The London Underworld in the Victorian Period: Authentic First-Person Accounts by Beggars, Thieves and Prostitutes: v. 1

by Mayhew, Henry

  Should the person struggle and resist he is pressed so severely by the neck that he may be driven insensible. When the robbery is effected they run off. In general they seize a man when off his guard, and it may be some time before he recovers his presence of mind. These are generally a different class of men from the persons who snatch the watch-chain. They have more of the bull-dog about them, and are generally strong men, and brutal in disposition. Many of them are inveterate thieves, returned convicts, ruffians hardened in crime. Their average age is from twenty-five and upwards, and they reside in low infamous neighbourhoods. Most of these depredations are committed in the East-end of the metropolis, such as Whitechapel and its neighbourhood, or the dark slums in the Borough.

  A remarkable case of garotting occurred in the metropolis in July, 1856. Two men went to a jeweller’s shop in Mark Lane during the day, when the street was thronged with people. One of them was stout-made, about five feet six inches high, of dark complexion, and about forty-five years of age. The other, named James Hunter, alias Connell, was about five feet ten inches high, of robust frame, with dark whiskers, dressed in the first of fashion. One of the thieves kept watch outside while the other slipped in and laid hold, in the absence of the jeweller, of a lot of valuable jewellery. The shopman, who happened to be in the back parlour, ran into the shop and seized him. On seeing this his companion came in from the street to assist him, knocked the shopman down and gave him a severe wound on the head, when both hastily made their escape. One of them was taken when he had got a small distance off with some of the jewellery on his person, such as watches, rings, brooches, &c., but the other got away. This robbery was daringly done in the very middle of the day, near to the Corn Exchange, while in the heat of business. One of the robbers was taken and tried at the Central Criminal Court in July, 1856, and sentenced to ten years’ transportation, having been previously convicted for felony.

  From information received by the police, James Hunter alias Clifford alias Connell, the other person concerned in this robbery, was taken afterwards. A good-looking young applewoman swore distinctly he was one of those parties. In running away he had thrown down her stand of apples, and also threw her down when she for a short time had seized hold of him.

  He was tried at the Central Criminal Court in August 1856, the following sessions, when the prisoner’s counsel proved an alibi by calling his convicted confederate as a witness. His two sisters also swore he was in their house at Lambeth Walk on the day the robbery occurred, and had dinner and tea with his mother, who was an honest and respectable woman.

  Other robberies are perpetrated by brutal violence with a life-preserver or bludgeon. It is usually done by one or more brutal men following a woman. The men are generally from thirty to forty years of age—some older—carrying a life-preserver or bludgeon. This is termed “swinging the stick,” or the “bludgeon business.” The woman walks forward, or loiters about, followed by the men, who are hanging in the rear. She walks as if she was a common prostitute, and is often about twenty-six or thirty years of age. She picks up a man in the street, possibly the worse of liquor; she enters into conversation, and decoys him to some quiet, secluded place, and may there allow him to take liberties with her person, but not to have carnal connection. Meantime she robs him of his watch, money, or other property, and at once makes off.

  In some instances she is pursued by the person, who may have discovered his loss; when he is met by one of the men, who runs up, stops him, and inquires the direction to some part of London, or to some street, or will ask what he has been doing with his wife, and threaten to punish him for indecent conduct to her. During this delay the woman may get clear away. In somes cases a quarrel arises, and the victim is not only plundered of his money, but severely injured by a life-preserver or bludgeon.

  Cases of this kind occasionally occur in the East-end and the suburbs of London. These women and men are generally old thieves, and, when convicted, are often sentenced to transportation, being in most cases well known to the police.

  Sometimes these robberies are committed by men without the connivance of women, as in a case which occurred in Drury Lane in August last, when a man was decoyed by several men from sympathy to accompany a drunken man to a public-house, and was violently robbed.

