London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. 1

by Henry Mayhew

Of the Street-Sellers of Miscellaneous Manufactured Articles.

In addition to the more staple wares which form the street trade in manufactured articles of a miscellaneous character, are many, as I said before, which have been popular for a while and are now entirely disused. In the course of my inquiry it was remarkable how oblivious I found many of the street-sellers as to what they had sold at various periods. “O dear, yes sir, I’ve sold all sorts of things in the streets besides what I’m on now; first one and then another as promised a few pence,” was the substance of a remark I frequently heard; but what was meant by the one and the other thing thus sold they had a difficulty to call to mind, but on a hint being thrown out they could usually give the necessary details. From the information I acquired I select the following curious matter.

Six or seven years ago Galvanic Rings were sold extensively by the street-folk. These were clumsy lead-coloured things, which were described by the puffing shop-keepers, and in due course by the street-sellers, as a perfect amulet; a thing which by its mere contact with the finger would not only cure but prevent “fits, rheumatics, and cramps.” On my asking a man who had sold them if these were all the ailments of which he and the others proclaimed the galvanic rings an infallible cure, he answered: “Like the quack medicines you read about, sir, in ’vertisements, we said they was good for anything anybody complained of or was afraid was coming on them, but we went mostly for rheumatics. A sight of tin some of the shopkeepers must have made, for what we sold at 1d. they got 6d. a piece for. Then for gold galvanics—and I’ve been told they was gilt—they had 10s. 6d. each. The streets is nothing to the shops on a dodge. I’ve been told by people as I’d sold galvanics to, that they’d had benefit from them. I suppose that was just superstitious. I think Hyams did the most of any house in galvanics.”

The men selling these rings—for the business was carried on almost entirely by men—were the regular street-traders, who sell “first one thing and then another.” They were carried in boxes, as I have shown medals are now, and they generally formed a portion of the street-jeweller’s stock, whether he were itinerant or stationary. The purchasers were labourers in the open air, such as those employed about buildings, whose exposure to the alternations of heat and cold render them desirous of a cure for, or preventive against rheumatism. The costermongers were also purchasers, and in the course of my inquiries among that numerous body, I occasionally saw a galvanic ring still worn by a few, and those chiefly, I think, fish-sellers.

Nor was the street or shop trade in these galvanic rings confined to amulets for the finger. I heard of one elderly woman, then a prosperous street-seller in the New Cut, who slept with a galvanic ring on every toe, she suffered so much from cramp and rheumatism! There were also galvanic shields, which were to be tied round the waist, and warranted “to cure all over.” They were retailed at 6d. each. Galvanic earrings were likewise a portion of this manufacture. They were not “drops” from the ear, but filled behind and around it as regards the back of the skull, and were to avert rheumatic attacks, and even aching from the head. The street price was 1s. the pair. Galvanic bracelets, handsomely gilt, were 2s. 6d. the pair. But the sale of all these higher-priced charms was a mere nonentity compared to that of the penny rings.

Another trade—if it may be classed under this head—carried on by great numbers and with great success for a while, was that of cards with the Lord’s Prayer in the compass of a sixpence. This was an engraving—now and then offered in the streets still—strictly fulfilling the announcement as to the compass in which the Prayer was contained, with the addition of a drawing of the Bible, as part of the engraving, “within the sixpence.” This trade was at first, I am told, chiefly in the hands of the patterers: “Grand novelty!” they said; “splendid engraving! The Lord’s Prayer, with a beautiful picture of the Bible, all legible to the naked eye, in the compass of a sixpence. Five hundred letters, all clear, on a sixpence.” One man said to me: “I knew very well there wasn’t 500, but it was a neat number to cry. A schoolmaster said to me once—‘Why, there isn’t above half that number of letters.’ He was wrong though; for I believe there’s 280.” This card was published six or seven years ago, and the success attending the sale of the Lord’s Prayer, led to the publication of the Belief in the same form. “When the trade was new,” said one man, “I could sell a gross in a day without any very great trouble; but in a little time there was hundreds in the trade, and one might patter hard to sell four dozen.”

The wholesale price was 8s. the gross, and as thirteen cards went to the dozen, the day’s profit when a gross was sold was 5s. When the sale did not extend to beyond four dozen the profit was 1s. 8d. A few cards “in letters of gold” were vended in the streets at 6d. each. They had large margins and presented a handsome appearance. The wholesale price was 3s. 6d. the dozen.

When this trade was at its height, there were, I am told, from 500 to 700 men, women and children engaged in it; selling the cards both with and without other articles. The cards had also a very extensive sale in the country.

Pen-holders with glass or china handles are another commodity which appeared suddenly, about six months ago, in street commerce, and at once became the staple of a considerable traffic. These pens are eight or nine inches long, the “body,” so to speak, being of solid round glass, of almost all colours, green, blue, and black predominating, with a seal (lacquered white or yellow) at the top, and a holder of the usual kind, with a steel pen at the bottom. Some are made of white pot and called “China pens,” and of these some are ornamented with small paintings of flowers and leaves. These wares are German, and were first charged 9s. 6d. the gross, without pens, which were an additional 3d. at the swag-shops. The price is now 5s. the gross, the pens being the same. The street-sellers who were fortunate enough to “get a good start” with these articles did exceedingly well. The pen-holders, when new, are handsome-looking, and at 1d. each were cheap; some few were at first retailed at 2d. One man, I am told, sold two-and-a-half gross in one day in the neighbourhood of the Bank, purchasers not seldom taking a dozen or more. As the demand continued, some men connected with the supply of goods for street sale, purchased all the stock in the swag-shops, expending about 170l., and at once raised the price to 10s. 6d. the gross. This amount the poorer street-sellers demurred to give, as they could rarely obtain a higher price than 1d. each, and 2d. for the ornamented holders, but the street-stationers (who bought, however, very sparingly) and the small shopkeepers gave the advance “as they found the glass-holders asked for.” On the whole, I am told, this forestalling was not very profitable to the speculators, as when fresh supplies were received at the “swags,” the price fell.

At first this street business was carried on by men, but it was soon resorted to by numbers of poor women and children. One gentleman informed me that in consequence of reading “London Labour and the London Poor,” he usually had a little talk with the street-sellers of whom he purchased any trifle; he bought these pen-holders of ten or twelve different women and girls; all of them could answer correctly his inquiry as to the uses of the pens; but only one girl, of fifteen or sixteen, and she hesitatingly, ventured to assert that she could write her own name with the pen she offered for sale. The street-trade still continues, but instead of being in the hands of 400 individuals—as it was, at the very least, I am assured, at one period—there are now only about fifty carrying it on itinerantly, while with the “pitched” sales-people, the glass-holders are merely a portion of the stock, and with the itinerants ten dozen a week (a receipt of 10s., and a profit of 4s. 9d.) is now an average sale. The former glass-holder sellers of the poorer sort are now vending oranges.

Shirt Buttons form another of the articles—(generally either “useful things” or with such recommendation to street-buyers as the galvanic amulets possessed)—which every now and then are disposed of in great quantities in the streets. If an attempt be made by a manufacturer to establish a cheaper shirt button, for instance, of horn, or pot, or glass, and if it prove unsuccessful, or if an improvement be effected and the old stock becomes a sort of dead stock, the superseded goods have to be disposed of, and I am informed by a person familiar with those establishments, that the swag-shopkeepers can always find customers, “for anything likely,” with the indispensable proviso that it be cheap. In this way shirt buttons have lately been sold in the streets, not only by the vendors of small wares in their regular trade, but by men, lads, and girls, some of the males shirtless themselves, who sell them solely, with a continuous and monotonous cry of “Halfpenny a dozen; halfpenny a dozen.” The wholesale price of the last “street lot,” was 3d. the gross, or ¼d. the dozen. To clear 6d. a day in shirt buttons is “good work;” it is more frequently 4d.