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and no very pleased expression of countenance.

'Well, what is it?' I inquired. 'Whatever it is, there is not much hope of getting it remedied; for they say that so much has been already spent upon the house, that they won't spend another farthing, but that I may do it if I please.'

"That would be worse than paying for two sets of lodgings,' I said, decidedly, and therefore must not be thought of.'

are

'I don't suppose that we obliged to bear such an infernal nuisance,' he said, angrily, as he left the room.

From that time my husband never appeared well. Whether he fancied the house unwholesome, or whether there was any other cause for it, it is certain that he was continually ailing. He became worse instead of better, and one night had an attack that greatly alarmed me; so much so that I sent off at once for the nearest medical man. Under his care he soon rallied; but still from time to time, and from no apparent cause, he had a recurrence of the same kind of illness.

It was a case that quite baffled the doctor's skill. He could not at all account for it; and I began to be afraid it might be the beginning of some grave malady. I had mentioned the defective drainage; but the doctor thought that the symptoms pointed to some other cause, though doubtless that might aggravate them. The place was considered remarkably healthy; the weather was dry and mild: we could not trace his illness to any assignable cause. One day, after a long visit, Dr. Proby leant back in his chair, knitted his brows, and fixing his eyes upon my husband's face, as if determined to fathom the mystery of his illness, exclaimed,

'Baked meat! Do you have your meat baked? If you do, that is probably the cause of your sufferings.'

'I believe we do,' I replied: 'at least the meat here is quite different to any I ever tasted before; but I will ask.'

'I did so; and received an answer in the affirmative.

'Dreadful! most pernicious prac

tice; would ruin any man's digestion; must not be for a moment, my dear sir. Pray have it attended to, and I will call again, and I shall expect that, in a very short time, you will be quite a different being.'

And, delighted at the discovery, the good fussy little doctor bustled out of the room.

'Will you speak about this at once, my dear? I have no doubt that Dr. Proby is right, and that this has been the cause of all I have suffered. I have often heard that nothing is more pernicious to the digestion than baked meat.'

Again was Mrs. Johnson summoned; and we made a request, rather in trepidation, that in future our meat might be roasted before the fire.

I saw a storm was impending, for the lady's face became scarlet, and I could scarcely finish my sentence before she broke into a torrent of expostulation and anger, declaring that She had kept a lodging-house for twenty years, and no one had ever found fault with her cooking before; that she could not, and would not alter it; for, with all she had to do, it would be a fine thing if she had everybody's meat to roast. She was sure the meat did very well.'

'No, it does not, for it has made Mr. Plantagenet very ill,' I said, quietly.

'Them as don't like it may leave it, then, for I shall do no other,' was her insolent reply, as she walked out of the room in a state of high wrath and indignation.

What was to be done? I could only tell my husband, and leave it to him to determine whether he would stay or go. I am happy to say that this last difficulty has quite sickened him of his present way of life, and that he is as anxious as I can be for the termination of the six months for which he so rashly engaged himself.

I am bearing my purgatory as well as I can; and I hope that by writing this short account of my experience of Life in Lodgings,' I may be the means of saving some of my fellow-creatures from a similar delusion, and similar discomfort and suffering.

BILLINGSGATE AT FIVE IN THE MORNING.

UMMER or winter, light or dark,

SUMME

rain or shine, it matters not; as the clock strikes five, the bell rings, and the market opens. The Clerk of the Market, the representative of the Corporation, is there, to act the part of major-domo; the vessels are there, hauled up in tiers in the river, laden with their silvery cargoes; the porters are there, running to and fro between the ships and the market; the railway vans and carts are there, with fish brought from the several railway stations; the salesmen are there, at their stands or benches; and the buyers are there, ready to buy and pay. As yet all is tolerably clean. There is, of course, that 'fish-like smell' which Trinculo speaks of; but Billingsgate dirt and Billingsgate vilification have not yet commenced. The street dealers, the costermongers or 'costers,' have not yet made their appearance; they wait till their 'betters,' the regular fishmongers, have paid good prices for choice fish; and then they rush in to purchase everything that is left. It is a wonderful scene, even at this early hour. How Thames Street can contain all the railway vans that throng it is a marvel. From Paddington, from Camden, from King's Cross, from Shoreditch, from Fenchurch Street, from the depôts over the water, these vehicles arrive in numbers perfectly bewildering. Every one wants to get the prime of the market; every salesman tells his clients that good prices depend almost as much on early arrival as on fine quality; and thus every cargo of fish is pushed on to market with as little delay as need be. Pickford objurgates Chaplin and Horne, Macnamara is wrathful at Parker, every van is in every other van's way. Fish Streethill and Thames Street, Pudding Lane and Botolph Lane, Love Lane and Darkhouse Lane, all are one jam and muddle, horses entangled in shafts, and shafts in wheels. A civilian, a non-fishman, has no business there at such a time; woe to his black coat or black hat, if he

