Palace and Hovel; Or, Phases of London Life

by Daniel Joseph Kirwan

I had no means of satisfying her as to that question, and I left her as she was preparing a sandwich for a hungry clodhopper, whose eyes were bulbous with hunger and expectation, and went below to the basement story, which opens by arches on the depot of the Underground Railway, and I found the entire earthen floor cut up by rails and platforms, on to which the meat from incoming trains is shunted and delivered. All meat delivered at Smithfield is of course dead, and no slaughtering is carried on in this market. Millions of pounds worth of meat finds its way here day after day, and thousands of men—porters and helpers and butchers' assistants—find employment here, their wages ranging from ten to thirty-five shillings a week.

Each helper is paid so much for every carcass which he carries into the market on his shoulders, and broad shoulders they have to be to carry these huge quarters of beef from the wagons which are drawn up in dense masses in and around the open spaces outside of the market walls. When this market was opened by the Mayor of London and other city dignitaries, sixteen hundred officials, connected with the market and the municipal government, dined in the central avenue, and two hundred barrels of ale were drank. This is a sample of a municipal British feast.

Outside of the building are little houses or market lodges, built of stone, in which are weighing machines, where men are constantly in attendance as weighers of beef and mutton. For this service they are paid one hundred and twenty pounds a year. The weighing machine in the little house connects under the middle of the street, where a platform is constructed, level with the surface of the pavement, and when a cart-load of beef is to be weighed, horse, cart, and beef are weighed together, and the total is placed on a slate, and when the helpers have carried all the meat into the stalls in the market to be sold wholesale, (for it is not a retail market,) the horse and cart are again weighed, and then their united weight having been deducted from the gross weight, the actual weight of the meat is thus ascertained by this simple and easy process. I think that the Smithfield Market is the finest I ever saw, and its ventilation and perfect system cannot be surpassed anywhere.

THE VEGETABLE MARKET.

From Smithfield Market I went to Covent Garden Market, which is a couple of miles distant, in Russell street, forming quite a spacious area. This is the great vegetable and flower market of London. There is a market held every morning in summer, but in winter, markets are held only on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday mornings. The market is owned by the Duke of Bedford, and was built at a cost of £30,000 by a former Duke of that family, forty years ago.

It has a colonade running around the entire building on the exterior, under which are shops having apartments in the upper stories. Joined to the back of these is another row of shops facing the inner courts, and through the centre runs a passage with shops on either side, in which are exposed for sale herbs and flowers, and the most magnificent bouquets can be procured here on a fine morning in summer. Scarce and delicate plants and flowers are here found in abundance, and around these stands I noticed numbers of male servants and pages in the liveries of some of the best known families among the London aristocracy, barganing for bouquets for their mistresses' tables. The noise and hub-bub around the open spaces in this market was perfectly deafening. It was now about four o'clock in the morning, and all the open areas were thronged with market-men and women and boys, carrying baskets and flowers in their arms, to and fro, chaffing each other or cursing and swearing with great good will.

Immense vans and market-carts loaded down with cabbages, onions, peas, cauliflowers, turnips, beans, parsley, greens, cucumbers, lettuce, apples, pears, parsnips, and other vegetables and fruits, are moving to and fro, some of them blocked in with the increasing traffic, the drivers, great big hulking fellows, mopping their perspiring foreheads and shouting at each other, as is usual among all cartmen. Women are hurrying hither and thither, making bargains and chaffering about the prices of vegetables, and meanwhile, it is almost impossible to hear or understand anything that is said. The police who are scattered here and there with their tall helmets, goodnaturedly push and shove those who block the passage ways, and frown sternly at the impudent young rascals who excite crowds and gather small knots of boys against the breakfast stalls outside the market.

Here and there around these coffee stalls, which are generally kept by old men or dilapidated and ancient women, you will see a couple of drunken or half sober roysterers, who have been on the tramp all night, and have at this early hour of the morning reached Covent Garden to get a cup of hot coffee in the market, which will clear the fumes of the liquor away, before they stagger home to a fond and anxious wife or an unrelenting landlady.

Wagons and carts have been arriving from a very early hour, and five o'clock seems to be the busiest time in Covent Garden. The houses of refreshment around the market are open at half past one in summer, and little tables are placed against the wooden pillars of the market by the tea and coffee venders, from which porters and carters make hearty breakfasts. There is no need to resort to exciting liquors, as the coffee is good and hot, and a baked potato, fresh and smoking from the oven, costs only one penny.

Every few minutes, through all the roaring and shouting, singing, talking, whistling, and laughing, I could hear the clear voice of the Baked Potato man, vending his smoking tubers and shouting: