London Labour and the London Poor: Selection (Classics) Read online

  ‘I proceeded to Leeds, the fair was on at this time. I got engaged to assist a person, from whom I had been accustomed occasionally to purchase goods. He was a “Cheap-John”. In the course of the day he suggested that I should have a try at the hand-selling. I mounted the platform, and succeeded beyond my own expectations or that of my master. He offered me a regular engagement, which I accepted. At times I would help him sell, and at other times I hawked with his licence. I had regular wages, besides all I could get above a certain price that he placed upon each of the goods. I remained with this person some fifteen months, at the end of which period I commenced for myself, having saved nearly 25l. I began at once the hand-selling, and purchased a hawker’s licence, which enabled me to sell without danger. Then I always called at the constable’s house, and gave a louder knock at his door than any other person’s, proud of my authority, and assured of my safety. At first I borrowed an empty cart, in which I stood and sold my wares. I could chaff as well as the best, and was as good a salesman as most of them. After that I purchased a second-hand cart from a person who had lately started a waggon. I progressed and improved in circumstances, and at last bought a very handsome waggon for myself. I have now a nice caravan, and good stock of goods, worth at least 500l. Money I have but little. I always invest it in goods. I am married, and have got a family. I always travel in the summer, but remain at home during the winter. My wife never travels. She remains behind, and manages a little swag-shop, which always turns in at least the family expenses.’

  Of the Street-sellers of ‘Small-ware’, or Tape, Cotton, &c.

  [pp. 427–8] The street-sellers of tape and cotton are usually elderly females; and during my former inquiry I was directed to one who had been getting her living in the street by such means for nine years. I was given to understand that the poor woman was in deep distress, and that she had long been supporting a sick husband by her little trade, but I was wholly unprepared for a scene of such startling misery, sublimed by untiring affection and pious resignation, as I there discovered.

  I wish the reader to understand that I do not cite this case as a type of the sufferings of this particular class, but rather as an illustration of the afflictions which frequently befall those who are solely dependent on their labour, or their little trade, for their subsistence, and who, from the smallness of their earnings, are unable to lay by even the least trifle as a fund against any physical calamity.

  The poor creatures lived in one of the close alleys at the east end of London. On inquiring at the house to which I had been directed, I was told I should find them in ‘the two-pair back’. I mounted the stairs, and on opening the door of the apartment I was terrified with the misery before me. There, on a wretched bed, lay an aged man in almost the last extremity of life. At first I thought the poor old creature was really dead, but a tremble of the eyelids as I closed the door, as noiselessly as I could, told me that he breathed. His face was as yellow as clay, and it had more the cold damp look of a corpse than that of a living man. His cheeks were hollowed in with evident want, his temples sunk, and his nostrils pinched close. On the edge of the bed sat his heroic wife, giving him drink with a spoon from a tea-cup. In one corner of the room stood the basket of tapes, cottons, combs, braces, nutmeg-graters, and shaving-glasses, with which she strove to keep her old dying husband from the workhouse. I asked her how long her good man had been ill, and she told me he had been confined to his bed five weeks last Wednesday, and that it was ten weeks since he had eaten the size of a nut in solid food. Nothing but a little beef-tea had passed his lips for months. ‘We have lived like children together,’ said the old woman, as her eyes flooded with tears, ‘and never had no dispute. He hated drink, and there was no cause for us to quarrel. One of my legs, you see, is shorter than the other,’ said she, rising from the bed-side, and showing me that her right foot was several inches from the ground as she stood. ‘My hip is out. I used to go out washing, and walking in my pattens I fell down. My hip is out of the socket three-quarters of an inch, and the sinews is drawn up. I am obliged to walk with a stick.’ Here the man groaned and coughed so that I feared the exertion must end his life. ‘Ah, the heart of a stone would pity that poor fellow,’ said the good wife.

