London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. 1

by Henry Mayhew

Of Coffee-stall Keepers.

The vending of tea and coffee, in the streets, was little if at all known twenty years ago, saloop being then the beverage supplied from stalls to the late and early wayfarers. Nor was it until after 1842 that the stalls approached to anything like their present number, which is said to be upwards of 300—the majority of the proprietors being women. Prior to 1824, coffee was in little demand, even among the smaller tradesmen or farmers, but in that year the duty having been reduced from 1s. to 6d. per lb., the consumption throughout the kingdom in the next seven years was nearly trebled, the increase being from 7,933,041 lbs., in 1824, to 22,745,627 lbs., in 1831. In 1842, the duty on coffee, was fixed at 4d., from British possessions, and from foreign countries at 6d.

But it was not owing solely to the reduced price of coffee, that the street-vendors of it increased in the year or two subsequent to 1842, at least 100 per cent. The great facilities then offered for a cheap adulteration, by mixing ground chicory with the ground coffee, was an enhancement of the profits, and a greater temptation to embark in the business, as a smaller amount of capital would suffice. Within these two or three years, this cheapness has been still further promoted, by the medium of adulteration, the chicory itself being, in its turn, adulterated by the admixture of baked carrots, and the like saccharine roots, which, of course, are not subjected to any duty, while foreign chicory is charged 6d. per lb. English chicory is not chargeable with duty, and is now cultivated, I am assured, to the yield of between 4,000 and 5,000 tons yearly, and this nearly all used in the adulteration of coffee. Nor is there greater culpability in this trade among street-venders, than among “respectable” shopkeepers; for I was assured, by a leading grocer, that he could not mention twenty shops in the city, of which he could say: “You can go and buy a pound of ground coffee there, and it will not be adulterated.” The revelations recently made on this subject by the Lancet are a still more convincing proof of the general dishonesty of grocers.

The coffee-stall keepers generally stand at the corner of a street. In the fruit and meat markets there are usually two or three coffee-stalls, and one or two in the streets leading to them; in Covent-garden there are no less than four coffee-stalls. Indeed, the stalls abound in all the great thoroughfares, and the most in those not accounted “fashionable” and great “business” routes, but such as are frequented by working people, on their way to their day’s labour. The best “pitch” in London is supposed to be at the corner of Duke-street, Oxford-street. The proprietor of that stall is said to take full 30s. of a morning, in halfpence. One stall-keeper, I was informed, when “upon the drink” thinks nothing of spending his 10l. or 15l. in a week. A party assured me that once, when the stall-keeper above mentioned was away “on the spree,” he took up his stand there, and got from 4s. to 5s. in the course of ten minutes, at the busy time of the morning.

The coffee-stall usually consists of a spring-barrow, with two, and occasionally four, wheels. Some are made up of tables, and some have a tressel and board. On the top of this are placed two or three, and sometimes four, large tin cans, holding upon an average five gallons each. Beneath each of these cans is a small iron fire-pot, perforated like a rushlight shade, and here charcoal is continually burning, so as to keep the coffee or tea, with which the cans are filled, hot throughout the early part of the morning. The board of the stall has mostly a compartment for bread and butter, cake, and ham sandwiches, and another for the coffee mugs. There is generally a small tub under each of the stalls, in which the mugs and saucers are washed. The “grandest” stall in this line is the one before-mentioned, as standing at the corner of Duke-street, Oxford-street (of which an engraving is here given). It is a large truck on four wheels, and painted a bright green. The cans are four in number, and of bright polished tin, mounted with brass-plates. There are compartments for bread and butter, sandwiches, and cake. It is lighted by three large oil lamps, with bright brass mountings, and covered in with an oil-cloth roof. The coffee-stalls, generally, are lighted by candle-lamps. Some coffee-stalls are covered over with tarpaulin, like a tent, and others screened from the sharp night or morning air by a clothes-horse covered with blankets, and drawn half round the stall.

Some of the stall-keepers make their appearance at twelve at night, and some not till three or four in the morning. Those that come out at midnight, are for the accommodation of the “night-walkers”—“fast gentlemen” and loose girls; and those that come out in the morning, are for the accommodation of the working men.

