North British Review, "Literature and Labor Question," February No. 1851. The passage we quote is from a work of Mr. Mayhew:
"That we, like the Hottentots, Kaffirs, and Fins, are surrounded by wandering hordes, the 'sonquas' and 'fingons' of this country, paupers, beggars and outcasts, possessing nothing but what they acquire by depredation from the industrious, provident and civilized portion of the community; that the heads of these nomads are remarkable for a greater development of the jaws and cheek bones, than of the skull, and that they have a secret language of their own—an English 'cuzecat,' or 'slang,' as it is called, for the concealment of their designs; these are points of coincidence so striking, that, when placed before the mind, they make us marvel why the analogy has been so long unobserved. The resemblance once discovered, however, becomes of great service in enabling us to use the moral characteristics of the nomadic races of other countries, as a means of comprehending more readily those of the vagabonds and outcasts of our own. * * * The nomad there is distinguished from the civilized man by his repugnance to regular and continuous labor—by his want of providence in laying up a store for the future; by his inability to perceive consequences ever so slightly removed from immediate apprehension; by his passion for stultifying herbs and roots, and when possible, for intoxicating fermented liquors; for his extraordinary powers of enduring privation; by his comparative insensibility to pain; by an immoderate love of gaming; frequently risking his own personal liberty on a single cast; by his love of libidinous dances; by the pleasure which he experiences in witnessing the sufferings of sentient creatures; by his delight in warfare and all perilous sports; by his desire for vengeance; by the looseness of his notions as to property; by the absence of chastity among his women, and his disregard of female honor; and lastly by his vague sense of religion, his rude idea of a Creator, and utter absence of all appreciation of the mercy of the Divine Spirit.
"The nomadic races of England are of many distinct kinds—from the habitual vagrant, half beggar, half thief, sleeping in barns, tents, and casual wards, to the mechanic on the tramp, obtaining his bed and supper from the trade societies in the different towns on his way to seek work. Between these two extremes, there are several mediate varieties, consisting of pedlars, show-men, harvest men, and all that large class who live by either selling, showing, or doing something through the country. There are, so to speak, the rural nomads—not confining their wanderings to any one particular locality, but ranging often from one end of the land to the other. Besides these, there are urban and suburban travellers, or those who follow some itinerant occupation in and about the large towns. Such are in the metropolis, more particularly the pickpockets, the beggars, the prostitutes, the street sellers, the street performers, the cab-men, the coachmen, the watermen, the sailors, and such like. In each of these classes, according as they partake more or less of the family vagabond, doing nothing whatever for their living, but moving from place to place, preying upon the earnings of the more industrious part of the community—so will the attributes of the nomad tribe be found to be more or less marked."
To the same effect, read the following from July No. 1852, of Edinburgh Review, in article on "Mendicity; its causes and statistics:"
There live, then, in the midst and about all the English population, a distinct population, fearful in numbers, constantly and rapidly increasing, having a language, manners, and customs of its own—living, in nine cases out of ten, in a course of life the most immoral and profligate; and yet so living, and so increasing, in spite of the laws, in spite of the municipal arrangements of the last few years, so favorable to their detection and punishment; in spite of the new poor-law arrangements; and in spite of the general feeling that the poor-rates and the union ought to provide for all real cases of destitution and misery. This population has its signs, free-masonry, its terms of art, its correspondence, its halting-houses, its barns still kept open, and even well-strawed by farmers and country gentlemen; its public-houses, its well-known and even recognized lodging houses; and its manifold plans to extract or extort, to win or to scold, out of its reluctant but deceived victims, sums amounting, we are inclined to believe, to not less than £1,375,000; being one-third of the total amount of poor-rates! This sum may at first appear utterly extravagant; but it will not be found to be so when it is remembered, that on an average each begging family extorts £55 per annum from the public. The annual poor law expenditure for the year ending in March, 1840, in England, was, in round numbers, £4,300,000. In England, including the three ridings of Yorkshire, there are forty-two counties. The population of those counties is nearly fifteen millions. If we take at this moment a rough and general, though a tolerably correct estimate of that population, with its dense misery in towns and cities, and its diffused but not less individually intense misery in the agricultural districts, we may fairly calculate that one out of every one hundred is a beggar or lives in a state of practical vagrancy—looking in one form or other, to alms for support. The one-hundredth part of the population is 150,000; and if each begging family, raising £55 per annum from the public by alms, be estimated as consisting of six, we shall have 25,000 English begging families, raising £55 per annum each, or the total sum of £1,375,000. But we believe that we have underrated, instead of overstated the facts of the case in these calculations. In London alone and its vicinity, in spite of all the efforts of the police, a very large part of that sum is extorted; and we have not taken into consideration the wholesale mendicity which is now deplorably manifest in the larger English manufacturing towns. We have also omitted all Irish mendicants; and yet they are nearly in the proportion of one to three in the English agricultural districts. Naturally anxious as we are to avoid even the appearance of exaggeration, we are still bound to state, that the estimate we have made is greatly deficient, and that we have understated the real statistics.
The begging population of England, existing and increasing in spite of municipal police, and notwithstanding the penalties of the vagrant act, is divided into several classes; and we now propose to draw upon a little pamphlet, mentioned at the head of this article, which has been recently published at Birmingham, and which contains very accurate details of the mendicant population—written by one who long frequented the haunts of the vagrant community. The portion of the community to which his details extend, belong principally to the hereditary and professional class of beggars.
The writer of this family thus proceeds with his descriptive details:
'In order fully to explain each individual character, I shall begin with those vagrants who generally obtain the most, and are considered of the first class, and are by some termed 'Silver Beggars,' but by travelers Lurkers.
'Lurkers are persons who go about with briefs, containing false statements of losses by fire, shipwrecks, accidents, &c. The seals and signatures of two or more magistrates are affixed to those briefs, and they are so well written, that thousands of persons are daily imposed upon by them. As there are so many different ways used by these persons, it will be necessary to explain each of them separately.'
The writer then enters into details as to 'the Fire-Lurkers,' or those, 'who go about begging for loss by fire.' They have false briefs, pretended to be signed by two magistrates and the clergyman of the place where the fire is alleged to have taken place. The documents are accompanied by a sham subscription-book, and the brief is called, in the mendicant's parlance, 'a sham,' whilst the subscription-book they name 'a delicate.' With this 'sham and delicate' the 'lurkers,' or beggars, proceed all over the country; and the author states that one man, with whom he was acquainted, 'had been a fire-lurker for fourteen years, and had travelled through every county in England, and the greater part of Wales.'