MARKETS AND FOOD.
THE aggregate of time, labor, and expenditure, necessary to provide
three millions and a half of inhabitants with food, in a city like
London, is something beyond comprehension. In getting at the food
statistics of this great City, I found more trouble than in procuring
material and detail for any other portion of this book. And yet there
cannot be anything of more interest to the public than to know how,
when, and from where, a great city derives the food which subsists its
citizens.
The London markets are well built, well ventilated, well situated, and
well regulated. The markets of London are a credit to the city and
people. The markets of New York are a scandal and a shame to that great
city.
Some idea may be formed of the amount of food needed to subsist London
from the figures which I will give.
The Metropolitan Cattle Market, in Caledonian Road, Islington, is the
largest market in London, covering fifteen acres, and having three
acres of slaughter houses. This market cost one million four hundred
and sixty thousand pounds, and cannot be surpassed by any other market
in the world. The yearly receipts at this market was as follows:
360,000 beef cattle, 36,000 calves, 1,900,000 sheep, and 37,650 pigs.
Besides this vast amount of meat there was nearly as much more received
at the Newgate, Leadenhall, and Whitechapel meat markets.
The other articles of food, brought to the London markets, are
estimated by those who profess to have nearly accurate information,
as follows: Seven million head of game and poultry, six hundred and
fifty million pounds of fish, two hundred and fifty million barrels of
oysters, and two hundred and fifty million cubic feet of eggs. This
last item rather staggered me, but the other estimated quantities are,
I am assured, rather below than above the aggregate annual consumption.
The inspections of the London markets are made very rigidly, and I do
not wonder at the necessity for a strict watchfulness, when I find
that, in 1868, 160,340 pounds of meat, and 1,963 head of game and
poultry, were seized by the officers as being unfit for human food.
This amount consisted in part of 1,200 sheep, 186 pigs, 73 calves,
1,100 quarters of beef, 762 joints of meat, 462 tame fowls, 121 wild
fowl, 300 geese, 290 ducks, 316 pigeons, 15 lambs, and only thirty
pounds of sausages. There were also 239 rabbits, 111 hares, 75 haunches
and quarters of venison, 84 partridges, and four pounds of pickled
pork. It will be seen that there was a very great deal of beef and
mutton to a very little pickled pork and sausage. All of the game, and
most of the poultry seized, was putrid, and of the meat 108,000 pounds
were diseased, while 21,000 pounds were stinking; 36,240 pounds of meat
being taken from animals that had died of natural causes. As soon as
the meat is seized it is sprinkled with creosote of coal tar, which
checks putrefaction, and at the same time prevents it from being used
as food, after which it is sent to the bone-boilers and destroyed.
Besides the enormous amount of food received at the markets already
enumerated, there was also received at the Borough Market, Southwark,
Smithfield New Market, Newport Market, Cumberland, Portman, Clare, and
the Potato Markets, by railway, in the same year, 17,000 tons of meat
of all kinds, 100,000 tons of potatoes, 14,000 tons of fish, 15,000
tons of vegetables, and 60,000 tons of grain, wherewith to feed the
Londoners.
[Sidenote: THE SMITHFIELD POLICE STATION.]
Before daybreak is the best time to see the Markets of London in all
their bustle and brisk traffic, and one summer morning I accordingly
took a cab from the Langham Hotel and told the sleepy driver to take me
to the New Smithfield Market, which is convenient to Newgate Prison.
We dashed madly in the gray of the morning (it was not yet more than
four o'clock) through Regent street, up Oxford street, over the Holborn
Viaduct, and so on to the Smithfield Police Station, which is situated
at a few rods distant from the place where the Cock Lane Ghost was
first discovered.
I had been directed by Inspector Bailey, of the Old Jewry office, to
call at this police station, and he informed me that I should find a
special policeman there at my disposal to show me the markets, and
procure me any information I might desire in regard to them.
The Smithfield Police Station is like most London police stations,
a very quiet and not pretentious edifice, just in the shadow of
Smithfield New Market.
There was a little desk and a little railing, behind which sat a little
man in a blue uniform of pilot cloth, and behind the little man were
hung upon the plainly whitewashed walls a collection of handcuffs,
pistols, and knives, all of which were deodands to the law. There were
also placards, offering rewards for all kinds of offenders, thieves,
forgers, murderers, and embezzlers, and giving detailed descriptions
of their persons and clothing when last seen. These placards covered
the walls, but did not add much to the appearance of the apartment.
