customer is bent upon a bargain, and shape their prices accordingly.
Although these street-sellers may generally take as their motto the
announcement so often seen in the shops of competitive tradesmen, “no
reasonable offer refused,” they are sometimes so worried in bargaining
that they _do_ refuse.
In a conversation I had with a “retired” game salesman, he said it
might be curious to trace the history of a brace of birds--of grouse,
for instance--sold in the streets; and he did it after this manner.
They were shot in the Highlands of Scotland by a member of parliament
who had gladly left the senate for the moors. They were transferred
to a tradesman who lived in or near some Scotch town having railway
communication, and with whom “the honourable gentleman,” or “the
noble lord,” had perhaps endeavoured to drive a hard bargain. He (the
senator) _must_ have a good price for his birds, as he had given a
large sum for the moor: and the season was a bad one: the birds were
scarce and wild: they would soon be “packed” (be in flocks of twenty
or thirty instead of in broods), and then there would be no touching a
feather of them. The canny Scot would quietly say that it was early in
the season, and the birds never packed so early; that as to price, he
could only give what he could get from a London salesman, and he was
“nae just free to enter into any agreement for a fixed price at a’.”
The honourable gentleman, after much demurring, gives way, feeling
perhaps that he cannot well do anything else. In due course the grouse
are received in Leadenhall, and unpacked and flung about with as little
ceremony as if they had been “slaughtered” by a Whitechapel journeyman
butcher, at so much a head. It is a thin market, perhaps, when they
come to hand. A dealer, fashionable in the parish of St. George,
Hanover-square, has declined to give the price demanded; they were not
his money; “he had to give such long credit.” A dealer, popular in
the ward of Cheap, has also declined to buy, and for the same alleged
reason. The salesman, knowing that some of these dealers _must_ buy,
quietly says that he will take no less, and as he is known to be a
man of his word, little is said upon the subject. As the hour arrives
at which fashionable game-dealers are compelled to buy, or disappoint
customers who will not brook such disappointment, the market, perhaps,
is glutted, owing to a very great consignment by a later railway train.
The _Inverness Courier_, or the _North of Scotland Gazette_, are in due
course quoted by the London papers, touching the “extraordinary sport”
of a party of lords and gentlemen in the Highlands; and the “heads” of
game are particularized with a care that would do honour to a _Price
Current_. The salesman then disposes rapidly of divers “brace” to the
“hawkers,” at 1_s._ or 2_s._ the brace, and the hawker offers them to
hotel-keepers, and shop-keepers, and housekeepers, selling some at
3_s._ 6_d._ the brace, some at 3_s._, at 2_s._ 6_d._, at 2_s._, and at
less. “At last,” said my informant, “he may sell the finest brace of
his basket, which he has held back to get a better price for, at 6_d._
a-piece, rather than keep them over-night, and that to a woman of the
town, whom he may have met reeling home with money in her purse. Thus
the products of an honourable gentleman’s skilful industry, on which
he greatly prided himself, are eaten by the woman and her ‘fancy man,’
grumblingly enough, for they pronounce the birds inferior to tripe.”
The best quarters for the street-sale of game and poultry are, I
am informed from several sources, either the business parts of the
metropolis, or else the houses in the several suburbs which are the
furthest from a market or from a business part. The squares, crescents,
places, and streets, that do not partake of one or the other of these
characteristics, are pronounced “no good.”
OF THE EXPERIENCE OF A GAME HAWKER.
The man who gave me the following information was strong and robust,
and had a weather-beaten look. He seemed about fifty. He wore when I
saw him a large velveteen jacket, a cloth waistcoat which had been once
green, and brown corduroy trousers. No part of his attire, though it
seemed old, was patched, his shirt being clean and white. He evidently
aimed at the gamekeeper style of dress. He affected some humour, and
was dogged in his opinions:
“I was a gentleman’s footman when I was a young man,” he said, “and
saw life both in town and country; so I knows what things belongs.” [A
common phrase among persons of his class to denote their being men of
the world.] “I never liked the confinement of service, and besides
the upper servants takes on so. The others puts up with it more than
they would, I suppose, because they hopes to be butlers themselves in
time. The only decent people in the house I lived in last was master
and missus. I won 20_l._, and got it too, on the Colonel, when he
won the Leger. Master was a bit of a turf gentleman, and so we all
dabbled--like master like man, you know, sir. I think that was in 1828,
but I’m not certain. We came to London not long after Doncaster” [he
meant Doncaster races], “something about a lawsuit, and that winter I
left service and bought the goodwill of a coffee-shop for 25_l._ It
didn’t answer. I wasn’t up to the coffee-making, I think; there’s a
deal of things belongs to all things; so I got out of it, and after
that I was in service again, and then I was a boots at an inn. But
I couldn’t settle to nothing long; I’m of a free spirit, you see. I
was hard up at last, and I popped my watch for a sovereign, because
a friend of mine--we sometimes drank together of a night--said he
could put me in the pigeon and chicken line; that was what he called
it, but it meant game. This just suited me, for I’d been out with
the poachers when I was a lad, and indeed when I was in service, out
of a night on the sly; so I knew they got stiffish prices. My friend
got me the pigeons. I believe he cheated me, but he’s gone to glory.
