 Section 17 of London Labour and the London Poor, Volume 2 by Henry Mehue. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Gillian Henry. Of the numbers, capital and income of the street sellers of second-hand articles, live animals, mineral productions, etc. The hawkers of second-hand articles, live animals, mineral productions and natural curiosities form, as we have seen, large important classes of the street sellers. According to the facts already given, there appear to be at present in the streets 90 sellers of metalwares, including the sellers of second-hand trays and Italian irons. 30 sellers of old linen, as wrappers and tolling. 80 vendors of second-hand burnt linen and calico. 30 sellers of curtains. 30 sellers of carpeting and so on. 30 sellers of bed ticking and so on. 6 sellers of old crockery and glass. 25 sellers of old musical instruments. 6 vendors of second-hand weapons. 6 sellers of old curiosities. 6 vendors of telescopes and pocket glasses. 30 to 40 sellers of other miscellaneous second-hand articles. 100 sellers of men's second-hand clothes. 30 sellers of old boots and shoes. 15 vendors of old hats. 50 sellers of women's second-hand apparel. 30 vendors of second-hand bonnets. And 10 sellers of old furs. 116 sellers of second-hand articles at Smithfield Market. Making altogether 725 street sellers of second-hand commodities. But some of the above trades are of a temporary character only, as in the case of the vendors of old linen tolling or wrappers, carpets, bed ticking and so on. The same persons who sell the one, often selling the others. The towels and wrappers, moreover, are offered for sale only on the Monday and Saturday nights. Assuming then that upwards of 100 or 1 6th of the above number sell 2 different second-hand articles or are not continually employed at that department of street traffic, we find the total number of street sellers belonging to this class to be about 500. Concerning the number selling live animals in the streets, there are 50 men vending fancy and sporting dogs, 200 sellers and duffers of English birds, 10 sellers of parrots and other foreign birds, 3 sellers of birds' nests and so on, 20 vendors of squirrels, 6 sellers of leverettes and wild rabbits, 35 vendors of gold and silver fish, 20 vendors of tortoises, and 14 sellers of snails, frogs, worms and so on. Or allowing for the temporary and mixed character of many of these trades, we may say that there are 200 constantly engaged in this branch of street commerce. Then of the street sellers of mineral productions and natural curiosities, there are 216 vendors of coals, 1500 sellers of coke, 14 sellers of tan turf, 150 vendors of salt, 70 sellers of sand, 26 sellers of shells, or 1,969 in all. From this number, the sellers of shells must be deducted, as the shell trade is not a special branch of street traffic. We may therefore assert that the number of people engaged in this latter class of street business amounts to about 1,900. Now, adding all these sums together, we have the following table as to the numbers of individuals comprised in the first division of the London Street Folk, namely the street sellers. One, costar mongers, including men, women and children, engaged in the sale of fish, fruit, vegetables, game, poultry, flowers and so on, 30,000. Two, street sellers of green stuff, including watercresses, chickweeds and gruntle, turf and so on. 2,000. Three, street sellers of eatables and drinkables, 4,000. Four, street sellers of stationary, literature and fine arts, 1,000. Street sellers of manufactured articles of metal, crockery, glass, textile, chemical and miscellaneous substances, 4,000. Six, street sellers of secondhand articles, including the sellers of old metal articles, old glass, old linen, old clothes, old shoes and so on, 500. Seven, street sellers of live animals as dogs, birds, gold and silver fish, squirrels, leverettes, tortoises, snails and so on, 200. Eight, street sellers of mineral productions and natural curiosities as coals, coke, tan turf, salt, sand, shells and so on, 1,900. Total number of street sellers, 43,640. These numbers, it should be remembered, are given rather as an approximation to the truth than as the absolute fact. It would therefore be safer to say, making all due allowance for the temporary and mixed character of many branches of street commerce, that there are about 40,000 people engaged in selling articles in the streets of London. I am induced to believe that this is very near the real number of street sellers from the wholesale returns of the places where the street sellers purchase their goods and which I have always made a point of collecting from the best authorities connected with the various branches of street traffic. The statistics of the fish and green markets, the swag shops, the old clothes exchange, the bird dealers, which I have caused to be collected for the first time in this country, all tend to corroborate this estimate. The next fact to be evolved is the amount of capital invested in the street sale of second hand articles of live animals and of mineral productions and first as to the money employed in the second hand street trade. The following tables will show the amount of capital invested in this branch of street business. Street sellers of second hand metalwares, 30 stalls, five shillings each, 20 boroughs, one pound each, stock money for 50 vendors at 10 shillings per head, 52 pounds, 10 shillings. Street sellers of second hand metal trays, stock money for 20 sellers at five shillings each, five pounds. Street sellers of other second hand metal articles as Italian and flat irons, stock money for 20 vendors at five shillings each, 20 stalls at three shillings each, eight pounds. Street sellers of second hand linen and so on, stock money for 30 vendors at five shillings per head, seven pounds, 10 shillings. Street sellers of second hand burnt linen and calico, stock money for 80 vendors at 10 shillings each, 40 pounds. Street sellers of second hand curtains, stock money for 30 sellers at five shillings each, seven pounds, 10 shillings. Street sellers of second hand carpeting, flannels, stocking legs and so on. Stock money for 30 sellers at six shillings each, nine pounds. Street sellers of second hand bed ticking, sacking, fringe and so on. Stock money for 30 sellers at four shillings each, six pounds. Street sellers of second hand glass and crockery, six barrows, 15 shillings each, six baskets, one shilling sixpence each, stock money for six vendors at five shillings each, six pounds, nine shillings. Street sellers of second hand miscellaneous articles, stock money for five vendors at 15 shillings each, three pounds, 15 shillings. Street sellers and duffers of second hand music, stock money for 25 sellers at a pound each, 25 pounds. Street sellers of second hand weapons, stock money for six vendors at a pound each, six pounds. Street sellers of second hand curiosities, six barrels, 15 shillings each, stock money for six vendors at 15 shillings per head, nine pounds. Street sellers of second hand telescopes and pocket glasses, stock money for six vendors at four pounds each, 24 pounds. Street sellers of other miscellaneous articles, 30 stalls, five shillings each, stock money for 30 sellers at 15 shillings each, 30 pounds. Street sellers of men's second hand clothes, 100 linen bags at two shillings each, stock money for 100 sellers at 15 shillings each, 85 pounds. Street sellers of second hand boots and shoes, 10 stalls at three shillings each, 30 baskets at two shillings sixpence each, stock money for 30 sellers at 10 shillings each, 20 pounds, five shillings. Street sellers of second hand hats, 30 irons two to each man at two shillings each, 60 blocks at one shillings sixpence per block, stock money for 15 vendors at 10 shillings each, 15 pounds. Street sellers of women's second hand apparel, stock money for 50 sellers at 10 shillings each, 50 baskets at two shillings sixpence each, 31 pounds, five shillings. Street sellers of second hand bonnets, 10 umbrellas at three shillings each, 30 baskets at two shillings sixpence each, stock money for 30 sellers at five shillings each, 12 pounds, 15 shillings. Street sellers of second hand furs, stock money for 10 vendors at seven shillings sixpence each, three pounds, 15 shillings. Street sellers of second hand articles in Smithfield Market, 30 sellers of harness sets and collars at an average capital of 15 shillings each, six sellers of saddles and pads at 15 shillings each, 10 sellers of bits at three shillings each, six sellers of wheel springs and trays at 15 shillings each, six sellers of boards and trestles for stalls at 10 shillings each, 20 sellers of barrows small carts and trucks at five pounds each, six sellers of goat carriages at three pounds each, six sellers of shooting galleries and guns for ditto and drums for coasters at 15 shillings each, 10 sellers of measures weights and scales at 25 shillings each, five sellers of potato cans and roasted chestnut apparatus at five pounds each, three sellers of ginger beer trucks at five pounds each, six sellers of pea soup cans and pickled eel kettles 15 shillings each, two sellers of elder wine vessels at 15 shillings each. Thus we find that the average number of street sellers frequenting Smithfield Market once a week is 116 and the average capital 217 pounds. Total amount of capital belonging to street sellers of second hand articles, 621 pounds, 14 shillings, street sellers of live animals, street sellers of dogs, stock money for 20 sellers including kennels and keep at five pounds 15 shillings each seller, 115 pounds, street sellers and duffers of birds English, 2,400 small cages reckoning 12 to each seller at six pints each, 1,200 long cages allowing six cages to each seller at two shillings each, 1,800 large cages averaging nine cages to each seller at two shilling six pints each, stock money for 200 sellers at 20 shillings each, 605 pounds, street sellers of parrots and so on, 20 cages at 10 shillings each, stock money for 10 sellers at 30 shillings each, 25 pounds, street sellers of birds nests, three hamper baskets at six pints each, one shilling six pints, street sellers of squirrels, stock money for 20 vendors at 10 shillings each, 10 pounds, street sellers of leverets, wild rabbits and so on, six baskets at two shillings each, stock money for six vendors at five shillings each, two pounds, two shillings, street sellers of gold and silver fish, 35 glass globes at two shillings each, 35 small nets at six pints each, stock money for 35 vendors at 15 shillings each, 30 pounds, 12 shillings and six pints, street sellers of tortoises, stock money for 20 vendors at 10 shillings each, 25 pounds, street sellers of snails, frogs, worms, snakes, hedgehogs and so on, 14 baskets at a shilling each, 14 shillings, total amount of capital belonging to street sellers of live animals, 798 pounds 10 shillings, street sellers of mineral productions and natural curiosities, street sellers of coals, 32 horse vans at 70 pounds each, 100 horses at 20 pounds each, 100 carts at 10 pounds each, 160 horses at 10 pounds each, 20 donkey or pony carts at a pound each, 20 donkeys or ponies at a pound 10 shillings each, 210 sets of weights and scales at one pound 10 shillings each, stock money for 210 vendors at two pounds each, 7485 pounds, street sellers of coke, 100 vans at 70 pounds each, 100 horses at 20 pounds each, 300 carts at 10 pounds each, 300 horses at 10 pounds each, 500 donkey carts at a pound each, 500 donkeys at a pound each, 200 trucks and barrels at 10 shillings each, 4,800 sacks for the 100 vans at three shilling sixpence each, 3,600 sacks for the 300 carts, 3,000 sacks for the 500 donkey carts, 1,652 sacks for the 550 trucks and barrels, 300 sacks for the 50 women, stock money for 1,500 vendors at a pound ahead, 19,936 pounds, 12 shillings, street sellers of tan turf, 12 donkeys and carts at two pounds each, two trucks at 15 shillings each, stock money for 14 vendors at 10 shillings each, 32 pounds 10 shillings, street sellers of salt, 75 donkeys and carts at two pounds five shillings each, 75 barrels at 10 shillings each, stock money for 150 vendors at six shillings each, 251 pounds five shillings, street sellers of sand, 20 horses at 10 pounds each, 20 carts at three pounds each, 60 baskets at two shillings each, wages of 30 men at three shillings per day for each, expenses for keep of 20 horses at 10 shillings per head, estimated stock money for 30 sellers at five shillings each, 40 barrels at 15 shillings each, stock money for the barrow men at one shilling sixpence each, 320 pounds five shillings, street sellers of shells, stock money for 70 vendors at five shillings each, 17 pounds 10 shillings, total capital belonging to street sellers of mineral productions etc, 28,043 pounds two shillings, river sellers of pearl, 35 boats at four pounds 10 shillings each, 35 sets of measures at five shillings a set, 35 warming pots at one shilling sixpence each, 35 fire stoves at five shillings each, 35 gallon cans at two shilling sixpence each, 70 pins of beer at four shillings per pin, 35 quarts of gin at two shillings sixpence the quart, 35 licenses at three shilling sixpence, stock money for spice and so on at a shilling each, 208 pounds five shillings, hence it would appear that the gross amount of property belonging to the street sellers may be reckoned as follows value of stock in trade belonging to costar mongers 25,000 pounds ditto street sellers of green stuff 149 pounds ditto street sellers of eatables and drinkables 9,000 pounds ditto street sellers of stationary literature and the fine arts 400 pounds ditto street sellers of manufactured articles 2,800 pounds ditto street sellers of second hand articles 621 pounds 14 shillings ditto street sellers of live animals 798 pounds 10 shillings ditto street sellers of mineral productions and so on 28,043 pounds two shillings ditto river sellers of pearl 208 pounds five shillings total amount of capital belonging to the london street sellers 67,023 pounds 11 shillings the gross value of the stock in trade of the london street sellers may then be estimated at about 60,000 pounds income or takings of the street sellers of second hand articles we have now to estimate the receipts of each of the above mentioned classes street sellers of second hand metalwares i was told by several in this trade that there were 200 old metal sellers in the streets but from the best information at my command not more than 50 appear to be strictly street sellers unconnected with shopkeeping estimating a weekly receipt per individual of 15 shillings half being profit the yearly street outlay among this body amounts to 1,950 pounds street sellers of second hand metal trays and so on calculating that 20 persons take in the one or two nights sale four shillings a week each on second hand trays 33 percent being the rate of profit the street expenditure amounts yearly to 208 pounds street sellers of other second hand metal articles as italian and flat irons and so on there are i'm informed 20 persons selling italian and flat irons regularly throughout the year in the streets of london each takes upon an average six shillings weekly which gives an annual expenditure of upwards of 312 pounds street sellers of second hand linen and so on there are at present 30 men and women who sell toweling and canvas wrappers in the streets on saturday and monday nights each taking in the sale of those articles nine shillings per week thus giving an annual outlay of 702 pounds street sellers of second hand burnt linen and calico the most intelligent man whom i met with in this trade calculated that there were 80 of these second hand street folk plying their trade two nights in the week and that they took eight shillings each weekly about half of it being profit thus the annual street expenditure would be 1664 pounds street sellers of second hand curtains from the best data at my command there are 30 individuals who are engaged in the street sale of second hand curtains and reckoning the weekly takings of each to be five shillings we find the yearly sum spent in the streets upon second hand curtains amounts to 390 pounds street sellers of second hand carpeting flannels stocking legs and so on i'm informed that the same person selling curtains sell also second hand carpeting and so on their weekly average takings appear to be about six shillings each in the sale of the above articles thus we have a yearly outlay of 468 pounds street sellers of second hand bed ticking sacking fringe and so on the street sellers of curtains carpeting and so on of whom there are 30 are also the street sellers of bed ticking sacking fringe and so on their weekly takings for the sale of these articles amount to four shillings each hence we find that the sum spent yearly in the streets upon the purchase of bed ticking and so on amounts to 312 pounds street sellers of second hand glass and crockery calculating that each of the six dealers takes 12 shillings weekly with a profit of six shillings or seven shillings we find there is annually expended in this department of street commerce 187 pounds four shillings street sellers of second hand miscellaneous articles from the best data i have been able to obtain it appears that there are five street sellers engaged in the sale of these second hand articles of amusement and the receipts of the whole are 10 pounds weekly about half being profit thus giving a yearly expenditure of 520 pounds street sellers and duffers of second hand music a broker who was engaged in this traffic estimated and an intelligent street seller agreed in the computation that take the year through at least 25 individuals are regularly but few of them fully occupied with this traffic and that their weekly takings average 30 shillings each or an aggregate yearly amount of 1950 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 five shillings 1950 pounds street sellers of second hand weapons in this traffic it may be estimated i am assured that there are 20 men engaged each taking as an average a pound a week in some weeks a man may take five pounds in the next month he may sell no weapons at all from 30 to 50 percent is the usual rate of profit and the yearly street outlay on these second hand offensive or defensive weapons is 1040 pounds street sellers of second hand curiosities there are not now more than six men who carry on this trade apart from other commerce their average takings are 15 shillings weekly each man about two-thirds being profit or yearly 234 pounds street sellers of second hand telescopes and pocket glasses there are only six men at present engaged in the sale of telescopes and pocket glasses and their weekly average takings are 30 shillings each giving a yearly expenditure in the streets of 468 pounds street sellers of other second hand miscellaneous articles if we reckon that there are 30 street sellers carrying on a traffic in second hand miscellaneous articles and that each takes 10 shillings weekly we find the annual outlay in the streets upon these articles amounts to 780 pounds street sellers of men's second hand clothes the street sale of men's second hand wearing apparel is carried on principally by the irish and others from the best information i can gather there appear to be upwards of 1200 old clothes men buying left off apparel in the metropolis one-third of whom are irish there are however not more than 100 of these who sell in the streets the articles they collect the average takings of each of the sellers are about 20 shillings weekly they're trading being truthfully on the saturday nights and sunday mornings their profits are from 50 to 60 percent estimating the number of sellers at 100 and their weekly takings at 20 shillings each we have an annual expenditure of 5200 pounds street sellers of second hand boots and shoes there aren't present about 30 individuals engaged in the street sale of second hand boots and shoes of all kinds some take as much as 30 shillings weekly while others do not take more than half that amount their profits being about 50 percent reckoning that the weekly average takings are 20 shillings each we have a yearly expenditure on second hand boots and shoes of 1560 pounds street sellers of second hand hats throughout the year there are not more than 15 men constantly working this branch of street traffic the average weekly gains of each are about 10 shillings and in order to clear that some they must take 20 shillings hence the gross gains of the class will be 390 pounds per annum while the some yearly expended in the streets upon second hand hats will amount altogether to 780 pounds street sellers of women's second hand apparel the number of persons engaged in the street sale of women's second hand apparel is about 50 each of whom take upon an average 15 shillings per week one half of this is clear gain thus we find the annual outlay in the streets upon women's second hand apparel is no less than 1950 pounds street sellers of second hand bonnets there are at present 30 persons nearly one half of whom are milleners and the others street sellers who sell second hand straw and other bonnets some of these are placed in an umbrella turned upside down while others are spread upon a wrapper on the stones the average takings of this class of street sellers are about 12 shillings each per week and their clear gains not more than one half thus giving a yearly expenditure of 936 pounds street sellers of second hand furs during five months of the year there are as many as eight or 12 persons who sell furs in the street markets on saturday nights sunday mornings and monday nights the weekly average takings of each is about 12 shillings nearly three fourths of which is clear profit reckoning that 10 individuals are engaged 20 weeks during the year and that each of these takes weekly 12 shillings we find the sum annually expended in the streets on furs amounts to 120 pounds street sellers of second hand articles in smithfield market i'm informed by those who are in a position to know that there are sold on an average every year in smithfield market about 624 sets of harness at 14 shillings per set 1,560 collars at two shillings each 686 pads at a shilling each 1,560 saddles at five shillings each 936 bits at six pence each 520 pair of wheels at 10 shillings per pair 624 pair of springs at eight shillings four