London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. 1

by Henry Mayhew

Of the Street-Sellers of Sponge.

This is one of the street-trades which has been long in the hands of the Jews, and, unlike the traffic in pencils, sealing-wax, and other articles of which I have treated, it remains so principally still.

In perhaps no article which is a regular branch of the street-trade, is there a greater diversity in the price and quality than in sponge. The street-sellers buy it at 1s. (occasionally 6d.), and as high as 21s. the pound. At one time, I believe about 20 years back, when fine sponge in large pieces was scarce and dear, some street-sellers gave 28s. the pound, or, in buying a smaller quantity, 2s. an ounce.

“I have sold sponge of all sorts,” said an experienced street-seller, “both ‘fine toilet,’ fit for any lady or gentleman, and coarse stuff not fit to groom a ass with. That very common sponge is mostly 1s. the lb. wholesale, but it’s no manner of use, it’s so sandy and gritty. It weighs heavy, or there might be a better profit on it. It has to be trimmed up and damped for showing it, and then it always feels hask (harsh) to the hand. It rubs to bits in no time. There was a old gent what I served with sponges, and he was very perticler, and the best customer I ever had, for his housekeeper bought her leathers of me. Like a deal of old coves that has nothing to do and doesn’t often stir out, but hidles away time in reading or pottering about a garden, he was fond of a talk, and he’d give me a glass of something short, as if to make me listen to him, for I used to get fidgety, and he’d talk away stunning. He’s dead now. He’s told me, and more nor once, that sponges was more of a animal than a wegetable,” continued the incredulous street-seller, “I do believe people reads theirselves silly. Such —— nonsense! Does it look like a animal? Where’s its head and its nose? He’d better have said it was a fish. And it’s not a wegetable neither. But I’ll tell you what it is, sir, and from them as has seen it where its got with their own eyes. I have some relations as is sea-farin’-men, and I went a woyage once myself when a lad—one of my relations has seen it gathered by divers, I forget where, from the rocks at the bottom and shores of the sea, and he says it’s just sea-moss—stuff as grows there, as moss does to old walls in England. That’s what it is, sir. As it’s grown in the water, it holds water you see. I’ve made 15s. on sponge alone, in a good week, when I had a good stock; but oftener I’ve made only 10s., and sometimes not 5s. My best trade is at private houses a little ways out of town. I’ve heard gents say, ‘A good sponging’s as good as a bath,’ and when I could get good things cheap they’d be sure to sell. No, I never did much at the mews.”

Another man told me that he once bought a large quantity of sponge at 6d. the lb., trimmed it up as well as he could, and got a man to help him, and the two “worked it off” in barrows; there was six barrows full, and as one was emptied it was replenished. It was sold at 1d. and 2d. a lump; about twenty lumps, or pieces, going to a pound, so that there was 14d. profit on what cost 6d., even on the penny lumps. He had forgotten the exact amount he cleared, and he and his mate sold it all in one summer’s evening, but it was somewhere about 10s. This happened some years ago, when the common sponge, which I heard called also “honeycomb” sponge, was not so “blown upon,” as my informant expressed it, as it is now. On my asking this man as to the proportion of Jews in this trade, he answered: “Well, many a day I’m satisfied there’s 100 people selling sponge, and I should say that for every ten or twelve Jews is one Christian, and half of them, or more, has been in some sort of service, I mean the Christians has, most likely stable-helpers, and they supplies the mews and the job and livery stables, such of them as requires men to find their own sponges, but that’s only a few; sponges is mostly bought for such places at the saddlers’ and other shops. In my opinion, sir, Jews is better Christians than Christians themselves, for they help one another, and we don’t. I’ve been helped by a Jew myself, without any connection with them. They’re terrible keen hands at a bargain, though.”

The sponge in the street-trade is purchased, wholesale, chiefly in Houndsditch. The wholesale trade in sponge, I may add, is also in the hands of the Jews. The great mart is Smyrna, the best qualities being gathered in the islands of the Greek Archipelago. The sponge is carried by the street-traders in baskets, the bearer holding a specimen piece or two in his hand. Smaller pieces are sometimes carried in nets, and nets were more frequently in use for this purpose than at present. It is nearly all sold by itinerants, in the business parts as well as the suburbs, the purchasers being “shopkeepers, innkeepers, gentlemen, and gentlemen’s servants.” Sometimes low-priced sponge is offered in a street-market on a Saturday or Monday night, but very rarely, as it is a thing little used by the poor. A little is sold to the cabmen at their stands. The sponge-sellers, I may add, when going a regular round, offer their wares to any passer-by. A little is done by the Jews in bartering sponge for old clothes. There are five or six women in the trade.

I have reason to believe that the estimate of my informant, as to the number of sponge-sellers, is correct. But some sell sponge only occasionally, some make it only a portion of their business, and others vend it only when they “have it a bargain.” Calculating, then, that only fifty persons (so allowing for the irregularities in the trade) vend sponge daily, and that each takes 15s. weekly,—some taking 25s., and others but 5s.—with about half profit on the whole (the common sponge is often from 200 to 300 per cent. profit), we find the outlay to be 1,950l.

Of the Street-Sellers of Wash-Leathers.

The wash-leathers, sometimes called “shammys” (chamois), now sold extensively in the streets, are for the most part the half of a sheep-skin, or of a larger lamb-skin. The skin is “split” by machinery, and to a perfect nicety, into two portions. That known as the “grain” (the part to which the fleece of the animal is attached) is very thin, and is dressed into a “skiver,” a kind of leather used in the commoner requirements of book-binding, and for such purposes as the lining of hats. The other portion, the “flesh,” is dressed as wash-leather. These skins are bought at the leather-sellers and the leather-dressers, at from 2s. to 20s. the dozen. The higher priced, or those from 12s. are often entire, and not “split” skins. The great majority of the street-sellers of wash-leathers are women, and principally Irishwomen. They offer their wash-leathers in all parts of town, calling at shops and inns; and at private houses offering them through the area rails, or knocking at the door when it is accessible. Many of these street-sellers are the wives of Irish labourers, employed by bricklayers and others, who are either childless, or able to leave their younger children under the care of an older brother or sister, or when the poverty of the parents, or their culpable neglect, is extreme, allow them to run at large in the court or street, untended. The wives by this street-trade add to the husbands’ earnings. In the respects of honesty and chastity, these women bear good characters.

The wash-leathers are sold for the cleaning of windows, and of plate and metal goods. Sixpence is a common price for a leather, the higher priced being sold at the mews and at gentlemen’s houses. The “chamois” sold at the mews, however, are not often sold by the Irishwomen, but by the class I have described as selling scissors, &c., there. The leathers are also cut into pennyworths, and these pennyworths are sometimes sold on Saturday evenings in the street-markets.