London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. 3

by Henry Mayhew

MEETING OF TICKET-OF-LEAVE MEN.

[From a Sketch.]

[See page [430].

A meeting of ticket-of-leave men, convened by Mr. H. Mayhew, was held some time since at the National Hall, Holborn, with the view of affording to persons of this class, who are anxious to lead a reformed life, an opportunity of stating the difficulties they have to encounter in their endeavour to obtain a honest livelihood. About fifty members of the body responded to Mr. Mayhew’s invitation. The men were admitted on presenting their tickets-of-leave, and were required on entrance to fill up the columns of a register, setting forth their ages, their occupations, the offence for which they were last convicted, their sentences, and the amount of instruction they had severally received. From the information thus collected, it appears that only 3 out of the 50 present were above the age of 40, the large majority ranging between 18 and 35, the highest age of all being 68; that they consisted of labourers, hawkers, costermongers, blacksmiths, shoemakers, carpenters, and other handicraftsmen; that their previous punishments varied from 2 years to 14 years’ transportation; and that more than one-half of them had been educated either at day schools or Sunday schools. Suspecting that the men would be unwilling to attend if the police presented themselves, either in the hall or at its entrance, Mr. Mayhew took the precaution to apply beforehand to the Metropolitan Commissioners on the subject. The authorities at once acceded to the request thus made to them, and not a solitary constable was permitted to overawe the meeting.

TICKET-OF-LEAVE MEN.

[From a Photograph.]

Page [430].

Mr. Mayhew, in opening the proceedings, said:—“The object of this meeting is threefold. In the first place, I wish society to know more about you as a distinct class; secondly, I wish the world to understand the working of the ticket-of-leave system; and, thirdly, I want to induce society to exert itself to assist you, and extricate you from your difficulties. When I first went among you, it was not very easy for me to make you comprehend the purpose I had in view. You at first fancied that I was a Government spy, or a person in some way connected with the police. I am none of these, nor am I a clergyman wishing to convert you to his particular creed, nor a teetotaler anxious to prove the source of all evil to be over-indulgence in intoxicating drink; but I am simply a literary man, desirous of letting the rich know something more about the poor. (Applause.) Some persons study the stars, others study the animal kingdom, others again direct their researches into the properties of stones, devoting their whole lives to these particular vocations. I am the first who has endeavoured to study a class of my fellow-creatures whom Providence has not placed in so fortunate a position as myself, my desire being to bring the extremes of society together—the poor to the rich, and the rich to the poor. (Applause.) I wish to get bodies of men together in a mass, their influence by that means being more sensibly felt than if they remain isolated. I know you, perhaps, nearly as well as many of you know yourselves. I have had many of you in my house with my wife and children, and to your honour and credit be it said, you never wronged me of the smallest article, and, moreover, I never heard a coarse word escape your lips. I have trusted many of you who have been long tried by want of food. I have given you money to get change for me, and you never yet took advantage of me. This shows that there is still a spark of good in each of you. That spark I wish Society to develope, that you may be made what all must really desire to see you. Some two or three Sundays ago I was at Pentonville prison during Divine service. Society believes you to be hardened in heart and unimpressionable. Well, I saw some four hundred prisoners there weeping like children at the melting tale which the clergyman told. He spoke of the burial of a girl by torchlight, at which he officiated, explaining that the reason why the funeral took place so late was that the father of the deceased had to come about fifty miles to be present, and thence the delay. The old man’s tears, he said, fell like rain on the coffin-lid; and yet, in his anguish, the bereaved parent exclaimed that he preferred to see his daughter a corpse than for her to live a life of infamy in the streets. (Sensation.) This sad story could not fail to touch a chord in each of your breasts. But to come to the ticket-of-leave system. The public generally believe that it is a most dangerous thing to set you free under that system. I know this is one of the most important experiments in connexion with the reformation of offenders that has ever been tried, and it has worked better than any other of which I have had experience. In 1853, the old mode of transportation was changed, and an Act passed directing that no person should be sentenced to transportation except for fourteen years or upwards, and that thenceforward sentence of penal servitude should be substituted for transportation for less than fourteen years. At the same time, a discretionary power was given to commute sentences of transportation into terms of penal servitude. Then, for the first time, was it ordained that it should be lawful for her Majesty, under the seal of her secretary of state, to grant any convict, now or hereafter sentenced to transportation, or to the punishment substituted for it, a license to be at large in the United Kingdom, or such part thereof as is expressed in the license, during a portion of his term of imprisonment. The holder of this license is not to be imprisoned by reason of his previous sentence; but if his license is revoked, he is to be apprehended and re-committed. Since the passing of that Act, and between September 1853 and December 31, 1855—a period of about two years and a quarter—the number of convicts released from public works and prisons has been 3880. To this number have to be added juveniles from Parkhurst prison, 297; and convicts from Bermuda and Gibraltar, 435: making a total of 4612. Of this aggregate, 140 have had their licenses revoked, and 118 have been sentenced to penal servitude and imprisonment; making together 258 who have had their licenses cancelled out of the entire 4612. Out of this 258, 27 were committed for breach of the vagrancy law, 20 for ordinary assaults, 8 for assaults on the police, 6 for breach of the game-laws, 2 for desertion from the militia, and 20 for misdemeanour; making together 84, and leaving 174 as the exact number who have relapsed into their former course of life. Thus it appears that only five and a-half per cent of the whole number of tickets-of-leave granted have been revoked. Now, considering that the number of re-committals to prison for England and Wales averages thirty-three in every hundred prisoners; this, I think, is a very favourable result of the ticket-of-leave experiment. Looking at the extreme difficulty of a return to an honest life, it is almost astonishing that so low a per-centage as five and a half of the licenses in all England should have been revoked. You know that, during your imprisonment, there are four stages of probation. In certain prisons you have to do a prescribed amount of work, for which you receive a certain gratuity. The shoemakers, for instance, get 4d. every week if they make two and a-half pairs, 6d. for three pairs, and 8d. for four pairs. The tailors get 4d. if they make two suits of prison garments, 6d. for three suits, and 8d. for four. The matmakers get 4d. for thirty-six square feet of their work, 6d. for forty-five feet, and 8d. for fifty-four. The cotton-weavers get 4d. for twenty-four yards, 6d. for thirty, and 8d. for thirty-six. The cloth-weavers are paid in a similar manner. These sums are entered to your credit, and pass with you from prison to prison until they at last accumulate into an amount, which is handed over to you under certain restrictions on leaving. In the second stage of probation, you receive 6d. in addition to the ordinary weekly gratuity; in the third stage you receive an addition of 9d.; and in the fourth stage one of 1s. or 1s. 3d. This sum—large or small, according to the term of imprisonment—is placed to your credit on quitting the prison, and is thus distributed:—5l. to be paid immediately on discharge, or by post-office order on the convict’s arrival at his native place. If the sum is over 5l. and under 8l. he receives 4l. on his discharge, and the balance at the end of two months; if over 8l. and under 12l., half is paid on his discharge and the balance at the end of three months; if over 12l. and under 20l., 5l. is paid on his discharge, half the balance in two months, and the remainder in three months. In order, however, to obtain this balance, it is necessary for you to be provided with certificates as to character, either from a clergyman, a magistrate, or the employer with whom the holder of the license is then at work. The applicants for these balances have been 1242 in number up to the 31st December last. Of these, 1225 have sent in certificates of a satisfactory nature, only 17 having been sent in of a contrary character—851 certificates were furnished by clergymen, 214 by magistrates, and 177 by employers under whom the persons liberated were engaged. In the 1225 cases above-mentioned, after the expiration of the prescribed number of months, the money was paid to the applicants. Considering the difficulty these persons must experience in obtaining the certificates required of them, the figures I have stated are highly satisfactory as to the working of the system; and I cannot, therefore, understand how society should have gone so far astray on this point as it has done. The public, however, believe ticket-of-leave men to be very dangerous characters—it does not know the training they undergo while in prison. A high authority tells me, that it is impossible for a gentleman’s son to be trained with greater care at Eton or at any of the other public schools than each of you have been. When, however, Society sees two or three, or even some half-dozen of you relapse into your former practices, they jump to the conclusion that the same is the case with you all. They, in fact, think that relapses are the rule and amendment the exception, instead of the fact being quite the other way. This is like the self-delusion of the London apprentices, who fancy there are more wet Sundays in a year than rainy week-days, simply because they want to get out on Sundays, and are particularly vexed when the bad weather keeps them at home. (Laughter.) Now I have tried many experiments at the reformation of criminals, and one-half of them have failed. Yet I am not discouraged; for I know how difficult it is for men to lay aside their past habits. Every allowance ought, therefore, to be made, because they cannot be expected to become angels in a moment. The vice of the present system, in fact, is, that unless a criminal suddenly becomes a pattern man, and at once forgets all his old associates, Society will have none of you, and, as a certain gentleman has expressed it, ‘you must all be shot down, and thrown into Society’s dust-bin.’ (Applause.) A well-known literary gentleman, who had moved in good society, had a daughter, with whom he lived at the east end of London. He was rather lax, perhaps, in the rearing of his child, allowing her to do pretty much as she liked. She once went to a concert, and got acquainted with a ‘mobsman,’ who accompanied her home, and at last introduced himself to her father as his daughter’s suitor. Being a well-dressed, respectable-looking person, the father—good, easy man!—took a liking for him, and not being particular in his inquiries as to the lover’s course of life, allowed them to marry. After their marriage, however, the daughter discovered what her husband’s pursuits really were. She, of course, acquainted her father with the fact, who, in great distress of mind, called his son-in-law to him, and telling him that he had never had a stain upon his name or character, implored him by every argument he could urge to lead an honest life. The mobsman promised to comply. His father-in-law removed him from the neighbourhood in which he was staying, and placed him in the service of a large railway carrier. In this employ, having one day to take a parcel to a gentleman’s house, up-stairs on the mantelpiece he saw a gold watch. This temptation was too much for him, and he seized the article and put it into his pocket. The theft was discovered before the offender had gone any distance; the man was soon arrested, but the father, by dint of great exertion, got him off, on returning the watch and communicating with its owner before the complaint was made at the police-office. The father again entreated his son-in-law to abandon his evil courses, but the latter said his old associations were too strong for him, and that he saw no other resource open for him than to leave London altogether. The old man accordingly took him with him to a residence on the banks of the Thames, where, at length, some of his old companions unfortunately met him, and told him of a ‘crib’ they were going to ‘crack,’ and of the heavy ‘swag’ they were likely to get. The prodigal’s old habits were again too much for him. He accompanied his former associates in their criminal enterprise, was captured, and thrown again into prison—his father-in-law died in a mad-house, and his wife committed suicide. Thus fearful, then, are the effects of criminal associations, and therefore I am only surprised that so small a per-centage of the ticket-of-leave men have yielded to a relapse. Successful, however, as the system has thus far proved, I yet see a considerable amount of evil in connexion with it; and this is the reason why I have called you together, hoping that some of the tales you have to relate will serve to rouse the public to a sense of your real position, and induce them to stretch forth a hand to save you from the ruin that on every hand threatens you. When you come out of prison, destitute as you are of character, there are only two or three kinds of employment open to you, and I therefore wish Society to institute some association to watch over you, to give you every possible