and correct penmanship, stands the Begging-Letter Writer. He is the
connecting link between mendicity and the observance of external
respectability. He affects white cravats, soft hands, and filbert
nails. He oils his hair, cleans his boots, and wears a portentous
stick-up collar. The light of other days of gentility and comfort casts
a halo of “deportment” over his well-brushed, white-seamed coat, his
carefully darned black-cloth gloves, and pudgy gaiters. He invariably
carries an umbrella, and wears a hat with an enormous brim. His once
raven hair is turning grey, and his well-shaved whiskerless cheeks
are blue as with gunpowder tattoo. He uses the plainest and most
respectable of cotton pocket-handkerchiefs, and keeps his references as
to character in the most irreproachable of shabby leather pocket-books.
His mouth is heavy, his under-lip thick, sensual, and lowering, and
his general expression of pious resignation contradicted by restless,
bloodshot eyes, that flash from side to side, quick to perceive the
approach of a compassionate-looking clergyman, a female devotee, or a
keen-scented member of the Society for the Suppression of Mendicity.
Among the many varieties of mendacious beggars, there is none
so detestable as this hypocritical scoundrel, who, with an
ostentatiously-submissive air, and false pretence of faded fortunes,
tells his plausible tale of undeserved suffering, and extracts from the
hearts and pockets of the superficially good-hearted their sympathy and
coin. His calling is a special one, and requires study, perseverance,
and some personal advantages. The begging-letter writer must write a
good hand, speak grammatically, and have that shrewd perception of
character peculiar to fortune-tellers, horoscopists, cheap-jacks, and
pedlars. He “must read and write, and cast accounts;” have an intuitive
knowledge of the “nobility and landed gentry;” be a keen physiognomist,
and an adept at imitation of handwritings, old documents, quaint
ancient orthography, and the like. He must possess an artistic eye
for costume, an unfaltering courage, and have tears and hysterics at
immediate command.
His great stock-in-trade is his register. There he carefully notes down
the names, addresses, and mental peculiarities of his victims, and the
character and pretence under which he robbed them of their bounty. It
would not do to tell the same person the same story _twice_, as once
happened to an unusually audacious member of the fraternity, who had
obtained money from an old lady for the purpose of burying his wife,
for whose loss he, of course, expressed the deepest grief. Confident in
the old lady’s kindness of heart and weakness of memory, three months
after his bereavement he again posted himself before the lady’s door,
and gave vent to violent emotion.
“Dear me!” thought the old lady, “there’s that poor man who lost his
wife some time ago.” She opened the window, and, bidding the vagabond
draw nearer, asked him what trouble he was in at present.
After repeated questioning the fellow gurgled out, “That the wife
of his bosom, the mother of his children, had left him for that
bourne from which no traveller returns, and that owing to a series of
unprecedented and unexpected misfortunes he had not sufficient money to
defray the funeral expenses, and--”
“Oh, nonsense!” interrupted the old lady. “You lost your wife a quarter
of a year ago. You couldn’t lose her twice; and as to marrying again,
and losing again in that short time, it is quite impossible!”
I subjoin some extracts from a Register kept by a begging-letter
writer, and who was detected and punished:--
_Cheltenham._ _May 14, 1842._
REV. JOHN FURBY.--Springwood Villa.--Low Church.--Fond of
architecture--Dugdale’s Monastica--Son of architect--Lost his life in
the “Charon,” U.S. packet--£2, and suit of clothes--Got reference.
MRS. BRANXHOLME.--Clematis Cottage--Widow--Through Rev. Furby, £3 and
prayer-book.
_Gloucester._ _May 30._
MRS. CAPTAIN DANIELS.-- ---- Street.--Widow--Son drowned off Cape, as
purser of same ship, “The Thetis”--£5 and old sea-chest. N.B.: Vamosed
next day--Captain returned from London--Gaff blown in county paper.
Mem.: Not to visit neighbourhood for four years.
_Lincoln._ _June 19._
ANDREW TAGGART.-- ---- street.--Gentleman--Great abolitionist of slave
trade--As tradesman from U.S., who had lost his custom by aiding slope
of fugitive female slave--By name Naomi Brown--£5. N.B.: To work him
again, for he is good.
_Grantham._ _July 1._
CHARLES JAMES CAMPION.--Westby House.--Gentleman--Literary--Writes
plays and novels--As distant relative of George Frederick Cooke, and
burnt-out bookseller--£2 2_s._ N.B.: Gave me some of his own books to
read--Such trash--· Cadger in one--No more like cadger than I’m like
Bobby Peel--Went to him again on 5th--Told him thought it wonderful,
and the best thing out since Vicar of Wakefield--Gave me £1 more--Very
good man--To be seen to for the future.
_Huntingdon._ _July 15._
MRS. SIDDICK.-- ---- Street.--Widow--Cranky--Baptist--As member of
persuasion from persecution of worldly-minded relatives--£10--Gave
her address in London--Good for a £5 every year--Recognized
inspector--Leave to-night.
There are, of course, many varieties of the begging-letter writer;
but although each and all of them have the same pretensions to former
respectability, their mode of levying contributions is entirely
different. There are but few who possess the versatility of their
great master--Bampfylde Moore Carew; and it is usual for every member
of the fraternity to chalk out for himself a particular “line” of
imposition--a course of conduct that renders him perfect in the part
he plays, makes his references and certificates continually available,
and prevents him from “jostling” or coming into collision with others
of his calling who might be “on the same lay as himself, and spoil his
game!” Among the many specimens, one of the most prominent is the
DECAYED GENTLEMAN.
The conversation of this class of mendicant is of former greatness,
of acquaintance among the nobility and gentry of a particular
county--always a distant one from the scene of operations--of hunting,
races, balls, meets, appointments to the magistracy, lord-lieutenants,
contested elections, and marriages in high life. The knowledge of the
things of which he talks so fluently is gleaned from files of old
county newspapers. When at fault, or to use his own phrase, “pounded,”
a ready wit, a deprecating shrug, and a few words, such as, “Perhaps
I’m mistaken--I used to visit a good deal there, and was introduced
to so many who have forgotten me now--my memory is failing, like
everything else”--extricate him from his difficulty, and increase his
capital of past prosperity and present poverty. The decayed gentleman
is also a great authority on wines--by right of a famous sample--his
father “laid down” in eighteen eleven, “the comet year you know,” and
is not a little severe upon his past extravagance. He relishes the
retrospection of the heavy losses he endured at Newmarket, Doncaster,
and Epsom in “forty-two and three,” and is pathetic on the subject
of the death of William Scott. The cause of his ruin he attributes
usually to a suit in the Court of Chancery, or the “fatal and
calamitous Encumbered Irish Estates Bill.” He is a florid impostor,
and has a jaunty sonorous way of using his clean, threadbare, silk
pocket-handkerchief, that carries conviction even to the most sceptical.
It is not uncommon to find among these degraded mendicants one who
has really been a gentleman, as far as birth and education go, but
whose excesses and extravagances have reduced him to mendicity. Such
cases are the most hopeless. Unmindful of decent pride, and that true
gentility that rises superior to circumstance, and finds no soil upon
the money earned by labour, the lying, drunken, sodden wretch considers
work “beneath him;” upon the shifting quicksands of his own vices
rears an edifice of vagabond vanity, and persuades himself that, by
forfeiting his manhood, he vindicates his right to the character of
gentleman.
The letters written by this class of beggar generally run as follows.
My readers will, of course, understand that the names and places
mentioned are the only portions of the epistles that are fictitious.
“_Three Mermaids Inn, Pond Lane._
_April--, 18 ._
“SIR, or MADAM,
“Although I have not the honour to be personally acquainted with
you, I have had the advantage of an introduction to a member of your
family, Major Sherbrook, when with his regiment at Malta; and my
present disadvantageous circumstances emboldens me to write to you,
for the claims of affliction upon the heart of the compassionate
are among the holiest of those kindred ties that bind man to his
fellow-being.
“My father was a large landed proprietor at Peddlethorpe, ----shire.
I, his only son, had every advantage that birth and fortune could
give me claim to. From an informality in the wording of my father’s
will, the dishonesty of an attorney, and the rapacity of some of my
poor late father’s distant relatives, the property was, at his death,
thrown into Chancery, and for the last four years I have been reduced
to--comparatively speaking--starvation.
“With the few relics of my former prosperity I have long since parted.
My valued books, and, I am ashamed to own, my clothes, are gone. I am
now in the last stage of destitution, and, I regret to say, in debt
to the worthy landlord of the tavern from which I write this, to the
amount of eight and sixpence. My object in coming to this part of the
country was to see an old friend, whom I had hoped would have assisted
me. We were on the same form together at Rugby--Mr. Joseph Thurwood of
Copesthorpe. Alas! I find that he died three months ago.
“I most respectfully beg of you to grant me some trifling assistance.
As in my days of prosperity I trust my heart was never deaf to
the voice of entreaty, nor my purse closed to the wants of the
necessitous; so dear sir, or madam, I hope that my request will not be
considered by you as impertinent or intrusive.
“I have the honour to enclose you some testimonials as to my character
and former station in society; and trusting that the Almighty Being
may never visit you with that affliction which it has been His
all-wise purpose to heap on me, I am
“Your most humble and
“Obliged servant,
“FREDERICK MAURICE STANHOPE,
“Formerly of Stanhope House, ----shire.”
THE BROKEN-DOWN TRADESMAN
is a sort of retail dealer in the same description of article as the
decayed gentleman. The unexpected breaking of fourteen of the most
respectable banking-houses in New York, or the loss of the cargoes of
two vessels in the late autumnal gales, or the suspension of payment
of Haul, Strong, and Chates, “joined and combined together with the
present commercial crisis, has been the means of bringing him down to
his present deplorable situation,” as his letter runs. His references
are mostly from churchwardens, bankers, and dissenting clergymen, and
he carries about a fictitious set of books--day-book, ledger, and
petty-cash-book, containing entries of debts of large amounts, and
a dazzling display of the neatest and most immaculate of commercial
cyphering. His conversation, like his correspondence, is a queer jumble
of arithmetic and scripture. He has a wife whose appearance is in
itself a small income. She folds the hardest-working-looking of hands
across the cleanest of white aprons, and curtseys with the humility
of a pew-opener. The clothes of the worthy couple are shabby, but
their persons and linen are rigorously clean. Their cheeks shine with
yellow soap, as if they were rasped and bee’s-waxed every morning.
The male impostor, when fleecing a victim, has a habit of washing his
hands “with invisible soap and imperceptible water,” as though he were
waiting on a customer. The wedded pair--and, generally, they are really
married--are of congenial dispositions and domestic turn of mind, and
get drunk, and fight each other, or go half-price to the play according
to their humour. It is usually jealousy that betrays them. The husband
is unfaithful, and the wife “peaches;” through her agency the police
are put upon the track, and the broken-down tradesman is committed. In
prison he professes extreme penitence, and has a turn for scriptural
quotation, that stands him in good stead.
On his release he takes to itinerant preaching, or political lecturing.
What becomes of him after those last resources it is difficult to
determine. The chances are that he again writes begging letters, but
“on a different lay.”
THE DISTRESSED SCHOLAR
is another variety of the same species, a connecting link between the
self-glorification of the decayed gentleman and the humility of the
broken-down tradesman. He is generally in want of money to pay his
railway-fare, or coach-hire to the north of England, where he has a
situation as usher to an academy--or he cannot seek for a situation for
want of “those clothes which sad necessity has compelled him to part
with for temporary convenience.” His letters, written in the best small
hand, with the finest of upstrokes and fattest of downstrokes, are
after this fashion:
“_Star Temperance Coffee House_,
“_Gravel Walk_.
“SIR, or MADAM,
“I have the honour to lay my case before you, humbly entreating your
kind consideration.
“I am a tutor, and was educated at St. ----’s College, Cambridge.
My last situation was with the Rev. Mr. Cross, Laburnum House, near
Dorking. I profess English, Latin, Greek, mathematics, and the higher
branches of arithmetic, and am well read in general literature,
ancient and modern. ‘Rudem esse omnino in nostris poetis est
inertissimæ signitiæ signum.’
“I am at present under engagement to superintend the scholastic
establishment of Mr. Tighthand of the classical and commercial academy
----, Cumberland, but have not the means of defraying the expenses
of my journey, nor of appearing with becoming decency before my new
employer and my pupils.
“My wardrobe is all pledged for an amount incommensurate with its
value, and I humbly and respectfully lay my case before you, and
implore you for assistance, or even a temporary accommodation.
