University of Virginia Library

OF THE VARIETIES OF STREET-FOLK IN
GENERAL, AND COSTERMONGERS IN PARTICULAR.

Among the street-folk there are many dis-
tinct characters of people — people differing as
widely from each in tastes, habits, thoughts
and creed, as one nation from another. Of
these the costermongers form by far the largest
and certainly the mostly broadly marked class.
They appear to be a distinct race — perhaps,
originally, of Irish extraction — seldom asso-
ciating with any other of the street-folks, and
being all known to each other. The "pat-
terers," or the men who cry the last dying-
speeches, &c. in the street, and those who help
off their wares by long harrangues in the public
thoroughfares, are again a separate class. These,
to use their own term, are "the aristocracy of
the street-sellers," despising the costers for

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their ignorance, and boasting that they live by
their intellect. The public, they say, do not
expect to receive from them an equivalent
for their money — they pay to hear them
talk. Compared with the costermongers,
the patterers are generally an educated class,
and among them are some classical scholars,
one clergyman, and many sons of gentlemen.
They appear to be the counterparts of the old
mountebanks or street-doctors. As a body
they seem far less improvable than the costers,
being more "knowing" and less impulsive. The
street-performers differ again from those; these
appear to possess many of the characteristics of
the lower class of actors, viz., a strong desire to
excite admiration, an indisposition to pursue
any settled occupation, a love of the tap-room,
though more for the society and display than
for the drink connected with it, a great fond-
ness for finery and predilection for the perform-
ance of dexterous or dangerous feats. Then
there are the street mechanics, or artizans —
quiet, melancholy, struggling men, who, unable
to find any regular employment at their own
trade, have made up a few things, and taken to
hawk them in the streets, as the last shift of
independence. Another distinct class of street-
folk are the blind people (mostly musicians in a
rude way), who, after the loss of their eyesight,
have sought to keep themselves from the work-
house by some little excuse for alms-seeking.
These, so far as my experience goes, appear to
be a far more deserving class than is usually
supposed — their affliction, in most cases, seems
to have chastened them and to have given a
peculiar religious cast to their thoughts.

Such are the several varieties of street-folk,
intellectually considered — looked at in a national
point of view, they likewise include many dis-
tinct people. Among them are to be found the
Irish fruit-sellers; the Jew clothesmen; the
Italian organ boys, French singing women,
the German brass bands, the Dutch buy-a-
broom girls, the Highland bagpipe players,
and the Indian crossing-sweepers — all of whom
I here shall treat of in due order.

The costermongering class or order has also
its many varieties. These appear to be in the
following proportions: — One-half of the entire
class are costermongers proper, that is to say,
the calling with them is hereditary, and perhaps
has been so for many generations; while the
other half is composed of three-eighths Irish,
and one-eighth mechanics, tradesmen, and Jews.

Under the term "costermonger" is here in-
cluded only such "street-sellers" as deal in fish,
fruit, and vegetables, purchasing their goods at
the wholesale "green" and fish markets. Of these
some carry on their business at the same sta-
tionary stall or standing" in the street, while
others go on "rounds." The itinerant coster-
mongers, as contradistinguished from the sta-
tionary street-fishmongers and greengrocers, have
in many instances regular rounds, which they go
daily, and which extend from two to ten miles.
The longest are those which embrace a suburban
part; the shortest are through streets thickly peo-
pled by the poor, where duly to "work" a single
street consumes, in some instances, an hour.
There are also "chance" rounds. Men "work-
ing" these carry their wares to any part in which
they hope to find customers. The costermongers,
moreover, diversify their labours by occasionally
going on a country round, travelling on these
excursions, in all directions, from thirty to ninety
and even a hundred miles from the metropolis.
Some, again, confine their callings chiefly to the
neighbouring races and fairs.

Of all the characteristics attending these di-
versities of traders, I shall treat severally.
I may here premise, that the regular or
"thorough-bred costermongers," repudiate the
numerous persons who sell only nuts or oranges
in the streets, whether at a fixed stall, or any
given locality, or who hawk them through the
thoroughfares or parks. They repudiate also
a number of Jews, who confine their street-
trading to the sale of "coker-nuts" on Sundays,
vended from large barrows. Nor do they rank
with themselves the individuals who sell tea and
coffee in the streets, or such condiments as
peas-soup, sweetmeats, spice-cakes, and the
like; those articles not being purchased at the
markets. I often heard all such classes called
"the illegitimates."