Part 46
The stationary beer business is, for the most part, carried on in the more public streets, such as Holborn and Oxford-street, and in the markets of Covent-garden, Smithfield, and Billingsgate; while the peripatetic trade, which is briskest on the Sundays--when, indeed, some of the stationary hands become itinerant--is more for the suburbs; Victoria-park, Battersea-fields, Hampstead-heath, Primrose-hill, Kennington-common, and Camberwell-green, being approved Sunday haunts.
The London street-sellers of ginger-beer, say the more experienced, may be computed at 3,000--of whom about one-third are women. I heard them frequently estimated at 5,000, and some urged that the number was at least as near 5,000 as 3,000. For my own part I am inclined to believe that half the smaller number would be nearer the truth. Judging by the number of miles of streets throughout the metropolis, and comparing the street-sellers of ginger-beer with the fruit-stall keepers, I am satisfied that in estimating the ginger-beer-sellers at 1,500 we are rather over than under the truth. This body of street-sellers were more numerous five years back by 15 or 20 per cent., but the introduction of the street fountains, and the trade being resorted to by the keepers of coal-sheds and the small shopkeepers--who have frequently a stand with ginger-beer in front of their shops--have reduced the amount of the street-sellers. In 1842, there were 1,200 ginger-beer sellers in the streets who had attached to their stalls or trucks labels, showing that they were members--or assumed to be members--of the Society of Odd Fellows. This was done in hopes of a greater amount of custom from the other members of the Society, but the expectation was not realised--and so the Odd Fellowship of the ginger-beer people disappeared. Of the street-traders 200 work fountains; and of the remaining portion the stationary and the itinerant are about equally divided. Of the whole number, however, not above an eighth confine themselves to the trade, but usually sell with their “pop” some other article of open-air traffic--fruit, sweet-stuff, or shell-fish. There are of the entire number about 350, who, whenever the weather permits, stay out all night with their stands or barrows, and are to be found especially in all the approaches to Covent-garden, and the other markets to which there is a resort during the night or at day-break. These men, I was told by one of their body, worked from eight in the evening to eight or ten next morning, then went to bed, rose at three, and “plenty of ’em then goes to the skittles or to get drunk.”
The character of the ginger-beer-sellers does not differ from what I have described as pertaining to the costermonger class, and to street-traders generally. There is the same admixture of the reduced mechanic, the broken-down gentleman’s servant, the man of any class in life who cannot brook the confinement and restraint of ordinary in-door labour, and of the man “brought up to the streets.” One experienced and trustworthy man told me that from his own knowledge he could count up twenty “classical men,” as he styled them, who were in the street ginger-beer-trade, and of these four had been, or were said to have been “parsons,” two being of the same name (Mr. S ----); but my informant did not know if they stood in any degree of consanguinity one to another. The women are the wives, daughters, or other connections of the men.
Some of the stalls at which ginger-beer is sold--and it is the same at the coal-sheds and the chandlers’ shops--are adorned pictorially. Erected at the end of a stall is often a painting, papered on a board, in which a gentleman, with the bluest of coats, the whitest of trousers, the yellowest of waistcoats, and the largest of guard-chains or eye-glasses, is handing a glass of ginger-beer, frothed up like a pot of stout, and containing, apparently, a pint and a half, to some lady in flowing white robes, or gorgeous in purple or orange.
To commence in this branch of the street business requires, in all 18_s._ 3_d._: six glasses, 2_s._ 9_d._; board, 5_s._; tank, 1_s._; keg, 1_s._; gross of beer, 8_s._ (this is where the seller is not also the maker); and for towels, &c., 6_d._; if however the street-seller brew his own beer, he will require half a gross of bottles, 5_s._ 6_d._; and the ingredients I have enumerated, 1_s._ 7_d._
In addition to the street-sale of ginger-beer is that of other summer-drinks. Of these, the principal is lemonade, the consumption of which is as much as that of all the others together. Indeed, the high-sounding names given to some of these beverages--such as “Nectar” and “Persian Sherbet”--are but other names for lemonade, in a slightly different colour or fashion.
