University of Virginia Library

OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF BLACKING, BLACK
LEAD, ETC.

I specify these two commodities jointly, because
they are frequently sold by the same individual.
In Whitechapel and Spitalfields are eight estab-
lishments, where the street-sellers of blacking are
principally supplied with their stock. It is sold
in cakes, which are wrapped in a kind of oil
paper, generally printed on the back, so as to catch
the eye, with the address of some well-known
blacking manufacturer. Thus some which a street-
seller of blacking showed me were printed, in
large type, as a sort of border, "Lewis's India
Rubber Blacking," while in the middle was a very
black and very predominant 30, and beneath it,
in small and hardly distinguishable type, "Prin-
cess-st., Portman-market." Any shopkeeper, who
"supplies the trade," if he be a regular customer
of the manufacturer, can have his name and
address printed on the cover of the blacking-cakes.
The 30 is meant to catch the eye with the well-
known flourish of "30, Strand."

The quality of these cakes of blacking, the
street-sellers whom I questioned told me was
highly approved by their customers, and, as black-
ing is purchased by the classes who aim at a
smartness and cleanliness above that of the pur-
chasers of many street commodities, there is no
reason to doubt the assertion. The sale of this
blacking, indeed, is chiefly on a round, and it
would be hopeless as to future custom to call a
second time at any house where bad blacking had
been sold on a previous visit. The article is
vended wholesale, in "gross boxes," and "half-
gross boxes." The half-gross boxes are 1s. 9d., and capital, even in this trifling trade, has its
customary advantages, for the "gross boxes" are
but 3s. It should be remembered, however, that
to the buyer of two "half-gross" a couple of the
plain wooden boxes, in which the blacking is sold,
and often hawked, must be supplied; but to
the buyer of a "gross box" only one of these
cases is furnished. I may mention, to the credit

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of the vendors, that of the wholesale blacking
makers, two have themselves been street-sellers,
and one still, but only at intervals, goes "on a
blacking-round" among his old customers. There
are other blacking-makers, but those I have speci-
fied, as to number, are more particularly the pro-
viders for the street trade. The poor people who
sell blacking at a distance from the manufacturer's
premises — as in the case of the "30, Princess-st.,
Portman-market" — are supplied by oilmen, chand-
lers, and other shopkeepers, who buy largely of
the manufacturers, and can consequently supply
the purchasers by the dozen, for street sale or
hawking, as cheaply as they would be supplied by
the manufacturer himself. A dozen is generally
charged 3½d., and as the cakes are sold at ½d. each (occasionally 1d., both by the street people
and more frequently the small shopkeepers) the
profit is moderate enough. The cakes, however,
which are regularly retailed at 1d., are larger, and
cost nearly twice the amount of the others whole-
sale.

This trade presents the peculiarity of being
almost entirely a street "door-to-door" trade, as
I heard it described. Blacking is not presented
for purposes of begging, as are lucifer-matches,
tracts, memorandum-books, boot-laces, &c.; for
the half-trading, half-begging, is carried on in the
quieter parts of town, and more extensively in the
suburbs, ladies being principally accosted, and to
them blacking is not offered.

There are now, I learn from good authority,
never fewer than 200 persons selling cake black-
ing, "from door to door." More than half of
them are elderly women, and more than three-
fourths women of all ages and girls. The other
sellers are old men and boys. None of the black-
ing-sellers make the article they vend. To sell
eight dozen cakes a week is a full average, and of
these the "pennies" and the "half-pennies" are
about equally divided. This gives a weekly out-
lay of 6s. to each individual seller, with an average
profit of about 2s. 6d., and shows a yearly street-
expenditure by the public of 3120l. The profit,
however, is not in equal apportionment among
the traders in blacking, for the "old hands" on
a regular round will do double the business of the
others.

