Show WAKEMANS LONDON may 29 1893 in that most unsavory portion of london lying between bethnal betheal green billingsgate market and the london docks I 1 have P passed assed many strange days and stranger n nights ight among those most curious and interesting folk known as th the london eLondon costermongers it all came about in an accidental way as most pleasant thing are sure to happen to the vagrant traveler who loiters rather than rushes through oil ol i world scenes and so cheap withal that when I 1 came to figure expenditure and found that not ten pounds had been require required d to give me a permanent status with the entire fraternity I 1 felt some twinges of conscience that my footing made so beggarly a showing two pounds ten were invested in a costers cart and donkey three pounds went to prevent a domestic tragedy eighteen shillings bought bou a secondhand second hand costers barrow ou outright tr ig ht four shillings were pai paid d for a pegging chaffinch twelve shillings and sixpence took meto the derby as a coster in the costers annual parade another two pounds was lost on the unimpeachable judgment of a coster companion who introduced me to several brilliant pegging contests in the districts and the remaining fifteen six was squandered without compunction in coster tea parties by the side ot of coster rat pits in coster penny gaffs gafas and at coster tap rooms all of which as I 1 have taken the reader thus far into a personal confidence should be susceptible of rigid explanation ex P anal 0 n to begin with ith that all this and these L london nd 0 n f olk folk m may y be understood there must be something said about costers in the abstract there are from to of them in the great reat metropolis they are the hawkers of of fish vegetables and fruit it is not true as with us when any one that hawks is a hawker that any one who costers in lend lonan m would be a coster cosier the costers are a separate race they are the only hawkers here they are a distinct and integral part ot of this great and ever wonderful babel of london it is known that they have been precisely what they now are for nearly years the earliest record of london c oster coster mongers bongers mon gers cries is said to be in lydgate Lyd gates Is poem of london Lyck penny in the time of henry V about years ago shakespeare Shak speare refers contemptuously to these costermonger coster monger times ben jonson makes his morose swoon if he hears a costermongers cry and dr johnson gives the derivation of monger as originating in the street sale of apples or costaras cos tards round and bulky like the head the result is that the costermongers of the london of today form almost a little realm of their own ever ch changing anding in confines yet changeless in character and antiquity with a purer strain 0 of f blood of its kind than half of the english nobility and with ancient customs and traditions remaining inexorable laws of guidance to themselves all to a more marked degree than is true of any e equal ual number of people in any corner oll 01 europe at his daily labors the coster will have on his head a small cloth cap well to one side with the visor either pointed to the sky ky or sawing one side of his neck he is never without his black or flashily colored silk kings kingsman manly or heavy loosely gathered neckerchief alwa always tied ti in a sailors knot and the ends tucked tucked in the folds of his gay woolen shirt the whole exposing a fine well corded and often hairy neck and chest his waistcoat is long like a jockeys with capacious pockets and huge tabs and always of corduroy or velveteen his trousers are half mexican in cut of corduroy or coarse ducking and their wide bottoms flap over the best shoes worn by any lowly men in london added to this are pearls or polished metal buttons innumerable in the matter of buttons their best togs for sundays and holidays are truly startling whether of metal or pearl they are from a half inch to an inch in diameter and are set as thickly as they can be placed around the cap band an and visor edge down the edge cy of the waistcoat from throat to point above every pocket and along the edges of all lapels upon the sleeves nearly from wrist ito to elbow and along the wi wide deplush plush side stripes of the trousers from just below the knees to the very edge of the trousers leg so that the last button clicks and patters against the pavement and the shoe the coster women are none the less in their garb and appearance like the benthey men they are all well sho shod dand and wear short coarse serge petticoats showing their ankle and shapely feet their waists are always low at or left open in the neck and usually the latter as with the men is adorned with a flashy silk neckerchief while a small woolen plaid or silk shawl covers the shoulders derst its ends crossed upon the breast where it is always fastened with a brooch of huge dimensions but the hair and the headgear are most distinctive from these alone a coster girt girl is anywhere recognizable the hit hat is of straw or felt and always as large as a costers cartwheel it protrudes alarmingly in front arid and above this canopy waves a forest of ostrich plumes coster girls belong to clubs fr or the purchase of these pr zed feathers and there is no ordinary sacrifice they will not make to possess the largest plumes lumes that can be bought the hair is bestowed es towed behind in a large braid A 61 part extends from this immediately immediate lv ver over each ear and a heavy straight tab lie ies against either chertk cheek above the forehead the hair falls straight almost to the brows but is then frizzled and curled until it stands upward and outward like monstrous matted chevaux defrise the nearest approach to a home among the costers is where the coster is fairly well to do and owns the donkey and cart or a couple or three in these extremely rare instances you will often find the coster his wife or mate their children and the donkeys in one basement room together but the character of the mans and the womans comans work keeps them upon the street they eat at cheap chor chop houses and coffee stalls their evenings are passed at the taproom the penny gaff shows the rat pit and the cheap music hills halls boys and girls leave their parents and mate at from fourteen to sixteen years they take furnished rooms in the coster districts of leather lane drury lane shoreditch Sho reditch old street road maryle bone lane bethnal betheal green camberwell Cam berwell and the like and are at once ull fledged costers children are born to them and are minded for the first year or two then they take their chances for life and education in the slums at six or seven they accompany their parents or are hired out to other costers in a few years more some fancied slight or too severe a beating occurs or the coster youth or lass have met cheit affinity and they are away for themselves without partings or regrets they are all men and women confirmed and hopeless gamblers in a petty way frequently they will back their favorite chaffinches chaff inches which are trained to fight as well as sing or dog or pugilist to the loss of everything they possess I 1 do not believe there is a coster n london who has not at sometime been a years labor and thrift behind his body and the clothes upon it from ill luck at gambling some go to the dogs completely from it then they commit suicide composedly this very curse of their character enabled me to become one of them for so long as I 1 liked I 1 had unavailingly tried all means of which I 1 was capable to become familiar with them while cheery and friendly enough they would never be their real selves in my presence but I 1 kept among them doggedly about th the joyous J y neighborhood of covent gar garden en market where from to may daily be seen until opportunity at last came I 1 used to saunter for hours about the famous market in the early mourning on a certain may morning of last year I 1 found among the pea under the market colonnades opposite the ancient tavistock hotel one of the women comely enough for a wonder among these who are generally indescribable ana ha bags s shelling in a desperate sort of way and crying as though her heart would break more tears than pennies fell in her bowl and the old Jez abels about her were after quite the fashion of women adding to tb her misery by taunting her with the foolishness of her marriage which had evidently gone amiss when these taunts became insufferable she would quietly punch one or another of their heads when there would be a little savage scuffling and then she would resume her tears and peas I 1 could see she was a coster woman and in a few minutes waiting I 1 gathered enough to know that the weeping pea sheller had run away from coster father and mother married a coster youth of fancy or sporting proclivities and that the latter possessed of a frenzy over some chaffinch or dog had str stripped ped the pair time after time of bonfey donkey cart and home belongings as often lost all and worse yet had become so infamous among his kind that in all london he could not borrow a half crown to start anew usually an easy thing for a coster to do nor so much as a bit with which to quench his thirst and drown his desp nd ency that that very morning becky the weeping pea sheller had ad tragically left her incorrigible husband for good and all and at that very moment the latter known as Slump sy jerrill jem for his ill luck and incorrigibility was turning away from ge gibing bing coster groups one after another the picture of irretrievable despair the language of these folk is simply unprintable not because of the costers intentional obscenity and profanity as they have the deepest pride in their own speech and ways Slump sy jern jem him self quailed under the fusillade that morning he slunk away like one pur sued and I 1 followed him half way down southampton street he made a last effort to retrieve himself by begging a loan from jenny williams the minder a minder of whips for the last thirty years fur all the greengrocers greengrocery green grocers carters who crowd that thoroughfare between the strand and the market jenny was up to snuff and beat him off with her whip then he plunged into the strand at a run among and through the thundering vehicles st pauls way to waterloo bridge here halted a moment or I 1 could not have overtaken him and started doggedly toward the surrey side he afterwards told me it was for a header into the thames but I 1 soon ran alongside him and before he was half way to the middle of the bridge had him by the shoulder