London Labour and the London Poor: Selection (Classics)

by Henry Mayhew

  ‘Do you want any ginuine Irish linin, ma’am?’ uttered in unmistakable brogue, seemed to authenticate the fact, that the inquirer (being an Irishman) in all likelihood possessed the legitimate article; but as to their obtaining their goods from Coleraine and other places in the Emerald Isle, famed for the manufacture of linen, it was and is as pure fiction as the Travels of Baron Munchausen.

  The majority of these packmen have discontinued dealing in linens exclusively, and have added silks, ladies’ dresses, shawls and various articles connected with the drapery business. The country, and small towns and villages, remote from the neighbourhood of large and showy shops, are the likeliest markets for the sale of their goods. In London the Irish packmen have been completely driven out by the Scotch tallymen, who indeed are the only class of packmen likely to succeed in London. If the persevering Scotch tallyman can but set foot in a decent-looking residence, and be permitted to display his tempting finery to the ‘lady of the house’, he generally manages to talk her into purchasing articles that perhaps she has no great occasion for, and which serve often to involve her in difficulties for a considerable period – causing her no little perplexity, and requiring much artifice to keep the tallyman’s weekly visits a secret from her husband – to say nothing of paying an enormous price for the goods; for the many risks which the tallyman incurs, necessitates of course an exorbitant rate of profit.

  ‘The number of packmen or hawkers of shawls, silks, &c., I think’ (says one of their own body) ‘must have decreased full one-half within the last few years. The itinerant haberdashery trade is far from the profitable business that it used to be, and not unfrequently do I travel a whole day without taking a shilling: still, perhaps, one day’s good work will make up for half a dozen bad ones. All the packmen have hawkers’ licences, as they have mostly too valuable a stock to incur the risk of losing it for want of such a privilege. Some of the fraternity’ (says my informant) ‘do not always deal “upon the square”; they profess to have just come from India or China, and to have invested all their capital in silks of a superior description manufactured in those countries, and to have got them on shore “unbeknown to the Custom-house authorities”. This is told in confidence to the servant-man or woman who opens the door – “be so good as tell the lady as much,” says the hawker, “for really I’m afraid to carry the goods much longer, and I have already sold enough to pay me well enough for my spec – go, there’s a good girl, tell your missus I have splendid goods, and am willing almost to give them away, and if we makes a deal of it, why I don’t mind giving you a handsome present for yourself.”’ This is a bait not to be resisted. Should the salesman succeed with the mistress, he carries out his promise to the maid by presenting her with a cap ribbon, or a cheap neckerchief.

  The most primitive kind of packmen, or hawkers of soft-wares, who still form part of the distributing machinery of the country, traverse the highlands of Scotland. They have their regular rounds, and regular days of visiting their customers; their arrival is looked for with interest by the country people; and the inmates of the farm-house where they locate for the night consider themselves fortunate in having to entertain the packman; for he is their newsmonger, their story-teller, their friend, and their acquaintance, and is always made welcome. His wares consist of hose – linsey wolsey, for making petticoats – muslins for caps – ribbons – an assortment of needles, pins, and netting-pins – and all sorts of small wares. He always travels on foot. It is suspected that he likewise does a little in the ‘jigger line’, for many of these Highlanders have, or are supposed to have, their illicit distilleries; and the packmen are suspected of trafficking without excise interference. Glasgow, Dundee, Galashiels, and Harwick are the principal manufacturing towns where the packman replenishes his stock. ‘My own opinion,’ says an informant of considerable experience, ‘is that these men seldom grow rich; but the prevailing idea in the country parts of Scotland is, that the pedlar has an unco lang stockin wi’ an awfu’ amount o goden guineas in it, and that his pocket buik is plumped out wi’ a thick roll of bank notes. Indeed there are many instances upon record of poor packmen having been murdered – the assassins, doubtlessly, expecting a rich booty.’ It scarcely ever costs the packman of Scotland anything for his bed and board. The Highlanders are a most hospitable people with acquaintances – although with strangers at first they are invariably shy and distant. In Ireland there is also the travelling pedlar, whose habits and style of doing business are nearly similar to that of the Scotchman. Some of the packmen of Scotland have risen to eminence and distinction. A quondam lord provost of Glasgow, a gentleman still living, and upon whom the honour of knighthood has been conferred, was, according to common report, in his earlier days a packman; and rumour also does the gentleman the credit to acknowledge that he is not ashamed to own it.

  I am told by a London hawker of soft goods, or packman, that the number of his craft, hawking London and its vicinity, as far as he can judge, is about 120 (the census of 1841 makes the London hawkers, hucksters and pedlars amount to 2041). In the 120 are included the Irish linen hawkers. I am also informed that the fair trader’s profits amount to about 20 per cent., while those of the not over-particular trader range from 80 to 200 per cent. In a fair way of business it is said the hawker’s taking will amount, upon an average, to 7l. or 8l. per week; whereas the receipts of the ‘duffer’, or unfair hawker, will sometimes reach to 50l. per week. Many, however, travel days, and do not turn a penny.

  Statement of a Packman

  [pp. 421–2] Of the way of trading of a travelling-pedlar I had the following account from one of the body. He was well dressed, and a good but keen-looking man of about thirty-five, slim, and of rather short stature, with quick dark eyes and bushy whiskers, on which it was evident no small culture was bestowed. His manners were far from obtrusive or importunate – to those whom he sought to make customers – for I happened to witness a portion of his proceedings in that respect; but he had a quiet perseverance with him, which, along with perfect civility, and something like deference, might be the most efficient means of recommending himself to the maid-servants, among whom lay his chief customers. He showed a little of the pride of art in describing the management of his business, but he would not hear that he ‘pattered’: he talked to his customers, he declared, as any draper, who knew his business well, might talk to his.

  When I saw him, his pack, which he carried slung over one shoulder, contained a few gown-pieces of printed cotton, nearly all with pink grounds; a few shawls of different sizes; and three rolls firmly packed, each with a card-label on which was neatly written, ‘French Merino. Full duty paid. A.B. – L.F. – 18 – 33 – 1851 –. French Chocolate.’ There were also six neat paper packages, two marked ‘worked collars’, three, ‘gauze handkerchiefs’, and the other ‘beautiful child’s gros de naples’. The latter consisted of 4½ yards of black silk, sufficient for a child’s dress. He carried with him, moreover, 5 umbrellas, one inclosed in a bright glazed cover, while from its mother-of-pearl handle hung a card addressed – ‘The Lady’s Maid, Victoria Lodge, 13s. 6d.’

  ‘This is a very small stock,’ he said, ‘to what I generally carry, but I’m going on a country round to-morrow, and I want to get through it before I lay in a new one. I tell people that I want to sell off my goods cheap, as they’re too good for country sale; and that’s true, the better half of it.’

  On my expressing some surprise that he should be leaving London at this particular time, he answered:

  ‘I go into the country because I think all the hawkers will be making for town, and there’ll be plenty of customers left in the country, and fewer to sell to them at their own places. That’s my opinion.

  ‘I sell to women of all sorts. Smart-dressing servant-maids, perhaps, are my best customers, especially if they live a good way from any grand ticketing shop. I sold one of my umbrellas to one of them just before you spoke to me. She was standing at the door, and I saw her give half a glance at the umbre
llas, and so I offered them. She first agreed to buy a very nice one at 3s. 3d. (which should have been 4s.) but I persuaded her to take one at 3s. 9d. (which should have been 4s. 6d.). “Look here, ma’am,” said I, “this umbrella is much bigger you see, and will carry double so when you’re coming from church of a wet Sunday evening, a friend can have share of it, and very grateful he’ll be, as he’s sure to have his best hat on. There’s been many a question put under an umbrella that way that’s made a young lady blush, and take good care of her umbrella when she was married, and had a house of her own. I look sharp after the young and pretty ladies, Miss, and shall as long as I’m a bachelor.” “O,” says she, “such ridiculous nonsense. But I’ll have the bigger umbrella, because it’s often so windy about here, and then one must have a good cover if it rains as well.”

  ‘That’s my way, sir. I don’t mind telling that, because they do the same in the shops. I’ve heard them, but they can’t put love and sweet-hearting so cleverly in a crowded shop as we can in a quiet house. It’s that I go for, love and sweet-hearting; and I always speak to any smart servant as if I thought she was the mistress, or as if I wasn’t sure whether she was the mistress or the lady’s-maid; three times out of four she’s house-maid or maid of all work. I call her “ma’am”, and “young lady”, and sometimes “miss”. It’s no use offering to sell until a maid has tidied herself in the afternoon – not a bit. I should made a capital draper’s shopman, I know, only I could never bear the confinement. I never will hear such words as “I don’t want it”, or, “nothing more to-day”, no more than if I was behind a counter.

  ‘The great difficulty I have is to get a chance of offering my goods. If I ring at a gate – for I always go a little way out of town – they can see who it is, and I may ring half an hour for nothing. If the door’s opened it’s often shut again directly, and I just hear “bother”. I used to leave a few bills, and I do so still in some parts of the country, with a list of goods, and “this bill to be called for” printed at the bottom. But I haven’t done that in town for a long time; it’s no good. People seem to think it’s giving double trouble. One of the prettiest girls I ever saw where I called one evening, pointed – just as I began to say, “I left a bill and” – to some paper round a candle in a stick, and shut the door laughing.

  ‘In selling my gown-pieces I say they are such as will suit the complexion, and such like; and I always use my judgment in saying so. Why shouldn’t I? It’s the same to me what colour I sell. “It’s a genteel thing, ma’am,” I’ll say to a servant-maid, “and such as common people won’t admire. It’s not staring enough for them. I’m sure it would become you, ma’am, and is very cheap; cheaper than you could buy at a shop; for all these things are made by the same manufacturers, and sold to the wholesale dealers at the same price, and a shopkeeper, you know, has his young men, and taxes, and rates, and gas, and fine windows to pay for, and I haven’t, so it don’t want much judgment to see that I must be able to sell cheaper than shopkeepers, and I think your own taste, ma’am, will satisfy you that these here are elegant patterns.”

  ‘That’s the way I go on. No doubt there’s others do the same, but I know and care little about them. I have my own way of doing business, and never trouble myself about other people’s patter or nonsense.

  ‘Now, that piece of silk I shall, most likely, sell to the landlady of a public-house, where I see there’s children. I shall offer it after I’ve got a bit of dinner there, or when I’ve said I want a bit. It’s no use offering it there, though, if it isn’t cheap; they’re too good judges. Innkeepers aren’t bad customers, I think, taking it altogether, to such as me, if you can get to talk to them, as you sometimes can at their bars. They’re generally wanting something, that’s one step. I always tell them that they ought to buy of men, in my way, who live among them, and not of fine shopkeepers, who never came a-near their houses. I’ve sold them both cottons and linens, after such talk as that. I live at public-houses in the country. I sleep nowhere else.

  ‘My trade in town is nothing to what it was ten or a dozen years back. I don’t know the reason exactly. I think so many threepenny busses is one; for they’ll take any servant, when she’s got an afternoon, to a thoroughfare full of ticket-shops, and bring her back, and her bundle of purchases too, for another 3d. I shall cut it altogether, I think, and stick to the country. Why, I’ve known the time when I should have met from half-a-dozen to a dozen people trading in my way in town, and for these three days, and dry days too, I haven’t met one. My way of trading in the country is just the same as in town. I go from farm-house to farm-house, or call at gentlemen’s grand seats – if a man’s known to the servants there, it may be the best card he can play – and I call at every likely house in the towns or villages. I only go to a house and sell a mistress or maid the same sort of goods (a little cheaper, perhaps), and recommend them in the same way, as is done every day at many a fine city, and borough, and West-End shop. I never say they’re part of a bankrupt’s stock; a packfull would seem nothing for that. I never pretend that they’re smuggled. Mine’s a respectable trade, sir. There’s been so much dodging that way, it’s been a great stop to fair trading; and I like to go on the same round more than once. A person once taken-in by smuggled handkerchiefs, or anything, won’t deal with a hawker again, even though there’s no deception. But “duffing”, and all that is going down fast, and I wish it was gone altogether. I do nothing in tally. I buy my goods; and I’ve bought all sorts, in wholesale houses, of course, and I’d rather lay out 10l. in Manchester than in London. O, as to what I make, I can’t say it’s enough to keep me (I’ve only myself), and escape the income-tax. Sometimes I make 10s. a week; sometimes 20s.; sometimes 30s.; and I have made 50s.; and one week, the best I ever did, I made as much as 74s. 6d. That’s all I can say.’

  Perhaps it may be sufficiently accurate to compute the average weekly earnings of a smart trader like my informant, at from 21s. to 25s. in London, and from 25s. to 30s. in the country.

  OF THE WOMEN STREET-SELLERS

  [pp. 511–17] As the volume is now fast drawing to a close, and a specific account has been furnished of almost every description of street-seller (with the exception of those who are the makers of the articles they vend), I purpose giving a more full and general history and classification than I have yet done of the feminine portion of the traders in the streets.

  The women engaged in street-sale are of all ages and of nearly all classes. They are, however, chiefly of two countries, England and Ireland. There are (comparatively) a few Jewesses, and a very few Scotchwomen and Welchwomen who are street-traders; and they are so, as it were, accidentally, from their connection, by marriage or otherwise, with male street-sellers. Of foreigners there are German broom-women, and a few Italians with musical instruments.

  The first broad and distinctive view of the female street-sellers, is regarding them nationally, that is to say, either English or Irish women – two classes separated by definite characteristics from each other.

  The Irishwomen – to avoid burthening the reader with an excess of subdivisions – I shall speak of generally; that is to say, as one homogeneous class, referring those who require a more specific account to the description before given of the street-sellers.

  The Englishwomen selling in the streets appear to admit of being arranged into four distinct groups, viz.:

  1. The wives of street-sellers.

  2. Mechanics’ or labourers’ wives, who go out street-selling (while their husbands are at work) as a means of helping out the family income.