Of the Street-Sellers of Lace.
This trade is carried on both by itinerants and at stands, or “pitches.” The itinerants, of whom I will first treat, are about forty in number (thirty women and ten men). They usually carry their lace in boxes, or cases. It is not uncommon for the women to represent themselves as lacemakers from Marlow, or some other place in Buckinghamshire, or from Honiton, in Devonshire, while the men assert they are from Nottingham. I am informed that there are among these itinerant lace-sellers two women and one man who really have been lacemakers. They all buy their wares at the haberdashery swag-shops.
The lace, which is the principal staple of this trade, is “edgings,” or the several kinds of cheap lace used for the bordering of caps and other female requirements. Among street-people the lace is called “driz,” and the sellers of it “driz-fencers.” It gained this slang name, I was informed, many years ago, when it was sold, and often to wealthy ladies, as rare and valuable lace, smuggled from Mechlin, Brussels, Valenciennes, or any foreign place famous, or once famous, for its manufacture. The pretended smuggled lace trade is now unknown in London, and is very little practised in the country. There is, however, still some smuggling connected with lace-selling. Two, and sometimes three, female lace-sellers are also “jigger-workers.” They carry about their persons pint bladders of “stuff,” or “jigger stuff” (spirit made at an illicit still). “I used to supply them with it until lately,” one street-trader told me, “from a friend that kept a ‘jigger,’ and a tidy sale some of them had. Indeed, I’ve made the stuff myself. I knew one woman, six or seven years back, that did uncommon well at first, but she got too fond of the stuff, and drank herself into the work’us. They never carried gin, for brandy was most asked for. They sold the brandy at 2s. 6d. the pint; rum at 1s. 6d.; and whiskey at 2s.; sometimes higher, and always trying for 6d. a pint profit, at least. O yes, sir; I know they got the prices I’ve mentioned, though they seem high; for you must remember that the jigger spirit is above proof, and a pint will make two pints of gin-palace stuff. They sold it, I’ve heard them say, to ladies that liked a drop on the sly; and to some as pretended they bought that way for economy; yes, and to shopkeepers and publicans too. One old lady used to give 3s. for three yards of driz, and it was well enough understood, without no words, that a pint of brandy was part of them three yards. But the trade that way is nothing to what it was, and gets less and less every year.”
From a middle-aged woman selling laces I had the following account:—
“I’ve been in the trade about six years, sir. Ten years back or more I was in place, and saved a little money, as a servant of all work. I married a house-painter, but trade got bad, and we both had illnesses; and my husband, though he’s as good a man as need be, can’t stick to anything very long at a time.” (A very common failing, by the bye, with the street-folk.) “It seems not in his nature. When we was reduced very low he got on a cab—for he can turn his hand to almost anything—and after that we came to street-selling. He’s now on jewellery, and I think it suits him as well or better than anything he’s tried; I do my part, and we get on middling. If we’re ever pushed it’s no use fretting. We had one child, and he died when he wanted just a month of three years old, and after I’d lost him I said I would never fret for trifles no more. My heart was broke for a long time—it was indeed. He was the loveliest boy ever seen, and everybody said so. I went into lace, because my husband got to know all about it, and I had no tie at home then. I was very shy and ashamed at first to go into houses, but that wears off, and I met with some nice people that bought of me and was very civil, so that encourages one. I sell nothing but lace. I never cleared more than 2s. 6d. in a day, and that only once. I suppose I clear from 3s. 6d. to 4s. 6d. a week now; perhaps, take it altogether, rather more than 4s. I have a connection, and go to the houses in and about the Regent’s Park, and all the small streets near it, and sometimes Maida Hill way. I once tried a little millinery made-up things, but it didn’t suit somehow, and I didn’t stick to it. You see, sir, I sell my lace to very few but servant maids and small shopkeepers’ wives and daughters; but then they’re a better sort of people than those as has to buy everything ready made like servants has. They can use their own needles to make themselves nice and smart, and they buy of such as me to do it cheap, and they’re not often such beaters down as them that buys the ready-made. I can do nothing, or next to nothing, in very wet weather. If I’m in the habit of going into a nice kitchen, perhaps the housemaid flies at me for ‘bringing in all that dirt.’ My husband says all women is crossest in bad weather, and perhaps servants is.
“I buy my lace near Shoreditch. It’s a long walk, but I think I’m best used there. I buy generally a dozen yards, from 3½d. to 1s., and sometimes up to 2s. I sell the commoner at 1d. a yard, and three yards 2d.; and the better at 2d. and 3d. a yard. It’s a poor trade, but it’s doing something. My husband seldom earns less than 12s. a week, for he’s a good salesman, and so we pay 2s. rent regular every Monday for an unfurnished room, and has the rest to live on. I have sold in the Brill on a Saturday night, but not often, nor lately I don’t like it; I haven’t tongue enough.”
In addition to the itinerants there are about seventy stationary lace sellers, and not less than eighty on the Saturday evenings. The best pitches are, I am told, near the Borough-market; in Clare-market; the New Cut (on Saturday nights); Walworth-road; Tooley-street; and Dockhead, Bermondsey. From the best information at my command, it appears that at least half of these traders sell only lace, or rarely anything else. The others sell also net for making caps and “cauls,” which are the plain portion at the back, to be trimmed or edged according to the purchaser’s taste. Some sell also, with their lace, cap ribbons—plain or worked collars—and muslin, net, or worked undersleeves. Braid and gimp were formerly sold by them, but are now in no demand. The prices run from 2d. to 6d. for lace articles, and about the same for net, &c. per yard; the lowest priced are most sold.
In this stationary trade are as many men and youths as women and girls. One woman, who had known street-selling for upwards of twenty years, said she could not do half so well now as she could twenty years ago, for the cheaper things got the cheaper people would have them. “Why, twenty year ago,” she exclaimed, “I bought a lot of ‘leno’ cheap—it was just about going out of fashion for caps then, I think—and one Saturday night in the Cut, I cleared 15s. on it. I don’t clear that in a fortnight now. I have sold to women of the town, as far as I’ve known them to be of that sort, but very seldom. It’s not often you’ll catch them using a needle for theirselves. They do use their needles, I know. You can see some of them sewing at their doors and windows in Granby-street, Waterloo-road, or could lately—for I haven’t passed that way for some time—but I believe it’s all for money down, for the slop-shops. It suits the slop-shops to get work cheap anyway; and it suits the women to have some sort of occupation, which they needn’t depend upon for their living.”
The stationary lace sellers, for the most part, display their goods on stalls, but some spread them on a board, or on matting on the ground. Some of the men gather an audience by shouting out, “Three yards a penny, edging!” As at this rate the lace-seller would only clear ½d. in a dozen yards, the cry is merely uttered to attract attention. A few who patter at the trade—but far fewer than was once the case—give short measure. One man, who occasionally sold lace, told me, that when he was compelled to sell for “next to no profit, and a hungry Sunday coming,” he gave good shop measure, thirty full inches to a yard. His yard wand was the correct length, “but I can do it, sir,” he said with some exultation, “by palming,” and he gave a jerk to his fingers, to show how he caught in the lace, and “clipped it short.”
Calculating that 100 persons in this trade each take 10s. 6d. weekly, the profit being about cent. per cent., we find 2,730l. expended in the streets in lace and similar commodities.