London Labour and the London Poor: Selection (Classics)

by Henry Mayhew

  As it appears that each coffee-stall keeper on an average, clears 1l. a week, and his takings may be said to be at least double that sum, the yearly street expenditure for tea, coffee, &c., amounts to 31,200l. The quantity of coffee sold annually in the streets, appears to be about 550,000 gallons.

  To commence as a coffee-stall keeper in a moderate manner requires about 5l. capital. The truck costs 2l., and the other utensils and materials 3l. The expense of the cans is near upon 16s. each. The stock-money is a few shillings.

  Of the Street Sale of Ginger-beer, Sherbet, Lemonade, &c.

  [p. 196] The street-trade in ginger-beer – now a very considerable traffic – was not known to any extent until about thirty years ago. About that time (1822) a man, during a most sultry drought, sold extraordinary quantities of ‘cool ginger-beer’ and of ‘soda-powders’, near the Royal Exchange, clearing, for the three or four weeks the heat continued, 30s. a day, or 9l. weekly. Soda-water he sold ‘in powders’, the acid and the alkali being mixed in the water of the glass held by the customer, and drunk whilst effervescing. His prices were 2d. and 3d. a glass for ginger-beer; and 3d. and 4d. for soda-water, ‘according to the quality’; though there was in reality no difference whatever in the quality – only in the price. From that time, the numbers pursuing this street vocation increased gradually; they have however fallen off of late years.

  The street-sellers who ‘brew their own beer’ generally prepare half a gross (six dozen) at a time. For a ‘good quality’ or the ‘penny bottle’ trade, the following are the ingredients and the mode of preparation: 3 gallons of water; 1 lb. of ginger, 6d.; lemon-acid, 2d.; essence of cloves, 2d.; yeast, 2d.; and 1 lb. of raw sugar, 7d. This admixture, the yeast being the last ingredient introduced, stands 24 hours, and is then ready for bottling. If the beverage be required in 12 hours, double the quantity of yeast is used. The bottles are filled only ‘to the ridge’, but the liquid and the froth more than fill a full-sized half-pint glass. ‘Only half froth,’ I was told, ‘is reckoned very fair, and it’s just the same in the shops.’ Thus, 72 bottles, each to be sold at 1d., cost – apart from any outlay in utensils, or any consideration of the value of labour – only 1s. 7d., and yield, at 1d. per bottle, 6s. For the cheaper beverage – called ‘playhouse ginger-beer’ in the trade – instead of sugar, molasses from the ‘private distilleries’ is made available. The ‘private’ distilleries are the illicit ones: ‘“Jiggers,” we call them,’ said one man; ‘and I could pass 100 in 10 minutes’ walk from where we’re talking.’ Molasses, costing 3d. at a jigger’s, is sufficient for a half-gross of bottles of ginger-beer; and of the other ingredients only half the quantity is used, the cloves being altogether dispensed with, but the same amount of yeast is generally applied. This quality of ‘beer’ is sold at ½d. the glass.

  About five years ago ‘fountains’ for the production of ginger-beer became common in the streets. The ginger-beer trade in the open air is only for a summer season, extending from four to seven months, according to the weather, the season last year having been over in about four months. There were then 200 fountains in the streets, all of which, excepting 20 or 30 of the best, were hired of the ginger-beer manufacturers, who drive a profitable trade in them. The average value of a street-fountain, with a handsome frame or stand, which is usually fixed on a wheeled and movable truck, so as one man’s strength may be sufficient to propel it, is 7l.; and, for the rent of such a fountain, 6s. a week is paid when the season is brisk, and 4s. when it is slack; but last summer, I am told, 4s. 6d. was an average. The largest and handsomest ginger-beer fountain in London was – I speak of last summer – in use at the East-end, usually standing in Petticoat-lane, and is the property of a dancing-master. It is made of mahogany, and presents somewhat the form of an upright piano on wheels. It has two pumps, and the brass of the pump-handles and the glass receivers is always kept bright and clean, so that the whole glitters handsomely to the light. Two persons ‘serve’ at this fountain; and on a fine Sunday morning, from six to one, that being the best trading time, they take 7l. or 8l. in halfpennies – for ‘the beer’ is ½d. a glass – and 2l. each other day of the week. This machine, as it may be called, is drawn by two ponies, said to be worth 10l. a-piece; and the whole cost is pronounced – perhaps with a sufficient exaggeration – to have been 150l. There were, in the same neighbourhood, two more fountains on a similar style, but commoner, each drawn by only one pony instead of the aristocratic ‘pair’.

