spent the penny in a loaf. I was three nights behind for my lodging,
and I knew the door would be shut in my face if I did not take home
sixpence. I thought I would go to the workhouse, and perhaps I
might get a supper and a lodging for that night. I was in Tottenham
Court-road by the chapel, and it was past ten o’clock. The people were
thinning away, and there seemed no chance of anything. So says I to
myself I’ll start down the New Road to the work’ouse. I knew there
was a work’ouse down that way, for I worked at a ’ouse next it once,
and I used to think the old paupers looked comfortable like. It came
across me all at once, that I one time said to one of my mates, as we
was sitting on the scaffold, smoking our pipes, and looking over the
work’ouse wall, ‘Jem, them old chaps there seems to do it pretty tidy;
they have their soup and bread, and a bed to lie on, and their bit o’
baccy, and they comes out o’ a arternoon and baskes in the sun, and
has their chat, and don’t seem to do no work to hurt ’em.’ And Jem he
says, ‘it’s a great hinstitooshin, Enery,’ says he, for you see Jem was
a bit of a scollard, and could talk just like a book. ‘I don’t know
about a hinstitooshin, Jem,’ says I, ‘but what I does know is that a
man might do wuss nor goe in there and have his grub and his baccy
regular, without nought to stress him, like them old chaps.’ Somehow
or other that ’ere conversation came across me, and off I started to
the work’ouse. When I came to the gate I saw a lot of poor women and
children sitting on the pavement round it. They couldn’t have been
hungrier than me, but they were awful ragged, and their case looked
wuss. I didn’t like to go in among them, and I watched a while a
little way off. One woman kep on ringing the bell for a long time, and
nobody came, and then she got desperate, and kep a-pulling and ringing
like she was mad, and at last a fat man came out and swore at her and
drove them all away. I didn’t think there was much chance for me if
they druv away women and kids, and such as them, but I thought I would
try as I was a cripple, and had lost both my arms. So I stepped across
the road, and was just agoing to try and pull the bell with my two poor
stumps when some one tapped me on the shoulder. I turned round and saw
it was a sailor-like man, without ne’er an arm like myself, only his
were cut off short at the shoulder. ‘What are you agoing to do?’ says
he. ‘I was agoing to try and ring the work’ouse bell,’ says I. ‘What
for?’ says he. ‘To ask to be took in,’ says I. And then the sailor man
looks at me in a steady kind of way, and says, ‘Want to get into the
work’ouse, and you got ne’er an arm? You’re a infant,’ says he. ‘If you
had only lost one on ’em now, I could forgive you, but--’ ‘But surely,’
says I, ‘it’s a greater misfortune to lose two nor one; half a loaf’s
better nor no bread, they say.’ ‘You’re a infant,’ says he again. ‘One
off aint no good; both on ’em’s the thing. Have you a mind to earn a
honest living,’ says he, quite sharp. ‘I have,’ says I; ‘anything for
a honest crust.’ ‘Then,’ says he, ‘come along o’ me.’ So I went with
the sailor man to his lodging in Whitechapel, and a very tidy place
it was, and we had beefsteaks and half a gallon o’ beer, and a pipe,
and then he told me what he wanted me to do. I was to dress like him
in a sailor’s jacket and trousers and a straw ’at, and stand o’ one
side of a picture of a shipwreck, vile he stood on the ’tother. And I
consented, and he learned me some sailors’ patter, and at the end of
the week he got me the togs, and then I went out with him. We did only
middlin the first day, but after a bit the coppers tumbled in like
winkin’. It was so affectin’ to see two mariners without ne’er an arm
between them, and we had crowds round us. At the end of the week we
shared two pound and seven shillings, which was more nor a pound than
my mate ever did by his self. He always said it was pilin’ the hagony
to have two without ne’er an arm. My mate used to say to me, ‘Enery, if
your stumps had only been a trifle shorter, we might ha’ made a fortun
by this time; but you waggle them, you see, and that frightens the old
ladies.’ I did well when Trafalgar Jack was alive. That was my mate,
sir; but he died of the cholera, and I joined another pal who had a
wooden leg; but he was rough to the kids, and got us both into trouble.
How do I mean rough to the kids? Why, you see, the kids used to swarm
round us to look at the pictur just like flies round a sugar-cask, and
that crabbed the business. My mate got savage with them sometimes, and
clouted their heads, and one day the mother o’ one o’ the brats came up
a-screaming awful and give Timber Bill, as we called him, into custody,
and he was committed for a rogue and vagabond. Timber Bill went into
the nigger line arterwards and did well. You may have seen him, sir.
