Part 20 (1/2)

Well-dressed they are, too, you wouldn't think they could want 'em badly. 'Oh, it must 'a got up my sleeve,' some of 'em say, looking most innocent, with perhaps two or three yards of brocade or surah hangin' out of their golf-capes.... They've got a kind of a fancy, as well, for religious books: no knowing why, for religion,” added the shop-walker thoughtfully, ”has evidently done them no good.”

With which reflection I cordially agreed.

Sales, however tempting, should be avoided by the unwary shopper, for they are dangerous as spiders' webs. They usually occur twice a year, in January and July; in January, they relieve the tedium of the winter fogs; in July, they are a very midsummer madness. The sales vary in honesty. Some of them are really held in order to clear out, at a sacrifice, the ”old stock”; some, especially in the smaller shops, are simply quick sales of ”cheap lines,” bought in on purpose, and strewn about heterogeneously on the counters. Sale days are truly terrible experiences to the uninitiated. If you happened, unwittingly, to go to some familiar shop on one of these yearly occasions, the ma.s.s of crowded, struggling, gasping humanity, nearly all pus.h.i.+ng, and nearly all fat, would lead you to imagine that life and death, at least, were intimately concerned in the tussle, instead of merely the question of securing the ”first choice” of ”Remnants.”

The shopping, however, of the rich is one thing, and the shopping of the very poor is quite another. Most interesting, to those who care to study the book of human nature, are the ”street-markets” of the people, those rows of noisy booths and barrows which have stood from time immemorial, by traditional right, in certain streets, and where jets of brilliant, flaring naptha-lights display the kaleidoscopic stock-in-trade. Among such streets are Goodge Street, Tottenham Court Road; Leather Lane, Holborn; or, to descend to a yet lower social depth, Brick Lane, Spitalfields. Booths and barrows are, as everybody knows, not allowed to obstruct the majority of streets, being generally limited to slums or wretched paved alleys; here, however, the authorities evidently make exceptions in favour of certain ancient vested rights. In Goodge Street fruit and vegetables are mainly sold; in Leather Lane, tools, appliances, pedlars' wares, butchers' meat; everything, in fact, in infinite variety; in Spitalfields, birds and live-stock, together with old clothes, and second-hand articles generally. In such street-markets, from eight to ten on Sat.u.r.day night is the gala time for business. M. Gabriel Mourey says:

”These streets of London, where the poor do their marketing, are, on Sat.u.r.day night, gay with light and thronged with people. Because of the next day's rest, there is, until past midnight, an open market, which invades the pavement with costers' barrows heaped with fruit, butchers' stalls, booths of incongruous articles, kitchen utensils, old tools, all the bric-a-brac of the second-hand suburban shop; vehicular traffic is suspended; all barriers are encroached upon; everyone walks in the middle of the street. Dealers and brokers offer shoes, clothing, hats, boots, plates and dishes, all at ridiculous prices.”

Curious, indeed, are the bits of life and character that are to be met with on these London by-ways. Not changed one whit in essentials since d.i.c.kens's time, they recall his wonderful insight, observation, and inimitable c.o.c.kney touches. There are small differences, of course; the street matrons, for instance, have changed their former floppy caps for battered sailor hats, or other articles of damaged head-gear; the use of their nails, as an offensive weapon, for the more formidable ”hat-pin.” The traditional dress of the self-respecting feminine street-dealer is, however, still as sternly conventional in its way as the Mayfair belle's. At the present day it consists, usually, of a black cloth or plush jacket, a vividly red or blue skirt, a large white ap.r.o.n, a black hat of either the ”feather” or ”sailor” variety, slovenly boots down at heel, and,--most important point of all--long and conspicuous gold earrings. Thus attired, the lady street-vendor haggles and chaffers all day in a conscious elegance and propriety. The ladies of the profession generally monopolize the itinerant greengrocery trade; and among their customers you may still see some Mrs. Prig, carefully selecting a juicy ”cowc.u.mber” for the supper of her ”friend and pardner, Sairey Gamp”; while yonder, perhaps, is some Mrs. Tibbs, or Mrs. Todgers, carefully appraising the piece of steak destined for the dinner of her rapacious boarders, and weighed down by all the distracting cares of paying guests. Near by, perhaps Jo, that poor vagrant, finger in mouth, eyes wistfully a juicy plateful of sh.e.l.lfish that the ”winkle-barrow” man has just got ready for a customer. Then, maybe, a hansom rattles by with a jaded diner-out, yawning from a sense of the emptiness, not of his stomach, but of society and life, and you recall almost unconsciously Molloy's haunting words:

”Go thy way! Let me go mine, I to starve, and thou to dine.”

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Sat.u.r.day Night Shopping._]

Let us, however, hope that those who really ”starve” are few in number. For the barrow-men, who pay small rates as compared to shop-owners, give good value in return for their money, with much homely wit and caustic joking thrown in; and poor, indeed, must be the household that cannot enjoy, on Sat.u.r.day night, their something ”'ot with innions,” their portion of fried fish, or of sheeps' trotters. Of course, when dealing with barrows, the buyer must have as many eyes as possible. ”Let the buyer beware” may be specially said of this cla.s.s of shopping. It were perhaps too much to expect, as Mr. Oliver Wendell Holmes seems to suggest, that fruit, when you buy it, should ”grow bigger _downwards_ through the box”; yet, perhaps, when you see a pile of luscious pears or apples heaped up temptingly in front of you, you need not allow yourself to be fobbed off with a few rotten ones, shovelled up carelessly from unseen depths behind. Much art is necessary when dealing with a barrow-man, who, as often as not, really respects the careful and fastidious shopper, and retorts to her complaints with a good-natured joke. If a trifle less distant in manner than his West-End brother, he is certainly more affectionate, and dubs his customer ”my dear.” But, in the street markets, it is usually the meat-huckster who is the greatest ”character.” His voice may be heard above the general din: ”Buy my pretty meat,” he shouts from his stall to the red-armed housewives; ”now, lydies, don't go a fingerin' it _too_ much, or it'll taste er kid gloves when you go to eat it.... 'Ave that there sheep's 'ed, Miss? wy, certingly; that wuz a _'appy_ sheep, that wuz! jest look at the smile 'e's got on 'im; know'd you wuz a-goin' to buy 'im, 'e did.... There now, my dear! look wot you've been and done, rolled that there bit 'o' s.h.i.+n in the mud, it'll 'ave to go for _cats'_ meat now,” &c. &c.

This kind of ”patter,” continued _ad libitum_, seems to be regarded as the slum butcher's special _metier_.

In Brick Lane, Spitalfields,--not the Jewish ”Ghetto,” but the purely English quarter,--there is, moreover, a Sunday morning ”poor man's market.” It is usually, in more select London highways, more or less difficult to make purchases, be they never so necessary, on Sunday morning. I remember, indeed, a despairing search for food on such an occasion (food necessitated by the arrival of unexpected visitors), which ended in the obtaining, almost by force, of a couple of boiled chickens from a small Italian restaurant, with the added injunction to ”keep them well hidden” from the eye of the law on the homeward journey. In the East End, however, it is very different. Brick Lane, an unsavoury region, described by the late Mr. Montagu Williams as ”a land of beer and blood,” presents on Sunday morning a strange sight to the uninitiated. Here is its picture by an eye-witness:

”In Brick Lane ... scenes are to be witnessed on Sunday mornings which afford a companion picture to those in Whitechapel. The East End English have also, like the Jews, their 'poor man's market,' and where Sh.o.r.editch, Bethnal Green and Spitalfields meet at the northern part of Brick Lane, which is in Spitalfields, the poorest and meanest of them are to be found. In the early part of Sunday morning, for a couple of hours or so, there is a woman's market where cast-off clothes, tawdry finery, and the newest things in hats and feathers are bartered. Heterogeneous heaps of clothing, boots and shoes included, lie spread over the ground, and some amusing scenes are to be witnessed. Pa.s.s along Sclater Street and new scenes meet the eye. The women are left behind, and men and boys are met with. Instead of old clothes one sees and hears twittering birds. Here come the pigeon fanciers from all parts of Bethnal Green and Spitalfields; birds of all kinds are to be bought, and the noise and bustle are in striking contrast to the subdued, sorrow-stricken tone of the women's market. It does not require any long acquaintance with these scenes to discover that the men are fonder of their birds than of their wives.

Nowhere is bird-fancying and pigeon-breeding more general than in the crowded East End. Where one would think there was not house-room enough or food enough for human occupants, prize birds of great value are reared--most probably with money that should have gone to feed and clothe the children.”

