mongers' lads. It is seldom they last long as men. They soon lose
their voice, and how they pick up a living then no one can tell. Their
talk is peculiar. Mr Mayhew tells us their slang consists merely in
pronouncing each word as if spelt backwards. "I say, Curly, will you do
a _top_ of _reeb_ (pot of beer)?" one costermonger may say to another.
"It's _on doog_, Whelkey, _on doog_" (no good, no good), the second may
reply; "I've had a regular _troseno_ (bad sort) to-day; I've been doing
_dab_ (bad) with my _tol_ (lot)--han't made a _yennep_ (penny), s' elp
me--." "Why, I've cleared a _flatchenorc_ (half a crown) a' ready."
Master Whelkey will answer perhaps, "But _kool_ the _esilop_ (look at the
police), _kool him_ (look at him). Curly: _Nommus_ (be off), I am going
_to do the tightner_" (have my dinner). Would you know more of them,
come with me.

Just look at the people in this public-house. A more drunken,
dissipated, wretched lot you never saw. There are one or two little
tables in front of the bar and benches, and on these benches are the most
wretched men and women possible to imagine. They are drinking gin and
smoking, and all have the appearance of confirmed sots. They are
shoemakers in the neighbourhood, and these women with them are their
wives. "Lor' bless you, sir," exclaims the landlord, "they spend all
they has in drink. They live on a penny roll and a ha'porth of sprats or
mussels, and they never buy any clothes, except once in three or four
years, and then they get some second-hand rubbish." And here, when they
are not at work, they sit spending their money. Are there none to save
them?--none to come here and pluck these brands from the burning? I know
they are short-lived; I see in their pale, haggard, blotched, and bloated
faces premature death. The first touch of illness will carry them off as
rotten leaves fall in November; but ere this be the case, can you not
reveal to them one glimpse of a truer and diviner life? But come
up-stairs into this concert-room, where about a hundred costermongers and
shoemakers are listening to the charms of song. Talk about the refining
influence of music! it is not here you will find such to be the case.
The men and women and lads sitting round these shabby looking tables have
come here to drink, for that is their idea of enjoyment; and whilst we
would not grudge them one particle of mirth, we cannot but regret that
their standard of enjoyment shoul