  In the month of July 1855 a woman stopt a man in the London-road, Southwark, one evening about twelve o’clock at night, and stole his watch. The party immediately detected the robbery, and laid hold of her. Upon this two men came up to her rescue, struck him in the face, and cut his cheek. They then gave him another severe blow on the head, and knocked him down senseless, while calling out for the police.

  A policeman came up at this juncture, and laid hold of Taylor, one of the men, and took him into custody with a life-preserver in his hand. Taylor was tried on 20th August, 1855, at the Central Criminal Court, and was sentenced to fourteen years’ penal servitude.

  Highway robberies by the pistol are seldom committed, though occasionally such instances do occur. These are seldom committed by professional thieves, as they generally manage to effect their object by picking pockets, and in the modes we have just described.

  The old rookeries of thieves are no longer enveloped in mystery as formerly. They are now visited by our police inspectors and constables, and kept under strict surveillance. Our daily press brings the details of our modern highway-men and other thieves clearly to the light of day; and their deeds are no longer exaggerated by fictitious embellishments and exaggerations. Our railways and telegraphs, postal communications and currency arrangements, have put an end to mounted highwaymen, such as Dick Turpin and Tom King. Were such to appear now, they would furnish a rare piece of sport to our bold and adroit detectives, and would speedily be arrested.

  Number of felonies by highway robbery in the metropolitan districts for 1860 21

  Ditto ditto in the City 1

  22

  Value of property thereby abstracted in the metropolitan districts £ 98 0

  Ditto ditto in the City 2 10

  £ 100 10

  A Ramble among the Thieves’ Dens in the Borough.

  Leaving the police-office at Stones-end, along with a detective-officer, we went one afternoon to Gunn Street, a narrow by-street off the Borough Road, inhabited by costermongers, burglars, and pickpockets.

  Here one of the most daring gangs of burglars and pickpockets in London met our eye, most of them in the dress of costermongers. A professional pickpocket, a well-attired young man, was seated on a costermonger’s barrow. He was clothed in a black cloth coat, vest, and trousers, and shining silk hat, and was smoking a pipe, with two or three “pals” by his side. It was then about seven o’clock, P. M., and as clear as mid-day. About forty young men, ranging from seventeen to thirty-five years of age, were engaged around a game of “pitch and toss,” while others were lounging idle in the street.

  We went forward through the crowd, and stood for some time alongside. At first they may have fancied we were come to arrest one or more of them, and were evidently prepared to give us a warm reception. On seeing us standing by smiling, they recovered their good-humour, and most of them continued to cluster together, but numbers sneaked off to their houses out of sight.

  Here we saw a tall, robust man, with a dissipated and ruffian look, smoking a long pipe, who had been an accomplice in an atrocious midnight murder.

  He had narrowly escaped the gallows by turning Queen’s evidence on his companions. He is a determined burglar. We could observe from the brutal, resolute, bull-dog look of the man that he was fit for any deed of heartless villany when inflamed with strong drink.

  Three burglars stood in the middle of the crowd, who soon after left it and entered a beershop in the street. One of them was dressed like a respectable mechanic. He was rather beneath the middle height, stout-made, with his nose injured and flattened, possibly done in some broil. Another was more brutal in appearance, and more degraded. The third burglar was not so resolute in character,
and appeared to be an associate of the band.

  Ten of the persons present had been previously convicted of robberies. The greater part, if not the whole of them, were thieves, or associates of thieves.

  We next directed our way to the Mint, a well-known harbour of low characters, passing knots of thieves at the corners of the different streets as we proceeded along. Some were sneaks, and others pickpockets. In the neighbourhood of the Mint we found a number of children gamboling in the streets. One in particular arrested our attention, an interesting little girl of about five years of age, with a sallow complexion, but most engaging countenance, radiant with innocence and hope. Other sweet little girls were playing by her side, possibly the children of some of the abandoned men and women of the locality. How sad to think of these young innocents exposed to the contamination of bad companionships around them, and to the pernicious influence of the bad example of their parents!

  We went into Evans’s lodging-house, noted as a haunt for thieves. Passing through a group of young women who stood at the doorway, we went downstairs to an apartment below and saw about a dozen of young lads and girls seated around a table at a game of cards. One of these youths was a notorious pickpocket, though young in years, and had twice escaped out of Horsemonger Lane gaol. We were informed there was not a fourth of the persons present who usually frequent the house. After the first panic was over the young people resumed their game, some looking slyly at us, as if not altogether sure of our object. Others were lying extended on the benches along the side of the room. As we were looking on this curious scene the women in the flat above had followed us down and were peering from the staircase into the apartment to try and learn the object of our visit. As we left the house we took a glance over our shoulder and saw them standing at the door, following our movements.

  We bent our steps to Kent Street and entered a beershop there. There were a number of thieves and “smashers” (utterers of base coin) hovering round the bar. The “smashers” were ordinary-looking men and women of the lower orders. We saw a party of thieves in the adjoining tap-room, and seated ourselves for a short time among them. One of them was a dexterous swell-mobsman, who has been several times convicted and imprisoned. A dark-complexioned little man, about twenty-one years of age, an utterer of base coin, was lounging in the seat beside us. The swell-mobsman was evidently the leading man among them. He was a good-looking fair-haired youth, about twenty years of age, smart and decided in his movements, and with a good appearance, very unlike a criminal. He occasionally dresses in high style, in a superfine black suit, with white hat and crape, and occasionally drives out in fashionable vehicles.

  We also visited Market Street, a narrow by-street off the Borough Road, a well-known rookery of prostitutes. A great number of simple, thoughtless young girls, from various parts of London and the country, leave their homes and settle down here and live on prostitution. Here we saw an organist performing in the street, surrounded by a dense crowd of young prostitutes, middle-aged women, and children of the lower class. Two young women, one with her face painted, and the other a slender girl about seventeen, with an old crownless straw bonnet on her head, and with the crown of it in one hand, and a stick in the other, were dancing in wild frolic to the strains of the organ, amid the merriment of the surrounding crowd, and to the evident amazement of the poor minstrel, while other rough-looking young dames were skipping gaily along the street.

  In a brothel in this street an atrocious crime was perpetrated a few days ago by George Philips, a young miscreant, termed the Jew-boy, who resided there. A sailor, recently returned from India, happened to enter this foul den. The inmates consisted of the Jew-boy’s sister, a common prostitute, who cohabited with Richard Pitts, a well-known burglar, recently sentenced to transportation for ten years, another prostitute named Irish Julia, and this young villain, the Jew. After remaining for some time the sailor told them he was to leave their company. On hearing this, Philips’s sister told her brother to stab him to the heart. He instantly took out a knife from his pocket, opened it, and stabbed the sailor beneath the collar-bone. After committing this atrocious crime he coolly wiped the knife on the cuff of his guernsey, at the same time stating, if the sailor had not got enough he would give him the other end of the knife. The sailor fell, apparently mortally wounded, and was removed to St. Thomas’s Hospital.

  His sister, on seeing what her brother had done by her order, desperately seized a bottle of laudanum in the room, and drank off part of the contents, and still lies in a precarious state.

  In this portion of Market Street we understand every house, from basement to attic, is occupied by prostitutes and thieves.

  We entered an adjoining public-house, where three of these young women followed us to the bar, anxious to know the object of our visiting the district. They called for a pint of stout, which they drank off heartily, and stood loitering beside us to hear our conversation, so that they might have something to gossip about to their companions. The girl who frolicked in the street with the old bonnet was one of them, and had now laid this aside. She was fair-haired, and good-looking, but was very foolish and immodest in her movements. One of her companions was taller and more robust, but her conduct showed she was debased in her character, and lost to all sense of propriety. The other girl was tall and dark-eyed, and more quiet and calculating in her manner as she stood, in a light cotton dress, silently leaning against the door-post.

  One evening in September, about eight o’clock, we took another ramble over the criminal district of the Borough.

