The Diet of the street-children is in some cases an alternation of surfeit and inanition, more especially that of the stripling who is “on his own hook.” If money be unexpectedly attained, a boy will gorge himself with such dainties as he loves; if he earn no money, he will fast all day patiently enough, perhaps drinking profusely of water. A cake-seller told me that a little while before I saw him a lad of twelve or so had consumed a shilling’s worth of cakes and pastry, as he had got a shilling by “fiddling;” not, be it understood, by the exercise of any musical skill, for “fiddling,” among the initiated, means the holding of horses, or the performing of any odd jobs.
Of these cakes and pastry—the cakes being from two to twelve a penny, and the pastry, tarts, and “Coventrys” (three-cornered tarts) two a penny—the street-urchins are very fond. To me they seemed to possess no recommendation either to the nose or the palate. The “strong” flavour of these preparations is in all probability as grateful to the palate of an itinerant youth, as is the high gout of the grouse or the woodcock to the fashionable epicure. In this respect, as in others which I have pointed out, the “extremes” of society “meet.”
These remarks apply far more to the male than to the female children. Some of the street-boys will walk a considerable distance, when they are in funds, to buy pastry of the Jew-boys in the Minories, Houndsditch, and Whitechapel; those keen traders being reputed, and no doubt with truth, to supply the best cakes and pastry of any.
A more staple article of diet, which yet partakes of the character of a dainty, is in great demand by the class I treat of—pudding. A halfpenny or a penny-worth of baked plum, boiled plum (or plum dough), currant or plum batter (batter-pudding studded with raisins), is often a dinner. This pudding is almost always bought in the shops; indeed, in a street apparatus there could hardly be the necessary heat diffused over the surface required; and as I have told of a distance being travelled to buy pastry of the Jew-boys, so is it traversed to buy pudding at the best shops. The proprietor of one of those shops, upon whom I called to make inquiries, told me that he sold about 300 pennyworths of pudding in a day. Two-thirds of this quantity he sold to juveniles under fifteen years of age; but he hadn’t noticed particularly, and so could only guess. This man, when he understood the object of my inquiry, insisted upon my tasting his “batter,” which really was very good, and tasted—I do not know how otherwise to describe it—honest. His profits were not large, he said, and judging from the size and quality of his oblong halfpenny and pennyworth’s of batter pudding, I have no doubt he stated the fact. “There’s many a poor man and woman,” he said, “aye, sir, and some that you would think from their appearance might go to an eating-house to dine, make a meal off my pudding, as well as the street little ones. The boys are often tiresome: ‘Master,’ they’ll say, ‘can’t you give us a plummier bit than this?’ or, ‘Is it just up? I likes it ’ot, all ’ot.’”
The “baked tatur,” from the street-dealer’s can more frequently than from the shops, is another enjoyable portion of the street child’s diet. Of the sale to the juvenile population of pickled whelks, stewed eels, oysters, boiled meat puddings, and other articles of street traffic, I have spoken under their respective heads.
The Irish children who live with their parents fare as the parents fare. If very poor, or if bent upon saving for some purpose, their diet is tea and bread and butter, or bread without butter. If not so very poor, still tea, &c., but sometimes with a little fish, and sometimes with a piece of meat on Sundays; but the Sunday’s meat is more common among the poor English than the poor Irish street-traders; indeed the English street-traders generally “live better” than the Irish. The coster-boys often fare well and abundantly.
The children living in the lodging-houses, I am informed, generally, partake only of such meals as they can procure abroad. Sometimes of a night they may partake of the cheap beef or mutton, purveyed by some inmate who has been “lifting flesh” (stealing meat) or “sawney” (bacon). Vegetables, excepting the baked potato, they rarely taste. Of animal food, perhaps, they partake more of bacon, and relish it the most.
Drinking is not, from what I can learn, common among the street boys. The thieves are generally sober fellows, and of the others, when they are “in luck,” a half-pint of beer, to relish the bread and saveloy of the dinner, and a pennyworth of gin “to keep the cold out,” are often the extent of the potations. The exceptions are among the ignorant coster-lads, who when they have been prosperous in their “bunse,” drink, and ape the vices of men. The girls, I am told, are generally fonder of gin than the boys. Elderwine and gingerbeer are less popular among children than they used to be. Many of the lads smoke.
The Amusements of the street-children are such as I have described in my account of the costermongers, but in a moderate degree, as those who partake with the greatest zest of such amusements as the Penny Gaff (penny theatre) and the Twopenny Hop (dance) are more advanced in years. Many of the Penny Gaffs, however, since I last wrote on the subject, have been suppressed, and the Twopenny Hops are not half so frequent as they were five or six years back. The Jew-boys of the streets play at draughts or dominoes in coffee-shops which they frequent; in one in the London-road at which I had occasion to call were eight of these urchins thus occupied; and they play for money or its equivalent, but these sedentary games obtain little among the other and more restless street-lads. I believe that not one-half of them “know the cards,” but they are fond of gambling at pitch and toss, for halfpennies or farthings.