London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. 4

PETTY TRADING BEGGARS.

This is perhaps the most numerous class of beggars in London. Their trading in such articles as lucifers, boot-laces, cabbage-nets, tapes, cottons, shirt-buttons, and the like, is in most cases a mere “blind” to evade the law applying to mendicants and vagrants. There are very few of the street vendors of such petty articles as lucifers and shirt-buttons who can make a living from the profits of their trade. Indeed they do not calculate upon doing so. The box of matches, or the little deal box of cottons, is used simply as a passport to the resorts of the charitable. The police are obliged to respect the trader, though they know very well that under the disguise of the itinerant merchant there lurks a beggar.

Beggars of this class use their trade to excite compassion and obtain a gift rather than to effect a sale. A poor half-clad wretch stands by the kerb exposing for sale a single box of matches, the price being “only a halfpenny.” A charitable person passes by and drops a halfpenny or a penny into the poor man’s hand, and disdains to take the matches. In this way a single box will be sufficient for a whole evening’s trading, unless some person should insist upon an actual “transaction,” when the beggar is obliged to procure another box at the nearest oilman’s. There are very few articles upon which an actual profit is made by legitimate sale. Porcelain shirt-buttons, a favourite commodity of the petty trading beggars, would not yield the price of a single meal unless the seller could dispose of at least twenty dozen in a day. Cottons, stay-laces, and the like, can now be obtained so cheaply at the shops, that no one thinks of buying these articles in the streets unless it be in a charitable mood. Almost the only commodities in which a legitimate trade is carried on by the petty traders of the streets are flowers, songs, knives, combs, braces, purses, portmonnaies. The sellers of knives, combs, &c., are to a certain extent legitimate traders, and do not calculate upon charity. They are cheats, perhaps, but not beggars. The vendors of flowers and songs, though they really make an effort to sell their goods, and often realize a tolerable profit, are nevertheless beggars, and trust to increase their earnings by obtaining money without giving an equivalent. A great many children are sent out by their parents to sell flowers during the summer and autumn. They find their best market in the bars of public-houses, and especially those frequented by prostitutes. If none else give prostitutes a good character, the very poor do. “I don’t know what we should do but for them,” said an old beggar-woman to me one day. “They are good-hearted souls—always kind to the poor. I hope God will forgive them.” I have had many examples of this sympathy for misfortune and poverty on the part of the fallen women of the streets. A fellow feeling no doubt makes them wondrous kind. They know what it is to be cast off, and spurned, and despised; they know, too, what it is to starve, and, like the beggars, they are subject to the stern “move on” of the policeman.

The relations which subsist between the prostitutes and the beggars reveal some curious traits. Beggars will enter a public-house because they see some women at the bar who will assist their suit. They offer their little wares to some gentlemen at the bar, and the women will say, “Give the poor devil something,” or “buy bouquets for us,” or if the commodity should be laces or buttons, they say, “Don’t take the poor old woman’s things; give her the money.” And the gentlemen, just to show off, and appear liberal, do as they are told. Possibly, but for the pleading of their gay companions, they would have answered the appeal with a curse and gruff command to begone. I once saw an old woman kiss a bedizened prostitute’s hand, in real gratitude for a service of this kind. I don’t know that I ever witnessed anything more touching in my life. The woman, who a few minutes before had been flaunting about the bar in the reckless manner peculiar to her class, was quite moved by the old beggar’s act, and I saw a tear mount in her eye and slowly trickle down her painted cheek, making a white channel through the rouge as it fell. But in a moment she dashed it away, and the next was flaunting and singing as before. Prostitutes are afraid to remain long under the influence of good thoughts. They recal their days of innocence, and overpower them with an intolerable sadness—a sadness which springs of remorse. The gay women assume airs of patronage towards the beggars, and as such are looked up to; but a beggar-woman, however poor, and however miserable, if she is conscious of being virtuous, is always sensible of her superiority in that respect. She is thankful for the kindness of the “gay lady,” and extols her goodness of heart; but she pities while she admires, and mutters as a last word, “May God forgive her.” Thus does one touch of nature make all the world akin, and thus does virtue survive all the buffets of evil fortune to raise even a beggar to the level of the most worthy, and be a treasure dearer and brighter than all the pleasures of the world.

