to address me by letter. My correspondent--a well-informed and
well-educated man--describes himself as “being one of those that have
been unfortunately thrust into that precarious way of obtaining a
living, not by choice but circumstances.” The writer then proceeds to
say: “No person but those actually connected with the streets can tell
the exertion, anxiety, and difficulties we have to undergo; and I know
for a fact it induces a great many to drink that would not do so, only
to give them a stimulant to bear up against the troubles that they have
to contend with; and so it ultimately becomes habitual. I could point
out many instances of the kind. My chief object in addressing you is
to give my humble suggestion as to the best means of alleviating our
present position in society, and establishing us in the eyes of the
public as a respectable body of men, honestly endeavouring to support
our families, without becoming chargeable to the parish, and to show
that we are not all the degraded class we are at present thought to
be, subject to the derision of every passer by, and all looked upon as
extortioners and the confederates of thieves. It is grievous to see
children, as soon as they are able to speak, thrust into the streets
to sell, and in many instances, I am sorry to state, to support their
parents. Kind sir, picture to yourself a group of those children mixing
together indiscriminately--the good with the bad--all uneducated--and
without that parental care which is so essential for youth--and judge
for yourself the result: the lads in some instances take to thieving,
(this being easier for a living), and the girls to prostitution; and so
they pass the greater part of their time in gaol, or get transported.
Even those who are honestly disposed cannot have a chance of bettering
their condition, in consequence of their being uneducated, so that
they often turn out brutal husbands and bad fathers. Surely, sir,
Government could abolish in a measure this juvenile trading, so
conducive to crime and so injurious to the shopkeeper, who is highly
rated. How is it possible, if children congregate around his door
with the very articles he may deal in, that he can meet the demands
for rates and taxes; whereas the educated man, brought by want to
sell in the streets, would not do so, but keep himself apart from the
shopkeeper, and not merit his enmity, and the interference of the
police, which he necessarily claims. I have procured an existence
(with a few years’ exception) in the streets for the last twenty-five
years as a general salesman of perishable and imperishable articles,
and should be most happy to see anything done for the benefit of my
class. This juvenile trading I consider the root of the evil; after
the removal of this, the costermongers might, by classifying and
co-operation, render themselves comparatively happy, in their position,
and become acknowledged members of society.”
Another costermonger, in conversing with me concerning these young
traders, said, that many of them would ape the vices of men:
mere urchins would simulate drunkenness, or boast, with many an
exaggeration, of their drinking feats. They can get as much as they
please at the public-houses; and this too, I may add, despite the 43rd
clause in the Police Act, which enacts, that “every person, licensed
to deal in exciseable liquors within the said (Metropolitan Police)
District, who shall knowingly supply any sort of distilled exciseable
liquor to be drunk upon the premises, to any boy or girl, apparently
under the age of sixteen years, shall be liable to a penalty of not
more than 20_s._;” and upon a second conviction to 40_s._ penalty; and
on a third to 5_l._
OF THE EDUCATION OF THE “COSTER-LADS.”
Among the costers the term education is (as I have already intimated)
merely understood as meaning a complete knowledge of the art of “buying
in the cheapest market and selling in the dearest.” There are few lads
whose training extends beyond this. The father is the tutor, who takes
the boy to the different markets, instructs him in the art of buying,
and when the youth is perfect on this point, the parent’s duty is
supposed to have been performed. Nearly all these boys are remarkable
for their precocious sharpness. To use the words of one of the class,
“these young ones are as sharp as terriers, and learns every dodge of
business in less than half no time. There’s one I knows about three
feet high, that’s up to the business as clever as a man of thirty.
Though he’s only twelve years old he’ll chaff down a peeler so uncommon
severe, that the only way to stop him is to take him in charge!”
It is idle to imagine that these lads, possessed of a mental acuteness
almost wonderful, will not educate themselves in vice, if we neglect
to train them to virtue. At their youthful age, the power of acquiring
knowledge is the strongest, and some kind of education is continually
going on. If they are not taught by others, they will form their own
characters--developing habits of dissipation, and educing all the
grossest passions of their natures, and learning to indulge in the
gratification of every appetite without the least restraint.
