University of Virginia Library

OF THE ORANGE AND NUT MARKET.

In Houndsditch there is a market supported
principally by costermongers, who there pur-
chase their oranges, lemons, and nuts. This
market is entirely in the hands of the Jews; and
although a few tradesmen may attend it to
buy grapes, still it derives its chief custom from
the street-dealers who say they can make far
better bargains with the Israelites, (as they never
refuse an offer,) than they can with the Covent-
garden salesmen, who generally cling to their
prices. This market is known by the name of
"Duke's-place," although its proper title is
St. James's-place. The nearest road to it is
through Duke's-street, and the two titles have
been so confounded that at length the mistake
has grown into a custom.

Duke's-place — as the costers call it — is a
large square yard, with the iron gates of a
synagogue in one corner, a dead wall forming
one entire side of the court, and a gas-lamp on
a circular pavement in the centre. The place
looks as if it were devoted to money-making —
for it is quiet and dirty. Not a gilt letter is to
be seen over a doorway; there is no display of
gaudy colour, or sheets of plate-glass, such as
we see in a crowded thoroughfare when a cus-
tomer is to be caught by show. As if the
merchants knew their trade was certain, they
are content to let the London smoke do their
painter's work. On looking at the shops
in this quarter, the idea forces itself upon one
that they are in the last stage of dilapidation.
Never did property in Chancery look more
ruinous. Each dwelling seems as though a fire
had raged in it, for not a shop in the market
has a window to it; and, beyond the few sacks
of nuts exposed for sale, they are empty, the
walls within being blackened with dirt, and the
paint without blistered in the sun, while the
door-posts are worn round with the shoulders
of the customers, and black as if charred. A
few sickly hens wander about, turning over the
heaps of dried leaves that the oranges have
been sent over in, or roost the time away on the
shafts and wheels of the nearest truck. Ex-
cepting on certain days, there is little or no
business stirring, so that many of the shops
have one or two shutters up, as if a death had
taken place, and the yard is quiet as an inn of
court. At a little distance the warehouses,
with their low ceilings, open fronts, and black
sides, seem like dark holes or coal-stores; and,
but for the mahogany backs of chairs showing
at the first floors, you would scarcely believe
the houses to be inhabited, much more to be
elegantly furnished as they are. One of the
drawing-rooms that I entered here was warm
and red with morocco leather, Spanish maho-
gany, and curtains and Turkey carpets; while
the ormolu chandelier and the gilt frames of the
looking-glass and pictures twinkled at every
point in the fire-light.

The householders in Duke's-place are all of
the Jewish persuasion, and among the costers a

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saying has sprung up about it. When a man
has been out of work for some time, he is said to
be "Cursed, like a pig in Duke's-place."

Almost every shop has a Scripture name over
it, and even the public-houses are of the Hebrew
faith, their signs appealing to the followers of
those trades which most abound with Jews.
There is the "Jeweller's Arms," patronised
greatly of a Sunday morning, when the Israelite
jewellers attend to exchange their trinkets and
barter amongst themselves. Very often the
counter before "the bar" here may be seen cov-
ered with golden ornaments, and sparkling with
precious stones, amounting in value to thousands
of pounds. The landlord of this house of call
is licensed to manufacture tobacco and cigars.
There is also the "Fishmongers' Arms," the
resort of the vendors of fried soles; here, in the
evening, a concert takes place, the performers
and audience being Jews. The landlord of this
house too is licensed to manufacture tobacco
and cigars. Entering one of these houses I
found a bill announcing a "Bible to be raffled
for, the property of — ." And, lastly, there
is "Benjamin's Coffee-house," open to old
clothesmen; and here, again, the proprietor is
a licensed tobacco-manufacturer. These facts
are mentioned to show the untiring energy of
the Jew when anything is to be gained, and to
give an instance of the curious manner in which
this people support each other.

Some of the nut and orange shops in
Duke's-place it would be impossible to de-
scribe. At one sat an old woman, with jet-
black hair and a wrinkled face, nursing an
infant, and watching over a few matted baskets
of nuts ranged on a kind of carpenter's bench
placed upon the pavement. The interior of the
house was as empty as if it had been to let,
excepting a few bits of harness hanging against
the wall, and an old salt-box nailed near the
gas-lamp, in which sat a hen, "hatching," as I
was told. At another was an excessively stout
Israelite mother, with crisp negro's hair and
long gold earrings, rolling her child on the
table used for sorting the nuts. Here the black
walls had been chalked over with scores, and
every corner was filled up with sacks and orange-
cases. Before one warehouse a family of six,
from the father to the infant, were busy washing
walnuts in a huge tub with a trap in the side,
and around them were ranged measures of the
wet fruit. The Jewish women are known to
make the fondest parents; and in Duke's-place
there certainly was no lack of fondlings. Inside
almost every parlour a child was either being
nursed or romped with, and some little things
were being tossed nearly to the ceiling, and
caught, screaming with enjoyment, in the jewel-
led hands of the delighted mother. At other
shops might be seen a circle of three or four
women — some old as if grandmothers, grouped
admiringly round a hook-nosed infant, tickling
it and poking their fingers at it in a frenzy of
affection.

The counters of these shops are generally
placed in the open streets like stalls, and the
shop itself is used as a store to keep the stock in.
On these counters are ranged the large matting
baskets, some piled up with dark-brown polished
chestnuts — shining like a racer's neck — others
filled with wedge-shaped Brazil-nuts, and rough
hairy cocoa-nuts. There are heaps, too, of
newly-washed walnuts, a few showing their
white crumpled kernels as a sample of their
excellence. Before every doorway are long pot-
bellied boxes of oranges, with the yellow fruit
just peeping between the laths on top, and
lemons — yet green — are ranged about in their
paper jackets to ripen in the air.

In front of one store the paving-stones were
soft with the sawdust emptied from the grape-
cases, and the floor of the shop itself was
whitened with the dry powder. Here stood a
man in a long tasselled smoking-cap, puffing
with his bellows at the blue bunches on a tray,
and about him were the boxes with the paper
lids thrown back, and the round sea-green
berries just rising above the sawdust as if
floating in it. Close by, was a group of dark-
eyed women bending over an orange-case, pick-
ing out the rotten from the good fruit, while a
sallow-complexioned girl was busy with her
knife scooping out the damaged parts, until,
what with sawdust and orange-peel, the air
smelt like the pit of a circus.

Nothing could be seen in this strange place
that did not, in some way or another, appertain
to Jewish customs. A woman, with a heavy
gold chain round her neck, went past, carrying
an old green velvet bonnet covered with feathers,
and a fur tippet, that she had either recently
purchased or was about to sell. Another woman,
whose features showed her to be a Gentile, was
hurrying toward the slop-shop in the Minories
with a richly quilted satin-lined coat done up in
her shawl, and the market-basket by her side,
as if the money due for the work were to be
spent directly for housekeeping.

At the corner of Duke's-street was a stall
kept by a Jew, who sold things that are eaten
only by the Hebrews. Here in a yellow pie-
dish were pieces of stewed apples floating in a
thick puce-coloured sauce.

One man that I spoke to told me that he
considered his Sunday morning's work a very
bad one if he did not sell his five or six hundred
bushels of nuts of different kinds. He had
taken 150l. that day of the street-sellers, and
usually sold his 100l. worth of goods in a morn-
ing. Many others did the same as himself. Here
I met with every attention, and was furnished
with some valuable statistical information con-
cerning the street-trade.