read or write; I wish I could, if it would help me on. I’m making 3_s._ 6_d._ a week now, I think. Some weeks in winter I didn’t make 2_s._”

This boy, although an orphan at a tender age, was yet assisted to the commencement of a business by a friend. I met with another lad who was left under somewhat similar circumstances. The persons in the house where his mother had died were about to take him to the parish officers, and there seemed to be no other course to be pursued to save the child, then nearly twelve, from starvation. The lad knew this and ran away. It was summer time, about three years ago, and the little runaway slept in the open air whenever he could find a quiet place. Want drove him to beg, and several days he subsisted on one penny which he begged. One day he did not find any one to give him even a halfpenny, and towards the evening of the second he became bold, or even desperate, from hunger. As if by a sudden impulse he went up to an old gentleman, walking slowly in Hyde-park, and said to him, “Sir, I’ve lived three weeks by begging, and I’m hungering now; give me sixpence, or I’ll go and steal.” The gentleman stopped and looked at the boy, in whose tones there must have been truthfulness, and in whose face was no doubt starvation, for without uttering a word he gave the young applicant a shilling. The boy began a street-seller’s life on lucifer-matches. I had to see him for another purpose a little while ago, and in the course of some conversation he told me of his start in the streets. I have no doubt he told the truth, and I should have given a more detailed account of him, but when I inquired for him, I found that he had gone to Epsom races to sell cards, and had not returned, having probably left London on a country tour. But for the old gentleman’s bounty he would have stolen something, he declared, had it been only for the shelter of a prison.

OF THE LIFE OF AN ORPHAN GIRL, A STREET-SELLER.

“Father was a whitesmith,” she said, “and mother used to go out a-washing and a-cleaning, and me and my sister (but she is dead now) did nothing; we was sent to a day school, both of us. We lived very comfortable; we had two rooms and our own furniture; we didn’t want for nothing when father was alive; he was very fond on us both, and was a kind man to everybody. He was took bad first when I was very young--it was consumption he had, and he was ill many years, about five years, I think it was, afore he died. When he was gone mother kept us both; she had plenty of work; she couldn’t a-bear the thought of our going into the streets for a living, and we was both too young to get a place anywhere, so we stayed at home and went to school just as when father was alive. My sister died about two year and a half ago; she had the scarlet-fever dreadful, she lay ill seven weeks. We was both very fond of her, me and mother. I often wish she had been spared, I should not be alone in the world as I am now. We might have gone on together, but it is dreadful to be quite alone, and I often think now how well we could have done if she was alive.

“Mother has been dead just a year this month; she took cold at the washing and it went to her chest; she was only bad a fortnight; she suffered great pain, and, poor thing, she used to fret dreadful, as she lay ill, about me, for she knew she was going to leave me. She used to plan how I was to do when she was gone. She made me promise to try to get a place and keep from the streets if I could, for she seemed to dread them so much. When she was gone I was left in the world without a friend. I am quite alone, I have no relation at all, not a soul belonging to me. For three months I went about looking for a place, as long as my money lasted, for mother told me to sell our furniture to keep me and get me clothes. I could have got a place, but nobody would have me without a character, and I knew nobody to give me one. I tried very hard to get one, indeed I did; for I thought of all mother had said to me about going into the streets. At last, when my money was just gone, I met a young woman in the street, and I asked her to tell me where I could get a lodging. She told me to come with her, she would show me a respectable lodging-house for women and girls. I went, and I have been there ever since. The women in the house advised me to take to flower-selling, as I could get nothing else to do. One of the young women took me to market with her, and showed me how to bargain with the salesman for my flowers. At first, when I went out to sell, I felt so ashamed I could not ask anybody to buy of me; and many times went back at night with all my stock, without selling one bunch. The woman at the lodging-house is very good to me; and when I have a bad day she will let my lodging go until I can pay her. She always gives me my dinner, and a good dinner it is, of a Sunday; and she will often give me a breakfast, when she knows I have no money to buy any. She is very kind, indeed, for she knows I am alone. I feel very thankful to her, I am sure, for all her goodness to me. During the summer months I take 1_s._ 6_d._ per day, which is 6_d._ profit. But I can only sell my flowers five days in the week--Mondays there is no flowers in the market: and of the 6_d._ a day I pay 3_d._ for lodging. I get a halfpenny-worth of tea; a halfpenny-worth of sugar; one pound of bread, 1-1/2_d._; butter, 1/2_d._ I never tastes meat but on Sunday. What I shall do in the winter I don’t know. In the cold weather last year, when I could get no flowers, I was forced to live on my clothes, I have none left now but what I have on. What I shall do I don’t know--I can’t bear to think on it.”

OF TWO RUNAWAY STREET-BOYS.

I endeavoured to find a boy or girl who belonged to the well-educated classes, had run away, and was now a street-seller. I heard of boys of this class--one man thought he knew five, and was sure of four--who now lived by street-selling, my informant believed without having any recourse to theft, but all these boys were absent; they had not returned from Epsom, or had not returned to their usual haunts, or else they had started for their summer’s excursion into the country. Many a street-seller becomes as weary of town after the winter as a member of parliament who sits out a very long session; and the moment the weather is warm, and “seems settled,” they are off into the country. In this change of scene there is the feeling of independence, of freedom; they are not “tied to their work;” and this feeling has perhaps even greater charms for the child than the adult.

The number of lads of a well-educated class, who support themselves by street-selling, is not large. I speak of those whom I have classed as children under fifteen years of age. If a boy run away, scared and terrified by the violence of a parent, or maddened by continuous and sometimes excessive severity, the parent often feels compunction, and I heard of persons being sent to every lodging-house in London, and told to search every dry arch, to bring back a runaway. On these occasions the street-sellers willingly give their aid; I have even heard of women, whose degradation was of the lowest, exerting themselves in the recovery of a runaway child, and that often unsolicited and as often unrecompensed.

The children who are truants through their own vicious or reckless propensities, or through the inducements of their seniors, become far more frequently, thieves or lurkers, rather than street-sellers. As to runaway girls of a well-educated class, and under fifteen, I heard of none who were street-sellers.

I now give instances of two runaway lads, who have been dishonest, and honest.

The one, when he told me his history, was a slim and rather tall young man of 23 or 24, with a look, speech, and air, anything but vulgar. He was the son of a wealthy jeweller, in a town in the West of England, and ran away from home with an adult member of his father’s establishment, who first suggested such a course, taking with them money and valuables. They came to London, and the elder thief, retaining all the stolen property, at once abandoned the child, then only ten, and little and young-looking for his age. He fell into the hands of some members of the swell-mob, and became extremely serviceable to them. He was dressed like a gentleman’s son, and was innocent-looking and handsome. His appearance, when I saw him, showed that this must have been the case as regards his looks. He lived with some of the swell-mobsmen--then a more prosperous people than they are now--in a good house in the Southwark-Bridge-road. The women who resided with the mobsmen were especially kind to him. He was well fed, well lodged, well clad, and petted in everything. He was called “the kid,” a common slang name for a child, but he was the kid. He “went to work” in Regent-street, or wherever there were most ladies, and his appearance disarmed suspicion. He was, moreover, highly successful in church and chapel practice. At length he became “spotted.” The police got to know him, and he was apprehended, tried, and convicted. He was, however--he believed through the interest of his friends, of whose inquiries concerning him he had heard, but of that I know nothing--sent to the Philanthropic Asylum, then in St. George’s-road. Here he remained the usual time, then left the place well clothed, and with a sum of money, and endeavoured to obtain some permanent employment. In this endeavour he failed. Whether he exerted himself strenuously or not I cannot say, but he told me that the very circumstance of his having been “in the Philanthropic” was fatal to his success. His “character” and “recommendations” necessarily showed where he had come from, and the young man, as he then was, became a beggar. His chief practice was in “screeving,” or writing on the pavement. Perhaps some of my readers may remember having noticed a wretched-looking youth who hung over the words “I AM STARVING,” chalked on the footway on the Surrey side of Waterloo Bridge. He lay huddled in a heap, and appeared half dead with cold and want, his shirtless neck and shoulders being visible through the rents in his thin jean jacket; shoe or stocking he did not wear. This was the rich jeweller’s son. Until he himself told me of it--and he seemed to do so with some sense of shame--I could not have believed that the well-spoken and well-looking youth before me was the piteous object I had observed by the bridge. What he is doing now I am unable to state.

Another boy, who thought he was not yet fifteen, though he looked older, gave me the following account. He was short but seemed strong, and his career, so far, is chiefly remarkable for his perseverance, exercised as much, perhaps, from insensibility as from any other quality. He was sufficiently stupid. If he had parents living, he said, he didn’t know nothing about them; he had lived and slept with an old woman who said she was his grandmother, and he’d been told that she weren’t no relation; he didn’t trouble himself about it. She sold lucifer-boxes or any trifle in the streets, and had an allowance of 2_s._ weekly, but from what quarter he did not know. About four years ago he was run over by a cab, and was carried to the workhouse or the hospital; he believed it was Clerkenwell Workhouse, but he weren’t sure. When he recovered and was discharged he found the old woman was dead, and a neighbour went with him to the parish officers, by whom--as well as I could understand him--he was sent to the workhouse, after some inquiry. He was soon removed to Nor’ud. On my asking if he meant Norwood, he replied, “no, Nor’ud,” and there he was with a number of other children with a Mr. Horbyn. He did not know how long he was there, and he didn’t know as he had anything much to complain of, but he ran away. He ran away because he thought he would; and he believed he could get work at paper-staining. He made his way to Smithfield, near where there was a great paper-stainer’s, but he could not get any work, and he was threatened to be sent back, as they knew from his dress that he had run away. He slept in Smithfield courts and alleys, fitting himself into any covered corner he could find. The poor women about were kind to him, and gave him pieces of bread; some knew that he had run away from a workhouse and was all the kinder. “The fust browns as ivver I yarned,” he said, “was from a drover. He was a going into the country to meet some beasts, and had to carry some passels for somebody down there. They wasn’t ’evvy, but they was orkerd to grip. His old ’oman luk out for a young cove to ’elp her old man, and saw me fust, so she calls me, and I gets the job. I gived the greatest of satisfaction, and had sixpence giv me, for Jim (the drover) was well paid, as they was vallyble passels, and he said he’d taken the greatest of care on ’em, and had engaged a poor lad to ’elp him.” On his return the child slept in a bed, in a house near Gray’s-inn-lane, for the first time since he had run away, he believed about a fortnight. He persevered in looking out for odd jobs, without ever stealing, though he met some boys who told him he was a fool not to prig. “I used to carry his tea from his old ’oman,” he went on, “to a old cove as had a stunnin’ pitch of fruit in the City-road. But my best friend was Stumpy; he had a beautiful crossin’ (as a sweeper) then, but he’s dead now and berried as well. I used to talk to him and whistle--I can just whistle” [here he whistled loud and shrill, to convince me of his perfection in that street accomplishment] “--and to dance him the double-shuffle” [he favoured me with a specimen of that dance], “and he said I hinterested him. Well, he meant he liked it, I s’pose. When he went to rest hisself, for he soon got tired, over his drop of beer to his grub, I had his crossin’ and his broom for nuff’n. One boy used to say to Stumpy, ‘I’ll give you 1_d._ for your crossin’ while you’s grubbin.’ But I had it for nuff’n, and had all I yarned; sometimes 1_d._, sometimes 2_d._, but only once 3-1/2_d._ I’ve been ’elping Old Bill with his summer cabbages and flowers (cauliflowers), and now he’s on live heels. I can sing ’em out prime, but you ’eared me. I has my bit o’ grub with him, and a few browns, and Old Bill and Young Bill, too, says I shall have better to do, but I can’t until peas. I sleeps in a loft with ’ampers, which is Old Bill’s; a stunnin’ good bed. I’ve cried for and ’elped other costers. Stumpy sent me to ’em. I think he’d been one hisself, but I was always on the look-out. I’ll go for some bunse soon. I don’t know what I shall do time to come, I nivver thinks on it. I could read middlin’, and can a little now, but I’m out of practice.”

I have given this little fellow’s statement somewhat fully, for I believe he is a type of the most numerous class of runaway urchins who ripen, so to speak, into costermongers, after “helping” that large body of street-traders.

I heard of one boy who had been discharged from Brixton, and had received 6_d._ to begin the world with, as it was his first offence, on his way back to London, being called upon suddenly as soon as he had reached the New Cut (then the greatest of all the street-markets) to help a costermonger. This gave the boy a start, and he had since lived honestly.

OF THE CAPITAL AND INCOME OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF MANUFACTURED ARTICLES.

Before giving a Summary of the Capital and Income of the above-mentioned class, I shall endeavour to arrive at some notion as to the number of persons belonging to this division of the London Street-sellers.

As far as I am able to ascertain, the following estimate may be taken as an approximation to the truth. There are in the metropolis 100 hardware-sellers, 6 cheap Johns, 30 sellers of cutlery, 6 sellers of tailors’ needles, 20 sellers of metal spoons, 500 sellers of jewellery, 2 sellers of card counters, 15 sellers of medals, 6 sellers of rings and sovereigns for a wager, 25 sellers of children’s gilt watches, 100 sellers of tin-ware, 100 swag-barrowmen, 12 sellers of dog-collars, &c., 40 sellers of tools, 380 sellers of crockery and glass-wares, 12 sellers of spar-ornaments, 30 sellers of China-ornaments, 6 sellers of stone-fruit, 120 packmen and duffers or hawkers of soft wares, 500 sellers of tapes, cottons, &c., 100 sellers of lace, 15 sellers of japanned table covers, 500 brace and belt-sellers, 50 sellers of hose, 3 sellers of waistcoats, 230 sellers of blacking, 125 sellers of black-lead, 5 sellers of French polish, 7 sellers of grease-removing composition, 4 sellers of plating-balls, 8 sellers of corn-salve, 4 sellers of China and glass cement, 6 sellers of razor paste, 55 sellers of crackers and detonating-balls, 200 sellers of Lucifer matches, 100 sellers of cigar-lights, 30 sellers of gutta-percha heads, 50 sellers of fly-papers and beetle-wafers, 25 sellers of poison for rats, 35 sellers of walking-sticks, 30 sellers of whips, 4 sellers of clay and Meerschaum pipes, 15 sellers of tobacco-boxes, snuff-boxes, and cigar-cases, 100 sellers of cigars, 50 sellers of sponge, 200 sellers of wash-leathers, 35 sellers of spectacles, and eye-glasses, 50 sellers of dolls, 50 lot-sellers, 2 sellers of Roulette tables, 4 sellers of rhubarb, 100 rat-catchers, 50 sellers of combs, 50 sellers of money-bags, 70 sellers of coat-studs; making altogether a total of 4272.

Some few of the above trades are, however, of only a temporary character; as, for instance, such as are engaged in the street-sale of crackers and detonating-balls--the month of November and the Christmas week being the only regular periods, with the exception of fairs and races, for the vending of those articles. The fly-papers and beetle-wafers are other instances of the same kind--summer being the only season in which there is a demand for such things. Making due allowance therefore for the temporary character of some of the callings, as well as for the itinerancy and unsettledness of other trades or traders, we may, I think, safely assume that the street-sellers connected with this class are about 4000 in number.

Concerning the amount of capital invested in this branch of the street-traffic as well as the income derived therefrom, the following tables are given as being somewhat near the truth.

METAL.

Street-Sellers of Hardware.

£ s. d. Stock-money for 100 vendors at 10_s._ each 50 0 0

Cheap Johns.

6 carts 30_l._ each, and stock-money for the same, 50_l._ each 480 0 0

Street-Sellers of Cutlery.

Stock-money for 30 vendors at 1_s._ 6_d._ each 2 5 0

Blind Street-Sellers of Tailors’ Needles.

6 boxes at 1_s._ 6_d._ each; stock-money for 6 vendors at 2_s._ each 1 1 0

Street-Sellers of Metal Spoons, &c., at Public-Houses.

Stock-money for 20 vendors at 2_s._ 6_d._ each 2 10 0

Street-Sellers of Jewellery.

500 boxes at 3_s._ 6_d._ each; stock-money for 500 vendors at 15_s._ each 462 10 0

Street-Sellers of Card-Counters, Medals, &c.

17 boxes at 3_s._ each; stock-money for 17 vendors at 2_s._ 6_d._ each 4 13 6

Street-Sellers of Rings and Sovereigns for Wagers.

Stock-money for 6 vendors at 2_s._ 6_d._ each 0 15 0

Street-Sellers of Children’s Gilt Watches.

Stock-money for 25 vendors at 5_s._ each 6 5 0

Street-Sellers of Tin-Ware.

50 stalls, at 3_s._ each; stock-money for 100 vendors, averaging 6_s._ each 37 10 0

Street Swag-barrowmen.

100 barrows, at 1_l._ each; stock-money for 150 swag-barrowmen, at 10_s._ each 175 0 0

Street-Sellers of Dog-collars, Key-rings, &c.

6 stalls, at 3_s._ each; stock-money for 12 vendors, at 5_s._ each 3 18 0

Street-Sellers of Tools.

6 stalls, at 3_s._ each; stock-money for 40 vendors, at 10_s._ each 20 18 0

CROCKERY AND GLASS.

Street-Sellers of Crockery and Glass-Wares.

100 barrows, at 1_l._ each; 280 baskets, at 2_s._ 6_d._ each; 280 linen bags, at 1_s._ 6_d._ each; stock-money for 380 vendors, at 10_s._ each 346 0 0

Street-Sellers of Spar and China-Ornaments, and Stone-Fruit.

16 barrows, at 1_l._ each; stock-money for 12 vendors of spar-ornaments, at 15_s._ each; 16 baskets, at 2_s._ 6_d._ each; 16 stalls, at 3_s._ each; stock-money for 6 vendors of stone-fruit, at 10_s._ each; and 20 roulette tables, at 2_s._ 6_d._ each; stock-money for 30 sellers of China-ornaments, at 5_s._ each 42 8 0

TEXTILE.

Packmen and Duffers, or Hawkers of Soft Wares.

120 wrappers, at 2_s._ each; stock-money for 120 hawkers, at 5_l._ each 612 0 0

_Street-Sellers of Small Ware, or Tapes, Cottons, &c._

500 boxes, at 1_s._ 6_d._ each; stock-money for 500 vendors, at 1_s._ each 62 10 0

Street-Sellers of Lace.

20 baskets, at 2_s._ 6_d._ each; 20 boxes, at 3_s._ each; 60 stalls, at 3_s._ each; stock-money for 100 vendors, averaging 2_s._ 6_d._ each 27 0 0

Street-Sellers of Japan Table-Covers.

Stock-money for 15 sellers, at 10_s._ each 7 10 0

_Street-Sellers of Braces and Belts, Hose, Trowser-straps, and Waistcoats._

100 stalls, at 4_s._ each; 300 rods, with hooks to hang the braces upon, at 3_d._ each; stock-money for 500 brace-sellers, at 5_s._ each 148 15 0

Street-Sellers of Hose.

Stock-money for 50 vendors, at 10_s._ each 25 0 0

Street-Sellers of Waistcoats.

Stock-money for 3 vendors, at 15_s._ each 2 5 0

CHEMICALS.

Street-Sellers of Blacking.

200 boxes, at 6_d._ each; 30 bags, at 1_s._ each; stock-money for 230 vendors, averaging 2_s._ each 29 10 0

Street-Sellers of Black-Lead.

Stock-money for 125 vendors, at 1_s._ each 6 5 0

Street-Sellers of French Polish.

5 boxes, at 1_s._ 6_d._ each; stock-money for 5 vendors, at 2_s._ 6_d._ each 1 0 0

Street-Sellers of Grease-removing Composition.

7 boxes, at 1_s._ 6_d._ each; stock-money for 7 vendors, at 1_s._ 6_d._ each 1 1 0

Street-Sellers of Plating-Balls.

4 boxes, at 1_s._ 6_d._ each; stock-money for 4 vendors, at 1_s._ each 0 10 0

Street-Sellers of Corn-Salve.

8 boxes, at 1_s._ 6_d._ each; stock-money for 8 vendors, at 6_d._ each 0 16 0

Street-Sellers of Glass and China-Cement.

4 boxes, at 1_s._ 6_d._ each; stock-money for 4 vendors, at 6_d._ each 0 8 0

Street-Sellers of Razor-Paste.

6 trays, at 2_s._ each; stock-money for 6 vendors, at 1_s._ each 0 18 0

Street-Sellers of Crackers and Detonating-Balls.

55 trays, at 2_s._ each; stock-money for 55 vendors, at 1_s._ 6_d._ each 9 12 6

Street-Sellers of Lucifer Matches.

200 boxes, at 6_d._ each; stock-money for 200 vendors, at 6_d._ each 10 0 0

Street-Sellers of Cigar-Lights.

Stock-money for 100 vendors, at 6_d._ each 2 10 0

Street-Sellers of Gutta-Percha Heads.

30 boxes, at 1_s._ 6_d._ each; stock-money for 30 vendors, at 1_s._ each 3 15 0

Street-Sellers of Fly-Papers and Beetle-Wafers.

Stock-money for 50 vendors, at 1_s._ each 2 10 0

Street-Sellers of Poison for Rats.

Stock-money for 25 vendors, at 2_s._ 6_d._ each 3 2 6

MISCELLANEOUS.

Street-Sellers of Walking-sticks.

Stock-money for 35 vendors, at 5_s._ each 8 15 0

Street-Sellers of Whips.

Stock-money for 30 vendors, at 15_s._ each 22 10 0

Street-Sellers of Pipes (Tobacco).

Stock-money for 4 vendors, at 5_s._ each 1 0 0

Street-Sellers of Snuff-Boxes, Tobacco-Boxes, &c.

15 stalls, at 4_s._ each; stock-money for 15 vendors, at 10_s._ each 10 10 0

Street-Sellers of Cigars.

Stock-money for 100 vendors, at 10_s._ each 50 0 0

Street-Sellers of Sponge.

50 baskets, at 1_s._ each; stock-money for 50 vendors, at 5_s._ each 15 0 0

Street-Sellers of Wash-Leathers.

Stock-money for 200 vendors, at 2_s._ 6_d._ each 25 0 0

_Street-Sellers of Spectacles and Eye-Glasses._

Stock-money for 35 vendors, at 5_s._ each 8 15 0

Street-Sellers of Dolls.

20 stalls, at 4_s._ each; 30 baskets, at 3_s._ 6_d._ each; stock-money for 50 vendors, at 10_s._ each 34 5 0

Street Lot-Sellers.

50 boxes, at 1_s._ 6_d._ each; stock-money for 50 sellers, at 2_s._ 6_d._ each 10 0 0

Street-Sellers of Roulette Boxes.

2 baskets, at 3_s._ 6_d._; stock-money for 2 vendors, at 1_l._ each 2 7 0

Street-Sellers of Rhubarb and Spice.

4 boxes, at 6_s._ each; stock-money for 4 vendors, at 10_s._ each 3 4 0

Rat-Catchers.

20 belts, at 3_s._ 6_d._ each; 25 cages, at 1_s._ each; 25 pair of ferrets, at 2_s._ 6_d._ per pair; keep for 25 pair of ferrets, at 4_d._ per pair weekly 8 5 10

Street-Sellers of Combs.

50 stalls, at 3_s._ each; 50 boxes, at 3_s._ 6_d._ each; stock-money for 50 vendors, at 2_s._ 6_d._ each 22 10 0

Street-Sellers of Money-Bags.

Stock-money for 50 vendors, at 2_s._ each 5 0 0

Street-Sellers of Coat-Studs.

70 boxes, at 1_s._ 6_d._ each, stock-money for 70 vendors, at 2_s._ 6_d._ each 14 0 0 ------------------ Total amount of capital 2,833 13 4

INCOME OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF MANUFACTURED ARTICLES.

METAL.

Street-Sellers of Hardware.

There are at present 100 hardware sellers, trading in London, &c.; half of them, I am assured, may be said to take on an average from 20_s._ to 25_s._, weekly the year through; a quarter take 15_s._, and the remaining quarter from 7_s._ 6_d._ to 10_s._ Calculating an average receipt of 15_s._ each per week, throughout the entire class, men, women, and children, we find there is annually expended in street-sold hardwares 3,900 0 0

Cheap Johns.

If we calculate that there are 6 “Cheap Johns” in London throughout the year, and that they each take 4_l._ per day for nine months in the year, or 24_l._ per week; this amounts to about 5,000_l._ in nine months. Say that during the winter or the remaining 13 weeks of the year, their receipts are 15_l._ each per week, this amounts to upwards of 1000_l._ additional, thus making a gross annual outlay with these dealers of 6,000 0 0

Street-Sellers of Cutlery.

Reckoning there are 30 men who are engaged regularly in the sale of cutlery, and that the average takings of each are about 15_s._ weekly, this gives a yearly expenditure in the street-trade of cutlery 1,170 0 0

Blind Street-Sellers of Tailors’ Needles.

There are now 6 men engaged in selling needles at the several tailors’ shops, and calculating their average daily receipts to be 2_s._ 6_d._ or 15_s._ a week each, we find that the annual takings of the whole are 234 0 0

Street-Sellers of Metal-Spoons in Publichouses.

From the best information I can arrive at, the number of metal-spoon hawkers is 20, each of whom take upon an average 16_s._ weekly, thus showing a yearly expenditure in the street-sale of spoons of 832 0 0

Street-Sellers of Jewellery.

I am informed that there are at present 500 persons engaged in the street sale of jewellery, and calculating a weekly profit of 10_s._ 6_d._, and a receipt of 18_s._ per individual, we find expended in the street-trade 23,400

Street-Sellers of Card-Counters.

If there be, on the year’s average, only two street-sellers disposing of “Jacks” and earning 9_s._ a week,--to earn which the receipts will be about 20_s._,--we find expended in the streets on these trifles annually 104 0 0

Street-Sellers of Medals.

An intelligent man, familiar with the trade, and who was in the habit of clubbing his stock-money with two others, so that they might buy a gross of medals at a time, calculated that 15 medal-sellers were engaged in the traffic the year through, and earned, upon medals alone, 6_d._ a day each, to clear which they must take 6_s._ 6_d._ weekly, giving a yearly outlay of 253 10 0

_Street-Sellers of Rings and Sovereigns for a Wager._

One of this class, who is “up to all the dodges of the trade,” informed me that there were only 6 men working the rings and sovereigns now in the streets, and that the average takings of each might be about 12_s._ weekly, thus showing a yearly expenditure of 187 4 0

Street-Sellers of Children’s Gilt Watches.

Calculating that 25 persons now vend watches for twelve weeks in the year and that each clears 8_s._ weekly, taking 24_s._, we find yearly expended in London streets on these toy watches 360 0 0

Street-Sellers of Tin-Ware.

If we calculate an average receipt, per individual, of 10_s._ weekly: we find, reckoning 100 sellers, a yearly expenditure on tins, bought in the street, of 2,600 0 0

Swag-Barrowmen.

Calculating that 100 of these traders are, the year round, in London (some are absent all the summer at country fairs, and on any favourable opportunity), and that each takes 2_l._ weekly, we find thus expended in the streets of London, in a year, no less than 10,400 0 0

Sellers of Dog-Collars, Key-Rings, &c.

Reckoning 12_s._ weekly taken by 12 men, there is expended yearly in the streets upon dog-collars 374 0 0

Street-Sellers of Tools.

There are at present 40 men engaged in selling tools throughout the metropolis and they each average about 15_s._ weekly. This gives a yearly outlay of 1,560 0 0

Street-Sellers of Crockery and Glass-Wares.

According to the best calculation there are 380 vendors of crockery and glass-wares, and the average takings of each may be said to amount to 10_s._ weekly, so giving an annual expenditure in the streets of 9,880 0 0

Street-Sellers of Spar-Ornaments.

In this trade I am informed that there are now 12 men, 9 of whom are assisted by their wives, and that in the summer months there are 18. Their profits are about 15_s._ per week on an average of the whole year. What amount of money may be expended by the public in the street-purchase of “spars” I am unable definitely to state, so much being done in the way of barter; but assuming that there are 14 sellers throughout the year, and that their profits are cent. per cent., there would appear to be laid out in the streets every year on these articles, about 1,000 0 0

Street-Sellers of China-Ornaments.

There are, I am informed, about 30 persons in this trade. If we calculate the receipts at 10_s._ weekly (a low average considering the success of some of the raffles), we find yearly expended in the streets in these ornamental productions 780 0 0

Street-Sellers of Stone-Fruit.

Supposing that there are 6 persons selling stone-fruit in the streets through the year, and that each earns 9_s._ weekly (one man said 7_s._ 6_d._ was the limit of his weekly profits), we find 140_l._ received as profit on these articles, and calculating the gains at 33 per cent., an outlay of 420 0 0

TEXTILE.

Packmen and Duffers, or Hawkers of Soft Wares.

I am told by a London hawker of soft goods that the number of his craft, hawking London and its vicinity, as far as he can judge, is about 120. In this number are included the Irish linen hawkers. I am also informed that the fair trader’s profits amount to about 20 per cent., while those of the not over-particular trader range from 80 to 200 per cent. In a fair way of business it is said the hawker’s takings will amount, upon an average, to 7_l._ or 8_l._ per week; whereas the receipts of the “duffer,” or unfair hawker, will sometimes reach to 50_l._ per week; at 7_l._ per week each, the gross takings will amount to 43,680 0 0

_Street-Sellers of Small Ware, or Tapes, Cottons, Laces, &c._

From the best data at my command, I believe there are not fewer than 500 individuals selling these wares in London. Their weekly receipts do not appear to average more than 6_s._ each, hence the expenditure on these articles will amount to 7,800 0 0

Street-Sellers of Lace.

100 persons in this trade may be said each to take 10_s._ 6_d._ weekly, the profit being about cent. per cent.; hence the annual sum expended in the streets in lace and similar commodities is 2,730 0 0

Street-Sellers of Japanned Table-Covers.

Calculating that 15 street-sellers each take 25_s._ weekly the year round--one-half being the profit, including their advantages in bartering and raffling--we find there is expended yearly upon japanned table-covers, bought in the streets 975 0 0

Street-Sellers of Braces and Belts.

500 brace-sellers are said to clear 5_s._ a week each on those articles alone, and estimating the profit at 33 per cent., it shows a street expenditure of 26,196_l._, and calculating one-eighth less for belts, we find that the annual outlay in the streets on braces and belts is 29,470 0 0

Street-Sellers of Hose.

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 6_s._ weekly per individual, with a profit of from 1_s._ 4_d._ to 2_s._; thus there is an aggregate expenditure yearly of 800 0 0

Street-Sellers of Waistcoats.

There are sometimes no waistcoat-sellers at all; but generally two, and not unfrequently three. The profits of these men are 1_s._ on a bad, and 2_s._ 6_d._ on a good day. As, at intervals, the street-sellers dispose of a sleeve-waistcoat (waistcoat with sleeves) at from 4_s._ 6_d._ to 6_s._, we may estimate the average earnings in the trade at 5_s._ per market day, or 10_s._ in the week; assuming their profits to be 33 per cent., this shows an annual outlay of 312 0 0

CHEMICAL.

Street-Sellers of Blacking.

There are at present 230 vendors of blacking in the London streets. 210 of these sell cake and liquid blacking, each taking 6_s._ weekly, while the 20 others “work” the Mews with a superior kind of blacking, taking 15_s._ each; thus there is a yearly expenditure in the sale of blacking in the streets of 4,056 0 0

Street-Sellers of Black-Lead.

There are, I am informed, 100 to 150 persons selling and hawking black-lead in the streets; it may be estimated that they take 4_s._ each weekly (the adults selling other small articles with the black-lead); thus we find--averaging the number of sellers at 125--that there is expended yearly in the street-sale of this article 1,300 0 0

Street-Sellers of French Polish.

The French-polish-Sellers, I am assured by a man familiar with the business, take 2_s._ a day each; the 2_s._ leaves a profit of 10_d._ The street expenditure is, therefore (reckoning five regular sellers) annually 156 0 0

Street-Sellers of Grease-removing Composition.

Calculating that 7 grease-removers carry on the sale of the article 3 days each week, and clear 1_s._ 6_d._ per day, we find a yearly expenditure on this commodity equal to 81 18 0

Street-Sellers of Plating-Balls.

Reckoning that 4 men are engaged in selling plating-balls 3 days in each week, and that each take 2_s._ a day, we find there is an annual outlay on the sale of this article of 62 8 0

Street-Sellers of Corn Salve.

Calculating that 8 of these traders take 10_s._ weekly, we find there is expended in the streets on this salve 208 0 0

Street-Sellers of Glass and China-Cement.

There are at present 4 men vending this article in the streets of London, and if each seller take 5_s._ weekly (of which 4_s._ may be profit), we find there is expended yearly by street customers in this cement 52 0 0

Street-Sellers of Razor Paste.

Calculating that 6 men “work” the metropolis daily, taking 2_s._ each per day (with 1_s._ 2_d._ profit), we find the amount of the street outlay to be upwards of 187 0 0

Street-Sellers of Crackers and Detonating-Balls.

I am assured that for a few days last November, from 50 to 60 men and women were selling crackers in the streets. The most intelligent man that I met with, acquainted, as he called it, “with all the ins and outs of the trade,” calculated that during the month of November and at Christmas, 100_l._ at least was expended in the streets in these combustibles, and another 100_l._ at other times of the year, thus giving altogether a yearly outlay of 200 0 0

Street-Sellers of Lucifer-Matches.

Supposing that each of the 200 traders take, on lucifers alone, but 4_s._ weekly, selling nine dozen (with a profit to the seller of from 1_s._ 9_d._ to 2_s._ 6_d._), we find on lucifer-matches bought in the streets an annual outlay of 2,080 0 0

Street-Sellers of Cigar-Lights or Fuzees.

