borne in mind that a large portion of the profits accrues to persons
who cannot be properly classed with the regular street-traders. Such
is the proprietor of the great fountain of which I have spoken, who
is to be classed as a speculative man, ready to embark capital in
any way--whether connected with street-traffic or not--likely to be
remunerative. The other and large participants in the profits are the
wholesale ginger-beer manufacturers, who are also the letters-out of
fountains, one of them having generally nine let out at a time. For
a street trader to sell three gross of ginger-beer in bottle is now
accounted a _good_ week, and for that the receipts will be 36_s._
with a profit in the penny bottle trade, to the seller, if he buy of
a manufacturer, of 12_s._; if he be his own brewer--reckoning a fair
compensation for labour, and for money invested in utensils, and in
bottles, &c., of 20_s._ An ordinary week’s sale is two gross, costing
the public 24_s._, with the same proportion of profit in the same trade
to the seller. In a _bad_ week, or “in a small way to help out other
things,” not more than one gross is sold.
The fountain trade is the most profitable to the proprietors, whether
they send out their machines on their own account, or let them out on
hire; but perhaps there are only an eighth of the number not let out
on hire. Calculating that a fountain be let out for three successive
seasons of twenty weeks each, at only 4_s._ the week, the gross
receipts are 12_l._ for what on the first day of hire was worth only
7_l._; so that the returns from 200 machines let out for the same term,
would be 2,400_l._, or a profit of 1,000_l._ over and above the worth
of the fountain, which having been thus paid for is of course in a
succeeding year the means of a clear profit of 4_l._ I am assured that
the weekly average of “a fountain’s takings,” when in the hands of the
regular street-dealers, is 18_s._
The barrel traders may be taken as in the average receipt of 6_s._ a
week.
The duration of the season was, last year, only sixteen weeks.
Calculating from the best data I could acquire, it appears that for
this period 200 street-sellers of ginger-beer in the bottle trade of
the penny class take 30_s._ a week each (thus allowing for the inferior
receipts in bad weather); 300 take 20_s._ each, selling for the most
part at 1/2_d._ the bottle, and that the remaining 400 “in a small
way” take 6_s._ each; hence we find 11,480_l._ expended in the bottled
ginger-beer of the streets. Adding the receipts from the fountains and
the barrels, the barrel season continuing only ten weeks, the total sum
expended annually in street ginger-beer is altogether 14,660_l._ The
bottles of ginger-beer sold yearly in the streets will number about
4,798,000, and the total street consumption of the same beverage may be
said to be about 250,000 gallons per annum.
OF THE EXPERIENCE AND CUSTOMERS OF A GINGER-BEER SELLER.
A slim, well-spoken man, with a half-military appearance, as he had
a well trimmed moustache, and was very cleanlily dressed, gave me
the following account: “I have known the ginger-beer trade for eight
years, and every branch of it. Indeed I think I’ve tried all sorts of
street business. I’ve been a costermonger, a lot-seller, a nut-seller,
a secret-paper-seller (with straws, you know, sir), a cap-seller, a
street-printer, a cakeman, a clown, an umbrella-maker, a toasting-fork
maker, a sovereign seller, and a ginger-beer seller. I hardly know
what I haven’t been. I made my own when last I worked beer. Sunday was
my best day, or rather Sunday mornings when there’s no public-houses
open. Drinking Saturday nights make dry Sunday mornings. Many a time
men have said to me: ‘Let’s have a bottle to quench a spark in my
throat,’ or ‘My mouth’s like an oven.’ I’ve had to help people to lift
the glass to their lips, their hands trembled so. They couldn’t have
written their names plain if there was a sovereign for it. But these
was only chance customers; one or two in a morning, and five or six on
a Sunday morning. I’ve been a teetotaller myself for fifteen years. No,
sir, I didn’t turn one--but I never was a drinker--not from any great
respect for the ginger-beer trade, but because I thought it gave one a
better chance of getting on. I once had saved money, but it went in a
long sickness. I used to be off early on Sunday mornings sometimes to
Hackney Marsh, and sell my beer there to gentlemen--oldish gentlemen
some of them--going a fishing. Others were going there to swim. One
week I took 35_s._ at 1_d._ a bottle, by going out early in a morning;
perhaps 20_s._ of it was profit, but my earnings in the trade in a good
season wasn’t more than 12_s._ one week with another. All the trades in
the streets are bad now, I think. Eight years back I could make half as
much more in ginger-beer as could be made last summer. Working people
and boys were my other customers. I stuck to ginger-beer in the season
and then went into something else, for I can turn my hand to anything.
