 | OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF MANUFACTURED ARTICLES. London Labour and the London Poor, volume 1 |  |
OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF CARD-COUNTERS,
MEDALS, ETC.
The "card-counters," or, as I have heard them
sometimes called by street-sellers, the "small
coins," are now of a very limited sale. The
slang name for these articles is "Jacks" and
"Half Jacks." They are sold to the street-people
at only two places in London; one in Holborn,
and the other at Black Tom's (himself formerly a
street-seller, now "a small swag"), in Clerken-
well. They are all made in Birmingham, and are
of the size and colour of the genuine sovereigns
and half sovereigns; but it is hardly possible that
any one who had ever received a sovereign in
payment, could be deceived by the substitution of
a Jack. Those now sold in the streets are much
thinner, and very much lighter. Each presents a
profile of the Queen; but instead of the super-
scription "Victoria Dei Gratiâ" of the true sove-
reign, the Jack has "Victoria Regina." On the
reverse, in the place of the "Britanniarum Regina
Fid. Def." surrounding the royal arms and crown,
is a device (intended for an imitation of St. George
and the Dragon) representing a soldier on horse-
back — the horse having three legs elevated from
the ground, while a drawn sword fills the right
hand of the equestrian, and a crown adorns his
head. The superscription is, "to Hanover," and
the rider seems to be sociably accompanied by a
dragon. Round the Queen's head on the half
Jack is "Victoria, Queen of Great Britain," and
on the reverse the Prince of Wales's feather, with
the legend, "The Prince of Wales's Model Half
Sovereign."
Until within these five or six years the gilt
card-counters had generally the portraiture of the
monarch, and on the reverse the legend "Keep
your temper," as a seasonable admonition to whist
players. Occasionally the card-counter was a gilt
coin, closely resembling a sovereign; but the
magistracy, eight or nine years back, "put down"
the sale of these imitations.
Under another head will be found an account
of the use made of these sovereigns, in pretended
wagers. A further use of them was to add to the
heaps of apparent gold at the back of the table-
keeper in a race booth, when gambling was
allowed at Epsom, and the "great meetings."
There are now only two men regularly selling
Jacks in the streets. There have been as many as
twelve. One of these street-sellers is often found
in Holborn, announcing "30s. for 1d.! 30s. for 1d.!
cheapest bargain ever offered; 30s. for 1d.!"
The Jacks cost, wholesale, 4s. 6d. the gross;
the half Jacks 2s. 9d. The two are sold for 1d.
If the sale be not brisk, the street-seller will give a
ring into the bargain. These rings cost 1s. the
gross, or the third part of a farthing each.
If there be, on the year's average, only two
street-sellers disposing of the Jacks, and earning
9s. a week — to earn which the receipts will be
about 20s. — we find 104l. expended in the streets
on these trifles.
Of medals the street sale is sometimes con-
siderable, at others a mere nothing. When a
[Description: 915EAF. Page 350.]
general patterers "go to medals." I could not
learn that any of the present street-people vended
medals in the time of the war; I believe there are
none at present among the street folk who did so.
I am told that the street sale in war medals was
smaller than might reasonably have been expected.
The manufacture of those articles in the Salamanca,
Vittoria, and even Waterloo days, was greatly
inferior to what it is at present, and the street
price demanded was as often 6d. as a smaller sum.
These medals in a little time presented a dull,
leaden look, and the knowledge that they were
"poor things" seems to have prevented the public
buying them to any extent in the streets, and
perhaps deterred the street-sellers from offering
them. Those who were the most successful of
the medal-sellers had been, or assumed to have
been, soldiers or seamen.
Within the last eighteen years, or more, there
has hardly been any public occurrence without a
comparatively well-executed medal being sold in
the streets in commemoration of it. That sold at
the opening of London-bridge was, I am told,
considered "a superior thing," and the improve-
ment in this art or manufacture has progressed to
the present time. Within the last three years the
most saleable medals, an experienced man told me,
were of Hungerford Suspension (bridge), the New
Houses of Parliament, the Chinese Junk, and Sir
Robert Peel. The Thames Tunnel medals were
at one time "very tidy," as were those of the New
Royal Exchange. The great sale is at present of
the Crystal Palace; and one man had heard that
there were a great many persons coming to London
to sell them at the opening of the Great Exhi-
bition. "The great eggs and bacon, I call it," he
said; "for I hope it will bring us that sort of
grub. But I don't know; I'm afraid there 'll
be too many of us. Besides, they say we shan't
be let sell in the park."
The exhibition medal is as follows: —
What the street medal-sellers call the "right-
side" — I speak of the "penny" medal, which
commands by far the greatest sale — presents the
Crystal Palace, raised from the surface of the
medal, and whitened by the application of aqua
fortis. The superscription is "THE BUILDING FOR
THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, LONDON, 1851."