  The ingredients required to feed the ‘ginger-beer’ fountains are of a very cheap description. To supply 10 gallons, 2 quarts of lime-juice (as it is called, but it is, in reality, lemon-juice), costing 3s. 6d., are placed in the recess, sometimes with the addition of a pound of sugar (4d.); while some, I am assured, put in a smaller quantity of juice, and add two-pennyworth of oil of vitriol, which ‘brings out the sharpness of the lime-juice’. The rest is water.

  Of the Street Sale of Peppermint-water

  [p. 201] Perhaps the only thing which can be called a cordial or a liqueur sold in the streets (if we except elder wine), is peppermint-water, and of this the sale is very limited. For the first 15 or 20 years of the present century, I was told by one who spoke from a personal knowledge, ‘a pepperminter’ had two little taps to his keg, which had a division in the interior. From one tap was extracted ‘peppermint-water’; from the other, ‘strong peppermint-water’. The one was at that time 1d. a glass, the other from 2d. to 4d., according to the size of the glass. With the ‘strong’ beverage was mixed smuggled spirit, but so strongly impregnated with the odour of the mint, that a passer-by could not detect the presence of the illicit compound. There are six persons selling peppermint-water in the winter, and only half that number in the summer. The trade is irregular, as some pursue it only of a night, and generally in the street markets; others sell at Billingsgate, and places of great traffic, when the traffic is being carried on. They are stationary for awhile, but keep shifting their ground. The vendors generally ‘distilled their own mint’, when the sale was greater, but within these six or eight years they have purchased it at a distilling chemist’s, and have only prepared it for sale. Water is added to the distilled liquid bought of the chemist, to increase the quantity; but to enhance the heat of the draught – which is a draw to some buyers – black pepper (unground), or ginger, or, but rarely, capsicums, are steeped in the beverage. The peppermint-water is lauded by the vendors, when questioned concerning it, as an excellent stomachic; but nothing is said publicly of its virtues, the cry being merely, ‘Pep-permint water, a halfpenny a glass.’

  The sellers will generally say that they distil the peppermint-water themselves, but this is not now commonly the case. The process, however, is simple enough. The peppermint used is gathered just as it is bursting into flower, and the leaves and buds are placed in a tub, with just water enough to cover them. This steeping continues 24 hours, and then a still is filled three-parts full, and the water is ‘over’ drawn very slowly.

  The price at the chemist’s is 1s. a quart for the common mint-water; the street price is ½d. a glass, containing something short of the eighth of a pint. What costs 1s., the street-seller disposes of for 2s., so realising the usual cent, per cent.

  To take 2s. is now accounted ‘a tidy day’s work’; and calculating that four ‘pepperminters’ take that amount the year round, Sundays excepted, we find that nearly 125l. is spent annually in peppermint-water and 900 gallons of it consumed every year in the streets of London.

  The capital required is, keg, 3s. 6d., or jar, 2s. (for they are used indifferently); four glasses, 1s.; towel, 4d., and stock-money, 4s.; or, in all, about 8s. The ‘water’-keg, or jar, is carried by the vendor, but sometimes it is rested on a large stool carried for the purpose. A distilling apparatus, such as the street-sellers used, was worth about 10s. The vendors are of the same class of street-sellers as the ginger-beer people.

  Of Milk Selling in St James’s Park

  [pp. 201–2] The principal sale of
milk from the cow is in St James’s Park. The once fashionable drink known as syllabubs – the milk being drawn warm from the cow’s udder, upon a portion of wine, sugar, spice, &c. – is now unknown. As the sellers of milk in the park are merely the servants of cow-keepers, and attend to the sale as a part of their business, no lengthened notice is required.

  The milk-sellers obtain leave from the Home Secretary, to ply their trade in the park. There are eight stands in the summer, and as many cows, but in the winter there are only four cows. The milk-vendors sell upon an average, in the summer, from eighteen to twenty quarts per day; in the winter, not more than a third of that quantity. The interrupted milking of the cows, as practised in the Park, often causes them to give less milk, than they would in the ordinary way. The chief customers are infants, and adults, and others, of a delicate constitution, who have been recommended to take new milk. On a wet day scarcely any milk can be disposed of. Soldiers are occasional customers.

