The best quarters for the street-sale of game and poultry are, I am informed from several sources, either the business parts of the metropolis, or else the houses in the several suburbs which are the furthest from a market or from a business part. The squares, crescents, places, and streets, that do not partake of one or the other of these characteristics, are pronounced “no good.”
Of the Experience of a Game Hawker.
The man who gave me the following information was strong and robust, and had a weather-beaten look. He seemed about fifty. He wore when I saw him a large velveteen jacket, a cloth waistcoat which had been once green, and brown corduroy trousers. No part of his attire, though it seemed old, was patched, his shirt being clean and white. He evidently aimed at the gamekeeper style of dress. He affected some humour, and was dogged in his opinions:
“I was a gentleman’s footman when I was a young man,” he said, “and saw life both in town and country; so I knows what things belongs.” [A common phrase among persons of his class to denote their being men of the world.] “I never liked the confinement of service, and besides the upper servants takes on so. The others puts up with it more than they would, I suppose, because they hopes to be butlers themselves in time. The only decent people in the house I lived in last was master and missus. I won 20l., and got it too, on the Colonel, when he won the Leger. Master was a bit of a turf gentleman, and so we all dabbled—like master like man, you know, sir. I think that was in 1828, but I’m not certain. We came to London not long after Doncaster” [he meant Doncaster races], “something about a lawsuit, and that winter I left service and bought the goodwill of a coffee-shop for 25l. It didn’t answer. I wasn’t up to the coffee-making, I think; there’s a deal of things belongs to all things; so I got out of it, and after that I was in service again, and then I was a boots at an inn. But I couldn’t settle to nothing long; I’m of a free spirit, you see. I was hard up at last, and I popped my watch for a sovereign, because a friend of mine—we sometimes drank together of a night—said he could put me in the pigeon and chicken line; that was what he called it, but it meant game. This just suited me, for I’d been out with the poachers when I was a lad, and indeed when I was in service, out of a night on the sly; so I knew they got stiffish prices. My friend got me the pigeons. I believe he cheated me, but he’s gone to glory. The next season game was made legal eating. Before that I cleared from 25s. to 40s. a week by selling my ‘pigeons.’ I carried real pigeons as well, which I said was my own rearing at Gravesend. I sold my game pigeons—there was all sorts of names for them—in the City, and sometimes in the Strand, or Charing-cross, or Covent-garden. I sold to shopkeepers. Oft enough I’ve been offered so much tea for a hare. I sometimes had a hare in each pocket, but they was very awkward carriage; if one was sold, the other sagged so. I very seldom sold them, at that time, at less than 3s. 6d., often 4s. 6d., and sometimes 5s. or more. I once sold a thumping old jack-hare to a draper for 6s.; it was Christmas time, and he thought it was a beauty. I went into the country after that, among my friends, and had a deal of ups and downs in different parts. I was a navvy part of the time, till five or six year back I came to London again, and got into my old trade; but it’s quite a different thing now. I hawks grouse, and every thing, quite open. Leadenhall and Newgate is my markets. Six of one and half-a-dozen of t’other. When there’s a great arrival of game, after a game battle” (he would so call a battue) “and it’s warm weather, that’s my time of day, for then I can buy cheap. A muggy day, when it’s close and warm, is best of all. I have a tidy bit of connection now in game, and don’t touch poultry when I can get game. Grouse is the first thing I get to sell. They are legal eating on the 12th of August, but as there’s hundreds of braces sold in London that day, and as they’re shot in Scotland and Yorkshire, and other places where there’s moors, in course they’re killed before it’s legal. It’s not often I can get them early in the season; not the first week, but I have had three brace two days before they were legal, and sold them at 5s. a brace; they cost me 3s. 3d., but I was told I was favoured. I got them of a dealer, but that’s a secret. I sold a few young partridges with grouse this year at 1s. 6d. and 1s. 9d. a piece, allowing 2d. or 3d. if a brace was taken. They weren’t legal eating till the 1st of September, but they was shot by grouse shooters, and when I hawked them I called them quails. Lord, sir, gentlefolks—and I serve a good many, leastways their cooks, and now and then themselves—they don’t make a fuss about Game Laws; they’ve too much sense. I’ve bought grouse quite fresh and fine when there’s been a lot, and bad keeping weather, at 1s. and 15d. each. I’ve sold them sometimes at 1s. 6d. and 2s. each, and 2s. 6d. the big ones, but only twice or thrice. If you ask very low at first, people won’t buy, only a few good judges, ’cause they think something must be amiss. I once bought a dozen good hares, on a Saturday afternoon, for 10s. 6d. It was jolly hot, and I could hardly sell them. I got 1s. 6d. a piece for three of them; 2s. for the finest one; 1s. 3d. for five, no, for four; 1s. 10d. for two; and I had a deal of trouble to get a landlord to take the last two for 1s. 6d., to wipe off a bit of a drink score. I didn’t do so bad as it was, but if it hadn’t been Saturday, I should have made a good thing of ’em. It’s very hard work carrying a dozen hares; and every one of that lot—except two, and they was fine leverets—was as cheap as butcher’s meat at half-a-crown a piece. I’ve done