In Lambeth the case at present is different. The men, women, and children, between two and three months back, were all driven by the police from their standings. These removals were made, I am assured, in consequence of representations to the police from the parishioners, not of Lambeth, but of the adjoining parish of Christchurch, Blackfriars-road, who described the market as an injury and a hindrance to their business. The costermongers, etc., were consequently driven from the spot.
A highly respectable tradesman in “the Cut” told me, that he and all his brother shopkeepers had found their receipts diminished a quarter, or an eighth at least, by the removal; and as in all populous neighbourhoods profits were small, this falling off was a very serious matter to them.
In “the Cut” and its immediate neighbourhood, are tradesmen who supply street-dealers with the articles they trade in,--such as cheap stationery, laces, children’s shoes, braces, and toys. They, of course, have been seriously affected by the removal; but the pinch has fallen sorest upon the street-sellers themselves. These people depend a good deal one upon another, as they make mutual purchases; now, as they have neither stalls nor means, such a source of profit is abolished.
“It is hard on such as me,” said a fruit-seller to me, “to be driven away, for nothing that I’ve done wrong as I knows of, and not let me make a living, as I’ve been brought up to. I can’t get no work at any of the markets. I’ve tried Billingsgate and the Borough hard, but there is so many poor men trying for a crust, they’re fit to knock a new-comer’s head off, though if they did, it wouldn’t be much matter. I had 9_s._ 6_d._ stock-money, and I sold the apples and a few pears I had for 3_s._ 9_d._, and that 13_s._ 3_d._ I’ve been spinning out since I lost my pitch. But it’s done now, and I haven’t had two meals a day for a week and more--and them not to call meals--only bread and coffee, or bread and a drink of beer. I tried to get a round of customers, but all the rounds was full, and I’m a very bad walker, and a weak man too. My wife’s gone to try the country--I don’t know where she is now. I suppose I shall lose my lodging this week, and then I must see what ‘the great house’ will say to me. Perhaps they’ll give me nothing, but take me in, and that’s hard on a man as don’t want to be a pauper.”