Part 29

But it is not only on account of their cheapness that herrings and sprats are consumed in such vast quantities by the labouring people of London. Salmon, eels, herrings, pilchards, and sprats, Dr. Pereira tells us, abound in oil; and oleaginous food, according to Leibig, is an “element of respiration,” consisting of nearly 80 per cent. charcoal, which burns away in the lungs, and so contributes to the warmth of the system. Fat, indeed, may be said to act as fuel to the vital fire; and we now know, from observations made upon the average daily consumption of food by 28 soldiers of the Grand Duke of Hesse Darmstadt, in barracks, for a month--which is the same as 840 men for one day--that an adult taking moderate exercise consumes, in the act of respiration, very nearly a pound of charcoal every day, which of course must be supplied in his food. “But persons who take much exercise, or labour hard,” says Dr. Pereira, “require more frequent and copious meals than the indolent or sedentary. In the active man the number of respirations is greater than in the inactive, and therefore a more frequent supply of food is required to furnish the increased quantity of carbon and hydrogen to be consumed in the lungs.” “A bird deprived of food,” says Liebig, “dies on the third day; while a serpent, with its sluggish respiration, can live without food three months, or longer.”

Captain Parry, in his account of one of the Polar expeditions (1827), states, that both himself and Mr. Beverley, the surgeon, were of opinion, that, in order to maintain the strength of the men during their harassing journey across the ice, living constantly in the open air, and exposed to the wet and cold for twelve hours a day, an addition was requisite of at least one-third to the quantity of provisions daily issued. So, in the gaol dietaries, the allowance to prisoners sentenced to hard labour for three months is one-third more than the scale for those sentenced to hard labour for three days--the former having 254 ounces, and the latter only 168 ounces of solid food served out to them every week.

But the hard-working poor not only require more food than the non-working rich, but it is mainly because the rich are better fed that they are more lethargic than the poor; for the greater the supply of nutriment to the body, the more inactive does the system become. From experiments made a few years ago at the Zoological Gardens, it was found, that, by feeding the animals twice, instead of once, in the twenty-four hours, their habits, as regards exercise, were altered--a fact which readily explains how the fat and overfed are always the least energetic; fat being at once the cause and consequence of inaction. It is well to hear an obese citizen tell a hollow-cheeked man, who begs a penny of him, “to go and work--a lazy scoundrel;” but physiology assures us that the fat tradesman is naturally the laziest of the two. In a word, he is fat because he is lazy, and lazy because he is fat.

The industrious poor, however, not only require more food than the indolent rich, but, getting less, they become more susceptible of cold, and, therefore, more eager for all that tends to promote warmth. I have often had occasion to remark the sacrifices that the ill-fed will make to have “a bit of fire.” “He who is well fed,” observes Sir John Ross, “resists cold better than the man who is stinted, while starvation from cold follows but too soon a starvation in food. This doubtlessly explains in a great measure the resisting powers of the natives of frozen climates, their consumption of food being enormous, and often incredible.” Captain Cochrane, in his “Journey through Russia and Siberian Tartary,” tells us that he has repeatedly seen a Yakut or Tongouse devour forty pounds of meat in a day; and one of the Yakuti he speaks of as having consumed, in twenty-four hours, “the hind-quarter of a large ox, twenty pounds of fat, and a proportionate quantity of melted butter for his drink.” (Vol. i. p. 255). Much less heat is evolved, physiologists tell us, where there is a deficiency of food. “During the whole of our march,” says Sir John Franklin, “we experienced that no quantity of clothing could keep us warm while we fasted; but, on those occasions on which we were enabled to go to bed with full stomachs, we passed the night in a warm and comfortable manner.” Hence, it is evident, that in summer a smaller quantity of food suffices to keep up the temperature of the body. I know of no experiments to show the different proportions of aliment required at different seasons of the year. In winter, however, when a greater supply is certainly needed, the labouring man, unfortunately, has less means of obtaining it--nearly all trades slacken as the cold weather comes on, and some, as brick-making, market-gardening, building, &c., then almost entirely cease--so that, were it not for the cheapness of fish, and, moreover, the oleaginous quality of those kinds which are most plentiful in the winter time, the metropolitan poor would be very likely to suffer that “starvation from cold which,” in the words of Sir John Ross, “follows but too soon a starvation in food.” Hence we can readily understand the remark of the enthusiastic street-seller--“Sprats _is_ a blessing to the poor.”

