 | OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF MANUFACTURED ARTICLES. London Labour and the London Poor, volume 1 |  |
OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF BRACES, BELTS,
HOSE, TROWSER-STRAPS, AND WAISTCOATS.
The street-sellers of braces are a numerous and a
mixed class. They are nearly all men, and the
majority are Irishmen; but this relates only to
the itinerant or public-house brace-sellers. These
wares are sold also by street-traders, who make
other articles the staple of their trade — such as
the dog-collar-sellers.
The braces sold thirty years ago were of a very
different manufacture from those vended in the
streets at present. India-rubber web was then
unknown as a component part of the street braces.
The braces, which in some parts of the country
are called "gallowses," were, at the time specified,
made of a woollen web, both washable and durable.
"One pair of such braces, good ones," said an old
tailor with whom I had some talk on the subject,
"would last a poor man his lifetime. Now
they're in a rope or in rags in no time." These
woollen braces were sold at from 1s. to 2s. the
pair in the streets; the straps being of good firm
leather. Not long after this period a much
cheaper brace-web was introduced — a mixture of
cotton with the woollen — and the cheap manufac-
ture gradually supplanted the better article, as re-
spects the street trade. The cheaper braces were
made with sheepskin straps, which soon yielded
to friction, and were little serviceable. The intro-
duction of the India-rubber web was another change
in the trade, and the manufacture has become lower
and lower-priced until the present time.
The braces sold in the streets, or hawked in
the public-houses, are, however, not all of the very
inferior manufacture. Some are called "silk,"
others "buck-leather," and others "knitted
cotton." The "silk" are of a silken surface, with
an admixture of cotton and India-rubber; the
"buck-leather" (a kind now very little known in
street sale) are of strong sheepskin, dressed buck-
leather fashion; and the "knitted" cotton are
woven, some kinds of them being very good and
strong.
The street brace-sellers, when trying to do
business in the streets, carry their goods generally
with a few belts, and sometimes with hose in
their hands and across their arms. They stretch
them from end to end, as they invite the custom
of passers by, to evince the elasticity and firmness
of the web. Sometimes the braces are slung from
a pole carried on the shoulder. The sellers call
at the public-house bars and tap-rooms; some are
admitted into the parlours; and at a well-fre-
quented gin-palace, I was informed by a manager
of one, a brace-seller will call from twelve to
twenty times a day, especially on a Monday;
while on a Saturday evening they will remain two,
three, or four hours, accosting fresh customers.
At the gin-palaces, the young and strong Irishmen
offering these wares — and there are many such —
are frequently scoffed at for selling "braces and
things a baby can carry."
The following account, which I received from a
street brace-seller, shows the class who purchase
such articles: —
"I was put to a carriage-lamp maker," the
man said, "at Birmingham, but soon ran away.
Nobody saw after me, for I had only an uncle,
and he left me to to the parish. It was all my
own fault. I was always after some idle end,
though I can read very well. It seems as if I
couldn't help it, being wild, I mean. I ran away
to Worcester, without knowing where I was going,
or caring either. I was half starved in Wor-
cester, for I lived as I could. I found my way
to London afterwards. I've been in the streets
ever since, at one thing or the other; how many
years I can't say. Time goes so quick sometimes,
and sometimes so slow, and I'm never long in one
place. I've sold braces off and on ever since
Amato won the Derby, if you know when that
was. I remember it because I went to Epsom
races that year to sell race cards. When I came
to London after the races I laid out 12s. in braces.
I hardly remember how many pairs I bought for
it, but they wasn't such common things as I'm
carrying now. I could sell a few then at from 9d.
to 1s. 3d. a pair, to the `cads' and people at such
places as the `Elephant,' and the `Flower Pot' in
Bishopsgate-street, which was a great `'bus' place
then. I used to sell, too, to the helpers in inn-yards,
and a few in the mews. The helpers in the mews
mostly buys knitted cotton. I've got 1s. and some-
times 1s. 6d. for an extra article from them, but
now I don't carry them; there's no demand there.
