Photograph of a street hawker with his customers from an album

Hawking food on the streets provided a living for many vendors. With little investment and skill, they sold affordable food to the working classes including the coolies and clerks. The vendors could be usually found on street corners, football grounds and toddy shops during mid-day as well as tea time. Several hawkers of Indian origins as seen here often sold tea, ginger water and buns. The on-going debates and regulations to settle itinerants would affect vendors such as the one presented here.