EDUCATION AND WATERCRESS

Evening Star, Issue 22619, 10 April 1937, Page 24

EDUCATION AND WATERCRESS

A writer in the * Daily Telegraph ’ (England), says it was the Education Acts which brought about the fall in the consumption of watercress. “ Just before the passing of the first Act there was an annual sale in London of nearly 15,000,000 market bunches, of which nearly 13,000,000 were sold in the old Farringdon market, about two-thirds of it for resale by street vendors. The best young brown was sold at Covent Garden, and the large green at Farringdon. The value of the street sale was placed at about £14,000 a year, working out at a weekly profit of about 3s 3d for each seller. The street trade flourished down to the introduction of compulsory education, when it received a great blow because it was conducted mainly by children. A typical instance will give an insight into what went on. A distressingly ill-clad girl of eight years attended Farringdon market daily between 4 and 5 a.m., summer and winter, to purchase “ bands ” of jvatercress at a penny each.- She proceeded to a pump to wash them and make each pennyworth into five halfpenny bunches, which were sold chiefly to artisans at their breakfast time. This child had been at work from the age of five, and in addition to her watercress trade, earned three half-pence by tend, ing the fires and snuffing candles at a Jewish household on Friday evenings. She gave tbs whole of her earnings to her mother to help keep the home going. trade was in the hands of the very poorest children, and when they were compelled to go to school the sale languished. Working men had to do without the, popular watercress at breakfast, and the growing beds near London were neglected and allowed to die out.