him to be an Industrious, Honest man, with a large family depending
upon his exertions for support We earnestly beg leave to recommend
his case to the notice of the Gentry and Clergy of his neighbourhood,
trusting their united Donations in conjunction with our mutual
assistance will release a deserving family from their present
unfortunate position in life.
“GIVEN under Our }
Hands this 30th day of } £
August in the Year of } William Harmer 2
Our Lord 1858” }
Geo. Stone Ewell £2
Sir Geo. L. Glyn 2 2
F. Gosling 2 2
Revd W. H. Vernon £1
Morton Stubbs 1 1
Sutton
Edmund Antrobus £2 2
pd to Bearer
2d/9th/58
W. R. G. Farmer £2 2
pd.
Revd. R. Bouchier £2 pd.
My readers must admire the ingenuity of this letter. The _VIA_ Mitchem
looks so formal and convincing. The grouping of the circumstances--the
“local colouring,” as the critics would call it, which contributed
to the ruin of the ill-fated general carrier Henry Shepherd--is
excellent.--“Near the Elephant and Castle his horse took fright at a
band of street musicians.” What more natural? “Ran off at a furious
pace. The van, coming in contact with a timber carriage, was _dashed to
pieces_. The Animal,” not the horse--that would have been tautological,
and Animal with a capital A. “The Animal received such injuries as
_caused its death_, and Mr. Shepherd, endeavouring to save the property
entrusted to his care--.” Admirable man! Devoted carrier!--leaving
his van to smash--his horse to perish as they might, that the goods
confided to him might receive no hurt. “... endeavouring to save
the property entrusted to his care for delivery, had his _right leg
fractured_, and is now an inmate of Guy’s Hospital.”
This is as well conceived and carried out as Sheridan’s pistol-bullet
that misses its mark, “strikes a bronze Hercules in the mantel-piece,
glances off through the window, and wounds the postman who was coming
to the door with a double letter from Northamptonshire!”
The word “Paid” and its abbreviation pd. is scattered here and there
artistically among the subscriptions. A small note in a different hand,
in a corner of the last page shows the fate of industry and talent
misapplied. It runs:--
“Taken from Thos. Shepherd, Sept. 13. Mansion House. Lord Mayor Sir A.
Carden. Committed for 3 months.
“J. W. HORSFORD.”
The last instance I shall cite is peculiar, from the elaborate nature
of the deception, and from containing a forgery of the signature of
Lord Brougham. The screever, in this case, has taken a regularly
printed Warrant, Execution, or Distress for Rent, filled it up with the
name of Mrs. Julia Thompson, &c., and placed an imaginary inventory to
a fictitious seizure. The word “Patent” is spelt “Pattent,” which might
be allowable in a broker’s man, but when “Ewer” is written “Ure,” I
think he is too hard upon the orthography peculiar to the officers of
the Sheriff of Middlesex, particularly as it is evident from the rest
of the filling-in of the form that the error is intentional. Not only
law but science is invoked in aid of this capital case of sham real
distress. “Pleuro-Pneumonia” looks veterinary and veracious enough to
carry conviction to the hearts of the most sceptical.
~ Removing any goods off the premises to avoid a distress or any
person aiding, assisting, or concealing the same, will subject
themselves to double the value of such effects so removed or
concealed, or suffer imprisonment in the House of Correction, there
to be kept to hard labour without Bail or Mainprize for Six Months,
pursuant to the Act 11th George 2nd.
Sold by G. H. Beckford, Law Stationer, 122, Chancery Lane.~
“TAKE NOTICE, That by the authority and on the behalf of your
Landlord, Thos. Young, I have this Sixteenth day of April in the year
of Our Lord One thousand eight hundred and fifty-six distrained the
several goods and chattels specified in the Schedule or Inventory
hereinunder written in
19 Praed Street
in the Parish of
Paddington in the County of Middlesex, for Twenty-nine pounds, being
Twelve Months and arrears Rent due to the said Mr. Thos. Young
at Ninth Febry last
and if you shall not pay the said Twelve Months and Arrears Rent so
due and in arrear as aforesaid together with the costs and charges
of this distress or replevy the said goods and chattels within five
days from the date hereof I shall cause the said goods and chattels to
be appraised and sold, pursuant to the statute in that case made and
provided.
“Given under my hand the day and year above written.
“J. W. RUSSELL.
“Sworn Broker, &c.
“To Mrs. Julia Thompson.”
The Schedule or Inventory above referred to:--
Mahogany Drawers
Mahogany Dining Tables
Six Mahogany Seated Chairs
Two Arm Do. Do.
