On calling upon this poor woman on the following day, I found her and her children absent. The husband had got employment at some distance, and she had gone to see if she could not obtain a room 3_d._ a week cheaper, and lodge near the place of work.
According to the Board of Trade returns, there are nearly two hundred millions of oranges annually imported into this country. About one-third of these are sold wholesale in London, and one-fourth of the latter quantity disposed of retail in the streets. The returns I have procured, touching the London sale, prove that no less than 15,500,000 are sold yearly by the street-sellers. The retail price of these may be said to be, upon an average, 5_s._ per 110, and this would give us about 35,000_l._ for the gross sum of money laid out every year, in the streets, in the matter of oranges alone.
The street lemon-trade is now insignificant, lemons having become a more important article of commerce since the law required foreign-bound ships to be provided with lemon-juice. The street-sale is chiefly in the hands of the Jews and the Irish. It does not, however, call for special notice here.
The sellers of foreign hazel nuts are principally women and children, but the stall-keepers, and oftentimes the costermongers, sell them with other “goods.” The consumption of them is immense, the annual export from Tarragona being little short of 8,000 tons. They are to be found in every poor shop in London, as well as in the large towns; they are generally to be seen on every street-stall, in every country village, at every fair, and on every race-ground. The supply is from Gijon and Tarragona. The Gijon nuts are the “Spanish,” or “fresh” nuts. They are sold at public sales, in barrels of three bushels each, the price being from 35_s._ to 40_s._ The nuts from Tarragona, whence comes the great supply, are known as “Barcelonas,” and they are kiln-dried before they are shipped. Hence the Barcelonas will “keep,” and the Spanish will not. The Spanish are coloured with the fumes of sulphur, by the Jews in Duke’s-place.
It is somewhat remarkable that nuts supply employment to a number of girls in Spain, and then yield the means of a scanty subsistence to a number of girls (with or without parents) in England.