6 LONDON LABOUR AND THE LONDON POOR. immediate consumption, as in the case of the street eatables and drinkables; or else they were the proceeds of taste (or its substitute) in art or literature, or of usefulness or ingenuity in manufacture. All these many objects of street-commerce may be classified in one well-known word: they are bought and sold first-hand. I have next to deal with the second-hand sellers of our streets; and in this division perhaps will be found more that is novel, curious, and interesting, than in that just completed. constitute the staple of the business, dismissing such as may be trifling or exceptional. Of these traffickers, then, there are five classes, the mere enumeration of the objects of their traffic being curious enough : 1. The Street-Sellers of Old Metal Articles, such as knives, forks, and butchers' steels; saws, hammers, pincers, files, screw-drivers, planes, chisels, and other tools (more frequently those of the workers in wood than of other artisans); old scissors and shears; locks, keys, and hinges; shovels, fire-irons, trivets, chimney-cranes, fen Mr. Babbage, in his "Economy of Machinery and Manufactures," says, concerning the employ-ders, and fire-guards; warming-pans (but rarely ment of materials of little value: "The worn-out saucepan and tin-ware of our kitchens, when beyond the reach of the tinker's art, are not utterly worthless. We sometimes meet carts loaded with old tin kettles and worn-out iron coal-skuttles traversing our streets. These have not yet completed their useful course; the less corroded parts are cut into strips, punched with small holes, and varnished with a coarse black varnish for the use of the trunk-maker, who protects the edges and angles of his boxes with them; the remainder are conveyed to the manufacturing chemists in the outskirts, who employ them in combination with pyroligneous acid, in making a black dye for the use of calico-printers." Mr. Babbage has here indicated one portion of the nature of the street-trade in secondhand articles-the application of worn-out materials to a new purpose. But this second-hand commerce of the streets-for a street-commerce it mainly is, both in selling and buying-has a far greater extent than that above indicated, and many ramifications. Under the present head I shall treat only of street sellers, unless when a street purchase may be so intimately connected with a street sale that for the better understanding of the subject it may be necessary to sketch both. Of the STREET BUYERS and the STREET-FINDERS, or COLLECTORS, both connected with the secondhand trade, I shall treat separately. In London, where many, in order to live, struggle to extract a meal from the possession of an article which seems utterly worthless, nothing must be wasted. Many a thing which in a country town is kicked by the penniless out of their path even, or examined and left as meet only for the scavenger's cart, will in London be snatched up as a prize; it is money's worth. A crushed and torn bonnet, for instance, or, better still. an old hat, napless, shapeless, crownless, and brimless, will be picked up in the street, and carefully placed in a bag with similar things by one class of street-folk-the STREET-FINDERS. And to tempt the well-to-do to sell their second-hand goods, the street-trader offers the barter of shapely china or shining glass vessels; or blooming fuchsias or fragrant geraniums for "the rubbish,' or else, in the spirit of the hero of the fairy tale, he exchanges, new lamps for old." Of the street sale of second-hand articles, with all the collateral or incidental matter bearing im mediately on the subject, I shall treat under the following heads, or under such heads as really now); flat and Italian irons, curling-tongs; rings, horse-shoes, and nails; coffee and tea-pots, urns, trays, and canisters; pewter measures; scales and weights; bed-screws and keys; candlesticks and snuffers; niggards, generally called niggers (i. e., false bottoms for grates); tobacco and snuff-boxes and spittoons; door-plates, numbers, knockers, and escutcheons; dog-collars and dog-chains (and other chains); gridirons; razors; coffee-mills; lamps; swords and daggers; gun and pistolbarrels and locks (and occasionally the entire weapon); bronze and cast metal figures; table, chair, and sofa castors; bell-pulls and bells; the larger buckles and other metal (most frequently brass) articles of harness furniture; compositors' sticks (the depositories of the type in the first instance); the multifarious kinds of tin-wares ; stamps; cork-screws; barrel taps; ink-stands; a multiplicity of culinary vessels and of old metal lids; footmen, broken machinery, and parts of machinery, as odd wheels, and screws of all sizes, &c., &c. 2. The Street-Sellers of Old Linen, Cotton, and Woollen Articles, such as old sheeting for towels; old curtains of dimity, muslin, cotton, or moreen; carpeting; blanketing for house-scouring cloths; ticking for beds and pillows; sacking for different purposes, according to its substance and quality; fringes; and stocking-legs for the supply of "jobbing worsted," and for re-footing. I may here observe that in the street-trade, second-hand linen or cotton is often made to pay a double debt. The shirt-collars sold, sometimes to a considerable extent and very cheap, in the street-markets, are made out of linen which has previously been used in some other form; so is it with white waistcoats and other habiliments. Of the street-folk who vend such wares I shall speak chiefly in the fourth division of this subject, viz. the second-hand street-sellers of miscellaneous articles. 