The little half-witted Italian man who used to go about grinding an organ that “had no inside to it,” as the boys said, was a beggar of this class, and I really think he traded on his constant persecution by the gamins. Music, of course, he made none, for there was only one string left in his battered organ; but he always acted so as to convey the idea that the boys had destroyed his instrument. He would turn away at the handle in a desperate way, as if he were determined to spare no effort to please his patrons; but nothing ever came of it but a feeble tink-a-tink at long intervals. If his organ could at any time have been spoiled, certainly the boys might have done it; for their great delight was to put stones in it, and batter in its deal back with sticks. I am informed that this man had a good deal more of the rogue than of the fool in his composition. A gentleman offered to have his organ repaired for him; but he declined; and at length when the one remaining string gave way he would only have that one mended. It was his “dodge” to grind the air, and appear to be unconscious that he was not discoursing most eloquent music.
Tract-selling in the streets is a line peculiar to the Hindoos. I find that the tracts are given to them by religious people, and that they are bought by religious people, who are not unfrequently the very same persons who provided the tracts. Very few petty trading beggars take to tract-selling from their own inspiration; for in good sooth it does not pay, except when conducted on the principle I have just indicated. Some find it convenient to exhibit tracts simply to evade the law applying to beggars and vagrants; but they do not use them if they can procure a more popular article. In these remarks it is very far from my intention to speak of “religious people” with any disrespect. I merely use the expression “religious people” to denote those who employ themselves actively and constantly in disseminating religious publications among the people. Their motives and their efforts are most praiseworthy, and my only regret is that their labours are not rewarded by a larger measure of success.
An Author’s Wife.
In the course of my inquiry into the habits, condition, and mode of life of the petty trading beggars of London, I met with a young woman who alleged that the publications she sold were the production of her husband. I encountered her at the bar of a tavern, where I was occupied in looking out for “specimens” of the class of beggars, which I am now describing. She entered the bar modestly and with seeming diffidence. She had some printed sheets in her hand. I asked her what they were. She handed me a sheet. It was entitled the Pretty Girls of London. It was only a portion of the work, and on the last page was printed “to be continued.” “Do you bring this out in numbers?” I asked. “Yes, sir,” she replied, “it is written by my husband, and he is continuing it from time to time.” “Are you then his publisher?” I inquired. “Yes, sir, my husband is ill a-bed, and I am obliged to go out and sell his work for him?” I looked through the sheet, and I saw that it was not a very decent work. “Have you ever read this?” I enquired. “Oh yes, sir, and I think it’s very clever; don’t you think so, sir?” It certainly was written with some little ability, and I said so; but I objected to its morality. Upon which she replied, “But it’s what takes, sir.” She sold several copies while I was present, at twopence each; but one or two gave her fourpence and sixpence. As she was leaving I made further inquiries about her husband. She said he was an author by profession, and had seen better days. He was very ill, and unable to work. I asked her, to give me his address as I might be of some assistance to him. This request seemed to perplex her; and at length she said, she was afraid her husband would not like to see me; he was very proud. I have since ascertained that this author’s pretty little wife is a dangerous impostor. She lives, or did live at the time I met her, at the back of Clare Market, with a man (not her husband) who was well known to the police as a notorious begging-letter writer. He was not the author of anything but those artful appeals, with forged signatures, of which I have given specimens under the heading of “Screevers.” I was also assured by an officer that the pretended author’s wife had on one occasion been concerned in decoying a young man to a low lodging near Lincoln’s Inn Fields, where the unsuspecting youth was robbed and maltreated.
DEPENDANTS OF BEGGARS.
The dependants of beggars may be divided into screevers proper; i.e., writers of “slums and fakements” for those who live by “screeving,” and referees, or those who give characters to professional beggars when references are required. Beggars are generally born and bred to the business. Their fathers and mothers were beggars before them, and they have an hereditary right to the calling. The exceptions to this rule are those who have fallen into mendicancy, and follow it from necessity, and those who have flown to it in a moment of distress, and finding it more lucrative than they supposed, adopted it from choice. Hence it follows that the majority are entirely destitute of education; and by education I mean the primary arts of reading and writing. Where there is demand there is supply, and the wants of mendicants who found their account in “pads,” and “slums,” and “fakements,” created “screevers.”
The antecedents of the screever are always more or less—and generally more—disreputable. He has been a fraudulent clerk imprisoned for embezzlement; or a highly-respected treasurer to a philanthropic society, who has made off with the funds entrusted to him; or a petty forger, whose family have purchased silence, and “hushed up” a scandal; or, more frequently, that most dangerous of convicts, the half-educated convict—who has served his time or escaped his bonds.
Too proud to beg himself, or, more probably, too well known to the police to dare face daylight; ignorant of any honest calling, or too idle to practise it; without courage to turn thief or informer; lazy, dissolute, and self-indulgent, the screever turns his little education to the worst of purposes, and prepares the forgery he leaves the more fearless cadger to utter.
The following are specimens of the screever’s work, copied from the original documents in the possession of Mr. Horsford, of the Mendicity Society:—