But there is still a more wretched class of beings than the grubbers,
who never know the comfort of dry clothes,--they are, like the leech,
perpetually in water. The occupation of these draggle-tail wretches
commences on the banks of the Thames at low water. They go up to their
knees in mud, to pick up the coals that fall from the barges when at the
wharfs. Their flesh and dripping rags are like the coals they carry in
small bags across their shoulders, and which they dispose of, at a
reduced price, to the meanest order of chandler-shop retailers.
The environs produce characters equally curious with those of London,
particularly among that order of people called Simplers, whose business
it is to gather and supply the city markets with physical herbs. Such an
innocent instance of rustic simplicity is William Friday, whose portrait
is exhibited in the following plate. This man starts from Croydon, with
champignons, mushrooms, &c., and is alternately snail-picker,
leech-bather, and viper-catcher.
[Illustration: PLATE XXVIII.
William Finley,--is alternately snail-picker, leech-bather, and
viper-catcher.]
The man whose portrait is given in the succeeding plate, mimics the
notes of the common English birds by means of a folded bit of tin,
similar to that used by Mr Punch's orator, and which is held between the
teeth; but in order to engage the attention of the credulous, he
pretends, as his lips are nearly closed, to draw his tones from two
tobacco-pipes, using one for the fiddle, the other for the bow, and
never fails to collect an attentive audience, either in the street or
tap-room.
[Illustration: PLATE XXIX.
Street musician, who mimics the notes of the common English birds by
means of a folded bit of tin, which is held between the teeth; but in
order to engage the attention of the credulous, he pretends to draw his
tones from two tobacco pipes.]
Musicians of this description were at one time very numerous. Gravelot,
when he kept a drawing-school in the Strand, made sketches of several.
One particularly picturesque, was of a blind chaunter of the old ballads
of "There was a wealthy Lawyer," or "O Brave Nell," and has been
admirably etched by Miller. This man accompanied his voice by playing
upon a catgut string drawn over a bladder, and tied at both ends of a
mop-stick; but the boys continually perplexing him by pricking his
bladder, and a pampered prodigal having with a sword let out all his
wind, he fortunately hit upon a mode of equally charming the ear by
substituting a tin tea-canister.
[Illustration: PLATE XXX.
A blind chaunter of the old ballads, who accompanied his voice by
playing upon a catgut string drawn over a tea canister, and tied at both
ends of a mop stick.]
Thomas King, a most excellent painter of conversation-scenes, who lived
at the time of Hogarth, and assisted him in his large pictures of Paul
before Felix in Lincoln's Inn Hall, and the Good Samaritan in
Bartholomew's Hospital, has left portraits of several of these singular
beings,--such as Maddox, the balancer of a straw; but particularly that
of Matthew Skeggs, who played a concerto upon a broomstick, in the
character of Signor Bumbasto, at the little theatre in the Haymarket.
These portraits have been engraved by Houston. That of Skeggs was
published by himself, at the sign of the Hoop and Bunch of Grapes, in St
Alban's Street, now a part of Waterloo Place. Since their time, Mr
Meadows, the comedian, has been particularly famous for his imitations
of birds; and some of the lowest description of street vagabonds have
produced tones by playing upon their chins with their knuckles. Another
hero of the knuckle, was the famous Buckhorse, the friend of Ned Shuter,
and who formerly sold sticks in Covent Garden. This fellow grew so
callous to the blow of the knuckle, as to place his head firmly against
a wall, and suffer, for a shilling, any wretch to strike him with his
doubled fist, with all his strength, in his face, which became at last
more like a Good-Friday bun than any thing human. Of this man there are
many portraits.
Of Scottish, Welsh, and Irish mendicants there are now very few in
London; perhaps their full number does not exceed fifty, unless by
including that lower order of street-musicians who so frequently
distract the harmonious ear with their droning bag-pipes, screaming
clarionets, and crazy harps. These people, with match, tooth-pick, and
cotton-ball venders, may be considered but as one remove from beggary.
The lowest class of the Scotch are bakers' men; the women are
laundresses. The Welshmen, of whom London never had many, are
principally employed by the potters of Lambeth, at which place they have
an old established house of worship. It is a cheerful sight to behold
their women, who are remarkable for their cleanliness, and, like the
Scotch, are generally pictures of vigorous health. These will go in
trains of twenty or thirty persons, from Hammersmith to Covent Garden
Market, joining in one national melody, and perfuming the air with their
baskets of ripe strawberries.
