Fancy chickens, I may add, are never hawked, nor are live pigeons, nor geese, nor turkeys.
The hawkers’ sale of live poultry may be taken, at a moderate computation, as 6,500 chickens, and 3,900 ducks.
Of Rabbit Selling in the Streets.
Rabbit-selling cannot be said to be a distinct branch of costermongering, but some street-sellers devote themselves to it more exclusively than to other “goods,” and, for five or six months of the year, sell little else. It is not often, though it is sometimes, united with the game or poultry trade, as a stock of rabbits, of a dozen or a dozen and a half, is a sufficient load for one man. The best sale for rabbits is in the suburbs. They are generally carried slung two and two on a long pole, which is supported on the man’s shoulders, or on a short one which is carried in the hand. Lately, they have been hawked about hung up on a barrow. The trade is the briskest in the autumn and winter months; but some men carry them, though they do not confine themselves to the traffic in them, all the year round. The following statement shows the nature of the trade.
“I was born and bred a costermonger,” he said, “and I’ve been concerned with everything in the line. I’ve been mostly ‘on rabbits’ these five or six years, but I always sold a few, and now sometimes I sell a hare or two, and, if rabbits is too dear, I tumble on to fish. I buy at Leadenhall mainly. I’ve given from 6s. to 14s. a dozen for my rabbits. The usual price is from 5s. to 8s. a dozen. [I may remark that the costers buy nearly all the Scotch rabbits, at an average of 6s. the dozen; and the Ostend rabbits, which are a shilling or two dearer.] They’re Hampshire rabbits; but I don’t know where Hampshire is. I know they’re from Hampshire, for they’re called ‘Wild Hampshire rabbits, 1s. a pair.’ But still, as you say, that’s only a call. I never sell a rabbit at 6d., in course—it costs more. My way in business is to get 2d. profit, and the skin, on every rabbit. If they cost me 8d., I try to get 10d. It’s the skins is the profit. The skins now brings me from 1s. to 1s. 9d. a dozen. They’re best in frosty weather. The fur’s thickest then. It grows best in frost, I suppose. If I sell a dozen, it’s a tidy day’s work. If I get 2d. a-piece on them, and the skins at 1s. 3d., it’s 3s. 3d., but I dont sell above 5 dozen in a week—that’s 16s. 3d. a week, sir, is it? Wet and dark weather is against me. People won’t often buy rabbits by candlelight, if they’re ever so sweet. Some weeks in spring and summer I can’t sell above two dozen rabbits. I have sold two dozen and ten on a Saturday in the country, but then I had a young man to help me. I sell the skins to a warehouse for hatters. My old ’oman works a little fish at a stall sometimes, but she only can in fine weather, for we’ve a kid that can hardly walk, and it don’t do to let it stand out in the cold. Perhaps I may make 10s. to 14s. a week all the year round. I’m paying 1s. a week for 1l. borrowed, and paid 2s. all last year; but I’ll pay no more after Christmas. I did better on rabbits four or five year back, because I sold more to working-people and small shopkeepers than I do now. I suppose it’s because they’re not so well off now as they was then, and, as you say, butchers’-meat may be cheaper now, and tempts them. I do best short ways in the country. Wandsworth way ain’t bad. No more is parts of Stoke-Newington and Stamford-hill. St. John’s Wood and Hampstead is middling. Hackney’s bad. I goes all ways. I dont know what sort of people’s my best customers. Two of ’em, I’ve been told, is banker’s clerks, so in course they is rich.”
There are 600,000 rabbits sold every year in the streets of London; these, at 7d. a-piece, give 17,500l. thus expended annually in the metropolis.
Of the Street Sale of Butter, Cheese, and Eggs.
All these commodities used to be hawked in the streets, and to a considerable extent. Until, as nearly as I can ascertain, between twenty and thirty years back, butter was brought from Epping, and other neighbouring parts, where good pasture existed, and hawked in the streets of London, usually along with poultry and eggs. This trade is among the more ancient of the street-trades. Steam-vessels and railways, however, have so stocked the markets, that no hawking of butter or eggs, from any agricultural part, even the nearest to London, would be remunerative now. Eggs are brought in immense quantities from France and Belgium, though thirty, or even twenty years ago the notion having of a good French egg, at a London breakfast-table, would have been laughed at as an absurd attempt at an impossible achievement. The number of eggs now annually imported into this kingdom, is 98,000,000, half of which may be said to be the yearly consumption of London. No butter is now hawked, but sometimes a few “new laid” eggs are carried from a rural part to the nearest metropolitan suburb, and are sold readily enough, if the purveyor be known. Mr. M’Culloch estimates the average consumption of butter, in London, at 6,250,000 lbs. per annum, or 5 oz., weekly, each individual.
The hawking of cheese was never a prominent part of the street-trade. Of late, its sale in the streets, may be described as accidental. A considerable quantity of American cheese was hawked, or more commonly sold at a standing, five or six years ago; unto December last, and for three months preceding, cheese was sold in the streets which had been rejected from Government stores, as it would not “keep” for the period required; but it was good for immediate consumption, for which all street-goods are required. This, and the American cheese, were both sold in the streets at 3d. the pound; usually, at fair weights, I am told, for it might not be easy to deceive the poor in a thing of such frequent purchase as “half a quarter or a quarter” (of a pound) of cheese.