University of Virginia Library

THE LONDON STREET MARKETS ON A
SATURDAY NIGHT.

The street sellers are to be seen in the greatest
numbers at the London street markets on a
Saturday night. Here, and in the shops imme-
diately adjoining, the working-classes generally
purchase their Sunday's dinner; and after
pay-time on Saturday night, or early on
Sunday morning, the crowd in the New-cut,
and the Brill in particular, is almost impass-
able. Indeed, the scene in these parts has
more of the character of a fair than a market.
There are hundreds of stalls, and every
stall has its one or two lights; either it is
illuminated by the intense white light of the
new self-generating gas-lamp, or else it is
brightened up by the red smoky flame of the old-
fashioned grease lamp. One man shows off his
yellow haddock with a candle stuck in a bundle
of firewood; his neighbour makes a candlestick
of a huge turnip, and the tallow gutters over its
sides; whilst the boy shouting "Eight a penny,
stunning pears!" has rolled his dip in a thick
coat of brown paper, that flares away with the
candle. Some stalls are crimson with the fire
shining through the holes beneath the baked
chestnut stove; others have handsome octo-
hedral lamps, while a few have a candle shining
through a sieve: these, with the sparkling
ground-glass globes of the tea-dealers' shops,
and the butchers' gaslights streaming and flut-
tering in the wind, like flags of flame, pour forth
such a flood of light, that at a distance the at-
mosphere immediately above the spot is as lurid
as if the street were on fire.

The pavement and the road are crowded with
purchasers and street-sellers. The housewife
in her thick shawl, with the market-basket on
her arm, walks slowly on, stopping now to look
at the stall of caps, and now to cheapen a bunch
of greens. Little boys, holding three or four
onions in their hand, creep between the people,
wriggling their way through every interstice, and
asking for custom in whining tones, as if seeking
charity. Then the tumult of the thousand dif-
ferent cries of the eager dealers, all shouting at
the top of their voices, at one and the same
time, is almost bewildering. "So-old again,"
roars one. "Chestnuts all 'to, a penny a score,"
bawls another. "An 'aypenny a skin, blacking,"
squeaks a boy. "Buy, buy, buy, buy, buy —
bu-u-uy!" cries the butcher. "Half-quire of
paper for a penny," bellows the street stationer.
"An 'aypenny a lot ing-uns." "Twopence a
pound grapes." "Three a penny Yarmouth
bloaters." "Who'll buy a bonnet for four-
pence?" "Pick 'em out cheap here! three
pair for a halfpenny, bootlaces." "Now's your
time! beautiful whelks, a penny a lot." "Here's
ha'p'orths," shouts the perambulating confec-
tioner. "Come and look at 'em! here's
toasters!" bellows one with a Yarmouth
bloater stuck on a toasting-fork. "Penny a lot,
fine russets," calls the apple woman: and so
the Babel goes on.

One man stands with his red-edged mats
hanging over his back and chest, like a herald's
coat; and the girl with her basket of walnuts
lifts her brown-stained fingers to her mouth, as
she screams, "Fine warnuts! sixteen a penny,
fine war-r-nuts." A bootmaker, to "ensure
custom," has illuminated his shop-front with
a line of gas, and in its full glare stands a blind
beggar, his eyes turned up so as to show
only "the whites," and mumbling some
begging rhymes, that are drowned in the shrill
notes of the bamboo-flute-player next to him.
The boy's sharp cry, the woman's cracked
voice, the gruff, hoarse shout of the man,
are all mingled together. Sometimes an Irish-

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man is heard with his "fine ating apples;" or
else the jingling music of an unseen organ
breaks out, as the trio of street singers rest
between the verses.

Then the sights, as you elbow your way
through the crowd, are equally multifarious.
Here is a stall glittering with new tin sauce-
pans; there another, bright with its blue and
yellow crockery, and sparkling with white
glass. Now you come to a row of old shoes
arranged along the pavement; now to a stand
of gaudy tea-trays; then to a shop with red
handkerchiefs and blue checked shirts, flutter-
ing backwards and forwards, and a counter
built up outside on the kerb, behind which
are boys beseeching custom. At the door of
a tea-shop, with its hundred white globes of
light, stands a man delivering bills, thanking
the public for past favours, and "defying com-
petition." Here, alongside the road, are some
half-dozen headless tailors' dummies, dressed in
Chesterfields and fustian jackets, each labelled,
"Look at the prices," or "Observe the quality."
After this is a butcher's shop, crimson and white
with meat piled up to the first-floor, in front
of which the butcher himself, in his blue coat,
walks up and down, sharpening his knife on the
steel that hangs to his waist. A little further
on stands the clean family, begging; the father
with his head down as if in shame, and a box
of lucifers held forth in his hand — the boys in
newly-washed pinafores, and the tidily got-up
mother with a child at her breast. This stall is
green and white with bunches of turnips — that
red with apples, the next yellow with onions,
and another purple with pickling cabbages.
One minute you pass a man with an umbrella
turned inside up and full of prints; the
next, you hear one with a peepshow of Ma-
zeppa, and Paul Jones the pirate, describing
the pictures to the boys looking in at the
little round windows. Then is heard the
sharp snap of the percussion-cap from the crowd
of lads firing at the target for nuts; and the
moment afterwards, you see either a black man
half-clad in white, and shivering in the cold
with tracts in his hand, or else you hear the
sounds of music from "Frazier's Circus," on
the other side of the road, and the man outside
the door of the penny concert, beseeching you to
"Be in time — be in time!" as Mr. Somebody
is just about to sing his favourite song of the
"Knife Grinder." Such, indeed, is the riot,
the struggle, and the scramble for a living,
that the confusion and uproar of the New-
cut on Saturday night have a bewildering and
saddening effect upon the thoughtful mind.

Each salesman tries his utmost to sell his
wares, tempting the passers-by with his bar-
gains. The boy with his stock of herbs offers
"a double 'andful of fine parsley for a penny;"
the man with the donkey-cart filled with turnips
has three lads to shout for him to their utmost,
with their "Ho! ho! hi-i-i! What do you
think of this here? A penny a bunch — hurrah
for free trade! Here's your turnips!" Until
it is seen and heard, we have no sense of the
scramble that is going on throughout London
for a living. The same scene takes place at the
Brill — the same in Leather-lane — the same in
Tottenham-court-road — the same in Whitecross-
street; go to whatever corner of the metropolis
you please, either on a Saturday night or a
Sunday morning, and there is the same shouting
and the same struggling to get the penny profit
out of the poor man's Sunday's dinner.

Since the above description was written, the
New Cut has lost much of its noisy and brilliant
glory. In consequence of a New Police regula-
tion, "stands" or "pitches" have been forbid-
den, and each coster, on a market night, is now
obliged, under pain of the lock-up house, to
carry his tray, or keep moving with his barrow.
The gay stalls have been replaced by deal boards,
some sodden with wet fish, others stained purple
with blackberries, or brown with walnut-peel;
and the bright lamps are almost totally super-
seded by the dim, guttering candle. Even if
the pole under the tray or "shallow" is seen
resting on the ground, the policeman on duty is
obliged to interfere.

The mob of purchasers has diminished one-
half; and instead of the road being filled with
customers and trucks, the pavement and kerb-
stones are scarcely crowded.