The large sum given for the privilege of an exclusive sale, shows that the number of books and papers sold at railway stations must be very considerable. But it must be borne in mind, that the price, and consequently the profit on the daily newspapers, sold at the railways, is greater than elsewhere. None are charged less than 6d., the regular price at a news-agent’s shop being 5d., so that as the cost price is 4d. the profit is double. Nor is it unusual for a passenger by an early train, who grows impatient for his paper, to cry out, “A shilling for the Times!” This, however, is only the case, I am told, with those who start very early in the morning; for the daily papers are obtained for the railway stations from among the earliest impressions, and can be had at the accustomed price as early as six o’clock, although, if there be exciting news and a great demand, a larger amount may be given.
Of the Street Booksellers.
The course of my inquiry now leads me to consider one of the oldest, and certainly not least important of the street traffics—that of the book-stalls. Of these there are now about twenty in the London streets, but in this number I include only those which are properly street-stalls. Many book-stalls, as in such a locality as the London-road, are appendages to shops, being merely a display of wares outside the bookseller’s premises; and with these I do not now intend to deal.
The men in this trade I found generally to be intelligent. They have been, for the most part, engaged in some minor department of the book-selling or newspaper trade, in the regular way, and are unconnected with the street-sellers in other lines, of whose pursuits, habits, and characters, they seem to know nothing.
The street book-stalls are most frequent in the thoroughfares which are well-frequented, but which, as one man in the trade expressed himself, are not so “shoppy” as others—such as the City-road, the New-road, and the Old Kent-road. “If there’s what you might call a recess,” observed another street book-stall-keeper, “that’s the place for us; and you’ll often see us along with flower-stands and pinners-up.” The stalls themselves do not present any very smart appearance; they are usually of plain deal. If the stock of books be sufficiently ample, they are disposed on the surface of the stall, “fronts up,” as I heard it described, with the titles, when lettered on the back, like as they are presented in a library. If the “front” be unlettered, as is often the case with the older books, a piece of paper is attached, and on it is inscribed the title and the price. Sometimes the description is exceeding curt, as, “Poetry,” “French,” “Religious,” “Latin” (I saw an odd volume, in Spanish, of Don Quixote, marked “Latin,” but it was at a shop-seller’s stall,) “Pamphlets,” and such like; or where it seems to have been thought necessary to give a somewhat fuller appellation, such titles are written out as “Locke’s Understanding,” “Watts’s Mind,” or “Pope’s Rape.” If the stock be rather scant, the side of the book is then shown, and is either covered with white paper, on which the title and price are written, or “brushed,” or else a piece of paper is attached, with the necessary announcement.
Sometimes these announcements are striking enough, as where a number of works of the same size have been bound together (which used to be the case, I am told, more frequently than it is now); or where there has been a series of stories in one volume. One such announcement was, “Smollett’s Peregrine Pickle Captain Kyd Pirate Prairie Rob of the Bowl Bamfyeld Moore Carew 2s.” Alongside this miscellaneous volume was, “Wilberforce’s Practical View of Christianity, 1s.;” “Fenelon’s Aventures de Télémaque, plates, 9d.;” “Arres, de Predestinatione, 1s.” (the last-mentioned work, which, at the first glance, seems as if it were an odd mixture of French and Latin, was a Latin quarto); “Coronis ad Collationem Hagiensem, &c. &c., Gulielmo Amesio.” Another work, on another stall, had the following description: “Lord Mount Edgecumbe’s Opera What is Currency Watts’s Scripture History Thoughts on Taxation only 1s. 3d.” Another was, “Knickerbocker Bacon 1s.” As a rule, however, the correctness with which the work is described is rather remarkable.
At some few of the street-stalls, and at many of the shop-stalls, are boxes, containing works marked, “All 1d.,” or 2d., 3d., or 4d. Among these are old Court-Guides, Parliamentary Companions, Railway Plans, and a variety of sermons, and theological, as well as educational and political pamphlets. To show the character of the publications thus offered—not, perhaps, as a rule, but generally enough, for sale—I copied down the titles of some at 1d. and 2d.
“All these at 1d.—‘Letters to the Right Honourable Lord John Russell, on State Education, by Edward Baines, jun.;’ ‘A Pastoral Letter to the Clergy and Members of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America;’ ‘A Letter to the Protestant Dissenters of England and Wales, by the Rev. Robert Ainslie;’ ‘Friendly Advice to Conservatives;’ ‘Elementary Thoughts on the Principles of Currency and Wealth, and on the Means of Diminishing the Burthens of the People, by J. D. Basset, Esq., price 2s. 6d.’” The others were each published at 1s.
“All these at 2d.—‘Poems, by Eleanor Tatlock, 1811, 2 vols., 9s.;’ ‘Two Sermons, on the Fall and Final Restoration of the Jews, by the Rev. John Stuart;’ ‘Thoughts and Feelings, by Arthur Brooke, 1820;’ ‘The Amours of Philander and Sylvia, being the third and last part of Love-letters between a Nobleman and his Sister. Volume the Second. The Seventh Edition. London.’”
From a cursory examination of the last-mentioned twopenny volume, I could see nothing of the nobleman or his sister. It is one of an inane class of books, originated, I believe, in the latter part of the reign of Charles II. Such publications professed to be (and some few were) records of the court and city scandal of the day, but in general they were works founded on the reputation of the current scandal. In short, to adopt the language of patterers, they were “cocks” issued by the publishers of that period; and they continued to be published until the middle of the eighteenth century, or a little later. I notice this description of literature the more, particularly as it is still frequently to be met with in street-sale. “There’s oft enough,” one street-bookseller said to me, “works of that sort making up a ‘lot’ at a sale, and in very respectable rooms. As if they were make-weights, or to make up a sufficient number of books, and so they keep their hold in the streets.”