3. The Street-Sellers of Old Glass and Crockery, including the variety of bottles, odd, or in sets, or in broken sets; pans, pitchers, wash-hand basins, and other crockery utensils; china ornaments; pier, convex, and toilet glasses (often without the frames); pocket ink-bottles; wine, beer, and liqueur glasses; decanters; glass fishbowls (occasionally); salt-cellars; sugar-basins; and lamp and gas glasses. 4. The Street-Sellers of Miscellaneous Articles. These are such as cannot properly be classed under any of the three preceding heads, and include a mass of miscellaneous commodities: Accordions and other musical instruments; brushes of all What in the butcher's trade is considered the offal of a bullock, was explained by Mr. Deputy Hicks, before the last Select Committee of the House of Commons on Smithfield Market: "The carcass," he said, "as it hangs clear of everything else, is the carcass, and all else constitutes the offal." The carcass may be briefly termed the four quarters, whereas the offal then comprises the hide, which in the average-sized bullock that is slaughtered in London is worth 12s.; but with the hide are sold the horns, which are worth about 10d. to the comb-makers, who use them to make their "tortoise-shell" articles, and for similar purposes. The hoofs are worth 2d. to the gluemakers, or prussiate of potash manufacturers. What "comes out of a bullock," to use the trade descriptions; shaving-boxes and razor-strops baskets of many kinds; stuffed birds, with and without frames; pictures, with and without frames; desks, work-boxes, tea-caddies, and many articles of old furniture; boot-jacks and hooks; shoe-horns; cartouche-boxes; pocket and opera glasses; rules, and measures in frames; backgammon, and chess or draught boards and nien, and dice; boxes of dominoes; cribbageboards and boxes, sometimes with old packs of cards; pope-boards (boards used in playing the game of "Pope," or "Pope Joan," though rarely seen now); "fish," or card counters of bone, ivory, or mother of pearl (an equal rarity); microscopes (occasionally); an extensive variety of broken or faded things, new or long kept, such as magic lanterns, dissected maps or histories, &c., from the toy warehouses and shops; Dutch clocks; baro-term, is the liver, the lights (or lungs), the stomach, meters; wooden trays; shells; music and books (the latter being often odd volumes of old novels); tee-totums, and similar playthings; ladies' headcombs; umbrellas and parasols; fishing-rods and nets; reins, and other parts of cart, gig, and "two-horse" harness; boxes full of "odds and ends" of old leather, such as water-pipes; and a mass of imperfect metal things, which had "better be described," said an old dealer, as from a needle to an anchor." 5. The Street-Sellers of Old Apparel, including the body habiliments, constituting alike men's, women's, boys', girls', and infants' attire: as well as hats, caps, gloves, belts, and stockings; shirts and shirt-fronts ("dickeys"); handkerchiefs, stocks, and neck-ties; furs, such as victorines, boas, tippets, and edgings; beavers and bonnets; and the other several, and sometimes not easily describable, articles which constitute female fashionable or ordinary wear. I may here observe, that of the wares which once formed a portion of the stock of the streetsellers of the fourth and fifth divisions, but which are now no longer objects of street sale, were, till within the last few years, fans; back and shoulder boards (to make girls grow straight!); several things at one time thought indispensable to every well-nurtured child, such as a coral and bells; belts, sashes, scabbards, epaulettes, feathers or plumes, hard leather stocks, and other indications of the volunteer, militia, and general military spirit of the early part of the present century. Before proceeding immediately with my subject, I may say a few words concerning what is, in the estimation of some, a second-hand matter. I allude to the many uses to which that which is regarded, and indeed termed, “offal," or "retuse," or "waste," is put in a populous city. This may be evidenced in the multiform uses to which the "effal" of the animals which are slaughtered for our use are put. It is still more curiously shown in the uses of the offal of the animals which are killed, not for our use, but for that of our dogs and cats; and to this part of the subject I shall more especially confine the remarks I have to make. My observations on the uses of other waste articles will be found in another place. the intestinal canal (sometimes 36 yards when extended), and the gall duct. These portions, with the legs (called "feet" in the trade), form what is styled the tripe-man's portion, and are disposed of to him by the butcher for 5s. 6d. Separately, the value of the liver is 8d., of the lights, 6d. (both for dogs'-meat), and of the legs which are worked into tooth-brush handles, dominoes, &c., ls. The remaining 3s. 4d. is the worth of the other portion. The heart averages rather more than 1s.; the kidneys the same; the head, 1s. 9d.; the blood (which is "let down the drain" in all but the larger slaughtering houses) 14d. (being 3d. for 9 gallons); the tallow (7 stone) 14s.; and the tail, I was told, "from nothing to 2s.," averaging about 6d.; the tongue, 2s. 6d. Thus the offal sells, altogether, first hand, for 1. 18s. 6d. I will now show the uses to which what is far more decidedly pronounced "offal," and what is much more "second-hand" in popular estimation, viz., a dead horse, is put, and even a dead horse's offal, and I will then show the difference in this curious trade between the Parisian and London horse offal. The greatest horse-slaughtering establishments in France are at Montfaucon, a short distance from the capital. When the animal has been killed, it is " cut up," and the choicer portions of the flesh are eaten by the work-people of the establishment, and by the hangers-on and jobbers who haunt the locality of such places, and are often men of a desperate character. The rest of the carcass is sold for the feeding of dogs, cats, pigs, and poultry, a portion being also devoted to purposes of manure. The flesh on a horse of average size and fatness is 350 lbs., which sells for 1. 12s. 6d. But this is only one of the uses of the dead animal. The skin is sold to a tanner for 10s. 6d. The hoofs to a manufacturer of sal ammonia, or similar preparations, or of Prussian blue, or to a comb or toy-maker, for 1s. 4d. The old shoes and the shoe-nails are worth 21d. The hair of the mane and tail realizes 14d. The tendons are disposed of, either fresh or dried, to glue-makers for 3d.— a pound of dried tendons (separated from the muscles) being about the average per horse. The 8 LONDON LABOUR ANd the LONDON POOR. bones are bought by the turners, cutlers, fan-furriers gave from three to four francs for 100 makers, and the makers of ivory black and sal skins, so that, taking the average at 3s. of our ammoniac, 90 lbs. being an average weight of the money, 16,000 rat-skins would return 24. animal's bones, and realizing 2s. The intestines wrought into the different preparations required of the gut-makers, or for manure, are worth 2d. In London the uses of the dead horse's flesh, bones, blood, &c., are different. Horse-flesh is not as yet-a portion of human food in this country. In a recent parliamentary inquiry, witnesses were examined as to whether horse-flesh was used by the sausage-makers. There was some presumption that such might be the case, but no direct evidence. I found, however, among butchers who had the best means of knowing, a strong conviction that such was the case. One highly-respectable tradesman told me he was as certain of it as that it was the month of June, though, if called upon to produce legal evidence proving either that such was the sausagemakers' practice, or that this was the month of June, he might fail in both instances. The blood is used by the sugar-refiners, and by the fatteners of poultry, pigeons, and turkeys (which devour it greedily), or else for manure. When required for manure it is dried-20 lbs. of dried blood, which is the average weight, being worth 1s. 9d. The fat is removed from the carcass and melted down. It is in demand for the making of gas, of soap, and (when very fine) ofbear's grease; also for the dubbing or grease applied to harness and to shoe-leather. This fat when consumed in lamps communicates a greater portion of heat than does oil, and is therefore preferred by the makers of glass toys, and by enamellers and polishers. A horse at Montfaucon I found among street-people who dealt in prohas been known to yield 60 lbs. of fat, but this is visions a strong, or, at any rate, a strongly-exan extreme case; a yield of 12 lbs. is the produce pressed, opinion that the tongues, kidneys, and of a horse in fair condition, but at these slaughter-hearts of horses were sold as those of oxen. One houses there are so many lean and sorry jades that 8 lbs. may be taken as an average of fat, and at a value of 6d. per lb. Nor does the list end here; the dead and putrid flesh is made to teem with life, and to produce food for other living creatures. A pile of pieces of flesh, six inches in height, layer on layer, is slightly covered with hay or straw; the flies soon deposit their eggs in the attractive matter, and thus maggots are bred, the most of which are used as food for pheasants, and in a smaller degree of domestic fowls, and as baits for fish. These maggots give, or are supposed to give, a "game flavour" to poultry, and a very "high" flavour to pheasants. One horse's flesh thus produces maggots worth 18. 5d. The total amount, then, realized on the dead horse, which may cost 10s. 6d., is as follows: The flesh £ s. d. 1 12 6 The skin The hoofs The shoes and nails 0 0 1 4 The carcass of a French horse is also made available in another way, and which relates to a subject I have lately treated of-the destruction of rats; but this is not a regularly-accruing emolument. Montfaucon swarms with rats, and to kill them the carcass of a horse is placed in a room, into which the rats gain access through openings in the floor contrived for the purpose. At night the rats are lured by their keenness of scent to the room, and lured in numbers; the openings are then closed, and they are prisoners. In one room 16,000 were killed in four weeks. The Paris man told me, somewhat triumphantly, as a result of his ingenuity in deduction, that he had thoughts at one time of trying to establish himself in a cats' meat walk, and made inquiries into the nature of the calling: "I'm satisfied the 'osses' arts," he said, "is sold for beastesses'; 'cause you see, sir, there's nothing as 'ud be better liked for favourite cats and pet dogs, than a nice piece of 'art, but ven do you see the 'osses' 'arts on a barrow? If they don't go to the cats, vere does they go to? Vy, to the Christians." I am assured, however, by tradesmen whose interest (to say nothing of other considerations) would probably make them glad to expose such practices, that this substitution of the equine for the bovine heart is not attempted, and is hardly possible. The bullock's heart, kidneys, and tongue, are so different in shape (the heart, more especially), and in the colour of the fat, while the rough tip of the ox's tongue is not found in that of the horse, that this second-hand, or offal kind of animal food could not be palmed off upon any one who had ever purchased the heart, kidneys, or tongue of an ox. "If the horse's tongue be used as a substitute for that of any other," said one butcher to me, "it is for the dried reindeer'sa savoury dish for the breakfast table!" Since writing the above, I have had convincing proof given me that the horses' tongues are cured and sold as "neats." The heart and kidneys are also palmed, I find, for those of oxen!! Thus, in one respect, there is a material difference between the usages, in respect of this food, between Paris and London. One tradesman, in a large way of businesswith many injunctions that I should make no allusion that might lead to his being known, as he said it might be his ruin, even though he never slaughtered the meat he sold, but was, in fact, a dead salesman or a vendor of meat consigned to him-one tradesman, I say, told me that he fancied there was an unreasonable objection to the eating of horse-flesh among us. The horse was LONDON LABOUR AND THE LONDON POOR. quite as dainty in his food as the ox, he was quite as graminivorous, and shrunk more, from a nicer sense of smell, from anything pertaining to a contact with animal food than did the ox. The principal objection lies in the number of diseased horses sold at the knackers. My informant reasoned only from analogy, as he had never tasted horse-flesh; but a great-uncle of his, he told me, had relished it highly in the peninsular war. The uses to which a horse's carcass are put in London are these :--The skin, for tanning, sells for 6s. as a low average; the hoofs, for glue, are worth 2d.; the shoes and nails, 1d.; the mane and tail, 14d.; the bones, which in London (as it was described to me) are "cracked up" for manure, bring 1s. 6d.; the fat is melted down and used for cart-grease and common harness oil; one person acquainted with the trade thought that the average yield of fat was 10 lbs. per horse ("taking it low"), another that it was 12 lbs. (taking it square"), so that if 11 lbs. be accepted as an average, the fat, at 2d. per lb., would realize 1s. 10d. Of the tendons no use is made; of the blood none; and no maggots are reared upon putrid horse-flesh, but a butcher, who had been twenty years a farmer also, told me that he knew from experience that there was nothing so good as maggots for the fattening of poultry, and he thought, from what I told him of maggot breeding in Montfaucon, that we were behind the French in this respect. Thus the English dead horse-the vendor receiving on an average 17. from the knacker, realizes the following amount, without including the knacker's profit in disposing of the flesh to the cats-meat man; but computing it merely at 21. we have the subjoined receipts : The French