 Section 10 of London Labour and the London Poor, volume 2 by Henry Mayhew. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Gillian Hendry. Of the street sellers of live birds. The bird sellers in the streets are also the bird catchers in the fields, plains, heaths and woods, which still surround the metropolis. And in compliance with established precedent it may be proper that I should give an account of the catching before I proceed to any further statement on the procedures subsequent thereon too. The bird catchers are precisely what I have described them in my introductory remarks. An intelligent man versed in every part of the bird business and well acquainted with the character of all engaged in it, said they might be represented as of the fancy in a small way and always glad to run after and full of admiration of fighting men. The bird catchers life is one essentially vagrant. A few gypsies pursue it and they make little in street trades except as regards tinkering. And the mass, not gypsies, who become bird catchers rarely leave it for any other avocation. They catch unto old age. During last winter two men died in the parish of Clarkinwell, both turned 70, and both bird catchers, a profession they had followed from the age of six. The mode of catching I will briefly describe. It is principally affected by means of nets. A bird net is about 12 yards square. It is spread flat upon the ground to which it is secured by four stars. These are iron pins which are inserted in the field and hold the net, but so that the two wings or flaps which are indeed the size of the nets are not confined by the stars. In the middle of the net is a cage with a fine wire roof, widely worked, containing the call bird. This bird is trained to sing loudly and cheerily, great care being bestowed upon its tuition, and its song attracts the wild birds. Sometimes a few stuffed birds are spread about the cage as if a flock were already assembling there. The bird catcher lies flat and motionless on the ground, 20 or 30 yards distant from the edge of the net. As soon as he considers that a sufficiency of birds have congregated around his decoy, he rapidly draws towards him a line called the pool line, of which he has kept hold. This is so looped and run within the edges of the net that on being smartly pooled, the two wings of the net collapse and fly together, the stars still keeping their hold, and the net encircles the cage of the call bird and encloses in its folds all the wild birds allured round it. In fact, it then resembles a great cage of net work. The captives are secured in cages, the call bird continuing to sing as if in mockery of their struggles, or in hampers proper for the purpose, which are carried on the man's back to London. The use of the call bird as a means of decoy is very ancient, sometimes, and more especially in the dark, as in the taking of nightingales, the bird catcher imitates the notes of the birds to be captured. A small instrument has also been used for the purpose, and to this, Chaucer, although figuratively, eludes, quote, so the bird is beguiled with the merry voice of the fowler's whistle when it is closed in your net, end quote. Sometimes in the pride of the season, a bird catcher engages a costar monk's pony or donkey cart, and perhaps his boy, the better to convey the birds to town. The net and its apparatus cost one pound. The call bird, if he have a good wild knot, goldfinches and linets being principally so used, is worth ten shillings at the least. The bird catcher's life has many, and to the constitution of some lines, irresistible charms. There is the excitement of sport, not the headlong excitement of the chase, where the blood is stirred by motion and exercise, but still sport surpassing that of the angler, who applies his finest art to capture one fish at a time, while the bird catcher despises an individual catcher, but seeks to ensnare a flock at one twitch of a line. There is moreover the attraction of idleness, at least for intervals, and sometimes long intervals, perhaps the great charm of fishing, and basking in the lazy sunshine to watch the progress of the snares. Birds, however, and more especially, linets, are caught in the winter when it is not quite such holiday work. A bird dealer, not a street seller, told me that the greatest number of birds he had ever heard of as having been caught at one pool was nearly 200. My informant happened to be present on the occasion. Pools of 50, 100, and 150 are not very unfrequent when the young broods are all on the wing. Of the bird catchers, including all who reside in Woolwich, Greenwich, Hounslow, Isleworth, Barnett, Uxbridge, and places of similar distance, all working for the London market, there are about 200. The localities where these men catch are the neighbourhoods of the places I have mentioned as their residences, and at Holloway, Hampstead, Highgate, Finchley, Battersea, Blackheath, Putney, Mortlake, Chiswick, Richmond, Hampton, Kingston, Eltham, Carshallton, Stretham, The Tootings, Woodford, Epping, Snersbrook, Walthamstow, Tottenham, Edmonton, wherever and fine are open fields, plains or commons around the metropolis. I will first enumerate the several birds sold in the streets as well as the supply to the shops by the bird catchers. I have had recourse to the best sources of information. Of the number of birds which I shall specify as supplied or caught, it must be remembered that a not very small proportion die before they can be trained to song or enured to a cage life. I shall also give the street prices. All the birds are caught by the nets with call birds accepting such as I shall notice. I take the singing birds first. The linnet is the cheapest and among the most numerous of what may be called the London caught birds for it is caught in the nearer suburbs such as Holloway. The linnet however, the brown linnet being the species, is not easily reared and for some time ill-brooks confinement. About one half of those birds die after having been caged a few days. The other evening a bird catcher supplied 26 fine linets to a shopkeeper in Pentonville and next morning 10 were dead. But in some of those bird shops and bird chambers connected with the shops the heat at the time the new broods are caught and caged is excessive and the atmosphere from the crowded and compulsory fellowship of pigeons and all descriptions of small birds with white rats, hedgehogs, guinea pigs and other creatures is often very foul so that the wonder is not that so many die but that so many survive. Some bird connoisseurs prefer the note of the linnet to that of the canary but this is far from a general preference. The young birds are sold in the streets at thruppins and forpins each. The older birds which are accustomed to sing in their cages from a shilling to two shilling sixpence. The catch of linets, none being imported may be estimated for London alone at 70,000 yearly. The mortality I have mentioned is confined chiefly to that year's brood. The length of the catch is sold in the streets. Of the quality of the street sold birds I shall speak here after. The bullfinch which is bold, familiar, docile and easily attached is a favourite cage bird among the Londoners. I speak of course as regards the body of the people. It is as readily sold in the streets as any other singing bird. Piping bullfinches are also a part of street trade but only to a small extent and with bird sellers who can carry them from their street pitches or call on their rounds at places where they are known to exhibit the powers of the bird. The piping is taught to these finches when very young and they must be brought up by their tutor and be familiar with him. When little more than two months old they begin to whistle and then their training as pipers must commence. This tuition among professional bullfinch trainers is systematic. They have schools of birds and teach in bird classes of from four to seven members in each, six being a frequent number. These classes, when their education commences are kept unfed for a longer time than they have been accustomed to and they are placed in a darkened room. The bird is wakeful and attentive from the want of his food and the tune he is to learn is played several times on an instrument made for the purpose and known as a bird organ, its notes resembling those of the bullfinch. For an hour or two the young pupils mope silently but they gradually begin to imitate the notes of the music played to them. When one commences and he is looked upon as the most likely to make a good piper the others soon follow his example. The light is then admitted and a portion of food but not a full meal is given to the birds. Thus by degrees by the playing on the bird organ a flute is sometimes used, by the admission of light which is always agreeable to the finch and by the reward of more and more and sometimes more relishable food the pupil practises the notes he hears continuously. The birds are then given into the care of boys who attend to them without intermission in a similar way. Their original teacher still overlooking, praising or rating his scholars till they acquire a tune which they pipe as long as they live. It is said however that only 5% of the number taught pipe in perfect harmony. The bullfinch is often pettish in his piping and will in many instances not pipe at all unless in the presence of someone who feeds it or to whom it has become attached. The custom of training I have described is that practised by the Germans who have for many years supplied this country with the best piping bullfinches. Some of the dealers will undertake to procure English taut bullfinches which will pipe as well as the foreigners but I am told that this is a prejudice if not a trick of trade. The mode of teaching in this country by barbers, weavers and bird fanciers generally who seek for a profit from their painstaking is somewhat similar to that which I have detailed but with far less elaborateness. The price of a piping bullfinch is about 3 guineas. These pipers are also reared and taut in Leicestershire and Norfolk and sent to London as are the singing bullfinches which do not pipe. The bullfinches netted near London are caught more numerously about Hounslow than elsewhere. In hard winters they are abundant in the outskirts of the metropolis. The yearly supply including those sent from Norfolk and so on is about 30,000. The bullfinch is hearty compared to the linnet I was told but of the amount which are the objects of trade not more than two thirds live many weeks. The price of a good young bullfinch is two shelling sixpence and three shelling. They are often sold in the streets for a shelling. The hawking or street trade comprises about a tenth of the whole. The sale of piping bullfinches is of course small as only the rich can afford to buy them. A dealer estimated it at about 400 yearly. The goldfinch is also in demand by street customers and is a favourite from its liveliness, beauty and sometimes sagacity. It is more over the longest lived of our caged small birds and will frequently live to the age of 15 or 16 years. A goldfinch has been known to exist 23 years in a cage. Small birds generally rarely live more than nine years. This finch is also in demand because it most readily of any bird pairs with the canary. The produce being known as a mule which from its prettiness and powers of song is often highly valued. Goldfinches are sold in the streets at from sixpence to one shelling each and when there is an extra catch and they are nearly all caught about London and the shops are fully stocked at thurpence and fourpence each. The yearly catch is about the same as that of the linnet or 70,000. The mortality being perhaps 30%. If anyone casts his eye over the stock of hopping, chirping little creatures in the window of a bird shop or in the close array of small cages hung outside or at the stock of a street seller he will be struck by the preponderating number of goldfinches. No doubt the dealer, like any other shopkeeper dresses his window to the best advantage putting forward his smartest and prettiest birds. The demand for the goldfinch, especially among women is steady and regular. The street sale is a tenth of the whole. The chaffinch is in less request than either of its congeners the bullfinch or the goldfinch but the catch is about half that of the bullfinch and with the same rate of mortality the prices are also the same. Green finches, called green birds or sometimes green linets in the streets are in still smaller request than our chaffinches and that to about one half. Even the smaller stock is little saleable as the bird is regarded as only a middling singer. They are sold in the open air at tuppence and thruppence each but a good green bird is worth two shelling sixpence. Larks are of good sale and regular supply being perhaps more readily caught than other birds as in winter they congregate in large quantities it may be thought to witness the restless throwing up of the head of the caged skylark as if he were longing for a soar in the air that he was very impatient of restraint this does not appear to be so much the fact as the lark adapts himself to the poor confines of his prison poor indeed for a bird who soars higher and longer than any of his class more rapidly than other wild birds like the linnet and so on. The mortality of larks however approaches one third The yearly take of larks is 60,000 this includes skylarks, woodlarks, tutlarks and mudlarks the skylark is in far better demand than any of the others for his stoutness of song but some prefer the tutlark from the very absence of such stoutness Fresh-catched larks are vended in the streets at sixpence and eightpence but a seasoned bird is worth two shelling sixpence one tenth is the street sale The larks for the supply of fashionable tables are never provided by the London birdcatchers who catch only singing larks for the shop and street traffic The edible larks used to be highly esteemed in pies but they are now generally roasted for consumption They are principally the produce of Cambridgeshire with some from Bedfordshire and are sent direct, killed to Leadenhall Market where about 215,000 are sold yearly being nearly two thirds of the gross London consumption It is only within these 12 or 15 years that the London dealers have cared to trade to any extent in nightingales but they are now a part of the stock of every bird shop of the more flourishing class Before that they were merely exceptional as cage birds as it is the domestication if the word be allowed with reference to the nightingale is but partial Like all migratory birds when the season for migration approaches the caged nightingale shows symptoms of great uneasiness dashing himself against the wires of his cage or his aviary and sometimes dying in a few days Many of the nightingales however let the season pass away without showing any consciousness that it was with the race of birds to which they belonged one for a change of place To induce the nightingale to sing in the daylight a paper cover is often placed over the cage which may be gradually and gradually withdrawn until it can be dispensed with This is to induce the appearance of twilight or night On the subject of this night singing however I will cite a short passage Quote in circles round the female when sitting on her nest The skylark too may frequently be heard till near midnight high in the air soaring as if in the brightness of a summer's morning Again we have listened with pleasure long after dark to the warblings of a thrush and been awakened at two in the morning by its sweet serenade end quote It appears however that this night singing as regards England is on fine summer nights when the darkness is never very dense In far northern climates larks sing all night I'm inclined to believe that the mortality among nightingales before they are reconciled to their new life is higher than that of any other bird and much exceeding one half The dealers may be unwilling to admit this but such mortality is I have been assured on good authority the case Besides that, the habits of the nightingale unfit him for a cage existence The capture of a nightingale is among the most difficult achievements of the profession None are caught nearer than epping and the catchers travel considerable distances before they have a chance of success These birds are caught at night and more often by their captors imitation of the nightingale's note than with the aid of the callbird Perhaps a thousand nightingales are reared yearly in London of which three fourths may be more or less songsters The inferior birds are sold at about two shillings each the street sale not reaching one hundred but the birds caged and singing are worth a pound each when of the best and ten shillings, twelve shillings and fifteen shillings each when approaching the best the mortality I have estimated Red breasts are a portion of the street sold birds but the catch is not large not exceeding three thousand with a mortality of about a third Even this number, small as it is when compared with the numbers of other singing birds sold is got rid of with difficulty There is a popular feeling repugnant to the imprisonment or coercion in any way of a robin and this no doubt has its influence in moderating the demand It is sold when young both in the shops and streets for a shilling when caged and singing sometimes for a pound These birds are considered to sing best by candlelight The street sale is a fifth or sometimes a quarter all young birds or with the rarest exceptions The thrush, thrussel or in Scottish poetry mavis is of good sale it is reared by hand in many of the villages and small towns at no great distance the nests being robbed of the young wherever they can be found The nestling food of the infant thrush is grubs, worms and snails with an occasional moth or butterfly On this kind of diet, the young thrushes are reared until they are old enough for sale to the shopkeeper or to any private patron Thrushes are also netted but those reared by hand The nest, as such a rearing disposes the bird the more to enjoy his cage life as he has never experienced the delights of the free hedges and thickets This process, the catchers call rising from the nest A thrussel thus rose, soon becomes familiar with his owner always supposing that he be properly fed and his cage duly cleaned for all birds detest dirt and among the working men of England no bird is a greater favourite than the thrush Indeed, few other birds are held in such liking by the artisan class About a fourth of the thrushes supplied to the metropolitan traders have been thus rose and as they must be sufficiently grown before they will be received by the dealers the mortality among them when once able to feed themselves in their wicker work cages is but small Perhaps somewhere about a fourth in this hand-rearing and some men, the aristocrats of the trade let a number go when they have ascertained that they are hens as these men exert themselves to bring up thrushes to sing well and then they command good prices Often enough however the hens are sold cheap in the streets Among the catch supplied by netting there is a mortality of perhaps more than a third The whole take is about 35,000 In the sale the streets have a tenth proportion The prices run from two shilling sixpence and three shillings for the fresh cot and ten shillings, one pound and as much as two pounds for a seasoned throttle in high song Indeed, I may observe that for any singing bird which is considered greatly to excel its mates a high price is obtainable Black birds appear to be less prized in London than thrushes With a mellower note the black bird is not so free a singer in captivity They are rose and netted in the same manner as the thrush but the supply is less by one fifth The prices, mortality street sale and so on are in the same ratio The street sale of canaries is not large not so large I am assured by men in the trade as it was six or seven years ago were especially as regarded the higher priced birds of this open air traffic Canaries are now never brought from the group of islands 13 in number situate in the North Atlantic and near the African coast and from which they derive their name To these islands and to these alone as far as is known to ornithologists are they indigenous The canary is a slow flyer and soon wearied This is one reason, no doubt for it's not migrating A delightful songster was first brought into England in the reign of Elizabeth at the era when so many foreign luxuries as they were then considered and stigmatised accordingly were introduced Of these were potatoes, tobacco turkeys, nectarines and canaries I have seen no account of what was the cost of a canary bird when first imported but there is no doubt that they were very dear as they were found only in the abodes of the wealthy The bird trade seems more over to have been so profitable to the Spaniards then and now the possessors of the Isles that a government order for the killing or setting at liberty of all hen canaries caught with the males was issued in order that the breed might be