Of the “Swag-Barrowmen,” and “Lot-Sellers.”
The “swag” (miscellaneous) barrow is one of the objects in the streets which attracts, perhaps more readily than any other, the regards of the passer-by. There are so many articles and of such various uses; they are often so closely packed, so new and clean looking, and every here and there so tastefully arranged, that this street-trader’s barrow really repays an examination. Here are spread on the flat part of the barrow, pepper-cruets or boxes, tea-caddies, nutmeg-graters, vinegar-cruets, pen-cases, glass or china-handled pens, pot ornaments, beads, ear-rings, finger-rings (plain or with “stones”), cases of scent-bottles, dolls, needle-cases, pincushions, Exhibition medals and “frames” (framed pictures), watches, shawl-pins, extinguishers, trumpets and other toys, kaleidoscopes, seals, combs, lockets, thimbles, bone tooth-picks, small playing-cards, teetotums, shuttle-cocks, key-rings, shirt-studs or buttons, hooks and eyes, coat-studs, money-boxes, spoons, boxes of toys, earthenware-mugs, and glass articles, such as salt-cellars and smelling-bottles. On one barrow were 225 articles.
At the back and sides of the swag-barrow are generally articles which are best displayed in an erect position. These are children’s wooden swords, whips, climbing monkeys, and tumblers, jointed snakes twisting to the wind from the top of a stick, kites, and such things as tin egg-holders.
Perhaps on very few barrows or stalls are to be seen all the articles I have enumerated, but they are all “in the trade,” and, if not found in this man’s stock, may be found in his neighbour’s. Things which attain only a temporary sale, such as galvanic rings, the Lord’s Prayer in the compass of a sixpence, gutta-percha heads, &c., are also to be found, during the popular demand, in the miscellaneous trader’s stock.
Each of the articles enumerated is retailed at 1d. “Only a penny!” is the cry, “pick ’em out anywhere; wherever your taste lies; only a penny, a penny, a penny!” But on a few other barrows are goods, mixed with the “penny” wares, of a higher price; such as knives and forks, mustard pots, sham beer glasses (the glasses which appear to hold beer frothing to the brim), higher-priced articles of jewellery, skipping-ropes, drums, china ornaments, &c. At these barrows the prices run from 1d. to 1s.
The practice of selling by commission, the same as I have shown to prevail among the costers, exists among the miscellaneous dealers of whom I am treating, who are known among street-folk as “swag-barrowmen,” or, in the popular ellipsis, “penny swags;” the word “swag” meaning, as I before showed, a collection—a lot.
The “swag-men” are often confounded with the “lot-sellers”; so that I proceed to show the difference.
The Lot-Sellers proper, are those who vend a variety of small articles, or “a lot,” all for 1d. A “lot” frequently consists of a sheet of songs, a Chinese puzzle, a 5l. note (Bank of Elegance), an Exhibition snuff-box (containing 6 spoons), a half jack (half sovereign), a gold ring, a silver ring, and a chased keeper with rose, thistle, and shamrock on it. The lots are diversified with packs of a few cards, little pewter ornaments, boxes of small wooden toys, shirt-buttons, baby thimbles, beads, tiny scent bottles, and such like.
The “penny apiece” or “swag” trade, as contradistinguished from the “penny lots” vended by the lot-sellers, was originated by a man who, some 19 years ago, sold a variety of trifles from a tea-tray in Petticoat-lane. My informant had heard him say—for the original “penny apiece” died four years ago—that he did it to get rid of the odds and ends of his stock. The system, however, at once attracted popularity, and the fortunate street-seller prospered and “died worth money.” At that period penny goods (excepting such things as sweet-stuffs, pastry, &c.) were far less numerous in the streets, and yet I have never met with an old street-trader (a statement fully borne out by old and intelligent mechanics) who did not pronounce spare pennies to be far more abundant in those days among the poorer and even middle classes. There were, moreover, far fewer street chapmen, so that this novel mode of business had every chance to thrive.
The origin of “lot-selling,” or selling “penny lots” instead of penny articles, was more curious. It was commenced by an ingenious Swiss (?) (about a year after the “penny apiece” trade), known in the street circles as “Swede.” He was a refugee, a Roman Catholic, and a hot politician. He spoke and understood English well, but had no sympathy with the liberal parties in this country. “He was a republican,” he would say, “and the Chartists were only milk and water.” When he established his lot-selling he used to place to his mouth an instrument, which was described to me as “like a doubled card,” and play upon it very finely. This would attract a crowd, and he would then address them in good English, but with a slight foreign accent: “My frents; come to me, and I will show you my musical instruments, which will play Italian, Swiss, French, Scotch, Irish, or any tunes. And here you see beautiful cheap lots of useful tings, and elegant tings. A penny a lot, a penny a lot!” The arrangement of the “lots” was similar to what it is at present, but the components of the pennyworth were far less numerous. This man carried on a good trade in London for two or three years, and then applied his industry to a country more than a town career. He died about five or six years ago, at his abode in Fashion-street, Spitalfields, “worth money.” At the time of his decease he was the proprietor of two lodging-houses; one in Spitalfields, the other in Birmingham, both I am told, well conducted; the charge was 4d. a night. He did not reside in either, but employed “deputies.” I may observe that he sold his “musical instruments,” also, at 1d. each, but the sale was insignificant. “Only himself seemed master of ’em,” said one man; “with other people they were no better nor a Jew’s-harp.”
