 | OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF MANUFACTURED ARTICLES. London Labour and the London Poor, volume 1 |  |
OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF BOOT AND STAY-
LACES, &c.
Like many street-callings which can be started on
[Description: 915EAF. Page 392.]
knowledge of the article sold being necessary to
the street-vendor, the boot and stay-lace trade
has very many followers. I here speak of those
who sell boot-laces, and subsist, or endeavour to
subsist, by the sale, without mixing it up with
begging. The majority, indeed the great majority,
of these street traders are women advanced in
years, and, perhaps, I may say the whole of them
are very poor. An old woman said to me, "I
just drag, on, sir, half-starving on a few boot-laces,
rather than go into the workhouse, and I know
numbers doing the same."
The laces are bought at the haberdashery swag-
shops I have spoken of, and amongst these old
women I found the term "swag-shop" as com-
mon as among men who buy largely at such esta-
blishments. The usual price for boot-laces to
be sold in the streets is 1d. a dozen. Each lace
is tagged at both ends, sufficing for a pair of boots.
The regular retail price is three a penny, but the
lace-sellers are not unfrequently compelled to give
four, or lose a customer. A better quality is sold
at 1½d. and 2d. a dozen, but these are seldom med-
dled with by the street lace-sellers. It is often a
matter of strong endeavour for a poor woman to
make herself mistress of 11d., the whole of which
she can devote to the purchase of boot-laces, as
for 11d. she can procure a gross, so saving 1d. in
twelve dozen.
The stay-laces, which are bought at the same
places, and usually sold by the same street-traders,
are 2d. and 2½d. the dozen. I am told that there
are as many of the higher as of the lower priced
stay-laces bought for street sale, "because," one
of the street-sellers told me "there's a great many
servant girls, and others too, that's very particular
about their stay-laces." The stay-laces are re-
tailed at ½d. each.
These articles are vended at street-stalls, along
with other things for female use; but the most
numerous portion of the lace-sellers are itinerant,
walking up and down a street market, or going on
a round in the suburbs, calling at every house
where they are known, or where, as one woman
expressed it, "we make bold to venture." Those
frequenting the street-markets, or other streets or
throughfares, usually carry the boot-laces in their
hands, and the stay-laces round their necks, and
offer them to the females passing. Their principal
customers are the working-classes, the wives and
daughters of small shop-keepers, and servant-maids.
"Ladies, of course," said one lace-seller, "won't
buy of us." Another old woman whom I ques-
tioned on the subject, and who had sold laces for
about fourteen years, gave me a similar account;
but she added: — "I've sold to high-up people
though. Only two or three weeks back, a fine-
dressed servant maid stopped me and said, `Here,
I must have a dozen boot-laces for mistress, and
she says, she'll only give 3d. for them, as it's a
dozen at once. A mean cretur she is. It's grand
doings before faces, and pinchings behind backs,
at our house.' "
Among the lace-sellers having rounds in the
suburbs are some who "have known better
days." One old woman had been companion and
housekeeper to a lady, who died in her arms, and
whose legacy to her companion-servant enabled
her to furnish a house handsomely. This she
let out in apartments at "high-figures," and any-
thing like a regular payment by her lodgers would
have supplied her with a comfortable maintenance.
But fine gentlemen, and fine ladies too, went away
in her debt; she became involved, her furniture
was seized, and step by step she was reduced to
boot-lace selling. Her appearance is still that of
"the old school;" she wears a very large bonnet of
faded black silk, a shawl of good material, but old
and faded, and always a black gown. The poor
woman told me that she never ventured to call
even at the houses where she was best received if
she saw any tax-gatherer go to or from the house:
"I know very well what it is," she continued,
"it's no use my calling; they're sure to be cross,
and the servants will be cross too, because their
masters or mistresses are cross with them. If the
tax-gatherer's not paid, they're cross at being
asked; if he is paid, they're cross at having had
to part with their money. I've paid taxes myself."
The dress of the boot lace-sellers generally is
that of poor elderly women, for the most part per-
haps a black chip, or old straw bonnet (often
broken) and a dark-coloured cotton gown. Their
abodes are in the localities in all parts of the me-
tropolis, which I have frequently specified as the
abodes of the poor. They live most frequently in
their own rooms, but the younger, and perhaps I
may add, coarser, of the number, resort to lodg-
ing-houses. It is not very uncommon, I was told
by one of the class, for two poor women, boot-lace
sellers or in some similar line, "to join" in a room,
so saving half the usual rent of 1s. 6d. for an
unfurnished room. This arrangement, however, is
often of short duration. There is always arising
some question, I was told, about the use or wear of
this utensil or the other, or about washing, or about
wood and coals, if one street-seller returned an
hour or two before her companion. This is not to
be wondered at, when we bear in mind that to
these people every farthing is of consequence.
From all that I can learn, the boot-lace sellers (I
speak of the women) are poor and honest, and
that, as a body, they are little mixed up with dis-
honest characters and dishonest ways. The ex-
ceptions are, I understand, among some hale per-
sons, such as I have alluded to as sojourning in
the lodging-houses. Some of these traders receive
a little parochial relief.
One intelligent woman could count up 100 per-
sons depending chiefly upon the sale of boot and
stay-laces, in what she called her own neighbour-
hood. This comprised Leather-lane, Holborn,
Tottenham Court-road, the Hampstead-road, and
all the adjacent streets. From the best data at
my command, I believe there are not fewer than
500 individuals selling these wares in London.
Several lace-sellers agreed in stating that they sold
a dozen boot-laces a-day, and a dozen stay-laces,
and 2 dozen extra on Saturday nights; but the
drawbacks of bad weather, &c., reduce the average
sale to not more than 6 dozen a week, or 384,400
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3120l. yearly; from a half to three-fourths of the
receipts being the profit of the street-sellers.
The same quantity of stay-laces sold at 6d. a
dozen shows an outlay of 4680l., with about an
equally proportional profit to the sellers.
Most of these traders sell tapes and other ar-
ticles as well as laces. The tapes cost 3d. and
3½d. the dozen, and are sold at ½d. a knot. A
dozen in 2 days is an average sale, but I have
treated more expressly of those who depend prin-
cipally upon boot-lace selling for their livelihood.
Their average profits are about 3s. a week, on
laces alone. The trade, I am told, was much
more remunerative a few years back, and the de-
cline was attributed "to so many getting into the
trade, and the button boots becoming as fashionable
as the Adelaides."
| OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF MANUFACTURED ARTICLES. London Labour and the London Poor, volume 1 | |