Transcribed from the [1869] edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org
[Picture: Book cover]
[Picture: Yours truly James Greenwood (picture of Greenwood)]
THE
SEVEN CURSES OF LONDON.
* * * * *
BY JAMES GREENWOOD,
The “Amateur Casual.”
* * * * *
* * * * *
* * * * *
LONDON:
STANLEY RIVERS AND CO.
CONTENTS.
I. Neglected Children.
CHAPTER I.
STARTLING FACTS.
The Pauper Population.—Pauper Children.—Opinions page 1
concerning their proper Treatment.—A Hundred Thousand
Children loose in London Streets.—Neglected
Babies.—Juvenile “Market Prowlers”
CHAPTER II.
RESPECTING THE PARENTAGE OF SOME OF OUR GUTTER POPULATION.
Who are the Mothers?—The Infant Labour-Market.—Watch p. 13
London and Blackfriars Bridges.—The Melancholy Types.—The
Flashy, Flaunting “Infant.”—Keeping Company.—Marriage.—The
Upshot
CHAPTER III.
BABY-FARMING.
“Baby-Farmers” and Advertising “Child-Adopters.”—“F. X.” p. 29
of Stepney.—The Author’s Interview with Farmer Oxleek.—The
Case of Baby Frederick Wood
CHAPTER IV.
WORKING BOYS.
The London Errand-Boy.—His Drudgery and Privations.—His p. 58
Temptations.—The London Boy after Dark.—The Amusements
provided for him
CHAPTER V.
THE PROBLEM OF DELIVERANCE.
Curious Problem.—The best Method of Treatment.—The “Child p. 76
of the Gutter” not to be entirely abolished.—The genuine
Alley-bred Arab.—The Poor Lambs of the Ragged Flock.—The
Tree of Evil in our midst.—The Breeding Places of Disease
and Vice
II. Professional Thieves.
CHAPTER VI.
THEIR NUMBER AND DIFFICULTIES.
Twenty Thousand Thieves in London.—What it means.—The p. 85
Language of “Weeds.”—Cleverness of the Pilfering
Fraternity.—A Protest against a barbarous Suggestion.—The
Prisoner’s great Difficulty.—The Moment of Leaving
Prison.—Bad Friends.—What becomes of Good Resolutions and
the Chaplain’s Counsel?—The Criminal’s Scepticism of Human
Goodness.—Life in “Little Hell.”—The Cow-Cross Mission.
CHAPTER VII.
HOMES AND HAUNTS OF THE BRITISH THIEF.
The Three Classes of Thieving Society.—Popular p. 108
Misapprehensions.—A True Picture of the London Thief.—A
Fancy Sketch of the “Under-ground Cellar.”—In Disguise at
a Thieves’ Raffle.—The Puzzle of “Black Maria.”—Mr.
Mullins’s Speech and his Song
CHAPTER VIII.
JUVENILE THIEVES.
The Beginning of the Downhill Journey.—Candidates for p. 124
Newgate Honours.—Black Spots of London.—Life from the
Young Robber’s Point of View.—The Seedling Recruits the
most difficult to reform.—A doleful Summing-up.—A Phase of
the Criminal Question left unnoticed.—Budding
Burglars.—Streams which keep at full flood the Black Sea
of Crime.—The Promoters of “Gallows Literature.”—Another
Shot at a Fortress of the
Devil.—“Poison-Literature.”—“Starlight Sall.”—“Panther
Bill”
CHAPTER IX.
THE THIEF NON-PROFESSIONAL.
The Registered and the Unregistered Thieves of the London p. 144
Hunting-ground.—The Certainty of the Crop of Vice.—Omnibus
Drivers and Conductors.—The “Watchers.”—The London General
Omnibus Company.—The Scandal of their System.—The
Shopkeeper Thief.—False Weights and Measures.—Adulteration
of Food and Drink.—Our Old Law, “I am as honest as I can
afford to be!”—Rudimentary Exercises in the Art of Pillage
CHAPTER X.
CRIMINAL SUPPRESSION AND PUNISHMENT.
