I was desirous of ascertaining some information concerning the routes
of the vagrants, and the reason why they frequent one district or
county more than another. It will be seen from the following table,
computed from the Poor-Law Returns for the 1st July, 1848, that the
vagrants were far from equally distributed over the country at that
period.
NUMBER OF VAGRANTS RELIEVED IN THE DIFFERENT COUNTIES OF ENGLAND AND
WALES ON THE 1ST OF JULY, 1848.
Durham 1425
Middlesex 1393
Lincolnshire 1355
West Riding 1197
Cumberland 1087
Lancashire 673
Southampton 648
Derbyshire 541
Warwickshire 509
Monmouthshire 475
Staffordshire 351
Surrey 319
Glamorganshire 244
Worcestershire 227
Kent 179
Berkshire 175
Northumberland 172
East Riding 152
Sussex 150
Essex 147
Northamptonshire 136
Wiltshire 135
Westmoreland 130
Nottinghamshire 129
Norfolk 128
North Riding 105
Bedfordshire 102
Hertfordshire 100
Devonshire 94
Cheshire 92
Somersetshire 88
Shropshire 80
Huntingdonshire 75
Leicestershire 72
Cornwall 63
Merionethshire 54
Gloucestershire 52
Herefordshire 48
Oxfordshire 46
Carmarthenshire 46
Radnorshire 46
Denbighshire 45
Dorsetshire 43
Cardiganshire 39
Carnarvonshire 38
Buckinghamshire 28
Suffolk 21
Cambridgeshire 20
Brecknockshire 17
Pembrokeshire 15
Montgomeryshire 14
Anglesea 11
Flintshire 10
Rutlandshire 6
------
Total 13,547
In order to discover the cause of this unequal distribution, I sought
out a person, whom I knew to be an experienced tramper, and who had
offered to give any information that I might require upon the subject.
There was a strange mystery about the man. It was evident, both from
his manner and his features, that he had once been well to do in the
world. He was plainly not of the common order of vagrants, though his
dress was as filthy and ragged as that of the generality of the class.
“I have been right through the country on the tramp,” he said, “about
six or seven summers. What I was formerly I do not wish to state. I
have been much better off. I was, indeed, in receipt of a very large
income at one time; but it matters not how I lost it. I would rather
that remained a secret. You may say that I lost it through those
follies and extravagancies that are incident both to the higher and
the lower classes; but let it pass. You want to know about the habits
and characters of the vagrants generally, and there is no necessity
for my going into my private history, further than saying, I was a
gentleman once, and I am a vagrant now. I have been so for the last
six years. I generally start off into the country about April or May.
I stay, after the refuges are closed, until such time as I have tired
out all the unions in and around London. I go into the country because
I am known at all the casual wards in the metropolis, and they will
not let a tramper in a second time if they know it, except at the City
of London, and there I have been allowed to stay a month together.
The best of the casual wards used to be in Bermondsey, but they are
closed there now, I believe, as well as many of the others; however,
the vagrants seldom think of going to the London unions until after
the refuges are closed, because at the refuges the accommodation
is better, and no work is required. I know that the vagrants come
purposely to London in large bodies about the end of December, on
purpose to sleep at the refuges for the winter. I myself always make
it a point to come up to town every winter, so as to have my lodgings
for nothing at the refuge, not being able to get it by any other means.
There are at the refuges, of course, many worthy objects of charity.
I have met with men who have become destitute, certainly not through
any fault of their own; a good many of such persons I have found. But
still the greater number at such places are persons who are habitual
vagabonds and beggars, and many thieves. As the refuges are managed at
present, I consider they do more harm than good. If there were no such
places in London in the winter, of course I, and such as are like me,
would have been driven to find shelter at our parishes; whereas the
facilities they afford for obtaining a night’s shelter--to the vagabond
as well as to the destitute--are such that a large number of the most
depraved and idle classes are attracted to London by them. I believe
some such places to be necessary, in order to prevent persons dying
of cold and starvation in the streets, but they should be conducted
on a different plan. You see I tell you the truth, although it may be
against my own interest. After these refuges are closed, and the unions
round the suburbs are shut against me, as far as Richmond, Kingston,
Bromley, Romford, Stratford, Greenwich, and similar distances from the
metropolis, I generally proceed upon my travels for the summer. Those
who make a practice of sleeping at the casual wards are vagrants either
by nature, by habit, or by force of circumstances. They generally
support themselves by begging or thieving, and often by both. They are
mostly boys, from about nine up to twenty years of age. The others are
principally Irish beggars, and a very few are labourers and mechanics
out of work. The youths I believe to be, with some exceptions,
naturally bad, and almost irreclaimable. I know that many of them have
been made vagrants by harsh treatment at home; they have run away. They
have been threatened to be punished, generally for going to some place
of amusement, as Greenwich fair, or ‘penny gaffs,’--that is, to the low
theatres; and, being afraid to return, they have sought shelter, first
at the low lodging-houses, and when they have had no money left, they
have gone to the casual wards of the unions. Other boys have contracted
bad habits from being allowed by their parents to run about the streets
and pick up vagabond companions. These soon initiate them into their
mode of life, and they then leave their homes in order to follow it.
