 | OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF FISH. London Labour and the London Poor, volume 1 |  |
BILLINGSGATE.
To see this market in its busiest costermonger
time, the visitor should be there about seven
o'clock on a Friday morning. The marke opens
at four, but for the first two or three hours,
it is attended solely by the regular fishmongers
and "bummarees" who have the pick of the
best there. As soon as these are gone, the
costers' sale begins.
Many of the costers that usually deal in
vegetables, buy a little fish on the Friday. It
is the fast day of the Irish, and the mechanics'
wives run short of money at the end of the
week, and so make up their dinners with fish;
for this reason the attendance of costers' bar-
rows at Billingsgate on a Friday morning is
always very great. As soon as you reach the
Monument you see a line of them, with one or
two tall fishmonger's carts breaking the uni-
formity, and the din of the cries and commotion
of the distant market, begins to break on the ear
like the buzzing of a hornet's nest. The whole
neighbourhood is covered with the hand-barrows,
some laden with baskets, others with sacks. Yet
as you walk along, a fresh line of costers' barrows
are creeping in or being backed into almost im-
possible openings; until at every turning nothing
but donkeys and rails are to be seen. The morn-
ing air is filled with a kind of seaweedy odour,
reminding one of the sea-shore; and on entering
the market, the smell of fish, of whelks, red
herrings, sprats, and a hundred others, is almost
overpowering.
The wooden barn-looking square where the
fish is sold, is soon after six o'clock crowded with
shiny cord jackets and greasy caps. Every-
body comes to Billingsgate in his worst clothes,
and no one knows the length of time a coat can
be worn until they have been to a fish sale.
Through the bright opening at the end are
seen the tangled rigging of the oyster-boats
and the red worsted caps of the sailors. Over
the hum of voices is heard the shouts of the
salesmen, who, with their white aprons, peering
above the heads of the mob, stand on their
tables, roaring out their prices.
All are bawling together — salesmen and huck-
sters of provisions, capes, hardware, and newspa-
[Description: 915EAF. Page 065.]
petition. "Ha-a-ansome cod! best in the
market! All alive! alive! alive O!" "Ye-o-o!
Ye-o-o! here's your fine Yarmouth bloaters!
Who's the buyer?" "Here you are, governor,
splendid whiting! some of the right sort!"
"Turbot! turbot! all alive! turbot!" "Glass of
nice peppermint! this cold morning a ha'penny
a glass!" "Here you are at your own price!
Fine soles, O!" "Oy! oy! oy! Now's your
time! fine grizzling sprats! all large and no
small!" "Hullo! hullo here! beautiful lob-
sters! good and cheap! fine cock crabs all alive
O!" "Five brill and one turbot — have that
lot for a pound! Come and look at 'em, go-
vernor; you wont see a better sample in the
market." "Here, this way! this way for splen-
did skate! skate O! skate O!" "Had — had
— had — had — haddick! all fresh and good!"
"Currant and meat puddings! a ha'penny
each!" "Now, you mussel-buyers, come
along! come along! come along! now's your
time for fine fat mussels!" "Here's food for
the belly, and clothes for the back, but I sell
food for the mind" (shouts the newsvender).
"Here's smelt O!" "Here ye are, fine Finney
haddick!" "Hot soup! nice peas-soup! a-all
hot! hot!" "Ahoy! ahoy here! live plaice!
all alive O!" "Now or never! whelk! whelk!
whelk!" "Who'll buy brill O! brill O!"
"Capes! water-proof capes! sure to keep the
wet out! a shilling a piece!" "Eels O! eels O!
Alive! alive O!" "Fine flounders, a shilling
a lot! Who'll have this prime lot of floun-
ders?" "Shrimps! shrimps! fine shrimps!"
"Wink! wink! wink!" "Hi! hi-i! here you
are, just eight eels left, only eight!" "O ho!
O ho! this way — this way — this way! Fish
alive! alive! alive O!"
In the darkness of the shed, the white bellies
of the turbots, strung up bow-fashion, shine like
mother-of-pearl, while, the lobsters, lying upon
them, look intensely scarlet, from the contrast.
Brown baskets piled up on one another, and
with the herring-scales glittering like spangles
all over them, block up the narrow paths.
Men in coarse canvas jackets, and bending under
huge hampers, push past, shouting "Move on!
move on, there!" and women, with the long limp
tails of cod-fish dangling from their aprons, elbow
their way through the crowd. Round the auc-
tion-tables stand groups of men turning over
the piles of soles, and throwing them down till
they slide about in their slime; some are smell-
ing them, while others are counting the lots.
"There, that lot of soles are worth your money,"
cries the salesman to one of the crowd as he
moves on leisurely; "none better in the market.
