CHAPTER XXIX.

MARKETS AND FOOD.

THE aggregate of time, labor, and expenditure, necessary to provide three millions and a half of inhabitants with food, in a city like London, is something beyond comprehension. In getting at the food statistics of this great City, I found more trouble than in procuring material and detail for any other portion of this book. And yet there cannot be anything of more interest to the public than to know how, when, and from where, a great city derives the food which subsists its citizens.

The London markets are well built, well ventilated, well situated, and well regulated. The markets of London are a credit to the city and people. The markets of New York are a scandal and a shame to that great city.

Some idea may be formed of the amount of food needed to subsist London from the figures which I will give.

The Metropolitan Cattle Market, in Caledonian Road, Islington, is the largest market in London, covering fifteen acres, and having three acres of slaughter houses. This market cost one million four hundred and sixty thousand pounds, and cannot be surpassed by any other market in the world. The yearly receipts at this market was as follows: 360,000 beef cattle, 36,000 calves, 1,900,000 sheep, and 37,650 pigs. Besides this vast amount of meat there was nearly as much more received at the Newgate, Leadenhall, and Whitechapel meat markets.

The other articles of food, brought to the London markets, are estimated by those who profess to have nearly accurate information, as follows: Seven million head of game and poultry, six hundred and fifty million pounds of fish, two hundred and fifty million barrels of oysters, and two hundred and fifty million cubic feet of eggs. This last item rather staggered me, but the other estimated quantities are, I am assured, rather below than above the aggregate annual consumption.

The inspections of the London markets are made very rigidly, and I do not wonder at the necessity for a strict watchfulness, when I find that, in 1868, 160,340 pounds of meat, and 1,963 head of game and poultry, were seized by the officers as being unfit for human food. This amount consisted in part of 1,200 sheep, 186 pigs, 73 calves, 1,100 quarters of beef, 762 joints of meat, 462 tame fowls, 121 wild fowl, 300 geese, 290 ducks, 316 pigeons, 15 lambs, and only thirty pounds of sausages. There were also 239 rabbits, 111 hares, 75 haunches and quarters of venison, 84 partridges, and four pounds of pickled pork. It will be seen that there was a very great deal of beef and mutton to a very little pickled pork and sausage. All of the game, and most of the poultry seized, was putrid, and of the meat 108,000 pounds were diseased, while 21,000 pounds were stinking; 36,240 pounds of meat being taken from animals that had died of natural causes. As soon as the meat is seized it is sprinkled with creosote of coal tar, which checks putrefaction, and at the same time prevents it from being used as food, after which it is sent to the bone-boilers and destroyed.

Besides the enormous amount of food received at the markets already enumerated, there was also received at the Borough Market, Southwark, Smithfield New Market, Newport Market, Cumberland, Portman, Clare, and the Potato Markets, by railway, in the same year, 17,000 tons of meat of all kinds, 100,000 tons of potatoes, 14,000 tons of fish, 15,000 tons of vegetables, and 60,000 tons of grain, wherewith to feed the Londoners.

[Sidenote: THE SMITHFIELD POLICE STATION.]

Before daybreak is the best time to see the Markets of London in all their bustle and brisk traffic, and one summer morning I accordingly took a cab from the Langham Hotel and told the sleepy driver to take me to the New Smithfield Market, which is convenient to Newgate Prison. We dashed madly in the gray of the morning (it was not yet more than four o'clock) through Regent street, up Oxford street, over the Holborn Viaduct, and so on to the Smithfield Police Station, which is situated at a few rods distant from the place where the Cock Lane Ghost was first discovered.

I had been directed by Inspector Bailey, of the Old Jewry office, to call at this police station, and he informed me that I should find a special policeman there at my disposal to show me the markets, and procure me any information I might desire in regard to them.

The Smithfield Police Station is like most London police stations, a very quiet and not pretentious edifice, just in the shadow of Smithfield New Market.