confined to its native country a decree not attended with successful results as regards the intention of the then ruling powers The foreign supply to this country is now principally from Holland and Germany where canaries are reared in great numbers with that care which the Dutch in a special bestow upon everything on which money making depends and whence they are sent or brought over in the spring of every year when from 9 to 12 months old 30 years ago the turkeys were the principal breeders and purveyors of canaries for the London market From about the era of the peace of 1814 on the first abdication of Napoleon for 10 or 12 years they brought over about 2000 birds yearly they travelled the whole way on foot carrying the birds in cages on their backs until they reached whatever port in France or the Netherlands as Belgium then was they might be bound for The price of a canary of an average quality was then from 5 shillings to 8 shillings 6 pence and a fair proportion where streets sold at that period I was told the principal open air sale for canaries and it is only of that I now write was in Whitechapel and Bethnal Green all who were familiar with those localities may smile to think that the birds chirping and singing in these especially urban places were bred for such street traffic in the valleys of the Rician Alps I presume that it was the greater rapidity of communication and the consequent diminished cost of carriage between England Holland and Germany that caused the two release to abandon the trade as one unremunerative even to men who will live on bread, onions and water I have perhaps dwelt somewhat at length on this portion of the subject but it is the most curious portion of all for the canary is the only one of all our singing birds which is solely a household thing linens, finches, larks nightingales, thrushes and blackbirds are all free denizens of the open air as well as prisoners in our rooms but the canary with us is unknown in a wild state though not very handy wrote in 1848 a very observant naturalist the late Dr Stanley Bishop of Norwich canaries might possibly be naturalised in our country by putting their eggs in the nests of sparrows chuffinches and other similar birds the experiment has been partially tried in Berkshire where a person for years kept them in an exposed aviary out of doors and where they seem to suffer no inconvenience from the severest weather the breeding of canaries in this country for the London supply has greatly increased their bread in Leicester and Norwich weavers being generally fond of birds in London itself also their bread to a greater extent than used to be the case barbers being among the most assidious rearers of the canary a dealer who trades in both foreign and home bread birds thought that the supply from the country and from the continent was about the same 8000 to 9000 each not including what were sold by the barbers who are regarded as fanciers not to say interlopers by the dealers no species of birds are ever bred by the shop dealers the price of a brisk canary is 5 shillings or 6 shillings but they are sold in the streets as low as 1 shilling each a small cage worth 6 pence being sometimes included these however are hens as in the life of a canary there is no transition from freedom to enthrallment for they are in a cage in the egg and all their lives afterwards they are subject to a far lower rate of mortality than other streets sold birds a 16th of the number above stated as forming the growth supply are sold in the streets the foregoing enumeration includes all the singing birds of street traffic and street folks supply the trade I have thus sketched is certainly one highly curious we find that there is around London a perfect belt of men employed from the first blush of a summer's dawn through the heats of noon in many instances during the night and in the chills of winter and all laboring to give the city-pent men of humble means one of the peculiar pleasures of the country the song of the birds it must not be supposed that I would intimate that the bird catcher's life as regards his field and wood pursuits is one of hardship on the contrary it seems to me to be the very one which perhaps unsuspected by himself is best suited to his tastes and inclinations nor can we think similar pursuits partake much of hardship when we find independent men follow them for mere sport to be rid of lassitude but the detail of the birds captured for the Londoners by no means ends here I have yet to describe those which are not songsters and which are a staple of street traffic to a greater degree than birds of song of these mynotas may be brief the trade in sparrows is almost exclusively a street trade and numerically considered not an inconsiderable one they are netted in quantities in every open place near London and in many places in London it is common enough for a bird catcher to obtain leave to catch sparrows in a woodyard a brick field or places where there is an open space certain to be frequented by these bold and familiar birds the sparrows are sold in the streets generally at a penny each sometimes hipney and sometimes a penny hipney and for no purpose of enjoyment as in the case of the cheap song birds but merely as playthings for children in other words for creatures willfully or ignorantly to be tortured strings are tied to their legs and so they have a certain degree of freedom but when they offer to fly away they are checked and kept fluttering in the air as a child will flutter a kite one man told me that he had sometimes sold as many as 200 sparrows in the back streets about Smithfield on a fine Sunday these birds are not kept in cages and so they can only be bought for a plaything they often enough escape from their persecutors but it is not merely for the sport of children that sparrows are pervade but for that of grown men or as Charles Lamb if I remember rightly qualifies it when he draws a Pentonville sportsman with a little shrubbery for his preserve for grown cockneys the birds for adult recreation are shot in sparrow matches the gentleman slaughtering the most being of course the hero of a sparrow batoo he had frequently supplied dozens of sparrows for these matches at two shillings a dozen but they were required to be fine bold birds one dealer thought that during the summer months there were as many sparrows caught close to and within London as there were goldfinches in the less urban districts these birds are sold direct from the hands of the catcher so that it is less easy to arrive at statistics than when there is the intervention of idlers who know the extent of the trade carried on I was told by several who had no desire to exaggerate that to estimate this sparrow sale at 10,000 yearly sold to children and idlers in the street was too low but at that estimate the outlay at a penny of sparrow would be 850 pounds the adult sportsman may slaughter half that number yearly in addition the sparrows are derived from the shopkeepers who when they receive the order instruct the catchers to go to work starlings used to be sold in very great quantities in the street but the trade is now but the shadow of its former state the starling too is far less numerous than it was and has lost much of its popularity it is now seldom seen in flocks of more than 40 and it is rare to see a flock at all although these birds at one period mustered in congregations of hundreds and even thousands ruins and the roofs of ancient houses and barns for they loved the old and decaying buildings were once covered with them the starling was moreover the poor man's and the peasant's parent he was taught to speak and sometimes to swear but now the starling savers regards his own note is mute he has seldom tamed or domesticated it is true starlings may be seen carried on sticks in the street as if the tamest of the tame but they are braced tapes are passed round their bodies and so managed that the bird cannot escape from the stick while his fetters are concealed by his feathers the street seller of course objecting to allow his birds to be handled starlings are caught chiefly ilford way I was told and about turnham green the bird rose from the nest the price is from ninepins to two shillings each about three thousand are sold annually half in the streets after having been braced or ill used the starling if kept as a solitary bird will often mope and die jackdaws and magpies are in less demand than might be expected from their vivacity many of the other birds are supplied the year round a pies for only about two months from the middle of June to the middle of August the price is from sixpins to a shilling and about one thousand are thus disposed of in equal quantities one half in the streets these birds are for the most part reared from the nest but little pains appear to be taken with them the red pole is rather a favourite bird among street buyers especially where children are allowed to form a stock I am told that they most frequently select a goldfinch or a red pole these birds are supplied for about two months about eight hundred or a thousand is the extent of the take the mortality and prices are the same as with the goldfinch but a goldfinch in high song is worth twice as much as the best red pole about a third of the sale of the red pole is in the streets there are also one hundred and fifty black caps sold annually in the open air from thruppins to fivepins each these are the chief birds then that constitute the trade of the streets with the addition of an occasional yellow hammer, wren, jay or even cuckoo they also, with the addition of pigeons form the stock of the bird shops I have shown the number of birds caught the number which survive for sale and the cost and as usual under the head of statistics will be shown the whole annual expenditure this however is but a portion of the london outlay on birds there is in addition the cost of their cages and of their daily food the commonest and smallest cage costs sixpence a frequent price being a shilling a thrush's basket cage cannot be bought unless rubbish under two shilling sixpence I have previously shown the amount paid for the green food of birds and for their turfs and so on for these are all branches of street commerce of their other food such as rape and canary seed, German paste chopped eggs, biscuit and so on I need but intimate the extent by showing what birds will consume as it is not a portion of street trade a goldfinch it has been proved by experimentalising ornithologists they consume 90 grains in weight of canary seed in 24 hours a greenfinch