fraternity, whose parents are unable or unwilling to support them, is
that some costers keep a lad as a regular assistant, whose duty it is
to pull the barrow of his master about the streets, and assist him in
“crying” his wares. Sometimes the man and the boy call out together,
sometimes separately and alternately, but mostly the boy alone has to
do this part of the work, the coster’s voice being generally rough and
hoarse, while the shrill sound of that of the boy re-echoes throughout
the street along which they slowly move, and is far more likely to
strike the ear, and consequently to attract attention, than that of
the man. This mode of “practising the voice” is, however, perfectly
ruinous to it, as in almost every case of this description we find the
natural tone completely annihilated at a very early age, and a harsh,
hoarse, guttural, disagreeable mode of speaking acquired. In addition
to the costers there are others who thus employ boys in the streets:
the hawkers of coal do so invariably, and the milkmen--especially those
who drive cows or have a cart to carry the milk-pails in. Once in the
streets and surrounded with street-associates, the boy soon becomes
inured to this kind of life, and when he leaves his first master, will
frequently start in some branch of costermongering for himself, without
seeking to obtain another constant employment.
This mode of employing lads, and on the whole perhaps they are fairly
enough used by the costermongers, and generally treated with great
kindness by the costers’ wives or concubines, is, I am inclined to
think, the chief cause of the abundance and even increase of the
street-sellers of fish, fruit, and vegetables.
4. To “orphanhood, friendlessness, and utter destitution,” the commerce
of the streets owes a considerable portion of its merchants. A child
finds himself or herself an orphan; the parents having been miserably
poor, he or she lives in a place where street-folk abound; it seems
the only road to a meal and a bed, and the orphan “starts” with a few
lucifer-matches, boot-laces, nuts, or onions. It is the same when
a child, without being an orphan, is abandoned or neglected by the
parents, and, perhaps without any injunctions either for or against
such a course, is left to his or her own will to sell or steal in the
streets.
5. The vagrant dispositions and tastes of lads, and, it may be, now and
then somewhat of a reckless spirit of adventure, which in our days has
far fewer fields than it once had, is another cause why a street-life
is embraced. Lads have been known to run away from even comfortable
homes through the mere spirit of restlessness; and sometimes they have
done so, but not perhaps under the age of fifteen, for the unrestrained
indulgence of licentious passions. As this class of runaways, however,
do not ordinarily settle into regular street-sellers, but become
pickpockets, or trade only with a view to cloak their designs of theft,
I need not further allude to them under this head.
* * * * *
I now come to the second part of my subject, the _Pursuits_, &c., of
the children in street avocations.
As I have shown in my account of the women street-sellers, there is no
calling which this body of juveniles monopolize, none of which they are
the _sole_ possessors; but some are principally in their hands, and
there are others, again, to which they rarely incline.
Among the wares sold by the boys and girls of the streets
are:--money-bags, lucifer-match boxes, leather straps, belts, firewood
(common, and also “patent,” that is, dipped into an inflammable
composition), fly-papers, a variety of fruits, especially nuts,
oranges, and apples; onions, radishes, water-cresses, cut flowers and
lavender (mostly sold by girls), sweet-briar, India rubber, garters,
and other little articles of the same material, including elastic rings
to encircle rolls of paper-music, toys of the smaller kinds, cakes,
steel pens and penholders with glass handles, exhibition medals and
cards, gelatine cards, glass and other cheap seals, brass watch-guards,
chains, and rings; small tin ware, nutmeg-graters, and other articles
of a similar description, such as are easily portable; iron skewers,
fuzees, shirt buttons, boot and stay-laces, pins (and more rarely
needles), cotton bobbins, Christmasing (holly and other evergreens at
Christmas-tide), May-flowers, coat-studs, toy-pottery, blackberries,
groundsel and chickweed, and clothes’-pegs.
There are also other things which children sell temporarily, or rather
in the season. This year I saw lads selling wild birds’-nests with
their eggs, such as hedge-sparrows, minnows in small glass globes,
roots of the wild Early Orchis (Orchis mascula), and such like things
found only out of town.
Independently of the vending of these articles, there are many
other ways of earning a penny among the street boys: among them are
found--tumblers, mud-larks, water-jacks, Ethiopians, ballad-singers,
bagpipe boys, the variety of street musicians (especially Italian boys
with organs), Billingsgate boys or young “roughs,” Covent Garden boys,
porters, and shoeblacks (a class recently increased by the Ragged
School Brigade). A great many lads are employed also in giving away the
cards and placards of advertising and puffing tradesmen, and around
the theatres are children of both sexes (along with a few old people)
offering play-bills for sale, but this is an occupation less pursued
than formerly, as some managers sell their own bills inside the house
and do not allow any to pass from the hands of the printer into those
of the former vendors. Again: amid the employments of this class may
be mentioned--the going on errands and carrying parcels for persons
accidentally met with; holding horses; sweeping crossings (but the best
crossings are usually in the possession of adults); carrying trunks for
any railway traveller to or from the terminus, and carrying them from
an omnibus when the passenger is not put down at his exact destination.