He plays the tambourine, and dances, and the folks laugh at his wooden
leg, and the coppers come in in style. Yes, I’m still in the old line,
but it’s a bad business now.”
BLOWN-UP MINERS.
These are simply a variety of the large class of beggars who get their
living in the streets, chiefly by frequenting public-houses and whining
a tale of distress. The impostors among them--and they are by far the
greater number--do not keep up the character of blown-up miners all the
year round, but time the assumption to suit some disaster which may
give colour to their tale. After a serious coal-mine accident “blown-up
miners” swarm in such numbers all over the town that one might suppose
the whole of the coal-hands of the north had been blown south by one
explosion. The blown-up miner has the general appearance of a navvy;
he wears moleskin trousers turned up nearly to the knees, a pair of
heavy-laced boots, a sleeved waistcoat, and commonly a shapeless felt
hat of the wide-awake fashion. He wears his striped shirt open at the
neck, showing a weather-browned and brawny chest. The state of his
hands and the colour of his skin show that he has been accustomed to
hard work, but his healthy look and fresh colour give the lie direct to
his statement that he has spent nearly the whole of his life in working
in the dark many hundred feet beneath the surface of the earth. Many
of them do not pretend that they have been injured by the explosion of
the mine, but only that they have been thrown out of work. These are
mostly excavators and bricklayers’ labourers, who are out of employ in
consequence of a stoppage of the works on which they have been engaged,
or more often, as I have proved by inquiry, in consequence of their
own misconduct in getting drunk and absenting themselves from their
labour. These impostors are easily detected. If you cross-question them
as to the truth of their stories, and refer to names and places which
they ought to be acquainted with if their representations were genuine,
they become insolent and move away from you. There are others, however,
who are more artful, and whose tales are borne out by every external
appearance, and also by a complete knowledge of the places whence they
pretend to have come. These men, though sturdy and horny-fisted, have
a haggard, pallid look, which seems to accord well with the occupation
of the miner. They can converse about mining operations, they describe
minutely the incidents of the accident by which they suffered, and they
have the names of coal-owners and gangsmen ever ready on their tongues.
In addition to this they bare some part of their bodies--the leg or
the arm--and show you what looks like a huge scald or burn. These are
rank impostors, denizens of Wentworth-street and Brick-lane, and who
were never nearer to Yorkshire than Mile-end gate in their lives.
Having met with one or two specimens of “real” distressed miners, I
can speak with great certainty of the characteristics which mark out
the impostor. For many years past there has always been an abundance
of work for miners and navigators; indeed the labour of the latter has
often been at a premium; cases of distress arise among them only from
two causes--ill-health and bodily disaster. If they are in health and
found begging it is invariably during a long journey from one part of
the country to another. The look and manner of these miners forbids
the idea of their being systematic mendicants or impostors. They want
something to help them on the road, and they will be as grateful for
a hunck of bread and cheese as for money. If you cross-question these
men they never show an uncomfortable sense of being under examination,
but answer you frankly as if you were merely holding a friendly
conversation with them. Miners are very charitable to each other, and
they think it no shame to seek aid of their betters when they really
need it. Of the device called the “scaldrum dodge,” by which beggars of
this class produce artificial sores, I shall have to treat by-and-bye.
BURNT-OUT TRADESMEN.
With many begging impostors the assumption of the “burnt-out tradesman”
is simply a change of character to suit circumstances; with others it
is a fixed and settled rôle. The burnt-out tradesman does not beg in
the streets by day; he comes out at night, and his favourite haunts
are the private bars of public-houses frequented by good company. In
the day-time he begs by a petition, which he leaves at the houses of
charitable persons with an intimation that he will call again in an
hour. In the evening he is made up for his part. He lurks about a
public-house until he sees a goodly company assembled in the private
bar, and then, when the “gents,” as he calls them, appear to be getting
happy and comfortable, he suddenly appears among them, and moves them
by the striking contrast which his personal appearance and condition
offers to theirs. Like many others of his class he has studied human
nature to some purpose, and he knows at a glance the natures with
which he has to deal. Noisy and thoughtless young men, like clerks
and shopmen, he avoids. They are generally too much occupied with
themselves to think of him or his misfortunes; and having had no
experience of a responsible position, the case of a reduced tradesman
does not come home to them. A quiet and sedate company of middle-aged
tradesmen best suits his purpose. They know the difficulties and
dangers of trade, and maybe there are some of them who are conscious
that ruin is impending over themselves. To feeling men of this class
it is a terrible shock to see a man, who has once been well-to-do
like themselves, reduced to get a living by begging. The burnt-out
tradesman’s appearance gives peculiar force to his appeal. He is
dressed in a suit of black, greasy and threadbare, which looks like the
last shreds of the dress suit which he wore on high days and holidays,
when he was thriving and prosperous. His black satin stock, too, is
evidently a relict of better days. His hat is almost napless; but it is
well brushed--indicating care and neatness on the part of its owner.
