Britain at Work
A Pictorial Description of Our National Industries

BRITAIN AT WORK. Photo: Cassell SMITHFIELD MEAT MARKET. The market of shops, over really consists and it finds hundred of it sold retail, of a collection employment for persons. The most important vegetable, and flower London, Covent Garden, is in private ownership, being the Dukes of Bed- ford, to whom it was granted by charter in 1661. Architecturally its finest feature is what is still often called the Floral Hall, adjoining the Covent Garden Theatre, but for some years past this has been the home of the traffic in foreign fruit, and here are daily held auctions of fruits from foreign climes, such as pines, oranges, bananas, apples, and pears, “ and so ad infinitum” In past years it was a customary thing to see at Covent Garden strings of carri- ages in which ladies from the West End drove to buy their flowers and fruit for the day ; but in these days carriage folk prefer to make their purchases at the fruit and flower shops which have sprung up all over the town. But the wholesale business of Covent Garden has probably been steadily growing. Many hundreds of porters, such grapes, lemons, SIX property of the of the fruit, markets of Photo : Cassell & Co., Ltd. LEADENHALL MARKET.