Part 18

“I’ve been twenty years and more, perhaps twenty-four, selling shell-fish in the streets. I was a boot-closer when I was young, and have made my 20_s._ and 30_s._, and sometimes 40_s._, and then sometimes not 10_s._ a week; but I had an attack of rheumatic-fever, and lost the use of my hands for my trade. The streets hadn’t any great name, as far as I knew, then, but as I couldn’t work, it was just a choice between street-selling and starving, so I didn’t prefer the last. It was reckoned degrading to go into the streets--but I couldn’t help that. I was astonished at my success when I first began, and got into the business--that is into the understanding of it--after a week, or two, or three. Why, I made 3_l._ the first week I knew my trade, properly; yes, I cleared 3_l._! I made, not long after, 5_l._ a week--but not often. I was giddy and extravagant. Indeed, I was a fool, and spent my money like a fool. I could have brought up a family then like a gentleman--I send them to school as it is--but I hadn’t a wife and family then, or it might have been better; it’s a great check on a man, is a family. I began with shell-fish, and sell it still; very seldom anything else. There’s more demand for shells, no doubt, because its far cheaper, but then there’s so many more sellers. I don’t know why exactly. I suppose it’s because poor people go into the streets when they can’t live other ways, and some do it because they think it’s an idle life; but it ain’t. Where I took 35_s._ in a day at my stall--and well on to half of it profit--I now take 5_s._ or 6_s._, or perhaps 7_s._, in the day and less profit on that less money. I don’t clear 3_s._ a day now, take the year through. I don’t keep accounts, but I’m certain enough that I average about 15_s._ a week the year through, and my wife has to help me to make that. She’ll mind the stall, while I take a round sometimes. I sell all kinds of shell-fish, but my great dependence is on winkles. I don’t do much in lobsters. Very few speculate in them. The price varies very greatly. What’s 10_s._ a score one day may be 25_s._ the next. I sometimes get a score for 5_s._ or 6_s._, but it’s a poor trade, for 6_d._ is the top of the tree, with me, for a price to a seller. I never get more. I sell them to mechanics and tradesmen. I do more in pound crabs. There’s a great call for haporths and pennorths of lobster or crab, by children; that’s their claws. I bile them all myself, and buy them alive. I can bile twenty in half an hour, and do it over a grate in a back-yard. Lobsters don’t fight or struggle much in the hot water, if they’re properly packed. It’s very few that knows how to bile a lobster as he should be biled. I wish I knew any way of killing lobsters before biling them. I can’t kill them without smashing them to bits, and that won’t do at all. I kill my crabs before I bile them. I stick them in the throat with a knife and they’re dead in an instant. Some sticks them with a skewer, but they kick a good while with the skewer in them. It’s a shame to torture anything when it can be helped. If I didn’t kill the crabs they’d shed every leg in the hot water; they’d come out as bare of claws as this plate. I’ve known it oft enough, as it is; though I kill them uncommon quick, a crab will be quicker and shed every leg--throw them off in the moment I kill them, but that doesn’t happen once in fifty times. Oysters are capital this season, I mean as to quality, but they’re not a good sale. I made 3_l._ a week in oysters, not reckoning anything else, eighteen or twenty years back. It was easy to make money then; like putting down one sovereign and taking two up. I sold oysters then oft enough at 1_d._ a piece. Now I sell far finer at three a penny and five for 2_d._ People can’t spend money in shell-fish when they haven’t got any. They say that fortune knocks once at every man’s door. I wish I’d opened my door when he knocked at it.”

This man’s wife told me afterwards, that last winter, after an attack of rheumatism, all their stock-money was exhausted, and her husband sat day by day at home almost out of his mind; for nothing could tempt him to apply to the parish, and “he would never have mentioned his sufferings to me,” she said; “he had too much pride.” The loan of a few shillings from a poor costermonger enabled the man to go to market again, or he and his family would now have been in the Union.

