Free London Labour and the London Poor: Selection (Classics) by Henry Mayhew Page B

remuneration exacted for the use of the above-namedcommodities is not merely confined to the legal 5
l
. per centum per annum; still many of even the most ‘knowing’ will hardly be able to credit the fact that the ordinary rate of interest in the costermongers’ money-market amounts to 20 per cent. per week, or no less than 1,040
l
. a year, for every 100
l
. advanced.
    But the iniquity of this usury in the present instance is felt, not so much by the costermongers themselves, as by the poor people whom they serve; for, of course, the enormous rate of interest must be paid out of the profits on the goods they sell, and consequently added to the price, so that coupling this overcharge with the customary short allowance – in either weight or measure, as the case may be – we can readily perceive how cruelly the poor are defrauded, and how they not only get often too little for what they do, but have as often to pay too much for what they buy.
    Premising thus much, I shall now proceed to describe the terms upon which the barrow, the cart, the basket, the weights, the measures, the stock-money, or the stock, is usually advanced to the needy costermongers by their more thrifty brethren.
    The hire of a barrow is 3
d
. a day, or 1
s
. a week, for the six winter months; and 4
d
. a day, or 1
s
. 6
d
. a week, for the six summer months. Some are to be had rather lower in the summer, but never for less than 4
d
. – sometimes for not less than 6
d
. on a Saturday, when not unfrequently every barrow in London is hired. No security and no deposit is required, but the lender satisfies himself that the borrower is really what he represents himself to be. I am informed that 5,000 hired barrows are now in the hands of the London costermongers, at an average rental of 3
l
. 5
s
. each, or 16,250
l
. a year. One man lets out 120 yearly, at a return (dropping the 5
s
.) of 360
l
.; while the cost of a good barrow, new, is 2
l
. 12
s
., and in the autumn and winter they may be bought new, or ‘as good as new’, at 30
s
. each; so that reckoning each to cost this barrow-letter 2
l
. – he receives 360
l
. rent or interest – exactly 150 per cent, per annum for property which originally cost but 240
l
., and property which is still as good for the ensuing year’s business as for the past. One man has rented a barrow for eight years, during which period he has paid 26
l
. for what in the first instance did not cost more than twice as many shillings, and which he must return if he discontinues its use. ‘I know men well to do,’ said an intelligent costermonger, ‘who have paid 1
s
. and 1
s
. 6
d
. a week for a barrow for three, four, and five years; and they can’t be made to understand that it’s rather high rent for what might cost 40
s
. at first. They can’t see they are losers. One barrow-lender sends his son out, mostly on a Sunday, collecting his rents (for barrows), but he’s not a hard man.’Some of the lenders complain that their customers pay them irregularly and cheat them often, and that in consequence they must charge high; while the ‘borrowers’ declare that it is very seldom indeed that a man ‘shirks’ the rent for his barrow, generally believing that he has made an advantageous bargain, and feeling the want of his vehicle, if he lose it temporarily. Let the lenders, however, be deceived by many, still, it is evident, that the rent charged for barrows is most exorbitant, by the fact, that all who take to the business become men of considerable property in a few years.
    Donkey-carts are rarely hired. ‘If there’s 2,000 donkey and pony-carts in London, more or less, not 200 of them’s borrowed; but of barrows five to two is borrowed.’ A donkey-cart costs from 2
l
. to 10
l
.; 3
l
. 10
s
. being an average price. The hire is 2
s
. or 2
s
. 6
d
. a week. The harness costs 2
l
. 10
s
. new, but is bought, nineteen times out of twenty, second-hand, at from 2
s
. 6
d
. to 20
s
. The donkeys themselves are