3. _Those who make things at home and sell them in the streets_, are (_a_) the wood workers--as the makers of clothes-pegs, clothes-props, skewers, needle-cases, foot-stools and clothes-horses, chairs and tables, tea-caddies, writing-desks, drawers, work-boxes, dressing-cases, pails and tubs. (_b_) The trunk, hat, and bonnet-box makers, and the cane and rush basket makers. (_c_) The toy makers--such as Chinese roarers, children’s windmills, flying birds and fishes, feathered cocks, black velvet cats and sweeps, paper houses, cardboard carriages, little copper pans and kettles, tiny tin fireplaces, children’s watches, Dutch dolls, buy-a-brooms, and gutta-percha heads. (_d_) The apparel makers--viz., the makers of women’s caps, boys and men’s cloth caps, night-caps, straw bonnets, children’s dresses, watch-pockets, bonnet shapes, silk bonnets, and gaiters. (_e_) The metal workers,--as the makers of fire-guards, bird-cages, the wire workers. (_f_) The miscellaneous workers--or makers of ornaments for stoves, chimney ornaments, artificial flowers in pots and in nose-gays, plaster-of-Paris night-shades, brooms, brushes, mats, rugs, hearthstones, firewood, rush matting, and hassocks.
Of the last division, or STREET-LABOURERS, there are four classes:
1. _The Cleansers_--such as scavengers, nightmen, flushermen, chimney-sweeps, dustmen, crossing-sweepers, “street-orderlies,” labourers to sweeping-machines and to watering-carts.
2. _The Lighters and Waterers_--or the turncocks and the lamplighters.
3. _The Street-Advertisers_--viz., the bill-stickers, bill-deliverers, boardmen, men to advertising vans, and wall and pavement stencillers.
4. _The Street-Servants_--as horse holders, link-men, coach-hirers, street-porters, shoe-blacks.
OF THE NUMBER OF COSTERMONGERS AND OTHER STREET-FOLK.
The number of costermongers,--that it is to say, of those street-sellers attending the London “green” and “fish markets,”--appears to be, from the best data at my command, now 30,000 men, women, and children. The census of 1841 gives only 2,045 “hawkers, hucksters, and pedlars,” in the metropolis, and no costermongers or street-sellers, or street-performers at all. This number is absurdly small, and its absurdity is accounted for by the fact that not one in twenty of the costermongers, or of the people with whom they lodged, troubled themselves to fill up the census returns--the majority of them being unable to read and write, and others distrustful of the purpose for which the returns were wanted.