London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. 4

by Henry Mayhew

DISASTER BEGGARS.

This class of street beggars includes shipwrecked mariners, blown-up miners, burnt-out tradesmen, and lucifer droppers. The majority of them are impostors, as is the case with all beggars who pursue begging pertinaciously and systematically. There are no doubt genuine cases to be met with, but they are very few, and they rarely obtrude themselves. Of the shipwrecked mariners I have already given examples under the head of Naval and Military Beggars. Another class of them, to which I have not referred, is familiar to the London public in connection with rudely executed paintings representing either a shipwreck, or more commonly the destruction of a boat by a whale in the North Seas. This painting they spread upon the pavement, fixing it at the corners, if the day be windy, with stones. There are generally two men in attendance, and in most cases one of the two has lost an arm or a leg. Occasionally both of them have the advantage of being deprived of either one or two limbs. Their misfortune so far is not to be questioned. A man who has lost both arms, or even one, is scarcely in a position to earn his living by labour, and is therefore a fit object for charity. It is found, however, that in most instances the stories of their misfortunes printed underneath their pictures are simply inventions, and very often the pretended sailor has never been to sea at all. In one case which I specially investigated, the man had been a bricklayer, and had broken both his arms by falling from a scaffold. He received some little compensation at the time, but when that was spent he went into the streets to beg, carrying a paper on his breast describing the cause of his misfortune. His first efforts were not successful. His appearance (dressed as he was in workman’s clothes) was not sufficiently picturesque to attract attention, and his story was of too ordinary a kind to excite much interest. He had a very hard life of it for some length of time; for, in addition to the drawback arising from the uninteresting nature of his case, he had had no experience in the art of begging, and his takings were barely sufficient to procure bread. From this point I will let him tell his own story:—

A Shipwrecked Mariner.

“I had only taken a penny all day, and I had had no breakfast, and I spent the penny in a loaf. I was three nights behind for my lodging, and I knew the door would be shut in my face if I did not take home sixpence. I thought I would go to the workhouse, and perhaps I might get a supper and a lodging for that night. I was in Tottenham Court-road by the chapel, and it was past ten o’clock. The people were thinning away, and there seemed no chance of anything. So says I to myself I’ll start down the New Road to the work’ouse. I knew there was a work’ouse down that way, for I worked at a ’ouse next it once, and I used to think the old paupers looked comfortable like. It came across me all at once, that I one time said to one of my mates, as we was sitting on the scaffold, smoking our pipes, and looking over the work’ouse wall, ‘Jem, them old chaps there seems to do it pretty tidy; they have their soup and bread, and a bed to lie on, and their bit o’ baccy, and they comes out o’ a arternoon and baskes in the sun, and has their chat, and don’t seem to do no work to hurt ’em.’ And Jem he says, ‘it’s a great hinstitooshin, Enery,’ says he, for you see Jem was a bit of a scollard, and could talk just like a book. ‘I don’t know about a hinstitooshin, Jem,’ says I, ‘but what I does know is that a man might do wuss nor goe in there and have his grub and his baccy regular, without nought to stress him, like them old chaps.’ Somehow or other that ’ere conversation came across me, and off I started to the work’ouse. When I came to the gate I saw a lot of poor women and children sitting on the pavement round it. They couldn’t have been hungrier than me, but they were awful ragged, and their case looked wuss. I didn’t like to go in among them, and I watched a while a little way off. One woman kep on ringing the bell for a long time, and nobody came, and then she got desperate, and kep a-pulling and ringing like she was mad, and at last a fat man came out and swore at her and drove them all away. I didn’t think there was much chance for me if they druv away women and kids, and such as them, but I thought I would try as I was a cripple, and had lost both my arms. So I stepped across the road, and was just agoing to try and pull the bell with my two poor stumps when some one tapped me on the shoulder. I turned round and saw it was a sailor-like man, without ne’er an arm like myself, only his were cut off short at the shoulder. ‘What are you agoing to do?’ says he. ‘I was agoing to try and ring the work’ouse bell,’ says I. ‘What for?’ says he. ‘To ask to be took in,’ says I. And then the sailor man looks at me in a steady kind of way, and says, ‘Want to get into the work’ouse, and you got ne’er an arm? You’re a infant,’ says he. ‘If you had only lost one on ’em now, I could forgive you, but—’ ‘But surely,’ says I, ‘it’s a greater misfortune to lose two nor one; half a loaf’s better nor no bread, they say.’ ‘You’re a infant,’ says he again. ‘One off aint no good; both on ’em’s the thing. Have you a mind to earn a honest living,’ says he, quite sharp. ‘I have,’ says I; ‘anything for a honest crust.’ ‘Then,’ says he, ‘come along o’ me.’ So I went with the sailor man to his lodging in Whitechapel, and a very tidy place it was, and we had beefsteaks and half a gallon o’ beer, and a pipe, and then he told me what he wanted me to do. I was to dress like him in a sailor’s jacket and trousers and a straw ’at, and stand o’ one side of a picture of a shipwreck, vile he stood on the ’tother. And I consented, and he learned me some sailors’ patter, and at the end of the week he got me the togs, and then I went out with him. We did only middlin the first day, but after a bit the coppers tumbled in like winkin’. It was so affectin’ to see two mariners without ne’er an arm between them, and we had crowds round us. At the end of the week we shared two pound and seven shillings, which was more nor a pound than my mate ever did by his self. He always said it was pilin’ the hagony to have two without ne’er an arm. My mate used to say to me, ‘Enery, if your stumps had only been a trifle shorter, we might ha’ made a fortun by this time; but you waggle them, you see, and that frightens the old ladies.’ I did well when Trafalgar Jack was alive. That was my mate, sir; but he died of the cholera, and I joined another pal who had a wooden leg; but he was rough to the kids, and got us both into trouble. How do I mean rough to the kids? Why, you see, the kids used to swarm round us to look at the pictur just like flies round a sugar-cask, and that crabbed the business. My mate got savage with them sometimes, and clouted their heads, and one day the mother o’ one o’ the brats came up a-screaming awful and give Timber Bill, as we called him, into custody, and he was committed for a rogue and vagabond. Timber Bill went into the nigger line arterwards and did well. You may have seen him, sir. He plays the tambourine, and dances, and the folks laugh at his wooden leg, and the coppers come in in style. Yes, I’m still in the old line, but it’s a bad business now.”

