What does blacking pots mean?

[lovebird]

I don't quiet understand the sentence 'Charles Dickens began by pasting labels on blacking pots. ' . Please tell me what it means. Thanks in advance!

[Tdol]

Pots containing a black dye or polish.

[lovebird]

Thanks so much for your explanation.
Will you please tell me the story about Charles Dickens. Why did he begin by pasting labels on blacking pot. Does that mean that he used to be very poor?

[Sebaylias]

Yes it means he was employed is a crappy factory doing crappy work tying and trimming and labelling the pots. I think he did it for about a year before he got some sort of clerk job

[lovebird]

Thanks so much!!!

[Dialn]

According to the Introduction in Stories for Christmas by Charles Dickens (Platinum Press, 2003), Dickens pasted labels to blacking pots at the age of ten, while his father was confined to Marshalsea prison for failing to pay a debt. Dickens labored for six shillings a week, living a very poor existence. This was obviously a difficult time for such a young boy, and Dickens later wrote that he felt "utterly neglected and hopeless." And so it's remarkable that only fifteen or sixteen years later, Dickens had become the most popular author of the English-reading world.

[Anglika]

Blacking was the stuff used for polishing boots. It smelt awful, and of course stained anything it touched. He rather overplayed this episode. He was twelve, and the work was easy if smelly. The worst aspect was that his family all went to live in the prison, and he had to live in lodgings on his own.