THE sale of sheep's trotters, as a regular streettrade, is confined to London, Liverpool, Newcastle-on-Tyne, and a few more of our greater towns. The "trotter," as it is commonly called, is the boiled foot of the sheep. None of my readers can have formed any commensurate notion of the extent of the sale in London, and to some readers the very existence of such a comestible may be unknown. The great supply now required is readily attained. The wholesale trade is now in the hands of fellmongering firm, though until within these months or so there were , and the feet are cut off the sheep-skins by the salesmen in the skin-market, in , and conveyed to the fellmonger's premises in carts and in trucks.

Sheep's trotters, of my informants could remember, were sold in the streets years ago, but in such small quantities that it could hardly be called a trade. Instead of being prepared wholesale as at present, and then sold out to the retailers, the trotters were then prepared by the individual retailers, or by small traders in tripe and cow--heel. years ago nearly all the sheep's trotters were "lined and prepared," when the skin came into the hands of the fellmonger, for the glue and size makers. years ago only about -

From to years ago glue and size, owing principally to improved modes of manufacture, became cheaper, so that it paid the fellmonger better to dispose of the trotters as an article "cooked" for the poor, than to the glueboiler.

The process of cookery is carried on rapidly at the fellmonger's in question. The feet are scalded for about half an hour. After that from to boys are employed in scooping out the hoofs, which are sold for manure or to manufacturers of Prussian blue, which is extensively used by painters. Women are then employed, being an average number, "to scrape the hair off,"—for hair it is called— quickly, but softly, so that the skin should not be injured, and after that the trotters are boiled for about hours, and they are then ready for market.

The proprietor of this establishment, after he had obligingly given me the information I required, invited me to walk round his premises unaccompanied, and observe how the business was conducted. The premises are extensive, and are situated, as are nearly all branches of the great trade connected with hides and skins, in . The trotter business is kept distinct from the general fellmongering. Within a long shed are coppers, each containing, on an average, "sets," a set being the complement of the sheep's feet, . of these coppers, on my visit, were devoted to the scalding, and to the boiling of the trotters. They looked like what might imagine to be witches' big caldrons; seething, hissing, boiling, and throwing forth a steam not peculiarly grateful to the nostrils of the uninitiated. Thus there are, weekly, "cooking" in form or other, the feet of sheep for the consumption of the poorer classes, or as a relish for those whose stomachs crave after edibles of this description. At extremity of this shed are the boys, who work in a place open at the side, but the flues and fires make all parts sufficiently warm. The women have a place to themselves on the opposite side of the yard. The room where they work has forms running along its sides, and each woman has a sort of bench in front of her seat, on which she scrapes the trotters. of the best of these workwomen can scrape sets, or feet in a day, but the average of the work is sets a week, including women and girls. I saw no girls but what seemed above or eighteen, and none of the women were old. They were exceedingly merry, laughing and chatting, and appearing to consider that a listener was not of primary consequence, as they talked pretty much altogether. I saw none but what were decently dressed, some were good-looking, and none seemed sickly.

In this establishment are prepared, weekly, sets, or feet; a yearly average of trotters, or the feet of sheep. Of this quantity the street-folk buy seveneighths; trotters yearly, or weekly. The number of sheep trotter-sellers may be taken at , which gives an average of nearly sets a week per individual.

The wholesale price, at the "trotter yard," is a penny, which gives an outlay by the street-sellers of yearly.

But this is not the whole of the trade. Lamb's trotters are also prepared, but only to - of the quantity of sheep's trotters, and that for only months of the year. These are all sold to the street-sellers. The lamb's foot is usually left appended to the leg and shoulder of lamb. It is weighed with the joint, but the butcher's man or boy will say to the purchaser: "Do you want the foot?" As the answer is usually in the negative, it is at once cut off and forms a "perquisite." There are some half dozen men, journeymen butchers not fully employed, who collect these feet, prepare and sell them to the street-people, but as the lamb's feet are very seldom as fresh as those of the sheep carried direct from the skin market to—so to speak—the great trotter kitchen, the demand for "lamb's" falls off yearly. Last year the sale may be taken at about sets, selling, wholesale, at about , the same price as the sheep.

The sellers of trotters, who are stationary at publichouse and theatre doors, and at street corners, and itinerant, but itinerant chiefly from public house to another are a wretchedly poor class. fourths of them are elderly women and children, the great majority being Irish people, and there are more boys than girls in the trade. The capital required to start in the business is very small. A hand basket of the larger size costs , but smaller or -hand only , and the white cotton cloth on which the trotters are displayed costs or ; stock-money need not exceed , so that is all that is required. This is reason, I heard from several trotter-sellers, why the business is over-peopled.