The next of the school that spoke would change the story somehow, and try to make it more heart-rending still. We did well at first, making about 5s. a day each, working four hours, two in the morning and two in the afternoon. We got a good deal of clothing too. The man who went without a shirt never went to a door to ask for one; he had to show himself in the middle of the road. The man that did go to the door would say, ‘Do bestow a shirt on my poor shopmate, who hasn’t had one for some days.’ It’s been said of me, when I had my shirt tied round my waist all the time out of sight. The man who goes without his shirt has his pick of those given; the rest are sold and shared. Whatever trade we represented we always had one or two really of the trade in the school. These were always to be met at the lodging-houses. They were out of work, and had to go to low lodging-houses to sleep. There they met with beggars who kiddied them on to the lurk. The lodging-houses is good schools for that sort of thing, and when a mechanic once gets out on the lurk he never cares to go to work again. I never knew one return. I have been out oft and oft with weavers with a loom, and have woven a piece of ribbon in a gentleman’s parlour—that was when we was Coventry ribbon weavers. I have been a stocking weaver from Leicester, and a lacemaker too from Nottingham. Distressed mechanics on their way to London get initiated into beggar’s tricks in the low lodging-houses and the unions. This is the way, you see, sir. A school may be at work from the lodging-house where the mechanic goes to, and some of the school finds out what he is, and says, ‘Come and work with us in a school: you’ll do better than you can at your business, and you can answer any questions; we’ll lurk on your trade.’ I have been out with a woman and children. It’s been said in the papers that children can be hired for that lurk at 4d. or 6d. a day—that’s all fudge, all stuff, every bit of it—there’s no children to be hired. There’s many a labouring man out of work, who has a wife and three or more children, who is glad to let them go out with any patterer he knows. The woman is entitled to all the clothes and grub given, and her share of the tin—that’s the way it’s done; and she’s treated to a drink after her day’s work, into the bargain. I’ve been out on the respectable family man lurk. I was out with a woman and three kids the other day; her husband was on the pad in the country, as London was too hot to hold him. The kids draws, the younger the better, for if you vex them, and they’re oldish, they’ll blow you. Liverpool Joe’s boy did so at Bury St. Edmund’s to a patterer that he was out with, and who spoke cross to him. The lad shouted out so as the people about might hear, ‘Don’t you jaw me, you’re not my father; my father’s at home playing cards.’ They had to crack the pitch (discontinue) through that. The respectable family dodge did pretty well. I’ve been on the clean family lurk too, with a woman and children. We dressed to give the notion that, however humble, at least we were clean in all our poverty. On this lurk we stand by the side of the pavement in silence, the wife in a perticler clean cap, and a milk-white apron. The kids have long clean pinafores, white as the driven snow; they’re only used in clean lurk, and taken off directly they come home. The husband and father is in a white flannel jacket, an apron worn and clean, and polished shoes. To succeed in this caper there must be no rags, but plenty of darns. A pack of pawn-tickets is carried in the waistcoat pocket. (One man that I know stuck them in his hat like a carman’s.) That’s to show that they’ve parted with their little all before they came to that. They are real pawn-tickets. I have known a man pay 2s. 6d. for the loan of a marriage certificate to go out on the clean lurk. If a question is asked, I say—‘We’ve parted with everything, and can get no employment; to be sure, we have had a loaf from the parish, but what’s that among my family?’ That takes the start out of the people, because they say, why not go to the parish? Some persons say, ‘Oh, poor folks, they’re brought to this, and how clean they are—a darn is better than a patch any time.’ The clean lurk is a bare living now—it was good—lots of togs came in, and often the whole family were taken into a house and supplied with flannel enough to make under clothing for them all; all this was pledged soon afterwards, and the tickets shown to prove what was parted with, through want. Those are some of the leading lurks. There’s others. ‘Fits,’ are now bad, and ‘paralytics’ are no better. The lucifer lurk seems getting up though. I don’t mean the selling, but the dropping them in the street as if by accident. It’s a great thing with the children; but no go with the old ’uns. I’ll tell you of another lurk: a woman I knows sends out her child with ¼ oz. of tea and half a quarter of sugar, and the child sits on a door step crying, and saying, if questioned, that she was sent out for tea and sugar, and a boy snatched the change from her, and threw the tea and sugar in the gutter. The mother is there, like a stranger, and says to the child:—‘And was that your poor mother’s last shilling, and daren’t you go home, poor thing?’ Then there is a gathering—sometimes 18d. in a morning; but it’s almost getting stale, that is. I’ve done the shivering dodge too—gone out in the cold weather half naked. One man has practised it so much that he can’t get off shivering now. Shaking Jemmy went on with his shivering so long that he couldn’t help it at last. He shivered like a jelly—like a calf’s foot with the ague—on the hottest day in summer. It’s a good dodge in tidy inclement seasons. It’s not so good a lurk, by two bob a day, as it once was. This is a single-handed job; for if one man shivers less than another he shows that it isn’t so cold as the good shiverer makes it out—then it’s no go. Of the maimed beggars, some are really deserving objects, as without begging they must starve to death; that’s a fact, sir. What’s a labouring man to do if he’s lost any of his limbs? But some of these even are impostors. I know several blind men who have pensions; and I know two who have not only pensions, but keep lodging-houses, and are worth money, and still go out a begging—though not near where they live. There’s the man with the very big leg, who sits on the pavement, and tells a long yarn about the tram carriage having gone over him in the mine. He does very well—remarkable well. He goes tatting and billy-hunting in the country (gathering rags and buying old metal), and comes only to London when he has that sort of thing to dispose of. There’s Paddy in the truck too; he makes a good thing, and sends money home to Ireland; he has a decrepit old mother, and it’s to his credit. He never drinks. There’s Jerry, the collier, he has lost both arms, and does a tidy living, and deserves it; it’s a bad misfortune. There’s Jack Tiptoe, he can’t put one heel to the ground—no gammon; but Mr. Horsford and he can’t agree, so Jack takes to the provinces now. He did very well indeed here. There used to be a society among us called the Cadger’s Club; if one got into a prison there was a gathering for him when he came out, and 6s. a week for a sick member, and when he got out again two collections for him, the two amounting perhaps to 1l. We paid 3d. a week each—no women were members—for thirteen weeks, and then shared what was in hand, and began for the next thirteen, receiving new members and transacting the usual business of a club. This has been discontinued these five years; the landlord cut away with the funds. We get up raffles, and help one another in the best way we can now. At one time we had forty-five members, besides the secretary, the conductor, and under-conductor. The rules were read over on meeting nights—every Wednesday evening. They were very strict; no swearing, obscene or profane language was permitted. For the first offence a fine of 1d. was inflicted, for the second 2d., and for the third the offender was ejected the room. There was very good order, and few fines had to be inflicted. Several respectable tradesmen used to pay a trifle to be admitted, out of curiosity, to see the proceedings, and used to be surprised at their regularity. Among the other rules were these: a fine of 1d. for any member refusing to sing when called on; visitors the same. All the fines went to the fund. If a member didn’t pay for five meeting nights he was scratched. Very few were scratched. The secretary was a windmill cove (sold children’s windmills in the streets), and was excused contributing to the funds. He had 1d. from each member every sharing night, once a quarter, for his labour; he was a very good scholar, and had been brought up well. The landlord generally gave a bob on a sharing night. The conductor managed the room, and the under-conductor kept the door, not admitting those who had no right to be there, and putting out those who behaved improperly. It was held in the Coachmakers’ Arms, Rose-street, Longrave-street; tip-top swells used to come among us, and no mistake; real noblemen, sir. One was the nephew of the Duke of ——, and was well-known to all of us by the nick-name, Facer.

