University of Virginia Library

OF THE KINDS AND QUANTITY OF FRUIT
AND VEGETABLES SOLD IN THE STREETS.

There are two kinds of fruit sold in the streets
— "green fruit" and "dry fruit."

In commerce, all fruit which is edible as it is
taken from the tree or the ground, is known
as "green." A subdivision of this green fruit
is into "fresh" or "tender" fruit, which in-
cludes currants, gooseberries, strawberries, and,
indeed, all fruits that demand immediate con-
sumption, in contradistinction to such produc-
tions as nuts which may be kept without injury
for a season. All fruit which is "cured" is
known as "dry" fruit. In summer the costers
vend "green fruit," and in the winter months, or
in the early spring, when the dearness or insuffi-
ciency of the supply of green fruit renders it
unsuited for their traffic, they resort, but not
extensively, to "dry fruit." It is principally,
however, when an abundant season, or the im-
possibility of keeping the dry fruit much longer,
has tended to reduce the price of it, that the
costlier articles are to be found on the coster-
monger's barrow.

Fruit is, for the most part, displayed on bar-
rows, by the street-dealers in it. Some who
supply the better sort of houses — more espe-
cially those in the suburbs — carry such things
as apples and plums, in elean round wicker-
baskets, holding pecks or half-pecks.

The commoner "green" fruits of home pro-
duce are bought by the costermonger in the mar-
kets. The foreign green fruit, as pine-apples,
melons, grapes, chestnuts, coker-nuts, Brazil-
nuts, hazel-nuts, and oranges, are purchased by
them at the public sales of the brokers, and of
the Jews in Duke's-place. The more intelligent
and thrifty of the costers buy at the public sales
on the principle of association, as I have elsewhere
described. Some costermongers expend as much
as 20l. at a time in such green fruit, or dry fruit,
as is not immediately perishable, at a public sale,
or at a fruit-warehouse, and supply the other
costers.

The regular costermongers seldom deal in
oranges and chestnuts. If they sell walnuts, they
reserve these, they say, for their Sunday after-
noon's pastime. The people who carry oranges,
chestnuts, or walnuts, or Spanish nuts about the
town, are not considered as costermongers, but
are generally, though not always, classed, by
the regular men, with the watercress-women,
the sprat-women, the winkle-dealers, and such
others, whom they consider beneath them. The
orange season is called by the costermonger the
"Irishman's harvest." Indeed, the street trade
in oranges and nuts is almost entirely in the
hands of the Irish and their children; and of
the children of costermongers. The costers
themselves would rather starve — and do starve
now and then — than condescend to it. The
trade in coker-nuts is carried on greatly by
the Jews on Sundays, and by young men
and boys who are not on other days employed
as street-sellers.

The usual kinds of fruit the regular costers
deal in are strawberries, raspberries (plain and
stalked), cherries, apricots, plums, green-gages,
currants, apples, pears, damsons, green and ripe
gooseberries, and pine-apples. They also deal
in vegetables, such as turnips, greens, brocoli,
carrots, onions, celery, rhubarb, new potatoes,
peas, beans (French and scarlet, broad and Wind-
sor), asparagus, vegetable marrow, seakale, spi-
nach, lettuces, small salads, radishes, etc. Their
fruit and vegetables they usually buy at Covent-
garden, Spitalfields, or the Borough markets.
Occasionally they buy some at Farringdon, but
this they reckon to be very little better than a
"haggler's market," — a "haggler" being, as I
before explained, the middle-man who attends
in the fruit and vegetable-markets, and buys of
the salesman to sell again to the retail dealer or
costermonger.

Concerning the quantity of fruit and vege-
tables sold in the streets, by the London cos-
termongers. This, as I said, when treat-
ing of the street-trade in fish, can only be
arrived at by ascertaining the entire quantity
sold wholesale at the London markets, and then
learning from the best authorities the propor-
tion retailed in the public thoroughfares, Fully
to elucidate this matter, both as to the extent of
the metropolitan supply of vegetables and fruit,
("foreign" as well as "home-grown," and
"green" as well as "dry") and the relative
quantity of each, vended through the agency of
the costermongers, I caused inquiries to be
instituted at all the principal markets and
brokers (for not even the vaguest return on the
subject had, till then, been prepared), and
received from all the gentlemen connected
therewith, every assistance and information, as
I have here great pleasure in acknowledging.

To carry out my present inquiry, I need not
give returns of the articles not sold by the cos-
termongers, nor is it necessary for me to cite
any but those dealt in by them generally. Their
exceptional sales, such as of mushrooms, cu-
cumbers, &c., are not included here.

The following Table shows the ordinary
annual supply of home grown fruit (nearly all
produced within a radius of twelve miles from
the Bank) to each of the London "green"
markets.

The various proportions of the several kinds
of fruit and vegetables sold by the costermongers
are here calculated for all the markets, from
returns which have been obtained from each
market separately. To avoid unnecessary detail,
however, these several items are lumped toge-
ther, and the aggregate proportion above given.

The foregoing Table, however, relates chiefly
to "home grown" supplies. Concerning the
quantity of foreign fruit and vegetables im-
ported into this country, the proportion con-
sumed in London, and the relative amount sold
by the costers, I have obtained the following
returns: —

Table, showing the Quantity or Measure
of the undermentioned Foreign Green
Fruits and Vegetables sold Wholesale
throughout the Year in London, with
the Proportion sold Retail in the
Streets.

                                   

Description.	Quantity sold wholesale in London.	Proportion sold retail in the the streets.
FRUIT
Apples	39,561 bush.	seven-eighths.
Pears	19,742	seven-eignths.
Cherries	264,240 lbs. two-thirds.	Grapes #1,328,190 " #one-fiftieth.
Pne-apples	200,000 fruit	one-tenth.
Oranges	61,635,146 "	one-fourth.
Lemons	15,408,789 "	one-hundredth.
NUTS.
Spanish Nuts
	72,509 bush.	one-third.
Barcelona "
Brazil "	11,700 "	one-fourth.
Chestnuts	26,250 "	one-fourth.
Walnuts	36,088 "	two-thirds.
"Coker"-nuts.	1,255,000 nuts	one-third.
VEGETABLES.
Potatoes	79,654,400lbs.	one-half.

Here, then, we have the entire metropolitan
supply of the principal vegetables and green
fruit (both home grown and foreign), as well as
the relative quantity "distributed" throughout
London by the costermongers; it now but
remains for me, in order to complete the ac-
count, to do the same for "the dry fruit."

Table, showing the Quantity of "Dry"
Fruit sold wholesale in London
throughout the Year, with the pro-
portion Sold retail in the Streets.

             

Description.	Quantity sold wholesale in London.	Proportion sold re- tail in the streets.
Shell Al-
monds	12,500 cwt.	half per cent.
Raisins	135,000 "	quarter per cent.
Currants	250,000 "	none.
Figs	21,700 "	one per cent.
Prunes	15,000 "	quarter per cent.