  ‘After I put my hip out, I couldn’t get my living as I’d been used to do. I couldn’t stand a day if I had five hundred pounds for it. I must sit down. So I got a little stall, and sat at the end of the alley here with a few laces and tapes and things. I’ve done so for this nine year past, and seen many a landlord come in and go out of the house that I sat at. My husband used to sell small articles in the streets – black lead and furniture paste, and blacking. We got a sort of a living by this, the two of us together. It’s very seldom though we had a bit of meat. We had 1s. 9d. rent to pay – Come, my poor fellow, will you have another little drop to wet your mouth?’ said the woman, breaking off. ‘Come, my dearest, let me give you this,’ she added, as the man let his jaw fall, and she poured some warm sugar and water flavoured with cinnamon – all she had to give him – into his mouth. ‘He’s been an ailing man this many a year. He used to go of errands and buy my little things for me, on account of my being lame. We assisted one another, you see. He wasn’t able to work for his living, and I wasn’t able to go about, so he used to go about and buy for me what I sold. I am sure he never earned above 1s. 6d. in the week. He used to attend me, and many a time I’ve sat for ten and fourteen hours in the cold and wet and didn’t take a sixpence. Some days I’d make a shilling, and some days less; but whatever I got I used to have to put a good part into the basket to keep my little stock.’ [A knock here came to the door; it was for a halfpennyworth of darning cotton.] ‘You know a shilling goes further with a poor couple that’s sober than two shillings does with a drunkard. We lived poor, you see, never had nothing but tea, or we couldn’t have done anyhow. If I’d take 18d. in the day I’d think I was grandly off, and then if there was 6d. profit got out of that it would be almost as much as it would. You see these cotton braces here’ (said the old woman, going to her tray). ‘Well, I gives 2s. 9d. a dozen for them here, and I sells ’em for 4½d., and sometimes 4d. a pair. Now, this piece of tape would cost me seven farthings in the shop, and I sells it at six yards a penny. It has the name of being eighteen yards. The profit out of it is five farthings. It’s beyond the power of man to wonder how there’s a bit of bread got out of such a small way. And the times is so bad, too! I think I could say I get 8d. a day profit if I have any sort of custom, but I don’t exceed that at the best of times. I’ve often sat at the end of the alley and taken only 6d., and that’s not much more than 2d. clear – it an’t 3d. I’m sure. I think I could safely state that for the last nine year me and my husband has earned together 5s. a week, and out of that the two of us had to live and pay rent – 1s. 9d. a week. Clothes I could buy none, for the best garment is on me; but I thank the Lord still. I’ve paid my rent all but three weeks, and that isn’t due till to-morrow. We have often reckoned it up here at the fire. Some weeks we have got 5s. 3d., and some weeks less, so that I judge we have had about 3s. to 3s. 6d. a week to live upon the two of us, for this nine year past. Half-a-hundred of coals would fit me the week in the depths of winter. My husband had the kettle always boiling for me against I came in. He used to sit here reading his book – he never was fit for work at the best – while I used to be out minding the basket. He was so sober and quiet too. His neighbours will tell that of him. Within the last ten weeks he’s been very ill indeed, but still I could be out with the basket. Since then he’s never earnt me a penny – poor old soul, he wasn’t able! All that time I still attended to my basket. He wasn’t so ill then but what he could do a little here in the room for hisself; but he wanted little, God knows, for he couldn’t eat. After he fell ill, I had to go all my errands myself. I had no one to help me, for I’d nothing to pay them, and I’d have to walk from here down to Sun-street with my stick, till my bad leg pained me so that I could hardly stand. You see the hip being pu
t out has drawn all the sinews up into my groin, and it leaves me incapable of walking or standing constantly; but I thank God that I’ve got the use of it anyhow. Our lot’s hard enough, goodness knows, but we are content. We never complain, but bless the Lord for the little he pleases to give us. When I was away on my errands, in course I couldn’t be minding the basket; so I lost a good bit of money that way. Well, five weeks on Wednesday he has been totally confined to his bed, excepting when I lifted him up to make it some nights; but he can’t bear that now. Still the first fortnight he was bad, I did manage to leave him, and earn a few pence; but, latterly, for this last three weeks, I haven’t been able to go out at all, to do anything.’

