Of the Street-Sellers of Ices and of Ice Creams.

I have already treated of the street luxury of pine-apples, and have now to deal with the greater street rarity of ice-creams.

“Now then for the Kalibonca Root, that was brought from Madras in the East Indies. It’ll cure the toothache, head-ache, giddiness in the head, dimness of sight, rheumatics in the head, and is highly recommended for the ague; never known to fail; and I’ve sold it for this six and twenty year. From one penny to sixpence the packet. The best article in England.”]

A quick-witted street-seller--but not in the “provision” line--conversing with me upon this subject, said: “Ices in the streets! Aye, and there’ll be jellies next, and then mock turtle, and then the real ticket, sir. I don’t know nothing of the difference between the real thing and the mock, but I once had some cheap mock in an eating-house, and it tasted like stewed tripe with a little glue. You’ll keep your eyes open, sir, at the Great Exhibition; and you’ll see a new move or two in the streets, take my word for it. Penny glasses of champagne, I shouldn’t wonder.”

Notwithstanding the sanguine anticipations of my street friend, the sale of ices in the streets has not been such as to offer any great encouragement to a perseverance in the traffic.

The sale of ice-creams was unknown in the streets until last summer, and was first introduced, as a matter of speculation, by a man who was acquainted with the confectionary business, and who purchased his ices of a confectioner in Holborn. He resold these luxuries daily to street-sellers, sometimes to twenty of them, but more frequently to twelve. The sale, however, was not remunerative, and had it not been generally united with other things, such as ginger-beer, could not have been carried on as a means of subsistence. The supplier of the street-traders sometimes went himself, and sometimes sent another to sell ice-cream in Greenwich Park on fine summer days, but the sale was sometimes insufficient to pay his railway expenses. After three or four weeks’ trial, this man abandoned the trade, and soon afterwards emigrated to America.

Not many weeks subsequent to “the first start,” I was informed, the trade was entered into by a street-seller in Petticoat-lane, who had become possessed, it was said, of Masters’s Freezing Apparatus. He did not vend the ices himself for more than two or three weeks, and moreover confined his sale to Sunday mornings; after a while he employed himself for a short time in making ices for four or five street-sellers, some of whom looked upon the preparation as a wonderful discovery of his own, and he then discontinued the trade.

There were many difficulties attending the introduction of ices into street-traffic. The buyers had but a confused notion how the ice was to be swallowed. The trade, therefore, spread only very gradually, but some of the more enterprising sellers purchased stale ices from the confectioners. So little, however, were the street-people skilled in the trade, that a confectioner told me they sometimes offered ice to their customers in the streets, and could supply only water! Ices were sold by the street-vendors generally at 1d. each, and the trade left them a profit of 4d. in 1s., when they served them “without waste,” and some of the sellers contrived, by giving smaller modicums, to enhance the 4d. into 5d.; the profit, however, was sometimes what is expressively called “nil.” Cent. per cent.--the favourite and simple rate known in the streets as “half-profits” was rarely attained.

From a street-dealer I received the following account:--

“Yes, sir, I mind very well the first time as I ever sold ices. I don’t think they’ll ever take greatly in the streets, but there’s no saying. Lord! how I’ve seen the people splutter when they’ve tasted them for the first time. I did as much myself. They get among the teeth and make you feel as if you tooth-ached all over. I sold mostly strawberry ices. I haven’t an idee how they’re made, but it’s a most wonderful thing in summer--freezing fruits in that way. One young Irish fellow--I think from his look and cap he was a printer’s or stationer’s boy--he bought an ice of me, and when he had scraped it all together with the spoon, he made a pull at it as if he was a drinking beer. In course it was all among his teeth in less than no time, and he stood like a stattey for a instant, and then he roared out,--‘Jasus! I’m kilt. The could shivers is on to me!’ But I said, ‘O, you’re all right, you are;’ and he says, ‘What d’you mane, you horrid horn,[8] by selling such stuff as that. An’ you must have the money first, bad scran to the likes o’ you!’

