University of Virginia Library

OF THE STREET TRADE IN BAKED POTATOES.

The baked potato trade, in the way it is at pre-
sent carried on, has not been known more than
fifteen years in the streets. Before that, pota-
toes were sometimes roasted as chestnuts are
now, but only on a small scale. The trade is
more profitable than that in fruit, but continues
for but six months of the year.

The potatoes, for street-consumption, are
bought of the greengrocers, at the rate of 5s. 6d. the cwt. They are usually a large-sized
"fruit," running about two or three to the
pound. The kind generally bought is what are
called the "French Regent's." French pota-
toes are greatly used now, as they are cheaper
than the English. The potatoes are picked,
and those of a large size, and with a rough
skin, selected from the others, because they are
the mealiest. A waxy potato shrivels in the
baking. There are usually from 280 to 300
potatoes in the cwt.; these are cleaned by the
huckster, and, when dried, taken in baskets,
about a quarter cwt. at a time, to the baker's, to
be cooked. They are baked in large tins, and
require an hour and a half to do them well.
The charge for baking is 9d. the cwt., the baker
usually finding the tins. They are taken home
from the bakehouse in a basket, with a yard and
a half of green baize in which they are covered
up, and so protected from the cold. The huck-
ster then places them in his can, which consists
of a tin with a half-lid; it stands on four legs,
and has a large handle to it, while an iron fire-
pot is suspended immediately beneath the vessel
which is used for holding the potatoes. Di-
rectly over the fire-pot is a boiler for hot water.
This is concealed within the vessel, and serves
to keep the potatoes always hot. Outside the
vessel where the potatoes are kept is, at one
end, a small compartment for butter and salt,
and at the other end another compartment for
fresh charcoal. Above the boiler, and beside
the lid, is a small pipe for carrying off the
steam. These potato-cans are sometimes
brightly polished, sometimes painted red, and
occasionally brass-mounted. Some of the
handsomest are all brass, and some are highly
ornamented with brass-mountings. Great pride
is taken in the cans. The baked-potato man
usually devotes half an hour to polishing them
up, and they are mostly kept as bright as silver.
The handsomest potato-can is now in Shore-
ditch. It cost ten guineas, and is of brass
mounted with German silver. There are three
lamps attached to it, with coloured glass, and of
a style to accord with that of the machine; each
lamp cost 5s. The expense of an ordinary
can, tin and brass-mounted, is about 50s. They
are mostly made by a tinman in the Ratcliffe-
highway. The usual places for these cans to
stand are the principal thoroughfares and street-
markets. It is considered by one who has been
many years at the business, that there are,
taking those who have regular stands and those
who are travelling with their cans on their arm,
at least two hundred individuals engaged in
the trade in London. There are three at the
bottom of Farringdon-street, two in Smithfield,
and three in Tottenham-court-road (the two
places last named are said to be the best
`pitches' in all London), two in Leather-lane,
one on Holborn-hill, one at King's-cross, three
at the Brill, Somers-town, three in the New-
cut, three in Covent-garden (this is considered
to be on market-days the second-best pitch),
two at the Elephant and Castle, one at West-
minster-bridge, two at the top of Edgeware-
road, one in St. Martin's-lane, one in Newport-
market, two at the upper end of Oxford-street,
one in Clare-market, two in Regent-street, one

[Description: 915EAF. Page 174.]

in Newgate-market, two at the Angel, Isling-
ton, three at Shoreditch church, four about
Rosemary-lane, two at Whitechapel, two near
Spitalfields-market, and more than double the
above number wandering about London. Some
of the cans have names — as the "Royal Union
Jack" (engraved in a brass plate), the "Royal
George," the "Prince of Wales," the "Original
Baked Potatoes," and the "Old Original Baked
Potatoes."

The business begins about the middle of
August and continues to the latter end of April,
or as soon as the potatoes get to any size, —
until they are pronounced `bad.' The season,
upon an average, lasts about half the year,
and depends much upon the weather. If
it is cold and frosty, the trade is brisker
than in wet weather; indeed then little is doing.
The best hours for business are from half-past
ten in the morning till two in the afternoon,
and from five in the evening till eleven or
twelve at night. The night trade is considered
the best. In cold weather the potatoes are fre-
quently bought to warm the hands. Indeed,
an eminent divine classed them, in a public
speech, among the best of modern improve-
ments, it being a cheap luxury to the poor
wayfarer, who was benumbed in the night by
cold, and an excellent medium for diffusing
warmth into the system, by being held in the
gloved hand. Some buy them in the morning
for lunch and some for dinner. A newsvender,
who had to take a hasty meal in his shop, told
me he was "always glad to hear the baked-
potato cry, as it made a dinner of what was
only a snack without it." The best time at
night, is about nine, when the potatoes are
purchased for supper.

The customers consist of all classes. Many
gentlefolks buy them in the street, and take
them home for supper in their pockets; but the
working classes are the greatest purchasers.
Many boys and girls lay out a halfpenny in a
baked potato. Irishmen are particularly fond
of them, but they are the worst customers, I am
told, as they want the largest potatoes in the
can. Women buy a great number of those sold.
Some take them home, and some eat them in
the street. Three baked potatoes are as much
as will satisfy the stoutest appetite. One potato
dealer in Smithfield is said to sell about 2½ cwt.
of potatoes on a market-day; or, in other words,
from 900 to 1,000 potatoes, and to take upwards
of 2l. One informant told me that he himself
had often sold 1½ cwt. of a day, and taken 1l. in
halfpence. I am informed, that upon an ave-
rage, taking the good stands with the bad ones
throughout London, there are about 1 cwt. of
potatoes sold by each baked-potato man — and
there are 200 of these throughout the metro-
polis — making the total quantity of baked
potatoes consumed every day 10 tons. The
money spent upon these comes to within a few
shillings of 125l. (calculating 300 potatoes to
the cwt., and each of those potatoes to be sold
at a halfpenny). Hence, there are 60 tons of
baked potatoes eaten in London streets, and
750l. spent upon them every week during the
season. Saturdays and Mondays are the best
days for the sale of baked potatoes in those
parts of London that are not near the markets;
but in those in the vicinity of Clare, Newport,
Covent-garden, Newgate, Smithfield, and other
markets, the trade is briskest on the market-
days. The baked-potato men are many of them
broken-down tradesmen. Many are labourers
who find a difficulty of obtaining employment
in the winter time; some are costermongers;
some have been artisans; indeed, there are some
of all classes among them.

After the baked potato season is over, the
generality of the hucksters take to selling straw-
berries, raspberries, or anything in season.
Some go to labouring work. One of my in-
formants, who had been a bricklayer's labourer,
said that after the season he always looked out
for work among the bricklayers, and this kept
him employed until the baked potato season
came round again.

"When I first took to it," he said, "I was
very badly off. My master had no employment
for me, and my brother was ill, and so was my
wife's sister, and I had no way of keeping 'em,
or myself either. The labouring men are mostly
out of work in the winter time, so I spoke to a
friend of mine, and he told me how he managed
every winter, and advised me to do the same.
I took to it, and have stuck to it ever since.
The trade was much better then. I could buy
a hundred-weight of potatoes for 1s. 9d. to 2s. 3d., and there were fewer to sell them. We gene-
rally use to a cwt. of potatoes three-quarters of
a pound of butter — tenpenny salt butter is what
we buy — a pennyworth of salt, a pennyworth of
pepper, and five pennyworth of charcoal. This,
with the baking, 9d., brings the expenses to just
upon 7s. 6d. per cwt., and for this our receipts
will be 12s. 6d., thus leaving about 5s. per cwt.
profit." Hence the average profits of the trade
are about 30s. a week — "and more to some,"
said my informant. A man in Smithfield-
market, I am credibly informed, clears at the
least 3l. a week. On the Friday he has a fresh
basket of hot potatoes brought to him from the
baker's every quarter of an hour. Such is his
custom that he has not even time to take money.
and his wife stands by his side to do so.

Another potato-vender who shifted his can,
he said, "from a public-house where the tap
dined at twelve," to another half-a-mile off,
where it "dined at one, and so did the par-
lour," and afterwards to any place he deemed
best, gave me the following account of his cus-
tomers: —

"Such a day as this, sir [Jan. 24], when the
fog's like a cloud come down, people looks very
shy at my taties, very; they've been more sus-
picious ever since the taty rot. I thought I
should never have rekivered it; never, not the
rot. I sell most to mechanics — I was a grocer's
porter myself before I was a baked taty — for
their dinners, and they're on for good shops

[Description: 915EAF. Page 175.]

where I serves the taps and parlours, and pays
me without grumbling, like gentlemen. Gen-
tlemen does grumble though, for I've sold to
them at private houses when they've held the
door half open as they've called me — aye, and
ladies too — and they've said, `Is that all for
2d.?' If it 'd been a peck they'd have said the
same, I know. Some customers is very plea-
sant with me, and says I'm a blessing. One
always says he'll give me a ton of taties when
his ship comes home, 'cause he can always have
a hot murphy to his cold saveloy, when tin's
short. He's a harness-maker, and the railways
has injured him. There's Union-street and
there's Pearl-row, and there's Market-street,
now, — they're all off the Borough-road — if I
go there at ten at night or so, I can sell 3s. worth, perhaps, 'cause they know me, and I
have another baked taty to help there some-
times. They're women that's not reckoned the
best in the world that buys there, but they pay
me. I know why I got my name up. I had
luck to have good fruit when the rot was about,
and they got to know me. I only go twice or
thrice a week, for it's two miles from my regu-
lar places. I've trusted them sometimes.
They've said to me, as modest as could be,
`Do give me credit, and 'pon my word you
shall be paid; there's a dear!' I am paid
mostly. Little shopkeepers is fair customers,
but I do best for the taps and the parlours.
Perhaps I make 12s. or 15s. a week — I hardly
know, for I've only myself and keep no 'count
— for the season; money goes one can't tell
how, and 'specially if you drinks a drop, as I
do sometimes. Foggy weather drives me to it,
I'm so worritted; that is, now and then, you'll
mind, sir."

There are, at present, 300 vendors of hot
baked potatoes getting their living in the streets
of London, each of whom sell, upon an average,
¾ cwt. of potatoes daily. The average takings
of each vendor is 6s. a day; and the receipts of
the whole number throughout the season (which
lasts from the latter end of September till March
inclusive), a period of 6 months, is 14,000l.

A capital is required to start in this trade as,
follows: — can, 2l.; knife, 3d.; stock-money, 8s.; charge for baking 100 potatoes, 1s.; charcoal,
4d.; butter, 2d.; salt, 1d., and pepper, 1d.; altogether, 2l. 9s. 11d. The can and knife is the
only property described as fixed, stock-money,
&c., being daily occurring, amounts to 75l. during the season.