The “solids” however, of these three divisions, are such as only regular street-buyers consider to be sufficing for a substantial meal, for it will be seen that the comestibles accounted “good for dinner,” are all of a dainty, rather than a solid character. Men whose lives, as I have before stated, are alternations of starvation and surfeit, love some easily-swallowed and comfortable food, better than the most approved substantiality of a dinner-table. I was told by a man, who was once foodless for thirty-eight hours, that in looking into the window of a cook-shop—he longed far more for a basin of soup than for a cut from the boiled round, or the roasted ribs, of beef. He felt a gnawing rather than a ravenous desire, and some tasty semi-liquid was the incessant object of his desires.

The solids then, according to street estimation, consist of hot-eels, pickled whelks, oysters, sheep’s-trotters, pea-soup, fried fish, ham-sandwiches, hot green peas, kidney puddings, boiled meat puddings, beef, mutton, kidney, and eel pies, and baked potatos. In each of these provisions the street poor find a mid-day or mid-night meal.

The pastry and confectionary which tempt the street eaters are tarts of rhubarb, currant, gooseberry, cherry, apple, damson, cranberry, and (so called) mince pies; plum dough and plum-cake; lard, currant, almond and many other varieties of cakes, as well as of tarts; gingerbread-nuts and heart-cakes; Chelsea buns; muffins and crumpets; “sweet stuff” includes the several kinds of rocks, sticks, lozenges, candies, and hard-bakes; the medicinal confectionary of cough-drops and horehound; and, lastly, the more novel and aristocratic luxury of street-ices; and strawberry cream, at 1d. a glass, (in Greenwich Park).

The drinkables are tea, coffee, and cocoa; ginger-beer, lemonade, Persian sherbet, and some highly-coloured beverages which have no specific name, but are introduced to the public as “cooling” drinks; hot elder cordial or wine; peppermint water; curds and whey; water (as at Hampstead); rice milk; and milk in the parks.

At different periods there have been attempts to introduce more substantial viands into the street provision trade, but all within these twenty years have been exceptional and unsuccessful. One man a few years back established a portable cook-shop in Leather-lane, cutting out portions of the joints to be carried away or eaten on the spot, at the buyer’s option. But the speculation was a failure. Black puddings used to be sold, until a few years back, smoking from cans, not unlike potato cans, in such places as the New Cut; but the trade in these rather suspicious articles gradually disappeared.

Mr. Albert Smith, who is an acute observer in all such matters, says, in a lively article on the Street Boys of London:

“The kerb is his club, offering all the advantages of one of those institutions without any subscription or ballot. Had he a few pence, he might dine equally well as at Blackwall, and with the same variety of delicacies without going twenty yards from the pillars of St. Clement’s churchyard. He might begin with a water souchée of eels, varying his first course with pickled whelks, cold fried flounders, or periwinkles. Whitebait, to be sure, he would find a difficulty in procuring, but as the more cunning gourmands do not believe these delicacies to be fish at all, but merely little bits of light pie-crust fried in grease;—and as moreover, the brown bread and butter is after all the grand attraction,—the boy might soon find a substitute. Then would come the potatos, apparently giving out so much steam that the can which contains them seems in momentary danger of blowing up; large, hot, mealy fellows, that prove how unfounded were the alarms of the bad-crop-ites; and he might next have a course of boiled feet of some animal or other, which he would be certain to find in front of the gin-shop. Cyder-cups perhaps he would not get; but there would be ‘ginger-beer from the fountain, at 1d. per glass;’ and instead of mulled claret, he could indulge in hot elder cordial; whilst for dessert he could calculate upon all the delicacies of the season, from the salads at the corner of Wych-street to the baked apples at Temple Bar. None of these things would cost more than a penny a piece; some of them would be under that sum; and since as at Verey’s, and some other foreign restaurateurs, there is no objection to your dividing the “portions,” the boy might, if he felt inclined to give a dinner to a friend, get off under 6d. There would be the digestive advantage too of moving leisurely about from one course to another; and, above all, there would be no fee to waiters.” After alluding to the former glories of some of the street-stands, more especially of the kidney pudding establishments which displayed rude transparencies, one representing the courier of St. Petersburg riding six horses at once for a kidney pudding, Mr. Smith continues,—“But of all these eating-stands the chief favourite with the boy is the potato-can. They collect around it as they would do on ’Change, and there talk over local matters, or discuss the affairs of the adjacent cab-stand, in which they are at times joined by the waterman whom they respect, more so perhaps than the policeman; certainly more than they do the street-keeper, for him they especially delight to annoy, and they watch any of their fellows eating a potato, with a curiosity and an attention most remarkable, as if no two persons fed in the same manner, and they expected something strange or diverting to happen at every mouthful.”