I used to smoke a very short and very black pipe, and the honourable gent has often snatched it from my mouth, and has given me a dozen cigars for it. My face has been washed in the gin by a noble lord after he’d made me drunk, and I felt as if it was vitriol about my eyes. The beggars are now dispersed and broken up. They live together now only in twos and threes, and, in plain truth, have no money to spend; they can’t get it. Upon an average, in former days a cadger could make his two or three guineas per week without working overtime; but now he can hardly get a meal, not even at the present winter, though it’s been a slap up inclement season, to be sure. The Mendicity Society has ruined us—them men took me and gave me a month, and I can say from my conscience, that I was no more guilty of begging at that time than an unborn baby. The beggars generally live in the low lodging-houses, and there of a night they tell their tales of the day, and inform each other of the good and bad places throughout London, and what ‘lurks’ do the best. They will also say what beats they intend to take the next day, so that those who are on the same lurk may not go over the same ground as their pals. It is no use telling a lie, but the low lodging-houses throughout London and the country are nests for beggars and thieves. I know some houses that are wholly supported by beggars. In almost every one of the padding kens, or low lodging-houses in the country, there is a list of walks written on a piece of paper, and pasted up over the kitchen mantel-piece. Now at St. Alban’s, for instance, at the ——, and at other places, there is a paper stuck up in each of the kitchens. This paper is headed ‘Walks out of this town,’ and underneath it is set down the names of the villages in the neighbourhood at which a beggar may call when out on his walk, and they are so arranged as to allow the cadger to make a round of about six miles, each day, and return the same night. In many of those papers there are sometimes twenty walks set down. No villages that are in any way ‘gammy’ are ever mentioned in these papers, and the cadger, if he feels inclined to stop for a few days in the town, will be told by the lodging-house keeper, or the other cadgers that he may meet there, what gentleman’s seats or private houses are of any account on the walk that he means to take. The names of the good houses are not set down in the paper, for fear of the police. Most of the lodging-house keepers buy the ‘scran’ (broken victuals) of the cadgers; the good food they either eat themselves or sell to the other travellers, and the bad they sell to parties to feed their dogs or pigs upon. The cadgers’ talk is quite different now to what it was in the days of Billy. You see the flats got awake to it, so in course we had to alter the patter. The new style of cadgers’ cant is nothing like the thieves’ cant, and is done all on the rhyming principle. This way’s the caper. Suppose I want to ask a pal to come and have a glass of rum and smoke a pipe of tobacco, and have a game at cards with some blokes at home with me, I should say, if there were any flats present, ‘Splodger, will you have a Jack-surpass of finger-and-thumb, and blow your yard of tripe of nosey me knacker, and have a touch of the broads with me and the other heaps of coke at my drum. [In this it will be observed that every one of the ‘cant’ words rhymes with the words ordinarily used to express the same idea.] I can assure you what little we cadgers do get we earn uncommon hard. Why, from standing shaking—that is, being out nearly naked in the hardest frosts—I lost the use of my left side for nearly three years, and wasn’t able to stir outside the door. I got my living by card-playing in the low lodging-houses all that time. I worked the oracle—they were not up to it. I put the first and seconds on and the bridge also. I’d play at cards with any one. You see, sir, I was afeard to come to you at first because I had been ‘a starving’ on the pavement only a few days ago, not a hundred yards from your very door, and I thought you might know me.”

Meeting of Thieves.

As a further proof, however, of the demoralizing influences of the low lodging-houses, I will now conclude my investigations into the subject with a report of the meeting of vagrants, which I convened for the express purpose of consulting them generally upon several points which had come under my notice in the course of my inquiries. The Chronicle reporter’s account of this meeting was as follows:—

A meeting of an unprecedented character was held at the British Union School-room, Shakspeare-walk, Shadwell, on Monday evening last. The use of the school-room was kindly granted by Mr. Fletcher, the proprietor, to whose liberality we stand indebted for many similar favours. It was convened by our Metropolitan Correspondent, for the purpose of assembling together some of the lowest class of male juvenile thieves and vagabonds who infest the metropolis and the country at large; and although privately called, at only two days’ notice, by the distribution of tickets of admission among the class in question at the various haunts and dens of infamy to which they resort, no fewer than 150 of them attended on the occasion. The only condition to entitle the parties to admission was that they should be vagrants, and under twenty years of age. They had all assembled some time before the hour for commencing the proceedings arrived, and never was witnessed a more distressing spectacle of squalor, rags, and wretchedness. Some were young men, and some mere children; one, who styled himself a “cadger,” was six years of age, and several who confessed themselves “prigs” were only ten. The countenances of the boys were of various characters. Many were not only good-looking, but had a frank, ingenuous expression that seemed in no way connected with innate roguery. Many, on the other hand, had the deep-sunk and half-averted eye which are so characteristic of natural dishonesty and cunning. Some had the regular features of lads born of parents in easy circumstances. The hair of most of the lads was cut very close to the head, showing their recent liberation from prison; indeed, one might tell by the comparative length of the crop, the time that each boy had been out of gaol. All but a few of the elder boys were remarkable, amidst the rags, filth, and wretchedness of their external appearance, for the mirth and carelessness impressed upon their countenances. At first their behaviour was very noisy and disorderly: coarse and ribald jokes were freely cracked, exciting general bursts of laughter; while howls, cat-calls, and all manner of unearthly and indescribable yells threatened for some time to render the object of the meeting utterly abortive. At one moment a lad would imitate the bray of a jack-ass, and immediately the whole hundred and fifty would fall to braying. Then some ragged urchin would crow like a cock, whereupon the place would echo again with a hundred and fifty cock-crows. Then, as a black boy entered the room, one of the young vagabonds would shout out “swe-ee-op.” This would be received with peals of laughter, and followed by a general repetition of the same cry. Next, a hundred and fifty cat-calls of the shrillest possible description would almost split the ears. These would be succeeded by cries of “Strike up, you catgut scrapers,” “Go on with your barrow,” “Flare up, my never-sweats,” and a variety of other street sayings. Indeed, the uproar which went on before the meeting began will be best understood if we compare it to the scene presented by a public menagerie at feeding time. The greatest difficulty, as might be expected, was experienced in collecting the subjoined statistics of their character and condition. By a well-contrived and persevering mode of inquiry, however, the following facts were elicited:—

With respect to their ages, the youngest boy present was 6 years old. He styled himself a “cadger,” and said that his mother, who is a widow, and suffering from ill-health, sends him into the streets to beg. There were seven of 10 years of age, three of 12, three of 13, ten of 14, ten of 15, eleven of 16, twenty of 17, twenty-six of 18, and forty-five of 19.

Nineteen had fathers and mothers still living; thirty-nine had only one parent, and eighty were orphans in the fullest sense of the word, having neither father nor mother alive.

Of professed beggars there were fifty, and sixty-six who acknowledged themselves to be habitual thieves. The announcement that the greater number present were thieves pleased them exceedingly, and was received with three rounds of applause.

