Hardware dealer - New Cut market

An illustration from 'London: a Pilgrimage' by Blanchard Jerrold and Gustave Doré,1872. Jerrold records that 'the New Cut and Clare Market are, perhaps, the most remarkable street markets in all London: for here the observer may see the poorest and lowest of our populations most densely massed... You can drive through the New Cut, and watch the uproarious marketing from your cab. The light of day shines upon the great fight for the cheap pennyworth'. Such general street markets usually traded on a Sunday morning (even though hawking goods on a Sunday was illegal). People could just turn up and stand with their goods, although some claimed a pitch on Saturday nights and left the goods in the care of a boy until Sunday morning.