  A somewhat sour-tempered old woman, speaking as if she had been crossed in love, but experienced in this trade, gave me the following account:

  ‘It’s not at all a lively sort of life, selling milk from the cows, though some thinks it’s a gay time in the Park! I’ve often been dull enough, and could see nothing to interest one, sitting alongside a cow. People drink new milk for their health, and I’ve served a good many such. They’re mostly young women, I think, that’s delicate, and makes the most of it. There’s twenty women, and more, to one man what drinks new milk. If they was set to some good hard work, it would do them more good than new milk, or ass’s milk either, I think. Let them go on a milk-walk to cure them – that’s what I say. Some children come pretty regularly with their nurses to drink new milk. Some bring their own china mugs to drink it out of; nothing less was good enough for them. I’ve seen the nurse-girls frightened to death about the mugs. I’ve heard one young child say to another: “I shall tell mama that Caroline spoke to a mechanic, who came and shook hands with her.” The girl was as red as fire and said it was her brother. Oh, yes, there’s a deal of brothers comes to look for their sisters in the Park. The greatest fools I’ve sold milk to is servant-gals out for the day. Some must have a day, or half a day, in the month. Their mistresses ought to keep them at home, I say, and not let them out to spend their money, and get into nobody knows what company for a holiday; mistresses is too easy that way. It’s such gals as makes fools of themselves in liking a soldier to run after them. I’ve seen one of them – yes, some would call her pretty, and the prettiest is the silliest and easiest tricked out of money, that’s my opinion, anyhow – I’ve seen one of them, and more than one, walk with a soldier, and they’ve stopped a minute, and she’s taken something out of her glove and given it to him. Then they’ve come up to me, and he’s said to her, “Mayn’t I treat you with a little new milk, my dear?’ and he’s changed a shilling. Why, of course, the silly fool of a gal had given him that there shilling. I thought, when Annette Myers shot the soldier, it would be a warning, but nothing’s a warning to some gals. She was one of those fools. It was a good deal talked about at the stand, but I think none of us know’d her. Indeed, we don’t know our customers but by sight. Yes, there’s now and then some oldish gentlemen – I suppose they’re gentlemen, anyhow, they’re idle men – lounging about the stand: but there’s no nonsense there. They tell me, too, that there’s not so much lounging about as there was; those that’s known the trade longer than me thinks so. Them children’s a great check on the nusses, and they can’t be such fools as the servant-maids. I don’t know how many of them I’ve served with milk along with soldiers: I never counted them. They’re nothing to me. Very few elderly people drink new milk. It’s mostly the young. I’ve been asked by strangers when the Duke of Wellington would pass to the Horse-Guards or to the House of Lords. He’s pretty regular. I’ve had 6d. given me – but not above once or twice a year – to tell strangers where was the best place to see him from as he passed. I don’t understand about this Great Exhibition, but, no doubt, more new milk will be sold when it’s opened, and that’s all I cares about.’

  Of the Street Sale of Milk

  [p. 202] During the summer months milk is sold in Smithfleld, Billingsgate, and the other markets, and on Sundays in Battersea-fields, Clapham-common, Camberwell-green, Hampstead-heath, and similar places. About twenty men are engaged in this sale. They usually wear a smock frock, and have the cans and yoke used by the regular milk-sellers; they are not itinerant. The skim milk – for they sell none else – is purchased at the dairies at 1½d. a quart, and even the skim milk is also further watered by the street-sellers. Their cry is ‘Half-penny half-pint! Milk!’ The tin measure however in which the milk-and-water is served is generally a ‘slang’, and contains but half of the quantity proclaimed. The purchasers are chiefly boys and children; rarely men, and never costermongers, I was told, ‘for they reckon milk sickly’. These street-sellers – who have most of them been employed in the more regular milk-trade – clear about 1s. 6d. a day each, for three months; and as the profit is rather more than cent. per cent, it appears that about 4,000 gallons of milk are thus sold, and upwards of 260l. laid out upon these persons, yearly in its purchase.

  A pair of cans with the yoke cost 15s., and 1l. is amply sufficient as capital to start in this trade, as the two measures used may be bought for 2s.; and 3s. can be devoted to the purchase of the liquid.