As soon as a boy is old enough to shout well and loudly, his father
takes him into the streets. Some of these youths are not above seven
years of age, and it is calculated that not more than one in a hundred
has ever been to a school of any kind. The boy walks with the barrow,
or guides the donkey, shouting by turns with the father, who, when the
goods are sold, will as a reward, let him ride home on the tray. The
lad attends all markets with his father, who teaches him his business
and shows him his tricks of trade; “for,” said a coster, “a governor in
our line leaves the knowledge of all his dodges to his son, jist as the
rich coves do their tin.”
The life of a coster-boy is a very hard one. In summer he will have
to be up by four o’clock in the morning, and in winter he is never in
bed after six. When he has returned from market, it is generally his
duty to wash the goods and help dress the barrow. About nine he begins
his day’s work, shouting whilst the father pushes; and as very often
the man has lost his voice, this share of the labour is left entirely
to him. When a coster has regular customers, the vegetables or fish
are all sold by twelve o’clock, and in many coster families the lad is
then packed off with fruit to hawk in the streets. When the work is
over, the father will perhaps take the boy to a public-house with him,
and give him part of his beer. Sometimes a child of four or five is
taken to the tap-room, especially if he be pretty and the father proud
of him. “I have seen,” said a coster to me, “a baby of five year old
reeling drunk in a tap-room. His governor did it for the lark of the
thing, to see him chuck hisself about--sillyfied like.”
The love of gambling soon seizes upon the coster boy. Youths of
about twelve or so will as soon as they can get away from work go to
a public-house and play cribbage for pints of beer, or for a pint
a corner. They generally continue playing till about midnight, and
rarely--except on a Sunday--keep it up all night.
It ordinarily happens that when a lad is about thirteen, he quarrels
with his father, and gets turned away from home. Then he is forced to
start for himself. He knows where he can borrow stock-money and get his
barrow, for he is as well acquainted with the markets as the oldest
hand at the business, and children may often be seen in the streets
under-selling their parents. “How’s it possible,” said a woman, “for
people to live when there’s their own son at the end of the court
a-calling his goods as cheap again as we can afford to sell ourn.”
If the boy is lucky in trade, his next want is to get a girl to keep
home for him. I was assured, that it is not at all uncommon for a lad
of fifteen to be living with a girl of the same age, as man and wife.
It creates no disgust among his class, but seems rather to give him a
position among such people. Their courtship does not take long when
once the mate has been fixed upon. The girl is invited to “raffles,”
and treated to “twopenny hops,” and half-pints of beer. Perhaps a silk
neck handkerchief--a “King’s-man” is given as a present; though some of
the lads will, when the arrangement has been made, take the gift back
again and wear it themselves. The boys are very jealous, and if once
made angry behave with great brutality to the offending girl. A young
fellow of about sixteen told me, as he seemed to grow angry at the very
thought, “If I seed my gal a talking to another chap I’d fetch her sich
a punch of the nose as should plaguy quick stop the whole business.”
Another lad informed me, with a knowing look, “that the gals--it was
a rum thing now he come to think on it--axully liked a feller for
walloping them. As long as the bruises hurted, she was always thinking
on the cove as gived ’em her.” After a time, if the girl continues
faithful, the young coster may marry her; but this is rarely the case,
and many live with their girls until they have grown to be men, or
perhaps they may quarrel the very first year, and have a fight and part.
These boys hate any continuous work. So strong is this objection to
continuity that they cannot even remain selling the same article for
more than a week together. Moreover none of them can be got to keep
stalls. They must be perpetually on the move--or to use their own words
“they like a roving life.” They all of them delight in dressing “flash”
as they call it. If a “governor” was to try and “palm off” his old cord
jacket upon the lad that worked with him, the boy wouldn’t take it.
“Its too big and seedy for me,” he’d say, “and I aint going to have
your leavings.” They try to dress like the men, with large pockets in
their cord jackets and plenty of them. Their trowsers too must fit
tight at the knee, and their boots they like as good as possible. A
good “King’s-man,” a plush skull cap, and a seam down the trowsers are
the great points of ambition with the coster boys.
[Illustration: THE COSTER-GIRL.
“Apples! An ’aypenny a lot, Apples!”