Twelve of the youths assembled had been in prison once (two of these were but 10 years of age); 5 had been in prison twice; 3, thrice; 4 four times; 7, five times; 8, six times; 5, seven times; 4, eight times; 2, nine times (1 of them 13 years of age); 5, ten times; 5, twelve times; 2, thirteen times; 3, fourteen times; 2, sixteen times; 3, seventeen times; 2, eighteen times; 5, twenty times; 6, twenty-four times; 1, twenty-five times; 1, twenty-six times; and 1, twenty-nine times. The announcements in reply to the questions as to the number of times that any of them had been in prison were received with great applause, which became more and more boisterous as the number of imprisonments increased. When it was announced that one, though only 19 years of age, had been in prison as many as twenty-nine times, the clapping of hands, the cat-calls, and shouts of “brayvo!” lasted for several minutes, and the whole of the boys rose to look at the distinguished individual. Some chalked on their hats the figures which designated the sum of the several times that they had been in gaol.

As to the causes of their vagabondism, it was found that 22 had run away from their homes, owing to the ill-treatment of their parents; 18 confessed to having been ruined through their parents allowing them to run wild in the streets, and to be led astray by bad companions; and 15 acknowledged that they had been first taught thieving in a lodging-house.

Concerning the vagrant habits of the youths, the following facts were elicited: 78 regularly roam through the country every year, 65 sleep regularly in the casual wards of the unions, and 52 occasionally slept in tramper’s lodging-houses throughout the country.

Respecting their education, according to the popular meaning of the term, 63 of the 150 were able to read and write, and they were principally thieves. Fifty of this number said they had read “Jack Sheppard,” and the lives of Dick Turpin, Claude du Val, and all the other popular thieves’ novels, as well as the “Newgate Calendar” and “Lives of the Robbers and Pirates.” Those who could not read themselves, said they’d had “Jack Sheppard” read to them at the lodging-houses. Numbers avowed that they had been induced to resort to an abandoned course of life from reading the lives of notorious thieves, and novels about highway robbers. When asked what they thought of “Jack Sheppard,” several bawled out “He’s a regular brick”—a sentiment which was almost universally concurred in by the deafening shouts and plaudits which followed. When asked whether they would like to be Jack Sheppards, they answered, “Yes, if the times was the same now as they were then.” Thirteen confessed that they had taken to thieving in order to go to the low theatres; and one lad said he had lost a good situation on the Birmingham Railway through his love of the play.

Twenty stated they had been flogged in prison,—many of them two, three, and four different times. A policeman in plain clothes was present; but their acute eyes were not long before they detected his real character notwithstanding his disguise. Several demanded that he should be turned out. The officer was accordingly given to understand that the meeting was a private one, and requested to withdraw. Having apologised for intruding, he proceeded to leave the room—and, no sooner did the boys see the policeman move towards the door, than they gave vent to several rounds of very hearty applause, accompanied with hisses, groans, and cries of “throw him over.”

The process of interrogating them in the mass having been concluded, the next step was to call several of them separately to the platform, to narrate, in their peculiar style and phraseology, the history of their own career, together with the causes which had led them to take up a life of dishonesty. The novelty of their position as speech-makers seemed peculiarly exciting to the speakers themselves, and provoked much merriment and interest amongst the lads. Their antics and buffoonery in commencing their addresses were certainly of the most ludicrous character. The first speaker, a lad 17 years of age, ascended the platform, dressed in a torn “wide-a-awake” hat, and a dirty smock-frock. He began:—Gentlemen [immense applause and laughter], I am a Brummagem lad [laughter]. My father has been dead three years, and my mother seven. When my father died I had to go and live along with my aunt. I fell out of employment, and went round about the town, and fell into the company of a lot of chaps, and went picking ladies’ pockets. Then I was in prison once or twice, and I came to London, and have been in several prisons here. I have been in London three years; but I have been out of it several times in that time. I can’t get anything honest to do; and I wish I could get something at sea, or in any foreign land. I don’t care what or where it is [cheers and yells].

Another lad about 16, clad in a ragged coat, with a dirty face and matted hair, next came forward and said—My father was a soldier, and when I growed up to about ten years I joined the regiment as a drummer in the Grenadier Guards. I went on and got myself into trouble, till at last I got turned away, and my father left the regiment. I then went out with some more chaps and went thieving, and have been thieving about two years now. [Several voices—“Very good;” “that’s beautiful;” “I hope you do it well.”]

The third boy, who stated that he had been twenty-four times in prison, said he belonged to Hendon, in Middlesex, and that his father left his mother seventeen years ago, and he did not know whether he was dead or alive. He went to Christchurch school for some time, but afterwards picked up with bad companions, and went a thieving. He went to school again, but again left it to go a thieving and cadging with bad companions. He had been doing that for the last five years; and if he could get out of it he would be very glad to leave it [cheers].

The fourth lad (who was received with loud cheering, evidently indicating that he was a well-known character) said, he came from the city of York, and was a farrier. His father died a few years ago, and then he took to work; but “the play” led him on to be a thief, and from that time to the present he had done nothing but beg or thieve. If he could go to Australia he would be very glad; as if he stopped in England he feared he should do nothing but thieve to the end [laughter, with cries of “well done,” “very well spoken”].

The next speaker was about 18 years of age, and appeared a very sharp intelligent lad. After making a very grave but irresistibly comical prefatory bow, by placing his hand at the back of his head, and so (as it were) forcing it to give a nod, he proceeded: My father is an engineer’s labourer, and the first cause of my thieving was that he kept me without grub, and wallopped me [laughter]. Well, I was at work at the same time that he was, and I kept pilfering, and at last they bowled me out [loud cheers]. I got a showing up, and at last they turned me away; and, not liking to go home to my father, I ran away. I went to Margate, where I had some friends, with a shilling in my pocket. I never stopped till I got to Ramsgate, and I had no lodging except under the trees, and had only the bits of bread I could pick up. When I got there my grandfather took me in and kept me for a twelvemonth. My mother’s brother’s wife had a spite against me, and tried to get me turned away. I did not know what thieving was then; and I used to pray that her heart might be turned, because I did not know what would become of me if my grandfather turned me away. But she got other people to complain of me, and say I was a nuisance to the town; but I knowed there was no fault in me; but, however, my grandfather said he could put up with me no longer, and turned me away. So after that I came back to London, and goes to the union. The first night I went there I got tore up [cheers and laughter]. Everything was torn off my back, and the bread was taken away from me, and because I said a word I got well wallopped [renewed laughter]. They “small-ganged” me; and afterwards I went seven days to prison because others tore my clothes. When I went in there—this was the first time—a man said to me, “What are you here for?” I said, “For tearing up.” The man said to another, “What are you here for?” and the other made answer, “For a handkerchief.” The man then said, “Ah, that’s something like;” and he said to me, “Why are you not a thief—you will only get to prison for that.” I said, “I will.” Well, after that I went pilfering small things, worth a penny or twopence at first; but I soon saw better things were as easy to be got as them, so I took them [laughter]. I picked up with one that knowed more than me. He fairly kept me for some time, and I learnt as well as him. I picked him up in a London workhouse. After that I thought I would try my friends again, and I went to my uncle at Dover, but he could do nothing for me, so I got a place at a butcher’s, where I fancied myself fairly blessed, for I had 2s. a week and my board and washing. I kept a twelvemonth there honest, without thieving. At last my master and I fell out and I left again, so I was forced to come up to London, and there I found my old companions in the Smithfield pens—they were not living anywhere. I used to go to the workhouse and used to tear up and refuse to work, and used to get sent to “quod,” and I used to curse the day when it was my turn to go out. The governor of the prison used to say he hoped he wouldn’t see my face there again; but I used to answer, “I shall be here again to night, because it’s the only place I’ve got.” That’s all I’ve got to say.

