 Section 12 of London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. 2 by Henry Mayhew. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Gillian Henry. Off the street sellers of birds' nests. The young gypsy-looking lad who gave me the following account of the sale of birds' nests in the streets was peculiarly picturesque in his appearance. He wore a dirty-looking smock frock with large pockets at the side. He had no shirt, and his long black hair hung in curls about him, contrasting strongly with his bare white neck and chest. The broad-brimmed brown Italian-looking hat, broken in and ragged at the top, threw a dark half-mask-leg shadow over the upper part of his face. His feet were bare and black with mud. He carried in one hand his basket of nests, dotted with their many-coloured eggs. In the other, he held a live snake that drived and twisted as its metallic-looking skin glistened in the sun. Now over, and now round, the thick, knotty bow of a tree that he used for a stick. The portrait of the youth is here given. I have never seen so picturesque as specimen of the English nomad. He said in answer to my inquiries, I am a cellar of birds' nesties, snakes, slow worms, adders, if-its. Note, lizards is their common name, and note, hedgehogs for killing black beetles, frogs for the French they eat them, snails for birds. That's all I sell in the summertime. In the winter I get all kinds of wild flowers and roots, primroses, buttercups and daisies, and snowdrops, and backing off of trees. Backing it's called because it's used to put at the back of nosegaze. It's got off the yew trees and is the green yew fern. I gather bullrushes in the summertime, besides what I told you. Some buys bullrushes for stuffing. They're the fairy rushes, the small ones, and the big ones as bullrushes. The small ones is used for stuffing, that is, for showing off the birds as a stuffed, and make them seem as if they was alive in their cases, and among the rushes. I sell them to the bird stuffers at a penny a dozen. The big rushes the boys buys to play with, and beat one another, on a Sunday evening mostly. The birds nesties I get from a penny to thruppens, a piece for. I never had young birds, I can never sell them. You see, the young things generally dies off the cramp, before you can get rid of them. I sell the birds nesties in the streets. The thruppene ones has six eggs, a hypenate, an egg. The linets has mostly four eggs, their forpens the nest, therefore putting under canaries, and being hatched by them. The thrushes has from four to five, five is the most. They're tuppens, they're merely for curiosity, glass cases or anything like that. Moorhens, what build on the moors, has from eight to nine eggs, and is a penny a piece. They're for hatching underneath a bantam fowl, the same as partridges. Chaffenshees has five eggs, they're thruppens, and is for curiosity. Hedge sparrows, five eggs, they're the same price as the other, and is for curiosity. The bottletit, the nest and the bow are always put in glass cases. It's a long hanging nest, like a bottle, with a hole about as big as a sixpence, and there's mostly as many as 18 eggs. They've been known to lay 33. To the house sparrow there is five eggs, they're a penny. The yellow hammers with five eggs is tuppens. The water wag tails with four eggs, tuppens. Blackbirds with five eggs, tuppens. The golden crest ren, with ten eggs, it has a very handsome nest, is sixpence. Bullfinches, four eggs, a shilling. They're for hatching, and the bullfinch is a very dear bird. Crows, four eggs, fourpence. Magpies, four eggs, fourpence. Starlings, five eggs, thruppens. The eggchats, five eggs, tuppens. Goldfinches, five eggs, sixpence for hatching. Martens, five eggs, thruppens. The swallow, four eggs, sixpence. It's so dear because the nest is such a curiosity. They build up again the house. The butcher birds, hedge-murderers some call them. For the number of birds they kills, five eggs, thruppence. The cuckoo, they never has a nest, but lays in the hedge sparrows. There's only one egg, it's very rare you see the two. They has been got, but that's seldom. That is forkence, the egg is such a curiosity. The greenfinches has four or five eggs, and is thruppence. This barrow hawk has four eggs and they're sixpence. The reed sparrow, they builds in the reeds close where the bullrushes grow. They has four eggs and is thruppence. The wood pigeon has two eggs and they're fourpence. The horned owl, four eggs, they're sixpence. The woodpecker, I never see no more than two. They're sixpence the two. They're a great curiosity, very seldom found. The kingfisher has four eggs and is sixpence. That's all I know of. I get the eggs mostly from Wytham and Chelmsford in Essex. Chelmsford is twenty miles from Whitechapel Church, and Wytham eight miles further. I know more about them parts than anywhere else, being used to go after moss for Mr Butler of the herb shop in Covent Garden. Sometimes I go to Shirley Common and Shirley Wood, that's three miles from Croydon, and Croydon is ten from Westminster Bridge. When I'm out bird nesting, I take all the cross-country roads across fields and into the woods. I begin bird nesting in May and leave off about August, and then comes the bullrushing, and they last till Christmas, and after that comes the roots and wildflowers, which serves me up to May again. I go out bird nesting three times a week. I go away at night and come up on the morning of the day after. I'm away a day and two nights. I start between one and two in the morning, and walk all night for the coolness. You see the weather's so hot, you can't do it in the daytime. When I get down, I go to sleep for a couple of hours. I skipper it, turn in under a hedge or anywhere. I get down about nine in the morning at Chelmsford, and about one if I go to Wytham. After I've had my sleep, I start off to get my nests and things. I climb the trees, often I go up a dozen in the day, and many a time there's nothing in the nest when I get up. I only fell once. I got on the end of the bow and slipped off. I poisoned my foot once with the stagnant water going after the bullrushes. There was horse leeches and effets, and all kinds of things in the water, and they stung me, I think. I couldn't use my foot hardly for six weeks afterwards, and was obliged to have a stick to walk with. I couldn't get about at all for four days, and should have starved if it hadn't been that a young man kept me. He was a printer by trade, and almost a stranger to me. Only he seed me and took pity on me. When I fell off the bow, I wasn't much hurt, nothing to speak of. The horse-barrow is the worst nest of all to take. It's no value either when it is got, and is the most difficult of all to get at. You has to get up a sparrow-pit. Note a parrow-pit, and note off a house, and either to get permission or run the risk of going after it without. Patrick's eggs, they has no nest. They give you six months for if they see you selling them, because it's game and I haven't no license. But while you're hawking, that is, showing them, they can't touch you. The owl is a very difficult nest to get. They build so high in the trees. The bottle-tit is a hard nest to find. You may go all the year round, and perhaps only get one. The nest I like best to get is a chaffinch, because they're in the hedge, and is no bother. Oh, you hasn't got the Skylark down, sir. They build on the ground, and has five eggs. I sell them for fourpins. The Robin Red breast has five eggs, too, and is thruppence. The ring dove has two eggs, and is sixpence. The titlark, that's five blue eggs, and very rare. I get fourpins for them. The jay has five eggs, and a flat nest, very wiry indeed. It's a ground bird. That's one shilling. The egg is just like the partridge egg. When I first took a Kingfisher's nest, I didn't know the name of it, and I kept wondering what it was. I daresay I asked three dozen people, and none of them could tell me. At last a bird fancier, the lame man at the mylend gate, told me what it was. I like to get the nesties to sell, but I haven't no fancy for birds. Sometimes I get squirrels nesties, with the young in them. About four of them, there, mostly is. And they're the only young things I take. The young birds I leave. They're no good to me. The four squirrels brings me from six shillings to eight shillings. After I take a bird's nest, the old bird comes dancing over it, chirping and crying and flying all about. When they lose their nest, they wander about and don't know where to go. Oftentimes I wouldn't take them if it wasn't for the want of the victuals. It seems such a pity to disturb them after they've made their little bits of places. But I never take myself. I can't get over them. If I have an order for them, I buy them of boys. I mostly start off into the country on Monday, and come up on Wednesday. The most nesties, as ever I took, is twenty-two, and I generally get about twelve or thirteen. These, if I have an order, I sell directly, or else I may be two days and sometimes longer, hocking them in the street. Directly I've sold them, I go off again that night if it's fine, though I often go in the wet, and then I borrow a tarpaulin of a man in the street where I live. If I have a quick sale, I get down and back three times in a week, but then I don't go so far as with them, sometimes only to Rumford. That is twelve miles from Whitechapel Church. I never got an order from a bird fancier. He gets all the eggs they want of the countrymen who comes up to market. It's gentlemen I get my orders off, and then mostly they tell me to bring them one nest of every kind I can get hold of, and that will often last me three months in the summer. There's one gentleman as I sell to is a wholesale dealer in window glass, and he has a hobby for them. He puts them into glass cases and makes presents of them to his friends. He has been one of my best customers. I've sold him a hundred nesties, I'm sure. There's a doctor at Dahlsdern, I sell a great number too. He's taking one of every kind of me now. The most of my customers is stray ones in the streets. They're generally