The returns as to the other articles of food sold in the streets are equally curious. The 1,500,000_l._ spent yearly in fish, and the comparatively small amount expended on vegetables, viz., 290,000_l._, is a circumstance which seems to show that the labouring population of London have a greater relish for animal than vegetable diet. “It is quite certain,” says Dr. Carpenter, “that the most perfect physical development and the greatest intellectual vigour are to be found among those races in which a mixed diet of animal and vegetable food is the prevalent habit.” And yet, in apparent contradiction to the proposition asserted with so much confidence by Dr. Carpenter, we have the following curious fact cited by Mr. Jacob Bentley:--

“It is, indeed, a fact worthy of remark, and one that seems never to have been noticed, that throughout the whole animal creation, in every country and clime of the earth the most useful animals cost nature the least waste to sustain them with food. For instance, all animals that work, live on vegetable or fruit food; and no animal that eats flesh, works. The all-powerful elephant, and the patient, untiring camel in the torrid zone; the horse, the ox, or the donkey in the temperate, and the rein-deer in the frigid zone; obtain all their muscular power for enduring labour, from Nature’s simplest productions,--the vegetable kingdom.

“But all the flesh-eating animals, keep the rest of the animated creation in constant dread of them. They seldom eat vegetable food till some other animal has eaten it first, and made it into flesh. Their only use seems to be, to destroy life; their own flesh is unfit for other animals to eat, having been itself made out of flesh, and is most foul and offensive. Great strength, fleetness of foot, usefulness, cleanliness and docility, are then always characteristic of vegetable-eating animals, while all the world dreads flesh-eaters.”

Of vegetables we have seen that the greatest quantity consumed by the poor consists of potatoes, of which 60,500,000 lbs. are annually sold in the streets; but ten pounds of potatoes are only equal in nutritive power to one pound of butcher’s meat, which contains one-fifth more solid food than fish,--so that a pound of fish may be said to equal eight pounds of potatoes, and thus the 60,000,000 lbs. of vegetable is dietetically equivalent to nearly 7,000,000 lbs. of fish diet. The cost of the potatoes, at five pounds for 2_d._, is, as we have seen, 100,000_l._; whereas the cost of the same amount of nutritive matter in the form of fish, at 1_d._ per pound, would have been only 30,000_l._, or upwards of two-thirds less. The vegetable of which there is the next greatest street sale is onions, upon which 90,000_l._ are annually expended. This has been before accounted for, by saying, that a piece of bread and an onion are to the English labourer what bread and grapes are to the Frenchman--oftentimes a meal. The relish for onions by the poorer classes is not difficult to explain. Onions are strongly stimulating substances, and they owe their peculiar odour and flavour, as well as their pungent and stimulating qualities, to an acrid volatile oil which contains sulphur. This oil becomes absorbed, quickens the circulation, and occasions thirst. The same result takes place with the oil of fish. It not only proves a stimulant to the general system, but we are told that the thirst and uneasy feeling at the stomach, frequently experienced after the use of the richer species of fish, have led to the employment of spirit to this kind of food. Hence, says Dr. Pereira, the vulgar proverb, “Brandy is Latin for Fish.” Moreover, the two classes of food are similar in their comparative indigestibility, for the uneducated palates of the poor not only require a more pungent kind of diet, but their stronger stomachs need something that will resist the action of the gastric juice for a considerable time. Hence their love of shell-fish.

