University of Virginia Library

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.