London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. 1

by Henry Mayhew

In addition to the 150 general and particular “swag-shops,” or shops having a large collection of goods, of which I have spoken, there are twenty establishments for the sale of crockery and china, which I heard styled by persons in the trade “swag-crocks,” or “crock-shops.” The principle on which the trade is conducted in these places is the same as that of the swag-shops, inasmuch as the sales are wholesale, to street-sellers, shop-keepers, and shippers, but rarely to private individuals.

The crock swag-shops are to be found in the streets neighbouring Spitalfields market, and in and near to Liquorpond-street. As at the more general or miscellaneous swag-shops, the crock-swags make no display. In one of the most extensive, indeed, two large windows are filled with goods. Here are spirit-stands, with the invariable three bottles (invariable in the cheap trade), blue, green, or uncoloured; some lettered “gin,” “rum,” “brandy,” but most of them unlabelled. Here, too, are cruet-stands, and “pot” or spar figures under glass shades; and a number of many-coloured flower-glasses, some of them profusely gilded; and small china vases; but the glass wares greatly predominate. Although there are glass and colour and gilding enough to make “an imposing display,” the display is nevertheless anything but showy; the goods look dingy, and, if I may so speak of such things, faded. Some of the coloured glass seems to be losing its colour, and few of the wares have the bright look of newness.

The windows of these shops are, for the most part, literally packed to a certain height, so as almost to exclude the light, with pitchers, and basins, and cups, and jugs, and the sundry smaller articles of this multifarious trade, all undusted, and seemingly uncared for. In one “large concern” I saw a number of glass salt-cellars wrapped severally in paper, which had changed from white to a dusty brown, and which from age, and perhaps damp, seemed about to fall to tatters.

The “interiors” of some of these warehouses are very spacious. I saw one large and lofty shop, into which two apartments and a yard had been flung, the partitions having been taken down, and the ceilings supported by pillars, in order to “extend the premises.” It was really a hall of pots. On the floor were large crates, the tops removed so that the goods might be examined, packed, one with cups, another with saucers, a third with basins, and packed as only a potter could pack them. Intermixed with them were piles of blue-and-white dishes and plates, and, beside them, washing-pans, fitted one into another like the old hats on a Jew’s head. The pillars had their festoons of crockery, being hung with children’s white and gold mugs “for a good boy,” and with white metal-lidded and brown-bodied mustard pots, as well as other minor articles. The shelves were loaded with tea-services of many shapes and hues, while the unoccupied space was what sufficed to allow the warehousemen and the customers to thread the mazes of this labyrinth of crockerywares. Of the glass goods there was little display, as they are generally kept in cases and other packages, to preserve their freshness of appearance.

The crockery of the swag-shops is made in Staffordshire; the glass principally in Lancashire. At none of these establishments do they issue circulars of prices, such as I have cited of the general swag-shops. The articles are so very many, I was told, that to specify all the sizes and prices “would take a volume and a half.” I give a statement, however, of the prices of the goods most in demand, on the occasions when the street vendors sell them without barter, and the prices at which they are purchased wholesale: Blue-edged plates sold at 1d. each cost 1s. 8d. the dozen; this would appear to entail a loss of 8d. on every dozen sold, but in this article “30 is a dozen.” Dishes are bought at the “swag-crocks” in “nests,” which comprise 10 dishes, or 5 pairs, of different sizes. These the street crockman sells, if possible, in pairs, but he will sell them singly, for he can always make up the complement of his “nest” at the warehouse. The prices run, chiefly according to size, from 8d. to 1s. 6d. (sometimes 1s. 8d.) the pair. “The 8d. a pair,” said one street crock-seller, “costs me 6d., not a farthing under, and the 18d. a pair—it’s very seldom we can ‘draw’ 1s. 8d.—costs 1s. 2d. That’s all, sir; and the profit’s so small, it makes us keen to swop. I’ll swop for old clothes, or dripping, or grease, or anything. You see the profit, when you sells downright down, must be small, ’cause there’s so many pot-shops with prices marked on the plates and other things. They can buy better than us sometimes, and they’re hard to stand up against. If a woman says to me—for I very seldom deal with men—‘Why, they’re cheaper at D——’s, in Oxford-street,’—I answers, ‘And worser. I’ll tell you what it is, ma’am. The cheapest place was in two houses, painted all red, in the London-road. But one fine morning them two houses fell, and the pots was smashed as a matter of course. It was a judgment on their bad pots.’ But it’s a fact, sir, that these houses fell, about 7 or 8 years ago, I think, and I’ve seen goods, with one or two of ’em broken, offered for sale when the place was re-built, having been ‘rescued from the ruins; and at less than half price.’ Of course that was gammon. I’ve cracked and broke a few plates, myself, and sold them in the New Kent-road, and in Walworth and Newington, at half price, from the ruins, and at a very tidy profit.” A stone china tea-service, of 32 pieces—12 cups, 12 saucers, 4 bread-and-butter plates, a tea-pot, a sugar-basin, a slop-basin, and a cream-jug—is bought for 6s. 9d. while 9s. is asked for it, and sometimes obtained. A “china set” costs, as the general price, 10s. 6d., and for it 14s. is asked.

The glass wares are so very rarely sold—being the most attractive articles of barter—that I could hardly get any street-seller to state his prices. “Swop, sir,” I was told repeatedly, “they all goes in swop.” The glass goods, however, which are the most sold in the streets, I ascertained to be cream-jugs, those vended at 6d. each, costing 4s. the dozen; and flower-glasses, the most frequent price being 1s. a pair, the prime cost 7d.

I have estimated the sum turned over by the general swag-shops at 3000l. each. From what I can learn, the crock swag-shops, averaging the whole, turn over a larger sum, for their profits are smaller, ranging from 10 to 30 per cent., but rarely 30. Calculating, then, that each of these swag-shops turns over 4000l. yearly, we find 80,000l. expended, but this includes the sales to shopkeepers and to shippers, as well as to street-folk.

Of the Street-Sellers of Spar and China Ornaments, and of Stone Fruit.

“Spars,” as spar ornaments are called by the street-sellers, are sold to the retailers at only four places in London, and two in Gravesend (where the hawkers are for the most part supplied). The London spar-houses are—two in Westminster, one in Shoreditch, and one on Battle-bridge. None of them present any display of their goods which are kept in large drawers, closets, and packages. At Gravesend the spar-shops are handsome.

These wares are principally of Derbyshire spar, and made in Matlock; a few are German. The “spars” are hawked on a round, and are on fine Saturday nights offered for sale in the street and markets. The trade was unknown as a street, or a hawking trade in London, I am informed, until about twenty-five years ago, and then was not extensive, the goods, owing to the cost of carriage, &c., being high-priced. As public conveyance became more rapid, certain and cheap, the trade in spars increased, and cheaper articles were prepared for the London market. From ten to fifteen years ago the vendors of spars “did well in swop” (as street-sellers always call barters). The articles with which they tempted housewives were just the sort of article to which it was difficult for inexperienced persons to attach a value. They were massive and handsome ornaments, and the spar-sellers did not fail to expatiate on their many beauties. “God rest Jack Moody’s soul,” said an Irishman, now a crock-seller, to me; “Jack Moody was only his nick-name, but that don’t matter; God rist his sowl and the hivens be his bid. He was the boy to sell the spar-r’s. They was from the cavrents at the bottom of the say, he towld them, or from a new island in the frozen ocean. He did well; God rist him; but he died young.” The articles “swopped” were such as I have described in my account of the tradings of the crock-sellers; and if the “swop” were in favour of the spar-seller, still the customer became possessed of something solid, enduring, and generally handsome.