London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. 4

by Henry Mayhew

The eldest son married a girl whose father died during his transportation. He and his wife gained their living by thieving, and were frequently in custody. At last he connected himself with burglars, was tried, convicted, and sentenced to six years’ penal servitude. He is now at Gibraltar, ten months of his sentence being unexpired. His wife has been left with three young children; since his transportation she has been frequently in custody for robbing drunken men, and has had an illegitimate child since her husband left. Her eldest daughter was taken from her about twelve months ago by Mr. Ashcroft, secretary of the Refuge Aid Society, and placed in a refuge in Albert Street, Mile End New Town, where the Society maintains her. The girl is eleven years of age, and appeared pleased that she was taken away from her filthy abode and bad companions in George Street. The second son has been repeatedly in custody for uttering base coin, and was at last convicted and transported for four years. The eldest daughter married a man, who also was transported, and is now a returned convict. She was apprehended, convicted, and sentenced to four years’ penal servitude. While in Newgate jail, she was delivered of twins, and received a reprieve, and has since been in custody for shoplifting.

We went with the inspector to Lower Keat Street, and entered a lodging-house there. Most of the inmates were male thieves, from twelve to nineteen years of age and upwards. The husband of the woman who keeps the house is a returned convict, and has been in custody for receiving stolen property from her lodgers.

We entered another lodging-house in this street, haunted by thieves of a lower class. An old woman was here employed as a deputy or servant, who formerly lived in Kent-street in the Borough, and kept a public-house there, a resort of thieves. She lived with a man there for twenty years and upwards, keeping a brothel, and was then and is now an old fence. We found a number of low thieves in the house at the time of our visit. The landlord has been in custody for having stolen handkerchiefs in his possession, with the marks taken out.

Opposite to this house is a public-house resorted to by thieves.

We then went to Lower George Street, where we entered a registered lodging-house. In three rooms we saw about ninety persons of both sexes and of various ages, many of them thieves and vagrants. This house is not used as a brothel, but some of the lodgers cohabit together as man and wife, which is common in these low neighbourhoods.

We went to a lodging-house in Flower-and-Dean Street, the keeper of which has been recently in prison for receiving from his lodgers. We saw a number of wretched mendicants here. One man had his leg bound up with rags. Many of the inmates gain their livelihood by begging, and others by thieving. Few honest persons reside here.

We next went to a brothel in Wentworth Street, kept by a woman, a notorious character. She has been repeatedly in custody for robbing drunken men, and her husband is now in prison for felony. She is a strong coarse-looking woman, with her countenance bearing marked traces of unbridled passion,—the type of person we would expect as the keeper of a low brothel. She had been stabbed on the cheek a few days previously by another woman, and bore the scar of the fresh wound at the time of our visit. The rooms of her house were wretchedly furnished, suitable to the low orgies transacted in this foul abode. One or two withered prostitutes were lounging about the kitchen.

We passed on to a lodging-house of a very different description, occupied by industrious honest working people, which we shall describe afterwards when we treat of an after-visit.

In this locality we visited the elderly woman living in this neighbourhood whom we have referred to as having blessed the young thieves. She had a very plausible condoling manner, as she sat with her two daughters by her side—one a young auburn-haired girl of about fourteen, with engaging countenance and handsome form, plainly but neatly dressed; the other, an ordinary-looking young woman, with a child in her arms.