Lord Romilly’s Suggestion concerning the Education of the p. 173
Children of Criminals.—Desperate Criminals.—The Alleys of
the Borough.—The worst Quarters not, as a rule, the most
noisy.—The Evil Example of “Gallows Heroes,” “Dick
Turpin,” “Blueskin,” &c.—The Talent for “Gammoning Lady
Green.”—A worthy Governor’s Opinion as to the best way of
“Breaking” a Bad Boy.—Affection for “Mother.”—The Dark
Cell and its Inmate.—An Affecting Interview
CHAPTER XI.
ADULT CRIMINALS AND THE NEW LAW FOR THEIR BETTER GOVERNMENT.
Recent Legislation.—Statistics.—Lord Kimberley’s “Habitual p. 183
Criminals” Bill.—The Present System of
License-Holders.—Colonel Henderson’s Report.—Social
Enemies of Suspected Men.—The Wrong-headed Policeman and
the Mischief he may cause.—Looking out for a Chance.—The
last Resource of desperate Honesty.—A Brotherly
Appeal.—“Ginger will settle her.”—Ruffians who should be
shut up
III. Professional Beggars.
CHAPTER XII.
THE BEGGAR OF OLDEN TIME.
“Only a Beggar.”—The Fraternity 333 Years ago.—A savage p. 211
Law.—Origin of the Poor-Laws.—Irish Distinction in the
Ranks of Beggary.—King Charles’s Proclamation.—Cumberland
Discipline
CHAPTER XIII.
THE WORK OF PUNISHMENT AND RECLAMATION.
The Effect of “The Society for the Suppression of p. 221
Mendicity.”—State Business earned out by Individual
Enterprise.—“The Discharged Prisoners’ Aid Society.”—The
quiet Work of these Societies.—Their Mode of Work.—Curious
Statistics.—Singular Oscillations.—Diabolical Swindling
CHAPTER XIV.
BEGGING “DODGES.”
The Variety and Quality of the Imposture.—Superior p. 242
Accomplishments of the Modern Practitioner.—The Recipe for
Success.—The Power of “Cheek.”—“Chanting” and the “Shallow
Lay.”—Estimates of their Paying Value.—The Art of touching
Women’s Hearts.—The Half-resentful Trick.—The Loudon
“Cadger.”—The Height of the “Famine Season.”
CHAPTER XV.
GENTEEL ADVERTISING BEGGARS.
The Newspaper Plan and the delicate Process.—Forms of 259
Petition.—Novel Applications of Photography.—Personal
Attractions of the Distressed.—Help, or I perish!
IV. Fallen Women.
CHAPTER XVI.
THIS CURSE.
The Difficulty in handling it.—The Question of its p. 271
Recognition.—The Argyll Rooms.—Mr. Acton’s Visit
there.—The Women and their Patrons.—The Floating
Population of Windmill-street.—Cremorne Gardens in the
Season
CHAPTER XVII.
THE PLAIN FACTS AND FIGURES OF PROSTITUTION.
Statistics of Westminster, Brompton, and Pimlico.—Methods p. 281
of conducting the nefarious Business.—Aristocratic
Dens.—The High Tariff.—The Horrors of the Social Evil.—The
Broken Bridge behind the Sinner.—“Dress Lodgers.”—There’s
always a “Watcher.”—Soldiers and Sailors.—The “Wrens of
the Curragh”
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE PRESENT CONDITION OF THE QUESTION.
The Laws applying to Street-walkers.—The Keepers of the p. 304
Haymarket Night-houses.—Present Position of the
Police-magistrates.—Music-hall
Frequenters.—Refreshment-bars.—Midnight
Profligacy—“Snuggeries.”—Over-zealous Blockheads.
CHAPTER XIX.
SUGGESTIONS.
Ignoring the Evil.—Punishment fit for the “Deserter” and p. 324
the Seducer.—The “Know-nothing” and “Do-nothing”
Principle.—The Emigration of Women of Bad Character
V. The Curse of Drunkenness.
CHAPTER XX.
ITS POWER.
The crowning Curse.—No form of sin or sorrow in which it p. 332
does not play a part.—The “Slippery Stone” of
Life.—Statistics.—Matters not growing worse.—The Army
Returns.—The System of Adulteration
CHAPTER XXI.
ATTEMPTS TO ARREST IT.