The next lad, who said he had been fourteen times in prison, was a taller, cleaner, and more intelligent-looking youth than any that had preceded him. After making a low affected bow, over the railing, to the company below, and uttering a preliminary a-hem or two with the most ludicrous mock gravity, he began by saying:—“I am a native of London. My father is a poor labouring man, with 15s. a week—little enough, I think, to keep a home for four, and find candlelight [laughter]. I was at work looking after a boiler at a paper-stainer’s in Old-street-road at 6s. a week, when one night they bowled me out. I got the sack, and a bag to take it home in [laughter]. I got my wages, and ran away from home, but in four days, being hungry, and having no money, I went back again. I got a towelling, but it did not do me much good. My father did not like to turn me out of doors, so he tied me to the leg of the bedstead [laughter]. He tied my hands and feet so that I could hardly move, but I managed somehow to turn my gob (mouth) round and gnawed it away. I run down stairs and got out at the back door and over a neighbour’s wall, and never went home for nine months. I never bolted with anything. I never took anything that was too hot for me. The captain of a man-of-war about this time took me into his service, where I remained five weeks till I took a fever, and was obliged to go to the hospital. When I recovered, the captain was gone to Africa; and not liking to go home, I stepped away, and have been from home ever since. I was in Brummagem, and was seven days in the new ‘stir’ (prison), and nearly broke my neck. When I came out, I fell into bad company, and went cadging, and have been cadging ever since; but if I could leave off, and go to the Isle of Dogs, the Isle of Man, or the Isle of Woman [laughter], or any other foreign place, I would embrace the opportunity as soon as I could. And if so be that any gentleman would take me in hand, and send me out, I would be very thankful to him, indeed. And so good night” [cheers].

A dirty little boy, fourteen years of age, dressed in a big jacket, next stood forward. He said his father was a man-of-war’s man, and when he came home from sea once his father, his mother, and all of them got drunk. The lad then stole 4d. from his father’s pocket. After this, when he was sent for sixpenny rum he used to fetch fourpenny, and for fourpenny gin threepenny; and for fourpenny beer he used to fetch threepenny, and keep the difference to himself. His mother used to sell fruit, and when she left him at the stall he used to eat what he could not sell, and used to sell some to get marbles and buttons. Once he stole a loaf from a baker’s shop. The man let him off, but his father beat him for it. The beating did him no good. After that he used to go “smugging” [running away with] other people’s things. Then one day his father caught him, and tied his leg to the bedstead, and left him there till he was pretty near dead. He ran away afterwards, and has been thieving ever since.

A lad about twenty was here about to volunteer a statement concerning the lodging-houses, by which he declared he had been brought to his ruin, but he was instantly assailed with cries of “come down!” “hold your tongue!” and these became so general, and were in so menacing a tone, that he said he was afraid to make any disclosures, because he believed if he did so he would have perhaps two or three dozen of the other chaps on to him [great confusion].

Mr. Mayhew: Will it hurt any of you here if he says anything against the lodging-houses [yes, yes]? How will it do so?

A Voice: They will not allow stolen property to come into them if it is told.

Mr. Mayhew: But would you not all gladly quit your present course of life [yes, yes, yes]? Then why not have the lodging-house system, the principal cause of all your misery, exposed?

A Voice: If they shut up the lodging-houses, where are we to go? If a poor boy gets to the workhouse he catches a fever, and is starved into the bargain.

Mr. Mayhew:—Are not you all tired of the lives you now lead? [Vociferous cries of “yes, yes, we wish to better ourselves!” from all parts of the room.] However much you dread the exposure of the lodging-houses, you know, my lads, as well as I do, that it is in them you meet your companions, and ruin, if not begun there, is at least completed in such places. If a boy runs away from home he is encouraged there and kept secreted from his parents. And do not the parties who keep these places grow rich on your degradation and your peril? [Loud cries of “yes, yes!”] Then why don’t you all come forward now, and, by exposing them to the public, who know nothing of the iniquities and vice practised in such places, put an end to these dens at once? There is not one of you here—not one, at least, of the elder boys, who has found out the mistake of his present life, who would not, I verily believe, become honest, and earn his living by his industry, if he could. You might have thought a roving life a pleasant thing enough at first, but you now know that a vagabond’s life is full of suffering, care, peril, and privation; you are not so happy as you thought you would be, and are tired and disgusted with your present course. This is what I hear from you all. Am I not stating the fact? [Renewed cries of “yes, yes, yes!” and a voice: “The fact of it is, sir, we don’t see our folly till it is too late.”] Now I and many hundreds and thousands really wish you well, and would gladly do anything we could to get you to earn an honest living. All, or nearly all, your misery, I know, proceeds from the low lodging-houses [“yes, yes, it does, master! it does”]; and I am determined, with your help, to effect their utter destruction. [A voice, “I am glad of it, sir—you are quite right; and I pray God to assist you.”]

The elder boys were then asked what they thought would be the best mode of effecting their deliverance from their present degraded position. Some thought emigration the best means, for if they started afresh in a new colony, they said they would leave behind them their bad characters, which closed every avenue to employment against them at home. Others thought there would be difficulties in obtaining work in the colonies in sufficient time to prevent their being driven to support themselves by their old practices. Many again thought the temptations which surrounded them in England rendered their reformation impossible; whilst many more considered that the same temptations would assail them abroad which existed at home.

Mr. Mayhew then addressed them on another point. He said he had seen many notorious thieves in the course of his investigations. Since then he had received them at all hours into his house—men of the most desperate and women of the most abandoned characters—but he had never lost a 6d. worth of his property by them. One thief he had entrusted with a sovereign to get changed, and the lad returned and gave him back the full amount in silver. He had since gone out to America. Now he would ask all those present whether, if he were to give them a sovereign, they would do the same? [Several voices here called out that they would, and others that they would not. Others, again, said that they would to him, but to no one else.]

Here one of the most desperate characters present, a boy who had been twenty-six times in prison, was singled out from the rest, and a sovereign given to him to get changed, in order to make the experiment whether he would have the honesty to return the change or abscond with it in his possession. He was informed, on receiving it, that if he chose to decamp with it, no proceedings should be taken against him. He left the room amid the cheers of his companions, and when he had been absent a few moments all eyes were turned towards the door each time it opened, anxiously expecting his arrival, to prove his trustworthiness. Never was such interest displayed by any body of individuals. They mounted the forms in their eagerness to obtain the first glimpse of his return. It was clear that their honour was at stake; and several said they would kill the lad in the morning if he made off with the money. Many minutes elapsed in almost painful suspense, and some of his companions began to fear that so large a sum of money had proved too great a temptation for the boy. At last, however, a tremendous burst of cheering announced the lad’s return. The delight of his companions broke forth again and again, in long and loud peals of applause, and the youth advanced amidst triumphant shouts to the platform, and gave up the money in full.

The assemblage was then interrogated as to the effect of flogging as a punishment; and the general feeling appeared to be that it hardened the criminal instead of checking his depravity, and excited the deadliest enmity in his bosom at the time towards the person inflicting it. When asked whether they had seen any public executions, they almost all cried out that they had seen Manning and his wife hung; others said that they had seen Rush and Sarah Thomas executed. They stated that they liked to go a “death-hunting,” after seeing one or two executed. It hardened them to it, and at last they all got to thieve under the gallows. They felt rather shocked at the sight of an execution at first; but, after a few repetitions, it soon wore off.

Before the meeting broke up several other lads expressed a strong desire to make statements.

A young man, 18 years of age, and of a miserable and ragged appearance, said he first left home from bad usage; and could not say whether it was the same with his sister or not, but she left her home about nine months ago, when he met her while he was getting his living as a costermonger. With the stock-money that he had, rather than she should be driven to prostitution and the streets, he bought as many things as he could to furnish a room. This exhausted his stock-money, and then his furniture had to go a little at a time to support him and his sister in food. After this he was obliged to take a furnished room, which put him to greater expense. To keep her off the streets, he was compelled to thieve. His father, if he ever had the feeling of a Christian, would never have treated him as he had done. Could a father (he asked) have any feeling, who chained his son up by the leg in a shed, as his father had done to him, and fed him on bread and water for one entire month: and then, after chaining him up all day, still chain him in bed at night. This it was that drove him into the streets at first. It was after his mother died, and he had a step-mother, that his father treated him thus. His mother-in-law ill-treated him as well as his father. If he had been a transport he could not have been treated worse. He told his father that he was driving him on the road to transportation, but he took no notice of it; and he was obliged to leave his roof. He had been in Newgate since.

A little boy, dressed in the garb of a sailor, came up to Mr. Mayhew crying bitterly, and implored him to allow him to say a word. He stated—I am here starving all my time. Last night I was out in the cold and nearly froze to death. When I got up I was quite stiff and could hardly walk. I slept in Whitechapel under a form where they sell meat. I was an apprentice on board of a fishing smack, and ran away because I was ill-treated. After I ran away I broke into my master’s house because I was hungry. He gave me twelve months, and now he is in the union himself; he failed in business and got broken up. I have been out of prison three months, starving; and I would rather do anything than thieve. If I see a little thing I take it, because I can’t get anything to eat without it. [Here the child, still weeping piteously, uncovered his breast, and showed his bones starting through his skin. He said he was anxious to get out of the country.]

The following statement respecting the lodging-houses was made, after the others had left, by another lad. He left home when about thirteen, and never thieved before that. His father was dead, and his mother was unable to keep him. He got a situation and held it for three years and nine months, until he picked up with a man from a lodging-house, and through keeping late hours he was obliged to leave his place and sleep in a lodging-house himself. The lodging-house is in Short’s-gardens. This he considered to have been the commencement of his downfall. About forty thieves lived in the house, and they brought in stolen property of every description, and the deputies received it and took it to other people to sell it again, and get the price and pay the thieves. They got double as much as the thieves did, or else they would have nothing to do with it. Several housebreakers lived at the house, and he heard them there plan the robbery of Bull and Wilson, the woollen-drapers in St. Martin’s-lane. One of the men secreted himself in the house in the daytime, and the other two were admitted by him at night. If he had stated this at the meeting the persons present would have killed him. He was sure that more might be done by giving proper encouragement to virtue, and by reforming the criminal, than by rigorous prosecution. He said (with tears in his eyes) that he should be very willing and happy to work for an honest living if he could only get it to do. He showed a letter of recommendation for good conduct to his former master, and a Bible; both of which had been given him by the chaplain of the gaol which he had just left, after undergoing an imprisonment of twelve months. It was useless (he said) for a young man like him to apply to the parish for relief; he might just as well stand in the street and talk to a lamp-post. Then what was a man to do after he left prison? He must go a thieving to live. He was persuaded that if there was an institution to give employment to the homeless, the friendless, and the penniless, after being liberated from prison, it would be the means of rescuing thousands.

The proceedings then terminated. The assemblage, which had become more rational and manageable towards the close, dispersed, quite peaceably it should be added, and the boys were evidently sincerely grateful for the efforts being made to bring their misfortunes before the notice of those in whose power it may be to alleviate them.

Before they were dismissed, as much money was dispensed to each as would defray his night’s lodging.

Of the Country Lodging-Houses.

Concerning the lodging-houses, more especially in the country, I give the statement of a middle-aged man, familiar with them for twenty years. He was recommended to me as possessed of much humour and a great master of humourous slang:—

