VI.—Betting Gamblers.
CHAPTER XXII.
“ADVERTISING TIPSTERS” AND “BETTING COMMISSIONERS.”
The Vice of Gambling on the increase among the Working-classes—Sporting “Specs”—A “Modus”—Turf Discoveries—Welshers—The Vermin of the Betting-field—Their Tactics—The Road to Ruin.
There can be no doubt that the vice of gambling is on the increase amongst the English working-classes. Of this no better proof is afforded than in the modern multiplication of those newspapers specially devoted to matters “sportive.” Twenty years ago there were but three or four sporting newspapers published in London; now there are more than a dozen. It would, however, be unfair to regard the rapid growth of these questionable prints as an undoubted symptom of the deepening depravity of the masses. The fact is this: that though the national passion for gambling, for betting, and wagering, and the excitement of seeing this or that “event” decided, has increased of late, it is chiefly because the people have much more leisure now than of yore. They must have amusement for their disengaged hours, and they naturally seek that for which they have the greatest liking.
It is a comforting reflection, however, that in their sports and pastimes Englishmen, and especially Londoners, of the present generation, are less barbarous than those of the last. Setting horse-racing aside, anyone who now takes up for perusal the ordinary penny sporting paper will find therein nothing more repugnant to his sensibilities, as regards human performers, than records of swimming, and cricket, and running, and walking, and leaping; and as regards four-footed creatures, the discourse will be of dogs “coursing” or racing, or killing rats in a pit. In the present enlightened age we do not fight cocks and “shy” at hens tied to a stake at the Shrove-Tuesday fair; neither do we fight dogs, or pit those sagacious creatures to bait bulls. In a newspaper before me, not a quarter of a century old, there is a minute and graphic account of a bull-baiting, at which in the pride of his heart the owner of a bull-dog did a thing that in the present day would insure for him twelve months of hard labour on the treadmill, but which in the “good old time” was merely regarded as the act of a spirited sportsman. A white bull-dog, “Spurt” by name, had performed prodigies of valour against a bear brought before him and before a crowded audience. Finally, however, the exhausted creature bungled in a delicate act of the performance, and those who had bet against the dog exasperated its master by clapping their hands. “D’ye think that he can’t do it?” roared the dog’s owner; “why, I’ll take ten to one in twenties that he does it on three legs—with one foot chopped off.” “Done!” somebody cried. Whereon the valiant bulldog owner called for a cleaver, and setting the left fore-paw of his faithful dog on the ledge of the pit, he hacked it off at a blow. Then instantly he urged the creature at the bear again, and, raging with pain, it at once sprang at its shaggy opponent and pinned it.
It cannot be denied that occasionally there still appears in the sporting newspapers some brief account of a “mill” that has recently taken place between those once highly-popular gentlemen—the members of the “P.R.” But public interest in this department of “sport” is fast dying out; and not one reader in a hundred would care to wade through column after column of an account of how the Brompton Bison smashed the snout of the Bermondsey Pet; and how the latter finally gained the victory by battering his opponent’s eyes until he was blind and “came up groggy,” and could not even see his man, let alone avoid the sledgehammer blows that were still pounding his unhappy ribs. There are left very few indeed of those individuals who, as “sportsmen,” admire Raw-Head-and-Bloody-Bones as master of the ceremonies.
All the while, however, it is to be feared that the sporting newspaper of the present day reveals the existence of really more mischief, more substantial immorality and rascality than ever appeared in their pages before. As a quarter of a century since pugilism was the main feature with the sporting press, now it is horse-racing; not for its sake, but for the convenient peg it affords to hang a bet on. It may be safely asserted that among Londoners not one in five hundred could mention the chief qualities a racer should possess; but this goes for nothing; or perhaps it might be said that it goes for everything. It is each man’s faith in the ignorance of his neighbour, and his high respect for his own sagacity and his “good luck,” wherein resides the secret of the horse-betting mania at the present time afflicting the nation.
As the reader will have remarked, so rapidly has the disease in question spread during the past few years that Government has at last thought fit to interpose the saving arm of the law between the victim and the victimiser. Numerous as are the sporting papers, and to the last degree accommodating in acting as mediums of communication between the ignorant people who stand in need of horsey counsel and the “knowing ones” of the turf who, for a small consideration, are ever ready to give it, it was discovered by certain bold schemers that a yet wider field of operation was as yet uncultivated. To be sure, what these bold adventurers meditated was contrary to law, and of that they were well aware, and at first acted on the careful Scotch maxim of not putting out their hand farther than at a short notice they could draw it back again. Success, however, made them audacious. Either the law slept, or else it indolently saw what they were up to and winked, till at last, growing each week more courageous, the new gambling idea, that took the name of “Spec,” became of gigantic dimensions.
Throughout lower London, and the shady portions of its suburbs, the window of almost every public-house and beer-shop was spotted with some notice of these “Specs.” There were dozens of them. There were the “Deptford Spec,” and the “Lambeth Spec,” and the “Great Northern Spec,” and the “Derby Spec;” but they all meant one and the same thing—a lottery, conducted on principles more or less honest, the prize to be awarded according to the performances of certain racehorses. All on a sudden, however, the officers of the law swooped down on the gambling band, and carried them, bag and baggage, before a magistrate to answer for their delinquency.
At the examination of the first batch at Bow-street, as well as at their trial, much curious information was elicited. It appeared that the originator of the scheme lived at Deptford, and that he had pursued it for so long as six or seven years.
The drawings were on Saturday nights, when the great majority of the working-people had received their wages, and when, it having been noised abroad that these lotteries were going on, they were likely to attend and to expend their money in the purchase of such of the tickets as had not been sold already.
If all the tickets were not sold, a portion of each prize was deducted, and the holders of prizes were paid in proportion to the number of tickets that were sold; and, as it was impossible to know what number of tickets had actually been sold, it could not be determined whether the distribution had or had not been carried out with fairness, or how much had been deducted to pay for expenses, and to afford a profit to the promoters of the concern. Several cabloads of tickets, result-sheets, &c. were seized at the residences of the managers of the “spec.”
There were numerous “partners” in the firm, and they were frequently at the chief’s residence, and were instrumental in carrying out the lotteries. One or other was always present at the drawing of the numbers and at the distribution of the prizes. One partner was a stationer in the Strand, and at his shop were sold the tickets for these lotteries, and also what are termed the “result-sheets,” which were sold at one penny each, and each of which contained the results of a “draw,” setting forth which of the ticket-holders had been fortunate enough to draw the several prizes, and also advertising the next “spec” or lottery. Each of these “specs” related to a particular race, and the tickets were substantially alike. Each had on the top the words “Deptford Spec,” with a number and letter, and in the corner the name of a race, as “Newmarket Handicap Sweep,” “Liverpool Grand National Steeplechase.” In each of these there were 60,000 subscribers, and in that for the Thousand Guineas 75,000. The prizes varied in proportion; but in one they were £500 for the first horse, £300 for the second, and £150 for the third. Among the starters was to be divided £500, and among the non-starters £600. There were also 200 prizes of £1, and 300 prizes of 10s. It was stated on the tickets that the prizes would go with the stakes, and that the result-sheets would be published on the Monday after the draw. There was also a stipulation that, in the event of any dispute arising, it should be referred to the editors of the Era, Bell’s Life, and the Sporting Times, and the decision of the majority to be binding. If the numbers were not filled up, the prizes were to be reduced in proportion; with some other details. There was no printer’s name to the tickets or result-sheets.
The detective police-officers, in whose hands the getting-up of evidence for the prosecution had been intrusted, proved that, after they purchased their tickets, they went up the stairs in a public-house about a quarter to seven o’clock. They went into the club-room, where about sixty or seventy persons had assembled, and where the managers of the lotteries were selling tickets. The witness purchased one, and paid a shilling for it. It had the same form as the others, and the draw was to be held that night. Someone got up and said (reading from several sheets of paper in his hand), “4,200 tickets not sold;” this he repeated twice. He then proceeded to read from the papers the numbers of the tickets unsold. The reading occupied about half-an-hour. After the numbers were read out, they commenced to undo a small bundle of tickets, which they placed upon the table. They fetched down some more bundles similar to the first, and continued undoing them until they had undone about a bushel. The tickets were all numbered. They then proceeded to place all the tickets in a large wheel-of-fortune, after mixing them up well with a quantity of sand to prevent their sticking together. The wheel was a kind of barrel revolving on axles, with a hole for the hand. One of the managers asked if any gentleman had got a sporting paper. No one answered, so he produced one himself; he (witness) believed the Sporting Life. He said, “Will any gentleman read the names of the horses for the Grand National?” The names of the horses were then read out by those at the table, while tickets were drawn for each till all the horses were called. The tickets were then put down on the table, and the defendants proceeded to undo another packet. They undid a heap, about a quarter the bulk of the first lot. They put these into another wheel-of-fortune. Having done so, two boys about fourteen or fifteen years old came into the room, and after divesting themselves of their jackets and tucking up their sleeves, each went to the wheels, which were turned by some of the persons in the room. One of the managers called out the numbers of the tickets and the name of the horse to each prize.
It need only be mentioned, in proof of the popularity enjoyed by these “specs,” that within a fortnight afterwards a similar scene was enacted at the same public-house. A detective went to the Bedford Arms, where he heard that a distribution of prizes was to be made. He went into the club-room. The managers were there, with about forty prizeholders. A person produced a ticket and handed it to one of the directors, who, after examining it, said “All right,” and paid the money—405l.—which consisted of cheques, notes, and gold. The holder of the prize got 405l. for a 500l. prize, it being supposed all the tickets were not sold, and a reduction was made in proportion. About forty prizes were given away in this manner during the evening. After the prizes were drawn, each person was asked to put something in the bowl for the two boys.
The prisoners were committed for trial, but were lucky enough to escape punishment. For years they had been defying the law, and feathering their nests on the strength of the silly confidence reposed in them by the thousands of dupes who ran after their precious “specs;” and the sentence of the judge was in effect no more severe than this—it bade them beware how they so committed themselves for the future. Of course the released lottery-agents promised that they would beware, and doubtless they will. Without being called on to do so, they even volunteered an act of noble generosity. As before stated, the police had found in their possession and seized a large sum of money—fourteen hundred pounds. This the good gentlemen of the lottery suggested might be distributed amongst the charities of that parish their leader honoured with his residence, and with the Recorder’s sanction, and amid the murmured plaudits of a crowded court, the suggestion was adopted. The oddest part of the business was, however, that the benevolent gentlemen gave away what didn’t belong to them, the fourteen hundred pounds representing the many thousand shillings the believers in “specs” had intrusted to their keeping. However, everybody appeared to think that the discharged “speculators” had behaved honourably, not to say nobly, and there the case ended.
The “spec” bubble exploded, the police authorities show symptoms of bringing the machinery of the law to bear on a wider-spread and more insidious mischief of the same breed. With the betting infatuation there has naturally sprung up a swarm of knowing hungry pike ready to take advantage of it. These are the advertising tipsters, the “turf prophets,” and the “betting commissioners.” Driven from the streets, where for so long they publicly plied their trade, they have resorted to the cheap sporting press to make known their amiable intentions and desires, and the terms on which they are still willing, even from the sacred privacy of their homes, to aid and counsel all those faint-hearted ones who despair of ruining themselves soon enough without such friendly help.
Were it not for the awful amount of misery and depravity it involves, it would be amusing to peruse the various styles of address from the “prophet” to the benighted, and to mark the many kinds of bait that are used in “flat-catching,” as the turf slang has it, as well as the peculiar method each fisherman has in the sort and size of hook he uses, and the length of line.
Entitled to rank foremost in this numerous family is an unassuming but cheerful and confident gentleman, who frequently, and at an expensive length, advertises himself as the happy originator and proprietor of what he styles a “Modus.” It is described as an instrument of “beauty, force, and power,” and it is, doubtless, only that its owner, if he kept it all to himself, and set it going at full blast, would undoubtedly win all the money in the country, and so put an end to the sport, that he is induced to offer participation in its working at the small equivalent of a few postage-stamps. In his modest description of his wonderful “Modus,” Mr. M. says:
“In daily realising incomparably rich winnings with this Modus, another great and distinguished victory was very successfully achieved at Newmarket Spring Meeting. Mr. M.’s distinguished Winning Modus, for beauty, force, and power, has never yet failed in clearly realising treasures of weekly winnings and successes. For this reason, this week’s eminent and moneyed success was the result with this Modus at the Newmarket Spring Meeting. For acquiring an ascendency over any other capital-making turf discovery, either secret or public, it is truly marvellous. In fact, this Winning Modus never deteriorates in its character, immense riches, or winnings, for it is strikingly and truthfully infallible and never-failing. At any rate, it will win 18,000l. or 20,000l. for any investor ere the final close of the season. Do not think this anywise fiction, for it is strict verity. Mr. M. takes this opportunity to respectfully thank his patronisers for their compliments, congratulations, and presents. It is needless to remind his patrons that an illustrious and rich success will easily be achieved at Chester next week, when Mr. M.’s Winning Modus will again realise its infallible success in thousands.”
