London Labour and the London Poor, Volume 1
Mayhew, Henry
1861
Of the Street Sale of Lavender.
The sale of green lavender in the streets is carried on by the same class as the sale of flowers, and is, as often as flowers, used for immoral purposes, when an evening or night sale is carried on. | |
The lavender is sold at the markets in bundles, each containing a dozen branches. It is sold principally to ladies in the suburbs, who purchase it to deposit in drawers and wardrobes; the odour communicated to linen from lavender being, perhaps, more agreeable and more communicable than that from any other flower. Nearly a of the market sale may be disposed of in this way. Some costers sell it cheap to recommend themselves to ladies who are customers, that they may have the better chance for a continuance of those ladies' custom. | |
The number of lavender-sellers can hardly be given as distinct from that of flower-sellers, because any flower-girl will sell lavender, "when it is in season." The season continues from the beginning of July to the end of September. In the winter months, generally after day-fall, dried lavender is offered for sale; it is bought at the herb-shops. There is, however, an addition to the number of the flower-girls of a few old women, perhaps from to , who vary their street-selling avocations by going from door to door in the suburbs with lavender for sale, but do not stand to offer it in the street. | |
The street-seller's profit on lavender is now somewhat more than cent. per cent., as the bundle, costing , brings when tied up in sprigs, at least, The profit, I am told, was, or years ago, per cent; "but people will have better penn'orths now." I was informed, by a person long familiar with the trade in flowers, that, from to years ago, the sale was the best. It was a fashionable amusement for ladies to tie the sprigs of lavender together, compressing the stems very tightly with narrow ribbon of any favourite colour, the heads being less tightly bound, or remaining unbound; the largest stems were in demand for this work. The lavender bundle, when its manufacture was complete, was placed in drawers, or behind books in the shelves of a glazed book-case, so that a most pleasant atmosphere was diffused when the book-case was opened. | |