University of Virginia Library

OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF SPONGE.

This is one of the street-trades which has been
long in the hands of the Jews, and, unlike the
traffic in pencils, sealing-wax, and other articles
of which I have treated, it remains so principally
still.

In perhaps no article which is a regular branch
of the street-trade, is there a greater diversity in
the price and quality than in sponge. The street-
sellers buy it at 1s. (occasionally 6d.), and as high
as 21s. the pound. At one time, I believe about
20 years back, when fine sponge in large pieces
was scarce and dear, some street-sellers gave 28s. the pound, or, in buying a smaller quantity, 2s. an ounce.

"I have sold sponge of all sorts," said an ex-
perienced street-seller, "both `fine toilet,' fit for
any lady or gentleman, and coarse stuff not fit to
groom a ass with. That very common sponge is
mostly 1s. the lb. wholesale, but it's no manner of
use, it's so sandy and gritty. It weighs heavy,

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or there might be a better profit on it. It has to
be trimmed up and damped for showing it, and
then it always feels hask (harsh) to the hand.
It rubs to bits in no time. There was a old gent
what I served with sponges, and he was very
perticler, and the best customer I ever had, for
his housekeeper bought her leathers of me. Like
a deal of old coves that has nothing to do and
doesn't often stir out, but hidles away time in
reading or pottering about a garden, he was fond
of a talk, and he'd give me a glass of something
short, as if to make me listen to him, for I used to
get fidgety, and he'd talk away stunning. He's
dead now. He's told me, and more nor once,
that sponges was more of a animal than a wege-
table," continued the incredulous street-seller,
"I do believe people reads theirselves silly. Such
— nonsense! Does it look like a animal?
Where's its head and its nose? He'd better
have said it was a fish. And it's not a wege-
table neither. But I'll tell you what it is, sir,
and from them as has seen it where its got with
their own eyes. I have some relations as is sea-
farin'-men, and I went a woyage once myself when
a lad — one of my relations has seen it gathered by
divers, I forget where, from the rocks at the bot-
tom and shores of the sea, and he says it's just sea-
moss — stuff as grows there, as moss does to old
walls in England. That's what it is, sir. As
it's grown in the water, it holds water you see.
I've made 15s. on sponge alone, in a good week,
when I had a good stock; but oftener I've made
only 10s., and sometimes not 5s. My best trade
is at private houses a little ways out of town.
I've heard gents say, `A good sponging's as good
as a bath,' and when I could get good things cheap
they'd be sure to sell. No, I never did much
at the mews."

Another man told me that he once bought a
large quantity of sponge at 6d. the lb., trimmed
it up as well as he could, and got a man to help
him, and the two "worked it off" in barrows;
there was six barrows full, and as one was
empted it was replenished. It was sold at 1d. and 2d. a lump; about twenty lumps, or pieces,
going to a pound, so that there was 14d. profit
on what cost 6d., even on the penny
lumps. He had forgotten the exact amount he
cleared, and he and his mate sold it all in one
summer's evening, but it was somewhere about 10s.
This happened some years ago, when the common
sponge, which I heard called also "honeycomb"
sponge, was not so "blown upon," as my infor-
mant expressed it, as it is now. On my asking
this man as to the proportion of Jews in this
trade, he answered: "Well, many a day I'm
satisfied there's 100 people selling sponge, and I
should say that for every ten or twelve Jews is one
Christian, and half of them, or more, has been in
some sort of service, I mean the Christians has,
most likely stable-helpers, and they supplies the
mews and the job and livery stables, such of them
as requires men to find their own sponges, but
that's only a few; sponges is mostly bought for
such places at the saddlers' and other shops. In
my opinion, sir, Jews is better Christians than
Christians themselves, for they help one another,
and we don't. I've been helped by a Jew my-
self, without any connection with them. They're
terrible keen hands at a bargain, though."

The sponge in the street-trade is purchased,
wholesale, chiefly in Houndsditch. The wholesale
trade in sponge, I may add, is also in the hands
of the Jews. The great mart is Smyrna, the
best qualities being gathered in the islands of the
Greek Archipelago. The sponge is carried by
the street-traders in baskets, the bearer holding a
specimen piece or two in his hand. Smaller
pieces are sometimes carried in nets, and nets
were more frequently in use for this purpose than
at present. It is nearly all sold by itinerants, in
the business parts as well as the suburbs, the
purchasers being "shopkeepers, innkeepers, gen-
tlemen, and gentlemen's servants." Sometimes
low-priced sponge is offered in a street-market on
a Saturday or Monday night, but very rarely, as
it is a thing little used by the poor. A little is
sold to the cabmen at their stands. The sponge-
sellers, I may add, when going a regular round,
offer their wares to any passer-by. A little is
done by the Jews in bartering sponge for old
clothes. There are five or six women in the
trade.

I have reason to believe that the estimate of my
informant, as to the number of sponge-sellers, is
correct. But some sell sponge only occasionally,
some make it only a portion of their business, and
others vend it only when they "have it a bargain."
Calculating, then, that only fifty persons (so al-
lowing for the irregularities in the trade) vend
sponge daily, and that each takes 15s. weekly, —
some taking 25s., and others but 5s. — with about
half profit on the whole (the common sponge
is often from 200 to 300 per cent. profit), we find
the outlay to be 1850l.