pence per pair 832 pair of trestles at two shillings six pence per pair 520 boards at four shillings each 1,820 barrels at 25 shillings each 312 trucks at 50 shillings each 208 trays at one shilling thruppans each 1040 small carts at 63 shillings each 156 goat carriages at 20 shillings each 520 shooting galleries at 14 shillings each 312 guns for shooting galleries at 10 shillings each 1040 drums for costars at three shillings each 2080 measures at thruppans each 2080 pair of large scales at five shillings per pair 2080 pair of hand scales at five pence per pair 30 roasted chestnut apparatus at 20 shillings each 100 ginger beer trucks at 30 shillings each 20 eel kettles at five shillings each 100 potato cans at 17 shillings each 10 pea soup cans at five shillings each 40 elder wine vessels at eight shillings each giving a yearly expenditure of 10,242 pounds three shillings and eight pence total sum of money annually taken by the street sellers of secondhand articles 33 461 pounds one shilling and four pence street sellers of live animals street sellers of dogs fancy pets from the best data it appears that each hawker sells four or five occasionally in one week in the summer when trades brisk and days are long and only two or three the next week when trades may be flat and during each week in winter when there isn't the same chance calculating then that seven dogs are sold by each hawker in a fortnight at an average price of 50 shillings each many fetch three pounds four pounds and five pounds and supposing that but 20 men are trading in this line the year through we find that no less a sum is yearly expended in this street trade than 9100 pounds street sellers of sporting dogs the amount turned over in the trade of sporting dogs yearly in london is computed by the best informed at about 12 000 pounds street sellers and duffers of live birds english there are in the metropolis 200 street sellers of english birds who may be said to sell among them 7 000 linets at thruppen's each 3 000 bullfinches at two shilling sixpence each 400 piping bullfinches at 63 shillings each 7 000 goldfinches at nine pence each 1500 chaffinches at two shilling sixpence each 700 greenfinches at thruppen's each 6 000 larks at a shilling each 219 gales at one shilling each 600 red breasts at a shilling each 3500 thrushes and thrussles at two shilling sixpence each 1400 blackbirds at two shilling sixpence each 1000 canaries at a shilling each 10 000 sparrows at a penny each 1500 starlings at one shilling sixpence each 500 magpies and jackdaws at nine pence each 300 redpolls at nine pence each 150 blackcaps at four pence each 2000 duffed birds at two shilling sixpence each thus making the sum annually expended in the purchase of birds in the streets amount to 3624 pounds 12 shillings and tuppence street sellers of parrots and so on the number of individuals at present hawking parrots and other foreign birds in the streets is 10 who sell among them during the year about 500 birds reckoning each bird to sell at a pound we find the annual outlay upon parrots bought in the streets to be 500 pounds adding to this the sale of 110 java sparrows and st. Helena birds as waxbills and redbeaks at one shilling sixpence each we have for the sum yearly expended in the streets on the sale of foreign birds 508 pounds five shillings street sellers of birds nests there are at present only three persons hawking birds nests and so on in the streets during the season which lasts from may to august these street sellers sell among them 400 nests at tuppence hapeny each 144 snakes at one shilling sixpence four hedgehogs at a shilling each and about two shillings worth of snails this makes the weekly income of each amount to about eight shilling sixpence during a period of 12 weeks in the summer at the sum annually expended on these articles to come to 15 pounds six shillings street sellers of squirrels for five months of the year there are 20 men selling squirrels in the streets at from 20 to 50 profit and averaging a weekly sale of six each the average price is from two shillings to two shilling sixpence thus 2,400 squirrels are vended yearly in the streets at a cost to the public of 240 pounds street sellers of leverettes wild rabbits and so on during the year there are about six individuals exposing for sale in the streets young hares and wild rabbits these persons sell among them 300 leverettes at one shilling sixpence each and 400 young wild rabbits at four pence each giving a yearly outlay of 29 pounds three shillings four pence street sellers of gold and silver fish if we calculate in order to allow for the cessation of the trade during the winter and often in the summer when cluster mongering is at its best that but 35 goldfish sellers hawk in the streets and that for but half a year each selling six dozen weekly at 12 shillings a dozen we find 65,520 fish sold at an outlay of 3,276 pounds street sellers of tortoises estimating the number of individuals selling tortoises to be 20 and the number of tortoises sold to be 10,000 at an average price of eight pence each we find there is expended yearly upon these creatures upwards of 333 pounds six shillings eight pence street sellers of snails frogs and so on there are 14 snail gatherers and they on an average gather six dozen quarts each in a year which supplies a total of 12,096 quarts of snails the laborers in the gardens I am informed gather somewhat more than an equal quantity the greater part being sold to the bird shops so that all together the supply of snails for the caged thrushes and blackbirds of London is about two millions and a half computing them at 24,000 quarts and it tuppens a quart the annual outlay is 200 pounds besides snails there are collected annually 500 frogs and 18 toads at a penny each giving a yearly expenditure of 202 pounds three shillings tuppens total or gross takings of the street sellers of live animals 23,868 pounds 16 shillings and four pence income or takings of the street sellers of mineral productions and natural curiosities street sellers of coals the number of individuals engaged in the street sale of coals is 210 these distribute 2,940 tons of coals weekly giving an annual trade of 152,880 tons at a pound per tonne and consequently a yearly expenditure by the poor of 152,880 pounds street sellers of coke the number of individuals engaged in the street sale of coke is 1,500 and the total quantity of coke sold annually in the streets is computed at about 1,400,000 children's these are purchased at the gas factories at an average price of eight shillings per children reckoning that this is sold at four shillings per children for profit we find that the total gains of the whole class amount to 280,000 pounds per annum and their gross annual takings to 840,000 pounds street sellers of tan turf the number of tan turf sellers in the metropolis is estimated at 14 each of these dispose off upon an average 20,000 per week during the year selling them at a shelling per hundred and realising a profit of fourpence hipney for each hundred this makes the annual outlay in the street sale of the above article amount to 7,280 pounds street sellers of salt there are at present 150 individuals hawking salt in the several streets of london each of these pay at the rate of two shillings per hundred weight for the salt and retail it at three pounds for a penny which leaves one shilling one penny profit on every hundred weight one day with another wet and dry each of the street sellers disposes of about two and a half hundred weight or 18 tons 1500 weight per day for all hands and this deducting Sundays makes 5,868 tons 1500 weight in the course of the year the profit of one shilling one penny per hundred weight amounts to a yearly aggregate profit of 6,357 pounds 16 shillings and thruppence or about 42 pounds per annum for each person in the trade while the sum annually expended upon this article in the streets amounts to 18,095 pounds six shillings thruppence street sellers of sand calculating the sale at a load of sand per day for each horse and cart at 21 shillings per load we find the sum annual expended in house sand to be 6,573 pounds adding to this the sum of 234 pounds spent yearly in bird sand the total street expenditure is 6,807 pounds street sellers of shells there are about 50 individuals disposing of shells at different periods of the year these sell among them one million at a penny each giving an annual expenditure of 4,166 pounds 13 shillings and thruppence total or gross takings of the street sellers of mineral productions and natural curiosities one million 29,228 pounds 19 shillings and seven pence river sellers of pearl there are at present 35 men following the trade of pearl selling on the river Thames to colliers the weekly profits of this class amount to 1,117 pounds five shillings per week and yearly to 6,097 pounds while their annual takings is 8,190 pounds now adding together the above and the other foregone results we arrive at the following estimate as to the amount of money annually expended on the several articles purchased in the streets of the metropolis wet fish 1,177,200 pounds dry fish 127,000 pounds shellfish 156,600 pounds total fish of all kinds 1,460,800 pounds vegetables 292,400 pounds green fruit 332,200 pounds dry fruit 1,000 pounds total fruit and vegetables 625,600 pounds game poultry rabbits and so on 80,000 pounds flowers roots and so on 14,800 pounds watercresses 13,900 pounds chickweed gruncel and turf for birds 14,570 pounds eatables and drinkables 203,100 pounds stationery literature and fine arts 33,400 pounds manufactured articles 188,200 pounds second hand articles 29,900 pounds live animals including dogs birds and goldfish 29,300 pounds mineral productions as coals coke salt sand and so on 1,022,700 pounds total sum expended upon the various articles vended by the street sellers 3,716,270 pounds hence it appears that the street sellers of all ages in the metropolis are about 40,000 in number their stock and trade is worth about 60,000 pounds and their gross annual takings or receipts amount to no less than three millions and a half sterling. End of section 17 section 18 of London Labour and the London Poor volume 2 by Henry Mehue. This is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Julian Henry off the street buyers the persons who traverse the streets or call periodically at certain places to purchase articles which are usually sold at the door or within the house are according to the division I laid down in the first number of this work street buyers the largest and in every respect the most remarkable body of these traders are the buyers of old clothes and of them I shall speak separately devoting at the same time some space to the street Jews it will also be necessary to give a brief account of the Jews generally for they are still a peculiar race and street and shop trading among them are in many respects closely blended the principal things bought by the itinerant purchasers consist of waste paper hair and rabbit skins old umbrellas and parasols bottles and glass broken metal rags dripping grease bones tea leaves and old clothes with the exception of the buyers of waste paper