The same persons who sold straps, &c., not including the present sellers, the dog-collar men, &c., had lately no small traffic in the vending of garters. The garter-sellers were, however, far more numerous than ever were the strap-sellers. At one time, I am told, there were 200 garter sellers; all old or infirm, or poor women, or children, and chiefly Irish children. As these children were often stockingless and shoeless, their cry of “Penny a pair! India-rubber garters, penny a pair!” was sometimes pitiful enough, as they were offering a cheap article, unused by themselves. The sudden influx of garters, so to speak, was owing, I am told, to a manufacturer having discovered a cheap way of “working the India-rubber threads,” and having “thrown a lot into the market through the swag shops.” The price was at first 8s. a gross (8d. a dozen), but as the demand increased, it was raised to 9s. and 9s. 6d. The trade continued about six weeks, but has now almost entirely ceased. The stock of garters still offered for sale is what stall-keepers have on hand, or what swag shop-keepers tempt street-sellers to buy by reducing the price. The leather garter-trade, 1d. a pair being the usual price for sheep-skin garters, is now almost unknown. It was somewhat extensive.
Of the Street-Sellers of Boot and Stay-Laces, &c.
Like many street-callings which can be started on the smallest means, and without any previous knowledge of the article sold being necessary to the street-vendor, the boot and stay-lace trade has very many followers. I here speak of those who sell boot-laces, and subsist, or endeavour to subsist, by the sale, without mixing it up with begging. The majority, indeed the great majority, of these street traders are women advanced in years, and, perhaps, I may say the whole of them are very poor. An old woman said to me, “I just drag on, sir, half-starving on a few boot-laces, rather than go into the workhouse, and I know numbers doing the same.”
The laces are bought at the haberdashery swag-shops I have spoken of, and amongst these old women I found the term “swag-shop” as common as among men who buy largely at such establishments. The usual price for boot-laces to be sold in the streets is 1d. a dozen. Each lace is tagged at both ends, sufficing for a pair of boots. The regular retail price is three a penny, but the lace-sellers are not unfrequently compelled to give four, or lose a customer. A better quality is sold at 1½d. and 2d. a dozen, but these are seldom meddled with by the street lace-sellers. It is often a matter of strong endeavour for a poor woman to make herself mistress of 11d., the whole of which she can devote to the purchase of boot-laces, as for 11d. she can procure a gross, so saving 1d. in twelve dozen.
The stay-laces, which are bought at the same places, and usually sold by the same street-traders, are 2d. and 2½d. the dozen. I am told that there are as many of the higher as of the lower priced stay-laces bought for street sale, “because,” one of the street-sellers told me “there’s a great many servant girls, and others too, that’s very particular about their stay-laces.” The stay-laces are retailed at ½d. each.
These articles are vended at street-stalls, along with other things for female use; but the most numerous portion of the lace-sellers are itinerant, walking up and down a street market, or going on a round in the suburbs, calling at every house where they are known, or where, as one woman expressed it, “we make bold to venture.” Those frequenting the street-markets, or other streets or thoroughfares, usually carry the boot-laces in their hands, and the stay-laces round their necks, and offer them to the females passing. Their principal customers are the working-classes, the wives and daughters of small shop-keepers, and servant-maids. “Ladies, of course,” said one lace-seller, “won’t buy of us.” Another old woman whom I questioned on the subject, and who had sold laces for about fourteen years, gave me a similar account; but she added:—“I’ve sold to high-up people though. Only two or three weeks back, a fine-dressed servant maid stopped me and said, ‘Here, I must have a dozen boot-laces for mistress, and she says, she’ll only give 3d. for them, as it’s a dozen at once. A mean cretur she is. It’s grand doings before faces, and pinchings behind backs, at our house.’”
Among the lace-sellers having rounds in the suburbs are some who “have known better days.” One old woman had been companion and housekeeper to a lady, who died in her arms, and whose legacy to her companion-servant enabled her to furnish a house handsomely. This she let out in apartments at “high-figures,” and anything like a regular payment by her lodgers would have supplied her with a comfortable maintenance. But fine gentlemen, and fine ladies too, went away in her debt; she became involved, her furniture was seized, and step by step she was reduced to boot-lace selling. Her appearance is still that of “the old school;” she wears a very large bonnet of faded black silk, a shawl of good material, but old and faded, and always a black gown. The poor woman told me that she never ventured to call even at the houses where she was best received if she saw any tax-gatherer go to or from the house: “I know very well what it is,” she continued, “it’s no use my calling; they’re sure to be cross, and the servants will be cross too, because their masters or mistresses are cross with them. If the tax-gatherer’s not paid, they’re cross at being asked; if he is paid, they’re cross at having had to part with their money. I’ve paid taxes myself.”
The dress of the boot lace-sellers generally is that of poor elderly women, for the most part perhaps a black chip, or old straw bonnet (often broken) and a dark-coloured cotton gown. Their abodes are in the localities in all parts of the metropolis, which I have frequently specified as the abodes of the poor. They live most frequently in their own rooms, but the younger, and perhaps I may add, coarser, of the number, resort to lodging-houses. It is not very uncommon, I was told by one of the class, for two poor women, boot-lace sellers or in some similar line, “to join” in a room, so saving half the usual rent of 1s. 6d. for an unfurnished room. This arrangement, however, is often of short duration. There is always arising some question, I was told, about the use or wear of this utensil or the other, or about washing, or about wood and coals, if one street-seller returned an hour or two before her companion. This is not to be wondered at, when we bear in mind that to these people every farthing is of consequence. From all that I can learn, the boot-lace sellers (I speak of the women) are poor and honest, and that, as a body, they are little mixed up with dishonest characters and dishonest ways. The exceptions are, I understand, among some hale persons, such as I have alluded to as sojourning in the lodging-houses. Some of these traders receive a little parochial relief.
One intelligent woman could count up 100 persons depending chiefly upon the sale of boot and stay-laces, in what she called her own neighbourhood. This comprised Leather-lane, Holborn, Tottenham Court-road, the Hampstead-road, and all the adjacent streets. From the best data at my command, I believe there are not fewer than 500 individuals selling these wares in London. Several lace-sellers agreed in stating that they sold a dozen boot-laces a-day, and a dozen stay-laces, and 2 dozen extra on Saturday nights; but the drawbacks of bad weather, &c., reduce the average sale to not more than 6 dozen a week, or 1,872,000 boot-laces in a year, at an outlay to the public of 3,900l. yearly; from a half to three-fourths of the receipts being the profit of the street-sellers.
The same quantity of stay-laces sold at 6d. a dozen shows an outlay of 3,900l., with about an equally proportional profit to the sellers.