Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-11-29
THE LONDON CosTER.
Characteristic Street Type Rapidly
Disappearing.
rom the New York Tribune.

From the New York Tribune.
The coster that picturesque and unique
product OF old London life whom Albert
Chevalier has made familiar to American
audiences, is reported to be rapidly disap-
pearing. The coster is man who selIs
things from barrow and barrow only.
He is a street trader, but belongs to a breed
by himself, which shows in the cut of his
clothes and the rows of big pearl buttons
on his trousers and Jacket. He generally
lives in the East End. In his more pros
porous days he would occupy a small house
with a yard, where he put his barrow at
night, and in the morning he would go
to his regular pitch and return again
at dusk. The London fruit sellers, Italian
ice cream men, flower girls and the like
who have multiplied of late years, are
termed costers, too, but 1t is a misnomer
The genus coster is said to have flour
ished for two centuries His decadence Is
chiefly due to numerous small stores and
street traders with horse and wagon, which
the daily needs of large areas of London
have brought forth. Formerly children born
to costers either took up their fathers work
or intermarried with others of the same
calling, thus evolving a distinct class. Even
at the present time it is estimated there
are about ten thousand of his race in the
British metropolis. In 1901 there were 10
street markets under the Jurisdiction OF
the London county council. The number of
stalls in these markets were 1866. Famous
old Petticoat Lane could boast of 575 stalls.
A visit paid recently to the neighborhood
of ST. Luke's, in the east end of London,
where the genuine 'pearly' IS mostly in
evidence elected this naive definition of
his calling:
"A coster is a covey wot works VERY
ard for a VERY pore living"
One who claims to have worked in st.
Luke's a coster for sixty years, and
whose people for generations were costers
lNr, 10, tI,-I .-;l,
"They costers," the old man said when
the street traders were referred to; mot
much! Any bloke could call ITSELF a cos
ter wot sells matches In the street but e
amt I've known a good many in my time
but they're dyin' awf a bit, nah. See me,
I've chucked the barrier bisness nah, al
though 1t m iGe me. / seen wot was comm
and I bought this little fish shop, as yer
see. Nah, / never put none o. my little
ones at the gime; too much competshun,
me lad l was born coster, an I'll die one;
but there amt many costers bein' born nah
a-days."
Along with the costers all the old city
apple women and stallholders are gradually
going. It looks as If every stall in the great
business quarter of London would disappear
in time, for no new permissions are granted
and the keepers of these stands are dying
out or getting notices to move. Some of the
old-timers who still linger are said to have
been daily at their stands for thirty to
forty years.
One of the most interesting of the city
pavement traders is Walker an erudite
hawker, who sells shoe laces, combs studs
and matches etc, at the corner of the Bank
of England at Moorgate street. Walker has
two hobbies. One is looking after others
in the same business older and poorer than
himself: the other is learning. He spends
his evenings at a night school, and recently
added a diploma in commercial law to the
many that decorate the walls of his simple
home. Walker claims that many city men
when In doubt on some abstruse point of
business law refer it 10 him, and he also
acts as their almoner, distributing their
hospital tickets and other contributions out
of which he has hobby for forming infini-
tesimal pensions for some who can no lon
ger work.