the locality. Thus, in Fleet-street there were 3, in the Haymarket
5, in Regent-street 6, and in Piccadilly 14 fruit-stalls, and no
fish-stalls--these streets not being resorted to by the poor, to whom
fruit is a luxury, but fish a necessity. In the Strand were 17 fruit
and 2 fish-stalls; and in Drury-lane were 8 stalls of fish to 6 of
fruit. On the other hand, there were in Ratcliffe-highway, 38 fish
and 23 fruit-stalls; in Rosemary-lane, 13 fish and 8 fruit-stalls; in
Shoreditch, 28 fish and 13 fruit-stalls; and in Bethnal-green Road
(the poorest district of all), 14 of the fish, and but 3 of the fruit
stalls. In some places, the numbers were equal, or nearly so; as in the
Minories, for instance, the City-road, the New-road, Goodge-street,
Tottenham-court Road, and the Camberwell-road; while in Smithfield were
5, and in Cow-cross 2 fish-stalls, and no fruit-stalls at all. In this
enumeration the street-markets of Leather-lane, the New Cut, the Brill,
&c., are not included.
The result of this survey of the principal London thoroughfares is
that in the _mid-route_ (viz., from Brompton, along Piccadilly, the
Strand, Fleet-street, and so _viâ_ the Commercial-road to Blackwall),
there are twice as many stalls as in the great _northern thoroughfare_
(that is to say, from the Edgeware-road, along the New-road, to the
Hackney-road); the latter route, however, has more than one-third
as many stalls as route No. 2, and that again more than double the
number of route No. 1. Hence it appears that the more frequented the
thoroughfare, the greater the quantity of street-stalls.
The number of miles of streets contained within the inner police
district of the metropolis, are estimated by the authorities at 2,000
(including the city), and assuming that there are on an average only
four stalls to the mile throughout London, we have thus a grand total
of 8,000 fish, fruit, vegetable, and other stalls dispersed throughout
the capital.
[Illustration: THE IRISH STREET-SELLER.
“Sweet Chany! Two a pinny Or-r-ranges--two a pinny!”
[_From a Daguerreotype by_ BEARD.]]
Concerning the character of the stalls at the street-markets, the
following observations have been made:--At the New-cut there were,
before the removals, between the hours of eight and ten on a Saturday
evening, ranged along the kerb-stone on the north side of the
road, beginning at Broad-wall to Marsh-gate (a distance of nearly
half-a-mile), a dense line of “pitches”--at 77 of which were vegetables
for sale, at 40 fruit, 25 fish, 22 boots and shoes, 14 eatables,
consisting of cakes and pies, hot eels, baked potatoes, and boiled
whelks; 10 dealt in nightcaps, lace, ladies’ collars, artificial
flowers, silk and straw bonnets; 10 in tinware--such as saucepans,
tea-kettles, and Dutch-ovens; 9 in crockery and glass, 7 in brooms
and brushes, 5 in poultry and rabbits, 6 in paper, books, songs, and
almanacs; and about 60 in sundries.
OF THE CHARACTER OF THE STREET-STALLS.
The stalls occupied by costermongers for the sale of fish, fruit,
vegetables, &c., are chiefly constructed of a double cross-trestle
or moveable frame, or else of two trestles, each with three legs,
upon which is laid a long deal board, or tray. Some of the stalls
consist merely of a few boards resting upon two baskets, or upon
two herring-barrels. The fish-stalls are mostly covered with
paper--generally old newspapers or periodicals--but some of the
street-fishmongers, instead of using paper to display their fish upon,
have introduced a thin marble slab, which gives the stall a cleaner,
and, what they consider a high attribute, a “respectable” appearance.
Most of the fruit-stalls are, in the winter time, fitted up with an
apparatus for roasting apples and chestnuts; this generally consists
of an old saucepan with a fire inside; and the woman who vends
them, huddled up in her old faded shawl or cloak, often presents a
picturesque appearance, in the early evening, or in a fog, with the
gleam of the fire lighting up her half somnolent figure. Within the
last two or three years, however, there has been so large a business
carried on in roasted chestnuts, that it has become a distinct
street-trade, and the vendors have provided themselves with an iron
apparatus, large enough to roast nearly half a bushel at a time. At
the present time, however, the larger apparatus is less common in the
streets, and more frequent in the shops, than in the previous winter.
