Leaving Market Street and the alleys and slums of that locality behind us, we went along Newington Causeway, a far brighter and more salubrious scene. This is a wide business street, and one of the main streets on the Surrey side of the river, where, especially in the evenings, a good deal of shopping is carried on.
The south side of Newington Causeway, from Horsemonger Lane gaol to the Elephant and Castle, is crowded with shops, the street being lit up nearly as clear as day. There are several splendid gin-palaces in this locality, generally crowded with motley groups of people of various ranks and pursuits; and milliners’ shops, with their windows gaily furnished with ladies’ bonnets of every hue and style, and ribbons of every tint; and drapers’ shops with cotton gown pieces, muslins, collars, and gloves of every form and colour. There are many boot- and shoe-shops, with assortments of fancy shoes as well as plain. Upholsterers’ shops, with carpets and rugs of every pattern, and chemists, with their gay-coloured jars, flaming like globes of red, blue, green, and yellow fire. The street is filled with incessant tides of mechanics, tradesmen’s wives, milliners, dressmakers, and others, going shopping or returning from their daily toil; and many respectable people take their evening’s walk along this cheerful and bustling thoroughfare, which is a favourite place for promenading.
In walking along we noticed many young men and women in respectable attire. Here we saw some young, genteel milliners and dressmakers, and girls from other places of business, returning to their homes or lodgings, at the close of the day, and taking an occasional glance at the shop windows, as they passed along. By their side we saw apparently some married women, out shopping with a new bonnet, or other article of dress, carefully wrapt up. In another part of the street we saw a shopman making love to a pretty girl, with clustering ringlets, who looked serenely upon him as he stood bareheaded outside the door of a drapery establishment.
Among the busy throng of people passing to and fro we observed two young women, pickpockets, dressed in brown cloaks, like milliners, and in fancy bonnets, passing quietly along. A person who did not know them personally, could not have detected their criminal character. On following them a short way, they passed over to the other side of the street. From their features and from the similarity of their dress we could have guessed them to be sisters. They were apparently about twenty-five years of age.
As is generally the case with such persons, on being noticed they separated on the other side of the street to prevent our following their movements. One went off in one direction, and the other in another; but meantime they had probably arranged to meet each other when out of the officer’s sight.
The Borough is chiefly the locality of labouring people and small shopkeepers—the masses of the people—and has low neighbourhoods in many of the by-streets, infested by the dangerous classes. It contains specimens of almost all kinds of thieves, from the lowest to the most expert, though for the most part few of the swells reside here. Many of them prefer to live about the Kingsland Road.
They occasionally leave their own dwellings in other parts of the city, and come here, and live retired to be away from the surveillance of the police of their own district.
There are some expert “cracksmen” (burglars) here, dressed in fashionable style, who indulge in potations of brandy and champagne, and the best of liquors. In their appearance there is little or no trace of their criminal character. They have the look of sharp business men. They commit burglaries at country mansions, and sometimes at shops and warehouses, often extensive, and generally contrive to get safely away with their booty.
These crack burglars generally live in streets adjoining the New Kent Road and Newington Causeway, and groups of them are to be seen occasionally at the taverns beside the Elephant and Castle, where they regale themselves luxuriously on the choicest wines, and are lavish of their gold. From their superior manner and dress few could detect their real character. One might pass them daily in the street, and not be able to recognize them.