University of Virginia Library

OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF JAPANNED TABLE-
COVERS.

This trade, like several others, as soon as the
new commodities became in established demand,
and sufficiently cheap, was adopted by street-
sellers. It has been a regular street-trade between
four and five years. Previously, when the covers
were dearer, the street-sellers were afraid to specu-
late much in them; but one man told me that he
once sold a table-cover for 8s., and at another time
for 10s.

The goods are supplied to the street-folk princi-
pally by three manufacturers — in Long-lane, Smith-
field, Whitechapel-road, and Petticoat-lane. The
venders of the glazed table-covers are generally
considered among the smartest of the street-folk,
as they do not sell to the poor, or in poor neigh-
bourhoods, but "at the better sort of houses, and
to the wealthier sort of people." Table-covers are
now frequently disposed of by raffle. "I very
seldom sell in the streets," said one man, "though
I one evening cleared 4s. by standing near the
Vinegar-works, in the City-road, and selling to
gents on their way home from the city. The
public-house trade is the best, and indeed in winter
evenings, and after dark generally, there's no
other. I get rid of more by raffling than by sale.
On Saturday evening I had raffles for two covers,
which cost me 1s. 4d. each. I had some trouble
to get 1s. 9d. for one; but I got up a raffle for
the other, and it brought me 2s.; six members at
4d. each. It's just the sort of thing to get off in
a raffle on Saturday night, or any time when me-
chanics have money. A man thinks — leastways
I've thought so myself, when I've been in a
public-house raffle — now I've spent more money
than I ought to, and there's the old woman to
face; but if I win the raffle, and take the thing
home, why my money has gone to buy a nice
thing, and not for drink." I may remark that in
nearly all raffles got up in this manner, the article
raffled for is generally something coveted by a
working man, but not so indispensably necessary
to him, that he feels justified in expending his
money upon it. This fact seems well enough
known to the street-sellers who frequent public-
houses with their wares. I inquired of the in-
formant in question if he had ever tried to get up
a raffle of his table-covers in a coffee-shop as well
as a public-house. "Never, with table-covers,"
he said, "but I have with other things, and find
it's no go. In a coffee-shop people are quiet, and
reading, unless it's one of them low places for
young thieves, and such like; and they've no
money very likely, and I wouldn't like to trust
them in a raffle if they had. In public-houses
there's talk and fun, and people's more inclined
for a raffle, or anything spicy that offers."

There are now fifteen regular street-sellers, or
street-hawkers of these table-covers, in London,
four of whom are the men's wives, and they not
unfrequently go a round together. Sometimes, on
fine days, there are twenty. I heard of one
woman who had been very successful in bartering
table-covers for old clothes. "I've done a little
that way myself," said a man in the trade, "but
nothing to her, and people sees into things so now,
that there's hardly a chance for a crust. The
covers is so soft and shiny, and there's such fine
parrots and birds of paradise on them, that before
the price was known there was a chance of a good
bargain. I once got for a cover that cost me 2s. 9d. a great coat that a Jew, after a hard bargaining,
gave me 6s. 3d. for."

The prices of the table-covers (wholesale) run
from 8s. a dozen to 30s.; but the street-sellers
rarely go to a higher price than 18s. They can
buy a dozen, or half a dozen — or even a smaller
quantity — of different sizes. Some of these street-
traders sell, with the table-covers, a few wash-
leathers, of the better kind. Calculating that
fifteen street-sellers each take 25s. weekly the
year round — one-half being the profit, including
their advantages in bartering and raffling — we
find 975l. expended yearly upon japanned table-
covers, bought in the streets.