 | OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF STATIONERY, LITERATURE,
AND THE FINE ARTS. London Labour and the London Poor, volume 1 |  |
OF THE EXPERIENCE OF A STREET-
STATIONER.
A middle-aged man gave me the following
[Description: 915EAF. Page 268.]
of twelve years. He was a stout, cosey-looking
man, wearing a loose great coat. The back of
his tray rested against his double-breasted waist-
coat; the pattern of which had become rather
indistinct, but which was buttoned tightly up to
his chin, as if to atone for the looseness of his
coat. The corner of his mouth, toward his left
ear, was slightiy drawn down, for he seemed in
"crying" to pitch his voice (so that it could be
heard a street off) out of the corner of his only
partially-opened mouth.
"Middlin', sir," he said, "times is middlin'
with me; they might be better, but then they
might be worse. I can manage to live. The
times is changed since I was first in the busi-
ness. There wasn't no 'velops (envelopes) then,
and no note-paper — least I had none; but I
made as good or a better living than I do now;
a better indeed. When the penny-postage came
in — I don't mind the year, but I hadn't been
long in the trade [it was in 1840] — I cried some
of the postage 'velops. They was big, figured
things at first, with elephants and such like on
them, and I called them at prime cost, if any-
thing was bought with 'em. The very first time,
a p'liceman says, `You mustn't sell them covers.
What authority have you to do it?' `Why, the
authority to earn a dinner,' says I; but it was
no go. Another peeler came up and said I
wasn't to cry them again, or he'd have me up;
and so that spec. came to nothing. I sell to
ladies and gentlemen, and to servant-maids, and
mechanics, and their wives; and indeed all sorts
of people. Some fine ladies, that call me to the
door on the sly, do behave very shabby. Why,
there was one who wanted five half-quire of note
for 4d., and I told her I couldn't afford it, and
so she said `that she knew the world, and never
gave nobody the price they first asked.' `If
that's it, ma'am,' says I, `people that knows
your plan can 'commodate you.' That knowing
card of a lady, sir, as she reckons herself, had
as much velvet to her body — such a gown! —
as would pay my tailor's bills for twenty year.
But I don't employ a fashionable tailor, and
can patch a bit myself, as I was two years with
a saddler, and was set to work to make girths
and horse-clothes. My master died, and all
went wrong, and I had to turn out, without no-
body to help me, — for I had no parents living;
but I was a strong young fellow of sixteen. I
first tried to sell a few pairs of girths, and a
roller or two, to livery-stable keepers, and horse-
dealers, and job-masters. But I was next to
starving. They wouldn't look at anything but
what was good, and the stuff was too high, and
the profit too little — for I couldn't get regular
prices, in course — and so I dropped it. There's
no men in the world so particular about good
things as them as is about vallyable horses.
I've often thought if rich people cared half as
much about poor men's togs, that was working
or them for next to nothing, as they cared
for their horse-clothes, it would be a better
world. I was dead beat at last; but I went
down to Epsom and sold a few race-cards. I'd
borrowed 1s. of a groom to start with, and he
wouldn't take it back when I offered it; and that
wax is bought at general warehouses, known as
"swag shops" (of which I may speak hereafter),
at 8d. the pound, there being 48 round sticks in,
was my beginning in the paper trade. I felt
queer at first, and queerer when I wasn't among
horses, as at the races like — but one get's recon-
ciled to anything, 'cept, to a man like me, a low
lodging-house. A stable's a palace to it. I got
into stationery at last, and it's respectable.
"I've heard people say how well they could
read and write, and it was no good to them.
It has been, and is still, a few pence to me;
though I can only read and write middlin'. I
write notes and letters for some as buys paper
of me. Never anything in the beggin' way —
never. It wouldn't do to have my name mixed
up that way. I've often got extra pennies for
directing and doing up valentines in nice 'velops.