The sellers of flowers and songs are chiefly boys and young girls. They buy their flowers in Covent Garden, when the refuse of the market is cleared out, and make them up into small bouquets, which they sell for a penny. When the flower season is over they sell songs—those familiar productions of Ryle, Catnach and company, which, it is said, the great Lord Macaulay was wont to collect and treasure up as collateral evidences of history. Some of the boys who pursue this traffic are masters of all the trades that appertain to begging. I have traced one boy, by the identifying mark of a most villanous squint, through a career of ten years. When I first saw him he was a mere child of about four years of age. His mother sent him with a ragged little girl (his sister) into public-house bars to beg. Their diminutive size attracted attention and excited charity. By-and-by, possibly in consequence of the interference of the police, they carried pennyworths of flowers with them, at other times matches, and at others halfpenny sheets of songs. After this the boy and the girl appeared dressed in sailor’s costume, (both as boys,) and sung duets. I remember that one of the duets, which had a spoken part, was not very decent; the poor children evidently did not understand what they said; but the thoughtless people at the bar laughed and gave them money. By-and-by the boy became too big for this kind of work, and I next met him selling fuzees. After the lapse of about a year he started in the shoe-black line. His station was at the end of Endell Street, near the baths; but as he did not belong to one of the regularly organized brigades, he was hunted about by the police, and could not make a living. On the death of the crossing-sweeper at the corner he succeeded to that functionary’s broom, and in his new capacity was regarded by the police as a useful member of society. The last time I saw him he was in possession of a costermonger’s barrow selling mackerel. He had grown a big strong fellow, but I had no difficulty in identifying the little squinting child, who begged, and sold flowers and songs in public-house bars, with the strong loud-lunged vendor of mackerel. I suppose this young beggar may be said to have pursued an honourable career, and raised himself in the world. Many who have such an introduction to life finish their course in a penal settlement.

There are not a few who assume the appearance of petty traders for the purpose of committing thefts, such as picking a gentleman’s pocket when he is intoxicated, and slinking into parlours to steal bagatelle balls. Police spies occasionally disguise themselves as petty traders. There is a well-known man who goes about with a bag of nuts, betting that he will tell within two how many you take up in your hand. This man is said to be a police spy. I have not been able to ascertain whether this is true or not; but I am satisfied that the man does not get his living by his nut trick. In the day-time he appears without his nuts, dressed in a suit of black, and looking certainly not unlike a policeman in mufti.

Among the petty trading beggars there are a good many idiots and half-witted creatures, who obtain a living—and a very good one too—by dancing in a grotesque and idiotic manner on the pavement to amuse children. Some of them are not such idiots as they appear, but assume a half-witted appearance to give oddness to their performance, and excite compassion for their misfortune. The street boys are the avengers of this imposition upon society.

The idiot performer has a sad life of it when the boys gather about him. They pull his clothes, knock off his hat, and pelt him with lime and mud. But this persecution sometimes redounds to his advantage; for when the grown-up folks see him treated thus, they pity him the more. These beggars always take care to carry something to offer for sale. Halfpenny songs are most commonly the merchandise.

The little half-witted Italian man who used to go about grinding an organ that “had no inside to it,” as the boys said, was a beggar of this class, and I really think he traded on his constant persecution by the gamins. Music, of course, he made none, for there was only one string left in his battered organ; but he always acted so as to convey the idea that the boys had destroyed his instrument. He would turn away at the handle in a desperate way, as if he were determined to spare no effort to please his patrons; but nothing ever came of it but a feeble tink-a-tink at long intervals. If his organ could at any time have been spoiled, certainly the boys might have done it; for their great delight was to put stones in it, and batter in its deal back with sticks. I am informed that this man had a good deal more of the rogue than of the fool in his composition. A gentleman offered to have his organ repaired for him; but he declined; and at length when the one remaining string gave way he would only have that one mended. It was his “dodge” to grind the air, and appear to be unconscious that he was not discoursing most eloquent music.

Tract-selling in the streets is a line peculiar to the Hindoos. I find that the tracts are given to them by religious people, and that they are bought by religious people, who are not unfrequently the very same persons who provided the tracts. Very few petty trading beggars take to tract-selling from their own inspiration; for in good sooth it does not pay, except when conducted on the principle I have just indicated. Some find it convenient to exhibit tracts simply to evade the law applying to beggars and vagrants; but they do not use them if they can procure a more popular article. In these remarks it is very far from my intention to speak of “religious people” with any disrespect. I merely use the expression “religious people” to denote those who employ themselves actively and constantly in disseminating religious publications among the people. Their motives and their efforts are most praiseworthy, and my only regret is that their labours are not rewarded by a larger measure of success.