[_From a Daguerreotype by_ BEARD.]]
A lad about fourteen informed me that “brass buttons, like a huntman’s,
with foxes’ heads on em, looked stunning flash, and the gals liked em.”
As for the hair, they say it ought to be long in front, and done in
“figure-six” curls, or twisted back to the ear “Newgate-knocker style.”
“But the worst of hair is,” they add, “that it is always getting cut
off in quod, all along of muzzling the bobbies.”
The whole of the coster-boys are fond of good living. I was told that
when a lad started for himself, he would for the first week or so
live almost entirely on cakes and nuts. When settled in business they
always manage to have what they call “a relish” for breakfast and tea,
“a couple of herrings, or a bit of bacon, or what not.” Many of them
never dine excepting on the Sunday--the pony and donkey proprietors
being the only costers whose incomes will permit them to indulge in
a “fourpenny plate of meat at a cook’s shop.” The whole of the boys
too are extremely fond of pudding, and should the “plum duff” at an
eating-house contain an unusual quantity of plums, the news soon
spreads, and the boys then endeavour to work that way so as to obtain
a slice. While waiting for a market, the lads will very often spend
a shilling in the cakes and three cornered puffs sold by the Jews.
The owners toss for them, and so enable the young coster to indulge
his two favourite passions at the same time--his love of pastry, and
his love of gambling. The Jews crisp butter biscuits also rank very
high with the boys, who declare that they “slip down like soapsuds
down a gully hole.” In fact it is curious to notice how perfectly
unrestrained are the passions and appetites of these youths. The only
thoughts that trouble them are for their girls, their eating and their
gambling--beyond the love of self they have no tie that binds them to
existence.
THE LIFE OF A COSTER-LAD.
One lad that I spoke to gave me as much of his history as he could
remember. He was a tall stout boy, about sixteen years old, with a face
utterly vacant. His two heavy lead-coloured eyes stared unmeaningly at
me, and, beyond a constant anxiety to keep his front lock curled on his
cheek, he did not exhibit the slightest trace of feeling. He sank into
his seat heavily and of a heap, and when once settled down he remained
motionless, with his mouth open and his hands on his knees--almost as
if paralyzed. He was dressed in all the slang beauty of his class, with
a bright red handkerchief and unexceptionable boots.
“My father” he told me in a thick unimpassioned voice, “was a waggoner,
and worked the country roads. There was two on us at home with mother,
and we used to play along with the boys of our court, in Golding-lane,
at buttons and marbles. I recollects nothing more than this--only the
big boys used to cheat like bricks and thump us if we grumbled--that’s
all I recollects of my infancy, as you calls it. Father I’ve heard
tell died when I was three and brother only a year old. It was worse
luck for us!--Mother was so easy with us. I once went to school for
a couple of weeks, but the cove used to fetch me a wipe over the
knuckles with his stick, and as I wasn’t going to stand that there,
why you see I aint no great schollard. We did as we liked with mother,
she was so precious easy, and I never learned anything but playing
buttons and making leaden ‘bonces,’ that’s all,” (here the youth
laughed slightly.) “Mother used to be up and out very early washing in
families--anything for a living. She was a good mother to us. We was
left at home with the key of the room and some bread and butter for
dinner. Afore she got into work--and it was a goodish long time--we was
shocking hard up, and she pawned nigh everything. Sometimes, when we
had’nt no grub at all, the other lads, perhaps, would give us some of
their bread and butter, but often our stomachs used to ache with the
hunger, and we would cry when we was werry far gone. She used to be at
work from six in the morning till ten o’clock at night, which was a
long time for a child’s belly to hold out again, and when it was dark
we would go and lie down on the bed and try and sleep until she came
home with the food. I was eight year old then.
“A man as know’d mother, said to her, ‘Your boy’s got nothing to do,
let him come along with me and yarn a few ha’pence,’ and so I became a
coster. He gave me 4_d._ a morning and my breakfast. I worked with him
about three year, until I learnt the markets, and then I and brother
got baskets of our own, and used to keep mother. One day with another,
the two on us together could make 2_s._ 6_d._ by selling greens of a
morning, and going round to the publics with nuts of a evening, till
about ten o’clock at night. Mother used to have a bit of fried meat or
a stew ready for us when we got home, and by using up the stock as we
couldn’t sell, we used to manage pretty tidy. When I was fourteen I
took up with a girl. She lived in the same house as we did, and I used
to walk out of a night with her and give her half-pints of beer at the
publics. She were about thirteen, and used to dress werry nice, though
she weren’t above middling pretty. Now I’m working for another man as
gives me a shilling a week, victuals, washing, and lodging, just as if
I was one of the family.
“On a Sunday I goes out selling, and all I yarns I keeps. As for
going to church, why, I can’t afford it,--besides, to tell the truth,
I don’t like it well enough. Plays, too, ain’t in my line much; I’d
sooner go to a dance--its more livelier. The ‘penny gaffs’ is rather
more in my style; the songs are out and out, and makes our gals laugh.
The smuttier the better, I thinks; bless you! the gals likes it as
much as we do. If we lads ever has a quarrel, why, we fights for it.
If I was to let a cove off once, he’d do it again; but I never give
a lad a chance, so long as I can get anigh him. I never heard about
Christianity; but if a cove was to fetch me a lick of the head, I’d
give it him again, whether he was a big ’un or a little ’un. I’d
precious soon see a henemy of mine shot afore I’d forgive him,--where’s
the use? Do I understand what behaving to your neighbour is?--In coorse
I do. If a feller as lives next me wanted a basket of mine as I wasn’t
using, why, he might have it; if I was working it though, I’d see him
further! I can understand that all as lives in a court is neighbours;
but as for policemen, they’re nothing to me, and I should like to pay
’em all off well. No; I never heerd about this here creation you speaks
about. In coorse God Almighty made the world, and the poor bricklayers’
labourers built the houses arterwards--that’s _my_ opinion; but I
can’t say, for I’ve never been in no schools, only always hard at
work, and knows nothing about it. I have heerd a little about our
Saviour,--they seem to say he were a goodish kind of a man; but if he
says as how a cove’s to forgive a feller as hits you, I should say he
know’d nothing about it. In coorse the gals the lads goes and lives
with thinks our walloping ’em wery cruel of us, but we don’t. Why don’t
we?--why, because we don’t. Before father died, I used sometimes to
say my prayers, but after that mother was too busy getting a living to
mind about my praying. Yes, I knows!--in the Lord’s prayer they says,
‘Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgives them as trespasses agin us.’
It’s a very good thing, in coorse, but no costers can’t do it.”
OF THE “PENNY GAFF.”
In many of the thoroughfares of London there are shops which have
been turned into a kind of temporary theatre (admission one penny),
where dancing and singing take place every night. Rude pictures of
the performers are arranged outside, to give the front a gaudy and
attractive look, and at night-time coloured lamps and transparencies
are displayed to draw an audience. These places are called by
the costers “Penny Gaffs;” and on a Monday night as many as six
performances will take place, each one having its two hundred visitors.
It is impossible to contemplate the ignorance and immorality of so
numerous a class as that of the costermongers, without wishing to
discover the cause of their degradation. Let any one curious on this
point visit one of these penny shows, and he will wonder that _any_
trace of virtue and honesty should remain among the people. Here the
stage, instead of being the means for illustrating a moral precept, is
turned into a platform to teach the cruelest debauchery. The audience
is usually composed of children so young, that these dens become the
school-rooms where the guiding morals of a life are picked up; and so
precocious are the little things, that the girl of nine will, from
constant attendance at such places, have learnt to understand the
filthiest sayings, and laugh at them as loudly as the grown-up lads
around her. What notions can the young female form of marriage and
chastity, when the penny theatre rings with applause at the performance
of a scene whose sole point turns upon the pantomimic imitation of the
unrestrained indulgence of the most corrupt appetites of our nature?
How can the lad learn to check his hot passions and think honesty
and virtue admirable, when the shouts around him impart a glory to a
descriptive song so painfully corrupt, that it can only have been made
tolerable by the most habitual excess? The men who preside over these
infamous places know too well the failings of their audiences. They
know that these poor children require no nicely-turned joke to make the
evening pass merrily, and that the filth they utter needs no double
meaning to veil its obscenity. The show that will provide the most
unrestrained debauchery will have the most crowded benches; and to gain
this point, things are acted and spoken that it is criminal even to
allude to.
Not wishing to believe in the description which some of the more
intelligent of the costermongers had given of these places, it was
thought better to visit one of them, so that all exaggeration might be
avoided. One of the least offensive of the exhibitions was fixed upon.
The “penny gaff” chosen was situated in a broad street near Smithfield;
and for a great distance off, the jingling sound of music was heard,
and the gas-light streamed out into the thick night air as from a
dark lantern, glittering on the windows of the houses opposite, and
lighting up the faces of the mob in the road, as on an illumination
night. The front of a large shop had been entirely removed, and the
entrance was decorated with paintings of the “comic singers,” in their
most “humourous” attitudes. On a table against the wall was perched
the band, playing what the costers call “dancing tunes” with great
effect, for the hole at the money-taker’s box was blocked up with
hands tendering the penny. The crowd without was so numerous, that a
policeman was in attendance to preserve order, and push the boys off
the pavement--the music having the effect of drawing them insensibly
towards the festooned green-baize curtain.
The shop itself had been turned into a waiting-room, and was crowded
even to the top of the stairs leading to the gallery on the first
floor. The ceiling of this “lobby” was painted blue, and spotted
with whitewash clouds, to represent the heavens; the boards of the
trap-door, and the laths that showed through the holes in the plaster,
being all of the same colour. A notice was here posted, over the
canvass door leading into the theatre, to the effect that “LADIES AND
GENTLEMEN TO THE FRONT PLACES MUST PAY TWOPENCE.”
The visitors, with a few exceptions, were all boys and girls,
whose ages seemed to vary from eight to twenty years. Some of the
girls--though their figures showed them to be mere children--were
dressed in showy cotton-velvet polkas, and wore dowdy feathers in
their crushed bonnets. They stood laughing and joking with the lads,
in an unconcerned, impudent manner, that was almost appalling. Some
of them, when tired of waiting, chose their partners, and commenced
dancing grotesquely, to the admiration of the lookers-on, who expressed
their approbation in obscene terms, that, far from disgusting the poor
little women, were received as compliments, and acknowledged with
smiles and coarse repartees. The boys clustered together, smoking
their pipes, and laughing at each other’s anecdotes, or else jingling
halfpence in time with the tune, while they whistled an accompaniment
to it. Presently one of the performers, with a gilt crown on his well
greased locks, descended from the staircase, his fleshings covered by
a dingy dressing-gown, and mixed with the mob, shaking hands with old
acquaintances. The “comic singer,” too, made his appearance among the
throng--the huge bow to his cravat, which nearly covered his waistcoat,
and the red end to his nose, exciting neither merriment nor surprise.
To discover the kind of entertainment, a lad near me and my companion
was asked “if there was any flash dancing.” With a knowing wink the boy
answered, “Lots! show their legs and all, prime!” and immediately the
boy followed up his information by a request for a “yennep” to get a
“tib of occabot.” After waiting in the lobby some considerable time,
the performance inside was concluded, and the audience came pouring
out through the canvass door. As they had to pass singly, I noticed
them particularly. Above three-fourths of them were women and girls,
the rest consisting chiefly of mere boys--for out of about two hundred
persons I counted only eighteen men. Forward they came, bringing an
overpowering stench with them, laughing and yelling as they pushed
their way through the waiting-room. One woman carrying a sickly child
with a bulging forehead, was reeling drunk, the saliva running down her
mouth as she stared about her with a heavy fixed eye. Two boys were
pushing her from side to side, while the poor infant slept, breathing
heavily, as if stupified, through the din. Lads jumping on girls’
shoulders, and girls laughing hysterically from being tickled by the
youths behind them, every one shouting and jumping, presented a mad
scene of frightful enjoyment.
When these had left, a rush for places by those in waiting began, that
set at defiance the blows and strugglings of a lady in spangles who
endeavoured to preserve order and take the checks. As time was a great
object with the proprietor, the entertainment within began directly the
first seat was taken, so that the lads without, rendered furious by the
rattling of the piano within, made the canvass partition bulge in and
out, with the strugglings of those seeking admission, like a sail in a
flagging wind.