Part 127

Of the boys and girls who are sent out to sell in the streets by parents who are themselves street-traders, I need say but little under this head. I have spoken of them, and given some of their statements in other divisions of this work (see the accounts of the coster boys and girls). When, as is the case with many of the costermongers, and with the Irish fruit-sellers, the parents and children follow the same calling, they form one household, and work, as it were, “into one another’s hands.” The father can buy a larger, and consequently a cheaper quantity, when he can avail himself of a subdivision of labour as inexpensive as that of his own family--whom he must maintain whether employed or unemployed--in order to vend such extra quantity. I have already noticed that in some families (as is common with rude tribes) costermongering seems an hereditary pursuit, and the frequent and constant employment of children in street traffic is one reason why this hereditary pursuit is perpetuated, for street commerce is thus at a very early age made part and parcel of the young coster’s existence, and he very probably acquires a distaste for any other occupation, which may entail more of _restraint_ and _irksomeness_. It is very rarely that a costermonger apprentices his son to any handicraft business, although a daughter may sometimes be placed in domestic service. The child is usually “sent out to sell.”

There is another class of children who are “sent out” as are the children of the costers, and sometimes with the same cheap and readily attained articles--oranges and lemons, nuts, chestnuts, onions, salt (or fresh) herrings, winks, or shrimps, and, more rarely, with water-cresses or cut-flowers. Sometimes the young vendors offer small wares--leather boot-laces, coat-studs, steel pens, or such like. These are often the children, not of street sales-people, but of persons in a measure connected with a street life, or some open-air pursuit; the children of cabmen deprived of their licences, or of the hangers-on of cabmen; of the “supers” (supernumeraries) of the theatres who have irregular or no employment, or, as they would call it, “engagement,” with the unhappy consequence of irregular or no “salary:” the children, again, of street performers, or Ethiopians, or street-musicians, are “sent out to sell,” as well as those of the poorer class of labourers connected with the river--ballast-heavers, lumpers, &c.; of (Irish) bricklayers’ labourers and paviours’ assistants; of market-porters and dock-labourers; of coal-heavers out of work, and of the helpers at coal-wharfs, and at the other wharfs; of the Billingsgate “roughs;” and of the many classes of the labouring, rather than the artisan poor, whose earnings are uncertain, or insufficient, or have failed them altogether.

With such classes as these (and more especially with the Irish), as soon as Pat or Biddy is big enough to carry a basket, and is of sufficiently ripened intellect to understand the relative value of coins, from a farthing to a shilling, he or she _must_ do something “to help,” and that something is generally to sell in the streets. One poor woman who made a scanty living in working on corn sacks and bags--her infirmities sometimes preventing her working at all--sent out three children, together or separately, to sell lucifer-matches or small wares. “_They like it_,” she said, “_and always want to be off into the streets_; and when my husband (a labourer) was ill in the hospital, the few pence they brought in was very useful; but now he’s well and at work again and we want to send the eldest--she’s nine--to school; _but they all_ will _go out to sell if they can get hold of any stock_. I would never have sent them at all if I could have helped it, but if they made 6_d._ a day among the three of them, perhaps it saved their lives when things were at the worst.” If a poor woman, as in this instance, has not been used to street-selling herself, there is always some neighbour to advise her what to purchase for her children’s hawking, and instruct her where.

From one little girl I had the following account. She was then selling boot-laces and offered them most perseveringly. She was turned nine, she said, and had sold things in the streets for two years past, but not regularly. The father got his living in the streets by “playing;” she seemed reluctant to talk about his avocation, but I found that he was sometimes a street-musician, or street-performer, and sometimes sung or recited in public houses, and having “seen better days,” had it appears communicated some feeling of dislike for his present pursuits to his daughter, so that I discontinued any allusion to the subject. The mother earned 2_s._ or 2_s._ 6_d._ weekly, in shoe-binding, when she had employment, which was three weeks out of four, and a son of thirteen earned what was sufficient to maintain him as an (occasional) assistant in a wholesale pottery, or rather pot-shop.

“It’s in the winter, sir, when things are far worst with us. Father can make very little then--but I don’t know what he earns exactly at any time--and though mother has more work then, there’s fire and candle to pay for. We were very badly off last winter, and worse, I think, the winter before. Father sometimes came home and had made nothing, and if mother had no work in hand we went to bed to save fire and candle, if it was ever so soon. Father would die afore he would let mother take as much as a loaf from the parish. I was sent out to sell nuts first: ‘If it’s only 1_d._ you make,’ mother said, ‘it’s a good piece of bread.’ I didn’t mind being sent out. I knew children that sold things in the streets. Perhaps I liked it better than staying at home without a fire and with nothing to do, and if I went out I saw other children busy. No, I wasn’t a bit frightened when I first started, not a bit. Some children--but they was such little things--said: ‘O, Liz, I wish I was you.’ I had twelve ha’porths and sold them all. I don’t know what it made; 2_d._ most likely. I didn’t crack a single nut myself. I was fond of them then, but I don’t care for them now. I could do better if I went into public-houses, but I’m only let go to Mr. Smith’s, because he knows father, and Mrs. Smith and him recommends me and wouldn’t let anybody mislest me. Nobody ever offered to. I hear people swear there sometimes, but it’s not at me. I sell nuts to children in the streets, and laces to young women. I have sold nuts and oranges to soldiers. They never say anything rude to me, never. I was once in a great crowd, and was getting crushed, and there was a very tall soldier close by me, and he lifted me, basket and all, right up to his shoulder, and carried me clean out of the crowd. He had stripes on his arm. ‘I shouldn’t like you to be in such a trade,’ says he, ‘if you was my child.’ He didn’t say why he wouldn’t like it. Perhaps because it was beginning to rain. Yes, we are far better off now. Father makes money. I don’t go out in bad weather in the summer; in the winter, though, I must. I don’t know what I make. I don’t know what I shall be when I grow up. I can read a little. I’ve been to church five or six times in my life. I should go oftener and so would mother, if we had clothes.”

I have no reason to suppose that in this case the father was an intemperate man, though some of the parents who thus send their children out _are_ intemperate, and, loving to indulge in the idleness to which intemperance inclines them, are forced to live on the labour of their wives and children.

OF A “NEGLECTED” CHILD, A STREET-SELLER.

Of this class perhaps there is less to be said than of others. Drunken parents allow their children to run about the streets, and often to shift for themselves. If such parents have any sense of shame, unextinguished by their continued besottedness, they may feel relieved by not having their children before their eyes, for the very sight of them is a reproach, and every rag about such helpless beings must carry its accusation to a mind not utterly callous.

Among such children there is not, perhaps, that extreme pressure of wretchedness or of privation that there is among the orphans, or the utterly deserted. If a “neglected child” have to shift, wholly or

## partly, for itself, it is perhaps with the advantage of a shelter; for

even the bare room of the drunkard is in some degree a shelter or roof. There is not the nightly need of 2_d._ for a bed, or the alternative of the Adelphi arches for nothing.

I met with one little girl ten or eleven years of age, whom some of the street-sellers described to me as looking out for a job every now and then. She was small-featured and dark-eyed, and seemed intelligent. Her face and hands were brown as if from exposure to the weather, and a lack of soap; but her dress was not dirty. Her father she described as a builder, probably a bricklayer’s labourer, but he could work, she said, at drains or such like. “Mother’s been dead a long time,” the child continued, “and father brought another woman home and told me to call her mother, but she soon went away. I works about the streets, but only when there’s nothing to eat at home. Father gets drunk sometimes, but I think not so oft as he did, and then he lies in bed. No, sir, not all day, but he gets up and goes out and gets more drink, and comes back and goes to bed again. He never uses me badly. When he’s drinking and has money, he gives me some now and then to get bread and butter with, or a halfpenny pudding; he never eats anything in the house when he’s drinking, and he’s a very quiet man. Sometimes he’s laid in bed two or three days and nights at a time. I goes to school when father has money. We lives very well then. I’ve kept myself for a whole week. I mind people’s stalls, if they’re away a bit, and run for them if they’re wanted; and I go errands. I’ve carried home flower-pots for a lady. I’ve got a halfpenny on a day, and a penny, and some bread perhaps, and I’ve lived on that. I should like very well to have a pitch of my own. _I think I should like that better than place._ But I have a sister who has a place in the country; she’s far older than I am, and perhaps I shall get one. But father’s at work now, and he says he’ll take the pledge. Five or six times I’ve sold oranges, and ingans as well, and carried the money to Mrs. ----, who gave me all I took above 4_d._ for myself.”

It could surprise no one if a child so neglected became so habituated to a street life, that she could not adapt herself to any other. I heard of other children thus or similarly neglected, but boys far more frequently than girls, who traded regularly in apples, oranges, &c., on their own account. Some have become regular street-sellers, and even in childhood have abandoned their homes and supported themselves.

OF A HIRED COSTER BOY.

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 3_d._ 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.”

OF AN ORPHAN BOY, A STREET-SELLER.

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 9_d._ 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 3_d._ 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 3_s._ 6_d._ a week now, I think. Some weeks in winter I didn’t make 2_s._”