Part 6

The man with whom I conversed, and from whom I received the following statement, seemed about thirty. He was certainly not ill-looking, but with a heavy cast of countenance, his light blue eyes having little expression. His statements, or opinions, I need hardly explain, were given both spontaneously in the course of conversation, and in answer to my questions. I give them almost verbatim, omitting oaths and slang:

“Well, times is bad, sir,” he said, “but it’s a deadish time. I don’t do so well at present as in middlish times, I think. When I served the Prince of Naples, not far from here (I presume that he alluded to the Prince of Capua), I did better and times was better. That was five years ago, but I can’t say to a year or two. He was a good customer, and was very fond of peaches. I used to sell them to him, at 12_s._ the plasket when they was new. The plasket held a dozen, and cost me 6_s._ at Covent-garden--more sometimes; but I didn’t charge him more when they did. His footman was a black man, and a ignorant man quite, and his housekeeper was a Englishwoman. He was the Prince o’ Naples, was my customer; but I don’t know what he was like, for I never saw him. I’ve heard that he was the brother of the king of Naples. I can’t say where Naples is, but if you was to ask at Euston-square, they’ll tell you the fare there and the time to go it in. It may be in France for anything I know may Naples, or in Ireland. Why don’t you ask at the square? I went to Croydon once by rail, and slept all the way without stirring, and so you may to Naples for anything I know. I never heard of the Pope being a neighbour of the King of Naples. Do you mean living next door to him? But I don’t know nothing of the King of Naples, only the prince. I don’t know what the Pope is. Is he any trade? It’s nothing to me, when he’s no customer of mine. I have nothing to say about nobody that ain’t no customers. My crabs is caught in the sea, in course. I gets them at Billingsgate. I never saw the sea, but it’s salt-water, I know. I can’t say whereabouts it lays. I believe it’s in the hands of the Billingsgate salesmen--all of it? I’ve heard of shipwrecks at sea, caused by drownding, in course. I never heard that the Prince of Naples was ever at sea. I like to talk about him, he was such a customer when he lived near here.” (Here he repeated his account of the supply of peaches to his Royal Highness.) “I never was in France, no, sir, never. I don’t know the way. Do you think I could do better there? I never was in the Republic there. What’s it like? Bonaparte? O, yes; I’ve heard of him. He was at Waterloo. I didn’t know he’d been alive now and in France, as you ask me about him. I don’t think you’re larking, sir. Did I hear of the French taking possession of Naples, and Bonaparte making his brother-in-law king? Well, I didn’t, but it may be true, because I served the Prince of Naples, what _was_ the brother of the king. I never heard whether the Prince was the king’s older brother or his younger. I wish he may turn out his older if there’s property coming to him, as the oldest has the first turn; at least so I’ve heard--first come, first served. I’ve worked the streets and the courts at all times. I’ve worked them by moonlight, but you couldn’t see the moonlight where it was busy. I can’t say how far the moon’s off us. It’s nothing to me, but I’ve seen it a good bit higher than St. Paul’s. I don’t know nothing about the sun. Why do you ask? It must be nearer than the moon for it’s warmer,--and if they’re both fire, that shows it. It’s like the tap-room grate and that bit of a gas-light; to compare the two is. What was St. Paul’s that the moon was above? A church, sir; so I’ve heard. I never was in a church. O, yes, I’ve heard of God; he made heaven and earth; I never heard of his making the sea; that’s another thing, and you can best learn about that at Billingsgate. (He seemed to think that the sea was an appurtenance of Billingsgate.) Jesus Christ? Yes. I’ve heard of him. Our Redeemer? Well, I only wish I could redeem my Sunday togs from my uncle’s.”

Another costermonger, in answer to inquiries, said: “I ’spose you think us ’riginal coves that you ask. We’re not like Methusalem, or some such swell’s name, (I presume that Malthus was meant) as wanted to murder children afore they was born, as I once heerd lectured about--we’re nothing like that.”

Another on being questioned, and on being told that the information was wanted for the press, replied: “The press? I’ll have nothing to say to it. We are oppressed enough already.”

That a class numbering 30,000 should be permitted to remain in a state of almost brutish ignorance is a national disgrace. If the London costers belong especially to the “dangerous classes,” the danger of such a body is assuredly an evil of our own creation; for the gratitude of the poor creatures to any one who seeks to give them the least knowledge is almost pathetic.

LANGUAGE OF COSTERMONGERS.

The slang language of the costermongers is not very remarkable for originality of construction; it possesses no humour: but they boast that it is known only to themselves; it is far beyond the Irish, they say, and puzzles the Jews. The _root_ of the costermonger tongue, so to speak, is to give the words spelt backward, or rather pronounced rudely backward,--for in my present chapter the language has, I believe, been reduced to orthography for the first time. With this backward pronunciation, which is very arbitrary, are mixed words reducible to no rule and seldom referrable to any origin, thus complicating the mystery of this unwritten tongue; while any syllable is added to a proper slang word, at the discretion of the speaker.

Slang is acquired very rapidly, and some costermongers will converse in it by the hour. The women use it sparingly; the girls more than the women; the men more than the girls; and the boys most of all. The most ignorant of all these classes deal most in slang and boast of their cleverness and proficiency in it. In their conversations among themselves, the following are invariably the terms used in money matters. A rude back-spelling may generally be traced:

_Flatch_ Halfpenny. _Yenep_ Penny. _Owt-yenep_ Twopence. _Erth-yenep_ Threepence. _Rouf-yenep_ Fourpence. _Ewif-yenep_ Fivepence. _Exis-yenep_ Sixpence. _Neves-yenep_ Sevenpence. _Teaich-yenep_ Eightpence. _Enine-yenep_ Ninepence. _Net-yenep_ Tenpence. _Leven_ Elevenpence. _Gen_ Twelvepence. _Yenep-flatch_ Three half-pence.

and so on through the penny-halfpennies.

It was explained to me by a costermonger, who had introduced some new words into the slang, that “leven” was allowed so closely to resemble the proper word, because elevenpence was almost an unknown sum to costermongers, the transition--weights and measures notwithstanding--being immediate from 10_d._ to 1_s._

“Gen” is a shilling and the numismatic sequence is pursued with the gens, as regards shillings, as with the “yeneps” as regards pence. The blending of the two is also according to the same system as “Owt-gen, teaich-yenep” two-and-eightpence. The exception to the uniformity of the “gen” enumeration is in the sum of 8_s._, which instead of “teaich-gen” is “teaich-guy:” a deviation with ample precedents in all civilised tongues.

As regards the larger coins the translation into slang is not reducible into rule. The following are the costermonger coins of the higher value:

_Couter_ Sovereign. _Half-Couter_, or _Net-gen_ Half-sovereign. _Ewif-gen_ Crown. _Flatch-ynork_ Half-crown.

The costermongers still further complicate their slang by a mode of multiplication. They thus say, “Erth Ewif-gens” or 3 times 5_s._, which means of course 15_s._

Speaking of this language, a costermonger said to me: “The Irish can’t tumble to it anyhow; the Jews can tumble better, but we’re _their_ masters. Some of the young salesmen at Billingsgate understand us,--but only at Billingsgate; and they think they’re uncommon clever, but they’re not quite up to the mark. The police don’t understand us at all. It would be a pity if they did.”

I give a few more phrases:

_A doogheno or dabheno?_ Is it a good or bad market? _A regular trosseno_ A regular bad one. _On_ No. _Say_ Yes. _Tumble to your barrikin_ Understand you. _Top o’ reeb_ Pot of beer. _Doing dab_ Doing badly. _Cool him_ Look at him.

The latter phrase is used when one costermonger warns another of the approach of a policeman “who might order him to move on, or be otherwise unpleasant.” “Cool” (look) is exclaimed, or “Cool him” (look at him). One costermonger told me as a great joke that a very stout policeman, who was then new to the duty, was when in a violent state of perspiration, much offended by a costermonger saying “Cool him.”

_Cool the esclop_ Look at the police. _Cool the namesclop_ Look at the policeman. _Cool ta the dillo nemo_ Look at the old woman;

said of any woman, young or old, who, according to costermonger notions, is “giving herself airs.”

This language seems confined, in its general use, to the immediate objects of the costermonger’s care; but is, among the more acute members of the fraternity, greatly extended, and is capable of indefinite extension.

The costermongers oaths, I may conclude, are all in the vernacular; nor are any of the common salutes, such as “How d’you do?” or “Good-night” known to their slang.

_Kennetseeno_ Stinking; (applied principally to the quality of fish.) _Flatch kanurd_ Half-drunk. _Flash it_ Show it; (in cases of bargains offered.) _On doog_ No good. _Cross chap_ A thief. _Showfulls_ Bad money; (seldom in the hands of costermongers.) _I’m on to the deb_ I’m going to bed. _Do the tightner_ Go to dinner. _Nommus_ Be off. _Tol_ Lot, Stock, or Share.

Many costermongers, “but principally--perhaps entirely,”--I was told, “those who had not been regular born and bred to the trade, but had taken to it when cracked up in their own,” do not trouble themselves to acquire any knowledge of slang. It is not indispensable for the carrying on of their business; the grand object, however, seems to be, to shield their bargainings at market, or their conversation among themselves touching their day’s work and profits, from the knowledge of any Irish or uninitiated fellow-traders.

The simple principle of costermonger slang--that of pronouncing backward, may cause its acquirement to be regarded by the educated as a matter of ease. But it is a curious fact that lads who become costermongers’ boys, without previous association with the class, acquire a very ready command of the language, and this though they are not only unable to spell, but don’t “know a letter in a book.” I saw one lad, whose parents had, until five or six months back, resided in the country. The lad himself was fourteen; he told me he had not been “a costermongering” more than three months, and prided himself on his mastery over slang. To test his ability, I asked him the coster’s word for “hippopotamus;” he answered, with tolerable readiness, “musatoppop.” I then asked him for the like rendering of “equestrian” (one of Astley’s bills having caught my eye). He replied, but not quite so readily, “nirtseque.” The last test to which I subjected him was “good-naturedly;” and though I induced him to repeat the word twice, I could not, on any of the three renderings, distinguish any precise sound beyond an indistinct gabbling, concluded emphatically with “doog:”--“good” being a word with which all these traders are familiar. It must be remembered, that the words I demanded were remote from the young costermonger’s vocabulary, if not from his understanding.

Before I left this boy, he poured forth a minute or more’s gibberish, of which, from its rapid utterance, I could distinguish nothing; but I found from his after explanation, that it was a request to me to make a further purchase of his walnuts.

This slang is utterly devoid of any applicability to humour. It gives no new fact, or approach to a fact, for philologists. One superior genius among the costers, who has invented words for them, told me that he had no system for coining his term. He gave to the known words some terminating syllable, or, as he called it, “a new turn, just,” to use his own words, “as if he chorussed them, with a tol-de-rol.” The intelligence communicated in this slang is, in a great measure, communicated, as in other slang, as much by the inflection of the voice, the emphasis, the tone, the look, the shrug, the nod, the wink, as by the words spoken.

OF THE NICKNAMES OF COSTERMONGERS.

Like many rude, and almost all wandering communities, the costermongers, like the cabmen and pickpockets, are hardly ever known by their real names; even the honest men among them are distinguished by some strange appellation. Indeed, they are all known one to another by nicknames, which they acquire either by some mode of dress, some remark that has ensured costermonger applause, some peculiarity in trading, or some defect or singularity in personal appearance. Men are known as “Rotten Herrings,” “Spuddy” (a seller of bad potatoes, until beaten by the Irish for his bad wares,) “Curly” (a man with a curly head), “Foreigner” (a man who had been in the Spanish-Legion), “Brassy” (a very saucy person), “Gaffy” (once a performer), “The One-eyed Buffer,” “Jaw-breaker,” “Pine-apple Jack,” “Cast-iron Poll” (her head having been struck with a pot without injury to her), “Whilky,” “Blackwall Poll” (a woman generally having two black eyes), “Lushy Bet,” “Dirty Sall” (the costermongers generally objecting to dirty women), and “Dancing Sue.”