You see, many of them work in their shirts, and
the head coachmen and grooms, which is often great
Turks, would blow up if the men had dirty braces
hanging to their buttons, so they uses what'll
wash. Nearly all my business now is done at
public-houses. I go from one tavern to another on
my round all day long, and sell in the street
when I can. I think I sell as many at 5d. and
at 10d. as at all other prices together, and most at
5d.; but when I have what I call a full stock I
carry 'em from 4d. to 20d. The poorer sort of
people, such as wears braces — for there's a many
as does without 'em — likes the 1d. out of 6d., and
the others the 2d. out of the 1s.; it tempts them.
It's a tiresome life, and not so good as coster-
mongering, for I once did tidy well in apples. But
in the brace trade you ar'n't troubled with hiring
barrows, and it's easy carried on in public-houses
in wet weather, and there's no stock to spoil. I
sell all to working-people, I think. Sometimes an
odd pair or two at 1s. 6d., or so, to a tradesman,
that may happen to be in a bar, and likes the look
and the price; or to a gentleman's servant. I
make from 1s. to 1s. 6d. a day; full 1s. 6d. if I
stick close to it. I may make 2s. or 2s. 6d. a
week, too, in selling belts and stockings; but I only
sometimes carry stockings. Perhaps I clear 9s. a
week the year round. There's lots in the trade
don't clear 1s. a day, for they only carry low-priced
things. I go for 4d. profit on every shilling's
worth I sell. I've only myself to keep. I pay
3d. a night at a lodging-house, and nothing on
Sundays. I had a young woman with me when I
was a coster, but we didn't agree, and parted. She
was too fond of lifting her hand to her mouth
(`tippling') to please me. I mean to live very
near this week, and get a few shillings if I can to
[Description: 915EAF. Page 390.]
was said on the Tuesday in Passion-week.
The braces are bought by the street-sellers at
the swag-shops I have described. The prices
range from 1s. 6d. (for common children's) to 12s.
a dozen; 3s., 3s. 6d., 6s. 6d.,and 7s. being the
most frequent prices. Higher-priced articles are
also sold at the swags and by the street-sellers,
but not one in twenty of these compared with the
lower priced.
In London and its suburbs, and on "rounds,"
of which the metropolis forms the central point,
and at stands, there are, I am assured, not fewer
than 500 persons vending braces. Of these a
twentieth portion may be women, and a tenth old
and sometimes infirm men. There are few chil-
dren in the trade. The stall-keepers, selling
braces with other articles, are about 100, and of
the remainder of this class, those who are not
Irishmen are often impoverished mechanics, such
as tailors — brace-vending being easily resorted to,
and carried on quietly in public-houses, and it does
not entail the necessity of bawling aloud, to which a
working-man, driven to a street-life, usually feels
repugnance. Calculating that 500 brace-sellers
clear 5s. a week each on those articles alone, and
estimating the profit at 33 per cent., it shows a
street expenditure of 3900l. One brace-seller
considered that 500 such sellers was too low a
number; but the most intelligent I met with
agreed on that estimate.
The Belts sold in the street are nearly all
of stout cotton web, "with India-rubber threads,"
and usually of a drab colour, woollen belts being
rarely ever seen now. They are procured in the
same way, and sold by the same parties, as are
braces. The amount expended on belts is, from
the best information I can command, about an
eighth of that expended on braces. The belts are
sold at 1s. each, and cost 8s. the dozen, or 9d.
each, if only one be purchased.
The street-sale of hose used to be far more con-
siderable than it is now, and was, in a great mea-
sure, in the hands of a class who had personal
claims to notice, independent of the goodness of
their wares. These were old women, wearing,
generally, large white aprons, and chintz-patterned
gowns, and always scrupulously clean. They
carried from door to door, in the quieter streets,
and in the then suburbs, stockings of their "own
knitting." Such they often were; and those
which were not were still knitted stockings, al-
though they might be the work of old women in
the country, who knitted by the fireside, needing
no other light on winter evenings and at the
doors of their cottages in the sunshine in summer.
Of these street-sellers some were blind. Between
thirty and forty years ago, I am told, there were
from twelve to twenty blind knitters, but my
informant could not speak with certainty, as
he might probably observe the same women in
different parts. The blind stocking-sellers would
knit at a door as they waited. The informant I
have quoted thought that the last of these knitters
and street-sellers disappeared upwards of twenty
years ago, as he then missed her from his door, at
which she used to make her regular periodical
appearance. The stockings of this trade were
most frequently of white lamb's-wool, and were
sold at from 3s. 6d. to 5s. 6d. They were long
in the leg, and were suited "for gentle-people's
winter wear." The women-sellers made in those
days, I am assured, a comfortable livelihood.
