THE PASSING OF THE PENNY TOY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19695, 23 January 1926, Page 8

THE PASSING OF THE PENNY TOY.

(By Peggy Scott, in the Daily Chronicle.) The hawkers are beginning to coma out with their toys for Christmas, but not with the penny toys which used to be a unique feature of London street selling. Nowhere else in the world had the penny toy such a vogue. Paris had its street stalls at the New Year, but the penny toy was never the feature. Nowhere else in the world could hawkers have been seen standing shoulder to shoulder as they did on Ludgate Kill selling penny toys—selling them so fast that they had to employ runners to replenish their stock from Houndsditch so that they should not lose their pitch. Up and down the line of hawkers with a bag went the father of a family at Christmas time, knowing full well that the children would rather have 24 penny toys than a 2s article. No licenses are issued now for selling in the city, and the old hawkers who had licenses are becoming fewer and fewer. The younger hawkers have come to the West-end —but not with the penny toy. The hawker does not think it pays him now to sell penny toys. He wants big profits, and be has to" pay 8d per dozen for the toys; 4d in the shilling does not satisfy him. He can do much better with his “showy” toy at 4Jd, which he sells for Is 6d or 2s 6d—according to the clothes of the customer. .The man who knows all about the street tov seller is Mr Ernest King, who for 25 vears collected penny toys in the city. His' collection of 1150 toys is now in the London Museum, for it has become historical with the passing of the penny street toy and the disappearance of the citv hawkers. The war broke the value of the street pennyworth. The mechanical tops, which were probably German, are not to be seen at any price now. Mr King considers them' his best pennyworths. In his collection is a crane which tarns round, a lathe with a wheel, a grassmower, and a roller. A doll’s house could be furnished with penny articles in those days, from a suite of furniture to complete table equipment. No one to-day would expect for a penny such things as —: ' Bagatelle board. Doll’s house. Gun-metal wristlet Treadle sewing watch. machine. Card with scissors, Doll’s piano, needles, cotton, Doll’s perambulator, thimble, six hooks Merry-go-round, and eves, and two Twenty-five marbles, button’s. Three carpenters’ Doll’s chiqa tea-set. tools. The street pennyworths Mr King collected mark every big event during 2S years, ending with Armistice Day. There were always two types of hawkers, according to Mr King. The on® was energetic and out to sell as many articles as he could at a penny each, taking an ordinary profit; the other demanded 2d, and would not sell for 'ess, because he had not_ to work so hard. Everyone knows which policy has prevailed.