 Section 5 of London Labour and the London Poor, volume 2 by Henry Mayhew. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Gillian Henry. Off the Uses of Second Hand Garments I have now to describe the uses to which the several kinds of garments which constitute the commerce of the old clothes exchange are devoted, whether it be merely in the resale of the apparel to be worn in its original form or in a repaired or renovated form, or whether it be worked up into other habiliments, or be useful for the making of other descriptions of woolen fabrics, or else whether it be fit merely for its last stages, the rag bag for the paper maker or the manure heap for the hop grower. Each left-off garment has its peculiar after-uses, according to its material and condition. The practised eye of the old clothesman at once embraces every capability of the apparel, and the amount which these capabilities will realise, whether they be woolen, linen, cotton, leathern or silken goods, or whether they be articles which cannot be classed under any of these designations, such as Macintoshes and Furge. A surto, quote, is the most serviceable of any Second Hand clothing originally good. It can be recuffed, recoloured, or the skirts relined with new or old silk, or with a substitute for silk. It can be restored if the seams be white and the general appearance what is best understood by the expressive word CD. This restoration is a sort of redying, or rather recolouring, by the application of gall and logwood with a small portion of copper-ass. If the undersleeve be worn, as it often is by those whose avocations are sedentary, it is renewed and frequently with a Second Hand piece of cloth to match, so that there is no perceptible difference between the renewal and the other parts. Many an honest artisan in this way becomes possessed of his Sunday frock, quote, as does many a smarter clerk, or shopman, impressed with a regard to his personal appearance. In the last century I may here observe, and perhaps in the early part of the present, when woolen cloth was much dearer, much more substantial, and therefore much more durable, it was common for economists to have a good coat turned. It was taken to pieces by the tailor and remade, the inner part becoming the outer. This mode prevailed alike in France and England, for Molière made his miser, Arpimon, magnanimously resolved to incur the cost of his many years old coat being turned for the celebration of his expected marriage with a young and wealthy bride. This way of dealing with a Second Hand garment is not so general now as it was formerly in London, nor is it in the country. If the surto be incapable of restoration to the appearance of a respectable garment, the skirts are sold for the making of cloth caps, or for the material of boys or youth waistcoats, or for poor country curate skaters, but not so much now as they once were. The poor journeyman Parsons, I was told, now goes for the newslops, they're often green, and is had by verticements and bills, and then books about fashions which is all over both country and town. Do you know, sir, why them their books is always made so small? The leaves is about four inches square, that's to prevent their being any use as waste paper. It's a child-back coat, such as is sometimes sold by a gentleman's servant to wear out two new slops. Cloaks are things of as ready sale as any kind of old garments, if good, or even reputable, they are in demand both for the home and foreign trades as cloaks. If too far gone, which is but rarely the case, they are especially available for the same purposes as the surto, as he said, of the great coat. Dress coats are far less useful, as, if cleaned up and repaired, they are not in demand among the working classes, and the clerks and shopmen on small salaries are often tempted by the price, I was told, to buy some wretched newslop thing rather than a superior coat secondhand. The dress coats, however, are used for caps, sometimes a coat for which the collector may have given ninepins, is cut up for the repairs of better garments. Trousers are reseated and repaired where the material is strong enough, and they are, I am informed, now about the only habiliment which is ever turned, and that but exceptionally. The repairs to trousers are more readily affected than those to coats, and trousers are freely bought by the collectors, and as freely re-bought by the public. Waste coats, I still speak of woolen fabrics, are sometimes used in cap making, and were used in gator making, but generally at the present time, the worn edges are cut away, the buttons renewed or replaced by a new set, sometimes of glittering glass, the buttonholes repaired, or their jaggedness gummed down, and so the waistcoat is reproduced as a waistcoat, a size smaller, sometimes a vest, as waistcoats are occasionally called, is used by the cheap bootmakers for the legs of a woman's cloth boots, either laced or buttoned, but not a quarter as much as they would be, I was told, if the buttons and buttonholes of the waistcoat would do again in the boot. Nor is the woolen garment, if too thin, too worn, or too rotten to be devoted to any of the uses I have specified, flung away as worthless. To the traders in secondhand apparel, or in the remains of secondhand apparel, a dust hole is an unknown receptacle. The woolen rag, for so it is then considered, when unraveled can be made available for the manufacture of cheap yarns, being mixed with new wool. It is more probable, however, that the piece of woolen fabric which has been rejected by those who make or mend, and who must make or mend so cheaply that the various vagrant may be their customer, is formed not only into a new material, but into a material which sometimes is made into a new garment. These garments are inferior to those woven of new wool, both in look and wear. But in some articles, the remanufacture is beautiful. The fabric thus snatched, as it were, from the ruins of cloth, is known as shoddy, the chief seat of manufacture being in Dewsbury, a small town in Yorkshire. The old material, when duly prepared, is torn into wool again by means of fine machinery, but the recovered wool is shorter in its fibre, and more brittle in its nature. It is indeed more a woolen pulp than a wool. Touching this peculiar branch of manufacture, I will hear sight from the Morning Chronicle, a brief description of a shoddy mill, so that the reader may have as comprehensive a knowledge as possible of the several uses to which his left-off clothes may be put. Quote, The small town of Dewsbury holds in the woolen district very much the same position which Oldham does in the cotton country, the spinning and preparing of waste and refuse materials. To this stuff the name of shoddy is given, but the real and orthodox shoddy is a production of the woolen districts and consists of the second hand wool manufactured by the tearing up, or rather the grinding, of woolen rags by means of coarse willows called divils, the operation of which sends forth choking clouds of dry, pungent dirt and floating fibres, the real and original divils dust. Having been by the agency of the machinery in question reduced to something like the original raw material, fresh wool is added to the pulp in different proportions according to the quality of the stuff to be manufactured and the mingled material is at length reworked in the usual way into a little serviceable cloth. There are some shoddy mills in the neighbourhood of Huddersfield, but the mean little town of Dewsbury may be taken as the metropolis of the manufacture. Some mills are devoted solely to the sorting, preparing and grinding of rags which are worked up in the neighbouring factories. Here great bales chock full of filthy tatters lie scattered about the yard while the continual arrival of loaded wagons keeps adding to the heap. A glance at the exterior of those mills shows their character. The walls and part of the roof are covered with the thick clinging dust and fibre which ascends in chocky volumes from the open doors and glassless windows of the ground floor and which also pours forth from a chimney constructed for the purpose, exactly like smoke. The mill is covered as with a mill-dewy fungus and upon the grace-lates of the roof the frowsy deposit is often not less than two inches in depth. In the upper story of these mills the rags are stored. A great were-room is piled in many places from the floor to the ceiling with bales of woolen rags, torn strips and tatters of every colour peeping out from the bursting depositories. There is hardly a country in Europe which does not contribute its quota of materials to the shoddy manufacturer. Rags are brought from France, Germany and in great quantities from Belgium. Denmark, I understand, is favourably looked upon by the tatter merchants being fertile in morsels of clothing of fair quality. Of domestic rags the scotch bear off the palm and possibly no one will be surprised to hear that of all rags Irish rags are the most worn, the filthiest and generally the most unprofitable. The gradations of value in the world of rags are indeed remarkable. I was shown rags worth £50 per tonne and rags worth only 30 shillings. The best class is formed of the remains of fine cloth, the produce of which, eaked out with a few bundles of fresh wool, is destined to go forth to the world again as broad cloth or at all events as pilot cloth. Fragments of damask and skirts of marino dresses form the staple of middle class rags and even the very worst bales, they appear unmitigated mashes of frowsy filth. Afford here and there some fragments of calico which are wrought up into brown paper. The refuse of all, mixed with the stuff which even the shoddy making devil rejects, is packed off to the agricultural districts for use as manure to fertilise the hop gardens of Kent. Quote, under the rag-ware room is the sorting and picking room. Here the bales are opened and their contents piled in