THE WRONGS AND CRIMES OF THE POOR.
The parlour of the _Dark-House_ was, as usual, filled with a very
tolerable sprinkle of queer-looking customers. One would have thought,
to look at their beards, that there was not a barber in the whole
district of the Tower Hamlets; and yet it appears to be a social
peculiarity, that the lower the neighbourhood, the more numerous the
shaving-shops. Amongst the very rich classes, nobles and gentlemen are
shaved by their valets: the males of the middle grade shave themselves;
and the men of the lower orders are shaved at barbers' shops. Hence the
immense number of party-coloured poles projecting over the pavement of
miserable and dirty streets, and the total absence of those signs in
wealthy districts.
The guests in the _Dark-House_ parlour formed about as pleasant an
assemblage of scamps as one could wish to behold. The establishment was
a notorious resort for thieves and persons of the worst character; and
no one who frequented it thought it worth while to shroud his real
occupation beneath an air of false modesty. The conversation in the
parlour, therefore, usually turned upon the tricks and exploits of the
thieves frequenting the place; and many entertaining autobiographical
sketches were in this way delivered. Women often constituted a portion
of the company in the parlour; and they were invariably the most noisy
and quarrelsome of all the guests. Whenever the landlord was compelled
to call in the police, to have a clearance of the house--a proceeding to
which he only had recourse when his guests were drunk and penniless, and
demanded supplies of liquor upon credit,--a woman was sure to be at the
bottom of the row; and a virago of Spitalfields would think no more of
smashing every window in the house, or dashing out the landlord's brains
with one of his own pewter-pots, than of tossing off a tumbler of raw
gin without winking.
On the evening of which we are writing there were several women in the
parlour of the _Dark-House_. These horrible females were the "blowens"
of the thieves frequenting the house, and the principal means of
disposing of the property stolen by their paramours. They usually ended
by betraying their lovers to the police, in fits of jealousy; and
yet--by some strange infatuation on the part of those lawless men--the
women who acted in this way speedily obtained fresh husbands upon the
morganatic system. For the most part, these females are disfigured by
intemperance; and their conversation is far more revolting than that of
the males. Oh! there is no barbarism in the whole world so truly
horrible and ferocious--so obscene and shameless--as that which is found
in the poor districts of London!
Alas! what a wretched mockery it is to hold grand meetings at Exeter
Hall, and proclaim, with all due pomp and ceremony, how many savages in
the far-off islands of the globe have been converted to Christianity,
when here--at home, under our very eyes--even London itself swarms with
infidels of a more dangerous character:--how detestable is it for
philanthropy to be exercised in clothing negroes or Red Men thousands of
miles distant, while our own poor are cold and naked at our very
doors:--how monstrously absurd to erect twelve new churches in Bethnal
Green, and withhold the education that would alone enable the poor to
appreciate the doctrines enunciated from that dozen of freshly-built
pulpits!
But to return to the parlour of the _Dark-House_.
In one corner sate the Resurrection Man and the Cracksman, each with a
smoking glass of gin-and-water before him. They mingled but little in
the conversation, contenting themselves with laughing an approval of any
thing good that fell upon their ears, and listening to the discourse
that took place around them.
"Now, come, tell us, Joe," said a woman with eyes like saucers, hair
like a bundle of tow, and teeth like dominoes, and addressing herself to
a man who was dressed like a coal-heaver,--"tell us, Joe, how you come
to be a prig?"
"Ah! do, Joe--there's a good feller," echoed a dozen voices, male and
female.
"Lor' it's simple enough," cried the man thus appealed to: "every poor
devil must become a thief in time."
"That's what you say, Tony," whispered the Cracksman to the Resurrection
Man.
"Of course he must," continued the coal-heaver; "more partickler them as
follows my old trade--for though I've got on the togs of a whipper, I
ain't one no longer. The dress is convenient--that's all."
"The Blue-bottles don't twig--eh?" cried the woman with the domino
teeth.
"That's it: but you asked me how I come to be a prig--I'll tell you. My
father was a coal-whipper, and had three sons. He brought us all up to
be coal-whippers also. My eldest brother was drownded in the pool one
night when he was drunk, after only drinking about two pots of the
publicans' beer: my other brother died of hunger in Cold-Bath Fields
prison, where he was sent for three months for taking home a bit of coal
one night to his family when he couldn't get his wages paid him by the
publican that hired the gang in which he worked. My father died when he
was forty--and any one to have seen him would have fancied he was
sixty-five at least--so broke down was he with hard work and drinking.
