Part 8
The hire of a barrow is 3_d._ a day, or 1_s._ a week, for the six winter months; and 4_d._ a day, or 1_s._ 6_d._ a week, for the six summer months. Some are to be had rather lower in the summer, but never for less than 4_d._--sometimes for not less than 6_d._ on a Saturday, when not unfrequently every barrow in London is hired. No security and no deposit is required, but the lender satisfies himself that the borrower is really what he represents himself to be. I am informed that 5,000 hired barrows are now in the hands of the London costermongers, at an average rental of 3_l._ 5_s._ each, or 16,250_l._ a year. One man lets out 120 yearly, at a return (dropping the 5_s._) of 360_l._; while the cost of a good barrow, new, is 2_l._ 12_s._, and in the autumn and winter they may be bought new, or “as good as new,” at 30_s._ each; so that reckoning each to cost this barrow-letter 2_l._, he receives 360_l._ rent or interest--exactly 150 per cent. per annum for property which originally cost but 240_l._, and property which is still as good for the ensuing year’s business as for the past. One man has rented a barrow for eight years, during which period he has paid 26_l._ for what in the first instance did not cost more than twice as many shillings, and which he must return if he discontinues its use. “I know men well to do,” said an intelligent costermonger, “who have paid 1_s._ and 1_s._ 6_d._ a week for a barrow for three, four, and five years; and they can’t be made to understand that it’s rather high rent for what might cost 40_s._ at first. They can’t see they are losers. One barrow-lender sends his son out, mostly on a Sunday, collecting his rents (for barrows), but he’s not a hard man.” Some of the lenders complain that their customers pay them irregularly and cheat them often, and that in consequence they must charge high; while the “borrowers” declare that it is very seldom indeed that a man “shirks” the rent for his barrow, generally believing that he has made an advantageous bargain, and feeling the want of his vehicle, if he lose it temporarily. Let the lenders, however, be deceived by many, still, it is evident, that the rent charged for barrows is most exorbitant, by the fact, that all who take to the business become men of considerable property in a few years.
Donkey-carts are rarely hired. “If there’s 2,000 donkey and pony-carts in London, more or less, not 200 of them’s borrowed; but of barrows five to two is borrowed.” A donkey-cart costs from 2_l._ to 10_l._; 3_l._ 10_s._ being an average price. The hire is 2_s._ or 2_s._ 6_d._ a week. The harness costs 2_l._ 10_s._ new, but is bought, nineteen times out of twenty, second-hand, at from 2_s._ 6_d._ to 20_s._ The donkeys themselves are not let out on hire, though a costermonger may let out his donkey to another in the trade when he does not require its services; the usual sum paid for the hire of a donkey is 2_s._ 6_d._ or 3_s._ per week. The cost price of a pony varies from 5_l._ to 13_l._; that of a donkey from 1_l._ to 3_l._ There may be six donkeys, or more, in costermonger use, to one pony. Some traffic almost weekly in these animals, liking the excitement of such business.
The repairs to barrows, carts, and harness are almost always effected by the costermongers themselves.
“Shallows” (baskets) which cost 1_s._ and 1_s._ 6_d._, are let out at 1_d._ a day; but not five in 100 of those in use are borrowed, as their low price places them at the costermonger’s command. A pewter quart-pot, for measuring onions, &c., is let out at 2_d._ a day, its cost being 2_s._ Scales are 2_d._, and a set of weights 1_d._ a day.
Another common mode of usury is in the lending of stock-money. This is lent by the costermongers who have saved the means for such use of their funds, and by beer-shop keepers. The money-lending costermongers are the most methodical in their usury--1,040_l._ per cent. per annum, as was before stated, being the rate of interest usually charged. It is seldom that a lower sum than 10_s._ is borrowed, and never a higher sum than 2_l._ When a stranger applies for a loan, the money-lender satisfies himself as I have described of the barrow-lender. He charges 2_d._ a day for a loan of 2_s._ 6_d._; 3_d._ a day for 5_s._; 6_d._ a day for 10_s._; and 1_s._ a day for 1_l._ If the daily payments are rendered regularly, at a month’s end the terms are reduced to 6_d._ a week for 5_s._; 1_s._ for 10_s._; and 2_s._ for 1_l._ “That’s reckoned an extraordinary small interest,” was said to me, “only 4_d._ a day for a pound.” The average may be 3_s._ a week for the loan of 20_s._; it being only to a few that a larger sum than 20_s._ is lent. “I paid 2_s._ a week for 1_l._ for a whole year,” said one man, “or 5_l._ 4_s._ for the use of a pound, and then I was liable to repay the 1_l._” The principal, however, is seldom repaid; nor does the lender seem to expect it, though he will occasionally demand it. One money-lender is considered to have a floating capital of 150_l._ invested in loans to costermongers. If he receive 2_s._ per week per 1_l._ for but twenty-six weeks in the year (and he often receives it for the fifty-two weeks)--his 150_l._ brings him in 390_l._ a year.
Sometimes a loan is effected only for a day, generally a Saturday, as much as 2_s._ 6_d._ being sometimes given for the use of 5_s._; the 5_s._ being of course repaid in the evening.
The money-lenders are subject to at least twice the extent of loss to which the barrow-lender is exposed, as it is far oftener that money is squandered (on which of course no interest can be paid) than that a barrow is disposed of.
The money-lenders, (from the following statement, made to me by one who was in the habit of borrowing,) pursue their business in a not very dissimilar manner to that imputed to those who advance larger sums:--“If I want to borrow in a hurry,” said my informant, “as I may hear of a good bargain, I run to my neighbour L----’s, and he first says he hasn’t 20_s._ to lend, and his wife’s by, and she says she hasn’t 2_s._ in her pocket, and so I can’t be accommodated. Then he says if I must have the money he’ll have to pawn his watch,--or to borrow it of Mr. ----, (an innkeeper) who would charge a deal of interest, for he wasn’t paid all he lent two months back, and 1_s._ would be expected to be spent in drink--though L---- don’t drink--or he must try if his sister would trust him, but she was sick and wanted all her money--or perhaps his barrow-merchant would lend him 10_s._, if he’d undertake to return 15_s._ at night; and it ends by my thinking I’ve done pretty well if I can get 1_l._ for 5_s._ interest, for a day’s use of it.”
The beer-shop keepers lend on far easier terms, perhaps at half the interest exacted by the others, and without any regular system of charges; but they look sharp after the repayment, and expect a considerable outlay in beer, and will only lend to good customers; they however have even lent money without interest.
“In the depth of last winter,” said a man of good character to me, “I borrowed 5_s._ The beer-shop keeper wouldn’t lend; he’ll rather lend to men doing well and drinking. But I borrowed it at 6_d._ a day interest, and that 6_d._ a day I paid exactly four weeks, Sundays and all; and that was 15_s._ in thirty days for the use of 5_s._ I was half starving all the time, and then I had a slice of luck, and paid the 5_s._ back slap, and got out of it.”
Many shopkeepers lend money to the stall-keepers, whom they know from standing near their premises, and that without interest. They generally lend, however, to the women, as they think the men want to get drunk with it. “Indeed, if it wasn’t for the women,” said a costermonger to me, “half of us might go to the Union.”
Another mode of usurious lending or trading is, as I said before, to provide the costermonger--not with the stock-money--but with the stock itself. This mode also is highly profitable to the usurer, who is usually a costermonger, but sometimes a greengrocer. A stock of fruit, fish, or vegetables, with a barrow for its conveyance, is entrusted to a street-seller, the usual way being to “let him have a sovereign’s worth.” The value of this, however, at the market cost, rarely exceeds 14_s._, still the man entrusted with it must carry 20_s._ to his creditor, or he will hardly be trusted a second time. The man who trades with the stock is not required to pay the 20_s._ on the first day of the transaction, as he may not have realised so much, but he must pay some of it, generally 10_s._, and must pay the remainder the next day or the money-lender will decline any subsequent dealings.
It may be thought, as no security is given, and as the costermongering barrow, stock, or money-lender never goes to law for the recovery of any debt or goods, that the per centage is not so very exorbitant after all. But I ascertained that not once in twenty times was the money lender exposed to any loss by the non-payment of his usurious interest, while his profits are enormous. The borrower knows that if he fail in his payment, the lender will acquaint the other members of his fraternity, so that no future loan will be attainable, and the costermonger’s business may be at an end. One borrower told me that the re-payment of his loan of 2_l._, borrowed two years ago at 4_s._ a week, had this autumn been reduced to 2_s._ 6_d._ a week: “He’s a decent man I pay now,” he said; “he has twice forgiven me a month at a time when the weather was very bad and the times as bad as the weather. Before I borrowed of him I had dealings with ----. He _was_ a scurf. If I missed a week, and told him I would make it up next week, ‘That won’t do,’ he’d say, ‘I’ll turn you up. I’ll take d----d good care to stop you. _I’ll_ have you to rights.’ If I hadn’t satisfied him, as I did at last, I could never have got credit again; never.” I am informed that most of the money-lenders, if a man has paid for a year or so, will now “drop it for a month or so in a very hard-up time, and go on again.” There is no I.O.U. or any memorandum given to the usurer. “There’s never a slip of paper about it, sir,” I was told.
I may add that a very intelligent man from whom I derived information, said to me concerning costermongers never going to law to recover money owing to them, nor indeed for any purpose: “If any one steals anything from me--and that, as far as I know, never happened but once in ten years--and I catch him, I take it out of him on the spot. I give him a jolly good hiding and there’s an end of it. I know very well, sir, that costers are ignorant men, but in my opinion” (laughing) “our never going to law shows that in _that_ point we are in advance of the aristocrats. I never heard of a coster in a law court, unless he was in trouble (charged with some offence)--for assaulting a crusher, or anybody he had quarrelled with, or something of that kind.”
The barrow-lender, when not regularly paid, sends some one, or goes himself, and carries away the barrow.
My personal experience with this peculiar class justifies me in saying that they are far less dishonest than they are usually believed to be, and much more honest than their wandering habits, their want of education and “principle” would lead even the most charitable to suppose. Since I have exhibited an interest in the sufferings and privations of these neglected people, I have, as the reader may readily imagine, had many applications for assistance, and without vanity, I believe I may say, that as far as my limited resources would permit, I have striven to extricate the street-sellers from the grasp of the usurer. Some to whom I have _lent_ small sums (for gifts only degrade struggling honest men into the apathy of beggars) have taken the money with many a protestation that they would repay it in certain weekly instalments, which they themselves proposed, but still have never made their appearance before me a second time--it may be from dishonesty and it may be from inability and shame--others, however, and they are not a few, have religiously kept faith with me, calling punctually to pay back a sixpence or a shilling as the precariousness of their calling would permit, and doing this, though they knew that I abjured all claims upon them but through their honour, and was, indeed, in most cases, ignorant where to find them, even if my inclination led me to seek or enforce a return of the loan. One case of this kind shows so high a sense of honour among a class, generally considered to rank among the most dishonourable, that, even at the risk of being thought egotistical, I will mention it here:--“Two young men, street-sellers, called upon me and begged hard for the loan of a little stock-money. They made needle-cases and hawked them from door to door at the east end of the town, and had not the means of buying the wood. I agreed to let them have ten shillings between them; this they promised to repay at a shilling a week. They were utter strangers to me; nevertheless, at the end of the first week one shilling of the sum was duly returned. The second week, however, brought no shilling, nor did the third, nor the fourth, by which time I got to look upon the money as lost; but at the end of the fifth week one of the men called with his sixpence, and told me how he should have been with me before but his mate had promised each week to meet him with his sixpence, and each week disappointed him; so he had come on alone. I thanked him, and the next week he came again; so he did the next, and the next after that. On the latter occasion he told me that in five more weeks he should have paid off his half of the amount advanced, and that then, as he had come with the other man, he would begin paying off _his_ share as well!”
Those who are unacquainted with the character of the people may feel inclined to doubt the trustworthiness of the class, but it is an extraordinary fact that but few of the costermongers fail to repay the money advanced to them, even at the present ruinous rate of interest. The poor, it is my belief, have not yet been sufficiently tried in this respect;--pawnbrokers, loan-offices, tally-shops, dolly-shops, are the only parties who will trust them--but, as a startling proof of the good faith of the humbler classes generally, it may be stated that Mrs. Chisholm (the lady who has exerted herself so benevolently in the cause of emigration) has lent out, at different times, as much as 160,000_l._ that has been entrusted to her for the use of the “lower orders,” and that the whole of this large amount has been returned--_with the exception of_ 12_l._!
I myself have often given a sovereign to professed thieves to get “changed,” and never knew one to make off with the money. Depend upon it, if we would really improve, we must begin by elevating instead of degrading.
OF THE “SLANG” WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.
All counterfeit weights and measures, the costermongers call by the appropriate name of “slang.” “There are not half so many slangs as there was eighteen months ago,” said a ‘general dealer’ to me. “You see, sir, the letters in the _Morning Chronicle_ set people a talking, and some altered their way of business. Some was very angry at what was said in the articles on the street-sellers, and swore that costers was gentlemen, and that they’d smash the men’s noses that had told you, sir, if they knew who they were. There’s plenty of costers wouldn’t use slangs at all, if people would give a fair price; but you see the boys _will_ try it on for their bunts, and how is a man to sell fine cherries at 4_d._ a pound that cost him 3-1/2_d._, when there’s a kid alongside of him a selling his ‘tol’ at 2_d._ a pound, and singing it out as bold as brass? So the men slangs it, and cries ‘2_d._ a pound,’ and gives half-pound, as the boy does; which brings it to the same thing. We doesn’t ’dulterate our goods like the tradesmen--that is, the regular hands doesn’t. It wouldn’t be easy, as you say, to ’dulterate cabbages or oysters; but we deals fair to all that’s fair to us,--and that’s more than many a tradesman does, for all their juries.”
The slang quart is a pint and a half. It is made precisely like the proper quart; and the maker, I was told, “knows well enough what it’s for, as it’s charged, new, 6_d._ more than a true quart measure; but it’s nothing to him, as he says, what it’s for, so long as he gets his price.” The slang quart is let out at 2_d._ a day--1_d._ extra being charged “for the risk.” The slang pint holds in some cases three-fourths of the just quantity, having a very thick bottom; others hold only half a pint, having a false bottom half-way up. These are used chiefly in measuring nuts, of which the proper quantity is hardly ever given to the purchaser; “but, then,” it was often said, or implied to me, the “price is all the lower, and people just brings it on themselves, by wanting things for next to nothing; so it’s all right; it’s people’s own faults.” The hire of the slang pint is 2_d._ per day.
The scales used are almost all true, but the weights are often beaten out flat to look large, and are 4, 5, 6, or even 7 oz. deficient in a pound, and in the same relative proportion with other weights. The charge is 2_d._, 3_d._, and 4_d._ a day for a pair of scales and a set of slang weights.
The wooden measures--such as pecks, half pecks, and quarter pecks--are not let out slang, but the bottoms are taken out by the costers, and put in again half an inch or so higher up. “I call this,” said a humorous dealer to me, “slop-work, or the cutting-system.”
One candid costermonger expressed his perfect contempt of slangs, as fit only for bunglers, as _he_ could always “work slang” with a true measure. “Why, I can cheat any man,” he said. “I can manage to measure mussels so as you’d think you got a lot over, but there’s a lot under measure, for I holds them up with my fingers and keep crying, ‘Mussels! full measure, live mussels!’ I can do the same with peas. I delight to do it with stingy aristocrats. We don’t work slang in the City. People know what they’re a buying on there. There’s plenty of us would pay for an inspector of weights; I would. We might do fair without an inspector, and make as much if we only agreed one with another.”
In conclusion, it is but just I should add that there seems to be a strong disposition on the part of the more enlightened of the class to adopt the use of fair weights and measures; and that even among the less scrupulous portion of the body, short allowance seems to be given chiefly from a desire to be _even_ with a “scaly customer.” The coster makes it a rule never to refuse an offer, and if people _will_ give him less than what he considers his proper price, why--he gives them less than their proper quantity. As a proof of the growing honesty among this class, many of the better disposed have recently formed themselves into a society, the members of which are (one and all) pledged not only to deal fairly with their customers, but to compel all other street-sellers to do the same. With a view of distinguishing themselves to the public, they have come to the resolution of wearing a medal, on which shall be engraved a particular number, so that should any imposition be practised by any of their body, the public will have the opportunity of complaining to the Committee of the Association, and having the individual (if guilty) immediately expelled from the society.
OF HALF PROFITS.
Besides the modes of trading on borrowed capital above described, there is still another means of obtaining stock prevalent among the London costermongers. It is a common practice with some of the more provident costermongers, who buy more largely--for the sake of buying cheaply--than is required for the supply of their own customers, to place goods in the hands of young men who are unable to buy goods on their own account, “on half profits,” as it is called. The man adopting this means of doing a more extensive business, says to any poor fellow willing to work on those terms, “Here’s a barrow of vegetables to carry round, and the profit on them will be 2_s._; you sell them, and half is for yourself.” The man sells them accordingly; if however he fail to realize the 2_s._ anticipated profit, his employer must still be paid 1_s._, even if the “seller” prove that only 13_d._ was cleared; so that the costermonger capitalist, as he may be described, is always, to use the words of one of my informants, “on the profitable side of the hedge.”
Boys are less frequently employed on half-profits than young men; and I am assured that instances of these young men wronging their employers are hardly ever known.
OF THE BOYS OF THE COSTERMONGERS, AND THEIR BUNTS.