close, poverty-smelling masses upon the floor. The operatives are entirely women, they sit upon low stools, or half sunk and half enthroned amid heaps of the filthy goods, busily employed in arranging them according to the colour and the quality of the morsels, and from the more pretending quality of rags carefully ripping out every particle of cotton which they can detect. Piles of rags of different sorts, dozens of feet high, are the obvious fruits of their labour. All these women are over 18 years of age, and the wages which they are paid for 10 hours work are six shillings per week. They look squalid and dirty enough, but all of them chatter and several sing over their noisome labour. The atmosphere of the room is close and oppressive, and although no particularly offensive smell is perceptible, there is a chokey, mildewy sort of odour, a hot, moist exhalation, arising from the sodden, smouldering piles, as the work women toss armfuls of rags from one heap to another. This species of work is the lowest and foulest which any phase of the factory system can show. The devils are upon the ground floor, the choking dust bursts out from door and window, and it is not until a minute or so that the visitor can see the workmen moving amid the clouds, catching up armfuls of the sortied rags and tossing them into the machine to be torn into fibre fragments by the whirling revolutions of its teeth. The place in which this is done is a large bare room, the uncovered beams above, the rough stone walls and the woodwork of the unglazed windows, being as it were furred over with clinging woolly matter. On the floor the dust and coarse filaments lie, as if it had been snowing snuff. The workmen are coated with the flying powder. They wear bandages over their mouths so as to prevent as much as possible the inhalation of the dust, and seem loath to remove the protection for a moment. The rag grinders, with their squalid, dust-strewn garments, powdered to a dull grayish hue, and with their bandages tied over the greater part of their faces, move about like reanimated mummies in their swathings, looking most ghastly. The wages of these poor creatures do not exceed seven shillings, or eight shillings, a week. The men are much better paid, none of them making less than 18 shillings a week, and many earning as much as 22 shillings. Not one of them, however, will admit that he found the trade injurious. The dust tickles them a little, they say, that is all. They feel it most of a Monday morning after being all Sunday in the fresh air. When they first take to the work, it hurts their throat a little, but they drink mint tea, and that soon cures them. They are all more or less subject to shoddy fever. They confess, especially after tending the grindings of the very dusty sorts of stuff, worsted stockings, for example. The shoddy fever is a sort of stuffing off the head and nose with sore throat, and it sometimes forces them to give overwork for two or three days, or at most a week. But the disorder, the workmen say, is not fatal, and leaves no particularly bad effects. In spite of all this, however, it is manifestly impossible for human lungs to breathe under such circumstances without suffering. The visitor exposed to the atmosphere for ten minutes experiences an unpleasant, chokey sensation in the throat, which lasts all the remainder of the day. The rag grinders, moreover, according to the best accounts, are very subject to asthmatic complaints, particularly when the air is dull and warm. The shoddy fever is said to be like a bad cold, with constant acrid running from the nose, and a great deal of expectation. It is when there is a particularly dirty lot of rags to be ground that the people are usually attacked in this way. But the fever seldom keeps them more than two or three days from their work. In other mills, the rags are not only ground, but the shoddy is worked up into coarse bud cloth, a great proportion of which is sent to America for slave clothing, and much now sold to the slop shops. After the rags have been deviled into shoddy, the remaining processes are much the same, all conducted in a kosher way, as those performed in the manufacture of woolen cloth. The weaving is for the most part carried on at the homes of the work people. The domestic arrangements consist in every case of two tolerably large rooms, one above the other, with a cellar beneath, a plan of construction called in Yorkshire, a house and a chamber. The chamber has generally a bed amid the looms. The weavers complain of irregular work and diminished wages. Their average pay, one week with another, with their wives to wind for them, i.e. to place the thread upon the bobbin which goes into the shuttle, is hardly so much as ten shillings a week. They work long hours, often fourteen per day. Sometimes the weaver is a small capitalist with perhaps half a dozen looms, and a hand-genny for spinning thread, the work people being within his own family as regular apprentices and journeymen. Dr Hemingway, a gentleman who has a large practice in the shoddy district, has given the following information, touching the shoddy fever. The disease popularly known as shoddy fever, and which is of frequent occurrence, caused by the irritating effect of the floating particles of dust upon the mucus membrane of the trachea and its ramifications. In general, the attack is easily cured, particularly if the patient has not been for any length of time exposed to the exciting cause, by effervescing saline drafts to allay the symptomatic febrile action, followed by expectorants to relieve the mucus membrane of the irritating dust, but a long continuance of employment. In the contaminated atmosphere, bringing on as it does repeated attacks of the disease, is too apt in the end to undermine the constitution and produce a train of pectoral diseases, often closing with pulmonary consumption. Ophthalmic attacks are by no means uncommon among the shoddy grinders, some of whom, however, wear wire gauze spectacles to protect the eyes. As regards the effect of the occupation upon health, it may shorten life by about five years on a rough average, taking of course, as the point of comparison, the average longevity of the district in which the manufacturer is carried on. End quote. Shoddy fever is in fact a modification of the very fatal disease induced by what is called dry grinding at Sheffield. But of course the particles of woolen filament are less fatal in their influence than the floating steel dust produced by the operation in question. At one time shoddy cloth was not good and firm enough to be used for other purposes than such as padding by tailors, and in the inner linings of carriages by coach builders. It was not used for purposes which would expose it to stress, but only to a moderate wear or friction. Now shoddy, which modern improvements have made susceptible of receiving a fine dye, it always looked a dead colour at one period, is made into cloth for soldiers and sailors' uniforms and for pilot coats, into blanketing, drug it, stare and other carpeting, and into those beautiful table covers with their rich woolen look on which elegantly drawn and elaborately coloured designs are printed through the application of aquafortis. Thus the rags which the beggar could no longer hang about him to cover his nakedness may be a component of the soldiers' or sailors' uniform, the carpet of a palace, or the library table cover of a prime minister. There is yet another use for old woolen clothes. What is not good for shoddy is good for manure, and more especially for the manure prepared by the agricultureists in Kent, Sussex and Herefordshire, for the culture of a difficult plant hops. It is good also for corn land, judiciously used, so that we again have the remains of the old garment in our beer or our bread. I have hitherto spoken of woolen fabrics. The garments of other materials are seldom diverted from their original use, for as long as they will hold together they can be sold for exportation to Ireland, though of course for very trifling amounts. The black velvet and satin waistcoats, the latter now so commonly worn, are almost always resold as waistcoats, and often enough, when rebound and rebuttoned, make a very respectable looking garment. Nothing sells better to the working classes than a good secondhand vest of the two materials of satin or velvet. If the satin, however, be so worn and frayed that mending is impossible. The back, if not in the same plight, is removed for rebacking of any waistcoat, and the satin thrown away. One of the few things which in its last stage is utterly valueless. It is the same with silk waistcoats, and for the most part with velvet, but a velvet waistcoat may be thrown in the refuse heap with the woolen rags for manure. The coloured waistcoats of silk or velvet are dealt with in the same way. At one time, when under waistcoats were worn, the edges being just discernible, quantities were made out of the full waistcoats where sufficiency of the stuff was unworn. This fashion is now becoming less and less followed, and is principally in vogue in the matter of white under waistcoats. For the jean and other vests, even if a mixture of materials, there is the same use as what I have described of the black satin, and failing that, they are generally transferable to the ragbag. Hats have become in greater demand than ever among the street buyers since the introduction into the London trade, and to so great an extent, of the silk, velvet, French or Parisian hats. The construction of these hats is the same, and the easy way in which the hat bodies are made has caused a number of poor persons, with no previous knowledge of hat making, to enter into the trade. There's hundreds starving at it, said a hat manufacturer to me, in Bermondsey, Locksfields and the Burra. Aye, hundreds! This facility in the making of the bodies of the new silk hats is quite as available in the restoration of the bodies of the old hats, as I shall show from the information of a highly intelligent artisan, who told me that of all people, he disliked rich slop sellers. But there was another class which he disliked more, and that was rich slop buyers. The bodies of the stuff or beaver hats of the best quality are made of a firm felt, wrought up of fine wool, rabbits hair and so on, and at once elastic, firm and light. Over this is placed the nap, prepared from the hair of the beaver. The bodies of the silk hats are made of calico, which is blocked, as indeed is the felt, and stiffened and pasted up until only a hat maker can tell, as it was expressed to me, good sound bodies from bad, and the slop masters go for the cheap and bad. The covering is not a nap of any hair, but it is of silk or velvet. The words are used indifferently in the trade, manufactured for the purpose. Thus if an old hat be broken, or rather crushed, out of all shape, the body can be glazed and sized up again, so as to suit the slop hatter, if sold to him as a body, and that whether it be of felt or calico. If however the silk cover of the hat be not worn utterly away, the body, without stripping off the cover, can be re-blocked and re-set, and the silk velvet trimmed up, and set, or re-died, and a decent hat is sometimes produced by these means. More frequently however, a steeping shower of rain destroys the whole fabric. Second hand caps are rarely brought into this trade. Such things as drawers, flannel waistcoats, and what is sometimes called innerwear, sell very well when washed up, patched, for patches do not matter in a garment hidden from the eye when worn, or mended in any manner. Flannel waistcoats and drawers are often in demand by the street sellers and the street labourers, as they are considered good against the romantics. These habiliments are often sold unrepaired, having been merely washed, as the poor man's wives may be competent to execute an easy bit of tailoring, or perhaps the men themselves if they have been reared as mechanics, and they believe, perhaps erroneously, that so they obtain a better bargain. Shirts are repaired and sold as shirts, or for old linen. The trade is not large. Men's stockings are darned up, but only when there is little to be done in darning, as they are retailed at tuppence the pair. The sale is not very great, for the supply is not. Lots might be sold, I was informed, if they was to be had, for them flash coves never cares what they wears under their wellingtons. The women's apparel is sold to be re-worn in its original form quite as frequently, or more frequently, than it is mended up by the sellers, the purchasers often preferring to make the alterations themselves. A gown of stuff, cotton, or any material, if full-sized, is frequently bought and altered to fit a smaller person or a child, and so the worn parts may be cut away. It is very rarely also that the apparel of the middle classes is made into any other article, with the sole exception perhaps, of silk gowns. If a silk gown be not too much frayed, it is easily cleaned and polished up, so as to present a new gloss, and is sold readily enough. But if it be too far gone for this process, the old clothes renovator is often puzzled as to what uses to put it. A portion of a black silk dress may be serviceable to reline the cuffs of the better kind of coats. There is seldom enough, I was told, to reline the two skirts of a surto, and it is difficult to match old silk. A man used to buying a good secondhand surto, I was assured, would soon detect a difference in the shade of the silk, if the skirts were relined from the remains of different gowns, and say, I will not give any such money for that pipe old thing. Skirts may be sometimes relined this way, on the getting up of frock coats, but very rarely. There is the same difficulty in using a coloured silk gown for the recovering of a parasol. The quantity may not be enough for the gores, and cannot be matched to satisfy the eye, for the buyer of a silk parasol, even in Rosemary Lane, may be expected to be critical. When there is enough of good silk for the purposes I have mentioned, then, it must be borne in mind, the gown may be more valuable, because saleable to be reworn as a gown. It is the same with satin dresses, but only a few of them, in comparison with the silk, are to be seen at the old clothes exchange. Among the purposes to which portions of worn silk gowns are put, are the making of spencers for little girls, usually by the purchasers, or by the dressmaker, who goes out to work for one shilling a day, of children's bonnets, for the lining of women's bonnets, the relining of muffs and fur tippets, the patching of quilts, once a rather fashionable thing, the inner lining or curtains to a bookcase, and other household appliances of a like kind. This kind of silk, too, no matter in how minute pieces, is bought by the fancy cabinet makers, the small masters, for the lining of their dressing cases and work boxes, supplied to the warehouses. But these poor artisans have neither means nor leisure to buy such articles of those connected with the traffic of the old clothes exchange, but must purchase it, of course at an enhanced price, of a broker who has bought it at the exchange, or in some establishment connected with it. The second hand silk is bought also for the dressing of dolls for the toy shops and for the lining of some toys. The hat manufacturers of the cheaper sort, one time used second hand silk for the padded lining of hats, but such is rarely the practice now. It was once used in the same manner by the bookbinders for lining the inner part of the back of a book. If there be any part of silk in a dress not suitable for any of these purposes, it is wasted, or what is accounted wasted, although it may have been in wear for years. It is somewhat remarkable that while woolen and even cotton goods can be shoddied, and if they are too rotten for that they are made available for manure or in the manufacture of paper, no use is made of the refuse of silk. Though one of the most beautiful and costly of textile fabrics, its remains are thrown aside when a beggar's rags are preserved and made profitable. There can be little doubt that silk, like cotton, could be shoddied, but whether such a speculation would be remunerative or not is no part of my present inquiry. There is not, as I shall subsequently show, so great an exportation of female attire as might be expected in comparison with male apparel, the poorer classes of the metropolis being too anxious to get any decent gown when within their slender means. Stays, unless of superior make and in good condition, are little-bought by the classes who are the chief customers of the old clothesmen in London. I did not hear of any reason for this from any of the old clothespeople. One man thought, if there was a family of daughters, the stays which had become too small for the older girl were altered for the younger, and that poor women liked to mend their old stays as long as they would stick together. Perhaps there may be some repugnance, particularly among the class of servant-maids who have not had to rough it, to wear street-collected stays, a repugnance not perhaps felt in the wearing of a gown which probably can be washed, and is not worn so near the person. The stays that are collected are for the most part exported, a great portion being sent to Ireland. If they are worn to rags, the bones are taken out, but in the slop-made stays it is not whalebone but wood that is used to give or preserve the due shape of the corset, and then the stays are valueless. Old stockings are of great sale both for home wear and foreign trade. In the trade of women's stockings there has been in the last 20 or 25 years a considerable change. Before that period black stockings were worn by servant girls and the families of working people and small tradesmen. They saved washing. Now even in Petticoat Lane women's stockings are white or mottled or some light-coloured, very rarely black. I have heard this change attributed to what is rather vaguely called pride. May it not be owing to a more cultivated sense of cleanliness? The women's stockings are sold darned and undarned and at retail prices from a penny to fourpence, a penny or tuppence being the most frequent prices. The Petticoats and other underclothing are not much bought secondhand by the poor women of London and are exported. Women's caps used to be sold secondhand I was told both in the streets and the shops but long ago and before muslin and needlework were so cheap. I heard of one article which formerly supplied considerable stuff the word used for secondhand purposes and was a part but never a considerable part of the trade at Dragfair. These were the pillions or large firm solid cushions which were attached to a saddle so that a horse carried double. Fifty years ago the farmer and his wife of the more prosperous order went regularly to church and market on one horse, a pillion sustaining the good dame. To the best sort of these pillions was appended what was called the pillion cloth, often of a fine but thin quality which being really a sort of housing to the horse, cut straight and with few if any seams, was an excellent material for what I am informed was formerly called making and mending. The colour was almost exclusively drab or blue. The pillion on which the squire's lady rode and Sheridan makes his lady-teasel deny the pillion and the coach horse, the butler being her cavalier, was a perfect piece of upholstery set off with lace and fringes which again were excellent for secondhand sale. Such a means of conveyance may still linger in some secluded country parts but it is generally speaking obsolete. Boots and shoes are not to be had I am told in sufficient quantity for the demand from the slop shops, the translators and the secondhand dealers. Great quantities of secondhand boots and shoes are sent to Ireland to be translated there. Of all the wares in this traffic, the