 | OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF EATABLES AND DRINKABLES. London Labour and the London Poor, volume 1 |  |
OF THE STREET SALE OF SWEET-STUFF.
In this sale there are now engaged, as one of
the most intelligent of the class calculated,
200 individuals, exclusive of twenty or thirty
Jew boys. The majority of the sellers are also
the manufacturers of the articles they vend.
They have all been brought up to the calling,
their parents having been in it, or having been
artizans (more especially bakers) who have
adopted it for some of the general reasons I
have before assigned. The non-makers buy of
the cheap confectioners.
The articles now vended do not differ mate-
rially, I am informed by men who have known
the street trade for forty years, from those
which were in demand when they began selling
in the streets.
A very intelligent man, who had succeeded
his father and mother in the "sweet-stuff"
business — his father's drunkenness having kept
them in continual poverty — showed me his ap-
paratus, and explained his mode of work. His
room, which was on the second-floor of a house
in a busy thoroughfare, had what I have fre-
quently noticed in the abodes of the working
classes — the decency of a turn-up bedstead. It
was a large apartment, the rent being 3s. 6d. a
week, unfurnished. The room was cheerful with
birds, of which there were ten or twelve. A re-
markably fine thrush was hopping in a large
wicker cage, while linnets and bullfinches
showed their quick bright eyes from smaller
cages on all sides. These were not kept for
sale but for amusement, their owner being
seldom able to leave his room. The father and
mother of this man cleared, twenty years ago,
although at that time sugar was 6d. or 7d.
the pound, from 2l. to 3l. a week by the sale
of sweet-stuff; half by keeping a stall, and
half by supplying small shops or other stall-
keepers. My present informant, however, who
has — not the best — but one of the best busi-
nesses in London, makes 24s. or 25s. a week
from October to May, and sarcely 12s. a week
during the summer months, "when people love
to buy any cool fresh fruit instead of sweet-
stuff." The average profits of the generality of
the trade do not perhaps exceed 10s. 6d. or
12s. a week, take the year round. They reside
in all parts.
Treacle and sugar are the ground-work of the
manufacture of all kinds of sweet-stuff. "Hard-
bake," "almond toffy," "halfpenny lollipops,"
"black balls," the cheaper "bulls eyes," and
"squibs" are all made of treacle. One in-
formant sold more of treacle rock than of any-
thing else, as it was dispensed in larger half-
pennyworths, and no one else made it in the
same way. Of peppermint rock and sticks he
made a good quantity. Half-a-crown's worth,
as retailed in the streets, requires 4 lbs. of rough
raw sugar at 4¼d. per lb., 1½d. for scent (essence
of peppermint), 1½d. for firing, and ½d. for
paper — in all 1s. 8½d. calculating nothing for
the labour and time expended in boiling and
making it. The profit on the other things was
proportionate, except on almond rock, which
does not leave 2½d. in a shilling — almonds
being dear. Brandy balls are made of sugar,
water, peppermint, and a little cinnamon. Rose
acid, which is a "transparent" sweet, is com-
posed of loaf sugar at 6½d. per lb., coloured
with cochineal. The articles sold in "sticks"
are pulled into form along a hook until they
present the whitish, or speckled colour desired.
A quarter of a stone of materials will, for
instance, be boiled for forty minutes, and then
pulled a quarter of an hour, until it is suffi-
ciently crisp and will "set" without waste. The
flavouring — or "scent" as I heard it called in
the trade — now most in demand is peppermint.
Gibraltar rock and Wellington pillars used to
be flavoured with ginger, but these "sweeties"
are exploded.
Dr. Pereria, in his "Treatise on Diet," enu-
merates as many as ten different varieties and
preparations of sugar used for dietetical pur-
poses. These are (1) purified or refined sugar;
(2) brown or raw sugar; (3) molasses or treacle
— or fluid sugar; (4) aqueous solutions of su-
gar — or syrups; (5) boiled sugars, or the softer
kinds of confectionary; (6) sugar-candy, or
crystallized cane sugar; (7) burnt sugar, or
caramel; (8) hard confectionary; (9) liquorice;
(10) preserves. The fifth and eighth varieties
alone concern us here.
Of the several preparations of boiled sugar,
the Doctor thus speaks, "If a small quan-
tity of water be added to sugar, the mixture
heated until the sugar dissolves, and the solu-
tion boiled to drive off part of the water,
the tendency of the sugar to crystallise is
diminished, or, in some cases, totally destroyed.
To promote this effect, confectioners sometimes
add a small portion of cream of tartar to the
solution while boiling. Sugar, thus altered by
heat, and sometimes variously flavoured, con-
stitutes several preparations sold by the confec-
tioner. Barley-sugar and acidulated drops are
prepared in this way from white sugar: pow-
dered tartaric acid being added to the sugar
while soft. Hardbake and toffee are made by
a similar process from brown sugar. Toffee
differs from hardbake from containing butter.
[Description: 915EAF. Page 204.]
with which pastrycooks decorate their tarts,
&c., are prepared in the same way. If the
boiled and yet soft sugar be rapidly and re-
peatedly extended, and pulled over a hook, it
becomes opaque and white, and then constitutes
pulled sugar, or penides. Pulled sugar, variously
flavoured and coloured, is sold in several forms
by the prepares of hard confectionary.
"Concerning this hard confectionary," Dr.
Pereira says, "sugar constitutes the base of an
almost innumerable variety of hard confection-
ary, sold under the names of lozenges, bril-
liants, pipe, rock, comfits, nonpareils, &c. Besides
sugar, these preparations contain some flavour-
ing ingredient, as well as flour or gum, to give
them cohesiveness, and frequently colouring
matter. Carraway, fruits, almonds, and pine
seeds, constitute the nuclei of some of these
preparations."
One of the appliances of the street sweet-
stuff trade which I saw in the room of the
seller before mentioned was — Acts of Parlia-
ment. A pile of these, a foot or more deep, lay
on a shelf. They are used to wrap up the rock,
&c., sold. The sweet-stuff maker (I never heard
them called confectioners) bought his "paper"
of the stationers, or at the old book-shops.
Sometimes, he said, he got works in this way
in sheets which had never been cut (some he
feared were stolen,) and which he retained to read
at his short intervals of leisure, and then used
to wrap his goods in. In this way he had read
through two Histories of England! He main-
tained a wife, two young children, and a young
sister, who could attend to the stall; his wife
assisted him in his manufactures. He used
1 cwt. of sugar a week on the year's average,
½ cwt. of treacle, and 5 oz. of scents, each 8d.
an oz.
The man who has the best trade in London
streets, is one who, about two years ago, intro-
duced — after much study, I was told — short
sentences into his "sticks." He boasts of his
secret. When snapped asunder, in any part,
the stick presents a sort of coloured inscription.
The four I saw were: "Do you love me?" The
next was of less touching character, "Do you
love sprats?" The others were, "Lord Mayor's
Day," and "Sir Robert Peel." This man's
profits are twice those of my respectable infor-
mant's.
| OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF EATABLES AND DRINKABLES. London Labour and the London Poor, volume 1 | |