Chapter IX (2)

"'They have generally a spacious, though often ill-ventilated
kitchen, the dirty, dilapidated walls of which are hung with
prints, while a shelf or two are generally, though barely,
furnished with crockery and kitchen utensils. In some places
knives and forks are not provided, unless a penny is left with
the "deputy," or manager, till they are returned. A brush of any
kind is a stranger, and a looking-glass would be a miracle. The
average number of nightly lodgers is in winter seventy, in the
summer (when many visit the provinces) from forty to forty-five.
The general charge is, if two sleep together, 3_d._ per night, or
4_d._ for a single bed. In either case, it is by no means unusual
to find eighteen or twenty in one small room, the heat and horrid
smell from which are insufferable; and, where there are young
children, the staircases are the lodgment of every kind of filth
and abomination. In some houses there are rooms for families,
where, on a rickety machine, which they dignify by the name of a
bedstead, may be found the man, his wife, and a son or daughter,
perhaps eighteen years of age; while the younger children, aged
from seven to fourteen, sleep on the floor. If they have linen,
they take it off to escape vermin, and rise naked, one by one,
or sometimes brother and sister together. This is no ideal
picture; the subject is too capable of being authenticated to
need any meaningless or dishonest assistance called "allowable
exaggeration." The amiable and deservedly popular minister of a
district church, built among lodging-houses, has stated that he
has found twenty-nine human beings in one apartment; and that
having with difficulty knelt down between two beds to pray with a
dying woman, his legs became so jammed that he could hardly get
up again.

"'Out of some fourscore such habitations,' continues my
informant, 'I have only found _two_ which had any sort of garden;
and, I am happy to add, that in neither of these two was there
a single case of cholera. In the others, however, the pestilence
raged with terrible fury.'"

There are other lodging-houses still lower in character than those described above, and where there is a total absence of cleanliness and decency. A man who had slept in these places, gave the following account to Mr. Mayhew:—

"He had slept in rooms so crammed with sleepers—he believed
there were thirty where twelve would have been a proper
number—that their breaths in the dead of night and in the
unventilated chamber, rose (I use his own words) 'in one foul,
choking steam of stench.' This was the case most frequently a
day or two prior to Greenwich Fair or Epsom Races, when the
congregation of the wandering classes, who are the supporters of
the low lodging-houses, was the thickest. It was not only that
two or even three persons jammed themselves into a bed not too
large for one full-sized man; but between the beds—and their
partition one from another admitted little more than the passage
of a lodger—were placed shakedowns, or temporary accommodation
for nightly slumber. In the better lodging-houses the shakedowns
are small palliasses or mattrasses; in the worst they are bundles
of rags of any kind; but loose straw is used only in the country
for shakedowns. Our informant saw a traveller, who had arrived
late, eye his shakedown in one of the worst houses with any thing
but a pleased expression of countenance; and a surly deputy,
observing this, told the customer he had his choice, 'which,' the
deputy added, 'is not as all men has, or I shouldn't have been
waiting here on you. But you has your choice, I tell you;—sleep
there on that shakedown, or turn out and be—; that's fair.'
At some of the busiest periods, numbers sleep on the kitchen
floor, all huddled together, men and women, (when indecencies are
common enough,) and without bedding or any thing but their scanty
clothes to soften the hardness of the stone or brick floor. A
penny is saved to the lodger by this means. More than two hundred
have been accommodated in this way in a large house. The Irish,
in harvest-time, very often resort to this mode of passing the
night.

"I heard from several parties, of the surprise, and even fear or
horror, with which a decent mechanic—more especially if he were
accompanied by his wife—regarded one of these foul dens, when
destitution had driven him there for the first time in his life.
Sometimes such a man was seen to leave the place abruptly, though
perhaps he had prepaid his last halfpenny for the refreshment
of a night's repose. Sometimes he was seized with sickness. I
heard also from some educated persons who had 'seen better days,'
of the disgust with themselves and with the world, which they
felt on first entering such places. 'And I have some reason to
believe,' said one man, 'that a person, once well off, who has
sunk into the very depths of poverty, often makes his first
appearance in one of the worst of those places. Perhaps it is
because he keeps away from them as long as he can, and then, in
a sort of desperation fit, goes into the cheapest he can meet
with; or if he knows it's a vile place, he very likely says to
himself—as I did—"I may as well know the worst at once."'

"Another man, who had moved in good society, said, when asked
about his resorting to a low lodging-house: 'When a man's lost
caste in society, he may as well go the whole hog, bristles and
all, and a low lodging-house is the entire pig.'

"Notwithstanding many abominations, I am assured that the
lodgers, in even the worst of these habitations, for the most
part, sleep soundly. But they have, in all probability, been
out in the open air the whole of the day, and all of them may
go to their couches, after having walked, perhaps, many miles,
exceedingly fatigued, and some of them half drunk. 'Why, in
course, sir,' said a 'traveller,' whom I spoke to on this
subject, 'if you is in a country town or village, where there's
only one lodging-house, perhaps, and that a bad one—an old hand
can always suit hisself in London—you _must_ get half drunk, or
your money for your bed is wasted. There's so much rest owing
to you, after a hard day; and bugs and bad air'll prevent its
being paid, if you don't lay in some stock of beer, or liquor
of some sort, to sleep on. It's a duty you owes yourself; but,
if you haven't the browns, why, then, in course, you can't pay
it.' I have before remarked, and, indeed, have given instances,
of the odd and sometimes original manner in which an intelligent
patterer, for example, will express himself.

