University of Virginia Library

OF THE REMOVALS OF COSTERMONGERS
FROM THE STREETS.

Such are the laws concerning street trading:
let us now see the effect of them.

Within these three months, or little more, there
have been many removals of the costermongers
from their customary standings in the streets.
This, as I have stated, is never done, unless the
shopkeepers represent to the police that the cos-
termongers are an injury and a nuisance to them
in the prosecution of their respective trades.
The costermongers, for the most part, know
nothing of the representation of the shopkeepers,
so that perhaps the first intimation that they
must "quit" comes from the policemen, who
thus incur the full odium of the measure, the
majority of the street people esteeming it a mere
arbitrary act on the part of the members of
the force.

The first removal, recently, took place in
Leather-lane, Holborn, between three and four
months back. It was effected in consequence
of representations from the shopkeepers of the
neighbourhood. But the removal was of a brief
continuance. "Leather-lane," I was told, "looked
like a desert compared to what it was. People
that had lived there for years hardly knew
their own street; and those that had com-
plained, might twiddle their thumbs in their
shops for want of something better to do."

The reason, or one reason, why the shop-
keepers' trade is co-existent with that of the
street-sellers was explained to me in this way

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by a tradesman perfectly familiar with the sub-
ject. "The poorer women, the wives of mecha-
nics or small tradesmen, who have to prepare
dinners for their husbands, like, as they call it,
`to make one errand do.' If the wife buys fish
or vegetables in the street, as is generally done,
she will, at the same time, buy her piece of
bacon or cheese at the cheesemonger's, her small
quantity of tea and sugar at the grocer's, her
fire-wood at the oilman's, or her pound of beef
or liver at the butcher's. In all the street-
markets there are plenty of such tradesmen,
supplying necessaries not vended in the streets,
and so one errand is sufficient to provide for the
wants of the family. Such customers — that is,
such as have been used to buy in the streets —
will not be driven to buy at the shops. They
can't be persuaded that they can buy as cheap
at the shops; and besides they are apt to think
shopkeepers are rich and street-sellers poor,
and that they may as well encourage the poor.
So if one street-market is abolished, they'll go
to another, or buy of the itinerant costermongers,
and they'll get their bits of groceries and the
like at the shops in the neighbourhood of the
other street-market, even if they have a walk for
it; and thus everybody's injured by removing
markets, except a few, and they are those at
the nearest markets that's not disturbed."

In Leather-lane the shopkeepers speedily
retrieved what many soon came to consider the
false step (as regards their interests) which they
had taken, and in a fortnight or so, they ma-
naged, by further representations to the police
authorities, and by agreement with the street-
sellers, that the street-market people should
return. In little more than a fortnight from
that time, Leather-lane, Holborn, resumed its
wonted busy aspect.

In Lambeth the case at present is different.
The men, women, and children, between two and
three months back, were all driven by the police
from their standings. These removals were made,
I am assured, in consequence of representations
to the police from the parishioners, not of Lam-
beth, but of the adjoining parish of Christchurch,
Blackfriars-road, who described the market as
an injury and a hindrance to their business. The
costermongers, etc., were consequently driven
from the spot.

A highly respectable tradesman in "the Cut"
told me, that he and all his brother shopkeepers
had found their receipts diminished a quar-
ter, or an eighth at least, by the removal;
and as in all populous neighbourhoods profits
were small, this falling off was a very serious
matter to them.

In "the Cut" and its immediate neighbour-
hood, are tradesmen who supply street-dealers
with the articles they trade in, — such as cheap
stationery, laces, children's shoes, braces, and
toys. They, of course, have been seriously affected
by the removal; but the pinch has fallen sorest
upon the street-sellers themselves. These people
depend a good deal one upon another, as they
make mutual purchases; now, as they have nei-
ther stalls nor means, such a source of profit is
abolished.

"It is hard on such as me," said a fruit-seller
to me, "to be driven away, for nothing that I've
done wrong as I knows of, and not let me make
a living, as I've been brought up to. I can't
get no work at any of the markets. I've tried
Billingsgate and the Borough hard, but there is
so many poor men trying for a crust, they're fit to
knock a new-comer's head off, though if they did,
it wouldn't be much matter. I had 9s. 6d. stock-
money, and I sold the apples and a few pears I
had for 3s. 9d., and that 13s. 3d. I've been spin-
ning out since I lost my pitch. But it's done
now, and I haven't had two meals a day for a
week and more — and them not to call meals —
only bread and coffee, or bread and a drink of
beer. I tried to get a round of customers, but
all the rounds was full, and I'm a very bad
walker, and a weak man too. My wife's gone to
try the country — I don't know where she is now.
I suppose I shall lose my lodging this week,
and then I must see what `the great house' will
say to me. Perhaps they'll give me nothing,
but take me in, and that's hard on a man as
don't want to be a pauper."

Another man told me that he now paid 3s. a week for privilege to stand with two stalls on
a space opposite the entrance into the National
Baths, New Cut; and that he and his wife, who
had stood for eleven years in the neighbourhood,
without a complaint against them, could hardly
get a crust.

One man, with a fruit-stall, assured me that
nine months ago he would not have taken 20l. for
his pitch, and now he was a "regular bankrupt."
I asked a girl, who stood beside the kerb with
her load in front strapped round her loins, whe-
ther her tray was heavy to carry. "After eight
hours at it," she answered, "it swaggers me, like
drink." The person whom I was with brought
to me two girls, who, he informed me, had been
forced to go upon the streets to gain a living.
Their stall on the Saturday night used to have
4l. worth of stock; but trade had grown so bad
since the New Police order, that after living on
their wares, they had taken to prostitution for a
living, rather than go to the "house." The
ground in front of the shops has been bought up
by the costermongers at any price. Many now
give the tradesmen six shillings a week for a
stand, and one man pays as much as eight for
the right of pitching in front.

The applications for parochial relief, in con-
sequence of these removals, have been fewer
than was anticipated. In Lambeth parish, how-
ever, about thirty families have been relieved, at
a cost of 50l. Strange to say, a quarter, or rather
more, of the very applicants for relief had been
furnished by the parish with money to start the
trade, their expulsion from which had driven
them to pauperism.

It consequently becomes a question for serious
consideration, whether any particular body of
householders should, for their own interest, con-
venience, or pleasure, have it in their power to

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deprive so many poor people of their only means
of livelihood, and so either force the rate-payers
to keep them as paupers, or else drive the women,
who object to the imprisonment of the Union, to
prostitution, and the men to theft — especially
when the very occupation which they are not
allowed to pursue, not only does no injury to
the neighbourhood, but is, on the contrary, the
means of attracting considerable custom to the
shops in the locality, and has, moreover, been
provided for them by the parish authorities as
a means of enabling them to get a living for
themselves.