On producing my letter of introduction from Inspector Bailey to the
Sergeant in command--who treated me with much civility, a bell was
rung by the latter, and a policeman in uniform appeared, my old friend
Ralfe, whom the Sergeant addressed as follows:
"Ralfe, you are to take this gentleman all through Smithfield Market,
and show him the sights, and then you can transfer him to some one
else to have him taken through Billingsgate Market, and after that he
may take a look at Covent Garden Market, if he so desires. Show him
everything that you can, then report to me back again."
"Yesir," said Mr. Ralfe, touching his hat, although he was not in
uniform, and in another instant we were in the London streets, which
were very drear and damp, the gas lamps yet burning with a feeble
light, and the daybreak as yet not having revealed itself.
The way was murky and dark, and the vicinity of the market was
sufficiently indicated by the peculiar raw, fresh smell, with which
newly killed meat greets the nasal organs.
Smithfield Market is built on a large, open square, and being on high
ground commands a good view of the City of London proper. The site of
the New Market which was opened a year ago, was formerly covered by
the Cattle Market, which is now removed to Islington, in the suburbs.
The building is of mixed stone and brick, and the cost was about half
a million pounds. The ground on which it is built is also nearly as
valuable as the building. The market is about four hundred feet in
length and a hundred and fifty in width. The roof is of iron, and a
vast avenue, high, broad, and spacious in every way, runs through the
entire building.
[Sidenote: THE HOT COFFEE GIRL.]
When I reached the market with my friend, the policeman, the gas was
still burning, and the long rows of stalls situated on the wide avenues
of the market, were covered with beef and mutton, the stalls averaging
thirty to forty feet in height. There was a confused hum of many
voices, and coarse rough looking fellows in smalls and canvas smocks,
with broad, scoop-shaped hats, rushed hither and thither with immense
loins and quarters of beef on their brawny shoulders. Over each stall,
and inside of the market beneath the roof, the proprietor or lessee of
the stall has a small wooden edifice, with doors and windows and places
to sleep for two or three persons. At each corner of the market is a
lofty tower, a hundred feet high, and in these towers are board-rooms
and dining-rooms, and reading rooms for select parties, and at the base
or bottom floor of each tower is a bar where liquors and hot coffee,
bread, butter, and tea, and other refreshments are sold during the
early hours of the morning, to those who need sustainment. Two or three
pretty girls were behind each of these stalls, and were serving with
great dilligence and taste, the knots of butchers' helpers, cartmen,
butchers' boys, and market officials who stood in their vicinity.
There are at least half a dozen meat inspectors in each market, and
these men are paid one hundred pounds a year to examine and decide as
to the wholesomeness of each and every pound or carcass of meat brought
into the markets.
To one of these I spoke and asked him if he had much trouble with the
butchers in regard to putrid meat.
"Trouble--Lord bless you sir, we have no trouble here to speak on. Ye
see, sir, the class of butchers as sells meat here in Smithfield Market
allers sells on commission. All this meat that you see a hanging on
these ere hooks doesn't belong to the butchers. It is sent to them to
sell on commission by the Railway Companies, and they do not own the
stalls themselves either. They pays one pound ten shilling and sixpence
a week for five square feet of ground--that's about the rate they pays,
and the City owns the markit. Lord bless you, Sir," said the loquacious
inspector, who was dressed like a butcher, having an apron, and stood
leaning against a large quarter of beef. "I don't know where all the
blessed meat comes from, but I knows that the pigs come from Hireland,
and a goodish bit of the beef from Devonshire. It comes to the city by
the Underground Railway, and you can see the place down stairs where
all the meat comes in the mornin'."
At the breakfast stalls I noticed that nearly every one called for "two
pennorth of bread and butter," and drank with it a bowl of hot tea or
a smoking cup of coffee. The girls who served the coffee were chatty
and lively, and desired information of me in regard to America. One of
them, a little black brunette, queried:
"They say, sir, as how that a young leedy in Hamerica can get married
on nothink--if she's good looking and can cook. Is it so, sir?"
