London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. 2

by Henry Mayhew

Moreen curtains have also a good sale. They are bought by working people (and by some of the dealers in second-hand furniture) for the re-covering of sofas, which had become ragged, the deficiency of stuffing being supplied with hay (which is likewise the “stuffing” of the new sofas sold by the “linen-drapers,” or “slaughter-houses”). Moreen curtains, too, are sometimes cut into pieces, for the re-covering of old horse-hair chairs, for which purpose they are sold at 3d. each piece.

Second-hand curtains are moreover cut into portions and sold for the hanging of the testers of bedsteads, but almost entirely for what the street-sellers call “half-teesters.” These are required for the Waterloo bedsteads, “and if it’s a nice thing, sir,” said one woman, “and perticler if it’s a chintz, and to be had for 6d., the women’ll fight for it.”

The second-hand curtains, when sold entire, are from 6d. to 2s. 6d. One man had lately sold a pair of “good moreens, only faded, but dyeing’s cheap,” for 3s. 6d.

Of the Street-Sellers of Second-hand Carpeting, Flannels, Stocking-legs, &c., &c.

I class these second-hand wares together, as they are all of woollen materials.

Carpeting has a fair sale, and in the streets is vended not as an entire floor or stair-carpet, but in pieces. The floor-carpet pieces are from 2d. to 1s. each; the stair-carpet pieces are from 1d. to 4d. a yard. Hearth-rugs are very rarely offered to street-customers, but when offered are sold from 4d. to 1s. Drugget is also sold in the same way as the floor-carpeting, and sometimes for house-scouring cloths.

“I’ve sold carpet, sir,” said a woman street-seller, who called all descriptions—rugs and drugget too—by that title; “and I would like to sell it regular, but my old man—he buys everything—says it can’t be had regular. I’ve sold many things in the streets, but I’d rather sell good second-hand in carpet or curtains, or fur in winter, than anything else. They’re nicer people as buys them. It would be a good business if it was regular. Ah! indeed, in my time, and before I was married, I have sold different things in a different way; but I’d rather not talk about that, and I make no complaints, for seeing what I see. I’m not so badly off. Them as buys carpet are very particular—I’ve known them take a tape out of their pockets and measure—but they’re honourable customers. If they’re satisfied they buy, most of them does, at once; without any of your ‘is that the lowest?’ as ladies asks in shops, and that when they don’t think of buying, either. Carpet is bought by working people, and they use it for hearth-rugs, and for bed-sides, and such like. I know it by what I’ve heard them say when I’ve been selling. One Monday evening, five or six years back, I took 10s. 9d. in carpet; there had been some great sales at old houses, and a good quantity of carpet and curtains was sold in the streets. Perhaps I cleared 3s. 6d. on that 10s. 9d. But to take 4s. or 5s. is good work now, and often not more than 3d. in the 1s. profit. Still, it’s a pretty good business, when you can get a stock of second-hands of different kinds to keep you going constantly.”

What in the street-trade is known as “Flannels,” is for the most part second-hand blankets, which having been worn as bed furniture, and then very probably, or at the same time, used for ironing cloths, are found in the street-markets, where they are purchased for flannel petticoats for the children of the poor, or when not good enough for such use, for house cloths, at 1d. each.

The trade in stocking legs is considerable. In these legs the feet have been cut off, further darning being impossible, and the fragment of the stocking which is worth preserving is sold to the careful housewives who attach to it a new foot. Sometimes for winter wear a new cheap sock is attached to the footless hose. These legs sell from ½d. to 3d. the pair, but very rarely 3d., and only when of the best quality, though the legs would not be saleable in the streets at all, had they not been of a good manufacture originally. Men’s hose are sold in this way more largely than women’s.

The trade in second-hand stockings is very considerable, but they form a part of the second-hand apparel of street-commerce, and I shall notice them under that head.