Part 52
120 pails, 2_s._ each; 60 yokes, 5_s._ each 27 0 0
_Street Piemen._
50 pie-cans, 1_l._ each; 25 turn halfpenny boards, to gamble with, 2_s._ 6_d._ each; 50 gross of tin pie-dishes, 12_s._ per gross; 50 aprons, 8_d._ each; 100 tins, 1_s._ each (for baking pies upon), stock-money, for 50 vendors, 6_s._ 6_d._ each 106 0 10
_Street-sellers of Boiled Puddings._
6 stands, 6_s._ each; 6 cans, 2_s._ 6_d._ each; 6 pots (tin), 2_s._ each; 6 chafing-dishes and stands, 5_d._ each; 6 forks, 2_d._ each; 6 cloths, 6_d._ each; stock-money, for 6 vendors, 2_s._ 6_d._ each 4 4 6
_Street-sellers of Plum-duff._
6 baskets, 1_s._ 9_d._ each; 6 saucepans, 2_s._ each; 6 cloths, 6_d._ each; 6 knives, 2_d._ each; stock-money, for 6 vendors, 2_s._ each 1 18 6
_Street-sellers of Cakes, Tarts, &c._
150 trays, 1_s._ 9_d._ each; 150 cloths, 1_s._ 3_d._ each; 150 straps, 6_d._ each; stock-money, 16_s._ 6_d._ each 150 0 0
_Other and inferior Cake-sellers._
30 trays, 1_s._ 9_d._ each; 30 straps, 6_d._ each; stock-money, 2_s._ 6_d._ each 7 2 6
_Street-sellers of Plum-cake._
4 trays, 1_s._ 9_d._ each; 4 baskets, 1_s._ 6_d._ each; 4 cloths (oil-cloth covers for baskets), 1_s._ each; 4 knives, 2_d._ each; stock-money, for 4 sellers, 4_s._ each 1 18 8
_Gingerbread-nut Makers and Sellers._
50 ovens, 5_l._ each; 50 peels and rakes, 3_s._ the two; 750 tins, 1_s._ each; 50 lamps, for fairs, 6_s._ each; 50 stalls, 6_s._ each; 50 sets of scales and 100 sets of weights, half of them false, 7_s._ 6_d._ each; 100 canisters, 2_s._ each; 50 barrows, 30_s._ each; 50 baskets, 6_s._ each; 50 baizes, 1_s._ each; 50 cloths to cover stall, 1_s._ each; stock-money, for 50 makers and sellers, 14_s._ each 483 15 0
_Gingerbread-nut Sellers_ (_not Makers_.)
150 trays, 1_s._ 9_d._ each; 150 straps, 6_d._ each; stock-money, for 150 sellers, 1_s._ 6_d._ each 28 5 6
_Street-sellers of Hot cross Buns._
500 baskets, 2_s._ 6_d._ each; 500 flannels and cloths, 2_s._ the two; stock-money, for 500 sellers, 2_s._ 6_d._ each 175 0 0
_Street-sellers of Muffins and Crumpets._
500 baskets, 2_s._ 6_d._ each; 500 cloths, 1_s._ each; stock-money, for 500 sellers, 5_s._ each 212 10 0
_Street-sellers of Sweet-stuff._
6 barrows, 1_l._ 10_s._ each; 150 trays, 1_s._ 9_d._ each; 50 saucepans, 2_s._ each; 18 canisters (long tin), 2_s._ each; 44 stalls, at 4_s._ each; 50 sets of weights and scales, at 4_s._ each; stock-money, for 150 vendors, 3_s._ each 70 4 6
_Street-sellers of Cough Drops._
2 stills and barrows, 3_l._ 10_s._ each; 4 stalls, 7_s._ each; 6 weights and scales, 3_s._ 6_d._ each; stock-money, for 6 sellers, 2_s._ 6_d._ each 10 4 0
_Street-sellers of Ices._
20 jars, 1_s._ each; 20 coolers, 2_s._ each; 30 cups, 1_d._ each, and 30 glasses, 4_d._ each; 60 spoons, 1_d._ each; stock-money, for 20 vendors, 2_s._ per head 5 17 6 ------------------
TOTAL CAPITAL INVESTED IN THE STREET SALE OF EATABLES AND DRINKABLES 9,077 12 5 ------------------
INCOME, OR “TAKINGS,” OF STREET-SELLERS OF EATABLES AND DRINKABLES.
_Street-sellers of Hot Eels._
There are upwards of 1,000,000 lbs. weight of hot eels sold yearly in the streets of London. 140 vendors each sell 6 lbs. of eels daily at their stands; 60 sell 40 lbs. daily; and 100 itinerant sell 5 lbs. nightly at the public-houses. The first mentioned take on an average 2_s._ daily; the second 16_s._; and the third 1_s._ 8_d._ This gives a yearly street expenditure in the trade in hot eels amounting to £19,448
_Street-sellers of Pea-soup._
The annual street consumption of pea-soup amounts to 1,680 gallons. 100 vendors sell each 4 gallons daily; and 50 vendors, each sell upon an average 10 gallons daily. The first mentioned take 3_s._ a day; and the last, 7_s._ 6_d._ This gives a street expenditure during the winter season of five months, of £4,050
_Street-sellers of Pickled Whelks._
According to the Billingsgate returns, there are nearly 5,000,000 of whelks sold yearly in the streets of London. These are retailed in a boiled state, and flavoured with vinegar, at four a penny. 150 vendors take on an average 13_s._ weekly. This gives an annual street expenditure, of £5,000
_Street-sellers of Fried Fish._
150 sellers make 10_s._ 6_d._ weekly, or yearly 27_l._ 6_s._; and 150 sellers make half that amount, 13_l._ 13_s._ per annum. Reckoning 20_l._ a year as a medium earning, and adding 90 per cent. for profit, the annual consumption of fried fish supplied by London street-sellers amounts to 684,000 lbs., and the sum expended thereupon to £11,400
_Street-sellers of Sheep’s Trotters._
In the wholesale “trotter” establishment there are prepared, weekly, 20,000 sets, or 80,000 feet; giving a yearly average of 4,160,000 trotters, or the feet of 1,040,000 sheep. Of this quantity the street-folk buy seven-eighths, or 3,640,000 trotters yearly. The number of sheep trotter-sellers may be taken at 300; which gives an average of nearly 60 sets a week per individual. There is then 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 thus expended may be estimated at £6,000
_Street-sellers of Ham-sandwiches._
60 vendors, take 8_s._ a week, and sell annually 486,800 sandwiches, at a cost of £1,800
_Street-sellers of Baked ’Tatoes._
300 vendors, sell upon an average 3/4 cwt. of baked potatoes daily, or 1,755 tons in the season. The average takings of each vendor amount to 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, are £14,000
_The Street-sellers of Hot Green Peas._
The chief man of business sells 3 gallons a day (which, at 1_d._ the quarter-pint, would be 8_s._, my informant said 7_s._), the other three together sell the same quantity; hence there is an annual street consumption of 1,870 gallons, and a street expenditure on “hot green peas” of £250
_Street-sellers of Meat._
The hawking butchers, taking their number at 150, sell 747,000 lbs. of meat, and take annually £12,450
_Street-sellers of Bread._
25 men take 45_s._ a day for five months in the summer, and 12 regular traders take 1_l._ 12_s._ per day; this gives an annual street consumption of 700,000 quartern loaves of bread, and a street expenditure of £9,000
_Street-sellers of Cats and Dogs’ Meat._
There are 300,000 cats in the metropolis, and from 900 to 1,000 horses, averaging 2 cwt. of meat each, boiled down every week; the quantity of cats’ and dogs’ meat used throughout London is about 200,000 lbs. per week, and this, sold at the rate of 2-1/2_d._ per lb., gives 2,000_l._ a week for the money spent in cats’ and dogs’ meat, or per year, upwards of £100,000
_Street-sellers of Coffee, Tea, &c._
Each coffee-stall keeper on an average clears 1_l._ a week, and his takings may be said to be at least double that sum; hence the quantity of coffee sold annually in the streets, is about 550,000 gallons, while the yearly street expenditure for tea, coffee, &c., amounts to £31,200
_Street-sellers of Ginger-beer._
The bottles of ginger-beer sold yearly in the streets 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. 200 street-sellers of ginger-beer in the bottle trade of the penny class take 30_s._ a week each (thus allowing for inferior receipts in bad weather); 300 take 20_s._ each, selling their “beer” for the most part at 1/2_d._ the bottle, while the remaining 400 “in a small way” take 6_s._ each; hence there is expended in the bottled ginger-beer of the streets 11,480_l._ 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 amounts altogether to £14,660
_Street-sellers of Lemonade, Sherbet, Nectar, &c._
There are 200 persons, chiefly men, selling solely lemonade, &c., and an additional 300 uniting the sale with that of ginger-beer. Their average receipts on fine days are 3_s._ 6_d._ a day, or, allowing for wet weather and diminished receipts, 10_s._ a week. The receipts, then, for this street luxury, show a street expenditure in such a summer as the last, of 2,800_l._, among 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
_Street-sellers of Elder-wine._
50 vendors clear 5_s._ a week for 16 weeks by the sale of elder-wine in the streets, their profit being at least cent. per cent.; hence the street consumption of this beverage in the course of the year is 1,500 gallons, and the outlay £200
_Street-sellers of Peppermint-water._
Calculating that 4 “pepperminters” take 2_s._ a day the year round, Sundays excepted, we find that 900 gallons of peppermint-water are consumed every year in the streets of London, while the sum expended in it amounts annually to £125
_Street-sellers of Milk in the Markets, Parks, &c._
The vendors in the markets clear about 1_s._ 6_d._ a day each, for three months; and as the profit is rather more than cent. per cent., there are about 4,000 gallons of milk thus sold yearly. The quantity sold in the park averages 20 quarts a day for a period of nine months, or 1,170 gallons in the year. This is retailed at 4_d._ per quart; hence the annual expenditure is £344
_Street-sellers of Curds and Whey._
50 sellers dispose of 12-1/2 gallons in 3 weeks; the other 50 sell only half as much. Taking the season at 3 months, the annual consumption of curds and whey in the streets is 2,812 double gallons (as regards the ingredients of milk), which is retailed at a cost to the purchasers of £412
_Street-sellers of Rice-milk._
Calculating that 50 sellers dispose of 24 quarts weekly, while one-half of the remaining 25 sell 12 quarts each per week at 1_d._ the half-pint, and the other half vend 24 quarts at 1/2_d._ the half-pint, there are about 3,000 gallons of rice-milk yearly consumed in the streets of London, while the expenditure amounts to £320
_Water-carriers._
The number of water-carriers are sixty, and their average earnings through the year 5_s._ a week; hence the sum annually expended in water thus obtained amounts to £780
_Street Piemen._
There are fifty street piemen plying their trade in London, the year through, their average takings are one guinea a week; hence there is an annual street consumption of pies of nearly to three-quarters of a million, and a street expenditure amounting to £3,000
_Street-sellers of Meat and Currant Puddings._
Each street-seller gets rid of, on an average, 85 dozen, or 1,020 puddings; there are now but six street-sellers (regularly) of these comestibles; hence the weekly aggregate would be--allowing for bad weather--5,400, and the total 129,600 meat and currant puddings sold in the streets, in a season of 24 weeks. This gives an annual expenditure on the part of the street boys and girls (who are the principal purchasers), and of the poor persons who patronise the street-trade, of about £270
_Street-sellers of Plum “duff.”_
Calculating 42_s._ a week as the takings of six persons, for five months, we find there is yearly expended in the street purchase of plum dough upwards of £250
_Street-sellers of Cakes, Tarts, &c._
Reckoning 150 cake-sellers, each taking 6_s._ a week--a sufficiently low average--the street consumption of cakes, tarts, &c., will be 1,123,200 every year, and the street outlay about £2,350
_Street-sellers of other and inferior Cakes._
The sale of the inferior street cakes realises about a fifth of that taken by the other cake-sellers; hence it may be estimated yearly at £450
_Street-sellers of Gingerbread-nuts._
150 gingerbread-nut-sellers take 17_s._ each weekly (clearing 9_s._); at this rate the sum spent yearly in “spice” nuts in the streets of London amounts to £6,630
_Street-sellers of Hot-cross Buns._
There are nearly 100,000 hot-cross buns sold every Good Friday in the streets of London; hence there is expended in one day, upon the buns thus bought about £300
_Street-sellers of Muffins and Crumpets._
There are 500 muffin-sellers, each clearing 4_s._ and taking 12_s._ a week on an average; hence the metropolitan street sale of muffins and crumpets will be in 20 weeks about 120,000 dozen, and the sum expended thereon £6,000
_Street-sellers of Sweet-stuff._
The number of sweet-stuff sellers in London amounts to 200, each of whom, on an average, clears 10_s._, and takes 20_s._ weekly; the yearly consumption, therefore, of rocks, candies, hard-bakes, &c., purchased in the streets is nearly two and a half millions of halfpenny-worths, or (at the rate of 1/2_d._ an ounce) about 70 tons weight per annum, costing the consumers about £10,000
_Street-sellers of Cough-drops._
The earnings of the principal man in the “cough-drop” street trade may be taken at 30_s._ a week for twenty weeks; that of another at 15_s._ for the same period; and those of the remaining four street-sellers of the same compound at 5_s._ each, weekly; allowing the usual cent. per cent., we find there is annually expended by street-buyers on cough-drops £130
_Street-sellers of Ice Creams._
The sale of street ices may be calculated at twenty persons, taking 1_s._ 6_d._ daily for four weeks. This gives a street consumption of 10,000 penny ices, and an annual expenditure thereon of £42 -------- TOTAL SUM EXPENDED YEARLY ON STREET EATABLES AND DRINKABLES £203,115 --------
OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF STATIONERY, LITERATURE, AND THE FINE ARTS.
We now come to a class of street-folk wholly distinct from any before treated of. As yet we have been dealing principally with the uneducated portion of the street-people--men whom, for the most part, are allowed to remain in nearly the same primitive and brutish state as the savage--creatures with nothing but their appetites, instincts, and passions to move them, and made up of the same crude combination of virtue and vice--the same generosity combined with the same predatory tendencies as the Bedouins of the desert--the same love of revenge and disregard of pain, and often the same gratitude and susceptibility to kindness as the Red Indian--and, furthermore, the same insensibility to female honour and abuse of female weakness, and the same utter ignorance of the Divine nature of the Godhead as marks either Bosjesman, Carib, or Thug.
The costers and many other of the street-sellers before described, however, are bad--not so much from their own perversity as from our selfishness. That they partake of the natural evil of human nature is not their fault but ours,--who would be like them if we had not been taught by others better than ourselves to controul the bad and cherish the good principles of our hearts.
The street-sellers of stationery, literature, and the fine arts, however, differ from all before treated of in the _general_, though far from universal, education of the sect. They constitute principally the class of street-orators, known in these days as “patterers,” and formerly termed “mountebanks,”--people who, in the words of Strutt, strive to “help off their wares by pompous speeches, in which little regard is paid either to truth or propriety.” To patter, is a slang term, meaning to speak. To indulge in this kind of oral puffery, of course, requires a certain exercise of the intellect, and it is the consciousness of their mental superiority which makes the patterers look down upon the costermongers as an inferior body, with whom they object either to be classed or to associate. The scorn of some of the “patterers” for the mere costers is as profound as the contempt of the pickpocket for the pure beggar. Those who have not witnessed this pride of class among even the most degraded, can form no adequate idea of the arrogance with which the skilled man, no matter how base the art, looks upon the unskilled. “We are the haristocracy of the streets,” was said to me by one of the street-folks, who told penny fortunes with a bottle. “People don’t pay us for what we gives ’em, but only to hear us talk. We live like yourself, sir, by the hexercise of our hintellects--we by talking, and you by writing.”
