The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-12-02

generally lives in the East End. In his more prosperous days he would oc- cupy 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 il is misno- mer.
 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 eith- CT took up their fathers work or inter married with others of the same call ing, thus evolving a distinct class. Even at the present time it is estimat- ed there are about 10000 of his race in the British metropolis. In 1901 there were 110 street markets under the jur- isdiction of the London County Council The number of stalls in these markets were 7,055. Famous old Petticoat Lane could boast of 575 stalls.
 A visit paid recently to the neighbor- hood of st. Luke's, in the East End of London, where the genuine "pearly' is mostly in evidence, elicited this naive definition of his calling:
 "A coster is a covey wot works werry ard for a werry pore living"
 One who claims to have worked in St. Lukes as a coster for sixty years, and whose people for generations were costers before him. lamented the decay of his tribe.
 They costers." the old man said when the street traders were referred to; mot much! Any bloke could call 'isself a coster wot sells matches in the street but e aint. I've known a good many in my time, but they're dyin' awf bit, nah. See me, I've cbucked the barren bisness pah, although it mide me- I seen wot was comin' and I bought this little fish shop as yer see. Nah, I never put none O my little ones at the gime too much competishun, me lad. I was born coster, an I'll dye one; but there aint 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 o1 London would disappear in time, for nc new permissi0ns are granted and the keepers of these stands are dying out or getting notices to move. Some of the old timers who still finger are said to have been daily at their stands fol thirty to forty years.
 1 One of the most in teresting of the city pavement traders is Walker, and erudite hawker. who sells shoelaces combs, studs and matches. etc., at the 1 corner of the Bank of England at Moor gate street. Walker has two hobbies l One is looking after others in the same business older and poorer than him. self; the other is learning. He spends his evenings at night school, and re- gently added a diploma in commercial law to the many that decorate thu walls of his simple home, Walkel claims that many city men when il doubt on some abstruss point of busi ness law refer it to him, and he alst acts as their almoner, distributing thei hospital tickets and other contributions out of which he has a hoby for form ing infinitesima1 pensions for some wht can no longer work.