The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1888-04-14
girls as they rush out from dark alleys for

girls as they rush out from dark alleys for
supply:
Oh, It's my delight on Friday night,
When sprats they isn't dear,
To fry couple of score or SO
Upon fire clear.
They eats 50 well, they bears the he'll
From all the fish knows
Then let us eat them while We can
Before the price is rose.
Chorls-ad lilitum:
oh, It's my delight, etc.
Tho "fre clear" is as often supplied by the
fish frying stalls and rooms to DO found in
every quarter of poorer London, and the oily
little sprat is sold hot, brown and crisp, as
well rs piles of the "oiral.n II by any chance
some stock is left over it is cured or kippered
at once by the costermonger, who thus loses
nothing There are boiling houses, too,
where the buyers OF wrinkles and wheks and
musses-all eaten in profusion 10y the work
ing people, who demand rs strong flavor as
possible for the monaghan boil them before
starting out To their rounds with these deli
cacies. Wrinkles are the atfectionate diminu
tive of pei Wrinkles, sold by the bushel, and
boat loads go OH on the market days. On
such days the wharf is covered with fish,
boats lying there, all known as boats"
though many are big enough for ships But
all are squat and square rs To rigging, and
very tubby rs to general effect. Planks are
placed from boat to boat, and over these mar
row, slippery bridges the porters rush, laden
with dripping fish and shouting strange
oaths in strange tongues to all who encum-
Der the way.
1t is not on wharf or at auctioneers stand
that the women who have made Billingsgate
a synonym for their mastery of unpleasant
English are to he found Now and then one
owns II costerS barrow, but they are few.
They sit in the market before stalls given
over to trade on smaller scale than that of
the auctioneer, such proprietors, whether
man or woman, being known as "bum-
bareeS.' Why "bumbaree," nobody knows,
or, at any rate, nobody tells. 1t is n simple
profession, requiring no license, and consists
in buying us largely as capital admits from
the auctioneer, and retailing at as high
profit rs can be extorted Thus natural
conflict is born at once between bumbaree
and buyer, who may have fallen from that
high estate himself, and thus knows the
theory and practice. 1t is here that the
real "Billingsgate" may be heard, and
as it is said that 5000 costers visit
Billingsgate on Friday, it is not difficult to
imagine that there Is full opportunity. But
it is a good natured crowd, intent only on
getting away as fast as possible There are
well defined classes even among the costers.
Sprats, for instance, are given over chiefly
to women, man choosing more substantial
fish, while whelk and Wrinkle sellers are re-
garded as the lowest order in the ranks. But
for all alike it is an unutterably Shiny, slip
perry business, and he who has once seen and
snleiled the market will never seek to dupli-
cate the experience 1t is picturesque men,
DRY, however, this mixture of red capped
sailors, ''ropes, spars, baskets, oakum, tar
paulin, fish, canvas trousers, oser baskets,
loud voices and tramping feet" but better in
memory than fact.
1t would be easy to give here table of the
amount Of fish sold in 1886, but forbear |
have read it, and reflected upon the amount
of wriggle in 100000 pounds of cells, and
the probable ultimate effect upon English
How the eater elects to take
them shall be told farther ION, and neither
antiquity nor any sight Of today holds an
odder corner than that whose story shall pre-
sently be chroniced. For the rcst-the bill
ion of shrimps, the million of periwinkles,
the tons of mussels and whelks and crabs and
Holsters, and all the list of creatures that ply
fin or seek to hide in shells from man, the
us forget with such speed as
may be the fate to which they were born,
and be glad that hungry London has form
of food still cheap and beyond question sat
HELEN CAMPBELL.