Of the “penny apiece” street-vendors, there are about 300 in London; 250 having barrows, and 50 stalls or pitches on the ground. Some even sell at “a halfpenny apiece,” but chiefly to get rid of inferior wares, or when “cracked up,” and unable to “spring” a better stock. The barrows are 7 feet by 3; are well built in general, and cost 50s. each. These barrows, when fully stocked, are very heavy (about 4 cwt.), so that it requires a strong man to propel one any distance, and though occasionally the man’s wife officiates as the saleswoman, there is always a man connected with the business. In my description of a stock of penny goods, I have mentioned that there were 225 articles; these were counted on a barrow in a street near the Brill—but probably on another occasion (when there appeared a better chance of selling) there might be 500 articles, such things as rings and the like admitting of being stowed by the hundred in very small compass. The great display, however, is only on the occasion of holidays, or “when a man starts and wants to stun you with a show.” At Maidstone Fair the other day, a London street-seller, rather well to do, sold his entire stock of penny articles to a shopkeeper of the town, and when counted there were exactly fifteen gross, or 2160 “pieces” as they are sometimes called. These, vended at 1d. each, would realize just 9l., and would cost, wholesale, about 6l., or for ready money, at the swag-shops, where they may be bought, from 10s. to 20s. less, according to the bargaining powers of the buyer. The man’s reason for selling was that the Fair was “no good;” that is to say, the farmers had no money, and their labourers received only 7s. a week, so there was no demand; the swag-seller, therefore, rather than incur the trouble and expense of having to carry his wares back to London, sold at a loss to a shopkeeper in Maidstone, who wanted a stock.
The swag-barrowmen selling on commission have 3s. in every 20s. worth of goods that they sell. The commission may average from 9s. to 12s. a week in tolerable weather, but as in bad, and especially in foggy weather, the trade cannot be prosecuted at all, 7s. 6d. may be the highest average, or 10s. the year through.
The character of the penny swag-men belongs more to that of the costermongers than to any other class of street-folk. Many of them drink as freely as their means will permit. I was told of a match between a teetotaller and a beer-drinker, about nine years ago. It was for 5s. a side, and the “Championship.” Each man started with an equal stock, alike in all respects, but my informant had forgotten the precise number of articles. They pattered, twenty-five yards apart one from another, three hours in James-street, Covent-garden; three hours in the Blackfriars-road; and three hours in Deptford. The teetotaller was “sold out” in seven-and-a-half hours; while his opponent—and the contest seems to have been carried on very good-humouredly—at the nine hours’ end, had four dozen articles left, and was rather exhausted, or, as it was described to me, “told out.” The result, albeit, was not looked upon, I was assured, as anything very decisive of the relative merits of beer or water, as the source of strength or inspiration of “patter.” The teetotaller was the smarter, though he did not appear the stronger, man; he abandoned the championship, and went into another trade four years ago. The patter of the swag-men has nothing of the humour of the paper-workers; it is merely declaratory that the extensive stock offered on such liberal terms to the public would furnish a wholesale shop; that such another opportunity for cheap pennyworths could never by any possibility occur again, and that it was a duty on all who heard the patterer to buy at once.
The men having their own barrows or stalls (but the stall-trade is small) buy their goods as they find their stock needs replenishment at the swag-shops. “It was a good trade at first, sir,” said one man, “and for its not being a good trade now, we may partly blame one another. There was a cutting down trade among us. Black earrings were bought at 14d. the dozen, and sold at a loss at 1d. each. So were children’s trap-bats, and monkeys up sticks, but they are now 9d. a dozen. Sometimes, sir, as I know, the master of a swag-barrow gets served out. You see, a man may once on a time have a good day, and take as much as 2l. Well, next day he’ll use part of that money, and go as a penny swag on his own account; or else he’ll buy things he is sold out of, and work them on his own account on his master’s barrow. All right, sir; his master makes him a convenience for his own pocket, and so his master may be made a convenience for the man’s. When he takes the barrow back at the week’s end, if he’s been doing a little on his own dodge, there’s the stock, and there’s the money. It’s all right between a rich man and a poor man that way; turn and turn about’s fair play.”
The lot-sellers are, when the whole body are in London, about 200 in number; but they are three times as itinerant into the country as are the traders in the heavier and little portable swag-barrows. The lot-sellers nearly all vend their goods from trays slung from their shoulders. The best localities for the lot-sellers are Ratcliffe-highway, Commercial-road, Whitechapel, Minories, Tower-hill, Tooley-street, Newington-causeway, Walworth, Blackfriars and Westminster-roads, Long-acre, Holborn, and Oxford-street. To this list may be added the Brill, Tottenham-court-road, and the other street-markets, on Saturday evenings, when some of these places are almost impassable. The best places for the swag-barrow trade are also those I have specified. Their customers, alike for the useful and fancy articles, are the working-classes, and the chief sale is on Saturdays and Mondays. One swag-man told me that he thought he could sell better if he had a less crowded barrow, but his master was so keen of money that he would make him try everything. It made selling more tiresome, too, he said, for a poor couple who had a penny or two to lay out would fix on half the things they saw, and change them for others, before they parted with their money.
Of the penny-a-piece sellers trading on their own account, the receipts may be smaller than those of the men who work the huge swag-barrows on commission, but their profits are greater. Calculating that 100 of these traders are, the year round, in London (some are absent all the summer at country fairs, and on any favourable opportunity, while a number of swag-barrowmen leave that employment for costermongering on their own account), and that each takes 2l. weekly, we find no less than 10,400l. thus expended in the streets of London in a year.
The lot-sellers also resort largely to the country, and frequently try other callings, such as the sale of fruit, medals, &c. Some also sell lots only on Saturday and Monday nights. Taking these deductions into consideration, it may be estimated that only fifty men (there is but one female lot-seller on her own account) carry on the trade, presuming it to be spread over the six days of the week. Each of them may take 13s. weekly (with a profit of 7s. 6d.), so showing the street outlay to be 1,690l. The “lots” are bought at the German and English swag-shops; the principal supply, however, is procured from Black Tom in Clerkenwell.