University of Virginia Library

OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF WHIPS, ETC.

These traders are a distinct class from the
stick-sellers, and have a distinct class of customers.
The sale is considerable; for to many the posses-
sion of a whip is a matter of importance. If one
be lost or stolen, for instance, from a butcher's
cart at Newgate-market, the need of a whip to
proceed with the cart and horse to its destination,
prompts the purchase in the quickest manner,
and this is usually effected of the street-seller who
offers his wares to the carters at every established
resort.

The commonest of the whips sold to cart-drivers
is sometimes represented as whalebone covered
with gut; but the whalebone is a stick, and the
flexible part is a piece of leather, while the gut is
a sort of canvas, made to resemble the worked gut
of the better sort of whips, and is pasted to the
stock; the thong — which in the common sort is
called "four strands," or plaits — being attached to
the flexible part. Some of these whips are old
stocks recovered, and many are sad rubbish; but
for any deceit the street-seller can hardly be con-
sidered responsible, as he always purchases at the
shop of a wholesale whipmaker, who is in some
cases a retailer at the same price and under the
same representations as the street-seller. The
retail price is 1s. each; the wholesale, 8s. and 9s. a dozen. Some of the street whip-sellers repre-
sent themselves as the makers, but the whips are
almost all made in Birmingham and Walsall.

Of these traders very few are the ordinary
street-sellers. Most of them have been in some

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way or other connected with the care of horses,
and some were described to me as "beaten-out
countrymen," who had come up to town in the
hope of obtaining employment, and had failed.
One man, of the last-mentioned class, told me
that he had come to London from a village in
Cambridgeshire, bringing with him testimonials of
good character, and some letters from parties
whose recommendation he expected would be ser-
viceable to him; but he had in vain endeavoured
for some months to obtain work with a carrier,
omnibus proprietor, or job-master, either as driver
or in charge of horses. His prospects thus fail-
ing him, he was now selling whips to earn his
livelihood. A friend advised him to do this, as
better than starving, and as being a trade that he
understood: —

"I often thought I'd be forced to go back home,
sir," he said, "and I'd have been ashamed to do't,
for I would come to try my luck in London, and
would leave a place I had. All my friends — and
they're not badly off — tried to 'suade me to stop
at home another year or two, but come I would,
as if I must and couldn't help it. I brought good
clothes with me, and they're a'most all gone; and
I'd be ashamed to go back so shabby, like the
prodigal's son; you know, sir. I'll have another
try yet, for I get on to a cab next Monday, with
a very respectable cab-master. As I've only my-
self, I know I can do. I was on one, but not
with the same master, after I'd been six weeks
here; but in two days I was forced to give it up,
for I didn't know my way enough, and I didn't
know the distances, and couldn't make the money
I paid for my cab. If I asked another cabman,
he was as likely to tell me wrong as right. Then
the fares used to be shouting out, `I say, cabby,
where the h — are you going? I told you
Mark-lane, and here we are at the Minories.
Drive back, sir.' I know my way now well
enough, sir. I've walked the streets too long not
to know it. I notice them on purpose now, and
know the distances. I've written home for a
few things for my new trade, and I'm sure to get
them. They don't know I'm selling whips. There
would be such a laugh against me among all
t'young fellows if they did. Me as was so sure
to do well in London!

"It's a poor trade. A carman 'll bid me 6d. for such a whip as this, which is 4s. 3d. the half
dozen wholesale. `I have to find my own whips,'
my last customer said, `though I drives for a
stunning grocer, and be d — d to him.' They're
great swearers some of them. I make 7s. or 8s. in
a week, for I can walk all day without tiring. I
one week cleared 14s. Next week I made 3s. I have slept in cheap lodging-houses — but only
in three: one was very decent, though out
of the way; one was middling; and the
t'other was a pig-sty. I've seen very poor places
in the country, but nothing to it. I now pay 2s. a week for a sort of closet, with a bed in it, at
the top of a house, but it's clean and sweet; and
my landlord's a greengrocer and coal-merchant
and firewood-seller; — he's a good man — and I can
always earn a little against the rent with him, by
cleaning his harness, and grooming his pony — he
calls it a pony, but it's over 15 hands — and
greasing his cart-wheels, and mucking out his
stable, and such like. I shall live there when
I'm on my cab."

