London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. 3

by Henry Mayhew

“I am thirty-eight,” he said, “and have been a cotton-spinner, working at Chorlton-upon-Medlock. I can neither read nor write. When I was a young man, twenty years ago, I could earn 2l. 10s., clear money, every week, after paying two piecers and a scavenger. Each piecer had 7s. 6d. a-week—they are girls; the scavenger—a boy to clean the wheels of the cotton-spinning machine—had 2s. 6d. I was master of them wheels in the factory. This state of things continued until about the year 1837. I lived well and enjoyed myself, being a hearty man, noways a drunkard, working every day from half-past five in the morning till half-past seven at night—long hours, that time, master. I didn’t care about money as long as I was decent and respectable. I had a turn for sporting at the wakes down there. In 1837, the ‘self-actors’ (machines with steam power) had come into common use. One girl can mind three pairs—that used to be three men’s work—getting 15s. for the work which gave three men 7l. 10s. Out of one factory 400 hands were flung in one week, men and women together. We had a meeting of the union, but nothing could be done, and we were told to go and mind the three pairs, as the girls did, for 15s. a-week. We wouldn’t do that. Some went for soldiers, some to sea, some to Stopport (Stockport), to get work in factories where the ‘self-actors’ wern’t agait. The masters there wouldn’t have them—at least, some of them. Manchester was full of them; but one gentleman in Hulme still won’t have them, for he says he won’t turn the men out of bread. I ’listed for a soldier in the 48th. I liked a soldier’s life very well until I got flogged—100 lashes for selling my kit (for a spree), and 150 for striking a corporal, who called me an English robber. He was an Irishman. I was confined five days in the hospital after each punishment. It was terrible. It was like a bunch of razors cutting at your back. Your flesh was dragged off by the cats. Flogging was then very common in the regiment. I was flogged in 1840. To this day I feel a pain in the chest from the triangles. I was discharged from the army about two years ago, when the reduction took place. I was only flogged the times I’ve told you. I had no pension and no friends. I was discharged in Dublin. I turned to, and looked for work. I couldn’t get any, and made my way for Manchester. I stole myself aboard of a steamer, and hid myself till she got out to sea, on her way from Dublin to Liverpool. When the captain found me there, he gave me a kick and some bread, and told me to work, so I worked for my passage twenty-four hours. He put me ashore at Liverpool. I slept in the union that night—nothing to eat and nothing to cover me—no fire; it was winter. I walked to Manchester, but could get nothing to do there, though I was twelve months knocking about. It wants a friend and a character to get work. I slept in unions in Manchester, and had oatmeal porridge for breakfast, work at grinding logwood in the mill, from six to twelve, and then turn out. That was the way I lived chiefly; but I got a job sometimes in driving cattle, and 3d. for it,—or 2d. for carrying baskets in the vegetable markets; and went to Shoedale Union at night. I would get a pint of coffee and half-a-pound of bread, and half-a-pound of bread in the morning, and no work. I took to travelling up to London, half-hungered on the road—that was last winter—eating turnips out of this field, and carrots out of that, and sleeping under hedges and haystacks. I slept under one haystack, and pulled out the hay to cover me, and the snow lay on it a foot deep in the morning. I slept for all that, but wasn’t I froze when I woke? An old farmer came up with his cart and pitchfork to load hay. He said: ‘Poor fellow! have you been here all night?’ I answered, ‘Yes.’ He gave me some coffee and bread, and one shilling. That was the only good friend I met with on the road. I got fourteen days of it for asking a gentleman for a penny; that was in Stafford. I got to London after that, sleeping in unions sometimes, and begging a bite here and there. Sometimes I had to walk all night. I was once forty-eight hours without a bite, until I got hold at last of a Swede turnip, and so at last I got to London. Here I’ve tried up and down everywhere for work as a labouring man, or in a foundry. I tried London Docks, and Blackwall, and every place; but no job. At one foundry, the boiler-makers made a collection of 4s. for me. I’ve walked the streets for three nights together. Here, in this fine London, I was refused a night’s lodging in Shoreditch and in Gray’s-inn-lane. A policeman, the fourth night, at twelve o’clock, procured me a lodging, and gave me 2d. I couldn’t drag on any longer. I was taken to a doctor’s in the city. I fell in the street from hunger and tiredness. The doctor ordered me brandy and water, 2s. 6d., and a quartern loaf, and some coffee, sugar, and butter. He said, what I ailed was hunger. I made that run out as long as I could, but I was then as bad off as ever. It’s hard to hunger for nights together. I was once in ‘Steel’ (Coldbath-fields) for begging. I was in Tothill-fields for going into a chandler’s shop, asking for a quartern loaf and half a pound of cheese, and walking out with it. I got a month for that. I have been in Brixton for taking a loaf out of a baker’s basket, all through hunger. Better a prison than to starve. I was well treated because I behaved well in prison. I have slept in coaches when I had a chance. One night on a dunghill, covering the stable straw about me to keep myself warm. This place is a relief. I shave the poor people and cut their hair, on a Sunday. I was handy at that when I was a soldier. I have shaved in public-houses for halfpennies. Some landlords kicks me out. Now, in the days, I may pick up a penny or two that way, and get here of a night. I met two Manchester men in Hyde Park on Saturday, skating. They asked me what I was. I said, ‘A beggar.’ They gave me 2s. 6d., and I spent part of it for warm coffee and other things. They knew all about Manchester, and knew I was a Manchester man by my talk.”

