to the end of August. On some days during that time a person in a small
way of business will clear upon an average 1_s._ 6_d._ a day, on other
days 1_s._; on some days, during the month of August, as much as 2_s._
6_d._ a day. Some cry out “Nice hot eels--nice hot eels!” or “Warm your
hands and fill your bellies for a halfpenny.” One man used to give his
surplus eels, when he considered his sale completed on a night, to the
poor creatures refused admission into a workhouse, lending them his
charcoal fire for warmth, which was always returned to him. The poor
creatures begged cinders, and carried the fire under a railway arch.
The general rule, however, is for the dealer to be silent, and merely
expose the articles for sale. “I likes better,” said one man to me, “to
touch up people’s noses than their heyes or their hears.” There are
now in the trade almost more than can get a living at it, and their
earnings are less than they were formerly. One party attributed this
to the opening of a couple of penny-pie shops in his neighbourhood.
Before then he could get 2_s._ 6_d._ a day clear, take one day with
another; but since the establishment of the business in the penny-pie
line he cannot take above 1_s._ 6_d._ a day clear. On the day the
first of these pie-shops opened, it made as much as 10 lbs., or half a
draught of eels, difference to him. There was a band of music and an
illumination at the pie-shop, and it was impossible to stand against
_that_. The fashionable dress of the trade is the “Jenny Lind” or
“wide-awake” hat, with a broad black ribbon tied round it, and a white
apron and sleeves. The dealers usually go to Hampton-court or Greenwich
on a fine Sunday. They are partial to the pit of Astley’s. One of them
told his waterman at Billingsgate the other morning that “he and his
good lady had been werry amused with the osses at Hashley’s last night.”
OF THE EXPERIENCE OF A HOT-EEL AND PEA-SOUP MAN.
“I was a coalheaver,” said one of the class to me, as I sat in his
attic up a close court, watching his wife “thicken the liquor;” “I was
a-going along the plank, from one barge to another, when the swell of
some steamers throwed the plank off the ‘horse,’ and chucked me down,
and broke my knee agin the side of the barge. Before that I was yarning
upon an average my 20_s._ to 30_s._ a week. I was seven months and four
days in King’s College Hospital after this. I found they was a-doing me
no good there, so I come out and went over to Bartholemy’s Hospital.
I was in there nineteen months altogether, and after that I was a
month in Middlesex Hospital, and all on ’em turned me out oncurable.
You see, the bone’s decayed--four bits of bone have been taken from
it. The doctor turned me out three times ’cause I wouldn’t have it
off. He asked my wife if she would give consent, but neither she nor
my daughter would listen to it, so I was turned out on ’em all. How
my family lived all this time it’s hard to tell. My eldest boy did a
little--got 3_s._ 6_d._ a week as an errand-boy, and my daughter was
in service, and did a little for me; but that was all we had to live
upon. There was six children on my hands, and however they _did_ manage
I can’t say. After I came out of the hospital I applied to the parish,
and was allowed 2_s._ 6_d._ a week and four loaves. But I was anxious
to do something, so a master butcher, as I knowed, said he would get
me ‘a pitch’ (the right to fix a stall), if I thought I could sit at a
stall and sell a few things. I told him I thought I could, and would be
very thankful for it. Well, I had heard how the man up in the market
was making a fortune at the hot-eel and pea-soup line. [A paviour as
left his barrow and two shovels with me told me to-day, said the man,
by way of parenthesis--‘that he knowed for a fact he was clearing 6_l._
a week regular.’] So I thought I’d have a touch at the same thing.
But you see, I never could rise money enough to get sufficient stock
to make a do of it, and never shall, I expect--it don’t seem like it,
however. I ought to have 5_s._ to go to market with to-morrow, and
I ain’t got above 1_s._ 6_d._; and what’s that for stock-money, I’d
like to know? Well, as I was saying, the master butcher lent me 10_s._
to start in the line. He was the best friend I ever had. But I’ve
never been able to do anything at it--not to say to get a living.” “He
can’t carry anything now, sir,” said his wife, as the old man strove
to get the bellows to warm up the large kettle of pea-soup that was
on the fire. “Aye, I can’t go without my crutch. My daughter goes to
Billingsgate for me. I’ve got nobody else; and she cuts up the eels.
