View a FREE sample

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

Multiple Choice Questions

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

2. What did the city of London use several tons of per year?
(a) Corn.
(b) Tobacco.
(c) Flour.
(d) Coal.

3. What did costermongers hope to do by dark everyday?`
(a) Sell enough merchandise to feed their family every night.
(b) Win big at gambling.
(c) They had no daily goals.
(d) Steal and fence enough goods for whiskey.

4. Who did not usually bother to wash up even before eating or sleeping?
(a) Everyone.
(b) Mudlarks.
(c) Ragmen.
(d) Chimney sweeps.

5. Why did some of these low-end workers go into the business?
(a) No reason is mentioned.
(b) Because their family was in it before them.
(c) Because they make pretty good pay.
(d) Because they like being outside.

6. What kind of selling required the most capital and equipment?
(a) Medicines.
(b) Weapons.
(c) Clothing.
(d) Food and beverage.

7. What did crossing sweeps do?
(a) Kept their assigned intersection clean.
(b) Swept the street in front of a gentleman or lady as they were crossing it.
(c) Swept the lantern cross pieces.
(d) Went through the city cleaning all the public and church crosses.

8. What was the average wage of someone in the job in number 69?
(a) 1.5 shillings per day.
(b) 22 shillings per day.
(c) 10 shillings per day.
(d) .5 shillings per day.

9. Who often became chimney sweepers?
(a) The smallest member of a Costermonger family.
(b) The tallest member of a Costermonger family.
(c) Many young men since it paid very well.
(d) Destitute orphans.

10. What did some of the bolder boys do?
(a) Collected the leavings out of the empty grain bins.
(b) Protected some of the more timid vendors.
(c) Took the leavings out of the empty coal barges.
(d) Ran errands to nobles who often would have them arrested.

11. How did coster runaway children usually support themselves?
(a) Joining the military.
(b) Entering orphanages.
(c) Selling items on the street.
(d) Living with another adult.

12. What could the interest rate on stock reach?
(a) Twenty percent per day.
(b) Forty percent per week.
(c) 1040 percent per year.
(d) Two hundred percent per year.

13. How were vendors categorized by Mayhew?
(a) Type of merchandise sold.
(b) By the class in which they were born.
(c) By how much money they made.
(d) By their place of business.

14. What were the two usual reasons customers bought from patterers?
(a) The patterers were almost always pretty, young women.
(b) To make fun of the patterers.
(c) They felt God wanted them to buy.
(d) For the entertainment and because they believed the spiel.

15. What were the low end lodging houses like?
(a) In terrible condition with no heat and leaky roofs.
(b) They were usually clean with decent food.
(c) They were typical dwellings for lower middle class.
(d) They were just adequate, a little heat and a roof.

Short Answer Questions

1. What percentage of people earning their living on the streets were vendors?

2. What did few adult Jews seldom work as?

3. What did Mayhew think of the reason for wealthier people to become patterers?

4. How did servants sometimes augment their pay without owner's permission?

5. What were costermongers called who carried their wares on their backs?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 570 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample