Women’s caps used to be sold second-hand, I was told, both in the streets and the shops, but long ago, and before muslin and needlework were so cheap.
I heard of one article which formerly supplied considerable “stuff” (the word used) for second-hand purposes, and was a part, but never a considerable part, of the trade at Rag-fair. These were the “pillions,” or large, firm, solid cushions which were attached to a saddle, so that a horse “carried double.” Fifty years ago the farmer and his wife, of the more prosperous order, went regularly to church and market on one horse, a pillion sustaining the good dame. To the best sort of these pillions was appended what was called the “pillion cloth,” often of a fine, but thin quality, which being really a sort of housing to the horse, cut straight and with few if any seams, was an excellent material for what I am informed was formerly called “making and mending.” The colour was almost exclusively drab or blue. The pillion on which the squire’s lady rode—and Sheridan makes his Lady Teazle deny “the pillion and the coach-horse,” the butler being her cavalier—was a perfect piece of upholstery, set off with lace and fringes, which again were excellent for second-hand sale. Such a means of conveyance may still linger in some secluded country parts, but it is generally speaking obsolete.
Boots and Shoes are not to be had, I am told, in sufficient quantity for the demand from the slop-shops, the “translators,” and the second-hand dealers. Great quantities of second-hand boots and shoes are sent to Ireland to be “translated” there. Of all the wares in this traffic, the clothing for the feet is what is most easily prepared to cheat the eye of the inexperienced, the imposition having the aids of heel-ball, &c., to fill up crevices, and of blacking to hide defects. Even when the boots or shoes are so worn out that no one will put a pair on his feet, though purchaseable for about 1d., the insoles are ripped out; the soles, if there be a sufficiency of leather, are shaped into insoles for children’s shoes, and these insoles are sold in bundles of two dozen pairs at 2d. the bundle. So long as the boot or shoe be not in many holes, it can be cobblered up in Monmouth-street or elsewhere. Of the “translating” business transacted in those localities I had the following interesting account from a man who was lately engaged in it.
“Translation, as I understand it (said my informant), is this—to take a worn, old pair of shoes or boots, and by repairing them make them appear as if left off with hardly any wear—as if they were only soiled. I’ll tell you the way they manage in Monmouth-street. There are in the trade ‘horses’ heads’—a ‘horse’s head’ is the foot of a boot with sole and heel, and part of a front—the back and the remainder of the front having been used for refooting boots. There are also ‘stand-bottoms’ and ‘lick-ups.’ A ‘stand-bottom’ is where the shoe appears to be only soiled, and a ‘lick-up’ is a boot or shoe re-lasted to take the wrinkles out, the edges of the soles having been rasped and squared, and then blacked up to hide blemishes, and the bottom covered with a ‘smother,’ which I will describe. There is another article called a ‘flyer,’ that is, a shoe soled without having been welted. In Monmouth-street a ‘horse’s head’ is generally retailed at 2s. 6d., but some fetch 4s. 6d.—that’s the extreme price. They cost the translator from 1s. a dozen pair to 8s., but those at 8s. are good, and are used for the making up of Wellington boots. Some ‘horses’ heads’—such as are cut off that the boots may be re-footed on account of old fashion, or a misfit, when hardly worn—fetch 2s. 6d. a pair, and they are made up as new-footed boots, and sell from 10s. to 15s. The average price of feet (that is, for the ‘horse’s head,’ as we call it) is 4d., and a pair of backs say 2d.; the back is attached loosely by chair stitching, as it is called, to the heel, instead of being stitched to the in-sole, as in a new boot. The wages for all this is 1s. 4d. in Monmouth-street (in Union-street, Borough, 1s. 6d.); but I was told by a master that he had got the work done in Gray’s-inn-lane at 9d. Put it, however, at 1s. 4d. wages—then, with 4d. and 2d. for the feet and back, we have 1s. 10d. outlay (the workman finds his own grindery), and 8d. profit on each pair sold at a rate of 2s. 6d. Some masters will sell from 70 to 80 pairs per week: that’s under the mark; and that’s in ‘horses’ heads’ alone. One man employs, or did lately employ, seven men on ‘horses’ heads’ solely. The profit generally, in fair shops, in ‘stand-bottoms,’ is from 1s. 6d. to 2s. per pair, as they sell generally at 3s. 6d. One man takes, or did take, 100l. in a day (it was calculated as an average) over the counter, and all for the sort of shoes I have described. The profit of a ‘lick-up’ is the same as that of a ‘stand-bottom.’ To show the villanous way the ‘stand-bottoms’ are got up, I will tell you this. You have seen a broken upper-leather; well, we place a piece of leather, waxed, underneath the broken part, on which we set a few stitches through and through. When dry and finished, we take what is called a ‘soft-heel-ball’ and ‘smother’ it over, so that it sometimes would deceive a currier, as it appears like the upper leather. With regard to the bottoms, the worn part of the sole is opened from the edge, a piece of leather is made to fit exactly into the hole or worn part, and it is then nailed and filed until level. Paste is then applied, and ‘smother’ put over the part, and that imitates the dust of the road. This ‘smother’ is obtained from the dust of the room. It is placed in a silk stocking, tied at both ends, and then shook through, just like a powder-puff, only we shake at both ends. It is powdered out into our leather apron, and mixed with a certain preparation which I will describe to you (he did so), but I would rather not have it published, as it would lead others to practise similar deceptions. I believe there are about 2000 translators, so you may judge of the extent of the trade; and translators are more constantly employed than any other branch of the business. Many make a great deal of money. A journeyman translator can earn from 3s. to 4s. a day. You can give the average at 20s. a week, as the wages are good. It must be good, for we have 2s. for soling, heeling, and welting a pair of boots; and