Confessions of a Tradesman

by Frank Thomas Bullen

Thenceforward I struggled on, sometimes feeling as if the waters which were always about my chin would suddenly submerge me, but compelled to go on. I often compared myself at this time to a man running in front of a train, between two high walls, allowing of no escape to either side, having no choice but to run or be run over. Still I found solace in my books and newspapers, and relieved my mind of some of its cares by taking an intense interest in political matters as well as the open air propaganda of religion.

What I suppose will strike some people with amazement is the fact that starting as an extreme radical, never a Home Ruler, I gradually became utterly disgusted with the radical position. Full of admiration for the socialism of Christ, I grew to detest the socialism that I saw being practised by the noisy party in the vestry, and the doctrines I heard preached by the socialists in the open air simply filled me with dismay. For it was nothing else but the survival of the unfit and incurably idle, the morally degenerate, at the expense of the fit, the hard-working and ever-striving classes, an effort in short not to level up, but to level down, a complete subversion of the golden rule of do to all men as ye would they should do unto you. Get all you can for yourself, and the devil take anybody else. Eat and drink all you can at somebody else's expense, no matter who. Beget as many children as you like, and let somebody else care for them. And so on. Oh! it used to make me very sick and sorry, but I am glad to say that in my preaching of what I felt to be right, I always had a most sympathetic and respectful hearing; and I really do believe that the detestable doctrines of loaferdom and savagery which masquerade as socialism have very little hold upon the ordinary people of our streets.

Another great solace of mine was an occasional chat with my fellow shopkeepers, most of whom, like myself, had a severe struggle to live. It makes me positively ill to hear the blatant cant that is talked about the working man, meaning journeymen and labourers only. The small London suburban shopkeeper toils far harder than any of them, is preyed upon by them to an extent which must be incredible to those who don't know, is taxed almost out of existence to support them in the schemes continually being propounded for their benefit by their representatives on the Borough Councils, and is quoted in radical newspapers as the bitter enemy of the working classes.

I found them a kindly, genial, well-informed class of men, shrewd and keen, as indeed they need be in order to live, and particularly free from the petty vices of public-house loafing, betting, and bad language, which are so peculiarly the characteristics of the "working man." But the hardest hit of them all I think were the small grocers. I knew two or three of them intimately, men whose lives were one long grey grind of labour. Who could not live unless they opened very early in the morning, before the big capitalist shops, such as the Home and Colonial, Lipton's, etc., and kept open late at night for the same reason. Even then they would not have been able to live but for giving credit, which the big combinations do not allow their employees to do. Many hundreds of families would come to the workhouse long before they do, especially in hard winters, but for these small tradesmen giving them credit for the bare necessities of life, and thus tiding them over the pinching time. This system of first aid can hardly be called philanthropy, since those who extend it do it for a living, and yet in the multitudinous life of poor London it is a huge and most important factor. Even the poor itinerant coal merchant, who goes to the wharf and buys his coal by the ton, and then retails it through the streets in small quantities from dawn to dark, may be seen on Saturdays, the hardest day of all, when his selling of coal is done, painfully dragging his weary way from door to door, collecting the payment for the coal he has been vending on credit all the week.

The costermonger, who has a regular pitch and regular customers, competing with the tradesmen to whom he stands opposite in the most unfair way, in that he has no rent, rates, or taxes to pay, will give credit, and generously too, although he may often through a bad week have to pay usurious interest in order to borrow the money to go to market with. In fact all the small traders give credit, for the reasons I have already stated. Of course, in this way much very inferior stuff is got rid of, because it is certain that he who buys on credit retail with either tradesman will have to pay higher prices than for cash, or will have to put up with inferior goods, since it is impossible to scrutinise too closely what you are receiving on credit unless indeed you are of sufficient rank to make a tradesman glad to serve you on any terms.

One great exception to the universal rule of credit is the publican. Because his wares are a luxury, and the indulgence in them in many cases prevents the payment of legitimate claims, money can always be found for him much, to the other shopkeepers' disgust. So far is this system of credit carried out that I have known men get their ha'penny morning and evening paper on credit, and even take their workman's ticket, which their news vendor kept a supply of for the convenience of customers, with the casual remark, "Stony broke this mornin', old man, pay you on Saturday." More fools they to allow it, I hear some folks say, but such poor traders allow a good many things to be done to them rather than get the name of being close-fisted with their customers.

To return for a moment to the work of the small shopkeeper, take for instance the butcher. He must needs go to market, no matter what the weather may be, as early as three or four in the morning; he is hard at work all day fully exposed to the weather, and on Saturday must keep open until one o'clock on Sunday morning. In addition to this in many neighbourhoods it is imperative for him to open again on Sunday for a few hours in order to satisfy the demands of those curious folk who will not do their marketing on Saturday while the "houses" (public understood) are open, and when they close at twelve o'clock are unfit for anything but quarrelling or reeling home to bed. Hence Sunday trading with all its attendant evils and its cruel strain upon the small tradesman.

I must confess, however, that although I sympathised so deeply with all my shopkeeping associates, personally, I did not suffer as they did. For my business being of a non-essential character it did not greatly matter how late I opened my shop or how early I closed it. That I had to carry my materials home from the city was due to the facts of my position being so bad that I could not lay in a stock, and partly because I found it cheaper and more convenient, if more laborious, to buy my moulding as I got orders for frames. Another thing I must say in justice to my customers, and in spite of the reputation of the neighbourhood as impressed upon me when I started in business there—I made practically no bad debts. Perhaps that was partly due to the fact that people do not, in humble walks of life that is, have pictures framed until they have the money ready to pay for the work; and another thing, when I took work home, I always waited for the money, for I always wanted it urgently.

Occasionally, it is true, I had a little difficulty with people who talked grandiloquently of calling round in a day or two, and paying a bill of a few shillings, or of sending a cheque, say, of seven and sixpence, but they were exceedingly seldom. But I had many heart burnings through the vagaries of a certain type of person who would come in and waste hours of my time (and I noticed that these visits usually occurred when I was urgently busy) examining mouldings and getting estimates up to several pounds in value. After which they vanished, and I never saw them again.

Once I was fairly victimised, though fortunately for only a small amount, but I must plead that it took a long time. And as the story is, in my opinion at any rate, exceedingly romantic, I may be pardoned for telling it at length. In the course of business we had made the acquaintance of a French lady, said to be a countess, and through her we became intimate with her son and a lady from Sweden reputed to be his wife. He was a pupil of Schubert, and an exquisite violinist, and as I was always a great lover of music, and he was exceedingly hospitable, we often went to his house, which was close at hand in Melbourne Grove. There we met a truculent individual, black-avised, as the old description runs, speaking a most hideous travesty of English, and withal behaving as if he owned the establishment. His name I never rightly knew, but it was nearly all consonants I remember, and he was introduced to me as a Russian prince who had taken a prominent part in the tragedy of Plevna, and held the rank of Captain in the Preobrajensky Guards. Only a day or two elapsed after my first meeting with this warrior when he appeared in my shop, and endeavoured to tell me a wonderful tale of a diamond necklace worth some thousands of pounds, the property of a French lady of high rank. This splendid article had been pawned for a large sum, and the ticket had nearly run out, but if it were redeemed it could be repledged for a greatly increased sum, and the kindly person who would advance the cash for this transaction would make something like 200 per cent. for his amiability. How I understood all this I do not know but I did, and smiled sardonically at the idea of me being selected for the operation, me! who never had any money except what I was in immediate and pressing need of.