London Labour and the London Poor, Volume 1
Mayhew, Henry
1861
Of the Street-Sellers of Chemical articles of Manufacture.
THE street purveyors of blacking, of the different preparations of black lead, of plating-balls, of cornsalves, of grease-removing compositions, of china and glass cements, of rat poisons, of fly-papers, of beetle-wafers, of gutta-percha heads, of lucifermatches, and of cigar-lights, may be classed generally under heads. They are either very old or very young persons, or else they are men who recommend their wares by patter. | |
Among the -mentioned class are the vendors of cakes of blacking, papers of black-lead, and lucifer matches. Of blacking and black-lead the street-sellers are more frequently old women; of lucifer matches they are usually women and children, and of all ages. It is not uncommon, in the quieter roads of the suburbs especially, to see a young woman extend her bare red arm from beneath a scanty ragged shawl, and with an imploring look, a low curtsey, and a piteous tone, proffer a box of matches for sale; while a child in her arms, perhaps of or years old, extends in its little hand another box. There are also in the street sale of lucifer matches very many girls and boys, parentless or uncared for, and many old or infirm women and men. | |
The street-sellers of chemically-manufactured articles, who feel it necessary to recommend their wares by a little street oratory, or patter, (the paper-worker, whose humorous remarks I have before quoted, once described it to me as "advertising by word of mouth,") are the vendors of the articles which are to cure, to repair, to renovate, or to kill. Any other itinerant vendors of chemical articles are of the ordinary class of street traders. | |