University of Virginia Library

7. OF THE SELLERS OF TREES, SHRUBS, FLOWERS (CUT AND
IN POTS), ROOTS, SEEDS, AND BRANCHES.

The street-sellers of whom I have now to treat
comprise those who deal in trees and shrubs, in
flowers (whether in pots, or merely with soil
attached to the roots, or cut from the plant
as it grows in the garden), and in seeds and
branches (as of holly, mistletoe, ivy, yew, laurel,
palm, lilac, and may). The "root-sellers"
(as the dealers in flowers in pots are mostly
called) rank, when in a prosperous business,
with the highest "aristocracy" of the street-
greengrocers. The condition of a portion of
them, may be characterised by a term which
is readily understood as "comfortable," that
is to say, comparatively comfortable, when the
circumstances of other street-sellers are consi-
dered. I may here remark, that though there
are a great number of Scotchmen connected with
horticultural labour in England, but more in the
provincial than the metropolitan districts, there
is not one Scotchman concerned in the metro-
politan street-sale of flowers; nor, indeed, as I
have good reason to believe, is there a single
Scotchman earning his bread as a costermonger
in London. A non-commissioned officer in an
infantry regiment, a Scotchman, whom I met
with a few months back, in the course of my
inquiries concerning street musicians, told me
that he thought any of his young country-
men, if hard pushed "to get a crust," would
enlist, rather than resort, even under favour-
able circumstances, to any kind of street-sale in
London.

The dealers in trees and shrubs are the same
as the root-sellers.

The same may be said, but with some few
exceptions, of the seed-sellers.

The street-trade in holly, mistletoe, and all
kinds of evergreens known as "Christmas," is
in the hands of the coster boys more than the
men, while the trade in may, &c., is almost
altogether confined to these lads.

The root-sellers do not reside in any particular
localities, but there are more of them living in
the outskirts than in the thickly populated
streets.

The street-sellers of cut flowers present cha-
racteristics peculiarly their own. This trade is
mostly in the hands of girls, who are of two
classes. This traffic ranks with the street sale
of water-cresses and congreves, that is to say,
among the lowest grades of the street-trade,
being pursued only by the very poor, or the
very young.

OF THE QUANTITY OF SHRUBS, "ROOTS,"
FLOWERS, ETC., SOLD IN THE STREETS,
AND OF THE BUYERS.

The returns which I caused to be procured,
to show the extent of the business carried on
in the metropolitan markets, give the following
results as to the quantity of trees, shrubs,
flowers, roots, and branches, sold wholesale in
London, as well as the proportion retailed in
the streets.

Perhaps the pleasantest of all cries in early
spring is that of "All a-growing — all a-blow-
ing" heard for the first time in the season. It
is that of the "root-seller" who has stocked
his barrow with primroses, violets, and daisies.
Their beauty and fragrance gladden the senses;
and the first and, perhaps, unexpected sight of
them may prompt hopes of the coming year,
such as seem proper to the spring.

Cobbett has insisted, and with unquestioned
truth, that a fondness for bees and flowers is
among the very best characteristics of the
English peasant. I consider it equally un-
questionable that a fondness for in-door flowers,
is indicative of the good character and healthful
tastes, as well as of the domestic and indus-
trious habits, of the city artizan. Among some
of the most intelligent and best-conducted of
these artizans, I may occasionally have found,
on my visits to their homes, neither flowers nor
birds, but then I have found books.

United with the fondness for the violet, the
wallflower, the rose — is the presence of the
quality which has been pronounced the hand-
maiden of all the virtues — cleanliness. I
believe that the bunch of violets, on which a
poor woman or her husband has expended 1d., rarely ornaments an unswept hearth. In my
investigations, I could not but notice how the
presence or absence of flowers, together with
other indications of the better tastes, marked
the difference between the well-paid and the
ill-paid workman. Concerning the tailors, for
instance, I had occasion to remark, of the
dwellings of these classes: — "In the one, you
occasionally find small statues of Shakspere
beneath glass shades; in the other, all is dirt
and foetor. The working-tailor's comfortable
first-floor at the West-end is redolent with the
perfume of the small bunch of violets that
stands in a tumbler over the mantel-piece; the
sweater's wretched garret is rank with the
stench of filth and herrings." The presence of
the bunch of flowers of itself tells us of "a better
state of things" elevating the workman; for,
amidst the squalid poverty and fustiness of a
slopworker's garret, the nostril loses its dain-
tiness of sense, so that even a freshly fragrant
wallflower is only so many yellow petals and
green leaves.

A love of flowers is also observable among
men whose avocations are out of doors, and
those whose habits are necessarily those of
order and punctuality.

Among this class are such persons as gentle-
men's coachmen, who delight in the display
of a flower or two in the button-holes of
their coats when out of doors, and in small
vases in their rooms in their masters' mews. I
have even seen the trellis work opposite the
windows of cabmen's rooms, which were over
stables, with a projecting roof covering the whole,
thickly yellow and green with the flowers and
leaves of the easily-trained nasturtium and herb
"twopence." The omnibus driver occasion-
ally "sports a nosegay" — as he himself might
word it — in his button-hole; and the stage-
coachman of old felt he was improperly dressed
if a big bunch of flowers were not attached to
his coat. Sailors ashore are likewise generally
fond of flowers.

A delight in flowers is observable, also,
among the workers whose handicraft requires
the exercise of taste, and whose eyes are sen-
sible, from the nature of their employment, to
the beauty of colour. To this class belong
especially the Spitalfields' silk-weavers. At one
time the Spitalfields weavers were almost the
only botanists in London, and their love of
flowers is still strong. I have seen fuchsias
gladdening the weaver's eyes by being placed
near his loom, their crimson pendants swinging
backwarks and forwards to the motion of the
treadles, while his small back garden has been
many-coloured with dahlias. These weavers,
too, were at one time highly-successful as
growers of tulips.

Those out-door workmen, whose calling is of
coarse character, are never known to purchase
flowers, which to them are mere trumpery. Per-
haps no one of my readers ever saw a flower in
the possession of a flusherman, nightman, slaugh-
terer, sweep, gaslayer, gut and tripe-preparer,
or such like labourer. Their eyes convey to
the mind no appreciation of beauty, and the
sense of smell is actually dead in them, except
the odour be rank exceedingly.

The fondness for flowers in London is
strongest in the women, and, perhaps, strongest
in those whose callings are in-door and seden-
tary. Flowers are to them a companionship.

It remains only for me to state that, in the
poorest districts, and among people where there
is no sense of refinement or but a small love
for natural objects, flowers are little known.
Flowers are not bought by the slop-workers, the
garret and chamber-masters of Bethnal-green,
nor in the poor Irish districts, nor by the City
people Indeed, as I have observed, there is
not a flower-stand in the city.

It should be remembered that, in poor dis-
tricts, the first appearance of flowers conveys
to the slop-workman only one pleasurable asso-
ciation — that the season of warmth has arrived,
and that he will not only escape being chilled
with cold, but that he will be delivered from
the heavy burden of providing fire and candle.

A pleasant-looking man, with an appearance
which the vulgar characterise as "jolly," and
with hearty manners, gave me the following
account as to the character of his customers.
He had known the business since he was a
boy, his friends having been in it previously.
He said:

"There's one old gentleman a little way out
of town, he always gives 1s. for the first violet
root that any such as me carries there. I'm
often there before any others: `Ah!' he says,
`here you are; you've come, like Buonaparte,
with your violet.' I don't know exactly what
he means. I don't like to ask him you see;
for, though he's civil, he's not what you

