patterers (proper), or at any rate of those who do not deem it vain so
to account themselves, because they “work paper,” I proceed to adduce
an account of the different grades of patterers generally, for patter
has almost as many divisions as literature. There is patter pathetic,
as from beggars; bouncing, to puff off anything of little or no value;
comic, as by the clowns; descriptive, as in the cases where the
vendor describes, however ornately, what he really sells; religious,
as occasionally by the vendors of tracts; _real patter_ (as it is
understood by the profession) to make a thing believed to be what it is
not; classical, as in the case of the sale of stenographic cards, &c.;
and sporting, as in race cards.
The pattering tribe is by no means confined to the traffic in paper,
though it may be the principal calling as regards the acuteness
of its professors. Among these street-folk are the running and
standing patterers (or stationers as they are sometimes, but rarely,
styled)--and in these are included, the Death and Fire Hunters of
whom I have spoken; Chaunters; Second Edition-sellers; Reciters;
Conundrum-sellers; Board-workers; Strawers; Sellers of (Sham)
Indecent Publications; Street Auctioneers; Cheap Jacks; Mountebanks
(quacks); Clowns; the various classes of Showmen; Jugglers;
Conjurors; Ring-sellers for wagers; Sovereign-sellers; Corn-curers;
Grease-removers; French-polishers; Blacking-sellers; Nostrum-vendors;
Fortune-tellers; Oratorical-beggars; Turnpike-sailors; the classes of
Lurkers; Stenographic Card-sellers, and the Vendors of Race-cards or
lists.
The following accounts have been written for me by the same gentleman
who has already described the Religion, Morals, &c., of patterers.
He has for some years resided among the class, and has pursued a
street calling for his existence. What I have already said of his
opportunities of personal observation and of dispassionate judgment I
need not iterate.
“I wish,” says the writer in question, “in the disclosures I am now
about to make concerning the patterers generally, to _do more_ than
merely put the public on their guard. I take no cruel delight in
dragging forth the follies of my fellow-men. Before I have done with my
subject, I hope to draw forth and exhibit some of the latent virtues of
the class under notice, many of whom I know to sigh in secret over that
_one_ imprudent step (whatever its description), which has furnished
the censorious with a weapon they have been but too ready to wield.
The first thing for me to do is to give a glance at the _habitations_
of these outcasts, and to set forth their usual conduct, opinions,
conversation and amusements. As London (including the ten mile circle),
is the head quarters of lodging-house life, and least known, because
most crowded, I shall lift the veil which shrouds the vagrant hovel
where the patterer usually resides.
* * * * *
“As there are many individuals in lodging-houses who are not regular
patterers or professional vagrants, being rather, as they term
themselves, ‘travellers’ (or tramps), so there are multitudes who
do _not_ inhabit such houses who really belong to the fraternity,
pattering, or vagrant. Of these some take up their abode in what
they call ‘flatty-kens,’ that is, houses the landlord of which is
not ‘awake’ or ‘fly’ to the ‘moves’ and dodges of the trade; others
resort to the regular ‘padding-kens,’ or houses of call for vagabonds;
while others--and especially those who have families--live constantly
in furnished rooms, and have little intercourse with the ‘regular’
travellers, tramps, or wanderers.
“The medium houses the London vagrant haunts, (for I have no wish to go
to extremes either way,) are probably in Westminster, and perhaps the
fairest ‘model’ of the ‘_monkry_’ is the house in Orchard-street--once
the residence of royalty--which has been kept and conducted for half a
century by the veteran who some fifty years ago was the _only_ man who
amused the population with that well-known ditty,
‘If I’d as much money as I could tell,
I would not cry young lambs to sell.’
_Mister_ (for that is the old man’s title) still manufactures lambs,
but seldom goes out himself; his sons (obedient and exemplary young
men) take the toys into the country, and dispose of them at fairs and
markets. The wife of this man is a woman of some beauty and good sound
sense, but far too credulous for the position of which she is the
mistress.
“So much for the establishment. I have now to deal with the inmates.
“No one could be long an inmate of Mr. ----’s without discerning in the
motley group persons who had seen better days, and, seated on the same
bench, persons who are ‘seeing’ the best days they _ever_ saw. When I
took up my abode in the house under consideration, I was struck by the
appearance of a middle-aged lady-like woman, a native of Worcester,
bred to the glove trade, and brought up in the lap of plenty, and under
the high sanction of religious principle. She had evidently some source
of mental anguish. I believe it was the conduct of her husband, by whom
she had been deserted, and who was living with a woman to whom, it is
said, the wife had shown much kindness. By her sat a giant in size, and
candour demands that I should say a ‘giant in sin.’ When Navy Jem,
as he is called, used to _work_ for his living (it was a long while
ago) he drove a barrow at the formation of the Great Western Railway.
At present the man lies in bed till mid-day, and when he makes his
appearance in the kitchen,
‘The very kittens on the hearth
They dare not even play.’
His breakfast embraces all the good things of the season. He divides
his delicacies with a silver fork--where did he get it? The mode in
which this man obtains a livelihood is at once a mixture and a mystery.
His prevailing plan is to waylay gentlemen in the decline of life, and
to extort money by threats of accusation and exposure, to which I can
do no more than allude. His wife, a notorious shoplifter, is now for
the third time ‘expiating her offences’ in Coldbath-fields.
“Next to Navy Jem may be perceived a little stunted woman, of pretended
Scotch, but really Irish extraction, whose husband has died in the
hospital for consumption at least as many times as the hero of Waterloo
has seen engagements. At last the man _did_ die, and his widow has been
collecting money to bury him for eight years past, but has not yet
secured the required sum. This woman, whose name I never knew, has a
boy and a girl; to the former she is very kind, the latter she beats
without mercy, always before breakfast, and with such (almost) unvaried
punctuality that her brother will sometimes whisper (after saying
grace), ‘Mother, has our Poll had her licks yet?’
* * * * *
“Among the records of mortality lately before the public, is the
account of a notorious woman, who was found suffocated in a stagnant
pool, whether from suicide or accident it was impossible to determine.
She had been in every hospital in town and country, suffering from a
disease, entirely self-procured. She applied strong acids to wounds
previously punctured with a pin, and so caused her body to present one
mass of sores. She was deemed incurable by the hospital doctors, and
liberal collections were made for her among the benevolent in various
places. The trick, however, was ultimately discovered, and the failure
of her plan (added to the bad state of health to which her bodily
injuries had gradually led) preyed upon her mind and hastened her death.
“This woman had been the paramour of ‘Peter the crossing-sweeper,’ a
man who for years went about showing similar wounds, which he pretended
had been inflicted while fighting in the Spanish Legion--though,
truth to say, he had never been nearer Spain than Liverpool is to New
York. He had followed the ‘monkry’ from a child, and chiefly, since
manhood, as a ‘broken-down weaver from Leicester,’ and after singing
through every one of the provinces ‘We’ve got no work to do,’ he
scraped acquaintance with a ‘school of shallow coves;’ that is, men
who go about half-naked, telling frightful tales about shipwrecks,
hair-breadth escapes from houses on fire, and such like aqueous and
igneous calamities. By these Peter was initiated into the ‘_scaldrum
dodge_,’ or the art of burning the body with a mixture of acids and
gunpowder, so as to suit the hues and complexions of the accident to
be deplored. Such persons hold every morning a ‘committee of ways
and means,’ according to whose decision the movements of the day are
carried out. Sometimes when on their country rounds, they go singly up
to the houses of the gentry and wealthy farmers, begging shirts, which
they hide in hedges while they go to another house and beg a similar
article. Sometimes they go in crowds, to the number of from twelve
to twenty; they are most successful when the ‘swell’ is not at home;
if they can meet with the ‘Burerk’ (Mistress), or the young ladies,
they ‘put it on them for dunnage’ (beg a stock of general clothing),
flattering their victims first and frightening them afterwards. A
friend of mine was present in a lodging-house in Plymouth, when a
school of the shallow coves returned from their day’s work with _six
suits of clothes, and twenty-seven shirts, besides children’s apparel
and shoes_, (all of which were sold to a broker in the same street),
and, besides these, the donations in money received amounted to 4_s._
4_d._ a man.
“At this enterprise ‘Peter’ continued several years, but--to use his
own words--‘everything has but a time,’ the country got ‘dead’ to
him, and people got ‘fly’ to the ‘shallow brigade;’ so Peter came up
to London to ‘try his hand at something else.’ Housed in the domicile
of ‘Sayer the barber,’ who has enriched himself by beer-shops and
lodging-house-keeping, to the tune it is said of 20,000_l._, Peter
amused the ‘travellers’ of Wentworth-street, Whitechapel, with recitals
of what he had seen and done. Here a profligate, but rather intelligent
man, who had really been in the service of the Queen of Spain, gave
him an old red jacket, and with it such instructions as equipped him
for the imposition. One sleeve of this jacket usually hung loosely
by his side, while the arm it should have covered was exposed naked,
and to all appearance withered. His rule was to keep silence till a
crowd assembled around him, when he began to ‘_patter_’ to them to the
following effect: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, it is with feelings of no
common reluctance that I stand before you at this time; but although I
am not without _feelings_, I am totally without friends, and frequently
without food. This wound (showing his disfigured arm) I received in the
service of the Queen of Spain, and I have many more on different parts
of my person. I received a little praise for my brave conduct, but not
a penny of pension, and here I am (there’s no deception you see) ill in
health--poor in pocket, and exposed without proper nourishment to wind
and weather--the cold is blowing through me till I am almost perished.’
His ‘_Doxy_’ stood by and received the ‘voluntary contributions’
of the audience in a soldier’s cap, which our hero emptied into his
pocket, and after snivelling out his thanks, departed to renew the
exhibition in the nearest available thoroughfare. Peter boasted that
he could make on an average fifteen of these pitches a day, and as the
proceeds were estimated at something considerable in each pitch (he has
been known to take as much as half-a-crown in pence at one standing),
he was able to sport his figure at Astley’s in the evening--to eat
‘spring lamb,’ and when reeling home under the influence of whiskey, to
entertain the peaceful inhabitants with the music of--‘We won’t go home
till morning----’
“Whether the _game_ got _stale_, or Peter became honest, is beyond the
purport of my communication to settle. If any reader, however, should
make his purchases at the puffing fishmonger’s in Lombard-street, they
may find Peter now pursuing the more honest occupation of sweeping the
crossing, by the church of St. Gabriel, Fenchurch-street.
“Among the most famous of the ‘lurking patterers’ was ‘Captain Moody,’
the son of poor but honest parents in the county of Cornwall, who
died during his boyhood, leaving him to the custody of a maiden aunt.
This lady soon, and not without reason, got tired of her incorrigible
charge. Young Moody was apprenticed successively to three trades,
and wanted not ability to become expert in any of them, but having
occasional interviews with some of the gipsey tribe, and hearing from
themselves of their wonderful achievements, he left the sober walks of
life and joined this vagrant fraternity.
“His new position, however, was attractive only while it was novel.
Moody, who had received a fair education, soon became disgusted with
the coarseness and vulgarity of his associates. At the solicitation
of a neighbouring clergyman, he was restored to the friendship of his
aunt, who had soon sad reason to regret that her compassion had got the
better of her prudence; for one Sunday afternoon, while she was absent
at church, young Moody who had pleaded indisposition and so obtained
permission to stay at home, decamped (after dispatching the servant
to the town, a mile distant, to fetch the doctor) in the meantime,
emptying his aunt’s ‘safety cupboard’ of a couple of gold watches and
£72 in cash and country notes.
“His roving disposition then induced him to try the sea, and the
knowledge he obtained during several voyages fitted him for those
maritime frauds which got him the name of ‘Captain Moody, the lurker.’
The frauds of this person are well known, and often recounted with
great admiration among the pattering fraternity. On one occasion,
the principal butcher in Gosport was summoned to meet a gentlemen at
an hotel. The _Louisa_, a brig, had just arrived at Portsmouth, the
captain’s name was Young, and this gentleman Moody personated for
the time being. ‘I have occasion,’ said he to the butcher, ‘for an
additional supply of beef for the _Louisa_; I have heard you spoken
of by Captain Harrison’ (whom Moody knew to be an old friend of
the butcher’s), ‘and I have thus given you the preference. I want
a bullock, cut up in 12lb. pieces; it must be on board by three
to-morrow.’ The price was agreed upon, and the captain threw down a
few sovereigns in payment, but, of course, discovered that he had not
gold enough to cover the whole amount, so he proposed to give him a
cheque he had just received from Captain Harrison for £100, and the
butcher could give him the difference. The tradesman was nothing loth,
for a cheque upon ‘Vallance, Mills, and West,’ with Captain Harrison’s
signature, was reckoned equal to money any day, and so the butcher
considered the one he had received, until the next morning, when the
draft and the order proved to be forgeries. The culprit was, of course,
nowhere to be found, nor, indeed, heard of till two years after, when
he had removed the scene of his depredations to Liverpool.
“In that port he had a colleague, a man whose manners and appearance
were equally prepossessing. Moody sent his ‘pal’ into a jeweller’s
shop, near the corner of Lord-street, who there purchased a small gold
seal, paid for it, and took his leave. Immediately afterwards, Moody
entered the shop under evident excitement, declaring that he had seen
the person, who had just left the shop secrete two, if not three, seals
up his coat-sleeve; adding, that the fellow had just gone through the
Exchange, and that if the jeweller were quick he would be sure to catch
him. The jeweller ran out without his hat, leaving his kind friend in
charge of the shop, and soon returned with the supposed criminal in his
custody. The ‘captain,’ however, in the mean time, had decamped, taking
with him a tray from the window, containing precious materials to the
value of 300_l._
“At another time, the ‘captain’ prepared a document, setting forth
‘losses in the Baltic trade,’ and a dismal variety of disasters; and
concluding with a melancholy shipwreck, which had really taken place
just about that time in the German Ocean. With this he travelled
over great part of Scotland, and with almost unprecedented success.
Journeying near the Frith of Forth, he paid a visit to Lord Dalmeny--a
nobleman of great benevolence--who had read the account of the
shipwreck in the local journals, and wondered that the petition was not
signed by influential persons _on the spot_; and, somewhat suspicious
of the reality of the ‘captain’s’ identity, placed a terrestrial globe
before him, and begged to be shown ‘in what latitude he was cast
away.’ The awkwardness with which Moody handled the globe showed that
_he_ was ‘out of _his_ latitude’ altogether. His lordship thereupon
committed the document to the flames, but generously gave the ‘captain’
a sovereign and some good advice; the former he appropriated at the
nearest public-house, of the latter he never made the least use.
“Old, and worn out by excesses and imprisonment, he subsists now by
‘sitting pad’ about the suburban pavements; and when, on a recent
evening, he was recognised in a low public-house in Deptford, he was
heard to say, with a sigh: ‘Ah! once I could “screeve a fakement”
(write a petition) or “cooper a monekur” (forge a signature) with any
man alive, and my heart’s game now; but I’m old and asthmatic, and got
the rheumatis, so that I ain’t worth a d--n.’
“‘The Lady Lurker.’--Of this person very little is known, and _that_
little, it is said, makes her an object of pity. Her father was a
dissenting minister in Bedfordshire. She has been twice married; her
first husband was a schoolmaster at Hackney, and nephew of a famous
divine who wrote a Commentary on the Bible, and was chaplain to
George III. She afterwards married a physician in Cambridgeshire (a
Dr. S----), who is alleged to have treated her ill, and even to have
attempted to poison her. She has no children; and, since the death
of her husband, has passed through various grades, till she is now a
cadger. She dresses becomingly in black, and sends in her card (Mrs.
Dr. S----) to the houses whose occupants are known, or supposed, to
be charitable. She talks with them for a certain time, and then draws
forth a few boxes of lucifers, which, she says, she is compelled to
sell for her living. These lucifers are merely excuses, of course,
for begging; still, nothing is known to have ever transpired in her
behaviour wholly unworthy of a distressed gentlewoman. She lives in
private lodgings.”
I continue the account of these habitations, and of their wretched
occupants, from the pen of the same gentleman whose vicissitudes
(partly self-procured) led him to several years’ acquaintance with the
subject.
“Padding-kens” (lodging-houses) in the country are certainly preferable
abodes to those of St. Giles’s, Westminster, or Whitechapel; but in
country as in town, their condition is extremely filthy and disgusting;
many of them are scarcely ever washed, and as to sweeping, once a week
is miraculous. In most cases they swarm with vermin, and, except where
their position is very airy, the ventilation is imperfect, and frequent
sickness the necessary result. It is a matter of surprise that the
nobility, clergy, and gentry of the realm should permit the existence
of such horrid dwellings.
