Part 23
“Perhaps I begin the season in the haristocratic way, with early lettuces for salads. I carry my goods in handsome baskets, and sometimes with a boy, or a boy and a girl, to help me. I buy my lettuces by the score (of heads) when first in, at 1_s._ 6_d._, and sell them at 1-1/2_d._ each, which is 1_s._ profit on a score. I have sold twenty, and I once sold thirty score, that way in a day. The profit on the thirty was 2_l._ 5_s._, but out of that I had to pay three boys, for I took three with me, and our expenses was 7_s._ But you must consider, sir, that this is a precarious trade. Such goods are delicate, and spoil if they don’t go off. I give credit sometimes, if anybody I know says he has no change. I never lost nothing.
“Then there’s grass (asparagus), and that’s often good money. I buy all mine at Covent-garden, where it’s sold in bundles, according to the earliness of the season, at from 5_s._ to 1_s._, containing from six to ten dozen squibs (heads). These you have to take home, untie, cut off the scraggy ends, trim, and scrape, and make them level. Children help me to do this in the court where I live. I give them a few ha’pence, though they’re eager enough to do it for nothing but the fun. I’ve had 10_s._ worth made ready in half an hour.
“Well, now, sir, about grass, there’s not a coster in London, I’m sure, ever tasted it; and how it’s eaten puzzles us.” [I explained the manner in which asparagus was brought to table.] “That’s the ticket, is it, sir? Well, I was once at the Surrey, and there was some macaroni eaten on the stage, and I thought grass was eaten in the same way, perhaps; swallowed like one o’clock,” [rather a favourite comparison among the costers.]
“I have the grass--it’s always called, when cried in the streets, ‘Spar-row gra-ass’--tied up in bundles of a dozen, twelve to a dozen, or one over, and for these I never expect less than 6_d._ For a three or four dozen lot, in a neat sieve, I ask 2_s._ 6_d._, and never take less than 1_s._ 3_d._ I once walked thirty-five miles with grass, and have oft enough been thirty miles. I made 7_s._ or 8_s._ a day by it, and next day or two perhaps nothing, or may-be had but one customer. I’ve sold half-crown lots, on a Saturday night, for a sixpence; and it _was_ sold some time back at 2_d._ a bundle, in the New Cut, to poor people. I dare say some as bought it had been maid-servants and understood it. I’ve raffled 5_s._ worth of grass in the parlour of a respectable country inn of an evening.
“The costers generally buy new potatoes at 4_s._ to 5_s._ the bushel, and cry them at ‘three-pound-tuppence;’ but I’ve given 7_s._ a bushel, for choice and early, and sold them at 2_d._ a pound. It’s no great trade, for the bushel may weigh only 50 lb., and at 2_d._ a pound that’s only 8_s._ 4_d._ The schools don’t buy at all until they’re 1_d._ the pound, and don’t buy in any quantity until they’re 1_s._ 6_d._ the 25 lb. One day a school ’stonished me by giving me 2_s._ 6_d._ for 25 lb., which is the general weight of the half bushel. Perhaps the master had taken a drop of something short that morning. The schools are dreadful screws, to be sure.
“Green peas, early ones, I don’t buy when they first come in, for then they’re very dear, but when they’re 4_s._ or 3_s._ 6_d._ a bushel, and that’s pretty soon. I can make five pecks of a bushel. Schools don’t touch peas ’till they’re 2_s._ a bushel.
“Cowcumbers were an aristocratic sale. Four or five years ago they were looked upon, when first in, and with a beautiful bloom upon them, as the finest possible relish. But the cholera came in 1849, and everybody--’specially the women--thought the cholera was in cowcumbers, and I’ve known cases, foreign and English, sent from the Borough Market for manure.
“I sell a good many mushrooms. I sometimes can pick up a cheap lot at Covent Garden. I make them up in neat sieves of three dozen to eight dozen according to size, and I have sold them at 4_s._ the sieve, and made half that on each sieve I sold. They are down to 1_s._ or 1_s._ 6_d._ a sieve very soon.
“Green walnuts for pickling I sell a quantity of. One day I sold 20_s._ worth--half profit--I got them so cheap, but that was an exception. I sold them cheap too. One lady has bought a bushel and a half at a time. For walnut catsup the refuse of the walnut is used; it’s picked up in the court, where I’ve got children or poor fellows for a few ha’pence or a pint of beer to help me to peel the walnuts.”
