Part 9
But there are still other “agents” among the costermongers, and these are the “boys” deputed to sell a man’s goods for a certain sum, all over that amount being the boys’ profit or “bunts.” Almost every costermonger who trades through the streets with his barrow is accompanied by a boy. The ages of these lads vary from ten to sixteen, there are few above sixteen, for the lads think it is then high time for them to start on their own account. These boys are useful to the man in “calling,” their shrill voices being often more audible than the loudest pitch of an adult’s lungs. Many persons, moreover, I am assured, prefer buying of a boy, believing that if the lad did not succeed in selling his goods he would be knocked about when he got home; others think that they are safer in a boy’s hands, and less likely to be cheated; these, however, are equally mistaken notions. The boys also are useful in pushing at the barrow, or in drawing it along by tugging at a rope in front. Some of them are the sons of the costermongers; some go round to the costermongers’ abodes and say: “Will you want me to-morrow?” “Shall I come and give you a lift?” The parents of the lads thus at large are, when they _have_ parents, either unable to support them, or, if able, prefer putting their money to other uses, (such as drinking); and so the lads have to look out for themselves, or, as they say, “pick up a few halfpence and a bit of grub as we can.” Such lads, however, are the smallest class of costermongering youths; and are sometimes called “cas’alty boys,” or “nippers.”
The boys--and nearly the whole of them--soon become very quick, and grow masters of slang, in from six weeks to two or three months. “I suppose,” said one man familiar with their character, “they’d learn French as soon, if they was thrown into the way of it. They must learn slang to live, and as they have to wait at markets every now and then, from one hour to six, they associate one with another and carry on conversations in slang about the “penny gaffs” (theatres), criticising the actors; or may be they toss the pieman, if they’ve got any ha’pence, or else they chaff the passers by. The older ones may talk about their sweethearts; but they always speak of them by the name of ‘nammow’ (girls).
“The boys are severe critics too (continued my informant) on dancing. I heard one say to another; ‘What do you think of Johnny Millicent’s new step?’ for they always recognise a new step, or they discuss the female dancer’s legs, and not very decently. At other times the boys discuss the merits or demerits of their masters, as to who feeds them best. I have heard one say, ‘O, aint Bob stingy? We have bread and cheese!’ Another added; ‘_We_ have steak and beer, and I’ve the use of Bill’s, (the master’s) ’baccy box.’”
Some of these lads are paid by the day, generally from 2_d._ or 3_d._ and their food, and as much fruit as they think fit to eat, as by that they soon get sick of it. They generally carry home fruit in their pockets for their playmates, or brothers, or sisters; the costermongers allow this, if they are satisfied that the pocketing is not for sale. Some lads are engaged by the week, having from 1_s._ to 1_s._ 6_d._, and their food when out with their employer. Their lodging is found only in a few cases, and then they sleep in the same room with their master and mistress. Of master or mistress, however, they never speak, but of Jack and Bet. They behave respectfully to the women, who are generally kind to them. They soon desert a very surly or stingy master; though such a fellow could get fifty boys next day if he wanted them, but not lads used to the trade, for to these he’s well known by their talk one with another, and they soon tell a man his character very plainly--“_very_ plainly indeed, sir, and to his face too,” said one.
Some of these boys are well beaten by their employers; this they put up with readily enough, if they experience kindness at the hands of the man’s wife; for, as I said before, parties that have never thought of marriage, if they live together, call one another husbands and wives.
In “working the country” these lads are put on the same footing as their masters, with whom they eat, drink, and sleep; but they do not gamble with them. A few, however, go out and tempt country boys to gamble, and--as an almost inevitable consequence--to lose. “Some of the boys,” said one who had seen it often, “will keep a number of countrymen in a beer-shop in a roar for the hour, while the countrymen ply them with beer, and some of the street-lads can drink a good deal. I’ve known three bits of boys order a pot of beer each, one after the other, each paying his share, and a quartern of gin each after that--drunk neat; they don’t understand water. Drink doesn’t seem to affect them as it does men. I don’t know why.” “Some costermongers,” said another informant, “have been known, when they’ve taken a fancy to a boy--I know of two--to dress him out like themselves, silk handkerchiefs and all; for if they didn’t find them silk handkerchiefs, the boys would soon get them out of their ‘_bunts_.’ They like silk handkerchiefs, for if they lose all their money gambling, they can then pledge their handkerchiefs.”
