London Labour and the London Poor, Volume 1
Mayhew, Henry
1861
Of the Street Sale of Milk.
During the summer months milk is sold in , , and the other markets, and on Sundays in Battersea-fields, Claphamcommon, Camberwell--green, Hampsteadheath, and similar places. About men are engaged in this sale. They usually wear a smock frock, and have the cans and yoke used by the regular milk-sellers; they are not itinerant. The skim milk—for they sell none else—is purchased at the dairies at a quart, and even the skim milk is also further watered by the street-sellers. Their cry is "Half-penny half-pint! Milk!" The tin measure however in which the milk-and-water is served is generally a "slang," and contains but half of the quantity proclaimed. The purchasers are chiefly boys and children; rarely men, and never costermongers, I was told, "for they reckon milk sickly." These street-sellers —who have most of them been employed in the more regular milk-trade—clear about a day each, for months; and as the profit is rather more than cent. per cent. it appears that about gallons of milk are thus sold, and upwards of laid out upon these persons, yearly in its purchase. | |
A pair of cans with the yoke cost , and is amply sufficient as capital to start in this trade, as the measures used may be bought for ; and can be devoted to the purchase of the liquid. | |