If it warn’t for her I must give it up altogether, and go into the
workhouse outright. I couldn’t fetch ’em. I ought to have been out
to-night by rights till ten, if I’d had anything to have sold. My wife
can’t do much; she’s troubled with the rheumatics in her head and
limbs.” “Yes,” said the old body, with a sigh, “I’m never well, and
never shall be again, I know.” “Would you accept on a drop of soup,
sir?” asked the man; “you’re very welcome, I can assure you. You’ll
find it very good, sir.” I told him I had just dined, and the poor old
fellow proceeded with his tale. “Last week I earned clear about 8_s._,
and that’s to keep six on us. I didn’t pay no rent last week nor yet
this, and I don’t know when I shall again, if things goes on in this
way. The week before there was a fast-day, and I didn’t earn above
6_s._ that week, if I did that. My boy can’t go to school. He’s got no
shoes nor nothing to go in. The girls go to the ragged-school, but we
can’t send them of a Sunday nowhere.” “Other people can go,” said one
of the young girls nestling round the fire, and with a piece of sacking
over her shoulders for a shawl--“them as has got things to go in; but
mother don’t like to let us go as we are.” “She slips her mother’s
shoes on when she goes out. It would take 1_l._ to start me well.
With that I could go to market, and buy my draught of eels a shilling
cheaper, and I could afford to cut my pieces a little bigger; and
people where they gets used well comes again--don’t you see? I could
have sold more eels if I’d had ’em to-day, and soup too. Why, there’s
four hours of about the best time to-night that I’m losing now ’cause
I’ve nothing to sell. The man in the market can give more than we can.
He gives what is called the lumping ha’p’orth--that is, seven or eight
pieces; ah, that I daresay he does; indeed, some of the boys has told
me he gives as many as eight pieces. And then the more eels you biles
up, you see, the richer the liquor is, and in our little tin-pot way
it’s like biling up a great jint of meat in a hocean of water. In
course we can’t compete agin the man in the market, and so we’re being
ruined entirely. The boys very often comes and asks me if I’ve got a
farden’s-worth of heads. The woman at Broadway, they tells me, sells
’em at four a farden and a drop of liquor, but we chucks ’em away,
there’s nothing to eat on them; the boys though will eat anything.”
In the hot-eel trade are now 140 vendors, each selling 6 lb. of eels
daily at their stands; 60 sell 40 lb. daily; and 100 are itinerant,
selling 5 lb. nightly at the public-houses. The first mentioned take
2_s._ daily; the second 16_s._; and the third 1_s._ 8_d._ This gives a
street expenditure in the trade in hot eels of 21,910_l._ for the year.
To start in this business a capital is required after this rate:--stall
6_s._; basket 1_s._; eel-kettle 3_s._ 6_d._; jar 6_d._; ladle 4_d._;
12 cups 1_s._; 12 spoons 1_s._; stew-pan 2_s._; chafing-dish 6_d._;
strainer 1_s._; 8 cloths 2_s._ 8_d._; a pair sleeves 4_d._; apron
4_d._; charcoal 2_s._ (4_d._ being an average daily consumption); 1/4
cwt. coal 3-1/2_d._; 1/2 lb. butter (the weekly average) 4_d._; 1
quartern flour 5_d._; 4 oz. pepper 4_d._; 1 quart vinegar 10_d._; 1 lb.
salt 1/2_d._; 1 lb. candles for stall 6_d._; parsley 3_d._; stock-money
10_s._ In all 1_l._ 15_s._ In the course of a year the property which
may be described as fixed, as in the stall, &c., and the expenditure
daily occurring as for stock, butter, coal, according to the foregoing
statement, amounts to 15,750_l._ The eels purchased for this trade at
Billingsgate are 1,166,880 lb., costing, at 3_d._ per lb., 14,586_l._
In the pea-soup trade there are now one half of the whole number of
the hot-eel vendors; of whom 100 will sell, each 4 gallons daily; and
of the remaining 50 vendors, each will sell upon an average 10 gallons
daily. The first mentioned take 3_s._ daily; and the last 7_s._ 6_d._
This gives a street expenditure of 4,050_l._ during the winter season
of five months.
To commence business in the street sale of pea-soup a capital is
required after this rate: soup-kettle 4_s._; peas 2_s._; soup-ladle
6_d._; pepper-box 1_d._; mint-box 3_d._; chafing-dish 6_d._; 12 basons
1_s._; 12 spoons 1_s._; bones, celery, mint, carrots, and onions, 1_s._
6_d._ In all 10_s._ 10_d._ The hot-eel trade being in conjunction with
the pea-soup, the same stall, candles, towels, sleeves, and aprons,
does for both, and the quantity of extra coal and charcoal; pepper and
salt given in the summary of hot-eels serves in cooking, &c., both eels
and pea-soup.
OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF PICKLED WHELKS.
The trade in whelks is one of which the costermongers have the
undisputed monopoly. The wholesale business is all transacted in
Billingsgate, where this shell-fish is bought by the measure (a double
peck or gallon), half-measure, or wash. A wash is four measures, and is
the most advantageous mode of purchase; “It’s so much cheaper by taking
that quantity,” I was told, “it’s as good as having a half-measure in.”
An average price for the year may be 4_s._ the wash; “But I’ve given
21_s._ for three wash,” said one costermonger, and he waxed indignant
as he spoke, “one Saturday, when there was a great stock in too, just
because there was a fair coming on on Monday, and the whelkmen, who
are the biggest rogues in Billingsgate, always have the price up then,
and hinder a poor man doing good--they’ve a great knack of that.” A
wash weighs about 60 lbs. On rare occasions it has been as low as 2_s._
6_d._, and even 1_s._ 6_d._
About one-half of the whelks are sold alive (wholesale), and the other
half “cooked” (boiled), some of the salesmen having “convenience for
cooking” near the market; but they are all brought to London alive,
“or what should be alive.” When bought alive, which ensures a better
quality, I was told--for “whelks’ll boil after they’re dead and gone,
you see, sir, as if they was alive and hungry”--the costermonger boils
them in the largest saucepan at his command for about ten minutes, and
then leaves them until they cool. “They never kicks as they boils,
like lobsters or crabs,” said one whelk dealer, “they takes it quiet.
A missionary cove said to me, ‘Why don’t you kill them first? it’s
murder.’ _They_ doesn’t suffer; _I’ve_ suffered more with a toothach
than the whole of a measure of whelks has in a boiling, that I’m clear
upon.” The boiling is generally the work of the women. The next process
is to place them in a tub, throw boiling water over them, and stir them
up for ten or fifteen minutes with a broom-handle. If the quantity be a
wash, two broom-handles, usually wielded by the man and his wife, are
employed. This is both to clean them and “to make them come out easier
to be wormed.” The “worming” is equivalent to the removing of the beard
of an oyster or mussel. The whelks are wormed one by one. The operator
cuts into the fish, rapidly draws out the “worm,” and pushes the
severed parts together, which closes. The small whelks are not wormed,
“because it’s not reckoned necessary, and they’re sold to poor lads and
such like, that’s not particular; but nearly all the women, and a good
many of the boys, are very particular. They think the worm’s poison.”
The whelks are next shaken in a tub, in cold water, and are then ready
for sale. The same process, after the mere boiling, is observed, when
the whelks are bought “cooked.”
Some whelk-sellers, who wish to display a superior article, engage
children for a few halfpence to rub the shell of every whelk, so that
it looks clean and even bright.
I find a difficulty, common in the course of this inquiry, of
ascertaining precisely the number of whelk-sellers, because the sale
is often carried on simultaneously with that of other things, (stewed
eels, for instance,) and because it is common for costermongers to
sell whelks on a Saturday night only, both at stalls and “round to the
public-houses,” but only when they are cheap at Billingsgate. On a
Saturday night there may be 300 whelk-sellers in the streets, nearly
half at stalls, and half, or more, “working the public-houses.” But
of this number it must be understood that perhaps the wife is at the
stall while the husband is on a round, and some whelks are sent out
by a man having an extra stock. This, therefore, reduces the number
of independent dealers, but not the actual number of sellers. On all
other nights there may be half the number engaged in this traffic, in
the streets regularly all the year; and more than half on a Monday,
as regards the public-house business, in which little is done between
Monday and Saturday nights. But a man will, in some instances, work the
public-houses every night (the wife tending the stall), and the more
assiduously if the weather be bad or foggy, when a public-house custom
is the best. A fair week’s earnings in whelks, “when a man’s known,” is
1_l._; a bad week is from 5_s._ to 8_s._ I am assured that bad weeks
are “as plenty as good, at least, the year round;” and thus the average
to the street whelk-sellers, in whelks alone, is about 13_s._ when the
trade is carried on daily and regularly, and 5_s._ a week by those who
occasionally resort to it; and as the occasional hands are the more
numerous, the average may be struck at 7_s._
The whelks are sold at the stalls at two, three, four, six, and eight
a penny, according to size. Four is an average pennyworth for good
whelks; the six a penny are small, and the eight a penny very small.
