University of Virginia Library

OF THE CAUSES WHICH HAVE MADE THE
IRISH TURN CONTERMONGERS.

Notwithstanding the prejudices of the Eng-
lish costers, I am of opinion that the Irishmen
and women who have become costermongers,
belong to a better class than the Irish labourers.
The Irishman may readily adapt himself, in a
strange place, to labour, though not to trade;
but these costers are — or the majority at least
are — poor persevering traders enough.

The most intelligent and prosperous of the
street-Irish are those who have "risen" — for so
I heard it expressed — "into regular costers."
The untaught Irishmen's capabilities, as I have
before remarked, with all his powers of speech
and quickness of apprehension, are far less fitted
for "buying in the cheapest market and selling
in the dearest" than for mere physical em-
ployment. Hence those who take to street-
trading for a living seldom prosper in it, and
three-fourths of the street-Irish confine their
dealings to such articles as are easy of sale, like
apples, nuts, or oranges, for they are rarely
masters of purchasing to advantage, and seem to
know little about tale or measure, beyond the
most familiar quantities. Compared with an
acute costermonger, the mere apple-seller is but
as the labourer to the artizan.

One of the principal causes why the Irish
costermongers have increased so extensively of
late years, is to be found in the fact that the
labouring classes, (and of them chiefly the class
employed in the culture of land,) have been
driven over from "the sister Isle" more thickly
for the last four or five years than formerly.
Several circumstances have conspired to effect
this. — First, they were driven over by the famine,
when they could not procure, or began to fear
that soon they could not procure, food to eat.
Secondly, they were forced to take refuge in
this country by the evictions, when their land-
lords had left them no roof to shelter them in
their own. (The shifts, the devices, the plans,
to which numbers of these poor creatures had
recourse, to raise the means of quitting Ireland
for England — or for anywhere — will present a
very remarkable chapter at some future period.)
Thirdly, though the better class of small
farmers who have emigrated from Ireland, in
hopes of "bettering themselves," have mostly
sought the shores of North America, still some
who have reached this country have at last
settled into street-sellers. And, fourthly, many
who have come over here only for the
harvest have been either induced or compelled
to stay.

Another main cause is, that the Irish, as
labourers, can seldom obtain work all the year
through, and thus the ranks of the Irish street-
sellers are recruited every winter by the slack-
ness of certain periodic trades in which they
are largely employed — such as hodmen, dock-
work, excavating, and the like. They are,
therefore, driven by want of employment to the
winter sale of oranges and nuts. These cir-
cumstances have a doubly malefic effect, as
the increase of costers accrues in the winter
months, and there are consequently the most
sellers when there are the fewest buyers.

Moreover, the cessation of work in the con-
struction of railways, compared with the abund-
ance of employment which attracted so many
to this country during the railway mania,
has been another fertile cause of there being so
many Irish in the London streets.

The prevalence of Irish women and children
among street-sellers is easily accounted for —
they are, as I said before, unable to do anything
else to eke out the means of their husbands
or parents. A needle is as useless in their
fingers as a pen.

Bitterly as many of these people suffer in
this country, grievous and often eloquent as are
their statements, I met with none who did not
manifest repugnance at the suggestion of a
return to Ireland. If asked why they objected
to return, the response was usually in the form of
a question: "Shure thin, sir, and what good
could I do there?" Neither can say that I
heard any of these people express any love for
their country, though they often spoke with
great affection of their friends.

From an Irish costermonger, a middle-aged
man, with a physiognomy best known as "Irish,"
and dressed in corduroy trousers, with a loose
great-coat, far too big for him, buttoned about
him, I had the following statement:

"I had a bit o' land, yer honor, in County
Limerick. Well, it wasn't just a farrum, nor
what ye would call a garden here, but my father
lived and died on it — glory be to God! — and
brought up me and my sister on it. It was
about an acre, and the taties was well known
to be good. But the sore times came, and the
taties was afflicted, and the wife and me — I
have no childer — hadn't a bite nor a sup, but
wather to live on, and an igg or two. I filt the
famine a-comin'. I saw people a-feedin' on the
wild green things, and as I had not such a bad
take, I got Mr. — (he was the head master's
agent) to give me 28s. for possission in quiet-
ness, and I sould some poulthry I had — their
iggs was a blessin' to keep the life in us — I
sould them in Limerick for 3s. 3d. — the poor
things — four of them. The furnithur' I sould to
the nabors, for somehow about 6s. Its the thruth
I'm ay-tellin' of you, sir, and there's 2s. owin'
of it still, and will be a perpitual loss. The wife
and me walked to Dublin, though we had betther
have gone by the `long say,' but I didn't under-

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stand it thin, and we got to Liverpool. Then
sorrow's the taste of worruk could I git, beyant
oncte 3s. for two days harrud porthering, that
broke my back half in two. I was tould I'd
do betther in London, and so, glory be to God!
I have — perhaps I have. I knew Mr. — , he
porthers at Covent-garden, and I made him out,
and hilped him in any long distance of a job.
As I'd been used to farrumin' I thought it good
raison I should be a costermonger, as they call
it here. I can read and write too. And some
good Christian — the heavens light him to glory
when he's gone! — I don't know who he was —
advanced me 10s. — or he gave it me, so to spake,
through Father — ," (a Roman Catholic
priest.)" We earrun what keeps the life in us. I
don't go to markit, but buy of a fair dealin' man
— so I count him — though he's harrud sometimes.
I can't till how many Irishmen is in the thrade.
There's many has been brought down to it by
the famin' and the changes. I don't go much
among the English street-dalers. They talk like
haythens. I never miss mass on a Sunday, and
they don't know what the blissed mass manes.
I'm almost glad I have no childer, to see how
they're raired here. Indeed, sir, they're not
raired at all — they run wild. They haven't the
fear of God or the saints. They'd hang a praste
— glory be to God! they would."