The first census that I can recollect, if all the enumerators had the
experience I had, must have been a very incomplete and misleading return.
I was asked to take a section of four hundred forms to deliver, get
filled up and return, for which I was to receive one guinea, and for
every fifty beyond that number two shillings and sixpence, and as I was
told it would only take a few hours on the Saturday afternoon to deliver,
and the same on the Monday to collect, I thought it was pretty good pay.
But never any more! for it took me nearly three weeks to complete, and at
least two-thirds of the papers I had to worry out the particulars and
fill them up myself as best I could, for the people were very suspicious
and had a notion that the government had a sinister motive in getting
these returns. One was supposed to be that there was a conscription for
the army, and every able-bodied man was to serve, and another was that
they were going to introduce passports as they did on the continent, and
anything continental at that time was not at all popular.
I recollect the passing of the Reform Bill in '32, when there was a great
illumination, and gangs of men and boys went about breaking the windows
of all the houses that were not lit up. Nearly all the windows on one
side of Smith Street were broken. The illumination consisted of tallow
candles stuck in square lumps of clay, about six in each window. Chelsea
has always had a strong radical element, for during the agitation over
the Reform Bill, the Unionists had one or two meeting houses. There was
one in Leader Street, and another in Doyley Street, and in '48, the time
of the Chartists, one of the sections met on the Chelsea Common and
marched with their portion of the partisans to the great meeting on
Kennington Common, and returned in procession along the Kennington Road
to the Westminster Bridge. Here they were broken up by the police and
not allowed to proceed in procession, and the petition was sent on in two
four-wheeled cabs. There was great excitement, and it was generally
expected that there would be serious rioting. Great precautions were
taken, the military were all confined to barracks, and a large number of
artillery with their guns from Woolwich were drafted into London
overnight, and all the body of local reserve men--old soldiers with
pensions--were kept under arms, and 100,000 special constables were sworn
in.
The recruiting sergeant in Chelsea on Whitsun and Easter Mondays and
during the regatta was very active. There would be two or three smart
fellows from the cavalry with one or two young fellows, posing as
recruits, for decoys. The artillery sergeant would be in smart blue
uniform, and then came the regiments of the line. The decoys for the
latter were two or three smartly dressed girls of doubtful character.
Then came the East India Company sergeant, and last but not least came
the recruiting for the Spanish legion. They all had their gangs of
harpies and hangers on, as the sergeant spent money freely, every recruit
being worth five to six pounds to him. It was a common practice to get a
lad half drunk over night, and in the morning to bounce him that he had
enlisted, and there were always plenty to swear that he had done so. The
recruits for the Spanish legion were a rare motley crew, and would go
singing through the streets, half drunk, in gangs, that they were going
fighting for the Queen of Spain, and collect drink and money. A good
part of the crowd would be loafers and not recruits at all. The great
recruiting ground was along the riverside, and at the public houses along
the roads leading to the fair at Wandsworth, which was held on a piece of
land in the York Road, just beyond where Wandsworth Station now stands.
The recruits for the Spanish legion were a poor miserable lot, as they
were the refuse from the others. They would take them at any age, from
sixteen to fifty, and were not at all particular about size or health; in
fact, there is little doubt that lads of fourteen were sent out. They
used to assemble by Northumberland Passage, Charing Cross, and march in
gangs to Tower Hill to pass the Board of Commissioners that sat in a room
over a sailmaker's, and having passed, would go by steamboat to Gravesend
ready to embark; and it was generally asserted that they never shipped
above two-thirds of the recruits they enlisted. The balance would desert
and enlist again, and were assisted in so doing by the recruiting
sergeant.