University of Virginia Library

THE LIFE OF A COSTER GIRL.

I wished to have obtained a statement from
the girl whose portrait is here given, but she
was afraid to give the slightest information
about the habits of her companions, lest they
should recognize her by the engraving and per-
secute her for the revelations she might make.
After disappointing me some dozen times, I was
forced to seek out some other coster girl.

The one I fixed upon was a fine-grown young
woman of eighteen. She had a habit of curtsying
to every question that was put to her. Her plaid
shawl was tied over the breast, and her cotton-
velvet bonnet was crushed in with carrying her
basket. She seemed dreadfully puzzled where
to put her hands, at one time tucking them
under her shawl, warming them at the fire, or
measuring the length of her apron, and when
she answered a question she invariably addressed
the fireplace. Her voice was husky from shout-
ing apples.

"My mother has been in the streets selling all
her lifetime. Her uncle learnt her the markets
and she learnt me. When business grew bad
she said to me, `Now you shall take care on the
stall, and I'll go and work out charing.' The
way she learnt me the markets was to judge of
the weight of the baskets of apples, and then
said she, `Always bate 'em down, a'most a
half.' I always liked the street-life very well,
that was if I was selling. I have mostly kept a
stall myself, but I've known gals as walk about
with apples, as have told me that the weight of
the baskets is sich that the neck cricks, and
when the load is took off, its just as if you'd a
stiff neck, and the head feels as light as a
feather. The gals begins working very carly at
our work; the parents makes them go out when
a'most babies. There's a little gal, I'm sure
she an't more than half-past seven, that stands
selling water-cresses next my stall, and mother
was saying, `Only look there, how that little
one has to get her living afore she a'most knows
what a penn'orth means.'

"There's six on us in family, and father and
mother makes eight. Father used to do odd jobs
with the gas-pipes in the streets, and when
work was slack we had very hard times of it.
Mother always liked being with us at home,
and used to manage to keep us employed out of
mischief — she'd give us an old gown to make
into pinafores for the children and such like!
She's been very good to us, has mother, and
so's father. She always liked to hear us read
to her whilst she was washing or such like! and
then we big ones had to learn the little ones.
But when father's work got slack, if she had no
employment charing, she'd say, `Now I'll go
and buy a bushel of apples,' and then she'd
turn out and get a penny that way. I suppose
by sitting at the stall from nine in the morning
till the shops shuts up — say ten o'clock at night,
I can earn about 1s. 6d. a day. It's all according
to the apples — whether they're good or not —
what we makes. If I'm unlucky, mother will
say, `Well, I'll go out to-morrow and see what
I can do;' and if I've done well, she'll say `Come
you're a good hand at it; you've done famous.'
Yes, mother's very fair that way. Ah! there's
many a gal I knows whose back has to suffer
if she don't sell her stock well; but, thank God!
I never get more than a blowing up. My
parents is very fair to me.

"I dare say there ain't ten out of a hundred
gals what's living with men, what's been married
Church of England fashion. I know plenty
myself, but I don't, indeed, think it right. It
seems to me that the gals is fools to be 'ticed
away, but, in coorse, they needn't go without
they likes. This is why I don't think it's right.
Perhaps a man will have a few words with his
gal, and he'll say, `Oh! I ain't obligated to keep
her!' and he'll turn her out: and then where's
that poor gal to go? Now, there's a gal I knows
as came to me no later than this here week, and
she had a dreadful swole face and a awful black
eye; and I says, `Who's done that?' and she says,
says she, `Why, Jack' — just in that way; and then
she says, says she, `I'm going to take a warrant
out to-morrow.' Well, he gets the warrant that
same night, but she never appears again him, for
fear of getting more beating. That don't seem to
me to be like married people ought to be. Be-
sides, if parties is married, they ought to bend to
each other; and they won't, for sartain, if they're
only living together. A man as is married is
obligated to keep his wife if they quarrels or not;
and he says to himself, says he, `Well, I may
as well live happy, like.' But if he can turn a
poor gal off, as soon as he tires of her, he begins
to have noises with her, and then gets quit of
her altogether. Again, the men takes the money
of the gals, and in coorse ought to treat 'em well
— which they don't. This is another reason: when
the gal is in the family way, the lads mostly
sends them to the workhouse to lay in, and only
goes sometimes to take them a bit of tea and
shuggar; but, in coorse, married men wouldn't
behave in such likes to their poor wives. After
a quarrel, too, a lad goes and takes up with
another young gal, and that isn't pleasant for
the first one. The first step to ruin is them
places of `penny gaffs,' for they hears things
there as oughtn't to be said to young gals.
Besides, the lads is very insinivating, and after
leaving them places will give a gal a drop of
beer, and make her half tipsy, and then they
makes their arrangements. I've often heerd
the boys boasting of having ruined gals, for all
the world as if they was the first noblemen in
the land.

"It would be a good thing if these sort of
goings on could be stopped. It's half the pa-

[Description: 915EAF. Page 046.]

rents' fault; for if a gal can't get a living, they
turns her out into the streets, and then what's to
become of her? I'm sure the gals, if they was
married, would be happier, because they couldn't
be beat worse. And if they was married, they'd
get a nice home about 'em; whereas, if they's
only living together, they takes a furnished room.
I'm sure, too, that it's a bad plan; for I've
heerd the gals themselves say, `Ah! I wish I'd
never seed Jack' (or Tom, or whatever it is);
`I'm sure I'd never be half so bad but for
him.'

"Only last night father was talking about
religion. We often talks about religion. Father
has told me that God made the world, and I've
heerd him talk about the first man and woman
as was made and lived — it must be more than a
hundred years ago — but I don't like to speak
on what I don't know. Father, too, has told
me about our Saviour what was nailed on a cross
to suffer for such poor people as we is. Father
has told us, too, about his giving a great many
poor people a penny loaf and a bit of fish each,
which proves him to have been a very kind gen-
tleman. The Ten Commandments was made by
him, I've heerd say, and he performed them too
among other miracles. Yes! this is part of
what our Saviour tells us. We are to forgive
everybody, and do nobody no injury. I don't
think I could forgive an enemy if she injured
me very much; I'm sure I don't know why
I couldn't, unless it is that I'm poor, and never
learnt to do it. If a gal stole my shawl and
didn't return it back or give me the value on it,
I couldn't forgive her; but if she told me she
lost it off her back, I shouldn't be so hard on
her. We poor gals ain't very religious, but
we are better than the men. We all of us
thanks God for everything — even for a fine day;
as for sprats, we always says they're God's bles-
sing for the poor, and thinks it hard of the
Lord Mayor not to let 'em come in afore the
ninth of November, just because he wants to
dine off them — which he always do. Yes, we
knows for certain that they eats plenty of
sprats at the Lord Mayor's `blanket.' They
say in the Bible that the world was made in six
days: the beasts, the birds, the fish, and all —
and sprats was among them in coorse. There
was only one house at that time as was made,
and that was the Ark for Adam and Eve and
their family. It seems very wonderful indeed
how all this world was done so quick. I should
have thought that England alone would have
took double the time; shouldn't you, sir? But
then it says in the Bible, God Almighty's a just
and true God, and in coorse time would be nothing
to him. When a good person is dying, we says,
`The Lord has called upon him, and he must
go,' but I can't think what it means, unless
it is that an angel comes — like when we're
a-dreaming — and tells the party he's wanted in
heaven. I know where heaven is; it's above
the clouds, and they're placed there to prevent
us seeing into it. That's where all the good people
go, but I'm afeerd," — she continued solemnly —
"there's very few costers among the angels —
'specially those as deceives poor gals.

"No, I don't think this world could well go
on for ever. There's a great deal of ground in
it, certainly, and it seems very strong at present;
but they say there's to be a flood on the earth,
and earthquakes, and that will destroy it. The
earthquake ought to have took place some time
ago, as people tells me, but I never heerd any
more about it. If we cheats in the streets, I
know we shan't go to Heaven; but it's very
hard upon us, for if we didn't cheat we couldn't
live, profits is so bad. It's the same with the
shops, and I suppose the young men there won't
go to Heaven neither; but if people won't give
the money, both costers and tradesmen must
cheat, and that's very hard. Why, look at
apples! customers want them for less than
they cost us, and so we are forced to shove in
bad ones as well as good ones; and if we're to
suffer for that, it does seem to me dreadful
cruel."

Curious and extravagant as this statement
may perhaps appear to the uninitiated, never-
theless it is here given as it was spoken; and it
was spoken with an earnestness that proved the
poor girl looked upon it as a subject, the solem-
nity of which forced her to be truthful.