One shell-fish seller, who has known street-commerce and street-folk for many years, thought, although he only hazarded an opinion, that there was less drinking among the young costers, and less swearing, than he had known in a preceding generation.
A young coster boy living with his parents, who had a good business, told me that he would never be nothing but a “general dealer,” (which among some of these people is the “genteel” designation for a costermonger,) as long as he lived, unless, indeed, he rose to a coal shed and a horse and cart; a consummation, perhaps with the addition of a green-grocery, a fried fish, and a gingerbeer trade, not unfrequently arrived at by the more prudent costermongers. This boy could neither read nor write; he had been sent to school, and flogged to school (he grinned as he told me) by his mother, who said his father wouldn’t have been “done” so often by fine folks, when he sold “grass” (asparagus) and such things as cost money, if he could have kept ’count. But his father only laughed, and said nothing, when the boy “cut away” from school, which he did so continuously, that the schoolmaster at length declined the charge of the young coster’s further education. This stripling, who was about fourteen, seemed very proud of a pair of good half-boots which his mother had bought him, and which he admired continually as he glanced at his feet. His parents, from his account, were indulgent, and when they got farthings in change or in any manner, kept them for him; and so he got treats, and smart things to wear now and then. “We expects to do well,” he said, for he used the “we” when he spoke of his parents’ business, “when it’s peas and new potatoes, cheap enough to cry. It’s my dodge to cry. I know a man as says, ‘May month ought to be ashamed on itself, or things ’ud a been herlier.’ Last week I sung out, it was the same man’s dodge, he put me up to it—‘Here’s your Great Exhibition mackarel.’ People laughed, but it weren’t no great good. I’ve been to Penny Gaffs, but not this goodish bit. I likes the singing best as has a stunnin chorus. There’s been a deal of hard up lately among people as is general dealers. Things is getting better, I think, and they must. It wouldn’t do at all if they didn’t. It’s no use your a-asking me about what I thinks of the Queen or them sort of people, for I knows nothing about them, and never goes among them.”
The Hired boys, for the service of the costermongers, whether hired for the day, or more permanently, are very generally of the classes I have spoken of. When the New Cut, Lambeth, was a great street-market, every morning, during the height of the vegetable and fruit seasons, lads used to assemble in Hooper-street, Short-street, York-street, and, indeed, in all the smaller streets or courts, which run right and left from the “two Cuts.” When the costermonger started thence, perhaps “by the first light,” to market, these boys used to run up to his barrow, “D’you want me, Jack?” or, “Want a boy, Bill?” being their constant request. It is now the same, in the localities where the costermongers live, or where they keep their ponies, donkeys, and barrows, and whence they emerge to market. It is the same at Billingsgate and the other markets at which these traders make their wholesale purchases. Boys wait about these marts “to be hired,” or, as they may style it, to “see if they’re wanted.” When hired, there is seldom any “wage” specified, the lads seeming always willing to depend upon the liberality of the costermonger, and often no doubt with an eye to the chances of “bunse.” A sharp lad thus engaged, who may acquit himself to a costermonger’s liking, perhaps continues some time in the same man’s employ. I may observe, that in this gathering, and for such a purpose, there is a resemblance to the simple proceedings of the old times, when around the market cross of the nearest town assembled the population who sought employment, whether in agricultural or household labour. In some parts of the north of England these gatherings are still held at the two half-yearly terms of May-day and Martinmas.
A lad of thirteen or fourteen, who did not look very strong, gave me the following account: “I helps, you see, sir, where I can, for mother (who sells sheep’s-trotters) depends a deal on her trotters, but they’re not great bread for an old ’oman, and there’s me and Neddy to keep. Father’s abroad and a soger. Do I know he is? Mother says so, sir. I looks out every morning when the costermongers starts for the markets and wants boys for their barrows. I cried roots last: ‘Here’s your musks, ha’penny each. Here’s yer all agro’in’ and all a blo’in’.’ I got my grub and 3d. I takes the tin home. If there’s a cabbage or two left, I’ve had it guv to me. I likes that work better nor school. I should think so. One sees life. Well, I don’t know wot one sees perticler; but it’s wot people calls life. I was a week at school once. I has a toss up sometimes when I has a odd copper for it. I ’aven’t ’ad any rig’lar work as yet. I shall p’raps when it’s real summer.” [Said, May 24th.] “This is the Queen’s birthday, is it, sir? Werry likely, but she’s nothing to me. I can’t read, in coorse not, after a week’s schooling. Yes, I likes a show. Punch is stunnin’, but they might make more on the dog. I would if I was a Punch. O, I has tea, and bread and butter with mother, and gets grub as I jobs besides. I makes no bargain. If a cove’s scaly, we gets to know him. I hopes to have a barrer of my own some day, and p’raps a hass. Can I manage a hass? In coorse, and he don’t want no groomin’. I’d go to Hepsom then; I’ve never been yet, but I’ve been to Grinnage fairs. I don’t know how I can get a barrer and a hass, but I may have luck.”
From one of this class I had the following account. It may be observed that the lad’s statement contains little of incident, or of novelty, but this is characteristic of many of his class. With many of them, it may indeed be said, “one day certifieth another.” It is often the same tale of labour and of poverty, day after day, so that the mere uniformity makes a youth half oblivious of the past; the months, or perhaps years, seem all alike.
This boy seemed healthy, wore a suit of corduroy, evidently not made for him, and but little patched, although old; he was in good spirits.
“I believe I’m between fifteen and sixteen,” he said, “and mother died more than two year ago, nearer three, perhaps. Father had gone dead a long time afore; I don’t remember him.” [I am inclined to think that this story of the death of the father is often told by the mother of an illegitimate child to her offspring, through a natural repugnance to reveal her shame to her child. I do not know, however, that it was the case in this instance.] “I don’t remember about mother’s funeral, for I was ill myself at the time. She worked with her needle; sometimes for a dressmaker, on “skirts,” and sometimes for a tailor, on flannels. She sometimes worked all night, but we was wery badly off—we was so. She had only me. When mother died there was nothing left for me, but there was a good woman—she was a laundress and kept a mangle—and she said, ‘well, here’s a old basket and a few odd things; give the kid the basket and turn the bits of old traps into money, and let him start on muffins, and then he must shift for hisself.’ So she tuk me to a shop and I was started in the muffin line. I didn’t do so bad, but it’s on’y a winter trade, isn’t muffins. I sold creases next—no, not creases, cherries; yes, it was creases, and then cherries, for I remembers as ’ow ’Ungerford was the first market I ever was at; it was so. Since then, I’ve sold apples, and oranges, and nuts, and chestnuts—but they was dear the last time as I had ’em—and spring garters a penny a pair, and glass pens; yes, and other things. I goes to market, mostly to Common Gard’n, and there’s a man goes there what buys bushels and bushels, and he’ll let me have any little lot reas’nable; he will so. There’s another will, but he ain’t so good to a poor kid. Well, I doesn’t know as ’ow one trade’s better nor another; I think I’ve done as much in one as in another. But I’ve done better lately; I’ve sold more oranges, and I had a few sticks of rhubarb. I think times is mending, but others says that’s on’y my luck. I sleeps with a boy as is younger nor I am, and pays 9d. a week. Tom’s father and mother—he’s a coal-heaver, but he’s sometimes out of work—sleeps in the same room, but we has a good bed to ourselves. Tom’s father knew my mother. There’s on’y us four. Tom’s father says sometimes if his rheumatics continues, he and all on ’em must go into the house. Most likely I should then go to a lodging-house. I don’t know that some on ’em’s bad places. I’ve heer’d they was jolly. I has no amusements. Last year I helped a man one day, and he did so well on fruit, he did so, for he got such a early start, and so cheap, that he gave me 3d. hextra to go to the play with. I didn’t go. I’d rather go to bed at seven every night than anywhere else. I’m fond of sleep. I never wakes all night. I dreams now and then, but I never remembers a dream. I can’t read or write; I wish I could, if it would help me on. I’m making 3s. 6d. a week now, I think. Some weeks in winter I didn’t make 2s.”
This boy, although an orphan at a tender age, was yet assisted to the commencement of a business by a friend. I met with another lad who was left under somewhat similar circumstances. The persons in the house where his mother had died were about to take him to the parish officers, and there seemed to be no other course to be pursued to save the child, then nearly twelve, from starvation. The lad knew this and ran away. It was summer time, about three years ago, and the little runaway slept in the open air whenever he could find a quiet place. Want drove him to beg, and several days he subsisted on one penny which he begged. One day he did not find any one to give him even a halfpenny, and towards the evening of the second he became bold, or even desperate, from hunger. As if by a sudden impulse he went up to an old gentleman, walking slowly in Hyde-park, and said to him, “Sir, I’ve lived three weeks by begging, and I’m hungering now; give me sixpence, or I’ll go and steal.” The gentleman stopped and looked at the boy, in whose tones there must have been truthfulness, and in whose face was no doubt starvation, for without uttering a word he gave the young applicant a shilling. The boy began a street-seller’s life on lucifer-matches. I had to see him for another purpose a little while ago, and in the course of some conversation he told me of his start in the streets. I have no doubt he told the truth, and I should have given a more detailed account of him, but when I inquired for him, I found that he had gone to Epsom races to sell cards, and had not returned, having probably left London on a country tour. But for the old gentleman’s bounty he would have stolen something, he declared, had it been only for the shelter of a prison.
“Father was a whitesmith,” she said, “and mother used to go out a-washing and a-cleaning, and me and my sister (but she is dead now) did nothing; we was sent to a day school, both of us. We lived very comfortable; we had two rooms and our own furniture; we didn’t want for nothing when father was alive; he was very fond on us both, and was a kind man to everybody. He was took bad first when I was very young—it was consumption he had, and he was ill many years, about five years, I think it was, afore he died. When he was gone mother kept us both; she had plenty of work; she couldn’t a-bear the thought of our going into the streets for a living, and we was both too young to get a place anywhere, so we stayed at home and went to school just as when father was alive. My sister died about two year and a half ago; she had the scarlet-fever dreadful, she lay ill seven weeks. We was both very fond of her, me and mother. I often wish she had been spared, I should not be alone in the world as I am now. We might have gone on together, but it is dreadful to be quite alone, and I often think now how well we could have done if she was alive.
“Mother has been dead just a year this month; she took cold at the washing and it went to her chest; she was only bad a fortnight; she suffered great pain, and, poor thing, she used to fret dreadful, as she lay ill, about me, for she knew she was going to leave me. She used to plan how I was to do when she was gone. She made me promise to try to get a place and keep from the streets if I could, for she seemed to dread them so much. When she was gone I was left in the world without a friend. I am quite alone, I have no relation at all, not a soul belonging to me. For three months I went about looking for a place, as long as my money lasted, for mother told me to sell our furniture to keep me and get me clothes. I could have got a place, but nobody would have me without a character, and I knew nobody to give me one. I tried very hard to get one, indeed I did; for I thought of all mother had said to me about going into the streets. At last, when my money was just gone, I met a young woman in the street, and I asked her to tell me where I could get a lodging. She told me to come with her, she would show me a respectable lodging-house for women and girls. I went, and I have been there ever since. The women in the house advised me to take to flower-selling, as I could get nothing else to do. One of the young women took me to market with her, and showed me how to bargain with the salesman for my flowers. At first, when I went out to sell, I felt so ashamed I could not ask anybody to buy of me; and many times went back at night with all my stock, without selling one bunch. The woman at the lodging-house is very good to me; and when I have a bad day she will let my lodging go until I can pay her. She always gives me my dinner, and a good dinner it is, of a Sunday; and she will often give me a breakfast, when she knows I have no money to buy any. She is very kind, indeed, for she knows I am alone. I feel very thankful to her, I am sure, for all her goodness to me. During the summer months I take 1s. 6d. per day, which is 6d. profit. But I can only sell my flowers five days in the week—Mondays there is no flowers in the market: and of the 6d. a day I pay 3d. for lodging. I get a halfpenny-worth of tea; a halfpenny-worth of sugar; one pound of bread, 1½d.; butter, ½d. I never tastes meat but on Sunday. What I shall do in the winter I don’t know. In the cold weather last year, when I could get no flowers, I was forced to live on my clothes, I have none left now but what I have on. What I shall do I don’t know—I can’t bear to think on it.”
