 Section 3 of London Labour and the London Poor Vol. 2 by Henry Mayhew. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Gillian Henry. Of the Street Sellers of Second Hand Linnan and so on. I now come to the second variety of the several kinds of Street Sellers of Second Hand Articles. The accounts of the street trade in Second Hand Linnans, however, need be but brief, for none of the callings I have now to notice supply a mode of subsistence to the Street Sellers independently of other pursuits. They are resorted to whenever an opportunity or a prospect of remuneration presents itself by the class of general Street Sellers, women as well as men, the women being the most numerous. The sale of these articles is on the Saturday and Monday nights in the street markets and daily in Petticoat and Rosemary lanes. One of the most saleable of all the Second Hand textile commodities of the streets is an article, the demand for which is certainly creditable to the poorer and the working classes of London, Towels. The principal supply of this Street Toweling is obtained from the several barracks in and near London. They are a portion of what were the sheets of Strong Linnan, of the soldiers' beds, which are periodically renewed, and the old sheeting is then sold to a contractor, of whom the street folk buy it, and wash and prepare it for market. It is sold to the street traders at fourpins per pound, one pound making eight penny towels. Some, inferior, is as low as tuppence. The principal demand is by the working classes. Why, for one time, sir, said a street seller to me, there wasn't much Toweling in the streets, and I got a tidy lot, just when I knew it would go off, like a thief round the corner. I pitched in White Cross Street, and not far from a woman that was making a great noise, and had a good lot of people about her, for cheap mackerel weren't so very plenty then as they are now. Here's your cheap mackerel, shouts she. Cheap, cheap, cheap, mack, mack, mackerel. Then I begins. Here's your cheap Toweling, cheap, cheap, cheap, Towelings. Here's towels a penny a piece, and two for tuppence, or a double family towel for tuppence. I soon had a greater crowd than she had. Oh yes, I give some a good history of what I has to sell. Patters, as you call it. A man that can't, isn't fit for the streets. Here's what every wife should buy for her husband, and every husband for his wife, I goes on. Domestic happiness is then secured. If a husband licks his wife, or a wife licks her husband, a towel is the handiest and most innocent thing it can be done with. And if it's wet, it gives you a strong clipper on the cheek, as every respectable married person knows as well as I do. A clipper that way always does me good, and I'm satisfied it does more good to a gentleman than a lady. Always pattern for the woman, sir, if you want to sell. Yes, towels is good sale in London, but I prefer country business. I'm three times as much in the country as in town, and I'm just off to Ascot to sell cards and do a little singing, and then I'll perhaps take a round to Bath and Bristol, but Bath's not what it was once. Another street seller told me that, as far as his experience went, Monday night was a better time for the sale of second-hand sheetings, and so on, than Saturday, as on Monday, the wives of the working classes who sought to buy cheaply what was needed for household use usually went out to make their purchases. The Saturday night smart is more one for immediate necessities, either for the Sunday's dinner or the Sunday's wear. It appears to me that in all these little distinctions, of which street folk tell you, quite unconscious, that they tell anything new, there is something of the history of the character of a people. Rappers, or bull stuff, as it is sometimes styled, are also sold in the streets as second-hand goods. These are what have formed the covers of the packages of manufacturers, and are bought, most frequently by the Jews, at the wholesale warehouses or the larger retail shops and resold to the street people, usually at a penny-hypney or tuppence per pound. These goods are sometimes sold entire, but are far more often cut into suitable sizes for towels, strong aprons, and so on. They soon get bleached, I was told, by washing and wearing. Burnt linen or calico is also sold in the streets as a second-hand article. On the occasion of a fire at any tradesman's, whose stock of drapery has been injured, the damaged wares are bought by the Jewish or other keepers of the haberdashery swag shops. Some of these are sold by the second-hand street dealers, but the traffic for such articles is greater among the hawkers. Of this I have already given an account. The street sale of these burnt, and sometimes designedly burnt, wares is in pieces generally from sixpence to one-shelling sixpence each, or in yards, frequently at sixpence per yard, but of course the price varies with the quality. I believe that no second-hand sheets are sold in the streets as sheets, for, when tolerably good, they are received at the pawn shops, and if indifferent, at the dolly shops or illegal pawn shops. Street folk have told me of sheets being sold in the street markets, but so rarely as merely to supply an exception. In Petticoat Lane indeed they are sold, but it is mostly by the Jew shopkeepers, who also expose their goods in the streets, and they are sold by them very often to street traders, who convert them into other purposes. The statistics of this trade present great difficulties. The second-hand linen and so on is not a regular street traffic. It may be offered to the public twenty days or nights in a month, or not one. If a job lot have been secured, the second-hand street seller may confine himself. To that is special stock. If his means compel him to offer only a posity 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 second-hand textile productions, which I have specified, and it is hardly one street seller out of twenty, who, if he have cleared his ten shillings 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 tale 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, carpetings, fringes and so on. Of the articles I have enumerated, the sale of second-hand linen, more especially that from the barrack stores, is the largest of any. The most intelligent man whom I met with in this trade calculated that there were eighty of these second-hand street folk plying their trade two nights in the week, that they took eight shillings each weekly, about half of it being profit. Thus the street expenditure would be £1,664 per annum. Of the street sellers of second-hand curtains. 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 street market, are not bought to be reused as curtains. There's too much washing about them for London. But for petticoats, the covering of large pin cushions, dressing table covers and so on, and for the last mentioned purpose, they are bought by the householders of a small tenement, who lets a well-furnished bedroom or two. The uses to which the second-hand chintz or check curtains are put are often for waterloo or tent beds. It is common for a single woman, struggling to get a decent roof over her head, or for a young couple wishing to improve their comforts and furniture, to do so piecemeal. An old bedstead of a better sort may first be purchased, and so on, to the concluding decency, or, in the estimation of some poor person's, dignity of curtains. These persons are customers of the street sellers, the second-hand curtains, costing them from eight pins to one shelling six pins. 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 recovering 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 draper or slaughterhouses. Moreen curtains, too, are sometimes cut into pieces, for the recovering of old horsehair chairs, for which purpose they are sold at thruppens 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 street sellers call half-testers. These are required for the waterloo bedsteads, and if it's a nice thing, sir, said one woman, and, particular, if it's a chintz, and to be had for six pins, the women'll fight for it. The second-hand curtains, when sold entire, are from six pins to two shelling six pins. One man had lately sold a pair of good marines, only faded, but dying's cheap, for three shelling's and six pins. Of the street sellers of second-hand carpeting, flannels, stocking legs, and so on and so on. I class these second-hand wares together, as they are all of woollen materials. 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 tuppence to one shelling each. The stair carpet pieces are from a penny to four pins a yard. Hearth rugs are very rarely offered to street customers, but when offered are sold from four pins to one shelling. Drugget is also sold in the same way as the floor carpeting, and sometimes for house scouring cloths. I've sold carpet, sir, said a woman's street seller, 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 hard regular. I've sold many things in the streets, but I'd rather sell good second-hand in carpet or curtains or fur in the winter than anything else. They're nicer people as buys them. It would be a good business if it was regular, and indeed in my time, and before I was married, I sold different things in a different way, but I'd rather not talk about that, and I make no complaints for saying what I see. I'm not so badly off. Them as buys carpets 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 it once. Without any of here, is that the lowest, as ladies asks in shops, and that when they don't think of buying either. Carpet is bought by working people, and they use it for hearth rugs and for bedsides and such like. I know it by what I've heard them say when I've been selling. One Monday evening, five or six years back, I took ten shillings and ninepence in carpet. There had been some great sales at old houses, and a good quantity of carpet and curtains was sold in the streets. Perhaps I cleared three shillings and sixpence on that ten shillings and ninepence, but to take four shillings or five shillings is good work now, and often not more than thruppence in the one shilling profit. Still, it's a pretty good business when you can get a stock of second hands of different kinds to keep you going constantly. What in the