prosecution against me, and I most solemnly promise you that for
this favour all my endeavours will be to render you every assistance
for all the information you should require. I was very wrong to not
speak to you when I was at your office, but really I was not guilty
of this charge, because the letter containing the post-office order
was delivered to Captain Noodt. I was only the messenger from Lady
Stafford.
“Look, Captain Wood, I know much, and no one can be so able to render
you the assistance and information of all the foreigners than me.
Neither any of your officers could find the way; but if you charge
me to undertake to find I will, on only one condition--that you will
stop the prosecution. The six weeks of detention were quite sufficient
punishment to me for the first time; and let it be understood that for
your condescension to stop the prosecution all my services shall be at
your orders, whenever you shall require, without any remuneration. My
offers will be very advantageous to you under every respect. Send any
of your clerks to speak with me to make my covenant with you, and you
will be better convinced of my good intentions to be serviceable to
you.
“I am, &c.,
“A. CZAPOLINSKI.”
He was sentenced to three months’ imprisonment and hard labour.
Czapolinski is one of the most extraordinary of the beggars of the
present day. He raises money both by personal application and by
letter. He has been known to make from 20_l._ to 60_l._ per day. He
is a great gambler, and has been seen to lose--and to pay--upwards of
100_l._ at a gambling house in the neighbourhood of Leicester Square in
the course of a single night and morning.
HINDOO BEGGARS
Are those spare, snake-eyed Asiatics who walk the streets, coolly
dressed in Manchester cottons, or chintz of a pattern commonly used for
bed-furniture, to which the resemblance is carried out by the dark,
polished colour of the thin limbs which it envelopes. They very often
affect to be converts to the Christian religion, and give away tracts;
with the intention of entrapping the sympathy of elderly ladies. They
assert that they have been high-caste Brahmins, but as untruth, even
when not acting professionally, is habitual to them, there is not the
slightest dependence to be placed on what they say. Sometimes, in the
winter, they “do shallow,” that is, stand on the kerb-stone of the
pavement, in their thin, ragged clothes, and shiver as with cold and
hunger, or crouch against a wall and whine like a whipped animal;
at others they turn out with a small, barrel-shaped drum, on which
they make a monotonous noise with their fingers, to which music they
sing and dance. Or they will “stand pad with a fakement,” _i. e._
wear a placard upon their breasts, that describes them as natives of
Madagascar, in distress, converts to Christianity, anxious to get to
a seaport where they can work their passage back. This is a favourite
artifice with Lascars--or they will sell lucifers, or sweep a crossing,
or do anything where their picturesque appearance, of which they are
proud and conscious, can be effectively displayed. They are as cunning
as they look, and can detect a sympathetic face among a crowd. They
never beg of soldiers, or sailors, to whom they always give a wide
berth as they pass them in the streets.
From the extraordinary mendacity of this race of beggars--a mendacity
that never falters, hesitates, or stumbles, but flows on in an
unbroken stream of falsehood,--it is difficult to obtain any reliable
information respecting them. I have, however, many reasons for
believing that the following statement, which was made to me by a very
dirty and distressed Indian, is moderately true. The man spoke English
like a cockney of the lowest order. I shall not attempt to describe the
peculiar accent or construction which he occasionally gave to it.
“My name is Joaleeka. I do not know where I was born. I never knew
my father. I remember my mother very well. From the first of my
remembrance I was at Dumdum, where I was servant to a European
officer--a great man--a prince--who had more than a hundred servants
beside me. When he went away to fight, I followed among others--I was
with the baggage. I never fought myself, but I have heard the men
(Sepoys) say that the prince, or general, or colonel, liked nothing so
well as fighting, except tiger-hunting. He was a wonderful man, and his
soldiers liked him very much. I travelled over a great part of India
with Europeans. I went up country as far as Secunderabad, and learned
to speak English very well--so well that, when I was quite a young
man, I was often employed as interpreter, for I caught up different
Indian languages quickly. At last I got to interpret so well that I
was recommended to ----, a great native prince who was coming over to
England. I was not his interpreter, but interpreter to his servants. We
came to London. We stopped in an hotel in Vere-street, Oxford-street.
