In addition to the street-sale of ginger-beer is that of other summer-drinks. Of these, the principal is lemonade, the consumption of which is as much as that of all the others together. Indeed, the high-sounding names given to some of these beverages—such as “Nectar” and “Persian Sherbet”—are but other names for lemonade, in a slightly different colour or fashion.
Lemonade is made, by those vendors who deal in the best articles, after the following method: 1 lb. of carbonate of soda, 6d.; 1 lb. of tartaric acid, 1s. 4d. (“at least,” said an informant, “I pay 1s. 4d. at ’Pothecaries Hall, but it can be had at 1s.”); 1 lb. of loaf-sugar, 5½d.; essence of lemon, 3d. This admixture is kept, in the form of a powder, in a jar, and water is drawn from what the street-sellers call a “stone-barrel”—which is a stone jar, something like the common-shaped filters, with a tap—and a larger or smaller spoonful of the admixture in a glass of water supplies an effervescing draught for 1d. or ½d. “There’s sometimes shocking roguishness in the trade,” said one man, “and there is in a many trades—some uses vitriol!” Lemonade, made after the recipe I have given, is sometimes bottled by the street-sellers, and sold in the same way as ginger-beer. It is bought, also, for street sale of the ginger-beer manufacturers—the profit being the same—but so bought to less than a twentieth of the whole sale. The water in the stone barrel is spring-water, obtained from the nearest pump, and in hot weather obtained frequently, so as to be “served” in as cool a state as possible. Sometimes lemonade powders are used; they are bought at a chemist’s, at 1s. 6d. the pound. “Sherbet” is the same admixture, with cream of tartar instead of tartaric acid. “Raspberry” has, sometimes, the addition of a few crusted raspberries, and a colouring of cochineal, with, generally, a greater degree of sweetening than lemonade. “If cochineal is used for colouring,” said one man, “it sometimes turns brown in the sun, and the rasberry don’t sell. A little lake’s better.” “Lemon-juice” is again lemonade, with a slight infusion of saffron to give it a yellow or pale orange colour. “Nectar,” in imitation of Soyer’s, has more sugar and less acid than the lemonade; spices, such as cinnamon, is used to flavour it, and the colouring is from lake and saffron.
These “cooling drinks” are sold from the powder or the jar, as I have described, from fountains, and from bottles. The fountain sale is not above a tenth of the whole. All is sold in ½d. and 1d. glasses, except the nectar, which is never less than 1d. The customers are the same as those who buy ginger-beer; but one “lemonader” with whom I conversed, seemed inclined to insist that they were a “more respectabler class.” Boys are good customers—better, perhaps, than for the beer,—as “the colour and the fine names attracts them.”
The “cooling drink” season, like that of the ginger-beer, is determined by the weather, and last summer it was only four months. It was computed for me that there were 200 persons, chiefly men, selling solely lemonade, &c., and an additional 300 uniting the sale with that of ginger-beer. One man, whose statement was confirmed by others, told me that on fine days he took 3s. 6d., out of which he cleared 2s. to 2s. 6d.; and he concluded that his brother tradesmen cleared as much every fine day, and so, allowing for wet weather and diminished receipts, made 10s. a week. The receipts, then, for this street luxury—a receipt of 17s. 6d. affording a profit of 10s.—show a street expenditure in such a summer as the last, of 2,800l., by those who do not unite ginger-beer with the trade. Calculating that those who do unite ginger-beer with it sell only one-half as much as the others, we find a total outlay of 4,900l. One of the best trades is in the hands of a man who “works” Smithfield, and on the market days clears generally from 6s. to 9s.
The stalls, &c., are of the same character as those of the ginger-beer sellers. The capital required to start is:—stone barrel, with brass tap, 5s. 6d.; stand and trestle, 6s.; 6 tumbler glasses, 2s. 3d.; 2 towels, 6d.; stock money, 2s. 6d.; jar, 2s.; 12 bottles (when used), 3s. 6d.; in all, about a guinea.
In showing the money expended in the ginger-beer trade it must be borne in mind that a large portion of the profits accrues to persons who cannot be properly classed with the regular street-traders. Such is the proprietor of the great fountain of which I have spoken, who is to be classed as a speculative man, ready to embark capital in any way—whether connected with street-traffic or not—likely to be remunerative. The other and large participants in the profits are the wholesale ginger-beer manufacturers, who are also the letters-out of fountains, one of them having generally nine let out at a time. For a street trader to sell three gross of ginger-beer in bottle is now accounted a good week, and for that the receipts will be 36s. with a profit in the penny bottle trade, to the seller, if he buy of a manufacturer, of 12s.; if he be his own brewer—reckoning a fair compensation for labour, and for money invested in utensils, and in bottles, &c., of 20s. An ordinary week’s sale is two gross, costing the public 24s., with the same proportion of profit in the same trade to the seller. In a bad week, or “in a small way to help out other things,” not more than one gross is sold.
The fountain trade is the most profitable to the proprietors, whether they send out their machines on their own account, or let them out on hire; but perhaps there are only an eighth of the number not let out on hire. Calculating that a fountain be let out for three successive seasons of twenty weeks each, at only 4s. the week, the gross receipts are 12l. for what on the first day of hire was worth only 7l.; so that the returns from 200 machines let out for the same term, would be 2,400l., or a profit of 1,000l. over and above the worth of the fountain, which having been thus paid for is of course in a succeeding year the means of a clear profit of 4l. I am assured that the weekly average of “a fountain’s takings,” when in the hands of the regular street-dealers, is 18s.
The barrel traders may be taken as in the average receipt of 6s. a week.
The duration of the season was, last year, only sixteen weeks. Calculating from the best data I could acquire, it appears that for this period 200 street-sellers of ginger-beer in the bottle trade of the penny class take 30s. a week each (thus allowing for the inferior receipts in bad weather); 300 take 20s. each, selling for the most part at ½d. the bottle, and that the remaining 400 “in a small way” take 6s. each; hence we find 11,480l. expended in the bottled ginger-beer of the streets. Adding the receipts from the fountains and the barrels, the barrel season continuing only ten weeks, the total sum expended annually in street ginger-beer is altogether 14,660l. The bottles of ginger-beer sold yearly in the streets will number about 4,798,000, and the total street consumption of the same beverage may be said to be about 250,000 gallons per annum.