An Author’s Wife.

In the course of my inquiry into the habits, condition, and mode of life of the petty trading beggars of London, I met with a young woman who alleged that the publications she sold were the production of her husband. I encountered her at the bar of a tavern, where I was occupied in looking out for “specimens” of the class of beggars, which I am now describing. She entered the bar modestly and with seeming diffidence. She had some printed sheets in her hand. I asked her what they were. She handed me a sheet. It was entitled the Pretty Girls of London. It was only a portion of the work, and on the last page was printed “to be continued.” “Do you bring this out in numbers?” I asked. “Yes, sir,” she replied, “it is written by my husband, and he is continuing it from time to time.” “Are you then his publisher?” I inquired. “Yes, sir, my husband is ill a-bed, and I am obliged to go out and sell his work for him?” I looked through the sheet, and I saw that it was not a very decent work. “Have you ever read this?” I enquired. “Oh yes, sir, and I think it’s very clever; don’t you think so, sir?” It certainly was written with some little ability, and I said so; but I objected to its morality. Upon which she replied, “But it’s what takes, sir.” She sold several copies while I was present, at twopence each; but one or two gave her fourpence and sixpence. As she was leaving I made further inquiries about her husband. She said he was an author by profession, and had seen better days. He was very ill, and unable to work. I asked her, to give me his address as I might be of some assistance to him. This request seemed to perplex her; and at length she said, she was afraid her husband would not like to see me; he was very proud. I have since ascertained that this author’s pretty little wife is a dangerous impostor. She lives, or did live at the time I met her, at the back of Clare Market, with a man (not her husband) who was well known to the police as a notorious begging-letter writer. He was not the author of anything but those artful appeals, with forged signatures, of which I have given specimens under the heading of “Screevers.” I was also assured by an officer that the pretended author’s wife had on one occasion been concerned in decoying a young man to a low lodging near Lincoln’s Inn Fields, where the unsuspecting youth was robbed and maltreated.

DEPENDANTS OF BEGGARS.

The dependants of beggars may be divided into screevers proper; i.e., writers of “slums and fakements” for those who live by “screeving,” and referees, or those who give characters to professional beggars when references are required. Beggars are generally born and bred to the business. Their fathers and mothers were beggars before them, and they have an hereditary right to the calling. The exceptions to this rule are those who have fallen into mendicancy, and follow it from necessity, and those who have flown to it in a moment of distress, and finding it more lucrative than they supposed, adopted it from choice. Hence it follows that the majority are entirely destitute of education; and by education I mean the primary arts of reading and writing. Where there is demand there is supply, and the wants of mendicants who found their account in “pads,” and “slums,” and “fakements,” created “screevers.”

The antecedents of the screever are always more or less—and generally more—disreputable. He has been a fraudulent clerk imprisoned for embezzlement; or a highly-respected treasurer to a philanthropic society, who has made off with the funds entrusted to him; or a petty forger, whose family have purchased silence, and “hushed up” a scandal; or, more frequently, that most dangerous of convicts, the half-educated convict—who has served his time or escaped his bonds.

Too proud to beg himself, or, more probably, too well known to the police to dare face daylight; ignorant of any honest calling, or too idle to practise it; without courage to turn thief or informer; lazy, dissolute, and self-indulgent, the screever turns his little education to the worst of purposes, and prepares the forgery he leaves the more fearless cadger to utter.

The following are specimens of the screever’s work, copied from the original documents in the possession of Mr. Horsford, of the Mendicity Society:—

My readers will perceive that the above document is written in a semi-legal style, with a profuse amount of large capitals, and minute particularity in describing localities, though here and there an almost ostentatious indifference exists upon the same points. Thus we are told that the parish of Battersea is in the county of Surrey, and that Port Glasgow is in North Britain, while on the other hand we are only informed that the absconding Andrew Talfour, of Bay Street, Port Glasgow, N.B., made off to the colonies, which, considering the vast extent of our colonial possessions, is vague, to say the least of it. It must also be allowed that, the beginning the word “benevolent” in the second paragraph with a capital B is equally to the credit of the writer’s head and heart. It is odd that after having spelt “responsible” so correctly, the writer should have indulged a playful fancy with “responsibillity;” but perhaps trifling orthographical lapses may be in keeping with the assumed character of vestry-clerk. Critically speaking, the weak point of this composition is its punctuation; its strong point the concluding paragraph, “the GIVEN under my hand at the VESTRY,” which carries with it the double weight of a royal proclamation, and the business-like formality of an Admiralty contract; but the composition and caligraphy are trifles—the real genius lies in the signatures.

I wish my readers could see the names attached to this “Memorial” as they lay before me. The first, “J. S. Jenkinson,” is written in the most clerical of hands; “Watson and Co.” is round and commercial; “John Forster & Co.” the same; the “Revd J. Twining” scholarly and easy; “Alderman J. Humphery” stiff and upright. These names are evidently copied from the Red Book and Directory; some are purely fictitious; many are cleverly executed forgeries.

The ingenuity of the concocter and compiler—of the sympathiser with the woes of Mr. Alexander Fyfe of Port Glasgow, N.B.—was exercised in vain. The imposture was detected; he was taken to a police-court, condemned, and sentenced.

Here is the case of another unfortunate Scotchman from the pen of the same gifted author. The handwriting, the wording, the capitals, and the N.B.’s, are identical with those of the warm-hearted vestry-clerk of Battersea.

The signatures attached to this are imitations of the handwriting of various firms, each distinct, individual, and apparently genuine.

The next “screeve” takes the form of a resolution at a public meeting:—

The above letter is written in a better style than those preceding it. Great talent is exhibited in the imitations of “lady’s-hand.” The signatures “Mrs. Coventry,” “Mrs. Cribb,” “The Misses Howard,” and “Mrs. Harris” (surely this screever must have been familiar with the works of Dickens), are excellently done, but are surpassed by the clever execution of the letters forming the names, “The Misses Shorland” and “Miss Hall Lansdowne Crescent,” which are masterpieces of feminine caligraphy.

The following note was sent to its address, accompanied by a memorial in one of the House of Commons envelopes, but the faulty grammar, so unlike the style in which a member of Parliament ought to write, betrayed it.

My readers must admire the ingenuity of this letter. The VIA Mitchem looks so formal and convincing. The grouping of the circumstances—the “local colouring,” as the critics would call it, which contributed to the ruin of the ill-fated general carrier Henry Shepherd—is excellent.—“Near the Elephant and Castle his horse took fright at a band of street musicians.” What more natural? “Ran off at a furious pace. The van, coming in contact with a timber carriage, was dashed to pieces. The Animal,” not the horse—that would have been tautological, and Animal with a capital A. “The Animal received such injuries as caused its death, and Mr. Shepherd, endeavouring to save the property entrusted to his care—.” Admirable man! Devoted carrier!—leaving his van to smash—his horse to perish as they might, that the goods confided to him might receive no hurt. “... endeavouring to save the property entrusted to his care for delivery, had his right leg fractured, and is now an inmate of Guy’s Hospital.”

This is as well conceived and carried out as Sheridan’s pistol-bullet that misses its mark, “strikes a bronze Hercules in the mantel-piece, glances off through the window, and wounds the postman who was coming to the door with a double letter from Northamptonshire!”

The word “Paid” and its abbreviation pd. is scattered here and there artistically among the subscriptions. A small note in a different hand, in a corner of the last page shows the fate of industry and talent misapplied. It runs:—

The last instance I shall cite is peculiar, from the elaborate nature of the deception, and from containing a forgery of the signature of Lord Brougham. The screever, in this case, has taken a regularly printed Warrant, Execution, or Distress for Rent, filled it up with the name of Mrs. Julia Thompson, &c., and placed an imaginary inventory to a fictitious seizure. The word “Patent” is spelt “Pattent,” which might be allowable in a broker’s man, but when “Ewer” is written “Ure,” I think he is too hard upon the orthography peculiar to the officers of the Sheriff of Middlesex, particularly as it is evident from the rest of the filling-in of the form that the error is intentional. Not only law but science is invoked in aid of this capital case of sham real distress. “Pleuro-Pneumonia” looks veterinary and veracious enough to carry conviction to the hearts of the most sceptical.

The Schedule or Inventory above referred to:—

On the back of this legal document is written:

The two most notorious “screevers” of the present day are Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Johnson of Westminster, or as he is proud of being called, “Johnson the Schemer.”

