East London

by Walter Besant

The Barges that Lie Down the Thames.

From picking up trifles unguarded and unwatched on the shore to doing the same thing in the streets is but a step. There are plenty of these lads who learn quite early to prey upon the petty trader. I have been told by one of his victims how to watch for and to observe the youthful prowler. You place yourself in one of the busy streets lined with shops in some position, perhaps at a shop-door, where you may observe without being suspected; it is like Jefferies’ rule for observing the wild creatures; assume an attitude of immobility; the people pass up and down, all occupied with their own affairs, unobservant; presently comes along a boy, long-armed, long-legged; his step is silent and slouching, his eyes beneath the peak of his cap glance furtively round; the stall is unprotected; the goods exposed for sale are only guarded by a child, who is looking the other way; then, in a moment, the hand darts out, snatches something, and the lad with the long and slouching step goes on without the least change in his manner, unsuspected. He is ready to pick up anything—a loaf from the baker, an apple from the coster’s cart, an onion from the green-grocer; nothing comes amiss. And he does it for the honor and the glory of it and the joy in the danger. He is not going to become an habitual criminal, not at all; that career requires serious work; he is going to become a casual hand, and he will remember pleasantly in his manhood the cunning and the sleight-of-hand with which as a boy he knew how to lift things from shop and stall and barrow.

I have spoken of the unguarded things upon the foreshore at low tide. There are still lingering by the riverside survivals of the good old days when the whole people lived in luxury on the robberies they committed from the ships loading and unloading in the river. There are barges which go up and down with the tide. At ebb tide they lie in the mud; the men in charge go ashore to drink; the boys then climb on board in search of what they can get. If the barge is laden with sugar they cut holes in the bags and fill their pockets, their hats, their boots, their handkerchiefs with the stuff, which they carry ashore and sell. They get a halfpenny a pound for their plunder. If the barge is laden with coals they carry off all that their clothes will hold; one goes before to warn the rest of danger; plenty of houses on the way are open to them; it is a comparatively safe and certainly a pleasant way of earning a penny or two. It is also a way which brings with it its own punishment. For the great and ever present temptation with the riverside lad is to shirk work; a physical shrinking from hard work is his inheritance; every way by which he can be relieved from work strengthens this physical shrinking; not at one step, not suddenly, does a young man find work impossible for him; the casual hand grows slowly more casual; the waiter on fortune’s jobs grows steadily more inclined to wait; he finds himself tied to the lamp-post opposite the public house; chains bind him to the doors; within is his shrine, his temple, his praying place, his idol; he keeps his hands in his pockets while he keeps his eyes on the swinging door and suffers his mind to dwell all day long on the fragrance of the beery bar.

Every year there are thousands of boys who leave the London Board-schools, their “education” completed, with no chance of an apprenticeship to any trade, their hands absolutely untrained, just a hanging pair of hands, prehensile, like the monkey’s tail. It is indeed lucky that they are prehensile, otherwise what would be the lot of their owners?

They leave school; they have to face the necessity of making a livelihood for themselves, of earning their daily bread, perhaps for sixty long years to come, without knowing any single one of the many arts and crafts by which men live and provide for their families and themselves. At the outset it appears to be a hopeless task. Of course, it is the greatest possible misfortune for a lad to learn no trade. If we consider the waste of intellectual power alone, where there is no training to skilled labor, it must be acknowledged to be the greatest misfortune that can befall a boy at the outset. Still, all is not lost. For a steady lad, willing to work, this misfortune may be partly overcome. There are many openings for such a boy. Let us consider, for instance, what lines of work he may attempt, keeping only to those which require no previous training and no skill.

He hears of these openings from other boys; he has heard of such openings all his life. For instance, he would very much like to enter the service of the City of London, as one of the boys whose business it is to keep the streets clean. You may see these boys, in a red uniform, running about among the horses and omnibuses in Cheapside; they are always under the horses’ feet, but they never get run over; they are active and smart lads; they seem to take a pride in doing their humble work rapidly and thoroughly. They receive very good pay, which helps to keep up their spirits—6s. 6d. a week, rising to 9s. or 10s. Even better than this is the railway service, where a smart lad may very soon get 9s. a week. He may then rise to the position of a railway porter. Now, at the great London stations, in which the trains are coming in and going out all day long, and every passenger with luggage is good for a tip of threepence or sixpence, no one knows what the weekly earnings of a railway porter may be. Things are whispered; nothing is known for certain; the position, however, is recognized as one of the prizes in the profession of the unskilled hand.

Then there are the factories—matches, jam, all kinds of factories—into which, if a boy is fortunate enough to be taken, he may make at the outset 5s. or 6s. a week. It is, however, generally felt that there is a lack of interest about factory work. A much more enviable occupation is that of a van boy, whose very simple duty is to sit behind among the boxes and parcels, in order to take care that none of them are stolen and that none drop off into the street. One is expected to assist in loading and unloading, which means somewhat heavy work, but the greater part of the day is spent in being pleasantly carried up and down the streets of London and enjoying a moving panorama of the town in all its quarters. There are great possibilities for the van boy; if he is ambitious he may hope to become, in course of time, even driver of the van, a post of real distinction and responsibility, with “good money,” although the hours may be long.

Some boys, without taking thought for the future, jump at the post of beer boy to a barge. It is attractive, it is light work, it is well paid, but it leads to nothing. One would not recommend any young friend to accept this post. Generally a barge is loaded and unloaded by one or two gangs of men, seven in a gang. Each of these men pays the beer boy twopence a day, so that if there are two gangs to the barge he will make 2s. 4d. a day, or 14s. a week, his simple duty being to carry beer to the men at work from the nearest public house. The work seems easy, but it requires activity; the gangs are thirsty, tempers are quick, and cuffs are frequent.

This kind of errand situation is very easy to get; in every trade an errand boy is wanted. I am surprised that no one has magnified the post and preached upon the necessity, for the conduct of the internal trade of the country, of the errand boy. As yet he has not found his prophet. Thus a green-grocer is lost without his errand boys; a suburban green-grocer in a flourishing way of business will have twenty boys in his employ; every small draper, every shopkeeper, in fact, small or great, must have his errand boy—but this is a post reserved for older lads. Some one must carry round the things; it is the boy who has learned no trade; the carriage of the basket is the first use to which he puts his unskilled hands. I believe that five shillings a week is the recognized pay for the situation. In one way or another, however, the boy finds some kind of place and begins to earn a living.