It is to be assumed that Mr. M. has already by means of his own “Modus” fished out of the risky waters of gambling a few of these “18,000l. or 20,000l.” he speaks so lightly of; and doubtless the reader’s first reflection will be, that he should hasten to expend a trifle of his immense winnings in securing for himself at least as fair a knowledge of the English language as is possessed by a “dame-school” scholar of six years old. It is evident that Mr. M. has all the money at his command which he is ever likely to require, or, of course, he would not reveal his precious secret on such ridiculously easy terms. He would patent it, and come down heavily on any rash person who infringed his rights, more valuable than those that rest in Mr. Graves, or even Mr. Betts, the great captain of “capsules.” No, he has won all the money he is ever likely to need; indeed, how can a man ever be poor while he retains possession of that wonderful talismanic “Modus,” a touch of which converts a betting-book into a solid, substantial gold-mine? Still, he is exacting as regards the gratitude of those whom his invention enriches. It is his pride to record as many instances as possible of the dutiful thankfulness of his fellow-creatures, and as, with pity and regret, he is aware that the only earnest of a man’s sincerity is that which takes the shape of the coinage of the realm, he is compelled, though sorely against his own confiding and generous nature, to attach much weight to thankofferings of a pecuniary nature. Every week he appends to his sketch of the working of his “Modus” a list of those “patronisers” from whom he has most recently heard. It may be urged by unbelievers that in this there is no novelty, since from time immemorial the quacks of other professions have done precisely the same thing; but it must be admitted that this should at least be taken as proof of Mr. M.’s indifference to the evil opinion of the censorious. Let us take the testimonials for the week of the Chester Races, which, as he says, “are promiscuously selected from a vast number:”
“Sir,—For distinction, honour, and fame, your marvellous winning Modus is worthy of its renown. I am happy in asserting it has won me 4,220l. nett so quickly and readily this season. Accept the 200l. enclosed.—I am, &c.
M. Arthur Porson.”
“Mr. M. undoubtedly considers his winning Modus an infallible one. Mr. G. Melville certainly considers it is too. At any rate, Mr. Melville is the very fortunate winner of upwards of 6,400l. 6,400l. at once is a tangible criterion as to its great worth for procuring these heavy winnings. Mr. Melville forwards a sum of money with his congratulations, as a present. Mr. M. will please accept the same.”
“Sir,—Do me a favour in accepting the enclosed cheque for 50l. Through the instrumentality of your certainly very successful winning Modus, I am, to my infinite pleasure, quickly becoming a certain and never-failing winner of thousands; for already has its golden agency marvellously won me 3,400l.
“C. Conyers Gresham.”
In conclusion, this benefactor of his species says: “For this successful winning ‘Modus,’ and its infinite riches, forward a stamped directed envelope, addressed Mr. M., Rugby.” That is all. Forward a directed envelope to Rugby, and in return you shall be placed, booted and spurred, on the road to infinite riches. If, starting as a beggar, you allow your head to be turned by the bewildering pelting of a pitiless storm of sovereigns, and ride to the devil, Mr. M. is not to blame.
The astounding impudence of these advertising dodgers is only equalled by the credulity of their dupes. How long Mr. M. has presented his precious “Modus” to the sporting public through the columns of “horsey” newspapers, I cannot say; but this much is certain: that according to his success has been the proportion of vexation and disappointment he has caused amongst the geese who have trusted him. We are assured that impostors of the M. school reap golden harvests; that thousands on thousands weekly nibble at his baits; consequently thousands on thousands weekly have their silly eyes opened to the clumsy fraud to which they have been the victims. But M. of Rugby flourishes still; he still vaunts the amazing virtues, and the beauty, force, and power of his “Modus,” and brags of this week’s eminent and moneyed success as though it were a matter of course. Mr. M. of Rugby is less modest than some members of his fraternity. Here is an individual who affects the genteel:
“A Card.—Private Racing Information!!—A gentleman who has been a breeder and owner of racehorses, and now in a good commercial position, attained by judicious betting, enjoying rare opportunities of early intelligence from most successful and dangerous stables, being himself debarred by partnership restrictions from turf speculations on his own account, thinks he might utilise the great advantages at his disposal by leaving himself open to correspondence with the racing public. This is a genuine advertisement, and worth investigating.—Address, —, Post-office, Stafford. Unquestionable references. Directed envelopes. No ‘systems’ or other fallacies.”
It will be observed that, despite the good position attained by the advertiser by “judicious betting,” not only was he glad to escape from the field where his fortune was founded, and to take refuge in the dull jog-trot regions of commerce, but his “partners” prohibit him in future from collecting golden eggs from any racing mare’s-nest whatsoever. He has made a fat pocket by the judicious exercise of a peculiar and difficult science he is well versed in; but still he is tolerated by his brother-members of the firm only on the distinct understanding that he never does it again. Perhaps he has grown over-rich, and the rest and seclusion is necessary to the complete restoration of his health. Perhaps he owes to “Modus”—but no, the retired breeder and owner of racehorses distinctly informs us that he has no faith in “systems” or other fallacies: “lying excepted,” is the amendment that at once occurs to the individual of common sense.
Education is reckoned as a prime essential to success in most trades; but in that of betting it would appear unnecessary, in order to realise a fortune for himself or his fellow-mortals, that an advertising tipster or betting-man should be master of the English language, let alone of the cardinal virtues. Here is a member of the Manchester Subscription-rooms, in proof:
“George D—y, member of the Manchester Subscription-rooms, attends personally all the principal race-meetings. Some persons having used the above name, G. D. gives notice that he has not anyone betting for him, and anyone doing so are welshers.”
Another gentleman eschews prophecy, and would throw “Modus” to the dogs, only that possibly his natural instincts peculiarly qualify him for knowing that to do so would be to cast an undeserved indignity on those respectable creatures. He goes in for “secret information.” He does not seek to mystify his readers by adopting a nom-de-plume, such as “Stable Mouse,” or “Earwig,” or “Spy in the Manger.” He boldly owns his identity as John —, of Leicester-square, London, and arrogates to himself an “outsider” that is to beat anything else in the field. “Do not be guided,” says this frank and plain-spoken sportsman—“do not be guided by the betting, but back my outsider, whose name has scarcely ever been mentioned in the quotations, because the very clever division to which it belongs have put their money on so quietly that their secret is known to only a few. I am in the swim, and know that the horse did not start for one or two races it could have won easily, but has been expressly saved for this. I have several other absolute certainties, and guarantee to be particularly successful at Chester. Terms: fourteen stamps the full meeting. Many of the minor events will be reduced to certainties; and in order to take advantage of it, I am willing to telegraph the very latest, without charge, to those who will pay me honourably from winnings; or I will invest any amount remitted to me, guaranteeing to telegraph before the race is run the full particulars.—John G., Leicester-square, London.”
What a pity it is that those who flatter themselves that they are intellectually qualified to embark in one of the most hazardous and difficult ways of making money should not be at the pains of carefully reading and deliberating on barefaced attempts at imposture, such as are disclosed in the above! John G. is one of the “clever division,” he says. So much for his honesty, when he admits that he is in the “swim” with men who have been tampering with the same wonderful “outsider,” and so manœuvering as to throw dust in the eyes of unsuspecting persons. So much for the wealth and position of the “swim,” when John G., a confessed member of it, is ready to betray his confederates for the small consideration of fourteenpence, or less, should you fall short of that amount of faith in his integrity. He will “leave it to you, sir,” as does the sweeper who clears the snow from your door, or the industrious wretch who brushes the dust from your coat on the racecourse. Or he will invest any sum you may feel disposed to intrust to him. There is not the least doubt of it; and what is more, you may rest assured that he will invest it so as to make sure of a substantial return. How else is he to cut a respectable figure at Epsom or Ascot, and join the bold-faced, leather-lunged gang, who, with a little money-pouch slung at their side, and a little, a very little money within the pouch, elbow their way through the press, bawling, “I’ll lay” on this, that, or t’other?
J. G. of Leicester-square is not the only advertising tipster who professes to be “in the swim,” and on that account to be in a position to act as a traitor to his friends, and the benefactor of the strange public. Here is the announcement of another gentleman.
“Great Events!—Enormous odds!!—Two horses have been expressly saved; and one of the best judges on the turf tells me they are the greatest certainties he ever knew. As for another event, it is quite at the mercy of the owner of a certain animal. I do not hesitate to say that there never was, and never will be, a better chance of pulling off a large stake at a trifling risk; for I can obtain the enormous odds of 1,840l. to 1l., or 920l. to 10s., or 460l. to 5s.; or I will send the secret for fourteen stamps.”
Here is a Munchausen fit to shake hands with and claim as a brother J. G. of Leicester-square. He knows of a forthcoming race, and he likewise knows of a man who intends to run in it a certain horse that will hold the equine contest at his mercy. It is but reasonable to assume that the noble animal in question will obey the dictates of his nature, and not give way to weak forbearance or foolish generosity. Undoubtedly, therefore, it will win the race; and the advertiser, if he puts 5s. on it, is sure of bagging 460l.! And yet he is found competing in the same dirty field with a score of his kindred, clamouring for fourteenpence in postage-stamps.
“Stable secrets! stable secrets!” shrieks the “Sporting Doctor;” secrets so very precious that he cannot possibly betray them for less than fivepence each. Send fifteen stamps, and receive in return the “true and certain winners of the Chester, the Derby, and the Oaks.” The “Sporting Doctor” hails from a back-street in the Blackfriars-road. The “Barber-poet” of Paddington, in touching terms, implores his noble patrons to assist him in advising his fellow-creatures of the “good things he has for them.” “Show my circulars to your friends,” he says; “it will be to my interest for you to do so. I will give 100l. to any charitable institution, if the advice I give is not in every instance the best that money can obtain.” The next tipster on the list goes farther than this. He boldly avows he will forfeit a large sum of money unless he “spots” the identical winners “first and second.” Of course, nothing can be more transparent than bombast of this sort; but here it is in black-and-white:
“Mr. Ben W. will forfeit 500l. if he does not send first and second for the Chester Cup. Send four stamps and stamped envelope, and promise a present, and I will send you the Chester Cup, Great Northern, Derby, and Oaks winners.—Address, —, Waterloo-road, London.”
Mr. Benjamin W.’s suggestion of a “promised present” is, however, no novelty with the advertising tipster. Many of the fraternity ask a cash-down payment for the “tip” they send—a sum barely sufficient to buy them a pint of beer—professing to rely contentedly on the generosity of their “patronisers,” as Mr. Modus styles them. Occasionally are appended to the advertisements gentle remonstrances and reminders that the confidence the tipster reposed in his patroniser seems to have been misplaced. The latter is requested “not to forget what is due from one gentleman, though in a humble sphere, to another.” One gentleman becomes quite pathetic in an appeal of this kind:
“The winners of Great Northern, Derby, and Oaks for thirteen stamps, or one event four stamps, with promise of present from winnings. Send a stamped envelope without delay. Gentlemen are requested to act honourably, and send me the promised percentage on the Two Thousand, for the labourer is worthy of his hire.—Address, — Cumberland-street, Chelsea, London.”
Another gentleman, blessed with an amount of coolness and candour that should insure him a competency if every horse were swept off the face of the earth to-morrow, publishes the following; and the reader will please bear in mind that these various advertisements are clipped out of the sporting papers, and copied to the letter:
“Take Notice!!—I never advertise unless I am confident of success. I have now a real good thing for Derby at 100 to 1; sure to get a place, for which 25 to 1 can be obtained.—Enclose 1s. stamps and stamped addressed envelope, and secure this moral.—Remember Perry Down.—Address, H— Post-office, Reading.”
It may be remarked, that everything that is highly promising becomes, in the slang of the advertising tipster, a “moral;” but there are two dictionary definitions of the term—one affecting its relation to good or bad human life, and the other which is described as “the instruction of a fable.” It is possibly in this last sense that the tipster uses the word. “Send for my ‘moral’ on the Great Northern Handicap,” writes Mr. Wilson of Hull. “It is said that the golden ball flies past every man once in his lifetime!” cries “Quick-sight” of John-street, Brixton. “See it in my moral certainty for the Derby. See it, and fail not to grasp it. Fourteen stamps (uncut) will secure it.”
This should indeed be glad news for those unfortunates whose vision has hitherto been gladdened in the matter of golden balls only by seeing them hanging in triplet above the pawnbroker’s friendly door. Fancy being enabled to grasp the golden ball—the ball that is to stump out poverty, and send the bails of impecuniosity flying into space never to return, at the small cost of fourteen postage-stamps! They must be uncut, by the way, or their talismanic virtue will be lost. The worst of it is, that you are unable either to see it or grasp it until Quicksight sees and grasps your fourteen stamps; and if you should happen to miss the golden ball after all, it is doubtful if he would return you your poor one-and-twopence as some consolation in your disappointment. He would not do this, but he would be very happy to give you another chance. His stock of “golden balls” is very extensive. He has been supplying them, or rather the chance of grasping them, at fourteenpence each any time during this five years, and he is doubtless in a position to “keep the ball rolling” (the golden ball) until all his customers are supplied.
By the way, it should be mentioned, that the advertiser last quoted, as well as several others here instanced, terminate their appeals by begging the public to beware of welshers!
