London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. 4

by Henry Mayhew

The Offal-Eater.

The most notable instance of this variety of the famished beggars which has come under my notice is that of a little old man who frequents the neighbourhood of Russell-square. I have known him now for two years, and I have seen him repeat his performance at least a score of times. The man has the appearance of a cutler. He wears a very old and worn, but not ragged, velveteen coat with large side pockets, a pair of sailor’s blue trousers a good deal patched, a very, very bad pair of shoes, and a chimney-pot hat, which seems to have braved the wind and rain for many years, been consigned to a dust-bin, and then recovered for wear. He is below the average height, and appears to be about seventy years of age. This little old man makes his appearance in my street about eleven o’clock in the forenoon. He walks down the pavement listlessly, rubbing his hands and looking about him on every side in a vacant bewildered manner, as if all the world were strange to him, and he had no home, no friend, and no purpose on the face of the earth. Every now and then he stops and turns his face towards the street, moving himself uneasily in his clothes, as if he were troubled with vermin. All this time he is munching and mumbling some food in a manner suggestive of a total want of teeth. As he pauses he looks about as if in search of something. Presently you see him pick up a small piece of bread which has been thrown out to the sparrows. He wipes it upon his velveteen coat and begins to eat it. It is a long process. He will stand opposite your window for full ten minutes mumbling that small piece of bread, but he never looks up to inspire compassion or charity; he trusts to his pitiful mumblings to produce the desired effect, and he is not disappointed. Coppers are flung to him from every window, and he picks them up slowly and listlessly, as if he did not expect such aid, and scarcely knew how to apply it. I have given him money several times, but that does not prevent him from returning again and again to stand opposite my windows and mumble crusts picked out of the mud in the streets. One day I gave him a lump of good bread, but in an hour after I found him in an adjacent street exciting charity in the usual way. This convinced me that he was an artful systematic beggar, and this impression was fully confirmed on my following him into a low beer-shop in St. Giles’s and finding him comfortably seated with his feet up in a chair, smoking a long pipe, and discussing a pot of ale. He knew me in a moment, dropped his feet from the chair, and tried to hide his pipe. Since that occasion he has never come my way.

PETTY TRADING BEGGARS.

This is perhaps the most numerous class of beggars in London. Their trading in such articles as lucifers, boot-laces, cabbage-nets, tapes, cottons, shirt-buttons, and the like, is in most cases a mere “blind” to evade the law applying to mendicants and vagrants. There are very few of the street vendors of such petty articles as lucifers and shirt-buttons who can make a living from the profits of their trade. Indeed they do not calculate upon doing so. The box of matches, or the little deal box of cottons, is used simply as a passport to the resorts of the charitable. The police are obliged to respect the trader, though they know very well that under the disguise of the itinerant merchant there lurks a beggar.

Beggars of this class use their trade to excite compassion and obtain a gift rather than to effect a sale. A poor half-clad wretch stands by the kerb exposing for sale a single box of matches, the price being “only a halfpenny.” A charitable person passes by and drops a halfpenny or a penny into the poor man’s hand, and disdains to take the matches. In this way a single box will be sufficient for a whole evening’s trading, unless some person should insist upon an actual “transaction,” when the beggar is obliged to procure another box at the nearest oilman’s. There are very few articles upon which an actual profit is made by legitimate sale. Porcelain shirt-buttons, a favourite commodity of the petty trading beggars, would not yield the price of a single meal unless the seller could dispose of at least twenty dozen in a day. Cottons, stay-laces, and the like, can now be obtained so cheaply at the shops, that no one thinks of buying these articles in the streets unless it be in a charitable mood. Almost the only commodities in which a legitimate trade is carried on by the petty traders of the streets are flowers, songs, knives, combs, braces, purses, portmonnaies. The sellers of knives, combs, &c., are to a certain extent legitimate traders, and do not calculate upon charity. They are cheats, perhaps, but not beggars. The vendors of flowers and songs, though they really make an effort to sell their goods, and often realize a tolerable profit, are nevertheless beggars, and trust to increase their earnings by obtaining money without giving an equivalent. A great many children are sent out by their parents to sell flowers during the summer and autumn. They find their best market in the bars of public-houses, and especially those frequented by prostitutes. If none else give prostitutes a good character, the very poor do. “I don’t know what we should do but for them,” said an old beggar-woman to me one day. “They are good-hearted souls—always kind to the poor. I hope God will forgive them.” I have had many examples of this sympathy for misfortune and poverty on the part of the fallen women of the streets. A fellow feeling no doubt makes them wondrous kind. They know what it is to be cast off, and spurned, and despised; they know, too, what it is to starve, and, like the beggars, they are subject to the stern “move on” of the policeman.