street trade as known as flannels is for the most part second hand blankets, which have 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 a penny each. The trade in stocking legs is considerable. In 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 a hipney to thruppence the pair but very rarely thruppence 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 manufacturer originally. Men's hose are sold in this way more largely than women's. This trade in second hand stockings is very considerable but they form a part of the second hand a parol of street commerce and I shall notice them under that head. Of the street sellers of second hand bed ticking, sacking, fringe and so on 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 a sign for this was that new ticking was made so cheap being a thin common cotton for the lining of common carpet bags portmanteaus and so on that poor persons scrupled to give any equivalent price for good sound second handlin in bed ticking though, said a dealer it'll still wear out half a dozen of their new slop rigs I should like a few of them their slop masters that's making fortunes out of foolish or greedy folks to have to live a few weeks in the street 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 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 tuppence to forpence 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 by 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 tuppence to sixpence this sacking has been part of a corn sack or of the strong package in which some kind of goods are dispatched by sea or railway it is bought for the mending of bed-stead sacking and for the making of porter's knots and so on second hand fringe is still in fair demand so cheaper than ever does not I am assured sell as 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 bed-stead for such uses the second hand fringe is bought in the street markets in pieces sometimes called quantities off from a penny to a shilling 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 rag-bag 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 one-stead house Mr. Wellesley's polls about 30 years ago the open-air trade was very brisk sellers proclaimed all their second-hand 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 glass man I found selling mackerel and pound crabs and complaining bitterly that mackerel were high and that he could make nothing out of them that week at Tappan's each for poor persons he told me would not give more later 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 its 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 first before I dropped it as a bad concern 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 raggin bottle shop for nine shillings far less than it were worth and I swapped my shoes for my fish doll and water tub and three shillings and money I'll be out of this trade before long the glass was good once I sold off my shillings and 20 shillings a week at it I don't know how long that is ago but it's a good long time laterally I could do no business at all in it or hardly any the old shoes was middling because they were a free selling thing but somehow it seems awkward mixing up any other trade with your glass the stall or barrow of a second hand glass man presented and still in a smaller degree 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 draggin bottle shops the second hand bottles always looked dingy it wouldn't pay to wash them all said one shopkeeper to me so we washes none indeed I believe people would rather buy them as they is and clean them themselves the street assortment of the second hand glass may be described as one of odds and ends odd goblets, odd wine glasses odd decanters odd croot bottles salt sellers and mustard pots together with a variety of tops to fit mustard pots or 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 with brandy infaded gold letters upon it or a brass or plated label as dingy as the bottle hung by a fine wire chain around 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 sold me off 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 skeptical 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 them in afterwards but there's queer ways everywhere at one time what were called doctor's bottles formed a portion of the second hand stock I am describing these were files bought by the poorer people in which to obtain some physicians gratuitous prescription from the chemist shop or the time honoured nostrum of some wonderful old women for a very long period it must be born in all kinds of glass wires 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 barrel the old glass man 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 second hand stalls 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 and so on 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 pictures teapots and so on are still sold at from a penny to sixpence there are now not above six men of the ordinary street selling class who carry on this trade regularly sometimes twelve stalls or barrels may be seen sometimes one and sometimes none calculating that each of the six dealers takes twelve shillings weekly with a profit of six shillings or seven shillings we find 187 pounds four shillings expended in this department of street commerce the principal place for the trade is in high street whitechapel of the street sellers of second hand miscellaneous articles I have in a former page specified some of the goods which make up the sum of the second hand miscellaneous commerce of the streets of London 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 special 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 brokers or marine store sellers premises in describing his general business 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 street sellers of articles for amusement giving a wide interpretation to the word amusement the backgammon, chess, draft and creepage boards 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 where 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 book binders gold is all that is required the backgammon 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 and by sale it is not once in a thousand times I am informed that the second hand 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 draft at from sixpins to two shilling sixpins the set the best being of boxwood chess boards and men for without the men of course a draft or the top of a backgammon board for the prices for chess are a commodity now rarely at the disposal of the street sellers and as these means of a leisurely and abstruse amusement are not of a ready sale the second hand dealers do not look out for them but merely speculate in them when the article falls in their way or seems a palpable bargain occasionally a second hand chess apparatus is still sold by the street folk one man upon whose veracity for every reason to rely told me that he had once sold a beautiful set of ivory men and a handsome leather board second hand to a gentleman who accosted him as he saw him carry them along the street for sale inviting him to step indoors when the gentleman's residence was reached the chess men were then arranged and examined and the seller asked three pounds three shillings for them at once closing with the offer of three pounds he said I had a gentleman to do with and he told me he thought they were really cheap at three pounds and he would give me that another dealer in second hand articles when I asked him if he had ever sold chess boards and men replied only twice sir and then at four shillings and five shillings a set they was poor I've seen chess played and I should say it's a rum game but I know nothing about it I once had an old gent for a customer he was nice and quiet an old gent as could be and I always called on him when I thought I had a curious old tea caddy or knife box or anything that way he didn't buy once and twenty calls but he always gave me something for my trouble he used to play at chess with another old gent and if after his servant had told him I'd come I waited till I could wait no longer and then knocked at his room door he swore like a trooper draft boards are sold out from one shilling second hand cribbage boards also second hand and sometimes with cards are only sold I'm informed when they are very bad at from a penny to thruckens or very good at from two shilling sixpence to five shillings one street seller told me that he once sold a chinny cribbage board for thirteen shillings which cost him ten shillings it was a most beautiful thing he stated and was very high worked he was inlaid with ivory and with green ivory too the dice required for the playing of backgammon or for any purpose are bought off the waiters at the club houses generally at two pounds the dozen sets they are retailed at about 25% profit dice in this way are readily disposed off 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 sixpence to one shilling the set but they are old and battered there are but two men who support themselves wholly by the street sale and the hocking of the different boards and so on 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 been but too familiar he lost everything in german 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 two pounds and the next with greater painstaking 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 fourpence a set and I heard of one superior set which were described to me as brass pinned being sold in a handsome box for five shillings 15 shillings the great sale of dominoes is at Christmas Pope Joan Boards which I was told were 15 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 and so on were perfect are now never or rarely seen formerly the price was one shilling ninepence 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 thruppence fish or the bone, ivory or mother of 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 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 hocking of the streets in 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 bag of tail board I am more over 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 it's head into any vacant hole of the game only one peg remained in the board the player one 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 or sold in the streets still but in smaller quantity and diminished size different games played with the teetotem were also a part of the 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 street sellers or street hawkers in the sale of these second hand articles of amusement is 10 pounds weekly about half being a profit divided in the proportions I have intimated as respects the number of street sellers and the periods of sale or 520 pounds 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 and so on 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 musical instruments of this trade there are two branches the sale of instruments which are really second hand and the sale of those which are readily sold in other words an honest and dishonest business as in street estimation the whole is a second hand calling I shall so deal with it at this season of the year when fairs are frequent and the river steamers with their bands of music run off and regularly and outdoor music may be played until late the calling of the street musician 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 pawn brokers 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 which 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 carous from a man who is now a dealer in second hand 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 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 bass fiddle 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 it my father's in practice and one or other was always showing me something and so I learned to play very well everybody said so before I was 12 I've played nearly all night at a dance in a farmhouse 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 foot boy it wasn't 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 I 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 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 beer shop in Bermondsey ah free and easy note 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 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 done for twelve shillings due for the child's maintenance the landlord clamoured for fifteen shillings a rear 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 he had purchased a dead bargain for three pounds fifteen shillings 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 was sleeping there in his bed he was very delicate then and to drag him about and let him sleep in lodging houses no but then I couldn't think of parting with my violin I felt I should never again have such another I felt as if to part with it was parting with my last prop for what was I to do I sat a long time thinking with my instrument on my knees till I'm sure I don't know how to describe it I felt as if I was drunk though I hadn't even tasted beer so I went out boldly just as if I was drunk and with a deal of trouble he lined me one pound on my instrument and keep it by him for three months till I could redeem it I have it now sir next day I satisfied my two creditors by paying each half and a week's rent in advance and I walked off to a shop in Soho where I bought a dirty old instrument broken in parts for two shelling's truppins I was great part of the day in doing it up and in the evening earned seven pins by playing solos in Waithorn's door and the crown and cushion and the Lord Rodney which are all in the Westminster Road I lodged in Stangate Street there was a young man he looked like a respectable mechanic gave me a penny and said I wonder how you can see your fingers at all such a freezing night it seems a good fiddle I assure you sir I was surprised myself to find what I could do with my instrument there's a beer shop over the way says the young man I try my hand at it and so it was done and I sold him my fiddle for seven shelling's six pins no sir there was no take in it was worth the money I'd have sold it now that I've got a connection for half a guinea next day I bought such another instrument at the same shop for three shelling's and sold it after a while for six shelling's having done it up of course this it was that first put it into my head to start selling second hand instruments and so I began I'm known as a man to be depended on and with my second hand business and engagements every now and then as a musician I do middling in this manner is the honest second hand street business in musical instruments carried on it is usually done by hawking a few however are sold at miscellaneous stalls but they are generally such as require repair and are often without the bow and so on the persons carrying on the trade have all as far as I could ascertain been musicians of the street sale of musical instruments by drunken members of the profession I need say little as it is exceptional though it is certainly a branch of the trade for so numerous is the body of street musicians and of so many classes is it composed that this description of second hand business is being constantly transacted and often to the profit of the more wary dealers in these goods the statistics I shall show at the close of my remarks on the subject of the music duffers second hand guitars are vended by the street sellers the price varies from seven shilling sixpence to 15 shillings harps form no portion of the second hand business of the streets and drum is occasionally and only occasionally sold to a showman but the chief second hand traffic is in violins accordions both new and old used to sell readily in the streets either from stalls or in hawking but said a man who had formerly sold them they have been regularly duffed out of the streets so much cheap rubbish is made to sell there's next to nothing done in them now if one's offered to a man that's no judge of it he'll be sure you want to cheat him and perhaps amuse you if he be a judge of course it's no go unless with a really good article among the purchasers of second hand musical instruments are those of the working classes who wish to practice and the great number of street musicians street showman and the indifferently paid members of the orchestras of minor and not always of minor theaters few of this class ever by new instruments there are sometimes I am informed as many as 50 persons one fourth being women engaged in this second hand sale sometimes as it present not above half that number a broker who was engaged in the traffic estimated and an intelligent street seller agreed in the computation that take the year through at least 25 individuals were regularly but few of them fully occupied with this traffic and that their weekly takings averaged 30 shillings each or an aggregate yearly amount of 190 pounds the weekly profits run from 10 shillings to 15 shillings and sometimes the well-known dealers clear 40 shillings or 50 shillings a week while others do not take 5 shillings of this amount about two thirds is expended on violins and one tenth of the whole or nearly a tenth on duffing instruments sold as second hand in which department of the business the amount turned over used to be twice as even thrice as much the sellers have nearly all been musicians in some capacity women being the wives or connections of the men what I have called the dishonest trade is known among the street folk as music duffing among the swag shopkeepers at one place in Houndsditch more especially are dealers in duffing fiddles these are German made instruments and are sold to the street folk at two shillings sixpence or three shillings each bow and all are used to be made to look old a music duffer assuming the way of a man half drunk will enter a public house or a cost any party in the street saying here I must have money for I won't go home till morning till morning till morning I won't go home till morning till daylight does appear and so I may as well sell my fiddle myself as take it to a rogue of a broker try it anybody it's a fine old tone equal it cost me two guineas and another fiddle and a goodon too in exchange but I may as well be my own broker for I must have money anyhow and I'll sell it for ten shillings possibly a bargain is struck for five shillings for the duffing violin is perhaps purposely damaged in some slight way so as to appear easily reprobable and any deficiency in tone may be attributed to that defect which was of course occasioned by the drunkenness of the possessor or possibly the tone of the instrument may not be bad but it may be made of such unsound materials and in such a slop way though looking well to a little practised I that it will soon fall to pieces one man told me that he had often done the music duffing and had sold trash violins for ten shillings fifteen shillings and even twenty shillings according he said to the thickness of the buyer's head but that was ten or twelve years ago it appears that when an impetus was given to the musical taste of the country by the establishment of cheap singing schools or of music classes called at one time singing for the million or by the prevalence of cheap concerts where good music was heard this duffing trade flourished but now I am assured it is not more than a quarter of what it was there'll always be something done in it said the informant I have before quoted as long as you can find young men that's conceited about their musical talents fond of taking their medicine note, drinking, end note if I've gone into a public house room where I've seen a young gent that's bought a duffing fiddle of me it don't happen once in twenty times that he complains and blows up about it and only then perhaps if he happens to be drunkish when people don't much mind what said and so it does me no harm people's too proud to confess they're done at any time or in anything why such gents has pretended when I've sold them a duffer and seen them afterwards that they've done me nor is it to violins that this duffing or sham second hand trade is confined at the swag shops duffing cornopians, French horns and clarionettes are vended to the street folk one of these cornopians may be bought for fourteen shillings a French horn for ten shillings a clarionette for seven shilling sixpence or as a general rule at one fourth of the price of a properly made instrument sold as reasonably as possible these things are also made to look old and are disposed of in the same manner as the duffing violins the sale however is and was