It will, I believe, be accurate to state that in the streets there are generally 100 persons subsisting, or endeavouring to subsist, on the sale of fuzees alone. It may be estimated also that each of these traders averages a receipt of 10_d._ a day (with a profit exceeding 6_d._), so that the sum yearly laid out in the streets in this way amounts to 1,300 0 0

Street-Sellers of Gutta-Percha Heads, &c.

There are at present, I am informed, 30 persons selling gutta-percha heads in the streets, some of them confining their business solely to those articles. Their average receipts, I am assured, do not exceed 5_s._ a week each, for, though some may take 15_s._ a week, others, and generally the stationary head-sellers, do not take 1_s._ The profit to the street retailer is one-third of his receipts. From this calculation it appears, that if the present rate of sale continue, the sum spent yearly in these street toys is 390 0 0

Street-Sellers of Fly-Papers and Beetle-Wafers.

Last summer, I was informed, there were 50 or 60 persons selling fly-papers and beetle-wafers in the streets; some of them boys, and all of them of the general class of street-sellers, who “take” to any trade for which 1_s._ suffices as capital. Their average earnings may be estimated at 2_s._ 6_d._ a day, about one-half being profit. This gives a street outlay, for a “season” of ten weeks, of 375 0 0

Street-Sellers of Poison for Rats.

Calculating 25 sellers of rat-poison, and each taking on an average 1_s._ daily for the sale of their article, we find that the sum annually expended upon this commodity amounts to 390 0 0

MISCELLANEOUS.

Street-Sellers of Walking-Sticks.

For 12 weeks of the year there are, I am told, every day 35 stick-sellers, each taking, on an average, 30_s._ a week (with a profit, individually, of about 12_s._); we find thus that the sum expended yearly in walking-sticks in the streets is 630 0 0

Street-Sellers of Whips, &c.

Averaging that 30 whip-sellers take 25_s._ each weekly (with profits of from 5_s._ to 10_s._) in London alone, we find that the yearly sum expended in the streets in whips amounts to 1,950 0 0

Street-Sellers of Pipes (Tobacco).

If we calculate that 4 persons sell pipes daily the year through, taking each 25_s._ (and clearing 10_s._), we find the yearly sum expended upon the hawkers’ pipes amounts to 260 0 0

Street-Sellers of Snuff-Boxes, Tobacco-Boxes, &c.

Reckoning that 15 persons trading on snuff and tobacco and cigar-boxes take 18_s._ weekly (clearing 7_s._ or 8_s._), we find the sum thus expended annually amounts to 702 0 0

Street-Sellers of Cigars.

Reckoning the number of vendors of cigars at 100, and the average takings of each to be 20_s._ weekly, we have a yearly outlay of 5,200 0 0

Street-Sellers of Sponge.

Calculating, then, that only 50 persons (and so allowing for irregularities in the trade) vend sponge daily, and that each takes 15_s._ weekly,--some taking 25_s._, and others but 5_s._--with about half profit on the whole (the common sponge is often from 200 to 300 per cent. profit), we find the outlay to be 1,950 0 0

Street-Sellers of Wash-Leather.

There are, I am assured, 100 individuals selling little or nothing else but wash-leather in London (for these traders are found in all the suburbs), and that they respectively take 10_s._ weekly, with a profit of from 4_s._ to 5_s._ There are, also, 100 other persons selling them occasionally, along with other goods, and as they vend the higher-priced articles, they probably receive nearly an equal amount. Hence it would appear that there is annually expended in the streets in this purchase, upwards of 5,000 0 0

Street-Sellers of Spectacles and Eye-glasses.

It may be estimated, I am assured that there are 35 men who vend these articles daily, taking 15_s._ a week (with a profit of 10_s._), the yearly expenditure being thus 1,365 0 0

Street-Sellers of Dolls.

There are, at least, at this time of year, when the fairs are coming on, 50 doll-hawkers, who vend nothing else. Say that each of these sell one dozen dolls per day, and that their average price is 4_d._ each; that is just 10_l._ a day, and 60_l._ per week. In the winter time so many are not sold; but I have no doubt that 50_l._’s worth of dolls are sold each week throughout the year by London hawkers alone, hence the annual outlay on street-dolls would be close upon 3,000 0 0

Street Lot-sellers.

It may be estimated that 50 men carry on this trade. Each of these may take 13_s._ weekly (with a profit of 7_s._ 6_d._), so showing the annual street outlay to be 1,690 0 0

Street-Sellers of Roulette Tables.

Calculating the 2 sellers of Roulette tables take 30_s._ each weekly, we find the annual outlay amounts to 156 0 0

Street-Sellers of Rhubarb.

Reckoning 4 street-sellers of rhubarb and spice each taking 18_s._ weekly, we find the sum annually spent in the sale of these articles to be upwards of 187 0 0

Rat-Catchers.

There are, I am told, 100 rat-catchers resorting, at intervals, to London, but only a fourth of that number can be estimated as carrying on their labours regularly in town; their average earnings, I am assured, do not exceed 15_s._ a week; thus there is a yearly expenditure of 975 0 0

Street-Sellers of Combs.

From the best information I have gained, there are 50 persons who sell nothing but combs, the average takings of each are 9_s._ a week, showing the yearly outlay in the streets on these articles to be 1,170 0 0

Street-Sellers of Money-Bags.

There are at present 50 persons consisting of men, women, and children vending money-bags in the streets of London, each taking on an average 1_s._ 6_d._ daily, or 9_s._ per week, and so giving a yearly expenditure of 1,170 0 0

Street-Sellers of Coat-Studs.

There are, I am informed, no less than 70 persons, consisting of men, women, and children. These, I am told, take upon an average 15_s._ a week each, their usual profits being cent. per cent.; thus we find a yearly outlay on studs bought in the streets of 2,730 0 0 --------------------- Total amount of income £188,189 0 0

ERRATA.

PAGE 5, line 45, second column, for 9,350 read 8,850. 6, line 39, first column, for 34,209 read 28,506. line 43, for between thirty and forty thousand read between twenty-five and thirty thousand. 11, number of markets Surrey side, for 664 read 764. number of markets Middlesex side, for 3,137 read 3,147. first line, second column, for 3801 read 3,911, and for 102 read 105. 26, line 50, first column, for 75_l._ read 67_l._ 10_s._; line 53, for 525_l._ read 405_l._; line 57, for 6,300_l._ read 4,860_l._ 30, line 25, for 2_l._ each read 2_l._ 56, line 27, for 24,135_l._ read 23,775_l._ line 28, for upwards read very nearly. line 50, for 14,000_l._ read 9,750_l._ line 54, for 6,500_l._ read 130_l._ line 58, for 22,550_l._ read 17,400_l._ line 36, second column, for between 1,250,000_l._ and 1,500,000_l._ read 1,040,000_l._ 63, line 13, for 5,040,000 lbs. read 4,940,000 lbs. line 27, for 147,000,000 read 49,750,000. line 36, for 24,300 read 22,067. line 38, for 32,400 read 33,696. 69, line 38, for 263,281,000 read 263,261,000. 80, line 11, for 16,450 read 37,650. line 14, for 171,000 read 175,000. line 15, for 108,000 read 112,000. line 16, for 24,000 read 26,800. line 28, for 16,817,000 read 18,017,000. line 31, for 221,100 read 221,200. line 39, for 94,000 read 104,400. line 41, for 32,900 read 37,900. 95, line 37, first column, for 6,270 read 6,240. line 43, first column, for 1,960 read 1,950. line 48, first column, for 15,300 read 15,200. line 16, second column, for 333,420 read 332,400. 96, line 3, first column, for 333,420 read 332,400. line 5, first column, for 292,000 read 292,240. line 6, first column, for 626,420 read 625,640. line 6, second column, for 2,087,270 read 2,086,490. 122, table, middle column, line 12, for 524,000 read 525,000. table, middle column, line 21, for 524,000 read 525,000. table, middle column, line 22, for 1,464,000 read 1,465,000. 130, line 4, second column, for 160 read 166. 139, line 12, second column, for 123,360 read 129,360. 142, line 46, second column, for 575 read 525. 144, line 7, first column, for 150,000 read 150,768. line 33, first column, for 50 read 60. last line, first column, for 2,867_l._ read 2,877_l._ line 9, second column, for 1,183_l._ read 1,883_l._ line 11, second column, for 2,774_l._ read 2,474_l._ line 32, second column, for 210 read 160. line 33, second column, for 1,667_l._ read 1,617_l._ 158, line 17, second column, for 13,949_l._ read 13,950_l._ line 20, second column, for 520 read 572. line 21, second column, for 28,504 read 28,557. 163, line 4, second column, for 19,448 read 21,910. line 24, second column, for 12,102 read 14,586. 171, line 13, second column, for 3,031_l._ 11_s._ read 3,033_l._ 6_s._ 8_d._ 195, line 39, first column, for 1,452_l._ read 780_l._ 197, line 13, first column, for 3,000_l._ read 1,040_l._ 203, line 12, first column, for 300 read 100. 218, line 61, first column, for because read although. line 63, first column, for no read an utter want of. line 51, second column, for flummut read flummuxed. 325, line 48, second column, for 780_l._ read 3,900_l._ 329, line 43, second column, for 3,500 read 13,500. line 45, second column, for 700 read 2,700. line 46, second column, for 25,000 read 20,700. line 47, second column, for 250 read 207. 340, line 57, second column, for vicapicated read incapacitated. 347, line 41, second column, for 23,410 read 23,400. 370, line 15, second column, for store read stone. 377, In the table of Hawkers and Pedlars for England, Wales, and Scotland, the Total for Wales is placed below the Islands in the British Seas, but should stand above it. 388, line 43, first column, for 2,600 read 2,730. 392, last line, second column, for 384,400 read 1,872,000. 393, line 2, first column, for 3,120 read 3,900. line 5, first column, for 4,680 read 3,900. 427, line 9, first column, for 1,250 read 1,300. 440, line 9, first column, for 2,340 read 1,950. 441, line 55, first column, for 692 read 702. 443, line 39, second column, for 1,850 read 1,950. 449, line 58, first column, for 1,190 read 1,690.