boys. I sell an nest now and then to a lady with a child, but the boys of twelve to fifteen years of age is my best friends. They buy them only for curiosity. I sold three partridges eggs yesterday to a gentleman, and he said he would put them under a bantam he'd got and hatch them. The snakes and adders and slow worms I get from where there's moss or a deal of grass. Sunny weathers the best for them. They won't come out when it's cold. Then I go to a dung heap and turn it over. Sometimes I find five or six there, but never so large as the one I had today. That's a yard in five inches long and three quarters of a pound weight. Snakes is five shillings a pound. I sell all I can get to Mr. Butler of Covent Garden. He keeps them alive, for they're no good dead. I think it's for the skin they're kept. Some buys them to dissect. A gentleman in Theobalds Road does so. And so he does hedgehogs. He buys them for stuffing and others for curiosities. Adders is the same price as snakes, five shillings a pound, after they first comes in when they're ten shillings. Adders is wanted dead. It's only the fat and skin that's of any value. The fat is used for curing poisoned wounds, and the skin is used for anyone as has cut their heads. Farmers buys the fat and rubs it into the wound when they get bitten or stung by anything poisonous. I kill the adders with a stick, or when I have shoes, I jumps on them. Some fine days I get four or five snakes at a time, but then they're mostly small and won't weigh above half a pound. I don't get many adders. They don't weigh many ounces, adders don't. And I mostly have nine pins apiece for each I get. I sell them to Mr. Butler as well. The hedgehogs is a shilling each. I get them mostly in Essex. I've took one hedgehog with three young ones and sold the lot for two shilling sixpence. People in the streets bought them off me. They're wanted to kill the black beetles. They're fed on bread and milk, and they'll suck a cow quite dry in their wild state. They eat adders and can't be pisoned. At least it says so in a book I've got about them at home. The efforts I get orders for in the streets. Gentleman gives me their cards and tells me to bring them one. They're tuppens apiece. I get them at Hampstead and Highgate from the ponds. They're wanted for curiosity. The snails and frogs I sell to Frenchmen. I don't know what part they eat of the frog. But I know they buy them and the dandelion root. The frogs is sixpence and a shilling a dozen. They like the yellow bellied ones. The others they're afraid as toads. They always pick out the yellow bellied first. I don't know how to feed them or else I might fatten them. Many people swallow young frogs. They reckon very good things to clear the inside. The frogs I catch in ponds and ditches up at Hampstead and Highgate, but I only get them whenever I order. I've had an order for as many as six dozen, but that was for the French hotel in Leicester Square. But I have sold three dozen a week to one man, a Frenchman, as keeps a cigar shop in R. Blank R's court. The snails I sell by the pailful at two shilling sixpence the pail. There is some hundreds in a pail. The wet weather is the best times for catching them. The French people eat them. They boil them first to get them out of the shell and get rid of the green froth. Then they boil them again and after that in vinegar. They eat them hot, but some of the foreigners like some cold. They say they're better if possible than welks. I used to sell a great many to a lady and gentleman in Soho Square and to many of the French I sell a shilling's worth. That's about three or four quarts. Some persons buy snails for birds and some to strengthen a sickly child's back. They rub the back all over with the snails and a very good thing they tell me it is. I used to take two shilling's worth a week to one woman. It's the green froth that does the greatest good. There are two more bird's nest sellers besides myself. They don't do as many as me, the two of them. They're very naked. Their things is all to ribbons. They only go into the country once in a fortnight. They was never nothing, no trade. They never was in place from what I've heard, either of them. I reckon I sell about twenty nesties a week. Take one week with another. And that I do for four months in the year. Note, this altogether makes 320 nests, end note. Yes, I should say I do sell about 300 bird's nests every year. And the other two, I'm sure, don't sell half that. Indeed, they don't want to sell. They does better by what they get's give to them. I can't say what they takes. They're Irish. And I never was in conversation with them. I get about four shilling's to five shilling's for the twenty nests. That's between tuppence and thruppence apiece. I sell about a couple of snakes every week. And for some of them, I get a shilling. And for the big ones, two shilling sixpence. But them, I seldom find. I've only had three hedgehogs this season. And I've done a little in snails and frogs, perhaps about a shilling. The many foreigners in London this season hasn't done me no good. I haven't been to Leicester Square lately, or perhaps I might have got a large order or two for frogs. End quote. Life of a bird's nest seller. Quote, I am twenty-two years of age. My father was a dyer, and I was brought up to the same trade. My father lived in Arendelle, in Sussex, and kept a shop there. He had a good business as dyer, scourer, calico-glazer, and furniture cleaner. I have heard mother say his business in Arendelle brought him in three hundred pounds a year at least. He had eight men in his employ, and none under thirty shillings a week. I had two brothers and one sister, but one of my brothers is since dead. Mother died five years ago in the consumption hospital at Chelsea, just after it was built. I was very young indeed when father died. I can hardly remember him. He died in Middlesex Hospital. He had abscesses all over him. There were six and thirty at the time of his death. I've heard mother say many times that she think it was through exerting himself too much at his business that he fell ill. The ruin of father was owing to his house being burnt down. The fire broke out at two in the morning. He wasn't insured. I don't remember the fire. I've only heard mother talk about it. It was the ruin of us all, she used to tell me. Father had so much work belonging to other people, a deal of marine curtains, five or six hundred yards. It was of no use his trying to start again. He lost all his glazing machines and tubs and his drugs and punches. From what I've heard from mother, they was worth some hundreds. The Duke of Norfolk, after the fire, gave a good lot of money to the poor people, whose things father had to clean, and father himself came up to London. I wasn't two year old when that happened. We all come up with father and he opened a shop in London and bought all new things. We had got a bit of money left and mother's uncle lent him sixty pounds. We left two doors from the stage door of the Queen's Theatre in Pit Street, Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square. But father didn't do much in London. He had a new connection to make and when he died his things was sold for the rent of the house. There was only money enough to bury him. I don't know how long ago that was, but I think it was about three years after our coming to London. For I've heard mother say I was six years old when father died. After father's death mother borrowed some more money of her uncle, who was well to do. He was perfumer to her majesty. He's dead now and left the business to his foreman. The business was worth two thousand pounds. His wife, my mother's aunt, is alive still and though she's a woman of large property, she won't so much as look at me. She keeps her carriage and two footmen. Her address is Mrs. Lewis number ten, Porchester Terrace, Bayswater. I have been in her drawing room two or three times. I used to take letters to her from mother. She was very kind to me then and give me several half crowns. She knows the state I'm in now. A young man wrote a letter to her saying I had no clothes to look after working and that I was near starving. But she sent no answer to it. The last time I called at her house she sent me down nothing and bid the servant tell me not to come anymore. Ever since I've wanted it I've never had nothing from her. But before that she used to give me something whenever I took a letter from mother to her. The last half crown I got at her house was from the cook who gave it me out of her own money because she'd known my mother. I've got a grandmother living in Woburn Place. She's in service there and been in the family for 20 years. The gentleman died lately and left her half his property. He was a foreigner and had no relations here. My grandmother used to be very good to me and when I first got out of work she always gave me something when I called and had me down in her room. She was housekeeper then. She never offered to get me a situation but only gave me a meal of victuals and a shilling or 18 pence whenever I called. I was tidy in my dress then. At last a new footman came and he told me as I wasn't to call again. He said the family didn't allow no followers. I've never seen my grandmother since that time but once and then I was passing with my basket of bird's nests in my hand just as she was coming out of the door. I was dressed about the same then as you see me yesterday. I was without a shirt to my back. I don't think she saw me and I was ashamed to let her see me as I was. She was kind enough to me that is she wouldn't mind about giving me a shilling or so at a time but she never would do nothing else for me and yet she had got plenty of money in the bank and a gold watch and all at her side. After father died as I was saying mother got some money from her uncle and set up in her own account. She took in glazing for the trade. Father had a few shops that he worked for and they employed mother after his death. She kept on at this for 18 months and then she got married again. Before this an uncle of mine my father's brother who kept some lime kilns