There was a little desk and a little railing, behind which sat a little man in a blue uniform of pilot cloth, and behind the little man were hung upon the plainly whitewashed walls a collection of handcuffs, pistols, and knives, all of which were deodands to the law. There were also placards, offering rewards for all kinds of offenders, thieves, forgers, murderers, and embezzlers, and giving detailed descriptions of their persons and clothing when last seen. These placards covered the walls, but did not add much to the appearance of the apartment. On producing my letter of introduction from Inspector Bailey to the Sergeant in command--who treated me with much civility, a bell was rung by the latter, and a policeman in uniform appeared, my old friend Ralfe, whom the Sergeant addressed as follows:

"Ralfe, you are to take this gentleman all through Smithfield Market, and show him the sights, and then you can transfer him to some one else to have him taken through Billingsgate Market, and after that he may take a look at Covent Garden Market, if he so desires. Show him everything that you can, then report to me back again."

"Yesir," said Mr. Ralfe, touching his hat, although he was not in uniform, and in another instant we were in the London streets, which were very drear and damp, the gas lamps yet burning with a feeble light, and the daybreak as yet not having revealed itself.

The way was murky and dark, and the vicinity of the market was sufficiently indicated by the peculiar raw, fresh smell, with which newly killed meat greets the nasal organs.

Smithfield Market is built on a large, open square, and being on high ground commands a good view of the City of London proper. The site of the New Market which was opened a year ago, was formerly covered by the Cattle Market, which is now removed to Islington, in the suburbs. The building is of mixed stone and brick, and the cost was about half a million pounds. The ground on which it is built is also nearly as valuable as the building. The market is about four hundred feet in length and a hundred and fifty in width. The roof is of iron, and a vast avenue, high, broad, and spacious in every way, runs through the entire building.

[Sidenote: THE HOT COFFEE GIRL.]

When I reached the market with my friend, the policeman, the gas was still burning, and the long rows of stalls situated on the wide avenues of the market, were covered with beef and mutton, the stalls averaging thirty to forty feet in height. There was a confused hum of many voices, and coarse rough looking fellows in smalls and canvas smocks, with broad, scoop-shaped hats, rushed hither and thither with immense loins and quarters of beef on their brawny shoulders. Over each stall, and inside of the market beneath the roof, the proprietor or lessee of the stall has a small wooden edifice, with doors and windows and places to sleep for two or three persons. At each corner of the market is a lofty tower, a hundred feet high, and in these towers are board-rooms and dining-rooms, and reading rooms for select parties, and at the base or bottom floor of each tower is a bar where liquors and hot coffee, bread, butter, and tea, and other refreshments are sold during the early hours of the morning, to those who need sustainment. Two or three pretty girls were behind each of these stalls, and were serving with great dilligence and taste, the knots of butchers' helpers, cartmen, butchers' boys, and market officials who stood in their vicinity.

There are at least half a dozen meat inspectors in each market, and these men are paid one hundred pounds a year to examine and decide as to the wholesomeness of each and every pound or carcass of meat brought into the markets.

To one of these I spoke and asked him if he had much trouble with the butchers in regard to putrid meat.

"Trouble--Lord bless you sir, we have no trouble here to speak on. Ye see, sir, the class of butchers as sells meat here in Smithfield Market allers sells on commission. All this meat that you see a hanging on these ere hooks doesn't belong to the butchers. It is sent to them to sell on commission by the Railway Companies, and they do not own the stalls themselves either. They pays one pound ten shilling and sixpence a week for five square feet of ground--that's about the rate they pays, and the City owns the markit. Lord bless you, Sir," said the loquacious inspector, who was dressed like a butcher, having an apron, and stood leaning against a large quarter of beef. "I don't know where all the blessed meat comes from, but I knows that the pigs come from Hireland, and a goodish bit of the beef from Devonshire. It comes to the city by the Underground Railway, and you can see the place down stairs where all the meat comes in the mornin'."

At the breakfast stalls I noticed that nearly every one called for "two pennorth of bread and butter," and drank with it a bowl of hot tea or a smoking cup of coffee. The girls who served the coffee were chatty and lively, and desired information of me in regard to America. One of them, a little black brunette, queried:

"They say, sir, as how that a young leedy in Hamerica can get married on nothink--if she's good looking and can cook. Is it so, sir?"

