Then there are the “Magical Figures,” or rude street imitations of Dr. Paris’ ingenious toy, called the “Thaumascope.” Beside these are what at the first glance appear mere black, and very black, marks, defining no object; but a closer examination shows the outlines of a face, or of a face and figure. Of such there are sometimes four on a broad-sheet, but they are also sold separately, both in the streets and the small stationers’ shops. When the white or black portion of the paper is cut away (for both colours are so prepared), what remains, by a disposition of the light, throws a huge shadow of a grotesque figure on the wall, which may be increased or diminished according to the motions of the exhibitor. The shadow-figures sold this winter by one of my informants were of Mr. and Mrs. Manning, the Queen, Prince Albert, the Princess Royal, and the Prince of Wales; “but you see, sir,” observed the man, “the Queen and the Prince does for any father and mother—for she hasn’t her crown on—and the Queen’s kids for anybody’s kids.”
I mention these matters more particularly, as it certainly shows something of a change in the winter-evenings’ amusements of the children of the working-classes. The principal street customers for these penny papers were mechanics, who bought them on their way home for the amusement of their families. Boys, however, bought almost as many.
The sale of these papers is carried on by the same men as I have described working conundrums. A superior patterer, of course, shows that his magical delusions and magical figures combine all the wonders of the magic lantern and the dissolving views, “and all for one penny.” The trade is carried on only for a short time in the winter as regards the magical portion; and I am informed that, including the “Comic Exhibitions,” it extends to about half of the sum taken for conundrums, or to about 45l.
Of the Street-sellers of Play-Bills.
The sellers of play-bills carry on a trade which is exceedingly uncertain, and is little remunerative. There are now rather more than 200 people selling play-bills in London, but the number has sometimes been as high as 400. “Yes, indeed,” a theatrical gentleman said to me, “and if a dozen more theatres were opened to-morrow, why each would have more than its twenty bill-sellers the very first night. Where they come from, or what they are, I haven’t a notion.”
The majority of the play-bill sellers are either old or young, the sexes being about equally engaged in this traffic. Some of them have followed the business from their childhood. I met with very few indeed who knew anything of theatres beyond the names of the managers and of the principal performers, while some do not even enjoy that small modicum of knowledge, and some can neither read nor write. The boys often run recklessly alongside the cabs which are conveying persons to the theatre, and so offer their bills for sale. One of these youths said to me, when I spoke of the danger incurred, “The cabman knows how to do it, sir, when I runs and patters; and so does his hoss.” An intelligent cabman, however, who was in the habit of driving parties to the Lyceum, told me that these lads clung to his cab as he drove down to Wellington-street in such a way, for they seemed never to look before them, that he was in constant fear lest they should be run over. Ladies are often startled by a face appearing suddenly at the cab window, “and thro’ my glass,” said my informant, “a face would look dirtier than it really is.” And certainly a face gliding along with the cab, as it were, no accompanying body being visible, on a winter’s night, while the sound of the runner’s footsteps is lost in the noise of the cab, has much the effect of an apparition.
I did not hear of one person who had been in any way connected with the stage, even as a supernumerary, resorting to play-bill selling when he could not earn a shilling within the walls of a theatre. These bill-sellers, for the most part, confine themselves, as far as I could ascertain, to that particular trade. The youths say that they sometimes get a job in errand-going in the daytime, but the old men and women generally aver they can do nothing else. An officer, who, some years back, had been on duty at a large theatre, told me that at that time the women bill-sellers earned a trifle in running errands for the women of the town who attended the theatres; but, as they were not permitted to send any communication into the interior of the house, their earnings that way were insignificant, for they could only send in messages by any other “dress woman” entering the theatre subsequently.
In the course of my inquiries last year, I met with a lame woman of sixty-eight, who had been selling play-bills for the last twelve years. She had been, for six or eight months before she adopted that trade, the widow of a poor mechanic, a carpenter. She had first thought of resorting to that means of a livelihood owing to a neighbouring old woman having been obliged to relinquish her post from sickness, when my informant “succeeded her.” In this way, she said, many persons “succeeded” to the business, as the recognised old hands were jealous of and uncivil to any additional new comers, but did not object to a “successor.” These parties generally know each other; they murmur if the Haymarket hands, for instance, resort to the Lyceum for any cause, or vice versâ, thus over-stocking the business, but they offer no other opposition. The old woman further informed me that she commenced selling play-bills at Astley’s, and then realized a profit of 4s. per week. When the old Amphitheatre was burnt down, she went to the Victoria; but “business was not what it was,” and her earnings were from 6d. to 1s. a week less; and this, she said, although the Victoria was considered one of the most profitable stations for the play-bill seller, the box-keeper there seldom selling any bill in the theatre. “The boxes,” too, at this house, more frequently buy them outside. Another reason why “business” was better at the Victoria than elsewhere was represented to me, by a person familiar with the theatres, to be this: many go to the Victoria who cannot read, or who can read but imperfectly, and they love to “make-believe” they are “good scholards” by parading the consulting of a play-bill!
On my visit the bill-sellers at the Victoria were two old women (each a widow for many years), two young men, besides two or three, though there are sometimes as many as six or seven children. The old women “fell into the business” as successors by virtue of their predecessors’ leaving it on account of sickness. The children were generally connected with the older dealers. The young men had been in this business from boyhood; some sticking to the practice of their childhood unto manhood, or towards old age. The number at the Victoria is now, I am informed, two or three more, as the theatre is often crowded. The old woman told me that she had known two and even four visitors to the theatre club for the purchase of a bill, and then she had sometimes to get farthings for them.
A young fellow—who said he believed he was only eighteen, but certainly looked older—told me that he was in the habit of selling play-bills, but not regularly, as he sometimes had a job in carrying a board, or delivering bills at a corner, “or the likes o’ that;”—he favoured me with his opinion of the merits of the theatres he was practically acquainted with as regarded their construction for the purposes of the bill-seller. His mother, who had been dead a few years, had sold bills, and had put him into the business. His ambition seemed to be to become a general bill-sticker. He could not write but could read very imperfectly.