Part 34

Fourteen or fifteen years ago, although seeds, generally, were fifteen to twenty per cent. dearer than they are now, there was twice the demand for them. An average price of good mignonette seed, he said, was now 1_s._ the quarter of a pound, and it was then 1_s._ 2_d._ to 1_s._ 6_d._ The shilling’s worth, is made, by the street-seller, into twenty or twenty-four pennyworths. An average price of parsley, and of the cheaper seeds, is less than half that of mignonette. Other seeds, again, are not sold to the street-people by the weight, but are made up in sixpenny and shilling packages. Their extreme lightness prevents their being weighed to a customer. Of this class are, the African marigold, the senecios (groundsel), and the china-aster; but of these compound flowers, the street-traders sell very few. Poppy-seed used to be in great demand among the street-buyers, but it has ceased to be so. “It’s a fine hardy plant, too, sir,” I was told, “but somehow, for all its variety in colours, it’s gone out of fashion, for fashion runs strong in flowers.”

One long-established street-seller, who is well known to supply the best seeds, makes for the five weeks or so of the season more than twice the weekly average of 5_s._; perhaps 12_s._; but as he is a shop as well as a stall-keeper, he could not speak very precisely as to the proportionate sale in the street or the shop. This man laughed at the fondness some of his customers manifested for “fine Latin names.” “There are some people,” he said, “who will buy antirrhinum, and artemisia, and digitalis, and wouldn’t hear of snapdragon, or wormwood, or foxglove, though they’re the identical plants.” The same informant told me that the railways in their approaches to the metropolis had destroyed many small gardens, and had, he thought, injured his trade. It was, also, a common thing now for the greengrocers and corn-chandlers to sell garden-seeds, which until these six or eight years they did much less extensively.

Last spring, I was told, there were not more than four persons, in London, selling only seeds. The “root-sellers,” of whom I have treated, generally deal in seeds also, but the demand does not extend beyond four or five weeks in the spring, though there was “a straggling trade that way” two or three weeks longer. It was computed for me, that there were fully one hundred persons selling seeds (with other things) in the streets, and that each might average a profit of 5_s._ weekly, for a month; giving 200_l._ expended in seeds, with 100_l._ profit to the costers. Seeds are rarely hawked as flowers are.

It is impossible to give as minutely detailed an account of the street-sale of seeds as of flowers, as from their diversity in size, weight, quantity in a pennyworth, &c., no calculation can be prepared by weight or measure, only by _value_. Thus, I find it necessary to depart somewhat from the order hitherto observed. One seedsman, acquainted with the street-trade from his dealings with the vendors, was of opinion that the following list and proportions were as nice an approximation as could be arrived at. It was found necessary to give it in proportions of twenty-fifths; but it must be borne in mind that the _quantity_ in 3/25ths of parsley, for example, is more than double that of 3/25ths of mignonette. I give, in unison, seeds of about equal sale, whether of the same botanical family or not. Many of the most popular flowers, such as polyanthuses, daisies, violets, and primroses, are not raised from seed, except in the nursery gardens:--

Seeds. Twenty-fifths. Value. Mignonette Three £24 Stocks (of all kinds) Two 16 Marigolds (do.) One 8 Convolvulus (do.) „ 8 Wallflower „ 8 Scarlet-beans and Sweet-peas „ 8 China-asters and Venus’ looking-glass „ 8 Lupin and Larkspur „ 8 Nasturtium „ 8 Parsley Two 16 Other Pot-herbs One 8 Mustard and Cress, Lettuce, and the } other vegetables } Two 16 Grass One 8 Other seeds Seven 56 ---- Total expended annually on street-seeds £200

OF CHRISTMASING--LAUREL, IVY, HOLLY, AND MISTLETOE.