clothing for the feet is what is most easily prepared to cheat the eye of the inexperienced, the imposition having the aids of heel ball and so on to fill up crevices and of blacking to hide defects. Even when the boots or shoes are so worn out that no one will put a pair on his feet, though purchasable for about a penny, the insoles are ripped out, the soles, if there be a sufficiency of leather, are shaped into insoles for children's shoes and these insoles are sold in bundles of two dozen pairs at Tuppence the Bundle. So long as the boot or shoe be not in many holes, it can be cobbled up in Monmouth Street or elsewhere. Of the translating business, transacted in those localities, I had the following interesting account from a man who was lately engaged in it. Translation, as I understand it, said my informant, is this, to take a worn old pair of shoes or boots and by repairing them, make them appear as if left off with hardly anywhere, as if they were only soiled. I'll tell you the way they manage in Monmouth Street. There are in the trade horses' heads. Note, a horse's head is the foot of a boot with sole and heel and part of a front. End note. The back and the remainder of the front having been used for refooting boots. There are also stand bottoms and lickups. A stand bottom is where the shoe appears to be only soiled. And a lickup is a boot or shoe relasted to take the wrinkles out, the edges of the shoes having been rasped and squared and then blacked up to hide blemishes and the bottom covered with a smother, which I will describe. There is another article called a flyer. That is, a shoe sold without having been welted. In Monmouth Street, a horse's head is generally retailed at two shilling sixpence, but some fetch four shilling sixpence. That's the extreme price. They cost the translator from one shilling a dozen pair to eight shillings. But those at eight shillings are good and used for the making up of Wellington boots. Some horses' heads, such as are cut off that the boots may be refooted on account of old fashion or a misfit when hardly worn, fetch two shilling sixpence a pair and they are made up as new footed boots and sell from 10 shillings to 15 shillings. The average price of feet, that is, for the horse's head as we call it, is fourpence and a pair of backs say tuppence. The back is attached loosely by chair stitching, as it is called, to the heel of being stitched to the insole, as in a new boot. The wages for all this is one shilling fourpence in Monmouth Street, in Union Street, Borough, one shilling sixpence. But I was told by a master that he had got the work done in Grey's Inn Lane at ninepence. Put it, however, at one shilling fourpence wages. Then with fourpence and tuppence for the feet and back, we have one shilling tenpence outlay. The workman finds his own grindery and eightpence profit on each pair sold at a rate of two shilling sixpence. Some masters will sell from 70 to 80 pairs per week. That's under the mark, and that's in horse's heads alone. One man employs, or did lately employ, seven men on horse's heads solely. The profit generally in fair shops, in stand bottoms, is from one shilling sixpence to two shillings per pair, as they sell generally at three shilling sixpence. One man takes, or did take, a hundred pounds in a day. It was calculated as an average, over the counter, and all for the sort of shoes I have described. The profit of a lick up is the same as that of a stand bottom. To show the villainous way the stand bottoms are got up, I will tell you this. You have seen a broken upper leather. Well, we place a piece of leather, waxed, underneath the broken part, on which we set a few stitches through and through. When dry and finished, we take what is called a soft heel ball, and smother it over, so that it sometimes would deceive a courier, as it appears like the upper leather. With regard to the bottom, the worn part of the sole is opened from the edge. A piece of leather is made to fit exactly into the hole or worn part, and it is then nailed and filed until level. Paste is then applied, and smother put over the part, and that imitates the dust of the road. This smother is obtained from the dust of the room. It is placed in a silk stocking, tied at both ends, and then shook through just like a powder puff, only we shake at both ends. It is powdered out into our leather apron, and mixed with a certain preparation which I will describe to you. Note, he did so, end note. But I would rather not have it published, as it would lead others to practice similar deceptions. I believe there are about 2,000 translators, so you may judge of the extent of the trade. And translators are more constantly employed than any other branch of the business. Many make a great deal of money. A journeyman translator can earn from 3 shillings to 4 shillings a day. You can give the average at 20 shillings a week, as the wages are good. It must be good, for we have 2 shillings for soleing, heeling, and welting a pair of boots, and some men don't get more for making them. Monmouth Street is nothing like what it was. As to curious old garments, that's all gone. There's not one English master in the translating business in Monmouth Street. They are all Irish. And there is now hardly an English workman there, perhaps not one. I believe that all the tradesmen in Monmouth Street make their workmen lodge with them. I was lodging with one before I married a little while ago, and I know the system to be the same now as it was then, unless indeed it be altered for the worse. To show how disgusting these lodgings must be, I will state this. I knew a Roman Catholic who was attentive to his religious duties, but when pronounced on the point of death, and believing firmly that he was dying, he would not have his priest administer extreme unction, for the room was in such a filthy and revolting state, he would not allow him to see it. Five men worked and slept in that room, and they were working and sleeping there in the man's illness, all the time that his life was despaired of. He was ill nine weeks, unless the working shoemaker lodged there, he would not be employed. Each man pays two shillings a week. I was there once, but I couldn't sleep in such a den, and five nights out of the seven I slept at my mother's, but my lodging had to be paid all the same. These men, myself accepted, were all Irish, and tea totalers, as was the master. How often was the room cleaned out, do you say? Never sir, never. The refuse of the men's labour was generally burnt, smudged away in the grate, smelling terribly. It would stifle you, though it didn't me, because I got used to it. I lodged in Union Street once, my employer had a room known as the Barracks, every lodger paid him two shillings six pence a week. Five men worked and slept there, that is, men who paid a shilling a week to sit there and work, lodging elsewhere. A little before that, there were six sitters. The furniture was one table, one chair, and two beds. There was no place for purposes of decency. It fell to bits from decay, and was never repaired. This barrack man always stopped the two shilling six pence of lodging, if he gave you only that amount of work in the week. The beds were decent enough, but in Bournemouth Street, you don't see a clean sheet there for nine weeks, and recollect such mobs are dirty fellows. There was no chair in the Bournemouth Street room that I have spoken of, the men having only their seats used at work. But when the beds were let down for the night, the seats had to be placed in the fireplace, because there was no space for them in the room. In many houses in Bournemouth Street, there is a system of subletting among the journeymen. This is his wife, a long dress work there. Four children, and two single young men. The wife was actually delivered in this room, whilst the men kept at their work. They never lost an hour's work. Nor is this an unusual case. It's not an isolated case at all. I could instance ten or twelve cases of two or three married people living in one room in that street. The rats have scampered over the beds that lay huddled together in the kitchen. The husband of the wife confined, as I have described, paid four shillings a week, and the two single men paid two shillings a week each, so the master was rent free, and he received from each man one shilling sixpence a week for tea, without sugar, and no bread and butter, and tuppence a day for potatoes. That's the regular charge. In connection with the translation of old goods and shoes, I have obtained the following statistics. There are in Drury Lane and streets adjacent about fifty shops seven dials one hundred one with street forty Hanway Court, Oxford Street four Litson Grove one hundred Paddington thirty Petticoat Lane shops stands and so on two hundred Summers Town fifty Field Lane Saffron Hill forty Clarkinwell thirty Bethnal Green Spittlefields one hundred Rosemary Lane and so on thirty Total seven hundred and seventy four shops employing upwards of two thousand men in making up and repairing old boots and shoes besides hundreds of poor men and women who strive for a crust by buying and selling the old material previously to translating it and by mending up what will mend they or their children stand in the street and try to sell them one with street now the great old shoe district has been sketched by Mr Dickens not as regards its connection with the subject of street sale or of any particular trade but as to its general character and appearance I first cite Mr Dickens description of the seven dials of which one with street is a seventh quote the stranger who finds himself in the dials for the first time and stands Bilzoni like at the entrance of seven obscure passages uncertain which to take will see enough around him to keep his curiosity and attention awake for no inconsiderable time from the irregular square into which he has plunged the streets and courts dart in all directions until they are lost in the unwholesome vapor which hangs over the house tops and renders the dirty perspective uncertain and confined and lounging at every corner as if they came there to take a few gasps of such fresh air as has found its way so far but is too much exhausted already to be enabled to force itself into the narrow alleys around are groups of people whose appearance and dwellings would fill any mind but a regular Londoners with astonishment in addition to the numerous groups squabbling about the gin shops and squabbling in the centre of the road every post in the open space has its occupant who leans against it for hours with listless perseverance it is odd enough that one class of men in London appear to have no enjoyment beyond leaning against posts we never saw a regular bricklayer's labourer take any other recreation fighting accepted pass through St Giles in the evening of a weekday in their bustian dresses spotted with brick dust and whitewash leaning against posts walk through seven dials on Sunday morning there they are again drab or light corduroy trousers butcher boots blue coats and great yellow waistcoats leaning against posts the idea of a man dressing himself in his best clothes to lean against a post all day the peculiar character of these streets and the close resemblance each one bears to its neighbour by no means tends to decrease the bewilderment in which the unexperienced wayfarer through the dials finds himself involved he traverses streets of dirty straggling houses with now and then an unexpected court composed of buildings as ill proportioned and deformed as the half naked children that wallow in the kennels here and there a little dark Chandler's shop with a cracked bell hung up behind the door to announce the entrance of a customer or betray the presence of some young gentleman in whom a passion for shop tills has developed itself at an early age others as if for support against some handsome lofty building which usurps the place of a low dingy public house long rows of broken and patched windows expose plants that may have flourished when the dials were built in vessels as dirty as the dials themselves and shops for the purchase of rags bones, old iron and kitchen stuff vie in cleanliness with the bird fanciers and rabbit dealers which one might fancy so many arcs but for the irresistible conviction that no bird in its proper senses who was permitted to leave one of them would ever come back again broker's shops which would seem to have been established by humane individuals as refugees for destitute bugs interspersed with announcements of day schools penny theaters, petition writers mangles and music for balls or routes complete the still life of the subject and dirty men, filthy women squalid children, fluttering shuttlecocks, noisy battle doors reeking pipes, bad fruit more than doubtful oysters attenuated cats depressed dogs and anatomical fouls are its cheerful accompaniments if the external appearance of the houses or a glance at their inhabitants present but few attractions a closer acquaintance with either is little calculated to alter one's first impression every room has its separate tenant and every tenant is by the same mysterious dispensation which causes a country curate to increase and multiply most marvelously, generally the head of a numerous family the man in the shop perhaps the baked Jiminy line or the firewood and hearthstone line or any other line which requires a floating capital of 18 pence or thereabouts and he and his family live in the shop and the small back parlor behind it then there is an Irish labourer and his family in the back kitchen and a jobbing man carpet beater and so forth with his family in the front one in the front one pair there's another man with another wife and family and in the back one pair there's a young woman as takes in timberwork and dresses quite gentile who talks a great deal about my friend and can't bear anything low the second floor front and the rest of the lodgers are just a second edition of the people below except a shabby gentile man in the back attic who has his half pint of coffee every morning from the coffee shop next door but one which boasts a little front den called a coffee room with a fireplace over which is an inscription politely requesting that to prevent mistakes customers will please to pay on delivery the shabby gentile man is an object of some mystery but as he leads a life of seclusion and never was known to buy anything beyond an occasional pen except half pints of coffee penny loaves and hypers of ink his fellow lodgers have naturally supposed him to be an author and rumours are current in the dials that he writes poems for Mr Warren now anybody who passed through the dials on a hot summer's evening and saw the different women of the house gossiping on the steps would be apt to think that all was harmony among them and that a more primitive set of people than the native dialers could not be imagined alas the man in the shop ill treats his family later extends his professional pursuits to his wife the one-pair front has an undying feud with the two-pair front in consequence of the two-pair front persisting in dancing over his the one-pair front's head when he and his family have retired for the night the two-pair back will interfere with the front kitchen's children the Irishman comes home drunk every other night and attacks everybody the one-pair back screams at everything animosities spring up between floor and floor the very seller asserts his equality Mrs A smacks Mrs B's child for making faces Mrs B forthwith throws cold water over Mrs A's child for calling names the husbands are embroiled the quarrel becomes general an assault is the consequence and a police officer the result end quote of Monmouth Street the same author says quote we have always entertained a particular attachment towards Monmouth Street as the only true and real Emporium for secondhand wearing apparel Monmouth Street is venerable from its antiquity and respectable from its usefulness Holywell Street we despise the red-headed and red-whiskered Jews who forcibly haul you into their squalid houses and thrust you into a suit of clothes whether you will or not we detest the inhabitants of Monmouth Street are a distinct class a peaceable and retiring race who amure themselves for the most part in deep cellars or small back parlours and whose seldom come forth into the world except in the dusk and coolness of evening when they may be seen seated in chairs on the pavement smoking their pipes as they revel in the gutter a happy troupe of infantile scavengers their countenances bear a thoughtful and a dirty cast certain indications of their love of traffic and their habitations are distinguished by that disregard of outward appearance and neglect of personal comfort so common among people who are constantly immersed in profound speculations and deeply engaged in sedentary pursuits through every alteration and every change Monmouth Street has still remained the burial place of the fashions and such to judge from all present appearances it will remain until there are no more fashions to bury end quote end of section 5 section 6 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 cellars of Petticoat and Rosemary Lane immediately connected with the trade of the central mart for old clothes are the adjoining streets of Petticoat Lane and those of the not very distant Rosemary Lane in these localities is a second hand garment seller at almost every stop but the whole stock of these traders decent frowsy, half rotten or smart and good habilliments has first passed through the channel the men who sell these goods have all bought them at the exchange the exceptions being insignificant so that this street sale is but an extension of the trade of the central mart with the addition that the wares have been made ready for use a cursory observation might lead an inexperienced person to the conclusion that these old clothes traders who are standing by the bundles of gowns or lines of coats hanging from their doorposts the place from which the window has been removed or at the sides of their houses or piled in the street before them are drowsy people for they seem to sit among their property lost in thought or caring only for the fumes of a pipe but let anyone indicate even by an approving glance the likelihood of his becoming a customer and see if there be any lack of diligence in business some indeed pertinaciously invite attention to their wares some and often well-dressed women leave their premises a few yards to a costa stranger pointing to a good dress coat or an excellent frock coat I am told that this practice is less pursued than it was and it seems that the solicitations are now addressed chiefly to strangers these strangers persons happening to be passing or visitors from curiosity are at once recognized for as in all not very extended localities where the inhabitants pursue a similar calling they are as regards their knowledge of one another as the members of one family thus a stranger is as easily recognized as he would be in a little rustic hamlet where a strange face is not seen once a quarter indeed so narrow are some of the streets and alleys in this quarter and so little is there of privacy owing to the removal in warm weather even of the casements that the room is commanded in all its domestic details and as among these details there is generally a further display of goods similar to the articles outside the jammed up places really look like a great family house with merely a sort of channel dignified by the name of a street between the right and left suites of apartments in one off street on a Sunday there is a considerable demand for Jewish sweetmeats by Christian boys and a little sly and perhaps not very successful gambling on the part of the ingenious youth to possess themselves of these confectionaries at the easiest rate there are some mounds of builders rubbish upon