THE ARCADIANS AND SOME ACCOUNT OF THE ‘GUBBINS’
That primitive life and manners simple, if not innocent, continue
even now amongst us was brought startlingly to light in North London.
A man, presumably young, stood in the dock, charged with stealing
nine shillings and sixpence. A strange-looking fellow he was, with
his upright hair uncut and uncombed for many a day. Unwashed in body,
and tattered in clothing, he looked the image of fantastic fear. The
prosecutor, not quite so fearsome-looking, was also a strange specimen
of humanity, for he was a midget; his head was scarcely higher than the
desk of the witness-box, and had it not been for his face and clothing,
he might have passed for a child. His evidence did not amount to much.
He knew that he lay down in his tent at twelve o’clock on Saturday
night, with the money in his pocket, and when his sister woke him up
at four, his money was gone. Following him came the sister, still less
in stature, and still more strange in appearance. In her arms she
held something wrapped in an old shawl. No sound proceeded from this
shawl, but from the way in which she held it and the maternal manner in
which she swayed herself as she gave evidence, it was plain there was
something in it alive.
She might have been nine years of age; she said she was nineteen.
She saw the prisoner at two o’clock on Sunday morning crawl into her
brother’s tent, feel in his pockets, take the money and go away. ‘Where
were you?’ asked the magistrate. ‘Sitting outside, sir.’ ‘What were you
doing?’ ‘Keeping company with my young man, sir.’ ‘Why did you not
stop him?’ ‘Please, sir, my young man had gone to sleep, and I did not
want to disturb him.’ This being all the evidence, and no money being
found on the prisoner, he was discharged. Outside the court I found
the little people crying bitterly, for every penny they possessed had
gone. They were wood-choppers: buying old boards, splitting them up,
and hawking the firewood at a penny a basket, for which purpose they
hired a hand-barrow at a shilling per week. A financial catastrophe had
overtaken them; they had no money for stock, food, or barrow, so they
were in despair.
‘Let me see what you have got in that shawl,’ I said, and opened it.
A shock followed, for the tiniest bit of mortality I ever saw was
revealed--not only small, but so strange in colour and appearance, that
had I been told it was a little monkey I could not have disputed it. I
gave them a few shillings for food, etc., and, asking where their tent
was, told them to be ‘at home’ in the afternoon, for I was coming to
see them. I went, and stumbled into Arcadia.
Imagine, if you please, about three-quarters of an acre of waste land,
bounded on one side by an unsavoury canal, on another by chemical
works, which were closed in by a high wooden fence, at the back by
the streets of Hackney Wick, whilst on another side a huge workhouse
frowned. Here and there upon the ground were heaps of ashes and
general rubbish. Decaying vegetable matter, a dead dog far gone in
decomposition, and two cats in a similar condition, all contributed
their sweetness to the desert air. A couple of melancholy-looking
horses of extreme age were trying to eat a handful of hay, which the
condition of their poor old teeth prevented. Here was salubrious
Arcadia and its inhabitants, of whom I counted eighty-seven.
There were twelve tents and six caravans to house the Arcadians. The
caravans need no description, for they were of the ordinary gipsy kind,
but the nature of the tents needs some explanation. Four of these
were of the usual kind, made out of old sheeting, shaped like half an
orange, and standing about four feet in height. The other tents were
ranged along by the wooden fence. A description of one will stand for
them all: Four feet from the fence a low wall three feet high had been
built of stones, bricks, or clods loosely piled together; some old
boards had been placed on the little wall, and allowed to fall against
the fence, to which they were secured by nails. One end of the tent was
made of old sacks, etc., which were secured at the top and loose at the
bottom, allowing for ingress and egress. The other end was formed of
pieces of wood, scraps of rusty sheet-iron, etc.; there was no attempt,
so far as I could see, to make any of them impervious to wind or wet.
It was April when I visited them, but all these people had lived under
these conditions since the beginning of the previous November. It was
dinner-time, for I saw family parties, and there was a strong scent of
fried bacon in the air.
I was just about to inquire which was Brown’s tent, when I saw coming
towards me a little woman very like the one I had seen at the court,
but a trifle bigger. She carried a babe in each arm, and I saw at a
glance that one of them was the little thing I had seen at the court,
minus the shawl. ‘Are you the gentleman that spoke to my sister this
morning?’ ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I was just looking for your tent. Which is
it?’ She pointed it out, the one I have described. ‘Good gracious! you
don’t mean to say that you live there! How many are there of you?’