Referees

are generally keepers of low lodging-houses, brothels, &c., or small tradesmen who supply thieves and beggars with chandlery, &c. When applied to for the character of any of their friends and confederates, they give them an excellent recommendation—but are careful not to overdo it. With that highest sort of artfulness that conceals artfulness, they know when to stop, and seldom or never betray themselves by saying too much.

“Mrs. Simmons!” said one of them in answer to an application for character—“ah, yes, sir, I known her a good many years, and a very honest, hard-working, industrious, sober sort of a person I always knowed her to be, at least as far as I see—I never see nothing wrong in the woman for my part. The earliest-uppest, and downest-latest woman I ever see, and well she need be, with that family of hers—nine on ’em, and the eldest girl a idiot. When first I knew her, sir, her husband was alive, and then Susan—that’s the idiot, sir, were a babe in arms—her husband was a bad man to her, sir—the way that man drunk and spent his money among all the lowest girls and corner-coves was awful to see,—I mean by corner-coves them sort of men who is always a standing at the corners of the streets and chaffing respectable folks a passing by—we call them corner-coves about here; but as to poor Mrs. Simmons, sir, that husband of hers tret her awful—though he’s dead and gone now, poor man, and perhaps I have no right to speak ill on the dead. He had some money with her too—two hundred pound I heard—her father was a builder in a small way—and lived out towards Fulham—a very deserving woman I always found her, sir, and I have helped her a little bit myself, not much of course, for my circumstances would not allow of it; I’ve a wife and family myself—and I have often been wishful I could help her more, but what can a man do as has to pay his rent and taxes, and bring up his family respectable? When her last baby but two had the ring-worm we helped her now and then with a loaf of bread—poor thing—it ran right through the family, that ring-worm did—six on ’em had it at the same time, she told us—and then they took the measles—the most unluckiest family in catching things as goes about I never saw—but as to Mrs. Simmons herself, sir, poor thing—a more hard-workinger and honester woman I never, &c., &c., &c.”

DISTRESSED OPERATIVE BEGGARS.

All beggars are ingenious enough to make capital of public events. They read the newspapers, judge the bent of popular sympathy, and decide on the “lay” to be adopted. The “Times” informs its readers that two or three hundred English navigators have been suddenly turned adrift in France. The native labourers object to the employment of aliens, and our stalwart countrymen have been subjected to insult as well as privation. The beggar’s course is taken; he goes to Petticoat Lane, purchases a white smock frock, a purple or red plush waistcoat profusely ornamented with wooden buttons, a coloured cotton neckerchief, and a red nightcap. If procurable “in the Lane,” he also buys a pair of coarse-ribbed grey worsted-stockings, and boots whose enormous weight is increased by several pounds of iron nails in their thick soles; even then he is not perfect, he seeks a rag and bottle and old iron shop—your genuine artist-beggar never asks for what is new, he prefers the worn, the used, the ragged and the rusty—and bargains for a spade. The proprietor of the shop knows perfectly well that his customer requires an article for show, not service, and they part with a mutual grin, and the next day every street swarms with groups of distressed navigators. Popular feeling is on their side, and halfpence shower round them. Meanwhile the poor fellows for whom all this generous indignation is evoked are waiting in crowds at a French port till the British Consul passed them over to their native soil as paupers.

The same tactics are pursued with manufactures. Beggars read the list of patents, and watch the effect of every fresh discovery in mechanics on the operatives of Lancashire and Yorkshire. A new machine is patented. So many hands are thrown out of work. So many beggars, who have never seen Lancashire, except when on the tramp, are heard in London. A strike takes place at several mills, pretended “hands” next day parade the streets. Even the variability of our climate is pressed into the “cadging” service; a frost locks up the rivers, and hardens the earth, rusty spades and gardening tools are in demand, and the indefatigable beggar takes the pavement in another “fancy dress.” Every social shipwreck is watched and turned to account by these systematic land-wreckers, who have reduced false signals to a regular code, and beg by rule and line and chart and compass.

Starved-out Manufacturers

parade in gangs of four and five, or with squalid wives and a few children. They wear paper-caps and white aprons with “bibs” to them, or a sort of cross-barred pinafore, called in the manufacturing districts a “chequer-brat.” Sometimes they make a “pitch,” that is, stand face to face, turning their backs upon a heartless world, and sing. The well-known ditty of

set to the tune of, “Oh let us be joyful,” was first introduced by this class of beggars. Or they will carry tapes, stay-laces, and papers of buttons, and throw imploring looks from side to side, and beg by implication. Or they will cock their chins up in the air, so as to display the unpleasantly prominent apples in their bony throats, and drone a psalm. When they go out “on the blob,” they make a long oration, not in the Lancashire or Yorkshire dialects, but in a cockney voice, of a strong Whitechapel flavour. The substance of the speech varies but slightly from the “patter” of the hand-loom weaver; indeed, the Nottingham “driz” or lace-man, the hand on strike, the distressed weaver, and the “operative” beggar, generally bear so strong a resemblance to each other, that they not only look like but sometimes positively are one and the same person.