  ‘She’s been stopping by me, minding me here night and day all that time,’ mumbled the old man, who now for the first time opened his gray glassy eyes and turned towards me, to bear, as it were, a last tribute to his wife’s incessant affection. ‘She has been most kind to me. Her tenderness and care has been such that man never knew from woman before, ever since I lay upon this sick bed. We’ve been married five-and-twenty years. We have always lived happily – very happily, indeed – together. Until sickness and weakness overcome me I always strove to help myself a bit, as well as I could; but since then she has done all in her power for me – worked for me – ay, she has worked for me, surely – and watched over me. My creed through life has been repentance towards God, faith in Jesus Christ, and love to all my brethren. I’ve made up my mind that I must soon change this tabernacle, and my last wish is that the good people of this world will increase her little stock for her. She cannot get her living out of the little stock she has, and since I lay here it’s so lessened, that neither she nor no one else can live upon it. If the kind hearts would give her but a little stock more, it would keep her old age from want, as she has kept mine. Indeed, indeed, she does deserve it. But the Lord, I know, will reward her for all she has done to me.’ Here the old man’s eyelids dropped exhausted.

  ‘I’ve had a shilling and a loaf twice from the parish,’ continued the woman. ‘The overseer came to see if my old man was fit to be removed to the workhouse. The doctor gave me a certificate that he was not, and then the relieving officer gave me a shilling and a loaf of bread, and out of that shilling I bought the poor old fellow a sup of port wine. I bought a quartern of wine, which was 4d., and I gave 5d. for a bit of tea and sugar, and I gave 2d. for coals; a halfpenny rushlight I bought, and a short candle, that made a penny – and that’s the way I laid out the shilling. If God takes him, I know he’ll sleep in heaven. I know the life he’s spent, and am not afraid; but no one else shall take him from me – nothing shall part us but death in this world. Poor old soul, he can’t be long with me. He’s a perfect skeleton. His bones are starting through his skin.’

  I asked what could be done for her, and the old man thrust forth his skinny arm, and laying hold of the bed-post, he raised himself slightly in his bed, as he murmured, ‘If she could be got into a little parlour, and away from sitting in the streets, it would be the saving of her.’ And, so saying, he fell back overcome with the exertion, and breathed heavily.

  The woman sat down beside me, and went on. ‘What shocked him most was that I was obligated in his old age to go and ask for relief at the parish. You see, he was always a spiritful man, and it hurted him sorely that he should come to this at last, and for the first time in his lifetime. The only parish money that ever we had was this, and it does hurt him every day to think that he must be buried by the parish after all. He was always proud, you see.’

  I told the kind-hearted old dame that some benevolent people had placed certain funds at my disposal for the relief of such distress as hers and I assured her that neither she nor her husband should want for anything that might ease their sufferings.

  The day after the above was written, the poor old man died. He was buried out of the funds sent to the ‘Morning Chronicle’, and his wife received some few pounds to increase her stock; but in a few months the poor old woman went mad, and is now, I believe, the inmate of one of the pauper lunatic asylums.

  Of the Packmen, or Hawkers of Soft Wares

  [pp. 419–21] The packman, as he is termed, derives his name from carrying his merchandise or pack upon his back. These itinerant distributors are far less numerous than they were twenty or twenty-five years since. A few years since, they were mostly Irishmen, and their principal merchandise, Irish linens – a fabric not so generally worn now as it was formerly.

  The packmen are sometimes called Manchestermen. These are the men whom I have described as the sellers of shirtings, sheetings, &c. One man, who was lately an assistant in the trade, could reckon twenty men who were possessed of good stocks, good connections, and who had saved money. They traded in an honourable manner, were well known, and much respected. The majority of them were natives of the north of Ireland, and two had been linen manufacturers. It is common, indeed, for all the Irishmen in this trade to represent themselves as having been connected with the linen manufacture in Belfast.