stands in the path of the porters; he will have a finny sprinkling before he can well look about him; or perhaps the tail of a big fish will flap in his face, or lobsters' claws will threaten to grapple him.

It was always thus at Billingsgate, even before the days of railways, and before Mr. Bunning built the present market-a structure not without elegance on the river front; but the street arrangements are becoming more crowded and difficult to manage every year. In the old days, when trains and locomotives were unthought of, nearly all the fish reached Billingsgate by water. The broad-wheeled waggons were too slow to bring up the perishable commodity in good time; while the mail and passenger coaches, even if the passengers had been willing (which they would not) to submit to the odour, could not have brought up any large amount of fish. At an intermediate period, say about 1830 or 1835, certain bold traders, at some of our seaport towns, put on four-horse fast vans, which brought up cargoes of fish during the night, and deposited them at Billingsgate before five in the morning; but this was a costly mode of conveyance, which could not safely be incurred except for the best and high-priced fish. When it became an established fact that railways could bring up fish in any quantity, and in a few hours, from almost any port in England, the effect was striking; the supply at Billingsgate became regular instead of intermitting; and the midland towns, such as Birmingham and Wolverhampton, were placed within reach of supplies that were literally unattainable under the old system. It used to be a very exciting scene at the river side at Billingsgate. As the West-end fishmongers are always willing to pay well for the earliest and choicest fish, the owners of the smacks and other boats had a strong incentive to arrive early at 'the Gate; those who came first were absolutely certain of obtaining the best prices for their fish; the

laggards had to content themselves with what they could get. If there happened to be a very heavy haul of any one kind of fish on any one day, the disproportion of price was still more marked; for as there were no electric telegraphs to transmit the news, the salesmen had no certain means of knowing that a large supply was forthcoming; they sold, and the crack fishmongers bought, the first cargo at good prices; and when the bulk of the supply arrived, there was no adequate demand at the market. In such a state of things there is no such process as holding back, no warehousing till next day; the fish must all be sold-if not for pounds, for shillings; if not for shillings, for pence. Any delay in this matter would lead to the production of such attacks upon the olfactory nerves as would speedily call for the interference of the officer of health. In what way a glut in the market is disposed of we shall explain presently.

It is really wonderful to see by how many routes, and from what varied sources, fish now reach Billingsgate. The smack owners, sharpening their wits at the rivalry of railways, do not let the grass grow under their feet; they call steam to their aid, and get the fish up to market with a celerity which their forefathers would not have dreamed of. Take the Yarmouth region, for instance. The fishermen along the Norfolk and Suffolk coast congregate towards the fishing-banks in the North Sea in such number that their vessels form quite a fleet. They remain out two, three, four, or even so much as six weeks, never once coming to land in the interval. A fast-sailing cutter, or a steamer, visits the bank or station every day, carrying out provisions and stores to the fishermen, and bringing back the fish that have been caught. Thus laden, the cutter or steamer puts on all her speed, and brings the fish to land, to Yarmouth, to Harwich, or even right up to Billingsgate, according as distance, wind, and tide may show to be best. If to Yarmouth or Harwich, a 'fish train' is made up every night, which brings the catch to