During the frosty days of the winter and early spring, some of these
little fellows used to run along the foot-path--Baker-street was a
favourite place for this display--and keep pace with the omnibuses, not
merely by using their legs briskly, but by throwing themselves every
now and then on their hands and progressing a few steps (so to speak)
with their feet in the air. This was done to attract attention and
obtain the preference if a job were in prospect; done, too, in hopes
of a halfpenny being given the urchin for his agility. I looked at the
hands of one of these little fellows and the fleshy parts of the palm
were as hard as soling-leather, as hard, indeed, as the soles of the
child’s feet, for he was bare-footed. At the doors of the theatres, and
of public places generally, boys are always in waiting to secure a cab
from the stand, their best harvest being when the night has “turned out
wet” after a fine day. Boys wait for the same purpose, lounging all
night, and until the place closes, about the night-houses, casinos,
saloons, &c., and sometimes without receiving a penny. There are,
again, the very many ways in which street boys employed to “help” other
people, when temporary help is needed, as when a cabman must finish
the cleaning of his vehicle in a hurry, or when a porter finds himself
over-weighted in his truck. Boys are, moreover, the common custodians
of the donkeys on which young ladies take invigorating exercise in such
places as Hampstead-heath and Blackheath. At pigeon-shooting matches
they are in readiness to pick up the dead birds, and secure the poor
fluttering things which are “hard hit” by the adventurous sportsman,
without having been killed. They have their share again in the picking
of currants and gooseberries, the pottling of strawberries, in weeding,
&c., &c., and though the younger children may be little employed in
haymaking, or in the more important labours of the corn harvest, they
have their shares, both with and without the company of their parents,
in the “hopping.” In fine there is no business carried on to any extent
in the streets, or in the open air, but it will be found that boys have
their portion. Thus they are brought into contact with all classes;
another proof of what I have advanced touching the importance of this
subject.
It will be perceived that, under this head, I have had to speak far
more frequently of boys than of girls, for the boy is far more the
child of the streets than is the girl. The female child can do little
but _sell_ (when a livelihood is to be gained without a recourse to
immorality); the boy can not only sell, but _work_.
* * * * *
The many ramifications of child-life and of child-work in our teeming
streets, which I have just enumerated, render it difficult to arrive at
a very nice estimation of the _earnings of the street boys and girls_.
The gains of this week are not necessarily the gains of the next; there
is the influence of the weather; there may be a larger or a smaller
number of hands “taking a turn” at any particular calling this week
than in its predecessor; and, above all, there is that concatenation
of circumstances, which street-sellers include in one expressive
word--“luck.” I mean the opportunities to earn a few pence, which on
some occasions present themselves freely, and at others do not occur at
all. Such “luck,” however, is more felt by the holders of horses, and
the class of waiters upon opportunity (so to speak), than by those who
depend upon trade.
I believe, however, both in consequence of what I have observed, and
from the concurrent testimony of persons familiar with the child-life
of London streets, that the earnings of the children, when they are
healthful and active, are about the same in the several capacities
they exercise. The waiter on opportunity, the lad “on the look-out for
a job,” may wait and look out all day bootlessly, but in the evening
some fortunate chance may realize him “a whole tanner all in a lump.”
In like manner, the water-cress girl may drudge on from early morning
until “cresses” are wanted for tea, and, with “a connection,” and
a tolerably regular demand, earn no more than the boy’s 6_d._, and
probably not so much.
One of the most profitable callings of the street-child is in the sale
of Christmasing, but that is only for a very brief season; the most
regular returns in the child’s trade, are in the sale of such things
as water-cresses, or any low-priced article of daily consumption,
wherever the youthful vendor may be known.
I find it necessary to place the earnings of the street-children higher
than those of the aged and infirm. The children are more active, more
persevering, and perhaps more impudent. They are less deterred by the
weather, and can endure more fatigue in walking long distances than old
people. This, however, relates to the boys more especially, some of
whom are very sturdy fellows.
The oranges which the street-children now vend at two a-penny, leave
them a profit of 4_d._ in the shilling. To take 1_s._ 6_d._ with a
profit of 6_d._ is a fair day’s work; to take 1_s._ with a profit of
4_d._ is a poor day’s work. The dozen bunches of cut-flowers which a
girl will sell on an average day at 1_d._ a bunch, cost her 6_d._,
that sum being also her profit. These things supply, I think, a fair
criterion. The children’s profits may be 6_d._ a day, and including
Sunday trade, 3_s._ 6_d._ a week; but with the drawbacks of bad
weather, they cannot be computed at more than 2_s._ 6_d._ a week the
year through. The boys may earn 2_d._ or 3_d._ a week on an average
more than the girls, except in such things (which I shall specify under
the next head) as seem more particularly suited for female traffic.