This is the way that most of the lads are depraved. I am sure that the
fault lies more with the parents than with the boys themselves. The
lads are either neglected or ill-treated in their youth. Some of the
lads are left destitute; they are left orphans--probably to the care of
some distant relation or friend--and the lads very soon find that they
are not treated or cared for like the other members of the family, and
they take to the streets. The majority of the vagrants are very sharp,
intelligent lads, and I believe they are induced to take to a vagabond
life by the low lodging-houses, the casual wards, and the refuges.
These make shelter and provision so easy to them, that they soon throw
off the restraint of their parents or guardians. Were there a greater
difficulty of obtaining food and lodging, I am sure that there would
certainly not be the number of juvenile vagrants that there are. The
Irish people who resort to the casual wards are beggars at heart and
soul. Many of them I know have lodgings of their own, and they will
give them up at the time the refuges are open. Some I have known to go
into the refuge with the whole of their family on the Saturday night,
and stop all Sunday, till the Monday morning, for the express purpose
of obtaining the bread and cheese which is given away there on the
Sunday. The children have the same allowance as the parents, and the
mother and father take all the young ones they can into the place, to
get the greater quantity. This they take back home with them, and it
serves to keep them the greater part of the week. The Irish, I think,
do not make a point of travelling the country so much as the English
vagrants. When they go into the provinces, it is generally to get work
at harvesting, or ’tato getting, or hop-picking; not like the English,
for the mere sake of vagabondising.
“The low Irish do better in London. They are the best beggars we
have. They have more impudence and more blarney, and therefore they
do much better than we can at it. A very large portion of the Irish
beggars in London are in possession of money, which they have secreted
about them in some way or other. I recollect seeing one Irishman have
8_s._ taken from him by the vagrant boys in the casual ward of St.
George’s Workhouse, in the Borough. The boys generally suspect the
Irish vagrants of having money on their persons; and I have often
seen a number of them hold, or, as they call it, ‘small-gang,’ an
Irish beggar in the darkness of the casual wards, while some of the
other boys rifled the Irishman’s pockets. The labourers and mechanics
are generally the only parties to be found in the casual wards who
are driven there through destitution. I have known many an honest,
industrious, working man, however, made a regular beggar and vagrant
by continued use of the casual wards. They are driven there first
by necessity, and then they learn that they can live in such places
throughout the year without working for their livelihood. Many a
hard-working man, I am convinced, is made idle and dishonest by such
means: yes, that is the case. There are some that I know now, who
have been going the round of the different refuges for not less than
seven--ay, you may say for nine years. They were originally labouring
men, or mechanics, and had given over all thoughts of working, finding
that there was no necessity to do so in order to live.
“The regular vagrant leaves town every year about April, or the
beginning of May. A very large portion of the wandering beggars and
thieves would remain in town if they were allowed to remain longer in
their nightly haunts; but after the closing of the refuges, the system
of not permitting them more than one night in the same union forces
them to be continually on the move: so they set off immediately they
have made themselves known at all the workhouses. The boys will mostly
go in small gangs of twos and threes. Before they start, they generally
pick up from some other gang whom they meet in the London wards, the
kind of treatment and relief they will receive at the country unions,
and they regulate their journey accordingly; and they will very often
go one or two days’ march out of their way, in order to avoid some
union that has a bad character among them, or to get to some other
union where the accommodation is good, and the work required of them
very slight. Often they will go miles round to get to some gentleman’s
seat or hall where provisions are known to be distributed. I have
heard boys not twelve years of age tell every union between London and
Newcastle. The majority of them seldom go further than there; some
will go on to Edinburgh, but not many. They would know what kind of
treatment and provision would be obtained at each union, and what
form of application was necessary in order to gain admittance. Very
many of them will go from London, first into Essex (the unions are
good there, and the stages not long); then perhaps through Suffolk,
keeping tolerably near the coast, because the shipping is attractive
to most boys of their age; thence they will proceed, by long or short
stages, according to the distance of the unions, through Lincolnshire
and Yorkshire. Few of the vagrants miss Leeds, there being a Mendicity
Asylum in the town, where a good night’s lodging is given to them,
and threepence or fourpence, and in some cases sixpence (according
to the apparent worthiness of the applicant) is bestowed upon each.
