Chapter X: Part 10

Busiest among the busy is seen the "Bommeree," or middleman--sometimes called the forestaller. The province of this individual is to purchase the fish as it comes into the market, and divide it into lots to suit large and small buyers, separating the qualities according as they are designed for St. James's or St. Giles's. These worthies used at one time to forestal the market extensively, when they felt certain, from the state of the tide, that no fish supplies could be poured in for the day, but now the railway defeats their tactics, and the utter uncertainty of the arrivals has done away with this branch of their business. After the "trade" has been supplied, and the serge-aproned "regulars" have loaded their light spring carts, there comes, especially in certain fish seasons, an eruption of purchasers of a totally different character--the costermongers of streets. This nomade tribe, which wanders in thousands from market to market, performs a most important part in the distribution of food. They are for the greater part the tradesmen of the poor, and by their energy and enterprise secure to our working-classes many of the fruits of both sea and land, which they would never taste but for them. About seven o'clock the army of street-vendors, foot and "donkey," for the greater number rattle up in barrows drawn by that useful animal, begin visibly to change the whole hue and appearance of the place. Young fellows in fustian coats and Belcher handkerchiefs throng the market, and board the smacks, "chaffing," higgling, joking, and swearing--but never fighting, for the costermonger has too much to do at present to make physical demonstrations. Among the most eager of the itinerant salesmen the visitor speedily distinguishes the Judaic nose. The Hebrews, who are in great force about this neighbourhood on account of the dried-fruit trade, which is mainly in their hands, deal largely also in fish. The poorer members of the fraternity purchase the bigger portion of the fresh-water supply, such as plaice, roach, dace, &c., in fact, nearly everything caught by the Wandsworth fisherman, whose picturesque "bawley" boats, which often contain both his family and fortune, may generally be seen moored in the stream between Battersea reach and Kew bridge, a mass of brown nets and umber canopies lit up by the brilliant red caps of their owners, just such as Constable loved to paint in the foregrounds of his landscapes. These fish, if not alive, must at least retain the spasmodic quivering of the flesh which remains immediately after death, or the Jews will not buy, for reasons we suppose connected with their religion, since their chief trade is among the rich and poor of their own people. The Wandsworth fishermen also supply all the white-bait that is consumed at Greenwich and Blackwall: it is caught generally between the latter place and Woolwich at night, and it is singular that a fish which is among the most delicate we have, should flourish in one of the foulest parts of the foulest river in Europe. The area of the market, as soon as the costermongers appear, speedily becomes broken up into numbers of little circles, strictly intent upon the eye of individuals who take up a position high over their heads upon the boards or stands. These are the salesmen, disposing by auction of the fish consigned to them. Some of the dealers are moneyed men, and will lay out their fifty pounds of a morning, re-selling to their fellows again at a profit. The smaller capitalists combine in threes and fours, and thus manage to get their commodities at wholesale prices. The activity of the market mainly depends upon the season of the year and the amount of fish. The energy of these peripatetics is surprising: they look in at Billingsgate, and if the supply runs short they are off again immediately to Covent Garden, for they deal in everything, and the barrow that one morning you see filled with fresh herrings, the next is blooming with plums. If, on the contrary, a large cargo of sprats comes suddenly into London, or if soles should be unusually plentiful, it is known in an incredibly short space of time all over the town, and they flock to the market in thousands; as many as five thousand is the usual attendance on such occasions. These costermongers absorb more than a third of the whole Billingsgate supply; of sprats and fresh herrings they take fully two-thirds. Turbot and all the costlier fish they purchase sparingly, but they buy largely when it chances to be cheap, as in the cholera year of 1849, when prime salmon went a-begging at four-pence a pound! If the market is dull, and prices are high, the fact is speedily known, and the cry of "No smacks at the Gate," is sufficient to turn the current immediately in the direction of the "Garden."

Steam, as we have already intimated, has revolutionized the fish-trade, and is rapidly sweeping away the whole fleet of smacks propelled by sails, as ruthlessly as the rail did stagecoaches. A few years ago all the oysters were brought by water to Billingsgate; but a short time since a great natural bed, called the Mid Channel Bed, which stretches for forty miles between the ports of Shoreham and Havre, was discovered, and, the dredging-ground being free to all comers, a vast field of wealth has been opened to fishermen, especially as from the proximity of the Brighton and South Coast Railway the produce can be sent immediately to town, and escape the dues of metage and other tolls to which all fish landed at the market is liable. Seaborne oysters are thus placed at a great disadvantage, and the different companies owning them justly complain at a city exaction which takes a large sum annually out of their pockets, besides the charge for porterage it entails upon the purchasers. Mr. Alston, who is, without doubt, the largest oyster-fisher in the world, sent up in one year between 40,000 and 50,000 bushels from his fishery, Cheyney Rock, near Sheerness, and paid 800_l._ for metage. The whole trade paid no less than 3,000_l._, and this for services which their own men could do as well as themselves, were it not for a custom which enforces idleness upon the smack people.[21]

