 | OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF MANUFACTURED ARTICLES. London Labour and the London Poor, volume 1 |  |
OF THE STREET-SELLER OF CRACKERS AND
DETONATING BALLS.
This trade, I am informed by persons familiar
with it, would be much more frequently carried
on by street-folk, and in much greater numbers,
were it not the one which of all street callings finds
the least toleration from the police. "You must
keep your eyes on both corners of the street," said
one man, "when you sell crackers; and what good
is it the police stopping us? The boys have only
to go to a shop, and then it's all right."
The trade is only known in the streets at
holiday seasons, and is principally carried on for
a few days before and after the 5th of November,
and again at Christmas-tide. "Last November was
good for crackers," said one man; "it was either
Guy Faux day, or the day before, I'm not
sure which now, that I took 15s., and nearly
all of boys, for waterloo crackers and ball crackers
(the common trade names), `waterloo' being
the `pulling crackers.' At least three parts was
ball crackers. I sold them from a barrow, wheel-
ing it about as if it was heartstone, and just
saying quietly when I could, `Six a penny crack-
ers.' The boys soon tell one another. All sorts
bought of me; doctors' boys, school boys, pages,
boys as was dressed beautiful, and boys as hadn't
neither shoes nor stockings. It's sport for them
all." The same man told me he did well at what
he called "last Poram fair," clearing 13s. 6d. in
three days, or rather evenings or nights. "Poram
fair, sir," he said, "is a sort of feast among the
Jews, always three weeks I've heard, afore their
Passover, and I then work Whitechapel and all
that way."
I inquired of a man who had carried on this
street trade for a good many years, it might be
ten or twelve, if he had noticed the uses to which
his boy-customers put his not very innocent
wares, and he entered readily into the subject.
"Why, sir," he said, "they're not all boy-
customers, as you call them, but they're far the
most. I've sold to men, and often to drunken
men. What larks there is with the ball-crackers!
One man lost his eye at Stepney Fair, but that's
6 or 7 years ago, from a lark with crackers. The
rights of it I never exactly understood, but I
know he lost his eye, from the dry gravel in the
ball-cracker bouncing into it. But it's the boys
as is fondest of crackers. I sold 'em all last
Christmas, and made my 5s. and better on Boxing-
day. I was sold out before 6 o'clock, as I had a
regular run at last — just altogether. After that,
I saw one lad go quietly behind a poor lame old
woman and pull a Waterloo close behind her ear;
he was a biggish boy and tidily dressed; and the
old body screamed, `I'm shot.' She turned about,
and the boy says, says he, `Does your grand-
mother know you're out? It's a improper thing,
so it is, for you to be walking out by yourself.'
You should have seen her passion! But as she
was screaming out, `You saucy wagabone! You
boys is all wagabones. People can't pass for you.
I'll give you in charge, I will," the lad was off
like a shot.
"But one of the primest larks I ever saw that
way was last winter, in a street by Shoreditch.
An old snob that had a bulk was making it all
right for the night, and a lad goes up. I don't
know what he said to the old boy, but I saw him
poke something, a last I think it was, against the
candle, put it out, and then run off. In a minute,
three or four lads that was ready, let fly at the bulk
with their ball-crackers, and there was a clatter
as if the old snob had tumbled down, and knocked
his lasts down; but he soon had his head out —
he was Irish, I think — and he first set up a roar
like a Smithfield bull, and he shouts, `I'm kilt
intirely wid the murthering pistols! Po-lice!
Po-o-lice!' He seemed taken quite by surprise
— for they was capital crackers — I think he
couldn't have been used to bulks, or he would
have been used to pelting; but how he did bellow,
surely.
"I think it was that same night too, I saw a
large old man, buttoned up, but seeming as if he
was fine-dressed for a party, in a terrible way in the
Commercial-road. I lived near there then. There
was three boys afore me — and very well they did it
— one of 'em throws a ball-cracker bang at the old
gent's feet, just behind him, and makes him jump
stunning, and the boy walks on with his hands in
his pocket, as if he know'd nothing about it.
Just after that another boy does the same, and
then the t'other boy; and the old gent — Lord,
[Description: 915EAF. Page 431.]
spectable man, as I told him, when he said, I'd crackered him! `Me cracker you,' says I; `it'ud
look better if you'd have offered to treat a poor
fellow to a pint of beer with ginger in it, and the
chill off, than talk such nonsense.' As we was
having this jaw, one of the boys comes back and
lets fly again; and the old gent saw how it was,
and he says, `Now, if you'll run after that lad,
and give him a d — d good hiding, you shall
have the beer.' `Money down, sir,' says I, `if
you mean honour bright;' but he grumbled some-
thing, and walked away. I saw him soon after,
talking to a Bobby, so I made a short cut home."
At the fairs near London there is a consider-
able sale of these combustibles; and they are
often displayed on large stalls in the fair. They
furnish the means of practical jokes to the people
on their return. "After last Whitsun Greenwich
Fair," said a street-seller to me, I saw a gent in a
white choker, like a parson, look in at a pastry-
cook's shop, as is jist by the Elephant (and Castle),
a-waiting for a 'bus, I s'pose. There was an old
'oman with a red face standing near him; and I
saw a lad, very quick, pin something to one's
coat and the t'other's gown. They turned jist
arter, and bang goes a Waterloo, and they looks
savage one at another; and hup comes that in-
dentical boy, and he says to the red faced 'oman,
a pointing to the white choker, `Marm, I seed
him a twiddling with your gown. He done it for
a lark arter the fair, and ought to stand some-
thing.' So the parson, if he were a parson,
walked away."
There are eight makers, I am told, who supply
the street-sellers and the small shops with these
crackers. The wholesale price is 4d. to 6d. a gross,
the "cracker-balls" being the dearest. The retail
price in the streets is from six to twelve a penny,
according to the appearance and eagerness of the
purchaser. Some street traders carry these com-
modities on trays, and very few are stationary,
except at fairs. I am assured, that for a few
days last November, from 50 to 60 men and
women were selling crackers in the streets, of
course "on the sly." In so irregular and sur-
reptitious a trade, it is not possible even to ap-
proximate to statistics. The most intelligent man
that I met with, acquainted, as he called it,
"with all the ins and outs of the trade," calcu-
lated that in November and Christmas, 100l. at
least was expanded in the streets in these com-
bustibles, and another 100l. in the other parts of
the year. About Tower-hill, Ratcliff-highway (or
"the Highway," as street-sellers often call it), and
in Wapping and Shadwell, the sale of crackers is
the best. The sellers are the ordinary street-
sellers, and no patter is required.
| OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF MANUFACTURED ARTICLES. London Labour and the London Poor, volume 1 | |