The next season game was made legal eating. Before that I cleared
from 25_s._ to 40_s._ a week by selling my ‘pigeons.’ I carried real
pigeons as well, which I said was my own rearing at Gravesend. I sold
my game pigeons--there was all sorts of names for them--in the City,
and sometimes in the Strand, or Charing-cross, or Covent-garden. I
sold to shopkeepers. Oft enough I’ve been offered so much tea for a
hare. I sometimes had a hare in each pocket, but they was very awkward
carriage; if one was sold, the other sagged so. I very seldom sold
them, at that time, at less than 3_s._ 6_d._, often 4_s._ 6_d._, and
sometimes 5_s._ or more. I once sold a thumping old jack-hare to a
draper for 6_s._; it was Christmas time, and he thought it was a
beauty. I went into the country after that, among my friends, and had
a deal of ups and downs in different parts. I was a navvy part of the
time, till five or six year back I came to London again, and got into
my old trade; but it’s quite a different thing now. I hawks grouse,
and every thing, quite open. Leadenhall and Newgate is my markets.
Six of one and half-a-dozen of t’other. When there’s a great arrival
of game, after a game battle” (he would so call a _battue_) “and it’s
warm weather, that’s my time of day, for then I can buy cheap. A muggy
day, when it’s close and warm, is best of all. I have a tidy bit of
connection now in game, and don’t touch poultry when I can get game.
Grouse is the first thing I get to sell. They are legal eating on the
12th of August, but as there’s hundreds of braces sold in London that
day, and as they’re shot in Scotland and Yorkshire, and other places
where there’s moors, in course they’re killed before it’s legal. It’s
not often I can get them early in the season; not the first week,
but I have had three brace two days before they were legal, and sold
them at 5_s._ a brace; they cost me 3_s._ 3_d._, but I was told I
was favoured. I got them of a dealer, but that’s a secret. I sold a
few young partridges with grouse this year at 1_s._ 6_d._ and 1_s._
9_d._ a piece, allowing 2_d._ or 3_d._ if a brace was taken. They
weren’t legal eating till the 1st of September, but they was shot by
grouse shooters, and when I hawked them I called them quails. Lord,
sir, gentlefolks--and I serve a good many, leastways their cooks, and
now and then themselves--_they_ don’t make a fuss about Game Laws;
they’ve too much sense. I’ve bought grouse quite fresh and fine when
there’s been a lot, and bad keeping weather, at 1_s._ and 15_d._
each. I’ve sold them sometimes at 1_s._ 6_d._ and 2_s._ each, and
2_s._ 6_d._ the big ones, but only twice or thrice. If you ask very
low at first, people won’t buy, only a few good judges, ’cause they
think something must be amiss. I once bought a dozen good hares, on
a Saturday afternoon, for 10_s._ 6_d._ It was jolly hot, and I could
hardly sell them. I got 1_s._ 6_d._ a piece for three of them; 2_s._
for the finest one; 1_s._ 3_d._ for five, no, for four; 1_s._ 10_d._
for two; and I had a deal of trouble to get a landlord to take the last
two for 1_s._ 6_d._, to wipe off a bit of a drink score. I didn’t do
so bad as it was, but if it hadn’t been Saturday, I should have made
a good thing of ’em. It’s very hard work carrying a dozen hares; and
every one of that lot--except two, and _they_ was fine leverets--was
as cheap as butcher’s meat at half-a-crown a piece. I’ve done middling
in partridges this year. I’ve bought them, but mixed things they was,
as low as from 10_d._ to 16_d._ a brace, and have made a profit, big
or little as happened, on every one. People that’s regular customers I
always charge 6_d._ profit in 2_s._ 6_d._ to, and that’s far cheaper
than they can get served other ways. It’s chiefly the game battles that
does so much to cheapen partridges or peasants” (so he always called
pheasants); “and it’s only then I meddles with peasants. They’re sold
handier than the other birds at the shops, I think. They’re legal
eating on the 1st of October. Such nonsense! why isn’t mutton made
legal eating, only just at times, as well? In very hard weather I’ve
done well on wild ducks. They come over here when the weather’s a
clipper, for you see cold weather suits some birds and kills others.
