According to the report of the Constabulary Commissioners, there were in 1839—

Moreover, the same Report tells us, at p. 32, that there is a low lodging-house for tramps in every village. By the Post-office Directory there are 3823 postal towns in England and Wales; and assuming that in each of these towns there are two “travellers’” houses, and that each of these, upon an average, harbours every night ten tramps (in a list given at p. 311, there were in 83 towns no less than 678 low lodging-houses, receiving 10,860 lodgers every night; this gives, on an average, 8 such houses to each town, and 16 lodgers to each such house), we have thus 76,460 for the total number of the inmates of such houses.

To show the actual state of these lodging-houses from the testimony of one who had been long resident in them, I give the following statement. It was made to me by a man of superior education and intelligence (as the tone of his narrative fully shows), whom circumstances, which do not affect the object of my present letter, and therefore need not be detailed, had reduced from affluence to beggary, so that he was compelled to be a constant resident in those places. All the other statements that I obtained on the subject—and they were numerous—were corroborative of his account to the very letter:—

“I have been familiar, unfortunately for me, with low lodging-houses, both in town and country, for more than ten years. I consider that, as to the conduct of those places, it is worse in London than in the country—while in the country the character of the keeper is worse than in London, although but a small difference can be noted. The worst I am acquainted with, though I haven’t been in it lately, is in the neighbourhood of Drury-lane—this is the worst both for filth and for the character of the lodgers. In the room where I slept, which was like a barn in size, the tiles were off the roof, and as there was no ceiling, I could see the blue sky from where I lay. That may be altered now. Here I slept in what was called the single men’s room, and it was confined to men. In another part of the house was a room for married couples, as it was called, but of such apartments I can tell you more concerning other houses. For the bed with the view of the blue sky I paid 3d. If it rained there was no shelter. I have slept in a room in Brick-lane, Whitechapel, in which were fourteen beds. In the next bed to me, on the one side, was a man, his wife, and three children, and a man and his wife on the other. They were Irish people, and I believe the women were the men’s wives—as the Irish women generally are. Of all the women that resort to these places the Irish are far the best for chastity. All the beds were occupied, single men being mixed with the married couples. The question is never asked, when a man and woman go to a lodging-house, if they are man and wife. All must pay before they go to bed, or be turned into the street. These beds were made—as all the low lodging-house beds are—of the worst cotton flocks stuffed in coarse, strong canvas. There is a pair of sheets, a blanket, and a rug. I have known the bedding to be unchanged for three months; but that is not general. The beds are an average size. Dirt is the rule with them, and cleanliness the exception. They are all infested with vermin. I never met with an exception. No one is required to wash before going to bed in any of these places (except at a very few, where a very dirty fellow would not be admitted), unless he has been walking on a wet day without shoes or stockings, and then he must bathe his feet. The people who slept in the room I am describing were chiefly young men, almost all accompanied by young females. I have seen girls of fifteen sleep with ‘their chaps’—in some places with youths of from sixteen to twenty. There is no objection to any boy and girl occupying a bed, even though the keeper knows they were previously strangers to each other. The accommodation for purposes of decency is very bad in some places. A pail in the middle of a room, to which both sexes may resort, is a frequent arrangement. No delicacy or decency is ever observed. The women are, I think, worse than the men. If any one, possessing a sense of shame, says a word of rebuke, he is at once assailed, by the women in particular, with the coarsest words in the language. The Irish women are as bad as the others with respect to language, but I have known them keep themselves covered in bed when the other women were outraging modesty or decency. The Irish will sleep anywhere to save a halfpenny a night, if they have ever so much money.” [Here he stated certain gross acts common to lodging-houses, which cannot be detailed in print.] “It is not uncommon for a boy or man to take a girl out of the streets to these apartments. Some are the same as common brothels, women being taken in at all hours of the day or night. In most, however, they must stay all night as a married couple. In dressing or undressing there is no regard to decency, while disgusting blackguardism is often carried on in the conversation of the inmates. I have known decent people, those that are driven to such places from destitution, perhaps for the first time, shocked and disgusted at what they saw. I have seen a decent married pair so shocked and disgusted that they have insisted on leaving the place, and have left it. A great number of the lodging-houses are large old buildings, which were constructed for other purposes; these houses are not so ill-ventilated, but even there, where so many sleep in one room, the air is hot and foul. In smaller rooms, say twelve feet by nine, I have seen four beds placed for single men, with no ventilation whatsoever, so that no one could remain inside in warmish weather, without every door and window open; another room in the same house, a little larger, had four double beds, with as many men and women, and perhaps with children. The Board of Health last autumn compelled the keepers of these places to whitewash the walls and ceilings, and use limewash in other places; before that, the walls and ceilings looked as if they had been blackwashed, but still you could see the bugs creeping along those black walls, which were not black enough to hide that. In some houses in the summer you can hardly place your finger on a part of the wall free from bugs. I have scraped them off by handfulls.

