London Labour and the London Poor: Selection (Classics)

by Henry Mayhew

  The story of one coster-girl’s life may be taken as a type of the many. When quite young she is placed out to nurse with some neighbour, the mother – if a fond one – visiting the child at certain periods of the day, for the purpose of feeding it, or sometimes, knowing the round she has to make, having the infant brought to her at certain places, to be ‘suckled’. As soon as it is old enough to go alone, the court is its play-ground, the gutter its school-room, and under the care of an elder sister the little one passes the day, among children whose mothers like her own are too busy out in the streets helping to get the food, to be able to mind the family at home. When the girl is strong enough, she in her turn is made to assist the mother by keeping guard over the younger children, or, if there be none, she is lent out to carry about a baby, and so made to add to the family income by gaining her sixpence weekly. Her time is from the earliest years fully occupied; indeed, her parents cannot afford to keep her without doing and getting something. Very few of the children receive the least education. ‘The parents,’ I am told, ‘never give their minds to learning, for they say, “What’s the use of it? that won’t yarn a gal a living.”’ Everything is sacrificed – as, indeed, under the circumstances it must be – in the struggle to live – aye! and to live merely. Mind, heart, soul, are all absorbed in the belly. The rudest form of animal life, physiologists tell us, is simply a locomotive stomach. Verily, it would appear as if our social state had a tendency to make the highest animal sink into the lowest.

  At about seven years of age the girls first go into the streets to sell. A shallow-basket is given to them, with about two shillings for stock-money, and they hawk, according to the time of year, either oranges, apples, or violets; some begin their street education with the sale of water-cresses. The money earned by this means is strictly given to the parents. Sometimes – though rarely – a girl who has been unfortunate during the day will not dare to return home at night, and then she will sleep under some dry arch or about some market, until the morrow’s gains shall ensure her a safe reception and shelter in her father’s room.

  The life of the coster-girls is as severe as that of the boys. Between four and five in the morning they have to leave home for the markets, and sell in the streets until about nine. Those that have more kindly parents, return then to breakfast, but many are obliged to earn the morning’s meal for themselves. After breakfast, they generally remain in the streets until about ten o’clock at night; many having nothing during all that time but one meal of bread and butter and coffee, to enable them to support the fatigue of walking from street to street with the heavy basket on their heads. In the course of a day, some girls eat as much as a pound of bread, and very seldom get any meat, unless it be on a Sunday.

  There are many poor families that, without the aid of these girls, would be forced into the workhouse. They are generally of an affectionate disposition, and some will perform acts of marvellous heroism to keep together the little home. It is not at all unusual for mere children of fifteen to walk their eight or ten miles a day, carrying a basket of nearly two hundred weight on their heads. A journey to Woolwich and back, or to the towns near London, is often undertaken to earn the 1s. 6d. their parents are anxiously waiting for at home.

  Very few of these girls are married to the men they afterwards live with. Their courtship is usually a very short one; for, as one told me, ‘the life is such a hard one, that a girl is ready to get rid of a little of the labour at any price.’ The coster-lads see the girls at market, and if one of them be pretty, and a boy take a fancy to her, he will make her bargains for her, and carry her basket home. Sometimes a coster working his rounds will feel a liking for a wench selling her goods in the street, and will leave his barrow to go and talk with her. A girl seldom takes up with a lad before she is sixteen, though some of them, when barely fifteen or even fourteen, will pair off. They court for a time, going to raffles and ‘gaffs’ together, and then the affair is arranged. The girl tells her parents ‘she’s going to keep company with so-and-so’, packs up what things she has, and goes at once, without a word of remonstrance from either father or mother. A furnished room, at about 4s. a week, is taken, and the young couple begin life. The lad goes out as usual with his barrow, and the girl goes out with her basket, often working harder for her lover than she had done for her parents. They go to market together, and at about nine o’clock her day’s selling begins. Very often she will take out with her in the morning what food she requires during the day, and never return home until eleven o’clock at night.

