The Scilly Isles send early articles by steamer to Southampton, and thence to Covent Garden by railway. Strawberries are sent from gardens about Bath. The money paid annually for fruits and vegetables sold in this market is estimated at three millions sterling: for 6 or 700,000 pottles of strawberries; 40,000,000 cabbages; 2,000,000 cauliflowers; 300,000 bushels of peas; 750,000 lettuces; and 500,000 bushels of onions. In Centre-row, hot-house grapes are sold at 25s. per pound, British Queen and Black Prince strawberries at 1s. per ounce, slender French beans at 3s. per hundred, peas at a guinea a quart, and new potatoes at 4s. 6d. per pound; a moss-rose for half-a-crown, and bouquets of flowers from one shilling to two guineas each.
Green peas have been sold here at Christmas when they are deemed a luxury, for three pounds a quart, and asparagus has brought, in the same season, a pound, and rhubarb, a pound and five shillings a bunch.
The cries of the children peddling violets are sometimes almost heartrending, as these little waifs are very often fasting for a whole day before they can realize a few pennies to buy their food, to say nothing of food for those who have sent them to peddle the violets.
There is an Artesian well under Covent Garden Market, 280 feet deep, which supplies 1,600 gallons an hour, sufficient for the needs of the market people, most of which is consumed in watering flowers and vegetables, or in giving horses to drink. There are elegant conservatories over the colonnades of the market fifteen feet broad and fifteen feet high, for the preservation of the more costly and delicate plants and flowers. From this market nearly all the button-hole flowers which are vended at from a penny to four-pence a piece are obtained for the use of the London "swells."
THE JEWS' ORANGE MARKET.
One of the most curious places in London is the Orange and Nut Market, in Houndsditch. This market is chiefly in the hands of the lowest kind of Jews, men in greasy garments, and having frightfully hooked noses. The Costermongers come here for oranges, nuts, and lemons, to sell or hawk them around the suburbs or slums of London. The market is called Dukes'-Place Market. There is a big, massive, Synagogue, a lot of ancient-looking houses, the oranges themselves have a cob-webbed appearance, and the people are all dingy here. The nuts are for sale in sacks, and the baskets have a dilapidated look. The Jews, in all countries, are an industrious and economical people, and in London, as elsewhere, they monopolize the most profitable and least laborious occupations. They are represented by lawyers, members of Parliament, great bankers, like Rothschild, merchants, like Solomons, and men of liberal taste, like Sir Francis Goldsmid. The number of Jews in London is estimated at 48,000.
THE ORANGE MARKET.
Each dwelling around this Orange Market seems as if it had been partially consumed by fire, for not one of the shops have a window, and they are comparatively empty, save where a crate of oranges, or a bag of nuts, are exposed for sale. A few sickly fowls, looking as if they were dyspeptic, wander here picking up crumbs among the orange baskets and nut sacks, and dirty, ragged little Jewish children, play around with great equanimity among the rubbish. The disputes among the loud-voiced Costermongers who come here with their little wagons and jackasses, to draw their fruit, and the Jews who have all glib-toned, smooth voices,—at some times, when the oranges are changing hands from sellers to buyers—are very amusing.