a Coal Fund; a Clothing Club; a Donkey Club (for purchasing donkeys by means of small instalments), besides others for educational, moral, and religious improvement.
The accounts given of the annual meetings of the costers and their friends are among the curiosities of current literature. Coming prominently forward at these assemblages we perceive the Earl of Shaftesbury, a nobleman who, animated by the kindliest motives, deems it no sacrifice to his high position to encourage by his presence and by his speeches the humble efforts made by the costers in the progress of well-doing. A few years since, at one of the annual meetings, which are held in May, the Earl of Shaftesbury took the chair. First, there was tea given to three hundred of the men; then was held a donkey-show, in which the excellent condition of the animals was fully evinced; and then came the event of the evening. The costermongers had bought a donkey of unusual size, strength, and beauty; they decked him profusely with ribbons, and brought him into the Hall. In the names of all the men, Mr Carter, a vestryman of St Luke's parish, who kindly interests himself in their welfare, presented the donkey to the Earl of Shaftesbury. The Earl, as is said, had already become, in a whimsical and pleasant sense, a costermonger, and now in virtue of his donkey was an accepted full member of the corps. Whether the Earl's Neddy appreciated the honour conferred on him, we do not know; but we may be quite sure that no hard usage was in store for him.
As may be generally known, attempts to encourage the improvement of donkeys have taken place through public shows and the offering of prizes. A Donkey and Mule show, held at the Crystal Palace in May 1874, was the means of giving to many persons their first idea of the real value of an exhibition which some had beforehand laughed at, as an absurdity. It was amply proved that the donkey can become a really beautiful animal when well treated; and it was equally made manifest that rough street-dealers can be as kind as their betters when encouraged to be so. An archbishop carried off a prize; several costermongers did the same; and a truly cosmopolitan feeling was exhibited when the prizes were distributed. The Earl of Shaftesbury, who presided on the occasion, humorously claimed to be a costermonger himself; for (to encourage others in a good work) he had enrolled his name in the Golden Lane branch of the Costermongers' Society. Many of the donkeys exhibited at the Crystal Palace had been employed in drawing carts and trucks laden with vegetables, fruit, fish, salt, sand, firewood, crockery-ware, and other commodities; and the excellent condition of some of them won prizes for their owners. Even a few of the donkey-drivers of Blackheath and Hampstead Heath shewed that the fraternity are not always so rough and unkind as they usually appear. It was asserted that donkeys which do not work on Sunday are generally more active and ready on Monday; so that the trader is but little a loser by this course in the long-run. The Earl of Shaftesbury remarked that: 'It would be seen from the show that these animals are designed by Providence to be of the greatest service to mankind; and that kindly treatment and respect – respect for the wants and feelings of the animals – will bring their own reward in willing service.' Several donkey-shows have since been held in and near the metropolis, conveying the same useful lesson.
In August of the present year, a Pony and Donkey show was held in London, in connection with the Golden Lane Mission and Society. The Earl of Shaftesbury and Lady Edith Ashley kindly and patiently examined the hard-working dumb companions of the costermongers, and exchanged pleasant words with the men. There was a tea for four hundred going on nearly at the same time. After this came a general 'march past,' and a distribution of money and books as prizes. The donkeys were all in admirable condition; while many of the ponies were plump and sleek. His lordship now called for Wilkins, a shrewd prosperous coster of Golden Lane, and bedecked with the insignia of authority as an officer of the Benefit Society. This coster and another made brief speeches; after which Colonel Henderson, Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, declared that the costers are generally deserving of high praise, and that the police have very little trouble with them – when once the laws relating to the public streets are well understood. After a few more speeches and addresses, the noble chairman said in pleasant humour that he had received a poem entitled The Earl and the Ass; that the donkey he had received a few years before at the hands of the costermongers was under the doctor's care; and that this fact alone prevented the animal from being present. Every donkey at the show was known by some name or other; and hence there were many such designations as Tommy, Old Tommy, Black Tommy, Jack, Prince, Paddy, Old Jack, Old Sam, Boko, Charlie, Mike, Ugly Tom, Quick; while the other sex in the race was represented by such feminine names as Jenny, Pretty Polly, Kitty, Pretty Jane, Maggie, and Betsy.
We do not know what was the poem to which the Earl of Shaftesbury alluded, but conclude that it was a poem which appeared in Punch relative to the presentation of the donkey to his Lordship. To shew how a facetious periodical can rise above mere jesting, we transcribe the following verses:
Could there be a better gift? The patient beast
Who bears the stick, and will on thistles feast,
Yet in hard duty struggles to the end,
Is always grateful to a human friend,
But seldom finds such friends; is roughly fostered
By costermongers, sellers of the costard,
Sellers of other things from door to door,
And very useful traders for the poor —
He bears a cross, we know; and legends say
Has borne, in memory of a wondrous day,
When love wrought miracles, in stress and strife,
And sick were healed, and dead men raised to life.
Since when, 'twixt hard knocks, hard words, and hard fare,
He and his owners both their cross must bear.
The Earl, who loves his race, loves other races;
He has sought evil out in darksome places,
And bravely grappled with its many arms,
And tamed its strength, and paralysed its harms;
Brought aid to weakness, moved dead weights away,
That crushed the soul down, deep in mire and clay.
The greatest, by descending, may ascend:
The peer who is the costermongers' friend,
Dares on the platform stroke an ass's ears,
Rises above the level of his peers.
As an evidence that the endeavours to improve the London costermongers morally as well as physically, have not been thrown away, we may add the following anecdotes.
In 1872 a costermonger named Darby, plying his itinerant trade in the densely packed and comfortless region immediately eastward of the City of London, was one day driving his donkey-cart, laden with cheap fish from Billingsgate. The poor donkey accidentally put his foot into a plug-hole, fell, and broke his leg between the knee and the fetlock – pitching his master out of the cart, and seriously bruising him. His brother-costers advised Darby to kill the animal at once, as no one had ever heard of a donkey's broken leg being healed. But Darby would not listen to this. He took the donkey home, and made a temporary bed for him in the only sitting-room. The man and his wife tended the poor animal, which often groaned with pain. The wife was a washerwoman at the East London Hospital, but she did not grudge to the poor donkey a little of that time which was so valuable to her. A kind lady then undertook to take charge of the donkey until cured, at a place twelve or fourteen miles from London. With bandaging and careful treatment, aided by the benefit of pure fresh air, the leg became sound in eighteen months; and Darby had a good reply to make to those companions who had said to him: 'Kill it, old fellow; it will never be able to get up again. First loss is the best; nobody can set a donkey's leg. Kill it, old fellow, at once!' The kind-hearted costermonger became known as 'Darby, the donkey's friend.' A testimonial was presented to him by the Ladies' Committee of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals; and he is justly proud of it.
As we write, a paragraph appears in The Times, communicated by an observer. 'Having occasion to pass through Whitecross Street on Thursday