The "scuttle-mouths," as they are termed from their huge shell, pay no attention to season, and consequently oyster-day has now in a great degree lost its significance. The 4th of August is still, it is true, the opening day at Billingsgate, but the supply from without has taken the wind out of its sails. Only those who have witnessed the crowds filling all the streets leading to the market long before the hour of business--six o'clock in the morning--can understand the eagerness exhibited of old to obtain some of the first day's oysters. All this is now gone. There were not more than eighteen smacks at the opening of the present year, and, few as were the arrivals, the buyers were not eager. The Mid-Channel oysters, which have thus disturbed the old trade, are of a large and by no means delicate kind, such as come from Tenby, Jersey, &c.--coarse fish, eaten by rough men--third-class oysters, in fact, which rarely penetrate to the West End, unless to make sauce. Real natives are greater aristocrats among their fellows than ever; the demand for them has for a long time far exceeded the supply, and the price has consequently risen. Of the birth, parentage and nurture of this delicate fish, a curious tale could be told. Designed for fastidious palates, much care and attention is bestowed upon its breeding. The _habitué_ of the Opera, who strolls up the brilliantly lighted Haymarket towards midnight, and turns into any one of the fish supper-rooms that line its western side, little dreams of the organization at work to enable him to enjoy his native. Most of the oysters, with the exception of the Mid-Channel bed, are regularly cultivated by different companies, who rear and tend them at different parts of the south coast, and of the Thames at its mouth. Of these companies there are nine, in addition to individuals who possess and work what might be called sea-farms, several of which are miles in extent. In all the beds there is a certain space dedicated to natives. At Burnham, Essex, the "spat," or fecundated sperm, is stored in large pits, and sold as native brood, which is afterwards "laid" in that portion of the different beds appropriated to privileged oysters. Here the young natives remain for three years, when they are generally brought to market. So far their education is left, in a certain degree, to nature; but once in the possession of the fish-shopkeepers, art steps in to perfect their condition. They are now stored in large shallow vats, being carefully laid with their proper sides uppermost, and supplied daily with oatmeal: a process which is calculated rather to fatten than to flavour, and there are many who think that, like show cattle, they are none the better for over-feeding. "Natives," packed in barrels, form one of the articles of food that is largely sent out of London into the country, as all persons know who travel much at Christmas time, and notice with astonishment the pyramids of oyster-barrels which crowd the platforms of all the termini of the metropolis.

The frying-pans of London are mainly supplied with soles all the year round by the trolling-boats of Barking, of which there are upwards of 150 belonging to different companies. They fish the North Sea off the coasts of Yorkshire and Holland, particularly the Silver and Brown banks. Of old the smacks used to carry their own catch to Billingsgate, but the loss of time was so great, that latterly fast-sailing cutters have been employed to attend upon the fishing-smacks and bring their produce to market packed in ice. Of this splendid craft, which can sail almost in the eye of the wind, there are forty; and the total number of seamen employed is not less than 2,000, the greater part of whom have been taken as boys from the workhouse, and trained by this capital service into first-rate seamen. It is curious to follow the small proceedings of the world into their ultimate results. The gastronome, smiling complacently as he withdraws the cover and reveals a well-browned pair of soles, would never guess that they and their kind are the immediate cause of a happy transmutation of parish burthens into the right arm of our strength. Eels are constantly imported to Billingsgate by the Dutch boats. The galliots never moor close alongside the wharf, as the wells in which they bring their fish alive cause them to draw too much water, but they anchor midway in the stream, by twos and threes--their brown sides, flat bows, with high cheek-bones, like their navigators, and bright verd-green rudders, adding to the picturesque appearance of the river. The great fat creatures brought by them mainly supply the eel-pie houses, and contribute largely, we are informed, to that oleaginous kind of soup which people too hungry to be curious mistake for veritable oxtail and calves' head. The Dutch boats do not, however, confine themselves to eels. They deal in turbot, soles, and all kinds of flat-fish, such as frequent the Dogger Bank, much to the discredit of our native enterprise, neglecting, as we do, the splendid deep-sea fishing-ground off the south-west coast of Ireland, where cod and salmon are to be found in abundant quantities, whilst those who know the west coast well, declare there is turbot enough in Galway Bay "to supply the whole of Europe for the next hundred years."

We believe, however, it is now in contemplation to go to work upon a large scale in those waters, having screw-steamers to collect the produce, and bring it to Milford Haven alive in wells, from which port it would come, _viâ_ the South Wales and Great Western Railways, to Billingsgate, within twenty-four hours after it was caught. The value of screw steamers having capacious wells has been fully tested by Mr. Howard, of Manningtree, Essex, who fitted an engine and screw into one of his welled fishing-smacks. Scarcely a lobster, out of twenty thousand put alive into the boat, was lost, whilst large numbers of those brought in sailing smacks perish. Salmon, cod, and other fish, are brought alive with the same success in the welled steamers from the North Sea and the coast of Scotland. It is almost time that some new ground were found in place of the famous Dogger Bank, which has now been preyed upon by so many nations for centuries, and has supplied so many generations of Catholics and Protestants with fast and feast food. No better proof that its stores are failing could be given than the fact that, although the ground, counting the Long Bank and the north-west flat in its vicinity, covers 11,800 square miles, and that in fine weather it is fished by the London companies with from fifteen to twenty dozen of long lines, extending to ten or twelve miles, and containing from 9,000 to 12,000 hooks, it is yet not at all common to secure even as many as four score fish of a night--a poverty which can be better appreciated when we learn that 600 fish for 800 hooks is the catch for deep-sea fishing about Kinsale.

