Of Two Runaway Street-Boys.
I endeavoured to find a boy or girl who belonged to the well-educated classes, had run away, and was now a street-seller. I heard of boys of this class—one man thought he knew five, and was sure of four—who now lived by street-selling, my informant believed without having any recourse to theft, but all these boys were absent; they had not returned from Epsom, or had not returned to their usual haunts, or else they had started for their summer’s excursion into the country. Many a street-seller becomes as weary of town after the winter as a member of parliament who sits out a very long session; and the moment the weather is warm, and “seems settled,” they are off into the country. In this change of scene there is the feeling of independence, of freedom; they are not “tied to their work;” and this feeling has perhaps even greater charms for the child than the adult.
The number of lads of a well-educated class, who support themselves by street-selling, is not large. I speak of those whom I have classed as children under fifteen years of age. If a boy run away, scared and terrified by the violence of a parent, or maddened by continuous and sometimes excessive severity, the parent often feels compunction, and I heard of persons being sent to every lodging-house in London, and told to search every dry arch, to bring back a runaway. On these occasions the street-sellers willingly give their aid; I have even heard of women, whose degradation was of the lowest, exerting themselves in the recovery of a runaway child, and that often unsolicited and as often unrecompensed.
The children who are truants through their own vicious or reckless propensities, or through the inducements of their seniors, become far more frequently, thieves or lurkers, rather than street-sellers. As to runaway girls of a well-educated class, and under fifteen, I heard of none who were street-sellers.
I now give instances of two runaway lads, who have been dishonest, and honest.
The one, when he told me his history, was a slim and rather tall young man of 23 or 24, with a look, speech, and air, anything but vulgar. He was the son of a wealthy jeweller, in a town in the West of England, and ran away from home with an adult member of his father’s establishment, who first suggested such a course, taking with them money and valuables. They came to London, and the elder thief, retaining all the stolen property, at once abandoned the child, then only ten, and little and young-looking for his age. He fell into the hands of some members of the swell-mob, and became extremely serviceable to them. He was dressed like a gentleman’s son, and was innocent-looking and handsome. His appearance, when I saw him, showed that this must have been the case as regards his looks. He lived with some of the swell-mobsmen—then a more prosperous people than they are now—in a good house in the Southwark-Bridge-road. The women who resided with the mobsmen were especially kind to him. He was well fed, well lodged, well clad, and petted in everything. He was called “the kid,” a common slang name for a child, but he was the kid. He “went to work” in Regent-street, or wherever there were most ladies, and his appearance disarmed suspicion. He was, moreover, highly successful in church and chapel practice. At length he became “spotted.” The police got to know him, and he was apprehended, tried, and convicted. He was, however—he believed through the interest of his friends, of whose inquiries concerning him he had heard, but of that I know nothing—sent to the Philanthropic Asylum, then in St. George’s-road. Here he remained the usual time, then left the place well clothed, and with a sum of money, and endeavoured to obtain some permanent employment. In this endeavour he failed. Whether he exerted himself strenuously or not I cannot say, but he told me that the very circumstance of his having been “in the Philanthropic” was fatal to his success. His “character” and “recommendations” necessarily showed where he had come from, and the young man, as he then was, became a beggar. His chief practice was in “screeving,” or writing on the pavement. Perhaps some of my readers may remember having noticed a wretched-looking youth who hung over the words “I AM STARVING,” chalked on the footway on the Surrey side of Waterloo Bridge. He lay huddled in a heap, and appeared half dead with cold and want, his shirtless neck and shoulders being visible through the rents in his thin jean jacket; shoe or stocking he did not wear. This was the rich jeweller’s son. Until he himself told me of it—and he seemed to do so with some sense of shame—I could not have believed that the well-spoken and well-looking youth before me was the piteous object I had observed by the bridge. What he is doing now I am unable to state.
Another boy, who thought he was not yet fifteen, though he looked older, gave me the following account. He was short but seemed strong, and his career, so far, is chiefly remarkable for his perseverance, exercised as much, perhaps, from insensibility as from any other quality. He was sufficiently stupid. If he had parents living, he said, he didn’t know nothing about them; he had lived and slept with an old woman who said she was his grandmother, and he’d been told that she weren’t no relation; he didn’t trouble himself about it. She sold lucifer-boxes or any trifle in the streets, and had an allowance of 2s. weekly, but from what quarter he did not know. About four years ago he was run over by a cab, and was carried to the workhouse or the hospital; he believed it was Clerkenwell Workhouse, but he weren’t sure. When he recovered and was discharged he found the old woman was dead, and a neighbour went with him to the parish officers, by whom—as well as I could understand him—he was sent to the workhouse, after some inquiry. He was soon removed to Nor’ud. On my asking if he meant Norwood, he replied, “no, Nor’ud,” and there he was with a number of other children with a Mr. Horbyn. He did not know how long he was there, and he didn’t know as he had anything much to complain of, but he ran away. He ran away because he thought he would; and he believed he could get work at paper-staining. He made his way to Smithfield, near where there was a great paper-stainer’s, but