Of the numerous receptacles for misery and distress with which the
streets of London unhappily abound, there are, perhaps, none which
present such striking scenes as the pawnbrokers’ shops. The very nature
and description of these places occasions their being but little known,
except to the unfortunate beings whose profligacy or misfortune drives
them to seek the temporary relief they offer. The subject may appear,
at first sight, to be anything but an inviting one, but we venture on
it nevertheless, in the hope that, as far as the limits of our present
paper are concerned, it will present nothing to disgust even the most
fastidious reader.
There are some pawnbrokers’ shops of a very superior description. There
are grades in pawning as in everything else, and distinctions must be
observed even in poverty. The aristocratic Spanish cloak and the
plebeian calico shirt, the silver fork and the flat iron, the muslin
cravat and the Belcher neckerchief, would but ill assort together; so,
the better sort of pawnbroker calls himself a silver-smith, and
decorates his shop with handsome trinkets and expensive jewellery,
while the more humble money-lender boldly advertises his calling, and
invites observation. It is with pawnbrokers’ shops of the latter class,
that we have to do. We have selected one for our purpose, and will
endeavour to describe it.
The pawnbroker’s shop is situated near Drury-Lane, at the corner of a
court, which affords a side entrance for the accommodation of such
customers as may be desirous of avoiding the observation of the
passers-by, or the chance of recognition in the public street. It is a
low, dirty-looking, dusty shop, the door of which stands always
doubtfully, a little way open: half inviting, half repelling the
hesitating visitor, who, if he be as yet uninitiated, examines one of
the old garnet brooches in the window for a minute or two with affected
eagerness, as if he contemplated making a purchase; and then looking
cautiously round to ascertain that no one watches him, hastily slinks
in: the door closing of itself after him, to just its former width. The
shop front and the window-frames bear evident marks of having been once
painted; but, what the colour was originally, or at what date it was
probably laid on, are at this remote period questions which may be
asked, but cannot be answered. Tradition states that the transparency
in the front door, which displays at night three red balls on a blue
ground, once bore also, inscribed in graceful waves, the words ‘Money
advanced on plate, jewels, wearing apparel, and every description of
property,’ but a few illegible hieroglyphics are all that now remain to
attest the fact. The plate and jewels would seem to have disappeared,
together with the announcement, for the articles of stock, which are
displayed in some profusion in the window, do not include any very
valuable luxuries of either kind. A few old china cups; some modern
vases, adorned with paltry paintings of three Spanish cavaliers playing
three Spanish guitars; or a party of boors carousing: each boor with
one leg painfully elevated in the air, by way of expressing his perfect
freedom and gaiety; several sets of chessmen, two or three flutes, a
few fiddles, a round-eyed portrait staring in astonishment from a very
dark ground; some gaudily-bound prayer-books and testaments, two rows
of silver watches quite as clumsy and almost as large as Ferguson’s
first; numerous old-fashioned table and tea spoons, displayed,
fan-like, in half-dozens; strings of coral with great broad gilt snaps;
cards of rings and brooches, fastened and labelled separately, like the
insects in the British Museum; cheap silver penholders and snuff-boxes,
with a masonic star, complete the jewellery department; while five or
six beds in smeary clouded ticks, strings of blankets and sheets, silk
and cotton handkerchiefs, and wearing apparel of every description,
form the more useful, though even less ornamental, part, of the
articles exposed for sale. An extensive collection of planes, chisels,
saws, and other carpenters’ tools, which have been pledged, and never
redeemed, form the foreground of the picture; while the large frames
full of ticketed bundles, which are dimly seen through the dirty
casement up-stairs—the squalid neighbourhood—the adjoining houses,
straggling, shrunken, and rotten, with one or two filthy,
unwholesome-looking heads thrust out of every window, and old red pans
and stunted plants exposed on the tottering parapets, to the manifest
hazard of the heads of the passers-by—the noisy men loitering under the
archway at the corner of the court, or about the gin-shop next door—and
their wives patiently standing on the curb-stone, with large baskets of
cheap vegetables slung round them for sale, are its immediate
auxiliaries.
If the outside of the pawnbroker’s shop be calculated to attract the
attention, or excite the interest, of the speculative pedestrian, its
interior cannot fail to produce the same effect in an increased degree.
The front door, which we have before noticed, opens into the common
shop, which is the resort of all those customers whose habitual
acquaintance with such scenes renders them indifferent to the
observation of their companions in poverty. The side door opens into a
small passage from which some half-dozen doors (which may be secured on
the inside by bolts) open into a corresponding number of little dens,
or closets, which face the counter. Here, the more timid or respectable
portion of the crowd shroud themselves from the notice of the
remainder, and patiently wait until the gentleman behind the counter,
with the curly black hair, diamond ring, and double silver watch-guard,
shall feel disposed to favour them with his notice—a consummation which
depends considerably on the temper of the aforesaid gentleman for the
time being.
