Part 42

“I’ve seen better days, sir, I have indeed; I don’t like to talk about that, but now I’m only a poor sheep’s trotter seller, and I’ve been one a good many years. I don’t know how long, and I don’t like to think about it. It’s a shocking bad trade, and such insults as we have to put up with. I serve some public-houses, and I stand sometimes at a playhouse-door. I make 3_s._ or 3_s._ 6_d._ a week, and in a very good week 4_s._, but, then, I sometimes make only 2_s._ I’m infirm now, God help me! and I can do nothing else. Another old woman and me has a room between us, at 1_s._ 4_d._ a week. Mother’s the best name I’m called in a public-house, and it ain’t a respectable name. ‘Here, mother, give us one of your b-- trotters,’ is often said to me. One customer sometimes says: ‘The stuff’ll choke me, but that’s as good as the Union.’ _He_ ain’t a bad man, though. He sometimes treats me. He’ll bait my trotters, but that’s his larking way, and then he’ll say:

‘A pennorth o’ gin, ’ll make your old body spin.’

It’s his own poetry, he says. I don’t know what he is, but he’s often drunk, poor fellow. Women’s far worse to please than men. I’ve known a woman buy a trotter, put her teeth into it, and then say it wasn’t good, and return it. It wasn’t paid for when she did so, and because I grumbled, I was abused by her, as if I’d been a Turk. The landlord interfered, and he said, said he, ‘I’ll not have this poor woman insulted; she’s here for the convenience of them as requires trotters, and she’s a well-conducted woman, and I’ll not have her insulted,’ he says, says he, lofty and like a gentleman, sir. ‘Why, who’s insulting the old b--h?’ says the woman, says she. ‘Why, you are,’ says the landlord, says he, ‘and you ought to pay her for her trotter, or how is she to live?’ ‘What the b-- h--ll do I care how she lives,’ says the woman, ‘its nothing to me, and I won’t pay her.’ ‘Then I will,’ says the landlord, says he, ‘here’s 6_d._,’ and he wouldn’t take the change. After that I soon sold all my trotters, and some gave me double price, when the landlord showed himself such a gentleman, and I went out and bought nine trotters more, another woman’s stock, that she was dreading she couldn’t sell, and I got through them in no time. It was the best trotter night I ever had. She wasn’t a woman of the town as used me so. I have had worse sauce from modest women, as they called themselves, than from the women of the town, for plenty of _them_ knows what poverty is, and is civiler, poor things--yes, I’m sure of that, though it’s a shocking life--O, shocking! I never go to the playhouse-door but on a fine night. Young men treats their sweethearts to a trotter, for a relish, with a drop of beer between the acts. Wet nights is the best for public-houses. ‘They’re not salt enough,’ has been said to me, oft enough, ‘they don’t make a man thirsty.’ It’ll come to the workhouse with me before long, and, perhaps, all the better. It’s warm in the public-house, and that draws me to sell my trotters there sometimes. I live on fish and bread a good deal.”

The returns I collected show that there is expended yearly in London streets on trotters, calculating their sale, retail, at 1/2_d._ each, 6,500_l._, but though the regular price is 1/2_d._, some trotters are sold at four for 1-1/2_d._, very few higher than 1/2_d._, and some are kept until they are unsaleable, so that the amount may be estimated at 6,000_l._, a receipt of 7_s._ 6_d._ weekly, per individual seller, rather more than one-half of which sum is profit.

OF THE STREET TRADE IN BAKED POTATOES.

The _baked potato trade_, in the way it is at present carried on, has not been known more than fifteen years in the streets. Before that, potatoes were sometimes roasted as chestnuts are now, but only on a small scale. The trade is more profitable than that in fruit, but continues for but six months of the year.