Shoreditch station, whence vans carry it to Billingsgate. There used, in the olden days, to be fish vans from those eastern parts, which, on account of the peculiar nature of the service, were specially exempted from post-horse duty. As matters now are, the fishermen, when the richness of the shoal is diminished, return to shore after several weeks, to mend their nets, repair their vessels, and refresh themselves after their arduous labours. At all the fishing towns round the coast, the telegraphic wire has furnished a wonderful aid to the dealers; for it announces to the salesmen at Billingsgate the quantity and description of fish en route, and thereby enables them to decide whether to sell it all at Billingsgate, or to send some of it at once to an inland town. This celerity in railway conveyance and in telegraphic communication gives rise to many curious features in the fish-trade. Tourists and pleasure-seekers at Brighton, Hastings, and other coast towns, are often puzzled to understand the fact that fish, although caught and landed near at hand, is not cheaper there than in London: nay, it sometimes happens that good fish is not obtainable either at a high price or low. The explanation is to be sought in the fact that a market is certain at Billingsgate, uncertain elsewhere. A good catch of mackerel off Hastings might be too large to command a sale on the spot; whereas if sent up to the great centre the salesmen would soon find purchasers for it. It is, in a similar way, a subject of vexation in the salmon districts that the best salmon are so uniformly sent to London as to leave only the secondary specimens for local consumption. The dealers will go to the best market that is open to them; and it is of no avail to be angry thereat. It is said that few families are more insufficiently supplied with vegetables than those living near market-gardens; the cause being similar to that here under notice. Perhaps the most remarkable fact, however, in connection with this subject is, that the fish often make a double journey, say from Brighton

to Billingsgate and back again. The Brighton fishermen and the Brighton fishmonger do not deal one with another so much as might be supposed; the one sends to Billingsgate to sell, the other to buy; and each is willing to incur a little expense for carriage to insure a certain market.

Of course the marketing peculiarities depend in some degree on the different kinds of fish, obtainable, as they are, in different parts of the sea, and under very varying circumstances. Yarmouth sends up chiefly herrings-caught by the drift-net in deep water, or the seinenet in shallow-sometimes a hundred tons in a night. The north of England, and a large part of Scotland, consign more largely salmon to the Billingsgate market. These salmon mostly come packed in ice, in boxes, of which the London and North Western and the Great Northern Railway Companies are intrusted with large numbers; or else in welled steamers. The South Western is more extensively the line for the mackerel trade; while pilchards find their way upon the Great Western. But this classification is growing less and less definite every year: most of the kinds of fish are now landed at many different ports which have railway commuication with the metropolis; and the railway companies compete with each other too keenly to allow much diversity in carriage charges. The up-river fish, such as plaice, roach, dace, &c., come down to Billingsgate by boat, and are, it is said, bought more largely by the Jews than by other classes of the community. The rare, the epicurean whitebait, so much prized by cabinet ministers, aldermen, and others, who know the mysteries of the taverns at Blackwall and Greenwich, are certainly a piscatorial puzzle; for they are caught in the dirty part of the Thames between Blackwall and Woolwich, in the night-time, at certain seasons of the year, and are yet so delicate although the water is so dirty. The oyster trade was noticed in a former number of 'London Society,'* in reference to the remark*See vol. iii., p. 561.

able system of oyster nurseries, the care with which the beds are managed at Whitstable and thereabouts, the mode of sending the oysters up to Billingsgate, and the sharing of the proceeds among the fishermen. Suffice it here to say that the smacks and other vessels, when they arrive, are moored in front of the wharf, to form what is called Oyster Street.' The 4th of August is still 'oyster day,' as it used to be, and is still a wonderful day of bustle and excitement at Billingsgate; but oysters now manage to reach London in other ways before that date, and the traditional formality is not quite so decided as it once was. Lobsters come in vast numbers even from so distant a locality as the shores of Norway, the fiords or firths of which are very rich in that kind of fish. They are brought by swift vessels across the North Sea to Grimsby, and thence by the Great Northern Railway to London. Other portions of the supply are obtained from the Orkney and Shetland coasts, and others from the Channel Islands. It has been known, on rare occasions, that thirty thousand lobsters have reached Billingsgate in one day; but, however large the number may be, all find a market, the three million mouths in the metropolis, and the many additional millions in the provinces, having capacity enough to devour them all. There are some queerlooking places in Darkhouse Lane and Love Lane, near Billingsgate, where the lobsters and crabs undergo that boiling process which changes their colour from black to red. A basketful of lobsters is plunged into a boiling caldron and kept there twenty minutes. As to the poor crabs, they are first killed by a prick with a needle, for else they would dash off their claws in the convulsive agony occasioned by the hot water! Sprats 'come in,' as it is called, about the 9th of November; and there is an ineradicable belief that the chief magistrate of the City of London always has a dish of sprats on the table at the Guildhall banquet on Lord Mayor's Day. The shoals of this fish being very uncertain, and the

