London Labour and the London Poor, Volume 1
Mayhew, Henry
1861
Of the Removals of Costermongers From the Streets.
SUCH are the laws concerning street trading: let us now see the effect of them. | |
Within these months, or little more, there have been many removals of the costermongers from their customary standings in the streets. This, as I have stated, is never done, unless the shopkeepers represent to the police that the costermongers are an injury and a nuisance to them in the prosecution of their respective trades. The costermongers, for the most part, know nothing of the representation of the shopkeepers, so that perhaps the intimation that they must "quit" comes from the policemen, who thus incur the full odium of the measure, the majority of the street people esteeming it a mere arbitrary act on the part of the members of the force. | |
The removal, recently, took place in , , between and months back. It was effected in consequence of representations from the shopkeepers of the neighbourhood. But the removal was of a brief continuance. "," I was told, "looked like a desert compared to what it was. People that had lived there for years hardly knew their own street; and those that had complained, might twiddle their thumbs in their shops for want of something better to do." | |
The reason, or reason, why the shopkeepers' trade is co-existent with that of the street-sellers was explained to me in this way | |
60 | by a tradesman perfectly familiar with the subject. "The poorer women, the wives of mechanics or small tradesmen, who have to prepare dinners for their husbands, like, as they call it, 'to make errand do.' If the wife buys fish or vegetables in the street, as is generally done, she will, at the same time, buy her piece of bacon or cheese at the cheesemonger's, her small quantity of tea and sugar at the grocer's, her fire-wood at the oilman's, or her pound of beef or liver at the butcher's. In all the streetmarkets there are plenty of such tradesmen, supplying necessaries not vended in the streets, and so errand is sufficient to provide for the wants of the family. Such customers—that is, such as have been used to buy in the streets— will be driven to buy at the shops. They can't be persuaded that they can buy as cheap at the shops; and besides they are apt to think shopkeepers are rich and street-sellers poor, and that they may as well encourage the poor. So if street-market is abolished, they'll go to another, or buy of the itinerant costermongers, and they'll get their bits of groceries and the like at the shops in the neighbourhood of the other street-market, even if they have a walk for it; and thus everybody's injured by removing markets, except a few, and they are those at the nearest markets that's not disturbed." |
In the shopkeepers speedily retrieved what many soon came to consider the false step (as regards their interests) which they had taken, and in a fortnight or so, they managed, by further representations to the police authorities, and by agreement with the streetsellers, that the street-market people should return. In little more than a fortnight from that time, , , resumed its wonted busy aspect. | |
In the case at present is different. The men, women, and children, between and months back, were all driven by the police from their standings. These removals were made, I am assured, in consequence of representations to the police from the parishioners, not of , but of the adjoining parish of Christchurch, Blackfriars-road, who described the market as an injury and a hindrance to their business. The costermongers, etc., were consequently driven from the spot. | |
A highly respectable tradesman in "the Cut" told me, that he and all his brother shopkeepers had found their receipts diminished a quarter, or an at least, by the removal; and as in all populous neighbourhoods profits were small, this falling off was a very serious matter to them. | |
In "the Cut" and its immediate neighbourhood, are tradesmen who supply street-dealers with the articles they trade in,—such as cheap stationery, laces, children's shoes, braces, and toys. They, of course, have been seriously affected by the removal; but the pinch has fallen sorest upon the street-sellers themselves. These people depend a good deal upon another, as they make mutual purchases; now, as they have nei- ther stalls nor means, such a source of profit is abolished. | |
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Another man told me that he now paid a week for privilege to stand with stalls on a space opposite the entrance into the National Baths, New Cut; and that he and his wife, who had stood for years in the neighbourhood, without a complaint against them, could hardly get a crust. | |
man, with a fruit-stall, assured me that months ago he would not have taken for his pitch, and now he was a "regular bankrupt." I asked a girl, who stood beside the kerb with her load in front strapped round her loins, whether her tray was heavy to carry. "After hours at it," she answered, "it swaggers me, like drink." The person whom I was with brought to me girls, who, he informed me, had been forced to go upon the streets to gain a living. Their stall on the Saturday night used to have worth of stock; but trade had grown so bad since the New Police order, that after living on their wares, they had taken to prostitution for a living, rather than go to the "house." The ground in front of the shops has been bought up by the costermongers at any price. Many now give the tradesmen a week for a stand, and man pays as much as for the right of pitching in front. | |
The applications for parochial relief, in consequence of these removals, have been fewer than was anticipated. In parish, however, about families have been relieved, at a cost of Strange to say, a quarter, or rather more, of the very applicants for relief had been furnished by the parish with money to start the trade, their expulsion from which had driven them to pauperism. | |
It consequently becomes a question for serious consideration, whether any particular body of householders should, for their own interest, convenience, or pleasure, have it in their power to | |
61 | deprive so many poor people of their only means of livelihood, and so either force the rate-payers to keep them as paupers, or else drive the women, who object to the imprisonment of the Union, to prostitution, and the men to theft—especially when the very occupation which they are not allowed to pursue, not only does no injury to the neighbourhood, but is, on the contrary, the means of attracting considerable custom to the shops in the locality, and has, moreover, been provided for them by the parish authorities as a means of enabling them to get a living for themselves. |