One Eight-Day clock
Six Oil Paintings Gilt Frames
One Large Pier Glass
Carpet and Hearthrug
Fender and Fire-irons
Quantity of Chimney Ornaments
Six Kitchen Chairs
One Long Table Deal
One Large Copper Boiler
Two Copper Kettles
Pattent Mangle
One Large Water Butt
Two Washing Tubs
1-1/2 Doz. of Knifes and Forkes
Quantity of Earthenware &c. &c.
Two Feather Beds & Bedding
One Flock Do Do.
Two Mahogany Bedsteads
One French Do
Washhand stand Ure &c.
Two Hair Mattresses
Three Bedroom Chairs
One set of Bedroom Carpeting
Staircase Carpeting, Brass Rods &c.
One Milch Cow
One Cart Mare
One Dung Cart
One Wheelbarrow
Three Cwt. of Hay
Quantity of Manure
And Sundry Dairy Utensils
&c. &c. &c.
On the back of this legal document is written:
“This memorial sheweth that Mrs. Julia Thompson, widow, Cowkeeper and
Dairywoman has since the demise of her husband which took place in
1849 supported a family consisting of six children by the assistance
of a small Dairy the Pleuro-Pneumonia a disease Among Cattle has
prevailed in the neighbourhood for several weeks during which time
she has lost five Milch Cows estimated at £75. „ „ which will end in
her entire ruin unless aided by the Hands of the Benevolent whose
Donations in conjunction with Our mutual assistance will We trust
enable Mrs. Thompson to realize some part of her lost property to
follow her Business As before.
H. Peters £3 3 0
April 17th, 1856
Chaplin & Horne £2
Mrs. Gore 1
Revd J. W. Buckley 2
Revd John Miles 1
Mrs. J. Shaw 2 paid
C. Lushington 3 3
W. H. Ormsby 2
C. Molyneux 1
Miss Ferrers 2 paid
W. Emmitt 2 2
Anonymous 2 0
Misses Gregg 2 2
Miss Browne 1
J. B. White & Bros 3 pd
Thos Slater 2
W. T. Bird 2 pd.
Miss Hamilton 3 paid
Revd. J. A. Toole 2 paid
Mr. Hopgood 2 Paid
A Friend to the Widow 3 3
Paid to Mr. Pegg
Richd Green £2 pd
Revd A. M. Campbell 3
W. P. France 1
W. M. N. Reilly 2 2
Mrs. Forbes 2 pd
R. Gurney 1
J. Spurling 2 pd
Geo. R. Ward 1
Miss Brown 2
Mrs Needham 2 Paid
Mr Davidson £2
Mrs. H. Scott Waring 3 3
Mrs Hall 1 1
Saml. Venables 2
Revd. A. Taylor 1
Revd. H. V. Le Bas 1
Thomas Bunting 2 pd.
Mrs & Miss Vullamy 3
Revd. C. Smalley 5
Miss Smalley 3
Lord Brougham 2”
The two most notorious “screevers” of the present day are Mr. Sullivan
and Mr. Johnson of Westminster, or as he is proud of being called,
“Johnson the Schemer.”
REFEREES
are generally keepers of low lodging-houses, brothels, &c., or small
tradesmen who supply thieves and beggars with chandlery, &c. When
applied to for the character of any of their friends and confederates,
they give them an excellent recommendation--but are careful not to
_overdo_ it. With that highest sort of artfulness that conceals
artfulness, they know when to stop, and seldom or never betray
themselves by saying too much.
“Mrs. Simmons!” said one of them in answer to an application for
character--“ah, yes, sir, I known her a good many years, and a very
honest, hard-working, industrious, sober sort of a person I always
knowed her to be, at least as far as _I_ see--I never see nothing wrong
in the woman for _my_ part. The earliest-uppest, and downest-latest
woman I ever see, and well she need be, with that family of hers--nine
on ’em, and the eldest girl a idiot. When first I knew her, sir, her
husband was alive, and then Susan--that’s the idiot, sir, were a babe
in arms--her husband was a bad man to her, sir--the way that man drunk
and spent his money among all the lowest girls and corner-coves was
awful to see,--I mean by corner-coves them sort of men who is always a
standing at the corners of the streets and chaffing respectable folks a
passing by--we call them corner-coves about here; but as to poor Mrs.