“Nothing can be worse to the health than these places, without ventilation, cleanliness, or decency, and with forty people’s breaths perhaps mingling together in one foul choking steam of stench. [The man’s own words.] They are the ready resort of thieves and all bad characters, and the keepers will hide them if they can from the police, or facilitate any criminal’s escape. I never knew the keepers give any offender up, even when rewards were offered. If they did, they might shut up shop. These houses are but receptacles, with a few exceptions, for beggars, thieves, and prostitutes, and those in training for thieves and prostitutes—the exceptions are those who must lodge at the lowest possible cost. I consider them in every respect of the worst possible character, and think that immediate means should be adopted to improve them. Fights, and fierce fights too, are frequent in them, and I have often been afraid murder would be done. They are money-making places, very. One person will own several—as many as a dozen. In each house he has one or more ‘deputies,’ chiefly men. Some of these keepers are called respectable men; some live out in the country, leaving all to deputies. They are quite a separate class from the keepers of regular brothels. In one house that I know they can accommodate eighty single men; and when single men only are admitted, what is decent, or rather what is considered decent in such places, is less unfrequent. Each man in such houses pays 4d. a night, a bed to each man or boy; that is 26s. 8d. nightly, or 486l. 13s. 4d. a year, provided the beds be full every night—and they are full six nights out of seven. Besides that, some of the beds supply double turns; for many get up at two to go to Covent-garden or some other market, and their beds are then let a second time to other men; so that more than eighty are frequently accommodated, and I suppose 500l. is the nearest sum to be taken for an accurate return. The rent is very trifling; the chief expense to be deducted from the profits of the house in question is the payment of three and sometimes four deputies, receiving from 7s. to 12s. a week each—say an average of from 30s. to 40s. a week—as three or four are employed. Fire (coke being only used) and gas are the other expenses. The washing is a mere trifle. Then there are the parochial and the water-rates. The rent is always low, as the houses are useable for nothing but such lodgings. The profits of the one house I have described cannot be less than 300l. a year, and the others are in proportion. Now, the owner of this house has, I believe, 10 more such houses, which, letting only threepenny beds (some are lower than that), may realise a profit of about 200l. a year each. These altogether yield a clear profit of 2300l. for the eleven of them; but on how much vice and disease that 2300l. has been raised is a question beyond a schoolmaster. The missionaries visit these lodging-houses, but, judging from what I have heard said by the inmates in all of them, when the missionaries have left, scarcely any good effect has resulted from the visits. I never saw a clergyman of any denomination in any one of these places, either in town or country. In London the master or deputy of the low lodging-house does not generally meddle with the disposal of stolen property, as in the country. This is talked about, alike in the town and country houses, very openly and freely before persons known only to be beggars, and never stealing: it is sufficient that they are known as tramps. In London the keepers must all know that stolen property is nightly brought into the house, and they wink at its disposal, but they won’t mix themselves up with disposing of it. If it be provisions that have been stolen, they are readily disposed of to the other inmates, and the owner or deputy of the house may know nothing about it, and certainly would not care to interfere if he did. I never heard robberies planned there, but there are generally strangers present, and this may deter. I believe more robberies are planned in low coffee-shops than in lodging-houses. The influence of the lodging-house society on boys who have run away from their parents, and have got thither, either separately or in company with lads who have joined them in the streets, is this:—Boys there, after paying their lodgings, may exercise the same freedom from every restraint as they see the persons of maturer years enjoy. This is often pleasant to a boy, especially if he has been severely treated by his parents or master; he apes, and often outdoes, all the men’s ways, both in swearing and lewd talk, and so he gets a relish for that sort of life. After he has resorted to such places—the sharper boys for three, and the duller for six months—they are adepts at any thieving or vice. Drunkenness, and even moderate drinking, is very rare among them. I seldom or never see the boys drink—indeed, thieves of all ages are generally sober men. Once get to like a lodging-house life, and a boy can hardly be got out of it. I said the other day to a youth, ‘I wish I could get out of these haunts and never see a lodging-house again;’ and he replied, ‘If I had ever so much money I would never live anywhere else.’ I have seen the boys in a lodging-house sit together telling stories, but paid no attention to them.”

