“Oh such a year for dreadful murders As this before was never seen; In England, Ireland, Britain over, Such horrid crimes has never been. But this which now has been discovered Very far exceeds the whole, The very thought makes men to shudder, How horrible for to unfold. “See and read in every paper This dreadful crime, this mystery, Worse, far worse, than James Greenacre’s Is the London mystery. “His body it was cut to pieces— Oh how dreadful was his fate! Then placed in brine and hid in secret— Horrible for to relate. The head and limbs had been divided— Where parts was taken no one knows; In a carpet bag they packed the body, Over Waterloo bridge they did it throw. “It is supposed that a female monster Her victim’s body onward dragged, With no companion to assist her, All packed within a carpet bag. Justice determined is to take her, When without doubt she’ll punished be, The atrocious female Greenacre Of the Waterloo Bridge Tragedy.” The reader will see from these specimens how alien the costermonger race is in sympathy and life from the respectable and the well-to-do. Their songs are not ours, nor their aims nor conventional observances. What wonder is it that they leave their wretched cellars all dirt and darkness, and crowd round the public-house; or that at the costermongers’ house of call—in the midst of an atmosphere of gin and tobacco-smoke, and under the influence of songs of very questionable merit—the poor lads receive the education which is to stamp their character and to teach them to grow up Ishmaelites, with their hands against every one, and every one’s hand against them. Society will not educate its poor; wonder not then that they educate themselves, and that after a fashion not very desirable in the eyes of the friends of morality, of order, and of law. THE POLICE-COURT