Why, I spoke to a servant girl the other day;
she was at the door, and says I, `Any nice paper
to-day, to answer your young man's last love-
letter, or to write home and ask your mother's
consent to your being wed next Monday week?'
That's the way to get them to listen, sir. Well,
I finds that she can't write, and so I offers to do
it for a pint of beer, and she to pay for paper of
course. And then there was so many orders
what to say. Her love to no end of aunts, and
all sorts of messages and inquiries about all
sorts of things; and when I'd heard enough to
fill a long `letter' sheet, she calls me back and
says, `I'm afraid I've forgot uncle Thomas.'
I makes it all short enough in the letter, sir.
`My kind love to all inquiring friends,' takes in
all uncle Thomases. I writes them when I gets
a bite of dinner. Sometimes I posts them, if
I'm paid beforehand; at other times I leaves
them next time I pass the door. There's no
mystery made about it. If a missus says,
`What's that?' I've heard a girl answer, `It's
a letter I've got written home, ma'am. I haven't
time myself,' or `I'm no scholar, ma'am.' But
that's only where I'm known. I don't write
one a week the year round — perhaps forty in a
year. I charge 1d. or 2d., or if it's a very poor
body, and no gammon about it, nothing. Well,
then, I think I never wrote a love-letter. Women
does that one for another, I think, when the
young housemaid can't write as well as she can
talk. I jokes some as I knows, and says I writes
all sorts of letters but love-letters, and for them,
you see, says I, there's wanted the best gilt
edge, and a fancy 'velop, and a Dictionary. I
take more for note and 'velops than anything
else, but far the most for note. Some has a sheet
folded and fitted into a 'velop when they buys,
as they can't fit it so well theirselves, they say.
Perhaps I make 2s. a day, take it all round.
Some days I may make as much as 3s. 6d.; at
others, 'specially wet days, not 1s. But I call
mine a tidy round, and better than an average.
I've only myself, and pays 1s. 9d. a week for a
tidy room, with a few of my own sticks in it. I
[Description: 915EAF. Page 269.]
Drury-lane. Very seldom at a swag-shop (Bir-
mingham house), for I don't like them.
"Well, now, I've heard, sir, that poor men
like me ain't to be allowed to sell anything in
the Park at the Great Exhibition. How's that,
sir?" I told him I could give no information
on the subject.
"It's likely enough to be true," he resumed;
"the nobs 'll want to keep it all to theirselves.
I read Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper on a Sunday,
and what murders and robberies there is now!
What will there be when the Great Exhibition
opens! for rogues is worst in a crowd, and they
say they'll be plenty come to London from all
arts and parts? Never mind; if I can see any-
thing better to do in a fair way at the Exhibition,
I'll cut the streets.
"Perhaps my earnings is half from working
people and half from private houses; that's about
it. But working people's easiest satisfied."
I have given this man's statement more fully
than I should have thought necessary, that I
might include his account of letter -writing.
The letter-writer was at one period a regular
street-labourer in London, as he is now in some
continental cities — Naples, for instance. The
vocation in London seems in some respects to
have fallen into the hands of the street-stationer,
but the majority of letters written for the un-
educated — and their letter-receiving or answer-
ing is seldom arduous — is done, I believe, by
those who are rather vaguely but emphatically
described as — "friends."
I am told that there are 120 street-stationers
in London, a small majority of whom may be
itinerant, but chiefly on regular rounds. On a
Sunday morning, in such places as the Brill,
are two or three men, but not regularly, who sell
stationery only on Sunday mornings. Taking
the number, however, at 120, I am assured that
their average profits may be taken at 8s. weekly,
each stationer. On note-paper of the best sort
the profit is sometimes only 50 per cent.; but,
take the trade altogether, we may calculate it at
cent. per cent. (on some things it is higher);
and we find 4,992l. yearly expended in street-
stationery.
| OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF STATIONERY, LITERATURE,
AND THE FINE ARTS. London Labour and the London Poor, volume 1 | |