The first—a young woman 20 years of age—gave me the following statement. Her face was what the vulgar would call “good-looking,” as her cheeks were full and deep-coloured, and her eyes tolerably bright, and her teeth good. She was very stout, too. Her dress was tolerably clean and good, but sat close about her, as if she had no under-clothing. She said:—
“I am a native of ——, where my father was a woolcomber. I was an only child. I can’t remember my mother, she died when I was so young. My father died more than four years ago. I’ve heard as much since I left home. I was sent to the National School. I can read, but can’t write. My father went to work at Wellington, in Somersetshire, taking me with him, when I was quite a little girl. He was a good father and very kind, and we had plenty to eat. I think of him sometimes: it makes me sorrowful. He would have been sadly distressed if he had seen me in this state. My father married again when I was 12, I suppose. He married a factory-woman. She was about 30. She wasn’t good to me. She led me a dreadful life, always telling my father stories of me,—that I was away when I wasn’t, and he grumbled at me. He never beat me, but my stepmother often beat me. She was very bad-tempered, and I am very bad-tempered, too—very passionate; but if I’m well treated my passion doesn’t come out. She beat me with anything that came first to hand, as the hearth-brush, and she flung things at me. She disliked me, because she knew I hated my father marrying again. I was very happy before that, living with my father. I could cook dinner for him, young as I was, make his bed, and do all those sort of things, all but his washing. I had a bed to myself. My father was a good man. He came home drunk sometimes, but not often. It never made any difference in him, he was always kind. He seemed comfortable with my stepmother, but I wasn’t. I used to tell my father how she used me, but he said it was nonsense. This went on till I was 15, when I ran away. I’m sure I had been a good girl till then. I never slept out of my father’s house up to that time, and didn’t keep company with any young men. I could stand my stepmother’s treatment no longer. If she had been kind I wouldn’t have run away. I was almost as big then as I am now. I had 4s. or 5s. with me, I don’t remember just how much, I started in such a passion; but it was money I had saved up from what my father had given me. I took no clothes with me but what I had on. I was tidily dressed. It was in the haymaking time, and I made straight away to London. I was so young and in such a rage, I couldn’t think of nothing but getting away. When I cooled I began to think of my father, but at home I had heard of young girls being sent out to Australia and having done well, and I thought I could easily get sent out from London, and so I went on. I slept in lodging-houses. I was shocked the first night I got into Bridgewater, men, women, and boys, all sleeping in the same room. I slept with another young woman, a travelling-woman, but married. I couldn’t think of going back. I couldn’t humble myself before that stepmother. I thought anything would be better than that. I couldn’t sleep at all the first night I was out. I never was in such a bed before. A young man who saw me there wanted me to live with him; he was a beggar, and I didn’t like a beggar, and I wouldn’t have nothing to say to him. He wasn’t impudent; but he followed me to Bristol, all the time, whenever I met with him, teasing me to live with him. I lived on my money as long as I could, and then had to go and sleep in a union. I don’t know where. It was a dreadful place. The rats ran over my head while I slept; and I prayed for daylight—for I used to pray then. I don’t now. I don’t like the thoughts of it. At last I got to London. I was sitting in Hyde-park thinking where I should go—I know it was in Hyde-park, for I was taken up from it since. The park-keeper took me up for making a noise—that’s a disturbance—in the park; me and some other young women: we were only washing ourselves where the horses drink, near the canteen. In Hyde-park, while I was sitting, as I’ve told you, some girls and some young men, and some older men, passed me, carrying rakes. I was sitting with three other girls I’d got acquainted with on the road, all Irish girls. The people that passed me said, ‘We are going half-way to Watford a-haymaking. Go with us?’ We all went. Each of those Irish girls soon took up with a mate. I think they had known each other before. I had a fortnight at haymaking. I had a mate at haymaking, and in a few days he ruined me. He told the master that I belonged to him. He didn’t say I was his wife. They don’t call us their wives. I continued with him a long time, living with him as his wife. We next went into Kent harvesting, then a-hopping, and I’ve been every summer since. He was kind to me, but we were both passionate—fire against fire—and we fought sometimes. He never beat me but once, for contradicting him. He wasn’t jealous, and he had no reason to be so. I don’t know that he was fond of me, or he wouldn’t have run away. I liked him, and would have gone through trouble for him. I like him still. We never talked about marrying. I didn’t care, for I didn’t think about it. I lived with him, and was true to him, until he ran away in haymaking time in 1848. He ran away from me in Kent, where we were hopping. We hadn’t quarrelled for some days before he started. I didn’t think he was going, for he was kind to me just before. I left him once for a fortnight myself, through some quarrel, but he got me back again. I came up to London in a boat from Gravesend, with other hoppers. I lived on fifteen shillings I had saved up. I lived on that as long as it lasted—more than a week. I lodged near the Dials, and used to go drinking with other women I met with there, as I was fond of drink then. I don’t like it so much now. We drank gin and beer. I kept to myself until my money was gone, and then I looked out for myself. I had no particular friends. The women I drank with were some bad and some good. I got acquainted with a young girl as I was walking along the Strand looking out for my living by prostitution—I couldn’t starve. We walked together. We couldn’t stay in the Strand, where the girls were well-dressed, and so we kept about the Dials. I didn’t think much about the life I was leading, because I got hardened. I didn’t like it, though. Still I thought I should never like to go home. I lodged in a back-street near the Dials. I couldn’t take anybody there. I didn’t do well. I often wanted money to pay my lodgings, and food to eat, and had often to stay out all night perishing. Many a night out in the streets I never got a farthing, and had to walk about all day because I durstn’t go back to my room without money. I never had a fancy man. There was all sorts in the lodging-house—thirty of them—pickpockets, and beggars, and cadgers, and fancy men, and some that wanted to be fancy men, but I never saw one that I liked. I never picked pockets as other girls did; I was not nimble enough with my hands. Sometimes I had a sovereign in my pocket, but it was never there a day. I used to go out a-drinking, treating other women, and they would treat me. We helped one another now and then. I was badly off for clothes. I had no illness except colds. The common fellows in the streets were always jeering at me. Sometimes missionaries, I think they’re called, talked to me about the life I was leading, but I told them, ‘You mind yourself, and I’ll mind myself. What is it to you where I go when I die?’ I don’t steal anything. I swear sometimes now. When I was at home and good, I was shocked to hear such a thing. Me and the other girls used to think it clever to swear hard, and say bad words one to another or to anybody—we’re not particular. If I went into the Magdalen, I know I couldn’t stay there. I have not been there, but I know I couldn’t, from what I’ve heard of it from the other girls, some of whom said they’d been; and I suppose they had, as there was no motive at all for them to tell lies about it. I have been in the casual wards at Holborn and Kensington when I was beat out. It was better than walking the streets. I think, by the life I lead—and without help I must lead it still, or starve—I sometimes get twenty shillings a-week, sometimes not more than five shillings. I would like best to go to Australia, where nobody would know me. I’m sure I could behave myself there. There’s no hope for me here: everybody that knows me despises me. I could take a service in Sydney. I could get rid of my swearing. I only swear now when I’m vexed—it comes out natural-like then. I could get rid of my love of drink. No one—no girl can carry on the life I do without drink. No girl’s feelings would let her. I never met one but what said so, and I know they all told the truth in that. I am strong and healthy, and could take a hard place with country work. That about Australia is the best wish I have. I’m sure I’m sick of this life. It has only drink and excitement to recommend it. I haven’t a friend in the world. I have been told I was a fool not to pick pockets like other girls. I never begged but once, and that was as I was coming to London, and a woman said, ‘You look better than I do!’ so I never begged again—that checked me at once. But I’ve got tickets for the ‘straw-yards,’ or the ‘leather-houses,’ as some call them (asylums for the houseless). The old women all say it was far better when they were young. I think what a change it is from my country life; but when I get sad, I go and get a glass of gin, if I have the money. I can get a pennyworth in some houses. I can’t do much at my needle. The idleness of the life I lead is terrible. There is nothing to interest me.”
The next was a mere girl, who had lost all traces of feminine beauty. There was an impudence in her expression that was utterly repulsive; and even in her most serious moments it was evident that she had the greatest difficulty to restrain her inward levity. Her dress consisted principally of a ragged red and green plaid shawl, pinned tight over her neck, and a torn straw-bonnet, worn back upon her head.
“I have a father alive,” she said; “I have got no mother. I have been away these three years. I came away with a chap. I was living, sir, when I was at home, with my father in Maidstone. My father was a gardener, and I used to work at shirt-making when I was at home with my father. My mother has been dead eight years, I think. I can’t say how old I was then. I am twenty now. My father, after my mother’s death, married again. She was dead seven years before he got another wife. He didn’t marry again while I was at home. My mother was a very good mother. I was very fond of my mother, for she was a very good mother; but not of my father, for he was a bad father. Why, sir, he used to treat us three girls so ill, my biggest sister was obliged to go to Australia from him. My next sister was younger than me, and I don’t know whether she is at home now; but I don’t believe that she can stop at home, because I have been down as far as Maidstone since I went away with my young man, and I’ve heard that she’s almost dead between the pair of them. By the pair of them, I mean my father and stepmother. My mother-in-law is the worst to my sister. My father was bad before she came; he was such a drunkard. We went to school, where we paid nothing a-week, in Maidstone; it’s a free school. I can read. I can’t write. All the money my father used to earn he used to drink, and leave us without any food. I went to the shirt-making when I was twelve years of age, and that used to bring me about 4d. a-day, and with that I used to buy bread, for we never got a halfpenny from my father to keep us. My father used to work for a gentleman, and got pretty good wages. The young chap that I first took up with was a carpenter. He was apprenticed to the trade. He enticed me away. He told me if I’d come to London with him he’d do anything for me. I used to tell him how badly my father treated me, and he used to tell me not to stop at home. I have been knocking about three years, and I’m twenty now, so I leave you to say how old I was then. No, I can’t say. I’m twenty now, and I’ve been away these three years, and I don’t know how old that would make me. I never learnt any ciphering. My father used to beat us and knock us about when he came home drunk. I liked the young man that came a-courting on me very well. I thought all he said was true, and I thought he would make me much happier than I was at home.” [Here she shook her head with apparent regret.] “Yes, sir, he promised he would marry me; but when I came over to London he ruined me, and then ran away and left me. I knew it was wrong to go away and live with him without being married; but I was wretched at home, and he told me he would make me his wife, and I believed him. He brought me up to London with him, into the Borough. He took me to a low lodging-house there. The charge was 6d. a-night for the two of us. There were six sleeping in the same room beside us two. They were men and women. Some of ’em were married, and some were not. He had 4s. 6d. when he came up to London with me, and I had none. He stopped with me. He stopped with me in the same house a week. He was 22 years of age, or 23, I can’t say which. While he was with me he was very kind to me: oh, yes, sir, much kinder than my father, and I loved him a great deal more, I’m sure. I hadn’t many clothes when I left my father’s home. I had nothing but what I stood upright in. I had no more clothes when I was at home. When my young man left me there was another young girl in the same lodging-house, who advised me to turn out upon the streets. I went and took her advice. I did like the life for a bit, because I see’d there was money getting by it. Sometimes I got 4s. or 5s. a-day, and sometimes more than that. I still kept at the same house. There were a lot of girls like me at the same place. It was not a bad house, but they encouraged us like. No tramps used to come there, only young chaps and gals that used to go out thieving. No, my young man didn’t thieve, not while he was with me, but I did afterwards. I’ve seen young chaps brought in there by the girls merely to pay their lodging-money. The landlady told us to do that; she said I could do better than knocking about with a man. If I hadn’t had enough to pay for my lodging, I couldn’t have had a bed to lie on. We used to be all in the same room, chaps and girls, sometimes nine or ten couples in the same room—only little bits of girls and chaps. I have seen girls there 12 years of age. The boys was about 15 or 16. They used to swear dreadful. I fell out with the gal as first told me to go on the streets, and then I got with another at another house. I moved to Paddington. I lived at a little public-house there—a bad house; and I used to go out shoplifting with my pal. I used to take everything I could lay my hands on. We went one night, and I stole two dresses, at a linendraper’s shop, and had two months a-piece for it. Yes, sir, I liked prison very well, because I had such bad clothes; and was glad to be out of the way. Some days we hardly had a bit to put in our mouths. Sometimes we used to get nothing shoplifting; the men, perhaps, would notice—the fly-men, as we called them. They used to be too wide-awake for us. Sometimes we used to make 5s. in the day; but then we used to spend it all in waste—why, spending it in anything. We’d buy fish, and meat, and baked potatoes, and pudding. No, sir, very little drink we had. We didn’t care for gin, nor any liquor at all. There was none among us but one that cared for drink, and she used to pawn all her clothes for it. I dare say there was upwards of twelve or thirteen gals; the kitchen used to be full. The mistress used to treat us well if we paid her; but she used to holler at us if we didn’t. The chaps used to serve her out so. They used to take the sheets, and blankets, and everything away from her. She was deaf. They was mostly all prigs that used to come to see us. They used to go out nailing—that’s thieving. There was one that they used to call Fogerty was transported: another got seven months; and another got a twelvemonth. I had one fancy-man. He was a shoplifter and a pickpocket: he has got two years now. I went to see him once in quod; some calls it ‘the Steel.’ I cried a good deal when he got nailed, sir: I loved him. A little time after he went away, I went down into the country; down into Essex. I saw I couldn’t get him off, ’cause it was for a watch, and the gentleman went so hard against him. I was with him at the time he stole it, but I didn’t know he’d got it till I saw him run. I got the man down by a saw-mill; he was tipsy. He was a gentleman, and said he would give me five shillings if I would come along with him. My fancy-man always kept near to me whenever I went out of a night. I usen’t to go out to take the men home; it was only to pick them up. My young man used to tell me how to rob the men. I’d get them up in a corner, and then I used to take out of their pockets whatever I could lay my hands on; and then I used to hand it over to him, and he used to take the things home and ‘fence’ them. We used to do a good deal this way sometimes: often we’d get enough to keep us two or three days. At last he got caught for the watch; and when I see’d I couldn’t get him off, I went down into the country—down into Essex, sir. I travelled all parts, and slept at the unions on the road. I met a young girl down in Town Malling, in Kent. I met her, and then we used to go begging together, and tramp it from one union to another. At last we got so ragged and dirty, and our things all got so bad, that we made up our minds to go in for three months into prison, at Battle, down in Sussex. We used to meet a great many on the road boiling their kettle, and sometimes we used to stop and skipper with them of a night. Skippering is sleeping in barns or under hedges, if it’s warm weather. They weren’t gipsies. We usen’t to stop to speak to the gipsies—not much—unless we went to fairs or horse-races. Then we used to sit with them for a little while, if they had their tent. We generally used to steal on the way. If we could see anything, we used to take it. At last, when our clothes got bad, I and the other girl—she still kept with me—determined to break the parson’s windows at Battle. We broke one because the house was good for a cant—that’s some food—bread or meat, and they wouldn’t give it us, so we got savage, and broke all the glass in the windows. For that we got three months. After we got out, the parson sent word for us to come to his house, and he gave us half-a-crown a-piece to take us on our road. He would have given us some clothes—we had no shoes and stockings: we was very bad off; but his wife was in London. So we went on the road tramping again, and I have been tramping it about the country ever since. I was all last winter in Town Malling union with the fever, and when I got well I set off tramping again. I didn’t have no more chaps since I left my fancy-man—I mean, I never took up with no others, not to keep their company. I have been about two years tramping altogether; out of that I had five months in prison for stealing and breaking windows. I like the tramping life well enough in the summer, ’cause there’s plenty of victuals to be had then, but it’s the winter that we can’t stand. Then we generally come to London, but we can’t call at house to house here as we do in the country, so we make but a poor thing of it. I never was so bad off as I am now, excepting when I was at Battle, for I had no shoes or stockings then. The police is too sharp for us in London. I’m very fond of going through the country in fine weather. Sometimes we don’t