eighteen years, gave me the following account:--“Boys and girls is
my best customers for cruds, sir. Perhaps I sell to them almost half
of all I get rid of. Very little fellows will treat girls, often
bigger than themselves, at my stall, and they have as much chaffing
and nonsense about it’s being ‘stunning good for the teeth,’ and such
like, as if they was grown-up. Some don’t much like it at first, but
they gets to like it. One boy, whose young woman made faces at it--and
it _was_ a little sour to be sure that morning--got quite vexed and
said, ‘Wot a image you’re a-making on yourself!’ I don’t know what
sort the boys are, only that they’re the street-boys mostly. Quiet
working people are my other customers, perhaps rather more women than
men. Some has told me they was teetotallers. Then there’s the women
of the town of the poorer sort, _they’re_ good customers,--as indeed
I think they are for most cooling drinks at times, for they seem to
me to be _always_ thirsty. I never sell to dustmen or that sort of
people. Saturday is my best day. If it’s fine and warm, I sell a gallon
then, which makes about 40 penn’orths; sometimes it brings me 3_s._,
sometimes 3_s._ 6_d._; it’s rather more than half profits. Take it
altogether, I sell five gallons in fine dry weeks, and half that in
wet; and perhaps there’s what I call a set down wet week for every two
dry. Nobody has a better right to pray against wet weather than poor
women like me. Ten years ago I sold almost twice as much as I can now.
There’s so many more of us at present, I think, and let alone that
there’s more shops keeps it too.”
Another old woman told me, that she used, “when days was longest,”
to be up all night, and sell her “cruds” near Drury-lane theatre,
and often received in a few hours 5_s._ or 6_s._, from “ladies and
gentlemen out at night.” But the men were so rackety, she said, and
she’d had her stall so often kicked over by drunken people, and no
help for it, that she gave up the night-trade, and she believed it was
hardly ever followed now.
To start in the curds and whey line requires the following
capital:--Saucepan, for the scalding and boiling, 2_s._; stall, 5_s._;
6 mugs, 6_d._; or 6 glasses, 2_s._ 6_d._; 6 spoons, 3_d._; tin kettle
on stall, 3_s._ 6_d._; pail for water to rinse glasses, 1_s._ Then for
stock-money: 1 gallon skimmed milk, 1_s._ 6_d._ or 1_s._ 8_d._; and 1/2
lb. sugar, 2_d._ In all, 14_s._ 1_d._, reckoning the materials to be
of the better sort.
Of the whole number of street curd-sellers, 50 dispose of as much as
my informant, or 12-1/2 gallons in 3 weeks; the other 50 sell only
half as much. Taking the season at 3 months, we find the consumption
of curds and whey in the street to be 2,812 double gallons (as regards
the ingredient of milk), at a cost to the purchasers of 421_l._, half
of which is the profit accruing to the street-seller. The receipts
of those having the better description of business being 9_s._ 4_d._
weekly; those of the smaller traders being 4_s._ 8_d._ There is a
slight and occasional loss by the “cruds” being kept until unsaleable,
in which case they are “fit for nothing but the hog-wash man.”
OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF RICE-MILK.
To make rice-milk, the street-seller usually boils four quarts, of
the regular measure, of “skim” with one pound of rice, which has been
previously boiled in water. An hour suffices for the boiling of the
milk; and the addition of the rice, swollen by the boiling water,
increases the quantity to six quarts. No other process is observed,
except that some sweeten their rice-milk before they offer it for
sale; the majority, however, sweeten it to the customer’s liking
when he is “served,” unless--to use the words of one informant--“he
have a werry, werry sweet tooth indeed, sir; and that can’t be
stood.” For the sweetening of six quarts, half a pound of sugar is
used; for the “spicing,” half an ounce of allspice, dashed over the
milk freely enough from a pepper-castor. Rice-milk is always sold
at stalls arranged for the purpose, and is kept in a tin pan fitted
upon a charcoal brazier, so that the “drinkable” is always hot.
This apparatus generally stands on the ground alongside the stall,
and is elevated only by the feet of the brazier. The “rice-milk
woman,”--for the street-sellers are generally females,--dips a large
breakfast-cup, holding half a pint, into the pan, puts a tea-spoonful
of sugar into it, browns the whole with allspice, and receives 1_d._;
a halfpennyworth is, of course, half the quantity. The rice-milk women
are also sellers of oranges, chestnuts, apples, or some other fruit, as
well as the rice-milk; but, sometimes, when the weather is _very_ cold
and frosty, they sell rice-milk alone. There are fifty street-sellers
of rice-milk in London. Saturday night is the best time of sale, when
it is not uncommon for a rice-milk woman to sell six quarts; but, in a
good trade, four quarts a day for six days of the week is an average.