consented to take my brother and sister and provide for them and four or five years ago he got them both into the Duke of Norfolk service and there they are now. They've never seen me since I was a child but once a few years ago I've never sent to them to say how badly I was off. They're younger than I am and can only just take care of themselves. When mother married again her husband came to live at the house he was a dire. He behaved very well to me mother wouldn't send me down to uncles she was too fond of me. I was sent to school for about 18 months and after that I used to assist in the glazing at home so I was comfortable for some time. Nine years ago I went to work at a French Dyer's in Rathbone Place. My stepfather got me there and there I stopped six years. I lived in the house after the first 18 months of my service. Five years ago mother fell ill. She had been ailing many years and she got admitted into the consumption hospital at Brompton. She was there just upon three months and was coming out to the next day when her term was up when she died on the overnight. After that my stepfather altered very much towards me. He didn't want me at all at all. He told me so a fortnight after mother was in her grave. He took to drinking very hearty directly she was gone. He would do anything for me before that. He used to take me with him to every place of amusement what he went to but when he took to drinking and at last he told me I didn't come there anymore. After that I still kept working in Rathbone Place and got a lodging of my own. I used to have nine shillings a week where I was and I paid two shillings a week for my bed and washing and mending. I had half a room with a man and his wife. I went on so for about two years and then I was took bad with the scarlet fever and went to Grey's Inn Lane Hospital. After I was cured of the scarlet fever I had the brain fever and was near my death. I was altogether eight weeks in the hospital and when I came out I could get no work where I had been before. The master's nephew had come from Paris and they had all French hands in the house. He wouldn't employ an English hand at all. He gave me a trifle of money and told me he would pay my lodgings for a week or two while I looked for work. I sought all about and couldn't find any. This was about three years ago. People wouldn't have me because I didn't know nothing about the English mode of business. I couldn't even tell the names of the English drugs having been brought up in a French house. At last my master got tired of paying for my lodging and I used to try and pick up a few pence in the streets by carrying boxes and holding horses. It was all as I could get to do. I tried all I could to find employment and they was the only jobs I could get but I couldn't make enough for my lodging this way and over and over again I've had to sleep out. Then I used to walk the streets most of the night or lie about in the markets till morning came in the hopes of getting a job. I'm a very little eater and perhaps that's the luckiest thing for such as me. Half a pound of bread and a few potatoes will do me for the day. If I could afford it I used to get a haperth of coffee worth of sugar and make it do twice. Sometimes I used to have victuals give to me sometimes I went without altogether and sometimes I couldn't eat I can't always. Six weeks after I had been knocking about in the streets in the manner I've told you a man I met in Covent Garden Market told me he was going into the country to get some roots. It was in the wintertime and cold indeed I was dressed about the same as I am now only I had a pair of boots and he said if I chose to go with him he'd give me half of whatever he earned. I went to Croydon and got some primroses my share came to ninepence and that was quite a god sent to me after getting nothing sometimes before that I'd been two days without tasting anything and when I got some victuals after that I couldn't touch them all I felt was giddy I wasn't to say hungry only weak and sicklefied I went with this man after the roots two or three times he took me to oblige me and show me the way how to get a bit of food for myself after that when I got to know all about it I went to get roots on my own account I never felt a wish to take nothing when I was very hard up sometimes when I got cold and was tired walking about and weak from not having had nothing to eat I used to think I'd take a window and take something out to get locked up but I could never make my mind up to it they never hurt me I'd say to myself I do fancy though if anybody had refused me a bit of bread I should have done something against them but I couldn't do you see in cold blood like when the summer came round a gentleman who might seed in the market asked me if I'd get him half a dozen nesties he didn't mind what they was as long as they were small and of different kinds and as I'd come across a many in my trips after the flowers I told him I would do so and that first put it into my head and I've been doing that every summer since then it's poor work though at the best often and often I have to walk 30 miles out without any victuals to take with me or money to get any and 30 miles again back and bring with me about a dozen nesties and perhaps if I'd no order for them and was forced to sell them to the boys I shouldn't get more than a shilling for the lot after all when the time comes round for it I go christmasing and getting holly but that's more dangerous work than bird nesting the farmers don't mind your taking the nesties as it prevents the young birds from growing up and eating their corn the greater part of the holly used in London for trimming up the churches and sticking in the puddings by such as me at the risk of getting six months for it the farmers brings a good lot to market but we is obligated to steal it take one week with another I'm sure I don't make above five shillings you can tell that to look at me I don't drink and I don't gamble so you can judge how much I get when I've had to pawn my shirt for a meal all last week I only sold two nesties there was a partridge and a yellow hammers for one I got sixpence and the other thruppence and I had been thirteen miles to get them I got beside that a fourpenny piece for some chickweed which I'd been up to high gate to gather for a man with a bad leg it's the best thing there is for a poultice to a wound and then I earned another fourpence by some mash note marsh and note mallow leaves that there was to purify the blood for a poor woman that with fourpence that a gentleman give to me was all I got last week one shilling ninepence I think it is all together I had some victuals give to me in the street or else I dare say I should have had to go without but as it was I gave the money to the man and his wife I live with you see they had nothing and as they're good to me when I want why I did what I could for them I've tried to get out of my present life but there seems to be an ill luck again me sometimes I get a good turn a gentleman gives me an order and then I saves a shilling or 18pence so as to buy something with that I can sell again in the streets but a wet day is sure to come and then I'm cracked up obligated to eat it all away once I got to sell fish a gentleman give me a crown piece in the street and I borrowed a bar what tuppens a day and did pretty well for a time in three weeks I had saved 18 shillings then I got an order for a sack of moss from one of the flower sellers and I went down to Chelmsford and stopped for the night in Lower Nelson Street at the sign of the three queens I had my money safe in my fob the night before and a good pair of boots to my feet then when I woke in the morning my boots was gone and on feeling in my fob my money was gone too there was four beds in the rooms feather and flock the feather ones was fourpence and the flock thruppence for a single one and tuppence helped me each person for a double one there was six people in the room that night and one of them was gone before I awoke he was a cadre and I took my money with him I complained to the landlord they call him George but it was no good all I could get was some victuals so I've been obliged to keep the birds nesting ever since I've never been in prison but once I was took up for begging I was merely leaning again the railings of Tavistock Square with my birds nesties in my hand and the policeman took me off to Clarkinwell but the magistrates instead of sending me to prison gave me two shillings out of the poors box I feel it very much going about without shoes or without shirt and exposed to all weathers and often out all night the doctor at the hospital in Grey's End Lane gave me two flannels and told me that whatever I did I was to keep myself wrapped up but what's the use of saying that to such as me who's obligated to pawn the shirt off our back for food the first wet day has come if you haven't got money to pay for your bed at a lodging house you must take the shirt off your back and leave it with them or else they'll turn you out I know many such sometimes I go to an artist I had five shillings when I was drawed before the queen I wasn't exactly drawed before her but my portrait was shown to her and I was told that if I'd be there I might receive a trifle I was drawed as a gypsy fiddler Mr Oakley in Regent Street was a gentleman as did it I was dressed in some things he got for me I had an Italian's hat one with a broad brim and a peaked crown a red plush waistcoat and a yellow handkerchief tied in a good many knots round my neck a black velveteen new market cut coat with very large pearl buttons and a pair of black knee breeches tied with fine red strings then I had blue stripe stockings with high ankle boots with very thin soles I had a fiddle in one hand and a bow in the other the gentleman said he drawed me for my head of hair I've never been a gypsy but he told me he didn't mind that for I should make as good a gypsy fiddler as the real thing the artists mostly give me two shillings I've only been three times I only wish I could get away from my present life indeed I would do any work if