for whose use 80 grains of wheat were weighed out ate 79 of them in 24 hours and on another occasion ate in the same space of time 100 grains of a paste of eggs and flour 16 canaries consumed 100 grains weight of food each bird in 24 hours the amount of provision thus was about one sixth of the full weight of the bird's body or an equivalent where a man to swallow victuals in the same proportion of 25 pounds in 24 hours I may remark more over that the destruction of caterpillars, insects, worms and so on by the small birds is enormous especially during the infancy of their nestlings a pair of sparrows fed their brood 36 times an hour for 14 hours of a long spring day and it was calculated administered to them in one week 3400 caterpillars a pair of chaffenshies also carried nearly as great a number of caterpillars for the maintenance of their young the singing birds sold in the street are offered either singly in small cages when the cage is sold with the bird or they are displayed in a little flock in a long cage the buyer selecting any he prefers they always appear lively in the streets or indeed a sale would be hopeless for no one would buy a dull or sick bird the captives are seen to hop and heard to chirp but they are not often heard to sing when thus offered to the public and it requires some little attention to judge what is but an impatient flutter and what is the fruit of mere hilarity the places where the bird sellers more especially offer their birds are Spittlefield, Clarkinwell Green Lyssen Grove, The City and New Roads Shepard S Walk, Old Street Road Shore Ditch, Spittlefields Whitechapel, Tower Hill Ratcliffe Highway Commercial Road East Poplar, Billingsgate Westminster Broadway Covent Garden Blackfriars Road, Bermondsy mostly about Duckhead and in the neighbourhood of the Borough Market the street sellers are all itinerant carrying the birds in cages holding them up to tempt the notice of people whom they see at the windows or calling at the houses the sale used to be very considerable in the Cut and Lambeth Walk sometimes the cages with their inmates are fastened to any contiguous rail sometimes they are placed on a bench or stall and occasionally in cages on the ground to say nothing in this place of the rogueries of the bird trade I will proceed to show how the street sold birds are frequently inferior to those in the shops the catcher as I have stated is also the street seller he may reach the dials or whatever quarter the dealer he supplies may reside in with perhaps 30 linits and as many goldfinches the dealer selects 24 of each refusing the remaining dozen on account of there being hens or hurt or weekly birds the man then resorts to the street to effect a sale of that dozen and thus the streets have the refuse of the shops on the other hand however when the season is at its height and the take of birds is the largest as at this time of year the shops are stocked the cages and recesses are full and the dealer's anxiety is to sell before he purchases more birds the catchers proceed in their avocation they must dispose of their stock the shopkeeper will not buy at any figure and so the streets are again resorted to and in this way fine birds are often sold very cheap both these liabilities prevail the year through but most in the summer and keep up a sort of poise but I apprehend that the majority perhaps the great majority of the street sold birds are off an inferior sort but then the price is much lower on occasions when the bird trade is overdone the catchers will sell a few squirrels or gather snails for the shops the buyers of singing birds are eminently the working people along with the class of tradesmen whose means and disposition are off the same character as those of the artisan grooms and coachmen are frequently fond of birds many are kept in the several muse and often the larger singing birds such as black birds and thrushes the fondness of a whole body of artificers for any particular bird animal or flower is remarkable no better instance need be cited than that of the spittlefields weavers in the days of their prosperity they were the cultivators of choice tulips afterwards though not in so full a degree of dallas and their pigeons were the best flyers in England these things were accomplished with little cost comparatively for the weavers were engaged in tasks grateful and natural to their tastes and habitudes and what was expense in the garden or aviary of the rich was an exercise of skill and industry on the part of the silk weaver the humanizing and even refining influence of such pursuits is very great and as regards these pure pleasures it is not seldom that the refinement which can appreciate them has preceded not to from the artisans the operatives have often been in the van of those who have led the public taste from delighting in the cruelty and barbarity of bear and bull-baiting and of cockfighting among the worst of all possible schools and very influential those schools were to the delight in some of the most beautiful works of nature it is easy to picture the difference of mood between a man going home from a dogfight at night or going home from a visit to his flowers or from an examination to satisfy himself that his birds were all right the families of the two men felt the difference many of the rich appear to remain mere savages in their tastes and sports batous, lion and hippopotamus hunting and so on all are mere civilized barbarisms when shall we learn as Wordsworth says quote, never to blend our pleasure or our pride with sorrow of the meanest thing that feels end quote but the change in spittle fields is great since the prevalence of low wages the weavers garden has disappeared and his pigeon coat even if its timbers have not rotted away is no longer stocked with carriers, dragoons, horsemen Jacobins, monks, polters turtles, tumblers fantails and the many varieties of what is in itself a variety, the fancy pigeon a thrush or a linnet may still sing to the clatter of the loom but that is all the culture of the tulip, the dahlia and sometimes of the fuchsia was attended as I have said with small cost, still it was cost and the weaver as wages grew lower could not afford either the outlay or the loss of time to cultivate flowers or rear doves so as to make them a means of subsistence requires a man's whole time and to such things the spittle fields man did not devote his time but his leisure the readers who have perused this work from its first appearance will have noticed how frequently I have had to comment on the always realised indication of good conduct and of a superior taste and generally a superior intelligence when I have found the rooms of working people contain flowers and birds I could adduce many instances I have seen a terred birds in the rooms of tailors shoemakers, coopers cabinet makers, hatters dressmakers, couriers and street sellers all people of the best class one of the most striking indeed was the room of a street confectioner his family attended to the sale of the sweets and he was greatly occupied at home in their manufacture and worked away at his peppermint rock in the very heart of one of the thickliest populated parts of London surrounded by the song of thrushes linets and goldfinches all kept not for profit but because he loved to have them about him I have seldom met a man who impressed me more favourably the flowers in the room are more attributable to the superintending taste of a wife or daughter and are found in the apartments of the same class of people there is a marked difference between the buyers or keepers of birds and of dogs in the working classes especially when the dog is of a sporting or varmint sort such a dog keeper is often abroad and so his home becomes neglected he is interested about rat hunts knows the odds on or against his dog's chances to dispatch his rats in the time allotted loses much time and customers his employers grumbling that the work is so slowly executed and so custom or work falls off the bird lover on the other hand is generally a more domestic and perhaps consequently a more prosperous and contented man it is curious to mark the refining qualities of particular trades I do not remember seeing a bulldog in the possession of any of the spittle fields silk weavers with them always flowers and birds are preserved with the tailors and other kindred occupations with slaughterers however and drovers and billingsgate men and coachmen and cab men whose callings naturally tend to blunt the sympathy with suffering the gentler tastes are comparatively unknown the dogs are almost all of the varmint kind kept either for rat killing, fighting or else for their ugliness for pet or fancy dogs they have no feeling and in singing birds they find little or no delight end of section 10 section 11 of London Labour and the London Poor volume 2 by Henry Mayhew this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Gillian Henry of the bird catchers who are street sellers the street sellers of birds are called by themselves hawkers bird hawkers among the bird catchers I did not hear of any very prominent characters at present three of the best known and most prominent having died within these ten months I found among all I saw the vagrant characteristics I have mentioned and often united with a quietness of speech and manner which might surprise those who do not know that any pursuit which entails frequent silence, watchfulness and altitude forms such manners perhaps the man most talked off by his fellow labourers was old Gillam who died lately Gillam was his real name for among the bird catchers there is not that prevalence of nicknames which I found among the costar mongers and patterers one reason no doubt is that these bird folk do not meet regularly in the markets it is rarely however that they know old Gillam being an exception it is old Tom or young Mick or Jack or Dick among them I heard of no John or Richard for sixty years almost without intermission old Gillam caught birds I am assured that to state that his catch during this long period averaged one hundred a week hence included is within the mark for he was a most indefatigable man even at that computation however he would have been the captor in his lifetime of three hundred and twelve thousand birds a bird catcher who used sometimes to start in the morning with old Gillam and walk with him until their roads diverged told me that of late years the old man's talk was a good deal of where he had captured his birds in the old times why Ned he would say to me proceeded his companion I have