which if an inquisitive person ascended he could command the details of the upper rooms probably the bed chambers and the crowded apartments these traders can find spaces for beds it must not be supposed that old clothes are more than the great staple of the traffic of this district wherever persons are assembled there are certain to be purveyors of provisions and of cooler hot drinks for warm or cold weather the interior of the old clothes exchange has its oyster stall its fountain of ginger beer its coffee house and a troop of peripatetic traders boys principally carrying trays outside the walls of the exchange this trade is still thicker a Jew boy thrusts a tin of highly grazed cakes and pastry under the people's noses here and on the other side a basket of oranges regales the same sense by its proximity at the next step the thoroughfare is interrupted by a gaudy looking ginger beer a raspberry aid and nectar fountain I hate me a glass I hate me a glass sparkling lemonade shouts the vendor as you pass the fountain and the glasses glitter in the sun the varnish of the woodwork shines the lemonade really does sparkle and all looks clean except the owner close by is a brawny young Irishman his red beard unshorne for perhaps ten days and his neck where it had been exposed to the weather a far deeper red than his beard and he is carrying a small basket of nuts and selling them as gravely as if they were articles suited to his strength a little lower is the cry in a woman's voice fish fried fish hate me fish fried fish and so monotonously and mechanically is it ejaculated that one might think the seller's life was passed in uttering these few words even as a rook's is crying here I saw a poor Irishman who had a child on her back by a piece of this fish which maybe had hot or cold and tear out a piece with her teeth and this with all the eagerness and relish of appetite or hunger first eating the brown outside and then sucking the bone I never saw fish look firmer or whiter that fried fish is to be procured is manifest to more senses than one for you can hear the sound of its being fried and smell the fumes from the oil in an open window opposite frizzle on an old tray small pieces of thinly cut meat with a mixture of onions kept hot by being placed over an old pan containing charcoal in another room a mess of batter is smoking over a grate penny a lot oysters resounds from different parts some of the sellers command two streets by establishing their stalls or tubs at a corner lads pass carrying sweet stuff on trays I observed one very dark eyed Hebrew boy chewing the hard bake he vended if it were not a substitute with an expression of great enjoyment heaped up trays of fresh looking sponge cakes are carried in tempting pyramids youths have stocks of large hard looking biscuits and walk about crying Hapney biscuits Hapney three apeni biscuits these with a morsel of cheese often supply a dinner or a luncheon dates and figs as dry as they are cheap constitute the stock and trade of other street sellers cocker nuts are sold in pieces and entire the Jew boy when he invites to the purchase of an entire nut shaking it at the ear of the customer I was told by a costar monger that these juveniles had a way of drumming with their fingers on the shell so as to satisfy a green customer that the nut offered was a sound one such are the summer eatables and drinkables which I have lately seen vended in the petticoat lane district in winter there are as long as daylight lasts and in no other locality perhaps does it last so short a time other street provisions and if possible greater zeal in selling them the hours of business being circumscribed there is then the potato can and the hot elder wine apparatus and smoking pies and puddings and roasted apples and chestnuts and walnuts and the several fruits which ripen in the autumn apples, pears and so on Heather too I have spoken only of such eatables and drinkables as are ready for consumption but to these the trade in the petticoat lane district is by no means confined there is fried fish generally of the cheaper kinds and smoked or dried fish smoked salmon more over is sold ready cooked and costar munger's barrows with their loads of green vegetables looking almost out of place amidst the surrounding dinginess the cries of fine cauliflower large penny cabbages ate a shelling mackerel eels live eels mixed strangely with the hubbub of the busier street other street sellers also abound you meet one man who says mysteriously and rather bluntly by a good knife governor his tone is remarkable and if it attract attention he may hint that he has smuggled goods which he must sell anyhow such men I am told look out mostly for semen who often resort to petticoat lane for idle men like sailors on shore and idle uncultivated men often love to lounge where there is buttle pocket and pen knives and scissors penny a piece penny a pair rubbed over with oil both to hide and prevent rust are carried in trays and spread on stalls some stalls consisting of merely a tea chest lid on a stool another man carrying perhaps a sponge in his hand and well dressed asks you in a subdued voice you want a good razor as if he almost suspected that you meditated suicide and were looking out for the means this is another ruse to introduce smuggled or duffer goods account books are hawked penny a choir shouts the itinerant street stationer who if questioned always declares he said penny half choir stockings stockings tuppens a pair here's your chewellery pick them and choose them note I may remark that outside the window of one shop or rather parlor if there be any such distinction here I saw the handsomest as far as I am able to judge and the best cheap jewelry I ever saw in the streets and note pencils sir pencils steel pens steel pens hit me penny pencils steel pens ceiling wax wax wax shouts one green peas hit me a pint cries another these things however are but the accompaniments of the main traffic but as such things accompany all traffic not on a small scale and may be found in almost every metropolitan thoroughfare where the police are not required by the householders to interfere I will point out to show the distinctive character of the street trade in this part what is not sold and not encouraged I saw no old books there were no flowers no music which indeed could not be heard except at the outskirts of the din and no beggars playing their vocation among the trading class another peculiarity pertaining alike to this shop and street locality is that everything is at the various minimum of price though it may not be asked it will assuredly be taken the bottle of lemonade which is elsewhere a penny is here a hipney the tarts which among the street sellers about the royal exchange are a hipney each are here a farthing when lemons are to a penny in st. George's market oxford street as the long line of street stalls towards the western extremity is called they are 3 and 4 a penny in petticoat and rosemary lanes certainly there is a difference in size between the dearer and the cheaper tarts and perhaps there is a difference in quality also but the rule of a minimized cheapness has no exceptions in this cheap trading quarter but petticoat lane is essentially the old clothes district embracing the streets and alleys adjacent to petticoat lane and including the rows of old boots and shoes on the ground there is perhaps between 2 and 3 miles of old clothes petticoat lane proper is long and narrow and to look down it is to look down a vista of many colored garments a lake on the side and on the ground the effect sometimes is very striking from the variety of hues and the constant flitting or gathering of the crowd into little groups of bargainers gowns of every shade and every pattern are hanging up but none perhaps look either bright or white it is a vista of dinginess but many colored dinginess as regards female attire dress coats frock coats, great coats, livery and gamekeepers coats paletons, tunics trousers, knee breeches waist coats, capes pilot coats, working jackets plaids, hats, dressing gowns shirts, guernsey frocks are all displayed the predominant colors are black and blue but there is every color a strap of some aristocratic livery the dull brown green of velveteen, the deep blue of a pilot jacket the variegated figures of the shawl dressing gown, the glossy black of the restored garments the shine of newly turpentine black satin waist coats the scarlet and green of some flaming tartan, these things mixed with the hues of the women's garments, spotted and striped certainly present a scene which never held in any other part of the greatest city of the world nor in any other portion of the world itself the ground has also its array of colors it is covered with lines of boots and shoes they're shining black relieved here and there by the admixture of female boots with drab, green plum or lavender colored legs as the upper part of the boot is always called in the trade there is too an admixture of men's button boots of drab cloth legs and of a few red, yellow and russet colored slippers and of children's colored Morocco boots and shoes handkerchiefs sometimes of a gaudy orange pattern are heaped on a chair lace and muslins occupy small stands or are spread on the ground black and drab and straw hats are hung up or piled one upon another and kept from falling by means of strings incessantly threading their way through all this intricacy is a mass of people some of whose dresses speak of a recent purchase in the lane I have said little of the shopkeepers of Petticoat Lane nor is it requisite for the full elicitation of my present subject which relates more especially to street sale that I should treat of them otherwise than as being in a great degree connected with street trade they stand in the street in front of their premises they trade in the street they smoke and read the papers in the street and indeed the greater part of their lives seems past in