There are, moreover, peculiar kinds of stalls--such as the hot eels and
hot peas-soup stalls, having tin oval pots, with a small chafing-dish
containing a charcoal fire underneath each, to keep the eels or soup
hot. The early breakfast stall has two capacious tin cans filled with
tea or coffee, kept hot by the means before described, and some are
lighted up by two or three large oil-lamps; the majority of these
stalls, in the winter time, are sheltered from the wind by a screen
made out of an old clothes horse covered with tarpaulin. The cough-drop
stand, with its distilling apparatus, the tin worm curling nearly the
whole length of the tray, has but lately been introduced. The nut-stall
is fitted up with a target at the back of it. The ginger-beer stand may
be seen in almost every street, with its French-polished mahogany frame
and bright polished taps, and its foot-bath-shaped reservoir of water,
to cleanse the glasses. The hot elder wine stand, with its bright brass
urns, is equally popular.
The sellers of plum-pudding, “cake, a penny a slice,” sweetmeats,
cough-drops, pin-cushions, jewellery, chimney ornaments, tea and
table-spoons, make use of a table covered over, some with old
newspapers, or a piece of oil-cloth, upon which are exposed their
articles for sale.
Such is the usual character of the street-stalls. There are, however,
“stands” or “cans” peculiar to certain branches of the street-trade.
The most important of these, such as the baked-potato can, and the
meat-pie stand, I have before described, p. 27.
The other means adopted by the street-sellers for the exhibition of
their various goods at certain “pitches” or fixed localities are
as follows. Straw bonnets, boys’ caps, women’s caps, and prints,
are generally arranged for sale in large umbrellas, placed “upside
down.” Haberdashery, with rolls of ribbons, edgings, and lace, some
street-sellers display on a stall; whilst others have a board at the
edge of the pavement, and expose their wares upon it as tastefully
as they can. Old shoes, patched up and well blacked, ready for the
purchaser’s feet, and tin ware, are often ranged upon the ground, or,
where the stock is small, a stall or table is used.
Many stationary street-sellers use merely baskets, or trays, either
supported in their hand, or on their arm, or else they are strapped
round their loins, or suspended round their necks. These are mostly
fruit-women, watercress, blacking, congreves, sheep’s-trotters, and
ham-sandwich sellers.
Many stationary street-sellers stand on or near the bridges; others
near the steam-packet wharfs or the railway terminuses; a great number
of them take their pitch at the entrance to a court, or at the corners
of streets; and stall-keepers with oysters stand opposite the doors of
public-houses.
It is customary for a street-seller who wants to “pitch” in a new
locality to solicit the leave of the housekeeper, opposite whose
premises he desires to place his stall. Such leave obtained, no other
course is necessary.
OF FRUIT-STALL KEEPERS.
I had the following statement from a woman who has “kept a stall”
in Marylebone, at the corner of a street, which she calls “my
corner,” for 38 years. I was referred to her as a curious type of the
class of stall-keepers, and on my visit, found her daughter at the
“pitch.” This daughter had all the eloquence which is attractive in
a street-seller, and so, I found, had her mother when she joined us.
They are profuse in blessings; and on a bystander observing, when he
heard the name of these street-sellers, that a jockey of that name
had won the Derby lately, the daughter exclaimed, “To be sure he did;
he’s my own uncle’s relation, and what a lot of money came into the
family! Bless God for all things, and bless every body! Walnuts, sir,
walnuts, a penny a dozen! Wouldn’t give you a bad one for the world,
which is a great thing for a poor ’oman for to offer to do.” The
daughter was dressed in a drab great-coat, which covered her whole
person. When I saw the mother, she carried a similar great-coat, as
she was on her way to the stall; and she used it as ladies do their
muffs, burying her hands in it. The mother’s dark-coloured old clothes
seemed, to borrow a description from Sir Walter Scott, flung on with
a pitchfork. These two women were at first very suspicious, and could
not be made to understand my object in questioning them; but after a
little while, the mother became not only communicative, but garrulous,
conversing--with no small impatience at any interruption--of the doings
of the people in her neighbourhood. I was accompanied by an intelligent
costermonger, who assured me of his certitude that the old woman’s
statement was perfectly correct, and I found moreover from other
inquiries that it was so.
