Of the Street-Sellers of Wash-Leathers.
The wash-leathers, sometimes called “shammys” (chamois), now sold extensively in the streets, are for the most part the half of a sheep-skin, or of a larger lamb-skin. The skin is “split” by machinery, and to a perfect nicety, into two portions. That known as the “grain” (the part to which the fleece of the animal is attached) is very thin, and is dressed into a “skiver,” a kind of leather used in the commoner requirements of book-binding, and for such purposes as the lining of hats. The other portion, the “flesh,” is dressed as wash-leather. These skins are bought at the leather-sellers and the leather-dressers, at from 2s. to 20s. the dozen. The higher priced, or those from 12s. are often entire, and not “split” skins. The great majority of the street-sellers of wash-leathers are women, and principally Irishwomen. They offer their wash-leathers in all parts of town, calling at shops and inns; and at private houses offering them through the area rails, or knocking at the door when it is accessible. Many of these street-sellers are the wives of Irish labourers, employed by bricklayers and others, who are either childless, or able to leave their younger children under the care of an older brother or sister, or when the poverty of the parents, or their culpable neglect, is extreme, allow them to run at large in the court or street, untended. The wives by this street-trade add to the husbands’ earnings. In the respects of honesty and chastity, these women bear good characters.
The wash-leathers are sold for the cleaning of windows, and of plate and metal goods. Sixpence is a common price for a leather, the higher priced being sold at the mews and at gentlemen’s houses. The “chamois” sold at the mews, however, are not often sold by the Irishwomen, but by the class I have described as selling scissors, &c., there. The leathers are also cut into pennyworths, and these pennyworths are sometimes sold on Saturday evenings in the street-markets.
There are, I am assured, 100 individuals selling little or nothing else but wash-leathers (for these traders are found in all the suburbs) in London, and that they take 10s. weekly, with a profit of from 4s. to 5s. There are, also, 100 other persons selling them occasionally, along with other goods, and as they vend the higher-priced articles, they probably receive nearly an equal amount. Hence it would appear that upwards of 5000l. is annually expended in the streets in this purchase.