I could get it I'm sure I could have a good character from my masters in Rathbone Place for I never done nothing wrong but if I couldn't get work I might very well, if I had money enough get a few flowers to sell as it is it's more than anyone can do at bird nesting and I'm sure I'm as prudent as there are one in the streets I never took the pledge but still I never take no beer nor spirits I never did mother told me never to touch him and I haven't tasted a drop I've often been in a public house selling my things and people has offered me something to drink but I never touch any I can't tell why I dislike doing so but something seems to tell me not to taste such stuff I don't know whether it's what my mother said to me I know I was very fond of her but I don't say it's that altogether as makes me do it I don't feel to want to I smoke a good bit and would sooner have a bit of backie than a meal at any time I could get a goodish rig out in the lane for a few shillings a pair of boots would cost me two shillings and a coat I could get for two shillings sixpence I go to a ragged school three times a week if I can for I'm but a poor scholar still and I should like to know how to read it's always handy you know sir end quote this lad had been supplied with a suit of clothes and sufficient money to start him in some of the better kind of street trades it was thought advisable not to put him to any more settled occupation on account of the vagrant habits he has necessarily acquired during his bird nesting career before doing this he was employed as errant boy for a week with the object of testing his trustworthiness and was found both honest and attentive he appears a prudent lad but of course it is difficult as yet to speak positively as to his character he has however been assured that if he shows a disposition to follow some more reputable calling he shall at least be put in the way of so doing the street squirrel sellers are generally the same men as are engaged in the open air traffic and cage birds there are however about 6 men who devote themselves more particularly to squirrel selling while as many more sometimes take a turn at it the squirrel is usually carried in the vendors arms or is held against the front of his coat so that the animals long bushy tail is seen to advantage there is usually a red leather collar around it's neck to which is attached some slender string but so contrived that the squirrel shall not appear to be a prisoner nor in general although perhaps the hawker became possessed of his squirrel only that morning does the animal show any symptoms of fear the chief places in which the squirrels are offered for sale are Regent Street and the Royal Exchange but they are offered also for all the principal thoroughfares especially at the West End the purchasers are gentle folk trades people and a few of the working classes who are fond of animals the wealthier persons usually buy the squirrels for their children and even after the free life of the woods the animal seems happy enough in the revolving cage in which it thinks it climbs the prices charged are from 2 shillings to 5 shillings of it can be got from a third to a half being profit the sellers will often of state if questioned that they caught the squirrels in Epping Forest or Cain Wood or any place sufficiently near London but such is hardly ever the case for the squirrels are bought by them of the dealers in live animals countrymen will sometimes catch a few squirrels and bring them to London and 9 times out of 10 they sell them to the shopkeepers to sell 3 squirrels a day in the street is accounted good work I am assured by the best informed parties that for 5 months of the year there are 20 men selling squirrels in the streets at from 20 to 50% profit and that they average a weekly sale of 6 each the average price is from 2 shillings to 2 shillings 6 pins although not very long ago one man sold a wonderfully fine squirrel in the street for 3 half crowns but they are sometimes partied with for 1 shilling 6 pins or less rather than be kept overnight thus 2,400 squirrels are vended yearly in the streets at a cost to the public of 240 pounds of the street sellers of leverettes, wild rabbits etc there are a few leverettes or young hairs sold in the streets and they are vended for the most part in the suburbs the houses are somewhat detached and where there are plenty of gardens the softness and gentleness of the leverettes Luke pleases children more especially girls I am informed and it is usually through their opportunity that the young hairs are bought in order that they may be fed from the garden and run tame about an outhouse the leverettes thus sold however as regards 9 out of 10 soon die they are rarely supplied with their natural food and all their natural habits are interrupted they are in constant fear and danger moreover from both dogs and cats one shopkeeper who sold fancy rabbits in a street off the Westminster Road told me that he had once tried to tame and rear leverettes in hutches as he did rabbits but to no purpose he had no doubt it might be done he said but not in a shop or a small house 3 or 4 leverettes are hawked by people in one basket and are seen lying on hay the basket having either a wide worked lid or a net thrown over it the hawkers of live poultry sell the most leverettes but they are vended also by the singing bird sellers the animals are nearly all bought for this traffic at Leaden Hall and are retailed at a shilling to two shillings each one third to one half being profit perhaps 300 are sold this way producing 22 pounds 10 shillings about 400 young wild rabbits are sold in the street in a similar way but at lower sums from thruppins to sixpins each fourpins being the most frequent rate the yearly outplay is thus 6 pounds 13 shillings they thrive in confinement no better than the leverettes end of section 12 section 13 of London Labour and the London Poor volume 2 by Henry Mehue this Libri Fox recording is in the public domain recording by Gillian Henry of the street sellers of gold and silver fish of these dealers residents in London there are about 70 but during my enquiry at the beginning of July there were not 20 in town one of their body knew of 10 live fish selling and there might be as many more working the remotor suburbs of Blackheath, Croydon, Richmond Twickenham, Isleworth or wherever there are villa residences of the wealthy this is the season when the gold and silver fish sellers who are altogether a distinct class from the bird sellers of the streets resort to the country to vend their glass globes with the glittering fish swimming round and round the goldfish hawkers are for the most part of the very best class of the street sellers one of the principal fish sellers is in winter a street vendor of cough drops, horse hound candy colts food sticks and other medicinal confectionaries which he himself manufactures another leading goldfish seller is a costar monger now on pineapples a third with a good connection is in the autumn and winter a hawker of game and poultry there are in London three wholesale dealers in gold and silver fish two of them one in the Kingsland Road and the other close by Billingsgate supply more especially the street sellers and the street traffic is considerable goldfish is one of the things which people buy when brought to their doors but which they seldom care to order the opportunity of children when a man unexpectedly tempts them with a display of such brilliant creatures as goldfish is another great promotive of the street trade and the street traders are the best customers of the wholesale purveyors buying somewhere about three fourths of their whole stock the dealers keep their fish in tanks suited to the purpose but goldfish are never bred in London the English reared goldfish are raised in the most part as respects the London market in several places in Essex in some parts they are bred in warm ponds the water being heated by the steam from adjacent machinery and in some places they are found to thrive well some are imported from France Holland and Belgium some are brought from the Indies and are usually sold to the dealers to improve their breed which every now and then I was told they had a foreign mixture or they didn't keep up their colour the Indian and foreign fish however are also sold in the streets the dealers or rather the Essex breeders who are often in London have just the pick of them usually through the agency of their town customers the English reared goldfish are not much short of three fourths of the whole supply as the importation of these fishes is troublesome because they are spent under the care of a competent person or unless the master or steward of a vessel is made to incur a share in the venture by being paid so much freight money for as many gold and silver fishes as are landed in good health and nothing for the dead or dying it is very hazardous sending them on shipboard at all as in case of neglect they may all die during the voyage the gold and silver fish are a large species and are natives of China but they were first introduced into this country from Portugal about 1690 some are still brought from Portugal they have been common in England for about 120 years these fish are known in the street trade as globe and pond fish the distinction is not one of species nor even of the variety of a species but merely a distinction in size the larger fish are pond the smaller globe but the difference on which the street sellers principally dwell is that the pond fish are far more troublesome to keep by them in a slack time as they must be fed and tended most sedulously their food is stale bread or biscuit the globe fish are not fed at all by the street dealer as the animalcule and the minute insects in the water are fed more food soft rain or sometimes Thames water is used for the filling of the globe containing a street seller's goldfish the water being changed twice a day at a public house or elsewhere when the hawker is on around spring water is usually rejected as the soft water contains more food one man however told me he had recourse to the street pumps for a renewal of water at a high price a day when the weather was sultry but spring or well water wouldn't do at all he was quite unconscious that he was using it from the pump the wholesale price of these fish ranges from 5 shillings to 18 shillings per dozen with a higher charge for picked fish when high prices must be paid the cost of large silvers for instance which are scarcer than large golds is sometimes 5 shillings a piece even to a retailer and rarely less than 3 shilling 6pins the most frequent price retail from the hawker for almost all the fish are hawked but only there I presume for a temporary purpose is 2 shillings a pair the goldfish are now always hawked in glass globes containing about a dozen occupants within a diameter of 12 inches glass globes are sold by the hawker or if ordered supplied by him on his next round that way the price being about 2 shillings glass globes for the display of goldfish are indeed manufactured at from 6pins to 1 pound 10 shillings each but 2 shillings or 2 shillings 6pins is the usual limit to the price of those vended in the street the fish are lifted out of the water in the globe to consign to a purchaser cut in a neat net of fine and different coloured cordage always carried by the hawker and manufactured for the trade at 2 shillings a dozen neat handles for these nets of stained or plain wood are a shilling the dozen the dealers avoid touching the fish with their hands both goldfish and glass globes are much cheaper than they were 10 years ago the globes are cheaper of course since the alteration in the tax on glass and the street sellers are numerically nearly double what they were from a well looking and well spoken youth of 21 or 22 I had the following account he was the son and grandson of costar mongers but was perhaps in consequence of his goldfish selling lying among a class not usually the costar mongers customers of more refined manners than the generality of the costar's children I've been in the streets sir helping my father until I was old enough to sell on my own account since I was 6 years old yes I like a street life I'll tell you the plain truth for I was put by my father to a paper-stainer and found I couldn't bear to stay indoors it would have killed me goldfish are as good a thing to sell as anything else perhaps but I've been a costar monger as well and have sold both fruit and good fish salmon and fine souls goldfish are not good for eating I tried one once just out of curiosity and it tasted very bitter indeed I tasted it boiled I've worked both town and country on goldfish I've served both Brighton and Hastings the fish were sent to me by rail in vessels with air holes when I wanted more I never stopped at lodging houses but at respectable public houses well suited in the care of my fish it's an expense but there's no help for it note a costar monger when I questioned him on the subject told me that he had sometimes sold goldfish in the country and though he had often enough slept in common lodging houses he never could carry his fish there for he felt satisfied although he had never tested the fact that in 9 out of 10 such places the fish in the summer season would half of them die during the night that's fair, end note goldfish sell better in the country than town the street dealer continued much better they're more thought off in the country my father sold them all over the world as the saying is I've sold both foreign and English fish I prefer English they're the hardiest Essex fish the foreign I don't just know what part are bread and milk ponds kept fresh and sweet of course here and some to be put in cold water they soon die in Essex they're bread in cold water they live about 3 years that's their lifetime if they're properly seen to I don't know what kind of fish goldfish are I've heard that they first came from China no I can't read and I'm very sorry for it if I have time next winter I'll get taught gentlemen sometimes ask me to sit down and talk to me about fish and their history natural history and I'm often at a loss which I mightn't be if I could read if I have fish left after my day's work I never let them stay in the globe I've hooked them in but put them into a large pan or a tub sometimes three parts full of water where they have room my customers are ladies and gentlemen but I have sold to shopkeepers such as buttermen that often show goldfish the fish don't live long in the very small globes but they're put in them sometimes just to satisfy children I've sold as many as two dozen at a time to stock a pond in a gentlemen's garden it's the best sale a little way out of town in any direction I sell six dozen a week I think one week with another they'll run as to price at a shilling a piece that six dozen includes what I sell both in town and country perhaps I sell them nearly three parts of the year some hock all the year but it's a poor winter trade yes I make a very fair living to a shilling sixpence or three shillings or so a day perhaps on goldfish when the weather suits end quote a man to whom I was referred as an experienced goldfish seller had just returned when I saw him from the sale of a stock of new potatoes, peas and so on which he worked in a donkey cart he had not this season he said started in the goldfish line and did very little last year in it as his costar mongering trade kept steady but his wife thought goldfish selling was a better trade and she always accompanied him in his street drowns so he might take to it again in his youth he was in the service of an old lady who had several pets and among them were goldfish of which she was very proud always endeavouring to procure the finest a street seller being sure of her as a customer if he had fish larger or deeper or brighter coloured than usual she kept them both in stone cisterns or small ponds in her garden and in glass globes in the house of these fish mineformant had the care and was often commended for his good management of them after his mistress's death he was very unlucky he said in his places his last master having been implicated he believed in some gambling and bill discounting transactions left the kingdom suddenly and mineformant was without a character for the master he served previously to the one who went off so abruptly was dead and a character two years back was of no use for people said but where have you been living since let me know all about that the man did not know what to do for his money was soon exhausted I had nothing left he said which I could turn into money except a very good great coat which had belonged to my last master and which was given to me because he went off without paying me my wages I thought of listing for I was tired of a footman's life almost always in the house in such places as I had but I was too old I feared and if I could have got over that I knew I should be rejected because I was getting bald I was sitting thinking whatever could be done I wasn't married then and had nobody to consult with when I heard the very man as used to serve my old lady crying goldfish in the street it struck me all of a heap and I wonder I hadn't thought of it before when I recollected how well I'd managed the fish that I'd sell goldfish too and hawk it as he did and it didn't seem such a bad trade so I asked the man all about it and he told me and I raised a sovereign great quote and that was my start in the streets I was nervous and a little shamed at first but I soon got over that and in time turned my hand to fruit and other things goldfish saved my life sir I do believe that for I might have pined into a consumption if I'd been without something to do and something to eat much longer if we calculate in order to allow for the cessation of the trade during the winter and often in the summer when costar mongering is at its best that but half the above mentioned number of goldfish sellers hawk in the streets and that for but half a year each selling six dozen weekly at 12 shillings the dozen we find 65,520 fish sold at an outlay of £3,276 as the country is also worked by the London street sellers and the supply is derived from London the number and amount may be doubled to include this traffic or 131,040 fish sold and 6552 pounds expended of the street sellers of tortoises the number of tortoises sold in the streets of London is far greater than might be imagined for it is a creature of no utility and one which is inanimate in this country for half its life of live tortoises there are 20,000 annually imported from the port of Mogador in Morocco they are not brought over as are the parrots and so on of which I have spoken for amusement or as private ventures of the seamen but are regularly consigned from Jewish houses in Mogador to Jewish merchants in London they are afraid of which little care is taken as they are brought over principally as ballast in the ships hold where they remain torpid the street sellers of tortoises are costumers of the smarter class sometimes the vendors of shells and foreign birds work also a few tortoises and occasionally a wholesale dealer the consignee of the Jewish house in Africa will send out his own servants to sell barrow loads of tortoises in the street on his own account they are regularly ranged on the barrows and certainly present a curious appearance half alive creatures as they are when the weather is not of the warmest brought from another continent for sale by thousands in the streets of London and retention in the gardens and grounds of our civic villas of the number imported one half or 10,000 are yearly sold in the streets by the several open-air dealers I have mentioned the real price is from four shillings to six shillings a dozen they are retailed from sixpence to a shilling a very fine well-grown tortoise being sometimes worth two shillings sixpence the mass however are sold at sixpence to ninepence each but many fetch a shilling they are bought for children and to keep in gardens as I have said and when properly fed on lettuce leaves, spinach and similar vegetables or on white bread, soft in water will live a long time if the tortoise be neglected in a garden and have no