“No, I don’t think this world could well go on for ever. There’s a great deal of ground in it, certainly, and it seems very strong at present; but they say there’s to be a flood on the earth, and earthquakes, and that will destroy it. The earthquake ought to have took place some time ago, as people tells me, but I never heerd any more about it. If we cheats in the streets, I know we shan’t go to Heaven; but it’s very hard upon us, for if we didn’t cheat we couldn’t live, profits is so bad. It’s the same with the shops, and I suppose the young men there won’t go to Heaven neither; but if people won’t give the money, both costers and tradesmen must cheat, and that’s very hard. Why, look at apples! customers want them for less than they cost us, and so we are forced to shove in bad ones as well as good ones; and if we’re to suffer for that, it does seem to me dreadful cruel.”
Curious and extravagant as this statement may perhaps appear to the uninitiated, nevertheless it is here given as it was spoken; and it was spoken with an earnestness that proved the poor girl looked upon it as a subject, the solemnity of which forced her to be truthful.
Concerning the connection of these two classes I had the following account from a costermonger: “I’ve known the coster trade for twelve years, and never knew thieves go out a costering as a cloak; they may have done so, but I very much doubt it. Thieves go for an idle life, and costermongering don’t suit them. Our chaps don’t care a d--n who they associate with,--if they’re thieves they meet ’em all the same, or anything that way. But costers buy what they call ‘a gift,’--may-be it’s a watch or coat wot’s been stolen--from any that has it to sell. A man will say: ‘If you’ve a few shillings, you may make a good thing of it. Why this identical watch is only twenty shillings, and it’s worth fifty;’ so if the coster has money, he buys. Thieves will get 3_d._ where a mechanic or a coster will earn 1/2_d._, and the most ignorant of our people has a queer sort of respect for thieves, because of the money they make. Poverty’s as much despised among costers as among other people. People that’s badly off among us are called ‘cursed.’ In bad weather it’s common for costers to ‘curse themselves,’ as they call having no trade. ‘Well, I’m cursed,’ they say when they can make no money. It’s a common thing among them to shout after any one they don’t like, that’s reduced, ‘Well, ain’t you cursed?’” The costers, I am credibly informed, gamble a great deal with the wealthier class of thieves, and win of them the greater part of the money they get.