By the eighteenth century, tinderboxes had become widespread. One side contained a flint and a piece of iron, while the other held matches and old linen. Striking the flint against the iron produced sparks, which set the old linen alight; this lit the match, which could then be used to light candles and anything else that needed lighting. The lid on the other side of the box was used to extinguish the flame on the old cloth.
The process was rather troublesome, but the matches of that era were sulfur matches. They could not be lit with a single strike like the phosphorus matches that came later.
However, making such matches was simple. Peddlers could produce them at home, splitting cheap wood into thin strips with a chopper, then heating a penny's worth of sulfur over a fire until it melted and dipping the matches into it.
Yet open flames were common on London's streets. Whether it was a streetlamp—you could light a piece of paper from a whale-oil lamp—a vagrant warming himself by the roadside, or even someone getting their shoes polished, one could always borrow a light. Matches were therefore not essential.
The ones who peddled matches were often children, not necessarily little girls; they could be little boys as well. Once they grew a little older, boys began running errands. At stations and docks, boys waited everywhere to carry luggage for arriving passengers, while street vending was another important occupation for them. Six in the morning was when the last mail coach left the post office, and before that, newsboys had to wait there to exchange newspapers their employers no longer wanted.
The most convenient thing about living in the capital was how quickly news traveled. Many people had no habit of hoarding newspapers; once they had