Towards the latter end of August the great herring season commences. Yarmouth is the chief seat of this branch of the piscatory trade. Every night when the weather is fine the fishermen of this old port "shoot" upwards of 300 square miles of net. Neptune in his ample arms never gave the ocean so magnificent an embrace. The produce of this wholesale sweeping of the sea is brought to town by the Eastern Counties Railway. They come up to Billingsgate packed in barrels and in bulk, and the number sold in the year seems almost fabulous, being upwards of a _billion_. Next to the herring fishery the sea-harvest of most importance to the poor of London is that of sprats, which come in about Lord Mayor's Day, and it is a popular belief that the first dish is always sent to the chief magistrate of the city. If a telegraph were to be laid down to all the alleys and courts, the fact of a large arrival of these little creatures at Billingsgate would not be sooner made known to the lower orders than, by some mysterious process, it is at present. Mr. Goldham, the clerk of the market, accustomed as he is to the sudden invasions of the costermongers, informs us that the scene on board the smacks laden with sprats is really frightful. The people hang thick as sea-weed from the rigging, throng the decks, and swarm on every available inch of plank, until the wonder is that the whole of the puny fleet does not capsize with the weight. The cause of the scramble is that the street sellers will not buy until they have seen the sample, and every one consequently tries to gain the highest point, that he may look down into the hold, whilst a man tumbles about the sprats with a shovel, in silver showers. The plaice season succeeds to that of sprats, with the interval of mackerel, which continues until the end of May, when Scotland and Ireland begin to pass down their salmon into the market. But where do all the lobsters come from? The lovers of this most delicious of the crustaceæ tribe will probably be astonished to learn that they are mainly brought from Norway. France and the Channel Islands, Orkney, and Shetland, do, it is true, contribute a few to the metropolitan market, but full two-thirds are reluctantly, and with much pinching and twisting, dragged out of the thousand rock-bound inlets which indent the Norwegian coast. They are conveyed alive in a screw-steamer and by smacks, in baskets, sometimes to the extent of 20,000 of a night, to Great Grimsby, and are thence forwarded to town by the Great Northern Railway--another 10,000 arriving perhaps from points on our own and the French coast. The fighting, twisting, blue-black masses are taken as soon as purchased to what are termed the "boiling-houses," of which there are four, situated in Duck and Love Lanes, close to the market; and here, for a trifling sum per score, they change their dark for scarlet uniforms. They are plunged into the boiling cauldron, basket and all, and in twenty minutes they are done. Crabs are cooked in the same establishments, but their nervous systems are so acute, that they dash off their claws in convulsive agony if placed alive in hot water. To prevent this mutilation, which would spoil their sale, they are first killed by the insertion of a needle through the head. The lobster trade is mostly in the hands of one salesman, Mr. Saunders, of Thames Street, who often has upwards of 15,000 consigned to him of a morning, and who causes no less than 15,000_l._ a year to flow into the fishy palms of Norwegians for this single article of commerce. As to the total supply of fish to the London market, we borrow the following estimate from Mr. Mayhew's very clever book on "London Labour and the London Poor." The figures seemed to us at first sight so enormous, that we hesitatingly submitted the table to one of the largest salesmen who assured us that it was no over-statement:--

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Description of Fish. | No. of Fish.| Weight of Fish.|
|----------------------------------------|-------------|----------------|
| WET FISH. | | |
| | | lbs. |
|Salmon and salmon trout (29,000 boxes,} | | |
| 14 fish per box) } | 406,000| 3,480,000 |
|Live cod (averaging 10 lbs. each) | 400,000| 4,000,000 |
|Soles (averaging 1/4 lb. each) | 97,520,000| 26,880,000 |
|Whiting (averaging 6 oz. each) | 17,920,000| 6,720,000 |
|Haddock (averaging 2 lbs. each) | 2,470,000| 5,040,000 |
|Plaice (averaging 1 lb. each) | 33,600,000| 33,600,000 |
|Mackerel (averaging 1 lb. each) | 23,520,000| 23,520,000 |
|Fresh herrings (250,000 barrels, 700 } | | |
| fish per barrel) } | 175,000,000| 42,000,000 |
|Ditto in bulk |1,050,000,000| 252,000,000 |
|Sprats | | 4,000,000 |
|Eels from Holland (principally), }| |{ 1,505,280 |
| England, and Ireland (6 fish per lb.)}| 9,797,760 |{ 127,680 |
|Flounders (7,200 qrtns., 36 fish per }| | |
| qtn.) }| 259,200 | 43,200 |
|Dabs (7,500 qrtns., 36 fish per qrtn.) | 270,000 | 48,750 |
| | | |
| DRY FISH. | | |
| | | |
|Barrelled cod (15,000 barrels, 40 fish }| | |
| per barrel) }| 750,000 | 4,200,000 |
|Dried salt cod (5 lbs. each) | 1,600,000 | 8,000,000 |
|Smoked haddock (65,000 barrels, 300 }| | |
| fish per barrel) }| 19,500,000 | 10,920,000 |
|Bloaters (265,000 baskets, 150 fish per}| | |
| basket) }| 147,000,000 | 10,600,000 |
|Red herrings (100,000 barrels, 500 fish}| | |
| per barrel) }| 50,000,000 | 14,000,000 |
|Dried sprats (9,600 large bundles, 30 }| | |
|fish per bundle) }| 288,000| 96,000 |
| | | |
| SHELL FISH. | | |
| | | |
|Oysters | 495,896,000 | |
|Lobsters (averaging 1 lb. each fish) | 1,200,000 | 1,200,000 |
|Crabs (averaging 1 lb. each fish) | 600,000 | 600,000 |
|Shrimps (324 to a pint) | 498,428,648 | |
|Whelks (227 to half bushel) | 4,943,200 | |
|Mussels (1,000 to half bushel) | 50,400,000 | |
|Cockles (2,000 to half bushel) | 67,392,000 | |
|Periwinkles (4,000 to half bushel) | 304,000,000 | |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+

And now for the _pièce de résistance_.

