London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. 1

by Henry Mayhew

Of the Packmen, or Hawkers of Soft Wares.

The packman, as he is termed, derives his name from carrying his merchandise or pack upon his back. These itinerant distributors are far less numerous than they were twenty or twenty-five years since. A few years since, they were mostly Irishmen, and their principal merchandise, Irish linens—a fabric not so generally worn now as it was formerly.

The packmen are sometimes called Manchester-men. These are the men whom I have described as the sellers of shirtings, sheetings, &c. One man, who was lately an assistant in the trade, could reckon twenty men who were possessed of good stocks, good connections, and who had saved money. They traded in an honourable manner, were well known, and much respected. The majority of them were natives of the north of Ireland, and two had been linen manufacturers. It is common, indeed, for all the Irishmen in this trade to represent themselves as having been connected with the linen manufacture in Belfast.

This trade is now becoming almost entirely a country trade. There are at present, I am told, only five pursuing it in London, none of them having a very extensive connection, so that only a brief notice is necessary. Their sale is of both cottons and linens for shirts. They carry them in rolls of 36 yards, or in smaller rolls, each of a dozen yards, and purchase them at the haberdashery swag-shops, at from 9d. to 18d. a yard. I now speak of good articles. Their profits are not very large—as for the dozen yards, which cost them 9s., they often have a difficulty in getting 12s.—while in street-sale, or in hawking from house to house, there is great delay. A well-furnished pack weighs about one cwt., and so necessitates frequent stoppages. Cotton, for sheetings, is sold in the same manner, costing the vendors from 6d. to 1s. 3d. a yard.

Of the tricks of the trade, and of the tally system of one of these chapmen, I had the following account from a man who had been, both as principal and assistant, a travelling packman, but was best acquainted with the trade in and about London.

“My master,” he said, “was an Irishman, and told everybody he had been a manager of a linen factory in Belfast. I believe he was brought up to be a shoemaker, and was never in the north of Ireland. Anyhow, he was very shy of talking about Irish factories to Irish gentlemen. I heard one say to him, ‘Don’t tell me, you have the Cork brogue.’ I know he’d got some knowledge of linen weaving at Dundee, and could talk about it very clever; indeed he was a clever fellow. Sometimes, to hear him talk, you’d think he was quite a religious man, and at others that he was a big blackguard. It wasn’t drink that made the difference, for he was no drinker. It’s a great thing on a round to get a man or woman into a cheerful talk, and put in a joke or two; and that he could do, to rights. I had 12s. a week, standing wages, from him, and bits of commissions on sales that brought me from 3s. to 5s. more. He was a buyer of damaged goods, and we used to ‘doctor’ them. In some there was perhaps damages by two or three threads being out all the way, so the manufacturers wouldn’t send them to their regular customers. My master pretended it was a secret where he got them, but, lord, I knew; it was at a swag-shop. We used to cut up these in twelves (twelve yards), sometimes less if they was very bad, and take a Congreve, and just scorch them here and there, where the flaws was worst, and plaster over other flaws with a little flour and dust, to look like a stain from street water from the fire-engine. Then they were from the stock of Mr. Anybody, the great draper, that had his premises burnt down—in Manchester or Glasgow, or London—if there’d been a good fire at a draper’s—or anywhere; we wasn’t particular. They was fine or strong shirtings, he’d say—and so they was, the sound parts of them—and he’d sell as cheap as common calico. I’ve heard him say, ‘Why, marm, sure marm, with your eyes and scissors and needle, them burns—ah! fire’s a dreadful judgment on a man—isn’t the least morsel of matter in life. The stains is cured in a wash-tub in no time. It’s only touched by the fire, and you can humour it, I know, in cutting out as a shirt ought to be cut; it should be as carefully done as a coat.’ Then we had an Irish linen, an imitation, you know, a kind of ‘Union,’ which we call double twist. It is made, I believe, in Manchester, and is a mixture of linen and cotton. Some of it’s so good that it takes a judge to tell the difference between it and real Irish. He got some beautiful stuff at one time, and once sold to a fine-dressed young woman in Brompton, a dozen yards, at 2s. 6d. a yard, and the dozen only cost him 14s. Then we did something on tally, but he was dropping that trade. The shopkeepers undersold him. ‘If you get 60l. out of 100l., in tally scores,’ he often said, ‘it’s good money, and a fair living profit;’ but he got far more than that. What was worth 8s. was 18s. on tally, pay 1s. a week. He did most that way with the masters of coffee-shops and the landlords of little public-houses. Sometimes, if they couldn’t pay, we’d have dinner, and that went to account, and he’d quarrel with me after it for what was my share. There’s not much of this sort of trade now, sir. I believe my old master got his money together and emigrated.”

