University of Virginia Library

OF THE SHAM INDECENT STREET-TRADE.

This is one of those callings which are at once
repulsive and ludicrous; repulsive, when it is
considered under what pretences the papers are
sold, and ludicrous, when the disappointment of
the gulled purchaser is contemplated.

I have mentioned that one of the allurements
held out by the strawer was that his paper — the
words used by Jack Straw — could "not be ad-
mitted into families." Those following the
"sham indecent trade" for a time followed his
example, and professed to sell straws and give
away papers; but the London police became
very observant of the sale of straws — more espe-
cially under the pretences alluded to — and it
has, for the last ten years, been rarely pursued
in the streets.

The plan now adopted is to sell the sealed
packet itself, which the "patter" of the street-
seller leads his auditors to believe to be
some improper or scandalous publication. The
packet is some coloured paper, in which is
placed a portion of an old newspaper, a Christ-
mas carol, a religious tract, or a slop-tailor's
puff (given away in the streets for the behoof
of another class of gulls). The enclosed paper
is, however, never indecent.

From a man who had, not long ago, been in
this trade, I had the following account. He was
very anxious that nothing should be said which
would lead to a knowledge that he was my in-
formant. After having expressed his sorrow
that he had ever been driven to this trade from
distress, he proceeded to justify himself. He
argued — and he was not an ignorant man — that
there was neither common sense nor common
justice in interfering with a man like him, who,
"to earn a crust, pretended to sell what shop-
keepers, that must pay church and all sorts of
rates, sold without being molested." The word
"shopkeepers" was uttered with a bitter em-
phasis. There are, or were, he continued, shops
— for he seemed to know them all — and some of
them had been carried on for years, in which
shameless publications were not only sold, but
exposed in the windows; and why should he be
considered a greater offender than a shopkeeper,
and be knocked about by the police? There
are, or lately were, he said, such shops in the
Strand, Fleet-street, a court off Ludgate-hill,
Holborn, Drury-lane, Wych-street, the courts
near Drury-lane Theatre, Haymarket, High-
street, Bloomsbury, St. Martin's-court, May's
buildings, and elsewhere, to say nothing of
Holywell-street! Yet he must be interfered with!

[I may here remark, that I met with no
street-sellers who did not disbelieve, or affect to
disbelieve, that they were really meddled with
by the police for obstructing the thoroughfare.
They either hint, or plainly state, that they are
removed solely to please the shop-keepers.
Such was the reiterated opinion, real or pre-
tended, of my present informant.]

I took a statement from this man, but do not
care to dwell upon the subject. The trade, in
the form I have described, had been carried on,
he thought, for the last six years. At one time,
20 men followed it; at present, he believed
there were only 6, and they worked only at
intervals, and as opportunities offered: some
going out, for instance, to sell almanacs or me-
morandum books, and, when they met with a
favourable chance, offering their sealed packets.
My informant's customers were principally
boys, young men, and old gentlemen; but old
gentlemen chiefly when the trade was new.
This street-seller's "great gun," as he called
it, was to make up packets, as closely resem-
bling as he could accomplish it, those which
were displayed in the windows of any of the
shops I have alluded to. He would then sta-
tion himself at some little distance from one of
those shops, and, if possible, so as to encounter
those who had stopped to study the contents of
the window, and would represent — broadly
enough, he admitted, when he dared — that he
could sell for 6d. what was charged 5s., or 2s. 6d., or whatever price he had seen announced, "in
that very neighbourhood." He sometimes ven-
tured, also, to mutter something, unintelligibly,
about the public being imposed upon! On one
occasion, he took 6s. in the street in about two
hours. On another evening he took 4s. 8d. in
the street and was called aside by two old gen-
tlemen, each of whom told him to come to an
address given (at the West-end), and ask for such
and such initials. To one he sold two packets
for 2s.; to the other, five packets, each 1s. — or
11s. 8d. in one evening. The packets were in
different coloured papers, and had the impres-
sions of a large seal on red wax at the back; and
he assured the old gents., as he called them, one
of whom, he thought, was "silly," that they
were all different. "And very likely," he said,
chucklingly, "they were different; for they
were made out of a lot of missionary tracts
and old newspapers that I got dirt cheap at a
`waste' shop. I should like to have seen the
old gent.'s face, as he opened his 5s. worth,
one after another!" This trade, however,
among old gentlemen, was prosperous for
barely a month: "It got blown then, sir, and
they wouldn't buy any more, except a very
odd one."

This man — and he believed it was the same
with all the others in the trade — never visited
the public-houses, for a packet would soon
have been opened and torn there, which, he
said, people was ashamed to do in the public
streets. As well as he could recollect, he had
never sold a single packet to a girl or a woman.
Drunken women of the town had occasionally
made loud comments on his calling, and offered

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to purchase; but on such occasions, fearful of
a disturbance, he always hurried away.

I have said that the straw trade is now con-
fined to the country, and I give a specimen of
the article vended there, by the patterer in the
sham indecent trade. It was purchased of a
man, who sold it folded in the form of a letter,
and is addressed, "On Royal Service. By Ex-
press. Private. To Her Royal Highness, Vic-
toria, Princess Royal. Kensington Palace,
London. Entered at Stationer's Hall." The
man who sold it had a wisp of straw round his
neck, and introduced his wares with the follow-
ing patter:

"I am well aware that many persons here
present will say what an absurd idea — the idea
of selling straws for a halfpenny each, when
there are so many lying about the street; but
the reason is simply this: I am not allowed by
the authorities to sell these papers, so I give
them away and sell my straws. There are a
variety of figures in these papers for gentlemen;
some in the bed, some on the bed, some under
the bed." The following is a copy of the docu-
ment thus sold: —

Letter