In liquid blacking the trade is now small. It
is occasionally sold in the street markets on
Saturday nights, but the principal traffic is in the
public-houses. This kind of blacking is retailed at
2d. a bottle, and, I was informed by a man who
had sold it, was "rather queer stuff." It is la-
belled "equal to" (in very small letters) Day and
Martin" in very large letters. One of the manu-
facturers a few years ago told my informant that
he had been threatened "with being sued for
piracy, but it was no use sueing a mouse." There
are sometimes none, and sometimes twenty per-
sons hawking this blacking, and they are princi-
pally, I am informed, the servants of showmen,
"out of employ," or "down on their luck."
Some of these men "raffle" their blacking in
public-houses. They are provided with tickets,
numbered from one to six, which are thrown, the
blank sides upwards on a table, and the drawer
of number six wins a two-penny bottle of blacking
for ½d.; for this the raffler receives 3d. Few of
these traders sell more than one dozen bottles in a
day, the principal trade being in the evening, and
"one-and-a-half dozen is a very good day." The
goods are carried in a sack, slung from the shoul-
der, and are a very heavy carriage, as two-and-a-
half dozen, which are often carried, weigh about
100 lbs. If ten men, the year through, take each
6s. weekly (about half the amount being profit),
which, I am assured, is the average extent of the
trade, we find 156l. yearly expended in this
liquid blacking. "Ten years ago," said one
blacking seller to me, "it was three times as
much as it is now." At the mews blacking is
sold by men who are for the most part servants
out of place, or who have become known
to the denizens of the mews, from having been
"helpers" in some capacity, if they have not
worn a livery. Here the article vended is what
it is announced to be, — "Hoby's" or "Everett's"
blacking. The sellers are known to the coach-
men and grooms, many of whom have to "find
their own blacking," or there would be no busi-
ness done in the mews, the dwellers there being
great sticklers for "a good article." The profit
to the vendors is 3s. in 12s. Shilling bottles are
vended as numerously as "sixpennies." An old
coachman, who had lived in mews in all parts of
town, calculated that, take the year through, there
was every day twenty men selling blacking in
the mews, with an average profit of 10d. a day,
or 5s. a week, so taking 15s. each. This gives a
mews expenditure, yearly, of 780l.

Black-Lead, for the polishing of grates, is sold
in small paper packets, the half ounce being a
½d., and the ounce a 1d. The profit is cent. per
cent. Nearly all the women who sell blacking, as
I have described, sell black-lead also. In addition
to these elderly traders, however, there are from
twenty to thirty boys and girls who vend black-
lead in the street markets, but chiefly on Saturday
nights, and on other days offer it through the area
rails — their wretched plight, without any actual
begging, occasionally procuring them custom.

The black-lead sold in the streets has often a
label in imitation of that of established shop-
keepers, as "Superfine Pencil Black-Lead, prepared
expressly for, and sold by T. H. Jennings, Oil-
Colour and Italian Warehouse, 25, Wormwood-
street, City." The name and address must of
course be different, but the arrangement of the
lines, and often the type, is followed closely,
as are the adornments of the packet, which
in the instance cited are heraldic. In other parts of
town, the labels of tradesmen are imitated in a
similar way, but not very closely; and in nearly
half the qantity sold a bonâ fide label is given,
without imitation or sham. "There would be
more sold in that way," I was told by a sharp
lad, "quite the real ticket, if the dons as whole-
sales the black-lead, would make it up to sell in
ha'porths and penn'orths, with a proper 'lowance
to us as sells." This boy and a young sister went
on a round; the boy with black-lead, the girl with

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boot-laces, in one direction, the mother going in
another, and each making for their room at six in
the evening, or as soon as "sold out."

There are, I am informed, 100 to 150 persons
selling and hawking black-lead in the streets, and
it may be estimated that they take 4s. each
weekly (the adults selling other small articles
with the black-lead); thus we find, averaging the
number of sellers at 125, that 1250l. is yearly
expended in this article, half of which sum forms
the profit of the street-folk.