102 LONDON LABOUR AND THE LONDON POOR. Street-Sellers of Birds'-Nests. There are at present only three persons hawking birds'-nests, &c., in the streets during the season, which lasts from May to August; these street-sellers sell among them 400 nests, at 24d. each; 144 snakes, at 1s. 6d. each; 4 hedgehogs, at 1s. each; and about 2s.'s worth of snails. This makes the weekly income of each amount to about 8s. 6d. during a period of 12 weeks in the summer, and the sum annually expended on these articles to come to Street-Sellers of Squirrels. outlay is 2001. Besides snails, there £ s. d. are collected annually 500 frogs and 18 toads, at ld. each, giving a yearly expenditure of 15 6 0 For five months of the year there are 20 men selling squirrels in the streets, at from 20 to 50 per cent. profit, and averaging a weekly sale of six each. The average price is from 28. to 2s. 6d. Thus 2400 squirrels are vended yearly in the streets, at a cost to the public of 240 00 Street-Sellers of Leverets, Wild Rabbits, &c. During the year there are about six individuals exposing for sale in the streets young hares and wild rabbits. These persons sell among them 300 leverets, at 1s. 6d. each; and 400 young wild-rabbits, at 4d. each, giving a yearly outlay of 29 3 Street-Sellers of Gold and Silver Fish. If we calculate, in order to allow for the cessation of the trade during the winter, and often in the summer when costermongering is at its best, that but 35 gold-fish sellers hawk in the streets and that for but half a year, each selling six dozen weekly, at 12s. the dozen, we find 65,520 fish sold, at an outlay of. TOTAL, OR GROSS "TAKINGS," OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF LIVE ANI MALS £ s. d. 202 3 2 23,868 16 4 Street-Sellers of Coke. The number of individuals engaged in the street-sale of coke is 1500; and the total quantity of coke sold annually in the streets is computed at about 1,400,000 chaldrons. These are purchased at the gas factories at an average price of 8s. per chaldron. Reckoning that this is sold at 4s. per chaldron for profit, we find that the 4 total gains of the whole class amount to 280,000l. per annum, and their gross annu takings to . 3,276 0 0 Street-Sellers of Tortoises. Estimating the number of individuals selling tortoises to be 20, and the number of tortoises sold to be 10,000, at an average price of 8d. each, we find there expended yearly 840,000 0 0 Street-Sellers of Tan-Turf. The number of tan-turf sellers in the metropolis is estimated at 14; each of these dispose of, upon an average, 20,000 per week, during the year; selling them at 1s. per hundred, and realizing a profit of 44d. for each hundred. This makes the annual outlay in the street-sale of the above article amount to Street-Sellers of Salt. There are at present 150 individuals hawking salt in the several streets of London; each of these pay upon these creatures upwards of . 333 6 8 at the rate of 2s. per cwt. for the salt, Street-Sellers of Snails, Frogs, &c. There are 14 snail gatherers, and they, on an average, gather six dozen quarts each in a year, which supplies a total of 12,096 quarts of snails. The labourers in the gardens, I am informed, gather somewhat more than an equal quantity, the greater part being sold to the bird-shops; so that altogether the supply of snails for the caged thrushes and blackbirds of London is about two millions and a half. Computing them at 24,000 quarts, and at 2d. a quart, the annual 7,280 0 0 and retail it at 3 lbs. for 1d., which leaves 1s. 1d. profit on every cwt. One day with another, wet and dry, each of the street-sellers disposes of about 2 cwt., or 18 tons 15 cwt. per day for all hands, and this, deducting Sundays, makes 5868 tons 15 cwt. in the course of the year. The profit of 1s. 1d. per cwt. amounts to a yearly aggregate profit of 63571. 16s. 3d., or about 421. per annum for each person in the trade; while the sum annually expended upon this article in the streets hare-skin and old metal and rag buyers, are often old and infirm people of both sexes, of whomperhaps by reason of their infirmities-not a few have been in the trade from their childhood, and are as well known by sight in their respective rounds, as was the "long-remembered beggar" in former times. THE persons who traverse the streets, or call periodically at certain places to purchase articles which are usually sold at the door or within the house, are according to the division I laid down in the first number of this work-STREET-BUYERS. The largest, and, in every respect, the most remarkable body of these traders, are the buyers of old clothes, and of them I shall speak sepa- It is usually the lot of a poor person who has rately, devoting at the same time some space to been driven to the streets, or has adopted such a the STREET-JEWS. It will also be necessary to life when an adult, to sell trifling things-such give a brief account of the Jews generally, for as are light to carry and require a small outlaythey are still a peculiar race, and street and shop-in advanced age. Old men and women totter about trading among them are in many respects closely blended. The principal things bought by the itinerant purchasers consist of waste-paper, hare and rabbit skins, old umbrellas and parasols, bottles and glass, broken metal, rags, dripping, grease, bones, tealeaves, and old clothes. With the exception of the buyers of waste-paper, among whom are many active, energetic, and intelligent men, the street-buyers are of the lower sort, both as to means and intelligence. The only further exception, perhaps, which I need notice here is, that among some umbrella-buyers, there is considerable smartness, and sometimes, in the repair or renewal of the ribs, &c., a slight degree of skill. The other street-purchasers-such as the offering lucifer-matches, boot and stay-laces, penny memorandum books, and such like. But the elder portion of the street-folk I have now to speak of do not sell, but buy. The street-seller commends his wares, their cheapness, and excellence. The same sort of man, when a buyer, depreciates everything offered to him, in order to ensure a cheaper bargain, while many of the things thus obtained find their way into street-sale, and are then as much commended for cheapness and goodness, as if they were the stock-in-trade of an acute slop advertisement-monger, and this is done sometimes by the very man who, when a buyer, condemned them as utterly valueless. But this is common to all trades. 104 LONDON LABOUR AND THE LONDON POOR. OF THE STREET-BUYERS OF RAGS, BROKEN METAL, BOTTLES, GLASS, AND BONES. I CLASS all these articles under one head, for, on inquiry, I find no individual supporting himself by the trading in any one of them. I shall, therefore, describe the buyers of rags, broken metal, bottles, glass, and bones, as a body of streettraders, but take the articles in which they traffic seriatim, pointing out in what degree they are, or have been, wholly or partially, the staple of several distinct callings. The traders in these things are not unprosperous men. The poor creatures who may be seen picking up rags in the street are "streetfinders," and not buyers. It is the same with the poor old men who may be seen bending under an unsavoury sack of bones. The bones have been found, or have been given for charity, and are not purchased. One feeble old man whom I met with, his eyes fixed on the middle of the carriage-way in the Old St. Pancras-road, and with whom I had some conversation, told me that the best friend he had in the world was a gentleman who lived in a large house near the Regent's-park, and gave him the bones which his dogs had done with! "If I can only see hisself, sir," said the old man, 66 he's sure to give me any coppers he has in his coat-pocket, and that's a very great thing to a poor man like me. O, yes, I'll buy bones, if I have any ha'pence, rather than go without them; but I pick them up, or have them given to me mostly." use, The street-buyers, who are only buyers, have barrows, sometimes even carts with donkeys, and, as they themselves describe it, they "buy everything.' These men are little seen in London, for they "work" the more secluded courts, streets, and alleys, when in town; but their most frequented rounds are the poorer parts of the populous suburbs. There are many in Croydon, Woolwich, Greenwich, and Deptford. "It's no a man who had been in the trade said to me, "such as us calling at fine houses to know if they've any old keys to sell! No, we trades with the poor." Often, however, they deal with the servants of the wealthy; and their usual mode of business in such cases is to leave a bill at the house a few hours previous to their visit. This document has frequently the royal arms at the head of it, and asserts that the "firm" has been established since the year, which is seldom less than half a century. The hand-bill usually consists of a short preface as to the increased demand for rags on the part of the papermakers, and this is followed by a liberal offer to give the very best prices for any old linen, or old metal, bottles, rope, stair-rods, locks, keys, dripping, carpeting, &c., " in fact, no rubbish or lumber, however worthless, will be refused;" and generally concludes with a request that this "bill" may be shown to the mistress of the house and preserved, as it will be called for in a couple of hours. The papers are delivered by one of the "firm," who marks on the door a sign indicative of the The houses at which the bill has been taken in, and the probable reception there of the gentleman who is to follow him. The road taken is also pointed by marks before explained, see vol. i. pp. 218 and 247. These men are residents in all quarters within 20 miles of London, being most numerous in the places at no great distance from the Thames. They work their way from their suburban residences to London, which, of course, is the mart, or "exchange," for their wares. reason why the suburbs are preferred is that in those parts the possessors of such things as broken metal, &c., cannot so readily resort to a marinestore dealer's as they can in town. I am informed, however, that the shops of the marinestore men are on the increase in the more denselypeopled suburbs; still the dwellings of the poor are often widely scattered in those parts, and few will go a mile to sell any old thing. They wait in preference, unless very needy, for the visit of the street-buyer. A good many years ago-perhaps until 30 years back-rags, and especially white and good linen rags, were among the things most zealously inquired for by street-buyers, and then 3d. a pound was a price readily paid. Subsequently the papermanufacturers brought to great and economical perfection the process of boiling rags in lye and bleaching them with chlorine, so that colour became less a desideratum. A few years after the peace of 1815, moreover, the foreign trade in rags increased rapidly. At the present time, about 1200 tons of woollen rags, and upwards of 10,000 tons of linen rags, are imported yearly. These 10,000 tons give us but a vague notion of the real amount. I may therefore mention that, when reduced to a more definite quantity, they show a total of no less than twenty-two millions four hundred thousand pounds. The woollen rags are imported the most largely from Hamburg and Bremen, the price being from 51. to 177. the ton. Linen rags, which average nearly 20%. the ton, are imported from the same places, and from several Italian ports, more especially those in Sicily. Among these ports are Palermo, Messina, Ancona, Leghorn, and Trieste (the Trieste rags being gathered in Hungary). The value of the rags annually brought to this country is no less than 200,000l. What the native rags may be worth, there are no facts on which to ground an estimate; but supposing each person of the 20,000,000 in Great Britain to produce one pound of rags annually, then the rags of this country may be valued at very nearly the same price as the foreign ones, so that the gross value of the rags of Great Britain imported and produced at home, would, in such a case, amount to 400,000. From France, Belgium, Holland, Spain, and other continental kingdoms, the exportation of rags is prohibited, nor can so bulky and low-priced a commodity be smuggled to advantage. Of this large sum of rags, which is independent of what is collected in the United Kingdom, the Americans are purchasers on an extensive scale. The wear of cotton is almost unknown in many parts of Italy, Germany, and Hungary; and al LONDON LABOUR AND THE LONDON POOR. although the linen in use is coarse and, compared to the Irish, Scotch, or English, rudely manufactured, the foreign rags are generally linen, and therefore are preferred at the paper mills. The street-buyers in this country, however, make less distinction than ever, as regards price, between linen and cotton rags. The linen rag-buying is still prosecuted extensively by itinerant "gatherers" in the country, and in the further neighbourhoods of London, but the collection is not to the extent it was formerly. The price is lower, and, owing to the foreign trade, the demand is less urgent; so common, too, is now the wear of cotton, and so much smaller that of linen, that many people will not sell linen rags, but reserve them for use in case of cuts and wounds, or for giving to their poor neighbours on any such emergency. This was done doubtlessly to as great, or to a greater extent, in the old times, but linen rags were more plentiful then, for cotton shirting was not woven to the perfection seen at present, and many good country housewives spun their own linen sheetings and shirtings. A street-buyer of the class I have described, upon presenting himself at any house, offers to buy rags, broken metal, or glass, and for rags especially there is often a serious bargaining, and sometimes, I was told by an itinerant street-seller, who had been an ear-witness, a little joking not of the most delicate kind. For coloured rags these men give d. a pound, or 1d. for three pounds; for inferior white rags d. a pound, and up to 14d.; for the best, 2d. the pound. It is common, however, and even more common, I am assured, among masters of the old rag and bottle shops, than among streetbuyers, to announce 2d. or 3d., or even as much as 6d., for the best rags, but, somehow or other, the rags taken for sale to those buyers never are of the best. To offer 6d. a pound for rags is ridiculous, but such an offer may be seen at some ragshops, the figure 6, perhaps, crowning a painting of a large plum-pudding, as a representation of what may be a Christmas result, merely from the thrifty preservation of rags, grease, and dripping. Some of the street-buyers, when working the suburbs or the country, attach a similar "illustration" to their barrows or carts. I saw the winter placard of one of these men, which he was reserving for a country excursion as far as Rochester, "when the plum-pudding time was a-coming." In this pictorial