University of Virginia Library

2. OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF FISH.

OF THE KIND AND QUANTITIES OF FISH
SOLD BY THE LONDON COSTERMONGERS.

Having now given the reader a general view of
the numbers, characters, habits, tastes, amuse-
ments, language, opinions, earnings, and vicissi-
tudes of the London costermongers, — having de-
scribed their usual style of dress, diet, homes,
conveyances, and street-markets, — having ex-
plained where their donkeys are bought, or
the terms on which they borrow them, their
barrows, their stock-money, and occasionally
their stock itself, — having shown their ordinary
mode of dealing, either in person or by deputy,

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either at half-profits or by means of boys, —
where they go and how they manage on their
rounds in town and in the country, — what are
the laws affecting them, as well as the operation
of those laws upon the rest of the community, —
having done all this by way of giving the reader
a general knowledge of the street-sellers of fish,
fruit, and vegetables, — I now proceed to treat
more particularly of each of these classes
seriatim. Beginning with the street-fishmongers,
I shall describe, in due order, the season when,
the market where, and the classes of people by
whom, the wet-fish, the dry-fish, and the shell-
fish are severally sold and purchased in the
London streets, together with all other con-
comitant circumstances.

The facilities of railway conveyance, by
means of which fish can be sent from the coast
to the capital with much greater rapidity, and
therefore be received much fresher than was
formerly the case, have brought large supplies
to London from places that before contributed
no quantity to the market, and so induced, as I
heard in all quarters at Billingsgate, an extra-
ordinary lowness of price in this species of diet.
This cheap food, through the agency of the
costermongers, is conveyed to every poor man's
door, both in the thickly-crowded streets where
the poor reside — a family at least in a room
— in the vicinity of Drury-lane and of White-
chapel, in Westminster, Bethnal-green, and St.
Giles's, and through the long miles of the
suburbs. For all low-priced fish the poor are the
costermongers' best customers, and a fish diet
seems becoming almost as common among the
ill-paid classes of London, as is a potato diet
among the peasants of Ireland. Indeed, now,
the fish season of the poor never, or rarely, knows
an interruption. If fresh herrings are not in the
market, there are sprats; and if not sprats, there
are soles, or whitings, or mackarel, or plaice.

The rooms of the very neediest of our needy
metropolitan population, always smell of fish;
most frequently of herrings. So much so,
indeed, that to those who, like myself, have
been in the habit of visiting their dwellings, the
smell of herrings, even in comfortable homes,
savours from association, so strongly of squalor
and wretchedness, as to be often most oppres-
sive. The volatile oil of the fish seems to
hang about the walls and beams of the rooms
for ever. Those who have experienced the smell
of fish only in a well-ordered kitchen, can form
no adequate notion of this stench, in perhaps a
dilapidated and ill-drained house, and in a
rarely-cleaned room; and I have many a time
heard both husband and wife — one couple espe-
cially, who were "sweating" for a gorgeous
clothes' emporium — say that they had not time
to be clean.

The costermonger supplies the poor with
every kind of fish, for he deals, usually, in
every kind when it is cheap. Some confine
their dealings to such things as shrimps, or
periwinkles, but the adhering to one particular
article is the exception and not the rule; while
shrimps, lobsters, &c., are rarely bought by the
very poor. Of the entire quantity of fish sent
to Billingsgate-market, the costermongers, sta-
tionary and itinerant, may be said to sell one-
third, taking one kind with another.

The fish sent to London is known to Billings-
gate salesmen as "red" and "white" fish. The
red fish is, as regards the metropolitan mart,
confined to the salmon. The other descrip-
tions are known as "white." The coster-
mongers classify the fish they vend as "wet"
and "dry." All fresh fish is "wet;" all
cured or salted fish, "dry." The fish which
is sold "pickled," is known by that appellation,
but its street sale is insignificant. The principal
fish-staple, so to speak of the street-fishmonger,
is soles, which are in supply all, or nearly all,
the year. The next are herrings, mackarel,
whitings, Dutch eels, and plaice. The trade in
plaice and sprats is almost entirely in the
hands of the costermongers; their sale of
shrimps is nearer a half than a third of the
entire quantity sent to Billingsgate; but their
purchase of cod, or of the best lobsters, or crabs,
is far below a third. The costermonger rarely
buys turbot, or brill, or even salmon, unless
he can retail it at 6d. the pound. When it
is at that price, a street salmon-seller told me
that the eagerness to buy it was extreme. He
had known persons, who appeared to him to
be very poor, buy a pound of salmon, "just for
a treat once in a way." His best, or rather
readiest customers — for at 6d. a pound all
classes of the community may be said to be his
purchasers — were the shopkeepers of the busier
parts, and the occupants of the smaller private
houses of the suburbs. During the past year
salmon was scarce and dear, and the coster-
mongers bought, comparatively, none of it. In
a tolerably cheap season they do not sell more
than from a fifteenth to a twentieth of the quan-
tity received at Billingsgate.

In order to be able to arrive at the quantity
or weight of the several kinds of fish sold by
the costermongers in the streets of London, it is
necessary that we should know the entire
amount sent to Billingsgate-market, for it is
only by estimating the proportion which the
street-sale bears to the whole, that we can
attain even an approximation to the truth.
The following Table gives the results of certain
information collected by myself for the first
time, I believe, in this country. The facts,
as well as the estimated proportions of each
kind of fish sold by the costermongers, have
been furnished me by the most eminent of the
Billingsgate salesmen — gentlemen to whom I
am under many obligations for their kindness,
consideration, and assistance, at all times and
seasons.

OF THE COSTERMONGERS' FISH SEASON.

The season for the street-fishmongers begins
about October and ends in May.

In October, or a month or two earlier, may-be,
they generally deal in fresh herrings, the supply
of which lasts up to about the middle or end of
November. This is about the best season. The
herrings are sold to the poor, upon an average,
at twelve a groat, or from 3s. to 4s. the hundred.
After or during November, the sprat and plaice
season begins. The regular street-fishmonger,
however, seldom deals in sprats. He "works"
these only when there is no other fish to be got.
He generally considers this trade beneath him,
and more fit for women than men. Those costers
who do sell them dispose of them now by weight
at the rate of 1d. to 2d. the pound — a bushel ave-
raging from 40 to 50 pounds. The plaice season
continues to the first or second week in May. Dur-
ing May the casualty season is on, and there is
little fish certain from that time till salmon
comes in, and this is about the end of the month.
The salmon season lasts till about the middle of
July. The selling of salmon is a bad trade in
the poor districts, but a very good one in the
better streets or the suburbs. At this work the
street-fishmonger will sometimes earn on a fine
day from 5s. to 12s. The losses, however, are
very great in this article if the weather prove
bad. If kept at all "over" it loses its colour,
and turns to a pale red, which is seen immedi-
ately the knife goes into the fish. While I was
obtaining this information some months back, a
man went past the window of the house in which
I was seated, with a barrow drawn by a donkey.
He was crying, "Fresh cod, oh! 1½d. a pound,
cod alive, oh!" My informant called me to the

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window, saying, "Now, here is what we call
rough cod." He told me it was three days old.
He thought it was eatable then, he said. The
eyes were dull and heavy and sunken, and the
limp tails of the fish dangled over the ends of the
barrow. He said it was a hanging market that
day — that is to say, things had been dear, and
the costers couldn't pay the price for them. He
should fancy, he told me, the man had paid for
the fish from 9d. to 1s. each, which was at the
rate of 1d. per pound. He was calling them at
1½d. He would not take less than this until he
had "got his own money in;" and then, proba-
bly, if he had one or two of the fish left, he would
put up with 1d. per pound. The weight he was
"working" was 12 oz. to the pound. My inform-
ant assured me he knew this, because he had
borrowed his 12 oz. pound weight that morning.
This, with the draught of 2 oz. in the weighing-
machine, and the ounce gained by placing the
fish at the end of the pan, would bring the actual
weight given to 9 oz. per pound, and probably,
he said the man had even a lighter pound weight
in his barrow ready for a "scaly" customer.

After the street-fishmonger has done his
morning's work, he sometimes goes out with
his tub of pickled salmon on a barrow or stall,
and sells it in saucers at 1d. each, or by the
piece. This he calls as "fine Newcastle salmon."
There is generally a great sale for this at the
races; and if country-people begin with a penny-
worth they end with a shillingsworth — a penny-
worth, the costers say, makes a fool of the mouth.
If they have any on hand, and a little stale, at
the end of the week, they sell it at the public-
houses to the "Lushingtons," and to them, with
plenty of vinegar, it goes down sweet. It is gene-
rally bought for 7s. a kit, a little bit "pricked:"
but, if good, the price is from 12s. to 18s. "We're
in no ways particular to that," said one candid
coster to me. "We don't have the eating on it
ourselves, and people a'n't always got their taste,
especially when they have been drinking, and we
sell a great deal to parties in that way. We
think it no sin to cheat 'em of 1d. while the pub-
licans takes 1s."

Towards the middle of June the street-fish-
monger looks for mackerel, and he is gene-
rally employed in selling this fish up to the
end of July. After July the Billingsgate season
is said to be finished. From this time to the
middle of October, when the herrings return,
he is mostly engaged selling dried haddocks and
red herrings, and other "cas'alty fish that may
come across him." Many of the street-fish-
mongers object to deal in periwinkles, or stewed
mussels, or boiled whelks, because, being accus-
tomed to take their money in sixpences at a time,
they do not like, they say, to traffic in halfpenny-
worths. The dealers in these articles are gene-
rally looked upon as an inferior class.

