be with greater correctness called dumplings--has not been known
in London, I was informed by one in the trade, more than twelve
or fourteen years. The ingredients for the meat puddings are not
dissimilar to those I have described as required for the meat pies, but
the puddings are boiled, in cotton bags, in coppers or large pans, and
present the form of a round ball. The charge is a halfpenny each. Five
or six years back a man embarked his means--said to be about 15_l._--in
the meat-pudding line, and prepared a superior article, which was
kept warm in the street by means of steam, in a manner similar to
that employed by the pieman. A mechanic out of work was engaged by
this projector to aid him in the sale of his street luxuries, and the
mechanic and his two boys made a living by this sale for two or three
years. The original pudding-projector relinquished the street trade to
go into business as a small shop-keeper, and the man who sold for him
on a sort of commission, earning from 12_s._ to 18_s._ a week, made the
puddings on his own account. His earnings, however, on his own account
were not above from 1_s._ to 2_s._ 6_d._ a week beyond what he earned
by commission, and a little while back he obtained work again at his
own business, but his two boys still sell puddings in the street.
The sale of boiled meat puddings is carried on only in the autumn and
winter months, and only in the evenings, except on Saturdays, when
the business commences in the afternoon. The sale, I was informed by
one of the parties, has been as many as forty-five dozen puddings on
a Saturday evening. The tins in which the puddings are carried about
hold from four to six dozen, and are replenished from the pans--the
makers always living contiguous to the street where the vend takes
place--as fast as the demand requires such replenishment. An average
sale on a fine dry winter Saturday evening is thirty dozen, but then,
as in most street callings, “the weather”--a remark often made to
me--“has considerable to do with it.” A frost, I was told, helped
off the puddings, and a rain kept them back. Next to Saturday the
best business night is Monday; but the average sale on the Monday is
barely half that on the Saturday, and on the other evenings of the
week about a third. This gives a weekly sale by each street-seller
of 85 dozen, or 1,020 puddings, and as I am informed there are now
but six street-sellers (regularly) of this comestible, the weekly
aggregate would be--allowing for bad weather--5,400, or 129,600 in a
season of 24 weeks; an expenditure on the part of the street boys and
girls (who are the principal purchasers), and of the poor persons who
patronise the street-trade, of about 270_l._ per annum. The wandering
street-musicians of the poorer class--such as “Old Sarey” and the
Italian boys--often make their dinner off a meat pudding purchased on
their rounds; for it is the rule with such people never to return home
after starting in the morning till their day’s work is done.
The boys who ply their callings in the street, or are much in the
open air, are very fond of these puddings, and to witness the way
in which they throw the pudding, when very hot, from hand to hand,
eyeing it with an expression that shows an eagerness to eat with
a fear of burning the mouth, is sometimes laughable and sometimes
painful, because not unfrequently there is a look of keen hunger about
the--probably outcast--lad. The currant puddings are, I believe, sold
only at Billingsgate and Petticoat-lane.
OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF PLUM “DUFF” OR DOUGH.
Plum dough is one of the street-eatables--though perhaps it is rather a
violence to class it with the street-pastry--which is usually made by
the vendors. It is simply a boiled plum, or currant, pudding, of the
plainest description. It is sometimes made in the rounded form of the
plum-pudding; but more frequently in the “roly-poly” style. Hot pudding
used to be of much more extensive sale in the streets. One informant
told me that twenty or thirty years ago, batter, or Yorkshire, pudding,
“with plums in it,” was a popular street business. The “plums,” as
in the orthodox plum-puddings, are raisins. The street-vendors of
plum “duff” are now very few, only six as an average, and generally
women, or if a man be the salesman he is the woman’s husband. The sale
is for the most part an evening sale, and some vend the plum dough
only on a Saturday night. A woman in Leather-lane, whose trade is a
Saturday night trade, is accounted “one of the best plum duffs” in
London, as regards the quality of the comestible, but her trade is not
considerable.
The vendors of plum dough are the street-sellers who live by vending
other articles, and resort to plum dough, as well as to other things,
“as a help.” This dough is sold out of baskets in which it is kept hot
by being covered with cloths, sometimes two and even three, thick; and
the smoke issuing out of the basket, and the cry of the street-seller,
“Hot plum duff, hot plum,” invite custom. A quartern of flour,
5_d._; 1/2 lb. Valentia raisins, 2_d._; dripping and suet in equal
proportions, 2-1/2_d._; treacle, 1/2_d._; and allspice, 1/2_d._--in
all 10-1/2_d._; supply a roly-poly of twenty pennyworths. The treacle,
however, is only introduced “to make the dough look rich and spicy,”
and must be used sparingly.