Lemonade is made, by those vendors who deal in the best articles, after the following method: 1 lb. of carbonate of soda, 6_d._; 1 lb. of tartaric acid, 1_s._ 4_d._ (“at least,” said an informant, “_I_ pay 1_s._ 4_d._ at ’Pothecaries Hall, but it can be had at 1_s._”); 1 lb. of loaf-sugar, 5-1/2_d._; essence of lemon, 3_d._ This admixture is kept, in the form of a powder, in a jar, and water is drawn from what the street-sellers call a “stone-barrel”--which is a stone jar, something like the common-shaped filters, with a tap--and a larger or smaller spoonful of the admixture in a glass of water supplies an effervescing draught for 1_d._ or 1/2_d._ “There’s sometimes shocking roguishness in the trade,” said one man, “and there is in a many trades--some uses vitriol!” Lemonade, made after the recipe I have given, is sometimes bottled by the street-sellers, and sold in the same way as ginger-beer. It is bought, also, for street sale of the ginger-beer manufacturers--the profit being the same--but so bought to less than a twentieth of the whole sale. The water in the stone barrel is spring-water, obtained from the nearest pump, and in hot weather obtained frequently, so as to be “served” in as cool a state as possible. Sometimes lemonade powders are used; they are bought at a chemist’s, at 1_s._ 6_d._ the pound. “Sherbet” is the same admixture, with cream of tartar instead of tartaric acid. “Raspberry” has, sometimes, the addition of a few crusted raspberries, and a colouring of cochineal, with, generally, a greater degree of sweetening than lemonade. “If cochineal is used for colouring,” said one man, “it sometimes turns brown in the sun, and the rasberry don’t sell. A little lake’s better.” “Lemon-juice” is again lemonade, with a slight infusion of saffron to give it a yellow or pale orange colour. “Nectar,” in imitation of Soyer’s, has more sugar and less acid than the lemonade; spices, such as cinnamon, is used to flavour it, and the colouring is from lake and saffron.
These “cooling drinks” are sold from the powder or the jar, as I have described, from fountains, and from bottles. The fountain sale is not above a tenth of the whole. All is sold in 1/2_d._ and 1_d._ glasses, except the nectar, which is never less than 1_d._ The customers are the same as those who buy ginger-beer; but one “lemonader” with whom I conversed, seemed inclined to insist that they were a “more respectabler class.” Boys are good customers--better, perhaps, than for the beer,--as “the colour and the fine names attracts them.”
The “cooling drink” season, like that of the ginger-beer, is determined by the weather, and last summer it was only four months. It was computed for me that there were 200 persons, chiefly men, selling solely lemonade, &c., and an additional 300 uniting the sale with that of ginger-beer. One man, whose statement was confirmed by others, told me that on fine days he took 3_s._ 6_d._, out of which he cleared 2_s._ to 2_s._ 6_d._; and he concluded that his brother tradesmen cleared as much every fine day, and so, allowing for wet weather and diminished receipts, made 10_s._ a week. The receipts, then, for this street luxury--a receipt of 17_s._ 6_d._ affording a profit of 10_s._--show a street expenditure in such a summer as the last, of 2,800_l._, by those who do not unite ginger-beer with the trade. Calculating that those who do unite ginger-beer with it sell only one-half as much as the others, we find a total outlay of 4,900_l._ One of the best trades is in the hands of a man who “works” Smithfield, and on the market days clears generally from 6_s._ to 9_s._
The stalls, &c., are of the same character as those of the ginger-beer sellers. The capital required to start is:--stone barrel, with brass tap, 5_s._ 6_d._; stand and trestle, 6_s._; 6 tumbler glasses, 2_s._ 3_d._; 2 towels, 6_d._; stock money, 2_s._ 6_d._; jar, 2_s._; 12 bottles (when used), 3_s._ 6_d._; in all, about a guinea.
In showing the money expended in the ginger-beer trade it must be borne in mind that a large portion of the profits accrues to persons who cannot be properly classed with the regular street-traders. Such is the proprietor of the great fountain of which I have spoken, who is to be classed as a speculative man, ready to embark capital in any way--whether connected with street-traffic or not--likely to be remunerative. The other and large participants in the profits are the wholesale ginger-beer manufacturers, who are also the letters-out of fountains, one of them having generally nine let out at a time. For a street trader to sell three gross of ginger-beer in bottle is now accounted a _good_ week, and for that the receipts will be 36_s._ with a profit in the penny bottle trade, to the seller, if he buy of a manufacturer, of 12_s._; if he be his own brewer--reckoning a fair compensation for labour, and for money invested in utensils, and in bottles, &c., of 20_s._ An ordinary week’s sale is two gross, costing the public 24_s._, with the same proportion of profit in the same trade to the seller. In a _bad_ week, or “in a small way to help out other things,” not more than one gross is sold.
The fountain trade is the most profitable to the proprietors, whether they send out their machines on their own account, or let them out on hire; but perhaps there are only an eighth of the number not let out on hire. Calculating that a fountain be let out for three successive seasons of twenty weeks each, at only 4_s._ the week, the gross receipts are 12_l._ for what on the first day of hire was worth only 7_l._; so that the returns from 200 machines let out for the same term, would be 2,400_l._, or a profit of 1,000_l._ over and above the worth of the fountain, which having been thus paid for is of course in a succeeding year the means of a clear profit of 4_l._ I am assured that the weekly average of “a fountain’s takings,” when in the hands of the regular street-dealers, is 18_s._
The barrel traders may be taken as in the average receipt of 6_s._ a week.
The duration of the season was, last year, only sixteen weeks. Calculating from the best data I could acquire, it appears that for this period 200 street-sellers of ginger-beer in the bottle trade of the penny class take 30_s._ a week each (thus allowing for the inferior receipts in bad weather); 300 take 20_s._ each, selling for the most part at 1/2_d._ the bottle, and that the remaining 400 “in a small way” take 6_s._ each; hence we find 11,480_l._ expended in the bottled ginger-beer of the streets. Adding the receipts from the fountains and the barrels, the barrel season continuing only ten weeks, the total sum expended annually in street ginger-beer is altogether 14,660_l._ The bottles of ginger-beer sold yearly in the streets will number about 4,798,000, and the total street consumption of the same beverage may be said to be about 250,000 gallons per annum.
OF THE EXPERIENCE AND CUSTOMERS OF A GINGER-BEER SELLER.
A slim, well-spoken man, with a half-military appearance, as he had a well trimmed moustache, and was very cleanlily dressed, gave me the following account: “I have known the ginger-beer trade for eight years, and every branch of it. Indeed I think I’ve tried all sorts of street business. I’ve been a costermonger, a lot-seller, a nut-seller, a secret-paper-seller (with straws, you know, sir), a cap-seller, a street-printer, a cakeman, a clown, an umbrella-maker, a toasting-fork maker, a sovereign seller, and a ginger-beer seller. I hardly know what I haven’t been. I made my own when last I worked beer. Sunday was my best day, or rather Sunday mornings when there’s no public-houses open. Drinking Saturday nights make dry Sunday mornings. Many a time men have said to me: ‘Let’s have a bottle to quench a spark in my throat,’ or ‘My mouth’s like an oven.’ I’ve had to help people to lift the glass to their lips, their hands trembled so. They couldn’t have written their names plain if there was a sovereign for it. But these was only chance customers; one or two in a morning, and five or six on a Sunday morning. I’ve been a teetotaller myself for fifteen years. No, sir, I didn’t turn one--but I never was a drinker--not from any great respect for the ginger-beer trade, but because I thought it gave one a better chance of getting on. I once had saved money, but it went in a long sickness. I used to be off early on Sunday mornings sometimes to Hackney Marsh, and sell my beer there to gentlemen--oldish gentlemen some of them--going a fishing. Others were going there to swim. One week I took 35_s._ at 1_d._ a bottle, by going out early in a morning; perhaps 20_s._ of it was profit, but my earnings in the trade in a good season wasn’t more than 12_s._ one week with another. All the trades in the streets are bad now, I think. Eight years back I could make half as much more in ginger-beer as could be made last summer. Working people and boys were my other customers. I stuck to ginger-beer in the season and then went into something else, for I can turn my hand to anything. I began a street life at eight years old by selling memorandum-books in the bull-ring at Birmingham. My parents were ill and hadn’t a farthing in the house. I began with 1_d._ stock-money, and I bought three memorandum-books for it at Cheap Jack’s thatched house. I’ve been in London seventeen or eighteen years. I’m a roulette-maker now; I mean the roulette boxes that gentlemen take with them to play with when travelling on a railway or such times. I make loaded dice, too, and supply gaming-houses. I think I know more gaming-houses than any man in London. I’ve sold them to gentlemen and to parsons, that is ministers of religion. I can prove that. I don’t sell those sort of things in the streets. I could do very well in the trade, but it’s so uncertain and so little’s wanted compared to what would keep a man going, and I have a mother that’s sixty to support. Altogether my present business is inferior to the ginger-beer; but the fountains will destroy all the fair ginger-beer trade.”
OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF HOT ELDER WINE.
The sale of hot elder wine in the streets is one of the trades which have been long established, but it is only within these eight or ten years that it has been carried on in its present form. It continues for about four months in the winter.
Elder wine is made from the berries of the elder-tree. Elder syrup--also made from the berries--was formerly famous in the north of England as a curative for colds, and was frequently taken, with a small admixture of rum, at bedtime. Some of the street-sellers make the wine themselves; the majority, however, buy it of the British wine makers. The berries must be gathered when fully ripe, and on a dry day. They are picked, measured, and put into a copper, two gallons of water being added to every gallon of berries. They are then boiled till the berries are quite soft, when the liquor is strained and pressed from them through a strong hair sieve. The liquor thus expressed is again put into the copper, boiled an hour, skimmed, and placed in a tub along with a bread toast, on which yeast is spread thickly; it then stands two days, and is afterwards put into a cask, a few cloves and crusted ginger being hung in a muslin bag from the bung-hole, so as to flavour the liquor. Sometimes this spicing is added afterwards, when the liquor is warmed. The berries are sold in the markets, principally in Covent-garden,--the price varying, according to the season, from 1_s._ 6_d._ to 3_s._ a gallon. Of all elder-wine makers the Jews are the best as regards the street commodity. The costermongers say they “have a secret;” a thing said frequently enough when superior skill is shown, and especially when, as in the case of the Jews’ elder wine, better pennyworths are given. The Jews, I am told, add a small quantity of raspberry vinegar to their “elder,” so as to give it a “sharp pleasant twang.” The heat and pungency of the elder wine sold in the streets is increased by some street-sellers by means of whole black pepper and capsicums.
The apparatus in which the wine is now kept for sale in the streets is of copper or brass, and is sometimes “handsome.” It is generally an urn of an oblong form, erected on a sort of pedestal, with the lid or top ornamented with brass mouldings, &c. Three plated taps give vent to the beverage. Orifices are contrived and are generally hidden, or
## partially hidden, with some ornament, which act as safety-valves, or,
as one man would have it, “chimneys.” The interior of these urns holds three or four quarts of elder wine, which is surrounded with boiling water, and the water and wine are kept up to the boiling pitch by means of a charcoal fire at the foot of the vessel. Fruit of some kind is generally sold by the elder-wine men at their stand.