make much freedom with the chaps in the union, and sometimes we do. They tells us to go along with them, for they knows good houses to call at. What you make is all according to whether you’re in a lonesome road. I’ve travelled a day, and not seen a house that I could get anything at. Some days I’ve got a shilling given to me, and some days as much as half-a-crown. We can always get plenty of bread and meat, for countryfolks is very good. If I had some good things—that is, good boots—I should like to go into the country again. Sometimes we gets so much scran we sells it among ourselves. I should sell my lot to some travellers on the road. They gives us 3d. or 4d., but we must give them a good lot for that. I can’t say which is the best of the unions now, for they are all shut up. They used to be good at one time, but the Irish ruined them; they came in such swarms, the people, I knew, would never stand it. We used often to say of a night that them Irish Greeks would ruin the business. They are much better beggars than we are, though they don’t get as much as the English, because they go in such swarms up to the door. Now, down in Hawkhurst, there used to be a twopenny loaf allowed to everybody that called at the parson’s house, little and big; it was allowed by a lady, till the pigs of Irish came in such lots, that they spoilt all the game. The parson won’t give it to no one now, except eight travelling-men in the morning. I know all the good houses, and the tidy grubbikens,—that’s the unions where there’s little or nothing to do for the food we gets. We walk mostly eleven miles a-day. If it’s hot we walk only six miles, and turn in under a hedge if we’ve got our things with us to make a tent. We go all right round the country, up to Yorkshire, and as far as Northumberland. We don’t try Warwick gaol, because the shilling they used to give on being discharged is stopped, excepting to those that’s not been there before, and there’s very few of the trampers, boys or girls, that hasn’t. Then there’s the twopenny-house down in Highfield, in Kent. I’m blowed if they ain’t been and stopped that! I can’t tell what’s come to the country of late. It’s got very bad and scaly, there’s no hospitality going on. I’ve been two years at the business, and I’ve seen it grow worse and worse, meaner and meaner, every day before my very eyes. I don’t know, I’m sure, what poor trampers will do if it gets any worse. Some do talk of the good old times, when there was plenty of money-getting in them days. I shouldn’t like to give it up just yet. I do like to be in the country in the summer-time. I like haymaking and hopping, because that’s a good bit of fun. Still, I’m sick and tired of what I’m doing now. It’s the winter that sickens me. I’m worn out now, and I often sits and thinks of the life that I’ve led. I think of my kind, dear mother, and how good I would have been if my father had taught me better. Still, if I’d clothes I’d not give up my present life. I’d be down in the country now. I do love roving about, and I’m wretched when I’m not at it. After my mother died I never liked to be at home. I’ve seen many an unhappy day since I’ve been away; still, I wouldn’t go back to my home, because it’s no home to me.”
London Vagrants’ Asylums for the Houseless.
To give the reader an idea of the motley assemblage to be found in these places, I subjoin the following table (taken from the Report), by which it will be seen that almost every quarter of the globe contributes its quota of wretchedness:—
PLACES TO WHICH THE INDIVIDUALS SHELTERED BY THE HOUSELESS POOR SOCIETY DURING THE WINTER 1848-49 APPEARED TO BELONG.
| Africa | 12 |
| America | 78 |
| Bedfordshire | 55 |
| Berkshire | 267 |
| Buckinghamshire | 88 |
| Cambridgeshire | 88 |
| Cheshire | 40 |
| Cornwall | 32 |
| Cumberland | 12 |
| Derbyshire | 48 |
| Denmark | 6 |
| Devonshire | 209 |
| Dorsetshire | 46 |
| Durham | 54 |
| East Indies | 19 |
| Essex | 392 |
| France | 14 |
| Germany | 53 |
| Gibraltar | 3 |
| Gloucestershire | 163 |
| Guernsey | 32 |
| Hampshire | 414 |
| Herefordshire | 45 |
| Hertfordshire | 181 |
| Huntingdonshire | 25 |
| Ireland | 8068 |
| Italy | 7 |
| Jersey | 15 |
| Kent | 523 |
| Lancashire | 811 |
| Leicestershire | 75 |
| Lincolnshire | 85 |
| London | 343 |
| Middlesex | 214 |
| Norfolk | 163 |
| Northamptonshire | 67 |
| Northumberland | 72 |
| Nottinghamshire | 68 |
| Oxfordshire | 100 |
| Poland | 4 |
| Portugal | 5 |
| Russia | 7 |
| Rutlandshire | 24 |
| Scotland | 230 |
| Shropshire | 42 |
| Somersetshire | 246 |
| Spain | 10 |
| St. Helena | 8 |
| Staffordshire | 129 |
| Suffolk | 133 |
| Surrey | 204 |
| Sussex | 147 |
| Wales | 122 |
| Warwickshire | 160 |
| West Indies | 25 |
| Westmoreland | 6 |
| Wiltshire | 87 |
| Worcestershire | 36 |
| Yorkshire | 126 |
| Unknown | 29 |
| Born at sea | 5 |
