Statement of Two Poultry Hawkers.
Two brothers, both good-looking and well-spoken young men—one I might characterise as handsome—gave me the following account. I found them unwilling to speak of their youth, and did not press them. I was afterwards informed that their parents died within the same month, and that the family was taken into the workhouse; but the two boys left it in a little time, and before they could benefit by any schooling. Neither of them could read or write. They left, I believe, with some little sum in hand, to “start theirselves.” An intelligent costermonger, who was with me when I saw the two brothers, told me that “a costermonger would rather be thought to have come out of prison than out of a workhouse,” for his “mates” would say, if they heard he had been locked up, “O, he’s only been quodded for pitching into a crusher.” The two brothers wore clean smock country frocks over their dress, and made a liberal display of their clean, but coarse, shirts. It was on a Monday that I saw them. What one brother said, the other confirmed: so I use the plural “we.”
“We sell poultry and game, but stick most to poultry, which suits our connection best. We buy at Leadenhall. We’re never cheated in the things we buy; indeed, perhaps, we could’nt be. A salesman will say—Mr. H—— will—‘Buy, if you like, I can’t recommend them. Use your own judgment. They’re cheap.’ He has only one price, and that’s often a low one. We give from 1s. to 1s. 9d. for good chickens, and from 2s. 6d. mostly for geese and turkeys. Pigeons is 1s. 9d. to 3s. a dozen. We aim at 6d. profit on chickens; and 1s., if we can get it, or 6d. if we can do no better, on geese and turkeys. Ducks are the same as chickens. All the year through, we may make 12s. a week a piece. We work together, one on one side of the street and the other on the other. It answers best that way. People find we can’t undersell one another. We buy the poultry, whenever we can, undressed, and dress them ourselves; pull the feathers off and make them ready for cooking. We sell cheaper than the shops, or we couldn’t sell at all. But you must be known, to do any trade, or people will think your poultry’s bad. We work game as well, but mostly poultry. We’ve been on hares to-day, mostly, and have made about 2s. 6d. a piece, but that’s an extra day. Our best customers are tradesmen in a big way, and people in the houses a little way out of town. Working people don’t buy of us now. We’re going to a penny gaff to-night” (it was then between four and five); “we’ve no better way of spending our time when our day’s work is done.”
From the returns before given, the street-sale of poultry amounts yearly to
| 500,000 | fowls. |
| 80,000 | ducks. |
| 20,000 | geese. |
| 30,000 | turkeys. |