Statement of a Young Pickpocket.

To show the class of characters usually frequenting these lodging-houses, I will now give the statement of a boy—a young pickpocket—without shoes or stockings. He wore a ragged, dirty, and very thin great coat, of some dark jean or linen, under which was another thin coat, so arranged that what appeared rents—and, indeed, were rents, but designedly made—in the outer garment, were slits through which the hand readily reached the pockets of the inner garment, and could there deposit any booty. He was a slim, agile lad, with a sharp but not vulgar expression, and small features. His hands were of singular delicacy and beauty. His fingers were very long, and no lady’s could have been more taper. A burglar told me that with such a hand he ought to have made his fortune. He was worth 20l. a week, he said, as a “wire,” that is, a picker of ladies’ pockets. When engaged “for a turn,” as he told me he once was by an old pickpocket, the man looked minutely at his fingers, and approved of them highly. His hands, the boy said, were hardly serviceable to him when very cold. His feet were formed in the same symmetrical and beautiful mould as his hands. “I am 15,” he said. “My father was a potter, and I can’t recollect my mother” (many of the thieves are orphans or motherless). “My father has been dead about five years. I was then working at the pottery in High-street, Lambeth, earning about 4s. a week; in good weeks, 4s. 6d. I was in work eight months after my father died; but one day I broke three bottles by accident, and the foreman said ‘I shan’t want you any more;’ and I took that as meant for a discharge; but I found afterwards that he did’nt so mean it. I had 2s. and a suit of clothes then, and tried for work at all the potteries; but I couldn’t get any. It was about the time Smithfield fair was on. I went, but it was a very poor concern. I fell asleep in a pen in the afternoon, and had my shoes stolen off my feet. When I woke up, I began crying. A fellow named Gyp then came along (I knew his name afterwards), and he said, ‘What are you crying for?’ and I told him, and he said, ‘Pull off your stockings, and come with me, and I’ll show you where to sleep.’ So I did, and he took me to St. Olave’s workhouse, having first sold my stockings. I had never stolen anything until then. There I slept in the casual ward, and Gyp slept there too. In the morning we started together for Smithfield, where he said he had a job to sweep the pens, but he couldn’t sweep them without pulling off his coat, and it would look so queer if he hadn’t a shirt—and he hadn’t one. He promised to teach me how to make a living in the country if I would lend him mine, and I was persuaded—for I was an innocent lad then—and went up a gateway and stripped off my shirt and gave it to him, and soon after he went into a public-house to get half a pint of beer; he went in at one door and out at another, and I didn’t see him for six months afterwards. That afternoon I went into Billingsgate market and met some boys, and one said, ‘Mate, how long have you been knocking about; where did you doss?’ I didn’t know what they meant, and when they’d told me they meant where did I sleep? I told them how I’d been served. And they said, ‘Oh! you must expect that, until you learn something,’ and they laughed. They all know’d Gyp; he was like the head of a Billingsgate gang once. I became a pal with these boys at Billingsgate, and we went about stealing fish and meat. Some boys have made 2s. in a morning, when fish is dear—those that had pluck and luck; they sold it at half-price. Billingsgate market is a good place to sell it; plenty of costermongers are there who will buy it, rather than of the salesmen. I soon grew as bad as the rest at this work. At first I sold it to other boys, who would get 3d. for what they bought at 1d. Now they can’t do me. If I can get a thing cheap where I lodge, and have the money, and can sell it dear, that’s the chance. I carried on this fish rig for about two years, and went begging a little, too. I used to try a little thieving sometimes in Petticoat-lane. They say the ‘fliest’ is easy to take in sometimes—that’s the artfullest; but I could do no good there. At these two years’ end, I was often as happy as could be; that is, when I had made money. Then I met B——, whom I had often heard of as an uncommon clever pickpocket; he could do it about as well as I can now, so as people won’t feel it. Three of his mates were transported for stealing silver plate. He and I became pals, and started for the country with 1d. We went through Foot’s Cray, and passed a farm where a man’s buried at the top of a house; there’s something about money while a man’s above ground; I don’t understand it, but it’s something like that. A baker, about thirty miles from London, offended us about some bread; and B—— said ‘I’ll serve him out.’ We watched him out, and B—— tried at his pocket, saying, ‘I’ll show you how to do a handkerchief;’ but the baker looked round, and B—— stopped; and just after that I flared it (whisked the handkerchief out); and that’s the first I did. It brought 1s. 3d. We travelled across country, and got to Maidstone, and did two handkerchiefs. One I wore round my neck, and the other the lodging-housekeeper pawned for us for 1s. 6d. In Maidstone, next morning, I was nailed, and had three months of it. I didn’t mind it so much then, but Maidstone’s far worse now, I’ve heard. I have been in prison three times in Brixton, three times in the Old Horse (Bridewell), three times in the Compter, once in the Steel, and once in Maidstone—thirteen times in all, including twice I was remanded, and got off; but I don’t reckon that prison. Every time I came out harder than I went in. I’ve had four floggings; it was bad enough—a flogging was—while it lasted; but when I got out I soon forgot it. At a week’s end I never thought again about it. If I had been better treated I should have been a better lad. I could leave off thieving now as if I had never thieved, if I could live without.” [I am inclined to doubt this part of the statement.] “I have carried on this sort of life until now. I didn’t often make a very good thing of it. I saw Manning and his wife hung. Mrs. Manning was dressed beautiful when she came up. She screeched when Jack Ketch pulled the bolt away. She was harder than Manning, they all said; without her there would have been no murder. It was a great deal talked about, and Manning was pitied. It was a punishment to her to come on the scaffold and see Manning with the rope about his neck, if people takes it in the right light. I did 4s. 6d. at the hanging—two handkerchiefs, and a purse with 2s. in it—the best purse I ever had; but I’ve only done three or four purses. The reason is, because I’ve never been well dressed. If I went near a lady, she would say, ‘Tush, tush, you ragged fellow!’ and would shrink away. But I would rather rob the rich than the poor; they miss it less. But 1s. honest goes further than 5s. stolen. Some call that only a saying, but it’s true. All the money I got soon went—most of it a-gambling. Picking pockets, when any one comes to think on it, is the daringest thing that a boy can do. It didn’t in the least frighten me to see Manning and Mrs. Manning hanged. I never thought I should come to the gallows, and I never shall—I’m not high-tempered enough for that. The only thing that frightens me when I’m in prison is sleeping in a cell by myself—you do in the Old Horse and the Steel—because I think things may appear. You can’t imagine how one dreams when in trouble. I’ve often started up in a fright from a dream. I don’t know what might appear. I’ve heard people talk about ghosts and that. Once, in the County, a tin had been left under a tap that went drip—drip—drip. And all in the ward were shocking frightened; and weren’t we glad when we found out what it was! Boys tell stories about haunted castles, and cats that are devils; and that frightens one. At the fire in Monument-yard I did 5s. 7d.—3s. in silver and 2s. 3d. in handkerchiefs, and 4d. for three pairs of gloves. I sell my handkerchiefs in the Lane (Petticoat-lane). I carry on this trade still. Most times I’ve got in prison is when I’ve been desperate from hunger, and have said to B——, ‘Now I’ll have money, nailed or not nailed.’ I can pick a woman’s pocket as easy as a man’s, though you wouldn’t think it. If one’s in prison for begging, one’s laughed at. The others say, ‘Begging! Oh, you cadger!’ So a boy is partly forced to steal for his character. I’ve lived a good deal in lodging-houses, and know the ways of them. They are very bad places for a boy to be in. Where I am now, when the place is full, there’s upwards of 100 can be accommodated. I won’t be there long. I’ll do something to get out of it. There’s people there will rob their own brother. There’s people there talk backward—for one they say eno, for two owt, for three eerht, for four ruof, for five evif, for six exis. I don’t know any higher. I can neither read nor write. In this lodging-house there are no women. They talk there chiefly about what they’ve done, or are going to do, or have set their minds upon, just as you and any other gentlemen might do. I have been in lodging-houses in Mint-street and Kent-street, where men and women and children all slept in one room. I think the men and women who slept together were generally married, or lived together; but it’s not right for a big boy to sleep in the same room. Young men have had beds to themselves, and so have young women there; but there’s a deputy comes into the room, every now and then, to see there’s nothing wrong. There’s little said in these places, the people are generally so tired. Where I am there’s horrid language—swearing, and everything that’s bad. They are to be pitied, because there’s not work for honest people, let alone thieves. In