HEATHENISM OF THE COSTERS.

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dawn until darkness, and thus the costermongers increase, more savage in their usages than the American aborigines.

Mind, I am now speaking of the English costermongers, for, with the Irish costermongers, both male and female, who are still lower in the social scale as far as the goods of this world go, it is different. While the English coster cares not for the visits of the minister of the Protestant faith, the Catholic priest is ever welcome among his wretched and degraded flock in Whitechapel, in the New Cut, in St. Giles, or Lambeth, and he is beloved by them in their own rude, reckless way. The Irish costermonger believes most firmly in the sanctity of the marriage ceremony. With a few exceptions, their children, however wretched and miserable their lot may be in the future life, are born in wedlock, and the slur of illegitimacy cannot be thrown up at them. They will always have a few coppers to give their priests to help those more miserable than themselves, and, though these children but rarely receive the benefits of a common English schooling, they are more eager to learn and more ready to seek instruction than the children of their English neighbors.

I inquired of one of these costermongers, who had a friedfish stand in the New Cut, and sold sprats all cooked and ready for eating, if he could read. He seemed rather an intelligent fellow, in his way, and had by no means the uncouth, ruffianly look that I noticed in many of the men's faces who were engaged in selling vegetables, fish, whelks, and periwinkles in the street. He had a little smoky lamp depending from a sort of gallows over his cart, and he spoke cheerfully:

"Well, I'm not much of a reader, like you gentlefolks be; but I picked up a little book schoolin' at the Ragged schools by night, when I had four puns saved, last winter. The letters wor a cruel bother to me at first, and I most guv it hup at the beginning, sort o' faint-hearted; but the teacher, as wos a Miss Spencer, she wos a good gal, and she says to me (about Christmas it wor), 'Jimmy, you'll never learn to read hif you don't persewere, and I know, Jimmy, you can persewere hif you want to.' Ye see, sir, I had just gived the blessed book a kick

into a corner of the room, like mad; cos vy, the blessed letters wor so cranky and they wor all so mixed hup together that I lost my 'ead as it wor, and I couldn't make nothink hout of their shapes. But that gal, Miss Spencer, she wor a topper and no mistake. She guv me a kind of a smile, and bless me hif she didn't go to the corner of the room and she takes hup the book as I had flung down, with 'er pretty little fingers, and vith that she puts hit into my 'and, hand then I 'adn't the 'art to refuse the gal; and that wos the way as I larned to read; and now I reads Reynold's Weekly hevery Sunday mornin' to my maty, the boiled potato man, which is 'ere to speak for 'isself, sir."

The boiled potato man was advanced in years-a hardy, rugged-looking fellow, who seemed as if he would like to read like his "maty," but could not muster up courage to begin so late in life. I mentioned casually to him that a great Latin grammarian had, at an early stage of the world's history, made the attempt to learn Greek, being then seventy years of age. His characteristic reply made me see that my remark had struck him in the wrong place.

Well," said he, "hif that blessed hold Latting, as ye calls 'im, had to 'awk biled pertaters from mornin' till night in the New Cut, and go 'ome to three kids vith, maybe, honly sevenpence for 'is day's vork, I'm blessed hif 'ee'd a-bother'd 'is precious hold soul a-learnin' Greek, or hany other lingo. I finds henuff to do vith the mealys, vithout a-troublin' myself habout the books as I see heverywhere I goes. N-i-c-e 'ot pertaties-hall smokin' 'ot-a-penny apiece!"

I bought a hot potato and a sprat, and left the two wondering if I had been "gaffing" or "larkin' " on 'em; and passing through the crowded street, past butchers standing at their doors in dirty aprons, sharpening their knives in a business like manner; past water-cress and match girls, who seemed to spring out of the gutters, so thick were they; past drunken, noisy women, staggering home to their miasmatic dens, with bunches of vegetables or chunks of meat in their arms, wrapped in coarse brown papers, dirty children following their foot

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steps, gaunt and shadowy-like; past recking, greasy coffee-shops, the very sign-boards of which were redolent of eel pies, kidney stews, and all the abominations which are devoured in this neighborhood daily and nightly, by the poor people who are forced to eat this food, the refuse of the slaughter-houses of mighty, populous London, from that stern, blind necessity which knows no law, and I came upon a crowd of the working people-costermongers, peddlers, match-women, and young lads and girls-who find habitations in the dusky lanes and frightful courts of the neighborhood. I stood before a large, darklooking building, which seemed like a prison, its frowning, dirty facade being no evidence that it was a place of amusement. But it was a place of amusement, or, rather, a place of torture. This was the "Royal Victoria Theatre," New Cut, Lambeth. The Victoria Theatre, or the "Vick," as it is called by its patrons, is one of the most democratic places of amusement, if not the most democratic in London. In another place I will attempt to describe the strange sights which I saw inside of its walls, but at present I shall confine myself to giving my readers a view of the Old Clothes" district, which is chiefly inhabited by the lower class of the London Jew peddlers or hawkers.

Dick Ralph was a patrolman bold, who did duty in the "H," or Smithfield Division of the City of London police, and was rewarded for his vigilance and attention to duty by being promoted to the office of "special," under probation, in the old Jewry squad of detectives.

Dick had lately married and was the proprietor of a fine chubby boy of fifteen months old, who resembled his father in every respect, having the same red flush in the cheeks, the same black eyes, which sparkled like diamonds, and the same little chubby nose. The family lived back of St. Paul's towering pile, in a little lane or court which ran around the old sheds that formed a part of the Old Market or Newgate shambles, and was the principal fresh meat mart before the New Smithfield Market had been built.

Ralph had been detailed by Inspector Bailey to visit Petticoat lane, Houndsditch, Bevis Marks, and the Minories with