unfrequently in garrets; for among even the poorest class there are
great objections to their being fellow-lodgers, on account of the odour
from the frying. Even when the fish is fresh (as it most frequently
is), and the oil pure, the odour is rank. In one place I visited, which
was, moreover, admirable for cleanliness, it was very rank. The cooks,
however, whether husbands or wives--for the women often attend to the
pan--when they hear of this disagreeable rankness, answer that it
may be so, many people say so; but for their parts they cannot smell
it at all. The garments of the fried-fish sellers are more strongly
impregnated with the smell of fish than were those of any “wet” or
other fish-sellers whom I met with. Their residences are in some of
the labyrinths of courts and alleys that run from Gray’s-inn-lane to
Leather-lane, and similar places between Fetter and Chancery-lanes.
They are to be found, too, in the courts running from Cow-cross,
Smithfield; and from Turnmill-street and Ray-street, Clerkenwell; also,
in the alleys about Bishopsgate-street and the Kingsland-road, and some
in the half-ruinous buildings near the Southwark and Borough-roads.
None, or very few, of those who are their own cooks, reside at a
greater distance than three miles from Billingsgate. A gin-drinking
neighbourhood, one coster said, suits best, “for people hasn’t their
smell so correct there.”
The sale is both on rounds and at stalls, the itinerants being twice
as numerous as the stationary. The round is usually from public-house
to public-house, in populous neighbourhoods. The itinerants generally
confine themselves to the trade in fried fish, but the stall-keepers
always sell other articles, generally fish of some kind, along with it.
The sale in the public-houses is the greatest.
At the neighbouring races and fairs there is a great sale of fried
fish. At last Epsom races, I was told, there were at least fifty
purveyors of that dainty from London, half of them perhaps being
costermongers, who speculated in it merely for the occasion, preparing
it themselves. Three men joined in one speculation, expending 8_l._ in
fish, and did well, selling at the usual profit of cent. per cent.,
but with the drawback of considerable expenses. Their customers at the
races and fairs are the boys who hold horses or brush clothes, or who
sell oranges or nuts, or push at roundabouts, and the costers who are
there on business. At Epsom races there was plenty of bread, I was
informed, to be picked up on the ground; it had been flung from the
carriages after luncheon, and this, with a piece of fish, supplied a
meal or “a relish” to hundreds.
In the public-houses, a slice of bread, 16 or 32 being cut from a
quartern loaf--as they are whole or half slices--is sold or offered
with the fish for a penny. The cry of the seller is, “fish and bread,
a penny.” Sometimes for an extra-sized piece, with bread, 2_d._ is
obtained, but very seldom, and sometimes two pieces are given for
1-1/2_d._ At the stalls bread is rarely sold with the edible in
question.
[Illustration: THE BAKED POTATO MAN.
“Baked ’taturs! All ’ot, all ’ot!”
[_From a Daguerreotype by_ BEARD.]]
For the itinerant trade, a neatly painted wooden tray, slung by a
leathern strap from the neck, is used: the tray is papered over
generally with clean newspapers, and on the paper is spread the
shapeless brown lumps of fish. Parsley is often strewn over them, and a
salt-box is placed at the discretion of the customer. The trays contain
from two to five dozen pieces. I understand that no one has a trade
greatly in advance of his fellows. The whole body complain of their
earnings being far less than was the case four or five years back.
The itinerant fried fish-sellers, when pursuing their avocation, wear
generally a jacket of cloth or fustian buttoned round them, but the
rest of their attire is hidden by the white sleeves and apron some
wear, or by the black calico sleeves and dark woollen aprons worn by
others.
The capital required to start properly in the business is:--frying-pan
2_s._ (second-hand 9_d._); tray 2_s._ 6_d._ (second-hand 8_d._);
salt-box 6_d._ (second-hand 1_d._); and stock-money 5_s._--in all
10_s._ A man has gone into the trade, however, with 1_s._, which he
expended in fish and oil, borrowed a frying-pan, borrowed an old
tea-board, and so started on his venture.
OF THE EXPERIENCE OF A FRIED FISH-SELLER, AND OF THE CLASS OF CUSTOMERS.