His shoes are mere shapeless envelopes of leather, but the uppers are
carefully polished, and the strings neatly tied. When the burnt-out
tradesman enters a bar he allows his appearance to have its due effect
before he opens his mouth, or makes any other demonstration whatever.
In this he seems to imitate the practice of the favourite comedian,
who calculates upon being able to bespeak the favour of his audience
by merely showing his face. The beggar, after remaining motionless
for a moment, to allow the company fully to contemplate his miserable
appearance, suddenly and unexpectedly advances one of his hands, which
until now has been concealed behind his coat, and exposes to view a box
of matches. Nothing can surpass the artistic skill of this mute appeal.
The respectable look, and the poor, worn clothes, first of all--the
patient, broken-hearted glance accompanied by a gentle sigh--and then
the box of matches! What need of a word spoken. Can you not read the
whole history? Once a prosperous tradesman, the head of a family,
surrounded by many friends. Now, through misfortune, cast out of house
and home, deserted by his friends, and reduced to wander the streets
and sell matches to get his children bread. Reduced to sell paltry
matches! he who was in a large way once, and kept clerks to register
his wholesale transactions! It is seldom that this artist requires to
speak. No words will move men who can resist so powerful an appeal.
When he does speak he does not require to say more than--“I am an
unfortunate tradesman, who lost everything I possessed in the world by
a disastrous fire--” Here the halfpence interrupt his story, and he has
no need to utter another word, except to mutter his humble thanks.
There are a great many beggars of this class, and they nearly all
pursue the same method. They are most successful among tradesmen of
the middle class, and among the poor working people. One of them told
me that the wives of working men were, according to his experience,
the most tender-hearted in London. “The upper classes, the swells,
aint no good,” he said; “they subscribe to the Mendicity Society,
and they thinks every beggar an imposture. The half-and-half swells,
shopmen and the likes, aint got no hearts, and they aint got no money,
and what’s the good. Tradesmen that aint over well off have a fellow
feeling; but the workmen’s wives out a-marketing of a Saturday night
are no trouble. They always carries coppers--change out of sixpence or
a something--in their hands, and when I goes in where they are a havin’
their daffies--that’s drops o’ gin, sir--they looks at me, and says,
‘Poor man!’ and drops the coppers, whatever it is, into my hand, and
p’raps asks me to have a half-pint o’ beer besides. They’re good souls,
the workmen’s wives.”
There is a well-known beggar of this class who dresses in a most
unexceptionable manner. His black clothes are new and glossy, his hat
and boots are good, and to heighten the effect he wears a spotless
white choker. He is known at the west end by the name of the “Bishop
of London.” His aspect is decidedly clerical. He has a fat face, a
double chin, his hat turns up extensively at the brim, and, as I have
said, he wears a white neck-cloth. When he enters a bar the company
imagine that he is about to order a bottle of champagne at least; but
when he looks round and produces the inevitable box of matches, the
first impression gives way either to compassion or extreme wonder. So
far as my experience serves me, this dodge is not so successful as the
one I have just described. A person with the most ordinary reasoning
powers must know that a man who possesses clothes like those need not
be in want of bread; but if the power of reasoning were universally
allotted to mankind, there would be a poor chance for the professional
beggar. There never was a time or place in which there were not to
be found men anxious to avoid labour, and yet to live in ease and
enjoyment, and there never was a time in which other men were not, from
their sympathy, their fears, or their superstition, ready to assist the
necessitous, or those who appeared to be so, and liable to be imposed
upon or intimidated, according as the beggar is crafty or bold.
