University of Virginia Library

OF ORANGE AND LEMON SELLING IN THE
STREETS.

Of foreign fruits, the oranges and nuts supply
by far the greater staple for the street trade,
and, therefore, demand a brief, but still a fuller,
notice than other articles.

Oranges were first sold in the streets at the

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close of Elizabeth's reign. So rapidly had the
trade increased, that four years after her death,
or in 1607, Ben Jonson classes "orange-wives,"
for noisiness, with "fish-wives." These women
at first carried the oranges in baskets on their
heads; barrows were afterwards used; and now
trays are usually slung to the shoulders.

Oranges are brought to this country in cases
or boxes, containing from 500 to 900 oranges.
From official tables, it appears that between
250,000,000 and 300,000,000 of oranges and
lemons are now yearly shipped to England.
They are sold wholesale, principally at public
sales, in lots of eight boxes, the price at such
sales varying greatly, according to the supply
and the quality. The supply continues to arrive
from October to August.

Oranges are bought by the retailers in Duke's-
place and in Covent-Garden; but the coster-
mongers nearly all resort to Duke's-place, and
the shopkeepers to Covent-Garden. They are
sold in baskets of 200 or 300; they are also dis-
posed of by the hundred, a half-hundred being
the smallest quantity sold in Duke's-place.
These hundreds, however, number 110, contain-
ing 10 double "hands," a single hand being 5
oranges. The price in December was 2s. 6d., 3s. 6d., and 4s. the hundred. They are rarely
lower than 4s. about Christmas, as there is then
a better demand for them. The damaged oranges
are known as "specks," and the purchaser runs
the risk of specks forming a portion of the con-
tents of a basket, as he is not allowed to empty
it for the examination of the fruit: but some
salesmen agree to change the specks. A month
after Christmas, oranges are generally cheaper,
and become dearer again about May, when there
is a great demand for the supply of the fairs and
races.

Oranges are sold by all classes connected with
the fruit, flower, or vegetable trade of the streets.
The majority of the street-sellers are, however,
women and children, and the great part of these
are Irish. It has been computed that, when
oranges are "at their best" (generally about
Easter), there are 4,000 persons, including stall-
keepers, selling oranges in the metropolis and
its suburbs; while there are generally 3,000 out
of this number "working" oranges — that is,
hawking them from street to street: of these, 300
attend at the doors of the theatres, saloons, &c.
Many of those "working" the theatres confine
their trade to oranges, while the other dealers
rarely do so, but unite with them the sale of nuts
of some kind. Those who sell only oranges, or
only nuts, are mostly children, and of the poor-
est class. The smallness of the sum required
to provide a stock of oranges (a half-hundred
being 15d. or 18d.), enables the poor, who cannot
raise "stock-money" sufficient to purchase any-
thing else, to trade upon a few oranges.

The regular costers rarely buy oranges until
the spring, except, perhaps, for Sunday after-
noon sale — though this, as I said before, they
mostly object to. In the spring, however, they
stock their barrows with oranges. One man told
me that, four or five years back, he had sold in a
day 2,000 oranges that he picked up as a bargain.
They did not cost him half a farthing each; he
said he "cleared 2l. by the spec." At the same
period he could earn 5s. or 6s. on a Sunday
afternoon by the sale of oranges in the street;
but now he could not earn 2s.

A poor Irishwoman, neither squalid in ap-
pearance nor ragged in dress, though looking
pinched and wretched, gave me the subjoined
account; when I saw her, resting with her
basket of oranges near Coldbath-fields prison,
she told me she almost wished she was inside
of it, but for the "childer." Her history was
one common to her class —

"I was brought over here, sir, when I was a
girl, but my father and mother died two or three
years after. I was in service then, and very
good service I continued in as a maid-of-all-
work, and very kind people I met; yes, indeed,
though I was Irish and a Catholic, and they was
English Protistants. I saved a little money
there, and got married. My husband's a la-
bourer; and when he's in full worruk he can
earn 12s. or 14s. a week, for he's a good hand
and a harrud-worruking man, and we do mid-
dlin' thin. He's out of worruk now, and I'm
forced to thry and sill a few oranges to keep a
bit of life in us, and my husband minds the
childer. Bad as I do, I can do 1d. or 2d. a day
profit betther than him, poor man! for he's tall
and big, and people thinks, if he goes round
with a few oranges, it's just from idleniss; and
the Lorrud above knows he'll always worruk
whin he can. He goes sometimes whin I'm
harrud tired. One of us must stay with the
childer, for the youngist is not three and the
ildest not five. We don't live, we starruve. We
git a few 'taties, and sometimes a plaice. To-
day I've not taken 3d. as yit, sir, and it's past
three. Oh, no, indeed and indeed, thin, I dont
make 9d. a day. We live accordingly, for there's
1s. 3d. a week for rint. I have very little harrut
to go into the public-houses to sill oranges, for
they begins flying out about the Pope and Car-
dinal Wiseman, as if I had anything to do with
it. And that's another reason why I like my
husband to stay at home, and me to go out, be-
cause he's a hasty man, and might get into
throuble. I don't know what will become of us,
if times don't turn."

On calling upon this poor woman on the fol-
lowing day, I found her and her children absent.
The husband had got employment at some dis-
tance, and she had gone to see if she could not
obtain a room 3d. a week cheaper, and lodge
near the place of work.

According to the Board of Trade returns,
there are nearly two hundred millions of
oranges annually imported into this country.
About one-third of these are sold wholesale in
London, and one-fourth of the latter quantity dis-
posed of retail in the streets. The returns I have
procured, touching the London sale, prove that
no less than 15,500,000 are sold yearly by the
street-sellers. The retail price of these may be

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said to be, upon an average, 5s. per 110, and
this would give us about 35,000l. for the gross
sum of money laid out every year, in the streets,
in the matter of oranges alone.

The street lemon-trade is now insignificant,
lemons having become a more important article
of commerce since the law required foreign-
bound ships to be provided with lemon-juice.
The street-sale is chiefly in the hands of
the Jews and the Irish. It does not, however.
call for special notice here.