London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. 1

by Henry Mayhew

A love of flowers is also observable among men whose avocations are out of doors, and those whose habits are necessarily those of order and punctuality.

Among this class are such persons as gentlemen’s coachmen, who delight in the display of a flower or two in the button-holes of their coats when out of doors, and in small vases in their rooms in their masters’ mews. I have even seen the trellis work opposite the windows of cabmen’s rooms, which were over stables, with a projecting roof covering the whole, thickly yellow and green with the flowers and leaves of the easily-trained nasturtium and herb “twopence.” The omnibus driver occasionally “sports a nosegay”—as he himself might word it—in his button-hole; and the stage-coachman of old felt he was improperly dressed if a big bunch of flowers were not attached to his coat. Sailors ashore are likewise generally fond of flowers.

A delight in flowers is observable, also, among the workers whose handicraft requires the exercise of taste, and whose eyes are sensible, from the nature of their employment, to the beauty of colour. To this class belong especially the Spitalfields’ silk-weavers. At one time the Spitalfields weavers were almost the only botanists in London, and their love of flowers is still strong. I have seen fuchsias gladdening the weaver’s eyes by being placed near his loom, their crimson pendants swinging backwards and forwards to the motion of the treadles, while his small back garden has been many-coloured with dahlias. These weavers, too, were at one time highly-successful as growers of tulips.

Those out-door workmen, whose calling is of coarse character, are never known to purchase flowers, which to them are mere trumpery. Perhaps no one of my readers ever saw a flower in the possession of a flusherman, nightman, slaughterer, sweep, gaslayer, gut and tripe-preparer, or such like labourer. Their eyes convey to the mind no appreciation of beauty, and the sense of smell is actually dead in them, except the odour be rank exceedingly.

The fondness for flowers in London is strongest in the women, and, perhaps, strongest in those whose callings are in-door and sedentary. Flowers are to them a companionship.

It remains only for me to state that, in the poorest districts, and among people where there is no sense of refinement or but a small love for natural objects, flowers are little known. Flowers are not bought by the slop-workers, the garret and chamber-masters of Bethnal-green, nor in the poor Irish districts, nor by the City people. Indeed, as I have observed, there is not a flower-stand in the city.

It should be remembered that, in poor districts, the first appearance of flowers conveys to the slop-workman only one pleasurable association—that the season of warmth has arrived, and that he will not only escape being chilled with cold, but that he will be delivered from the heavy burden of providing fire and candle.

A pleasant-looking man, with an appearance which the vulgar characterise as “jolly,” and with hearty manners, gave me the following account as to the character of his customers. He had known the business since he was a boy, his friends having been in it previously. He said:

“There’s one old gentleman a little way out of town, he always gives 1s. for the first violet root that any such as me carries there. I’m often there before any others: ‘Ah!’ he says, ‘here you are; you’ve come, like Buonaparte, with your violet.’ I don’t know exactly what he means. I don’t like to ask him you see; for, though he’s civil, he’s not what you may call a free sort of man—that’s it.” [I explained to him that the allusion was to Buonaparte’s emblem of the violet, with the interpretation he or his admirers gave to it—“I come in the spring.”] “That’s it, sir, is it?” he resumed; “well, I’m glad I know, because I don’t like to be puzzled. Mine’s a puzzling trade, though. Violets have a good sale. I’ve sold six dozen roots in a day, and only half as many primroses and double-daisies, if half. Everybody likes violets. I’ve sold some to poor people in town, but they like their roots in pots. They haven’t a bit of a garden for ’em. More shame too I say, when they pays such rents. People that sits working all day is very fond of a sweet flower. A gentleman that’s always a-writing or a-reading in his office—he’s in the timber-trade—buys something of me every time I see him; twice or thrice a week, sometimes. I can’t say what he does with them all. Barmaids, though you mightn’t think it, sir, is wery tidy customers. So, sometimes, is young women that’s in an improper way of life, about Lisson-grove, and in some parts near Oxford-street. They buys all sorts. Perhaps more stocks than anything, for they’re beautiful roots, and not dear. I’ve sold real beauties for 2d.—real beauties, but small; 6d. is a fair price; one stock will perfume a house. I tell my customers not to sleep with them in the room; it isn’t good for the health. A doctor told me that, and said, ‘You ought to give me a fuchsia for my opinion.’ That was his joke. Primroses I sell most of—they’re not in pots—two or three or four miles out of town, and most if a family’s come into a new house, or changed their house, if there’s children. The young ones teases the old ones to buy them to set in the garden, and when children gets fairly to work that way, it’s a sure sale. If they can’t get over father, they’ll get over mother. Busy men never buy flowers, as far as I’ve seen.” [‘In no thoroughfare in the city, I am assured, is there a flower-stand—a circumstance speaking volumes as to the habits and tastes of the people. Of fruit-stalls and chop-houses there are in the neighbourhood of the Exchange, more than in any other part of London perhaps—the faculty of perceiving the beauty of colour, form, and perfume, as combined in flowers is not common to the man of business. The pleasures of the palate, however, they can all understand.’] “Parsons and doctors are often tidy customers,” resumed my informant. “They have a good deal of sitting and reading, I believe. I’ve heard a parson say to his wife, ‘Do, my dear, go and buy a couple of those wallflowers for my study.’ I don’t do much for working-men; the women’s my best customers. There’s a shoemaker to be sure comes down sometimes with his old woman to lay out 2d. or 3d. on me; ‘Let’s have something that smells strong,’ he’ll say, ‘stronger than cobbler’s wax; for, though I can’t smell that, others can.’ I’ve sold him musks (musk-plants) as often as anything.

“The poor people buy rather largely at times; that is, many of them buy. One day last summer, my old woman and me sold 600 penny pots of mignonette; and all about you saw them—and it was a pleasure to see them—in the poor women’s windows. The women are far the best customers. There was the mignonette behind the bits of bars they have, in the shape of gates and such like, in the front of their windows, in the way of preventing the pots falling into the street. Mignonette’s the best of all for a sure sale; where can you possibly have a sweeter or a nicer penn’orth, pot and all.”