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may call a free sort of man — that's it." [I
explained to him that the allusion was to
Buonaparte's emblem of the violet, with the
interpretation he or his admirers gave to it —
"I come in the spring."] "That's it, sir, is
it?" he resumed; "well, I'm glad I know,
because I don't like to be puzzled. Mine's a
puzzling trade, though. Violets have a good
sale. I've sold six dozen roots in a day, and
only half as many primroses and double-daisies,
if half. Everybody likes violets. I've sold
some to poor people in town, but they like their
roots in pots. They haven't a bit of a garden for
'em. More shame too I say, when they pays
such rents. People that sits working all day is
very fond of a sweet flower. A gentleman that's
always a-writing or a-reading in his office — he's
in the timber-trade — buys something of me every
time I see him; twice or thrice a week, some-
times. I can't say what he does with them
all. Barmaids, though you mightn't think it, sir,
is wery tidy customers. So, sometimes, is young
women that's in an improper way of life, about
Lisson-grove, and in some parts near Oxford-
street. They buys all sorts. Perhaps more
stocks than anything, for they're beautiful roots,
and not dear. I've sold real beauties for 2d. —
real beauties, but small; 6d. is a fair price; one
stock will perfume a house. I tell my customers
not to sleep with them in the room; it isn't good
for the health. A doctor told me that, and said,
`You ought to give me a fuchsia for my opinion.'
That was his joke. Primroses I sell most of —
they're not in pots — two or three or four miles
out of town, and most if a family's come into
a new house, or changed their house, if there's
children. The young ones teases the old ones
to buy them to set in the garden, and when
children gets fairly to work that way, it's a
sure sale. If they can't get over father,
they'll get over mother. Busy men never buy
flowers, as far as I've seen." [`In no tho-
roughfare in the city, I am assured, is there
a flower-stand — a circumstance speaking vo-
lumes as to the habits and tastes of the
people. Of fruit-stalls and chop-houses there
are in the neighbourhood of the Exchange, more
than in any other part of London perhaps —
the faculty of perceiving the beauty of colour,
form, and perfume, as combined in flowers is
not common to the man of business. The
pleasures of the palate, however, they can all
understand.'] "Parsons and doctors are often
tidy customers," resumed my informant. "They
have a good deal of sitting and reading, I be-
lieve. I've heard a parson say to his wife,
`Do, my dear, go and buy a couple of those
wallflowers for my study.' I don't do much
for working-men; the women's my best cus-
tomers. There's a shoemaker to be sure comes
down sometimes with his old woman to lay out
2d. or 3d. on me; `Let's have something that
smells strong,' he'll say, `stronger than cob-
bler's wax; for, though I can't smell that, others
can.' I've sold him musks (musk-plants) as
often as anything.

"The poor people buy rather largely at
times; that is, many of them buy. One day last
summer, my old woman and me sold 600 penny
pots of mignonette; and all about you saw them
— and it was a pleasure to see them — in the poor
women's windows. The women are far the best
customers. There was the mignonette behind
the bits of bars they have, in the shape of
gates and such like, in the front of their win-
dows, in the way of preventing the pots falling
into the street. Mignonette's the best of all
for a sure sale; where can you possibly have a
sweeter or a nicer penn'orth, pot and all."

OF THE STREET SALE OF TREES AND SHRUBS.

The street-trade in trees and shrubs is an ap-
pendage of "root-selling," and not an inde-
pendent avocation. The season of supply at the
markets extends over July, August, September,
and October, with a smaller trade in the winter
and spring months. At the nursery gardens, from
the best data I can arrive at, there are about twice
as many trees and shrubs purchased as in the
markets by the costermongers. Nor is this the
only difference. It is the more costly descrip-
tions that are bought at the nursery grounds.

The trees and shrubs are bought at the
gardens under precisely the same circumstances
as the roots, but the trade is by no means popu-
lar with the root-sellers. They regard these
heavy, cumbrous goods, as the smarter costers
do such things as turnips and potatoes, requir-
ing more room, and yielding less profit. "It
breaks a man's heart," said one dealer, "and half
kills his beast, going round with a lot of heavy
things, that perhaps you can't sell." The street-
dealers say they must keep them, "or people
will go, where they can get roots, and trees, and
everything, all together." In winter, or in early
spring, the street-seller goes a round now and
then, with evergreens and shrubs alone, and
the trade is then less distasteful to him. The
trees and shrubs are displayed, when the mar-
ket-space allows, on a sort of stand near the
flower-stand; sometimes they are placed on the
ground, along-side the flower-stand, but only
when no better display can be made.

The trees and shrubs sold by the costers are
mezereons, rhododendrons, savine, laurustinus,
acacias (of the smaller genera, some being highly
aromatic when in flower), myrtles, guelder-roses
(when small), privet, genistas, broom, furze
(when small), the cheaper heaths, syringas
(small), lilacs (almost always young and for
transplanting), southernwood (when large), box
(large) dwarf laurels, variegated laurels (called
a cuber by the street-people), and young fir-
trees, &c.

The prices of trees vary far more than
flower-roots, because they are dependent upon
size for value. "Why," said one man, "I've
bought roddies, as I calls them (rhododendrons),
at 4s. a dozen, but they was scrubby things,
and I've bought them at 14s. 6d. I once gave
5s. for two trees of them, which I had ordered,
and there was a rare grumbling about the price,

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though I only charged 7s. 6d. for the two, which
was 1s. 3d. a piece for carriage, and hard earned
too, to carry them near five miles in my cart,
almost on purpose, but I thought I was pleas-
ing a good customer. Then there's myrtles,
why I can get them at 5d. a piece, and at 5s., and a deal more if wanted. You can have
myrtles that a hat might be very big for them
to grow in, and myrtles that will fill a great
window in a fine house. I've bought common
heaths at 1s. 3d. a dozen."

The coster ordinarily confines himself to the
cheaper sorts of plants, and rarely meddles with
such things as acacias, mezereons, savines, sy-
ringas, lilacs, or even myrtles, and with none of
these things unless cheap. "Trees, real trees,"
I was told, "are often as cheap as anything.
Them young firs there was 4s. 6d. a dozen, and
a man at market can buy four or six of them if
he don't want a dozen."

The customers for trees and shrubs are gene-
rally those who inhabit the larger sort of houses,
where there is room in the hall or the windows
for display; or where there is a garden capa-
cious enough for the implantation of the shrubs.
Three-fourths of the trees are sold on a round,
and when purchased at a stall the costermonger
generally undertakes to deliver them at the
purchaser's residence, if not too much out of
his way, in his regular rounds. Or he may
diverge, and make a round on speculation,
purposely. There is as much bartering trees
for old clothes, as for roots, and as many, or
more, complaints of the hard bargainings of
ladies: "I'd rather sell polyanthuses at a
farthing a piece profit to poor women, if I could
get no more," said one man, "than I'd work
among them screws that's so fine in grand caps
and so civil. They'd skin a flea for his hide
and tallow."

The number of trees and shrubs sold annu-
ally, in the streets, are, as near as I can ascer-
tain, as follows — I have added to the quantity
purchased by the street-sellers, at the metropo-
litan markets, the amount bought by them at the
principal nursery-gardens in the environs of
London:

                     

Firs	9,576 roots
Laurels	1,152 "
Myrtles	23,040 "
Rhododendrons	2,160 "
Lilacs	2,304 "
Box	2,880 "
Heaths	21,888 "
Broom	2,880 "
Furze	6,912 "
Laurustinus	6,480 "
Southernwood	25,920 "

THE LONDON FLOWER GIRLS.

It is not easy to arrive at any accurate estimate
of the number of flower-sellers in the streets of
London. The cause of the difficulty lies in the
fact that none can be said to devote themselves
entirely to the sale of flowers in the street, for
the flower-sellers, when oranges are cheap and
good, find their sale of the fruit more certain
and profitable than that of flowers, and resort
to it accordingly. Another reason is, that a
poor costermonger will on a fine summer's day
send out his children to sell flowers, while
on other days they may be selling water-
cresses or, perhaps, onions. Sunday is the best
day for flower-selling, and one experienced man
computed, that in the height and pride of the
summer 400 children were selling flowers, on
the Sundays, in the streets. Another man
thought that number too low an estimate, and
contended that it was nearer 800. I found
more of the opinion of my last mentioned in-
formant than of the other, but I myself am
disposed to think the smaller number nearer the
truth. On week days it is computed there are
about half the number of flower-sellers that there
are on the Sundays. The trade is almost en-
tirely in the hands of children, the girls out-
numbering the boys by more than eight to one.
The ages of the girls vary from six to twenty;
few of the boys are older than twelve, and most
of them are under ten.

Of flower-girls there are two classes. Some
girls, and they are certainly the smaller class
of the two, avail themselves of the sale of flowers
in the streets for immoral purposes, or rather,
they seek to eke out the small gains of their
trade by such practises. They frequent the great
thoroughfares, and offer their bouquets to gen-
tlemen, whom on an evening they pursue for
a hundred yards or two in such places as the
Strand, mixing up a leer with their whine for
custom or for charity. Their ages are from
fourteen to nineteen or twenty, and sometimes
they remain out offering their flowers — or dried
lavender when no fresh flowers are to be had —
until late at night. They do not care, to make
their appearance in the streets until towards
evening, and though they solicit the custom of
ladies, they rarely follow or importune them.
Of this class I shall treat more fully under ano-
ther head.

