“I was a copper-plate printer,” he said, “and twenty years ago could earn my 25s. a week. But employment fell off. The lithographic injured it, and at last I could get very little work, and then none at all, so I have been carrying now between three and four years. My father-in-law was in the trade, and that made me think of it. My best day’s work, and it’s the same with all, is 2s., which is sixteen turns. It’s not possible to do more. If that could be done every day it would be very well, but in wet weather when the laundresses, who are my customers, don’t want water, I can’t make 1s. a week. Then in a drought or a frost one has to wait such a long time for his turn, that it’s not 6d. a day; a dry spring’s the worst. Last March I had many days to wait six turns, and it takes well on to an hour for a turn then. We sit by the well and talk when we’re waiting. O, yes, sir, the Pope has had his turn of talk. There’s water companies both at Hampstead and Highgate, but our well water (Hampstead) is asked for, for all that. It’s so with Highgate. It is beautiful water, either for washing or drinking. Perhaps it’s better with a little drop of spirit for drinking, but I seldom taste it that way. The fatigue’s so great that we must take a little drop of spirit on a long day. No, sir, we don’t mix it; that spoils two good things. I’ve been at the well first light in the morning, and in summer I’ve been at work at it all night. There’s no rule among us, but it’s understood that every one has his turn. There’s a little chaff sometimes, and some get angry at having to wait, but I never knew a fight. I have a wife and three children. She works for a laundress, and has 2s. 6d. a day. She has two days regular every week, and sometimes odd turns as well. I think that the women earn more than the men in Hampstead. My rent is 1s. 6d. a week for an unfurnished room. There is no trade on Sundays, but on fine summer Sundays old —— attends at the well and sells glasses of cool water. He gets 2s. 6d. some days. He makes no charge; just what any one pleases to give. Any body might do it, but the old gentleman would grumble that they were taking his post.”
Computing the number of water carriers at the two places at sixty, and their average earnings through the year at 5s. a week, it appears that these men receive 780l. yearly. The capital required to start in the business is 9s., the cost of a pair of pails and a yoke.
The old man who sells water on the summer Sunday mornings, generally leaving off his sale at church-time, told me that his best customers were ladies and gentlemen who loved an early walk, and bought of him “as it looked like a bit of country life,” he supposed, more than from being thirsty. When such customers were not inhabitants of the neighbourhood, they came to him to ask their way, or to make inquiries concerning the localities. Sometimes he dispensed water to men who “looked as if they had been on the loose all night.” “One gentleman,” he said, “looks sharp about him, and puts a dark-coloured stuff—very likely it’s brandy—into the two or three glasses of water which he drinks every Sunday, or which he used to drink rather, for I missed him all last summer, I think. His hand trembled like a aspen; he mostly gave me 6d.” The water-seller spoke with some indignation of boys, and sometimes men, going to the well on a Sunday morning and “drinking out of their own tins that they’d taken with ’em.”
Of the Street-sellers of Pastry And Confectionary.
The cooked provisions sold in the streets, it has been before stated, consist of three kinds—solids, liquids, and pastry and confectionary. The two first have now been fully described, but the last still remains to be set forth.
The street pastry may be best characterised as of a strong flavour. This is, for the most part, attributable to the use of old or rancid butter,—possessing the all-important recommendation of cheapness,—or to the substitution of lard, dripping, or some congenial substance. The “strong” taste, however, appears to possess its value in the estimation of street pastry-buyers, especially among the boys. This may arise from the palates of the consumers having been unaccustomed to more delicate flavours, and having become habituated to the relish of that which is somewhat rank; just in the same way as the “fumet” of game or venison becomes dear to the palate of the more aristocratic gourmand. To some descriptions of street pastry the epithet strong-flavoured may seem inappropriate, but it is appropriate to the generality of these comestibles,—especially to the tarts, which constitute a luxury, if not to the meat pies or puddings that may supply a meal.
The articles of pastry sold in the London streets are meat and fruit pies, boiled meat and kidney puddings, plum “duff” or pudding, and an almost infinite variety of tarts, cakes, buns, and biscuits; while the confectionary consists of all the several preparations included under the wide denomination of “sweet-stuff,” as well as the more “medicinal” kind known as “cough drops;” in addition to these there are the more “aristocratic” delicacies recently introduced into street traffic, viz., penny raspberry creams and ices.
Of Street Piemen.
The itinerant trade in pies is one of the most ancient of the street callings of London. The meat pies are made of beef or mutton; the fish pies of eels; the fruit of apples, currants, gooseberries, plums, damsons, cherries, raspberries, or rhubarb, according to the season—and occasionally of mince-meat. A few years ago the street pie-trade was very profitable, but it has been almost destroyed by the “pie-shops,” and further, the few remaining street-dealers say “the people now haven’t the pennies to spare.” Summer fairs and races are the best places for the piemen. In London the best times are during any grand sight or holiday-making, such as a review in Hyde-park, the Lord Mayor’s show, the opening of Parliament, Greenwich fair, &c. Nearly all the men of this class, whom I saw, were fond of speculating as to whether the Great Exposition would be “any good” to them, or not.
The London piemen, who may number about forty in winter, and twice that number in summer, are seldom stationary. They go along with their pie-cans on their arms, crying, “Pies all ’ot! eel, beef, or mutton pies! Penny pies, all ’ot—all ’ot!” The “can” has been before described. The pies are kept hot by means of a charcoal fire beneath, and there is a partition in the body of the can to separate the hot and cold pies. The “can” has two tin drawers, one at the bottom, where the hot pies are kept, and above these are the cold pies. As fast as the hot dainties are sold, their place is supplied by the cold from the upper drawer.