University of Virginia Library

OF THE SWAG-SHOPS OF THE METROPOLIS.

By those who are not connected with the street
trade, the proprietors of the swag-shops are often
called "warehousemen" or "general dealers,"
and even "slaughterers." These descriptions
apply but partially. "Warehousemen" or
"general dealers" are vague terms, which I
need not further notice. The wretchedly under-
paid and over-worked shoe-makers, cabinet-
makers and others call these places "slaughter-
houses," when the establishment is in the hands
of tradesmen who buy their goods of poor work-
men without having given orders for them. On
Saturday afternoons pale-looking men may be
seen carrying a few chairs, or bending under
the weight of a cheffonier or a chest of drawers,
in Tottenham-court Road, and thoroughfares of
a similar character in all parts. These are
"small masters," who make or (as one man said
to me, "No, sir, I don't make these drawers, I
put them together, it can't be called making;
it's not workmanship") who "put together" in
the hastiest manner, and in any way not posi-
tively offensive to the eye, articles of household
furniture. The "slaughterers" who supply
all the goods required for the furniture of a
house, buy at "starvation prices" (the common
term), the artificer being often kept waiting for
hours, and treated with every indignity. One
East-end "slaughterer" (as I ascertained in a
former inquiry) used habitually to tell that he
prayed for wet Saturday afternoons, because it
put 20l. extra into his pocket! This was owing
to the damage sustained in the appearance of
any painted, varnished, or polished article, by
exposure to the weather; or if it had been pro-
tected from the weather, by the unwillingness
of the small master to carry it to another
slaughter-house in the rain. Under such cir-
cumstances — and under most of the circum-
stances of this unhappy trade — the poor work-
man is at the mercy of the slaughterer.

I describe this matter more fully than I might
have deemed necessary, had I not found that
both the "small masters" spoken of — for I
called upon some of them again — and the
street-sellers, very frequently confounded the
"swag-shop" and the "slaughter-house." The
distinction I hold to be this: — The slaughterer
buys as a rule, with hardly an exception, the
furniture, or whatever it may be, made for the
express purpose of being offered to him on
speculation of sale. The swag shop-keeper
orders his goods as a rule, and buys, as an
exception, in the manner in which the slaught-
erer buys ordinarily. The slaughterer sells by
retail; the swag-shop keeper only by whole-
sale.

Most of the articles, of the class of which I
now treat, are "Brummagem made." An
experienced tradesman said to me: "All these
low-priced metal things, fancy goods and all,
which you see about, are made in Birming-
ham; in nineteen cases out of twenty at the
least. They may be marked London, or
Sheffield, or Paris, or any place — you can
have them marked North Pole if you will —
but they're genuine Birmingham. The car-
riage is lower from Birmingham than from
Sheffield — that's one thing."

The majority of the swag-shop proprietors
are Jews. The wares which they supply to the
cheap shops, the cheap John's, and the street-
sellers, in town and country, consist of every
variety of article, apart from what is eatable,
drinkable, or wearable, in which the trade class
I have specified can deal. As regards what is
wearable, indeed, such things as braces, garters,
&c., form a portion of the stock of the swag-
shop.

In one street (a thoroughfare at the east-end
of London) are twenty-three of these establish-
ments. In the windows there is little attempt
at display; the design aimed at seems to be
rather to crowd the window — as if to show the
amplitude of the stores within, "the wonderful
resources of this most extensive and universal
establishment" — than to tempt purchasers by
exhibiting tastefully what may have been taste-
fully executed by the artificer, or what it is
desired should be held to be so executed.

In one of these windows the daylight is
almost precluded from the interior by what may
be called a perfect wall of "pots." A street-
seller who accompanied me called them merely
"pots" (the trade term), but they were all pot

[Description: 915EAF. Page 334.]

ornaments. Among them were great store of
shepherdesses, of greyhounds of a gamboge
colour. of what I heard called "figures"
(allegorical nymphs with and without birds or
wreaths in their hands), very tall-looking
Shaksperes (I did not see one of these win-
dows without its Shakspere, a sitting figure),
and some "pots" which seem to be either
shepherds or musicians; from what I could
learn, at the pleasure of the seller, the buyer,
or the inquirer. The shepherd, or musician is
usually seated under a tree; he wears a light
blue coat, and yellow breeches, and his limbs,
more than his body, are remarkable for their
bulk; to call them merely fat does not suffi-
ciently express their character, and in some
"pots," they are as short and stumpy as they
are bulky. On my asking if the dogs were
intended for Italian greyhounds, I was told,
"No, they are German." I alluded however
to the species of the animal represented; my
informant to the place of manufacture, for the
pots were chiefly German. A number of mugs
however, with the Crystal Palace very well
depicted upon them, were unmistakably Eng-
lish. In another window of the same establish-
ment was a conglomeration of pincushions,
shaving-brushes, letter-stamps (all in bone),
cribbage-boards and boxes (including a pack of
cards), necklaces, and strings of beads.

