is given to those birds more than any other green thing. It is the ripe
seed, in a spike, of the “great” and the “ribbed” plantain. The green
leaves of the last-mentioned plant used to be in demand as a styptick.
Shenstone speaks of “plantain ribbed, that heals the reaper’s wound.”
I believe that it was never sold in the streets of London. The most of
the plantain is gathered in the brick-fields, wherever they are found,
as the greater plantain, which gives three-fourths of the supply, loves
an arid situation. It is sold in hands to the shops, about 60 “heads”
going to a “hand,” at a price, according to size, &c., from 1_d._ to
4_d._ On a private round, five or six are given for a halfpenny. It is,
however, generally gathered and sold with chickweed, and along with
chickweed I have shown the quantity used.
* * * * *
The money-value of the several kinds and quantities of “green-stuff”
annually purchased in the streets of London is as follows:--
6,696,450 bunches of water-cresses, at 1/2_d._ per bunch £13,950
5,616,000 „ groundsel, at 1/2_d._ 11,700
1,120,800 „ chickweed and plantain 2,335
660,000 turfs, at 2-1/2_d._ per doz. 572
-------
28,557
Of the above amount, it may be said that upwards of 14,000_l._ are
spent yearly on what may be called the bird-food of London.
OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF EATABLES AND DRINKABLES.
These dealers were more numerous, even when the metropolitan population
was but half its present extent. I heard several causes assigned for
this,--such as the higher rate of earnings of the labouring people
at that time, as well as the smaller number of shopkeepers who deal
in such cheap luxuries as penny pies, and the fewer places of cheap
amusement, such as the “penny gaffs.” These places, I was told, “run
away with the young people’s pennies,” which were, at one period,
expended in the streets.
The class engaged in the manufacture, or in the sale, of these
articles, are a more intelligent people than the generality of
street-sellers. They have nearly all been mechanics who, from inability
to procure employment at their several crafts--from dislike to an
irksome and, perhaps, sedentary confinement--or from an overpowering
desire “to be their own masters,” have sought a livelihood in the
streets. The purchase and sale of fish, fruit, or vegetables require
no great training or deftness; but to make the dainties, in which
street-people are critical, and to sell them at the lowest possible
price, certainly requires some previous discipline to produce the skill
to combine and the taste to please.
I may here observe, that I found it common enough among these
street-sellers to describe themselves and their fraternity not by
their names or callings, but by the article in which they deal. This
is sometimes ludicrous enough: “Is the man you’re asking about a
pickled whelk, sir?” was said to me. In answer to another inquiry, I
was told, “Oh, yes, I know him--he’s a sweet-stuff.” Such ellipses, or
abbreviations, are common in all mechanical or commercial callings.
Men and women, and most especially boys, purchase their meals day
after day in the streets. The coffee-stall supplies a warm breakfast;
shell-fish of many kinds tempt to a luncheon; hot-eels or pea-soup,
flanked by a potato “all hot,” serve for a dinner; and cakes and tarts,
or nuts and oranges, with many varieties of pastry, confectionary, and
fruit, woo to indulgence in a dessert; while for supper there is a
sandwich, a meat pudding, or a “trotter.”
The street provisions consist of cooked or prepared victuals, which may
be divided into solids, pastry, confectionary, and drinkables.
The “solids” however, of these three divisions, are such as only
regular street-buyers consider to be sufficing for a substantial meal,
for it will be seen that the comestibles accounted “good for dinner,”
are all of a _dainty_, rather than a solid character. Men whose lives,
as I have before stated, are alternations of starvation and surfeit,
love some easily-swallowed and comfortable food, better than the most
approved substantiality of a dinner-table. I was told by a man, who was
once foodless for thirty-eight hours, that in looking into the window
of a cook-shop--he longed far more for a basin of soup than for a cut
from the boiled round, or the roasted ribs, of beef. He felt a gnawing
rather than a ravenous desire, and some tasty semi-liquid was the
incessant object of his desires.
The solids then, according to street estimation, consist of hot-eels,
pickled whelks, oysters, sheep’s-trotters, pea-soup, fried fish,
ham-sandwiches, hot green peas, kidney puddings, boiled meat puddings,
beef, mutton, kidney, and eel pies, and baked potatos. In each of these
provisions the street poor find a mid-day or mid-night meal.
