 | STREET-SELLERS OF GREEN STUFF. London Labour and the London Poor, volume 1 |  |
OF TURF CUTTING AND SELLING.
A man long familiar with this trade, and who
knew almost every member of it individually,
counted for me 36 turf-cutters, to his own know-
ledge, and was confident that there were 40 turf-
cutters and 60 sellers in London; the addition
of the sellers, however, is but that of 10 women,
who assist their husbands or fathers in the street
sales, — but no women cut turf, — and of 10 men
who sell, but buy of the cutters.
The turf is simply a sod, but it is considered
indispensable that it should contain the leaves
of the "small Dutch clover," (the shamrock of
the Irish), the most common of all the trefoils.
The turf is used almost entirely for the food and
roosting-place of the caged sky-larks. Indeed
one turf-cutter said to me: "It's only people
that don't understand it that gives turf to other
birds, but of course if we're asked about it, we
say it's good for every bird, pigeons and chickens
and all; and very likely it is if they choose to
have it." The principal places for the cutting
of turf are at present Shepherd's Bush, Notting
Hill, the Caledonian Road, Hampstead, High-
gate, Hornsey, Peckham, and Battersea. Chalk
Farm was an excellent place, but it is now
exhausted, "fairly flayed" of the shamrocks.
Parts of Camden Town were also fertile in turf,
but they have been built over. Hackney was a
district to which the turf-cutters resorted, but
they are now forbidden to cut sods there. Hamp-
stead Heath used to be another harvest-field for
these turf-purveyors, but they are now prohibited
from "so much as sticking a knife into the
Heath;" but turf-cutting is carried on surrepti-
tiously on all the outskirts of the Heath, for
there used to be a sort of feeling, I was told,
among some real Londoners that Hampstead
Heath yielded the best turf of any place. All
the "commons" and "greens," Paddington,
Camberwell, Kennington, Clapham, Putney, &c.
are also forbidden ground to the turf-cutter.
"O, as to the parks and Primrose Hill itself —
round about it's another thing — nobody," it was
answered to my inquiry, "ever thought of cut-
ting their turf there. The people about, if they
was only visitors, wouldn't stand it, and right
too. I wouldn't, if I wasn't in the turf-cutting
myself."
The places where the turf is principally cut
are the fields, or plots, in the suburbs, in which
may be seen a half-illegible board, inviting the
attention of the class of speculating builders to
an "eligible site" for villas. Some of these
places are open, and have long been open, to
the road; others are protected by a few crazy
rails, and the turf-cutters consider that outside
the rails, or between them and the road, they
[Description: 915EAF. Page 156.]
police. The fact is, that they cut it on sufferance;
but the policeman never interferes, unless re-
quired to do so by the proprietor of the land or
his agent. One gentleman, who has the control
over a considerable quantity of land "eligible"
for building, is very inimical to the pursuits of
the turf-cutters, who, of course, return his hos-
tility. One man told me that he was required,
late on a Saturday night, some weeks ago, to
supply six dozen of turfs to a very respectable
shopkeeper, by ten or eleven on the Sunday
morning. The shopkeeper had an aristocratic
connection, and durst not disappoint his custom-
ers in their demands for fresh turf on the Sun-
day, so that the cutter must supply it. In
doing so, he encountered Mr. — (the gentle-
man in question), who was exceedingly angry
with him: "You d — d poaching thief!" said
the gentleman, "if this is the way you pass your
Sunday, I'll give you in charge." One turf-
cutter, I was informed, had, within these eight
years, paid 3l. 15s. fines for trespassing, besides
losing his barrow, &c., on every conviction:
"But he's a most outdacious fellor," I was told
by one of his mates, "and won't mind spoiling
anybody's ground to save hisself a bit of trouble.
There's too many that way, which gives us a bad
name." Some of the managers of the land to be
built upon give the turf-cutters free leave to
labour in their vocation; others sell the sods for
garden-plots, or use them to set out the gar-
dens to any small houses they may be connected
with, and with them the turf-cutters have no
chance of turning a sod or a penny.
I accompanied a turf-cutter, to observe the
manner of his work. We went to the neighbour-
hood of Highgate, which we reached a little
before nine in the morning. There was nothing
very remarkable to be observed, but the scene
was not without its interest. Although it was
nearly the middle of January, the grass was
very green and the weather very mild. There
happened to be no one on the ground but my
companion and myself, and in some parts of our
progress nothing was visible but green fields
with their fringe of dark-coloured leafless trees;
while in other parts, which were somewhat more
elevated, glimpses of the crowded roof of an
omnibus, or of a line of fleecy white smoke,
showing the existence of a railway, testified to
the neighbourhood of a city; but no sound was
heard except, now and then, a distant railway
whistle. The turf-cutter, after looking carefully
about him — the result of habit, for I was told
afterwards, by the policeman, that there was no
trespass — set rapidly to work. His apparatus
was a sharp-pointed table-knife of the ordinary
size, which he inserted in the ground, and made
it rapidly describe a half-circle; he then as
rapidly ran his implement in the opposite half-
circle. flung up the sod, and, after slapping it
with his knife, cut off the lower part so as to
leave it flat — working precisely as does a butcher
cutting out a joint or a chop, and reducing the
fat. Small holes are thus left in the ground —
of such shape and size as if deep saucers were
to be fitted into them — and in the event of a
thunder-shower in droughty weather, they be-
come filled with water, and have caused a puzzle-
ment, I am told, to persons taking their quiet
walk when the storm had ceased, to comprehend
why the rain should be found to gather in little
circular pools in some parts, and not in others.
The man I accompanied cut and shaped six
of these turfs in about a minute, but he worked
without intermission, and rather to show me
with what rapidity and precision he could cut,
than troubling himself to select what was sale-
able. After that we diverged in the direction
of Hampstead; and in a spot not far from a
temporary church, found three turf-cutters at
work, — but they worked asunder, and without
communication one with another. The turfs, as
soon as they are cut and shaped, are thrown into
a circular basket, and when the basket is full
it is emptied on to the barrow (a costermonger's
barrow), which is generally left untended at the
nearest point: "We can trust one another, as
far as I know," said one turf-man to me, "and
nobody else would find it worth while to steal
turfs." The largest number of men that my
most intelligent informant had ever seen at work
in one locality was fourteen, and that was in a
field just about to be built over, and "where
they had leave." Among the turf-purveyors
there is no understanding as to where they are
to "cut." Wet weather does not interfere with
turf procuring; it merely adds to the weight,
and consequently to the toil of drawing the
barrow. Snow is rather an advantage to the
street-seller, as purchasers are apt to fancy that
if the storm continues, turfs will not be obtain-
able, and so they buy more freely. The turf-
man clears the snow from the ground in any
known locality — the cold pinching his ungloved
hands — and cuts out the turf, "as green," I was
told, "as an April sod." The weather most
dreaded is that when hoar frost lies long and
heavy on the ground, for the turf cut with the
rime upon it soon turns black, and is unsaleable.
Foggy dark weather is also prejudicial, "for
then," one man said, "the days clips it uncom-
mon short, and people won't buy by candlelight,
no more will the shops. Birds has gone to sleep
then, and them that's fondest on them says,
`We can get fresher turf to-morrow.' " The
gatherers cannot work by moonlight; "for the
clover leaves then shuts up," I was told by one
who said he was a bit of a botanist, "like the
lid of a box, and you can't tell them."
One of my informants told me that he cut
25 dozen turfs every Friday (the great working
turf-day) of the year on an average (he some-
times cut on that day upwards of 30 dozen);
17 dozen on a Tuesday; and 6 dozen on the
other days of the week, more or less, as the
demand justified — but 6 dozen was an average.
He had also cut a few turfs on a Sunday morn-
ing, but only at long intervals, sometimes only
thrice a year. Thus one man will cut 2,496
dozen, or 29,952 turfs in a year, not reckoning
[Description: 915EAF. Page 157.]
information I could acquire, there seems no
doubt but that one-half of the turf-cutters (20)
exert a similar degree of industry to that de-
tailed; and the other 20 procure a moiety of the
quantity cut and disposed of by their stronger
and more fortunate brethren. This gives an
aggregate, for an average year, of 598,560 turfs,
or including Sunday turf-cutting, of 600,000.
Each turf is about 6 inches diameter at the
least; so that the whole extent of turf cut for
London birds yearly, if placed side by side,
would extend fifty-six miles, or from London to
Canterbury.
In wet weather, 6 dozen turfs weigh, on an
average, 1 cwt.; in dry weather, 8 dozen weigh
no more; if, therefore, we take 7 dozen as the
usual hundred-weight, a turf-cutter of the best
class carries, in basket-loads, to his barrow, and
when his stock is completed, drags into town
from the localities I have specified, upwards
of 3½ cwt. every Friday, nearly 2½ every Tues-
day, and about 7 cwt. in the course of a week;
the smaller traders drag half the quantity, — and
the total weight of turf disposed of for the cage-
birds of London, every year, is 546 tons.
Of the supply of turf, obtained as I have
described, at least three-fourths is sold to the
bird-shops, who retail it to their customers. The
price paid by these shopkeepers to the labourers
for their turf trade is 2d. and 2½d. a dozen, but
rarely 2½d. They retail it at from 3d. to 6d.
a dozen, according to connection and locality.
The remainder is sold by the cutters on their
rounds from house to house, at two and three a
penny.
None of the turf-cutters confine themselves
to it. They sell in addition groundsel, chick-
weed, plaintain, very generally; and a few sup-
ply nettles, dandelion, ground-ivy, snails, worms,
frogs, and toads. The sellers of groundsel and
chickweed are far more numerous, as I have
shown, than the turf-cutters — indeed many of
them are incapable of cutting turf or of drag-
ging the weight of the turfs.
| STREET-SELLERS OF GREEN STUFF. London Labour and the London Poor, volume 1 | |