 | OF THE STATIONARY STREET-SELLERS OF FISH, FRUIT,
AND VEGETABLES. London Labour and the London Poor, volume 1 |  |
4. OF THE STATIONARY STREET-SELLERS OF FISH, FRUIT,
AND VEGETABLES.
OF THE NUMBER OF STREET STALLS.
Thus far we have dealt only with the itinerant
dealers in fish, fruit, or vegetables; but there are
still a large class of street-sellers, who obtain a
living by the sale of the same articles at some
fixed locality in the public thoroughfares; and
as these differ from the others in certain points,
they demand a short special notice here. First,
as to the number of stalls in the streets of Lon-
don, I caused personal observations to be
made; and in a walk of 46 miles, 632 stalls
were counted, which is at the rate of very
nearly 14 to the mile. This, too, was in bad
weather, — was not on a Saturday night, — and
at a season when the fruit-sellers all declare
that "things is dull." The routes taken in
this inquiry were: — No. 1, from Vauxhall
to Hatton-garden; No. 2, from Baker-street
to Bermondsey; No. 3, from Blackwall to
Brompton; No. 4, from the Hackney-road
to the Edgeware-road. I give the results.
| F. | FR. | V. | M. | T. | |
| No. 1 | 9 | 28 | 5 | 7 | 49 |
| " 2 | 37 | 50 | 4 | 14 | 105 |
| " 3 | 90 | 153 | 30 | 40 | 313 |
| " 4 | 75 | 52 | 23 | 15 | 165 |
| 211 | 283 | 62 | 76 | 632 |
F. denotes fish-stalls; Fr. fruit-stalls; V.
vegetable-stalls; M. miscellaneous; and T.
presents the total:
The miscellaneous stalls include peas-soup,
pickled whelks, sweetmeats, toys, tin-ware,
elder-wine, and jewellery stands. Of these, the
toy-stalls were found to be the most numerous;
sweetmeats the next; tin-ware the next; while
the elder-wine stalls were least numerous.
Some of the results indicate, curiously enough,
the character of the locality. Thus, in Fleet-
street there were 3, in the Haymarket 5, in
Regent-street 6, and in Piccadilly 14 fruit-
stalls, and no fish-stalls — these streets not
being resorted to by the poor, to whom fruit
is a luxury, but fish a necessity. In the
Strand were 17 fruit and 2 fish-stalls; and in
Drury-lane were 8 stalls of fish to 6 of fruit.
On the other hand, there were in Ratcliffe-high-
way, 38 fish and 23 fruit-stalls; in Rosemary-
lane, 13 fish and 8 fruit-stalls; in Shoreditch,
28 fish and 13 fruit-stalls; and in Bethnal-
green Road (the poorest district of all), 14 of
the fish, and but 3 of the fruit stalls. In some
places, the numbers were equal, or nearly so;
as in the Minories, for instance, the City-road,
the New-road, Goodge-street, Tottenham-court
Road, and the Camberwell-road; while in
Smithfield were 5, and in Cow-cross 2 fish-
stalls, and no fruit-stalls at all. In this enu-
meration the street-markets of Leather-lane,
the New Cut, the Brill, &c., are not included.
The result of this survey of the principal
London thoroughfares is that in the mid-route
(viz., from Brompton, along Piccadilly, the
Strand, Fleet-street, and so viâ the Commercial-
road to Blackwall), there are twice as many
stalls as in the great northern thoroughfare (that
is to say, from the Edgeware-road, along the
New-road, to the Hackney-road); the latter
route, however, has more than one-third as many
stalls as route No. 2, and that again more than
double the number of route No. 1. Hence it
appears that the more frequented the thorough-
fare, the greater the quantity of street-stalls.
The number of miles of streets contained
within the inner police district of the metropolis,
are estimated by the authorities at 2,000 (in-
cluding the city), and assuming that there are on
an average only four stalls to the mile throughout
London, we have thus a grand total of 8,000 fish,
fruit, vegetable, and other stalls dispersed
throughout the capital.