“Well, sir,” she began, “what is it that you want of me? Do I owe
you anything? There’s half-pay officers about here for no good; what
is it you want? Hold your tongue, you young fool,” (to her daughter,
who was beginning to speak;) “what do you know about it?” [On my
satisfying her that I had no desire to injure her, she continued to
say after spitting, a common practice with her class, on a piece of
money, “for luck,”] “Certainly, sir, that’s very proper and good. Aye,
I’ve seen the world--the town world and the country. I don’t know
where I was born; never mind about that--it’s nothing to nobody. I
don’t know nothing about my father and mother; but I know that afore
I was eleven I went through the country with my missis. She was a
smuggler. I didn’t know then what smuggling was--bless you, sir, I
didn’t; I knew no more nor I know who made that lamp-post. I didn’t
know the taste of the stuff we smuggled for two years--didn’t know it
from small beer; I’ve known it well enough since, God knows. My missis
made a deal of money that time at Deptford Dockyard. The men wasn’t
paid and let out till twelve of a night--I hardly mind what night it
was, days was so alike then--and they was our customers till one,
two, or three in the morning--Sunday morning, for anything I know. I
don’t know what my missis gained; something jolly, there’s not a fear
of it. She was kind enough to me. I don’t know how long I was with
missis. After that I was a hopping, and made my 15_s._ regular at it,
and a haymaking; but I’ve had a pitch at my corner for thirty-eight
year--aye! turned thirty-eight. It’s no use asking me what I made at
first--I can’t tell; but I’m sure I made more than twice as much as my
daughter and me makes now, the two of us. I wish people that thinks
we’re idle now were with me for a day. I’d teach them. I don’t--that’s
the two of us don’t--make 15_s._ a week now, nor the half of it, when
all’s paid. D--d if I do. The d--d boys take care of that.” [Here I
had a statement of the boys’ tradings, similar to what I have given.]
“There’s ‘Canterbury’ has lots of boys, and they bother me. I can tell,
and always could, how it is with working men. When mechanics is in
good work, their children has halfpennies to spend with me. If they’re
hard up, there’s no halfpennies. The pennies go to a loaf or to buy a
candle. I might have saved money once, but had a misfortunate family.
My husband? O, never mind about him. D--n him. I’ve been a widow many
years. My son--it’s nothing how many children I have--is married; he
had the care of an ingine. But he lost it from ill health. It was in
a feather-house, and the flue got down his throat, and coughed him;
and so he went into the country, 108 miles off, to his wife’s mother.
But his wife’s mother got her living by wooding, and other ways, and
couldn’t help him or his wife; so he left, and he’s with me now. He
has a job sometimes with a greengrocer, at 6_d._ a day and a bit of
grub; a little bit--very. I must shelter him. I couldn’t turn him out.
If a Turk I knew was in distress, and I had only half a loaf, I’d
give him half of that, if he was ever such a Turk--I would, sir! Out
of 6_d._ a day, my son--poor fellow, he’s only twenty-seven!--wants a
bit of ’baccy and a pint of beer. It ’ud be unnatural to oppose that,
wouldn’t it, sir? He frets about his wife, that’s staying with her
mother, 108 miles off; and about his little girl; but I tell him to
wait, and he may have more little girls. God knows, they come when
they’re not wanted a bit. I joke and say all my old sweethearts is
dying away. Old Jemmy went off sudden. He lent me money sometimes, but
I always paid him. He had a public once, and had some money when he
died. I saw him the day afore he died. He was in bed, but wasn’t his
own man quite; though he spoke sensible enough to me. He said, said
he, ‘Won’t you have half a quartern of rum, as we’ve often had it?’
‘Certainly, Jemmy,’ says I, ‘I came for that very thing.’ Poor fellow!
his friends are quarrelling now about what he left. It’s 56_l._ they
say, and they’ll go to law very likely, and lose every thing. There’ll
be no such quarrelling when I die, unless it is for the pawn-tickets.
I get a meal now, and got a meal afore; but it was a better meal then,
sir. Then look at my expenses. I was a customer once. I used to buy,
and plenty such did, blue cloth aprons, opposite Drury-lane theatre:
the very shop’s there still, but I don’t know what it is now; I can’t
call to mind. I gave 2_s._ 6_d._ a yard, from twenty to thirty years
ago, for an apron, and it took two yards, and I paid 4_d._ for making
it, and so an apron cost 5_s._ 4_d._--that wasn’t much thought of in
those times. I used to be different off then. I never go to church; I
used to go when I was a little child at Sevenoaks. I suppose I was born
somewhere thereabouts. I’ve forgot what the inside of a church is like.