"The information I obtained in the course of this inquiry into
the condition of low lodging-houses, afforded a most ample
corroboration of the truth of a remark I have more than once
found it necessary to make before—that persons of the vagrant
class will sacrifice almost any thing for warmth, not to say
heat. Otherwise, to sleep, or even sit, in some of the apartments
of these establishments would be intolerable.

"From the frequent state of weariness to which I have alluded,
there is generally less conversation among the frequenters of
the low lodging-houses than might be expected. Some are busy
cooking, some (in the better houses) are reading, many are drowsy
and nodding, and many are smoking. In perhaps a dozen places
of the worst and filthiest class, indeed, smoking is permitted
even in the sleeping-rooms; but it is far less common than it
was even half-a-dozen years back, and becomes still less common
yearly. Notwithstanding so dangerous a practice, fires are and
have been very unfrequent in these places. There is always some
one awake, which is one reason. The lack of conversation, I ought
to add, and the weariness and drowsiness, are less observable in
the lodging-houses patronized by thieves and women of abandoned
character, whose lives are comparatively idle, and whose labour
a mere nothing. In their houses, if their conversation be at all
general, it is often of the most unclean character. At other
times it is carried on in groups, with abundance of whispers,
shrugs, and slang, by the members of the respective schools of
thieves or lurkers."

* * * * *

"The licentiousness of the frequenters, and more especially the
juvenile frequenters, of the low lodging-houses, must be even
more briefly alluded to. In some of these establishments, men
and women, boys and girls,—but perhaps in no case, or in very
rare cases, unless they are themselves consenting parties, herd
together promiscuously. The information which I have given from a
reverend informant indicates the nature of the proceedings, when
the sexes are herded indiscriminately, and it is impossible to
present to the reader, in full particularity, the records of the
vice practised.

"Boys have boastfully carried on loud conversations, and from
distant parts of the room, of their triumphs over the virtue of
girls, and girls have laughed at and encouraged the recital.
Three, four, five, six, and even more boys and girls have been
packed, head and feet, into one small bed; some of them perhaps
never met before. On such occasions any clothing seems often
enough to be regarded as merely an encumbrance. Sometimes there
are loud quarrels and revilings from the jealousy of boys and
girls, and more especially of girls whose 'chaps' have deserted
or been inveigled from them. At others, there is an amicable
interchange of partners, and next day a resumption of their
former companionship. One girl, then fifteen or sixteen, who had
been leading this vicious kind of life for nearly three years,
and had been repeatedly in prison, and twice in hospitals—and
who expressed a strong desire to 'get out of the life' by
emigration—said: 'Whatever that's bad and wicked, that any one
can fancy could be done in such places among boys and girls
that's never been taught, or won't be taught, better, _is_ done,
and night after night.' In these haunts of low iniquity, or
rather in the room into which the children are put, there are
seldom persons above twenty. The young lodgers in such places
live by thieving and pocket-picking, or by prostitution. The
charge for a night's lodging is generally 2_d._, but smaller
children have often been admitted for 1_d._ If a boy or girl
resort to one of these dens at night without the means of
defraying the charge for accommodation, the 'mot of the ken'
(mistress of the house) will pack them off, telling them plainly
that it will be no use their returning until they have stolen
something worth 2_d._ If a boy or girl do not return in the
evening, and have not been heard to express their intention of
going elsewhere, the first conclusion arrived at by their mates
is that they have 'got into trouble,' (prison.)

"The indiscriminate admixture of the sexes among adults, in many
of these places, is another evil. Even in some houses considered
of the better sort, men and women, husbands and wives, old and
young, strangers and acquaintances, sleep in the same apartment,
and if they choose, in the same bed. Any remonstrance at some act
of gross depravity, or impropriety, on the part of a woman not so
utterly hardened as the others, is met with abuse and derision.
One man who described these scenes to me, and had long witnessed
them, said that almost the only women who ever hid their faces or
manifested dislike of the proceedings they could not but notice,
(as far as he saw,) were poor Irishwomen, generally those who
live by begging: 'But for all that,' the man added, 'an Irishman
or Irishwoman of that sort will sleep anywhere, in any mess, to
save a halfpenny, though they may have often a few shillings, or
a good many, hidden about them.'"

The recent report of Captain Hays, "on the operation of the Common Lodging-house Act," presents some appalling facts:—

"Up to the end of February, it was ascertained that 3100 persons,
mostly Irishmen, in the very heart of the metropolis, lodged
every night, 84,000 individuals in 3712 rooms. The instances
enumerated are heart sickening. In a small room in Rosemary
lane, near the Tower, fourteen adults were sleeping on the floor
without any partition or regard to decency. In an apartment
in Church lane, St. Giles, not fifteen feet square, were
thirty-seven women and children, all huddled together on the
floor. There are thousands of similar cases. The eastern portion
of London, comprising Whitechapel, Spitalfields, and Mile-end—an
unknown land to all of the decent classes—is filled with a
swarming population of above 300,000 beggars, costermongers,
thieves, ragsellers, Jews, and the like. A single court is a fair
example of this whole district. It contains eight houses of two
rooms each. Three hundred persons—men, women, and children—live
there. There is only one place of convenience; and one hydrant,
which is served half an hour each day. The condition of this
court may be imagined; it is too filthy to describe. Decayed
matter, stagnant water, refuse fish, vegetables, broken baskets,
dead cats, dogs, and rats, are strewed everywhere around. The
prices of various kinds of provision in these neighbourhoods give
a forcible notion of the condition of the population. You can
purchase for a halfpenny fish or meat enough for a dinner.