Concerning the character of the stalls at the
street-markets, the following observations have
been made: — At the New-cut there were, be-
fore the removals, between the hours of eight
and ten on a Saturday evening, ranged along
the kerb-stone on the north side of the road,
beginning at Broad-wall to Marsh-gate (a dis-
tance of nearly half-a-mile), a dense line of
"pitches" — at 77 of which were vegetables for
sale, at 40 fruit, 25 fish, 22 boots and shoes, 14
eatables, consisting of cakes and pies, hot eels,
baked potatoes, and boiled whelks; 10 dealt in
nightcaps, lace, ladies' collars, artificial flowers,
silk and straw bonnets; 10 in tinware — such as
saucepans, tea-kettles, and Dutch-ovens; 9 in
crockery and glass, 7 in brooms and brushes, 5
in poultry and rabbits, 6 in paper, books, songs,
and almanacs; and about 60 in sundries.
[Description: 915EAF. Blank Page.]
[Description: 915EAF. Page 099.]
OF THE CHARACTER OF THE STREET-STALLS.
The stalls occupied by costermongers for the
sale of fish, fruit, vegetables, &c., are chiefly
constructed of a double cross-trestle or moveable
frame, or else of two trestles, each with three
legs, upon which is laid a long deal board, or tray.
Some of the stalls consist merely of a few boards
resting upon two baskets, or upon two herring-
barrels. The fish-stalls are mostly covered with
paper — generally old newspapers or periodicals —
but some of the street-fishmongers, instead of
using paper to display their fish upon, have intro-
duced a thin marble slab, which gives the stall
a cleaner, and, what they consider a high attri-
bute, a "respectable" appearance.
Most of the fruit-stalls are, in the winter
time, fitted up with an apparatus for roasting
apples and chestnuts; this generally consists of
an old saucepan with a fire inside; and the
woman who vends them, huddled up in her old
faded shawl or cloak, often presents a picturesque
appearance, in the early evening, or in a fog,
with the gleam of the fire lighting up her half
somnolent figure. Within the last two or three
years, however, there has been so large a business
carried on in roasted chestnuts, that it has
become a distinct street-trade, and the vendors
have provided themselves with an iron apparatus,
large enough to roast nearly half a bushel at a
time. At the present time, however, the larger
apparatus is less common in the streets, and
more frequent in the shops, than in the previous
winter.
There are, moreover, peculiar kinds of stalls —
such as the hot eels and hot peas-soup stalls,
having tin oval pots, with a small chafing-dish
containing a charcoal fire underneath each, to
keep the eels or soup hot. The early breakfast
stall has two capacious tin cans filled with tea or
coffee, kept hot by the means before described,
and some are lighted up by two or three large
oil-lamps; the majority of these stalls, in the
winter time, are sheltered from the wind by a
screen made out of an old clothes horse covered
with tarpaulin. The cough-drop stand, with its
distilling apparatus, the tin worm curling nearly
the whole length of the tray, has but lately been
introduced. The nut-stall is fitted up with a
target at the back of it. The ginger-beer stand
may be seen in almost every street, with its
French-polished mahogany frame and bright
polished taps, and its foot-bath-shaped reservoir
of water, to cleanse the glasses. The hot elder
wine stand, with its bright brass urns, is equally
popular.
The sellers of plum-pudding, "cake, a penny
a slice," sweetmeats, cough-drops, pin-cushions,
jewellery, chimney ornaments, tea and table-
spoons, make use of a table covered over, some
with old newspapers, or a piece of oil-cloth,
upon which are exposed their articles for sale.
Such is the usual character of the street-
stalls. There are, however, "stands" or "cans"
peculiar to certain branches of the street-trade.
The most important of these, such as the baked-
potatoe can, and the meat-pie stand, I have
before described, p. 27.
The other means adopted by the street-sellers
for the exhibition of their various goods at
certain "pitches" or fixed localities are as
follows. Straw bonnets, boys' caps, women's
caps, and prints, are generally arranged for sale
in large umbrellas, placed "upside down."
