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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What were costermongers called who carried their wares on their backs?
(a) Back sellers.
(b) Mobile vendors.
(c) Packmen.
(d) Pack vendors.

2. What did the children who were put in jail think of the experience?
(a) They usually were beat at home when they got out of jail.
(b) They were proud of themselves.
(c) They saw it as a vacation.
(d) They were ashamed.

3. On what did coster children often waste their money?
(a) Betting.
(b) Beer.
(c) Sweets.
(d) Cigarettes.

4. What percentage of people earning their living on the streets were vendors?
(a) Seventy-five percent.
(b) Eighty-five percent.
(c) Fifty percent.
(d) Sixty percent.

5. What did dustmen do?
(a) Hauled off the coal dust and ashes.
(b) Dusted the store fronts.
(c) Kept the noble's carriages clean.
(d) Cleaned out chimneys.

6. What type of gambling was most popular with costers?
(a) Playing cards or pitching pennies.
(b) Betting on the horse races.
(c) Betting on dog fights.
(d) Playing chess for money.

7. What occasionally happened to one of the bolder boys?
(a) They would be arrested for grain theft and put in jail for a week.
(b) They would get smashed when a load of coal was dumped in the barge.
(c) They would get smothered when a load of grain was dumped in the bin.
(d) They would be arrested for coal theft and put in jail for a week.

8. What happened if a coster child didn't have the money to pay for lodging?
(a) They sold themselves to another renter.
(b) They ran up a bill.
(c) They hid under the bed.
(d) They were sent out to steal.

9. What did patterers deliver to their potential customers?
(a) Monologues on how to do things.
(b) Sermons on the sinfulness of life.
(c) Long, creative sales pitches.
(d) Short, pithy sales pitches.

10. How did wholesale suppliers cheat costers?
(a) Making the terms of sell difficult to understand.
(b) Adding hidden interest rates.
(c) Holding the stock until it was sold and selling to two different costers.
(d) Selling rotten produce or shortchanging them.

11. What does Mayhew say the Jewish traders seldom were?
(a) Penurious.
(b) Kind.
(c) Generous.
(d) Drinkers or gamblers.

12. What did Mayhew say was the reason people from wealthier families became patterers?
(a) Believing it was the way God called people to live.
(b) Being kicked out of their home.
(c) Rebellion.
(d) Wanderlust.

13. How were dustmen hired?
(a) They just worked and then asked for a wage.
(b) By individual store owners.
(c) By the city council.
(d) By the mayor.

14. What is one thing crossing sweeps did for tips?
(a) Watch for cops when something illegal was going on.
(b) Run numbers.
(c) Run errands.
(d) Tell someone who has been by their home.

15. What was a job of last resort?
(a) Chimney sweeps.
(b) Crossing sweeps.
(c) Costermongers.
(d) Begging.

Short Answer Questions

1. Who usually watched Jewish girls who peddled fruit?

2. How did the renters of low lodging houses eat?

3. Who collected coal, small scraps of wood, lost coins and other junk from the deep, sucking, stinking mud?

4. What would very occasionally happen to a dependable crossing sweep?

5. What was the average wage of someone in the job in number 69?

(see the answer keys)

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