Pictures and Problems from London Police Courts

by Thomas Holmes

That primitive life and manners simple, if not innocent, continue even now amongst us was brought startlingly to light in North London. A man, presumably young, stood in the dock, charged with stealing nine shillings and sixpence. A strange-looking fellow he was, with his upright hair uncut and uncombed for many a day. Unwashed in body, and tattered in clothing, he looked the image of fantastic fear. The prosecutor, not quite so fearsome-looking, was also a strange specimen of humanity, for he was a midget; his head was scarcely higher than the desk of the witness-box, and had it not been for his face and clothing, he might have passed for a child. His evidence did not amount to much. He knew that he lay down in his tent at twelve o’clock on Saturday night, with the money in his pocket, and when his sister woke him up at four, his money was gone. Following him came the sister, still less in stature, and still more strange in appearance. In her arms she held something wrapped in an old shawl. No sound proceeded from this shawl, but from the way in which she held it and the maternal manner in which she swayed herself as she gave evidence, it was plain there was something in it alive.

She might have been nine years of age; she said she was nineteen. She saw the prisoner at two o’clock on Sunday morning crawl into her brother’s tent, feel in his pockets, take the money and go away. ‘Where were you?’ asked the magistrate. ‘Sitting outside, sir.’ ‘What were you doing?’ ‘Keeping company with my young man, sir.’ ‘Why did you not stop him?’ ‘Please, sir, my young man had gone to sleep, and I did not want to disturb him.’ This being all the evidence, and no money being found on the prisoner, he was discharged. Outside the court I found the little people crying bitterly, for every penny they possessed had gone. They were wood-choppers: buying old boards, splitting them up, and hawking the firewood at a penny a basket, for which purpose they hired a hand-barrow at a shilling per week. A financial catastrophe had overtaken them; they had no money for stock, food, or barrow, so they were in despair.

‘Let me see what you have got in that shawl,’ I said, and opened it. A shock followed, for the tiniest bit of mortality I ever saw was revealed—not only small, but so strange in colour and appearance, that had I been told it was a little monkey I could not have disputed it. I gave them a few shillings for food, etc., and, asking where their tent was, told them to be ‘at home’ in the afternoon, for I was coming to see them. I went, and stumbled into Arcadia.

Imagine, if you please, about three-quarters of an acre of waste land, bounded on one side by an unsavoury canal, on another by chemical works, which were closed in by a high wooden fence, at the back by the streets of Hackney Wick, whilst on another side a huge workhouse frowned. Here and there upon the ground were heaps of ashes and general rubbish. Decaying vegetable matter, a dead dog far gone in decomposition, and two cats in a similar condition, all contributed their sweetness to the desert air. A couple of melancholy-looking horses of extreme age were trying to eat a handful of hay, which the condition of their poor old teeth prevented. Here was salubrious Arcadia and its inhabitants, of whom I counted eighty-seven.

There were twelve tents and six caravans to house the Arcadians. The caravans need no description, for they were of the ordinary gipsy kind, but the nature of the tents needs some explanation. Four of these were of the usual kind, made out of old sheeting, shaped like half an orange, and standing about four feet in height. The other tents were ranged along by the wooden fence. A description of one will stand for them all: Four feet from the fence a low wall three feet high had been built of stones, bricks, or clods loosely piled together; some old boards had been placed on the little wall, and allowed to fall against the fence, to which they were secured by nails. One end of the tent was made of old sacks, etc., which were secured at the top and loose at the bottom, allowing for ingress and egress. The other end was formed of pieces of wood, scraps of rusty sheet-iron, etc.; there was no attempt, so far as I could see, to make any of them impervious to wind or wet. It was April when I visited them, but all these people had lived under these conditions since the beginning of the previous November. It was dinner-time, for I saw family parties, and there was a strong scent of fried bacon in the air.

I was just about to inquire which was Brown’s tent, when I saw coming towards me a little woman very like the one I had seen at the court, but a trifle bigger. She carried a babe in each arm, and I saw at a glance that one of them was the little thing I had seen at the court, minus the shawl. ‘Are you the gentleman that spoke to my sister this morning?’ ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I was just looking for your tent. Which is it?’ She pointed it out, the one I have described. ‘Good gracious! you don’t mean to say that you live there! How many are there of you?’ ‘Three of us and the children.’ ‘Have you a husband?’ ‘No, sir.’ ‘Has your sister?’ ‘No.’ ‘How many children have you?’ ‘Two, and my sister one.’ ‘Any of them born here in this tent?’ ‘No, sir; we go into the “house” to have them.’ ‘Where do you come from?’ ‘Red Lion Street, Holborn.’ ‘Are your parents alive?’ ‘No, sir; both dead.’ ‘What was your father?’ ‘A colour-grinder. We lived in a house when he was alive.’ ‘How old are you?’ ‘Twenty-five; my brother is twenty-two and my sister nineteen.’ ‘How do you all manage to sleep in there?’ ‘We have to take it in turns, sir.’ Here we were joined by the younger sister, who took charge of her own babe. ‘What are you going to do with it?’ I asked. ‘I don’t know, sir.’ ‘I will tell you, then: carry it about till it dies; then there will be an inquest, and you will be in trouble. What are you going to do with your two?’ I asked the elder. She had not the slightest idea. I tried hard to persuade them both to go into the workhouse. The younger ultimately consented, but the elder would have none of it, and went rather sulkily to her tent, as I declined to give them any further assistance. I asked the younger for the tent of the fellow who had robbed her brother, and she said: ‘He has not got a tent; he lives in the dust-shoot over there.’ I promised myself a visit to the dust-shoot.

After telling her that if she would go into the ‘house,’ and let her little one die decently, I would help her to a better life, I went to explore the other ‘tents.’ Three young women were at the door of one, and they were not disposed to be communicative, for they wanted to know who I was, what I was inquiring about, and what business it was of mine; so I tried my luck at another. Husband and wife here—at least, so they told me; but they had no children. They came from Holloway, had been here three months, and meant to stop till the Vestry moved them, which they thought would not be long first. They lived by making letter-racks and flower-pots of scallop-shells, and then hawking them. This was the first time they had lived in this manner, but what were they to do when their home had gone? No, they would not go into the workhouse for me or anyone else; and when they got moved off they supposed they would have to find another place.

I espied a dinner-party; father, mother, and seven children were seated on the ground busy with their mid-day meal of bacon and potatoes. An old bucket, with some holes knocked in the sides and the bottom well perforated, was their cooking-stove; an iron pot and a rusty frying-pan their only utensils. A piece of bacon in one hand and a potato in the other, they all seemed to be enjoying themselves. The man I found to be an old acquaintance, for he had been charged with cruelty to a donkey. The donkey, I believe, died, though I did not see it; but I have the word of the police and that of a respected veterinary for the fact that the donkey did die.

‘Hello, Gamble!’ I said. ‘You seem to be having a good time of it. All these children yours?’ ‘Yes, all born in that caravan.’ ‘But you don’t all sleep in it?’ ‘Oh no; only missus and myself and one or two of ’em.’ ‘Where do the others sleep?’ ‘Oh, we take the shafts off the van, and put these sheets all round, and they sleep under it; it is better than a tent.’ ‘How do you get on for clean water?’ I asked, for I knew that the East London Water Company had served notices upon the people living in the neighbourhood against supplying the Arcadians with water. Gamble looked a bit shy, and said: ‘Oh, we manage it;’ but he was not disposed to tell me how.

At another caravan I found three generations—a very old couple, husband and wife evidently; a younger man, with his wife and four children; these children also slept under the van in which they were born. The old couple had a gipsy tent, and the younger couple the van, the outside of which was covered with their merchandise. Not a single child at either van could read or write; none of them had ever been to school. I went on to the gipsy tents.