London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. 1

by Henry Mayhew

To dress a draught of eels takes three hours—to clean, cut them up, and cook them sufficiently; and the cost is now 5s. 2d. (much lower in the summer) for the draught (the 2d. being the expense of “shoring”), 8d. for 4 lb. of flour to thicken the liquor, 2d. for the parsley to flavour it, and 1s. 6d. for the vinegar, spices, and pepper (about three quarts of vinegar and two ounces of pepper). This quantity, when dressed and seasoned, will fetch in halfpennyworths from 15s. to 18s. The profit upon this would be from 7s. to 9s. 6d.; but the cost of the charcoal has to be deducted, as well as the salt used while cooking. These two items amount to about 5d.

The pea-soup consists of split peas, celery, and beef bones. Five pints, at 3½d. a quart, are used to every three gallons; the bones cost 2d., carrots 1d., and celery ½d.—these cost 1s. 0¼d.; and the pepper, salt, and mint, to season it, about 2d. This, when served in halfpenny basinfulls, will fetch from 2s. 3d. to 2s. 4d., leaving 1s. 1d. profit. But from this the expenses of cooking must be taken; so that the clear gain upon three gallons comes to about 11d. In a large trade, three kettles, or twelve gallons, of pea-soup will be disposed of in the day, and about four draughts, or 80 lbs., of hot eels on every day but Saturday,—when the quantity of eels disposed of would be about five draughts, or 100 lbs. weight, and about 15 gallons of pea-soup. Hence the profits of a good business in the hot-eel and pea-soup line united will be from 7l. to 7l. 10s. per week, or more. But there is only one man in London does this amount of business, or rather makes this amount of money. A small business will do about 15 lbs. of eels in the week, including Saturday, and about 12 gallons of soup. Sometimes credit is given for a halfpennyworth, or a pennyworth, at the outside; but very little is lost from bad debts. Boys who are partaking of the articles will occasionally say to the proprietor of the stall, “Well, master, they are nice; trust us another ha’p’orth, and I’ll pay you when I comes again;” but they are seldom credited, for the stall-keepers know well they would never see them again. Very often the stock cooked is not disposed of, and then it is brought home and eaten by the family. The pea-soup will seldom keep a night, but what is left the family generally use for supper.

The dealers go out about half-past ten in the morning, and remain out till about ten at night. Monday is the next best day to Saturday. The generality of the customers are boys from 12 to 16 years of age. Newsboys are very partial to hot eels—women prefer the pea-soup. Some of the boys will have as many as six halfpenny cupfulls consecutively on a Saturday night; and some women will have three halfpenny basinsfull of soup. Many persons in the cold weather prefer the hot soup to beer. On wet, raw, chilly days, the soup goes off better than usual, and in fine weather there is a greater demand for the hot eels. One dealer assured me that he once did serve two gentlemen’s servants with twenty-eight halfpenny cupfulls of hot eels one after another. One servant had sixteen, and the other twelve cupfulls, which they ate all at one standing; and one of these customers was so partial to hot eels, that he used to come twice a day every day for six months after that, and have eight cupfulls each day, four at noon and four in the evening. These two persons were the best customers my informant ever had. Servants, however, are not generally partial to the commodity. Hot eels are not usually taken for dinner, nor is pea-soup, but throughout the whole day, and just at the fancy of the passers-by. There are no shops for the sale of these articles. The dealers keep no accounts of what their receipts and expenditure are.