Haberdashery, with rolls of ribbons, edgings,
and lace, some street-sellers display on a stall;
whilst others have a board at the edge of the
pavement, and expose their wares upon it as
tastefully as they can. Old shoes, patched up
and well blacked, ready for the purchaser's feet,
and tin ware, are often ranged upon the ground, or,
where the stock is small, a stall or table is used.
Many stationary street-sellers use merely
baskets, or trays, either supported in their hand,
or on their arm, or else they are strapped round
their loins, or suspended round their necks.
These are mostly fruit-women, watercress, black-
ing, congreves, sheep's-trotters, and ham-sand-
wich sellers.
Many stationary street-sellers stand on or near
the bridges; others near the steam-packet wharfs
or the railway terminuses; a great number of
them take their pitch at the entrance to a court,
or at the corners of streets; and stall-keepers
with oysters stand opposite the doors of public-
houses.
It is customary for a street-seller who wants
to "pitch" in a new locality to solicit the leave
of the housekeeper, opposite whose premises he
desires to place his stall. Such leave obtained,
no other course is necessary.
OF FRUIT-STALL KEEPERS.
I had the following statement from a woman
who has "kept a stall" in Marylebone, at the
corner of a street, which she calls "my corner,"
for 38 years. I was referred to her as a curious
type of the class of stall-keepers, and on my
visit, found her daughter at the "pitch." This
daughter had all the eloquence which is attrac-
tive in a street-seller, and so, I found, had her
mother when she joined us. They are profuse
in blessings; and on a bystander observing,
when he heard the name of these street-sellers,
that a jockey of that name had won the Derby
lately, the daughter exclaimed, "To be sure he
did; he's my own uncle's relation, and what a
lot of money came into the family! Bless God
for all things, and bless every body! Walnuts,
sir, walnuts, a penny a dozen! Wouldn't give
you a bad one for the world, which is a great
thing for a poor 'oman for to offer to do." The
daughter was dressed in a drab great-coat, which
covered her whole person. When I saw the
mother, she carried a similar great-coat, as she
was on her way to the stall; and she used it as
ladies do their muffs, burying her hands in it.
The mother's dark-coloured old clothes seemed,
to borrow a description from Sir Walter Scott,
flung on with a pitchfork. These two women
were at first very suspicious, and could not be
made to understand my object in questioning
[Description: 915EAF. Page 100.]
came not only communicative, but garrulous,
conversing — with no small impatience at any
interruption — of the doings of the people in her
neighbourhood. I was accompanied by an in-
telligent costermonger, who assured me of his
certitude that the old woman's statement was
perfectly correct, and I found moreover from
other inquiries that it was so.
"Well, sir," she began, "what is it that you
want of me? Do I owe you anything? There's
half-pay officers about here for no good; what is
it you want? Hold your tongue, you young fool,"
(to her daughter, who was beginning to speak;)
"what do you know about it?" [On my satis-
fying her that I had no desire to injure her, she
continued, to say after spitting, a common prac-
tice with her class, on a piece of money, "for
luck,"] "Certainly, sir, that's very proper and
good. Aye, I've seen the world — the town
world and the country. I don't know where I
was born; never mind about that — it's nothing
to nobody. I don't know nothing about my
father and mother; but I know that afore I
was eleven I went through the country with
my missis. She was a smuggler. I didn't
know then what smuggling was — bless you, sir,
I didn't; I knew no more nor I know who
made that lamp-post. I didn't know the
taste of the stuff we smuggled for two years —
didn't know it from small beer; I've known
it well enough since, God knows. My missis
made a deal of money that time at Dept-
ford Dockyard. The men wasn't paid and let
out till twelve of a night — I hardly mind what
night it was, days was so alike then — and they
was our customers till one, two, or three in
the morning — Sunday morning, for anything I
know. I don't know what my missis gained;
something jolly, there's not a fear of it. She
was kind enough to me. I don't know how long
I was with missis. After that I was a hopping,
and made my 15s. regular at it, and a haymak-
ing; but I've had a pitch at my corner for thirty-
eight year — aye! turned thirty-eight. It's no
use asking me what I made at first — I can't tell;
but I'm sure I made more than twice as much
as my daughter and me makes now, the two of us.
I wish people that thinks we're idle now were
with me for a day. I'd teach them. I don't —
that's the two of us don't — make 15s. a week now,
nor the half of it, when all's paid. D — d if I do.
The d — d boys take care of that." [Here I
had a statement of the boy's tradings, similar to
what I have given.] "There's `Canterbury' has
lots of boys, and they bother me. I can tell,
and always could, how it is with working men.
When mechanics is in good work, their children
has halfpennies to spend with me. If they're
hard up, there's no halfpennies. The pennies
go to a loaf or to buy a candle. I might have
saved money once, but had a misfortunate family.
My husband? O, never mind about him. D — n
him. I've been a widow many years. My son
— it's nothing how many children I have — is
married; he had the care of an ingine. But
he lost it from ill health. It was in a feather-
house, and the flue got down his throat, and
coughed him; and so he went into the country,
108 miles off, to his wife's mother. But his
wife's mother got her living by wooding, and
other ways, and couldn't help him or his wife;
so he left, and he's with me now. He has a job
sometimes with a greengrocer. at 6d. a day and
a bit of grub; a little bit — very. I must shelter
him. I couldn't turn him out. If a Turk I
knew was in distress, and I had only half a loaf,
I'd give him half of that, if he was ever such
a Turk — I would, sir! Out of 6d. a day, my son
— poor fellow, he's only twenty-seven! — wants
a bit of 'baccy and a pint of beer. It 'ud be
unnatural to oppose that, wouldn't it, sir? He
frets about his wife, that's staying with her
mother, 108 miles off; and about his little girl;
but I tell him to wait, and he may have more
little girls. God knows, they come when they're
not wanted a bit. I joke and say all my old
sweethearts is dying away. Old Jemmy went off
sudden. He lent me money sometimes, but
I always paid him. He had a public once, and
had some money when he died. I saw him the
day afore he died. He was in bed, but wasn't
his own man quite; though he spoke sensible
enough to me. He said, said he, `Won't you
have half a quartern of rum, as we've often had
it?' `Certainly, Jemmy,' says I, `I came for
that very thing.' Poor fellow! his friends are
quarrelling now about what he left. It's 56l.
they say, and they'll go to law very likely, and
lose every thing. There'll be no such quarrel-
ling when I die, unless it is for the pawn-tickets.
I get a meal now, and got a meal afore; but it
was a better meal then, sir. Then look at my
expenses. I was a customer once. I used to
buy, and plenty such did, blue cloth aprons,
opposite Drury-lane theatre: the very shop's
there still, but I don't know what it is now;
I can't call to mind. I gave 2s. 6d. a yard,
from twenty to thirty years ago, for an apron,
and it took two yards, and I paid 4d. for making
it, and so an apron cost 5s. 4d. — that wasn't
much thought of in those times. I used to be
different off then. Lnever go to church; I used
to go when I was a little child at Sevenoaks.
I suppose I was born somewhere thereabouts.
I've forgot what the inside of a church is like.
There's no costermongers ever go to church,
except the rogues of them, that wants to appear
good. I buy my fruit at Covent-garden. Apples
is now 4s. 6d. a bushel there. I may make twice
that in selling them; but a bushel may last me
two, three, or four days."
As I have already, under the street-sale of
fish, given an account of the oyster stall-keeper,
as well as the stationary dealers in sprats, and the
principal varieties of wet fish, there is no neces-
sity for me to continue this part of my subject.
We have now, in a measure, finished with the
metropolitan costermongers. We have seen that
the street-sellers of fish, fruit, and vegetables
[Description: 915EAF. Page 101.]
pulation; the men, women, and children num-
bering at the least 30,000, and taking as much
as 2,000,000l. per annum. We have seen, more-
over, that these are the principal purveyors of
food to the poor, and that consequently they
are as important a body of people as they are
numerous. Of all classes they should be the
most honest, since the poor, least of all, can
afford to be cheated; and yet it has been shown
that the consciences of the London costermon-
gers, generally speaking, are as little developed
as their intellects; indeed, the moral and reli-
gious state of these men is a foul disgrace to us,
laughing to scorn our zeal for the "propagation
of the gospel in foreign parts," and making our
many societies for the civilization of savages
on the other side of the globe appear like a
"delusion, a mockery, and a snare," when we
have so many people sunk in the lowest depths
of barbarism round about our very homes. It
is well to have Bishops of New Zealand when
we have Christianized all our own heathen; but
with 30,000 individuals, in merely one of our
cities, utterly creedless, mindless, and principle-
less, surely it would look more like earnestness
on our parts if we created Bishops of the New-
Cut, and sent "right reverend fathers" to watch
over the "cure of souls" in the Broadway and
the Brill. If our sense of duty will not rouse us
to do this, at least our regard for our own inte-
rests should teach us, that it is not safe to allow
this vast dungheap of ignorance and vice to
seethe and fester, breeding a social pestilence in
the very heart of our land. That the coster-
mongers belong essentially to the dangerous
classes none can doubt; and those who know a
coster's hatred of a "crusher," will not hesitate
to believe that they are, as they themselves con-
fess, one and all ready, upon the least disturb-
ance, to seize and disable their policeman.
It would be a marvel indeed if it were other-
wise. Denied the right of getting a living by
the street authorities, after having, perhaps, been
supplied with the means of so doing by the
parish authorities — the stock which the one had
provided seized and confiscated by the other —
law seems to them a mere farce, or at best, but
the exercise of an arbitrary and despotic power,
against which they consider themselves justi-
fied, whenever an opportunity presents itself, of
using the same physical force as it brings to
bear against them. That they are ignorant and
vicious as they are, surely is not their fault. If
we were all born with learning and virtue, then
might we, with some show of justice, blame the
costermongers for their want of both; but seeing
that even the most moral and intelligent of us
owe the greater part, if not the whole, of our
wisdom and goodness to the tuition of others,
we must not in the arrogance of our self-conceit
condemn these men because they are not like
ourselves, when it is evident that we should have
been as they are, had not some one done for us
what we refuse to do for them. We leave them
destitute of all pereeption of beauty, and there-
fore without any means of pleasure but through
their appetites, and then we are surprized to
find their evenings are passed either in brutal-
izing themselves with beer, or in gloating
over the mimic sensuality of the "penny gaff."
Without the least intellectual culture is it likely,
moreover, that they should have that perception
of antecedents and consequents which enables us
to see in the shadows of the past the types of
the future — or that power of projecting the
mind into the space, as it were, of time, which
we in Saxon-English call fore-sight, and in
Anglo-Latin pro-vidence — a power so godlike
that the latter term is often used by us to ex-
press the Godhead itself? Is it possible, then,
that men who are as much creatures of the
present as the beasts of the field — instinctless
animals — should have the least faculty of pre-
vision? or rather is it not natural that, following
the most precarious of all occupations — one in
which the subsistence depends upon the weather
of this the most variable climate of any — they
should fail to make the affluence of the fine
days mitigate the starvation of the rainy ones?
or that their appetites, made doubly eager by
the privations suffered in their adversity, should
be indulged in all kinds of excess in their
prosperity — their lives being thus, as it were,
a series of alternations between starvation and
surfeit?
The fate of children brought up amid the
influence of such scenes — with parents starving
one week and drunk all the next — turned loose
into the streets as soon as they are old enough
to run alone — sent out to sell in public-houses
almost before they know how to put two half-
pence together — their tastes trained to libidinism
long before puberty at the penny concert, and
their passions inflamed with the unrestrained
intercourse of the twopenny hops — the fate of
the young, I say, abandoned to the blight of such
associations as these, cannot well be otherwise
than it is. If the child be father to the man,
assuredly it does not require a great effort of
imagination to conceive the manhood that such
a childhood must necessarily engender.
