“I have sold ‘wet fish’ in the streets for more than fourteen years,” he said; “before that I was a gentleman, and was brought up a gentleman, if I’m a beggar now. I bought fish largely in the north of England once, and now I must sell it in the streets of London. Never mind talking about that, sir; there’s some things won’t bear talking about. There’s a wonderful difference in the streets since I knew them first; I could make a pound then, where I can hardly make a crown now. People had more money, and less meanness then. I consider that the railways have injured me, and all wet fish-sellers, to a great extent. Fish now, you see, sir, comes in at all hours, so that nobody can calculate on the quantity that will be received—nobody. That’s the mischief of it; we are afraid to buy, and miss many a chance of turning a penny. In my time, since railways were in, I’ve seen cod-fish sold at a guinea in the morning that were a shilling at noon; for either the wind and the tide had served, or else the railway fishing-places were more than commonly supplied, and there was a glut to London. There’s no trade requires greater judgment than mine—none whatever. Before the railways—and I never could see the good of them—the fish came in by the tide, and we knew how to buy, for there would be no more till next tide. Now, we don’t know. I go to Billingsgate to buy my fish, and am very well known to Mr. —— and Mr. —— (mentioning the names of some well-known salesmen). The Jews are my ruin there now. When I go to Billingsgate, Mr. —— will say, or rather, I will say to him, ‘How much for this pad of soles?’ He will answer, ‘Fourteen shillings.’ ‘Fourteen shillings!’ I say, ‘I’ll give you seven shillings,—that’s the proper amount;’ then the Jew boys—none of them twenty that are there—ranged about will begin; and one says, when I bid 7s., ‘I’ll give 8s;’ ‘nine,’ says another, close on my left; ‘ten,’ shouts another, on my right, and so they go offering on; at last Mr. —— says to one of them, as grave as a judge, ‘Yours, sir, at 13s,’ but it’s all gammon. The 13s. buyer isn’t a buyer at all, and isn’t required to pay a farthing, and never touches the goods. It’s all done to keep up the price to poor fishmen, and so to poor buyers that are our customers in the streets. Money makes money, and it don’t matter how. Those Jew boys—I dare say they’re the same sort as once sold oranges about the streets—are paid, I know 1s. for spending three or four hours that way in the cold and wet. My trade has been injured, too, by the great increase of Irish costermongers; for an Irishman will starve out an Englishman any day; besides if a tailor can’t live by his trade, he’ll take to fish, or fruit and cabbages. The month of May is a fine season for plaice, which is bought very largely by my customers. Plaice are sold at ½d. and 1d. a piece. It is a difficult fish to manage, and in poor neighbourhoods an important one to manage well. The old hands make a profit out of it; new hands a loss. There’s not much cod or other wet fish sold to the poor, while plaice is in. My customers are poor men’s wives,—mechanics, I fancy. They want fish at most unreasonable prices. If I could go and pull them off a line flung off Waterloo-bridge, and no other expense, I couldn’t supply them as cheap as they expect them. Very cheap fish-sellers lose their customers, through the Billingsgate bummarees, for they have pipes, and blow up the cod-fish, most of all, and puff up their bellies till they are twice the size, but when it comes to table, there’s hardly to say any fish at all. The Billingsgate authorities would soon stop it, if they knew all I know. They won’t allow any roguery, or any trick, if they only come to hear of it. These bummarees have caused many respectable people to avoid street-buying, and so fair traders like me are injured. I’ve nothing to complain of about the police. Oft enough, if I could be allowed ten minutes longer on a Saturday night, I could get through all my stock without loss. About a quarter to twelve I begin to halloo away as hard as I can, and there’s plenty of customers that lay out never a farthing till that time, and then they can’t be served fast enough, so they get their fish cheaper than I do. If any halloos out that way sooner, we must all do the same. Anything rather than keep fish over a warm Sunday. I have kept mine in ice; I haven’t opportunity now, but it’ll keep in a cool place this time of year. I think there’s as many sellers as buyers in the streets, and there’s scores of them don’t give just weight or measure. I wish there was good moral rules in force, and everybody gave proper weight. I often talk to street-dealers about it. I’ve given them many a lecture; but they say they only do what plenty of shopkeepers do, and just get fined and go on again, without being a pin the worse thought of. They are abusive sometimes, too; I mean the street-sellers are, because they are ignorant. I have no children, thank God, and my wife helps me in my business. Take the year through, I clear from 10s. to 12s. every week. That’s not much to support two people. Some weeks I earn only 4s.,—such as in wet March weather. In others I earn 18s. or 1l. November, December, and January are good months for me. I wouldn’t mind if they lasted all the year round. I’m often very badly off indeed—very badly; and the misery of being hard up, sir, is not when you’re making a struggle to get out of your trouble; no, nor to raise a meal off herrings that you’ve given away once, but when your wife and you’s sitting by a grate without a fire, and putting the candle out to save it, a planning how to raise money. ‘Can we borrow there?’ ‘Can we manage to sell if we can borrow?’ ‘Shall we get from very bad to the parish?’ Then, perhaps, there’s a day lost, and without a bite in our mouths trying to borrow. Let alone a little drop to give a body courage, which perhaps is the only good use of spirit after all. That’s the pinch, sir. When the rain you hear outside puts you in mind of drownding!”
