London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. 2

The precise extent of the proportion which the Street-Traders bear to the rest of the Metropolitan Population is the first point to be evolved; for the want, the ignorance, and the vice of a street-life being in a direct ratio to the numbers, it becomes of capital importance that we should know how many are seeking to pick up a livelihood in the public thoroughfares. This is the more essential because the Government returns never have given us, and probably never will give us, any correct information respecting it. The Census of 1841 set down the “Hawkers, Hucksters, and Pedlars” of the Metropolis as numbering 2045; and from the inquiries I have made among the street-sellers as to the means taken to obtain a full account of their numbers for the next population return, the Census of 1851 appears likely to be about as correct in its statements concerning the Street Traders and Performers as the one which preceded it.

According to the accounts which have been collected during the progress of this work, the number of the London Street-People, so far as the inquiry has gone, is upwards of 40,000. This sum is made up of 30,000 Costermongers; 2000 Street-Sellers of “Green-Stuff,” as Watercresses, Chickweed, and Groundsell, Turf, &c.; 4000 Street Sellers of Eatables and Drinkables; 1000 selling Stationery, Books, Papers, and Engravings in the streets; and 4000 other street-sellers vending manufactured articles, either of metal, crockery, textile, chemical, or miscellaneous substances, making altogether 41,000, or in round numbers say 40,000 individuals. The 30,000 costermongers may be said to include 12,000 men, 6000 women, and 12,000 children.

The above numbers comprise the main body of people selling in the London streets; hence if we assert that, with the vendors of second-hand articles, as old metal, glass, linen, clothes, &c., and mineral productions, such as coke, salt, and sand, there are about 45,000 street-traders in the Metropolis, we shall not, I am satisfied, be very far from the truth.

The value of the Capital, or Stock in Trade, of these people, though individually trifling, amounts, collectively, to a considerable sum of money--indeed, to very nearly 40,000_l._, or at the rate of about 1_l._ per head. Under the term Capital are included the donkeys, barrows, baskets, stalls, trays, boards, and goods belonging to the several street-traders; and though the stock of the water-cress, the small-ware, the lucifer, the flower, or the chickweed and groundsell seller may not exceed in value 1_s._, and the basket or tray upon which it is carried barely half that sum, that of the more prosperous costermonger, possessed of his barrow and donkey; or of the Cheap John, with his cart filled with hardware; or the Packman, with his bale of soft wares at his back, may be worth almost as many pounds as the others are pence.

The gross amount of trade done by the London Street-Sellers in the course of the year is so large that the mind is at first unable to comprehend how, without reckless extravagance, want can be in any way associated with the class. After the most cautious calculation, the results having been checked and re-checked in a variety of ways, so that the conclusion arrived at might be somewhat near and certainly not beyond the truth, it appears that the “_takings_” of the London Street-Sellers cannot be said to be less than 2,500,000_l._ per annum. But vast as this sum may seem, and especially when considered as only a portion of the annual expenditure of the Metropolitan Poor, still, when we come to spread the gross yearly receipts over 40,000 people, we find that the individual takings are but 62_l._ per annum, which (allowing the rate of profit to be in all cases even 50 per cent., though I am convinced it is often much less) gives to each street-trader an annual income of 20_l._ 13_s._ 4_d._, or within a fraction of 8_s._ a week, all the year round. And when we come to deduct from this the loss by perishable articles, the keep of donkeys, the wear and tear, or hire, of barrows--the cost of stalls and baskets, together with the interest on stock-money (generally at the rate of 4_s._ a week--and often 1_s._ a day--for 1_l._, or 1040_l._ per cent. per annum), we may with safety assert that the average gain or clear income of the Metropolitan Street-Sellers is rather under than over 7_s._ 6_d._ a week. Some of the more expert street-traders may clear 10_s._ or even 15_s._ weekly throughout the year, while the weekly profit of the less expert, the old people, and the children, may be said to be 3_s._ 6_d._ These incomes, however, are the average of the gross yearly profits rather than the regular weekly gains; the consequence is, that though they might be sufficient to keep the majority of the street-sellers in comparative comfort, were they constant and capable of being relied upon, from week to week--but being variable and uncertain, and rising sometimes from nothing in the winter to 1_l._ a week in the summer, when street commodities are plentiful and cheap, and the poorer classes have money wherewith to purchase them--and fluctuating moreover, even at the best of times, according as the weather is wet or fine, and the traffic of the streets consequently diminished or augmented--it is but natural that the people subject to such alternations should lack the prudence and temperance of those whose incomes are more regular and uniform.

To place the above facts clearly before the reader the following table has been prepared. The first column states the titles of the several classes of street-sellers; the second, the number of individuals belonging to each of these classes; the third, the value of their respective capitals or stock in trade; the fourth, the gross amount of trade done by them respectively every year; the fifth, the average yearly takings of each class; and the sixth, their average weekly gains. This gives us, as it were, a bird’s-eye view of the earnings and pecuniary condition of the various kinds of street-sellers already treated of. It is here cited, as indeed all the statistics in this work are, as an approximation to the truth rather than a definite and accurate result.