The Permissive Liquors Bill.—Its Advocates and their p. 351
Arguments.—The Drunkenness of the Nation.—Temperance Facts
and Anecdotes.—Why the Advocates of Total Abstinence do
not make more headway.—Moderate Drinking.—Hard
Drinking.—The Mistake about childish Petitioners
VI. Betting Gamblers.
CHAPTER XXII.
“ADVERTISING TIPSTERS” AND “BETTING COMMISSIONERS.”
The Vice of Gambling on the increase among the p. 377
Working-classes.—Sporting “Specs.”—A “Modus.”—Turf
Discoveries.—Welshers.—The Vermin of the
Betting-field.—Their Tactics.—The Road to Ruin
VII. Waste of Charity.
CHAPTER XXIII.
METROPOLITAN PAUPERISM.
Parochial Statistics.—The Public hold the p. 421
Purse-strings.—Cannot the Agencies actually at work be
made to yield greater Results?—The need of fair
Rating.—The Heart and Core of the Poor-law Difficulty.—My
foremost thought when I was a “Casual.”—Who are most
liable to slip?—“Crank-work.”—The Utility of
Labour-yards.—Scales of Relief.—What comes of breaking-up
a Home
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE BEST REMEDY.
Emigration.—The various Fields.—Distinguish the p. 455
Industrious Worker in need of temporary Relief.—Last Words
I.—Neglected Children.
CHAPTER I.
STARTLING FACTS.
_The Pauper Population_.—_Pauper Children_.—_Opinions concerning their
proper Treatment_.—_A Hundred Thousand Children loose in London
Streets_.—_Neglected Babies_.—_Juvenile_ “_Market Prowlers_.”
IT is a startling fact that, in England and Wales alone, at the present
time, the number of children under the age of sixteen, dependent more or
less on the parochial authorities for maintenance, amounts to three
hundred and fifty thousand.
It is scarcely less startling to learn that annually more than a hundred
thousand criminals emerge at the doors of the various prisons, that, for
short time or long time, have been their homes, and with no more
substantial advice than “to take care that they don’t make their
appearance there again,” are turned adrift once more to face the world,
unkind as when they last stole from it. This does not include our
immense army of juvenile vagrants. How the information has been arrived
at is more than I can tell; but it is an accepted fact that, daily,
winter and summer, within the limits of our vast and wealthy city of
London, there wander, destitute of proper guardianship, food, clothing,
or employment, a _hundred thousand_ boys and girls in fair training for
the treadmill and the oakum shed, and finally for Portland and the
convict’s mark.
It is these last-mentioned hundred thousand, rather than the four hundred
and fifty thousand previously mentioned, that are properly classed under
the heading of this first chapter. Practically, the three hundred and
fifty thousand little paupers that cumber the poor-rates are without the
category of neglected ones. In all probability, at least one-half of
that vast number never were victims of neglect, in the true sense of the
term. Mr. Bumble derives his foster children from sources innumerable.
There are those that are born in the “house,” and who, on some pretext,
are abandoned by their unnatural mother. There are the “strays,”
discovered by the police on their beats, and consigned, for the present,
to the workhouse, and never owned. There is the offspring of the
decamping weaver, or shoemaker, who goes on tramp “to better himself;”
but, never succeeding, does not regard it as worth while to tramp home
again to report his ill-luck. These, and such as these, may truly
ascribe their pauperism to neglect on somebody’s part; but by far the
greater number are what they are through sheer misfortune. When death
snatches father away from the table scarcely big enough to accommodate
the little flock that cluster about it—snatches him away in the lusty
prime of life, and without warning, or, worse still, flings him on a bed
of sickness, the remedies for which devour the few pounds thriftily laid
aside for such an emergency, and, after all, are of no avail, what other
asylum but the workhouse offers itself to mother and children? How many
cases of this kind the parish books could reveal, one can only guess;
quite enough, we may be sure, to render unpalatable that excessive amount
of caution observed by those in power against “holding out a premium” to
pauperism. It is somewhat amazing to hear great authorities talk
sometimes. Just lately, Mr. Bartley, reading at the Society of Arts a
paper entitled, “The training and education of pauper children,” took
occasion to remark:—
“These children cannot be looked upon exactly in the same way as
paupers proper, inasmuch as their unfortunate position is entirely
due to circumstances over which they could have no control. They are
either the offspring of felons, cripples, and idiots, or orphans,
bastards, and deserted children, and claim the protection of the law,
frequently from their tenderest years, from having been deprived of
the care of their natural guardians without fault or crime of their
own. Such being their condition, they must either steal or starve in
the streets, or the State must take charge of them. It may further
be affirmed that, in a strictly commercial point of view, it is more
economical to devote a certain amount in education and systematic
training than by allowing them to grow up in the example of their
parents and workhouse companions, to render their permanent support,
either in a prison or a workhouse, a burden on the industrious
classes. The State, in fact, acknowledges this, and accordingly a
provision is theoretically supplied for all pauper children, not only
for their bodily wants, but, to a certain extent, for their mental
improvement. At the same time, it is also necessary that the extreme
should not be run into, viz., that of treating them so liberally as
to hold out a premium to pauperism. In no case should their comfort
be better than, nor in fact as good as, an industrious labourer has
within his reach.”