“The persons what enjoyed their ices most,” the man went on, “was, I think, servant maids that gulped them on the sly. Pr’aps they’d been used, some on ’em, to get a taste of ices on the sly before, in their services. We sees a many dodges in the streets, sir--a many. I knew one smart servant maid, treated to an ice by her young man--they seemed as if they was keeping company--and he soon was stamping, with the ice among his teeth, but she knew how to take hern, put the spoon right into the middle of her mouth, and when she’d had a clean swallow she says: ‘O, Joseph, why didn’t you ask me to tell you how to eat your ice?’ The conceit of sarvant gals is ridiculous. Don’t you think so, sir? But it goes out of them when they gets married and has to think of how to get broth before how to eat ices. One hot day, about eleven, a thin tall gentleman, not very young, threw down 1d. to me, and says, says he, ‘As much ice as you can make for that.’ He knew how to take it. When he’d done, he says, says he, ‘By G--, my good feller, you’ve saved my life. I’ve been keeping it up all night, and I was dying of a burnt-up throat, after a snooze, and had only 1d. So sick and hot was my stomach, I could have knelt down and taken a pull at the Thames’--we was near it at the time--‘You’ve saved my life, and I’ll see you again.’ But I’ve never see’d him since. He was a gentleman, I think. He was in black, and wore a big black and gold ring--only one.

[8] I inquired as to what was meant by the reproachful appellation, “horrid horn,” and my informant declared that “to the best of his hearing,” those were the words used; but doubtless the word was “omad-haun,” signifying in the Erse tongue, a half-witted fellow. My informant had often sold fruit to the same lad, and said he had little of the brogue, or of “old Irish words,” unless “his temper was riz, and then it came out powerful.”

“The rest of my customers for ices, was people that bought out of curiosity, and there was gentlemen’s servants among ’em, very little fellows some of ’em; and doctors’ boys; and mechanics as was young and seemed of a smartish sort; and boys that seemed like schoolboys; and a few women of the town,--but mine’s not much of a pitch for them.”

From the information I obtained, I may state that, if the sale of street ices be calculated at twenty persons taking, not earning, 1s. 6d. daily for four weeks, it is as near the mark as possible. This gives an expenditure of 42l. in street ices, with a profit to the vendors of from 10 to 25 per cent. I am told that an unsuccessful start has characterised other street trades--rhubarb for instance, both in the streets and markets--which have been afterwards successful and remunerative.

For capital in the ice trade a small sum was necessary, as the vendors had all stalls and sold other commodities, except the “original street ice man,” who was not a regular street trader, but a speculator. A jar--in which the ices were neither sufficiently covered nor kept cooled, though it was often placed in a vessel or “cooler,” containing cold water--cost 1s., three cups, 3d. (or three glasses, 1s.), and three spoons, 3d., with 2s. stock-money; the total is, presuming glasses were used, 4s., or, with a vessel for water, 5s.

OF THE CAPITAL AND INCOME OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF EATABLES AND DRINKABLES.

I now give a summary of the Capital and Income of the street-sellers of eatables and drinkables. But, first, I will endeavour to arrive at an estimate of the total number of people belonging to the class.

The street-sellers engaged in the sale of eatables and drinkables, are, summing the several items before given, altogether 6,347: of whom 300 sell pea-soup and hot eels; 150, pickled whelks; 300, fried fish; 300, sheeps’ trotters; 60, ham-sandwiches; 200, baked ’tatoes; 4, hot green peas; 150, meat; 25, bread; 1,000, cat and dogs’ meat; 300, coffee and tea; 1,700, ginger-beer, lemonade, sherbet, &c.; 50, elder-wine; 4, peppermint-water; 28, milk; 100, curds and whey and rice-milk; 60, water; 50, pies; 6, boiled pudding; 6, plum “duff”; 150, cakes and tarts; 4, plum-cakes; 30, other cheaper cakes; 150, gingerbread-nuts; 500, cross-buns; 500, muffins and crumpets; 200, sweet stuff; 6, cough-drops; 20, ice-creams. But many of the above are only temporary trades. The street-sale of hot cross-buns, for instance, lasts only for a day; that of muffins and crumpets, baked potatoes, plum-“duff,” cough-drops, elder-wine, and rice-milk, are all purely winter trades, while the sale of ginger-beer, lemonade, ice-creams, and curds and whey, is carried on solely in the summer. By this means the number of the street-sellers of eatables and drinkables, never at any one time reaches the amount before stated. In summer there are, in addition to the 10,000 costers before mentioned, about 3,000 people, and in winter between 4,000 and 5,000, engaged in the eatable and drinkable branch of the street-traffic.