I had no means of satisfying her as to that question, and I left her as
she was preparing a sandwich for a hungry clodhopper, whose eyes were
bulbous with hunger and expectation, and went below to the basement
story, which opens by arches on the depot of the Underground Railway,
and I found the entire earthen floor cut up by rails and platforms, on
to which the meat from incoming trains is shunted and delivered. All
meat delivered at Smithfield is of course dead, and no slaughtering is
carried on in this market. Millions of pounds worth of meat finds its
way here day after day, and thousands of men--porters and helpers and
butchers' assistants--find employment here, their wages ranging from
ten to thirty-five shillings a week.
Each helper is paid so much for every carcass which he carries into
the market on his shoulders, and broad shoulders they have to be to
carry these huge quarters of beef from the wagons which are drawn up in
dense masses in and around the open spaces outside of the market walls.
When this market was opened by the Mayor of London and other city
dignitaries, sixteen hundred officials, connected with the market and
the municipal government, dined in the central avenue, and two hundred
barrels of ale were drank. This is a sample of a municipal British
feast.
Outside of the building are little houses or market lodges, built of
stone, in which are weighing machines, where men are constantly in
attendance as weighers of beef and mutton. For this service they are
paid one hundred and twenty pounds a year. The weighing machine in the
little house connects under the middle of the street, where a platform
is constructed, level with the surface of the pavement, and when a
cart-load of beef is to be weighed, horse, cart, and beef are weighed
together, and the total is placed on a slate, and when the helpers
have carried all the meat into the stalls in the market to be sold
wholesale, (for it is not a retail market,) the horse and cart are
again weighed, and then their united weight having been deducted from
the gross weight, the actual weight of the meat is thus ascertained by
this simple and easy process. I think that the Smithfield Market is the
finest I ever saw, and its ventilation and perfect system cannot be
surpassed anywhere.
[Sidenote: THE VEGETABLE MARKET.]
From Smithfield Market I went to Covent Garden Market, which is a
couple of miles distant, in Russell street, forming quite a spacious
area. This is the great vegetable and flower market of London. There is
a market held every morning in summer, but in winter, markets are held
only on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday mornings. The market is owned
by the Duke of Bedford, and was built at a cost of £30,000 by a former
Duke of that family, forty years ago.
It has a colonade running around the entire building on the exterior,
under which are shops having apartments in the upper stories. Joined
to the back of these is another row of shops facing the inner courts,
and through the centre runs a passage with shops on either side, in
which are exposed for sale herbs and flowers, and the most magnificent
bouquets can be procured here on a fine morning in summer. Scarce
and delicate plants and flowers are here found in abundance, and
around these stands I noticed numbers of male servants and pages in
the liveries of some of the best known families among the London
aristocracy, barganing for bouquets for their mistresses' tables. The
noise and hub-bub around the open spaces in this market was perfectly
deafening. It was now about four o'clock in the morning, and all the
open areas were thronged with market-men and women and boys, carrying
baskets and flowers in their arms, to and fro, chaffing each other or
cursing and swearing with great good will.
Immense vans and market-carts loaded down with cabbages, onions, peas,
cauliflowers, turnips, beans, parsley, greens, cucumbers, lettuce,
apples, pears, parsnips, and other vegetables and fruits, are moving
to and fro, some of them blocked in with the increasing traffic, the
drivers, great big hulking fellows, mopping their perspiring foreheads
and shouting at each other, as is usual among all cartmen. Women are
hurrying hither and thither, making bargains and chaffering about the
prices of vegetables, and meanwhile, it is almost impossible to hear or
understand anything that is said. The police who are scattered here and
there with their tall helmets, goodnaturedly push and shove those who
block the passage ways, and frown sternly at the impudent young rascals
who excite crowds and gather small knots of boys against the breakfast
stalls outside the market.
Here and there around these coffee stalls, which are generally kept
by old men or dilapidated and ancient women, you will see a couple of
drunken or half sober roysterers, who have been on the tramp all night,
and have at this early hour of the morning reached Covent Garden to get
a cup of hot coffee in the market, which will clear the fumes of the
liquor away, before they stagger home to a fond and anxious wife or an
unrelenting landlady.
Wagons and carts have been arriving from a very early hour, and five
o'clock seems to be the busiest time in Covent Garden. The houses of
refreshment around the market are open at half past one in summer, and
little tables are placed against the wooden pillars of the market by
the tea and coffee venders, from which porters and carters make hearty
breakfasts. There is no need to resort to exciting liquors, as the
coffee is good and hot, and a baked potato, fresh and smoking from the
oven, costs only one penny.