The man who gave me the following information was well-looking, and
might be about 45 or 50. He was poorly dressed, but his old brown
surtout fitted him close and well, was jauntily buttoned up to his
black satin stock, worn, but of good quality; and, altogether, he
had what is understood among a class as “a _betterly_ appearance
about him.” His statement, as well as those of the other vendors of
provisions, is curious in its details of public-house vagaries:--
“I’ve been in the trade,” he said, “seventeen years. Before that, I
was a gentleman’s servant, and I married a servant-maid, and we had a
family, and, on that account, couldn’t, either of us, get a situation,
though we’d good characters. I was out of employ for seven or eight
months, and things was beginning to go to the pawn for a living; but at
last, when I gave up any hope of getting into a gentleman’s service, I
raised 10_s._, and determined to try something else. I was persuaded,
by a friend who kept a beer-shop, to sell oysters at his door. I took
his advice, and went to Billingsgate for the first time in my life,
and bought a peck of oysters for 2_s._ 6_d._ I was dressed respectable
then--nothing like the mess and dirt I’m in now” [I may observe, that
there was no dirt about him]; “and so the salesman laid it on, but I
gave him all he asked. I know a deal better now. I’d never been used
to open oysters, and I couldn’t do it. I cut my fingers with the knife
slipping all over them, and had to hire a man to open for me, or the
blood from my cut fingers would have run upon the oysters. For all
that, I cleared 2_s._ 6_d._ on that peck, and I soon got up to the
trade, and did well; till, in two or three months, the season got over,
and I was advised, by the same friend, to try fried fish. That suited
me. I’ve lived in good families, where there was first-rate men-cooks,
and I know what good cooking means. I bought a dozen plaice; I forget
what I gave for them, but they were dearer then than now. For all that,
I took between 11_s._ and 12_s._ the first night--it was Saturday--that
I started; and I stuck to it, and took from 7_s._ to 10_s._ every
night, with more, of course, on Saturday, and it was half of it profit
then. I cleared a good mechanic’s earnings at that time--30_s._ a week
and more. Soon after, I was told that, if agreeable, my wife could
have a stall with fried fish, opposite a wine-vaults just opened,
and she made nearly half as much as I did on my rounds. I served the
public-houses, and soon got known. With some landlords I had the
privilege of the parlour, and tap-room, and bar, when other tradesmen
have been kept out. The landlords will say to me still: ‘_You_ can go
in, Fishy.’ Somehow, I got the name of ‘Fishy’ then, and I’ve kept it
ever since. There was hospitality in those days. I’ve gone into a room
in a public-house, used by mechanics, and one of them has said: ‘I’ll
stand fish round, gentlemen;’ and I’ve supplied fifteen penn’orths.
Perhaps he was a stranger, such a sort of customer, that wanted to be
agreeable. Now, it’s more likely I hear: ‘Jack, lend us a penny to
buy a bit of fried;’ and then Jack says: ‘You be d--d! here, lass,
let’s have another pint.’ The insults and difficulties I’ve had in
the public-house trade is dreadful. I once sold 16_d._ worth to three
rough-looking fellows I’d never seen before, and they seemed hearty,
and asked me to drink with them, so I took a pull; but they wouldn’t
pay me when I asked, and I waited a goodish bit before I did ask. I
thought, at first, it was their fun, but I waited from four to seven,
and I found it was no fun. I felt upset, and ran out and told the
policeman, but he said it was only a debt, and he couldn’t interfere.
So I ran to the station, but the head man there said the same, and told
me I should hand over the fish with one hand, and hold out the other
hand for my money. So I went back to the public-house, and asked for my
money--and there was some mechanics that knew me there then--but I got
nothing but ‘---- you’s!’ and one of ’em used most dreadful language.
At last, one of the mechanics said: ‘Muzzle him, Fishy, if he won’t
pay.’ He was far bigger than me, him that was one in debt; but my
spirit was up, and I let go at him and gave him a bloody nose, and the
next hit I knocked him backwards, I’m sure I don’t know how, on to a
table; but I fell on him, and he clutched me by the coat-collar--I was
respectable dressed then--and half smothered me. He tore the back of my
coat, too, and I went home like Jim Crow. The pot-man and the others
parted us, and they made the man give me 1_s._, and the waiter paid me
the other 4_d._, and said he’d take his chance to get it--but he never
got it. Another time I went into a bar, and there was a ball in the
house, and one of the ball gents came down and gave my basket a kick
without ever a word, and started the fish; and in a scuffle--he was a
little fellow, but my master--I had this finger put out of joint--you
can see that, sir, still--and was in the hospital a week from an
injury to my leg; the tiblin bone was hurt, the doctors said” [the
tibia.] “I’ve had my tray kicked over for a lark in a public-house,
and a scramble for my fish, and all gone, and no help and no money
for me. The landlords always prevent such things, when they can, and
interfere for a poor man; but then it’s done sudden, and over in an
instant. That sort of thing wasn’t the worst. I once had some powdery
stuff flung sudden over me at a parlour door. My fish fell off, for I
jumped, because I felt blinded, and what became of them I don’t know;
but I aimed at once for home--it was very late--and had to feel my way
almost like a blind man. I can’t tell what I suffered. I found it was
something black, for I kept rubbing my face with my apron, and could
just tell it came away black. I let myself in with my latch, and my
wife was in bed, and I told her to get up and look at my face and get
some water, and she thought I was joking, as she was half asleep; but
when she got up and got a light, and a glass, she screamed, and said I
looked such a shiny image; and so I did, as well as I could see, for
it was black lead--such as they use for grates--that was flung on me.
I washed it off, but it wasn’t easy, and my face was sore days after.
I had a respectable coat on then, too, which was greatly spoiled, and
no remedy at all. I don’t know who did it to me. I heard some one say:
‘You’re served out beautiful.’ Its men that calls themselves gentlemen
that does such things. I know the style of them then--it was eight or
ten years ago; they’d heard of Lord ----, and his goings on. That way
it’s better now, but worse, far, in the way of getting a living. I dare
say, if I had dressed in rough corderoys, I shouldn’t have been larked
at so much, because they might have thought I was a regular coster, and
a fighter; but I don’t like that sort of thing--I like to be decent and
respectable, if I can.
“I’ve been in the ‘fried’ trade ever since, except about three months
that I tried the sandwiches. I didn’t do so well in them, but it
was a far easier trade; no carrying heavy weights all the way from
Billingsgate: but I went back to the fried. Why now, sir, a good week
with me--and I’ve only myself in the trade now” [he was a widower]--“is
to earn 12_s._, a poor week is 9_s._; and there’s as many of one as of
the other. I’m known to sell the best of fish, and to cook it in the
best style. I think half of us, take it round and round for a year,
may earn as much as I do, and the other half about half as much. I
think so. I might have saved money, but for a family. I’ve only one
at home with me now, and he really _is_ a good lad. My customers are
public-house people that want a relish or a sort of supper with their
beer, not so much to drinkers. I sell to tradesmen, too; 4_d._ worth
for tea or supper. Some of them send to my place, for I’m known. The
Great Exhibition can’t be any difference to me. I’ve a regular round.
I used to sell a good deal to women of the town, but I don’t now. They
haven’t the money, I believe. Where I took 10_s._ of them, eight or
ten years ago, I now take only 6_d._ They may go for other sorts of
relishes now; I can’t say. The worst of my trade is, that people must
have as big penn’orths when fish is dear as when its cheap. I never
sold a piece of fish to an Italian boy in my life, though they’re
Catholics. Indeed, I never saw an Italian boy spend a halfpenny in the
streets on anything.”
A working-man told me that he often bought fried fish, and accounted it
a good to men like himself. He was fond of fried fish to his supper;
he couldn’t buy half so cheap as the street-sellers, perhaps not a
quarter; and, if he could, it would cost him 1_d._ for dripping to fry
the fish in, and he got it ready, and well fried, and generally good,
for 1_d._
Subsequent inquiries satisfied me that my informant was correct as
to his calculations of his fellows’ earnings, judging from his own.
The price of plaice at Billingsgate is from 1/2_d._ to 2_d._ each,
according to size (the fried fish purveyors never calculate by the
weight), 3/4_d._ being a fair average. A plaice costing 1_d._ will now
be fried into four pieces, each 1_d._; but the addition of bread, cost
of oil, &c., reduces the “fried” peoples’ profits to rather less than
cent. per cent. Soles and the other fish are, moreover, 30 per cent.
dearer than plaice. As 150 sellers make as much weekly as my informant,
and the other 150 half that amount, we have an average yearly earning
of 27_l._ 6_s._ in one case, and of 13_l._ 13_s._ in the other. Taking
only 20_l._ a year as a medium earning, and adding 90 per cent. for
profit, the outlay on the fried fish supplied by London street-sellers
is 11,400_l._
OF THE PREPARATION AND QUANTITY OF SHEEP’S TROTTERS, AND OF THE
STREET-SELLERS.
The sale of sheep’s trotters, as a regular street-trade, is confined
to London, Liverpool, Newcastle-on-Tyne, and a few more of our greater
towns. The “trotter,” as it is commonly called, is the boiled foot of
the sheep. None of my readers can have formed any commensurate notion
of the extent of the sale in London, and to some readers the very
existence of such a comestible may be unknown. The great supply now
required is readily attained. The wholesale trade is now in the hands
of one fellmongering firm, though until within these twenty months
or so there were two, and the feet are cut off the sheep-skins by
the salesmen in the skin-market, in Bermondsey, and conveyed to the
fellmonger’s premises in carts and in trucks.
