At the outset of the street or hawking trade, the spar-sellers carried their goods done up in paper, in strong baskets on their heads; the man’s wife sometimes carrying a smaller basket, with less burdensome articles, on her arm. Men have been known to start on a round, with a basket of spars, which would weigh from 1 cwt. to 1½ cwt. (or 12 stone). This, it must be remembered, might have to be borne for three or four miles into the suburbs, before its weight was diminished by a sale. One of these traders told me that twelve years ago he had sold spar watch-stands, weighing above 15 lbs. These stands were generally of a square form; the inner portion being open, except a sort of recess for the watch. “The tick sounds well on spar, I’ve often heard,” said one spar-seller.
Some of the spar ornaments are plain, white, and smooth. Of these many have flowers, or rims, or insects, painted upon them, and in brilliant colours. Those which are now in demand for the street sales, or for itinerant barterings, are—Small microscopes, candlesticks, inkstands, pin-cushions, mugs, paper-holders, match perfumery, and shaving-boxes, etc. The general price of these articles is 6d. to the street-seller or hawker, some of the dealers being licensed hawkers. The wholesale price varies from 2s. 6d. to 5s. per dozen; or an average of 3s. 9d. or 4s. Of the larger articles the most saleable are candlesticks, at from 1s. to 2s. 6d. each; from 1s. to 1s. 6d. being the most frequent price. Watch-stands and vases are now, I am told, in small demand. “People’s got stocked, I think,” one man said, “and there’s so much cheap glass and chaney work, that they looks on spars as heavy and old-fashioned.”
Some street-sellers have their spars in covered barrows, the goods being displayed when the top of the barrow is removed, so that the conveyance is serviceable whether the owner be stationary or itinerant. The spar-sellers, however, are reluctant to expose their goods to the weather, as the colours are easily affected.
In this trade I am informed that there are now twelve men, nine of whom are assisted by their wives, and that in the summer months there are eighteen. Their profits are about 15s. per week on an average of the whole year, including the metropolis and a wide range of the suburbs. What amount of money may be expended by the public in the street purchase of “spars” I am unable to state, so much being done in the way of barter; but assuming that there are fourteen sellers throughout the year, and that their profits are cent. per cent., there would appear to be about 1000l. per annum thus laid out.
Of stone fruit there are now usually six street sellers, and in fine weather eight. Eight or ten years ago there were twenty. The fruit is principally made at Chesterfield in Derbyshire, and is disposed of to the London street-sellers in the swag-shops in Houndsditch. Some of the articles, both as regards form and colour, are well executed; others are far too red or too green; but that, I was told, pleased children best. The most saleable fruits are apples, pears, peaches, apricots, oranges, lemons and cucumbers. The cucumbers, which are sometimes of pot as well as of stone, are often hollow, and are sometimes made to serve for gin-bottles, holding about a quartern.
The price at the swag-shops is 4s. 3d. for a gross of fruit of all kinds in equal quantities; for a better quality the price is 7s. 6d. The street-seller endeavours to get 1d. each for the lower priced, and 2d. for the higher, but has most frequently to be content with ½d. and 1d. The stone fruitmen are itinerant during the week and stationary in the street markets on Saturday, and sometimes other evenings. They carry their stock both in baskets and barrows. One man told me that he always cried, “Pick ’em out! pick ’em out! Half-penny each! Cheapest fruit ever seen! As good to-morrow as last week! Never lose flavour! Ever-lasting fruit.”
Supposing that there are six persons selling stone fruit in the streets through the year, and that each earns—and I am assured that is the full amount—9s. weekly (one man said 7s. 6d. was the limit of his weekly profits in fruit), we find 140l. received as profit on these articles, and calculating the gains at 33 per cent., an outlay of 420l.
The trade in China ornaments somewhat differs from the others I have described under the present head. It is both a street and a public-house trade, and is carried on both in the regular way and by means of raffles. At some public-houses, indeed, the China ornament dealers are called “rafflers.”
The “ornaments” now most generally sold or raffled are Joy and Grief (two figures, one laughing and the other crying); dancing Highlanders; mustard pots in the form of cottages, &c.; grotesque heads, one especially of an old man, which serves as a pepper-box, the grains being thrown through the eyes, nose, and mouth; Queen and Alberts (but not half so well as the others); and, until of late, Smith O’Briens. There are others, also, such as I have mentioned in my account of the general swag-shops, to the windows of many of which they form the principal furniture. Some of these “ornaments” sold “on the sly” can hardly be called obscene, but they are dirty, and cannot be further described.
The most lucrative part of the trade is in the raffling. A street-seller after doing what business he can, on a round or at a stand, during the day, will in the evening resort to public-houses, where he is known, and is allowed to offer his wares to the guests. The ornaments, in public-house sale, are hardly ever offered for less than 6d. each, or 6d. a pair. The raffling is carried on rapidly and simply. Dice are very rarely used new, and when used, provoke many murmurs from the landlords. The raffler of the China ornaments produces a portable roulette box or table—these tables becoming an established part of the street traffic—eight or ten inches in diameter. What may be called “the board” of some of these “roulettes” is numbered to thirty-two. It is set rapidly spinning on a pivot, a pea is then slipped through a hole in the lid of the box, and, when the motion has ceased, the pea is found in one of the numbered partitions. “Now, gentlemen,” a raffler told me he would say, “try your luck for this beautiful pair of ornaments; six of you at 1d. a piece. If you go home rather how came you so, show what you’ve bought for the old lady, and it’ll be all right and peaceful.” If six persons contribute 1d. each, the one “spinning” the highest number gains the prize, and is congratulated by the ornament seller on having gained for 1d. what was only too cheap at 6d. “Why, sir,” said a man who had recently left the trade for another calling, and who was anxious that I should not give any particular description of him, “in case he went back to the raffling,”—“Why, sir, I remember one Monday evening four or five months back, going into a parlour, not a tap-room, mind, where was respectable mechanics. They got to play with me, and got keen, and played until my stock was all gone. If one man stopped raffling, another took his place. I can’t recollect how many ornaments I raffled, but I cleared rather better than 3s. 6d. When there was no ornaments left they gave me 1d. a piece—there was eleven of them then—and a pint of beer to let them have the roulette till 12 o’clock; and away they went at it for beer and screws, and bets of 1d. and 2d. One young man that had been lucky in winning the ornaments got cleaned out, and staked his ornaments for 2d., or for a 1d. rather than not play. That sort of thing only happened to me once, to the same extent. If the landlord came into the room, of course they was only playing for drink, or he might have begun about his licence.”