There are, during the day, two periods for the
sale of street-fish — the one (the morning trade)
beginning about ten, and lasting till one in the
day — and the other (the night trade) lasting from
six in the evening up to ten at night. What fish
is left in the forenoon is generally disposed of
cheap at night. That sold at the latter time is
generally used by the working-class for supper,
or kept by them with a little salt in a cool place
for the next day's dinner, if it will last as long.
Several articles are sold by the street-fishmonger
chiefly by night. These are oysters, lobsters,
pickled salmon, stewed mussels, and the like.
The reason why the latter articles sell better
by night is, my informant says, "Because
people are lofty-minded, and don't like to be
seen eating on 'em in the street in the day-time."
Shrimps and winkles are the staple commodities
of the afternoon trade, which lasts from three to
half-past five in the evening. These articles are
generally bought by the working-classes for their
tea.

BILLINGSGATE.

To see this market in its busiest costermonger
time, the visitor should be there about seven
o'clock on a Friday morning. The marke opens
at four, but for the first two or three hours,
it is attended solely by the regular fishmongers
and "bummarees" who have the pick of the
best there. As soon as these are gone, the
costers' sale begins.

Many of the costers that usually deal in
vegetables, buy a little fish on the Friday. It
is the fast day of the Irish, and the mechanics'
wives run short of money at the end of the
week, and so make up their dinners with fish;
for this reason the attendance of costers' bar-
rows at Billingsgate on a Friday morning is
always very great. As soon as you reach the
Monument you see a line of them, with one or
two tall fishmonger's carts breaking the uni-
formity, and the din of the cries and commotion
of the distant market, begins to break on the ear
like the buzzing of a hornet's nest. The whole
neighbourhood is covered with the hand-barrows,
some laden with baskets, others with sacks. Yet
as you walk along, a fresh line of costers' barrows
are creeping in or being backed into almost im-
possible openings; until at every turning nothing
but donkeys and rails are to be seen. The morn-
ing air is filled with a kind of seaweedy odour,
reminding one of the sea-shore; and on entering
the market, the smell of fish, of whelks, red
herrings, sprats, and a hundred others, is almost
overpowering.

The wooden barn-looking square where the
fish is sold, is soon after six o'clock crowded with
shiny cord jackets and greasy caps. Every-
body comes to Billingsgate in his worst clothes,
and no one knows the length of time a coat can
be worn until they have been to a fish sale.
Through the bright opening at the end are
seen the tangled rigging of the oyster-boats
and the red worsted caps of the sailors. Over
the hum of voices is heard the shouts of the
salesmen, who, with their white aprons, peering
above the heads of the mob, stand on their
tables, roaring out their prices.

All are bawling together — salesmen and huck-
sters of provisions, capes, hardware, and newspa-

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pers — till the place is a perfect Babel of com-
petition. "Ha-a-ansome cod! best in the
market! All alive! alive! alive O!" "Ye-o-o!
Ye-o-o! here's your fine Yarmouth bloaters!
Who's the buyer?" "Here you are, governor,
splendid whiting! some of the right sort!"
"Turbot! turbot! all alive! turbot!" "Glass of
nice peppermint! this cold morning a ha'penny
a glass!" "Here you are at your own price!
Fine soles, O!" "Oy! oy! oy! Now's your
time! fine grizzling sprats! all large and no
small!" "Hullo! hullo here! beautiful lob-
sters! good and cheap! fine cock crabs all alive
O!" "Five brill and one turbot — have that
lot for a pound! Come and look at 'em, go-
vernor; you wont see a better sample in the
market." "Here, this way! this way for splen-
did skate! skate O! skate O!" "Had — had
— had — had — haddick! all fresh and good!"
"Currant and meat puddings! a ha'penny
each!" "Now, you mussel-buyers, come
along! come along! come along! now's your
time for fine fat mussels!" "Here's food for
the belly, and clothes for the back, but I sell
food for the mind" (shouts the newsvender).
"Here's smelt O!" "Here ye are, fine Finney
haddick!" "Hot soup! nice peas-soup! a-all
hot! hot!" "Ahoy! ahoy here! live plaice!
all alive O!" "Now or never! whelk! whelk!
whelk!" "Who'll buy brill O! brill O!"
"Capes! water-proof capes! sure to keep the
wet out! a shilling a piece!" "Eels O! eels O!
Alive! alive O!" "Fine flounders, a shilling
a lot! Who'll have this prime lot of floun-
ders?" "Shrimps! shrimps! fine shrimps!"
"Wink! wink! wink!" "Hi! hi-i! here you
are, just eight eels left, only eight!" "O ho!
O ho! this way — this way — this way! Fish
alive! alive! alive O!"

In the darkness of the shed, the white bellies
of the turbots, strung up bow-fashion, shine like
mother-of-pearl, while, the lobsters, lying upon
them, look intensely scarlet, from the contrast.
Brown baskets piled up on one another, and
with the herring-scales glittering like spangles
all over them, block up the narrow paths.
Men in coarse canvas jackets, and bending under
huge hampers, push past, shouting "Move on!
move on, there!" and women, with the long limp
tails of cod-fish dangling from their aprons, elbow
their way through the crowd. Round the auc-
tion-tables stand groups of men turning over
the piles of soles, and throwing them down till
they slide about in their slime; some are smell-
ing them, while others are counting the lots.
"There, that lot of soles are worth your money,"
cries the salesman to one of the crowd as he
moves on leisurely; "none better in the market.
You shall have 'em for a pound and half-a-
crown." "Oh!" shouts another salesman, "it's
no use to bother him — he's no go." Presently
a tall porter, with a black oyster-bag, staggers
past, trembling under the weight of his load,
his back and shoulders wet with the drippings
from the sack. "Shove on one side!" he mut-
ters from between his clenched teeth, as he forces
his way through the mob. Here is a tray of
reddish-brown shrimps piled up high, and the
owner busy sifting his little fish into another
stand, while a doubtful customer stands in front,
tasting the flavour of the stock and consult-
ing with his companion in speculation. Little
girls carrying matting-bags, that they have
brought from Spitalfields, come up, and ask you
in a begging voice to buy their baskets; and
women with bundles of twigs for stringing her-
rings, cry out, "Half-penny a bunch!" from all
sides. Then there are blue-black piles of small
live lobsters, moving about their bound-up
claws and long "feelers," one of them occa-
sionally being taken up by a looker-on, and
dashed down again, like a stone. Everywhere
every one is asking, "What's the price,
master?" while shouts of laughter from round
the stalls of the salesmen, bantering each other,
burst out, occasionally, over the murmuring
noise of the crowd. The transparent smelts
on the marble-slabs, and the bright herrings,
with the lump of transparent ice magnifying
their eyes like a lens, are seldom looked at
until the market is over, though the hampers
and piles of huge maids, dropping slime from
the counter, are eagerly examined and bartered
for.

One side of the market is set apart for
whelks. There they stand in sackfulls, with
the yellow shells piled up at the mouth, and
one or two of the fish, curling out like cork-
screws, placed as a sample. The coster slips
one of these from its shell, examines it, pushes
it back again, and then passes away, to look
well round the market. In one part the stones
are covered with herring-barrels, packed closely
with dried fish, and yellow heaps of stiff had-
dock rise up on all sides. Here a man walks
up with his knot on his shoulder, waiting for a
job to carry fish to the trucks. Boys in ragged
clothes, who have slept during the night under
a railway-arch, clamour for employment; while
the heads of those returning from the oyster-
boats, rise slowly up the stone sides of the
wharf.

The costermongers have nicknamed the long
row of oyster boats moored close alongside the
wharf "Oyster-street." On looking down the
line of tangled ropes and masts, it seems as
though the little boats would sink with the crowds
of men and women thronged together on their
decks. It is as busy a scene as one can well
behold. Each boat has its black sign-board,
and salesman in his white apron walking up
and down "his shop," and on each deck is a
bright pewter pot and tin-covered plate, the
remains of the salesman's breakfast. "Who's for
Baker's?" "Who's for Archer's?" "Who'll have
Alston's?" shout the oyster-merchants, and the
red cap of the man in the hold bobs up and
down as he rattles the shells about with his
spade. These holds are filled with oysters — a
gray mass of sand and shell — on which is a bushel
measure well piled up in the centre, while some
of them have a blue muddy heap of mussels

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divided off from the "natives." The sailors in
their striped guernseys sit on the boat sides
smoking their morning's pipe, allowing them-
selves to be tempted by the Jew boys with cloth
caps, old shoes, and silk handkerchiefs. Lads
with bundles of whips skip from one boat to
another, and, seedy-looking mechanics, with
handfuls of tin fancy goods, hover about the
salesmen, who are the principal supporters of
this trade. The place has somewhat the
appearance of a little Holywell-street; for the
old clothes' trade is entirely in the hands of
the Jew boys, and coats, caps, hats, umbrellas,
and old shoes, are shouted out in a rich nasal
twang on all sides.

Passing by a man and his wife who were
breakfasting on the stone coping, I went to the
shore where the watermen ply for passengers to
the eel boats. Here I found a crowd of punts,
half filled with flounders, and small closely-
packed baskets of them ranged along the seats.
The lads, who act as jacks-in-the-water, were
busy feeling in the mud for the fish that had
fallen over board, little caring for the water that
dashed over their red swollen feet. Presently a
boat, piled up with baskets, shot in, grazing the
bottom, and men and women, blue with the cold
morning air, stepped out.