The best time of the year for the hot eels is from the middle of June to the end of August. On some days during that time a person in a small way of business will clear upon an average 1s. 6d. a day, on other days 1s.; on some days, during the month of August, as much as 2s. 6d. a day. Some cry out “Nice hot eels—nice hot eels!” or “Warm your hands and fill your bellies for a halfpenny.” One man used to give his surplus eels, when he considered his sale completed on a night, to the poor creatures refused admission into a workhouse, lending them his charcoal fire for warmth, which was always returned to him. The poor creatures begged cinders, and carried the fire under a railway arch. The general rule, however, is for the dealer to be silent, and merely expose the articles for sale. “I likes better,” said one man to me, “to touch up people’s noses than their heyes or their hears.” There are now in the trade almost more than can get a living at it, and their earnings are less than they were formerly. One party attributed this to the opening of a couple of penny-pie shops in his neighbourhood. Before then he could get 2s. 6d. a day clear, take one day with another; but since the establishment of the business in the penny-pie line he cannot take above 1s. 6d. a day clear. On the day the first of these pie-shops opened, it made as much as 10 lbs., or half a draught of eels, difference to him. There was a band of music and an illumination at the pie-shop, and it was impossible to stand against that. The fashionable dress of the trade is the “Jenny Lind” or “wide-awake” hat, with a broad black ribbon tied round it, and a white apron and sleeves. The dealers usually go to Hampton-court or Greenwich on a fine Sunday. They are partial to the pit of Astley’s. One of them told his waterman at Billingsgate the other morning that “he and his good lady had been werry amused with the osses at Hashley’s last night.”

Of the Experience of a Hot-Eel and Pea-soup Man.

“I was a coalheaver,” said one of the class to me, as I sat in his attic up a close court, watching his wife “thicken the liquor;” “I was a-going along the plank, from one barge to another, when the swell of some steamers throwed the plank off the ‘horse,’ and chucked me down, and broke my knee agin the side of the barge. Before that I was yarning upon an average my 20s. to 30s. a week. I was seven months and four days in King’s College Hospital after this. I found they was a-doing me no good there, so I come out and went over to Bartholemy’s Hospital. I was in there nineteen months altogether, and after that I was a month in Middlesex Hospital, and all on ’em turned me out oncurable. You see, the bone’s decayed—four bits of bone have been taken from it. The doctor turned me out three times ’cause I wouldn’t have it off. He asked my wife if she would give consent, but neither she nor my daughter would listen to it, so I was turned out on ’em all. How my family lived all this time it’s hard to tell. My eldest boy did a little—got 3s. 6d. a week as an errand-boy, and my daughter was in service, and did a little for me; but that was all we had to live upon. There was six children on my hands, and however they did manage I can’t say. After I came out of the hospital I applied to the parish, and was allowed 2s. 6d. a week and four loaves. But I was anxious to do something, so a master butcher, as I knowed, said he would get me ‘a pitch’ (the right to fix a stall), if I thought I could sit at a stall and sell a few things. I told him I thought I could, and would be very thankful for it. Well, I had heard how the man up in the market was making a fortune at the hot-eel and pea-soup line. [A paviour as left his barrow and two shovels with me told me to-day, said the man, by way of parenthesis—‘that he knowed for a fact he was clearing 6l. a week regular.’] So I thought I’d have a touch at the same thing. But you see, I never could rise money enough to get sufficient stock to make a do of it, and never shall, I expect—it don’t seem like it, however. I ought to have 5s. to go to market with to-morrow, and I ain’t got above 1s. 6d.; and what’s that for stock-money, I’d like to know? Well, as I was saying, the master butcher lent me 10s. to start in the line. He was the best friend I ever had. But I’ve never been able to do anything at it—not to say to get a living.” “He can’t carry anything now, sir,” said his wife, as the old man strove to get the bellows to warm up the large kettle of pea-soup that was on the fire. “Aye, I can’t go without my crutch. My daughter goes to Billingsgate for me. I’ve got nobody else; and she cuts up the eels. If it warn’t for her I must give it up altogether, and go into the workhouse outright. I couldn’t fetch ’em. I ought to have been out to-night by rights till ten, if I’d had anything to have sold. My wife can’t do much; she’s troubled with the rheumatics in her head and limbs.” “Yes,” said the old body, with a sigh, “I’m never well, and never shall be again, I know.” “Would you accept on a drop of soup, sir?” asked the man; “you’re very welcome, I can assure you. You’ll find it very good, sir.” I told him I had just dined, and the poor old fellow proceeded with his tale. “Last week I earned clear about 8s., and that’s to keep six on us. I didn’t pay no rent last week nor yet this, and I don’t know when I shall again, if things goes on in this way. The week before there was a fast-day, and I didn’t earn above 6s. that week, if I did that. My boy can’t go to school. He’s got no shoes nor nothing to go in. The girls go to the ragged-school, but we can’t send them of a Sunday nowhere.” “Other people can go,” said one of the young girls nestling round the fire, and with a piece of sacking over her shoulders for a shawl—“them as has got things to go in; but mother don’t like to let us go as we are.” “She slips her mother’s shoes on when she goes out. It would take 1l. to start me well. With that I could go to market, and buy my draught of eels a shilling cheaper, and I could afford to cut my pieces a little bigger; and people where they gets used well comes again—don’t you see? I could have sold more eels if I’d had ’em to-day, and soup too. Why, there’s four hours of about the best time to-night that I’m losing now ’cause I’ve nothing to sell. The man in the market can give more than we can. He gives what is called the lumping ha’p’orth—that is, seven or eight pieces; ah, that I daresay he does; indeed, some of the boys has told me he gives as many as eight pieces. And then the more eels you biles up, you see, the richer the liquor is, and in our little tin-pot way it’s like biling up a great jint of meat in a hocean of water. In course we can’t compete agin the man in the market, and so we’re being ruined entirely. The boys very often comes and asks me if I’ve got a farden’s-worth of heads. The woman at Broadway, they tells me, sells ’em at four a farden and a drop of liquor, but we chucks ’em away, there’s nothing to eat on them; the boys though will eat anything.”