Some months back Mr. Mayhew, with a view
to mitigate what appeared to him to be the
chief evils of a street-seller's life, founded "The
Friendly Association of London Costermongers,"
the objects of which were as follows:
1. To establish a Benefit and Provident Fund
for insuring to each Member a small weekly
allowance in Sickness or Old Age, as well as
a certain sum to his family at his death, so
that the Costermongers, when incapacitated
from labour, may not be forced to seek paro-
chial relief, nor, at their decease, be left to be
buried by the parish.2. To institute a Penny Savings' Bank and
Winter Fund, where the smallest deposits will
be received and bear interest, so that the Cos-
termongers may be encouraged to lay by even
the most trivial sums, not only as a provision
for future comfort, but as the means of assisting
their poorer brethren with future loans.1023. To form a Small Loan Fund for supply-
ing the more needy Costermongers with Stock-
Money, &c., at a fair and legitimate interest,
instead of the exorbitant rates that are now
charged.4. To promote the use of full weights and
measures by every Member of the Association,
as well as a rigid inspection of the scales, &c.,
of all other Costermongers, so that the honestly
disposed Street-sellers may be protected, and
the public secured against imposition.5. To protect the Costermongers from inter-
ference when lawfully pursuing their calling,
by placing it in their power to employ counsel
to defend them, if unjustly prosecuted.6. To provide harmless, if not rational,
amusements at the same cheap rate as the
pernicious entertainments now resorted to by
the Street-sellers.7. To adopt means for the gratuitous educa-
tion of the children of the Costermongers, in
the day time, and the men and women them-
selves in the evening.
This institution remains at present compara-
tively in abeyance, from the want of funds to
complete the preliminary arrangements. Those,
however, who may feel inclined to contribute
towards its establishment, will please to pay
their subscriptions into Messrs. Twinings' Bank,
Strand, to the account of Thomas Hughes, Esq.
(of 63, Upper Berkeley-street, Portman-square),
who has kindly consented to act as Treasurer to
the Association.
OF A PUBLIC MEETING OF STREET-SELLERS.
The Association above described arose out of
a meeting of costermongers and other street-
folk, which was held, at my instance, on the
evening of the 12th of June last, in the National
Hall, Holborn. The meeting was announced as
one of "street-sellers, street-performers, and
street-labourers," but the costermongers were
the great majority present. The admission was
by ticket, and the tickets, which were of course
gratuitous, were distributed by men familiar with
all the classes invited to attend. These men
found the tickets received by some of the street-
people with great distrust; others could not be
made to understand why any one should trou-
ble himself on their behoof; others again, cheer-
fully promised their attendance. Some accused
the ticket distributors with having been bribed
by the Government or the police, though for
what purpose was not stated. Some abused them
heartily, and some offered to treat them. At
least 1,000 persons were present at the meeting,
of whom 731 presented their tickets; the others
were admitted, because they were known to the
door-keepers, and had either lost their tickets or
had not the opportunity to obtain them. The
persons to whom cards of admission were given
were invited to write their names and callings
on the backs, and the cards so received gave
the following result. Costermongers, 256; fish-
sellers, 28; hucksters, 23; lot-sellers, 18; street-
labourers, 16; paper-sellers and workers, 13;
toy-sellers, 11; ginger-beer-sellers, 9; hardware-
sellers, 9; general-dealers, 7; street-musicians,
5; street-performers, 5; cakes and pastry-sellers,
fried-fish-vendors, and tinkers, each, 4; turf-ven-
dors, street-exhibitors, strolling-players, cat's-
meat-men, water-cress-sellers, stay-lace, and
cotton-sellers, each, 3; board-carriers, fruit-
sellers, street-tradesmen, hawkers, street-green-
grocers, shell-fish-vendors, poulterers, mud-
larks, wire-workers, ballad-singers, crock-men,
and booksellers, each, 2; the cards also gave
one each of the following avocations: — fly-cage-
makers, fly-paper-sellers, grinders, tripe-sellers,
pattern-printers, blind-paper-cutters, lace-collar-
sellers, bird-sellers, bird-trainers, pen-sellers,
lucifer-merchants, watch-sellers, decorators, and
play-bill-sellers. 260 cards were given in
without being indorsed with any name or
calling.
