University of Virginia Library

OF THE PREPARATION AND QUANTITY OF
SHEEP'S TROTTERS, AND OF THE STREET-
SELLERS.

The sale of sheep's trotters, as a regular street-
trade, is confined to London, Liverpool, New-
castle-on-Tyne, and a few more of our greater
towns. The "trotter," as it is commonly called,
is the boiled foot of the sheep. None of my
readers can have formed any commensurate
notion of the extent of the sale in London, and
to some readers the very existence of such a
comestible may be unknown. The great supply
now required is readily attained. The whole-
sale trade is now in the hands of one fellmonger-
ing firm, though until within these twenty
months or so there were two, and the feet are
cut off the sheep-skins by the salesmen in the
skin-market, in Bermondsey, and conveyed to
the fellmonger's premises in carts and in
trucks.

Sheep's trotters, one of my informants could
remember, were sold in the streets fifty years
ago, but in such small quantities that it could
hardly be called a trade. Instead of being pre-
pared wholesale as at present, and then sold out
to the retailers, the trotters were then prepared
by the individual retailers, or by small traders
in tripe and cow-heel. Twenty-five years
ago nearly all the sheep's trotters were "lined
and prepared," when the skin came into
the hands of the fellmonger, for the glue and
size makers. Twenty years ago only about one-

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twentieth of the trotters now prepared for eating
were devoted to the same purpose; and it was
not until about fifteen years back that the trade
began to reach its present magnitude; and for
the last twelve years it has been about station-
ary, but there were never more sold than last
year.

From fifteen to twenty years ago glue and size,
owing principally to improved modes of manu-
facture, became cheaper, so that it paid the fell-
monger better to dispose of the trotters as an
article "cooked" for the poor, than to the glue-
boiler.

The process of cookery is carried on rapidly
at the fellmonger's in question. The feet are
first scalded for about half an hour. After that
from ten to fifteen boys are employed in scoop-
ing out the hoofs, which are sold for manure or
to manufacturers of Prussian blue, which is ex-
tensively used by painters. Women are then
employed, forty being an average number, "to
scrape the hair off," — for hair it is called —
quickly, but softly, so that the skin should not
be injured, and after that the trotters are boiled
for about four hours, and they are then ready
for market.

The proprietor of this establishment, after he
had obligingly given me the information I
required, invited me to walk round his premises
unaccompanied, and observe how the business
was conducted. The premises are extensive, and
are situated, as are nearly all branches of the
great trade connected with hides and skins, in
Bermondsey. The trotter business is kept dis-
tinct from the general fellmongering. Within
a long shed are five coppers, each containing, on
an average, 250 "sets," a set being the com-
plement of the sheep's feet, four. Two of these
coppers, on my visit, were devoted to the scald-
ing, and three to the boiling of the trotters.
They looked like what one might imagine to be
witches' big caldrons; seething, hissing, boil-
ing, and throwing forth a steam not peculiarly
grateful to the nostrils of the uninitiated. Thus
there are, weekly, "cooking" in one form or
other, the feet of 20,000 sheep for the consump-
tion of the poorer classes, or as a relish for those
whose stomachs crave after edibles of this de-
scription. At one extremity of this shed are
the boys, who work in a place open at the side,
but the flues and fires make all parts sufficiently
warm. The women have a place to themselves
on the opposite side of the yard. The room
where they work has forms running along its
sides, and each woman has a sort of bench in
front of her seat, on which she scrapes the
trotters. One of the best of these workwomen
can scrape 150 sets, or 600 feet in a day, but
the average of the work is 500 sets a week,
including women and girls. I saw no girls but
what seemed above seventeen or eighteen, and
none of the women were old. They were exceed-
ingly merry, laughing and chatting, and appear-
ing to consider that a listener was not of primary
consequence, as they talked pretty much alto-
gether. I saw none but what were decently
dressed, some were good-looking, and none
seemed sickly.

In this establishment are prepared, weekly,
20,000 sets, or 80,000 feet; a yearly average of
4,160,000 trotters, or the feet of 1,040,000 sheep.
Of this quantity the street-folk buy seven-
eighths; 3,640,000 trotters yearly, or 70,000
weekly. The number of sheep trotter-sellers
may be taken at 300, which gives an average of
nearly sixty sets a week per individual.

The wholesale price, at the "trotter yard," is
five a penny, which gives an outlay by the
street-sellers of 3,031l. 11s. yearly.

But this is not the whole of the trade.
Lamb's trotters are also prepared, but only to
one-twentieth of the quantity of sheep's trotters,
and that for only three months of the year.
These are all sold to the street-sellers. The
lamb's foot is usually left appended to the
leg and shoulder of lamb. It is weighed with
the joint, but the butcher's man or boy will say
to the purchaser: "Do you want the foot?"
As the answer is usually in the negative, it is at
once cut off and forms a "perquisite." There
are some half dozen men, journeymen butchers
not fully employed, who collect these feet, pre-
pare and sell them to the street-people, but as
the lamb's feet are very seldom as fresh as those
of the sheep carried direct from the skin market
to — so to speak — the great trotter kitchen, the
demand for "lamb's" falls off yearly. Last
year the sale may be taken at about 14,000 sets,
selling, wholesale, at about 46l., the same price
as the sheep.

The sellers of trotters, who are stationary at
publichouse and theatre doors, and at street
corners, and itinerant, but itinerant chiefly from
one public house to another are a wretchedly
poor class. Three fourths of them are elderly
women and children, the great majority being
Irish people, and there are more boys than girls
in the trade. The capital required to start in
the business is very small. A hand basket of
the larger size costs 1s. 9d., but smaller or
second-hand only 1s., and the white cotton cloth
on which the trotters are displayed costs 4d. or
6d.; stock-money need not exceed 1s., so that
3s. is all that is required. This is one reason,
I heard from several trotter-sellers, why the
business is over-peopled.