* * * * *
_Of the causes which influence children to follow this or that course
of business_ when a street career has been their choice or their lot,
I have little to say. It seems quite a matter of chance, even where a
preference may exist. A runaway lad meets with a comrade who perhaps
sells fuzees, and he accordingly begins on fuzees. One youth, of whom
I have given an account (but he was not of child’s estate), began his
street career on fly-papers. When children are sent into the streets to
sell on account of their parents, they, of course, vend just what their
parents have supplied to them. If “on their own hook,” they usually
commence their street career on what it is easiest to buy and easiest
to sell; a few nuts or oranges bought in Duke’s-place, lucifer-boxes,
or small wares. As their experience increases they may become general
street-sellers. The duller sort will continue to carry on the trades
that any one with ordinary lungs and muscles can pursue. “All a fellow
wants to know to sell potatoes,” said a master street-seller to me, “is
to tell how many tanners make a bob, and how many yenaps a tanner.”
[How many sixpences make a shilling, and how many pence a sixpence.]
The smarter and bolder lads ripen into patterers, or street-performers,
or fall into theft. For the class of adventurous runaways, the
patterer’s, or, rather, the paper-working patterer’s life, with its
alternations of town and country, fairs and hangings, the bustle of
race-grounds and the stillness of a village, has great attractions. To
a pattering and chaunting career, moreover, there is the stimulus of
that love of approbation and of admiration, as strong among the often
penniless professionals of the streets as on the boards of the opera
house.
Perhaps there is not a child of either sex, now a street-seller, who
would not to-morrow, if they thought they could clear a penny or two a
day more by it, quit their baskets of oranges and sell candle-ends, or
old bones, or anything. In a street career, and most especially when
united with a lodging-house existence, there is no daintiness of the
senses and no exercise of the tastes: the question is not “What do I
like best to sell?” but “What is likely to pay me best?” This cannot
be wondered at; for if a child earn but 5_d._ a day on apples, and can
make 6_d._ on onions, its income is increased by 20 per cent.
The trades which I have specified as in the hands of street-children
are carried on by both sexes. I do not know that even the stock in
trade which most taxes the strength is more a boy’s than a girl’s
pursuit. A basket of oranges or of apples is among the heaviest of
all the stocks hawked by children; and in those pursuits there are
certainly as many, or rather more, girls than boys. Such articles as
fly-papers, money-bags, tins, fuzees, and Christmasing, are chiefly the
boys’ sale; cut-flowers, lavender, water-cresses, and small wares, are
more within the trading of the girls.
The callings with which children do not meddle are those which require
“patter.” Some of the boys very glibly announce their wares, and may be
profuse now and then in commendations of their quality, cheapness, and
superiority, but it requires a longer experience to patter according
to the appreciation of a perhaps critical street audience. No child,
for instance, ventures upon the sale of grease-removing compositions,
corn-salve, or the “Trial and Execution of Thomas Drory,” with an
“Affecting Copy of Werses.”
A gentleman remarked to me that it was rather curious that boys’
playthings, such as marbles and tops, were not hawked by street
juveniles, who might be very well able to recommend them. I do not
remember to have seen any such things vended by children.
* * * * *
_Education_ is, as far as I have been able to ascertain, more widely
extended among street children than it was twelve or fifteen years
ago. The difficulty in arriving at any conclusion on such a subject is
owing to the inability to find any one who knew, or could even form a
tolerably accurate judgment of what was the state of education among
these juveniles even twelve years back.
Perhaps it may be sufficiently correct to say that among a given number
of street children, where, a dozen years ago, you met twenty who could
read, you will now meet upwards of thirty. Of sixteen children, none
apparently fifteen years of age, whom I questioned on the subject,
nine admitted that they could not read; the other seven declared that
they could, but three annexed to the avowal the qualifying words--“a
little.” Ten were boys and six were girls, and I spoke to them
promiscuously as I met them in the street. Two were Irish lads, who
were “working” oranges in company, and the bigger answered--“Shure,
thin, we _can_ rade, your honour, sir.” I have little doubt that they
could, but in all probability, had either of those urchins thought
he would be a penny the better by it, he would have professed, to a
perfect stranger, that he had a knowledge of algebra. “Yis, sir, I do,
thin,” would very likely be his response to any such inquiry; and when
told he could not possibly know anything about it, he would answer,
“Arrah, thin, but I didn’t understand your honour.”
To the Ragged Schools is, in all probability, owing this extension
of the ability to read. It appears that the attendance of the street
children at the Ragged School is most uncertain; as, indeed, must
necessarily be the case where the whole time of the lad is devoted to
obtaining a subsistence. From the best information I can collect, it
appears that the average attendance of these boys at these schools does
not exceed two hours per week, so that the amount of education thus
acquired, if education it may be called, must necessarily be scanty in
the extreme; and is frequently forgotten as soon as learned.