A gentleman, who has taken an artist’s interest in all connected with the streets, and has been familiar with their daily and nightly aspect from the commencement of the present century, considers that the great change is not so much in what has ceased to be sold, but in the introduction of fresh articles into street-traffic—such as pine-apples and Brazil-nuts, rhubarb and cucumbers, ham-sandwiches, ginger-beer, &c. The coffee-stall, he represents, has but superseded the saloop-stall (of which I have previously spoken); while the class of street-customers who supported the saloop-dealer now support the purveyor of coffee. The appearance of the two stalls, however, seen before daybreak, with their respective customers, on a bleak winter’s morning, was very different. Round the saloop-stall was a group—hardly discernible at a little distance in the dimly-lighted streets—the prominent figures being of two callings now extinct—the climbing-boy and the old hackney-coachman.

The little sweep would have his saloop smoking hot—and there was the common appliance of a charcoal grate—regaling himself with the savoury steam until the mess was cool enough for him to swallow; whilst he sought to relieve his naked feet from the numbing effects of the cold by standing now on the right foot and now on the left, and swinging the other to and fro, until a change of posture was necessitated; his white teeth the while gleamed from his sooty visage as he gleefully licked his lips at the warm and oily breakfast.

The old hackney-coachman was wrapped up in a many-caped great coat, drab—when it left the tailor’s hands some years before—but then worn and discoloured, and, perhaps, patched or tattered; its weight alone, however, communicated a sort of warmth to the wearer; his legs were closely and artistically “wisped” with hay-bands; and as he kept smiting his chest with his arms, “to keep the cold out,” while his saloop was cooling, he would, in no very gentle terms, express his desire to add to its comforting influence the stimulant of a “flash of lightning,” a “go of rum,” or a “glass of max,”—for so a dram of neat spirit was then called.

The old watchman of that day, too, almost as heavily coated as the hackneyman, would sometimes partake of the street “Saloop-loop-loop! Sa-loop!” The woman of the town, in “looped and windowed raggedness,” the outcast of the very lowest class, was at the saloop, as she is now and then at the coffee-stall, waiting until daylight drove her to her filthy lodging-house. But the climbing-boy has, happily, left no successor; the hackneyman has been succeeded by the jauntier cabman; and the taciturn old watchman by the lounging and trim policeman.

Another class of street-sellers, no longer to be seen, were the “barrow-women.” They sold fruit of all kinds, little else, in very clean white barrows, and their fruit was excellent, and purchased by the wealthier classes. They were, for the most part, Irish women, and some were remarkable for beauty. Their dress was usually a good chintz gown, the skirt being tidily tucked or pinned up behind, “in a way,” said one informant, “now sometimes seen on the stage when correctness of costume is cared for.” These women were prosperous in their calling, nor was there any imputation on their chastity, as the mothers were almost always wives.

Concerning the bygone street-cries, I had also the following account from the personal observation of an able correspondent:—

“First among the old ‘musical cries,’ may be cited the ‘Tiddy Doll!’—immortalised by Hogarth—then comes the last person, who, with a fine bass voice, coaxed his customers to buy sweets with, ‘Quack, quack, quack, quack! Browns, browns, browns! have you got any mouldy browns?’ There was a man, too, who sold tripe, &c., in this way, and to some purpose; he was as fine a man as ever stepped, and his deep rich voice would ring through a whole street, ‘Dog’s-meat! cat’s-meat! nice tripe! neat’s feet! Come buy my trotters!’ The last part would not have disgraced Lablache. He discovered a new way of pickling tripe—got on—made contracts for supplying the Navy during the war, and acquired a large property. One of our most successful artists is his grandson. Then there was that delight of our childhood—the eight o’clock ‘Hot spiced gingerbread! hot spiced gingerbread! buy my spiced gingerbread! sm-o-o-king hot!’” Another informant remembered a very popular character (among the boys), whose daily cry was: “Hot spiced gingerbread nuts, nuts, nuts! If one’ll warm you, wha-at’ll a pound do?—Wha-a-a-at’ll a pound do?” Gingerbread was formerly in much greater demand than it is now.

Of the Street-sellers of Pea-Soup and Hot Eels.

Two of the condiments greatly relished by the chilled labourers and others who regale themselves on street luxuries, are “pea-soup” and “hot eels.” Of these tradesmen there may be 500 now in the streets on a Saturday. As the two trades are frequently carried on by the same party, I shall treat of them together. The greatest number of these stands is in Old-street, St. Luke’s, about twenty. In warm weather these street-cooks deal only in “hot eels” and whelks; as the whelk trade is sometimes an accompaniment of the others, for then the soup will not sell. These dealers are stationary, having stalls or stands in the street, and the savoury odour from them attracts more hungry-looking gazers and longers than does a cook-shop window. They seldom move about, but generally frequent the same place. A celebrated dealer of this class has a stand in Clare-street, Clare-market, opposite a cat’s-meat shop; he has been heard to boast, that he wouldn’t soil his hands at the business if he didn’t get his 30s. a day, and his 2l. 10s. on a Saturday. Half this amount is considered to be about the truth. This person has mostly all the trade for hot eels in the Clare-market district. There is another “hot eel purveyor” at the end of Windmill-street, Tottenham-court-road, that does a very good trade. It is thought that he makes about 5s. a day at the business, and about 10s. on Saturday. There was, before the removals, a man who came out about five every afternoon, standing in the New-cut, nearly opposite the Victoria Theatre, his “girl” always attending to the stall. He had two or three lamps with “hot eels” painted upon them, and a handsome stall. He was considered to make about 7s. a day by the sale of eels alone, but he dealt in fried fish and pickled whelks as well, and often had a pile of fried fish a foot high. Near the Bricklayers’ Arms, at the junction of the Old and New Kent-roads, a hot-eel man dispenses what a juvenile customer assured me was “as spicy as any in London, as if there was gin in it.” But the dealer in Clare-market does the largest trade of all in the hot-eel line. He is “the head man.” On one Saturday he was known to sell 100lbs. of eels, and on most Saturdays he will get rid of his four “draughts” of eels (a draught being 20lbs.) He and his son are dressed in Jenny Lind hats, bound with blue velvet, and both dispense the provisions, while the daughter attends to wash the cups. “On a Sunday, anybody,” said my informant, “would think him the first nobleman or squire in the land, to see him dressed in his white hat, with black crape round it, and his drab paletot and mother-o’-pearl buttons, and black kid gloves, with the fingers too long for him.”