Sheep’s trotters, one of my informants could remember, were sold in the
streets fifty years ago, but in such small quantities that it could
hardly be called a trade. Instead of being prepared wholesale as at
present, and then sold out to the retailers, the trotters were then
prepared by the individual retailers, or by small traders in tripe
and cow-heel. Twenty-five years ago nearly all the sheep’s trotters
were “lined and prepared,” when the skin came into the hands of the
fellmonger, for the glue and size makers. Twenty years ago only about
one-twentieth of the trotters now prepared for eating were devoted to
the same purpose; and it was not until about fifteen years back that
the trade began to reach its present magnitude; and for the last twelve
years it has been about stationary, but there were never more sold than
last year.
From fifteen to twenty years ago glue and size, owing principally to
improved modes of manufacture, became cheaper, so that it paid the
fellmonger better to dispose of the trotters as an article “cooked” for
the poor, than to the glue-boiler.
The process of cookery is carried on rapidly at the fellmonger’s in
question. The feet are first scalded for about half an hour. After
that from ten to fifteen boys are employed in scooping out the hoofs,
which are sold for manure or to manufacturers of Prussian blue, which
is extensively used by painters. Women are then employed, forty
being an average number, “to scrape the hair off,”--for hair it is
called--quickly, but softly, so that the skin should not be injured,
and after that the trotters are boiled for about four hours, and they
are then ready for market.
The proprietor of this establishment, after he had obligingly given
me the information I required, invited me to walk round his premises
unaccompanied, and observe how the business was conducted. The premises
are extensive, and are situated, as are nearly all branches of the
great trade connected with hides and skins, in Bermondsey. The trotter
business is kept distinct from the general fellmongering. Within a long
shed are five coppers, each containing, on an average, 250 “sets,”
a set being the complement of the sheep’s feet, four. Two of these
coppers, on my visit, were devoted to the scalding, and three to the
boiling of the trotters. They looked like what one might imagine to be
witches’ big caldrons; seething, hissing, boiling, and throwing forth
a steam not peculiarly grateful to the nostrils of the uninitiated.
Thus there are, weekly, “cooking” in one form or other, the feet of
20,000 sheep for the consumption of the poorer classes, or as a relish
for those whose stomachs crave after edibles of this description. At
one extremity of this shed are the boys, who work in a place open at
the side, but the flues and fires make all parts sufficiently warm.
The women have a place to themselves on the opposite side of the
yard. The room where they work has forms running along its sides, and
each woman has a sort of bench in front of her seat, on which she
scrapes the trotters. One of the best of these workwomen can scrape
150 sets, or 600 feet in a day, but the average of the work is 500
sets a week, including women and girls. I saw no girls but what seemed
above seventeen or eighteen, and none of the women were old. They were
exceedingly merry, laughing and chatting, and appearing to consider
that a listener was not of primary consequence, as they talked pretty
much altogether. I saw none but what were decently dressed, some were
good-looking, and none seemed sickly.
In this establishment are prepared, weekly, 20,000 sets, or 80,000
feet; a yearly average of 4,160,000 trotters, or the feet of 1,040,000
sheep. Of this quantity the street-folk buy seven-eighths; 3,640,000
trotters yearly, or 70,000 weekly. The number of sheep trotter-sellers
may be taken at 300, which gives an average of nearly sixty sets a week
per individual.
The wholesale price, at the “trotter yard,” is five a penny, which
gives an outlay by the street-sellers of 3,033_l._ 6_s._ 8_d._ yearly.
But this is not the whole of the trade. Lamb’s trotters are also
prepared, but only to one-twentieth of the quantity of sheep’s
trotters, and that for only three months of the year. These are all
sold to the street-sellers. The lamb’s foot is usually left appended
to the leg and shoulder of lamb. It is weighed with the joint, but
the butcher’s man or boy will say to the purchaser: “Do you want the
foot?” As the answer is usually in the negative, it is at once cut off
and forms a “perquisite.” There are some half dozen men, journeymen
butchers not fully employed, who collect these feet, prepare and sell
them to the street-people, but as the lamb’s feet are very seldom as
fresh as those of the sheep carried direct from the skin market to--so
to speak--the great trotter kitchen, the demand for “lamb’s” falls off
yearly. Last year the sale may be taken at about 14,000 sets, selling,
wholesale, at about 46_l._, the same price as the sheep.
