The snuff and tobacco-boxes disposed of by street-traders, for they are usually sold by the same individual, are bought at the swag-shops. In a matter of traffic, such as snuff-boxes, in which the “fancy” (or taste) of the purchaser is freely exercised, there are of course many varieties. The exterior of some presents a series of transverse lines, coloured, and looking neat enough. Others have a staring portrait of the Queen, or of “a young lady,” or a brigand, or a man inhaling the pungent dust with evident delight; occasionally the adornment is a ruin, a farm-house, or a hunting scene. The retail price is from 4d. to 1s., and the wholesale 3s. to 7s. 6d. the dozen. The Scotch boxes, called “Holyroods” in the trade, are also sold in the streets and public-houses. These are generally the “self-colour” of the wood; the better sort are lined with horn, and are, or should be, remarkable for the closeness and nice adjustment of the hinges or joints. They are sold—some I was told being German-made—at the swag-shops at 3s. the dozen, or 4d. each, to 6s. the dozen, or 8d. each. “Why, I calc’lated,” said one box-seller, “that one week when I was short of tin, and had to buy single boxes, or twos, at a time, to keep up a fair show of stock, the swags got 2s. more out of me than if I could have gone and bought by the dozen. I once ventured to buy a very fine Holyrood; it’ll take a man three hours to find out the way to open it, if he doesn’t know the trick, the joints is so contrived. But I have it yet. I never could get an offer for what it cost me, 5s.”
The tobacco-boxes are of brass and iron (though often called “steel”). There are three sizes: the “quarter-ounce,” costing 3s. the dozen; the “half-ounce,” 4s. 3d.; and “the ounce,” 5s. 6d. the dozen, or 6½d. each. These are the prices of the brass. The iron, which are “sized” in the same way, are from 2s. to 3s. 6d. the dozen, wholesale. They are retailed at from 3d. to 6d. each, the brass being retailed at from 4d. to 1s. All these boxes are opened and shut by pressure on a spring; they are partly flat (but rounded), so as to fit in any pocket. The cigar-cases are of the same quality as the snuff-boxes (not the Holyroods), and cost, at the German swag-shops, 3s. 6d. the dozen, or 4½d. each. They are usually retailed, or raffled for on Saturday and Monday nights, at 6d. each, but the trade is a small one.
One branch of this trade, concerning which I heard many street-sellers very freely express their opinions, is the sale of “indecent snuff-boxes.” Most of these traders insisted, with a not unnatural bitterness, that it would be as easy to stop the traffic as it was to stop Sunday selling in the park, but then “gentlemen was accommodated by it,” they added. These boxes and cigar-cases are, for the most part, I am told, French, the lowest price being 2s. 6d. a box. One man, whose information was confirmed to me by others, gave me the following account of what had come within his own knowledge:—
“There’s eight and sometimes nine persons carrying on the indecent trade in snuff-boxes and cigar-cases. They make a good bit of money, but they’re drunken characters, and often hard up. They’ve neither shame nor decency; they’ll tempt lads or anybody. They go to public-houses which they know is used by fast gents that has money to spare. And they watch old and very young gents in the streets, or any gents indeed, and when they see them loitering and looking after the girls, they take an opportunity to offer a ‘spicy snuff-box, very cheap.’ It’s a trade only among rich people, for I believe the indecent sellers can’t afford to sell at all under 2s. 6d., and they ask high prices when they get hold of a green ’un; perhaps one up on a spree from Oxford or Cambridge. Well, I can’t say where they get their goods, nor at what price. That’s their secret. They carry them in a box, with proper snuff-boxes to be seen when its opened, and the others in a secret drawer beneath; or in their pockets. You may have seen a stylish shop in Oxford-street, and in the big window is large pipe heads of a fine quality, and on them is painted, quite beautiful, naked figures of women, and there’s snuff-boxes and cigar-cases of much the same sort, but they’re nothing to what these men sell. I must know, for it’s not very long since I was forced, through distress, to colour a lot of the figures. I could colour 50 a day. I hadn’t a week’s work at it. I don’t know what they make; perhaps twice as much in a day, as in the regular trade can be made in a week. I was told by one of them that one race day he took 15l. It’s not every day they do a good business, for sometimes they may hawk without ever showing their boxes; but gentlemen will have them if they pay ever so much for them. There’s a risk in the trade, certainly. Sometimes the police gets hold of them, but very very seldom, and it’s 3 months. Or if the Vice Society takes it up, it may be 12 months. The two as does best in the trade are women; they carry great lots. They’ve never been apprehended, and they’ve been in the trade for years. No, I should say they was not women of the town. They’re both living with men, but the men’s not in the same trade, and I think is in no trade; just fancy men. So I’ve understood.”
I may observe that the generality of the hawkers of indecent prints and cards are women.
There are about 35 persons selling snuff and tobacco-boxes—the greatest sale being of tobacco-boxes—and cigar-cases, generally with the other things I have mentioned. Of these 35, however, not one-half sell snuff-boxes constantly, but resort to any traffic of temporary interest in the public or street-public estimation. Some sell only in the evenings. Reckoning that 15 persons on snuff and tobacco and cigar boxes alone take 18s. weekly (clearing 7s. or 8s.), we find 702l. thus expended.
Of the Street-Sellers of Cigars.
Cigars, I am informed, have constituted a portion of the street-trade for upwards of 20 years, having been introduced not long after the removal of the prohibition on their importation from Cuba. It was not, however, until five or six years later that they were at all extensively sold in the streets; but the street-trade in cigars is no longer extensive, and in some respects has ceased to exist altogether.
I am told by experienced persons that the cigars first vended in the streets and public-houses were really smuggled. I say “really” smuggled, as many now vended under that pretence never came from the smuggler’s hands. “Well, now, sir,” said one man, “the last time I sold Pickwicks and Cubers a penny apiece with lights for nothing, was at Greenwich Fair, on the sly rather, and them as I could make believe was buying a smuggled thing, bought far freer. Everybody likes a smuggled thing.” [This remark is only in consonance with what I have heard from others of the same class.] “In my time I’ve sold what was smuggled, or made to appear as sich, but far more in the country than town, to all sorts—to gentlemen, and ladies, and shopkeepers, and parsons, and doctors, and lawyers. Why no, sir, I can’t say as how I ever sold anything in that way to an exciseman. But smuggling’ll always be liked; it’s sich a satisfaction to any man to think he’s done the tax-gatherer.”
The price of a cigar, in the earlier stages of the street-traffic, was 2d. and 3d. One of the boxes in which these wares are ordinarily packed was divided by a partition, the one side containing the higher, and the other the lower priced article. The division was often a mere trick of trade—in justification of which any street-seller would be sure to cite the precedent of shopkeepers’ practices—for the cigars might be the same price (wholesale) but the bigger and better-looking were selected as “threepennies,” the “werry choicest and realest Hawanners, as mild as milk, and as strong as gunpowder,” for such, I am told, was the cry of a then well-known street-trader. The great sale was of the “twopennies.” As the fuzees, now so common, were unknown, and lucifer matches were higher-priced, and much inferior to what they are at present, the cigar seller in most instances carried tow with him, a portion of which he kept ignited in a sort of tinder-box, and at this the smokers lighted their cigars; or the vender twisted together a little tow and handed it, ignited, to a customer, that if he were walking on he might renew his “light,” if the cigar “wouldn’t draw.”