some men don’t get more for making them. Monmouth-street is nothing like what it was; as to curious old garments, that’s all gone. There’s not one English master in the translating business in Monmouth-street—they are all Irish; and there is now hardly an English workman there—perhaps not one. I believe that all the tradesmen in Monmouth-street make their workmen lodge with them. I was lodging with one before I married a little while ago, and I know the system to be the same now as it was then, unless, indeed, it be altered for the worse. To show how disgusting these lodgings must be, I will state this:—I knew a Roman Catholic, who was attentive to his religious duties, but when pronounced on the point of death, and believing firmly that he was dying, he would not have his priest administer extreme unction, for the room was in such a filthy and revolting state he would not allow him to see it. Five men worked and slept in that room, and they were working and sleeping there in the man’s illness—all the time that his life was despaired of. He was ill nine weeks. Unless the working shoemaker lodged there he would not be employed. Each man pays 2s. a week. I was there once, but I couldn’t sleep in such a den; and five nights out of the seven I slept at my mother’s, but my lodging had to be paid all the same. These men (myself excepted) were all Irish, and all teetotallers, as was the master. How often was the room cleaned out, do you say? Never, sir, never. The refuse of the men’s labour was generally burnt, smudged away in the grate, smelling terribly. It would stifle you, though it didn’t me, because I got used to it. I lodged in Union-street once. My employer had a room known as the ‘barracks;’ every lodger paid him 2s. 6d. a week. Five men worked and slept there, and three were sitters—that is, men who paid 1s. a week to sit there and work, lodging elsewhere. A little before that there were six sitters. The furniture was one table, one chair, and two beds. There was no place for purposes of decency: it fell to bits from decay, and was never repaired. This barrack man always stopped the 2s. 6d. for lodging, if he gave you only that amount of work in the week. The beds were decent enough; but as to Monmouth-street! you don’t see a clean sheet there for nine weeks; and, recollect, such snobs are dirty fellows. There was no chair in the Monmouth-street room that I have spoken of, the men having only their seats used at work; but when the beds were let down for the night, the seats had to be placed in the fire-place because there was no space for them in the room. In many houses in Monmouth-street there is a system of sub-letting among the journeymen. In one room lodged a man and his wife (a laundress worked there), four children, and two single young men. The wife was actually delivered in this room whilst the men kept at their work—they never lost an hour’s work; nor is this an unusual case—it’s not an isolated case at all. I could instance ten or twelve cases of two or three married people living in one room in that street. The rats have scampered over the beds that lay huddled together in the kitchen. The husband of the wife confined as I have described paid 4s. a week, and the two single men paid 2s. a week each, so the master was rent free; and he received from each man 1s. 6d. a week for tea (without sugar), and no bread and butter, and 2d. a day for potatoes—that’s the regular charge.”
In connection with the translation of old boots and shoes, I have obtained the following statistics. There are—
| In Drury-lane and streets adjacent, | about | 50 | shops. |
| Seven-dials do. | do. | 100 | do. |
| Monmouth-street do. | do. | 40 | do. |
| Hanway-court, Oxford-street | do. | 4 | do. |
| Lisson-grove do. | do. | 100 | do. |
| Paddington do. | do. | 30 | do. |
| Petticoat-lane (shops, stands, &c.) | do. | 200 | do. |
| Somers’-town do. | do. | 50 | do. |
| Field-lane, Saffron-hill | do. | 40 | do. |
| Clerkenwell | do. | 30 | do. |
| Bethnal-green, Spitalfields | do. | 100 | do. |
| Rosemary-lane, &c. | do. | 30 | do. |
| 774 | shops, | ||
employing upwards of 2000 men in making-up and repairing old boots and shoes; besides hundreds of poor men and women who strive for a crust by buying and selling the old material, previously to translating it, and by mending up what will mend. They or their children stand in the street and try to sell them.
Monmouth-street, now the great old shoe district, has been “sketched” by Mr. Dickens, not as regards its connection with the subject of street-sale or of any particular trade, but as to its general character and appearance. I first cite Mr. Dickens’ description of the Seven Dials, of which Monmouth-street is a seventh:—
“The stranger who finds himself in ‘The Dials’ for the first time, and stands, Belzoni-like, at the entrance of seven obscure passages, uncertain which to take, will see enough around him to keep his curiosity and attention awake for no inconsiderable time. From the irregular square into which he has plunged, the streets and courts dart in all directions, until they are lost in the unwholesome vapour which hangs over the house-tops, and renders the dirty perspective uncertain and confined; and, lounging at every corner, as if they came there to take a few gasps of such fresh air as has found its way so far, but is too much exhausted already, to be enabled to force itself into the narrow alleys around, are groups of people, whose appearance and dwellings would fill any mind but a regular Londoner’s with astonishment.
“In addition to the numerous groups who are idling about the gin-shops and squabbling in the centre of the road, every post in the open space has its occupant, who leans against it for hours, with listless perseverance. It is odd enough that one class of men in London appear to have no enjoyment beyond leaning against posts. We never saw a regular bricklayer’s labourer take any other recreation, fighting excepted. Pass through St. Giles’s in the evening of a week-day, there they are in their fustian dresses, spotted with brick-dust and whitewash, leaning against posts. Walk through Seven Dials on Sunday morning: there they are again, drab or light corduroy trowsers, Blucher boots, blue coats, and great yellow waistcoats, leaning against posts. The idea of a man dressing himself in his best clothes, to lean against a post all day!