It aint hard weather that’s driven them here; the frost has drawed
them here, because it’s only then they’re cheap. I’ve bought beauties
at 1_s._ a piece, and one day I cleared 10_s._ 6_d._ out of twelve
brace of them. I’ve often cleared 6_s._ and 7_s._--at least as often
as there’s been a chance. I knew a man that did uncommon well on them;
and he once told a parson, or a journeyman parson, I don’t know what
he was, that if ever _he_ prayed it was for a hard winter and lots of
wild ducks. I’ve done a little sometimes in plover, and woodcock, and
snipe, but not so much. I never plays no tricks with _my_ birds. I
trims them up to look well, certainly. If they won’t keep, and won’t
sell, I sticks them into a landlord I knows, as likes them high, for
a quartern or a pot, or anything. It’s often impossible to keep them.
If they’re hard hit it’s soon up with them. A sportsman, if he has a
good dog--but you’ll know that if you’ve ever been a shooting, sir--may
get close upon a covey of young partridges before he springs them, and
then give them his one, two, with both barrels, and they’re riddled to
bits. I may make 18_s._ a week all the year round, because I have a
connection. I’m very much respected, I thinks, on my round, for I deal
fair; that there, sir, breeds respect, you know. When I can’t get game
(birds) I can sometimes, indeed often, get hares, and mostly rabbits.
I’ve hawked venson, but did no good--though I cried it at 4_d._ the lb.
My best weeks is worth 30_s._ to 35_s._, my worst is 6_s._ to 10_s._
I’m a good deal in the country, working it. I’m forced to sell fish
sometimes. Geese I sometimes join a mate in selling. I don’t mix much
with the costermongers; in coorse I knows some. I live middling. Do I
ever eat my own game if it’s high? No, sir, never. I couldn’t stand
such cag-mag--my stomach couldn’t--though I’ve been a gentleman’s
servant. Such stuff don’t suit nobody but rich people, whose stomach’s
diseased by over-feeding, and that’s been brought up to it, like. I’ve
only myself to keep now. I’ve had a wife or two, but we parted” (this
was said gravely enough); “there was nothing to hinder us. I see them
sometimes and treat them.”
The quantity of game annually sold in the London streets is as
follows:--
Grouse 5,000
Partridges 20,000
Pheasants 12,000
Snipes 5,000
Hares 20,000
STATEMENT OF TWO POULTRY HAWKERS.
Two brothers, both good-looking and well-spoken young men--one I
might characterise as handsome--gave me the following account. I
found them unwilling to speak of their youth, and did not press them.
I was afterwards informed that their parents died within the same
month, and that the family was taken into the workhouse; but the two
boys left it in a little time, and before they could benefit by any
schooling. Neither of them could read or write. They left, I believe,
with some little sum in hand, to “start theirselves.” An intelligent
costermonger, who was with me when I saw the two brothers, told me that
“a costermonger would rather be thought to have come out of prison
than out of a workhouse,” for his “mates” would say, if they heard he
had been locked up, “O, he’s only been quodded for pitching into a
crusher.” The two brothers wore clean smock country frocks over their
dress, and made a liberal display of their clean, but coarse, shirts.
It was on a Monday that I saw them. What one brother said, the other
confirmed: so I use the plural “we.”
“We sell poultry and game, but stick most to poultry, which suits
our connection best. We buy at Leadenhall. We’re never cheated in
the things we buy; indeed, perhaps, we could’nt be. A salesman will
say--Mr. H---- will--‘Buy, if you like, I can’t recommend them. Use
your own judgment. They’re cheap.’ He has only one price, and that’s
often a low one. We give from 1_s._ to 1_s._ 9_d._ for good chickens,
and from 2_s._ 6_d._ mostly for geese and turkeys. Pigeons is 1_s._
9_d._ to 3_s._ a dozen. We aim at 6_d._ profit on chickens; and 1_s._,
if we can get it, or 6_d._ if we can do no better, on geese and
turkeys. Ducks are the same as chickens. All the year through, we may
make 12_s._ a week a piece. We work together, one on one side of the
street and the other on the other. It answers best that way. People
find we can’t undersell one another. We buy the poultry, whenever
we can, undressed, and dress them ourselves; pull the feathers off
and make them ready for cooking. We sell cheaper than the shops, or
we couldn’t sell at all. But you must be known, to do any trade, or
people will think your poultry’s bad. We work game as well, but mostly
poultry. We’ve been on hares to-day, mostly, and have made about
2_s._ 6_d._ a piece, but that’s an extra day. Our best customers are
tradesmen in a big way, and people in the houses a little way out of
town. Working people don’t buy of us now. We’re going to a penny gaff
to-night” (it was then between four and five); “we’ve no better way of
spending our time when our day’s work is done.”
