half choked with corruption and oyster-shells--a dirty remnant of the days
of Elizabeth--will enter with pleasure Mr. Bunning's new market. Through
its Italian colonnade are seen the masts of the fishing smacks, and the
brown wharves of the opposite side--a pleasing picture, which instantly
fixes the artistic eye. The busy scene within the market between the hours
of five and seven in the morning, is one of the marvels of the metropolis.
Billingsgate is the only wholesale fish-market in London, and it may
therefore be imagined how great must be the business transacted within its
walls. Of old, nine-tenths of the supply came by way of the river, the
little that came by land being conveyed from the coast, at great expense,
in four-horse vans. Now the railways are day by day supplanting smacks,
and in many cases steamers; for by means of its iron arms, London, whilst
its millions slumber, grasps the produce of every sea that beats against
our island coast, and ere they have uprisen it is drawn to a focus in this
central mart. Thus every night in the season the hardy fishermen of
Yarmouth catch a hundred tons (12,081 yearly), principally herring, which,
by means of the Eastern Counties Railway, are next morning at
Billingsgate. The South-Western Railway sends up annually, with the same
speed, 4,000 tons of mackerel and other fish, the gatherings of the south
coast. The North Western collects over night the "catch" from Ireland,
Scotland, and the north-east coast of England, and adds to the
Thames-street mart 3,578 tons, principally of salmon, whilst the Great
Northern delivers to the early morning market, or sometimes later in the
day, 3,248 tons of like sea produce. The Great Western brings up the
harvest of the Cornish and Devonshire coasts, chiefly mackerel and
pilchards, to the amount of 1,560 tons in the year; and the Brighton and
South Coast conveys the incredible number of 15,000 bushels of oysters,
besides 4,000 tons of other fish. Nearly one-half in fact of the
fish-supply of London, instead of following as of old the tedious route of
the coast, is hurried in the dead of night across the length and breadth
of the land to Billingsgate, and, before the large consumers in Tyburnia
and Belgravia have left their beds, may be seen either lying on the marble
slabs of the fishmongers, or penetrating on the peripatetic barrow of the
costermonger into the dismal lanes and alleys inhabited by "London Labour
and the London Poor." These prodigious gleanings from what Goldsmith might
well call the "finny deep," are conveyed from the termini in spring-vans,
drawn by two and occasionally by four horses. Salmon comes in boxes,
herrings in barrels, and all other kinds of fish in baskets. Sometimes as
many as sixty of these vans will arrive in the narrow street leading to
the market in the course of two or three hours, and the scene of confusion
occasioned by their rushing among the fishmongers' carts and the
costermongers' barrows, the latter often amounting to more than a
thousand, is almost as great as that at Smithfield; for the fish, like the
live-stock trade, has long outgrown its mart: and Billingsgate, as much as
Smithfield, is choked for want of space. Let the visitor beware how he
enters it in a good coat, for, as sure as he goes in in broad cloth, he
will come out in _scale_ armour. They are not polite at Billingsgate, as
all the world knows, and "by your leave" is only a preliminary to your hat
being knocked off your head by a bushel of oysters or a basket of crabs.
In the early part of the morning, the traffic is carried on in comparative
quiet, for the regular fishmongers, who have the first of the market,
conduct their business with little disturbance, but it would gladden the
heart of a Dutch painter to see the piled produce of a dozen different
seas glittering with silver and brilliant with colour. Gigantic salmon,
fresh caught from the firths and bays of Scotland, or from the productive
Irish seas, flounder about, as the boxes in which they have travelled
disgorge them upon the board. Quantities of delicate red mullet, that have
been hurried up by the Great Western, all the way from Cornwall, for the
purpose of being furnished fresh to the fastidious palates at the West
End; smelts brought by the Dutch boats, their delicate skins varying in
hue like an opal as you pass; pyramids of lobsters, a moving mass of
spiteful claws and restless feelers, savage at their late abduction from
some Norwegian fiord; great heaps of pinky shrimps; turbots, that lately
fattened upon the Doggerbank, with their white bellies bent as for some
tremendous leap; and humbler plaice and dabs, from our own craft--all this
bountiful accumulation forms a mingled scene of strange forms and vivid
colours, that no one with an eye for the picturesque can contemplate
without interest. Neither is the scene always one of still life, for it is
no rare occurrence for the visitor to behold a yelling knot of men
dragging with ropes through the excited crowd a royal sturgeon, nine feet
in length. If the spectator now peeps down the large square opening into
the dismal space below, which appears like the hold of a ship lately
recovered from the deep, he will see the shell-fish market, where piles of
blue-black muscles, whelks, and grey cockles turned up with yellow, give
the place a repulsive aspect of dirt and slop. There are but few buyers
seen here, and they are generally women belonging to the costermonger
class, for the men rather disdain the shell-fish trade. These female
itinerants may be noticed wandering about from basket to basket,
occasionally gouging out a whelk from the shell with the thumb, to test
the lot, and then passing on to the next.