The other class of flower-girls is composed of
the girls who, wholly or partially, depend upon
the sale of flowers for their own support or as
an assistance to their parents. Some of them
are the children of street-sellers, some are
orphans, and some are the daughters of me-
chanics who are out of employment, and who
prefer any course rather than an application to
the parish. These girls offer their flowers in
the principal streets at the West End, and
resort greatly to the suburbs; there are a few,
also, in the business thoroughfares. They
walk up and down in front of the houses, offer-
ing their flowers to any one looking out of the
windows, or they stand at any likely place.
They are generally very persevering, more espe-
cially the younger children, who will run along,
barefooted, with their "Please, gentleman, do
buy my flowers. Poor little girl!" — "Please,
kind lady, buy my violets. O, do! please! Poor
little girl! Do buy a bunch, please, kind lady!"

The statement I give, "of two orphan flower-

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sellers" furnishes another proof, in addition to
the many I have already given, of the heroic
struggles of the poor, and of the truth of the
saying, "What would the poor do without the
poor?"

The better class of flower-girls reside in
Lisson-grove, in the streets off Drury-lane,
in St. Giles's, and in other parts inhabited by
the very poor. Some of them live in lodging-
houses, the stench and squalor of which are in
remarkable contrast to the beauty and fragrance
of the flowers they sometimes have to carry
thither with them unsold.

OF TWO ORPHAN FLOWER GIRLS.

Of these girls the elder was fifteen and
the younger eleven. Both were clad in old,
but not torn, dark print frocks, hanging so
closely, and yet so loosely, about them as to
show the deficiency of under-clothing; they
wore old broken black chip bonnets. The older
sister (or rather half-sister) had a pair of old
worn-out shoes on her feet, the younger was
barefoot, but trotted along, in a gait at once
quick and feeble — as if the soles of her little
feet were impervious, like horn, to the rough-
ness of the road. The elder girl has a modest
expression of countenance, with no pretensions
to prettiness except in having tolerably good
eyes. Her complexion was somewhat muddy,
and her features somewhat pinched. The
younger child had a round, chubby, and even
rosy face, and quite a healthful look. Her por-
trait is here given.

They lived in one of the streets near Drury-
lane. They were inmates of a house, not let
out as a lodging-house, in separate beds, but
in rooms, and inhabited by street-sellers and
street-labourers. The room they occupied was
large, and one dim candle lighted it so insuffi-
ciently that it seemed to exaggerate the dimen-
sions. The walls were bare and discoloured
with damp. The furniture consisted of a crazy
table and a few chairs, and in the centre of
the room was an old four-post bedstead of the
larger size. This bed was occupied nightly by
the two sisters and their brother, a lad just
turned thirteen. In a sort of recess in a corner
of the room was the decency of an old curtain —
or something equivalent, for I could hardly see
in the dimness — and behind this was, I pre-
sume, the bed of the married couple. The
three children paid 2s. a week for the room,
the tenant an Irishman out of work paying
2s. 9d., but the furniture was his, and his wife
aided the children in their trifle of washing,
mended their clothes, where such a thing was
possible, and such like. The husband was
absent at the time of my visit, but the wife
seemed of a better stamp, judging by her
appearance, and by her refraining from any
direct, or even indirect, way of begging, as
well as from the "Glory be to Gods!" "the
heavens be your honour's bed!" or "it's the
thruth I'm telling of you sir," that I so fre-
quently meet with on similar visits.

The elder girl said, in an English accent,
not at all garrulously, but merely in answer
to my questions: "I sell flowers, sir; we live
almost on flowers when they are to be got. I
sell, and so does my sister, all kinds, but it's
very little use offering any that's not sweet.
I think it's the sweetness as sells them. I
sell primroses, when they're in, and violets, and
wall-flowers, and stocks, and roses of different
sorts, and pinks, and carnations, and mixed
flowers, and lilies of the valley, and green
lavender, and mignonette (but that I do very
seldom), and violets again at this time of the
year, for we get them both in spring and
winter." [They are forced in hot-houses for
winter sale, I may remark.] "The best sale
of all is, I think, moss-roses, young moss-roses.
We do best of all on them. Primroses are
good, for people say: `Well, here's spring
again to a certainty.' Gentlemen are our
best customers. I've heard that they buy
flowers to give to the ladies. Ladies have
sometimes said: `A penny, my poor girl,
here's three-halfpence for the bunch.' Or
they've given me the price of two bunches for
one; so have gentlemen. I never had a rude
word said to me by a gentleman in my life.
No, sir, neither lady nor gentleman ever gave
me 6d. for a bunch of flowers. I never had a
sixpence given to me in my life — never. I
never go among boys, I know nobody but
my brother. My father was a tradesman in
Mitchelstown, in the County Cork. I don't
know what sort of a tradesman he was. I
never saw him. He was a tradesman I've
been told. I was born in London. Mother
was a chairwoman, and lived very well. None
of us ever saw a father." [It was evident that
they were illegitimate children, but the land-
lady had never seen the mother, and could give
me no information.] "We don't know anything
about our fathers. We were all `mother's
children.' Mother died seven years ago last
Guy Faux day. I've got myself, and my
brother and sister a bit of bread ever since, and
never had any help but from the neighbours.
I never troubled the parish. O, yes, sir, the
neighbours is all poor people, very poor, some
of them. We've lived with her" (indicating
her landlady by a gesture) "these two years,
and off and on before that. I can't say how
long." "Well, I don't know exactly," said
the landlady, "but I've had them with me
almost all the time, for four years, as near as
I can recollect; perhaps more. I've moved
three times, and they always followed me."
In answer to my inquiries the landlady assured
me that these two poor girls, were never out of
doors all the time she had known them after
six at night. "We've always good health.
We can all read." [Here the three somewhat
insisted upon proving to me their proficiency
in reading, and having produced a Roman
Catholic book, the "Garden of Heaven," they
read very well.] "I put myself," continued
the girl, "and I put my brother and sister to

[Description: 915EAF. Page 136.]

a Roman Catholic school — and to Ragged
schools — but I could read before mother died.
My brother can write, and I pray to God that
he'll do well with it. I buy my flowers at
Covent Garden; sometimes, but very seldom,
at Farringdon. I pay 1s. for a dozen bunches,
whatever flowers are in. Out of every two
bunches I can make three, at 1d. a piece. Some-
times one or two over in the dozen, but not so
often as I would like. We make the bunches
up ourselves. We get the rush to tie them
with for nothing. We put their own leaves
round these violets (she produced a bunch).
The paper for a dozen costs a penny; some-
times only a halfpenny. The two of us doesn't
make less than 6d. a day, unless it's very ill
luck. But religion teaches us that God will
support us, and if we make less we say nothing.
We do better on oranges in March or April, I
think it is, than on flowers. Oranges keep better
than flowers you see, sir. We make 1s. a day,
and 9d. a day, on oranges, the two of us. I
wish they was in all the year. I generally go
St. John's-wood way, and Hampstead and High-
gate way with my flowers. I can get them
nearly all the year, but oranges is better liked
than flowers, I think. I always keep 1s. stock-
money, if I can. If it's bad weather, so bad
that we can't sell flowers at all, and so if we've
had to spend our stock-money for a bit of bread,
she (the landlady) lends us 1s., if she has one,
or she borrows one of a neighbour, if she
hasn't, of if the neighbours hasn't it, she bor-
rows it at a dolly-shop" (the illegal pawn-
shop). "There's 2d. a week to pay for 1s. at
a dolly, and perhaps an old rug left for it; if
it's very hard weather, the rug must be taken
at night time, or we are starved with the cold.
It sometimes has to be put into the dolly again
next morning, and then there's 2d. to pay for
it for the day. We've had a frock in for 6d., and that's a penny a week, and the same for a
day. We never pawned anything; we have
nothing they would take in at the pawnshop.
We live on bread and tea, and sometimes a
fresh herring of a night. Sometimes we don't
eat a bit all day when we're out; sometimes
we take a bit of bread with us, or buy a bit.
My sister can't eat taturs; they sicken her.
I don't know what emigrating means." [I
informed her and she continued]: "No, sir,
I wouldn't like to emigrate and leave brother
and sister. If they went with me I don't
think I should like it, not among strangers.
I think our living costs us 2s. a week for the
two of us; the rest goes in rent. That's all
we make."

The brother earned from 1s. 6d. to 2s. a week,
with an occasional meal, as a costermonger's
boy. Neither of them ever missed mass on a
Sunday.

OF THE LIFE OF A FLOWER GIRL.