INDEX.

Arts (fine), street-sellers of, 301; capital and income of, 306

Art (street), 301

Author and poet (street), experience of, 279

Ballad minstrelsy in the streets, ancient and modern, 273

Ballads (street) on a subject, 275

Back numbers, street sale of, 289

Beggar street-sellers, 363

Beggar street-seller, statement of a, 414

Beetle wafers, street-sellers of, 435

Billingsgate, description of, 64

Billingsgate market, quantity and weight of fish sold in, 63

Blacking and black-lead, street-sellers of, 425

Blind street-seller of boot-laces, 395

Blind female street-seller of small wares, 393

Blind street seller of tailors’ needles, 340

Blind boot-lace seller, life of, 405

Book auctioneers (street), 296

Booksellers (street), 292

Booksellers (street), experience of, 294

Books sold in the streets, character of, 293

Books (memorandum) and almanacks, street sale of, 271

Books (pocket) and diaries, street sale of, 271

Books (song), street sale of, 298

Books (children’s), street sale of, 298

Books (guide), street sale of, 299

Books (account), street sale of, 299

Boot and stay-laces, street-sellers of, 391

Boys of the costermongers and their “bunse,” 33

Braces, belts, hose, trowser-straps, and waistcoats, street-sellers of, 389

Bread, street sale of, 178

Broadsheets, street sellers of, 280

Buns (hot-cross and Chelsea), street-sellers of, 201

Butter, cheese, and eggs, 129

Cake, street-sellers of, 199

Cakes and tarts, street-sellers of, 198

Cards (engraved), street-sellers of, 266

Cards (gelatine), street-sellers of, 266

Cards (playing), street-sellers of, 266

Cards (race) and lists of races, street-sellers of, 265

Cards (short-hand), street-sellers of, 261

Card-counters, medals, &c., street-sellers of, 349

Cats’ and dogs’-meat, street-sellers of, 181

Cement for glass and china, street-sellers of, 429

Chaunters, experience of, 226

Cheap John, or street hansellers, 326

Cheap John, life of a, 336

Chemical articles of manufacture, street-sellers of, 425

Chickweed and groundsell, street-sellers of, 153

Children in low lodging-houses, 257

Children, causes which influence them to take to a street career, 472

Children as street-sellers sent out by parents, 479

Christmasing, laurel, ivy, holly, and mistletoe, street-sellers of, 141

Cigar lights or fuzees, street-sellers of, 433

Cigars, street-sellers of, 441

“Cocks,” &c., 238

Coffee-stall keepers, 183

Comic exhibitions, magical delusions, &c., street-sellers of, 286

Conundrums, street-sellers of, 285

Conveyances of costermongers and other street-folk, 26

Corn-salve, street-sellers of, 428

Costermongers, ancient calling of, 7

Costermongers and other street-folk, number of, 4

Costermongers, capital of, 29

Costermongers, capital and income of, 55

Costermongers, children, education of, 24

Costermongers, cries, rounds, and days of, 52

Costermongers, diet and drink of, 52

Costermongers, donkeys of, 29

Costermongers, dress of, 51

Costermongers, earnings of, 54

Costermongers, education of, 35

Costermongers, gambling of, 16

Costermongers, habits and amusements of, 11

Costermongers, homes of, 47

Costermongers, honesty of, 26

Costermongers, juvenile trading of, 35

Costermongers, language of, 23

Costermongers, literature of, 25

Costermongers, markets and trade rights of, 58

Costermongers, marriage and concubinage of, 20

Costermongers, nicknames of, 24

Costermongers, obsolete cries of, 8

Costermongers, politics of, 20

Costermongers, providence and improvidence of, 56

Costermongers, raffles of, 58

Costermongers, religion of, 21

Costermongers, removal from streets of, 59

Costermongers, tricks of, 61

Costermongers, uneducated state of, 22

Costermongering mechanics, 7

Costermongers and thieves, 46

Costermongers and thieves in bad weather and during the cholera, 57

Costermongers and thieves on their country rounds, 53

Costermongers and thieves, the more provident, 46

Costermongers and thieves, economically considered, 8

Coster boy, hired, 481

Coster girls, 43

Coster girl, life of a, 45

Coster lad, life of a, 39

Coster lad, education of, 35

Cough-drops and medical confectionery, street-sellers of, 205

Country lodging-houses, 423

Crackers and detonating balls, street-sellers of, 430

Crippled seller of nutmeg-graters, 329

Crockery and glass-ware, street-sellers of, 365

Covent-garden market, 81

Curds and whey, street sale of, 192

Cutlery, street-sellers of, 338

Death and fire hunters, 228

Dog collars, street-sellers of, 358

Dog-collar seller, life of a, 359

Dolls, street-sellers of, 445

Drinkables, street sale of, 183

Duffers, or hawkers of pretended smuggled goods, 383

Eatables and drinkables, street-sellers of, 258

Eatables and drinkables, capital and income of, street-sellers of, 208

Eatables and drinkables, sums spent yearly upon, 212

Elder wine (hot), street-sellers of, 189

Engravings in umbrellas, street-sellers of, 362

Female street-sellers, localities in which they reside, 461

Female street-sellers, education, state of, 462

Female street-sellers, diet of, 462

Fish, kind and quality of sold in London, 61

Fish season of the costermongers, 63

Fish, annually sold in the streets of London, gross value of, 77

Fish (“dry”) selling in the street, 77

Fish, fruit, and vegetables, stationary street-sellers of, 96

Fish, street-sellers of, 61

Flower-girls (London), 134

Flower-girls, life of, 136

Flower-girls, two orphan, 135

Flower roots, shrubs, and trees, quantity sold in the streets, 130

Flowers, buyers of those sold in the streets, 130

Flowers (cut and in pots), trees, shrubs, roots, seeds, and branches, street-sellers of, 130

Flowers in pots, roots, street-sale of, 137

Flowers, “cut,” quantity of sold in streets, 137

Flowers, trees, shrubs, table showing quantity of sold wholesale at markets and retail in the streets, 131

Fly-papers, street-sellers of, 435

Forestalling markets and Billingsgate bummarees, 67

French polish, sellers of, 427

Fried fish, sellers of, 165

Fried fish, preparation of, 165

Fried fish seller, experience and customers of, 169

Fruit (green) selling in the streets, 83

Fruit stall-keepers, 99

Fruit and vegetable season of costermongers, 81

Fruit and vegetables sold annually in London streets, gross value of, 95

Fruit, street-sellers of, 79

Fruit, kind and quantity of sold in the London streets, 79

Fruit (home-grown), quantity sold in metropolitan markets, and proportion sold retail in streets, 80

