who was in the habit of borrowing,) pursue their business in a not
very dissimilar manner to that imputed to those who advance larger
sums:--“If I want to borrow in a hurry,” said my informant, “as I
may hear of a good bargain, I run to my neighbour L----’s, and he
first says he hasn’t 20_s._ to lend, and his wife’s by, and she says
she hasn’t 2_s._ in her pocket, and so I can’t be accommodated. Then
he says if I must have the money he’ll have to pawn his watch,--or
to borrow it of Mr. ----, (an innkeeper) who would charge a deal of
interest, for he wasn’t paid all he lent two months back, and 1_s._
would be expected to be spent in drink--though L---- don’t drink--or
he must try if his sister would trust him, but she was sick and wanted
all her money--or perhaps his barrow-merchant would lend him 10_s._, if
he’d undertake to return 15_s._ at night; and it ends by my thinking
I’ve done pretty well if I can get 1_l._ for 5_s._ interest, for a
day’s use of it.”
The beer-shop keepers lend on far easier terms, perhaps at half
the interest exacted by the others, and without any regular system
of charges; but they look sharp after the repayment, and expect a
considerable outlay in beer, and will only lend to good customers; they
however have even lent money without interest.
“In the depth of last winter,” said a man of good character to me, “I
borrowed 5_s._ The beer-shop keeper wouldn’t lend; he’ll rather lend to
men doing well and drinking. But I borrowed it at 6_d._ a day interest,
and that 6_d._ a day I paid exactly four weeks, Sundays and all; and
that was 15_s._ in thirty days for the use of 5_s._ I was half starving
all the time, and then I had a slice of luck, and paid the 5_s._ back
slap, and got out of it.”
Many shopkeepers lend money to the stall-keepers, whom they know from
standing near their premises, and that without interest. They generally
lend, however, to the women, as they think the men want to get drunk
with it. “Indeed, if it wasn’t for the women,” said a costermonger to
me, “half of us might go to the Union.”
Another mode of usurious lending or trading is, as I said before, to
provide the costermonger--not with the stock-money--but with the stock
itself. This mode also is highly profitable to the usurer, who is
usually a costermonger, but sometimes a greengrocer. A stock of fruit,
fish, or vegetables, with a barrow for its conveyance, is entrusted to
a street-seller, the usual way being to “let him have a sovereign’s
worth.” The value of this, however, at the market cost, rarely exceeds
14_s._, still the man entrusted with it must carry 20_s._ to his
creditor, or he will hardly be trusted a second time. The man who
trades with the stock is not required to pay the 20_s._ on the first
day of the transaction, as he may not have realised so much, but he
must pay some of it, generally 10_s._, and must pay the remainder the
next day or the money-lender will decline any subsequent dealings.
It may be thought, as no security is given, and as the costermongering
barrow, stock, or money-lender never goes to law for the recovery of
any debt or goods, that the per centage is not so very exorbitant
after all. But I ascertained that not once in twenty times was the
money lender exposed to any loss by the non-payment of his usurious
interest, while his profits are enormous. The borrower knows that if
he fail in his payment, the lender will acquaint the other members of
his fraternity, so that no future loan will be attainable, and the
costermonger’s business may be at an end. One borrower told me that
the re-payment of his loan of 2_l._, borrowed two years ago at 4_s._
a week, had this autumn been reduced to 2_s._ 6_d._ a week: “He’s a
decent man I pay now,” he said; “he has twice forgiven me a month at a
time when the weather was very bad and the times as bad as the weather.
Before I borrowed of him I had dealings with ----. He _was_ a scurf. If
I missed a week, and told him I would make it up next week, ‘That won’t
do,’ he’d say, ‘I’ll turn you up. I’ll take d----d good care to stop
you. _I’ll_ have you to rights.’ If I hadn’t satisfied him, as I did at
last, I could never have got credit again; never.” I am informed that
most of the money-lenders, if a man has paid for a year or so, will now
“drop it for a month or so in a very hard-up time, and go on again.”
There is no I.O.U. or any memorandum given to the usurer. “There’s
never a slip of paper about it, sir,” I was told.
I may add that a very intelligent man from whom I derived information,
said to me concerning costermongers never going to law to recover money
owing to them, nor indeed for any purpose: “If any one steals anything
from me--and that, as far as I know, never happened but once in ten
years--and I catch him, I take it out of him on the spot. I give him
a jolly good hiding and there’s an end of it. I know very well, sir,
that costers are ignorant men, but in my opinion” (laughing) “our
never going to law shows that in _that_ point we are in advance of the
aristocrats. I never heard of a coster in a law court, unless he was
in trouble (charged with some offence)--for assaulting a crusher, or
anybody he had quarrelled with, or something of that kind.”
The barrow-lender, when not regularly paid, sends some one, or goes
himself, and carries away the barrow.
My personal experience with this peculiar class justifies me in saying
that they are far less dishonest than they are usually believed to
be, and much more honest than their wandering habits, their want of
education and “principle” would lead even the most charitable to
suppose. Since I have exhibited an interest in the sufferings and
privations of these neglected people, I have, as the reader may readily
imagine, had many applications for assistance, and without vanity, I
believe I may say, that as far as my limited resources would permit,
I have striven to extricate the street-sellers from the grasp of the
usurer. Some to whom I have _lent_ small sums (for gifts only degrade
struggling honest men into the apathy of beggars) have taken the money
with many a protestation that they would repay it in certain weekly
instalments, which they themselves proposed, but still have never made
their appearance before me a second time--it may be from dishonesty
and it may be from inability and shame--others, however, and they are
not a few, have religiously kept faith with me, calling punctually
to pay back a sixpence or a shilling as the precariousness of their
calling would permit, and doing this, though they knew that I abjured
all claims upon them but through their honour, and was, indeed, in
most cases, ignorant where to find them, even if my inclination led me
to seek or enforce a return of the loan. One case of this kind shows
so high a sense of honour among a class, generally considered to rank
among the most dishonourable, that, even at the risk of being thought
egotistical, I will mention it here:--“Two young men, street-sellers,
called upon me and begged hard for the loan of a little stock-money.
They made needle-cases and hawked them from door to door at the east
end of the town, and had not the means of buying the wood. I agreed to
let them have ten shillings between them; this they promised to repay
at a shilling a week. They were utter strangers to me; nevertheless, at
the end of the first week one shilling of the sum was duly returned.
The second week, however, brought no shilling, nor did the third, nor
the fourth, by which time I got to look upon the money as lost; but
at the end of the fifth week one of the men called with his sixpence,
and told me how he should have been with me before but his mate had
promised each week to meet him with his sixpence, and each week
disappointed him; so he had come on alone. I thanked him, and the next
week he came again; so he did the next, and the next after that. On the
latter occasion he told me that in five more weeks he should have paid
off his half of the amount advanced, and that then, as he had come with
the other man, he would begin paying off _his_ share as well!”
Those who are unacquainted with the character of the people may feel
inclined to doubt the trustworthiness of the class, but it is an
extraordinary fact that but few of the costermongers fail to repay the
money advanced to them, even at the present ruinous rate of interest.
The poor, it is my belief, have not yet been sufficiently tried in this
respect;--pawnbrokers, loan-offices, tally-shops, dolly-shops, are the
only parties who will trust them--but, as a startling proof of the good
faith of the humbler classes generally, it may be stated that Mrs.
Chisholm (the lady who has exerted herself so benevolently in the cause
of emigration) has lent out, at different times, as much as 160,000_l._
that has been entrusted to her for the use of the “lower orders,”
and that the whole of this large amount has been returned--_with the
exception of_ 12_l._!
I myself have often given a sovereign to professed thieves to get
“changed,” and never knew one to make off with the money. Depend upon
it, if we would really improve, we must begin by elevating instead of
degrading.
OF THE “SLANG” WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.
All counterfeit weights and measures, the costermongers call by the
appropriate name of “slang.” “There are not half so many slangs as
there was eighteen months ago,” said a ‘general dealer’ to me. “You
see, sir, the letters in the _Morning Chronicle_ set people a talking,
and some altered their way of business. Some was very angry at what was
said in the articles on the street-sellers, and swore that costers was
gentlemen, and that they’d smash the men’s noses that had told you,
sir, if they knew who they were. There’s plenty of costers wouldn’t
use slangs at all, if people would give a fair price; but you see the
boys _will_ try it on for their bunts, and how is a man to sell fine
cherries at 4_d._ a pound that cost him 3-1/2_d._, when there’s a kid
alongside of him a selling his ‘tol’ at 2_d._ a pound, and singing it
out as bold as brass? So the men slangs it, and cries ‘2_d._ a pound,’
and gives half-pound, as the boy does; which brings it to the same
thing. We doesn’t ’dulterate our goods like the tradesmen--that is, the
regular hands doesn’t. It wouldn’t be easy, as you say, to ’dulterate
cabbages or oysters; but we deals fair to all that’s fair to us,--and
that’s more than many a tradesman does, for all their juries.”