From the returns before given, the street-sale of poultry amounts
yearly to
500,000 fowls.
80,000 ducks.
20,000 geese.
30,000 turkeys.
OF THE STREET SALE OF LIVE POULTRY.
The street trade in live poultry is not considerable, and has become
less considerable every year, since the facilities of railway
conveyance have induced persons in the suburbs to make their purchases
in London rather than of the hawkers. Geese used to be bought very
largely by the hawkers in Leadenhall, and were driven in flocks to the
country, 500 being a frequent number of a flock. Their sale commenced
about six miles from town in all directions, the purchasers being
those who, having the necessary convenience, liked to fatten their own
Christmas geese, and the birds when bought were small and lean. A few
flocks, with 120 or 150 in each, are still disposed of in this way; but
the trade is not a fifth of what it was. As this branch of the business
is not in the hands of the hawkers, but generally of country poulterers
resident in the towns not far from the metropolis, I need but allude to
it. A few flocks of ducks are driven in the same way.
The street trade in live poultry continues only for three months--from
the latter part of June to the latter part of September. At this
period, the hawkers say, as they can’t get “dead” they must get
“live.” During these three months the hawkers sell 500 chickens and
300 ducks weekly, by hawking, or 10,400 in the season of 13 weeks.
Occasionally, as many as 50 men and women--the same who hawk dead game
and poultry--are concerned in the traffic I am treating of. At other
times there are hardly 30, and in some not 20 so employed, for if the
weather be temperate, dead poultry is preferred to live by the hawkers.
Taking the average of “live” sellers at 25 every week, it gives only a
trade of 32 birds each weekly. Some, however, will sell 18 in a day;
but others, who occasionally resort to the trade, only a dozen in a
week. The birds are sometimes carried in baskets on the hawker’s arm,
their heads being let through network at the top; but more frequently
they are hawked in open wicker-work coops carried on the head. The best
live poultry are from Surrey and Sussex; the inferior from Ireland, and
perhaps more than three-fourths of that sold by the hawkers is Irish.
The further nature of the trade, and the class of customers, is shown
in the following statement, given to me by a middle-aged man, who had
been familiar with the trade from his youth.
“Yes, sir,” he said, “I’ve had a turn at live poultry for--let me
see--someways between twenty and twenty-five years. The business is
a sweater, sir; it’s heavy work, but ‘live’ aint so heavy as ‘dead.’
There’s fewer of them to carry in a round, that’s it. Ah! twenty years
ago, or better, live poultry was worth following. I did a good bit in
it. I’ve sold 160 fowls and ducks, and more, in a week, and cleared
about 4_l._ But out of that I had to give a man 1_s._ a day, and his
peck, to help me. At that time I sold my ducks and chickens--I worked
nothing else--at from 2_s._ to 3_s._ 6_d._ a piece, according to size
and quality. Now, if I get from 14_d._ to 2_s._ it’s not so bad. I
sell more, I think, however, over 1_s._ 6_d._ than under it, but I’m
perticler in my ‘live.’ I never sold to any but people out of town that
had convenience to keep them, and Lord knows, I’ve seen ponds I could
jump over reckoned prime for ducks. Them that keeps their gardens nice
won’t buy live poultry. I’ve seldom sold to the big houses anything
like to what I’ve done to the smaller. The big houses, you see, goes
for fancy bantems, such as Sir John Seabright’s, or Spanish hens, or
a bit of a game cross, or real game--just for ornament, and not for
fighting--or for anything that’s got its name up. I’ve known young
couples buy fowls to have their breakfast eggs from them. One young
lady told me to bring her--that’s fifteen year ago, it is so--six
couples, that I knew would lay. I told her she’d better have five hens
to a cock, and she didn’t seem pleased, but I’m sure I don’t know why,
for I hope I’m always civil. I told her there would be murder if there
was a cock to every hen. I supplied her, and made 6_s._ by the job. I
_have_ sold live fowls to the Jews about Whitechapel, on my way to
Stratford and Bow, but only when I’ve bought a bargain and sold one.