As to the quantity of shell-fish sold in the streets of London, the returns before-cited give the following results:

Oysters 124,000,000 Lobsters 60,000 Crabs 50,000 Shrimps 770,000 pts. Whelks 4,950,000 Mussels 1,000,000 qts. Cockles 750,000 qts. Periwinkles 3,640,000 pts.

OF SHRIMP SELLING IN THE STREETS.

Shrimp selling, as I have stated, is one of the trades to which the street-dealer often confines himself throughout the year. The sale is about equally divided between the two sexes, but the men do the most business, walking some of them fifteen to twenty miles a day in a “round” of “ten miles there and ten back.”

The shrimps vended in the streets are the Yarmouth prawn shrimps, sold at Billingsgate at from 6_d._ to 10_d._ a gallon, while the best shrimps (chiefly from Lee, in Essex,) vary in price from 10_d._ to 2_s._ 6_d._ a gallon; 2_s._ being a common price. The shrimps are usually mixed by the street-dealers, and they are cried, from stalls or on rounds, “a penny half-pint, fine fresh s’rimps.” (I heard them called nothing but “s’rimps” by the street-dealers.) The half-pint, however, is in reality but half that quantity. “It’s the same measure as it was thirty years back,” I was told, in a tone as if its antiquity removed all imputation of unfair dealing. Some young men “do well on s’rimps,” sometimes taking 5_s._ in an hour on a Saturday evening, “when people get their money, and wants a relish.” The females in the shrimp line are the wives, widows, or daughters of costermongers. They are computed to average 1_s._ 6_d._ a day profit in fine, and from 9_d._ to 1_s._ in bad weather; and, in snowy, or very severe weather, sometimes nothing at all.

One shrimp-seller, a middle-aged woman, wrapped up in a hybrid sort of cloak, that was half a man’s and half a woman’s garment, gave me the following account. There was little vulgarity in either her language or manner.

“I was in the s’rimp trade since I was a girl. I don’t know how long. I don’t know how old I am. I never knew; but I’ve two children, one’s six and t’other’s near eight, both girls; I’ve kept count of that as well as I can. My husband sells fish in the street; so did father, but he’s dead. We buried him without the help of the parish, as many gets--that’s something to say. I’ve known the trade every way. It never was any good in public-houses. They want such great ha’p’orths there. They’ll put up with what isn’t very fresh, to be sure, sometimes; and good enough for them too, I say, as spoils their taste with drink.” [This was said very bitterly.] “If it wasn’t for my husband’s drinking for a day together now and then we’d do better. He’s neither to have nor to hold when he’s the worse for liquor; and it’s the worse with him, for he’s a quiet man when he’s his own man. Perhaps I make 9_d._ a day, perhaps 1_s._ or more. Sometimes my husband takes my stand, and I go a round. Sometimes, if he gets through his fish, he goes my round. I give good measure, and my pint’s the regular s’rimp pint.” [It was the _half_-pint I have described.] “The trade’s not so good as it was. People hasn’t the money, they tells me so. It’s bread before s’rimps, says they. I’ve heard them say it very cross, if I’ve wanted hard to sell. Some days I can sell nothing. My children stays with my sister, when me and my old man’s out. They don’t go to school, but Jane (the sister) learns them to sew. She makes drawers for the slopsellers, but has very little work, and gets very little for the little she does; she would learn them to read if she knew how. She’s married to a pavior, that’s away all day. It’s a hard life mine, sir. The winter’s a coming, and I’m now sometimes ’numbed with sitting at my stall in the cold. My feet feels like lumps of ice in the winter; and they’re beginning now, as if they weren’t my own. Standing’s far harder work than going a round. I sell the best s’rimps. My customers is judges. If I’ve any s’rimps over on a night, as I often have one or two nights a week, I sells them for half-price to an Irishwoman, and she takes them to the beer-shops, and the coffee-shops. She washes them to look fresh. I don’t mind telling that, because people should buy of regular people. It’s very few people know how to pick a s’rimp properly. You should take it by the head and the tail and jam them up, and then the shell separates, and the s’rimp comes out beautifully. That’s the proper way.”