catched goldfinches in lots at Chock Farm and all where there's that railway smoke and noise just by the hill note Primrose Hill and note I can't think where they'll drive all those birds to by and by I daresay the first time the birds saw a railway with its smoke and noise to frighten them and all the fire too they just thought it was the devil was come he wasn't a fool wasn't old Gillam sir why he'd go on for to say I've laid many a day at Ball's pond there where it's nothing but a lot of houses now and catched hundreds of birds and I've catch them where there's all them grand squares Pimlico way and in Britannia Fields and at White Condy what with all these buildings and them barbers I don't know what the bird trade will come to it's hard for a poor man to have to go to Finchley for birds that he could have catched at Holloway once never thinks of that when I were young I could make three times as much as I do now I've got a pound for a good sound chaff inch as I brought up myself ah poor old Gillam sir I wish you could have seen him he'd have told you of some queer changes in his time a shopkeeper informed me that a bird catcher had talked to him of even queerer changes this man died 8 or 10 years ago at an advanced age but beyond the fact of his offering birds occasionally at my informant shop where he was known merely as the old man he could tell me nothing of the ancient bird catcher except that he was very fond of a talk and used to tell how he had catched birds between 50 and 60 years ago and had often when a lad catch them where many a doc in London now stands where there's many a big shop now in deep water I never catched flocks of birds I never catched birds to be sure at them docks he would add as was dug out of the houses why master you'll remember they're pulling down St Catherine's church and all them rummy streets the tether side of the tower for a doc as I find that the first doc constructed on the north side of the Thames the West India doc was not commenced until the year 1800 there seems no reason to discredit the bird catcher's statement among other classes of street sellers I have had to remark the little observation they extended to the changes all around such as the extension of street traffic to miles and miles of suburbs unknown till recently 2000 miles of houses have been built in London within the last 20 years but with the bird catchers this want of observance is not so marked of necessity they must notice the changes which have added to the fatigues and difficulties of their calling by compelling them literally to go further afield a young man rather tall and evidently active but very thin gave me the following account his manners were quiet and his voice low his dress could not so well be called mean as hard worn with the unmistakable look of much of the attire of his class made for the wearer his surtoe for instance which was fastened in front by two buttons reached down to his ankles and could have enclosed a bigger man he resided in St. Luke's in which parish there are more bird catchers living than in any other the furniture of his room was very simple a heavy old sofa in the well of which was a bed a table, two chairs a fender, a small closet pots and tins and some 20 empty bird cages of different sizes hung against the walls in a sort of wooden loft which had originally been constructed he believed for the breeding of fancy pigeons and which was erected on the roof were about a dozen or two of cages some old and broken and in them a few live goldfinches which hopped about very merrily they were all this year's birds and my informant who had a little connection of his own was rearing them in hopes they would turn out good specs quite birds beyond the run of the streets the place and the cages each bird having its own little cage were very clean but at the time of my visit the loft was exceedingly hot as the day was one of the sultriest lest this heat should prove too great for the finches the timbers on all sides were well wetted and rewetted at intervals for about an hour at noon at which time only was the sun full on the loft I shall soon have more birds sir he said but you see I only put aside here such as are the very best of the take all cocks of course oh I've been in the trade all my life I've had a turn at other things certainly but this life suits me best I think because I have my health best in it my father he's been dead a goodish bit was a bird catcher as well and he used to take me out with him as soon as I was strong enough when I was about ten I suppose I don't remember my mother father was brought up to brick making I believe that most of the bird catchers that have been trades and that's not half a quarter perhaps were brick makers or something that way well I don't know the reason but brick making my father's young days carried on more in the country and the bird catchers used to fall in with the brick makers and so perhaps that led to it I've heard my father tell of an old soldier that had been discharged with a pension being the luckiest bird catcher he knowed the soldier was a catcher before he was listed and he listed drunk by once I dare say that's fifteen year back for I was quite a lad walked with my father and captain note the pensioner's sobriquet and note till they partied for work and I remember very well I heard him tell how when on march in Portugal I think that's what he called it but it's in foreign parts he saw flocks of birds he wished he could be after catching them for he was well tired of soldiering I was sent to school twice or thrice and can read a little and write a little and I should like reading better I read a penny number or the police in a newspaper now and then but very seldom but on a fine day I hated being at school I wanted to be at work to make something at bird catching if a boy can make money why shouldn't he and if I'd had a net or cage and a mule of my own then I thought I could make money note I may observe that the mule longed for by my informant was lost between two birds and was wanted for the decoy some bird catchers content that a mule makes the best call bird of any others that the natural note of a linnit for instance was more alluring than the song of a mule between a linnit and a goldfinch one birdman told me that the excellence of a mule was that it had been bred and taught by its master had never been at large and was better to manage than to do in a cage and its notes were often loud and ringing and might be heard to a considerable distance end note I couldn't stick to school sir my informant continued and I don't know why lest it be that one man's best suited for one business and another for another that may be seen every day I was sent on trial to a shoemaker and after that to a rope maker for father didn't seem to like growing up and being a birdcatcher like he was but I never felt well and I knew I should never be any great hand at them trades and so when my poor father went off rather sudden I took to the catching at once and had all his traps perhaps but I can't say to a niceness that was eleven year back do I like the business do you say sir well I'm forced to like it for I've no other to live by note the reader will have remarked this man attributed the course he pursued evidently from natural inclination to its being the best and most healthful means of subsistence in his power end note last Monday for my dealers like birds on a Monday or Tuesday best and then they've the week before them I went to catch in the fields this side of Barnett and started before two in the morning when it was neither light nor dark you must get to your place before daylight be ready for the first flight and have time to lay your net properly when I'd done that I laid down and smoked no smoke don't scare the birds I think they're rather drawn to notice anything new if all's quite quiet well the first pool I had about 90 birds nearly all linets there was as well as I can remember three hedge sparrows among them and there's always a terrible flutter and row when you make a catch and often regular fights on the net I then sorted my birds and let the hens go for I didn't want to be bothered with them I might let such a thing as 35 hens go out of rather more than an 80 take for I've always found in catching young broods that I've drawn more cocks than hens how do I know the difference when the birds are so young as easy as light from dark you must lift up the wing quite tender and you'll find that a cocklin it has black or nearly black feathers on his shoulder where the hens are a deal lighter then the cock has a broader and whiter stripe on the wing than the hen has it's quite easy to distinguish quite a cock goldfinch is straighter and more larger in general than a hen and has a broader white on his wing as the cocklin it has he's black around the beak and the eye too and the hens greenish thereabouts there's some grey-pates note young birds and note would deceive anyone until he opens their wings well I went on sir until about one o'clock or a little after as well as I could tell from the sun and then came away with about 100 singing birds I sold them in the lump to three shopkeepers at two shillings two shillings tuppence and two shillings sixpence the dozen that was a good day sir a very lucky day got about 17 shillings the best I ever did but once when I made 19 shillings in a day yes it's hard work is mine because there's such a long walking home when you've done catching oh when you're at work it's not work but almost a pleasure I've laid for hours though without a catch I smoke to pass the time when I'm watching sometimes I read a bit if I've had anything to take with me to read then at other times I think if you don't get a catch for hours it's only like an angler without a nibble oh I don't know what I think about about nothing perhaps yes I've had a friend or two go out catching with me just for the amusement they must lie about and wait as I do we had a little talk of course well perhaps about sporting no not horse racing I care nothing for that but it's hardly business taking anyone with you I supply the dealers and hawk as well perhaps I make 12 shillings a week the year through some weeks I've made between 3 pounds and 4 pounds and in winter when there's rain every day perhaps I haven't cleared a penny in a fortnight that's the worst of it but I make more than others because I have a connection and raise good birds sometimes I'm stopped by the farmers when I'm at work but not often though there is some of them very obstinate it's no use for if a catcher's