I don’t know nothing how the Jews kills their fowls. Last summer I
didn’t make 1_s._ 6_d._ a day; no, nor more than three half-crowns a
week in ‘live.’ But that’s only part of my trade. I don’t complain,
so it’s nothing to nobody what I makes. From Beever (De Beauvoir)
Town to Stamford Hill, and on to Tottenham and Edmonton, and turning
off Walthamstow way is as good a round as any for live; it is so; but
nothing to what it was. Highgate and Hampstead is middling. The t’other
side the water isn’t good at all.”
[Illustration: THE WALLFLOWER GIRL.
[_From a Daguerreotype by_ BEARD.]]
Fancy chickens, I may add, are never hawked, nor are live pigeons, nor
geese, nor turkeys.
The hawkers’ sale of live poultry may be taken, at a moderate
computation, as 6,500 chickens, and 3,900 ducks.
OF RABBIT SELLING IN THE STREETS.
Rabbit-selling cannot be said to be a distinct branch of
costermongering, but some street-sellers devote themselves to it more
exclusively than to other “goods,” and, for five or six months of the
year, sell little else. It is not often, though it is sometimes, united
with the game or poultry trade, as a stock of rabbits, of a dozen or a
dozen and a half, is a sufficient load for one man. The best sale for
rabbits is in the suburbs. They are generally carried slung two and
two on a long pole, which is supported on the man’s shoulders, or on a
short one which is carried in the hand. Lately, they have been hawked
about hung up on a barrow. The trade is the briskest in the autumn and
winter months; but some men carry them, though they do not confine
themselves to the traffic in them, all the year round. The following
statement shows the nature of the trade.
“I was born and bred a costermonger,” he said, “and I’ve been concerned
with everything in the line. I’ve been mostly ‘on rabbits’ these five
or six years, but I always sold a few, and now sometimes I sell a
hare or two, and, if rabbits is too dear, I tumble on to fish. I buy
at Leadenhall mainly. I’ve given from 6_s._ to 14_s._ a dozen for my
rabbits. The usual price is from 5_s._ to 8_s._ a dozen. [I may remark
that the costers buy nearly all the Scotch rabbits, at an average of
6_s._ the dozen; and the Ostend rabbits, which are a shilling or two
dearer.] They’re Hampshire rabbits; but I don’t know where Hampshire
is. I know they’re from Hampshire, for they’re called ‘Wild Hampshire
rabbits, 1_s._ a pair.’ But still, as you say, that’s only a call.
I never sell a rabbit at 6_d._, in course--it costs more. My way in
business is to get 2_d._ profit, and the skin, on every rabbit. If they
cost me 8_d._, I try to get 10_d._ It’s the skins is the profit. The
skins now brings me from 1_s._ to 1_s._ 9_d._ a dozen. They’re best
in frosty weather. The fur’s thickest then. It grows best in frost, I
suppose. If I sell a dozen, it’s a tidy day’s work. If I get 2_d._
a-piece on them, and the skins at 1_s._ 3_d._, it’s 3_s._ 3_d._, but I
dont sell above 5 dozen in a week--that’s 16_s._ 3_d._ a week, sir, is
it? Wet and dark weather is against me. People won’t often buy rabbits
by candlelight, if they’re ever so sweet. Some weeks in spring and
summer I can’t sell above two dozen rabbits. I have sold two dozen and
ten on a Saturday in the country, but then I had a young man to help
me. I sell the skins to a warehouse for hatters. My old ’oman works a
little fish at a stall sometimes, but she only can in fine weather,
for we’ve a kid that can hardly walk, and it don’t do to let it stand
out in the cold. Perhaps I may make 10_s._ to 14_s._ a week all the
year round. I’m paying 1_s._ a week for 1_l._ borrowed, and paid 2_s._
all last year; but I’ll pay no more after Christmas. I did better on
rabbits four or five year back, because I sold more to working-people
and small shopkeepers than I do now. I suppose it’s because they’re not
so well off now as they was then, and, as you say, butchers’-meat may
be cheaper now, and tempts them. I do best short ways in the country.
Wandsworth way ain’t bad. No more is parts of Stoke-Newington and
Stamford-hill. St. John’s Wood and Hampstead is middling. Hackney’s
bad. I goes all ways. I dont know what sort of people’s my best
customers. Two of ’em, I’ve been told, is banker’s clerks, so in course
they is rich.”
There are 600,000 rabbits sold every year in the streets of London;
these, at 7_d._ a-piece, give 17,500_l._ thus expended annually in the
metropolis.
OF THE STREET SALE OF BUTTER, CHEESE, AND EGGS.