Chapter VI (3)

Had those seven men seated in this interior been cleanly shaved, and had they been apparelled in well-washed coloured shirts, sleeved waistcoats, comfortable trousers, and caps with naval peaks, they would have passed as a harmless, respectable body of seafaring men--persons who would say "mum" to a lady when addressed by her, and answer intelligently and respectfully when asked about the weather. But as they now sat they looked as sulky and wild a set of fellows as one could imagine, strangely and fearfully attired, grimy of face and hairy, booted with half-Wellingtons and belted in Wapping fashion, and timid people would have thought that they carried a murderous air because each man wore a sheath upon his hip, in which lay a very sharp blade.

The wooden cave in which these men sat, rose and fell as though it were the extreme end of a long board violently see-saw'd; and this motion, combined with the smell of the fumes of the slush-fed lamp and a vapour rising out of a small tub of boiled pork, not to mention other odours such as might be produced by well-worn, newly-greased sea-boots, bedding which had made several voyages round the world, sooty clay pipes, old ropes, stale salt water, and many mysteries of malodorous commodities stowed below in the hold and forepeak, must instantly have upset the stomach of any landsman who out of curiosity should have put his head into the little hatch to see what was inside of it.

This cave was indeed a ship's forecastle, but the seven men who sat in it were mariners who had for many years been tossed by the various oceans of the world, and could not possibly have been sea-sick, even though they should have been offered a handsome reward to try.

One of them was a large, strong man, with a shaggy head of hair and a beard like rope-yarns. He looked as though he had taken a header and come up again to blow crowned with black seaweed. This strong man suddenly, and with a sulky fury of gesture, whipped the knife out of the sheath that was strapped to his hip, and, plunging it into a lump of pork, lifted the horrid block into the air, and cried out--

"Here it is agin!"

As he pronounced these words, the little square of hatch was obscured by the interposition of a man's body.

"The smell of that there pork," said the voice belonging to the body in the hatch, "is something to sit upon, something strong enough to lean agin. Why, a man might turn to and chop them fumes into first-class bunk-boards. Talk o' strength!"

"Come below, cook!" bawled one of the seven men.

"No; I've got to see to the capt'n's dinner. But I'm _of_ ye if there's to be trouble. When I signed it was for wittles and a dry bottom and a ship's company. Pump, pump, and nothen to eat! Nothen to eat and pump, pump! Here's logic as don't tally with this covey's reckoning for _one_." And the man, violently smiting himself upon the breast, disappeared.

The powerful sailor who had held the pork aloft whilst the cook discoursed, shook it off the blade into the tub again and spat.

"It's about time," said he, "that all hands was agreed."

"All hands is agreed," said one of the sailors, "'cepting that blooming Dutchman Peter. But if he don't come into it it'll be a bad job for one of us if, on some dark night, him and me happens to be aloft together."

"That there Peter," said a sailor, "was a-boasting to me that he'd ha' shipped for a pound a month; d'ye know he'd eat a shipmate's shirt if by so doing he thought he would airn a shilling by saving his allowance."

"This is sweet meat to Peter," said one of the seven, pointing to the pork, "and a pound a month is good money to Peter; and if Peter and the likes of him could get their way, then if ye wanted to see what sort of man an English sailor looked like ye'd have to ask the master of the fust workhus as hove in sight to show ye him."

"What a blazing fool a fellow makes of hisself when he goes to sea!" exclaimed a man with red hair and a broken nose. "I might ha' been a market-gard'ner had I stayed ashore. Think o' that! What did I run away from home for? For the likes of this for a parlour," said he, waving his hand round the forecastle, "and for the likes of yon," pointing to his hammock, "for a bed, and the likes of that muck," he added, pointing to the pork, "for a meal. But no growling's allowed. Ho no! Tell 'em that pickled dog ain't pork, and that wermin ain't ship's bread, and you're taken afore the magistrate and committed, and locked up, and left to rot whilst the blooming Dutchmen are getting all the jobs, because pickled dog to them _is_ pork, and wermin a relish." He struck his fist heavily upon the chest on which he sat, and fastened his eyes upon his huge knuckles whilst he turned them about, as though he were inspecting a sample of coal.

"No use keeping all on growling," exclaimed a quiet-looking seaman, addressing the others over his folded arms. "What's to be the order of the day?"

"A bust-up," answered the strong man, who bore the nickname of Black Sam. "Here we are, sixteen days out, two hands overboard, and not enough men by six able seamen to work the ship, wessel making water, and requiring to be pumped every four hours, meat fit to make a wulture ill, ship's bread old and wormy, and the rest of us men's stores shop-sweepings. Now this being so, I'm agoing to knock off work for one."

"And me for another----" "And me for another," went, in a growl, from mouth to mouth.

"There's the mate and there's the carpenter," continued Black Sam. "If the capt'n can work the ship with them two, well and good. But Peter he shan't have. Rather than that cuss of a Dutchman should be agin us, and on the capt'n's side, I'd--" He projected his arm, and seemed with his powerful hairy hand to strangle something in the air.

At this point the square of hatchway was again darkened, and the salt, husky voice of the carpenter called down: "Be--low there. Hain't the starboard watch got their dinner yet? Tumble up! Tumble up! The wind's drawed ahead, and the yards want trimming."

