University of Virginia Library

OF THE "SLANG" WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.

All counterfeit weights and measures, the
costermongers call by the appropriate name of
"slang." "There are not half so many
slangs as there was eighteen months ago,"
said a `general dealer' to me. "You see,
sir, the letters in the Morning Chronicle set
people a talking, and some altered their way of
business. Some was very angry at what was
said in the articles on the street-sellers, and
swore that costers was gentlemen, and that
they'd smash the men's noses that had told
you, sir, if they knew who they were. There's
plenty of costers wouldn't use slangs at all, if
people would give a fair price; but you see
the boys will try it on for their bunts, and how
is a man to sell fine cherries at 4d. a pound
that cost him 3½d., when there's a kid along-
side of him a selling his `tol' at 2d. a pound, and
singing it out as bold as brass? So the men
slangs it, and cries `2d. a pound,' and gives
half-pound, as the boy does; which brings it to
the same thing. We doesn't 'dulterate our
goods like the tradesmen — that is, the regular
hands doesn't. It wouldn't be easy, as you say,
to 'dulterate cabbages or oysters; but we deals
fair to all that's fair to us, — and that's more
than many a tradesman does, for all their
juries."

The slang quart is a pint and a half. It is
made precisely like the proper quart; and the
maker, I was told, "knows well enough what it's
for, as it's charged, new, 6d. more than a true
quart measure; but it's nothing to him, as he
says, what it's for, so long as he gets his price."
The slang quart is let out at 2d. a day — 1d. extra
being charged "for the risk." The slang pint
holds in some cases three-fourths of the just
quantity, having a very thick bottom; others
hold only half a pint, having a false bottom
half-way up. These are used chiefly in mea-
suring nuts, of which the proper quantity is
hardly ever given to the purchaser; "but, then,"
it was often said, or implied to me, the "price is
all the lower, and people just brings it on them-
selves, by wanting things for next to nothing;
so it's all right; it's people's own faults." The
hire of the slang pint is 2d. per day.

The scales used are almost all true, but the
weights are often beaten out flat to look large,
and are 4, 5, 6, or even 7 oz. deficient in a pound,
and in the same relative proportion with other
weights. The charge is 2d., 3d., and 4d. a day
for a pair of scales and a set of slang weights.

The wooden measures — such as pecks, half
pecks, and quarter pecks — are not let out slang,
but the bottoms are taken out by the costers, and
put in again half an inch or so higher up. "I
call this," said a humorous dealer to me, "slop-
work, or the cutting-system."

One candid costermonger expressed his per-
fect contempt of slangs, as fit only for bunglers,
as he could always "work slang" with a true

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measure. "Why, I can cheat any man," he
said. "I can manage to measure mussels so
as you'd think you got a lot over, but there's
a lot under measure, for I holds them up with
my fingers and keep crying, `Mussels! full
measure, live mussels!' I can do the same
with peas. I delight to do it with stingy aris-
tocrats. We don't work slang in the City.
People know what they're a buying on there.
There's plenty of us would pay for an inspector
of weights; I would. We might do fair with-
out an inspector, and make as much if we only
agreed one with another."

In conclusion, it is but just I should add that
there seems to be a strong disposition on the
part of the more enlightened of the class to
adopt the use of fair weights and measures; and
that even among the less scrupulous portion of
the body, short allowance seems to be given
chiefly from a desire to be even with a "scaly
customer." The coster makes it a rule never
to refuse an offer, and if people will give him
less than what he considers his proper price,
why — he gives them less than their proper quan-
tity. As a proof of the growing honesty among
this class, many of the better disposed have re-
cently formed themselves into a society, the
members of which are (one and all) pledged not
only to deal fairly with their customers, but to
compel all other street-sellers to do the same.
With a view of distinguishing themselves to the
public, they have come to the resolution of wear-
ing a medal, on which shall be engraved a par-
ticular number, so that should any imposition
be practised by any of their body, the public
will have the opportunity of complaining to the
Committee of the Association, and having the
individual (if guilty) immediately expelled from
the society.