It is, I may add, piteous enough to see a few young and good-looking girls, some without the indelible mark of habitual depravity on their countenances, clustering together for warmth round a coffee-stall, to which a penny expenditure, or the charity of the proprietor, has admitted them. The thieves do not resort to the coffee-stalls, which are so immediately under the eye of the policeman.

The coffee-stall keepers usually sell coffee and tea, and some of them cocoa. They keep hot milk in one of the large cans, and coffee, tea, or cocoa in the others. They supply bread and butter, or currant cake, in slices—ham sandwiches, water-cresses, and boiled eggs. The price is 1d. per mug, or ½d. per half-mug, for coffee, tea, or cocoa; and ½d. a slice the bread and butter or cake. The ham sandwiches are 2d. (or 1d.) each, the boiled eggs 1d., and the water-cresses a halfpenny a bunch. The coffee, tea, cocoa, and sugar they generally purchase by the single pound, at a grocer’s. Those who do an extensive trade purchase in larger quantities. The coffee is usually bought in the berry, and ground by themselves. All purchase chicory to mix with it. For the coffee they pay about 1s.; for the tea about 3s.; for the cocoa 6d. per lb.; and for the sugar 3½d. to 4d. For the chicory the price is 6d. (which is the amount of the duty alone on foreign chicory), and it is mixed with the coffee at the rate of 6 ozs. to the pound; many use as much as 9 and 12 ozs. The coffee is made of a dark colour by means of what are called “finings,” which consist of burnt sugar—such, as is used for browning soups. Coffee is the article mostly sold at the stalls; indeed, there is scarcely one stall in a hundred that is supplied with tea, and not more than a dozen in all London that furnish cocoa. The stall-keepers usually make the cake themselves. A 4 lb. cake generally consists of half a pound of currants, half a pound of sugar, six ounces of beef dripping, and a quartern of flour. The ham for sandwiches costs 5½d. or 6d. per lb.; and when boiled produces in sandwiches about 2s. per lb. It is usually cut up in slices little thicker than paper. The bread is usually “second bread;” the butter, salt, at about 8d. the pound. Some borrow their barrows, and pay 1s. a week for the hire of them. Many borrow the capital upon which they trade, frequently of their landlord. Some get credit for their grocery—some for their bread. If they borrow, they pay about 20 per cent. per week for the loan. I was told of one man that makes a practice of lending money to the coffee-stall-keepers and other hucksters, at the rate of at least 20 per cent. a week. If the party wishing to borrow a pound or two is unknown to the money-lender, he requires security, and the interest to be paid him weekly. This money-lender, I am informed, has been transported once for receiving stolen property, and would now purchase any amount of plate that might be taken to him.

THE LONDON COFFEE-STALL.

[From a Daguerreotype by Beard.]

The class of persons usually belonging to the business have been either cab-men, policemen, labourers, or artisans. Many have been bred to dealing in the streets, and brought up to no other employment, but many have taken to the business owing to the difficulty of obtaining work at their own trade. The generality of them are opposed to one another. I asked one in a small way of business what was the average amount of his profits, and his answer was,—

“I usually buy 10 ounces of coffee a night. That costs, when good, 1s. 0½d. With this I should make five gallons of coffee, such as I sell in the street, which would require 3 quarts of milk, at 3d. per quart, and 1½ lb. of sugar, at 3½d. per lb., there is some at 3d. This would come to 2s. 2¾d.; and, allowing 1¼d. for a quarter of a peck of charcoal to keep the coffee hot, it would give 2s. 4d. for the cost of five gallons of coffee. This I should sell out at about 1½d. per pint; so that the five gallons would produce me 5s., or 2s. 8d. clear. I generally get rid of one quartern loaf and 6 oz. of butter with this quantity of coffee, and for this I pay 5d. the loaf and 3d. the butter, making 8d.; and these I make into twenty-eight slices at ½d. per slice; so the whole brings me in 1s. 2d., or about 6d. clear. Added to this, I sell a 4 lb. cake, which costs me 3½d. per lb. 1s. 2d. the entire cake; and this in twenty-eight slices, at 1d. per slice, would yield 2s. 4d., or 1s. 2d. clear; so that altogether my clear gains would be 4s. 4d. upon an expenditure of 2s. 2d.—say 200 per cent.”

