he said; “before that I was a gentleman, and was brought up a
gentleman, if I’m a beggar now. I bought fish largely in the north of
England once, and now I must sell it in the streets of London. Never
mind talking about that, sir; there’s some things won’t bear talking
about. There’s a wonderful difference in the streets since I knew them
first; I could make a pound then, where I can hardly make a crown now.
People had more money, and less meanness then. I consider that the
railways have injured me, and all wet fish-sellers, to a great extent.
Fish now, you see, sir, comes in at all hours, so that nobody can
calculate on the quantity that will be received--nobody. That’s the
mischief of it; we are afraid to buy, and miss many a chance of turning
a penny. In my time, since railways were in, I’ve seen cod-fish sold at
a guinea in the morning that were a shilling at noon; for either the
wind and the tide had served, or else the railway fishing-places were
more than commonly supplied, and there was a glut to London. There’s
no trade requires greater judgment than mine--none whatever. Before
the railways--and I never could see the good of them--the fish came in
by the tide, and we knew how to buy, for there would be no more till
next tide. Now, we don’t know. I go to Billingsgate to buy my fish,
and am very well known to Mr. ---- and Mr. ---- (mentioning the names
of some well-known salesmen). The Jews are my ruin there now. When I
go to Billingsgate, Mr. ---- will say, or rather, I will say to him,
‘How much for this pad of soles?’ He will answer, ‘Fourteen shillings.’
‘Fourteen shillings!’ I say, ‘I’ll give you seven shillings,--that’s
the proper amount;’ then the Jew boys--none of them twenty that are
there--ranged about will begin; and one says, when I bid 7_s._, ‘I’ll
give 8_s_;’ ‘nine,’ says another, close on my left; ‘ten,’ shouts
another, on my right, and so they go offering on; at last Mr. ----
says to one of them, as grave as a judge, ‘Yours, sir, at 13_s_,’
but it’s all gammon. The 13_s._ buyer isn’t a buyer at all, and isn’t
required to pay a farthing, and never touches the goods. It’s all done
to keep up the price to poor fishmen, and so to poor buyers that are
our customers in the streets. Money makes money, and it don’t matter
how. Those Jew boys--I dare say they’re the same sort as once sold
oranges about the streets--are paid, I know 1_s._ for spending three
or four hours that way in the cold and wet. My trade has been injured,
too, by the great increase of Irish costermongers; for an Irishman will
starve out an Englishman any day; besides if a tailor can’t live by his
trade, he’ll take to fish, or fruit and cabbages. The month of May is a
fine season for plaice, which is bought very largely by my customers.
Plaice are sold at 1/2_d._ and 1_d._ a piece. It is a difficult fish
to manage, and in poor neighbourhoods an important one to manage well.
The old hands make a profit out of it; new hands a loss. There’s not
much cod or other wet fish sold to the poor, while plaice is in. My
customers are poor men’s wives,--mechanics, I fancy. They want fish
at most unreasonable prices. If I could go and pull them off a line
flung off Waterloo-bridge, and no other expense, I couldn’t supply
them as cheap as they expect them. Very cheap fish-sellers lose their
customers, through the Billingsgate bummarees, for they have pipes,
and blow up the cod-fish, most of all, and puff up their bellies till
they are twice the size, but when it comes to table, there’s hardly to
say any fish at all. The Billingsgate authorities would soon stop it,
if they knew all I know. They won’t allow any roguery, or any trick,
if they only come to hear of it. These bummarees have caused many
respectable people to avoid street-buying, and so fair traders like me
are injured. I’ve nothing to complain of about the police. Oft enough,
if I could be allowed ten minutes longer on a Saturday night, I could
get through all my stock without loss. About a quarter to twelve I
begin to halloo away as hard as I can, and there’s plenty of customers
that lay out never a farthing till that time, and then they can’t be
served fast enough, so they get their fish cheaper than I do. If any
halloos out that way sooner, we must all do the same. Anything rather
than keep fish over a warm Sunday. I have kept mine in ice; I haven’t
opportunity now, but it’ll keep in a cool place this time of year. I
think there’s as many sellers as buyers in the streets, and there’s
scores of them don’t give just weight or measure. I wish there was good
moral rules in force, and everybody gave proper weight. I often talk
to street-dealers about it. I’ve given them many a lecture; but they
say they only do what plenty of shopkeepers do, and just get fined
and go on again, without being a pin the worse thought of. They are
abusive sometimes, too; I mean the street-sellers are, because they are
ignorant. I have no children, thank God, and my wife helps me in my
business. Take the year through, I clear from 10_s._ to 12_s._ every
week. That’s not much to support two people. Some weeks I earn only
4_s._,--such as in wet March weather. In others I earn 18_s._ or 1_l._
November, December, and January are good months for me. I wouldn’t
mind if they lasted all the year round. I’m often very badly off
indeed--very badly; and the misery of being hard up, sir, is not when
you’re making a struggle to get out of your trouble; no, nor to raise
a meal off herrings that you’ve given away once, but when your wife
and you’s sitting by a grate without a fire, and putting the candle
out to save it, a planning how to raise money. ‘Can we borrow there?’