the street for as I have elsewhere remarked the Sundays or Sabbaths recreation to some of them after synagogue hours seems to be to stand by their doors looking about them in the earlier periods of the day the Jewish Sabbath accepted when there is no market at all in Petticoat Lane not even among the Irish rather old clothes people or a mere nothing of a market the goods of these shops seem consigned to the care of the wives and female members of the families of the proprietors the old clothes exchange like other places known by the name the royal exchange for example has its daily season of high change this is in summer from about half past two to five in winter from two to four o'clock at those hours the Crocman Carter in Costa Munger and the Jew collector have sought the exchange with their respective bargains and business there and in the whole district is at its fullest tide before this hour the master of the shop or store the latter may be the more appropriate word is absent buying, collecting or transacting any business which requires him to leave home it is curious to observe how during this absence the women but with most wary eyes to the business sit in the street carrying on their domestic occupations some with their young children about them are shelling peas some are trimming vegetables some plying their needles some of the smaller traders wives as well as the street sellers with a pitch are eating dinners out of basins laid aside when a customer approaches and occasionally some may be engaged in what Mrs. Trollup has called in noticing a similar procedure the boxes of an American theater the most maternal of all offices the females I saw thus occupied were principally due S's for though those resorting to the old close exchange and its concomitant branches may be but one fourth Jews, more than half of the remainder being Irish people the householders or shopkeepers of the locality when capital is needed are generally Israelites it must be born in mind that in describing Petticoat Lane I have described it as seen on a fine summer's day when the business is at its height until an hour or two after midday the district is quiet and on very rainy days its aspect is sufficiently lamentable for then it appears actually deserted perhaps on a winter Saturday night as a Jewish Sabbath terminates at sunset the scene may be the most striking of all the flaring lights from the uncovered gas from fat fed lamps from the paper shaded candles and the many ways in which the poorer street folk throw some illumination over their goods produce a multiplicity of lights and shadows which thrown and blended over the old clothes hanging up along the line of street cause them to assume mysterious farms and if the wind be high make them as they are blown to and fro look more mysterious still on one of my visits to Petticoat Lane I saw two foreign Jews from Smyrna I was informed an old street seller told me he believed it was their first visit to the district but knew as the scene might be to them they looked on impassively at all they saw they wore the handsome and peculiar dresses of their country a glance was cast after them by the Petticoat Lane people but that was all in the stand they would have attracted considerable attention not a few heads would have been turned back to gaze after them but it seems that only to those who may possibly be customers is any notice paid in Petticoat Lane Rosemary Lane Rosemary Lane which has in vain been christened Royal Mint Street is from half to three quarters of a mile long that is if we include only the portion which runs from the junction of lemon and dock streets near the London docks to Sparrow corner where to butts on the minarees beyond the lemon street termination of Rosemary Lane and stretching on into Shadwell are many streets of a similar character as regards the street and shop supply of articles to the poor but as the old clothes trade is only occasionally carried on there I shall here deal with Rosemary Lane proper this Lane protects of some of the characteristics of Petticoat Lane but without its so strongly marked peculiarities Rosemary Lane is wider and area the houses on each side are loftier in several parts and there is an approach to a gin palace a thing unknown in Petticoat Lane there is no room for such a structure there Rosemary Lane like the quarter I have last described has its off streets into which the traffic stretches some of these off streets are narrower dirtier poorer in all respects than Rosemary Lane itself which indeed can hardly be stigmatised as very dirty these are Glasshouse Street Russell Court Heirbrine Court Parsons Court Blue Anchor Yard one of the poorest places and with a half built look Derby Street Cartwright Street Princes Street Queen Street and beyond these and in the direction of the minarees Rosemary Lane becomes Sharps Buildings and Sparrow Corner there are other small non thoroughfare courts sometimes called blind alleys to which no name is attached but which are very well known to the neighbourhood as Union Court and so on but as these are not scenes of street traffic although they may be the abodes of street traffickers they require no special notice the dwellers in the neighbourhood of the off streets of Rosemary Lane differ from those of Petticoat Lane by the proximity of the former place to the Thames the lodgings here are occupied by dredgers, ballast heavers coal whippers, watermen lumpers and others whose trade is connected with the river as well as the slop workers and sweaters working for the minarees the poverty of these workers compels them to lodge wherever the rent of the rooms is the lowest as a few of the wives of the ballast heavers and so on are street sellers in or about Rosemary Lane the locality is often sought by them about Petticoat Lane the off streets are mostly occupied by the old clothes merchants in Rosemary Lane is a greater street trade as regard things placed on the ground for retail sale and so on than in Petticoat Lane for though the traffic in the last mentioned lane is by far the greatest it is more connected with the shops and fewer traders whose dealings are strictly those of the street alone resort to it Rosemary Lane too is more Irish there are some cheap lodging houses in the courts and so on to which the poor Irish flock and as they are very frequently street sellers on busy days the quarter abounds with them at every step you hear the Irish tongue and meet with the Irish physiognomy Jews and duesses are also seen in the street they abound in the shops the street traffic does not begin until about one o'clock except as regards the vegetable fish and oyster stalls and so on but the chief business of this lane which is as inappropriately as that of Petticoat is suitably named is in the vending of the articles which have often been thrown aside as refuse but from which numbers in London ring an existence one side of the lane covered with old boots and shoes old clothes both men's women's and children's new lace for edgings and a variety of cheap prints and muslins also new hats and bonnets pots and often of the commonest kind tins old knives and forks old scissors and old metal articles generally here and there is a stall of cheap bread or American cheese old glass different descriptions of second hand furniture of the smaller size such as children's chairs, bellows and so on mixed with these but only very scantily are a few bright looking swag barrels with china ornaments toys and so on some of the wares are spread on the ground on wrappers or pieces of matting or carpet and some as the pots are occasionally placed on straw the cotton prints are often heaped on the ground where are also ranges or heaps of boots and shoes and piles of old clothes or hats or umbrellas other traders place their goods on stalls or barrels or over an old chair or clothes horse and amidst all this monthly display the buyers and sellers smoke and shout and doze and bargain and wrangle and eat and drink tea and coffee and sometimes beer altogether rosemary lane is more of a street market than as petticoat lane this district, like the one I have first described, is infested with young thieves and vagrants from the neighbouring lodging houses who may be seen running about often barefooted, bare-necked and shirtless but larking one with another and what may be best understood as full of fun in what way these lads dispose of their plunder and how their plunder is in any way connected with the trade of these parts I shall show in my account of the thieves one pickpocket told me that there was no person whom he delighted so much to steal from as any petticoat laner with whom he had professional dealings in rosemary lane there is a busy Sunday morning trade there is a street trade also on the Saturday afternoons but the greater part of the shops are then closed and the Jews do not participate in commerce until after sunset the two marks I have thus fully described differ from all other street markets for in these two, secondhand garments and secondhand merchandise generally although but in a small proportion are the grand staple of the traffic at the other street markets the secondhand commerce is the exception of the street sellers of men's secondhand clothes in the following accounts of street selling I shall not mix up any account of the retailer's modes of buying, collecting, repairing or restoring the secondhand garments otherwise than incidentally I have already sketched the systems pursued and more will have to be said concerning them under the head of street buyers neither have I thought it necessary in the further accounts I have collected to confine myself to the trade carried on in the petticoat and rosemary lane districts the greater portion relates to those places but my aim of course is to give an account which will show the character of the secondhand trade of the metropolis generally people should remember said an intelligent shoemaker not a street seller with whom I had some conversation about cobbling for the streets that such places as rosemary lane have their uses this way but for them a very poor industrious widow say with only tuppens or thruppens to spare couldn't get a pair of shoes for her child whereas now for tuppens or thruppens she can get them there of some sort or other there's a sort of decency too in wearing shoes and what's more sir for I've bought old coats and other clothes in rosemary lane both for my own wear and my families and know something about it how is a poor creature to get such a decency as a petticoat for a poor little girl if she'd only a penny unless there were such places in the present state of the very poor it may be that such places as those described have on the principle that half a loaf is better than no bread their benefits but whether the state of things in which an industrious widow or a host of industrious persons can spare but a penny for a child's clothing and nothing perhaps for their own one to be lauded in a Christian country is another question fraught with grave political and social considerations the man from whom I received the following account of the sale of men's wearing apparel was apparently between 30 and 40 years of age his face presented something of the Jewish physiognomy but he was a Christian he said though he never had time to go to church or chapel besides a man must live as others in his way lived he had been connected with the sale of old clothes all his life as were his parents so that his existence had been monotonous enough for he had never been more than five miles he thought from Whitechapel the neighbourhood where he was born in winter he liked a concert and was fond of a hand at Kribbage but he didn't care for the play his goods he sometimes spread on the ground at other times he had a stall or a horse that is clothes horse my customers he said are nearly all working people some of them very poor and with large families for anything I know some of them works with their heads though as well and not their hands for I've noticed that their hands is smallish and seems smoothish and suits a tight sleeve very well I don't know what they are and they'll tell me no fibs to such as them I sell coats mostly indeed very little else they're often very particular about the fit and often asks does it look as if it was made for me sometimes they are seedy very seedy and comes to such as me most likely cause we're cheaper than the shops they don't like to try things on in the street and I can always take a decent customer or one as looks itch in there to try on note pointing to a coffee shop and note bob tailed coats note dress coats and note is far the cheapest I've sold them as low as one shilling but not often that two shilling and three shillings often enough and sometimes as high as five shillings perhaps a three shillings or three shilling sixpence coats goes off as well as any but bob tailed coats is little asked for now I've never had a frock note surto or frock coat and note as well as I can remember under two shilling sixpence except one that stuck by me a long time and I sold it at last for 20 pence which was tuppence less than what it cost it was only a poor thing in course but it had such a rum coloured velvet colour that was faded and it had a bit let in and was all sorts of shades and that hindered its selling I fancy velvet colours isn't worn now and I'm glad of it old coats goes better with their own colours note colours of the same cloth as the body of the coat and note for frocks I've cut as much as seven shilling sixpence and cheap at it too sir well perhaps note laughing and note at an odd time they wasn't so very cheap but that's all in the way of trade selling sixpence or five shillings is perhaps the ticket that a frock goes off best at it's working people that buys frocks most and often working people's wives or mothers that is as far as I know their capital judges as to what'll fit their men and if they satisfy me it's all right I'm always ready to undertake to change it for another if it don't fit oh no I never agree to give back the money if it don't fit not that wouldn't be business no sir we're very little troubled with people larking I have had young fellows come half drunk even though it might be Sunday morning and say covenor what will you give me to wear that coat for you and show off your cut we don't stand much of their nonsense I don't know what such coves are perhaps turnies journeymen and pot boys out for a Sunday morning spree note this was said with a bitterness that surprised me in so quiet speaking a man end note in great coats and cloaks I don't do much but it's a very good sale when you can offer them well worth the money I've got ten shillings often for a great coat and higher and lower often are lower in course but ten shillings is about the card for a good thing it's the like with cloaks paltos don't sell well they're mostly thinner and poorer cloth to begin with at the tailors them new-fashioned named things often is so and so they show when hard worn but no sir they can be done up certainly anything can be touched up but they get thin you see and there's nothing to work upon as there is in a good cloth great coat you'll excuse me sir but I saw you a little bit since take one of them their square books that a man gives away to people coming this way as if to knock up the second hand business but he won't though I'll tell you how them slops if they come more into wear is sure to injure us if people gets to wear them low-figured things more and more as they possibly may why, where's the second hand things to come from I'm not a tailor but he understands about clothes and I believe that no person ever saw anything green in my eye and if you find a slop thing marked a guinea I don't care what it is but I'll undertake that you shall get a little wear longer and look better to the very last second hand at less than half the money plenty less it was good stuff and good make at first and hasn't been abused and that's the reason why it always bangs a slop because it was good to begin with trousers sell pretty well I sell them cloth ones from sixpence up to four shillings they're cheaper if they're not cloth but very seldom less or so low as sixpence yes the cloth ones at that is poor worn things and little things too they're not men's they're youths or boys' size good strong cords goes off very well at one shilling and one shilling sixpence or higher Irish brick layers buys them and paviers and such like it's easy to fit a man with a pair of second hand trousers I can tell by his build what'll fit him directly tweets and summer trousers is middling but washing things sells worse and worse it's an expense and expense don't suit my customers not a bit of it waist coats isn't in no great call they're often worn very hard under any sort of a tidy coat for a tidy coat can be buttoned over anything that's sticky and so you see many of them's halfway to the rag shop before they comes to us well I'm sure I can hardly say what sort of people goes most for whiskets note so he pronounced it and note if they're light or there's anything fancy about them I think it's mothers as makes them up for their sons what with the strings at the back and such like it ain't hard to make a whisket fit their poor people is by certainly but gentile people by such things as fancy whiskets or how do you suppose they'd all be got through oh there's ladies comes here for a bargain I can tell you and gentlemen too and many of them would go through fire for one second hand satins note waist coats and note is good still but they don't fetch the tin they did I've sold whiskets from a penny hipney to four shillings well it's hard to say what the three hipneys is made of all sorts of things we call them surge thruppings is a common price for a little whisket there's no under whiskets wanted now and there's no rolling collage it was better for us when there was more stuff to work on the double breasted get scarcer too fashions grow to be cheap things nowadays I can't tell you anything about knee breaches they don't come into our trade and they're never asked for Gators is no go either liveries isn't a street trade I fancy all those sorts of things is sent abroad I don't know where perhaps where people doesn't know there was liveries I wouldn't wear an old livery coat if it was for five bob I don't think wearing one would hinder trade you may have seen a black man in a fine livery giving away bills of a slop in Hallburn if he was to have such a thing we'd be pulled up note apprehended and note for obstructing I sell a few children's note children's clothes and note but only a few and I can't say so much about them they sell pretty freely though and to very simple if they're good then they're ready for use if they ain't anything very prime they can be mended that is if they was good to begin with but children's will and togs is mostly hard worn and fit only for the devil note the machine which tears them up for shoddy and note I've sold suits which was tunics and trousers but no whiskets for three shilling sixpence when it was tidy that's a common price well really I hardly know how much I make every week for are too little I know that I could no more tell you how many coats I sell in a year or how many whiskets then I could tell you how many days was fine and how many wasn't I can carry all in my head and so I keep snow accounts I know exactly what every single thing I sell has cost me in course I must know that I dare say I may clear about 12 shillings bad weeks more or less both ways and there's more bad weeks than good I have cleared 50 shillings in a good week and when it's been nothing but fog and wet I haven't cleared three shilling sixpence but mine's a better business than common perhaps I can't say what others clears more or less than I does the profit in this trade from the best information I could obtain runs about 50% End of section 6