Of the Street-Sellers of Leverets, Wild Rabbits, etc.
There are a few leverets, or young hares, sold in the streets, and they are vended for the most part in the suburbs, where the houses are somewhat detached, and where there are plenty of gardens. The softness and gentleness of the leveret’s look pleases children, more especially girls, I am informed, and it is usually through their importunity that the young hares are bought, in order that they may be fed from the garden, and run tame about an out-house. The leverets thus sold, however, as regards nine out of ten, soon die. They are rarely supplied with their natural food, and all their natural habits are interrupted. They are in constant fear and danger, moreover, from both dogs and cats. One shopkeeper who sold fancy rabbits in a street off the Westminster-road told me that he had once tried to tame and rear leverets in hutches, as he did rabbits, but to no purpose. He had no doubt it might be done, he said, but not in a shop or a small house. Three or four leverets are hawked by the street-people in one basket and are seen lying on hay, the basket having either a wide-worked lid, or a net thrown over it. The hawkers of live poultry sell the most leverets, but they are vended also by the singing-bird sellers. The animals are nearly all bought, for this traffic, at Leadenhall, and are retailed at 1s. to 2s. each, one-third to one-half being profit. Perhaps 300 are sold this way yearly, producing 22l. 10s.
About 400 young wild rabbits are sold in the street in a similar way, but at lower sums, from 3d. to 6d. each, 4d. being the most frequent rate. The yearly outlay is thus 6l. 13s. They thrive, in confinement, no better than the leverets.