London market

“ And as so much British capital finds in London its place of investment, it naturally follows that nearly all the remaining unemployed capital of the world, that seeks investment, either is sent to London as a market, or else assumes a price for investment elsewhere which the current price of capital in London warrants it to assume. The London market rate of capital, therefore, determines its market rate in every other commercial centre of the world. ”

“ But it can nowhere be enjoyed in such perfection as in London. There, emphatically, is the world's market; and written large upon the pavement of her gigantic docks is the whole Romance of Trade. A single shed holds the products of all the Continents ”

“ It never occurred to the individual that the same brilliant idea might strike a million brains simultaneously. With one accord they rushed to the line of action that might be the ruin of one-third of them. Just for the time purchases by a few bold speculators stopped the rush; but presently they got filled up or frightened, so that by two o'clock some of the best paper in the market was begging at a few shillings the £1 share. When the fact struck New York and reacted on the London market, nobody knew what might happen. ”

“ What an uncomfortable place must the old City have been, with its little poking market in Honey-lane, now covered by the City of London School and the Stocks Market, long since removed, and with only one bridge leading into this large London, which was then rapidly bursting its ancient barriers and shooting out far beyond its weather-beaten walls, while all propositions for improvement were considered as death-blows aimed at its old and barbarous privileges. Our forefathers never knew, nor needed, such places as the present Covent Garden Market. ”

“ Delude not yourself with the notion that the market-carts alone can bring, or the suburban market-gardens furnish, a sufficient quantity of green meat for the great, insatiable, hungry, ravenous monster that men call (and none know why) London. Stand here with me in Covent Garden market-place, and let your eyes follow whither my finger points. ”

“ These streets of London, where the poor do their marketing, are, on Saturday night, gay with light and thronged with people. Because of the next day's rest, there is, until past midnight, an open market, which invades the pavement with costers' barrows heaped with fruit, butchers' stalls, booths of incongruous articles, kitchen utensils, old tools, all the bric-à-brac of the second-hand suburban shop; vehicular traffic is suspended; all barriers are encroached upon; everyone walks in the middle of the street. ”

“ His can with its steam pipe, from which issues forth a fragrant odor on the morning air, is already surrounded by young street boys, who will run an errand for a penny, hold your horse, catch a flying hat, steal a cabbage or a pocket full of potatoes from the stalls with equal impartiality and energy. These markets are the worst places in London for young lads, as there is always some excuse for their presence in the vicinity, under pretence of earning a penny or picking up the refuse and odds and ends of a vegetable market. ”

“ At Gravesend the spar-shops are handsome.
These wares are principally of Derbyshire spar, and made in Matlock; a few are German. The “spars” are hawked on a round, and are on fine Saturday nights offered for sale in the street and markets. The trade was unknown as a street, or a hawking trade in London, I am informed, until about twenty-five years ago, and then was not extensive, the goods, owing to the cost of carriage, &c., being high-priced. As public conveyance became more rapid, certain and cheap, the trade in spars increased, and cheaper articles were prepared for the London market. ”

“ From Smithfield Market I went to Covent Garden Market, [Pg 441] which is a couple of miles distant, in Russell street, forming quite a spacious area. This is the great vegetable and flower market of London. There is a market held every morning in summer, but in winter, markets are held only on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday mornings. The market is owned by the Duke of Bedford, and was built at a cost of £30,000 by a former Duke of that family, forty years ago. ”

“ The London market all the year round is far from being the best obtainable. Some instances have come under my notice where Middlesex growers have sent their garden produce to one or other of the great Midland markets, the far higher price obtainable more than out-weighing the greater amount of freight. ”

“ When this market was opened by the Mayor of London and other city dignitaries, sixteen hundred officials, connected with the market and the municipal government, dined in the central avenue, and two hundred barrels of ale were drank. This is a sample of a municipal British feast.
Outside of the building are little houses or market lodges, built of stone, in which are weighing machines, where men are constantly in attendance as weighers of beef and mutton. For this service they are paid one hundred and twenty pounds a year. ”

“ Farringdon Market, near the Strand, on the sloping surface of the hill, upon which the Holborn and Fleet street stand, is one of the principal markets in London, though it covers but an acre and a half. The ground and buildings cost about £200,000. The market building is 480 feet long at the centre, 41 feet high, and 48 feet broad, and has a court-yard in the centre of which the wagons, and baskets, and market lumber, are placed. The court, or, as it is called, the quadrangle, is generally filled with vegetables and fruit. ”

“ The most striking feature in the history of London in the reign of George I., was the extraordinary spirit of speculation which then existed. The moderate gains of trade and commerce did not satisfy the cupidity of the human breast, which then, as it has done since, burst out into a fever, that consumed all reason, prudence, and principle. Men made haste to be rich, and consequently fell into temptation and a snare. In 1717, an unprecedented excitement pervaded the money market. ”

“ The difference between the first and second class of buyers above mentioned, is really that of the merchant and the retail shopkeeper. The one buys literally anything presented to him which is vendible, and in any quantity, for the supply of the wholesale dealers from distant parts, or for exportation, or for the general trade of London. The other purchases what suits his individual trade, and is likely to suit regular or promiscuous customers.
In another part of the same market is carried on the retail old clothes trade to any one—shopkeeper, artisan, clerk, costermonger, or gentlemen. ”