Subjoined is the amount (in round numbers) of wet fish annually disposed of in the metropolis by the street-sellers:
| No. of Fish. | lbs. weight. | |
|---|---|---|
| Salmon | 20,000 | 175,000 |
| Live-cod | 100,000 | 1,000,000 |
| Soles | 6,500,000 | 1,650,000 |
| Whiting | 4,440,000 | 1,680,000 |
| Haddock | 250,000 | 500,000 |
| Plaice | 29,400,000 | 29,400,000 |
| Mackarel | 15,700,000 | 15,700,000 |
| Herrings | 875,000,000 | 210,000,000 |
| Sprats | „ | 3,000,000 |
| Eels, from Holland | 400,000 | 65,000 |
| Flounders | 260,000 | 43,000 |
| Dabs | 270,000 | 48,000 |
| Total quantity of wet fish sold in the streets of London | 932,340,000 | 263,261,000 |
From the above Table we perceive that the fish, of which the greatest quantity is eaten by the poor, is herrings; of this, compared with plaice there is upwards of thirty times the number consumed. After plaice rank mackerel, and of these the consumption is about one-half less in number than plaice, while the number of soles vended in the streets, is again half of that of mackerel. Then come whiting, which are about two-thirds the number of the soles, while the consumption to the poor of haddock, cod, eels, and salmon, is comparatively insignificant. Of sprats, which are estimated by weight, only one-fifth of the number of pounds are consumed compared with the weight of mackerel. The pounds’ weight of herrings sold in the streets, in the course of a year, is upwards of seven times that of plaice, and fourteen times that of mackerel. Altogether more than 260,000,000 pounds, or 116,000 tons weight of wet fish are yearly purchased in the streets of London, for the consumption of the humbler classes. Of this aggregate amount, no less than five-sixths consists of herrings; which, indeed, constitute the great slop diet of the metropolis.
Of Sprat-selling in the Streets.
Sprats—one of the cheapest and most grateful luxuries of the poor—are generally introduced about the 9th of November. Indeed “Lord Mayor’s day” is sometimes called “sprat day.” They continue in about ten weeks. They are sold at Billingsgate by the “toss,” or “chuck,” which is about half a bushel, and weighs from 40lbs. to 50lbs. The price varies from 1s. to 5s. Sprats are, this season, pronounced remarkably fine. “Look at my lot sir,” said a street-seller to me; “they’re a heap of new silver,” and the bright shiny appearance of the glittering little fish made the comparison not inappropriate. In very few, if in any, instances does a costermonger confine himself to the sale of sprats, unless his means limit him to that one branch of the business. A more prosperous street-fishmonger will sometimes detach the sprats from his stall, and his wife, or one of his children will take charge of them. Only a few sprat-sellers are itinerant, the fish being usually sold by stationary street-sellers at “pitches.” One who worked his sprats through the streets, or sold them from a stall as he thought best, gave me the following account. He was dressed in a newish fustian-jacket, buttoned close up his chest, but showing a portion of a clean cotton shirt at the neck, with a bright-coloured coarse handkerchief round it; the rest of his dress was covered by a white apron. His hair, as far as I could see it under his cloth cap, was carefully brushed, and (it appeared) as carefully oiled. At the first glance I set him down as having been a gentleman’s servant. He had a somewhat deferential, though far from cringing manner with him, and seemed to be about twenty-five or twenty-six—he thought he was older, he said, but did not know his age exactly.