Blown-up Miners.

These are simply a variety of the large class of beggars who get their living in the streets, chiefly by frequenting public-houses and whining a tale of distress. The impostors among them—and they are by far the greater number—do not keep up the character of blown-up miners all the year round, but time the assumption to suit some disaster which may give colour to their tale. After a serious coal-mine accident “blown-up miners” swarm in such numbers all over the town that one might suppose the whole of the coal-hands of the north had been blown south by one explosion. The blown-up miner has the general appearance of a navvy; he wears moleskin trousers turned up nearly to the knees, a pair of heavy-laced boots, a sleeved waistcoat, and commonly a shapeless felt hat of the wide-awake fashion. He wears his striped shirt open at the neck, showing a weather-browned and brawny chest. The state of his hands and the colour of his skin show that he has been accustomed to hard work, but his healthy look and fresh colour give the lie direct to his statement that he has spent nearly the whole of his life in working in the dark many hundred feet beneath the surface of the earth. Many of them do not pretend that they have been injured by the explosion of the mine, but only that they have been thrown out of work. These are mostly excavators and bricklayers’ labourers, who are out of employ in consequence of a stoppage of the works on which they have been engaged, or more often, as I have proved by inquiry, in consequence of their own misconduct in getting drunk and absenting themselves from their labour. These impostors are easily detected. If you cross-question them as to the truth of their stories, and refer to names and places which they ought to be acquainted with if their representations were genuine, they become insolent and move away from you. There are others, however, who are more artful, and whose tales are borne out by every external appearance, and also by a complete knowledge of the places whence they pretend to have come. These men, though sturdy and horny-fisted, have a haggard, pallid look, which seems to accord well with the occupation of the miner. They can converse about mining operations, they describe minutely the incidents of the accident by which they suffered, and they have the names of coal-owners and gangsmen ever ready on their tongues. In addition to this they bare some part of their bodies—the leg or the arm—and show you what looks like a huge scald or burn. These are rank impostors, denizens of Wentworth-street and Brick-lane, and who were never nearer to Yorkshire than Mile-end gate in their lives. Having met with one or two specimens of “real” distressed miners, I can speak with great certainty of the characteristics which mark out the impostor. For many years past there has always been an abundance of work for miners and navigators; indeed the labour of the latter has often been at a premium; cases of distress arise among them only from two causes—ill-health and bodily disaster. If they are in health and found begging it is invariably during a long journey from one part of the country to another. The look and manner of these miners forbids the idea of their being systematic mendicants or impostors. They want something to help them on the road, and they will be as grateful for a hunck of bread and cheese as for money. If you cross-question these men they never show an uncomfortable sense of being under examination, but answer you frankly as if you were merely holding a friendly conversation with them. Miners are very charitable to each other, and they think it no shame to seek aid of their betters when they really need it. Of the device called the “scaldrum dodge,” by which beggars of this class produce artificial sores, I shall have to treat by-and-bye.

Burnt-out Tradesmen.