Does the reader know what is a “welsher”—the creature against whose malpractices the sporting public are so emphatically warned? Probably he does not. It is still more unlikely that he ever witnessed a “welsher” hunt; and as I there have the advantage of him, it may not be out of place here to enlighten him on both points. A “welsher” is a person who contracts a sporting debt without a reasonable prospect of paying it. There is no legal remedy against such a defaulter. Although the law to a large extent countenances the practice of betting, and will even go the length of lending the assistance of its police towards keeping such order that a multitude may indulge in its gambling propensities comfortably, it will not recognise as a just debt money owing between two wagerers. It is merely “a debt of honour,” and the law has no machinery that will apply thereto. The consequence is, that amongst the betting fraternity, when a man shows himself dishonourable, he is punished by the mob that at the time of the discovery of his defalcation may happen to surround him; and with a degree of severity according to the vindictiveness and brutality of the said mob. On the occasion of my witnessing a “welsher hunt,” I was present at the races that in the autumn of 1868 were held in Alexandra-park at Muswell-hill. As the race for the Grand Prize was decided, looking down from the gallery of the stand, I observed a sudden commotion amongst the perspiring, bawling, leather-lunged gentry, who seek whom they may devour, in the betting-ring below, and presently there arose the magical cry of “Welsher!” I have heard the sudden cry of “Fire!” raised in the night, and watched its thrilling, rousing effect on the population; but that was as nothing compared with it. Instantly, and as though moved by one deadly hate and thirst for vengeance, a rush was made towards a man in a black wide-awake cap, and with the regular betting-man’s pouch slung at his side, and who was hurrying towards the gate of the enclosure. “Welsher! welsher!” cried the furious mob of the ring, making at the poor wretch; and in an instant a dozen fists were directed at his head and face, and he was struck down; but he was a biggish man and strong, and he was quickly on his legs, to be again struck down and kicked and stamped on. He was up again, however, without his hat, and with his face a hideous patch of crimson, and hustled towards the gate, plunging like a madman to escape the fury of his pursuers; but the policeman blocked the way, and they caught him again, and some punched at his face, while others tore off his clothes. One ruffian—I cannot otherwise describe him—plucked at the poor devil’s shirt at the breast, and tore away a tattered handful of it, which he flung over to the great yelling crowd now assembled without the rails; another tore away his coat-sleeves, and tossed them aloft; and in the same way he lost his waistcoat and one of his boots. It seemed as though, if they detained him another moment, the man must be murdered, and so the policeman made way for him to escape.
From the frying-pan into the fire. “Welsher! welsher!” The air rang with the hateful word, and, rushing from the gate, he was at once snatched at by the foremost men of the mouthing, yelling mob outside, who flung him down and punched and beat him. Fighting for his life, he struggled and broke away, and ran; but a betting-man flung his tall stool at him, and brought him to earth again for the twentieth time, and again the punching and kicking process was resumed. How he escaped from these was a miracle, but escape he did; and with the desperation of a rat pursued by dogs, dived into an empty hansom cab, and there lay crouched while fifty coward hands were stretched forward to drag him out, or, failing in that, to prog and poke at him with walking-sticks and umbrellas. At last, a mounted policeman spurred his horse forward and came to the rescue, keeping his steed before the place of refuge. Then the furious mob, that was not to be denied, turned on the policeman, and only his great courage and determination saved him from being unhorsed and ill-treated. Then other police came up, and the poor tattered wretch, ghastly, white, and streaming with blood, was hauled out and dragged away insensible, with his head hanging and his legs trailing in the dust, amid the howling and horrible execrations of five thousand Englishmen.
The next consideration was what to do with him. To convey him off the premises was impossible, since a space of nearly a quarter of a mile had to be traversed ere the outer gate could be reached. There was no “lock-up” at the new grand stand, as at Epsom and elsewhere. Nothing remained but to hustle him through a trap-door, and convey him by an underground route to a cellar, in which empty bottles were deposited. And grateful indeed must have been the stillness and the coolness of such a sanctuary after the fierce ordeal he had so recently undergone. Whether water was supplied him to wash his wounds, or if a doctor was sent for, is more than I can say. There he was allowed to remain till night, when he slunk home; and within a few days afterwards a local newspaper briefly announced that the “unfortunate man, who had so rashly roused the fury of the sporting fraternity at Alexandra races, was dead”!
To a close observer of the system that rules at all great horseracing meetings, nothing is so remarkable as the child-like reliance with which the general public intrusts its bettings to the keeping of the “professionals,” who there swarm in attendance. In the case of the bettors of the “ring” they may be tolerably safe, since it is to the interest of all that the atmosphere of that sacred enclosure, only to be gained at the cost of half-a-guinea or so, should be kept passably sweet. Besides, as was mentioned in the case of the unfortunate “welsher” at Alexandra races, the said enclosure is bounded by high railings; and the salutary effect of catching and killing a “welsher” is universally acknowledged. As regards the betting men themselves, it enables them to give vent to reckless ferocity that naturally waits on disappointed greed, while the public at large are impressed with the fact that strict principles of honour amongst gamblers really do prevail, whatever may have been said to the contrary. But at all the principal races the greatest number of bets, if not the largest amounts of money, are risked outside the magic circle. It is here that the huckster and small pedlar of the betting fraternity conjure with the holiday-making shoemaker or carpenter for his half-crown. For the thousandth time one cannot help expressing amazement that men who have to work so hard for their money—shrewd, hard-headed, sensible fellows as a rule—should part with it on so ludicrously flimsy a pretext. Here—all amongst the refreshment bustle, from which constantly streamed men hot from the beer and spirit counters—swarmed hundreds of these betting harpies; some in carts, but the majority of them perched on a stool, each with a bit of paper, on which some name was printed, stuck on his hat, and with a money-bag slung at his side, and a pencil and a handful of tickets. This was all. As often as not the name and address on the betting man’s hat or money-bag was vaguely expressed as “S. Pipes, Nottingham,” or “John Brown, Oxford-street;” and who Pipes or Brown was not one man in a thousand had the least idea. Nor did they inquire, the silly gulls. It was enough for them they saw a man on a stool, ostensibly a “betting man,” bawling out at the top of his great, vulgar, slangy voice what odds he was prepared to lay on this, that, or t’other; and they flocked round—enticed by terms too good to be by any possibility true, if they only were cool enough to consider for a moment—and eagerly tendered to the rogue on the stool their crowns and half-crowns, receiving from the strange Mr. Pipes or Mr. Brown nothing in exchange but a paltry little ticket with a number on it. This, for the present, concluded the transaction; and off went the acceptor of the betting man’s odds to see the race on which the stake depended. In very many cases the exchange of the little ticket for the money concluded the transaction, not only for the present, but for all future; for, having plucked all the gulls that could be caught, nothing is easier than for Pipes to exchange hats with Brown and to shift their places; and the pretty pair may with impunity renounce all responsibility, and open a book on the next race on the programme. To be sure it is hard to find patience with silly people who will walk into a well; and when they follow the workings of their own free will, it is scarcely too much to say they are not to be pitied. But when a cheat or sharper is permitted standing room that he may pursue his common avocation, which is to cheat and plunder the unwary public, the matter assumes a slightly different complexion.
Of all manner of advertising betting gamblers, however, none are so pernicious, or work such lamentable evil against society, as those who, with devilish cunning, appeal to the young and inexperienced—the factory lad and the youth of the counting-house or the shop. Does anyone doubt if horseracing has attractions for those whose tender age renders it complimentary to style them “young men”? Let him on the day of any great race convince himself. Let him make a journey on the afternoon of “Derby-day,” for instance, to Fleet-street or the Strand, where the offices of the sporting newspapers are situated. It may not be generally known that the proprietors of the Sunday Times, Bell’s Life, and other journals of a sporting tendency, in their zeal to outdo each other in presenting the earliest possible information to the public, are at the trouble and expense of securing the earliest possible telegram of the result of a horserace, and exhibiting it enlarged on a broad-sheet in their shop-windows. Let us take the Sunday Times, for instance. The office of this most respectable of sporting newspapers is situated near the corner of Fleet-street, at Ludgate-hill; and wonderful is the spectacle there to be seen on the afternoon of the great equine contest on Epsom downs. On a small scale, and making allowance for the absence of the living provocatives of excitement, the scene is a reproduction of what at that moment, or shortly since, has taken place on the racecourse itself. Three o’clock is about the time the great race is run at Epsom, and at that time the Fleet-street crowd begins to gather. It streams in from the north, from the east, from the south. At a glance it is evident that the members of it are not idly curious merely. It is not composed of ordinary pedestrians who happen to be coming that way. Butcher-lads, from the neighbouring great meat-market, come bareheaded and perspiring down Ludgate-hill, and at a pace that tells how exclusively their eager minds are set on racing: all in blue working-smocks, and with the grease and blood of their trade adhering to their naked arms, and to their hob-nailed boots, and to their hair. Hot and palpitating they reach the obelisk in the middle of the road, and there they take their stand, with their eyes steadfastly fixed on that at present blank and innocent window that shall presently tell them of their fate.
I mention the butcher-boys first, because, for some unknown reason, they undoubtedly are foremost in the rank of juvenile bettors. In the days when the Fleet-lane betting abomination as yet held out against the police authorities, and day after day a narrow alley behind the squalid houses there served as standing room for as many “professional” betting men, with their boards and money-pouches, as could crowd in a row, an observer standing at one end of the lane might count three blue frocks for one garment of any other colour. But though butcher-boys show conspicuously among the anxious Fleet-street rush on a Derby-day, they are not in a majority by a long way. To bet on the “Derby” is a mania that afflicts all trades; and streaming up Farringdon-street may he seen representatives of almost every craft that practises within the City’s limits. There is the inky printer’s-boy, hot from the “machine-room,” with his grimy face and his cap made of a ream wrapper; there is the jeweller’s apprentice, with his bibbed white apron, ruddy with the powder of rouge and borax; and the paper-stainer’s lad, with the variegated splashes of the pattern of his last “length” yet wet on his ragged breeches; and a hundred others, all hurrying pell-mell to the one spot, and, in nine cases out of ten, with the guilt of having “slipped out” visible on their streaming faces. Take their ages as they congregate in a crowd of five hundred and more (they are expected in such numbers that special policemen are provided to keep the roadway clear), and it will be found that more than half are under the age of eighteen. Furthermore, it must be borne in mind that in the majority of cases a single lad represents a score or more employed in one “office” or factory. They cast lots who shall venture on the unlawful mission, and it has fallen on him. Again, and as before mentioned, the Sunday Times is but one of ten or a dozen sporting newspapers published between Ludgate-hill and St. Clement Danes; and in the vicinity of every office may be met a similar crowd. Let the reader bear these facts in mind, and he may arrive at some faint idea of the prevalence of the horse-gambling evil amongst the rising generation.
The significance of these various facts is plain to the advertising tipster, and he shapes his baits accordingly. He never fails to mention, in apprising his youthful admirers, that, in exchange for the last “good thing,” postage-stamps will be taken. Well enough the cunning unscrupulous villain knows that in the commercial world postage-stamps are articles of very common use, and that at many establishments they are dealt out carelessly, and allowed to lie about in drawers and desks for the “common use.” There is temptation ready to hand! “Send fourteen stamps to Dodger, and receive in return the certain tip as to who will win the Derby.” There are the stamps, and the ink, and the pen, and the envelope, and nothing remains but to apply them to the use Dodger suggests. It is not stealing, at least it does not seem like stealing, this tearing fourteen stamps from a sheet at which everybody in the office has access, and which will be replaced without question as soon as it is exhausted. It is at most only “cribbing.” What is the difference between writing a private note on the office paper and appropriating a few paltry stamps? It would be different if the fourteenpence was in hard money—a shilling and two penny-pieces. No young bookkeeper with any pretensions to honesty would be guilty of stealing money from his master’s office—but a few stamps! Dodger knows this well enough, and every morning quite a bulky parcel of crummy-feeling letters are delivered at his residence in some back street in the Waterloo-road.
This is the way that Dodger angles for “flat-fish” of tender age:
“Great Results from small Efforts!—In order to meet the requirements of those of humble means, W. W—n, of Tavistock-street, is prepared to receive small sums for investment on the forthcoming great events. Sums as low as two-and-sixpence in stamps (uncut) may be sent to the above address, and they will be invested with due regard to our patron’s interest. Recollect that at the present time there are Real Good things in the market at 100 to 1, and that even so small a sum put on such will return the speculator twelve pounds ten shillings, less ten per cent commission, which is Mr. W.’s charge.”
“Faint heart never won a fortune! It is on record that the most renowned Leviathan of the betting world began his career as third-hand in a butcher’s shop! He had a ‘fancy’ for a horse, and was so strongly impressed with the idea that it would win, that he begged and borrowed every farthing he could raise, and even pawned the coat off his back! His pluck and resolution was nobly rewarded. The horse he backed was at 70 to 1, and he found himself after the race the owner of nearly a thousand pounds! Bear this in mind. There are as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it. Lose no time in forwarding fourteen stamps to Alpha, John-street, Nottingham; and wait the happy result.”
What is this but a plain and unmistakable intimation, on the part of the advertising blackguard, that his dupes should stick at nothing to raise money to bet on the “forthcoming great event”? Pawn, beg, borrow—anything, only don’t let the chance slip. Butcher-boys, think of the luck of your Leviathan craftsman, and at once take the coat off your back, or if you have not a garment good enough, your master’s coat out of the clothes-closet, and hasten to pawn it. Never fear for the happy result. Long before he can miss it, you will be able to redeem it, besides being in a position to snap your fingers at him, and, if you please, to start on your own “hook” as a bookmaker.
Another of these “youths’ guide to the turf” delicately points out that, if bettors will only place themselves in his hands, he will “pull them through, and land them high and dry,” certainly and surely, and with a handsome return for their investments. “No knowledge of racing matters is requisite on the part of the investor,” writes this quack; “indeed, as in all other business affairs of life, ‘a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.’ Better trust entirely to one who has made it the one study of his existence, and can read off the pedigree and doings of every horse that for the past ten years has run for money. Large investments are not recommended. Indeed, the beginner should in no case ‘put on’ more than a half-sovereign, and as low as half-a-crown will often be sufficient, and in the hands of a practised person like the advertiser be made to go as far as an injudiciously invested pound or more.”