Every few minutes, through all the roaring and shouting, singing,
talking, whistling, and laughing, I could hear the clear voice of the
Baked Potato man, vending his smoking tubers and shouting:
[Illustration: BREAKFAST STALL, COVENT GARDEN MARKET.]
"Tates hot!--all 'ot, 'ot! Taters all 'ot." His can with its steam
pipe, from which issues forth a fragrant odor on the morning air, is
already surrounded by young street boys, who will run an errand for
a penny, hold your horse, catch a flying hat, steal a cabbage or a
pocket full of potatoes from the stalls with equal impartiality and
energy. These markets are the worst places in London for young lads,
as there is always some excuse for their presence in the vicinity,
under pretence of earning a penny or picking up the refuse and odds
and ends of a vegetable market. Observe this young rascal now, who is
surveying the Baked Potato man with an assumption of scorn combined
with a profound look of wisdom in his features. His hands are in his
pockets, his trousers are ragged to the knees, and his linen is nowhere
visible--a miserable London street boy--and yet you would imagine,
to look at him as he steps up to negotiate for a potato, that he was
the agent of the Rothschilds about to make arrangements for a loan.
His age does not exceed fifteen years, and he has been sleeping in
the purlieus of the market all night, as his ragged and soiled coat
testify, and his hair is full of slimy straws which he has accumulated
while reclining his head on a market gardener's basket. The Baked
Potato man eyes him with distrust and timidity, for he is well aware
that there is no profit to be made from him, and that he is about to
"chaff" him. The young rascals who stand around are all wide awake, and
await the contest with solicitude in their countenances.
[Sidenote: THE POTATO MAN GETS ANGRY.]
"Taters all 'ot--taters all 'ot--'ot--'ot," cries the Potato Man.
"Well, guv'nor, I see you're a keepin the steam up as usual. Vot's
the werry lowest figger you names for the werry best taters, takin a
lot--takin a quantity? I feels like patronizin you, I does."
"Penny a-piece, all 'ot--'ot."
"A penny a-piece for _baked taters_, and the Funds agoin down like
winkin! Vy, I 'ad a pine apple myself out of a Garden this mornin for
two-pence. Trade's unkimmon bad, guv'nor."
"Penny apiece--all 'ot--all 'ot--I say, keep your dirty fingers away
from the can. You doesn't buy anythink, I know."
"I doesn't buy hanythink, eh? There's a hopposition can, too, started
by a gentleman of my acquaintance"--here the young scamp put his
thumbs in his waistcoat armholes and inflated himself after the
supposed aristocratic fashion--"in the 'Aymarket. He calls the can the
'Gladstone,' and it's a werry spicy concern, I tell ye. Don't he give
prime taters neither? They're real nobby ones, and plenty o' butter,
and pepper, and salt. Oh! not at all! And its so werry respectable for
a cove comin from the Hopera to stop and have a bit of supper on his
road home. My heye, and haint the pro-pre-i-e-tor a makin of his fortin
neither? Of course not! Oh, no. But there 'ill be fun when he returns
to his willa with a postchay in Belgrawey in a few years."
By this time the Baked Potato man is pretty mad, between the
pertinacity of his young tormentor and the highly colored picture of
his rival's prosperity, as depicted by the boy, and he tells him in an
angry way to "move hon, hif 'e doesn't want 'is preshis neck stretched."
"Wot, wiolence to one of her Majesty's subjecks, and hin the hopen day,
too? Move hon, hey? Oh, werry likely. I'm a standin 'ere on my Sovrin's
kerbstone--a Briton's 'Ouse is 'is castle, and when an Englishman
hexpresses his hopinion hon the subjeck of baked taters he's to move
hon, is he? Consekevently I'll stay here."
The "Baked Tater" man is now almost foaming at the mouth with rage,
which is not lessened by the cheers of the spectators, who are, of
course, on the side of the young orator.
He is about to lay down his can and pitch into his tormentor, when
all at once that young gentleman assumes a pacific attitude, after
displaying so much public spirit, and says:
"I don't want money nor credit, so look sharp ole feller and pick me a
stunner from the Can."
