“Unfair bunts” is what the lad may make unknown to his master; as, if a customer call from the area for goods cried at 2d., the lad may get 2½d., by pretending what he had carried was a superior sort to that called at 2d.,—or by any similar trick.
“I have known some civil and industrious boys,” said a costermonger to me, “get to save a few shillings, and in six months start with a shallow, and so rise to a donkey-cart. The greatest drawback to struggling boys is their sleeping in low lodging-houses, where they are frequently robbed, or trepanned to part with their money, or else they get corrupted.”
Some men employ from four to twelve boys, sending them out with shallows and barrows, the boys bringing home the proceeds. The men who send lads out in this way, count the things, and can tell to a penny what can be realised on them. They neither pay nor treat the boys well, I am told, and are looked upon by the other costermongers as extortioners, or unfair dealers, making money by trading on poor lads’ necessities, who serve them to avoid starvation. These men are called “Scurfs.” If the boys working for them make bunts, or are suspected of making bunts, there is generally “a row” about it.
The bunts is for the most part the gambling money, as well as the money for the “penny gaff,” the “twopenny hop,” the tobacco, and the pudding money of the boys. “More would save their wages and their bunts,” was said to me on good authority, “but they have no place to keep their money in, and don’t understand anything about savings banks. Many of these lads are looked on with suspicion by the police, and treated like suspected folks; but in my opinion they are not thieves, or they wouldn’t work so hard; for a thief’s is a much easier life than a costermonger’s.”
When a boy begins business on his own account, or “sets up,” as they call it, he purchases a shallow, which costs at least 1s., and a half hundred of herrings, 1s. 6d. By the sale of the herrings he will clear 1s., going the round he has been accustomed to, and then trade on the 2s. 6d. Or, if it be fruit time, he will trade in apples until master of 5s., and then “take to a barrow,” at 3d. a day hire. By this system the ranks of the costermongers are not only recruited but increased. There is one grand characteristic of these lads; I heard on all hands they are, every one of them, what the costers call—“wide awake.”
There are I am assured from 200 to 300 costers, who, in the busier times of the year, send out four youths or lads each on an average. The young men thus sent out generally live with the costermonger, paying 7s. a week for board, lodging and washing. These youths, I was told by one who knew them well, were people who “didn’t care to work for themselves, because they couldn’t keep their money together; it would soon all go; and they must keep it together for their masters. They are not fed badly, but then they make ‘bunts’ sometimes, and it goes for grub when they’re out, so they eat less at home.”
Of the Juvenile Trading of the Costermongers.
My inquiries among the costermongers induced one of their number to address me by letter. My correspondent—a well-informed and well-educated man—describes himself as “being one of those that have been unfortunately thrust into that precarious way of obtaining a living, not by choice but circumstances.” The writer then proceeds to say: “No person but those actually connected with the streets can tell the exertion, anxiety, and difficulties we have to undergo; and I know for a fact it induces a great many to drink that would not do so, only to give them a stimulant to bear up against the troubles that they have to contend with; and so it ultimately becomes habitual. I could point out many instances of the kind. My chief object in addressing you is to give my humble suggestion as to the best means of alleviating our present position in society, and establishing us in the eyes of the public as a respectable body of men, honestly endeavouring to support our families, without becoming chargeable to the parish, and to show that we are not all the degraded class we are at present thought to be, subject to the derision of every passer by, and all looked upon as extortioners and the confederates of thieves. It is grievous to see children, as soon as they are able to speak, thrust into the streets to sell, and in many instances, I am sorry to state, to support their parents. Kind sir, picture to yourself a group of those children mixing together indiscriminately—the good with the bad—all uneducated—and without that parental care which is so essential for youth—and judge for yourself the result: the lads in some instances take to thieving, (this being easier for a living), and the girls to prostitution; and so they pass the greater part of their time in gaol, or get transported. Even those who are honestly disposed cannot have a chance of bettering their condition, in consequence of their being uneducated, so that they often turn out brutal husbands and bad fathers. Surely, sir, Government could abolish in a measure this juvenile trading, so conducive to crime and so injurious to the shopkeeper, who is highly rated. How is it possible, if children congregate around his door with the very articles he may deal in, that he can meet the demands for rates and taxes; whereas the educated man, brought by want to sell in the streets, would not do so, but keep himself apart from the shopkeeper, and not merit his enmity, and the interference of the police, which he necessarily claims. I have procured an existence (with a few years’ exception) in the streets for the last twenty-five years as a general salesman of perishable and imperishable articles, and should be most happy to see anything done for the benefit of my class. This juvenile trading I consider the root of the evil; after the removal of this, the costermongers might, by classifying and co-operation, render themselves comparatively happy, in their position, and become acknowledged members of society.”
Another costermonger, in conversing with me concerning these young traders, said, that many of them would ape the vices of men: mere urchins would simulate drunkenness, or boast, with many an exaggeration, of their drinking feats. They can get as much as they please at the public-houses; and this too, I may add, despite the 43rd clause in the Police Act, which enacts, that “every person, licensed to deal in exciseable liquors within the said (Metropolitan Police) District, who shall knowingly supply any sort of distilled exciseable liquor to be drunk upon the premises, to any boy or girl, apparently under the age of sixteen years, shall be liable to a penalty of not more than 20s.;” and upon a second conviction to 40s. penalty; and on a third to 5l.