14 LONDON LABOUR AND THE LONDON POOR. stock. If his means compel him to offer only a paucity of second-hand goods, he may sell but one kind. Generally, however, the same man or woman trades in two, three, or more of the secondhand textile productions which I have specified, and it is hardly one street-seller out of 20, who if he have cleared his 10s. in a given time, by vending different articles, can tell the relative amount he cleared on each. The trade is, therefore, irregular, and is but a consequence, or-as one street-seller very well expressed it-a "tail" of other trades. For instance, if there has been a great auction of any corn-merchant's effects, there will be more sacking than usual in the street-markets; if there have been sales, beyond the average extent, of old household furniture, there will be a more ample street stock of curtains, carpeting, fringes, &c. Of the articles I have enumerated the sale of secondhand linen, more especially that from the barrackstores, is the largest of any. The most intelligent man whom I met with in this trade calculated that there were 80 of these second-hand street-folk plying their trade two nights in the week; that they took 8s. each weekly, about half of it being profit; thus the street expenditure would be 16647. per annum. OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF SECOND-HAND SECOND-HAND Curtains, but only good ones, I was assured, can now be sold in the streets. "because common new ones can be had so cheap." The good second-hands," however, sell readily. The most saleable of all second-hand curtains are those of chintz, especially old-fashioned chintz, now a scarce article; the next in demand are what were described to me as "good check," or the blue and white cotton curtains. White dimity curtains, though now rarely seen in a streetmarket, are not bought to be re-used as curtains "there's too much washing about them for London-but for petticoats, the covering of large pincushions, dressing-table covers, &c., and for the last-mentioned purpose they are bought by the householders of a small tenement who let a "wellfurnished" bed-room or two. for the re-covering of old horse-hair chairs, for which purpose they are sold at 3d. each piece. Second-hand curtains are moreover cut into portions and sold for the hanging of the testers of bedsteads, but almost entirely for what the streetsellers call "half-teesters." These are required for the Waterloo bedsteads, "and if it's a nice thing, sir," said one woman, and perticler if it's a chintz, and to be had for 6d., the women 'll fight for it." The second-hand curtains, when sold entire, are from 6. to 2s. 6d. One man had lately sold a pair of "good moreens, only faded, but dyeing 's cheap," for 3s. 6d. OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF SECOND HAND CAR- Carpeting has a fair sale, and in the streets is vended not as an entire floor or stair-carpet, but in pieces. The floor-carpet pieces are from 2d. to 1s. each; the stair-carpet pieces are from 1d. to 4d. a yard. Hearth-rugs are very rarely offered to street-customers, but when offered are sold from 4d. to 18. Drugget is also sold in the same way as the floor-carpeting, and sometimes for housescouring cloths. "I've sold carpet, sir," said a woman streetseller, who called all descriptions - rugs and drugget too-by that title; "and I would like to sell it regular, but my old man-he buys everything-says it can't be had regular. I've sold many things in the streets, but I'd rather sell good second-hand in carpet or curtains, or fur in winter, than anything else. They 're nicer people as buys them. It would be a good business if it was regular. Ah! indeed, in my time, and before I was married, I have sold different things in a different way; but I'd rather not talk about that, and I make no complaints, for seeing what I see. I'm not so badly off. Them as buys carpet are very particular-I've known them take a tape out of their pockets and measure-but they re honourable customers. If they're satisfied they buy, most of them does, at once; without any of The uses to which the second-hand chintz or your is that the lowest? as ladies asks in shops, check curtains are put, are often for Waterloo" and that when they don't think of buying, either. "tent" beds. It is common for a single Carpet is bought by working people, and they use woman, struggling to "get a decent roof over her it for hearth-rugs, and for bed-sides, and such like. head," or for a young couple wishing to improve I know it by what I've heard them say when I've their comforts in furniture, to do so piece-meal. been selling. One Monday evening, five or six An old bedstead of a better sort may first be pur-years back, I took 10s. 9d. in carpet; there had chased, and so on to the concluding "decency," or, in the estimation of some poor persons, "dignity" of curtains. These persons are customers of the street-sellers the second hand curtains costing them from 8d. to 1s. 6d. or been some great sales at old houses, and a good quantity of carpet and curtains was sold in the streets. Perhaps I cleared 3s. 6d. on that 10s. 9d. But to take 4s. or 5s. is good work now, and often not more than 3d. in the 18. profit. Still, it's a pretty good business, when you can get a stock of second-hands of different kinds to keep you Moreen curtains have also a good sale. They are bought by working people (and by some of the dealers in second-hand furniture) for the re-cover-going constantly." ing of sofas, which had become ragged, the deficiency of stuffing being supplied with hay (which is likewise the "stuffing" of the new