This is said to be about the usual profit of the trade. Sometimes they give credit. One person assured me he trusted as much as 9½d. that morning, and out of that he was satisfied there was 4d., at least, he should never see. Most of the stalls are stationary, but some are locomotive. Some cans are carried about with yokes, like milk-cans, the mugs being kept in a basket. The best district for the night-trade is the City, and the approaches to the bridges. There are more men and women, I was told, walking along Cheapside, Aldersgate-street, Bishopsgate-street, and Fleet-street. In the latter place a good trade is frequently done between twelve at night and two in the morning. For the morning trade the best districts are the Strand, Oxford-street, City-road, New-road (from one end to the other), the markets, especially Covent Garden, Billingsgate, Newgate, and the Borough. There are no coffee-stalls in Smithfield. The reason is that the drovers, on arriving at the market, are generally tired and cold, and prefer sitting down to their coffee in a warm shop rather than drink it in the open street. The best days for coffee-stalls are market mornings, viz. Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. On these days the receipts are generally half as much again as those of the other mornings. The best time of the year for the business is the summer. This is, I am told, because the workpeople and costermongers have more money to spend. Some stall-keepers save sufficient to take a shop, but these are only such as have a “pitch” in the best thoroughfares. One who did a little business informed me that he usually cleared, including Sunday, 14s.—last week his gains were 15s.; the week before that he could not remember. He is very frequently out all night, and does not earn sixpence. This is on wet and cold nights, when there are few people about. His is generally the night-trade. The average weekly earnings of the trade, throughout the year, are said to be 1l. The trade, I am assured by all, is overstocked. They are half too many, they say. “Two of us,” to use their own words, “are eating one man’s bread.” “When coffee in the streets first came up, a man could go and earn,” I am told, “his 8s. a night at the very lowest; but now the same class of men cannot earn more than 3s.” Some men may earn comparatively a large sum, as much as 38s. or 2l., but the generality of the trade cannot make more than 1l. per week, if so much. The following is the statement of one of the class:—

“I was a mason’s labourer, a smith’s labourer, a plasterer’s labourer, or a bricklayer’s labourer. I was, indeed, a labouring man. I could not get employment. I was for six months without any employment. I did not know which way to support my wife and child (I have only one child). Being so long out of employment, I saw no other means of getting a living but out of the streets. I was almost starving before I took to it—that I certainly was. I’m not ashamed of telling anybody that, because it’s true, and I sought for a livelihood wherever I could. Many said they wouldn’t do such a thing as keep a coffee-stall, but I said I’d do anything to get a bit of bread honestly. Years ago, when I was a boy, I used to go out selling water-cresses, and apples, oranges, and radishes, with a barrow, for my landlord; so I thought, when I was thrown out of employment, I would take to selling coffee in the streets. I went to a tinman, and paid him 10s. 6d. (the last of my savings, after I’d been four or five months out of work) for a can, I didn’t care how I got my living so long as I could turn an honest penny. Well; I went on, and knocked about, and couldn’t get a pitch anywhere; but at last I heard that an old man, who had been in the habit of standing for many years at the entrance of one of the markets, had fell ill; so, what did I do, but I goes and pops into his pitch, and there I’ve done better than ever I did afore. I get 20s. now where I got 10s. one time; and if I only had such a thing as 5l. or 10l., I might get a good living for life. I cannot do half as much as the man that was there before me. He used to make his coffee down there, and had a can for hot water as well; but I have but one can to keep coffee and all in; and I have to borrow my barrow, and pay 1s. a week for it. If I sell my can out, I can’t do any more. The struggle to get a living is so great, that, what with one and another in the coffee-trade, it’s only those as can get good ‘pitches’ that can get a crust at it.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

The ingredients required to feed the “ginger-beer” fountains are of a very cheap description. To supply 10 gallons, 2 quarts of lime-juice (as it is called, but it is, in reality, lemon-juice), costing 3s. 6d., are placed in the recess, sometimes with the addition of a pound of sugar (4d.); while some, I am assured, put in a smaller quantity of juice, and add two-pennyworth of oil of vitriol, which “brings out the sharpness of the lime-juice.” The rest is water. No process of brewing or fermentation is necessary, for the fixed air pumped into the liquid as it is drawn from the fountain, communicates a sufficient briskness or effervescence. “The harder you pumps,” said one man who had worked a fountain, “the frothier it comes; and though it seems to fill a big glass—and the glass an’t so big for holding as it looks—let it settle, and there’s only a quarter of a pint.” The hirer of a fountain is required to give security. This is not, as in some slop-trades, a deposit of money; but a householder must, by written agreement, make himself responsible for any damage the fountain may sustain, as well as for its return, or make good the loss: the street ginger-beer seller is alone responsible for the rent of the machine. It is however, only men that are known, who are trusted in this way. Of the fountains thus hired, 50 are usually to be found at the neighbouring fairs and races. As the ginger-beer men carry lime-juice, &c., with them, only water is required to complete the “brewing of the beer” and so conveyance is not difficult.

There is another kind of “ginger-beer,” or rather of “small acid tiff,” which is sold out of barrels at street-stalls at ½d. the glass. To make 2½ gallons of this, there is used 1/2lb. tartaric, or other acid, 1s.; ½ lb. alkali (soda), 10d.; ½ lb. lump sugar, bruised fine, 4d.; and yeast 1d. Of these “barrel-men” there are now about one hundred.

Another class of street-sellers obtain their stock of ginger-beer from the manufacturers. One of the largest manufacturers for the street-trade resides near Ratcliffe-highway, and another in the Commercial-road. The charge by the wholesale traders is 8d. the doz., while to a known man, or for ready money, 13 are given to the dozen. The beer, however, is often let out on credit—or in some cases security is given in the same way as for the fountains—and the empty bottles must be duly returned. It is not uncommon for two gross of beer to be let out in this way at a time. For the itinerant trade these are placed on a truck or barrow, fitted up with four shelves, on which are ranged the bottles. These barrows are hired in the same way as the costers’ barrows. Some sell their beer at stalls fitted up exclusively for the trade, a kind of tank being let into the centre of the board and filled with water, in which the glasses are rinsed or washed. Underneath the stall there is usually a reserve of the beer, and a keg containing water. Some of the best frequented stalls were in Whitechapel, Old-street-road, City-road, Tottenham-court-road, the New-cut, Elephant and Castle, the Commercial-road, Tower-hill, the Strand, and near Westminster-bridge.

The stationary beer business is, for the most part, carried on in the more public streets, such as Holborn and Oxford-street, and in the markets of Covent-garden, Smithfield, and Billingsgate; while the peripatetic trade, which is briskest on the Sundays—when, indeed, some of the stationary hands become itinerant—is more for the suburbs; Victoria-park, Battersea-fields, Hampstead-heath, Primrose-hill, Kennington-common, and Camberwell-green, being approved Sunday haunts.

The London street-sellers of ginger-beer, say the more experienced, may be computed at 3,000—of whom about one-third are women. I heard them frequently estimated at 5,000, and some urged that the number was at least as near 5,000 as 3,000. For my own part I am inclined to believe that half the smaller number would be nearer the truth. Judging by the number of miles of streets throughout the metropolis, and comparing the street-sellers of ginger-beer with the fruit-stall keepers, I am satisfied that in estimating the ginger-beer-sellers at 1,500 we are rather over than under the truth. This body of street-sellers were more numerous five years back by 15 or 20 per cent., but the introduction of the street fountains, and the trade being resorted to by the keepers of coal-sheds and the small shopkeepers—who have frequently a stand with ginger-beer in front of their shops—have reduced the amount of the street-sellers. In 1842, there were 1,200 ginger-beer sellers in the streets who had attached to their stalls or trucks labels, showing that they were members—or assumed to be members—of the Society of Odd Fellows. This was done in hopes of a greater amount of custom from the other members of the Society, but the expectation was not realised—and so the Odd Fellowship of the ginger-beer people disappeared. Of the street-traders 200 work fountains; and of the remaining portion the stationary and the itinerant are about equally divided. Of the whole number, however, not above an eighth confine themselves to the trade, but usually sell with their “pop” some other article of open-air traffic—fruit, sweet-stuff, or shell-fish. There are of the entire number about 350, who, whenever the weather permits, stay out all night with their stands or barrows, and are to be found especially in all the approaches to Covent-garden, and the other markets to which there is a resort during the night or at day-break. These men, I was told by one of their body, worked from eight in the evening to eight or ten next morning, then went to bed, rose at three, and “plenty of ’em then goes to the skittles or to get drunk.”

