In order to see Billingsgate properly in action it is necessary to get
up at half-past four and travel on the Underground by the first train
East, which is an adventure in itself. The first train East goes at
three minutes past five, and there are large numbers of people who
travel in it every day; by Charing Cross it is almost crowded. It is
full of Bolshevists; and I do not wonder. One sits with one's feet up
in a first-class carriage, clutching a nice cheap workman's ticket and
trying hard to look as if, like the Bolshevists, one did this every
day.
On arriving at the Monument Station one walks briskly past the
seductive announcement that "THE MONUMENT IS NOW OPEN," and plunges
into a world of fish. I have never been able to understand why fish
is so funny. On the comic stage a casual reference to fish is almost
certain to provoke a shout of laughter; in practice, and especially
in the mass, it is not so funny; it is like the Government, an
inexhaustible source of humour at a distance, and in the flesh
extraordinarily dull.
Over the small streets which surround the market hangs a heavy pall
of fishy vapour. The streets are full of carts; the carts are full of
fish. The houses in the streets are fish-dealers' places, more or less
full of fish. The pavements are full of fish-porters, carrying fish,
smelling of fish. Fragments of conversation are heard, all about
fish. Fish lie sadly in the gutters. The scales of fish glitter on the
pavements. A little vigorous swimming through the outlying fisheries
brings you to the actual market, which is even more wonderful. Imagine
a place like Covent Garden, and nearly as big, but entirely devoted to
fish. In the place of those enchanting perspectives of flower-stalls,
imagine enormous regiments of fish-stalls, paraded in close order and
groaning with halibut and conger-eel, with whiting and lobsters and
huge crabs. Round these stalls the wholesale dealers wade ankle-deep
in fish. Steadily, maliciously, the great fish slide off the stalls
on to the floor; steadily the dealers recover them and pile them up
on their small counters, or cast them through the air on to other
counters, or fling them into baskets in rage or mortification or sheer
bravado.
The dealers are men with business-faces, in long white coats,
surprisingly clean. Every now and then they stop throwing crabs into
baskets or retrieving halibut from the floor, and make little entries
in long note-books. I do not know exactly what entries they make, but
I think they must all be in for some competition, and are making notes
about their scores; one man I watched had obviously just beaten the
record for halibut-recovery. He recovered so many in about a minute
that the tops of his boots were just beginning to show. When he had
done that he made such long notes in his book about it that most of
the halibut slid on to the floor again while he was doing it. Then he
began all over again. But I expect he won the prize.
Meanwhile about a million fish-porters are dashing up and down the
narrow avenues between the fish-stalls, porting millions of boxes of
fish. Nearly all of them, I am glad to say, have been in the army or
have had a relative in the army; for they are nearly all wearing the
full uniform of a company cook, which needs no description. On their
heads they have a kind of india-rubber hat, and on the india-rubber
hat they have a large box of fish weighing about six stone--six
_stone_, I tell you. This box they handle as if it was a box of
cigars. They pick it up with a careless gesture; they carry it as
if it was a slightly uncomfortable hat, and they throw it down with
another careless gesture, usually on to another box of fish; this
explains why so many of one's herrings appear to have been maimed at
sea.
When they have finished throwing the boxes about they too take out a
note-book and make notes about it all. This, it seems, is to make
sure that they are paid something for throwing each box about. I don't
blame them. It must be a hard life. Yet if I thought I could pick up
six stone of salmon and plaice and throw it about I should sign on at
Billingsgate at once. It is true they start work about five; but they
stop work, it seems, about ten, and they earn a pound and over for
that. Then they can go home. Most of them, I imagine, are stockbrokers
during the rest of the day.
And they are a refined and gentlemanly body of men. I hope the old
legend that the fish-porter of Billingsgate expresses himself in
terms too forcible for the ordinary man is now exploded; for it is a
slander. In fact it is a slander to call him a "porter;" at least in
these days I suppose it is libellous to connect a man falsely with
the N.U.R., if only by verbal implication. But, however that may be,
I here assert that the Billingsgate fish-porter is a comparatively
smooth and courteous personage, and, considering his constant
association with fish in bulk, I think it is wonderful.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Connoisseur (smoking cigarette stump just thrown away
by passer-by)_. "EITHER TERBAKKER ISN'T WOT IT WOS--OR THESE 'ERE
TOFFS AIN'T."]
* * * * *
At the far end of the market is the river Thames; and on the river
Thames there is a ship or two chockful of fish. Fish-porters with a
kind of _blase_ animation run up and down a long gangway to the ship
with six-stone boxes of fine fresh whiting on their heads. These
boxes they pile up on a chute (carefully noting each box in their
note-books), after which an auctioneer auctions the boxes. This is the
really exciting part of the show. The dealers or the dealers' agents
stand round in a hungry ring and buy the boxes of fish as they slide
down the chute. The dealers seem to detail a less cultured type of man
for this purpose, and few of the bidders come up to the standard of
refinement of the fish-porters. But the auctioneer understands them,
and he knows all their Christian names. He can tell at a glance
whether it is Mossy Isaacs or Sam Isaacs. He is a very clever man.
They stand round looking at the boxes of fish, and when one of them
twitches the flesh of his nose or faintly moves one of his eyelashes
it means that he has bought six stone of whiting for thirty shillings.
That is the only kind of sign they give, and the visitor will be wise
not to catch the auctioneer's eye, or blow his nose or do any overt
action like that, or he may find that he has bought six stone of
salmon and halibut for forty-five shillings. At an auction of fish it
is true to say that a nod is as good as a wink; in fact it is worse.
The dealers are silent motionless men; but nobody else is. Everybody
else is dashing about and shouting as loud as he can. As each box of
fish is sold the porters dash at it and shout at it (of course in a
very gentlemanly way) and carry it off in all directions. It is quite
clear that nobody knows who has bought it and where it is going. The
idea of the whole thing is to impress the visitor with the mobility
of fish, and this object is successfully attained. No doubt when the
visitors have gone away they settle down and decide definitely whom
the fish belongs to.
It is now about half-past six. Fish is still rushing in at one end
from the ship and is rushing in at the other from the railway-vans.
The porters are throwing the fish at the dealers' stalls (registering
each hit in their note-books), and the dealers are throwing it on
to the floor or throwing it at each other or trying to throw it at a
retailer, who always puts on a haughty air and passes on to the next
stall, till he too gets entangled in the game and finds that he has
bought twenty-four stone of whiting at twopence a pound; then he
throws it at some more porters, and the porters dash outside and throw
it at the carts, and the carts clatter away to Kensington, and my
wife buys a whiting at tenpence a pound, and the circle of fish
organisation is complete.
At about this point it is a good thing to pass on to Covent Garden and
buy some flowers.