We stayed here some time. Then my chief went over to Paris, but he
did not take all his servants with him. I stopped at the hotel to
interpret for those who remained. It was during this time that I formed
a connexion with a white woman. She was a servant in the hotel. I broke
my caste, and from that moment I knew that it would not do for me to go
back to India. The girl fell in the family-way, and was sent out of the
house. My fellow-servants knew of it, and as many of them hated me, I
knew that they would tell my master on his return. I also knew that by
the English laws in England I was a free man, and that my master could
not take me back against my will. If I had gone back, I should have
been put to death for breaking my caste. When my master returned from
France, he sent for me. He told me that he had heard of my breaking my
caste, and of the girl, but that he should take no notice of it; that
I was to return to Calcutta with him, where he would get me employment
with some European officer; that I need not fear, as he would order his
servants to keep silent on the subject. I salaamed and thanked him,
and said I was his slave for ever; but at the same time I knew that he
would break his word, and that when he had me in his power, he would
put me to death. He was a very severe man about caste. I attended to
all my duties as before, and all believed that I was going back to
India--but the very morning that my master started for the coast, I ran
away. I changed my clothes at the house of a girl I knew--not the same
one as I had known at the hotel, but another. This one lived at Seven
Dials. I stopped in-doors for many days, till this girl, who could
read newspapers, told me that my master had sailed away. I felt very
glad, for though I knew my master could not force me to go back with
him, yet I was afraid for all that, for he knew the King and the Queen,
and had been invited by the Lord Mayor to the City. I liked England
better than India, and English women have been very kind to me. I
think English women are the handsomest in the world. The girl in whose
house I hid, showed me how to beg. She persuaded me to turn Christian,
because she thought that it would do me good--so I turned Christian. I
do not know what it means, but I am a Christian, and have been for many
years. I married that girl for some time. I have been married several
times. I do not mean to say that I have ever been to church as rich
folks do; but I have been married without that. Sometimes I do well,
and sometimes badly. I often get a pound or two by interpreting. I am
not at all afraid of meeting any Indian who knew me, for if they said
anything I did not like, I should call out “Police!” I know the law
better than I did. Every thing is free in England. You can do what you
like, if you can pay, or are not found out. I do not like policemen.
After the mutiny in 1857 I did very badly. No one would look at a poor
Indian then--much less give to him. I knew that the English would put
it down soon, because I know what those rascals over there are like.
I am living now in Charles Street, Drury Lane. I have been married to
my present wife six years. We have three children and one dead. My
eldest is now in the hospital with a bad arm. I swept a crossing for
two years; that was just before the mutiny. All that knew me used to
chaff me about it, and call me Johnny Sepoy. My present wife is Irish,
and fought two women about it. They were taken to Bow-street by a
policeman, but the judge would not hear them. My wife is a very good
wife to me, but she gets drunk too often. If it were not for that, I
should like her better. I ran away from her once, but she came after
me with all the children. Sometimes I make twelve shillings a week. I
could make much more by interpreting, but I do not like to go among the
nasty natives of my country. I believe I am more than fifty years of
age.”
NEGRO BEGGARS.
The negro beggar so nearly resembles the Hindoo that what I have said
of one, I could almost say of the other. There are, however, these
points of difference. The negro mendicant, who is usually an American
negro, never studies the picturesque in his attire. He relies on
the abject misery and down-trodden despair of his appearance, and
generally represents himself as a fugitive slave--with this exception,
his methods of levying contributions are precisely the same as his
lighter-skinned brother’s.
Some years ago it was a common thing to see a negro with tracts in his
hand, and a placard upon his breast, upon which was a wood-cut of a
black man, kneeling, his wrists heavily chained, his arms held high
in supplication, and round the picture, forming a sort of proscenium
or frame, the words: “Am I not a man and a brother?” At the time that
the suppression of the slave trade created so much excitement, this
was so excellent a “dodge” that many white beggars, fortunate enough
to possess a flattish or turned-up nose, _dyed themselves black_
and “stood pad” as real Africans. The imposture, however, was soon
detected and punished.
There are but few negro beggars to be seen now. It is only common
fairness to say that negroes seldom, if ever, shirk work. Their only
trouble is to obtain it. Those who have seen the many negroes employed
in Liverpool, will know that they are hard-working, patient, and, too
often, underpaid. A negro will sweep a crossing, run errands, black
boots, clean knives and forks, or dig, for a crust and a few pence.
The few impostors among them are to be found among those who go about
giving lectures on the horrors of slavery, and singing variations on
the “escapes” in that famous book ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin.’ Negro servants
are seldom read of in police reports, and are generally found to give
satisfaction to their employers. In the east end of London negro
beggars are to be met with, but they are seldom beggars by profession.
Whenever they are out of work they have no scruples, but go into the
streets, take off their hats, and beg directly.
I was accosted by one in Whitechapel, from whom I obtained the
following statement:--
“My father was a slave, so was my mother. I have heard my father say
so. I have heard them tell how they got away, but I forget all about
it. It was before I was born. I am the eldest son. I had only one
brother. Three years after his birth my mother died. My father was
a shoe-black in New York. He very often had not enough to eat. My
brother got a place as a servant, but I went out in the streets to
do what I could. About the same time that my father, who was an old
man, died, my brother lost his place. We agreed to come to England
together. My brother had been living with some Britishers, and he had
heard them say that over here niggers were as good as whites; and that
the whites did not look down on them and illtreat them, as they do in
New York. We went about and got odd jobs on the quay, and at last we
hid ourselves in the hold of a vessel, bound for Liverpool. I do not
know how long we were hid, but I remember we were terribly frightened
lest we should be found out before the ship got under weigh. At last
hunger forced us out, and we rapped at the hatches; at first we were
not heard, but when we shouted out, they opened the hatches, and took
us on deck. They flogged us very severely, and treated us shamefully
all the voyage. When we got to Liverpool, we begged and got odd jobs.