The potatoes, for street-consumption, are bought of the greengrocers, at the rate of 5_s._ 6_d._ the cwt. They are usually a large-sized “fruit,” running about two or three to the pound. The kind generally bought is what are called the “French Regent’s.” French potatoes are greatly used now, as they are cheaper than the English. The potatoes are picked, and those of a large size, and with a rough skin, selected from the others, because they are the mealiest. A waxy potato shrivels in the baking. There are usually from 280 to 300 potatoes in the cwt.; these are cleaned by the huckster, and, when dried, taken in baskets, about a quarter cwt. at a time, to the baker’s, to be cooked. They are baked in large tins, and require an hour and a half to do them well. The charge for baking is 9_d._ the cwt., the baker usually finding the tins. They are taken home from the bakehouse in a basket, with a yard and a half of green baize in which they are covered up, and so protected from the cold. The huckster then places them in his can, which consists of a tin with a half-lid; it stands on four legs, and has a large handle to it, while an iron fire-pot is suspended immediately beneath the vessel which is used for holding the potatoes. Directly over the fire-pot is a boiler for hot water. This is concealed within the vessel, and serves to keep the potatoes always hot. Outside the vessel where the potatoes are kept is, at one end, a small compartment for butter and salt, and at the other end another compartment for fresh charcoal. Above the boiler, and beside the lid, is a small pipe for carrying off the steam. These potato-cans are sometimes brightly polished, sometimes painted red, and occasionally brass-mounted. Some of the handsomest are all brass, and some are highly ornamented with brass-mountings. Great pride is taken in the cans. The baked-potato man usually devotes half an hour to polishing them up, and they are mostly kept as bright as silver. The handsomest potato-can is now in Shoreditch. It cost ten guineas, and is of brass mounted with German silver. There are three lamps attached to it, with coloured glass, and of a style to accord with that of the machine; each lamp cost 5_s._ The expense of an ordinary can, tin and brass-mounted, is about 50_s._ They are mostly made by a tinman in the Ratcliffe-highway. The usual places for these cans to stand are the principal thoroughfares and street-markets. It is considered by one who has been many years at the business, that there are, taking those who have regular stands and those who are travelling with their cans on their arm, at least two hundred individuals engaged in the trade in London. There are three at the bottom of Farringdon-street, two in Smithfield, and three in Tottenham-court-road (the two places last named are said to be the best ‘pitches’ in all London), two in Leather-lane, one on Holborn-hill, one at King’s-cross, three at the Brill, Somers-town, three in the New-cut, three in Covent-garden (this is considered to be on market-days the second-best pitch), two at the Elephant and Castle, one at Westminster-bridge, two at the top of Edgeware-road, one in St. Martin’s-lane, one in Newport-market, two at the upper end of Oxford-street, one in Clare-market, two in Regent-street, one in Newgate-market, two at the Angel, Islington, three at Shoreditch church, four about Rosemary-lane, two at Whitechapel, two near Spitalfields-market, and more than double the above number wandering about London. Some of the cans have names--as the “Royal Union Jack” (engraved in a brass plate), the “Royal George,” the “Prince of Wales,” the “Original Baked Potatoes,” and the “_Old_ Original Baked Potatoes.”

The business begins about the middle of August and continues to the latter end of April, or as soon as the potatoes get to any size,--until they are pronounced ‘bad.’ The season, upon an average, lasts about half the year, and depends much upon the weather. If it is cold and frosty, the trade is brisker than in wet weather; indeed then little is doing. The best hours for business are from half-past ten in the morning till two in the afternoon, and from five in the evening till eleven or twelve at night. The night trade is considered the best. In cold weather the potatoes are frequently bought to warm the hands. Indeed, an eminent divine classed them, in a public speech, among the best of modern improvements, it being a cheap luxury to the poor wayfarer, who was benumbed in the night by cold, and an excellent medium for diffusing warmth into the system, by being held in the gloved hand. Some buy them in the morning for lunch and some for dinner. A newsvender, who had to take a hasty meal in his shop, told me he was “always glad to hear the baked-potato cry, as it made a dinner of what was only a snack without it.” The best time at night, is about nine, when the potatoes are purchased for supper.

The customers consist of all classes. Many gentlefolks buy them in the street, and take them home for supper in their pockets; but the working classes are the greatest purchasers. Many boys and girls lay out a halfpenny in a baked potato. Irishmen are particularly fond of them, but they are the worst customers, I am told, as they want the largest potatoes in the can. Women buy a great number of those sold. Some take them home, and some eat them in the street. Three baked potatoes are as much as will satisfy the stoutest appetite. One potato dealer in Smithfield is said to sell about 2-1/2 cwt. of potatoes on a market-day; or, in other words, from 900 to 1,000 potatoes, and to take upwards of 2_l._ One informant told me that he himself had often sold 1-1/2 cwt. of a day, and taken 1_l._ in halfpence. I am informed, that upon an average, taking the good stands with the bad ones throughout London, there are about 1 cwt. of potatoes sold by each baked-potato man--and there are 200 of these throughout the metropolis--making the total quantity of baked potatoes consumed every day 10 tons. The money spent upon these comes to within a few shillings of 125_l._ (calculating 300 potatoes to the cwt., and each of those potatoes to be sold at a halfpenny). Hence, there are 60 tons of baked potatoes eaten in London streets, and 750_l._ spent upon them every week during the season. Saturdays and Mondays are the best days for the sale of baked potatoes in those parts of London that are not near the markets; but in those in the vicinity of Clare, Newport, Covent-garden, Newgate, Smithfield, and other markets, the trade is briskest on the market-days. The baked-potato men are many of them broken-down tradesmen. Many are labourers who find a difficulty of obtaining employment in the winter time; some are costermongers; some have been artisans; indeed, there are some of all classes among them.

After the baked potato season is over, the generality of the hucksters take to selling strawberries, raspberries, or anything in season. Some go to labouring work. One of my informants, who had been a bricklayer’s labourer, said that after the season he always looked out for work among the bricklayers, and this kept him employed until the baked potato season came round again.

“When I first took to it,” he said, “I was very badly off. My master had no employment for me, and my brother was ill, and so was my wife’s sister, and I had no way of keeping ’em, or myself either. The labouring men are mostly out of work in the winter time, so I spoke to a friend of mine, and he told me how he managed every winter, and advised me to do the same. I took to it, and have stuck to it ever since. The trade was much better then. I could buy a hundred-weight of potatoes for 1_s._ 9_d._ to 2_s._ 3_d._, and there were fewer to sell them. We generally use to a cwt. of potatoes three-quarters of a pound of butter--tenpenny salt butter is what we buy--a pennyworth of salt, a pennyworth of pepper, and five pennyworth of charcoal. This, with the baking, 9_d._, brings the expenses to just upon 7_s._ 6_d._ per cwt., and for this our receipts will be 12_s._ 6_d._, thus leaving about 5_s._ per cwt. profit.” Hence the average profits of the trade are about 30_s._ a week--“and more to some,” said my informant. A man in Smithfield-market, I am credibly informed, clears at the least 3_l._ a week. On the Friday he has a fresh basket of hot potatoes brought to him from the baker’s every quarter of an hour. Such is his custom that he has not even time to take money, and his wife stands by his side to do so.

Another potato-vender who shifted his can, he said, “from a public-house where the tap dined at twelve,” to another half-a-mile off, where it “dined at one, and so did the parlour,” and afterwards to any place he deemed best, gave me the following account of his customers:--

“Such a day as this, sir [Jan. 24], when the fog’s like a cloud come down, people looks very shy at my taties, very; they’ve been more suspicious ever since the taty rot. I thought I should never have rekivered it; never, not the rot. I sell most to mechanics--I was a grocer’s porter myself before I was a baked taty--for their dinners, and they’re on for good shops where I serves the taps and parlours, and pays me without grumbling, like gentlemen. Gentlemen does grumble though, for I’ve sold to them at private houses when they’ve held the door half open as they’ve called me--aye, and ladies too--and they’ve said, ‘Is _that_ all for 2_d._?’ If it’d been a peck they’d have said the same, I know. Some customers is very pleasant with me, and says I’m a blessing. One always says he’ll give me a ton of taties when his ship comes home, ’cause he can always have a hot murphy to his cold saveloy, when tin’s short. He’s a harness-maker, and the railways has injured him. There’s Union-street and there’s Pearl-row, and there’s Market-street, now,--they’re all off the Borough-road--if I go there at ten at night or so, I can sell 3_s._ worth, perhaps, ’cause they know me, and I have another baked taty to help there sometimes. They’re women that’s not reckoned the best in the world that buys there, but they pay me. I know why I got my name up. I had luck to have good fruit when the rot was about, and they got to know me. I only go twice or thrice a week, for it’s two miles from my regular places. I’ve trusted them sometimes. They’ve said to me, as modest as could be, ‘Do give me credit, and ’pon my word you shall be paid; there’s a dear!’ I am paid mostly. Little shopkeepers is fair customers, but I do best for the taps and the parlours. Perhaps I make 12_s._ or 15_s._ a week--I hardly know, for I’ve only myself and keep no ’count--for the season; money goes one can’t tell how, and ’specially if you drinks a drop, as I do sometimes. Foggy weather drives me to it, I’m so worritted; that is, now and then, you’ll mind, sir.”

There are, at present, 300 vendors of hot baked potatoes getting their living in the streets of London, each of whom sell, upon an average, 3/4 cwt. of potatoes daily. The average takings of each vendor is 6_s._ a day; and the receipts of the whole number throughout the season (which lasts from the latter end of September till March inclusive), a period of 6 months, is 14,000_l._

A capital is required to start in this trade, as follows:--can, 2_l._; knife, 3_d._; stock-money, 8_s._; charge for baking 100 potatoes, 1_s._; charcoal, 4_d._; butter, 2_d._; salt, 1_d._, and pepper, 1_d._; altogether, 2_l._ 9_s._ 11_d._ The can and knife is the only property described as fixed, stock-money, &c., being daily occurring, amounts to 75_l._ during the season.

OF “TROTTING,” OR “HAWKING” BUTCHERS.

These two appellations are, or have been, used somewhat confusedly in the meat trade. Thirty, or forty, or fifty years ago--for each term was mentioned to me--the butcher in question was a man who went “trotting” on his small horse to the more distant suburbs to sell meat. This was when the suburbs, in any direction, were “not built up to” as they are now, and the appearance of the trotting butcher might be hailed as saving a walk of a mile, or a mile and a half, to a butcher’s shop, for only tradesmen of a smaller capital then opened butcher’s shops in the remoter suburbs. For a suburban butcher to send round “for orders” at that period would have occupied too much time, for a distance must be traversed; and to have gone, or sent, on horseback, would have entailed the keeping or hiring of a horse which was in those days an expensive matter. One butcher who told me that he had known the trade, man and boy, for nearly fifty years, said: “As to ‘trotting,’ a small man couldn’t so well do it, for if 20_l._ was offered for a tidy horse in the war time it would most likely be said, ‘I’ll get more for it in the cavaldry--for it was often called cavaldry then--there’s better plunder there.’ (_Plunder_, I may explain, is a common word in the horse trade to express _profit_.) So it wasn’t so easy to get a horse.” The trotting butchers were then men sent or going out from the more frequented parts to supply the suburbs, but in many cases only when a tradesman was “hung up” with meat. They carried from 20 to 100 lb. of meat generally in one basket, resting on the pommel of the saddle, and attached by a long leathern strap to the person of the “trotter.” The trade, however, was irregular and, considering the expenses, little remunerative; neither was it extensive, but what might be the extent I could not ascertain. There then sprung up the class of butchers--or rather the class became greatly multiplied--who sent their boys or men on fast trotting horses to take orders from the dwellers in the suburbs, and even in the streets, not suburbs, which were away from the shop thoroughfares, and afterwards to deliver the orders--still travelling on horseback--at the customer’s door. This system still continues, but to nothing like its former extent, and as it does not pertain especially to the street-trade I need not dwell upon it at present, nor on the competition that sprung up as to “trotting butcher’s ponies,”--in the “matching” of which “against time” sporting men have taken great interest.

