I don’t know how old I am. I never knew; but I’ve two children, one’s
six and t’other’s near eight, both girls; I’ve kept count of that as
well as I can. My husband sells fish in the street; so did father,
but he’s dead. We buried him without the help of the parish, as many
gets--that’s something to say. I’ve known the trade every way. It never
was any good in public-houses. They want such great ha’p’orths there.
They’ll put up with what isn’t very fresh, to be sure, sometimes; and
good enough for them too, I say, as spoils their taste with drink.”
[This was said very bitterly.] “If it wasn’t for my husband’s drinking
for a day together now and then we’d do better. He’s neither to have
nor to hold when he’s the worse for liquor; and it’s the worse with
him, for he’s a quiet man when he’s his own man. Perhaps I make 9_d._ a
day, perhaps 1_s._ or more. Sometimes my husband takes my stand, and I
go a round. Sometimes, if he gets through his fish, he goes my round.
I give good measure, and my pint’s the regular s’rimp pint.” [It was
the _half_-pint I have described.] “The trade’s not so good as it was.
People hasn’t the money, they tells me so. It’s bread before s’rimps,
says they. I’ve heard them say it very cross, if I’ve wanted hard to
sell. Some days I can sell nothing. My children stays with my sister,
when me and my old man’s out. They don’t go to school, but Jane (the
sister) learns them to sew. She makes drawers for the slopsellers, but
has very little work, and gets very little for the little she does; she
would learn them to read if she knew how. She’s married to a pavior,
that’s away all day. It’s a hard life mine, sir. The winter’s a coming,
and I’m now sometimes ’numbed with sitting at my stall in the cold.
My feet feels like lumps of ice in the winter; and they’re beginning
now, as if they weren’t my own. Standing’s far harder work than going
a round. I sell the best s’rimps. My customers is judges. If I’ve any
s’rimps over on a night, as I often have one or two nights a week, I
sells them for half-price to an Irishwoman, and she takes them to the
beer-shops, and the coffee-shops. She washes them to look fresh. I
don’t mind telling that, because people should buy of regular people.
It’s very few people know how to pick a s’rimp properly. You should
take it by the head and the tail and jam them up, and then the shell
separates, and the s’rimp comes out beautifully. That’s the proper way.”
Sometimes the sale on the rounds may be the same as that at the
stalls, or 10 or 20 per cent. more or less, according to the weather,
as shrimps can be sold by the itinerant dealers better than by the
stall-keepers in wet weather, when people prefer buying at their doors.
But in hot weather the stall trade is the best, “for people often fancy
that the s’rimps is sent out to sell ’cause they’ll not keep no longer.
It’s only among customers as knows you, you can do any good on a round
then.”
The costermongers sell annually, it appears, about 770,000 pints of
shrimps. At 2_d._ a pint (a very low calculation) the street sale of
shrimps amount to upwards of 6,400_l._ yearly.
[Illustration: ORANGE MART, DUKE’S PLACE.--[_From a Daguerreotype by_
BEARD.]]
OF OYSTER SELLING IN THE STREETS.
The trade in oysters is unquestionably one of the oldest with which the
London--or rather the English--markets are connected; for oysters from
Britain were a luxury in ancient Rome.
Oysters are now sold out of the smacks at Billingsgate, and a few at
Hungerford. The more expensive kind such as the real Milton, are never
bought by the costermongers, but they buy oysters of a “good middling
quality.” At the commencement of the season these oysters are 14_s._
a “bushel,” but the measure contains from a bushel and a half to two
bushels, as it is more or less heaped up. The general price, however,
is 9_s._ or 10_s._, but they _have_ been 16_s._ and 18_s._ The “big
trade” was unknown until 1848, when the very large shelly oysters, the
fish inside being very small, were introduced from the Sussex coast.