The pastry and confectionary which tempt the street eaters are tarts of
rhubarb, currant, gooseberry, cherry, apple, damson, cranberry, and (so
called) mince pies; plum dough and plum-cake; lard, currant, almond and
many other varieties of cakes, as well as of tarts; gingerbread-nuts
and heart-cakes; Chelsea buns; muffins and crumpets; “sweet stuff”
includes the several kinds of rocks, sticks, lozenges, candies, and
hard-bakes; the medicinal confectionary of cough-drops and horehound;
and, lastly, the more novel and aristocratic luxury of street-ices; and
strawberry cream, at 1_d._ a glass, (in Greenwich Park).
The drinkables are tea, coffee, and cocoa; ginger-beer, lemonade,
Persian sherbet, and some highly-coloured beverages which have no
specific name, but are introduced to the public as “cooling” drinks;
hot elder cordial or wine; peppermint water; curds and whey; water (as
at Hampstead); rice milk; and milk in the parks.
At different periods there have been attempts to introduce more
substantial viands into the street provision trade, but all within
these twenty years have been exceptional and unsuccessful. One man
a few years back established a portable cook-shop in Leather-lane,
cutting out portions of the joints to be carried away or eaten on the
spot, at the buyer’s option. But the speculation was a failure. Black
puddings used to be sold, until a few years back, smoking from cans,
not unlike potato cans, in such places as the New Cut; but the trade in
these rather suspicious articles gradually disappeared.
Mr. Albert Smith, who is an acute observer in all such matters, says,
in a lively article on the Street Boys of London:
“The kerb is his club, offering all the advantages of one of those
institutions without any subscription or ballot. Had he a few pence,
he might dine equally well as at Blackwall, and with the same variety
of delicacies without going twenty yards from the pillars of St.
Clement’s churchyard. He might begin with a water _souchée_ of eels,
varying his first course with pickled whelks, cold fried flounders,
or periwinkles. Whitebait, to be sure, he would find a difficulty
in procuring, but as the more cunning gourmands do not believe these
delicacies to be fish at all, but merely little bits of light pie-crust
fried in grease;--and as moreover, the brown bread and butter is after
all the grand attraction,--the boy might soon find a substitute. Then
would come the potatos, apparently giving out so much steam that the
can which contains them seems in momentary danger of blowing up;
large, hot, mealy fellows, that prove how unfounded were the alarms
of the bad-crop-ites; and he might next have a course of boiled feet
of some animal or other, which he would be certain to find in front
of the gin-shop. Cyder-cups perhaps he would not get; but there would
be ‘ginger-beer from the fountain, at 1_d._ per glass;’ and instead
of mulled claret, he could indulge in hot elder cordial; whilst for
dessert he could calculate upon all the delicacies of the season, from
the salads at the corner of Wych-street to the baked apples at Temple
Bar. None of these things would cost more than a penny a piece; some
of them would be under that sum; and since as at Verey’s, and some
other foreign restaurateurs, there is no objection to your dividing the
“portions,” the boy might, if he felt inclined to give a dinner to a
friend, get off under 6_d._ There would be the digestive advantage too
of moving leisurely about from one course to another; and, above all,
there would be no fee to waiters.” After alluding to the former glories
of some of the street-stands, more especially of the kidney pudding
establishments which displayed rude transparencies, one representing
the courier of St. Petersburg riding six horses at once for a kidney
pudding, Mr. Smith continues,--“But of all these eating-stands the
chief favourite with the boy is the potato-can. They collect around
it as they would do on ’Change, and there talk over local matters, or
discuss the affairs of the adjacent cab-stand, in which they are at
times joined by the waterman whom they respect, more so perhaps than
the policeman; certainly more than they do the street-keeper, for him
they especially delight to annoy, and they watch any of their fellows
eating a potato, with a curiosity and an attention most remarkable, as
if no two persons fed in the same manner, and they expected something
strange or diverting to happen at every mouthful.”