Of “trotting” butchers, keeping their own horses, there are now none, but there are still, I am told, about six of the class who contrive, by hiring, or more frequently borrowing, horses of some friendly butcher, to live by trotting. These men are all known, and all call upon known customers--often those whom they have served in their prosperity, for the trotting butcher is a “reduced” man--and are not likely to be succeeded by any in the same line, or--as I heard it called--“ride” of business. These traders not subsisting exactly upon street traffic, or on any adventure depending upon door by door, or street by street, commerce, but upon a _connection_ remaining from their having been in business on their own accounts, need no further mention.

The present class of street-traders in raw meat are known to the trade as “hawking” butchers, and they are as thoroughly street-sellers as are the game and poultry “hawkers.” Their number, I am assured, is never less than 150, and sometimes 200 or even 250. They have all been butchers, or journeymen butchers, and are broken down in the one case, or unable to obtain work in the other. They then “watch the turn of the markets,” as small meat “jobbers,” and--as on the Stock Exchange--“invest,” when they account the market at the lowest. The meat so purchased is hawked in a large basket carried on the shoulders, if of a weight too great to be sustained in a basket on the arm. The sale is confined almost entirely to public-houses, and those at no great distance from the great meat marts of Newgate, Leadenhall, and Whitechapel. The hawkers do not go to the suburbs. Their principal trade is in pork and veal,--for those joints weigh lighter, and present a larger surface in comparison with the weight, than do beef or mutton. The same may be said of lamb; but of that they do not buy one quarter so much as of pork or veal.

The hawking butcher bought his meat last year at from 2-1/2_d._ to 5-1/2_d._ the pound, according to kind and quality. He seldom gave 6_d._, even years ago, when meat was dearer; for it is difficult--I was told by one of these hawkers--to get more than 6_d._ per lb. from chance customers, no matter what the market price. “If I ask 7-1/2_d._ or 7_d._,” he said, “I’m sure of one answer--‘Nonsense!’ I never goes no higher nor 6_d._” Sometimes--and especially if he can command credit for two or three days--the hawking butcher will buy the whole carcass of a sheep. If he reside near the market, he may “cut it up” in his own room; but he can generally find the necessary accommodation at some friendly butcher’s block. If the weather be “bad for keeping,” he will dispose of a portion of the carcass to his brother-hawkers; if cold, he will persevere in hawking the whole himself. He usually, however, buys only a hind or fore-quarter of mutton, or other meat, except beef, which he buys by the joint, and more sparingly than he buys any other animal food. The hawker generally has his joints weighed before he starts, and can remember the exact pounds and ounces of each, but the purchasers generally weigh them before payment; or, as one hawker expressed it, “They goes to the scales before they come to the tin.”

Many of these hawkers drink hard, and, being often men of robust constitution, until the approach of age, can live “hard,”--as regards lodging, especially. One hawker I heard of slept in a slaughter-house, on the bare but clean floor, for nearly two years: “But that was seven years ago, and no butcher would allow it now.”

OF THE EXPERIENCE OF A HAWKING BUTCHER.

A middle-aged man, the front of his head being nearly bald, and the few hairs there were to be seen shining strongly and lying flat, as if rubbed with suet or dripping, gave me the following account. He was dressed in the usual blue garb of the butcher:--