the lodging-houses the air is very bad, enough to stifle one in bed—so many breaths together. Without such places my trade couldn’t be carried on; I couldn’t live. Some though would find another way out. Three or four would take a room among them. Anybody’s money’s good—you can always get a room. I would be glad to leave this life, and work at a pottery. As to sea, a bad captain would make me run away—sure. He can do what he likes with you when you’re out at sea. I don’t get more than 2s. a week, one week with the other, by thieving; some days you do nothing until hunger makes your spirits rise. I can’t thieve on a full belly. I live on 2s. a week from thieving, because I understand fiddling—that means, buying a thing for a mere trifle, and selling it for double, or for more, if you’re not taken in yourself. I’ve been put up to a few tricks in lodging-houses, and now I can put others up to it. Everybody must look after themselves, and I can’t say I was very sorry when I stole that 2s. from a poor woman, but I’d rather have had 1s. 6d. from a rich one. I never drink—eating’s my part. I spend chief part of my money in pudding. I don’t like living in lodging-houses, but I must like it as I’m placed now—that sort of living, and those lodging-houses, or starving. They bring tracts to the lodging-houses—pipes are lighted with them; tracts won’t fill your belly. Tracts is no good, except to a person that has a home; at the lodging-houses they’re laughed at. They seldom are mentioned. I’ve heard some of them read by missionaries, but can’t catch anything from them. If it had been anything bad, I should have caught it readily. If an innocent boy gets into a lodging-house, he’ll not be innocent long—he can’t. I know three boys who have run away, and are in the lodging-houses still, but I hope their father has caught them. Last night a little boy came to the lodging-house where I was. We all thought he had run away, by the way he spoke. He stayed all night, but was found out in two or three falsehoods. I wanted to get him back home, or he’ll be as bad as I am in time, though he’s nothing to me; but I couldn’t find him this morning; but I’ll get him home yet, perhaps. The Jews in Petticoat-lane are terrible rogues. They’ll buy anything of you—they’ll buy what you’ve stolen from their next-door neighbours—that they would, if they knew it. But they’ll give you very little for it, and they threaten to give you up if you won’t take a quarter of the value of it. ‘Oh! I shee you do it,’ they say, ‘and I like to shee him robbed, but you musht take vot I give.’ I wouldn’t mind what harm came to those Petticoat-laners. Many of them are worth thousands, though you wouldn’t think it.” After this I asked him what he, as a sharp lad, thought was the cause of so many boys becoming vagrant pickpockets? He answered, “Why, sir, if boys runs away, and has to shelter in low lodging-houses—and many runs away from cruel treatment at home—they meet there with boys such as me, or as bad, and the devil soon lays his hand on them. If there wasn’t so many lodging-houses there wouldn’t be so many bad boys—there couldn’t. Lately a boy came down to Billingsgate, and said he wouldn’t stay at home to be knocked about any longer. He said it to some boys like me; and he was asked if he could get anything from his mother, and he said ‘yes, he could.’ So he went back, and brought a brooch and some other things with him to a place fixed on, and then he and some of the boys set off for the country; and that’s the way boys is trapped. I think the fathers of such boys either ill-treat them, or neglect them; and so they run away. My father used to beat me shocking; so I hated home. I stood hard licking well, and was called ‘the plucked one.’” This boy first stole flowers, currants, and gooseberries out of the clergyman’s garden, more by way of bravado, and to ensure the approbation of his comrades, than for anything else. He answered readily to my inquiry, as to what he thought would become of him?—“Transportation. If a boy has great luck he may carry on for eight years. Three or four years is the common run, but transportation is what he’s sure to come to in the end.” This lad picked my pocket at my request, and so dexterously did he do his “work,” that though I was alive to what he was trying to do, it was impossible for me to detect the least movement of my coat. To see him pick the pockets, as he did, of some of the gentlemen who were present on the occasion, was a curious sight. He crept behind much like a cat with his claws out, and while in the act held his breath with suspense; but immediately the handkerchief was safe in his hand, the change in the expression of his countenance was most marked. He then seemed almost to be convulsed with delight at the success of his perilous adventure, and, turning his back, held up the handkerchief to discover the value of his prize, with intense glee evident in every feature.