It would be interesting to know in how many instances these vermin of the betting-field are successful, how many of them there are who live by bleeding the simple and the infatuated, and what sort of living it is. Not a very luxurious one, it would seem, judging from the shady quarters of the town from which the “tipster” usually hails; but then we have to bear in mind the venerable maxim, “Light come, light go,” and its probable application to those harpies who hanker after “uncut” stamps and receive them in thousands. That very many of them find it a game worth pursuing, there can be no doubt, or they would not so constantly resort to the advertising columns of the newspapers. How much mischief they really do, one can never learn. The newspaper announcement is, of course, but a preliminary to further business: you send your stamps, and what you in most cases get in return is not the information for which you imagined you were bargaining, but a “card of terms” of the tipster’s method of doing business. There is nothing new or novel in this. It is an adaptation of the ancient dodge of the medical quack who advertises a “certain cure” for “all the ills that flesh is heir to,” on receipt of seven postage-stamps; but all that you receive for your sevenpence is a printed recipe for the concoction of certain stuffs, “to be had only” of the advertiser.
And well would it be for the gullible public if the mischief done by the advertising fraternity of horse-racing quacks was confined to the “fourteen uncut stamps” they have such an insatiable hunger for. There can be no doubt, however, that this is but a mild and inoffensive branch of their nefarious profession. In almost every case they combine with the exercise of their supernatural gift of prophecy the matter-of-fact business of the “commission agent,” and, if rumour whispers true, they make of it at times a business as infernal in its working as can well be imagined. They can, when occasion serves, be as “accommodating” as the loan-office swindler or the 60-per-cent bill-discounter, and a profit superior to that yielded by either of these avocations may be realised, and that with scarce any trouble at all. No capital is required, excepting a considerable stock of impudence and a fathomless fund of cold-blooded rascality.
Judging from the fact that the species of villany in question has never yet been exposed in a police-court, it is only fair to imagine that it is a modern invention; on that account I am the more anxious to record and make public an item of evidence bearing on the subject that, within the past year, came under my own observation.
It can be scarcely within the year, though, for it was at the time when an audacious betting gang “squatted” in the vicinity of Ludgate-hill, and, owing to some hitch in the law’s machinery, they could not easily be removed. First they swarmed in Bride-lane, Fleet-street. Being compelled to “move on,” they migrated to a most appropriate site, the waste land on which for centuries stood the infamous houses of Field-lane and West-street, and beneath which flowed the filthy Fleet-ditch. But even this was accounted ground too good to be desecrated by the foot of the gambling blackleg, and they were one fine morning bundled off it by a strong body of City police. After this they made a desperate stand on the prison side of the way in Farringdon-street, and for some months there remained.
It was at this time that I made the acquaintance of the subject of the present little story. I had noticed him repeatedly, with his pale haggard face and his dull eyes, out of which nothing but weariness of life looked. He was a tall slim young fellow, and wore his patched and seedy clothes as though he had been used to better attire; and, despite the tell-tale shabbiness of his boots and his wretched tall black hat, he still clung to the respectable habit of wearing black kid-gloves, though it was necessary to shut his fists to hide the dilapidations at their finger-tips.
He was not remarkable amongst the betting blackguards he mingled with on account of the active share he took in the questionable business in which they were engaged; on the contrary, he seemed quite out of place with them, and though occasionally one would patronise him with a nod, it was evident that he was “nothing to them,” either as a comrade or a gull to be plucked. He appeared to be drawn towards them by a fascination he could not resist, but which he deplored and was ashamed of. It was customary in those times for the prosperous horse-betting gambler to affect the genteel person who could afford to keep a “man,” and to press into his service some poor ragged wretch glad to earn a sixpence by wearing his master’s “card of terms” round his neck for the inspection of any person inclined to do business. The tall shabby young fellow’s chief occupation consisted in wandering restlessly from one of these betting-card bearers to another, evidently with a view to comparing “prices” and “odds” offered on this or that horse; but he never bet. I don’t believe that his pecuniary affairs would have permitted him, even though a bet as low as twopence-halfpenny might be laid.
I was always on the look-out for my miserable-looking young friend whenever I passed that way, and seldom failed to find him. He seemed to possess for me a fascination something like that which horse-betting possessed for him. One afternoon, observing him alone and looking even more miserable than I had yet seen him, as he slouched along the miry pavement towards Holborn, I found means to start a conversation with him. My object was to learn who and what he was, and whether he was really as miserable as he looked, and whether there was any help for him. I was prepared to exercise all the ingenuity at my command to compass this delicate project, but he saved me the trouble. As though he was glad of the chance of doing so, before we were half-way up Holborn-hill he turned the conversation exactly into the desired groove, and by the time the Tottenham-court-road was reached (he turned down there), I knew even more of his sad history than is here subjoined.
“What is the business pursuit that takes me amongst the betting-men? O no, sir, I’m not at all astonished that you should ask the question; I’ve asked it of myself so often, that it doesn’t come new to me. I pursue no business, sir. What business could a wretched scarecrow like I am pursue? Say that I am pursued, and you will be nearer the mark. Pursued by what I can never get away from or shake off: damn it!”
He uttered the concluding wicked word with such decisive and bitter emphasis, that I began to think that he had done with the subject; but he began again almost immediately.
“I wish to the Lord I had a business pursuit! If ever a fellow was tired of his life, I am. Well—yes, I am a young man; but it’s precious small consolation that that fact brings me. Hang it, no! All the longer to endure it. How long have I endured it? Ah, now you come to the point. For years, you think, I daresay. You look at me, and you think to yourself, ‘There goes a poor wretch who has been on the downhill road so long that it’s time that he came to the end of it, or made an end to it.’ There you are mistaken. Eighteen months ago I was well dressed and prosperous. I was second clerk to —, the provision merchants, in St. Mary Axe, on a salary of a hundred and forty pounds—rising twenty each year. Now look at me!
“You need not ask me how it came about. You say that you have seen me often in Farringdon-street with the betting-men, so you can give a good guess as to how I came to ruin, I’ll be bound. Yes, sir, it was horse-betting that did my business. No, I did not walk to ruin with my eyes open, and because I liked the road. I was trapped into it, sir, as I’ll be bound scores and scores of young fellows have been. I never had a passion for betting. I declare that, till within the last two years, I never made a bet in my life. The beginning of it was, that, for the fun of the thing, I wagered ten shillings with a fellow-clerk about the Derby that was just about to come off. I never took any interest in horseracing before; but when I had made that bet I was curious to look over the sporting news, and to note the odds against the favourite. One unlucky day I was fool enough to answer the advertisement of a professional tipster. He keeps the game going still, curse him! You may read his name in the papers this morning. If I wasn’t such an infernal coward, you know, I should kill that man. If I hadn’t the money to buy a pistol, I ought to steal one, and shoot the thief. But, what do you think? I met him on Monday, and he chaffed me about my boots. It was raining at the time. ‘I wish I had a pair of waterproofs like yours, Bobby. You’ll never take cold while they let all the water out at the heel they take in at the toe!’ Fancy me standing that after the way he had served me! Fancy this too—me borrowing a shilling of him, and saying ‘Thank you, sir,’ for it! Why, you know, I ought to be pumped on for doing it!
“Yes, I wrote to ‘Robert B—y, Esq., of Leicester,’ and sent the half-crown’s worth of stamps asked for. It doesn’t matter what I got in return. Anyhow, it was something that set my mind on betting, and I wrote again and again. At first his replies were of a distant and business sort; but in a month or so after I had written to him to complain of being misguided by him, he wrote back a friendly note to say that he wasn’t at all surprised to hear of my little failures—novices always did fail. They absurdly attempt what they did not understand. ‘Just to show you the difference,’ said he, ‘just give me a commission to invest a pound for you on the Ascot Cup. All that I charge is seven and a half per cent on winnings. Try it just for once; a pound won’t break you, and it may open your eyes to the way that fortunes are made.’ I ought to have known then, that either he, or somebody in London he had set on, had been making inquiries about me, for the other notes were sent to where mine were directed from—my private lodgings—but this one came to me at the warehouse.
“Well, I sent the pound, and within a week received a post-office order for four pounds eight as the result of its investment. The same week I bet again—two pounds this time—and won one pound fifteen. That was over six pounds between Monday and Saturday. ‘This is the way that fortunes are made,’ I laughed to myself, like a fool.
“Well, he kept me going, I don’t exactly recollect how, between Ascot and Goodwood, which is about seven weeks, not more. Sometimes I won, sometimes I lost, but, on the whole, I was in pocket. I was such a fool at last, that I was always for betting more than he advised. I’ve got his letters at home now, in which he says, ‘Pray don’t be rash; take my advice, and bear in mind that great risks mean great losses, as well as great gains, at times.’ Quite fatherly, you know! The infernal scoundrel!
“Well, one day there came a telegram to the office for me. I was just in from my dinner. It was from B—y. ‘Now you may bag a hundred pounds at a shot,’ said he. ‘The odds are short, but the result certain. Never mind the money just now. You are a gentleman, and I will trust you. You know that my motto has all along been ‘Caution.’ Now it is ‘Go in and win.’ It is sure. Send me a word immediately, or it may be too late; and, if you are wise, put a ‘lump’ on it.’
“That was the infernal document—the death-warrant of all my good prospects. It was the rascal’s candour that deceived me. He had all along said, ‘Be cautious, don’t be impatient to launch out;’ and now this patient careful villain saw his chance, and advised, ‘Go in and win.’ I was quite in a maze at the prospect of bagging a hundred pounds. To win that sum the odds were so short on the horse he mentioned, that fifty pounds had to be risked. But he said that there was no risk, and I believed him. I sent him back a telegram at once to execute the commission.
“The horse lost. I knew it next morning before I was up, for I had sent for the newspaper; and while I was in the midst of my fright, up comes my landlady to say that a gentleman of the name of B—y wished to see me.
“I had never seen him before, and he seemed an easy fellow enough. He was in a terrible way—chiefly on my account—though the Lord only knew how much he had lost over the ‘sell.’ He had come up by express purely to relieve my anxiety, knowing how ‘funky’ young gentlemen sometimes were over such trifles. Although he had really paid the fifty in hard gold out of his pocket, he was in no hurry for it. He would take my bill at two months. It would be all right, no doubt. He had conceived a liking for me, merely from my straightforward way of writing. Now that he had had the pleasure of seeing me, he shouldn’t trouble himself a fig if the fifty that I owed him was five hundred.
“I declare to you that I knew so little about bills, that I didn’t know how to draw one out; but I was mighty glad to be shown the way and to give it him, and thank him over and over again for his kindness. That was the beginning of my going to the devil. If I hadn’t been a fool, I might have saved myself even then, for I had friends who would have lent or given me twice fifty pounds if I had asked them for it. But I was a fool. In the course of a day or two I got a note from B—y, reminding me that the way out of the difficulty was by the same path as I had got into one, and that a little judicious ‘backing’ would set me right before even my bill fell due. And I was fool enough to walk into the snare. I wouldn’t borrow to pay the fifty pounds, but I borrowed left and right, of my mother, of my brothers, on all manner of lying pretences, to follow the ‘advice’ B—y was constantly sending me. When I came to the end of their forbearance, I did more than borrow; but that we won’t speak of. In five months from the beginning, I was without a relative who would own me or speak to me, and without an employer—cracked up, ruined. And there’s B—y, as I said before, with his white hat cocked on one side of his head, and his gold toothpick, chaffing me about my old boots. What do I do for a living? Well, I’ve told you such a precious lot, I may as well tell you that too. Where I lodge it’s a ‘leaving-shop,’ and the old woman that keeps it can’t read or write, and I keep her ‘book’ for her. That’s how I get a bit of breakfast and supper and a bed to lie on.”
[Since the above was written, the police, under the energetic guidance of their new chief, have been making vigorous and successful warfare against public gamblers and gambling agents. The “spec” dodge has been annihilated, “betting-shops” have been entered and routed, and there is even fair promise that the worst feature of the bad business, that which takes refuge behind the specious cloak of the “commission-agent,” may be put down. That it may be so, should be the earnest wish of all right-thinking men, who would break down this barrier of modern and monstrous growth, that blocks the advancement of social purity, and causes perhaps more ruin and irreparable dismay than any other two of the Curses herein treated of.]
VII.—Waste of Charity.
CHAPTER XXIII.
METROPOLITAN PAUPERISM.
Parochial Statistics—The Public hold the Purse-strings—Cannot the Agencies actually at work be made to yield greater results?—The Need of fair Rating—The heart and core of the Poor-law Difficulty—My foremost thought when I was a “Casual”—Who are most liable to slip?—“Crank-work”—The Utility of Labour-yards—Scales of Relief—What comes of breaking-up a Home.