In the hot-eel trade are now 140 vendors, each selling 6 lb. of eels daily at their stands; 60 sell 40 lb. daily; and 100 are itinerant, selling 5 lb. nightly at the public-houses. The first mentioned take 2s. daily; the second 16s.; and the third 1s. 8d. This gives a street expenditure in the trade in hot eels of 21,910l. for the year.

To start in this business a capital is required after this rate:—stall 6s.; basket 1s.; eel-kettle 3s. 6d.; jar 6d.; ladle 4d.; 12 cups 1s.; 12 spoons 1s.; stew-pan 2s.; chafing-dish 6d.; strainer 1s.; 8 cloths 2s. 8d.; a pair sleeves 4d.; apron 4d.; charcoal 2s. (4d. being an average daily consumption); ¼ cwt. coal 3½d.; ½ lb. butter (the weekly average) 4d.; 1 quartern flour 5d.; 4 oz. pepper 4d.; 1 quart vinegar 10d.; 1 lb. salt ½d.; 1 lb. candles for stall 6d.; parsley 3d.; stock-money 10s. In all 1l. 15s. In the course of a year the property which may be described as fixed, as in the stall, &c., and the expenditure daily occurring as for stock, butter, coal, according to the foregoing statement, amounts to 15,750l. The eels purchased for this trade at Billingsgate are 1,166,880 lb., costing, at 3d. per lb., 14,586l.

In the pea-soup trade there are now one half of the whole number of the hot-eel vendors; of whom 100 will sell, each 4 gallons daily; and of the remaining 50 vendors, each will sell upon an average 10 gallons daily. The first mentioned take 3s. daily; and the last 7s. 6d. This gives a street expenditure of 4,050l. during the winter season of five months.

To commence business in the street sale of pea-soup a capital is required after this rate: soup-kettle 4s.; peas 2s.; soup-ladle 6d.; pepper-box 1d.; mint-box 3d.; chafing-dish 6d.; 12 basons 1s.; 12 spoons 1s.; bones, celery, mint, carrots, and onions, 1s. 6d. In all 10s. 10d. The hot-eel trade being in conjunction with the pea-soup, the same stall, candles, towels, sleeves, and aprons, does for both, and the quantity of extra coal and charcoal; pepper and salt given in the summary of hot-eels serves in cooking, &c., both eels and pea-soup.