The Mysteries of London, v. 3/4

by George W. M. Reynolds

Previously, however, to entering the vehicle, the thoughtful Tom Rain purchased some of the very best cakes which a shop in such a neighbourhood could produce; and, though the little boy kept sobbing as he repeated to himself, "Mamma is dead,"—for he was too young to understand that she had denied this maternity with her dying breath,—yet he ate greedily of the food—for he was famished.

Rainford said but little to him, beyond a few occasional cheering and consolatory words, as they rode along, because the heavy rumbling of the vehicle rendered it difficult to hear what was uttered within.

In about three-quarters of an hour the coach stopped at the Elephant and Castle; and Rainford, conducting the boy tenderly by the hand, plunged into the maze of streets which form a neighbourhood requiring a detailed description.

Any one who is acquainted with that part of London, or who, with the map of the great metropolis before him, takes the trouble to follow us in this portion of our narrative, will understand us when we state that, almost immediately behind the Elephant and Castle tavern, there is a considerable district totally unexplored by thousands and thousands of persons dwelling in other parts of the English capital. This district is now bounded on the north by the New Kent Road, on the east by the Kent or Greenwich Road, on the south by Walworth, and on the west by the Walworth Road. Built upon a low, damp, and unhealthy soil, the dwellings of the poor there throng in frightful abundance,—forming narrow streets half choked up with dirt, miserable alleys where the very air is stagnant, and dark courts, to enter which seems like going into the fœtid vault of a church. Many of the streets, that appear to have been huddled together without any architectural plan, but merely upon a studied system of crowding together as many hovels as possible, have their back windows looking upon ditches, the black mire and standing water of which exhale vapours sufficiently noxious to breed a pestilence. When the sun shines upon these noisome ditches, their surface displays a thousand prismatic hues, thrown out by the decomposing offal and putrid vegetables which have been emptied into those open sewers. But sewers they cannot be called—for instead of carrying off the filth of the neighbourhood, those ditches preserve it stagnant.

A considerable portion of the district we are describing is known by the name of Lock's Fields; and the horrible condition of this locality can only be properly understood by a visit. The pen cannot convey an adequate idea of the loathsome squalor of that poverty—the heart-rending proofs of that wretchedness—and the revolting examples of that utter demoralization, which characterise this section of the metropolis. The houses for the most part contain each four rooms; every room serving as the domicile of a separate family. Perhaps one of the members of such a family may be afflicted with some infectious malady: there he must lie upon his flock mattress, or his bundle of rags, or his heap of straw, until he become, through neglect, so offensive as to render one minute with him intolerable; and yet his relatives—four, five, or even six in number—are compelled to sleep in the same apartment with him, inhaling the stench from that mass of putrefaction, hearing his groans, breathing the steam from his corrupted lungs, and swarming with the myriads of loathsome animalcule engendered by the filth of the place. In another room, perhaps, we shall find some old man, living by himself—starving upon the miserable pittance obtained by picking up bones or rags, doing an odd job now and then for a neighbour, and filling up the intervals of such pursuits by begging,—his entire furniture consisting of a cup, a kettle, and a knife—no chair, no table—but with a heap of rubbish in one corner for a bed, on which he sleeps with his clothes on. In a third room there is most likely a family consisting of a man and his wife, who at night occupy one mattress, and their grown-up sons and daughters who all pig together upon another. Shame and decency exist not amongst them—because they could never have known either. They have all been accustomed from their infancy to each other's nakedness; and, as their feelings are brutalised by such a mode of existence, they suffer no scruples to oppose that fearful intercourse which their sensuality suggests. Thus—for we must speak plainly, as we speak the truth—the very wretchedness of the poor, which compels this family commingling in one room and as it were in one bed, leads to incest—horrible, revolting incest! The fourth room in the house which we take for our example of the dwellings in Lock's Fields, is occupied by the landlord or landlady, or both; and there is perhaps no more morality nor cleanliness in their chamber than in either of the others.

The shops in Lock's Fields are naturally in keeping with the means and habits of their customers. Beer-shops and public-houses abound: the lower and the poorer the locality, the greater the number of such establishments. But who can wonder? Crime requires its stimulants—and poverty its consolation. Men drink to nerve themselves to perpetrate misdeeds which are attended with peril: women drink to supply that artificial flow of spirits necessary to the maintenance of a career of prostitution;—and the honest poor drink to save themselves from the access of maddening despair. Children drink also, because they see their parents drink, and because they have acquired the taste from their earliest infancy;—and thus beer-shops and public-houses thrive most gloriously in the most wretched neighbourhoods.

