London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. 4

by Henry Mayhew

These are simply a variety of the large class of beggars who get their living in the streets, chiefly by frequenting public-houses and whining a tale of distress. The impostors among them—and they are by far the greater number—do not keep up the character of blown-up miners all the year round, but time the assumption to suit some disaster which may give colour to their tale. After a serious coal-mine accident “blown-up miners” swarm in such numbers all over the town that one might suppose the whole of the coal-hands of the north had been blown south by one explosion. The blown-up miner has the general appearance of a navvy; he wears moleskin trousers turned up nearly to the knees, a pair of heavy-laced boots, a sleeved waistcoat, and commonly a shapeless felt hat of the wide-awake fashion. He wears his striped shirt open at the neck, showing a weather-browned and brawny chest. The state of his hands and the colour of his skin show that he has been accustomed to hard work, but his healthy look and fresh colour give the lie direct to his statement that he has spent nearly the whole of his life in working in the dark many hundred feet beneath the surface of the earth. Many of them do not pretend that they have been injured by the explosion of the mine, but only that they have been thrown out of work. These are mostly excavators and bricklayers’ labourers, who are out of employ in consequence of a stoppage of the works on which they have been engaged, or more often, as I have proved by inquiry, in consequence of their own misconduct in getting drunk and absenting themselves from their labour. These impostors are easily detected. If you cross-question them as to the truth of their stories, and refer to names and places which they ought to be acquainted with if their representations were genuine, they become insolent and move away from you. There are others, however, who are more artful, and whose tales are borne out by every external appearance, and also by a complete knowledge of the places whence they pretend to have come. These men, though sturdy and horny-fisted, have a haggard, pallid look, which seems to accord well with the occupation of the miner. They can converse about mining operations, they describe minutely the incidents of the accident by which they suffered, and they have the names of coal-owners and gangsmen ever ready on their tongues. In addition to this they bare some part of their bodies—the leg or the arm—and show you what looks like a huge scald or burn. These are rank impostors, denizens of Wentworth-street and Brick-lane, and who were never nearer to Yorkshire than Mile-end gate in their lives. Having met with one or two specimens of “real” distressed miners, I can speak with great certainty of the characteristics which mark out the impostor. For many years past there has always been an abundance of work for miners and navigators; indeed the labour of the latter has often been at a premium; cases of distress arise among them only from two causes—ill-health and bodily disaster. If they are in health and found begging it is invariably during a long journey from one part of the country to another. The look and manner of these miners forbids the idea of their being systematic mendicants or impostors. They want something to help them on the road, and they will be as grateful for a hunck of bread and cheese as for money. If you cross-question these men they never show an uncomfortable sense of being under examination, but answer you frankly as if you were merely holding a friendly conversation with them. Miners are very charitable to each other, and they think it no shame to seek aid of their betters when they really need it. Of the device called the “scaldrum dodge,” by which beggars of this class produce artificial sores, I shall have to treat by-and-bye.

Burnt-out Tradesmen.

With many begging impostors the assumption of the “burnt-out tradesman” is simply a change of character to suit circumstances; with others it is a fixed and settled rôle. The burnt-out tradesman does not beg in the streets by day; he comes out at night, and his favourite haunts are the private bars of public-houses frequented by good company. In the day-time he begs by a petition, which he leaves at the houses of charitable persons with an intimation that he will call again in an hour. In the evening he is made up for his part. He lurks about a public-house until he sees a goodly company assembled in the private bar, and then, when the “gents,” as he calls them, appear to be getting happy and comfortable, he suddenly appears among them, and moves them by the striking contrast which his personal appearance and condition offers to theirs. Like many others of his class he has studied human nature to some purpose, and he knows at a glance the natures with which he has to deal. Noisy and thoughtless young men, like clerks and shopmen, he avoids. They are generally too much occupied with themselves to think of him or his misfortunes; and having had no experience of a responsible position, the case of a reduced tradesman does not come home to them. A quiet and sedate company of middle-aged tradesmen best suits his purpose. They know the difficulties and dangers of trade, and maybe there are some of them who are conscious that ruin is impending over themselves. To feeling men of this class it is a terrible shock to see a man, who has once been well-to-do like themselves, reduced to get a living by begging. The burnt-out tradesman’s appearance gives peculiar force to his appeal. He is dressed in a suit of black, greasy and threadbare, which looks like the last shreds of the dress suit which he wore on high days and holidays, when he was thriving and prosperous. His black satin stock, too, is evidently a relict of better days. His hat is almost napless; but it is well brushed—indicating care and neatness on the part of its owner. His shoes are mere shapeless envelopes of leather, but the uppers are carefully polished, and the strings neatly tied. When the burnt-out tradesman enters a bar he allows his appearance to have its due effect before he opens his mouth, or makes any other demonstration whatever. In this he seems to imitate the practice of the favourite comedian, who calculates upon being able to bespeak the favour of his audience by merely showing his face. The beggar, after remaining motionless for a moment, to allow the company fully to contemplate his miserable appearance, suddenly and unexpectedly advances one of his hands, which until now has been concealed behind his coat, and exposes to view a box of matches. Nothing can surpass the artistic skill of this mute appeal. The respectable look, and the poor, worn clothes, first of all—the patient, broken-hearted glance accompanied by a gentle sigh—and then the box of matches! What need of a word spoken. Can you not read the whole history? Once a prosperous tradesman, the head of a family, surrounded by many friends. Now, through misfortune, cast out of house and home, deserted by his friends, and reduced to wander the streets and sell matches to get his children bread. Reduced to sell paltry matches! he who was in a large way once, and kept clerks to register his wholesale transactions! It is seldom that this artist requires to speak. No words will move men who can resist so powerful an appeal. When he does speak he does not require to say more than—“I am an unfortunate tradesman, who lost everything I possessed in the world by a disastrous fire—” Here the halfpence interrupt his story, and he has no need to utter another word, except to mutter his humble thanks.