They were sold in Thames-street and by the Borough-market. Their sale
was at first enormous. The costermongers distinguished them by the name
of “scuttle-mouths.” One coster informant told me that on the Saturdays
he not unfrequently, with the help of a boy and a girl, cleared 10_s._
by selling these oysters in the streets, disposing of four bags. He
thus sold, reckoning twenty-one dozen to the bag, 2,016 oysters; and
as the price was two for a penny, he took just 4_l._ 4_s._ by the sale
of oysters in the streets in one night. With the scuttle-mouths the
costermonger takes no trouble: he throws them into a yard, and dashes
a few pails of water over them, and then places them on his barrow, or
conveys them to his stall. Some of the better class of costermongers,
however, lay down their oysters carefully, giving them oatmeal “to
fatten on.”
In April last, some of the street-sellers of this article established,
for the first time, “oyster-rounds.” These were carried on by
costermongers whose business was over at twelve in the day, or a little
later; they bought a bushel of scuttle-mouths (never the others), and,
in the afternoon, went a round with them to poor neighbourhoods, until
about six, when they took a stand in some frequented street. Going
these oyster-rounds is hard work, I am told, and a boy is generally
taken to assist. Monday afternoon is the best time for this trade, when
10_s._ is sometimes taken, and 4_s._ or 5_s._ profit made. On other
evenings only from 1_s._ to 5_s._ is taken--very rarely the larger
sum--as the later the day in the week the smaller is the receipt, owing
to the wages of the working classes getting gradually exhausted.
The women who sell oysters in the street, and whose dealings are
limited, buy either of the costermongers or at the coal-sheds. But
nearly all the men buy at Billingsgate, where as small a quantity as a
peck can be had.
An old woman, who had “seen better days,” but had been reduced to keep
an oyster-stall, gave me the following account of her customers. She
showed much shrewdness in her conversation, but having known better
days, she declined to enter upon any conversation concerning her
former life:--
“As to my customers, sir,” she said, “why, indeed, they’re all sorts.
It’s not a very few times that gentlemen (I call them so because
they’re mostly so civil) will stop--just as it’s getting darkish,
perhaps,--and look about them, and then come to me and say very quick:
‘Two penn’orth for a whet.’ Ah! some of ’em will look, may be, like
poor parsons down upon their luck, and swallow their oysters as if they
was taking poison in a hurry. They’ll not touch the bread or butter
once in twenty times, but they’ll be free with the pepper and vinegar,
or, mayhap, they’ll say quick and short, ‘A crust off that.’ I many
a time think _that_ two penn’orth is a poor gentleman’s dinner. It’s
the same often--but only half as often, or not half--with a poor lady,
with a veil that once was black, over a bonnet to match, and shivering
through her shawl. She’ll have the same. About two penn’orth is the
mark still; it’s mostly two penn’orth. My son says, it’s because that’s
the price of a glass of gin, and some persons buy oysters instead--but
that’s only his joke, sir. It’s not the vulgar poor that’s our chief
customers. There’s many of them won’t touch oysters, and I’ve heard
some of them say: ‘The sight on ’em makes me sick; it’s like eating
snails.’ The poor girls that walk the streets often buy; some are
brazen and vulgar, and often the finest dressed are the vulgarest; at
least, I think so; and of those that come to oyster stalls, I’m sure
it’s the case. Some are shy to such as me, who may, perhaps, call their
own mothers to their minds, though it aint many of them that is so.
One of them always says that she must keep at least a penny for gin
after her oysters. One young woman ran away from my stall once after
swallowing one oyster out of six that she’d paid for. I don’t know
why. Ah! there’s many things a person like me sees that one may say,
‘I don’t know why’ to; that there is. My heartiest customers, that I
serve with the most pleasure, are working people, on a Saturday night.
One couple--I think the wife always goes to meet her husband on a
Saturday night--has two, or three, or four penn’orth, as happens, and
it’s pleasant to hear them say, ‘Won’t you have another, John?’ or,
‘Do have one or two more, Mary Anne.’ I’ve served them that way two or
three years. They’ve no children, I’m pretty sure, for if I say, ‘Take
a few home to the little ones,’ the wife tosses her head, and says,
half vexed and half laughing, ‘_Such_ nonsense.’ I send out a good
many oysters, opened, for people’s suppers, and sometimes for supper
parties--at least, I suppose so, for there’s five or six dozen often
ordered. The maid-servants come for them then, and I give them two or
three for themselves, and say, jokingly-like, ‘It’s no use offering you
any, perhaps, because you’ll have plenty that’s left.’ They’ve mostly
one answer: ‘Don’t we wish we may get ’em?’ The _very_ poor never buy
of me, as I told you. A penny buys a loaf, you see, or a ha’porth
of bread and a ha’porth of cheese, or a half-pint of beer, with a
farthing out. My customers are mostly working people and tradespeople.