Busiest among the busy is seen the "Bommeree," or middleman--sometimes
called the forestaller. The province of this individual is to purchase the
fish as it comes into the market, and divide it into lots to suit large
and small buyers, separating the qualities according as they are designed
for St. James's or St. Giles's. These worthies used at one time to
forestal the market extensively, when they felt certain, from the state
of the tide, that no fish supplies could be poured in for the day, but now
the railway defeats their tactics, and the utter uncertainty of the
arrivals has done away with this branch of their business. After the
"trade" has been supplied, and the serge-aproned "regulars" have loaded
their light spring carts, there comes, especially in certain fish seasons,
an eruption of purchasers of a totally different character--the
costermongers of streets. This nomade tribe, which wanders in thousands
from market to market, performs a most important part in the distribution
of food. They are for the greater part the tradesmen of the poor, and by
their energy and enterprise secure to our working-classes many of the
fruits of both sea and land, which they would never taste but for them.
About seven o'clock the army of street-vendors, foot and "donkey," for the
greater number rattle up in barrows drawn by that useful animal, begin
visibly to change the whole hue and appearance of the place. Young fellows
in fustian coats and Belcher handkerchiefs throng the market, and board
the smacks, "chaffing," higgling, joking, and swearing--but never
fighting, for the costermonger has too much to do at present to make
physical demonstrations. Among the most eager of the itinerant salesmen
the visitor speedily distinguishes the Judaic nose. The Hebrews, who are
in great force about this neighbourhood on account of the dried-fruit
trade, which is mainly in their hands, deal largely also in fish. The
poorer members of the fraternity purchase the bigger portion of the
fresh-water supply, such as plaice, roach, dace, &c., in fact, nearly
everything caught by the Wandsworth fisherman, whose picturesque "bawley"
boats, which often contain both his family and fortune, may generally be
seen moored in the stream between Battersea reach and Kew bridge, a mass
of brown nets and umber canopies lit up by the brilliant red caps of their
owners, just such as Constable loved to paint in the foregrounds of his
landscapes. These fish, if not alive, must at least retain the spasmodic
quivering of the flesh which remains immediately after death, or the Jews
will not buy, for reasons we suppose connected with their religion, since
their chief trade is among the rich and poor of their own people. The
Wandsworth fishermen also supply all the white-bait that is consumed at
Greenwich and Blackwall: it is caught generally between the latter place
and Woolwich at night, and it is singular that a fish which is among the
most delicate we have, should flourish in one of the foulest parts of the
foulest river in Europe. The area of the market, as soon as the
costermongers appear, speedily becomes broken up into numbers of little
circles, strictly intent upon the eye of individuals who take up a
position high over their heads upon the boards or stands. These are the
salesmen, disposing by auction of the fish consigned to them. Some of the
dealers are moneyed men, and will lay out their fifty pounds of a morning,
re-selling to their fellows again at a profit. The smaller capitalists
combine in threes and fours, and thus manage to get their commodities at
wholesale prices. The activity of the market mainly depends upon the
season of the year and the amount of fish. The energy of these
peripatetics is surprising: they look in at Billingsgate, and if the
supply runs short they are off again immediately to Covent Garden, for
they deal in everything, and the barrow that one morning you see filled
with fresh herrings, the next is blooming with plums. If, on the contrary,
a large cargo of sprats comes suddenly into London, or if soles should be
unusually plentiful, it is known in an incredibly short space of time all
over the town, and they flock to the market in thousands; as many as five
thousand is the usual attendance on such occasions. These costermongers
absorb more than a third of the whole Billingsgate supply; of sprats and
fresh herrings they take fully two-thirds. Turbot and all the costlier
fish they purchase sparingly, but they buy largely when it chances to be
cheap, as in the cholera year of 1849, when prime salmon went a-begging at
four-pence a pound! If the market is dull, and prices are high, the fact
is speedily known, and the cry of "No smacks at the Gate," is sufficient
to turn the current immediately in the direction of the "Garden."
Steam, as we have already intimated, has revolutionized the fish-trade,
and is rapidly sweeping away the whole fleet of smacks propelled by sails,
as ruthlessly as the rail did stagecoaches. A few years ago all the
oysters were brought by water to Billingsgate; but a short time since a
great natural bed, called the Mid Channel Bed, which stretches for forty
miles between the ports of Shoreham and Havre, was discovered, and, the
dredging-ground being free to all comers, a vast field of wealth has been
opened to fishermen, especially as from the proximity of the Brighton and
South Coast Railway the produce can be sent immediately to town, and
escape the dues of metage and other tolls to which all fish landed at the
market is liable. Seaborne oysters are thus placed at a great
disadvantage, and the different companies owning them justly complain at a
city exaction which takes a large sum annually out of their pockets,
besides the charge for porterage it entails upon the purchasers. Mr.
Alston, who is, without doubt, the largest oyster-fisher in the world,
sent up in one year between 40,000 and 50,000 bushels from his fishery,
Cheyney Rock, near Sheerness, and paid 800_l._ for metage. The whole trade
paid no less than 3,000_l._, and this for services which their own men
could do as well as themselves, were it not for a custom which enforces
idleness upon the smack people.[21]
The "scuttle-mouths," as they are termed from their huge shell, pay no
attention to season, and consequently oyster-day has now in a great degree
lost its significance. The 4th of August is still, it is true, the opening
day at Billingsgate, but the supply from without has taken the wind out of
its sails. Only those who have witnessed the crowds filling all the
streets leading to the market long before the hour of business--six
o'clock in the morning--can understand the eagerness exhibited of old to
obtain some of the first day's oysters. All this is now gone. There were
not more than eighteen smacks at the opening of the present year, and, few
as were the arrivals, the buyers were not eager. The Mid-Channel oysters,
which have thus disturbed the old trade, are of a large and by no means
delicate kind, such as come from Tenby, Jersey, &c.--coarse fish, eaten by
rough men--third-class oysters, in fact, which rarely penetrate to the
West End, unless to make sauce. Real natives are greater aristocrats among
their fellows than ever; the demand for them has for a long time far
exceeded the supply, and the price has consequently risen. Of the birth,
parentage and nurture of this delicate fish, a curious tale could be told.
Designed for fastidious palates, much care and attention is bestowed upon
its breeding. The _habitué_ of the Opera, who strolls up the brilliantly
lighted Haymarket towards midnight, and turns into any one of the fish
supper-rooms that line its western side, little dreams of the organization
at work to enable him to enjoy his native. Most of the oysters, with the
exception of the Mid-Channel bed, are regularly cultivated by different
companies, who rear and tend them at different parts of the south coast,
and of the Thames at its mouth. Of these companies there are nine, in
addition to individuals who possess and work what might be called
sea-farms, several of which are miles in extent. In all the beds there is
a certain space dedicated to natives. At Burnham, Essex, the "spat," or
fecundated sperm, is stored in large pits, and sold as native brood, which
is afterwards "laid" in that portion of the different beds appropriated to
privileged oysters. Here the young natives remain for three years, when
they are generally brought to market. So far their education is left, in a
certain degree, to nature; but once in the possession of the
fish-shopkeepers, art steps in to perfect their condition. They are now
stored in large shallow vats, being carefully laid with their proper sides
uppermost, and supplied daily with oatmeal: a process which is calculated
rather to fatten than to flavour, and there are many who think that, like
show cattle, they are none the better for over-feeding. "Natives," packed
in barrels, form one of the articles of food that is largely sent out of
London into the country, as all persons know who travel much at Christmas
time, and notice with astonishment the pyramids of oyster-barrels which
crowd the platforms of all the termini of the metropolis.
The frying-pans of London are mainly supplied with soles all the year
round by the trolling-boats of Barking, of which there are upwards of 150
belonging to different companies. They fish the North Sea off the coasts
of Yorkshire and Holland, particularly the Silver and Brown banks. Of old
the smacks used to carry their own catch to Billingsgate, but the loss of
time was so great, that latterly fast-sailing cutters have been employed
to attend upon the fishing-smacks and bring their produce to market packed
in ice. Of this splendid craft, which can sail almost in the eye of the
wind, there are forty; and the total number of seamen employed is not less
than 2,000, the greater part of whom have been taken as boys from the
workhouse, and trained by this capital service into first-rate seamen. It
is curious to follow the small proceedings of the world into their
ultimate results. The gastronome, smiling complacently as he withdraws the
cover and reveals a well-browned pair of soles, would never guess that
they and their kind are the immediate cause of a happy transmutation of
parish burthens into the right arm of our strength. Eels are constantly
imported to Billingsgate by the Dutch boats. The galliots never moor close
alongside the wharf, as the wells in which they bring their fish alive
cause them to draw too much water, but they anchor midway in the stream,
by twos and threes--their brown sides, flat bows, with high cheek-bones,
like their navigators, and bright verd-green rudders, adding to the
picturesque appearance of the river. The great fat creatures brought by
them mainly supply the eel-pie houses, and contribute largely, we are
informed, to that oleaginous kind of soup which people too hungry to be
curious mistake for veritable oxtail and calves' head. The Dutch boats do
not, however, confine themselves to eels. They deal in turbot, soles, and
all kinds of flat-fish, such as frequent the Dogger Bank, much to the
discredit of our native enterprise, neglecting, as we do, the splendid
deep-sea fishing-ground off the south-west coast of Ireland, where cod and
salmon are to be found in abundant quantities, whilst those who know the
west coast well, declare there is turbot enough in Galway Bay "to supply
the whole of Europe for the next hundred years."
We believe, however, it is now in contemplation to go to work upon a large
scale in those waters, having screw-steamers to collect the produce, and
bring it to Milford Haven alive in wells, from which port it would come,
_viâ_ the South Wales and Great Western Railways, to Billingsgate, within
twenty-four hours after it was caught. The value of screw steamers having
capacious wells has been fully tested by Mr. Howard, of Manningtree,
Essex, who fitted an engine and screw into one of his welled
fishing-smacks. Scarcely a lobster, out of twenty thousand put alive into
the boat, was lost, whilst large numbers of those brought in sailing
smacks perish. Salmon, cod, and other fish, are brought alive with the
same success in the welled steamers from the North Sea and the coast of
Scotland. It is almost time that some new ground were found in place of
the famous Dogger Bank, which has now been preyed upon by so many nations
for centuries, and has supplied so many generations of Catholics and
Protestants with fast and feast food. No better proof that its stores are
failing could be given than the fact that, although the ground, counting
the Long Bank and the north-west flat in its vicinity, covers 11,800
square miles, and that in fine weather it is fished by the London
companies with from fifteen to twenty dozen of long lines, extending to
ten or twelve miles, and containing from 9,000 to 12,000 hooks, it is yet
not at all common to secure even as many as four score fish of a night--a
poverty which can be better appreciated when we learn that 600 fish for
800 hooks is the catch for deep-sea fishing about Kinsale.
Towards the latter end of August the great herring season commences.
Yarmouth is the chief seat of this branch of the piscatory trade. Every
night when the weather is fine the fishermen of this old port "shoot"
upwards of 300 square miles of net. Neptune in his ample arms never gave
the ocean so magnificent an embrace. The produce of this wholesale
sweeping of the sea is brought to town by the Eastern Counties Railway.