The small quantity of fruit, too, sold to the poor is a further proof of what is here stated. The amount of the street sale of this luxury is no criterion as to the quantity purchased by the London labourers; for according to all accounts the fruit-buyers in the streets consist mostly of clerks, shopmen, small tradesmen, and the children of mechanics or the lower grade of middle class people. Those who may be said strictly to belong to the poor,--viz. those whose incomes are barely sufficient for their support--seldom purchase fruit. In the first place they have no money to spend on such a mere toothsome extravagance; and, secondly, they require a stronger and more stimulating, and “_staying_” kind of food. The delights of the palate, we should remember, are studied only when the cravings of the stomach are satisfied, so that those who have strong stomachs have necessarily dull palates, and, therefore, prefer something that “bites in the mouth,”--to use the words of one of my informants--like gin, onions, sprats, or pickled whelks. What the poor term “relishes” are very different things from what the rich style the “delicacies of the season.”

I have no means of ascertaining the average number of ounces of solid food consumed by the poorer class of the metropolis. The _whole_ of the fish, fruit, and vegetables, sold to the London costermongers, is not disposed of in the London streets--many of the street-sellers going, as we have seen, country excursions with their goods. According to the result of the Government Commissioners of Inquiry, the labourers in the country are unable to procure for themselves and families an average allowance of more than 122 ounces of solid food--principally bread--every week; hence it has been justly said we may infer that the man consumes, as his share, 140 ounces (134 bread and 6 meat). The gaol dietaries allow 254 ounces, or nearly twice as much to all prisoners, who undergo continuous hard labour. In the construction of these dietaries Sir James Graham--the then Secretary of State--says, in his “Letter to the Chairman of Quarter Sessions” (January 27th, 1843), “I have consulted not only the Prison Inspectors, but medical men of the greatest eminence possessing the advantage of long experience.” They are proposed, he adds, “as the _minimum_ amount which can be safely afforded to prisoners without the risk of inflicting a punishment not contemplated by law and which it is unjust and cruel to inflict; namely, loss of health and strength through the inadequacy of the food supplied.” Hence it appears not that the thief gets too much, but the honest working man too little--or, in other words, that the labourer of this country is able to procure, by his industry, only half the quantity of food that is considered by “medical men of the greatest eminence” to be “the _minimum_ amount” that can be _safely_ afforded for the support of the criminals--a fact which it would be out of place to comment upon here.

One word concerning the incomes of the London costermongers, and I have done. It has been before shown that the gross sum of money _taken_ yearly, in the streets, by the sale of fish, fruit, and vegetables, amounts, in round numbers, to two million pounds--a million and a half being expended in fish, and a quarter of a million upon fruit and vegetables respectively. In estimating the yearly receipts of the costermongers, from their average gains, the gross “takings” of the entire body were concluded to be between a million and a quarter and a million and a half sterling--that is to say, each one of the 10,000 street-sellers of fish, fruit, and vegetables, was supposed to clear ten shillings a week all the year through, and to _take_ fifty shillings. But, according to the returns furnished me by the salesmen, at the several metropolitan markets, the weekly “_takings_” of the ten thousand men and their families--for often both wife and children sell--cannot be less than four pounds per week all the year round, out of which it would seem that the clear weekly _gains_ are about fifteen shillings. (Some costers we have seen take pounds in a day, others--as the nut and orange-women and children--only a few shillings a week; some, again, make cent. per cent. profit, whilst others are obliged to sell at a loss.) This, from all I can gather, as well as from a comparison of the coster’s style of living with other classes whose weekly income is nearly the same, appears to be very close upon the truth.

We may then, I think, safely assert, that the gross yearly receipts of the London costermongers are two millions of money; that their clear annual gain, or income, is 425,000_l._; and that the capital invested in their business, in the form of donkey-carts, barrows, baskets, weights, and stock-money, is 25,000_l._;--half of this being borrowed, for which they pay upwards of 20,000_l._ interest per annum.

OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF GAME, POULTRY (LIVE AND DEAD), RABBITS, BUTTER, CHEESE, AND EGGS.

The class who sell game and poultry in the public thoroughfares of the metropolis are styled hawkers, both in Leadenhall and Newgate-market. The number of these dealers in London is computed at between 200 and 300. Of course, legally to sell game, a license, which costs 2_l._ 2_s._ yearly, is required; but the street-seller laughs at the notion of being subjected to a direct tax; which, indeed, it might be impossible to levy on so “slippery” a class.