Fruit, foreign, 81

Fruit, “dry,” 81

“Gallows” literature of the streets, 280

Game, rabbits, and poultry, sold in the streets, 121

Game hawker, experience of, 124

Ginger-beer seller, experience of, 189

Ginger-beer, sherbet, and lemonade, street-sale of, 186

Ginger-bread nuts, street-sellers of, 199

Grease-removing compositions, street-sellers of, 427

Green stuff, street-sellers of, 145

Gutta-percha heads, street-sellers of, 434

Haberdashery swag-shops, 373

Ham-sandwich seller, experience of, 177

Ham-sandwich, street-sellers of, 177

Hawkers, pedlars, and petty chapmen, 374

Hawking butcher, experience of, 176

Hot eels and pea-soup man, experience of, 162

Hot eels and green-pea seller, experience of, 180

Hot eels and green-peas, street-sellers of, 180

“House of Lords,” a street-sellers’ defunct club, 364

Ices and ice-creams, street-sellers of, 206

Indecent (sham) street-trade, 240

Irish, causes which made them turn costermongers, 105

Irish, lodging-houses for immigrants, 111

Irish “refuse” sellers, 117

Irish, street diet, drink, and expense of living among, 113

Irish, education, literature, amusements, and politics of, 108

Irish, how they displanted the street Jews in the orange trade, 106

Irish, houses of, 109

Irish, history of some of the sellers, 115

Irish, religion of, 107

Irish, resources of as regards stock, money, sickness, burials, &c., 114

Irish, (street), 104

Irishwoman street-seller, an, 465

Jewellery street-sellers, 346

Lace, street-sellers of, 386

Lace-maker’s appeal, 364

Lavender, street sale of, 137

Literature, street-sellers of, 306

Literature, street-sellers of, capital and income of, 306

London, children street-sellers of, 468

Lot sellers, 447

Low lodging-houses of London, 251, 407

Low lodging-houses of the country, 258

Low lodging-houses, filth, dishonesty, and immorality of, 254

Lucifer matches, street-sellers of, 431

Manufactured articles, street-sellers of, 323

Manufactured articles, capital and income of, 485

Manufactured articles in metal, street-sellers of, 324

Manuscript and other music, 305

Markets (the London street) on a Saturday night, 9

Markets (the London street) on a Sunday morning, 10

May, palm, &c., street sale of, 143

Mechanic’s wife, a street-seller, 464

Milk selling in St. James’s-park, 191

Milk, street sale of, 192

Miscellaneous manufactured articles, street-sellers of, 436

Muffin and crumpet selling in the streets, 202

Newspapers, books, &c., sale of at railway stations, 291

Nut selling in streets, 89

Orphan girl, life of, 483

Orphan boy street-seller, 482

Onion selling in the streets, 93

Orange and lemon selling in the streets, 87

Orange and nut market, 86

Oyster selling in the streets, 75

Packman, statement of a, 379

Packmen or hawkers of soft wares, 377

Pastry and confectionary, street-sellers of, 195

Patterers, abodes, tricks, marriage, and characteristics of the different grades of, 243

Patterers, benefit society of, 242

Patterers, former and present state of, 215

Patterers, habits, opinions, morals, and religion of, 217

Patterers (running), 221

Patterers (running), experience of, 222

Patterers (running), recent experience of, 224

Patterers (standing), 232

Patterers (standing), experience of, 234

Pattering class, epitome of, 309

Pea-soup and hot eels, street-sellers of, 160

Pedlar jeweller, 347

“Penny gaff,” 40

Peppermint water, street sale of, 191

Periodicals, pamphlets, tracts, books, &c., street-sellers of, 289

Periodicals on the steamboats and steamboat piers, sale of, 290

Periwinkle selling in the streets, 76

Pickpocket, statement of a young, 410

Pictures in frames, street selling of, 304

Pieman, street, 195

“Pinners up,” or wall song sellers, 272

Pipes, street-sellers of, 440

Plantain sellers, 158

Play-bills, street sellers of, 287

Plum “duff” or dough, street-sellers of, 197

Poets and authors, street, 278

Poison for rats, 450

Political litanies, dialogues, &c., 236

Pot-herbs and celery, 94

Potatoes (baked), street-trade in, 173

Poultry and game, street purchasers of, 123

Poultry hawkers, statement of two, 125

Poultry (live and dead), game, rabbits, butter, cheese, and eggs, street-sellers of, 120

Poultry, live, and game, street sale of, 126

Prostitute, statement of a, 412

Public-house hawkers of metal spoons, 344

Publishers and authors of street literature, 220

Puddings (boiled), street-seller of, 197

Rabbit-selling in the streets, 129

Razor-paste, street-sellers of, 429

Reduced gentlewoman and a reduced tradesman, as street-sellers of stationery, 269

Religious tract-sellers, 241

Rhubarb and spice, street-sellers of, 452

Rice milk, street-sellers of, 193

Rings and sovereigns for wagers, street-sellers of, 351

Roasted chestnuts and apples, 90

Roulette-boxes, street-sellers of, 449

Runaway street-boys, two, 483

“Screevers,” or writers of begging letters and petitions, 311

Second editions, sellers of, 230

Seeds, sale of, 139

Sheeps’-trotter seller, statement of a, 171

Sheeps’-trotters, street-sellers of, 170

Sheeps’-trotters, preparation of, and quantity sold, 170

Shell-fish sellers in the streets, 69

Shrimp selling, 72

Single woman street-seller, a, 463

“Slang” weights and measures, 32

Small ware, street sellers of, 385

Smithfield races, 27

Snuff-boxes, street-sellers of, 440

Song sellers (long), 221

Songs, street-sellers of, 272

Spar, china ornaments, and stone fruit, street-sellers of, 370

Spectacle and eye-glasses, street-sellers of, 444

Sponge, street-sellers of, 442

Sprat selling in the streets, 69

Stationery, literature, and fine arts, street-seller of, 213

Stationery, street-sellers of, 267, 306

Stationers (street), and street card sellers, 261

Stationers (street), experience of, 267

Stationers (street), capital and income of, 306

Stalls (street), character of, 99

Stalls (street), number of, 96

Sticks (walking), street-sellers of, 437

“Strawing,” 239

Street children, amusements of, 476

Street children, clothing of, 476

Street children, diet of, 475

Street children, dwelling-places of, 475

Street children, education of, 472

Street children, morals, religion, opinions of, 474

Street children, propensities of, 477

Street-folk in general and costermongers in particular, varieties of, 6

Street-seller, “neglected” child, 480

Street-sellers, public meeting of, 102

Swag-barrowmen, 447

Swag-shops of the metropolis, 333

Sweet-stuff, street-sellers and customers of, 204

Sweet-stuff, street sale of, 203

Table-covers (japanned), street-sellers of, 388

Tally packmen, 380

Tea, hawking of, 455

Textile fabrics, street-sellers of, 372

Thieves, meeting of, 418

Tinware, street-sellers of, 354

Tinware, seller, life of, 355

Tobacco-boxes, street-sellers of, 440

Tools, street-sellers of, 361

Trees and shrubs, street sale of, 133

Trotting or hawking butchers, 175

Turf cutting and selling, 155

Turf cutter, experience and customers of, 157

Vegetables, street sale of, 91

Vegetables, aristocratic sale of, 92

“Vic” gallery, 18

Wandering tribes of this country, 2

Wandering tribes in general, 1

Wash-leathers, street-sellers of, 443

Waste newspapers at Billingsgate, sale of, 290

Watches (children’s gilt), street-sellers of, 353

Water-carriers, 194

Water-cress selling in Farringdon-market, 145

Water-cresses, table showing the quantity sold wholesale at “green markets,” and retail in the streets, 152

Water-cresses, street-sellers of, 149

Water-cress girl, 151

Whelks (pickled), street-sellers of, 163

Whelks (pickled), purchasers of, 165

Whips, street-sellers of, 438

Widow, street-seller, a, 467

Women street-sellers, 457

Transcriber's Note

Transcribed from the 1967 reprinting of the 1865 edition.

Errata printed before the Index have been incorporated into the text.