At the present moment, this elegantly-attired individual is in the act
of entering the duplicate he has just made out, in a thick book: a
process from which he is diverted occasionally, by a conversation he is
carrying on with another young man similarly employed at a little
distance from him, whose allusions to ‘that last bottle of soda-water
last night,’ and ‘how regularly round my hat he felt himself when the
young ’ooman gave ’em in charge,’ would appear to refer to the
consequences of some stolen joviality of the preceding evening. The
customers generally, however, seem unable to participate in the
amusement derivable from this source, for an old sallow-looking woman,
who has been leaning with both arms on the counter with a small bundle
before her, for half an hour previously, suddenly interrupts the
conversation by addressing the jewelled shopman—‘Now, Mr. Henry, do
make haste, there’s a good soul, for my two grandchildren’s locked up
at home, and I’m afeer’d of the fire.’ The shopman slightly raises his
head, with an air of deep abstraction, and resumes his entry with as
much deliberation as if he were engraving. ‘You’re in a hurry, Mrs.
Tatham, this ev’nin’, an’t you?’ is the only notice he deigns to take,
after the lapse of five minutes or so. ‘Yes, I am indeed, Mr. Henry;
now, do serve me next, there’s a good creetur. I wouldn’t worry you,
only it’s all along o’ them botherin’ children.’ ‘What have you got
here?’ inquires the shopman, unpinning the bundle—‘old concern, I
suppose—pair o’ stays and a petticut. You must look up somethin’ else,
old ’ooman; I can’t lend you anything more upon them; they’re
completely worn out by this time, if it’s only by putting in, and
taking out again, three times a week.’ ‘Oh! you’re a rum un, you are,’
replies the old woman, laughing extremely, as in duty bound; ‘I wish
I’d got the gift of the gab like you; see if I’d be up the spout so
often then! No, no; it an’t the petticut; it’s a child’s frock and a
beautiful silk ankecher, as belongs to my husband. He gave four
shillin’ for it, the werry same blessed day as he broke his arm.’—‘What
do you want upon these?’ inquires Mr. Henry, slightly glancing at the
articles, which in all probability are old acquaintances. ‘What do you
want upon these?’—‘Eighteenpence.’—‘Lend you ninepence.’—‘Oh, make it a
shillin’; there’s a dear—do now?’—‘Not another farden.’—‘Well, I
suppose I must take it.’ The duplicate is made out, one ticket pinned
on the parcel, the other given to the old woman; the parcel is flung
carelessly down into a corner, and some other customer prefers his
claim to be served without further delay.
The choice falls on an unshaven, dirty, sottish-looking fellow, whose
tarnished paper-cap, stuck negligently over one eye, communicates an
additionally repulsive expression to his very uninviting countenance.
He was enjoying a little relaxation from his sedentary pursuits a
quarter of an hour ago, in kicking his wife up the court. He has come
to redeem some tools:—probably to complete a job with, on account of
which he has already received some money, if his inflamed countenance
and drunken staggers may be taken as evidence of the fact. Having
waited some little time, he makes his presence known by venting his
ill-humour on a ragged urchin, who, being unable to bring his face on a
level with the counter by any other process, has employed himself in
climbing up, and then hooking himself on with his elbows—an uneasy
perch, from which he has fallen at intervals, generally alighting on
the toes of the person in his immediate vicinity. In the present case,
the unfortunate little wretch has received a cuff which sends him
reeling to this door; and the donor of the blow is immediately the
object of general indignation.
‘What do you strike the boy for, you brute?’ exclaims a slipshod woman,
with two flat irons in a little basket. ‘Do you think he’s your wife,
you willin?’ ‘Go and hang yourself!’ replies the gentleman addressed,
with a drunken look of savage stupidity, aiming at the same time a blow
at the woman which fortunately misses its object. ‘Go and hang
yourself; and wait till I come and cut you down.’—‘Cut you down,’
rejoins the woman, ‘I wish I had the cutting of you up, you wagabond!
(loud.) Oh! you precious wagabond! (rather louder.) Where’s your wife,
you willin? (louder still; women of this class are always sympathetic,
and work themselves into a tremendous passion on the shortest notice.)
Your poor dear wife as you uses worser nor a dog—strike a woman—you a
man! (very shrill;) I wish I had you—I’d murder you, I would, if I died
for it!’—‘Now be civil,’ retorts the man fiercely. ‘Be civil, you
wiper!’ ejaculates the woman contemptuously. ‘An’t it shocking?’ she
continues, turning round, and appealing to an old woman who is peeping
out of one of the little closets we have before described, and who has
not the slightest objection to join in the attack, possessing, as she
does, the comfortable conviction that she is bolted in. ‘Ain’t it
shocking, ma’am? (Dreadful! says the old woman in a parenthesis, not
exactly knowing what the question refers to.) He’s got a wife, ma’am,
as takes in mangling, and is as ’dustrious and hard-working a young
’ooman as can be, (very fast) as lives in the back parlour of our ’ous,
which my husband and me lives in the front one (with great
rapidity)—and we hears him a beaten’ on her sometimes when he comes
home drunk, the whole night through, and not only a beaten’ her, but
beaten’ his own child too, to make her more miserable—ugh, you beast!
and she, poor creater, won’t swear the peace agin him, nor do nothin’,
because she likes the wretch arter all—worse luck!’ Here, as the woman
has completely run herself out of breath, the pawnbroker himself, who
has just appeared behind the counter in a gray dressing-gown, embraces
the favourable opportunity of putting in a word:—‘Now I won’t have none
of this sort of thing on my premises!’ he interposes with an air of
authority. ‘Mrs. Mackin, keep yourself to yourself, or you don’t get
fourpence for a flat iron here; and Jinkins, you leave your ticket here
till you’re sober, and send your wife for them two planes, for I won’t
have you in my shop at no price; so make yourself scarce, before I make
you scarcer.’
