Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1893-06-29

LONDON, June 12--During the some
what extended period in which |
actually lived the daily life of coster-
monger in London, many interesting
observations and experiences, aside
from those connected with the immedi.
ate concerns of buying and hawking
vegetables, fish, flesh and fowl, were
naturally resultant from my association
with "Slumpsy Jem," the coStcr, and
his wife Becky, and what may be re-
garded as the aristocratic cosLer society,
to which our signal financial success
speedily gave us admittance.
1t may not have been an original dis.
covery on my part, but was s6cn CON
WINGED of the correctness of curious
series of surmises growing out of much
previous observation and study of the
habits, manners and speech of London
folk in general; q conclusion which
seems worthy of extended discussion by
Others more able to make exact and
authoritative comparison. This was, in
brief, that the generic things We call
''cockneyisms," in speech anG manners,
really have their origin chiefly among
London costermongers.
II is exceedingly difficult to make
this clear to those who have not lived
in London and also in large cities of
other countries, long enough to have
caught that exceedingly winsomG fea.
ture of all great, old and compact com
munities which for better name, may
he called "local color Observation
will nearly always disclose it to largely
consist of the retleNive influence upon
higher classes from unique or outiandish
lower classes, that genial diablere and
Humorous or tragic realism of the lOwly
almost instantly transformed into the
wit, humor, repartce and slang of
those above them; until, in degree, habit
Ecf speech, form of the communer COLI
loquial expressions and even distinctive
n,annerisms, become fixed and charac-
teristic with and upon that grade Of folk
closest in mind, feeling and vocation to
the characterful lowly people whom
they have consciously or unconsciouSly
initiated.
Thus | have heard in noted Paris
salons the common jibes of the canaillc
and the boulevardieres, from lips quite
unconscious of their origin; in American
clubs and drawing-rooms, countless
cant and patter expressions already long
previously discarded in New Works
Bowery slums, where they first took
form; in the finest Edinburgh homes
the wise, curt and droll sayings of New.
haJan fish-wives and the deniZens of
CGwgate and Grassmarllet; and from
London concert-hals, up through Lon
don clubs, past English castles and
noblemen's city homes, to the floor of
the parliament itself, the latest epithet
and newest catch phrase Of London
costermongers, coined by my custer
friends in moments of "four.ale" inspl-
ration at free smoking-room concerts, at
"penny-gatfs,' or in valiant blackguard-
ing battles with Covent Garden porters
and the glib-tongued "mobbersn or fish
carriers Of ancient and odorous Billings
gate.
AS to "cockney" London folk high
and low, clear and distinct lines may be
drawn. The coster is the typical, indeed
the genuine, cockney. His vernacular,
which is so outlandish that one has to
have long acquaintance with it to under
stand it at ALL is not slang, because it is
his original and unaffected mode of ex.
preston. His swagger, his unctuous
oaths, his terrible obiurgations, his i'm
pulsive generosity, his reckless gambling,
his fondness for pets, his rowing WAYS
within the great city, his grotcsque ap-
parel, his aversion to a fixed habitation
his suspicion of anything savOrng OF
religion, his uncunquerable Agnusticism,
his self-reliance, his fatalism, his fond
ness for his kind and kin and vet his
seeming brutality in all domestic rela,
tons, his hardness and his tenderness,
and his almost stern and Spartan loyalty
to his friends, his race and his traditions,
are all inexplicableand tantailing to one
studying his character little or long; but
they are absolutely and inviolably his
own. There is not AN iota of pretrnse,
hypocrisy or affectaton about linn.
Because of this, millions of London
lowly next him in the social scale, have
in from 400 to 800 years time been I'M,
conscious imitators of much Of his
speech, some of his manners, a good
deal of his swaggcr and buster, and not
q little Of his hardness and brutality.
All these latter folk are often genercaliy
regarded as "cockneys. But thetr
cockneyism is assumed, copied, unreal
Consequently it is as offensive 10 the
intelligent Englishman, who often err.
in installing it for the genuine article
exclusively possessed by the costcr
mongers, as it is To the WONDERING
American, who knows nothing whatever
about its origin.
There is another class Of folk in Lon.
don and throughout England immeasur
ably less in number and real importance
but ineXprcssibly more Omniprcsentun
offensive, who masquerade Us COCK
neys" and who, more than all others
bring the true CO. tor coCkney into per
manent disrcputc. They arc 4 ,ort D
chrome cockneys when the geuuin,
Turneresque reds and solemn Mile
grays Of the true coclluey coster ar
brought into analytic comparison. The,
comprise Il mixed and murramed multi
tude Of London mcn-a6out-towii
answering somewhat to the dude Ch9lp
Nobblers Of AmeriCa-y0ungn oblomnl
and other choice arist0Crats who "gJ n
for long and a strong pun, y know
To these are added few fash journal
lists, / am sorry to say, fellows who an
on the outskirts of even the lowest o
London Bohemias; not many actors, Is
London actors are almost iuyurulbll
London gentlemen; some huugers-on .
clubs; all pugilists, sprjuturs horsemen
jockeys and professional sporting mel
generally; thousands Of music-haIl per
formers and the other thousands o
Tommy Rcts' gulped out Of the fire.
smoking room concerts Of tae publ
houses, who are found every Munda
morning az their weekly " Poverty JUNO
tion" symposium at the corner u Iur
and Waterloo Roads; itll lgus Of thUu
sands more Of LOudun clerks una an
prentices--va guOus and yalu-lori0,
"ctmon IappCrtits titled with a lin
frenzy and mock herotcs THAI they ma
ever bear the, 70 them, true Brni,
lf