London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. 4

by Henry Mayhew

The voluntary non-workers are a distinct body of people. In the introductory chapter to the first volume of the “Street-folk,” they have been shown to appertain to even the rudest nations, being as it were the human parasites of every civilized and barbarous community. The Hottentots have their “Sonquas,” and the Kafirs their “Fingoes,” as we have our “Prigs” and “Cadgers.” Those who will not work for the food they consume, appear to be part and parcel of a State—an essential element of the social fabric as much as those who cannot, or need not work for their living. Go where you will, to what corner of the earth you please, search out or propound what new-fangled or obsolete form of society you may, there will be some members of it more apathetic than the rest, who object to work—some more infirm than the rest, who are denied the power to work—and some more thrifty than the rest, who from their past savings have no necessity to work for the future. These several forms are but the necessary consequences of specific differences in the constitution of different beings. Circumstances may tend to give an unnatural development to either one or other of the classes; the criminal class, the pauper class, or the wealthy class, may be in excess in one form of society, as compared with another, or they may be repressed by certain social arrangements; nevertheless, to a greater or less degree, there they will and must ever be.

Since, then, there is an essentially distinct class of people who will not work for their living, and since work is a necessary condition of the human organism, the question becomes, How do such people live? There is but one answer:—If they do not labour to procure their own food, of course they must live on the food procured by the labour of others. But how do they obtain possession of the food belonging to others? There are but two means: it must either be given to them by, or be taken from, the industrious portion of the community. Consequently, the next point to be settled is, what are the means by which those who object to work get their food given to them, and what the means by which they are enabled to take it from others. Let us begin with the last mentioned.

The means by which the criminal classes obtain their living constitute the essential points of difference among them, and form indeed the methods of distinction among themselves. The “Rampsmen,” the “Drummers,” the “Mobsmen,” the “Sneaksmen,” and the “Shofulmen,”[12] which are the terms by which they themselves designate the several branches of the “profession,” are but so many expressions indicating the several modes of obtaining the property of which they become possessed.

The “Rampsman” or “Cracksman” plunders by force; as the burglar, footpad, &c.

The “Drummer” plunders by stupefaction; as the “hocusser.”

The “Mobsman” plunders by manual dexterity; as the pickpocket.

The “Sneaksman” plunders by stealth; as the petty-larceny men and boys.

The “Shofulman” plunders by counterfeits; as the coiner.

Now each and all of these are distinct species of the genus, having often little or no connection with the others. The “Cracksman,” or housebreaker, would no more think of associating with the “Sneaksman” than a barrister would dream of sitting down to dinner with an attorney; the perils braved by the housebreaker or the footpad make the cowardice of the sneaksman contemptible to him; and the one is distinguished by a kind of bulldog insensibility to danger, while the other is marked by a low cat-like cunning. The “Mobsman,” on the other hand, is more of a handicraftsman than either, and is comparatively refined by the society he is obliged to keep. He usually dresses in the same elaborate style of fashion as a Jew on a Saturday (in which case he is more particularly described by the prefix “swell”), and “mixes” generally in the “best of company,” frequenting—for the purposes of his business—all the places of public entertainment, and often being a regular attendant at church and the more elegant chapels, especially during charity sermons. The Mobsman takes his name from the gregarious habits of the class to which he belongs, it being necessary, for the successful picking of pockets, that the work be done in small gangs or mobs, so as to “cover” the operator. Among the Sneaksmen, again, the purloiners of animals, such as the horse stealers, the sheep stealers, the deer stealers, and the poachers, all belong to a particular tribe (with the exception of the dog stealers)—they are agricultural thieves; whereas the others are generally of a more civic character. The Shofulmen, or coiners, moreover constitute a distinct species, and upon them, like the others, is impressed the stamp of the peculiar line of roguery they may chance to follow as a means of subsistence.

Such are the more salient features of that portion of the voluntary non-workers who live by taking what they want from others. The other moiety of the same class who live by getting what they want given to them, is equally peculiar. These consist of the “Flatcatchers,” the “Hunter” and “Charley[13] Pitchers,” the “Bouncers” and “Besters,” the “Cadgers,” the Vagrants, and the Prostitutes.