Some of these girls are, as I have stated, of an
immoral character, and some of them are sent
out by their parents to make out a livelihood
by prostitution. One of this class, whom I
saw, had come out of prison a short time pre-
viously. She was not nineteen, and had been
sentenced about a twelvemonth before to three
months' imprisonment with hard labour, "for
heaving her shoe," as she said, "at the Lord
Mayor, to get a comfortable lodging, for she
was tired of being about the streets." After
this she was locked up for breaking the lamps
in the street. She alleged that her motive for
this was a belief that by committing some such
act she might be able to get into an asylum for
females. She was sent out into the streets by
her father and mother, at the age of nine, to
sell flowers. Her father used to supply her
with the money to buy the flowers, and she
used to take the proceeds of the day's work
home to her parents. She used to be out
frequently till past midnight, and seldom or
never got home before nine. She associated
only with flower-girls of loose character. The
result may be imagined. She could not state
positively that her parents were aware of the
manner in which she got the money she took
home to them. She supposes that they must have
imagined what her practices were. He used to
give her no supper if she "didn't bring home
a good bit of money." Her father and mother
did little or no work all this while. They lived
on what she brought home. At thirteen years
old she was sent to prison (she stated) "for
selling combs in the street" (it was winter, and
there were no flowers to be had). She was in-
carcerated fourteen days, and when liberated
she returned to her former practices. The very
night that she came home from gaol her father
sent her out into the streets again. She con-
tinued in this state, her father and mother
living upon her, until about twelve months be-
fore I received this account from her, when her
father turned her out of his house, because she
didn't bring home money enough. She then
went into Kent, hop-picking, and there fell in
with a beggar, who accosted her while she was
sitting under a tree. He said, "You have got
a very bad pair of shoes on; come with me,
and you shall have some better ones." She
consented, and walked with him into the village
close by, where they stood out in the middle of
the streets, and the man began addressing the
people, "My kind good Christians, me and
my poor wife here is ashamed to appear before
you in the state we are in." She remained
with this person all the winter, and travelled
with him through the country, begging. He
was a beggar by trade. In the spring she
returned to the flower-selling, but scarcely got
any money either by that or other means. At
last she grew desperate, and wanted to get
back to prison. She broke the lamps out-
side the Mansion-house, and was sentenced
to fourteen days' imprisonment. She had
been out of prison nearly three weeks when
I saw her, and was in training to go into an
asylum. She was sick and tired, she said, of
her life.

OF THE STREET SALE OF LAVENDER.

The sale of green lavender in the streets is
carried on by the same class as the sale of
flowers, and is, as often as flowers, used for
immoral purposes, when an evening or night
sale is carried on.

The lavender is sold at the markets in
bundles, each containing a dozen branches.
It is sold principally to ladies in the suburbs,
who purchase it to deposit in drawers and ward-
robes; the odour communicated to linen from
lavender being, perhaps, more agreeable and
more communicable than that from any other
flower. Nearly a tenth of the market sale may
be disposed of in this way. Some costers sell it
cheap to recommend themselves to ladies who
are customers, that they may have the better
chance for a continuance of those ladies' cus-
tom.

The number of lavender-sellers can hardly be
given as distinct from that of flower-sellers, be-
cause any flower-girl will sell lavender, "when
it is in season." The season continues from the
beginning of July to the end of September. In
the winter months, generally after day-fall, dried
lavender is offered for sale; it is bought at the
herb-shops. There is, however, an addition to the
number of the flower-girls of a few old women,
perhaps from twenty to thirty, who vary their
street-selling avocations by going from door to
door in the suburbs with lavender for sale, but
do not stand to offer it in the street.

The street-seller's profit on lavender is now
somewhat more than cent. per cent., as the
bundle, costing 2½d., brings when tied up in
sprigs, at least, 6d. The profit, I am told, was,
six or seven years ago, 200 per cent; "but
people will have better penn'orths now." I
was informed, by a person long familiar with the
trade in flowers, that, from twenty to twenty-five
years ago, the sale was the best. It was a fash-
ionable amusement for ladies to tie the sprigs of
lavender together, compressing the stems very
tightly with narrow ribbon of any favourite
colour, the heads being less tightly bound, or
remaining unbound; the largest stems were in
demand for this work. The lavender bundle,
when its manufacture was complete, was placed
in drawers, or behind books in the shelves of a
glazed book-case, so that a most pleasant atmo-
sphere was diffused when the book-case was
opened.

CUT FLOWERS.

I now give the quantity of cut flowers sold in
the streets. The returns have been derived from
nursery-men and market-salesmen. It will be
seen how fully these returns corroborate the
statement of the poor flower-girl — (p. 135) —
"it's very little use offering anything that's not
sweet."

I may remark, too, that at the present period,
from "the mildness of the season," wallflowers,
primroses, violets, and polyanthuses are almost
as abundant as in spring sunshine.

                   

Violets	65,280 bunches.
Wallflowers	115,200 bunches.
Lavender	296,640 bunches.
Pinks and Carnations	63,360 bunches.
Moss Roses	172,800 bunches.
China ditto	172,800 bunches.
Mignonette	86,400 bunches.
Lilies of the Valley	1,632 bunches.
Stocks	20,448 bunches.
Cut flowers sold yearly in the streets	994,560 bunches.

OF THE STREET SALE OF FLOWERS IN
POTS, ROOTS, ETC.

The "flower-root sellers" — for I heard them
so called to distinguish them from the sellers of
"cut flowers" — are among the best-mannered
and the best-dressed of all the street-sellers I
have met with, but that only as regards a por-
tion of them. Their superiority in this respect
may perhaps be in some measure attributable
to their dealing with a better class of customers
— with persons who, whether poor or rich, exer-
cise healthful tastes.

I may mention, that I found the street-sellers
of "roots" — always meaning thereby flower-
roots in bloom — more attached to their trade
than others of their class.

The roots, sold in the streets, are bought in
the markets and at the nursery-gardens; but
about three-fourths of those required by the
better class of street-dealers are bought at the
gardens, as are "cut flowers" occasionally.
Hackney is the suburb most resorted to by the
root-sellers. The best "pitches" for the sale
of roots in the street are situated in the New-
road, the City-road, the Hampstead-road, the
Edgeware-road, and places of similar character,
where there is a constant stream of passers
along, who are not too much immersed in
business. Above three-fourths of the sale is
effected by itinerant costermongers. For this
there is one manifest reason: a flower-pot, with
the delicate petals of its full-blown moss-rose,
perhaps, suffers even from the trifling concus-
sion in the journey of an omnibus, for instance.
To carry a heavy flower-pot, even any short
distance, cannot be expected, and to take a cab
for its conveyance adds greatly to the expense.
Hence, flower-roots are generally purchased at
the door of the buyer.

For the flowers of commoner or easier culture,
the root-seller receives from 1d. to 3d. These
are primroses, polyanthuses, cowslips (but in
small quantities comparatively), daisies (single
and double, — and single or wild, daisies were
coming to be more asked for, each 1d.), small
early wallflowers, candy-tufts, southernwood
(called "lad's love" or "old man" by some),
and daffodils, (but daffodils were sometimes
dearer than 3d.). The plants that may be said
to struggle against frost and snow in a hard
season, such as the snowdrop, the crocus, and
the mezereon, are rarely sold by the costers;
"They come too soon," I was told. The prim-

[Description: 915EAF. Page 138.]

roses, and the other plants I have enumerated,
are sold, for the most part, not in pots, but with
soil attached to the roots, so that they may be
planted in a garden (as they most frequently
are) or in a pot.

Towards the close of May, in an early season,
and in the two following months, the root-trade
is at its height. Many of the stalls and barrows
are then exceedingly beautiful, the barrow often
resembling a moving garden. The stall-keepers
have sometimes their flowers placed on a series
of shelves, one above another, so as to present
a small amphitheatre of beautiful and diversi-
fied hues; the purest white, as in the lily of the
valley, to the deepest crimson, as in the fuschia;
the bright or rust-blotted yellow of the wall-
flower, to the many hues of the stock. Then
there are the pinks and carnations, double and
single, with the rich-coloured and heavily
scented "clove-pinks;" roses, mignonette, the
velvetty pansies (or heart's-ease), the white and
orange lilies, calceolarias, balsams (a flower
going out of fashion), geraniums (flowers com-
ing again into fashion), musk-plants, London
pride (and other saxifrages; the species known,
oddly enough, as London pride being a native
of wild and mountainous districts, such as
botanists call "Alpine habitats,") and the many
coloured lupins. Later again come the China-
asters, the African marigolds, the dahlias, the
poppies, and the common and very aromatic
marigold. Later still there are the Michaelimas
daisies — the growth of the "All-Hallow'n sum-
mer," to which Falstaff was compared.

