“As my father, when intoxicated, could not stand on his feet, nor move from the place in which he chanced to be, my mother would take advantage of his helplessness; and used to teach him manners, in a way that always kept his countenance covered with scratches, cuts, and bruises. I may add, that she served myself in a very similar manner. If ever either my father, or I, were seen in the streets without a fresh wound on our faces, the neighbours knew that there was no money in the house, or anything that would be received at a pawn shop for so much as sixpence. The soundness of our skins would prove the scarcity of cash in my father’s establishment; or as they say here in Californy, that we were ‘hard up.’
“About the time I was thirteen years of age, my parents discovered that they could no longer maintain themselves, much less me; and they sought, and found, a home in the work-house—whither I was taken along with them.
“Both died in the work-house the year after entering it; and I was apprenticed, or I might say hired out, to a baker.
“In this situation, I had a world of work to do. I had to sit up all night, helping the journeymen to make the bread; and then I had to go out for two or three hours every morning—with a heavy basket of loaves on my head, to be delivered to the customers living here and there. In addition to this hard work, I was nearly starved. The only time I could get enough to eat, was when I was out on my rounds with the bread, when I could steal a little scrap from each loaf—in such a way that the morsel wouldn’t be missed.
“I’ve not yet told you, that my native place is London; and if you know anything of that city, you may have some idea of the life I lived when a child, with two miserable, poor, and drunken parents.
“Well, I staid with the baker above two years; and though I was nearly killed with hard work and want of food—as well as sleep—that, perhaps, wasn’t the most unhappy part of my life. There was a worse time in store for me.
“The baker and his wife, who owned and ill-treated me, had a little girl in the house—a slavey they had taken from the same work-house from which they had fetched me. This girl wasn’t treated any better than I was; and the only happy moments either of us ever had, were when we could be together, and freely express our opinions of our master and mistress—both of whom behaved equally bad to us—if anything, the woman the worst. The girl and I used to encourage each other with hopes of better times.
“I had seen many little girls in the streets, dressed very fine, and looking clean, well-fed, and happy; and some of them I thought very beautiful. But none of them appeared so beautiful, as the one who was being worked and starved to death in the same house with myself—though her dress was nothing but a lot of dirty rags.
“By the time I had got to be sixteen years of age, I was too much of a man to stand the ill-usage of the baker and his wife any longer; and I determined to run away.
“I did not like to leave behind me my companion in misery; but as I thought, that, in a few weeks I should make a little fortune, and be able to find her a better home, we became reconciled to the idea of parting with one another.