University of Virginia Library

OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF ICES AND OF
ICE CREAMS.

I have already treated of the street luxury of
pine-apples, and have now to deal with the
greater street rarity of ice-creams.

A quick-witted street-seller — but not in the
"provision" line — conversing with me upon
this subject, said: "Ices in the streets! Aye,
and there'll be jellies next, and then mock
turtle, and then the real ticket, sir. I don't
know nothing of the difference between the real
thing and the mock, but I once had some cheap
mock in an eating-house, and it tasted like
stewed tripe with a little glue. You'll keep

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your eyes open, sir, at the Great Exhibition;
and you'll see a new move or two in the streets,
take my word for it. Penny glasses of cham
pagne, I shouldn't wonder."

Notwithstanding the sanguine anticipations
of my street friend, the sale of ices in the
streets has not been such as to offer any great
encouragement to a perseverance in the traffic.

The sale of ice-creams was unknown in the
streets until last summer, and was first intro-
duced, as a matter of speculation, by a man who
was acquainted with the confectionary business,
and who purchased his ices of a confectioner in
Holborn. He resold these luxuries daily to
street-sellers, sometimes to twenty of them, but
more frequently to twelve. The sale, however,
was not remunerative, and had it not been
generally united with other things, such as
ginger-beer, could not have been carried on as
a means of subsistence. The supplier of the
street-traders sometimes went himself, and some-
times sent another to sell ice-cream in Green-
wich Park on fine summer days, but the sale
was sometimes insufficient to pay his railway
expenses. After three or four weeks' trial, this
man abandoned the trade, and soon afterwards
emigrated to America.

Not many weeks subsequent to "the first
start," I was informed, the trade was entered into
by a street-seller in Petticoat-lane, who had be-
come possessed, it was said, of Masters's Freez-
ing Apparatus. He did not vend the ices himself
for more than two or three weeks, and moreover
confined his sale to Sunday mornings; after a
while he employed himself for a short time
in making ices for four or five street-sellers,
some of whom looked upon the preparation as a
wonderful discovery of his own, and he then
discontinued the trade.

There were many difficulties attending the
introduction of ices into street-traffic. The
buyers had but a confused notion how the ice
was to be swallowed. The trade, therefore,
spread only very gradually, but some of the
more enterprising sellers purchased stale ices
from the confectioners. So little, however, were
the street-people skilled in the trade, that a
confectioner told me they sometimes offered
ice to their customers in the streets, and could
supply only water! Ices were sold by the
street-vendors generally at 1d. each, and the
trade left them a profit of 4d. in 1s., when they
served them "without waste," and some of the
sellers contrived, by giving smaller modicums,
to enhance the 4d. into 5d.; the profit, how-
ever, was sometimes what is expressively
called "nil." Cent. per cent. — the favourite
and simple rate known in the streets as "half-
profits" was rarely attained.

From a street-dealer I received the following
account: —

"Yes, sir, I mind very well the first time as
I ever sold ices. I don't think they'll ever
take greatly in the streets, but there's no say-
ing. Lord! how I've seen the people splntter
when they've tasted them for the first time.
I did as much myself. They get among the
teeth and make you feel as if you tooth-ached
all over. I sold mostly strawberry ices. I
haven't an idee how they're made, but it's a
most wonderful thing in summer — freezing
fruits in that way. One young Irish fellow — I
think from his look and cap he was a printer's
or stationer's boy — he bought an ice of me, and
when he had scraped it all together with the
spoon, he made a pull at it as if he was a drink-
ing beer. In course it was all among his teeth
in less than no time, and he stood like a stattey
for a instant, and then he roared out, — `Jasus!
I'm kilt. The could shivers is on to me!' But
I said, `O, you're all right, you are;' and he
says, `What d'you mane, you horrid horn,* by
selling such stuff as that. An' you must have
the money first, bad scran to the likes o' you!'

"The persons what enjoyed their ices most,"
the man went on, "was, I think, servant maids
that gulped them on the sly. Pr'aps they'd been
used, some on 'em, to get a taste of ices on the
sly before, in their services. We sees a many
dodges in the streets, sir — a many. I knew one
smart servant maid, treated to an ice by her
young man — they seemed as if they was keeping
company — and he soon was stamping, with the
ice among his teeth, but she knew how to take
hern, put the spoon right into the middle of her
mouth, and when she'd had a clean swallow she
says: `O, Joseph, why didn't you ask me to tell
you how to eat your ice?' The conceit of sar-
vant gals is ridiculous. Don't you think so,
sir? But it goes out of them when they gets
married and has to think of how to get broth
before how to eat ices. One hot day, about
eleven, a thin tall gentleman, not very young,
threw down 1d. to me, and says, says he, `As
much ice as you can make for that.' He knew
how to take it. When he'd done, he says, says
he, `By G — , my good feller, you've saved my
life. I've been keeping it up all night, and I
was dying of a burnt-up throat, after a snooze,
and had only 1d. So sick and hot was my
stomach, I could have knelt down and taken a
pull at the Thames' — we was near it at the
time — `You've saved my life, and I'll see you
again.' But I've never see'd him since. He
was a gentleman, I think. He was in black,
and wore a big black and gold ring — only one.

"The rest of my customers for ices, was peo-
ple that bought out of curiosity, and there was
gentlemen's servants among 'em, very little
fellows some of 'em; and doctors' boys; and
mechanics as was young and seemed of a
smartish sort; and boys that seemed like
schoolboys; and a few women of the town, —
but mine's not much of a pitch for them."

From the information I obtained, I may state

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that, if the sale of street ices be calculated at
twenty persons taking, not earning, 1s. 6d. daily
for four weeks, it is as near the mark as possible.
This gives an expenditure of 42l. in street ices,
with a profit to the vendors of from 10 to 25 per
cent. I am told that an unsuccessful start has
characterised other street trades — rhubarb for
instance, both in the streets and markets — which
have been afterwards successful and remune-
rative.

For capital in the ice trade a small sum was
necessary, as the vendors had all stalls and sold
other commodities, except the "original street
ice man," who was not a regular street trader,
but a speculator. A jar — in which the ices
were neither sufficiently covered nor kept
cooled, though it was often placed in a vessel
or "cooler," containing cold water — cost 1s., three cups, 3d. (or three glasses, 1s.), and
three spoons, 3d., with 2s. stock-money; the
total is, presuming glasses were used, 4s., or,
with a vessel for water, 5s.

* I inquired as to what was meant by the reproach-
ful appellation, "horrid horn," and my informant
declared that "to the best of his hearing," those were
the words used; but doubtless the word was "omad-
haun," signifying in the Erse tongue, a half-witted
fellow. My informant had often sold fruit to the
same lad, and said he had little of the brogue, or of
"old Irish words," unless "his temper was riz, and
then it came out powerful.'