As a rule the burnt-out tradesmen whom I have described are impostors,
who make more by begging than many of those who relieve them earn
by hard and honest labour. The petitions which they leave at houses
are very cleverly drawn out. They are generally the composition of
the professional screevers, whose practices I shall have to describe
by-and-by. They have a circumstantial account of the fire by which the
applicant “lost his all,” and sometimes furnish an inventory of the
goods that were destroyed. They are attested by the names of clergymen,
churchwardens, and other responsible persons, whose signatures are
imitated with consummate art in every variety of ink. Some specimens
of these petitions and begging letters will be found under the head of
“Dependants of Beggars.”
LUCIFER DROPPERS.
The lucifer droppers are impostors to a man--to a boy--to a girl. Men
seldom, if ever, practise this “dodge.” It is children’s work; and the
artful way in which boys and girls of tender years pursue it, shows
how systematically the seeds of mendicancy and crime are implanted in
the hearts of the young Arab tribes of London. The artfulness of this
device is of the most diabolical kind; for it trades not alone upon
deception, but upon exciting sympathy with the guilty at the expense
of the innocent. A boy or a girl takes up a position on the pavement
of a busy street, such as Cheapside or the Strand. He, or she--it is
generally a girl--carries a box or two of lucifer matches, which she
offers for sale. In passing to and fro she artfully contrives to get
in the way of some gentleman who is hurrying along. He knocks against
her and upsets the matches which fall in the mud. The girl immediately
begins to cry and howl. The bystanders, who are ignorant of the trick,
exclaim in indignation against the gentleman who has caused a poor girl
such serious loss, and the result is that either the gentleman, to
escape being hooted, or the ignorant passers by, in false compassion,
give the girl money. White peppermint lozenges are more often used than
lucifers. It looks a hopeless case, indeed, when a trayful of white
lozenges fall in the mud.
BODILY AFFLICTED BEGGARS.
Beggars who excite charity by exhibiting sores and bodily deformities
are not so commonly to be met with in London as they were some years
ago. The officers of the Mendicity Society have cleared the streets
of nearly all the impostors, and the few who remain are blind men
and cripples. Many of the blind men are under the protection of a
Society, which furnishes them with books printed in raised type which
they decipher by the touch. Others provide their own books, and are
allowed to sit on door steps or in the recesses of the bridges without
molestation from the police. It has been found on inquiry that these
afflicted persons are really what they appear to be--poor, helpless,
blind creatures, who are totally incapacitated from earning a living,
and whom it would be heartless cruelty to drive into the workhouse,
where no provision is made for their peculiar wants.
The bodily afflicted beggars of London exhibit seven varieties. 1.
Those having real or pretended sores, vulgarly known as the “Scaldrum
Dodge.” 2. Having swollen legs. 3. Being crippled, deformed, maimed,
or paralyzed. 4. Being blind. 5. Being subject to fits. 6. Being in a
decline. 7. “Shallow Coves,” or those who exhibit themselves in the
streets, half-clad, especially in cold weather.
First, then, as to those having real or pretended sores. As I have
said, there are few beggars of this class left. When the officers of
the Mendicity Society first directed their attention to the suppression
of this form of mendicancy, it was found that the great majority of
those who exhibit sores were unmitigated impostors. In nearly all the
cases investigated the sores did not proceed from natural causes, but
were either wilfully produced or simulated. A few had lacerated their
flesh in reality; but the majority had resorted to the less painful
operation known as the “Scaldrum Dodge.” This consists in covering a
portion of the leg or arm with soap to the thickness of a plaister, and
then saturating the whole with vinegar. The vinegar causes the soap
to blister and assume a festering appearance, and thus the passer-by
is led to believe that the beggar is suffering from a real sore. So
well does this simple device simulate a sore that the deception is
not to be detected even by close inspection. The “Scaldrum Dodge” is
a trick of very recent introduction among the London beggars. It is a
concomitant of the advance of science and the progress of the art of
adulteration. It came in with penny postage, daguerreotypes, and other
modern innovations of a like description. In less scientific periods
within the present century it was wholly unknown; and sores were
produced by burns and lacerations which the mendicants inflicted upon
themselves with a ruthless hand. An old man who has been a beggar all
his life, informed me that he had known a man prick the flesh of his
leg all over, in order to produce blood and give the appearance of an
ulcerous disease. This man is a cripple and walks about upon crutches,
selling stay laces. He is now upwards of seventy years of age. At my
solicitation he made the following statement without any apparent
reserve.