I had no means of satisfying her as to that question, and I left her as she was preparing a sandwich for a hungry clodhopper, whose eyes were bulbous with hunger and expectation, and went below to the basement story, which opens by arches on the depot of the Underground Railway, and I found the entire earthen floor cut up by rails and platforms, on to which the meat from incoming trains is shunted and delivered. All meat delivered at Smithfield is of course dead, and no slaughtering is carried on in this market. Millions of pounds worth of meat finds its way here day after day, and thousands of men--porters and helpers and butchers' assistants--find employment here, their wages ranging from ten to thirty-five shillings a week.

Each helper is paid so much for every carcass which he carries into the market on his shoulders, and broad shoulders they have to be to carry these huge quarters of beef from the wagons which are drawn up in dense masses in and around the open spaces outside of the market walls. When this market was opened by the Mayor of London and other city dignitaries, sixteen hundred officials, connected with the market and the municipal government, dined in the central avenue, and two hundred barrels of ale were drank. This is a sample of a municipal British feast.

Outside of the building are little houses or market lodges, built of stone, in which are weighing machines, where men are constantly in attendance as weighers of beef and mutton. For this service they are paid one hundred and twenty pounds a year. The weighing machine in the little house connects under the middle of the street, where a platform is constructed, level with the surface of the pavement, and when a cart-load of beef is to be weighed, horse, cart, and beef are weighed together, and the total is placed on a slate, and when the helpers have carried all the meat into the stalls in the market to be sold wholesale, (for it is not a retail market,) the horse and cart are again weighed, and then their united weight having been deducted from the gross weight, the actual weight of the meat is thus ascertained by this simple and easy process. I think that the Smithfield Market is the finest I ever saw, and its ventilation and perfect system cannot be surpassed anywhere.

[Sidenote: THE VEGETABLE MARKET.]

From Smithfield Market I went to Covent Garden Market, which is a couple of miles distant, in Russell street, forming quite a spacious area. This is the great vegetable and flower market of London. There is a market held every morning in summer, but in winter, markets are held only on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday mornings. The market is owned by the Duke of Bedford, and was built at a cost of £30,000 by a former Duke of that family, forty years ago.

It has a colonade running around the entire building on the exterior, under which are shops having apartments in the upper stories. Joined to the back of these is another row of shops facing the inner courts, and through the centre runs a passage with shops on either side, in which are exposed for sale herbs and flowers, and the most magnificent bouquets can be procured here on a fine morning in summer. Scarce and delicate plants and flowers are here found in abundance, and around these stands I noticed numbers of male servants and pages in the liveries of some of the best known families among the London aristocracy, barganing for bouquets for their mistresses' tables. The noise and hub-bub around the open spaces in this market was perfectly deafening. It was now about four o'clock in the morning, and all the open areas were thronged with market-men and women and boys, carrying baskets and flowers in their arms, to and fro, chaffing each other or cursing and swearing with great good will.

Immense vans and market-carts loaded down with cabbages, onions, peas, cauliflowers, turnips, beans, parsley, greens, cucumbers, lettuce, apples, pears, parsnips, and other vegetables and fruits, are moving to and fro, some of them blocked in with the increasing traffic, the drivers, great big hulking fellows, mopping their perspiring foreheads and shouting at each other, as is usual among all cartmen. Women are hurrying hither and thither, making bargains and chaffering about the prices of vegetables, and meanwhile, it is almost impossible to hear or understand anything that is said. The police who are scattered here and there with their tall helmets, goodnaturedly push and shove those who block the passage ways, and frown sternly at the impudent young rascals who excite crowds and gather small knots of boys against the breakfast stalls outside the market.

Here and there around these coffee stalls, which are generally kept by old men or dilapidated and ancient women, you will see a couple of drunken or half sober roysterers, who have been on the tramp all night, and have at this early hour of the morning reached Covent Garden to get a cup of hot coffee in the market, which will clear the fumes of the liquor away, before they stagger home to a fond and anxious wife or an unrelenting landlady.

Wagons and carts have been arriving from a very early hour, and five o'clock seems to be the busiest time in Covent Garden. The houses of refreshment around the market are open at half past one in summer, and little tables are placed against the wooden pillars of the market by the tea and coffee venders, from which porters and carters make hearty breakfasts. There is no need to resort to exciting liquors, as the coffee is good and hot, and a baked potato, fresh and smoking from the oven, costs only one penny.

