- The Street Rhubarb and Spice Seller
The Street Rhubarb and Spice Seller - The Street Comb Seller
- The Oyster Stall
The Oyster StallThe trade in oysters is unquestionably one of the oldest with which the London—or rather the English—markets are connected; for oysters from Britain were a luxury in ancient Rome. Oysters are now sold out of the smacks at Billingsgate, and a few at Hungerford. The more expensive kind such as the real Milton, are never bought by the costermongers, but they buy oysters of a “good middling quality.” At the commencement of the season these oysters are 14s. a “bushel,” but the measure contains from a bushel and a half to two bushels, as it is more or less heaped up. The general price, however, is 9s. or 10s., but they have been 16s. and 18s. - The Lucifer Match Girl
The Lucifer Match Girl The lucifer-match boxes, the most frequent in the street-trade, are bought by the poor persons selling them in the streets, at the manufacturers, or at oil-shops, for a number of oilmen buy largely of the manufacturers, and can “supply the trade” at the same rate as the manufacturer. The price is 2¼d. the dozen boxes, each box containing 150 matches. Some of the boxes (German made) are round, and many used to be of tin, but these are rarely seen now. The prices are proportionate. The common price of a lucifer box in the streets is ½d., but many buyers, I am told, insist upon and obtain three a penny, which they do generally of some one who supplies them regularly. The trade is chiefly itinerant. - The London Costermonger
The London CostermongerThe number of costermongers,—that it is to say, of those street-sellers attending the London “green” and “fish markets,”—appears to be, from the best data at my command, now 30,000 men, women, and children. - The London Coffee Stall
The London Coffee Stall The coffee-stall keepers generally stand at the corner of a street. In the fruit and meat markets there are usually two or three coffee-stalls, and one or two in the streets leading to them; in Covent-garden there are no less than four coffee-stalls. Indeed, the stalls abound in all the great thoroughfares, and the most in those not accounted “fashionable” and great “business” routes, but such as are frequented by working people, on their way to their day’s labour. - The Irish Street-seller
The Irish Street-seller The fruit-sellers, meaning thereby those who deal principally in fruit in the season, are the more intelligent costermongers. The calculation as to what a bushel of apples, for instance, will make in half or quarter pecks, puzzles the more ignorant, and they buy “second-hand,” or of a middle-man, and consequently dearer. The Irish street-sellers do not meddle much with fruit, excepting a few of the very best class of them, and they “do well in it,” I was told, “they have such tongue.” - Orange Mart
Orange Mart, Duke's Place The commoner “green” fruits of home produce are bought by the costermonger in the markets. The foreign green fruit, as pine-apples, melons, grapes, chestnuts, coker-nuts, Brazil-nuts, hazel-nuts, and oranges, are purchased by them at the public sales of the brokers, and of the Jews in Duke’s-place. - Cab Driver
Cab driver in winter coat with horse whip. Excerpt from the book Of the cabdrivers there are several classes, according to the times at which they are employed. These are known in the trade by the names of the “long-day men,” “the morning-men,” the “long-night men,” and the “short-night men,” and “the bucks.” The long-day man is the driver who is supposed to be driving his cab the whole day. He usually fetches his cab out between 9 and 10 in the morning, and returns at 4 or 5, or even 7 or 8, the next morning; indeed it is no matter at what hour he comes in so long as he brings the money that he signs for; the long-day men are mostly employed for the contractors, though some of the respectable masters work their cabs with long-day men, but then they leave the yard between 8 and 9 and are expected to return between 12 and 1. - Street Porter with knot
Young man standing with his porter basket. The payments of ticket-porters were settled in 1799. To or from any of the quays, wharfs, stairs, lanes, or alleys at the waterside, between the Tower and London Bridge to any part of Lower Thames-street, Beer-lane, Water-lane, Harp-lane, St. Dunstan’s-hill, St. Mary-hill, Love-lane, Botolph-lane, Pudding-lane, and Fish-street-hill: For any load or parcel by knot or hand— Not exceeding ½ cwt. 0s. 4d. Not exceeding 1 „ 0 6 Not exceeding 1½ „ 0 9 Not exceeding 2 „ 1 0 - Ticket-of-leave men
Convicts who have been sentenced to prison, but are released early under the ticket-to-leave experimental scheme. - Ticket-of-leave meeting
A meeting of ticket-of-leave men, convened by Mr. H. Mayhew, was held some time since at the National Hall, Holborn, with the view of affording to persons of this class, who are anxious to lead a reformed life, an opportunity of stating the difficulties they have to encounter in their endeavour to obtain a honest livelihood. About fifty members of the body responded to Mr. Mayhew’s invitation. - The Sewer-hunter
The Sewer-hunter The sewer-hunters are again distinct, and a far more intelligent and adventurous class; but they work in gangs. They must be familiar with the course of the tides, or they might be drowned at high water. They must have quick eyes too, not merely to descry the objects of their search, but to mark the points and bearings of the subterraneous roads they traverse; in a word, “to know their way underground.” There is, moreover, some spirit of daring in venturing into a dark, solitary sewer, the chart being only in the memory, and in braving the possibility of noxious vapours, and the by no means insignificant dangers of the rats infesting these places.