Few have any conception of the extent or nature of Italian immigration. Signor Righetti, the Secretary of the Italian Benevolent Society, estimates the number of Italians in London alone at upwards of 9000. In this estimate his opinion is corroborated by Signor Roncoroni, Secretary of the Societá dei Cuochi e Camerieri, who states that out of this 9000, 2000 are employed as Italian cooks and waiters in London. These of course can in no sense be objected to, because they are skilled labourers. Of the remaining 7000, the vast majority are either organ-grinders or ice-cream vendors. The head-quarters of the organ-grinders is—or was—at Eyre Street Hill, a steep and narrow thoroughfare forming a connecting link between Leather Lane and Coppice Row in Clerkenwell. There are a few minor settlements in Kensington, another in Notting Hill, a third in Somers Town; but the principal foreign colony is situated at Eyre Street Hill. Eyre Street Hill has tortuous ins and outs, and numerous blind alleys, in each and all of which Italians swarm.
The Italian ice-cream barrow has become as familiar a picture in London street-trading as the apple-stall, baked chestnuts, or baked potato stove. The profits derived from the sale of this unwholesome compound are said to be very satisfactory; and certainly the quantity manufactured must be enormous. There is a depôt for ice on Eyre Street Hill. All day long, during the summer months, may be seen there waggon-loads of ice-cubes, which are afterwards broken up for the purpose required. Also the vendor of lemons does a brisk business in the same locality, and likewise the milkman—or rather, I should say, the man who sells what passes for milk. The ingredients of the ice-cream may possibly be found harmless enough; but the way in which the compound is prepared is in the last degree objectionable. The manufacture is often carried on in the living-room of the family, the condition of which is filthy and disgusting in the extreme. Near Leather Lane there is one short street of high black houses, the windows of which are patched and plugged with paper and rags. The passages and stairs are dilapidated and filthy, and the sanitary conditions simply abominable. In almost every room of each of these houses, resides at least one ice-cream maker, and vendor. Such a room will serve as a living and sleeping room for a whole family—the man, his wife, and a numerous progeny.
The inhabitants of this foreign colony work all the week with their ice-barrows or their barrel-organs, but Saturday evening is, with them, a time of relaxation and pastime. With the natives of the sunny South, not to enjoy is not to live; and though I do not include in the numbers of those who amuse themselves, the miserable little victims of the padroni, the comparatively well-to-do Italians always go in for amusing themselves as soon as they can afford it. Dancing is the chief pastime of these people. On Saturday nights they regularly assemble together for this purpose, the women arrayed in the picturesque attire of their native country, and the men in their holiday garments likewise. As I have never been to one, I cannot say how these gatherings are conducted. They are not carried on in licensed premises, but in the cellars and kitchens of private houses, where admission to strangers is denied. Probably they are harmless enough. One thing is tolerably certain, refreshments are not supplied on the premises. There are plenty of public-houses hard by; and an observant person standing in the bar of one of them while the dancing is going on in an adjoining house, will note from time to time a sudden inrush of several couples still flushed and panting from the Terpsichorean exercise in which they have been indulging; who after a hearty draught of something in a pewter pot will rush off, and dance away again. On Saturday night the tap-rooms of the taverns in the vicinity of Saffron Hill are well filled; and brisk business is done in drinkables. The company, however, is not exclusively Italian; there being a goodly number of Irish besides.
The Italians are credited as a race with having a sensitive ear for music. One can only say that those of their countrymen who come over here and inflict upon us the ear-torturing melodies of their barrel-organs and accordions sadly belie the reputation of their country. When once asked in the House of Commons if he could do anything to put down this nuisance, Mr. Goschen replied that it was a difficult matter, inasmuch as many derived great pleasure from the music of the barrel-organ. Such an answer leads one to suppose that Mr. Goschen has not such a keen ear for music as he has an eye to finance, and also that he is ignorant of the true facts.
Even on a superficial aspect the nuisance is intolerable; but that is the least part of the evil. When we come to look beneath the surface of the seemingly careless existence of these Italian street musicians, and see the cruelty, hardships, and injustice which is undoubtedly bound up with the system, we shall recognize that it is high time that something was done to put down what is not only an intolerable nuisance, but also an evil trade.
For a nation which was foremost in abolishing the slave-trade, to tamely tolerate in its midst an inhuman traffic like this, is something worse than an anachronism—it is a disgrace, and a reproach upon our vaunted civilization.
[CHAPTER V.]
ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL CONSIDERATIONS.
The economic aspect of this many-sided question is undoubtedly one of the gravest and most worthy of consideration. The unlimited influx of cheap, destitute, foreign labour, cannot but exercise a prejudicial effect upon the wages of the native working-classes. It forces the decent British workman to compete on unequal terms with those who are willing to work for any wage—however meagre—for any number of hours, and amid surroundings filthy and disgusting in the extreme. I do not of course say that it has this effect upon wages in all industries, but only in those trades which the evil has yet reached. These are not great trades, perhaps, in the sense of the textile or metal industries, but they are considerable industries all the same, and they give employment to hundreds of thousands of men and women.