I have ascertained, and from sources where no ignorance on the subject
could prevail, that there are now in the streets of London, rather more
than 100 Jew-boys engaged principally in fruit and cake-selling in the
streets. Very few Jewesses are itinerant street-sellers. Most of the
older Jews thus engaged have been street-sellers from their boyhood.
The young Jews who ply in street-callings, however, are all men in
matters of traffic, almost before they cease, in years, to be children.
In addition to the Jew-boy street-sellers above enumerated, there are
from 50 to 100, but usually about 50, who are occasional, or “casual”
street-traders, vending for the most part cocoa-nuts and grapes, and
confining their sales chiefly to the Sundays.
On the subject of the street-Jew boys, a Hebrew gentleman said to
me: “When we speak of street-Jew boys, it should be understood, that
the great majority of them are but little more conversant with or
interested in the religion of their fathers, than are the costermonger
boys of whom you have written. They are Jews by the accident of their
birth, as others in the same way, with equal ignorance of the assumed
faith, are Christians.”
I received from a Jew boy the following account of his trading pursuits
and individual aspirations. There was somewhat of a thickness in his
utterance, otherwise his speech was but little distinguishable from
that of an English street-boy. His physiognomy was decidedly Jewish,
but not of the handsomer type. His hair was light-coloured, but clean,
and apparently well brushed, without being oiled, or, as I heard a
street-boy style it, “greased”; it was long, and he said his aunt told
him it “wanted cutting sadly;” but he “liked it that way;” indeed, he
kept dashing his curls from his eyes, and back from his temples, as
he was conversing, as if he were somewhat vain of doing so. He was
dressed in a corduroy suit, old but not ragged, and wore a tolerably
clean, very coarse, and altogether buttonless shirt, which he said
“was made for one bigger than me, sir.” He had bought it for 9-1/2_d._
in Petticoat-lane, and accounted it a bargain, as its wear would be
durable. He was selling sponges when I saw him, and of the commonest
kind, offering a large piece for 3_d._, which (he admitted) would be
rubbed to bits in no time. This sponge, I should mention, is frequently
“dressed” with sulphuric acid, and an eminent surgeon informed me that
on his servant attempting to clean his black dress coat with a sponge
that he had newly bought in the streets, the colour of the garment, to
his horror, changed to a bright purple. The Jew boy said--
“I believe I’m twelve. I’ve been to school, but it’s long since, and my
mother was very ill then, and I was forced to go out in the streets to
have a chance. I never was kept to school. I can’t read; I’ve forgot
all about it. I’d rather now that I could read, but very likely I could
soon learn if I could only spare time, but if I stay long in the house
I feel sick; it’s not healthy. O, no, sir, inside or out it would be
all the same to me, just to make a living and keep my health. I can’t
say how long it is since I began to sell, it’s a good long time; one
must do something. I could keep myself now, and do sometimes, but my
father--I live with him (my mother’s dead) is often laid up. Would you
like to see him, sir? He knows a deal. No, he can’t write, but he can
read a little. Can I speak Hebrew? Well, I know what you mean. O, no,
I can’t. I don’t go to synagogue; I haven’t time. My father goes, but
only sometimes; so he says, and he tells me to look out, for we must
both go by-and-by.” [I began to ask him what he knew of Joseph, and
others recorded in the Old Testament, but he bristled up, and asked
if I wanted to make a Meshumet (a convert) of him?] “I have sold all
sorts of things,” he continued, “oranges, and lemons, and sponges,
and nuts, and sweets. I should like to have a real good ginger-beer
fountain of my own; but I must wait, and there’s many in the trade.
I only go with boys of my own sort. I sell to all sorts of boys, but
that’s nothing. Very likely they’re Christians, but that’s nothing to
me. I don’t know what’s the difference between a Jew and Christian,
and I don’t want to talk about it. The Meshumets are never any good.
