"One of the inducements," he said, "for men to take to making up for themselves is to get a living when thrown out of work until they can hear of something better. If they could get into regular journeywork there a'n't one man as wouldn't prefer it—it would pay them a deal better. Another of the reasons for the men turning small masters is the little capital that it requires for them to start themselves. If a man has got his tools he can begin as a master-man with a couple of shillings. If he goes in for making large tables, then from 30s. to 35s. will do him, and it's the small bit of money it takes to start with in our line that brings many into the trade who wouldn't be there if more tin was wanted to begin upon. Many works for themselves, because nobody else won't employ them, their work is so bad. Many weavers has took to our business of late. That's quite common now—their own's so bad; and some that used to hawk hearthstones about is turned Pembroke tablemakers." Whether the mode in which this workman expresses himself correctly indicates, or not, the amount of his education, it is quite certain that he had got to the root of the evil of which he complains.
The competition that is only limited by the capacity of endurance between the unskilled workman and the uncapitalled workman—each striving against the other, and striving, in vain against capital and skill—has been going on for centuries in the distribution of commodities. The retailer with small capital has always had to carry on an unequal contest with the retailer with large capital. In our time, small shops are swallowed up in magnificent warehouses, in which every article of dress especially can be purchased under one roof—from a penny yard of ribbon to a hundred-guinea shawl. In splendour these bazaars, with one proprietor, rival the oriental with many competitors. But their distinguishing characteristic is the far-seeing organization, by which the capital is turned over with unexampled rapidity, and no unsaleable stock is kept on hand. It is easy to understand that the larger profits of the small retailer have very little chance of accumulation against the smaller profits of the large retailer.
But this contest of small capital against large was formerly carried on in the struggle of the itinerant traders against the shopkeepers. It is now carried on in a struggle amongst themselves. The census returns show seven thousand costermongers, hucksters, and general-dealers. Mr. Mayhew says there are ten thousand in London.[46]
Costermonger.
The costermonger is a travelling shopkeeper. We encounter him not in Cornhill, or Holborn, or the Strand: in the neighbourhood of the great markets and well-stored shops he travels not. But his voice is heard in some silent streets stretching into the suburbs; and there his donkey-cart stands at the door, as the dingy servant-maid cheapens a bundle of cauliflowers. He has monopolized all the trades that were anciently represented by such "London cries" as "Buy my artichokes, mistress;" "Ripe cowcumbers;" "White onions, white St. Thomas' onions;" "White radish;" "Ripe young beans;" "Any baking pears;" "Ripe speragas." He would be indignant to encounter such petty chapmen interfering with his wholesale operations. Mr. Mayhew says that "the regular or thoroughbred costermongers repudiate the numerous persons who only sell nuts or oranges in the streets." No doubt they rail against these inferior competitors, as the city shopkeepers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries railed against itinerant traders of every denomination. In the days of Elizabeth, they declare by act of common council, that in ancient times the open streets and lanes of the city have been used, and ought to be used, as the common highway only, and not for hucksters, pedlers, and hagglers, to stand and sit to sell their wares in, and to pass from street to street hawking and offering their wares. In the seventh year of Charles I. the same authorities denounce the oyster-wives, herb-wives, tripe-wives, and the like, as "unruly people;" and they charge them, somewhat unjustly as it must appear, with "framing to themselves a way whereby to live a more easy life than by labour."
"How busy is the man the world calls idle!"
The evil, as the citizens term it, seems to have increased; for in 1694 the common council threatened the pedlers and petty chapmen with the terrors of the laws against rogues and sturdy beggars, the least penalty being whipping, whether for male or female. The reason for this terrible denunciation is very candidly put: the citizens and shopkeepers are greatly hindered and prejudiced in their trades by the hawkers and pedlers. Such denunciations as these had little share in putting down the itinerant traders. They continued to flourish, because society required them; and they vanished from our view when society required them no longer. In the middle of the last century they were fairly established as rivals to the shopkeepers. Dr. Johnson, than whom no man knew London better, thus writes in the 'Adventurer:' "The attention of a newcomer is generally first struck by the multiplicity of cries that stun him in the streets, and the variety of merchandise and manufactures which the shopkeepers expose on every hand." The shopkeepers have now ruined the itinerants—not by putting them down by fiery penalties, but by the competition amongst themselves to have every article at hand, for every man's use, which shall be better and cheaper than the wares of the itinerant.
A curious parallel might be carried out between the itinerant occupations which the progress of society has imperfectly suspended, and those which even the most advanced civilization is compelled to retain. For example,—the water-carrier is gone. It is impossible that London can ever again see a man bent beneath the weight of a yoke and two enormous pails, vociferating "New River Water." But the cry of "Milk," or the rattle of the milk-pail, will never cease to be heard in our streets. There can be no reservoirs of milk, no pipes through which it flows into the houses. The more extensive the great capital becomes, the more active must be the individual exertion to carry about this article of food. The old cry was, "Any milk here?" and it was sometimes mingled with the sound of "Fresh cheese and cream;" and it then passed into "Milk, maids, below;" and it was then shortened into "Milk below;" and was finally corrupted into "Mio," which some wag interpreted into mi-eau—demi-eau—half-water. But it must still be cried, whatever be the cry. The supply of milk to the metropolis is perhaps one of the most beautiful combinations of industry we have. The days are long since past when Finsbury had its pleasant groves, and Clerkenwell was a village, and there were green pastures in Holborn, and St. Pancras boasted only a little church standing in meadows, and St. Martin's was literally in the fields. Slowly but surely does the baked clay stride over the clover and the buttercup; and yet every family in London may be supplied with milk by eight o'clock every morning at their own doors. Where do the cows abide? They are congregated in wondrous masses in the suburbs; and though in spring-time they go out to pasture in the fields which lie under the Hampstead and Highgate hills, or in the vales of Dulwich and Sydenham, and there crop the tender blade,