“I am aware that impostors, armed with specious stories, often
impose on the kind-hearted and the credulous. ‘Nervi atque artus est
sapientiæ--non temere credere.’ I have therefore the honour to forward
you the enclosed testimonials from my former employers and others as
to my character and capacity.
“That you may never be placed in such circumstances as to compel you
to indite such an epistle as the one I am at present penning is my
most fervent wish. Rely upon it, generous sir--or madam--that, should
you afford me the means of gaining an honourable competence, you shall
never have to repent your timely benevolence. If, however, I should be
unsuccessful in my present application, I must endeavour to console
myself with the words of the great poet. ‘Ætas ipsa solatium omnibus
affert,’ or with the diviner precept: ‘And this too shall pass away.’
“I have, sir--or madam--the honour to be
“Your humble and obedient servant,
“HORACE HUMM.”
A gracefully flourished swan, with the date in German text on his left
wing, terminates the letter.
THE KAGGS FAMILY.
This case of cleverly organized swindling fell beneath the writer’s
personal observation.
In a paved court, dignified with the name of a market, leading into
one of the principal thoroughfares of London, dwelt a family whom,
from fear of an action for libel which, should they ever read these
lines, they would assuredly bring, I will call Kaggs. Mr. Kaggs, the
head of the family, had commenced life in the service of a nobleman.
He was a tall, portly man, with a short nose, broad truculent mouth,
and a light, moist eye. His personal advantages and general conduct
obtained him promotion, and raised him from the servants’ hall to the
pantry. When he was thirty years of age, he was butler in the family
of a country gentleman, whose youngest daughter fell in love, ran away
with, and--married him. The angry father closed his doors against
them, and steeled his heart to the pathetic appeals addressed to him
by every post. Mr. Kaggs, unable to obtain a character from his last
place, found himself shut out from his former occupation. His wife gave
promise of making an increase to the numbers of the family, and to use
Mr. Kaggs’s own pantry vernacular, “he was flyblown and frostbitten
every joint of him.”
It was then that he first conceived the idea of making his wife’s birth
and parentage a source of present income and provision for old age. She
was an excellent penwoman, and for some months had had great practice
in the composition of begging letters to her father. Mr. Kaggs’s
appearance being martial and imposing, he collected what information
he could find upon the subject, and passed himself off for a young
Englishman of good family, who had been an officer in the Spanish army,
and served “under Evans!” Mrs. Kaggs’s knowledge of the county families
stood them in good stead, and they begged themselves through England,
Scotland, and Wales, and lived in a sort of vulgar luxury, at no cost
but invention, falsehood, and a ream or so of paper.
It was some few years ago that I first made their acquaintance. Mrs.
Kaggs had bloomed into a fine elderly woman, and Mr. Kaggs’s nose and
stomach had widened to that appearance of fatherly responsibility and
parochial importance that was most to be desired. The wife had sunk
to the husband’s level, and had brought up her children to tread in
the same path. Their family, though not numerous, was a blessing to
them, for each child, some way or other, contrived to bring in money.
It was their parents’ pride that they had given their offspring a
liberal education. As soon as they were of an age capable of receiving
instruction, they were placed at a respectable boarding-school, and,
although they only stayed in it one half-year, they went to another
establishment for the next half-year, and so managed to pick up a good
miscellaneous education, and at the same time save their parents the
cost of board and lodging.
James Julian Kaggs, the eldest and only son, was in Australia, “doing
well,” as his mamma would often say--though in what particular business
or profession was a subject on which she preserved a discreet silence.
As I never saw the young man in question, I am unable to furnish any
information respecting him.
Catherine Kaggs, the eldest daughter, was an ugly and vulgar girl,
on whom a genteel education and her mother’s example of elegance
and refinement had been thrown away. Kitty was a sort of Cinderella
in the family, and being possessed of neither tact nor manner to
levy contributions on the charitable, was sentenced to an out-door
employment, for which she was well fitted. She sold flowers in the
thoroughfare, near the market.
The second daughter, Betsey, was the pride of her father and mother,
and the mainstay of the family. Tall, thin, and elegant, interesting
rather than pretty, her pale face and subdued manners, her long
eyelashes, soft voice, and fine hands, were the very requisites for the
personation of beggared gentility and dilapidated aristocracy. Mrs.