The sale of game, even with a license, was not legalised until 1831; and, prior to that year, the mere killing of game by an “unqualified” person was an offence entailing heavy penalties. The “qualification” consisted of the possession of a freehold estate of 100_l._ a year, or a leasehold for ninety-nine years of 150_l._ a year! By an Act, passed in the 25th year of George III., it was provided that a certificate (costing 3_l._ 13_s._ 6_d._) must be taken out by all qualified persons killing game. Since 1831 (1 & 2 William IV., c. 32,) a certificate, without any qualification, is all that is required from the game-killer.

Both sexes carry on the trade in game-hawking, but there are more than thrice as many men as women engaged in the business, the weight occasionally carried being beyond a woman’s strength. The most customary dress of the game or poultry-hawker is a clean smock-frock covering the whole of his other attire, except the ends of his trousers and his thick boots or shoes. Indeed he often, but less frequently than was the case five years ago, assumes the dress of a country labourer, although he may have been for years a resident in London. About forty years ago, I am informed, it was the custom for countrymen, residing at no great distance, to purchase a stock of chickens or ducks; and, taking their places in a wagon, to bring their birds to London, and hawk them from door to door. Some of these men’s smock-frocks were a convenient garb, for they covered the ample pockets of the coat beneath, in which were often a store of partridges, or an occasional pheasant or hare. This game, illegally killed--for it was all poached--was illegally sold by the hawker, and illegally bought by the hotel-keepers and the richer tradesmen. One informant (an old man) was of opinion that the game was rarely offered for sale by these countrymen at the West-end mansions of the aristocracy. “In fact,” he said, “I knew one country fellow--though he was sharp enough in his trade of game and poultry-selling--who seemed to think that every fine house, without a shop, and where there were livery servants, must needs be inhabited by a magistrate! But, as the great props of poaching were the rich--for, of course, the poor couldn’t buy game--there was, no doubt, a West-end as well as a City trade in it. I have bought game of a country poultry-hawker,” continued my informant, “when I lived in the City at the beginning of this century, and generally gave 3_s._ 6_d._ a brace for partridges. I have bid it, and the man has left, refusing to take it; and has told me afterwards, and, I dare say, he spoke the truth, that he had sold his partridges at 5_s._ or 6_s._ or more. I believe 5_s._ a brace was no uncommon price in the City. I have given as much as 10_s._ for a pheasant for a Christmas supper. The hawker, before offering the birds for sale, used to peer about him, though we were alone in my counting-house, and then pull his partridges out of his pockets, and say, ‘Sir, do you want any very young chickens?’--for so he called them. Hares he called ‘lions;’ and they cost often, enough, 5_s._ each of the hawker. The trade had all the charms and recommendations of a mystery and a risk about it, just like smuggling.”

The sale of game in London, however, was not confined to the street-hawkers, who generally derived their stock-in-trade immediately from the poacher. Before the legalisation of the sale, the trade was carried on, under the rose, by the salesmen in Leadenhall-market, and that to an extent of not less than a fifteenth of the sale now accomplished there. The purveyors for the London game-market--I learned from leading salesmen in Leadenhall--were not then, as now, noble lords and honourable gentlemen, but peasant or farmer poachers, who carried on the business systematically. The guards and coachmen of the stage-coaches were the media of communication, and had charge of the supply to the London market. The purchasers of the game thus supplied to a market, which is mostly the property of the municipality of the City of London, were not only hotel-keepers, who required it for public dinners presided over by princes, peers, and legislators, but the purveyors for the civic banquets--such as the Lord Mayor’s ninth of November dinner, at which the Ministers of State always attended.

This street-hawking of _poached_ game, as far as I could ascertain from the best-informed quarters, hardly survived the first year of the legalised sale.

The female hawkers of game are almost all the wives of the men so engaged, or are women living with them as their wives. The trade is better, as regards profit, than the costermonger’s ordinary pursuits, but only when the season is favourable; it is, however, more uncertain.