‘Three of us and the children.’ ‘Have you a husband?’ ‘No, sir.’ ‘Has
your sister?’ ‘No.’ ‘How many children have you?’ ‘Two, and my sister
one.’ ‘Any of them born here in this tent?’ ‘No, sir; we go into the
“house” to have them.’ ‘Where do you come from?’ ‘Red Lion Street,
Holborn.’ ‘Are your parents alive?’ ‘No, sir; both dead.’ ‘What was
your father?’ ‘A colour-grinder. We lived in a house when he was
alive.’ ‘How old are you?’ ‘Twenty-five; my brother is twenty-two and
my sister nineteen.’ ‘How do you all manage to sleep in there?’ ‘We
have to take it in turns, sir.’ Here we were joined by the younger
sister, who took charge of her own babe. ‘What are you going to do with
it?’ I asked. ‘I don’t know, sir.’ ‘I will tell you, then: carry it
about till it dies; then there will be an inquest, and you will be in
trouble. What are you going to do with your two?’ I asked the elder.
She had not the slightest idea. I tried hard to persuade them both
to go into the workhouse. The younger ultimately consented, but the
elder would have none of it, and went rather sulkily to her tent, as I
declined to give them any further assistance. I asked the younger for
the tent of the fellow who had robbed her brother, and she said: ‘He
has not got a tent; he lives in the dust-shoot over there.’ I promised
myself a visit to the dust-shoot.
After telling her that if she would go into the ‘house,’ and let her
little one die decently, I would help her to a better life, I went to
explore the other ‘tents.’ Three young women were at the door of one,
and they were not disposed to be communicative, for they wanted to know
who I was, what I was inquiring about, and what business it was of
mine; so I tried my luck at another. Husband and wife here--at least,
so they told me; but they had no children. They came from Holloway,
had been here three months, and meant to stop till the Vestry moved
them, which they thought would not be long first. They lived by making
letter-racks and flower-pots of scallop-shells, and then hawking them.
This was the first time they had lived in this manner, but what were
they to do when their home had gone? No, they would not go into the
workhouse for me or anyone else; and when they got moved off they
supposed they would have to find another place.
I espied a dinner-party; father, mother, and seven children were seated
on the ground busy with their mid-day meal of bacon and potatoes.
An old bucket, with some holes knocked in the sides and the bottom
well perforated, was their cooking-stove; an iron pot and a rusty
frying-pan their only utensils. A piece of bacon in one hand and a
potato in the other, they all seemed to be enjoying themselves. The man
I found to be an old acquaintance, for he had been charged with cruelty
to a donkey. The donkey, I believe, died, though I did not see it; but
I have the word of the police and that of a respected veterinary for
the fact that the donkey did die.
‘Hello, Gamble!’ I said. ‘You seem to be having a good time of it. All
these children yours?’ ‘Yes, all born in that caravan.’ ‘But you don’t
all sleep in it?’ ‘Oh no; only missus and myself and one or two of
’em.’ ‘Where do the others sleep?’ ‘Oh, we take the shafts off the van,
and put these sheets all round, and they sleep under it; it is better
than a tent.’ ‘How do you get on for clean water?’ I asked, for I knew
that the East London Water Company had served notices upon the people
living in the neighbourhood against supplying the Arcadians with water.
Gamble looked a bit shy, and said: ‘Oh, we manage it;’ but he was not
disposed to tell me how.
At another caravan I found three generations--a very old couple,
husband and wife evidently; a younger man, with his wife and four
children; these children also slept under the van in which they were
born. The old couple had a gipsy tent, and the younger couple the van,
the outside of which was covered with their merchandise. Not a single
child at either van could read or write; none of them had ever been to
school. I went on to the gipsy tents.
At the door of one a middle-aged woman sat on an empty packing-case
tying up bundles of grass, which had been previously dyed a startling
colour. She had no children, and said her husband had died a year ago.
They had lived in that tent together, and had two children; but both of
them died. ‘I suppose you will be married again soon?’ I said, looking
at her. She said she thought not, for she did not have a very good time
with the first.
I thought it time to go, so I took a walk to the ‘dust-shoot.’ Year
after year the ashes and refuse from the dust-bins of Hackney had
been shot here--mountains of it. Here were boys and girls with sacks
picking up bits of coal, cinders, or coke to take home, and young
fellows collecting all the meat tins, salmon and lobster tins, etc.
I watched the latter for a time, and saw they were placing the tins
on coke fires, which were burning in several places. At one of these
fires I saw the fellow with the upright hair, the man I was in search
of, so I drew near and watched him awhile. He recognised me, but did
not say anything. I soon saw why the tins were collected and put on
the fire, for as soon as they became thoroughly red-hot he lifted them
off, threw them away, and replaced them by others, a heap of which had
been collected, his object being to melt the solder and tin, which ran
quickly to the bottom of the fire, where a hole was made in the ground
to receive it. ‘I suppose you get a tidy lot of metal in this way?’ I
said to him. ‘Pretty well,’ he said. ‘The sardine-boxes are the best.’
