Highways and Byways in London

by Emily Constance Baird Cook

"Go thy way! Let me go mine,
I to starve, and thou to dine."

Saturday Night Shopping.

Let us, however, hope that those who really "starve" are few in number. For the barrow-men, who pay small rates as compared to shop-owners, give good value in return for their money, with much homely wit and caustic joking thrown in; and poor, indeed, must be the household that cannot enjoy, on Saturday night, their something "'ot with innions," their portion of fried fish, or of sheeps' trotters. Of course, when dealing with barrows, the buyer must have as many eyes as possible. "Let the buyer beware" may be specially said of this class of shopping. It were perhaps too much to expect, as Mr. Oliver Wendell Holmes seems to suggest, that fruit, when you buy it, should "grow bigger downwards through the box"; yet, perhaps, when you see a pile of luscious pears or apples heaped up temptingly in front of you, you need not allow yourself to be fobbed off with a few rotten ones, shovelled up carelessly from unseen depths behind. Much art is necessary when dealing with a barrow-man, who, as often as not, really respects the careful and fastidious shopper, and retorts to her complaints with a good-natured joke. If a trifle less distant in manner than his West-End brother, he is certainly more affectionate, and dubs his customer "my dear." But, in the street markets, it is usually the meat-huckster who is the greatest "character." His voice may be heard above the general din: "Buy my pretty meat," he shouts from his stall to the red-armed housewives; "now, lydies, don't go a fingerin' it too much, or it'll taste er kid gloves when you go to eat it.... 'Ave that there sheep's 'ed, Miss? wy, certingly; that wuz a 'appy sheep, that wuz! jest look at the smile 'e's got on 'im; know'd you wuz a-goin' to buy 'im, 'e did.... There now, my dear! look wot you've been and done, rolled that there bit 'o' shin in the mud, it'll 'ave to go for cats' meat now," &c. &c.

This kind of "patter," continued ad libitum, seems to be regarded as the slum butcher's special métier.

In Brick Lane, Spitalfields,—not the Jewish "Ghetto," but the purely English quarter,—there is, moreover, a Sunday morning "poor man's market." It is usually, in more select London highways, more or less difficult to make purchases, be they never so necessary, on Sunday morning. I remember, indeed, a despairing search for food on such an occasion (food necessitated by the arrival of unexpected visitors), which ended in the obtaining, almost by force, of a couple of boiled chickens from a small Italian restaurant, with the added injunction to "keep them well hidden" from the eye of the law on the homeward journey. In the East End, however, it is very different. Brick Lane, an unsavoury region, described by the late Mr. Montagu Williams as "a land of beer and blood," presents on Sunday morning a strange sight to the uninitiated. Here is its picture by an eye-witness:

"In Brick Lane ... scenes are to be witnessed on Sunday mornings which afford a companion picture to those in Whitechapel. The East End English have also, like the Jews, their 'poor man's market,' and where Shoreditch, Bethnal Green and Spitalfields meet at the northern part of Brick Lane, which is in Spitalfields, the poorest and meanest of them are to be found. In the early part of Sunday morning, for a couple of hours or so, there is a woman's market where cast-off clothes, tawdry finery, and the newest things in hats and feathers are bartered. Heterogeneous heaps of clothing, boots and shoes included, lie spread over the ground, and some amusing scenes are to be witnessed. Pass along Sclater Street and new scenes meet the eye. The women are left behind, and men and boys are met with. Instead of old clothes one sees and hears twittering birds. Here come the pigeon fanciers from all parts of Bethnal Green and Spitalfields; birds of all kinds are to be bought, and the noise and bustle are in striking contrast to the subdued, sorrow-stricken tone of the women's market. It does not require any long acquaintance with these scenes to discover that the men are fonder of their birds than of their wives. Nowhere is bird-fancying and pigeon-breeding more general than in the crowded East End. Where one would think there was not house-room enough or food enough for human occupants, prize birds of great value are reared—most probably with money that should have gone to feed and clothe the children."

The special markets where the poor buy and sell are not, however, exactly tempting to the well-to-do, unless in search of "copy" or other experience. For those London visitors who do not appreciate the slums, yet whose olfactory organs are not too fastidious, the big London markets, Covent Garden, Smithfield, Billingsgate, will perhaps afford a sufficient experience in that line. Billingsgate is the most perilous excursion of the three. Its aroma is strong and lasting, and the stranger in its diverging courts and alleys runs considerable danger of having winkle-barrels or fish crates descend on his devoted head, as they are lowered from the wharves on to their respective carts. Yes, a little of Billingsgate will undoubtedly go a very long way; yet it is an interesting place to have seen, and the strange, sudden appearance of ancient churches,—St. Dunstan's, St. Magnus, St. Mary-at-Hill,—incongruously calm amid the wild turmoil all round them,—gives a momentary peace even "amid the City's jar." The language of Billingsgate fish-wives and porters is proverbial, yet it is perhaps hardly worse than in many other less fishy quarters of London. The Coal Exchange, opposite Billingsgate, has, with its broad flight of steps, on which people sit, itself a kind of ecclesiastical look. The fish market opens at five in the morning.

All this quarter of London is a vast hive of industry. The stranger should walk along the busy thoroughfare of Upper and Lower Thames Street all the way from the Tower to St. Paul's; tall, blackened, ever-devouring warehouses line the street, which is a very inferno of bustle and labour. Though the street is muddy and noisy, and its perambulation may not impossibly render the pedestrian more than a little cross, he will, at any rate, gain from it some insight into London life. Mr. Hare describes the scene well: