London Labour and the London Poor: Selection (Classics) Page 5

  The following is a list of the street-markets, and the number of costers usually attending:

  MARKETS ON THE SURREY SIDE

  New-cut, Lambeth

  300

  Lambeth-walk

  104

  Walworth-road

  22

  Camberwell

  15

  Newington

  45

  Kent-street, Borough

  38

  Bermondsey

  107

  Union-street, Borough

  29

  Great Suffolk-street

  46

  Blackfriars-road

  58

  —

  764

  MARKETS ON THE MIDDLESEX SIDE

  Brill and Chapel-street, Somers’ Town

  300

  Camden Town

  50

  Hampstead-road and Tottenham-court-road

  333

  St George’s Market, Oxford-street

  177

  Marylebone

  37

  Edgeware-road

  78

  Crawford-street

  145

  Knightsbridge

  46

  Pimlico

  32

  Tothill-street and Broadway, Westminster

  119

  Drury-lane

  22

  Clare-street

  139

  Exmouth-street and Aylesbury-street, Clerkenwell

  142

  Leather-lane

  150

  St John’s-street

  47

  Old-street (St Luke’s)

  46

  Whitecross-street, Cripplegate

  150

  Islington

  79

  City-road

  49

  Shoreditch

  100

  Bethnal-green

  100

  Whitechapel

  258

  Mile End

  105

  Commercial-road (East)

  114

  Limehouse

  88

  Ratcliffe Highway

  122

  Rosemary-lane

  119

  —

  3147

  —

  We find, from the foregoing list of markets, held in the various thoroughfares of the metropolis, that there are 10 on the Surrey side and 27 on the Middlesex side of the Thames. The total number of hucksters attending these markets is 3,911, giving an average of 105 to each market.

  Habits and Amusements of Costermongers

  [pp. 13–16] I find it impossible to separate these two headings; for the habits of the costermonger are not domestic. His busy life is past in the markets or the streets, and as his leisure is devoted to the beer-shop, the dancing-room, or the theatre, we must look for his habits to his demeanour at those places. Home has few attractions to a man whose life is a street-life. Even those who are influenced by family ties and affections, prefer to ‘home’ – indeed that word is rarely mentioned among them – the conversation, warmth, and merriment of the beer-shop, where they can take their ease among their ‘mates’. Excitement or amusement are indispensable to uneducated men. Of beer-shops resorted to by costermongers, and principally supported by them, it is computed that there are 400 in London.

  Those who meet first in the beer-shop talk over the state of trade and of the markets, while the later comers enter at once into what may be styled the serious business of the evening – amusement.

  Business topics are discussed in a most peculiar style. One man takes the pipe from his mouth and says, ‘Bill made a doogheno hit this morning.’ ‘Jem,’ says another, to a man just entering, ‘you’ll stand a top o’ reeb?’ ‘On,’ answers Jem, ‘I’ve had a trosseno tol, and have been doing dab.’ For an explanation of what may be obscure in this dialogue, I must refer my readers to my remarks concerning the language of the class. If any strangers are present, the conversation is still further clothed in slang, so as to be unintelligible even to the partially initiated. The evident puzzlement of any listener is of course gratifying to the costermonger’s vanity, for he feels that he possesses a knowledge peculiarly his own.

  Among the in-door amusements of the costermonger is card-playing, at which many of them are adepts. The usual games are all-fours, all-fives, cribbage, and put. Whist is known to a few, but is never played, being considered dull and slow. Of short whist they have not heard; ‘but,’ said one, whom I questioned on the subject, ‘if it’s come into fashion, it’ll soon be among us.’ The play is usually for beer, but the game is rendered exciting by bets both among the players and the lookers-on. ‘I’ll back Jem for a yanepatine,’ says one. ‘Jack for a gen,’ cries another. A penny is the lowest sum laid, and five shillings generally the highest, but a shilling is not often exceeded. ‘We play fair among ourselves,’ said a costermonger to me – ‘aye, fairer than the aristocrats – but we’ll take in anybody else.’ Where it is known that the landlord will not supply cards, ‘a sporting coster’ carries a pack or two with him. The cards played with have rarely been stamped; they are generally dirty, and sometimes almost illegible, from long handling and spilled beer. Some men will sit patiently for hours at these games, and they watch the dealing round of the dingy cards intently, and without the attempt – common among politer gamesters – to appear indifferent, though they bear their losses well. In a full room of card-players, the groups are all shrouded in tobacco-smoke, and from them are heard constant sounds – according to the games they are engaged in – of ‘I’m low, and Ped’s high.’ ‘Tip and me’s game.’ ‘Fifteen four and a flush of five.’ I may remark it is curious that costermongers, who can neither read nor write, and who have no knowledge of the multiplication table, are skilful in all the intricacies and calculations of cribbage. There is not much quarrelling over the cards, unless strangers play with them, and then the costermongers all take part one with another, fairly or unfairly.

  It has been said that there is a close resemblance between many of the characteristics of a very high class, socially, and a very low class. Those who remember the disclosures on a trial a few years back, as to how men of rank and wealth passed their leisure in card-playing – many of their lives being one continued leisure – can judge how far the analogy holds when the card-passion of the costermongers is described.

  ‘Shove-halfpenny’ is another game played by them; so is ‘Three up’. Three halfpennies are thrown up, and when they fall all ‘heads’ or all ‘tails’, it is a mark; and the man who gets the greatest number of marks out of a given amount – three, or five, or more – wins. ‘Three-up’ is played fairly among the costermongers; but is most frequently resorted to when strangers are present to ‘make a pitch’, – which is, in plain words, to cheat any stranger who is rash enough to bet upon them. ‘This is the way, sir,’ said an adept to me; ‘bless you, I can make them fall as I please. If I’m playing with Jo, and a stranger bets with Jo, why, of course, I make Jo win.’ This adept illustrated his skill to me by throwing up three halfpennies, and, five times out of six, they fell upon the floor, whether he threw them nearly to the ceiling or merely to his shoulder, all heads or all tails. The halfpence were the proper current coins – indeed, they were my own; and the result is gained by a peculiar position of the coins on the fingers, and a peculiar jerk in the throwing. There was an amusing manifestation of the pride of art in the way in which my obliging informant displayed his skill.

  ‘Skittles’ is another favourite amusement, and the costermongers class themselves among the best players in London. The game is always for beer, but betting goes on.

  A fondness for ‘sparring’ and ‘boxing’ lingers among the rude members of some classes of the working men, such as the tanners. With the great majority of the costermongers this fondness is still as dominant as it was among the ‘higher classes’, when boxers were the pets of princes and nobles. The sparring among the costers is not for money, but for beer and ‘a
lark’ – a convenient word covering much mischief. Two out of every ten landlords, whose houses are patronised by these lovers of ‘the art of self-defence’, supply gloves. Some charge 2d. a night for their use; others only 1d. The sparring seldom continues long, sometimes not above a quarter of an hour; for the costermongers, though excited for a while, weary of sports in which they cannot personally participate, and in the beer-shops only two spar at a time, though fifty or sixty may be present. The shortness of the duration of this pastime may be one reason why it seldom leads to quarrelling. The stake is usually a ‘top of reeb’, and the winner is the man who gives the first ‘noser’; a bloody nose however is required to show that the blow was veritably a noser. The costermongers boast of their skill in pugilism as well as at skittles. ‘We are all handy with our fists,’ said one man, ‘and are matches, aye, and more than matches, for anybody but reg’lar boxers. We’ve stuck to the ring, too, and gone reg’lar to the fights, more than any other men.’

  ‘Twopenny-hops’ are much resorted to by the costermongers, men and women, boys and girls. At these dances decorum is sometimes, but not often, violated. ‘The women,’ I was told by one man, ‘doesn’t show their necks as I’ve seen the ladies do in them there pictures of high life in the shop-winders, or on the stage. Their Sunday gowns, which is their dancing gowns, ain’t made that way.’ At these ‘hops’ the clog-hornpipe is often danced, and sometimes a collection is made to ensure the performance of a first-rate professor of that dance; sometimes, and more frequently, it is volunteered gratuitously. The other dances are jigs, ‘flash jigs’ – hornpipes in fetters – a dance rendered popular by the success of the acted ‘Jack Sheppard’ – polkas, and country-dances, the last-mentioned being generally demanded by the women. Waltzes are as yet unknown to them. Sometimes they do the ‘pipe-dance’. For this a number of tobacco-pipes, about a dozen, are laid close together on the floor, and the dancer places the toe of his boot between the different pipes, keeping time with the music. Two of the pipes are arranged as a cross, and the toe has to be inserted between each of the angles, without breaking them. The numbers present at these ‘hops’ vary from 30 to 100 of both sexes, their ages being from 14 to 45, and the female sex being slightly predominant as to the proportion of those in attendance. At these ‘hops’ there is nothing of the leisurely style of dancing – half a glide and half a skip – but vigorous, laborious capering. The hours are from half-past eight to twelve, sometimes to one or two in the morning, and never later than two, as the costermongers are early risers. There is sometimes a good deal of drinking; some of the young girls being often pressed to drink, and frequently yielding to the temptation. From 1l. to 7l. is spent in drink at a hop; the youngest men or lads present spend the most, especially in that act of costermonger politeness – ‘treating the gals’. The music is always a fiddle, sometimes with the addition of a harp and a cornopean. The band is provided by the costermongers, to whom the assembly is confined; but during the present and the last year, when the costers’ earnings have been less than the average, the landlord has provided the harp, whenever that instrument has added to the charms of the fiddle. Of one use to which these ‘hops’ are put I have given an account, under the head of ‘Marriage’.

  The other amusements of this class of the community are the theatre and the penny concert, and their visits are almost entirely confined to the galleries of the theatres on the Surrey-side – the Surrey, the Victoria, the Bower Saloon, and (but less frequently) Astley’s. Three times a week is an average attendance at theatres and dances by the more prosperous costermongers. The most intelligent man I met with among them gave me the following account. He classes himself with the many, but his tastes are really those of an educated man: ‘Love and murder suits us best, sir; but within these few years I think there’s a great deal more liking for deep tragedies among us. They set men a thinking; but then we all consider them too long. Of Hamlet we can make neither end nor side; and nine out of ten of us – ay, far more than that – would like it to be confined to the ghost scenes, and the funeral, and the killing off at the last. Macbeth would be better liked, if it was only the witches and the fighting. The high words in a tragedy we call jaw-breakers, and say we can’t tumble to that barrikin. We always stay to the last, because we’ve paid for it all, or very few costers would see a tragedy out if any money was returned to those leaving after two or three acts. We are fond of music. Nigger music was very much liked among us, but it’s stale now. Flash songs are liked, and sailors’ songs, and patriotic songs. Most costers – indeed, I can’t call to mind an exception – listen very quietly to songs that they don’t in the least understand. We have among us translations of the patriotic French songs. “Mourir pour la patrie” is very popular, and so is the “Marseillaise”. A song to take hold of us must have a good chorus.’ ‘They like something, sir, that is worth hearing,’ said one of my informants, ‘such as the “Soldier’s Dream”, “The Dream of Napoleon”, or “I’ad a dream – an ’appy dream”.’

  The songs in ridicule of Marshal Haynau, and in laudation of Barclay and Perkin’s draymen, were and are very popular among the costers; but none are more popular than Paul Jones – ‘A noble commander, Paul Jones was his name’. Among them the chorus of ‘Britons never shall be slaves’, is often rendered ‘Britons always shall be slaves’. The most popular of all songs with the class, however, is ‘Duck-legged Dick’; of which I give the first verse.

  Duck-legged Dick had a donkey,

  And his lush loved much for to swill,

  One day he got rather lumpy,

  And got sent seven days to the mill.

  His donkey was taken to the green-yard,

  A fate which he never deserved.

  Oh! it was such a regular mean yard,

  That alas! the poor moke got starved.

  Oh! bad luck can’t be prevented,

  Fortune she smiles or she frowns,

  He’s best off that’s contented,

  To mix, sirs, the ups and the downs.

  Their sports are enjoyed the more, if they are dangerous and require both courage and dexterity to succeed in them. They prefer, if crossing a bridge, to climb over the parapet, and walk along on the stone coping. When a house is building, rows of coster lads will climb up the long ladders, leaning against the unslated roof, and then slide down again, each one resting on the other’s shoulders. A peep show with a battle scene is sure of its coster audience, and a favourite pastime is fighting with cheap theatrical swords. They are, however, true to each other, and should a coster, who is the hero of his court, fall ill and go to a hospital, the whole of the inhabitants of his quarter will visit him on the Sunday, and take him presents of various articles so that ‘he may live well’.

  Among the men, rat-killing is a favourite sport. They will enter an old stable, fasten the door and then turn out the rats. Or they will find out some unfrequented yard, and at night time build up a pit with apple-case boards, and lighting up their lamps, enjoy the sport. Nearly every coster is fond of dogs. Some fancy them greatly, and are proud of making them fight. If when out working, they see a handsome stray, whether he is a ‘toy’ or ‘sporting’ dog, they whip him up – many of the class not being very particular whether the animals are stray or not.

  Their dog fights are both cruel and frequent. It is not uncommon to see a lad walking with the trembling legs of a dog shivering under a bloody handkerchief, that covers the bitten and wounded body of an animal that has been figuring at some ‘match’. These fights take place on the sly – the tap-room or back-yard of a beer-shop, being generally chosen for the purpose. A few men are let into the secret, and they attend to bet upon the winner, the police being carefully kept from the spot.

  Pigeons are ‘fancied’ to a large extent, and are kept in lath cages on the roofs of the houses. The lads look upon a visit to the Redhouse, Battersea, where the pigeon-shooting takes place, as a great treat. They stand without the hoarding that encloses the ground, and watch for th
e wounded pigeons to fall, when a violent scramble takes place among them, each bird being valued at 3d. or 4d. So popular has this sport become, that some boys take dogs with them trained to retrieve the birds, and two Lambeth costers attend regularly after their morning’s work with their guns, to shoot those that escape the ‘shots’ within.

  A good pugilist is looked up to with great admiration by the costers, and fighting is considered to be a necessary part of a boy’s education. Among them cowardice in any shape is despised as being degrading and loathsome, indeed the man who would avoid a fight, is scouted by the whole of the court he lives in. Hence it is important for a lad and even a girl to know how to ‘work their fists well’ – as expert boxing is called among them. If a coster man or woman is struck they are obliged to fight. When a quarrel takes place between two boys, a ring is formed, and the men urge them on to have it out, for they hold that it is a wrong thing to stop a battle, as it causes bad blood for life; whereas, if the lads fight it out they shake hands and forget all about it. Everybody practises fighting, and the man who has the largest and hardest muscle is spoken of in terms of the highest commendation. It is often said in admiration of such a man that ‘he could muzzle half a dozen bobbies before breakfast.’