Anybody will tell you that. Yes, I like music and can sing a bit. I
get to a penny and sometimes a two-penny concert. No, I haven’t been
to Sussex Hall--I know where it is--I shouldn’t understand it. You get
in for nothing, that’s one thing. I’ve heard of Baron Rothschild. He
has more money than I could count in shillings in a year. I don’t know
about his wanting to get into parliament, or what it means; but he’s
sure to do it or anything else, with his money. He’s very charitable,
I’ve heard. I don’t know whether he’s a German Jew, or a Portegee,
or what. He’s a cut above me, a precious sight. I only wish he was
my uncle. I can’t say what I should do if I had his money. Perhaps I
should go a travelling, and see everything everywhere. I don’t know
how long the Jews have been in England; always perhaps. Yes, I know
there’s Jews in other countries. This sponge is Greek sponge, but I
don’t know where it’s grown, only it’s in foreign parts. Jerusalem!
Yes, I’ve heard of it. I’m of no tribe that I know of. I buy what I eat
about Petticoat-lane. No, I don’t like fish, but the stews, and the
onions with them is beautiful for two-pence; you may get a pennor’th.
The pickles--cowcumbers is best--are stunning. But they’re plummiest
with a bit of cheese or anything cold--that’s my opinion, but you may
think different. Pork! Ah! No, I never touched it; I’d as soon eat a
cat; so would my father. No, sir, I don’t think pork smells nice in a
cook-shop, but some Jew boys, as I knows, thinks it does. I don’t know
why it shouldn’t be eaten, only that it’s wrong to eat it. No, I never
touched a ham-sandwich, but other Jew boys have, and laughed at it, I
know.
“I don’t know what I make in a week. I think I make as much on one
thing as on another. I’ve sold strawberries, and cherries, and
gooseberries, and nuts and walnuts in the season. O, as to what I
make, that’s nothing to nobody. Sometimes 6_d._ a day, sometimes
1_s._; sometimes a little more, and sometimes nothing. No, I never
sells inferior things if I can help it, but if one hasn’t stock-money
one must do as one can, but it isn’t so easy to try it on. There
was a boy beaten by a woman not long since for selling a big pottle
of strawberries that was rubbish all under the toppers. It was all
strawberry leaves, and crushed strawberries, and such like. She wanted
to take back from him the two-pence she’d paid for it, and got hold
of his pockets and there was a regular fight, but she didn’t get a
farthing back though she tried her very hardest, ’cause he slipped from
her and hooked it. So you see it’s dangerous to try it on.” [This last
remark was made gravely enough, but the lad told of the feat with such
manifest glee, that I’m inclined to believe that he himself was the
culprit in question.] “Yes, it was a Jew boy it happened to, but other
boys in the streets is just the same. Do I like the streets? I can’t
say I do, there’s too little to be made in them. _No, I wouldn’t like
to go to school, nor to be in a shop, nor be anybody’s servant but my
own._ O, I don’t know what I shall be when I’m grown up. I shall take
my chance like others.”
OF THE PURSUITS, DWELLINGS, TRAFFIC, ETC., OF THE JEW-BOY
STREET-SELLERS.
To speak of the street Jew-boys as regards their traffic, manners,
haunts, and associations, is to speak of the same class of boys who
may not be employed regularly in street-sale, but are the comrades of
those who are; a class, who, on any cessation of their employment in
cigar manufactories, or indeed any capacity, will apply themselves
temporarily to street-selling, for it seems to these poor and
uneducated lads a sort of natural vocation.
These youths, _uncontrolled_ or _incontrollable_ by their parents
(who are of the lowest class of the Jews, and who often, I am told,
care little about the matter, so long as the child can earn his own
maintenance), frequently in the evenings, after their day’s work,
resort to coffee-shops, in preference even to a cheap concert-room. In
these places they amuse themselves as men might do in a tavern where
the landlord leaves his guests to their own caprices. Sometimes one of
them reads aloud from some exciting or degrading book, the lads who
are unable to read listening with all the intentness with which many
of the uneducated attend to any one reading. The reading is, however,
not unfrequently interrupted by rude comments from the listeners. If
a newspaper be read, the “police,” or “crimes,” are mostly the parts
preferred. But the most approved way of passing the evening, among the
Jew boys, is to play at draughts, dominoes, or cribbage, and to bet on
the play. Draughts and dominoes are unpractised among the costermonger
boys, but some of the young Jews are adepts in those games.
