The children’s books in best demand in the street-trade, are those which have long been popular: “Cinderella,” “Jack the Giant-killer,” “Baron Munchausen,” “Puss and the Seven-leagued Boots,” “The Sleeping Beauty,” “The Seven Champions of Christendom,” &c. &c. “There’s plenty of ‘Henry and Emmas,’” said a penny bookseller, “and ‘A Present for Christmas,’ and ‘Pictorial Alphabets,’ and ‘Good Books for Good Boys and Girls;’ but when people buys really for their children, they buys the old stories—at least they does of me. I’ve sold ‘Penny Hymns’ (hymn-books) sometimes; but when they’re bought, or ‘Good Books’ is bought, it’s from charity to a poor fellow like me, more than anything else.”
The trade, both in songs and in children’s books, is carried on in much the same way as I have described of the almanacks and memorandum-books, but occasionally the singers of ballads sell books. Sometimes poor men, old or infirm, offer them in a tone which seems a whine for charity rather than an offer for sale, “Buy a penny book of a poor old man—very hungry, very hungry.” Children do the same, and all far more frequently in the suburbs than in the busy parts of the metropolis. Those who purchase really for the sake of the books, say, one street-seller told me, “Give me something that’ll interest a child, and set him a-thinking. They can’t understand—poor little things!—your fine writing; do you understand that?” Another man had said, “Fairy tales! bring me nothing but fairies; they set children a-reading.” The price asked is most frequently a penny, but some are offered at a halfpenny, which is often given (without a purchase) out of compassion, or to be rid of importunity. The profit is at least cent. per cent.
Of the Street-sellers of Account-books.
The sale of account-books is in the hands of about the same class of street-sellers as the stationery, but one man in the trade thought the regular hands were more trusted, if anything, than street-stationers. “People, you see,” he said, “won’t buy their ‘accounts’ of raff; they won’t have them of any but respectable people.” The books sold are bought at 4s. the dozen, or 4½d. a piece, up to 70s. the dozen, or 5s. 9d., or 6s. a piece. It is rarely, however, that the street account-bookseller gives 4s. 9d., and very rarely that he gives as much as 5s. 9d. for his account-books. His principal sale is of the smaller “waste,” or “day-books,” kept by the petty traders; the average price of these being 1s. 9d. The principal purchasers are the chandlers, butchers, &c., in the quieter streets, and more especially “a little way out of town, where there ain’t so many cheap shops.” A man, now a street-stationer, with a “fixed pitch,” had carried on the account-book trade until an asthmatic affliction compelled him to relinquish it, as the walking became impossible to him, and he told me that the street-trade was nothing to what it once was. “People,” he said, “aren’t so well off, I think, sir; and they’ll buy half a quire of outside foolscap, or outside post, for from 5d. to 8d., and stitch it together, and rule it, and make a book of it. Rich tradesmen do that, sir. I bought of a stationer some years back, and he told me that he was a relation of a rich grocer, and had befriended him in his (the grocer’s) youth, but he wouldn’t buy account-books, for he said, the make-shift books that his shopman stitched together for him opened so much easier. People never want a good excuse for acting shabby.”
There are now, I am informed, twelve men selling account-books daily, which they carry in a covered basket, or in a waterproof bag, or, in fine weather, under the arm. Some of these street-sellers are not itinerant when there is a congregation of people for business, or indeed for any purpose; at other times they “keep moving.” The fixed localities are, on market days, at Smithfield and Mark-lane: and to Hungerford-market, an old man, unable to “travel,” resorts daily. The chief trade, however, is in carrying, or hawking these account-books from door to door. A man, “having a connection,” does best “on a round;” if he be known, he is not distrusted, and sells as cheap, or rather cheaper, than the shop-keepers.
The twelve account-book sellers (with connections) may clear 2s. 6d. a day each, taking, for the realisation of such profit, 7s. per diem. Thus 1,310l. will be taken by these street-sellers in the course of a year. The capital required to start is, stock-money, 15s.; basket, 3s. 6d.; waterproof bag, 2s. 6d.; 21s. in all.
Of the Street-sellers of Guide-books, &c.
This trade, as regards a street-sale, has only been known for nine or ten years, and had its origination in the exertions of Mr. Hume, M.P., to secure to persons visiting the national exhibitions the advantage of a cheap catalogue. The guide-books were only sold, prior to this time, within any public exhibition; and the profits—as is the case at present—were the perquisite of some official. When the sale was a monopoly, the profit must have been considerable, as the price was seldom less than 6d., and frequently 1s. The guide-books, or, as they are more frequently called, catalogues, are now sold by men who stand at the entrance, the approaches, at a little distance on the line, or at the corners of the adjacent streets, at the following places:—The National Gallery, the Vernon Gallery, the British Museum, Westminster Abbey, the House of Lords, the Society of Arts (occasionally), the Art-Union (when open “free”), Greenwich Hospital, the Dulwich Gallery, Hampton Court, Windsor Castle, and Kew Gardens.
At any temporary exhibition, also, the same trade is carried on—as it was largely when the “designs,” &c., for the decoration of the New Houses of Parliament were exhibited in Westminster Hall. There are, of course, very many other catalogues, or explanatory guides, sold to the visitors of other exhibitions, but I speak only of the street-sale.