gingerbread nuts, the cost being 11_s._ 8_d._ To that, the capital
required to start in the business must be added, and this consists of
basket, 6_s._; baize cloth, 1_s._; pan for dough, 1_s._; rolling-pin,
3_d._, and baking-tins, 1_s._ In all about 21_s._ To begin in a small
way in the “almond” line, buying the nuts ready made, requires as
capital: tray, 2_s._; leather strap, 6_d._; baize, 1_s._; stock-money,
1_s._ 6_d._--in all 5_s._ The sale is prosecuted through the year, but
hot weather is unfavourable to it, as the nuts then turn soft.
Calculating that 150 of these street-dealers take 17_s._ each weekly
(clearing 9_s._), we find 6,630_l._ spent yearly in “spice” nuts in the
streets of London.
OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF HOT-CROSS BUNS, AND OF CHELSEA BUNS.
Perhaps no cry--though it is only for one morning--is more familiar
to the ears of a Londoner, than that of “One-a-penny, two-a-penny,
hot-cross buns,” on Good Friday. The sale is unknown in the Irish
capital; for among Roman Catholics, Good Friday, I need hardly say,
is a strict fast, and the eggs in the buns prevent their being used.
One London gentleman, who spoke of fifty years ago, told me that
the street-bun-sellers used to have a not unpleasing distich. On
reflection, however, my informant could not be certain whether he had
heard this distich cried, or had remembered hearing the elders of his
family speak of it as having been cried, or how it was impressed upon
his memory. It seems hardly in accordance with the usual style of
street poetry:--
“One-a-penny, two-a-penny, hot-cross buns!
If your daughters will not eat them, give them to your sons.
But if you hav’n’t any of those pretty little elves,
You cannot then do better than eat them all yourselves.”
A tradesman who had resided more than fifty years in the Borough had,
in his boyhood, heard, but not often, this ridiculous cry:--
“One-a-penny, poker; two-a-penny, tongs!
One-a-penny; two-a-penny, hot-cross buns.”
The sellers of the Good Friday buns are principally boys, and they are
of mixed classes--costers’ boys, boys habitually and boys occasionally
street-sellers, and boys street-sellers for that occasion only. One
great inducement to embark in the trade is the hope of raising a little
money for the Greenwich Fair of the following Monday.
I am informed that 500 persons are employed on Good Friday in the
streets of London in the sale of hot-cross buns, each itinerant selling
upon the day’s average six dozen halfpenny, and seven dozen penny buns,
for which he will take 12_s._ 6_d._ (his profits being 3_d._ in the
shilling or 3_s._ 1-1/2_d._). One person informed me that last Good
Friday he had sold during the day forty dozen penny buns, for which he
received 50_s._
The bun-selling itinerants derive their supplies principally from the
wholesale pastry-cooks, and, in a less degree, from the small bakers
and pastrycooks, who work more for “the trade” than themselves. The
street hot-cross bun trade is less than it was seven or eight years
ago, as the bakers have entered into it more freely, and send round
for orders: so that the itinerants complain that they have lost many
a good customer. One informant (a master pastry-cook, who had been in
the business nearly fifty years) said to me: “Times are sadly altered
to what they were when I was a boy. Why I have known my master to
bake five sacks of flour in nothing but hot-cross buns, and that is
sufficient for 20,000 buns” (one sack of flour being used for 4,000
buns, or 500 lbs. of raw material to the same quantity of buns). The
itinerants carry their baskets slung on their arm, or borne upon the
head. A flannel or green baize is placed at the bottom of the basket
and brought over the buns, after which a white cloth is spread over the
top of the baize, to give it a clean appearance.
A vendor of “hot-cross buns” has to provide himself with a basket,
a flannel (to keep the buns warm), and a cloth, to give a clean
appearance to his commodities. These articles, if bought for the
purpose, cost--basket, 2_s._ 6_d._; flannel and cloth, 2_s._;
stock-money, average, 5_s._ (largest amount 15_s._, smallest 2_s._
6_d._); or about 10_s._ in all.
There is expended in one day, in hot-cross buns purchased in the London
streets, 300_l._, and nearly 100,000 buns thus bought.
The Chelsea buns are now altogether superseded by the Bath and
Alexander’s buns. “People,” the street-sellers say, “want so much for
their money.” There are now but two Chelsea bun-houses; the one at
Pimlico, and the other at Chelsea. The principal times Chelsea buns
were sold in the streets was Good Friday, Easter, and Whitsuntide; and,
with the exception of Good Friday, the great sales were at Greenwich
Fair, and then they were sold with other cakes and sweetmeats. I am
informed that twenty years ago there was one man, with a rich musical
voice, who sold these buns, about Westminster principally, all the year
round; his cry--which was one of the musical ones--was, “One a penny,
two a penny, hot Chelsea buns! Burning hot! smoking hot! r-r-r-reeking
hot! hot Chelsea buns!”