I have mentioned the term “_bunts_.” Bunts is the money made by the boys in this manner:--If a costermonger, after having sold a sufficiency, has 2_s._ or 3_s._ worth of goods left, and is anxious to get home, he says to the boy, “Work these streets, and bring me 2_s._ 6_d._ for the tol,” (lot) which the costermonger knows by his eye--for he seldom measures or counts--is easily worth that money. The lad then proceeds to sell the things entrusted to him, and often shows great ingenuity in so doing. If, for instance, turnips be tied up in penny bunches, the lad will open some of them, so as to spread them out to nearly twice their previous size, and if any one ask if that be a penn’orth, he will say, “Here’s a larger for 1-1/2_d._, marm,” and so palm off a penny bunch at 1-1/2_d._ Out of each bunch of onions he takes one or two, and makes an extra bunch. All that the lad can make in this way over the half-crown is his own, and called “bunts.” Boys have made from 6_d._ to 1_s._ 6_d._ “bunts,” and this day after day. Many of them will, in the course of their traffic, beg old boots or shoes, if they meet with better sort of people, and so “work it to rights,” as they call it among themselves; servants often give them cast-off clothes. It is seldom that a boy carries home less than the stipulated sum.
The above is what is understood as “fair bunts.”
“Unfair bunts” is what the lad may make unknown to his master; as, if a customer call from the area for goods cried at 2_d._, the lad may get 2-1/2_d._, by pretending what he had carried was a superior sort to that called at 2_d._,--or by any similar trick.
“I have known some civil and industrious boys,” said a costermonger to me, “get to save a few shillings, and in six months start with a shallow, and so rise to a donkey-cart. The greatest drawback to struggling boys is their sleeping in low lodging-houses, where they are frequently robbed, or trepanned to part with their money, or else they get corrupted.”
Some men employ from four to twelve boys, sending them out with shallows and barrows, the boys bringing home the proceeds. The men who send lads out in this way, count the things, and can tell to a penny what can be realised on them. They neither pay nor treat the boys well, I am told, and are looked upon by the other costermongers as extortioners, or unfair dealers, making money by trading on poor lads’ necessities, who serve them to avoid starvation. These men are called “Scurfs.” If the boys working for them make bunts, or are suspected of making bunts, there is generally “a row” about it.
The bunts is for the most part the gambling money, as well as the money for the “penny gaff,” the “twopenny hop,” the tobacco, and the pudding money of the boys. “More would save their wages and their bunts,” was said to me on good authority, “but they have no place to keep their money in, and don’t understand anything about savings banks. Many of these lads are looked on with suspicion by the police, and treated like suspected folks; but in my opinion they are not thieves, or they wouldn’t work so hard; for a thief’s is a much easier life than a costermonger’s.”
When a boy begins business on his own account, or “sets up,” as they call it, he purchases a shallow, which costs at least 1_s._, and a half hundred of herrings, 1_s._ 6_d._ By the sale of the herrings he will clear 1_s._, going the round he has been accustomed to, and then trade on the 2_s._ 6_d._ Or, if it be fruit time, he will trade in apples until master of 5_s._, and then “take to a barrow,” at 3_d._ a day hire. By this system the ranks of the costermongers are not only recruited but increased. There is one grand characteristic of these lads; I heard on all hands they are, every one of them, what the costers call--“wide awake.”
There are I am assured from 200 to 300 costers, who, in the busier times of the year, send out four youths or lads each on an average. The young men thus sent out generally live with the costermonger, paying 7_s._ a week for board, lodging and washing. These youths, I was told by one who knew them well, were people who “didn’t care to work for themselves, because they couldn’t keep their money together; it would soon all go; and they _must_ keep it together for their masters. They are not fed badly, but then they make ‘bunts’ sometimes, and it goes for grub when they’re out, so they eat less at home.”
OF THE JUVENILE TRADING OF THE COSTERMONGERS.
My inquiries among the costermongers induced one of their number to address me by letter. My correspondent--a well-informed and well-educated man--describes himself as “being one of those that have been unfortunately thrust into that precarious way of obtaining a living, not by choice but circumstances.” The writer then proceeds to say: “No person but those actually connected with the streets can tell the exertion, anxiety, and difficulties we have to undergo; and I know for a fact it induces a great many to drink that would not do so, only to give them a stimulant to bear up against the troubles that they have to contend with; and so it ultimately becomes habitual. I could point out many instances of the kind. My chief object in addressing you is to give my humble suggestion as to the best means of alleviating our present position in society, and establishing us in the eyes of the public as a respectable body of men, honestly endeavouring to support our families, without becoming chargeable to the parish, and to show that we are not all the degraded class we are at present thought to be, subject to the derision of every passer by, and all looked upon as extortioners and the confederates of thieves. It is grievous to see children, as soon as they are able to speak, thrust into the streets to sell, and in many instances, I am sorry to state, to support their parents. Kind sir, picture to yourself a group of those children mixing together indiscriminately--the good with the bad--all uneducated--and without that parental care which is so essential for youth--and judge for yourself the result: the lads in some instances take to thieving, (this being easier for a living), and the girls to prostitution; and so they pass the greater part of their time in gaol, or get transported. Even those who are honestly disposed cannot have a chance of bettering their condition, in consequence of their being uneducated, so that they often turn out brutal husbands and bad fathers. Surely, sir, Government could abolish in a measure this juvenile trading, so conducive to crime and so injurious to the shopkeeper, who is highly rated. How is it possible, if children congregate around his door with the very articles he may deal in, that he can meet the demands for rates and taxes; whereas the educated man, brought by want to sell in the streets, would not do so, but keep himself apart from the shopkeeper, and not merit his enmity, and the interference of the police, which he necessarily claims. I have procured an existence (with a few years’ exception) in the streets for the last twenty-five years as a general salesman of perishable and imperishable articles, and should be most happy to see anything done for the benefit of my class. This juvenile trading I consider the root of the evil; after the removal of this, the costermongers might, by classifying and co-operation, render themselves comparatively happy, in their position, and become acknowledged members of society.”
Another costermonger, in conversing with me concerning these young traders, said, that many of them would ape the vices of men: mere urchins would simulate drunkenness, or boast, with many an exaggeration, of their drinking feats. They can get as much as they please at the public-houses; and this too, I may add, despite the 43rd clause in the Police Act, which enacts, that “every person, licensed to deal in exciseable liquors within the said (Metropolitan Police) District, who shall knowingly supply any sort of distilled exciseable liquor to be drunk upon the premises, to any boy or girl, apparently under the age of sixteen years, shall be liable to a penalty of not more than 20_s._;” and upon a second conviction to 40_s._ penalty; and on a third to 5_l._
OF THE EDUCATION OF THE “COSTER-LADS.”
Among the costers the term education is (as I have already intimated) merely understood as meaning a complete knowledge of the art of “buying in the cheapest market and selling in the dearest.” There are few lads whose training extends beyond this. The father is the tutor, who takes the boy to the different markets, instructs him in the art of buying, and when the youth is perfect on this point, the parent’s duty is supposed to have been performed. Nearly all these boys are remarkable for their precocious sharpness. To use the words of one of the class, “these young ones are as sharp as terriers, and learns every dodge of business in less than half no time. There’s one I knows about three feet high, that’s up to the business as clever as a man of thirty. Though he’s only twelve years old he’ll chaff down a peeler so uncommon severe, that the only way to stop him is to take him in charge!”
It is idle to imagine that these lads, possessed of a mental acuteness almost wonderful, will not educate themselves in vice, if we neglect to train them to virtue. At their youthful age, the power of acquiring knowledge is the strongest, and some kind of education is continually going on. If they are not taught by others, they will form their own characters--developing habits of dissipation, and educing all the grossest passions of their natures, and learning to indulge in the gratification of every appetite without the least restraint.
As soon as a boy is old enough to shout well and loudly, his father takes him into the streets. Some of these youths are not above seven years of age, and it is calculated that not more than one in a hundred has ever been to a school of any kind. The boy walks with the barrow, or guides the donkey, shouting by turns with the father, who, when the goods are sold, will as a reward, let him ride home on the tray. The lad attends all markets with his father, who teaches him his business and shows him his tricks of trade; “for,” said a coster, “a governor in our line leaves the knowledge of all his dodges to his son, jist as the rich coves do their tin.”
The life of a coster-boy is a very hard one. In summer he will have to be up by four o’clock in the morning, and in winter he is never in bed after six. When he has returned from market, it is generally his duty to wash the goods and help dress the barrow. About nine he begins his day’s work, shouting whilst the father pushes; and as very often the man has lost his voice, this share of the labour is left entirely to him. When a coster has regular customers, the vegetables or fish are all sold by twelve o’clock, and in many coster families the lad is then packed off with fruit to hawk in the streets. When the work is over, the father will perhaps take the boy to a public-house with him, and give him part of his beer. Sometimes a child of four or five is taken to the tap-room, especially if he be pretty and the father proud of him. “I have seen,” said a coster to me, “a baby of five year old reeling drunk in a tap-room. His governor did it for the lark of the thing, to see him chuck hisself about--sillyfied like.”
The love of gambling soon seizes upon the coster boy. Youths of about twelve or so will as soon as they can get away from work go to a public-house and play cribbage for pints of beer, or for a pint a corner. They generally continue playing till about midnight, and rarely--except on a Sunday--keep it up all night.
It ordinarily happens that when a lad is about thirteen, he quarrels with his father, and gets turned away from home. Then he is forced to start for himself. He knows where he can borrow stock-money and get his barrow, for he is as well acquainted with the markets as the oldest hand at the business, and children may often be seen in the streets under-selling their parents. “How’s it possible,” said a woman, “for people to live when there’s their own son at the end of the court a-calling his goods as cheap again as we can afford to sell ourn.”
If the boy is lucky in trade, his next want is to get a girl to keep home for him. I was assured, that it is not at all uncommon for a lad of fifteen to be living with a girl of the same age, as man and wife. It creates no disgust among his class, but seems rather to give him a position among such people. Their courtship does not take long when once the mate has been fixed upon. The girl is invited to “raffles,” and treated to “twopenny hops,” and half-pints of beer. Perhaps a silk neck handkerchief--a “King’s-man” is given as a present; though some of the lads will, when the arrangement has been made, take the gift back again and wear it themselves. The boys are very jealous, and if once made angry behave with great brutality to the offending girl. A young fellow of about sixteen told me, as he seemed to grow angry at the very thought, “If I seed my gal a talking to another chap I’d fetch her sich a punch of the nose as should plaguy quick stop the whole business.” Another lad informed me, with a knowing look, “that the gals--it was a rum thing now he come to think on it--axully liked a feller for walloping them. As long as the bruises hurted, she was always thinking on the cove as gived ’em her.” After a time, if the girl continues faithful, the young coster may marry her; but this is rarely the case, and many live with their girls until they have grown to be men, or perhaps they may quarrel the very first year, and have a fight and part.
These boys hate any continuous work. So strong is this objection to continuity that they cannot even remain selling the same article for more than a week together. Moreover none of them can be got to keep stalls. They must be perpetually on the move--or to use their own words “they like a roving life.” They all of them delight in dressing “flash” as they call it. If a “governor” was to try and “palm off” his old cord jacket upon the lad that worked with him, the boy wouldn’t take it. “Its too big and seedy for me,” he’d say, “and I aint going to have your leavings.” They try to dress like the men, with large pockets in their cord jackets and plenty of them. Their trowsers too must fit tight at the knee, and their boots they like as good as possible. A good “King’s-man,” a plush skull cap, and a seam down the trowsers are the great points of ambition with the coster boys.
[Illustration: THE COSTER-GIRL.
“Apples! An ’aypenny a lot, Apples!”
[_From a Daguerreotype by_ BEARD.]]
A lad about fourteen informed me that “brass buttons, like a huntman’s, with foxes’ heads on em, looked stunning flash, and the gals liked em.” As for the hair, they say it ought to be long in front, and done in “figure-six” curls, or twisted back to the ear “Newgate-knocker style.” “But the worst of hair is,” they add, “that it is always getting cut off in quod, all along of muzzling the bobbies.”
The whole of the coster-boys are fond of good living. I was told that when a lad started for himself, he would for the first week or so live almost entirely on cakes and nuts. When settled in business they always manage to have what they call “a relish” for breakfast and tea, “a couple of herrings, or a bit of bacon, or what not.” Many of them never dine excepting on the Sunday--the pony and donkey proprietors being the only costers whose incomes will permit them to indulge in a “fourpenny plate of meat at a cook’s shop.” The whole of the boys too are extremely fond of pudding, and should the “plum duff” at an eating-house contain an unusual quantity of plums, the news soon spreads, and the boys then endeavour to work that way so as to obtain a slice. While waiting for a market, the lads will very often spend a shilling in the cakes and three cornered puffs sold by the Jews. The owners toss for them, and so enable the young coster to indulge his two favourite passions at the same time--his love of pastry, and his love of gambling. The Jews crisp butter biscuits also rank very high with the boys, who declare that they “slip down like soapsuds down a gully hole.” In fact it is curious to notice how perfectly unrestrained are the passions and appetites of these youths. The only thoughts that trouble them are for their girls, their eating and their gambling--beyond the love of self they have no tie that binds them to existence.
THE LIFE OF A COSTER-LAD.