in an old military tunic, a forage-cap like a charity boy’s, and
tattered trousers, who limped along barefoot by the aid of a stick. His
right sleeve was empty, and tied up to a button-hole at his breast, _à
la_ Nelson.
“Please your honour,” he began, in a doleful exhausted voice, “bestow
your charity on a poor soldier which lost his right arm at the glorious
battle of Inkermann.”
I looked at him, and having considerable experience in this kind of
imposition, could at once detect that he was “acting.”
“To what regiment did you belong?” I asked.
“The Thirty --, sir.”
I looked at his button and read Thirty --
“I haven’t tasted bit o’ food, sir, since yesterday at half-past four,
and then a lady give me a cruster bread,” he continued.
“The Thirty --!” I repeated. “I knew the Thirty --. Let me see--who
was the colonel?”
The man gave me a name, with which I suppose he was provided.
“How long were you in the Thirty --?” I inquired.
“Five year, sir.”
“I had a schoolfellow in that regiment, Captain Thorpe, a tall man with
red whiskers--did you know him?”
“There was a captain, sir, with large red whiskers, and I think his
name was Thorpe; but he warn’t captain of my company, so I didn’t know
for certain,” replied the man, after an affected hesitation.
“The Thirty -- was one of the first of our regiments that landed, I
think?” I remarked.
“Yes, your honour, it were.”
“You impudent impostor!” I said; “the Thirty -- did not go out till the
spring of ’55. How dare you tell me you belonged to it?”
The fellow blenched for a moment, but rallied and said, “I didn’t like
to contradict your honour for fear you should be angry and wouldn’t
give me nothing.”
“That’s very polite of you,” I said, “but still I have a great mind to
give you into custody. Stay; tell me who and what you are, and I will
give you a shilling and let you go.”
He looked up and down the road, measured me with his eye, abandoned the
idea of resistance, and replied:
“Well, your honour, if you won’t be too hard on a poor man which finds
it hard to get a crust anyhow or way, I don’t mind telling you I never
was a soldier.” I give his narrative as he related it to me.
“I don’t know who my parents ever was. The fust thing as I remember was
the river side (the Thames), and running in low tide to find things. I
used to beg, hold hosses, and sleep under dry arches. I don’t remember
how I got any clothes. I never had a pair of shoes or stockings till I
was almost a man. I fancy I am now nearly forty years of age.
“An old woman as kep a rag and iron shop by the water-side give me a
lodging once for two years. We used to call her ‘Nanny;’ but she turned
me out when she caught me taking some old nails and a brass cock out of
her shop; I was hungry when I done it, for the old gal gi’ me no grub,
nothing but the bare floor for a bed.
“I have been a beggar all my life, and begged in all sorts o’ ways and
all sorts o’ lays. I don’t mean to say that if I see anything laying
about handy that I don’t mouch it (_i. e._ steal it). Once a gentleman
took me into his house as his servant. He was a very kind man; I had a
good place, swell clothes, and beef and beer as much as I liked; but I
couldn’t stand the life, and I run away.
“The loss o’ my arm, sir, was the best thing as ever happen’d to me:
it’s been a living to me; I turn out with it on all sorts o’ lays, and
it’s as good as a pension. I lost it poaching; my mate’s gun went off
by accident, and the shot went into my arm, I neglected it, and at
last was obliged to go to a orspital and have it off. The surgeon as
ampitated it said that a little longer and it would ha’ mortified.
“The Crimea’s been a good dodge to a many, but it’s getting stale; all
dodges are getting stale; square coves (_i. e._, honest folks) are so
wide awake.”
“Don’t you think you would have found it more profitable, had you taken
to labour or some honester calling than your present one?” I asked.
“Well, sir, p’raps I might,” he replied; “but going on the square is so
dreadfully confining.”
FOREIGN BEGGARS.
These beggars appeal to the sympathies as “strangers”--in a foreign
land, away from friends and kindred, unable to make their wants known,
or to seek work, from ignorance of the language.
In exposing the shams and swindles that are set to catch the unwary,
I have no wish to check the current of real benevolence. Cases of
distress exist, which it is a pleasure and a duty to relieve. I
only expose the “dodges” of the beggar by profession--the beggar by
trade--the beggar who lives by begging, and nothing else, except, as in
most cases, where he makes the two ends of idleness and self-indulgence
meet,--by thieving.
Foreign beggars are generally so mixed up with political events, that
in treating of them, it is more than usually difficult to detect
imposition from misfortune. Many high-hearted patriots have been
driven to this country by tyrants and their tools, but it will not do
to mistake every vagabond refugee for a noble exile, or to accept as
a fact that a man who cannot live in his own country, is necessarily
persecuted and unfortunate, and has a claim to be helped to live in
this.
The neighbourhood of Leicester Square is, to the foreign political
exile, the foreign political spy, the foreign fraudulent tradesman,
the foreign escaped thief, and the foreign convict who has served his
time, what, in the middle-ages, sanctuary was to the murderer. In
this modern Alsatia--happily for us, guarded by native policemen and
detectives of every nation in the world--plots are hatched, fulminating
powder prepared, detonating-balls manufactured, and infernal machines
invented, which, wielded by the hands of men whose opinions are so far
beyond the age in which they live, that their native land has cast them
out for ever; are destined to overthrow despotic governments, restore
the liberty of the subject, and, in a wholesale sort of way, regenerate
the rights of man.
Political spies are the monied class among these philanthropic
desperadoes. The political regenerators, unless furnished with means
from some special fund, are the most miserable and abject. Mr.
Thackeray has observed that whenever an Irishman is in difficulties he
always finds another Irishman worse off than himself, who talks over
creditors, borrows money, runs errands, and makes himself generally
useful to his incarcerated fellow-countryman. This observation will
apply equally to foreigners.
There is a timid sort of refugee, who lacking the courage to arrive
at political eminence or cash, by means of steel, or poison, is a
hanger-on of his bolder and less scrupulous compatriot. This man, when
deserted by his patron, is forced to beg. The statement that he makes
as to his reasons for leaving the dear native land that the majority of
foreigners are so ready to sing songs in praise of, and to quit, must
be, of course, received with caution.
THE FRENCH BEGGAR.
My reader has most likely, in a quiet street, met a shabby little man,
who stares about him in a confused manner, as if he had lost his way.
As soon as he sees a decently-dressed person he shuffles up to him, and
taking off a “casquette” with considerably more brim than body, makes a
slight bow, and says in a plaintive voice. “Parlez Français, m’sieu?”
If you stop and, in an unguarded moment, answer “Oui,” the beggar takes
from his breast-pocket a greasy leather book, from which he extracts
a piece of carefully folded paper, which he hands you with a pathetic
shrug.
The paper, when opened, contains a small slip, on which is written in a
light, foreign hand--
“You are requested to direct the bearer to the place to which he
desires to go, as he cannot speak English!”
The beggar then, with a profusion of bows, points to the larger paper.
“Mais, m’sieu, ayez la bonté de lire. C’est Anglais.”
The larger paper contains a statement in French and English, that the
bearer Jean Baptiste Dupont is a native of Troyes, Champagne, and a
fan-maker by trade; that paralysis in the hand has deprived him of the
power of working; that he came to England to find a daughter, who had
married an Englishman and was dwelling in Westminster, but that when he
arrived he found they had parted for Australia; that he is fifty-two
years of age, and is a deserving object of compassion, having no means
of returning to Troyes, being an entire stranger to England, and having
no acquaintances or friends to assist him.
This statement is without any signature, but no sooner have you read
it than the beggar, who would seem to have a blind credence in the
efficacy of documents, draws from his pocket-book a certificate of
birth, a register of marriage, a passport, and a permission to embark,
which, being all in a state of crumpled greasiness, and printed and
written in French, so startles and confounds the reader, that he drops
something into the man’s hand and passes on.
I have been often stopped by this sort of beggar. In the last case
I met with I held a long talk with the man--of course, in his own
language, for he will seldom or never be betrayed into admitting that
he has any knowledge of English.
“Parlez Français, m’sieu?”
“Yes, I do,” I answered. “What do you want?”
“Deign, monsieur, to have the bounty to read this paper which I have
the honour to present to monsieur.”
“Oh, never mind the papers!” I said, shortly. “Can’t you speak English?”
“Alas, monsieur, no!”
“Speak French, then!”
My quick speaking rather confused the fellow, who said that he was
without bread, and without asylum; that he was a tourneur and ebeniste
(turner, worker in ebony and ivory, and cabinet-maker in general) by
trade, that he was a stranger, and wished to raise sufficient money to
enable him to return to France.
“Why did you come over to England?” I asked.
“I came to work in London,” he said, after pretending not to understand
my question the first time.
“Where?” I inquired.
At first I understood him to answer Sheffield, but I at last made out
that he meant Smithfield.
“What was your master’s name?”
“I do not comprehend, monsieur--if monsieur will deign to read--”
“You comprehend me perfectly well; don’t pretend that you don’t--that
is only shuffling (tracasserie).
“The name of my master was Johnson.”
“Why did you leave him?” I inquired.
“He is dead, monsieur.”
“Why did you not return to France at his death?” was my next question.
“Monsieur, I tried to obtain work in England,” said the beggar.
“How long did you work for Mr. Johnson?”
“There was a long time, monsieur, that--”
“How long?” I repeated. “How many years?”
“Since two years.”
“And did you live in London two years, and all that time learn to speak
no English?”
“Ah, monsieur, you embarrass me. If monsieur will not deign to aid me,
it must be that I seek elsewhere--”
“But tell me how it was you learnt no English,” I persisted.
“Ah, monsieur, my comrades in the shop were all French.”
“And you want to get back to France?”
“Ah, monsieur, it is the hope of my life.”
“Come to me to-morrow morning at eleven o’clock--there is my address.”
I gave him the envelope of a letter. “I am well acquainted with the
French Consul at London Bridge, and at my intercession I am sure
that he will get you a free passage to Calais; if not, and I find he
considers your story true, I will send you at my own expense. Good
night!”
Of course the man did not call in the morning, and I saw no more of him.
DESTITUTE POLES.
It is now many years since the people of this country evinced a strong
sympathy for Polish refugees. Their gallant struggle, compulsory
exile, and utter national and domestic ruin raised them warm friends
in England; and committees for the relief of destitute Poles, balls
for the benefit of destitute Poles, and subscriptions for the relief
of the destitute Poles were got up in every market-town. Shelter and
sustenance were afforded to many gentlemen of undoubted integrity,
who found themselves penniless in a strange land, and the aristocracy
fêted and caressed the best-born and most gallant. To be a Pole, and
in distress, was almost a sufficient introduction, and there were few
English families who did not entertain as friend or visitor one of
these unfortunate and suffering patriots.
So excellent an opportunity for that class of foreign swindlers
which haunt roulette-tables, and are the pest of second-rate hotels
abroad, was of course made use of. Crowds of adventurers, “got up”
in furs, and cloaks, and playhouse dresses, with padded breasts and
long moustachios, flocked to England, and assuming the title of count,
and giving out that their patrimony had been sequestered by the
Emperor of Russia, easily obtained a hearing and a footing in many
English families, whose heads would not have received one of their own
countrymen except with the usual credentials.
John Bull’s partiality for foreigners is one of his well-known
weaknesses; and valets, cooks, and couriers in their masters clothes,
and sometimes with the titles of that master whom they had seen shot
down in battle, found themselves objects of national sympathy and
attention. Their success among the fair sex was extraordinary; and many
penniless adventurers, with no accomplishments beyond card-sharping,
and a foreign hotel waiter’s smattering of continental languages,
allied themselves to families of wealth and respectability. All,
of course, were not so fortunate; and after some persons had been
victimized, a few inquiries made, and the real refugee gentlemen and
soldiers had indignantly repudiated any knowledge of the swindlers or
their pretensions, the pseudo-Polish exiles were compelled to return
to their former occupations. The least able and least fortunate were
forced to beg, and adopted exactly the same tactics as the French
beggar, except that instead of certificates of birth, and passports, he
exhibited false military documents, and told lying tales of regimental
services, Russian prisons, and miraculous escapes.
The “destitute Pole” is seldom met with now, and would hardly have
demanded a notice if I had not thought it right to show how soon the
unsuccessful cheat or swindler drops down into the beggar, and to what
a height the “Polish fever” raged some thirty years ago. It would be
injustice to a noble nation if I did not inform my reader that but few
of the false claimants to British sympathy were Poles at all. They were
Russians, Frenchmen, Hungarians, Austrians, Prussians, and Germans of
all sorts.
The career of one fellow will serve to show with what little ingenuity
the credulous can be imposed on. His real name is lost among his
numerous aliases, neither do I know whether he commenced life as a
soldier, or as a valet; but I think it probable that he had combined
those occupations and been regimental servant to an officer. He came to
London in the year 1833 under the name of Count Stanislas Soltiewski,
of Ostralenka; possessed of a handsome person and invulnerable
audacity, he was soon received into decent society, and in 1837 married
a lady of some fortune, squandered her money, and deserted her. He then
changed his name to Levieczin, and travelled from town to town, giving
political lectures at town-halls, assembly-rooms, and theatres. In 1842
he called himself Doctor Telecki, said he was a native of Smolensk, and
set up a practice in Manchester, where he contracted a large amount
of debts. From Manchester he eloped with one of his patients, a young
lady to whom he was married in 1845, in Dublin, in which place he
again endeavoured to practise as a physician. He soon involved himself
in difficulties, and quitted Dublin, taking with him funds which
had been entrusted to him as treasurer of a charitable institution.
He left his second wife, and formed a connexion with another woman,
travelled about, giving scientific lectures, and sometimes doing feats
of legerdemain. He again married a widow lady who had some four or
five hundred pounds, which he spent, after which he deserted her. He
then became the scourge and terror of hotel-keepers, and went from
tavern to tavern living on every luxury, and, when asked for money,
decamping, and leaving behind him nothing but portmanteaus filled with
straw and bricks. He returned to England and obtained a situation in
a respectable academy as a teacher of French and the guitar. Here he
called himself Count Hohenbreitenstein-Boitzenburg.
Under this name he seduced a young lady, whom he persuaded he could
not marry on account of her being a Protestant, and of his being a
Count of the Holy Roman Empire in the pontifical degree. By threatening
exposure he extracted a large sum of money from her friends, with
which he returned to London, where he lived for some time by begging
letters, and obtaining money on various false pretences. His first
wife discovered him, and he was charged with bigamy, but owing to
some technical informality was not convicted. He then enlisted in the
87th regiment, from which he shortly after deserted. He became the
associate of thieves and the prostitutes who live in the neighbourhood
of Waterloo Road. After being several times imprisoned for petty
thefts he at length earned a miserable living by conjuring in low
public-houses, where he announced himself as the celebrated Polish
professor of legerdemain, Count Makvicz.
He died in August, 1852, and, oddly enough, in a garret in Poland
Street, Oxford Street.
Of modern Polish swindlers and beggars, the most renowned is Adolphus
Czapolinski. This “shabby genteel man of military appearance”--I quote
the daily papers,--“has been several times incarcerated, has again
offended, and been again imprisoned. His fraudulent practices were
first discovered in 1860.” The following is from the _Times_, of June
the 5th of that year:--
“BOW STREET.--A military-looking man, who said his name was Lorenzo
Noodt, and that he had served as captain in one of our foreign legions
during the Crimean war, was brought before Mr. Henry on a charge of
attempting to obtain money by false and fraudulent pretences from the
Countess of Waldegrave.”
Mr. George Granville Harcourt (the husband of Lady Waldegrave), deposed:
“I saw the prisoner to-day at my house in Carlton Gardens, where he
called by my request in reference to a letter which Lady Waldegrave had
received from him. It was a letter soliciting charitable contributions,
and enclosing three papers. The first purported to be a note from
Lady Stafford, enclosing a post-office order for 3_l._ I know her
ladyship’s handwriting, and this is like it, but I cannot say whether
it is genuine. The second is apparently a note from Colonel Macdonald,
sending him a post-office order for 4_l._ on the part of the Duke
of Cambridge. The third is a note purporting to be written by the
secretary of the Duke d’Aumale. This note states that the duke approves
this person’s departure for Italy, and desires his secretary to send
him 5_l._ We were persuaded that it could not be genuine, in the first
place, as we have the honour of being intimate with the Duke d’Aumale.
We perfectly well knew that he would not say to this individual, or to
any one else, that he approved his departure for Italy; in the second
place, there are mistakes in the French which render it impossible that
the duke’s secretary should have written it; in the third place, the
name is not that of the secretary, though resembling it. Under all the
circumstances, I took an opportunity of asking both the secretary and
the Duke d’Aumale whether they had any knowledge of this communication,
and they stated that they knew nothing of it. The duke said that it was
very disagreeable to him that he should be supposed to be interfering
to forward the departure of persons to Italy, which would produce an
impression that he was meddling in the affairs of that country. I wrote
to the prisoner to call on me, in order to receive back his papers. At
first another man called, but on his addressing me in French I said,
‘You are an Italian, not a German. I want to see the captain himself.’
To-day the prisoner called. I showed the papers, and asked him if they
were the letters he had received, and if he had received the money
referred to in those letters. To both questions he replied in the
affirmative. The officer Horsford, with whom I had communicated in the
meanwhile, was in the next room. I called him in, and he went up to
Captain Noodt, telling him he was his prisoner. He asked why? Horsford
replied, for attempting to obtain money by means of a forged letter.
He then begged me not to ruin him, and said that the letter was not
written by him.”
The prisoner’s letter to Lady Waldegrave was then read as follows:--
“MILADY COUNTESS,
“I am foreigner, but have the rank of captain by my service under
English colours in the Crimean war, being appointed by her Majesty’s
brevet. I have struggled very hard, after having been discharged from
the service, but, happily, I have been temporarily assisted by some
persons of distinction, and the Duke of Cambridge. To-day, milady
Countess, I have in object to ameliorate or better my condition,
going to accept service in Italian lawful army, where by the danger
I may obtain advancement. Being poor, I am obliged to solicit of my
noble patrons towards my journey. The Duc d’Aumale, the Marchioness
of Stafford, &c., kindly granted me their contributions. Knowing your
ladyship’s connexion with those noble persons, I take the liberty of
soliciting your ladyship’s kind contribution to raise any funds for my
outfit and journey. In ‘appui’ of my statements I enclose my captain’s
commission and letters, and, in recommending myself to your ladyship’s
consideration, I present my homage, and remain,
“Your humble servant,
“CAPTAIN L. B. NOODT.”
The letter of the pretended secretary was as follows:--
“MONSIEUR LE CAPITAINE,
“Son altesse Monseigneur le Duc d’Aumale approuve votre départ pour
l’Italie, et pour vous aider dans la dépense de votre voyage m’a
chargé de vous transmettre 5_l._, ci inclus, que vous m’obligerez de
m’en accuser la reception.
“Agréez, monsieur le capitaine, l’assurance de ma consideration
distinguée.
“Votre humble serviteur,
“CHS. COULEUVRIER, Sec.”
The prisoner, _who appeared much agitated_, acknowledged the dishonesty
of his conduct, but appealed to the pity of Mr. Harcourt, saying that
he had suffered great hardships, and had been driven to this act by
want. _It was sad that an officer bearing the Queen’s commission should
be so humiliated._ The letter was not written by himself, but by a
Frenchman who led him into it.
Mr. Henry said he had brought the humiliation on himself. He must
be well aware that the crime of forgery was punished as severely in
his own country as here. The prisoner should have the opportunity
of producing the writer of the letter, or of designating him to the
police. On the recommendation to mercy of Mr. Harcourt, he was only
sentenced to one month’s imprisonment.
On July the 9th he was brought up to Marlborough Street by Horsford,
the officer of the Mendicity Society, charged with obtaining by false
and fraudulent pretences the sum of 3_l._ from Lady Stafford. Since his
imprisonment it had been discovered that his real name was Adolphus
Czapolinski, and that he was a Pole. The real Captain Noodt was in a
distant part of the kingdom, and Czapolinski had obtained surreptitious
possession of his commission, and assumed his name. The indefatigable
Mr. Horsford had placed himself in communication with the secretary of
the Polish Association, who had known the prisoner (Czapolinski) for
twenty-five years. It would seem that in early life he had been engaged
under various foreign powers, and in 1835 he came to this country and
earned a scanty maintenance as a teacher of languages; that he was
addicted to drinking, begging, and thieving, and upon one occasion,
when usher in a school, he robbed the pupils of their clothes, and
even fleeced them of their trifling pocket-money. While in the House
of Detention he had written to Captain Wood, the secretary of the
Mendicity Society, offering to turn approver. The letter in question
ran thus:--