Mr. Bartley is a gentleman whose knowledge of the subject he treats of
exceeds that of most men; moreover, he is a man who, in his acts and
nature, shows himself actuated by a kind heart, governed by a sound head;
but, with all deference, it is difficult to agree altogether with the
foregoing remarks of his: and they are the better worth noticing, because
precisely the same sentiment breathes through almost every modern, new,
and improved system of parochial reform. Why should these unfortunate
creatures, “their unfortunate position being entirely due to
circumstances over which they had no control,” be made less comfortable
in their condition than the industrious labourer,—who, by the way, may be
an agricultural labourer, with his starvation wages of nine shillings a
week and his damp and miserable hovel of two rooms to board and lodge his
numerous family? What sort of justice is it to keep constantly before
their unoffending eyes the humiliating fact that they have no standing
even on the bottom round of the social ladder, and that their proper
place is to crouch meekly and uncomplainingly at the foot of it? Even
supposing that they, the pauper children, are “either the offspring of
felons, cripples, and idiots, or orphans, bastards, and deserted
children,” which is assuming to the verge of improbability, still, since
it is acknowledged that the state in which we discover them “is due to no
fault or crime of their own,” why should we hesitate to make them
commonly comfortable? To fail so to do when it is in our power, and
when, according to their innocence and helplessness, it is their due, is
decidedly at variance with the commonly-understood principles of
Christian charity. It will be needless, however, here to pursue the
subject of pauper management, since another section of this book has been
given to its consideration. Anyhow, our three hundred and fifty thousand
pauper children can have no claim to be reckoned among the “neglected.”
They are, or should be, a class whose hard necessity has been brought
under the notice of the authorities, and by them considered and provided
for.
There are other neglected children besides those already enumerated, and
who are not included in the tenth part of a million who live in the
streets, for the simple reason that they are too young to know the use of
their legs. They are “coming on,” however. There is no present fear of
the noble annual crop of a hundred thousand diminishing. They are so
plentifully propagated that a savage preaching “civilization” might
regard it as a mercy that the localities of their infant nurture are such
as suit the ravening appetites of cholera and typhus. Otherwise they
would breed like rabbits in an undisturbed warren, and presently swarm so
abundantly that the highways would be over-run, making it necessary to
pass an Act of Parliament, improving on the latest enacted for dogs,
against the roaming at large of unmuzzled children of the gutter.
Observe the vast number of “city Arabs,” to be encountered in a walk,
from Cheapside to the Angel at Islington, say. You cannot mistake them.
