THE STREET-SELLER OF DOGS’ COLLARS.
[From a Daguerreotype by Beard.]
The old man informed me moreover that he did not think there were more than half-a-dozen street-sellers besides himself who made leather collars; it was a poor trade, he said, and though the other makers were younger than he was, he “could lick them all at stitching.” He did not believe, he told me, that any of the collar-sellers sold more than he did—if as many—for he had friends that perhaps other men had not. He makes collars now sometimes, and wishes he could get some shopkeeper to sell them for him, and then maybe, he says, he could obtain a little more tea and shuggar, and assist a sister-in-law of his whom he tells me is in great distress, and whom he has been in the habit of assisting for many years, notwithstanding his poverty. The old man, during the recital of his troubles, was affected to tears several times—especially when he spoke of his wife, and the distress he had undergone—and with much sincerity blessed God for the comforts that he now enjoys.
Of the Street-Sellers of Tools.
These people are of the same class as the sellers of hardware articles, though so far a distinct body that they generally sell tools only.
The tools are of the commonest kind, and supplied by the cheapest swag-shops, from which establishments the majority of the street-traders derive their supplies. They are sometimes displayed on a small barrow, sometimes on a stall, and are mostly German-made.
The articles sold and the price asked—and generally obtained, as no extravagant profit is demanded—is shown by the following:—
Claw hammers, 6d. Large claw, black and glaze-faced, 1s. Pincers, 4d.; larger ones, 6d. Screw-drivers, from 2d. to 1s.! Flat-nose pliers, 6d. a pair; squares, 6d. to 1s. Carpenters’ oil-cans, from 9d. to 1s. 3d. Nests of brad-awls (for joiners, and in wooden cases), 6d. to 2s. Back saws, 1s. to 2s. 6d.
While many of the street-sellers of tools travel the several thoroughfares and suburbs of the metropolis, others vend tools of a particular kind in particular localities. These localities and sellers may be divided into four distinct classes:—(1) The street-sellers of tools in the markets; (2) The street-sellers of tools at the docks and warehouses; (3) The street-sellers of tools at mews, stable-yards, and job-masters’; and (4) The street-sellers of tools to working men at their workshops.