years ago. It was said there was not _one_ young female cottager of
virtuous character. There was not one man who was not, or had not
been, a drunkard; and theft, fighting, &c., &c., were universal. It is
greatly better now--totally different--and I attribute the change to
the land allotments, the provident society, the village horticultural
society, the lending library, the clothing club, the coal club, the
cultivating a taste for music, &c., &c., as subsidiary to the more
directly pastoral work of a clergyman, and the schools, &c.
“I am probably visionary in my ideas, but the perusal of your pages
has led me to think that, were I clergyman of a parish where the
street-folks _lived_, I should aim at some schemes of this style, in
addition to the benefit society and loan society (the last _most_
important) as proposed by yourself.
“(1) To get music taught at 1/2_d._ a week, or something of the
kind--_a ragged-school music-room_, if the people would learn gratis,
would be still better--as a _step_ to a “superior” music class at 1_d._
per week.
“(2) To get the poor to adorn their rooms _plentifully_ with a better
class of pictures--of places, of people, of natural history, and of
historical and religious subjects--just as they might like, and a
circulating library for pictures if they preferred change. This I find
takes with the village poor. Provide these things excessively cheap
for them--at _nominal prices_, just high enough to prevent them being
_sold_ at a profit by the poor.
“(3) To establish a monthly or fortnightly sheet--or little book for
the poor--at 1/2_d._, or some trifle, _full of pictures_ such as they
would like, but free from impropriety. It might be called ‘The Coster’s
Barrow,’ or some name which would take their fancy, and contain
pictures for those who cannot read, and reading for those who can.
Its contents should be instructive, and yet lively; as for instance,
the ‘History of London Bridge,’ ‘History of a Codfish,’ ‘Travels of
Whelks,’ ‘Dreams of St. Paul’s,’ (old History of England), ‘Voice
from the Bottom of the Coal Exchange’ (Roman tales), ‘True Tale of
Trafalgar,’ &c., &c. All _very short articles_, at which perhaps they
might be angry, or praise, or abuse, or _do anything_, but still would
read, or hear, and talk about. If possible, the little work might have
a corner called, ‘The Next World’s Page,’ or any name of the kind,
with _nothing_ in it but the Lord’s Prayer, or the Creed, or the Ten
Commandments, or a Parable, or Miracle, or discourse of Christ’s--in
the exact words of Scripture--without _any_ commentary; which could
neither annoy the Roman Catholics nor others. Those parts in which the
Douay version differs from ours might be avoided, and the Romanists be
given to understand that they would _always_ be avoided.
“The more difficult question of cheap amusements instead of the
demoralizing ones now popular, is one which as yet I cannot see my way
through---but it is one which _must_ be grappled with if any good is to
be done.
“I write thus,” adds my correspondent, “because I feel you are a
fellow-worker--so far as your labours show it, for the cause of God’s
poor--and therefore will sympathize in anything another worker can say
from experience on the same subject.”
* * * * *
Such are the opinions of two of my correspondents--each looking at
the subject from different points of view--the one living among the
people of whom he treats, and daily witnessing the effects of the
several plans now in operation for the moral and physical improvement
of the poor, and the other in frequent intercourse with the tramps and
lurkers, on their vagrant excursions through the country, as well as
with the resident poor of his own parish--the former living in friendly
communion with those of whom he writes, and the latter visiting them as
their spiritual adviser and material benefactor.
I would, however, before passing to the consideration of the next
subject, here pause to draw special attention to the distinctive
features of the several classes of people obtaining their livelihood in
the streets. These viewed in regard to the _causes_ which have induced
them to adopt this mode of life, may be arranged in three different
groups, viz.:
(1.) Those who are _bred_ to the streets.
(2.) Those who _take_ to the streets.
(3.) Those who are _driven_ to the streets.
The class bred to the streets are those whose fathers having been
street-sellers before them, have sent them out into the thoroughfares
at an early age to sell either watercresses, lavender, oranges, nuts,
flowers, apples, onions, &c., as a means of eking out the family
income. Of such street-apprenticeship several notable instances have
already been given; and one or two classes of juvenile street-sellers,
as the lucifer match, and the blacking-sellers, still remain to be
described. Another class of street-apprentice is to be found in the
boys engaged to wheel the barrows of the costers, and who are thus at
an early age tutored in all the art and mystery of street traffic,
and who rarely abandon it at maturity. These two classes may be said
to constitute the _natives_ of the streets--the tribe _indigenous_
to the paving-stones--imbibing the habits and morals of the gutters
almost with their mothers’ milk. To expect that children thus nursed
in the lap of the kennel, should when men not bear the impress of
the circumstances amid which they have been reared, is to expect to
find costermongers heroes instead of ordinary human beings. We might
as well blame the various races on the face of the earth for those
several geographical peculiarities of taste, which constitute their
national characteristics. Surely there is a moral acclimatisation as
well as a physical one, and the heart may become inured to a particular
atmosphere in the same manner as the body; and even as the seed of
the apple returns, unless grafted, to its original crab, so does the
child, without training, go back to its parent stock--the vagabond
savage. For the bred and born street-seller, who inherits a barrow as
some do coronets, to be other than he is--it has here been repeatedly
enunciated--is no fault of his but of ours, who could and yet _will_
not move to make him otherwise. Might not “the finest gentleman in
Europe” have been the greatest blackguard in Billingsgate, had he
been born to carry a fish-basket on his head instead of a crown? and
by a parity of reasoning let the roughest “rough” outside the London
fish-market have had his lot in life cast, “by the Grace of God, King,
Defender of the Faith,” and surely his shoulders would have glittered
with diamond epaulettes instead of fish scales.
I say thus much, to impress upon the reader a deep and devout sense,
that we who have been appointed to another state, are, by the grace
of God, what we are, and from no special merit of our own, to which,
in the arrogance of our self-conceit, we are too prone to attribute
the social and moral differences of our nature. Go to a lady of
fashion and tell her she could have even become a fishfag, and she
will think you some mad ethnologist (if indeed she had ever heard of
the science). Let me not, however, while thus seeking to impress the
reader’s mind with a sense of the “antecedents” of the human character,
be thought to espouse the doctrine that men are _merely_ the creatures
of events. All I wish to enforce is, that the three common causes
of the social and moral differences of individuals are to be found
in _race_, _organization_, and _circumstances_--that none of us are
entirely proof against the influence of these three conditions--the
_ethnological_, the _physiological_, and the _associative_ elements
of our idiosincracy. But, while I admit the full force of external
nature upon us all, while I allow that we are, in many respects, merely
patients, still I cannot but perceive that, in other respects we are
self-agents, moving rather than being moved, by events--often stemming
the current of circumstances, and at other times giving to it a special
direction rather than being swept along with it. I am conscious that
it is this directive and controlling power, not only over external
events, but over the events of my own nature, that distinguishes me
as well from the brute of the fields as it does my waking from my
sleeping moments. I know, moreover, that in proportion as a man is
active or passive in his operations, so is his humanity or brutality
developed; that true greatness lies in the superiority of the internal
forces over the external ones; and that as heroes, or extraordinary
men are heroes, because they overcome the sway of one or other, or
all, of the three material influences above-named, so ordinary people
are ordinary, simply because they lack energy--principle--will (call
it what you please) to overcome the material elements of their nature
with the spiritual. And it is precisely because I know this, that I
_do_ know that those who are bred to the streets must bear about them
the moral impress of the kennel and the gutter--unless _we_ seek to
develope the inward and controlling part of their constitution. If we
allow them to remain the creatures of circumstances, to wander through
life principleless, purposeless, conscienceless--if it be their lot to
be flung on the wide waste of waters without a “guiding star” above,
or a rudder or compass within, how can _we_ (the well-fed) _dare_
to blame them because, wanting bread, they prey and live upon their
fellow-creatures?
I say thus much, because I feel satisfied that a large portion of
the street-folk--and especially those who have been _bred_ to the
business--are of improvable natures; that they crave knowledge, as
starving men for “the staff of life;” that they are most grateful
for instruction; that they are as deeply moved by any kindness and
sympathy (when once their suspicion has been overcome) as they are
excited by any wrong or oppression--and I say it moreover, because
I feel thoroughly convinced of the ineffectiveness of the present
educational resources for the poor. We think, if we teach them
reading and writing, and to chatter a creed, that we have armed them
against the temptations, the trials, and the exasperations of life,
believing, because we have put the knife and fork in their hands that
we have really filled with food the empty bellies of their brains. We
exercise their memories, make them human parrots, and then wonder that
they do not act as human beings. The intellect, the conscience, the
taste, indeed all that refines, enlightens, and ennobles our nature,
we leave untouched, to shrivel and wither like unused limbs. The
beautiful, the admirable, the true, the right, are as hidden to them
as at their first day’s schooling. We impress them with no purpose,
animate them with no principle; they are still the same brute creatures
of circumstances--the same passive instruments--human waifs and
strays--left to be blown about as the storms of life may whirl them.
Of the second group, or those who _take_ to the streets, I entertain
very different opinions. This class is distinguished from that above
mentioned, in being wanderers by choice, rather than wanderers by
necessity. In the early chapters of this work, I strove to point
out to my readers that the human race universally consisted of two
distinct classes: the wanderers and the settlers--the civilized and
the savage--those who _produced_ their food, and those who merely
_collected_ it. I sought further to show, that these two classes were
not necessarily isolated, but that, on the contrary, almost every
civilized tribe had its nomadic race, like parasites, living upon it.