With many begging impostors the assumption of the “burnt-out tradesman” is simply a change of character to suit circumstances; with others it is a fixed and settled rôle. The burnt-out tradesman does not beg in the streets by day; he comes out at night, and his favourite haunts are the private bars of public-houses frequented by good company. In the day-time he begs by a petition, which he leaves at the houses of charitable persons with an intimation that he will call again in an hour. In the evening he is made up for his part. He lurks about a public-house until he sees a goodly company assembled in the private bar, and then, when the “gents,” as he calls them, appear to be getting happy and comfortable, he suddenly appears among them, and moves them by the striking contrast which his personal appearance and condition offers to theirs. Like many others of his class he has studied human nature to some purpose, and he knows at a glance the natures with which he has to deal. Noisy and thoughtless young men, like clerks and shopmen, he avoids. They are generally too much occupied with themselves to think of him or his misfortunes; and having had no experience of a responsible position, the case of a reduced tradesman does not come home to them. A quiet and sedate company of middle-aged tradesmen best suits his purpose. They know the difficulties and dangers of trade, and maybe there are some of them who are conscious that ruin is impending over themselves. To feeling men of this class it is a terrible shock to see a man, who has once been well-to-do like themselves, reduced to get a living by begging. The burnt-out tradesman’s appearance gives peculiar force to his appeal. He is dressed in a suit of black, greasy and threadbare, which looks like the last shreds of the dress suit which he wore on high days and holidays, when he was thriving and prosperous. His black satin stock, too, is evidently a relict of better days. His hat is almost napless; but it is well brushed—indicating care and neatness on the part of its owner. His shoes are mere shapeless envelopes of leather, but the uppers are carefully polished, and the strings neatly tied. When the burnt-out tradesman enters a bar he allows his appearance to have its due effect before he opens his mouth, or makes any other demonstration whatever. In this he seems to imitate the practice of the favourite comedian, who calculates upon being able to bespeak the favour of his audience by merely showing his face. The beggar, after remaining motionless for a moment, to allow the company fully to contemplate his miserable appearance, suddenly and unexpectedly advances one of his hands, which until now has been concealed behind his coat, and exposes to view a box of matches. Nothing can surpass the artistic skill of this mute appeal. The respectable look, and the poor, worn clothes, first of all—the patient, broken-hearted glance accompanied by a gentle sigh—and then the box of matches! What need of a word spoken. Can you not read the whole history? Once a prosperous tradesman, the head of a family, surrounded by many friends. Now, through misfortune, cast out of house and home, deserted by his friends, and reduced to wander the streets and sell matches to get his children bread. Reduced to sell paltry matches! he who was in a large way once, and kept clerks to register his wholesale transactions! It is seldom that this artist requires to speak. No words will move men who can resist so powerful an appeal. When he does speak he does not require to say more than—“I am an unfortunate tradesman, who lost everything I possessed in the world by a disastrous fire—” Here the halfpence interrupt his story, and he has no need to utter another word, except to mutter his humble thanks.

There are a great many beggars of this class, and they nearly all pursue the same method. They are most successful among tradesmen of the middle class, and among the poor working people. One of them told me that the wives of working men were, according to his experience, the most tender-hearted in London. “The upper classes, the swells, aint no good,” he said; “they subscribe to the Mendicity Society, and they thinks every beggar an imposture. The half-and-half swells, shopmen and the likes, aint got no hearts, and they aint got no money, and what’s the good. Tradesmen that aint over well off have a fellow feeling; but the workmen’s wives out a-marketing of a Saturday night are no trouble. They always carries coppers—change out of sixpence or a something—in their hands, and when I goes in where they are a havin’ their daffies—that’s drops o’ gin, sir—they looks at me, and says, ‘Poor man!’ and drops the coppers, whatever it is, into my hand, and p’raps asks me to have a half-pint o’ beer besides. They’re good souls, the workmen’s wives.”

There is a well-known beggar of this class who dresses in a most unexceptionable manner. His black clothes are new and glossy, his hat and boots are good, and to heighten the effect he wears a spotless white choker. He is known at the west end by the name of the “Bishop of London.” His aspect is decidedly clerical. He has a fat face, a double chin, his hat turns up extensively at the brim, and, as I have said, he wears a white neck-cloth. When he enters a bar the company imagine that he is about to order a bottle of champagne at least; but when he looks round and produces the inevitable box of matches, the first impression gives way either to compassion or extreme wonder. So far as my experience serves me, this dodge is not so successful as the one I have just described. A person with the most ordinary reasoning powers must know that a man who possesses clothes like those need not be in want of bread; but if the power of reasoning were universally allotted to mankind, there would be a poor chance for the professional beggar. There never was a time or place in which there were not to be found men anxious to avoid labour, and yet to live in ease and enjoyment, and there never was a time in which other men were not, from their sympathy, their fears, or their superstition, ready to assist the necessitous, or those who appeared to be so, and liable to be imposed upon or intimidated, according as the beggar is crafty or bold.

As a rule the burnt-out tradesmen whom I have described are impostors, who make more by begging than many of those who relieve them earn by hard and honest labour. The petitions which they leave at houses are very cleverly drawn out. They are generally the composition of the professional screevers, whose practices I shall have to describe by-and-by. They have a circumstantial account of the fire by which the applicant “lost his all,” and sometimes furnish an inventory of the goods that were destroyed. They are attested by the names of clergymen, churchwardens, and other responsible persons, whose signatures are imitated with consummate art in every variety of ink. Some specimens of these petitions and begging letters will be found under the head of “Dependants of Beggars.”

Lucifer Droppers.

The lucifer droppers are impostors to a man—to a boy—to a girl. Men seldom, if ever, practise this “dodge.” It is children’s work; and the artful way in which boys and girls of tender years pursue it, shows how systematically the seeds of mendicancy and crime are implanted in the hearts of the young Arab tribes of London. The artfulness of this device is of the most diabolical kind; for it trades not alone upon deception, but upon exciting sympathy with the guilty at the expense of the innocent. A boy or a girl takes up a position on the pavement of a busy street, such as Cheapside or the Strand. He, or she—it is generally a girl—carries a box or two of lucifer matches, which she offers for sale. In passing to and fro she artfully contrives to get in the way of some gentleman who is hurrying along. He knocks against her and upsets the matches which fall in the mud. The girl immediately begins to cry and howl. The bystanders, who are ignorant of the trick, exclaim in indignation against the gentleman who has caused a poor girl such serious loss, and the result is that either the gentleman, to escape being hooted, or the ignorant passers by, in false compassion, give the girl money. White peppermint lozenges are more often used than lucifers. It looks a hopeless case, indeed, when a trayful of white lozenges fall in the mud.

Bodily Afflicted Beggars.

Beggars who excite charity by exhibiting sores and bodily deformities are not so commonly to be met with in London as they were some years ago. The officers of the Mendicity Society have cleared the streets of nearly all the impostors, and the few who remain are blind men and cripples. Many of the blind men are under the protection of a Society, which furnishes them with books printed in raised type which they decipher by the touch. Others provide their own books, and are allowed to sit on door steps or in the recesses of the bridges without molestation from the police. It has been found on inquiry that these afflicted persons are really what they appear to be—poor, helpless, blind creatures, who are totally incapacitated from earning a living, and whom it would be heartless cruelty to drive into the workhouse, where no provision is made for their peculiar wants.

The bodily afflicted beggars of London exhibit seven varieties. 1. Those having real or pretended sores, vulgarly known as the “Scaldrum Dodge.” 2. Having swollen legs. 3. Being crippled, deformed, maimed, or paralyzed. 4. Being blind. 5. Being subject to fits. 6. Being in a decline. 7. “Shallow Coves,” or those who exhibit themselves in the streets, half-clad, especially in cold weather.

First, then, as to those having real or pretended sores. As I have said, there are few beggars of this class left. When the officers of the Mendicity Society first directed their attention to the suppression of this form of mendicancy, it was found that the great majority of those who exhibit sores were unmitigated impostors. In nearly all the cases investigated the sores did not proceed from natural causes, but were either wilfully produced or simulated. A few had lacerated their flesh in reality; but the majority had resorted to the less painful operation known as the “Scaldrum Dodge.” This consists in covering a portion of the leg or arm with soap to the thickness of a plaister, and then saturating the whole with vinegar. The vinegar causes the soap to blister and assume a festering appearance, and thus the passer-by is led to believe that the beggar is suffering from a real sore. So well does this simple device simulate a sore that the deception is not to be detected even by close inspection. The “Scaldrum Dodge” is a trick of very recent introduction among the London beggars. It is a concomitant of the advance of science and the progress of the art of adulteration. It came in with penny postage, daguerreotypes, and other modern innovations of a like description. In less scientific periods within the present century it was wholly unknown; and sores were produced by burns and lacerations which the mendicants inflicted upon themselves with a ruthless hand. An old man who has been a beggar all his life, informed me that he had known a man prick the flesh of his leg all over, in order to produce blood and give the appearance of an ulcerous disease. This man is a cripple and walks about upon crutches, selling stay laces. He is now upwards of seventy years of age. At my solicitation he made the following statement without any apparent reserve.

Seventy Years a Beggar.

“I have been a beggar ever since I was that high—ever since I could walk. No, I was not born a cripple. I was thirty years of age before I broke my leg. That was an accident. A horse and cart drove over me in Westminster. Well; yes I was drunk. I was able-bodied enough before that. I was turned out to beg by my mother. My father, I’ve heard, was a soldier; he went to Egypt, or some foreign part, and never came back. I never was learnt any trade but begging, and I couldn’t turn my hand to nothing else. I might have been learnt the shoemaking; but what was the use? Begging was a better trade then; it isn’t now though. There was fine times when the French war was on. I lived in Westminster then. A man as they called Copenhagen Jack, took a fancy to me, and made me his valet. I waited upon, fetched his drink, and so forth. Copenhagen Jack was a captain; no not in the army, nor in the navy neither. He was the captain of the Pye-Street beggars. There was nigh two hundred of them lived in two large houses, and Jack directed them. Jack’s word was law, I assure you. The boys—Jack called them his boys, but there was old men among them, and old women too—used to come up before the captain every morning before starting out for the day, to get their orders. The captain divided out the districts for them, and each man took his beat according to his directions. It was share and share alike, with an extra for the captain. There was all manner of “lays;” yes, cripples and darkies. We called them as did the blind dodge, darkies,—and “shakers” them as had fits,—and shipwrecked mariners, and—the scaldrum dodge, no; that’s new; but I know what you mean. They did the real thing then—scrape the skin off their feet with a bit of glass until the blood came. Those were fine times for beggars. I’ve known many of ’em bring in as much as thirty shillings a day, some twenty, some fifteen. If a man brought home no more than five or six shillings, the captain would enter him, make a note of him, and change his beat. Yes, we lived well. I’ve known fifty sit down to a splendid supper, geese and turkeys, and all that, and keep it up until daylight, with songs and toasts. No; I didn’t beg then; but I did before, and I did after. I begged after, when the captain came to misfortune. He went a walking one day in his best clothes, and got pressed, and never came back, and there was a mutiny among them in Pye-Street, and I nearly got murdered. You see, they were jealous of me, because the captain petted me. I used to dress in top-boots and a red coat when I waited on the captain. It was his fancy. Romancing? I don’t know what you mean. Telling lies, oh! It’s true by ——. There’s nothing like it nowadays. The new police and this b—— Mendicity Society has spoilt it all. Well, they skinned me; took off my fine coat and boots, and sent me out on the orphan lay in tatters. I sat and cried all day on the door steps, for I was really miserable now my friend was gone, and I got lots of halfpence, and silver too, and when I took home the swag, they danced round me and swore that they would elect me captain if I went on like that; but there was a new captain made, and when they had their fun out, he came and took the money away, and kicked me under the table. I ran away the next day, and went to a house in St. Giles’s, where I was better treated. There was no captain there; the landlord managed the house, and nobody was master but him. There was nigh a hundred beggars in that house, and some two or three hundred more in the houses next it. The houses are not standing now. They were taken down when New Oxford-street was built; they stood on the north side. Yes; we lived well in St. Giles’s—as well as we did in Westminster. I have earned 8, 10, 15, ay, 30 shillings a day, and more nor that sometimes. I can’t earn one shilling now. The folks don’t give as they did. They think every body an imposture now. And then the police won’t let you alone. No; I told you before, I never was anything else but a beggar. How could I? It was the trade I was brought up to. A man must follow his trade. No doubt I shall die a beggar, and the parish will bury me.”