The following is a return of the number of paupers (exclusive of lunatics in asylums and vagrants) on the last day of the fifth week of April 1869, and total of corresponding week in 1868:
Unions and single Parishes (thelatter marked *). | Paupers. | Corresponding Total in1868. | |||
| In-door. Adults andChildren. | Out-door. | Total 5th week Apr. 1869. |
| |
|
| Adults. | Children under 16. |
|
|
West District: |
|
|
|
|
|
* Kensington | 809 | 1,379 | 1,545 | 3,733 | 2,874 |
Fulham | 364 | 988 | 696 | 2,048 | 1,537 |
* Paddington | 460 | 1,004 | 660 | 2,124 | 1,846 |
* Chelsea | 702 | 896 | 744 | 2,342 | 2,272 |
* St. George, Hanover-square | 753 | 852 | 642 | 2,247 | 2,127 |
* St. Margaret and St. John | 1,131 | 1,791 | 1,313 | 4,285 | 5,742 |
Westminster | 1,101 | 749 | 558 | 2,408 | 1,874 |
Total of West Dist. | 5,320 | 7,659 | 6,158 | 19,137 | 18,272 |
North District: |
| ||||
* St. Marylebone | 2,221 | 2,587 | 1,374 | 6,182 | 5,902 |
* Hampstead | 143 | 126 | 57 | 326 | 347 |
* St. Pancras | 2,141 | 3,915 | 2,847 | 8,903 | 8,356 |
* Islington | 909 | 1,996 | 1,590 | 4,495 | 4,792 |
Hackney | 695 | 2,909 | 2,952 | 6,556 | 5,385 |
Total of North Dist. | 6,109 | 11,533 | 8,820 | 26,462 | 24,782 |
Central District: |
| ||||
*St. Giles and St. George,Bloomsbury | 869 | 587 | 538 | 1,994 | 2,246 |
Strand | 1,054 | 647 | 387 | 2,088 | 3,069 |
Holborn | 554 | 947 | 781 | 2 282 | 2,724 |
Clerkenwell | 713 | 999 | 642 | 2,354 | 2,863 |
* St. Luke | 965 | 1,245 | 1,045 | 3,255 | 3,165 |
East London | 838 | 1,038 | 906 | 2,782 | 2,813 |
West London | 598 | 701 | 542 | 1,841 | 1,965 |
City of London | 1,034 | 1,191 | 632 | 2,857 | 3,019 |
Total of Central D. | 6,625 | 7,355 | 5,473 | 19,453 | 21,864 |
East District: |
| ||||
* Shoreditch | 1,440 | 1,966 | 1,770 | 5,176 | 5,457 |
* Bethnal Green | 1,510 | 1,265 | 1,389 | 4,164 | 5,057 |
Whitechapel | 1,192 | 1,234 | 1,700 | 4,126 | 4,315 |
* St. George-in-the-E. | 1,192 | 1,585 | 1,565 | 4,342 | 3,967 |
Stepney | 1,072 | 1,600 | 1,533 | 4,205 | 4,650 |
* Mile End Old Town | 547 | 1,228 | 1,055 | 2,830 | 2,705 |
Poplar | 1,014 | 2,807 | 2,793 | 6,614 | 9,169 |
Total of East Dist. | 7,967 | 11,685 | 11,805 | 31,457 | 35,320 |
South District: |
| ||||
St. Saviour, Southwk. | 537 | 678 | 678 | 1,893 | 2,000 |
St. Olave, Southwark | 478 | 393 | 464 | 1,335 | 1,349 |
* Bermondsey | 712 | 554 | 752 | 2,018 | 1,860 |
* St. George, Southwk. | 660 | 1,260 | 1,646 | 3,566 | 4,120 |
* Newington | 891 | 1,450 | 1,330 | 3,671 | 3,676 |
* Lambeth | 1,503 | 2,777 | 3,401 | 7,681 | 8,369 |
Wandsworth & Clapham | 887 | 1,678 | 1,439 | 4,004 | 3,876 |
* Camberwell | 865 | 1,537 | 1,492 | 3,894 | 3,360 |
* Rotherhithe | 288 | 638 | 518 | 1,444 | 1,338 |
Greenwich | 1,447 | 2,799 | 2,314 | 6,560 | 5,933 |
Woolwich | — | 2,506 | 2,173 | 4,679 | 3,110 |
Lewisham | 320 | 595 | 394 | 1,309 | 1,253 |
Total of South Dist. | 8,588 | 16,865 | 16,601 | 42,054 | 40,244 |
Total of the Metropolis | 34,609 | 55,097 | 48,857 | 138,563 | 140,482 |
TOTAL PAUPERISM OF THE METROPOLIS.
(Population in 1861, 2,802,000.)
Years. | Number ofPaupers. | Total. | |
| In-door. | Out-door. |
|
Fifth week of April 1869 | 34,609 | 103,954 | 138,563 |
„ „ „ 1868 | 34,455 | 106,027 | 140,482 |
„ „ „ 1867 | 32,728 | 96,765 | 129,493 |
„ „ „ 1866 | 30,192 | 71,372 | 101,564 |
This as regards parochial charity. It must not be imagined, however, from this source alone flows all the relief that the nation’s humanity and benevolence provides for the relief of its poor and helpless. Besides our parochial asylums there are many important charities of magnitude, providing a sum of at least 2,000,000l. a-year for the relief of want and suffering in London, independently of legal and local provision to an amount hardly calculable. We content ourselves with stating one simple fact—that all this charity, as now bestowed and applied, fails to accomplish the direct object in view. If the 2,000,000l. thus contributed did in some way or other suffice, in conjunction with other funds, to banish want and suffering from the precincts of the metropolis, we should have very little to say. But the fact is that, after all these incredible efforts to relieve distress, want and suffering are so prevalent that it might be fancied charity was dead amongst us. Now that, at any rate, cannot be a result in which anybody would willingly acquiesce. If the money was spent, and the poor were relieved, many people probably would never trouble themselves to inquire any further; but though the money is spent, the poor are not cured of their poverty. In reality this very fact is accountable in itself for much of that accumulation of agencies, institutions, and efforts which our statistics expose. As has been recently remarked: “A certain expenditure by the hands of a certain society fails to produce the effect anticipated, and so the result is a new society, with a new expenditure, warranted to be more successful. It would be a curious item in the account if the number and succession of fresh charities, year after year, could be stated. They would probably be found, like religious foundations, taking some new forms according to the discoveries or presumptions of the age; but all this while the old charities are still going on, and the new charity becomes old in its turn, to be followed, though not superseded, by a fresh creation in due time.”
If it be asked what, under such circumstances, the public can be expected to do, we answer, that it may really do much by easy inquiry and natural conclusions. Whenever an institution is supported by voluntary contributions, the contributors, if they did but know it, have the entire control of the establishment in their hands; they can stop the supplies, they hold the purse, and they can stipulate for any kind of information, disclosure, or reform at their pleasure. They can exact the publication of accounts at stated intervals, and the production of the balance-sheet according to any given form. It is at their discretion to insist upon amalgamation, reorganisation, or any other promising measure. There is good reason for the exercise of these powers. We have said that all this charity fails to accomplish its one immediate object—the relief of the needy; but that is a very imperfect statement of the case. The fact is that pauperism, want, and suffering are rapidly growing upon us in this metropolis, and we are making little or no headway against the torrent. The administration of the Poor-law is as unsuccessful as that of private benevolence. Legal rates, like voluntary subscriptions, increase in amount, till the burden can hardly be endured; and still the cry for aid continues. Is nothing to be done, then, save to go on in the very course which has proved fruitless? Must we still continue giving, when giving to all appearances does so little good? It would be better to survey the extent and nature of agencies actually at work, and to see whether they cannot be made to yield greater results.
Confining ourselves, however, to what chiefly concerns the hardly-pressed ratepayers of the metropolis, its vagrancy and pauperism, there at once arises the question, How can this enormous army of helpless ones be provided for in the most satisfactory manner?—This problem has puzzled the social economist since that bygone happy age when poor-rates were unknown, and the “collector” appeared in a form no more formidable than that of the parish priest, who, from his pulpit, exhorted his congregation to give according to their means, and not to forget the poor-box as they passed out.
It is not a “poor-box” of ordinary dimensions that would contain the prodigious sums necessary to the maintenance of the hundred thousand ill-clad and hungry ones that, in modern times, plague the metropolis. Gradually the sum-total required has crept up, till, at the present time, it has attained dimensions that press on the neck of the striving people like the Old Man of the Sea who so tormented Sinbad, and threatened to strangle him.
In London alone the cost of relief has doubled since 1851. In that year the total relief amounted to 659,000l.; in 1858 it had increased to 870,000l.; in 1867 to 1,180,000l.; and in 1868 to 1,317,000l. The population within this time has increased from 2,360,000 to something like 3,100,000, the estimated population at the present time; so that while the population has increased by only 34 per cent, the cost of relief has exactly doubled. Thirteen per cent of the whole population of London were relieved as paupers in 1851, and in 1868 the percentage had increased to 16. In 1861 the Strand Union had a decreasing population of 8,305, and in 1868 it relieved one in every five, or 20 per cent, of that population. Besides this, the cost of relief per head within the workhouse had much increased within the last 15 years. The cost of food consumed had increased from 2s. 9d. per head, per week, in 1853, to 4s. 11d. in 1868; while we have the authority of Mr. Leone Levi for the statement that a farm-labourer expended only 3s. a-week on food for himself.
In 1853 the population of England and Wales was in round numbers 18,404,000, and in 1867 21,429,000, being an increase of 3,000,000. The number of paupers, exclusive of vagrants, in receipt of relief in England and Wales was, in 1854, 818,000, and in 1868 1,034,000, showing an increase of 216,000. The total amount expended in relief to the poor and for other purposes, county and police-rates, &c., was, in 1853, 6,854,000l., and in 1867 10,905,000l., showing an increase of 4,000,000l. This total expenditure was distributable under two heads. The amount expended in actual relief to the poor was, in 1853, 4,939,000l., as against 6,959,000l. in 1867, being an increase of 2,020,000l. The amount expended, on the other hand, for other purposes, county- and police-rates, &c., was, in 1853, 1,915,000l., against 3,945,000l. in 1867.
And now comes the vexed question, Who are the people who, amongst them, in the metropolis alone, contribute this great sum of thirteen hundred thousand pounds, and in what proportion is the heavy responsibility divided? This is the most unsatisfactory part of the whole business. If, as it really appears, out of a population of two millions and three-quarters there must be reckoned a hundred and forty thousand who from various causes are helpless to maintain themselves, nothing remains but to maintain them; at the same time it is only natural that every man should expect to contribute his fair share, and no more. But this is by no means the prevailing system. Some pay twopence; others tenpence, as the saying is.
By an examination of the statistics as to the relative contributions of the different unions, we find the discrepancy so great as to call for early and urgent legislation; and despite the many and various arguments brought to bear against amalgamation and equalisation, there is no other mode of dealing with this great and important question that appears more just, or more likely to lead to the wished-for result. That the reader may judge for himself of the magnitude of the injustice that exists under the present system will not require much more evidence than the following facts will supply. The metropolis is divided into five districts, and these again into unions to the number of six-and-thirty, many of which in their principal characteristics differ greatly from each other. We find the West and Central Districts relieve each between 19,000 and 20,000 poor, the Eastern District about 32,000, and the North District some 27,000; but the Southern District by far exceeds the rest, as the report states that there are in receipt of relief no less than 43,000 paupers. These bare statistics, however, though they may appear at first sight to affect the question, do not influence it so much as might be imagined; the weight of the burden is determined by the proportion that the property on which the poor-rate is levied bears to the expenditure in the different unions. For example, St. George’s, Hanover-square, contributes about the same amount (viz. 30,000l.) to the relief of paupers as St. George’s-in-the-East; but take into consideration the fact that the western union contains a population of about 90,000, and property at the ratable value of nearly 1,000,000l., and the eastern union has less than 50,000 inhabitants, and the estimated value of the property is only 180,000l.; the consequence is that the poor-rate in one union is upwards of five times heavier than the other, being 8d. in the pound in St. George’s, Hanover-square, and no less than 3s. 5¾d. in St. George’s-in-the-East. The reader may imagine that this great discrepancy may arise in some degree from the fact that the two unions mentioned are at the extreme ends of the metropolis; but even where unions are contiguous to one another the same contrasts are found. The City of London is situated between the unions of East London and West London: in the two latter the rates are not very unequal, being about 2s. 11d. in one and 3s. 1d. in the other; but in the City of London, one of the richest of the thirty-six unions in the metropolis, the poor-rate is only 7d. in the pound. The cause of this is that, if the estimates are correct, the City of London Union contains just ten times the amount of rateable property that the East London does, the amounts being 1,800,000l. and 180,000l. respectively. Again, Bethnal Green does not contribute so much as Islington, and yet its poor-rates are four times as high. In general, however, we find that in unions contiguous to one another, the rates do not vary in amount to any great extent. In the North, for instance, they range from 1s. to 1s. 7d., Hampstead being the exception, and below the shilling. In the South they are rather higher, being from 1s. 2d. to 2s. 11d., Lewisham alone being below the shilling. In the East, as might be expected, the figures are fearfully high, all, with one exception, being above 2s. 6d., and in the majority of cases exceeding 3s. Bethnal Green, that most afflicted of all unions, is the highest, reaching the enormous sum of 3s. 11d. in the pound, being nearly seven times the amount of the rate in the City of London. In the Central District, which is situated in an intermediate position, the rates range from 1s. 11d. to 3s., the City itself being excluded.
No one who reads the foregoing statistics can fail to be struck with the inequality and mismanagement that they exhibit. No one can deny that this state of affairs urgently needs some reorganisation or reform, for who could defend the present system that makes the poor pay most, and the rich least, towards the support and maintenance of our poor?
