CHAPTER IX.

MENTAL AND MORAL CONDITION OF THE WHITE SLAVES IN GREAT BRITAIN.

The moral degradation and mental darkness of the labouring classes in

Great Britain in the middle of the Nineteenth century, are appalling to

contemplate. Beneath the wing of a government professedly Christian,

there is sheltered a vast number of people who must be characterized

as heathen—as fit subjects of missionary labours, such as are freely

given to the dark sons of India and Africa. They know nothing of God

but his prevailing name; and the Bible's light is hid from them as

completely as if its pages were inscribed with Egyptian hieroglyphics.

Their code of morals is the creature of their sensual inclinations;

their intelligence seemingly the superior instinct of the animal.

Scotland is far beyond other portions of Great Britain in the moral and

mental cultivation of its people; but there is a large class in that

country to which the above observations may be justly applied.

According to Kay, more than half the poor in England and Wales cannot

read and write, while the majority of the remainder know nothing of

science, history, geography, music, or drawing, and very little of the

Scripture history. In the great mercantile and manufacturing towns,

it is true that poor men, if they defer their marriage, and have no

extraordinary encumbrances, may improve their condition; but scarcely

any facilities are offered for their acquiring the intelligence

necessary for the control of passion. The schools in the towns are

wretchedly arranged and managed. Many are nothing more than "dame

schools," conducted often in cellars or garrets, by poor women, who

know how to read, but who often know nothing else. The schools for the

peasants are still fewer in number, and inefficient in character; and

hence the result, that the English peasantry are more ignorant and

demoralized, less capable of helping themselves, and more pauperized,

than those of any other country in Europe, if we except Russia, Turkey,

South Italy, and some parts of the Austrian Empire. A writer in a

recent number of "Household Words," makes some remarkable statements in

regard to the ignorance of the English masses:—

"Wherever we turn, ignorance, not always allied to poverty,

stares us in the face. If we look in the Gazette, at the list

of partnerships dissolved, not a month passes but some unhappy

man, rolling perhaps in wealth, but wallowing in ignorance,

is put to the _experimentum crucis_ of 'his mark,' The number

of petty jurors—in rural districts especially—who can only

sign with a cross is enormous. It is not unusual to see parish

documents of great local importance defaced with the same

humiliating symbol by persons whose office shows them to be

not only 'men of mark,' but men of substance. We have printed

already specimens of the partial ignorance which passes under

the ken of the post-office authorities, and we may venture to

assert, that such specimens of penmanship and orthography are

not to be matched in any other country in Europe. A housewife

in humble life need only turn to the file of her tradesmen's

bills to discover hieroglyphics which render them so many

arithmetical puzzles. In short, the practical evidences of the

low ebb to which the plainest rudiments of education in this

country has fallen, are too common to bear repetition. We cannot

pass through the streets, we cannot enter a place of public

assembly, or ramble in the fields, without the gloomy shadow

of Ignorance sweeping over us. The rural population is indeed

in a worse plight than the other classes. We quote—with the

attestation of our own experience—the following passage from

one of a series of articles which have recently appeared in

a morning newspaper: 'Taking the adult class of agricultural

labourers, it is almost impossible to exaggerate the ignorance in

which they live and move and have their being. As they work in

the fields, the external world has some hold upon them through

the medium of their senses; but to all the higher exercises of

intellect they are perfect strangers. You cannot address one of

them without being at once painfully struck with the intellectual

darkness which enshrouds him. There is in general neither

speculation in his eyes nor intelligence in his countenance. The

whole expression is more that of an animal than of a man. He is

wanting, too, in the erect and independent bearing of a man. When

you accost him, if he is not insolent—which he seldom is—he

is timid and shrinking, his whole manner showing that he feels

himself at a distance from you greater than should separate any

two classes of men. He is often doubtful when you address, and

suspicious when you question him; he is seemingly oppressed with

the interview while it lasts, and obviously relieved when it is

over. These are the traits which I can affirm them to possess as

a class, after having come in contact with many hundreds of farm

labourers. They belong to a generation for whose intellectual

culture little or nothing was done. As a class, they have no

amusements beyond the indulgence of sense. In nine cases out of

ten, recreation is associated in their minds with nothing higher

than sensuality. I have frequently asked clergymen and others, if

they often find the adult peasant reading for his own or others'

amusement? The invariable answer is, that such a sight is seldom

or never witnessed. In the first place, _the great bulk of them

cannot read_. In the next, a large proportion of those who can,

do so with too much difficulty to admit of the exercise being

an amusement to them. Again, few of those who can read with

comparative ease, have the taste for doing so. It is but justice

to them to say that many of those who cannot read have bitterly

regretted, in my hearing, their inability to do so. I shall never

forget the tone in which an old woman in Cornwall intimated to

me what a comfort it would now be to her could she only read her

Bible in her lonely hours.'"

From statistics given by Kay, it is apparent that the proportional

amount of crime to population, calculated in two years, 1841 and 1847,

was greater in almost all the agricultural counties of England than it

was in the mining and manufacturing districts. The peasants of England

must be subjected to a singularly demoralizing system to produce so

terrible a result. The extreme poverty of the agricultural labourers

is the great stimulant to crime of all kinds; but the darkness of

ignorance is also a powerful agent. Poverty renders the peasants

desperate, and they are too ignorant to see the consequences of crime.

In a former part of this work, it was mentioned that the miserable

cottages in which the peasants are compelled to reside have

considerable influence in demoralizing them. This deserves to be fully

illustrated. The majority of the cottages have but two small rooms;

in one of which husband and wife, young men and young women, boys and

girls, and, very often, a married son and his wife all sleep together.

Kay says—

"The accounts we receive from all parts of the country show

that these miserable cottages are crowded to an extreme, and

that the crowding is progressively increasing. People of both

sexes, and of all ages, both married and unmarried—parents,

brothers, sisters, and strangers—sleep in the same rooms and

often in the same beds. One gentlemen tells us of six people of

different sexes and ages, two of whom were man and wife, sleeping

in the same bed, three with their heads at the top and three

with their heads at the foot of the bed. Another tells us of

adult uncles and nieces sleeping in the same room close to each

other; another, of the uncles and nieces sleeping in the same

bed together; another, of adult brothers and sisters sleeping

in the same room with a brother and his wife just married; many

tell us of adult brothers and sisters sleeping in the same beds;

another tells us of rooms so filled with beds that there is no

space between them, but that brothers, sisters, and parents

crawl over each other half naked in order to get to their

respective resting-places; another, of its being common for men

and women, not being relations, to undress together in the same

room, without any feeling of its being indelicate; another, of

cases where women have been delivered in bedrooms crowded with

men, young women, and children; and others mention facts of

these crowded bedrooms much too horrible to be alluded to. Nor

are these solitary instances, but similar reports are given by

gentlemen writing in ALL parts of the country."

The young peasants from their earliest years are accustomed to sleep

in the same bedrooms with people of both sexes; and they lose all

sense of the indecency of such a life, taking wives before they are

twenty years of age to sleep in the same room with their parents. The

policy now pursued by the aristocratic landlords, of clearing their

estates, tends to crowd the cottages which are allowed to remain, and

thus the demoralization of the peasantry is stimulated. Adultery is the

very mildest form of the vast amount of crime which it is engendering.

Magistrates, clergymen, surgeons, and parish-officers bear witness

that cases of incest are increasing in all parts of the country.

An eminent writer represents the consequences of the state of the

peasant's cottages in England and Wales in the following startling, but

unexaggerated terms:—

"A man and woman intermarry, and take a cottage. In eight cases

out of ten it is a cottage with but two rooms. For a time, so

far as room at least is concerned, this answers their purpose;

but they take it, not because it is at the time sufficiently

spacious for them, but because they could not procure a more

roomy dwelling, even if they desired it. In this they pass with

tolerable comfort, considering their notions of what comfort

is, the first period of married life; but, by-and-by they have

children, and the family increases, until, in the course of a few

years, they number, perhaps, from eight to ten individuals. But

in all this time there has been no increase to their household

accommodation. As at first, so to the very last, there is but the

ONE SLEEPING-ROOM. As the family increases, additional beds are

crammed into this apartment, until at last it is so filled with

them, that there is scarcely room left to move between them. _I

have known instances in which they had to crawl over each other

to get to their beds._ So long as the children are very young,

the only evil connected with this is the physical one arising

from crowding so many people together into what is generally

a dingy, frequently a damp, and invariably an ill-ventilated

apartment. But years steal on, and the family continues thus

bedded together. Some of its members may yet be in their infancy,

but others of both sexes have crossed the line of puberty. But

there they are, still together in the same room—the father and

mother, the sons and the daughters—young men, young women,

and children. Cousins, too, of both sexes, are often thrown

together into the same room, _and not unfrequently into the

same bed_. I have also known of cases in which uncles slept in

the same room with their grown-up nieces, and newly-married

couples occupied the same chamber with those long married, and

with others marriageable but unmarried. A case also came to my

notice, already alluded to in connection with another branch of

the subject, in which two sisters, who were married on the same

day, occupied adjoining rooms in the same hut, with nothing but

a thin board partition, which did not reach the ceiling, between

the two rooms, and a door in the partition which only partly

filled up the doorway. For years back, in these same two rooms,

have slept twelve people of both sexes and all ages. Sometimes,

when there is but one room, a praiseworthy effort is made for

the conservation of decency. But the hanging up of a piece of

tattered cloth between the beds, which is generally all that is

done in this respect, and even that but seldom, is but a poor

set-off to the fact, that a family, which, in common decency,

should, as regards sleeping accommodations, be separated at

least into three divisions, occupy, night after night, but one

and the same chamber. This is a frightful position for them

to be in when an infectious or epidemic disease enters their

abode. But this, important though it be, is the least important

consideration connected with their circumstances. That which

is most so, is the effect produced by them upon their habits

and morals. In the illicit intercourse to which such a position

frequently gives rise, _it is not always that the tie of blood

is respected_. Certain it is, that when the relationship is even

but one degree removed from that of brother and sister, that tie

is frequently overlooked. And when the circumstances do not lead

to such horrible consequences, the mind, particularly of the

female, is wholly divested of that sense of delicacy and shame,

which, so long as they are preserved, are the chief safeguards of

her chastity. She therefore falls an early and an easy prey to

the temptations which beset her beyond the immediate circle of

her family. People in the other spheres of life are but little

aware of the extent to which this precocious demoralization of

the female among the lower orders in the country has proceeded.

But how could it be otherwise? The philanthropist may exert

himself in their behalf, the moralist may inculcate even the

worldly advantages of a better course of life, and the minister

of religion may warn them of the eternal penalties which they

are incurring; but there is an instructor constantly at work,

more potent than them all—an instructor in mischief, of which

they must get rid ere they can make any real progress in their

laudable efforts—and that is, _the single bedchamber in the

two-roomed cottage_."

But such cottages will continue to be the dwellings of the peasantry

until the system of lord and serf is abolished, until they can obtain

ground of their own, and have no fear of eviction at a moment's notice.

It has often been a matter of wonder that there is less discontent and

murmuring among the miserable peasants than among the workmen in the

manufacturing towns. The reason lies upon the surface. The workmen in

the factories are generally more intelligent than the agricultural

labourers, and have a keen feeling of their degradation. It requires a

certain degree of elevation to render a man discontented. The wallowing

pig is satisfied.

We need not be surprised to find that where so much misery prevails

crime is frightfully frequent. The "Times" of the 30th of November,

1849, shows the terrible increase of crime in the last few years in

Dorsetshire. The "Times" says—

"We yesterday published, in a very short compass, some grave

particulars of the unfortunate county of Dorset. It is not

simply the old story of wages inadequate for life, hovels unfit

for habitation, and misery and sin alternately claiming our

pity and our disgust. This state of things is so normal, and

we really believe so immemorial in that notorious county, that

we should rather deaden than excite the anxiety of the public

by a thrice-told tale. What compels our attention just now is

a sudden, rapid, and, we fear, a forced aggravation of these

evils, measured by the infallible test of crime. Dorsetshire is

fast sinking into a slough of wretchedness, which threatens the

peace and morality of the kingdom at large. The total number of

convictions, which

"In 1846 was 798, and

"In 1847 was 821, mounted up,

"In 1848, to 950;

"and up to the special general session, last Tuesday, (Dec.

1849,) for less than eleven months of the present year, to the

astonishing number of 1193, being at the rate of 1300 for the

whole year! Unless something is done to stop this flood of crime,

or the tide happily turns of itself, the county will have more

than _doubled_ its convictions within four years! Nor is it

possible for us to take refuge in the thought that the increase

is in petty offences. In no respect is it a light thing for a

poor creature to be sent to jail, whatever be the offence. He

has broken the laws of his country, and forfeited his character.

His name and his morals are alike tainted with the jail. He is

degraded and corrupted. If his spirit be not crushed, it is

exasperated into perpetual hostility to wealth and power.

* * * * *

"It is, then, no light affair that a rural county, the abode of

an ancient and respectable aristocracy, somewhat removed from

the popular influences of the age, with a population of 175,043

by the late census, should produce in four years near 4000

convictions, being at the rate of one conviction in that period

for every sixty persons, or every twelve householders."

We might express our doubts of the real respectability of the ancient

aristocracy of Dorsetshire. They do not injure society in a way of

which the laws take notice; but had they nothing to do with the making

of the 4000 criminals? In 1834, an English writer estimated that about

120,000 of the people were always in jail. At the present time the

number is still greater.

The humane and able author of "Letters on Rural Districts," published

in the "Morning Chronicle" of London, thus speaks of the frightful

immorality among the agricultural population of Norfolk and Suffolk

counties:—

"One species of immorality, which is peculiarly prevalent in

Norfolk and Suffolk, is that of bastardy. With the exception

of Hereford and Cumberland, there are no counties in which the

percentage of bastardy is so high as it is in Norfolk—being

there 53.1 per cent. above the average of England and Wales; in

Suffolk it is 27 per cent. above, and in Essex 19.1 per cent.

below the average. In the two first-named counties, and even in

the latter one, though not to the same extent, _there appears to

be a perfect want of decency among the people_. 'The immorality

of the young women,' said the rector of one parish to me, 'is

literally horrible, and I regret to say it is on the increase in

a most extraordinary degree. When I first came to the town, the

mother of a bastard child used to be ashamed to show herself. The

case is now quite altered; no person seems to think any thing at

all of it. When I first came to the town, there was no such thing

as a common prostitute in it; now there is an enormous number

of them. When I am called upon to see a woman confined with an

illegitimate child, I endeavour to impress upon her the enormity

of the offence; and there are no cases in which I receive more

insult from those I visit than from such persons. They generally

say they'll get on as well, after all that's said about it; and

if they never do any thing worse than that, they shall get to

heaven as well as other people.' Another clergyman stated to me,

that he never recollected an instance of his having married a

woman who was not either pregnant at the time of her marriage,

or had had one or more children before her marriage. Again, a

third clergyman told me, that he went to baptize the illegitimate

child of one woman, who was thirty-five years of age, and it

was absolutely impossible for him to convince her that what she

had done was wrong. 'There appears,' said he, 'to be among the

lower orders a perfect deadness of all moral feeling upon this

subject.' Many of the cases of this kind, which have come under

my knowledge, evince such horrible depravity, that I dare not

attempt to lay them before the reader. Speaking to the wife of a

respectable labourer on the subject, who had seven children, one

of whom was then confined with an illegitimate child, she excused

her daughter's conduct by saying, 'What was the poor girl to do!

The chaps say that they won't marry 'em first, and then the girls

give way. I did the same myself with my husband.' There was one

case in Cossey, in Norfolk, in which the woman told me, without a

blush crimsoning her cheek, that her daughter and self had each

had a child by a sweep, who lodged with them, and who promised

to marry the daughter. The cottage in which these persons slept

consisted of but one room, and there were two other lodgers who

occupied beds in the same room; in one of which 'a young woman

occasionally slept with the young man she was keeping company

with.' The other lodger was an old woman of seventy-four years

of age. To such an extent is prostitution carried on in Norwich,

that out of the 656 licensed public-houses and beer-shops in the

city, there are not less than 220, which are known to the police

as common brothels. And, although the authorities have the power

of withholding the licenses, nothing is done to put a stop to the

frightful vice."

A want of chastity is universal among the female peasants of Wales,

arising chiefly from the herding of many persons in the small cottages.

In the vicinity of the mines, the average of inhabitants to a house is

said to be nearly twelve. The Rev. John Griffith, vicar of Aberdare,

says—

"Nothing can be lower, I would say more degrading, than the

character in which the women stand relative to the men. The men

and the women, married as well as single, live in the same house,

_and sleep in the same room_. The men do not hesitate to wash

themselves naked before the women; on the other hand, the women

do not hesitate to change their under garments before the men.

Promiscuous intercourse is most common, is thought of as nothing,

and the women do not lose caste by it."

The Welsh are peculiarly exempt from the guilt of great crimes.

But petty thefts, lying, cozening, every species of chicanery and

drunkenness are common among the agricultural population, and are

regarded as matters of course.

Infanticide is practised to a terrible extent in England and Wales. In

most of the large provincial towns, "burial clubs" exist. A small sum

is paid every year by the parent, and this entitles him to receive from

£3 to £5 from the club on the death of the child. Many persons enter

their children in several clubs; and, as the burial of the child does

not necessarily cost more than £1, or at the most £1 10_s._, the parent

realizes a considerable sum after all the expenses are paid. For the

sake of this money, it has become common to cause the death of the

children, either by starvation, ill-usage, or poison. No more horrible

symptom of moral degradation could be conceived.

"Mr. Chadwick says,[101] 'officers of these burial societies,

relieving officers, and others, whose administrative duties put

them in communication with the lowest classes in these districts,

(the manufacturing districts,) express their moral conviction

of the operation of such bounties to produce instances of the

visible neglect of children of which they are witnesses. They

often say—You are not treating that child properly, it will not

live; _is it in the club_? And the answer corresponds with the

impression produced by the sight.

"'Mr. Gardiner, the clerk of the Manchester union, while

registering the causes of death, deemed the cause assigned by

a labouring man for the death of a child unsatisfactory, and

staying to inquire, found that popular rumour assigned the death

to wilful starvation. The child (according to a statement of the

case) had been entered in at least _ten_ burial clubs; _and its

parents had had six other children, who only lived from nine to

eighteen months respectively_. They had received from several

burial clubs twenty pounds for _one_ of these children, and they

expected at least as much on account of this child. An inquest

was held at Mr. Gardiner's instance, when several persons, who

had known the deceased, stated that she was a fine fat child

shortly after her birth, but that she soon became quite thin, was

badly clothed, and seemed as if she did not get a sufficiency of

food.... The jury, having expressed it as their opinion that the

evidence of the parents was made up for the occasion and entitled

to no credit, returned the following verdict:—Died through want

of nourishment, but whether occasioned by a deficiency of food,

or by disease of the liver and spine brought on by improper food

and drink or otherwise, does not appear.

"'Two similar cases came before Mr. Coppock, the clerk and

superintendent-registrar of the Stockport union, in both of which

he prosecuted the parties for murder. In one case, where three

children had been poisoned with arsenic, the father was tried

with the mother and convicted at Chester, and sentenced to be

transported for life, but the mother was acquitted. In the other

case, where the judge summed up for a conviction, the accused,

the father, was, to the astonishment of every one, acquitted.

In this case the body was exhumed after interment, and _arsenic

was detected in the stomach_. In consequence of the suspicion

raised upon the death on which the accusation was made in the

first case, the bodies of two other children were taken up and

examined, when _arsenic was found in their stomachs_. In all

these cases payments on the deaths of the children were insured

from the burial clubs; the cost of the coffin and burial dues

would not be more than about one pound, and the allowance from

the club is three pounds.

"'It is remarked on these dreadful cases by the

superintendent-registrar, _that the children who were boys, and

therefore likely to be useful to the parents, were not poisoned_;

the female children were the victims. It was the clear opinion

of the medical officers that infanticides have been committed in

Stockport to obtain the burial money.'"

Such parents must be placed upon a level with the swine that devour

their farrow. We are led to doubt whether they could sink much lower

in the animal scale; poverty and ignorance seem to have thoroughly

quenched the spark of humanity. The author of "Letters on Labour, and

the Poor in the Rural Districts," writing of the burial clubs in the

eastern counties, says:

"The suspicion that a great deal of 'foul play' exists with

respect to these clubs is supported, not only by a comparison

of the different rates of mortality, but it is considerably

strengthened by the facts proved upon the trial of Mary May.

The Rev. Mr. Wilkins, the vicar of Wickes, who was mainly

instrumental in bringing the case before a court of justice,

stated to me that, from the time of Mary May coming to live in

his parish, he was determined to keep a very strict watch upon

her movements, as he had heard that _fourteen of her children had

previously died suddenly_.