The following additional apparent errors have been corrected:

p. i "466" changed to "468"

p. ii "Potatoe" changed to "Potato"

p. 2 "Srange" changed to "Strange"

p. 6 "the the metropolis" changed to "the metropolis"

p. 17 "among the the" changed to "among the"

p. 24 "singularly" changed to "singularity"

p. 24 "dirtywomen" changed to "dirty women"

p. 25 "them.’”" changed to "them.”"

p. 25 "read" changed to "‘read"

p. 26 "‘Noblesse!’" changed to "‘Noblesse!"

p. 27 "ounce" changed to "ounce."

p. 28 "other n" changed to "other on"

p. 44 "life" changed to "life."

p. 47 "drawing-room")" changed to "drawing-room”"

p. 54 "buy" changed to "buy."

p. 54 "round," changed to "round."

p. 55 "cent" changed to "cent."

p. 56 "cent" changed to "cent."

p. 64 "marke opens" changed to "market opens"

p. 68 "“My customers" changed to "My customers"

p. 71 "fool" changed to "fool."

p. 71 "acccounts" changed to "accounts"

p. 72 "them. to" changed to "them to"

p. 79 "thoroughfares," changed to "thoroughfares."

p. 80 "junks," changed to "junks"

p. 80 (note) "multiciplicity" changed to "multiplicity"

p. 81 "the the streets" changed to "the streets"

p. 85 "cherry-stones.”" changed to "cherry-stones.’”"

p. 85 "Soldiers" changed to "Soldiers,"

p. 88 "however." changed to "however,"

p. 91 "general dealer.”" changed to "“general dealer.”"

p. 93 "nothing" changed to "nothing."

p. 96 "total:" changed to "total."

p. 99 "potatoe" changed to "potato"

p. 100 "continued to" changed to "continued, to"

p. 103 "the moral" changed to "the "moral"

p. 103 "a "street" changed to "a street"

p. 106 "priest.)" We" changed to "priest.) "We"

p. 108 "Iv’e" changed to "I’ve"

p. 108 "of she" changed to "of the"

p. 110 "proferring" changed to "proffering"

p. 112 "Jan" changed to "Jan."

p. 118 "cent" changed to "cent."

p. 122 "in ihe" changed to "in the"

p. 122 "Londen" changed to "London"

p. 122 "1s." changed to "1_s._"

p. 131 " One sixth" changed to " One-sixth"

p. 132 "backwarks" changed to "backwards"

p. 137 "cent" changed to "cent."

p. 144 "Cut Fowers" changed to "Cut Flowers"

p. 152 "Receipts" changed to "Receipts."

p. 158 "he shops" changed to "the shops"

p. 158 "660;000" changed to "660,000"

p. 158 "were, more" changed to "were more"

p. 160 "mnsical" changed to "musical"

p. 165 "give." changed to "give.”"

p. 170 "beautiful’" changed to "beautiful.’"

p. 174 "money." changed to "money,"

p. 175 "trade as," changed to "trade, as"

p. 176 "6_d._”" changed to "6_d._’”"

p. 176 "tflat" changed to "flat"

p. 176 "Giblets’" changed to "‘Giblets’"

p. 178 "comfort" changed to "comfort."

p. 188 "‘I" changed to "“I"

p. 188 "ginger beer" changed to "ginger-beer"

p. 192 "5_s_" changed to "5_s._"

p. 194 "1_s._." changed to "1_s._"

p. 195 "One" changed to "“One"

p. 203 "sarcely" changed to "scarcely"

p. 204 "possesed" changed to "possessed"

p. 204 "everything," changed to "everything,’"

p. 206 "13_s_" changed to "13_s._"

p. 206 "splntter" changed to "splutter"

p. 207 (note) "powerful.’" changed to "powerful.”"

p. 214 "apochryphal" changed to "apocryphal"

p. 216 "maketh.”" changed to "maketh.’"

p. 216 "offer.”" changed to "offer."

p. 217 "shilling" changed to "shilling."

p. 221 "The gay" changed to "‘The gay"

p. 226 "most" changed to "most."

p. 228 "“Haynau." changed to "“Haynau.”"

p. 229 "fellows," changed to "fellows."

p. 229 "last." changed to "last.’"

p. 230 "“I was" changed to "I was"

p. 233 "ascertaind" changed to "ascertained"

p. 236 "of of" changed to "of"

p. 237 "Queed" changed to "Queen"

p. 237 "to to" changed to "to"

p. 237 "’em!”" changed to "’em!’"

p. 238 "know nof" changed to "known of"

p. 247 "&c.." changed to "&c.,"

p. 248 "life.’”" changed to "life."’"

p. 248 "past,’" changed to "past,"

p. 248 "scran" changed to "scran’"

p. 250 "a foreigner" changed to "a foreigner"

p. 258 "unprincipled." changed to "unprincipled.”"

p. 258 "backer’)" changed to "backer’"

p. 262 "guage" changed to "gauge"

p. 265 "town," changed to "town."

p. 266 "earnig" changed to "earning"

p. 268 "or them" changed to "for them"

p. 275 "Gramachree.”" changed to "“Gramachree.”"

p. 276 "‘Lummy" changed to "‘Lummy’"

p. 277 "born" changed to "borne"

p. 277 "him." changed to "him.”"

p. 281 "conerned" changed to "concerned"

p. 282 "by brother" changed to "my brother"

p. 283 "while" changed to "which"

p. 283 "which" changed to "while"

p. 284 "death.”" changed to "death.’”"

p. 287 "‘Procession" changed to "“Procession"

p. 287 "ridiculously, small" changed to "ridiculously small,"

p. 288 "familar" changed to "familiar"

p. 293 "Rasellas" changed to "Rasselas"

p. 293 "‘Tom Jones," changed to "‘Tom Jones,’"

p. 294 "Companion" changed to "Companion,"

p. 299 "stastioner" changed to "stationer"

p. 308 "&c." changed to "&c.)"

p. 309 "Chidren’s" changed to "Children’s"

p. 309 "CandleShades" changed to "Candle Shades"

p. 312 "‘GOD SAVE THE QUEEN.’" changed to "‘GOD SAVE THE QUEEN."

p. 315 "Physician" changed to "Physician’"

p. 315 "good weight," changed to "good weight."

p. 316 "expected" changed to "expected."

p. 330 "foot" changed to "foot."

p. 330 "lipe" changed to "lip"

p. 339 " else," changed to " else,’"

p. 340 "can’t get" changed to "can get"

p. 349 "them" changed to "them)"

p. 350 "tolerably" changed to "tolerable"

p. 355 "6_d._" changed to "6_d_"

p. 356 "Charing cross" changed to "Charing-cross"

p. 359 "tho,’" changed to "tho’,"

p. 364 "patry" changed to "party"

p. 364 "Nottingham.”" changed to "Nottingham.’"

p. 364 "‘unworkmanlike" changed to "‘unworkmanlike’"

p. 376 "many has" changed to "many as"

p. 377 "Blanff" changed to "Banff"

p. 378 "profit;" changed to "profit;’"

p. 381 "“but" changed to "but"

p. 384 "taxed’" changed to "taxed"

p. 389 "to to" changed to "to"

p. 391 "waiscoat" changed to "waistcoat"

p. 392 "drag, on" changed to "drag on"

p. 399 "of me," changed to "of me."

p. 400 "I think" changed to "“I think"

p. 402 "blind?”" changed to "blind?’"

p. 415 "out-and out" changed to "out-and-out"

p. 418 "cards" changed to "cards"

p. 418 "‘cant" changed to "‘cant’"

p. 424 "the’re" changed to "they’re"

p. 426 "DAY AND MARTIN”" changed to "“DAY AND MARTIN”"

p. 430 "Street-Seller" changed to "Street-Sellers"

p. 431 "I saw" changed to "“I saw"

p. 433 "offers,”" changed to "offers,"

p. 433 "sir?" changed to "sir?”"

p. 435 "gutta percha" changed to "gutta-percha"

p. 435 "invividual" changed to "individual"

p. 436 "1/2_d_" changed to "1/2_d._"

p. 436 "highter" changed to "higher"

p. 437 "neigbourhood" changed to "neighbourhood"

p. 438 "15_s._" changed to " 15_s._”"

p. 443 "empted" changed to "emptied"

p. 444 "that it" changed to "than it"

p. 450 "warmint;" changed to "warmint."

p. 456 "2_s_" changed to "2_s._"

p. 464 "of of us" changed to "of us"

p. 467 "there there was" changed to "there was"

p. 473 "hog;”" changed to "“hog;”"

p. 490 "amount," changed to "amount."

p. 491 "5,25" changed to "525"

p. 491 "18,017,000" changed to "18,017,000."

p. 493 "parents" changed to "parents,"

p. 494 "111." changed to "111"

p. 494 "clothing of." changed to "clothing of."

p. 494 "country, 1" changed to "country, 2"

p. 494 "general, 2" changed to "general, 1"

The index entries for "Flower-girls, two orphan," and "Water-carriers" were misplaced and have been moved.

Inconsistent or archaic spelling, capitalisation and punctuation have otherwise been kept as printed.

The letter beginning "MY DEAREST VICTORIA" (on p. 241) was printed in a form of mirror writing which is not here reproduced. It contains several spelling or typographical errors which have not been corrected.