I inquired to what calling the youthful Jews, thus driven from their partially monopolized street commerce, had devoted themselves, and was told that even when the orange and hawking trade was at the best, the Jews rarely carried it on after they were twenty-two or twenty-three, but that they then resorted to some more wholesale calling, such as the purchase of nuts or foreign grapes, at public sales. At present, I am informed, they are more thickly than ever engaged in these trades, as well as in two new avocations, that have been established within these few years,—the sale of the Bahama pine-apples and of the Spanish and Portuguese onions.
About the Royal Exchange, Jew boys still hawk pencils, etc., but the number engaged in this pursuit throughout London is not, as far as I can ascertain, above one-eighth—if an eighth—of what it was even twelve years ago.
Of the Religion of the Street-Irish.
Having now given a brief sketch as to how the Irish people have come to form so large a proportion of the London street-sellers, I shall proceed, as I did with the English costermongers, to furnish the reader with a short account of their religious, moral, intellectual, and physical condition, so that he may be able to contrast the habits and circumstances of the one class with those of the other. First, of the religion of the Irish street-folk.
Almost all the street-Irish are Roman Catholics. Of course I can but speak generally; but during my inquiry I met with only two who said they were Protestants, and when I came to converse with them, I found out that they were partly ignorant of, and partly indifferent to, any religion whatever. An Irish Protestant gentleman said to me: “You may depend upon it, if ever you meet any of my poor countrymen who will not talk to you about religion, they either know or care nothing about it; for the religious spirit runs high in Ireland, and Protestants and Catholics are easily led to converse about their faith.”
I found that some of the Irish Roman Catholics—but they had been for many years resident in England, and that among the poorest or vagrant class of the English—had become indifferent to their creed, and did not attend their chapels, unless at the great fasts or festivals, and this they did only occasionally. One old stall-keeper, who had been in London nearly thirty years, said to me: “Ah! God knows, sir, I ought to attend mass every Sunday, but I haven’t for a many years, barrin’ Christmas-day and such times. But I’ll thry and go more rigular, plase God.” This man seemed to resent, as a sort of indignity, my question if he ever attended any other place of worship. “Av coorse not!” was the reply.
One Irishman, also a fruit-seller, with a well-stocked barrow, and without the complaint of poverty common among his class, entered keenly into the subject of his religious faith when I introduced it. He was born in Ireland, but had been in England since he was five or six. He was a good-looking, fresh-coloured man, of thirty or upwards, and could read and write well. He spoke without bitterness, though zealously enough. “Perhaps, sir, you are a gintleman connected with the Protistant clargy,” he asked, “or a missionary?” On my stating that I had no claim to either character, he resumed: “Will, sir, it don’t matther. All the worruld may know my riligion, and I wish all the worruld was of my riligion, and betther min in it than I am; I do, indeed. I’m a Roman Catholic, sir;” [here he made the sign of the cross]; “God be praised for it! O yis, I know all about Cardinal Wiseman. It’s the will of God, I feel sure, that he’s to be ’stablished here, and it’s no use ribillin’ against that. I’ve nothing to say against Protistints. I’ve heard it said, ‘It’s best to pray for them.’ The street-people that call thimselves Protistants are no riligion at all at all. I serruve Protistant gintlemen and ladies too, and sometimes they talk to me kindly about religion. They’re good custhomers, and I have no doubt good people. I can’t say what their lot may be in another worruld for not being of the true faith. No, sir, I’ll give no opinions—none.”
This man gave me a clear account of his belief that the Blessed Virgin (he crossed himself repeatedly as he spoke) was the mother of our Lord Jesus Christ, and was a mediator with our Lord, who was God of heaven and earth—of the duty of praying to the holy saints—of attending mass—(“but the priest,” he said, “won’t exact too much of a poor man, either about that or about fasting”)—of going to confession at Easter and Christmas times, at the least—of receiving the body of Christ, “the rale prisince,” in the holy sacrament—of keeping all God’s commandments—of purgatory being a purgation of sins—and of heaven and hell. I found the majority of those I spoke with, at least as earnest in their faith, if they were not as well instructed in it as my informant, who may be cited as an example of the better class of street-sellers.
Another Irishman,—who may be taken as a type of the less informed, and who had been between two and three years in England, having been disappointed in emigrating to America with his wife and two children,—gave me the following account, but not without considering and hesitating. He was a very melancholy looking man, tall and spare, and decently clad. He and his family were living upon 8d. a day, which he earned by sweeping a crossing. He had been prevented by ill health from earning 2l., which he could have made, he told me, in harvest time, as a store against winter. He had been a street-seller, and so had his wife; and she would be so again as soon as he could raise 2s. to buy her a stock of apples. He said, touching his hat at each holy name,—
“Sure, yis, sir, I’m a Roman Cartholic, and go to mass every Sunday. Jesus Christ? O yis,” (hesitating, but proceeding readily after a word of prompting), “he is the Lord our Saviour, and the Son of the Holy Virgin. The blessed saints? Yis, sir, yis. The praste prays for them. I—I mane prays to them. O yis. I pray to them mysilf ivery night for a blissin’, and to rise me out of my misery. No, sir, I can’t say I know what the mass is about. I don’t know what I’m prayin’ for thin, only that it’s right. A poor man, that can neither read nor write—I wish I could and I might do betther—can’t understand it; it’s all in Latin. I’ve heard about Cardinal Wiseman. It’ll do us no good sir; it’ll only set people more against us. But it ain’t poor min’s fault.”