I believe the habitual vagrants will go three or four stages out
of the direct road to make Leeds in their way. From here they will
go in different directions towards Durham and Northumberland, or,
perhaps, to Manchester, where there is a society of the same kind as
at Leeds, supported by the Quakers, where similar relief is afforded.
At Northumberland, the body of vagrants generally turn back and begin
to steer southwards. Some, indeed, will go as far as Berwick; but
as the relief afforded in Scotland is not obtained so readily as in
England, they seldom, as I have said, proceed northward beyond that
point. The Scotch are ‘too far north’ for the regular English tramps.
It is true they sometimes give them a little barley-cake, but, from
all I have heard, the vagrants fare very poorly beyond Berwick. From
Northumberland, they turn off towards Cumberland, Westmoreland, and
Lancashire; and then many will go off through Cheshire into North
Wales, and thence come round again into Shropshire. Others will wander
through Staffordshire and Derbyshire, but most of them centre in
Birmingham; that is a favourite meeting-place for the young vagrants.
Here they make a point of tearing up their clothes, because for this
offence they are committed to Warwick gaol for a month, and have a
shilling on being discharged from the prison. It is not the diet of
Warwick gaol that induces them to do this, but the shilling. Frequently
they tear up their clothes in order to get a fresh supply. You see,
sir, from continually sleeping in their clothes, and never washing
their bodies, or changing their shirts--even if they have such things
to change--they get to swarm with vermin, to such an extent that
they cannot bear them upon their bodies. Oh! I have seen such sights
sometimes--such sights as any decent, cleanly person would not credit.
I have seen the lice on their clothes in the sunshine, as thick as
blight on the leaves of trees. When their garments, from this cause,
get very uncomfortable to them, they will tear them up, for the
purpose of forcing the parish officers to give them some fresh ones.
From Birmingham they will come up, generally through Northampton and
Hertford, to London; for by this time either the refuges will be about
opening, or the lads will have been forgotten at the unions in and
around the metropolis. They say that London is fresh to them, when,
owing either to long absence, or some alteration in their appearance,
they are looked upon as strangers by the masters or porters of the
workhouses. London, on the other hand, they say, is dead to them, when
they have become too well known at such places. Some will make only
a short turn out of London, going across the country through Sussex,
Hampshire, or Wiltshire. Hampshire they are attracted to in large
numbers, in consequence of the charity distributed at Winchester.”
[It will be seen by the table above given, that Southampton stands
very high among the places upon the vagrant list.] “In these parts the
vagrants keep crossing the country to various ‘reliefs,’ as they call
it, and so manage to spin out nearly two months in the autumn. The
vagrants mostly go down with the fashionables to the sea-side in the
latter part of the year--the practised beggars in particular. In the
spring they generally make for the north of England. I believe there
are more beggars and tramps in Durham, Lincolnshire, and Yorkshire,
than in half of the other parts of England put together.”...
“Begging is more profitable there than in any other quarter of the
kingdom. A man may pick up more provisions in the day-time in those
counties than anywhere else. The farmers are more liberal in those
parts, which are great places for pudding, pies, and cakes; and of
these the young tramps are remarkably fond. Round about these parts
the tramps pass the summer. If the weather is fine and mild, they
prefer ‘skippering it,’ that is, sleeping in an outhouse or hay-field,
to going to a union. They have no trouble in getting ‘scran,’ or
provisions there, and they object to the work connected with the casual
wards. In the autumn, they are mostly in Sussex or Kent; for they like
the hop-picking. It is not hard work, and there are a great many loose
girls to be found there. I believe many a boy and man goes hop-picking
who never does anything else during the year but beg. The female tramps
mostly go down to Kent to pick up their ‘young chaps,’ as they call
them; and with them they travel through the country as long as they
can agree, or until either party meets with some one they are better
pleased with, and then they leave the other, or bury them, as they term
it.