The character of the ginger-beer-sellers does not differ from what I have described as pertaining to the costermonger class, and to street-traders generally. There is the same admixture of the reduced mechanic, the broken-down gentleman’s servant, the man of any class in life who cannot brook the confinement and restraint of ordinary in-door labour, and of the man “brought up to the streets.” One experienced and trustworthy man told me that from his own knowledge he could count up twenty “classical men,” as he styled them, who were in the street ginger-beer-trade, and of these four had been, or were said to have been “parsons,” two being of the same name (Mr. S ——); but my informant did not know if they stood in any degree of consanguinity one to another. The women are the wives, daughters, or other connections of the men.

Some of the stalls at which ginger-beer is sold—and it is the same at the coal-sheds and the chandlers’ shops—are adorned pictorially. Erected at the end of a stall is often a painting, papered on a board, in which a gentleman, with the bluest of coats, the whitest of trousers, the yellowest of waistcoats, and the largest of guard-chains or eye-glasses, is handing a glass of ginger-beer, frothed up like a pot of stout, and containing, apparently, a pint and a half, to some lady in flowing white robes, or gorgeous in purple or orange.

To commence in this branch of the street business requires, in all 18s. 3d.: six glasses, 2s. 9d.; board, 5s.; tank, 1s.; keg, 1s.; gross of beer, 8s. (this is where the seller is not also the maker); and for towels, &c., 6d.; if however the street-seller brew his own beer, he will require half a gross of bottles, 5s. 6d.; and the ingredients I have enumerated, 1s. 7d.

In addition to the street-sale of ginger-beer is that of other summer-drinks. Of these, the principal is lemonade, the consumption of which is as much as that of all the others together. Indeed, the high-sounding names given to some of these beverages—such as “Nectar” and “Persian Sherbet”—are but other names for lemonade, in a slightly different colour or fashion.

Lemonade is made, by those vendors who deal in the best articles, after the following method: 1 lb. of carbonate of soda, 6d.; 1 lb. of tartaric acid, 1s. 4d. (“at least,” said an informant, “I pay 1s. 4d. at ’Pothecaries Hall, but it can be had at 1s.”); 1 lb. of loaf-sugar, 5½d.; essence of lemon, 3d. This admixture is kept, in the form of a powder, in a jar, and water is drawn from what the street-sellers call a “stone-barrel”—which is a stone jar, something like the common-shaped filters, with a tap—and a larger or smaller spoonful of the admixture in a glass of water supplies an effervescing draught for 1d. or ½d. “There’s sometimes shocking roguishness in the trade,” said one man, “and there is in a many trades—some uses vitriol!” Lemonade, made after the recipe I have given, is sometimes bottled by the street-sellers, and sold in the same way as ginger-beer. It is bought, also, for street sale of the ginger-beer manufacturers—the profit being the same—but so bought to less than a twentieth of the whole sale. The water in the stone barrel is spring-water, obtained from the nearest pump, and in hot weather obtained frequently, so as to be “served” in as cool a state as possible. Sometimes lemonade powders are used; they are bought at a chemist’s, at 1s. 6d. the pound. “Sherbet” is the same admixture, with cream of tartar instead of tartaric acid. “Raspberry” has, sometimes, the addition of a few crusted raspberries, and a colouring of cochineal, with, generally, a greater degree of sweetening than lemonade. “If cochineal is used for colouring,” said one man, “it sometimes turns brown in the sun, and the rasberry don’t sell. A little lake’s better.” “Lemon-juice” is again lemonade, with a slight infusion of saffron to give it a yellow or pale orange colour. “Nectar,” in imitation of Soyer’s, has more sugar and less acid than the lemonade; spices, such as cinnamon, is used to flavour it, and the colouring is from lake and saffron.

