The subjects of the next two plates are unfortunate mendicants. The
first is a silver-haired man, of the name of Lilly, who lost his leg in
some repairs at Westminster. Poets' Corner, in the Abbey, is the place
where he is mostly to be seen.
[Illustration: PLATE XXIII.
"Lilly," who lost his leg in some repairs at Westminster. Mostly to be
seen at Poets' Corner in the Abbey.]
The second plate is the portrait of William Frasier, deprived of both
his hands in the field of battle. His allowance as a maimed soldier not
being sufficient to maintain his large family, he is obliged to depend
on the benevolence of such of the public who purchase boot-laces of him.
When this poor fellow's portrait was taken, he lodged in Market Lane, in
the house formerly occupied by Torre, the print-seller, who was the
original fireworker at Mary-le-bone Gardens.
[Illustration: PLATE XXIV.
William Frasier, deprived of both his hands in the field of battle.
Maintains his family by the sale of boot-laces.]
London has of late been gradually losing many of its old street customs,
particularly that pleasing one of the milkmaid's garland, so richly
decorated with articles of silver and bunches of cowslips. The garland
was of a pyramidal form, and placed upon a horse carried by two
chairmen, adorned with ribbons and tulips. The plate consisted of pint
mugs, quart tankards, and large dishes, sometimes to the value of five
hundred pounds, hired of silversmiths for the purpose. The milkwoman and
her pretty maids, in their Nancy Dawson petticoats, would dance to the
fiddler's jigs of "Paddy O'Rafferty," or "Off she goes," before the
doors of their customers; but now, instead of this innocent scene of
May-day gaiety, the streets are infested by such fellows as the one
exhibited in the adjoining plate, who have been dismissed, perhaps for
their indecent conduct, from the public places of entertainment. These
men hire old dresses, and join the Chimney Sweeper's, Cinder-sifter's,
or Bunter's Garland, or Jack in the Green, &c., and exhibit all sorts of
grimace and ribaldry to extort money from their numerous admirers.
[Illustration: PLATE XXV.
May-Day Gaiety.--These men hire old dresses, and join the
Cinder-sifter's or Bunter's Garland, or Jack in the Green, &c., and
exhibit all sorts of grimace and ribaldry, to extort money from their
numerous admirers.]
Few persons, particularly those in elevated life, can witness, or even
entertain a true idea of the various modes by which the lowest classes
gain a livelihood. It is scarcely to be believed that some few years ago
a woman, of the name of Smith, regularly went over London early in the
morning, to strike out the teeth of dead dogs that had been stolen and
killed for the sake of their skins. These teeth she sold to bookbinders,
carvers, and gilders, as burnishing tools.
There are women who, on Sunday mornings when there are no carts about,
frequent Thames Street, and the adjoining lanes inhabited by Lisbon
merchants, to pick up from the kennels the refuse of lemons, after they
have been squeezed for their juice. These they sell to the Jew
distillers, who extract a further portion of liquor, and thus afford
them the means of selling, at a considerably reduced price, lemon drops
to the lower order of confectioners.
It is seldom that the common beggars eat the food given to them; and it
is a well-known fact, that they sell their broken bread to the lowest
order of the biscuit bakers, who grind it for the purpose of making
"tops and bottoms," &c.
This was also the practice in former days, as appears in an old ballad,
from which the following is an extract:--
THE BEGGAR'S WEDDING;
OR, THE JOVIAL CREW.
_Printed with allowance, October 19, 1676._
"Then Tom a Bedlam winds his horn at best,
Their trumpet 'twas to bring away their feast;
Pickt marybones they had, found in the street,
Carrots kickt out of kennels with their feet;
Crusts gathered up for bisket, twice so dry'd;
Alms-tubs, and olla podridas, beside
Many such dishes more; but it would cumber
Any to name them, more than I can number.
Then comes the banquet, which must never fail,
That the town gave, of whitebread and strong ale.
All were so tipsie, that they could not go,
And yet would dance, and cry'd for music hoe:
With tonges and gridirons they were play'd unto,
And blind men sung, as they are us'd to do.
Some whistled, and some hollow sticks did sound,
And so melodiously they play around:
Lame men, lame women, manfully cry advance,
And so, all limping, jovially did dance."
Some women gain a living by going from house to house and begging
phials. They pretend that they have an order for medicines at the
dispensary, for their dear husband, or only child, but know not in what
way to get it without a bottle, as they are obliged to take one of their
own; at the same time, some will beg white linen rags to dress wounds
with. These they soon turn into money at the old iron shops,--the
"dealers in marine stores."
Those who beg old shoes, such as Grannee Manoo, make as much as six or
seven shillings a day. They sell them to the people who live in cellars
in Monmouth Street, or stalls in Food and Raiment Alley, Rosemary Lane,
&c. These persons give them new soles, and are called Translators. In
Mountsorrel, Leicestershire, a cobbler of the name of Bates styles
himself a translator.
The plate of two Bone-pickers is the next to be described. The
physiognomy of the fellow who is stitching patches together to tack to
his coat, which consists of some hundreds of bits of old velvet,
carpets, &c., would baffle the skill of either Lavater or Spurzheim; it
has the mixture of the idiot, the goat, and the bull-dog. Such a visage
might have been useful to Spagnolet, or his pupil Salvator. In order to
discover a few of the habits of this character, he was followed for
several hours through many streets, alleys, and courts, in the parish of
St Martin's in the Fields. On his arrival at Moor's Yard, which is said
to have been a place for the execution of public criminals in early
times, he was accused of stealing door mats, and with some difficulty
extricated his tatters from the tugs of a couple of dogs. In Hartshorn
Lane, in the Strand, at one time the residence of Ben Jonson, he was
seen to take up a brick, and throw it at two curs fighting for a bone,
which he picked up and put into his bag. These bones are bought by the
burners at Haggerstone, Shoreditch, and Battlebridge, at two shillings
per bushel, in which half a bushel is given over, that being bone
measure.
[Illustration: PLATE XXVI.
Two bone-pickers, one of them stitching patches together to tack to his
coat.]
Bill Row and John Taylor, two grubbers, are introduced in the next
plate. These men, with Stephen Lloyd, form the sum total of their
description in London. They procure a livelihood by whatever they find
in grubbing out the dirt from between the stones with a crooked bit of
iron, in search of nails that fall from horse-shoes, which are allowed
to be the best iron that can be made use of for gun-barrels; and though
the streets are constantly looked over at the dawn of day by a set of
men in search of sticks, handkerchiefs, shawls, &c., that may have been
dropped during the night, yet these grubbers now and then find rings
that have been drawn off with the gloves, or small money that has been
washed by the showers between the stones. These men are frequently
employed to clear gully-holes and common sewers, the stench of which is
so great that their breath becomes pestilential; and its noxious quality
on one occasion had so powerful an effect on a man of the name of Dixie,
as to deprive him of two of his senses, smelling and tasting, and yet
Ned Flowers followed this calling for forty years.
[Illustration: PLATE XXVII.