I may add, that even the very poorest, who have only a halfpenny to spend, as well as those with better means, resort to the stylish stalls in preference to the others. The eels are all purchased at Billingsgate early in the morning. The parties themselves, or their sons or daughters, go to Billingsgate, and the watermen row them to the Dutch eel vessels moored off the market. The fare paid to the watermen is 1d. for every 10lbs. purchased and brought back in the boat, the passenger being gratis. These dealers generally trade on their own capital; but when some have been having “a flare up,” and have “broke down for stock,” to use the words of my informant, they borrow 1l., and pay it back in a week or a fortnight at the outside, and give 2s. for the loan of it. The money is usually borrowed of the barrow, truck, and basket-lenders. The amount of capital required for carrying on the business of course depends on the trade done; but even in a small way, the utensils cost 1l. They consist of one fish-kettle and one soup-kettle, holding upon an average three gallons each; besides these, five basins and five cups and ten spoons are required, also a washhand basin to wash the cups, basins, and spoons in, and a board and tressel on which the whole stand. In a large way, it requires from 3l. to 4l. to fit up a handsome stall. For this the party would have “two fine kettles,” holding about four gallons each, and two patent cast-iron fireplaces (the 1l. outfit only admits of the bottoms of two tin saucepans being used as fireplaces, in which charcoal is always burning to keep the eels and soup hot; the whelks are always eaten cold). The crockery and spoons would be in no way superior. A small dealer requires, over and above this sum, 10s. to go to market with and purchase stock, and the large dealer about 30s. The class of persons belonging to the business have either been bred to it, or taken to it through being out of work. Some have been disabled during their work, and have resorted to it to save themselves from the workhouse. The price of the hot eels is a halfpenny for five or seven pieces of fish, and three-parts of a cupfull of liquor. The charge for a half-pint of pea-soup is a halfpenny, and the whelks are sold, according to the size, from a halfpenny each to three or four for the same sum. These are put out in saucers.

The eels are Dutch, and are cleaned and washed, and cut in small pieces of from a half to an inch each. [The daughter of one of my informants was busily engaged, as I derived this information, in the cutting of the fish. She worked at a blood-stained board, with a pile of pieces on one side and a heap of entrails on the other.] The portions so cut are then boiled, and the liquor is thickened with flour and flavoured with chopped parsley and mixed spices. It is kept hot in the streets, and served out, as I have stated, in halfpenny cupfulls, with a small quantity of vinegar and pepper. The best purveyors add a little butter. The street-boys are extravagant in their use of vinegar.

To dress a draught of eels takes three hours—to clean, cut them up, and cook them sufficiently; and the cost is now 5s. 2d. (much lower in the summer) for the draught (the 2d. being the expense of “shoring”), 8d. for 4 lb. of flour to thicken the liquor, 2d. for the parsley to flavour it, and 1s. 6d. for the vinegar, spices, and pepper (about three quarts of vinegar and two ounces of pepper). This quantity, when dressed and seasoned, will fetch in halfpennyworths from 15s. to 18s. The profit upon this would be from 7s. to 9s. 6d.; but the cost of the charcoal has to be deducted, as well as the salt used while cooking. These two items amount to about 5d.

The pea-soup consists of split peas, celery, and beef bones. Five pints, at 3½d. a quart, are used to every three gallons; the bones cost 2d., carrots 1d., and celery ½d.—these cost 1s. 0¼d.; and the pepper, salt, and mint, to season it, about 2d. This, when served in halfpenny basinfulls, will fetch from 2s. 3d. to 2s. 4d., leaving 1s. 1d. profit. But from this the expenses of cooking must be taken; so that the clear gain upon three gallons comes to about 11d. In a large trade, three kettles, or twelve gallons, of pea-soup will be disposed of in the day, and about four draughts, or 80 lbs., of hot eels on every day but Saturday,—when the quantity of eels disposed of would be about five draughts, or 100 lbs. weight, and about 15 gallons of pea-soup. Hence the profits of a good business in the hot-eel and pea-soup line united will be from 7l. to 7l. 10s. per week, or more. But there is only one man in London does this amount of business, or rather makes this amount of money. A small business will do about 15 lbs. of eels in the week, including Saturday, and about 12 gallons of soup. Sometimes credit is given for a halfpennyworth, or a pennyworth, at the outside; but very little is lost from bad debts. Boys who are partaking of the articles will occasionally say to the proprietor of the stall, “Well, master, they are nice; trust us another ha’p’orth, and I’ll pay you when I comes again;” but they are seldom credited, for the stall-keepers know well they would never see them again. Very often the stock cooked is not disposed of, and then it is brought home and eaten by the family. The pea-soup will seldom keep a night, but what is left the family generally use for supper.