There appears to be a very general impression that the sum levied for the relief of the poor goes entirely to the relief of the poor; but there is a great distinction between the sum levied and the sum actually expended for that purpose. Taking the average amount of poor-rates levied throughout England and Wales for the same periods, it is found that for the ten years ending 1860 the average was 7,796,019l.; for the seven years ending 1867, 9,189,386l.; and for the latest year, 1868, when a number of other charges were levied nominally under the same head, 11,054,513l. To gain an idea of the amount of relief afforded, it was necessary to look to the amount which had actually been expended. For the ten years ending 1860 the average amount expended for the relief of the poor was 5,476,454l.; for the seven years ending 1867, 6,353,000l.; and in the latest year, 7,498,000l. Therefore the amount actually expended in the relief of the poor was, in the ten years ending 1860, at the average annual rate of 5s. 9½d. per head upon the population; for the seven years ending 1867, 6s. 1d.; and for the year 1868, 6s. 11½d. The average number of paupers for the year ending Lady-day 1849 was 1,088,659, while in 1868 they had decreased to 992,640. Thus, in 1849 there were 62 paupers for every 1,000 of the population, and in 1868 there were but 46 for every 1,000, being 16 per 1,000 less in the latter than in the former year. In 1834, the rate per head which was paid for the relief of the poor was 9s. 1d. If we continued in 1868 to pay the same rate which was paid in 1849, the amount, instead of being 6,960,000l. would be 9,700,000l., showing a balance of 2,740,000l. in favour of 1868.
The very heart and core of the poor-law difficulty is to discriminate between poverty deserving of help, and only requiring it just to tide over an ugly crisis, and those male and female pests of every civilised community whose natural complexion is dirt, whose brow would sweat at the bare idea of earning their bread, and whose stock-in-trade is rags and impudence. In his capacity of guardian of the casual ward, Mr. Bumble is a person who has no belief in decent poverty. To his way of thinking, poverty in a clean shirt is no more than a dodge intended to impose on the well-known tenderness of his disposition. Penury in a tidy cotton gown, to his keen discernment, is nothing better than “farden pride”—a weakness he feels it is his bounden duty to snub and correct whenever he meets with it. It is altogether a mistake to suppose that all the worthy strivers in the battle for bread, and who, through misfortune and sickness, sink in the rucks and furrows of that crowded field, find their way, by a sort of natural “drainage system,” to the workhouse. There are poorer folks than paupers. To be a pauper is at least to have a coat to wear, none the less warm because it is made of gray cloth, and to have an undisputed claim on the butcher and the baker. It is the preservers of their “farden pride,” as Bumble stigmatises it, but which is really bravery and noble patience, who are most familiar with the scratching at their door of the gaunt wolf Famine; the hopeful unfortunates who are content to struggle on, though with no more than the tips of their unlucky noses above the waters of tribulation—to struggle and still struggle, though they sink, rather than acknowledge themselves no better than the repulsive mob of cadgers by profession Mr. Bumble classes them with.
I have been asked many times since, when, on a memorable occasion, I volunteered into the ranks of pauperism and assumed its regimentals, what was the one foremost thought or anxiety that beset me as I lay in that den of horror. Nothing can be more simple or honest than my answer to that question. This was it—What if it were true? What if, instead of your every sense revolting from the unaccustomed dreadfulness you have brought it into contact with, it were your lot to grow used to, and endure it all, until merciful death delivered you? What if these squalid, unsightly rags, the story of your being some poor devil of an engraver, who really could not help being desperately hard-up and shabby, were all real? And why not? Since in all vast commercial communities there must always exist a proportion of beggars and paupers, what have I done that I should be exempt? Am I—are all of us here so comfortably circumstanced because we deserve nothing less? What man dare rise and say so? Why, there are a dozen slippery paths to the direst ways of Poverty that the smartest among us may stumble on any day. Again, let us consider who are they who are most liable to slip. Why, that very class that the nation is so mightily proud of, and apt at bragging about! The working man, with his honest horny hand and his broad shoulders, who earns his daily bread by the sweat of his brow! We never tire of expressing our admiration for the noble fellow. There is something so manly, so admirable in an individual standing up, single-handed and cheerful-hearted, and exclaiming, in the face of the whole world, “With these two hands, and by the aid of the strength it has pleased God to bless me with, my wife and my youngsters and myself eat, drink, and are clothed, and no man can call me his debtor!” He is a fellow to admire; we can afford to admire him, and we do—for just so long as he can maintain his independence and stand without help. But should misfortune in any of its hundred unexpected shapes assail him, should he fall sick or work fail him, and he be unable to keep out the wolf that presently eats up his few household goods, rendering him homeless, then we turn him and his little family over to the tender mercies of Mr. Bumble, who includes him in the last batch of impostors and skulkers that have been delivered to his keeping. I don’t say that, as matters are managed at present, we can well avoid doing so; but that does not mitigate the poor fellow’s hardship.
It is to be hoped that we are gradually emerging from our bemuddlement; but time was, and that at no very remote period, when to be poor and houseless and hungry were accounted worse sins against society than begging or stealing, even—that is to say, if we may judge from the method of treatment in each case pursued; for while the ruffian who lay wait for you in the dark, and well-nigh strangled you for the sake of as much money as you might chance to have in your pocket, or the brute who precipitated his wife from a third-floor window, claimed and was entitled to calm judicial investigation into the measure of his iniquity and its deserving, the poor fellow who became a casual pauper out of sheer misfortune and hard necessity was without a voice or a single friend. The pig-headed Jack-in-office, whom the ratepayers employed and had confidence in, had no mercy for him. They never considered that it was because he preferred to stave off the pangs of hunger by means of a crust off a parish loaf rather than dine on stolen roast beef, that he came knocking at the workhouse-gate, craving shelter and a mouthful of bread! But one idea pervaded the otherwise empty region that Bumble’s cocked-hat covered, and that was, that the man who would beg a parish loaf was more mean and contemptible than the one who, with a proper and independent spirit, as well as a respect for the parochial purse, stole one; and he treated his victim accordingly.
Vagrancy has been pronounced by the law to be a crime. Even if regarded in its mildest and least mischievous aspect, it can be nothing less than obtaining money under false pretences. It is solely by false pretences and false representations that the roving tramp obtains sustenance from the charitable. We have it on the authority of the chief constable of Westmoreland, that ninety-nine out of every hundred professional mendicants are likewise professional thieves, and practise either trade as occasion serves. The same authority attributes to men of this character the greater number of burglaries, highway robberies, and petty larcenies, that take place; and gives it as his opinion, that if the present system of permitting professional tramps to wander about the country was done away with, a great deal of crime would be prevented, and an immense good conferred on the community.
There can be no question that it is, as a member of parliament recently expressed it, “the large charitable heart of the country” that is responsible in great part for the enormous amount of misapplied alms. People, in giving, recognised the fact that many of those whom they relieved were impostors and utterly unworthy of their charity; but they felt that if they refused to give, some fellow-creature, in consequence of their refusal, might suffer seriously from the privations of hunger and want of shelter. As long as they felt that their refusal might possibly be attended with these results, so long would they open their hand with the same readiness that they now did. The only remedy for this is, that every destitute person in the country should find food and shelter forthcoming immediately on application. Vagrancy, says the authority here quoted, is partly the result of old habits and old times, when the only question the tramp was asked was, “Where do you belong to?” Instead of that being the first question, it should be the last. The first question should be, “Are you in want, and how do you prove it?”
In 1858 the number of vagrants was 2416; in 1859, 2153; in 1860, 1941; in 1861, 2830; in 1862, 4234; in 1863, 3158; in 1864, 3339; in 1865, 4450; in 1866, 5017; in 1867, 6129; and in 1868, 7946.
There can be no doubt, however, that a vast number of tramps circulate throughout the country, of whom we have no returns. “Various means,” says the writer above alluded to, “have been tried to check them, but in vain. If I venture to recommend any remedy, it must be, that repression, if applied, must be systematic and general. It is not of the slightest use putting this repression in force in one part of the country while the remainder is under a different system. The whole country must be under the same general system, tending to the same general result. In the first place, let all the inmates of the casual wards be placed under the care of the police. Let them be visited by the police morning and night. Let lists be made out and circulated through the country; and in no case, except upon a ticket given by the police, let any relief be given more than once; and unless a man is able to satisfy the police that his errand was good, and that he was in search of work, let him be sent back summarily without relief. It is the habit of all this class to make a regular route, and they received relief at every casual ward, thus laying the whole country under contribution.”
True as this argument may be in the main, we cannot take kindly to the idea, that every unfortunate homeless wretch who applies at night to the casual ward for a crust and shelter shall be treated as a professional tramp until he prove himself a worthy object for relief.
It is not a little remarkable, that, however legislators may disagree as to the general utility of the Poor-law under its present aspect, they are unanimous in approving of the “labour test;” whereas, according to the opportunities I have had of observing its working, it is, to my thinking, one of the faultiest wheels in the whole machine. The great error chiefly consists in the power it confers on each workhouse-master to impose on the tested such work, both as regards quantity and quality, as he may see fit. I have witnessed instances in which the “labour test,” instead of proving a man’s willingness to work for what he receives, rather takes the form of a barbarous tyranny, seemingly calculated as nothing else than as a test of a poor fellow’s control of his temper. Where is the use of testing a man’s willingness to work, if he is compelled in the process to exhaust his strength and waste his time to an extent that leaves him no other course but to seek for his hunger and weariness to-night the same remedy as he had recourse to last night? They manage these things better in certain parts of the country and in model metropolitan parishes, but in others the “test” system is a mere “farce.” I found it so at Lambeth in 1866; and when again I made a tour of inspection, two years afterwards, precisely the same process was enforced. This was it. At night, when a man applied for admittance to the casual ward, he received the regulation dole of bread, and then went to bed as early as half-past eight or nine. He was called up at seven in the morning, and before eight received a bit more bread and a drop of gruel. This was the “breakfast” with which he was fortified previous to his displaying his prowess as a willing labourer.
The chief of the work done by the “casual” at the workhouse in question is “crank-work.” The crank is a sort of gigantic hand-mill for grinding corn. A series of “cranks” or revolving bars extend across the labour-shed in a double or triple row, although by some means the result of the joint labour of the full number of operatives, forty or fifty in number, is concentrated at that point where the power is required. Let us see how “crank-work” of this sort is applicable as a test of a man’s willingness and industry.
It may be safely taken that of the, say, forty-five “casuals” assembled, two-thirds, or thirty, will belong to that class that is, without doubt, the very worst in the world—the hulking villanous sort, too lazy to work and too cowardly to take openly to the trade of thieving, and who make an easy compromise between the two states, enacting the parts of savage bully or whining cadger, as opportunity serves. Thirty of these, and fifteen real unfortunates who are driven to seek this shabby shelter only by dire necessity. In the first place, we have to consider that the out-and-out vagrant is a well-nurtured man, and possesses the full average of physical strength; whereas the poor half-starved wretch, whose poverty is to be pitied, is weak through long fasting and privation. But no selection is made. Here is an extended crank-handle, at which six willing men may by diligent application perform so much work within a given time. It must be understood that the said work is calculated on the known physical ability of the able-bodied as well as the willing-minded man; and it is in this that the great injustice consists. Let us take a single crank. It is in charge of six men, and, by their joint efforts, a sack of corn, say, may be ground in an hour. But joint effort is quite out of the question. Even while the taskmaster is present the vagrants of the gang at the crank—four out of six, be it remembered—will make but the merest pretence of grasping the bar and turning it with energy; they will just close their hands about it, and increase the labour of the willing minority by compelling them to lift their lazy arms as well as the bar. But as soon as the taskmaster has departed, even a pretence of work ceases. The vagrants simply stroll away from the work and amuse themselves. Nevertheless, the work has to be done; the sack of corn must be ground before the overnight batch of casuals will be allowed to depart. But the vagrants are in no hurry; the casual ward serves them as a sort of handy club-room in which to while away the early hours of tiresome morning, and to discuss with each other the most interesting topics of the day. It is their desire, especially if it should happen to be a wet, cold, or otherwise miserable morning, to “spin-out” the time as long as possible; and this they well know may best be done by leaving the weak few to struggle through the work apportioned to the many; and they are not of the sort to be balked when they are bent in such a direction.
The result is, as may be frequently observed, that the labour-shed is not cleared until nearly eleven o’clock in the morning, by which time the honest and really industrious minority have proved their worthiness of relief to an extent that leaves them scarcely a leg to stand on. They have been working downright hard since eight o’clock. The slice of bread and the drop of gruel they received in the morning is exhausted within them; their shaky and enfeebled limbs are a-tremble with the unaccustomed labour; and, it being eleven o’clock in the day, it is altogether too late to hope to pick-up a job, and nothing remains for a poor fellow but to saunter idly the day through, bemoaning the desperate penalty he is compelled to pay for a mouthful of parish bread and the privilege of reposing in an uncomfortable hovel, till night comes again, and once more he is found waiting at the casual gate.
It may be said that no one desires this, that it is well understood by all concerned that a workhouse is a place intended for the relief of the really helpless and unable, and not for the sustenance of imposture and vagrancy; but that under the present system it is impossible to avoid such instances of injustice as that just quoted. This, however, is not the case. It has been shown in numerous cases that it is possible to economise pauper-labour so that it shall be fairly distributed, and at the same time return some sort of profit.