They come up to Billingsgate packed in barrels and in bulk, and the number
sold in the year seems almost fabulous, being upwards of a _billion_. Next
to the herring fishery the sea-harvest of most importance to the poor of
London is that of sprats, which come in about Lord Mayor's Day, and it is
a popular belief that the first dish is always sent to the chief
magistrate of the city. If a telegraph were to be laid down to all the
alleys and courts, the fact of a large arrival of these little creatures
at Billingsgate would not be sooner made known to the lower orders than,
by some mysterious process, it is at present. Mr. Goldham, the clerk of
the market, accustomed as he is to the sudden invasions of the
costermongers, informs us that the scene on board the smacks laden with
sprats is really frightful. The people hang thick as sea-weed from the
rigging, throng the decks, and swarm on every available inch of plank,
until the wonder is that the whole of the puny fleet does not capsize with
the weight. The cause of the scramble is that the street sellers will not
buy until they have seen the sample, and every one consequently tries to
gain the highest point, that he may look down into the hold, whilst a man
tumbles about the sprats with a shovel, in silver showers. The plaice
season succeeds to that of sprats, with the interval of mackerel, which
continues until the end of May, when Scotland and Ireland begin to pass
down their salmon into the market. But where do all the lobsters come
from? The lovers of this most delicious of the crustaceæ tribe will
probably be astonished to learn that they are mainly brought from Norway.
France and the Channel Islands, Orkney, and Shetland, do, it is true,
contribute a few to the metropolitan market, but full two-thirds are
reluctantly, and with much pinching and twisting, dragged out of the
thousand rock-bound inlets which indent the Norwegian coast. They are
conveyed alive in a screw-steamer and by smacks, in baskets, sometimes to
the extent of 20,000 of a night, to Great Grimsby, and are thence
forwarded to town by the Great Northern Railway--another 10,000 arriving
perhaps from points on our own and the French coast. The fighting,
twisting, blue-black masses are taken as soon as purchased to what are
termed the "boiling-houses," of which there are four, situated in Duck and
Love Lanes, close to the market; and here, for a trifling sum per score,
they change their dark for scarlet uniforms. They are plunged into the
boiling cauldron, basket and all, and in twenty minutes they are done.
Crabs are cooked in the same establishments, but their nervous systems are
so acute, that they dash off their claws in convulsive agony if placed
alive in hot water. To prevent this mutilation, which would spoil their
sale, they are first killed by the insertion of a needle through the head.
The lobster trade is mostly in the hands of one salesman, Mr. Saunders, of
Thames Street, who often has upwards of 15,000 consigned to him of a
morning, and who causes no less than 15,000_l._ a year to flow into the
fishy palms of Norwegians for this single article of commerce. As to the
total supply of fish to the London market, we borrow the following
estimate from Mr. Mayhew's very clever book on "London Labour and the
London Poor." The figures seemed to us at first sight so enormous, that we
hesitatingly submitted the table to one of the largest salesmen who
assured us that it was no over-statement:--
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Description of Fish. | No. of Fish.| Weight of Fish.|
|----------------------------------------|-------------|----------------|
| WET FISH. | | |
| | | lbs. |
|Salmon and salmon trout (29,000 boxes,} | | |
| 14 fish per box) } | 406,000| 3,480,000 |
|Live cod (averaging 10 lbs. each) | 400,000| 4,000,000 |
|Soles (averaging 1/4 lb. each) | 97,520,000| 26,880,000 |
|Whiting (averaging 6 oz. each) | 17,920,000| 6,720,000 |
|Haddock (averaging 2 lbs. each) | 2,470,000| 5,040,000 |
|Plaice (averaging 1 lb. each) | 33,600,000| 33,600,000 |
|Mackerel (averaging 1 lb. each) | 23,520,000| 23,520,000 |
|Fresh herrings (250,000 barrels, 700 } | | |
| fish per barrel) } | 175,000,000| 42,000,000 |
