London at the End of the Century:A Book of Gossip
a Beckett, Arthur William
1900
BILLINGSGATE IN THE EARLY MORNING.
I need scarcely say that it is a very excellent thing, if you can manage it, to rise early. The late George Augustus Sala has, I think, shown us, in that the initial hours of the day may be spent to great advantage in either Billingsgate or . It is some years since I visited the first place at the time to | |
247 | which I have referred, but my recollections of the occasion are distinctly vivid. I was going by the early morning boat to Boulogne, and at that time there was a regulation in force that passengers were only permitted to come on board an hour before the departure of the vessel. In these circumstances, I found myself a person with little to do, plus ample time in which to do it; or, as our American cousins might have termed me, a temporary member of the After leaving St. Katharine's Dock at about two in the morning I walked by the Tower Ditch, where I found a man engaged in a fight with a lady who described herself (in language more suitable, perhaps, to Billingsgate than ) as his wife. As the female was getting the worst of it I thought it my duty to interfere, when the couple, recognising the unity imposed upon them by the law, made up their difference immediately and I had to run, if not for my life, at any rate for my personal safety. I was younger then than I am now, and therefore could trust to my agility. I was taught the lesson, however, to avoid interference in domestic squabbles. It is dangerous to intervene between man and wife-especially in the neighbourhood of the Tower before sunrise. My rapid retreat took me to Billingsgate Market, brilliantly lighted with gas, and full to overflowing with fish salesmen and fish purchasers. The auctioneers are hard at |
248 | work knocking down the inhabitants of the vasty deep with the celerity of lightning. Outside the market for two or three hundred yards the streets were congested with carts. Some years after the date I have in my mind as I write, there was a correspondence in the newspapers calling attention to the crush, and declaring that some of the vehicles crowded with fish never reached their destination. A number of the correspondents insisted upon the cruel waste caused by the confusion and interruption of the traffic, and there were leaders of the usual type suggesting that London was sacrificed to mismanagement and greed of gain. It was during the that these interesting communications appeared, and for the moment everyone left in town talked of nothing else. Then someone committed a mysterious murder, or one of our agents in savage lands got up a little war, or a bank came to grief, or something of that sort happened, and Billingsgate and its abuses were forgotten. I have no doubt that were enquiry made it would be found that Billingsgate stands where it stood and the abuses are just as much a matter of the present as they were of the past. No doubt we pay now just as much (and unjustly too much) as we did then. A holiday-maker tied to town on the next of St. Lubbock might pay the place an early morning visit and see how things are going. Always supposing that the feast does |
249 | not interfere with business, I imagine he would find plenty of material for an indignant letter to the papers. Let me recommend the experiment. |