The slang quart is a pint and a half. It is made precisely like the
proper quart; and the maker, I was told, “knows well enough what it’s
for, as it’s charged, new, 6_d._ more than a true quart measure; but
it’s nothing to him, as he says, what it’s for, so long as he gets
his price.” The slang quart is let out at 2_d._ a day--1_d._ extra
being charged “for the risk.” The slang pint holds in some cases
three-fourths of the just quantity, having a very thick bottom; others
hold only half a pint, having a false bottom half-way up. These are
used chiefly in measuring nuts, of which the proper quantity is hardly
ever given to the purchaser; “but, then,” it was often said, or implied
to me, the “price is all the lower, and people just brings it on
themselves, by wanting things for next to nothing; so it’s all right;
it’s people’s own faults.” The hire of the slang pint is 2_d._ per day.
The scales used are almost all true, but the weights are often beaten
out flat to look large, and are 4, 5, 6, or even 7 oz. deficient in
a pound, and in the same relative proportion with other weights. The
charge is 2_d._, 3_d._, and 4_d._ a day for a pair of scales and a set
of slang weights.
The wooden measures--such as pecks, half pecks, and quarter pecks--are
not let out slang, but the bottoms are taken out by the costers, and
put in again half an inch or so higher up. “I call this,” said a
humorous dealer to me, “slop-work, or the cutting-system.”
One candid costermonger expressed his perfect contempt of slangs, as
fit only for bunglers, as _he_ could always “work slang” with a true
measure. “Why, I can cheat any man,” he said. “I can manage to measure
mussels so as you’d think you got a lot over, but there’s a lot under
measure, for I holds them up with my fingers and keep crying, ‘Mussels!
full measure, live mussels!’ I can do the same with peas. I delight
to do it with stingy aristocrats. We don’t work slang in the City.
People know what they’re a buying on there. There’s plenty of us would
pay for an inspector of weights; I would. We might do fair without an
inspector, and make as much if we only agreed one with another.”
In conclusion, it is but just I should add that there seems to be a
strong disposition on the part of the more enlightened of the class
to adopt the use of fair weights and measures; and that even among
the less scrupulous portion of the body, short allowance seems to be
given chiefly from a desire to be _even_ with a “scaly customer.” The
coster makes it a rule never to refuse an offer, and if people _will_
give him less than what he considers his proper price, why--he gives
them less than their proper quantity. As a proof of the growing honesty
among this class, many of the better disposed have recently formed
themselves into a society, the members of which are (one and all)
pledged not only to deal fairly with their customers, but to compel
all other street-sellers to do the same. With a view of distinguishing
themselves to the public, they have come to the resolution of wearing a
medal, on which shall be engraved a particular number, so that should
any imposition be practised by any of their body, the public will have
the opportunity of complaining to the Committee of the Association, and
having the individual (if guilty) immediately expelled from the society.
OF HALF PROFITS.
Besides the modes of trading on borrowed capital above described,
there is still another means of obtaining stock prevalent among the
London costermongers. It is a common practice with some of the more
provident costermongers, who buy more largely--for the sake of buying
cheaply--than is required for the supply of their own customers, to
place goods in the hands of young men who are unable to buy goods on
their own account, “on half profits,” as it is called. The man adopting
this means of doing a more extensive business, says to any poor fellow
willing to work on those terms, “Here’s a barrow of vegetables to carry
round, and the profit on them will be 2_s._; you sell them, and half
is for yourself.” The man sells them accordingly; if however he fail
to realize the 2_s._ anticipated profit, his employer must still be
paid 1_s._, even if the “seller” prove that only 13_d._ was cleared; so
that the costermonger capitalist, as he may be described, is always, to
use the words of one of my informants, “on the profitable side of the
hedge.”
Boys are less frequently employed on half-profits than young men; and
I am assured that instances of these young men wronging their employers
are hardly ever known.
OF THE BOYS OF THE COSTERMONGERS, AND THEIR BUNTS.
But there are still other “agents” among the costermongers, and
these are the “boys” deputed to sell a man’s goods for a certain
sum, all over that amount being the boys’ profit or “bunts.” Almost
every costermonger who trades through the streets with his barrow is
accompanied by a boy. The ages of these lads vary from ten to sixteen,
there are few above sixteen, for the lads think it is then high time
for them to start on their own account. These boys are useful to the
man in “calling,” their shrill voices being often more audible than
the loudest pitch of an adult’s lungs. Many persons, moreover, I am
assured, prefer buying of a boy, believing that if the lad did not
succeed in selling his goods he would be knocked about when he got
home; others think that they are safer in a boy’s hands, and less
likely to be cheated; these, however, are equally mistaken notions.
The boys also are useful in pushing at the barrow, or in drawing it
along by tugging at a rope in front. Some of them are the sons of the
costermongers; some go round to the costermongers’ abodes and say:
“Will you want me to-morrow?” “Shall I come and give you a lift?”
The parents of the lads thus at large are, when they _have_ parents,
either unable to support them, or, if able, prefer putting their money
to other uses, (such as drinking); and so the lads have to look out
for themselves, or, as they say, “pick up a few halfpence and a bit
of grub as we can.” Such lads, however, are the smallest class of
costermongering youths; and are sometimes called “cas’alty boys,” or
“nippers.”
The boys--and nearly the whole of them--soon become very quick, and
grow masters of slang, in from six weeks to two or three months. “I
suppose,” said one man familiar with their character, “they’d learn
French as soon, if they was thrown into the way of it. They must learn
slang to live, and as they have to wait at markets every now and then,
from one hour to six, they associate one with another and carry on
conversations in slang about the “penny gaffs” (theatres), criticising
the actors; or may be they toss the pieman, if they’ve got any
ha’pence, or else they chaff the passers by. The older ones may talk
about their sweethearts; but they always speak of them by the name of
‘nammow’ (girls).
“The boys are severe critics too (continued my informant) on dancing. I
heard one say to another; ‘What do you think of Johnny Millicent’s new
step?’ for they always recognise a new step, or they discuss the female
dancer’s legs, and not very decently. At other times the boys discuss
the merits or demerits of their masters, as to who feeds them best. I
have heard one say, ‘O, aint Bob stingy? We have bread and cheese!’
Another added; ‘_We_ have steak and beer, and I’ve the use of Bill’s,
(the master’s) ’baccy box.’”
Some of these lads are paid by the day, generally from 2_d._ or 3_d._
and their food, and as much fruit as they think fit to eat, as by that
they soon get sick of it. They generally carry home fruit in their
pockets for their playmates, or brothers, or sisters; the costermongers
allow this, if they are satisfied that the pocketing is not for sale.
Some lads are engaged by the week, having from 1_s._ to 1_s._ 6_d._,
and their food when out with their employer. Their lodging is found
only in a few cases, and then they sleep in the same room with their
master and mistress. Of master or mistress, however, they never speak,
but of Jack and Bet. They behave respectfully to the women, who are
generally kind to them. They soon desert a very surly or stingy master;
though such a fellow could get fifty boys next day if he wanted them,
but not lads used to the trade, for to these he’s well known by their
talk one with another, and they soon tell a man his character very
plainly--“_very_ plainly indeed, sir, and to his face too,” said one.
Some of these boys are well beaten by their employers; this they put up
with readily enough, if they experience kindness at the hands of the
man’s wife; for, as I said before, parties that have never thought of
marriage, if they live together, call one another husbands and wives.
In “working the country” these lads are put on the same footing as
their masters, with whom they eat, drink, and sleep; but they do not
gamble with them. A few, however, go out and tempt country boys to
gamble, and--as an almost inevitable consequence--to lose. “Some of
the boys,” said one who had seen it often, “will keep a number of
countrymen in a beer-shop in a roar for the hour, while the countrymen
ply them with beer, and some of the street-lads can drink a good deal.
I’ve known three bits of boys order a pot of beer each, one after
the other, each paying his share, and a quartern of gin each after
that--drunk neat; they don’t understand water. Drink doesn’t seem to
affect them as it does men. I don’t know why.” “Some costermongers,”
said another informant, “have been known, when they’ve taken a fancy
to a boy--I know of two--to dress him out like themselves, silk
handkerchiefs and all; for if they didn’t find them silk handkerchiefs,
the boys would soon get them out of their ‘_bunts_.’ They like silk
handkerchiefs, for if they lose all their money gambling, they can then
pledge their handkerchiefs.”
I have mentioned the term “_bunts_.” Bunts is the money made by
the boys in this manner:--If a costermonger, after having sold a
sufficiency, has 2_s._ or 3_s._ worth of goods left, and is anxious
to get home, he says to the boy, “Work these streets, and bring me
2_s._ 6_d._ for the tol,” (lot) which the costermonger knows by his
eye--for he seldom measures or counts--is easily worth that money. The
lad then proceeds to sell the things entrusted to him, and often shows
great ingenuity in so doing. If, for instance, turnips be tied up in
penny bunches, the lad will open some of them, so as to spread them
out to nearly twice their previous size, and if any one ask if that
be a penn’orth, he will say, “Here’s a larger for 1-1/2_d._, marm,”
and so palm off a penny bunch at 1-1/2_d._ Out of each bunch of onions
he takes one or two, and makes an extra bunch. All that the lad can
make in this way over the half-crown is his own, and called “bunts.”
Boys have made from 6_d._ to 1_s._ 6_d._ “bunts,” and this day after
day. Many of them will, in the course of their traffic, beg old boots
or shoes, if they meet with better sort of people, and so “work it to
rights,” as they call it among themselves; servants often give them
cast-off clothes. It is seldom that a boy carries home less than the
stipulated sum.
The above is what is understood as “fair bunts.”
“Unfair bunts” is what the lad may make unknown to his master; as, if a
customer call from the area for goods cried at 2_d._, the lad may get
2-1/2_d._, by pretending what he had carried was a superior sort to
that called at 2_d._,--or by any similar trick.
“I have known some civil and industrious boys,” said a costermonger
to me, “get to save a few shillings, and in six months start with
a shallow, and so rise to a donkey-cart. The greatest drawback to
struggling boys is their sleeping in low lodging-houses, where they are
frequently robbed, or trepanned to part with their money, or else they
get corrupted.”
Some men employ from four to twelve boys, sending them out with
shallows and barrows, the boys bringing home the proceeds. The men who
send lads out in this way, count the things, and can tell to a penny
what can be realised on them. They neither pay nor treat the boys
well, I am told, and are looked upon by the other costermongers as
extortioners, or unfair dealers, making money by trading on poor lads’
necessities, who serve them to avoid starvation. These men are called
“Scurfs.” If the boys working for them make bunts, or are suspected of
making bunts, there is generally “a row” about it.
The bunts is for the most part the gambling money, as well as the money
for the “penny gaff,” the “twopenny hop,” the tobacco, and the pudding
money of the boys. “More would save their wages and their bunts,” was
said to me on good authority, “but they have no place to keep their
money in, and don’t understand anything about savings banks. Many of
these lads are looked on with suspicion by the police, and treated
like suspected folks; but in my opinion they are not thieves, or they
wouldn’t work so hard; for a thief’s is a much easier life than a
costermonger’s.”
When a boy begins business on his own account, or “sets up,” as they
call it, he purchases a shallow, which costs at least 1_s._, and a
half hundred of herrings, 1_s._ 6_d._ By the sale of the herrings he
will clear 1_s._, going the round he has been accustomed to, and then
trade on the 2_s._ 6_d._ Or, if it be fruit time, he will trade in
apples until master of 5_s._, and then “take to a barrow,” at 3_d._ a
day hire. By this system the ranks of the costermongers are not only
recruited but increased. There is one grand characteristic of these
lads; I heard on all hands they are, every one of them, what the
costers call--“wide awake.”
There are I am assured from 200 to 300 costers, who, in the busier
times of the year, send out four youths or lads each on an average. The
young men thus sent out generally live with the costermonger, paying
7_s._ a week for board, lodging and washing. These youths, I was told
by one who knew them well, were people who “didn’t care to work for
themselves, because they couldn’t keep their money together; it would
soon all go; and they _must_ keep it together for their masters. They
are not fed badly, but then they make ‘bunts’ sometimes, and it goes
for grub when they’re out, so they eat less at home.”
OF THE JUVENILE TRADING OF THE COSTERMONGERS.