Pavement Hawkers Now “Needed Evil”

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30633, 26 December 1964, Page 2

Pavement Hawkers Now “Needed Evil”

(N.Z.P.A. Reuter) COLOMBO. Housewives in Ceylon long ago learned to look upon the pavement hawker, the übiquitous street vendor whose raucous sales talk deafens passers-by in most towns in Ceylon, as a necessary evil.

The pavement hawker is Ceylon’s counterpart of London’s barrow boy, or the small merchant of Petticoat lane. He has been part of the domestic scene in Ceylon ever since the end of the Second World War, when the first of his kind, the discharged serviceman unable to

find other employment, turned to selling small articles in the streets to eke out a bare existence.

In those days, 20 years and more ago, the pavement hawker was the natural prey of policemen, who swooped down on him in their zeal to keep the city’s pavements free for pedestrians. Attitude Changed

But, in the last eight years. ■ the pavement hawker has had the patronage of politicians. Some municipal authorities have even gone so far as to put up special stalls for his benefit—although, placed in backwaters away from the main flow of traffic, and trade, these are usually scorned by those whom they were designed to serve. Every shopping district, in any part of Ceylon, always has its pavements cluttered with street hawkers’ “establishments.” They sell everything, usually- more cheaply than the shops, from bobby pins to brassieres, from Christmas-tree lighting sets to hunting torches, from garden tools to engineering equipment Affluent Vendors The street hawker in Ceylon today is by no means a tired, run-down little individual doing his best to keep his family alive. Arriving to take up his position in the harsh, golden light of early morning, he will use a Morris Traveller or a Fordson Van to bring his goods to his pitch. Street hawkers nowadays are usually affluent wearing gold wrist watches and terylene shirts. They employ urchins to dust and arrange their wares and act as mobile salesmen, roaming the city and pestering people to buy “five combs for one-and-six," or miraculous “five-in-one saw sets for seven shillings.” It is an open secret that some of their goods are smuggled into Ceylon from tramp steamers which hang about the north-western shore of Colombo harbour.

For gewgaws and trinkets, cheap ball-point pens, plastic flowers and fruit, torch batteries and razor blades are banned imports.