With many of these little traders a natural shrewdness compensates in
some measure for the deficiency of education, and enables them to carry
on their variety of trades with readiness and dexterity, and sometimes
with exactness. One boy with whom I had a conversation, told me that he
never made any mistake about the “coppers,” although, as I subsequently
discovered, he had no notion at all of arithmetic beyond the capability
of counting how many pieces of coin he had, and how much copper money
was required to make a “tanner” or a “bob.” This boy vended coat-studs:
he had also some metal collars for dogs, or as he said, “for cats
aither.” These articles he purchased at the same shop in Houndsditch,
where “there was a wonderful lot of other things to be had, on’y some
on ’em cost more money.”
In speaking of money, the slang phrases are constantly used by the
street lads; thus a sixpence is a “tanner,” a shilling a “bob,” or a
“hog;” a crown is “a bull;” a half-crown “a half bull,” &c. Little, as
a modern writer has remarked, do the persons using these phrases know
of their remote and somewhat classical origin, which may, indeed, be
traced to the period antecedent to that when monarchs monopolized the
surface of coined money with their own images and superscriptions.
They are identical with the very name of money among the early Romans,
which was _pecunia_, from _pecus_, a flock. The collections of coin
dealers amply show, that the figure of a hog was anciently placed on
a small silver coin, and that that of a bull decorated larger ones
of the same metal: these coins were frequently deeply crossed on the
reverse: this was for the convenience of easily breaking them into two
or more pieces, should the bargain for which they were employed require
it, and the parties making it had no smaller change handy to complete
the transaction. Thus we find that the “half-bull” of the itinerant
street-seller or “traveller,” so far from being a phrase of modern
invention, as is generally supposed, is in point of fact referable to
an era extremely remote. Numerous other instances might be given of
the classical origin of many of the flash or slang words used by these
people.
I now give the answers I received from two boys. The first, his mother
told me, was the best scholar at his school when he was there, and
before he had to help her in street sale. He was a pale, and not at
all forward boy, of thirteen or fourteen, and did not appear much to
admire being questioned. He had not been to a Ragged School, but to an
“academy” kept by an old man. He did not know what the weekly charge
was, but when father was living (he died last autumn) the schoolmaster
used to take it out in vegetables. Father was a costermonger; mother
minded all about his schooling, and master often said she behaved to
him like a lady. “God,” this child told me, “was our Heavenly Father,
and the maker of all things; he knew everything and everybody; he knew
people’s thoughts and every sin they committed if no one else knew
it. His was the kingdom and the power, and the glory, for ever and
ever, Amen. Jesus Christ was our Lord and Saviour; he was the son of
God, and was crucified for our sins. He was a God himself.” [The child
understood next to nothing of the doctrine of the Trinity, and I did
not press him.] “The Scriptures, which were the Bible and Testament,
were the Word of God, and contained nothing but what was good and true.
If a boy lied, or stole, or committed sins,” he said, “he would be
punished in the next world, which endured for ever and ever, Amen. It
was only after death, when it was too late to repent, that people went
to the next world. He attended chapel, sometimes.”
As to mundane matters, the boy told me that Victoria was Queen of Great
Britain and Ireland. She was born May 24, 1819, and succeeded his
late Majesty, King William IV., July 20, 1837. She was married to his
Royal Highness Prince Albert, &c., &c. France was a different country
to this: he had heard there was no king or queen there, but didn’t
understand about it. You couldn’t go to France by land, no more than
you could to Ireland. Didn’t know anything of the old times in history;
hadn’t been told. Had heard of the battle of Waterloo; the English
licked. Had heard of the battle of Trafalgar, and of Lord Nelson;
didn’t know much about him; but there was his pillar at Charing-cross,
just by the candlesticks (fountains). When I spoke of astronomy, the
boy at once told me he knew nothing about it. He had heard that the
earth went round the sun, but from what he’d noticed, shouldn’t have
thought it. He didn’t think that the sun went round the earth, it
seemed to go more sideways. Would like to read more, if he had time,
but he had a few books, and there was hundreds not so well off as he
was.
I am far from undervaluing, indeed I would not indulge in an approach
to a scoff, at the extent of this boy’s knowledge. Many a man who
piques himself on the plenitude of his breeches’ pocket, and who
attributes his success in life to the fulness of his knowledge, knows
no more of Nature, Man, and God, than this poor street child.
Another boy, perhaps a few months older, gave me his notions of men
and things. He was a thick-limbed, red-cheeked fellow; answered very
freely, and sometimes, when I could not help laughing at his replies,
laughed loudly himself, as if he entered into the joke.