|Ditto in bulk |1,050,000,000| 252,000,000 |
|Sprats | | 4,000,000 |
|Eels from Holland (principally), }| |{ 1,505,280 |
| England, and Ireland (6 fish per lb.)}| 9,797,760 |{ 127,680 |
|Flounders (7,200 qrtns., 36 fish per }| | |
| qtn.) }| 259,200 | 43,200 |
|Dabs (7,500 qrtns., 36 fish per qrtn.) | 270,000 | 48,750 |
| | | |
| DRY FISH. | | |
| | | |
|Barrelled cod (15,000 barrels, 40 fish }| | |
| per barrel) }| 750,000 | 4,200,000 |
|Dried salt cod (5 lbs. each) | 1,600,000 | 8,000,000 |
|Smoked haddock (65,000 barrels, 300 }| | |
| fish per barrel) }| 19,500,000 | 10,920,000 |
|Bloaters (265,000 baskets, 150 fish per}| | |
| basket) }| 147,000,000 | 10,600,000 |
|Red herrings (100,000 barrels, 500 fish}| | |
| per barrel) }| 50,000,000 | 14,000,000 |
|Dried sprats (9,600 large bundles, 30 }| | |
|fish per bundle) }| 288,000| 96,000 |
| | | |
| SHELL FISH. | | |
| | | |
|Oysters | 495,896,000 | |
|Lobsters (averaging 1 lb. each fish) | 1,200,000 | 1,200,000 |
|Crabs (averaging 1 lb. each fish) | 600,000 | 600,000 |
|Shrimps (324 to a pint) | 498,428,648 | |
|Whelks (227 to half bushel) | 4,943,200 | |
|Mussels (1,000 to half bushel) | 50,400,000 | |
|Cockles (2,000 to half bushel) | 67,392,000 | |
|Periwinkles (4,000 to half bushel) | 304,000,000 | |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
And now for the _pièce de résistance_.
London has always been celebrated for the excellence of its meat, and her
sons do justice to it; at least it has become the universal impression
that they consume more, man for man, than any other town population in the
world. It was a sirloin, fresh and ruddy, hanging at the door of some
Giblett or Slater in a former century, that inspired, we suspect, the song
which ever since has stirred Englishmen in a foreign land, "The Roast Beef
of Old England." The visitor accustomed to the markets of our large
provincial towns would doubtless expect to find the emporium of the
live-stock trade for so vast a population of an imposing size. The
foreigner, after seeing the magnificence of our docks--the solidity and
span of our bridges--might naturally look for a national exposition of our
greatness in the chief market dedicated to that British beef which is the
boast of John Bull. What they do see in reality, if they have courage to
wend their way along any of the narrow tumble-down streets approaching to
Smithfield, which the great fire unfortunately spared, is an irregular
space bounded by dirty houses and the ragged party-walls of demolished
habitations, which give it the appearance of the site of a recent
conflagration--the whole space comprising just six acres, fifteen perches,
roads and public thoroughfares included. Into this narrow area, surrounded
with slaughter-houses, triperies, bone-boiling houses, gut-scraperies,
&c., the mutton-chops, scrags, saddles, legs, sirloins, and rounds, which
grace the smiling boards of our noble imperial capital throughout the
year, have, for the major part, been goaded and contused for the benefit
of the civic corporation installed at Guildhall.[22] The best time is
early in the morning--say one or two o'clock of the "great day," as the
last market before Christmas-day is called. On this occasion, not only the
space--calculated to hold 4,100 oxen and 30,000 sheep, besides calves and
pigs--is crammed, but the approaches around it overflow with live stock
for many hundred feet, and sometimes the cattle are seen blocking up the
passage as far as St. Sepulchre's church. If the stranger can make his way
through the crowd, and by means of some vantage-ground or door-step can
manage to raise himself a few feet above the general level, he sees before
him in one direction, by the dim red light of hundreds of torches, a
writhing party-coloured mass, surmounted by twisting horns, some in rows,
tied to rails which run along the whole length of the open space, some
gathered together in one struggling knot. In another quarter, the moving
torches reveal to him now and then, through the misty light, a couple of
acres of living wool, or roods of pigs' skins. If he ventures into this
closely wedged and labouring mass, he is enabled to watch more narrowly
the reason of the universal ferment among the beasts.