The vending of bug-poison in the London streets is seldom followed as a
regular source of living. We have met with persons who remember to have
seen men selling penny packets of vermin poison, but to find out the
vendors themselves was next to an impossibility. The men seem merely to
take to the business as a living when all other sources have failed.
All, however, agree in acknowledging that there is such a street trade,
but that the living it affords is so precarious that few men stop at it
longer than two or three weeks.
Perhaps the most eminent firm of the bug-destroyers in London is that
of Messrs. Tiffin and Son; but they have pursued their calling in the
streets, and rejoice in the title of “Bug-Destroyers to Her Majesty and
the Royal Family.”
Mr. Tiffin, the senior partner in this house, most kindly obliged me
with the following statement. It may be as well to say that Mr. Tiffin
appears to have paid much attention to the subject of bugs, and has
studied with much earnestness the natural history of this vermin.
“We can trace our business back,” he said, “as far as 1695, when one
of our ancestors first turned his attention to the destruction of
bugs. He was a lady’s stay-maker--men used to make them in those days,
though, as far as that is concerned, it was a man that made my mother’s
dresses. This ancestor found some bugs in his house--a young colony
of them, that had introduced themselves without his permission, and
he didn’t like their company, so he tried to turn them out of doors
again, I have heard it said, in various ways. It is in history, and it
has been handed down in my own family as well, that bugs were first
introduced into England after the fire of London, in the timber that
was brought for rebuilding the city, thirty years after the fire, and
it was about that time that my ancestor first discovered the colony
of bugs in his house. I can’t say whether he studied the subject of
bug-destroying, or whether he found out his stuff by accident, but he
certainly _did_ invent a compound which completely destroyed the bugs,
and, having been so successful in his own house, he named it to some of
his customers who were similarly plagued, and that was the commencement
of the present connexion, which has continued up to this time.
“At the time of the illumination for the Peace, I thought I must have
something over my shop, that would be both suitable for the event and
to my business; so I had a transparency done, and stretched on a big
frame, and lit up by gas, on which was written--
MAY THE
DESTROYERS OF PEACE
BE DESTROYED BY US.
TIFFIN & SON,
BUG-DESTROYERS TO HER MAJESTY.
“Our business was formerly carried on in the Strand, where both my
father and myself were born; in fact, I may say I was born to the bug
business.
“I remember my father as well as possible; indeed, I worked with him
for ten or eleven years. He used, when I was a boy, to go out to his
work killing bugs at his customers’ houses with a sword by his side
and a cocked-hat and bag-wig on his head--in fact, dressed up like a
regular dandy. I remember my grandmother, too, when she was in the
business, going to the different houses, and seating herself in a
chair, and telling the men what they were to do, to clean the furniture
and wash the woodwork.
“I have customers in our books for whom our house has worked these
150 years; that is, my father and self have worked for them and their
fathers. We do the work by contract, examining the house every year.
It’s a precaution to keep the place comfortable. You see, servants are
apt to bring bugs in their boxes; and, though there may be only two or
three bugs perhaps hidden in the woodwork and the clothes, yet they
soon breed if left alone.
“We generally go in the spring, before the bugs lay their eggs; or, if
that time passes, it ought to be done before June, before their eggs
are hatched, though it’s never too late to get rid of a nuisance.
“I mostly find the bugs in the bedsteads. But, if they are left
unmolested, they get numerous and climb to the tops of the rooms,
and about the corners of the ceilings. They colonize anywhere they
can, though they’re very high-minded and prefer lofty places. Where
iron bedsteads are used the bugs are more in the _rooms_, and that’s
why such things are bad. They don’t keep a bug away from the person
sleeping. Bugs’ll come, if they’re thirty yards off.
“I knew a case of a bug who used to come every night about thirty or
forty feet--it was an immense large room--from a corner of the room to
visit an old lady. There was only one bug, and he’d been there for a
long time. I was sent for to find him out. It took me a long time to
catch him. In that instance I had to examine every part of the room,
and when I got him I gave him an extra nip to serve him out. The reason
why I was so bothered was, the bug had hidden itself near the window,
the last place I should have thought of looking for him, for a bug
never by choice faces the light; but when I came to inquire about it, I
found that this old lady never rose till three o’clock in the day, and
the window-curtains were always drawn, so that there was no light like.
“Lord! yes, I am often sent for to catch a single bug. I’ve had to go
many, many miles--even 100 or 200--into the country, and perhaps catch
only half-a-dozen bugs after all; but then that’s all that are there,
so it answers our employer’s purpose as well as if they were swarming.
“I work for the upper classes only; that is, for carriage company and
such-like approaching it, you know. I have noblemen’s names, the first
in England, on my books.
“My work is more method; and I may call it a scientific treating of the
bugs rather than wholesale murder. We don’t care about the thousands,
it’s the last bug we look for, whilst your carpenters and upholsterers
leave as many behind them, perhaps, as they manage to catch.
“The bite of the bug is very curious. They bite all persons the same(?)
but the difference of effect lays in the constitution of the parties.
I’ve never noticed that a different kind of skin makes any difference
in being bitten. Whether the skin is moist or dry, it don’t matter.
Wherever bugs are, the person sleeping in the bed is sure to be fed
on, whether they are marked or not; and as a proof, when nobody has
slept in the bed for some time, the bugs become quite flat; and, on
the contrary, when the bed is always occupied, they are round as a
‘lady-bird.’
“The flat bug is more ravenous, though even he will allow you time to
go to sleep before he begins with you; or at least until he thinks you
ought to be asleep. When they find all quiet, not even a light in the
room will prevent their biting; but they are seldom or ever found under
the bed-clothes. They like a clear ground to get off, and generally
bite round the edges of the nightcap or the nightdress. When they are
found _in_ the bed, it’s because the parties have been tossing about,
and have curled the sheets round the bugs.