Of all people the poor Irish are the most anxious to gain employment,
and are truly valuable examples of industry. They sleep less than other
labourers; for at the dawn of day they assemble in flocks at their usual
stands for hire,--namely, Whitechapel, Queen Street, Cheapside, and on
the spot formerly occupied by St Giles's pound, at the ends of Oxford
Street and Tottenham Court Road. The most laborious of them are
chairmen, paviers, bricklayers' labourers, potato-gatherers, and
basket-men; and, to the eternal disgrace of the commonalty of the
English, these people, as well as the Scotch and Welsh, are guilty of
very few excesses, particularly in that odious practice of drinking, a
vice so much increased by the accommodation of seats in gin-shops, which
are the first opened and last shut in London.
The Irish carry immense loads. A hod of bricks, weighing one hundred and
ten pounds, is carried one hundred and twenty times at least in the
course of the day, and sometimes up a ladder of the height of five
stories, and all for two shillings and ninepence per day. The pavier's
rammer, of more than half a hundred weight, is raised not fewer than two
thousand times in the course of the day. _What Englishman could do
this?_ With respect to loads on the head, the Irish surpass all others.
Leary makes nothing of carrying two hundred weight from the Fox under
the Hill, near the Adelphi, to Covent Garden, many times on a market
morning; and yet, extraordinary as this may appear, his feats have been
more than equalled by a female. A man of the name of Eglesfield, who has
sold flowers in Covent Garden for the last thirty-six years, knew an
Irish girl who would often walk under the weight of two hundred pounds.
He declares that she brought a load of one hundred and a half from
Newgate Market to Covent Garden on her head, without once pitching,
though it must be observed that this was not potato-weight, which has
always one hundred and twenty-six pounds to the hundred.
The following woodcut represents the humane manner in which cripples are
conveyed from door to door in many parts of Ireland. The following
description has been kindly furnished to the Author by a friend, who has
frequently assisted in the conveyance, and takes no ordinary interest in
the condition of the poor.
[Illustration]
In the country parts of Ireland, beggars are treated with great
tenderness and pious hospitality. Many of them are recognised as
descended from ancient and powerful septs, which decayed in the
revolutions of property and influence. During many years after the
invasion of King Henry, the houses of hospitality (so amply described in
Sir John Davis's Tracts) which were established by the Chiefs for their
poor relations and the traveller, were still kept open; and to this
hour, some gentry and farmers provide the itinerant beggars with a bed
as well as food. The alms are generally given in meal, flax, wool, milk,
or potatoes, but seldom in money, except in cities or towns. After
receiving a night's lodging or alms, long and devout prayers are
distinctly uttered at the door of the benefactor. Like the players in
Hamlet, they are the brief chronicles of the times, and their praises of
the good frequently contribute to matrimonial connections. In some parts
of the country the beggars have a particular day in the week for
appearing abroad, when they are plentifully supplied for the remaining
six; and those who, from loss of limbs, or other infirmity, are unable
to walk, are seated upon barrows, and carried or wheeled from door to
door, by the servants of each house or the casual passenger, an act of
piety which is not unfrequently performed by members of respectable
families. The beggars are seen in crowds near places of Catholic
worship, or pilgrimage, and many of them are distinguished for great
piety and temperance. The English traveller is sometimes surprised at
seeing a venerable figure, clothed in a hair-cloth shirt or tunic,
repeating his orisons on the side of a road, with naked shivering limbs,
and a beard which for years has been unconscious of a razor. Yet in
Ireland, as in other places, there are pretended objects, and beggars
who misapply the benefactions of the charitable. They receive no
interruption from the police, except in Dublin, where a large close cart
frequently returns to the workhouse full of discontented mendicants, who
have an extraordinary aversion to restraint upon their freedom, or
compulsion to attend the established worship, which is generally
different from their own.
This class of the Irish are by no means unacquainted with the use of wit
and waggery. The celebrated Dr O'Leary used to entertain his friends
with some instances of their ingenuity. As he was riding to Maynooth
College, a beggar accosted him for alms, declaring that he had not
received a farthing for three days. The good Doctor gave him some
silver, and being accosted on his return, in the evening, with a similar
story, he upbraided the petitioner with his falsehood, telling him that
he was Dr O'Leary. "Oh, long life to your reverence," said the beggar,
"who would I tell my lies to, except my clargy?"
The parts in and near London mostly inhabited by the Irish poor, are
Calmel Buildings, Orchard Street; Petty France, Westminster; Paddy's
Land, near Plaistow; forty houses on the Rumford Road; and in the parish
of St Giles in the Fields. This latter place, which is their principal
residence, is called their colony, and is styled by them "The Holy
Land;" in the centre of it there is a mass of building called "Rats'
Castle."