There is a class of "roots" in which the
street-sellers, on account of their general dear-
ness, deal so sparingly, that I cannot class
them as a part of the business. Among these
are anemones, hyacinths, tulips, ranuncu-
luses, and the orchidaceous tribe. Neither do
the street people meddle, unless very excep-
tionally, with the taller and statelier plants,
such as foxgloves, hollyoaks, and sunflowers;
these are too difficult of carriage for their pur-
pose. Nor do they sell, unless again as an ex-
ception, such flowers as require support — the
convolvolus and the sweet-pea, for instance.

The plants I have specified vary in price.
Geraniums are sold at from 3d. to 5s.; pinks at
from 3d. for the common pink, to 2s. for the
best single clove, and 4s. for the best double;
stocks, as they are small and single, to their
being large and double, from 3d. (and some-
times less) to 2s.; dahlias from 6d. to 5s.; fuschias, from 6d. to 4s.; rose-bushes from 3d. to 1s. 6d., and sometimes, but not often, much
higher; musk-plants, London pride, lupins, &c.,
are 1d. and 2d., pots generally included.

To carry on his business efficiently, the root-
seller mostly keeps a pony and a cart, to convey
his purchases from the garden to his stall or his
barrow, and he must have a sheltered and cool
shed in which to deposit the flowers which are
to be kept over-night for the morrow's business.
"It's a great bother, sir," said a root-seller,
"a man having to provide a shed for his roots.
It wouldn't do at all to have them in the same
room as we sleep in — they'd droop. I have a
beautiful big shed, and a snug stall for a donkey
in a corner of it; but he won't bear tying up —
he'll fight against tying all night, and if he was
loose, why in course he'd eat the flowers I put
in the shed. The price is nothing to him; he'd
eat the Queen's camellias, if he could get at
them, if they cost a pound a-piece. So I have
a deal of trouble, for I must block him up
somehow; but he's a first-rate ass." To carry
on a considerable business, the services of a
man and his wife are generally required, as well
as those of a boy.

The purchases wholesale are generally by the
dozen roots, all ready for sale in pots. Migno-
nette, however, is grown in boxes, and sold by
the box at from 5s. to 20s., according to the size,
&c. The costermonger buys, for the large sale
to the poor, at a rate which brings the migno-
nette roots into his possession at something less,
perhaps, than a halfpenny each. He then pur-
chases a gross of small common pots, costing
him 1½d. a dozen, and has to transfer the roots
and soil to the pots, and then offer them for sale.
The profit thus is about 4s. per hundred, but
with the drawback of considerable labour and
some cost in the conveyance of the boxes. The
same method is sometimes pursued with young
stocks.

The cheapness of pots, I may mention inci-
dentally, and the more frequent sale of roots
in them, has almost entirely swept away the
fragment of a pitcher and "the spoutless tea-
pot," which Cowper mentions as containing the
poor man's flowers, that testified an inextin-
guishable love of rural objects, even in the heart
of a city. There are a few such things, how-
ever, to be seen still.

Of root-sellers there are, for six months of
the year, about 500 in London. Of these, one-
fifth devote themselves principally, but none
entirely, to the sale of roots; two-fifths sell
roots regularly, but only as a portion, and
not a larger portion of their business; and the
remaining two-fifths are casual dealers in
roots, buying them — almost always in the
markets — whenever a bargain offers. Seven-
eighths of the root-sellers are, I am informed,
regular costers, occasionally a gardener's assist-
ant has taken to the street trade in flowers,
"but I fancy, sir," said an experienced man
to me, "they've very seldom done any good
at it. They're always gardening at their
roots, trimming them, and such like, and they
overdo it. They're too careful of their plants;
people like to trim them theirselves."

"I did well on fuschias last season," said
one of my informants; "I sold them from
6d. to 1s. 6d. The `Globes' went off well.
Geraniums was very fair. The `Fairy Queens'
of them sold faster than any, I think. It's
the ladies out of town a little way, and a
few in town, that buy them, and buy the
fuschias too. They require a good window.
The `Jenny Linds' — they was geraniums and

[Description: 915EAF. Page 139.]

other plants — didn't sell so well as the Fairy
Queens, though they was cheaper. Good cloves
(pinks) sell to the better sort of houses; so do
carnations. Mignonette's everybody's money.
Dahlias didn't go off so well. I had very tidy
dahlias at 6d. and 1s., and some 1s. 6d. I do a
goodish bit in giving flowers for old clothes. I
very seldom do it, but to ladies. I deal mostly
with them for their husbands' old hats, or boots,
or shoes; yes, sir, and their trowsers and waist-
coats sometimes — very seldom their coats — and
ladies boots and shoes too. There's one pleasant
old lady, and her two daughters, they'll talk me
over any day. I very seldom indeed trade for
ladies' clothes. I have, though. Mostly for
something in the shawl way, or wraps of some
kind. Why, that lady I was telling you of and
her daughters, got me to take togs that didn't
bring the prime cost of my roots and expenses.
They called them by such fine names, that I
was had. Then they was so polite; `O, my
good man,' says one of the young daughters, `I
must have this geranium in 'change.' It was a
most big and beautiful Fairy Queen, well worth
4s. The tog — I didn't know what they called
it — a sort of cloak, fetched short of half-a-crown,
and that just with cheaper togs. Some days, if
it's very hot, and the stall business isn't good in
very hot weather, my wife goes a round with me,
and does considerable in swopping with ladies.
They can't do her as they can me. The same
on wet days, if it's not very wet, when I has my
roots covered in the cart. Ladies is mostly at
home such times, and perhaps they're dull, and
likes to go to work at a bargaining. My wife
manages them. In good weeks, I can clear 3l. in my trade; the two of us can, anyhow. But
then there's bad weather, and there's sometimes
roots spoiled if they're not cheap, and don't go
off — but I'll sell one that cost me 1s. for 2d. to
get rid of it; and there's always the expenses to
meet, and the pony to keep, and everything that
way. No, sir, I don't make 2l. a week for the
five months — its nearer five than six — the season
lasts; perhaps something near it. The rest of the
year I sell fruit, or anything, and may clear 10s. or 15s. a week, but, some weeks, next to nothing,
and the expenses all going on.

"Why, no, sir; I can't say that times is what
they was. Where I made 4l. on my roots five or
six years back, I make only 3l. now. But it's no
use complaining; there's lots worse off than I
am — lots. I've given pennies and twopences to
plenty that's seen better days in the streets; it
might be their own fault. It is so mostly, but
perhaps only partly. I keep a connection toge-
ther as well as I can. I have a stall; my wife's
there generally, and I go a round as well."

One of the principal root-sellers in the streets
told me that he not unfrequently sold ten dozen
a day, over and above those sold not in pots. As
my informant had a superior trade, his business
is not to be taken as an average; but, reckoning
that he averages six dozen a day for 20 weeks —
he said 26 — it shows that one man alone sells
8,640 flowers in pots in the season. The prin-
cipal sellers carry on about the same extent of
business.

According to similar returns, the number of
the several kinds of flowers in pots and flower
roots sold annually in the London streets, are
as follows:

FLOWERS IN POTS.

         

Moss-roses	38,880
China-roses	38,880
Fuschias	38,800
Geraniums	12,800
Total number of flowers in pots sold in the streets.	123,360

FLOWER-ROOTS.

                                                     

Primroses	24,000
Polyanthuses	34,560
Cowslips	28,800
Daisies	33,600
Wallflowers	46,080
Candytufts	28,800
Daffodils	28,800
Violets	38,400
Mignonette	30,384
Stocks	23,040
Pinks and Carnations	19,200
Lilies of the Valley	3,456
Pansies	12,960
Lilies	660
Tulips	852
Balsams	7,704
Calceolarias	3,180
Musk Plants	253,440
London Pride	11,520
Lupins	25,596
China-asters	9,156
Marigolds	63,360
Dahlias	852
Heliotrope	13,356
Poppies	1,920
Michaelmas Daisies	6,912
Total number of flower- roots sold in the streets	750,588

OF THE STREET SALE OF SEEDS.

The street sale of seeds, I am informed, is
smaller than it was thirty, or even twenty years
back. One reason assigned for this falling off
is the superior cheapness of "flowers in pots."
At one time, I was informed, the poorer classes
who were fond of flowers liked to "grow their
own mignonette." I told one of my informants
that I had been assured by a trustworthy man,
that in one day he had sold 600 penny pots of
mignonette: "Not a bit of doubt of it, sir,"
was the answer, "not a doubt about it; I've
heard of more than that sold in a day by a man
who set on three hands to help him; and that's
just where it is. When a poor woman, or poor
man either — but its mostly the women — can
buy a mignonette pot, all blooming and smelling
for 1d., why she won't bother to buy seeds and
set them in a box or a pot and wait for them
to come into full blow. Selling seeds in the
streets can't be done so well now, sir. Any-

[Description: 915EAF. Page 140.]

how it ain't done as it was, as I've often heard
old folk say." The reason assigned for this
is that cottages in many parts — such places
as Lisson-grove, Islington, Hoxton, Hackney,
or Stepney — where the inhabitants formerly
cultivated flowers in their little gardens, are
now let out in single apartments, and the
gardens — or yards as they mostly are now —
were used merely to hang clothes in. The
only green thing which remained in some of
these gardens, I was told, was horse-radish, a
root which it is difficult to extirpate: "And
it's just the sort of thing," said one man,
"that poor people hasn't no great call for,
because they, you see, a'n't not overdone with
joints of roast beef, nor rump steaks." In the
suburbs where the small gardens are planted
with flowers, the cultivators rarely buy seeds
of the street-sellers, whose stands are mostly
at a distance.

None of the street seed-vendors confine them-
selves to the sale. One man, whom I saw, told
me that last spring he was penniless, after
sickness, and a nurseryman, whom he knew,
trusted him 5s. worth of seeds, which he con-
tinued to sell, trading in nothing else, for three
or four weeks, until he was able to buy some
flowers in pots. Though the profit is cent. per
cent. on most kinds, 1s. 6d. a day is accounted
"good earnings, on seeds." On wet days there
is no sale, and, indeed, the seeds cannot be ex-
posed in the streets. My informant computed
that he cleared 5s. a week. His customers
were principally poor women, who liked to sow
mignonette in boxes, or in a garden-border, "if
it had ever such a little bit of sun," and who
resided, he believed, in small, quiet streets,
branching off from the thoroughfares. Of flower-
seeds, the street-sellers dispose most largely
of mignonette, nasturtium, and the various
stocks; and of herbs, the most is done in
parsley. One of my informants, however, "did
best in grass-seeds," which people bought, he
said, "to mend their grass-plots with," sowing
them in any bare place, and throwing soil
loosely over them. Lupin, larkspur, convol-
vulus, and Venus's looking-glass had a fair sale.

The street-trade, in seeds, would be less than
it is, were it not that the dealers sell it in
smaller quantities than the better class of shop-
keepers. The street-traders buy their seeds by
the quarter of a pound — or any quantity not
considered retail — of the nurserymen, who often
write the names for the costers on the paper in
which the seed has to be inclosed. Seed that costs
4d., the street-seller makes into eight penny
lots. "Why, yes, sir," said one man, in answer
to my inquiry, "people is often afraid that our
seeds ain't honest. If they're not, they're
mixed, or they're bad, before they come into our
hands. I don't think any of our chaps does
anything with them."

Fourteen or fifteen years ago, although seeds,
generally, were fifteen to twenty per cent. dearer
than they are now, there was twice the demand
for them. An average price of good mignonette
seed, he said, was now 1s. the quarter of a pound,
and it was then 1s. 2d. to 1s. 6d. The shilling's
worth, is made, by the street-seller, into twenty
or twenty-four pennyworths. An average price
of parsley, and of the cheaper seeds, is less than
half that of mignonette. Other seeds, again, are
not sold to the street-people by the weight, but
are made up in sixpenny and shilling packages.
Their extreme lightness prevents their being
weighed to a customer. Of this class are, the
African marigold, the senecios (groundsel), and
the china-aster; but of these compound flowers,
the street-traders sell very few. Poppy-seed used
to be in great demand among the street-buyers,
but it has ceased to be so. "It's a fine hardy
plant, too, sir," I was told, "but somehow, for
all its variety in colours, it's gone out of fashion,
for fashion runs strong in flowers."

One long-established street-seller, who is well
known to supply the best seeds, makes for
the five weeks or so of the season more
than twice the weekly average of 5s.; perhaps
12s.; but as he is a shop as well as a stall-keeper,
he could not speak very precisely as to the
proportionate sale in the street or the shop.
This man laughed at the fondness some of his
customers manifested for "fine Latin names."
"There are some people," he said, "who will
buy antirrhinum, and artemisia, and digitalis,
and wouldn't hear of snapdragon, or worm-
wood, or foxglove, though they're the identical
plants." The same informant told me that
the railways in their approaches to the metro-
polis had destroyed many small gardens, and
had, he thought, injured his trade. It was,
also, a common thing now for the greengrocers
and corn-chandlers to sell garden-seeds, which
until these six or eight years they did much less
extensively.

Last spring, I was told, there were not more
than four persons, in London, selling only seeds.
The "root-sellers," of whom I have treated,
generally deal in seeds also, but the demand
does not extend beyond four or five weeks in the
spring, though there was "a straggling trade that
way" two or three weeks longer. It was com-
puted for me, that there were fully one hundred
persons selling seeds (with other things) in the
streets, and that each might average a profit of
5s. weekly, for a month; giving 200l. expended
in seeds, with 100l. profit to the costers. Seeds
are rarely hawked as flowers are.

It is impossible to give as minutely detailed
an account of the street-sale of seeds as of flow-
ers, as from their diversity in size, weight,
quantity in a pennyworth, &c., no calculation
can be prepared by weight or measure, only by
value. Thus, I find it necessary to depart some-
what from the order hitherto observed. One
seedsman, acquainted with the street-trade from
his dealings with the vendors, was of opinion
that the following list and proportions were as
nice an approximation as could be arrived at.
It was found necessary to give it in proportions
of twenty-fifths; but it must be borne in mind
that the quantity in ths of parsley, for exam-

[Description: 915EAF. Page 141.]

ple, is more than double that of ths of mignon-
ette. I give, in unison, seeds of about equal
sale, whether of the same botanical family or
not. Many of the most popular flowers, such
as polyanthuses, daisies, violets, and primroses,
are not raised from seed, except in the nursery
gardens: —                                        

Seeds.	Twenty-fifths.	Value.
Mignonette	Three	\cp\24
Stocks (of all kinds)	Two	16
Marigolds (do.)	One	8
Convolvulus (do.)	One	8
Wallflower	One	8
Scarlet-beans and
Sweet-peas	One . . .	8
China-asters and Ve-
nus' looking-glass	One	8
Lupin and Larkspur	One	8
Nasturtium	One	8
Parsley	Two	16
Other Pot-herbs	One	8
Mustard and Cress,
Lettuce, and the	Two	16
other vegetables
Grass	One	8
Other seeds	Seven	56
Total expended annually on street-seeds.		\cp\200

OF CHRISTMASING — LAUREL, IVY, HOLLY,
AND MISTLETOE.

In London a large trade is carried on in
"Christmasing," or in the sale of holly and mis-
tletoe, for Christmas sports and decorations.
I have appended a table of the quantity of these
"branches" sold, nearly 250,000, and of the
money expended upon them in the streets.
It must be borne in mind, to account for this
expenditure for a brief season, that almost every
housekeeper will expend something in "Christ-
masing;" from 2d. to 1s. 6d., and the poor buy a
pennyworth, or a halfpennyworth each, and they
are the coster's customers. In some houses,
which are let off in rooms, floors, or suites of
apartments, and not to the poorest class, every
room will have the cheery decoration of holly,
its bright, and as if glazed leaves and red berries,
reflecting the light from fire or candle. "Then,
look," said a gardener to me, "what's spent on
a Christmasing the churches! Why, now, pro-
perly to Christmas St. Paul's, I say properly, mind, would take 50l. worth at least; aye, more,
when I think of it, nearer 100l. I hope there 'll
be no `No Popery' nonsense against Christmas-
ing this year. I'm always sorry when anything of
that kind's afloat, because it's frequently a hind-
rance to business." This was said three weeks
before Christmas. In London there are upwards
of 300,000 inhabited houses. The whole of the
evergreen branches sold number 375,000.

Even the ordinary-sized inns, I was informed,
displayed holly decorations, costing from 2s. to 10s.; while in the larger inns, where, perhaps,
an assembly-room, a concert-room, or a club-
room, had to be adorned, along with other
apartments, 20s. worth of holly, &c., was a not
uncommon outlay. "Well, then, consider,"
said another informant, "the plum-puddings!
Why, at least there's a hundred thousand of 'em
eaten, in London, through the Christmas and
the month following. That's nearly one pud-
ding to every twenty of the population, is it,
sir? Well, perhaps, that's too much. But,
then, there's the great numbers eaten at
public dinners and suppers; and there's more
plum-pudding clubs at the small grocers and
public-houses than there used to be, so, say
full a hundred thousand, flinging in any
mince-pies that may be decorated with ever-
greens. Well, sir, every plum-pudding will
have a sprig of holly in him. If it's bought
just for the occasion, it may cost 1d., to be
really prime and nicely berried. If it's part
of a lot, why it won't cost a halfpenny, so
reckon it all at a halfpenny. What does that
come to? Above 200l. Think of that, then,
just for sprigging puddings!"

