University of Virginia Library

OF NUT SELLING IN THE STREETS.

The sellers of foreign hazel nuts are principally
women and children, but the stall-keepers, and
oftentimes the costermongers, sell them with
other "goods." The consumption of them is
immense, the annual export from Tarragona
being little short of 8,000 tons. They are to be
found in every poor shop in London, as well as
in the large towns; they are generally to be
seen on every street-stall, in every country vil-
lage, at every fair, and on every race-ground.
The supply is from Gijon and Tarragona. The
Gijon nuts are the "Spanish," or "fresh" nuts.
They are sold at public sales, in barrels of three
bushels each, the price being from 35s. to 40s.
The nuts from Tarragona, whence comes the
great supply, are known as "Barcelonas," and
they are kiln-dried before they are shipped.
Hence the Barcelonas will "keep," and the
Spanish will not. The Spanish are coloured
with the fumes of sulphur, by the Jews in
Duke's-place.

It is somewhat remarkable that nuts supply
employment to a number of girls in Spain, and
then yield the means of a scanty subsistence to
a number of girls (with or without parents) in
England.

The prattle and the laughter (according to
Inglis) of the Spanish girls who sort, find no
parallel however among the London girls who
sell the nuts. The appearance of the latter is
often wretched. In the winter months they may
be seen as if stupified with cold, and with the
listlessness, not to say apathy, of those whose
diet is poor in quantity and insufficient in
amount.

Very few costermongers buy nuts (as hazel
nuts are always called) at the public sales — only
those whose dealings are of a wholesale charac-
ter, and they are anything but regular attendants
at the sales. The street-sellers derive nearly
the whole of their supply from Duke's-place.
The principal times of business are Friday
afternoons and Sunday mornings. Those who
have "capital" buy on the Friday, when they
say they can make 10s. go as far as 12s. on the
Sunday. The "Barcelonas" are from 4½d. to
6d. a quart to the street-sellers. The cob-nuts,
which are the large size, used by the pastry-
cooks for mottos, &c., are 2d. and 2½d. the quart,
but they are generally destitute of a kernel.
A quart contains from 100 to 180 nuts, ac-
cording to the size. The costermongers buy
somewhat largely when nuts are 3d. the quart;
they then, and not unfrequently, stock their
barrows with nuts entirely, but 2s. a day is
reckoned excellent earnings at this trade. "It's
the worst living of all, sir," I was told, "on
nuts." The sale in the streets is at the fruit-
stalls, in the public-houses, on board the
steamers, and at the theatre doors. They are
sold by the same class as the oranges, and a
stock may be procured for a smaller sum even
than is required for oranges. By the outlay of
1s. many an Irishwoman can send out her two
or three children with nuts, reserving some for
herself. Seven-eighths of the nuts imported
are sold, I am assured, in the open air.

Some of the costermongers who are to be
found in Battersea-fields, and who attend the
fairs and races, get through 5s. worth of nuts in
a day, but only exceptionally. These men have
a sort of portable shooting-gallery. The cus-
tomer fires a kind of rifle, loaded with a dart,
and according to the number marked on the
centre, or on the encircling rings of a board
which forms the head of the stall, and which
may be struck by the dart, is the number of
nuts payable by the stall-keeper for the half-
penny "fire."

The Brazil nuts, which are now sold largely
in the streets at twelve to sixteen a penny, were
not known in this country as an article of com-
merce before 1824. They are sold by the peck
— 2s. being the ordinary price — in Duke's-place.

Coker-nuts — as they are now generally called,
and indeed "entered" as such at the Custom-
house, and so written by Mr. Mc Culloch, to
distinguish them from cocoa, or the berries
of the cacâo, used for chocolate, etc. — are
brought from the West Indies, both British
and Spanish, and Brazil. They are used as
dunnage in the sugar ships, being interposed
between the hogsheads, to steady them and
prevent their being flung about. The coker-
nut was introduced into England in 1690. They
are sold at public sales and otherwise, and bring
from 10s. to 14s. per 100. Coker-nuts are now
used at fairs to "top" the sticks.

The costermongers rarely speculate in coker-
nuts now, as the boys will not buy them unless
cut, and it is almost impossible to tell how the
coker-nut will "open." The interior is sold in
halfpenny-worths and penny-worths. These
nuts are often "worked with a drum." There
may be now forty coker-nut men in the street
trade, but not one in ten confines himself to the
article.

A large proportion of the dry or ripe walnuts
sold in the streets is from Bordeaux. They are
sold at public sales, in barrels of three bushels
each, realising 21s. to 25s. a barrel. They are
retailed at from eight to twenty a penny, and
are sold by all classes of street-traders.

A little girl, who looked stunted and wretched,
and who did not know her age (which might be
eleven), told me she was sent out by her mother
with six halfpenny-worth of nuts, and she must
carry back 6d. or she would be beat. She
had no father, and could neither read nor write.

[Description: 915EAF. Page 090.]

Her mother was an Englishwoman, she believed, and sold oranges. She had heard of God; he
was "Our Father who art in heaven." She'd
heard that said. She did not know the Lord's
Prayer; had never heard of it; did not know
who the Lord was; perhaps the Lord Mayor,
but she had never been before him. She went
into public-houses with her nuts, but did not
know whether she was ever insulted or not; she
did not know what insulted was, but she was
never badly used. She often went into tap-
rooms with her nuts, just to warm herself. A
man once gave her some hot beer, which made
her ill. Her mother was kind enough to her,
and never beat her but for not taking home 6d.
She had a younger brother that did as she did.
She had bread and potatoes to eat, and some-
times tea, and sometimes herrings. Her mother
didn't get tipsy (at first she did not know what
was meant by tipsy) above once a week.