London has always been celebrated for the excellence of its meat, and her sons do justice to it; at least it has become the universal impression that they consume more, man for man, than any other town population in the world. It was a sirloin, fresh and ruddy, hanging at the door of some Giblett or Slater in a former century, that inspired, we suspect, the song which ever since has stirred Englishmen in a foreign land, "The Roast Beef of Old England." The visitor accustomed to the markets of our large provincial towns would doubtless expect to find the emporium of the live-stock trade for so vast a population of an imposing size. The foreigner, after seeing the magnificence of our docks--the solidity and span of our bridges--might naturally look for a national exposition of our greatness in the chief market dedicated to that British beef which is the boast of John Bull. What they do see in reality, if they have courage to wend their way along any of the narrow tumble-down streets approaching to Smithfield, which the great fire unfortunately spared, is an irregular space bounded by dirty houses and the ragged party-walls of demolished habitations, which give it the appearance of the site of a recent conflagration--the whole space comprising just six acres, fifteen perches, roads and public thoroughfares included. Into this narrow area, surrounded with slaughter-houses, triperies, bone-boiling houses, gut-scraperies, &c., the mutton-chops, scrags, saddles, legs, sirloins, and rounds, which grace the smiling boards of our noble imperial capital throughout the year, have, for the major part, been goaded and contused for the benefit of the civic corporation installed at Guildhall.[22] The best time is early in the morning--say one or two o'clock of the "great day," as the last market before Christmas-day is called. On this occasion, not only the space--calculated to hold 4,100 oxen and 30,000 sheep, besides calves and pigs--is crammed, but the approaches around it overflow with live stock for many hundred feet, and sometimes the cattle are seen blocking up the passage as far as St. Sepulchre's church. If the stranger can make his way through the crowd, and by means of some vantage-ground or door-step can manage to raise himself a few feet above the general level, he sees before him in one direction, by the dim red light of hundreds of torches, a writhing party-coloured mass, surmounted by twisting horns, some in rows, tied to rails which run along the whole length of the open space, some gathered together in one struggling knot. In another quarter, the moving torches reveal to him now and then, through the misty light, a couple of acres of living wool, or roods of pigs' skins. If he ventures into this closely wedged and labouring mass, he is enabled to watch more narrowly the reason of the universal ferment among the beasts.

The drover with his goad is forcing the cattle into the smallest possible compass, and a little further on half a dozen men are making desperate efforts to drag refractory oxen up to the rails with ropes. In the scuffle which ensues the slipping of the ropes often snaps the fingers of the persons who are conducting the operation, and there is scarce a drover in the market who has not had some of his digits broken. The sheep, squeezed into hurdles like figs into a drum, lie down upon each other, "and make no sign;" the pigs, on the other hand, cry out before they are hurt. This scene, which has more the appearance of a hideous nightmare than a weekly exhibition in a civilised country, is accompanied by the barking of dogs, the bellowing of cattle, the cursing of men, and the dull blows of sticks--a charivari of sound that must be heard to be appreciated. The hubbub gradually abates from twelve o'clock at night, the time of opening, to its close at 3 P.M. next day; although during the whole period, as fresh lots are "headed up," individual acts of cruelty continue. Can it excite surprise that a state of things, the worst details of which we have suppressed, because of the pain which such horrors excite, sometimes so injures the stock that, to quote the words of one of the witnesses before the Smithfield Commission, "a grazier will not know his own beast four days after it has left him?" The meat itself suffers in quality; for anything like fright or passion is well known to affect the blood, and consequently the flesh. Beasts subjected to such disturbances will often turn green within twenty-four hours after death. Mr. Slater, the well-known butcher of Kensington and Jermyn-street, states that mutton is often so disfigured by blows and the goad, that it cannot be sold for the West-end tables. Many of the drovers we doubt not are ruffians, but we believe the greater part of this cruelty is to be ascribed to the market-place itself, which, considering the immense amount of business to be got through on Mondays and Fridays, is absurdly and disgracefully confined. According to the official account, the number of live stock exhibited in 1853 was--

Oxen. Sheep. Calves. Pigs. Total.
294,571 1,518,040 36,791 29,593 1,893,888

But this is far from giving a true idea of the whole amount brought into London. Much stock arrives in the capital which never enters the great mart. For example, Mr. Slater, who kills per week, on the average, 200 sheep and from 20 to 25 oxen, says, in his evidence before the Smithfield Commission, that he buys a great deal of his stock from the graziers in Norfolk and Essex. Again, "town" pigs are slaughtered and sent direct to the meat market, while many sheep are bought from the parks, where they have been temporarily placed till they find a purchaser. A much more correct estimate of the flocks and herds which are annually consumed in London may be gathered from a report of the numbers transmitted by the different lines of railway, compiled from official sources by Mr. Ormandy, the cattle-traffic manager of the North-Western Railway. From this able pamphlet we extract the following table:--

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| | Oxen. | Sheep. |Calves.| Pigs. | Total |
| | | | | |for 1853.|
| |-------|---------|-------|-------|---------|
|By Eastern Counties | 81,744| 277,735| 3,492| 23,427| 386,398|
| " L. & N. Western | 70,435| 248,445| 5,113| 24,287| 348,280|
| " Great Northern | 15,439| 120,333| 563| 8,973| 145,308|
| " Great Western | 6,813| 104,607| 2,320| 2,909| 116,649|
| " L. & S. Western | 4,885| 100,960| 1,781| 516| 108,142|
| " South Eastern | 875| 58,320| 114| 142| 59,451|
| " L. & B. & S. Coast | 863| 13,690| 117| 54| 14,724|
| " Sea from North of | | | | | |
| England and Scotland | 14,662| 11,141| 421| 3,672| 29,896|
| " Sea from Ireland | 2,311| 3,472| 21| 5,476| 11,280|
|Imported from the Continent| 55,065| 229,918| 25,720| 10,131| 320,834|
|Driven in by road, and from| | | | | |
| the neighbourhood of the | 69,096| 462,172| 62,114| 48,295| 641,647|
| metropolis (obtained from| | | | | |
| the toll-gate lessees) | | | | | |
| |-------|---------|-------|-------|---------|
|Total |322,188|1,630,793|101,776|127,852|2,182,609|
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+