"A few weeks after her arrival in his parish, she called upon

him to request him to bury one of her children. Upon his asking

her which of the children it was, she told him that it was

Eliza, a fine healthy-looking child of ten years old. Upon his

expressing some surprise that she should have died so suddenly,

she said, 'Oh, sir, she went off like a snuff; all my other

children did so too.' A short time elapsed, and she again waited

upon the vicar to request him to bury her brother as soon as

he could. His suspicions were aroused, and he endeavoured to

postpone the funeral for a few days, in order to enable him to

make some inquiries. Not succeeding in obtaining any information

which would warrant further delay in burying the corpse, he most

reluctantly proceeded in the discharge of his duty.

"About a week after the funeral, Mary May again waited upon him

to request him to sign a certificate to the effect that her

brother was in perfect health a fortnight before he died, that

being the time at which, as it subsequently appeared, she had

entered him as nominee in the Harwich Burial Club. Upon inquiring

as to the reason of her desiring this certificate, she told him

that, unless she got it, she could not get the money for him from

the club. This at once supplied the vicar with what appeared

to be a motive for 'foul play' on the part of the woman. He

accordingly obtained permission to have the body of her brother

exhumed; doses of arsenic were detected, and the woman was

arrested. With the evidence given upon the trial the reader is,

no doubt, perfectly conversant, and it will be unnecessary for

me to detail it. She was convicted. Previously to her execution

she refused to make any confession, but said, 'If I were to tell

all I know, it would give the hangman work for the next twelve

months.' Undue weight ought not to be attached to the declaration

of such a woman as Mary May; but, coupled with the disclosures

that took place upon the trial with respect to some of her

neighbours and accomplices, and with the extraordinary rate of

mortality among the clubs, it certainly does appear that the

general opinion with respect to the mischievous effects of these

societies is not altogether without foundation.

"Although there are not in Essex, at present, any burial clubs

in which children are admitted under fourteen years of age as

members or nominees, still, as illustrating the evils arising

from these clubs, I may state that many persons who are fully

conversant with the working of such institutions have stated that

they have frequently been shocked by hearing women of the lower

classes, when speaking of a neighbour's child, make use of such

expressions as, 'Oh, depend upon it, the child'll not live; it's

in the burial club.' When speaking to the parents of a child who

may be unwell, it is not unfrequently that they say, 'You should

do so and so,' or, 'You should not do so and so;' '_You should

not treat it in that way; is it in the burial club_?' Instances

of the most culpable neglect, if not of graver offences, are

continually occurring in districts where clubs exist in which

children are admitted. A collector of one of the most extensive

burial societies gave it as his opinion, founded upon his

experience, that it had become a constant practice to neglect the

children for the sake of the allowance from the clubs; and he

supported his opinion by several cases which had come under his

own observation."

A vast number of other facts, of equally shocking character, have

been ascertained. The Rev. J. Clay, chaplain of the Preston House of

Correction, in a sanitary report, makes some statements of a nature to

startle:—

"It appears, on the unimpeachable authority of a burial-club

official, that '_hired nurses speculate on the lives of infants

committed to their care, by entering them in burial clubs_;' that

'two young women proposed to enter a child into his club, and

to pay the weekly premium alternately. Upon inquiring as to the

relation subsisting between the two young women and the child, he

learned that the infant was placed at nurse with the mother of

one of these young women,' The wife of a clergymen told me that,

visiting a poor district just when a child's death had occurred,

instead of hearing from the neighbours the language of sympathy

for the bereaved parent, she was shocked by such observations

as—'Ah! it's a fine thing for the mother, the child's in two

clubs!'

"As regards one town, I possess some evidence of the amount of

burial-club membership and of infant mortality, which I beg to

lay before you. The reports of this town refer to 1846, when

the population of the town amounted to about 61,000. I do not

name the town, because, as no actual burial-club murders are

known to have been committed in it, and as such clubs are not

more patronized there than in other places, it is, perhaps, not

fair to hold it up to particular animadversion; indeed, as to

its general character, this very town need not fear comparison

with any other. Now this place, with its sixty-one thousand

people of all classes and ages, maintains at least eleven burial

clubs, the members of which amount in the aggregate to nearly

fifty-two thousand; nor are these all. Sick clubs, remember, act

as burial clubs. Of these there are twelve or fourteen in the

town, mustering altogether, probably, two thousand members. Here,

then, we have good data for comparing population with '_death

lists_;' but it will be necessary, in making the comparison, to

deduct from the population all that part of it which has nothing

to do with these clubs, viz. all infants under two months old,

and all persons of unsound health, (both of these classes being

excluded by the club rules;) all those also of the working

classes, whose sound intelligence and feeling lead them to abhor

burial-club temptations; and all the better classes, to whom five

or twenty pounds offer no consolation for the death of a child.

On the hypothesis that these deductions will amount to one-sixth

of the entire population, it results that the _death lists_

are more numerous by far than the entire mass—old, young, and

infants—which support them; and, according to the statement of a

leading death-list officer, _three-fourths_ of the names on these

catalogues of the doomed are the names of children. Now, if this

be the truth—and I believe it is—hundreds, if not thousands

of children must be entered each into _four_, _five_, or even

_twelve_ clubs, their chances of life diminishing, of course,

in proportion to the frequency with which they are entered. Lest

you should imagine that such excessive addiction to burial clubs

is only to be found in one place, I furnish you with a report for

1846, of a single club, which then boasted thirty-four thousand

one hundred members, _the entire population of the town to which

it belongs having been, in 1841, little more than thirty-six

thousand_!"

The authorities from whom these statements are derived are of the

highest respectability; they hear witness to a state of affairs

scarcely to be conceived by people of other civilized countries.

Hundreds of thousands of human beings seem to be driven into an awful

abyss of crime and misery by the iron rule of the aristocracy—an

abyss where mothers forget maternal feelings, where marriage vows are

scoffed, and where the momentary gratification of brutal passions is

alone esteemed. There, indeed, there is no fear of God, and heathenism

spreads its upas shade to poison and destroy.

The only amusement which the English poor possess in many parts of the

country, is to visit taverns. In the towns the "gin-palaces" and the

beer-houses are very numerous; and whenever the poor have leisure,

these places are thronged by drunken men and abandoned women. In all

the rural districts there is a frightful amount of drunkenness. British

legislation has increased the number of these hot-beds of crime and

pauperism.

"In the beginning of the revolutionary war the duties on malt

were _augmented_, and in 1825 the duties on spirits were

_decreased_. It was thus that whisky was substituted for ale as

the beverage of the Scotch, and that gin and brandy began to be

generally drunk by the English poor.

"The consumption of spirits immediately increased in a tremendous

proportion. From 4,132,263 gallons, the consumption in 1825, it

rose in one year to 8,888,648 gallons; that is, the consumption

was _in one year_ more than _doubled_ by the change; and from

that period, with the exception of the year next following, viz.

1827, the consumption has been progressively augmenting.

"Since that time the noted beer-shop act has been passed. By that

act, any one was enabled to obtain a license to enable him to

sell beer, whether the person desirous of doing so was a person

of respectable character or not.

"But this was the least of the evils which were effected by that

act. A clause, which was still more injurious, was that which

prescribed that the liquor _must be drunk upon the premises of

the beer-house_, i. e. either in the beer-house or on a bench

just outside the door.

"This has the effect in many cases, where the poor would

otherwise take the beer home to their own cottages, of forcing

the young men who wish to have a little to drink, to sit down and

take it in the society of the worst people of the neighbourhood,

who always, as a matter of course, spend their leisure in the

tavern. I am convinced that nothing can be more injurious in its

effects upon the poor than this clause. It may be said to _force_

the honest labourers into the society and companionship of the

most depraved, and so necessarily to demoralize the young and

honest labourer.

"The following is the number of gallons of _native_ proof spirits

on which duty was paid for home consumption in the United

Kingdom, in the undermentioned years:—

Years. Gallons.

1843 18,841,890

1844 20,608,525

1845 23,122,588

1846 24,106,697

"To the above must be added the number of gallons of foreign and

colonial spirits retained for home consumption, as follows:—

┌───────┬────────────────────────┬──────────────────────────────┐

│ │ │ No. of Gallons of Home │

│ Years.│ No. of Gallons of │ and Foreign Spirits consumed │

│ │ Foreign, &c. Spirits. │ in the United Kingdom. │

├———————┼————————————————————————┼——————————————————————————————┤

│ 1843 │ 3,161,957 │ 22,026,289 │

│ 1844 │ 3,242,606 │ 22,042,905 │

│ 1845 │ 3,549,889 │ 26,672,477 │

│ 1846 │ 4,252,237 │ 28,360,934 │

└———————┴————————————————————————┴——————————————————————————————┘

"From the above statistics it appears that the consumption of

spirits in the United Kingdom is increasing much more rapidly

than the population!

"The number of licenses granted to retailers of spirits or beer

amounted, in 1845, to 237,345; that is, there was to be found,

in 1845, a retailer of beer or spirits in every 115 of the

population! Of the beer licenses, 68,086 were for dwellings rated

under £20 per annum, and 35,340 were licenses for premises rated

under £10 per annum! This shows how large a proportion of the

beer-shops are situated in the poorest districts, for the use of

the poorest classes.[102]

There is a section of London, which in 1847 had 2000 inhabitants, one

butcher's shop, two bakers' shops, and seventeen beer-houses. The total

cost of the spirits and beer consumed in the United Kingdom was, in

1848, estimated at £65,000,000, a sum greater, by several millions,

than the whole revenue of the government. The inimitable Dickens has

given us a vivid sketch of a London gin-palace and its attendants. He

says—

"The extensive scale on which these places are established,

and the ostentatious manner in which the business of even the

smallest among them is divided into branches, is most amusing.

A handsome plate of ground glass in one door directs you 'To

the Counting-house;' another to the 'Bottle Department;' a

third to the 'Wholesale Department,' a fourth to the 'Wine

Promenade;' and so forth, until we are in daily expectation

of meeting with a 'Brandy Bell,' or a 'Whisky Entrance.' Then

ingenuity is exhausted in devising attractive titles for the

different descriptions of gin; and the dram-drinking portion of

the community, as they gaze upon the gigantic black and white

announcements, which are only to be equalled in size by the

figures beneath them, are left in a state of pleasing hesitation

between 'The Cream of the Valley,' 'The Out and Out,' 'The No

Mistake,' 'The Good for Mixing,' 'The real Knock-me-down,' 'The

celebrated Butter Gin,' 'The regular Flare-up,' and a dozen other

equally inviting and wholesome _liqueurs_. Although places of

this description are to be met with in every second street, they

are invariably numerous and splendid in precise proportion to the

dirt and poverty of the surrounding neighbourhood. The gin-shops

in and near Drury-lane, Holborn, St. Giles's, Covent-garden, and

Clare-market, are the handsomest in London. There is more of

filth and squalid misery near those great thoroughfares than in

any part of this mighty city.

