We visited another lodging-house in the same neighbourhood. The kitchen was large, with spacious windows in front. There was a large fireplace, with boiler and oven with a large hot plate. The lodgers had a respectable appearance—some in blue guernseys, and others in respectable dark dresses. There was also a reading-room here, with a dial over the mantelpiece. Some of the men were reading, and others engaged in writing. There was accommodation for washing, water-closets, and excellent beds. This house belongs to the same proprietor as the one already described. It is closed at 12 o’clock, while the others are kept open all night, and is generally frequented by respectable lodgers.
We also inspected another lodging-house in Thrall Street of a superior kind, where beds are to be had at 3½d. a night. There are two superior lodging-houses of the same character, kept by Mr. Wilmot and Mr. Argent, in Thrall Street and Osborne Place, at 3½d. and 4d. a night.
We thus find that alongside those low lodging-houses and brothels, in the very bosom of that low neighbourhood, there are respectable lodging-houses of different gradations in price and position, where working-people and strangers can be accommodated at 3d., 3½d., and 4d. a night, in which decency, cleanliness, and morality prevail.
In the course of our visits to Spitalfields we found two institutions of high value and special interest—a ragged school and a reformatory for young women. The ragged school was instituted by the Rev. Hugh Allen, the incumbent of St. Jude’s, in 1853. There are at present 350 ragged children of both sexes attending it, averaging from four to fifteen years of age. They are taught by Mr. Holland, a most intelligent and devoted teacher, who is exercising a powerful influence for good in that dark and criminal locality.
A female reformatory was lately instituted by the Rev. Mr. Thornton, the present incumbent of St. Jude’s, who labours with unwearied energy in this district. This asylum is in Wentworth Street, and is fitted to accommodate eighteen persons.
Narrative of a Pickpocket.
The following recital was given us by a young man who had till lately been an adroit pickpocket in various districts of London, but has now become a patterer for his livelihood. He is about the middle height, of sallow complexion, with a rich dark, penetrating eye, a moustache and beard. He is a man of tolerably good education, and has a most intelligent mind, well furnished with reading and general information. At the time we met him, he was rather melancholy and crushed in spirit, which he stated was the result of repeated imprisonments, and the anxiety and suspense connected with his wild criminal life, and the heavy trials he has undergone. The woman who cohabits with him was then in one of the London prisons, and he was residing in a low lodging-house in the west end of the metropolis. While giving us several exciting passages in his narrative, his countenance lightened up with intense interest and adventurous expression, though his general mien was calm and collected. As we endeavoured to inspire him with hope in an honest career, he mournfully shook his head as he looked forward to the difficulties in his path. He was then shabbily dressed in a dark frock-coat, dark trousers, and cap. We give his narrative almost verbatim:—
“I was born in a little hamlet, five miles from Shrewsbury, in the county of Shropshire, in October 1830, and am now thirty-one years of age. My father was a Wesleyan minister, and died in 1854, after being subject to the yellow jaundice for five or six years, during which time he was not able to officiate. My mother was a Yorkshire woman, and her father kept a shoemaker’s shop in the town of Full Sutton. I had two brothers, one of them older and the other younger than I, and a sister two years younger.
“I went to school to learn to write and cipher, and had before this learned to read at home with my father and mother. We had a very happy home, and very strict in the way of religion. I believe that my father would on no account tolerate such a thing as stopping out after nine o’clock at night, and have heard my mother often say that all the time she was wedded to him, she never had known him the worse of liquor. My father had family worship every night between 8 and 9 o’clock, when the curtains were drawn over the windows, the candle was lighted, and each of the children was taught to kneel separately at prayer. After reading the Bible and half an hour’s conversation, each one retired to their bed. In the morning my father would get up and attend to a small pony he had, and when I was very young we had a stout girl who milked the cow and did the dairy and household work. The house we lived in was my grandfather’s property, but being a man very fond of money, my father paid him the rent as if he had been a stranger.
“There were two acres of land attached to the house, as nearly as I can recollect; about half an acre was kept in cultivation as a garden, and the other was tilled and set apart for the pony and cow.