A Denaby Tradesman’s Complaint.

Sir. – Last Monday there were no fewer than twenty hawkers of butcher’s most roundabout Denaby, one or two of whom actually stood outside my shop door selling.

In as much as I have over £1 a week to pay in rent and rates for my premises, I have, I consider a just cause for complaint. I believe in fair competition, but how is competition possible between the tradesman and these unlicensed hawkers.

They contribute nothing to the maintenance of the roads, nothing to the lighting and paving of the streets, as I do; they pay no rent nor wages, and are consequently able to cut their prices to a figure I cannot possibly go to. Surely it is time such hawkers were required to pay, not a tax to the imperial revenue, but something in the shape of a substantial contribution to the local rates, which at present tradesmen have alone to bear.

If Denaby people chose to buy the Saturday’s leavings at Mexborough, Sheffield, and Doncaster, it cannot of course be helped, but it is obviously unjust that the living of a tradesman, like myself, killing English meat from such farms as that of Lord Halifax at Hickelton Hall, should be rendered precarious by the sale, at offal prices, of meat which people would not buy, if they saw it properly exposed on a shopboard.

Competition, I say again, is all right, but these hawkers should be forced to compete fairly by bearing some of the burdens we have to bear.

Yours Faithfully, H. Taylor.