"We will endeavour to sketch the bar of a large gin-shop, and its

ordinary customers, for the edification of such of our readers as

may not have had opportunities of observing such scenes; and on

the chance of finding one well suited to our purpose we will make

for Drury-lane, through the narrow streets and dirty courts which

divide it from Oxford street, and that classical spot adjoining

the brewery at the bottom of Tottenham-court-road, best known to

the initiated as the 'Rookery.'

"The filthy and miserable appearance of this part of London

can hardly be imagined by those (and there are many such) who

have not witnessed it. Wretched houses with broken windows

patched with rags and paper, every room let out to a different

family, and in many instances to two or even three; fruit

and 'sweet-stuff' manufacturers in the cellars, barbers and

red-herring venders in the front parlours, and cobblers in the

back; a bird-fancier in the first floor, three families on the

second, starvation in the attics, Irishmen in the passage; a

'musician' in the front kitchen, and a charwoman and five hungry

children in the back one—filth everywhere—a gutter before the

houses and a drain behind them—clothes drying and slops emptying

from the windows; girls of fourteen or fifteen with matted hair,

walking about barefooted, and in white great-coats, almost their

only covering; boys of all ages, in coats of all sizes and no

coats at all; men and women, in every variety of scanty and dirty

apparel, lounging, scolding, drinking, smoking, squabbling,

fighting, and swearing.

"You turn the corner, what a change! All is light and brilliancy.

The hum of many voices issues from that splendid gin-shop which

forms the commencement of the two streets opposite, and the

gay building with the fantastically ornamented parapet, the

illuminated clock, the plate-glass windows surrounded by stucco

rosettes, and its profusion of gas-lights in richly gilt burners,

is perfectly dazzling when contrasted with the darkness and dirt

we have just left. The interior is even gayer than the exterior.

A bar of French polished mahogany, elegantly carved, extends the

whole width of the place; and there are two side-aisles of great

casks, painted green and gold, enclosed within a light brass

rail, and bearing such inscriptions as 'Old Tom, 549;' 'Young

Tom, 360;' 'Samson, 1421.' Beyond the bar is a lofty and spacious

saloon, full of the same enticing vessels, with a gallery running

round it, equally well furnished. On the counter, in addition

to the usual spirit apparatus, are two or three little baskets

of cakes and biscuits, which are carefully secured at the top

with wicker-work, to prevent their contents being unlawfully

abstracted. Behind it are two showily-dressed damsels with large

necklaces, dispensing the spirits and 'compounds.' They are

assisted by the ostensible proprietor of the concern, a stout

coarse fellow in a fur cap, put on very much on one side, to give

him a knowing air, and display his sandy whiskers to the best

advantage.

"It is growing late, and the throng of men, women, and children,

who have been constantly going in and out, dwindles down to

two or three occasional stragglers—cold, wretched-looking

creatures, in the last stage of emaciation and disease. The knot

of Irish labourers at the lower end of the place, who have been

alternately shaking hands with, and threatening the life of, each

other for the last hour, become furious in their disputes, and

finding it impossible to silence one man, who is particularly

anxious to adjust the difference, they resort to the infallible

expedient of knocking him down and jumping on him afterward.

The man in the fur cap and the potboy rush out; a scene of riot

and confusion ensues; half the Irishmen get shut out, and the

other half get shut in; the potboy is knocked among the tubs

in no time; the landlord hits everybody, and everybody hits

the landlord; the barmaids scream; the police come in; and the

rest is a confused mixture of arms, legs, staves, torn coats,

shouting, and struggling. Some of the party are borne off to the

station-house, and the remainder slink home to beat their wives

for complaining, and kick the children for daring to be hungry."

The neglected and frightfully wretched condition of a great part of

the juvenile population in the British towns has frequently excited

the attention of philanthropic Englishmen. On the 6th of June, 1848,

Lord Ashley made a speech on juvenile destitution in the House of

Commons, in which he drew an awful picture of misery and degradation.

He showed that in the midst of London there is a large and continually

increasing number of lawless persons, forming a separate class, having

pursuits, interests, manners, and customs of their own. These are quite

independent of the number of mere pauper children who crowd the streets

of London, and who never attend a school. The lawless class were

estimated by Lord Ashley to number thirty thousand.

"Of 1600 who were examined, 162 confessed that they had been in

prison, not merely once, or even twice, but some of them several

times; 116 had run away from their homes; 170 slept in the

'lodging houses;' 253 had lived altogether by beggary; 216 had

neither shoes nor stockings; 280 had no hat or cap, or covering

for the head; 101 had no linen; 249 had never slept in a bed;

many had no recollection of ever having been in a bed; 68 were

the children of convicts.

"In 1847 it was found that of 4000 examined, 400 confessed that

they had been in prison, 660 lived by beggary, 178 were the

children of convicts, and 800 had lost one or both their parents.

Now, what was the employment of these people? They might be

classed as street-sweepers; vendors of lucifer matches, oranges,

cigars, tapes, and ballads; they held horses, ran errands,

jobbed for 'dealers in marine stores,' that being the euphonious

term for receivers of stolen goods—an influential race in the

metropolis, but for whose agency a very large proportion of

juvenile crime would be extinguished. It might be asked, how did

the large number who never slept in bed pass the night? In all

manner of places: under dry arches of bridges and viaducts, under

porticos, sheds, carts in outhouses, sawpits, or staircases, or

in the open air, and some in lodging-houses. Curious, indeed, was

their mode of life. One boy, during the inclement period of 1847,

passed the greater part of his nights in the large iron roller in

the Regent's Park. He climbed over the railings, and crept to the

roller, where he lay in comparative security.

"Lord Ashley says, 'many of them were living in the dry arches

of houses not finished, inaccessible except by an aperture,

only large enough to admit the body of a man. When a lantern

was thrust in, six or eight, ten or twelve people might be

found lying together. Of those whom we found thus lodged, we

invited a great number to come the following day, and there

an examination was instituted. The number examined was 33.

Their ages varied from 12 to 18, and some were younger. 24 had

no parents, 6 had one, 3 had stepmothers, 20 had no shirts, 9

no shoes, 12 had been once in prison, 3 twice, 3 four times, 1

eight times, and 1 (only 14 years old) twelve times. The physical

condition of these children was exceedingly bad; they were a

prey to vermin, they were troubled with itch, they were begrimed

with dirt, not a few were suffering from sickness, and two or

three days afterward several died from disease and the effects

of starvation. I privately examined eight or ten. I was anxious

to obtain from them the truth. I examined them separately,

taking them into a room alone. I said, "I am going to ask you

a variety of questions, to which I trust you will give me true

answers, and I will undertake to answer any question you may

put." They thought that a fair bargain. I put to several of

them the question, "How often have you slept in a bed during

the last three years?" One said, perhaps twelve times, another

three times, another could not remember that he ever had. I

asked them, how they passed the night in winter. They said, "We

lie eight or ten together, to keep ourselves warm." I entered

on the subject of their employments and modes of living. They

fairly confessed they had no means of subsistence but begging

and stealing. The only way of earning a penny in a legitimate

way was by picking up old bones. But they fairly acknowledged

for themselves and others scattered over the town, with whom

they professed themselves acquainted, that they had not and

could not have any other means of subsistence than by begging

and stealing. A large proportion of these young persons were at

a most dangerous age for society. What was the moral condition

of those persons? A large proportion of them (it was no fault

of theirs) did not recognise the distinctive rights of _meum_

and _tuum_. Property appeared to them to be only the aggregate

of plunder. They held that every thing which was possessed was

common stock; that he who got most was the cleverest fellow, and

that every one had a right to abstract from that stock what he

could by his own ingenuity. Was it matter of surprise that they

entertained those notions, which were instilled into their minds

from the time they were able to creep on all fours—that not only

did they disregard all the rights of property, but gloried in

doing so, unless they thought the avowal would bring them within

the grasp of the law. To illustrate their low state of morality,

and to show how utterly shameless they were in speaking on these

subjects, I would, mention what had passed at a ragged school

to which fourteen or fifteen boys, having presented themselves

on a Sunday evening, were admitted as they came. They sat down,

and the lesson proceeded. The clock struck eight. They all rose

with the exception of one little boy. The master took him by the

arm and said, "You must remain; the lesson is not over." The

reply was, "We must go to business." The master inquired what

business? "We must all go to catch them as they come out of the

chapels." It was necessary for them, according to the remark of

this boy, to go at a certain time in pursuit of their calling.

They had no remorse or shame, in making the avowal, because they

believed that there were no other means of saving themselves

from starvation. I recollect a very graphic remark made by one

of those children in perfect simplicity, but which yet showed

the horrors of their position. The master had been pointing out

to him the terrors of punishment in after-life. The remark of

the boy was, "That may be so, but I don't think it can be any

worse than this world has been to me." Such was the condition of

hundreds and thousands.'"

A large number of the depraved children live in what are called the

"lodging-houses." Most Americans have heard of the "Old Brewery" at the

Five Points in New York city, where more than two hundred persons of

all ages and sexes were crowded together. Such lodging-houses as this,

(which fortunately has been destroyed,) are common in London and the

provincial towns of Great Britain. Mr. Mayhew, in his "London Labour

and the London Poor," has given us very full information concerning

them. He obtained much of it from one who had passed some time among

the dens of infamy. He says of these lodging-houses—

"'They have generally a spacious, though often ill-ventilated

kitchen, the dirty, dilapidated walls of which are hung with

prints, while a shelf or two are generally, though barely,

furnished with crockery and kitchen utensils. In some places

knives and forks are not provided, unless a penny is left with

the "deputy," or manager, till they are returned. A brush of any

kind is a stranger, and a looking-glass would be a miracle. The

average number of nightly lodgers is in winter seventy, in the

summer (when many visit the provinces) from forty to forty-five.

The general charge is, if two sleep together, 3_d._ per night, or

4_d._ for a single bed. In either case, it is by no means unusual

to find eighteen or twenty in one small room, the heat and horrid

smell from which are insufferable; and, where there are young

children, the staircases are the lodgment of every kind of filth

and abomination. In some houses there are rooms for families,

where, on a rickety machine, which they dignify by the name of a

bedstead, may be found the man, his wife, and a son or daughter,

perhaps eighteen years of age; while the younger children, aged

from seven to fourteen, sleep on the floor. If they have linen,

they take it off to escape vermin, and rise naked, one by one,

or sometimes brother and sister together. This is no ideal

picture; the subject is too capable of being authenticated to

need any meaningless or dishonest assistance called "allowable

exaggeration." The amiable and deservedly popular minister of a

district church, built among lodging-houses, has stated that he

has found twenty-nine human beings in one apartment; and that

having with difficulty knelt down between two beds to pray with a

dying woman, his legs became so jammed that he could hardly get

up again.

