CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL
OF
POPULAR
LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.
CONTENTS
COSTERS AND THEIR DONKEYS.
A CAST OF THE NET.
OUR IRON-CLADS.
THE 'SOFTIE'S' DREAM.
GLIMPSE OF THE INDIAN FAMINE.
A BURIED CITY.
| No. 727. | SATURDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1877. | Price 1½d. |
COSTERS AND THEIRDONKEYS.
In walking through any part of the metropolis—beit in the City, the West End, or any part of thesuburbs north or south—you will, especially ifearly in the day, see men with wheeled trucksdrawn by donkeys, and laden with fish, vegetables,or other articles for sale to the inhabitants. Roughas they are in appearance, and poor as may betheir commercial outset, these are a useful class ofpersons; and looking to the vastness of the populationcrowded within a wide but yet limited space,one has a difficulty in knowing how the ordinarylife of many individuals could get on without them.A small town could manage pretty well with afew shops. But in the metropolis, in which thereare now from three to four millions of people,the shop-system does not fulfil the general wants;and supernumeraries with trucks to hawk theirwares among customers, have sprung up as a convenienceand necessity. The name given to thesehumble street-traders is Costers or Costermongers.Their professional designation is of old date, andis traced to Costard, a large variety of apple.Costermongers were therefore originally street-sellersof apples. The apple might be termedtheir cognisance.
Henry Mayhew, in that laboriously constructedand vastly amusing work of his, London Labourand London Poor, issued some six-and-twentyyears ago, describes the costermongers as numberingupwards of thirty thousand. It might beinferred that in the progress of time, the numberwould have increased; but such, we believe, is notthe case. Social arrangements have considerablyaltered. Owing to police regulations, there is agreater difficulty in finding standing-room in thestreet for barrows. By improved market arrangementsand means of transport, small shopkeepersin humble neighbourhoods have become rivalsto the costers. As regards means of transportfor traders of all sorts, there has been immenseprogress within the last few years, on account ofthe abolition of taxes on spring-carts, and latterlythe abolition of taxes on horses. We might saythat for these reasons alone there are in all largetowns ten times more spring-carts and vans fordistribution of goods from shops than there werea very few years ago. Of course, all this haslimited the traffic of itinerant vend