fish being largely bought by the working classes of London, the sprat excitement at Billingsgate, when there has been a good haul, is something marvellous. Soles are brought mostly by trawling-boats belonging to Barking, which fish in the North Sea, and which are owned by several companies; or rather, the trawlers catch the fish, and then smart, fastsailing cutters bring the fish up to Billingsgate. Eels, of the larger and coarser kind, patronized by eel-pie makers and cheap soup-makers, mostly come in heavy Dutch boats, where they writhe and dabble about in wells or tanks full of water; but the more delicate eels are caught nearer home. Cod are literally 'knocked on the head' just before being sent to Billingsgate. A 'dainty live cod' is of course not seen in the London fishmongers' shops, and still less in the barrow of the costermonger; but, nevertheless, there is an attempt made to approach as near to this liveliness as may be practicable. The fish, brought alive in welled vessels, are dexterously killed by a blow on the head, and sent up directly to Billingsgate by rail, when the high-class fishmongers buy them at once, before attending to other fish. We may be sure that there is some adequate reason for this, known to and admitted by the initiated. The fish caught by the trawl-net, such as turbot, brill, soles, plaice, haddock, skate, halibut, and dabs, are very largely caught in the sandbanks which lie off Holland and Denmark. The trawl net is in the form of a large bag open at one end; this is suspended from the stern of the fishing-lugger, which drags it at a slow pace over the fishing-banks. Two or three hundred vessels are out at once on this trade, remaining sometimes three or four months, and sending their produce to market in the rapid vessels already mentioned. The best kinds of trawlfish, such as turbot, brill, and soles, are kept apart, separate from the plaice, haddock, skate, &c., which are regarded as inferior. The 'costers' buy the haddock largely, and clean and cure them; they (or other persons) also buy the plaice, clean

them, cut them up, fry them in oil, and sell them for poor people's suppers. The best trawl-fish are gutted before being packed, or the fishmongers will have nothing to do with them. Concerning mackerel, a curious change has taken place within a year or two. Fine large mackerel are now sent all the way from Norway, packed in ice in boxes, like salmon, landed at Grimsby or some other eastern port, and then sent onward by rail. The mackerel on our own coast seem to have become smaller than of yore, and thus this new Norwegian supply is very welcome.

All these varieties of fish alike, then, and others not here named, are forwarded to the mighty metropolitan market for sale. And here the reader must bear in mind that the real seller does not come into personal communication with the real buyer. As at Mark Lane, where the cornfactor comes between the farmer and the miller; as at the Coal Exchange, where the coalfactor acts as an intermedium between the pit-owner and the coal-merchant; as at the cattle market, where the Smithfield (so called) salesman conducts the sales from the grazier to the butcher-so at Billingsgate docs the fish-salesman make the best bargain he can for the fisherman, and take the money from the fishmonger. More than two thousand years ago, according to the Rev. Mr. Badham, there were middlemen of this class, and men, too, of no little account in their own estimation and in the estimation of the world. This lively writer, in his 'Fish Tattle,' says: Great fortunes were often realized by the Greek salesmen, many of whom came to keep villas, and to live in style. The name of one great salt-fish seller was enrolled in the city [Athens?] books, and his two sons enjoyed the like honour. Many others besides them, who carried on the same traffic, had to bless Fate and the gods that they were born when the sun was in Pisces. The craft, always a prosperous one, has in more modern days been greatly indebted to the Church of Rome for its present status and importance. It was, no

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