Simmons, sir, that husband of hers _tret_ her awful--though he’s dead
and gone now, poor man, and perhaps I have no right to speak ill on the
dead. He had some money with her too--two hundred pound I heard--her
father was a builder in a small way--and lived out towards Fulham--a
very deserving woman I always found her, sir, and I have helped her
a little bit myself, not much of course, for my circumstances would
not allow of it; I’ve a wife and family myself--and I have often been
wishful I could help her more, but what can a man do as has to pay
his rent and taxes, and bring up his family respectable? When her last
baby but two had the ring-worm we helped her now and then with a loaf
of bread--poor thing--it ran right through the family, that ring-worm
did--six on ’em had it at the same time, she told us--and then they
took the measles--the most unluckiest family in catching things as goes
about I never saw--but as to Mrs. Simmons herself, sir, poor thing--a
more hard-workinger and honester woman I never, &c., &c., &c.”
DISTRESSED OPERATIVE BEGGARS.
All beggars are ingenious enough to make capital of public events.
They read the newspapers, judge the bent of popular sympathy, and
decide on the “lay” to be adopted. The “Times” informs its readers
that two or three hundred English navigators have been suddenly turned
adrift in France. The native labourers object to the employment of
aliens, and our stalwart countrymen have been subjected to insult
as well as privation. The beggar’s course is taken; he goes to
Petticoat Lane, purchases a white smock frock, a purple or red plush
waistcoat profusely ornamented with wooden buttons, a coloured cotton
neckerchief, and a red nightcap. If procurable “in the Lane,” he also
buys a pair of coarse-ribbed grey worsted-stockings, and boots whose
enormous weight is increased by several pounds of iron nails in their
thick soles; even then he is not perfect, he seeks a rag and bottle
and old iron shop--your genuine artist-beggar never asks for what is
new, he prefers the worn, the used, the ragged and the rusty--and
bargains for a spade. The proprietor of the shop knows perfectly well
that his customer requires an article for show, not service, and they
part with a mutual grin, and the next day every street swarms with
groups of distressed navigators. Popular feeling is on their side, and
halfpence shower round them. Meanwhile the poor fellows for whom all
this generous indignation is evoked are waiting in crowds at a French
port till the British Consul passed them over to their native soil as
paupers.
The same tactics are pursued with manufactures. Beggars read the list
of patents, and watch the effect of every fresh discovery in mechanics
on the operatives of Lancashire and Yorkshire. A new machine is
patented. So many hands are thrown out of work. So many beggars, who
have never seen Lancashire, except when on the tramp, are heard in
London. A strike takes place at several mills, pretended “hands” next
day parade the streets. Even the variability of our climate is pressed
into the “cadging” service; a frost locks up the rivers, and hardens
the earth, rusty spades and gardening tools are in demand, and the
indefatigable beggar takes the pavement in another “fancy dress.” Every
social shipwreck is watched and turned to account by these systematic
land-wreckers, who have reduced false signals to a regular code, and
beg by rule and line and chart and compass.
STARVED-OUT MANUFACTURERS
parade in gangs of four and five, or with squalid wives and a few
children. They wear paper-caps and white aprons with “bibs” to them, or
a sort of cross-barred pinafore, called in the manufacturing districts
a “chequer-brat.” Sometimes they make a “pitch,” that is, stand face
to face, turning their backs upon a heartless world, and sing. The
well-known ditty of
“We are all the way from Manches-ter
And we’ve got no work to do!”
set to the tune of, “Oh let us be joyful,” was first introduced by
this class of beggars. Or they will carry tapes, stay-laces, and
papers of buttons, and throw imploring looks from side to side, and
beg by implication. Or they will cock their chins up in the air, so as
to display the unpleasantly prominent apples in their bony throats,
and drone a psalm. When they go out “on the blob,” they make a long
oration, not in the Lancashire or Yorkshire dialects, but in a cockney
voice, of a strong Whitechapel flavour. The substance of the speech
varies but slightly from the “patter” of the hand-loom weaver; indeed,
the Nottingham “driz” or lace-man, the hand on strike, the distressed
weaver, and the “operative” beggar, generally bear so strong a
resemblance to each other, that they not only look like but sometimes
positively _are_ one and the same person.