“I can tell you all about it, sir; but one lodging-house is so like another that I can’t draw much distinction. In small country towns, especially agricultural towns, they are decent places enough, regular in their hours, and tidy enough. At these places they have what they call ‘their own travellers,’ persons that they know, and who are always accommodated in preference. As to the characters that frequent these places, let us begin with the Crocusses. They carry about a lot of worms in bottles, what they never took out of anybody, though they’ll tell you different, or long pieces of tape in bottles, made to look like worms, and on that they’ll patter in a market place as if on a real cure, and they’ve got the cheek to tell the people that that very worm was taken from Lady ——, near the town, and referring them to her to prove it. The one I knew best would commence with a piece of sponge in a bottle, which he styled the stomach wolf. That was his leading slum, and pretty well he sponged them too. When he’d pattered on about the wolf, he had another bottle with what he called a worm 200 inches long, he bounced it was, which the day before yesterday he had from Mrs. ——’s girl (some well-known person), and referred them to her. While he’s going on, a brother Crocus will step up, a stranger to the people, and say, ‘Ah, Doctor ——, you’re right. I had the pleasure of dining with Mr. —— when the worm was extracted, and never saw a child so altered in my life.’ That’s what the Crocus’s call giving a jolly; and after that don’t the first Crocus’s old woman serve out the six-pennyworths? The stuff is to cure every mortal thing a man can ail—ay, or a woman either. They’d actually have the cheek to put a blister on a cork leg. Well, when they’re done pattering on the worm racket, then come the wonderful pills. Them are the things. These pills, from eight to a dozen in a box, are charged 4d. to 6d. according to the flat’s appearance—as the Crocus call his customers. The pills meet with a ready sale, and they’re like chip in porridge, neither good nor harm. It’s chiefly the bounciful patter, the cheek they have, that gets them Crocusses on. It’s amazing. They’ll stare a fellow in the face, and make him believe he’s ill whether he is or no. The man I speak of is a first-rate cove; he trains it and coaches it from market to market like any gentleman. He wears a stunning fawny (ring) on his finger, an out-and-out watch and guard, and not a duffer neither—no gammon; and a slap-up suit of black togs. I’ve seen the swell bosmen (farmers) buy the pills to give the people standing about, just to hear the Crocus patter. Why they’ve got the cheek to pitch their stall with their worms opposite a regular medical man’s shop, and say, ‘Go over the way and see what he’ll do—he’ll drive up in a horse and gig to your door, and make you pay for it too; but I don’t—I’ve walked here to do you good, and I will do you good before I leave you. One trial is all I ask’—and quite enough too (said my informant). I’ll warrant they won’t come a second time; if they do, it’s with a stick in their hands. If he does much business in the worm-powder way (some have it in cakes for children), the Crocus never gives them a chance to catch him. But if it’s only pills, he’ll show next market day, or a month after, and won’t he crack about it then? He says, ‘One trial is all I ask,’ and one of them got it and was transported. I knew one of these Crocusses who was once so hard up from lushing and boozing about that he went into a field and collected sheep dung and floured it over, and made his pills of it, and made the people swallow it at Lutterworth market, in Leicestershire; because there they’ll swallow anything. If the Crocus I have mentioned see this in the paper—as he will, for he’s a reading-man—won’t he come out bouncefull? He’ll say, ‘Why am I thus attacked—why don’t the proprietor and the editor of this paper come forward—if he’s among you? Who made this report? let him come forward, and I’ll refute him face to face.’ And no doubt (my informant remarked), he’d give him a tidy dose, too, the Crocus would. For myself, I’d far rather meet him face to face than his medicine, either his blue or his pink water. There’s another sort who carry on the crocussing business, but on a small scale; they’re on the penny and twopenny racket, and are called hedge crocusses—men who sell corn salve, or ‘four pills a penny,’ to cure anything, and go from house to house in the country. But as the hedge crocus is shickery togged, he makes poorly out. Respectable people won’t listen to him, and it’s generally the lower order that he gulls. These hedge fellows are slow and dull; they go mouching along as if they were croaking themselves. I’ve seen the head crocus I’ve mentioned at four markets in one week, and a town on a Saturday night, clear from 5l. to 7l.—all clear profit, for his fakement costs him little or nothing. For such a man’s pound, the hedge fellow may make 1s. The next I’ll tell you about is durynacking, or duryking. The gipsies (and they’re called Romanies) are the leading mob at this racket, but they’re well known, and I needn’t say anything about those ladies. But there’re plenty of travelling women who go about with a basket and a bit of driss (lace) in it, gammy lace, for a stall-off (a blind), in case they meet the master, who would order them off. Up at a bosken (farm-house) they’ll get among the servant girls, being pretty well acquainted with the neighbourhood by inquiries on the road, as to the number of daughters and female servants. The first inquiry is for the missus or a daughter, and if they can’t be got at they’re on to the slaveys. Suppose they do get hold of one of the daughters, they commence by offering the driss, which, as it is queer stuff, wouldn’t be picked up by an agricultural young lady, as the durynacker very well knows. Then she begins, ‘Ah! my sweet young lady, my blessed looking angel’—if she’s as ugly as sin, and forty; they say that, and that’s the time you get them to rights, when they’re old and ugly, just by sweetening them, and then they don’t mind tipping the loaver (money)—‘I know you dont want this stuff (she’ll continue), there’s something on your mind. I see you’re in love; but the dear handsome gentleman—he’ll not slight you, but loves you as hard as a hammer.’ This is thrown out as a feeler, and the young lady is sure to be confused; then the durrynacker has hold of her mauly (hand) in a minute. It’s all up with the girl, once the woman gets a grip. She’s asked in directly, and of course the sisters (if she has any) and the slavey are let into the secret, and all have their fortunes told. The fortune-teller may make a week’s job of it, according as the loaver comes out. She’ll come away with her basket full of eggs, bacon, butter, tea and sugar, and all sorts of things. I have seen them bring the scran in! Every one is sure to have handsome husbands, thumping luck, and pretty children. The durrynacker, too, is not particular, if there’s a couple of silver spoons—she doesn’t like odd ones; and mind you, she alway carries a basket—big enough too. I know a man on this lurk, but he works the article with a small glass globe filled full of water, and in that he shows girls their future husbands, and kids them on to believe they do see them—ay, and the church they’re to be married in—and they fancy they do see it as they twist the globe this way and that, while he twists the tin out of them, and no flies. He actually had the cheek, though he knew I was fly to every fake, to try to make me believe that I could see the place where Smith O’Brien had the fight in Ireland! ‘Don’t you see them cabbages, and a tall man in a green velvet cap among them, holloring out, “I’m the King of Munster?”’ I don’t know any other male durrynacker worth noticing; the women have all the call. Young women won’t ask their fortunes of men. The way the globe man does is to go among the old women and fiddle (humbug) them, and, upon my word, three-parts of them are worse than the young ones. Now I’ll tell you about the tat (rag) gatherers; buying rags they call it, but I call it bouncing people. Two men I lodged with once, one morning hadn’t a farthing, regularly smashed up, not a feather to fly with, they’d knocked down all their tin lushing. Well, they didn’t know what to be up to, till one hit upon a scheme. ‘I’ve got it, Joe,’ says he. He borrows two blue plates from the lodging-house keeper, a washing jug and basin. Off they goes, one with the crockery, and the other with a bag. They goes into the by-courts in Windsor, because this bouncing caper wouldn’t do in the main drag. Up goes the fellow with a bag, and hollas out, ‘Now, women, bring out your copper, brass, white rags, old flannel, bed-sacking, old ropes, empty bottles, umbrellas—any mortal thing—the best price is given;’ and the word’s hardly out, when up comes his pal, hollaring, ‘Sam, holloa! stop that horse,’ as if he’d a horse and cart passing the court, and then the women bring out their umbrellas and things, and they’re all to be exchanged for crockery such as he shows, and all goes into the bag, and the bagman goes off with the things, leaving the other to do the bounce, and he keeps singing out for the horse and cart with the load of crockery, gammoning there is one, that the ladies may have their choice, and he then hurries down to quicken his cart-driver’s movements, and hooks it, leaving the flats completely stunned. Oh! it does give them a ferry-cadouzer. Two other men go about on this lurk, one with an old cracked plate under his waistcoat, and the other with a bag. And one sings out, ‘Now, women, fourpence a pound for your white rags. None of your truck system, your needles and thread for it. I don’t do it that way; ready money, women, is the order of the day with me.’ Well, one old mollesher (woman), though she must have known her rags would only bring 2d. a lb. at a fair dealer’s, if there be one, brought out 8 lbs. of white rags. He weighs them with his steelyards, and in they went to the bag. The man with the bag steps it immediately, and the other whips out his flute quite carelessly, and says—‘Which will you have marm, Jem Crow, or the Bunch of Roses?’ The old woman says directly, ‘What do you mean, 8 times 4 is 32, and 32 pence is 2s. 8d.; never mind, I won’t be hard, give me half-a-crown.’ Well, when she finds there’s no money, out she hollars, and he plays his distracted flute to drown her voice, and backs himself manfully out of the court. I have known these men get on so that I have seen them with a good horse and cart. There’s another class of rag bloaks, who have bills printed with the Queen’s Arms at the top, if you please, ‘By royal authority’—that’s their own authority, and they assume plenty of it. Well, this bill specifies the best prices for rags, left-off clothes, &c. One fellow goes and drops these bills at the kens (houses), the other comes after him, and as the man who drops marks every house where a bill has been taken, the second man knows where to call. Any house where he gets a call commences the caper. Well, anything to be disposed of is brought out, often in the back yard. The party of the house produces the bill, which promises a stunning tip for the old lumber. The man keeps sorting the things out, and running them down as not so good as he expected; but at the same time he kids them on by promising three times more than the things are worth. This is a grand racket—the way he fakes them, and then he says, ‘Marm (or sir, as it may be), I shall give you 15s. for the lot,’ which stuns the party, for they never expected to get anything like that—and their expectations is not disappointed, for they don’t. Then he turns round directly, and commences sorting more particularly than before, putting the best and the easiest to carry altogether. He starts up then, and whips a couple of bob, or half a bull (2s. 6d.) into the woman’s hand, saying, ‘I always like to bind a bargain, marm—one of the fairest dealing men travelling. Do save all your old lumber for me.’ Of a sudden he begins searching his pockets, and exclaims, ‘Dear me, I haven’t enough change in my pocket, but I’ll soon settle that—my mate has it outside. I’ll just take a load out to the cart, and come back for the others with the money;’ and so he hooks it, and I’ve no occasion to tell you he never comes back; and that’s what he calls having them on the knock.”