‘Can we manage to sell if we can borrow?’ ‘Shall we get from very bad
to the parish?’ Then, perhaps, there’s a day lost, and without a bite
in our mouths trying to borrow. Let alone a little drop to give a body
courage, which perhaps is the only good use of spirit after all. That’s
the pinch, sir. When the rain you hear outside puts you in mind of
drownding!”
Subjoined is the amount (in round numbers) of wet fish annually
disposed of in the metropolis by the street-sellers:
No. of Fish. lbs. weight.
Salmon 20,000 175,000
Live-cod 100,000 1,000,000
Soles 6,500,000 1,650,000
Whiting 4,440,000 1,680,000
Haddock 250,000 500,000
Plaice 29,400,000 29,400,000
Mackarel 15,700,000 15,700,000
Herrings 875,000,000 210,000,000
Sprats „ 3,000,000
Eels, from Holland 400,000 65,000
Flounders 260,000 43,000
Dabs 270,000 48,000
----------- -----------
Total quantity of }
wet fish sold in the } 932,340,000 263,261,000
streets of London }
From the above Table we perceive that the fish, of which the greatest
quantity is eaten by the poor, is herrings; of this, compared with
plaice there is upwards of thirty times the number consumed. After
plaice rank mackerel, and of these the consumption is about one-half
less in number than plaice, while the number of soles vended in the
streets, is again half of that of mackerel. Then come whiting, which
are about two-thirds the number of the soles, while the consumption
to the poor of haddock, cod, eels, and salmon, is comparatively
insignificant. Of sprats, which are estimated by weight, only one-fifth
of the number of pounds are consumed compared with the weight of
mackerel. The pounds’ weight of herrings sold in the streets, in
the course of a year, is upwards of seven times that of plaice, and
fourteen times that of mackerel. Altogether more than 260,000,000
pounds, or 116,000 tons weight of wet fish are yearly purchased in the
streets of London, for the consumption of the humbler classes. Of this
aggregate amount, no less than five-sixths consists of herrings; which,
indeed, constitute the great slop diet of the metropolis.
OF SPRAT-SELLING IN THE STREETS.
Sprats--one of the cheapest and most grateful luxuries of the poor--are
generally introduced about the 9th of November. Indeed “Lord Mayor’s
day” is sometimes called “sprat day.” They continue in about ten weeks.
They are sold at Billingsgate by the “toss,” or “chuck,” which is about
half a bushel, and weighs from 40lbs. to 50lbs. The price varies from
1_s._ to 5_s._ Sprats are, this season, pronounced remarkably fine.
“Look at my lot sir,” said a street-seller to me; “they’re a heap of
new silver,” and the bright shiny appearance of the glittering little
fish made the comparison not inappropriate. In very few, if in any,
instances does a costermonger confine himself to the sale of sprats,
unless his means limit him to that one branch of the business. A more
prosperous street-fishmonger will sometimes detach the sprats from his
stall, and his wife, or one of his children will take charge of them.
Only a few sprat-sellers are itinerant, the fish being usually sold
by stationary street-sellers at “pitches.” One who worked his sprats
through the streets, or sold them from a stall as he thought best, gave
me the following account. He was dressed in a newish fustian-jacket,
buttoned close up his chest, but showing a portion of a clean cotton
shirt at the neck, with a bright-coloured coarse handkerchief round
it; the rest of his dress was covered by a white apron. His hair, as
far as I could see it under his cloth cap, was carefully brushed, and
(it appeared) as carefully oiled. At the first glance I set him down
as having been a gentleman’s servant. He had a somewhat deferential,
though far from cringing manner with him, and seemed to be about
twenty-five or twenty-six--he thought he was older, he said, but did
not know his age exactly.
“Ah! sir,” he began, in a tone according with his look, “sprats _is_ a
blessing to the poor. Fresh herrings is a blessing too, and sprats is
young herrings, and is a blessing in ’portion” [for so he pronounced
what seemed to be a favourite word with him “proportion”]. “It’s only
four years--yes, four, I’m sure of that--since I walked the streets
starving, in the depth of winter, and looked at the sprats, and said,
I wish I could fill my belly off you. Sir, I hope it was no great sin,
but I could hardly keep my hands from stealing some and eating them
raw. If they make me sick, thought I, the police’ll take care of me,
and that’ll be something. While these thoughts was a passing through
my mind, I met a man who was a gentleman’s coachman; I knew him a
little formerly, and so I stopped him and told him who I was, and that
I hadn’t had a meal for two days. ‘Well, by G--,’ said the coachman,
‘you look like it, why I shouldn’t have known you. Here’s a shilling.’
And then he went on a little way, and then stopped, and turned back and
thrust 3-1/2_d._ more into my hand, and bolted off. I’ve never seen him
since. But I’m grateful to him in the same ’portion (proportion) as if
I had. After I’d had a penn’orth of bread and a penn’orth of cheese,
and half-a-pint of beer, I felt a new man, and I went to the party as
I’d longed to steal the sprats from, and told him what I’d thought
of. I can’t say what made me tell him, but it turned out for good. I
don’t know much about religion, though I can read a little, but may
be that had something to do with it.” The rest of the man’s narrative
was--briefly told--as follows. He was the only child of a gentleman’s
coachman. His father had deserted his mother and him, and gone abroad,
he believed, with some family. His mother, however, took care of him
until her death, which happened “when he was a little turned thirteen,
he had heard, but could not remember the year.” After that he was “a
helper and a jobber in different stables,” and “anybody’s boy,” for a
few years, until he got a footman’s, or rather footboy’s place, which
he kept above a year. After that he was in service, in and out of
different situations, until the time he specified, when he had been out
of place for nearly five weeks, and was starving. His master had got in
difficulties, and had gone abroad; so he was left without a character.
“Well, sir,” he continued, “the man as I wanted to steal the sprats
from, says to me, says he, ‘Poor fellow; I know what a hempty belly is
myself--come and have a pint.’ And over that there pint, he told me,
if I could rise 10_s._ there might be a chance for me in the streets,
and he’d show me how to do. He died not very long after that, poor
man. Well, after a little bit, I managed to borrow 10_s._ of Mr. ----
(I thought of him all of a sudden). He was butler in a family that I
had lived in, and had a charitable character, though he was reckoned
very proud. But I plucked up a spirit, and told him how I was off, and
he said, ‘Well, I’ll try you,’ and he lent me 10_s._, which I paid
him back, little by little, in six or eight weeks; and so I started
in the costermonger line, with the advice of my friend, and I’ve
made from 5_s._ to 10_s._, sometimes more, a week, at it ever since.
The police don’t trouble me much. They is civil to me in ’portion
(proportion) as I am civil to them. I never mixed with the costers but
when I’ve met them at market. I stay at a lodging-house, but it’s very
decent and clean, and I have a bed to myself, at 1_s._ a week, for
I’m a regular man. I’m on sprats now, you see, sir, and you’d wonder,
sometimes, to see how keen people looks to them when they’re new.
They’re a blessing to the poor, in ’portion (proportion) of course. Not
twenty minutes before you spoke to me, there was two poor women came
up--they was sickly-looking, but I don’t know what they was--perhaps
shirt-makers--and they says to me, says they, ‘Show us what a penny
plateful is.’ ‘Sart’nly, ladies,’ says I. Then they whispered together,
and at last one says, says she, ‘We’ll have two platefuls.’ I told you
they was a blessing to the poor, sir--’specially to such as them, as
lives all the year round on bread and tea. But it’s not only the poor
as buys; others in ’portion (proportion). When they’re new they’re a
treat to everybody. I’ve sold them to poor working-men, who’ve said,
‘I’ll take a treat home to the old ’oman and the kids; they dotes on
sprats.’ Gentlemen’s servants is very fond of them, and mechanics comes
down--such as shoemakers in their leather aprons, and sings out, ‘Here,
old sprats, give us two penn’orth.’ They’re _such_ a relish. I sell
more to men than to women, perhaps, but there’s little difference.
They’re best stewed, sir, I think--if you’re fond of sprats--with
vinegar and a pick of allspice; that’s my opinion, and, only yesterday,
an old cook said I was right. I makes 1_s._ 6_d._ to 2_s._ 6_d._ a day,
and sometimes rather more, on my sprats, and sticks to them as much as
I can. I sell about my ‘toss’ a day, seldom less. Of course I can make
as many penn’orths of it as I please, but there’s no custom without one
gives middling penn’orths. If a toss costs me 3_s._, I may make sixty
penn’orths of it sometimes--sometimes seventy or more--and sometimes
less than sixty. There’s many turns over as much as me and more than
that. I’m thinking that I’ll work the country with a lot; they’ll keep
to a second day, when they’re fresh to start, ’specially if its frosty
weather, too, and then they’re better than ever--yes, and a greater
treat--scalding hot from the fire, they’re the cheapest and best of all
suppers in the winter time. I hardly know which way I’ll go. If I can
get anythink to do among horses in the country, I’ll never come back.