"In this neighbourhood is Rag Fair. It is worth a visit.
Thousands of persons are assembled in the streets, which are so
thickly covered with merchandise that it is difficult to step
along without treading on heaps of gowns, shawls, bonnets, shoes,
and articles of men's attire. There is no conceivable article of
dress that may not be purchased here. It is not without danger
that one even visits the place at noonday. You are in the midst
of the refuse of all London,—of a whole race, whose chief
employment is to commit depredations upon property, and whose
lives are spent in the midst of a squalor, filth, deprivation
and degradation, which the whole world cannot probably parallel.
One of the London missionaries says—'Persons who are accustomed
to run up heavy bills at the shops of fashionable tailors and
milliners will scarcely believe the sums for which the poor are
able to purchase the same kind of articles. I have recently
clothed a man and woman, both decently, for the sum of nine
shillings. There is as great a variety of articles in pattern,
shape, and size, as could be found in any draper's shop in
London. The mother may go to _Rag Fair_, with the whole of her
family, both boys and girls—yes, and her husband, too—and for
a very few shillings deck them out from top to toe. I have no
doubt that a man and his wife, and five or six children, with £1
would purchase for themselves an entire change. This may appear
an exaggeration; but I actually overheard a conversation, in
which two women were trying to bargain for a child's frock; the
sum asked was 1½_d._, and the sum offered was 1_d._, and they
parted on the difference.'

"The following is a bill delivered by a dealer to one of the
missionaries, who was requested to supply a suit of clothes for a
man and woman whom he had persuaded to get married several years
after the right time:—

_s._ _d._
A full linen-fronted shirt, very elegant 0 6
A pair of warm worsted stockings 0 1
A pair of light-coloured trousers 0 6
A black cloth waistcoat 0 3
A pair of white cotton braces 0 1
A pair of low shoes 0 1
A black silk velvet stock 0 1
A black beaver, fly-fronted, double-breasted paletot coat,
lined with silk, a very superior article 1 6
A cloth cap, bound with a figured band 0 1
A pair of black cloth gloves 0 1
— —
3 3

"The man had been educated, and could speak no fewer than five
languages; by profession he was, however, nothing but a dusthill
raker.

"The bill delivered for the bride's costume is as follows:

A shift 0 1
A pair of stays 0 2
A flannel petticoat 0 4
A black Orleans ditto 0 4
A pair of white cotton stockings 0 1
A very good light-coloured cotton gown 0 10
A pair of single-soled slippers, with spring heels 0 2
A double-dyed bonnet, including a neat cap 0 2
A pair of white cotton gloves 0 1
A lady's green silk paletot, lined with crimson silk,
trimmed with black 0 10
— ——
3 1"

Throughout the country there are low lodging-houses, which do not differ much in character from those of London. In all of them the most disgusting immorality is practised to an extent scarcely conceivable by those who do not visit such dens of vice and misery.

The story of the Jew Fagan, and his felonious operations, in Dickens's Oliver Twist, is a true representation of a most extensive business in London. There are a large number of notorious receivers of stolen goods. Some of them keep a number of boys, who are instructed in stealing, and beaten severely when unsuccessful. Mayhew mentions one notorious case in George-yard. A wooden-legged Welshman, named Hughes, and commonly called Taff, was the miscreant. Two little boys were his chief agents in stealing, and when they did not obtain any thing, he would take the strap off his wooden leg, and beat them through the nakedness of their rags. He boarded and lodged about a dozen Chelsea and Greenwich pensioners. These he followed and watched closely until they were paid. Then, after they had settled with him, he would make them drunk and rob them of the few shillings they had left.

The brutal treatment of servants, which we have already touched, drives many of them to the low lodging-houses, and to the commission of crime. In the following narrative, which a girl communicated to Mr. Mayhew, we have an illustration of this assertion, as well as some awful disclosures in regard to "life among the lowly:"—