The other inmates at the lodging-houses which my informant described are of the class concerning whom full information is or will be given in other portions of this or the following letters. His description of the lodging-houses, too, was a corroboration of the statement I give to-day. All the classes described meet and mix at the lodging-houses.

I shall reserve what I have to say concerning the influence of the low lodging-houses of London and the country till the conclusion of the present volume.

Of the Street-Sellers of Chemical Articles of Manufacture.

The street purveyors of blacking, of the different preparations of black lead, of plating-balls, of corn-salves, of grease-removing compositions, of china and glass cements, of rat poisons, of fly-papers, of beetle-wafers, of gutta-percha heads, of lucifer-matches, and of cigar-lights, may be classed generally under two heads. They are either very old or very young persons, or else they are men who recommend their wares by patter.

Among the first-mentioned class are the vendors of cakes of blacking, papers of black-lead, and lucifer matches. Of blacking and black-lead the street-sellers are more frequently old women; of lucifer matches they are usually women and children, and of all ages. It is not uncommon, in the quieter roads of the suburbs especially, to see a young woman extend her bare red arm from beneath a scanty ragged shawl, and with an imploring look, a low curtsey, and a piteous tone, proffer a box of matches for sale; while a child in her arms, perhaps of two or three years old, extends in its little hand another box. There are also in the street sale of lucifer matches very many girls and boys, parentless or uncared for, and many old or infirm women and men.

The street-sellers of chemically-manufactured articles, who feel it necessary to recommend their wares by a little street oratory, or patter, (the paper-worker, whose humorous remarks I have before quoted, once described it to me as “advertising by word of mouth,”) are the vendors of the articles which are to cure, to repair, to renovate, or to kill. Any other itinerant vendors of chemical articles are of the ordinary class of street traders.

Of the Street-Sellers of Blacking, Black Lead, etc.

I specify these two commodities jointly, because they are frequently sold by the same individual. In Whitechapel and Spitalfields are eight establishments, where the street-sellers of blacking are principally supplied with their stock. It is sold in cakes, which are wrapped in a kind of oil paper, generally printed on the back, so as to catch the eye, with the address of some well-known blacking manufacturer. Thus some which a street-seller of blacking showed me were printed, in large type, as a sort of border, “Lewis’s India Rubber Blacking,” while in the middle was a very black and very predominant 30, and beneath it, in small and hardly distinguishable type, “Princess-st., Portman-market.” Any shopkeeper, who “supplies the trade,” if he be a regular customer of the manufacturer, can have his name and address printed on the cover of the blacking-cakes. The 30 is meant to catch the eye with the well-known flourish of “30, Strand.”

The quality of these cakes of blacking, the street-sellers whom I questioned told me was highly approved by their customers, and, as blacking is purchased by the classes who aim at a smartness and cleanliness above that of the purchasers of many street commodities, there is no reason to doubt the assertion. The sale of this blacking, indeed, is chiefly on a round, and it would be hopeless as to future custom to call a second time at any house where bad blacking had been sold on a previous visit. The article is vended wholesale, in “gross boxes,” and “half-gross boxes.” The half-gross boxes are 1s. 9d., and capital, even in this trifling trade, has its customary advantages, for the “gross boxes” are but 3s. It should be remembered, however, that to the buyer of two “half-gross” a couple of the plain wooden boxes, in which the blacking is sold, and often hawked, must be supplied; but to the buyer of a “gross box” only one of these cases is furnished. I may mention, to the credit of the vendors, that of the wholesale blacking makers, two have themselves been street-sellers, and one still, but only at intervals, goes “on a blacking-round” among his old customers. There are other blacking-makers, but those I have specified, as to number, are more particularly the providers for the street trade. The poor people who sell blacking at a distance from the manufacturer’s premises—as in the case of the “30, Princess-st., Portman-market”—are supplied by oilmen, chandlers, and other shopkeepers, who buy largely of the manufacturers, and can consequently supply the purchasers by the dozen, for street sale or hawking, as cheaply as they would be supplied by the manufacturer himself. A dozen is generally charged 3½d., and as the cakes are sold at ½d. each (occasionally 1d., both by the street people and more frequently the small shopkeepers) the profit is moderate enough. The cakes, however, which are regularly retailed at 1d., are larger, and cost nearly twice the amount of the others wholesale.

This trade presents the peculiarity of being almost entirely a street “door-to-door” trade, as I heard it described. Blacking is not presented for purposes of begging, as are lucifer-matches, tracts, memorandum-books, boot-laces, &c.; for the half-trading, half-begging, is carried on in the quieter parts of town, and more extensively in the suburbs, ladies being principally accosted, and to them blacking is not offered.

There are now, I learn from good authority, never fewer than 200 persons selling cake blacking, “from door to door.” More than half of them are elderly women, and more than three-fourths women of all ages and girls. The other sellers are old men and boys. None of the blacking-sellers make the article they vend. To sell eight dozen cakes a week is a full average, and of these the “pennies” and the “half-pennies” are about equally divided. This gives a weekly outlay of 6s. to each individual seller, with an average profit of about 2s. 6d., and shows a yearly street-expenditure by the public of 3120l. The profit, however, is not in equal apportionment among the traders in blacking, for the “old hands” on a regular round will do double the business of the others.

In liquid blacking the trade is now small. It is occasionally sold in the street markets on Saturday nights, but the principal traffic is in the public-houses. This kind of blacking is retailed at 2d. a bottle, and, I was informed by a man who had sold it, was “rather queer stuff.” It is labelled “equal to” (in very small letters) “Day and Martin” in very large letters. One of the manufacturers a few years ago told my informant that he had been threatened “with being sued for piracy, but it was no use sueing a mouse.” There are sometimes none, and sometimes twenty persons hawking this blacking, and they are principally, I am informed, the servants of showmen, “out of employ,” or “down on their luck.” Some of these men “raffle” their blacking in public-houses. They are provided with tickets, numbered from one to six, which are thrown, the blank sides upwards on a table, and the drawer of number six wins a two-penny bottle of blacking for ½d.; for this the raffler receives 3d. Few of these traders sell more than one dozen bottles in a day, the principal trade being in the evening, and “one-and-a-half dozen is a very good day.” The goods are carried in a sack, slung from the shoulder, and are a very heavy carriage, as two-and-a-half dozen, which are often carried, weigh about 100 lbs. If ten men, the year through, take each 6s. weekly (about half the amount being profit), which, I am assured, is the average extent of the trade, we find 156l. yearly expended in this liquid blacking. “Ten years ago,” said one blacking seller to me, “it was three times as much as it is now.” At the mews blacking is sold by men who are for the most part servants out of place, or who have become known to the denizens of the mews, from having been “helpers” in some capacity, if they have not worn a livery. Here the article vended is what it is announced to be,—“Hoby’s” or “Everett’s” blacking. The sellers are known to the coachmen and grooms, many of whom have to “find their own blacking,” or there would be no business done in the mews, the dwellers there being great sticklers for “a good article.” The profit to the vendors is 3s. in 12s. Shilling bottles are vended as numerously as “sixpennies.” An old coachman, who had lived in mews in all parts of town, calculated that, take the year through, there was every day twenty men selling blacking in the mews, with an average profit of 10d. a day, or 5s. a week, so taking 15s. each. This gives a mews expenditure, yearly, of 780l.

