Of the Street Stationers, and the Street Card-sellers.
I have before mentioned that the street-stationers—the sellers of writing-paper, envelopes, pens, and of the other articles which constitute the stationery in the most general demand—were not to be confounded with the pattering “paper-workers.” They are, indeed, a different class altogether. The majority of them have been mechanics, or in the employ of tradesmen whose callings were not mechanical (as regards handicraft labour), but what is best described perhaps as commercial; or as selling but not producing; as in the instances of the large body of “warehousemen” in the different departments of trade. One street-stationer thought that of his entire body, not more than six had been gentlemen’s servants. He himself knew four who had been in such employment, and one only as a boy—but there might be six.
The card-sellers are, in the instances I shall show, more akin to the class of patterers, and I shall, therefore, give them first. The more especially as I can so preserve the consecutiveness of the accounts, in the present number, by presenting the reader with a sketch of the life of an informant, in whose revelations I find that many have taken a strong interest.