Speaker 1: The streets at Christmas time by the oldest inhabitant, Old
Father Christmas is a great receiver of goods. Seated on
his throne at this season he receives the offerings of
his subjects, droves of oxen, of sheep and of pigs,
flocks of geese and turkeys, Men and carts laden with
all descriptions of game in season, Carts of fish, baskets
of fruits and vegetables, barrels of ale and wine. All
are proceeding to the feet of the King of Good.
Cheer boys and girls are rushing pell Mell from school,
delighted at the prospect of catching a glimpse of his
jolly and kindly face. For a few weeks before Christmas,
the streets of London begin to assume a new aspect.
It is not in Region Street, or Oxford Street, or
the fashionable streets were linen drapers, jewelers and other traders
who administer to fashion and to all the wants and
adornments of the outward man or woman reside that the
change is perceptible. Such streets are uniformly cheerful. Such shops
are always luxuriant and always displayed to the greatest possible
advantage the commodities upon which their owners thrive to them.
All seasons are alike. Christmas and Midsummer, spring or autumn
sees them equally attractive. The jeweler's shop is splendid of necessity.
The mercer but changes from muslins and cottons to silks
and satins, and from these to woolen textures and furs,
according to the season. But it is in the minor
streets inhabited by dealers in eatables of all kinds, that
the approach of Christmas is manifested by outward and visible
signs about which there can be no mistake. Region Street
is too proud to show any symptoms of rejoicing at Christmas,
but more homely Tottenham Court Road puts on a new
face for the occasion and decks herself out with attractions
never thought of at any other time. Oxford Street would
scorn to be too Christmas like, but her tributary streets
on either side, except those somber and highly respectable streets
in which there are no shops, look upon Christmas as
an era and rejoice accordingly. The immense increase of population
in London has not only led to the multiplication of
these signs of Christmas, but to a greater competition among
shopkeepers to attract notice. London is not merely a city.
It may be called a nation. Anyone who would wish
to examine the manners and customs of its people could
have no better opportunity for the purpose than Christmas. It
is to be questioned whether he could have any so good. Formerly, say,
thirty or forty years ago, ingenuity was not much taxed
to tempt the purchasers of good things. People knew it
was Ristmas without being told so by advertisements, and knew
where to go for the commodities they require to celebrate
the festival, without any announcement by placard or handbill. But
year after year up to the present period, the rivalry
of business consequent upon the immense number of streets opened
up in all quarters, and the establishment of thousands of
new shops in almost every parish, the old shopkeepers have
been gradually compelled to resort to something like publicity to
preserve their custom. Among shops, those of the butcher's stand
pre eminent and give us prospects not alone of the
good feeling for which December is famous, but of the
good lighting that we may expect in January and February.
Old Father Christmas has a capacious stomach, and the maw
of London, not easily filled at any time, becomes all
but insatiable. Towards the close of the year, the droves
of oxen in the streets nuisance which has antiquity in
its favor but nothing else, increase in numbers and in
the bulk of the animals that form them. The future dinners,
as well as the future candles of the million, wend
their way to Smithfield in all but countless multitudes. The
butcher's shops soon give evidence of the new demand that
is certain to spring up. Beef ries is twenty percent
in value, and mutton at a somewhat smaller ratio. As
soon as the carcasses of prize animals are displayed in
the great thoroughfares of the people, Prince Albert's oxen and
the Earl of Leicester's sheep or other animals bred by
celebrated agriculturists are exhibited. The oxen in portions and the
sheep whole with labels upon them, pointing out to the
admiring crowds that gather around the shops, the place where,
and the owner by whom they were fed, as well
as the amount of prize they obtained. In many instances
the carcasses are adorned with ribbons or wreaths, and in
almost all cases with sprigs of holly. It is a
glorious time for the butchers of London. There is a
vastly increased supply, and there is a vastly increased demand,
And these tradesmen contrive upon what principle is a mystery
of London never thoroughly explained, to make an extra profit
of both circumstances. Suet, which, in those quiet and ordinary times,
when sue it is neither abundant nor scarce, fetches eight
pence a pound rises to a shilling when all the
world is bent upon making plum pudding happy. Sometimes is
the housewife that can obtain it even at that price.
But it is not only in meat. There is in
fact a general rise in the price of all agricultural
produce at this time. Butter, for which it cannot be
supposed there is any extra demand or any diminished supply
at Christmas is an instance of it. The price is
increased by twopence or threepence a pound, as every housekeeper knows,
although she may not be able to account for it
on any known principles, either of political or domestic economy.