A gentleman, who has taken an artist’s interest in all connected
with the streets, and has been familiar with their daily and nightly
aspect from the commencement of the present century, considers that
the great change is not so much in what has ceased to be sold, but
in the introduction of fresh articles into street-traffic--such as
pine-apples and Brazil-nuts, rhubarb and cucumbers, ham-sandwiches,
ginger-beer, &c. The coffee-stall, he represents, has but superseded
the saloop-stall (of which I have previously spoken); while the class
of street-customers who supported the saloop-dealer now support the
purveyor of coffee. The _appearance_ of the two stalls, however, seen
before daybreak, with their respective customers, on a bleak winter’s
morning, was very different. Round the saloop-stall was a group--hardly
discernible at a little distance in the dimly-lighted streets--the
prominent figures being of two callings now extinct--the climbing-boy
and the old hackney-coachman.
The little sweep _would_ have his saloop smoking hot--and there was the
common appliance of a charcoal grate--regaling himself with the savoury
steam until the mess was cool enough for him to swallow; whilst he
sought to relieve his naked feet from the numbing effects of the cold
by standing now on the right foot and now on the left, and swinging the
other to and fro, until a change of posture was necessitated; his white
teeth the while gleamed from his sooty visage as he gleefully licked
his lips at the warm and oily breakfast.
The old hackney-coachman was wrapped up in a many-caped great coat,
drab--when it left the tailor’s hands some years before--but then
worn and discoloured, and, perhaps, patched or tattered; its weight
alone, however, communicated a sort of warmth to the wearer; his legs
were closely and artistically “wisped” with hay-bands; and as he kept
smiting his chest with his arms, “to keep the cold out,” while his
saloop was cooling, he would, in no very gentle terms, express his
desire to add to its comforting influence the stimulant of a “flash of
lightning,” a “go of rum,” or a “glass of max,”--for so a dram of neat
spirit was then called.
The old watchman of that day, too, almost as heavily coated as the
hackneyman, would sometimes partake of the street “Saloop-loop-loop!
_Sa_-loop!” The woman of the town, in “looped and windowed raggedness,”
the outcast of the very lowest class, was at the saloop, as she is
now and then at the coffee-stall, waiting until daylight drove her to
her filthy lodging-house. But the climbing-boy has, happily, left no
successor; the hackneyman has been succeeded by the jauntier cabman;
and the taciturn old watchman by the lounging and trim policeman.
Another class of street-sellers, no longer to be seen, were the
“barrow-women.” They sold fruit of all kinds, little else, in very
clean white barrows, and their fruit was excellent, and purchased by
the wealthier classes. They were, for the most part, Irish women, and
some were remarkable for beauty. Their dress was usually a good chintz
gown, the skirt being tidily tucked or pinned up behind, “in a way,”
said one informant, “now sometimes seen on the stage when correctness
of costume is cared for.” These women were prosperous in their calling,
nor was there any imputation on their chastity, as the mothers were
almost always wives.
Concerning the bygone street-cries, I had also the following account
from the personal observation of an able correspondent:--
“First among the old ‘musical cries,’ may be cited the ‘Tiddy
Doll!’--immortalised by Hogarth--then comes the last person, who, with
a fine bass voice, coaxed his customers to buy _sweets_ with, ‘Quack,
quack, quack, quack! Browns, browns, browns! have you got any mouldy
browns?’ There was a man, too, who sold tripe, &c., in this way, and
to some purpose; he was as fine a man as ever stepped, and his deep
rich voice would ring through a whole street, ‘Dog’s-meat! cat’s-meat!
nice tripe! neat’s feet! Come buy my trotters!’ The last part would
not have disgraced Lablache. He discovered a new way of pickling
tripe--got on--made contracts for supplying the Navy during the war,
and acquired a large property. One of our most successful artists is
his grandson. Then there was that delight of our childhood--the eight
o’clock ‘Hot spiced gingerbread! hot spiced gingerbread! buy my spiced
gingerbread! sm-o-o-king hot!’” Another informant remembered a very
popular character (among the boys), whose daily cry was: “Hot spiced
gingerbread nuts, nuts, nuts! If _one_’ll warm you, _wha-at_’ll a pound
do?--_Wha-a-a-at_’ll a pound do?” Gingerbread was formerly in much
greater demand than it is now.
OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF PEA-SOUP AND HOT EELS.