These nomadic races I proved, moreover, to have several characteristics
common to the class, one of the most remarkable of which was, their
adoption of a _secret_ language, with the intent of concealing their
designs and exploits. “Strange to say,” I then observed, “that despite
its privations, dangers, and hardships, those who have once taken to
a wandering life rarely abandon it. There are countless instances,” I
added, “of white men adopting all the usages of an Indian hunter; but
there is not one example of the Indian hunter or trapper, adopting the
steady and regular habits of civilized society.” That this passion
for “a roving life” (to use the common expression by which many of
the street-people themselves designate it), is a marked feature of
some natures, there cannot be a doubt in the mind of any one who
has contemplated even the surface differences of human beings; and
nevertheless it is a point to which no social philosopher has yet drawn
attention. To my mind, it is essentially the _physical_ cause of crime.
Too restive and volatile to pursue the slow process of production,
the wanderers, and consequently the _collectors_, of subsistence must
(in a land where all things are appropriated) live upon the stock of
the _producers_. The nomadic or vagrant class have all an universal
type, whether they be the Bushmen of Africa or the “tramps” of our own
country; and Mr. Knapp, the intelligent master of the Wandsworth and
Clapham Union, to whom I was referred at the time of my investigations
touching the subject of vagrancy, as having the greatest experience
upon the matter, gave me the following graphic account, which, as I
said at the time of its first publication, had perhaps never been
surpassed as an analysis of the habits and propensities of the vagabond
class:
“Ignorance,” to use the gentleman’s own words, “is certainly not
their prevailing characteristic: indeed, with a few exceptions, it is
the reverse. The vagrants are mostly distinguished by their aversion
to continuous labour of any kind. He never knew them to work. Their
great inclination is to be on the move, and wandering from place to
place, and they appear to receive a great deal of pleasure from the
assembly and conversation of the casual ward. They are physically
stout and healthy, and certainly not emaciated or sickly. They belong
especially to the able-bodied class, being, as he says, full of
health and mischief. They are very stubborn and self-willed. They are
a most difficult class to govern, and are especially restive under
the least restraint; they can ill brook control, and they find great
delight in thwarting the authorities. They are particularly fond of
amusements of all kinds. He never knew them love reading. They mostly
pass under fictitious names. They are particularly distinguished by
their libidinous propensities. They are not remarkable for a love of
drink. He considers them to be generally a class possessing the keenest
intellect, and of a highly enterprising character. They seem to have
no sense of danger, and to be especially delighted with such acts as
involve any peril. They are likewise characterised by their exceeding
love of mischief. They generally are of a most restless and volatile
disposition. They have great quickness of perception, but little power
of continuous attention or perseverance. They have a keen sense of the
ridiculous, and are not devoid of deep feeling. In the summer they
make regular tours through the country, visiting all places that they
have not seen. They are perfectly organized, so that any regulation
affecting their comforts or interests becomes known among the whole
body in a remarkably short space of time.”
Every day my inquiries add some fresh proof to the justice of the above
enumeration of the several phenomena distinguishing this class. To the
more sedate portion of the human family, the attractions of “a roving
life” are inexplicable. Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that, to
the more volatile, the mere muscular exercise and the continual change
of scene, together with the wild delight which attends the overcoming
of any danger, are sources of pleasure sufficient to compensate for all
the privations and hardships attending such a state of existence.
Mr. Ruxton, one of the many who have passed from settlers to wanderers,
has given us the following description of the enjoyments of a life in
the wilderness:
“Although liable to an accusation of barbarism, I must confess that the
very happiest moments of my life have been spent in the wilderness of
the Far West; and I never recall, but with pleasure, the remembrance
of my solitary camp in the Bayou Solade, with no friend near me more
faithful than my rifle, and no companions more sociable than my good
horse and mules, or the attendant cayute which nightly serenaded us.
Seldom did I ever wish to change such hours of freedom for all the
luxuries of civilized life; and unnatural and extraordinary as it
may appear, yet such is the fascination of the life of the mountain
hunter, that I believe not one instance could be adduced of even the
most polished and civilized of men, who had once tasted the sweets
of its attendant liberty and freedom from every worldly care, not
regretting the moment when he exchanged it for the monotonous life of
the settlements, nor sighing and sighing again once more to partake of
its pleasures and allurements.”
To this class of voluntary wanderers belong those who _take_ to the
streets, glad to exchange the wearisomeness and restraint of a settled
occupation for the greater freedom and license of a nomad mode of
life. As a class, they are essentially the non-working, preferring,
as I said before, to _collect_, rather than _produce_, what they eat.