I endeavoured to find a boy or girl who belonged to the well-educated classes, had run away, and was now a street-seller. I heard of boys of this class—one man thought he knew five, and was sure of four—who now lived by street-selling, my informant believed without having any recourse to theft, but all these boys were absent; they had not returned from Epsom, or had not returned to their usual haunts, or else they had started for their summer’s excursion into the country. Many a street-seller becomes as weary of town after the winter as a member of parliament who sits out a very long session; and the moment the weather is warm, and “seems settled,” they are off into the country. In this change of scene there is the feeling of independence, of freedom; they are not “tied to their work;” and this feeling has perhaps even greater charms for the child than the adult.
The number of lads of a well-educated class, who support themselves by street-selling, is not large. I speak of those whom I have classed as children under fifteen years of age. If a boy run away, scared and terrified by the violence of a parent, or maddened by continuous and sometimes excessive severity, the parent often feels compunction, and I heard of persons being sent to every lodging-house in London, and told to search every dry arch, to bring back a runaway. On these occasions the street-sellers willingly give their aid; I have even heard of women, whose degradation was of the lowest, exerting themselves in the recovery of a runaway child, and that often unsolicited and as often unrecompensed.
The children who are truants through their own vicious or reckless propensities, or through the inducements of their seniors, become far more frequently, thieves or lurkers, rather than street-sellers. As to runaway girls of a well-educated class, and under fifteen, I heard of none who were street-sellers.
I now give instances of two runaway lads, who have been dishonest, and honest.
The one, when he told me his history, was a slim and rather tall young man of 23 or 24, with a look, speech, and air, anything but vulgar. He was the son of a wealthy jeweller, in a town in the West of England, and ran away from home with an adult member of his father’s establishment, who first suggested such a course, taking with them money and valuables. They came to London, and the elder thief, retaining all the stolen property, at once abandoned the child, then only ten, and little and young-looking for his age. He fell into the hands of some members of the swell-mob, and became extremely serviceable to them. He was dressed like a gentleman’s son, and was innocent-looking and handsome. His appearance, when I saw him, showed that this must have been the case as regards his looks. He lived with some of the swell-mobsmen—then a more prosperous people than they are now—in a good house in the Southwark-Bridge-road. The women who resided with the mobsmen were especially kind to him. He was well fed, well lodged, well clad, and petted in everything. He was called “the kid,” a common slang name for a child, but he was the kid. He “went to work” in Regent-street, or wherever there were most ladies, and his appearance disarmed suspicion. He was, moreover, highly successful in church and chapel practice. At length he became “spotted.” The police got to know him, and he was apprehended, tried, and convicted. He was, however—he believed through the interest of his friends, of whose inquiries concerning him he had heard, but of that I know nothing—sent to the Philanthropic Asylum, then in St. George’s-road. Here he remained the usual time, then left the place well clothed, and with a sum of money, and endeavoured to obtain some permanent employment. In this endeavour he failed. Whether he exerted himself strenuously or not I cannot say, but he told me that the very circumstance of his having been “in the Philanthropic” was fatal to his success. His “character” and “recommendations” necessarily showed where he had come from, and the young man, as he then was, became a beggar. His chief practice was in “screeving,” or writing on the pavement. Perhaps some of my readers may remember having noticed a wretched-looking youth who hung over the words “I AM STARVING,” chalked on the footway on the Surrey side of Waterloo Bridge. He lay huddled in a heap, and appeared half dead with cold and want, his shirtless neck and shoulders being visible through the rents in his thin jean jacket; shoe or stocking he did not wear. This was the rich jeweller’s son. Until he himself told me of it—and he seemed to do so with some sense of shame—I could not have believed that the well-spoken and well-looking youth before me was the piteous object I had observed by the bridge. What he is doing now I am unable to state.
Another boy, who thought he was not yet fifteen, though he looked older, gave me the following account. He was short but seemed strong, and his career, so far, is chiefly remarkable for his perseverance, exercised as much, perhaps, from insensibility as from any other quality. He was sufficiently stupid. If he had parents living, he said, he didn’t know nothing about them; he had lived and slept with an old woman who said she was his grandmother, and he’d been told that she weren’t no relation; he didn’t trouble himself about it. She sold lucifer-boxes or any trifle in the streets, and had an allowance of 2s. weekly, but from what quarter he did not know. About four years ago he was run over by a cab, and was carried to the workhouse or the hospital; he believed it was Clerkenwell Workhouse, but he weren’t sure. When he recovered and was discharged he found the old woman was dead, and a neighbour went with him to the parish officers, by whom—as well as I could understand him—he was sent to the workhouse, after some inquiry. He was soon removed to Nor’ud. On my asking if he meant Norwood, he replied, “no, Nor’ud,” and there he was with a number of other children with a Mr. Horbyn. He did not know how long he was there, and he didn’t know as he had anything much to complain of, but he ran away. He ran away because he thought he would; and he believed he could get work at paper-staining. He made his way to Smithfield, near where there was a great paper-stainer’s, but he could not get any work, and he was threatened to be sent back, as they knew from his dress that he had run away. He slept in Smithfield courts and alleys, fitting himself into any covered corner he could find. The poor women about were kind to him, and gave him pieces of bread; some knew that he had run away from a workhouse and was all the kinder. “The fust browns as ivver I yarned,” he said, “was from a drover. He was a going into the country to meet some beasts, and had to carry some passels for somebody down there. They wasn’t ’evvy, but they was orkerd to grip. His old ’oman luk out for a young cove to ’elp her old man, and saw me fust, so she calls me, and I gets the job. I gived the greatest of satisfaction, and had sixpence giv me, for Jim (the drover) was well paid, as they was vallyble passels, and he said he’d taken the greatest of care on ’em, and had engaged a poor lad to ’elp him.” On his return the child slept in a bed, in a house near Gray’s-inn-lane, for the first time since he had run away, he believed about a fortnight. He persevered in looking out for odd jobs, without ever stealing, though he met some boys who told him he was a fool not to prig. “I used to carry his tea from his old ’oman,” he went on, “to a old cove as had a stunnin’ pitch of fruit in the City-road. But my best friend was Stumpy; he had a beautiful crossin’ (as a sweeper) then, but he’s dead now and berried as well. I used to talk to him and whistle—I can just whistle” [here he whistled loud and shrill, to convince me of his perfection in that street accomplishment] “—and to dance him the double-shuffle” [he favoured me with a specimen of that dance], “and he said I hinterested him. Well, he meant he liked it, I s’pose. When he went to rest hisself, for he soon got tired, over his drop of beer to his grub, I had his crossin’ and his broom for nuff’n. One boy used to say to Stumpy, ‘I’ll give you 1d. for your crossin’ while you’s grubbin.’ But I had it for nuff’n, and had all I yarned; sometimes 1d., sometimes 2d., but only once 3½d. I’ve been ’elping Old Bill with his summer cabbages and flowers (cauliflowers), and now he’s on live heels. I can sing ’em out prime, but you ’eared me. I has my bit o’ grub with him, and a few browns, and Old Bill and Young Bill, too, says I shall have better to do, but I can’t until peas. I sleeps in a loft with ’ampers, which is Old Bill’s; a stunnin’ good bed. I’ve cried for and ’elped other costers. Stumpy sent me to ’em. I think he’d been one hisself, but I was always on the look-out. I’ll go for some bunse soon. I don’t know what I shall do time to come, I nivver thinks on it. I could read middlin’, and can a little now, but I’m out of practice.”
I have given this little fellow’s statement somewhat fully, for I believe he is a type of the most numerous class of runaway urchins who ripen, so to speak, into costermongers, after “helping” that large body of street-traders.
I heard of one boy who had been discharged from Brixton, and had received 6d. to begin the world with, as it was his first offence, on his way back to London, being called upon suddenly as soon as he had reached the New Cut (then the greatest of all the street-markets) to help a costermonger. This gave the boy a start, and he had since lived honestly.