 | OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF FRUIT AND VEGETABLES. London Labour and the London Poor, volume 1 |  |
OF POT-HERBS AND CELERY.
I use the old phrase, pot-herbs, for such pro-
ductions as sage, thyme, mint, parsley, sweet
marjoram, fennel, (though the last is rarely sold
by the street-people), &c.; but "herbs" is the
usual term. More herbs, such as agrimony,
balm (balsam), wormwood, tansy, &c., used to
be sold in the streets. These were often used for
"teas," medicinally perhaps, except tansy, which,
being a strong aromatic, was used to flavour
puddings. Wormwood, too, was often bought to
throw amongst woollen fabrics, as a protective
against the attack of moths.
The street herb-trade is now almost entirely
in the hands of Irishwomen, and is generally
carried on during the autumn and winter at
stalls. With it, is most commonly united the
sale of celery. The herbs are sold at the several
markets, usually in shilling lots, but a quarter
of a shilling lot may be purchased. The Irish-
woman pursues a simple method of business.
What has cost her 1s. she divides into 24 lots,
each of 1d., or she will sell half of a lot for a
halfpenny. An Irishwoman said to me:
"Thrade isn't good, sir; it falls and it falls.
I don't sell so many herrubs or so much ciliry
as I did whin mate was higher. Poor people thin,
I've often been said it, used to buy bones and
bile them for broth with ciliry and the beautiful
herrubs. Now they buys a bit of mate and ates
it without brothing. It's good one way and it's
bad another. Only last Saturday night my hus-
band — and a good husband he's to me, though
he is a London man, for he knows how to make
[Description: 915EAF. Page 095.]
stroke of twilve, in Newgit-markit, at 2½d. the pound. I don't know what parrut it was. I
don't understand that, but he does, and tills me
how to cook it. He has worruk at the docks, but
not very rigular. I think I sill most parrusley.
Whin frish herrings is chape, some biles them
with parrusley, and some fries them with ing-uns.
No, sir; I don't make sixpence a day; not half-
a-crown a week, I'm shure. Whin herrubs isn't
in — and they're autumn and winther things, and
so is ciliry — I sills anything; gooseberries and
currints, or anything. If I'd had a family, I
couldn't have had a shoe to my futt."
| OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF FRUIT AND VEGETABLES. London Labour and the London Poor, volume 1 | |