Ah! sir, I wish the parson of the parish, or any parson, sat with me a
fortnight; he’d see what life is then. ‘It’s different,’ a learned man
used to say to me--that’s long ago--‘from what’s noticed from the pew
or the pulpit.’ I’ve missed the gentleman as used to say that, now many
years--I don’t know how many. I never knew his name. He was drunk now
and then, and used to tell me he was an author. I felt for him. A dozen
oysters wasn’t much for him. We see a deal of the world, sir--yes, a
deal. Some, mostly working people, take quantities of pepper with their
oysters in cold weather, and say it’s to warm them, and no doubt it
does; but frosty weather is very bad oyster weather. The oysters gape
and die, and then they are not so much as manure. They are very fine
this year. I clear 1_s._ a day, I think, during the season--at least
1_s._, taking the fine with the wet days, and the week days with the
Sundays, though I’m not out then; but, you see, I’m known about here.”
The number of oysters sold by the costermongers amounts to 124,000,000
a year. These, at four a penny, would realise the large sum of
129,650_l._ We may therefore safely assume that 125,000_l._ is spent
yearly in oysters in the streets of London.
OF PERIWINKLE SELLING IN THE STREETS.
There are some street people who, nearly all the year through, sell
nothing but periwinkles, and go regular rounds, where they are well
known. The “wink” men, as these periwinkle sellers are called,
generally live in the lowest parts, and many in lodging-houses. They
are forced to live in low localities, they say, because of the smell
of the fish, which is objected to. The city district is ordinarily the
best for winkle-sellers, for there are not so many cheap shops there
as in other parts. The summer is the best season, and the sellers then
make, upon the average, 12_s._ a week clear profit; in the winter,
they get upon the average, 5_s._ a week clear, by selling mussels and
whelks--for, as winkles last only from March till October, they are
then obliged to do what they can in the whelk and mussel way. “I buy
my winks,” said one, “at Billingsgate, at 3_s._ and 4_s._ the wash.
A wash is about a bushel. There’s some at 2_s._, and some sometimes
as low as 1_s._ the wash, but they wouldn’t do for me, as I serve
very respectable people. If we choose we can boil our winkles at
Billingsgate by paying 4_d._ a week for boiling, and 1/2_d._ for salt,
to salt them after they are boiled. Tradesmen’s families buy them for a
relish to their tea. It’s reckoned a nice present from a young man to
his sweetheart, is winks. Servant girls are pretty good customers, and
want them cheaper when they say it’s for themselves; but I have only
one price.”
One man told me he could make as much as 12_s._ a week--sometimes more
and sometimes less.
He made no speeches, but sung--“Winketty-winketty-wink-wink-wink--
wink-wink--wicketty-wicketty-wink--fine fresh winketty-winks wink wink.”
He was often so sore in the stomach and hoarse with hallooing that
he could hardly speak. He had no child, only himself and wife to keep
out of his earnings. His room was 2_s._ a week rent. He managed to get
a bit of meat every day, he said, “somehow or ’nother.”
Another, more communicative and far more intelligent man, said to me
concerning the character of his customers: “They’re people I think
that like to daddle” (dawdle, I presume) “over their teas or such
like; or when a young woman’s young man takes tea with her mother and
her, then they’ve winks; and then there’s joking, and helping to pick
winks, between Thomas and Betsy, while the mother’s busy with her
tea, or is wiping her specs, ’cause she _can’t_ see. Why, sir, I’ve
known it! I was a Thomas that way myself when I was a tradesman. I was
a patten-maker once, but pattens is no go now, and hasn’t been for
fifteen year or more. Old people, I think, that lives by themselves,
and has perhaps an annuity or the like of that, and nothing to do
pertickler, loves winks, for they likes a pleasant way of making time
long over a meal. They’re the people as reads a newspaper, when it’s a
week old, all through. The other buyers, I think, are tradespeople or
working-people what wants a relish. But winks is a bad trade now, and
so is many that depends on relishes.”