These “cooling drinks” are sold from the powder or the jar, as I have described, from fountains, and from bottles. The fountain sale is not above a tenth of the whole. All is sold in ½d. and 1d. glasses, except the nectar, which is never less than 1d. The customers are the same as those who buy ginger-beer; but one “lemonader” with whom I conversed, seemed inclined to insist that they were a “more respectabler class.” Boys are good customers—better, perhaps, than for the beer,—as “the colour and the fine names attracts them.”

The “cooling drink” season, like that of the ginger-beer, is determined by the weather, and last summer it was only four months. It was computed for me that there were 200 persons, chiefly men, selling solely lemonade, &c., and an additional 300 uniting the sale with that of ginger-beer. One man, whose statement was confirmed by others, told me that on fine days he took 3s. 6d., out of which he cleared 2s. to 2s. 6d.; and he concluded that his brother tradesmen cleared as much every fine day, and so, allowing for wet weather and diminished receipts, made 10s. a week. The receipts, then, for this street luxury—a receipt of 17s. 6d. affording a profit of 10s.—show a street expenditure in such a summer as the last, of 2,800l., by those who do not unite ginger-beer with the trade. Calculating that those who do unite ginger-beer with it sell only one-half as much as the others, we find a total outlay of 4,900l. One of the best trades is in the hands of a man who “works” Smithfield, and on the market days clears generally from 6s. to 9s.

The stalls, &c., are of the same character as those of the ginger-beer sellers. The capital required to start is:—stone barrel, with brass tap, 5s. 6d.; stand and trestle, 6s.; 6 tumbler glasses, 2s. 3d.; 2 towels, 6d.; stock money, 2s. 6d.; jar, 2s.; 12 bottles (when used), 3s. 6d.; in all, about a guinea.

In showing the money expended in the ginger-beer trade it must be borne in mind that a large portion of the profits accrues to persons who cannot be properly classed with the regular street-traders. Such is the proprietor of the great fountain of which I have spoken, who is to be classed as a speculative man, ready to embark capital in any way—whether connected with street-traffic or not—likely to be remunerative. The other and large participants in the profits are the wholesale ginger-beer manufacturers, who are also the letters-out of fountains, one of them having generally nine let out at a time. For a street trader to sell three gross of ginger-beer in bottle is now accounted a good week, and for that the receipts will be 36s. with a profit in the penny bottle trade, to the seller, if he buy of a manufacturer, of 12s.; if he be his own brewer—reckoning a fair compensation for labour, and for money invested in utensils, and in bottles, &c., of 20s. An ordinary week’s sale is two gross, costing the public 24s., with the same proportion of profit in the same trade to the seller. In a bad week, or “in a small way to help out other things,” not more than one gross is sold.

The fountain trade is the most profitable to the proprietors, whether they send out their machines on their own account, or let them out on hire; but perhaps there are only an eighth of the number not let out on hire. Calculating that a fountain be let out for three successive seasons of twenty weeks each, at only 4s. the week, the gross receipts are 12l. for what on the first day of hire was worth only 7l.; so that the returns from 200 machines let out for the same term, would be 2,400l., or a profit of 1,000l. over and above the worth of the fountain, which having been thus paid for is of course in a succeeding year the means of a clear profit of 4l. I am assured that the weekly average of “a fountain’s takings,” when in the hands of the regular street-dealers, is 18s.

The barrel traders may be taken as in the average receipt of 6s. a week.

The duration of the season was, last year, only sixteen weeks. Calculating from the best data I could acquire, it appears that for this period 200 street-sellers of ginger-beer in the bottle trade of the penny class take 30s. a week each (thus allowing for the inferior receipts in bad weather); 300 take 20s. each, selling for the most part at ½d. the bottle, and that the remaining 400 “in a small way” take 6s. each; hence we find 11,480l. expended in the bottled ginger-beer of the streets. Adding the receipts from the fountains and the barrels, the barrel season continuing only ten weeks, the total sum expended annually in street ginger-beer is altogether 14,660l. The bottles of ginger-beer sold yearly in the streets will number about 4,798,000, and the total street consumption of the same beverage may be said to be about 250,000 gallons per annum.