The plum dough is sold in slices at 1/2_d._ or 1_d._ each, and the
purchasers are almost exclusively boys and girls--boys being at
least three-fourths of the revellers in this street luxury. I have
ascertained--as far as the information of the street-sellers enables me
to ascertain--that take the year through, six “plum duffers” take 1_s._
a day each, for four winter months, including Sundays, when the trade
is likewise prosecuted. Some will take from 4_s._ to 10_s._ (but rarely
10_s._) on a Saturday night, and nothing on other nights, and some do
a little in the summer. The vendors, who are all stationary, stand
chiefly in the street-markets and reside near their stands, so that
they can get relays of hot dough.
If we calculate then 42_s._ a week as the takings of six persons, for
five months, so including the summer trade, we find that upwards of
200_l._ is expended in the street purchase of plum dough, nearly half
of which is profit. The trade, however, is reckoned among those which
will disappear altogether from the streets.
The capital required to start is: basket, 1_s._ 9_d._; cloths, 6_d._;
pan for boiling, 2_s._; knife, 2_d._; stock-money, 2_s._; in all about,
7_s._ 6_d._
OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF CAKES, TARTS, &C.
These men and boys--for there are very few women or girls in the
trade--constitute a somewhat numerous class. They are computed
(including Jews) at 150 at the least, all regular hands, with an
addition, perhaps, of 15 or 20, who seek to earn a few pence on a
Sunday, but have some other, though poorly remunerative, employment on
the week-days. The cake and tart-sellers in the streets have been, for
the most part, mechanics or servants; a fifth of the body, however,
have been brought up to this or to some other street-calling.
The cake-men carry their goods on a tray slung round their shoulders
when they are offering their delicacies for sale, and on their heads
when not engaged in the effort to do business. They are to be found in
the vicinity of all public places. Their goods are generally arranged
in pairs on the trays; in bad weather they are covered with a green
cloth.
None of the street-vendors make the articles they sell; indeed, the
diversity of those articles renders that impossible. Among the regular
articles of this street-sale are “Coventrys,” or three-cornered puffs
with jam inside; raspberry biscuits; cinnamon biscuits; “chonkeys,”
or a kind of mince-meat baked in crust; Dutch butter-cakes; Jews’
butter-cakes; “bowlas,” or round tarts made of sugar, apple, and bread;
“jumbles,” or thin crisp cakes made of treacle, butter, and flour; and
jams, or open tarts with a little preserve in the centre.
All these things are made for the street-sellers by about a dozen Jew
pastry-cooks, the most of whom reside about Whitechapel. They confine
themselves to the trade, and make every description. On a fine holiday
morning their shops, or rather bake-houses, are filled with customers,
as they supply the small shops as well as the street-sellers of London.
Each article is made to be sold at a halfpenny, and the allowance
by the wholesale pastry-cook is such as to enable his customers to
realise a profit of 4_d._ in 1_s._; thus he charges 4_d._ a dozen for
the several articles. Within the last seven years there has been, I
am assured, a great improvement in the composition of these cakes,
&c. This is attributable to the Jews having introduced superior
dainties, and, of course, rendered it necessary for the others to vie
with them: the articles vended by these Jews (of whom there are from
20 to 40 in the streets) are still pronounced, by many connoisseurs
in street-pastry, as the best. Some sell penny dainties also, but
not to a twentieth part of the halfpenny trade. One of the wholesale
pastry-cooks takes 40_l._ a week. These wholesale men, who sometimes
credit the street-people, buy ten, fifteen, or twenty sacks of flour
at a time whenever a cheap bargain offers. They purchase as largely
in Irish butter, which they have bought at 3_d._ or 2-1/2_d._ the
pound. They buy also “scrapings,” or what remains in the butter-firkins
when emptied by the butter-sellers in the shops. “Good scrapings” are
used for the best cakes; the jam they make themselves. To commence
the wholesale business requires a capital of 600_l._ To commence the
street-selling requires a capital of only 10_s._; and this includes the
cost of a tray, about 1_s._ 9_d._; a cloth 1_s._; and a leathern strap,
with buckle, to go round the neck, 6_d._; while the rest is for stock,
with a shilling, or two as a reserve. All the street-sellers insist
upon the impossibility of any general baker making cakes as cheap as
those they vend. “It’s impossible, sir,” said one man to me; “it’s a
trade by itself; nobody else can touch it. They was miserable little
things seven years ago.”
An acute-looking man, decently dressed, gave me the following account.
