I gave a little girl a penny, and the man, still fixing me with his eye, continued—
“You will ask me, my dear friends, praps, how it is that I do not apply to the parish? why not to get relief for myself, my de—ar wife, and little family? My kind friends, you do not know the state in which things is with the poor weavers of Bethnal Green, and, at the present moment, Spitalfields likewise. It comes of the want of knowledge of the real state of this rich and ’appy country, its material prosperity and resources, which you, at this end of the town, can form no idea of. There is now sixteen or seventeen thousand people out of work. Yes, my dear friends, in about two parishes, there is sixteen or seventeen thousand individuals—I mean, of course, counting their poo—oor families and all, which at the present moment, cannot obtain bread. Oh, my dear friends, how grateful ought you be to God that you and your dear families, are not out of work, and can obtain a meal’s victuals, and are not like the sufferin’ weavers of Bethnal Green—and Spitalfields, and Coventry likewise, through the loss of trade; for, my dear friends, if you were like me, forced to what I am doing now at the present moment, &c., &c., &c.”
NAVAL AND MILITARY BEGGARS
are most frequently met with in towns situated at some distance from a seaport or a garrison. As they are distinct specimens of the same tribe, they must be separately classified. The more familiar nuisance is the
Turnpike Sailor.
This sort of vagabond has two lays, the “merchant” lay, and the “R’yal Navy” lay. He adopts either one or the other according to the exigencies of his wardrobe, his locality, or the person he is addressing. He is generally the offspring of some inhabitant of the most notorious haunts of a seaport town, and has seldom been at sea, or when he has, has run away after the first voyage. His slang of seamanship has been picked up at the lowest public-houses in the filthiest slums that offer diversion to the genuine sailor.
When on the “merchant lay” his attire consists of a pair of tattered trousers, an old guernsey-shirt, and a torn straw-hat. One of his principal points of “costume” is his bare feet. His black silk handkerchief is knotted jauntily round his throat after the most approved models at the heads of penny ballads, and the outsides of songs. He wears small gold earrings, and has short curly hair in the highest and most offensive state of glossy greasiness. His hands and arms are carefully tattooed—a foul anchor, or a long-haired mermaid sitting on her tail and making her toilette, being the favourite cartoons. In his gait he endeavours to counterfeit the roll of a true seaman, but his hard feet, knock-knees, and imperceptibly acquired turnpike-trot betray him. His face bears the stamp of diabolically low cunning, and it is impossible to look at him without an association with a police-court. His complexion is coarse and tallowy, and has none of the manly bronze that exposure to the weather, and watching the horizon give to the real tar.
I was once walking with a gentleman who had spent the earlier portion of his life at sea, when a turnpike sailor shuffled on before us. We had just been conversing on nautical affairs, and I said to him—
“Now, there is a brother sailor in distress; of course you will give him something?”
“He a sailor!” said my friend, with great disgust. “Did you see him spit?”