beams however still stretched from wall to wall. The lower room had
evidently been the warehouse, while the upper apartment had been the
sitting-room, for the paper was still on the walls. A gallery, with
a canvass front, had been hurriedly built up, and it was so fragile
that the boards bent under the weight of those above. The bricks in
the warehouse were smeared over with red paint, and had a few black
curtains daubed upon them. The coster-youths require no very great
scenic embellishment, and indeed the stage--which was about eight feet
square--could admit of none. Two jets of gas, like those outside a
butcher’s shop, were placed on each side of the proscenium, and proved
very handy for the gentlemen whose pipes required lighting. The band
inside the “theatre” could not compare with the band without. An old
grand piano, whose canvass-covered top extended the entire length of
the stage, sent forth its wiry notes under the be-ringed fingers of
a “professor Wilkinsini,” while another professional, with his head
resting on his violin, played vigorously, as he stared unconcernedly at
the noisy audience.
Singing and dancing formed the whole of the hours’ performance, and,
of the two, the singing was preferred. A young girl, of about fourteen
years of age, danced with more energy than grace, and seemed to be
well-known to the spectators, who cheered her on by her Christian name.
When the dance was concluded, the proprietor of the establishment threw
down a penny from the gallery, in the hopes that others might be moved
to similar acts of generosity; but no one followed up the offering,
so the young lady hunted after the money and departed. The “comic
singer,” in a battered hat and the huge bow to his cravat, was received
with deafening shouts. Several songs were named by the costers, but
the “funny gentleman” merely requested them “to hold their jaws,” and
putting on a “knowing” look, sang a song, the whole point of which
consisted in the mere utterance of some filthy word at the end of each
stanza. Nothing, however, could have been more successful. The lads
stamped their feet with delight; the girls screamed with enjoyment.
Once or twice a young shrill laugh would anticipate the fun--as if
the words were well known--or the boys would forestall the point by
shouting it out before the proper time. When the song was ended the
house was in a delirium of applause. The canvass front to the gallery
was beaten with sticks, drum-like, and sent down showers of white
powder on the heads in the pit. Another song followed, and the actor
knowing on what his success depended, lost no opportunity of increasing
his laurels. The most obscene thoughts, the most disgusting scenes
were coolly described, making a poor child near me wipe away the tears
that rolled down her eyes with the enjoyment of the poison. There were
three or four of these songs sung in the course of the evening, each
one being encored, and then changed. One written about “Pine-apple
rock,” was the grand treat of the night, and offered greater scope to
the rhyming powers of the author than any of the others. In this, not a
single chance had been missed; ingenuity had been exerted to its utmost
lest an obscene thought should be passed by, and it was absolutely
awful to behold the relish with which the young ones jumped to the
hideous meaning of the verses.
There was one scene yet to come, that was perfect in its wickedness.
A ballet began between a man dressed up as a woman, and a country
clown. The most disgusting attitudes were struck, the most immoral
acts represented, without one dissenting voice. If there had been any
feat of agility, any grimacing, or, in fact, anything with which the
laughter of the uneducated classes is usually associated, the applause
might have been accounted for; but here were two ruffians degrading
themselves each time they stirred a limb, and forcing into the brains
of the childish audience before them thoughts that must embitter a
lifetime, and descend from father to child like some bodily infirmity.
When I had left, I spoke to a better class costermonger on this
saddening subject. “Well, sir, it is frightful,” he said, “but the boys
_will_ have their amusements. If their amusements is bad they don’t
care; they only wants to laugh, and this here kind of work does it.
Give ’em better singing and better dancing, and they’d go, if the price
was as cheap as this is. I’ve seen, when a decent concert was given at
a penny, as many as four thousand costers present, behaving themselves
as quietly and decently as possible. Their wives and children was with
’em, and no audience was better conducted. It’s all stuff talking about
them preferring this sort of thing. Give ’em good things at the same
price, and I _know_ they will like the good, better than the bad.”
My own experience with this neglected class goes to prove, that if
we would really lift them out of the moral mire in which they are
wallowing, the first step must be to provide them with _wholesome_
amusements. The misfortune, however, is, that when we seek to elevate
the character of the people, we give them such mere dry abstract
truths and dogmas to digest, that the uneducated mind turns with
abhorrence from them. We forget how we ourselves were originally won
by our _emotions_ to the consideration of such subjects. We do not
remember how our own tastes have been formed, nor do we, in our zeal,
stay to reflect how the tastes of a people generally are created; and,
consequently, we cannot perceive that a habit of enjoying any matter
whatsoever can only be induced in the mind by linking with it some
æsthetic affection. The heart is the mainspring of the intellect, and
the feelings the real educers and educators of the thoughts. As games
with the young destroy the fatigue of muscular exercise, so do the
sympathies stir the mind to action without any sense of effort. It is
because “serious” people generally object to enlist the emotions in the
education of the poor, and look upon the delight which arises in the
mind from the mere perception of the beauty of sound, motion, form,
and colour--or from the apt association of harmonious or incongruous
ideas--or from the sympathetic operation of the affections; it is
because, I say, the zealous portion of society look upon these matters
as “_vanity_,” that the amusements of the working-classes are left to
venal traders to provide. Hence, in the low-priced entertainments
which necessarily appeal to the poorer, and, therefore, to the least
educated of the people, the proprietors, instead of trying to develop
in them the purer sources of delight, seek only to gratify their
audience in the coarsest manner, by appealing to their most brutal
appetites. And thus the emotions, which the great Architect of the
human mind gave us as the means of quickening our imaginations and
refining our sentiments, are made the instruments of crushing every
operation of the intellect and debasing our natures. It is idle and
unfeeling to believe that the great majority of a people whose days are
passed in excessive toil, and whose homes are mostly of an uninviting
character, will forego _all_ amusements, and consent to pass their
evenings by their _no_ firesides, reading tracts or singing hymns.
It is folly to fancy that the mind, spent with the irksomeness of
compelled labour, and depressed, perhaps, with the struggle to live
by that labour after all, will not, when the work is over, seek out
some place where at least it can forget its troubles or fatigues in
the temporary pleasure begotten by some mental or physical stimulant.
It is because we exact too much of the poor--because we, as it were,
strive to make true knowledge and true beauty as forbidding as possible
to the uneducated and unrefined, that they fly to their penny gaffs,
their twopenny-hops, their beer-shops, and their gambling-grounds for
pleasures which we deny them, and which we, in our arrogance, believe
it is possible for them to do without.
The experiment so successfully tried at Liverpool of furnishing music
of an enlivening and yet elevating character at the same price as the
concerts of the lowest grade, shows that the people may be won to
delight in beauty instead of beastiality, and teaches us again that
it is _our_ fault to allow them to be as they are and not their’s to
remain so. All men are compound animals, with many inlets of pleasure
to their brains, and if one avenue be closed against them, why it but
forces them to seek delight through another. So far from the perception
of beauty inducing habits of gross enjoyment as “serious” people
generally imagine, a moment’s reflection will tell us that these very
habits are only the necessary consequences of the non-development
of the æsthetic faculty; for the two assuredly cannot co-exist. To
cultivate the sense of the beautiful is necessarily to inculcate a
detestation of the sensual. Moreover, it is impossible for the mind
to be accustomed to the contemplation of what is admirable without
continually mounting to higher and higher forms of it--from the beauty
of nature to that of thought--from thought to feeling, from feeling
to action, and lastly to the fountain of all goodness--the great
munificent Creator of the sea, the mountains, and the flowers--the
stars, the sunshine, and the rainbow--the fancy, the reason, the love
and the heroism of man and womankind--the instincts of the beasts--the
glory of the angels--and the mercy of Christ.
OF THE COSTER-GIRLS.
The costermongers, taken as a body, entertain the most imperfect idea
of the sanctity of marriage. To their undeveloped minds it merely
consists in the fact of a man and woman living together, and sharing
the gains they may each earn by selling in the street. The father and
mother of the girl look upon it as a convenient means of shifting the
support of their child over to another’s exertions; and so thoroughly
do they believe this to be the end and aim of matrimony, that the
expense of a church ceremony is considered as a useless waste of money,
and the new pair are received by their companions as cordially as if
every form of law and religion had been complied with.
The notions of morality among these people agree strangely, as I have
said, with those of many savage tribes--indeed, it would be curious if
it were otherwise. They are a part of the Nomades of England, neither
knowing nor caring for the enjoyments of home. The hearth, which is
so sacred a symbol to all civilized races as being the spot where the
virtues of each succeeding generation are taught and encouraged, has
no charms to them. The tap-room is the father’s chief abiding place;
whilst to the mother the house is only a better kind of _tent_. She
is away at the stall, or hawking her goods from morning till night,
while the children are left to play away the day in the court or
alley, and pick their morals out of the gutter. So long as the limbs
gain strength the parent cares for nothing else. As the young ones
grow up, their only notions of wrong are formed by what the policeman
will permit them to do. If we, who have known from babyhood the kindly
influences of a home, require, before we are thrust out into the world
to get a living for ourselves, that our perceptions of good and evil
should be quickened and brightened (the same as our perceptions of
truth and falsity) by the experience and counsel of those who are wiser
and better than ourselves,--if, indeed, it needed a special creation
and example to teach the best and strongest of us the law of right,
how bitterly must the children of the street-folk require tuition,
training, and advice, when from their very cradles (if, indeed, they
ever knew such luxuries) they are doomed to witness in their parents,
whom they naturally believe to be their superiors, habits of life in
which passion is the sole rule of action, and where every appetite of
our animal nature is indulged in without the least restraint.
I say thus much because I am anxious to make others feel, as I do
myself, that _we_ are the culpable parties in these matters. That they
poor things should do as they do is but human nature--but that _we_
should allow them to remain thus destitute of every blessing vouchsafed
to ourselves--that we should willingly share what we enjoy with our
brethren at the Antipodes, and yet leave those who are nearer and who,
therefore, should be dearer to us, to want even the commonest moral
necessaries is a paradox that gives to the zeal of our Christianity a
strong savour of the chicanery of Cant.
The costermongers strongly resemble the North American Indians in their
conduct to their wives. They can understand that it is the duty of
the woman to contribute to the happiness of the man, but cannot feel
that there is a reciprocal duty from the man to the woman. The wife
is considered as an inexpensive servant, and the disobedience of a
wish is punished with blows. She must work early and late, and to the
husband must be given the proceeds of her labour. Often when the man
is in one of his drunken fits--which sometimes last two or three days
continuously--she must by her sole exertions find food for herself and
him too. To live in peace with him, there must be no murmuring, no
tiring under work, no fancied cause for jealousy--for if there be, she
is either beaten into submission or cast adrift to begin life again--as
another’s leavings.
The story of one coster girl’s life may be taken as a type of the many.
When quite young she is placed out to nurse with some neighbour, the
mother--if a fond one--visiting the child at certain periods of the
day, for the purpose of feeding it, or sometimes, knowing the round she
has to make, having the infant brought to her at certain places, to be
“suckled.” As soon as it is old enough to go alone, the court is its
play-ground, the gutter its school-room, and under the care of an elder
sister the little one passes the day, among children whose mothers
like her own are too busy out in the streets helping to get the food,
to be able to mind the family at home. When the girl is strong enough,
she in her turn is made to assist the mother by keeping guard over
the younger children, or, if there be none, she is lent out to carry
about a baby, and so made to add to the family income by gaining her
sixpence weekly. Her time is from the earliest years fully occupied;
indeed, her parents cannot afford to keep her without doing and getting
_something_. Very few of the children receive the least education. “The
parents,” I am told, “never give their minds to learning, for they say,
‘What’s the use of it? _that_ won’t yarn a gal a living.’” Everything
is sacrificed--as, indeed, under the circumstances it must be--in the
struggle to live--aye! and to live _merely_. Mind, heart, soul, are all
absorbed in the belly. The rudest form of animal life, physiologists
tell us, is simply a locomotive stomach. Verily, it would appear as if
our social state had a tendency to make the highest animal sink into
the lowest.
At about seven years of age the girls first go into the streets to
sell. A shallow-basket is given to them, with about two shillings for
stock-money, and they hawk, according to the time of year, either
oranges, apples, or violets; some begin their street education with
the sale of water-cresses. The money earned by this means is strictly
given to the parents. Sometimes--though rarely--a girl who has been
unfortunate during the day will not dare to return home at night, and
then she will sleep under some dry arch or about some market, until the
morrow’s gains shall ensure her a safe reception and shelter in her
father’s room.
The life of the coster-girls is as severe as that of the boys. Between
four and five in the morning they have to leave home for the markets,
and sell in the streets until about nine. Those that have more kindly
parents, return then to breakfast, but many are obliged to earn the
morning’s meal for themselves. After breakfast, they generally remain
in the streets until about ten o’clock at night; many having nothing
during all that time but one meal of bread and butter and coffee, to
enable them to support the fatigue of walking from street to street
with the heavy basket on their heads. In the course of a day, some
girls eat as much as a pound of bread, and very seldom get any meat,
unless it be on a Sunday.
There are many poor families that, without the aid of these girls,
would be forced into the workhouse. They are generally of an
affectionate disposition, and some will perform acts of marvellous
heroism to keep together the little home. It is not at all unusual
for mere children of fifteen to walk their eight or ten miles a day,
carrying a basket of nearly two hundred weight on their heads. A
journey to Woolwich and back, or to the towns near London, is often
undertaken to earn the 1_s._ 6_d._ their parents are anxiously waiting
for at home.
Very few of these girls are married to the men they afterwards live
with. Their courtship is usually a very short one; for, as one told
me, “the life is such a hard one, that a girl is ready to get rid of
a _little_ of the labour at any price.” The coster-lads see the girls
at market, and if one of them be pretty, and a boy take a fancy to
her, he will make her bargains for her, and carry her basket home.
Sometimes a coster working his rounds will feel a liking for a wench
selling her goods in the street, and will leave his barrow to go and
talk with her. A girl seldom takes up with a lad before she is sixteen,
though some of them, when barely fifteen or even fourteen, will pair
off. They court for a time, going to raffles and “gaffs” together, and
then the affair is arranged. The girl tells her parents “she’s going to
keep company with so-and-so,” packs up what things she has, and goes
at once, without a word of remonstrance from either father or mother.