dead horse, then, is made a source of nearly 5s. higher receipt than the English. On my inquiring the reason of this difference, and why the blood, &c., were not made available, I was told that the demand by the Prussian blue manufacturers and the sugar refiners was so fully supplied, and over-supplied, from the great cattle slaughter-houses, that the private butchers, for the trifling sum to be gained, let the blood be wasted. One bullock slaughterer in Fox and Knot-yard, who kills 180 cattle in a week, receives only 1. for the blood of the whole number, which is received in a well in the slaughter-house. The amount paid for blood a few year's back was more than double its present rate. Under these circum 9 stances, I was told, it would be useless trying to turn the wasted offal of a horse to any profitable purpose. There is, I am told, on an average, 1000 horses slaughtered every week in London, and this, at 27. 10s. each animal, would make the value of the dead horses of the metropolis amount to 130,000l. per annum. Were it not that I might be dwelling too long on the subject, I might point out how the offal of the skins was made to subserve other purposes from the Bermondsey tan-yards; and how the parings and scrapings went to the makers of glue and size, and the hair to the builders to mix with lime, &c., &c. I may instance another thing in which the worth of what in many places is valueless refuse is exemplified, in the matter of "waste," as waste paper is always called in the trade. Paper in all its glossiest freshness is but a reproduction of what had become in some measure 66 waste," viz. the rags of the cotton or linen fabric after serving their original purpose. There is a body of men in London who occupy themselves entirely in collecting waste paper. It is no matter of what kind; a smail prayer-book, a once perfumed and welcome love-note, lawyers' or tailors' bills, acts of parliament, and double sheets of the Times, form portions of the waste dealer's stock. Tons upon tons are thus consumed yearly. Books of every description are ingredients of this waste, and in every language; modern poems or pamphlets and old romances (perfect or imperfect), Shakespeare, Molière, Bibles, music, histories, stories, magazines, tracts to convert the heathen or to prove how easily and how immensely our national and individual wealth might be enhanced, the prospectuses of a thousand companies, each certain to prove a mine of wealth, schemes to pay off the national debt, or recommendations to wipe it off, auctioneers' catalogues and long-kept letters, children's copybooks and last century ledgers, printed effusions which have progressed no further than the unfolded sheets, uncut works and books mouldy from ageall these things are found in the insatiate bag of the waste collector, who of late has been worried because he could not supply enough! I don't know how it is, sir," said one waste collector, with whom I had some conversation on the subject of street-sold books, with which business he was also connected, "I can't make it out, but paper gets scarcer or else I'm out of luck. Just at this time my family and me really couldn't live on my waste if we had to depend entirely upon it.” I am assured that in no place in the world is this traffic carried on to anything approaching the extent that it is in London. When I treat of the street-buyers I shall have some curious information to publish on the subject. I do but allude to it here as one strongly illustrative of "second-hand” appliances. OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF SECOND-HAND I HAVE in the preceding remarks specified the wares sold by the vendors of the second-hand articles of metal manufacture, or (as they are 10 LONDON LABOUR ANd the lonDON POOR. called in the streets) the "old metal" men. The several articles I have specified may never be all found at one time upon one stall, but they are all found on the respective stalls. "Aye, sir," said one old man whom I conversed with, "and there's more things every now and then comes to the stalls, and there used to be still more when I were young, but I can't call them all to mind, for times is worse with me, and so my memory fails. But there used to be a good many bayonets, and iron tinder-boxes, and steels for striking lights; I can remember them." Some of the sellers have strong heavy barrows, which they wheel from street to street. As this requires a considerable exertion of strength, such part of the trade is carried on by strong men, generally of the costermongering class. The weight to be propelled is about 300 lbs. Of this class there are now a few, rarely more than half-adozen, who sell on commission in the way I have described concerning the swag-barrowmen. These are the "old metal swags of street classification, but their remuneratiou is less fixed than that of the other swag-barrowmen. It is sometimes a quarter, sometimes a third, and sometimes even