Fishman

Without an exception, save ourselves, the boat was occupied by fishmen and fishwomen, returning from effecting their purchases at Billinsgate, and who availed themselves of this new mode of transit to reach the West End, without having the barriers of Fleet-street, the hills of Holborn, or the other localities which have to be traversed to reach from the city to the quarters where they had their business and connection.

We arrived in the night, and all were asleep and still. But in the morning, what a Babel of sounds assailed and stunned us! There were fishmen and fishwomen in “schools”—boatmen and boatwomen—sailors, of every nation, “pulling and hauling”—artisans of every description plying the hammer and the axe—all mechanical powers in noisy operation—ponderous wagons of most thundering construction—men, women, and children yelling to the very top of their voices, to outcry each other in selling their wares.

Fishmen and fishwomen, costermongers and other small traders, spit on their “hansel” (the first money they take); and boxers spit on their hands to make them deliver winning blows.

The butcher, the baker, the greengrocer, the old eggwoman, the vegetable dealer from the country, the fishman, every one who in any way purveyed to my little household, came to lay presents on the sunny engawa.