Of the nature of his present trade, and of the class of his customers, I had the following account from a man of twelve years’ experience in the vending of street jewelry :—
“It’s not very easy to tell, sir,” he said, “what sells best, for people seem to suspect everything, and seems to think they’re done if they give 3d for an agate brooch, and finds out it aint set in gold. I think agate is about the best part of the trade now. It seems a stone is easy imitated. Cornelians, too, aint so bad in brooches—people likes the color; but not what they was, and not up to agates. But nothing is up to what it once was; not in the least. Sell twice as much—when you can, which often stands over till to-morrow come-never—and get half the profit. I don’t expect very much from the Great Exhibition. They send goods so cheap from Germany, they’ll think any thing dear in London, if it’s only at German prices. I think it’s a mistake to fancy that the cheaper a jewelry article is the more you’ll sell of it. You won’t. People’s of opinion—at least that’s my notion of it—that it’s so common everybody’ll have it, and so they won’t touch it. It’s Thames water, sire, against beer, is poor low-priced jewelry, against tidy and fair-priced; but then the low-priced but then the low-priced has now ruined the other sorts, for they’re all thought to go under the same umbrella,—all of a sort; 1s. or 1d. Why, as to who’s the best customers, that depends on where you pitches your pitch, or works your round, and whether you are known, or are merely an upstart.
Excerpted from London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. I, The London Street-Folk by Henry Mayhew. Published by Harper & Brothers, New York, 1851.