In London a large trade is carried on in “Christmasing,” or in the sale of holly and mistletoe, for Christmas sports and decorations. I have appended a table of the quantity of these “branches” sold, nearly 250,000, and of the money expended upon them in the streets. It must be borne in mind, to account for this expenditure for a brief season, that almost every housekeeper will expend something in “Christmasing;” from 2_d._ to 1_s._ 6_d._, and the poor buy a pennyworth, or a halfpennyworth each, and they are the coster’s customers. In some houses, which are let off in rooms, floors, or suites of apartments, and not to the poorest class, every room will have the cheery decoration of holly, its bright, and as if _glazed_ leaves and red berries, reflecting the light from fire or candle. “Then, look,” said a gardener to me, “what’s spent on a Christmasing the churches! Why, now, properly to Christmas St. Paul’s, I say _properly_, mind, would take 50_l._ worth at least; aye, more, when I think of it, nearer 100_l._ I hope there’ll be no ‘No Popery’ nonsense against Christmasing this year. I’m always sorry when anything of that kind’s afloat, because it’s frequently a hindrance to business.” This was said three weeks before Christmas. In London there are upwards of 300,000 inhabited houses. The whole of the evergreen branches sold number 375,000.

Even the ordinary-sized inns, I was informed, displayed holly decorations, costing from 2_s._ to 10_s._; while in the larger inns, where, perhaps, an assembly-room, a concert-room, or a club-room, had to be adorned, along with other apartments, 20_s._ worth of holly, &c., was a not uncommon outlay. “Well, then, consider,” said another informant, “the plum-puddings! Why, at least there’s a hundred thousand of ’em eaten, in London, through the Christmas and the month following. That’s nearly one pudding to every twenty of the population, is it, sir? Well, perhaps, that’s too much. But, then, there’s the great numbers eaten at public dinners and suppers; and there’s more plum-pudding clubs at the small grocers and public-houses than there used to be, so, say full a hundred thousand, flinging in any mince-pies that may be decorated with evergreens. Well, sir, every plum-pudding will have a sprig of holly in him. If it’s bought just for the occasion, it may cost 1_d._, to be really prime and nicely berried. If it’s part of a lot, why it won’t cost a halfpenny, so reckon it all at a halfpenny. What does that come to? Above 200_l._ Think of that, then, just for sprigging puddings!”

Mistletoe, I am informed, is in somewhat less demand than it was, though there might be no very perceptible difference. In many houses holly is now used instead of the true plant, for the ancient ceremonies and privileges observed “under the mistletoe bough.” The holly is not half the price of the mistletoe, which is one reason; for, though there is not any great disparity of price, wholesale, the holly, which costs 6_d._ retail, is more than the quantity of mistletoe retailed for 1_s._ The holly-tree may be grown in any hedge, and ivy may be reared against any wall; while the mistletoe is parasitical of the apple-tree, and, but not to half the extent, of the oak and other trees. It does not grow in the northern counties of England. The purchasers of the mistletoe are, for the most part, the wealthier classes, or, at any rate, I was told, “those who give parties.” It is bought, too, by the male servants in large establishments, and more would be so bought, “only so few of the great people, of the most fashionable squares and places, keep their Christmas in town.” Half-a-crown is a not uncommon price for a handsome mistletoe bough.

The costermongers buy about a half of the holly, &c., brought to the markets; it is also sold either direct to those requiring evergreens, or to green-grocers and fruiterers who have received orders for it from their customers, or who know it will be wanted. A shilling’s worth may be bought in the market, the bundles being divided. Mistletoe, the costers--those having regular customers in the suburbs--receive orders for. “Last December,” said a coster to me, “I remember a servant-girl, and she weren’t such a girl either, running after me in a regular flutter, to tell me the family had forgot to order 2_s._ worth of mistletoe of me, to be brought next day. Oh, yes, sir, if it’s ordered by, or delivered to, the servant-girls, they generally have a little giggling about it. If I’ve said: ‘What are you laughing at?’ they’ll mostly say: ‘Me! I’m not laughing.’”