The relations which subsist between the prostitutes and the beggars reveal some curious traits. Beggars will enter a public-house because they see some women at the bar who will assist their suit. They offer their little wares to some gentlemen at the bar, and the women will say, “Give the poor devil something,” or “buy bouquets for us,” or if the commodity should be laces or buttons, they say, “Don’t take the poor old woman’s things; give her the money.” And the gentlemen, just to show off, and appear liberal, do as they are told. Possibly, but for the pleading of their gay companions, they would have answered the appeal with a curse and gruff command to begone. I once saw an old woman kiss a bedizened prostitute’s hand, in real gratitude for a service of this kind. I don’t know that I ever witnessed anything more touching in my life. The woman, who a few minutes before had been flaunting about the bar in the reckless manner peculiar to her class, was quite moved by the old beggar’s act, and I saw a tear mount in her eye and slowly trickle down her painted cheek, making a white channel through the rouge as it fell. But in a moment she dashed it away, and the next was flaunting and singing as before. Prostitutes are afraid to remain long under the influence of good thoughts. They recal their days of innocence, and overpower them with an intolerable sadness—a sadness which springs of remorse. The gay women assume airs of patronage towards the beggars, and as such are looked up to; but a beggar-woman, however poor, and however miserable, if she is conscious of being virtuous, is always sensible of her superiority in that respect. She is thankful for the kindness of the “gay lady,” and extols her goodness of heart; but she pities while she admires, and mutters as a last word, “May God forgive her.” Thus does one touch of nature make all the world akin, and thus does virtue survive all the buffets of evil fortune to raise even a beggar to the level of the most worthy, and be a treasure dearer and brighter than all the pleasures of the world.

The sellers of flowers and songs are chiefly boys and young girls. They buy their flowers in Covent Garden, when the refuse of the market is cleared out, and make them up into small bouquets, which they sell for a penny. When the flower season is over they sell songs—those familiar productions of Ryle, Catnach and company, which, it is said, the great Lord Macaulay was wont to collect and treasure up as collateral evidences of history. Some of the boys who pursue this traffic are masters of all the trades that appertain to begging. I have traced one boy, by the identifying mark of a most villanous squint, through a career of ten years. When I first saw him he was a mere child of about four years of age. His mother sent him with a ragged little girl (his sister) into public-house bars to beg. Their diminutive size attracted attention and excited charity. By-and-by, possibly in consequence of the interference of the police, they carried pennyworths of flowers with them, at other times matches, and at others halfpenny sheets of songs. After this the boy and the girl appeared dressed in sailor’s costume, (both as boys,) and sung duets. I remember that one of the duets, which had a spoken part, was not very decent; the poor children evidently did not understand what they said; but the thoughtless people at the bar laughed and gave them money. By-and-by the boy became too big for this kind of work, and I next met him selling fuzees. After the lapse of about a year he started in the shoe-black line. His station was at the end of Endell Street, near the baths; but as he did not belong to one of the regularly organized brigades, he was hunted about by the police, and could not make a living. On the death of the crossing-sweeper at the corner he succeeded to that functionary’s broom, and in his new capacity was regarded by the police as a useful member of society. The last time I saw him he was in possession of a costermonger’s barrow selling mackerel. He had grown a big strong fellow, but I had no difficulty in identifying the little squinting child, who begged, and sold flowers and songs in public-house bars, with the strong loud-lunged vendor of mackerel. I suppose this young beggar may be said to have pursued an honourable career, and raised himself in the world. Many who have such an introduction to life finish their course in a penal settlement.

There are not a few who assume the appearance of petty traders for the purpose of committing thefts, such as picking a gentleman’s pocket when he is intoxicated, and slinking into parlours to steal bagatelle balls. Police spies occasionally disguise themselves as petty traders. There is a well-known man who goes about with a bag of nuts, betting that he will tell within two how many you take up in your hand. This man is said to be a police spy. I have not been able to ascertain whether this is true or not; but I am satisfied that the man does not get his living by his nut trick. In the day-time he appears without his nuts, dressed in a suit of black, and looking certainly not unlike a policeman in mufti.

Among the petty trading beggars there are a good many idiots and half-witted creatures, who obtain a living—and a very good one too—by dancing in a grotesque and idiotic manner on the pavement to amuse children. Some of them are not such idiots as they appear, but assume a half-witted appearance to give oddness to their performance, and excite compassion for their misfortune. The street boys are the avengers of this imposition upon society.

The idiot performer has a sad life of it when the boys gather about him. They pull his clothes, knock off his hat, and pelt him with lime and mud. But this persecution sometimes redounds to his advantage; for when the grown-up folks see him treated thus, they pity him the more. These beggars always take care to carry something to offer for sale. Halfpenny songs are most commonly the merchandise.