Of the Street Sale of Ginger-Beer, Sherbet, Lemonade, &c.

The street-trade in ginger-beer--now a very considerable traffic--was not known to any extent until about thirty years ago. About that time (1822) a man, during a most sultry drought, sold extraordinary quantities of “cool ginger-beer” and of “soda-powders,” near the Royal Exchange, clearing, for the three or four weeks the heat continued, 30s. a day, or 9l. weekly. Soda-water he sold “in powders,” the acid and the alkali being mixed in the water of the glass held by the customer, and drunk whilst effervescing. His prices were 2d. and 3d. a glass for ginger-beer; and 3d. and 4d. for soda-water, “according to the quality;” though there was in reality no difference whatever in the quality--only in the price. From that time, the numbers pursuing this street avocation increased gradually; they have however fallen off of late years.

The street-sellers who “brew their own beer” generally prepare half a gross (six dozen) at a time. For a “good quality” or the “penny bottle” trade, the following are the ingredients and the mode of preparation:--3 gallons of water; 1 lb. of ginger, 6d.; lemon-acid, 2d.; essence of cloves, 2d.; yeast, 2d.; and 1 lb. of raw sugar, 7d. This admixture, the yeast being the last ingredient introduced, stands 24 hours, and is then ready for bottling. If the beverage be required in 12 hours, double the quantity of yeast is used. The bottles are filled only “to the ridge,” but the liquid and the froth more than fill a full-sized half-pint glass. “Only half froth,” I was told, “is reckoned very fair, and it’s just the same in the shops.” Thus, 72 bottles, each to be sold at 1d., cost--apart from any outlay in utensils, or any consideration of the value of labour--only 1s. 7d., and yield, at 1d. per bottle, 6s. For the cheaper beverage--called “playhouse ginger-beer” in the trade--instead of sugar, molasses from the “private distilleries” is made available. The “private” distilleries are the illicit ones: “‘Jiggers,’ we call them,” said one man; “and I could pass 100 in 10 minutes’ walk from where we’re talking.” Molasses, costing 3d. at a jigger’s, is sufficient for a half-gross of bottles of ginger-beer; and of the other ingredients only half the quantity is used, the cloves being altogether dispensed with, but the same amount of yeast is generally applied. This quality of “beer” is sold at 1/2d. the glass.

About five years ago “fountains” for the production of ginger-beer became common in the streets. The ginger-beer trade in the open air is only for a summer season, extending from four to seven months, according to the weather, the season last year having been over in about four months. There were then 200 fountains in the streets, all of which, excepting 20 or 30 of the best, were hired of the ginger-beer manufacturers, who drive a profitable trade in them. The average value of a street-fountain, with a handsome frame or stand, which is usually fixed on a wheeled and movable truck, so as one man’s strength may be sufficient to propel it, is 7l.; and, for the rent of such a fountain, 6s. a week is paid when the season is brisk, and 4s. when it is slack; but last summer, I am told, 4s. 6d. was an average. The largest and handsomest ginger-beer fountain in London was--I speak of last summer--in use at the East-end, usually standing in Petticoat-lane, and is the property of a dancing-master. It is made of mahogany, and presents somewhat the form of an upright piano on wheels. It has two pumps, and the brass of the pump-handles and the glass receivers is always kept bright and clean, so that the whole glitters handsomely to the light. Two persons “serve” at this fountain; and on a fine Sunday morning, from six to one, that being the best trading time, they take 7l. or 8l. in halfpennies--for “the beer” is 1/2d. a glass--and 2l. each other day of the week. This machine, as it may be called, is drawn by two ponies, said to be worth 10l. a-piece; and the whole cost is pronounced--perhaps with a sufficient exaggeration--to have been 150l. There were, in the same neighbourhood, two more fountains on a similar scale, but commoner, each drawn by only one pony instead of the aristocratic “pair.”

The ingredients required to feed the “ginger-beer” fountains are of a very cheap description. To supply 10 gallons, 2 quarts of lime-juice (as it is called, but it is, in reality, lemon-juice), costing 3s. 6d., are placed in the recess, sometimes with the addition of a pound of sugar (4d.); while some, I am assured, put in a smaller quantity of juice, and add two-pennyworth of oil of vitriol, which “brings out the sharpness of the lime-juice.” The rest is water. No process of brewing or fermentation is necessary, for the fixed air pumped into the liquid as it is drawn from the fountain, communicates a sufficient briskness or effervescence. “The harder you pumps,” said one man who had worked a fountain, “the frothier it comes; and though it seems to fill a big glass--and the glass an’t so big for holding as it looks--let it settle, and there’s only a quarter of a pint.” The hirer of a fountain is required to give security. This is not, as in some slop-trades, a deposit of money; but a householder must, by written agreement, make himself responsible for any damage the fountain may sustain, as well as for its return, or make good the loss: the street ginger-beer seller is alone responsible for the rent of the machine. It is however, only men that are known, who are trusted in this way. Of the fountains thus hired, 50 are usually to be found at the neighbouring fairs and races. As the ginger-beer men carry lime-juice, &c., with them, only water is required to complete the “brewing of the beer” and so conveyance is not difficult.

There is another kind of “ginger-beer,” or rather of “small acid tiff,” which is sold out of barrels at street-stalls at 1/2d. the glass. To make 2-1/2 gallons of this, there is used 1/2lb. tartaric, or other acid, 1s.; 1/2 lb. alkali (soda), 10d.; 1/2 lb. lump sugar, bruised fine, 4d.; and yeast 1d. Of these “barrel-men” there are now about one hundred.

Another class of street-sellers obtain their stock of ginger-beer from the manufacturers. One of the largest manufacturers for the street-trade resides near Ratcliffe-highway, and another in the Commercial-road. The charge by the wholesale traders is 8d. the doz., while to a known man, or for ready money, 13 are given to the dozen. The beer, however, is often let out on credit--or in some cases security is given in the same way as for the fountains--and the empty bottles must be duly returned. It is not uncommon for two gross of beer to be let out in this way at a time. For the itinerant trade these are placed on a truck or barrow, fitted up with four shelves, on which are ranged the bottles. These barrows are hired in the same way as the costers’ barrows. Some sell their beer at stalls fitted up exclusively for the trade, a kind of tank being let into the centre of the board and filled with water, in which the glasses are rinsed or washed. Underneath the stall there is usually a reserve of the beer, and a keg containing water. Some of the best frequented stalls were in Whitechapel, Old-street-road, City-road, Tottenham-court-road, the New-cut, Elephant and Castle, the Commercial-road, Tower-hill, the Strand, and near Westminster-bridge.

The stationary beer business is, for the most part, carried on in the more public streets, such as Holborn and Oxford-street, and in the markets of Covent-garden, Smithfield, and Billingsgate; while the peripatetic trade, which is briskest on the Sundays--when, indeed, some of the stationary hands become itinerant--is more for the suburbs; Victoria-park, Battersea-fields, Hampstead-heath, Primrose-hill, Kennington-common, and Camberwell-green, being approved Sunday haunts.

The London street-sellers of ginger-beer, say the more experienced, may be computed at 3,000--of whom about one-third are women. I heard them frequently estimated at 5,000, and some urged that the number was at least as near 5,000 as 3,000. For my own part I am inclined to believe that half the smaller number would be nearer the truth. Judging by the number of miles of streets throughout the metropolis, and comparing the street-sellers of ginger-beer with the fruit-stall keepers, I am satisfied that in estimating the ginger-beer-sellers at 1,500 we are rather over than under the truth. This body of street-sellers were more numerous five years back by 15 or 20 per cent., but the introduction of the street fountains, and the trade being resorted to by the keepers of coal-sheds and the small shopkeepers--who have frequently a stand with ginger-beer in front of their shops--have reduced the amount of the street-sellers. In 1842, there were 1,200 ginger-beer sellers in the streets who had attached to their stalls or trucks labels, showing that they were members--or assumed to be members--of the Society of Odd Fellows. This was done in hopes of a greater amount of custom from the other members of the Society, but the expectation was not realised--and so the Odd Fellowship of the ginger-beer people disappeared. Of the street-traders 200 work fountains; and of the remaining portion the stationary and the itinerant are about equally divided. Of the whole number, however, not above an eighth confine themselves to the trade, but usually sell with their “pop” some other article of open-air traffic--fruit, sweet-stuff, or shell-fish. There are of the entire number about 350, who, whenever the weather permits, stay out all night with their stands or barrows, and are to be found especially in all the approaches to Covent-garden, and the other markets to which there is a resort during the night or at day-break. These men, I was told by one of their body, worked from eight in the evening to eight or ten next morning, then went to bed, rose at three, and “plenty of ’em then goes to the skittles or to get drunk.”

