University of Virginia Library

OF THE SALE OF WASTE NEWSPAPERS AT
BILLINGSGATE.

This trade is so far peculiar that it is confined
to Billingsgate, as in that market alone the
demand supplies a livelihood to the man who
carries it on. His principal sale is of news-
papers to the street-fishmongers, as a large sur-
face of paper is required for the purposes of a
fish-stall. The "waste" trade — for "waste"
and not "waste-paper" is the word always ap-
plied — is not carried on with such facility as
might be expected, for I was assured that
"waste" is so scarce that only a very insuffi-
cient supply of paper can at present be ob-
tained. "I hope things will change soon, sir,"
said one collector, gravely to me, "or I shall
hardly be able to keep myself and my family on
my waste."

This difficulty, however, does not affect such
a street-seller as the man at Billingsgate, who
buys of the collectors — "collecting," however,
a portion himself at the neighbouring coffee-
shops, public-houses, &c.; for the wants of a
regular customer must, by some means or other,
be supplied.

The Billingsgate paper-seller carries his paper
round, offering it to his customers, or to those he
wishes to make purchasers; some fishmongers,
however, obtain their "waste" first-hand from
the collectors, or buy it at a news-agent's.

The retail price varies from 2d. to 3½d. the
pound, but 3½d. is only given for "very clean
and prime, and perhaps uncut," newspapers;
for when a newsvendor has, as it is called,
"over-stocked" himself, he sells the uncut
papers at last to the collector, or the "waste" con-
sumer. This happens, I was told, twenty times
as often with the "weeklys" as the "dailys;"
for, said my informant, "suppose it's a wet Sun-
day morning — and all newsvendors as does pray,
prays for wet Sundays, because then people
stays at home and buys a paper, or some
number, to read and pass away the time. Well,
sir, suppose it's a soaker in the morning, the
newsman buys a good lot, an extra nine, or two
extra nines, or the like of that, and then may
be, after all, it comes out a fine day, and so he's
over-stocked; in which case there's some for
the waste."

When they consider it a favourable oppor-
tunity, the workers carry waste to offer to the
Billingsgate salesmen; but the chief trade is
in the hands of the regular frequenter of the
market.

From the best information I could obtain, it
appears that from 70 to 100 pounds weight of
"waste" — about three-fourths being newspapers,
of which some are foreign — is supplied to Bil-
lingsgate market and its visitants. Two num-
bers of the Times, with their supplements, one
paper-buyer told me, "when cleverly damped,
and they're never particularly dry," will weigh
about a pound. The average price is not less
than 2½d. a pound, or from that to 3d. A single
paper is 1d. At 2½d. per pound, and 85 pounds
a day, upwards of 275l. is spent yearly in waste
paper at Billingsgate, in the street or open-air
purchase alone.