access to his favourite food he will eat almost any green thing which comes in his way and so may commit ravages during the winter and the later autumn and earlier spring the tortoise is torqued and may be kept in a drawer or any recess until the approach of summer thaws him as I heard it called calculating the average price of tortoises in street sale at eightpence each we find upwards of three hundred and thirty three pounds thus expended yearly of the street sellers of snails, frogs, worms, snakes hedgehogs etc I class together these several kinds of live creatures as they are all gathered and sold by the same persons principally by the men of whom I have given accounts in my statements concerning ground sill, chickweed, plantain and turf selling the principal snail sellers however are the turf cutters who are young and active men while the ground sill sellers are often old and infirm and incapable of working all night as the necessities of the snail trade often require of turf cutters there were at the time of my inquiry last winter forty two in London and of these full one third are regular purveyors of snails such being the daintier diet of the caged blackbirds and thrushes these men obtain their supply of snails in the market gardens the proprietors willingly granting leave to any known or duly recommended person who will rid them of these predators seven eighths of the quantity gathered are sold to the bird dealers to whom the price is tuppence a quart the other eighth is sold on a street round at from thruppence to sixpence the quart a quart contains at least eight day snails not heaped up their shells being measured along with them one man told me there were a hundred snails to a fair quart when it is moonlight at this season of the year the snail gatherers sometimes work all night at other times from an hour before sunset to the decline of daylight the work being resumed at the dawn to gather twelve quarts in a night or a long evening and morning is accounted a prosperous harvest half that quantity is pretty tidy an experienced man said to me quote the best snail grounds sir you may take my word for it is in Putney and Barnes the grays we go for the fellows with the shells on them the black snails or slugs is no good to us I think snails is the slowest got money of any I don't suppose they get scarcer but there's good seasons for snails and there's bad warm and wet is best we don't take the little ones they come next year I may make a pound a year or a little more in snails in winter there's hardly anything done in them and the snails is on the ground in summer they're on the walls or leaves they'll keep six months without injury they'll keep the winter round indeed in a proper place end quote I'm informed that the 14 snail gathers on the average gather six dozen quarts each in a year which supplies a total of 12,096 quarts or individually 1,189,400 and 89,440 snails the labourers in the gardens I'm informed may gather somewhat more than an equal quantity all being sold to the bird shops so that all together the supply of snails for the caged thrushes and blackbirds of London is about two millions and a half computing them at 24,000 quarts and only at tuppence a quart the supply is 200 pounds per annum the frogs sold by street people are at the rate of about 36 dozen a year disposed of in equal proportion to university and King's colleges only two men collect the frogs one for each hospital they are charged a penny each I've sometimes said one of the frog purveyors come on a place where I could have got six or seven dozen per day but that's mostly been when I didn't want them at other times I've gone days without colouring a single frog I only want them four times a year and four or five dozen at a time the low part of hamsters the best ground for them I think the doctors like big fellows they keep them in water till they're wanted to dissect end quote one man thought that there might be 50 more frogs or upwards ordered yearly through the bird shops for experiments under air pumps and so on this gives about 500 frogs sold yearly by the street people one year however I was told the supply was larger for a Camberwell gentleman ordered 40 frogs to stock a watery place at the foot of his garden as he liked to hear and see them the towed trade is almost an unentity one man who was confident he had as good a trade in that line as any of his fellows told me that last year he only supplied one towed in one year he forgot the precise time he collected 10 he was confident that from 12 to 24 a year was now the extent of the towed trade perhaps 20 there was no regular price and the men only work to order quote the shopkeeper mostly a herbalist likes to give end quote I was told from a penny to sixpence according to size quote I don't know what they're wanted for something about the doctors I believe but if you want any towed sir for anything I know a place between Hampstead and Wilson where there's real stunners end quote worms are collected in small quantities and very grudgingly for they are to be supplied gratuitously to the shopkeepers who are the customers of the turf cutters and snail and worm collectors they expect it as a perquisite like one man told me that they only gathered ground worms for the bird fanciers of the snakes and hedgehogs I have already spoken when treating of the collection of birds nests I was told that some few glow worms are collected end of section 13 section 14 of London Labour and the London Poor volume 2 by Henry Mayhew this LibriVolks recording is in the public domain recording by Gillian Henry of the street sellers of mineral productions and natural curiosities the class of which I have now to treat including as it does the street sellers of coal, coke tanterf, salt and sand seem to have been called into existence principally by the necessities of the poorer classes as the earnings of thousands of men in all the slop slaughterhouse or scamping branches of tailoring shoemaking, cabinet making joining and so on have become lower and lower they are compelled to purchase the indispensable articles of daily consumption in the smallest quantities and at a regular times just as the money is in their possession this is more especially the case as regards chamber masters and garret masters among the shoemakers and cabinet makers who as they are small masters and working on their own account have not even such a regularity of payment as a journeyman off the slop tailor among these poor artisans moreover the wife must slave with the husband and it is often an object with them to save the time lost in going out to the Chandler shop or the coal shed to have such things as coal and coke brought to their very doors and vended in the smallest quantities it is the same with the women who work for the slop shirt merchants and so on or make cap fronts and so on on their own account for the supply of the shopkeepers or the wholesale swag men who sell low priced millnery the street sellers of the class I have now to notice are then the principal purveyors of the very poor the men engaged in the street sale of coal and coke the chief articles of this branch of the street sale are of the costar monger class it is usually the case where an exercise of bodily strength is requisite costar mongers too are better versed than any other street folk in the management of barrels, carts, asses, ponies or horses so that when these vehicles and these animals are a necessary part of any open air business it will generally be found in the hands of the costar class nor is this branch of the street traffic confined solely to articles of necessity under my present enumeration will be found the street sale of shells an ornament of the mantelpiece above the fire grate to which coal is a necessity the present division will complete the subject of street sale in the metropolis of the street sellers of coals according to the returns of the coal market for the last few years there has been imported into London on an average 3,500,000 tons of seaborne coal annually besides this immense supply the various railways have lately poured in a continuous stream of the same commodity from the inland districts which has found a ready sale without sensibly affecting their customed vend of the north country coals long established on the coal exchange to the very poor the importance of coal can be scarcely estimated physiological and medical writers tell us that carbonaceous food is that which produces heat in the body and is therefore the fuel of the system experience tells us that this is true for who that has had an opportunity of visiting the habitations of the poor the dwellers in ill furnished rooms and garrets has not remarked the more than half starved slop needle women the wretched half naked children of the casually employed labourer as the dockman or those whose earnings are extorted from them by their employers such as the ballast man sitting crouched among the smallering embers in the place where the fire ought to be the reason of this is because the system of the sufferer by long want of food has been deprived of the necessary internal heat and so seeks instinctively to supply the deficiency by imbibing it from some outward source it is on this account chiefly I believe that I have found the ill paid and ill fed work people prize warmth almost more than food among the poorest Irish I have invariably found them crowding round the wretched fire when they had nothing to eat the census returns of the present year according to the accounts published in the newspapers estimate the number of the inhabitants of London at two million three hundred and sixty three thousand one hundred and forty one and the number of inhabited houses as three hundred and seven thousand seven hundred and twenty two now if we take into consideration that in the immense suburbs of the metropolis there are branching off from almost every street labyrinths of courts and alleys teaming with human beings and that almost every room has its separate family for it takes a multitude of poor to make one rich man we may be able to arrive at the conclusion that by far