| “Wet” fish | £1,177,200 | £ |
| Dry fish | 127,000 | |
| Shell fish | 156,600 | |
| Fish of all kinds | £1,460,800 | |
| Vegetables | £292,400 | |
| Green fruit | 332,200 | |
| Dry fruit | 1,000 | |
| Fruit and Vegetables | 625,600 | |
| Game, poultry, rabbits, &c. | 80,000 | |
| Flowers, roots, &c. | 14,800 | |
| Water-cresses | 13,900 | |
| Chickweed, gru’nsel, and turf for birds | 14,570 | |
| Eatables and drinkables | 203,100 | |
| Stationery, literature, and fine arts | 33,400 | |
| Manufactured articles | 188,200 | |
| Second-hand articles | 29,900 | |
| Live animals (including dogs, birds, and gold fish) | 29,300 | |
| Mineral productions (as coals, coke, salt, sand, &c.) | 1,022,700 | |
| Total Sum expended upon the various Articles vended by the Street-Sellers | £3,716,270 | |
Hence it appears that the street-sellers, of all ages, in the metropolis are about forty thousand in number—their stock-in-trade is worth about sixty thousand pounds—and their gross annual takings or receipts amount to no less than three millions and a half sterling.
OF THE STREET-BUYERS.
The persons who traverse the streets, or call periodically at certain places to purchase articles which are usually sold at the door or within the house, are—according to the division I laid down in the first number of this work—Street-Buyers. The largest, and, in every respect, the most remarkable body of these traders, are the buyers of old clothes, and of them I shall speak separately, devoting at the same time some space to the Street-Jews. It will also be necessary to give a brief account of the Jews generally, for they are still a peculiar race, and street and shop-trading among them are in many respects closely blended.
The principal things bought by the itinerant purchasers consist of waste-paper, hare and rabbit skins, old umbrellas and parasols, bottles and glass, broken metal, rags, dripping, grease, bones, tea-leaves, and old clothes.
With the exception of the buyers of waste-paper, among whom are many active, energetic, and intelligent men, the street-buyers are of the lower sort, both as to means and intelligence. The only further exception, perhaps, which I need notice here is, that among some umbrella-buyers, there is considerable smartness, and sometimes, in the repair or renewal of the ribs, &c., a slight degree of skill. The other street-purchasers—such as the hare-skin and old metal and rag buyers, are often old and infirm people of both sexes, of whom—perhaps by reason of their infirmities—not a few have been in the trade from their childhood, and are as well known by sight in their respective rounds, as was the “long-remembered beggar” in former times.
It is usually the lot of a poor person who has been driven to the streets, or has adopted such a life when an adult, to sell trifling things—such as are light to carry and require a small outlay—in advanced age. Old men and women totter about offering lucifer-matches, boot and stay-laces, penny memorandum books, and such like. But the elder portion of the street-folk I have now to speak of do not sell, but buy. The street-seller commends his wares, their cheapness, and excellence. The same sort of man, when a buyer, depreciates everything offered to him, in order to ensure a cheaper bargain, while many of the things thus obtained find their way into street-sale, and are then as much commended for cheapness and goodness, as if they were the stock-in-trade of an acute slop advertisement-monger, and this is done sometimes by the very man who, when a buyer, condemned them as utterly valueless. But this is common to all trades.
Of the Street-Buyers of Rags, Broken Metal, Bottles, Glass, and Bones.
I class all these articles under one head, for, on inquiry, I find no individual supporting himself by the trading in any one of them. I shall, therefore, describe the buyers of rags, broken metal, bottles, glass, and bones, as a body of street-traders, but take the articles in which they traffic seriatim, pointing out in what degree they are, or have been, wholly or partially, the staple of several distinct callings.