I’ve no tie to London.”
To show how small a sum of money will enable the struggling striving
poor to obtain a living, I may here mention that, in the course of
my inquiries among the mudlarks, I casually gave a poor shoeless
urchin, who was spoken of by one of the City Missionaries as being a
well-disposed youth, 1_s._ out of the funds that had been entrusted
to me to dispense. Trifling as the amount appears, it was the means
of keeping his mother, sister, and himself through the winter. It was
invested in sprats, and turned over and over again.
I am informed, by the best authorities, that near upon 1000 “tosses” of
sprats are sold daily in London streets, while the season lasts. These,
sold retail in pennyworths, at very nearly 5_s._ the toss, give about
150_l._ a day, or say 1,000_l._ a week spent on sprats by the poorer
classes of the metropolis; so that, calculating the sprat season to
last ten weeks, about 10,000_l._ would be taken by the costermongers
during that time from the sale of this fish alone.
Another return, furnished me by an eminent salesman at Billingsgate,
estimates the gross quantity of sprats sold by the London costers in
the course of the season at three millions of pounds weight, and this
disposed of at the rate of 1_d._ per pound, gives upwards of 12,000_l._
for the sum of money spent upon this one kind of fish.
OF SHELL-FISH SELLERS IN THE STREETS.
I had the following account from an experienced man. He lived with
his mother, his wife, and four children, in one of the streets near
Gray’s-inn-lane. The street was inhabited altogether by people of
his class, the women looking sharply out when a stranger visited the
place. On my first visit to this man’s room, his wife, who is near her
confinement, was at dinner with her children. The time was 1/4 to 12.
The meal was tea, and bread with butter very thinly spread over it.
On the wife’s bread was a small piece of pickled pork, covering about
one-eighth of the slice of a quartern loaf cut through. In one corner
of the room, which is on the ground-floor, was a scantily-covered bed.
A few dingy-looking rags were hanging up to dry in the middle of the
room, which was littered with baskets and boxes, mixed up with old
furniture, so that it was a difficulty to stir. The room (although
the paper, covering the broken panes in the window, was torn and
full of holes) was most oppressively close and hot, and there was a
fetid smell, difficult to sustain, though it was less noticeable on a
subsequent call. I have often had occasion to remark that the poor,
especially those who are much subjected to cold in the open air, will
sacrifice much for heat. The adjoining room, which had no door, seemed
littered like the one where the family were. The walls of the room
I was in were discoloured and weather-stained. The only attempt at
ornament was over the mantel-shelf, the wall here being papered with
red and other gay-coloured papers, that once had been upholsterer’s
patterns.
On my second visit, the husband was at dinner with the family, on good
boiled beef and potatoes. He was a small-featured man, with a head of
very curly and long black hair, and both in mien, manners, and dress,
resembled the mechanic far more than the costermonger. He said:--
“I’ve been twenty years and more, perhaps twenty-four, selling
shell-fish in the streets. I was a boot-closer when I was young,
and have made my 20_s._ and 30_s._, and sometimes 40_s._, and then
sometimes not 10_s._ a week; but I had an attack of rheumatic-fever,
and lost the use of my hands for my trade. The streets hadn’t any great
name, as far as I knew, then, but as I couldn’t work, it was just a
choice between street-selling and starving, so I didn’t prefer the
last. It was reckoned degrading to go into the streets--but I couldn’t
help that. I was astonished at my success when I first began, and
got into the business--that is into the understanding of it--after a
week, or two, or three. Why, I made 3_l._ the first week I knew my
trade, properly; yes, I cleared 3_l._! I made, not long after, 5_l._
a week--but not often. I was giddy and extravagant. Indeed, I was a
fool, and spent my money like a fool. I could have brought up a family
then like a gentleman--I send them to school as it is--but I hadn’t
a wife and family then, or it might have been better; it’s a great
check on a man, is a family. I began with shell-fish, and sell it
still; very seldom anything else. There’s more demand for shells, no
doubt, because its far cheaper, but then there’s so many more sellers.