Unemployed Agriculturists and Frozen-out Gardeners

are seen during a frost in gangs of from six to twenty. Two gangs generally “work” together, that is, while one gang begs at one end of a street, a second gang begs at the other. Their mode of procedure their “programme,” is very simple. Upon the spades which they carry is chalked “frozen-out!” or “starving!” and they enhance the effect of this “slum or fakement,” by shouting out sturdily “frozen out,” “We’re all frozen-out!” The gardeners differ from the agriculturists or “navvies” in their costume. They affect aprons and old straw hats, their manner is less demonstrative, and their tones less rusty and unmelodious. The “navvies” roar; the gardeners squeak. The navvies’ petition is made loud and lustily, as by men used to work in clay and rock; the gardeners’ voice is meek and mild, as of a gentle nature trained to tend on fruits and flowers. The young bulky, sinewy beggar plays navvy; the shrivelled, gravelly, pottering, elderly cadger performs gardener.

There can be no doubt that in times of hardship many honest labourers are forced into the streets to beg. A poor hard-working man, whose children cry to him for food, can feel no scruple in soliciting charity,—against such the writer of these pages would urge nothing; all credit to the motive that compels them unwillingly to ask alms; all honour to the feeling that prompts the listener to give. It is not the purpose of the author of this work to write down every mendicant an impostor, or every almsgiver a fool; on the contrary, he knows how much real distress, and how much real benevolence exist, and he would but step between the open hand of true charity, and the itching palm of the professional beggar, who stands between the misery that asks and the philanthropy that would relieve.

The winter of 1860-61 was a fine harvest for the “frozen out” impostors, some few of whom, happily, reaped the reward of their deserts in the police-courts. Three strong hearty men were brought up at one office; they said that they were starving, and they came from Horselydown; when searched six shillings and elevenpence were found upon them; they reiterated that they were starving and were out of work, on which the sitting magistrate kindly provided them with both food and employment, by sentencing them to seven days’ hard labour.

The “profits” of the frozen-out gardener and agriculturist are very large, and generally quadruples the sum earned by honest labour. In the February of 1861, four of these “distressed navvies” went into a public-house to divide the “swag” they had procured by one day’s shouting. Each had a handkerchief filled with bread and meat and cheese. They called for pots of porter and drank heartily, and when the reckoning was paid and the spoils equally divided, the share of each man was seven shillings.

The credulity of the public upon one point has often surprised me. A man comes out into the streets to say that he is starving, a few halfpence are thrown to him. If really hungry he would make for the nearest baker’s shop; but no, he picks up the coppers, pockets them, and proclaims again that he is starving, though he has the means of obtaining food in his fingers. Not that this obvious anachronism stops the current of benevolence or the chink of coin upon the stones—the fainting, famished fellow walks leisurely up the street, and still bellows out in notes of thunder, “I am starving!” If one of my readers will try when faint and exhausted to produce the same tone in the open air, he will realize the impossibility of shouting and starving simultaneously.

Hand-loom Weavers and Others deprived of their Living by Machinery.

As has been before stated, the regular beggar seizes on the latest pretext for a plausible tale of woe. Improvements in mechanics, and consequent cheapness to the many, are usually the causes of loss to the few. The sufferings of this minority is immediately turned to account by veteran cadgers, who rush to their wardrobes of well-chosen rags, attire themselves in appropriate costume, and ply their calling with the last grievance out. When unprovided with “patter,” they seek the literati of their class, and buy a speech; this they partly commit to memory, and trust to their own ingenuity to improvise any little touches that may prove effective. Many “screevers, slum-scribblers, and fakement-dodgers” eke out a living by this sort of authorship. Real operatives seldom stir from their own locality. The sympathy of their fellows, their natural habits, and the occasional relief afforded by the parish bind them to their homes, and the “distressed weaver” is generally a spurious metropolitan production. The following is a copy of one of their prepared orations: