Show WAKEMANS wanderings LONDON june 4 1893 during the somewhat extended period in which I 1 actually lived the daily life of a costermonger in in london many interesting observations and experiences aside from those connected with the immediate concerns of buying and hawking vegetables fish flesh and fowl were naturally resultant from my association with Slump sy jem the coster and his wife becky and what may be regarded as the aristocratic coster society to which our signal financial success speedily gave us admittance it may not have been an original discovery covery on my part but I 1 was soon convinced of the correctness of a curious series serie s of surmises growing out of much previous observation and study of the habits manners and speech of ondon london folk in general a conclusion which seems worthy of extended discussion by others more able to make exact and authoritative comparison this was in brief that the generic things we call in speech and manners really have their origin chiefly among london costermongers it is exceedingly difficult to make this clear to those who have not lived in london and also in large cities of other countries long enough to have caught that exceedingly winsome feature ot of all great old and compact communities which for fora a better name may be called local color observation will nearly always disclose it to largely consist of the reflexive influence upon higher classes from unique or outlandish lower classes that genial dia bleie and humorous or tragic realism of the lowly almost instantly transformed into the wit humor repartee and slang of those above them until il in degree ee habit of speech form of the commoner CID colloquial llo expressions and even d distine inc ive mannerisms become fixed and characteristic wibb with and upon that grade of folk closest in mind feeling and vocation to the lowly people whom they have consciously or unconsciously ly imitated thus I 1 have heard in noted paris salons the common commo n jibes of the canaille and the from lips quite unconscious of their origin in in american clubs and drawing rooms countless cant and patter espre expressions s sion is already long preau previously asly discarded in new yorks bowery si slums ams where they first took form in the finest edinburgh homes the wise curt and droll sayings of rew newhaven fish wives and the denizens of cc w and Grass market and from lon london late 0 concert halls up through london clubs past english castles castee s and nob lemens city homes to the boor accor of parliament itself the latest epithet and newest catch phrase of london coster mongers bongers mon gers coined by my coster friends in moments of four ale inspiration at free smoking room concerts at penny gafas gaffs afas or in in valiant black guarding bat ties es with covent garden porters and the glib tongued robbers mob bers or fish carriers carriers of ancient and odorous billingsgate ings gate As to cockle cockney london folk high and low clear an and distinct lines may be drawn the coster is the typical indeed the genuine cockney his vernacular which is so outlandish that one has to have long acquaintance with it to understand it at all is not slang because it is his original and unaffected mode oc expression his swagger his oaths his terrible his impulsive generosity his reckless gambling his fondness for pets his roving ways within the great city his grotesque apparel his aversion to a fixed habitation his suspicion of anything savoring of religion his unconquerable agnosticism his self reliance his fatalism his fondness for his kind and kin and yet his seeming brutality in all domestic relar eions his hardness and his tenderness and his almost stern and spartan loyalty to his friends his race and his traditions are all inexplicable and tantalizing to one studying his character little or long but they are absolutely and inviolably his own there is not an iota of pretense hypocrisy or affectation about him because of of this millions of london lowly next him in the social scale have in from to soo years time been unconscious imitators of much of his speech some of his manners a good deal of his swagger and bluster and not a little ot ol his hardness and brutality all these latter folk are often generically genen cally regarded as cockneys cock but bu their cockneyism is assumed copied unreal consequently it is is as offensive to the intelligent englishman who often errs in mistaking it for the genuine article exclusively possessed by the gers as it is is to the wondering american who knows nothing whatever about its origin there is another class of folk in london and throughout england immeasurably I 1 less in number and real importance but inexpressibly more omnipresent and offensive who masquerade as cockneys cock S and who more than alt others earing bring the true coster cockney into permanent disrepute they area are a sort of chromo cockneys cock when the genuine reds and solemn millet grays of the true cockney coster are brought into analytic comparison they com comprise s e a mixed and mur rained multitude of f london men about town tow answering somewhat to the dude cholly wobblers gobblers lers of america young noblemen nobl emea and other choice aristocrats who ago go in for a long and a strong pull y knekow to these are added a few aach flash journalists I 1 am sorry to say fellows who are on the outskirts of even the lowest w london bohemias bohemian Bohe mias not many actors for london actors are almost invariably 0 o london gentlemen some hangers on 0 w f clubs all pugilists sprinters horsemen jockeys and professional sporting men generally thousands of music hall performers and the other thousands ot at 14 tommy rots gulped out of the free smoking room concerts of the public houses who are found every monday morning at their weekly poverty junction symposium at the corner of york and waterloo roads and tens of thousands thousand more moire of london clerks and apprentices vacuous and vainglorious simon felted with fine frenzy and mock heroics may ever bakar the to them true british stamp of df the cock sure cockneys cock and f beery ruffians of the hour I 1 all of these chromo cockneys cock never open their mouths without effort to outdo their moral and mental superiors the costermongers they occasionally break loose from their london environment and travel in ireland in scotland on the continent and in in america A shilling with them is a bob a sovereign is a quid a donkey is a moke gomoke 11 a cab horse is is cats meat t to drink liquor is to take a wet a glass of f ale is a tankard 0 bitter every one accosted is guv er nor and a woman is a donah or a cow 11 this sort of thing may possess a certain sociological and literary interest when confined to the class from which it emanates but every one of these pretentious tent tonti ious out cockneys cock whether met in london or on their travels about the world should be set down for precisely what they are they are no more representative englishmen than a new york dude carrying the manner epithets op and clothing of a bowery BO wery boy about the world would be a typical american Alne rican they th le are simply cads aads a dis disgrace race to intelligent intelligent english people antan acdan insulting human parody upon the ignorant though sturdy and genuine costermongers they sadly mimic possessing more than all their vices and totally lacking the least of their humble virtues the longer one studies these curious lowly folk of london the greater is the wonder that they have not proven a more fruitful subject for the novelist or at least for such masters of character painting as thackeray reade and dickens they have always been utilized as the butt of quips and quirks by the penny a liner the wits of punch the newspaper parag raphers and in in a low sort ot of way to raise the loudest fondon guffaws at the myriad music halls of london but not until quite recently has their character been seriously studied by a man of real genius or their weaknesses virtues and traits appealing to universal human recognition been portrayed by a man of subtle perception aad pd ardent sympathies that man is is albert chevalier of french welsh welsa and irish extraction he was wap desti destined next by his parents for the priesthood but instead he became a successful actor of the legitimate comedy c m under the Ban crofts the kendale genoa is and later at the court theatre under manager hare in time he found himself a popular leading comedian without an engagement offers bame to him for engagements in burlesque as sec nd co comedian this was going backward back ward 1 something EI London actor cannot afford 1 to do some of his work in comedy had brought him among the co stermon for character study and he kemem re M emers sers gored ered that any song he bad sung in his hi i various characters bearing on these droll tolk had been received with peculiar favor he suddenly resolved to turn music hall singer a resolution which abich carried out in in london ordinarily means complete social ostracism but from this time this determination was reached chevalier must be considered in in the lighton light of poet composer comp osor and singer re he continued con his bis coster studies with a 4 positive genius a splendid education and a successful actors alert perception of what is necessary as with the painter to to not only reveal by true rue realism but but tor ta reveal A yeal in the subtler power of suggestion behind them and the result was that tha since his first singing of the costers serenade at the london pavilion in february 1891 he has held the extraordinary position of being the only performer upon any stage so unique in his line of rendition and so masterful in his artistic skill as to prevent the slightest attempt at rivalry he is but thirty years ot of age yet his income from his nightly nightly performances at four leading london lon on music halls and from royalties on oh his songs is from boo to 1000 per week nearly equaling the salary ol of the president of the united states and all this from merely discovering the costermongers of london and revealing them to the people of london it has been done in in a way to reach their hearts as well as their sense of humor lastingly as is shown in the fact that his present engagements are permanent for a period of five years he is a quiet studious fellow and while his incomparable success has opened to him the doors of the great and n oble noble houses in london where his g genuine enuine scholarship and refinement would render him a social acquisition without the glamour of success he leads a modest life in his own pretty home alongside the thames almost under the shadow of windsor castle where his books his punt and fishing rod are his chief companions this much regarding the mans personality to convey to others who are unacquainted with costermongers themselves the peculiar conditions of london life and society which make it possible for a man to derive a princely income from creating and interpreting for chevalier is more than a mere singer upon the stage two or three coster songs each year is a difficult task london is almost a great world in itself its costers distinctive in character vocation speech traits habits and customs had previously remained an almost unknown people to what may be regarded as intellectual london if charles dickens yere were living and had written a great work of fiction in which coster life and love had been delineated so powerfully bower fully that all al lagndon stood amazed at its own ignorance of its own lowly the coster man and woman could not have been more firmly set upon the pedestals ot of sentiment thap thao chevalier has placed them through his strong flah fla h lights and bold broad strokes of delineation in character representation and song he has brought to almost universal attention the mirthful and serious sides of coster character he has shown that there are coster comedy and tragedy like that possible to your boin life and mine in ofie one after another 0 of his marvelous marve luus song impersonations like tha the costers serenade the costers courtship the future ears mrs awkins wot botcher cher I 1 the nasty way waye ae aez it and our little nipper he has brought the very heart throb bings ol of this uncouth class often through pathetic tenderness so close to those of his hearers that the great london public from prentice boy to prince have awakened awake tied to the fact that costers are actually human creatures possessing I 1 at least some of the common attributes of human humankind krna that there coster really made love to each other that they were rude romeos and judiets among them and such hints as these abis aa aire given orth of iha gentle tile passion between pearl buttoned I 1 ye jackels jackeys ac k ays eys and their donaha do 1 you aint forgotten yet that night in may down at the welsh arp w ich is endon way you fancied winkles an a pot 0 tea four Fou ralf alf I 1 murmured s good enough for me give me a word of ope that I 1 may win you prods me gently with ther the winkle pin we was as appy as could be that day down at the Wel welsh shArp arp vich is endon way wot cher is an inimitable delineation of the coster in his roistering roy hilarious mood the nasty waye way E aez it 1 I which has been pirated and put to ignoble use in america though told in the uncouth coster way of a sneering faultfinding faultfinding pal is a most wonderful satire on that omnipresent class of croakers who descend like harpies upon all well earned comfort and content his latest creation our little nipper discloses discloser the coster parental love ir for and pride in the coster boy who is assiduously taught by his radiant father not in books of course for them e cant abide but in artful little ikels little ways As makes the people sit up vere we stays chevaliers Chev aliers influence has been health lul jul and good while as in london parlance coster stock is looking up there is decidedly less of imitated cockneyism and coster slang among the lowly and less everyday every day buffoonery among the cockney cadson aads cads of london defining and revealing costers as a class have brought them into line for social and literary contemplation this of itself gradually tends to confine imitators to a very low class of minds whose influence upon manners and speech is without weight and delineators to a very high order of intellect as with chevalier with painters and with novelists who will do the coster no harm and who i will mist the publics eye or touch the publics heart in a way that alwa always y s makes it better for a thrill of mirth or sad sadness chevaliers Chev aliers coster dialect is admirably clean too clean to be the real thing but he uses enough of their original expressions to place the real coster before his great audiences from having lived and toiled among them my notebooks note books are full of their curious forms of speech they cannot be reproduced in print owing to their terrible profanity and awful commingling com mingling of obscenity leit must be remembered that the coster is absolutely unconscious of either and would instantly put up his fivers bivers to any one who would seriously intimate that he was not scrupulously respectful and polite they are all men and women wonderful whistlers and they have an odd sort of call and answer a monotone accentuated thus tata ta ta ta tala taa ta la a tata taa ta ta a ta ta ta a tata taa ta ta a in their greetings they are most effusive EDGAR L WAKEMAN |