among whom are many active energetic and intelligent men the street buyers are of the lower sort both as to means and intelligence the only further exception perhaps which I need notice here is that among some umbrella buyers there is considerable smartness and sometimes in the repair or renewal of the ribs and so on a slight degree of skill the other street purchasers such as the hair skin and old metal and drag buyers are often old and infirm people of both sexes of whom perhaps by reason of their infirmities not a few have been in the trade from their childhood and are as well known by sight in their respective rounds as was the long remembered beggar in former times it is usually the lot of a poor person who has been driven to the streets or has adopted such a life when an adult to sell trifling things such as our light to carry and require a small outlay in advanced age old men and women taught her about offering lucifer matches boot and stay laces penny memorandum books and such like but the elder portion of the street folk I have now to speak of do not sell but buy the street seller commends his wares their cheapness and excellence the same sort of man when a buyer depreciates everything offered to him in order to ensure a cheaper bargain while many of the things thus obtained find their way into street sale and are then as much commended for cheapness and goodness as if they were the stock in trade of an acute slop advertisement monger and this is done sometimes by the very man who when a buyer condemned them as utterly valueless but this is common to all trades of the street buyers of rags broken metal bottles glass and bones I class all these articles under one head for uninquiry I find no individual supporting himself by the trading in any one of them I shall therefore describe the buyers of rags broken metal bottles glass and bones as a body of street traders but take the articles in which they traffic seriatim pointing out in what degree they are or have been wholly or partially the staple of several distinct callings the traders in these things are not unprosperous men the poor creatures who may be seen picking up rags in the street are street finders and not buyers it is the same with the poor old men who may be seen bending under an unsavory sack of bones the bones have been found or have been given for charity and are not purchased one feeble old man whom I met with his eyes fixed on the middle of the carriageway in the old st. pankers road and with whom I had some conversation told me that the best friend he had in the world was a gentleman who lived in a large house near the regents park and gave him the bones which his dogs had done with if I can only see his self sir said the old man he's sure to give me any copper she has in his coat pocket and that's a very great thing to a poor man like me oh yes I'll buy bones if I have any havens rather than go without them but I pick them up or have them given to me mostly the street buyers who are only buyers have barrows sometimes even carts with donkeys and as they themselves describe it they buy everything these men are little seen in London for they work the more secluded coats streets and alleys when in town but their most frequented rounds are the poorer parts of the popular suburbs there are many in Croydon, Woolwich, Greenwich and Dippford it's no use a man who had been in the trade said to me such as us calling at fine houses to know if they have any old keys to sell no we trades with the poor often however they deal with the servants of the wealthy and their usual mode of business in such cases is to leave a bill at the house a few hours previous to their visit this document has frequently the royal arms at the head of it and asserts that the firm has been established since the year blank which has seldom less than half a century the handbill usually consists of a short preface as to the increased demand for rags on the part of the paper makers and this is followed by a liberal offer to give the very best prices for any old linen or old metal bottles rope stair rods locks keys dripping carpeting and so on in fact no rubbish or lumber however worthless will be refused and generally concludes with a request that this bill may be shown to the mistress of the house and preserved as it will be called for in a couple of hours the papers are delivered by one of the firm who marks on the door a sign indicative of the houses at which the bill has been taken in and the probable reception there of the gentleman who is to follow him the road taken is also painted by marks before explained see volume one pages 218 and 247 these men are residents in all quarters within 20 miles of London being most numerous in the places at no great distance from the Thames they work their way from the suburban residences to London which of course is the marked or exchange for their wares the reason why the suburbs are preferred is that in those parts the possessors of such things as broken metal and so on cannot so readily resort to a marine store dealers as they can in town i am informed however that the shops of the marine store men are on the increase in the more densely peopled suburbs still the dwellings of the poor are often widely scattered in those parts and few will go a mile to sell any old thing they wait in preference unless very needy for the visit of the street buyer a good many years ago perhaps until 30 years back rags and especially white and good linen rags were among the things most zealously inquired for by street buyers and then thruppin's a pound was a price readily paid subsequently the paper manufacturers brought to great and economical perfection the process of boiling rags in lye and bleaching them with chlorine so that color became less a desider atom a few years after the piece of 1815 more over the foreign trade in rags increased rapidly at the present time about 1200 tons of woollen rags and upwards of 10 000 tons of linen rags are imported yearly these 10 000 tons give us but a vague notion of the real amount i may therefore mention that when reduced to a more definite quantity they show a total of no less than 22 millions 400 000 pounds the woollen rags are imported the most largely from hamburg and bremen the price being from five pounds to 17 pounds the ton linen rags which average nearly 20 pounds the ton are imported from the same places and from several italian ports more especially those in sicily among these ports are palermo misina and conna leghorn and trieste the trieste rags being gathered in hungary the value of the rags annually brought to this country is no less than 200 000 pounds what the native rags may be worth there are no facts on which to ground an estimate but supposing each person of the 20 million in great britain to produce one pound of rags annually then the rags of this country may be valued at very nearly the same price as the foreign ones so that the gross value of the rags of great britain imported and produced at home would in such a case amount to 400 000 pounds from france belgium holland spain and other continental kingdoms the exportation of rags is prohibited nor can so bulky and low priced a commodity be smuggled to advantage of this large sum of rags which is independent of what is collected in the united kingdom the americans are purchasers on an extensive scale the wear of cotton is almost unknown in many parts of italy germany and hungary and although the linen in youth is coarse and compared to the irish scotch or english rudely manufactured the foreign rags are generally linen and therefore are preferred at the paper mills the street buyers in this country however make less distinction than ever as regards price between linen and cotton rags the linen rag buying is still prosecuted extensively by itinerant gatherers in the country and in the further neighborhoods of london but the collection is not to the extent it was formerly the price is lower and owing to the foreign trade the demand is less urgent so common too is now the wear of cotton and so much smaller that of linen that many people will not sell linen rags but reserve them for use in case of cuts and wounds or for giving to the poor neighbors on any such emergency this was done doubtlessly too as great or to a greater extent in the old times but linen rags were more plentiful then for cotton shirting was not woven to the perfection seen at present and many great country housewives spun their own linen sheetings and shirtings a street buyer of the class i have described upon presenting himself at any house offers to buy rags broken metal or glass and for rags especially there is often a serious bargaining and sometimes i was told by an itinerant street seller who had been an ear witness a little joking not of the most delicate kind for color drags these men give a hipney a pound or a penny for three pounds for inferior white rags a hipney a pound and up to a penny hipney for the best tupens the pound it is common however and even more common i am assured among masters of the old rag and bottle shops than among street buyers to announce tupens or thruppens or even as much as sixpence for the best rags but somehow or other the rags taken for sale to those buyers never are of the best to offer sixpence a pound for rags is ridiculous but such an offer may be seen at some rag shops the figure six perhaps crowning a painting of a large plum pudding as a representation of what may be a christmas result merely from the thrifty preservation of rags grease and dripping some of the street buyers when working the suburbs or the country attach a similar illustration to their barrels or carts i saw the winter placard of one of these men which he was reserving for a country excursion as far as rochester when the plum pudding time was a coming in this pictorial advertisement a man and woman very florid and full faced were on the point of enjoying a huge plum pudding the man flourishing a large knife and looking very hospitable on a scroll which issued from his mouth were the words from our rags the best prices given by blank blank of london the women in like manner exclaimed from dripping and house fat the best prices given by blank blank of london this man told me that at some times both in town and country he did not buy a pound of rags in a week he had heard the old hands in the trade say that 20 or 30 years back they could gather note the word generally used for buying end note twice and three times as many rags as it present mineformant attributed this change to two causes depending more upon what he had heard from experienced street buyers than upon his own knowledge at one time it was common for a mistress to allow her maid servant to keep a rag bag in which all refuse linen and so on was collected for sale for the servants' behoof a privilege now rarely accorded the other cause was that working people's wives had less money at their command now than they had formerly so that instead of gathering a good heap for the man who called on them periodically they ran to a marine store shop and sold them by one two and three penny worths at a time this related to all the things in the street buyers trade as well