London Labour and the London Poor: Selection (Classics)

by Henry Mayhew

  To serve out a policeman is the bravest act by which a costermonger can distinguish himself. Some lads have been imprisoned upwards of a dozen times for this offence; and are consequently looked upon by their companions as martyrs. When they leave prison for such an act, a subscription is often got up for their benefit. In their continual warfare with the force, they resemble many savage nations, from the cunning and treachery they use. The lads endeavour to take the unsuspecting ‘crusher’ by surprise, and often crouch at the entrance of a court until a policeman passes, when a stone or a brick is hurled at him, and the youngster immediately disappears. Their love of revenge too, is extreme – their hatred being in no way mitigated by time; they will wait for months, following a policeman who has offended or wronged them, anxiously looking out for an opportunity of paying back the injury. One boy, I was told, vowed vengeance against a member of the force, and for six months never allowed the man to escape his notice. At length, one night, he saw the policeman in a row outside a public-house, and running into the crowd kicked him savagely, shouting at the same time: ‘Now, you b—, I’ve got you at last.’ When the boy heard that his persecutor was injured for life, his joy was very great, and he declared the twelvemonth’s imprisonment he was sentenced to for the offence to be ‘dirt cheap’. The whole of the court where the lad resided, sympathized with the boy, and vowed to a man, that had he escaped, they would have subscribed a pad or two of dry herrings, to send him into the country until the affair had blown over, for he had shown himself a ‘plucky one’.

  It is called ‘plucky’ to bear pain without complaining. To flinch from expected suffering is scorned, and he who does so is sneered at and told to wear a gown, as being more fit to be a woman. To show a disregard for pain, a lad, when without money, will say to his pal, ‘Give us a penny, and you may have a punch at my nose.’ They also delight in tattooing their chests and arms with anchors, and figures of different kinds. During the whole of this painful operation, the boy will not flinch, but laugh and joke with his admiring companions, as if perfectly at ease.

  Of the Education of Costermongers’ Children

  [p. 26] 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

  [pp. 27–8] 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 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 the 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 languages 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 significance 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 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, ‘give 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 Donkeys of the Costermongers

  [p. 31] The costermongers almost universally treat their donkeys with kindness. Many a costermonger will resent the ill-treatment of a donkey, as he would a personal indignity. These animals are often not only favourites, but pets, having their share of the costermonger’s dinner when bread forms a portion of it, or pudding, or anything suited to the palate of the brute. Those well-used, manifest fondness for their masters, and are easily manageable; it is, however, difficult to get an ass, whose master goes regular rounds, away from its stable for any second labour during the day, unless it has fed and slept in the interval. The usual fare of a donkey is a peck of chaff, which costs 1d., a quart of oats and a quart of beans, each averaging 1½d., and sometimes a pennyworth of hay, being an expenditure of 4d. or 5d. a day; but some give double this quantity in a prosperous time. Only one meal a day is given. Many costermongers told me, that their donkeys lived well when they themselves lived well.

  ‘It’s all nonsense to call donkeys stupid,’ said one costermonger to me; ‘them’s stupid that calls them so; they’re sensible. Not long since I worked Guildford with my donkey-cart and a boy. Jack (the donkey) was slow and heavy in coming back, until we got in sight of the lights at Vauxhall-gate, and then he trotted on like one o’clock, he did indeed! just as if he smelt it was London besides seeing it, and knew he was at home. He had a famous appetite in the country, and the fresh grass did him good. I gave a country lad 2d. to mind him in a green lane there. I wanted my own boy to do so, but he said, “I’ll see you further first.” A London boy hates being by himself in a lone country part. He’s afraid of being burked; he is indeed. One can’t quarrel with a lad when he’s away with one in the country; he’s very useful. I feed my donkey well. I sometimes give him a carrot for a luxury, but carrots are dear now. He’s fond of mashed potatoes, and has many a good mash when I can buy them at 4lb. a penny.’

  ‘There was a friend of mine,’ said another man, ‘had great trouble about his donkey a few months back. I saw part of it, and knew all about it. He was doing a little work on a Sunday morning at Wandsworth, and the poor thing fell down dead. He was very fond of his donkey and kind to it, and the donkey was very fond of him. He thought he wouldn’t leave the poor creature he’d had a good while, and had been out with in all weathers, by the road side; so he dropped all notion of doing business, and with help got the poor dead thing into his cart; its head lolloping over the end of the cart, and its poor eyes staring at nothing. He thought he’d drag it home and bury it somewheres. It wasn’t for the value he dragged it, for what’s a dead donkey worth? There was a few persons about him, and they was all quiet and seemed sorry for the poor fellow and for his donkey; but the church-bells struck up, and up came a “crusher”, and took the man up, and next day he was fined 10s., I can’t exactly say for what. He never saw no more of the animal, and lost his stock as well as his donkey.’

  Of the Costermongers’ Capital

  [pp. 31–6] The costermongers, though living by buying and selling, are seldom or never capitalists. It is estimated that not more than one-fourth of the entire body trade upon their own property. Some borrow their stock money, others borrow the stock itself, others again borrow the donkey-carts, barrows, or baskets, in which their stock is carried round, whilst others borrow even the weights and measures by which it is meted out.

  The reader, however uninformed he may be as to the price the poor usually have to pay for any loans they may require, doubtlessly need not be told that the remuneration exacted for the use of the above-named commodities is not merely confined to the legal 5l. per centum per annum; still many of even the most ‘knowing’ will hardly be able to credit the fact that the ordinary rate of interest in the costermongers’ money-market amounts to 20 per cent. per week, or no less than 1,040l. a year, for every 100l. advanced.

  But the iniquity of this usury in the present instance is felt, not so much by the costermongers themselves, as by the poor people whom they serve; for, of course, the enormous rate of interest must be paid out of the profits on the goods they sell, and consequently added to the price, so that coupling this overcharge with the customary short allowance – in either weight or measure, as the case may be – we can readily perceive how cruelly the poor are defrauded, and how they not only get often too little for what they do, but have as often to pay too much for what they buy.

  Premising thus much, I shall now proceed to describe the terms upon which the barrow, the cart, the basket, the weights, the measures, the stock-money, or the stock, is usually advanced to the needy costermongers by their more thrifty brethren.

  The hire of a barrow is 3d. a day, or 1s. a week, for the six winter months; and 4d. a day, or 1s. 6d. a week, for the six summer months. Some are to be had rather lower in the summer, but never for less than 4d. – sometimes for not less than 6d. 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 3l. 5s. each, or 16,250l. a year. One man lets out 120 yearly, at a return (dropping the 5s.) of 360l.; while the cost of a good barrow, new, is 2l. 12s., and in the autumn and winter they may be bought
new, or ‘as good as new’, at 30s. each; so that reckoning each to cost this barrow-letter 2l. – he receives 360l. rent or interest – exactly 150 per cent, per annum for property which originally cost but 240l., 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 26l. 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 1s. and 1s. 6d. 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 40s. 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.