The costermongers go into the neighbourhood of London to procure the holly for street-sale. This is chiefly done, I was told, by those who were “cracked up,” and some of them laboured at it “days and days.” It is, however, a very uncertain trade, as they must generally trespass, and if they are caught trespassing, by the occupier of the land, or any of his servants, they are seldom “given in charge,” but their stock of evergreens is not unfrequently taken from them, “and that, sir, that’s the cuttingest of all.” They do not so freely venture upon the gathering of mistletoe, for to procure it they must trespass in orchards, which is somewhat dangerous work, and they are in constant apprehension of traps, spring-guns, and bull-dogs. Six or seven hundred men or lads, the lads being the most numerous, are thus employed for a week or two before Christmas, and, perhaps, half that number, irregularly at intervals, for a week or two after it. Some of the lads are not known as regular coster-lads, but they are _habitués_ of the streets in some capacity. To procure as much holly one day, as will sell for 2_s._ 6_d._ the next, is accounted pretty good work, and 7_s._ 6_d._ would be thus realised in six days. But 5_s._ is more frequently the return of six days’ labour and sale, though a very few have cleared 10_s._, and one man, “with uncommon luck,” once cleared 20_s._ in six days. The distance travelled in a short winter’s day, is sometimes twenty miles, and, perhaps, the lad or man has not broken his fast, on some days, until the evening, or even the next morning, for had he possessed a few pence he would probably have invested it in oranges or nuts, for street-sale, rather than “go a-gathering Christmas.”

One strong-looking lad, of 16 or 17, gave me the following account:--

“It’s hard work, is Christmasing; but, when you have neither money nor work, you must do something, and so the holly may come in handy. I live with a elder brother; he helps the masons, and as we had neither of us either work or money, he cut off Tottenham and Edmonton way, and me the t’other side of the water, Mortlake way, as well as I know. We’d both been used to costering, off and on. I was out, I think, ten days altogether, and didn’t make 6_s_. in it. I’d been out two Christmases before. O, yes, I’d forgot. I made 6_d._ over the 6_s._, for I had half a pork-pie and a pint of beer, and the landlord took it out in holly. I meant to have made a quarter of pork do, but I was so hungry--and so would you, sir, if you’d been out a-Christmasing--that I had the t’other quarter. It’s 2_d._ a quarter. I did better when I was out afore, but I forget what I made. It’s often slow work, for you must wait sometimes ’till no one’s looking, and then you must work away like anything. I’d nothing but a sharp knife, I borrowed, and some bits of cord to tie the holly up. You _must_ look out sharp, because, you see, sir, a man very likely won’t like his holly-tree to be stripped. Wherever there is a berry, we goes for the berries. They’re poison berries, I’ve heard. Moonlight nights is the thing, sir, when you knows where you are. I never goes for mizzletoe. I hardly knows it when I sees it. The first time I was out, a man got me to go for some in a orchard, and told me how to manage; but I cut my lucky in a minute. Something came over me like. I felt sickish. But what can a poor fellow do? I never lost my Christmas, but a little bit of it once. Two men took it from me, and said I ought to thank them for letting me off without a jolly good jacketing, as they was gardeners. I believes they was men out a-Christmasing, as I were. It was a dreadful cold time that; and I was wet, and hungry,--and thirsty, too, for all I was so wet,--and I’d to wait a-watching in the wet. I’ve got something better to do now, and I’ll never go a-Christmasing again, if I can help it.”

This lad contrived to get back to his lodging, in town, every night, but some of those out Christmasing, stay two or three days and nights in the country, sleeping in barns, out-houses, carts, or under hay-stacks, inclement as the weather may be, when their funds are insufficient to defray the charge of a bed, or a part of one, at a country “dossing-crib” (low lodging-house). They resorted, in considerable numbers, to the casual wards of the workhouses, in Croydon, Greenwich, Reigate, Dartford, &c., when that accommodation was afforded them, concealing their holly for the night.

As in other matters, it may be a surprise to some of my readers to learn in what way the evergreens, used on festive occasions in their homes, may have been procured.

The costermongers who procure their own Christmasing, generally hawk it. A few sell it by the lot to their more prosperous brethren. What the costers purchase in the market, they aim to sell at cent. per cent.

Supposing that 700 men and lads gathered their own holly, &c., and each worked for three weeks (not regarding interruptions), and calculating that, in the time they cleared even 15_s._ each, it amounts to 525_l._

Some of the costermongers deck their carts and barrows, in the general line, with holly at Christmas. Some go out with their carts full of holly, for sale, and may be accompanied by a fiddler, or by a person beating a drum. The cry is, “Holly! Green Holly!”