he could not get any work, and he was threatened to be sent back, as they knew from his dress that he had run away. He slept in Smithfield courts and alleys, fitting himself into any covered corner he could find. The poor women about were kind to him, and gave him pieces of bread; some knew that he had run away from a workhouse and was all the kinder. “The fust browns as ivver I yarned,” he said, “was from a drover. He was a going into the country to meet some beasts, and had to carry some passels for somebody down there. They wasn’t ’evvy, but they was orkerd to grip. His old ’oman luk out for a young cove to ’elp her old man, and saw me fust, so she calls me, and I gets the job. I gived the greatest of satisfaction, and had sixpence giv me, for Jim (the drover) was well paid, as they was vallyble passels, and he said he’d taken the greatest of care on ’em, and had engaged a poor lad to ’elp him.” On his return the child slept in a bed, in a house near Gray’s-inn-lane, for the first time since he had run away, he believed about a fortnight. He persevered in looking out for odd jobs, without ever stealing, though he met some boys who told him he was a fool not to prig. “I used to carry his tea from his old ’oman,” he went on, “to a old cove as had a stunnin’ pitch of fruit in the City-road. But my best friend was Stumpy; he had a beautiful crossin’ (as a sweeper) then, but he’s dead now and berried as well. I used to talk to him and whistle—I can just whistle” [here he whistled loud and shrill, to convince me of his perfection in that street accomplishment] “—and to dance him the double-shuffle” [he favoured me with a specimen of that dance], “and he said I hinterested him. Well, he meant he liked it, I s’pose. When he went to rest hisself, for he soon got tired, over his drop of beer to his grub, I had his crossin’ and his broom for nuff’n. One boy used to say to Stumpy, ‘I’ll give you 1d. for your crossin’ while you’s grubbin.’ But I had it for nuff’n, and had all I yarned; sometimes 1d., sometimes 2d., but only once 3½d. I’ve been ’elping Old Bill with his summer cabbages and flowers (cauliflowers), and now he’s on live heels. I can sing ’em out prime, but you ’eared me. I has my bit o’ grub with him, and a few browns, and Old Bill and Young Bill, too, says I shall have better to do, but I can’t until peas. I sleeps in a loft with ’ampers, which is Old Bill’s; a stunnin’ good bed. I’ve cried for and ’elped other costers. Stumpy sent me to ’em. I think he’d been one hisself, but I was always on the look-out. I’ll go for some bunse soon. I don’t know what I shall do time to come, I nivver thinks on it. I could read middlin’, and can a little now, but I’m out of practice.”
I have given this little fellow’s statement somewhat fully, for I believe he is a type of the most numerous class of runaway urchins who ripen, so to speak, into costermongers, after “helping” that large body of street-traders.
I heard of one boy who had been discharged from Brixton, and had received 6d. to begin the world with, as it was his first offence, on his way back to London, being called upon suddenly as soon as he had reached the New Cut (then the greatest of all the street-markets) to help a costermonger. This gave the boy a start, and he had since lived honestly.
OF THE CAPITAL AND INCOME OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF MANUFACTURED ARTICLES.
Before giving a Summary of the Capital and Income of the above-mentioned class, I shall endeavour to arrive at some notion as to the number of persons belonging to this division of the London Street-sellers.
As far as I am able to ascertain, the following estimate may be taken as an approximation to the truth. There are in the metropolis 100 hardware-sellers, 6 cheap Johns, 30 sellers of cutlery, 6 sellers of tailors’ needles, 20 sellers of metal spoons, 500 sellers of jewellery, 2 sellers of card counters, 15 sellers of medals, 6 sellers of rings and sovereigns for a wager, 25 sellers of children’s gilt watches, 100 sellers of tin-ware, 100 swag-barrowmen, 12 sellers of dog-collars, &c., 40 sellers of tools, 380 sellers of crockery and glass-wares, 12 sellers of spar-ornaments, 30 sellers of China-ornaments, 6 sellers of stone-fruit, 120 packmen and duffers or hawkers of soft wares, 500 sellers of tapes, cottons, &c., 100 sellers of lace, 15 sellers of japanned table covers, 500 brace and belt-sellers, 50 sellers of hose, 3 sellers of waistcoats, 230 sellers of blacking, 125 sellers of black-lead, 5 sellers of French polish, 7 sellers of grease-removing composition, 4 sellers of plating-balls, 8 sellers of corn-salve, 4 sellers of China and glass cement, 6 sellers of razor paste, 55 sellers of crackers and detonating-balls, 200 sellers of Lucifer matches, 100 sellers of cigar-lights, 30 sellers of gutta-percha heads, 50 sellers of fly-papers and beetle-wafers, 25 sellers of poison for rats, 35 sellers of walking-sticks, 30 sellers of whips, 4 sellers of clay and Meerschaum pipes, 15 sellers of tobacco-boxes, snuff-boxes, and cigar-cases, 100 sellers of cigars, 50 sellers of sponge, 200 sellers of wash-leathers, 35 sellers of spectacles, and eye-glasses, 50 sellers of dolls, 50 lot-sellers, 2 sellers of Roulette tables, 4 sellers of rhubarb, 100 rat-catchers, 50 sellers of combs, 50 sellers of money-bags, 70 sellers of coat-studs; making altogether a total of 4272.
Some few of the above trades are, however, of only a temporary character; as, for instance, such as are engaged in the street-sale of crackers and detonating-balls—the month of November and the Christmas week being the only regular periods, with the exception of fairs and races, for the vending of those articles. The fly-papers and beetle-wafers are other instances of the same kind—summer being the only season in which there is a demand for such things. Making due allowance therefore for the temporary character of some of the callings, as well as for the itinerancy and unsettledness of other trades or traders, we may, I think, safely assume that the street-sellers connected with this class are about 4000 in number.
Concerning the amount of capital invested in this branch of the street-traffic as well as the income derived therefrom, the following tables are given as being somewhat near the truth.