This eloquent address produces anything but the effect desired; the
women rail in concert; the man hits about him in all directions, and is
in the act of establishing an indisputable claim to gratuitous lodgings
for the night, when the entrance of his wife, a wretched, worn-out
woman, apparently in the last stage of consumption, whose face bears
evident marks of recent ill-usage, and whose strength seems hardly
equal to the burden—light enough, God knows!—of the thin, sickly child
she carries in her arms, turns his cowardly rage in a safer direction.
‘Come home, dear,’ cries the miserable creature, in an imploring tone;
‘_do_ come home, there’s a good fellow, and go to bed.’—‘Go home
yourself,’ rejoins the furious ruffian. ‘Do come home quietly,’ repeats
the wife, bursting into tears. ‘Go home yourself,’ retorts the husband
again, enforcing his argument by a blow which sends the poor creature
flying out of the shop. Her ‘natural protector’ follows her up the
court, alternately venting his rage in accelerating her progress, and
in knocking the little scanty blue bonnet of the unfortunate child over
its still more scanty and faded-looking face.
In the last box, which is situated in the darkest and most obscure
corner of the shop, considerably removed from either of the gas-lights,
are a young delicate girl of about twenty, and an elderly female,
evidently her mother from the resemblance between them, who stand at
some distance back, as if to avoid the observation even of the shopman.
It is not their first visit to a pawnbroker’s shop, for they answer
without a moment’s hesitation the usual questions, put in a rather
respectful manner, and in a much lower tone than usual, of ‘What name
shall I say?—Your own property, of course?—Where do you
live?—Housekeeper or lodger?’ They bargain, too, for a higher loan than
the shopman is at first inclined to offer, which a perfect stranger
would be little disposed to do; and the elder female urges her daughter
on, in scarcely audible whispers, to exert her utmost powers of
persuasion to obtain an advance of the sum, and expatiate on the value
of the articles they have brought to raise a present supply upon. They
are a small gold chain and a ‘Forget me not’ ring: the girl’s property,
for they are both too small for the mother; given her in better times;
prized, perhaps, once, for the giver’s sake, but parted with now
without a struggle; for want has hardened the mother, and her example
has hardened the girl, and the prospect of receiving money, coupled
with a recollection of the misery they have both endured from the want
of it—the coldness of old friends—the stern refusal of some, and the
still more galling compassion of others—appears to have obliterated the
consciousness of self-humiliation, which the idea of their present
situation would once have aroused.
In the next box, is a young female, whose attire, miserably poor, but
extremely gaudy, wretchedly cold, but extravagantly fine, too plainly
bespeaks her station. The rich satin gown with its faded trimmings, the
worn-out thin shoes, and pink silk stockings, the summer bonnet in
winter, and the sunken face, where a daub of rouge only serves as an
index to the ravages of squandered health never to be regained, and
lost happiness never to be restored, and where the practised smile is a
wretched mockery of the misery of the heart, cannot be mistaken. There
is something in the glimpse she has just caught of her young neighbour,
and in the sight of the little trinkets she has offered in pawn, that
seems to have awakened in this woman’s mind some slumbering
recollection, and to have changed, for an instant, her whole demeanour.
Her first hasty impulse was to bend forward as if to scan more minutely
the appearance of her half-concealed companions; her next, on seeing
them involuntarily shrink from her, to retreat to the back of the box,
cover her face with her hands, and burst into tears.
There are strange chords in the human heart, which will lie dormant
through years of depravity and wickedness, but which will vibrate at
last to some slight circumstance apparently trivial in itself, but
connected by some undefined and indistinct association, with past days
that can never be recalled, and with bitter recollections from which
the most degraded creature in existence cannot escape.
There has been another spectator, in the person of a woman in the
common shop; the lowest of the low; dirty, unbonneted, flaunting, and
slovenly. Her curiosity was at first attracted by the little she could
see of the group; then her attention. The half-intoxicated leer changed
to an expression of something like interest, and a feeling similar to
that we have described, appeared for a moment, and only a moment, to
extend itself even to her bosom.
Who shall say how soon these women may change places? The last has but
two more stages—the hospital and the grave. How many females situated
as her two companions are, and as she may have been once, have
terminated the same wretched course, in the same wretched manner! One
is already tracing her footsteps with frightful rapidity. How soon may
the other follow her example! How many have done the same!