In the time of Queen Elizabeth, St Giles's was the rendezvous of the
beggars; for in "A Caveat, or Warning, for Common Cursitors, vulgarely
called Vagabones, set forth by Thomas Harman, Esquire," 1567, it appears
that Nicoles Genynges, the cranke, went over "the water into St George's
fields," and not, according to the expectation of Mr Harman, who caused
him to be dogged, toward Holborn, or St Giles's in the Fields.
It appears from a very early plan of St Giles's in the Fields, in the
possession of Mr Parton, vestry clerk of that parish, that the lowest
class of its inhabitants live on a portion of sixteen acres formerly
called "Pittaunce Croft" (the allowance), which extended from a large
mansion called Tottenhall, the fragments of which were of late supposed
to have been parts of a palace of King John; they have been recently
taken down. This house of Tottenhall was formerly inhabited by a
Prebendary of St Paul's; it stood on the north side of that part of the
road called "Tottenham Court," leading from the north end of Tottenham
Court Road to Battle Bridge. The sixteen acres commenced from the above
house, and went on southerly to St Giles's Church, and from thence
easterly along the north side of the High Street to Red Lion Fields (now
Red Lion Square).
The streets, lanes, alleys, and courts, forming the nest of houses
inhabited by thieves, beggars, and the poor labouring Irish, are
encompassed by a portion of the south side of Russell Street, formerly
called Leonard Street, commencing from Tottenham Court Road, parts of
the west sides of Charlotte and Plumtree Streets, and a part of the
north and round the east of High Street to the first mentioned station
of Russell Street. To the honour of Scotland, not one Scotch beggar is
to be found in the dregs or lees of St Giles's. However wretched and
depraved the inhabitants of this spot may now be, they certainly were
worse fifty years ago, for it appears that there was then no honour
among thieves; the sheets belonging to the lodging-houses, where a bed
at that time was procured for twopence, having the names of the owners
painted on them in large characters of red lead, in order to prevent
their being bought if stolen,--as for instance,
JOHN LEA,
LAWRENCE LANE.
STOP THIEF.
At the same period, the shovels, pokers, tongs, gridirons, and purl pots
of the public-houses, particularly those of the Maidenhead Inn, in Dyott
Street (now changed to George Street), and which was then kept by a man
of the name of Jordan, were all chained to the fire-place. At this house
the beggars, after a good day's maunding, would bleed the dragon, a
large silver tankard so called, and which was to be filled with punch
only. There is now a house, the sign of the Rose and Crown, in Church
Lane, which was formerly called the Beggars' Opera; and there was
another house so denominated, the sign of the Weaver's Arms, in Church
Lane, Whitechapel.
The last cook-shop where the knives and forks were chained to the table,
was on the south side of High Street. It was kept about forty years ago
by a man of the name of Fussell.
Perhaps the only waggery in public-house customs now remaining, is in
the tap-room of the Apple Tree, opposite to Cold Bath Fields Prison.
There are a pair of handcuffs fastened to the wires as bell-pulls, and
the orders given by some of the company, when they wish their friends to
ring, are, to "agitate the conductor."
Most of the kitchens in High Street, from St Giles's Church to the
entrance of Holborn, were sausage, sheep's head, roley poley pudding,
pancake, and potatoe cellars. The last heroine of the frying-pan
exhibited a short nose and shining red face, and was known by the
appellation of "Little Fanny." She had fried and boiled for Mrs Markham,
now living in the same house, thirty-three years. Her face had become so
ardent by frequent wipings, that for many years it would not bear a
touch.
It was the opinion of Sir Nathaniel Conant, when that able and active
magistrate attended the Committee of the House of Commons, that
extensive as mendicity has been of late, it is by no means to be
compared with what it was thirty years ago.
It is very obvious that since the proceedings of the Committee for
inquiring into the state of mendicity, the common beggars have decreased
considerably in their numbers; and although they are still extremely
numerous, it appears that where our wonderful Metropolis is molested
with one beggar, there are twenty to be met with in almost every capital
on the continent.
England, justly claiming the palm for the encouragement of every art and
science, has ever been foremost in almsgiving, not only to her own
people, but to those of almost every part of the globe. Nor can any
other country boast such parochial poorhouses. The vast improvements of
the streets and public edifices, great as they are, by no means keep
pace with them either as to comfort or expense, of which Marylebone and
Pancras are examples; and to the honour of these parishes, as well as
that of St James, their concerns are regulated, examined, and audited by
independent characters of the highest integrity.
Notwithstanding the great benefit of these asylums for the destitute,
and the laws for the punishment of beggars, the sympathetic heart of the
true Christian, a character unpolluted by the cant of crafty sectarists,
is ever open to the tale of the distressed, from a respect for that
excellent doctrine of St Paul, that