always limited for if there be one working man I was told or a man of any sort not professional in music that tries his wind and his fingers on a clarionette there's a dozen trying their touch and execution on a violin another way in which the duffing music trade at one time was made available as a second hand business was this, a band would play before a pawnbroker's store and the duffing German brass instruments might be well toned enough the inferiority consisting chiefly in the materials but which were so polished up as to appear of the best some member of the band would then offer his brass instrument in pledge and often obtain an advance of more than he had paid for it one man who had been himself engaged in what he called this artful business told me that when two pawnbrokers whom he knew found that they had been tricked into advancing 15 shillings on cornopians which they could buy new in houndstitch for 14 shillings they got him to drop the tickets of the pledge which they drew out for the purpose in the streets these were picked up by some passerby and as there is a very common feeling that there is no harm or indeed rather a merit in cheating a pawnbroker or a tax gatherer the instruments were soon redeemed by the fortunate finder or the person to whom he had disposed of his prize nor did the roguery end here the same man told me that he had in collusion with a pawnbroker dropped tickets of sham second hand musical instruments which he had bought new at a swag shop for the very purpose the amount of the duplicate being double the cost and as it is known that the pawnbrokers do not advance the value of any article the finders were gulled into redeeming the pledge as an advantageous bargain but I've left off all that dodging now sir said the man with a sort of a grunt which seemed half a sigh and half a laugh I've left it off entirely for I found I was getting into trouble the derivation of the term duffing I am unable to discover the reference Mr. Dixon says in his dove coat and aviary that the term duffer applied to pigeons is a corruption of dove house but query in the slang dictionaries a duffer is explained as a man who hawks things hence it would be equivalent to peddler which means strictly beggar being from the Dutch bedler and the German bitler end of section 3 section 4 of London Labour and the London poor volume 2 by Henry Mayhew this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Gillian Henry of the street sellers of second hand weapons the sale of second hand pistols for to that weapon the street sellers or hawkers trade in arms seems confined rather than might be cursory imagined there must be something seductive about the possession of a pistol for I am assured by persons familiar with the trade that they have sold them to men who were ignorant when first invited to purchase how the weapon was loaded or discharged and seemed half afraid to handle it perhaps the possession imparts a sense of security the pistols which are sometimes seen on the streets dolls these old, rusted or battered and are useless to anyone except to those who can repair and clean them for sale there are three men now selling new or second hand pistols I am told who have been gun makers this trade is carried on almost entirely by hawking to public houses I heard of no one who depended solely upon it but this is the way one intelligent man stated to me buying second hand things at a broker's or in petticoat lane or anywhere and there's a pistol that seems cheap I'll buy it as readily as anything I know and I'll soon sell it at a public house or I'll get it raffled for second hand pistols sell better than you by such as me if I was to offer a new one I should be told it was some brumagin, slop rubbish or there's a little silver plate let into the wood of the pistol and a crest or initials engraved on it I've got it done sometimes there's a better chance of sale for people think it's been made for somebody of consequence that wouldn't be fobbed off with an inferior thing I don't think I've often sold pistols to working men but I've known them join in raffles for them and the winner has often wanted to sell it back to me and has sold it to somebody it's tradesmen that buy or gentle folks if you can get at them a pistol's a sort of a plaything with them when I was talking with a street dealer concerning the street trade in second hand pistols he produced a handsome pistol from his pocket I inquired if it was customary for men in his way of life to carry pistols and he expressed his conviction that it was but only when travelling in the country and in possession of money or valuable stock I gave only seven shilling sixpence for this pistol he said and have refused ten shilling sixpence for it and I shall get a better price as it's an excellent article on some of my rounds in town I bought it to take to Ascot races with me and have it with me now but it's not loaded for I'm going to Moseyhurst where Hampton races are held you're not safe if you travel after a great muster at a race by yourself without a pistol many a poor fellow like me has been robbed and the public hear nothing about it or say it's all gammon at Ascot sir I wasted my money to a boothkeeper I knew as a few men slept in his booth and he put my bit of tin with his own under his head where he slept for safekeeping there's a little doing in second hand pistols to such as me but we generally sell them again of second hand guns or other offensive weapons there is no street sale a few life preservers some of gutta percha are hawked but they are generally new bullets and powder not sold by the pistol hawkers but a mould for the casting of bullets is frequently sold along with the weapon of these second hand pistol sellers there are now I am told more than there were last year I really believe said one man laughing but I heard a similar account from others people were afraid the foreigners coming to the great exhibition had some mischief in their noddles and so a pistol was wanted for protection a pistol is just one of the things that people don't think of buying till it's shown to them and then they're tempted to have it the principal street sale independently of the hawking to public houses is in such places as Ratcliffe highway where the mates and petty officers of ships are accosted and invited to buy a good second hand pistol the wares thus vended are generally of a well made sort in this traffic as a struggling trade pursued by men who are at the same time pursuing other street callings it may be estimated I am assured that there are 20 men engaged each taking as an average one pound a week in some weeks a man may take 5 pounds in the next month he may sell no weapons at all from 30 to 50% is the usual rate of profit and the yearly street outlay on these second hand offensive weapons is 1,040 pounds one man who did a little in pistols told me that 25 or 30 years ago when he was a boy his father sometimes cleared 2 pounds a week in the street sale and hawking of second hand boxing gloves and that he himself had sometimes carried the gloves in his hand and pistols in his pocket for sale but that now boxing gloves were in no demand whatever among street buyers and were a complete drag he used to sell them at 3 shillings a set which is 4 gloves of the street sellers of second hand curiosities several of the things known in the street trade as curiosities can hardly be styled second hand with any propriety but they are so styled in the streets and are usually vended by street merchants who trade in second hand wares curiosities are displayed I cannot say temptingly except perhaps to a sanguine antiquarian for there is a great dinginess in the display on stalls one man whom I met wheeling his barrow in high street Camden town gave me an account of his trade he was dirtily rather than meanly clad and had a very self satisfied expression of face the principal things on his barrow were coins, shells and old buckles with a pair of the very high wellington heeled shoes worn in the earlier part of the last century the coins were all of copper and certainly did not lack variety among them were tokens but none very old there was the head of Charles Marquis Cornwallis looking fierce in a cocked hat while on the reverse was fame with her trumpet and a wreath and banners at her feet with a superscription his fame resounds from east to west there was the head of Wellington with the date 1811 and the legend of Vincit Amour Patry also the right honourable W Pitt Lord Warden sink ports looking courtly in a bag wig with his hair brushed from his brow into what the curiosity seller called a topping this was announced as a sink ports token payable at Dover and was dated 1794 wellingtons said the man is cheap that one's only a hipney but here's one here sir as you seem to understand coins as I hope to get tuppence for and will take no less it's a J. Lackington 1794 you see and on the back there's a fame and round her is written and it's a good specimen of a coin hipney of Lackington, Alan and Co cheapest bookmakers in the world that's scarcer and more valuable than wellingtons or nelsons either of the current coin of the realm I saw none older than Charles II and but one of his reign and little legible indeed the reverse had been ground quite smooth and someone had engraved upon it Charles dryland tonbridge readers note tonbridge is spelled T-U-N-B-R-I-D-G end note a small E over the G of tonbridge perfected the orthography this the street seller said was a love token as well as an old coin and them love tokens was getting scarce of foreign and colonial coins there were perhaps 60 the oldest I saw was one of Louis the 15th of France and Navarre 1774 there was one also of the Republique Française when Napoleon was first consul the colonial coins were more numerous than the foreign there was the one penny token of lower Canada the one quarter Anna of the East India Company the half-stiver of the colonies of Esikibo and Demerara the hipney token of the province of Nova Scotia and so on and so on there were also counterfeit half crowns and bank tokens worn from their simulated silver to rank copper the principle on which this man priced his coins as he called it was simple enough what was the size of a hipney he asked a penny for the size of a penny coin was tuppence it's a difficult trade his mind sir he said to carry on properly for you may be so easily taken in if you're not a judge of coins and other curiosities the shells of this man's stock in trade he called conks and king conks he had no clamps then he told me but they sold pretty well he described them as two shells together one fitting inside the other he also had sold what he called African curries which were as big as a pint pot and the smaller curries which were money in India for his father was a soldier and had been there and saw it the shells are sold from one penny to two shelling sixpence the old buckles were such as used to be worn on shoes but the plate was all worn off the curiosities the man told me got scarcer and scarcer many of the stalls which are seen in the streets are the property of adjacent shop or storekeepers and there are not now I am informed more than six men who carry on this trade apart from other commerce their average takings are 15 shelling weekly each man about two thirds being profit or 234 pounds in a year some of the stands are in great the street but they are chiefly the property of the second hand furniture brokers of the street sellers of second hand telescopes and pocket glasses in the sale of second hand telescopes only one man is now engaged in any extensive way except on mere chance occasions 14 or 15 years ago I was informed there was a considerable street sale in small telescopes at a shelling each they were made at Birmingham not believed but were sold as second hand goods in London of this trade there is now no remains the principal seller of second hand telescopes takes a stand on tower hill or by the coal exchange and his customers as he sells excellent glasses are mostly seafaring men he has sold and still sells telescopes from £2.10 shelling to £5 each the purchasers generally trying them with strict examination from tower hill or on the custom house key there are in addition to this street seller six and sometimes eight others who offer telescopes to persons about the docks or wharfs who may be going some voyage these are as often new as second hand but the second hand articles are preferred this however is a Jewish trade which will be treated off under another head an old opera glass or the smaller articles best known as pocket glasses are occasionally hopped to public houses and offered in the streets but so little is done in them that I can obtain no statistics a spectacle seller told me that he had once tried to sell two second hand opera glasses at two shelling six pins each in the street and then in the public houses but was laughed at by the people who were usually his customers opera glasses they said why what did they want with opera glasses wait until they had opera boxes he sold the glasses at last to a shopkeeper off the street sellers of other miscellaneous second hand articles the other second hand articles sold in the streets I will give under one head specifying the different characteristics of the trade when any striking peculiarities exist to give a detail of the whole trade or rather of the several kinds of articles in the whole trade is impossible I shall therefore select only such as are sold the more extensively or present any novel or curious features of second hand street commerce writing desks tea caddies dressing cases and knife boxes used to be a ready sale I was informed when good second hand but they are got up now so cheaply by the poor fancy cabinet makers who work for the slaughterers or furniture warehouses and for some of the general dealing swag shops that the sale of anything second hand is greatly diminished in fact I was told that as regards second hand writing desks and dressing cases it might be said there was no trade at all now a few however are still to be seen at miscellaneous stalls and are occasionally but very rarely offered at a public house used by artisans who may be considered judges of work the tea caddies are the things which are in best demand working people by them I was informed and working people's wives when women are the customers they look closely at the lock and key as they keep my uncle's cards there note pawnbroker's duplicates end note one man had lately sold second hand tea caddies at nine pence one shilling and one shilling and cleared two shillings in a day when he had stock and devoted his time to this sale he could not persevere in it if he wished he told me as he might lose a day in looking out for the caddies he might go to 50 brokers and not find one caddie cheap enough for his purpose brushes are sold second hand in considerable quantities in the streets and are usually vended at stalls shoe brushes are in the best demand and are generally sold when in good condition at one shilling the set the cost to the street seller being eight pence they are bought I was told by the people who clean their own shoes or have to clean other people's clothes brushes are not sold to any extent as the hard brush of the shoe set is used by working people for a clothes brush of late I am told second hand brushes have sold more freely than ever they were hardly to be had just when wanted in a sufficient quantity for the demand by persons going to Epsom and Ascot races who carry a brush of little value with them to brush the dust gathered on the road from their coats the costar girls buy very hard brushes indeed mere stumps with which they brush radishes these brushes are vended at the streets halls at a penny each in stuffed birds for the embellishment of the walls of a room there is still a small second hand street sale one now in images or chimney piece ornaments why said one dealer I can now buy new figures for nine pence such as not many years ago cost seven shillings so what chance of a second hand sale is there the stuffed birds which sell the best are starlings they are all sold a second hand but are often made up for street traffic an old bird or two I was told in a new case or a new bird in an old case last Saturday evening one man told me he had sold two long cases of starlings and small birds for two shilling six pence each there are no stuffed parrots or foreign birds in this sale and no pheasants or other game except sometimes wretched old things which are sold because they happen to be in a case the street trade in second hand lasts is confined principally to petticoat and rosemary lanes bought by the garret masters in the shoemaking trade who supply the large wholesale warehouses that is to say by small masters who find their own materials and sell the boots and shoes by the dozen pairs the lasts are bought also by mechanics street sellers and other poor persons who cobble their own shoes a shoemaker told me that he occasionally bought a last at a street stall or rather from street campers in rosemary lanes and it seemed to him that second hand stores of street lasts cut neither bigger nor smaller I suppose it's this way he reasoned the garret master buys lasts to do the slops nobbing cheap mostly women's lasts and he dies or is done up and goes to the great house and his lasts find their way back to the streets you notice sir the first time you're in rosemary lane how little a great many of the lasts what a terrible necessity there was to part with them in some there's hardly any peg marks at all the lasts are sold from a penny to thruppings each or twice that amount in pairs rights and lefts according to the size and the condition there are about 20 street last sellers in the second hand trade of London at least 20 one man said after he seemed to have been making a mental calculation on the subject second hand harness is sold largely and when good is sold very readily there is I am told far less slot work in harness making than in shoemaking or in the other trades such as tailoring and many a lady's pony harness it was said to me by a second hand dealer goes next to a tradesman and next to a costar monk or donkey and if it's been good leather to begin with as it will if it was made for a lady why the traces all stand clouting and patching and piecing and mending for a long time and they'll do to cobble old boots last of all for old leather will wear just in treading when it might snap at a pool give me a good quality to begin with sir and it's serviceable to the end in my inquiries among the costar mongers I ascertained that if one of that body started his donkey or rose from that to his pony he never bought new harness unless it were a new collar if he had a regard for the comfort of his beast but bought old harness and did it up himself often using iron rivets or clenched nails to reunite the broken parts where of course a harness maker would apply a patch nor is it the costar mongers alone who buy all their harness second hand the sweep who stuck of suit is large enough to require the help of an ass and a cart in its transport the collector of bones and offal from the butcher's slaughterhouses or shops and the many who may be considered as co-traders with the costar monger class the greengrocer the street coal seller by retail the salt sellers the gravel and sand dealer a few have small carts all indeed of that class of traders buy their harness second hand and generally in the streets the chief sale of second hand harness is on the friday afternoons in smithfield the more a special street sale is in petticoat and rosemary lanes and in the many off streets and alleys which may be called the tributaries to those great second hand marts there is no sale of these word in the saturday night markets for in the crush and bustle generally prevailing there at such times no room could be found for things requiring so much space as sets of second hand harness and no time sufficiently to examine them so much to look at you understand sir said one second hand street trader who did a little in harness as well as in barrows if you want a decent set and don't grudge a shilling or two and i never grudges in myself when i has them so that it takes a little time you must see that the buckles has good tongues and it's a sort of joke in the trade that a bad tongues a damned bad thing and that the panel of the pad ain't as hard as a board flocks is the best stuffing sir and that the bit if it's rusty can be polished up for an animal no more likes a rusty bit in his mouth than we likes a musty bit of bread and urn oh a man as treats his ass as an ass ought to be treated and it's just the same if he has a pony can't be too particular if i had my way i'd act a law making people particular about ossies and asses shoes if your boot pinches you sir you can sing out to your boot maker but an ass can't blow up a farrier it seems to me that in these homely remarks of my informant there is so to speak a sound practical kindliness there can be little doubt that a fellow who maltreats his ass or his dog maltreats his wife and children when he dares clocks are sold second hand but only by three or four foreigners Dutchmen or Germans who hawk them and sell them at two shelling sixpence or three shillings each Dutch clocks only been disposed of in this way Dutch traders therefore come under the head of street foreigners aye one street seller remarked to me it's only Dutch now as is second handed in the streets but it will soon be Americans the swags is some of them hung up with slicks note so he called the American clocks meaning the Sam Slicks in reference to Mr Justice Halliburton's work of that title end note there hung up with them sir note pawnbroker end note I'll give a printed character of them note a duplicate and so they must come to the streets and jolly cheap they'll be the foreigners who sell the second hand Dutch clocks sell also new clocks of the same manufacturer and often on tally one shelling a week being the usual payment cartouche boxes are sold at the miscellaneous stalls but only after there has been it's called a tower sale note sale of military stores end note when bought of the street sellers the use of these boxes is far more peaceful than that for which they were manufactured instead of the receptacles of cartridges the divisions are converted into nail boxes each with its different assortment or contain the smaller kinds of tools such as all blades these boxes are sold in the streets at a hipney or a penny each and are bought by jobbing shoemakers more than by any other class of the other second hand commodities of the streets I may observe that in trinkets the trade is altogether Jewish in maps with frames it is now a non-entity and so it is with fishing rods cricket bats and so on in umbrellas and parasols the second hand traffic is large but those vended in the streets are nearly all done up for street sale or more properly mushroom fakers that is to say the makers or fakers note faquerie the slang fakement being simply a corruption of the Latin facumentum end note of those articles which are similar in shape to mushrooms I shall treat of this class and the goods they sell under the head of street artisans the collectors of old umbrellas and parasols are the same persons as collect the second hand abiliments of male and female attire the men and women engaged in the street commerce carried on in second hand articles are in all respects a more mixed class than the generality of street sellers some hawk in the streets goods which they also display in their shops or in the windowless apartments known as their shops some are not in possession of shops but often by their wares of those who are some collect or purchase the articles they vend others collect them by barter the itinerant croc man the root seller the glazed table cover seller the hawker of spars and worked stone and even the costar monger of the morning is the dealer in second hand articles of the afternoon and evening the costar monger is moreover often the buyer and seller of second hand harness in smithfield I may point out again also what a multifariousness of wares passes in the course of a month through the hands of a general street seller at one time new goods at another second hand sometimes he is stationary at a pitch bending lots or swag toys at others itinerant selling braces, belts and holes I found no miscellaneous dealer who could tell me of the proportionate receipts from the various articles he dealt in even for the last month he did well in this and badly in the other trade but beyond such vague statements there is no precise information to be had it should be recollected that the street sellers do not keep accounts or those documents would supply references it's all head work with us a street seller said somewhat boastingly to me as if the ignorance of bookkeeping was rather commendable of second hand store shops perhaps it may add to the completeness of the information here given concerning the trading in old refuse articles and especially those of a miscellaneous character the manner in which and the parties by whom the business is carried on if I conclude this branch of the subject by an account of the shops of the second hand dealers the distance between the class of these shopkeepers and of the stall and barrowkeepers I have described is not great it may be said to be merely from the street to within doors that the dealers have often in their start in life been street sellers not unfrequently costar mungers and street sellers they again become if their ventures be unsuccessful some of them however make a good deal of money in what may be best understood as a hugger mugger way on this subject I cannot do better than quote Mr Dickens one of the most minute and truthful of observers quote the reader must often have perceived on by street in a poor neighbourhood a small dirty shop exposing for sale the most extraordinary and confused jumble of old worn out wretched articles that can well be imagined our wonder at their ever having been bought is only to be equaled by our astonishment at the idea of their ever being sold again on a board at the side of the door are placed about 20 books all odd volumes and as many wine glasses and different patterns several locks an old earthenware pan full of rusty keys two or three gaudy chimney ornaments cracked of course the remains of a luster without any drops a round frame like a capital O which has once held a mirror a flute complete with the exception of the middle joint a pair of curling irons and a tinder box in front of the shop window arranged some half dozen high back chairs final complaints and wasted legs a corner cupboard two or three very dark mahogany tables with flaps like mathematical problems some pickle bottles some surgeons ditto with guilt labels and without stoppers an unframed portrait of some lady who flourished about the beginning of the 13th century by an artist who never flourished at all an incalculable host of miscellaneous of every description including armour and cabinets rags and bones fenders and street door knockers fire irons, wearing apparel and bedding a hall lamp and a room door imagine in addition to this a black doll and a white frock with two faces one looking up the street and the other looking down swinging over the door a board with the squeezed up inscription dealer in marine stores in lanky white letters whose height is strangely out of proportion to their width and you have before you precisely the kind of shop to which we wish to direct your attention although the same heterogeneous mixture of things will be found at all these places it is curious to observe how truly and accurately some of the minor articles which are exposed for sale articles of wearing apparel for instance mark the character of the neighbourhood take Drury Lane and Covent Garden for example this is essentially a theatrical neighbourhood there is not a pot boy in the vicinity who is not to a greater or less extent a dramatic character the earned boys and chandler shopkeepers sons are all stage-struck they get up plays in back kitchens hired for the purpose and will stand before a shop window for hours contemplating a great staring portrait of Mr. somebody or other of the Royal Colberg Theatre as he appeared in the character of Tongo the denounced the consequence is that there is not a store shop in the neighbourhood which does not exhibit for sale some faded articles of dramatic finery such as three or four pairs of soiled buff boots with turnover red tops here to fore worn by a fourth robber or fifth mob a pair of rusty broadswords a few gauntlets and certain resplendent ornaments which if they were yellow instead of white might be taken for insurance plates of the Sunfire office shops in the narrow streets and dirty coats of which there are so many near the National theatres and they all have tempting goods of this description with the addition perhaps of a ladies pink dress covered with spangles white wreaths stage shoes and a tiara like a tin lamp reflector they have been purchased of some wretched supernumeries or sixth rate actors and are now offered for the benefit of the rising generation the condition of making certain weekly payments amounting in the whole to about ten times their value may avail themselves of such desirable bargains let us take a very different quarter and apply it to the same test look at a marine store dealers in that reservoir of dirt, drunkenness and drabs thieves, oysters, baked potatoes and pickled salmon Ratcliffe highway here the wearing a pearl is all nautical jackets with mother of pearl buttons oil skin hats coarse checked shirts and large canvas trousers that look as if they were made for a pair of bodies instead of a pair of legs are the staple commodities then there are large bunches of cotton pocket handkerchiefs in colour and pattern unlike anyone ever saw before with the exception of those on the backs of the three young ladies without bonnets who passed just now the furniture is much the same as elsewhere with the addition of one or two models of ships and some old prints of naval engagements in still older frames in the window are a few compasses a small tray containing silver watches in clumsy thick cases and tobacco boxes the lid of each ornamented with a ship or an anchor or some such trophy a sailor generally pawns or sells all he has before he has been long assure and if he does not some favoured companion kindly saves him the trouble in either case it is an even chance that he afterwards unconsciously repurchases the same things at a higher price than he gave for them at first again pay a visit with a similar object to a part of London as unlike both of these as they are to each other crossover to the surrey side and look at such shops of this description as