But perhaps a sketch or so of those strange beings, with a little of their interesting slang, will be the better way to describe such a group. By the bye, this is the place for character—the cadging house is the very spot for the pourtrayer of life, who wishes to lay claim to any thing like originality;—here Nature has her full scope, and affectation rarely shows her face.
As we were sitting, noting the various particulars that were continually passing before our eyes, and as the Poet says, catching “the manners living as they rise,” a thumping step was heard coming along the passage. The door opened, and a wooden-legged weather-beaten seaman, past the meridian, with a pot of beer in one hand and a bag in the other, showed his phiz. He was dressed in the usual sailor’s garb, jacket and trousers, with a black handkerchief slung round his neck, and a low-crowned glazed hat on his head. The immense breadth of his shoulders, solidity of chest, with a neck like the “lord of the pasture,” gave him the weighty bearing and bold front of an eighty-four, while his open, bluff, and manly countenance at once proclaimed him to be the true man-of-war’s man, and tar of old England. Jack’s story is soon told:—besides being a King George’s man, he had been a bold smuggler, and had his starboard leg carried away in an affray with the Custom sharks.
We were struck with something like admiration at beholding such a model of the favourite class of this country, and very naturally followed his motions, taking an interest in every little peculiarity, they being exactly what have been represented by Smollett, and other naval sketchers, as the characteristics of a tar of the old school.
Jack thumped away to a seat, clapped his pot of beer upon the table, and threw down his hat alongside. He then very gravely took out of his mouth a tolerable sized quid of tobacco, and, having safely deposited that treasure in his jacket pocket, sent, the next moment, a torrent of Virginian juice below the bars. These preliminaries being over, he proceeded to rummage forth the contents of his bag; and among the odds and ends, hauled out a substantial piece of the wing of an ox, and showed that his cruise had not been a bad one. With this goodly blunter of the keen edge of hungry appetite securely clutched in his fist, it may be supposed that the jack-knife did not lag behind; indeed, he had evidently enjoyed many a north-easter, for his appetite appeared to be of that sort which brooks no delay; never once allowing him to answer the many questions that were addressed to him, as “What cheer to-day, Jack?” &c., or so much as to give his grinders one moment’s rest, save, and only then when he took a hearty pull at Messrs. Perkins and Co.
This highly-refreshing task being over, he handed a portion of his grub, and a draught of porter, to a decently-dressed young man, who had apparently nothing to chew, save his own thoughts. Then drawing from his pocket his old crony—the pipe, and stretching forth his timber toe, to feel as it were at home, commenced addressing the young fellow as follows. And here let us remind the reader, that it will be impossible for us to describe a dialogue among this class, which is of the lowest of the low, in the language of polished society; we will therefore, in lieu of the emphatic words with which they generally garnish their conversation, use the delicate but meaning dashes —— ——.
“Harry,” says the tar, “have you not been at work to-day, that you look so devilish blue?” (working, by the bye, is the honest word used by those honest people for begging, they having as correct an idea of what is meant by respectable terms as their more respectable fellow men).
“Work! Aye,” replied Harry, “I went out this morning with Williams. We worked all the way to Piccadilly, then down the Haymarket, along Pall Mall, and were, just beginning with some ladies in the Park, when we were stopped by a policeman, and very nigh got tapped, and —— —— if I could raise heart to cadge any more.”
“Aye,” cried Jack, “you were always a hen-hearted dog; but, howsomever, I had a brush to-day, myself with one of those land sharks. As I was crossing St. Martin’s-lane, I saw a carriage full of ladies standing at a shop door. Up I stumped, and was just about to doff my castor (hat), when a slap on the shoulder, with ‘what do you want there?’ made me turn round; and there I met the ugly mug of a devil in blue. ‘What’s that to you?’ says I. ‘Oh, I thought you were going to beg.’ ‘Did you,’ says I, ‘if I had, I would have taken care not to have been such a —— fool, as to let you see me.’ ‘Well, well, go on, go on,’ says he. I stepped on one side, and watched till my master had steered off, and then I about again, and, blow me, if one of the young ladies—and a prime un she was!—did not tip me a tanner (sixpence).”
A remarkably fine-looking man, with nicely trimmed whiskers and a long white apron, who was regaling himself with a plate of sausages to his evening souchong, here observed that there were yet some good fellows among the police. “For instance,” he said, “it was only the other day, as I was working at the Middle Row, Holborn, which is my regular beat, I cadged a couple of swells. They bid me begone, or else they would call for the police. I laughed at them, and still tried it on, when one of them called to a blue devil, ‘Take this fellow into custody,’ says he, ‘and I will appear against him to-morrow morning.’ ‘What’s he been doing?’ demanded the policeman. ‘Begging,’ answered the other. ‘Oh, is that all?—well, if you will go on, sir, he will not trouble you.’ ‘Take him up directly, you scoundrel,’ shouted the gentleman, ‘or else, by —— I’ll report you.’ The policeman laughed, and walked away, leaving the swells swearing like good-uns.”
The youth, whom we have before noticed as being partial to a drowsy life, now put in his word, and gave his affirmation as to the lenity of the police. His beat as he called it, was between the foot of Ludgate Hill and Blackfriars Bridge, “and neither the man who formerly looked about for the people there, nor his predecessor, ever once interrupted him in his laudable endeavours to collect pence, although he daily cadged in the very face of the guardian of the public.”