Statement of a Prostitute.

The narrative which follows—that of a prostitute, sleeping in the low-lodging houses, where boys and girls are all huddled promiscuously together, discloses a system of depravity, atrocity, and enormity, which certainly cannot be paralleled in any nation, however barbarous, nor in any age, however “dark.” The facts detailed, it will be seen, are gross enough to make us all blush for the land in which such scenes can be daily perpetrated. The circumstances, which it is impossible to publish, are of the most loathsome and revolting nature.

A good-looking girl of sixteen gave me the following awful statement:—

“I am an orphan. When I was ten I was sent to service as 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 for 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 washhouses), 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 and 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 2s. 6d. 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 anything 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. ——— 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 3d. a night; but at Mrs. ——’s it is 1d. and 2d. 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 cannot 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-housekeeper 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. Any body may call in the daytime at this house and have a halfpennyworth 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 have 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 trowsers. 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 1d. and pay a ½d. 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 3d. from the rag shops, and a cat 6d. 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 goes to the Jews in Petticoat-lane. Mrs. —— buys the sawney of us; so much for the lump, 2d. a pound about; she sells it again for twice what she gives, and more. Perhaps 30 lb. 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.”

The above facts require no comment from me.

Statement of a Beggar.

A beggar decently attired, and with a simple and what some would call even a respectable look, gave me the following account:—