My object in calling this meeting was to
ascertain from the men themselves what were the
grievances to which they considered themselves
subjected; what were the peculiarities and what
the privations of a street-life. Cat-calls, and
every description of discordant sound, prevailed,
before the commencement of the proceedings,
but there was also perfect good-humour. Al-
though it had been announced that all the
speakers were to address the meeting from the
platform, yet throughout the evening some man
or other would occasionally essay to speak from
the body of the hall. Some of those present
expressed misgivings that the meeting was got
up by the Government, or by Sir R. Peel, and
that policemen, in disguise, were in attendance.
The majority showed an ignorance of the usual
forms observed at public meetings, though some
manifested a thorough understanding of them.
Nor was there much delicacy observed — but,
perhaps, about as much as in some assem-
blages of a different character — in clamouring
down any prosy speaker. Many present were
without coats (for it was a warm evening),
some were without waistcoats, many were in
tatters, hats and caps were in infinite varieties
of shape and shade, while a few were well and
even genteelly dressed. The well dressed street-
sellers were nearly all young men, and one of
these wore moustachios. After I had explained,
amidst frequent questions and interruptions, the
purpose for which I had summoned the meet-
ing, and had assured the assembly that, to the
best of my knowledge, no policemen were pre-
sent, I invited free discussion.
It was arranged that some one person should
address the meeting as the representative of
each particular occupation. An elderly man
of small stature and lively intelligent features,
stood up to speak on behalf of the "paper-
workers," "flying-stationers," and "standing-
patterers." He said, that "for twenty-four years
he had been a penny-showman, a street-seller,
and a patterer." He dwelt upon the difference
of a street-life when he was young and at
the present time, the difference being between
meals and no meals; and complained that though
[Description: 915EAF. Page 103.]
respectable way of life, and had never been
accused of any dishonesty, such was the moral
brand," of having been connected with a "street
life, that it was never got rid of. He more
than once alluded to this "moral brand."
The question was, he concluded, in what way
were they to obtain an honest livelihood, so
as to keep their wives and children decently,
without being buffeted about like wild beasts
in the open streets? This address was charac-
terised by propriety in the delivery, and by the
absence of any grammatical inaccuracy, or vul-
garity of tone or expression.
A costermonger, a quiet-looking man, tidily
clad, said he was the son of a country auctioneer,
now dead; and not having been brought up
to any trade, he came to London to try his luck.
His means were done before he could obtain em-
ployment; and he was in a state of starvation.
At last he was obliged to apply to the parish.
The guardians took him into the workhouse,
and offered to pass him home: but as he could
do no good there, he refused to go. Whereupon,
giving him a pound of bread, he was turned
into the streets, and had nowhere to lay his head.
In wandering down the New-cut a costermon-
ger questioned him, and then took him into his
house and fed him This man kept him for a
year and a half; he showed him how to get a
living in the street trade; and when he left, gave
him 20s. to start with. With this sum he got
a good living directly; and he could do so now,
were it not for the police, whose conduct, he
stated, was sometimes very tyrannical. He had
been dragged to the station-house, for standing
to serve customers, though he obstructed nobody;
the policeman, however, called it an obstruction,
and he (the speaker) was fined 2s. 6d.; where-
upon, because he had not the half-crown, his
barrow and all it contained were taken from him,
and he had heard nothing of them since. This
almost broke him down. There was no redress
for these things, and he thought they ought to
be looked into.
This man spoke with considerable energy; and
when he had concluded, many costermongers
shouted, at the top of their voices, that they
could substantiate every word of what he had
said.
A young man, of superior appearance, said
he was the son of a gentleman who had held a
commission as Lieutenant in the 20th Foot, and
as Captain in the 34th Infantry, and afterwards
became Sub-director of the Bute Docks; in which
situation he died, leaving no property. He (the
speaker) was a classical scholar; but having no
trade, he was compelled, after his father's death,
to come to London in search of employment,
thinking that his pen and his school acquire-
ments would secure it. But in this expectation
he was disappointed, — though for a short period
he was earning two guineas a week in copying
documents for the House of Commons. That
time was past; and he was a street-patterer
now through sheer necessity. He could say
from experience that the earnings of that class
were no more than from 8s. to 10s. a week. He
then declaimed at some length against the inter-
ference of the police with the patterers, con-
sidering it harsh and unnecessary.
After some noisy and not very relevant dis-
cussion concerning the true amount of a street-
patterer's earnings, a clergyman of the Esta-
blished Church, now selling stenographic cards
in the street, addressed the meeting. He ob-
served, that in every promiscuous assembly
there would always be somebody who might be
called unfortunate. Of this number he was one;
for when, upon the 5th September, 1831, he
preached a funeral sermon before a fashionable
congregation, upon Mr. Huskisson's death by a
railway accident, he little thought he should
ever be bound over in his own recognizances in
10l. for obstructing the metropolitan thorough-
fares. He was a native of Hackney, but in early
life he went to Scotland, and upon the 24th June,
1832, he obtained the presentation to a small
extra-parochial chapel in that country, upon the
presentation of the Rev. Dr. Bell. His people
embraced Irvingism, and he was obliged to
leave; and in January, 1837, he came to the
metropolis. His history since that period he
need not state. His occupation was well known,
and he could confirm what had been stated with
regard to the police. The Police Act provided,
that all persons selling goods in the streets were
to keep five feet off the pavement, the street not
being a market. He had always kept with his
wares and his cards beyond the prohibited dis-
tance of five feet; and for six years and a half
he had sold his cards without molesting or being
molested. After some severe observations upon
the police, he narrated several events in his
personal history to account for his present con-
dition, which he attributed to misfortune and
the injustice of society. In the course of these
explanations he gave an illustration of his
classical acquirements, in having detected a
grammatical error in a Latin inscription upon
the plate of a foundation-stone for a new church
in Westminster. He wrote to the incumbent,
pointing out the error, and the incumbent asked
the beadle who he was. "Oh," said the beadle,
"he is a fellow who gets his living in the
streets." This was enough. He got no answer
to his letter, though he knew the incumbent and
his four curates, and had attended his church
for seven years. After dwelling on the suffer-
ings of those whose living was gained in the
streets, he said, that if persons wished really
to know anything of the character or habits of
life of the very poor, of whom he was one, the
knowledge could only be had from a personal
survey of their condition in their own homes.
He ended, by expressing his hope that by better
treatment, and an earnest attention — moral,
social, and religious — to their condition, the poor
of the streets might be gathered to the church,
and to God.
A "wandering musician" in a Highland
garb, worn and dirty, complained at some
[Description: 915EAF. Page 104.]
the police.
A hale-looking man, a costermonger, of middle
age — who said he had a wife and four children
dependent upon him — then spoke. It was a
positive fact, he said, notwithstanding their
poverty, their hardships, and even their degra-
dation in the eyes of some, that the first mar-
kets in London were mainly supported by
costermongers. What would the Duke of
Bedford's market in Covent-garden be with-
out them? This question elicited loud
applause.
Several other persons followed with state-
ments of a similar character, which were
listened to with interest; but from their general
sameness it is not necessary to repeat them
here. After occupying nearly four hours, the
proceedings were brought to a close by a vote
of thanks, and the "street-sellers, performers,
and labourers," separated in a most orderly
manner.
| OF THE STATIONARY STREET-SELLERS OF FISH, FRUIT,
AND VEGETABLES. London Labour and the London Poor, volume 1 | |