‘Let me look at some of your metal.’ He disappeared for a minute, and
then brought me some rough-shaped pieces to look at. They were full
of bits of cinder, etc., and not very saleable, even to marine-store
dealers. I said, ‘You have got good metal, but it is very dirty. Have
you got an old saucepan about here?’ He brought one, and I melted the
metal over again, this time in the saucepan, and with the aid of a bit
of wood skimmed off all the dross. ‘Now for some clay.’ He found some.
We tempered it and flattened it as level as possible on the ground. A
piece of cane about a foot long was found, a number of impressions of
half the cane lengthways were made. Into these I poured his metal, and
soon a number of sticks of solder, white, clear, and shining, were in
his possession. ‘Now you have got something worth having,’ I said. ‘You
can get a good price for it. Now I have shown you how to do this, won’t
you give that little fellow his nine and sixpence back?’ ‘You must
think I’m a mug. Why, I never had it.’ ‘Come,’ I said, ‘you must think
me a mug if you ask me to believe that. You know you had it. Hand it
over, and I will take it to him. One good turn deserves another.’ ‘What
do you think!’ he said. I could get nothing from him, and I did not
want to offend him, for I wanted to learn something from him. Presently
I asked him how long he had lived in the ‘dust-shoot.’ He said five
weeks, but I am inclined to believe he had been there much longer.
After some persuasion he took me to his cave, which was on the other
side of the ‘shoot.’ Here he had, in the side of the ‘shoot,’ excavated
a short tunnel, at the end of which was his cave, not very commodious
or comfortable; quite dark, except for his candle. Here he had his
store of metal and anything else he picked up that was of any value.
Here he had lived among all the festering rottenness for at least five
weeks. On my asking him how many more lived in the ‘shoot,’ he said:
‘Only five or six.’ ‘Any women here?’ ‘No fear!’ I was told by another
‘Gubbin’ afterwards that at least twelve had caves, and that a woman
came sometimes to one of them.
My method of dealing with the sardine boxes and other tins seems to
have created quite an industry, but led two ‘Gubbins’ into trouble,
for, quite three months after my visit to the shoot, two young fellows
were charged with the unlawful possession of a number of ‘sticks of
solder.’ A detective had followed them into a marine-store dealer’s,
where they offered the metal for sale. In vain they said that they
had obtained it at the shoot; the detective’s experience told him
that the metal was not found there, so they were charged. I happened
to be in court when they were before the magistrate. The youths told
the magistrate how they had obtained it, and said that the missionary
from the court had shown them how to do it. When the magistrate looked
inquiringly at me, I had to own up, and the youths were discharged.
Their metal was, of course, given back to them, so, while they were
signing the ‘Prisoners’ Property Book,’ and acknowledging receipt
of their knives, etc., I examined the metal, and also came to the
conclusion that it had not been procured from the ‘shoot,’ and that in
all probability it had been stolen. I did not tell the police, but I
took the young fellows aside, and asked them what they knew about me,
and they said: ‘Didn’t you come on to the shoot and show us how to do
it?’ ‘No,’ I said, ‘I did not, for I have never seen you in my life
before.’ ‘Well, we saw you.’ ‘No lies!’ I said. ‘This metal has never
been on the shoot. You vagabonds have stolen it, and then tell this
tale, and it’s pretty clever of you, for it has got you off.’ I found
on further inquiry that they had lived for a time in the shoot, and
knew about my visit there, but they had never obtained any metal from
the old tins.
I paid no further visits to the ‘Gubbins’; they knew too much for me,
and my last visit has been paid to Arcadia, for Hackney Wick knows it
no more. I saw the last of it, and a sad and singular sight it was.
The inhabitants were being ‘moved off.’ For months they had lived in
their unclean simplicity, with no sanitary arrangements, and cut off
from clean water. It was one dull day at the latter end of April; the
rain fell gently all the day long, and the atmosphere was of a leaden
hue. They had struck their tents, and were packing up when I got there,
so I waited to see the last of them. My friends the midgets had packed
their few boards, some sacking, an old kettle and saucepan, etc., on
the barrow, and the little man pushing it, with his sister carrying her
two babes--for the younger one had kept her word, and, with her bit
of humanity, had gone into the workhouse--moved off in the dull mist,
but where I never knew, for they would give me no information on the
subject. The three young women had already gone. The poor fellow and
his wife had their belongings on a wheelbarrow, and were ‘moving off.’
The caravans, with their ancient horses and numerous children, ‘moved
off.’ Tent after tent was struck; in different directions the occupants
‘moved off,’ and Arcadia was no more.