The purchasers are poor people; and a fourth of the milk is sold
to boys and girls, to whom it is often a meal. “Ah, sir,” said one
woman, “you should have seen how a poor man, last winter, swallowed a
penn’orth. He’d been a-wandering all night, he said, and he looked it,
and a gentleman gave him 2_d._, for he took pity on his hungry look,
and he spent 1_d._ with me, and I gave him another cup for charity.
‘God bless the gentleman and you!’ says he, ‘it’s saved my life; if I’d
bought a penny loaf, I’d have choked on it.’ He wasn’t a beggar, for I
never saw him before, and I’ve never seen him again from that day to
this.” The same informant told me, that she believed no rice-milk was
bought by the women of the town: “it didn’t suit the likes of them.”
Neither is it bought by those who are engaged in noisome trades. If
there be any of the rice-milk left at night, and the saleswoman have
doubts of its “keeping,” it is re-boiled with fresh rice and milk. The
profit is considerable; for the ingredients, which cost less than 1_s._
6_d._, are made into 96 pennyworths, and so to realize 8_s._ In some of
the poorer localities, however, such as Rosemary-lane, only 1/2_d._ the
half-pint can be obtained, and 4_s._ is then the amount received for
six quarts, instead of 8_s._
To start “in rice-milk” requires 13_s._ capital, which includes a pan
for boiling the milk, 2_s._; a kettle, with brazier, for stall, 4_s._;
stall or stand, 5_s._; six cups, 9_d._; for stock-money 15-1/2_d._,
with which is bought 4 quarts of skim-milk, 9_d._; 1 lb. of rice,
3_d._; 1/2 lb. of sugar, 2_d._; allspice, 1_d._
The season continues for four months; and calculating--a calculation
within the mark--that one half of the 50 sellers have as good a trade
as my informant--24 quarts weekly--and that, of the remaining 25, one
half sell 12 quarts each weekly, at 1_d._ the half-pint, and the other
half vend 24 quarts at 1/2_d._ the half-pint, we find that 320_l._
is annually spent in rice-milk and about 3,000 gallons of it yearly
consumed in the streets of London.
OF WATER-CARRIERS.
It may surprise many to learn that there are still existing
water-carriers in London, and some of them depending upon the trade for
a livelihood; while others, the “odd men” of the neighbourhood, carry
pails of spring water to the publicans or eating-house keepers, who may
not have servants to send to the nearest pump for it, and who require
it fresh and cool for those who drink it at their meals. Of these men
there are, as near as I can ascertain, from 100 to 150; their charge is
1_d._ per pail. Their earnings per day 6_d._ to 1_s._ Perhaps none of
them depend solely upon this labour for their support.
It is otherwise at Highgate and Hampstead, for in those places both
men and women depend entirely for their daily bread on water carrying.
At Hampstead the supply is derived from what may be called a double
well, known as “the Conduit.” The ground is flagged, and the water is
seen at each corner of a wall built to the surface of the ground (about
eight feet) and surmounted by an iron rail. The water is covered over,
in one corner and not in the other, and the carrier descends a step
or two, dips in his pails and walks away with them when filled. The
water is carried by means of a “yoke,” in the same way as we see the
milk-pails carried in every street in London. The well and the field in
which the Hampstead water is situated are the property of the Church,
and the water is free to any one, in any quantity, either for sale or
any other purpose, “without leave.” In droughts or frosts the supply
fails, and the carriers have sometimes to wait hours for their “turn,”
and then to bale the water into their pails with a basin. The nearest
street to which the water is carried is half a mile distant. Some is
carried three quarters of a mile, and some (occasionally) a mile. The
two pails full, which contain seven gallons, are sold at 1-1/2_d._
The weight is about 70 lbs. Seventeen years ago the price was 3_d._;
after which it fell to 2-1/2_d._, then to 2_d._, and has been 1-1/2_d._
these five or six years, while now there are three or four carriers who
even “carry” at two pails a-penny to the nearer places. The supply of
the well (apart from drought or frost) is fifty-six gallons an hour.
