[81] An Officer of Police who was watching the house of a noted Receiver, in St. James's parish, being taken for a Thief by the watchmen, the latter entered into conversation with him, and naming the Receiver, he told the Officer that he being very liberal and kind to them, they did not disturb any person going to his house; and if he had any thing to carry there, he would step out of sight, so as to be able to say he had seen nothing.
[82] Vide Act 30 Geo. II. cap. 24.
[83] It is even a practice with not a few of the labouring families in the Eastern part of the Town, to take lodgings in Ale-houses.
[84] Such is the thoughtless improvidence of this class of the labouring people, that they are generally the first who indulge themselves by eating Oysters, Lobsters, and Pickled Salmon, &c. when first in Season, and long before these luxuries are considered as accessible to the middle ranks of the Community; whose manners are generally as virtuous as the others are depraved.
[85] It is not to be inferred from this statement, that there are not to be found even among the lower classes of the labouring People in the Metropolis, many instances of honest and virtuous Poor, whose distresses are to be attributed to the calamity of a failure of employment, bad health, death of Parents or Children, and other causes which human prudence cannot prevent; and particularly where the want of opulent Inhabitants in several of the Eastern Parishes, renders it necessary to assess Indigence for the support of Poverty.—To these Parishes and Hamlets the Poor resort, both from the nature of their employments, and the impossibility of finding habitations any where else.—They have perhaps no legal settlement where they reside, or the funds of the Parish can afford but a very scanty and inadequate relief. Depressed with sickness, and broke down and dispirited by extreme poverty, the little furniture and apparel of Man, Woman, and Child, is carried to the Pawn-broker's to obtain a scanty pittance for the immediate support of life, until at length there does not remain what is sufficient to cover nakedness.—In these miserable mansions the Author has himself frequently witnessed scenes of distress, which would rend the heart of the most unfeeling of the human species.—A temporary and partial expedient has through the benevolence of the Publick, been administered in the excellent institutions of Soup-houses: but until the funds of the different Parishes can be made one Common Purse, and an intelligent management substituted in the place of an ignorant and incompetent superintendance, the evil will not diminish.—To the opulent part of the Community the burden would never be felt.—At present, where the most indigent are assessed, the rates are double and treble those in the rich Parishes.—It is principally to this cause, that Poverty is no where to be found in so great a degree, cloathed in the garb of the extremest misery and wretchedness, as in the Metropolis.—And it is to this cause also, joined to various others explained in this Chapter, that above Twenty Thousand miserable Individuals of various classes, rise up every morning without knowing how, or by what means they are to be supported, during the passing day; or where, in many instances, they are to lodge on the succeeding night.
[86] The Author has often had occasion to witness the extreme ignorance of the younger part of this class, when called upon to give evidence in judicial proceedings.—Of the nature of an oath they had not the least conception,—nor even of the existence of a Supreme Being.
[87] In the course of the Author's investigations, in his official situation as a Magistrate, he actually discovered that clubs of apprentice-boys were harboured in Public-houses, for the purpose of supporting their fellow-apprentices who ran away from their masters. The means of thus indulging themselves in lewdness and debauchery was obtained by pilfering from their Masters, and disposing of the property at Old Iron Shops.
[88] It is to be feared that much evil arises from the want of attention on the part of Masters among the superior classes of Tradesmen with respect to their apprentices, who too seldom consider the morals of their apprentices as a matter in which they have any concern.—It is even the practice to allow apprentices a certain sum of money weekly, for the purpose of enabling them to provide themselves out of doors, and to prevent the trouble of boarding them in the house. If it were possible for a Master, after exerting all his ingenuity, to invent one mode more likely than another to ruin his apprentices, it is by adopting this plan. If he means to subject himself to great risques with respect to the security of his property, he will permit his apprentice, at the age of puberty when open to seduction, to be at large in this great Town, where he is liable to be assailed by swindlers, cheats, and sharpers, who, availing themselves of the inexperience of youth, may corrupt the mind, and give it a wrong bias. The dangers arising from allowing apprentices to victual out of doors, extend much farther than masters are generally aware of: and they who suffer it do great injury to themselves, and even great injustice to their apprentices, whose morals they are virtually, at least, bound to preserve pure. This is not to be expected where apprentices are not under the eye of the master at Meal-times. Their Sundays, in such cases, are their own, which they waste in idleness, not seldom in water-parties on the River, where they are introduced into low and bad company, which gives frequently a taint to their manners of the most injurious nature. The result is, that their master, without reflecting that he himself was the cause of their idleness, withdraws his confidence, and turns them adrift after their time expires, if not before; and in the end ruin, as might well be expected, inevitably ensues.
[89] Another class of Jews which belong to the Portuguese Synagogue are generally opulent and respectable, and hold no community with the others; they use a different Liturgy and their language is even different; their number does not exceed three thousand; they never intermarry with the Jews of the Dutch Synagogue.—They generally pride themselves on their Ancestry, and give their Children the best education which can be obtained in the countries where they reside.—While the Dutch Jews (or rather the German Dutch Jews) get no education at all. Even the most affluent of them are said to be generally unable either to read or write the language of the country which gave them birth.—They confine themselves to a Bastard or vulgar Hebrew which has little analogy to the original. The Portuguese Synagogue has been established in England ever since the Usurpation.—Their place of worship is in Bevis Marks.—The Members of it being mostly wealthy are extremely attentive to their poor, among whom there is said not to be a single beggar or itinerant.—The Brokers upon the Exchange of the Jewish Persuasion, are all or chiefly of the Portuguese Synagogue. Their number is limited to Twelve by a particular Act of Parliament.—Originally this privilege was given gratis by the Lord Mayor, but afterwards 100l. was required, which has gradually increased to One Thousand Guineas for each Broker.
The schism between the two classes of Jews prevail all over the world, though the rational Jews treat the distinction as absurd.