It appears that in Liverpool and Manchester corn-grinding by hand-mills is chiefly used, as a task for vagrants or able-bodied in-door poor. In the absence of other more suitable employment, there is no reason why they should not be so employed. As, however, but one person can be employed at the same time on one mill, and the cost of each mill, including fixing, may be roughly stated at from 3l. to 4l., it is clear that no very large number of persons is likely to be thus employed in any one yard. Despite this and other minor objections, however, it appears that corn-grinding is as good a labour-test as you can have in workhouses. It is not remunerative; it is a work that is disliked; it is really hard; and being one by which there is no actual loss by accumulation of unsaleable stock, it has much to commend it. At the establishments in question a fairly strong able-bodied man is required to grind 120 lbs. of corn daily, and this is sufficient to occupy him the whole day. The male vagrants at Liverpool are required to grind 30 lbs. of corn each at night, and 30 lbs. the following morning. At Manchester the task for male vagrants is 45 lbs. each, of which one half is required to be ground at night, and the remainder the next morning. At the Liverpool workhouse they have 36 of these mills; at Manchester, 40 at the new or suburban workhouse for able-bodied inmates, and 35 at the house of industry adjoining the old workhouse. The mills at the latter are chiefly used for vagrants, but upon these able-bodied men in receipt of out-door relief are also occasionally employed. The ordinary task-work for these last is, however, either farm-labour at the new workhouse, or oakum-picking at the house of industry, according to the nature of their former pursuits. During the cotton famine there was also a large stone-yard, expressly hired and fitted-up for this class. Another large building was set apart during that period for the employment of adult females in receipt of relief in sewing and knitting, and in cutting-out and making-up clothing; a stock of materials being provided by the guardians, and an experienced female superintendent of labour placed in charge of the establishment.
The experiment of selecting a limited number of men from the stone-yard, and setting them to work in scavenging the streets, has now been tried for rather more than six months by the vestry of St. Luke’s, City-road, with a fair amount of success; the men (fifteen from the stone-yard, and ten from the workhouse) were entirely withdrawn from the relief-lists, and employed by the vestry at the same rate of wages as the contractor who previously did the work was in the habit of paying. Of these men, according to the latest report, fourteen are still thus employed, and four have obtained other employment. The remaining seven were discharged—three as physically incapable, and four for insubordination. The conduct of the majority under strict supervision is said to have been fairly good, though not first-rate; and it is undoubtedly something gained to have obtained useful work from fourteen out of twenty-five, and to have afforded four more an opportunity of maintaining themselves by other independent labour.
At the same time it is clear that such a course is open to two objections: first, it must have a tendency to displace independent labour; and secondly, if these paupers are (as in St. Luke’s) at once employed for wages, it would, unless guarded by making them pass through a long probationary period of task-work, tend to encourage poor persons out of employ to throw themselves on the rates, in order thus to obtain remunerative employment. The better course would seem to be, where arrangements can be made by the local authorities, for the local Board to provide only the requisite implements and superintendence, and for the guardians in the first instance to give the labour of the men to the parish, paying them the ordinary relief for such work as task-work. If this were done—and care taken to put them on as extra hands only, to sweep the pavements, or such other work as is not ordinarily undertaken by the contractors—there can be no doubt that an outlet might be thus afforded for some of the better-conducted paupers, after a period of real probationary task-work, to show themselves fit for independent employment, and so to extricate themselves from the pauper ranks.
“It would undoubtedly conduce much to the utility of these labour-yards if the guardians comprising the labour or out-door relief committee would, as they now do in some unions, frequently visit the yard, and thus by personal observation make themselves acquainted with the conduct and characters of the paupers, with the nature of the superintendence bestowed upon them, and with the manner in which the work is performed. A channel of communication may thus be formed between employers of labour when in want of hands and those unemployed workmen who may by sheer necessity have been driven to apply for and accept relief in this unpalatable form. The guardians themselves, frequently large employers of labour, are for the most part well acquainted with those who are compelled to apply for parish work; and when they see a steady and willing worker in the yard will naturally inquire into his antecedents. Where the result of these inquiries is satisfactory, they will, it may be expected, gladly avail themselves of the earliest opportunity of obtaining for such a one employment in his previous occupation, or in any other which may appear to be suited to his capacity. The personal influence and supervision of individual guardians can scarcely be overrated; and thus a bond of sympathy will gradually arise between the guardians and the deserving poor, which, coupled with the enforcement of real work, will, it may be hoped, prove not without an ultimate good effect upon even those hardened idlers who have been hitherto too often found in these yards the ringleaders in every species of disturbance.”
The above-quoted is the suggestion of the Chairman of the Poor-law Board, and well indeed would it be, for humanity’s sake, that it should be regarded. As matters are at present arranged, the labour-system is simply disgusting. Take Paddington stone-yard, for instance. Unless it is altered since last year, the peculiar method of doing business there adopted is this: a man gets an order for stone-breaking, the pay for which is, say, eighteenpence a “yard.” At most workhouses, when a man is put to this kind of labour he is paid by the bushel: and that is quite fair, because a poor fellow unused to stone-breaking usually makes a sad mess of it. He takes hammer in hand, and sets a lump of granite before him with the idea of smashing it into fragments; but this requires “knack,” that is to be acquired only by experience. The blows he deals the stone will not crack it, and all that he succeeds in doing for the first hour or two is to chip away the corners of one lump after another, accumulating perhaps a hatful of chips and dust. By the end of the day, however, he may have managed to break four bushels, and this at eighteenpence a “yard” would be valued at sixpence, and he would be paid accordingly.
But not at Paddington. I had some talk with the worthy yard-master of that establishment, and he enlightened me as to their way of doing business there. “Bushels! No; we don’t deal in bushels here,” was his contemptuous reply to a question I put to him. “I can’t waste my time in measuring up haporths of stuff all day long. It’s half a yard or none here, and no mistake.”
“Do you mean, that unless a man engages to break at least half a yard, you will not employ him?”
“I mean to say, whether he engages or not, that he’s got to do it.”
“And suppose that he fails?”
“Then he don’t get paid.”
“He doesn’t get paid for the half-yard, you mean?”
“He doesn’t get paid at all. I don’t never measure for less than a half-yard, and so he can’t be paid.”
“But what becomes of the few bushels of stone he has been able to break?”
“O, he sells ’em to the others for what they’ll give for ’em, to put along with theirs. A halfpenny or a penny—anything. He’s glad to take it; it’s that or none.”
“And do you have many come here who can’t break half a yard of granite in a day?”
“Lots of ’em. But they don’t come again; one taste of Paddington is enough for ’em.”
What does the reader think of the “labour-test” in this case?
An institution has, it appears, been established by the Birmingham guardians since the autumn of 1867, for the employment of able-bodied women in oakum-picking for out-door relief, the result of which has been, that not only has the workhouse been relieved of a large number of troublesome inmates of this class, with whom it was previously crowded, but the applications for relief have diminished in a proportionate ratio. Every effort is made to induce the women thus employed to seek for more profitable employment, and the applications at the establishment for female labour are said to be numerous. The superintendent, who was formerly matron at the Birmingham workhouse, reports to Mr. Corbett, that “from the opening of the establishment about fifteen months ago, nineteen have been hired as domestic servants, ten have obtained engagements in other situations, and two have married.” In addition to these, some forty have obtained temporary employment, of whom three only have returned to work for relief at the end of the year. The total estimated saving on orders issued for work, as compared with the maintenance of the women as inmates of the workhouse, during the year ending 29th September last, is calculated to have been 646l. 0s. 7d. Indeed, so satisfactory has been the working of the system during the first year of its existence, that the guardians have resolved to apply the same test to the male applicants for relief, and a neighbouring house has been engaged and fitted-up for putting a similar plan in operation with respect to men. The total number of orders issued during the first twelve months after this establishment for female labour was opened was 719; of which, however, only 456 were used, the other applicants either not being in want of the relief asked for, or having found work elsewhere. Each woman is required to pick 3 lbs. of oakum per diem, for which she receives 9d., or 4s. 6d. per week; and if she has one or more children, she is allowed at the rate of 3d. a-day additional relief for each child. The highest number paid for during any week has been 95 women and 25 children. Some days during the summer there has been but one at work, and in the last week of December last there were but eleven. The house is said to be “virtually cleared of a most troublesome class of inmates.”
The guardians of St. Margaret and St. John, Westminster, have, it appears, adopted a system embracing that pursued both at Manchester and Birmingham, and have provided accommodation for employing able-bodied women out of the workhouse both in oakum-picking and needlework; and, say the committee, “a similar course will probably be found advantageous in other metropolitan parishes or unions, whenever the number of this class who are applicants for relief exceeds the accommodation or the means of employment which can be found for them within the workhouse. At the same time we would especially urge that provision should be made in every workhouse for a better classification of the able-bodied women, and for the steady and useful employment of this class of inmates. Those who are not employed in the laundry and washhouse, or in scrubbing, bed-making, or other domestic work, should be placed under the superintendence of a firm and judicious task-mistress, and engaged in mending, making, and cutting-out all the linen and clothing required for the workhouse and infirmary; and much work might be done in this way for the new asylums about to be built under the provisions of the Metropolitan Poor Act.” This plan of a large needle-room presided over by an efficient officer has been found most successful in its results at the new workhouse of the Manchester guardians, as well in improving the character of the young women who remain any time in the house, and fitting them for home duties after they leave, as in deterring incorrigible profligates from resorting to the workhouse, as they were in the habit of doing. Many now come into our metropolitan workhouses who can neither knit nor sew nor darn a stocking. This they can at least be taught to do; and we gather from the experience of Manchester, that while at first to the idle and dissolute the enforced silence and order of the needle-room is far more irksome than the comparative license and desultory work of the ordinary oakum-room, those who of necessity remain in the house are found by degrees to acquire habits of order and neatness, and thus become better fitted for domestic duties. The following scale of relief for able-bodied paupers, relieved out of the workhouse and set to work pursuant to the provisions of the Out-door Relief Regulation Order, is recommended for adoption by the various Boards of Guardians represented at a recent conference held under the presidency of Mr. Corbett:
For a man with wife and one child, 6d. and 4 lbs. of bread per day; for a man with wife and two children, 7d. and 4 lbs. of bread per day; for a man with wife and three children, 7d. and 6 lbs. of bread per day; for a man with wife and four children, 8d. and 6 lbs. of bread per day; for a man with wife and five children, 9d. and 6 lbs. of bread per day; single man, 4d. and 2 lbs. of bread per day; single women or widows, 4d. and 2 lbs. of bread per day, with an additional 3d. per day for each child; widowers with families to be relieved as if with wife living.
Where a widow with one or more young children dependent on her and incapable of contributing to his, her, or their livelihood, can be properly relieved out of the workhouse, that she be ordinarily allowed relief at the rate of 1s. and one loaf for each child; the relief that may be requisite for the mother beyond this to be determined according to the special exigency of the case. That widows without children should, as a rule, after a period not exceeding three months from the commencement of their widowhood, be relieved only in the workhouse. Where the husband of any woman is beyond the seas, or in custody of the law, or in confinement in an asylum or licensed house as a lunatic or idiot, such woman should be dealt with as a widow; but where a woman has been recently deserted by her husband, and there are grounds for supposing he has gone to seek for work, although out-door relief may be ordered for two or three weeks, to give him time to communicate with his family, yet, after such reasonable time has elapsed, the wife and family should, as a rule, be taken into the workhouse, and proceedings taken against the husband. That the weekly relief to an aged or infirm man or woman be from 2s. 6d. to 3s. 6d. weekly, partly in money and partly in kind, according to his or her necessity; that the weekly relief to aged and infirm couples be 4s. to 5s., in money or in kind, according to their necessities; that when thought advisable, relief in money only may be given to those of the out-door poor who are seventy years of age and upwards.
It appears from a recent statement that the guardians of Eversham union applied not long since for the sanction of the Poor-law Board to a scheme for boarding-out the orphan children of the workhouse with cottagers at 3s. a-week, and 10s. a-quarter for clothing; the children to be sent regularly to school, and to attend divine worship on Sundays; with the provision that after ten years of age the children may be employed in labour approved by the guardians, and the wages divided between the guardians and the person who lodges and clothes them, in addition to the above payments. In a letter dated the 3d April 1869, the Secretary of the Poor-law Board states that, provided they could be satisfied that a thorough system of efficient supervision and control would be established by the guardians, and the most rigid inquiry instituted at short intervals into the treatment and education of the children, the Board have come to the conclusion that they ought not to discourage the guardians from giving the plan a fair trial, though they cannot be insensible to the fact that a grave responsibility is thereby incurred. The Secretary mentions particulars regarding which especial care should be taken, such as the health of the children to be placed out, the condition of the persons to whom they are intrusted, and the necessary periodical inspection. The Board will watch the experiment with the greatest interest, but with some anxiety. They request the guardians to communicate to them very fully the detailed arrangements they are determined to make. The Board cannot approve the proposed arrangement as to wages. The guardians have no authority to place out children to serve in any capacity and continue them as paupers. If they are competent to render service, they come within the description of able-bodied persons, and out-door relief would not be lawful. Upon entering into service, they would cease to be paupers, and would have the protection of the provisions of the Act of 1851 relating to young persons hired from a workhouse as servants, or bound out as pauper apprentices. The hiring-out of adults by the guardians is expressly prohibited by 56 George III., c. 129.
The great principle of the Poor-law is to make people do anything rather than go into the workhouse, and the effect is to cause people to sell their furniture before they will submit to the degradation; for degradation it is to an honest hardworking man, and no distinction is made. The effect of the Poor-law has been to drive men away from the country to the large towns, and from one large town to another, till eventually they find their way up to London, and we are now face to face with the large army of vagabonds and vagrants thus created. A man, once compelled to break-up his house, once driven from the locality to which he was attached, and where his family had lived perhaps for centuries, became of necessity a vagrant, and but one short step was needed to make him a thief.