OF ONION SELLING IN THE STREETS.
The sale of onions in the streets is immense. They are now sold at the markets at an average of 2_s._ a bushel. Two years ago they were 1s., and they have been 4_s._ and up to 7_s._ the bushel. They are now twisted into “ropes” for street sale. The ropes are of straw, into which the roots are platted, and secured firmly enough, so that the ropes can be hung up; these have superseded the netted onions, formerly sold by the Jew boys. The plaiting, or twisting, is done rapidly by the women, and a straw-bonnet-maker described it to me as somewhat after the mode of her trade, only that the top, or projecting portion of the stem of the onion, was twisted within the straw, instead of its being plaited close and flat together. The trade in rope onions is almost entirely in the hands of the Irish women and girls. There are now, it is said, from 800 to 1000 persons engaged in it. Onion selling can be started on a small amount of capital, from 6_d._ to 1_s._, which is no doubt one inducement for those poor persons to resort to it. The sixpenny ropes, bunches, or strings (I heard each word applied), contain from three to four dozen; the penny bunches, from six to twenty roots, according to size; and the intermediate and higher priced bunches in proportion. Before Christmas, a good many shilling lots are sold. Among the costermongers I heard this useful root--which the learned in such matters have pronounced to be, along with the mushroom, the foundation of every sauce, ancient or modern--called ing-guns, ing-ans, injens, injyens, inions, innons, almost everything but onions.
An Irishwoman, apparently of thirty-five, but in all probability younger--she did not know her age--gave me the following account. Her face, with its strongly-marked Irish features, was almost purpled from constant exposure to the weather. She was a teetotaller. She was communicative and garrulous, even beyond the average of her countrywomen. She was decently clad, had been in London fifteen years (she thought) having been brought from Ireland, _viâ_ Bristol, by her parents (both dead). She herself was a widow, her husband, “a bricklayer” she called him (probably a bricklayer’s labourer), having died of the cholera in 1849. I take up her statement from that period:
“Yes, indeed, sir, he died--the heavins be his bed!--and he was prepared by Father M----. We had our thrials togither, but sore’s been the cross and heavy the burthin since it plased God to call him. Thin, there’s the two childer, Biddy and Ned. They’ll be tin and they’ll be eight come their next burreth-days, ’plase the Lorrud. They can hilp me now, they can. They sells ing-uns as well. I ropes ’em for ’em. How is ing-uns roped? Shure, thin--but it’s not mocking me your ’onnur is--shure, thin, a gintleman like you, that can write like a horrus a-galloping, and perhaps is as larned as a praste, glory be to God! _must_ know how to rope ing-uns! Poor people can do it. Some say it’s a sacrit, but that’s all a say, or there couldn’t be so many ropes a-silling. I buy the sthraw at a sthraw-daler’s; twopinn’orth at a time; that’ll make six or twilve ropes, according to what they are, sixpinny or what. It’s as sthraight as it can be grown, the sthraw, that it is indeed. Och, sir, we’ve had many’s the black day, me and the childer, poor things; it’s thim I care about, but--God’s name be praised!--we’ve got on somehow. Another poor woman--she’s a widdur too, hilp her!--and me has a 2_s._ room for the two of us. We’ve our siprate furnithur. She has only hersilf, but is fond of the childer, as you or your lady--bliss her! if you’ve got one--might be, if you was with them. I can read a little mysilf, at laste I could oncte, and I gits them a bit o’ schoolin’ now and thin, whin I can, of an evenin’ mostly. I can’t write a letther; I wish I could. Shure, thin, sir, I’ll tell you the thruth--we does best on ing-uns. Oranges is nixt, and nuts isn’t near so good. The three of us now makes 1_s._ and sometimes 1_s._ 6_d._ a day, and that’s grand doin’s. We may sill bechuxt us from two to three dozin ropes a day. I’m quick at roping the ing-uns. I never noted how many ropes an hour. I buy them of a thradesman, an honist gintleman, I know, and I see him at mass ivery Sunday, and he gives me as many as he can for 1_s._ or what it is. We has 1_d._, plase God, on ivery 6_d._; yis, sir, perhaps more sometimes. I’ll not tell your ’onnur a bit of a lie. And so we now get a nice bit o’ fish, with a bit of liver on a Sunday. I sell to the thradesmen, and the lodgers of them, about here (Tottenham-court-road), and in many other parruts, for we thravels a dale. The childer always goes the same round. We follows one another. I’ve sould in the sthreets ever since I’ve been in this counthry.”
The greatest sum of money expended by the poor upon any vegetable (after potatoes) is spent upon onions--99,900_l._ being annually devoted to the purchase of that article. To those who know the habits of the poor, this will appear in no way singular--a piece of bread and an onion being to the English labourer what bread and an apple or a bunch of grapes is to the French peasant--often his dinner.
OF POT-HERBS AND CELERY.
I use the old phrase, _pot-herbs_, for such productions as sage, thyme, mint, parsley, sweet marjoram, fennel, (though the last is rarely sold by the street-people), &c.; but “herbs” is the usual term. More herbs, such as agrimony, balm (balsam), wormwood, tansy, &c., used to be sold in the streets. These were often used for “teas,” medicinally perhaps, except tansy, which, being a strong aromatic, was used to flavour puddings. Wormwood, too, was often bought to throw amongst woollen fabrics, as a protective against the attack of moths.
The street herb-trade is now almost entirely in the hands of Irishwomen, and is generally carried on during the autumn and winter at stalls. With it, is most commonly united the sale of celery. The herbs are sold at the several markets, usually in shilling lots, but a quarter of a shilling lot may be purchased. The Irishwoman pursues a simple method of business. What has cost her 1_s._ she divides into 24 lots, each of 1_d._, or she will sell half of a lot for a halfpenny. An Irishwoman said to me:
“Thrade isn’t good, sir; it falls and it falls. I don’t sell so many herrubs or so much ciliry as I did whin mate was higher. Poor people thin, I’ve often been said it, used to buy bones and bile them for broth with ciliry and the beautiful herrubs. Now they buys a bit of mate and ates it without brothing. It’s good one way and it’s bad another. Only last Sathurday night my husband--and a good husband he’s to me, though he is a London man, for he knows how to make a bargain--he bought a bit of mutton, afore the stroke of twilve, in Newgit-markit, at 2-1/2_d._ the pound. I don’t know what parrut it was. I don’t understand that, but he does, and tills me how to cook it. He has worruk at the docks, but not very rigular. I think I sill most parrusley. Whin frish herrings is chape, some biles them with parrusley, and some fries them with ing-uns. No, sir; I don’t make sixpence a day; not half-a-crown a week, I’m shure. Whin herrubs isn’t in--and they’re autumn and winther things, and so is ciliry--I sills anything; gooseberries and currints, or anything. If I’d had a family, I couldn’t have had a shoe to my futt.”
GROSS VALUE OF THE FRUIT AND VEGETABLES SOLD ANNUALLY IN THE LONDON STREETS.
To complete the present account of the costermonger’s trade, we must now estimate the money value of the fruit and vegetables disposed of by them throughout the year. The money annually spent in fish by the humbler portion of the metropolitan population comes to, as we have seen, very nearly one million five hundred thousand pounds sterling--the sum laid out in fruit and vegetables we shall find is but little more than a third of this amount.
GREEN FRUIT.
377,500 bushels of apples, at six a penny or 4_s._ per bush. (288 to the bushel) £75,500 193,700 bushels of pears, at 5_s._ per bushel 48,400 1,215,360 lbs. of cherries, at 2_d._ per lb. 10,000 11,700 bushels of plums, at 1_d._ per half pint 6,240 100 bushels of greengages, at 1-1/2_d._ per half pint 80 548 bushels of damsons, at 1-1/2_d._ per half pint 430 2,450 bushels of bullace, at 1-1/2_d._ per half pint 1,950 207,500 bushels of gooseberries, at 3_d._ per quart 83,000 85,500 sieves of red currants, at 1_d._ per pint (three half-sieves to the bushel) 15,200 13,500 sieves of black currants, at 1_d._ per pint (three half-sieves to the bushel) 2,400 3,000 sieves of white currants, at 1_d._ per pint (three half-sieves to the bushel) 530 763,750 pottles of strawberries, at 2_d._ per pottle 6,360 1,760 pottles of raspberries, at 6_d._ per pottle 40 30,485 pottles of mulberries, at 6_d._ per pottle 760 6,000 bushels of hazel nuts, at 3/4_d._ per half pint 2,400 17,280 lbs. of filberts, at 3_d._ per lb. 200 26,563 lbs. of grapes, at 4_d._ per lb. 440 20,000 pine apples, at 6_d._ each 500 15,400,000 oranges, at two for 1_d._ 32,000 154,000 lemons, at two for 1_d._ 320 24,000 bushels of Spanish and Barcelona nuts, at 6_d._ per quart 19,200 3,000 bushels of Brazil nuts (1500 to the bushel), at fifteen for 1_d._ £1,250 6,500 bushels of chestnuts (1500 to the bushel), at fifteen for 1_d._ 2,700 24,000 bushels of walnuts (1750 to the bushel), at ten for 1_d._ 17,500 400,000 coker-nuts, at 3_d._ each 5,000 -------- Total expended yearly in green fruit £332,400
DRY FRUIT.
