London Labour and the London Poor: Selection (Classics) (62 page)

‘I have been told that there are near upon 250 houses in London now getting a livelihood taking sixpenny portraits. There’s ninety of ’em I’m
personally acquainted with, and one man I know has ten different shops of his own. There’s eight in the Whitechapel-road alone, from Butcher-row to the Mile-end turnpike. Bless you, yes! they all make a good living at it. Why, I could go to-morrow, and they would be glad to employ me at 2
l
. a week – indeed they have told me so.

‘If we had begun earlier this summer, we could, only with our little affair, have made from 8
l
. to 10
l
. a week, and about one-third of that is expenses. You see, I operate myself, and that cuts out 2
l
. a week.’

The Doll’s-eye Maker

[pp. 241–3] A curious part of the street toy business is the sale of dolls, and especially that odd branch of it, doll’s-eye making. There are only two persons following this business in London, and by the most intelligent of these I was furnished with the following curious information –

‘I make all kinds of eyes,’ the eye-manufacturer said, ‘both dolls’ and human eyes; birds’ eyes are mostly manufactured in Birmingham, and as you say, sir, bulls’ eyes at the confectioner’s. Of dolls’ eyes there are two sorts, the common and the natural, as we call it. The common are simply small hollow glass spheres, made of white enamel, and coloured either black or blue, for only two colours of these are made. The bettermost dolls’ eyes, or the natural ones, are made in a superior manner, but after a similar fashion to the commoner sort. The price of the common black and blue dolls’ eyes is five shillings for twelve dozen pair. We make very few of the bettermost kind, or natural eyes for dolls, for the price of those is about fourpence a pair, but they are only for the very best dolls. Average it throughout the year, a journeyman doll’s-eye maker earns about thirty shillings a week. The common dolls’ eyes were twelve shillings the twelve dozen pairs twenty-five years ago, but now they are only five shillings. The decrease of the price is owing to competition, for though there are only two of us in the trade in London, still the other party is always pushing his eyes and underselling our’n. Immediately the demand ceases at all, he goes round the trade with his eyes in a box, and offers them at a lower figure than in the regular season, and so the prices have been falling every year. There is a brisk and a slack season in our business, as well as in most others. After the Christmas holidays up to March we have generally little to do, but from that time eyes begin to look up a bit, and the business remains pretty good till the end of October. Where we make one pair of
eyes for home consumption, we make ten for exportation; a great many eyes go abroad. Yes, I suppose we should be soon over-populated with dolls if a great number of them were not to emigrate every year. The annual increase of dolls goes on at an alarming rate. As you say, sir, the yearly rate of mortality must be very high, to be sure, but still it’s nothing to the rate at which they are brought into the world. They can’t make wax dolls in America, sir, so we ship off a great many there. The reason why they can’t produce dolls in America is owing to the climate. The wax won’t set in very hot weather, and it cracks in extreme cold. I knew a party who went out to the United States to start as doll-maker. He took several gross of my eyes with him, but he couldn’t succeed. The eyes that we make for Spanish America are all black. A blue-eyed doll wouldn’t sell at all there. Here, however, nothing but blue eyes goes down; that’s because it’s the colour of the Queen’s eyes, and she sets the fashion in our eyes as in other things. We make the same kind of eyes for the gutta-percha dolls as for the wax. It is true, the gutta-percha complexion isn’t particularly clear; nevertheless, the eyes I make for the washable faces are all of the natural tint, and if the gutta-percha dolls look rather bilious, why I ain’t a going to make my eyes look bilious to match.