One of my informants alluded incidentally to the decoration of the churches, and I may observe that they used to be far more profusely decked with Christmas evergreens than at present; so much so, that a lady correspondent in January, 1712, complained to “Mr. _Spectator_” that her church-going was bootless. She was constant at church, to hear divine service and make conquests; but the clerk had so overdone the greens in the church that, for three weeks, Miss Jenny Simper had not even seen the young baronet, whom she dressed at for divine worship, although he pursued his devotions only three pews from hers. The aisle was a pretty shady walk, and each pew was an arbour. The pulpit was so clustered with holly and ivy that the congregation, like Moses, heard the word out of a bush. “Sir Anthony Love’s pew in particular,” concludes the indignant Miss Simper, “is so well hedged, that all my batteries have no effect. I am obliged to shoot at random among the boughs without taking any manner of aim. Mr. Spectator, unless you’ll give orders for removing these greens, I shall grow a very awkward creature at church, and soon have little else to do there but to say my prayers.” In a subsequent number, the clerk glorifies himself that he had checked the ogling of Miss Simper. He had heard how the Kentish men evaded the Conqueror by displaying green boughs before them, and so he bethought him of a like device against the love-warfare of this coquettish lady.

Of all the “branches” in the markets, the costers buy one-half. This season, holly has been cheaper than was ever known previously. In some years, its price was double that cited, in some treble, when the December was very frosty.

OF THE SALE OF MAY, PALM, ETC.

The sale of the May, the fragrant flower of the hawthorn, a tree indigenous to this country--Wordsworth mentions one which must have been 800 years old--is carried on by the coster boys (principally), but only in a desultory way. The chief supply is brought to London in the carts or barrows of the costers returning from a country expedition. If the costermonger be accompanied by a lad--as he always is if the expedition be of any length--the lad will say to his master, “Bill, let’s have some May to take back.” The man will almost always consent, and often assist in procuring the thickly green branches with their white or rose-tinted, and _freshly_-smelling flowers. The odour of the hawthorn blossom is peculiar, and some eminent botanist--Dr. Withering if I remember rightly--says it may be best described as “fresh.” No flower, perhaps, is blended with more poetical, antiquarian, and beautiful associations than the ever-welcome blossom of the may-tree. One gardener told me that as the hawthorn was in perfection in June instead of May, the name was not proper. But it must be remembered that the name of the flower was given during the old style, which carried our present month of May twelve days into June, and the name would then be more appropriate.

The May is obtained by the costermongers in the same way as the holly, by cutting it from the trees in the hedges. It has sometimes to be cut or broken off stealthily, for persons may no more like their hawthorns to be stripped than their hollies, and an ingenuous lad--as will have been observed--told me of “people’s” objections to the unauthorized stripping of their holly-bushes. But there is not a quarter of the difficulty in procuring May that there is in procuring holly at Christmas.

The costermonger, if he has “done tidy” in the country will very probably leave the May at the disposal of his boy; but a few men, though perhaps little more than twenty, I was told, bring it on their own account. The lads then carry the branches about for sale; or if a considerable quantity has been brought, dispose of it to other boys or girls, or entrust them with the sale of it, at “half-profits,” or any terms agreed upon. Costermongers have been known to bring home “a load of May,” and this not unfrequently, at the request, and for the benefit of a “cracked-up” brother-trader, to whom it has been at once delivered gratuitously.

A lad, whom I met with as he was selling holly, told me that he had brought may from the country when he had been there with a coster. He had also gone out of town a few miles to gather it on his own account. “But it ain’t no good;” he said; “you must often go a good way--I never knows anything about how many miles--and if it’s very ripe (the word he used) it’s soon shaken. There’s no sure price. You may get 4_d._ for a big branch or you must take 1_d._ I may have made 1_s._ on a round but hardly ever more. It can’t be got near hand. There’s some stunning fine trees at the top of the park there (the Regent’s Park) the t’other side of the ’logical Gardens, but there’s always a cove looking after them, they say, and both night and day.”