The Dutch built eel-boats, with their bulging
polished oak sides, were half-hidden in the river
mist. They were surrounded by skiffs, that ply
from the Surrey and Middlesex shores, and
wait whilst the fares buy their fish. The holds
of these eel-boats are fitted up with long tanks of
muddy water, and the heads of the eels are seen
breathing on the surface — a thick brown bubble
rising slowly, and floating to the sides. Wooden
sabots and large porcelain pipes are ranged
round the ledges, and men in tall fur caps with
high check bones, and rings in their ears, walk
the decks. At the stern of one boat was moored
a coffin-shaped barge pierced with holes, and
hanging in the water were baskets, shaped like
olive jars — both to keep the stock of fish alive
and fresh. In the centre of the boat stood the
scales, — a tall heavy apparatus, one side fitted up
with the conical net-bag to hold the eels, and
the other with the weights, and pieces of stone
to make up for the extra draught of the water
hanging about the fish. When a skiff load of
purchasers arrives, the master Dutchman takes
his hands from his pockets, lays down his pipe,
and seizing a sort of long-handled landing-net
scoops from the tank a lot of eels. The pur-
chasers examine them, and try to beat down the
price. "You calls them eels do you?" said a man
with his bag ready opened. "Yeas," answered
the Dutchman without any show of indignation.
"Certainly, there is a few among them," conti-
nued the customer; and after a little more of this
kind of chaffering the bargain is struck.

The visitors to the eel-boats were of all
grades; one was a neatly-dressed girl to whom
the costers showed the utmost gallantry, calling
her "my dear," and helping her up the shining
sides of the boat; and many of the men had on
their blue serge apron, but these were only
where the prices were high. The greatest crowd
of customers is in the heavy barge alongside
of the Dutch craft. Here a stout sailor in his
red woollen shirt, and canvass petticoat, is sur-
rounded by the most miserable and poorest of
fish purchasers — the men with their crushed
hats, tattered coats, and unshorn chins, and the
women with their pads on their bonnets, and
brown ragged gowns blowing in the breeze. One,
in an old table-cover shawl, was beating her
palms together before the unmoved Dutchman,
fighting for an abatement, and showing her
stock of halfpence. Others were seated round
the barge, sorting their lots in their shallows,
and sanding the fish till they were quite yellow.
Others, again, were crowding round the scales
narrowly watching the balance, and then beg-
ging for a few dead eels to make up any doubt-
ful weight.

As you walk back from the shore to the
market, you see small groups of men and
women dividing the lot of fish they have bought
together. At one basket, a coster, as you pass,
calls to you, and says, "Here, master, just put
these three halfpence on these three cod, and
obleege a party." The coins are placed, and
each one takes the fish his coin is on; and so
there is no dispute.

At length nearly all the busy marketing has
finished, and the costers hurry to breakfast. At
one house, known as "Rodway's Coffee-house,"
a man can have a meal for 1d. — a mug of hot
coffee and two slices of bread and butter, while for
two-pence what is elegantly termed "a tight-
ner," that is to say, a most plentiful repast, may
be obtained. Here was a large room, with tables
all round, and so extremely silent, that the smack-
all of lips and sipping of coffee were alone heard.
Upwards of 1,500 men breakfast here in the
course of the morning, many of them taking as
many as three such meals. On the counter was
a pile of white mugs, and the bright tin cans
stood beside the blazing fire, whilst Rodway
himself sat at a kind of dresser, cutting up and
buttering the bread, with marvellous rapidity.
It was a clean, orderly, and excellent establish-
ment, kept by a man, I was told, who had risen
from a saloop stall.

Opposite to the Coal Exchange were ranged
the stalls and barrows with the street eatables,
and the crowds round each showed the effects of
the sharp morning air. One — a Jew's — had hot-
pies with lids that rose as the gravy was poured
in from an oil can; another carried a stone jar of
peppermint-water, at ½d. a glass; and the pea-
soup stand was hemmed in by boys and men
blowing the steam from their cups. Beside
these were Jews with cloth caps and knives, and
square yellow cakes; one old man, in a cor-
ner, stood examining a thread-bare scarf that
a cravatless coster had handed to him. Coffee-
stalls were in great plenty; and men left their
barrows to run up and have "an oyster," or
"an 'ot heel." One man here makes his living
by selling sheets of old newspapers, at ½d. each,

[Description: 915EAF. Page 067.]

for the costers to dress their trays with. Though
seemingly rather out of place, there was a Mosaic
jewellery stand; old umbrellas, too, were far from
scarce; and one had brought a horse-hair stool
for sale.

Everybody was soon busy laying out their
stock. The wrinkled dull-eyed cod was freshened
up, the red-headed gurnet placed in rows, the
eels prevented from writhing over the basket
sides by cabbage-leaves, and the soles paired off
like gloves. Then the little trucks began to
leave, crawling, as it were, between the legs of the
horses in the vans crowding Thames-street, and
plunging in between huge waggons, but still ap-
pearing safely on the other side; and the 4,000
costers who visit Billingsgate on the Friday
morning were shortly scattered throughout the
metropolis.

OF THE FORESTALLING OF MARKETS AND
THE BILLINGSGATE BUMMAREES.

"Forestalling," writes Adam Smith, "is the
buying or contracting for any cattle, provisions,
or merchandize, on its way to the market (or at
market), or dissuading persons from buying their
goods there, or persuading them to raise the
price, or spreading any false rumour with intent
to enhance the value of any article. In the
remoter periods of our history several statutes
were passed, prohibiting forestalling under severe
penalties; but as more enlarged views upon
such subjects began to prevail, their impolicy
became obvious, and they were consequently
repealed in 1772. But forestalling is still
punishable by fine and imprisonment; though
it be doubtful whether any jury would now
convict an individual accused of such prac-
tices."

In Billingsgate the "forestallers" or mid-
dlemen are known as "bummarees," who, as
regards means, are a far superior class to the
"hagglers" (the forestallers of the "green"
markets). The bummaree is the jobber or specu-
lator on the fish-exchange. Perhaps on every
busy morning 100 men buy a quantity of fish,
which they account likely to be remunerative,
and retail it, or dispose of it in lots to the fish-
mongers or costermongers. Few if any of these
dealers, however, are merely bummarees. A
salesman, if he have disposed of the fish consigned
to himself, will turn bummaree if any bargain
tempt him. Or a fishmonger may purchase
twice the quantity he requires for his own
trade, in order to procure a cheaper stock, and
"bummaree" what he does not require. These
speculations in fish are far more hazardous than
those in fruit or vegetables, for later in the day
a large consignment by railway may reach Bil-
lingsgate, and, being thrown upon the market,
may reduce the price one half. In the vegetable
and fruit markets there is but one arrival.
The costermongers are among the best cus-
tomers of the bummarees.

I asked several parties as to the origin of
the word "bummaree," and how long it had
been in use. "Why, bless your soul, sir,"
said one Billingsgate labourer, "there always
was bummarees, and there always will be; just
as Jack there is a `rough,' and I'm a blessed
`bobber."' One man assured me it was a French
name; another that it was Dutch. A fish-
monger, to whom I was indebted for informa-
tion, told me he thought that the bummaree
was originally a bum-boat man, who purchased
of the wind-bound smacks at Gravesend or the
Nore, and sent the fish up rapidly to the mar-
ket by land.

I may add, as an instance of the probable
gains of the forestallers, in the olden time, that
a tradesman whose family had been long con-
nected with Billingsgate, showed me by his pre-
decessors' books and memoranda, that in the
depth of winter, when the Thames was perhaps
choked with ice, and no supply of fish "got up"
to London, any, that might, by management,
reach Billingsgate used to command exorbitant
prices. To speak only of the present century:
March 11th, 1802, a cod fish (8 lbs.) was bought
by Messrs. Phillips and Robertson, fishmongers,
Bond-street, for 1l. 8s. February, 1809, a salmon
(19 lbs.) was bought by Mr. Phillips at a guinea
a pound, 19l. 19s. for the fish! March 24th,
1824, three lobsters were sold for a guinea each.

The "haggler," I may here observe, is the
bummaree or forestaller or middleman of the green
markets; as far as the costermonger's trade is
concerned, he deals in fruit and vegetables. Of
these trafficers there are fully 200 in Covent-
garden-market; from 60 to 70 in Farringdon;
from 40 to 50 in the Borough; from 50 to 60
in Spitalfields; and none in Portman-market;
such being the only wholesale green-markets
for the purposes of the costermongers. The
haggler is a middleman who makes his pur-
chases of the growers when the day is some-
what advanced, and the whole produce con-
veyed to the market has not been disposed of.
The grower will then, rather than be detained
in town, sell the whole lot remaining in his
cart or wagon to a haggler, who re-sells it to
the costers, or to any other customer, from a
stand which he hires by the day. The cos-
termongers who are the most provident, and
either have means or club their resources for a
large purchase, often buy early in the morning,
and so have the advantage of anticipating their
fellows in the street-trade, with the day before
them. Those who buy later are the customers
of the hagglers, and are street-sellers, whose
means do not command an extensive purchase,
or who do not care to venture upon one unless
it be very cheap. These men speak very bitterly
of the hagglers, calling them "cracked-up shop-
keepers" and "scurfs," and declaring that but
for them the growers must remain, and sell off
their produce cheap to the costermongers.

A species of forestalling is now not uncom-
mon, and is on the increase among the coster-
mongers themselves. There are four men,
having the command of money, who attend
the markets and buy either fish or vegetables
largely. One man especially buys almost daily

[Description: 915EAF. Page 068.]

as much fruit and vegetables as will supply
thirty street-dealers. He adds 3d. a bushel
to the wholesale market price of apples; 6d. to that of pears; 9d. to plums; and 1s. to
cherries. A purchaser can thus get a smaller
quantity than he can always buy at market,
and avails himself of the opportunity.

Moreover, a good many of the more intelligent
street-dealers now club together — six of them,
for instance — contributing 15s. each, and a quan-
tity of fish is thus bought by one of their body (a
smaller contribution suffices to buy vegetables).
Perhaps, on an equal partition, each man thus
gets for his 15s. as much as might have cost him
20s., had he bought "single-handed." This
mode of purchase is also on the increase.

OF "WET" FISH-SELLERS IN THE STREETS.

Concerning the sale of "wet" or fresh fish, I
had the following account from a trustworthy
man, of considerable experience and superior
education:

"I have sold `wet fish' in the streets for more
than fourteen years," he said; "before that I
was a gentleman, and was brought up a gentle-
man, if I'm a beggar now. I bought fish largely
in the north of England once, and now I must
sell it in the streets of London. Never mind
talking about that, sir; there's some things
won't bear talking about. There's a wonderful
difference in the streets since I knew them first;
I could make a pound then, where I can hardly
make a crown now. People had more money,
and less meanness then. I consider that the rail-
ways have injured me, and all wet fish-sellers, to
a great extent. Fish now, you see, sir, comes in
at all hours, so that nobody can calculate on the
quantity that will be received — nobody. That's
the mischief of it; we are afraid to buy, and miss
many a chance of turning a penny. In my time,
since railways were in, I've seen cod-fish sold at
a guinea in the morning that were a shilling at
noon; for either the wind and the tide had
served, or else the railway fishing-places were
more than commonly supplied, and there was a
glut to London. There's no trade requires
greater judgment than mine — none whatever.
Before the railways — and I never could see the
good of them — the fish came in by the tide, and
we knew how to buy, for there would be no more
till next tide. Now, we don't know. I go to
Billingsgate to buy my fish, and am very well
known to Mr. — and Mr. — (mentioning
the names of some well-known salesmen). The
Jews are my ruin there now. When I go to
Billingsgate, Mr. — will say, or rather, I
will say to him, `How much for this pad of
soles?' He will answer, `Fourteen shillings.'
`Fourteen shillings!' I say, `I'll give you seven
shillings, — that's the proper amount;' then
the Jew boys — none of them twenty that are
there — ranged about will begin; and one says,
when I bid 7s., `I'll give 8s;' `nine,' says
another, close on my left; `ten,' shouts another,
on my right, and so they go offering on; at last
Mr. — says to one of them, as grave as a
judge, `Yours, sir, at 13s,' but it's all gammon.
The 13s. buyer isn't a buyer at all, and isn't
required to pay a farthing, and never touches
the goods. It's all done to keep up the price to
poor fishmen, and so to poor buyers that are
our customers in the streets. Money makes
money, and it don't matter how. Those Jew
boys — I dare say they're the same sort as once
sold oranges about the streets — are paid, I know
1s. for spending three or four hours that way in
the cold and wet. My trade has been injured,
too, by the great increase of Irish coster-
mongers; for an Irishman will starve out an
Englishman any day; besides if a tailor can't
live by his trade, he'll take to fish, or fruit
and cabbages. The month of May is a fine
season for plaice, which is bought very largely
by my customers. Plaice are sold at ½d. and
1d. a piece. It is a difficult fish to manage, and
in poor neighbourhoods an important one to
manage well. The old hands make a profit out
of it; new hands a loss. There's not much
cod or other wet fish sold to the poor, while plaice
is in. "My customers are poor men's wives,
— mechanics, I fancy. They want fish at most
unreasonable prices. If I could go and pull them
off a line flung off Waterloo-bridge, and no other
expense, I couldn't supply them as cheap as they
expect them. Very cheap fish-sellers lose their
customers, through the Billingsgate bummarees,
for they have pipes, and blow up the cod-fish,
most of all, and puff up their bellies till they
are twice the size, but when it comes to table,
there's hardly to say any fish at all. The Bil-
lingsgate authorities would soon stop it, if they
knew all I know. They won't allow any roguery,
or any trick, if they only come to hear of it.
These bummarees have caused many respectable
people to avoid street-buying, and so fair traders
like me are injured. I've nothing to complain of
about the police. Oft enough, if I could be al-
lowed ten minutes longer on a Saturday night,
I could get through all my stock without loss.
About a quarter to twelve I begin to halloo away
as hard as I can, and there's plenty of customers
that lay out never a farthing till that time, and
then they can't be served fast enough, so they
get their fish cheaper than I do. If any halloos
out that way sooner, we must all do the same.
Anything rather than keep fish over a warm
Sunday. I have kept mine in ice; I haven't
opportunity now, but it'll keep in a cool place
this time of year. I think there's as many
sellers as buyers in the streets, and there's scores
of them don't give just weight or measure. I
wish there was good moral rules in force, and
everybody gave proper weight. I often talk to
street-dealers about it. I've given them many a
lecture; but they say they only do what plenty
of shopkeepers do, and just get fined and go on
again, without being a pin the worse thought of.
They are abusive sometimes, too; I mean the
street-sellers are, because they are ignorant. I
have no children, thank God, and my wife helps
me in my business. Take the year through, I
clear from 10s. to 12s. every week. That's not

[Description: 915EAF. Page 069.]

much to support two people. Some weeks I earn
only 4s., — such as in wet March weather. In
others I earn 18s. or 1l. November, December,
and January are good months for me. I wouldn't
mind if they lasted all the year round. I'm
often very badly off indeed — very badly; and
the misery of being hard up, sir, is not when
you're making a struggle to get out of your
trouble; no, nor to raise a meal off herrings that
you've given away once, but when your wife and
you's sitting by a grate without a fire, and put-
ting the candle out to save it, a planning how to
raise money. `Can we borrow there?' `Can
we manage to sell if we can borrow?' `Shall
we get from very bad to the parish?' Then,
perhaps, there's a day lost, and without a bite in
our mouths trying to borrow. Let alone a little
drop to give a body courage, which perhaps is
the only good use of spirit after all. That's the
pinch, sir. When the rain you hear outside puts
you in mind of drownding!"

Subjoined is the amount (in round numbers)
of wet fish annually disposed of in the metro-
polis by the street-sellers:

                           

	No. of Fish.	lbs. weight.
Salmon	20,000	175,000
Live-cod	100,000	1,000,000
Soles	6,500,000	1,650,000
Whiting	4,440,000	1,680,000
Haddock	250,000	500,000
Plaice	29,400,000	29,400,000
Mackarel	15,700,000	15,700,000
Herrings	875,000,000	210,000,000
Sprats	"	3,000,000
Eels, from Holland	400,000	65,000
Flounders	260,000	43,000
Dabs	270,000	48,000
Total quantity of wet fish sold in the streets of London	932,340,000	263,281,000

From the above Table we perceive that the fish,
of which the greatest quantity is eaten by the
poor, is herrings; of this, compared with plaice
there is upwards of thirty times the number
consumed. After plaice rank mackerel, and of
these the consumption is about one-half less in
number than plaice, while the number of soles
vended in the streets, is again half of that of
mackerel. Then come whiting, which are
about two-thirds the number of the soles, while
the consumption to the poor of haddock, cod,
eels, and salmon, is comparatively insignificant.
Of sprats, which are estimated by weight, only
one-fifth of the number of pounds are consumed
compared with the weight of mackerel. The
pounds' weight of herrings sold in the streets, in
the course of a year, is upwards of seven times
that of plaice, and fourteen times that of
mackerel. Altogether more than 260,000,000
pounds, or 116,000 tons weight of wet fish are
yearly purchased in the streets of London, for
the consumption of the humbler classes. Of
this aggregate amount, no less than five-sixths
consists of herrings; which, indeed, constitute
the great slop diet of the metropolis.

OF SPRAT-SELLING IN THE STREETS.

Sprats — one of the cheapest and most grateful
luxuries of the poor — are generally introduced
about the 9th of November. Indeed "Lord
Mayor's day" is sometimes called "sprat day."
They continue in about ten weeks. They are
sold at Billingsgate by the "toss," or "chuck,"
which is about half a bushel, and weighs from
40lbs. to 50lbs. The price varies from 1s. to 5s. Sprats are, this season, pronounced remarkably
fine. "Look at my lot sir," said a street-seller
to me; "they're a heap of new silver," and the
bright shiny appearance of the glittering little
fish made the comparison not inappropriate.
In very few, if in any, instances does a
costermonger confine himself to the sale of
sprats, unless his means limit him to that one
branch of the business. A more prosperous
street-fishmonger will sometimes detach the
sprats from his stall, and his wife, or one of his
children will take charge of them. Only a few
sprat-sellers are itinerant, the fish being usually
sold by stationary street-sellers at "pitches."
One who worked his sprats through the streets,
or sold them from a stall as he thought best,
gave me the following account. He was dressed
in a newish fustian-jacket, buttoned close up his
chest, but showing a portion of a clean cotton
shirt at the neck, with a bright-coloured coarse
handkerchief round it; the rest of his dress was
covered by a white apron. His hair, as far as I
could see it under his cloth cap, was carefully
brushed, and (it appeared) as carefully oiled.
At the first glance I set him down as having
been a gentleman's servant. He had a some-
what deferential, though far from cringing
manner with him, and seemed to be about
twenty-five or twenty-six — he thought he was
older, he said, but did not know his age ex-
actly.

"Ah! sir," he began, in a tone according with
his look, "sprats is a blessing to the poor.
Fresh herrings is a blessing too, and sprats is
young herrings, and is a blessing in 'portion"
[for so he pronounced what seemed to be a
favourite word with him "proportion"]. "It's
only four years — yes, four, I'm sure of that —
since I walked the streets starving, in the depth
of winter, and looked at the sprats, and said, I
wish I could fill my belly off you. Sir, I hope
it was no great sin, but I could hardly keep my
hands from stealing some and eating them raw.
If they make me sick, thought I, the police 'll
take care of me, and that 'll be something.
While these thoughts was a passing through my
mind, I met a man who was a gentleman's
coachman; I knew him a little formerly, and so
I stopped him and told him who I was, and that
I hadn't had a meal for two days. `Well, by
G — ,' said the coachman, `you look like it,
why I shouldn't have known you. Here's a
shilling.' And then he went on a little way, and
then stopped, and turned back and thrust 3½d. more into my hand, and bolted off. I've never
seen him since. But I'm grateful to him in the

[Description: 915EAF. Page 070.]

same 'portion (proportion) as if I had. After I'd
had a penn'orth of bread and a penn'orth of
cheese, and half-a-pint of beer, I felt a new man,
and I went to the party as I'd longed to steal
the sprats from, and told him what I'd thought
of. I can't say what made me tell him, but
it turned out for good. I don't know much
about religion, though I can read a little, but
may be that had something to do with it."
The rest of the man's narrative was — briefly
told — as follows. He was the only child of
a gentleman's coachman His father had de-
serted his mother and him, and gone abroad, he
believed, with some family. His mother, how-
ever, took care of him until her death, which
happened "when he was a little turned thirteen,
he had heard, but could not remember the
year." After that he was "a helper and a
jobber in different stables," and "anybody's
boy," for a few years, until he got a footman's,
or rather footboy's place, which he kept above
a year. After that he was in service, in and out
of different situations, until the time he speci-
fied, when he had been out of place for nearly
five weeks, and was starving. His master had
got in difficulties, and had gone abroad; so he
was left without a character. "Well, sir," he
continued, "the man as I wanted to steal the
sprats from, says to me, says he, `Poor fellow;
I know what a hempty belly is myself — come
and have a pint.' And over that there pint, he
told me, if I could rise 10s. there might be a
chance for me in the streets, and he'd show me
how to do. He died not very long after that,
poor man. Well, after a little bit, I managed
to borrow 10s. of Mr. — (I thought of him
all of a sudden). He was butler in a family
that I had lived in, and had a charitable cha-
racter, though he was reckoned very proud.
But I plucked up a spirit, and told him how
I was off, and he said, `Well, I'll try you,'
and he lent me 10s., which I paid him back,
little by little, in six or eight weeks; and
so I started in the costermonger line, with the
advice of my friend, and I've made from 5s. to
10s., sometimes more, a week, at it ever since.
The police don't trouble me much. They is civil
to me in 'portion (proportion) as I am civil to
them. I never mixed with the costers but when
I've met them at market. I stay at a lodging-
house, but it's very decent and clean, and I have
a bed to myself, at 1s. a week, for I'm a regular
man. I'm on sprats now, you see, sir, and you'd
wonder, sometimes, to see how keen people looks
to them when they're new. They're a blessing
to the poor, in 'portion (proportion) of course.
Not twenty minutes before you spoke to me,
there was two poor women came up — they was
sickly-looking, but I don't know what they was
— perhaps shirt-makers — and they says to me,
says they, `Show us what a penny plateful is.'
`Sart'nly, ladies,' says I. Then they whispered
together, and at last one says, says she, `We'll
have two platefuls.' I told you they was a
blessing to the poor, sir — 'specially to such as
them, as lives all the year round on bread and
tea. But it's not only the poor as buys; others
in 'portion (proportion). When they're new
they're a treat to everybody. I've sold them
to poor working-men, who've said, `I'll take
a treat home to the old 'oman and the kids;
they dotes on sprats.' Gentlemen's servants
is very fond of them, and mechanics comes
down — such as shoemakers in their leather
aprons, and sings out, `Here, old sprats, give
us two penn'orth.' They're such a relish. I sell
more to men than to women, perhaps, but
there's little difference. They're best stewed,
sir, I think — if you're fond of sprats — with
vinegar and a pick of allspice; that's my opi-
nion, and, only yesterday, an old cook said I
was right. I makes 1s. 6d. to 2s. 6d. a day,
and sometimes rather more, on my sprats, and
sticks to them as much as I can. I sell about
my `toss' a day, seldom less. Of course I can
make as many penn'orths of it as I please,
but there's no custom without one gives mid-
dling penn'orths. If a toss costs me 3s., I
may make sixty penn'orths of it sometimes —
sometimes seventy or more — and sometimes
less than sixty. There's many turns over as
much as me and more than that. I'm think-
ing that I'll work the country with a lot;
they'll keep to a second day, when they're
fresh to start, 'specially if its frosty weather,
too, and then they're better than ever — yes,
and a greater treat — scalding hot from the fire,
they're the cheapest and best of all suppers in
the winter time. I hardly know which way I'll
go. If I can get anythink to do among horses
in the country, I'll never come back. I've no
tie to London."

To show how small a sum of money will enable
the struggling striving poor to obtain a living,
I may here mention that, in the course of my
inquiries among the mudlarks, I casually gave
a poor shoeless urchin, who was spoken of by
one of the City Missionaries as being a well-
disposed youth, 1s. out of the funds that had
been entrusted to me to dispense. Trifling as
the amount appears, it was the means of
keeping his mother, sister, and himself through
the winter. It was invested in sprats, and
turned over and over again.

I am informed, by the best authorities, that
near upon 1000 "tosses" of sprats are sold
daily in London streets, while the season lasts.
These, sold retail in pennyworths, at very
nearly 5s. the toss, give about 150l. a day, or
say 1,000l. a week spent on sprats by the poorer
classes of the metropolis; so that, calculating
the sprat season to last ten weeks, about 10,000l. would be taken by the costermongers during
that time from the sale of this fish alone.

Another return, furnished me by an eminent
salesman at Billingsgate, estimates the gross
quantity of sprats sold by the London costers
in the course of the season at three millions of
pounds weight, and this disposed of at the rate
of 1d. per pound, gives upwards of 12,000l. for
the sum of money spent upon this one kind
of fish.

OF SHELL-FISH SELLERS IN THE STREETS.

I had the following account from an experi-
enced man. He lived with his mother, his
wife, and four children, in one of the streets
near Gray's-inn-lane. The street was inha-
bited altogether by people of his class, the
women looking sharply out when a stranger
visited the place. On my first visit to this
man's room, his wife, who is near her confine-
ment, was at dinner with her children. The
time was ¼ to 12. The meal was tea, and
bread with butter very thinly spread over it.
On the wife's bread was a small piece of
pickled pork, covering about one-eighth of the
slice of a quartern loaf cut through. In one
corner of the room, which is on the ground-
floor, was a scantily-covered bed. A few
dingy-looking rags were hanging up to dry in
the middle of the room, which was littered with
baskets and boxes, mixed up with old furniture,
so that it was a difficulty to stir. The room
(although the paper, covering the broken panes
in the window, was torn and full of holes) was
most oppressively close and hot, and there
was a fetid smell, difficult to sustain, though
it was less noticeable on a subsequent call.
I have often had occasion to remark that the
poor, especially those who are much subjected
to cold in the open air, will sacrifice much
for heat. The adjoining room, which had no
door, seemed littered like the one where the
family were. The walls of the room I was in
were discoloured and weather-stained. The only
attempt at ornament was over the mantel-shelf,
the wall here being papered with red and
other gay-coloured papers, that once had been
upholsterer's patterns.

On my second visit, the husband was at
dinner with the family, on good boiled beef and
potatoes. He was a small-featured man, with a
head of very curly and long black hair, and
both in mien, manners, and dress, resembled
the mechanic far more than the costermonger.
He said: —

"I've been twenty years and more, perhaps
twenty-four, selling shell-fish in the streets.
I was a boot-closer when I was young, and
have made my 20s. and 30s., and sometimes 40s.,
and then sometimes not 10s. a week; but I had
an attack of rheumatic-fever, and lost the use of
my hands for my trade. The streets hadn't
any great name, as far as I knew, then, but as
I couldn't work, it was just a choice between
street-selling and starving, so I didn't prefer the
last. It was reckoned degrading to go into the
streets — but I couldn't help that. I was asto-
nished at my success when I first began, and
got into the business — that is into the under-
standing of it — after a week, or two, or three.
Why, I made 3l. the first week I knew my
trade, properly; yes, I cleared 3l.! I made,
not long after, 5l. a week — but not often. I was
giddy and extravagant. Indeed, I was a fool,
and spent my money like a fool I could have
brought up a family then like a gentleman — I
send them to school as it is — but I hadn't a
wife and family then, or it might have been
better; it's a great check on a man, is a family.
I began with shell-fish, and sell it still; very
seldom anything else. There's more demand
for shells, no doubt, because its far cheaper,
but then there's so many more sellers. I don't
know why exactly. I suppose it's because poor
people go into the streets when they can't live
other ways, and some do it because they think
it's an idle life; but it ain't. Where I took 35s. in a day at my stall — and well on to half of it
profit — I now take 5s. or 6s., or perhaps 7s., in
the day and less profit on that less money.
I don't clear 3s. a day now, take the year
through. I don't keep accounts, but I'm
certain enough that I average about 15s. a
week the year through, and my wife has to help
me to make that. She'll mind the stall, while I
take a round sometimes. I sell all kinds of
shell-fish, but my great dependence is on
winkles. I don't do much in lobsters. Very
few speculate in them. The price varies
very greatly. What's 10s. a score one day
may be 25s. the next. I sometimes get a score
for 5s. or 6s., but it's a poor trade, for 6d. is the
top of the tree, with me, for a price to a seller.
I never get more. I sell them to mechanics
and tradesmen. I do more in pound crabs.
There's a great call for haporths and pennorths
of lobster or crab, by children; that's their
claws. I bile them all myself, and buy them
alive. I can bile twenty in half an hour, and
do it over a grate in a back-yard. Lobsters
don't fight or struggle much in the hot
water, if they're properly packed. It's very
few that knows how to bile a lobster as he
should be biled. I wish I knew any way of
killing lobsters before biling them. I can't
kill them without smashing them to bits, and
that won't do at all. I kill my crabs before I
bile them. I stick them in the throat with a
knife and they're dead in an instant. Some
sticks them with a skewer, but they kick a good
while with the skewer in them. It's a shame
to torture anything when it can be helped. If
I didn't kill the crabs they'd shed every leg
in the hot water; they'd come out as bare of
claws as this plate. I've known it oft enough,
as it is; though I kill them uncommon quick, a
crab will be quicker and shed every leg — throw
them off in the moment I kill them, but that
doesn't happen once in fifty times. Oysters
are capital this season, I mean as to quality,
but they're not a good sale. I made 3l. a
week in oysters, not reckoning anything else,
eighteen or twenty years back. It was easy to
make money then; like putting down one
sovereign and taking two up. I sold oysters
then oft enough at 1d. a piece. Now I sell
far finer at three a penny and five for 2d. People
can't spend money in shell-fish when they
haven't got any. They say that fortune knocks
once at every man's door. I wish I'd opened
my door when he knocked at it."

This man's wife told me afterwards, that last

[Description: 915EAF. Page 072.]

inter, after an attack of rheumatism, all their
stock-money was exhausted, and her husband
sat day by day at home almost out of his mind;
for nothing could tempt him to apply to the
parish, and "he would never have mentioned
his sufferings to me," she said; "he had too
much pride." The loan of a few shillings from
a poor costermonger enabled the man to go to
market again, or he and his family would now
have been in the Union.

As to the quantity of shell-fish sold in the
streets of London, the returns before-cited give
the following results:

Shell Fish

               

Oysters	124,000,000
Lobsters	60,000
Crabs	50,000
Shrimps	770,000 pts.
Whelks	4,950,000
Mussels	1,000,000 qts.
Cockles	750,000 qts.
Periwinkles	3,640,000 pts.

OF SHRIMP SELLING IN THE STREETS.

Shrimp selling, as I have stated, is one of the
trades to which the street-dealer often con
fines himself throughout the year. The sale is
about equally divided between the two sexes,
but the men do the most business, walking
some of them fifteen to twenty miles a day
in a "round" of "ten miles there and ten
back."

The shrimps vended in the streets are the
Yarmouth prawn shrimps, sold at Billingsgate
at from 6d. to 10d. a gallon, while the best
shrimps (chiefly from Lee, in Essex,) vary in
price from 10d. to 2s. 6d. a gallon; 2s. being
a common price. The shrimps are usually
mixed by the street-dealers, and they are cried,
from stalls or on rounds, "a penny half-pint, fine
fresh s'rimps." (I heard them called nothing but
"s'rimps" by the street-dealers.) The half-pint,
however, is in reality but half that quantity.
"It's the same measure as it was thirty years
back," I was told, in a tone as if its anti-
quity removed all imputation of unfair deal-
ing. Some young men "do well on s'rimps,"
sometimes taking 5s. in an hour on a Saturday
evening, "when people get their money, and
wants a relish." The females in the shrimp
line are the wives, widows, or daughters of
costermongers. They are computed to average
1s. 6d. a day profit in fine, and from 9d. to 1s. in bad weather; and, in snowy, or very severe
weather, sometimes nothing at all.

One shrimp -seller, a middle -aged woman,
wrapped up in a hybrid sort of cloak, that
was half a man's and half a woman's gar-
ment, gave me the following account. There
was little vulgarity in either her language or
manner.

"I was in the s'rimp trade since I was a girl.
I don't know how long. I don't know how old
I am. I never knew; but I've two children,
one's six and t'other's near eight, both girls;
I've kept count of that as well as I can. My
husband sells fish in the street; so did father,
but he's dead. We buried him without the help
of the parish, as many gets — that's something
to say. I've known the trade every way. It
never was any good in public-houses. They
want such great ha'p'orths there. They'll put
up with what isn't very fresh, to be sure, some-
times; and good enough for them too, I say,
as spoils their taste with drink." [This was
said very bitterly.] "If it wasn't for my hus-
band's drinking for a day together now and then
we'd do better. He's neither to have nor to hold
when he's the worse for liquor; and it's the
worse with him, for he's a quiet man when he's
his own man. Perhaps I make 9d. a day, per-
haps 1s. or more. Sometimes my husband takes
my stand, and I go a round. Sometimes, if he
gets through his fish, he goes my round. I give
good measure, and my pint's the regular s'rimp
pint." [It was the half-pint I have described.]
"The trade's not so good as it was. People hasn't
the money, they tells me so. It's bread before
s'rimps, says they. I've heard them say it very
cross, if I've wanted hard to sell. Some days
I can sell nothing. My children stays with my
sister, when me and my old man's out. They
don't go to school, but Jane (the sister) learns
them to sew. She makes drawers for the slop-
sellers, but has very little work, and gets very
little for the little she does; she would learn
them to read if she knew how. She's married
to a pavior, that's away all day. It's a hard life
mine, sir. The winter's a coming, and I'm now
sometimes numbed with sitting at my stall in
the cold. My feet feels like lumps of ice in
the winter; and they're beginning now, as if
they weren't my own. Standing's far harder
work than going a round. I sell the best s'rimps.
My customers is judges. If I've any s'rimps
over on a night, as I often have one or two
nights a week, I sells them for half-price to
an Irishwoman, and she takes them to the
beer-shops, and the coffee-shops. She washes
them. to look fresh. I don't mind telling that,
because people should buy of regular people.
It's very few people know how to pick a s'rimp
properly. You should take it by the head and
the tail and jam them up, and then the shell
separates, and the s'rimp comes out beautifully.
That's the proper way."

Sometimes the sale on the rounds may be the
same as that at the stalls, or 10 or 20 per cent.
more or less, according to the weather, as shrimps
can be sold by the itinerant dealers better than
by the stall-keepers in wet weather, when people
prefer buying at their doors. But in hot
weather the stall trade is the best, "for people
often fancy that the s'rimps is sent out to sell
'cause they'll not keep no longer. It's only
among customers as knows you, you can do
any good on a round then."

The costermongers sell annually, it ap-
pears, about 770,000 pints of shrimps. At
2d. a pint (a very low calculation) the street
sale of shrimps amount to upwards of 6,400l. yearly.

OF OYSTER SELLING IN THE STREETS.

The trade in oysters is unquestionably one of
the oldest with which the London — or rather
the English — markets are connected; for oysters
from Britain were a luxury in ancient Rome.

Oysters are now sold out of the smacks at
Billingsgate, and a few at Hungerford. The
more expensive kind such as the real Milton,
are never bought by the costermongers, but they
buy oysters of a "good middling quality." At
the commencement of the season these oysters
are 14s. a "bushel," but the measure contains
from a bushel and a half to two bushels, as it is
more or less heaped up. The general price,
however, is 9s. or 10s., but they have been 16s. and 18s. The "big trade" was unknown until
1848, when the very large shelly oysters, the fish
inside being very small, were introduced from
the Sussex coast. They were sold in Thames-
street and by the Borough-market. Their sale
was at first enormous. The costermongers distin-
guished them by the name of "scuttle-mouths."
One coster informant told me that on the Satur-
days he not unfrequently, with the help of a boy
and a girl, cleared 10s. by selling these oysters
in the streets, disposing of four bags. He thus
sold, reckoning twenty-one dozen to the bag,
2,016 oysters; and as the price was two for a
penny, he took just 4l. 4s. by the sale of oysters
in the streets in one night. With the scuttle-
mouths the costermonger takes no trouble: he
throws them into a yard, and dashes a few pails
of water over them, and then places them on his
barrow, or conveys them to his stall. Some of
the better class of costermongers, however, lay
down their oysters carefully, giving them oat-
meal "to fatten on."

In April last, some of the street-sellers of this
article established, for the first time, "oyster-
rounds." These were carried on by coster-
mongers whose business was over at twelve in
the day, or a little later; they bought a bushel
of scuttle-mouths (never the others), and, in
the afternoon, went a round with them to poor
neighbourhoods, until about six, when they
took a stand in some frequented street. Going
these oyster-rounds is hard work, I am told,
and a boy is generally taken to assist. Monday
afternoon is the best time for this trade, when
10s. is sometimes taken, and 4s. or 5s. profit
made. On other evenings only from 1s. to 5s. is taken — very rarely the larger sum — as the
later the day in the week the smaller is the
receipt, owing to the wages of the working
classes getting gradually exhausted.

The women who sell oysters in the street, and
whose dealings are limited, buy either of the
costermongers or at the coal-sheds. But nearly
all the men buy at Billingsgate, where as small
a quantity as a peck can be had.

An old woman, who had "seen better days,"
but had been reduced to keep an oyster-stall,
gave me the following account of her customers.
She showed much shrewdness in her conversa-
tion, but having known better days, she declined
to enter upon any conversation concerning her
former life: —

"As to my customers, sir," she said, "why,
indeed, they're all sorts. It's not a very few
times that gentlemen (I call them so because
they're mostly so civil) will stop — just as it's
getting darkish, perhaps, — and look about them,
and then come to me and say very quick:
`Two penn'orth for a whet.' Ah! some of 'em
will look, may be, like poor parsons down upon
their luck, and swallow their oysters as if they
was taking poison in a hurry. They'll not touch
the bread or butter once in twenty times, but
they'll be free with the pepper and vinegar, or,
mayhap, they'll say quick and short, `A crust
off that.' I many a time think that two pen-
n'orth is a poor gentleman's dinner. It's the
same often — but only half as often, or not half
— with a poor lady, with a veil that once was
black, over a bonnet to match, and shivering
through her shawl. She'll have the same. About
two penn'orth is the mark still; it's mostly two
penn'orth. My son says, it's because that's the
price of a glass of gin, and some persons buy
oysters instead — but that's only his joke, sir.
It's not the vulgar poor that's our chief cus-
tomers. There's many of them won't touch
oysters, and I've heard some of them say: `The
sight on 'em makes me sick; it's like eating
snails.' The poor girls that walk the streets
often buy; some are brazen and vulgar, and
often the finest dressed are the vulgarest; at
least, I think so; and of those that come to
oyster stalls, I'm sure it's the case. Some are
shy to such as me, who may, perhaps, call their
own mothers to their minds, though it aint
many of them that is so. One of them always
says that she must keep at least a penny for gin
after her oysters. One young woman ran away
from my stall once after swallowing one oyster
out of six that she'd paid for. I don't know
why. Ah! there's many things a person like
me sees that one may say, `I don't know why'
to; that there is. My heartiest customers, that
I serve with the most pleasure, are working
people, on a Saturday night. One couple — I
think the wife always goes to meet her husband
on a Saturday night — has two, or three, or four
penn'orth, as happens, and it's pleasant to
hear them say, `Won't you have another,
John?' or, `Do have one or two more, Mary
Anne.' I've served them that way two or three
years. They've no children, I'm pretty sure,
for if I say, `Take a few home to the little
ones,' the wife tosses her head, and says, half
vexed and half laughing, `Such nonsense.' I
send out a good many oysters, opened, for
people's suppers, and sometimes for supper
parties — at least, I suppose so, for there's five
or six dozen often ordered. The maid-servants
come for them then, and I give them two or three
for themselves, and say, jokingly-like, `It's no
use offering you any, perhaps, because you'll have
plenty that's left.' They've mostly one answer:
`Don't we wish we may get 'em?' The very poor never buy of me, as I told you. A penny

[Description: 915EAF. Page 076.]

buys a loaf, you see, or a ha'porth of bread and
a ha'porth of cheese, or a half-pint of beer, with
a farthing out. My customers are mostly work-
ing people and tradespeople. Ah! sir, I wish
the parson of the parish, or any parson, sat with
me a fortnight; he'd see what life is then.
`It's different,' a learned man used to say to
me — that's long ago — `from what's noticed from
the pew or the pulpit.' I've missed the gentle-
man as used to say that, now many years — I
don't know how many. I never knew his name.
He was drunk now and then, and used to tell
me he was an author. I felt for him. A dozen
oysters wasn't much for him. We see a deal of
the world, sir — yes, a deal. Some, mostly work-
ing people, take quantities of pepper with their
oysters in cold weather, and say it's to warm
them, and no doubt it does; but frosty weather
is very bad oyster weather. The oysters gape and
die, and then they are not so much as manure.
They are very fine this year. I clear 1s. a day,
I think, during the season -at least 1s., taking
the fine with the wet days, and the week days
with the Sundays, though I'm not out then;
but, you see, I'm known about here."

The number of oysters sold by the coster-
mongers amounts to 124,000,000 a year. These,
at four a penny, would realise the large sum of
129,650l. We may therefore safely assume that
125,000l. is spent yearly in oysters in the streets
of London.

OF PERIWINKLE SELLING IN THE STREETS.

There are some street people who, nearly all
the year through, sell nothing but periwinkles,
and go regular rounds, where they are well
known. The "wink" men, as these periwinkle
sellers are called, generally live in the lowest
parts, and many in lodging-houses. They are
forced to live in low localities, they say, because
of the smell of the fish, which is objected to.
The city district is ordinarily the best for winkle-
sellers, for there are not so many cheap shops
there as in other parts. The summer is the best
season, and the sellers then make, upon the
average, 12s. a week clear profit; in the winter,
they get upon the average, 5s. a week clear, by
selling mussels and whelks — for, as winkles last
only from March till October, they are then
obliged to do what they can in the whelk and
mussel way. "I buy my winks," said one, "at
Billingsgate, at 3s. and 4s. the wash. A wash
is about a bushel. There's some at 2s., and
some sometimes as low as 1s. the wash, but they
wouldn't do for me, as I serve very respectable
people. If we choose we can boil our winkles
at Billingsgate by paying 4d. a week for boiling,
and ½d. for salt, to salt them after they are boiled.
Tradesmen's families buy them for a relish to
their tea. It's reckoned a nice present from a
young man to his sweetheart, is winks. Servant
girls are pretty good customers, and want them
cheaper when they say it's for themselves; but
I have only one price."

One man told me he could make as much as
12s. a week — sometimes more and sometimes less.
He made no speeches, but sung — "Winketty-
winketty-wink-wink-wink — wink-wink — wick-
etty-wicketty-wink — fine fresh winketty-winks
wink wink." He was often so sore in the stomach
and hoarse with hallooing that he could hardly
speak. He had no child, only himself and
wife to keep out of his earnings. His room
was 2s. a week rent. He managed to get a bit
of meat every day, he said, "somehow or
'nother."

Another, more communicative and far more
intelligent man, said to me concerning the
character of his customers: "They're people
I think that like to daddle" (dawdle, I presume)
"over their teas or such like; or when a young
woman's young man takes tea with her mother
and her, then they've winks; and then there's
joking, and helping to pick winks, between
Thomas and Betsy, while the mother's busy
with her tea, or is wiping her specs, 'cause she
can't see. Why, sir, I've known it! I was
a Thomas that way myself when I was a
tradesman. I was a patten-maker once, but
pattens is no go now, and hasn't been for fifteen
year or more. Old people, I think, that lives
by themselves, and has perhaps an annuity or
the like of that, and nothing to do pertickler,
loves winks, for they likes a pleasant way of
making time long over a meal. They're the
people as reads a newspaper, when it's a week
old, all through. The other buyers, I think, are
tradespeople or working-people what wants a
relish. But winks is a bad trade now, and so
is many that depends on relishes."

One man who "works" the New Cut, has
the "best wink business of all." He sells
only a little dry fish with his winks, never wet
fish, and has "got his name up," for the
superiority of that shell-fish — a superiority
which he is careful to ensure. He pays 8s. a week for a stand by a grocer's window. On
an ordinary afternoon he sells from 7s. to 10s. worth of periwinkles. On a Monday after-
noon he often takes 20s.; and on the Sunday
afternoon 3l. and 4l. He has two coster lads
to help him, and sometimes on a Sunday from
twenty to thirty customers about him. He
wraps each parcel sold in a neat brown paper
bag, which, I am assured, is of itself, an in-
ducement to buy of him. The "unfortunate"
women who live in the streets contiguous to the
Waterloo, Blackfriars, and Borough-roads, are
among his best customers, on Sundays espe-
cially. He is rather a public character, getting
up dances and the like. "He aint bothered —
not he — with ha'p'orths or penn'orths of a Sun-
day," said a person who had assisted him. "It's
the top of the tree with his customers; 3d. or
6d. at a go." The receipts are one-half profit.
I heard from several that he was "the best man
for winks a-going."

The quantity of periwinkles disposed of by the
London street-sellers is 3,600,000 pints, which,
at 1d. per pint, gives the large sum of 15,000l. expended annually in this street luxury. It
should be remembered, that a very large con-

[Description: 915EAF. Page 077.]

sumption of periwinkles takes place in public-
houses and suburban tea-gardens.

OF "DRY" FISH SELLING IN THE STREETS.

The dealing in "dry" or salt fish is never
carried on as a totally distinct trade in the streets,
but some make it a principal part of their busi-
ness; and many wet fish-dealers whose "wet
fish" is disposed of by noon, sell dry fish in the
afternoon. The dry fish, proper, consists of dried
mackerel, salt cod — dried or barrelled — smoked
or dried haddocks (often called "finnie haddies"),
dried or pickled salmon (but salmon is only salted
or pickled for the streets when it can be sold
cheap), and salt herrings.