The statement I then took was that of a female vagrant—a young girl with eyes and hair of remarkable blackness. Her complexion was of the deepest brunette, her cheeks were full of colour, and her lips very thick. This was accounted for. She told me that her father was a mulatto from Philadelphia. She was short, and dressed in a torn old cotton gown, the pattern of which was hardly discernible from wear. A kind of half-shawl, patched and mended in several places, and of very thin woollen texture, was pinned around her neck; her arms, which, with her hands, were full and large, were bare. She wore very old broken boots and ragged stockings. Her demeanour was modest.

“I am now eighteen,” she stated. “My father was a coloured man. He came over here as a sailor, I have heard, but I never saw him; for my mother, who was a white woman, was not married to him, but met him at Oxford; and she married afterwards a box-maker, a white man, and has two other children. They are living, I believe, but I don’t know where they are. I have heard my mother say that my father—that’s my own father—had become a missionary, and had been sent out to America from England as a missionary, by Mr. ——. I believe that was fifteen years ago. I don’t know who Mr. —— was, but he was a gentleman, I’ve heard my mother say. She told me, too, that my father was a good scholar, and that he could speak seven different languages, and was a very religious man. He was sent out to Boston, but I never heard whether he was to stay or not, and I don’t know what he was to missionary about. He behaved very well to my mother, I have heard her say, until she took up with the other man (the box-maker), and then he left her, and gave her up, and came to London. It was at Oxford that they all three were then; and when my father got away, or came away to London, my mother followed him (she told me so, but she didn’t like to talk about it), as she was then in the family way. She didn’t find him; but my father heard of her, and left some money with Mr. —— for her, and she got into Poland-street workhouse through Mr. —— I’ve heard. While there, she received 1s. 6d. a-week, but my father never came to see her or me. At one time, my father used to live by teaching languages. He had been in Spain, and France, and Morocco. I’ve heard, at any rate, that he could speak the Moors’ language, but I know nothing more. All this is what I’ve heard from my mother and my grandmother—that’s my mother’s mother. My grandfather and grandmother are dead. He was a sawyer. I have a great grandmother living in Oxford, now ninety-two, supported by her parish. I lived with my grandmother at Oxford, who took me out of pity, as my mother never cared about me, when I was four months old. I remained with her until I was ten, and then my mother came from Reading, where she was living, and took me away with her. I lived with her and my stepfather, but they were badly off. He couldn’t get much to do at his trade as a box-maker, and he drank a great deal. I was with them about nine months, when I ran away. He beat me so; he never liked me. I couldn’t bear it. I went to Pangbourne, but there I was stopped by a man my stepfather had sent—at least I suppose so—and I was forced to walk back to Reading—ten miles, perhaps. My father applied to the overseer for support for me, and the overseer was rather harsh, and my father struck him, and for that he was sent to prison for three months. My mother and her children then got into the workhouse, but not until after my stepfather had been some time in prison. Before that she had an allowance, which was stopped; I don’t know how much. I was in the workhouse twenty-one days. I wasn’t badly treated. My mother sweared my parish, and I was removed to St. James’s, Poland-street, London. I was there three weeks, and then I was sent to New Brentford—it was called the Juvenile Establishment—and I went to school. There was about 150 boys and girls; the boys were sent to Norwood when they were fifteen. Some of the girls were eighteen, kept there until they could get a place. I don’t know whether they all belonged to St. James’s, or to different parishes, or how. I stayed there about two years. I was very well treated, sufficient to eat; but we worked hard at scrubbing, cleaning, and making shirts. We made all the boys’ clothes as well, jackets and trousers, and all. I was then apprenticed a maid-of-all-work, in Duke-street, Grosvenor-square, for three years. I was there two years and a half, when my master failed in