On the "wrong side" (so called) is the following
inscription, occupying the whole face of the medal:
THE CONSTRUCTION IS OF
IRON AND OF GLASS,
1848 FEET LONG.
ABOUT HALF IS 456 WIDE.
THE REMAINDER 408 FEET WIDE,
AND 66 FEET HIGH;
SITE, UPWARDS OF 20 ACRES.
COST £150,000.
JOSH. PAXTON, ARCHT.
The size of this medal is between that of a
shilling and a half-crown.
A patterer, who used to sell medals on Sunday
mornings in the park, informed me that he told
his customers the Crystal Palace part was dead
silver, by a new discovery making silver cheap;
but for all that he would risk changing it for a
four-penny bit!
The two-penny medal is after the same style,
but the letters are more distinct. On my stating,
to a medal-seller, that it was difficult to read the
inscription on his "pennies," he said, "Not at all,
sir; but it's your eyes is dazzled." This was
said quietly, and with a touch of slyness, and I
have no doubt was the man's "cut-and-dried"
answer.
The patterer whom I have mentioned, told me,
that encouraged by a tolerably sale and "a gather-
ing of the aristocrats," on a very fine Sunday in
January or February — he could not remember
which — he ventured upon 6 "sixpenny medals,"
costing him 1s. 9d. He sold them all but one,
which he showed me. It was exactly the size of
a crown-piece. The Crystal Palace was "raised,"
and of "dead silver," as in the smaller medals.
The superscription was the same as on the penny
medal; but underneath the representation of the
palace were raised figures of Mercury and of a
naked personage, with a quill as long as himself,
a cornucopia, and a bee-hive: this I presume was
Industry. These twin figures are supporters to a
medallion, crown-surmounted, of the Queen and
Prince Albert: being also in "dead silver." On
the reverse was an inscription, giving the dimen-
sions, &c., of the building.
The medals in demand for street-sale in London
seem to be those commemorative of local events
only. None, for instance, were sold relating to
the opening of the Britannia Bridge.
The wholesale price of the medals retailed in
the street at 1d. is 7s. the gross; those retailed at
2d. are 12s. the gross, but more than three-fourths
of those sold are penny medals. They are all
bought at the swag-shops, and are all made in
Birmingham. It is difficult to compute how many
persons are engaged in this street trade, for many
resort to it only on occasions. There are, however,
from 12 to 20 generally selling medals, and at the
present time about 30 are so occupied: they, how-
ever, do not sell medals exclusively, but along with
a few articles of jewellery, or occasionally of such
street stationery as letter stamps and "fancy"
pens, with coloured glass or china handles. A
fourth of the number are women. The weather
greatly influences the street medal trade, as rain
or damp dims their brightness. One seller told me
that the day before I saw him he had sold only
four medals. "I've known the trade, off and on," he
said, "for about six years, and the greatest number
as ever I sold was half-a-gross one Saturday. I
cleared rather better than 3s. I sold them in
Whitehall and by Westminster-bridge. There
was nothing new among them, but I had a good
stock, and it was a fine day, and I was lucky in
meeting parties, and had a run for sets." By a
"run for sets," my informant meant that he had
met with customers who bought a medal of each
of the kinds he displayed; this is called "a set."
An intelligent man, familiar with the trade,
and who was in the habit of clubbing his stock-
money with two others, that they might buy a
gross at a time, calculated that 15 medal sellers
were engaged in the traffic the year through, and
earned, in medals alone, 6d. a day each, to clear
[Description: 915EAF. Page 351.]
yearly outlay of 253l. 10s. It must be remem-
bered, to account for the smallness of the earn-
ings, that the trade in medals is irregular, and the
calculation embraces all the seasons of the trade.
On occasions when medals are the sole or chief
articles of traffic, they are displayed on a tray,
which is a box with a lid, and thus look bright
as silver on the faded brown velvet, with
which the box is often lined. Among the fa-
vourite pitches are Oxford-street, the approaches
to London, Blackfriars, Westminster, and Water-
loo-bridges, the railway stations, and the City-
road.
Of small coins (proper) there is now no sale in
the streets. When there was an issue of half-
farthings, about seven years ago, the street-sellers
drove a brisk trade, in vending them at four a
penny, urging on the sale before the coins got into
circulation, which they never did. "It's not
often," said one patterer to me, "that we has
anything to thank the Government for, but we
may thank them for the half-farthings. I dare say
at least 30 of us made a tidy living on them for a
week or more; and if they wasn't coined just to
give us a spirt, I should like to know what they
was coined for! I once myself, sir, for a lark,
gave one to a man that swept a capital crossing,
and he was in a thundering passion, and wanted
to fight me, when I told him they was coined to
pay the likes of him!"
There was afterwards a tolerable sale of the
"new silver pennies, just issued from the Mint,
three ha'pence each, or 7 for 6d.;" also of "ge-
nuine models of the new English florin, only 1d.:"
both of these were fictitious.
| OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF MANUFACTURED ARTICLES. London Labour and the London Poor, volume 1 | |