Palm, the flower of any of the numerous species of the willow, is sold only on Palm Sunday, and the Saturday preceding. The trade is about equally in the hands of the English and Irish lads, but the English lads have a commercial advantage on the morning of Palm Sunday, when so many of the Irish lads are at chapel. The palm is all gathered by the street-vendors. One costermonger told me that when he was a lad, he had sold palm to a man who had managed to get half-drunk on a Sunday morning, and who told him that he wanted it to show his wife, who very seldom stirred out, that he’d been taking a healthful walk into the country!

Lilac in flower is sold (and procured) in the same way as May, but in small quantities. Very rarely indeed, laburnum; which is too fragile; or syringa, which, I am told, is hardly saleable in the streets. One informant remembered that forty years ago, when he was a boy, branches of elder-berry flowers were sold in the streets, but the trade has disappeared.

It is very difficult to form a calculation as to the extent of this trade. The best informed give me reason to believe that the sale of all these branches (apart from Christmas) ranges, according to circumstances, from 30_l._ to 50_l._, the cost being the labour of gathering, and the subsistence of the labourer while at the work. This is independent of what the costers buy in the markets.

* * * * *

I now show the quantity of branches forming the street trade:--

Holly 59,040 bunches Mistletoe 56,160 „ Ivy and Laurel 26,640 „ Lilac 5,400 „ Palm 1,008 „ May 2,520 „ ------- Total number of bunches } sold in the streets from } 150,768 market-sale } Add to quantity from } other sources } 75,000 ------- 225,768

The quantity of branches “from other sources” is that gathered by the costers in the way I have described; but it is impossible to obtain a return of it with proper precision: to state it as half of that purchased in the markets is a low average.

I now give the amount paid by street-buyers who indulge in the healthful and innocent tastes of which I have been treating--the fondness for the beautiful and the natural.

CUT FLOWERS.

Bunches of per bunch 65,280 Violets at 1/2_d._ £136 115,200 Wallflowers „ 1/2_d._ 240 86,400 Mignonette „ 1_d._ 360 1,632 Lilies of the Valley „ 1/2_d._ 3 20,448 Stocks „ 1/2_d._ 42 316,800 Pinks and Carnations „ 1/2_d._ each 660 864,000 Moss Roses „ 1/2_d._ „ 1,800 864,000 China ditto „ 1/2_d._ „ 1,800 296,640 Lavender „ 1_d._ 1,236 ------ Total annually £6,277

FLOWER ROOTS.

per root 24,000 Primroses at 1/2_d._ £60 34,560 Polyanthuses „ 1_d._ 144 28,800 Cowslips „ 1/2_d._ 50 33,600 Daisies „ 1_d._ 140 46,080 Wallflowers „ 1_d._ 192 28,800 Candy-tufts „ 1_d._ 120 28,800 Daffodils „ 1/2_d._ 60 38,400 Violets „ 1/2_d._ 80 30,380 Mignonette „ 1/2_d._ 63 23,040 Stocks „ 1_d._ 96 19,200 Pinks and Carnations „ 2_d._ 160 3,456 Lilies of the Valley „ 1_d._ 14 12,960 Pansies „ 1_d._ 54 660 Lilies „ 2_d._ 5 850 Tulips „ 2_d._ 7 7,704 Balsams „ 2_d._ 64 3,180 Calceolarias „ 2_d._ 26 253,440 Musk Plants „ 1_d._ 1,056 11,520 London Pride „ 1_d._ 48 25,595 Lupins „ 1_d._ 106 9,156 China-asters „ 1_d._ 38 63,360 Marigolds „ 1/2_d._ 132 852 Dahlias „ 6_d._ 21 13,356 Heliotropes „ 2_d._ 111 1,920 Poppies „ 2_d._ 16 6,912 Michaelmas Daisies „ 1/2_d._ 14 ------ Total annually £2,877

BRANCHES.

Bunches of per bunch 59,040 Holly at 3_d._ £738 56,160 Mistletoe „ 3_d._ 702 26,640 Ivy and Laurel „ 3_d._ 333 5,400 Lilac „ 3_d._ 67 1,008 Palm „ 3_d._ 12 2,520 May „ 3_d._ 31 ------ Total annually from Markets £1,883 Add one-half as shown 591 ------ £2,474

TREES AND SHRUBS.