"'Out of some fourscore such habitations,' continues my

informant, 'I have only found _two_ which had any sort of garden;

and, I am happy to add, that in neither of these two was there

a single case of cholera. In the others, however, the pestilence

raged with terrible fury.'"

There are other lodging-houses still lower in character than those

described above, and where there is a total absence of cleanliness

and decency. A man who had slept in these places, gave the following

account to Mr. Mayhew:—

"He had slept in rooms so crammed with sleepers—he believed

there were thirty where twelve would have been a proper

number—that their breaths in the dead of night and in the

unventilated chamber, rose (I use his own words) 'in one foul,

choking steam of stench.' This was the case most frequently a

day or two prior to Greenwich Fair or Epsom Races, when the

congregation of the wandering classes, who are the supporters of

the low lodging-houses, was the thickest. It was not only that

two or even three persons jammed themselves into a bed not too

large for one full-sized man; but between the beds—and their

partition one from another admitted little more than the passage

of a lodger—were placed shakedowns, or temporary accommodation

for nightly slumber. In the better lodging-houses the shakedowns

are small palliasses or mattrasses; in the worst they are bundles

of rags of any kind; but loose straw is used only in the country

for shakedowns. Our informant saw a traveller, who had arrived

late, eye his shakedown in one of the worst houses with any thing

but a pleased expression of countenance; and a surly deputy,

observing this, told the customer he had his choice, 'which,' the

deputy added, 'is not as all men has, or I shouldn't have been

waiting here on you. But you has your choice, I tell you;—sleep

there on that shakedown, or turn out and be—; that's fair.'

At some of the busiest periods, numbers sleep on the kitchen

floor, all huddled together, men and women, (when indecencies are

common enough,) and without bedding or any thing but their scanty

clothes to soften the hardness of the stone or brick floor. A

penny is saved to the lodger by this means. More than two hundred

have been accommodated in this way in a large house. The Irish,

in harvest-time, very often resort to this mode of passing the

night.

"I heard from several parties, of the surprise, and even fear or

horror, with which a decent mechanic—more especially if he were

accompanied by his wife—regarded one of these foul dens, when

destitution had driven him there for the first time in his life.

Sometimes such a man was seen to leave the place abruptly, though

perhaps he had prepaid his last halfpenny for the refreshment

of a night's repose. Sometimes he was seized with sickness. I

heard also from some educated persons who had 'seen better days,'

of the disgust with themselves and with the world, which they

felt on first entering such places. 'And I have some reason to

believe,' said one man, 'that a person, once well off, who has

sunk into the very depths of poverty, often makes his first

appearance in one of the worst of those places. Perhaps it is

because he keeps away from them as long as he can, and then, in

a sort of desperation fit, goes into the cheapest he can meet

with; or if he knows it's a vile place, he very likely says to

himself—as I did—"I may as well know the worst at once."'

"Another man, who had moved in good society, said, when asked

about his resorting to a low lodging-house: 'When a man's lost

caste in society, he may as well go the whole hog, bristles and

all, and a low lodging-house is the entire pig.'

"Notwithstanding many abominations, I am assured that the

lodgers, in even the worst of these habitations, for the most

part, sleep soundly. But they have, in all probability, been

out in the open air the whole of the day, and all of them may

go to their couches, after having walked, perhaps, many miles,

exceedingly fatigued, and some of them half drunk. 'Why, in

course, sir,' said a 'traveller,' whom I spoke to on this

subject, 'if you is in a country town or village, where there's

only one lodging-house, perhaps, and that a bad one—an old hand

can always suit hisself in London—you _must_ get half drunk, or

your money for your bed is wasted. There's so much rest owing

to you, after a hard day; and bugs and bad air'll prevent its

being paid, if you don't lay in some stock of beer, or liquor

of some sort, to sleep on. It's a duty you owes yourself; but,

if you haven't the browns, why, then, in course, you can't pay

it.' I have before remarked, and, indeed, have given instances,

of the odd and sometimes original manner in which an intelligent

patterer, for example, will express himself.

"The information I obtained in the course of this inquiry into

the condition of low lodging-houses, afforded a most ample

corroboration of the truth of a remark I have more than once

found it necessary to make before—that persons of the vagrant

class will sacrifice almost any thing for warmth, not to say

heat. Otherwise, to sleep, or even sit, in some of the apartments

of these establishments would be intolerable.

"From the frequent state of weariness to which I have alluded,

there is generally less conversation among the frequenters of

the low lodging-houses than might be expected. Some are busy

cooking, some (in the better houses) are reading, many are drowsy

and nodding, and many are smoking. In perhaps a dozen places

of the worst and filthiest class, indeed, smoking is permitted

even in the sleeping-rooms; but it is far less common than it

was even half-a-dozen years back, and becomes still less common

yearly. Notwithstanding so dangerous a practice, fires are and

have been very unfrequent in these places. There is always some

one awake, which is one reason. The lack of conversation, I ought

to add, and the weariness and drowsiness, are less observable in

the lodging-houses patronized by thieves and women of abandoned

character, whose lives are comparatively idle, and whose labour

a mere nothing. In their houses, if their conversation be at all

general, it is often of the most unclean character. At other

times it is carried on in groups, with abundance of whispers,

shrugs, and slang, by the members of the respective schools of

thieves or lurkers."

* * * * *

"The licentiousness of the frequenters, and more especially the

juvenile frequenters, of the low lodging-houses, must be even

more briefly alluded to. In some of these establishments, men

and women, boys and girls,—but perhaps in no case, or in very

rare cases, unless they are themselves consenting parties, herd

together promiscuously. The information which I have given from a

reverend informant indicates the nature of the proceedings, when

the sexes are herded indiscriminately, and it is impossible to

present to the reader, in full particularity, the records of the

vice practised.

"Boys have boastfully carried on loud conversations, and from

distant parts of the room, of their triumphs over the virtue of

girls, and girls have laughed at and encouraged the recital.

Three, four, five, six, and even more boys and girls have been

packed, head and feet, into one small bed; some of them perhaps

never met before. On such occasions any clothing seems often

enough to be regarded as merely an encumbrance. Sometimes there

are loud quarrels and revilings from the jealousy of boys and

girls, and more especially of girls whose 'chaps' have deserted

or been inveigled from them. At others, there is an amicable

interchange of partners, and next day a resumption of their

former companionship. One girl, then fifteen or sixteen, who had

been leading this vicious kind of life for nearly three years,

and had been repeatedly in prison, and twice in hospitals—and

who expressed a strong desire to 'get out of the life' by

emigration—said: 'Whatever that's bad and wicked, that any one

can fancy could be done in such places among boys and girls

that's never been taught, or won't be taught, better, _is_ done,

and night after night.' In these haunts of low iniquity, or

rather in the room into which the children are put, there are

seldom persons above twenty. The young lodgers in such places

live by thieving and pocket-picking, or by prostitution. The

charge for a night's lodging is generally 2_d._, but smaller

children have often been admitted for 1_d._ If a boy or girl

resort to one of these dens at night without the means of

defraying the charge for accommodation, the 'mot of the ken'

(mistress of the house) will pack them off, telling them plainly

that it will be no use their returning until they have stolen

something worth 2_d._ If a boy or girl do not return in the

evening, and have not been heard to express their intention of

going elsewhere, the first conclusion arrived at by their mates

is that they have 'got into trouble,' (prison.)

"The indiscriminate admixture of the sexes among adults, in many

of these places, is another evil. Even in some houses considered

of the better sort, men and women, husbands and wives, old and

young, strangers and acquaintances, sleep in the same apartment,

and if they choose, in the same bed. Any remonstrance at some act

of gross depravity, or impropriety, on the part of a woman not so

utterly hardened as the others, is met with abuse and derision.

One man who described these scenes to me, and had long witnessed

them, said that almost the only women who ever hid their faces or

manifested dislike of the proceedings they could not but notice,

(as far as he saw,) were poor Irishwomen, generally those who

live by begging: 'But for all that,' the man added, 'an Irishman

or Irishwoman of that sort will sleep anywhere, in any mess, to

save a halfpenny, though they may have often a few shillings, or

a good many, hidden about them.'"

The recent report of Captain Hays, "on the operation of the Common

Lodging-house Act," presents some appalling facts:—

"Up to the end of February, it was ascertained that 3100 persons,

mostly Irishmen, in the very heart of the metropolis, lodged

every night, 84,000 individuals in 3712 rooms. The instances

enumerated are heart sickening. In a small room in Rosemary

lane, near the Tower, fourteen adults were sleeping on the floor

without any partition or regard to decency. In an apartment

in Church lane, St. Giles, not fifteen feet square, were

thirty-seven women and children, all huddled together on the

floor. There are thousands of similar cases. The eastern portion

of London, comprising Whitechapel, Spitalfields, and Mile-end—an

unknown land to all of the decent classes—is filled with a

swarming population of above 300,000 beggars, costermongers,

thieves, ragsellers, Jews, and the like. A single court is a fair

example of this whole district. It contains eight houses of two

rooms each. Three hundred persons—men, women, and children—live

there. There is only one place of convenience; and one hydrant,

which is served half an hour each day. The condition of this

court may be imagined; it is too filthy to describe. Decayed

matter, stagnant water, refuse fish, vegetables, broken baskets,

dead cats, dogs, and rats, are strewed everywhere around. The

prices of various kinds of provision in these neighbourhoods give

a forcible notion of the condition of the population. You can

purchase for a halfpenny fish or meat enough for a dinner.

"In this neighbourhood is Rag Fair. It is worth a visit.

Thousands of persons are assembled in the streets, which are so

thickly covered with merchandise that it is difficult to step

along without treading on heaps of gowns, shawls, bonnets, shoes,

and articles of men's attire. There is no conceivable article of

dress that may not be purchased here. It is not without danger

that one even visits the place at noonday. You are in the midst

of the refuse of all London,—of a whole race, whose chief

employment is to commit depredations upon property, and whose

lives are spent in the midst of a squalor, filth, deprivation

and degradation, which the whole world cannot probably parallel.

One of the London missionaries says—'Persons who are accustomed

to run up heavy bills at the shops of fashionable tailors and

milliners will scarcely believe the sums for which the poor are

able to purchase the same kind of articles. I have recently

clothed a man and woman, both decently, for the sum of nine

shillings. There is as great a variety of articles in pattern,

shape, and size, as could be found in any draper's shop in

London. The mother may go to _Rag Fair_, with the whole of her

family, both boys and girls—yes, and her husband, too—and for

a very few shillings deck them out from top to toe. I have no

doubt that a man and his wife, and five or six children, with £1

would purchase for themselves an entire change. This may appear

an exaggeration; but I actually overheard a conversation, in

which two women were trying to bargain for a child's frock; the

sum asked was 1½_d._, and the sum offered was 1_d._, and they

parted on the difference.'