There are other children who are constantly encountered in the street,
male and female, who, though perhaps neither so ragged and dirty as the
genuine juvenile vagrants, are even more sickly and hungry looking; but
it is as easy to distinguish between the two types—between the
_home-owning_ and the _homeless_, as between the sleek pet dog, and the
cur of the street, whose ideas of a “kennel” are limited to that
represented by the wayside gutter, from which by good-luck edibles may be
extracted. Not only does the youthful ragamuffin cry aloud for remedy in
every street and public way of the city, he thrusts his ugly presence on
us continuously, and appeals to us in bodily shape. In this respect, the
curse of neglected children differs widely from any of the others,
beggars alone excepted, perhaps. And even as regards beggars, to see
them is not always to believe in them as human creatures helpless in the
sad condition in which they are discovered, and worthy of the best help
we can afford to bestow on them. It is next to impossible by outward
signs merely to discriminate between the impostor and the really
unfortunate and destitute. The pallid cheek and the sunken eye, may be a
work of art and not of nature, and in the cunning arrangement of rags, so
as to make the most of them, the cheat must always have an advantage over
the genuine article. Weighing the evidence _pro._ and _con._, the object
of it creeping even at his snail’s pace may be out of sight before we
arrive at what appears to us a righteous verdict, and our scrupulous
charity reserved for another, occasion. But no such perplexing doubts
and hesitation need trouble us in selecting the boy gutter bred and born
from the one who lays claim to a home, even though it may be no more than
a feeble pretence, consisting of a family nightly gathering in some dirty
sty that serves as a bedroom, and a morning meeting at a board spread
with a substitute for a breakfast. In the latter there is an expression
of countenance utterly wanting in the former; an undescribable shyness,
and an instinctive observance of decency, that has been rain-washed and
sun-burnt out of the gipsy of the London highway since the time of his
crawling out of the gooseberry sieve, with a wisp of hay in it that
served him as a cradle.
And here I can fancy I hear the incredulous reader exclaim, “But that is
mere imagery of course; ragamuffin babies never are cradled in gooseberry
sieves, with a wisp of hay to lie on.” Let me assure you, dear madam, it
is not imagery, but positive fact. The strangest receptacles do duty as
baby cradles at times. In another part of our book, it will be shown
that a raisin-box may be so adapted, or even an egg-box; the latter with
a bit of straw in it as a cradle for an invalid baby with a broken thigh!
But as regards the gooseberry sieve, it is a fact that came under the
writer’s immediate observation. Accompanied by a friend, he was on a
visit of exploration into the little-known regions of Baldwin’s Gardens,
in Leather Lane, and entering a cellar there, the family who occupied it
were discovered in a state of dreadful commotion. The mother, a tall,
bony, ragged shrew, had a baby tucked under one arm, while she was using
the other by the aid of a pair of dilapidated nozzleless bellows in
inflicting a tremendous beating on a howling young gentleman of about
eleven years old. “Tut! tut! what is the matter, Mrs. Donelly? Rest
your arm a moment, now, and tell us all about it.” “Matther! shure it’s
matther enough to dhrive a poor widdy beyant her sinses!” And then her
rage turning to sorrow, she in pathetic terms described how that she left
that bad boy Johnny only for a few moments in charge of the “darlint
comfortable ashleap in her bashket,” and that he had neglected his duty,
and that the baste of a donkey had smelt her out, and “ate her clane out
o’ bed.”
I have had so much experience in this way, that one day I may write a
book on the Haunts and Homes of the British Baby. It was not long after
the incident of the gooseberry sieve, that I discovered in one small room
in which a family of six resided, three little children, varying in age
from three to eight, perhaps, stark naked. It was noon of a summer’s
day, and there they were nude as forest monkeys, and so hideously dirty
that every rib-bone in their poor wasted little bodies showed plain, and
in colour like mahogany. Soon as I put my head in at the door they
scattered, scared as rabbits, to the “bed,” an arrangement of
evil-smelling flock and old potato-sacks, and I was informed by the
mother that they had not a rag to wear, and had been in their present
condition for _more than three months_.
Let us return, however, to the hordes of small Arabs found wandering
about the streets of the city. To the mind of the initiated, instantly
recurs the question, “whence do they all come”? They are not imported
like those other pests of society, “German band boys or organ grinders;”
they must have been babies once upon a time; where did they grow up? In
very dreary and retired regions, my dear sir, though for that matter if
it should happen that you are perambulating fashionable Regent-street or
aristocratic Belgravia, when you put to yourself the perplexing question,
you may be nigher to a visible solution of the mystery than you would
care to know. Where does the shoeless, ragged, dauntless, and often
desperate boy of the gutter breed? Why, not unfrequently as close almost
to the mansions of the rich and highly respectable as the sparrows in
their chimney stacks. Nothing is more common than to discover a hideous
stew of courts and alleys reeking in poverty and wretchedness almost in
the shadow of the palatial abodes of the great and wealthy. Such
instances might be quoted by the dozen.