as two rags i've known this trade 10 years or so said my informant i was a costar monger before that and i work costar work now in the summer and buy things in the winter before christmas is the best time for second-hand trade when i set out on a country road and i've gone as far as gilford and maidstone and st albin's i lays in as great a stock of glass and crocs as i can raise money for or as my donkey or pony i've had both but i'm working in a ass now can drag without distressing him i swaps my crocs for anything in the second handway and when i've got through them i buys outright and so works my way back to london i bring back what i've bought in the crates and hampers i've had to pack the crocs in the first year as i started i got hold of a few very tidy rags colored things mostly the dew i sold them to when i got home again gave me more than i expected oh lord no not more than i asked he told me too that he'd buy any more i might have as he was wanted at some town not very far off where there was a call for them for patching quilts i haven't heard of a call for any that way since i get less and less rags every year i think well i can't say what i got last year perhaps about two stone no none of them was woollen they're things as people seldom satisfied with the price for these rags i've bought muslin window curtains or frocks as was worn and good for nothing but rags but there always seems such a lot and they weighs so light and comes to so little that they're sure to be grumbling i've sometimes bought a lot of old clothes by the lump or i swapped crocs for them and among them there's frequently been things as the dew in petticoat lane what i sell them to has put on one side as rags if i'd offered to give rag prices them as i got them off would have been offended or have thought i wanted to cheat when you get a lot at one go especially if it's for crocs you must make the best of them this for that and tother for tother i stay at the beer shops and little inns in the country some of the landlords looks very shy at one if you're a stranger a cause if the police detectives is after anything they go as hawkers or barraman or something that way note this statement as to the police is correct but the man did not know how it came to his knowledge he had heard of it he believed end note i very seldom slept in a common lodging house i'd rather sleep on my barrel note i have before had occasion to remark the aversion of the costar monger class to sleep in low lodging houses these men almost always and from the necessities of their calling have rooms of their own in london so that i presume they hate to sleep in public as the accommodation for repose in many a lodging house may very well be called at any rate the costar mongers of all classes of street sellers when on their country excursions resort the least to the lodging houses end note the last round i had in the country as far as redding and pegborn i was away about five weeks i think i came back a better man by a pound that was all i mean i had 30 shillings worth of things to start with and when i got back and turned my rags and old metal and things into money i had 50 shillings to be sure jenny the ass and me lived well all the time and i bought a pair of half boots and a pair of stockings at redding so it weren't so bad yes sir there's nothing i likes better than a turn into the country it does ones health good if it don't turn out so well for profits as it might my informant the rag dealer belonged to the best order of costar mongers one proof of this was in the evident care which he had bestowed on jenny his donkey there were no loose hairs on her hide and her harness was clean and whole and i observed after a pause to transact business on his round that the animal held her head towards her master to be scratched and was petted with a mouthful of green grass and clover which the costar monger had in a corner of his vehicle taylor's cuttings which consist of cloth satin lining materials fustion waste coatings silk and so on are among the things which the street buyers are the most anxious to become possessed off on a country round for as will be easily understood by those who have read the accounts before given of the old clothes exchange and of petticoat and rosemary lanes they are available for many purposes in london dressmaker's cuttings are also a portion of the street buyers country traffic but to no great extent and hardly ever i am told unless the street buyer which is not often the case be accompanied on his round by his wife in town taylor's cuttings are usually sold to the peace brokers who call or send men round to the shops or workshops for the purpose of buying them and it is the same with the dressmaker's cuttings old metal or broken metal for i heard one appellation used as frequently as the other is bought by the same description of traders this trade however is prosecuted in town by the street buyers more largely than in the country and so differs from the rag business the carriage of old iron bolts and bars is exceedingly cumbersome nor can metal be packed or stowed away like old clothes or rags this makes the street buyer indifferent as to the collecting of what i heard one of them call country iron by metal the street folk often mean copper most especially brass or puter in contra distinction to the cheaper substances of iron or lead in the country they are most anxious to buy metal whereas in town they as readily purchase iron when the street buyers give merely the worth of any metal by weight to be disposed of in order to be remelted or rewrote in some manner by the manufacturers the following are the average prices copper six pounds per pound puter five pounds brass five pounds iron six pounds for a penny and eight pounds for tuppence a smaller quantity than six pounds is seldom bought and a penny or a penny hipney per pound for lead old zinc is not a metal which comes in the way of the street buyer nor as one of them told me with a laugh old silver tin is never bought by weight in the streets it must be understood that the prices i have mentioned are those given for old or broken metal valueless unless for reworking when an old metal article is still available or may be easily made available for the use for which it was designed the street purchase is by the peace rather than the weight the broken pans scuttles kettles and so on concerning one of the uses of which i have quoted mr babbage in page six of the present volume as to the conversion of these worn out vessels into the light and japaned edgings or clasps called clamps or clips by the trunk makers and used to protect or strengthen the corners of boxes and packing cases are purchased sometimes by the street buyers but fall more properly under the head of what constitutes a portion of the stock and trade of the street finder they are not bought by weight but so much for the pan perhaps so much along with other things a hipney a penny or occasionally tuppence and often only a farthing or three pans for a penny the uses for these things which the street buyers have more especially in view are not those mentioned by mr babbage the trunk clamps but the conversion of them into the iron shovels or strong dust pans sold in the streets one street artisan supports himself and his family by the making of dust pans from such grimy old vessels as in the result of my inquiry among the street sellers of old metal i am of opinion that the street buyers also are not generally mixed up with the receipt of stolen goods that they may be so to some extent is probable enough in the same proportion perhaps as highly respectable tradesmen have been known to buy the goods of fraudulent bankrupts and others the street buyers are low itinerants seen regularly by the police and easy to be traced and therefore for one reason cautious in one of my inquiries among the young thieves and pickpockets in the low lodging houses i heard frequent accounts of their selling the metal goods they stole to fences and in one particular instance to the mistress of a lodging house who had conveniences for the melting of puter pots called cats and kittens by the young thieves according to the size of the vessels but i never heard them speak of any connection or indeed any transactions with street folk among the things purchased in great quantities by the street buyers of old metal are keys the keys so bought are of every size are generally very rusty and present every form of manufacture from the simplest to the most complex words on my inquiring how much a number of keys without locks came to be offered for street sale i was informed that there were often duplicate or triplicate keys to one lock and that in sales of household furniture for instance there were often numbers of odd keys found about the premises and sold in a lump that locks were often spoiled and unsailable wearing out long before the keys tuppence a dozen is a usual price for a dozen mixed keys to a street buyer bolts are also frequently bought by the street people as are hold fasts bed keys and screws and everything i was told which some one or other among the poor is always a wanting a little old man who had been many years a street buyer gave me an account of his purchases of bottles and glass this man had been a soldier in his youth had known as he said many ups and downs and occasionally wheels a barrel somewhat larger and shallower than those used by mason's from which he vends iron and tin wears such as cheap grid irons stands for hand irons dust pans dripping trays and so on as he sold these wares he offered to buy or swap for any second hand commodities as to the bottle and glass buying sir he said it's dead and buried in the streets and in the country too i've known the day when i've cleared two pounds in a week by buying old things in a country round how long was that ago do you say sir why perhaps 20 years yes more than 20 now i'd hardly pick up odd glass in the street note he called imperfect glass wares odd glass and note oh i don't know what's brought about such a change but everything changes i can't say anything about the duty on glass no i never paid any duty on my glass it ain't likely i buy glass still certainly i do but i think if i depended on it i should be wishing myself in the east ingies again rather than such a poor concern of a business damn me if i shouldn't the last glass bargain i made about two months back down lime houseway and about the commercial road i cleared seven pins by and then i had to wheel what i bought it was chiefly bottles about five mile it's a trade would starve a cat the buying of old glass i never bought glass by weight but i heard of some giving a hipney and a penny a pound i always bought by the piece from a hipney to a shilling but that's long since for a bottle and farthings and hipneys and higher and sometimes lower for wine or other glasses as was chipped or cracked or damaged for they could be sold in them days people's got proud now i fancy that's one thing and must have everything slap oh i do middling i live by one thing or other and when i die there'll just be enough to bury the old man note this is the first street trader i have met with who made such a statement as to having provided for his interment though i have heard these men occasionally expressed repugnance at the thoughts of being buried by the parish end note i have a daughter that's all my family now she does well as a laundry and is a real good sort i have my dinner with her every sunday she's a widow without any young ones i often go to church both with my daughter and by myself on sunday evenings it does one good i'm fond of the music and singing too this sermon i can very seldom make anything off as i can't hear well if anyone's a good way off me when he's saying anything i buy a little old metal sometimes but it's coming to be all up with street glass people everybody seems to run with their things to the rag and bottle shops the same body of traders buy also old sacking carpeting and marine bed curtains and window hangings but the trade in them is sufficiently described in my account of the buying off rags for it is carried on in the same way so much per pound a penny a penny hipney or tuppence or so much for the lot of bones i have already spoken they are bought by any street collector with a cart on his round in town at a hipney a pound or three pounds for a penny but it is a trade on account of the awkwardness of carriage little cared for by the regular street buyers men connected with some bone grinding mill go around with the horse and cart to the knackers and butchers to collect bones but this is a portion not off street but off the mill owners business these bones are ground for manure which is extensively used by the agriculturalists having been first introduced in yorkshire and linkinshire about 30 years ago the importation of bones is now very great more than three times as much as it was 20 years back the value of the foreign bones imported is estimated at upwards of 300 thousand pounds yearly they are brought from south america along with hides from germany holland and belgium the men who most care to collect bones in the streets of london are old and infirm and they barter toys for them with poor children for those children sometimes gather bones in the streets and put them on one side or get them from dust holes for the sake of exchanging them for a plaything or indeed for selling them to any shopkeeper and many of the rag and bottle tradesmen buy bones the toys most used for this barter are paper windmills these toy barterers when they have a few pens will buy bones of children or any others if they cannot become possessed of them otherwise but the carriage of the bones is a great obstacle to much being done in this business in the regular way of street buying such as i have described it there are about a hundred men in london and the suburbs some buy only during a portion of the year and none perhaps except in the way of barter the year round they are chiefly of the costar monger class some of the street buyers however have been carmen's servants or connected with trades in which they had the care of a horse and cart and so become habituated to a street life there are still many other ways in which the commerce and refuse and the second hand street trade is supplied as the windmill seller for bones so will the puppet showman for old bottles or broken tablespoons or almost any old trifle allow children to regale their eyes on the beauties of his exhibition the trade expenditure of the street buyers it is not easy to estimate their calling is so mixed with selling and bartering that very probably not one among them can tell what he expends in buying as a separate branch of his business if 100 men expend 15 shillings each weekly in the purchase of rags old metal and so on and if this trade be prosecuted for 30 weeks of the year we find 2250 pounds so expended the profits of the buyers range from 20 to 100 of the rag and bottle and the marine store shops the principal purchasers of any refuse or worn out articles are the proprietors of the rag and bottle shops some of these men make a good deal of money and not unfrequently unite with the business the letting out of vans for the convenience of furniture or for pleasure excursions to such places as Hampton court the stench in these shops is positively sickening here in a small apartment maybe a pile of rags a sack full of bones the many varieties of grease and kitchen stuff corrupting an atmosphere which even without such accompaniments would be too close the windows are often crowded with bottles which exclude the light while the floor and shelves are thick with grease and dirt the inmates seem unconscious of this foulness and one comparatively wealthy man who showed me his horses the stable being like a drawing room compared to his shop in speaking of the many deaths among his children could not conjecture to what cause it could be owing this indifference to dirt and stench is the more remarkable as many of the shopkeepers have been gentlemen servants and were therefore once accustomed to cleanliness and order the doorposts and windows of the rag and bottle shops are often closely placarded and the front of the house is sometimes one glaring color blue or red so that the place may be at once recognized even by the illiterate as the red house or the blue house if these men are not exactly street buyers they are street billers continually distributing handbills but more especially before christmas the more aristocratic however now send round cards and to the following purport number blank the blank house in blanks rag bottle and kitchen stuff warehouse blank street blank town where you can obtain gold and silver to any amount established blank the highest price given for all the under mentioned articles namely wax and sperm pieces kitchen stuff and so on wine and beer bottles oda cologne soda water doctors bottles and so on white linen rags bones files and broken flint glass old copper brass puter and so on lead iron zinc steel and so on and so on old horsehair mattresses and so on old books waste paper and so on all kinds of color drags the utmost value given for all kinds of wearing apparel furniture and lumber of every description bought and full value given at his miscellaneous warehouse articles sent for some content themselves with sending handbills to the houses in their neighborhood which many of the cheap printers keep in type so that an alteration in the name and address is all which is necessary for any customer i heard that suspicions were entertained that it was to some of these traders that the facilities with which servants could dispose of their pilferings might be attributed and that a stray silver spoon might enhance the weight and price of kitchen stuff it is not pertaining to my present subject to enter into the consideration of such a matter and i might not have alluded to it had not i found the regular street buyers fond of expressing an opinion of the indifferent honesty of this body of traders but my readers may have remarked how readily the street people have on several occasions justified as they seem to think their own delinquencies by quoting what they declared were as great and as frequent delinquencies on the part of shopkeepers i know very well said an intelligent street seller on one occasion that two wrongs can never make a right but tricks that shopkeepers practice to grow rich upon we must practice just as they do to live at all as long as they give short weight and short measure the streets can't help doing the same the rag and bottle and the marine store shops are in many instances but different names for the same description of business the chief distinction appears to be this the marine store shopkeepers proper do not meddle with what is a very principal object of traffic with the rag and bottle man the purchase of dripping as well as of every kind of refuse in the way of fat or grease the marine store man too is more miscellaneous in his wares than his contemporary of the rag and bottle store as a farmer will purchase any of the smaller articles of household furniture old tea caddies knife boxes fire irons books pictures drafts and backgammon boards bird cages dutch clocks cups and saucers tools and brushes the rag and bottle tradesman will readily purchase any of these things to be disposed of as old metal or waste paper but his brother tradesman buys them to be resold and reused for the purposes for which they were originally manufactured when furniture however is the staple of one of these second hand storehouses the proprietor is a furniture broker and not a marine store dealer if again the dealer in these stores can find his business to the purchase of old metals for instance he is classed as an old metal dealer collecting it or buying it off collectors for sale to iron founders coppersmiths brass founders and plumbers in perhaps the majority of instances there is little or no distinction between the establishments i have spoken of the dolly business is common to both but most common to the marine store dealer and of it i shall speak afterwards these shops are exceedingly numerous perhaps in the poorer and smaller streets they are more numerous even than the chandlers or the beer sellers places at the corner of a small street both in town and the nearer suburbs will frequently be found the chandler shop for the sale of small quantities of cheese bacon groceries and so on to the poor lower down may be seen the beer sellers and in the same street there is certain to be one rag and bottle or marine store shop very often too and not infrequently another in some adjacent quote i was referred to the owner of a marine store shop as to a respectable man keeping a store of the best class here the counter or table or whatever it is to be called for it was somewhat nondescript by an ingenious contrivance could be pushed out into the street so that in bad weather the goods which were at other times exposed in the street could be drawn inside without trouble the glass frames of the window were removable and were placed on one side in the shop for in the summer an open casement seemed to be preferred this is one of the remaining old trade customs still seen in London for previously to the great fire in 1666 and subsequent rebuilding of the city shops with open casements and protected from the weather by overhanging eaves or by a sloping wooden roof where general the house i visited was an old one and abounded in closets and recesses the fireplace which apparently had been large was removed and the space was occupied with a mass of old iron of every kind all this was destined for the furnace of the iron founder wrought iron being preferred for several of the requirements of that trade a chest or range of very old drawers with defaced or worn out labels once a grocers or a chemists was stuffed in every drawer with old horseshoe nails valuable for steel manufacturers and horse and donkey shoes brass knobs glass stoppers small bottles among them a number of the cheap cast hearts horn bottles broken pieces of brass and copper small tools such as shoemakers and harness makers all's punches gimlets plain irons hammerheads and so on odd dominoes dice and backgammon men lock escutcheons keys and the smaller sort of locks especially padlocks in fine any small thing which could be stowed away in such a place in one corner of the shop had been thrown the evening before a mass of old iron then just bought it consisted of a number of screws of different lengths and substance of broken bars and rails of the odds and ends of the cogged wheels of machinery broken up or worn out of odd looking spikes and rings and links all heaped together and scarcely distinguishable these things had all to be assorted some to be sold for reuse in their then form the others to be sold that they might be melted and cast into other forms the floor was intricate with hampers of bottles heaps of old boots and shoes old desks and work boxes pictures all modern with and without frames waste paper the most of it of quarto and some larger sized soiled or torn and strung closely together in weights of from two to seven pounds and a fireproof safe stuffed with old fringes tassels and other upholstery goods worn and discoloured the miscellaneous wares were carried out into the street and ranged by the doorposts as well as in front of the house in some small outhouses in the yard where piles of old iron and tin pans and of the broken or separate parts of harness from the proprietor of this establishment i had the following account quote i've been in the business more than a dozen years before that i was an auctioneers and then a furniture broker porter i wasn't brought up to any regular trade but just to jobbing about and a bad trade it is as all trades is that ain't regular employ for a man i had some money when my father died he kept a chandler shop and i bought a marine note an elliptical form of speech among these traders end note i gave ten pounds for the stock and five pounds for entrance and goodwill and agreed to pay what rents and rates was due it was a smallish stock then for the business had been neglected but i have no reason to be sorry for my bargain though it might have been better there's lots taken in about goodwill's but perhaps not so many in my way of business because we rather fly to a dodge it is a confined sort of life but there's no help for that why as to my way of trade you'd be surprised what different sorts of people come to my shop i don't mean the regular hands but the chance-comers i've had men dressed like gentlemen and no doubt they was respectable when they was sober bring two or three books or a nice cigar case or anything that don't show in their pockets and say when is drunk as blazes give me what you can for this i want it sold for a particular purpose that particular purpose was more drink i should say and i've known the same men come back in less than a week and buy what they'd sold me at a little extra and be glad if i had it by me still oh we see a deal of things in this way of life yes poor people run to such as me i've known them come with such things as teapots and old hair mattresses and flock beds and then i'm sure they're hard up reduced for a meal i don't like buying big things like mattresses though i do purchase them sometimes some of these sellers are as keen as jews at a bargain others seem only anxious to get rid of the things and have hold of some bit of money anyhow yes sir i've known their hands tremble to receive the money and mostly the women's they haven't been used to it i know when that's the case perhaps they comes to sell me what the ponds won't take in or what they wouldn't like to be seen selling to any of the men that goes about buying things in the street why i've bought everything at sales by auction there's often lots made up of different things and they go for very little i buy of people too that come to me and of the regular hands that supply such shops as mine i sell retail and i sell to hawkers i sell to anybody for gentlemen will come into my shop to buy anything that took their fancy and passing yes i've bought old oil paintings i've heard of some being bought by people in my way as i've turned out stunners and was sold for a hundred pounds or more and cost perhaps half a crown or only a shilling i never experienced such a thing myself there's a good deal of gammon about it well it's hardly possible to say anything about a scale of prices i give tuppence for an old tin or metal teapot or an old saucepan and sometimes two days after i bought such a thing i've sold it for thruppence to the manner women i've bought it off i'll sell cheaper to them than to anybody else because they come to me in two ways both as sellers and buyers for pictures i've given from thruppence to one shilling i fancy they're among the last things some sorts of poor people which is a bit fanciful parts with i've bought them off hawkers but often i refuse them as they've given more than i could get pictures requires a judge some brought to me was published by newspapers and them sort of people waste paper i buy as it comes i can't read very much and don't understand about books i take the backs off and waste them and gives a penny and a penny hipney and tuppence a pound and there's an end i sell them at about a farthing a pound profit or sometimes less to men as we call waste men it's a poor part of our business but the books and paper takes up little room and then it's clean and can be stored anywhere and is a sure sale well the people as sells waste to me is not such as can read i think i don't know what they is perhaps they're such as obtains permission off the books and whatnot after the death of old folks and gets them out of the way as quick as they can i know nothing about what they are last week a man in black he didn't seem rich came into my shop and looked at some old books and said have you any black lead he didn't speak plain and i could hardly catch him i said no sir i don't sell black lead but you'll get it at number 27 but he answered not black lead but black letter speaking very pointed i said no and i haven't a notion what he meant metal copper that i give five pins or five pins hipney for i can sell to the merchants from six pins hipney to eight pins the pound it's no great trade for their often throw things out of the lot and say they're not metal sometimes it would hardly be a farthing in a shilling if it weren't for the draft in the scales when we buy metal we don't notice the quarters of the pounds all under a quarter goes for nothing when we buy is iron all under half pounds counts nothing so when we buys by the pound and sells by the hundred weight there's a little help from this which we call the draft glass bottles of all qualities i buys at three for hipney and sometimes four up to tuppence a piece for good stouts bottle porter vessels but very seldom indeed tuppence unless it's something very prime and big like the old quarts note quart bottles and not i seldom meddles with decanters it's very few decanters as is offered to me either little or big and i'm shy of them when they are there's such a change in glass them as buys in the streets brings me next to nothing now to buy they both brought and bought a lot 10 year back and later i never was in the street trade in second hand but it's not what it was i sell in the streets when i put things outside and know all about the trade it ain't a fortnight back since a smart female servant in slap up black sold me a basket full of doctors bottles i knew her master and he hadn't been buried a week before she come to me and she said missus is glad to get rid of them for they makes her cry they often say their missus's sends things and that they're not on no account to take less than so much that's true at times and at times it ain't i give from a penny hipney to thruppence a dozen for good new bottles i'm sure i can't say what i give for other odds and ends just as they're good bad or indifferent it's a queer trade well i pay my way but i don't know what i clear a week about two pounds i dare say but then there's rent rates and taxis to pay and other expenses end quote the dolly system is peculiar to the rag and bottle man as well as to the marine store dealer the name is derived from the black wooden doll in white apparel which generally hangs dangling over the door of the marine store shops or off the rag and bottles but more frequently the last mentioned this type of the business is sometimes swung over their doors by those who are not dolly shopkeepers the dolly shops are essentially pawn shops and pawn shops for the very poorest there are many articles which the regular pawn brokers declined to accept as pledges among these things are blankets rugs clocks flock beds common pictures translated boots mended trousers kettles saucepans trays and so on such things are usually styled lumber a poor person driven to the necessity of raising a few pens and unwilling to part finally with his lumber goes to the dolly man and for the merest trifle advanced deposits one or other of the articles i have mentioned or something similar for an advance of tuppence or thruppence a hypnia week is charged but the charge is the same if the pledge be redeemed next day if the interest be paid at the week's end another penny is occasionally advanced and no extra charge exacted for interest if the interest be not paid at the week or fortnight's end the article is forfeited and is sold at a large profit by the dolly shop man for four pence or six pence advanced the weekly interest is a penny for nine pence it is a penny hypny for a shilling it is tuppence and tuppence on each shilling up to five shillings beyond which some the dolly will rarely go in fact you will rarely advance as much two poor irish flower girls whom i saw in the course of my inquiry into that part of street traffic had in the winter very often to pledge the rug under which they slept at a dolly shop in the morning for six pence in order to provide themselves with stock money to buy forced violets and had to redeem it on their return in the evening when they could for seven pence thus six pence a week was sometimes paid for a daily advance of that sum some of these illicit pawn brokers even give tickets this incidental mention of what is really an immense trade as regards the number of pledges is all that is necessary under the present head of inquiry but i purpose entering into this branch of the subject fully and minutely when i come to treat of the class of distributors the inequities to which the poor are subject are positively monstrous i hope me a day interest on a loan of tuppence is at the rate of 7280 per annum end of section 17 section 19 of london labour and the london poor volume two by henry mayhew this liberal recording is in the public domain recording by jillian henry of the buyers of kitchen stuff grease and tripping this body of traders cannot be classed as street buyers so that only a brief account is here necessary the buyers are not now chance people it inherent on any round as at one period they were to a great extent but they are the proprietors of the rag and bottle and marine store shops or those they employ in this business there has been a considerable change until of late years women often wearing suspiciously large cloaks and carrying baskets ventured into perhaps every area in london and asked for the cook at every house where they thought a cook might be kept and this