The sale of stockings is now principally in the
hands of the men who vend braces, &c. The kind
sold is most frequently unbleached cotton. The
price to a street-buyer is generally from 6d. to 9d.;
but the trade is of small extent. "It's one of
the trades," a street-seller said to me, "that we
can't compete with shop-keepers in. You shall
go to a haberdashery swag-shop, and though they
have `wholesale haberdashers,' and `hawkers sup-
plied' on the door-post, you'll see a pair of stock-
ings in the window marked with a very big
and very black 6, and a very little and not half
black ¾; and if I was to go in, they'd very likely
ask me 6s. 6d. a dozen for an inferior thing.
They retail themselves, and won't be undersold
if they can help it, and so they don't care to
accommodate us in things that's always going."
A few pairs of women's stockings are hawked by
women, and sold to servant-maids; but the trade
in these goods, I am informed, including all classes
of sellers — of whom there may be fifty — does not
exceed (notwithstanding the universality of the
wear), the receipt of 6s. weekly per individual,
with a profit of from 1s. 4d. to 2s., and an aggre-
gate expenditure of about 800l. in the year. The
trade is an addition to some other street trade.
The brace-sellers used to carry with their wares
another article, of which India-rubber web formed
the principal part. These were trowser-straps,
"with leather buttonings and ingy-spring bodies."
It was only, however, the better class of brace-
sellers who carried them; those who, as my in-
formant expressed it, "had a full stock;" and
their sale was insignificant. At one time, the
number of brace-sellers offering these straps was,
I am informed, from 70 to 100. "It was a poor
trade, sir," said one of the class. "At first I sold
at 4d., as they was 6d. in middling shops, and 1s.
in the toppers, if not 1s. 6d.; but they soon came
down to 3d., and then to 2d. My profit was short
of 3d. in 1s. My best customers for braces didn't
want such things; plain working-men don't. And
grooms, and stable-keepers generally, wears boots
or knee-gaiters, and footmen sports knee-buckles
and stockings. All I did sell to was, as far as I
can judge, young mechanics as liked to turn out
like gents on a Sunday or an evening, and real
gents that wanted things cheap. I very seldom
cleared more than 1s. a week on them. The
trade's over now. If you see a few at a stand,
it's the remains of an old stock, or some that a
swag-shop has pushed out for next to nothing to
be rid of them."
The sale of waistcoats is confined to Smithfield,
as regards the class I now treat of — the sellers of
articles made by others. Twelve or fourteen years
back, there was a considerable sale in what was
a branch of duffing. Waistcoats were sold to
countrymen, generally graziers' servants, under
[Description: 915EAF. Page 391.]
which was then rather an object of rustic Sunday
finery. A drover told me that a good many years
ago he saw a countryman, with whom he was
conversing at the time, pay 10s. 6d. for a "silk
plush waistcoat," the vendor having asked 15s., and having walked away — no doubt remarking
the eagerness of his victim — when the countryman
refused to give more than 10s. "He had a cus-
tomer set for it," he said, "at half-a-guinea." On
the first day the waistcoat was worn — the drover
was afterwards told by the purchaser — it was
utterly spoiled by a shower of rain; and when its
possessor asked the village tailor the value of the
garment, he was told that it had no value at all;
the tailor could not even tell what it was made of,
but he never saw anything so badly made in his
life; never. Some little may be allowed for the
natural glee of a village tailor on finding one of
his customers, who no doubt was proud of his
London bargain, completely taken in; but these
waistcoats, I am assured by a tailor who had seen
them, were the veriest rubbish. The trade, how-
ever, has been unknown, unless with a few rare
exceptions at a very busy time — such as the
market for the show and sale of the Christmas
stock — since the time specified.
The waistcoats now sold in Smithfield market,
or in the public-houses connected with it, are, I
am told, and also by a tailor, very paltry things;
but the price asked removes the trade from the
imputation of duffing. These garments are sold at
from 1s. to 4s. 6d. each; but very rarely 4s. 6d.
