A LONDON SLAVE MARKET.
There is a story called "Travellers' Wonders" in that volume which used
to be the delight of our childhood, when the rising generation was more
easily amused and not quite so wide-awake as at present. The point of
the narrative is, that a facetious old gentleman named Captain Compass
beguiles a group of juveniles--who must have been singularly gullible
even for those early days--by describing in mysterious and
alien-sounding terms the commonest home objects, such as coals, cheese,
butter, and so on. It would almost seem as though Hood must have been
perpetrating a kindred joke upon grown-up children when he wrote the
lines--
It's O to be a slave
Along with the barbarous Turk,
Where woman has never a soul to save,
If this is Christian Work!
Was he aware that here, in the heart of Christian London, without going
farther east than Bethnal Green, there had existed from time immemorial,
as there exists still, a genuine Slave Market? Such there is, and
actually so named; less romantic, indeed, than that we read of in "Don
Juan," or used to see on the Adelphi boards in the drama of the
"Octoroon"--but still interesting in its way to those who have a
penchant for that grotesque side of London life where the sublime and
the ridiculous sometimes blend so curiously.
With only the vague address of Bethnal Green and the date of Tuesday
morning to guide me, I set out for Worship Street Police Court, thinking
it possible to gain some further particulars from the police. I found
those functionaries civil, indeed, but disposed to observe even more
than official reticence about the Slave Market. They told me the
locality precisely enough, but were even more vague as to the hour than
my own impressions. In fact, the sum of what I could gain from them was,
in slightly Hibernian language, that there was nothing to see, and I
could see it any time on a Tuesday morning when I chose to go down White
Street, Bethnal Green. Leaving the Court and inquiring my route to White
Street, I found that it ran off to the right some way down the Bethnal
Green Road from Shoreditch Station. Having turned out of the main
thoroughfare, you proceed down one of those characteristic East End
streets where every small householder lives behind an elaborate bright
green door with portentous knocker, going on until an arch of the Great
Eastern Railway spans the road. Arriving at this point any time between
the hours of eight and half-past nine on a Monday or Tuesday morning,
you have no need to be told that this is the East London Slave
Market--supposing you knew such a thing as a slave market was to be seen
in East London at all.
There was, indeed, nothing resembling Byron's graphic description in
"Don Juan." Our English slaves were all apparently of one nation, and
there were no slave merchants. The hundred young ladies and gentlemen,
of all ages from seven to seventeen, were, as they would have expressed
it, "on their own hook." Ranged under the dead brick wall of the railway
arch, there was a generally mouldy appearance about them. Instead of a
picturesque difference of colour, there was on every visage simply a
greater or less degree of that peculiar neutral tint, the unmistakable
unlovely hue of London dirt. In this respect, too, they differed from
the fresh country lads and lasses one sees at a hiring in the North.
They were simply male and female City Arabs, with that superabundant
power of combining business and pleasure which characterizes their race.
The young gentlemen, in the intervals of business--and it seemed to be
all interval and no business--devoted themselves to games at buttons.
Each of the young ladies--I am afraid to say _how_ young--had her
cavalier, and applied herself to very pronounced flirtation. The
language of one and all certainly fulfilled the baptismal promise of
their sponsors, if the poor little waifs ever had any--for it was very
"vulgar tongue" indeed; and there was lots of it. The great sensation
of the morning was a broken window in an unoffending tradesman's shop--a
far from unusual occurrence, as I learnt from the sufferer. This led to
a slave hunt on the part of the single policeman who occasionally showed
himself to keep as quiet as might be the seething mass of humanity; and
the young lady or gentleman who was guilty of the damage was "off
market" for the morning--while the suffering tradesman was assailed with
a volley of abuse, couched in strongest Saxon, for meekly protesting
against the demolition of his window-pane.
The scene was most characteristic--very unlike the genteel West End
Servants' Registry, where young ladies and gentlemen's gentlemen saunter
in to find places with high wages and the work "put out." It was on
Tuesday morning, and a little late in the day, that I timed my visit;
and I was informed that the Market was somewhat flat. Certainly, one
could not apply to it the technicalities of the Stock Exchange, and say
that little boys were "dull," or girls, big or little, "inactive;" but
early on a Monday morning is, it appears, the time to see the Slave
Market in full swing. Strangely enough, so far as I could judge, it was
all slaves and no buyers--or, rather, hirers. I did not see the symptom
of a bargain being struck, though I was informed that a good many small
tradesmen do patronize the Market, for shop-boys, nurse-girls, or
household drudges. I do not know whether my appearance was particularly
attractive; but the number of offers I received from domestics of all
kinds would have sufficed to stock half-a-dozen establishments. "Want a
boy, sir?" "A girl for the childer, sir?" said the juveniles, while the
offers of the adult ladies were more emphatic and less quotable. All, of
course, was mere badinage, or, as they would have called it, "chaff,"
and it was meant good-humouredly enough; though, had I been a legitimate
hirer, I do not know that I should have been tempted to add to my
household from this source. Indeed, there were some not exactly pleasant
reflections cast on the Slave Market by those whom I consulted as to its
merits. It was not unusual, I was told, for slaves who were hired on a
Monday to turn up again on Tuesday morning, either from incompatibility
of temper on the part of domestic and superior, or from other causes
unexplained. Tuesday morning is, in fact, to a large extent, the mere
residuum either of Monday's unhired incapables, or of "returns." And
yet, as I looked around, I saw--as where does one not see?--some fair
young faces; girls who might have played with one's little children all
the better because they were so nearly children themselves; and boys of
preternatural quickness, up to any job, and capable of being useful--ay,
and even ornamental--members of society, if only that dreadful Bethnal
Green twang could have been eradicated. The abuse of the mother tongue
on the part even of these children was simply frightful. If this were so
in their playful moods, what--one could not help thinking--would it be
if any dispute arose on a contested point of domestic economy: as, for
instance, the too rapid disappearance of the cold mutton, or sudden
absence of master's boots?
There was a garrulous cobbler whose stall bordered on the Market, and
his panacea for all the evils the Slave Market brought with it was the
London School Board. "Why don't the officers come down and collar some
o' them youngsters, sir?" Why, indeed? At present the Slave Market is
undoubtedly a nuisance; but there is no reason why, under proper police
supervision, it should not become a local convenience. The ways of East
London differ in all respects from those of the West, and Servants'
Registries would not pay. Masters and servants are alike too poor to
advertise; and there seems to be no reason why the Slave Market, under a
changed name, and with improved regulations, may not as really supply a
want as the country "hirings" do. The Arab, at present, is not to be
trusted with too much liberty. Both male and female have odd Bedouin
ways of their own, requiring considerable and judicious manipulation to
mould them to the customs of civilized society. The respectable
residents, tired of the existing state of things, look not unreasonably,
as ratepayers, to the School Board to thin down the children, and the
police to keep the adults in order. Under such conditions, the Bethnal
Green Slave Market may yet become a useful institution.