I don’t know why exactly. I suppose it’s because poor people go into
the streets when they can’t live other ways, and some do it because
they think it’s an idle life; but it ain’t. Where I took 35_s._ in a
day at my stall--and well on to half of it profit--I now take 5_s._
or 6_s._, or perhaps 7_s._, in the day and less profit on that less
money. I don’t clear 3_s._ a day now, take the year through. I don’t
keep accounts, but I’m certain enough that I average about 15_s._ a
week the year through, and my wife has to help me to make that. She’ll
mind the stall, while I take a round sometimes. I sell all kinds of
shell-fish, but my great dependence is on winkles. I don’t do much in
lobsters. Very few speculate in them. The price varies very greatly.
What’s 10_s._ a score one day may be 25_s._ the next. I sometimes get
a score for 5_s._ or 6_s._, but it’s a poor trade, for 6_d._ is the
top of the tree, with me, for a price to a seller. I never get more.
I sell them to mechanics and tradesmen. I do more in pound crabs.
There’s a great call for haporths and pennorths of lobster or crab,
by children; that’s their claws. I bile them all myself, and buy them
alive. I can bile twenty in half an hour, and do it over a grate in a
back-yard. Lobsters don’t fight or struggle much in the hot water, if
they’re properly packed. It’s very few that knows how to bile a lobster
as he should be biled. I wish I knew any way of killing lobsters
before biling them. I can’t kill them without smashing them to bits,
and that won’t do at all. I kill my crabs before I bile them. I stick
them in the throat with a knife and they’re dead in an instant. Some
sticks them with a skewer, but they kick a good while with the skewer
in them. It’s a shame to torture anything when it can be helped. If I
didn’t kill the crabs they’d shed every leg in the hot water; they’d
come out as bare of claws as this plate. I’ve known it oft enough, as
it is; though I kill them uncommon quick, a crab will be quicker and
shed every leg--throw them off in the moment I kill them, but that
doesn’t happen once in fifty times. Oysters are capital this season, I
mean as to quality, but they’re not a good sale. I made 3_l._ a week in
oysters, not reckoning anything else, eighteen or twenty years back. It
was easy to make money then; like putting down one sovereign and taking
two up. I sold oysters then oft enough at 1_d._ a piece. Now I sell far
finer at three a penny and five for 2_d._ People can’t spend money in
shell-fish when they haven’t got any. They say that fortune knocks once
at every man’s door. I wish I’d opened my door when he knocked at it.”
This man’s wife told me afterwards, that last winter, after an attack
of rheumatism, all their stock-money was exhausted, and her husband
sat day by day at home almost out of his mind; for nothing could tempt
him to apply to the parish, and “he would never have mentioned his
sufferings to me,” she said; “he had too much pride.” The loan of a
few shillings from a poor costermonger enabled the man to go to market
again, or he and his family would now have been in the Union.
As to the quantity of shell-fish sold in the streets of London, the
returns before-cited give the following results:
Oysters 124,000,000
Lobsters 60,000
Crabs 50,000
Shrimps 770,000 pts.
Whelks 4,950,000
Mussels 1,000,000 qts.
Cockles 750,000 qts.
Periwinkles 3,640,000 pts.
OF SHRIMP SELLING IN THE STREETS.
Shrimp selling, as I have stated, is one of the trades to which the
street-dealer often confines himself throughout the year. The sale is
about equally divided between the two sexes, but the men do the most
business, walking some of them fifteen to twenty miles a day in a
“round” of “ten miles there and ten back.”
The shrimps vended in the streets are the Yarmouth prawn shrimps,
sold at Billingsgate at from 6_d._ to 10_d._ a gallon, while the best
shrimps (chiefly from Lee, in Essex,) vary in price from 10_d._ to
2_s._ 6_d._ a gallon; 2_s._ being a common price. The shrimps are
usually mixed by the street-dealers, and they are cried, from stalls
or on rounds, “a penny half-pint, fine fresh s’rimps.” (I heard them
called nothing but “s’rimps” by the street-dealers.) The half-pint,
however, is in reality but half that quantity. “It’s the same measure
as it was thirty years back,” I was told, in a tone as if its antiquity
removed all imputation of unfair dealing. Some young men “do well on
s’rimps,” sometimes taking 5_s._ in an hour on a Saturday evening,
“when people get their money, and wants a relish.” The females in the
shrimp line are the wives, widows, or daughters of costermongers. They
are computed to average 1_s._ 6_d._ a day profit in fine, and from
9_d._ to 1_s._ in bad weather; and, in snowy, or very severe weather,
sometimes nothing at all.
One shrimp-seller, a middle-aged woman, wrapped up in a hybrid sort of
cloak, that was half a man’s and half a woman’s garment, gave me the
following account. There was little vulgarity in either her language or
manner.