The principal customers are the laundresses; but in wet weather their
cisterns and water-tubs are filled, and the carriers, or the major part
of them, are idle. The average earnings of the carriers are 5_s._ a
week the year through. Two of them are men of seventy. There is a bench
about midway to Hampstead, at which these labourers rest; and here on
almost every fine day sits with them a palsied old soldier, a pensioner
of about eighty, who regales them, almost daily, with long tales of
Vinegar Hill, and Jemmy O’Brien (the informer), and all the terrors
of the terrible times of the Irish rebellion of 1798; for the old man
(himself an Irishman) had served through the whole of it. This appears
to be a somewhat curious theme for constant expatiation to a band of
London water-carriers.
There are now twenty individuals, fourteen men and six women, carrying
at Hampstead, and twice that number at Highgate. Some leave the
carrying when they get better work,--but three-fourths of the number
live by it entirely. The women are the wives and widows of carriers.
The men have been either mechanics or labourers, except six or eight
youths (my informant was not certain which) who had been “brought up to
the water, but would willingly get away from it if they could.”
A well-spoken and intelligent-looking man, dressed in thick fustian,
old and greasy, “but good enough for the carrying,” gave me the
following account.
“I was a copper-plate printer,” he said, “and twenty years ago could
earn my 25_s._ a week. But employment fell off. The lithographic
injured it, and at last I could get very little work, and then none
at all, so I have been carrying now between three and four years. My
father-in-law was in the trade, and that made me think of it. My best
day’s work, and it’s the same with all, is 2_s._, which is sixteen
turns. It’s not possible to do more. If that could be done every day
it would be very well, but in wet weather when the laundresses, who
are my customers, don’t want water, I can’t make 1_s._ a week. Then
in a drought or a frost one has to wait such a long time for his turn,
that it’s not 6_d._ a day; a dry spring’s the worst. Last March I had
many days to wait six turns, and it takes well on to an hour for a turn
then. We sit by the well and talk when we’re waiting. O, yes, sir,
the Pope has had his turn of talk. There’s water companies both at
Hampstead and Highgate, but our well water (Hampstead) is asked for,
for all that. It’s so with Highgate. It is beautiful water, either for
washing or drinking. Perhaps it’s better with a little drop of spirit
for drinking, but I seldom taste it that way. The fatigue’s so great
that we _must_ take a little drop of spirit on a long day. No, sir, we
don’t mix it; that spoils two good things. I’ve been at the well first
light in the morning, and in summer I’ve been at work at it all night.
There’s no rule among us, but it’s understood that every one has his
turn. There’s a little chaff sometimes, and some get angry at having
to wait, but I never knew a fight. I have a wife and three children.
She works for a laundress, and has 2_s._ 6_d._ a day. She has two days
regular every week, and sometimes odd turns as well. I think that the
women earn more than the men in Hampstead. My rent is 1_s._ 6_d._ a
week for an unfurnished room. There is no trade on Sundays, but on fine
summer Sundays old ---- attends at the well and sells glasses of cool
water. He gets 2_s._ 6_d._ some days. He makes no charge; just what any
one pleases to give. Any body might do it, but the old gentleman would
grumble that they were taking his post.”
Computing the number of water carriers at the two places at sixty, and
their average earnings through the year at 5_s._ a week, it appears
that these men receive 780_l._ yearly. The capital required to start in
the business is 9_s._, the cost of a pair of pails and a yoke.
The old man who sells water on the summer Sunday mornings, generally
leaving off his sale at church-time, told me that his best customers
were ladies and gentlemen who loved an early walk, and bought of him
“as it looked like a bit of country life,” he supposed, more than
from being thirsty. When such customers were not inhabitants of the
neighbourhood, they came to him to ask their way, or to make inquiries
concerning the localities. Sometimes he dispensed water to men who
“looked as if they had been on the loose all night.” “One gentleman,”
he said, “looks sharp about him, and puts a dark-coloured stuff--very
likely it’s brandy--into the two or three glasses of water which he
drinks every Sunday, or which he used to drink rather, for I missed him
all last summer, I think. His hand trembled like a aspen; he mostly
gave me 6_d._” The water-seller spoke with some indignation of boys,
and sometimes men, going to the well on a Sunday morning and “drinking
out of their own tins that they’d taken with ’em.”
OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF PASTRY AND CONFECTIONARY.
The cooked provisions sold in the streets, it has been before stated,
consist of three kinds--solids, liquids, and pastry and confectionary.
The two first have now been fully described, but the last still remains
to be set forth.
The street pastry may be best characterised as of a _strong_ flavour.