"Tumble up!" exclaimed Black Sam. "Don't you be holding your nose too long over the hatch, or it'll be you as'll be tumbling down. Can't ye smell it? Oh, it's nothen but us men's dinner. There's plenty left if ye've a mind for a bite."

"Who's that a-jawing?" exclaimed Mr. Chips, who combined the duty of second-mate with that of ship's carpenter. "Tumble up, I tell you. The wind's drawed ahead."

"Catch it and smell it for yourself," shouted a seaman, plunging his hand into the mess-kid and hurling a lump of pork through the hatch. The sailors heard the hurried steps of Mr. Chips as he went aft.

"He'll be telling the old man," said Black Sam; "let's go on deck and have it out, lads. I'll do the talking part, with your good leave. We don't want no language. Civility's a trump card in these here traverses. We all knows what we mean to get, and I'll say it for ye."

He led the way, his shipmates followed; they gained the forecastle and stood in a group gazing at the after part of the ship.

The vessel was the _Rose_, from Liverpool to an East African port. She was an old-fashioned, composite ship, but her lines were those of a yacht's, and there were few vessels then afloat which could look at her on a bowline. Her yards were immensely square, and she carried swinging booms and main-skysail-mast, and her burthen was between six and seven hundred tons. Such a ship as this demanded eighteen of a crew at least, not to mention master, mates, and "idlers." Instead of eighteen the _Rose_ had sailed with ten men in the forecastle, and a cook in the galley, and the others were a carpenter, who acted as second-mate, an Only Mate, and the captain. Of the slender crew, two had been swept overboard in a gale of wind. They were foreigners, and the English Jacks did not lament their shipmates' end, but on the contrary grinned fiendishly when it was discovered that the foreigners were gone, and they hideously wished that all Dutchmen who signed articles for the red ensign of England would go and fall overboard as those two foreigners had, and as promptly, too, so that nobody concerned might be kept waiting.

During the gale in which the two Dutchmen had perished, the ship had been so strained as to oblige the hands to serve the pumps every four hours. Undermanned, leaky, the provisions rotten! There must be a limit to patience and endurance, even though the sufferer be a sailor. The seven seamen lumped together on the forecastle of the _Rose_ stood staring aft. The cook, a pale man, lounged in his galley door, half in and half out, and his face wore an expression of sour expectation. The carpenter, as I may call him, was talking to the captain, and the Only Mate was slowly rising through the companion hatch as the body of seamen stood staring.

The captain, whose name was Jones, was a tall, lean, gaunt man, his face of the colour of sulphur, his appearance decidedly Yankee, though he happened to belong to Limehouse. He wore square-toed boots, a cloak that might have been taken from the shoulders of a stage bandit, and a sugar-loafed hat. The hair on his face consisted of a beard that fell from under his chin like a goat's, and his eyes were black, brilliant, and restless.

The Only Mate, whose name was Johnson, was about half the captain's height. The ocean had done its work with him, had withered up his face, dried the marrow out of his bones, put a turn in either leg, so that his walk was like a pantomime clown's. Instead of being an Only Mate, he should have formed the eighth part of a mate. You would have thought that eight at least of such men as Mr. Johnson should go to the making of an Only Mate for the _Rose_, had you sent your glance from his dried and kinked figure to the body of men forward, more particularly to the giant Black Sam, who, with the rest, continued to gaze aft. The carpenter, or second mate, was a brown-faced man of about fifty, but brine had taken the place of blood in his veins, and he looked sixty, with his white locks and rounded back and long, hanging arms, whose fingers were curled in the manner of fish-hooks. At the wheel stood the Scandinavian seaman, Peter, the like of whom you may see any day blowing in a German band in the streets of London: veal-coloured, freckled, yellow-haired, a figure loosely put together, and as meaningless an expression of countenance as a dab's.

The captain was puffing at a long cigar that drooped between his lips. Presently he pulled his cigar from his mouth, and shouted: "We don't want all hands. The starboard watch can trim sail. Trim sail, the starboard watch!" and replacing his cigar, he fell to swiftly striding the quarter-deck to and fro.

The seven sailors marched aft, and came to a stand a little abaft the mainmast. Black Sam advanced himself by a step, and exclaimed:--"Capt'n Jones, us men don't mean to do no more work until our wrongs are righted."

The captain, speaking with his cigar in his mouth, halted opposite the men, and said: "What are your wrongs? Are ye too well fed? Are ye growing too fat for the want of work? Say the word, and I'll right them wrongs for you fast enough."

"Ye've got a sow under that there long-boat, Capt'n Jones," said Black Sam. "Would ye give her the wittles us men have to live on and work hard on? No. And vy? Because the life and health of a sow is of more consequence to the likes of such men as you and the owners of this wessel than the life and health of a sailor."

Captain Jones clenched his fist and glared. But what is the good of one man clenching his fist and glaring at seven savage, hairy, resolved British seamen, and the captain might well know that he was but one man to the whole ship's company, for the Only Mate stood at the rail looking over the side as though he were a passenger, willing to listen, but rather anxious not to be "involved," whilst the carpenter had stepped aft, and was dividing his attention between the compass-card and the main-royal. The captain looked around him. He then puffed for some moments in silence at his cigar, whilst an expression entered his face that would have persuaded shrewder observers than the sailors he confronted that he intended to keep his temper.

"What have you to complain of?"

Several sailors spoke at once. Black Sam elevated his immense, hairy fist.

"We complain of this," said he; "first, the ship ain't seaworthy."

"Lie number one," said the captain.

"She ain't seaworthy," continued Black Sam, with a menacing note of storm in his deepening voice. "You're as good a sailor as we are, I suppose, and ye must know that a ship that needs to be pumped out every four hours ain't seaworthy."

"Next?" said the captain.

"All the wittles is rotten to the heart. Is this food for a man?" and Black Sam, putting his hand in his breast, pulled out a biscuit and extended it to the captain. But the captain looked elsewhere, and Black Sam, with his face full of blood, dashed the biscuit on to the deck at the captain's feet, on which one of the sailors cried out, "See how they run!"

"Lie number two," said the captain. "Next?"

"Your ship's stores are rotten to the heart," said Black Sam. "The wessel's taking in water faster than she should, and you _know_ it. The crew are about seven less than the complement of such a vessel ought to be, and that you know also. And here we are to tell you this; that we're willing to go on pumping the wessel out for the next three days for our lives' sake, but not for yourn; but that we don't do another stroke of work unless you shifts your hellum and heads for the nearest port, where ye can ship more hands and wittles fit for men to eat. But if at the end of three days nothen's done, then we shall give up pumping, take the boats, and leave you, and Mr. Chips, and the mate to keep the ship afloat by yourselves, if ye can. That's your mind, mates?"

"That's our mind!" was echoed in a hurricane chorus.

The captain looked up aloft at his canvas, then around at the sea, then at his Only Mate, and at Chips the carpenter, and at Peter at the wheel. His sulphur-coloured face was dark with temper. Nevertheless he spoke deliberately:

"This ship's going to make her passage. The leak's nothing, the stores are first-class, and there are more of you than are wanted to do the work of the vessel."

He called to Mr. Johnson, the Only Mate, who approached him with a glance at the men that was certainly not remarkable for spirit.

"Mr. Johnson," said the captain, "you've heard what's passed?"

"I have, sir," answered the Only Mate.

"These fellows will go forward," continued the captain; "they will swing in their hammocks, and they will smoke their pipes; but no more stores are to be served out to them--no, not so much as a fragment of that excellent bread which lies wasted on the deck here--until they consent to turn to. Then, I don't doubt, it will be all plain sailing again. Go forward now!" he cried, in a voice the sudden ring of which was like the report of a pistol. "Mr. Johnson, I'll take the wheel; whilst you, Mr. Chips and Peter, trim sail."

"Peter!" roared Black Sam, "we men have knocked off work till we're righted. If you lend the capt'n a hand, and side with him agin us----"

And again he advanced his enormous arm and caused his fist to writhe.

"Mr. Cheeps," said Peter, "take this vheel; I am onvell;" and letting go the spokes, the Dutchman marched forward and joined his shipmates, who roared out a defiant huzza as the whole eight of them, with the cook in their wake, made their way to the forecastle and disappeared.

Sailors have no friends, and Captain Jones knew it. There are societies in Great Britain for the prevention of the ill-usage of most things living, from women to dogs, from children to dickybirds, but there is no society for the prevention of cruelty to sailors. Captain Jones knew that he had the power to starve his men into compliance. Nevertheless, he passed a very uneasy night. When the morning broke, he and the Only Mate and Mr. Chips were nearly dead of fatigue, for wind had risen in the hours of darkness, and the ship was a big one, and there were but two men, the third being at the wheel, to let go and clew up, and haul down and make snug as best two men might. When the morning broke, Captain Jones looked as if he had just come out of hospital; Mr. Chips, who stood at the wheel, might readily have passed for a man of seventy; and the Only Mate, who was lighting the galley-fire, showed as if he had been towed overboard during the greater part of the night.

"Those blackguards in the forecastle will be wanting their breakfast," said the captain, "and you'll have them laying aft presently and asking to turn to."

The men, however, did not show themselves. They perfectly understood that the ship could not be navigated as things went, and that the captain must come round to their views before the day had passed, and, indeed, long before the day passed should a change of weather happen presently, and they grinned man after man as they furtively peeped through the scuttle and saw old Chips at the wheel looking seventy years old, and Captain Jones as though he was just come out of hospital, and the Only Mate as though he had been towed overboard; and they preserved their grin, man after man, as they looked aloft and saw the unfurled royals and topgallant-sails fluttering, and the staysails hanging loose, and the yards very ill-braced indeed.

"We've got yesterday's muck of pork," said Black Sam, "and the bread barge ain't empty. If the old man were the devil himself, we'd weather him out. But the ship mustn't be allowed to sink this side of three days;" and forthwith the sailors grimly rose through the hatch, and in silence walked to the pumps, which they plied until they sucked, and then returned to the forecastle. But there was no novelty in this proceeding, for they had kept their faith with the captain, and at every four hours throughout the night a gang had turned out to pump the ship.

Whilst Captain Jones, sitting on the skylight, was drinking some coffee which the Only Mate had boiled, the carpenter (Mr. Chips) munching a biscuit at his side, and the Only Mate munching another biscuit at the wheel, a sail hove in view. The breeze was light and the sea smooth. Captain Jones hoisted the English ensign union down, and at about nine o'clock in the morning the two vessels were nearly abreast of each other, the _Rose_ with her topsail to the mast, the yards having been swung by Captain Jones and Mr. Chips taking the braces to the quarter-deck capstan. The stranger was a large, light barque, painted black. She, too, had backed her topsail.

"There is no use in hailing," said Captain Jones, addressing the Only Mate; "lower that quarter-boat, Mr. Johnson, and go aboard with Mr. Chips. Tell the captain of the barque that my men have refused duty; and ask him if he can oblige us with the loan of a couple of hands to carry the barque to ----," and he named a convenient port.

Forthwith a boat was lowered, and in a few minutes Mr. Chips and the Only Mate were pulling away as for their lives for the big, light barque. The captain, grasping the wheel, stood watching. Now and again a hairy head showed in the forecastle hatch, and the noise of a hoarse laugh floated aft to the ears of Captain Jones. The boat gained the side of the barque, a rope's end was thrown, and the Only Mate made the boat fast to it. Both men then clambered over the side of the vessel and disappeared.

The captain gazed eagerly, and whilst he stood looking a hoarse voice roared the following weather-worn lines through the forecastle scuttle:--

"You Parliament of England, you Lords and Commons too,
Consider well what you're about, and what you mean to do;
You're now at war with Yankees: I'm sure you'll rue the day
You roused the sons of Liberty in North Americay."

The time passed, Captain Jones stood at the wheel with his eyes fixed upon the barque. Suddenly he ran to the companion way, picked a telescope out of its brackets, and, kneeling at the rail, directed the glass at the barque. He remained motionless with his eye at the telescope for some minutes, then stood up and sent a glance aloft, and a look that swept the wide platform of his own decks, and his hollow, gaunt countenance wore an expression of perplexity, dismay, and wrath, all combining in a look that made him appear more than ever as though just out of hospital.

"By this and by that and by t'other," he roared, using words which, as they cannot be described, must be left to the imagination, "who'd ha' thought it of two such this and that and something else sniggering whelps?" and even as he thus used language which cannot be written, the barque swung her yards so as to fill upon the sails, and letting go Captain Jones's boat, which dropped quietly rocking astern, slided along her course, her flying jibboom end pointing at something west of north.

Captain Jones stood looking as though bereft of his reason, and many and awful were the sea-words which leapt from his lips. Again he looked along his deserted decks. There was nothing to be seen in the shape of human nature but a single head showing in the fore-scuttle, and this head appeared to be graphically describing what its eyes beheld to the hidden mob beneath, else how should Captain Jones account for the continuous roar of derisive laughter which saluted his ears? He stood alone upon his deck: either the Only Mate and the carpenter had been kidnapped or they had deserted him; and Captain Jones was perfectly right in not doubting for a moment that they _had_ deserted him.

He rushed forwards.

"Men," he bawled, "up with ye! You shall have your way. I'm a lonely man. Don't stop to consider. Ye shall have your way, but you must bear a hand."

Upon this, up through the hatch, with the agility of a seaman, sprang Black Sam. He was followed by the cook and Peter, and in a jiffy all hands were on deck.

"See that barque?" roared the captain. "The mate and Mr. Chips have deserted me for her. They've stolen my boat. No! I'm not going to stop to pick her up. She'll be fifteen pound against Mr. Johnson, and six months atop of it for robbery. I'm going to follow that barque; I'm going to get those two men out of her. If the barque don't surrender 'em I'm going to run her down. Turn to now, my lads, and you shall have your way."

"Well, we see you're in a hurry, capt'n," said Black Sam, "and as ye know what our wrongs is, and as ye mean to right 'em in the manner I took the liberty of pointing out yesterday, vy, we'll turn to. Give your orders, and you'll find us willing."

The captain forthwith gave his orders. His commands would not be understood by the landsman. Enough if I say that in a very short time the _Rose_, fully clothed in canvas, was standing with her head direct for the barque, an able seaman at her wheel, the captain pacing the quarter-deck, the cook preparing breakfast for the men in the galley, and the sailors, each of them with a glass of grog in him, looking at the distant figure of the barque over the bows.

The _Rose_, as I have said, was a clipper. The wind had somewhat freshened, and in this pursuit the vessel brought it about a point before the beam. Far ahead leaned the barque, tall and unsightly, heeling out to the sun a space of green copper, whilst at this moment a foretopmast studdingsail went slowly soaring to the yardarm. Captain Jones gave a loud laugh of contempt. He knew that his ship could sail three feet to the barque's one, even though the chase should heap the canvas of a _Royal George_ upon herself. He went on to his forecastle and sent a man aft for a large black board, upon which he wrote in chalk:--

* * * * *

GIVE 'EM UP OR--I'LL
RUN YOU DOWN.

* * * * *

As the _Rose_ overhauled the barque--and had she been a steamer she could not have overtaken her more swiftly--the black board was held on high by a couple of seamen so that it could be read on board the stranger. Captain Jones on the forecastle head watched the chase through his glass. The words "_Martha M. Stubbs_, Windsor, N.S.," were written in large white letters upon her stern. Nothing was to be seen of Mr. Chips and the Only Mate. A man wearing a fur hat, resembling Robinson Crusoe's, paced the short poop of the barque. He carried a glass in his hand, and to judge by the frequent glances he directed at the _Rose_, it was to be guessed that he had interpreted the handwriting on the black board.

The breeze freshened. Sheets and tacks strained to the increased pressure. The _Rose_, with foam midway to the hawsepipe, went shearing alongside the barque within pistol shot.

"Hard up!" shrieked the man in the Robinson Crusoe cap, and the fellow at the helm made the spokes spin like the driving wheel of a locomotive.

"Hard up and into him!" roared Captain Jones, and round fizzed the wheel of the _Rose_ in true firework fashion.

For the next two hours the _Rose_ was occupied in endeavouring to run down the barque, the barque on her side cutting a hundred nimble nautical capers to evade the shearing stem of the enraged Jones. But at the end of two hours it had become plain to the man in the Robinson Crusoe hat that the _Rose_ was in earnest. He then gave up, backed his maintopsail yard, and sent the Only Mate and Mr. Chips aboard the _Rose_ in a boat pulled by two men. Captain Jones at once put Mr. Chips into irons and sent the Only Mate to his cabin. He then called to the two fellows who were sitting in the boat under the gangway: "Are ye undermanned?"

"Fearful--ly," was the answer.

"I thought so," said Captain Jones. "Step on board, my livelies, and have a glass of grog afore you return."

The two men cheerfully crawled over the side, but instead of giving them a glass of grog apiece, Captain Jones ordered them forward to turn to with the rest of his crew, and with his own hand let go the line which held the barque's boat to the _Rose_. Sail was then trimmed, and in less than three hours the barque was hull down, though still in pursuit of the _Rose_.

The Only Mate admitted, with a countenance of hate and loathing, that he was sick of the _Rose_, sick of Captain Jones, that he hadn't any intention of working a big vessel of 700 tons single-handed with old Chips, the carpenter, and that when he boarded the Nova Scotiaman and heard that she was very short-handed, he accepted the captain's handsome offer of a number of dollars for the rest of the run to Windsor, as did Mr. Chips. The Only Mate added that both he and Mr. Chips were in debt to the _Rose_ as it was, and that Captain Jones would have been welcome to their clothes and nautical instruments had the Nova Scotiaman succeeded in getting clear off.

Captain Jones's troubles were not yet at an end. He wished to put into Lisbon, but the crew refused to work the ship unless he returned to England.

"We're not going to be converted into blooming distressed mariners," said the crew of the _Rose_. "No Consuls for us. We know them gents. They'll find everything all right, stores sweet, crew plentiful, ship tight, and we know how it'll be: a blooming Portugee jail, then a trip home, and a blooming magisterial inquiry, and six weeks' o' quod;" and so blooming, they forced Captain Jones to sail his ship home.

He arrived at Swansea, and handed the Only Mate and Mr. Chips over into the hands of justice. He offered to ship two more hands if his old crew would sail with him, but they said no, not if he shipped two hundred more hands; and so they were taken before the magistrates, who found the captain in the right, and punished the men by a term of imprisonment far in excess of any penalty of jail and hard labour which they would have inflicted upon a man who had merely broken his wife's skull with his heel, or who had only been systematically starving and cruelly beating his child of ten ever since the neighbours could remember.

Captain Jones shipped a fresh crew and another Only Mate and a new carpenter, but though he stopped his leak he did not ship fresh stores. He sailed out of Swansea Bay October 11, 1869, and has not since been heard of.

_Child Workers in London._

THIS article does not profess to be an exhaustive account of all the employments in which London children are engaged. The limits of a magazine article do not allow of a full and detailed account of this very comprehensive subject. No individual or body of individuals has any precise information about the hundreds of children engaged as ballet dancers, acrobats, models, and street venders, to give only a few names in the vast army of child workers.

Nothing can be harder and drearier than the lot of little servants, employed in many cases in lodging-houses. They are on their feet all day long, at everyone's beck and call, and never expected to be tired or to sit down properly for a meal; the food is of the poorest quality; they have heavy weights to drag up and down stairs in the shape of coal-scuttles, and the inevitable strapping baby; their sleeping apartment is as often as not a disgraceful hole, and such requisites to health as are generally considered necessary in the shape of exercise, fresh air, and baths are unknown quantities. There is a strong prejudice against the "factory girl" in many quarters, and "service" is indiscriminately extolled as far more suitable for a respectable girl of the lower classes. It would be, if there were any chance of the docker's child or the coster's child obtaining a decent situation; but, as a matter of fact, the life of the much-pitied match-worker is infinitely easier than that of these little drudges. At eight o'clock the factory girl is at any rate free to get out into the open air for a couple of hours, or to sit down and rest. The little "general" is never free. One child told me--she was the daughter of a docker who was the happy owner of eleven children, and was herself an under-fed, anæmic-looking creature--that she got up at six every morning to "make the gen'l'm's brakfast--it was a lodging-house; after that there's the steps, 'ouse work, peeling potatoes, and sich like, till dinner. I never sits down till we 'ave a cup o' tea after the lodgers 'ave 'ad their suppers. But the missis--oh, she is a nice, kind laidy, and she works with me, she do."

