The above numbers comprise the main body of people selling in the London streets; hence if we assert that, with the vendors of second-hand articles, as old metal, glass, linen, clothes, &c., and mineral productions, such as coke, salt, and sand, there are about 45,000 street-traders in the Metropolis, we shall not, I am satisfied, be very far from the truth.
The value of the Capital, or Stock in Trade, of these people, though individually trifling, amounts, collectively, to a considerable sum of money—indeed, to very nearly 40,000l., or at the rate of about 1l. per head. Under the term Capital are included the donkeys, barrows, baskets, stalls, trays, boards, and goods belonging to the several street-traders; and though the stock of the water-cress, the small-ware, the lucifer, the flower, or the chickweed and groundsell seller may not exceed in value 1s., and the basket or tray upon which it is carried barely half that sum, that of the more prosperous costermonger, possessed of his barrow and donkey; or of the Cheap John, with his cart filled with hardware; or the Packman, with his bale of soft wares at his back, may be worth almost as many pounds as the others are pence.
The gross amount of trade done by the London Street-Sellers in the course of the year is so large that the mind is at first unable to comprehend how, without reckless extravagance, want can be in any way associated with the class. After the most cautious calculation, the results having been checked and re-checked in a variety of ways, so that the conclusion arrived at might be somewhat near and certainly not beyond the truth, it appears that the “takings” of the London Street-Sellers cannot be said to be less than 2,500,000l. per annum. But vast as this sum may seem, and especially when considered as only a portion of the annual expenditure of the Metropolitan Poor, still, when we come to spread the gross yearly receipts over 40,000 people, we find that the individual takings are but 62l. per annum, which (allowing the rate of profit to be in all cases even 50 per cent., though I am convinced it is often much less) gives to each street-trader an annual income of 20l. 13s. 4d., or within a fraction of 8s. a week, all the year round. And when we come to deduct from this the loss by perishable articles, the keep of donkeys, the wear and tear, or hire, of barrows—the cost of stalls and baskets, together with the interest on stock-money (generally at the rate of 4s. a week—and often 1s. a day—for 1l., or 1040l. per cent. per annum), we may with safety assert that the average gain or clear income of the Metropolitan Street-Sellers is rather under than over 7s. 6d. a week. Some of the more expert street-traders may clear 10s. or even 15s. weekly throughout the year, while the weekly profit of the less expert, the old people, and the children, may be said to be 3s. 6d. These incomes, however, are the average of the gross yearly profits rather than the regular weekly gains; the consequence is, that though they might be sufficient to keep the majority of the street-sellers in comparative comfort, were they constant and capable of being relied upon, from week to week—but being variable and uncertain, and rising sometimes from nothing in the winter to 1l. a week in the summer, when street commodities are plentiful and cheap, and the poorer classes have money wherewith to purchase them—and fluctuating moreover, even at the best of times, according as the weather is wet or fine, and the traffic of the streets consequently diminished or augmented—it is but natural that the people subject to such alternations should lack the prudence and temperance of those whose incomes are more regular and uniform.
To place the above facts clearly before the reader the following table has been prepared. The first column states the titles of the several classes of street-sellers; the second, the number of individuals belonging to each of these classes; the third, the value of their respective capitals or stock in trade; the fourth, the gross amount of trade done by them respectively every year; the fifth, the average yearly takings of each class; and the sixth, their average weekly gains. This gives us, as it were, a bird’s-eye view of the earnings and pecuniary condition of the various kinds of street-sellers already treated of. It is here cited, as indeed all the statistics in this work are, as an approximation to the truth rather than a definite and accurate result.