and then telling him he could attend to the little matter he had in mind just as well later in the day marched him a willing and wondering prisoner to a cheap grill ill house in the strand for breakfast alst fal even ve v n an outcast costermonger filled with good food and in company where the clink of silver is is a different sort of fellow than one just on the point of taking a header off waterloo bridge but he could do little else than bulge his eyes and after much emotional effort spurt out his astonishment in gor bli me but eres a go it was a still greater go when a half adur later I 1 had him help me ian ransack every foul pawnshop in the minor ies and we gathered up all the poor shreds of their home belongings even to his own brilliant sunday kingsman 1 or the veritable four shillings pegging I 1 chaffinch which had been his downfall and backys famous ostrich plume um the erst pride and envy of shore ditch and after such a scrubbing and scouring as the place had never before known got the broken home together again in the selfsame spot before st pauls bells had struck the midday mid day chimes bawd strike me lucky hits a likelier wallus than the lud mayrs one gaze aze ol 01 0 hied put hout poor donaha fd darling arling mistress wife heyes gor bli me sot would was Slump parting apostrophe as we mounted a bus way though the dazed coster was still ignorant of our destination we were soon at drury lane I 1 knew an alehouse hard by long acres where the pea shelters drowned their woes boes when their work was done and sometimes danced and fought sure enough jenny enny was there still weeping over a pot ot of four ale and a cold sausage but t the e greatest go of all was these costers meeting drenched in tears drowned in a full gallon 0 bitter for parting cheer among the now gow enthusiastic pea sheller heller companions and storm swept with gor bli mes strike me beads or lackeys luc keys and other still more coster oaths the poor donaha heyes were quite put out on seeing her little and loved if little home rebuilt as it by magic and all the rueful prophecies of her companions so marvelously put to naught and to do the poor soul justice her gratitude and delight were inexpressibly greater to discover that the magic the total cost of which had been but three pound four had been wrought on the unflinching condition lumpsy jem was a reformed gambler now and evermore I 1 left them alone with the greatest joy that had ever come to london costers until evening then we dressed in our best and joined in a costers tea party at a near coster friends forin a few hours their great fortune had been noised about and as with other folk of higher grade the silver key had unlocked unwilling doors and afterwards afterward 3 passed a thrill lul hour at a genuine penny gaff where front from to costers billingsgate porters lambeth butcher boys and riffraff were packed in a noisome old shed to witness a gaft gaff or outrageously ridiculous pantomime or voiceless melodrama or wordless tragedy irl in which there were indescribable murder highway robbery and other lurid crine crime but all enacted without spoken words to evade the law governing dramatic representations and got to our beds in bell lane before midnight for I 1 had determined to house live and be after the coster fashion completely until the pair were well on their feet in this strange london coster world on sunday there is a crazy sort of fair of goats fowls ferrets ler rats for destroying beetles rats for the pit chaffinches chaff inches rabbits and much other unsavory live stock held in the rear of shoreditch Sho reditch church in hare street hard by our coster home after breakfast we repaired thither and bought a respectable secondhand second hand barrow and donkey for two pun ten some sieves shallows and baskets for a few shillings more and then passed part of the day in in epping forest with a million or so of other lowly london outers bouters on monday we were all at covent garden market at four in the morning and had a load of crisp vegetables disposed of by one in the afternoon among the budging ludgin lud ging gouse ouse keepers of bloomsbury at a net profit including some repairs for our cart and harness and food for our donkey which had proven a brave and beast of six six shillings on tuesday we sold cheap meat from smithfield smith field in the Mi nories at a profit of eight shillings wednesday we were unlucky on shrimps scrimps and sprats and gained but two shillings thursday with vegetables we cleared but five shillings on friday with fish as I 1 had friends at billingsgate market and got favors we returned home with a profit of eleven shillings but saturdays efforts gave us the greatest achievement of all I 1 determined to sell to a gipsy camp at wandsworth Wands worth at the mention of gipsies and becky were horrified but I 1 knew the gipsy taste and gipsy pocket and we filled our cart with poultry meat and fish it was a long journey for a coster cart out through old chelsea across chelsea bridge and into surrey at wandsworth Wands worth but our days sales netted twenty one shillings and besides our odd experience with the romany folk of that metropolitan gip syrie and it was a glorious saturday night when we found that our total earnings had been two pounds fifteen shillings n |