These numbers show at a glance what a part the railway plays in supplying animal food to the metropolis, and how trifling in comparison is the amount that travels up on foot. The Eastern Counties lines, penetrating and monopolizing the rich breeding and fattening districts of Norfolk and Essex, bring up the largest share. Many of the little black cattle, that tourists see in Scotland climbing the hills like cats, come directly from these counties, having some months before been sent thither from their native north to clothe their bones with English substance. By the same line we receive a fair portion of that great foreign contribution to our larders, the mere shadow of which so frightened our graziers some years ago, principally Danish stock, which finds its way from Tonning to Lowestoff, a route newly opened up by the North of Europe Steam-ship Company. The North-Western is next in rank as a carrier of live stock. This line takes in the contributions from the Midland Counties, and, by way of Liverpool, abundance of Irish and Scotch cattle. The Great Northern is perhaps destined to surpass both in the quantities of food it will eventually pour into London, running as it does through the northern breeding districts, and receiving at its extremity the herds which come from Aberdeen and its neighbourhood.

The foreign supply last year of cattle, sheep, pigs, and calves, was more than a seventh of the entire number sent to London. The daily bills of entries at the Custom House furnishes us with a valuable indication of the fields from which we have already received, and may in future expect to receive still further additions of what Englishmen greatly covet--good beef and mutton at a moderate price. The arrivals by steam in the port of London in 1853 were as follows:--

+----------------------------------------------------------------+
| _From_ |_Oxen._| _Sheep._ | _Calves._|_Pigs._|_Total._|
|-----------------|-------|----------|----------|-------|--------|
|Holland | 40,538| 172,730| 24,280| 9,370| 246,918|
|Denmark | 9,487| 7,515| 60| .. | 17,062|
|Hanseatic Towns | 4,366| 37,443| 1| 632| 42,442|
|Belgium | 449| 12,006| 1,244| .. | 13,699|
|France | 105| 224| 135| 129| 593|
|Portugal | 100| .. | .. | .. | 100|
|Spain | 17| .. | .. | .. | 17|
|Russia | 3| .. | .. | .. | 3|
| |-------|----------|----------|-------|--------|
|Total | 55,065| 229,918| 25,720| 10,131| 320,834|
-----------------------------------------------------------------+

Holland, Denmark, and the Hanseatic Towns, it will be seen, were the principal contributors. A more striking example of the influence of the legislation of one country in modifying the occupations of the people of another could not be cited, than the manner in which Sir Robert Peel's tariff revolutionized the character of Danish and Dutch farming. Before 1844 the pastures of the two countries, more especially the rich marshes of Holland, were almost exclusively devoted to dairy purposes: the abolition of the duty on live stock in that year quickly introduced a new state of things. The farmers began to breed stock, and consequently turnips and mangel-wurzel have been creeping over fields, where once the dairy-maid carried the milking-pail, as gradually as one landscape succeeds another in the Polytechnic dissolving views. We get now from both countries excellent beef, especially from Jutland, whose lowing herds used formerly to go to Hamburg--and who has not heard of the famous Hambro' beef? We may expect in time to receive still finer meat from this quarter, for the Danes have been sedulously improving their breed, and agriculturists, who saw the beasts which were sent over to the last Baker-street show, admitted that they were in every respect equal to our own short-horns. It is gratifying to note how ready the world is to follow our lead in the matter of stock-breeding. Bulls are bought up at fabulous prices by foreigners, and especially by our cousins on the other side of the Atlantic, for the purpose of raising the indigenous cattle to the British standard. An American, for instance, purchased, for 1,000_l._, a celebrated bull bred by Earl Ducie, though unfortunately the animal broke his neck on his passage out. Another noble specimen was secured, we have heard, for the same quarter, for 600_l._

The supply of sheep and lambs has, during the last twenty years, stood nearly still; for in 1828 there were brought to market 1,412,032, and in 1849 but 1,417,000, or only an extra 4,000 for the 500,000 mouths which have been added to the metropolis between these two periods. That London has of late years abjured mutton, as our immediate ancestors appear to have done pork, the evidence of our senses denies. How, then, are we to explain this stagnation in the Smithfield returns? By the fact that a new channel has been found in the rapid rise of Newgate market, the great receptacle of country-killed meat brought up to town by the railways. Those who remember the place forty years ago state that there were not then twenty salesmen, and now there are two hundred. This enormous development is due to steam, which bids fair to give Newgate, in the cold season at least, the lead over Smithfield. The new agent has more than quadrupled the area from which London draws its meat. Twenty years ago eighty miles was the farthest distance from which carcases ever came; now the Great Northern and North-Western railways, during the winter months, bring hundreds of tons from as far north as Aberdeen, whilst some are fetched from Hamburgh and Ostend. Country slaughtering will in time, we have little doubt, deliver the capital from the nuisances which grow out of this horrible trade. Aberdeen is in fact becoming little else than a London _abattoir_. The style in which the butchers of that place dress and pack the carcases leaves nothing to be desired, and in the course of the year mountains of beef, mutton, pork, and veal arrive the night after it is slaughtered in perfect condition. According to returns obligingly forwarded to us by the different railway companies, we find that the following was the weight of country-killed meat by the undermentioned lines:--

Tons.
Eastern Counties 10,398
North-Western 4,602
Great Western 5,200
Great Northern 13,152[23]
South-Eastern 1,035
South-Western 2,000
Brighton and South Coast 100
------
36,487

Thus no less than 36,487 tons of meat are annually "pitched" at Newgate and Leadenhall markets. As the Scotch boats convey about 700 tons more, we have at least 37,187 tons of country-killed meat brought into London by steam, and these immense contributions are totally independent of the amount slaughtered at Smithfield, which is estimated to average weekly 1,000 oxen, 3,000 sheep and lambs, and 400 calves and pigs. We have given the average supply; but on some occasions the quantity is enormously increased. The Eastern Counties line during one Christmas week deposited at Newgate about 1,000 tons of meat; and the weight sent by other companies on the same day would be proportionately large. No less than forty waggons were waiting on one occasion to discharge their beef and mutton into the market. And what does our reader imagine may be the area in which nine-tenths of this mass of meat are sold? Just 2 roods 45 perches, having one carriage entrance, which varies from 14 to 18 feet in width, and four foot entrances, the widest of which is only 16 feet 6 inches, and the narrowest 5 feet 8 inches. No wonder that, as we are informed by more than one of the witnesses before the Smithfield Inquiry Commission, there is often not sufficient space to expose the meat for sale, and it becomes putrid in consequence. Though we have acquired the fame of being a practical people, it must be confessed that we conduct many of our every-day transactions in a blundering manner, when we cannot provide commodious markets for perishable commodities, or even turn out an omnibus that can be mounted without an effort of agility and daring.

Mr. Giblett, the noted butcher, late of Bond Street, calculates that the amount of meat brought by the railways into Newgate is three times that supplied by the London carcase butchers, who annually send 52,000 oxen, 156,000 sheep, 10,400 calves, and 10,400 pigs. Taking this estimate, and applying it also to the Leadenhall market, we shall have at

+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
| |_Beasts._| _Sheep._|_Calves._| _Pigs._|
|----------------------------|---------|---------|---------|--------|
|Newgate, meat | 156,000 | 468,000| 31,200 | 31,200|
|Leadenhall, ditto | 5,200 | 41,600| .. | .. |
| |---------|---------|---------|--------|
| | 161,200 | 509,600| 31,200 | 31,200|
|Live stock brought to London| 322,188 |1,630,793| 101,776 | 127,852|
| |---------|---------|---------|--------|
|Total supply of live stock }| | | | |
| and meat to London }| 483,388 |2,140,393| 132,976 | 159,052|
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+

This we are convinced is still below the truth, for we have not included the country-killed meat sold at Farringdon and Whitechapel markets.[24] The total value of this enormous supply of flesh cannot be much less than fourteen millions annually.

These figures demonstrate that the falling off of sheep sent to London is solely because they now come to town in the form of mutton. It is sent to a much greater extent than beef, in consequence of its arriving in finer condition, being more easily carried, and better worth the cost of conveyance on account of the larger proportion of prime joints. Indeed, the entire carcase of the oxen never comes, since the coarse boiling-pieces would have to pay the same carriage as the picked "roastings." Newgate, be it remembered, is eminently a West End market, and fully two-thirds of its meat find its way to that quarter of the town. Accordingly, most of the beef "pitched" here consists of sirloins and ribs; and, in addition to whole carcases of sheep, there are numerous separate legs and saddles of mutton. This accounts for a fact that has puzzled many, namely, how London manages to get such myriads of chops. Go into any part of the metropolis, and look into the windows of the thousand eating-houses and coffee-shops in the great thoroughfares, and in every one of them there is the invariable blue dish with half a dozen juicy, well-trimmed chops, crowned with a sprig of parsley. To justify such a number, either fourfold the supply of sheep must come to London that we have any account of, or in lieu of the ordinary number of vertebræ they must possess as many as the great boa. When the prodigious store of saddles which the country spares the town have once been seen the wonder ceases. "Sometimes I cut 100 saddles into mutton-chops to supply the eating-houses," says Mr. Banister, of Threadneedle Street.

The weather preserves a most delicate balance between Newgate and Smithfield. Winter is the busy time at the former market, when meat can be carried any distance without fear of taint. As soon as summer sets in, Smithfield takes its turn; for butchers then prefer to purchase live stock, in order that they may kill them the exact moment they are required. Sometimes as many as 1,200 beasts and from 12,000 to 15,000 sheep are slaughtered in hot weather on a Friday night, in the neighbourhood of Smithfield, for Saturday's market. Every precaution is taken on the railways to keep the meat sweet. The Eastern Counties Company provide "peds," or cloths cut to the shape of the carcase or joint, for the use of their customers, and sometimes it is conveyed from the north in boxes. When, in spite of care, it turns out to be tainted, the salesman to whom it is consigned calls the officer of the market, by whom it is forthwith sent to Cow Cross, and there burnt in the nacker's yard. According, however, to a competent witness--Mr. Harper--bad meat in any quantity can be disposed of in the metropolis to butchers living in low neighbourhoods, who impose it upon the poor at night. "There is one shop, I believe," he says, "doing 500_l._ per week in diseased meat. This firm has a large foreign trade. The trade in diseased meat is very alarming, and anything in the shape of flesh can be sold at about 1_d._ per pound or 8_d._ per stone."