OF THE EDUCATION OF COSTERMONGERS’ CHILDREN.

I have used the heading of “Education,” but perhaps to say “non-education,” would be more suitable. Very few indeed of the costermongers’ children are sent even to the Ragged Schools; and if they are, from all I could learn, it is done more that the mother may be saved the trouble of tending them at home, than from any desire that the children shall acquire useful knowledge. Both boys and girls are sent out by their parents in the evening to sell nuts, oranges, &c., at the doors of the theatres, or in any public place, or “round the houses” (a stated circuit from their place of abode). This trade they pursue eagerly for the sake of “bunts,” though some carry home the money they take, very honestly. The costermongers are kind to their children, “perhaps in a rough way, and the women make regular pets of them very often.” One experienced man told me, that he had seen a poor costermonger’s wife--one of the few who could read--instructing her children in reading; but such instances were very rare. The education of these children is such only as the streets afford; and the streets teach them, for the most part--and in greater or lesser degrees,--acuteness--a precocious acuteness--in all that concerns their immediate wants, business, or gratifications; a patient endurance of cold and hunger; a desire to obtain money without working for it; a craving for the excitement of gambling; an inordinate love of amusement; and an irrepressible repugnance to any settled in-door industry.

THE LITERATURE OF COSTERMONGERS.

We have now had an inkling of the London costermonger’s notions upon politics and religion. We have seen the brutified state in which he is allowed by society to remain, though possessing the same faculties and susceptibilities as ourselves--the same power to perceive and admire the forms of truth, beauty, and goodness, as even the very highest in the state. We have witnessed how, instinct with all the elements of manhood and beasthood, the qualities of the beast are principally developed in him, while those of the man are stunted in their growth. It now remains for us to look into some other matters concerning this curious class of people, and, first, of their literature:

It may appear anomalous to speak of the literature of an uneducated body, but even the costermongers have their tastes for books. They are very fond of hearing any one read aloud to them, and listen very attentively. One man often reads the Sunday paper of the beer-shop to them, and on a fine summer’s evening a costermonger, or any neighbour who has the advantage of being “a schollard,” reads aloud to them in the courts they inhabit. What they love best to listen to--and, indeed, what they are most eager for--are Reynolds’s periodicals, especially the “Mysteries of the Court.” “They’ve got tired of Lloyd’s blood-stained stories,” said one man, who was in the habit of reading to them, “and I’m satisfied that, of all London, Reynolds is the most popular man among them. They stuck to him in Trafalgar-square, and would again. They all say he’s ‘a trump,’ and Feargus O’Connor’s another trump with them.”

One intelligent man considered that the spirit of curiosity manifested by costermongers, as regards the information or excitement derived from hearing stories read, augured well for the improvability of the class.

Another intelligent costermonger, who had recently read some of the cheap periodicals to ten or twelve men, women, and boys, all costermongers, gave me an account of the comments made by his auditors. They had assembled, after their day’s work or their rounds, for the purpose of hearing my informant read the last number of some of the penny publications.

“The costermongers,” said my informant, “are very fond of illustrations. I have known a man, what couldn’t read, buy a periodical what had an illustration, a little out of the common way perhaps, just that he might learn from some one, who _could_ read, what it was all about. They have all heard of Cruikshank, and they think everything funny is by him--funny scenes in a play and all. His ‘Bottle’ was very much admired. I heard one man say it was very prime, and showed what ‘lush’ did, but I saw the same man,” added my informant, “drunk three hours afterwards. Look you here, sir,” he continued, turning over a periodical, for he had the number with him, “here’s a portrait of ‘Catherine of Russia.’ ‘Tell us all about her,’ said one man to me last night; ‘read it; what was she?’ When I had read it,” my informant continued, “another man, to whom I showed it, said, ‘Don’t the cove as did that know a deal?’ for they fancy--at least, a many do--that one man writes a whole periodical, or a whole newspaper. Now here,” proceeded my friend, “you see’s an engraving of a man hung up, burning over a fire, and some costers would go mad if they couldn’t learn what he’d been doing, who he was, and all about him. ‘But about the picture?’ they would say, and this is a very common question put by them whenever they see an engraving.