Mistletoe, I am informed, is in somewhat less
demand than it was, though there might be no
very perceptible difference. In many houses holly
is now used instead of the true plant, for the
ancient ceremonies and privileges observed
"under the mistletoe bough." The holly is
not half the price of the mistletoe, which is one
reason; for, though there is not any great dis-
parity of price, wholesale, the holly, which
costs 6d. retail, is more than the quantity of
mistletoe retailed for 1s. The holly-tree may
be grown in any hedge, and ivy may be reared
against any wall; while the mistletoe is para-
sitical of the apple-tree, and, but not to half the
extent, of the oak and other trees. It does not
grow in the northern counties of England. The
purchasers of the mistletoe are, for the most
part, the wealthier classes, or, at any rate, I was
told, "those who give parties." It is bought,
too, by the male servants in large establish-
ments, and more would be so bought, "only so
few of the great people, of the most fashionable
squares and places, keep their Christmas in
town." Half-a-crown is a not uncommon
price for a handsome mistletoe bough.

The costermongers buy about a half of the
holly, &c., brought to the markets; it is also
sold either direct to those requiring evergreens,
or to green-grocers and fruiterers who have re-
ceived orders for it from their customers, or who
know it will be wanted. A shilling's worth may
be bought in the market, the bundles being di-
vided. Mistletoe, the costers — those having
regular customers in the suburbs — receive orders
for. "Last December," said a coster to me, "I
remember a servant-girl, and she weren't such a
girl either, running after me in a regular flutter,
to tell me the family had forgot to order 2s. worth
of mistletoe of me, to be brought next day. Oh,
yes, sir, if it's ordered by, or delivered to, the
servant-girls, they generally have a little giggling
about it. If I've said: `What are you laugh-
ing at?' they'll mostly say: `Me! I'm not
laughing.' "

The costermongers go into the neighbour-

[Description: 915EAF. Page 142.]

hood of London to procure the holly for street-
sale. This is chiefly done, I was told, by
those who were "cracked up," and some of
them laboured at it "days and days." It is,
however, a very uncertain trade, as they must
generally trespass, and if they are caught
trespassing, by the occupier of the land, or
any of his servants, they are seldom "given in
charge," but their stock of evergreens is not
unfrequently taken from them, "and that, sir,
that's the cuttingest of all." They do not
so freely venture upon the gathering of mistle-
toe, for to procure it they must trespass in
orchards, which is somewhat dangerous work,
and they are in constant apprehension of traps,
spring-guns, and bull-dogs. Six or seven hun-
dred men or lads, the lads being the most
numerous, are thus employed for a week or
two before Christmas, and, perhaps, half that
number, irregularly at intervals, for a week or
two after it. Some of the lads are not known
as regular coster-lads, but they are habitués of
the streets in some capacity. To procure as
much holly one day, as will sell for 2s. 6d. the
next, is accounted pretty good work, and 7s. 6d. would be thus realised in six days. But 5s. is
more frequently the return of six days' labour
and sale, though a very few have cleared 10s., and one man, "with uncommon luck," once
cleared 20s. in six days. The distance tra-
velled in a short winter's day, is sometimes
twenty miles, and, perhaps, the lad or man has
not broken his fast, on some days, until the
evening, or even the next morning, for had he
possessed a few pence he would probably have
invested it in oranges or nuts, for street-sale,
rather than "go a-gathering Christmas."

One strong-looking lad, of 16 or 17, gave me
the following account: —

"It's hard work, is Christmasing; but, when
you have neither money nor work, you must do
something, and so the holly may come in
handy. I live with a elder brother; he helps
the masons, and as we had neither of us either
work or money, he cut off Tottenham and Ed-
monton way, and me the t'other side of the
water, Mortlake way, as well as I know. We'd
both been used to costering, off and on. I was
out, I think, ten days altogether, and didn't
make 6s. in it. I'd been out two Christmases
before. O, yes, I'd forgot. I made 6d. over
the 6s., for I had half a pork-pie and a pint of
beer, and the landlord took it out in holly. I
meant to have made a quarter of pork do, but
I was so hungry — and so would you, sir, if you'd
been out a-Christmasing — that I had the t'other
quarter. It's 2d. a quarter. I did better when
I was out afore, but I forget what I made.
It's often slow work, for you must wait some-
times 'till no one's looking, and then you must
work away like anything. I'd nothing but a
sharp knife, I borrowed, and some bits of cord
to tie the holly up. You must look out sharp,
because, you see, sir, a man very likely won't
like his holly-tree to be stripped. Wherever
there is a berry, we goes for the berries.
They're poison berries, I've heard. Moon-
light nights is the thing, sir, when you knows
where you are. I never goes for mizzletoe.
I hardly knows it when I sees it. The first
time I was out, a man got me to go for some in
a orchard, and told me how to manage; but I
cut my lucky in a minute. Something came
over me like. I felt sickish. But what can a
poor fellow do? I never lost my Christmas,
but a little bit of it once. Two men took it
from me, and said I ought to thank them
for letting me off without a jolly good jacket-
ing, as they was gardeners. I believes they was
men out a-Christmasing, as I were. It was a
dreadful cold time that; and I was wet, and
hungry, — and thirsty, too, for all I was so wet, —
and I'd to wait a-watching in the wet. I've
got something better to do now, and I'll never
go a-Christmasing again, if I can help it."

This lad contrived to get back to his lodging,
in town, every night, but some of those out
Christmasing, stay two or three days and nights
in the country, sleeping in barns, out-houses,
carts, or under hay-stacks, inclement as the
weather may be, when their funds are insuffi-
cient to defray the charge of a bed, or a part of
one, at a country "dossing-crib" (low lodging-
house). They resorted, in considerable num-
bers, to the casual wards of the workhouses, in
Croydon, Greenwich, Reigate, Dartford, &c.,
when that accommodation was afforded them,
concealing their holly for the night.

As in other matters, it may be a surprise to
some of my readers to learn in what way the
evergreens, used on festive occasions in their
homes, may have been procured.

The costermongers who procure their own
Christmasing, generally hawk it. A few sell it
by the lot to their more prosperous brethren.
What the costers purchase in the market, they
aim to sell at cent. per cent.

Supposing that 700 men and lads gathered
their own holly, &c., and each worked for three
weeks (not regarding interruptions), and calcu-
lating that, in the time they cleared even 15s. each, it amounts to 575l.

Some of the costermongers deck their carts
and barrows, in the general line, with holly at
Christmas. Some go out with their carts full
of holly, for sale, and may be accompanied by
a fiddler, or by a person beating a drum. The
cry is, "Holly! Green Holly!"

One of my informants alluded incidentally to
the decoration of the churches, and I may ob-
serve that they used to be far more profusely
decked with Christmas evergreens than at pre-
sent; so much so, that a lady correspondent in
January, 1712, complained to "Mr. Spectator"
that her church-going was bootless. She was
constant at church, to hear divine service and
make conquests; but the clerk had so overdone
the greens in the church that, for three weeks,
Miss Jenny Simper had not even seen the young
baronet, whom she dressed at for divine wor-
ship, although he pursued his devotions only
three pews from hers. The aisle was a pretty

[Description: 915EAF. Page 143.]

shady walk, and each pew was an arbour. The
pulpit was so clustered with holly and ivy that
the congregation, like Moses, heard the word out
of a bush. "Sir Anthony Love's pew in particu-
lar," concludes the indignant Miss Simper, "is
so well hedged, that all my batteries have no
effect. I am obliged to shoot at random among
the boughs without taking any manner of aim.
Mr. Spectator, unless you'll give orders for re-
moving these greens, I shall grow a very awk-
ward creature at church, and soon have little
else to do there but to say my prayers." In a
subsequent number, the clerk glorifies himself
that he had checked the ogling of Miss Simper.
He had heard how the Kentish men evaded
the Conqueror by displaying green boughs be-
fore them, and so he bethought him of a like
device against the love-warfare of this coquettish
lady.

Of all the "branches" in the markets. the
costers buy one-half. This season, holly has
been cheaper than was ever known previously.
In some years, its price was double that cited, in
some treble, when the December was very frosty.