"'I am an orphan. When I was ten I was sent to service as a maid
of all-work, in a small tradesman's family. It was a hard place,
and my mistress used me very cruelly, beating me often. When I
had been in place three weeks, my mother died; my father having
died twelve years before. I stood my mistress's ill-treatment
about six months. She beat me with sticks as well as with her
hands. I was black and blue, and at last I ran away. I got
to Mrs. —, a low lodging-house. I didn't know before that
there was such a place. I heard of it from some girls at the
Glasshouse, (baths and wash-houses,) where I went for shelter.
I went with them to have a halfpenny worth of coffee, and they
took me to the lodging-house. I then had three shillings, and
stayed about a month, and did nothing wrong, living on the three
shillings and what I pawned my clothes for, as I got some pretty
good things away with me. In the lodging-house I saw nothing but
what was bad, and heard nothing but what was bad. I was laughed
at, and was told to swear. They said, 'Look at her for a d—
modest fool'—sometimes worse than that, until by degrees I
got to be as bad as they were. During this time I used to see
boys and girls from ten to twelve years old sleeping together,
but understood nothing wrong. I had never heard of such places
before I ran away. I can neither read nor write. My mother was a
good woman, and I wish I'd had her to run away to. I saw things
between almost children that I can't describe to you—very often
I saw them, and that shocked me. At the month's end, when I was
beat out, I met with a young man of fifteen—I myself was going
on to twelve years old—and he persuaded me to take up with him.
I stayed with him three months in the same lodging-house, living
with him as his wife, though we were mere children, and being
true to him. At the three months' end he was taken up for picking
pockets, and got six months. I was sorry, for he was kind to
me; though I was made ill through him; so I broke some windows
in St. Paul's churchyard to get into prison to get cured. I had
a month in the Compter, and came out well. I was scolded very
much in the Compter, on account of the state I was in, being so
young. I had 2_s._ 6_d._ given to me when I came out, and was
forced to go into the streets for a living. I continued walking
the streets for three years, sometimes making a good deal of
money, sometimes none, feasting one day and starving the next.
The bigger girls could persuade me to do any thing they liked
with my money. I was never happy all the time, but I could
get no character, and could not get out of the life. I lodged
all this time at a lodging-house in Kent-street. They were all
thieves and bad girls. I have known between three and four dozen
boys and girls sleep in one room. The beds were horrid filthy and
full of vermin. There was very wicked carryings on. The boys, if
any difference, was the worst. We lay packed, on a full night, a
dozen boys and girls squeedged into one bed. That was very often
the case—some at the foot and some at the top—boys and girls
all mixed. I can't go into all the particulars, but whatever
could take place in words or acts between boys and girls did take
place, and in the midst of the others. I am sorry to say I took
part in these bad ways myself, but I wasn't so bad as some of the
others. There was only a candle burning all night, but in summer
it was light great part of the night. Some boys and girls slept
without any clothes, and would dance about the room that way. I
have seen them, and, wicked as I was, felt ashamed. I have seen
two dozen capering about the room that way; some mere children,
the boys generally the youngest. * * * There were no men or women
present. There were often fights. The deputy never interfered.
This is carried on just the same as ever to this day, and is
the same every night. I have heard young girls shout out to one
another how often they had been obliged to go to the hospital,
or the infirmary, or the workhouse. There was a great deal of
boasting about what the boys and girls had stolen during the
day. I have known boys and girls change their 'partners,' just
for a night. At three years' end I stole a piece of beef from a
butcher. I did it to get into prison. I was sick of the life I
was leading, and didn't know how to get out of it. I had a month
for stealing. When I got out I passed two days and a night in
the streets doing nothing wrong, and then went and threatened to
break Messrs. —'s windows again. I did that to get into prison
again; for when I lay quiet of a night in prison I thought things
over, and considered what a shocking life I was leading, and how
my health might be ruined completely, and I thought I would stick
to prison rather than go back to such a life. I got six months
for threatening. When I got out I broke a lamp next morning for
the same purpose, and had a fortnight. That was the last time
I was in prison. I have since been leading the same life as I
told you of for the three years, and lodging at the same houses,
and seeing the same goings on. I hate such a life now more than
ever. I am willing to do any work that I can in washing and
cleaning. I can do a little at my needle. I could do hard work,
for I have good health. I used to wash and clean in prison, and
always behaved myself there. At the house where I am it is 3_d._
a night; but at Mrs. —'s it is 1_d._ and 2_d._ a night, and
just the same goings on. Many a girl—nearly all of them—goes
out into the streets from this penny and twopenny house, to get
money for their favourite boys by prostitution. If the girl can
not get money she must steal something, or will be beaten by her
'chap' when she comes home. I have seen them beaten, often kicked
and beaten until they were blind from bloodshot, and their teeth
knocked out with kicks from boots as the girl lays on the ground.
The boys, in their turn, are out thieving all day, and the
lodging-house keeper will buy any stolen provisions of them, and
sell them to the lodgers. I never saw the police in the house. If
a boy comes to the house on a night without money or sawney, or
something to sell to the lodgers, a handkerchief or something of
that kind, he is not admitted, but told very plainly, 'Go thieve
it, then,' Girls are treated just the same. Anybody may call in
the daytime at this house and have a halfpenny worth of coffee
and sit any length of time until evening. I have seen three dozen
sitting there that way, all thieves and bad girls. There are
no chairs, and only one form in front of the fire, on which a
dozen can sit. The others sit on the floor all about the room,
as near the fire as they can. Bad language goes on during the
day, as I told you it did during the night, and indecencies too,
but nothing like so bad as at night. They talk about where there
is good places to go and thieve. The missioners call sometimes,
but they're laughed at often when they're talking, and always
before the door's closed on them. If a decent girl goes there to
get a ha'porth of coffee, seeing the board over the door, she is
always shocked. Many a poor girl has been ruined in this house
since I was, and boys have boasted about it. I never knew boy or
girl do good, once get used there. Get used there, indeed, and
you are life-ruined. I was an only child, and haven't a friend
in the world. I have heard several girls say how they would
like to get out of the life, and out of the place. From those I
know, I think that cruel parents and mistresses cause many to
be driven there. One lodging-house keeper, Mrs. —, goes out
dressed respectable, and pawns any stolen property, or sells it
at public-houses.'