“Do you want any ginuine Irish linin, ma’am?” uttered in unmistakable brogue, seemed to authenticate the fact, that the inquirer (being an Irishman) in all likelihood possessed the legitimate article; but as to their obtaining their goods from Coleraine and other places in the Emerald Isle, famed for the manufacture of linen, it was and is as pure fiction as the Travels of Baron Munchausen.

The majority of these packmen have discontinued dealing in linens exclusively, and have added silks, ladies’ dresses, shawls and various articles connected with the drapery business. The country, and small towns and villages, remote from the neighbourhood of large and showy shops, are the likeliest markets for the sale of their goods. In London the Irish packmen have been completely driven out by the Scotch tallymen, who indeed are the only class of packmen likely to succeed in London. If the persevering Scotch tallyman can but set foot in a decent-looking residence, and be permitted to display his tempting finery to the “lady of the house,” he generally manages to talk her into purchasing articles that perhaps she has no great occasion for, and which serve often to involve her in difficulties for a considerable period—causing her no little perplexity, and requiring much artifice to keep the tallyman’s weekly visits a secret from her husband—to say nothing of paying an enormous price for the goods; for the many risks which the tallyman incurs, necessitates of course an exorbitant rate of profit.

“The number of packmen or hawkers of shawls, silks, &c., I think” (says one of their own body) “must have decreased full one-half within the last few years. The itinerant haberdashery trade is far from the profitable business that it used to be, and not unfrequently do I travel a whole day without taking a shilling: still, perhaps, one day’s good work will make up for half a dozen bad ones. All the packmen have hawkers’ licences, as they have mostly too valuable a stock to incur the risk of losing it for want of such a privilege. Some of the fraternity” (says my informant) “do not always deal ‘upon the square;’ they profess to have just come from India or China, and to have invested all their capital in silks of a superior description manufactured in those countries, and to have got them on shore ‘unbeknown to the Custom-house authorities.’ This is told in confidence to the servant-man or woman who opens the door—‘be so good as tell the lady as much,’ says the hawker, ‘for really I’m afraid to carry the goods much longer, and I have already sold enough to pay me well enough for my spec—go, there’s a good girl, tell your missus I have splendid goods, and am willing almost to give them away, and if we makes a deal of it, why I don’t mind giving you a handsome present for yourself.’” This is a bait not to be resisted. Should the salesman succeed with the mistress, he carries out his promise to the maid by presenting her with a cap ribbon, or a cheap neckerchief.

The most primitive kind of packmen, or hawkers of soft-wares, who still form part of the distributing machinery of the country, traverse the highlands of Scotland. They have their regular rounds, and regular days of visiting their customers; their arrival is looked for with interest by the country people; and the inmates of the farm-house where they locate for the night consider themselves fortunate in having to entertain the packman; for he is their newsmonger, their story-teller, their friend, and their acquaintance, and is always made welcome. His wares consist of hose—linsey wolsey, for making petticoats—muslins for caps—ribbons—an assortment of needles, pins, and netting-pins—and all sorts of small wares. He always travels on foot. It is suspected that he likewise does a little in the “jigger line,” for many of these Highlanders have, or are supposed to have, their illicit distilleries; and the packmen are suspected of trafficking without excise interference. Glasgow, Dundee, Galashiels, and Harwick are the principal manufacturing towns where the packman replenishes his stock. “My own opinion,” says an informant of considerable experience, “is that these men seldom grow rich; but the prevailing idea in the country part of Scotland is, that the pedlar has an unco lang stockin wi’ an awfu’ amount o goden guineas in it, and that his pocket buik is plumped out wi’ a thick roll of bank notes. Indeed there are many instances upon record of poor packmen having been murdered—the assassins, doubtlessly, expecting a rich booty.” It scarcely ever costs the packman of Scotland anything for his bed and board. The Highlanders are a most hospitable people with acquaintances—although with strangers at first they are invariably shy and distant. In Ireland there is also the travelling pedlar, whose habits and style of doing business are nearly similar to that of the Scotchman. Some of the packmen of Scotland have risen to eminence and distinction. A quondam lord provost of Glasgow, a gentleman still living, and upon whom the honour of knighthood has been conferred, was, according to common report, in his earlier days a packman; and rumour also does the gentleman the credit to acknowledge that he is not ashamed to own it.

I am told by a London hawker of soft goods, or packman, that the number of his craft, hawking London and its vicinity, as far as he can judge, is about 120 (the census of 1841 makes the London hawkers, hucksters and pedlars amount to 2041). In the 120 are included the Irish linen hawkers. I am also informed that the fair trader’s profits amount to about 20 per cent., while those of the not over-particular trader range from 80 to 200 per cent. In a fair way of business it is said the hawker’s taking will amount, upon an average, to 7l. or 8l. per week; whereas the receipts of the “duffer,” or unfair hawker, will sometimes reach to 50l. per week. Many, however, travel days, and do not turn a penny.