“I am now twenty-eight, and have known all connected with the begging trade since I was fourteen. My grandfather (mother’s father) was rich, owning three parts of the accommodation houses in St. Giles’s; he allowed me 2s. a week pocket-money. My grandfather kept the great house, the old Rose and Crown, in Church-lane, opposite Carver-street, best known as the ‘Beggar’s Opera.’ When a child of seven, I have seen the place crowded—crammed with nothing but beggars, first-rates—none else used the house. The money I saw in the hands of the beggars made a great impression upon me. My father took away my mother’s money. I wish my mother had run away instead. He was kind, but she was always nagging. My father was a foreman in a foundry. I got a situation in the same foundry after my father cut. Once I was sent to a bank with a cheque for 38l. to get cashed, in silver, for wages. In coming away, I met a companion of mine, and he persuaded me to bolt with the money, and go to Ashley’s. The money was too much for my head to carry. I fooled all that money away. I wasn’t in bed for more than a fortnight. I bought linnets in cages for the fancy of my persuader. In fact, I didn’t know what use to put the money to. I was among plenty of girls. When the money was out I was destitute. I couldn’t go back to my employers, and I couldn’t face my mother’s temper—that was worse; but for that nagging of hers I shouldn’t have been as I am. She has thrashed me with a hand broom until I was silly; there’s the bumps on my head still; and yet that woman would have given me her heart’s blood to do me a good. As soon as I found myself quite destitute, I went wandering about the City, picking up the skins of gooseberries and orange peel to eat, to live on—things my stomach would turn at now. At last my mother came to hear that I tried to destroy myself. She paid the 38l., and my former employers got me a situation in Paddington. I was there a month, and then I met him as advised me to steal the money before—he’s called the ex-king of the costermongers now. Well he was crying hareskins, and advised me again to bolt, and I went with him. My mind was bent upon costermongering and a roving life. I couldn’t settle to anything. I wanted to be away when I was at work, and when I was away I wanted to be back again. It was difficult for me to stick to anything for five minutes together; it is so now. What I begin I can’t finish at the time—unless it’s a pot of beer. Well, in four days my adviser left me; he had no more use for me. I was a flat. He had me for a “go-along,” to cry his things for him. Then, for the first time in my life, I went into a low lodging-house. There was forty men and women sleeping in one room. I had to sleep with a black man, and I slept on the floor to get away from the fellow. There were plenty of girls there; some playing cards and dominoes. It was very dirty—old Mother ——, in Lawrence-lane—the Queen of Hell she was called. There was one tub among the lot of us. I felt altogether disgusted. Those who lived there were beggars, thieves, smashers, coiners, purchasers of begged and stolen goods, and prostitutes. The youngest prostitute was twelve, and so up to fifty. The beastliest language went on. It’s done to outrival one another. There I met with a man called Tom Shallow (shallow is cant for half-naked), and he took me out ballad-singing, and when we couldn’t get on at that (the songs got dead) he left me. I made him 10s. or 12s. a day in them days, but he only gave me my lodgings and grub (but not half enough), and two pipes of tobacco a day to keep the hunger down, that I mightn’t be expensive. I then ’listed. I was starving, and couldn’t raise a lodging. I took the shilling, but was rejected by the doctor. I ’listed again at Chatham afterwards, but was rejected again. I stayed jobbing among the soldiers for some weeks, and then they gave me an old regimental suit, and with that I came to London. One gave me a jacket, and another a pair of military trowsers, and another a pair of old ammunition boots, and so on. About that time a batch of invalids came from Spain, where they had been under General Evans. On my way up from Chatham, I met at Gravesend with seven chaps out on ‘the Spanish lurk’ as they called it—that is, passing themselves off as wounded men of the Spanish Legion. Two had been out in Spain, and managed the business if questions were asked; the others were regular English beggars, who had never been out of the country. I joined them as a serjeant, as I had a sergeant’s jacket given me at Chatham. On our way to London—‘the school’ (as the lot is called) came all together—we picked up among us 4l. and 5l. a day—no matter where we went. ‘The school’ all slept in lodging houses, and I at last began to feel comfortable in them. We spent our evenings in eating out-and-out suppers. Sometimes we had such things as sucking pigs, hams, mince pies—indeed we lived on the best. No nobleman could live better in them days. So much wine, too! I drank in such excess, my nose was as big as that there letter stamp; so that I got a sickening of it. We gave good victuals away that was given to us—it was a nuisance to carry them. It cost us from 6d. to 1s. a day to have our shoes cleaned by poor tramps, and for clean dickies. The clean dodge is always the best for begging upon. At Woolwich we were all on the fuddle at the Dust Hole, and our two spokesmen were drunk; and I went to beg of Major ——, whose brother was then in Spain—he himself had been out previously. Meeting the major at his own house, I said, ‘I was a sergeant in the 3rd Westminster Grenadiers, you know, and served under your brother.’ ‘Oh! yes, that’s my brother’s regiment,’ says he. ‘Where was you, then, on the 16th of October?’ ‘Why, sir, I was at the taking of the city of Irun,’ says I—(in fact, I was at that time with the costermonger in St. Giles’s, calling cabbages, ‘white heart cabbages, oh!’) Then said the major, ‘What day was Ernani taken on?’ ‘Why,’ said I (I was a little tipsy, and bothered at the question), ‘that was the 16th of October, too.’ ‘Very well, my man,’ says he, tapping his boots with a riding whip he held, ‘I’ll see what I can do for you;’ and the words were no sooner out of his mouth than he stepped up to me and gave me a regular pasting. He horsewhipped me up and down stairs, and all along the passages; my flesh was like sassages. I managed at last, however, to open the door myself, and get away. After that ‘the school’ came to London. In a day we used to make from 8l. to 10l. among us, by walking up Regent-street, Bond-street, Piccadilly, Pall-mall, Oxford-street, the parks—those places were the best beats. All the squares were good too. It was only like a walk out for air, and your 25s. a man for it. At night we used to go to plays, dressed like gentlemen. At first the beaks protected us, but we got found out, and the beaks grew rusty. The thing got so overdone, every beggar went out as a Spanish lurksman. Well, the beaks got up to the dodge, and all the Spanish lurksmen in their turns got to work the universal staircase, under the care of Lieutenant Tracy (Tothill-fields treadmill). The men that had really been out and got disabled were sent to that staircase at last, and I thought I would try a fresh lurk. So I went under the care and tuition of a sailor. He had been a sailor. I became a turnpike sailor, as it’s called, and went out as one of the Shallow Brigade, wearing a Guernsey shirt and drawers, or tattered trowsers. There was a school of four. We only got a tidy living—16s. or 1l. a day among us. We used to call every one that came along—coalheavers and all—sea-fighting captains. ‘Now, my noble sea-fighting captain,’ we used to say, ‘fire an odd shot from your larboard locker to us, Nelson’s bull-dogs;’ but mind we never tried that dodge on at Greenwich, for fear of the old geese, the Collegemen. The Shallow got so grannied (known) in London, that the supplies got queer, and I quitted the land navy. Shipwrecks got so common in the streets, you see, that people didn’t care for them, and I dropped getting cast away. I then took to screeving (writing on the stones). I got my head shaved, and a cloth tied round my jaws, and wrote on the flags—

