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Victorian London - Food and Drink - Fast Food and Food sold on streets - Oysters
see also George Cruikshank in the Comic Almanack - click here
MONDAY next will be "Oyster-day," or the day on which oysters
are first brought into the London market at Billingsgate. Upon the preceding
page our Artist has pictured from his Sketch of last year a street scene from
this red-letter day of the London poor. Let us glance at the incidents of the
groups of which the picture is composed.
The Oyster-day has arrived and a very busy day it usually
proves; for Mr. Mayhew, in his "London Labour and the Poor," tells us that
"the number of oysters sold by the costermongers amounts to 124,000,000 a
year. These, at four a penny, would realise the large sum of £129,650. We may, therefore, safely assume that
£125,000 is spent yearly in oysters in the
streets of London." We will not pursue the calculation into how many grottoes
might be built from the shells of a year's supply of oysters, but come at once
to the pile the boys in the left-hand corner of the picture are raising. The
coming-in of oysters is observed as a sort of festival in the streets; and in
such a nook of the metropolis as the present locality, the grotto is usually
built of inverted oyster-shells piled up conically with an opening in the
base, through which, as night approaches, a lighted candle is placed within
the grotto, when the effect of the light through the chinks of the shelly cairn
is very pretty.
It is but fair that the young architects should be rewarded for
their trouble accordingly, a little band, of what some churl may call urchins, sally forth to collect pence from the passers-by ; and the usual form of
collecting the tax, by presenting a shell, is shown in the next group. The old
gentleman is posed yet not displeased at the vigour of the applicants, whilst
his daughter regards them with a genial smile. We wager that he will drop his
copper into one or more of the suppliant shells.
Illustrated London News, Jul.-Dec., 1851
see also Henry Holland Burne in The Early Years of Queen Victoria's Reign
"A SOFT ANSWER," &c.
Female epicure. "OH, MISTER, I'M SURE THAT WAS A
BAD ONE!"
Oyster Salesman (indignantly). "WHAT D'YER MEAN? THEN YOU SHOULDN'T
'A' SWALLERED IT, MUM! I'VE BEEN IN THIS TRADE A MATTER O' TEN YEARS, AND NEVER
- "
Lady. "WELL, IT CERTAINLY LEFT A NASTY TASTE -"
Salesman (mollified). "WELL, THERE'S NO DENYIN' THAT SOME OF 'EM IS
'IGHER IN FLAVIOUR THAN OTHERS!"
Punch, March 22, 1879