A furnished room, at about 4_s._ a week is taken, and the young couple
begin life. The lad goes out as usual with his barrow, and the girl
goes out with her basket, often working harder for her lover than she
had done for her parents. They go to market together, and at about nine
o’clock her day’s selling begins. Very often she will take out with her
in the morning what food she requires during the day, and never return
home until eleven o’clock at night.
The men generally behave very cruelly to the girls they live with.
They are as faithful to them as if they were married, but they
are jealous in the extreme. To see a man talking to their girl is
sufficient to ensure the poor thing a beating. They sometimes ill-treat
them horribly--most unmercifully indeed--nevertheless the girls say
they cannot help loving them still, and continue working for them, as
if they experienced only kindness at their hands. Some of the men are
gentler and more considerate in their treatment of them, but by far
the larger portion are harsh and merciless. Often when the Saturday
night’s earnings of the two have been large, the man will take the
entire money, and as soon as the Sunday’s dinner is over, commence
drinking hard, and continue drunk for two or three days together, until
the funds are entirely exhausted. The women never gamble; they say, “it
gives them no excitement.” They prefer, if they have a spare moment
in the evening, sitting near the fire making up and patching their
clothes. “Ah, sir,” said a girl to me, “a neat gown does a deal with a
man; he always likes a girl best when everybody else likes her too.” On
a Sunday they clean their room for the week and go for a treat, if they
can persuade their young man to take them out in the afternoon, either
to Chalk Farm or Battersea Fields--“where there’s plenty of life.”
After a girl has once grown accustomed to a street-life, it is almost
impossible to wean her from it. The muscular irritability begotten by
continued wandering makes her unable to rest for any time in one place,
and she soon, if put to any _settled_ occupation, gets to crave for the
severe exercise she formerly enjoyed. The least restraint will make
her sigh after the perfect liberty of the coster’s “roving life.” As
an instance of this I may relate a fact that has occurred within the
last six months. A gentleman of high literary repute, struck with the
heroic strugglings of a coster Irish girl to maintain her mother, took
her to his house, with a view of teaching her the duties of a servant.
At first the transition was a painful one to the poor thing. Having
travelled barefoot through the streets since a mere child, the pressure
of shoes was intolerable to her, and in the evening or whenever a few
minutes’ rest could be obtained, the boots were taken off, for with
them on she could enjoy no ease. The perfect change of life, and the
novelty of being in a new place, reconciled her for some time to the
loss of her liberty. But no sooner did she hear from her friends, that
sprats were again in the market, than, as if there were some magical
influence in the fish, she at once requested to be freed from the
confinement, and permitted to return to her old calling.
Such is the history of the lower class of girls, though this lower
class, I regret to say, constitutes by far the greater portion of the
whole. Still I would not for a moment have it inferred that _all_
are bad. There are many young girls getting their living, or rather
helping to get the living of others in the streets, whose goodness,
considering the temptations and hardships besetting such an occupation,
approximates to the marvellous. As a type of the more prudent class of
coster girls, I would cite the following narrative received from the
lips of a young woman in answer to a series of questions.
THE LIFE OF A COSTER GIRL.
I wished to have obtained a statement from the girl whose portrait is
here given, but she was afraid to give the slightest information about
the habits of her companions, lest they should recognize her by the
engraving and persecute her for the revelations she might make. After
disappointing me some dozen times, I was forced to seek out some other
coster girl.
The one I fixed upon was a fine-grown young woman of eighteen. She
had a habit of curtsying to every question that was put to her. Her
plaid shawl was tied over the breast, and her cotton-velvet bonnet was
crushed in with carrying her basket. She seemed dreadfully puzzled
where to put her hands, at one time tucking them under her shawl,
warming them at the fire, or measuring the length of her apron, and
when she answered a question she invariably addressed the fireplace.
Her voice was husky from shouting apples.
“My mother has been in the streets selling all her lifetime. Her uncle
learnt her the markets and she learnt me. When business grew bad she
said to me, ‘Now you shall take care on the stall, and I’ll go and
work out charing.’ The way she learnt me the markets was to judge of
the weight of the baskets of apples, and then said she, ‘Always bate
’em down, a’most a half.’ I always liked the street-life very well,
that was if I was selling. I have mostly kept a stall myself, but I’ve
known gals as walk about with apples, as have told me that the weight
of the baskets is sich that the neck cricks, and when the load is took
off, its just as if you’d a stiff neck, and the head feels as light as
a feather. The gals begins working very early at our work; the parents
makes them go out when a’most babies. There’s a little gal, I’m sure
she an’t more than half-past seven, that stands selling water-cresses
next my stall, and mother was saying, ‘Only look there, how that little
one has to get her living afore she a’most knows what a penn’orth
means.’