Another costermonger, in answer to inquiries, said: “I ’spose you think us ’riginal coves that you ask. We’re not like Methusalem, or some such swell’s name, (I presume that Malthus was meant) as wanted to murder children afore they was born, as I once heerd lectured about--we’re nothing like that.”
Another on being questioned, and on being told that the information was wanted for the press, replied: “The press? I’ll have nothing to say to it. We are oppressed enough already.”
That a class numbering 30,000 should be permitted to remain in a state of almost brutish ignorance is a national disgrace. If the London costers belong especially to the “dangerous classes,” the danger of such a body is assuredly an evil of our own creation; for the gratitude of the poor creatures to any one who seeks to give them the least knowledge is almost pathetic.
The slang language of the costermongers is not very remarkable for originality of construction; it possesses no humour: but they boast that it is known only to themselves; it is far beyond the Irish, they say, and puzzles the Jews. The _root_ of the costermonger tongue, so to speak, is to give the words spelt backward, or rather pronounced rudely backward,--for in my present chapter the language has, I believe, been reduced to orthography for the first time. With this backward pronunciation, which is very arbitrary, are mixed words reducible to no rule and seldom referrable to any origin, thus complicating the mystery of this unwritten tongue; while any syllable is added to a proper slang word, at the discretion of the speaker.
Slang is acquired very rapidly, and some costermongers will converse in it by the hour. The women use it sparingly; the girls more than the women; the men more than the girls; and the boys most of all. The most ignorant of all these classes deal most in slang and boast of their cleverness and proficiency in it. In their conversations among themselves, the following are invariably the terms used in money matters. A rude back-spelling may generally be traced:
_Flatch_ Halfpenny. _Yenep_ Penny. _Owt-yenep_ Twopence. _Erth-yenep_ Threepence. _Rouf-yenep_ Fourpence. _Ewif-yenep_ Fivepence. _Exis-yenep_ Sixpence. _Neves-yenep_ Sevenpence. _Teaich-yenep_ Eightpence. _Enine-yenep_ Ninepence. _Net-yenep_ Tenpence. _Leven_ Elevenpence. _Gen_ Twelvepence. _Yenep-flatch_ Three half-pence.