He resided with his wife--who went out charing--in a decent little
back-room at the East-end, for which he paid 1_s._ a week. He had no
children:--
“I’m a ‘translator’ (a species of cobbler) by trade,” he said, “but
I’ve been a cake and a tart-seller in the streets for seven or eight
years. I couldn’t make 1_s._ 3_d._ a day of twelve hours’ work, and
sometimes nothing, by translating. Besides, my health was failing;
and, as I used to go out on a Sunday with cakes to sell for a cousin
of mine, I went into the trade myself, because I’d got up to it. I did
middling the first three or four years, and I’d do middling still,
if it wasn’t for the bad weather and the police. I’ve been up three
times for ‘obstructing.’ Why, sir, I never obstructed a quarter as
much as the print-shops and newspaper-shops down there” (pointing to
a narrow street in the City). “But the keepers of them shops can take
a sight at the Lord Mayor from behind their tills. The first time I
was up before the Lord Mayor--it’s a few years back--I thought he
talked like an old wife. ‘You mustn’t stand that way,’ he says, ‘and
you mustn’t do this, and you mustn’t do that.’ ‘Well, my lord,’ says
I, ‘then I mustn’t live honestly. But if you’ll give me 9_s._ a week,
I’ll promise not to stand here, and not to stand there; and neither to
do this, nor that, nor anything at all, if that pleases you better.’
They was shocked, they said, at my impudence--so young a fellow, too!
I got off each time, but a deal of my things was spoiled. I work the
City on week-days, and Victoria Park on Sundays. In the City, my best
customers is not children, but young gents; real gents, some of them
with gold watches. They buys twopenn’orth, mostly--that’s four of any
sort, or different sorts. They’re clerks in banks and counting-houses,
I suppose, that must look respectable like on a little, and so feeds
cheap, poor chaps! for they dine or lunch off it, never doubt. Or they
may be keeping their money for other things. To sell eleven dozen is a
first-rate days’ work; that’s 1_s._ 9_d._ or 1_s._ 10_d._ profit. But
then comes the wet days, and I can’t trade at all in the rain; and so
the things get stale, and I have to sell them in Petticoat-lane for two
a halfpenny. Victoria Park--I’m not let inside with my tray--is good
and bad as happens. It’s chiefly a tossing trade there. Oh, I dare say
I toss 100 times some Sundays. I don’t like tossing the coster lads,
they’re the wide-awakes that way. The thieves use ‘grays.’ They’re
ha’pennies, either both sides heads or both tails. Grays sell at from
2_d._ to 6_d._ I’m not often had that way, though. Working-people buy
very few of me on Sundays; it’s mostly boys; and next to the gents.,
why, perhaps, the boys is my best customers in the City. Only on Monday
a lad, that had been lucky ‘fiddling’” (holding horses, or picking up
money anyhow) “spent a whole shilling on me. I clear, I think--and I’m
among the cakes that’s the top of the tree--about 10_s._ a week in
summer, and hardly 7_s._ a week in winter. My old woman and me makes
both ends meet, and that’s all.”
Reckoning 150 cake-sellers, each clearing 6_s._ a week, a sufficiently
low average, the street outlay will be 2,340_l._, representing a
street-consumption of 1,123,200 cakes, tarts, &c.
OF OTHER CAKE-SELLERS IN THE STREETS.
The street cake-selling of London is not _altogether_ confined to the
class I have described; but the others engaged in it are not regular
pursuers of the business, and do not exceed thirty in number. Some
stock their trays with flare-cakes, which are round cakes, made of
flour and “unrendered” (unmelted) lard, and stuck over freely with
currants. They are sold at a farthing and a halfpenny each. Others,
again, carry only sponge-cakes, made of flour and eggs, packed closely
and regularly together, so as to present an uniform and inviting
surface. Others carry only gingerbread, made of flour and treacle.
These small trades are sometimes resorted to for a temporary purpose,
rather than a street-seller’s remaining in compulsory idleness. I
learned also that cake-sellers in the regular line, when unable to
command sufficient capital to carry on their trade in the way they have
been accustomed to, sell “flayers,” so called from being made with
pig’s or sheep’s “flay,” or any other cheap cakes, and so endeavour to
retrieve themselves. The profits on these plainer sorts is 1_d._ in
1_s._ more than that on the others, but the sale rarely exceeds half
as much. I heard, however, of one man who deposited in pence, in eight
days, 1_s._ 10_d._ with a wholesale pastry-cook. He had saved this sum
by almost starving himself, on the sale of the inferior cakes, and the
dealer trusted him the 10_d._ to make up eight dozen in the regular
cake business. To commence the street sale of cheap cakes requires a
capital of less than 5_s._; for tray, 1_s._ 6_d._; cloth, 6_d._; strap,
6_d._; and stock-money, 1_s._ 6_d._
Three or four men are occupied in selling plum-cakes. These are
generally sold in half-penny and penny lots. The plum-cake is made by
the same class of pastrycooks whom I have described as supplying the
tarts, puffs, &c., and sold on the same terms. The profits are fifty
per cent.--what cost 4_s._ bringing in 6_s._ One man who travels to all
the fairs and races, and is more in the country than town in the summer
and autumn, sells large quantities of plum-cake in Smithfield when in
town, sometimes having 2_l._ worth and more on his stall. He sells
cakes of a pound (ostensibly) at 4_d._, 6_d._, and 8_d._, according to
quality. He sometimes supplies the street-sellers on the same terms as
the pastrycooks, for he was once a baker.