OF MUFFIN AND CRUMPET-SELLING IN THE STREETS.
The street-sellers of muffins and crumpets rank among the old
street-tradesmen. It is difficult to estimate their numbers, but they
were computed for me at 500, during the winter months. They are for the
most part boys, young men, or old men, and some of them infirm. There
are a few girls in the trade, but very few women.
The ringing of the muffin-man’s bell--attached to which the pleasant
associations are not a few--was prohibited by a recent Act of
Parliament, but the prohibition has been as inoperative as that which
forbad the use of a drum to the costermonger, for the muffin bell still
tinkles along the streets, and is rung vigorously in the suburbs. The
sellers of muffins and crumpets are a mixed class, but I am told that
more of them are the children of bakers, or worn-out bakers, than can
be said of any other calling. The best sale is in the suburbs. “As far
as I know, sir,” said a muffin-seller, “it’s the best Hackney way, and
Stoke Newington, and Dalston, and Balls Pond, and Islington; where the
gents that’s in banks--the steady coves of them--goes home to their
teas, and the missuses has muffins to welcome them; that’s my opinion.”
I did not hear of any street-seller who made the muffins or crumpets
he vended. Indeed, he could not make the small quantity required, so
as to be remunerative. The muffins are bought of the bakers, and at
prices to leave a profit of 4_d._ in 1_s._ Some bakers give thirteen
to the dozen to the street-sellers whom they know. The muffin-man
carries his delicacies in a basket, wherein they are well swathed in
flannel, to retain the heat: “People likes them warm, sir,” an old man
told me, “to satisfy them they’re fresh, and they almost always _are_
fresh; but it can’t matter so much about their being warm, as they
have to be toasted again. I only wish good butter was a sight cheaper,
and that would make the muffins go. Butter’s half the battle.” The
basket and flannels cost the muffin-man 2_s._ 6_d._ or 3_s._ 6_d._ His
bell stands him in from 4_d._ to 2_s._, “according as the metal is.”
The regular price of good-sized muffins from the street-sellers is a
halfpenny each; the crumpets are four a penny. Some are sold cheaper,
but these are generally smaller, or made of inferior flour. Most of
the street-sellers give thirteen, and some even fourteen to the dozen,
especially if the purchase be made early in the day, as the muffin-man
can then, if he deem it prudent, obtain a further supply.
A sharp London lad of fourteen, whose father had been a journeyman
baker, and whose mother (a widow) kept a small chandler’s shop, gave me
the following account:--
“I turns out with muffins and crumpets, sir, in October, and continues
until it gets well into the spring, according to the weather. I carries
a fust-rate article; werry much so. If you was to taste ’em, sir, you’d
say the same. If I sells three dozen muffins at 1/2_d._ each, and
twice that in crumpets, it’s a werry fair day, werry fair; all beyond
that is a _good_ day. The profit on the three dozen and the others is
1_s._, but that’s a great help, really a wonderful help, to mother, for
I should be only mindin’ the shop at home. Perhaps I clears 4_s._ a
week, perhaps more, perhaps less; but that’s about it, sir. Some does
far better than that, and some can’t hold a candle to it. If I has
a hextra day’s sale, mother’ll give me 3_d._ to go to the play, and
that hencourages a young man, you know, sir. If there’s any unsold, a
coffee-shop gets them cheap, and puts ’em off cheap again next morning.
My best customers is genteel houses, ’cause I sells a genteel thing.
I likes wet days best, ’cause there’s werry respectable ladies what
don’t keep a servant, and they buys to save themselves going out.
We’re a great conwenience to the ladies, sir--a great conwenience to
them as likes a slap-up tea. I _have_ made 1_s._ 8_d._ in a day; that
was my best. I once took only 2-1/2_d._--I don’t know why--that was my
worst. The shops don’t love me--I puts their noses out. Sunday is no
better day than others, or werry little. I can read, but wish I could
read easier.”
Calculating 500 muffin-sellers, each clearing 4_s._ a week, we find
100_l._ a week expended on the metropolitan street sale of muffins;
or, in the course of twenty weeks, 2,000_l._ Five shillings, with the
price of a basket, &c., which is about 3_s._ 6_d._ more, is the capital
required for a start.
OF THE STREET SALE OF SWEET-STUFF.
