Bitterly as many of these people suffer in this country, grievous and often eloquent as are their statements, I met with none who did not manifest repugnance at the suggestion of a return to Ireland. If asked why they objected to return, the response was usually in the form of a question: “Shure thin, sir, and what good could I do there?” Neither can I say that I heard any of these people express any love for their country, though they often spoke with great affection of their friends.
From an Irish costermonger, a middle-aged man, with a physiognomy best known as “Irish,” and dressed in corduroy trousers, with a loose great-coat, far too big for him, buttoned about him, I had the following statement:
“I had a bit o’ land, yer honor, in County Limerick. Well, it wasn’t just a farrum, nor what ye would call a garden here, but my father lived and died on it—glory be to God!—and brought up me and my sister on it. It was about an acre, and the taties was well known to be good. But the sore times came, and the taties was afflicted, and the wife and me—I have no childer—hadn’t a bite nor a sup, but wather to live on, and an igg or two. I filt the famine a-comin’. I saw people a-feedin’ on the wild green things, and as I had not such a bad take, I got Mr. —— (he was the head master’s agent) to give me 28s. for possission in quietness, and I sould some poulthry I had—their iggs was a blessin’ to keep the life in us—I sould them in Limerick for 3s. 3d.—the poor things—four of them. The furnithur’ I sould to the nabors, for somehow about 6s. Its the thruth I’m ay-tellin’ of you, sir, and there’s 2s. owin’ of it still, and will be a perpitual loss. The wife and me walked to Dublin, though we had betther have gone by the ‘long say,’ but I didn’t understand it thin, and we got to Liverpool. Then sorrow’s the taste of worruk could I git, beyant oncte 3s. for two days harrud porthering, that broke my back half in two. I was tould I’d do betther in London, and so, glory be to God! I have—perhaps I have. I knew Mr. ——, he porthers at Covent-garden, and I made him out, and hilped him in any long distance of a job. As I’d been used to farrumin’ I thought it good raison I should be a costermonger, as they call it here. I can read and write too. And some good Christian—the heavens light him to glory when he’s gone!—I don’t know who he was—advanced me 10s.—or he gave it me, so to spake, through Father ——,” (a Roman Catholic priest.) “We earrun what keeps the life in us. I don’t go to markit, but buy of a fair dealin’ man—so I count him—though he’s harrud sometimes. I can’t till how many Irishmen is in the thrade. There’s many has been brought down to it by the famin’ and the changes. I don’t go much among the English street-dalers. They talk like haythens. I never miss mass on a Sunday, and they don’t know what the blissed mass manes. I’m almost glad I have no childer, to see how they’re raired here. Indeed, sir, they’re not raired at all—they run wild. They haven’t the fear of God or the saints. They’d hang a praste—glory be to God! they would.”
How the Street-Irish displanted the Street-Jews in the Orange Trade.
The Jews, in the streets, while acting as costermongers, never “worked a barrow,” nor dealt in the more ponderous and least profitable articles of the trade, such as turnips and cabbages. They however, had, at one period, the chief possession of a portion of the trade which the “regular hands” do not consider proper costermongering, and which is now chiefly confined to the Irish—viz.: orange selling.
The trade was, not many years ago, confined almost entirely to the Jew boys, who kept aloof from the vagrant lads of the streets, or mixed with them only in the cheap theatres and concert-rooms. A person who had had great experience at what was, till recently, one of the greatest “coaching inns,” told me that, speaking within his own recollection and from his own observation, he thought the sale of oranges was not so much in the hands of the Jew lads until about forty years back. The orange monopoly, so to speak, was established by the street-Jews, about 1810, or three or four years previous to that date, when recruiting and local soldiering were at their height, and when a great number of the vagabond or “roving” population, who in one capacity or other now throng the streets, were induced to enlist. The young Jews never entered the ranks of the army. The streets were thus in a measure cleared for them, and the itinerant orange-trade fell almost entirely into their hands. Some of the young Jews gained, I am assured, at least 100l. a year in this traffic. The numbers of country people who hastened to London on the occasion of the Allied Sovereigns’ visit in 1814—many wealthy persons then seeing the capital for the first time—afforded an excellent market to these dealers.
Moreover, the perseverance of the Jew orange boys was not to be overcome; they would follow a man who even looked encouragingly at their wares for a mile or two. The great resort of these Jew dealers—who eschewed night-work generally, and left the theatre-doors to old men and women of all ages—was at the coaching inns; for year by year, after the peace of 1815, the improvement of the roads and the consequent increase of travellers to London, progressed.
About 1825, as nearly as my informant could recollect, these keen young traders began to add the sale of other goods to their oranges, pressing them upon the notice of those who were leaving or visiting London by the different coaches. So much was this the case, that it was a common remark at that time, that no one could reach or leave the metropolis, even for the shortest journey, without being expected to be in urgent want of oranges and lemons, black-lead pencils, sticks of sealing-wax, many-bladed pen-knives, pocket-combs, razors, strops, braces, and sponges. To pursue the sale of the last-mentioned articles—they being found, I presume, to be more profitable—some of the street-Jews began to abandon the sale of oranges and lemons; and it was upon this, that the trade was “taken up” by the wives and children of the Irish bricklayers’ labourers, and of other Irish work-people then resident in London. The numbers of Irish in the metropolis at that time began to increase rapidly; for twenty years ago, they resorted numerously to England to gather in the harvest, and those who had been employed in contiguous counties during the autumn, made for London in the winter. “I can’t say they were well off, sir,” said one man to me, “but they liked bread and herrings, or bread and tea—better than potatoes without bread at home.” From 1836 to 1840, I was informed, the Irish gradually superseded the Jews in the fruit traffic about the coaching-houses. One reason for this was, that they were far more eloquent, begging pathetically, and with many benedictions on their listeners. The Jews never begged, I was told; “they were merely traders.” Another reason was, that the Irish, men or lads, who had entered into the fruit trade in the coach-yards, would not only sell and beg, but were ready to “lend a hand” to any over-burthened coach-porter. This the Jews never did, and in that way the people of the yard came to encourage the Irish to the prejudice of the Jews. At present, I understand that, with the exception of one or two in the city, no Jews vend oranges in the streets, and that the trade is almost entirely in the hands of the Irish.
Another reason why the Irish could supersede and even undersell the Jews and regular costermongers was this, as I am informed on excellent authority:—Father Mathew, a dozen years back, made temperance societies popular in Ireland. Many of the itinerant Irish, especially the younger classes, were “temperance men.” Thus the Irish could live as sparely as the Jew, but they did not, like him, squander any money for the evening’s amusement, at the concert or the theatre.
I inquired what might be the number of the Jews plying, so to speak, at the coaching inns, and was assured that it was less numerous than was generally imagined. One man computed it at 300 individuals, all under 21; another at only 200; perhaps the mean, or 250, might be about the mark. The number was naturally considered greater, I was told, because the same set of street traders were seen over and over again. The Jews knew when the coaches were to arrive and when they started, and they would hurry, after availing themselves of a departure, from one inn—the Belle Sauvage, Ludgate-hill, for instance—to take advantage of an arrival at another—say the Saracen’s Head, Snow-hill. Thus they appeared everywhere, but were the same individuals.