Other carmen's whips are 1s. 6d., and as high
as 2s. 6d., but hte great sale is of those at 1s. The principal localities for the trade are at the
meat-markets, the "green markets," Smithfield,
the streets leading to Billingsgate when crowded
in the morning, the neighbourhood of the docks
and wharfs, and the thoroughfares generally.

The trade in the other kind of whips is again
in the hands of another class, in that of cabmen
who have lost their licence, who have been
maimed, and the numerous "hands" who job
about stables — especially cab-horse stables — when
without other employment. The price of the
inferior sort of "gig-whips" is 1s. to 1s. 6d., the
wholesale price being from 9s. 6d. to 14s. 6d. the
dozen. Some are lower than 9s. 6d., but the
cabmen, I am told, "will hardly look at them;
they know what they're a-buying of, and is wide
awake, and that's one reason why the profit's so
small." Occasionally, one whip-seller told me, he
had sold gig-whips at 2s. or 2s. 6d. to gentlemen
who had broken their "valuable lance-wood," or
"beautiful thorn," and who made a temporary
purchase until they could buy at their accustomed
shops. "A military gent, with mustachers, once
called to me in Piccadilly," the same man stated,
"and he said, `Here, give me the best you can
for half-a-crown, I've snapped my own. I never
use the whip when I drive, for my horse is
skittish and won't stand it, but I can't drive
without one.' "

In the height of the season, two, and some-
times three men, sell handsome gig-whips at the
fashionable drives or the approaches. "I have
taken as much as 30s. in a day, for three whips,"
said one man, "each 10s.; but they were silver-
mounted thorn, and very cheap indeed; that's
8 or 9 years back; people looks oftener at 10s. now.
I've sold horse-dealers' whips too, with loaded
ends. Oh, all prices. I've bought them, wholesale,
at 8s. a dozen, and 7s. 6d. a piece. Hunting
whips are never sold in the streets now. I have
sold them, but it's a good while ago, as riding
whips for park gentlemen. The stocks were of fine
strong lancewood — such a close grain! with buck
horn handles, and a close-worked thong, fastened
to the stock by an `eye' (loop), which it's slipped
through. You could hear its crack half a mile
off. `Threshing machines,' I called them."

All the whip-sellers in a large way visit the
races, fairs, and large markets within 50 miles
of London. Some go as far as Goodwood at the
race-time, which is between 60 and 70 miles dis-
tant. On a well-thronged race-ground these men
will take 3l. or 4l. in a day, and from a half to
three-fourths as much at a country fair. They
sell riding-whips in the country, but seldom in
town.

An experienced man knew 40 whip-sellers, as
nearly as he could call them to mind, by sight,
and 20 by name. He was certain that on no day

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were there fewer than 30 in the streets, and some-
times — though rarely — there were 100. The most
prosperous of the body, including their profits at
races, &c., make 1l. a week the year through; the
poorer sort from 5s. to 10s., and the latter are three
times as numerous as the others. Averaging that
only 30 whip-sellers take 25s. each weekly (with
profits of from 5s. to 10s.) in London alone, we
find 2340l. expended in the streets in whips.

Some of the whip-sellers vend whipcord, also,
to those cabmen and carters who "cord" their
own whips. The whipcord is bought wholesale
at 2s. the pound (sometimes lower), and sold at
½d. the knot, there being generally six dozen
knots in a pound.

Another class "mend" cabmen's whips, re-
thonging, or "new-springing" them, but these are
street-artisans.