I began a street life at eight years old by selling memorandum-books in
the bull-ring at Birmingham. My parents were ill and hadn’t a farthing
in the house. I began with 1_d._ stock-money, and I bought three
memorandum-books for it at Cheap Jack’s thatched house. I’ve been in
London seventeen or eighteen years. I’m a roulette-maker now; I mean
the roulette boxes that gentlemen take with them to play with when
travelling on a railway or such times. I make loaded dice, too, and
supply gaming-houses. I think I know more gaming-houses than any man in
London. I’ve sold them to gentlemen and to parsons, that is ministers
of religion. I can prove that. I don’t sell those sort of things in
the streets. I could do very well in the trade, but it’s so uncertain
and so little’s wanted compared to what would keep a man going, and I
have a mother that’s sixty to support. Altogether my present business
is inferior to the ginger-beer; but the fountains will destroy all the
fair ginger-beer trade.”
OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF HOT ELDER WINE.
The sale of hot elder wine in the streets is one of the trades which
have been long established, but it is only within these eight or ten
years that it has been carried on in its present form. It continues for
about four months in the winter.
Elder wine is made from the berries of the elder-tree. Elder
syrup--also made from the berries--was formerly famous in the north
of England as a curative for colds, and was frequently taken, with a
small admixture of rum, at bedtime. Some of the street-sellers make
the wine themselves; the majority, however, buy it of the British wine
makers. The berries must be gathered when fully ripe, and on a dry day.
They are picked, measured, and put into a copper, two gallons of water
being added to every gallon of berries. They are then boiled till the
berries are quite soft, when the liquor is strained and pressed from
them through a strong hair sieve. The liquor thus expressed is again
put into the copper, boiled an hour, skimmed, and placed in a tub along
with a bread toast, on which yeast is spread thickly; it then stands
two days, and is afterwards put into a cask, a few cloves and crusted
ginger being hung in a muslin bag from the bung-hole, so as to flavour
the liquor. Sometimes this spicing is added afterwards, when the
liquor is warmed. The berries are sold in the markets, principally in
Covent-garden,--the price varying, according to the season, from 1_s._
6_d._ to 3_s._ a gallon. Of all elder-wine makers the Jews are the best
as regards the street commodity. The costermongers say they “have a
secret;” a thing said frequently enough when superior skill is shown,
and especially when, as in the case of the Jews’ elder wine, better
pennyworths are given. The Jews, I am told, add a small quantity of
raspberry vinegar to their “elder,” so as to give it a “sharp pleasant
twang.” The heat and pungency of the elder wine sold in the streets is
increased by some street-sellers by means of whole black pepper and
capsicums.
The apparatus in which the wine is now kept for sale in the streets is
of copper or brass, and is sometimes “handsome.” It is generally an
urn of an oblong form, erected on a sort of pedestal, with the lid or
top ornamented with brass mouldings, &c. Three plated taps give vent
to the beverage. Orifices are contrived and are generally hidden, or
partially hidden, with some ornament, which act as safety-valves, or,
as one man would have it, “chimneys.” The interior of these urns holds
three or four quarts of elder wine, which is surrounded with boiling
water, and the water and wine are kept up to the boiling pitch by means
of a charcoal fire at the foot of the vessel. Fruit of some kind is
generally sold by the elder-wine men at their stand.
The elder wine urn is placed on a stand covered with an oil-cloth, six
or eight glasses being ranged about it. It is sold at a halfpenny and a
penny a glass; but there is “little difference in some elder wines,” I
was told, “between the penn’orths and the ha’porths.” A wine glass of
the “regular” size is a half-quartern, or the eighth of a pint.
Along with each glass of hot elder wine is given a small piece of
toasted bread. Some buyers steep this bread in the wine, and so imbibe
the flavour. “It ain’t no good as I know on,” said an elder-wine
seller, “but it’s the fashion, and so people must have it.” The
purchasers of elder wine are the working classes--but not the better
order of them--and the boys of the street. Some of these lads, I was
told, were very choice and critical in their elder wines. Some will
say: “It ain’t such bad wine, but not the real spicy.”--“The helder I
thinks,” said another, “is middlin’, but somehow there’s nothing but
hotness for to taste.”