One man who “works” the New Cut, has the “best wink business of all.”
He sells only a little dry fish with his winks, never wet fish, and
has “got his name up,” for the superiority of that shell-fish--a
superiority which he is careful to ensure. He pays 8_s._ a week for
a stand by a grocer’s window. On an ordinary afternoon he sells from
7_s._ to 10_s._ worth of periwinkles. On a Monday afternoon he often
takes 20_s._; and on the Sunday afternoon 3_l._ and 4_l._ He has two
coster lads to help him, and sometimes on a Sunday from twenty to
thirty customers about him. He wraps each parcel sold in a neat brown
paper bag, which, I am assured, is of itself, an inducement to buy of
him. The “unfortunate” women who live in the streets contiguous to the
Waterloo, Blackfriars, and Borough-roads, are among his best customers,
on Sundays especially. He is rather a public character, getting up
dances and the like. “_He_ aint bothered--not he--with ha’p’orths or
penn’orths of a Sunday,” said a person who had assisted him. “It’s
the top of the tree with his customers; 3_d._ or 6_d._ at a go.” The
receipts are one-half profit. I heard from several that he was “the
best man for winks a-going.”
The quantity of periwinkles disposed of by the London street-sellers
is 3,600,000 pints, which, at 1_d._ per pint, gives the large sum
of 15,000_l._ expended annually in this street luxury. It should be
remembered, that a very large consumption of periwinkles takes place
in public-houses and suburban tea-gardens.
OF “DRY” FISH SELLING IN THE STREETS.
The dealing in “dry” or salt fish is never carried on as a totally
distinct trade in the streets, but some make it a principal part of
their business; and many wet fish-dealers whose “wet fish” is disposed
of by noon, sell dry fish in the afternoon. The dry fish, proper,
consists of dried mackerel, salt cod--dried or barrelled--smoked or
dried haddocks (often called “finnie haddies”), dried or pickled salmon
(but salmon is only salted or pickled for the streets when it can be
sold cheap), and salt herrings.
A keen-looking, tidily-dressed man, who was at one time a dry
fish-seller principally, gave me the following account. For the last
two months he has confined himself to another branch of the business,
and seemed to feel a sort of pleasure in telling of the “dodges” he
once resorted to:
“There’s Scotch haddies that never knew anything about Scotland,” he
said, “for I’ve made lots of them myself by Tower-street, just a jump
or two from the Lambeth station-house. I used to make them on Sundays.
I was a wet fish-seller then, and when I couldn’t get through my
haddocks or my whitings of a Saturday night, I wasn’t a-going to give
them away to folks that wouldn’t take the trouble to lift me out of
a gutter if I fell there, so I presarved them. I’ve made haddies of
whitings, and good ones too, and Joe made them of codlings besides. I
had a bit of a back-yard to two rooms, one over the other, that I had
then, and on a Sunday I set some wet wood a fire, and put it under a
great tub. My children used to gut and wash the fish, and I hung them
on hooks all round the sides of the tub, and made a bit of a chimney
in a corner of the top of the tub, and that way I gave them a jolly
good smoking. My wife had a dry fish-stall and sold them, and used
to sing out ‘Real Scotch haddies,’ and tell people how they was from
Aberdeen; I’ve often been fit to laugh, she did it so clever. I had a
way of giving them a yellow colour like the real Scotch, but that’s a
secret. After they was well smoked they was hung up to dry all round
the rooms we lived in, and we often had stunning fires that answered
as well to boil crabs and lobsters when they was cheap enough for the
streets. I’ve boiled a mate’s crabs and lobsters for 2-1/2_d._; it was
two boilings and more, and 2-1/2_d._ was reckoned the price of half
a quarter of a hundred of coals and the use of the pan. There’s more
ways than one of making 6_d._, if a man has eyes in his head and keeps
them open. Haddocks that wouldn’t fetch 1_d._ a piece, nor any money
at all of a Saturday night, I’ve sold--at least she has” (indicating
his wife by a motion of his thumb)--“at 2_d._, and 3_d._, and 4_d._
I’ve bought fish of costers that was over on a Saturday night, to make
Scotch haddies of them. I’ve tried experience” (experiments) “too.