are to be found near the king's bench prison and in the rules how different and how strikingly illustrative of the decay of some of the unfortunate residents in this part of the metropolis imprisonment and neglect have done their work there is contamination in the profligate denizens of a debtor's prison old friends have fallen off the recollection of former prosperity has passed away and with it all thoughts for the past all care for the future first watches and rings then cloaks, coats and all the more expensive articles of dress have found their way to the pawnbrokers that miserable resource has failed at last and the sale of some trifling article at one of these shops has been the only mode left of raising a shelling or two to make the urgent demands of the moment dressing cases and writing desks too old to pawn but too good to keep guns fishing rods musical instruments all in the same condition have first been sold and the sacrifice has been but slightly felt but hunger must be elade and what has already become a habit is easily resorted to when an emergency arises light articles of clothing first of the ruined man then of his wife at last of their children even of the youngest have been partied with piecemeal there they are thrown carelessly together presents himself old and patched and repaired it is true but the making materials tell of better days and the older they are the greater the misery and destitution of those whom they once adorned of the street sellers of second hand apparel the multifariousness of the articles of this trade is limited only by what the uncertainty of the climate the caprices of fashion or the established styles of apparel in the kingdom have caused to be worn, flung aside and reworn as a revival of an obsolete style it is to be remarked however that of the old fashion styles none that are costly have been revived laced coats and embroidered and lappeted waist coats have long disappeared from second hand traffic the last stage of fashions and indeed from all places but coat or fancy malls and the theatre the great mark for second hand apparel was in the last century in Monmouth Street now by one of those arbitrary and almost always inappropriate changes in the nomenclature of streets termed Dudley Street, Seven Diles Monmouth Street finery was a common term to express todreness and pretense now Monmouth Street for its new name is hardly legitimated has no finery its second handwares are almost wholly confined to old boots and shoes which are vamped up with a good deal of trickery so much so that a shoemaker himself in the poorer practice of the gentle craft told me that blacking and brown paper were the materials of Monmouth Street cobbling almost every master in Monmouth Street now is, I am told, an Irishman and the great majority of the workmen are Irishmen also there were a few Jews and a few Cockneys in this well known street a year or two back but now this branch of the second hand trade is really in the hands of what may be called a clan a little business is carried on in second hand apparel as well as boots and shoes but it is insignificant the headquarters of this second hand trade are now in Petticoat and Rosemary lanes especially in Petticoat Lane and the traffic there carried on may be called enormous departments of commerce both in our own capital in many of our older cities and in the cities of the continent the locality appropriated to this traffic is one of narrow streets dark alleys and most oppressive crowding the traders seem to judge of a rag fare garment whether a cotton frock or a ducal coachman's great coat by the touch more reliably than by the sight they inspect so to speak with their fingers more than their eyes but the business in Petticoat and Rosemary lanes is mostly of a retail character the wholesale mark for the trade in old clothes has both a wholesale and retail form is in a place of a special curiosity and one of which as being little known I shall first speak of the old clothes exchange the trade in second hand apparel is one of the most ancient of callings and is known in almost every country but anything like the old clothes exchange of the Jewish quarter of London in the extent and order of its business is unequaled in the world there is indeed no other such place and it is rather remarkable that a business occupying so many persons and requiring such facilities for examination and arrangement should not until the year 1843 have had its regulated proceedings the old clothes exchange is the latest of the central marks established in 1843 of the central marks established in the metropolis Smithfield or the cattle exchange is the oldest of all the markets it is mentioned as a place for the sale of horses in the time of Henry II Billingsgate or the fish exchange is of ancient but uncertain era Covent Garden the largest fruit, vegetable and flower exchange first became established as the centre of such commerce in the reign of Charles II the establishment of the borough and spittle fields markets as other marks for the sale of fruits vegetables and flowers being nearly as ancient the royal exchange dates from the days of Queen Elizabeth and the Bank of England and the stock exchange from those of William III while the present premises for the corn and coal exchanges are modern where it possible to obtain the statistics of the last quarter of a century it would perhaps be found that of the important interests I have mentioned has there been a greater increase of business than in the trade in old clothes whether this purports a high degree of national prosperity or not it is not my business at present to inquire and be it as it may it is certain that until the last few years the trade in old clothes used to be carried on entirely in the open air and this in the localities which I have pointed out in my account of the trade in old metal as comprising the Petticoat Lane district the old clothes trade was also pursued in Rosemary Lane but then and so indeed it is now this was but a branch of the more centralized commerce of Petticoat Lane the headquarters of the traffic at that time were confined to a space not more than 10 square yards adjoining Cutler Street the chief traffic elsewhere was originally in Cutler Street White Street, Carter Street and in Harrow Alley the districts of the celebrated rag fair the confusion and clamour before the institution of the present arrangements were extreme great as was the extent of the business transacted people wondered how it could be accomplished for it always appeared to a stranger that there could be no order whatever in all the disorder the wrangling was incessant nor were the trade contests always confined to wrangling alone the passions of the Irish often drove them to resort to cuffs kicks and blows which the Jews although with a better command over their tempers were not slack in returning the East India Company some of whose warehouses adjoined the market frequently complained to the city authorities of the nuisance, complaints from other quarters were also frequent sometimes as many as 200 constables were necessary to restore or enforce order the nuisance however like many a public nuisance was left to remedy itself or rather it was left to be remedied by individual enterprise Mr L Isaac the present proprietor purchased the houses which then filled up the back of filled buildings and formed the present old clothes exchange this was 8 years ago there are no more policemen in the locality than in other equally populous parts of old clothes exchanges there are now two both adjacent the one first opened by Mr Isaac being the most important this is 100 feet by 70 and is the mark to which the collectors of the cast-off apparel of the metropolis bring their goods for sale the goods are sold wholesale and retail for an old clothes merchant will buy a little hat or an entire wardrobe or a sack full of shoes I need not say pairs for odd shoes are not rejected in one department of Isaac's exchange however the goods are not sold to parties who buy for their own wearing but to the old clothes merchant who buys to sell again in this portion of the mart are 90 stalls averaging about 6 square feet each in another department which communicates with the first these two thirds of the size are assembled such traders as buy the old garments to dispose of them either after a process of cleaning or when they have been repaired and renovated these buyers are generally shopkeepers residing in the old clothes districts of Merlebone Lane, Holywell Street Monmouth Street, Union Street Burrow, Saffron Hill Field Lane, Drury Lane Shore Ditch, the Waterloo Road and other places of which I shall have to speak here after the difference between the first and second class of buyers above mentioned is really that of the merchant and the retail shopkeeper the one buys literally anything presented to him which is and in any quantity for the supply of the wholesale dealers from distant parts or from exportation or for the general trade of London the other purchases what suits his individual trade and is likely to put regular or promiscuous customers in another part of the same market is carried on the retail old clothes trade to anyone shopkeeper artisan, clerk, costar monger or gentleman this indeed is partially the case in the other parts yeah indeed said a Hebrew trader whom I conversed with on the subject I shall be glad to shell you one coat sir this one is just your size it is very cheap and vosh made by one tip top schnip indeed the keenness and anxiety to trade whenever trade seems possible causes many of the frequenters of these marts to infringe the arrangements as to the manner of the traffic though the proprietors endeavor to cause the regulations to be strictly adhered to the second exchange which is a few yards apart from the other is known as Simmons and Levi's clothes exchange and is unemployed for its more special business purposes except in the mornings the commerce is then wholesale for here are sold collections of unredeemed pledges in wearing apparel consigned there by the pawnbrokers or the buyers at the auctions of unredeemed goods as well as drafts from the stocks of the wardrobe dealers a quantity of military or naval stores and such like articles in the afternoon the stalls are occupied by retail dealers the ground is about as large as the first mentioned exchange but is longer and narrower in neither of these places is there even an attempt at architectural elegance or even neatness the stalls and partitions are off unpainted wood the walls are bare the only care that seems to be manifested is that the place should be dry in the first instance the plainness was no doubt a necessity from motives of prudence and merely speculations and now everything but business seems to be disregarded the old clothes exchange have assuredly one recommendation as they are now seen their appropriateness they have a threadbare patched and second hand look the dresses worn by the dealers and the dresses they deal in are all in accordance with the genius of the place but the eagerness, crowding and energy and of all the many curious sights in London there is none as picturesque from the various costumes of the buyers and sellers none so novel and none so animated as that of the old clothes exchange business is carried on in the wholesale department of the old clothes exchanges every day during the week and in the retail on each day except the Hebrew Sabbath Saturday the Jews in the old clothes trade observe strictly the command that on their Sabbath day they shall do no manner of work for on a visit I paid to the exchange last Saturday not a single Jew could I see engaged in any business but though the Hebrew Sabbath is observed by the Jews and disregarded by the Christians the Christian Sabbath on the other hand is disregarded by Jew and Christian alike some few of the Irish accepted who may occasionally go to early mass and attend at the exchange afterwards Sunday therefore in rag fair is like the other days of the week Saturday accepted business closes on the Sunday however at 2 instead of 6 on the Saturday the keen Jew traders in the neighbourhood of the exchanges may be seen standing at their doors after the synagogue ours or looking out of their windows dressed in their best the dress of the men is for the most part not distinguishable from that of the English on the Sunday except that there may be a greater glitter of rings and watch guards the dress of the women is of every kind becoming handsome rich, tawdry but seldom neat of the wholesale business at the old clothes exchange a considerable quantity of the old clothes disposed of at the exchange are bought by merchants from Ireland they are then packed in males by porters regularly employed for the purpose and who literally build them up, square and compact these bails are each worth from £50 to £300 though seldom £300 and it is curious to reflect from how many classes the pile of old garments has been collected how many privations have been endured before some of the habiliments found their way into the possession of the old clothesman what besotted debauchery put others in his possession with what cool calculation others were disposed of how many were procured for money and how many by the tempting offers of flowers, glass, crockery, spars table covers, lace or millinery what was the clothing which could first be spared when rent was to be defrayed or bread to be bought and what was treasured until the last in what scenes of gaiety or gravity in the opera house or the senate had the perhaps departed wearers of some of that heap of clothes figured through how many possessors and again through what new scenes of middle class or artisan comfort had these dresses passed or through what accidents of gentile privation and destitution and lastly through what necessities of squalid wretchedness and low debauchery every kind of old attire from the highest to the very lowest I was emphatically told was sent to Ireland the bales are composed of garments originally made for the labouring classes these are made up of every description of colour and material cloth, corduroy, woollen cords fustian, moleskin flannel, velveteen, plaids and the several varieties of these substances in them are to be seen coats great coats, jackets, trousers and breeches but no other habiliments such as boots, shirts or stockings as told by a gentleman who between 40 and 50 years ago was familiar with the liberty and poorer parts of Dublin that the most coveted and the most saleable of all second hand apparel was that of leather breeches worn commonly in some of the country parts of England half a century back and sent in considerable quantities at that time from London to Ireland these nether habiliments were coveted because as the Dublin sellers would say they would wear forever and look elegant after that buckskin breeches are now never worn except by grooms in their liveries and gentlemen when hunting so that the trade in them in the old clothes exchange and their exportation to Ireland are at an end the next most saleable thing I may mention incidentally vended cheap and second hand in Dublin to the poor Irishman of the period I speak of was a weak and happy was the man who could wear two one over the other some of the Irish buyers who are regular frequenters of the London old clothes exchange take a small apartment often a garret or a seller in petticoat lane or its vicinity and to this room they convey their purchases until a sufficient stock has been collected among these old clothes the Irish possessors cook or at any rate eat their meals and upon them they sleep I did not hear that such dealers were more than ordinarily unhealthy though it may perhaps be assumed that such habits are fatal to health what may be the average duration of life among old clothes sellers who live in the midst of their wares I do not know and believe that no facts have been collected on the subject but I certainly saw among them some very old men other wholesale buyers from Ireland occupy decent lodgings in the neighbourhood decent considering the locality in filled buildings a kind of wide alley which forms one of the approaches to the exchange are eight respectable apartments almost always let to the Irish old clothes merchants tradesmen of the same class come also from the large towns of England and Scotland to buy for their customers some of the left off clothes of London nor is this the extent of the wholesale trade bails of old clothes are exported to Belgium and Holland but principally to Holland of the quantity of goods thus exported to the continent not above one half perhaps can be called old clothes while among these the old livery suits are in the best demand the other goods of this foreign trade are old surges, duffels, carpeting drug it and heavy woolen goods generally of all the descriptions which I have before enumerated as partial of the second hand trade of the streets old merino curtains and any second hand decorations of fringes, woolen lace and so on are in demand for Holland 12 bails averaging somewhere about 100 pounds each in value but not fully 100 pounds are sent direct every week of the year from the old clothes exchange to distant places and this is not the whole of the traffic apart from what is done retail I am informed on the best authority that the old clothes trade may be stated at 1500 pounds a week all the year round when I come to the conclusion of the subject however I shall be able to present statistics of the amount turned over in the respective branches of the old clothes trade as well as of the number of the traffickers only one fourth of whom are now Jews the conversation which goes on in the old clothes exchange during business hours apart from the stuff and orange or cake sellers is all concerning business but there is even while business is being transacted a frequent interchange of jokes and even of practical jokes the business talk I was told by an old clothes collector and I heard similar remarks is often to the following effect how much is this here says the man who comes to buy one pound five replies the Jew seller of half the money after money cries the salesman I can't take that but above the 16 shillings that you offer now will you give for it will you give me 18 well come give us your money I've got my rent to pay but the man says I only bid you 12 shilling sixpence and I shan't give no more and then if the seller finds he can get him to spring or advance no further he says I suppose I must take your money even if I lose by it you'll be a better customer another time note this is still a common deal I am assured by one who began the business at 13 years old and is now upwards of 60 years of age the petticoat laner will always ask at least twice as much as he means to take end note for a more detailed account of the mode of business as conducted at the old clothes exchange there are the reader to page 368 of volume one subsequent visits have shown me nothing to alter in that description although written in one of my letters in the morning chronicle nearly two years ago I have merely to add that I have there mentioned the receipt of a hipney toll but this I find is not levied on Saturdays and Sundays I ought not to omit stating that pilfering one from another by the poor persons who have collected the second hand garments and have carried them to the old clothes exchange to dispose of is a very rare occurrence this is the more commendable for many of the weirs could not be identified by their owner as he had procured them only that morning if as happens often enough a man carried a dozen pairs of old shoes to the exchange and one pair were stolen he might have some difficulty in swearing to the identity of the pair perloined it is true that the Jews and croc men and others who collect by sailor barter masses of old clothes note all their defects very minutely and might have no moral doubt as to identity nevertheless the magistrate would probably conclude that the legal evidence where it only circumstantial was insufficient the young thieves however who flopped from the low lodging houses in the neighbourhood are in a special trouble where the people robbed are generally too busy and the article stolen of too little value to induce a prosecution a knowledge which the juvenile pilferer is not slow in acquiring sometimes when these boys are caught pilfering they are severely beaten especially by the women who are aided by the men if the thief offers any formidable resistance or struggles to return the blows end of section 4