Of these traders there are now perhaps fifty in London. One man counted
up thirty of his brethren whom he knew personally, or knew to be then
“working elder,” and he thought that there might be as many more, but
I am assured that fifty is about the mark. The sellers of elder wine
have been for the most part mechanics who have adopted the calling
for the reasons I have often given. None of them, in the course of my
inquiry, depended entirely upon the sale of the wine, but sold fruit
in addition to it. All complained of the bad state of trade. One man
said, that four or five years back he had replenished the wine in a
three quart urn twelve times a day, a jar of the wine being kept at
the stall in readiness for that purpose. This amounted to 576 glasses
sold in the course of the day, and a receipt--reckoning each glass at
a penny--of 48_s._; but probably not more than 40_s._ would be taken,
as some would have halfpenny glasses. Now the same man rarely sells
three quarts in a day, except perhaps on a Saturday, and on wet days he
sells none at all. The elder wine can be bought at almost any price at
the wine makers, from 4_d._ to 1_s._ 6_d._ the quart. The charge in the
public-houses is twice as high as in the streets, but the inn wine, I
was told by a person familiar with the trade, contains spirit, and is
more highly spiced.
A decent-looking middle-aged man who had been in a gentleman’s service,
but was disabled by an accident which crushed his hand, and who
thereupon resorted to street-selling and had since continued in it, in
different branches, from fifteen to twenty years, gave me an account
of his customers. He had not been acquainted with the elder-wine trade
above four or five years when he bought an elder can for about 15_s._
among a cheap miscellaneous “lot” in Smithfield one Friday afternoon,
and so he commenced:
“It’s a poor trade, sir,” he said. “I don’t suppose any of us make
10_s._ a week at it alone, but it’s a good help to other things, and I
do middling. I should say less than a 1_s._ a day was above the average
profits of the trade. Say 5_s._ a week, for on wet days we can’t sell
at all. No one will stop to drink elder wine in the wet. They’ll rather
have a pennor’th of gin, or half a pint of beer with the chill off,
under shelter. I sell sometimes to people that say they’re teetotallers
and ask if there’s any spirit in my wine. I assure them there’s not,
just the juice of the berry. I start when I think the weather’s cold
enough, and keep at it as long as there’s any demand. My customers are
boys and poor people, and I sell more ha’porths than pennor’ths. I’ve
heard poor women that’s bought of me say it was the only wine they ever
tasted. The boys are hard to please, but I won’t put up with their
nonsense. It’s not once in fifty times that a girl of the town buys my
wine. It’s not strong enough for her, I fancy. A sharp frosty dry day
suits me best. I may then sell three or four quarts. I don’t make it,
but buy it. It’s a poor trade, and I think it gets worse every year,
though I believe there’s far fewer of us.”
One elder-wine stand in Tottenham-court-road cost, when new, 7_l._,
but that was six or seven years ago. Calculating that 50 persons clear
5_s._ a week for 16 weeks, their profit being at least cent. per cent.,
the street outlay in this very British wine will be only 200_l._, and
the street-consumption of it in the course of the year 1,500 gallons.
OF THE STREET SALE OF PEPPERMINT-WATER.
Perhaps the only thing which can be called a cordial or a liqueur sold
in the streets (if we except elder wine), is peppermint-water, and of
this the sale is very limited. For the first 15 or 20 years of the
present century, I was told by one who spoke from a personal knowledge,
“a pepperminter” had two little taps to his keg, which had a division
in the interior. From one tap was extracted “peppermint-water;” from
the other, “strong peppermint-water.” The one was at that time 1_d._
a glass, the other from 2_d._ to 4_d._, according to the size of the
glass. With the “strong” beverage was mixed smuggled spirit, but so
strongly impregnated with the odour of the mint, that a passer-by could
not detect the presence of the illicit compound. There are six persons
selling peppermint-water in the winter, and only half that number in
the summer. The trade is irregular, as some pursue it only of a night,
and generally in the street markets; others sell at Billingsgate, and
places of great traffic, when the traffic is being carried on. They
are stationary for awhile, but keep shifting their ground. The vendors
generally “distilled their own mint,” when the sale was greater, but
within these six or eight years they have purchased it at a distilling
chemist’s, and have only prepared it for sale. Water is added to the
distilled liquid bought of the chemist, to increase the quantity;
but to enhance the heat of the draught--which is a draw to some
buyers--black pepper (unground), or ginger, or, but rarely, capsicums,
are steeped in the beverage. The peppermint-water is lauded by the
vendors, when questioned concerning it, as an excellent stomachic;
but nothing is said publicly of its virtues, the cry being merely,
“Pep-permint water, a halfpenny a glass.”