‘Illness and Want,’

though I was never better in my life, and always had a good bellyfull before I started of a morning. I did very well at first: 3s. or 4s. a day—sometimes more—till I got grannied. There is one man who draws Christ’s heads with a crown of thorns, and mackerel, on the pavement, in coloured chalks (there are four or five others at the same business); this one, however, often makes 1l. a day now in three hours; indeed, I have known him come home with 21s., besides what he drank on the way. A gentleman who met him in Regent-street once gave him 5l. and a suit of clothes to do Christ’s heads with a crown of thorns and mackerel on the walls. His son does Napoleon’s heads best, but makes nothing like so much as the father. The father draws cats’ heads and salmon as well—but the others are far the best spec. He will often give thirteen-pence, and indeed fourteen-pence, for a silver shilling, to get rid of the coppers. This man’s pitch is Lloyd-square, not far from Sadler’s Wells. I have seen him commence his pitch there at half-past eleven, to catch the people come from the theatre. He is very clever. In wet weather, and when I couldn’t chalk, as I couldn’t afford to lose time, I used to dress tidy and very clean for the ‘respectable broken-down tradesman or reduced gentleman’ caper. I wore a suit of black, generally, and a clean dickey, and sometimes old black kid gloves, and I used to stand with a paper before my face, as if ashamed—

‘To a Humane Public.
‘I have seen better days.’

This is called standing pad with a fakement. It is a wet-weather dodge, and isn’t so good as screeving, but I did middling, and can’t bear being idle. After this I mixed with the street patterers (men who make speeches in the streets) on the destitute mechanics’ lurk. We went in a school of six at first, all in clean aprons, and spoke every man in his turn. It won’t do unless you’re clean. Each man wanted a particular article of dress. One had no shirt—another no shoes—another no hat—and so on. No two wanted the same. We said:—