The character of the ginger-beer-sellers does not differ from what I have described as pertaining to the costermonger class, and to street-traders generally. There is the same admixture of the reduced mechanic, the broken-down gentleman’s servant, the man of any class in life who cannot brook the confinement and restraint of ordinary in-door labour, and of the man “brought up to the streets.” One experienced and trustworthy man told me that from his own knowledge he could count up twenty “classical men,” as he styled them, who were in the street ginger-beer-trade, and of these four had been, or were said to have been “parsons,” two being of the same name (Mr. S ----); but my informant did not know if they stood in any degree of consanguinity one to another. The women are the wives, daughters, or other connections of the men.

Some of the stalls at which ginger-beer is sold--and it is the same at the coal-sheds and the chandlers’ shops--are adorned pictorially. Erected at the end of a stall is often a painting, papered on a board, in which a gentleman, with the bluest of coats, the whitest of trousers, the yellowest of waistcoats, and the largest of guard-chains or eye-glasses, is handing a glass of ginger-beer, frothed up like a pot of stout, and containing, apparently, a pint and a half, to some lady in flowing white robes, or gorgeous in purple or orange.

To commence in this branch of the street business requires, in all 18s. 3d.: six glasses, 2s. 9d.; board, 5s.; tank, 1s.; keg, 1s.; gross of beer, 8s. (this is where the seller is not also the maker); and for towels, &c., 6d.; if however the street-seller brew his own beer, he will require half a gross of bottles, 5s. 6d.; and the ingredients I have enumerated, 1s. 7d.

In addition to the street-sale of ginger-beer is that of other summer-drinks. Of these, the principal is lemonade, the consumption of which is as much as that of all the others together. Indeed, the high-sounding names given to some of these beverages--such as “Nectar” and “Persian Sherbet”--are but other names for lemonade, in a slightly different colour or fashion.

Lemonade is made, by those vendors who deal in the best articles, after the following method: 1 lb. of carbonate of soda, 6d.; 1 lb. of tartaric acid, 1s. 4d. (“at least,” said an informant, “I pay 1s. 4d. at ’Pothecaries Hall, but it can be had at 1s.”); 1 lb. of loaf-sugar, 5-1/2d.; essence of lemon, 3d. This admixture is kept, in the form of a powder, in a jar, and water is drawn from what the street-sellers call a “stone-barrel”--which is a stone jar, something like the common-shaped filters, with a tap--and a larger or smaller spoonful of the admixture in a glass of water supplies an effervescing draught for 1d. or 1/2d. “There’s sometimes shocking roguishness in the trade,” said one man, “and there is in a many trades--some uses vitriol!” Lemonade, made after the recipe I have given, is sometimes bottled by the street-sellers, and sold in the same way as ginger-beer. It is bought, also, for street sale of the ginger-beer manufacturers--the profit being the same--but so bought to less than a twentieth of the whole sale. The water in the stone barrel is spring-water, obtained from the nearest pump, and in hot weather obtained frequently, so as to be “served” in as cool a state as possible. Sometimes lemonade powders are used; they are bought at a chemist’s, at 1s. 6d. the pound. “Sherbet” is the same admixture, with cream of tartar instead of tartaric acid. “Raspberry” has, sometimes, the addition of a few crusted raspberries, and a colouring of cochineal, with, generally, a greater degree of sweetening than lemonade. “If cochineal is used for colouring,” said one man, “it sometimes turns brown in the sun, and the rasberry don’t sell. A little lake’s better.” “Lemon-juice” is again lemonade, with a slight infusion of saffron to give it a yellow or pale orange colour. “Nectar,” in imitation of Soyer’s, has more sugar and less acid than the lemonade; spices, such as cinnamon, is used to flavour it, and the colouring is from lake and saffron.

These “cooling drinks” are sold from the powder or the jar, as I have described, from fountains, and from bottles. The fountain sale is not above a tenth of the whole. All is sold in 1/2d. and 1d. glasses, except the nectar, which is never less than 1d. The customers are the same as those who buy ginger-beer; but one “lemonader” with whom I conversed, seemed inclined to insist that they were a “more respectabler class.” Boys are good customers--better, perhaps, than for the beer,--as “the colour and the fine names attracts them.”

The “cooling drink” season, like that of the ginger-beer, is determined by the weather, and last summer it was only four months. It was computed for me that there were 200 persons, chiefly men, selling solely lemonade, &c., and an additional 300 uniting the sale with that of ginger-beer. One man, whose statement was confirmed by others, told me that on fine days he took 3s. 6d., out of which he cleared 2s. to 2s. 6d.; and he concluded that his brother tradesmen cleared as much every fine day, and so, allowing for wet weather and diminished receipts, made 10s. a week. The receipts, then, for this street luxury--a receipt of 17s. 6d. affording a profit of 10s.--show a street expenditure in such a summer as the last, of 2,800l., by those who do not unite ginger-beer with the trade. Calculating that those who do unite ginger-beer with it sell only one-half as much as the others, we find a total outlay of 4,900l. One of the best trades is in the hands of a man who “works” Smithfield, and on the market days clears generally from 6s. to 9s.

The stalls, &c., are of the same character as those of the ginger-beer sellers. The capital required to start is:--stone barrel, with brass tap, 5s. 6d.; stand and trestle, 6s.; 6 tumbler glasses, 2s. 3d.; 2 towels, 6d.; stock money, 2s. 6d.; jar, 2s.; 12 bottles (when used), 3s. 6d.; in all, about a guinea.

In showing the money expended in the ginger-beer trade it must be borne in mind that a large portion of the profits accrues to persons who cannot be properly classed with the regular street-traders. Such is the proprietor of the great fountain of which I have spoken, who is to be classed as a speculative man, ready to embark capital in any way--whether connected with street-traffic or not--likely to be remunerative. The other and large participants in the profits are the wholesale ginger-beer manufacturers, who are also the letters-out of fountains, one of them having generally nine let out at a time. For a street trader to sell three gross of ginger-beer in bottle is now accounted a good week, and for that the receipts will be 36s. with a profit in the penny bottle trade, to the seller, if he buy of a manufacturer, of 12s.; if he be his own brewer--reckoning a fair compensation for labour, and for money invested in utensils, and in bottles, &c., of 20s. An ordinary week’s sale is two gross, costing the public 24s., with the same proportion of profit in the same trade to the seller. In a bad week, or “in a small way to help out other things,” not more than one gross is sold.

The fountain trade is the most profitable to the proprietors, whether they send out their machines on their own account, or let them out on hire; but perhaps there are only an eighth of the number not let out on hire. Calculating that a fountain be let out for three successive seasons of twenty weeks each, at only 4s. the week, the gross receipts are 12l. for what on the first day of hire was worth only 7l.; so that the returns from 200 machines let out for the same term, would be 2,400l., or a profit of 1,000l. over and above the worth of the fountain, which having been thus paid for is of course in a succeeding year the means of a clear profit of 4l. I am assured that the weekly average of “a fountain’s takings,” when in the hands of the regular street-dealers, is 18s.

The barrel traders may be taken as in the average receipt of 6s. a week.

The duration of the season was, last year, only sixteen weeks. Calculating from the best data I could acquire, it appears that for this period 200 street-sellers of ginger-beer in the bottle trade of the penny class take 30s. a week each (thus allowing for the inferior receipts in bad weather); 300 take 20s. each, selling for the most part at 1/2d. the bottle, and that the remaining 400 “in a small way” take 6s. each; hence we find 11,480l. expended in the bottled ginger-beer of the streets. Adding the receipts from the fountains and the barrels, the barrel season continuing only ten weeks, the total sum expended annually in street ginger-beer is altogether 14,660l. The bottles of ginger-beer sold yearly in the streets will number about 4,798,000, and the total street consumption of the same beverage may be said to be about 250,000 gallons per annum.