In this sale there are now engaged, as one of the most intelligent of
the class calculated, 200 individuals, exclusive of twenty or thirty
Jew boys. The majority of the sellers are also the manufacturers of the
articles they vend. They have all been brought up to the calling, their
parents having been in it, or having been artizans (more especially
bakers) who have adopted it for some of the general reasons I have
before assigned. The non-makers buy of the cheap confectioners.
The articles now vended do not differ materially, I am informed by men
who have known the street trade for forty years, from those which were
in demand when they began selling in the streets.
A very intelligent man, who had succeeded his father and mother in
the “sweet-stuff” business--his father’s drunkenness having kept them
in continual poverty--showed me his apparatus, and explained his mode
of work. His room, which was on the second-floor of a house in a
busy thoroughfare, had what I have frequently noticed in the abodes
of the working classes--the decency of a turn-up bedstead. It was
a large apartment, the rent being 3_s._ 6_d._ a week, unfurnished.
The room was cheerful with birds, of which there were ten or twelve.
A remarkably fine thrush was hopping in a large wicker cage, while
linnets and bullfinches showed their quick bright eyes from smaller
cages on all sides. These were not kept for sale but for amusement,
their owner being seldom able to leave his room. The father and mother
of this man cleared, twenty years ago, although at that time sugar was
6_d._ or 7_d._ the pound, from 2_l._ to 3_l._ a week by the sale of
sweet-stuff; half by keeping a stall, and half by supplying small shops
or other stall-keepers. My present informant, however, who has--not the
best--but one of the best businesses in London, makes 24_s._ or 25_s._
a week from October to May, and scarcely 12_s._ a week during the
summer months, “when people love to buy any cool fresh fruit instead
of sweet-stuff.” The average profits of the generality of the trade do
not perhaps exceed 10_s._ 6_d._ or 12_s._ a week, take the year round.
They reside in all parts.
Treacle and sugar are the ground-work of the manufacture of all kinds
of sweet-stuff. “Hardbake,” “almond toffy,” “halfpenny lollipops,”
“black balls,” the cheaper “bulls eyes,” and “squibs” are all made of
treacle. One informant sold more of treacle rock than of anything else,
as it was dispensed in larger halfpennyworths, and no one else made it
in the same way. Of peppermint rock and sticks he made a good quantity.
Half-a-crown’s worth, as retailed in the streets, requires 4 lbs. of
rough raw sugar at 4-1/4_d._ per lb., 1-1/2_d._ for scent (essence
of peppermint), 1-1/2_d._ for firing, and 1/2_d._ for paper--in
all 1_s._ 8-1/2_d._ calculating nothing for the labour and time
expended in boiling and making it. The profit on the other things was
proportionate, except on almond rock, which does not leave 2-1/2_d._ in
a shilling--almonds being dear. Brandy balls are made of sugar, water,
peppermint, and a little cinnamon. Rose acid, which is a “transparent”
sweet, is composed of loaf sugar at 6-1/2_d._ per lb., coloured with
cochineal. The articles sold in “sticks” are pulled into form along
a hook until they present the whitish, or speckled colour desired. A
quarter of a stone of materials will, for instance, be boiled for forty
minutes, and then pulled a quarter of an hour, until it is sufficiently
crisp and will “set” without waste. The flavouring--or “scent” as
I heard it called in the trade--now most in demand is peppermint.
Gibraltar rock and Wellington pillars used to be flavoured with ginger,
but these “sweeties” are exploded.
Dr. Pereria, in his “Treatise on Diet,” enumerates as many as ten
different varieties and preparations of sugar used for dietetical
purposes. These are (1) purified or refined sugar; (2) brown or
raw sugar; (3) molasses or treacle--or fluid sugar; (4) aqueous
solutions of sugar--or syrups; (5) boiled sugars, or the softer kinds
of confectionary; (6) sugar-candy, or crystallized cane sugar; (7)
burnt sugar, or caramel; (8) hard confectionary; (9) liquorice; (10)
preserves. The fifth and eighth varieties alone concern us here.
Of the several preparations of _boiled sugar_, the Doctor thus speaks,
“If a small quantity of water be added to sugar, the mixture heated
until the sugar dissolves, and the solution boiled to drive off part of
the water, the tendency of the sugar to crystallise is diminished, or,
in some cases, totally destroyed. To promote this effect, confectioners
sometimes add a small portion of cream of tartar to the solution
while boiling. Sugar, thus altered by heat, and sometimes variously
flavoured, constitutes several preparations sold by the confectioner.
_Barley-sugar_ and _acidulated drops_ are prepared in this way from
white sugar: powdered tartaric acid being added to the sugar while
soft. _Hardbake_ and _toffee_ are made by a similar process from brown
sugar. Toffee differs from hardbake from containing butter. The
ornamented sugar pieces, or _caramel_-tops, with which pastrycooks
decorate their tarts, &c., are prepared in the same way. If the boiled
and yet soft sugar be rapidly and repeatedly extended, and pulled over
a hook, it becomes opaque and white, and then constitutes _pulled
sugar_, or _penides_. Pulled sugar, variously flavoured and coloured,
is sold in several forms by the preparers of hard confectionary.
“Concerning this _hard confectionary_,” Dr. Pereira says, “sugar
constitutes the base of an almost innumerable variety of hard
confectionary, sold under the names of _lozenges_, _brilliants_,
_pipe_, _rock_, _comfits_, _nonpareils_, &c. Besides sugar, these
preparations contain some flavouring ingredient, as well as flour
or gum, to give them cohesiveness, and frequently colouring matter.
Carraway, fruits, almonds, and pine seeds, constitute the nuclei of
some of these preparations.”
One of the appliances of the street sweet-stuff trade which I saw in
the room of the seller before mentioned was--Acts of Parliament. A
pile of these, a foot or more deep, lay on a shelf. They are used to
wrap up the rock, &c., sold. The sweet-stuff maker (I never heard them
called confectioners) bought his “paper” of the stationers, or at the
old book-shops. Sometimes, he said, he got works in this way in sheets
which had never been cut (some he feared were stolen,) and which he
retained to read at his short intervals of leisure, and then used
to wrap his goods in. In this way he had read through two Histories
of England! He maintained a wife, two young children, and a young
sister, who could attend to the stall; his wife assisted him in his
manufactures. He used 1 cwt. of sugar a week on the year’s average, 1/2
cwt. of treacle, and 5 oz. of scents, each 8_d._ an oz.
The man who has the best trade in London streets, is one who, about two
years ago, introduced--after much study, I was told--short sentences
into his “sticks.” He boasts of his secret. When snapped asunder, in
any part, the stick presents a sort of coloured inscription. The four
I saw were: “Do you love me?” The next was of less touching character,
“Do you love sprats?” The others were, “Lord Mayor’s Day,” and “Sir
Robert Peel.” This man’s profits are twice those of my respectable
informant’s.
OF THE CUSTOMERS OF THE SWEET-STUFF STREET-SELLERS.
Another sweet-stuff man, originally a baker, but who, for a fortnight
before I saw him, had been attending upon an old gentleman, disabled
from an accident, gave me the following account of his customers. What
I heard from the other street-sellers satisfies me of the correctness
of the statement. It will be seen that he was possessed of some humour
and observation:
“Boys and girls are my best customers, sir, and mostly the smallest of
them; but then, again, some of them’s fifty, aye, turned fifty; Lor’
love you. An old fellow, that hasn’t a stump of a tooth in front, why,
_he’ll_ stop and buy a ha’porth of hard-bake, and he’ll say, ‘I’ve a
deal of the boy left about me still.’ He doesn’t show it, anyhow, in
his look. I’m sometimes a thinking I’ll introduce a softer sort of
toffy--boiled treacle, such as they call Tom Trot in some parts, but
it’s out of fashion now, just for old people that’s ‘boys still.’ It
was rolled in a ha’penny stick, sir, and sold stunnin’. The old ones
wants something to suck, and not to chew. Why, when I was a lad at
school, there was Jews used to go about with boxes on their backs,
offering rings and pencil-cases, and lots of things that’s no real
use to nobody, and they told everybody they asked to buy ‘that they
sold everything,’ and us boys used to say--‘Then give’s a ha’porth of
boiled treacle.’ It was a regular joke. I wish I’d stuck more to my
book then, but what can’t be cured must be endured, you know. Now,
those poor things that walks down there” (intimating, by a motion of
the head, a thoroughfare frequented by girls of the town), “they’re
often customers, but not near so good as they was ten year ago; no,
indeed, nor six or eight year. _They_ like something that bites in the
mouth, such as peppermint-rock, or ginger-drops. They used to buy a
penn’orth or two and offer it to people, but they don’t now, I think.
I’ve trusted them ha’pennies and pennies, sometimes. They always paid
me. Some that held their heads high like, might say: ‘I really have
no change; I’ll pay you to-morrow.’ She hadn’t no change, poor lass,
sure enough, and she hadn’t nothing to change either, I’ll go bail.
I’ve known women, that seemed working men’s or little shopkeeper’s
wives, buy of me and ask which of my stuffs took greatest hold of the
breath. I always knew what they was up to. They’d been having a drop,
and didn’t want it to be detected. Why, it was only last Saturday week
two niceish-looking and niceish-dressed women, comes up to me, and one
was going to buy peppermint-rock, and the other says to her: ‘Don’t,
you fool, he’ll only think you’ve been drinking gin-and-peppermint.
Coffee takes it off best.’ So I lost my customers. They hadn’t had
a _single_ drain that night, I’ll go bail, but still they didn’t
look like regular lushingtons at all. I make farthing’s-worths of
sweet-stuff, for children, but I don’t like it; it’s an injury to
trade. I _was_ afraid that when half-farthings was coined, they’d
come among children, and they’d want half a farthing of brandy-balls.
Now, talking of brandy-balls, there’s a gentleman that sometimes has
a minute’s chat with me, as he buys a penn’orth to take home to his
children--(every reasonable man ought to marry and have children for
the sake of the sweet-trade, but it ain’t the women’s fault that
many’s single still)--when one gentleman I knows buys brandy-balls,
he says, quite grave, ‘What kind o’ brandy do you put in them?’ ‘Not
a drop of British,’ says I, ‘I can assure you; not a single drop.’
He’s not finely dressed; indeed, he’s a leetle seedy, but I know he’s
a gentleman, or what’s the same thing, if he ain’t rich; for a common
fellow’ll never have his boots polished that way, every day of his
life; _his_ blacking bills must come heavy at Christmas. I can tell a
gentleman, too, by his way of talk, ’cause he’s never bumptious. It’s
the working people’s children that’s my great support, and they was
a better support, by 2_s._ in every 10_s._, and more, when times was
better; and next to them among my patrons is poor people. Perhaps, this
last year, I’ve cleared 11_s._ a week, not more, all through. I make my
own stuffs, except the drops, and they require machinery. I would get
out of the streets if I could.”
Another of these traders told me, that he took more in farthings, than
in halfpennies or pennies.
Calculating 200 sweet-stuff sellers, each clearing 10_s._ weekly, the
outlay in rocks, candies, hard-bakes, &c., in the streets is 5,200_l._
yearly, or nearly two and a half millions of halfpenny-worths.
To start in the sweet-stuff business requires a capital of 35_s._,
including a saucepan in which to boil sugar, 2_s._; weights and scales,
4_s._; stock-money (average), 4_s._; and barrow, 25_s._ If the seller
be not his own manufacturer, then a tray, 1_s._ 9_d._; and stock-money,
1_s._ 6_d._; or 3_s._ 3_d._ in all will be sufficient.
OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF COUGH DROPS AND OF MEDICAL CONFECTIONARY.
Mr. Strutt, in his “Sports and Pastimes of the People of England”
(1800), says of the Mountebank: “It is uncertain at what period this
vagrant dealer in physic made his appearance in England; it is clear,
however, that he figured away with much success in this country
during the last two centuries.... The mountebanks usually preface
the vending of their medicines with pompous orations, in which they
pay as little regard to truth as to propriety.” I am informed by a
gentleman observant of the matter, that within his knowledge, which
extends to the commencement of the present century, no mountebank
(proper) had appeared in the streets of London proclaiming the virtues
of his medicines; neither with nor without his “fool.” The last
seen by my informant, perhaps the latest mountebank in England, was
about twenty years ago, in the vicinity of Yarmouth. He was selling
“cough drops” and infallible cures for asthma, and was dressed in a
periwig and an embroidered coat, with ruffles at his wrist, a sword
to his side, and was a representation, in shabby genteel, of the
fine gentleman of the reign of Queen Anne. The mountebank’s most
legitimate successor in the street cajolery of London, as regards his
“orations,” is the “Patterer,” as I shall show in my account of the
street trade in stationery literature. His successor in the vending of
curative confectionaries and (in a small degree) of nostrums, salves,
ointments, &c., are the sellers of “cough drops” and “horehound candy,”
and of the corn salves, and cures for bruises, sprains, burns, &c.,
&c., &c.
The street-traders in cough drops and their accompaniments,
however, do not now exceed six, and of them only two--who are near
relatives--manufacture their own stock-in-trade. I here treat of the
street trade in “cough drops,” as a branch of the itinerant sweet-stuff
trade. The “mountebank” part of the business--that is to say, “the
prefacing the vending of the medicines with _pompous orations_,” I
shall reserve till its proper place--viz. the “_pattering_” part of the
street trade, of which an account will be given in the next Chapter.