OF THE SALE OF MAY, PALM, ETC.

The sale of the May, the fragrant flower of the
hawthorn, a tree indigenous to this country —
Wordsworth mentions one which must have
been 800 years old — is carried on by the coster
boys (principally), but only in a desultory way.
The chief supply is brought to London in the
carts or barrows of the costers returning from a
country expedition. If the costermonger be
accompanied by a lad — as he always is if the
expedition be of any length — the lad will say
to his master, "Bill, let's have some May to
take back." The man will almost always con-
sent, and often assist in procuring the thickly
green branches with their white or rose-tinted,
and freshly-smelling flowers. The odour of the
hawthorn blossom is peculiar, and some emi-
nent botanist — Dr. Withering if I remember
rightly — says it may be best described as
"fresh." No flower, perhaps, is blended with
more poetical, antiquarian, and beautiful asso-
ciations than the ever-welcome blossom of the
may-tree. One gardener told me that as the
hawthorn was in perfection in June instead of
May, the name was not proper. But it must
be remembered that the name of the flower
was given during the old style, which carried
our present month of May twelve days into
June, and the name would then be more ap-
propriate.

The May is obtained by the costermongers in
the same way as the holly, by cutting it from
the trees in the hedges. It has sometimes to
be cut or broken off stealthily, for persons may
no more like their hawthorns to be stripped
than their hollies, and an ingenuous lad — as will
have been observed — told me of "people's"
objections to the unauthorized stripping of their
holly-bushes. But there is not a quarter of the
difficulty in procuring May that there is in pro-
curing holly at Christmas.

The costermonger, if he has "done tidy"
in the country will very probably leave the
May at the disposal of his boy; but a few men,
though perhaps little more than twenty, I was
told, bring it on their own account. The lads
then carry the branches about for sale; or if a
considerable quantity has been brought, dispose
of it to other boys or girls, or entrust them with
the sale of it, at "half-profits," or any terms
agreed upon. Costermongers have been known
to bring home "a load of May," and this not
unfrequently, at the request, and for the benefit
of a "cracked-up" brother-trader, to whom it
has been at once delivered gratuitously.

A lad, whom I met with as he was selling
holly, told me that he had brought may from
the country when he had been there with a
coster. He had also gone out of town a few
miles to gather it on his own account.
"But it ain't no good;" he said; "you must
often go a good way — I never knows anything
about how many miles — and if it's very ripe
(the word he used) it's soon shaken. There's
no sure price. You may get 4d. for a big
branch or you must take 1d. I may have
made 1s. on a round but hardly ever more.
It can't be got near hand. There's some stun-
ning fine trees at the top of the park there (the
Regent's Park) the t'other side of the 'logical
Gardens, but there's always a cove looking
after them, they say, and both night and day."

Palm, the flower of any of the numerous
species of the willow, is sold only on Palm
Sunday, and the Saturday preceding. The
trade is about equally in the hands of the
English and Irish lads, but the English lads
have a commercial advantage on the morning
of Palm Sunday, when so many of the Irish
lads are at chapel. The palm is all gathered
by the street-vendors. One costermonger told
me that when he was a lad, he had sold palm
to a man who had managed to get half-drunk
on a Sunday morning, and who told him that
he wanted it to show his wife, who very seldom
stirred out, that he'd been taking a healthful
walk into the country!

Lilac in flower is sold (and procured) in the
same way as May, but in small quantities.
Very rarely indeed, laburnum; which is too
fragile; or syringa, which, I am told, is hardly
saleable in the streets. One informant remem-
bered that forty years ago, when he was a boy,
branches of elder-berry flowers were sold in the
streets, but the trade has disappeared.

It is very difficult to form a calculation as
to the extent of this trade. The best informed
give me reason to believe that the sale of all
these branches (apart from Christmas) ranges,
according to circumstances, from 30l. to 50l., the cost being the labour of gathering, and
the subsistence of the labourer while at the
work. This is independent of what the costers
buy in the markets.

I now show the quantity of branches forming
the street trade: —

                 

Holly	59,040 bunches
Mistletoe	56,160 "
Ivy and Laurel	26,640 "
Lilac	5,400 "
Palm	1,008 "
May	2,520 "
Total number of bunches sold in the streets from market-sale	150,000
Add to quantity from other sources	75,000
	225,768

The quantity of branches "from other sources"
is that gathered by the costers in the way I have
described; but it is impossible to obtain a return
of it with proper precision: to state it as half of
that purchased in the markets is a low average.

I now give the amount paid by street-buyers
who indulge in the healthful and innocent tastes
of which I have been treating — the fondness for
the beautiful and the natural.

CUT FLOWERS.

                     

Bunches of	per bunch
65,280 Violets	at ½d.	\cp\136
115,200 Wallflowers	" ½d.	240
86,400 Mignonette	" 1d.	360
1,632 Lilies of the Valley	" ½d.	3
20,448 Stocks	" ½d.	42
316,800 Pinks and Carnations	" ½d. each	660
864,000 Moss Roses	" ½d. "	1,800
864,000 China ditto	" ½d. "	1,800
296,640 Lavender	" 1d.	1,236
Total annually		\cp\6,277

FLOWER ROOTS.

                                                       

	per root
24,000 Primroses	at ½d.	\cp\50
34,560 Polyanthuses	" 1d.	144
28,800 Cowslips	" ½d.	50
33,600 Daisies	" 1d.	140
46,080 Wallflowers	" 1d.	192
28,800 Candy-tufts	" 1d.	120
28,800 Daffodils	" ½d.	60
38,400 Violets	" ½d.	80
30,380 Mignonette	" ½d.	63
23,040 Stocks	" 1d.	96
19,200 Pinks and Carnations	" 2d.	160
3,456 Lilies of the Valley .	" 1d.	14
12,960 Pansies	" 1d.	54
660 Lilies	" 2d.	5
850 Tulips	" 2d.	7
7,704 Balsams	" 2d.	64
3,180 Calceolarias	" 2d.	26
253,440 Musk Plants	" 1d.	1,056
11,520 London Pride	" 1d.	48
25,595 Lupins	" 1d.	106
9,156 China-asters	" 1d.	38
63,360 Marigolds	" ½d.	132
852 Dahlias	" 6d.	21
13,356 Heliotropes	" 2d.	111
1,920 Poppies	" 2d.	16
6,912 Michaelmas Daisies .	" ½d.	14
Total annually		\cp\2,867

BRANCHES.

                   

Bunches of	per bunch
59,040 Holly	at 3d.	\cp\738
56,160 Mistletoe	" 3d.	702
26,640 Ivy and Laurel	" 3d.	333
5,400 Lilac	" 3d.	67
1,008 Palm	" 3d.	12
2,520 May	" 3d.	31
Total annually from Markets		\cp\1,183
Add one-half as shown		591
		\cp\2,774

TREES AND SHRUBS.

                         

	each root
9,576 Firs (roots)	at 3d.	\cp\119
1,152 Laurels	" 3d.	14
23,040 Myrtles	" 4d.	384
2,160 Rhododendrons	9d.	81
2,304 Lilacs	" 4d	38
2,880 Box	" 2d.	24
21,888 Heaths	" 4d.	364
2,880 Broom	" 1d.	12
6,912 Furze	" 1d.	28
6,480 Laurustinus	" 8d.	216
25,920 Southernwood	1d.	108
Total annually spent		\cp\1,388

FLOWERS IN POTS.

           

	per root
38,880 Moss Roses	at 4d.	\cp\648
38,880 China ditto	at 2d.	324
38,800 Fushias	" 3d.	485
12,850 Geraniums and Pelarg- niums (of all kinds)	3d.	210
	Total annualy	#\cp\1,667

The returns give the following aggregate
amount of street expenditure: —

             

Trees and shrubs	1,388
Cut Fowers	6,277
Flowers in pots	1,667
Flower roots	2,867
Branches	2,774
Seeds	200
	\cp\15,173

From the returns we find that of "cut
flowers" the roses retain their old English
favouritism, no fewer than 1,628,000 being
annually sold in the streets; but locality affects
the sale, as some dealers dispose of more violets
than roses, because violets are accounted less
fragile. The cheapness and hardihood of the
musk-plant and marigold, to say nothing of
their peculiar odour, has made them the most
popular of the "roots," while the myrtle is the
favourite among the "trees and shrubs." The
heaths, moreover, command an extensive sale,
— a sale, I am told, which was unknown, until
eight or ten years ago, another instance of the
"fashion in flowers," of which an informant has
spoken.