UNEMPLOYED AGRICULTURISTS and FROZEN-OUT GARDENERS
are seen during a frost in gangs of from six to twenty. Two gangs
generally “work” together, that is, while one gang begs at one end of
a street, a second gang begs at the other. Their mode of procedure
their “programme,” is very simple. Upon the spades which they carry
is chalked “frozen-out!” or “starving!” and they enhance the effect
of this “slum or fakement,” by shouting out sturdily “frozen out,”
“We’re all frozen-out!” The gardeners differ from the agriculturists
or “navvies” in their costume. They affect aprons and old straw hats,
their manner is less demonstrative, and their tones less rusty and
unmelodious. The “navvies” roar; the gardeners squeak. The navvies’
petition is made loud and lustily, as by men used to work in clay and
rock; the gardeners’ voice is meek and mild, as of a gentle nature
trained to tend on fruits and flowers. The young bulky, sinewy beggar
plays navvy; the shrivelled, gravelly, pottering, elderly cadger
performs gardener.
There can be no doubt that in times of hardship many honest labourers
are forced into the streets to beg. A poor hard-working man, whose
children cry to him for food, can feel no scruple in soliciting
charity,--against such the writer of these pages would urge nothing;
all credit to the motive that compels them unwillingly to ask alms; all
honour to the feeling that prompts the listener to give. It is not the
purpose of the author of this work to write down every mendicant an
impostor, or every almsgiver a fool; on the contrary, he knows how much
real distress, and how much real benevolence exist, and he would but
step between the open hand of true charity, and the itching palm of the
professional beggar, who stands between the misery that asks and the
philanthropy that would relieve.
The winter of 1860-61 was a fine harvest for the “frozen out”
impostors, some few of whom, happily, reaped the reward of their
deserts in the police-courts. Three strong hearty men were brought up
at one office; they said that they were starving, and they came from
Horselydown; when searched six shillings and elevenpence were found
upon them; they reiterated that they were starving and were out of
work, on which the sitting magistrate kindly provided them with both
food and employment, by sentencing them to seven days’ hard labour.
The “profits” of the frozen-out gardener and agriculturist are very
large, and generally quadruples the sum earned by honest labour. In
the February of 1861, four of these “distressed navvies” went into
a public-house to divide the “swag” they had procured by one day’s
shouting. Each had a handkerchief filled with bread and meat and
cheese. They called for pots of porter and drank heartily, and when the
reckoning was paid and the spoils equally divided, the share of each
man was seven shillings.
The credulity of the public upon one point has often surprised me.
A man comes out into the streets to say that he is starving, a few
halfpence are thrown to him. If really hungry he would make for the
nearest baker’s shop; but no, he picks up the coppers, pockets them,
and proclaims again that he is starving, though he has the means of
obtaining food in his fingers. Not that this obvious anachronism stops
the current of benevolence or the chink of coin upon the stones--the
fainting, famished fellow walks leisurely up the street, and still
bellows out in notes of thunder, “I am starving!” If one of my readers
will try when faint and exhausted to produce the same tone in the
open air, he will realize the impossibility of shouting and starving
simultaneously.
HAND-LOOM WEAVERS AND OTHERS DEPRIVED OF THEIR LIVING BY MACHINERY.
As has been before stated, the regular beggar seizes on the latest
pretext for a plausible tale of woe. Improvements in mechanics, and
consequent cheapness to the many, are usually the causes of loss to the
few. The sufferings of this minority is immediately turned to account
by veteran cadgers, who rush to their wardrobes of well-chosen rags,
attire themselves in appropriate costume, and ply their calling with
the last grievance out. When unprovided with “patter,” they seek the
literati of their class, and buy a speech; this they partly commit
to memory, and trust to their own ingenuity to improvise any little
touches that may prove effective. Many “screevers, slum-scribblers, and
fakement-dodgers” eke out a living by this sort of authorship. Real
operatives seldom stir from their own locality. The sympathy of their
fellows, their natural habits, and the occasional relief afforded by
the parish bind them to their homes, and the “distressed weaver” is
generally a spurious metropolitan production. The following is a copy
of one of their prepared orations:
“My kind Christian Friends,
“We are poor working-men from ---- which cannot obtain bread by
our labour, owing to the new alterations and inventions which the
master-manufacturers have introduced, which spares them the cost of
employing hands, and does the work by machinery instead. Yes, kind
friends, machinery and steam-engines now does the work, which formerly
was done by our hands and work and labour. Our masters have turned us
off, and we are without bread and knowing no other trade but that
which we was born and bred to, we are compelled to ask your kind
assistance, for which, be sure of it, we shall be ever grateful. As
we have said, masters now employs machinery and steam-engines instead
of men, forgetting that steam-engines have no families of wives or
children, and consequently are not called on to provide for them. We
are without bread to put into our mouths, also our wives and children
are the same. Foreign competition has drove our masters to this step,
and we working-men are the sufferers thereby. Kind friends, drop your
compassion on us: the smallest trifle will be thankfully received, and
God will bless you for the relief you give to us. May you never know
what it is to be as we are now, drove from our work, and forced to
come out into the streets to beg your charity from door to door. Have
pity on us, for our situation is most wretched. Our wives and families
are starving, our children cry to us for bread, and we have none to
give them. Oh, my friends, look down on us with compassion. We are
poor working-men, weavers from ---- which cannot obtain bread by our
labour owing to the new inventions in machinery, which, &c. &c. &c.”
In concluding this section of our work, I would commend to the notice
of my readers the following observations on alms-giving:--
The poor will never cease from the land. There always will be
exceptional excesses and outbreaks of distress that no plan could have
provided against, and there always will be those who stand with open
palm to receive, in the face of heaven, our tribute of gratitude for
our own happier lot. Yet there is a duty of the head as well as of
the heart, and we are bound as much to use our reason as to minister
of our abundance. The same heaven that has rewarded our labours, and
filled our garners or our coffers, or at least, given us favour in
the sight of merchants and bankers, has given us also brains, and
consequently a charge to employ them. So we are bound to sift appeals,
and consider how best to direct our benevolence. Whoever thinks that
charity consists in mere giving, and that he has only to put his hand
in his pocket, or draw a check in favour of somebody who is very much
in want of money, and looks very grateful for favours to be received,
will find himself taught better, if not in the school of adversity,
at least by many a hard lesson of kindness thrown away, or perhaps
very brutishly repaid. As animals have their habits, so there is a
large class of mankind whose single cleverness is that of representing
themselves as justly and naturally dependent on the assistance of
others, who look paupers from their birth, who seek givers and forsake
those who have given as naturally as a tree sends its roots into new
soil and deserts the exhausted. It is the office of reason--reason
improved by experience--to teach us not to waste our own interest and
our resources on beings that will be content to live on our bounty, and
will never return a moral profit to our charitable industry. The great
opportunities or the mighty powers that heaven may have given us, it
never meant to be lavished on mere human animals who eat, drink and
sleep, and whose only instinct is to find out a new caterer when the
old one is exhausted.
APPENDIX.
MAPS AND TABLES
ILLUSTRATING THE CRIMINAL STATISTICS OF EACH OF THE COUNTIES OF ENGLAND
AND WALES IN 1851.
PAGE
MAP SHOWING THE DENSITY OF THE POPULATION 451
Table of ditto 452
MAP SHOWING THE INTENSITY OF CRIMINALITY 455
Table of ditto 456
MAP SHOWING THE INTENSITY OF IGNORANCE 459
Table of ditto 460
Table of Ignorance among Criminals 462
Table of Relative Degrees of Criminality 464
Comparative Educational Tables 465
MAP SHOWING THE NUMBER OF ILLEGITIMATE CHILDREN 467
Table of ditto 468
MAP SHOWING THE NUMBER OF EARLY MARRIAGES 471
Table of ditto 472
MAP SHOWING THE NUMBER OF FEMALES 475
Table of ditto 476
MAP SHOWING COMMITTALS FOR RAPE 477
Table of ditto 479
MAP SHOWING COMMITTALS FOR CARNALLY ABUSING GIRLS 481
Table of ditto 482
MAP SHOWING COMMITTALS FOR DISORDERLY HOUSES 485
Table of ditto 486
MAP SHOWING CONCEALMENT OF BIRTHS 489
Table of ditto 490
MAP SHOWING ATTEMPTS AT MISCARRIAGE 493
Table of ditto 494
MAP SHOWING ASSAULTS WITH INTENT 497
Table of ditto 498
MAP SHOWING COMMITTALS FOR BIGAMY 499
Table of ditto 500
MAP SHOWING COMMITTALS FOR ABDUCTION 501
Table of ditto 502
MAP SHOWING THE CRIMINALITY OF FEMALES 503
Table of ditto 504
[Illustration: MAP SHOWING THE NUMBER OF PERSONS TO EVERY 100 ACRES; OR
THE DENSITY OF THE POPULATION IN EACH OF THE COUNTIES OF ENGLAND AND
WALES in 1851
⁂ The counties printed _black_ are those in which the Population is
_above_ the average density.
The counties left _white_ are those in which the Population is _below_
the average density.
The average has been calculated from the last returns of the
Registrar-General. ]
TABLE SHOWING THE DENSITY OF THE POPULATION IN THE DIFFERENT COUNTIES
IN ENGLAND AND WALES IN 1851.