a half of the amount taken. The men carrying on this traffic are the servants of the marine-store dealers, or vendors of old metal articles, who keep shops. If one of these people be "lumbered up," that is, if he find his stock increase too rapidly, he furnishes a barrow, and sends a man into the streets with it, to sell what the shopkeeper may find to be excessive. Sometimes if the tradesman can gain only the merest trifle more than he could gain from the people who buy for the melting pot, he is satisfied. There is, or perhaps was, an opinion prevalent that the street" old metals" in this way of business got rid of stolen goods in such a manner as the readiest mode of sale, some of which were purposely rusted, and sold at almost any price, so that they brought but a profit to the "fence," whose payment to the thief was little more than the price of old metal at the foundry. I understand, however, that this course is not now pursued, nor is it likely that it ever was pursued to any extent. The street-seller is directly under the eye of the police, and when there is a search for stolen goods, it is not very likely that they would be paraded, however battered or rusted for the purpose, before men who possessed descriptions of all goods stolen. Until the establishment of the present system of police, this might have been an occasional practice. One street-seller had even heard, and he “ had it from the man what did it," that a last-maker's shop was some years back broken into in the expectation that money would be met with, but none was found; and as the thieves could not bring away such heavy lumbering things as lasts, they cursed their ill-luck, and brought away such tools as they could stow about their persons, and cover with their loose great coats. These were the large knives, fixed to swivels, and resembling a small scythe, used by the artizan to rough hew the block of beechwood; and a variety of excellent rasps and files (for they must be of the best), necessary for the completion of the last. These very tools were, in ten days after the robbery, sold from a streetbarrow. The second-hand metal goods are sold from stalls as well as from barrows, and these stalls are often tended by women whose husbands may be in some other branch of street-commerce. One of these stalls I saw in the care of a stout elderly Jewess, who was fast asleep, nodding over her locks and keys. She was awakened by the passing policeman, lest her stock should be pilfered by the boys: "Come, wake up, mother, and shake yourself," he said, "I shall catch a weazel asleep next." Some of these barrows and stalls are heaped with the goods, and some are very scantily supplied, but the barrows are by far the best stocked. Many of them (especially the swag) look like collections of the different stages of rust, from its incipient spots to its full possession of the entire metal. But amongst these seemingly useless things there is a gleam of brass or plated ware. On one barrow I saw an old brass door-plate, on which was engraven the name of a late learned judge, Baron B- ; another had formerly announced the residence of a dignitary of the church, the Rev. Mr. The second-hand metal-sellers are to be seen in all the street-markets, especially on the Saturday nights; also in Poplar, Limehouse, and the Commercial-road, in Golden-lane, and in Old-street and Old-street-road, St. Luke's, in Hoxton and Shoreditch, in the Westminster Broadway, and the Whitechapel-road, in Rosemary-lane, and in the district where perhaps every street calling is pursued, but where some special street-trades seem peculiar to the genius of the place, in Petticoat-lane. A person unacquainted with the lastnamed locality may have formed an opinion that Petticoat-lane is merely a lane or street. But Petticoat-lane gives its name to a little district. It embraces Sandys-row, Artillery-passage, Arullery-lane, Frying-pan-alley, Catherine Wheelalley, Tripe-yard, Fisher's-alley, Wentworthstreet, Harper's-alley, Marlborough-court, Broadplace, Providence-place, Ellison-street, Swan-court, Little Love-court, Hutchinson-street, Little Middlesex-street, Hebrew-place, Boar's-head-yard, Black-horse-yard, Middlesex-street, Stoney-lane, Meeting-house-yard, Gravel-lane, White-street, Cutler-street, and Borer's-lane, until the wayfarer emerges into what appears the repose and spaciousness of Devonshire-square, Bishopsgate-street, up Borer's-lane, or into what in the contrast really looks like the aristocratic thoroughfare of the Aldgate High-street, down Middlesex-street; or into Houndsditch through the halls of the Old Clothes Exchange. All these narrow streets, lanes, rows, passages, alleys, yards, courts, and places, are the sites of the street-trade carried on in this quarter. The whole neighbourhood rings with street cries, many uttered in those strange east-end Jewish tones which do not sound like English. Mixed with the incessant invitations to buy Hebrew |