There is very rarely a distinction between the hawkers of game and of poultry. A man will carry both, or have game one day and poultry the next, as suits his means, or as the market avails. The street-sellers of cheese are generally costers, while the vendors of butter and eggs are almost extinct.

Game, I may mention, consists of grouse (including black-cocks, and all the varieties of heath or moor-game), partridges, pheasants, bustards, and hares. Snipe, woodcocks, plovers, teal, widgeons, wild ducks, and rabbits are not game, but can only be taken or killed by certificated persons, who are owners or occupiers of the property on which they are found, or who have the necessary permission from such persons as are duly authorised to accord it. Poultry consists of chickens, geese, ducks, and turkeys, while some persons class pigeons as poultry.

Birds are dietetically divided into three classes: (1) the white-fleshed, as the common fowl and the turkey; (2) the dark-fleshed game, as the grouse and the black-cock; and (3) the aquatic (including swimmers and waders), as the goose and the duck; the flesh of the latter is penetrated with fat, and difficult of digestion.

OF THE QUANTITY OF GAME, RABBITS, AND POULTRY, SOLD IN THE STREETS.

It appears from inquiries that I instituted, and from authentic returns which I procured on the subject, that the following is the quantity of game and poultry sold yearly, as an average, in the markets of the metropolis. I give it exclusive of such birds as wild-ducks, woodcocks, &c., the supply of which depends upon the severity of the winter. I include all wild birds or animals, whether considered game or not, and I use round numbers, but as closely as possible.

During the past Christmas, however, I may observe, that the supply of poultry to the markets has been greater than on any previous occasion. The immensity of the supply was favourable to the hawker’s profit, as the glut enabled him to purchase both cheaply and largely. One young poultry-hawker told me that he had cleared 3_l._ in the Christmas week, and had spent it all in four days--except 5_s._ reserved for stock-money. It was not spent _entirely_ in drunkenness, a large portion of it being expended in treats and amusements. So great, indeed, has been the supply of game and poultry this year, that a stranger, unused to the grand scale on which provisions are displayed in the great metropolitan marts, on visiting Leadenhall, a week before or after Christmas, might have imagined that the staple food of the London population consisted of turkeys, geese, and chickens. I give, however, an _average_ yearly supply:

-------------------+-----------+----------+----------+-------------- | | | | Proportion Description. |Leadenhall.| Newgate. | Total. | sold in | | | | the Streets. -------------------+-----------+----------+----------+-------------- GAME, &C. | | | | Grouse | 45,000 | 12,000 | 57,000 |One-eleventh. Partridges | 85,000 | 60,000 | 145,000 |One-seventh. Pheasants | 44,000 | 20,000 | 64,000 |One-fifth. Snipes | 60,000 | 47,000 | 107,000 |One-twentieth. Wild Birds | 40,000 | 20,000 | 60,000 |None. Plovers | 28,000 | 18,000 | 46,000 |None. Larks | 213,000 | 100,000 | 313,000 |None. Teals | 10,000 | 5,000 | 15,000 |None. Widgeons | 30,000 | 8,000 | 38,000 |None. Hares | 48,000 | 55,000 | 102,000 |One-fifth. Rabbits | 680,000 | 180,000 | 860,000 |Three-fourths. +-----------+----------+----------+ |1,283,000 | 525,000 |1,807,000 | POULTRY. | | | | Domestic Fowls |1,266,000 | 490,000 |1,756,000 |One-third. ---- ---- (alive) | 45,000 | 15,000 | 60,000 |One-tenth. Geese | 888,000 | 114,000 |1,002,000 |One-fifth. Ducks | 235,000 | 148,000 | 383,000 |One-fourth. ---- (alive) | 20,000 | 20,000 | 40,000 |One-tenth. Turkeys | 69,000 | 55,000 | 124,000 |One-fourth. Pigeons | 285,000 | 98,000 | 383,000 |None. +-----------+----------+----------+ |2,808,000 | 940,000 |3,748,000 | Game, &c. |1,283,000 | 525,000 |1,807,000 | +-----------+----------+----------+ |4,091,000 | 1,465,000|5,555,000 | -------------------+-----------+----------+----------+--------------