“ To forestall was to buy things before they arrived at market with intent to sell at a higher price. To regrate was to buy up in the market and sell again in the same market at an advanced price. To undersell your neighbour was then also an unpardonable crime. You discover, therefore, that trade in Plantagenet London was not like trade in Victorian London. Then, all men of the same trade stood by each other and were brothers: now, too often, men of the same trade are enemies. ”

“ The London firm usually carried a large spot stock. This was poured into the syndicate in parcels, at advancing prices. Then all the little markets on the Continent were scoured and every ton available brought to London and disposed of in the same way.
The agent of our friends, in the producing market, bought large quantities daily. It was a six-weeks' voyage to London. In the interim there would be a heavy advance in price and as soon as the steamer arrived the syndicate had to buy these lots. ”

“ Those itinerant dealers who make the streets of London ring with the pleasant spring-cry of “All a-blowing, all a-growing!” as they move along with barrow, basket, and cart, are generally supplied from this market; and few would credit the many hundreds of pounds expended in the metropolis for the purchase of flower-roots, to be re-planted in the little back-yards called gardens, which are a peculiar feature in most of the London streets beyond the city boundaries. Places which, to pass in front, a stranger would think no green thing had ever grown for years near such a neighbourhood ”

“ This counterworking principle, already illustrated as to inland exchange in the case of New York, is best seen internationally in connection with London, which is the settling-place of the world's commerce. When the Romans dredged the Thames and made "the pool" just below London Bridge, they took the first steps towards making that town a commercial centre; since a market for products is products in market, the busy exchange of commodities there has quickened in every age the accumulation of capital and the increase of population ”

“ The market advanced by leaps and bounds, until finally the price in London reached one hundred and sixty-seven pounds sterling per ton, with an equivalent value in all other markets. This represented an advance of more than one hundred per cent.
Then the members of the syndicate awakened from their pleasant dream to find a nightmare.
The hand of every man in the trade throughout the world was raised against them. They were in the meshes of an endless chain. For every ton they could sell they must buy five, or more, in order to sustain the price. ”

“ As to the first, what made the greatness of the Thames as a port for London, and of London, therefore, as a market before the modern era of geographical discovery?
A natural market exists only where two natural conditions are present: ease of approach from without, and what may be called draining power from within. ”

“ The London Fruit Exchange is located in the eastern section of the city in a large structure known as the "Monument Building." More than $12,000,000 per annum is the amount required to pay for the oranges sold in the English market, the great bulk of the sales being by public auction. Apples are sold in like manner, the aggregate annual sales averaging in value $10,000,000. The great Covent Garden market, in the heart of London, buys its supplies of fruits at the regular auction sales held at the London Exchange, and in turn the retail dealers are supplied from Covent Garden.... ”

“ Once bridged the same spot would mark the terminal of sea-borne traffic and the place of exchange between foreign and domestic produce, while the roads radiating north and south from such a crossing would further establish its pre-eminence.
But that pre-eminence was, from some very early period, commercial. The first mention of London in recorded history, the [Pg 72] phrase of Tacitus, speaks of the town particularly as a market. As a market London has grown, and as a market it is still chiefly eminent. But London is a market only because it is a port, and it is the port of the Thames. ”

“ If in the wide sweep of London trade there be 1000 persons, including the market salesmen, the retail butchers, the carriers, &c., so circumstanced, then 4000 men are casually employed, and for a very brief time. ”

“ I should think in the spring mornings there’s 400 or 500 on ’em down at Farringdon-market all at one time—between four and five in the morning—if not more than that, and as fast as they keep going out, others keep coming in. I think there is more than a thousand, young and old, about the streets in the trade. The working classes are the principal of the customers. ”

“ Every consumer and dealer in the country was bare of supplies and a very active demand from all sources set in immediately.
When we abandoned the brokerage business to become importers and dealers, our relations with our London friends changed. We bought of them all that we imported and they sold to no other American firm. If they bought in this market, their orders came to us. With their movements we worked in sympathy. If they advanced the price in London we did the same in New York and vice-versa. ”

“ One of the most curious places in London is the Orange and Nut Market, in Houndsditch. This market is chiefly in the hands of the lowest kind of Jews, men in greasy garments, and having frightfully hooked noses. The Costermongers come here for oranges, nuts, and lemons, to sell or hawk them around the suburbs or slums of London. The market is called Dukes'-Place Market. There is a big, massive, Synagogue, a lot of ancient-looking houses, the oranges themselves have a cob-webbed appearance, and the people are all dingy here. ”

“ There are in London a great number of wealthy banks and banking houses whose reputation and solidity allow any one of them to accept bills for amounts varying from one to ten millions sterling, whereby large commissions are earned.
These four advantages, namely, a free gold market, a huge trade, an enormous accumulation of wealth, and a discount market such as exists nowhere else, have made London an unrivalled financial centre, and consequently bills on London are an international money and the best medium of exchange. ”

“ I should have stated that the principal customers of this branch of second-hand traders are found in the public-houses and at the cigar-shops, where the goods are carried by street-sellers, who hawk from place to place.
These dealers also attend the neighbouring, and, frequently in the summer, the more distant races, where for dice and the better quality of their “boards,” &c., they generally find a prompt market. The sale at the fairs consists only of the lowest-priced goods, and in a very scant proportion compared to the races. ”