"I suppose," I said, "you are able to get out on Sundays?"

"Once a month I goes 'ome, but I nusses the baby on Sunday, as we ain't so busy. 'E's such a beauty; I'll ask missis if I can bring 'im down; e' can't walk by 'isself." And off darted the little maid to the top of the house as if she were not on her thin legs from morn to night, returning presently with a huge and well-fed baby, about three times as fat as herself. I am bound to say this girl seemed contented, and, as lodging-house landladies go, her mistress seemed a fairly good one; but what a life of exhaustive and unremitting labour, even under these conditions, for a child of thirteen; and what a life of horrors if her mistress had been a brutal or cruel woman! The usual payment is 2s. 6d. a week, but I found in a number of cases the girls only received 1s., or even 9d., their mistresses deducting the rest of their salary for the payment of the clothes which they have been compelled to buy for them on arrival, the little servant being too often in possession of a hat with feathers, a fur boa, and a brass locket, which, with the garments she stands up in, form her entire outfit. A pathetic little story was told me about a bright-faced girl I happened to come across.

"I got to know of her," said my informant, a lady who does much quiet good, and whose name is unknown to newspaper readers, "last year. A friend of mine whose Sunday-school she attended in Deptford asked me to look her up. I happened quite by chance to call in at the coffee-tavern where she was to act as servant, a few moments after she had arrived, and I was told I might go up to the 'bedroom.' Well, I won't go into particulars about that 'bedroom.' It was nearly dark, and I found the poor little soul sitting on the only available piece of furniture in the room--her own little tin hat-box. I shall not easily forget that dazed, bewildered look with which she met me. It was all so strange; everyone had been too busy to attend to her, and, though she had come from a wretched home, where the playful father had been in the habit of making her a target for his boot-shying, still there had been familiar faces round her. She seemed to realise in the sort of way young people do not, as a rule, the intense loneliness of her lot; and, when I put my arm round her, she clung to me with such sobs that I could hardly help crying too."

Fortunately, sensitive child-servants are tolerably rare, and I am bound to say I failed to find any answering to this description. They were generally what one might describe as decidedly "independent!" One girl--she was barely fifteen--told me she had been in six places.

"Are you so fond of change?" I asked.

"'Tain't that so much," returned the young lady; "but I can't put up with 'cheek,' and some o' my missises do go on awful. I says: 'Ave yer jaw, and 'ave done with it.'"

This certainly was rather an awful specimen; but she could not have been very bad, as her present mistress--who, I presume, has not up to the present "cheeked" her--assured me that the girl handed over her 2s. 6d. a week regularly to her mother. This seems to be the usual practice with the girls. Their mothers buy their clothes, and give them a shilling on Bank Holidays and a few pence every week to spend on themselves. A large proportion of these little drudges marry dockers and labourers generally, and, as their training has not been exactly of the kind to render them neat, thrifty housewives, it is perhaps not surprising that their _cuisine_ and domestic arrangements altogether leave much to be desired.

There is perhaps no form of entertainment more popular amongst a large class of playgoers than that afforded by the clever acrobat, of whose private life the public has only the vaguest knowledge. The general impression, derived from sensational stories in newspapers and romances, is that the profession of the gymnast is a disreputable one, involving a constant danger of life and limb; and that young acrobats can only be made proficient in the art by the exercise of severity and cruelty on the part of trainers.

The actual facts are that the owners, or, as they are called, "fathers," of "troupes" are, in a number of cases, respectable householders, who, when not travelling over Europe and America, occupy little villas in the neighbourhood of Brixton and Clapham; that the danger is immensely exaggerated, particularly in the case of boys, who are always caught when they fall; and that the training and discipline need not be any severer than that employed by a schoolmaster to enforce authority.

"Of course," said a trainer of long experience to me, "I sometimes get an idle boy, just as a schoolmaster gets an idle pupil, and I have my own methods of making him work. But I would lay a heavy wager that even a lazy lad sheds less tears in his training with me than a dull schoolboy at a public school. I have never met with a single boy who didn't delight in his dexterity and muscle; and you will find acrobats as a whole enjoy a higher average of health than any other class."

There are no "Schools of Gymnastics" for training acrobats in London, the regular method being that the head of each troupe--which usually consists of five or six persons, including one or more members of the family, the acrobatic instinct being strongly hereditary--trains and exhibits his own little company. The earlier a boy begins, of course, the better; and, as a general rule, the training commences at seven or eight years old. Many of the children are taken from the very lowest dregs of humanity, and are bound over by their parents to the owner of a troupe for a certain number of years. The "father" undertakes to teach, feed, and clothe the boy, whilst the parents agree not to claim him for a stipulated number of years. A boy is rarely of any good for the first couple of years, and it takes from five to six years to turn out a finished gymnast.

"Is it true," I asked of the head of the celebrated "Yokohama Troupe," "that the bones of the boys are broken whilst young?"