The shilling waistcoats are only fit for boys — or
"youths," as the slop-tailors prefer styling them —
but 1s. 6d. is a common price enough; and seven-
eighths of the trade, I am informed, is for prices
under, or not exceeding, 2s. The trade is,
moreover, very small. There are sometimes no
waistcoat-sellers at all; but generally two, and
not unfrequently three. The profits of these men
are 1s. on a bad, and 2s. 6d. on a good day. As,
at intervals, these street-sellers dispose of a sleeve-
waistcoat (waiscoat with sleeves) at from 4s. 6d.
to 6s., we may estimate the average earnings in the
trade at 5s. per market day, or 10s. in the week.
This shows an outlay of 78l. in the year, as the
profits of these street traders may be taken at 33
per cent.; or, as it is almost invariably worded by
such classes, "4d. in the 1s." The material is of
a kind of cotton made to look as stout as possible,
the back, &c., being the commonest stuff. They
are supplied by a slop-house at the East End, and
are made by women, or rather girls.
The sale of waistcoats in the street, markets,
&c., is of second-hand goods, or otherwise in the
hands of a distinct class. There are other belts,
and other portions of wearing apparel, which,
though not of textile fabrics, as they are often
sold by the same persons as I have just treated of,
may be described here. These are children's
"patent leather" belts, trowser-straps, and garters.
The sellers of children's and men's belts and
trowser-straps are less numerous than they were,
for both these things, I am told, but only on street
authority, are going out of fashion. From one
elderly man who had "dropped belts, and straps,
and all that, for oranges," I heard bitter com-
plaints of the conduct of the swag shop-keepers
who supplied these wares. The substance of his
garrulous and not very lucid complaint was that
when boys' patent leather belts came into fashion,
eleven, twelve, or thirteen years back, he could
not remember which, the usual price in the shops
was 1s., and they were soon to be had in the
streets for 6d. each. The belt-sellers "did well"
for a while. But the "swags" who, according to
my informant, at first supplied belts of patent
horse-leather, came to substitute patent sheep-
leather for them, which were softer, and looked as
well. The consequence was, that whenever the
sheep-leather belts were wet, or when there was
any "pull" upon them, they stretched, and "the
polish went to cracks." After having been wet a
few times, too, they were easily torn, and so the
street trade became distrusted. It was the same
with trowser-straps.
The belt trade is now almost extinct in the
streets, and the strap trade, which was chiefly in
the hands of old and infirm, and young people, is
now confined to the sellers of dog-collars, &c. The
trowser-straps are not glazed or patent-leather, now,
but "plain calf;" sold at 2d. a pair generally, and
bought at from 1s. 2d. to 1s. 4d. the dozen pairs.
Many readers will remember how often they used
to hear the cry, "Three pair for sixpence! Three pair
for sixpence!" A cry now, I believe, never heard.
Among the belt and strap-sellers were some
blind persons. One man counted to me three blind
men whom he knew selling them, and one sells
them still, attached to the rails by St. Botolph's
church, Bishopsgate.
The same persons who sold straps, &c., not in-
cluding the present sellers, the dog-collar men, &c.,
had lately no small traffic in the vending of garters.
The garter-sellers were, however, far more numer-
ous than ever were the strap-sellers. At one
time, I am told, there were 200 garter sellers; all
old or infirm, or poor women, or children, and
chiefly Irish children. As these children were
often stockingless and shoeless, their cry of "Penny
a pair! India-rubber garters, penny a pair!" was
sometimes pitiful enough, as they were offering a
cheap article, unused by themselves. The sudden
influx of garters, so to speak, was owing, I am
told, to a manufacturer having discovered a cheap
way of "working the India-rubber threads," and
having "thrown a lot into the market through the
swag shops." The price was at first 8s. a gross
(8d. a dozen), but as the demand increased, it was
raised to 9s. and 9s. 6d. The trade continued
about six weeks, but has now almost entirely
ceased. The stock of garters still offered for sale
is what stall-keepers have on hand, or what swag
shop-keepers tempt street-sellers to buy by re-
ducing the price. The leather garter-trade, 1d. a
pair being the usual price for sheep-skin garters, is
now almost unknown. It was some what extensive.
| OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF MANUFACTURED ARTICLES. London Labour and the London Poor, volume 1 | |