business, and had to part with me. They had no servant but me. My mistress was sometimes kind, pretty well. I had to work very hard. She sometimes beat me if I stopped long on my errands. My master beat me once for bringing things wrong from a grocer’s. I made a mistake. Once my mistress knocked me down-stairs for being long on an errand to Pimlico, and I’m sure I couldn’t help it, and my eye was cut. It was three weeks before I could see well. [There is a slight mark under the girl’s eye still.] They beat me with their fists. After I left my master, I tried hard to get a place; I’m sure I did, but I really couldn’t; so to live, I got watercresses to sell up and down Oxford-street. I stayed at lodging-houses. I tried that two or three months, but couldn’t live. My mother had been ‘through the country,’ and I knew other people that had, through meeting them at the lodging-houses. I first went to Croydon, begging my way. I slept in the workhouse. After that I went to Brighton, begging my way, but couldn’t get much, not enough to pay my lodgings. I was constantly insulted, both in the lodging-houses and in the streets. I sung in the streets at Brighton, and got enough to pay my lodgings, and a little for food. I was there a week, and then I went to the Mendicity, and they gave me a piece of bread (morning and night) and a night’s lodging. I then went to Lewes and other places, begging, and got into prison at Tunbridge Wells for fourteen days, for begging. I only used to say I was a poor girl out of place, could they relieve me? I told no lies. I didn’t pick my oakum one day, it was such hard stuff; three and a half pounds of it to do from nine to half-past three: so I was put into solitary for three days and three nights, having half a pound of bread and a pint of cold water morning and night; nothing else, and no bed to sleep on. I’m sure I tell you the truth. Some had irons on their hands if they were obstropolous. That’s about two months ago. I’m sorry to say that during this time I couldn’t be virtuous. I know very well what it means, for I can read and write, but no girl can be so circumstanced as I was. I seldom got money for being wicked; I hated being wicked, but I was tricked and cheated. I am truly sorry for it, but what could a poor girl do? I begged my way from London to Hastings, and got here on Saturday last, and having no money, came here. I heard of this asylum from a girl in Whitechapel, who had been here. I met her in a lodging-house, where I called to rest in the daytime. They let us rest sometimes in lodging-houses in the daytime. I never was in any prison but Tunbridge Wells, and in Gravesend lock-up for being out after twelve at night, when I had no money to get a lodging. I was there one Saturday night, and got out on Sunday morning, but had nothing given me to eat—I was in by myself. It’s a bad place—just straw to sleep on, and very cold. I told you I could read and write. I learnt that partly at Oxford, and finished my learning at the Juvenile Establishment at Brentford. There I was taught, reading, writing, sums, marking, sewing, and scrubbing. Once I could say all the multiplication table, but I’ve forgot most of it. I know how to make lace, too, because I was taught by a cousin in Oxford, another grandchild of my grandmother’s. I can make it with knitting-needles. I could make cushion-lace with pins, but I’m afraid I’ve forgot how now. I should like, if I could to get into service again, here or abroad. I have heard of Australia, where I have a cousin. I am sure I could and would conduct myself well in service, I have suffered so much out of it. I am sure of it. I never stole anything in my life, and have told all I have done wrong.”

Statement of a Returned Convict.

I shall now give the statement of a man who was selected at random from amongst a number such as himself, congregated in one of the most respectable lodging-houses. He proved, on examination, to be a returned convict, and one who had gone through the severest bodily and mental agony. He had lived in the bush, and been tried for his life. He was an elderly-looking man, whose hair was just turning grey, and in whose appearance there was nothing remarkable, except that his cheek-bones were unusually high, and that his face presented that collected and composed expression which is common to men exposed to habitual watchfulness from constant danger. He gave me the following statement. His dress was bad, but differed in nothing from that of a long-distressed mechanic. He said:—

“I am now 43 (he looked much older), and had respectable parents, and a respectable education. I am a native of London. When I was young I was fond of a roving life, but cared nothing about drink. I liked to see ‘life,’ as it was called, and was fond of the company of women. Money was no object in those days; it was like picking up dirt in the streets. I ran away from home. My parents were very kind to me; indeed, I think I was used too well, I was petted so, when I was between 12 and 13. I got acquainted with some boys at Bartlemy-fair a little before that, and saw them spending lots of money and throwing at cock-shies, and such-like; and one of them said, ‘Why don’t you come out like us?’ So afterwards I ran away and joined them. I was not kept shorter of money than other boys like me, but I couldn’t settle. I couldn’t fix my mind to any regular business but a waterman’s, and my friends wouldn’t hear of that. There was nine boys of us among the lot that I joined, but we didn’t all work together. All of ’em came to be sent to Van Dieman’s Land as transports except one, and he was sent to Sydney. While we were in London it was a merry life, with change of scene, for we travelled about. We were successful in nearly all our plans for several months. I worked in Fleet Street, and could make 3l. a-week at handkerchiefs alone, sometimes falling across a pocket-book. The best handkerchiefs then brought 4s. in Field-lane. Our chief enjoyments were at the ‘Free and Easy,’ where all the thieves and young women went, and sang and danced. I had a young woman for a partner then; she went out to Van Dieman’s Land. She went on the lift in London (shopping and stealing from the counter). She was clever at it. I carried on in this way for about 15 months, when I was grabbed for an attempt on a gentleman’s pocket by St. Paul’s Cathedral, on a grand charity procession day. I had two months in the Old Horse (Bridewell). I never thought of my parents at this time—I wouldn’t. I was two years and a half at this same trade. One week was very like another,—successes and escapes, and free-and-easies, and games of all sorts, made up the life. At the end of the two years and a half I got into the way of forged Bank-of-England notes. A man I knew in the course of business, said, ‘I would cut that game of ‘smatter-hauling,’ (stealing handkerchiefs), and do a little soft,’ (pass bad notes). So I did, and was very successful at first. I had a mate. He afterwards went out to Sydney, too, for 14 years. I went stylishly dressed as a gentleman, with a watch in my pocket, to pass my notes. I passed a good many in drapers’ shops, also at tailors’ shops. I never tried jewellers, they’re reckoned too good judges. The notes were all finnies, (5l. notes), and a good imitation. I made more money at this game, but lived as before, and had my partner still. I was fond of her; she was a nice girl, and I never found that she wronged me in any way. I thought at four months’ end of retiring into the country with gambling-tables, as the risk was becoming considerable. They hung them for it in them days, but that never daunted me the least in life. I saw Cashman hung for that gunsmith’s shop on Snow-hill, and I saw Fauntleroy hung, and a good many others, but it gave me no uneasiness and no fear. The gallows had no terror for people in my way of life. I started into the country with another man and his wife—his lawful wife—for I had a few words with my own young woman, or I shouldn’t have left her behind me, or, indeed, have started at all. We carried gambling on in different parts of the country for six months. We made most at the E. O. tables,—not those played with a ball, they weren’t in vogue then, but throwing dice for prizes marked on a table. The highest prize was ten guineas, but the dice were so made that no prize could be thrown; the numbers were not regular as in good dice, and they were loaded as well. If anybody asked to see them, we had good dice ready to show. All sorts played with us. London men and all were taken in. We made most at the races. My mate and his wife told me that at the last Newmarket meeting we attended, 65l. was made, but they rowed in the same boat. I know they got a deal more. The 65l. was shared in three equal portions, but I had to maintain the horse and cart out of my own share. We used to go out into the roads (highway robbery) between races, and if we met an ‘old bloke’ (man) we ‘propped him’ (knocked him down), and robbed him. We did good stakes that way, and were never found out. We lived as well as any gentleman in the land. Our E. O. table was in a tilted cart. I stayed with this man and his wife two months. She was good-looking, so as to attract people. I thought they didn’t use me altogether right, so at Braintree I gave another man in the same way of business 25l. for his kit—horse, harness, tilted-cart, and table. I gave him two good 5l. notes and three bad ones, for I worked that way still, not throwing much of a chance away. I came to London for a hawker’s stock, braces and such-like, to sell on the road, just to take the down off (remove suspicion). In the meantime, the man that