net has to be taken from one part of a farm after he's had the trouble of laying it why it must be laid in another part some country people liked to have their birds catched my informant supplied shopkeepers and hawked his birds in the streets and to the houses he had a connection he said and could generally get through them but he had sometimes put a bird or two in a fancy house these are the public houses resorted to by the fancy in some of which may be seen two or three dozen singing birds for sale on commission through the agency of the landlord or the waiter they are the property of hawkers or dealers and must be good birds or they will not be admitted the number of birds caught and the proportion sold in the streets I have already stated the number of bird catchers I may repeat is the same as that of street bird sellers 200 off the crippled street bird sellers from the bird seller whose portrait will be given in the next number of this work I have received the following account the statement previously given was that of a catcher and street seller as are the great majority in the trade the following narrative is that of one who from his infirmities is merely a street seller the poor man's deformity may be best understood by describing it in his own words I have no ankle his right leg is emaciated the bone is smaller than that of his other leg which is not deformed and there is no ankle joint the joints of his wrists and shoulders are also defective though not utterly wanting as in the ankle in walking this poor cripple seems to advance by means of a series of jerks he uses his deformed leg but must tread or rather support his body on the ball of the misformed foot while he advances his sound leg then with a twist of his body after he has advanced and stands upon his undeformed leg and foot he throws forward the crippled part of his frame by the jerk I have spoken of his arms are usually pressed against his ribs as he walks and convey to a spectator the notion that he is unable to raise them from that position this however is not the case he can raise them not as a sound man does but with an effort and a contortion of his body to humor the effort his speech is also defective his words being brought out as it were by jerks he has to prepare himself and to throw up his chin in order to converse and then he speaks with difficulty his face is sunburnt and healthy looking his dress was a fistian coat with full skirts cloth trousers somewhat patched and a clean, coarse shirt his right shoe was suited to his deformity and was strapped with a sort of leather belt around the lower part of the leg a considerable number of bookstall keepers as well as costamongers, swag barrowmen ginger beer and lemonade sellers orange women street stuff vendors, root sellers and others have established their pitches some of them having stalls with a cover like a roof from whitechapel workhouse to the mile end turnpike gate near the gate they are congregated most thickly and there they are mixed with persons seated on the forms belonging to adjacent innkeepers which are placed there to allow anyone to have his beer and tobacco in the open air among these street sellers and beer drinkers is seated the crippled birdseller generally motionless his home is near the Jews burial ground and is one of the many places which by a misnomer occasioned by the change in the character and appearance of what were the outskirts are still called pleasant on seeking him here I had some little difficulty in finding the house and asking a string of men who were chopping firewood in an adjoining court for the man I wanted mentioning his name though no one knew anything about him though when I spoke of his calling oh they said you want old Billy I then found Billy at his accustomed pitch with a very small stock of birds in two large cages on the ground beside him and he accompanied me to his residence the room in which we sat had a pile of firewood opposite the door the iron of the upper part of the door latch being wanting was replaced by a piece of wood and on the pile sat a tame jackdaw with the inquisitive and a scant look peculiar to the bird above the pile was a large cage containing a J a bird seldom sold in the streets now and a thrush in different compartments a table three chairs and a hamper or two used in the wood cutting completed the furniture outside the house were cages containing larks goldfinches and a very fine starling of whose promising abilities the birdseller's sister had so favourable an opinion that she intended to try and teach it to talk although that was very seldom done now the following is the statement I obtained from the poor fellow the man's sister was present at his desire as he was afraid I could not understand him owing to the indistinctness of his speech was easy enough after a while with a little patience and attention I was born a cripple sir he said and I shall die one I was born at Lewisham but I don't remember living in any place but London I remember being at Stroud though where my father had taken me and bathed me often in the sea himself thinking it might do me good I've heard him say too that when I was very young he took me to almost every hospital in London but it was of no use my father and mother were as kind to me and as good parents as could be he's been dead 19 years and my mother died before him father was very poor almost as poor as I am he worked in a brick field but work weren't regular I couldn't walk at all until I was 6 years old and I was between 9 and 10 before I could get up and down stairs by myself I used to slide down before and had to be carried up when I could get about and went among other boys I was in great distress I was teased so life was a burden to me as I've read something about they used to taunt me by offering to jump me note, invite him to a jumping match end note and to say I'll run you a race on one leg they were bad to me then and they are now I've sometimes sat down and cried but not often no sir, I can't say that I ever wished I was dead I hardly know why I cried I suppose because I was miserable I learned to read at a Sunday school where I went a long time I like reading I read the bible and tracts nothing else never a newspaper it don't come in my way and if it did I shouldn't look at it for I can't read over well and it's nothing to me who's king or who's queen it can never have anything to do with me it don't take my attention there'll be no change for me in this world when I was 13 my father put me into the bird trade he knew a good many catchers I've been bird selling in the streets for 6 and 20 years and more for I was 39 the 24th of last January father didn't know what better he could put me to as I hadn't the right use of my hands or feet and at first I did very well I liked the birds and do still I used to think at first that they was like me they was prisoners and I was a cripple at first I sold birds in Poplar and Limehouse and Blackwall and was a help to my parents for I cleared 9 shillings or 10 shillings every week but now oh dear I don't know where all the money's gone to I think there's very little left in the country I sold larks, linets and goldfinches to captains of ships to take to the West Indies I've sold them too to go to Port Phillip oh and almost all those foreign parts they bring foreign birds here and take back London birds I don't know anything about foreign birds I know there's men dressed as sailors going about selling them they're duffers, I mean the men there's a neighbour of mine that's very likely never been 20 miles out of London and when he hawks birds he always dresses like a countryman and duffs that way when my father died, continued the man I was completely upset everything in the world was upset I was forced to go into the workhouse and I was there between 4 and 5 months oh I hated it I'd rather live on a penny loaf a day than be in it again I've never been near the parish since though I've often had nothing to eat many a day I'd rather be lamer than I am and be oftener called Silly Billy and that sometimes makes me dreadful wild than be in the workhouse it was starvation but then I know I'm a hearty eater, very hearty just now I know I could eat a shilling plate of meat but for all that I very seldom taste meat I live on bread and butter and tea sometimes bread without butter when I have it I eat a quart and loaf at 3 meals it depends upon how I'm off my health's good I never feel in any pain now I did when I first got to walk in great pain beer I often don't taste once in 2 or 3 months and this very hot weather one can't help longing for a drop when you see people drinking it all sides of you but they have the use of their limbs note here two little girls and a boy rushed into the room for they had but to open the door from the outside and evidently to tease the poor fellow loudly demanded a hipney bird when the sister had driven them away my informant continued end note I'm still greatly teased sir with children yes and with men too both when they're drunk and sober I think grown persons are the worst they swear and use bad language to me I'm sure I don't know why I know no name they call me by in particular when I'm teased if it isn't old hypocrite I can't say why they call me hypocrite I suppose because they know no better yes I think I'm religious rather I would be more so if I had clothes I get to chapel sometimes note a resident near the bird sellers pitch with whom I had some conversation told me off Billy being sometimes teased in the way described some years ago he believed it was at Limehouse my informant heard a gentlemanly looking man tipsy, damn the street bird seller for Mr. Hobbler and bid him go to the mansion house or to hell I asked the cripple about this but he had no recollection of it and as he evidently did not understand the allusion to Mr. Hobbler I was not surprised at his forgetfulness end note I like to sit out in the sunshine selling my birds he said if it's rainy and I can't go out because it would be of no use I'm moped to death I get home and read a little or I chop a little firewood but you may be very sure sir it's little I can do that way I never associate with the neighbours I never had any pleasure such as going to a fair or like that I don't remember having ever spent a penny in a place of amusement in my life yes I've often sat all day in the sun and of course a good deal of thoughts goes through my head I think shall I be able to afford myself plenty of bread when I get home and I think of the next world sometimes and feel quite sure quite that I shan't be a cripple there yes that's a comfort for this world will never be any good to me I feel that I shall be a poor starving cripple till the end perhaps in the workhouse other poor men can get married but not such as me but I never was in love in my life never note among the vagrants and beggars there are men more terribly deformed than the bird seller who are married or living in concubinage end note yes sir he proceeded I'm quite reconciled to my lameness quite and have been for years oh no I never fret about that now but about starving perhaps and the workhouse before father died the parish allowed me a shilling sixpence and a quarten loaf a week but after he was buried they'd allow me nothing they'd only admit me into the house I hadn't a penny allowed to me when I discharged myself and came out I hardly know however I did manage to get a start again with the birds I knew a good many catchers and they trusted me yes they was all poor men I did pretty tidied by bits but only when it was fine weather until these five years or so when things got terrible bad particularly just the two last years with me do you think times are likely to men sir with poor people if working men had only money they'd buy innocent things like birds to amuse them at home but if they can't get the money as I've heard them say when they've been pricing my stock why of course they can't spend it yes indeed said the sister trades very bad where my husband and I once earned 18 shillings at the firewood and then 15 shillings we can't now earn 12 shillings slave as hard as we will I always dread the winter coming though there may be more firewood wanted there's greater expenses and it's a terrible time for such as as I dream sometimes sir the cripple resumed in answer to my question but not often I often have more than one streamed I was starving and dying of hunger I remember that for I woken a tremble but most streams is soon forgot I never seemed to myself to be a cripple in my dreams why I can't explain how but I feel as if my limbs was all free like so beautiful I dream most about starving I think than about anything else perhaps that's when I have to go to sleep hungry I sleep very well though take it all together if I had only plenty to live upon there would be nobody happier I'm happy enough when times is middling with me I don't last I like a joke as well as anybody when times is good but that's been very seldom lately it's all small birds I sell on the street now except at a very odd time that Jack though there sir he's a very fine bird I've tamed him myself and he's as tame as a dog my sisters are very good hand among birds and helps me she once taught a linit to say joy as plain as you can speak it yourself sir I'm a very good judge of different catchers but haven't money to buy the better kinds as I have to sell it thruppings and fourpins and sixpins mostly if I had a pound to lay out in a few nice cages and good birds I think I could do middling this fine weather particular for I'm a very good judge of birds and know how to manage them as well as anybody then birds is rather dearer to buy than they was when I was first in the trade the catchers have to go further the birds is getting scarcer and so there's more time taken up I buy of several catchers the last whole day that I was at my pitch I sold nine birds and took about three shillings if I could buy birds ever so cheap there's always such losses by their dying I've had three parts of my young linits die do what I might but not often so many then if they die all the food they've had is lost there goes all for nothing I've made flaxseed for your linits canary and flax for your goldfinches chopped eggs for your nightingales and German paste for your skylarks I've made my own German paste when I've wanted a sufficient quantity it's made of p-mail, treacle hogs lard and moss seed I sell more goldfinches than anything else I used to sell a good many sparrows for shooting but I haven't done anything that way these eight or nine years it's a fashionable sport still I hear I've reared nightingales that song beautiful and have sold them at four shillings a piece which was very cheap they often die when the time for their departure comes a shopkeeper as supplied such as I've sold would have charged one pound a piece for them one of my favourites birds is redpolls but they're only sold in the season I think it's one of the most knowingest little birds it is more knowing than the goldfinch in my opinion my customers are all working people all of them I sell to nobody else I make four shillings or five shillings I call five shillings a good week at this time of year when the weather suits I lodge with a married sister her husband's a woodchopper and I pay one shillings sixpence a week which is cheap for I've no stakes of my own if I earn four shillings there's only two shillings sixpence left to live on the week through the week next to nothing and must keep my birds it is terrible oh yes sir if you believe me terrible off the tricks of the bird duffers the tricks practised by the bird sellers are frequent and systematic the other day a man connected with the bird trade had to visit Holloway the city and Bermondsy in Holloway he saw six men some of whom he recognised as regular bird catchers and street sellers offering sham birds in the city he found twelve and in Bermondsy six as well as he could depend upon his memory these he thought did not constitute more than a half of the number now at work as bird duffers not including the sellers of foreign birds in the summer indeed the duffers are most numerous for birds are cheapest then and these tricksters to economise time I presume buy off other catchers any cheap hens for their purpose some of them I am told never catch their birds at all but purchase them the green finch is the bird on which these men's art is most commonly practised its light coloured plumage suiting it to their purpose I have heard these people styled bird swindlers but by street traders I heard them called bird duffers yet there appears to be no very distinctive name for them they are nearly all men the bird trade generally although the wives may occasionally assist in the street sell the means of deception as regards the green finch especially are from paint one aim of these artists is to make their finch resemble some curious foreign bird not often to be sold so cheap or to be sold at all in this country they study the birds in the window of the naturalists shops for this purpose sometimes they declare these painted birds are young java sparrows at one time a fashionable bird or St Helena birds or French or Italian finches they sometimes get five shillings for such a duffing bird one man has been known to boast that he once got a sovereign I am told however by a bird catcher who had himself supplied birds to these men for duffing that they complained of the trade growing worse and worse it is usually a hen which is painted for the hen is by far the cheapest purchase and while the poor thing is being offered for sale by the duffers she has an unlimited supply of hemp seed without other food and hemp seed beyond a proper quantity is a very strong stimulus this makes the hen look brisk and bold but if newly caught as is usually the case she will perhaps be found dead next morning the duffer will object to his bird being handled on account of its timidity but it is timid only with strangers when you've had him a weak man such a bird seller will say you'll find him as lovesome and tame as can be one jealous lady when asked five shillings for a very fine Italian finch an excellent singer refused to buy but offered a deposit of two shilling sixpence if the man would leave his bird and cage for the trial of the bird song for two or three days the duffer agreed and was bold enough to call on the third day to hear the result the bird was dead and after murmuring a little at the lady's mismanagement and at the loss he had been subjected to the man brought away his cage he boasted of this to a dealer's assistant who mentioned it to me and expressed his conviction that it was true enough the paints used for the transformation of native birds into foreign at the colour shops and applied with camel hair brushes in the usual way when canaries are a bad colour or have grown a paler yellow from age they are redied by the application of a colour sold at the colour shops and known as the queen's yellow black birds are dyed a deeper black the grit of a frying pan being used for the purpose the same thing is done to heighten the gloss and blackness of a jackdaw I was told by a man who acknowledged he had duffed a little people like a gay bright colour in the same way the tints of the goldfinch are heightened by the application of paint it is common enough more over for a man to paint the beaks and legs of the birds it is chiefly the smaller birds which are thus made the means of cheating almost all the duffing birds are hawked if a young hen be passed off for a good singing bird without being painted as a cock in his second singing year she is brisk up with hemp seed is half tipsy in fact and so passed off deceitfully as it is very rarely that even the male birds will sing in the streets this is often a successful ruse the bird appearing so lively a dealer calculated for me from his own knowledge that 2,000 small birds were duffed yearly at an average of from 2 shelling sixpence to 3 shelling's each as yet I have only spoken of the duffing of English birds but similar tricks are practised with the foreign birds in parrot selling there is a good deal of duffing the birds are painted up as I have described in the case of the greenfinches and so on varnish is also used to render the colours brighter the legs and beak are frequently varnished sometimes a spot of red is introduced for as one of these duffers observed to a dealer in English birds the more outlandish you make them look the better is the chance to sell sometimes there is little injury done by this paint and varnish which disappear gradually when the parrot is in the cage of a purchaser but in some instances when the bird picks himself where he has been painted he dies from the deleterious compound of this mortality however and this is the reason that among the duffed small birds occasionally the duffers carry really fine cockatoos and so on and if they can obtain admittance into a lady's house to display the beauty of the bird they will pretend to be in possession of smuggled silk and so on made of course for duffing purposes the bird duffers are usually