"As a corroboration of the girl's statement, a wretched-looking
boy, only thirteen years of age, gave me the following additional
information. He had a few rags hanging about him, and no
shirt—indeed, he was hardly covered enough for purposes of
decency, his skin being exposed through the rents in his jacket
and trousers. He had a stepfather, who treated him very cruelly.
The stepfather and the child's mother went 'across the country,'
begging and stealing. Before the mother died, an elder brother
ran away on account of being beaten.

"'Sometimes,' I give his own words, 'he (the stepfather) wouldn't
give us a bit to eat, telling us to go and thieve for it. My
brother had been a month gone (he's now a soldier in Gibraltar)
when I ran away to join him. I knew where to find him, as we
met sometimes. We lived by thieving, and I do still—by pulling
flesh, (stealing meat.) I got to lodge at Mrs. —, and have
been there this eight months. I can read and write a little.'
This boy then confirmed what the young girl had told me of the
grossest acts night by night among the boys and girls, the
language, &c., and continued:—'I always sleep on the floor for
1_d._, and pay ½_d._ besides for coke. At this lodging-house
cats and kittens are melted down, sometimes twenty a day. A quart
pot is a cat, and pints and half-pints are kittens. A kitten
(pint) brings 3_d._ from the rag-shops, and a cat 6_d._ There's
convenience to melt them down at the lodging-house. We can't sell
clothes in the house, except any lodger wants them; and clothes
nearly all go to the Jews in Petticoat-lane. Mrs. — buys the
sawney of us; so much for the lump, 2_d._ a pound about; she
sells it again for twice what she gives, and more. Perhaps 30
lbs. of meat every day is sold to her. I have been in prison six
times, and have had three dozen; each time I came out harder. If
I left Mrs. —'s house I don't know how I could get my living.
Lots of boys would get away if they could. I never drink. I don't
like it. Very few of us boys drink. I don't like thieving, and
often go about singing; but I can't live by singing, and I don't
know how I could live honestly. If I had money enough to buy a
stock of oranges, I think I could be honest.'"

Mr. Mayhew called a meeting of thieves and beggars at the Bristol Union School-room, Shakspeare Walk, Shadwell. One hundred and fifty of them—all under twenty years of age—attended. It may be doubted whether such a meeting could have been brought about in any other city. The young thieves and beggars were very fair samples of their numerous class. Of professed beggars, there were fifty; and sixty-six acknowledged themselves habitual thieves. The announcement that the greater number present were thieves, pleased them exceedingly, and was received with three rounds of applause! Fourteen of them had been in prison over twenty times, and twenty stated that they had been flogged in prison. Seventy-eight of them regularly roamed through the country every year; sixty-five slept regularly in the casual wards of the Unions; and fifty-two occasionally slept in trampers' lodging-houses throughout the country.

The ignorance prevailing among the vast number of street-sellers in London, is rather comically illustrated by Mr. Mayhew, in the following instance:—

"One boy gave me his notions of men and things. He was a
thick-limbed, red-cheeked fellow; answered very freely, and
sometimes, when I could not help laughing at his replies, laughed
loudly himself, as if he entered into the joke.

"Yes, he had heer'd of God who made the world. Couldn't exactly
recollec' when he'd heerd on him, but he had, most sarten-ly.
Didn't know when the world was made, or how anybody could do it.
It must have taken a long time. It was afore his time, 'or yourn
either, sir.' Knew there was a book called the Bible; didn't
know what it was about; didn't mind to know; knew of such a book
to a sartinty, because a young 'oman took one to pop (pawn)
for an old 'oman what was on the spree—a bran new 'un—but
the cove wouldn't have it, and the old 'oman said he might be
d—d. Never heer'd tell on the deluge, of the world having
been drownded; it couldn't, for there wasn't water enough to do
it. He weren't a going to fret hisself for such things as that.
Didn't know what happened to people after death, only that they
was buried. Had seen a dead body laid out; was a little afeared
at first; poor Dick looked so different, and when you touched his
face he was so cold! oh, so cold! Had heer'd on another world;
wouldn't mind if he was there hisself, if he could do better, for
things was often queer here. Had heer'd on it from a tailor—such
a clever cove, a stunner—as went to 'Straliar, (Australia,)
and heer'd him say he was going into another world. Had never
heer'd of France, but had heer'd of Frenchmen; there wasn't half
a quarter so many on 'em as of Italians, with their ear-rings
like flash gals. Didn't dislike foreigners, for he never saw
none. What was they? Had heer'd of Ireland. Didn't know where
it was, but it couldn't be very far, or such lots wouldn't come
from there to London. Should say they walked it, ay, every bit
of the way, for he'd seen them come in all covered with dust.
Had heer'd of people going to sea, and had seen the ships in the
river, but didn't know nothing about it, for he was very seldom
that way. The sun was made of fire, or it wouldn't make you feel
so warm. The stars was fire, too, or they wouldn't shine. They
didn't make it warm, they was too small. Didn't know any use they
was of. Didn't know how far they was off; a jolly lot higher
than the gas lights some on 'em was. Was never in a church; had
heer'd they worshipped God there; didn't know how it was done;
had heer'd singing and praying inside when he'd passed; never was
there, for he hadn't no togs to go in, and wouldn't be let in
among such swells as he had seen coming out. Was a ignorant chap,
for he'd never been to school, but was up to many a move, and
didn't do bad. Mother said he would make his fortin yet.