Black-Lead, for the polishing of grates, is sold in small paper packets, the half ounce being a ½d., and the ounce a 1d. The profit is cent. per cent. Nearly all the women who sell blacking, as I have described, sell black-lead also. In addition to these elderly traders, however, there are from twenty to thirty boys and girls who vend black-lead in the street markets, but chiefly on Saturday nights, and on other days offer it through the area rails—their wretched plight, without any actual begging, occasionally procuring them custom.

The black-lead sold in the streets has often a label in imitation of that of established shop-keepers, as “Superfine Pencil Black-Lead, prepared expressly for, and sold by T. H. Jennings, Oil-Colour and Italian Warehouse, 25, Wormwood-street, City.” The name and address must of course be different, but the arrangement of the lines, and often the type, is followed closely, as are the adornments of the packet, which in the instance cited are heraldic. In other parts of town, the labels of tradesmen are imitated in a similar way, but not very closely; and in nearly half the quantity sold a bonâ fide label is given, without imitation or sham. “There would be more sold in that way,” I was told by a sharp lad, “quite the real ticket, if the dons as wholesales the black-lead, would make it up to sell in ha’porths and penn’orths, with a proper ’lowance to us as sells.” This boy and a young sister went on a round; the boy with black-lead, the girl with boot-laces, in one direction, the mother going in another, and each making for their room at six in the evening, or as soon as “sold out.”

There are, I am informed, 100 to 150 persons selling and hawking black-lead in the streets, and it may be estimated that they take 4s. each weekly (the adults selling other small articles with the black-lead); thus we find, averaging the number of sellers at 125, that 1,300l. is yearly expended in this article, half of which sum forms the profit of the street-folk.

Of the Street-Sellers of French Polish.

The greater part of the French polish vended in the streets is bought at oil and varnish-shops in Bethnal-green and Whitechapel, the wholesale price being 1s. a pint. The street-vendors add turpentine to the polish, put it into small bottles, and retail it at 1d. a bottle. They thus contrive to clear 5d. on each shilling they take.

There are now five and sometimes six men selling French polish in the streets and public-houses. “But the trade’s getting stale,” I was told; “there was twice as many in it three or four years back, and there’ll be fewer still next year.” When French polish first became famous there were, I was informed, several cabinet-makers who hawked it—some having prepared it themselves—and they would occasionally clear 5s. in a day. Of these street-traders there are now none, the present vendors having been in no way connected with the manufacture of furniture. These men generally carry with them pieces of “fancy wood,” such as rose, or sandal wood, which they polish up in the streets to show the excellence of the varnish. The chief purchasers are working people and small tradespeople, or their wives, who require trifling quantities of such a composition when they re-polish any small article of furniture.

The French polish-sellers, I am assured by a man familiar with the business, take 2s. a day each, or rather in an evening, for the sales are then the most frequent: the 2s. leaves a profit of 10d. The street expenditure is, therefore (reckoning five regular sellers), 156l. yearly. None of the French polish-sellers confine themselves entirely to the sale of it.

Of the Street-Sellers of Grease-removing Compositions.

The persons engaged in this trade carry it on with a regular patter. One man’s street announcement is in the following words: “Here you have a composition to remove stains from silks, muslins, bombazeens, cords, or tabarets of any kind or colour. It will never injure nor fade the finest silk or satin, but restore it to its original colour. For grease on silks, &c., only rub the composition on dry, let it remain five minutes, then take a clothes’ brush and brush it off, and it will be found to have removed the stains. For grease in woollen cloths spread the composition on the place with a piece of woollen cloth and cold water; when dry rub it off, and it will remove the grease or stain. For pitch or tar use hot water instead of cold, as that prevents the nap coming off the cloth. Here it is. Squares of grease-removing composition, never known to fail, only 1d. each.”

This street-traffic, I was informed, was far more extensively carried on when silks and woollen cloths, and textile manufactures generally, were more costly and more durable than at present, and when to dye, and scour, and “turn” a garment, was accounted good housewiveship. The sellers then told wonders of their making old silk gowns, or old coats, as good as new, by removing every discolouration, no matter from what cause. Now a silk dress is rarely, if ever, subjected to the experiment of being renovated by the virtues of grease-removing compositions sold in the streets. The trade, at present, is almost confined to the removing of the grease from coat-collars, or of stains from contact with paint, &c., with which boys (principally) have damaged their garments.

The grease-remover generally carries his wares on a tray slung in front of him, and often illustrates the efficacy of his composition, by showing its application to the very greasy collar of a boy’s old jacket, which is removed with admirable facility. The man patters as he carries on this work. “You would have thought now that jacket was done for, and only fit for the rag-bag, or to go to make up a lot for a Jew; but with my composition—only 1d. a cake—it has acquired a new nap and a new gloss, and you’ve escaped a tailor’s bill for awhile for 1d. You can use your own eyes. You’ve seen me do it, and here’s the very same stuff as I have proved to you is so useful and was never known to fail. No mother, or wife, or mistress, or maid, that wishes to be careful and not waste money, should be without it in the house. It removes stains from silks, &c., &c.”

Notwithstanding these many recommendations, the street trade in grease-removing cakes is a very poor one. It cannot be carried on in bad weather, for an audience cannot then be collected, and to clear 1s. 6d. in a day is accounted fair work. No grease-remover confines his trade to that commodity. One of the best known sells also plate balls, and occasionally works conundrums and comic exhibitions. The two brothers, who were formerly Grecians at the Blue Coat School, are also in this line. There are now seven men who sell grease-removing compositions, which they prepare themselves. The usual ingredients are pipe clay, two pennyworth of which is beat up and “worked with two colours,” generally red lead and stone blue. This gives the composition a streaky look, and takes away the appearance of pipe clay.

The purchasers of this article are, I am told, women and servants, but the trade is one which is declining. One of the best localities for sale is Ratcliff Highway and the purchasers there are sailors. One man told me that he once made a pound’s worth for a sailor, who took it to sea with him. The street-seller did not know for what purpose, but he conjectured that it was as a matter of speculation to a foreign country.

Calculating that the seven grease-removers carry on the sale of the article 3 days each week, and clear 1s. 6d. per day, we find 78 guineas yearly expended in the streets for the removal of grease. Nearly the whole is profit.

Plating Balls are generally sold by the grease-removers, but sometimes they are proffered for sale alone. There are four men whose principal dependance is on the sale of plating balls. One announces his wares as “making plate as good as silver, and all inferior metals equal to the best plated. No tarnish can stand against my plate balls,” he goes on, “and if, in this respectable company, there should chance to be any lady or genl’man that has no plate, then let him make an old brass candlestick shine like gold, or his tin candlestick, extinguisher and all, shine like silver. Here are the balls that can do it, and only 4 a penny. You have only to rub the ball on your wash-leather, or dry woollen cloth, and rub it on what has to be restored. Four a penny!”

These balls, which are prepared by the street-sellers, are usually made of a halfpennyworth of whitening, a farthing’sworth of red-lead, and an ounce of quicksilver, costing 7d. A gross of balls costs 7¾d., as regards the materials. The receipts of the plating ball sellers are the same as those of the grease-removers, but with a somewhat smaller profit.