‘I also make human eyes. These are two cases; in the one I have black and hazel, and in the other blue and grey.’ [Here the man took the lids off a couple of boxes, about as big as binnacles, that stood on the table: they each contained 190 different eyes, and so like nature, that the effect produced upon a person unaccustomed to the sight was most peculiar, and far from pleasant. The whole of the 380 optics all seemed to be staring directly at the spectator, and occasioned a feeling somewhat similar to the bewilderment one experiences on suddenly becoming an object of general notice; as if the eyes, indeed, of a whole lecture-room were crammed into a few square inches, and all turned full upon you. The eyes of the whole world, as we say, literally appeared to be fixed upon one, and it was almost impossible at first to look at them without instinctively averting the head. The hundred eyes of Argus were positively insignificant in comparison to the 380 belonging to the human eye-maker.] ‘Here you see are the ladies’ eyes,’ he continued, taking one from the blue-eye tray. ‘You see there’s more sparkle and brilliance about them than the gentlemen’s. Here’s two different ladies’ eyes; they belong to fine-looking young women, both of them. When a lady or gentleman comes to us for an eye, we are obliged to have a sitting just like a portrait-painter. We take no sketch, but study the tints of the perfect eye. There are a number of eyes come over from France, but these are generally what we call misfits; they are sold cheap,
and seldom match the other eye. Again, from not fitting tight over the ball like those that are made expressly for the person, they seldom move “consentaneously”, as it is termed, with the natural eye, and have therefore a very unpleasant and fixed stare, worse almost than the defective eye itself. Now, the eyes we make move so freely, and have such a natural appearance, that I can assure you a gentleman who had one of his from me passed nine doctors without the deception being detected.

‘There is a lady customer of mine who has been married three years to her husband, and I believe he doesn’t know that she has a false eye to this day.

‘The generality of persons whom we serve take out their eyes when they go to bed, and sleep with them either under their pillow, or else in a tumbler of water on the toilet-table at their side. Most married ladies, however, never take their eyes out at all.

‘Some people wear out a false eye in half the time of others. This doesn’t arise from the greater use of them, or rolling them about, but from the increased secretion of the tears, which act on the false eye like acid on metal, and so corrodes and roughens the surface. This roughness produces inflammation, and then a new eye becomes necessary. The Scotch lose a great many eyes, why I cannot say; and the men in this country lose more eyes, nearly two to one. We generally make only one eye, but I did once make two false eyes for a widow lady. She lost one first, and we repaired the loss so well, that on her losing the other eye she got us to make her a second.

‘False eyes are a great charity to servants. If they lose an eye no one will engage them. In Paris there is a charitable institution for the supply of false eyes to the poor; and I really think, if there was a similar establishment in this country for furnishing artificial eyes to those whose bread depends on their looks, like servants, it would do a great deal of good. We always supplies eyes to such people at half-price. My usual price is 2
l
. 2
s
. for one of my best eyes. That eye is a couple of guineas, and as fine an eye as you would wish to see in any young woman’s head.

‘I suppose we make from 300 to 400 false eyes every year. The great art in making a false eye is in polishing the edges quite smooth. Of dolls’ eyes we make about 6,000 dozen pairs of the common ones every year. I take it that there are near upon 24,000 dozen, or more than a quarter of a million, pairs of all sorts of dolls’ eyes made annually in London.’

[pp. 346–8] The subject of omnibus conveyance is one to the importance of which the aspect of every thoroughfare in London bears witness. Yet the dweller in the Strand, or even in a greater thoroughfare, Cheap-side, can only form a partial notion of the magnitude of this mode of transit, for he has but a partial view of it; he sees, as it were, only one of its details.

The routes of the several omnibuses are manifold. Widely apart as are their starting-points, it will be seen how their courses tend to common centres, and how generally what may be called the great trunk-lines of the streets are resorted to.

The principal routes lie north and south, east and west, through the central parts of London, to and from the extreme suburbs. The majority of them commence running at eight in the morning, and continue till twelve at night, succeeding each other during the busy part of the day every five minutes. Most of them have two charges – 3
d
. for part of the distance, and 6
d
. for the whole distance.

The omnibuses proceeding on the northern and southern routes are principally the following:

The Atlases run from the Eyre Arms, St John’s Wood, by way of Baker-street, Oxford-street, Regent-street, Charing-cross, Westminster-bridge and road, and past the Elephant and Castle, by the Walworth-road, to Camberwell-gate. Some turn off from the Elephant (as all the omnibus people call it) and go down the New Kent-road to the Dover railway-station; while others run the same route, but to and from the Nightingale, Lisson-grove, instead of the Eyre Arms. The Waterloos journey from the York and Albany, Regent’s-park, by way of Albany-street, Portland-road, Regent-street, and so over Waterloo-bridge, by the Waterloo, London, and Walworth-roads, to Camberwell-gate. The Waterloo Association have also a branch to Holloway,
via
the Camden Villas. There are likewise others which run from the terminus of the South-Western Railway in the Waterloo-road,
via
Stamford-street, to the railway termini on the Surrey side of London-bridge, and thence to that of the Eastern Counties in Shoreditch.

The Hungerford-markets pursue the route from Camden Town along Tottenham Court-road, &c. to Hungerford; and many run from this spot to Paddington.

The Kentish Town run from the Eastern Counties station, and from Whitechapel to Kentish Town, by way of Tottenham Court-road, &c.

The Hampsteads observe the like course to Camden Town, and then run straight on to Hampstead.

The King’s-crosses run from Kennington-gate by the Blackfriar’s-road and bridge, Fleet-street, Chancery-lane, Gray’s-inn-lane, and the New-road, to Euston-square, while some go on to Camden Town.

The Great Northerns, the latest route started, travel from the railway terminus, Maiden-lane, King’s-cross, to the Bank and the railway-stations, both in the city and across the Thames; also to Paddington, and some to Kennington.

The Favourites’ route is from Westminster Abbey, along the Strand, Chancery-lane, Gray’s-inn-lane, and Coldbath-fields, to the Angel, Islington, and thence to Holloway; while some of them run down Fleet-street, and so past the General Post-office, and thence by the City-road to the Angel and to Holloway. The Favourites also run from Holloway to the Bank.

The Islington and Kennington line is from Barnsbury-park, by the Post-office and Blackfriars-bridge, to Kennington-gate.

The Camberwells go from Gracechurch-street, over London-bridge, to Camberwell, while a very few start from the west end of the town, and some two or three from Fleet-street; the former crossing Westminster and the latter Blackfriars-bridge, while some Nelsons run from Oxford-street to Camberwell or to Brixton.

The Brixtons and Claphams go, some from the Regent-circus, Oxford-street, by way of Regent-street, over Westminster-bridge; and some from Gracechurch-street, over London-bridge, to Brixton or Clapham, as the case may be.

The Paragons observe the same route, and some of these conveyances go over Blackfriar’s-bridge to Brixton.

The Carshaltons follow the track of the Mitchams, Tootings, and Claphams, and go over London-bridge to the Bank.

The Paddingtons go from the Royal Oak, Westbourne-Green, and from the Pine-applegate by way of Oxford-street and Holborn to the Bank, the London-bridge, Eastern Counties, or Blackwall railway termini; while some reach the same destination by the route of the New-road, City-road, and Finsbury. These routes are also pursued by the vehicles lettered ‘New-road Conveyance Association’, and ‘London Conveyance Company’; while some of the vehicles belonging to the same proprietors run to Notting-hill, and some have branches to St John’s Wood and elsewhere.

The Wellingtons and Marlboroughs pursue the same track as the Paddingtons, but some of them diverge to St John’s Wood.

The Kensall-greens go from the Regent-circus, Oxford-street, to the Cemetery.

The course of the Bayswaters is from Bayswater
via
Oxford-street, Regent-street, and the Strand to the Bank.

The Bayswaters and Kensingtons run from the Bank
via
Finsbury, and then by the City-road and New-road, down Portland-road, and by Oxford-street and Piccadilly to Bayswater and Kensington.

The Hammersmith and Kensingtons convey their passengers from Hammersmith, by way of Kensington, Knightsbridge, Piccadilly, &c. to the Bank.

The Richmond and Hampton Courts, from St Paul’s-churchyard to the two places indicated.

The Putneys and Bromptons run from Putney-bridge
via
Brompton, &c. to the Bank and the London-bridge railway station.

The Chelseas proceed from the Man in the Moon to the Bank, Mile-end-road, and City railway stations.

The Chelsea and Islingtons observe the route from Sloane-square to the Angel, Islington, travelling along Piccadilly, Regent-street, Portland-road, and the New-road.

The Royal Blues go from Pimlico
via
Grosvenor-gate, Piccadilly, the Strand, &c. to the Blackwall railway station.

The direction of the Pimlicos is through Westminster, Whitehall, Strand, &c. to Whitechapel.

The Marquess of Westminsters follow the route from the Vauxhall-bridge
via
Millbank, Westminster Abbey, the Strand, &c. to the Bank.