The sellers will generally say that they distil the peppermint-water
themselves, but this is not now commonly the case. The process,
however, is simple enough. The peppermint used is gathered just as it
is bursting into flower, and the leaves and buds are placed in a tub,
with just water enough to cover them. This steeping continues 24 hours,
and then a still is filled three-parts full, and the water is “over”
drawn very slowly.
The price at the chemist’s is 1_s._ a quart for the common mint-water;
the street price is 1/2_d._ a glass, containing something short of the
eighth of a pint. What costs 1_s._, the street-seller disposes of for
2_s._, so realising the usual cent. per cent.
To take 2_s._ is now accounted “a tidy day’s work;” and calculating
that four “pepperminters” take that amount the year round, Sundays
excepted, we find that nearly 125_l._ is spent annually in
peppermint-water and 900 gallons of it consumed every year in the
streets of London.
The capital required is, keg, 3_s._ 6_d._, or jar, 2_s._ (for they
are used indifferently); four glasses, 1_s._; towel, 4_d._, and
stock-money, 4_s._; or, in all, about 8_s._ The “water”-keg, or jar,
is carried by the vendor, but sometimes it is rested on a large
stool carried for the purpose. A distilling apparatus, such as the
street-sellers used, was worth about 10_s._ The vendors are of the same
class of street-sellers as the ginger-beer people.
OF MILK SELLING IN ST. JAMES’S PARK.
The principal sale of milk from the cow is in St. James’s Park. The
once fashionable drink known as syllabubs--the milk being drawn warm
from the cow’s udder, upon a portion of wine, sugar, spice, &c.--is now
unknown. As the sellers of milk in the park are merely the servants of
cow-keepers, and attend to the sale as a part of their business, no
lengthened notice is required.
The milk-sellers obtain leave from the Home Secretary, to ply their
trade in the park. There are eight stands in the summer, and as many
cows, but in the winter there are only four cows. The milk-vendors
sell upon an average, in the summer, from eighteen to twenty quarts
per day; in the winter, not more than a third of that quantity. The
interrupted milking of the cows, as practised in the Park, often
causes them to give less milk, than they would in the ordinary way.
The chief customers are infants, and adults, and others, of a delicate
constitution, who have been recommended to take new milk. On a wet day
scarcely any milk can be disposed of. Soldiers are occasional customers.
A somewhat sour-tempered old woman, speaking as if she had been crossed
in love, but experienced in this trade, gave me the following account:
“It’s not at all a lively sort of life, selling milk from the cows,
though some thinks it’s a gay time in the Park! I’ve often been dull
enough, and could see nothing to interest one, sitting alongside a
cow. People drink new milk for their health, and I’ve served a good
many such. They’re mostly young women, I think, that’s delicate, and
makes the most of it. There’s twenty women, and more, to one man what
drinks new milk. If they was set to some good hard work, it would do
them more good than new milk, or ass’s milk either, I think. Let them
go on a milk-walk to cure them--that’s what I say. Some children come
pretty regularly with their nurses to drink new milk. Some bring their
own china mugs to drink it out of; nothing less was good enough for
them. I’ve seen the nurse-girls frightened to death about the mugs.
I’ve heard one young child say to another: ‘I shall tell mama that
Caroline spoke to a mechanic, who came and shook hands with her.’ The
girl was as red as fire, and said it was her brother. Oh, yes, there’s
a deal of brothers comes to look for their sisters in the Park. The
greatest fools I’ve sold milk to is servant-gals out for the day. Some
must have a day, or half a day, in the month. Their mistresses ought to
keep them at home, I say, and not let them out to spend their money,
and get into nobody knows what company for a holiday; mistresses is too
easy that way. It’s such gals as makes fools of themselves in liking a
soldier to run after them. I’ve seen one of them--yes, some would call
her pretty, and the prettiest is the silliest and easiest tricked out
of money, that’s my opinion, anyhow--I’ve seen one of them, and more
than one, walk with a soldier, and they’ve stopped a minute, and she’s
taken something out of her glove and given it to him. Then they’ve
come up to me, and he’s said to her, ‘Mayn’t I treat you with a little
new milk, my dear?’ and he’s changed a shilling. Why, of course, the
silly fool of a gal had given him that there shilling. I thought, when
Annette Myers shot the soldier, it would be a warning, but nothing’s
a warning to some gals. _She_ was one of those fools. It was a good
deal talked about at the stand, but I think none of us know’d her.