If the reader is not already surfeited with the mountains of meat we have piled before his eyes, let us beg his attention for a few minutes to game and poultry, which we bring on in their proper course. Leadenhall and Newgate, as all the world knows, are the great metropolitan depôts for this class of food, especially the former, which receives perhaps two-thirds of the entire supply. The quantities of game and wild birds consigned to some of the large salesmen almost exceeds belief. After a few successful battues in the Highlands, it is not at all unusual for one firm to receive 5,000 head of game, and as many as 20,000 to 30,000 larks are often sent up to market together. All other kinds of the feathered tribe which are reputed good for food are received in proportionate abundance. If it were not for the great salesmen, many a merry dinner would be marred, for the retail poulterers would be totally incapable of executing the constant and sudden orders for the banquets which are always proceeding. The good people at the Crystal Palace have already learned to consume, besides unnumbered other items, 600 chickens daily; and from this we may guess how vast the wants of the entire metropolis. The sources from which game and poultry are derived are fewer than might be imagined. The Highlands and Yorkshire send up nearly all the grouse; and scores of noblemen, members of Parliament, and other wealthy or enthusiastic sportsmen, who are at this present moment beating over the moors, and walking for their pleasure twenty-five miles a day, assist to furnish this delicacy to the London public at a moderate rate.

Pheasants and partridges mainly come from Norfolk and Suffolk; snipes from the marshy lowlands of Holland, which also provides our entire supply of teal, widgeon, and other kinds of wild fowl, with the exception of those caught in the "decoys" of Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire. From Ostend there are annually transmitted to London 600,000 tame rabbits, which are reared for the purpose on the neighbouring sand dunes. We are indebted to Ireland for flocks of plovers, and quails are brought from Egypt and the south of Europe. In most of our poulterers' windows may be seen the long wooden boxes, with a narrow slit, in which these latter birds are kept until required for the spit. Not long since upwards of 17,000 came to London _viâ_ Liverpool, whither they had been brought from the Campagna, near Rome. Of the 2,000,000 of fowls that every year find a resting-place _vis-à-vis_ to boiled tongues on our London tables, by far the greatest quantity are drawn from the counties of Surrey and Sussex, where the Dorking breed is in favour. Ireland also sends much poultry. No less than 1,400 tons of chickens, geese, and ducks are brought to town annually by the Great Western Railway, most of which are from the neighbourhood of Cork and Waterford, whence they are shipped to Bristol. Londoners are accustomed to see shops of late years which profess to sell "West of England produce," such as young pork, poultry, butter, and clouted cream. All these delicacies are brought by the Great Western Railway, and are principally the contributions of Somersetshire and Devonshire. The bulk of the geese, ducks, and turkeys, however, come from Norfolk, Cambridge, Essex, and Suffolk--four fat counties, which do much to supply the London commissariat, the Eastern Counties Railway alone having brought thence last year 22,462 tons of fish, flesh, fowl, and good red herrings.

For pigeons we are indebted to "our fair enemy France," as Sir Philip Sydney calls her, but now we trust our fast friend. They proceed principally from the interior, and are shipped for our market from Boulogne and Calais. How many eggs we get from across the Channel we scarcely like to say. Mr. M'Culloch considers that the capital receives from 70,000,000 to 75,000,000--a number which we think must be much below the mark, seeing that the Brighton and South Coast line brings annually 2,600 tons, the produce of Belgium and France. At Bastoign, in the latter country, there is a farm of 200 acres entirely devoted to the rearing of poultry and the production of eggs for the supply of London.

No perfectly accurate account can be given of the number per annum of poultry, game, and wild birds which enter Leadenhall and Newgate markets; but the following estimate was handed to us by a dealer who turns over 100,000_l._ a year in this trade. As the list takes no account of the quantity which goes direct to the retailer, nor of the thousands sent as presents, it must fall short of the actual consumption:--

Grouse 100,000
Partridges 125,000
Pheasants 70,000
Snipes 80,000
Wild Birds (mostly small) 150,000
Plovers 150,000
Quails 30,000
Larks 400,000
Widgeon 70,000
Teal 30,000
Wild Ducks 200,000
Pigeons 400,000
Domestic Fowls 2,000,000
Geese 100,000
Ducks 350,000
Turkeys 104,000
Hares 100,000
Rabbits 1,300,000
---------
Total 5,759,000

In addition to its dead game and wild fowl, Leadenhall market is quite a Noah's ark of live animals. Geese, ducks, swans, pigeons, and cocks, bewilder you with their noise. Intermingled with these birds of a feather are hawks, ferrets, dogs and cats, moving about in their wicker cages, and almost aggravated to madness by the proximity of their prey. The major portion of the live stock is designed either for sporting purposes or for "petting" and breeding, and do not belong to the commissariat department. Of the dead game and poultry, the seven railways bring to London about 7,871 tons weight in the course of the year.