The principal place for their sale is in Old-street, City-road. The
other principal places are the street-markets, which I have before
particularised. The whelks are sold in saucers, generally small and
white, and of common ware, and are contained in jars, ready to be
“shelled” into any saucer that may have been emptied. Sometimes a
small pyramid of shells, surmounted by a candle protected by a shade,
attracts the regard of the passer-by. The man doing the best business
in London was to be found, before the removals of which I have spoken,
in Lambeth-walk, but he has now no fixed locality. His profits, I
am informed, were regularly 3_l._ a week; but out of this he had to
pay for the assistance of two or sometimes three persons, in washing
his whelks, boiling them, &c.; besides that, his wife was as busy as
himself. To the quality and cleanliness of his whelks he was very
attentive, and would sell no mediocre article if better could be
bought. “He deserved all he earned, sir,” said another street-dealer
to me; “why, in Old-street now they’ll have the old original saucers,
miserable things, such as they had fifty years back; but the man we’re
talking of, about two years ago, brought in very pretty plates, quite
enterprising things, and they answered well. His example’s spreading,
but it’s slowly.” The whelks are eaten with vinegar and pepper.
For sale in the public-houses, the whelks are most frequently carried
in jars, and transferred in a saucer to the consumer. “There’s often
a good sale,” said a man familiar with the business, “when a public
room’s filled. People drinking there always want to eat. They buy
whelks, not to fill themselves, but for a relish. A man that’s used to
the trade will often get off inferior sorts to the lushingtons; he’ll
have them to rights. Whelks is all the same, good, bad, or middling,
when a man’s drinking, if they’re well seasoned with pepper and
vinegar. Oh yes; any whelk-man will take in a drunken fellow, and he
will do it all the same, if he’s made up his mind to, get drunk hisself
that very night.”
The trade is carried on by the regular costers, but of the present
number of whelk-sellers, about twenty have been mechanics or servants.
The whelk-trade is an evening trade, commencing generally about six,
summer and winter, or an hour earlier in winter.
The capital required to start in the whelk-business is: stall,
2_s._ 6_d._; saucers, vinegar-bottle, jar, pepper-castor, and small
watering-pan (used only in dusty weather), 2_s._ 6_d._; a pair of
stilts (supports for the stall), 1_s._ 6_d._; stock-money, 5_s._;
pepper and vinegar, 6_d._, or 12_s._ in all. If the trade be commenced
in a round basket, for public-house sale, 7_s._ or 8_s._ only is
required, but it is a hazardous experiment for a person unpractised in
street business.
OF THE CUSTOMERS, ETC., OF PICKLED WHELK-SELLERS.
An intelligent man gave me the following account. He had been connected
with street-trading from his youth up, and is now about thirty:
“The chief customers for whelks, sir, are working people and poor
people, and they prefer them to oysters; I do myself, and I think
they’re not so much eaten because they’re not fashionable like oysters.
But I’ve sold them to first-rate public-houses, and to doctors’
shops--more than other shops, I don’t know why--and to private houses.
Masters have sent out their servant-maids to me for three or four
penn’orths for supper. I’ve offered the maids a whelk, but they won’t
eat them in the street; I dare say they’re afraid their young men
may be about, and might think they wasn’t ladies if they eat whelks
in the street. Boys are the best customers for ‘small,’ but if you
don’t look sharp, you’ll be done out of three-ha’porth of vinegar to
a ha’porth of whelks. I can’t make out why they like it so. They’re
particular enough in their way. If the whelks are thin, as they will
be sometimes, the lads will say, ‘What a lot of snails you’ve gathered
to-night!’ If they’re plump and fine, then they’ll say, ‘Fat ’uns
to-night--stunners!’ Some people eat whelks for an appetite; they give
me one, and more in summer than winter. The women of the town are
good customers, at least they are in the Cut and Shoreditch, for I
know both. If they have five-penn’orth, when they’re treated perhaps,
there’s always sixpence. They come on the sly sometimes, by themselves,
and make what’s a meal, I’m satisfied, on whelks, and they’ll want
credit sometimes. I’ve given trust to a woman of that sort as far
as 2_s._ 6_d._ I’ve lost very little by them; I don’t know how much
altogether. I keep no account, but carry any credit in my head. Those
women’s good pay, take it altogether, for they know how hard it is to
get a crust, and have a feeling for a poor man, if they haven’t for a
rich one--that’s my opinion, sir. Costermongers in a good time are
capital customers; they’ll buy five or six penn’orths at a time. The
dust’s a great injury to the trade in summer time; it dries the whelks
up, and they look old. I wish whelks were cheaper at Billingsgate, and
I could do more business; and I could do more if I could sell a few
minutes after twelve on a Saturday night, when people must leave the
public-house. I have sold three wash of a Saturday night, and cleared
15_s._ on them. I one week made 3_l._, but I had a few stewed eels
to help,--that is, I cleared 2_l._, and had a pound’s worth over on
the Saturday night, and sent them to be sold--and they were sold--at
Battersea on the Sunday; I never went there myself. I’ve had twenty
people round my stall at one time on a Saturday. Perhaps my earnings
on that (and other odd things) may come to 1_l._ a week, or hardly
so much, the year round. I can’t say exactly. The shells are no use.