There are a great many beggars of this class, and they nearly all pursue the same method. They are most successful among tradesmen of the middle class, and among the poor working people. One of them told me that the wives of working men were, according to his experience, the most tender-hearted in London. “The upper classes, the swells, aint no good,” he said; “they subscribe to the Mendicity Society, and they thinks every beggar an imposture. The half-and-half swells, shopmen and the likes, aint got no hearts, and they aint got no money, and what’s the good. Tradesmen that aint over well off have a fellow feeling; but the workmen’s wives out a-marketing of a Saturday night are no trouble. They always carries coppers—change out of sixpence or a something—in their hands, and when I goes in where they are a havin’ their daffies—that’s drops o’ gin, sir—they looks at me, and says, ‘Poor man!’ and drops the coppers, whatever it is, into my hand, and p’raps asks me to have a half-pint o’ beer besides. They’re good souls, the workmen’s wives.”

There is a well-known beggar of this class who dresses in a most unexceptionable manner. His black clothes are new and glossy, his hat and boots are good, and to heighten the effect he wears a spotless white choker. He is known at the west end by the name of the “Bishop of London.” His aspect is decidedly clerical. He has a fat face, a double chin, his hat turns up extensively at the brim, and, as I have said, he wears a white neck-cloth. When he enters a bar the company imagine that he is about to order a bottle of champagne at least; but when he looks round and produces the inevitable box of matches, the first impression gives way either to compassion or extreme wonder. So far as my experience serves me, this dodge is not so successful as the one I have just described. A person with the most ordinary reasoning powers must know that a man who possesses clothes like those need not be in want of bread; but if the power of reasoning were universally allotted to mankind, there would be a poor chance for the professional beggar. There never was a time or place in which there were not to be found men anxious to avoid labour, and yet to live in ease and enjoyment, and there never was a time in which other men were not, from their sympathy, their fears, or their superstition, ready to assist the necessitous, or those who appeared to be so, and liable to be imposed upon or intimidated, according as the beggar is crafty or bold.

As a rule the burnt-out tradesmen whom I have described are impostors, who make more by begging than many of those who relieve them earn by hard and honest labour. The petitions which they leave at houses are very cleverly drawn out. They are generally the composition of the professional screevers, whose practices I shall have to describe by-and-by. They have a circumstantial account of the fire by which the applicant “lost his all,” and sometimes furnish an inventory of the goods that were destroyed. They are attested by the names of clergymen, churchwardens, and other responsible persons, whose signatures are imitated with consummate art in every variety of ink. Some specimens of these petitions and begging letters will be found under the head of “Dependants of Beggars.”

Lucifer Droppers.

The lucifer droppers are impostors to a man—to a boy—to a girl. Men seldom, if ever, practise this “dodge.” It is children’s work; and the artful way in which boys and girls of tender years pursue it, shows how systematically the seeds of mendicancy and crime are implanted in the hearts of the young Arab tribes of London. The artfulness of this device is of the most diabolical kind; for it trades not alone upon deception, but upon exciting sympathy with the guilty at the expense of the innocent. A boy or a girl takes up a position on the pavement of a busy street, such as Cheapside or the Strand. He, or she—it is generally a girl—carries a box or two of lucifer matches, which she offers for sale. In passing to and fro she artfully contrives to get in the way of some gentleman who is hurrying along. He knocks against her and upsets the matches which fall in the mud. The girl immediately begins to cry and howl. The bystanders, who are ignorant of the trick, exclaim in indignation against the gentleman who has caused a poor girl such serious loss, and the result is that either the gentleman, to escape being hooted, or the ignorant passers by, in false compassion, give the girl money. White peppermint lozenges are more often used than lucifers. It looks a hopeless case, indeed, when a trayful of white lozenges fall in the mud.

Bodily Afflicted Beggars.

Beggars who excite charity by exhibiting sores and bodily deformities are not so commonly to be met with in London as they were some years ago. The officers of the Mendicity Society have cleared the streets of nearly all the impostors, and the few who remain are blind men and cripples. Many of the blind men are under the protection of a Society, which furnishes them with books printed in raised type which they decipher by the touch. Others provide their own books, and are allowed to sit on door steps or in the recesses of the bridges without molestation from the police. It has been found on inquiry that these afflicted persons are really what they appear to be—poor, helpless, blind creatures, who are totally incapacitated from earning a living, and whom it would be heartless cruelty to drive into the workhouse, where no provision is made for their peculiar wants.