The dealers go out about half-past ten in the morning, and remain out till about ten at night. Monday is the next best day to Saturday. The generality of the customers are boys from 12 to 16 years of age. Newsboys are very partial to hot eels—women prefer the pea-soup. Some of the boys will have as many as six halfpenny cupfulls consecutively on a Saturday night; and some women will have three halfpenny basinsfull of soup. Many persons in the cold weather prefer the hot soup to beer. On wet, raw, chilly days, the soup goes off better than usual, and in fine weather there is a greater demand for the hot eels. One dealer assured me that he once did serve two gentlemen’s servants with twenty-eight halfpenny cupfulls of hot eels one after another. One servant had sixteen, and the other twelve cupfulls, which they ate all at one standing; and one of these customers was so partial to hot eels, that he used to come twice a day every day for six months after that, and have eight cupfulls each day, four at noon and four in the evening. These two persons were the best customers my informant ever had. Servants, however, are not generally partial to the commodity. Hot eels are not usually taken for dinner, nor is pea-soup, but throughout the whole day, and just at the fancy of the passers-by. There are no shops for the sale of these articles. The dealers keep no accounts of what their receipts and expenditure are.

The best time of the year for the hot eels is from the middle of June to the end of August. On some days during that time a person in a small way of business will clear upon an average 1s. 6d. a day, on other days 1s.; on some days, during the month of August, as much as 2s. 6d. a day. Some cry out “Nice hot eels—nice hot eels!” or “Warm your hands and fill your bellies for a halfpenny.” One man used to give his surplus eels, when he considered his sale completed on a night, to the poor creatures refused admission into a workhouse, lending them his charcoal fire for warmth, which was always returned to him. The poor creatures begged cinders, and carried the fire under a railway arch. The general rule, however, is for the dealer to be silent, and merely expose the articles for sale. “I likes better,” said one man to me, “to touch up people’s noses than their heyes or their hears.” There are now in the trade almost more than can get a living at it, and their earnings are less than they were formerly. One party attributed this to the opening of a couple of penny-pie shops in his neighbourhood. Before then he could get 2s. 6d. a day clear, take one day with another; but since the establishment of the business in the penny-pie line he cannot take above 1s. 6d. a day clear. On the day the first of these pie-shops opened, it made as much as 10 lbs., or half a draught of eels, difference to him. There was a band of music and an illumination at the pie-shop, and it was impossible to stand against that. The fashionable dress of the trade is the “Jenny Lind” or “wide-awake” hat, with a broad black ribbon tied round it, and a white apron and sleeves. The dealers usually go to Hampton-court or Greenwich on a fine Sunday. They are partial to the pit of Astley’s. One of them told his waterman at Billingsgate the other morning that “he and his good lady had been werry amused with the osses at Hashley’s last night.”

Of the Experience of a Hot-Eel and Pea-soup Man.

“I was a coalheaver,” said one of the class to me, as I sat in his attic up a close court, watching his wife “thicken the liquor;” “I was a-going along the plank, from one barge to another, when the swell of some steamers throwed the plank off the ‘horse,’ and chucked me down, and broke my knee agin the side of the barge. Before that I was yarning upon an average my 20s. to 30s. a week. I was seven months and four days in King’s College Hospital after this. I found they was a-doing me no good there, so I come out and went over to Bartholemy’s Hospital. I was in there nineteen months altogether, and after that I was a month in Middlesex Hospital, and all on ’em turned me out oncurable. You see, the bone’s decayed—four bits of bone have been taken from it. The doctor turned me out three times ’cause I wouldn’t have it off. He asked my wife if she would give consent, but neither she nor my daughter would listen to it, so I was turned out on ’em all. How my family lived all this time it’s hard to tell. My eldest boy did a little—got 3s. 6d. a week as an errand-boy, and my daughter was in service, and did a little for me; but that was all we had to live upon. There was six children on my hands, and however they did manage I can’t say. After I came out of the hospital I applied to the parish, and was allowed 2s. 6d. a week and four loaves. But I was anxious to do something, so a master butcher, as I knowed, said he would get me ‘a pitch’ (the right to fix a stall), if I thought I could sit at a stall and sell a few things. I told him I thought I could, and would be very thankful for it. Well, I had heard how the man up in the market was making a fortune at the hot-eel and pea-soup line. [A paviour as left his barrow and two shovels with me told me to-day, said the man, by way of parenthesis—‘that he knowed for a fact he was clearing 6l. a week regular.’] So I thought I’d have a touch at the same thing. But you see, I never could rise money enough to get sufficient stock to make a do of it, and never shall, I expect—it don’t seem like it, however. I ought to have 5s. to go to market with to-morrow, and I ain’t got above 1s. 6d.; and what’s that for stock-money, I’d like to know? Well, as I was saying, the master butcher lent me 10s. to start in the line. He was the best friend I ever had. But I’ve never been able to do anything at it—not to say to get a living.” “He can’t carry anything now, sir,” said his wife, as the old man strove to get the bellows to warm up the large kettle of pea-soup that was on the fire. “Aye, I can’t go without my crutch. My daughter goes to Billingsgate for me. I’ve got nobody else; and she cuts up the eels. If it warn’t for her I must give it up altogether, and go into the workhouse outright. I couldn’t fetch ’em. I ought to have been out to-night by rights till ten, if I’d had anything to have sold. My wife can’t do much; she’s troubled with the rheumatics in her head and limbs.” “Yes,” said the old body, with a sigh, “I’m never well, and never shall be again, I know.” “Would you accept on a drop of soup, sir?” asked the man; “you’re very welcome, I can assure you. You’ll find it very good, sir.” I told him I had just dined, and the poor old fellow proceeded with his tale. “Last week I earned clear about 8s., and that’s to keep six on us. I didn’t pay no rent last week nor yet this, and I don’t know when I shall again, if things goes on in this way. The week before there was a fast-day, and I didn’t earn above 6s. that week, if I did that. My boy can’t go to school. He’s got no shoes nor nothing to go in. The girls go to the ragged-school, but we can’t send them of a Sunday nowhere.” “Other people can go,” said one of the young girls nestling round the fire, and with a piece of sacking over her shoulders for a shawl—“them as has got things to go in; but mother don’t like to let us go as we are.” “She slips her mother’s shoes on when she goes out. It would take 1l. to start me well. With that I could go to market, and buy my draught of eels a shilling cheaper, and I could afford to cut my pieces a little bigger; and people where they gets used well comes again—don’t you see? I could have sold more eels if I’d had ’em to-day, and soup too. Why, there’s four hours of about the best time to-night that I’m losing now ’cause I’ve nothing to sell. The man in the market can give more than we can. He gives what is called the lumping ha’p’orth—that is, seven or eight pieces; ah, that I daresay he does; indeed, some of the boys has told me he gives as many as eight pieces. And then the more eels you biles up, you see, the richer the liquor is, and in our little tin-pot way it’s like biling up a great jint of meat in a hocean of water. In course we can’t compete agin the man in the market, and so we’re being ruined entirely. The boys very often comes and asks me if I’ve got a farden’s-worth of heads. The woman at Broadway, they tells me, sells ’em at four a farden and a drop of liquor, but we chucks ’em away, there’s nothing to eat on them; the boys though will eat anything.”

In the hot-eel trade are now 140 vendors, each selling 6 lb. of eels daily at their stands; 60 sell 40 lb. daily; and 100 are itinerant, selling 5 lb. nightly at the public-houses. The first mentioned take 2s. daily; the second 16s.; and the third 1s. 8d. This gives a street expenditure in the trade in hot eels of 21,910l. for the year.

To start in this business a capital is required after this rate:—stall 6s.; basket 1s.; eel-kettle 3s. 6d.; jar 6d.; ladle 4d.; 12 cups 1s.; 12 spoons 1s.; stew-pan 2s.; chafing-dish 6d.; strainer 1s.; 8 cloths 2s. 8d.; a pair sleeves 4d.; apron 4d.; charcoal 2s. (4d. being an average daily consumption); ¼ cwt. coal 3½d.; ½ lb. butter (the weekly average) 4d.; 1 quartern flour 5d.; 4 oz. pepper 4d.; 1 quart vinegar 10d.; 1 lb. salt ½d.; 1 lb. candles for stall 6d.; parsley 3d.; stock-money 10s. In all 1l. 15s. In the course of a year the property which may be described as fixed, as in the stall, &c., and the expenditure daily occurring as for stock, butter, coal, according to the foregoing statement, amounts to 15,750l. The eels purchased for this trade at Billingsgate are 1,166,880 lb., costing, at 3d. per lb., 14,586l.

In the pea-soup trade there are now one half of the whole number of the hot-eel vendors; of whom 100 will sell, each 4 gallons daily; and of the remaining 50 vendors, each will sell upon an average 10 gallons daily. The first mentioned take 3s. daily; and the last 7s. 6d. This gives a street expenditure of 4,050l. during the winter season of five months.

To commence business in the street sale of pea-soup a capital is required after this rate: soup-kettle 4s.; peas 2s.; soup-ladle 6d.; pepper-box 1d.; mint-box 3d.; chafing-dish 6d.; 12 basons 1s.; 12 spoons 1s.; bones, celery, mint, carrots, and onions, 1s. 6d. In all 10s. 10d. The hot-eel trade being in conjunction with the pea-soup, the same stall, candles, towels, sleeves, and aprons, does for both, and the quantity of extra coal and charcoal; pepper and salt given in the summary of hot-eels serves in cooking, &c., both eels and pea-soup.

