"The worst place I can take you to in Westminster, and perhaps in London, Sir, barrin always 'Paddy's Goose,' in Ratcliffe Highway, is the lodging house kept by 'Jack Scrag,' or 'Damnable Jack,' as he is called on account of his swearin'—in Medway street. I can't guarantee that you will bring your watch or pocket-book back, but I will save your life if you get in a row, and that will be as much as I can do. If there are any thieves there they will be afraid of me, but the roughs and tramps, who are out of the law's reach, are up to anything, and will break your leg or arms, or mine either, without talking twice about it."
On our way to the Slums of Westminster I entered a cheap lodging house, in which the lodgers were preparing their evening meal, for which they paid four-pence to the proprietor. A potato was given each person with a small junk of broiled or fried meat, and a tin-skittle full of washy tea or coffee, such as is given to steerage passengers at sea, was handed to the tramps and beggars, who frequented the place.
The room was large and lofty, with smoky rafters, and a number of men, women, and boys, were sitting, standing, and reclining on the floor or on chairs, but nearly all were eating like ravenous beasts from tin-plates or earthen-ware platters.
A man might purchase a herring for a half-penny at any of the refuse sales in the markets, and bring it here and toast it over the huge fire for an additional half-penny, and many of the occupants of this gipsy-looking place were employed in the pleasing occupation of cooking as we left the place on our journey after an adventure.
Medway street, as I have before mentioned, is quite short, and therefore it was not long before I saw a light of more brilliancy than those around it, bursting from the window of the first story of a brick building, the bricks being set off about the windows with trimmings of dark blue stone. Above the door were painted the emblems of the Lion and the Unicorn, which are everywhere displayed in English cities, and a lamp of a square shape projected from the doorway, throwing a dead and unwholsome-like light upon the street and sidewalk. In the window a sign was painted, indicating that lodgings were to be had for four-pence a night for single persons, and also a notification that "boiling water" was "always ready."
AT MR. SCRAGG'S.
The house was probably a hundred years old, as near as I could tell by its old beams, which were bare, the besmeared and notched lintels on which names, effigies, and initials, had been carved, from time immemorial, by lodgers, thieves, and cadgers. There was a bar, and glistening beer-pumps, and pewter noggins, and copper measures, were hung up behind the counter. Against the walls, which were environed by brass railing to keep intruders from making too free or breaking the glasses if a fight should occur, was inscribed on a tin plate of greasy hue the words:
John Scragg & Co.,
Wine and Liquor Merchants.
Beds, 4d. a Night.
The proprietor, a fellow with beetle brows, a furzy black beard, and a fustian jacket well greased, sat on a worn bench near the beer pump.
"Good evenin, Mr. Scragg," said the detective to the rascally-looking fellow.