You shall have 'em for a pound and half-a-
crown." "Oh!" shouts another salesman, "it's
no use to bother him — he's no go." Presently
a tall porter, with a black oyster-bag, staggers
past, trembling under the weight of his load,
his back and shoulders wet with the drippings
from the sack. "Shove on one side!" he mut-
ters from between his clenched teeth, as he forces
his way through the mob. Here is a tray of
reddish-brown shrimps piled up high, and the
owner busy sifting his little fish into another
stand, while a doubtful customer stands in front,
tasting the flavour of the stock and consult-
ing with his companion in speculation. Little
girls carrying matting-bags, that they have
brought from Spitalfields, come up, and ask you
in a begging voice to buy their baskets; and
women with bundles of twigs for stringing her-
rings, cry out, "Half-penny a bunch!" from all
sides. Then there are blue-black piles of small
live lobsters, moving about their bound-up
claws and long "feelers," one of them occa-
sionally being taken up by a looker-on, and
dashed down again, like a stone. Everywhere
every one is asking, "What's the price,
master?" while shouts of laughter from round
the stalls of the salesmen, bantering each other,
burst out, occasionally, over the murmuring
noise of the crowd. The transparent smelts
on the marble-slabs, and the bright herrings,
with the lump of transparent ice magnifying
their eyes like a lens, are seldom looked at
until the market is over, though the hampers
and piles of huge maids, dropping slime from
the counter, are eagerly examined and bartered
for.
One side of the market is set apart for
whelks. There they stand in sackfulls, with
the yellow shells piled up at the mouth, and
one or two of the fish, curling out like cork-
screws, placed as a sample. The coster slips
one of these from its shell, examines it, pushes
it back again, and then passes away, to look
well round the market. In one part the stones
are covered with herring-barrels, packed closely
with dried fish, and yellow heaps of stiff had-
dock rise up on all sides. Here a man walks
up with his knot on his shoulder, waiting for a
job to carry fish to the trucks. Boys in ragged
clothes, who have slept during the night under
a railway-arch, clamour for employment; while
the heads of those returning from the oyster-
boats, rise slowly up the stone sides of the
wharf.
The costermongers have nicknamed the long
row of oyster boats moored close alongside the
wharf "Oyster-street." On looking down the
line of tangled ropes and masts, it seems as
though the little boats would sink with the crowds
of men and women thronged together on their
decks. It is as busy a scene as one can well
behold. Each boat has its black sign-board,
and salesman in his white apron walking up
and down "his shop," and on each deck is a
bright pewter pot and tin-covered plate, the
remains of the salesman's breakfast. "Who's for
Baker's?" "Who's for Archer's?" "Who'll have
Alston's?" shout the oyster-merchants, and the
red cap of the man in the hold bobs up and
down as he rattles the shells about with his
spade. These holds are filled with oysters — a
gray mass of sand and shell — on which is a bushel
measure well piled up in the centre, while some
of them have a blue muddy heap of mussels
[Description: 915EAF. Page 066.]
their striped guernseys sit on the boat sides
smoking their morning's pipe, allowing them-
selves to be tempted by the Jew boys with cloth
caps, old shoes, and silk handkerchiefs. Lads
with bundles of whips skip from one boat to
another, and, seedy-looking mechanics, with
handfuls of tin fancy goods, hover about the
salesmen, who are the principal supporters of
this trade. The place has somewhat the
appearance of a little Holywell-street; for the
old clothes' trade is entirely in the hands of
the Jew boys, and coats, caps, hats, umbrellas,
and old shoes, are shouted out in a rich nasal
twang on all sides.
Passing by a man and his wife who were
breakfasting on the stone coping, I went to the
shore where the watermen ply for passengers to
the eel boats. Here I found a crowd of punts,
half filled with flounders, and small closely-
packed baskets of them ranged along the seats.
The lads, who act as jacks-in-the-water, were
busy feeling in the mud for the fish that had
fallen over board, little caring for the water that
dashed over their red swollen feet. Presently a
boat, piled up with baskets, shot in, grazing the
bottom, and men and women, blue with the cold
morning air, stepped out.