It is seldom that these fledglings of the hawk tribe quit their nests or
rather their nesting places until they are capable, although on a most
limited scale, of doing business on their own account. Occasionally a
specimen may be seen in the vicinity of Covent Garden or Farringdon
Market, seated on a carriage extemporized out of an old rusty teatray and
drawn along by his elder relatives, by means of a string. It may not be
safely assumed, however, that the latter are actuated by no other than
affectionate and disinterested motives in thus treating their infant
charge to a ride. It is much more probable that being left at home in
the alley by their mother, who is engaged elsewhere at washing or
“charing,” with strict injunctions not to leave baby for so long as a
minute, and being goaded to desperation by the thoughts of the plentiful
feed of cast-out plums and oranges to be picked up in “Common Garden” at
this “dead ripe” season of the year, they have hit on this ingenious
expedient by which the maternal mandate may be obeyed to the letter, and
their craving for market refuse be at the same time gratified.
By-the-bye, it may here be mentioned as a contribution towards solving
the riddle, “How do these hundred thousand street prowlers contrive to
exist?” that they draw a considerable amount of their sustenance from the
markets. And really it would seem that by some miraculous dispensation
of Providence, garbage was for their sake robbed of its poisonous
properties, and endowed with virtues such as wholesome food possesses.
Did the reader ever see the young market hunters at such a “feed” say in
the month of August or September? It is a spectacle to be witnessed only
by early risers who can get as far as Covent Garden by the time that the
wholesale dealing in the open falls slack—which will be about eight
o’clock; and it is not to be believed unless it is seen. They will
gather about a muck heap and gobble up plums, a sweltering mass of decay,
and oranges and apples that have quite lost their original shape and
colour, with the avidity of ducks or pigs. I speak according to my
knowledge, for I have seen them at it. I have seen one of these gaunt
wolfish little children with his tattered cap full of plums of a sort one
of which I would not have permitted a child of mine to eat for all the
money in the Mint, and this at a season when the sanitary authorities in
their desperate alarm at the spread of cholera had turned bill stickers,
and were begging and imploring the people to abstain from this, that, and
the other, and especially to beware of fruit unless perfectly sound and
ripe. Judging from the earnestness with which this last provision was
urged, there must have been cholera enough to have slain a dozen strong
men in that little ragamuffin’s cap, and yet he munched on till that
frowsy receptacle was emptied, finally licking his fingers with a relish.
It was not for me to forcibly dispossess the boy of a prize that made him
the envy of his plumless companions, but I spoke to the market beadle
about it, asking him if it would not be possible, knowing the
propensities of these poor little wretches, so to dispose of the
poisonous offal that they could not get at it; but he replied that it was
nothing to do with him what they ate so long as they kept their hands
from picking and stealing; furthermore he politely intimated that “unless
I had nothing better to do” there was no call for me to trouble myself
about the “little warmint,” whom nothing would hurt. He confided to me
his private belief that they were “made inside something after the
orsestretch, and that farriers’ nails wouldn’t come amiss to ’em if they
could only get ’em down.” However, and although the evidence was rather
in the sagacious market beadle’s favour, I was unconverted from my
original opinion, and here take the liberty of urging on any official of
Covent Garden or Farringdon Market who may happen to read these pages the
policy of adopting my suggestion as to the safe bestowal of fruit offal
during the sickly season. That great danger is incurred by allowing it
to be consumed as it now is, there cannot be a question. Perhaps it is
too much to assume that the poor little beings whom hunger prompts to
feed off garbage do so with impunity. It is not improbable that, in many
cases, they slink home to die in their holes as poisoned rats do. That
they are never missed from the market is no proof of the contrary. Their
identification is next to impossible, for they are like each other as
apples in a sieve, or peas in one pod. Moreover, to tell their number is
out of the question. It is as incomprehensible as is their nature. They
swarm as bees do, and arduous indeed would be the task of the individual
who undertook to reckon up the small fry of a single alley of the
hundreds that abound in Squalor’s regions. They are of as small account
in the public estimation as stray street curs, and, like them, it is only
where they evince a propensity for barking and biting that their
existence is recognised. Should death to-morrow morning make a clean
sweep of the unsightly little scavengers who grovel for a meal amongst
the market offal heaps, next day would see the said heaps just as
industriously surrounded.