In order to see Billingsgate properly in action it is necessary to get
up at half-past four and travel on the Underground by the first train
East, which is an adventure in itself. The first train East goes at
three minutes past five, and there are large numbers of people who
travel in it every day; by Charing Cross it is almost crowded. It is
full of Bolshevists; and I do not wonder. One sits with one’s feet up
in a first-class carriage, clutching a nice cheap workman’s ticket and
trying hard to look as if, like the Bolshevists, one did this every day.
On arriving at the Monument Station one walks briskly past the
seductive announcement that “The Monument is Now Open,” and plunges
into a world of fish. I have never been able to understand why fish
are so funny. On the comic stage a casual reference to fish is
almost certain to provoke a shout of laughter; in practice, and
especially in the mass, it is not so funny; it is like the Government,
an inexhaustible source of humour at a distance, and in the flesh
extraordinarily dull.
Over the small streets which surround the market hangs a heavy pall
of fishy vapour. The streets are full of carts; the carts are full
of fish. The houses in the streets are fish-dealers’ places, more or
less full of fish. The pavements are full of fish-porters, carrying
fish, smelling of fish. Fragments of conversation are heard, all about
fish. Fish lie sadly in the gutters. The scales of fish glitter on the
pavements. A little vigorous swimming through the outlying fisheries
brings you to the actual market, which is even more wonderful. Imagine
a place like Covent Garden, and nearly as big, but entirely devoted to
fish. In the place of those enchanting perspectives of flower-stalls,
imagine enormous regiments of fish-stalls, paraded in close order and
groaning with halibut and conger-eel, with whiting and lobsters and
huge crabs. Round these stalls the wholesale dealers wade ankle-deep in
fish. Steadily, maliciously, the great fish slide off the stalls on to
the floor; steadily the dealers recover them and pile them up on their
small counters, or cast them through the air on to other counters, or
fling them into baskets in rage or mortification or sheer bravado.
The dealers are men with business-faces, in long white coats,
surprisingly clean. Every now and then they stop throwing crabs into
baskets or retrieving halibut from the floor, and make little entries
in long note-books. I do not know exactly what entries they make, but
I think they must all be in for some competition, and are making notes
about their scores; one man I watched had obviously just beaten the
record for halibut retrieving. He retrieved so many in about a minute
that the tops of his boots were just beginning to show. When he had
done that he made such long notes in his book about it that most of
the halibut slid on to the floor again while he was doing it. Then he
began all over again. But I expect he won the prize.
Meanwhile about a million fish-porters are dashing up and down the
narrow avenues between the fish-stalls, porting millions of boxes of
fish. Nearly all of them, I am glad to say, have been in the army or
have had a relative in the army; for they are nearly all wearing the
full uniform of a company cook, which needs no description. On their
heads they have a kind of india-rubber hat, and on the india-rubber hat
they have a large box of fish weighing about six stone--six _stone_, I
tell you. This box they handle as if it was a box of cigars. They pick
it up with a careless gesture; they carry it as if it was a slightly
uncomfortable hat, and they throw it down with another careless
gesture, usually on to another box of fish; this explains why so many
of one’s herrings appear to have been maimed at sea.
When they have finished throwing the boxes about they too take out a
notebook and make notes about it all. This, it seems, is to make sure
that they are paid something for throwing each box about. I don’t
blame them. It must be a hard life. Yet if I thought I could pick up
six stone of salmon and plaice and throw it about I should sign on at
Billingsgate at once. It is true they start work about five; but they
stop work, it seems, about ten, and they earn a pound and over for
that. Then they can go home. Most of them, I imagine, are stockbrokers
during the rest of the day.
And they are a refined and gentlemanly body of men. I hope the old
legend that the fish-porter of Billingsgate expresses himself in
terms too forcible for the ordinary man is now exploded; for it is a
slander. In fact, it is a slander to call him a “porter”; at least in
these days I suppose it is libellous to connect a man falsely with the
N.U.R., if only by verbal implication. But, however that may be, I here
assert that the Billingsgate fish-porter is a comparatively smooth and
courteous personage, and, considering his constant association with
fish in bulk, I think it is wonderful.
At the far end of the market is the river Thames; and on the river
Thames there is a ship or two, chockful of fish. Fish-porters with a
kind of _blasé_ animation run up and down a long gangway to the ship
with six-stone boxes of fine fresh whiting on their heads. These boxes
they pile up on a chute (carefully noting each box in their notebooks),
after which an auctioneer auctions the boxes. This is the really
exciting part of the show. The dealers or the dealers’ agents stand
round in a hungry ring and buy the boxes of fish as they slide down the
chute. The dealers seem to detail a less cultured type of man for this
purpose, and few of the bidders come up to the standard of refinement
of the fish-porters. But the auctioneer understands them, and he knows
all their Christian names. He can tell at a glance whether it is Mossy
Isaacs or Sam Isaacs. He is a very clever man.
They stand round looking at the boxes of fish, and when one of them
twitches the flesh of his nose or faintly moves one of his eyelashes
it means that he has bought six stone of whiting for thirty shillings.
That is the only kind of sign they give, and the visitor will be wise
not to catch the auctioneer’s eye, or blow his nose or do any overt
action like that, or he may find that he has bought six stone of salmon
and halibut for forty-five shillings. At an auction of fish it is true
to say that a nod is as good as a wink; in fact, it is worse.
The dealers are silent, motionless men; but nobody else is. Everybody
else is dashing about and shouting as loud as he can. As each box of
fish is sold the porters dash at it and shout at it (of course in a
very gentlemanly way) and carry it off in all directions. It is quite
clear that nobody knows who has bought it or where it is going. The
idea of the whole thing is to impress the visitor with the mobility
of fish, and this object is successfully attained. No doubt when the
visitors have gone away they settle down and decide definitely who is
to have the fish.
It is now about half-past six. Fish is still rushing in at one end from
the ship and is rushing in at the other from the rail-vans. The porters
are throwing the fish at the dealers’ stalls (registering each hit in
their notebooks), and the dealers are throwing it on to the floor or
throwing it at each other or trying to throw it at a retailer, who
always puts on a haughty air and passes on to the next stall, till he
gets too entangled in the game and finds that he has bought twenty-four
stone of whiting at twopence a pound; then he throws it at some more
porters, and the porters dash outside and throw it at the carts, and
the carts clatter away to Kensington, and my wife buys a whiting at
tenpence a pound, and the circle of fish organization is complete.
At about this point it is a good thing to pass on to Covent Garden and
buy some flowers.