"Had heer'd of the Duke of Wellington; he was Old Nosey; didn't
think he ever seed him, but had seen his statty. Hadn't heer'd
of the battle of Waterloo, nor who it was atween; once lived
in Webber-row, Waterloo-road. Thought he had heer'd speak of
Bonaparte; didn't know what he was; thought he'd heer'd of
Shakspeare, but didn't know whether he was alive or dead, and
didn't care. A man with something like that name kept a dolly
and did stunning; but he was sich a hard cove that if _he_ was
dead it wouldn't matter. Had seen the queen, but didn't recollec'
her name just at the minute; oh! yes, Wictoria and Albert. Had
no notion what the queen had to do. Should think she hadn't such
power [he had first to ask me what 'power' was] as the lord
mayor, or as Mr. Norton as was the Lambeth beak, and perhaps is
still. Was never once before a beak, and didn't want to. Hated
the crushers; what business had they to interfere with him if he
was only resting his basket in a street? Had been once to the
Wick, and once to the Bower; liked tumbling better; he meant to
have a little pleasure when the peas came in."

The vagabond propensities of the street-children are thus described by Mr. Mayhew:—

"As soon as the warm weather commences, boys and girls, but more
especially boys, leave the town in shoals, traversing the country
in every direction; some furnished with trifling articles (such
as I have already enumerated) to sell, and others to begging,
lurking, or thieving. It is not the street-sellers who so much
resort to the tramp, as those who are devoid of the commonest
notions of honesty; a quality these young vagrants sometimes
respect when in fear of a jail, and the hard work with which such
a place is identified in their minds—and to which, with the
peculiar idiosyncrasy of a roving race, they have an insuperable
objection.

"I have met with boys and girls, however, to whom a jail had no
terrors, and to whom, when in prison, there was only one dread,
and that a common one among the ignorant, whether with or without
any sense of religion—superstition. 'I lay in prison of a night,
sir,' said a boy who was generally among the briskest of his
class, 'and think I shall see things.' The 'things' represent
the vague fears which many, not naturally stupid, but untaught
or ill-taught persons, entertain in the dark. A girl, a perfect
termagant in the breaking of windows and suchlike offences, told
me something of the same kind. She spoke well of the treatment
she experienced in prison, and seemed to have a liking for the
matron and officials; her conduct there was quiet and respectful.
I believe she was not addicted to drink.

"Many of the girls, as well as the boys, of course trade as
they 'tramp.' They often sell, both in the country and in town,
little necklaces composed of red berries strung together upon
thick thread, for dolls and children; but although I have asked
several of them, I have never yet found one who collected the
berries and made the necklaces themselves; neither have I met
with a single instance in which the girl vendors knew the name
of the berries thus used, nor indeed even that they _were_
berries. The invariable reply to my questions upon this point
has been that they 'are called necklaces;' that 'they are just
as they sells 'em to us;' that they 'don't know whether they are
made or whether they grow;' and in most cases, that they 'gets
them in London, by Shoreditch;' although in one case a little
brown-complexioned girl, with bright sparkling eyes, said that
'she got them from the gipsies.' At first I fancied, from this
child's appearance, that she was rather superior in intellect to
most of her class; but I soon found that she was not a whit above
the others, unless, indeed, it were in the possession of the
quality of cunning."

The regular "tramps," or wandering vagabonds, are very numerous throughout Great Britain. At certain periods they issue from all the large towns, and prey upon the rural districts like swarms of locusts. In no other country can be found so constant a class of vagrants. The gipsies form but a small portion of the "tramps." These vagrants are miserably clothed, filthy, covered with vermin, and generally very much diseased—sometimes from debauchery, and sometimes from want of food and from exposure. Very few of them are married. The women are nearly all prostitutes. The manner of life of these wanderers is curious. They beg during the day in the towns, or along the roads; and they so arrange their day's tramp as to arrive, most nights, in the neighbourhood of the workhouses. They then hide the money they have collected by begging, and present themselves, after sunset, at the gates of the workhouse, to beg a night's lodging. To nearly every workhouse there are attached vagrant wards, or buildings which are specially set apart for the reception of tramps such as those we have described. These wards are commonly brick buildings, of one story in height. They have brick floors and guard-room beds, with loose straw and rugs for the males, and iron bedsteads, with straw, for the females. They are badly ventilated, and unprovided with any means for producing warmth. All holes for ventilation are sure to be stopped up at night, by the occupants, with rags or straw, so that the stench of these sleeping-places is disgusting in the extreme. Guards are appointed for these wards, but such is the immorality and indecency of the vagrants, that the most disgusting scenes are common in them. The wards resound with the vilest songs and the foulest language; and so numerous are the "tramps" that the guardians find it impossible to separate the sexes. This vast evil of vagrancy is constantly increasing, and is a natural result of the monopolies and oppressions of the aristocracy. It is stated that on the 25th of March, 1848, the 626 Unions of England and Wales relieved 16,086 vagrants. But this scarcely gives an idea of the magnitude of the evil. Between 40,000 and 50,000 "tramps" infest the roads and streets of England and Wales every day. The majority of them are thieves, and nearly all are almost brutally ignorant.

In London there are large numbers of small dealers, called costermongers and patterers. Persons belonging to these classes seldom or never rise above their trade, and they seem to have a kind of hereditary pride in their degraded position. Many of the costermongers and patterers are thieves, and the general character of these classes is very debased; ignorance and immorality prevail to a fearful extent. The patterers are more intelligent than the costermongers, but they are also more immoral. They help off their wares, which are chiefly stationery and quack medicines, by long harangues, while the costermongers merely cry their fish, greens, &c. about the streets. The number of people dependent upon costermongering in London is about thirty thousand. The patterers are not so numerous.

Concubinage is the rule and marriage the exception among both costermongers and patterers. Mr. Mayhew estimates that only one-tenth of the couples living together and carrying on the costermongering trade are married. There is no honour attached to the marriage state and no shame to concubinage. In good times the women are rigidly faithful to their paramours, but in the worst pinch of poverty a departure from fidelity is not considered heinous. About three out of a hundred costermongers ever attend a church, and the majority of them have no knowledge of Christianity; they associate the Church of England and aristocracy, and hate both. Slang is acquired very rapidly, and some costermongers will converse in it by the hour. The women use it sparingly; the girls more than the women; the men more than the girls; and the boys most of all. Pronouncing backward is the simple principle upon which the costermonger slang is founded.

The patterers, though a vagrant, are an organized class. Mr. Mayhew says—

"There is a telegraphic despatch between them, through the
length and breadth of the land. If two patterers (previously
unacquainted) meet in the provinces, the following, or something
like it, will be their conversation:—Can you 'voker romeny'
(can you speak cant?) What is your 'monekeer?' (name.) Perhaps
it turns out that one is 'White-headed Bob,' and the other
'Plymouth Ned,' They have a 'shant of gatter' (pot of beer)
at the nearest 'boozing ken,' (ale-house,) and swear eternal
friendship to each other. The old saying, that 'When the
liquor is in the wit is out,' is remarkably fulfilled on these
occasions, for they betray to the 'flatties' (natives) all their
profits and proceedings.

"It is to be supposed that in country districts, where there are
no streets, the patterer is obliged to call at the houses. As
they are mostly without the hawker's license, and sometimes find
wet linen before it is lost, the rural districts are not fond
of their visits; and there are generally two or three persons
in a village reported to be 'gammy,' that is, unfavourable. If
a patterer has been 'crabbed,' that is, offended, at any of the
'cribs,' (houses,) he mostly chalks a signal on or near the door.
I give one or two instances:—

"'Bone,' meaning good.

"'Cooper'd,' spoiled by the imprudence of some other patterer.

"'Gammy,' likely to have you taken up.

"'Flummut,' sure of a month in quod.

"In most lodging-houses there is an old man who is the guide to
every 'walk' in the vicinity, and who can tell every house on
every round that is 'good for a cold 'tater.' In many cases there
is over the kitchen mantel-piece a map of the district, dotted
here and there with memorandums of failure or success.

"Patterers are fond of carving their names and avocations about
the houses they visit. The old jail at Dartford has been some
years a 'padding-ken.' In one of the rooms appear the following
autographs:—

"'Jemmy, the Rake, bound to Bristol; bad beds, but no bugs. Thank
God for all things.'

"'Razor George and his moll slept here the day after Christmas;
just out of "stir," (jail,) for "muzzling a peeler."'

"'Scotch Mary, with "driz," (lace,) bound to Dover and back,
please God.'

"Sometimes these inscriptions are coarse and obscene; sometimes
very well written and orderly. Nor do they want illustrations.

"At the old factory, Lincoln, is a portrait of the town beadle,
formerly a soldier; it is drawn with different-coloured chalks,
and ends with the following couplet:—

'You are a B for false swearing,
In hell they'll roast you like a herring.'

"Concubinage is very common among patterers, especially on
their travels; they have their regular rounds, and call the
peregrination 'going on circuit.' For the most part they are
early risers; this gives them a facility for meeting poor girls
who have had a night's shelter in the union workhouses. They
offer such girls some refreshments, swear they are single men,
and promise comforts certainly superior to the immediate position
of their victims. Consent is generally obtained; perhaps a girl
of fourteen or fifteen, previously virtuous, is induced to
believe in a promise of constant protection, but finds herself,
the next morning, ruined and deserted; nor is it unlikely that,
within a month or two, she will see her seducer in the company of
a dozen incidental wives. A gray-headed miscreant, called 'Cutler
Tom,' boasts of five hundred such exploits; and there is too
great reason to believe that the picture of his own drawing is
not greatly overcharged."

A reverend gentleman, who had enjoyed the best opportunities for observing the patterers, gave Mr. Mayhew the following information:—

"I have seen fathers and mothers place their boys and girls in
positions of incipient enormity, and command them to use language
and gestures to each other which would make a harlot blush, and
almost a heathen tremble. I have hitherto viewed the patterer
as a salesman, having something in his hand, on whose merits,
real or pretended, he talks people out of their money. By slow
degrees prosperity rises, but rapid is the advance of evil. The
patterer sometimes gets 'out of stock,' and is obliged, at no
great sacrifice of conscience, to 'patter' in another strain. In
every large town, sham official documents, with crests, seals,
and signatures, can be got for half-a-crown. Armed with these,
the patterer becomes a 'lurker,' that is, an impostor; his papers
certify any and every 'ill that flesh is heir to.' Shipwreck is
called a 'shake lurk;' loss by fire is a 'glim.' Sometimes the
petitioner has had a horse which has dropped dead with the mad
staggers; or has a wife ill or dying, and six or seven children
at once sickening of the small-pox. Children are borrowed to
support the appearance; the case is certified by the minister and
churchwardens of a parish which exists only in imagination; and
as many people dislike the trouble of investigation, the patterer
gets enough to raise a stock in trade, and divides the spoil
between the swag-shop and the gin-palace. Sometimes they are
detected, and get a 'drag,' (three months in prison.)

