Of the Experience of a Hawking Butcher.
A middle-aged man, the front of his head being nearly bald, and the few hairs there were to be seen shining strongly and lying flat, as if rubbed with suet or dripping, gave me the following account. He was dressed in the usual blue garb of the butcher:—
“I’ve hawked, sir—well, perhaps for fifteen years. My father was a journeyman butcher, and I helped him, and so grew up to it. I never had to call regular work, and made it out with hawking. Perhaps I’ve hawked, take it altogether, nearly three quarters of every year. The other times I’ve had a turn at slaughtering. But I haven’t slaughtered for these three or four years; I’ve had turns as a butcher’s porter, and wish I had more, as it’s sure browns, if it’s only 1s. 6d. a day: but there’s often a bit of cuttings. I sell most pork of anything in autumn and winter, and most mutton in summer; but the summer isn’t much more than half as good as the winter for my trade. When I slaughtered I had 3s. for an ox, 4d. for a sheep, and 1s. for a pig. Calves is slaughtered by the master’s people generally. Well, I dare say it is cruel the way they slaughter calves; you would think it so, no doubt. I believe they slaughter cheaper now. If I buy cheap—and on a very hot day and a slow market, I have bought a fore, aye, and a hind, quarter of mutton, about two and a half stone each (8 lbs. to the stone), at 2d. a pound; but that’s only very, very seldom—when I buy cheap sir, I aim at 2d. a pound over what I give, if not so cheap at 1d., and then its low to my customers. But I cut up the meat, you see, myself, and I carry it. I sell eight times as much to public-houses and eating-houses as anywhere else; most to the publics if they’ve ordinaries, and a deal for the publics’ families’ eating, ’cause a landlord knows I wouldn’t deceive him,—and there’s a part of it taken out in drink, of course, and landlords is good judges. Trade was far better years back. I’ve heard my father and his pals talk about a hawking butcher that twenty years ago was imprisoned falsely, and got a honest lawyer to bring his haction, and had 150l. damages for false imprisonment. It was in the Lord Mayor’s Court of Equity, I’ve heard. It was a wrong arrest. I don’t understand the particulars of it, but it’s true; and the damages was for loss of time and trade. I’m no lawyer myself; not a bit. I have sold the like of a loin of mutton, when it was small, in a tap-room, to make chops for the people there. They’ll cook chops and steaks for a pint of beer, at a public; that is, you must order a pint—but I’ve sold it very seldom. When mutton was dearer it was easier to sell it that way, for I sold cheap; and at one public the mechanics—I hardly know just what they was, something about building—used to gather there at one o’clock and wait for ‘Giblets’; so they called me there. I live a good bit on the cuttings of the meat I hawk, or I chop a meal off if I can manage or afford it, or my wife—(I’ve only a wife and she earns never less than 2s. a week in washing for a master butcher—I wish I was a master butcher,—and that covers the rent)—my wife makes it into broth. Take it all the year round, I s’pose I sell three stun a day (24 lb.), and at 1d. a pound profit. Not a farthing more go round and round. I don’t think the others, altogether, do as much, for I’m known to a many landlords. But some make 3s. and 4s. a day oft enough. I’ve made as much myself sometimes. We all aim at 1d. a pound profit, but have to take less in hot weather sometimes. Last year 4d. the pound has been a haverage price to me for all sorts.”
“Dead salesmen,” as they are called—that is, the market salesmen of the meat sent so largely from Scotland and elsewhere, ready slaughtered—expressed to me their conviction that my informant’s calculation was correct, and might be taken as an average; so did butchers. Thus, then, we find that the hawking butchers, taking their number at 150, sell 747,000 lbs. of meat, producing 12,450l. annually, one-fourth being profit; this gives an annual receipt of 83l. each, and an annual earning of 20l. 15s. The capital required to start in this trade is about 20s., which is usually laid out as follows:—A basket for the shoulders, which costs 4s. 6d.; a leathern strap, 1s.; a basket for the arm, 2s. 6d.; a butcher’s knife, 1s.; a steel, 1s. 6d.; a leather belt for the waist to which the knife is slung, 6d.; a chopper, 1s. 6d.; and a saw, 2s.; 6s. stock-money, though credit is sometimes given.