advertisement a man and woman, very florid and full-faced, were on the point of enjoying a huge plum-pudding, the man flourishing a large knife, and looking very hospitable. On a scroll which issued from his mouth were the words: "From our rags! The best prices given by of London." The woman in like manner exclaimed: "From dripping and house fat! The best prices given by -, of London." This man told me that at some times, both in town and country, he did not buy a pound of rags in a week. He had heard the old hands in the trade say, that 20 or 30 years back they could "gather" (the word generally used for buying) twice and three times as many rags as at present. My 105 formant attributed this change to two causes, depending more upon what he had heard from experienced street-buyers than upon his own knowledge. At one time it was common for a mistress to allow her maid-servant to keep a rag-bag," in which all refuse linen, &c., was collected for sale for the servant's behoof; a privilege now rarely accorded. The other cause was that working-people's wives had less money at their command now than they had formerly, so that instead of gathering a good heap for the man who called on them periodically, they ran to a marine storeshop and sold them by one, two, and three pennyworths at a time. This related to all the things in the street-buyer's trade, as well as to rags. "I've known this trade ten years or so," said my informant, "I was a costermonger before that, and I work coster-work now in the summer, and buy things in the winter. Before Christmas is the best time for second-hand trade. When I set out on a country round-and I've gone as far as Guildford and Maidstone, and St. Alban's-I lays in as great a stock of glass and crocks as I can raise money for, or as my donkey or pony-I've had both, but I'm working a ass now can drag without distressing him. I swops my crocks for anythink in the second-hand way, and when I've got through them I buys outright, and so works my way back to London. I bring back what I've bought in the crates and hampers I've had to pack the crocks in. The first year as I started I got hold of a few very tidy rags, coloured things mostly. The Jew I sold 'em to when I got home again gave me more than I expected. O, lord no, not more than I asked! He told me, too, that he 'd buy any more I might have, as they was wanted at some town not very far off, where there was a call for them for patching quilts. I haven't heard of a call for any that way since. I get less and less rags every year, I think. Well, I can't say what I got last year; perhaps about two stone. No, none of them was woollen. They're things as people's seldom satisfied with the price for, is rags. I've bought muslin window curtains or frocks as was worn, and good for nothink but rags, but there always seems such a lot, and they weighs so light and comes to so little, that there's sure to be grumbling. I've sometimes bought a lot of old clothes, by the lump, or I've swopped crocks for them, and among them there 's frequently been things as the Jew in Petticoat-lane, what I sells them to, has put o' one side as rags. If I'd offered to give rag prices, them as got 'em of would have been offended, and have thought I wanted to cheat. When you get a lot at one go, and 'specially if it's for crocks, you must make the best of them. This for that, and t'other for t'other. I stay at the beer-shops and little inns in the country. Some of the landlords looks very shy at one, if you're a stranger, acause, if the police detectives is after anythink, they go as hawkers, or barrowmen, or somethink that way." [This statement as to the police is correct; but the man did not know how it came to his knowledge; he had "heard of it," he believed.] "I've very seldom slept in a common lodging-house. I'd 106 LONDON LABOUR AND THE LONDON POOR. most anxious to buy "metal;" whereas, in town, they as readily purchase "iron." When the street-buyers give merely the worth of any metal by weight to be disposed of, in order to be remelted, or re-wrought in some manner, by the manufacturers, the following are the average prices :-Copper, 6d. per lb. ; pewter, 5d.; brass, 5d.; iron, 6 lbs. for 1d., and 8 lbs. for 2d. (a and 1d. and 14d. per lb. for lead. Old zinc is not a metal which "comes in the way" of the streetbuyer, nor-as one of them told me with a laugh old silver. Tin is never bought by weight in the streets. rather sleep on my barrow." [I have before had occasion to remark the aversion of the costermonger class to sleep in low lodging-houses. These men, almost always, and from the necessities of their calling, have rooms of their own in London; so that, I presume, they hate to sleep in public, as the accommodation for repose in many a lodging-house may very well be called. At any rate the costermongers, of all classes of street-smaller quantity than 6 lbs. is seldom bought); sellers, when on their country excursions, resort the least to the lodging-houses.] "The last round I