From the best data at my command, it appears that the sale of these
inferior cakes does not realise above a fifth of that taken by the
other sellers, of whom I have treated, amounting to about 450_l._ in
all.
OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF GINGERBREAD-NUTS, &C.
The sale of gingerbread, as I have previously observed, was much more
extensive in the streets than it is at present. Indeed, what was
formerly known in the trade as “toy” gingerbread is now unseen in the
streets, except occasionally, and that only when the whole has not been
sold at the neighbouring fairs, at which it is still offered. But, even
at these fairs, the principal, and sometimes the only, toy gingerbread
that is vended is the “cock in breeches;” a formidable-looking bird,
with his nether garments of gold. Twenty or thirty years ago, “king
George on horseback” was popular in gingerbread. His Majesty, wearing a
gilt crown, gilt spurs, and a gilt sword, bestrode the gilt saddle of
his steed, and was eaten with great relish by his juvenile subjects.
There were also sheep, and dogs, and other animals, all adorned in a
similar manner, and looking as if they had been formed in close and
faithful imitation of children’s first attempts at cattle drawing.
These edible toys were then sold in “white,” as well as in “brown”
gingerbread, the white being the same in all other respects as the
brown, except that a portion of sugar was used in its composition
instead of treacle.
There are now only two men in London who make their own
gingerbread-nuts for sale in the streets. This preparation of
gingerbread is called by the street-sellers, after a common
elliptical fashion, merely “nuts.” From the most experienced man in
the street trade I had the following account: he was an intelligent,
well-mannered, and well-spoken man, and when he laughed or smiled, had
what may be best described as a pleasant look. After he had initiated
me into the art and mystery of gingerbread making--which I shall detail
separately--he said,
“I’ve been in the ‘nut’ trade 25 years, or thereabouts, and have made
my own nuts for 20 years of that time. I bought of a gingerbread baker
at first--there was plenty of them in them days--and the profit a
living profit, too. Certainly it was, for what I bought for 5_s._ I
could sell for 16_s._ I was brought up a baker, but the moment I was
out of my time I started in the street nut trade for myself. I knew the
profits of it, and thought it better than the slavery of a journeyman
baker’s life. You’ve mentioned, sir, in your work, a musical sort of
a street-crier of gingerbread (see p. 160), and I think, and indeed
I’m pretty certain, that it’s the same man as was my partner 20 years
back; aye, more than 20, but I can’t tell about years.” [The reader
will have remarked how frequently this oblivion as to dates and periods
characterises the statements of street-sellers. Perhaps no men take
less note of time.] “At that time he was my partner in the pig trade.
Dairy-fed, d’you say, sir? Not in the slightest. The outsides of the
hanimals was paste, and the insides on ’em was all mince-meat. Their
eyes was currants. We two was the original pigs, and, I believe, the
only two pigs in the streets. We often made 15_s._ between us, in a
day, in pigs alone. The musical man, as you call him--poor fellow,
he dropped down dead in the street one day as he was crying; he was
regular worn out--cried himself into his grave you _may_ say--poor
fellow, he used to sing out
‘Here’s a long-tailed pig, and a short-tailed pig,
And a pig with a curly tail:
Here’s a Yorkshire pig, and a Hampshire pig,
And a pig without e’er a tail.’