There’s no costermongers ever go to church, except the rogues of them,
that wants to appear good. I buy my fruit at Covent-garden. Apples is
now 4_s._ 6_d._ a bushel there. I may make twice that in selling them;
but a bushel may last me two, three, or four days.”
As I have already, under the street-sale of fish, given an account of
the oyster stall-keeper, as well as the stationary dealers in sprats,
and the principal varieties of wet fish, there is no necessity for me
to continue this part of my subject.
* * * * *
We have now, in a measure, finished with the metropolitan
costermongers. We have seen that the street-sellers of fish, fruit, and
vegetables constitute a large proportion of the London population;
the men, women, and children numbering at the least 30,000, and taking
as much as 2,000,000_l._ per annum. We have seen, moreover, that these
are the principal purveyors of food to the poor, and that consequently
they are as important a body of people as they are numerous. Of all
classes they _should_ be the most honest, since the poor, least of
all, can afford to be cheated; and yet it has been shown that the
consciences of the London costermongers, generally speaking, are as
little developed as their intellects; indeed, the moral and religious
state of these men is a foul disgrace to us, laughing to scorn our zeal
for the “propagation of the gospel in _foreign_ parts,” and making
our many societies for the civilization of savages on the other side
of the globe appear like a “delusion, a mockery, and a snare,” when
we have so many people sunk in the lowest depths of barbarism round
about our very homes. It is well to have Bishops of New Zealand when we
have Christianized all _our own_ heathen; but with 30,000 individuals,
in merely _one_ of our cities, utterly creedless, mindless, and
principleless, surely it would look more like earnestness on our parts
if we created Bishops of the New-Cut, and sent “right reverend fathers”
to watch over the “cure of souls” in the Broadway and the Brill. If our
sense of duty will not rouse us to do this, at least our regard for our
own interests should teach us, that it is not safe to allow this vast
dungheap of ignorance and vice to seethe and fester, breeding a social
pestilence in the very heart of our land. That the costermongers belong
essentially to the dangerous classes none can doubt; and those who know
a coster’s hatred of a “crusher,” will not hesitate to believe that
they are, as they themselves confess, one and all ready, upon the least
disturbance, to seize and disable their policeman.
It would be a marvel indeed if it were otherwise. Denied the right of
getting a living by the street authorities, after having, perhaps, been
supplied with the means of so doing by the parish authorities--the
stock which the one had provided seized and confiscated by the
other--law seems to them a mere farce, or at best, but the exercise
of an arbitrary and despotic power, against which they consider
themselves justified, whenever an opportunity presents itself, of using
the same physical force as it brings to bear against them. That they
are ignorant and vicious as they are, surely is not their fault. If
we were all born with learning and virtue, then might we, with some
show of justice, blame the costermongers for their want of both; but
seeing that even the most moral and intelligent of us owe the greater
part, if not the whole, of our wisdom and goodness to the tuition of
others, we must not in the arrogance of our self-conceit condemn these
men because they are not like ourselves, when it is evident that we
should have been as they are, had not some one done for us what we
refuse to do for them. We leave them destitute of all perception of
beauty, and therefore without any means of pleasure but through their
appetites, and then we are surprized to find their evenings are passed
either in brutalizing themselves with beer, or in gloating over the
mimic sensuality of the “penny gaff.” Without the least intellectual
culture is it likely, moreover, that they should have that perception
of antecedents and consequents which enables us to see in the shadows
of the past the types of the future--or that power of projecting the
mind into the space, as it were, of time, which we in Saxon-English
call fore-sight, and in Anglo-Latin pro-vidence--a power so godlike
that the latter term is often used by us to express the Godhead itself?
Is it possible, then, that men who are as much creatures of the present
as the beasts of the field--instinctless animals--should have the least
faculty of pre-vision? or rather is it not natural that, following
the most precarious of all occupations--one in which the subsistence
depends upon the weather of this the most variable climate of any--they
should fail to make the affluence of the fine days mitigate the
starvation of the rainy ones? or that their appetites, made doubly
eager by the privations suffered in their adversity, should be indulged
in all kinds of excess in their prosperity--their lives being thus, as
it were, a series of alternations between starvation and surfeit?
The fate of children brought up amid the influence of such scenes--with
parents starving one week and drunk all the next--turned loose into
the streets as soon as they are old enough to run alone--sent out to
sell in public-houses almost before they know how to put two halfpence
together--their tastes trained to libidinism long before puberty at
the penny concert, and their passions inflamed with the unrestrained
intercourse of the twopenny hops--the fate of the young, I say,
abandoned to the blight of such associations as these, cannot well be
otherwise than it is. If the child be father to the man, assuredly it
does not require a great effort of imagination to conceive the manhood
that such a childhood must necessarily engender.
