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11
The Business of a Marine Store Dealer.
The business of keeping a marine store or rag and bone shop, unlike that of a fried fish
vendor, is one which tends to steadily decline in importance in London—thus the number of marine
stores, as stated in the Post Office Directory, in 1875 was 590; in 1892 it was 460; in 1898, 360;
and in 1906, 330.
The marine store dealer, properly so-called, purchases, as a rule, old metal, bottles, crockery,
and, it may be, rags, grease, bones and other domestic refuse. According to Mayhew, the chief
distinction between a "rag and bottle" and a "marine store" shop is that the "marine store shopkeepers
(proper) do not meddle with what is a very principal object of traffic with the rag and
bottle man, the purchase of dripping, as well as of every kind of refuse in the way of fat or grease.
The marine store man, too, is more miscellaneous in his wares than his contemporary of the rag
and bottle store, as the former will purchase any of the smaller articles of household furniture,
old tea caddies, knife boxes, fire-irons, books, pictures, draught and backgammon boards, bird cages,
Dutch clocks, cups and saucers, tools and brushes."
It seems desirable as far as practicable to abandon the use of the term "marine store dealer,"
inasmuch as the number of persons who obtain waste material from ships' stewards or deal in
articles exclusively required on board ship is comparatively small, and the class of trade which
really requires to be considered from the point of view of production of nuisance is that in which
waste materials liable to decomposition are collected and stored, and this altogether independent
of the fact of the origin, nautical or otherwise, from which they may be derived.
Ballard, writing in 1876, says that the nuisances which arise from such places are very familiar
to Medical Officers of Health, and in discussing the danger to health from them he particularly
emphasises the question of the conveyance of disease by infectious rags. The Council's Inspectors
have found that the articles stored are, in many instances, infested with vermin; and, in some
cases, undoubtedly there is risk that persons living on premises adjoining a ragshop may be
exposed to serious annoyance on this account.
The Council's Inspectors visited 431 premises out of a possible total of some 600 in the
County of London. At 23 of these a large wholesale trade was carried on, and at 374 the
business was merely of a small retail character. At two premises fat melting was carried on;
rags alone were dealt with in 38 instances; in the remainder, rags, bones, paper, and metals
were all dealt with; and in 245 instances fat also was collected and stored. In 36 instances
Tags, bones, fat, &c., were received either from dust contractors or dustmen.
As regards the class of premises used, in 52 cases warehouses, railway arches, or other
buildings distant from dwelling-houses were employed as store places. In 86 cases basements
were used. The lighting of the premises was noted to be inadequate in 68 instances,
ventilation was insufficient in 59, defects in paving were met with in 171, and dirty conditions were
frequently observed. As a rule, the type of premises utilised was found to be a small shop, with
dwelling-rooms on the upper floor occupied by the shopkeeper and his family, the lower part
of the house and basement being used for the purposes of the business. In addition to the articles
above referred to as being stored, in a number of instances, rabbit and hare skins and leather cuttings
were brought to the premises, and, in a few shops, boiled horse flesh for "cats' meat" was sold.
Sources of Materials.— Rags are collected by wholesale dealers from retail shops, from barrowmen,
dust wharves and dustmen, also from retailers who bring in their purchases. The retail
dealer buys house clearings on order, or buys over the counter in small quantities. He is
sometimes a barrow-man, calling on more or less regular customers, and picking up parcels of
odds and ends on his round. New rags and cuttings are obtained from dressmaking and
tailoring establishments, and are, as a rule, set apart as being more than generally clean.
Mixed rags are collected from the houses of the upper and middle classes by dealers; the poorer
classes take the rags to the retail shops and sell them over the counter in small lots. The rags
from these various sources vary as to the degree of dirt and vermin presented—from clean to being
very filthy and verminous. Not infrequently dealers refuse to buy rags on account of their filthy
condition.
Fat, bones, and rabbit and hare skins are obtained in a similar manner—collection by
dealers; they are also bought over the counter from small customers, and derived from dustmen's
sortings. The quantity of fat obtained in the poorer districts is very small, the fat is often
rancid and the bones covered with mould—both giving off an offensive smell. In a number of
instances dealers refuse to buy bones, and, in a less number, fat also.
Storage of Materials.—Rags, loose and in bales, were found stored in all parts of the premises
—in the shops, ground and upper floors, in passages, sheds, yards, and in many cases in the open
yard. Basements were used as rag stores in 20 per cent. of the total premises inspected. In
some cases, owing to roofs of sheds being leaky, and to unpaved or badly paved surfaces, the rags were
found to be very damp or wet, and gave off an offensive, musty smell, this being particularly
the case with the large accumulations of dustmen's rags found on certain premises. Fat was, in
numerous instances, kept in tubs, and the bones in sacks in the shops; more frequently bones were
stored in sacks in the open yards, and in several instances they were stored in heaps on unpaved
and uncovered portions of the yards. In some cases fat was stored in wooden tubs and in metal
receptacles (covered and uncovered) in yards. In a few cases bones were found in tubs and sacks