  As we went along Kent Street the lamps were lit, and the shops in the adjoining streets were illuminated with their flaring gas lights. On passing St. George’s church we saw a crowd collected around a drunken middle-aged Irishwoman. It was one of those motley scenes one often meets in the streets of London. Young people and middle-aged, old women and children were clustered together, some well-dressed, others in mechanics’ dress, begrimed with dust and sweat, and others hanging in rags and tatters. They were collected around this woman, who stood on the pavement, while the mass were gathered in the street, many of them looking on anxiously with eyes and mouth open, others grinning with delight, and some with sinister countenance, while she gesticulated wildly, yet in good humour, in a strong Irish accent, amid the applause of the auditory.

  We could not hear the subject of her oration. On our coming up to her and remaining for a short time, curious to know the nature of the comedy, the woman went away, followed by part of the crowd, when she appeared to take her station again in the midst of them. We had no time to lose, and passed on.

  On our proceeding farther into Kent Street, a good-looking girl, evidently belonging to the lower orders, stood in a doorway, with beaming smile, and beckoned us to enter. She had accosted us in like manner in the light of open day on our previous visit to Kent Street, while another young woman, of her own age and size, apparently her sister, stood by her side. As on the former occasion we did not trust ourselves to these syren sisters, but again passed on, notwithstanding urgent solicitations to enter.

  Farther along the street we saw a small group of men and boys—thieves and utterers of base coin. A young woman of about twenty-five years of age stood among them, who was a common prostitute and expert thief, although we could scarcely have known this from her heavy, stupid-looking countenance, which was bloated and dissipated. One of the group was a burglar. He was under the middle size, pockpitted, and had a callous, daring look about him. We had time to study the lines of his face. They soon divined our purpose, and skulked off in different directions, as we found the generality of such persons to do in the course of our visits. The men were of different ages, varying from seventeen to thirty, dressed similar to costermongers.

  We bent our way to St. George’s New Town, a by-street off Kent Street. On turning the corner from Kent Street, leading into St. George’s New Town, we saw a cluster of men and women, varying in age from seventeen to forty, also dressed like those jus
t described. Most of them were convicted thieves.

  We then came back to Mint Street, leading out of High Street in the Borough to Southwark Bridge Road, which, as we have said, is very low and disreputable.

  Leaving Mint Street and its dark, disreputable neighbourhood, we directed our way to Norfolk Street, a very narrow street, leading into Union Street in the Borough. This locality is much infested with pickpockets and also with “dragsmen,” i. e. those persons who steal goods or luggage from carts and coaches. At one corner of this street we saw no less than seven or eight persons clustered together, several of them convicted thieves. They were dressed similar to those in the low neighbourhoods already described.

  We then went into Little Surrey Street, Borough Road, where we entered a beershop. Here we found four men, from twenty-five to thirty-five years of age—expert burglars. One of them appeared to be a mechanic. He told us he was an engraver. This was the same burglar, with his nose flattened, we had seen on the previous occasion referred to. He was an intelligent, determined man, and acted as the head of the gang. The other two were the companions we had seen with him in Gunn Street. All of them were rather under the middle size. They were now better dressed than formerly, and apparently on the eve of setting out to commit some felony. They appeared trimmed up in working order. A prostitute, connected with them, with her eye blackened, stood by the bar. She was also well-attired, and ready to accompany them. Burglars of this class often have a woman to go before them, to carry their housebreaking tools, to the house they intend to enter, as they might be arrested on the way with the tools in their own possession. The woman was tolerably good-looking, and on setting out, was possibly getting primed with gin. The engraver has been convicted several times for picking pockets as well as for burglary. The other two are convicted burglars. There was a man of about forty years of age seated beside them in the beershop, whom we learned was in a decline. The burglars are often liberal in supporting the invalids connected with them, and the latter lend a subordinate hand occasionally in their nefarious work, such as in assisting to dispose of the stolen property. One of their old “pals” died lately, and the burglars in his neighbourhood raised a subscription between them to defray his funeral expenses.