London Labour and the London Poor, Volume 1
Mayhew, Henry
1861
Of the Obsolete Cries of the Costermongers.
A brief account of the cries once prevalent among the street-sellers will show somewhat significantly the change in the diet or regalements of those who purchase their food in the street. Some of the articles are not vended in the public thoroughfares now, while others are still sold, but in different forms. | |
"Hot sheep's feet," for instance, were cried in the streets in the time of Henry V.; they are now sold , at the doors of the lower-priced theatres, and at the larger public-houses. Among the street cries, the following were common prior to the wars of the Roses: "Ribs of beef," — "Hot peascod," — and "Pepper and saffron." These certainly indicate a different street diet from that of the present time. | |
The following are more modern, running from Elizabeth's days down to our own. "Pippins," and, in the times of Charles II., and subsequently, oranges were sometimes cried as "Orange pips,"—"Fair lemons and oranges; oranges and citrons,"—"New Wall-fleet oysters," ["" fish was formerly cried as "new,"]—"New-river water," [I may here mention that water-carriers still ply their trade in parts of Hampstead,] — "Rosemary and lavender," — "Small coals," [a cry rendered almost poetical by the character, career, and pitiful end, through a practical joke, of Tom Britton, the "small-coal man,"] — "Pretty pins, pretty women,"—"Lilly-white vinegar," —"Hot wardens" (pears)—"Hot codlings,"— and lastly the greasy-looking beverage which Charles Lamb's experience of London at early morning satisfied him was of all preparations the most grateful to the stomach of the then existing climbing-boys — viz., "Sa-loop." I may state, for the information of my younger readers, that saloop (spelt also "salep" and "salop") was prepared, as a powder, from the root of the , or Red-handed Orchis, a plant which grows luxuriantly in our meadows and pastures, flowering in the spring, though never cultivated to any extent in this country; that required for the purposes of commerce was imported from India. The saloopstalls were superseded by the modern coffee-stalls. | |
There were many other cries, now obsolete, but what I have cited were the most common. | |