Of the Street-sellers of Pickled Whelks.

The trade in whelks is one of which the costermongers have the undisputed monopoly. The wholesale business is all transacted in Billingsgate, where this shell-fish is bought by the measure (a double peck or gallon), half-measure, or wash. A wash is four measures, and is the most advantageous mode of purchase; “It’s so much cheaper by taking that quantity,” I was told, “it’s as good as having a half-measure in.” An average price for the year may be 4s. the wash; “But I’ve given 21s. for three wash,” said one costermonger, and he waxed indignant as he spoke, “one Saturday, when there was a great stock in too, just because there was a fair coming on on Monday, and the whelkmen, who are the biggest rogues in Billingsgate, always have the price up then, and hinder a poor man doing good—they’ve a great knack of that.” A wash weighs about 60 lbs. On rare occasions it has been as low as 2s. 6d., and even 1s. 6d.

About one-half of the whelks are sold alive (wholesale), and the other half “cooked” (boiled), some of the salesmen having “convenience for cooking” near the market; but they are all brought to London alive, “or what should be alive.” When bought alive, which ensures a better quality, I was told—for “whelks’ll boil after they’re dead and gone, you see, sir, as if they was alive and hungry”—the costermonger boils them in the largest saucepan at his command for about ten minutes, and then leaves them until they cool. “They never kicks as they boils, like lobsters or crabs,” said one whelk dealer, “they takes it quiet. A missionary cove said to me, ‘Why don’t you kill them first? it’s murder.’ They doesn’t suffer; I’ve suffered more with a toothach than the whole of a measure of whelks has in a boiling, that I’m clear upon.” The boiling is generally the work of the women. The next process is to place them in a tub, throw boiling water over them, and stir them up for ten or fifteen minutes with a broom-handle. If the quantity be a wash, two broom-handles, usually wielded by the man and his wife, are employed. This is both to clean them and “to make them come out easier to be wormed.” The “worming” is equivalent to the removing of the beard of an oyster or mussel. The whelks are wormed one by one. The operator cuts into the fish, rapidly draws out the “worm,” and pushes the severed parts together, which closes. The small whelks are not wormed, “because it’s not reckoned necessary, and they’re sold to poor lads and such like, that’s not particular; but nearly all the women, and a good many of the boys, are very particular. They think the worm’s poison.” The whelks are next shaken in a tub, in cold water, and are then ready for sale. The same process, after the mere boiling, is observed, when the whelks are bought “cooked.”

Some whelk-sellers, who wish to display a superior article, engage children for a few halfpence to rub the shell of every whelk, so that it looks clean and even bright.

I find a difficulty, common in the course of this inquiry, of ascertaining precisely the number of whelk-sellers, because the sale is often carried on simultaneously with that of other things, (stewed eels, for instance,) and because it is common for costermongers to sell whelks on a Saturday night only, both at stalls and “round to the public-houses,” but only when they are cheap at Billingsgate. On a Saturday night there may be 300 whelk-sellers in the streets, nearly half at stalls, and half, or more, “working the public-houses.” But of this number it must be understood that perhaps the wife is at the stall while the husband is on a round, and some whelks are sent out by a man having an extra stock. This, therefore, reduces the number of independent dealers, but not the actual number of sellers. On all other nights there may be half the number engaged in this traffic, in the streets regularly all the year; and more than half on a Monday, as regards the public-house business, in which little is done between Monday and Saturday nights. But a man will, in some instances, work the public-houses every night (the wife tending the stall), and the more assiduously if the weather be bad or foggy, when a public-house custom is the best. A fair week’s earnings in whelks, “when a man’s known,” is 1l.; a bad week is from 5s. to 8s. I am assured that bad weeks are “as plenty as good, at least, the year round;” and thus the average to the street whelk-sellers, in whelks alone, is about 13s. when the trade is carried on daily and regularly, and 5s. a week by those who occasionally resort to it; and as the occasional hands are the more numerous, the average may be struck at 7s.

The whelks are sold at the stalls at two, three, four, six, and eight a penny, according to size. Four is an average pennyworth for good whelks; the six a penny are small, and the eight a penny very small. The principal place for their sale is in Old-street, City-road. The other principal places are the street-markets, which I have before particularised. The whelks are sold in saucers, generally small and white, and of common ware, and are contained in jars, ready to be “shelled” into any saucer that may have been emptied. Sometimes a small pyramid of shells, surmounted by a candle protected by a shade, attracts the regard of the passer-by. The man doing the best business in London was to be found, before the removals of which I have spoken, in Lambeth-walk, but he has now no fixed locality. His profits, I am informed, were regularly 3l. a week; but out of this he had to pay for the assistance of two or sometimes three persons, in washing his whelks, boiling them, &c.; besides that, his wife was as busy as himself. To the quality and cleanliness of his whelks he was very attentive, and would sell no mediocre article if better could be bought. “He deserved all he earned, sir,” said another street-dealer to me; “why, in Old-street now they’ll have the old original saucers, miserable things, such as they had fifty years back; but the man we’re talking of, about two years ago, brought in very pretty plates, quite enterprising things, and they answered well. His example’s spreading, but it’s slowly.” The whelks are eaten with vinegar and pepper.

For sale in the public-houses, the whelks are most frequently carried in jars, and transferred in a saucer to the consumer. “There’s often a good sale,” said a man familiar with the business, “when a public room’s filled. People drinking there always want to eat. They buy whelks, not to fill themselves, but for a relish. A man that’s used to the trade will often get off inferior sorts to the lushingtons; he’ll have them to rights. Whelks is all the same, good, bad, or middling, when a man’s drinking, if they’re well seasoned with pepper and vinegar. Oh yes; any whelk-man will take in a drunken fellow, and he will do it all the same, if he’s made up his mind to, get drunk hisself that very night.”

The trade is carried on by the regular costers, but of the present number of whelk-sellers, about twenty have been mechanics or servants. The whelk-trade is an evening trade, commencing generally about six, summer and winter, or an hour earlier in winter.

The capital required to start in the whelk-business is: stall, 2s. 6d.; saucers, vinegar-bottle, jar, pepper-castor, and small watering-pan (used only in dusty weather), 2s. 6d.; a pair of stilts (supports for the stall), 1s. 6d.; stock-money, 5s.; pepper and vinegar, 6d., or 12s. in all. If the trade be commenced in a round basket, for public-house sale, 7s. or 8s. only is required, but it is a hazardous experiment for a person unpractised in street business.

Of the Customers, etc., of Pickled Whelk-sellers.

An intelligent man gave me the following account. He had been connected with street-trading from his youth up, and is now about thirty:

“The chief customers for whelks, sir, are working people and poor people, and they prefer them to oysters; I do myself, and I think they’re not so much eaten because they’re not fashionable like oysters. But I’ve sold them to first-rate public-houses, and to doctors’ shops—more than other shops, I don’t know why—and to private houses. Masters have sent out their servant-maids to me for three or four penn’orths for supper. I’ve offered the maids a whelk, but they won’t eat them in the street; I dare say they’re afraid their young men may be about, and might think they wasn’t ladies if they eat whelks in the street. Boys are the best customers for ‘small,’ but if you don’t look sharp, you’ll be done out of three-ha’porth of vinegar to a ha’porth of whelks. I can’t make out why they like it so. They’re particular enough in their way. If the whelks are thin, as they will be sometimes, the lads will say, ‘What a lot of snails you’ve gathered to-night!’ If they’re plump and fine, then they’ll say, ‘Fat ’uns to-night—stunners!’ Some people eat whelks for an appetite; they give me one, and more in summer than winter. The women of the town are good customers, at least they are in the Cut and Shoreditch, for I know both. If they have five-penn’orth, when they’re treated perhaps, there’s always sixpence. They come on the sly sometimes, by themselves, and make what’s a meal, I’m satisfied, on whelks, and they’ll want credit sometimes. I’ve given trust to a woman of that sort as far as 2s. 6d. I’ve lost very little by them; I don’t know how much altogether. I keep no account, but carry any credit in my head. Those women’s good pay, take it altogether, for they know how hard it is to get a crust, and have a feeling for a poor man, if they haven’t for a rich one—that’s my opinion, sir. Costermongers in a good time are capital customers; they’ll buy five or six penn’orths at a time. The dust’s a great injury to the trade in summer time; it dries the whelks up, and they look old. I wish whelks were cheaper at Billingsgate, and I could do more business; and I could do more if I could sell a few minutes after twelve on a Saturday night, when people must leave the public-house. I have sold three wash of a Saturday night, and cleared 15s. on them. I one week made 3l., but I had a few stewed eels to help,—that is, I cleared 2l., and had a pound’s worth over on the Saturday night, and sent them to be sold—and they were sold—at Battersea on the Sunday; I never went there myself. I’ve had twenty people round my stall at one time on a Saturday. Perhaps my earnings on that (and other odd things) may come to 1l. a week, or hardly so much, the year round. I can’t say exactly. The shells are no use. Boys have asked me for them ‘to make sea-shells of,’ they say—to hold them to their ears when they’re big, and there’s a sound like the sea rolling. Gentlemen have sometimes told me to keep a dozen dozen or twenty dozen, for borders to a garden. I make no charge for them—just what a gentleman may please to give.”

The information given shows an outlay of 5,250l. yearly for street whelks, and as the return I have cited shows the money spent in whelks at Billingsgate to be 2,500l., the number of whelks being 4,950,000, the account is correct, as the coster’s usual “half-profits” make up the sum expended.

Of the Street Sellers, and of the Preparation of Fried Fish.

Among the cooked food which has for many years formed a portion of the street trade is fried fish. The sellers are about 350, as a maximum and 250 as a minimum, 300 being an average number. The reason of the variation in number is, that on a Saturday night, and occasionally on other nights, especially on Mondays, stall-keepers sell fried fish, and not as an ordinary article of their trade. Some men, too, resort to the trade for a time, when they cannot be employed in any way more profitable or suitable to them. The dealers in this article are, for the most part, old men and boys, though there may be 30 or 40 women who sell it, but only 3 or 4 girls, and they are the daughters of the men in the business as the women are the wives. Among the fried-fish sellers there are not half a dozen Irish people, although fish is so especial a part of the diet of the poor Irish. The men in the calling have been, as regards the great majority, mechanics or servants; none, I was told, had been fishmongers, or their assistants.

The fish fried by street dealers is known as “plaice dabs” and “sole dabs,” which are merely plaice and soles, “dab” being a common word for any flat fish. The fish which supplies upwards of one half the quantity fried for the streets is plaice; the other fishes used are soles, haddocks, whitings, flounders, and herrings, but very sparingly indeed as regards herrings. Soles are used in as large a quantity as the other kinds mentioned altogether. On my inquiry as to the precise quantity of each description fried, the answer from the traders was uniform: “I can’t say, sir. I buy whatever’s cheapest.” The fish is bought at Billingsgate, but some of the street dealers obtain another and even a cheaper commodity than at that great mart. This supply is known in the trade as “friers,” and consists of the overplus of a fishmonger’s stock, of what he has not sold overnight, and does not care to offer for sale on the following morning, and therefore vends it to the costermongers, whose customers are chiefly among the poor. The friers are sometimes half, and sometimes more than half, of the wholesale price in Billingsgate. Many of the friers are good, but some, I was told, “in any thing like muggy or close weather were very queer fish, very queer indeed,” and they are consequently fried with a most liberal allowance of oil, “which will conceal anything.”

The fish to be fried is first washed and gutted; the fins, head, and tail are then cut off, and the trunk is dipped in flour and water, so that in frying, oil being always used, the skin will not be scorched by the, perhaps, too violent action of the fire, but merely browned. Pale rape oil is generally used. The sellers, however, are often twitted with using lamp oil, even when it is dearer than that devoted to the purpose. The fish is cooked in ordinary frying-pans. One tradesman in Cripplegate, formerly a costermonger, has on his premises a commodious oven which he had built for the frying, or rather baking, of fish. He supplies the small shopkeepers who deal in the article (although some prepare it themselves), and sells his fish retail also, but the street-sellers buy little of him, as they are nearly all “their own cooks.” Some of the “illegitimates,” however, lay in their stock by purchase of the tradesman in question. The fish is cut into portions before it is fried, and the frying occupies about ten minutes. The quantity prepared together is from six to twenty portions, according to the size of the pans; four dozen portions, or “pieces,” as the street people call them, require a quart of oil.

The fried fish-sellers live in some out of the way alley, and not unfrequently in garrets; for among even the poorest class there are great objections to their being fellow-lodgers, on account of the odour from the frying. Even when the fish is fresh (as it most frequently is), and the oil pure, the odour is rank. In one place I visited, which was, moreover, admirable for cleanliness, it was very rank. The cooks, however, whether husbands or wives—for the women often attend to the pan—when they hear of this disagreeable rankness, answer that it may be so, many people say so; but for their parts they cannot smell it at all. The garments of the fried-fish sellers are more strongly impregnated with the smell of fish than were those of any “wet” or other fish-sellers whom I met with. Their residences are in some of the labyrinths of courts and alleys that run from Gray’s-inn-lane to Leather-lane, and similar places between Fetter and Chancery-lanes. They are to be found, too, in the courts running from Cow-cross, Smithfield; and from Turnmill-street and Ray-street, Clerkenwell; also, in the alleys about Bishopsgate-street and the Kingsland-road, and some in the half-ruinous buildings near the Southwark and Borough-roads. None, or very few, of those who are their own cooks, reside at a greater distance than three miles from Billingsgate. A gin-drinking neighbourhood, one coster said, suits best, “for people hasn’t their smell so correct there.”

The sale is both on rounds and at stalls, the itinerants being twice as numerous as the stationary. The round is usually from public-house to public-house, in populous neighbourhoods. The itinerants generally confine themselves to the trade in fried fish, but the stall-keepers always sell other articles, generally fish of some kind, along with it. The sale in the public-houses is the greatest.

At the neighbouring races and fairs there is a great sale of fried fish. At last Epsom races, I was told, there were at least fifty purveyors of that dainty from London, half of them perhaps being costermongers, who speculated in it merely for the occasion, preparing it themselves. Three men joined in one speculation, expending 8l. in fish, and did well, selling at the usual profit of cent. per cent., but with the drawback of considerable expenses. Their customers at the races and fairs are the boys who hold horses or brush clothes, or who sell oranges or nuts, or push at roundabouts, and the costers who are there on business. At Epsom races there was plenty of bread, I was informed, to be picked up on the ground; it had been flung from the carriages after luncheon, and this, with a piece of fish, supplied a meal or “a relish” to hundreds.

In the public-houses, a slice of bread, 16 or 32 being cut from a quartern loaf—as they are whole or half slices—is sold or offered with the fish for a penny. The cry of the seller is, “fish and bread, a penny.” Sometimes for an extra-sized piece, with bread, 2d. is obtained, but very seldom, and sometimes two pieces are given for 1½d. At the stalls bread is rarely sold with the edible in question.