“I think,” continues my informant, “that the majority of these
poor wretches are without even the idea of respectability or ‘home
comforts,’--many of them must be ranked among the worst of our
population. Some, who could live elsewhere, prefer these wretched
abodes, because they answer various evil purposes. With beggars,
patterers, hawkers, tramps, and vendors of their own manufacture, are
mingled thieves, women of easy virtue, and men of no virtue at all; a
few, and by far the smallest portion, are persons who once filled posts
of credit and affluence, but whom bankruptcy, want of employment, or
sickness has driven to these dismal retreats. The vast majority of
London vagrants take their summer vacation in the country, and the
‘dodges’ of both are interchanged, and every new ‘move’ circulates in
almost no time.
“I will endeavour to sketch a few of the most renowned ‘performers’
on this theatre of action. By far the most illustrious is ‘Nicholas
A----,’ an ame known to the whole cadging fraternity as a _real_
descendant from Bamfylde Moore Carew, and the ‘prince of lurkers’ and
patterers for thirty years past. This man owes much of his success to
his confessedly imposing appearance, and many of his escapes to the
known respectability of his connections. His father--yet alive--is
a retired captain in the Royal Navy, a gentleman of good private
property, and one of her Majesty’s justices of peace for the county of
Devon--the southern extremity of which was the birth-place of Nicholas.
But little is known of his early days. He went to school at Tavistock,
where he received a good education, and began life by cheating his
schoolfellows.
“The foolish fondness of an indulgent mother, and some want of firmness
in paternal discipline, accelerated the growth of every weed of infamy
in Nicholas, and baffled every experiment, by sea and land, to ‘set’
him up in life.
“Scarcely was he out of his teens, when he honoured the sister
country with his visits and his depredations. About the centre of
Sackville-street, Dublin, there lived a wealthy silversmith of the name
of Wise. Into his shop (accompanied by one of his _pals_ in livery)
went Nicholas, whose gentlemanly exterior, as I have already hinted,
would disarm suspicion in a stranger.
“‘Good morning sir, is your name Wise?--Yes, sir.--Well, that is
_my_ name.--Indeed, of the English family, I suppose?--Yes, sir,
East Kent.--Oh, indeed! related to the ladies of Leeds Castle, I
presume?--I have the honour to be their brother.--James, is your name
James or John?--Neither, sir, it is Jacob.--Oh, indeed! a very ancient
name.--Well, I have occasion to give a party at the Corn Exchange
Tavern, and I want a little plate on hire, can you supply me?’--A very
polite affirmative settled this part of the business. Plate to the
amount of 150_l._ was selected and arranged, when Nicholas discovered
that his pocket-book was at home (to complete the deception, his right
arm was in a sling). ‘Will you, Mr. Wise (you see my infirmity), write
me a few lines?--With the greatest pleasure,’ was the silversmith’s
reply.--‘Well, let me see. “_My dear, do not be surprised at this; I
want 150l., or all the money you can send, per bearer; I will explain
at dinner-time._
J. WISE.”
“‘Now, John, take this to your mistress, and be quick.’ As John was
not very hasty in his return, Nicholas went to look for him, leaving a
strict injunction that the plate should be sent to the Corn Exchange
Tavern, as soon as the deposit was received. This happened at eleven
in the forenoon--the clock struck five and no return of either the
master or the man.
“The jeweller left a message with his apprentice, and went home to
his dinner. He was met at the door of his suburban villa by his
‘better half,’ who wondered what made him so late, and wished to know
the nature of the exigency which had caused him to send home for so
much money? The good man’s perplexity was at an end when he saw his
own handwriting on the note; and every means within the range of
constabulary vigilance was taken to capture the offender, but Nicholas
and his servant got clear off.
“This man’s ingenuity was then taxed as to the next move, so he
thought it expedient to _tax_ somebody else. He went with his
‘pal’ to a miscellaneous repository, where they bought a couple of
old ledgers--useful only as waste paper, a bag to hold money, two
ink-bottles, &c. Thus equipped, they waited on the farmers of the
district, and exhibited a ‘fakement,’ setting forth parliamentary
authority for imposing a tax upon the geese! They succeeded to
admiration, and weeks elapsed before the hoax was discovered. The
coolness of thus assuming legislatorial functions, and being, at the
same time, the executive power, has rarely been equalled.