  This trade is now becoming almost entirely a country trade. There are at present, I am told, only five pursuing it in London, none of them having a very extensive connection, so that only a brief notice is necessary. Their sale is of both cottons and linens for shirts. They carry them in rolls of 36 yards, or in smaller rolls, each of a dozen yards, and purchase them at the haberdashery swag-shops, at from 9d. to 18d. a yard. I now speak of good articles. Their profts are not very large – as for the dozen yards, which cost them 9s., they often have a difficulty in getting 12s. – while in street-sale, or in hawking from house to house, there is great delay. A well-furnished pack weighs about one cwt., and so necessitates frequent stoppages. Cotton, for sheetings, is sold in the same manner, costing the vendors from 6d. to 1s. 3d. a yard.

  Of the tricks of the trade, and of the tally system of one of these chapmen, I had the following account from a man who had been, both as principal and assistant, a travelling packman, but was best acquainted with the trade in and about London.

  ‘My master,’ he said, ‘was an Irishman, and told everybody he had been a manager of a linen factory in Belfast. I believe he was brought up to be a shoemaker, and was never in the north of Ireland. Anyhow, he was very shy of talking about Irish factories to Irish gentlemen. I heard one say of him, “Don’t tell me, you have the Cork brogue.” I know he’d got some knowledge of linen weaving at Dundee, and could talk about it very clever; indeed he was a clever fellow. Sometimes, to hear him talk, you’d think he was quite a religious man, and at others that he was a big blackguard. It wasn’t drink that made the difference, for he was no drinker. It’s a great thing on a round to get a man or woman into a cheerful talk, and put in a joke or two; and that he could do, to rights. I had 12s. a week, standing wages, from him, and bits of commissions on sales that brought me from 3s. to 5s. more. He was a buyer of damaged goods, and we used to “doctor” them. In some there was perhaps damages by two or three threads being out all the way, so the manufacturers wouldn’t send them to their regular customers. My master pretended it was a secret where he got them, but, lord, I knew; it was at a swag-shop. We used to cut up these in twelves (twelve yards), sometimes less if they was very bad, and take a Congreve, and just scorch them here and there, where the flaws was worst, and plaster over other flaws with a little flour and dust, to look like a stain from street water from the fire-engine. Then they were from the stock of Mr Anybody, the great draper, that had his premises burnt down – in Manchester or Glasgow, or London – if there’d been a good fire at a draper’s – or anywhere; we wasn’t particular. They was fine or strong shirtings, he’d say – and so they was, the sound parts of them – and he’d sell as cheap as common calico. I’ve heard him say, “Why, marm, sure marm, with your eyes and scissors and needle, them burns – ah! fire’s a dreadful judgment on a man – isn’t the least morsel of matter in life. The stains is cured in a wash-tub in no time. It’s only touched by the fire, and you can humour it, I k
now, in cutting out as a shirt ought to be cut; it should be as carefully done as a coat.” Then we had an Irish linen, an imitation, you know, a kind of “Union”, which we call double twist. It is made, I believe, in Manchester, and is a mixture of linen and cotton. Some of it’s so good that it takes a judge to tell the difference between it and real Irish. He got some beautiful stuff at one time, and once sold to a fine-dressed young woman in Brompton, a dozen yards, at 2s. 6d. a yard, and the dozen only cost him 14s. Then we did something on tally, but he was dropping that trade. The shopkeepers undersold him. “If you get 60l. out of 100l., in tally scores,” he often said, “it’s good money, and a fair living profit; but he got far more than that. What was worth 8s. was 18s. on tally, pay 1s. a week. He did most that way with the masters of coffee-shops and the landlords of little public-houses. Sometimes, if they couldn’t pay, we’d have dinner, and that went to account, and he’d quarrel with me after it for what was my share. There’s not much of this sort of trade now, sir. I believe my old master got his money together and emigrated.’