The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1879-01-29
New York Street Vendors.

| There are not less than four or i've
thousand fruit and peanut venders in
Gotham. OF these, the greater part are
Italians or Italian-French, for whom the
calling seems to possess unusual attrac-
ton, although almost every nationality
is included. The alleys of West Broad
way, Crosby street, the neighborhood OF
the Five Points, and in fact any place
where cheap tenement houses abound,
furnish homes for this class, who usu-
ally congregate in small colonies of
relatives or friends. Two or three
rooms are generally occupied by five or
six men and women, and for these quar-
ters, dirty, il-ventilated and dark as
they often are, a rent is paid varying
from So to SIS month, according to
tho avarice of the landlord and tie
ability of the tenants to pay. In these
rooms they eat, sleep, and keep their
stock in trade, the only wonder being
that the stock does not retain the vile
odors of the room in which it is kept
over night. A license, where one is
obtained, costs the applicant $5 and an
annual fee of fifty cents. This entities
him to 20 where he will throughout the
city, but does not permit him to select
any one spot as his stand, and he is often
compelled by some jealous policeman to
"move on" Sometimes, however, the
same stand is occupied by vender for
many months without molestation, and
he is enabled to build up trade and
gain regular customers.
Bananas, oranges, grapes, melons and
pineapples constitute the principal stock
in summer, and in winter these are sup
plemented or replaced by apples, pea.
nuts, chestnuts. filberts, dried figs, etc.
In good days, during the summer sea-
son, a peddler will often make 81 or
SO clear profit, but in winter his daily
earnings when most successful seldom
exceed seventy-ave cents. Most of the
venders are prudent enough to lay up
something in the summer to maintain
them during the winter; and it is not
unusual for q vender to e1pend from
800 to $50 in buying stock of grapes
or fine oranges. The finer fruit, in gen.
eral, gives the best profit, since few will
purchase that which is poor or partially
ueCdySu cFCu at q AoH P2AOos a D0AoA
of bananas costs from seventy-fve cents
to So, according to the quality and num-
Der on the stem, and oranges vary from
fifty cents to So and 81 hundred, and
on these the peddler expects to double
his investment. Peanuts cost from $1.05
to $l.35 bushel, and sell at five cents
quart, though less money is made on
them at that price than when they were
bought at So bushel and retailed at
fifteen cents quart; the business being
now very much overdone. The "stock"
is picked up ct the different downtown
markets, and, in fact, at eny place where
it can be obtained cheapest. In sum-
mer fresh fruit is bought principally on
the docks, direct from the schooners
and sloops which bring it to this city.
With fifty men bidding for the same lot,
the competition grows brisk, and the
last bidder finds himself saddled with
lot which he can sell again only OF q
sacrifice. The Irish women generally
incline to apple and candy stands, the
Italians to fruit and nuts. At best, the
the vender's life is hard, and like all
other occupations now, this is over
crowded; but it still seems an infinite
remove from the life Of the mere tramp.