  The men generally behave very cruelly to the girls they live with. They are as faithful to them as if they were married, but they are jealous in the extreme. To see a man talking to their girl is sufficient to ensure the poor thing a beating. They sometimes ill-treat them horribly – most unmercifully indeed – nevertheless the girls say they cannot help loving them still, and continue working for them, as if they experienced only kindness at their hands. Some of the men are gentler and more considerate in their treatment of them, but by far the larger portion are harsh and merciless. Often when the Saturday night’s earnings of the two have been large, the man will take the entire money, and as soon as the Sunday’s dinner is over, commence drinking hard, and continue drunk for two or three days together, until the funds are entirely exhausted. The women never gamble; they say, ‘it gives them no excitement.’ They prefer, if they have a spare moment in the evening, sitting near the fire making up and patching their clothes. ‘Ah, sir,’ said a girl to me, ‘a neat gown does a deal with a man; he always likes a girl best when everybody else likes her too.’ On a Sunday they clean their room for the week and go for a treat, if they can persuade their young man to take them out in the afternoon, either to Chalk Farm or Battersea Fields – ‘where there’s plenty of life’.

  After a girl has once grown accustomed to a street-life, it is almost impossible to wean her from it. The muscular irritability begotten by continued wandering makes her unable to rest for any time in one place, and she soon, if put to any settled occupation, gets to crave for the severe exercise she formerly enjoyed. The least restraint will make her sigh after the perfect liberty of the coster’s ‘roving life’. As an instance of this I may relate a fact that has occurred within the last six months. A gentleman of high literary repute, struck with the heroic strugglings of a coster Irish girl to maintain her mother, took her to his house, with a view of teaching her the duties of a servant. At first the transition was a painful one to the poor thing. Having travelled barefoot through the streets since a mere child, the pressure of shoes was intolerable to her, and in the evening or whenever a few minutes’ rest could be obtained, the boots were taken off, for with them on she could enjoy no ease. The perfect change of life, and the novelty of being in a new place, reconciled her for some time to the loss of her liberty. But no sooner did she hear from her friends, that sprats were again in the market, than, as if there were some magical influence in the fish, she at once requested to be freed from the confinement, and permitted to return to her old calling.

  Such is the history of the lower class of girls, though this lower class, I regret to say, constitutes by far the greater portion of the whole. Still I would not for a moment have it inferred that all are bad. There are many young girls getting their living, or rather helping to get the living of others in the streets, whose goodness, considering the temptations and hardships besetting such an occupation, approximates to the marvellous. As a type of the more prudent class of coster-girls, I would cite the following narrative received from the lips of a young woman in answer to a series of questions.

  The Life of a Coster-girl

  [pp. 47–8] 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 persecute 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 curtseying 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 shouting 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 early 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. Besides, 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

  THE COSTER-GIRL.

  “Apples! An ’aypenny a lot, Apples !”

  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 doings on could be stopped. It’s half the parents’ 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 gentleman. 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 blessing 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 be dreadful cruel.’

  Curious and extravagant as this statement may perhaps appear to the uninitiated, nevertheless 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 solemnity of which forced her to be truthful.

  Of Costermongers and Thieves

  [p. 48] Concerning the connection of these two classes I had the following account from a costermonger: ‘I’ve known the coster trade for twelve years, and never knew thieves go out a costering as a cloak; they may have done so, but I very much doubt it. Thieves go for an idle life, and costermongering don’t suit them. Our chaps don’t care a d—n who they associate with – if they’re thieves they meet ’em all the same, or anything that way. But costers buy what they call “a gift” – may-be it’s a watch or coat wot’s been stolen – from any that has it to sell. A man will say: “If you’ve a few shillings, you may have a good thing of it. Why, this identical watch is only twenty shillings, and it’s worth fifty” so if the coster has money, he buys. Thieves will get 3d. where a mechanic or a coster will earn ½d., and the most ignorant of our people has a queer sort of respect for thieves, because of the money they make. Poverty’s as much despised among costers as among other people. People that’s badly off among us are called “cursed”. In bad weather it’s common for costers to “curse themselves”, as they call having no trade. “Well, I’m cursed,” they say when they can make no money. It’s a common thing among them to shout after any one they don’t like, that’s reduced, “Well, ain’t you cursed?”’ The costers, I am credibly informed, gamble a great deal with the wealthier class of thieves, and win of them the greater part of the money they get.