The reason may be that the butter man, having to
pay an extra sum to the butcher, takes it out
of the pockets of the public. The butcher, too may
plead that he has to pay extra to the agriculturists
for the flesh that Londoners will consume, so that the
farmer and grazer, after all, may be the grand recipients
of the prophets or the plunder of Christmas. Beef eating.
London must admit, even although it grumble, the infliction it
is to be feared, is wholly irremediable. Next to the
butcher's shops, the porkman's, the poulterers, and the dealers in
game are the most crowded with the future good cheer
of the London nation. If the streets of the metropolis
give unpleasant evidence of the living beef and mutton that
are to be offered up at the shrine of Old
Father Christmas, they give evidence equally strong and a vast
deal more pleasant, of the old gentleman's capabilities in the
way of game and poultry. The portmen may be passed over.
They share the good fortune of Christmas like their neighbors.
But the dealers in domestic poultry and in game of
all descriptions reap a more abundant harvest and offer more
tempting inducements for the expenditure of the million. The family
that never tastes game or poultry at any other period
of the year indulge themselves in it at Christmas, and chickens, geese,
and turkeys, dead and alive, are dispatched to the metropolis
to help in the honors of Christmas, in numbers commensurate
with the magnitude of the city and the joviality of
the occasion. While poultry which is bought has its thousands
and tens of thousands of purchasers, game which is given
away has also its thousands and tens of thousands of
grateful recipients. Blessed is the London family that has friends
in the country. Blessed at Christmas time is he who
has a relative or friend who loves sport, and who,
knowing how to enjoy his sport, knows quite as well
how to cultivate friendship. And render relationship agreeable to him.
Comes the welcome present from the fields, the moors, or
the mountains, and for him the railways bear the welcome
gifts from all quarters of the land. This large portion
of the Christmas consumption of the metropolis does not grace
the shops. It is only to be seen in its
transit from the railway station to the houses of the
grateful recipients. But a portion equally large finds its way
to the dealers. In the days of stage and mail coaches,
it was a pleasant sight to see how picturesquely they
were loaded. But the railway, which does more business, does
it without a tithe of the display. All game is
not given away what it were, but a goodly share
of it, because ms merchandise and is set forth with
tempting beauty in the shops. The butcher's shops may be disgusting,
and they are so to all who think upon the subject, which, however,
the majority of man and womankind do not. But the
shop of the dealer in game cannot be considered repulsive.
The victims of our appetite which he supplies, are not
always stripped of their beautiful plumage, and the pheasant dead
is only less lovely than the pheasant alive. Even poor
puss the hair, with their warm jacket on, suggests no
ideas akin to those which are felt on the contemplation
of the joints that hang from the rafters of the
butcher's shop may no revenan pas ah, no mouton. But
far more attractive than those of the game dealer are
the shops of the grocer's. The grocers look upon Christmas
as their peculiar time, and they take all due pains
to set themselves forth in their fairest trim. Neither do
they take such advantage of the day as the dealers
in home agricultural produce. The grocers provide large and abundant
stores of raisins, currants, spices, and preserved fruits, and put
no additional price upon them. On the contrary, they often
ask less for their wares than at other seasons, a
piece of good generalship on their parts, which our friends
the flesh dealers, might imitate with advantage to themselves as
well as to the public. The grocers are not greedy.
They encourage the manufacture of pudding their pleasant and wholesome shops,
which meet the eye. In all our great thoroughfares are
shrines to which the devotees of Christmas pay a willing visit.
Many are their devices to attract notice. Sometimes a flag
is displayed from the first floor windows, or the whole
front of the house is beplastered with placards announcing the
arrival of millions of pounds of currants and raisins, all
for the use of the pudding loving people, and to
be obtained within at prices defying competition. One placard exhibited
a few years ago by a grocer was in the
form of a playbill announcing the production of a new
pantomime to be called Harlequin Peel or the Magic Pudding.
This was not intended as a political sneer at a
great statesman, though at first glance it would seem suggestive
of such an idea. It was simply a social and
domestic affair to attract customers. Sometimes the grocer gives his
customers the additional attraction of a pictorial pudding in his window,
with the figure of a sturdy John Bull surrounded by
his family cutting into the dainty. His face is redolent
of good humor, and a scroll issuing from his mouth
informs all men, sometimes in a couplet of choice doggerel,
that the plums and spices of which that pudding was
compounded were bought at mister Snook's, or mister Jones's, or
whatever the name may be of the enterprising trader. Very
often a long string of rhymes, almost as good as
those remarkable lyrics with which mister Moses and his poets
amuse the public, is printed in large type and affixed
to the grocer's door post, that all who run may read. Indeed,
of late years, the majority of grocers in crowded streets
think it necessary to become poetical. There's a good time coming, boys,
said one effusion of the kind a few years ago.
There's a good time coming. Raisins will be cheap at Robinson's,
while a rival grocer on the other side of the
way put up a placard with a more delightful announcement,
The good time has come, boys. Raisins are cheap at Smith's.
The grocers and the keepers of those compound establishments half
grocers and half Italian warehouses, have of late years very
much increase their trade by large importations of preserved fruits.
The English as a people do not excel in this manufacture,
but the French and Italians, who have long been famous
for it, improve in it every year. The English demand
that has arisen, and which seems to go on increasing
every year, will doubtless give a further impetus to their ingenuity.
It is worth while to spend a few hours in
the shop of a large importer of these elegant articles,
not merely for the sake of the fruits themselves, crystallized
and uncrystallized, but for a sight of the boxes in
which they are packed. The French prints used for the
purpose have long been celebrated for their beauty and fancy,
and the boxes in which plums and those delicious little
oranges known as sheenas are packed are worth preserving for
their own sakes. After the fruit has been consumed. Some
of the larger receptacles are fit to convert into workboxes
after thee have served their original intention, and many are
paired with a view to such a purpose. In these times,
it might be worth the while of capitalists to devote
their attention to the home manufacture of these articles, and
also to the preservation of fruits. Sugar is as cheap
in England as in France, and there is no reason
why jams and marmalade, good as they are, should be
the sole products of English industry as regards the preservation
of fruit. The most pleasing, as well as the most
common symptom of Christmas in the streets is the holly
displayed in shops of every kind wherever eatables or drinkables
are sold, and which is almost invariably to be seen
at kitchen windows for a week or two before and
after Christmas Day. Love in the kitchen could not prosper
without the holly, and the policeman, in search of affection
or of cold mutton, would think the kitchen of his
fair friend unseasonable in its appearance if the sprigs of
dark green intermingled with the bright red berries were absent
from the window. The holly, chart of which a most
admirable representation is given in our engraving, is also a
pleasant sight in the streets, either of the outskirts of
the metropolis as represented by the artist, or of the
dense heart of the old city. Holly is a great
article of commerce at Christmas time and yields a good
prophet both to those who cultivate it and those who
vended in the streets. Never was it more in request
than it is now. Never may it be less sought
after as the verdant symbol of the loving kindness of
the season. There is one other aspect of the streets
of London at Christmas which requires notice, the public heart
being open. At Christmas beggars usually venture out with more
certain hope of our charity than at other times. Nor
is their hope disappointed, to say nothing of the carol singers,
who seem to look upon themselves as privileged for the
sake of the old familiar chain which they musically or unmusically,
pour into our ears, And who of all ages and
of both sexes, swarm in every street, in numbers of
which an accurate estimate would convey a somewhat alarming idea
of the poverty of London. Troops of unmusical beggars make
their appearance in the streets. Ireland evidently contributes a large
portion to this multitude of misery, and the mind is
driven to reflect amid the gaiety and joviality of the time,
not only upon the pauperism of that unhappy land, but
of the pauperism of this which is made more wretched
by the influx of these interlopers. The pauperism of England
amounts to one million, four hundred thousand people. The Irish
vagrants that come over to take their chance amongst us
cannot account to many less than three hundred thousand, and
possibly they amount to many more, forming an aggregate of
one million and three quarters. When we fancy that this
is almost equal to the whole population of London, Westminster, Lambeth, Southwark, Finsbury, Marleybone,
the Tower, Hamlets, Kensington, Hammersmith, Greenwich and Woolwich. And when
we attempt to realize to our mind how vast a
multitude this is, and how fearful it would be if
it were all congregated together in one place, we are
compelled to ask, if there be not something radically wrong
in our civilization which not only permits the growth of
such a sore in the body politic, but which actually
favors its growth. Let the minds of our great thinkers
be directed to it. The chief difficulty of a time
not far distant will be the existence and maintenance of
this immense standing army of poverty. If there ever be
a time when it is the duty of individuals to
attempt to relieve it. That time is Christmas, at a
period of feasts, when the paupers and the union workhouses
are embraced in the large circle of our sympathies and
cared for a little more liberally than usual. Let us
draw a circle around the circle and include within it
the beggars in the streets. It may be wrong as
a rule to encourage street beggars by donations of any kind.
But Christmas is an exceptional period, and though possibly in
being charitable to all, we may be charitable to many
worthless persons, the good will and the good day will
consecrate the deed at least, although political theorists may dissent,
and although the man who paid a very heavy poorest
rate yesterday may see reason to be unconvinced. Such is
the opinion until Christmas has passed of the oldest inhabitant
end of the streets at Christmas time, by the oldest
inhabitant