This is, for the most part, attributable to the use of old or rancid
butter,--possessing the all-important recommendation of cheapness,--or
to the substitution of lard, dripping, or some congenial substance. The
“strong” taste, however, appears to possess its value in the estimation
of street pastry-buyers, especially among the boys. This may arise from
the palates of the consumers having been unaccustomed to more delicate
flavours, and having become habituated to the relish of that which is
somewhat rank; just in the same way as the “_fumet_” of game or venison
becomes dear to the palate of the more aristocratic _gourmand_. To
some descriptions of street pastry the epithet strong-flavoured may
seem inappropriate, but it is appropriate to the generality of these
comestibles,--especially to the tarts, which constitute a luxury, if
not to the meat pies or puddings that may supply a meal.
The articles of pastry sold in the London streets are meat and fruit
pies, boiled meat and kidney puddings, plum “duff” or pudding, and an
almost infinite variety of tarts, cakes, buns, and biscuits; while the
confectionary consists of all the several preparations included under
the wide denomination of “sweet-stuff,” as well as the more “medicinal”
kind known as “cough drops;” in addition to these there are the more
“aristocratic” delicacies recently introduced into street traffic,
viz., penny raspberry creams and ices.
OF STREET PIEMEN.
The itinerant trade in pies is one of the most ancient of the street
callings of London. The meat pies are made of beef or mutton; the
fish pies of eels; the fruit of apples, currants, gooseberries,
plums, damsons, cherries, raspberries, or rhubarb, according to the
season--and occasionally of mince-meat. A few years ago the street
pie-trade was very profitable, but it has been almost destroyed by the
“pie-shops,” and further, the few remaining street-dealers say “the
people now haven’t the pennies to spare.” Summer fairs and races are
the best places for the piemen. In London the best times are during any
grand sight or holiday-making, such as a review in Hyde-park, the Lord
Mayor’s show, the opening of Parliament, Greenwich fair, &c. Nearly
all the men of this class, whom I saw, were fond of speculating as to
whether the Great Exposition would be “any good” to them, or not.
The London piemen, who may number about forty in winter, and twice
that number in summer, are seldom stationary. They go along with
their pie-cans on their arms, crying, “Pies all ’ot! eel, beef, or
mutton pies! Penny pies, all ’ot--all ’ot!” The “can” has been before
described. The pies are kept hot by means of a charcoal fire beneath,
and there is a partition in the body of the can to separate the hot and
cold pies. The “can” has two tin drawers, one at the bottom, where the
hot pies are kept, and above these are the cold pies. As fast as the
hot dainties are sold, their place is supplied by the cold from the
upper drawer.
A teetotal pieman in Billingsgate has a pony and “shay cart.” His
business is the most extensive in London. It is believed that he sells
20_s._ worth or 240 pies a day, but his brother tradesmen sell no such
amount. “I was out last night,” said one man to me, “from four in the
afternoon till half-past twelve. I went from Somers-town to the Horse
Guards, and looked in at all the public-houses on my way, and I didn’t
take above 1_s._ 6_d._ I have been out sometimes from the beginning of
the evening till long past midnight, and haven’t taken more than 4_d._,
and out of that I have to pay 1_d._ for charcoal.”
The pie-dealers usually make the pies themselves. The meat is bought
in “pieces,” of the same part as the sausage-makers purchase--the
“stickings”--at about 3_d._ the pound. “People, when I go into houses,”
said one man, “often begin crying, ‘Mee-yow,’ or ‘Bow-wow-wow!’ at me;
but there’s nothing of that kind now. Meat, you see, is so cheap.”
About five-dozen pies are generally made at a time. These require a
quartern of flour at 5_d._ or 6_d._; 2 lbs. of suet at 6_d._; 1-1/2 lb.
meat at 3_d._, amounting in all to about 2_s._ To this must be added
3_d._ for baking; 1_d._ for the cost of keeping hot, and 2_d._ for
pepper, salt, and eggs with which to season and wash them over. Hence
the cost of the five dozen would be about 2_s._ 6_d._, and the profit
the same. The usual quantity of meat in each pie is about half an
ounce. There are not more than 20 _hot_-piemen now in London. There are
some who carry pies about on a tray slung before them; these are mostly
boys, and, including them, the number amounts to about sixty all the
year round, as I have stated.
The penny pie-shops, the street men say, have done their trade a great
deal of harm. These shops have now got mostly all the custom, as
they make the pies much larger for the money than those sold in the
streets. The pies in Tottenham-court-road are very highly seasoned.
“I bought one there the other day, and it nearly took the skin off my
mouth; it was full of pepper,” said a street-pieman, with considerable
bitterness, to me. The reason why so large a quantity of pepper is put
in is, because persons can’t exactly tell the flavour of the meat with
it. Piemen generally are not very particular about the flavour of the
meat they buy, as they can season it up into anything. In the summer,
a street pieman thinks he is doing a good business if he takes 5_s._
per day, and in the winter if he gets half that. On a Saturday night,
however, he generally takes 5_s._ in the winter, and about 8_s._ in
the summer. At Greenwich fair he will take about 14_s._ At a review in
Hyde-park, if it is a good one, he will sell about 10_s._ worth. The
generality of the customers are the boys of London. The women seldom,
if ever, buy pies in the streets. At the public-houses a few pies
are sold, and the pieman makes a practice of “looking in” at all the
taverns on his way. Here his customers are found principally in the
tap-room. “Here’s all ’ot!” the pieman cries, as he walks in; “toss or
buy! up and win ’em!” This is the only way that the pies can be got rid
of. “If it wasn’t for tossing we shouldn’t sell one.”
To “toss the pieman” is a favourite pastime with costermongers boys and
all that class; some of whom aspire to the repute of being gourmands,
and are critical on the quality of the comestible. If the pieman win
the toss, he receives 1_d._ without giving a pie; if he lose, he hands
it over for nothing. The pieman himself never “tosses,” but always
calls head or tail to his customer. At the week’s end it comes to the
same thing, they say, whether they toss or not, or rather whether they
win or lose the toss: “I’ve taken as much as 2_s._ 6_d._ at tossing,
which I shouldn’t have had if I had’nt done so. Very few people buy
without tossing, and the boys in particular. Gentlemen ‘out on the
spree’ at the late public-houses will frequently toss when they don’t
want the pies, and when they win they will amuse themselves by throwing
the pies at one another, or at me. Sometimes I have taken as much as
half-a-crown, and the people of whom I had the money has never eaten a
pie. The boys has the greatest love of gambling, and they seldom, if
ever, buys without tossing.” One of the reasons why the street boys
delight in tossing, is, that they can often obtain a pie by such means
when they have only a halfpenny wherewith to gamble. If the lad wins he
gets a penny pie for his halfpenny.
For street mince-meat pies the pieman usually makes 5lb. of mince-meat
at a time, and for this he will put in 2 doz. of apples, 1lb. of sugar,
1lb. of currants, 2lb. of “critlings” (critlings being the refuse left
after boiling down the lard), a good bit of spice to give the critlings
a flavour, and plenty of treacle to make the mince-meat look rich.
[Illustration: THE COSTER BOY AND GIRL TOSSING THE PIEMAN.
[_From a Daguerreotype by_ BEARD.]]
The “gravy” which used to be given with the meat-pies was poured out
of an oil-can, and consisted of a little salt and water browned. A
hole was made with the little finger in the top of the meat pie, and
the “gravy” poured in until the crust rose. With this gravy a person
in the line assured me that he has known pies four days old to go
off very freely, and be pronounced excellent. The street piemen are
mostly bakers, who are unable to obtain employment at their trade.
“I myself,” said one, “was a bread and biscuit baker. I have been at
the pie business now about two years and a half, and I can’t get a
living at it. Last week my earnings were not more than 7_s._ all the
week through, and I was out till three in the morning to get that.”
The piemen seldom begin business till six o’clock, and some remain out
all night. The best time for the sale of pies is generally from ten at
night to one in the morning.
Calculating that there are only fifty street piemen plying their trade
in London, the year through, and that their average earnings are 8_s._
a week, we find a street expenditure exceeding 1,040_l._, and a street
consumption of pies amounting nearly to three quarters of a million
yearly.
To start in the penny pie business of the streets requires 1_l._ for
a “can,” 2_s._ 6_d._ for a “turn-halfpenny” board to gamble with,
12_s._ for a gross of tin pie-dishes, 8_d._ for an apron, and about
6_s._ 6_d._ for stock money--allowing 1_s._ for flour, 1_s._ 3_d._ for
meat, 2_d._ for apples, 4_d._ for eels, 2_s._ for pork flare or fat,
2_d._ for sugar, 1/2_d._ for cloves, 1_d._ for pepper and salt, 1_d._
for an egg to wash the pies over with, 6_d._ for baking, and 1_d._
for charcoal to keep the pies hot in the streets. Hence the capital
required would be about 2_l._ in all.
OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF BOILED PUDDINGS.