advice, to lead you to good courses, and, moreover, to provide you with the means of getting some honest livelihood. (Applause.) I know that as a class you are distinguished mainly by your love of a roving life, and that at the bottom of all your criminal practices lies your indisposition to follow any settled occupation. Continuous employment of a monotonous nature is so irksome to you, that immediately you engage in it you long to break away from it. This, I believe, after long observation of your character, to be true of the majority of you; and you are able to judge if I am right in this conclusion. Society, however, expects, that if you wish to better yourselves, you will at once settle down as steadily as it does, and immediately conform to all its notions; but I am satisfied that if anything effectual is to be done in the way of reforming you, Society must work in consonance and not in antagonism with your nature. In this connexion it appears to me that the great outlet for you is street-trading, where you are allowed to roam at will unchafed by restraints not congenial to your habits and feelings. In such pursuits a small fund for stock-money suffices, and besides, no character is required for those who engage in them. From the inquiries made by a gentleman who lately visited the places in which most of you live, I find that the great majority of you follow some form or other of street occupation. Still there is this difficulty in your way. The public requires its thoroughfares to be kept clear of obstruction, and I know that the police have been ordered to drive you away—to make you, as the phrase is, ‘move on.’ You may fancy that the police act thus of their own accord; but I learn from communication with the Commissioners, that the police have to receive requisitions from the shopkeepers and other inhabitants to enforce the Street Act, and are compelled to comply with them. In one instance a tradesman living in a street-market, where about five hundred poor persons were obtaining a livelihood, complained to the police of the obstruction thus occasioned to his business, which was of a ‘fashionable’ nature. The consequence was that the thoroughfare had to be cleared, and these five hundred persons were reduced almost to a state of starvation, and many of them were forced into the workhouse. Now I don’t believe that this is right; and I am prepared to say to Society, that no one man in the kingdom should have the power to deprive so large a body of poor persons of all means of gaining an honest subsistence. (Loud applause.) At the same time, certain regulations must be respected; the streets even, you will allow, must not be blocked—(hear, hear)—there must be a free passage, and it is necessary to consider whether a plan may not be devised which will answer both ends. It strikes me that a certain number of poor men’s markets might be established very advantageously; for the poor are so linked together that they would rather buy of the poor than the rich; and it is much to their credit that it is so. If spots of ground for markets of this kind were bought by benevolent individuals, and a small toll levied on admission to them, I am sure the speculation would be profitable to those who embarked in it, as well as beneficial to the interests—moral as well as pecuniary—of the street traders. Connected with these establishments there ought to be a school for the children of the traders, a bank for preserving your money, a cook-shop to prevent you from being obliged to take your meals at the public-house, together with many other useful adjuncts which might be grouped round the market. Such experiments have been tried before now. There is the old Rag-fair at Houndsditch, where formerly old clothes were sold in the streets. In that case a Jew bought a piece of land, to which poor traders were admitted on payment of a halfpenny per head, and the project succeeded so admirably that the owner of the ground soon became a rich man. At Paris similar markets have been instituted, and with success, by M. Delamarre; and in the same city there are also public kitchens, where cooked meat can be had at a cheap rate, so as to keep the poor people out of the public-houses. Lodging-houses for such of the men as choose to come to them would likewise be a valuable appendage to the suggested street-markets, but they must be free from the almost tyrannical supervision which prevails in the existing model lodging-houses in London. Whilst so much vexatious restriction is put upon men’s liberties, they cannot be expected to frequent these places in the numbers they otherwise would. Lodging-houses for the reception of ticket-of-leave men on leaving prison might prevent them from being thrown loose upon the world until they have some prospect of a livelihood before them. I wish Society to take these men by the hand—to be lenient and considerate towards them, and not to be annoyed if one or two should recede from their good resolutions; for the experience of the reformatory institutions of London shows that there are often twenty-five per cent of relapses among their inmates. Therefore, if only five and a-half per cent of you fail in your laudable endeavours, as the returns I have quoted show, to be the whole proportion, then I say that you are a class who ought to be encouraged. By this means we shall be able to grapple effectually with this great trouble—viz. how to reform the great bulk of our criminals. Under these circumstances I have invited you here to-night, to give you an opportunity of telling Society what are your difficulties. There is a gentleman present who will publish your grievances all over the kingdom, and I charge you all to speak only the truth. You cannot benefit by any other course, and therefore be you a check the one upon the other; and if any one departs from the strict fact, do you pull him up. Thus you will show the world that you have met here with an earnest desire to better yourselves—thus you will present a spectacle that will go far to convince Society that it runs no risk in giving you your liberty—and prevail upon it to regard not wholly without compassion the few members of your class who, yielding in an evil hour to the trying temptations which beset them, sink unhappily into their former delinquencies.” (Loud and prolonged applause.)