University of Virginia Library

OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF SPECTACLES AND
EYE-GLASSES.

Twenty-five years ago the street-trade in spec-
tacles was almost entirely in the hands of the
Jews, who hawked them in their boxes of jewel-
lery, and sold them in the streets and public-
houses, carrying them in their hands, as is done
still. The trade was then far more remunerative
that it is at the present time to the street-folk
carrying it on. "People had more money then,"
one old spectacle-seller, now vending sponges, said,
"and there wasn't so many forced to take to the
streets, Irish particularly, and opticians' charges
were higher than they are now, and those who
wanted glasses thought they were a take-in if
they wasn't charged a fair price. O, times was
very different then."

The spectacles in the street-trade are bought at
swag-shops in Houndsditch. The "common metal
frames," with or without slides, are 2s. 6d. to
3s. 6d. the dozen wholesale, and are retailed from
4d. to 1s. The "horn frames" are 6s. to 7s. 6d. the dozen, and are retailed from 9d. to 18d., and
even 2s. The "thin steel" are from 10s. 6d. to
21s. the dozen, and are retailed from 1s. 6d. to 3s.
There are higher and lower prices, but those I
have cited are what are usually paid by the street-
traders. The inequality of the retail prices is
accounted for by there being some difference in
the spectacles in a dozen, some being of a better-
looking material in horn or metal; others better
finished. Then there is the chance of which
street-sellers are not slow to avail themselves —
("no more nor is shopkeepers," one man said)
— I mean, the chance of obtaining an enhanced
price for an article, with whose precise value the
buyer is unacquainted.

"The patter," said the street-trader I have
before quoted, "is nothing now, to what I've
known it. You call it patter, but I don't. I
think it's more in the way of persuasion, and
is mostly said in public-houses, and not in
the streets. Why, I've persuaded people, when
I was in the trade and doing well at it — for that
always gives you spirits — I've persuaded them
in spite of their eyes that they wanted glasses. I
knew a man who used to brag that he could talk
people blind, and then they bought! It wasn't
old people I so much sold to as young and middle-
aged. I think perhaps I sold as many because
people thought they looked better, or more know-
ing in them, than to help their eyesight. I've
known my customers try my glasses, one pair
after another, in the chimney glass of a public-
house parlour. `They're real Scotch pebbles,' I
used to say sometimes — and I always had a fair
article, — `and was intended for a solid silver frame
but the frame was made too small for them, and
so I got them and put them into this frame myself,
for I'm an optician, out of work, by trade.
They're worth 15s., but you may have them,
framed and all, for 7s. 6d.' I got 5s. for one pair
once that way but they were a superior thing; I
had them a particular bargain." One man told
me that not long ago he asked 10d. for a pair
of spectacles, and a journeyman slop-tailor said
to him, "Why I only gave 1s. for this pair I'm
wearing a few years back, and they ought to be
less than 10d. now, for the duty's off glass."

The eye-glasses sold in the streets are "framed"
in horn. They are bought at the same places as
the spectacles, and cost, wholesale, for "single
eyes" 4s. 6d. to 7s. 6d. the dozen. The retail
price is from 6d. to 1s. The "double eyes," which
are jointed in the middle so that the frame can be
fitted to the bridge of the nose, are 10s. 6d. to
15s. the dozen, and are retailed by the street-folk
from 1s. 3d. to 2s. each.

The spectacles are sold principally to working
men, and are rarely hawked in the suburbs. The
chief sale is in public-houses, but they are offered
in all the busier thoroughfares and wherever a
crowd is assembled. "The eye-glasses," said a
man who vended them, "is sold to what I calls
counter-hoppers and black-legs. You'll see most
of the young swells that's mixed up with gaming
concerns at races — for there's gaming still, though
the booths is put down in many places — sport
their eye-glasses; and so did them as used to be
concerned in getting up Derby and St. Leger
`sweeps' at public-houses; least-ways I've sold
to them, where sweeps was held, and they was
busy about them, and offered me a chance, some-
times, for a handsome eye-glass. But they're going
out of fashion, is eye-glasses, I think. The other
day I stood and offered them for nearly five hours
at the foot of London-bridge, which used to be a
tidy pitch for them, and I couldn't sell one. All
that day I didn't take a halfpenny."

There are sometimes 100 men, the half of
whom are Jews and Irishmen in equal propor-

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tions, now selling spectacles and eye-glasses. Some
of these traders are feeble from age, accident,
continued sickness, or constitution, and represent
that they must carry on a "light trade," being
incapable of hard work, even if they could get it.
Two women sell spectacles along with Dutch
drops. As in other "light trades," the spectacle
sellers do not, as a body, confine themselves to
those wares, but resort, as one told me, "to any-
thing that's up at the time and promises better,"
for a love of change is common among those who
pursue a street life. It may be estimated, I am
assured, that there are thirty-five men (so allowing
for the breaks in regular spectacle selling) who
vend them daily, taking 15s. a week (with a
profit of 10s.), the yearly expenditure being thus
1365l.