Having Swollen Legs.

Beggars who lie on the pavement and expose swollen legs, are very rarely to be met with now. The imposture has been entirely suppressed by the police and the officers of the Mendicity Society. This is one of the shallowest of all the many “dodges” of the London beggars. On reflection any one, however slightly acquainted with the various forms of disease, must know that a mere swelling cannot be a normal or chronic condition of the human body. A swelling might last a few days, or a week; but a swelling of several years’ standing is only to be referred to the continued application of a poisonous ointment, or to the binding of the limb with ligatures, so as to confine the blood and puff the skin.

Cripples.

Various kinds of cripples are still to be found, begging in the streets of London. As a rule the police do not interfere with them, unless they know them to be impostors. A certain number of well-known cripples have acquired a sort of prescriptive right to beg where they please. The public will be familiar with the personal appearance of many of them. There is the tall man on crutches, with his foot in a sling, who sells stay laces; the poor wretch without hands, who crouches on the pavement and writes with the stumps of his arms; the crab-like man without legs, who sits strapped to a board, and walks upon his hands; the legless man who propels himself in a little carriage, constructed on the velocipede principle; the idiotic-looking youth, who “stands pad with a fakement,” shaking in every limb as if he were under the influence of galvanism. These mendicants are not considered to be impostors, and are allowed to pursue begging as a regular calling. I cannot think, however, that the police exercise a wise discretion in permitting some of the more hideous of these beggars to infest the streets. Instances are on record of nervous females having been seriously frightened, and even injured, by seeing men without legs or arms crawling at their feet. A case is within my own knowledge, where the sight of a man without legs or arms had such an effect upon a lady in the family way that her child was born in all respects the very counterpart of the object that alarmed her. It had neither legs nor arms. This occurrence took place at Brighton about eleven years ago. I have frequently seen ladies start and shudder when the crab-like man I have referred to has suddenly appeared, hopping along at their feet. I am surprised that there is no home or institution for cripples of this class. They are certainly deserving of sympathy and aid; for they are utterly incapacitated from any kind of labour. Impostors are constantly starting up among this class of beggars; but they do not remain long undetected. A man was lately found begging, who pretended that he had lost his right arm. The deception at the first glance was perfect. His right sleeve hung loose at his side, and there appeared to be nothing left of his arm but a short stump. On being examined at the police office, his arm was found strapped to his side, and the stump turned out to be a stuffing of bran. Another man simulated a broken leg by doubling up that limb and strapping his foot and ankle to his thigh. Paralysis is frequently simulated with success until the actor is brought before the police surgeon, when the cheat is immediately detected.

A Blind Beggar.

A blind beggar, led by a dog, whom I accosted in the street, made the following voluntary statement. I should mention that he seemed very willing to answer my questions, and while he was talking kept continually feeling my clothes with his finger and thumb. The object of this, I fancy, must have been to discover whether I was what persons of his class call a “gentleman” or a poor man. Whether he had any thoughts of my being an officer I cannot say.