had in the country, as far as Reading and Pangbourne, I was away about five weeks, I think, and came back a better man by a pound; that was all. I mean I had 30 shillings' worth of things to start with, and when I'd got back, and turned my rags, and old metal, and things into money, I had 50s. To be sure Jenny (the ass) and me lived well all the time, and I bought a pair of half-boots and a pair of stockings at Reading, so it weren't so bad. Yes, sir, there's nothing I likes better than a turn into the country. It does one's health good, if it don't turn out so well for profits as it might." My informant, the rag-dealer, belonged to the best order of costermongers; one proof of this was in the evident care which he had bestowed on Jenny, his donkey. There were no loose hairs on her hide, and her harness was clean and whole, and I observed after a pause to transact business on his round, that the animal held her head towards her master to be scratched, and was petted with a mouthful of green grass and clover, which the costermonger had in a corner of his vehicle. Tailor's cuttings, which consist of cloth, satin, lining materials, fustian, waistcoatings, silk, &c., are among the things which the street-buyers are the most anxious to become possessed of on a country round; for, as will be easily understood by those who have read the accounts before given of the Old Clothes Exchange, and of Petticoat and Rosemary lanes, they are available for many purposes in London. It must be understood that the prices I have mentioned are those given for old or broken metal, valueless unless for re-working. When an old metal article is still available, or may be easily made available, for the use for which it was designed, the street-purchase is by "the piece," rather than the weight. 66 The broken pans, scuttles, kettles, &c., concerning one of the uses of which I have quoted Mr. Babbage, in page 6 of the present volume, as to the conversion of these worn-out vessels into the light and japanned edgings, or clasps, called "clamps," or clips," by the trunk-makers, and used to protect or strengthen the corners of boxes and packing-cases, are purchased sometimes by the street-buyers, but fall more properly under the head of what constitutes a portion of the stock-intrade of the street-finder. They are not bought by weight, but so much for the pan, perhaps so much along with other things; a halfpenny, a penny, or occasionally two-pence, and often only a farthing, or three pans for a penny. The uses for these things which the street-buyers have more especially in view, are not those mentioned by Mr. Babbage (the trunk clamps), but the conversion of them into the "iron shovels," or strong dustpans sold in the streets. One street artisan supports himself and his family by the making of dustpans from such grimy old vessels. Dressmaker's cuttings are also a portion of the As in the result of my inquiry among the streetstreet-buyer's country traffic, but to no great ex- sellers of old metal, I am of opinion that the streettent, and hardly ever, I am told, unless the street-buyers also are not generally mixed up with the buyer, which is not often the case, be accompanied on his round by his wife. In town, tailor's cuttings are usually sold to the piece-brokers, who call or send men round to the shops or workshops for the purpose of buying them, and it is the same with the dressmaker's cuttings. Old metal, or broken metal, for I heard one appellation used as frequently as the other, is bought by the same description of traders. This trade, however, is prosecuted in town by the street-buyers more largely than in the country, and so differs from the rag business. The carriage of old iron bolts and bars is exceedingly cumbersome; nor can metal be packed or stowed away like old clothes or rags. This makes the street-buyer indifferent as to the collecting of what I heard one of them call "country iron." By "metal" the street-folk often mean copper (most especially), brass, or pewter, in contradistinction to the cheaper substances of iron or lead. In the country they are receipt of stolen goods. That they may be so to some extent is probable enough; in the same proportion, perhaps, as highly respectable tradesmen have been known to buy the goods of fraudulent bankrupts, and others. The street-buyers are low itinerants, seen regularly by the police and easy to be traced, and therefore, for one reason, cautious. In one of my inquiries among the young thieves and pickpockets in the low lodging-houses, I heard frequent accounts of their selling the metal goods they stole, to "fences," and in one particular instance, to the mistress of a lodging-house, who had conveniences for the melting of pewter pots (called "cats and kittens" by the young thieves, according to the size of the vessels), but I never heard them speak of any connection, or indeed any transactions, with streetfolk. Among the things purchased in great quantities by the street-buyers of old metal are keys. The |