Of the Street-sellers of Play-Bills.
The sellers of play-bills carry on a trade which is exceedingly uncertain, and is little remunerative. There are now rather more than 200 people selling play-bills in London, but the number has sometimes been as high as 400. “Yes, indeed,” a theatrical gentleman said to me, “and if a dozen more theatres were opened to-morrow, why each would have more than its twenty bill-sellers the very first night. Where they come from, or what they are, I haven’t a notion.”
The majority of the play-bill sellers are either old or young, the sexes being about equally engaged in this traffic. Some of them have followed the business from their childhood. I met with very few indeed who knew anything of theatres beyond the names of the managers and of the principal performers, while some do not even enjoy that small modicum of knowledge, and some can neither read nor write. The boys often run recklessly alongside the cabs which are conveying persons to the theatre, and so offer their bills for sale. One of these youths said to me, when I spoke of the danger incurred, “The cabman knows how to do it, sir, when I runs and patters; and so does his hoss.” An intelligent cabman, however, who was in the habit of driving parties to the Lyceum, told me that these lads clung to his cab as he drove down to Wellington-street in such a way, for they seemed never to look before them, that he was in constant fear lest they should be run over. Ladies are often startled by a face appearing suddenly at the cab window, “and thro’ my glass,” said my informant, “a face would look dirtier than it really is.” And certainly a face gliding along with the cab, as it were, no accompanying body being visible, on a winter’s night, while the sound of the runner’s footsteps is lost in the noise of the cab, has much the effect of an apparition.
I did not hear of one person who had been in any way connected with the stage, even as a supernumerary, resorting to play-bill selling when he could not earn a shilling within the walls of a theatre. These bill-sellers, for the most part, confine themselves, as far as I could ascertain, to that particular trade. The youths say that they sometimes get a job in errand-going in the daytime, but the old men and women generally aver they can do nothing else. An officer, who, some years back, had been on duty at a large theatre, told me that at that time the women bill-sellers earned a trifle in running errands for the women of the town who attended the theatres; but, as they were not permitted to send any communication into the interior of the house, their earnings that way were insignificant, for they could only send in messages by any other “dress woman” entering the theatre subsequently.
In the course of my inquiries last year, I met with a lame woman of sixty-eight, who had been selling play-bills for the last twelve years. She had been, for six or eight months before she adopted that trade, the widow of a poor mechanic, a carpenter. She had first thought of resorting to that means of a livelihood owing to a neighbouring old woman having been obliged to relinquish her post from sickness, when my informant “succeeded her.” In this way, she said, many persons “succeeded” to the business, as the recognised old hands were jealous of and uncivil to any additional new comers, but did not object to a “successor.” These parties generally know each other; they murmur if the Haymarket hands, for instance, resort to the Lyceum for any cause, or vice versâ, thus over-stocking the business, but they offer no other opposition. The old woman further informed me that she commenced selling play-bills at Astley’s, and then realized a profit of 4s. per week. When the old Amphitheatre was burnt down, she went to the Victoria; but “business was not what it was,” and her earnings were from 6d. to 1s. a week less; and this, she said, although the Victoria was considered one of the most profitable stations for the play-bill seller, the box-keeper there seldom selling any bill in the theatre. “The boxes,” too, at this house, more frequently buy them outside. Another reason why “business” was better at the Victoria than elsewhere was represented to me, by a person familiar with the theatres, to be this: many go to the Victoria who cannot read, or who can read but imperfectly, and they love to “make-believe” they are “good scholards” by parading the consulting of a play-bill!
On my visit the bill-sellers at the Victoria were two old women (each a widow for many years), two young men, besides two or three, though there are sometimes as many as six or seven children. The old women “fell into the business” as successors by virtue of their predecessors’ leaving it on account of sickness. The children were generally connected with the older dealers. The young men had been in this business from boyhood; some sticking to the practice of their childhood unto manhood, or towards old age. The number at the Victoria is now, I am informed, two or three more, as the theatre is often crowded. The old woman told me that she had known two and even four visitors to the theatre club for the purchase of a bill, and then she had sometimes to get farthings for them.
A young fellow—who said he believed he was only eighteen, but certainly looked older—told me that he was in the habit of selling play-bills, but not regularly, as he sometimes had a job in carrying a board, or delivering bills at a corner, “or the likes o’ that;”—he favoured me with his opinion of the merits of the theatres he was practically acquainted with as regarded their construction for the purposes of the bill-seller. His mother, who had been dead a few years, had sold bills, and had put him into the business. His ambition seemed to be to become a general bill-sticker. He could not write but could read very imperfectly.
“Vy, you see, sir,” he said, “there’s sets off. At the Market (Haymarket), now, there’s this: there’s only one front, so you may look sharp about for there goes, boxes, pit, and gallery. The ’Delphis as good that way, and so is the Surrey, but them one’s crowded too much. The Lyceum’s built shocking orkered. Vy, the boxes is in one street, and the pit in another, and the gallery in another! It’s true, sir. The pit’s the best customer in most theatres, I think. Ashley’s and the Wick is both spoiled that way—Ashley’s perticler—as the gallery’s a good step from the pit and boxes; at the Wick it’s round the corner. But the shilling gallery aint so bad at Ashley’s. Sadler’s Wells I never tried, it’s out of the way, and I can’t tell you much about the ’Lympic or the Strand. The Lane is middling. I don’t know that either plays or actors makes much difference to me. Perhaps it’s rather vorser ven it’s anything werry prime, as everybody seems to know every think about it aforehand. No, sir, I can’t say, sir, that Mr. Macready did me much good. I sometimes runs along by a cab because I’ve got a sixpence from a swell for doing it stunnin’, but werry seldom, and I don’t much like it; though ven you’re at it you don’t think of no fear. I makes 3s. or rather more a week at bill-selling, and as much other vays. I never saw a play but once at the Wick. I’d rather be at a Free and Heasy. I don’t know as I knows any of the actors or actresses, either hes or shes.”
The sellers of play-bills purchase their stock of the printer, at 3s. 4d. the hundred, or in that proportion for half or quarter-hundreds. If a smaller quantity be purchased, the charge is usually thirteen for 6d.; though they used to be only twelve for 6d. These sellers are among the poorest of the poor; after they have had one meal, they do not know how to get another. They reside in the lowest localities, and some few are abandoned and profligate in character. They reckon it a good night to earn 1s. clear, but upon an average they clear but 3s. per week. They lose sometimes by not selling out their nightly stock. What they have left, they are obliged to sell for waste-paper at 2d. per lb. Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide are generally their best times—they will then make 9d. per night clear. The printer of the play-bills prints but a certain number, the demand being nearly ascertained week by week. These are all sold (by the printer or some person appointed) to the regular customers, in preference to others, but the “irregulars” can get supplied, though often not without trouble. The profit on all sold is rather more than cent. per cent. As I have intimated, when some theatres are closed, the bill-sellers are driven to others; and as the demand is necessarily limited, a superflux of sellers affects the profits, and then 2s. 6d. is considered a good week’s work. During the opera season, I am told, a few mechanics, out of work, will sell bills there and books of the opera, making about 6s. a week, and doing better than the regular hands, as they have a better address and are better clad.
Taking the profits at 3s. a week at cent. per cent. on the outlay, and reckoning 200 sellers, including those at the saloons, concert-rooms, &c., we find that 60l. is now expended weekly on play-bills purchased in the streets of London.