“The Irish vagrants are mostly to be found on the roads from Liverpool
or from Bristol to London. I should think that at the end of June the
roads must be literally covered with the Irish families tramping to
London. They come over in boatsful, without a penny in their pockets,
to get a little work during the harvesting and hop-picking. Such of
them as make up their minds to return to their country after the
autumn, contrive, by some means, to send their money to Ireland, and
then they apply to the English parishes to send them home. It is very
rare indeed that the low Irish go to the expense of paying for their
lodging, even when they have money. They make a point of going to the
unions, where they not only get a nightly shelter, but a pound of bread
for nothing. Whatever money they have, they generally give to some
countryman, who is their banker, and he sleeps in another place, for
fear he should be searched or robbed at the casual wards. The Irish are
mostly very filthy and diseased. They live upon little or nothing, and
upon the worst kind of provision that can be bought, even though it be
not fit for human food. They will eat anything. The Irish tramp lives
solely by begging. It has often astonished me, sir, that there are
scarcely any Welsh tramps. I suppose this comes from the industry of
the people. The English tramp lives by begging and stealing,--I think,
mostly by stealing; a thorough tramp gets more that way than the other.
If he goes to the back-door of a house on the pretence of begging, and
sees any linen, or brushes, or shoes, or, indeed, even a bit of soap,
he will be off with it, and sell it, mostly to the keeper of some low
lodging-house where he may put up for the night. They seldom commit
highway robberies, and are generally the very lowest and meanest of
thieves. No one can imagine, but those who have gone through it, the
horror of a casual ward of a union; what with the filth, the vermin,
the stench, the heat, and the noise of the place, it is intolerable.
The usual conversation is upon the adventures of the day. One recounts
how he stole this thing, and another that. Some tell what police are
stationed in the different towns; others, what places to go to either
to beg, rob, or sleep; and others, what places to beware of. I have
passed seven years of my life in this way, and I have been so used to
tramping about, that when the spring comes round I must be on the move.
In the winter there is more food to be picked up in London than in the
country, and the beggars seldom fail to make a good thing of it in the
cold weather. I have met with beggars in Carnarvon who had come all the
way from London for the express purpose of begging from the visitors
to the Snowdon mountains. There are very few houses round about, but a
good deal is picked up from the company coming to the hotels.”
I shall now conclude this account of the numbers, cost, and character
of the country and the metropolis, with the narratives of two female
tramps.
The first--a young woman 20 years of age--gave me the following
statement. Her face was what the vulgar would call “good-looking,”
as her cheeks were full and deep-coloured, and her eyes tolerably
bright, and her teeth good. She was very stout, too. Her dress was
tolerably clean and good, but sat close about her, as if she had no
under-clothing. She said:--
“I am a native of ----, where my father was a woolcomber. I was an
only child. I can’t remember my mother, she died when I was so young.
My father died more than four years ago. I’ve heard as much since I
left home. I was sent to the National School. I can read, but can’t
write. My father went to work at Wellington, in Somersetshire, taking
me with him, when I was quite a little girl. He was a good father and
very kind, and we had plenty to eat. I think of him sometimes: it makes
me sorrowful. He would have been sadly distressed if he had seen me
in this state. My father married again when I was 12, I suppose. He
married a factory-woman. She was about 30. She wasn’t good to me. She
led me a dreadful life, always telling my father stories of me,--that
I was away when I wasn’t, and he grumbled at me. He never beat me, but
my stepmother often beat me. She was very bad-tempered, and I am very
bad-tempered, too--very passionate; but if I’m well treated my passion
doesn’t come out. She beat me with anything that came first to hand,
as the hearth-brush, and she flung things at me. She disliked me,
because she knew I hated my father marrying again. I was very happy
before that, living with my father. I could cook dinner for him, young
as I was, make his bed, and do all those sort of things, all but his
washing. I had a bed to myself. My father was a good man. He came home
drunk sometimes, but not often. It never made any difference in him,
he was always kind. He seemed comfortable with my stepmother, but I
wasn’t. I used to tell my father how she used me, but he said it was
nonsense. This went on till I was 15, when I ran away. I’m sure I had
been a good girl till then. I never slept out of my father’s house up
to that time, and didn’t keep company with any young men. I could stand
my stepmother’s treatment no longer. If she had been kind I wouldn’t
have run away. I was almost as big then as I am now. I had 4_s._ or
5_s._ with me, I don’t remember just how much, I started in such a
passion; but it was money I had saved up from what my father had given
me. I took no clothes with me but what I had on. I was tidily dressed.
