OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF CIGARS.
Cigars, I am informed, have constituted a por-
tion of the street-trade for upwards of 20 years,
having been introduced not long after the re-
moval of the prohibition on their importation
from Cuba. It was not, however, until five or six
years later that they were at all extensively sold
in the streets; but the street-trade in cigars is
no longer extensive, and in some respects has
ceased to exist altogether.
I am told by experienced persons that the cigars
first vended in the streets and public-houses were
really smuggled. I say "really" smuggled, as
many now vended under that pretence never came
from the smuggler's hands. "Well, now, sir," said
one man, "the last time I sold Pickwicks and
Cubers a penny apiece with lights for nothing,
was at Greenwich Fair, on the sly rather, and
them as I could make believe was buying a
smuggled thing, bought far freer. Everybody likes
a smuggled thing." [This remark is only in con-
sonance with what I have heard from others of
the same class.] "In my time I've sold what was
smuggled, or made to appear as sich, but far more
in the country than town, to all sorts — to gentle-
men, and ladies, and shopkeepers, and parsons, and
doctors, and lawyers. Why no, sir, I can't say
as how I ever sold anything in that way to an
exciseman. But smuggling'll always be liked;
it's sich a satisfaction to any man to think he's
done the tax-gatherer."
The price of a cigar, in the earlier stages of the
street-traffic, was 2d. and 3d. One of the boxes
in which these wares are ordinarily packed was
divided by a partition, the one side containing the
higher, and the other the lower priced article.
The division was often a mere trick of trade — in
justification of which any street-seller would be
sure to cite the precedent of shopkeeper's prac-
tices — for the cigars might be the same price
(wholesale) but the bigger and better-looking were
selected as "threepennies," the "werry choicest
and realest Hawanners, as mild as milk, and as
strong as gunpowder," for such, I am told, was
the cry of a then well-known street-trader. The
great sale was of the "twopennies." As the
fuzees, now so common, were unknown, and lucifer
matches were higher-priced, and much inferior
to what they are at present, the cigar seller in
most instances carried tow with him, a portion of
which he kept ignited in a sort of tinder-box, and
at this the smokers lighted their cigars; or the
vender twisted together a little tow and handed
it, ignited, to a customer, that if he were walking
on he might renew his "light," if the cigar
"wouldn't draw."
A cheaper cigar soon found its way into street
commerce, "only a penny apiece, prime cigars;"
and on its first introduction, a straw was fitted
into it, as a mouth-piece. "Cigar tubes" were
also sold in the streets; they were generally of
bone, and charged from 2d. to 1s. each. The cigar
was fitted into the tube, and they were strongly
recommended on the score of economy, as "by
means of this tube, any gen'l'man can smoke his
cigar to half a quarter of an inch, instead of being
forced to throw it away with an inch and a half
left." These tubes have not for a long time been
vended in the streets. I am told by a person,
who himself was then engaged in the sale, that
the greatest number of penny cigars ever sold in
the streets in one day was on that of her Majesty's
coronation (June 28, 1838). Of this he was quite
positive from what he had experienced, seen, and
heard.
"In my opinion," said another street-seller,
"the greatest injury the street-trade in such things
had was when the publicans took to selling cigars.
They didn't at first, at least not generally; I've
sold cigars myself, at the bars of respectable houses,
to gentlemen that was having their glass of ale
with a friend, and one has said to another, `Come,
we'll have a smoke,' and has bought a couple.
O, no; I never was admitted to offer them in a
parlour or tap-room; that would have interfered
with the order for `screws' (penny papers of
tobacco), which is a rattling good profit, I can tell
you. Indeed, I was looked shy at, from behind
the bar; but if customers chose to buy, a landlord
could hardly interfere. Now, it's no go at all
in such places."
One common practice among the smarter street-
seller, when "on cigars," was, until of late years,
and still is, occasionally at races and fairs, to
possess themselves of a few really choice "weeds,"
as like as they could procure them to their stock-
in-trade, and to smoke one of them, as they urged
their traffic.
The aroma was full and delicate, and this was
appealed to if necessary, or, as one man worded
it, the smell was "left to speak for itself." The
street-folk who prefer the sale of what is more or
less a luxury, become, by the mere necessities of
their calling, physiognomists and quick observers,
and I have no reason to doubt the assertion of one
cigar-vendor, when he declared that in the earlier
stages of this traffic he could always, and most
unerringly in the country, pick out the man
on whose judgment others seemed to rely, and by
selling him one of his choice reserve, procure a
really impartial opinion as to its excellence, and
so influence other purchasers. When the town
trade "grew stale" — the usual term for its falling-
off — the cigar-sellers had a remunerative field in
many parts of the country.
In London, before railways became the sole
means of locomotion to a distance, the cigar-sellers
frequented the coaching-yards; and the "outsides"
frequently "bought a cigar to warm their noses of a
cold night," and sometimes filled their cases, if
the cigar-seller chanced to have the good word of
the coachman or guard.
The cigar street-trade was started by two Jews,
brothers, named Benasses, who were "licensed to
deal in tobacco," and vended good articles. When
they relinquished the open-air business, they sup-
plied the other street-sellers, whose numbers in-
creased very rapidly. The itinerant cigar-ven-
ding was always principally in the hands of the
Jews, but the general street-traders resorted to the
traffic on all occasions of public resort, — "sich
times," observed one, "as fairs and races, and
crownations, and Queen's weddings; I wish they
came a bit oftener for the sake of trade." The
manufacture of the cigars sold at the lowest rates,
is now almost entirely in the hands of the Jews,
and I am informed by a distinguished member of
that ancient faith, that when I treat of the He-
brew children, employed in making cigars, there
will be much to be detailed of which the public
have little cognisance and little suspicion.
The cigars in question are bought (wholesale)
in Petticoat-lane, Rosemary-lane, Ailie-street,
Tenter-ground, in Goodman's-fields, and similar
localities. The kinds in chief demand are Pick-
wicks, 7s. and 8s. per lb.; Cubas, 8s. 6d.; common
Havannahs and Bengal Cheroots, the same price;
but the Bengal Cheroots are not uncommonly
smuggled.
"The best places for cigar-selling," one man
stated, "I've always found to be out of town;
about Greenwich and Shooter's Hill, and to the
gents going to Kensington Gardens, and such like
places. About the Eagle Tavern was good, too, as
well as the streets leading to the Surrey Zoological
— one could whisper, `cheap cigar, sir, half what
they'll charge you inside.' I've known young
women treat their young men to cigars as they
were going to Cremorne, or other public places;
but there's next to no trade that way now, and
hasn't been these five or six years. I don't know
what stopped it exactly. I've heard it was shop-
keepers that had licences, complaining of street
people as hadn't, and so the police stopped the
trade as much as they could."
At all the neighbouring races and fairs, and at
any great gathering of people in town, cigars are
sold, more with the affectation than the reality of
its being done, "quite on the sky." The retail
price is 1d. each, and three for 2d. Some of the
cheap cigars are made to run 200, and even as
high as 230 to the pound. A fuzee is often given
into the bargain.
I am told that, on all favourable opportunities,
there are still 100 persons who vend cigars in the
streets of London, while a greater number of
"London hands" carry on the trade at Epsom
and Ascot races. At other periods the business
is all but a nonentity. To clear 1l. a week is
considered "good work." At one period, on
every fine Sunday, there were not, I am assured,
fewer than 500 persons selling cigars in the open
air in London and its suburbs.
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