SEVENTY YEARS A BEGGAR.
“I have been a beggar ever since I was that high--ever since I could
walk. No, I was not born a cripple. I was thirty years of age before
I broke my leg. That was an accident. A horse and cart drove over me
in Westminster. Well; yes I was drunk. I was able-bodied enough before
that. I was turned out to beg by my mother. My father, I’ve heard, was
a soldier; he went to Egypt, or some foreign part, and never came back.
I never was learnt any trade but begging, and I couldn’t turn my hand
to nothing else. I might have been learnt the shoemaking; but what was
the use? Begging was a better trade then; it isn’t now though. There
was fine times when the French war was on. I lived in Westminster then.
A man as they called Copenhagen Jack, took a fancy to me, and made me
his valet. I waited upon, fetched his drink, and so forth. Copenhagen
Jack was a captain; no not in the army, nor in the navy neither. He
was the captain of the Pye-Street beggars. There was nigh two hundred
of them lived in two large houses, and Jack directed them. Jack’s word
was law, I assure you. The boys--Jack called them his boys, but there
was old men among them, and old women too--used to come up before the
captain every morning before starting out for the day, to get their
orders. The captain divided out the districts for them, and each man
took his beat according to his directions. It was share and share
alike, with an extra for the captain. There was all manner of “lays;”
yes, cripples and darkies. We called them as did the blind dodge,
darkies,--and “shakers” them as had fits,--and shipwrecked mariners,
and--the scaldrum dodge, no; that’s new; but I know what you mean. They
did the real thing then--scrape the skin off their feet with a bit of
glass until the blood came. Those were fine times for beggars. I’ve
known many of ’em bring in as much as thirty shillings a day, some
twenty, some fifteen. If a man brought home no more than five or six
shillings, the captain would enter him, make a note of him, and change
his beat. Yes, we lived well. I’ve known fifty sit down to a splendid
supper, geese and turkeys, and all that, and keep it up until daylight,
with songs and toasts. No; I didn’t beg then; but I did before, and
I did after. I begged after, when the captain came to misfortune.
He went a walking one day in his best clothes, and got pressed, and
never came back, and there was a mutiny among them in Pye-Street, and
I nearly got murdered. You see, they were jealous of me, because the
captain petted me. I used to dress in top-boots and a red coat when I
waited on the captain. It was his fancy. Romancing? I don’t know what
you mean. Telling lies, oh! It’s true by ----. There’s nothing like it
nowadays. The new police and this b---- Mendicity Society has spoilt it
all. Well, they skinned me; took off my fine coat and boots, and sent
me out on the orphan lay in tatters. I sat and cried all day on the
door steps, for I was really miserable now my friend was gone, and I
got lots of halfpence, and silver too, and when I took home the swag,
they danced round me and swore that they would elect me captain if I
went on like that; but there was a new captain made, and when they had
their fun out, he came and took the money away, and kicked me under
the table. I ran away the next day, and went to a house in St. Giles’s,
where I was better treated. There was no captain there; the landlord
managed the house, and nobody was master but him. There was nigh a
hundred beggars in that house, and some two or three hundred more in
the houses next it. The houses are not standing now. They were taken
down when New Oxford-street was built; they stood on the north side.
Yes; we lived well in St. Giles’s--as well as we did in Westminster.
I have earned 8, 10, 15, ay, 30 shillings a day, and more nor that
sometimes. I can’t earn one shilling now. The folks don’t give as they
did. They think every body an imposture now. And then the police won’t
let you alone. No; I told you before, I never was anything else but a
beggar. How could I? It was the trade I was brought up to. A man must
follow his trade. No doubt I shall die a beggar, and the parish will
bury me.”
HAVING SWOLLEN LEGS.
Beggars who lie on the pavement and expose swollen legs, are very
rarely to be met with now. The imposture has been entirely suppressed
by the police and the officers of the Mendicity Society. This is one
of the shallowest of all the many “dodges” of the London beggars.
On reflection any one, however slightly acquainted with the various
forms of disease, must know that a mere swelling cannot be a normal or
chronic condition of the human body. A swelling might last a few days,
or a week; but a swelling of several years’ standing is only to be
referred to the continued application of a poisonous ointment, or to
the binding of the limb with ligatures, so as to confine the blood and
puff the skin.
CRIPPLES.