It would be a grand step in the right direction, if a means could be safely adopted that would save a man driven to pauperism from breaking-up his home. The experiment has, it appears, been successfully adopted in Manchester, and may prove generally practicable. The guardians in that city have provided rooms in which the furniture or other household goods of persons compelled to seek a temporary refuge in the house may be stored. It would not do, of course, to enable people to treat the workhouse as a kind of hotel, to which they might retire without inconvenience, and where they might live upon the ratepayers until a pressure was passed. Perhaps the confinement and the separation of family-ties which the workhouse involves would sufficiently prevent the privilege being abused; but even if such a convenience would need some limitation in ordinary times, it might be readily granted on an occasion of exceptional pressure, and it would then produce the greatest advantages both to the poor and to the ratepayers. The worst consequence of the workhouse test is, that if a poor man under momentary pressure is forced to accept it and break-up his home, it is almost impossible for him to recover himself. The household goods of a poor man may not be much, but they are a great deal to him; once gone, he can rarely replace them, and the sacrifice frequently breaks both his own and his wife’s spirit. If the danger of thus making a man a chronic pauper were avoided, the guardians might offer the test with much less hesitation; relief might be far more stringently, and at the same time more effectually, administered.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE BEST REMEDY.
Emigration—The various Fields—Distinguish the industrious Worker in need of temporary Relief—Last Words.
All other remedies considered, we come back to that which is cheapest, most lasting, and in every way the best—emigration. This, of course, as applying to unwilling and undeserved pauperism. These are the sufferers that our colonies are waiting to receive with open arms. They don’t want tramps and vagrants. They won’t have them, well knowing the plague such vermin would be in a land whose fatness runs to waste. But what they are willing to receive, gladly and hospitably, are men and women, healthy, and of a mind to work honestly for a liberal wage. New Zealand has room for ten thousand such; so has Australia and Canada.
It would be a happy alteration, if some milder term than “pauper” might be invented to distinguish the industrious worker, temporarily distressed, so as to be compelled to avail himself of a little parochial assistance, from the confirmed and habitual recipient of the workhouse dole. As was pertinently remarked by Colonel Maude, at a recent meeting held in the rooms of the Society of Arts, and at which the policy of assisting willing workers to emigrate to New Zealand was argued:
“There are people who are fond of putting forward the offensive doctrine, that a man who is a ‘pauper,’ as they call him, has thereby become unfit ever again to exercise the self-reliance and independence in any other country necessary to procure him a living, the want of which qualities has brought him to the abject condition he is now in. Like most sweeping generalities, this is both false and cruel. The condition of the wage-paid class is, in the nature of things, more dependent than that of any other; and without for a moment depreciating the wisdom of frugality and thrift, I would ask some of those who are in the enjoyment of independent incomes, whether their position would not be almost as desperate if their income were suddenly withdrawn? And this is constantly happening to large masses of our artisans, in many cases entirely without fault of their own; and then how does the State deal with them? It says, ‘If you will wait until you have parted with your last penny and your last article of furniture, and then come to us, we will assist you, but only then, and only in the following manner: The allowance of food, clothing, and shelter which we will give you shall be the least which experience proves will keep body and soul together. We will break the law of God and of nature by separating you from your family. We will prevent you seeking for work elsewhere by confining you in a house where employers are not likely to search for you, and whence you cannot go to seek it yourself. The nature of the work you shall perform shall not be that in which you are proficient, but shall be of the most uninteresting and useless kind. Owing to the small quantity of food we give you, you will not be able to exert your powers to their best advantage. By resorting to us for assistance, you will be lowered in the estimation of your fellow-workmen; and in all probability, as experience tells us, you will return to us again and again, until you become a confirmed and helpless pauper.’
“We are fond of pointing to Paris, and of showing how dearly the French pay for their system of providing work for the people; but if it be true, as I have lately heard, that there are one million of paupers at this moment in England—and besides these, I am in a position to state that there cannot be less than one million persons who would be glad of permanent employment at reasonable wages—I do not think we have much to boast of. Besides, does anyone doubt that if the French Emperor were possessed of our illimitable colonies, with their endless varieties of climate, he would very soon transfer his surplus population to them, and be very glad of the chance? And we ought to consider the cost of our paupers. Let us take it at 10l. a head per annum. As a matter of economy, it would pay very well to capitalise this tax, and at two years’ purchase we could deport large numbers in great comfort, and thus save a good deal of money to the ratepayers, even supposing none of the money were ever refunded; but I hope to show how that amount would be more than repaid. But I suppose that some people will say, ‘Your system, then, is transportation?’ My answer might be, ‘If you are not ashamed to impose the humiliating and unpleasant condition which you at present force upon an applicant for relief, surely when you have satisfied yourselves that his lot will be much happier and brighter in the new home which you offer him, all your compunctions should vanish.’”
I have ventured to quote Colonel Maude at length, because he is a man thoroughly conversant with the subject he treats of, and all that he asserts may be implicitly relied on. And still once again I am tempted to let another speak for me what perhaps I should speak for myself—the concluding words of this my last chapter. My justification is, that all that the writer expresses is emphatically also my opinion; and I am quite conscious of my inability to convey it in terms at once so graphic and forcible. The gentleman to whom I am indebted is the writer of a leader in the Times:
“Here is a mass of unwilling pauperism, stranded, so to speak, by a receding tide of prosperity on the barren shores of this metropolis. Something must be done with it. The other object is more important, but not so pressing. It is, that people who cannot get on well at home, and who find all their difficulties amounting only to this—that they have not elbow-room, and that the ground is too thickly occupied—should be directed and even educated to follow the instructions of Providence, and go to where there is room for them. There is no reason why every child in this kingdom should not have the arguments for and against emigration put before it in good time, before it arrives at the age when choice is likely to be precipitated, and change of mind rendered difficult. Children in these days are taught many things, and there really seems no reason why they should not be taught something about the colonies, in which five millions of the British race are now prospering, increasing, and multiplying, not to speak of the United States. But we must return to the object more immediately pressing. It is surrounded by difficulties, as was confessed at the Mansion House, and as is evident on the facts of the case. But we believe it to be a case for combined operation. Everything seems to be ready—the good men who will take the trouble, the agency, the willing guardians, the public departments, or, at least, their functionaries—and the colonics will not complain if we send them men willing to work, even though they may have to learn new trades. The Boards of Guardians and the Government will contribute, as they have contributed. But they cannot, in sound principle, do more. The public must come forward. Sorry as we are to say the word, there is no help for it. This is not a local, it is a national affair. Chance has thrown these poor people where they are. It would be a good opportunity thrown away, if this work were not done out of hand, one may say. Here are some thousands attracted to the metropolis by its specious promises of a long and solid prosperity. They cannot go back. They must now be passed on. Where else to but to the colonies?
“It must be evident by this time to the poor people themselves that they may wait and wait for years and years without getting the employment that suits them best. The metropolitan ratepayers are losing temper, and making themselves heard. The colonies are all calling for more men and more women, and more children approaching the age of work. Several members of the Government attended the meeting, either in person or by letter, with promises of money, advice, and aid. There is the encouragement of successful millions, who within our own lifetime have established themselves all over the world. Every cause that operated forty years ago operates now with tenfold force. At that date the only notion of an emigrant was a rough, misanthropical sort of man, who had read Robinson Crusoe, and who fancied a struggle for existence in some remote corner, with a patch of land, some small cattle, constant hardships, occasional disasters and discoveries, welcome or otherwise. It was not doubted for a moment that arts and sciences and accomplishments must be left behind. There could be no Muses or Graces in that nether world. The lady, so devoted as to share her husband’s fortune in that self-exile, would have to cook, bake, brew, wash, sew, mend, and darn, if indeed she could spare time from the still more necessary toil of getting something eatable out of the earth, the river, or the sea. That was the prevailing picture of emigrant life; and when missionary tracts and Mr. Burford’s dioramas indicated houses, streets, and public buildings, it was still surmised that these were flattering anticipations of what there was to be, just as one may see rows of semi-detached villas, picturesque drives, shrubberies, miniature lakes, and gothic churches in the window of a land-agent’s office, representing the golden futurity of a site now covered by cattle or corn. Forty years have passed, and where there might be then a few hard settlers, there are now cities, towns, and villages which England might be proud of; railways, and every possible application of art and science on a scale often exceeding our own. Large congregations meet in handsome churches, stocks and shares are bought and sold, machinery rattles and whizzes, ladies walk through show-rooms full of the last Parisian fashions, dinners are given worthy of our clubs, and operas are performed in a style worthy of Covent Garden, in places where, forty, years ago, men were eating each other.”
THE END.
ADVERTISEMENTS
Second Edition, price 7s. 6d., nearly ready,
ROBERTS ON BILLIARDS.
By JOHN ROBERTS,
CHAMPION OF ENGLAND.
EDITED BY HENRY BUCK,
Author of “The Board of Green Cloth.”
WITH TWENTY DIAGRAMS, SHOWING IN A NOVEL MANNER
THE MODE OF “PLAYING BREAKS.”
CONTENTS. | |||
CHAP. |
| CHAP. |
|
I. | PRELIMINARY REMARKS. | XII. | CANNONS. |
II. | STANDARD GAMES: ENGLISH. | XIII. | PLAYING BREAKS. |
III. | „ AMERICAN. | XIV. | A PRACTICAL LESSON. |
IV. | „ FRENCH. | XV. | POOL AND PYRAMIDS. |
V. | INCIDENTS IN MY CAREER. | XVI. | BETTING AND CUSTOMARY REGULATIONS. |
VI. | SCREW AND THE SIDE TWIST. | XVII. | CURIOSITIES OF THE GAME. |
VII. | PLAYERS I HAVE MET. | XVIII. | HANDICAPS. |
VIII. | ROOMS AND TABLES. | XIX. | DEFINITIONS OF TERMS. |
IX. | STRENGTH. | XX. | RULES: ENGLISH, AMERICAN, FRENCH. |
X. | LOSING HAZARDS. | XXI. | CELEBRATED MATCHES. |
XI. | WINNING HAZARDS. | XXII. | SHARP PRACTITIONERS. |
PALL MALL GAZETTE.—“Of the many works on Billiards submitted to our notice lately, that written by Mr. Roberts is the best . . . We do not doubt that every one practising for a month, with the diagrams by his side, would make more progress than he could boast in a year with the aid of any other book that we are acquainted with.”
LAND AND WATER.—“By a series of twenty admirably coloured plates, all the most likely strokes are demonstrated . . . Well printed and unique of its kind, and deserving of a place in every young man’s library.”
SPORTING LIFE.—“On the whole the book may be described as the most generally interesting on the games we have seen. The part of it that is original is well written, and the extracts are well selected and amusing.”
THE SPORTSMAN.—“The Champion must be commended for having produced what will become a standard work, and as it is moderate in price, it will doubtless meet with a large sale.”
MANCHESTER GUARDIAN.—“He is best in the second part of the volume, which gives valuable hints on play. These hints have accompanying diagrams, the execution of which leaves nothing to be desired . . . We must give Mr. Roberts credit for using great brevity, plainness, and clearness of speech. What he professes to teach he knows thoroughly, and can put into the fewest words.”
THE FIELD.—“The qualification which contributes most to Mr. Roberts’s success is the judgment by which he is enabled to calculate consequences—to select the most favourable stroke when several are open to him, and to play it with such knowledge of strength and angles as to leave an easy stroke to follow. It is this acquired judgment only that any work on Billiards can teach, and to this Mr. Roberts wisely confines his instructions. . . . The plates are well executed in colours, and the positions are clearly defined.”
LONDON: STANLEY RIVERS & CO.
Publishers of Scientific Amusements and Pastimes of Society,
8 PALSGRAVE PLACE, STRAND, W.C.
In the Press.
In crown octavo, cloth gilt, price 7s. 6d.
STICK TO IT AND CONQUER:
ENCOURAGEMENTS FOR YOUNG MEN IN THE EARLIER
DAYS OF THEIR CAREER;
WITH A
Treasury of Anecdote
ILLUSTRATIVE OF
ENGLISH PLUCK, ENDURANCE, AND SUCCESS.
BY THE
EDITOR OF “HINTS ON THE CULTURE OF CHARACTER.”
Part I.
EMBARKING ON LIFE.
By the Rev. J. R. Vernon, M.A., author of “The Harvest of a Quiet Eye.”
Part II.
MORAL COURAGE IN MOMENTS OF TRIAL.
Part III.
THE QUIET HEROISM OF DAILY LIFE.
By the Rev. Frederick Arnold, author of “The Path on Earth to the Gate of Heaven.”
Part IV.
ENGLISH CHARACTERISTICS:
A Treasury of Choice Anecdote and Biographical Notes.
1. | STATESMEN. | 7. | MEN OF ART. |
2. | MEN OF PEACE. | 8. | MEN OF BUSINESS. |
3. | MEN OF WAR. | 9. | MEDICAL MEN. |
4. | MEN OF LAW. | 10. | PIONEERS & TRAVELLERS. |
5. | MEN OF LETTERS. | 11. | ENGINEERS. |
6. | MEN OF SCIENCE. | 12. | INVENTORS. |
13. MEN OFENTERPRISE, SOCIAL & PHILANTHROPIC. | |||
LONDON: STANLEY RIVERS & CO.