Sometimes the sale on the rounds may be the same as that at the stalls, or 10 or 20 per cent. more or less, according to the weather, as shrimps can be sold by the itinerant dealers better than by the stall-keepers in wet weather, when people prefer buying at their doors. But in hot weather the stall trade is the best, “for people often fancy that the s’rimps is sent out to sell ’cause they’ll not keep no longer. It’s only among customers as knows you, you can do any good on a round then.”

The costermongers sell annually, it appears, about 770,000 pints of shrimps. At 2_d._ a pint (a very low calculation) the street sale of shrimps amount to upwards of 6,400_l._ yearly.

[Illustration: ORANGE MART, DUKE’S PLACE.--[_From a Daguerreotype by_ BEARD.]]

OF OYSTER SELLING IN THE STREETS.

The trade in oysters is unquestionably one of the oldest with which the London--or rather the English--markets are connected; for oysters from Britain were a luxury in ancient Rome.

Oysters are now sold out of the smacks at Billingsgate, and a few at Hungerford. The more expensive kind such as the real Milton, are never bought by the costermongers, but they buy oysters of a “good middling quality.” At the commencement of the season these oysters are 14_s._ a “bushel,” but the measure contains from a bushel and a half to two bushels, as it is more or less heaped up. The general price, however, is 9_s._ or 10_s._, but they _have_ been 16_s._ and 18_s._ The “big trade” was unknown until 1848, when the very large shelly oysters, the fish inside being very small, were introduced from the Sussex coast. They were sold in Thames-street and by the Borough-market. Their sale was at first enormous. The costermongers distinguished them by the name of “scuttle-mouths.” One coster informant told me that on the Saturdays he not unfrequently, with the help of a boy and a girl, cleared 10_s._ by selling these oysters in the streets, disposing of four bags. He thus sold, reckoning twenty-one dozen to the bag, 2,016 oysters; and as the price was two for a penny, he took just 4_l._ 4_s._ by the sale of oysters in the streets in one night. With the scuttle-mouths the costermonger takes no trouble: he throws them into a yard, and dashes a few pails of water over them, and then places them on his barrow, or conveys them to his stall. Some of the better class of costermongers, however, lay down their oysters carefully, giving them oatmeal “to fatten on.”

In April last, some of the street-sellers of this article established, for the first time, “oyster-rounds.” These were carried on by costermongers whose business was over at twelve in the day, or a little later; they bought a bushel of scuttle-mouths (never the others), and, in the afternoon, went a round with them to poor neighbourhoods, until about six, when they took a stand in some frequented street. Going these oyster-rounds is hard work, I am told, and a boy is generally taken to assist. Monday afternoon is the best time for this trade, when 10_s._ is sometimes taken, and 4_s._ or 5_s._ profit made. On other evenings only from 1_s._ to 5_s._ is taken--very rarely the larger sum--as the later the day in the week the smaller is the receipt, owing to the wages of the working classes getting gradually exhausted.

The women who sell oysters in the street, and whose dealings are limited, buy either of the costermongers or at the coal-sheds. But nearly all the men buy at Billingsgate, where as small a quantity as a peck can be had.

An old woman, who had “seen better days,” but had been reduced to keep an oyster-stall, gave me the following account of her customers. She showed much shrewdness in her conversation, but having known better days, she declined to enter upon any conversation concerning her former life:--

“As to my customers, sir,” she said, “why, indeed, they’re all sorts. It’s not a very few times that gentlemen (I call them so because they’re mostly so civil) will stop--just as it’s getting darkish, perhaps,--and look about them, and then come to me and say very quick: ‘Two penn’orth for a whet.’ Ah! some of ’em will look, may be, like poor parsons down upon their luck, and swallow their oysters as if they was taking poison in a hurry. They’ll not touch the bread or butter once in twenty times, but they’ll be free with the pepper and vinegar, or, mayhap, they’ll say quick and short, ‘A crust off that.’ I many a time think _that_ two penn’orth is a poor gentleman’s dinner. It’s the same often--but only half as often, or not half--with a poor lady, with a veil that once was black, over a bonnet to match, and shivering through her shawl. She’ll have the same. About two penn’orth is the mark still; it’s mostly two penn’orth. My son says, it’s because that’s the price of a glass of gin, and some persons buy oysters instead--but that’s only his joke, sir. It’s not the vulgar poor that’s our chief customers. There’s many of them won’t touch oysters, and I’ve heard some of them say: ‘The sight on ’em makes me sick; it’s like eating snails.’ The poor girls that walk the streets often buy; some are brazen and vulgar, and often the finest dressed are the vulgarest; at least, I think so; and of those that come to oyster stalls, I’m sure it’s the case. Some are shy to such as me, who may, perhaps, call their own mothers to their minds, though it aint many of them that is so. One of them always says that she must keep at least a penny for gin after her oysters. One young woman ran away from my stall once after swallowing one oyster out of six that she’d paid for. I don’t know why. Ah! there’s many things a person like me sees that one may say, ‘I don’t know why’ to; that there is. My heartiest customers, that I serve with the most pleasure, are working people, on a Saturday night. One couple--I think the wife always goes to meet her husband on a Saturday night--has two, or three, or four penn’orth, as happens, and it’s pleasant to hear them say, ‘Won’t you have another, John?’ or, ‘Do have one or two more, Mary Anne.’ I’ve served them that way two or three years. They’ve no children, I’m pretty sure, for if I say, ‘Take a few home to the little ones,’ the wife tosses her head, and says, half vexed and half laughing, ‘_Such_ nonsense.’ I send out a good many oysters, opened, for people’s suppers, and sometimes for supper

## parties--at least, I suppose so, for there’s five or six dozen often

ordered. The maid-servants come for them then, and I give them two or three for themselves, and say, jokingly-like, ‘It’s no use offering you any, perhaps, because you’ll have plenty that’s left.’ They’ve mostly one answer: ‘Don’t we wish we may get ’em?’ The _very_ poor never buy of me, as I told you. A penny buys a loaf, you see, or a ha’porth of bread and a ha’porth of cheese, or a half-pint of beer, with a farthing out. My customers are mostly working people and tradespeople. Ah! sir, I wish the parson of the parish, or any parson, sat with me a fortnight; he’d see what life is then. ‘It’s different,’ a learned man used to say to me--that’s long ago--‘from what’s noticed from the pew or the pulpit.’ I’ve missed the gentleman as used to say that, now many years--I don’t know how many. I never knew his name. He was drunk now and then, and used to tell me he was an author. I felt for him. A dozen oysters wasn’t much for him. We see a deal of the world, sir--yes, a deal. Some, mostly working people, take quantities of pepper with their oysters in cold weather, and say it’s to warm them, and no doubt it does; but frosty weather is very bad oyster weather. The oysters gape and die, and then they are not so much as manure. They are very fine this year. I clear 1_s._ a day, I think, during the season--at least 1_s._, taking the fine with the wet days, and the week days with the Sundays, though I’m not out then; but, you see, I’m known about here.”

The number of oysters sold by the costermongers amounts to 124,000,000 a year. These, at four a penny, would realise the large sum of 129,650_l._ We may therefore safely assume that 125,000_l._ is spent yearly in oysters in the streets of London.

OF PERIWINKLE SELLING IN THE STREETS.

There are some street people who, nearly all the year through, sell nothing but periwinkles, and go regular rounds, where they are well known. The “wink” men, as these periwinkle sellers are called, generally live in the lowest parts, and many in lodging-houses. They are forced to live in low localities, they say, because of the smell of the fish, which is objected to. The city district is ordinarily the best for winkle-sellers, for there are not so many cheap shops there as in other parts. The summer is the best season, and the sellers then make, upon the average, 12_s._ a week clear profit; in the winter, they get upon the average, 5_s._ a week clear, by selling mussels and whelks--for, as winkles last only from March till October, they are then obliged to do what they can in the whelk and mussel way. “I buy my winks,” said one, “at Billingsgate, at 3_s._ and 4_s._ the wash. A wash is about a bushel. There’s some at 2_s._, and some sometimes as low as 1_s._ the wash, but they wouldn’t do for me, as I serve very respectable people. If we choose we can boil our winkles at Billingsgate by paying 4_d._ a week for boiling, and 1/2_d._ for salt, to salt them after they are boiled. Tradesmen’s families buy them for a relish to their tea. It’s reckoned a nice present from a young man to his sweetheart, is winks. Servant girls are pretty good customers, and want them cheaper when they say it’s for themselves; but I have only one price.”

One man told me he could make as much as 12_s._ a week--sometimes more and sometimes less.

He made no speeches, but sung--“Winketty-winketty-wink-wink-wink-- wink-wink--wicketty-wicketty-wink--fine fresh winketty-winks wink wink.” He was often so sore in the stomach and hoarse with hallooing that he could hardly speak. He had no child, only himself and wife to keep out of his earnings. His room was 2_s._ a week rent. He managed to get a bit of meat every day, he said, “somehow or ’nother.”

Another, more communicative and far more intelligent man, said to me concerning the character of his customers: “They’re people I think that like to daddle” (dawdle, I presume) “over their teas or such like; or when a young woman’s young man takes tea with her mother and her, then they’ve winks; and then there’s joking, and helping to pick winks, between Thomas and Betsy, while the mother’s busy with her tea, or is wiping her specs, ’cause she _can’t_ see. Why, sir, I’ve known it! I was a Thomas that way myself when I was a tradesman. I was a patten-maker once, but pattens is no go now, and hasn’t been for fifteen year or more. Old people, I think, that lives by themselves, and has perhaps an annuity or the like of that, and nothing to do pertickler, loves winks, for they likes a pleasant way of making time long over a meal. They’re the people as reads a newspaper, when it’s a week old, all through. The other buyers, I think, are tradespeople or working-people what wants a relish. But winks is a bad trade now, and so is many that depends on relishes.”

One man who “works” the New Cut, has the “best wink business of all.” He sells only a little dry fish with his winks, never wet fish, and has “got his name up,” for the superiority of that shell-fish--a superiority which he is careful to ensure. He pays 8_s._ a week for a stand by a grocer’s window. On an ordinary afternoon he sells from 7_s._ to 10_s._ worth of periwinkles. On a Monday afternoon he often takes 20_s._; and on the Sunday afternoon 3_l._ and 4_l._ He has two coster lads to help him, and sometimes on a Sunday from twenty to thirty customers about him. He wraps each parcel sold in a neat brown paper bag, which, I am assured, is of itself, an inducement to buy of him. The “unfortunate” women who live in the streets contiguous to the Waterloo, Blackfriars, and Borough-roads, are among his best customers, on Sundays especially. He is rather a public character, getting up dances and the like. “_He_ aint bothered--not he--with ha’p’orths or penn’orths of a Sunday,” said a person who had assisted him. “It’s the top of the tree with his customers; 3_d._ or 6_d._ at a go.” The receipts are one-half profit. I heard from several that he was “the best man for winks a-going.”

The quantity of periwinkles disposed of by the London street-sellers is 3,600,000 pints, which, at 1_d._ per pint, gives the large sum of 15,000_l._ expended annually in this street luxury. It should be remembered, that a very large consumption of periwinkles takes place in public-houses and suburban tea-gardens.

OF “DRY” FISH SELLING IN THE STREETS.