“Ah! sir,” he began, in a tone according with his look, “sprats is a blessing to the poor. Fresh herrings is a blessing too, and sprats is young herrings, and is a blessing in ’portion” [for so he pronounced what seemed to be a favourite word with him “proportion”]. “It’s only four years—yes, four, I’m sure of that—since I walked the streets starving, in the depth of winter, and looked at the sprats, and said, I wish I could fill my belly off you. Sir, I hope it was no great sin, but I could hardly keep my hands from stealing some and eating them raw. If they make me sick, thought I, the police’ll take care of me, and that’ll be something. While these thoughts was a passing through my mind, I met a man who was a gentleman’s coachman; I knew him a little formerly, and so I stopped him and told him who I was, and that I hadn’t had a meal for two days. ‘Well, by G—,’ said the coachman, ‘you look like it, why I shouldn’t have known you. Here’s a shilling.’ And then he went on a little way, and then stopped, and turned back and thrust 3½d. more into my hand, and bolted off. I’ve never seen him since. But I’m grateful to him in the same ’portion (proportion) as if I had. After I’d had a penn’orth of bread and a penn’orth of cheese, and half-a-pint of beer, I felt a new man, and I went to the party as I’d longed to steal the sprats from, and told him what I’d thought of. I can’t say what made me tell him, but it turned out for good. I don’t know much about religion, though I can read a little, but may be that had something to do with it.” The rest of the man’s narrative was—briefly told—as follows. He was the only child of a gentleman’s coachman. His father had deserted his mother and him, and gone abroad, he believed, with some family. His mother, however, took care of him until her death, which happened “when he was a little turned thirteen, he had heard, but could not remember the year.” After that he was “a helper and a jobber in different stables,” and “anybody’s boy,” for a few years, until he got a footman’s, or rather footboy’s place, which he kept above a year. After that he was in service, in and out of different situations, until the time he specified, when he had been out of place for nearly five weeks, and was starving. His master had got in difficulties, and had gone abroad; so he was left without a character. “Well, sir,” he continued, “the man as I wanted to steal the sprats from, says to me, says he, ‘Poor fellow; I know what a hempty belly is myself—come and have a pint.’ And over that there pint, he told me, if I could rise 10s. there might be a chance for me in the streets, and he’d show me how to do. He died not very long after that, poor man. Well, after a little bit, I managed to borrow 10s. of Mr. —— (I thought of him all of a sudden). He was butler in a family that I had lived in, and had a charitable character, though he was reckoned very proud. But I plucked up a spirit, and told him how I was off, and he said, ‘Well, I’ll try you,’ and he lent me 10s., which I paid him back, little by little, in six or eight weeks; and so I started in the costermonger line, with the advice of my friend, and I’ve made from 5s. to 10s., sometimes more, a week, at it ever since. The police don’t trouble me much. They is civil to me in ’portion (proportion) as I am civil to them. I never mixed with the costers but when I’ve met them at market. I stay at a lodging-house, but it’s very decent and clean, and I have a bed to myself, at 1s. a week, for I’m a regular man. I’m on sprats now, you see, sir, and you’d wonder, sometimes, to see how keen people looks to them when they’re new. They’re a blessing to the poor, in ’portion (proportion) of course. Not twenty minutes before you spoke to me, there was two poor women came up—they was sickly-looking, but I don’t know what they was—perhaps shirt-makers—and they says to me, says they, ‘Show us what a penny plateful is.’ ‘Sart’nly, ladies,’ says I. Then they whispered together, and at last one says, says she, ‘We’ll have two platefuls.’ I told you they was a blessing to the poor, sir—’specially to such as them, as lives all the year round on bread and tea. But it’s not only the poor as buys; others in ’portion (proportion). When they’re new they’re a treat to everybody. I’ve sold them to poor working-men, who’ve said, ‘I’ll take a treat home to the old ’oman and the kids; they dotes on sprats.’ Gentlemen’s servants is very fond of them, and mechanics comes down—such as shoemakers in their leather aprons, and sings out, ‘Here, old sprats, give us two penn’orth.’ They’re such a relish. I sell more to men than to women, perhaps, but there’s little difference. They’re best stewed, sir, I think—if you’re fond of sprats—with vinegar and a pick of allspice; that’s my opinion, and, only yesterday, an old cook said I was right. I makes 1s. 6d. to 2s. 6d. a day, and sometimes rather more, on my sprats, and sticks to them as much as I can. I sell about my ‘toss’ a day, seldom less. Of course I can make as many penn’orths of it as I please, but there’s no custom without one gives middling penn’orths. If a toss costs me 3s., I may make sixty penn’orths of it sometimes—sometimes seventy or more—and sometimes less than sixty. There’s many turns over as much as me and more than that. I’m thinking that I’ll work the country with a lot; they’ll keep to a second day, when they’re fresh to start, ’specially if its frosty weather, too, and then they’re better than ever—yes, and a greater treat—scalding hot from the fire, they’re the cheapest and best of all suppers in the winter time. I hardly know which way I’ll go. If I can get anythink to do among horses in the country, I’ll never come back. I’ve no tie to London.”
To show how small a sum of money will enable the struggling striving poor to obtain a living, I may here mention that, in the course of my inquiries among the mudlarks, I casually gave a poor shoeless urchin, who was spoken of by one of the City Missionaries as being a well-disposed youth, 1s. out of the funds that had been entrusted to me to dispense. Trifling as the amount appears, it was the means of keeping his mother, sister, and himself through the winter. It was invested in sprats, and turned over and over again.
I am informed, by the best authorities, that near upon 1000 “tosses” of sprats are sold daily in London streets, while the season lasts. These, sold retail in pennyworths, at very nearly 5s. the toss, give about 150l. a day, or say 1,000l. a week spent on sprats by the poorer classes of the metropolis; so that, calculating the sprat season to last ten weeks, about 10,000l. would be taken by the costermongers during that time from the sale of this fish alone.
Another return, furnished me by an eminent salesman at Billingsgate, estimates the gross quantity of sprats sold by the London costers in the course of the season at three millions of pounds weight, and this disposed of at the rate of 1d. per pound, gives upwards of 12,000l. for the sum of money spent upon this one kind of fish.