University of Virginia Library

OF THE COSTERMONGERS IN BAD WEATHER
AND DURING THE CHOLERA.

"Three wet days," I was told by a clergy-
man, who is now engaged in selling stenographic
cards in the streets, "will bring the greater part
of 30,000 street-people to the brink of starva-
tion." This statement, terrible as it is, is not
exaggerated. The average number of wet days
every year in London is, according to the records
of the Royal Society, 161 — that is to say, rain
falls in the metropolis more than three days in
each week, and very nearly every other day
throughout the year. How precarious a means
of living then must street-selling be!

When a costermonger cannot pursue his out-
door labour, he leaves it to the women and
children to "work the public-houses," while
he spends his time in the beer-shop. Here he
gambles away his stock-money oft enough, "if
the cards or the luck runs again him;" or
else he has to dip into his stock-money to
support himself and his family. He must
then borrow fresh capital at any rate of interest
to begin again, and he begins on a small scale.
If it be in the cheap and busy seasons, he may
buy a pad of soles for 2s. 6d., and clear 5s. on
them, and that "sets him a-going again, and
then he gets his silk handkerchief out of pawn,
and goes as usual to market."

The sufferings of the costermongers during
the prevalence of the cholera in 1849, were in-
tense. Their customers generally relinquished
the consumption of potatoes, greens, fruit, and
fish; indeed, of almost every article on the con-
sumption of which the costermongers depend
for his daily bread. Many were driven to
apply to the parish; "many had relief and
many hadn't," I was told. Two young men,
within the knowledge of one of my informants,
became professional thieves, after enduring
much destitution. It does not appear that the
costermongers manifested any personal dread of
the visitation of the cholera, or thought that
their lives were imperilled: "We weren't a bit
afraid," said one of them, "and, perhaps, that

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was the reason so few costers died of the cholera.
I knew them all in Lambeth, I think, and I
knew only one die of it, and he drank hard.
Poor Waxy! he was a good fellow enough, and
was well known in the Cut. But it was a ter-
rible time for us, sir. It seems to me now like
a shocking dream. Fish I could'nt sell a bit
of; the people had a perfect dread of it — all
but the poor Irish, and there was no making a
crust out of them. They had no dread of fish,
however; indeed, they reckon it a religious sort
of living, living on fish, — but they will have
it dirt cheap. We were in terrible distress all
that time."