Ivy, burnt under them, gave them, I thought, a nice sort of flavour,
rather peppery, for I used always to taste them; but I hate living
on fish. Ivy with brown berries on it, as it has about this time o’
year, I liked best. Holly wasn’t no good. A black-currant bush was,
but it’s too dear; and indeed it couldn’t be had. I mostly spread
wetted fire-wood, as green as could be got, or damp sticks of any kind,
over shavings, and kept feeding the fire. Sometimes I burnt sawdust.
Somehow, the dry fish trade fell off. People does get so prying and so
knowing, there’s no doing nothing now for no time, so I dropped the
dry fish trade. There’s few up to smoking them proper; they smoke ’em
black, as if they was hung up in a chimbley.”
Another costermonger gave me the following account:
“I’ve salted herrings, but the commonest way of salting is by the Jews
about Whitechapel. They make real Yarmouth bloaters and all sorts
of fish. When I salted herrings, I bought them out of the boats at
Billingsgate by the hundred, which is 120 fish. We give them a bit of
a clean--hardly anything--then chuck them into a tub of salt, and keep
scattering salt over them, and let them lie a few minutes, or sometimes
half an hour, and then hang them up to dry. They eat well enough, if
they’re eaten in time, for they won’t keep. I’ve known three day’s
old herrings salted, just because there was no sale for them. One Jew
sends out six boys crying ‘real Yarmouth bloaters.’ People buy them
in preference, they look so nice and clean and fresh-coloured. It’s
quite a new trade among the Jews. They didn’t do much that way until
two years back. I sometimes wish I was a Jew, because they help one
another, and start one another with money, and so they thrive where
Christians are ruined. I smoked mackerel, too, by thousands; that’s a
new trade, and is done the same way as haddocks. Mackerel that won’t
bring 1_d._ a piece fresh, bring 2_d._ smoked; they are very nice
indeed. I make about 10_s._ or 11_s._ a week by dry fish in the winter
months, and about as much by wet,--but I have a tidy connection.
Perhaps I make 17_s._ or 18_s._ a week all the year round.”
The aggregate quantity of dry fish sold by the London costermongers
throughout the year is as follows--the results being deduced from the
table before given:
Wet salt cod 93,750
Dry do. 1,000,000
Smoked Haddocks 4,875,000
Bloaters 36,750,000
Red-herrings 25,000,000
GROSS VALUE OF THE SEVERAL KINDS OF FISH ANNUALLY SOLD IN THE STREETS
OF LONDON.
It now but remains for me, in order to complete this account of the
“street-sellers of fish,” to form an estimate of the amount of money
annually expended by the labourers and the poorer classes of London
upon the different kinds of wet, dry, and shell-fish. This, according
to the best authorities, is as follows:
_Wet Fish._ £
175,000 lbs. of salmon, at 6_d._ per lb. 4,000
1,000,000 lbs. of live cod, at 1-1/2_d._ per lb. 5,000
3,250,000 pairs of soles, at 1-1/2_d._ per pair 20,000
4,400,000 whiting, at 1/2_d._ each 9,000
29,400,000 plaice, at 3/4_d._ 90,000
15,700,000 mackarel, at 6 for 1_s._ 130,000
875,000,000 herrings, at 16 a groat 900,000
3,000,000 lbs. of sprats, at 1_d._ per lb. 12,000
400,000 lbs. of eels, at 3 lb. for 1_s._ 6,000
260,000 flounders, at 1_d._ per dozen 100
270,000 dabs, at 1_d._ per dozen 100
---------
Sum total expended yearly in wet fish 1,177,000
_Dry Fish._
525,000 lbs. barrelled cod, at 1-1/2_d._ 3,000
500,000 lbs. dried salt cod, at 2_d._ 4,000
4,875,000 smoked haddock, at 1_d._ 20,000
36,750,000 bloaters, at 2 for 1_d._ 75,000
25,000,000 red herrings, at 4 for 1_d._ 25,000
-------
Sum total expended yearly in dry fish 127,000
_Shell Fish._
124,000,000 oysters, at 4 a penny 125,000
60,000 lobsters, at 3_d._ 750
50,000 crabs, at 2_d._ 400
770,000 pints of shrimps, at 2_d._ 6,000
1,000,000 quarts of mussels, at 1_d._ 4,000
750,000 quarts of cockles, at 1_d._ 3,000
4,950,000 whelks, at 8 for 1_d._ 2,500
3,600,000 pints of periwinkles, at 1_d._ 15,000
-------