sofas sold by the linen-drapers," or slaughter-houses." Moreen curtains, too, are sometimes cut into pieces, What in the street-trade is known as "Flannels," is for the most part second-hand blankets, which having been worn as bed furniture, and then very probably, or at the same time, used for ironing cloths, are found in the street-markets, where they are purchased for flannel petticoats for the children of the poor, or when not good enough for such use, for house cloths, at 1d. each. In The trade in stocking legs is considerable. these legs the feet have been cut off, further darning being impossible, and the fragment of the stocking which is worth preserving is sold to the careful housewives who attach to it a new foot. Sometimes for winter wear a new cheap sock is attached to the footless hose. These legs sell from d. to 3d. the pair, but very rarely 3d., and only when of the best quality, though the legs would not be saleable in the streets at all, had they not been of a good manufacture originally. Men's hose are sold in this way more largely than women's. The trade in second-hand stockings is very considerable, but they form a part of the second-hand apparel of street-commerce, and I shall notice them under that head. OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF SECOND-HAND BEDTICKING, SACKING, FRINGE, &c. For bed-ticking there is generally a ready sale, but I was told "not near so ready as it was a dozen year or more back." One reason which I heard assigned for this was, that new ticking was made so cheap (being a thin common cotton, for the lining of common carpet-bags, portmanteaus, &c., that poor persons scrupled to give any equivalent price for good sound second-hand linen bed-ticking, "though," said a dealer, "it'll still wear out half a dozen of their new slop rigs. like a few of them there slop-masters, that's making fortins out of foolish or greedy folks, to have to live a few weeks in the streets by this sort of second-hand trade; they 'd hear what was thought of them then by all sensible people, which aren't so many as they should be by a precious long sight." should The ticking sold in the street is bought for the patching of beds and for the making of pillows and bolsters, and for these purposes is sold in pieces at from 2d. to 4d. as the most frequent price. One woman who used to sell bed-ticking, but not lately, told me that she knew poor women who cared nothing for such convenience themselves, buy ticking to make pillows for their children. Second-hand Sacking is sold without much difficulty in the street-markets, and usually in pieces at from 2d. to 6d. This sacking has been part of a corn sack, or of the strong package in which some kinds of goods are dispatched by sea or railway. It is bought for the mending of bed stead sacking, and for the making of porters' knots, &c. Second-hand Fringe is still in fair demand, but though cheaper than ever, does not, I am assured, "sell so well as when it was dearer." Many of my readers will have remarked, when they have been passing the apartments occupied by the working class, that the valance fixed from the top of the window has its adornment of fringe; a blind is sometimes adorned in a similar manner, and so is the valance from the tester of a bedstead. For such uses the second-hand fringe is bought in the street-markets in pieces, sometimes called "quantities," of from 1d. to 18. Second-hand Table-cloths used to be an article of street-traffic to some extent. If offered at all now and one man, though he was a regular street seller, thought he had not seen one offered in a market this year-they are worn things such as will not be taken by the pawnbrokers, while the dolly-shop people would advance no more than the table-cloth might be worth for the ragbag. The glazed table-covers, now in such general use, are not as yet sold second-hand in the streets. I was told by a street-seller that he had heard an old man (since dead), who was a buyer of second-hand goods, say that in the old times, after a great sale by auction-as at Wanstead-house (Mr. Wellesley Pole's), about 30 years ago the open-air trade was very brisk, as the street-sellers, like the shop-traders, proclaimed all their secondhand wares as having been bought at "the great sale." For some years no such "ruse" has been practised by street-folk. OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF SECOND-HAND GLASS AND CROCKERY. THESE sellers are another class who are fast disappearing from the streets of London. Before glass and crockery, but more especially glass, became so low-priced when new, the second-hand glass-man was one of the most prosperous of the open-air traders; he is now so much the reverse that he must generally mix up some other calling with his original business. One man, whose address was given to me, as an experienced glassman, I found selling mackarel and "pound crabs," and complaining bitterly that mackarel were high, and that he could make nothing out of them that week at 2d. each, for poor persons, he told me, would not give more. 