A family boarding together live even cheaper than this man, for more potatoes and less fish fall to the share of the children. A meal too is not unfrequently saved in this manner:--If a man, his wife, and two children, all go out in the streets selling, they breakfast before starting, and perhaps agree to re-assemble at four o’clock. Then the wife prepares the dinner of fish and potatoes, and so tea is dispensed with. In that case the husband’s and wife’s board would be 4_d._ or 4-1/2_d._ a day each, the children’s 3_d._ or 3-1/2_d._ each, and giving 1-1/2_d._ extra to each for Sunday, the weekly cost is 10_s._ 3_d._ Supposing the husband and wife cleared 5_s._ a week each, and the children each 3_s._, their earnings would be 16_s._ The balance is the surplus left to pay rent, washing, firing, and clothing.
From what I can ascertain, the Irish street-seller can always live at about half the cost of the English costermonger; the Englishman must have butter for his bread, and meat at no long intervals, for he “hates fish more than once a week.” It is by this spareness of living, as well as by frequently importunate and mendacious begging, that the street-Irish manage to save money.
The diet I have spoken of is _generally_, but not universally, that of the poor street-Irish; those who live differently, do not, as a rule, incur greater expense.
It is difficult to ascertain in what proportion the Irish street-sellers consume strong drink, when compared with the consumption of the English costers; as a poor Irishman, if questioned on that or any subject, will far more frequently shape his reply to what he thinks will please his querist and induce a trifle for himself, than answer according to the truth. The landlord of a large public-house, after inquiring of his assistants, that his opinions might be checked by theirs, told me that in one respect there was a marked difference between the beer-drinking of the two people. He considered that in the poor streets near his house there were residing quite as many Irish street-sellers and labourers as English, but the instances in which the Irish conveyed beer to their own rooms, as a portion of their meals, was not as 1 in 20 compared with the English: “I have read your work, sir,” he said, “and I know that you are quite right in saying that the costermongers go for a good Sunday dinner. I don’t know what my customers are except by their appearance, but I do know that many are costermongers, and by the best of all proofs, for I have bought fish, fruit, and vegetables of them. Well, now, we’ll take a fine Sunday in spring or summer, when times are pretty good with them; and, perhaps, in the ten minutes after my doors are opened at one on the Sunday, there are 100 customers for their dinner-beer. Nearly three-quarters of these are working men and their wives, working either in the streets, or at their indoor trades, such as tailoring. But among the number, I’m satisfied, there are not more than two Irishmen. There may be three or four Irishwomen, but one of my barmen tells me he knows that two of them--very well-behaved and good-looking women--are married to Englishmen. In my opinion the proportion, as to Sunday dinner-beer, between English and Irish, may be two or three in 70.”