Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 14.djvu/859

 MARKETS.] LONDON Cattle. Sheep. Pigs. Home Foreign Supply. Home Foreign Supply. Home Foreign Supply. Metro politan Cattle Market. Metro politan Cattle Market. Foreign Cattle Market. Total. Total. Metro politan Cattle Market. Metro politan Cattle Market. Foreign Cattle Market. Total Total. Metro politan Cattle Market. Metro politan Cattle Market Foreign Cattle Market. Total. Total. 1870 102.831 109,447 109.44T 272.278 1.152,193 484,555 484,555 1.636,748 5,950 5,300 5.300 11.250 1871 140,335 122,036 122,036 268,371 931.740 592.260 592,200 1,524.000 7.299 990 990 8,289 1872 178.909 70,559 38,426 108,985 287.954 800,100 568,205 122,601 690,866 1.490.966 8,379 40 173 213 8,592 1873 181.825 113.295 7,090 120,385 302.210 766.645 692.705 2,339 695,044 1,461,689 7,795 690 394 1.084 8,879 1874 180.992 119,080 7,175 126,255 313.247 999,185 650,350 114 650,464 1,649,649 5,878 82 16,955 17,037 22,915 1875 174,445 126,505 29,255 155,820 330.205 917,620 701,370 86,496 787,866 1,705,486 3,512 13 21,470 21,483 24,995 1876 189,500 138,075 21,860 159,935 349.435 852,680 767,930 38,714 806,644 1,659,324 1.821 12,573 12,573 14,394 1877 159,585 41,485 67,817 109,302 L -.&quot;7 719,771 60,421 697,714 785,135 1,477,906 1,675 10,051 10,051 11,720 1878 173,680 06,170 60,675 126,845 300,525 776,780 59,070 699,911 758,981 1,535,761 2,370 710 25.575 26,285 28.655 1879 200.210 44.995 81,445 120.440 326,650 807,760 87,040 662,197 749,237 1,556,997 1,285 535 18,949 19.484 20,769 1880 173,290 50,170 120.196 170,366 343,656 789,010 77,860 658,899 ! 736,759 1,525,769 940 30 23,864 23.894 24,834 The Central London meat market, opened in Smithfield in 1868 at a cost of about 250,000, to supersede Newgate market, is built in the Italian Renaissance style, with towers at the four corners, and occupies about 3 acres, its length being 625 feet and its breadth 240. Below the market area there is a railway terminus. To the west of the meat market another one-third its size was opened in 1875 for poultry and provisions. From 1869 to 1875 the toll received from the meat market increased from 14,220 to 18,272, or 28i per cent., and with the addition of the poultry and pro vision market it had increased in 1880 to 24,310, or 71 per cent. The total amount of meat sold in the market in 1879 was 213,614 tons ; in 1880 the total amount was 221,448 tons, of which 107,326 tons were country-killed, 80,905 town-killed, 7381 foreign, and 25,836 American, the amount of American meat in 1876 being only 5513 tons. A large quantity of meat is conveyed to the butchers direct without entering the market, and several butchers also buy their cattle and get them killed privately. As, moreover, the cattle markets and the meat market supply towns and villages beyond the metropolitan area, there is a double impossibility of forming from these sales an estimate of the actual amount of butcher s meat consumed in London. Leadenhall, which according to Stow belonged in 1309 to Sir Hugh Neville, and had been used as a market before it came into the possession of the city in 1411, was enlarged in 1444 by an addition for a granary in connexion with the corn market which had been removed to it from Cornhill, the clothes market also following before 1503 ; and before 1553 the foreign butchers who formerly stood in the High Street off Lime Street had been ordered to take stalls in it. A great part of it in the time of Stow was used as a wool market, but afterwards it became the principal provision market in the city; and, according to Pennant, the Spanish ambassador told Charles II. that he believed there was more meat sold in that market than in all the kingdom of Spain. The Leadenhall under went improvements in 1713 and 1814 ; and in 1881 a new structure of elegant design, with an area of 26,900 square feet, and erected at a cost of 50,000, was opened as a market for fowls and game, the principal commodities sold at Leadenhall for many years. Billingsgate, the great fish market of the metropolis, was from an early period a harbour for small ships and boats, and in the time of Stow had almost superseded its great rival Queenhithe, which was in the possession of the Crown. As it grew in importance fish stalls Avere erected in its neighbourhood, but the original market for iish was in Fifih Street; and Friday Street, Cheapside, which received its name from being inhabited by fishmongers who served Friday s market, is mentioned as early as 1303. The Act of 1699, which made Billingsgate a &quot; free market for fish,&quot; to some extent inter fered with the ancient control of the fishmongers, although the custom of selling fish there had been introduced long previously. Until 1846 Billingsgate was a mere assemblage of wooden sheds. The building erected in that year was succeeded by another in 1877, with an area of 39,000 feet instead of 20,000 ; but, on account of the deficiency of its communications and its defective internal ac commodation and arrangements, the