“I am sixty years of age: you wouldn’t think it, perhaps, but I am. No, I was not born blind; I lost my sight in the small-pox, five and twenty years ago. I have been begging on the streets eighteen years. Yes, my dog knows the way home. How did I teach him that? why, when I had him first, the cabmen and busmen took him out to Camden Town, and Westminster, and other places, and then let him go. He soon learnt to find his way home. No, he is not the dog I had originally; that one died; he was five and twenty years old when he died. Yes, that was a very old age for a dog. I had this one about five years ago. Don’t get as much as I used to do? No, no, my friend. I make about a shilling a-day, never—scarcely never—more, sometimes less—a good deal less; but some folks are very kind to me. I live at Poole’s-place, Mount Pleasant. There are a good many engineers about there, and their wives are very kind to me; they have always a halfpenny for me when I go that way. I have my beats. I don’t often come down this way (Gower-street), only once a month. I always keep on this side of Tottenham Court-road; I never go over the road; my dog knows that. I am going down there,” (pointing); “that’s Chenies-street. Oh, I know where I am: next turning to the right is Alfred-street, the next to the left is Francis-street, and when I get to the end of that the dog will stop; but I know as well as him. Yes, he’s a good dog, but never the dog I used to have; he used always to stop when there was anybody near, and pull when there was nobody. He was what I call a steady dog, this one is young and foolish like; he stops sometimes dead, and I goes on talking, thinking there is a lady or gentleman near; but it’s only other dogs that he’s stopping to have a word with. No, no, no, sir.” This he said when I dropped some more coppers into his hat, having previously given him a penny. “I don’t want that. I think I know your voice, sir; I’m sure I’ve heard it before. No! ah, then I’m mistaken.” Here again he felt my coat and waistcoat with an inquiring touch: apparently satisfied, he continued, “I’ll tell you, sir, what I wouldn’t tell to every one; I’ve as nice a little place at Mount Pleasant as you would desire to see. You wouldn’t think I was obliged to beg if you saw it. Why, sir, I beg many times when I’ve as much as sixteen shillings in my pocket; leastwise not in my pocket, but at home. Why you see, sir, there’s the winter months coming on, and I lays by what I can against the wet days, when I can’t go out. There’s no harm in that, sir. Well, now, sir, I’ll tell you: there’s a man up there in Sussex-street that I know, and he said to me just now, as I was passing the public house, ‘Come in, John, and have a drop of something.’ ‘No, thank ye,’ says I, ‘I don’t want drink; if you want to give me anything give me the money.’ ‘No,’ says he, ‘I won’t do that, but if you come in and have something to drink I’ll give you sixpence.’ Well, sir, I wouldn’t go. It wouldn’t do, you know, for the likes of me, a blind man getting his living by begging, to be seen in a public-house; the people wouldn’t know, sir, whether it was my money that was paying for it or not. I never go into a public-house; I has my drop at home. Oh, yes, I am tired—tired of it; but I’ll tell you, sir, I think I’ll get out of it soon. Do you know how that is, sir? Well, I think I shall get on to Day and Martin’s Charity in October; I’m promised votes, and I’m in hopes this time. God bless you, sir.”

There was for many years in the city a blind man with a dog, who was discovered to be a rank impostor. The boys found it out long before the police did. They used to try and take the money out of the little basket that the dog carried in his mouth, but they never succeeded. The moment a boy approached the basket the blind man ran at him with his stick, which proved, of course, that the fellow could see. Some of my readers may recollect seeing in the papers an account of a respectable young girl who ran away from her home and took up with this blind man. She cohabited with him, in fact, and it was found that they lived in extravagance and luxury on the blind beggar’s daily takings.

Beggars subject to Fits

are impostors, I may say, wholly without exception. Some of them are the associates and agents of thieves, and fall down in the street in assumed fits in order to collect a crowd and afford a favourable opportunity to the pickpockets, with whom they are in league. The simulation of fits is no mean branch of the beggar’s art of deception. The various symptoms—the agitation of the muscles, the turning up of the whites of the eyes, the pallor of the face and the rigidity of the mouth and jaw—are imitated to a nicety; and these symptoms are sometimes accompanied by copious frothing at the mouth. I asked Mr. Horsford, of the Mendicity Society, how this was done, and received the laconic answer—“Soap.” And this brought to my memory that I had once seen an actor charge his mouth with a small piece of soap to give due vraissemblance to the last scene of Sir Giles Overreach. I was shown an old woman who was in the habit of falling down in assumed fits simply to get brandy. She looked very aged and poor, and I was told she generally had her fits when some well-dressed gentleman was passing with a lady on his arm. She generally chose the scene of her performance close to the door of a public-house, into which some compassionate person might conveniently carry her. She was never heard to speak in her fits except to groan and mutter “brandy,” when that remedy did not appear to suggest itself to those who came to her aid. An officer said to me, “I have known that old woman have so many fits in the course of the day that she has been found lying in the gutter dead drunk from the effect of repeated restoratives. She has been apprehended and punished over and over again, but she returns to the old dodge the minute she gets out. She is on the parish; but she gets money as well as brandy by her shamming.”

I have heard that there are persons who purposely fall into the Serpentine in order to be taken to the receiving-house of the Humane Society, and recovered with brandy. One man repeated the trick so often that at last the Society’s men refused to go to his aid. It is needless to say that he soon found his way out of the water unaided, when he saw that his dodge was detected.

Being in a Decline.

No form of poverty and misfortune is better calculated to move the hearts of the compassionate than this. You see crouching in a corner, a pale-faced, wan young man, apparently in the very last stage of consumption. His eyes are sunk in his head, his jaw drops, and you can almost see his bones through his pallid skin. He appears too exhausted to speak; he coughs at intervals, and places his hand on his chest as if in extreme pain. After a fit of coughing he pants pitifully, and bows his head feebly as if he were about to die on the spot. It will be noticed, however, as a peculiarity distinguishing nearly all these beggars, that the sufferers wear a white cloth bound round their heads overtopped by a black cap. It is this white cloth, coupled with a few slight artistic touches of colour to the face, that produces the interesting look of decline. Any person who is thin and of sallow complexion may produce the same effect by putting on a white night-cap, and applying a little pink colour round the eyes. It is the simple rule observed by comedians, when they make up for a sick man or a ghost. These beggars are all impostors; and they are now so well known to the police that they never venture to take up a fixed position during the day, but pursue their nefarious calling at night at public-houses and other resorts where they can readily make themselves scarce should an officer happen to spy them out.

“Shallow Coves.”

This is the slang name given to beggars who exhibit themselves in the streets half clad, especially in cold weather. There are a great many of these beggars in London, and they are enabled to ply their trade upon the sympathies of the public with very little check, owing to the fact that they mostly frequent quiet streets, and make a point of moving on whenever they see a policeman approaching. A notorious “shallow cove,” who frequents the neighbourhood of the Strand and St. Martin’s Lane, must be well known to many of my readers. His practice is to stand at the windows of bakers and confectioners, and gaze with an eager famished look at the bread and other eatables. His almost naked state, his hollow, glaring eye, like that of a famished dog, his long thin cheek, his matted hair, his repeated shrugs of uneasiness as if he were suffering from cold or vermin, present such a spectacle of wretchedness as the imagination could never conceive. He has no shirt, as you can see by his open breast; his coat is a thing of mere shreds; his trousers, torn away in picturesque jags at the knees, are his only other covering, except a dirty sodden-looking round-crowned brown felt hat, which he slouches over his forehead in a manner which greatly heightens his aspect of misery. I was completely taken in when I first saw this man greedily glaring in at a baker’s window in St. Martin’s Lane. I gave him twopence to procure a loaf, and waited to see him buy it, anxious to have the satisfaction of seeing him appease such extreme hunger as I had never—I thought—witnessed before. He did not enter the shop with the alacrity I expected. He seemed to hesitate, and presently I could see that he was casting stealthy glances at me. I remained where I was, watching him; and at last when he saw I was determined to wait, he entered the shop. I saw him speak to the woman at the counter and point at something; but he made no purchase, and came out without the bread, which I thought he would have devoured like a wolf, when he obtained the money to procure it. Seeing me still watching him, he moved away rapidly. I entered the shop, and asked if he had bought anything. “Not he, he don’t want any bread,” said the mistress of the shop, “I wish the police would lock him up, or drive him away from here, for he’s a regular nuisance. He pretends to be hungry, and then when people give him anything, he comes in here and asks if I can sell him any bits. He knows I won’t, and he don’t want ’em. He is a regular old soldier, he is, sir.”

I received confirmation of this account from Mr. Horsford, who said that the fellow had been sent to prison at least thirty times. The moment he gets out he resorts to his old practices. On one occasion, when he was taken, he had thirteen shillings in his pocket,—in coppers, sixpences and threepenny and fourpenny bits. Softhearted old ladies who frequent the pastry-cooks are his chief victims.

“Shallow coves” have recently taken to Sunday begging. They go round the quiet streets in pairs, and sing psalm tunes during church hours. They walk barefooted, without hats, and expose their breasts to show that they have no under clothing.

The “shallow cove” is a very pitiable sight in winter, standing half naked, with his bare feet on the cold stones. But give him a suit of clothes and shoes and stockings, and the next day he will be as naked and as wretched-looking as he is to-day. Nakedness and shivers are his stock in trade.

Famished Beggars.

The famished beggars, that is, those who “make up” to look as if they were starving, pursue an infinite variety of dodges. The most common of all is to stand in some prominent place with a placard on the breast, bearing an inscription to the effect that the beggar is “starving,” or that he has “a large family entirely dependent upon him.” The appeal is sometimes made more forcible by its brevity, and the card bears the single word, “Destitute.” In every case where the beggar endeavours to convey starvation by his looks and dress it may be relied upon that he is an impostor, a lazy fellow, who prefers begging to work, because it requires less exertion and brings him more money. There are some, however,—blind men and old persons—who “stand pad,” that is to say, beg by the exhibition of a written or printed paper, who are not impostors; they are really poor persons who are incapacitated from work, and who beg from day to day to earn a living. But these beggars do not get up an appearance of being starved, and indeed some of them look very fat and comfortable.

The beggars who chalk on the pavement “I am starving,” in a round scholastic hand, are not of this class. It does not require much reflection to discern the true character of such mendicants. As I have frequently had occasion to observe, the man who begs day after day, and counts his gains at the rate of from twelve to twenty shillings a week, cannot be starving. You pass one of these beggars in the morning, and you hear the coppers chinking on the pavement as they are thrown to him by the thoughtless or the credulous; you pass him again in the evening, and there is still the inscription “I am starving.” This beggar adds hypocrisy to his other vices. By his writing on the pavement he would give you to understand that he is too much ashamed to beg by word of mouth. As he crouches beside his inscription he hides his head. The writing, too, is a false pretence. “I am starving” is written in so good a hand that you are led to believe that the wretch before you has had a good education, that he has seen better days, and is now the victim of misfortune, perhaps wholly undeserved. It should be known, however, that many of these beggars cannot write at all; they could not write another sentence except “I am starving” if it were to save their lives. There are persons who teach the art of writing certain sentences to beggars, but their pupils learn to trace the letters mechanically. This is the case with the persons who draw in coloured chalk on the pavement. They can draw a mackerel, a broken plate, a head of Christ, and a certain stereotyped sea-view with a setting sun, but they cannot draw anything else, and these they trace upon a principle utterly unknown to art. There is one beggar of this class who frequents the King’s-Cross end of the New Road, who writes his specimens backwards, and who cannot do it any other way. He covers a large flag-stone with “copies” in various hands, and they are all executed in the true “copper-plate” style. They are all, however, written backwards.

The distinction made by the magistrates and the police between those who draw coloured views and those who merely write “I am starving” in white chalk, exhibits a nicety of discrimination which is not a little amusing. When the officers of the Mendicity Society first began to enforce their powers with rigour (in consequence of the alarming increase of mendicancy) they arrested these flag-stone artists with others. The magistrates, however, showed an unwillingness to commit them, and at length it was laid down as a rule that these men should not be molested unless they obstructed a thoroughfare or created a disturbance. This decision was grounded upon the consideration that these street artists did some actual work for the money they received from the public; they drew a picture and exhibited it, and might therefore be fairly regarded as pursuing an art. So the chalkers of mackerel were placed in the category of privileged street exhibitors. The “I am starving” dodge, however, has been almost entirely suppressed by the persevering activity of Mr. Horsford and his brother officers of the Mendicity Society.

One of the latest devices of famished beggars which has come under my notice I shall denominate

The Choking Dodge.

A wretched-looking man, in a state of semi-nudity, having the appearance of being half starved and exhausted, either from want of food or from having walked a long way, sat down one day on the door-step of the house opposite mine. I was struck by his wretched and forlorn appearance, and particularly by his downcast looks. It seemed as if misery had not only worn him to the bone, but had crushed all his humanity out of him. He was more like a feeble beast, dying of exhaustion and grovelling in the dust, than a man. Presently he took out a crust of dry bread and attempted to eat it. It was easy to see that it was a hard crust, as hard as stone, and dirty, as if it had lain for some days in the street. The wretch gnawed at it as a starved dog gnaws at a bone. The crust was not only hard, but the beggar’s jaws seemed to want the power of mastication. It seemed as if he had hungered so long that food was now too late. At length he managed to bite off a piece; but now another phase of his feebleness was manifested—he could not swallow it. He tried to get it down, and it stuck in his throat. You have seen a dog with a bone in his throat, jerking his head up and down in his effort to swallow: that was the action of this poor wretch on the door-step. I could not but be moved by this spectacle, and I opened the window and called to the man. He took no heed of me. I called again. Still no heed; misery had blunted all his faculties. He seemed to desire nothing but to sit there and choke. I went over to him, and, tapping him on the shoulder, gave him twopence, and told him to go to the public house and get some beer to wash down his hard meal. He rose slowly, gave me a look of thanks, and went away in the direction of the tavern. He walked more briskly than I could have conceived possible in his case, and something prompted me to watch him. I stood at my door looking after him, and when he got near the public-house he turned round. I knew at once that he was looking to see if I were watching him. The next minute he turned aside as if to enter the public-house. The entrance stood back from the frontage of the street, and I could not tell, from where I stood, whether he had gone into the house or not. I crossed to the other side, where I could see him without being noticed. He had not entered the house, but was standing by the door. When he had stood there for a few minutes he peeped out cautiously, and looked down the street towards the place where he had left me. Being apparently satisfied that all was right, he emerged from the recess and walked on. I was now determined to watch him further. I had not long to wait for conclusive evidence of the imposture which I now more than suspected. The man walked slowly along until he saw some persons at a first-floor window, when he immediately sat down on a door-step opposite and repeated the elaborate performance with the hard crust which I have already described. This I saw him do four times before he left the street, in each case getting money. It is needless to say that this fellow was a rank impostor. One of his class was apprehended some time ago—it might have been this very man—and no less than seven shillings were found upon him. These men frequent quiet bye-streets, and never, or rarely, beg in the busy thoroughfares. I will give another case, which I shall call

The Offal-Eater.

The most notable instance of this variety of the famished beggars which has come under my notice is that of a little old man who frequents the neighbourhood of Russell-square. I have known him now for two years, and I have seen him repeat his performance at least a score of times. The man has the appearance of a cutler. He wears a very old and worn, but not ragged, velveteen coat with large side pockets, a pair of sailor’s blue trousers a good deal patched, a very, very bad pair of shoes, and a chimney-pot hat, which seems to have braved the wind and rain for many years, been consigned to a dust-bin, and then recovered for wear. He is below the average height, and appears to be about seventy years of age. This little old man makes his appearance in my street about eleven o’clock in the forenoon. He walks down the pavement listlessly, rubbing his hands and looking about him on every side in a vacant bewildered manner, as if all the world were strange to him, and he had no home, no friend, and no purpose on the face of the earth. Every now and then he stops and turns his face towards the street, moving himself uneasily in his clothes, as if he were troubled with vermin. All this time he is munching and mumbling some food in a manner suggestive of a total want of teeth. As he pauses he looks about as if in search of something. Presently you see him pick up a small piece of bread which has been thrown out to the sparrows. He wipes it upon his velveteen coat and begins to eat it. It is a long process. He will stand opposite your window for full ten minutes mumbling that small piece of bread, but he never looks up to inspire compassion or charity; he trusts to his pitiful mumblings to produce the desired effect, and he is not disappointed. Coppers are flung to him from every window, and he picks them up slowly and listlessly, as if he did not expect such aid, and scarcely knew how to apply it. I have given him money several times, but that does not prevent him from returning again and again to stand opposite my windows and mumble crusts picked out of the mud in the streets. One day I gave him a lump of good bread, but in an hour after I found him in an adjacent street exciting charity in the usual way. This convinced me that he was an artful systematic beggar, and this impression was fully confirmed on my following him into a low beer-shop in St. Giles’s and finding him comfortably seated with his feet up in a chair, smoking a long pipe, and discussing a pot of ale. He knew me in a moment, dropped his feet from the chair, and tried to hide his pipe. Since that occasion he has never come my way.