In taking leave of the poultry-yard we are reminded of the dairy, and of the large establishments required to fill the milk-jugs of London. There are at the present moment, as near as we can learn, 20,000 cows in the metropolitan and suburban dairies, some of which number 500 cows apiece. Even these gigantic establishments have been occasionally exceeded, and one individual, several years ago, possessed 1,500 milkers--a fact fatal to the popular superstition, that notwithstanding many attempts, no dairyman could ever muster more than 999. The terrible ravages of pleuro-pneumonia, which many believe to be a contagious disease, have cured the passion for such extensive herds. The larger dairies of the metropolis are on the whole admirably managed, and the cows luxuriate in airy outhouses, but the smaller owners are often confined for space, and the animals are sometimes cooped in sheds, placed in tiers one above another. The country dairymaid laughs at the ignorance which the Londoner betrays of rural matters when on a visit to her master, but she would be perplexed in her turn if told that in the capital they fed the cows chiefly upon brewers' grains, and milked them on the _second story_? A few years since Mr. Rugg appalled the town, which had forgotten Matthew Bramble, Esq., and the "New Bath Guide," by detailing a nauseous process which he affirmed was in use among cunning milkmen for the adulteration of their milk. There was, however, a great deal of exaggeration in the account, and Dr. Hassell, whose analysis of various articles of food in the _Lancet_ are widely known, states that the "iron-tailed cow" is the main agent employed in the fraud, and that the only colouring matter he has been enabled to discover is annatto. Nearly all the cream goes to the West-End; and one dairyman living at Islington informed us that he made 1,200_l._ a year by the trade he carried on in that single article with the fashionable part of the town. It must be evident, upon the least consideration, that the London and suburban dairies alone could not supply the metropolis. If each of the 20,000 cows give on the average twelve quarts a day, the sum total would only be 240,000 quarts. If we suppose this quantity to be increased by the exhaustless "iron-tailed cow," of which Dr. Hassell speaks, to 300,000 quarts, the allowance to each individual of the two millions and a quarter of population would be little more than a quarter of a pint. This is clearly below the exigencies of the tea-table, the nursery, and the kitchen, and we do not think we shall make an overestimate if we assume that half as much again is daily consumed. Here again the railway, which in some cases brings milk from as far as eighty miles, makes up the deficiency. The Eastern Counties line conveyed in 1853 to London, 3,174,179 quarts, the North-Western 144,000 quarts, the Great Western 23,400 quarts, the Brighton and South Coast 100 tons, and the Great Northern as much perhaps as the North-Western. The milk is collected from the farmers by agents in the country, who sell it to the milkmen, of whom there are 1,347, to distribute it over the town. In course of time it is possible that town dairies may entirely disappear. Cowsheds, often narrow and low, in thickly-populated localities, cannot be as healthy for the animals as a purer atmosphere; and though experiment has shown that they thrive admirably when stalled, the food they get in these urban prisons can hardly be as wholesome as that provided by the verdant pastures of the farm. The milk which comes by railway has, however, this disadvantage, that it will not keep nearly so long as the indigenous produce of the metropolitan dairies. The different companies have constructed waggons lightly hung on springs, but the churning effect of sudden joltings cannot be altogether got rid of.

Of the vegetables and fruit that are brought into the various markets of the capital, but especially to Covent Garden, a very large quantity is grown in the immediate neighbourhood. From whatever quarter the railway traveller approaches London, he perceives that the cultivation of the land gradually heightens, until he arrives at those suburban residences which form the advanced guards of the metropolis. The fields give place to hedgeless gardens, in which, to use a phrase of Washington Irving, "the furrows seem finished rather with the pencil than the plough." Acre after acre flashes with hand-glasses, streaks of verdure are ruled in close parallel lines across the soil with mathematical precision, interspersed here and there with patches as sharp cut at the edges as though they were pieces of green baize--these are the far-famed market-gardens. They are principally situated in the long level tracts of land that must once have been overflowed by the Thames--such as the flat alluvial soil known as the Jerusalem Level, extending between London Bridge and Greenwich--and the grounds about Fulham, Battersea, Chelsea, Putney, and Brentford. Mr. Cuthill, who is perhaps the best authority on this subject, estimates that there are 12,000 acres under cultivation for the supply of vegetables and 5,000 for fruit-trees. This seems an insufficient area for the supply of so many mouths, but manure and active spade husbandry compensate for lack of space. By these agencies four and sometimes five crops are extracted from the land in the course of the year. The old-fashioned farmer, accustomed to the restrictions of old-fashioned leases, would stare at such a statement, and ask how long it would last. But his surprise would be still greater at being told that after every clearance the ground is deeply trenched, and its powers restored with a load of manure to every thirty square feet of ground. This is the secret of the splendid return, and it could be effected nowhere but in the neighbourhood of such cities as London, where the produce of the fertilizer is sufficiently great to keep down its price. And here we have a striking example of town and country reciprocation. The same waggon that in the morning brings a load of cabbages, is seen returning a few hours later filled with dung. An exact balance as far as it goes is thus kept up, and the manure, instead of remaining to fester among human beings, is carted away to make vegetables. What a pity we cannot extend the system, and turn the whole sewerage by drain-pipes entirely into the rural districts, to feed the land, instead of allowing it, as we do, to run into the Thames and pollute the water to be used in our dwellings.

The care and attention bestowed by the market-gardeners is incredible to those who have not witnessed it; every inch of ground is taken advantage of--cultivation runs between the fruit-trees; storming-parties of cabbages and cauliflowers swarm up to the very trunks of apple-trees; raspberry-bushes are surrounded and cut off by young seedlings. If you see an acre of celery growing in ridges, be sure that, on a narrow inspection, you will find long files of young peas picking their way along the furrows. Everything flourishes here except weeds, and you may go over a 150-acre piece of ground without discovering a single one. Quality, even more than quantity, is attended to by the best growers; and they nurse their plants as they would children. The visitor will sometimes see "the heads" of an acre of cauliflowers one by one folded up in their own leaves as carefully as an anxious wife wraps up an asthmatic husband on a November night; and if rain should fall, attendants run to cover them up, as quickly as they cover up the zoological specimens at the Crystal Palace when the watering-pots are set to work.

Insects and blight are also banished as strictly as from the court of Oberon. To such a pitch is vigilance carried, that, according to a writer in _Household Words_, blight and fungi are searched after with a microscope, woodlice exterminated by bantems dressed in socks to prevent too much scratching, and other destructive insects despatched by the aid of batches of toads, purchased at the rate of six shillings a dozen!