London Labour and the London Poor, Volume 1
Mayhew, Henry
1861
Of the Capital and Income of the Street-Sellers of Stationery, Literature, and the Fine Arts.
I now proceed to give a summary of the capital, and income of the above classes. I will however, endeavour to give a summary of the number of individuals belonging to the class. | |
This appears to be made up (so far as I am able to ascertain) of the following items:— sellers of stationery; sellers of pocket-books and diaries; sellers of almanacks and memorandum-books; sellers of account-books; card-sellers; secret papers-sellers; sellers of songs and ballads; running patterers; standing patterers; sellers of "cocks" (principally elopements); selling conundrums, "comic exhibitions," &c.; selling play-bills and books for the play; back-number-sellers; waste paper-sellers at ; sellers of tracts and pamphlets; newsvenders, &c., at steam-boat piers; book auctioneers; book-stall keepers and book barrow-men; sellers of guide-books; sellers of song-books and children's books; dealers in pictures in frames; vendors of engravings in umbrellas, and sellers of manuscript music—making altogether a total of . Many of the above street-trades are, however, only temporary. As, for instance, the street-sale of playing-cards, continues only days in the year; pocketbooks and diaries, weeks; others, again, are not regularly pursued from day to day, as the sale of prints and engravings in umbrellas, which affords employment for but weeks out of the , and conundrums for months. trade, however, (namely, that of "Comic Exhibition Papers," gelatine and engraved cards of the Exhibition) is entirely now in the streets. In the broad-sheet trade, again, the "running patterers" work what are called "cocks," when there are no incidents happening to incite the public mind. Hence, making due allowances for such variations, we may fairly assume that the street-sellers belonging to this class number at least . The following statistics will show the whole amount of capital, and the gross income of this branch of street traffic. | |