-------------------------------------+-----------+--------------+----------------------+-----------+--------- | | Gross amount | | | | Number of | of capital, | | Average | DESCRIPTION OF CLASS. | Persons | or stock | Gross amount of | yearly | Average | in each | in trade | trade annually done | receipts | weekly | Class. | belonging to | by each class. | per head. | gains. | | each class. | | | -------------------------------------+-----------+--------------+----------------------+-----------+--------- COSTERMONGERS[1] } | | | £ | | Street-Sellers of Wet Fish } | | | 1,177,200 } | | „ „ Dry fish } | | | 127,000 } | | „ „ Shell Fish } | | | 156,600 } | | } | | | --------- } | | } | | | 1,460,800 } | | „ „ Green Fruit } | | | 332,400 } | | „ „ Dry Fruit } | 30,000[2] | £25,000 | 1,000 } | £60 | 8_s._ „ „ Vegetables } | | | 292,200 } | | } | | | --------- } | | „ „ Game, Poultry, } | | | 625,600 } | | Rabbits, &c. } | | | 80,000 } | | } | | | 14,800 } | | „ „ Flowers, } | | | --------- } | | Roots &c. } | | | 2,181,200 } | | | | | | | STREET-SELLERS OF GREEN STUFF | | | | | Watercresses[3] | 1,000 | 87 | 13,900 | 13 | 3_s._ 6_d._ Chickweed, Groundsell, and | | | | | Plantain[4] | 1,000 | 42 | 14,000 | 14 | 5_s._ Turf-Cutters and Sellers | 40 | 20 | 570 | 14 | 5_s._ 6_d._ | | | | | STREET-SELLERS OF EATABLES AND | | | | | DRINKABLES | 4,000 | 9,000 | 203,100 | 50 | 10_s._ | | | | | STREET-SELLERS OF STATIONERY, | | | | | LITERATURE, AND THE FINE ARTS | 1,000 | 400 | 33,400 | 30 | 8_s._ | | | | | STREET-SELLERS OF MANUFACTURED | | | | | ARTICLES of Metal, Crockery | | | | | and Glass, Textile, Chemical, | | | | | or Miscellaneous Substances | 4,000 | 2,800 | 188,200 | 47 | 10_s._ -------------------------------------+-----------+--------------+----------------------+-----------+--------- | 41,040 | £37,529 | £2,634,370 | £60 | 8_s._ -------------------------------------+-----------+--------------+----------------------+-----------+---------

Now, according to the above estimate, it would appear that the gross annual receipts of the entire body of street-sellers (for there are many besides those above specified--as for instance, the vendors of second-hand articles, &c.) may be estimated in round numbers at 3,000,000_l._ sterling, and their clear income at about 1,000,000_l._ per annum. Hence, we are enabled to perceive the importance of the apparently insignificant traffic of the streets; for were the street-traders to be prohibited from pursuing their calling, and so forced to apply for relief at the several metropolitan unions, the poor-rates would be at the least doubled. The total sum expended in the relief of the London poor, during 1848, was 725,000_l._, but this we see is hardly three-fourths of the income of the street-traders. Those, therefore, who would put an end to the commerce of our streets, should reflect whether they would like to do so at the cost of doubling the present poor-rates and of reducing one-fortieth part of the entire metropolitan population from a state of comparative independence to absolute pauperism.

However unsatisfactory it may be to the aristocratic pride of the wealthy commercial classes, it cannot be denied that a very important element of the trade of this vast capital--this marvellous centre of the commerce of the world--I cite the stereotype phrases of civic eloquence, for they are at least truths--it is still undeniable, I say, that a large proportion of the commerce of the capital of Great Britain is in the hands of the Street-Folk. This simple enunciation might appear a mere platitude were it not that the street-sellers are a proscribed class. They are driven from stations to which long possession might have been thought to give them a quasi legal right; driven from them at the capricious desire of the shopkeepers, some of whom have had bitter reason, by the diminution of their own business, to repent their interference. They are bandied about at the will of a police-officer. They must “move on” and not obstruct a thoroughfare which may be crammed and blocked with the carriages of the wealthy until to cross the road on foot is a danger. They are, in fine, a body numbering thousands, who are allowed to live in the prosecution of the most ancient of all trades, sale or barter in the open air, by sufferance alone. They are classed as unauthorized or illegal and intrusive traders, though they “turn over” millions in a year.

The authorities, it is true, do not sanction any general arbitrary enforcement of the legal proscription of the Street-Folk, but they have no option if a section of shopkeepers choose to say to them, “Drive away from our doors these street-people.” It appears to be sufficient for an inferior class of tradesmen--for such the meddlers with the street-folk generally seem to be--merely to desire such a removal in order to accomplish it. It is not necessary for them to say in excuse, “We pay heavy rents, and rates, and taxes, and are forced to let our lodgings accordingly; we pay for licences, and some of us as well pay fines for giving short weight to poor people, and that, too, when it is hardly safe to give short weight to our richer patrons; but what rates, taxes, or licences do these street-traders pay? Their lodgings may be dear enough, but their rates are nominally nothing” (being charged in the rent of their rooms). “From taxes they are blessedly exempt. They are called upon to pay no imposts on their property or income; they defray merely the trifling duties on their tobacco, beer, tea, sugar, coffee” (though these by the way--the chief articles in the excise and customs returns--make up one-half of the revenue of the country). “They ought to be put down. We can supply all that is wanting. What may become of them is simply their own concern.”