It was in the haymaking time, and I made straight away to London. I was
so young and in such a rage, I couldn’t think of nothing but getting
away. When I cooled I began to think of my father, but at home I had
heard of young girls being sent out to Australia and having done well,
and I thought I could easily get sent out from London, and so I went
on. I slept in lodging-houses. I was shocked the first night I got
into Bridgewater, men, women, and boys, all sleeping in the same room.
I slept with another young woman, a travelling-woman, but married. I
couldn’t think of going back. I couldn’t humble myself before that
stepmother. I thought anything would be better than that. I couldn’t
sleep at all the first night I was out. I never was in such a bed
before. A young man who saw me there wanted me to live with him; he
was a beggar, and I didn’t like a beggar, and I wouldn’t have nothing
to say to him. He wasn’t impudent; but he followed me to Bristol, all
the time, whenever I met with him, teasing me to live with him. I lived
on my money as long as I could, and then had to go and sleep in a
union. I don’t know where. It was a dreadful place. The rats ran over
my head while I slept; and I prayed for daylight--for I used to pray
then. I don’t now. I don’t like the thoughts of it. At last I got to
London. I was sitting in Hyde-park thinking where I should go--I know
it was in Hyde-park, for I was taken up from it since. The park-keeper
took me up for making a noise--that’s a disturbance--in the park; me
and some other young women: we were only washing ourselves where the
horses drink, near the canteen. In Hyde-park, while I was sitting,
as I’ve told you, some girls and some young men, and some older men,
passed me, carrying rakes. I was sitting with three other girls I’d got
acquainted with on the road, all Irish girls. The people that passed me
said, ‘We are going half-way to Watford a-haymaking. Go with us?’ We
all went. Each of those Irish girls soon took up with a mate. I think
they had known each other before. I had a fortnight at haymaking. I
had a mate at haymaking, and in a few days he ruined me. He told the
master that I belonged to him. He didn’t say I was his wife. They don’t
call us their wives. I continued with him a long time, living with
him as his wife. We next went into Kent harvesting, then a-hopping,
and I’ve been every summer since. He was kind to me, but we were both
passionate--fire against fire--and we fought sometimes. He never beat
me but once, for contradicting him. He wasn’t jealous, and he had no
reason to be so. I don’t know that he was fond of me, or he wouldn’t
have run away. I liked him, and would have gone through trouble for
him. I like him still. We never talked about marrying. I didn’t care,
for I didn’t think about it. I lived with him, and was true to him,
until he ran away in haymaking time in 1848. He ran away from me in
Kent, where we were hopping. We hadn’t quarrelled for some days before
he started. I didn’t think he was going, for he was kind to me just
before. I left him once for a fortnight myself, through some quarrel,
but he got me back again. I came up to London in a boat from Gravesend,
with other hoppers. I lived on fifteen shillings I had saved up. I
lived on that as long as it lasted--more than a week. I lodged near the
Dials, and used to go drinking with other women I met with there, as I
was fond of drink then. I don’t like it so much now. We drank gin and
beer. I kept to myself until my money was gone, and then I looked out
for myself. I had no particular friends. The women I drank with were
some bad and some good. I got acquainted with a young girl as I was
walking along the Strand looking out for my living by prostitution--I
couldn’t starve. We walked together. We couldn’t stay in the Strand,
where the girls were well-dressed, and so we kept about the Dials. I
didn’t think much about the life I was leading, because I got hardened.
I didn’t like it, though. Still I thought I should never like to go
home. I lodged in a back-street near the Dials. I couldn’t take anybody
there. I didn’t do well. I often wanted money to pay my lodgings, and
food to eat, and had often to stay out all night perishing. Many a
night out in the streets I never got a farthing, and had to walk about
all day because I durstn’t go back to my room without money. I never
had a fancy man. There was all sorts in the lodging-house--thirty
of them--pickpockets, and beggars, and cadgers, and fancy men, and
some that wanted to be fancy men, but I never saw one that I liked. I
never picked pockets as other girls did; I was not nimble enough with
my hands. Sometimes I had a sovereign in my pocket, but it was never
there a day. I used to go out a-drinking, treating other women, and
they would treat me. We helped one another now and then. I was badly
off for clothes. I had no illness except colds. The common fellows in
the streets were always jeering at me. Sometimes missionaries, I think
they’re called, talked to me about the life I was leading, but I told
them, ‘You mind yourself, and I’ll mind myself. What is it to you where
I go when I die?’ I don’t steal anything. I swear sometimes now. When
I was at home and good, I was shocked to hear such a thing. Me and the
other girls used to think it clever to swear hard, and say bad words
one to another or to anybody--we’re not particular. If I went into the
Magdalen, I know I couldn’t stay there. I have not been there, but
I know I couldn’t, from what I’ve heard of it from the other girls,
some of whom said they’d been; and I suppose they had, as there was no
motive at all for them to tell lies about it. I have been in the casual
wards at Holborn and Kensington when I was beat out. It was better than
walking the streets. I think, by the life I lead--and without help I
must lead it still, or starve--I sometimes get twenty shillings a-week,
sometimes not more than five shillings. I would like best to go to
Australia, where nobody would know me. I’m sure I could behave myself
there. There’s no hope for me here: everybody that knows me despises
me. I could take a service in Sydney. I could get rid of my swearing.
