At the fairs near London there is a considerable sale of these combustibles; and they are often displayed on large stalls in the fair. They furnish the means of practical jokes to the people on their return. “After last Whitsun Greenwich Fair,” said a street-seller to me, “I saw a gent in a white choker, like a parson, look in at a pastry-cook’s shop, as is jist by the Elephant (and Castle), a-waiting for a ’bus, I s’pose. There was an old ’oman with a red face standing near him; and I saw a lad, very quick, pin something to one’s coat and the t’other’s gown. They turned jist arter, and bang goes a Waterloo, and they looks savage one at another; and hup comes that indentical boy, and he says to the red faced ’oman, a pointing to the white choker, ‘Marm, I seed him a twiddling with your gown. He done it for a lark arter the fair, and ought to stand something.’ So the parson, if he were a parson, walked away.”
There are eight makers, I am told, who supply the street-sellers and the small shops with these crackers. The wholesale price is 4d. to 6d. a gross, the “cracker-balls” being the dearest. The retail price in the streets is from six to twelve a penny, according to the appearance and eagerness of the purchaser. Some street traders carry these commodities on trays, and very few are stationary, except at fairs. I am assured, that for a few days last November, from 50 to 60 men and women were selling crackers in the streets, of course “on the sly.” In so irregular and surreptitious a trade, it is not possible even to approximate to statistics. The most intelligent man that I met with, acquainted, as he called it, “with all the ins and outs of the trade,” calculated that in November and Christmas, 100l. at least was expended in the streets in these combustibles, and another 100l. in the other parts of the year. About Tower-hill, Ratcliff-highway (or “the Highway,” as street-sellers often call it), and in Wapping and Shadwell, the sale of crackers is the best. The sellers are the ordinary street-sellers, and no patter is required.
Of the Street-Sellers of Lucifer-Matches.
Under this head I shall speak only of those who sell the matches, apart from those who, in proffering lucifer boxes, mix up trade with mendicancy. The latter class I have spoken of, and shall treat of them more fully under the head of “the London Poor.”
Until “lucifers” became cheap and in general use, the matches sold by the street-folks, and there were numbers in the trade, were usually prepared by themselves. The manufactures were simple enough. Wooden splints, twice or thrice the length of the lucifer matches now in use, were prepared, and dipped into brimstone, melted in an iron ladle. The matches were never, as now, self-igniting, or rather ignitable by rapid friction; but it was necessary to “strike a light” by the concussion of a flint and steel, the sparks from which were communicated to tinder kept in a “box.”
The brimstone match-sellers were of all ages, but principally, I am told, old people. Many of them during, and for some years after the war, wore tattered regimentals, or some remains of military paraphernalia, and had been, or assumed to have been, soldiers, but not entitled to a pension; the same with seamen. I inquired of some of the present race of match-sellers what became of the “old brimstones,” as I heard them called, but from them I could gain little information. An old groundsel-gatherer told me that some went into his trade. Others, I learned, “took to pins,” and others to song or tract selling. Indeed the brimstone match-sellers not unfrequently carried a few songs to vend with their matches. It must be borne in mind that, 15 years ago, those street trades, into which any one who is master of a few pence can now embark, were less numerous. Others of the match-sellers, with rounds, or being known men, displaced their “brimstones” for “lucifers,” and traded on as usual. I heard of one old man, now dead, who made a living on brimstone-matches by selling a good quantity in Hackney, Stoke Newington, and Islington, and who long refused to sell lucifer-matches; “they was new-fangled rubbish,” he said, “and would soon have their day.” He found his customers, however, fall off, and in apprehension of losing them all, he was compelled to move with the times.
“I believe, sir,” said one man, still a street-seller, but not having sold matches of any kind for years,—“I believe I was the first who hawked ‘Congreves,’ or ‘instantaneous lights;’ they weren’t called ‘lucifers’ for a good while after. I bought them at Mr. Jones’s light-house in the Strand, and if I remember right, for it must be more than 20 years ago, between 1820 and 1830, Mr. Jones had a patent somehow about them. I bought them at 7s. a dozen boxes, and sold them at 1s. a box. I’m not sure how many matches was in a box, but I think it was 100. You’ll get as much for a farthing now, as you would for a shilling then. The matches were lighted by being drawn quickly through sand-paper. I sold them for a twelvemonth, and had the trade all to myself. As far as I know, I had; for I never met with or heard of anybody else in it all that time. I did decent at it. I suppose I cleared my 15s. a week. The price kept the same while I was in the business. I sold them at city offices. I supplied the Phœnix in Lombard-street, I remember, and the better sort of shops. People liked them when they wanted to light a candle in a hurry, in places where there was no fire to seal a letter, or such like. There was no envelopes in them days. The penny-postage brought them in. I was sometimes told not to carry such things there again, as they didn’t want the house set on fire by keeping such dangerous things in it. Now, I suppose, lucifers are in every house, and that there’s not a tinder-box used in all London.” Such appears to have been the beginning of the extensive street-trade in these chemical preparations now carried on. At the twelvemonth’s end, my informant went into another line of business.
The “German Congreves” were soon after introduced, and were at first sold wholesale at the “English and German” swag-shops in Houndsditch, at 2s. the dozen boxes, and were retailed at 3d., 4d., and sometimes as high as 6d. the box. These matches, I am told, “kept their hold” about five years, when they ceased to be a portion of the street trade. The German Congreves were ignited by being drawn along a slip of sand-paper, at the bottom of the box, as is done at present; with some, however, a double piece of sand-paper was sold for purposes of igniting.
After this time cheaper and cheaper matches were introduced, and were sold in the streets immediately on their introduction. At first, the cheaper matches had an unpleasant smell, and could hardly be kept in a bed-room, but that was obviated, and the trade progressed to its present extent.
The lucifer-match boxes, the most frequent in the street-trade, are bought by the poor persons selling them in the streets, at the manufacturers, or at oil-shops, for a number of oilmen buy largely of the manufacturers, and can “supply the trade” at the same rate as the manufacturer. The price is 2¼d. the dozen boxes, each box containing 150 matches. Some of the boxes (German made) are round, and many used to be of tin, but these are rarely seen now. The prices are proportionate. The common price of a lucifer box in the streets is ½d., but many buyers, I am told, insist upon and obtain three a penny, which they do generally of some one who supplies them regularly. The trade is chiefly itinerant.