Some months back Mr. Mayhew, with a view to mitigate what appeared
to him to be the chief evils of a street-seller’s life, founded “The
Friendly Association of London Costermongers,” the objects of which
were as follows:
1. To establish a Benefit and Provident Fund for insuring to each
Member a small weekly allowance in Sickness or Old Age, as well as a
certain sum to his family at his death, so that the Costermongers, when
incapacitated from labour, may not be forced to seek parochial relief,
nor, at their decease, be left to be buried by the parish.
2. To institute a Penny Savings’ Bank and Winter Fund, where the
smallest deposits will be received and bear interest, so that the
Costermongers may be encouraged to lay by even the most trivial sums,
not only as a provision for future comfort, but as the means of
assisting their poorer brethren with future loans.
3. To form a Small Loan Fund for supplying the more needy Costermongers
with Stock-Money, &c., at a fair and legitimate interest, instead of
the exorbitant rates that are now charged.
4. To promote the use of full weights and measures by every Member of
the Association, as well as a rigid inspection of the scales, &c., of
all other Costermongers, so that the honestly disposed Street-sellers
may be protected, and the public secured against imposition.
5. To protect the Costermongers from interference when lawfully
pursuing their calling, by placing it in their power to employ counsel
to defend them, if unjustly prosecuted.
6. To provide harmless, if not rational, amusements at the same
cheap rate as the pernicious entertainments now resorted to by the
Street-sellers.
7. To adopt means for the gratuitous education of the children of the
Costermongers, in the day time, and the men and women themselves in the
evening.
This institution remains at present comparatively in abeyance, from the
want of funds to complete the preliminary arrangements. Those, however,
who may feel inclined to contribute towards its establishment, will
please to pay their subscriptions into Messrs. Twinings’ Bank, Strand,
to the account of Thomas Hughes, Esq. (of 63, Upper Berkeley-street,
Portman-square), who has kindly consented to act as Treasurer to the
Association.
OF A PUBLIC MEETING OF STREET-SELLERS.
The Association above described arose out of a meeting of costermongers
and other street-folk, which was held, at my instance, on the evening
of the 12th of June last, in the National Hall, Holborn. The meeting
was announced as one of “street-sellers, street-performers, and
street-labourers,” but the costermongers were the great majority
present. The admission was by ticket, and the tickets, which were
of course gratuitous, were distributed by men familiar with all the
classes invited to attend. These men found the tickets received by
some of the street-people with great distrust; others could not be
made to understand why any one should trouble himself on their behoof;
others again, cheerfully promised their attendance. Some accused
the ticket distributors with having been bribed by the Government
or the police, though for what purpose was not stated. Some abused
them heartily, and some offered to treat them. At least 1,000 persons
were present at the meeting, of whom 731 presented their tickets; the
others were admitted, because they were known to the door-keepers,
and had either lost their tickets or had not the opportunity to
obtain them. The persons to whom cards of admission were given were
invited to write their names and callings on the backs, and the
cards so received gave the following result. Costermongers, 256;
fish-sellers, 28; hucksters, 23; lot-sellers, 18; street-labourers, 16;
paper-sellers and workers, 13; toy-sellers, 11; ginger-beer-sellers,
9; hardware-sellers, 9; general-dealers, 7; street-musicians, 5;
street-performers, 5; cakes and pastry-sellers, fried-fish-vendors, and
tinkers, each, 4; turf-vendors, street-exhibitors, strolling-players,
cat’s-meat-men, water-cress-sellers, stay-lace, and cotton-sellers,
each, 3; board-carriers, fruit-sellers, street-tradesmen, hawkers,
street-greengrocers, shell-fish-vendors, poulterers, mud-larks,
wire-workers, ballad-singers, crock-men, and booksellers, each, 2; the
cards also gave one each of the following avocations:--fly-cage-makers,
fly-paper-sellers, grinders, tripe-sellers, pattern-printers,
blind-paper-cutters, lace-collar-sellers, bird-sellers, bird-trainers,
pen-sellers, lucifer-merchants, watch-sellers, decorators, and
play-bill-sellers. 260 cards were given in without being indorsed with
any name or calling.