the greater proportion of coals brought into London are consumed by the poorer classes it is on this account of the highest importance that honesty should be the characteristic engaged in the vend and distribution of an article so necessary not only to the comfort but to the very existence of the great masses of the population the modes in which the coals imported into London are distributed to the various classes of consumers are worthy of observation as they unmistakably exhibit not only the wealth of the few but the poverty of the many the inhabitants of Belgravia the wealthy shopkeepers and many others periodically see at their doors the well-loaded wagon of the coal merchant with two or three swarthy coal porters bending beneath the black heavy sacks in the act of laying in the 10 or 20 tonnes for yearly or half-yearly consumption but this class is supplied from a very different quarter from that of the artisans labourers and many others who being unable to spare money sufficient to lay in at once a ton or two of coals must have recourse to other means to meet their limited resources there may be found in every part always in back streets persons known as coal shed men who get the coals from the merchant in 7, 14 or 20 tonnes at a time and retell them from 100 weight upwards the coal shed men are a very numerous class for there is not a low neighbourhood in any part of the city which contains not two or three of them in every street there is yet another class of purchasers of coals however which I have called the very poor the inhabitants of two pairs back the dwellers in garrets and so on it seems to have been for the purpose of meeting the wants of this class that the street sellers of coals have sprung into existence those who know nothing of the decent pride which often lingers among the famishing poor can scarcely be expected to comprehend the great boon that the street sellers of coals if they could only be made honest and conscientious dealers are calculated to confer on these people I have seen says a correspondent the starvelling child of misery in the gloom of the evening steal timidly into the shop of the coal shed man and in a tremulous voice ask as if begging a great favour for seven pound of coal the coal shed man has set down his pint of beer taking the pipe from his mouth blowing after it a cloud of smoke and in a gruff voice at which the little rich has shrunk up if it were possible into a less space than famine had already reduced her to and demanded who told you as how I serve seven pound of coal go to bill c he may serve you if he likes I won't and that's an end-ont I wonder what people wants with seven pound of coal the coal shed man after delivering himself of this enlightened observation has placidly resumed his pipe while the poor child gliding out into the drizzling sleet disappeared in the darkness end quote the street sellers vend any quantity at the very door of the purchaser without rendering it necessary for them to expose their poverty to the prying eyes of the neighbourhood and as I have said where the street dealers only honest they would be conferring a great boon upon the poorer portion of the people but unhappily it is scarcely possible for them to be so and realise a profit for themselves the police reports of the last year show that many of the coal merchants standing high in the estimation of the world have been heavily fined for using false weights and did the present inquiry admit of it there might be mentioned many other infamous practices by which the public are shamefully plundered in this commodity and which go far to prove that the coal trade in Toto is a gigantic fraud may I ask how it is possible for the street sellers with such examples of bare faced dishonesty before their eyes even to dream of acting honestly if not actually certain yet strongly suspecting that they themselves are defrauded by the merchant how can it be otherwise than that they should resort to every possible mode of defrauding their customers and so add to the already almost unendurable burdens of the poorest of the poor who by one means or other are made to bear all the burdens of the country the usual quantity of coals consumed in the poorest rooms in which a family resides is half a hundred weight per week in summer and one hundred weight ditto in winter or about two tonnes per annum the street sale of coals was carried on to a considerable extent during the earlier part of the last century small coalmen being among the regular street traders the best known of these was Tom Britton who died through fright occasioned by a practical joke he was a great fosterer of a taste for music among the people for after hawking his coals during the day he had a musical gathering in his humble abode in the evening to which many distinguished persons resorted this is alluded to in the lines of the issues under Tom Britton's portrait and the illusion according to the poetic fashion of the time being made by means of a strained classicality quote the trade seems to have disappeared gradually but has recently been revived in another form some few years ago an ingenious and enterprising costamonger during a slack in his own business conceived the idea of purchasing some of the refuse of the coals at the wharfs conveying them round the poorer localities of his beat in his ass or pony cart and vending them to room keepers and others in small quantities and at a reduced rate so as to undersell the coalshed men while making for himself a considerable profit the example was not lost upon his fraternity and no long time had elapsed before many others had started in the same line this eventually took so much custom from the regular coalshed men that as a matter of self defence those among them who had a horse and cart found it necessary to compete with the originators of the system in their own way and being possessed of more ample means they succeeded in a great measure in driving the costars out of the field the success of the coalshed men was for a time so well followed up that they began by degrees to edge away from the lanes and alleys extending their excursions into quarters somewhat more aristocratic and even there establishing a trade amongst those who had previously taken their ton or half ton of coals from the brass plate merchant as he is called in the trade being a person who merely procures orders for coals gets some merchant who buys in the coal market to execute them in his name and manages to make a living by the profits of these transactions some of this latter class consequently found themselves compelled to adopt a mode of doing their business somewhat similar and for that purpose hired vans proprietors of those vehicles loaded them with sacks of coals drove round among their customers prepared to furnish them with sacks or half sacks as they felt disposed finally many of the van proprietors themselves finding that business might be done in this way started in the line and being in general men of some means established it as a regular trade the van proprietors at the present time do the greater part of the business but there may occasionally be seen employed in this traffic all sorts of conveyances from the donkey cart of the costar munger or dock labourer the latter of whom endeavours to make up for the miserable pittance he can earn at the rate of fourpence per hour by the profits of this calling to the aristocratic van drawn along by two plump well fed horses the property of a man worth 900 pounds the van of the street seller of coals is easily distinguished from the wagon of the regular merchant the merchant's wagon is always loaded with sacks standing perpendicularly it is drawn by four immense horses and is driven along by a gaunt figure begrimmed with coal dust and sporting ankle boots or shoes and gaiters white or what ought to be white stockings knee breeches short tarry smock coat and a huge fantail hat slouching half way down his back the street seller's vehicle on the contrary has a coals shot into it without sacks while on a tail board extending behind lie weights and scales it is most frequently drawn by one horse but sometimes by two with bells above their collars jingling as they go or else the driver the street seller's the street seller's formerly purchased their coals from any of the merchants along the riverside generally the refuse or what remained after the best had been picked out by screening or otherwise but always taking a third or fourth quality as most suitable for their purpose but since the erection of machinery for getting coals out of the ships in the regents canal basin they have resorted to that place as the coals are at once shot from the box in which they are raised from the hold of the ship into the Carter van saving all the trouble of being filled in sacks by coal porters and carried on their backs from the ships barge or heap preparatory to their being emptied into the van thus getting them at a cheaper rate and consequently being enabled to realise a greater profit since the introduction of inland coals also by the railways many of the street sellers have either wholly or in part taken to sell them on account of the lower rate at which they can be purchased sometimes they've them unmixed but more frequently they mix them up with the small of north country coals of better quality and palm off the compound genuine walls end direct from the ship this together with short waits being in fact the principal source of their profit it occasionally happens that a merchant purchases in the market a cargo of coals which turns out to be damaged very small or of inferior quality in such cases he usually refuses to take them and it is difficult to dispose of them in any regular way of trade such cargoes or parts of cargoes are consequently at times bought up by some of the more wealthy van proprietors engaged in the coal line who realise on them a great profit to commence business as a street seller of coals requires little capital beyond the possession of a horse and cart the merchants in all cases let street sellers have any quantity of coals they may require till they are