I bought the horse, &c., of, had been nailed passing a bad note, and he stated who he got it from, and I was traced. He was in a terrible rage to find himself done, particularly as he used to do the same to other people himself. He got acquitted for that there note after he had me ‘pinched’ (arrested). I got ‘fullied’ (fully committed). I was tried at the ‘Start’ (Old Bailey), and pleaded guilty to the minor offence, (that of utterance, not knowing the note to be forged), or I should have been hanged for it then. It was a favourable sessions when I was tried. Thirty-six were cast for death, and only one was ‘topped’ (hanged), the very one that expected to be ‘turned up’ (acquitted) for highway robbery. I was sentenced to 14 years’ transportation. I was ten weeks in the Bellerophon hulk at Sheerness, and was then taken to Hobart Town, Van Dieman’s Land, in the Sir Godfrey Webster. At Hobart Town sixty of us were picked out to go to Launceston. There (at Launceston) we lay for four days in an old church, guarded by constables; and then the settlers came there from all parts, and picked their men out. I got a very bad master. He put me to harvest work that I had never even seen done before, and I had the care of pigs as wild as wild boars. After that I was sent to Launceston with two letters from my master to the superintendent, and the other servants thought I had luck to get away from Red Barks to Launceston, which was 16 miles off. I then worked in a Government potato-field; in the Government charcoal-works for about 11 months; and then was in the Marine department, going by water from Launceston to George Town, taking Government officers down in gigs, provisions in boats, and such-like. There was a crew of six (convicts) in the gigs, and four in the watering-boats. All the time I consider I was very hardly treated. I hadn’t clothes half the time, being allowed only two slop-suits in a year, and no bed to lie on when we had to stay out all night with the boats by the river Tamar. With 12 years’ service at this my time was up, but I had incurred several punishments before it was up. The first was 25 lashes, because a bag of flour had been burst, and I picked up a capfull. The flogging is dreadfully severe, a soldier’s is nothing to it. I once had 50 lashes, for taking a hat in a joke when I was tipsy; and a soldier had 300 the same morning. I was flogged as a convict, and he as a soldier; and when we were both at the same hospital after the flogging, and saw each other’s backs, the other convicts said to me, ‘D—— it, you’ve got it this time;’ and the soldier said, when he saw my back, ‘You’ve got it twice as bad I have.’ ‘No,’ said the doctor, ‘ten times as bad—he’s been flogged; but you, in comparison, have only had a child’s whipping.’ The cats the convicts were then flogged with were each six feet long, made out of the log-line of a ship of 500 tons burden; nine over-end knots were in each tail, and nine tails whipped at each end with wax-end. With this we had half-minute lashes; a quick lashing would have been certain death. One convict who had 75 lashes was taken from the triangles to the watch-house in Launceston, and was asked if he would have some tea,—he was found to be dead. The military surgeon kept on saying in this case, ‘Go on, do your duty.’ I was mustered there, as was every hand belonging to the Government, and saw it, and heard the doctor. When I was first flogged, there was inquiry among my fellow-convicts, as to ‘How did D—— (meaning me) stand it—did he sing?’ The answer was, ‘He was a pebble;’ that is, I never once said, ‘Oh!’ or gave out any expression of the pain I suffered. I took my flogging like a stone. If I had sung, some of the convicts would have given me some lush with a locust in it (laudanum hocussing), and when I was asleep would have given me a crack on the head that would have laid me straight. That first flogging made me ripe. I said to myself, ‘I can take it like a bullock.’ I could have taken the flogger’s life at the time, I felt such revenge. Flogging always gives that feeling; I know it does, from what I’ve heard others say who had been flogged like myself. In all I had 875 lashes at my different punishments. I used to boast of it at last. I would say, ‘I don’t care, I can take it till they see my backbone.’ After a flogging, I’ve rubbed my back against a wall, just to show my bravery like, and squeezed the congealed blood out of it. Once I would not let them dress my back after a flogging, and I had 25 additional for that. At last I bolted to Hobart Town, 120 miles off. There I was taken before Mr. H——, the magistrate, himself a convict formerly, I believe from the Irish Rebellion; but he was a good man to a prisoner. He ordered me 50, and sent me back to Launceston. At Launceston I was ‘fullied’ by a bench of magistrates, and had 100. Seven years before my time was up I took to the bush. I could stand it no longer, of course not. In the bush I met men with whom, if I had been seen associating, I should have been hanged on any slight charge, such as Brittan was and his pals.”

VAGRANTS IN THE CASUAL WARD OF WORKHOUSE.

[From a Sketch.]