The special markets where the poor buy and sell are not, however, exactly tempting to the well-to-do, unless in search of ”copy” or other experience. For those London visitors who do not appreciate the slums, yet whose olfactory organs are not too fastidious, the big London markets, Covent Garden, Smithfield, Billingsgate, will perhaps afford a sufficient experience in that line. Billingsgate is the most perilous excursion of the three. Its aroma is strong and lasting, and the stranger in its diverging courts and alleys runs considerable danger of having winkle-barrels or fish crates descend on his devoted head, as they are lowered from the wharves on to their respective carts. Yes, a little of Billingsgate will undoubtedly go a very long way; yet it is an interesting place to have seen, and the strange, sudden appearance of ancient churches,--St. Dunstan's, St. Magnus, St.

Mary-at-Hill,--incongruously calm amid the wild turmoil all round them,--gives a momentary peace even ”amid the City's jar.” The language of Billingsgate fish-wives and porters is proverbial, yet it is perhaps hardly worse than in many other less fishy quarters of London. The Coal Exchange, opposite Billingsgate, has, with its broad flight of steps, on which people sit, itself a kind of ecclesiastical look. The fish market opens at five in the morning.

All this quarter of London is a vast hive of industry. The stranger should walk along the busy thoroughfare of Upper and Lower Thames Street all the way from the Tower to St. Paul's; tall, blackened, ever-devouring warehouses line the street, which is a very inferno of bustle and labour. Though the street is muddy and noisy, and its perambulation may not impossibly render the pedestrian more than a little cross, he will, at any rate, gain from it some insight into London life. Mr. Hare describes the scene well:

”Thames Street,” he says, ”is the very centre of turmoil.

From the huge warehouses along the sides, with their chasm-like windows and the enormous cranes which are so great a feature of this part of the City, the rattling of the chains and the creaking of the cords, by which enormous packages are constantly ascending and descending, mingle with uproar from the roadway beneath. Here the hugest waggons, drawn by t.i.tanic dray horses, and attended by waggoners in smock-frocks, are always lading or discharging their enormous burthens of boxes, barrels, crates, timber, iron, or cork.”

But, though a visit to Billingsgate is only faintly suggested, and the delights of the great central meat-market of Smithfield are, it is fair to say, only capable of thorough appreciation by farmers and connoisseurs, every visitor to London ought to be enjoined to go and see Covent Garden Market, and preferably in the early hours of the spring morning, the time of its highest activity. Not only interesting at the present day as a special focus of London life, Covent Garden has, also, the cla.s.sic charm of history. For as early as the thirteenth century this was the ”convent garden” of Westminster, supplying its monks with fruit and vegetables. That the course of centuries and the habit of c.o.c.kneys has dropped the sacred ”n,” and changed the name into ”Covent Garden” is easily understood. Covent Garden is still faithful to its fruit and vegetables, though these, alas! are no longer to be seen _growing_ there, but are transported thither from the rich gardens of England, as well as from colonies and nations overseas. Here, within this small enclosure, can be got, it is said, all that skill can grow, care can transport, and money can buy.

Here can be obtained, at any time, and at short notice, the roses of a Heliodorus, or the orchids of a Vanderbilt; together with priceless fruits in mid-winter, new vegetables in February frosts, and tropical produce all the year round. The middle avenue of Covent Garden is expensive, but it can produce anything wished for in the fruit and flower line. Riches in such places are as the magic wand of an Aladdin. The central avenue of the market is refined and polite; outside its limits, however, the manners of the locality are original and peculiar, a kind of ”law unto themselves.” The Covent Garden porters and market-women are rough diamonds; the men, especially, full of good-natured horse-play, seem alarming on a first introduction, but harmless when you are used to them. Yet I have known timid ladies who have shrunk from a walk through ”the Garden,” imagining its denizens to be robbers and cut-throats, or, at least, revolutionary citizens of a supposed ”Reign of Terror!”

Covent Garden is at its highest glory on certain May mornings, from about six to eight,--on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sat.u.r.days,--which are special ”market days.” On these occasions the din and bustle is indescribable; and ”Mud-Salad Market,” justifying its t.i.tle, becomes a green sea of spring vegetables, interspersed with still greener islands of laden, tottering market carts. The show of cut flowers is a wonderful sight, and street hawkers, flower-girls, itinerant flower-vendors and plant-sellers, are one and all busy making their special ”bargains.” The flower-girls, untidy, shawled and befeathered, sit about on doorsteps or on upturned market baskets making their ”b.u.t.ton-holes” for the day, and scanning anxiously the weather;--so much of their profit depends on that! They are all a cheery, though somewhat rowdy, folk, who mean no harm by their very outspoken witticisms. Even their rowdiness is an historic legacy; for, in past days, this neighbourhood used to be ravaged by the redoubted street bullies called ”Mohocks” or ”Scourers,” pests of an older time. There is a well-known print of Covent Garden Market, from Hogarth's picture, _Morning_; the print shows the red, barn-like Church of St. Paul dominating, as it still does, the market, and the old taverns near to it. The taverns and inns of Covent Garden used to be famous, but have now mostly decayed, like its ”Piazza,” or Italian colonnade, little of which is now left standing, but which was once the glory of the town.

Thackeray, who used to stay at the ”Bedford,” thus describes the place in his day:

”The two great national theatres on one side, a churchyard full of mouldy but undying celebrities on the other; a fringe of houses studded in every part with anecdote or history; an arcade, often more gloomy and deserted than a cathedral aisle; a rich cl.u.s.ter of brown old taverns, one of them filled with the counterfeit presentments of many actors long since silent, who scowl and smile once more from the canvas upon the grandsons of their dead admirers; a something in the air which breathes of old books, old painters, and old authors; a place beyond all other places one would choose in which to hear the chimes at midnight, a crystal palace--the representative of the present--which presses in timidly from a corner upon many things of the past; a withered bank that has been sucked dry by a felonious clerk, a squat building with a hundred columns, and chapel-looking fronts, which always stands knee-deep in baskets, flowers, and scattered vegetables; a common centre into which Nature showers her choicest gifts, and where the kindly fruits of the earth often nearly choke the narrow thoroughfares; a population that never seems to sleep, and that does all in its power to prevent others sleeping; a place where the very latest suppers and the earliest breakfasts jostle each other over the footways.”

Fielding, the novelist, devotes in _Humphry Clinker_ a page or two to Covent Garden market, which he supposes to be described by an old country gentleman. The writer complains of its dearness and dirt:

”It must be owned,” (he says), ”that Covent Garden affords some good fruit; which, however, is always engrossed by a few individuals of overgrown fortune, at an exorbitant price; so that little else than the refuse of the market falls to the share of the community; and that is distributed by such filthy hands, as I cannot look at without loathing.”

The old gentleman also goes on to complain of the nightly terrors of the London ”watchman, bawling the hour through every street and thundering at every door.” This custom, fortunately for us, is now in abeyance; also the street cries of London (at least in its more polite circles) are likewise much diminished in intensity. Even the m.u.f.fin man's bell, so welcome in the winter afternoon's gloom, seems now more seldom heard. ”Sweet Lavender,” however, still has a familiar autumn sound, and the flower-hawkers of spring are still discordant. Yet one's ears are no longer so generally deafened, and the reason for this is not far to seek. For London is now so gay with advertis.e.m.e.nts that in every direction our eyes meet strange, gaily-coloured h.o.a.rding and sky signs; and the manifold attractions of various articles, instead of being cried in the streets, now cry at us from the walls, or shout discordantly at us from out of the blue of heaven, from ugly black wires and glaring brazen letters. We cannot go out of doors without being asked a hundred times, in varying type, such silly questions as ”Why does a Woman Look Old Sooner than a Man?” ”Why Let Your Baby Die?” ”Why Pay House Rent?” or other such idiotic queries.

Why, who _would_ pay house rent, especially in London, if he or she could help it? In shops, or on railways, it is the same. For at least several miles out of London you travel in the constant company of ”Pears's Soap,” and ”Colman's Mustard;” and outside eating-shops you see in large letters the cunning legend, ”Everything as Nice as Mother Makes it.” The Art of Advertis.e.m.e.nt is everywhere paramount. You cannot even travel in the humble omnibus without being implored ”not to let your wife worry over the house-cleaning,” and being asked ”why your nose gets red after eating”; together with suggested remedies for both these sad states of things. These are really, when one comes to think of it, impertinent personalities. This mania for posters has, of course, largely resulted from the modern spread of education: for of what use to ask such questions in old days, when few could have succeeded in reading them? The fas.h.i.+on of advertis.e.m.e.nts is still growing, the Americans are encouraging it to preposterous proportions; and we shall soon, indeed, live in a mere criss-cross of lettered wires, not unlike Mr. Wells's idea of a future Utopia.

Yet far away be that time still! Although the threatening wires already faintly line the blue here and there above our city gardens, although telephones and electric connections necessitate the continual dragging up of our streets, London has its charm still, and sweet is yet the London summer when the square lilacs and acacias blossom, and when, to quote Mr. Andrew Lang, ”fans for a penny are sold in the Strand!”