I only swear now when I’m vexed--it comes out natural-like then. I
could get rid of my love of drink. No one--no girl can carry on the
life I do without drink. No girl’s feelings would let her. I never met
one but what said so, and I know they all told the truth in that. I
am strong and healthy, and could take a hard place with country work.
That about Australia is the best wish I have. I’m sure I’m sick of this
life. It has only drink and excitement to recommend it. I haven’t a
friend in the world. I have been told I was a fool not to pick pockets
like other girls. I never begged but once, and that was as I was coming
to London, and a woman said, ‘You look better than I do!’ so I never
begged again--that checked me at once. But I’ve got tickets for the
‘straw-yards,’ or the ‘leather-houses,’ as some call them (asylums for
the houseless). The old women all say it was far better when they were
young. I think what a change it is from my country life; but when I
get sad, I go and get a glass of gin, if I have the money. I can get a
pennyworth in some houses. I can’t do much at my needle. The idleness
of the life I lead is terrible. There is nothing to interest me.”
The next was a mere girl, who had lost all traces of feminine beauty.
There was an impudence in her expression that was utterly repulsive;
and even in her most serious moments it was evident that she had the
greatest difficulty to restrain her inward levity. Her dress consisted
principally of a ragged red and green plaid shawl, pinned tight over
her neck, and a torn straw-bonnet, worn back upon her head.
“I have a father alive,” she said; “I have got no mother. I have been
away these three years. I came away with a chap. I was living, sir,
when I was at home, with my father in Maidstone. My father was a
gardener, and I used to work at shirt-making when I was at home with my
father. My mother has been dead eight years, I think. I can’t say how
old I was then. I am twenty now. My father, after my mother’s death,
married again. She was dead seven years before he got another wife.
He didn’t marry again while I was at home. My mother was a very good
mother. I was very fond of my mother, for she was a very good mother;
but not of my father, for he was a bad father. Why, sir, he used to
treat us three girls so ill, my biggest sister was obliged to go to
Australia from him. My next sister was younger than me, and I don’t
know whether she is at home now; but I don’t believe that she can stop
at home, because I have been down as far as Maidstone since I went away
with my young man, and I’ve heard that she’s almost dead between the
pair of them. By the pair of them, I mean my father and stepmother. My
mother-in-law is the worst to my sister. My father was bad before she
came; he was such a drunkard. We went to school, where we paid nothing
a-week, in Maidstone; it’s a free school. I can read. I can’t write.
All the money my father used to earn he used to drink, and leave us
without any food. I went to the shirt-making when I was twelve years
of age, and that used to bring me about 4_d._ a-day, and with that
I used to buy bread, for we never got a halfpenny from my father to
keep us. My father used to work for a gentleman, and got pretty good
wages. The young chap that I first took up with was a carpenter. He
was apprenticed to the trade. He enticed me away. He told me if I’d
come to London with him he’d do anything for me. I used to tell him
how badly my father treated me, and he used to tell me not to stop at
home. I have been knocking about three years, and I’m twenty now, so I
leave you to say how old I was then. No, I can’t say. I’m twenty now,
and I’ve been away these three years, and I don’t know how old that
would make me. I never learnt any ciphering. My father used to beat
us and knock us about when he came home drunk. I liked the young man
that came a-courting on me very well. I thought all he said was true,
and I thought he would make me much happier than I was at home.” [Here
she shook her head with apparent regret.] “Yes, sir, he promised he
would marry me; but when I came over to London he ruined me, and then
ran away and left me. I knew it was wrong to go away and live with him
without being married; but I was wretched at home, and he told me he
would make me his wife, and I believed him. He brought me up to London
with him, into the Borough. He took me to a low lodging-house there.