| DESCRIPTION OF CLASS. | Number of Persons in each Class. | Gross amount of capital, or stock in trade belonging to each class. | Gross amount of trade annually done by each class. | Average yearly receipts per head. | Average weekly gains. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Costermongers[1] | 30,000[2] | £25,000 | £ | £60 | 8s. | |
| Street-Sellers of Wet Fish | 1,177,200 | |||||
| „ „ Dry fish | 127,000 | |||||
| „ „ Shell Fish | 156,600 | |||||
| 1,460,800 | ||||||
| „ „ Green Fruit | 332,400 | |||||
| „ „ Dry Fruit | 1,000 | |||||
| „ „ Vegetables | 292,200 | |||||
| 625,600 | ||||||
| „ „ Game, Poultry, Rabbits, &c. | 80,000 | |||||
| „ „ Flowers, Roots &c. | 14,800 | |||||
| 2,181,200 | ||||||
| Street-Sellers of Green Stuff | ||||||
| Watercresses[3] | 1,000 | 87 | 13,900 | 13 | 3s. 6d. | |
| Chickweed, Groundsell, and Plantain[4] | 1,000 | 42 | 14,000 | 14 | 5s. | |
| Turf-Cutters and Sellers | 40 | 20 | 570 | 14 | 5s. 6d. | |
| Street-Sellers of Eatables and Drinkables | 4,000 | 9,000 | 203,100 | 50 | 10s. | |
| Street-Sellers of Stationery, Literature, and the Fine Arts | 1,000 | 400 | 33,400 | 30 | 8s. | |
| Street-Sellers of Manufactured Articles of Metal, Crockery and Glass, Textile, Chemical, or Miscellaneous Substances | 4,000 | 2,800 | 188,200 | 47 | 10s. | |
| 41,040 | £37,529 | £2,634,370 | £60 | 8s. | ||
Now, according to the above estimate, it would appear that the gross annual receipts of the entire body of street-sellers (for there are many besides those above specified—as for instance, the vendors of second-hand articles, &c.) may be estimated in round numbers at 3,000,000l. sterling, and their clear income at about 1,000,000l. per annum. Hence, we are enabled to perceive the importance of the apparently insignificant traffic of the streets; for were the street-traders to be prohibited from pursuing their calling, and so forced to apply for relief at the several metropolitan unions, the poor-rates would be at the least doubled. The total sum expended in the relief of the London poor, during 1848, was 725,000l., but this we see is hardly three-fourths of the income of the street-traders. Those, therefore, who would put an end to the commerce of our streets, should reflect whether they would like to do so at the cost of doubling the present poor-rates and of reducing one-fortieth part of the entire metropolitan population from a state of comparative independence to absolute pauperism.
However unsatisfactory it may be to the aristocratic pride of the wealthy commercial classes, it cannot be denied that a very important element of the trade of this vast capital—this marvellous centre of the commerce of the world—I cite the stereotype phrases of civic eloquence, for they are at least truths—it is still undeniable, I say, that a large proportion of the commerce of the capital of Great Britain is in the hands of the Street-Folk. This simple enunciation might appear a mere platitude were it not that the street-sellers are a proscribed class. They are driven from stations to which long possession might have been thought to give them a quasi legal right; driven from them at the capricious desire of the shopkeepers, some of whom have had bitter reason, by the diminution of their own business, to repent their interference. They are bandied about at the will of a police-officer. They must “move on” and not obstruct a thoroughfare which may be crammed and blocked with the carriages of the wealthy until to cross the road on foot is a danger. They are, in fine, a body numbering thousands, who are allowed to live in the prosecution of the most ancient of all trades, sale or barter in the open air, by sufferance alone. They are classed as unauthorized or illegal and intrusive traders, though they “turn over” millions in a year.
The authorities, it is true, do not sanction any general arbitrary enforcement of the legal proscription of the Street-Folk, but they have no option if a section of shopkeepers choose to say to them, “Drive away from our doors these street-people.” It appears to be sufficient for an inferior class of tradesmen—for such the meddlers with the street-folk generally seem to be—merely to desire such a removal in order to accomplish it. It is not necessary for them to say in excuse, “We pay heavy rents, and rates, and taxes, and are forced to let our lodgings accordingly; we pay for licences, and some of us as well pay fines for giving short weight to poor people, and that, too, when it is hardly safe to give short weight to our richer patrons; but what rates, taxes, or licences do these street-traders pay? Their lodgings may be dear enough, but their rates are nominally nothing” (being charged in the rent of their rooms). “From taxes they are blessedly exempt. They are called upon to pay no imposts on their property or income; they defray merely the trifling duties on their tobacco, beer, tea, sugar, coffee” (though these by the way—the chief articles in the excise and customs returns—make up one-half of the revenue of the country). “They ought to be put down. We can supply all that is wanting. What may become of them is simply their own concern.”
The Act 50 Geo. III., c. 41, requires that every person “carrying to sell or exposing to sale any goods, wares, or merchandize,” shall pay a yearly duty. But according to s. 23, “nothing in this Act shall extend to prohibit any person or persons from selling (by hawking in the streets) any printed papers licensed by authority; or any fish, fruit, or victuals.” Among the privileged articles are also included barm or yeast, and coals. The same Act, moreover, contains nothing to prohibit the maker of any home-manufacture from exposing his goods to sale in any town-market or fair, nor any tinker, cooper, glazier, or other artizan, from going about and carrying the materials of his business. The unlicensed itinerant vendors of such things however as lucifer-matches, boot-laces, braces, fuzees, or any wares indeed, not of their own manufacture, are violators of the law, and subject to a penalty of 10l., or three months’ imprisonment for each offence. It is in practice, however, only in the hawking of such articles as those on which the duty is heavy and of considerable value to the revenue (such as tea, tobacco, or cigars), that there is any actual check in the London streets.