market is totally inadequate. Among several abortive efforts to establish other markets for fish was Columbia market, which was completed in 1869 by the Baroness Burdett Coutts for over 200,000, and&quot; presented as a fish market to the City, but failed to attract salesmen. The City authorities have the intention to utilize the vegetable market in course of erection at Smithfield as a fish market, and a scheme is also being promoted for a fish market in the parish of St Paul, Shad well. A fish and vege table market has been established by the Great Eastern Eailway Company at Canning Town. The quantity of fish brought to London by rail is not given by the markets committee prior to 1866, but in 1848 the quantity brought by water alone was 108,739 tons. In 1866 the total brought by water and rail was 132,004, in 1870 it was 117,193, in 1875 only 94,949, but since 1877, when the new market was opened, it has gradually increased from 107,168 to 130,629, or nearly 2000 tons less than in 1866, and scarcely 12,000 more than were brought in 1848 by water alone. There has of i fish, but the amount brought by rail is at present about two-thirds of the whole. Thus, with a population which since 1851 has increased by two-fifths, the fish supply has practically remained stagnant, while, owing to delay inconsequence of increased pressure of traffic, the fish often deteriorate so as to be unlit for human food. Covent Garden market, for vegetables, fruit, and flowers, which Covent occupies the site of a convent garden belonging to Westminster Garden. Abbey, seems to have been used as a market very early in the 17th century, and it received a considerable impulse from the discontinu ance of Stocks market on account of the building of the Mansion House and also of Honey Lane market, which in 1823 was superseded by the City of London school, while since the removal of Hunger- ford market to make way for Charing Cross station it has remained the only vegetable and flower market of importance in the metro polis, although vegetables of a cheap kind are sold at the Borough and Spitalfields markets, watercresses at Farringdon market, which superseded the Fleet vegetable market in 1824, and potatoes at the station of the Great Northern Eailway. Until 1828 Covent Garden market consisted of an unsightly array of sheds. The present build ing, erected by the duke of Bedford, though lately much improved, is quite inadequate for its requirements, while the arrangements for the disposal of mud and refuse are very reprehensible. Tattersall s, Knightsbridge, established by Richard Tattersall in Tatter- 1780, is one of the principal marts in England for riding and sail s, carriage horses, and may be regarded as the headquarters of the turf. One of the principal difficulties connected with the establishment of new markets in London lies in the inconvenient railway arrange ments, which render it impossible to obtain a site that shall have sufficient and direct communication with the several districts of England and with the Continent. The poorer classes obtain a Coster- cheap supply of vegetables and other provisions from costermongers mongers, and itinerant vendors, who either occupy stands in special localities, especially in the East End, and in High Street (Islington), Hamp- stead Road, Edgeware Road, and York Road (Somers Town), or hawk them through the streets. The capital possessed in 1861 by these vendors, who then numbered 41,040, was estimated at 40,000, their gross amount of annual trade at 2,700,000, and. their annual gains at 900,000. Since that period their numbers, capital, trade, and gains have probably increased at least one-third. COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY. London, which was a port Growth of of some consequence in the time of the Romans, is spoken London of by Becle as the &quot; mart of many nations resorting to it co by sea and land.&quot; The Hanse merchants, protected by a clause of Magria Charta, began in the 13th century to frequent London in large numbers, and, after obtaining liberty in 1236 to land and store the wool imported by them, are supposed to have settled in the Steelyard about 1 250, but as early as the Sth century they had begun to frequent Billingsgate, and in 978 King Ethelred had conferred certain privileges on them and on other traders. Probably by the time of Fitzstephen London had become the most renowned mart of the world, with the exception perhaps of Antwerp and Bruges. The foreign merchants received a special charter from Edward I. in 1303, and, notwithstanding occasional interference with their privi leges, the Hanse traders, who had erected extensive fac tories and storehouses near their &quot; Gildhall,&quot; gradually absorbed the greater portion of the foreign trade of London, until the incorporation of the Merchant Adven turers of England, in 1505, for trading in wool to the Netherlands. The trade with the Levant, which had
 * late years been a more rapid increase in the quantity of water-borne