Concerning a dog-finder, I received the following account from one who
had received the education of a gentleman, but whom circumstances had
driven to an association with the vagrant class, and who has written
the dog-finder’s biography from personal knowledge--a biography
which shows the _variety_ that often characterizes the career of the
“lurker,” or street-adventurer.
“If your readers,” writes my informant, “have passed the Rubicon of
‘forty years in the wilderness,’ memory must bring back the time
when the feet of their childish pilgrimage have trodden a beautiful
grass-plot--now converted into Belgrave-square; when Pimlico was a
‘village out of town,’ and the ‘five fields’ of Chelsea were fields
indeed. To write the biography of a living character is always
delicate, as to embrace all its particulars is difficult; but of the
truthfulness of my account there is no question.
“Probably about the year of the great frost (1814), a French Protestant
refugee, named La Roche, sought asylum in this country, not from
persecution, but from difficulties of a commercial character. He built
for himself, in Chelsea, a cottage of wood, nondescript in shape, but
pleasant in locality, and with ample accommodations for himself and
his son. Wife he had none. This little bazaar of mud and sticks was
surrounded with a bench of rude construction, on which the Sunday
visitors to Ranelagh used to sit and sip their curds and whey, while
from the entrance--far removed in those days from competition--
‘There stood uprear’d, as ensign of the place,
Of blue and red and white, a checquer’d mace,
On which the paper lantern hung to tell
How cheap its owner shaved you, and how well.’
Things went on smoothly for a dozen years, when the old Frenchman
departed this life.
“His boy carried on the business for a few months, when frequent
complaints of ‘Sunday gambling’ on the premises, and loud whispers of
suspicion relative to the concealment of stolen goods, induced ‘Chelsea
George’--the name the youth had acquired--to sell the good-will of the
house, fixtures, and all, and at the eastern extremity of London to
embark in business as a ‘mush or mushroom-faker.’ Independently of his
appropriation of umbrellas, proper to the mush-faker’s calling, Chelsea
George was by no means scrupulous concerning other little matters
within his reach, and if the proprietors of the ‘swell cribs’ within
his ‘beat’ had no ‘umbrellas to mend,’ or ‘old ’uns to sell,’ he would
ease the pegs in the passage of the incumbrance of a greatcoat, and
telegraph the same out of sight (by a colleague), while the servant
went in to make the desired inquiries. At last he was ‘bowl’d out’ in
the very act of ‘nailing a yack’ (stealing a watch). He ‘expiated,’
as it is called, this offence by three months’ exercise on the
‘cockchafer’ (tread-mill). Unaccustomed as yet to the novelty of the
exercise, he fell through the wheel and broke one of his legs. He was,
of course, permitted to finish his time in the infirmary of the prison,
and on his liberation was presented with five pounds out of ‘the
Sheriffs’ Fund.’
“Although, as I have before stated, he had never been out of England
since his childhood, he had some little hereditary knowledge of the
French language, and by the kind and voluntary recommendation of one
of the police-magistrates of the metropolis, he was engaged by an
Irish gentleman proceeding to the Continent as a sort of supernumerary
servant, to ‘make himself generally useful.’ As the gentleman was
unmarried, and mostly stayed at hotels, George was to have permanent
wages and ‘find himself,’ a condition he invariably fulfilled, if
anything was left in his way. Frequent intemperance, neglect of duty,
and unaccountable departures of property from the portmanteau of his
master, led to his dismissal, and Chelsea George was left, without
friends or character, to those resources which have supported him for
some thirty years.
“During his ‘umbrella’ enterprise he had lived in lodging-houses of
the lowest kind, and of course mingled with the most depraved society,
especially with the vast army of trading sturdy mendicants, male and
female, young and old, who assume every guise of poverty, misfortune,
and disease, which craft and ingenuity can devise or well-tutored
hypocrisy can imitate. Thus initiated, Chelsea George could ‘go upon
any lurk,’ could be in the last stage of consumption--actually in his
dying hour--but now and then convalescent for years and years together.
He could take fits and counterfeit blindness, be a respectable
broken-down tradesman, or a soldier maimed in the service, and
dismissed without a pension.
“Thus qualified, no vicissitudes could be either very new or very
perplexing, and he commenced operations without delay, and pursued
them long without desertion. The ‘first move’ in his mendicant career
was _taking them on the fly_; which means meeting the gentry on their
walks, and beseeching or at times menacing them till something is
given; something in general _was_ given to get rid of the annoyance,
and, till the ‘game got stale,’ an hour’s work, morning and evening,
produced a harvest of success, and ministered to an occasion of
debauchery.
“His less popular, but more upright father, had once been a
dog-fancier, and George, after many years vicissitude, at length
took a ‘fancy’ to the same profession, but not on any principles
recognised by commercial laws. With what success he has practised, the
ladies and gentlemen about the West-end have known, to their loss and
disappointment, for more than fifteen years past.
“Although the police have been and still are on the alert, George
has, in every instance, hitherto escaped punishment, while numerous
detections connected with escape have enabled the offender to hold
these officials at defiance. The ‘modus operandi’ upon which George
proceeds is to varnish his hands with a sort of gelatine, composed
of the coarsest pieces of liver, fried, pulverised, and mixed up
with tincture of myrrh.” [This is the composition of which Inspector
Shackell spoke before the Select Committee, but he did not seem to know
of what the lure was concocted. My correspondent continues]: “Chelsea
George caresses every animal who seems ‘a likely spec,’ and when his
fingers have been rubbed over the dogs’ noses they become easy and
perhaps willing captives. A bag carried for the purpose, receives the
victim, and away goes George, bag and all, to his printer’s in Seven
Dials. Two bills and no less--two and no more, for such is George’s
style of work--are issued to describe the animal that has thus been
_found_, and which will be ‘restored to its owner on payment of
expenses.’ One of these George puts in his pocket, the other he pastes
up at a public-house whose landlord is ‘fly’ to its meaning, and poor
‘bow-wow’ is sold to a ‘dealer in dogs,’ not very far from Sharp’s
alley. In course of time the dog is discovered; the possessor refers
to the ‘establishment’ where he bought it; the ‘dealer makes himself
_square_,’ by giving the address of ‘the chap he bought ’un of,’ and
Chelsea George shows a copy of the advertisement, calls in the publican
as a witness, and leaves the place ‘without the slightest imputation on
his character.’ Of this man’s earnings I cannot speak with precision:
it is probable that in a ‘good year’ his clear income is 200_l._;
in a bad year but 100_l._, but, as he is very adroit, I am inclined
to believe that the ‘good’ years somewhat predominate, and that the
average income may therefore exceed 150_l._ yearly.”