Of the Street-sellers of Hot-Cross Buns, and of Chelsea Buns.
Perhaps no cry—though it is only for one morning—is more familiar to the ears of a Londoner, than that of “One-a-penny, two-a-penny, hot-cross buns,” on Good Friday. The sale is unknown in the Irish capital; for among Roman Catholics, Good Friday, I need hardly say, is a strict fast, and the eggs in the buns prevent their being used. One London gentleman, who spoke of fifty years ago, told me that the street-bun-sellers used to have a not unpleasing distich. On reflection, however, my informant could not be certain whether he had heard this distich cried, or had remembered hearing the elders of his family speak of it as having been cried, or how it was impressed upon his memory. It seems hardly in accordance with the usual style of street poetry:—
“One-a-penny, two-a-penny, hot-cross buns!
If your daughters will not eat them, give them to your sons.
But if you hav’n’t any of those pretty little elves,
You cannot then do better than eat them all yourselves.”
A tradesman who had resided more than fifty years in the Borough had, in his boyhood, heard, but not often, this ridiculous cry:—
“One-a-penny, poker; two-a-penny, tongs!
One-a-penny; two-a-penny, hot-cross buns.”
The sellers of the Good Friday buns are principally boys, and they are of mixed classes—costers’ boys, boys habitually and boys occasionally street-sellers, and boys street-sellers for that occasion only. One great inducement to embark in the trade is the hope of raising a little money for the Greenwich Fair of the following Monday.
I am informed that 500 persons are employed on Good Friday in the streets of London in the sale of hot-cross buns, each itinerant selling upon the day’s average six dozen halfpenny, and seven dozen penny buns, for which he will take 12s. 6d. (his profits being 3d. in the shilling or 3s. 1½d.). One person informed me that last Good Friday he had sold during the day forty dozen penny buns, for which he received 50s.
The bun-selling itinerants derive their supplies principally from the wholesale pastry-cooks, and, in a less degree, from the small bakers and pastrycooks, who work more for “the trade” than themselves. The street hot-cross bun trade is less than it was seven or eight years ago, as the bakers have entered into it more freely, and send round for orders: so that the itinerants complain that they have lost many a good customer. One informant (a master pastry-cook, who had been in the business nearly fifty years) said to me: “Times are sadly altered to what they were when I was a boy. Why I have known my master to bake five sacks of flour in nothing but hot-cross buns, and that is sufficient for 20,000 buns” (one sack of flour being used for 4,000 buns, or 500 lbs. of raw material to the same quantity of buns). The itinerants carry their baskets slung on their arm, or borne upon the head. A flannel or green baize is placed at the bottom of the basket and brought over the buns, after which a white cloth is spread over the top of the baize, to give it a clean appearance.
A vendor of “hot-cross buns” has to provide himself with a basket, a flannel (to keep the buns warm), and a cloth, to give a clean appearance to his commodities. These articles, if bought for the purpose, cost—basket, 2s. 6d.; flannel and cloth, 2s.; stock-money, average, 5s. (largest amount 15s., smallest 2s. 6d.); or about 10s. in all.
There is expended in one day, in hot-cross buns purchased in the London streets, 300l., and nearly 100,000 buns thus bought.
The Chelsea buns are now altogether superseded by the Bath and Alexander’s buns. “People,” the street-sellers say, “want so much for their money.” There are now but two Chelsea bun-houses; the one at Pimlico, and the other at Chelsea. The principal times Chelsea buns were sold in the streets was Good Friday, Easter, and Whitsuntide; and, with the exception of Good Friday, the great sales were at Greenwich Fair, and then they were sold with other cakes and sweetmeats. I am informed that twenty years ago there was one man, with a rich musical voice, who sold these buns, about Westminster principally, all the year round; his cry—which was one of the musical ones—was, “One a penny, two a penny, hot Chelsea buns! Burning hot! smoking hot! r-r-r-reeking hot! hot Chelsea buns!”