The window of a neighbouring swag-shop
presented, in the like crowding, and in greater
confusion, an array of brooches (some in co-
loured glass to imitate rubies, topazes, &c.,
some containing portraits, deeply coloured, in
purple attire, and red cheeks, and some being
very large cameos), time-pieces (with and with-
out glasses), French toys with moveable figures,
telescopes, American clocks, musical boxes,
shirt-studs, backgammon-boards, tea-trays (one
with a nondescript bird of most gorgeous green
plumage forming a sort of centrepiece), razor-
strops, writing-desks, sailors' knives, hair-
brushes, and tobacco-boxes.

Another window presented even a more
"miscellaneous assortment;" dirks (apparently
not very formidable weapons), a mess of steel
pens, in brown-paper packages and cases, and
of black-lead pencils, pipe-heads, cigar-cases,
snuff-boxes, razors, shaving-brushes, letter-
stamps, metal tea-pots, metal tea-spoons, glass
globes with artificial flowers and leaves within
the glass (an improvement one man thought on
the old ornament of a reel in a bottle), Peel
medals, Exhibition medals, roulette-boxes,
scent bottles, quill pens with artificial flowers in
the feathery part, fans, side-combs, glass pen-
holders, and pot figures (caricatures) of Louis
Philippe, carrying a very red umbrella, Mar-
shal Haynau, with some instrument of torture
in his hand, while over all boomed a huge
English seaman, in yellow waistcoat and with a
brick-coloured face.

Sometimes the furniture of a swag-shop
window is less plentiful, but quite as hetero-
genous. In one were only American clocks,
French toys (large), opera-glasses, knives and
forks, and powder-flasks.

In some windows the predominant character
is jewellery. Ear-drops (generally gilt), rings
of all kinds, brooches of every size and shade
of coloured glass, shawl-pins, shirt-studs, neck-
laces, bead purses, small paintings of the
Crystal-palace, in "burnished `gold' frames,"
watch-guards, watch-seals (each with three im-
pressions or mottoes), watch-chains and keys,
"silver" tooth-picks, medals, and snuff-boxes.
It might be expected that the jewellery shops
would present the most imposing display of any;
they are, on the contrary, among the dingiest,
as if it were not worth the trouble to put clean
things in the window, but merely what sufficed
to characterise the nature of the trade carried
on.

Of the twenty-three swag-shops in question,
five were confined to the trade in all the branches
of stationery. Of these I saw one, the large
window of which was perfectly packed from
bottom to top with note-paper, account and
copy-books, steel-pens, pencils, sealing-wax,
enamelled wafers (in boxes), ink-stands, &c.

Of the other shops, two had cases of watches,
with no attempt at display, or even arrange-
ment. "Poor things," I was told by a person
familiar with the trade in them, "fit only to
offer to countrymen when they've been drinking
at a fair, and think themselves clever."

I have so far described the exterior of these
street-dealers' bazaars, the swag-shops, in what
may be called their head-quarters. Upon en-
tering some of these places of business, spacious
rooms are seen to extend behind the shop or
warehouse which opens to the street. Some are
almost blocked up with what appears a litter of
packing-cases, packages, and bales — but which
are no doubt ordered systematically enough —
while the shelves are crammed with goods in
brown paper, or in cases or boxes. This uni-
formity of package, so to speak, has the effect of
destroying the true character of these swag
store-rooms; for they present the appearance of
only three or four different kinds of merchandise
being deposited on a range of shelves, when,
perhaps, there are a hundred. In some of these
swag-shops it appears certain, both from what
fell under my own observation, and from what I
learned through my inquiries of persons long
familiar with such places, that the "litter" I
have spoken of is disposed so as to present the
appearance of an affluence of goods without the
reality of possession.

In no warehouses (properly "swag," or
wholesale traders) is there any arranged display
of the wares vended. "Ve don't vant people
here," one street-seller had often heard a swag-
shopkeeper say, "as looks about them, and
says, ` 'Ow purty! — Vot nice things!' Ve
vants to sell, and not to show. Ve is all for
bisness, and be d — d." All of these places
which I saw were dark, more or less so, in the
interior, as if a customer's inspection were un-
cared for.