Mr. Edwin Bale, who is himself a fine specimen of the healthy trapezist, smiled pityingly at my question, and asked me to come and watch his troupe practise. All gymnasts practise regularly for two hours or more every day. The "Yokohama Troupe" includes three boys, all well-fed looking and healthy, one of them being Edwin, the fifteen-year-old son of Mr. Bale, a strikingly handsome and finely-developed boy, who has been in the profession since he was two.

The first exercise that young boys learn is "shoulder and legs," which is practised assiduously till performed with ease and rapidity. After this comes "splits." This exercise looks as if it ought to be not only uncomfortable but painful; but a strong proof that it is neither was afforded me involuntarily by one of the little boys. He did it repeatedly for his own benefit when off duty! After this the boy learns "flip-flap," "full-spread," and a number of intricate gymnastics with which the public is familiar. In all these performances boys are very much in request, partly because they are more popular with the public, and partly because in a variety of these gymnastic exhibitions men are disqualified from taking any part in them owing to their weight. In the figure technically known as "full spread" (shown in illustration), it is essential that the topmost boy shall be slightly made and light in weight; but even under these conditions the strain on the principal "supporter" is enormous. As regards danger, so far as I have been able to learn from a good deal of testimony on the point, there is very little of any kind. The only really dangerous gymnastic turn is the "somersault," which may have serious results, unless done with dexterity and delicacy. There is no doubt that exercise of this kind is beneficial to the boys' health. Several boys in excellent condition, with well-developed muscles and chests, assured me they were often in the "'orspital" before they became acrobats.

Their improved physique is possibly in a great measure due to the capital feeding they get, it being obviously to the advantage of the "father" to have a robust, rosy-faced company. Master Harris, of the "Yokohama Troupe," informed me that he generally has meat twice a day, a bath every evening (gymnasts are compelled by the nature of their work to keep their skins in good condition by frequent bathing), that Mrs. Bale was as kind to him as his own mother, and that he thought performing "jolly." He further informed me that he got three shillings a week for pocket-money, which was put into the bank for him.

Another boy in the same troupe told me he had over £9 in the bank. Of course, all companies are not so well looked after as the boys in Mr. Bale's troupe; but I have failed to discover a single case where the boys seemed ill-used. Where the troupe travelled about Europe, the lads were exceptionally intelligent, and several of them could talk fair French and German. A really well-equipped acrobat is nearly always sure of work, and can often obtain as much as £30 a week, the usual payment being from £20 to £25 a week. As a rule, the boys remain with the master who has given them their training, and who finds it worth while, when they are grown up, to pay them a good salary. A troupe gets as much as £70 or £80 a day when hired out for fêtes or public entertainments. There is one point which will possibly interest the temperance folk, and which I must not forget. The boys have constantly before them moderation in the persons of their elders.

"Directly an acrobat takes to drinking," said Mr. Bale, impressively, "he is done for. I rarely take a glass of wine. I can't afford to have my nerves shaky." Altogether there are worse methods of earning a livelihood than those of the acrobat; and, _à propos_ of this point, an instructive little story was told me which sentimental, fussy people would do well to note. There was a certain little lad belonging to a troupe the owner of which had rescued him from the gutter principally out of charity. The boy was slight and delicate-looking, but good feeding and exercise improved him wonderfully, and he was becoming quite a decent specimen of humanity when some silly people cried out about the cruelty of the late hours, and so on, and insisted that he should be at school all day. The lad, who was well fed, washed, and clothed, was handed back to the care of his parents. He now certainly attends school during the day, but he is running about the gutter every evening, barefooted, selling matches till midnight! On the subject of ballet children there is also a great deal of wasted sentiment. All sorts and descriptions of children are employed in theatres, from the respectable tradesman's child to the coster's child in Drury-lane; but the larger proportion are certainly of the very poorest class, and it must be remembered that these children would not be tucked up safely in their little beds, if they were not earning a few badly-wanted shillings; they would be running about the London streets.

Mr. D'Auban--who has turned out a number of our best dancers, such as Sylvia Grey, Letty Lind, and others--was kind enough to call a rehearsal of his children, who are now performing at the Lyric, Prince of Wales, Drury-Lane, and other theatres, so that I was enabled to see a very representative gathering of these useful little bread-winners. Whatever else may be urged against the employment of children in theatres, there is not the least doubt that dancing is a pure pleasure to them. Out of all the little girls I questioned, not a single one would admit that she ever felt "tired." A good many of the children belong to theatrical families, and have been on the stage since they were babies; they were distinguished by a calmness and self-possession which the other little ones lacked; but in the matter of dancing there was very little difference, and it was difficult to believe that a large proportion of the children now playing in "La Cigale," knew nothing about dancing six months ago. Mr. D'Auban has no apprentices, no agreements, and no charges, and he says he can make any child of fair intelligence a good dancer in six months. The classes begin in May, and, as soon as it is known that Mr. D'Auban wants children, he is besieged by parents with little maids of all sizes. The School Board only allows them to attend two days a week; but Mr. D'Auban says: "Everything I teach them once is practised at home and brought back perfect to me." The children wear their ordinary dress, and practising shoes of any kind are allowed. First the positions are mastered, then chassés, pirouettes, and all the rest of the rhythmic and delicate movements of which ballets consist.

Many of these graceful little dancers are the real bread-winners of the family. Little Minnie Burley, whose charming dancing in the "Rose and the Ring" will be remembered, though only eleven years old, has for more than a year practically supported herself and her mother by her earnings. The mother suffers from an incurable spinal complaint, and, beyond a little help which she gets from another daughter who is in service, has nothing to live upon but the little one's earnings. During the double performance of the "Rose and the Ring," Minnie earned £1 5s. a week; now she is earning as a Maypole dancer in "Maid Marian" 12s. a week; but her engagement will soon end, and the poor little maiden, who has the sense and foresight of a woman of thirty, is getting rather anxious.

She is a serious-faced, dark-eyed child, very sensible, very self-possessed, and passionately fond of dancing. Her mother is devoted to her, and keeps her exquisitely neat. I asked her whether she did not feel a little nervous about the child coming home alone every night from the Strand.

"No," said Mrs. Burley, "you see, she comes by 'bus, and she _knows how_ to take care of herself--she knows she is not to let anyone talk to her."

Minnie is a type of dozens of other hard-working, modest little girls who are supporting themselves, and very often their families, by dancing. As a rule, the mothers fetch the children, or make arrangements for several to come home together. Many of them, whose husbands have been out of work, or who are widows, or deserted, have assured me they could not possibly have got through the winter without the children's earnings, whilst the children themselves are immensely proud of "helping" mother. The pride they take in their parts is also very amusing. One small girl ran after me the whole length of a street. She reached me breathless, saying, "Don't forget I'm _principal_ butterfly." Another small mite gave me a most crushing reply. She made some allusion to her mother, and I said innocently, "I suppose your mother is a dresser?" She looked daggers at me, and said indignantly, "My mother's a lady wots in the ballet."

The wages of the children range from 6s. to 16s. a week, and, as their engagements often last for four months at a time, it will be seen that their money is a valuable, and in many instances an essential, addition to the mother's purse.

Child models, being required almost exclusively in the daytime, are, thanks to the vigilance of the School Board authorities, becoming more and more scarce. The larger number of them comes from "model families," the mother having sat herself, and having from an early age accustomed her children to "sitting." The children of these families have no difficulty in obtaining regular work; they get a reputation in the painting world, and one artist recommends them to another. In the neighbourhood of Fitzroy-square, Holland-park, and St. John's Wood these families abound, and are mostly in very respectable circumstances. A pretty little girl, whose mother is a well-known model, and who has herself figured in several of Millais' pictures, told me with condescension that she had so many engagements she didn't know which artist to go to first.

Mary M----, whose face is familiar to admirers of Miss Kate Greenaway's pictures, is, except for a couple of months in the summer, never out of work. She is a beautiful child of fourteen, the daughter of a cab-driver, who is not always in regular employment; and, as Mary has a tribe of little brothers, her earnings are of the utmost usefulness. For several months she has been sitting to three artists, and making the very respectable sum of £1 10s. a week. In her spare moments Mary takes music lessons, and her great ambition is to become an illustrator in black and white. All her earnings are cheerfully handed over to her mother, who is as careful of her little daughter's welfare as she can be.

"I don't sit as a nude model," Mary said, "but only for my head, and mother doesn't let me go into _any_ studio."

As a matter of fact, children are not used as nude models to any great extent; they do not sit still enough, and their limbs are too thin and unformed to be of much use. Besides the regular professional models, who get 5s. a day, and are pretty sure of engagements, except in the summer, there is a fairly large class of street children who call at the different artists' studios, and are taken on occasionally.

"I get any number," said a well-known artist. "They come down to me, and are kind enough to _suggest_ ideas. One small girl said to me the other day, 'Could you do me in a blue dress, sir; mother says it would go well with my golden 'air.'"

Many artists prefer these children to the regular model, who get a stereotyped expression and artificial poses from long habit. Mr. T. B. Kennington, whose pictures of poor London children are familiar to the public, told me that he always actually paints from the class of children that he depicts on his canvas. The boy who figured in that painful and powerful picture of his, "Widowed and Fatherless," is a real little London waif. His mother is said to have been pitched out of the window by her husband, and the boy, whose sad face arrests the attention of the most careless observer, lives with his grandmother, who does washing.

"Do you make the children 'put on' this sad expression?" I asked Mr. Kennington.

"No, indeed; my great difficulty is to make them smile, except momentarily. Haven't you ever noticed how very melancholy children look in repose?"

This may be true about children who are constantly half-starved and ill-treated, but surely it is not true of children in general, or even of the majority of children of the lower classes, who contrive to wear an air of marvellous brightness, in spite of cold, hunger, and even blows. "Sitting" does not seem to be an occupation that commends itself to children, who naturally dislike keeping perfectly still in one position. Nearly all the little models prefer ladies, who keep them quiet by telling them stories, and bestowing sweets and cakes on them; whereas male painters have less persuasive methods of making them do what they want. These latter, however, make many attempts to reform the manners and morals of their small models, many of whom, they say, evince an appalling amount of depravity. Mr. F. W. Lawson, who painted some veritable little slum waifs, in his series of pictures called "Children of the Great Cities," told a good little story of one of his attempts in this direction. His model was a small, bright-faced, black-eyed street boy.