“Here’s one of the passages that took their fancy wonderfully,” my informant observed:

‘With glowing cheeks, flashing eyes, and palpitating bosom, Venetia Trelawney rushed back into the refreshment-room, where she threw herself into one of the arm-chairs already noticed. But scarcely had she thus sunk down upon the flocculent cushion, when a sharp click, as of some mechanism giving way, met her ears; and at the same instant her wrists were caught in manacles which sprang out of the arms of the treacherous chair, while two steel bands started from the richly-carved back and grasped her shoulders. A shriek burst from her lips--she struggled violently, but all to no purpose: for she was a captive--and powerless!

‘We should observe that the manacles and the steel bands which had thus fastened upon her, were covered with velvet, so that they inflicted no positive injury upon her, nor even produced the slightest abrasion of her fair and polished skin.’

Here all my audience,” said the man to me, “broke out with--‘Aye! that’s the way the harristocrats hooks it. There’s nothing o’ that sort among us; the rich has all that barrikin to themselves.’ ‘Yes, that’s the b---- way the taxes goes in,’ shouted a woman.

“Anything about the police sets them a talking at once. This did when I read it:

‘The Ebenezers still continued their fierce struggle, and, from the noise they made, seemed as if they were tearing each other to pieces, to the wild roar of a chorus of profane swearing. The alarm, as Bloomfield had predicted, was soon raised, and some two or three policemen, with their bull’s-eyes, and still more effective truncheons, speedily restored order.’

‘The blessed crushers is everywhere,’ shouted one. ‘I wish I’d been there to have had a shy at the eslops,’ said another. And then a man sung out: ‘O, don’t I like the Bobbys?’

“If there’s any foreign language which can’t be explained, I’ve seen the costers,” my informant went on, “annoyed at it--quite annoyed. Another time I read part of one of Lloyd’s numbers to them--but they like something spicier. One article in them--here it is--finishes in this way:

“The social habits and costumes of the Magyar _noblesse_ have almost all the characteristics of the corresponding class in Ireland. This word _noblesse_ is one of wide signification in Hungary; and one may with great truth say of this strange nation, that ‘_qui n’est point noble n’est rien_.’”

‘I can’t tumble to that barrikin,’ said a young fellow; ‘it’s a jaw-breaker. But if this here--what d’ye call it, you talk about--was like the Irish, why they was a rum lot.’ ‘Noblesse,’ said a man that’s considered a clever fellow, from having once learned his letters, though he can’t read or write. ‘Noblesse! Blessed if I know what he’s up to.’ Here there was a regular laugh.”

From other quarters I learned that some of the costermongers who were able to read, or loved to listen to reading, purchased their literature in a very commercial spirit, frequently buying the periodical which is the largest in size, because when “they’ve got the reading out of it,” as they say, “it’s worth a halfpenny for the barrow.”

Tracts they will rarely listen to, but if any persevering man _will_ read tracts, and state that he does it for their benefit and improvement, they listen without rudeness, though often with evident unwillingness. “Sermons or tracts,” said one of their body to me, “gives them the ’orrors.” Costermongers purchase, and not unfrequently, the first number of a penny periodical, “to see what it’s like.”

The tales of robbery and bloodshed, of heroic, eloquent, and gentlemanly highwaymen, or of gipsies turning out to be nobles, now interest the costermongers but little, although they found great delight in such stories a few years back. Works relating to Courts, potentates, or “harristocrats,” are the most relished by these rude people.

OF THE HONESTY OF COSTERMONGERS.