Some of the swag-shop people present cards, or
"circulars with prices," to their street and other
customers, calling attention to the variety of their
wares. These circulars are not given without
inquiry, as if it were felt that one must not be
wasted. On one I find the following enumera-
tion: —

It must not be thought that swag-shops are
mainly repositories of "fancy" articles, for such is
not the case. I have described only the "win-
dows" and outward appearances of these places —
the interior being little demonstrative of the busi-
ness; but the bulkier and more useful articles of
swag traffic cannot be exposed in a window. In
the miscellaneous (or Birmingham and Sheffield)
shops, however, the useful and the "fancy" are
mixed together; as is shown by the following
extracts from the Circular of one of the principal
swag-houses. I give each head, with an occa-
sional statement of prices. The firm describe
themselves as "Wholesale, Retail, and Export
Furnishing Ironmongers, General Hardwaremen,
Manufacturers of Clocks, Watches, and Steel Pens,
and Importers of Toys, Beads, and other Foreign
Manufactures."

Table Cutlery.

           

	s.	d.
Common knives and forks, per doz	2	0
Ivory-handle table knives and fork, per set of fifty-pieces	30	0
Tables, per doz	15	0
Desserts, per doz	11	3
Carvers, per pair	4	0

Fire-Irons.

   

Strong wrought-iron for kitchens, per set 2s. to	6	0
Ditto for parlours or libraries, bright pans, 4s. 6d. to	7	0

Fenders.

   

Kitchen fenders, 3 ft. long, with sliding bar	3	0
Green ditto, brass tops, for bed rooms	1	8

"Britannia Metal Goods" (tea-pots, &c.), "German
Silver Goods" (tea-spoons, 1s. to 2s. per dozen, &c.).

Bellows.

   

Kitchen, each	10d. to 2	0
Parlour ditto, brass pipes and nails	2s 3d. to 3	0

Japanned goods, brass goods, iron saucepans, oval iron
pots, iron tea-kettles, &c., iron stew-pans, &c. The
prices here run very systematically: —

             

	s.	d.
One quart	1	2
Three pints	1	8
Two quarts	2	0
Three quarts	3	0
Four quarts	3	9
Five quarts	4	0

Patent enamelled saucepans, oval tin boilers, tin
saucepans, tea-kettles, coffee-pots. In all these
useful articles the prices range in the same way
as in the iron stew-pans. Copper goods (kettles,
coal-scoops, &c.), tin fish-kettles, dish-covers, rose-
wood workboxes, glass, brushes (tooth, hair,
clothes, scrubbing, stove, shoe, japanned hearth,
banister, plate, carpet, and dandy), tools, plated
goods (warranted silver edges), snuffers, beads,
musical instruments (accordions from 1s. to 5s., &c.). Then come dials and clocks, combs, optics,
spectacles, eye-glasses, telescopes, opera glasses,
each 10d. to 10s., China ornaments, lamps, sun-
dries (these I give verbatim, to show the nature
of the trade), crimping and goffering-machines,
from 14s., looking-glasses, pictures, &c., beads of
every kind, watch-guards, shaving-boxes, guns,
pistols, powder-flasks, belts, percussion caps, &c.,
corkscrews, 6d. to 2s., nut-cracks, 6d. to 1s. 6d., folding measures, each 2s. to 4s., silver spoons,
haberdashery, skates per pair 2s. to 10s., carpet
bags, each 3s. to 10s., egg-boilers, tapers, flat and
box irons, Italian irons and heaters, earthenware
jugs, metal covers, tea-pots, plaited straw baskets,
sieves, wood pails, camera-obscuras, medals, amu-
lets, perfumery and fancy soaps of all kinds,
mathematical instruments, steel pens, silver and
German silver patent pencil-cases and leads, snuff-
boxes "in great variety," strops, ink, slates, metal
eyelet-holes and machines, padlocks, braces, belts,
Congreves, lucifers, fuzees, pocket-books, bill-cases,
bed-keys, and a great variety of articles too nume-
rous to mention.

Notwithstanding the specific character and
arrangement of the "Circulars with prices," it is
common enough for the swag-shop proprietors to
intimate to any one likely to purchase that those
prices are not altogether to be a guidance, as
thirty-five per cent. discount is allowed on the
amount of a ready-money purchase. One of the
largest "swags" made such an allowance to a
street-seller last week.

