Cigarette card with a colour image of a man pushing a wheelbarrow full of oysters, entitled 'Twelve Pence a Peck, Oysters!' Text on reverse reads: 'In Charles I.’s reign the London shopkeepers denounced the oyster-wives and other street-traders as “unruly people” and in 1694 they were threatened with whipping as rogues and beggars. In spite of all this, however, they continued to flourish, and the cry “Anye welflet oysters” of about 1600, reappears as “Oysters, new Wall Fleet Oysters” about a century later. A potage of oysters was a popular dish in the reign of Henry VII.' Number 18 in a set of 25 cigarette cards entitled 'Cries of London'. Issued by John Player & Sons, a branch of the Imperial Tobacco Co. Ltd.
