Of the Costermongers’ Capital.
The costermongers, though living by buying and selling, are seldom or never capitalists. It is estimated that not more than one-fourth of the entire body trade upon their own property. Some borrow their stock money, others borrow the stock itself, others again borrow the donkey-carts, barrows, or baskets, in which their stock is carried round, whilst others borrow even the weights and measures by which it is meted out.
The reader, however uninformed he may be as to the price the poor usually have to pay for any loans they may require, doubtlessly need not be told that the remuneration exacted for the use of the above-named commodities is not merely confined to the legal 5l. per centum per annum; still many of even the most “knowing” will hardly be able to credit the fact that the ordinary rate of interest in the costermongers’ money-market amounts to 20 per cent. per week, or no less than 1040l. a year, for every 100l. advanced.
But the iniquity of this usury in the present instance is felt, not so much by the costermongers themselves, as by the poor people whom they serve; for, of course, the enormous rate of interest must be paid out of the profits on the goods they sell, and consequently added to the price, so that coupling this overcharge with the customary short allowance—in either weight or measure, as the case may be—we can readily perceive how cruelly the poor are defrauded, and how they not only get often too little for what they do, but have as often to pay too much for what they buy.
Premising thus much, I shall now proceed to describe the terms upon which the barrow, the cart, the basket, the weights, the measures, the stock-money, or the stock, is usually advanced to the needy costermongers by their more thrifty brethren.
The hire of a barrow is 3d. a day, or 1s. a week, for the six winter months; and 4d. a day, or 1s. 6d. a week, for the six summer months. Some are to be had rather lower in the summer, but never for less than 4d.—sometimes for not less than 6d. on a Saturday, when not unfrequently every barrow in London is hired. No security and no deposit is required, but the lender satisfies himself that the borrower is really what he represents himself to be. I am informed that 5,000 hired barrows are now in the hands of the London costermongers, at an average rental of 3l. 5s. each, or 16,250l. a year. One man lets out 120 yearly, at a return (dropping the 5s.) of 360l.; while the cost of a good barrow, new, is 2l. 12s., and in the autumn and winter they may be bought new, or “as good as new,” at 30s. each; so that reckoning each to cost this barrow-letter 2l., he receives 360l. rent or interest—exactly 150 per cent. per annum for property which originally cost but 240l., and property which is still as good for the ensuing year’s business as for the past. One man has rented a barrow for eight years, during which period he has paid 26l. for what in the first instance did not cost more than twice as many shillings, and which he must return if he discontinues its use. “I know men well to do,” said an intelligent costermonger, “who have paid 1s. and 1s. 6d. a week for a barrow for three, four, and five years; and they can’t be made to understand that it’s rather high rent for what might cost 40s. at first. They can’t see they are losers. One barrow-lender sends his son out, mostly on a Sunday, collecting his rents (for barrows), but he’s not a hard man.” Some of the lenders complain that their customers pay them irregularly and cheat them often, and that in consequence they must charge high; while the “borrowers” declare that it is very seldom indeed that a man “shirks” the rent for his barrow, generally believing that he has made an advantageous bargain, and feeling the want of his vehicle, if he lose it temporarily. Let the lenders, however, be deceived by many, still, it is evident, that the rent charged for barrows is most exorbitant, by the fact, that all who take to the business become men of considerable property in a few years.
Donkey-carts are rarely hired. “If there’s 2,000 donkey and pony-carts in London, more or less, not 200 of them’s borrowed; but of barrows five to two is borrowed.” A donkey-cart costs from 2l. to 10l.; 3l. 10s. being an average price. The hire is 2s. or 2s. 6d. a week. The harness costs 2l. 10s. new, but is bought, nineteen times out of twenty, second-hand, at from 2s. 6d. to 20s. The donkeys themselves are not let out on hire, though a costermonger may let out his donkey to another in the trade when he does not require its services; the usual sum paid for the hire of a donkey is 2s. 6d. or 3s. per week. The cost price of a pony varies from 5l. to 13l.; that of a donkey from 1l. to 3l. There may be six donkeys, or more, in costermonger use, to one pony. Some traffic almost weekly in these animals, liking the excitement of such business.
The repairs to barrows, carts, and harness are almost always effected by the costermongers themselves.
“Shallows” (baskets) which cost 1s. and 1s. 6d., are let out at 1d. a day; but not five in 100 of those in use are borrowed, as their low price places them at the costermonger’s command. A pewter quart-pot, for measuring onions, &c., is let out at 2d. a day, its cost being 2s. Scales are 2d., and a set of weights 1d. a day.
Another common mode of usury is in the lending of stock-money. This is lent by the costermongers who have saved the means for such use of their funds, and by beer-shop keepers. The money-lending costermongers are the most methodical in their usury—1,040l. per cent. per annum, as was before stated, being the rate of interest usually charged. It is seldom that a lower sum than 10s. is borrowed, and never a higher sum than 2l. When a stranger applies for a loan, the money-lender satisfies himself as I have described of the barrow-lender. He charges 2d. a day for a loan of 2s. 6d.; 3d. a day for 5s.; 6d. a day for 10s.; and 1s. a day for 1l. If the daily payments are rendered regularly, at a month’s end the terms are reduced to 6d. a week for 5s.; 1s. for 10s.; and 2s. for 1l. “That’s reckoned an extraordinary small interest,” was said to me, “only 4d. a day for a pound.” The average may be 3s. a week for the loan of 20s.; it being only to a few that a larger sum than 20s. is lent. “I paid 2s. a week for 1l. for a whole year,” said one man, “or 5l. 4s. for the use of a pound, and then I was liable to repay the 1l.” The principal, however, is seldom repaid; nor does the lender seem to expect it, though he will occasionally demand it. One money-lender is considered to have a floating capital of 150l. invested in loans to costermongers. If he receive 2s. per week per 1l. for but twenty-six weeks in the year (and he often receives it for the fifty-two weeks)—his 150l. brings him in 390l. a year.
Sometimes a loan is effected only for a day, generally a Saturday, as much as 2s. 6d. being sometimes given for the use of 5s.; the 5s. being of course repaid in the evening.
The money-lenders are subject to at least twice the extent of loss to which the barrow-lender is exposed, as it is far oftener that money is squandered (on which of course no interest can be paid) than that a barrow is disposed of.
The money-lenders, (from the following statement, made to me by one who was in the habit of borrowing,) pursue their business in a not very dissimilar manner to that imputed to those who advance larger sums:—“If I want to borrow in a hurry,” said my informant, “as I may hear of a good bargain, I run to my neighbour L——’s, and he first says he hasn’t 20s. to lend, and his wife’s by, and she says she hasn’t 2s. in her pocket, and so I can’t be accommodated. Then he says if I must have the money he’ll have to pawn his watch,—or to borrow it of Mr. ——, (an innkeeper) who would charge a deal of interest, for he wasn’t paid all he lent two months back, and 1s. would be expected to be spent in drink—though L—— don’t drink—or he must try if his sister would trust him, but she was sick and wanted all her money—or perhaps his barrow-merchant would lend him 10s., if he’d undertake to return 15s. at night; and it ends by my thinking I’ve done pretty well if I can get 1l. for 5s. interest, for a day’s use of it.”
The beer-shop keepers lend on far easier terms, perhaps at half the interest exacted by the others, and without any regular system of charges; but they look sharp after the repayment, and expect a considerable outlay in beer, and will only lend to good customers; they however have even lent money without interest.
“In the depth of last winter,” said a man of good character to me, “I borrowed 5s. The beer-shop keeper wouldn’t lend; he’ll rather lend to men doing well and drinking. But I borrowed it at 6d. a day interest, and that 6d. a day I paid exactly four weeks, Sundays and all; and that was 15s. in thirty days for the use of 5s. I was half starving all the time, and then I had a slice of luck, and paid the 5s. back slap, and got out of it.”
Many shopkeepers lend money to the stall-keepers, whom they know from standing near their premises, and that without interest. They generally lend, however, to the women, as they think the men want to get drunk with it. “Indeed, if it wasn’t for the women,” said a costermonger to me, “half of us might go to the Union.”
Another mode of usurious lending or trading is, as I said before, to provide the costermonger—not with the stock-money—but with the stock itself. This mode also is highly profitable to the usurer, who is usually a costermonger, but sometimes a greengrocer. A stock of fruit, fish, or vegetables, with a barrow for its conveyance, is entrusted to a street-seller, the usual way being to “let him have a sovereign’s worth.” The value of this, however, at the market cost, rarely exceeds 14s., still the man entrusted with it must carry 20s. to his creditor, or he will hardly be trusted a second time. The man who trades with the stock is not required to pay the 20s. on the first day of the transaction, as he may not have realised so much, but he must pay some of it, generally 10s., and must pay the remainder the next day or the money-lender will decline any subsequent dealings.