dressed as seamen and sometimes pretend they must sell the bird before the ship sails at the poor thing a good home this trade however has from all that I can learn and in the words of an informant seen its best days there are now sometimes six men thus engaged sometimes none and when one of these men is hard up he finds it difficult to start again in a business for which a capital of about a pound is necessary as a cage is wanted generally the duffers buy the very lowest priced birds and have been known to get two pounds ten shillings for what cost but eight shillings but that is a very rare occurrence and the men are very poor and perhaps more dissipated than the generality of street sellers parrot duffing moreover is seldom carried on regularly by anyone for he will often duff cigars and other things in preference or perhaps vend really smuggled and good cigars or tobacco hundred and fifty parrots parquettes or cockatoos are sold in this way annually at from fifteen shillings to one pound ten shillings each but hardly averaging a pound as a duffer will sell or raffle the bird for a small sum if he cannot dispose of it otherwise of the street sellers of foreign birds this trade is curious but far from extensive as regards street sale there is moreover contrary to what might be expected a good deal of duffing about it the duffer in English birds disguises them so that they shall look like foreigners the duffer in what are unquestionably foreign birds disguises them that they may look more foreign more Indian than in the Indies the word duffer I may mention appears to be connected with the German Dürfen to want to be needy and so to mean literally a needy or indigent man even as the word peddler has the same origin being derived from the German Bettler and the Dutch Bettler a beggar the verb Dürfen means also to dare to be so bold as to do hence to duff would signify to resort to any impudent trick the supply of parrots, parquettes, cockatoos javasparos and the telena birds is not in the regular way of consignment from a merchant abroad to one in London the commanders and mates of merchant vessels bring over large quantities and often enough the seamen are allowed to bring parrots or cockatoos in the homeward bound ships from the Indies or the African coast or from other tropical countries either to beguile the tedium of the voyage for presence to their friends or as in some cases for sale on their reaching an English port more I am assured although statistics are hardly possible on such a subject are brought to London and perhaps by one third than to all the other ports of Great Britain collectively even on board the vessels of the Royal Navy the importation of parrots used to be allowed as a sort of boon to the seamen I was told by an old naval officer that once after a long detention on the west coast of Africa his ship was ordered home and as an acknowledgement of the good behaviour of his men he permitted them to bring parrots, cockatoos or any foreign birds home with them not limiting the number but of course under the inspection of the petty officers that there might be no violation of the cleanliness which always distinguishes a vessel of war along the African coast to the southward of Sierra Leone the men were not allowed to land both on account of the unhealthiness of the shores and of the surf which rendered landing highly dangerous a danger however which the seamen would not have scrupled to brave and recklessly enough for any impulse of the minute as if by instinct however the natives seemed to know what was wanted for they came off from the shores in their light canoes which danced like feathers on the surf brought boatloads of birds these the seamen bought of them or possessed themselves off in the way of barter before the ship took her final departure however she was reported as utterly uninhabitable below from the incessant din and clamour we might as well have a pack of women aboard sir was the un-gallant remark of one of the petty officers to his commander orders were then given that the parrots and so on should be thinned so that there might not be such an unceasing noise this was accordingly done how many were set at liberty and made for the shore for the seamen in this instance did not kill them for their skins as is not unfrequently the case the commander did not know he could but conjecture and he conjectured that something like a thousand were released and even after that and after the mortality which takes place in the course of a long voyage a very great number were brought to Plymouth of these again a great number were sent or conveyed under the care of the sailors to London when the ship was paid off the same officer endeavored on this voyage to bring home some very large pineapple which flavoured and most deliciously parts of the ship where she had been a long time at sea but every one of them rotted and had to be thrown overboard he fell into the error captain blank said of having the finest fruit selected for the experiment an error which the Bahama merchants had avoided and consequently they succeeded where he failed how the sailors fed the parrots my informant could hardly guess but they brought a number of the very fine birds to England some of them with well cultivated powers of speech this as I shall show is by which the London supply of parrots and so on is obtained but the permission as to the importation of these brightly feathered birds is I understand rarely allowed at present to the semen in the Royal Navy the far greater supply indeed more than 90% of the whole of the birds imported is from the merchant service I have already stated on the very best authority the motives which induce merchant semen to bring over parrots and cockatoos that to bring them over is an inducement to some to engage in an African voyage is shown by the following statement which was made to me in the course of a long enquiry published in my letters in the morning chronicle concerning the condition of the merchant semen quote I would never go to that African coast again only I make a pound or two in birds we buy parrots grey parrots chiefly off the natives who come aboard we sometimes pay six shillings or seven shillings in Africa for a fine bird I have known 200 parrots on board they make a precious noise but half the birds die before they get to England some captains won't allow parrots end quote when the semen have settled themselves after landing in England they perhaps find that there is no room in their boarding houses for their parrots these birds are not admitted into the sailors home the semen's friends are stopped with the birds and look upon another parrot as but another intruder an unwelcome pensioner there remains but one course to sell the birds and they are generally sold to a highly respectable man Mr. M. Samuel of Upper East Smithfield and it is from him though not always directly that the shopkeepers and street sellers derive their stock in trade there is also a further motive for the disposal of parrots, parroquettes and cockatoos to a merchant the seafaring owner of those really magnificent birds perhaps squanders his money perhaps he gets skinned stripped of his clothes and money from being hocused or tempted to helpless drunkenness or he chooses to sell them and he or his boarding house keeper takes the birds to Mr. Samuel and sells them for what he can get but I heard from three very intelligent semen whom I met with in the course of my enquiry and by mere chance that Mr. Samuel's price was fair and his money sure considering everything for there is usually a qualification to every praise it is certainly surprising under these circumstances that such numbers of these birds should thus be disposed of parrots are as gladly or more gladly cut rid of parrots in different regions of the continents of Asia and America than with us or even rats from a granary Dr. Stanley after speaking of the beauty of a flight of parrots says quote the husband men who sees them hastening through the air with loud and impatient screams looks upon them with dismay and detestation knowing that the produce of his labour and industry is in jeopardy when visited by such a voracious multitude of pilferers who like the locusts of Egypt desolate whole tracts of country by their unsparing ravages end quote a contrast with the harmlessness in a gilded cage in the house of the wealthy with us the destructiveness of these birds is then one reason why semen can obtain them so readily and cheaply for the natives take pleasure in catching them while as to plentifulness the tropical regions team with bird as with insect and reptile life of parrots, parquettes and cockatoos there are 3,000 imported to London in the way I have described and in about equal proportions they are sold wholesale from 5 shillings to 30 shillings each there are now only 3 men selling these brilliant birds regularly in the streets and in the fair way of trade but there are sometimes as many as 18 so engaged the price given by a hawker for a cockatoo and so on is 8 shillings or 10 shillings and they are retailed at from 15 shillings to 30 shillings or more if it can be got the purchasers are the wealthier classes who can afford to indulge their tastes of late years however I am told a parrot or a cockatoo seems to be considered indispensable to an inn not a gin palace and the innkeepers have been among the best customers of the street parrot sellers in the neighbourhood of the docks and indeed along the whole riverside below London bridge it is almost impossible for a street seller to dispose of a parrot to an innkeeper or indeed to anyone as they are supplied by the sea men a parrot which has been taught to talk is worth from £4 to £10 according to its proficiency in speech about 500 of these birds are sold yearly by the street hawkers at an outlay to the public off from £500 to £600 Java sparrows from the East Indies and from the islands of the archipelago are brought to London but considerable quantities die during the voyage and in this country for though hardy enough not more than one in three taken off the paddy seed about 10,000 however are sold annually in London at one shilling sixpence each but a very small proportion by street hawking as the Java sparrows are chiefly in demand for the aviaries of the rich in town and country in some years not above 100 may be sold in the streets in others as many as 500 in St Helena birds known also as wax bills there is a trade to the same extent both as regards number and price but the street sale is perhaps 10% lower end of section 11