often at early morning if the well-cloaked woman was known business could be transacted without delay if she were a stranger she recommended herself by offering very liberal terms for kitchen stuff the cooks or kitchen maids or servant of all works perquisites were then generally disposed of to these collectors some of whom were char women in the house they resorted to for the purchase of the kitchen stuff they were often satisfied to purchase the dripping and so on by the lump estimating the weight and the value by the eye in this traffic was frequently mixed up a good deal of pilfering directly or indirectly silver spoons were thus disposed of candles purposely broken and crushed were often part of the grease in the dripping butter occasionally added to the weight in the stock note the remains of meat boiled down for the making of soup and note were sometimes portions of excellent meat fresh from the joints which had been carved at table and among the broken bread might be frequently seen small loaves unbroken there is no doubt that this mode of traffic by itinerant char women and so on is still carried on but to a much smaller extent than formerly the cooked perquisites are in many cases sold under the inspection of the mistress according to agreement or taken to the shop by the cook or some fellow servant or else sent for by the shopkeeper this is done to check the confidential direct and immediate trade intercourse between merely two individuals the buyer and seller by making the transaction more open and regular i did not hear of any persons who merely purchased the kitchen stuff as street buyers and sell it at once to the tallow melter or the soap boiler it appears all to find its way to the shops i have described even when bought by char women while the shopkeepers sent for it or receive it in the way i have stated so that there is but little off-street traffic in the matter one of these shopkeepers told me that in this trading as far as his own opinion went there was as much trickery as ever and that many gentle folk quietly made up their minds to submit to it while others he said kept the house in hot water by resisting it i found however the general opinion to be that when servants could only dispose of these things to known people the responsibility of the buyer as well as the seller was increased and acted as a preventative check the price for kitchen stuff is a penny and a penny hipney the pound for dripping used by the poor as a substitute for butter thruppen's hipney to five pence off the street buyers of hair and rabbit skins these buyers are for the most part poor old or infirm people and i am informed that the majority have been in some street business and often as buyers all their lives besides having derived this information from well informed persons i may point out that this is but a reasonable view of the case if a mechanic a labourer or a gentleman's servant resorts to the streets for his bread or because he is off a vagrant turn he does not become a buyer but a seller street selling is the easier process it is easy for a man to ascertain that oysters for example are sold wholesale at billingsgate and if he buys a bushel as in the present summer for five shillings it is not difficult to find out how many he can afford for a penny a lot but the street buyer must not only know what to give for hair skins for instance but what he can depend upon getting from the hat manufacturers or hat furriers and upon having a regular market thus a double street trade knowledge is necessary and a novice will not care to meddle with any form of open-air traffic but the simplest neither is street buying old clothes accepted generally cared for by adults who have health and strength in the course of a former inquiry i received an account of hair skin buying from a woman upwards of 50 who had been in the trade she told me from childhood as was her mother before her the husband who was lame and older than his wife had been all his life a field catcher of birds and a street seller of hearth stones they had been married 31 years and resided in a garret of a house in a street off dreary lane a small room with a close smell about it the room was not unfurnished it was in fact crowded there were bird cages with and without birds over what was once a bed for the bed just prior to my visit had been sold to pay the rent and a month's rent was again in a rear and there were bird cages on the wall by the door and bird cages over the mantle shelf there was furniture too and crockery and a vile oil painting of still life but an eye used to the furniture in the rooms of the poor could at once perceive that there was not one article which could be sold to a broker or marine store dealer or pledged at a pawn shop i was told the man and woman both drank hard the woman said i've sold hair skins all my life sir and was born in london but when hair skins isn't in i sell flowers i goes about now in november for my skins every day wet or dry and all day long that is till it's dark today i've not laid out a penny but then it's been such a day for rain i reckon that if i get hold of 18 hair and rabbit skins in a day that is my greatest day's work i gives tuppence for good hairs what not riddled much and sells them all for tuppence apenny i sales what i pick up by the 12 or the 20 if i can afford to keep them by me till that numbers gathered to a jew i don't know what is done with them i can't tell you just what use there for something about hats note the jew was no doubt a hat furrier or supplying a hat furrier and note jews gives us better prices than christians and buys red air so i find last week i sold all i bought for three shelling sixpence i take some weeks as much as eight shillings for what i pick up and if i could get that every week i should think myself a lady the prophet left me a clear half crown there's no difference in any particular year only that things get worse the game laws as far as i knows hasn't made no difference in my trade indeed i can't say i knows anything about game laws at all or hears anything concerning him i goes along the squares and streets i buys most at gentlemen's houses we never calls it hotels the servants and the women that charge and washes and jobs manages it there hair skins is in least ways i collect them from september to the end of march when hears they says goes mad i can't say what i makes one week with another perhaps two shelling sixpence may be cleared every week these buyers go regular rounds carrying the skins in their hands and crying any hair skins cook hair skins it is for the most part a winter trade but some collect the skins all the year round as the hairs are now vended the year through but by far the most are gathered in the winter grouse may not be killed accepting from the 12th and black game from the 20th of august to the 10th of December partridges from the 1st of september to the 1st of february while the pheasant suffers a shorter season of slaughter from the 1st of october to the 1st of february but there is no time restriction as to the killing of hairs or of rabbits though custom causes a cessation for a few months a lame man apparently between 50 and 60 with a knowing look gave me the following account when i saw him he was carrying a few tins chiefly small dripping pans under his arm which he offered for sale as he went his round collecting hair and rabbit skins of which he carried but one he had been in the streets all his life as his mother he never knew any father was a rag gatherer and at the same time a street seller of the old brimstone matches and papers of pins my informant assisted his mother to make and then to sell the matches on her last illness she was received into st. giles workhouse her son supporting himself out of it she had been dead many years he could not read and had never been in a church or chapel in his life he had been married he said for about a dozen years and had a very good wife who was also a street trader until her death but we didn't go to church or anywhere to be married he told me in reply to my question for we really couldn't afford to pay the person and so we took one another's words if it's so good to go to church for being married it taught him to cost a poor man nothing he shouldn't be charged for being good i doesn't do any business in town but has my regular rounds this is my kentish and camden town day i buys most from the servants at the bettermost houses and i'd rather buy of them than the missuses for some missuses sells their own skins and they often want a deal for them why just after last christmas a young lady in that their house note pointing to it and note after ordering me round to the back door came to me with two hair skins they certainly was fine skins very fine i said i'd give forpins hate me come now my good man says she and the man mimicked her voice let me have no nonsense i can't be deceived any longer either by you or my servants so give me it pins and go about your business well i went about my business and a woman called to buy them and offered forpins for the two and the lady was so wild the servant told me after however she only got four pins at last she's a regular screw but a fine dressed one i don't know that there's been any change in my business since hairs was sold in the shops if there's more skins to sell there's more poor people to buy i never tasted hairs flesh in my life though i've gathered so many of their skins i've smelled it when they've been roasting them where i've called but don't think i could eat any i live on bread and butter and tea or milk sometimes in hot weather and get a bite of fried fish or anything when i'm out and a drop of beer and a smoke when i get home if i can afford it i don't smoke in my own place i use is a beer shop i pay one shilling sixpence a week for a small room i want little but a bed in it and have my own i owe three weeks rent now but i do best both with tins and hairskins in the cold weather monday's my best day oh as to rabbit skins i do very little in them them as sells them gets the skins still there is a few to be picked up such as them as has been sent as presents from the country good rabbit skins is about the same price as hairs or perhaps a hypny lower take them all through i generally clears sixpence a dozen on my hair and rabbit skins and sometimes eightpence yes i should say that for about eight months i gathered four dozen every week often five dozen i suppose i make five shillings or six shillings a week all the year with one thing or other and a lame man can't do wonders i never begged in my life but i've twice had help from the parish and that only when i was very bad not ill oh i suppose i shall end in the great house there are as closely as i can ascertain at least 50 persons buying skins in the street and calculating that each collects 50 skins weekly for 32 weeks of the year we find 80 000 to be the total this is a reasonable computation for there are upwards of 102 000 hairs consigned yearly to newgate and leddenhall markets while the rabbits sold yearly in london amount to about one million but as i have shown very few of their skins are disposed of to street buyers end of section 19