Kaggs often said, “That poor Kitty was her father’s girl, a Kaggs all
over--but that Bessie was a Thorncliffe (her own maiden name) and a
lady every inch!”
The other children were a boy and girl of five and three years old, who
called Mrs. Kaggs “Mamma,” but who appeared much too young to belong to
that lady in any relation but that of grand-children. Kitty, the flower
girl, was passionately fond of them, and “Bessie” patronized them in
her meek, maidenly way, and called them her dear brother and sister.
In the height of the season Miss Bessie Kaggs, attired in shabby black
silk, dark shawl, and plain bonnet, would sally forth to the most
aristocratic and fashionable squares, attended by her father in a white
neck-cloth, carrying in one hand a small and fragile basket, and in
the other a heavy and respectable umbrella. Arrived at the mansion of
the intended victim, Miss Bessie would give a pretentious knock, and
relieve her father of the burthen of the fragile basket. As the door
opened, she would desire her parent, who was supposed to be a faithful
retainer, to wait, and Mr. Kaggs would touch his hat respectfully and
retire meekly to the corner of the square, and watch the placards in
the public-house in the next street.
“Is Lady ---- within?” Miss Betsey would inquire of the servant.
If the porter replied that his lady was out, or that she could not
receive visitors, except by appointment, Miss Betsey would boldly
demand pen, ink, and paper, and sit down and write, in a delicate,
lady’s hand, to the following effect:--
“Miss Thirlbrook presents her compliments to the Countess of ----, and
most respectfully requests the honour of enrolling the Countess’s name
among the list of ladies who are kindly aiding her in disposing of a
few necessaries for the toilette.
“Miss Thirlbrook is reduced to this extreme measure from the sad
requirements of her infirm father, formerly an officer in his Majesty’s
--d Regiment, who, from a position of comfort and affluence, is now
compelled to seek aid from the charitable, and to rely on the feeble
exertions of his daughter: a confirmed cripple and valetudinarian, he
has no other resource.
“The well-known charity of the Countess of ---- has induced Miss
Thirlbrook to make this intrusion on her time. Miss T. will do
herself the honour of waiting upon her ladyship on Thursday, when she
_earnestly entreats_ the favour of an interview, or an inspection of
the few articles she has to dispose of.”
_Monday._
This carefully concocted letter--so different from the usual
appeals--containing no references to other persons as to character or
antecedents, generally had its effect, and in a few days Miss Betsey
would find herself tête-à-tête with the Countess ----.
On entering the room she would make a profound curtsey, and, after
thanking her ladyship for the honour, would open the fragile basket,
which contained a few bottles of scent, some fancy soaps, ornamental
envelopes, and perforated note-papers.
“Sit down, Miss Thirlbrook,” the Countess would open the conversation.
“I see the articles. Your note, I think, mentioned something of your
being in less fortunate----”
Miss Betsey would lower her eyelashes and bend her head--not _too_
deferentially, but as if bowing to circumstances for her father--her
dear father’s sake--for this was implied by her admirably concealed
histrionic capability.
The lady would then suggest that she had a great many claims upon her
consideration, and would delicately inquire into the pedigree and
circumstances of Lieutenant Thirlbrook, formerly of his Majesty’s --d
Regiment.
Miss Betsey’s replies were neither too ready nor too glib. She suffered
herself to be drawn out, but did not advance a statement, and so
established in her patroness’s mind the idea that she had to deal
with a very superior person. The sum of the story of this interesting
scion of a fallen house was, that her father was an old Peninsular
officer--as would be seen by a reference to the Army List (Miss Betsey
had found the name in an old list); that he had left the service
during the peace in 1814; that a ruinous lawsuit, arising from railway
speculations, and an absconding agent, had reduced them to--to--to
their present position--and that six years ago, an old wound--received
at Barossa--had broken out, and laid her father helpless on a sick
bed. “I know that these articles,” Betsey would conclude, pointing to
the fancy soaps and stationery, “are not such perhaps as your ladyship
is accustomed to; but if you would kindly aid me by purchasing some
of them--if ever so few--you would materially assist us; and I hope
that--that we should not prove--either undeserving or ungrateful.”