Of Sprat-selling in the Streets.
Sprats—one of the cheapest and most grateful luxuries of the poor—are generally introduced about the 9th of November. Indeed “Lord Mayor’s day” is sometimes called “sprat day.” They continue in about ten weeks. They are sold at Billingsgate by the “toss,” or “chuck,” which is about half a bushel, and weighs from 40lbs. to 50lbs. The price varies from 1s. to 5s. Sprats are, this season, pronounced remarkably fine. “Look at my lot sir,” said a street-seller to me; “they’re a heap of new silver,” and the bright shiny appearance of the glittering little fish made the comparison not inappropriate. In very few, if in any, instances does a costermonger confine himself to the sale of sprats, unless his means limit him to that one branch of the business. A more prosperous street-fishmonger will sometimes detach the sprats from his stall, and his wife, or one of his children will take charge of them. Only a few sprat-sellers are itinerant, the fish being usually sold by stationary street-sellers at “pitches.” One who worked his sprats through the streets, or sold them from a stall as he thought best, gave me the following account. He was dressed in a newish fustian-jacket, buttoned close up his chest, but showing a portion of a clean cotton shirt at the neck, with a bright-coloured coarse handkerchief round it; the rest of his dress was covered by a white apron. His hair, as far as I could see it under his cloth cap, was carefully brushed, and (it appeared) as carefully oiled. At the first glance I set him down as having been a gentleman’s servant. He had a somewhat deferential, though far from cringing manner with him, and seemed to be about twenty-five or twenty-six—he thought he was older, he said, but did not know his age exactly.
“Ah! sir,” he began, in a tone according with his look, “sprats is a blessing to the poor. Fresh herrings is a blessing too, and sprats is young herrings, and is a blessing in ’portion” [for so he pronounced what seemed to be a favourite word with him “proportion”]. “It’s only four years—yes, four, I’m sure of that—since I walked the streets starving, in the depth of winter, and looked at the sprats, and said, I wish I could fill my belly off you. Sir, I hope it was no great sin, but I could hardly keep my hands from stealing some and eating them raw. If they make me sick, thought I, the police’ll take care of me, and that’ll be something. While these thoughts was a passing through my mind, I met a man who was a gentleman’s coachman; I knew him a little formerly, and so I stopped him and told him who I was, and that I hadn’t had a meal for two days. ‘Well, by G—,’ said the coachman, ‘you look like it, why I shouldn’t have known you. Here’s a shilling.’ And then he went on a little way, and then stopped, and turned back and thrust 3½d. more into my hand, and bolted off. I’ve never seen him since. But I’m grateful to him in the same ’portion (proportion) as if I had. After I’d had a penn’orth of bread and a penn’orth of cheese, and half-a-pint of beer, I felt a new man, and I went to the party as I’d longed to steal the sprats from, and told him what I’d thought of. I can’t say what made me tell him, but it turned out for good. I don’t know much about religion, though I can read a little, but may be that had something to do with it.” The rest of the man’s narrative was—briefly told—as follows. He was the only child of a gentleman’s coachman. His father had deserted his mother and him, and gone abroad, he believed, with some family. His mother, however, took care of him until her death, which happened “when he was a little turned thirteen, he had heard, but could not remember the year.” After that he was “a helper and a jobber in different stables,” and “anybody’s boy,” for a few years, until he got a footman’s, or rather footboy’s place, which he kept above a year. After that he was in service, in and out of different situations, until the time he specified, when he had been out of place for nearly five weeks, and was starving. His master had got in difficulties, and had gone abroad; so he was left without a character. “Well, sir,” he continued, “the man as I wanted to steal the sprats from, says to me, says he, ‘Poor fellow; I know what a hempty belly is myself—come and have a pint.’ And over that there pint, he told me, if I could rise 10s. there might be a chance for me in the streets, and he’d show me how to do. He died not very long after that, poor man. Well, after a little bit, I managed to borrow 10s. of Mr. —— (I thought of him all of a sudden). He was butler in a family that I had lived in, and had a charitable character, though he was reckoned very proud. But I plucked up a spirit, and told him how I was off, and he said, ‘Well, I’ll try you,’ and he lent me 10s., which I paid him back, little by little, in six or eight weeks; and so I started in the costermonger line, with the advice of my friend, and I’ve made from 5s. to 10s., sometimes more, a week, at it ever since. The police don’t trouble me much. They is civil to me in ’portion (proportion) as I am civil to them. I never mixed with the costers but when I’ve met them at market. I stay at a lodging-house, but it’s very decent and clean, and I have a bed to myself, at 1s. a week, for I’m a regular man. I’m on sprats now, you see, sir, and you’d wonder, sometimes, to see how keen people looks to them when they’re new. They’re a blessing to the poor, in ’portion (proportion) of course. Not twenty minutes before you spoke to me, there was two poor women came up—they was sickly-looking, but I don’t know what they was—perhaps shirt-makers—and they says to me, says they, ‘Show us what a penny plateful is.’ ‘Sart’nly, ladies,’ says I. Then they whispered together, and at last one says, says she, ‘We’ll have two platefuls.’ I told you they was a blessing to the poor, sir—’specially to such as them, as lives all the year round on bread and tea. But it’s not only the poor as buys; others in ’portion (proportion). When they’re new they’re a treat to everybody. I’ve sold them to poor working-men, who’ve said, ‘I’ll take a treat home to the old ’oman and the kids; they dotes on sprats.’ Gentlemen’s servants is very fond of them, and mechanics comes down—such as shoemakers in their leather aprons, and sings out, ‘Here, old sprats, give us two penn’orth.’ They’re such a relish. I sell more to men than to women, perhaps, but there’s little difference. They’re best stewed, sir, I think—if you’re fond of sprats—with vinegar and a pick of allspice; that’s my opinion, and, only yesterday, an old cook said I was right. I makes 1s. 6d. to 2s. 6d. a day, and sometimes rather more, on my sprats, and sticks to them as much as I can. I sell about my ‘toss’ a day, seldom less. Of course I can make as many penn’orths of it as I please, but there’s no custom without one gives middling penn’orths. If a toss costs me 3s., I may make sixty penn’orths of it sometimes—sometimes seventy or more—and sometimes less than sixty. There’s many turns over as much as me and more than that. I’m thinking that I’ll work the country with a lot; they’ll keep to a second day, when they’re fresh to start, ’specially if its frosty weather, too, and then they’re better than ever—yes, and a greater treat—scalding hot from the fire, they’re the cheapest and best of all suppers in the winter time. I hardly know which way I’ll go. If I can get anythink to do among horses in the country, I’ll never come back. I’ve no tie to London.”
To show how small a sum of money will enable the struggling striving poor to obtain a living, I may here mention that, in the course of my inquiries among the mudlarks, I casually gave a poor shoeless urchin, who was spoken of by one of the City Missionaries as being a well-disposed youth, 1s. out of the funds that had been entrusted to me to dispense. Trifling as the amount appears, it was the means of keeping his mother, sister, and himself through the winter. It was invested in sprats, and turned over and over again.
I am informed, by the best authorities, that near upon 1000 “tosses” of sprats are sold daily in London streets, while the season lasts. These, sold retail in pennyworths, at very nearly 5s. the toss, give about 150l. a day, or say 1,000l. a week spent on sprats by the poorer classes of the metropolis; so that, calculating the sprat season to last ten weeks, about 10,000l. would be taken by the costermongers during that time from the sale of this fish alone.
Another return, furnished me by an eminent salesman at Billingsgate, estimates the gross quantity of sprats sold by the London costers in the course of the season at three millions of pounds weight, and this disposed of at the rate of 1d. per pound, gives upwards of 12,000l. for the sum of money spent upon this one kind of fish.