  Of Street Piemen

  [pp. 205–7] The itinerant trade in pies is one of the most ancient of the street callings of London. The meat pies are made of beef or mutton; the fish pies of eels; the fruit of apples, currants, gooseberries, plums, damsons, cherries, raspberries, or rhubarb, according to the season – and occasionally of mince-meat. A few years ago the street pie-trade was very profitable, but it has been almost destroyed by the ‘pie-shops’, and further, the few remaining street-dealers say ‘the people now haven’t the pennies to spare’. Summer fairs and races are the best places for the piemen. In London the best times are during any grand sight or holiday-making, such as a review in Hyde-park, the Lord Mayor’s show, the opening of Parliament, Greenwich fair, &c. Nearly all the men of this class, whom I saw, were fond of speculating as to whether the Great Exhibition would be ‘any good’ to them, or not.

  The London piemen, who may number about forty in winter, and twice that number in summer, are seldom stationary. They go along with their pie-cans on their arms, crying, ‘Pies all ’ot! eel, beef, or mutton pies! Penny pies, all ’ot – all ’ot!’ The ‘can’ has been before described. The pies are kept hot by means of a charcoal fire beneath, and there is a partition in the body of the can to separate the hot and cold pies. The ‘can’ has two tin drawers, one at the bottom, where the hot pies are kept, and above these are the cold pies. As fast as the hot dainties are sold, their place is supplied by the cold from the upper drawer.

  A teetotal pieman in Billingsgate has a pony and ‘shay cart’. His business is the most extensive in London. It is believed that he sells 20s. worth or 240 pies a day, but his brother tradesmen sell no such amount. ‘I was out last night,’ said one man to me, ‘from four in the afternoon till half-past twelve. I went from Somers-town to the Horse Guards, and looked in at all the public-houses on my way, and I didn’t take above 1s. 6d. I have been out sometimes from the beginning of the evening till long past midnight, and haven’t taken more than 4d., and out of that I have to pay 1d. for charcoal.’

  The pie-dealers usually make the pies themselves. The meat is bought in ‘pieces’, of the same part as the sausage-makers purchase – the ‘stickings’ – at about 3d. the pound. ‘People, when I go into houses,’ said one man, ‘often begin crying, “Mee-yow,” or “Bow-wow-wow!” at me; but there’s nothing of that kind now. Meat, you see, is so cheap.’ About five-dozen pies are generally made at a time. These require a quartern of flour at 5d. or 6d.; 2 lbs. of suet at 6d.; 1½ lbs. meat at 3d., amounting in all to about 2s. To this must be added 3d. for baking; 1d. for the cost of k
eeping hot, and 2d. for pepper, salt, and eggs with which to season and wash them over. Hence the cost of the five dozen would be about 2s. 6d., and the profit the same. The usual quantity of meat in each pie is about half an ounce. There are not more than 20 hot-piemen now in London. There are some who carry pies about on a tray slung before them; these are mostly boys, and, including them, the number amounts to about sixty all the year round, as I have stated.

  The penny pie-shops, the street men say, have done their trade a great deal of harm. These shops have now got mostly all the custom, as they make the pies much larger for the money than those sold in the streets. The pies in Tottenham-court-road are very highly seasoned. ‘I bought one there the other day, and it nearly took the skin off my mouth; it was full of pepper,’ said a street-pieman, with considerable bitterness, to me. The reason why so large a quantity of pepper is put in is, because persons can’t tell the flavour of the meat with it. Piemen generally are not very particular about the flavour of the meat they buy, as they can season it up into anything. In the summer, a street pieman thinks he is doing a good business if he takes 5s. per day, and in the winter if he gets half that. On Saturday night, however, he generally takes 5s. in the winter, and about 8s. in the summer. At Greenwich fair he will take about 14s. At a review in Hyde-park, if it is a good one, he will sell about 10s. worth. The generality of the customers are the boys of London. The women seldom, if ever, buy pies in the streets. At the public-houses a few pies are sold, and the pieman makes a practice of ‘looking in’ to all the taverns on his way. Here his customers are found principally in the tap-room. ‘Here’s all ‘ot!’ the pieman cries, as he walks in; ‘toss or buy! up and win ’em!’ This is the only way that the pies can be got rid of. ‘If it wasn’t for tossing we shouldn’t sell one.’