As regards the Capital and Income, many minute accounts have been prepared.

To show the care, as well as the fulness with which these returns have been made, I give one of the Tables in its integrity, merely remarking, that similar tables relative to all the other articles have been made; but I condense the details, lest a repetition, however curious in its statistics, should prove wearisome:

CAPITAL, OR STOCK IN TRADE, OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF EATABLES AND DRINKABLES.

Street-sellers of Hot Eels. £ s. d. 200 stalls, at 6s. 60 0 0 100 baskets, at 1s. 5 0 0 200 eel-kettles, at 3s. 6d. 35 0 0 100 jars for itinerants, at 6d. 2 10 0 300 stew-pans, at 2s. 30 0 0 300 strainers, at 1s. 15 0 0 300 ladles, at 4d. 5 0 0 2,400 cups, at 1d. 10 0 0 2,400 spoons, at 1d. 10 0 0 200 chafing-dishes, at 6d. 5 0 0 200 glasses for candles, at 3d. 2 10 0 240 vendors’ stock-money, at 5s. each 60 0 0 60 ditto, at 25s. each 75 0 0 100 itinerants’ ditto, at 2s. each 10 0 0 300 cloths, at 4d. each 5 0 0 300 pairs of sleeves, at 4d. per pair 5 0 0 300 aprons at 4d. each 5 0 0 ---------------- £339 10 0

Street-sellers of Pea Soup.

150 soup-kettles, 4s. each; 150 ladles, 6d. each; 150 pepper-boxes, 1d. each; 150 mint-boxes, 3d. each; 150 chafing-dishes, 6d. each; 1,800 basons, 1d. each; 1,800 spoons, 1d. each; stock-money, 3s. 6d. each[9] 81 5 0

[9] The hot-eel trade being in conjunction with the pea-soup, the same stall, candles, towels, sleeves, and aprons do for both.

Street-sellers of Pickled Whelks.

100 stalls, 4s. each; 150 baskets, 2s. 6d. each; 150 tin boilers, 2s. 6d. each; 75 pans, 9d. each; 150 jars, 6d. each; 150 flour-dredgers, 4d. each; 1,800 saucers, 1/2d. each; 150 table-spoons, 2d. each; 150 knives, 2d. each; 150 vinegar-bottles, 1d. each; 150 serge aprons, 2s. each; stock-money, for 150 vendors, 5s. each 125 18 9

Street-sellers of Fried Fish.

300 trays, 1s. 6d. each; 300 frying-pans, 1s. 6d. each; 300 salt-dredgers, 3d. each; 300 knives, 2d. each; 300 earthenware pans, 1s. each; 300 shallows, 1s. each; stock-money, for 150 vendors, 5s. each 156 5 0

Street-sellers of Sheeps’ Trotters.

300 baskets, 1s. 4d. each; 300 cotton cloths, 4d. each; 300 forks, 2d. each; 300 knives, 3d. each; 300 pepper-boxes, 1d. each; 300 salt-cellars, 1d. each; stock-money, for 300 sellers, 1s. each 48 15 0

Street-sellers of Ham Sandwiches.

60 baskets, 2s. each; 60 tin boilers, 2s. each; 60 knives and forks, 6d. per pair; 60 mustard-pots, 1d. each; 60 spoons, 1d. each; 60 cloths, 5d. each; 60 aprons, 4d. each; 60 pairs of sleeves, 4d. per pair; stock-money for 60 vendors, 7s. 2d. weekly 38 15 0

Street-sellers of Baked ’Tatoes.

300 cans, 2l. each; 300 knives, 3d. each; 300 pepper-boxes, 1d. each; stock-money for 300 vendors, 10s. each 755 0 0

Street-sellers of Hot Green Peas.

4 cans, 2s. 6d. each; 4 vinegar-bottles, 1d. each; 4 pepper-boxes, 3d. each; 12 saucers, 1d. each; 12 spoons, 1d. each; 4 cloths, 4d. each; stock-money for 4 vendors, 2s. each 1 2 8

Street-sellers of Meat (“Hawking Butchers.”)