The swag-shops (of which I state the numbers
in a parenthesis) are in Houndsditch (their prin-
cipal locality) (23), Minories (4), Whitechapel
(2), Ratcliffe-highway (20), Shoreditch (1), Long-
lane, Smithfield (4), Fleet-lane (2), Holywell-
street, Strand (1), Tothill-street (4), Compton-
street, Soho (1), Hatton-garden (2), Clerkenwell
(10), Kent-street, Borough (8), New-cut (6),
Blackman-street (2), Tooley-street (3), London-
road (3), Borough-road (1), Waterloo-road (4) —
in all 101; but a person who had been upwards
of twenty years a frequenter of these places
counted up fifty others, many of them in obscure
courts and alleys near Houndsditch, Ratcliffe
Highway, &c., &c. These "outsiders" are gene-
rally of a smaller class than those I have described;
"and I can tell you, sir," the same man said,
"some of them — ay, and some of the big ones,

[Description: 915EAF. Page 336.]

too — are real swag-shops still, — partly so, that is;
you understand me, sir." The word "swag," I
should inform my polite readers, means in slang
language, "plunder."

It may be safely calculated, then, that there
are 150 swag-shops to which the different classes
of street-sellers resort for the purchase of stock.
Among these establishments are pot swag, sta-
tionery swag, haberdashery swag, jewellery swag,
and miscellaneous swag — the latter comprise far
more than half of the entire number, and consti-
tute the warehouses which are described by their
owners as "Birmingham and Sheffield," or "Eng-
lish and Foreign," or "English and German." It
is in these last-mentioned "swags" that the class
I now treat of — the street-sellers of metal manu-
factures — find the commodities of their trade. To
this, however, there is one exception. Tins for
household use are not sold at the general swag-
shops; but "fancy tins," such as japanned and
embellished trays, are vended there extensively.
The street-sellers of this order are supplied at the
"tin-shops," — the number of the wholesale tin-
men supplying the street-sellers is about fifty.
The principle on which the business is conducted
is precisely that of the more general swag-shop;
but I shall speak of them when I treat of the
street-sellers of tins.

An intelligent man, who had been employed in
different capacities in some of the principal swag-
shops, told me of one which had been carried on
by the same family, from father to son, for more
than seventy years. In the largest of the "swags"
about 200 "hands" are employed, in the various
capacities of salesmen, buyers, clerks, travellers,
unpackers, packers, porters, &c., &c. On some
mornings twenty-five large packages — some of
small articles entirely — are received from the
carriers. In one week, when my informant
assisted in "making up the books," the receipts
were upwards of 3000l. "In my opinion, sir,"
he said, "and it's from an insight into the busi-
ness, Mr. — 's profit on that 3000l. was not
less than thirty-five per cent.; for he's a great
capitalist, and pays for everything down upon the
nail; that's more than 1000l. profit in a week.
Certainly it was an extra week, and there's the
200 hands to pay, — but that wouldn't range
higher than 300l., indeed, not so high; and
there's heavy rent and taxes, and rates, no doubt,
and he (the proprietor is a Jew) is a fair man to
the trade, and not an uncharitable man — but he
will drive a good bargain where it's possible; so
considering everything, sir, the profits must be
very great, and they are mostly made out of poor
buyers, who sell it to poor people in the streets,
or in small shops. It's a wonderful trade."

From the best information I could obtain I
come to the conclusion that, including small and
large shops, 3000l. yearly is the average receipt
of each — or, as it is most frequently expressed,
that sum is "turned over" by the swag-shop
keepers yearly. There is great competition in the
trade, and much of what is called "cutting," or
one tradesman underselling another. The profit
consequently varies from twenty to thirty-five and
(rarely) fifty per cent. Sometimes a swag-shop
proprietor is "hung-up" with a stock the demand
for which has ceased, and he must dispose of it as
"a job lot," to make room for other goods, and
thus is necessarily "out of pocket." The smaller
swag-shops do not "turn over" 500l. a year. The
calculation I have given shows an outlay, yearly,
of 450,000l. at the swag-shops of London; "but,"
said a partner in one of these establishments,
"what proportion of the goods find their way into
the streets, what to the shops, what to the coun-
try, and what for shipping, I cannot form even a
guess, for we never ask a customer for what pur-
pose he wants the goods, though sometimes he
will say, `I must have what is best for such or
such a trade.' Say half a million turned over in
a year, sir, by the warehousemen who sell to the
street-people, among others, and you're within the
mark."

I found the street-sellers characterize the
"swags" as hard and grinding men, taking every
advantage "in the way of trade." There is, too,
I was told by a man lately employed in a swag-
shop, a constant collision of clamour and bargain-
ing, not to say of wits, between the smarter street-
sellers — the pattering class especially — and the
swag-men with whom they are familiar.

The points in which the "swag-shops" re-
semble the "slaughter-houses," are in the traffic in
work-boxes, desks, and dressing-cases.