middling in partridges this year. I’ve bought them, but mixed things they was, as low as from 10d. to 16d. a brace, and have made a profit, big or little as happened, on every one. People that’s regular customers I always charge 6d. profit in 2s. 6d. to, and that’s far cheaper than they can get served other ways. It’s chiefly the game battles that does so much to cheapen partridges or peasants” (so he always called pheasants); “and it’s only then I meddles with peasants. They’re sold handier than the other birds at the shops, I think. They’re legal eating on the 1st of October. Such nonsense! why isn’t mutton made legal eating, only just at times, as well? In very hard weather I’ve done well on wild ducks. They come over here when the weather’s a clipper, for you see cold weather suits some birds and kills others. It aint hard weather that’s driven them here; the frost has drawed them here, because it’s only then they’re cheap. I’ve bought beauties at 1s. a piece, and one day I cleared 10s. 6d. out of twelve brace of them. I’ve often cleared 6s. and 7s.—at least as often as there’s been a chance. I knew a man that did uncommon well on them; and he once told a parson, or a journeyman parson, I don’t know what he was, that if ever he prayed it was for a hard winter and lots of wild ducks. I’ve done a little sometimes in plover, and woodcock, and snipe, but not so much. I never plays no tricks with my birds. I trims them up to look well, certainly. If they won’t keep, and won’t sell, I sticks them into a landlord I knows, as likes them high, for a quartern or a pot, or anything. It’s often impossible to keep them. If they’re hard hit it’s soon up with them. A sportsman, if he has a good dog—but you’ll know that if you’ve ever been a shooting, sir—may get close upon a covey of young partridges before he springs them, and then give them his one, two, with both barrels, and they’re riddled to bits. I may make 18s. a week all the year round, because I have a connection. I’m very much respected, I thinks, on my round, for I deal fair; that there, sir, breeds respect, you know. When I can’t get game (birds) I can sometimes, indeed often, get hares, and mostly rabbits. I’ve hawked venson, but did no good—though I cried it at 4d. the lb. My best weeks is worth 30s. to 35s., my worst is 6s. to 10s. I’m a good deal in the country, working it. I’m forced to sell fish sometimes. Geese I sometimes join a mate in selling. I don’t mix much with the costermongers; in coorse I knows some. I live middling. Do I ever eat my own game if it’s high? No, sir, never. I couldn’t stand such cag-mag—my stomach couldn’t—though I’ve been a gentleman’s servant. Such stuff don’t suit nobody but rich people, whose stomach’s diseased by over-feeding, and that’s been brought up to it, like. I’ve only myself to keep now. I’ve had a wife or two, but we parted” (this was said gravely enough); “there was nothing to hinder us. I see them sometimes and treat them.”
The quantity of game annually sold in the London streets is as follows:—
| Grouse | 5,000 |
| Partridges | 20,000 |
| Pheasants | 12,000 |
| Snipes | 5,000 |
| Hares | 20,000 |
Statement of Two Poultry Hawkers.
Two brothers, both good-looking and well-spoken young men—one I might characterise as handsome—gave me the following account. I found them unwilling to speak of their youth, and did not press them. I was afterwards informed that their parents died within the same month, and that the family was taken into the workhouse; but the two boys left it in a little time, and before they could benefit by any schooling. Neither of them could read or write. They left, I believe, with some little sum in hand, to “start theirselves.” An intelligent costermonger, who was with me when I saw the two brothers, told me that “a costermonger would rather be thought to have come out of prison than out of a workhouse,” for his “mates” would say, if they heard he had been locked up, “O, he’s only been quodded for pitching into a crusher.” The two brothers wore clean smock country frocks over their dress, and made a liberal display of their clean, but coarse, shirts. It was on a Monday that I saw them. What one brother said, the other confirmed: so I use the plural “we.”
“We sell poultry and game, but stick most to poultry, which suits our connection best. We buy at Leadenhall. We’re never cheated in the things we buy; indeed, perhaps, we could’nt be. A salesman will say—Mr. H—— will—‘Buy, if you like, I can’t recommend them. Use your own judgment. They’re cheap.’ He has only one price, and that’s often a low one. We give from 1s. to 1s. 9d. for good chickens, and from 2s. 6d. mostly for geese and turkeys. Pigeons is 1s. 9d. to 3s. a dozen. We aim at 6d. profit on chickens; and 1s., if we can get it, or 6d. if we can do no better, on geese and turkeys. Ducks are the same as chickens. All the year through, we may make 12s. a week a piece. We work together, one on one side of the street and the other on the other. It answers best that way. People find we can’t undersell one another. We buy the poultry, whenever we can, undressed, and dress them ourselves; pull the feathers off and make them ready for cooking. We sell cheaper than the shops, or we couldn’t sell at all. But you must be known, to do any trade, or people will think your poultry’s bad. We work game as well, but mostly poultry. We’ve been on hares to-day, mostly, and have made about 2s. 6d. a piece, but that’s an extra day. Our best customers are tradesmen in a big way, and people in the houses a little way out of town. Working people don’t buy of us now. We’re going to a penny gaff to-night” (it was then between four and five); “we’ve no better way of spending our time when our day’s work is done.”
From the returns before given, the street-sale of poultry amounts yearly to