Morning journal and courier., 1893-06-10
wAKEMAN,s WANDRRINGs.

wAKEMAN,s WANDRRINGs.
 Days and Nights With London Cos
 termonaers-Wakem With Dom
 key, Cart and Coster Companions,
 Becomes . London Costermonger-
 Unlucky With Shrimps and SPrats,
 but Victorious With meat, Poultry
 and Ffsh-sSslumpey em,' the Ces- ter, and Wife Becky-Their vicIssi-
 tudes and Good Fortune - Life
 Among the London LewIy.
 LONDON, May 29. To the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER:
 In that most unssvory portion of Lon don lying between Bethnal Green, Billings- gate market and the London docks, have passed many strange days and stranger nights among those most curious and in- termongers.
 It all came about in an accidental way, as most pleasant things are sure to happen to the vsgrant traveller who loitsrs, rather than rushes through old-world scenes, and SO cheap withal that when came to figure expenditure and found that not ten pounds had been required to give me permanent status with the entire fraternity, I felt some twinges of conscience that my foot ing made so beggarly showing. Two pounds ten were invested in a costsr's cart and donkey; three pounds went to prevent domestic tragedy; eighteen shillings bought secondhand coster's barrow out right; four shillings were paid for "psg- ging" chafineh: twelve shilltngs sixpence took me to the Darby as coster in the costers' annual parade; another two pounds was lost on the supposititiously unimpeachable judgment of costsr com panion who introduced me to several brill liant begging" contests in the White chapel districts; and the remaining fifteen six was squandered without compunotion la coster tea-partiss, by the side of coster rat-pits, in coster ''penny gaffs," and at coster tap -rooms;-all of which, as have taken the reader thus far into a personal confidence, should be susceptible of rigid explanation.
 To begin with, that all this and these London folk may be understood, there must be something said about posters in the abstract. There are from fifty to six ty thousand of them in the great metropo- lis. They are the hawkers of fish, vegets- bles and fruit. It is not true as with us when any one that hawks is 8 hswker that any one who Boosters" in L ,ndon would be coster. The costers are 6 separate race. They are the only hawkers here. They are distinct, chsracterful and inte | graI part of this great and ever wonderful Babel of London. It is known that they l have hssn precisely what they, now are for nearly five hundred years.
 | The earliest record of London coster- mongers' cries is said to be in Lydsates poem of "London Lyckpenny" in the time of Henry ", about four hundred and sev- enty- five years ago. Shakespeare refers contemptuously to "these coster monger times;n Ben Jonson makes his Morose swoon If he hears 8 oostsrmonger's cry; and Dr. Johnson gives the derivation of ''costardmopger" as originating in the street sale of apples or costards ''round and bulky like the head"
 The result is that the costermongers of the London of to day form almost @ little | realm of their own, ever changing in con- fines yet chsngeless in character and anti l quity; with s purer strain of blood, of its kind, than half of the English nobility | and with ancient customs and traditions remaining inexorable laws of guidance to themselves; sll to 8 more marked degree than is true of any equal numb.r of pso- pie in any corner of Europe.
 At his daily labors the cester will have on his head 8 small cloth cap we'll to one side, with the visor either pointed to the sky or saving one side of his neck. He Is never without his usck or fsshily colored elk "kingsmsn" or heavy, loosely gathered neckerchief, always tied in sailor's knot and the ends tucked in the folds of his gay woolen shirt, the whole exposing Q fine, we'll corded and often hairy neck and chest. His waistoost is long, like jock. ey's, with eapaoious pockets and huge tabs, and always of corduroy or velveteen: His trousers are half Mexican in cut, of corduroy or coarse ducking, and their wide bottoms flap over the best shoes worn by any lowly men In London. Added to this are pearl or polished metal buttons innu l merable.
 In the matter of buttons their 'sbesi togs" for Sundays and holidays are truly startling. Whether of metal or pearl they are from half inch to an inch in df ameter, and are set as thickly as they car be placed around the cap band and visol edge, down the edge of the waistcoat fron throat to point. above every pocket, ant along the edges of all lspels, upon tn! sleeves nearly from wrists to elbow, and along the wide plush side stripes of thu trousers, from just below the knees to thu very edge of the trousers leg, so that thu last button clicks and patters against thu pavement and the shoe.
 r The coster women are none the les striking in their garb and appearance Like the men they are all we'll shod, snt wear short coarse serge petticoats showing their ankles and shapely feet. Thei waists are always low at, or are left opel in, the neck and usually tho latter, a with the -is adorned with 8 flash. silk neckerchief, while a small woolel plaid or silk shawl covers the shoulders | its ends crossed upon the breast where is always fastened with broach of hug dimensions.
 l But the hair and the headgear are mos distinctive. From these alone coste
 girl is anywhere recognizable. The hat t of straw or felt, and always as large as 3 coster's cartwhsel. It protrudes alarming
 ly in front, and above this canopy waves ! forest of ostrich plunes. Coster girls bs : long to clubs for the purchase of thes
 prized feathers, and there is no ordinar
 aacrifice they will not make to possess th ], largest plumes that can be bought Tn U hair Is bestowed behind in large brait
 A "part" extends from this immediatel