At this moment the Potato Man's countenance relaxes, as the boy
produces a penny-piece, and while he extracts a mealy potato from his
can, the boy proceeds to amuse his audience further by going through
a series of sleight of hand tricks, such as shaking the coin out of
his cap after having swallowed it, or thrusting it into his eye and
bringing it out of his ear, assuring the spectators the while that he
had spent £20,000 in learning these tricks, and now, when the potato is
handed to him, smoking hot, he expresses his indignation at the fact
that the butter is "shaved too thin," and demands that what he loses in
butter shall be made up to him by an extra shake of the pepper-box. At
last he goes off to eat the potato, as the gray dawn breaks, and the
man at the Can says:
"Oh, my eye--_he is a_ precious leary cove for such a young von."
This market, as well as all the other London markets, is haunted with
beggars who appeal to the charity of strangers with great effect.
[Sidenote: FRUIT AND VEGETABLES.]
One of these sat up behind a pile of empty baskets, and I saw that his
trousers had rotted away at the bottom from long use and dirt. His
face was that of a prematurely aged young man, and his torn shirt and
worn features bespoke real misery. He was deaf and dumb it seemed, and
the manner in which he solicited alms was by pointing to the following
sentence, written on the flag-stone before him with a piece of chalk:
+-------------------------+
| I am Starving. Help me. |
+-------------------------+
A rental of about £26,000 a year is derived from Covent Garden Market
by its proprietor, the Duke of Bedford, and the shops and stalls
rent at from two to four hundred pounds a year. In the immediate
neighborhood is Covent Garden Theatre, and all the little old rookeries
of chop houses in this quarter have the smell of the greenroom and the
rehearsal lingering about them. Here was, formerly, the garden of the
Convent of Westminster.
Before the construction of the present market this was one of the
most dangerous places in London with its tumble-down and crazy old
structures, where abounded people of both sexes herded together like
pigs. The Convent has become a play-house, and the monks and nuns have
been transposed into actors and actresses. Where the salad was cut for
the Lady Abbess in past times, drunkards now brawl and attack each
other, and the flowers that would have been in the olden time plucked
to adorn the statues of the Virgin or St. Peter, are now chosen to
grace the marble mantel of some proud dame of Belgravia, or some gaudy
and painted courtezan of Pimlico. The foreign fruit trade of Covent
Garden is very extensive in pine apples, melons, cherries, apples, and
plums. Pine apples were first cried in the London streets at "a penny
a slice," twenty-five years ago. To supply this market with vegetables
alone, 25,000 acres are required to be cultivated, and about 10,000
acres of trees are necessary to supply its annual demand for fruit. The
trade in water-cresses is immense and they are chiefly hawked about
the markets by little girls, although, of course, every stall has
its own stock of cresses. They supply the same want as a relish for
the Londoners' table that the small red radishes do to an American's
appetite.
A man, curious in such things, has estimated as follows the yearly
sales of this appetizing little green relish:
Covent Garden Market, 2,000,000 bunches, Farringdon Market, 15,000,000
bunches, Borough Market, (Southwark), 1,000,000 bunches, Spitalfield's
Market, 500,000 bunches, Portman Market, 260,000 bunches, and Oxford
Market, 200,000 bunches. It will be seen that Cockneys relish greens
very much.
A little of everything can be procured at Covent Garden. Here are
peddlers of account books, lead pencils, watch chains, dog-collars,
whips, chains, curry-combs, pastry, money-bags, tissue-paper for the
tops of strawberry-pottles, and horse-chestnut leaves for garnishing
fruit-stalls; coffee-stalls, and stalls of pea-soup and pickled eels;
basket-makers; women making up nosegays; and girls splitting huge
bundles of water-cresses into little bunches.
Here are fruits and vegetables from all parts of the world; peas,
and asparagus, and new potatoes, from the south of France, Belgium,
Holland, Portugal, and the Bermudas, are brought in steam-vessels.
Besides Deptford onions, Battersea cabbages, Mortlake asparagus,
Chelsea celery, and Charlton peas, immense quantities are brought by
railway from Cornwall and Devonshire, the Isle of Man, Guernsey and
Jersey, the Kentish and Essex banks of the Thames, the banks of the
Humber, the Mersey, the Orwell, the Trent, and the Ouse.
