University of Virginia Library

OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF ENGRAVINGS,
ETC., IN UMBRELLAS, ETC.

The sale of "prints," "pictures," and "en-
gravings" — I heard them designated by each
term — in umbrellas in the streets, has been
known, as far as I could learn from the street-
folk for some fifteen years, and has been general
from ten to twelve years. In this traffic the
umbrella is inverted and the "stock" is dis-
posed within its expanse. Sometimes narrow
tapes are attached from rib to rib of the um-
brella, and within these tapes are placed the
pictures, one resting upon another. Sometimes
a few pins are used to attach the larger prints
to the cotton of the umbrella, the smaller ones
being "fitted in at the side" of the bigger.
"Pins is best, sir, in my opinion," said a little
old man, who used to have a "print umbrella"
in the New Cut; "for the public has a more
unbrokener display. I used werry fine pins,
though they's dearer, for people as has a penny
to spare likes to see things nice, and big pins
makes big holes in the pictures."

This trade is most pursued on still summer
evenings, and the use of an inverted umbrella
seems so far appropriate that it can only be so
used, in the street, in dry weather. "I used
to keep a sharp look-out, sir," said the same
informant, "for wind or rain, and many's the
time them devils o' boys — God forgive me,

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they's on'y poor children — but they is devils —
has come up to me and has said — one in par-
ticler, standin' afore the rest: `It'll thunder
in five minutes, old bloke, so hup with yer
humbereller, and go 'ome; hup with it jist as
it is; it'll show stunnin; and sell as yer goes.'
O, they're a shocking torment, sir; nobody can
feel it like people in the streets, — shocking."

The engravings thus sold are of all descrip-
tions. Some have evidently been the frontis-
pieces of sixpenny or lower-priced works. These
works sometimes fall into hands of the "waste
collectors," and any "illustrations" are ex-
tracted from the letter-press and are disposed of
by the collectors, by the gross or dozen, to those
warehousemen who supply the small shop-
keepers and the street-sellers. Sometimes, I
was informed, a number of engravings, which had
for a while appeared as "frontispieces" were
issued for sale separately. Many of these were
and are found in the "street umbrellas;" more
especially the portraits of popular actors and
actresses. "Mr. J. P. Kemble, as Hamlet" —
"Mr. Fawcett, as Captain Copp" — "Mr.
Young, as Iago" — "Mr. Liston, as Paul
Pry" — "Mrs. Siddons, as Lady Macbeth" —
"Miss O'Neil, as Belvidera," &c., &c. In
the course of an inquiry into the subject nearly
a year and a half ago, I learned from one
"umbrella man" that, six or seven years pre-
viously, he used to sell more portraits of "Mr.
Edmund Kean, as Richard III.," than of any-
thing else. Engravings, too, which had first
been admired in the "Annuals" — when half-
a-guinea was the price of the "Literary
Souvenir," the "Forget-me-not," "Friend-
ship's Offering," the "Bijou," &c., &c. — are
frequently found in these umbrellas; and
amongst them are not unfrequently seen por-
traits of the aristocratic beauties of the day,
from "waste" "Flowers of Loveliness" and
old "Court Magazines," which "go off very
fair." The majority of these street-sold "en-
gravings" are "coloured," in which state the
street-sellers prefer them, thinking them much
more saleable, though the information I received
hardly bears out their opinion.

The following statement, from a middle-aged
woman, further shows the nature of the trade,
and the class of customers:

"I've sat with an umbrella," she said,
"these seven or eight years, I suppose it is.
My husband's a penny lot-seller, with just a
middling pitch" [the vendor of a number of
articles, sold at a penny "a lot"] "and in the
summer I do a little in engravings, when I'm
not minding my husband's `lots,' for he has
sometimes a day, and oftener a night, with
portering and packing for a tradesman, that's
known him long. Well, sir, I think I sell most
`coloured.' `Master Toms' wasn't bad last
summer. `Master Toms' was pictures of cats,
sir — you must have seen them — and I had them
different colours. If a child looks on with its
father, very likely, it'll want `pussy,' and if the
child cries for it, it's almost a sure sale, and
more, I think, indeed I'm sure, with men than
with women. Women knows the value of money
better than men, for men never understand what
housekeeping is. I have no children, thank
God, or they might be pinched, poor things.
`Miss Kitties' was the same sale. Toms is
hes, and Kitties is she cats. I've sometimes
sold to poor women who was tiresome; they
must have just what would fit over their
mantel-pieces, that was papered with pic-
tures." [My readers may remember that
some of the descriptions I have given, long
previous to the present inquiry, of the rooms of
the poor, fully bear out this statement.] "I
seldom venture on anything above 1d., I mean
to sell at 1d. I've had Toms and Kitties at
2d. though. `Fashions' isn't worth umbrella
room; the poorest needlewoman won't be satis-
fied with them from an umbrella. `Queens'
and `Alberts' and `Wales's' and the other
children isn't near so good as they was. There's
so many `fine portraits of Her Majesty,' or the
others, given away with the first number of this
or of that, that people's overstocked. If a
working-man can buy a newspaper or a num-
ber, why of course he may as well have a
picture with it. They gave away glasses of gin
at the opening of that baker's shop there, and
it's the same doctrine" [The word she used].
"I never offer penny theatres, or comic exhibi-
tions, or anything big; they spoils the look of
the umbrella, and makes better things look
mean. I sell only to working people, I think;
seldom to boys, and seldomer to girls; seldom
to servant-maids and hardly ever to women of
the town. I have taken 6d. from one of them
though. I think boys buy pictures for picture
books. I never had what I suppose was old
pictures. To a few old people, I've known,
`Children' sell fairly, when they're made
plump, and red cheeked, and curly haired.
They sees a resemblance of their grandchildren,
perhaps, and buys. Young married people does
so too, but not so oft, I think. I don't remember
that ever I have made more than 1s. 10d. on an
evening. I don't sell, or very seldom indeed,
at other times, and only in summer, and when
its fine. If I clear 5s. I counts that a good
week. It's a great help to the lot-selling. I
seldom clear so much. Oftener 4s."

The principal sale of these "pictures," in
the streets, is from umbrellas. Occasionally, a
street-stationer, or even a miscellaneous lot-
seller, when he has met with a cheap lot,
especially of portraits of ladies, will display a
collection of prints, pyramidally arranged on
his stall, — but these are exceptions. Some-
times, too, an "umbrella print-seller" will have
a few "pictures in frames," on a sort of stand
alongside the umbrella.

The pictures for the umbrellas are bought at
the warehouse, or the swag-shops, of which I
have before spoken. At these establishments
"prints" are commonly supplied from 3d. to
5s. the dozen. The street-sellers buy at 5d. and 6d. the dozen, to sell at a 1d. a piece; and

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at 3d. to sell at ½d. None of the pictures thus
sold are prepared expressly for the streets.

In so desultory and — as one intelligent street-
seller with whom I conversed on the subject
described it — so weathery a trade, it is difficult
to arrive at exact statistics. From the best data
at my command, it may be computed, that for
twelve weeks of the year, there are thirty um-
brella print-sellers (all exceptional traders
therein included) each clearing 6s. weekly, and
taking 12s. Thus it appears that 216l. is yearly
expended in the streets in this purchase. Many
of the sellers are old or infirm; one who was
among the most prosperous before the changes
in the streets of Lambeth, was dwarfish, and
was delighted to be thought "a character."