7,000 lbs. of shell almonds, at 20 a penny (320 to the lb.) £460 37,800 lbs. of raisins, at 2_d._ per lb. 300 24,300 lbs. of figs, at 2_d._ per lb. 200 4,800 lbs. of prunes, at 2_d._ per lb. 40 ------ Total expended yearly on dry fruit £1,000
VEGETABLES.
60,500,000 lbs. of potatoes, at 5lbs. for 2_d._ £100,800 23,760,000 cabbages, at 1/2_d._ each 49,500 3,264,800 turnips, at 1-1/2_d._ per doz. 1,700 601,000 carrots, at 2-1/2_d._ per doz. 520 567,300 brocoli and cauliflowers, at 1_d._ per head 2,360 616,666 junks of turnip tops, at 4_d._ per junk 10,270 219,000 bushels of peas, at 1_s._ 6_d._ per bushel 16,420 8,890 bushels of beans, at 1_s._ 6_d._ per bushel 660 22,110 bushels of French beans, at 6_d._ per peck, or 2_s._ per bushel 2,210 25,608 vegetable marrows, at 1/2_d._ each 50 489 dozen bundles of asparagus, at 2_s._ 6_d._ per bundle (4_d._ or 6_d._ a doz. heads) 730 9,120 dozen bundles of rhubarb, at 2_s._ 6_d._ per doz. 1,140 4,350 dozen bundles of celery, at 3_d._ per bundle 650 561,602 lettuces, at 3 a penny 780 13,291 dozen hands of radishes, at 3 bunches for 1_d._, and 6 bunches to the hand 1,330 499,530 bushels of onions, at 4_s._ per bushel 99,900 10,920 bushels of cucumbers, at 1_d._ each (60 to the bush.) 2,730 3,290 dozen bundles of herbs, at 3_d._ a bundle 490 -------- Total expended yearly in vegetables £292,240
Putting the above sums together we have the following aggregate result:--
Expended yearly in green fruit £332,400 Expended yearly in dry fruit 1,000 Expended yearly in vegetables 292,240 -------- Gross sum taken annually by the } London costermongers for fruit } £625,640 and vegetables }
Then adding the above to the gross amount received by the street-sellers of fish, which we have before seen comes to as much as £1,460,850, we have for the annual income of the London costermongers no less a sum than £2,086,490.
OF THE STATIONARY STREET-SELLERS OF FISH, FRUIT, AND VEGETABLES.
OF THE NUMBER OF STREET STALLS.
Thus far we have dealt only with the itinerant dealers in fish, fruit, or vegetables; but there are still a large class of street-sellers, who obtain a living by the sale of the same articles at some fixed locality in the public thoroughfares; and as these differ from the others in certain points, they demand a short special notice here. First, as to the number of stalls in the streets of London, I caused personal observations to be made; and in a walk of 46 miles, 632 stalls were counted, which is at the rate of very nearly 14 to the mile. This, too, was in bad weather,--was not on a Saturday night,--and at a season when the fruit-sellers all declare that “things is dull.” The routes taken in this inquiry were:--No. 1, from Vauxhall to Hatton-garden; No. 2, from Baker-street to Bermondsey; No. 3, from Blackwall to Brompton; No. 4, from the Hackney-road to the Edgeware-road. I give the results.
F. FR. V. M. T. No. 1 9 28 5 7 49 „ 2 37 50 4 14 105 „ 3 90 153 30 40 313 „ 4 75 52 23 15 165 -- -- -- -- -- 211 283 62 76 632
F. denotes fish-stalls; Fr. fruit-stalls; V. vegetable-stalls; M. miscellaneous; and T. presents the total.
The miscellaneous stalls include peas-soup, pickled whelks, sweetmeats, toys, tin-ware, elder-wine, and jewellery stands. Of these, the toy-stalls were found to be the most numerous; sweetmeats the next; tin-ware the next; while the elder-wine stalls were least numerous.
Some of the results indicate, curiously enough, the character of the locality. Thus, in Fleet-street there were 3, in the Haymarket 5, in Regent-street 6, and in Piccadilly 14 fruit-stalls, and no fish-stalls--these streets not being resorted to by the poor, to whom fruit is a luxury, but fish a necessity. In the Strand were 17 fruit and 2 fish-stalls; and in Drury-lane were 8 stalls of fish to 6 of fruit. On the other hand, there were in Ratcliffe-highway, 38 fish and 23 fruit-stalls; in Rosemary-lane, 13 fish and 8 fruit-stalls; in Shoreditch, 28 fish and 13 fruit-stalls; and in Bethnal-green Road (the poorest district of all), 14 of the fish, and but 3 of the fruit stalls. In some places, the numbers were equal, or nearly so; as in the Minories, for instance, the City-road, the New-road, Goodge-street, Tottenham-court Road, and the Camberwell-road; while in Smithfield were 5, and in Cow-cross 2 fish-stalls, and no fruit-stalls at all. In this enumeration the street-markets of Leather-lane, the New Cut, the Brill, &c., are not included.
The result of this survey of the principal London thoroughfares is that in the _mid-route_ (viz., from Brompton, along Piccadilly, the Strand, Fleet-street, and so _viâ_ the Commercial-road to Blackwall), there are twice as many stalls as in the great _northern thoroughfare_ (that is to say, from the Edgeware-road, along the New-road, to the Hackney-road); the latter route, however, has more than one-third as many stalls as route No. 2, and that again more than double the number of route No. 1. Hence it appears that the more frequented the thoroughfare, the greater the quantity of street-stalls.
The number of miles of streets contained within the inner police district of the metropolis, are estimated by the authorities at 2,000 (including the city), and assuming that there are on an average only four stalls to the mile throughout London, we have thus a grand total of 8,000 fish, fruit, vegetable, and other stalls dispersed throughout the capital.
[Illustration: THE IRISH STREET-SELLER.
“Sweet Chany! Two a pinny Or-r-ranges--two a pinny!”
[_From a Daguerreotype by_ BEARD.]]
Concerning the character of the stalls at the street-markets, the following observations have been made:--At the New-cut there were, before the removals, between the hours of eight and ten on a Saturday evening, ranged along the kerb-stone on the north side of the road, beginning at Broad-wall to Marsh-gate (a distance of nearly half-a-mile), a dense line of “pitches”--at 77 of which were vegetables for sale, at 40 fruit, 25 fish, 22 boots and shoes, 14 eatables, consisting of cakes and pies, hot eels, baked potatoes, and boiled whelks; 10 dealt in nightcaps, lace, ladies’ collars, artificial flowers, silk and straw bonnets; 10 in tinware--such as saucepans, tea-kettles, and Dutch-ovens; 9 in crockery and glass, 7 in brooms and brushes, 5 in poultry and rabbits, 6 in paper, books, songs, and almanacs; and about 60 in sundries.
OF THE CHARACTER OF THE STREET-STALLS.
The stalls occupied by costermongers for the sale of fish, fruit, vegetables, &c., are chiefly constructed of a double cross-trestle or moveable frame, or else of two trestles, each with three legs, upon which is laid a long deal board, or tray. Some of the stalls consist merely of a few boards resting upon two baskets, or upon two herring-barrels. The fish-stalls are mostly covered with paper--generally old newspapers or periodicals--but some of the street-fishmongers, instead of using paper to display their fish upon, have introduced a thin marble slab, which gives the stall a cleaner, and, what they consider a high attribute, a “respectable” appearance.
Most of the fruit-stalls are, in the winter time, fitted up with an apparatus for roasting apples and chestnuts; this generally consists of an old saucepan with a fire inside; and the woman who vends them, huddled up in her old faded shawl or cloak, often presents a picturesque appearance, in the early evening, or in a fog, with the gleam of the fire lighting up her half somnolent figure. Within the last two or three years, however, there has been so large a business carried on in roasted chestnuts, that it has become a distinct street-trade, and the vendors have provided themselves with an iron apparatus, large enough to roast nearly half a bushel at a time. At the present time, however, the larger apparatus is less common in the streets, and more frequent in the shops, than in the previous winter.