“When I was first in the trade, I sold twice as many nuts as I do now,
though my nuts was only 12 a penny then, and they’re now 40. A little
larger the 12 were, but not very much. I have taken 20_s._ and 24_s._
many and many a Saturday. I then made from 2_l._ to 2_l._ 10_s._ a
week by sticking to it, and money might have been saved. I’ve taken
between 7_l._ and 8_l._ at a Greenwich Fair in the three days, in them
times, by myself. Indeed, last Easter, my wife and me--for she works
as well as I do, and sells almost as much--took 5_l._ But gingerbread
was money in the old times, and I sold ‘lumps’ as well as ‘nuts;’ but
now lumps won’t go off--not in a fair, no how. I’ve been in the trade
ever since I started in it, but I’ve had turns at other things. I was
in the service of a Custom-house agency firm; but they got into bother
about contrabands, and the revenue, and cut off to America--I believe
they took money with them, a good bit of it--and I was indicted, or
whatever they call it, in the Court of Exchequer--I never was in
the Court in my life--and was called upon, one fine day, to pay to
the Crown 1,580_l._, and some odd pounds and shillings besides! I
never understood the rights of it, but it was about smuggling. I was
indicted by myself, I believe. When Mr. Candy, and other great houses
in the City, were found out that way, _they_ made it all right; paid
something, as I’ve heard, and sacked the profits. Well; when _I_ was
called on, it wasn’t, I assure you, sir--ha, ha, ha!--at all convenient
for a servant--and I was only that--to pay the fifteen hundred and odd;
so I served 12 months and 2 days in prison for it. I’d saved a little
money, and wasn’t so uncomfortable in prison. I could get a dinner, and
give a dinner. When I came out, I took to the nuts. It was lucky for me
that I had a trade to turn to; for, even if I could have shown I wasn’t
at all to blame about the Exchequer, I could never have got another
situation--never. So the streets saved me: my nuts was my bread.
“At this present time, sir, if I make, the year through, 9_s._ a week,
and my wife 1_s._ or 2_s._ less, that’s the extent. When the Queen
opened Parliament, the two on us took 10_s._ The Queen’s good for
that, anyhow, in person. If the opening was by proclamation” [so he
called it, three or four times], “it wouldn’t have been worth while
going to--not at all. If there’s not a crowd, the police interfere,
and ‘move on!’ is the order. The Queen’s popular with me, for her
opening Parliament herself. I count it her duty. The police are a
great trouble. I can’t say they disturb me in the place (never mind
mentioning it, sir) where you’ve seen me, but they do in other places.
They say there’s no rest for the wicked; but, in the streets, there’s
no rest for a man trying to make an honest living, as I’m sure I do. I
could pitch anywhere, one time.
“My chief dependence is on working-men, who buys my nuts to take home
to their young ’uns. I never sell for parties, or desserts, that I know
of. I take very little from boys--very little. The women of the town
buy hardly any of me. I used to sell a good many pigs to them, in some
of the streets about Brunswick-square; kept misses, and such like--and
very pleasant customers they was, and good pay: but that’s all over
now. _They_ never ’bated me--never.”
To make about 56 lbs. of the gingerbread-nuts sold by my informant,
takes 28 lbs. of treacle, 7_s._; 48 lbs. of flour, 14_s._; 1/2 lb. of
ginger, 4_d._; and 1/2 lb. of allspice, 4_d._ From 18 to 20 dozen of
small nuts go to the pound. This quantity, at 40 a penny, reckoning
18 dozen to a pound, realises about 5_d._ per pound; or about 25_s._
for an outlay of 11_s._ 8_d._ The expense of baking, however, and of
“appurtenances,” reduces the profit to little more than cent. per cent.
The other nut-sellers in the streets vend the “almond nuts.” Of these
vendors there are not less than 150; of them, 100 buy their goods of
the bakers (what they sell for 1_s._ costing them 4_d._), and the
other 50 make their own. The materials are the same as those of the
gingerbread, with the addition of 4 lbs. of butter, 8_d._ per lb.;
1 lb. of almonds, 1_s._ 4_d._; and 2 lbs. of volatile salts, 8_d._
Out of this material, 60 lbs. of “almond nuts” may be made. A split
almond is placed in the centre of each of these nuts; and, as they
are three times as large as the gingerbread nuts, 12 a penny is the
price. To sell 36 dozen a day--and so clearing 2_s._--is accounted a
“very tidy day’s work.” With the drawback of wet weather, the average
weekly earnings of the almond nut-sellers are, perhaps, the same as
the gingerbread nut man’s--9_s._ weekly. These almond nut-sellers are,
for the most part, itinerant, their localities of sale being the same
as in the “cake and tart” line. They carry their goods, neatly done up
in paper, on trays slung from the shoulder. The gingerbread-nuts are
carried in a large basket, and are ready packed in paper bags.
Some of the “almond” men call at the public-houses, but the sale in
such places is very small. Most of those who make their own nuts have
been brought up as bakers--a class of workmen who seem to resort and
adapt themselves to a street trade more readily than others. The nuts
are baked in the usual way, spread on tin trays. To erect a proper oven
for the purpose costs about 5_l._, but most of the men hire the use of
one.