“The finest and the fattest bugs I ever saw were those I found in a
black man’s bed. He was the favourite servant of an Indian general.
He didn’t want his bed done by me; he didn’t want it touched. His bed
was full of ’em, no beehive was ever fuller. The walls and all were the
same, there wasn’t a patch that wasn’t crammed with them. He must have
taken them all over the house wherever he went.
“I’ve known persons to be laid up for months through bug-bites. There
was a very handsome fair young lady I knew once, and she was much
bitten about the arms, and neck, and face, so that her eyes were so
swelled up she couldn’t see. The spots rose up like blisters, the same
as if stung with a nettle, only on a very large scale. The bites were
very much inflamed, and after a time they had the appearance of boils.
“Some people fancy, and it is historically recorded, that the bug
smells because it has no vent; but this is fabulous, for they _have_ a
vent. It is not the human blood neither that makes them smell, because
a young bug who has never touched a drop will smell. They breathe, I
believe, through their sides; but I can’t answer for that, though it’s
not through the head. They haven’t got a mouth, but they insert into
the skin the point of a tube, which is quite as fine as a hair, through
which they draw up the blood. I have many a time put a bug on the back
of my hand, to see how they bite; though I never felt the bite but
once, and then I suppose the bug had pitched upon a very tender part,
for it was a sharp prick, something like that of a leech-bite.
“I once had a case of lice-killing, for my process will answer as
well for them as for bugs, though it’s a thing I should never follow
by choice. Lice seem to harbour pretty much the same as bugs do. I
found them in the furniture. It was a nurse that brought them into the
house, though she was as nice and clean a looking woman as ever I saw.
I should almost imagine the lice must have been in her, for they say
there is a disease of that kind; and if the tics breed in sheep, why
should not lice breed in us? for we’re but live matter, too. I didn’t
like myself at all for two or three days after that lice-killing job,
I can assure you; it’s the only case of the kind I ever had, and I can
promise you it shall be the last.
“I was once at work on the Princess Charlotte’s own bedstead. I was in
the room, and she asked me if I had found anything, and I told her no;
but just at that minute I _did_ happen to catch one, and upon that she
sprang up on the bed, and put her hand on my shoulder, to look at it.
She had been tormented by the creature, because I was ordered to come
directly, and that was the only one I found. When the Princess saw it,
she said, ‘Oh, the nasty thing! That’s what tormented me last night;
don’t let him escape.’ I think he looked all the better for having
tasted royal blood.
“I also profess to kill beetles, though you can never destroy them so
effectually as you can bugs; for, you see, beetles run from one house
to another, and you can never perfectly get rid of them; you can only
keep them under. Beetles will scrape their way and make their road
round a fireplace, but how they manage to go from one house to another
I can’t say, but they _do_.
“I never had patience enough to try and kill fleas by my process; it
would be too much of a chivey to please me.
“I never heard of any but one man who seriously went to work selling
bug poison in the streets. I was told by some persons that he was
selling a first-rate thing, and I spent several days to find him
out. But, after all, his secret proved to be nothing at all. It was
train-oil, linseed and hempseed, crushed up all together, and the bugs
were to eat it till they burst.
“After all, secrets for bug-poisons ain’t worth much, for all depends
upon the application of them. For instance, it is often the case that
I am sent for to find out one bug in a room large enough for a school.
I’ve discovered it when the creature had been three or four months
there, as I could tell by his having changed his jacket so often--for
bugs shed their skins, you know. No, there was no reason that he should
have bred; it might have been a single gentleman or an old maid.
“A married couple of bugs will lay from forty to fifty eggs at one
laying. The eggs are oval, and are each as large as the thirty-second
part of an inch; and when together are in the shape of a caraway
comfit, and of a bluish-white colour. They’ll lay this quantity of eggs
three times in a season. The young ones are hatched direct from the
egg, and, like young partridges, will often carry the broken eggs about
with them, clinging to their back. They get their fore-quarters out,
and then they run about before the other legs are completely cleared.
“As soon as the bugs are born they are of a cream colour, and will
take to blood directly; indeed, if they don’t get it in two or three
days they die; but after one feed they will live a considerable time
without a second meal. I have known old bugs to be frozen over in a
horse-pond--when the furniture has been thrown in the water--and there
they have remained for a good three weeks; still, after they have got a
little bit warm in the sun’s rays they have returned to life again.
“I have myself kept bugs for five years and a half without food, and a
housekeeper at Lord H----’s informed me that an old bedstead that I was
then moving from a store-room was taken down forty-five years ago, and
had not been used since, but the bugs in it were still numerous, though
as thin as living skeletons. They couldn’t have lived upon the sap of
the wood, it being worm-eaten and dry as a bone.
“A bug will live for a number of years, and we find that when bugs are
put away in old furniture without food, they don’t increase in number;
so that, according to my belief, the bugs I just mentioned must have
existed forty-five years: besides, they were large ones, and very
dark-coloured, which is another proof of age.
“It is a dangerous time for bugs when they are shedding their skins,
which they do about four times in the course of a year; then they throw
off their hard shell and have a soft coat, so that the least touch will
kill them; whereas, at other times they will take a strong pressure.
I have plenty of bug-skins, which I keep by me as curiosities, of all
sizes and colours, and sometimes I have found the young bugs collected
inside the old ones’ skins for warmth, as if they had put on their
father’s great-coat. There are white bugs--albinoes you may call
’em--freaks of nature like.”