Two of the condiments greatly relished by the chilled labourers and
others who regale themselves on street luxuries, are “pea-soup” and
“hot eels.” Of these tradesmen there may be 500 now in the streets on
a Saturday. As the two trades are frequently carried on by the same
party, I shall treat of them together. The greatest number of these
stands is in Old-street, St. Luke’s, about twenty. In warm weather
these street-cooks deal only in “hot eels” and whelks; as the whelk
trade is sometimes an accompaniment of the others, for then the
soup will not sell. These dealers are stationary, having stalls or
stands in the street, and the savoury odour from them attracts more
hungry-looking gazers and longers than does a cook-shop window. They
seldom move about, but generally frequent the same place. A celebrated
dealer of this class has a stand in Clare-street, Clare-market,
opposite a cat’s-meat shop; he has been heard to boast, that he
wouldn’t soil his hands at the business if he didn’t get his 30_s._ a
day, and his 2_l._ 10_s._ on a Saturday. Half this amount is considered
to be about the truth. This person has mostly all the trade for hot
eels in the Clare-market district. There is another “hot eel purveyor”
at the end of Windmill-street, Tottenham-court-road, that does a very
good trade. It is thought that he makes about 5_s._ a day at the
business, and about 10_s._ on Saturday. There was, before the removals,
a man who came out about five every afternoon, standing in the New-cut,
nearly opposite the Victoria Theatre, his “girl” always attending to
the stall. He had two or three lamps with “hot eels” painted upon
them, and a handsome stall. He was considered to make about 7_s._ a
day by the sale of eels alone, but he dealt in fried fish and pickled
whelks as well, and often had a pile of fried fish a foot high. Near
the Bricklayers’ Arms, at the junction of the Old and New Kent-roads,
a hot-eel man dispenses what a juvenile customer assured me was “as
spicy as any in London, as if there was gin in it.” But the dealer in
Clare-market does the largest trade of all in the hot-eel line. He is
“the head man.” On one Saturday he was known to sell 100lbs. of eels,
and on most Saturdays he will get rid of his four “draughts” of eels (a
draught being 20lbs.) He and his son are dressed in Jenny Lind hats,
bound with blue velvet, and both dispense the provisions, while the
daughter attends to wash the cups. “On a Sunday, anybody,” said my
informant, “would think him the first nobleman or squire in the land,
to see him dressed in his white hat, with black crape round it, and his
drab paletot and mother-o’-pearl buttons, and black kid gloves, with
the fingers too long for him.”
I may add, that even the very poorest, who have only a halfpenny to
spend, as well as those with better means, resort to the stylish
stalls in preference to the others. The eels are all purchased at
Billingsgate early in the morning. The parties themselves, or their
sons or daughters, go to Billingsgate, and the watermen row them to
the Dutch eel vessels moored off the market. The fare paid to the
watermen is 1_d._ for every 10lbs. purchased and brought back in the
boat, the passenger being gratis. These dealers generally trade on
their own capital; but when some have been having “a flare up,” and
have “broke down for stock,” to use the words of my informant, they
borrow 1_l._, and pay it back in a week or a fortnight at the outside,
and give 2_s._ for the loan of it. The money is usually borrowed of
the barrow, truck, and basket-lenders. The amount of capital required
for carrying on the business of course depends on the trade done;
but even in a small way, the utensils cost 1_l._ They consist of one
fish-kettle and one soup-kettle, holding upon an average three gallons
each; besides these, five basins and five cups and ten spoons are
required, also a washhand basin to wash the cups, basins, and spoons
in, and a board and tressel on which the whole stand. In a large way,
it requires from 3_l._ to 4_l._ to fit up a handsome stall. For this
the party would have “two fine kettles,” holding about four gallons
each, and two patent cast-iron fireplaces (the 1_l._ outfit only admits
of the bottoms of two tin saucepans being used as fireplaces, in which
charcoal is always burning to keep the eels and soup hot; the whelks
are always eaten cold). The crockery and spoons would be in no way
superior. A small dealer requires, over and above this sum, 10_s._ to
go to market with and purchase stock, and the large dealer about 30_s._
The class of persons belonging to the business have either been bred to
it, or taken to it through being out of work. Some have been disabled
during their work, and have resorted to it to save themselves from the
workhouse. The price of the hot eels is a halfpenny for five or seven
pieces of fish, and three-parts of a cupfull of liquor. The charge
for a half-pint of pea-soup is a halfpenny, and the whelks are sold,
according to the size, from a halfpenny each to three or four for the
same sum. These are put out in saucers.
