London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. 1

by Henry Mayhew

The first removal, recently, took place in Leather-lane, Holborn, between three and four months back. It was effected in consequence of representations from the shopkeepers of the neighbourhood. But the removal was of a brief continuance. “Leather-lane,” I was told, “looked like a desert compared to what it was. People that had lived there for years hardly knew their own street; and those that had complained, might twiddle their thumbs in their shops for want of something better to do.”

The reason, or one reason, why the shopkeepers’ trade is co-existent with that of the street-sellers was explained to me in this way by a tradesman perfectly familiar with the subject. “The poorer women, the wives of mechanics or small tradesmen, who have to prepare dinners for their husbands, like, as they call it, ‘to make one errand do.’ If the wife buys fish or vegetables in the street, as is generally done, she will, at the same time, buy her piece of bacon or cheese at the cheesemonger’s, her small quantity of tea and sugar at the grocer’s, her fire-wood at the oilman’s, or her pound of beef or liver at the butcher’s. In all the street-markets there are plenty of such tradesmen, supplying necessaries not vended in the streets, and so one errand is sufficient to provide for the wants of the family. Such customers—that is, such as have been used to buy in the streets—will not be driven to buy at the shops. They can’t be persuaded that they can buy as cheap at the shops; and besides they are apt to think shopkeepers are rich and street-sellers poor, and that they may as well encourage the poor. So if one street-market is abolished, they’ll go to another, or buy of the itinerant costermongers, and they’ll get their bits of groceries and the like at the shops in the neighbourhood of the other street-market, even if they have a walk for it; and thus everybody’s injured by removing markets, except a few, and they are those at the nearest markets that’s not disturbed.”

In Leather-lane the shopkeepers speedily retrieved what many soon came to consider the false step (as regards their interests) which they had taken, and in a fortnight or so, they managed, by further representations to the police authorities, and by agreement with the street-sellers, that the street-market people should return. In little more than a fortnight from that time, Leather-lane, Holborn, resumed its wonted busy aspect.

In Lambeth the case at present is different. The men, women, and children, between two and three months back, were all driven by the police from their standings. These removals were made, I am assured, in consequence of representations to the police from the parishioners, not of Lambeth, but of the adjoining parish of Christchurch, Blackfriars-road, who described the market as an injury and a hindrance to their business. The costermongers, etc., were consequently driven from the spot.

A highly respectable tradesman in “the Cut” told me, that he and all his brother shopkeepers had found their receipts diminished a quarter, or an eighth at least, by the removal; and as in all populous neighbourhoods profits were small, this falling off was a very serious matter to them.

In “the Cut” and its immediate neighbourhood, are tradesmen who supply street-dealers with the articles they trade in,—such as cheap stationery, laces, children’s shoes, braces, and toys. They, of course, have been seriously affected by the removal; but the pinch has fallen sorest upon the street-sellers themselves. These people depend a good deal one upon another, as they make mutual purchases; now, as they have neither stalls nor means, such a source of profit is abolished.

“It is hard on such as me,” said a fruit-seller to me, “to be driven away, for nothing that I’ve done wrong as I knows of, and not let me make a living, as I’ve been brought up to. I can’t get no work at any of the markets. I’ve tried Billingsgate and the Borough hard, but there is so many poor men trying for a crust, they’re fit to knock a new-comer’s head off, though if they did, it wouldn’t be much matter. I had 9s. 6d. stock-money, and I sold the apples and a few pears I had for 3s. 9d., and that 13s. 3d. I’ve been spinning out since I lost my pitch. But it’s done now, and I haven’t had two meals a day for a week and more—and them not to call meals—only bread and coffee, or bread and a drink of beer. I tried to get a round of customers, but all the rounds was full, and I’m a very bad walker, and a weak man too. My wife’s gone to try the country—I don’t know where she is now. I suppose I shall lose my lodging this week, and then I must see what ‘the great house’ will say to me. Perhaps they’ll give me nothing, but take me in, and that’s hard on a man as don’t want to be a pauper.”

Another man told me that he now paid 3s. a week for privilege to stand with two stalls on a space opposite the entrance into the National Baths, New Cut; and that he and his wife, who had stood for eleven years in the neighbourhood, without a complaint against them, could hardly get a crust.

One man, with a fruit-stall, assured me that nine months ago he would not have taken 20l. for his pitch, and now he was a “regular bankrupt.” I asked a girl, who stood beside the kerb with her load in front strapped round her loins, whether her tray was heavy to carry. “After eight hours at it,” she answered, “it swaggers me, like drink.” The person whom I was with brought to me two girls, who, he informed me, had been forced to go upon the streets to gain a living. Their stall on the Saturday night used to have 4l. worth of stock; but trade had grown so bad since the New Police order, that after living on their wares, they had taken to prostitution for a living, rather than go to the “house.” The ground in front of the shops has been bought up by the costermongers at any price. Many now give the tradesmen six shillings a week for a stand, and one man pays as much as eight for the right of pitching in front.

The applications for parochial relief, in consequence of these removals, have been fewer than was anticipated. In Lambeth parish, however, about thirty families have been relieved, at a cost of 50l. Strange to say, a quarter, or rather more, of the very applicants for relief had been furnished by the parish with money to start the trade, their expulsion from which had driven them to pauperism.