Sum total expended yearly in shell-fish 156,650
Adding together the above totals, we have the following result as
to the gross money value of the fish purchased yearly in the London
streets:
£
Wet fish 1,177,200
Dry fish 127,000
Shell fish 156,650
---------
Total £1,460,850
Hence we find that there is nearly a million and a half of money
annually spent by the poorer classes of the metropolis in fish; a sum
so prodigious as almost to discredit every statement of want, even if
the amount said to be so expended be believed. The returns from which
the above account is made out have been obtained, however, from such
unquestionable sources--not from one salesman alone, but checked and
corrected by many gentlemen who can have no conceivable motive for
exaggeration either one way or the other--that, sceptical as our utter
ignorance of the subject must necessarily make us, still if we will
but examine for ourselves, we shall find there is no gainsaying the
facts.
Moreover as to the enormity of the amount dispelling all ideas of
privation among the industrious portion of the community, we shall also
find on examination that assuming the working-men of the metropolis to
be 500,000 in number (the Occupation Abstract of 1841, gives 773,560
individuals following _some_ employment in London, but these include
merchants, employers, shopkeepers, Government-officers and others),
and that they, with their wives and children, make up one million
individuals, it follows that the sum per head, expended in fish by the
poorer classes every week, is a fraction more than 6-3/4_d._, or, in
other words not quite one penny a day.
If the diet of a people be a criterion, as has been asserted, of their
character, it may be feared that the present extensive fish-diet of the
working-people of London, is as indicative of degeneracy of character,
as Cobbett insisted must result from the consumption of tea, and “the
cursed root,” the potato. “The flesh of fish,” says Pereira on Diet,
“is less satisfying than the flesh of either quadrupeds or birds. As
it contains a larger proportion of water (about 80 per cent.), it is
obviously less nourishing.” Haller tells us he found himself weakened
by a fish-diet; and he states that Roman Catholics are generally
debilitated during Lent. Pechlin also affirms that a mechanic,
nourished merely by fish, has less muscular power than one who lives on
the flesh of warm-blooded animals. Jockeys, who _waste themselves_ in
order to reduce their weight, live principally on fish.
The classes of fish above given, are, when considered in a “dietetical
point of view,” of two distinct kinds; viz., those which form the
staple commodity of the dinners and suppers of the poor, and those
which are mere relishes or stimuli to failing, rather than stays
to, eager appetites. Under the former head, I include red-herrings,
bloaters, and smoked haddocks; such things are not merely provocatives
to eat, among the poor, as they are at the breakfast-table of many an
over-fed or intemperate man. With the less affluent these salted fish
are not a “relish,” but a meal.
The shell-fish, however, can only be considered as luxuries. The
150,000_l._ thus annually expended in the streets, represents the sum
laid out in mere relishes or stimuli to sluggish appetites. A very
large proportion of this amount, I am inclined to believe, is spent by
persons whose stomachs have been disordered by drink. A considerable
part of the trade in the minor articles, as winks, shrimps, &c.,
is carried on in public-houses, while a favourite pitch for an
oyster-stall is outside a tavern-door. If, then, so large an amount is
laid out in an endeavour to restore the appetite after drinking, how
much money must be squandered in destroying it by the same means?
OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF FRUIT AND VEGETABLES.
OF THE KINDS AND QUANTITY OF FRUIT AND VEGETABLES SOLD IN THE STREETS.
There are two kinds of fruit sold in the streets--“green fruit” and
“dry fruit.”