150 baskets, 4s. 6d. each; 150 saws, 2s. each; 150 cleavers, 1s. 6d. each; 150 steels, 1s. 6d. each; 150 belts for baskets, 1s. each; 150 do. for waist, 6d. each; 150 cloths, 6d. each; 150 aprons, 6d. each; 150 pairs of sleeves, 4d. per pair; 150 vendors’ stock-money, 6s. each per day 138 5 0

Street-sellers of Bread.

12 baskets, 4s. 6d. each; 12 barrows, 40s. each; 1 long bread-basket, 40s.; 1 barrow, 30s.; 13 sacks, 1s. each; stock-money for 25 vendors, at 1l. each 55 17 0

Street-sellers of Cats’ and Dogs’-meat.

500 barrows, 18s. each; 1,000 baskets, 1s. 6d. each; 500 sets of weights and scales, 4s. each; 1,000 knives, 8d. each; 1,000 steels, 1s. each; stock-money of 1,500 vendors, 7s. 6d. per head 1,083 6 8

Street-sellers of Coffee and Tea.

150 tables, 2s. 6d. each; 75 stalls, 6s. each; 75 coffee-barrows, 1l. each; 400 coffee-cans (100 vendors having two cans, and 200 only one), 8s. each; 1,200 half-pint cups and saucers, 3d. each, and 900 pints, 6d. each; 2,100 spoons, 1d. each; 900 plates, 1-1/2d. each; 300 knives, 2d. each; 300 pans, 9d. each; 600 canisters, 5d. each; 50 screens, 2s. 6d. each; stock-money of 300 vendors, 5s. each 435 12 0

Street-sellers of Ginger-beer.

300 barrows, 1l. each; 1,000 stalls, 5s. each; 175 fountains, 7l. each; 20 ditto, 20l. each; 3 ditto, 100l. each; 9,000 glasses, 5d. each; 1,500 tanks, 1s. each; 3,000 towels, 6d. each; 500 sets of brewing utensils, corks, &c., 5s. each; 500 gross of bottles, 10s. per gross, and stock-money for 1,500 vendors, 5s. each 3,562 10 0

Street-sellers of Lemonade, Nectar, Sherbet, &c.[10]

200 stalls, 6s. each; 500 stone barrels, 5s. 6d. each; 1,200 glasses, 4-1/2d. each; 400 towels, 6d. each; 200 jars, 2s. each; 2,400 glass bottles, 3d. each; stock-money for 200 vendors, 2s. 6d. each 305 0 0

[10] There are altogether 500 vendors of lemonade in the streets, but 300 of these sell also ginger-beer, and consequently do not have separate stalls, &c.

Street-sellers of Elder-wine.

3 elder-wine carriages and apparatus, 7l. each; 47 ditto ditto, 3l. 10s. each; 300 small wine-glasses, 2d. each; stock-money, 3s. per head 195 10 0

Street-sellers of Peppermint-water.

2 kegs, 3s. 6d. each; 2 jars, 2s. each; 16 glasses, 3d. each; 4 cloths, 4d. each; stock-money, for four vendors, 1s. each 1 0 4

Milk-sellers in the Park.

16 cows, 20l. each; 8 lockers, 3l. each; 32 fixed seats, 3s. each; 48 forms, 3s. each; 48 glasses, 4-1/2d. each; 96 cups, 1d. each; 8 halters, for cows, 6d. each; 8 pans, 1s. each; 16 towels, 6d. each 358 6 0

Milk-sellers in Markets, &c.

20 yokes and pairs of cans, 15s. each; 20 sets of measures, 2s. per set; stock-money for 20 vendors, 3s. each 20 0 0

Street-sellers of Curds and Whey.

100 stalls, 5s. each; 100 saucepans, to scald the milk in, 2s. each; 300 cups, 1d. each; 300 glasses, 5d. each; 600 spoons, 1/2d. each; 100 tin kettles, for stalls, at 3s. 6d. each; 100 small tubs, 1s. each; 100 cloths, 3d. each; stock-money for 100 vendors, at 2s. each 77 10 0

Street-sellers of Rice-milk.[11]

50 kettles and braziers, for stall, 4s. the two; 300 spice or peppermint-boxes, 1d. each; stock-money for fifty vendors, 1s. 3d. each 14 7 6

[11] The street-sellers of rice-milk are included in the street-sellers of curds and whey; hence the stalls, saucepans, cups, &c., of the two classes are the same.

Water-carriers.

120 pails, 2s. each; 60 yokes, 5s. each 27 0 0