It may be thought, as no security is given, and as the costermongering barrow, stock, or money-lender never goes to law for the recovery of any debt or goods, that the per centage is not so very exorbitant after all. But I ascertained that not once in twenty times was the money lender exposed to any loss by the non-payment of his usurious interest, while his profits are enormous. The borrower knows that if he fail in his payment, the lender will acquaint the other members of his fraternity, so that no future loan will be attainable, and the costermonger’s business may be at an end. One borrower told me that the re-payment of his loan of 2l., borrowed two years ago at 4s. a week, had this autumn been reduced to 2s. 6d. a week: “He’s a decent man I pay now,” he said; “he has twice forgiven me a month at a time when the weather was very bad and the times as bad as the weather. Before I borrowed of him I had dealings with ——. He was a scurf. If I missed a week, and told him I would make it up next week, ‘That won’t do,’ he’d say, ‘I’ll turn you up. I’ll take d——d good care to stop you. I’ll have you to rights.’ If I hadn’t satisfied him, as I did at last, I could never have got credit again; never.” I am informed that most of the money-lenders, if a man has paid for a year or so, will now “drop it for a month or so in a very hard-up time, and go on again.” There is no I.O.U. or any memorandum given to the usurer. “There’s never a slip of paper about it, sir,” I was told.
I may add that a very intelligent man from whom I derived information, said to me concerning costermongers never going to law to recover money owing to them, nor indeed for any purpose: “If any one steals anything from me—and that, as far as I know, never happened but once in ten years—and I catch him, I take it out of him on the spot. I give him a jolly good hiding and there’s an end of it. I know very well, sir, that costers are ignorant men, but in my opinion” (laughing) “our never going to law shows that in that point we are in advance of the aristocrats. I never heard of a coster in a law court, unless he was in trouble (charged with some offence)—for assaulting a crusher, or anybody he had quarrelled with, or something of that kind.”
The barrow-lender, when not regularly paid, sends some one, or goes himself, and carries away the barrow.
My personal experience with this peculiar class justifies me in saying that they are far less dishonest than they are usually believed to be, and much more honest than their wandering habits, their want of education and “principle” would lead even the most charitable to suppose. Since I have exhibited an interest in the sufferings and privations of these neglected people, I have, as the reader may readily imagine, had many applications for assistance, and without vanity, I believe I may say, that as far as my limited resources would permit, I have striven to extricate the street-sellers from the grasp of the usurer. Some to whom I have lent small sums (for gifts only degrade struggling honest men into the apathy of beggars) have taken the money with many a protestation that they would repay it in certain weekly instalments, which they themselves proposed, but still have never made their appearance before me a second time—it may be from dishonesty and it may be from inability and shame—others, however, and they are not a few, have religiously kept faith with me, calling punctually to pay back a sixpence or a shilling as the precariousness of their calling would permit, and doing this, though they knew that I abjured all claims upon them but through their honour, and was, indeed, in most cases, ignorant where to find them, even if my inclination led me to seek or enforce a return of the loan. One case of this kind shows so high a sense of honour among a class, generally considered to rank among the most dishonourable, that, even at the risk of being thought egotistical, I will mention it here:—“Two young men, street-sellers, called upon me and begged hard for the loan of a little stock-money. They made needle-cases and hawked them from door to door at the east end of the town, and had not the means of buying the wood. I agreed to let them have ten shillings between them; this they promised to repay at a shilling a week. They were utter strangers to me; nevertheless, at the end of the first week one shilling of the sum was duly returned. The second week, however, brought no shilling, nor did the third, nor the fourth, by which time I got to look upon the money as lost; but at the end of the fifth week one of the men called with his sixpence, and told me how he should have been with me before but his mate had promised each week to meet him with his sixpence, and each week disappointed him; so he had come on alone. I thanked him, and the next week he came again; so he did the next, and the next after that. On the latter occasion he told me that in five more weeks he should have paid off his half of the amount advanced, and that then, as he had come with the other man, he would begin paying off his share as well!”
Those who are unacquainted with the character of the people may feel inclined to doubt the trustworthiness of the class, but it is an extraordinary fact that but few of the costermongers fail to repay the money advanced to them, even at the present ruinous rate of interest. The poor, it is my belief, have not yet been sufficiently tried in this respect;—pawnbrokers, loan-offices, tally-shops, dolly-shops, are the only parties who will trust them—but, as a startling proof of the good faith of the humbler classes generally, it may be stated that Mrs. Chisholm (the lady who has exerted herself so benevolently in the cause of emigration) has lent out, at different times, as much as 160,000l. that has been entrusted to her for the use of the “lower orders,” and that the whole of this large amount has been returned—with the exception of 12l.!
I myself have often given a sovereign to professed thieves to get “changed,” and never knew one to make off with the money. Depend upon it, if we would really improve, we must begin by elevating instead of degrading.