Every few minutes, through all the roaring and shouting, singing, talking, whistling, and laughing, I could hear the clear voice of the Baked Potato man, vending his smoking tubers and shouting:

"Tates hot!--all 'ot, 'ot! Taters all 'ot." His can with its steam pipe, from which issues forth a fragrant odor on the morning air, is already surrounded by young street boys, who will run an errand for a penny, hold your horse, catch a flying hat, steal a cabbage or a pocket full of potatoes from the stalls with equal impartiality and energy. These markets are the worst places in London for young lads, as there is always some excuse for their presence in the vicinity, under pretence of earning a penny or picking up the refuse and odds and ends of a vegetable market. Observe this young rascal now, who is surveying the Baked Potato man with an assumption of scorn combined with a profound look of wisdom in his features. His hands are in his pockets, his trousers are ragged to the knees, and his linen is nowhere visible--a miserable London street boy--and yet you would imagine, to look at him as he steps up to negotiate for a potato, that he was the agent of the Rothschilds about to make arrangements for a loan. His age does not exceed fifteen years, and he has been sleeping in the purlieus of the market all night, as his ragged and soiled coat testify, and his hair is full of slimy straws which he has accumulated while reclining his head on a market gardener's basket. The Baked Potato man eyes him with distrust and timidity, for he is well aware that there is no profit to be made from him, and that he is about to "chaff" him. The young rascals who stand around are all wide awake, and await the contest with solicitude in their countenances.

[Sidenote: THE POTATO MAN GETS ANGRY.]

"Taters all 'ot--taters all 'ot--'ot--'ot," cries the Potato Man.

"Well, guv'nor, I see you're a keepin the steam up as usual. Vot's the werry lowest figger you names for the werry best taters, takin a lot--takin a quantity? I feels like patronizin you, I does."

"Penny a-piece, all 'ot--'ot."

"A penny a-piece for _baked taters_, and the Funds agoin down like winkin! Vy, I 'ad a pine apple myself out of a Garden this mornin for two-pence. Trade's unkimmon bad, guv'nor."

"Penny apiece--all 'ot--all 'ot--I say, keep your dirty fingers away from the can. You doesn't buy anythink, I know."

"I doesn't buy hanythink, eh? There's a hopposition can, too, started by a gentleman of my acquaintance"--here the young scamp put his thumbs in his waistcoat armholes and inflated himself after the supposed aristocratic fashion--"in the 'Aymarket. He calls the can the 'Gladstone,' and it's a werry spicy concern, I tell ye. Don't he give prime taters neither? They're real nobby ones, and plenty o' butter, and pepper, and salt. Oh! not at all! And its so werry respectable for a cove comin from the Hopera to stop and have a bit of supper on his road home. My heye, and haint the pro-pre-i-e-tor a makin of his fortin neither? Of course not! Oh, no. But there 'ill be fun when he returns to his willa with a postchay in Belgrawey in a few years."

By this time the Baked Potato man is pretty mad, between the pertinacity of his young tormentor and the highly colored picture of his rival's prosperity, as depicted by the boy, and he tells him in an angry way to "move hon, hif 'e doesn't want 'is preshis neck stretched."

"Wot, wiolence to one of her Majesty's subjecks, and hin the hopen day, too? Move hon, hey? Oh, werry likely. I'm a standin 'ere on my Sovrin's kerbstone--a Briton's 'Ouse is 'is castle, and when an Englishman hexpresses his hopinion hon the subjeck of baked taters he's to move hon, is he? Consekevently I'll stay here."

The "Baked Tater" man is now almost foaming at the mouth with rage, which is not lessened by the cheers of the spectators, who are, of course, on the side of the young orator.

He is about to lay down his can and pitch into his tormentor, when all at once that young gentleman assumes a pacific attitude, after displaying so much public spirit, and says:

"I don't want money nor credit, so look sharp ole feller and pick me a stunner from the Can."

At this moment the Potato Man's countenance relaxes, as the boy produces a penny-piece, and while he extracts a mealy potato from his can, the boy proceeds to amuse his audience further by going through a series of sleight of hand tricks, such as shaking the coin out of his cap after having swallowed it, or thrusting it into his eye and bringing it out of his ear, assuring the spectators the while that he had spent £20,000 in learning these tricks, and now, when the potato is handed to him, smoking hot, he expresses his indignation at the fact that the butter is "shaved too thin," and demands that what he loses in butter shall be made up to him by an extra shake of the pepper-box. At last he goes off to eat the potato, as the gray dawn breaks, and the man at the Can says:

"Oh, my eye--_he is a_ precious leary cove for such a young von."

This market, as well as all the other London markets, is haunted with beggars who appeal to the charity of strangers with great effect.

[Sidenote: FRUIT AND VEGETABLES.]

One of these sat up behind a pile of empty baskets, and I saw that his trousers had rotted away at the bottom from long use and dirt. His face was that of a prematurely aged young man, and his torn shirt and worn features bespoke real misery. He was deaf and dumb it seemed, and the manner in which he solicited alms was by pointing to the following sentence, written on the flag-stone before him with a piece of chalk:

+-------------------------+ | I am Starving. Help me. | +-------------------------+

A rental of about £26,000 a year is derived from Covent Garden Market by its proprietor, the Duke of Bedford, and the shops and stalls rent at from two to four hundred pounds a year. In the immediate neighborhood is Covent Garden Theatre, and all the little old rookeries of chop houses in this quarter have the smell of the greenroom and the rehearsal lingering about them. Here was, formerly, the garden of the Convent of Westminster.

Before the construction of the present market this was one of the most dangerous places in London with its tumble-down and crazy old structures, where abounded people of both sexes herded together like pigs. The Convent has become a play-house, and the monks and nuns have been transposed into actors and actresses. Where the salad was cut for the Lady Abbess in past times, drunkards now brawl and attack each other, and the flowers that would have been in the olden time plucked to adorn the statues of the Virgin or St. Peter, are now chosen to grace the marble mantel of some proud dame of Belgravia, or some gaudy and painted courtezan of Pimlico. The foreign fruit trade of Covent Garden is very extensive in pine apples, melons, cherries, apples, and plums. Pine apples were first cried in the London streets at "a penny a slice," twenty-five years ago. To supply this market with vegetables alone, 25,000 acres are required to be cultivated, and about 10,000 acres of trees are necessary to supply its annual demand for fruit. The trade in water-cresses is immense and they are chiefly hawked about the markets by little girls, although, of course, every stall has its own stock of cresses. They supply the same want as a relish for the Londoners' table that the small red radishes do to an American's appetite.

A man, curious in such things, has estimated as follows the yearly sales of this appetizing little green relish:

Covent Garden Market, 2,000,000 bunches, Farringdon Market, 15,000,000 bunches, Borough Market, (Southwark), 1,000,000 bunches, Spitalfield's Market, 500,000 bunches, Portman Market, 260,000 bunches, and Oxford Market, 200,000 bunches. It will be seen that Cockneys relish greens very much.

A little of everything can be procured at Covent Garden. Here are peddlers of account books, lead pencils, watch chains, dog-collars, whips, chains, curry-combs, pastry, money-bags, tissue-paper for the tops of strawberry-pottles, and horse-chestnut leaves for garnishing fruit-stalls; coffee-stalls, and stalls of pea-soup and pickled eels; basket-makers; women making up nosegays; and girls splitting huge bundles of water-cresses into little bunches.

Here are fruits and vegetables from all parts of the world; peas, and asparagus, and new potatoes, from the south of France, Belgium, Holland, Portugal, and the Bermudas, are brought in steam-vessels. Besides Deptford onions, Battersea cabbages, Mortlake asparagus, Chelsea celery, and Charlton peas, immense quantities are brought by railway from Cornwall and Devonshire, the Isle of Man, Guernsey and Jersey, the Kentish and Essex banks of the Thames, the banks of the Humber, the Mersey, the Orwell, the Trent, and the Ouse.

The Scilly Isles send early articles by steamer to Southampton, and thence to Covent Garden by railway. Strawberries are sent from gardens about Bath. The money paid annually for fruits and vegetables sold in this market is estimated at three millions sterling: for 6 or 700,000 pottles of strawberries; 40,000,000 cabbages; 2,000,000 cauliflowers; 300,000 bushels of peas; 750,000 lettuces; and 500,000 bushels of onions. In Centre-row, hot-house grapes are sold at 25s. per pound, British Queen and Black Prince strawberries at 1s. per ounce, slender French beans at 3s. per hundred, peas at a guinea a quart, and new potatoes at 4s. 6d. per pound; a moss-rose for half-a-crown, and bouquets of flowers from one shilling to two guineas each.

Green peas have been sold here at Christmas when they are deemed a luxury, for three pounds a quart, and asparagus has brought, in the same season, a pound, and rhubarb, a pound and five shillings a bunch.

The cries of the children peddling violets are sometimes almost heartrending, as these little waifs are very often fasting for a whole day before they can realize a few pennies to buy their food, to say nothing of food for those who have sent them to peddle the violets.

There is an Artesian well under Covent Garden Market, 280 feet deep, which supplies 1,600 gallons an hour, sufficient for the needs of the market people, most of which is consumed in watering flowers and vegetables, or in giving horses to drink. There are elegant conservatories over the colonnades of the market fifteen feet broad and fifteen feet high, for the preservation of the more costly and delicate plants and flowers. From this market nearly all the button-hole flowers which are vended at from a penny to four-pence a piece are obtained for the use of the London "swells."

[Sidenote: THE JEWS' ORANGE MARKET.]

One of the most curious places in London is the Orange and Nut Market, in Houndsditch. This market is chiefly in the hands of the lowest kind of Jews, men in greasy garments, and having frightfully hooked noses. The Costermongers come here for oranges, nuts, and lemons, to sell or hawk them around the suburbs or slums of London. The market is called Dukes'-Place Market. There is a big, massive, Synagogue, a lot of ancient-looking houses, the oranges themselves have a cob-webbed appearance, and the people are all dingy here. The nuts are for sale in sacks, and the baskets have a dilapidated look. The Jews, in all countries, are an industrious and economical people, and in London, as elsewhere, they monopolize the most profitable and least laborious occupations. They are represented by lawyers, members of Parliament, great bankers, like Rothschild, merchants, like Solomons, and men of liberal taste, like Sir Francis Goldsmid. The number of Jews in London is estimated at 48,000.

Each dwelling around this Orange Market seems as if it had been partially consumed by fire, for not one of the shops have a window, and they are comparatively empty, save where a crate of oranges, or a bag of nuts, are exposed for sale. A few sickly fowls, looking as if they were dyspeptic, wander here picking up crumbs among the orange baskets and nut sacks, and dirty, ragged little Jewish children, play around with great equanimity among the rubbish. The disputes among the loud-voiced Costermongers who come here with their little wagons and jackasses, to draw their fruit, and the Jews who have all glib-toned, smooth voices,--at some times, when the oranges are changing hands from sellers to buyers--are very amusing.

There I saw slatternly-looking girls sorting the good from the bad fruit, and one big, tall Jewish wench, was engaged over a barrel of common black grapes, plunging her dirty arms down in the barrel and pulling up the decayed fruit which she gave to a little child who stood by her, and ate of them greedily from her hand. Some of these Jewish fruit-traders take in as much as £200 in a day's sale of oranges, from Costermongers. Most of these oranges are sent to the Jews on commission. Years ago the Jew boys had a monopoly of the orange peddling trade, but now the monopoly is in the hands of Irish boys, who are more eloquent, more aggressive, and more popular, than the Jews, and consequently sell they more fruit.

[Sidenote: FARRINGDON MARKET.]

Farringdon Market, near the Strand, on the sloping surface of the hill, upon which the Holborn and Fleet street stand, is one of the principal markets in London, though it covers but an acre and a half. The ground and buildings cost about £200,000. The market building is 480 feet long at the centre, 41 feet high, and 48 feet broad, and has a court-yard in the centre of which the wagons, and baskets, and market lumber, are placed. The court, or, as it is called, the quadrangle, is generally filled with vegetables and fruit.