But no coal-whipper lives to an old age: they all die off at about
forty--old men in the wery prime of life."
"And why's that?" demanded the large-toothed lady.
"Why not?" repeated the man. "Because a coal-whipper isn't a human
being--or if he is, he isn't treated as such: and so I've always thought
he must be different from the rest of the world."
"How isn't he treated like any one else?"
"In the first place, he doesn't get paid for his labour in a proper way.
Wapping swarms with low public-houses, the landlords of which act as
middle-men between the owners of the colliers and the men that's hired
to unload 'em. A coal-whipper can't get employment direct from the
captain of the collier: the working of the collier is farmed by them
landlords I speak of; and the whipper must apply at their houses. Those
whippers as drinks the most always gets employment first; and whether a
whipper chooses to drink beer or not, it's always sent three times a-day
on board the colliers for the gangs. And, my eye! what stuff it is!
Often and often have we throwed it away, 'cos we could'nt possibly drink
it--and it must be queer liquor that a coal-whipper won't drink!"
"I should think so too. But go on."
"Well, I used to earn from fifteen to eighteen shillings a-week; and out
of that, eight was always stopped for the beer; and if I didn't spend
another or two on Saturday night when I received the balance, the
landlord set me down as a stingy feller and put a cross agin my name in
his book."
"What was that for?"
"Why, not to give me any more work till he was either forced to do so
for want of hands, or I made it up with him by standing a crown bowl of
punch. So what with one thing and another, I had to keep myself, my
wife, and three children, on about seven or eight shillings
a-week--after working from light to dark."
"And now your wife and children is better purvided for?" said the woman
with the huge teeth.
"Yes--indeed! in the workus," answered the man, sharply. "So now you see
what a coal-whipper's life is. He can't be a sober man if he wishes
to--because he must pay for a certain quantity of drink; and so of
course he won't throw it away, unless it's so bad he can't keep it on
his stomach."
"And was that often the case?"
"Often and often. Well--he can't be a saving man, because he has no
chance of getting his wages under his own management. He is the
publican's slave--the publican's tool and instrument. Negro slavery is
nothing to it. No tyranny is equal to the tyranny of them publicans."
"And why isn't the plan altered?"
"Ah! why? What do the owners of the colliers, or the people that the
cargo's consigned to, care about the poor devils that unload? The
publicans takes the unloading on contract, and employs the whippers in
such away as to get an enormous profit. Talk of appealing to the
owners--what do they care? There has been meetings got up to change the
system--and what's the consekvence? Why, them whippers as attended them
became marked men, never got no more employment, and drownded themselves
in despair, or turned prigs like me."
"Ah! that's better than suicide."
"Well--I don't know, now! But them meetings as I was a-speaking of, got
up deputations to the Court of Aldermen, and the matter was referred to
the Coal and Corn Committee--and there was, as usual, a great talk, but
nothink done. Then an application was made to some Minister--I don't
know which; and he sent back a letter with a seal as big as a
crown-piece, just to say that he'd received the application, and would
give it his earliest attention. Some time passed away, and no more
notice was ever taken of it in that quarter; and so, I s'pose, a
Minister's earliest attention means ten or a dozen years."
"What a shame to treat people so."
"It's only the poor that's treated so. And now I think I have said
enough to show why I turned prig, like a many more whippers from the
port of London. There isn't a more degraded, oppressed, and brutalized
set of men in the world than the whippers. They are born with examples
of drunken fathers afore their eyes; and drunken fathers makes drunken
mothers; and drunken parents makes sons turn out thieves, and daughters
prostitutes;--and that's the existence of the coal-whippers of Wapping.
It ain't their fault: they haven't edication and self-command to refuse
the drink that's forced upon them, and that they must pay for;--and
their sons and daughters shouldn't be blamed for turning out bad. How
can they help it? And yet one reads in the papers that the upper classes
is always a-crying out about the dreadful immorality of the poor!"
"The laws--the laws, you see, Tony," whispered the Cracksman to his
companion.
"Of course," answered the Resurrection Man. "Here we are, in this room,
upwards of twenty thieves and prostitutes: I'll be bound to say that the
laws and the state of society made eighteen of them what they are."