At last we got engaged in a travelling circus, where we were servants,
and used to ride about with the band in beautiful dresses, but the
grooms treated us so cruelly that we were forced to run away from that.
I forget the name of the place that we were performing at, but it was
not a day’s walk from London. We begged about for some time. At last,
my brother--his name is Aaron--got to clean the knives and forks at a
slap-bang (an eating-house) in the city. He was very fortunate, and
used to save some bits for me. He never takes any notice of me now. He
is doing very well. He lives with a great gentleman in Harewood-square,
and has a coat with silver buttons, and a gold-laced hat. He is very
proud, and I do not think would speak to me if he saw me. I don’t know
how I live, or how much I get a week. I do porter’s work mostly, but I
do anything I can get. I beg more than half the year. I have no regular
lodging. I sleep where I can. When I am in luck, I have a bed. It costs
me threepence. At some places they don’t care to take a man of colour
in. I sometimes get work in Newgate-market, carrying meat, but not
often. Ladies give me halfpence oftener than men. The butchers call me
‘Othello,’ and ask me why I killed my wife. I have tried to get aboard
a ship, but they won’t have me. I don’t know how old I am, but I know
that when we got to London, it was the time the Great Exhibition was
about. I can lift almost any weight when I have had a bit of something
to eat. I don’t care for beer. I like rum best. I have often got drunk,
but never when I paid for it myself.”
* * * * *
The following cases of genuine distress fell under my notice. My
readers will observe the difference of tone, the absence of clap-trap,
and desire to enlarge upon a harrowing fact of those unfortunates who
have been reduced to beggary, compared with the practised shuffle and
conventional whine of the mendicant by profession.
I was standing with a friend at the counter of a tavern in Oxford
Street, when a man came in and asked me to help him with a penny.
I saw at a glance that he was a workman at some hard-working trade. His
face was bronzed, and his large, hard hands were unmistakably the hands
of a labourer. He kept his eyes fixed on me as he spoke, and begged
with a short pipe in his mouth.
I asked him if he would have some beer?
“Thank ye, sir, I don’t want beer so much as I want a penny loaf. I
haven’t tasted since morn, and I’m not the man I was fifteen year ago,
and I feel it.”
“Will you have some bread-and-cheese and beer?” I asked.
“Thank ye, sir; bread-and-cheese and beer, and thank ye, sir; for I’m
beginning to feel I want something.”
I asked the man several questions, and he made the following
statement:--
“I’m a miner, sir, and I’ve been working lately five mile from
Castleton in Darbyshire. Why did I leave it? Do you want me to tell the
truth, now--the real truth? Well then I’ll tell you the real truth.
I got drunk--you asked me for the real truth, and now you’ve got it.
I’ve been a miner all my life, and been engaged in all the great public
works. I call a miner a man as can sink a shaft in anything, barring
he’s not stopped by water. I’ve got a wife and two children. I left
them at Castleton. They’re all right. I left them some money. I’ve
worked in eighteen inches o’ coal. I mean in a chamber only eighteen
inches wide. You lay on your side and pick like this. (Here he threw
himself on the floor, and imitated the action of a coal-miner with his
pick.) I’ve worked under young Mr. Brunel very often. He were not at
all a gentleman unlike you, sir, only he were darker. My last wages
was six shilling a-day. I expect soon to be in work again, for I know
lots o’ miners in London, and I know where they want hands. I could
get a bed and a shilling this minute if I knew where my mates lived;
but to-day, when I got to the place where they work, they’d gone home,
and I couldn’t find out in what part of London they lived. We miners
always assist each other, when we’re on the road. I’ve worked in lead
and copper, sir, as well as coal, and have been a very good man in my
time. I am just forty year old, and I think I’ve used myself too much
when I were young. I knows the Cornish mines well. I’m sure to get work
in the course of the week, for I’m well known to many on ’em up at
Notting Hill. I once worked in a mine where there were a pressure of
fifty pound to the square foot of air. You have to take your time about
everything you do there--you can’t work hard in a place like that.
Thank you, sir, much obliged to you.”
One evening in the parish of Marylebone an old man who was selling
lucifer-matches put his finger to his forehead, and offered me a box.
“Ha’penny a box, sir,” he said.