"The following is a bill delivered by a dealer to one of the

missionaries, who was requested to supply a suit of clothes for a

man and woman whom he had persuaded to get married several years

after the right time:—

_s._ _d._

A full linen-fronted shirt, very elegant 0 6

A pair of warm worsted stockings 0 1

A pair of light-coloured trousers 0 6

A black cloth waistcoat 0 3

A pair of white cotton braces 0 1

A pair of low shoes 0 1

A black silk velvet stock 0 1

A black beaver, fly-fronted, double-breasted paletot coat,

lined with silk, a very superior article 1 6

A cloth cap, bound with a figured band 0 1

A pair of black cloth gloves 0 1

— —

3 3

"The man had been educated, and could speak no fewer than five

languages; by profession he was, however, nothing but a dusthill

raker.

"The bill delivered for the bride's costume is as follows:

A shift 0 1

A pair of stays 0 2

A flannel petticoat 0 4

A black Orleans ditto 0 4

A pair of white cotton stockings 0 1

A very good light-coloured cotton gown 0 10

A pair of single-soled slippers, with spring heels 0 2

A double-dyed bonnet, including a neat cap 0 2

A pair of white cotton gloves 0 1

A lady's green silk paletot, lined with crimson silk,

trimmed with black 0 10

— ——

3 1"

Throughout the country there are low lodging-houses, which do not

differ much in character from those of London. In all of them the most

disgusting immorality is practised to an extent scarcely conceivable by

those who do not visit such dens of vice and misery.

The story of the Jew Fagan, and his felonious operations, in Dickens's

Oliver Twist, is a true representation of a most extensive business

in London. There are a large number of notorious receivers of stolen

goods. Some of them keep a number of boys, who are instructed in

stealing, and beaten severely when unsuccessful. Mayhew mentions one

notorious case in George-yard. A wooden-legged Welshman, named Hughes,

and commonly called Taff, was the miscreant. Two little boys were his

chief agents in stealing, and when they did not obtain any thing, he

would take the strap off his wooden leg, and beat them through the

nakedness of their rags. He boarded and lodged about a dozen Chelsea

and Greenwich pensioners. These he followed and watched closely until

they were paid. Then, after they had settled with him, he would make

them drunk and rob them of the few shillings they had left.

The brutal treatment of servants, which we have already touched, drives

many of them to the low lodging-houses, and to the commission of crime.

In the following narrative, which a girl communicated to Mr. Mayhew,

we have an illustration of this assertion, as well as some awful

disclosures in regard to "life among the lowly:"—

"'I am an orphan. When I was ten I was sent to service as a maid

of all-work, in a small tradesman's family. It was a hard place,

and my mistress used me very cruelly, beating me often. When I

had been in place three weeks, my mother died; my father having

died twelve years before. I stood my mistress's ill-treatment

about six months. She beat me with sticks as well as with her

hands. I was black and blue, and at last I ran away. I got

to Mrs. —, a low lodging-house. I didn't know before that

there was such a place. I heard of it from some girls at the

Glasshouse, (baths and wash-houses,) where I went for shelter.

I went with them to have a halfpenny worth of coffee, and they

took me to the lodging-house. I then had three shillings, and

stayed about a month, and did nothing wrong, living on the three

shillings and what I pawned my clothes for, as I got some pretty

good things away with me. In the lodging-house I saw nothing but

what was bad, and heard nothing but what was bad. I was laughed

at, and was told to swear. They said, 'Look at her for a d—

modest fool'—sometimes worse than that, until by degrees I

got to be as bad as they were. During this time I used to see

boys and girls from ten to twelve years old sleeping together,

but understood nothing wrong. I had never heard of such places

before I ran away. I can neither read nor write. My mother was a

good woman, and I wish I'd had her to run away to. I saw things

between almost children that I can't describe to you—very often

I saw them, and that shocked me. At the month's end, when I was

beat out, I met with a young man of fifteen—I myself was going

on to twelve years old—and he persuaded me to take up with him.

I stayed with him three months in the same lodging-house, living

with him as his wife, though we were mere children, and being

true to him. At the three months' end he was taken up for picking

pockets, and got six months. I was sorry, for he was kind to

me; though I was made ill through him; so I broke some windows

in St. Paul's churchyard to get into prison to get cured. I had

a month in the Compter, and came out well. I was scolded very

much in the Compter, on account of the state I was in, being so

young. I had 2_s._ 6_d._ given to me when I came out, and was

forced to go into the streets for a living. I continued walking

the streets for three years, sometimes making a good deal of

money, sometimes none, feasting one day and starving the next.

The bigger girls could persuade me to do any thing they liked

with my money. I was never happy all the time, but I could

get no character, and could not get out of the life. I lodged

all this time at a lodging-house in Kent-street. They were all

thieves and bad girls. I have known between three and four dozen

boys and girls sleep in one room. The beds were horrid filthy and

full of vermin. There was very wicked carryings on. The boys, if

any difference, was the worst. We lay packed, on a full night, a

dozen boys and girls squeedged into one bed. That was very often

the case—some at the foot and some at the top—boys and girls

all mixed. I can't go into all the particulars, but whatever

could take place in words or acts between boys and girls did take

place, and in the midst of the others. I am sorry to say I took

part in these bad ways myself, but I wasn't so bad as some of the

others. There was only a candle burning all night, but in summer

it was light great part of the night. Some boys and girls slept

without any clothes, and would dance about the room that way. I

have seen them, and, wicked as I was, felt ashamed. I have seen

two dozen capering about the room that way; some mere children,

the boys generally the youngest. * * * There were no men or women

present. There were often fights. The deputy never interfered.

This is carried on just the same as ever to this day, and is

the same every night. I have heard young girls shout out to one

another how often they had been obliged to go to the hospital,

or the infirmary, or the workhouse. There was a great deal of

boasting about what the boys and girls had stolen during the

day. I have known boys and girls change their 'partners,' just

for a night. At three years' end I stole a piece of beef from a

butcher. I did it to get into prison. I was sick of the life I

was leading, and didn't know how to get out of it. I had a month

for stealing. When I got out I passed two days and a night in

the streets doing nothing wrong, and then went and threatened to

break Messrs. —'s windows again. I did that to get into prison

again; for when I lay quiet of a night in prison I thought things

over, and considered what a shocking life I was leading, and how

my health might be ruined completely, and I thought I would stick

to prison rather than go back to such a life. I got six months

for threatening. When I got out I broke a lamp next morning for

the same purpose, and had a fortnight. That was the last time

I was in prison. I have since been leading the same life as I

told you of for the three years, and lodging at the same houses,

and seeing the same goings on. I hate such a life now more than

ever. I am willing to do any work that I can in washing and

cleaning. I can do a little at my needle. I could do hard work,

for I have good health. I used to wash and clean in prison, and

always behaved myself there. At the house where I am it is 3_d._

a night; but at Mrs. —'s it is 1_d._ and 2_d._ a night, and

just the same goings on. Many a girl—nearly all of them—goes

out into the streets from this penny and twopenny house, to get

money for their favourite boys by prostitution. If the girl can

not get money she must steal something, or will be beaten by her

'chap' when she comes home. I have seen them beaten, often kicked

and beaten until they were blind from bloodshot, and their teeth

knocked out with kicks from boots as the girl lays on the ground.

The boys, in their turn, are out thieving all day, and the

lodging-house keeper will buy any stolen provisions of them, and

sell them to the lodgers. I never saw the police in the house. If

a boy comes to the house on a night without money or sawney, or

something to sell to the lodgers, a handkerchief or something of

that kind, he is not admitted, but told very plainly, 'Go thieve

it, then,' Girls are treated just the same. Anybody may call in

the daytime at this house and have a halfpenny worth of coffee

and sit any length of time until evening. I have seen three dozen

sitting there that way, all thieves and bad girls. There are

no chairs, and only one form in front of the fire, on which a

dozen can sit. The others sit on the floor all about the room,

as near the fire as they can. Bad language goes on during the

day, as I told you it did during the night, and indecencies too,

but nothing like so bad as at night. They talk about where there

is good places to go and thieve. The missioners call sometimes,

but they're laughed at often when they're talking, and always

before the door's closed on them. If a decent girl goes there to

get a ha'porth of coffee, seeing the board over the door, she is

always shocked. Many a poor girl has been ruined in this house

since I was, and boys have boasted about it. I never knew boy or

girl do good, once get used there. Get used there, indeed, and

you are life-ruined. I was an only child, and haven't a friend

in the world. I have heard several girls say how they would

like to get out of the life, and out of the place. From those I

know, I think that cruel parents and mistresses cause many to

be driven there. One lodging-house keeper, Mrs. —, goes out

dressed respectable, and pawns any stolen property, or sells it

at public-houses.'

"As a corroboration of the girl's statement, a wretched-looking

boy, only thirteen years of age, gave me the following additional

information. He had a few rags hanging about him, and no

shirt—indeed, he was hardly covered enough for purposes of

decency, his skin being exposed through the rents in his jacket

and trousers. He had a stepfather, who treated him very cruelly.

The stepfather and the child's mother went 'across the country,'

begging and stealing. Before the mother died, an elder brother

ran away on account of being beaten.

"'Sometimes,' I give his own words, 'he (the stepfather) wouldn't

give us a bit to eat, telling us to go and thieve for it. My

brother had been a month gone (he's now a soldier in Gibraltar)

when I ran away to join him. I knew where to find him, as we

met sometimes. We lived by thieving, and I do still—by pulling

flesh, (stealing meat.) I got to lodge at Mrs. —, and have

been there this eight months. I can read and write a little.'

This boy then confirmed what the young girl had told me of the

grossest acts night by night among the boys and girls, the

language, &c., and continued:—'I always sleep on the floor for

1_d._, and pay ½_d._ besides for coke. At this lodging-house

cats and kittens are melted down, sometimes twenty a day. A quart

pot is a cat, and pints and half-pints are kittens. A kitten

(pint) brings 3_d._ from the rag-shops, and a cat 6_d._ There's

convenience to melt them down at the lodging-house. We can't sell

clothes in the house, except any lodger wants them; and clothes

nearly all go to the Jews in Petticoat-lane. Mrs. — buys the

sawney of us; so much for the lump, 2_d._ a pound about; she

sells it again for twice what she gives, and more. Perhaps 30

lbs. of meat every day is sold to her. I have been in prison six

times, and have had three dozen; each time I came out harder. If

I left Mrs. —'s house I don't know how I could get my living.

Lots of boys would get away if they could. I never drink. I don't

like it. Very few of us boys drink. I don't like thieving, and

often go about singing; but I can't live by singing, and I don't

know how I could live honestly. If I had money enough to buy a

stock of oranges, I think I could be honest.'"

Mr. Mayhew called a meeting of thieves and beggars at the Bristol

Union School-room, Shakspeare Walk, Shadwell. One hundred and fifty

of them—all under twenty years of age—attended. It may be doubted

whether such a meeting could have been brought about in any other

city. The young thieves and beggars were very fair samples of their

numerous class. Of professed beggars, there were fifty; and sixty-six

acknowledged themselves habitual thieves. The announcement that the

greater number present were thieves, pleased them exceedingly, and was

received with three rounds of applause! Fourteen of them had been in

prison over twenty times, and twenty stated that they had been flogged

in prison. Seventy-eight of them regularly roamed through the country

every year; sixty-five slept regularly in the casual wards of the

Unions; and fifty-two occasionally slept in trampers' lodging-houses

throughout the country.

The ignorance prevailing among the vast number of street-sellers in

London, is rather comically illustrated by Mr. Mayhew, in the following

instance:—

"One boy 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.

"Yes, he had heer'd of God who made the world. Couldn't exactly

recollec' when he'd heerd on him, but he had, most sarten-ly.

Didn't know when the world was made, or how anybody could do it.

It must have taken a long time. It was afore his time, 'or yourn

either, sir.' Knew there was a book called the Bible; didn't

know what it was about; didn't mind to know; knew of such a book

to a sartinty, because a young 'oman took one to pop (pawn)

for an old 'oman what was on the spree—a bran new 'un—but

the cove wouldn't have it, and the old 'oman said he might be

d—d. Never heer'd tell on the deluge, of the world having

been drownded; it couldn't, for there wasn't water enough to do

it. He weren't a going to fret hisself for such things as that.

Didn't know what happened to people after death, only that they

was buried. Had seen a dead body laid out; was a little afeared

at first; poor Dick looked so different, and when you touched his

face he was so cold! oh, so cold! Had heer'd on another world;

wouldn't mind if he was there hisself, if he could do better, for

things was often queer here. Had heer'd on it from a tailor—such

a clever cove, a stunner—as went to 'Straliar, (Australia,)

and heer'd him say he was going into another world. Had never

heer'd of France, but had heer'd of Frenchmen; there wasn't half

a quarter so many on 'em as of Italians, with their ear-rings

like flash gals. Didn't dislike foreigners, for he never saw

none. What was they? Had heer'd of Ireland. Didn't know where

it was, but it couldn't be very far, or such lots wouldn't come

from there to London. Should say they walked it, ay, every bit

of the way, for he'd seen them come in all covered with dust.

Had heer'd of people going to sea, and had seen the ships in the

river, but didn't know nothing about it, for he was very seldom

that way. The sun was made of fire, or it wouldn't make you feel

so warm. The stars was fire, too, or they wouldn't shine. They

didn't make it warm, they was too small. Didn't know any use they

was of. Didn't know how far they was off; a jolly lot higher

than the gas lights some on 'em was. Was never in a church; had

heer'd they worshipped God there; didn't know how it was done;

had heer'd singing and praying inside when he'd passed; never was

there, for he hadn't no togs to go in, and wouldn't be let in

among such swells as he had seen coming out. Was a ignorant chap,

for he'd never been to school, but was up to many a move, and

didn't do bad. Mother said he would make his fortin yet.

"Had heer'd of the Duke of Wellington; he was Old Nosey; didn't

think he ever seed him, but had seen his statty. Hadn't heer'd

of the battle of Waterloo, nor who it was atween; once lived

in Webber-row, Waterloo-road. Thought he had heer'd speak of

Bonaparte; didn't know what he was; thought he'd heer'd of

Shakspeare, but didn't know whether he was alive or dead, and

didn't care. A man with something like that name kept a dolly

and did stunning; but he was sich a hard cove that if _he_ was

dead it wouldn't matter. Had seen the queen, but didn't recollec'

her name just at the minute; oh! yes, Wictoria and Albert. Had

no notion what the queen had to do. Should think she hadn't such

power [he had first to ask me what 'power' was] as the lord

mayor, or as Mr. Norton as was the Lambeth beak, and perhaps is

still. Was never once before a beak, and didn't want to. Hated

the crushers; what business had they to interfere with him if he

was only resting his basket in a street? Had been once to the

Wick, and once to the Bower; liked tumbling better; he meant to

have a little pleasure when the peas came in."

The vagabond propensities of the street-children are thus described by

Mr. Mayhew:—

"As soon as the warm weather commences, boys and girls, but more

especially boys, leave the town in shoals, traversing the country

in every direction; some furnished with trifling articles (such

as I have already enumerated) to sell, and others to begging,

lurking, or thieving. It is not the street-sellers who so much

resort to the tramp, as those who are devoid of the commonest

notions of honesty; a quality these young vagrants sometimes

respect when in fear of a jail, and the hard work with which such

a place is identified in their minds—and to which, with the

peculiar idiosyncrasy of a roving race, they have an insuperable

objection.

"I have met with boys and girls, however, to whom a jail had no

terrors, and to whom, when in prison, there was only one dread,

and that a common one among the ignorant, whether with or without

any sense of religion—superstition. 'I lay in prison of a night,

sir,' said a boy who was generally among the briskest of his

class, 'and think I shall see things.' The 'things' represent

the vague fears which many, not naturally stupid, but untaught

or ill-taught persons, entertain in the dark. A girl, a perfect

termagant in the breaking of windows and suchlike offences, told

me something of the same kind. She spoke well of the treatment

she experienced in prison, and seemed to have a liking for the

matron and officials; her conduct there was quiet and respectful.

I believe she was not addicted to drink.

"Many of the girls, as well as the boys, of course trade as

they 'tramp.' They often sell, both in the country and in town,

little necklaces composed of red berries strung together upon

thick thread, for dolls and children; but although I have asked

several of them, I have never yet found one who collected the

berries and made the necklaces themselves; neither have I met

with a single instance in which the girl vendors knew the name

of the berries thus used, nor indeed even that they _were_

berries. The invariable reply to my questions upon this point

has been that they 'are called necklaces;' that 'they are just

as they sells 'em to us;' that they 'don't know whether they are

made or whether they grow;' and in most cases, that they 'gets

them in London, by Shoreditch;' although in one case a little

brown-complexioned girl, with bright sparkling eyes, said that

'she got them from the gipsies.' At first I fancied, from this

child's appearance, that she was rather superior in intellect to

most of her class; but I soon found that she was not a whit above

the others, unless, indeed, it were in the possession of the

quality of cunning."

The regular "tramps," or wandering vagabonds, are very numerous

throughout Great Britain. At certain periods they issue from all the

large towns, and prey upon the rural districts like swarms of locusts.

In no other country can be found so constant a class of vagrants. The

gipsies form but a small portion of the "tramps." These vagrants are

miserably clothed, filthy, covered with vermin, and generally very

much diseased—sometimes from debauchery, and sometimes from want

of food and from exposure. Very few of them are married. The women

are nearly all prostitutes. The manner of life of these wanderers is

curious. They beg during the day in the towns, or along the roads;

and they so arrange their day's tramp as to arrive, most nights, in

the neighbourhood of the workhouses. They then hide the money they

have collected by begging, and present themselves, after sunset, at

the gates of the workhouse, to beg a night's lodging. To nearly every

workhouse there are attached vagrant wards, or buildings which are

specially set apart for the reception of tramps such as those we have

described. These wards are commonly brick buildings, of one story

in height. They have brick floors and guard-room beds, with loose

straw and rugs for the males, and iron bedsteads, with straw, for the

females. They are badly ventilated, and unprovided with any means for

producing warmth. All holes for ventilation are sure to be stopped up

at night, by the occupants, with rags or straw, so that the stench

of these sleeping-places is disgusting in the extreme. Guards are

appointed for these wards, but such is the immorality and indecency

of the vagrants, that the most disgusting scenes are common in them.

The wards resound with the vilest songs and the foulest language; and

so numerous are the "tramps" that the guardians find it impossible

to separate the sexes. This vast evil of vagrancy is constantly

increasing, and is a natural result of the monopolies and oppressions

of the aristocracy. It is stated that on the 25th of March, 1848, the

626 Unions of England and Wales relieved 16,086 vagrants. But this

scarcely gives an idea of the magnitude of the evil. Between 40,000

and 50,000 "tramps" infest the roads and streets of England and Wales

every day. The majority of them are thieves, and nearly all are almost

brutally ignorant.

In London there are large numbers of small dealers, called

costermongers and patterers. Persons belonging to these classes seldom

or never rise above their trade, and they seem to have a kind of

hereditary pride in their degraded position. Many of the costermongers

and patterers are thieves, and the general character of these classes

is very debased; ignorance and immorality prevail to a fearful

extent. The patterers are more intelligent than the costermongers,

but they are also more immoral. They help off their wares, which are

chiefly stationery and quack medicines, by long harangues, while the

costermongers merely cry their fish, greens, &c. about the streets.

The number of people dependent upon costermongering in London is about

thirty thousand. The patterers are not so numerous.

Concubinage is the rule and marriage the exception among both

costermongers and patterers. Mr. Mayhew estimates that only one-tenth

of the couples living together and carrying on the costermongering

trade are married. There is no honour attached to the marriage state

and no shame to concubinage. In good times the women are rigidly

faithful to their paramours, but in the worst pinch of poverty a

departure from fidelity is not considered heinous. About three out of

a hundred costermongers ever attend a church, and the majority of them

have no knowledge of Christianity; they associate the Church of England

and aristocracy, and hate both. Slang is acquired very rapidly, and

some costermongers will converse in it by the hour. The women use it

sparingly; the girls more than the women; the men more than the girls;

and the boys most of all. Pronouncing backward is the simple principle

upon which the costermonger slang is founded.

The patterers, though a vagrant, are an organized class. Mr. Mayhew

says—

"There is a telegraphic despatch between them, through the

length and breadth of the land. If two patterers (previously

unacquainted) meet in the provinces, the following, or something

like it, will be their conversation:—Can you 'voker romeny'

(can you speak cant?) What is your 'monekeer?' (name.) Perhaps

it turns out that one is 'White-headed Bob,' and the other

'Plymouth Ned,' They have a 'shant of gatter' (pot of beer)

at the nearest 'boozing ken,' (ale-house,) and swear eternal

friendship to each other. The old saying, that 'When the

liquor is in the wit is out,' is remarkably fulfilled on these

occasions, for they betray to the 'flatties' (natives) all their

profits and proceedings.