The charge was 6_d._ a-night for the two of us. There were six sleeping
in the same room beside us two. They were men and women. Some of ’em
were married, and some were not. He had 4_s._ 6_d._ when he came up to
London with me, and I had none. He stopped with me. He stopped with me
in the same house a week. He was 22 years of age, or 23, I can’t say
which. While he was with me he was very kind to me: oh, yes, sir, much
kinder than my father, and I loved him a great deal more, I’m sure. I
hadn’t many clothes when I left my father’s home. I had nothing but
what I stood upright in. I had no more clothes when I was at home.
When my young man left me there was another young girl in the same
lodging-house, who advised me to turn out upon the streets. I went and
took her advice. I did like the life for a bit, because I see’d there
was money getting by it. Sometimes I got 4_s._ or 5_s._ a-day, and
sometimes more than that. I still kept at the same house. There were
a lot of girls like me at the same place. It was not a bad house, but
they encouraged us like. No tramps used to come there, only young chaps
and gals that used to go out thieving. No, my young man didn’t thieve,
not while he was with me, but I did afterwards. I’ve seen young chaps
brought in there by the girls merely to pay their lodging-money. The
landlady told us to do that; she said I could do better than knocking
about with a man. If I hadn’t had enough to pay for my lodging, I
couldn’t have had a bed to lie on. We used to be all in the same room,
chaps and girls, sometimes nine or ten couples in the same room--only
little bits of girls and chaps. I have seen girls there 12 years of
age. The boys was about 15 or 16. They used to swear dreadful. I fell
out with the gal as first told me to go on the streets, and then I
got with another at another house. I moved to Paddington. I lived
at a little public-house there--a bad house; and I used to go out
shoplifting with my pal. I used to take everything I could lay my hands
on. We went one night, and I stole two dresses, at a linendraper’s
shop, and had two months a-piece for it. Yes, sir, I liked prison very
well, because I had such bad clothes; and was glad to be out of the
way. Some days we hardly had a bit to put in our mouths. Sometimes we
used to get nothing shoplifting; the men, perhaps, would notice--the
fly-men, as we called them. They used to be too wide-awake for us.
Sometimes we used to make 5_s._ in the day; but then we used to spend
it all in waste--why, spending it in anything. We’d buy fish, and meat,
and baked potatoes, and pudding. No, sir, very little drink we had.
We didn’t care for gin, nor any liquor at all. There was none among
us but one that cared for drink, and she used to pawn all her clothes
for it. I dare say there was upwards of twelve or thirteen gals; the
kitchen used to be full. The mistress used to treat us well if we paid
her; but she used to holler at us if we didn’t. The chaps used to serve
her out so. They used to take the sheets, and blankets, and everything
away from her. She was deaf. They was mostly all prigs that used to
come to see us. They used to go out nailing--that’s thieving. There was
one that they used to call Fogerty was transported: another got seven
months; and another got a twelvemonth. I had one fancy-man. He was a
shoplifter and a pickpocket: he has got two years now. I went to see
him once in quod; some calls it ‘the Steel.’ I cried a good deal when
he got nailed, sir: I loved him. A little time after he went away, I
went down into the country; down into Essex. I saw I couldn’t get him
off, ’cause it was for a watch, and the gentleman went so hard against
him. I was with him at the time he stole it, but I didn’t know he’d got
it till I saw him run. I got the man down by a saw-mill; he was tipsy.
He was a gentleman, and said he would give me five shillings if I would
come along with him. My fancy-man always kept near to me whenever I
went out of a night. I usen’t to go out to take the men home; it was
only to pick them up. My young man used to tell me how to rob the men.
I’d get them up in a corner, and then I used to take out of their
pockets whatever I could lay my hands on; and then I used to hand it
over to him, and he used to take the things home and ‘fence’ them. We
used to do a good deal this way sometimes: often we’d get enough to
keep us two or three days. At last he got caught for the watch; and
when I see’d I couldn’t get him off, I went down into the country--down
into Essex, sir. I travelled all parts, and slept at the unions on the
road. I met a young girl down in Town Malling, in Kent. I met her, and
then we used to go begging together, and tramp it from one union to
another. At last we got so ragged and dirty, and our things all got so
bad, that we made up our minds to go in for three months into prison,
at Battle, down in Sussex. We used to meet a great many on the road
boiling their kettle, and sometimes we used to stop and skipper with
them of a night. Skippering is sleeping in barns or under hedges, if
it’s warm weather. They weren’t gipsies. We usen’t to stop to speak to
the gipsies--not much--unless we went to fairs or horse-races. Then
we used to sit with them for a little while, if they had their tent.
