The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-06-11
WANDERNCS.
Sketch Of Days and Nights Spent With
LORdOR'S Curious COSteTmORCeTS.

with Meat, Poultry and Fish.
"slumpsey Jem," the Coster, ana
Wife Beoky-Their vicissitudes and
Good Fortune-Ltfe Among the Lon
don Lowly.
Copyright
London, May 29-In that most unsavory
portion of London lying between Bethnal
Green, Bnlingsgato market and the Lon
don docks, have passed many strange
days and stranger nights among those
most curious and interesting folk known
as the London costermongers.
1t all came about in an accidental way
as most pleasant things are sure to hap
pen to the vagrant traveller who loiters
rather than rushes through old-world
scenes, and so cheap withal that when !
came to figure expenditure and found
that not SO had been required to
give me permanent status with the entire
fraternity, l felt some twingcs of con
science that my footing made so beggarly
a showing Two pounds ten were in
vested in coster's cart and donkey; e3
went to prevent domestic tragedy :l8 shil-
lings bought a second hand coster's bar
? ii
''pegging'' chaftinch; II shillings pence
took me to the derby as a coster in the
cOsters' annual parade; another x was
lost on the supposititiously unimpeach-
able Judgment of a cOster companion who
introduced me to several brilliant ''peg-
ging' contests in the Whitechapel dis
trictS; and the remaining tifteen-siX was
squandered without conjunction in cOster
tea parties, by the side of coster rat-pits,
~ p nc nd nf
tap roomS-all of which, as l have taken
the reader thus far into personal conf
dence, should be susceptible of rigid ex-
PLANTATION.
To begin with, that all this and these
London folk may be understood, there
must be something said about costers in
the abstract There are from $4,000 to
$4,000 of them in the great metropolis
They are the hawkers of fish, vegetables
and fruit It is not true as with us when
any one that hawks is a hawker that any
one who "cOSters' in London would be a
coster. The costers are q separate race
They are the only hawkers here They
are distinct, Characterful and integral
part of this great and ever wonderful
Babel Of London. 1t is known that they
have been precisely what they now are
for nearly 500 years.
The earliest record of London, coster-
mongers' criesis said TO be in Lydgate's
poem of London Lyckpenny'' in the time
of Henry v, about AIS years ago. Shakes
peare refers COntemptuOusly to these
costermonger times;n Ben johnson makes
his ''Nlorose' swoou if he hears a cOster-
monger's cry; and DR.. Johnson gives the
derivation of "cOstardmonger' as origi-
mating IN the street sale Of apples or cos
tards round and bulky like the head"
The result is that the costermongers of
the London of to-day form almost a little
realm Of their own, ever changing in con
fines yet changeless in character and an
tlquity; with o purCr strain of blood of
its kind, than half of the English nObili-
ty; and with ancient customs and tradi-
tions remaining memorable laws of guild
ance to themselves; all to a more marked
degree than is true of any equal number
OF people inany corner of Europe.
AT his daily labors the coster will have
on his head a small cloth cap well tn one
side, with the visor either pointed 70 the
sky or saving one side of his neck He
is never without his black or hashily
colored silk ''kingsman" or heavy, loosely
gathered neckerchiefs always tied in
sailors knot and the ends tucked in the
folds of his gay wooden shirt, the whole
exposing fine, well corded and often
hairy neck and chest. His waistcoat is
long, like a Jockeys, with capacious
pockets and huge tabs, and always Of
corduroy or velveteen. His trousers are
half Mexican in cut, of corduroy or coarse
ducl6ing and their wide bottoms flap over
the best shoes worn by any lowly.men in
London. Added to this are pearly or
polished metal buttons innumerable
In the matter of buttons their best
toys for Sundays and holidays are truly
startling. Whether Of metal or pearl
they are from half inch to an inch in
diameter, and are set as thiclzly as they
can be placed around the cap band and
visor edge down the edge OF the waist
coat from throat to point, above every
pocket, and along the edges of all lapels,
upon the sleeves nearly from wrists to
elbow, and along the wide plush side
stripes of the trousers, from Just below
the knees to the very edge of the trousers
leg, so that the last button clicks and
patters against the pavement and the
shoe.
The coster women are none the less
striking in their garb and appearance.
Like the men they are all well shOd, and
wear short coarse serge petticOats show
ing their ankles and shapely feet. Their
waists are always low at, or are left open
In, the neck, and usually the latter, as
with the men, is adorned with a tlashy
silk neckerchief, while a small wooden
plaid or silk shawl covers the shoulders,
its ends crossed upon the breast where it
is always fastened with a breach of huge
dimensions.
But the hair and the headgear are most
distinctive. From these alone a coster
girl is anywhere recognizable The hat
Is of straw or felt, and always at large as
costcrs cart wheel. 1t protrudes
alarmiugly in front and above this canopy
waves a forest of ostrich plumes. Coster
girls belong to clubs for the purchase of
these priced feathers and there is no or
binary sacrifice they will not make to
possess the largest plumes that can be
bought. The hair is slowed behind in a
large braid. A part extends from this
immediately over each ear, and heavy,
straight tab lies against either cheek.
Above the forehead the hair falls straight
almost to the brows, but is then frizzlcd
and curled until it stands upward and
outward like monstrous matted chevauX
dc frise
The nearest approach TO home among
the cOsters is where the Coster is fairly
well-t0-dO and owns the donkey and
cart or a couple or three. In these eX-
tIemely rare instances you viii often find
the cOster, his wife or mate, their
children and the donkeys in one base
mcnt room together But the character
OF the mans and the Woman's work keep
them upon the street They eat at cheap
chop houses and coffee stalls: Their
evenings are passed at the tap room. the
penny gatf' shows, the rat pit and the
EbaDD Ip11cif. halls