'Yes, sir," he said, "I've been in most trades, besides having been a pot-boy, both boy and man, and I don't like this fish-trade at all. I could get a pot-boy's place again, but I'm not so strong as I were, and it's slavish work in the place I could get; and a man that's not so young as he was once is chaffed so by the young lads and fellows in the tap-room and the skittle-ground. For this last three year or more I had to do something in addition to my glass for a crust. it as a bad consarn, I sold old shoes as well as old glass, and made both ends meet that way, a leather end and a glass end. I sold off my glass to a rag and bottle shop for 9s., far less than it were worth, and I swopped my shoes for my fish-stall, and water-tub, and 3s. in money. I'll be out of this trade before long. The glass was good once; I've made my 15s. and 20s. a week at it: I don't know how long that is ago, but it's a good long time. Latterly I could do no business at all in it, or hardly any. The old shoes was middling, because they're a free-selling thing, but somehow it seems awkward mixing up any other trade with your glass." Before I dropped The stall or barrow of a "second-hand glassman" presented, and still, in a smaller degree, 16 LONDON LABOUR ANd the loNDON POOR. presents, a variety of articles, and a variety of colours, but over the whole prevails that haziness which seems to be considered proper to this trade. Even in the largest rag and bottle shops, the second-hand bottles always look dingy. "It wouldn't pay to wash them all,” said one shopkeeper to me, so we washes none; indeed, I b'lieve people would rather buy them as they is, and clean them themselves." 66 | nary street selling class) who carry on this trade OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF SECOND-HAND I may premise that the trader of this class is a sort of street broker; and it is no more possible minutely to detail his especial traffic in the several articles of his stock, than it would be to give a specific account of each and several of the "sundries" to be found in the closets or corners of an old-furniture broker's or marine-store seller's premises, in describing his general business. The street-assortment of second-hand glass may be described as one of "odds and ends"-odd goblets, odd wine-glasses, odd decanters, odd cruet- I HAVE in a former page specified some of the bottles, salt cellars, and mustard-pots; together goods which make up the sum of the second-hand with a variety of "tops" to fit mustard-pots or miscellaneous commerce of the streets of London. butter-glasses, and of " stoppers" to fit any sized bottle, the latter articles being generally the most profitable. Occasionally may still be seen a blue spirit-decanter, one of a set of three, with "brandy," in faded gold letters, upon it, or a brass or plated label, as dingy as the bottle, hung by a fine wirechain round the neck. Blue finger-glasses sold very well for use as sugar-basins to the wives of the better-off working-people or small tradesmen. One man, apparently about 40, who had been in this trade in his youth, and whom I questioned as to what was the quality of his stock, told me of the demand for "blue sugars," and pointed out to me one which happened to be on a stand by the door of a rag and bottle shop. When I mentioned its original use, he asked further about it, and after my answers seemed sceptical on the subject. People that 's quality," he said, "that's my notion on it, that hasn't neither to yarn their dinner, nor to cook it, but just open their mouths and eat it, can't dirty their hands so at dinner as to have glasses to wash 'em in arterards. But there's queer ways everywhere." At one time what were called "doctors' bottles" formed a portion of the second-hand stock I am describing. These were phials bought by the poorer people, in which to obtain some physician's gratuitous prescription from the chemist's shop, or the timehonoured nostrum of some wonderful old woman. For a very long period, it must be borne in mind, all kinds of glass wares were dear. Small glass frames, to cover flower-roots, were also sold at these stalls, as were fragments of looking-glass. Beneath his stall or barrow, the "old glass-ma: " often had a few old wine or beer-bottles for sale. At the period before cast-glass was so common, and, indeed, subsequently, until glass became cheap, it was not unusual to see at the secondhand stalls, rich cut-glass vessels which had been broken and cemented, for sale at a low figure, the glass-man being often a mender. It was the same with China punch-bowls, and the costlier kind of dishes, but this part of the trade is now unknown. There is one curious sort of ornament still to be met with at these stalls-wide-mouthed bottles, embellished with coloured patterns of flowers, birds, &c., generally cut from "furniture prints," and kept close against the sides of the interior by the salt with which the bottles are filled. A few second-hand pitchers, tea pots, &c., are still sold at from 1d. to 6d. There are now not above six men (of the ordi The members of this trade (as will be shown in the subsequent statements) are also "miscellaneous" in their character. A few have known liberal educations, and have been established in liberal professions; others have been artisans or shopkeepers, but the mass are of the general class of street-sellers. I will first treat of the Second-Hand StreetSellers of Articles for Amusement, giving a wide interpretation to the word "amusement." The backgammon, chess, draught, and cribbageboards of the second-hand trade have originally been of good quality-some indeed of a very superior manufacture; otherwise the "cheap Germans" (as I heard the low-priced foreign goods from the swag-shops called) would by their superior cheapness have rendered the business a nullity. The backgammon-boards are bought of brokers, when they are often in a worn, unhinged, and what may be called ragged condition. The street-seller" trims them up," but in this there is nothing of artisanship, although it requires some little taste and some dexterity of finger. A new hinge or two, or old hinges re-screwed, and