Of the Street-sellers of Stationery.
Of this body of street-traders there are two descriptions, the itinerant and the “pitching.” There are some also who unite the two qualities, so far as that they move a short distance, perhaps 200 yards, along a thoroughfare, but preserve the same locality.
Of the itinerant again, there are some who, on an evening, and more especially a Saturday evening, take a stand in a street-market, and pursue their regular “rounds” the other portions of the day.
The itinerant trader carries a tray, and in no few cases, as respects the “display” of his wares, emulates the tradesman’s zeal in “dressing” a window temptingly. The tray most in use is painted, or mahogany, with “ledges,” front and sides; or, as one man described it, “an upright four-inch bordering, to keep things in their places.” The back of the tray, which rests against the bearer’s breast, is about twelve inches high. Narrow pink tapes are generally attached to the “ledges” and back, within which are “slipped” the articles for sale. At the bottom of the tray are often divisions, in which are deposited steel pens, wafers, wax, pencils, pen-holders, and, as one stationer expressed it, “packable things that you can’t get much show out of.” One man—who rather plumed himself on being a thorough master of his trade—said to me: “It’s a grand point to display, sir. Now, just take it in this way. Suppose you yourself, sir, lived in my round. Werry good. You hear me cry as I’m a approaching your door, and suppose you was a customer, you says to yourself: ‘Here’s Penny-a-quire,’ as I’m called oft enough. And I’ll soon be with you, and I gives a extra emphasis at a customer’s door. Werry good, you buys the note. As you buys the note, you gives a look over my tray, and then you says, ‘O, I want some steel pens, and is your ink good?’ and you buys some. But for the ‘display,’ you’d have sent to the shopkeeper’s, and I should have lost custom, ’cause it wouldn’t have struck you.”[12]
The articles more regularly sold by the street-sellers of stationery are note-paper, letter-paper, envelopes, steel pens, pen-holders, sealing-wax, wafers, black-lead pencils, ink in stonebottles, memorandum-books, almanacks, and valentines. Occasionally, they sell India-rubber, slate-pencil, slates, copy-books, story-books, and arithmetical tables.
The stationery is purchased, for the most part, in Budge-row and Drury-lane. The half-quires (sold at 1d.) contain, generally, 10 sheets; if the paper, however, be of superior quality, only 8 sheets. In the paper-warehouses it is known as “outsides,” with no more than 10 sheets to the half quire, the price varying from 4s. to 6s. the ream (20 quires); or, if bought by weight, from 7d. to 9d. the pound. The envelopes are sold (wholesale) at from 6d. to 15d. the dozen; the higher-priced being adhesive, and with impressions—now, generally, the Crystal Palace—on the place of the seal. The commoner are retailed in the streets at 12, and the better at 6, a penny. Sometimes “a job-lot,” soiled, is picked up by the street-stationer at 4d. a pound. The sealing, a pound, retailed at ½d. each; the “flat” wax, however, is 1s. 4d. per lb., containing from 30 to 36 sticks, retailed at 1d. each. Wafers (at the same swag shops) are 3d. or 4d. the lb.—in small boxes, 9d. the gross; ink, 4½d. or 5d. the dozen bottles; pencils, 7d. to 8s. a gross; and steel pens from 4d. (waste) to 3s. a gross; but the street-stationers do not go beyond 2s. the gross, which is for magnum bonums.