Boys have asked me for them ‘to make sea-shells of,’ they say--to hold
them to their ears when they’re big, and there’s a sound like the sea
rolling. Gentlemen have sometimes told me to keep a dozen dozen or
twenty dozen, for borders to a garden. I make no charge for them--just
what a gentleman may please to give.”
The information given shows an outlay of 5,250_l._ yearly for street
whelks, and as the return I have cited shows the money spent in whelks
at Billingsgate to be 2,500_l._, the number of whelks being 4,950,000,
the account is correct, as the coster’s usual “half-profits” make up
the sum expended.
OF THE STREET SELLERS, AND OF THE PREPARATION OF FRIED FISH.
Among the cooked food which has for many years formed a portion of the
street trade is fried fish. The sellers are about 350, as a maximum
and 250 as a minimum, 300 being an average number. The reason of the
variation in number is, that on a Saturday night, and occasionally on
other nights, especially on Mondays, stall-keepers sell fried fish,
and not as an ordinary article of their trade. Some men, too, resort
to the trade for a time, when they cannot be employed in any way more
profitable or suitable to them. The dealers in this article are, for
the most part, old men and boys, though there may be 30 or 40 women
who sell it, but only 3 or 4 girls, and they are the daughters of the
men in the business as the women are the wives. Among the fried-fish
sellers there are not half a dozen Irish people, although fish is so
especial a part of the diet of the poor Irish. The men in the calling
have been, as regards the great majority, mechanics or servants; none,
I was told, had been fishmongers, or their assistants.
The fish fried by street dealers is known as “plaice dabs” and “sole
dabs,” which are merely plaice and soles, “dab” being a common word
for any flat fish. The fish which supplies upwards of one half the
quantity fried for the streets is plaice; the other fishes used are
soles, haddocks, whitings, flounders, and herrings, but very sparingly
indeed as regards herrings. Soles are used in as large a quantity as
the other kinds mentioned altogether. On my inquiry as to the precise
quantity of each description fried, the answer from the traders was
uniform: “I can’t say, sir. I buy whatever’s cheapest.” The fish is
bought at Billingsgate, but some of the street dealers obtain another
and even a cheaper commodity than at that great mart. This supply is
known in the trade as “friers,” and consists of the overplus of a
fishmonger’s stock, of what he has not sold overnight, and does not
care to offer for sale on the following morning, and therefore vends
it to the costermongers, whose customers are chiefly among the poor.
The friers are sometimes half, and sometimes more than half, of the
wholesale price in Billingsgate. Many of the friers are good, but some,
I was told, “in any thing like muggy or close weather were very queer
fish, very queer indeed,” and they are consequently fried with a most
liberal allowance of oil, “which will conceal anything.”
The fish to be fried is first washed and gutted; the fins, head, and
tail are then cut off, and the trunk is dipped in flour and water, so
that in frying, oil being always used, the skin will not be scorched by
the, perhaps, too violent action of the fire, but merely browned. Pale
rape oil is generally used. The sellers, however, are often twitted
with using lamp oil, even when it is dearer than that devoted to the
purpose. The fish is cooked in ordinary frying-pans. One tradesman in
Cripplegate, formerly a costermonger, has on his premises a commodious
oven which he had built for the frying, or rather baking, of fish.
He supplies the small shopkeepers who deal in the article (although
some prepare it themselves), and sells his fish retail also, but the
street-sellers buy little of him, as they are nearly all “their own
cooks.” Some of the “illegitimates,” however, lay in their stock by
purchase of the tradesman in question. The fish is cut into portions
before it is fried, and the frying occupies about ten minutes. The
quantity prepared together is from six to twenty portions, according to
the size of the pans; four dozen portions, or “pieces,” as the street
people call them, require a quart of oil.