a little pasting of leather and sometimes the application of strips of bookbinder's gold, is all that is required. The Lackgammon-boards are sometimes offered in the streets by an itinerant; sometimes (and more frequently than otherwise in a deplorable state, the points of the table being hardly distinguishable) they are part of the furniture of a second-hand stall. I have seen one at an old book-stall, but most usually they are vended by being hawked to the better sort of public-houses, and there they are more frequently disposed of by raffle than by sale. It is not once in a thousand times, I am informed, that secondhand "men" are sold with the board. Before the board has gone through its series of hands to the street-seller, the men have been lost or scattered. New men are sometimes sold or raffled with the backgammon-boards (as with the draught) at from 6d. to 2s. 6d. the set, the best being of box-wood. Chess-boards and men-for without the men of LONDON LABOUR AND THE LONDON POOR. 17 "He lost everything in Jermyn-street," a man who was sometimes his comrade in the sale of these articles said to me, "but he is a very gentlemanly and respectable man." The profits in this trade are very uncertain. A man who was engaged in it told me that one week he had cleared 24, and the next, with greater pains-taking, did not sell a single thing. The other articles which are a portion of the second-hand miscellaneous trade of this nature are sold as often, or more often, at stalls than elsewhere. Dominoes, for instance, may be seen in the winter, and they are offered only in the winter, on perhaps 20 stalls. They are sold at from 4d. a set, and I heard of one superior set which were described to me as "brass-pinned," being sold in a handsome box for 5s., the shop price having been 15s. The great sale of dominoes is at Christmas. course a draught, or the top of a backgammon- | been but too familiar. Draught boards are sold at from 3d. to 1s. second-hand. Cribbage-boards, also second-hand, and sometimes with cards, are only sold, I am informed, when they are very bad, at from 1d. to 3d., or very good, at from 2s. 6d. to 58. One street-seller told me that he once sold a "Chinee" cribbage-board for 18s., which cost him 10s. "It was a most beautiful thing," he stated, "and was very high-worked, and was inlaid with ivory, and with green ivory too." The Dice required for the playing of backgammon, or for any purpose, are bought of the waiters at the club houses, generally at 27. the dozen sets. They are retailed at about 25 per cent. profit. Dice in this way are readily disposed of by the street-people, as they are looked upon as "true," and are only about a sixth of the price they could be obtained for new ones in the duly-stamped covers. A few dice are sold at 6d. to 1s. the set, but they are old and battered. There are but two men who support themselves wholly by the street-sale and the hawking of the different boards, &c., I have described. There are two, three, or sometimes four occasional participants in the trade. Of these one held a commission in Her Majesty's service, but was ruined by gaming, and when unable to live by any other means, he sells the implements with which he had Pope-Joan boards, which, I was told, were fifteen years ago sold readily in the streets, and were examined closely by the purchasers (who were mostly the wives of tradesmen), to see that the print or paint announcing the partitions for 'intrigue,” “matrimony," friendship," "Pope," &c., were perfect, are now never, or rarely, seen. Formerly the price was 1s. to 1s. 9d. In the present year I could hear of but one man who had even offered a Pope-board for sale in the street, and he sold it, though almost new, for 3d. "Fish," or the bone, ivory, or mother-o'-pearl card counters in the shape of fish, or sometimes in a circular form, used to be sold second-hand as freely as the Pope-boards, and are now as rarely to be seen. 66 In Until about 20 years ago, as well as I can fix upon a term from the information I received, the apparatus for a game known as the "Devil among the tailors' was a portion of the miscellaneous second-hand trade or hawking of the streets. it a top was set spinning on a long board, and the result depended upon the number of men, or tailors," knocked down by the "devil" (top) of each player, these tailors being stationed, numbered, and scored (when knocked down) in the same way as when the balls are propelled into the numbered sockets in a bagatelle-board. I am moreover told that in the same second-hand calling were boards known as "solitaire-boards." These were round boards, with a certain number of holes, in each of which was a peg. One peg was removed at the selection of the player, and the game consisted in taking each remaining peg, by advancing another over its head into any vacant hole, and if at the end of the game only one peg remained in the board, the player won; if winning it could be called when the game could only be played by one person, and was for "solitary" amusement. Chinese puzzles, sometimes on a large scale, were then also a part of the second-hand traffic of the streets. These are a series of thin woods in geometrical shapes, which may be fitted into certain forms or patterns contained in a book, or on a sheet. These puzzles are sold in the streets 18 LONDON LABOUR AND THE LONDON POOR. still, but in smaller quantity and diminished size. Different games played with the teetotum were also a part of second-hand street-sale, but none of these bygone pastimes were vended to any extent. From the best data I have been able to obtain it appears that the amount received by the streetsellers or street-hawkers in the sale of these second-hand articles of amusement is 107. weekly, about half being profit, divided in the proportions I have intimated, as respects the number of streetsellers and the periods of sale; or 5201. expended yearly. I should have stated that the principal customers of this branch of second-hand traders are found in the public-houses and at the cigar-shops, where the goods are carried by street-sellers, who hawk from place to place. These dealers also attend the neighbouring, and, frequently in the summer, the more distant races, where for dice and the better quality of their "boards," &c., they generally find a prompt market. The sale at the fairs consists only of the lowest-priced goods, and in a very scant proportion compared to the races. OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF SECOND-HAND Of this trade there are two branches; the sale of At this season of the year, when fairs are frequent and the river steamers with their bands of music run oft and regularly, and out-door music may be played until late, the calling of the streetmusician is "at its best." In the winter he is not unfrequently starving, especially if he be what is called "a chance hand," and have not the privilege of playing in public-houses when the weather renders it impossible to collect a street audience. Such persons are often compelled to part with their instruments, which they offer in the streets or the public-houses, for the pawnbrokers have been so often "stuck" (taken in) with inferior instruments, that it is difficult to pledge even a really good violin. With some of these musical men it goes hard to part with their instruments, as they have their full share of the pride of art. Some, however, sell them recklessly and at almost any price, to obtain the means of prolonging a drunken carouse. From a man who is now a dealer in secondhand musical instruments, and is also a musician, I had the following account of his start in the second-hand trade, and of his feelings when he first had to part with his fiddle. "I was a gentleman's footboy," he said, "when I was young, but I was always very fond of music, and so was my father before me. He was a tailor in a village in Suffolk and used to play the bassfiddle at church. I hardly know how or when I learned to play, but I seemed to grow up to it. There was two neighbours used to call at my father's and practise, and one or other was always showing me something, and so I learned to play very well. Everybody said so. Before I was twelve, I've played nearly all night at a dance in a farm-house. I never played on anything but the violin, You must stick to one instrument, or you 're not up to the mark on any if you keep changing. When I got a place as footboy it was in a gentleman's family in the country, and I never was so happy as when master and mistress was out dining, and I could play to the servants in the kitchen or the servants' hall. Sometimes they got up a bit of a dance to my violin. If there was a dance at Christmas at any of the tenants', they often got leave for me to go and play. It was very little money I got given, but too much drink. At last master said, he hired me to be his servant and not for a parish fiddler, so I must drop it. I left him not long after-he got so cross and snappish. In my next place-no, the next but one-I was on board wages, in London, a goodish bit, as the family were travelling, and I had time on my hands, and used to go and play at public-houses of a night, just for the amusement of the company at first, but I soon got to know other musicians and made a little money. Yes, indeed, I could have saved money easily then, but I didn't; I got too fond of a public-house life for that, and was never easy at home." I need not very closely pursue this man's course to the streets, but merely intimate it. He had several places, remaining in some a year or more, in others two, three, or six months, but always unsettled. On leaving his last place he married a fellow-servant, older than himself, who had saved a goodish bit of money," and they took a beershop in Bermondsey. A "free and easy" (concert), both vocal and instrumental, was held in the house, the man playing regularly, and the business went on, not unprosperously, until the wife died in child-bed, the child surviving. After this everything went wrong, and at last the man Was "sold up," and was penniless. For three or four years he lived precariously on what he could earn as a musician, until about six or seven years ago, when one bitter winter's night he was without a farthing, and had laboured all day in the vain endeavour to earn a meal. His son, a boy then of five, had been sent home to him, and an old woman with whom he had placed the lad was incessantly dunning for 12s. due for the child's maintenance. The landlord clamoured for 15s. arrear of rent for a furnished room, and the hapless musician did not possess one thing which he could convert into money except his fiddle. He must leave his room next day. He had held no intercourse with his friends in the country since he heard of his father's death some years before, and was, indeed, resourceless. After dwelling on the many excellences of his violin, which he had purchased, a dead bargain," for 3. 158., he said: "Well, sir, I sat down by the last bit of coal in the place, and sat a long time thinking, and didn't know what to do. There was nothing to hinder me going out in the morning, and working the streets with a mate, as I'd done before, but then there was little James that |