A gentleman who took an interest in the Jew lads told me that he had
often heard the sort of reading and comments I have described, when
he had called to talk to and perhaps expostulate with, these youths
in a coffee-shop, but he informed me that they seldom regarded any
expostulation, and seemed to be little restrained by the presence
of a stranger, the lads all muttering and laughing in a box among
themselves. I saw seven of them, a little after eight in the evening,
in a coffee-shop in the London-road,--although it is not much of a
Jewish locality,--and two of them were playing at draughts for coffee,
while the others looked on, betting halfpennies or pennies with all the
eagerness of gamblers, unrestrained in their expressions of delight
or disappointment as they thought they were winning or losing, and
commenting on the moves with all the assurance of connoisseurship;
sometimes they squabbled angrily and then suddenly dropped their
voices, as the master of the coffee-shop had once or twice cautioned
them to be quiet.
The dwellings of boys such us these are among the worst in London, as
regards ventilation, comfort, or cleanliness. They reside in the courts
and recesses about Whitechapel and Petticoat-lane, and generally in a
garret. If not orphans they usually dwell with their father. I am told
that the care of a mother is almost indispensable to a poor Jew boy,
and having that care he seldom becomes an outcast. The Jewesses and Jew
girls are rarely itinerant street-sellers--not in the proportion of one
to twelve, compared with the men and boys; in this respect therefore
the street Jews differ widely from the English costermongers and the
street Irish, nor are the Hebrew females even stall-keepers in the same
proportion.
One Jew boy’s lodging which I visited was in a back garret, low and
small. The boy lived with his father (a street-seller of fruit), and
the room was very bare. A few sacks were thrown over an old palliass,
a blanket seemed to be used for a quilt; there were no fire-irons nor
fender; no cooking utensils. Beside the bed was an old chest, serving
for a chair, while a board resting on a trestle did duty for a table
(this was once, I presume, a small street-stall). The one not very
large window was thick with dirt and patched all over. Altogether I
have seldom seen a more wretched apartment. The man, I was told, was
addicted to drinking.
The callings of which the Jew boys have the monopoly are not connected
with the sale of any especial article, but rather with such things as
present a variety from those ordinarily offered in the streets, such
as cakes, sweetmeats, fried fish, and (in the winter) elder wine.
The cakes known as “boolers”--a mixture of egg, flour, and candied
orange or lemon peel, cut very thin, and with a slight colouring from
saffron or something similar--are now sold principally, and used to be
sold exclusively, by the Jew boys. Almond cakes (little round cakes
of crushed almonds) are at present vended by the Jew boys, and their
sponge biscuits are in demand. All these dainties are bought by the
street-lads of the Jew pastry-cooks. The difference in these cakes,
in their sweetmeats, and their elder wine, is that there is a dash
of spice about them not ordinarily met with. It is the same with the
fried fish, a little spice or pepper being blended with the oil. In
the street-sale of pickles the Jews have also the monopoly; these,
however, are seldom hawked, but generally sold from windows and
door-steads. The pickles are cucumbers or gherkins, and onions--a large
cucumber being 2_d._, and the smaller 1_d._ and 1/2_d._
The faults of the Jew lad are an eagerness to make money by any means,
so that he often grows up a cheat, a trickster, a receiver of stolen
goods, though seldom a thief, for he leaves that to others. He is
content to profit by the thief’s work, but seldom _steals_ himself,
however he may cheat. Some of these lads become rich men; others are
vagabonds all their lives. None of the Jew lads confine themselves to
the sale of any one article, nor do they seem to prefer one branch of
street-traffic to another. Even those who cannot read are exceedingly
quick.
I may here observe in connection with the receipt of stolen goods,
that I shall deal with this subject in my account of the LONDON
THIEVES. I shall also show the connection of Jewesses and Jews with the
_prostitution of the metropolis_, in my forthcoming exposition of the
LONDON PROSTITUTES.