"It is to be supposed that in country districts, where there are

no streets, the patterer is obliged to call at the houses. As

they are mostly without the hawker's license, and sometimes find

wet linen before it is lost, the rural districts are not fond

of their visits; and there are generally two or three persons

in a village reported to be 'gammy,' that is, unfavourable. If

a patterer has been 'crabbed,' that is, offended, at any of the

'cribs,' (houses,) he mostly chalks a signal on or near the door.

I give one or two instances:—

"'Bone,' meaning good.

"'Cooper'd,' spoiled by the imprudence of some other patterer.

"'Gammy,' likely to have you taken up.

"'Flummut,' sure of a month in quod.

"In most lodging-houses there is an old man who is the guide to

every 'walk' in the vicinity, and who can tell every house on

every round that is 'good for a cold 'tater.' In many cases there

is over the kitchen mantel-piece a map of the district, dotted

here and there with memorandums of failure or success.

"Patterers are fond of carving their names and avocations about

the houses they visit. The old jail at Dartford has been some

years a 'padding-ken.' In one of the rooms appear the following

autographs:—

"'Jemmy, the Rake, bound to Bristol; bad beds, but no bugs. Thank

God for all things.'

"'Razor George and his moll slept here the day after Christmas;

just out of "stir," (jail,) for "muzzling a peeler."'

"'Scotch Mary, with "driz," (lace,) bound to Dover and back,

please God.'

"Sometimes these inscriptions are coarse and obscene; sometimes

very well written and orderly. Nor do they want illustrations.

"At the old factory, Lincoln, is a portrait of the town beadle,

formerly a soldier; it is drawn with different-coloured chalks,

and ends with the following couplet:—

'You are a B for false swearing,

In hell they'll roast you like a herring.'

"Concubinage is very common among patterers, especially on

their travels; they have their regular rounds, and call the

peregrination 'going on circuit.' For the most part they are

early risers; this gives them a facility for meeting poor girls

who have had a night's shelter in the union workhouses. They

offer such girls some refreshments, swear they are single men,

and promise comforts certainly superior to the immediate position

of their victims. Consent is generally obtained; perhaps a girl

of fourteen or fifteen, previously virtuous, is induced to

believe in a promise of constant protection, but finds herself,

the next morning, ruined and deserted; nor is it unlikely that,

within a month or two, she will see her seducer in the company of

a dozen incidental wives. A gray-headed miscreant, called 'Cutler

Tom,' boasts of five hundred such exploits; and there is too

great reason to believe that the picture of his own drawing is

not greatly overcharged."

A reverend gentleman, who had enjoyed the best opportunities for

observing the patterers, gave Mr. Mayhew the following information:—

"I have seen fathers and mothers place their boys and girls in

positions of incipient enormity, and command them to use language

and gestures to each other which would make a harlot blush, and

almost a heathen tremble. I have hitherto viewed the patterer

as a salesman, having something in his hand, on whose merits,

real or pretended, he talks people out of their money. By slow

degrees prosperity rises, but rapid is the advance of evil. The

patterer sometimes gets 'out of stock,' and is obliged, at no

great sacrifice of conscience, to 'patter' in another strain. In

every large town, sham official documents, with crests, seals,

and signatures, can be got for half-a-crown. Armed with these,

the patterer becomes a 'lurker,' that is, an impostor; his papers

certify any and every 'ill that flesh is heir to.' Shipwreck is

called a 'shake lurk;' loss by fire is a 'glim.' Sometimes the

petitioner has had a horse which has dropped dead with the mad

staggers; or has a wife ill or dying, and six or seven children

at once sickening of the small-pox. Children are borrowed to

support the appearance; the case is certified by the minister and

churchwardens of a parish which exists only in imagination; and

as many people dislike the trouble of investigation, the patterer

gets enough to raise a stock in trade, and divides the spoil

between the swag-shop and the gin-palace. Sometimes they are

detected, and get a 'drag,' (three months in prison.)

"They have many narrow escapes; one occurs to me of a somewhat

ludicrous character:—A patterer and lurker (now dead) known

by the name of 'Captain Moody,' unable to get a 'fakement'

written or printed, was standing almost naked in the streets

of a neighbouring town. A gentleman stood still and heard his

piteous tale, but, having been 'done' more than once, he resolved

to examine the affair, and begged the petitioner to conduct

him to his wife and children, who were in a garret on a bed

of languishing, with neither clothes, food, nor fire, but, it

appeared, with faith enough to expect a supply from 'Him who

feedeth the ravens,' and in whose sacred name even a cold 'tater

was implored. The patterer, or half-patterer and half-beggar,

took the gentleman (who promised a sovereign if every thing was

square) through innumerable and intricate windings, till he came

to an outhouse or sort of stable. He saw the key outside the

door, and begged the gentleman to enter and wait till he borrowed

a light of a neighbour to show him up-stairs. The illumination

never arrived, and the poor charitable man found that the

miscreant had locked him into the stable. The patterer went to

the padding-ken, told the story with great glee, and left that

locality within an hour of the occurrence."

Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, and other provincial cities possess

an ignorant and immoral population quite equal, in proportion to the

entire population of each city, to that of London. In each may be found

a degraded class, with scarcely any ideas of religion or morality,

living in the most wretched manner, and practising every species

of vice. The cellar-houses, in which many of them live, have been

described in another chapter. They are the filthy abodes of a people

almost reduced to a brutish condition. In Liverpool parish there is a

_cellar-population of 20,000_, a large number of whom are continually

engaged in criminal practices. There are portions of the city of

Glasgow which a stranger could scarcely traverse safely at night,

and where an amount of vice and misery may be witnessed which is not

exceeded in either London or Liverpool.

In the mining and manufacturing districts of England there is much

ignorance and more vice. In both, there are schools of a miserable

character, but those young persons who can find time to attend them

learn nothing beyond reading, writing, and the simplest rules of

arithmetic. The mining labour, as carried on in the mines of England,

is extremely demoralizing in its tendency, as we have shown in another

part of this work. The report of parliamentary commissioners contains

some statements in regard to the darkness of mind and corruption

of heart among young persons employed in the various trades and

manufactures.

The following facts are quoted from the Second Report of the

"Children's Employment Commission."

The moral and religious state of the children and young persons

employed in the trades and manufactures of Birmingham, is described by

the sub-commissioners as very unfavourable. The social and domestic

duties and affections are but little cultivated and practised; great

numbers never attend any place of public worship; and of the state of

juvenile crime some conception may be formed by the statement, that of

the total number of known or suspected offenders in this town, during

the twelve last months—namely, 1223—at least one-half were under

fifteen years of age.

As to illicit sexual intercourse, it seems to prevail almost

universally, and from a very early period of life; to this common

conclusion witnesses of every rank give testimony.

WOLVERHAMPTON.—Of the moral condition of the youthful population in

the Wolverhampton district, Mr. Horne says—"Putting together all

I elicited from various witnesses and conversations with working

people, abroad and at home, and all that fell under my observation, I

am obliged to come to the conclusion, that the moral virtues of the

great majority of the children are as few in number and as feeble in

practice as can well be conceived in a civilized country, surrounded by

religious and educational institutions, and by individuals anxious for

the improvement of the condition of the working classes."

He adds of WITTENHALL—"A lower condition of morals, in the fullest

sense of the term, could not, I think, be found. I do not mean by this

that there are many more prominent vices among them, but that moral

feelings and sentiments do not exist among them. They have no morals."

SHEFFIELD.—In all the Sheffield trades, employing large numbers of

children, it is stated that there is a much closer intermixture of the

younger children with the elder youths, and with the men, than is usual

in the cotton, woollen, and flax factories; and that the conversation

to which the children are compelled to listen, would debase their minds

and blunt their moral feelings even if they had been carefully and

virtuously educated, but that of course this result takes place more

rapidly and completely in the case of those who have had little or no

religious culture, and little but bad example before their eyes from

their cradle upward.

Habits of drinking are formed at a very early age, malt liquor being

generally introduced into the workshops, of which the youngest children

are encouraged to partake. "Very many," say the police-officers,

"frequent beer-shops, where they play at dominoes, bagatelle, &c. for

money or drink." Early intemperance is assigned by the medical men as

one cause of the great mortality of Sheffield. "There are beer-houses,"

says the Rev. Mr. Farish, "attended by youths exclusively, for the

men will not have them in the same houses with themselves. In these

beer-houses are youths of both sexes encouraged to meet, and scenes

destructive of every vestige of virtue or morality ensue.

But it is stated by all classes of witnesses, that "the most revolting

feature of juvenile depravity in this town is early contamination

from the association of the sexes," that "juvenile prostitution is

exceedingly common." "The evidence," says the sub-commissioner, "might

have been doubled which attests the early commencement of sexual and

promiscuous intercourse among boys and girls."

SEDGLEY.—At Sedgley and the neighbouring villages, the number of girls

employed in nail-making considerably exceeds that of the boys. Of these

girls Mr. Horne reports—"Their appearance, manners, habits, and moral

natures (so far as the word _moral_ can be applied to them) are in

accordance with their half-civilized condition. Constantly associating

with ignorant and depraved adults and young persons of the opposite

sex, they naturally fall into all their ways; and drink, smoke, swear,

throw off all restraint in word and act, and become as bad as a man.

The heat of the forge and the hardness of the work renders few clothes

needful in winter; and in summer, the six or seven individuals who are

crowded into these little dens find the heat almost suffocating. The

men and boys are usually naked, except a pair of trousers and an open

shirt, though they very often have no shirt; and the women and girls

have only a thin ragged petticoat, and an open shirt without sleeves."

In the mining districts, there is even more ignorance and depravity

than in the places where factories and workshops abound. The nature of

the work, and various wants, such as no freemen would suffer from—want

of proper schools and proper amusements—induce this state of things.

An American visiting any of these mining districts, would be astounded

at the dulness, ignorance, and viciousness that prevails among the

labourers—men and women, boys and girls. Many of them are perfect

heathens—never hearing of God except when his awful name is "taken in

vain." Of Christ and his mission they hear somewhat, but know nothing

positively. Newspapers—those daily and weekly messengers that keep

Americans fully informed of the affairs of the world—they seldom see.

The gin-shop and the brothel are their common resorts.

Missionaries are wanted in Great Britain. Alas! that in the middle of

the nineteenth century, there should be so many hundreds of thousands

of people, in the vicinity of a costly church establishment, without

any knowledge of the Bible!—that a professedly Christian government

should keep so many souls in ignorance of Christianity!—that a country

boasting of its civilization and enlightenment should contain so much

darkness and depravity!