The Scilly Isles send early articles by steamer to Southampton, and
thence to Covent Garden by railway. Strawberries are sent from gardens
about Bath. The money paid annually for fruits and vegetables sold in
this market is estimated at three millions sterling: for 6 or 700,000
pottles of strawberries; 40,000,000 cabbages; 2,000,000 cauliflowers;
300,000 bushels of peas; 750,000 lettuces; and 500,000 bushels of
onions. In Centre-row, hot-house grapes are sold at 25s. per pound,
British Queen and Black Prince strawberries at 1s. per ounce, slender
French beans at 3s. per hundred, peas at a guinea a quart, and new
potatoes at 4s. 6d. per pound; a moss-rose for half-a-crown, and
bouquets of flowers from one shilling to two guineas each.
Green peas have been sold here at Christmas when they are deemed a
luxury, for three pounds a quart, and asparagus has brought, in the
same season, a pound, and rhubarb, a pound and five shillings a bunch.
The cries of the children peddling violets are sometimes almost
heartrending, as these little waifs are very often fasting for a whole
day before they can realize a few pennies to buy their food, to say
nothing of food for those who have sent them to peddle the violets.
There is an Artesian well under Covent Garden Market, 280 feet deep,
which supplies 1,600 gallons an hour, sufficient for the needs of
the market people, most of which is consumed in watering flowers
and vegetables, or in giving horses to drink. There are elegant
conservatories over the colonnades of the market fifteen feet broad and
fifteen feet high, for the preservation of the more costly and delicate
plants and flowers. From this market nearly all the button-hole flowers
which are vended at from a penny to four-pence a piece are obtained for
the use of the London "swells."
[Sidenote: THE JEWS' ORANGE MARKET.]
One of the most curious places in London is the Orange and Nut Market,
in Houndsditch. This market is chiefly in the hands of the lowest
kind of Jews, men in greasy garments, and having frightfully hooked
noses. The Costermongers come here for oranges, nuts, and lemons, to
sell or hawk them around the suburbs or slums of London. The market is
called Dukes'-Place Market. There is a big, massive, Synagogue, a lot
of ancient-looking houses, the oranges themselves have a cob-webbed
appearance, and the people are all dingy here. The nuts are for sale
in sacks, and the baskets have a dilapidated look. The Jews, in all
countries, are an industrious and economical people, and in London,
as elsewhere, they monopolize the most profitable and least laborious
occupations. They are represented by lawyers, members of Parliament,
great bankers, like Rothschild, merchants, like Solomons, and men of
liberal taste, like Sir Francis Goldsmid. The number of Jews in London
is estimated at 48,000.
[Illustration: THE ORANGE MARKET.]
Each dwelling around this Orange Market seems as if it had been
partially consumed by fire, for not one of the shops have a window,
and they are comparatively empty, save where a crate of oranges, or a
bag of nuts, are exposed for sale. A few sickly fowls, looking as if
they were dyspeptic, wander here picking up crumbs among the orange
baskets and nut sacks, and dirty, ragged little Jewish children, play
around with great equanimity among the rubbish. The disputes among the
loud-voiced Costermongers who come here with their little wagons and
jackasses, to draw their fruit, and the Jews who have all glib-toned,
smooth voices,--at some times, when the oranges are changing hands from
sellers to buyers--are very amusing.
There I saw slatternly-looking girls sorting the good from the bad
fruit, and one big, tall Jewish wench, was engaged over a barrel
of common black grapes, plunging her dirty arms down in the barrel
and pulling up the decayed fruit which she gave to a little child
who stood by her, and ate of them greedily from her hand. Some of
these Jewish fruit-traders take in as much as £200 in a day's sale of
oranges, from Costermongers. Most of these oranges are sent to the Jews
on commission. Years ago the Jew boys had a monopoly of the orange
peddling trade, but now the monopoly is in the hands of Irish boys, who
are more eloquent, more aggressive, and more popular, than the Jews,
and consequently sell they more fruit.
[Sidenote: FARRINGDON MARKET.]
Farringdon Market, near the Strand, on the sloping surface of the hill,
upon which the Holborn and Fleet street stand, is one of the principal
markets in London, though it covers but an acre and a half. The ground
and buildings cost about £200,000. The market building is 480 feet long
at the centre, 41 feet high, and 48 feet broad, and has a court-yard
in the centre of which the wagons, and baskets, and market lumber, are
placed. The court, or, as it is called, the quadrangle, is generally
filled with vegetables and fruit.
[Illustration]