able to dispose of them and the street trade being a ready money business they can go on from day to day or from week to week according to their pre-arrangements so that as far as the commodity in which they deal is concerned there is no outlay of capital whatever there are about 30 two horse vans continually engaged in this trade the price of each van being £70 this gives £2,100 £100 horses at £20 each £1,200 £160 carts at £10 each £1,600 £160 horses at £10 each £1,600 £20 donkey or pony carts value a pound each £20 £20 donkeys or ponies at £1,010 each £30 making a total of 210 vehicles continually employed which with the horses and so on may be valued at £6,550 this sum with the price of 210 sets of weights and scales at £1,010 per set £315 makes a total of £6,865 this may be fairly set down as the gross amount of capital at present employed in the street sale of coals it is somewhat difficult to ascertain correctly the amount of coals distributed in this way among the poorer classes but I have found that they generally take two turns per day that is they go to the wharfs in the morning get their vans or carts loaded and proceed on their various rounds this first turn usually occupies them till dinner time after which they get another load which is sufficient to keep them employed till night now, if we allow each van to carry two and a half tonnes it will make for all 150 tonnes per day or 900 tonnes per week in the same manner allowing the 160 carts to carry a tonne each it will give 320 tonnes per day or 1,920 tonnes per week and the 20 pony carts half a tonne each 40 tonnes per day or 240 tonnes per week making a total of 3,060 tonnes per week or 159,120 tonnes per annum this quantity purchased from the merchants at 14 shillings 6pence per tonne amounts to 115,362 pounds annually and sold at the rate of a shilling per 100 weight or 1 pound per tonne leaves 5 shillings 6pence per tonne profit or a total profit of 43,758 pounds and this profit divided according to the foregoing account gives the sub joint amounts namely to each two horse van regularly employed throughout the year a profit of 429 pounds to each 1 horse cart 171 pounds 12 shillings to each pony cart 12 shillings from which must of course be made the necessary deductions for the keep of the animals and the repair of vehicles harness and so on the keep of a good horse is 10 shillings per week a pony 6 shillings 3 horses can be kept for the price of 2 and so on the more there are the less cost for each the localities where the street sellers of coals may most frequently meet with are it is somewhat remarkable that they are almost unknown on the south side of the Thames and are seldom or never to be encountered in the low streets and lanes in Westminster lying contiguous to the river nor in the vicinity of Marlebone nor in any place farther west than Shoreditch this is on account of the distance from the regents canal basin precluding the possibility of their making more than one turn in the day which would greatly diminish their profits even though they might get a higher price for their commodity it may be observed that the foregoing statement in figures is rather under the mark than otherwise as it is founded on the amount of coals purchased at a certain rate and sold at a certain profit without taking into account any of the dodges which almost all classes of coal dealers from the highest to the lowest are known to practice so that the rate of profit arising from this business may be fairly supposed to amount to much more than the above account can show in figures I received the following statement from a person engaged in the street traffic quote I kept a coal shed and greengrocer shop and as I had a son grown up I wanted to get something for him to do so about six years ago having a pony and cart and seeing others selling coals through the street I thought I'd make him try his hand at it I went to Mr B's at Whiting's Wharf and got the cart loaded and sent my son round our own neighbourhood I found that he soon disposed of them and so he went on by degrees people think we get a great deal of profit but we don't get near as much as they think I paid sixteen shillings a ton all the winter for coals and sold them for a shilling a hundred and when I came to feed the horse I found that he'll nearly eat it all up a horse's belly is not so easy to fill I don't think my son earns much more now in summer than feeds the horse it's different in winter he does not sell more than half a ton a day now the weather's so warm in winter he can always sell a ton at the least and sometimes two and on the Saturday he might sell three or four my cart holds a ton the vans hold from two to three tons I can't exactly tell how many people are engaged in selling coals in the street but there are a great many that's certain about eight o'clock what a number of carts and vans you'll see about the region's canal they like to get away before breakfast because then they may have another turn after dinner there's a great many go to other places for coals the people who have vans do much better than those with the carts because they carry so much that they save time there are no great secrets in our business we haven't the same chance of doing the thing as the merchants have they can mix the coals up as they like for their customers and sell them for best all we can do is to buy a low quality then we may lose our customers if we play any tricks to be sure after that we can go to parts where we're not known I don't use light weights but I know it's done by a good many and they mix up small coals a good deal and that of course helps our profits my son generally goes four or five miles before he sells a ton of coals and in summer weather a great deal further it's hard earned money that's got at it I can tell you my cart is worth 12 pounds I have a van worth 20 pounds I wouldn't take 20 pounds for my horse my van holds two tons of coals and the horse draws it easily I send the van out in the winter when there's a good call I only send it out on the Saturday I never calculated how much profit I made I haven't the least idea how much is got by it but I'm sure there's not near as much as you say why if there was I ought to have made a fortune by this time note it is right I should state that I received the foregoing account of the profits of the street trade in coals from one practically and eminently acquainted with it end note and the trade have done very well but they were well enough off before I know very well I'll never make a fortune at anything I'll be satisfied if I keep moving along so as to keep out of the union end quote as to the habits of the street sellers of coals they are as various as their different circumstances will admit but they closely resemble each other in one general characteristic of their provident and careful habits many of them have risen from struggling costar mongers to be men of substance with carts, vans and horses of their own some of the more wealthy of the class may be met with now and then in the parlours of respectable public houses where they smoke their pipes sip their brandy and water and are remarkable for the shrewdness of their remarks they mingle freely with the respectable of their own localities and may be seen especially on the Sunday afternoons with their wives and showily dressed daughters in the gardens of the new globe or green dragon the Cremorne and Vauxhall of the East I visited the house of one of those who I was told had originally been a costar monger the front portion of the shop was almost filled with coals he having added to his occupation of street seller the business man this his wife and a little boy managed in his absence while true to his early training the window ledge and a bench before it were heaped up with cabbages, onions and other vegetables in an open space opposite his door I observed a one horse cart and two or three trucks with his name painted there on at his invitation I passed through what may be termed the shop and each room nicely carpeted with a round table in the centre chairs ranged primly round the walls and a long looking glass reflecting the china shepherds and shepherdesses on the mantelpiece while framed and glazed all around were highly coloured prints among which Dick Turpin in flash red coat gallantly clearing the tall gate in his celebrated ride to York and Jack Shepherd lowering himself down from the window of the lock up house where most conspicuous in the window lay a few books and one or two old copies of Bell's life among the well-thumbed books I picked out the new gate calendar and the calendar of horrors as he called it of which he expressed a very high opinion Lord bless you he exclaimed them their stories is the wonderfulest in the world I'd never have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own two highs but there can't be no mistake when I read it how to the book, can there now I just ask her that airplane question of his career he gave me the following account quote I was at one time a costar regular brought up to the business the times was good then but Lord we used to lush at situate about ten years ago love I says Bill I'm bloat if this year game will do any longer I had a good mok note donkey and a tidish box of a cart so what does I do but goes and sees one of my old pals that gets into the coal line somehow he and I goes to the bell and seven mackerels in the mile end road and then he tells me all he knowed and takes me along with his self and from that time I sticks to the coals I never cared much about the lush myself and then I got away from the old ones I didn't mind it know how but Jack my pal was a awfully lush a cove he couldn't do no good at nothing whatsoever he died they say of lyrium trumans note not understanding what he meant I inquired of what it was he died end note why of lyrium trumans which I takes to be too much of truman he's heavy so I takes varnish by poor Jack and cuts the lush but if you think as we don't enjoy ourselves sometimes I tells you you don't know nothing about it I'm getting on like a regular house of fire end quote end of section 14