If they sell, they do so because for sundry reasons they fear to
infringe the law, and as traders their transactions certainly are not
marked by an excess of honesty. I am not aware that any of them are
professional thieves (for these are the more daring portion of the
same vagrant fraternity), though the majority assuredly are habitual
cheats--delighting in proving their cleverness by imposing upon
simple-minded citizens--viewing all society as composed of the same
dishonest elements as their own tribes, and looking upon all sympathy
and sacrifice, even when made for their own benefit, as some “artful
dodge” or trick, by which to snare them.
It should be remembered, however, that there are many grades
of vagrants among us, and that though they are all essentially
non-producing and, consequently, predatory, still many are in no way
distinguished from a large portion of even our wealthy tradesmen--our
puffing grocers and slopsellers. To attempt to improve the condition of
the voluntary street-sellers by teaching of any kind, would be to talk
to the wind. We might as well preach to Messrs. Moses, Nicol, and Co.,
in the hope of Christianising them. Those who _take_ to the streets
are _not_, like those who are _bred_ to it, an uneducated class. They
are intelligent and “knowing” enough, and it is this development of
their intellect at the expense of their conscience which gives rise to
that excessive admiration of mere cleverness, which makes skill the
sole standard of excellence with them. They approve, admire, venerate
nothing but what is ingenious. Wrong with them is mere folly--right,
cunning; and those who think the simple cultivation of the intellect
the great social panacea of the time, have merely to study the
characteristics of this class to see how a certain style of education
can breed the very vice it seeks to destroy. Years ago, I wrote and
printed the following passage, and every year since my studies have
convinced me more and more of its truth:
“Man, if deprived of his intellect, would be the most miserable and
destitute,--if of his sympathy, the most savage and cunning, of all the
brute creation: consequently, we may infer that, according as solely
the one or the other of these powers is expanded in us, so shall we
approximate in our nature either to the instinct of the brute or to
the artifice of the demon, and that only when they are developed in
an equal degree, can Man be said to be educated as Man. We should
remember that the intellect simply executes; it is either the selfish
or moral propensity that designs. The intellectual principle enables
us to perceive the means of attaining any particular object; it is the
selfish or else the moral principle in us, that causes us originally
to desire that object. The two latter principles are the springs, the
former is merely the instrument of all human action. They are masters,
whereas the intellect is but the servant of the will; and hence it
is evident that in proportion as the one or the other of these two
predominant principles--as either the selfish or the moral disposition
is educed in man, and thus made the chief director and stimulus of the
intellectual power within him, so will the cultivation of that power be
the source of happiness or misery to himself and others.”
The third and last class, namely, those who are _driven_ to the
streets, is almost as large as any. Luckily, those who _take_ to that
mode of life, are by far the least numerous portion of the street-folk;
and if those who are bred to the business are worthy of our pity,
assuredly those who are driven to it are equally, if not more, so.
With some who are deprived of the means of obtaining a maintenance for
themselves, the sale of small articles in the streets may, perhaps,
be an excuse for begging; but in most cases, I am convinced it is
adopted from a horror of the workhouse, and a disposition to do, at
least, _something_ for the food they eat. Often is it the last struggle
of independence--the desire to give something like an equivalent for
what they receive. Over and over again have I noticed this honourable
pride, even in individuals who, from some privations or affliction
that rendered them utterly incompetent to labour for their living,
had a just claim on our sympathies and assistance. The blind--the
cripple--the maimed--the very old--the very young--all have generally
adopted a street-life, because they could do nothing else. With
many it is the last resort of all. The smallness of the stock-money
required--for a shilling, it has been shown, is sufficient to commence
several street-trades--is one of the principal causes of so many of
those who are helpless taking to the street-traffic. Moreover, the
severity of the Poor-laws and the degradation of pauperism, and the
aversion to be thought a common beggar by all, except the very lowest,
are, I have no doubt, strong incentives to this course. There are
many callings which are peculiar, as being followed principally by
the disabled. The majority of the blind are musicians, or boot-lace
or tape-sellers. The very old are sellers of watercresses, lucifers,
pincushions, ballads, and pins and needles, stay-laces, and such small
articles as are light to carry, and require but a few pence for the
outlay. The very young are sellers of flowers, oranges, nuts, onions,
blacking, lucifers, and the like. Many of those who have lost an arm,
or a leg, or a hand, turn showmen, or become sellers of small metal
articles, as knives or nutmeg-graters; and many who have been born
cripples may be seen in the streets struggling for self-support. But
all who are _driven_ to the streets have not been physically _disabled_
for labour. Some have been _reduced_ from their position as tradesmen
or shopmen; others, again, have been gentlemen’s servants and clerks;
all, dragged down by a series of misfortunes, sometimes beyond their
control, and sometimes brought about by their own imprudence or
sluggishness. As we have seen, many are reduced to a state of poverty
by long illness, and on their recovery are unable, from want of clothes
or friends, to follow any other occupation.