I told him to follow me; an old woman also accompanied us. He made the
following statement:--
“My name is John Wood--that’s my wife. I am sixty-five years of age;
she’s seventy-five--ten years older than I am. I kept a shop round
this street, sir, four-and-twenty years. I’ve got a settlement in this
parish, but we neither of us like to go into the union--they’d separate
us, and we like to be together for the little time we shall be here.
The reason we went to the bad was, I took a shop at Woolwich, and the
very week I opened it, I don’t know how many hundred men were not
discharged from the Arsenal and Dockyard. I lost £350 there; after that
we tried many things; but everything failed. This is not a living. I
stood four hours last night, and took twopence-ha’penny. We lodge in
Warde’s Buildings. We pay one and ninepence a-week. We’ve got sticks of
our own,--that is a bed, and a table. We are both of us half-starved.
It is hard--very hard. I’m as weak as a rat, and so is my wife. We’ve
tried to do something better, but we can’t. If I could get some of the
folks that once knew me to assist me, I might buy a few things, and
make a living out of them. We’ve been round to ’em to ask ’em, but they
don’t seem inclined to help us. People don’t, sir, when you’re poor. I
used to feel that myself one time, but I know better now. Good night,
sir, and thank you.”
In the same neighbourhood I saw an elderly man who looked as if he
would beg of me if he dared. I turned round to look at him, and saw
that his eyes were red as if with crying, and that he carried a rag in
his hand with which he kept dabbing them. I gave him a few pence.
“Thank you, sir,” he said; “God bless you. Excuse me, sir, but my eyes
is bad--I suffer from the erysipelas--that is what brought me to this.
Kindness rather overcomes me--I’ve not been much used to it of late.”
He made the following statement:
“I have been a gentleman’s servant, sir, but I lost my place through
the erysipelas. I was mad with it, and confined in Bedlam for four
years. The last place I was in service at was Sir H---- H----’s
(he mentioned the name of an eminent banker). Sir H---- was very
kind to me. I clean his door-plate now, for which I get a shilling
a-week--that’s all the dependence I have now. The servants behave bad
to me. Sir H---- said that I was to go into the kitchen now and then;
but they never give me anything. I don’t get half enough to eat, and
it makes me very weak. I’m weak enough naturally, and going without
makes me worse. I lodge over in Westminster. I pay threepence a-night,
or eighteenpence a-week. There are three others in the same room as
me. I hold horses sometimes, and clean knives and forks when I can
get it to do; but people like younger men than me to do odd jobs. I
can’t do things quick enough, and I’m so nervous that I ain’t handy. I
can go into the workhouse, and I think I shall in the winter; but the
confinement of it is terrible to me. I’d like to keep out of it if I
can. My shilling a-week don’t pay my rent, and I find it very hard to
get on at all. Nobody can tell what I go through. I suppose I must go
into the workhouse at last. They’re not over kind to you when you’re
in. Every day the first thing I try to get is the threepence for my
lodging. I pay nightly, then I don’t have anything to pay on Sundays. I
don’t know any trade; gentlemen’s servants never do. I used to have the
best of everything when I was in service. God bless you, sir, and thank
you. I’m very much obliged to you.”
DISASTER BEGGARS.
This class of street beggars includes shipwrecked mariners, blown-up
miners, burnt-out tradesmen, and lucifer droppers. The majority of
them are impostors, as is the case with all beggars who pursue begging
pertinaciously and systematically. There are no doubt genuine cases to
be met with, but they are very few, and they rarely obtrude themselves.
Of the shipwrecked mariners I have already given examples under the
head of Naval and Military Beggars. Another class of them, to which
I have not referred, is familiar to the London public in connection
with rudely executed paintings representing either a shipwreck, or
more commonly the destruction of a boat by a whale in the North Seas.
This painting they spread upon the pavement, fixing it at the corners,
if the day be windy, with stones. There are generally two men in
attendance, and in most cases one of the two has lost an arm or a
leg. Occasionally both of them have the advantage of being deprived
of either one or two limbs. Their misfortune so far is not to be
questioned. A man who has lost both arms, or even one, is scarcely in
a position to earn his living by labour, and is therefore a fit object
for charity. It is found, however, that in most instances the stories
of their misfortunes printed underneath their pictures are simply
inventions, and very often the pretended sailor has never been to sea
at all. In one case which I specially investigated, the man had been a
bricklayer, and had broken both his arms by falling from a scaffold.
He received some little compensation at the time, but when that was
spent he went into the streets to beg, carrying a paper on his breast
describing the cause of his misfortune. His first efforts were not
successful. His appearance (dressed as he was in workman’s clothes) was
not sufficiently picturesque to attract attention, and his story was of
too ordinary a kind to excite much interest. He had a very hard life of
it for some length of time; for, in addition to the drawback arising
from the uninteresting nature of his case, he had had no experience in
the art of begging, and his takings were barely sufficient to procure
bread. From this point I will let him tell his own story:--
A SHIPWRECKED MARINER.