"They have many narrow escapes; one occurs to me of a somewhat
ludicrous character:—A patterer and lurker (now dead) known
by the name of 'Captain Moody,' unable to get a 'fakement'
written or printed, was standing almost naked in the streets
of a neighbouring town. A gentleman stood still and heard his
piteous tale, but, having been 'done' more than once, he resolved
to examine the affair, and begged the petitioner to conduct
him to his wife and children, who were in a garret on a bed
of languishing, with neither clothes, food, nor fire, but, it
appeared, with faith enough to expect a supply from 'Him who
feedeth the ravens,' and in whose sacred name even a cold 'tater
was implored. The patterer, or half-patterer and half-beggar,
took the gentleman (who promised a sovereign if every thing was
square) through innumerable and intricate windings, till he came
to an outhouse or sort of stable. He saw the key outside the
door, and begged the gentleman to enter and wait till he borrowed
a light of a neighbour to show him up-stairs. The illumination
never arrived, and the poor charitable man found that the
miscreant had locked him into the stable. The patterer went to
the padding-ken, told the story with great glee, and left that
locality within an hour of the occurrence."

Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, and other provincial cities possess an ignorant and immoral population quite equal, in proportion to the entire population of each city, to that of London. In each may be found a degraded class, with scarcely any ideas of religion or morality, living in the most wretched manner, and practising every species of vice. The cellar-houses, in which many of them live, have been described in another chapter. They are the filthy abodes of a people almost reduced to a brutish condition. In Liverpool parish there is a _cellar-population of 20,000_, a large number of whom are continually engaged in criminal practices. There are portions of the city of Glasgow which a stranger could scarcely traverse safely at night, and where an amount of vice and misery may be witnessed which is not exceeded in either London or Liverpool.

In the mining and manufacturing districts of England there is much ignorance and more vice. In both, there are schools of a miserable character, but those young persons who can find time to attend them learn nothing beyond reading, writing, and the simplest rules of arithmetic. The mining labour, as carried on in the mines of England, is extremely demoralizing in its tendency, as we have shown in another part of this work. The report of parliamentary commissioners contains some statements in regard to the darkness of mind and corruption of heart among young persons employed in the various trades and manufactures.

The following facts are quoted from the Second Report of the "Children's Employment Commission."

The moral and religious state of the children and young persons employed in the trades and manufactures of Birmingham, is described by the sub-commissioners as very unfavourable. The social and domestic duties and affections are but little cultivated and practised; great numbers never attend any place of public worship; and of the state of juvenile crime some conception may be formed by the statement, that of the total number of known or suspected offenders in this town, during the twelve last months—namely, 1223—at least one-half were under fifteen years of age.

As to illicit sexual intercourse, it seems to prevail almost universally, and from a very early period of life; to this common conclusion witnesses of every rank give testimony.

WOLVERHAMPTON.—Of the moral condition of the youthful population in the Wolverhampton district, Mr. Horne says—"Putting together all I elicited from various witnesses and conversations with working people, abroad and at home, and all that fell under my observation, I am obliged to come to the conclusion, that the moral virtues of the great majority of the children are as few in number and as feeble in practice as can well be conceived in a civilized country, surrounded by religious and educational institutions, and by individuals anxious for the improvement of the condition of the working classes."

He adds of WITTENHALL—"A lower condition of morals, in the fullest sense of the term, could not, I think, be found. I do not mean by this that there are many more prominent vices among them, but that moral feelings and sentiments do not exist among them. They have no morals."

SHEFFIELD.—In all the Sheffield trades, employing large numbers of children, it is stated that there is a much closer intermixture of the younger children with the elder youths, and with the men, than is usual in the cotton, woollen, and flax factories; and that the conversation to which the children are compelled to listen, would debase their minds and blunt their moral feelings even if they had been carefully and virtuously educated, but that of course this result takes place more rapidly and completely in the case of those who have had little or no religious culture, and little but bad example before their eyes from their cradle upward.

Habits of drinking are formed at a very early age, malt liquor being generally introduced into the workshops, of which the youngest children are encouraged to partake. "Very many," say the police-officers, "frequent beer-shops, where they play at dominoes, bagatelle, &c. for money or drink." Early intemperance is assigned by the medical men as one cause of the great mortality of Sheffield. "There are beer-houses," says the Rev. Mr. Farish, "attended by youths exclusively, for the men will not have them in the same houses with themselves. In these beer-houses are youths of both sexes encouraged to meet, and scenes destructive of every vestige of virtue or morality ensue.

But it is stated by all classes of witnesses, that "the most revolting feature of juvenile depravity in this town is early contamination from the association of the sexes," that "juvenile prostitution is exceedingly common." "The evidence," says the sub-commissioner, "might have been doubled which attests the early commencement of sexual and promiscuous intercourse among boys and girls."