Indeed, we don’t know our customers but by sight. Yes, there’s now
and then some oldish gentlemen--I suppose they’re gentlemen, anyhow,
they’re idle men--lounging about the stand: but there’s no nonsense
there. They tell me, too, that there’s not so much lounging about as
there was; those that’s known the trade longer than me thinks so. Them
children’s a great check on the nusses, and they can’t be such fools
as the servant-maids. I don’t know how many of them I’ve served with
milk along with soldiers: I never counted them. They’re nothing to me.
Very few elderly people drink new milk. It’s mostly the young. I’ve
been asked by strangers when the Duke of Wellington would pass to the
Horse-Guards or to the House of Lords. He’s pretty regular. I’ve had
6_d._ given me--but not above once or twice a year--to tell strangers
where was the best place to see him from as he passed. I don’t
understand about this Great Exhibition, but, no doubt, more new milk
will be sold when it’s opened, and that’s all I cares about.”
OF THE STREET SALE OF MILK.
During the summer months milk is sold in Smithfield, Billingsgate, and
the other markets, and on Sundays in Battersea-fields, Clapham-common,
Camberwell-green, Hampstead-heath, and similar places. About twenty
men are engaged in this sale. They usually wear a smock frock, and
have the cans and yoke used by the regular milk-sellers; they are not
itinerant. The skim milk--for they sell none else--is purchased at the
dairies at 1-1/2_d._ a quart, and even the skim milk is also further
watered by the street-sellers. Their cry is “Half-penny half-pint!
Milk!” The tin measure however in which the milk-and-water is served is
generally a “slang,” and contains but half of the quantity proclaimed.
The purchasers are chiefly boys and children; rarely men, and never
costermongers, I was told, “for they reckon milk sickly.” These
street-sellers--who have most of them been employed in the more regular
milk-trade--clear about 1_s._ 6_d._ a day each, for three months; and
as the profit is rather more than cent. per cent. it appears that about
4,000 gallons of milk are thus sold, and upwards of 260_l._ laid out
upon these persons, yearly in its purchase.
A pair of cans with the yoke cost 15_s._, and 1_l._ is amply sufficient
as capital to start in this trade, as the two measures used may be
bought for 2_s._; and 3_s._ can be devoted to the purchase of the
liquid.
OF THE STREET-SALE OF CURDS AND WHEY.
The preparations of milk which comprise the street-trade, are curds and
whey and rice-milk, the oldest street-sellers stating that these were a
portion of the trade in their childhood. The one is a summer, and the
other a winter traffic, and both are exclusively in the hands of the
same middle-aged and elderly women. The vendors prepare the curds and
whey in all cases themselves. “Skim-milk,” purchased at the dairies,
is used by the street-purveyors, a gallon being the quantity usually
prepared at a time. This milk gallon is double the usual quantity, or
eight quarts. The milk is first “scalded,” the pan containing it being
closely watched, in order that the contents may not boil. The scalding
occupies 10 or 15 minutes, and it is then “cooled” until it attains
the lukewarmness of new milk. Half a pound of sugar is then dissolved
in the milk, and a tea-spoonful of rennet is introduced, which is
sufficient to “turn” a gallon. In an hour, or in some cases two, the
milk is curded, and is ready for use. The street-sale is confined to
stalls; the stall, which is the ordinary stand, being covered with a
white cloth, or in some cases an oil-cloth, and on this the curds, in
a bright tin kettle or pan, are deposited. There are six mugs on the
board, and a spoon in each, but those who affect a more modern style
have glasses. One of the neatest stalls, as regards the display of
glass, and the bright cleanliness of the vessel containing the curds,
is in Holborn; but the curd-seller there has only an average business.
The mugs or glasses hold about the third of a pint, and “the full of
one” is a penny-worth; for a halfpenny-worth the vessel is half filled.
The season is during the height of summer, and continues three or four
months, or, as one woman tersely and commercially expressed it, “from
Easter to fruit.” The number of street-saleswomen is about 100. Along
with the curds they generally sell oranges, or such early fruit as
cherries.