"Yesir," said Mr. Ralfe, touching his hat, although he was not in uniform, and in another instant we were in the London streets, which were very drear and damp, the gas lamps yet burning with a feeble light, and the daybreak as yet not having revealed itself.
The way was murky and dark, and the vicinity of the market was sufficiently indicated by the peculiar raw, fresh smell, with which newly killed meat greets the nasal organs.
Smithfield Market is built on a large, open square, and being on high ground commands a good view of the City of London proper. The site of the New Market which was opened a year ago, was formerly covered by the Cattle Market, which is now removed to Islington, in the suburbs. The building is of mixed stone and brick, and the cost was about half a million pounds. The ground on which it is built is also nearly as valuable as the building. The market is about four hundred feet in length and a hundred and fifty in width. The roof is of iron, and a vast avenue, high, broad, and spacious in every way, runs through the entire building.
THE HOT COFFEE GIRL.
When I reached the market with my friend, the policeman, the gas was still burning, and the long rows of stalls situated on the wide avenues of the market, were covered with beef and mutton, the stalls averaging thirty to forty feet in height. There was a confused hum of many voices, and coarse rough looking fellows in smalls and canvas smocks, with broad, scoop-shaped hats, rushed hither and thither with immense loins and quarters of beef on their brawny shoulders. Over each stall, and inside of the market beneath the roof, the proprietor or lessee of the stall has a small wooden edifice, with doors and windows and places to sleep for two or three persons. At each corner of the market is a lofty tower, a hundred feet high, and in these towers are board-rooms and dining-rooms, and reading rooms for select parties, and at the base or bottom floor of each tower is a bar where liquors and hot coffee, bread, butter, and tea, and other refreshments are sold during the early hours of the morning, to those who need sustainment. Two or three pretty girls were behind each of these stalls, and were serving with great dilligence and taste, the knots of butchers' helpers, cartmen, butchers' boys, and market officials who stood in their vicinity.
There are at least half a dozen meat inspectors in each market, and these men are paid one hundred pounds a year to examine and decide as to the wholesomeness of each and every pound or carcass of meat brought into the markets.
To one of these I spoke and asked him if he had much trouble with the butchers in regard to putrid meat.
"Trouble—Lord bless you sir, we have no trouble here to speak on. Ye see, sir, the class of butchers as sells meat here in Smithfield Market allers sells on commission. All this meat that you see a hanging on these ere hooks doesn't belong to the butchers. It is sent to them to sell on commission by the Railway Companies, and they do not own the stalls themselves either. They pays one pound ten shilling and sixpence a week for five square feet of ground—that's about the rate they pays, and the City owns the markit. Lord bless you, Sir," said the loquacious inspector, who was dressed like a butcher, having an apron, and stood leaning against a large quarter of beef. "I don't know where all the blessed meat comes from, but I knows that the pigs come from Hireland, and a goodish bit of the beef from Devonshire. It comes to the city by the Underground Railway, and you can see the place down stairs where all the meat comes in the mornin'."
At the breakfast stalls I noticed that nearly every one called for "two pennorth of bread and butter," and drank with it a bowl of hot tea or a smoking cup of coffee. The girls who served the coffee were chatty and lively, and desired information of me in regard to America. One of them, a little black brunette, queried:
"They say, sir, as how that a young leedy in Hamerica can get married on nothink—if she's good looking and can cook. Is it so, sir?"