The eels are Dutch, and are cleaned and washed, and cut in small pieces
of from a half to an inch each. [The daughter of one of my informants
was busily engaged, as I derived this information, in the cutting of
the fish. She worked at a blood-stained board, with a pile of pieces
on one side and a heap of entrails on the other.] The portions so cut
are then boiled, and the liquor is thickened with flour and flavoured
with chopped parsley and mixed spices. It is kept hot in the streets,
and served out, as I have stated, in halfpenny cupfulls, with a small
quantity of vinegar and pepper. The best purveyors add a little butter.
The street-boys are extravagant in their use of vinegar.
To dress a draught of eels takes three hours--to clean, cut them up,
and cook them sufficiently; and the cost is now 5_s._ 2_d._ (much
lower in the summer) for the draught (the 2_d._ being the expense of
“shoring”), 8_d._ for 4 lb. of flour to thicken the liquor, 2_d._ for
the parsley to flavour it, and 1_s._ 6_d._ for the vinegar, spices,
and pepper (about three quarts of vinegar and two ounces of pepper).
This quantity, when dressed and seasoned, will fetch in halfpennyworths
from 15_s._ to 18_s._ The profit upon this would be from 7_s._ to 9_s._
6_d._; but the cost of the charcoal has to be deducted, as well as the
salt used while cooking. These two items amount to about 5_d._
The pea-soup consists of split peas, celery, and beef bones. Five
pints, at 3-1/2_d._ a quart, are used to every three gallons; the
bones cost 2_d._, carrots 1_d._, and celery 1/2_d._--these cost 1_s._
0-1/4_d._; and the pepper, salt, and mint, to season it, about 2_d._
This, when served in halfpenny basinfulls, will fetch from 2_s._ 3_d._
to 2_s._ 4_d._, leaving 1_s._ 1_d._ profit. But from this the expenses
of cooking must be taken; so that the clear gain upon three gallons
comes to about 11_d._ In a large trade, three kettles, or twelve
gallons, of pea-soup will be disposed of in the day, and about four
draughts, or 80 lbs., of hot eels on every day but Saturday,--when
the quantity of eels disposed of would be about five draughts, or 100
lbs. weight, and about 15 gallons of pea-soup. Hence the profits of
a good business in the hot-eel and pea-soup line united will be from
7_l._ to 7_l._ 10_s._ per week, or more. But there is only one man in
London does this amount of business, or rather makes this amount of
money. A small business will do about 15 lbs. of eels in the week,
including Saturday, and about 12 gallons of soup. Sometimes credit is
given for a halfpennyworth, or a pennyworth, at the outside; but very
little is lost from bad debts. Boys who are partaking of the articles
will occasionally say to the proprietor of the stall, “Well, master,
they _are_ nice; trust us another ha’p’orth, and I’ll pay you when I
comes again;” but they are seldom credited, for the stall-keepers know
well they would never see them again. Very often the stock cooked is
not disposed of, and then it is brought home and eaten by the family.
The pea-soup will seldom keep a night, but what is left the family
generally use for supper.
The dealers go out about half-past ten in the morning, and remain out
till about ten at night. Monday is the next best day to Saturday.
The generality of the customers are boys from 12 to 16 years of age.
Newsboys are very partial to hot eels--women prefer the pea-soup. Some
of the boys will have as many as six halfpenny cupfulls consecutively
on a Saturday night; and some women will have three halfpenny
basinsfull of soup. Many persons in the cold weather prefer the hot
soup to beer. On wet, raw, chilly days, the soup goes off better than
usual, and in fine weather there is a greater demand for the hot eels.
One dealer assured me that he once _did_ serve two gentlemen’s servants
with twenty-eight halfpenny cupfulls of hot eels one after another.
One servant had sixteen, and the other twelve cupfulls, which they ate
all at one standing; and one of these customers was so partial to hot
eels, that he used to come twice a day every day for six months after
that, and have eight cupfulls each day, four at noon and four in the
evening. These two persons were the best customers my informant ever
had. Servants, however, are not generally partial to the commodity. Hot
eels are not usually taken for dinner, nor is pea-soup, but throughout
the whole day, and just at the fancy of the passers-by. There are no
shops for the sale of these articles. The dealers keep no accounts of
what their receipts and expenditure are.