But notwithstanding the self-esteem of the patterers, I am inclined to think that they are less impressionable and less susceptible of kindness than the costers whom they despise. Dr. Conolly has told us that, even among the insane, the educated classes are the most difficult to move and govern through their affections. They are invariably suspicious, attributing unworthy motives to every benefit conferred, and consequently incapable of being touched by any sympathy on the part of those who may be affected by their distress. So far as my experience goes it is the same with the street-patterers. Any attempt to befriend them is almost sure to be met with distrust. Nor does their mode of life serve in any way to lessen their misgivings. Conscious how much their own livelihood depends upon assumption and trickery, they naturally consider that others have some “dodge,” as they call it, or some latent object in view when any good is sought to be done them. The impulsive costermonger, however, approximating more closely to the primitive man, moved solely by his feelings, is as easily humanized by any kindness as he is brutified by any injury.
The patterers, again, though certainly more intellectual, are scarcely less immoral than the costers. Their superior cleverness gives them the power of justifying and speciously glossing their evil practices, but serves in no way to restrain them; thus affording the social philosopher another melancholy instance of the evil of developing the intellect without the conscience--of teaching people to _know_ what is morally beautiful and ugly, without teaching them at the same time to feel and delight in the one and abhor the other--or, in other words, of quickening the cunning and checking the emotions of the individual.
Among the patterers marriage is as little frequent as among the costermongers; with the exception of the older class, who “were perhaps married before they took to the streets.” Hardly one of the patterers, however, has been bred to a street life; and this constitutes another line of demarcation between them and the costermongers.
The costers, we have seen, are mostly hereditary wanderers--having been as it were born to frequent the public thoroughfares; some few of the itinerant dealers in fish, fruit, and vegetables, have it is true been driven by want of employment to adopt street-selling as a means of living, but these are, so to speak, the aliens rather than the natives of the streets. The patterers, on the other hand, have for the most part neither been born and bred nor driven to a street life--but have rather _taken_ to it from a natural love of what they call “roving.” This propensity to lapse from a civilized into a nomad state--to pass from a settler into a wanderer--is a peculiar characteristic of the pattering tribe. The tendency however is by no means extraordinary; for ethnology teaches us, that whereas many abandon the habits of civilized life to adopt those of a nomadic state of existence, but few of the wandering tribes give up vagabondising and betake themselves to settled occupations. The innate “love of a roving life,” which many of the street-people themselves speak of as the cause of their originally taking to the streets, appears to be accompanied by several peculiar characteristics; among the most marked of these are an indomitable “self-will” or hatred of the least restraint or controul--an innate aversion to every species of law or government, whether political, moral, or domestic--a stubborn, contradictory nature--an incapability of continuous labour, or remaining long in the same place occupied with the same object, or attending to the same subject--an unusual predilection for amusements, and especially for what partakes of the ludicrous--together with a great relish of all that is ingenious, and so finding extreme delight in tricks and frauds of every kind. There are two patterers now in the streets (brothers)--well-educated and respectably connected--who candidly confess they prefer that kind of life to any other, and would not leave it if they could.
Nor are the patterers less remarkable than the costermongers for their utter absence of all religious feeling. There is, however, this distinction between the two classes--that whereas the creedlessness of the one is but the consequence of brutish ignorance, that of the other is the result of natural perversity and educated scepticism--as the street-patterers include many men of respectable connections, and even classical attainments. Among them, may be found the son of a military officer, a clergyman, a man brought up to the profession of medicine, two Grecians of the Blue-coat School, clerks, shopmen, and a class who have been educated to no especial calling--some of the latter being the natural sons of gentlemen and noblemen--and who, when deprived of the support of their parents or friends, have taken to the streets for bread. Many of the younger and smarter men, I am assured, reside with women of the town, though they may not be dependent for their livelihood on the wages got by the infamy of these women. Not a few of the patterers, too, in their dress and appearance, present but little difference to that of the “gent.” Some wear a moustache, while others indulge in a Henri-Quatre beard. The patterers are, moreover, as a body, not distinguished by that good and friendly feeling one to another which is remarkable among costermongers. If an absence of heartiness and good fellowship be characteristic of an aristocracy--as some political philosophers contend--then the patterers may indeed be said to be the aristocrats of the streets.