University of Virginia Library

OF THE OBSOLETE CRIES OF THE
COSTERMONGERS.

A brief account of the cries once prevalent
among the street-sellers will show somewhat
significantly the change in the diet or regale-
ments of those who purchase their food in the
street. Some of the articles are not vended in
the public thoroughfares now, while others are
still sold, but in different forms.

"Hot sheep's feet," for instance, were cried
in the streets in the time of Henry V.; they are
now sold cold, at the doors of the lower-priced
theatres, and at the larger public-houses. Among
the street cries, the following were common
prior to the wars of the Roses: "Ribs of
beef," — "Hot peascod," — and "Pepper and
saffron." These certainly indicate a different
street diet from that of the present time.

The following are more modern, running from
Elizabeth's days down to our own. "Pippins,"
and, in the times of Charles II., and subse-
quently, oranges were sometimes cried as
"Orange pips," — "Fair lemons and oranges;
oranges and citrons," — "New Wall-fleet oys-
ters," ["fresh" fish was formerly cried as
"new,"] — "New-river water," [I may here
mention that water-carriers still ply their trade
in parts of Hampstead,] — "Rosemary and
lavender," — "Small coals," [a cry rendered
almost poetical by the character, career, and
pitiful end, through a practical joke, of Tom
Britton, the "small-coal man,"] — "Pretty
pins, pretty women," — "Lilly-white vinegar,"
— "Hot wardens" (pears) — "Hot codlings," —
and lastly the greasy-looking beverage which
Charles Lamb's experience of London at early
morning satisfied him was of all preparations
the most grateful to the stomach of the then
existing climbing-boys — viz., "Sa-loop." I
may state, for the information of my younger
readers, that saloop (spelt also "salep" and
"salop") was prepared, as a powder, from
the root of the Orchis mascula, or Red-handed
Orchis, a plant which grows luxuriantly in our
meadows and pastures, flowering in the spring,
though never cultivated to any extent in this
country; that required for the purposes of com-
merce was imported from India. The saloop-
stalls were superseded by the modern coffee-stalls.

There were many other cries, now obsolete,
but what I have cited were the most common.