London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. 1

by Henry Mayhew

I shall now proceed to treat of the London costermongers’ mode of doing business.

In the first place all the goods they sell are cried or “hawked,” and the cries of the costermongers in the present day are as varied as the articles they sell. The principal ones, uttered in a sort of cadence, are now, “Ni-ew mackerel, 6 a shilling.” (“I’ve got a good jacketing many a Sunday morning,” said one dealer, “for waking people up with crying mackerel, but I’ve said, ‘I must live while you sleep.’”) “Buy a pair of live soles, 3 pair for 6d.”—or, with a barrow, “Soles, 1d. a pair, 1d. a pair;” “Plaice alive, alive, cheap;” “Buy a pound crab, cheap;” “Pine-apples, ½d. a slice;” “Mussels a penny a quart;” “Oysters, a penny a lot;” “Salmon alive, 6d. a pound;” “Cod alive, 2d. a pound;” “Real Yarmouth bloaters, 2 a penny;” “New herrings alive, 16 a groat” (this is the loudest cry of any); “Penny a bunch turnips” (the same with greens, cabbages, &c.); “All new nuts, 1d. half-pint;” “Oranges, 2 a penny;” “All large and alive-O, new sprats, O, 1d. a plate;” “Wi-ild Hampshire rabbits, 2 a shilling;” “Cherry ripe, 2d. a pound;” “Fine ripe plums, 1d. a pint;” “Ing-uns, a penny a quart;” “Eels, 3lbs. a shilling—large live eels 3lbs. a shilling.”

The continual calling in the streets is very distressing to the voice. One man told me that it had broken his, and that very often while out he lost his voice altogether. “They seem to have no breath,” the men say, “after calling for a little while.” The repeated shouting brings on a hoarseness, which is one of the peculiar characteristics of hawkers in general. The costers mostly go out with a boy to cry their goods for them. If they have two or three hallooing together, it makes more noise than one, and the boys can shout better and louder than the men. The more noise they can make in a place the better they find their trade. Street-selling has been so bad lately that many have been obliged to have a drum for their bloaters, “to drum the fish off,” as they call it.

In the second place, the costermongers, as I said before, have mostly their little bit of a “round;” that is, they go only to certain places; and if they don’t sell their goods they “work back” the same way again. If they visit a respectable quarter, they confine themselves to the mews near the gentlemen’s houses. They generally prefer the poorer neighbourhoods. They go down or through almost all the courts and alleys—and avoid the better kind of streets, unless with lobsters, rabbits, or onions. If they have anything inferior, they visit the low Irish districts—for the Irish people, they say, want only quantity, and care nothing about quality—that they don’t study. But if they have anything they wish to make a price of, they seek out the mews, and try to get it off among the gentlemen’s coachmen, for they will have what is good; or else they go among the residences of mechanics,—for their wives, they say, like good-living as well as the coachmen. Some costers, on the other hand, go chance rounds.

Concerning the busiest days of the week for the coster’s trade, they say Wednesdays and Fridays are the best, because they are regular fish days. These two days are considered to be those on which the poorer classes generally run short of money. Wednesday night is called “draw night” among some mechanics and labourers—that is, they then get a portion of their wages in advance, and on Friday they run short as well as on the Wednesday, and have to make shift for their dinners. With the few halfpence they have left, they are glad to pick up anything cheap, and the street-fishmonger never refuses an offer. Besides, he can supply them with a cheaper dinner than any other person. In the season the poor generally dine upon herrings. The poorer classes live mostly on fish, and the “dropped” and “rough” fish is bought chiefly for the poor. The fish-huckster has no respect for persons, however; one assured me that if Prince Halbert was to stop him in the street to buy a pair of soles of him, he’d as soon sell him a “rough pair as any other man—indeed, I’d take in my own father,” he added, “if he wanted to deal with me.” Saturday is the worst day of all for fish, for then the poor people have scarcely anything at all to spend; Saturday night, however, the street-seller takes more money than at any other time in the week.

Of the Costermongers on their Country Rounds.

Some costermongers go what they term “country rounds,” and they speak of their country expeditions as if they were summer excursions of mere pleasure. They are generally variations from a life growing monotonous. It was computed for me that at present three out of every twenty costermongers “take a turn in the country” at least once a year. Before the prevalence of railways twice as many of these men carried their speculations in fish, fruit, or vegetables to a country mart. Some did so well that they never returned to London. Two for instance, after a country round, settled at Salisbury; they are now regular shopkeepers, “and very respectable, too,” was said to me, “for I believe they are both pretty tidy off for money; and are growing rich.” The railway communication supplies the local-dealer with fish, vegetables, or any perishable article, with such rapidity and cheapness that the London itinerant’s occupation in the towns and villages about the metropolis is now half gone.

In the following statement by a costermonger, the mode of life on a country round, is detailed with something of an assumption of metropolitan superiority.

“It was fine times, sir, ten year back, aye, and five year back, in the country, and it ain’t so bad now, if a man’s known. It depends on that now far more than it did, and on a man’s knowing how to work a village. Why, I can tell you if it wasn’t for such as me, there’s many a man working on a farm would never taste such a nice thing as a fresh herring—never, sir. It’s a feast at a poor country labourer’s place, when he springs six-penn’orth of fresh herrings, some for supper, and some in salt for next day. I’ve taken a shillings’-worth to a farmer’s door of a darkish night in a cold autumn, and they’d a warm and good dish for supper, and looked on me as a sort of friend. We carry them relishes from London; and they like London relishes, for we know how to set them off. I’ve fresh herringed a whole village near Guildford, first thing in the morning. I’ve drummed round Guildford too, and done well. I’ve waked up Kingston with herrings. I’ve been as welcome as anything to the soldiers in the barracks at Brentwood, and Romford, and Maidstone with my fresh herrings; for they’re good customers. In two days I’ve made 2l. out of 10s. worth of fresh herrings, bought at Billingsgate. I always lodge at a public-house in the country; so do all of us, for the publicans are customers. We are well received at the public-houses; some of us go there for the handiness of the ‘lush.’ I’ve done pretty well with red herrings in the country. A barrel holds (say) 800. We sell the barrels at 6d. a piece, and the old women fight after them. They pitch and tar them, to make water-barrels. More of us would settle in the country, only there’s no life there.”

The most frequented round is from Lambeth to Wandsworth, Kingston, Richmond, Guildford, and Farnham. The costermonger is then “sold out,” as he calls it,—he has disposed of his stock, and returns by the way which is most lightly tolled, no matter if the saving of 1d. or 2d. entail some miles extra travelling. “It cost me 15d. for tolls from Guildford for an empty cart and donkey,” said a costermonger just up from the country.