The Dutch built eel-boats, with their bulging
polished oak sides, were half-hidden in the river
mist. They were surrounded by skiffs, that ply
from the Surrey and Middlesex shores, and
wait whilst the fares buy their fish. The holds
of these eel-boats are fitted up with long tanks of
muddy water, and the heads of the eels are seen
breathing on the surface — a thick brown bubble
rising slowly, and floating to the sides. Wooden
sabots and large porcelain pipes are ranged
round the ledges, and men in tall fur caps with
high check bones, and rings in their ears, walk
the decks. At the stern of one boat was moored
a coffin-shaped barge pierced with holes, and
hanging in the water were baskets, shaped like
olive jars — both to keep the stock of fish alive
and fresh. In the centre of the boat stood the
scales, — a tall heavy apparatus, one side fitted up
with the conical net-bag to hold the eels, and
the other with the weights, and pieces of stone
to make up for the extra draught of the water
hanging about the fish. When a skiff load of
purchasers arrives, the master Dutchman takes
his hands from his pockets, lays down his pipe,
and seizing a sort of long-handled landing-net
scoops from the tank a lot of eels. The pur-
chasers examine them, and try to beat down the
price. "You calls them eels do you?" said a man
with his bag ready opened. "Yeas," answered
the Dutchman without any show of indignation.
"Certainly, there is a few among them," conti-
nued the customer; and after a little more of this
kind of chaffering the bargain is struck.
The visitors to the eel-boats were of all
grades; one was a neatly-dressed girl to whom
the costers showed the utmost gallantry, calling
her "my dear," and helping her up the shining
sides of the boat; and many of the men had on
their blue serge apron, but these were only
where the prices were high. The greatest crowd
of customers is in the heavy barge alongside
of the Dutch craft. Here a stout sailor in his
red woollen shirt, and canvass petticoat, is sur-
rounded by the most miserable and poorest of
fish purchasers — the men with their crushed
hats, tattered coats, and unshorn chins, and the
women with their pads on their bonnets, and
brown ragged gowns blowing in the breeze. One,
in an old table-cover shawl, was beating her
palms together before the unmoved Dutchman,
fighting for an abatement, and showing her
stock of halfpence. Others were seated round
the barge, sorting their lots in their shallows,
and sanding the fish till they were quite yellow.
Others, again, were crowding round the scales
narrowly watching the balance, and then beg-
ging for a few dead eels to make up any doubt-
ful weight.
As you walk back from the shore to the
market, you see small groups of men and
women dividing the lot of fish they have bought
together. At one basket, a coster, as you pass,
calls to you, and says, "Here, master, just put
these three halfpence on these three cod, and
obleege a party." The coins are placed, and
each one takes the fish his coin is on; and so
there is no dispute.
At length nearly all the busy marketing has
finished, and the costers hurry to breakfast. At
one house, known as "Rodway's Coffee-house,"
a man can have a meal for 1d. — a mug of hot
coffee and two slices of bread and butter, while for
two-pence what is elegantly termed "a tight-
ner," that is to say, a most plentiful repast, may
be obtained. Here was a large room, with tables
all round, and so extremely silent, that the smack-
all of lips and sipping of coffee were alone heard.
Upwards of 1,500 men breakfast here in the
course of the morning, many of them taking as
many as three such meals. On the counter was
a pile of white mugs, and the bright tin cans
stood beside the blazing fire, whilst Rodway
himself sat at a kind of dresser, cutting up and
buttering the bread, with marvellous rapidity.
It was a clean, orderly, and excellent establish-
ment, kept by a man, I was told, who had risen
from a saloop stall.
Opposite to the Coal Exchange were ranged
the stalls and barrows with the street eatables,
and the crowds round each showed the effects of
the sharp morning air. One — a Jew's — had hot-
pies with lids that rose as the gravy was poured
in from an oil can; another carried a stone jar of
peppermint-water, at ½d. a glass; and the pea-
soup stand was hemmed in by boys and men
blowing the steam from their cups. Beside
these were Jews with cloth caps and knives, and
square yellow cakes; one old man, in a cor-
ner, stood examining a thread-bare scarf that
a cravatless coster had handed to him. Coffee-
stalls were in great plenty; and men left their
barrows to run up and have "an oyster," or
"an 'ot heel." One man here makes his living
by selling sheets of old newspapers, at ½d. each,
[Description: 915EAF. Page 067.]
seemingly rather out of place, there was a Mosaic
jewellery stand; old umbrellas, too, were far from
scarce; and one had brought a horse-hair stool
for sale.
Everybody was soon busy laying out their
stock. The wrinkled dull-eyed cod was freshened
up, the red-headed gurnet placed in rows, the
eels prevented from writhing over the basket
sides by cabbage-leaves, and the soles paired off
like gloves. Then the little trucks began to
leave, crawling, as it were, between the legs of the
horses in the vans crowding Thames-street, and
plunging in between huge waggons, but still ap-
pearing safely on the other side; and the 4,000
costers who visit Billingsgate on the Friday
morning were shortly scattered throughout the
metropolis.
| OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF FISH. London Labour and the London Poor, volume 1 | |