A keen-looking, tidily-dressed man, who was
at one time a dry fish-seller principally, gave
me the following account. For the last two
months he has confined himself to another
branch of the business, and seemed to feel a
sort of pleasure in telling of the "dodges" he
once resorted to:

"There's Scotch haddies that never knew any-
thing about Scotland," he said, "for I've made
lots of them myself by Tower-street, just a
jump or two from the Lambeth station-house.
I used to make them on Sundays. I was a wet
fish-seller then, and when I couldn't get through
my haddocks or my whitings of a Saturday night,
I wasn't a-going to give them away to folks
that wouldn't take the trouble to lift me out of
a gutter if I fell there, so I presarved them.
I've made haddies of whitings, and good ones
too, and Joe made them of codlings besides.
I had a bit of a back-yard to two rooms, one
over the other, that I had then, and on a
Sunday I set some wet wood a fire, and put it
under a great tub. My children used to gut
and wash the fish, and I hung them on hooks
all round the sides of the tub, and made a
bit of a chimney in a corner of the top of the
tub, and that way I gave them a jolly good
smoking. My wife had a dry fish-stall and
sold them, and used to sing out `Real Scotch
haddies,' and tell people how they was from
Aberdeen; I've often been fit to laugh, she
did it so clever. I had a way of giving them a
yellow colour like the real Scotch, but that's a
secret. After they was well smoked they was
hung up to dry all round the rooms we lived in,
and we often had stunning fires that answered
as well to boil crabs and lobsters when they was
cheap enough for the streets. I've boiled a
mate's crabs and lobsters for 2½d.; it was two
boilings and more, and 2½d. was reckoned the
price of half a quarter of a hundred of coals and
the use of the pan. There's more ways than
one of making 6d., if a man has eyes in his
head and keeps them open. Haddocks that
wouldn't fetch 1d. a piece, nor any money at all
of a Saturday night, I've sold — at least she has"
(indicating his wife by a motion of his thumb) —
"at 2d., and 3d., and 4d. I've bought fish of
costers that was over on a Saturday night, to
make Scotch haddies of them. I've tried
experience" (experiments) "too. Ivy, burnt
under them, gave them, I thought, a nice
sort of flavour, rather peppery, for I used
always to taste them; but I hate living
on fish. Ivy with brown berries on it, as
it has about this time o' year, I liked best.
Holly wasn't no good. A black-currant bush
was, but it's too dear; and indeed it couldn't
be had. I mostly spread wetted fire-wood, as
green as could be got, or damp sticks of any
kind, over shavings, and kept feeding the fire.
Sometimes I burnt sawdust. Somehow, the
dry fish trade fell off. People does get so pry-
ing and so knowing, there's no doing nothing
now for no time, so I dropped the dry fish trade.
There's few up to smoking them proper; they
smoke 'em black, as if they was hung up in a
chimbley."

Another costermonger gave me the following
account:

"I've salted herrings, but the commonest way
of salting is by the Jews about Whitechapel.
They make real Yarmouth bloaters and all sorts
of fish. When I salted herrings, I bought them
out of the boats at Billingsgate by the hundred,
which is 120 fish. We give them a bit of a clean
— hardly anything — then chuck them into a tub
of salt, and keep scattering salt over them, and
let them lie a few minutes, or sometimes half an
hour, and then hang them up to dry. They
eat well enough, if they're eaten in time, for
they won't keep. I've known three day's old
herrings salted, just because there was no sale
for them. One Jew sends out six boys crying
`real Yarmouth bloaters.' People buy them
in preference, they look so nice and clean
and fresh-coloured. It's quite a new trade
among the Jews. They didn't do much that
way until two years back. I sometimes wish
I was a Jew, because they help one another,
and start one another with money, and so they
thrive where Christians are ruined. I smoked
mackerel, too, by thousands; that's a new trade,
and is done the same way as haddocks. Mackerel
that won't bring 1d. a piece fresh, bring 2d. smoked; they are very nice indeed. I make
about 10s. or 11s. a week by dry fish in the
winter months, and about as much by wet, —
but I have a tidy connection. Perhaps I make
17s. or 18s. a week all the year round."

The aggregate quantity of dry fish sold by
the London costermongers throughout the year
is as follows — the results being deduced from
the table before given:

         

Wet salt cod	93,750
Dry do	1,000,000
Smoked Haddocks	4,875,000
Bloaters	36,750,000
Red-herrings	25,000,000

GROSS VALUE OF THE SEVERAL KINDS OF
FISH ANNUALLY SOLD IN THE STREETS OF
LONDONS.

It now but remains for me, in order to complete
this account of the "street-sellers of fish," to
form an estimate of the amount of money annu-
ally expended by the labourers and the poorer

[Description: 915EAF. Page 078.]

classes of London upon the different kinds of
wet, dry, and shell-fish. This, according to the
best authorities, is as follows:                          

Wet Fish.	\cp\
175,000 lbs. of salmon, at 6d. per lb.	4,000
1,000,000lbs. of live cod, at 1½d. per lb.	5,000
3,250,000 pairs of soles, at 1½d. per pair	20,000
4,400,000 whiting, at ½d. each	9,000
29,400,000 plaice, at ¾d.	90,000
15,700,000 mackarel, at 6 for 1s.	130,000
875,000,000 herrings, at 16 a groat	900,000
3,000,000 lbs. of sprats. at 1d. per lb.	12,000
400,000 lbs. of eels, at 3 lb. for 1s. .	6,000
260,000 flounders, at 1d. per dozen.	100
270,000 dabs, at 1d. per dozen	100
Sum total expended yearly in wet fish	1,177,000

Dry Fish.

           

525,000 lbs. barrelled cod, at 1½d.	3,000
500,000 lbs. dried salt cod, at 2d.	4,000
4,875,000 smoked haddock, at 1d.	20,000
36,750,000 bloaters, at 2 for 1d.	75,000
25,000,000 red herrings, at 4 for 1d.	25,000
Sum total expended yearly in dry fish	127,000

                 

124,000,000 oysters, at 4 a penny	125,000
60,000 lobsters, at 3d.	750
50,000 crabs, at 2d.	400
770,000 pints of shrimps, at 2d.	6,000
1,000,000 quarts of mussels, at 1d.	4,000
750,000 quarts of cockles, at 1d.	3,000
4,950,000 whelks, at 8 for 1d.	2,500
3,600,000 pints of periwinkles, at 1d.	15,000
Sum total expended yearly in shell-fish	156,650

Adding together the above totals, we have
the following result as to the gross money
value of the fish purchased yearly in the Lon-
don streets:

         

	\cp\
Wet fish	1,177,200
Dry fish	127,000
Shell fish	156,650
Total	\cp\1,460,850

Hence we find that there is nearly a million
and a half of money annually spent by the
poorer classes of the metropolis in fish; a sum
so prodigious as almost to discredit every state-
ment of want, even if the amount said to be so
expended be believed. The returns from which
the above account is made out have been ob-
tained, however, from such unquestionable sources
— not from one salesman alone, but checked and
corrected by many gentlemen who can have no
conceivable motive for exaggeration either one
way or the other — that, sceptical as our utter
ignorance of the subject must necessarily make
us, still if we will but examine for ourselves, we
shall find there is no gainsaying the facts.

Moreover as to the enormity of the amount
dispelling all ideas of privation among the in-
dustrious portion of the community, we shall
also find on examination that assuming the
working-men of the metropolis to be 500,000 in
number (the Occupation Abstract of 1841, gives
773,560 individuals following some employment
in London, but these include merchants, em-
ployers, shopkeepers, Government-officers and
others), and that they, with their wives and chil-
dren, make up one million individuals, it follows
that the sum per head, expended in fish by the
poorer classes every week, is a fraction more than
6¾d., or, in other words, not quite one penny a
day.

If the diet of a people be a criterion, as has
been asserted, of their character, it may be feared
that the present extensive fish-diet of the work-
ing-people of London, is as indicative of dege-
neracy of character, as Cobbett insisted must
result from the consumption of tea, and "the
cursed root," the potato. "The flesh of fish,"
says Pereira on Diet, "is less satisfying than the
flesh of either quadrupeds or birds. As it con-
tains a larger proportion of water (about 80 per
cent.), it is obviously less nourishing." Haller
tells us he found himself weakened by a fish-
diet; and he states that Roman Catholics are
generally debilitated during Lent. Pechlin also
affirms that a mechanic, nourished merely by
fish, has less muscular power than one who lives
on the flesh of warm-blooded animals. Jockeys,
who waste themselves in order to reduce their
weight, live principally on fish.

The classes of fish above given, are, when
considered in a "dietetical point of view," of
two distinct kinds; viz., those which form the
staple commodity of the dinners and suppers of
the poor, and those which are mere relishes or
stimuli to failing, rather than stays to, eager
appetites. Under the former head, I include
red-herrings, bloaters, and smoked haddocks;
such things are not merely provocatives to eat,
among the poor, as they are at the breakfast-
table of many an over-fed or intemperate man.
With the less affluent these salted fish are not a
"relish," but a meal.

The shell-fish, however, can only be consi-
dered as luxuries. The 150,000l. thus annu-
ally expended in the streets, represents the sum
laid out in mere relishes or stimuli to sluggish
appetites. A very large proportion of this amount,
I am inclined to believe, is spent by persons
whose stomachs have been disordered by drink.
A considerable part of the trade in the minor
articles, as winks, shrimps, &c., is carried on in
public-houses, while a favourite pitch for an
oyster-stall is outside a tavern-door. If, then,
so large an amount is laid out in an endeavour
to restore the appetite after drinking, how much
money must be squandered in destroying it by
the same means?