We generally used to steal on the way. If we could see anything, we
used to take it. At last, when our clothes got bad, I and the other
girl--she still kept with me--determined to break the parson’s windows
at Battle. We broke one because the house was good for a cant--that’s
some food--bread or meat, and they wouldn’t give it us, so we got
savage, and broke all the glass in the windows. For that we got three
months. After we got out, the parson sent word for us to come to his
house, and he gave us half-a-crown a-piece to take us on our road. He
would have given us some clothes--we had no shoes and stockings: we
was very bad off; but his wife was in London. So we went on the road
tramping again, and I have been tramping it about the country ever
since. I was all last winter in Town Malling union with the fever,
and when I got well I set off tramping again. I didn’t have no more
chaps since I left my fancy-man--I mean, I never took up with no
others, not to keep their company. I have been about two years tramping
altogether; out of that I had five months in prison for stealing and
breaking windows. I like the tramping life well enough in the summer,
’cause there’s plenty of victuals to be had then, but it’s the winter
that we can’t stand. Then we generally come to London, but we can’t
call at house to house here as we do in the country, so we make but a
poor thing of it. I never was so bad off as I am now, excepting when
I was at Battle, for I had no shoes or stockings then. The police is
too sharp for us in London. I’m very fond of going through the country
in fine weather. Sometimes we don’t make much freedom with the chaps
in the union, and sometimes we do. They tells us to go along with
them, for they knows good houses to call at. What you make is all
according to whether you’re in a lonesome road. I’ve travelled a day,
and not seen a house that I could get anything at. Some days I’ve got
a shilling given to me, and some days as much as half-a-crown. We can
always get plenty of bread and meat, for countryfolks is very good.
If I had some good things--that is, good boots--I should like to go
into the country again. Sometimes we gets so much scran we sells it
among ourselves. I should sell my lot to some travellers on the road.
They gives us 3_d._ or 4_d._, but we must give them a good lot for
that. I can’t say which is the best of the unions now, for they are all
shut up. They used to be good at one time, but the Irish ruined them;
they came in such swarms, the people, I knew, would never stand it.
We used often to say of a night that them Irish Greeks would ruin the
business. They are much better beggars than we are, though they don’t
get as much as the English, because they go in such swarms up to the
door. Now, down in Hawkhurst, there used to be a twopenny loaf allowed
to everybody that called at the parson’s house, little and big; it was
allowed by a lady, till the pigs of Irish came in such lots, that they
spoilt all the game. The parson won’t give it to no one now, except
eight travelling-men in the morning. I know all the good houses, and
the tidy grubbikens,--that’s the unions where there’s little or nothing
to do for the food we gets. We walk mostly eleven miles a-day. If it’s
hot we walk only six miles, and turn in under a hedge if we’ve got
our things with us to make a tent. We go all right round the country,
up to Yorkshire, and as far as Northumberland. We don’t try Warwick
gaol, because the shilling they used to give on being discharged is
stopped, excepting to those that’s not been there before, and there’s
very few of the trampers, boys or girls, that hasn’t. Then there’s
the twopenny-house down in Highfield, in Kent. I’m blowed if they
ain’t been and stopped that! I can’t tell what’s come to the country
of late. It’s got very bad and scaly, there’s no hospitality going
on. I’ve been two years at the business, and I’ve seen it grow worse
and worse, meaner and meaner, every day before my very eyes. I don’t
know, I’m sure, what poor trampers will do if it gets any worse. Some
do talk of the good old times, when there was plenty of money-getting
in them days. I shouldn’t like to give it up just yet. I do like to
be in the country in the summer-time. I like haymaking and hopping,
because that’s a good bit of fun. Still, I’m sick and tired of what
I’m doing now. It’s the winter that sickens me. I’m worn out now, and
I often sits and thinks of the life that I’ve led. I think of my kind,
dear mother, and how good I would have been if my father had taught me
better. Still, if I’d clothes I’d not give up my present life. I’d be
down in the country now. I do love roving about, and I’m wretched when
I’m not at it. After my mother died I never liked to be at home. I’ve
seen many an unhappy day since I’ve been away; still, I wouldn’t go
back to my home, because it’s no home to me.”