Lock's Fields abound with small "general shops," where every thing is sold in the minutest detail—a pennyworth of sugar, a penny-farthing-worth of tea, a farthing candle, or a quarter of a pound of bacon for a penny. There are also many eating-houses where leg-of-beef soup can be procured for five farthings the bowl. The knackers do a good business with the owners of those establishments. Tripe-shops are likewise far from rare; and upon their boards in the open windows, may be seen gory slices of black-looking liver, tongues and brains in a dish, sheep's heads, huge cow-heels, chitterlings, piles of horses' flesh and rolls of boiled offal upon sticks—the two last-mentioned species of article being intended for cat's-meat,—but the whole heaped pell-mell together, loathsome to behold, and emitting odours of the most fœtid and nauseating description. Coal-sheds, where potatoes and greens may likewise be purchased, abound in Lock's Fields; as do also pie-shops and that kind of eating-houses where pudding fried in grease, stocking-pudding, and sop-in-the-pan are displayed in the windows, to tempt with their succulent appearance the appetites of hungry men passing to their work, or of half-famished children wearied of playing in the gutter.

It is wretched—heart-rending to linger on a description of this kind: but we must endeavour to make it as complete as possible. The generality of the inhabitants of Lock's Fields are in a state of barbarian ignorance. Nine-tenths of the children, even of ten or twelve years old, are unable to read, and know not who Jesus Christ is, nor that the Saviour of Mankind suffered upon the cross to save them, as well as the proudest peers or the most brilliant peeresses that shine in the realms of fashion. Look more closely at the aspect of the population in Lock's Fields. What care is depicted upon the pale cheek of that emaciated woman who is hanging the one change of linen upon the elder-bushes skirting the black ditch behind her dwelling! And yet she is better off than many of her neighbours—because her family does possess the one change of linen! Behold that man sitting on the threshold of his door, smoking his pipe:—his elbows rest upon his knees—he stares vacantly before him—not even the opiatic influence of tobacco soothes him. He is thinking of what will become of his wife and children when he shall be out of work—because the job on which he has lately been engaged will be finished on the coming Saturday. His wife comes out to speak to him—and he answers her harshly: his children approach him, and endeavour to climb up his knees—but he knocks them away. Yet that man is not brutal by nature: he loves his wife and children—and was even debating within himself whether he should not soon turn thief in order to support them, when they thus accosted him and were repulsed. Let another person insult his wife—let a stranger lay a finger upon that man's children, and the demon will be raised within his breast. But he speaks harshly and treats them all brutally, because he is miserable—because he is dissatisfied with every thing and every body—because he is reduced to despair. The unfeeling aspect of the cold world around him—that world which frowns so sternly upon poverty, and smiles so sweetly upon wealth—has rendered him unfeeling. His hard fate drives him to the public-house:—talk of the infamy of which that man is guilty in spending a few pence—the pence which would buy his children more bread—upon beer or gin,—it is ridiculous! That man must drink—he must drown his care: thought drives him mad—and from thought he must therefore fly. But whither can he fly? The rich and the well-to-do have their theatres and places of amusement: if a penny tea-garden or a penny theatre be opened in Lock's Fields, or in any other poor neighbourhood, the magistrates must put it down;—it is a source of demoralisation—it is a focus of thieves and prostitutes! But the swell-mob and flash women frequent the Haymarket Theatre—and the Lyceum—and the Surrey—and the Victoria—aye, and Covent-Garden and Drury Lane Theatres also. "Oh!" cries the magistrate; "that is very different!" Yes—every thing in this country is different when the wealthy or the well-dressed are concerned on one side, and the poor and the ragged on the other. Then, whither can this pauperised despairing man in Lock's Fields go to escape the bitterness of his reflections? To the public-house—or to throw himself into the canal:—those are the only alternatives!

Is it not dreadful to think that we have a sovereign and a royal family on whom the country lavishes money by hundreds of thousands,—whose merest whims cost sums that would feed and clothe from year to year all the inhabitants of such a place as Lock's Fields;—that we have also an hereditary aristocracy and innumerable sleek and comfortable dignitaries of the Church, who devour the fruits of the earth and throw the parings and the peelings contemptuously to the poor;—in a word, that we have an oligarchy feasting upon the fatted calf, and flinging the offal to the patient, enduring, toiling, oppressed millions,—is it not dreadful, we ask, to think how much those millions do for Royalty, Aristocracy, Church, and Landed Interest, and how little—how miserably little, Royalty, Aristocracy, Church, and Landed Interest do for them in return?

But let us go back to Thomas Rainford and the little boy, whom we left on their way to Lock's Fields—for it was to this district that the excellent-hearted man was leading his young charge.