The elder wine urn is placed on a stand covered with an oil-cloth, six or eight glasses being ranged about it. It is sold at a halfpenny and a penny a glass; but there is “little difference in some elder wines,” I was told, “between the penn’orths and the ha’porths.” A wine glass of the “regular” size is a half-quartern, or the eighth of a pint.
Along with each glass of hot elder wine is given a small piece of toasted bread. Some buyers steep this bread in the wine, and so imbibe the flavour. “It ain’t no good as I know on,” said an elder-wine seller, “but it’s the fashion, and so people must have it.” The purchasers of elder wine are the working classes--but not the better order of them--and the boys of the street. Some of these lads, I was told, were very choice and critical in their elder wines. Some will say: “It ain’t such bad wine, but not the real spicy.”--“The helder I thinks,” said another, “is middlin’, but somehow there’s nothing but hotness for to taste.”
Of these traders there are now perhaps fifty in London. One man counted up thirty of his brethren whom he knew personally, or knew to be then “working elder,” and he thought that there might be as many more, but I am assured that fifty is about the mark. The sellers of elder wine have been for the most part mechanics who have adopted the calling for the reasons I have often given. None of them, in the course of my inquiry, depended entirely upon the sale of the wine, but sold fruit in addition to it. All complained of the bad state of trade. One man said, that four or five years back he had replenished the wine in a three quart urn twelve times a day, a jar of the wine being kept at the stall in readiness for that purpose. This amounted to 576 glasses sold in the course of the day, and a receipt--reckoning each glass at a penny--of 48_s._; but probably not more than 40_s._ would be taken, as some would have halfpenny glasses. Now the same man rarely sells three quarts in a day, except perhaps on a Saturday, and on wet days he sells none at all. The elder wine can be bought at almost any price at the wine makers, from 4_d._ to 1_s._ 6_d._ the quart. The charge in the public-houses is twice as high as in the streets, but the inn wine, I was told by a person familiar with the trade, contains spirit, and is more highly spiced.
A decent-looking middle-aged man who had been in a gentleman’s service, but was disabled by an accident which crushed his hand, and who thereupon resorted to street-selling and had since continued in it, in different branches, from fifteen to twenty years, gave me an account of his customers. He had not been acquainted with the elder-wine trade above four or five years when he bought an elder can for about 15_s._ among a cheap miscellaneous “lot” in Smithfield one Friday afternoon, and so he commenced:
“It’s a poor trade, sir,” he said. “I don’t suppose any of us make 10_s._ a week at it alone, but it’s a good help to other things, and I do middling. I should say less than a 1_s._ a day was above the average profits of the trade. Say 5_s._ a week, for on wet days we can’t sell at all. No one will stop to drink elder wine in the wet. They’ll rather have a pennor’th of gin, or half a pint of beer with the chill off, under shelter. I sell sometimes to people that say they’re teetotallers and ask if there’s any spirit in my wine. I assure them there’s not, just the juice of the berry. I start when I think the weather’s cold enough, and keep at it as long as there’s any demand. My customers are boys and poor people, and I sell more ha’porths than pennor’ths. I’ve heard poor women that’s bought of me say it was the only wine they ever tasted. The boys are hard to please, but I won’t put up with their nonsense. It’s not once in fifty times that a girl of the town buys my wine. It’s not strong enough for her, I fancy. A sharp frosty dry day suits me best. I may then sell three or four quarts. I don’t make it, but buy it. It’s a poor trade, and I think it gets worse every year, though I believe there’s far fewer of us.”
One elder-wine stand in Tottenham-court-road cost, when new, 7_l._, but that was six or seven years ago. Calculating that 50 persons clear 5_s._ a week for 16 weeks, their profit being at least cent. per cent., the street outlay in this very British wine will be only 200_l._, and the street-consumption of it in the course of the year 1,500 gallons.
OF THE STREET SALE OF PEPPERMINT-WATER.