The sellers of trotters, who are stationary at publichouse and theatre
doors, and at street corners, and itinerant, but itinerant chiefly from
one public house to another are a wretchedly poor class. Three fourths
of them are elderly women and children, the great majority being Irish
people, and there are more boys than girls in the trade. The capital
required to start in the business is very small. A hand basket of the
larger size costs 1_s._ 9_d._, but smaller or second-hand only 1_s._,
and the white cotton cloth on which the trotters are displayed costs
4_d._ or 6_d._; stock-money need not exceed 1_s._, so that 3_s._
is all that is required. This is one reason, I heard from several
trotter-sellers, why the business is over-peopled.
STATEMENTS OF SHEEP’S TROTTER WOMEN.
From one woman, who, I am assured, may be taken as a fair type of the
better class of trotter-sellers--some of the women being sottish and
addicted to penn’orths of gin beyond their means--I had the following
statement. I found her in the top room of a lofty house in Clerkenwell.
She was washing when I called, and her son, a crippled boy of 16, with
his crutch by his side, was cleaning knives, which he had done for many
months for a family in the neighbourhood, who paid for his labour in
what the mother pronounced better than money--broken victuals, because
they were of such good, wholesome quality. The room, which is of a
good size, had its red-brown plaster walls, stained in parts with damp,
but a great portion was covered with the cheap engravings “given away
with No. 6” (or any other number) of some periodical “of thrilling
interest;” while the narrow mantel-shelf was almost covered with
pot figures of dumpy men, red-breeched and blue-coated, and similar
ornaments. I have often noted such attempts to subdue, as it were, the
grimness of poverty, by the poor who had “seen better days.” The mother
was tall and spare, and the boy had that look of premature sedateness,
his face being of a sickly hue, common to those of quiet dispositions,
who have been afflicted from their childhood:--
“I’m the widow of a sawyer, sir,” said Mrs. ----, with a very slight
brogue, for she was an Irishwoman, “and I’ve been a widow 18 long
years. I’m 54, I believe, but that 18 years seems longer than all
the rest of my life together. My husband earned hardly ever less
than 30_s._ a week, sometimes 3_l._, and I didn’t know what pinching
was. But I was left destitute with four young children, and had to
bring them up as well as I could, by what I could make by washing
and charing, and a hard fight it was. One of my children went for a
soldier, one’s dead, another’s married, and that’s the youngest there.
Ah! poor fellow, what he’s gone through! He’s had 18 abscesses, one
after another, and he has been four times in Bartholomew’s. There’s
only God above to help him when I’m gone. My health broke six years
ago, and I couldn’t do hard work in washing, and I took to trotter
selling, because one of my neighbours was in that way, and told me how
to go about it. My son sells trotters too; he always sits at the corner
of this street. I go from one public-house to another, and sometimes
stand at the door, or sit inside, because I’m known and have leave. But
I can’t either sit, or stand, or walk long at a time, I’m so rheumatic.
No, sir, I can’t say I was ever badly insulted in a public-house; but
I only go to those I know. Others may be different. We depend mostly
on trotters, but I have a shilling and my meat, for charing, a day in
every week. I’ve tried ’winks and whelks too, ’cause I thought they
might be more in my pocket than trotters, but they don’t suit a poor
woman that’s begun a street-trade when she’s not very young. And the
trotters can be carried on with so little money. It’s not so long
ago that I’ve sold three-penn’orth of trotters--that is, him and me
has--pretty early in the evening; I’d bought them at Mr. ----’s, in
Bermondsey, in the afternoon, for we can buy three penn’orth, and I
walked there again--perhaps it’s four miles there and back--and bought
another 3_d._ worth. The first three-pence was all I could rise. It’s a
long weary way for me to walk, but some walk from Poplar and Limehouse.
If I lay out 2_s._ on the Saturday--there’s 15 sets for 1_s._, that’s
60 trotters--they’ll carry us on to Monday night, and sometimes, if
they’ll keep, to Tuesday night. Sometimes I could sell half-a-crown’s
worth in less time. I have to go to Bermondsey three or four times
a week. The trade was far better six years ago, though trotters were
dearer then, only 13 sets 1_s._, then 14, now 15. For some very few,
that’s very fine and very big, I get a penny a piece; for some I get
1-1/2_d._ for two; the most’s 1/2_d._ each; some’s four for 1-1/2_d._;
and some I have to throw into the dust-hole. The two of us earns
5_s._ a week on trotters, not more, I’m sure. I sell to people in the
public-houses; some of them may be rather the worse for drink, but not
so many; regular drunkards buys nothing but drink. I’ve sold them too
to steady, respectable gentlemen, that’s been passing in the street,
who put them in their pockets for supper. My rent’s 1_s._ a week.”