"Nobody knows the miseries of a coal-whipper's life," continued the
orator of the evening, "but him that's been in it his-self. He is always
dirty--always lurking about public-houses when not at work--always ready
to drink--always in debt--and always dissatisfied with his own way of
living, which isn't, however, his fault. There's no hope for
coal-whippers or their families. The sons that don't turn out thieves
must lead the same terrible life of cart-horse labour and constant
drinking, with the certainty of dying old men at forty;--and the
daughters that don't turn out prostitutes marry whippers, and draw down
upon their heads all the horrors and sorrows of the life I have been
describing."
"Well--I never knowed all this before!"
"No--and there's a deal of misery of each kind in London that isn't
known to them as dwells in the other kinds of wretchedness: and if these
things gets represented in Parliament, the cry is, '_Oh! the people's
always complaining; they're never satisfied_.'"
"Well, you speak of each person knowing his own species of misery, and
being ignorant of the nature of the misery next door," said a young and
somewhat prepossessing woman, but upon whose face intemperance and
licentiousness had made sad havoc; "all I can say is, that people see
girls like us laughing and joking always in public--but they little know
how we weep and moan in private."
"Drink gin then, as I do," cried the woman with the large teeth.
"Ah! _you_ know well enough," continued the young female who had
previously spoken, "that we _do_ drink a great deal too much of that! My
father used to sell _jiggered gin_ in George Yard, Whitechapel."
"And what the devil is jiggered gin?" demanded one of the male guests.
"It's made from molasses, beer, and vitriol. Lor', every one knows what
jiggered gin is. Three wine glasses of it will make the strongest man
mad drunk. I'll tell you one thing," continued the young woman, "which
you do not seem to know--and that is, that the very, very poor people
who are driven almost to despair and suicide by their sorrows, are glad
to drink this jiggered gin, which is all that they can afford. For three
halfpence they may have enough to send them raving; and then what do
they think or care about their miseries?"
"Ah! very true," said the coal whipper. "I've heard of this before."
"Well--my father sold that horrid stuff," resumed the young woman; "and
though he was constantly getting into trouble for it, he didn't mind;
but the moment he came out of prison, he took to his old trade again. I
was his only child; and my mother died when I was about nine years old.
She was always drunk with the jiggered gin; and one day she fell into
the fire and was burnt to death. I had no one then who cared any thing
for me, but used to run about in the streets with all the boys in the
neighbourhood. My father took in lodgers; and sixteen or seventeen of
us, boys and girls all huddled together, used to sleep in one room not
near so big as this. There was fifteen lodging houses of the same kind
in George Yard at that time; and it was supposed that about two hundred
and seventy-five persons need to sleep in those houses every night, male
and female lodgers all pigging together. Every sheet, blanket, and
bolster, in my father's house was marked with STOP THIEF, in large
letters. Well--at eleven years old I went upon the town; and if I didn't
bring home so much money every Saturday night to my father, I used to be
well thrashed with a rope's end on my bare back."
"Serve you right too, a pretty girl like you."
"Ah! you may joke about it--but it was no joke to me! I would gladly
have done anything in an honest way to get my livelihood--"
"Like me, when I was young," whispered the Resurrection Man to his
companion.
"Exactly. Let's hear what the gal has got to say for herself," returned
the Cracksman; "the lush has made her sentimental;--she'll soon be
crying drunk."
"But I was doomed, it seemed," continued the young woman, "to live in
this horrible manner. When I was thirteen or fourteen my father died,
and I was then left to shift for myself. I moved down into Wapping, and
frequented the long-rooms belonging to the public-houses there. I was
then pretty well off; because the sailors that went to these places
always had plenty of money and was very generous. But I was one night
suspected of hocussing and robbing a sailor, and--though if I was on my
death-bed I could swear that I never had any hand in the affair at
all--I was so blown upon that I was forced to shift my quarters. So I
went to a _dress-house_ in Ada Street, Hackney Road. All the
remuneration I received there was board and lodging; and I was actually
a slave to the old woman that kept it. I was forced to walk the streets
at night with a little girl following me to see that I did not run away;
and all the money I received I was forced to give up to the old woman.
While I was there, several other girls were turned out of doors, and
left to die in ditches or on dunghills, because they were no longer
serviceable. All this frightened me. And then I was so ill-used, and
more than half starved. I was forced to turn out in all weathers--wet or
dry--hot or cold--well or ill. Sometimes I have hardly been able to drag
myself out of bed with sickness and fatigue--but, no matter, out I must
go--the rain perhaps pouring in torrents, or the roads knee-deep in
snow--and nothing but a thin cotton gown to wear! Winter and summer,
always flaunting dresses--yellow, green, and red! Wet or dry, always
silk stockings and thin shoes! Cold or warm, always short skirts and a
low body, with strict orders not to fasten the miserable scanty shawl
over the bosom! And then the little girl that followed me about was a
spy with wits as sharp as needles. Impossible to deceive her! At length
I grew completely tired of this kind of life; and so I gave the little
spy the slip one fine evening. I was then sixteen, and I came back to
this neighbourhood. But one day I met the old woman who kept the
dress-house, and she gave me in charge for stealing wearing apparel--the
clothes I had on my back when I ran away from her!"
"Always the police--the police--the police, when the poor and miserable
are concerned," whispered the Resurrection Man to the Cracksman.
"But did the inspector take the charge?" demanded the coal-heaver.
"He not only took the charge," answered the unfortunate girl, "but the
magistrate next morning committed me for trial, although I proved to him
that the clothes were bought with the wages of my own prostitution!
Well, I was tried at the Central Criminal Court--"
"And of course acquitted?"
"No--found _Guilty_----"
"What--by an English jury?"
"I can show you the newspaper--I have kept the report of the trial ever
since."
"Then, by G--d, things are a thousand times worse than I thought they
was!" ejaculated the coal-whipper, striking his clenched fist violently
upon the table at which he was seated.
"But the jury recommended me to mercy," continued the unfortunate young
woman, "and so the Recorder only sentenced me to twenty-one days'
imprisonment. His lordship also read me a long lecture about the errors
of my ways, and advised me to enter upon a new course of life; but he
did not offer to give me a character, nor did he tell me how I was to
obtain honest employment without one."
"That's the way with them beaks," cried one of the male inmates of the
parlour: "they can talk for an hour; but supposing you'd said to the
Recorder, '_My Lord, will your wife take me into her service as
scullery-girl?_' he would have stared in astonishment at your
imperence."
"When I got out of prison," resumed the girl who was thus sketching the
adventures of her wretched life, "I went into Great Titchfield Street.
My new abode was a dress-house kept by French people. Every year the
husband went over to France, and returned with a famous supply of French
girls, and in the mean time his wife decoyed young English women up from
the country, under pretence of obtaining situations as nursery-governesses
and lady's-maids for them. Many of these poor creatures were the
daughters of clergymen and half-pay officers in the marines. The moment
a new supply was obtained by these means, circulars was sent round to
all the persons that was in the habit of using the house. Different
sums, from twenty to a hundred pounds--"
"Ah! I understand," said the coal-whipper. "But did you ever hear say
how many unfortunate gals there was in London?"
"Eighty thousand. From Titchfield Street I went into the Almonry,
Westminster. The houses there are all occupied by _fences_, prigs, and
gals of the town."
"And the parsons of Westminster Abbey, who is the landlords of the
houses, does nothink to put 'em down," said the coal-whipper.
"Not a bit," echoed the young woman, with a laugh. "We had capital fun
in the house where I lived--dog-fighting, badger-baiting, and drinking
all day long. The police never visits the Almonry--"
"In course not, 'cos it's the property of the parsons. They wouldn't be
so rude."
This coarse jest was received with a shout of laughter; and the health
of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster was drunk amidst uproarious
applause, by the thieves and loose women assembled in the _Dark-House_
parlour.[75]
"Well, go on, my dear," said the coal-whipper, when order was somewhat
restored.
"I never was in a sentimental humour before to-night--not for many, many
years," resumed the young woman; "and I don't know what's making me talk
as I am now."
"'Cos you haven't had enough gin, my dear," interrupted a coarse-looking
fellow, winking to his companions.
Scarcely was the laughter promoted by this sally beginning to subside,
when a short, thick-set, middle-aged man, enveloped in a huge
great-coat, with most capacious pockets at the sides, entered the
parlour, took his seat near the door, and called for a glass of hot
gin-and-water.