The prisoner’s letter to Lady Waldegrave was then read as follows:—
“MILADY COUNTESS,
“I am foreigner, but have the rank of captain by my service under English colours in the Crimean war, being appointed by her Majesty’s brevet. I have struggled very hard, after having been discharged from the service, but, happily, I have been temporarily assisted by some persons of distinction, and the Duke of Cambridge. To-day, milady Countess, I have in object to ameliorate or better my condition, going to accept service in Italian lawful army, where by the danger I may obtain advancement. Being poor, I am obliged to solicit of my noble patrons towards my journey. The Duc d’Aumale, the Marchioness of Stafford, &c., kindly granted me their contributions. Knowing your ladyship’s connexion with those noble persons, I take the liberty of soliciting your ladyship’s kind contribution to raise any funds for my outfit and journey. In ‘appui’ of my statements I enclose my captain’s commission and letters, and, in recommending myself to your ladyship’s consideration, I present my homage, and remain,
“Your humble servant,
“CAPTAIN L. B. NOODT.”
The letter of the pretended secretary was as follows:—
“MONSIEUR LE CAPITAINE,
“Son altesse Monseigneur le Duc d’Aumale approuve votre départ pour l’Italie, et pour vous aider dans la dépense de votre voyage m’a chargé de vous transmettre 5l., ci inclus, que vous m’obligerez de m’en accuser la reception.
“Agréez, monsieur le capitaine, l’assurance de ma consideration distinguée.
“Votre humble serviteur,
“CHS. COULEUVRIER, Sec.”
The prisoner, who appeared much agitated, acknowledged the dishonesty of his conduct, but appealed to the pity of Mr. Harcourt, saying that he had suffered great hardships, and had been driven to this act by want. It was sad that an officer bearing the Queen’s commission should be so humiliated. The letter was not written by himself, but by a Frenchman who led him into it.
Mr. Henry said he had brought the humiliation on himself. He must be well aware that the crime of forgery was punished as severely in his own country as here. The prisoner should have the opportunity of producing the writer of the letter, or of designating him to the police. On the recommendation to mercy of Mr. Harcourt, he was only sentenced to one month’s imprisonment.
On July the 9th he was brought up to Marlborough Street by Horsford, the officer of the Mendicity Society, charged with obtaining by false and fraudulent pretences the sum of 3l. from Lady Stafford. Since his imprisonment it had been discovered that his real name was Adolphus Czapolinski, and that he was a Pole. The real Captain Noodt was in a distant part of the kingdom, and Czapolinski had obtained surreptitious possession of his commission, and assumed his name. The indefatigable Mr. Horsford had placed himself in communication with the secretary of the Polish Association, who had known the prisoner (Czapolinski) for twenty-five years. It would seem that in early life he had been engaged under various foreign powers, and in 1835 he came to this country and earned a scanty maintenance as a teacher of languages; that he was addicted to drinking, begging, and thieving, and upon one occasion, when usher in a school, he robbed the pupils of their clothes, and even fleeced them of their trifling pocket-money. While in the House of Detention he had written to Captain Wood, the secretary of the Mendicity Society, offering to turn approver. The letter in question ran thus:—
“SIR,—Permit me to make you a request, which is, not to press your prosecution against me, and I most solemnly promise you that for this favour all my endeavours will be to render you every assistance for all the information you should require. I was very wrong to not speak to you when I was at your office, but really I was not guilty of this charge, because the letter containing the post-office order was delivered to Captain Noodt. I was only the messenger from Lady Stafford.
“Look, Captain Wood, I know much, and no one can be so able to render you the assistance and information of all the foreigners than me. Neither any of your officers could find the way; but if you charge me to undertake to find I will, on only one condition—that you will stop the prosecution. The six weeks of detention were quite sufficient punishment to me for the first time; and let it be understood that for your condescension to stop the prosecution all my services shall be at your orders, whenever you shall require, without any remuneration. My offers will be very advantageous to you under every respect. Send any of your clerks to speak with me to make my covenant with you, and you will be better convinced of my good intentions to be serviceable to you.
“I am, &c.,
“A. CZAPOLINSKI.”
He was sentenced to three months’ imprisonment and hard labour. Czapolinski is one of the most extraordinary of the beggars of the present day. He raises money both by personal application and by letter. He has been known to make from 20l. to 60l. per day. He is a great gambler, and has been seen to lose—and to pay—upwards of 100l. at a gambling house in the neighbourhood of Leicester Square in the course of a single night and morning.
Hindoo Beggars.
Are those spare, snake-eyed Asiatics who walk the streets, coolly dressed in Manchester cottons, or chintz of a pattern commonly used for bed-furniture, to which the resemblance is carried out by the dark, polished colour of the thin limbs which it envelopes. They very often affect to be converts to the Christian religion, and give away tracts; with the intention of entrapping the sympathy of elderly ladies. They assert that they have been high-caste Brahmins, but as untruth, even when not acting professionally, is habitual to them, there is not the slightest dependence to be placed on what they say. Sometimes, in the winter, they “do shallow,” that is, stand on the kerb-stone of the pavement, in their thin, ragged clothes, and shiver as with cold and hunger, or crouch against a wall and whine like a whipped animal; at others they turn out with a small, barrel-shaped drum, on which they make a monotonous noise with their fingers, to which music they sing and dance. Or they will “stand pad with a fakement,” i.e. wear a placard upon their breasts, that describes them as natives of Madagascar, in distress, converts to Christianity, anxious to get to a seaport where they can work their passage back. This is a favourite artifice with Lascars—or they will sell lucifers, or sweep a crossing, or do anything where their picturesque appearance, of which they are proud and conscious, can be effectively displayed. They are as cunning as they look, and can detect a sympathetic face among a crowd. They never beg of soldiers, or sailors, to whom they always give a wide berth as they pass them in the streets.
From the extraordinary mendacity of this race of beggars—a mendacity that never falters, hesitates, or stumbles, but flows on in an unbroken stream of falsehood,—it is difficult to obtain any reliable information respecting them. I have, however, many reasons for believing that the following statement, which was made to me by a very dirty and distressed Indian, is moderately true. The man spoke English like a cockney of the lowest order. I shall not attempt to describe the peculiar accent or construction which he occasionally gave to it.
“My name is Joaleeka. I do not know where I was born. I never knew my father. I remember my mother very well. From the first of my remembrance I was at Dumdum, where I was servant to a European officer—a great man—a prince—who had more than a hundred servants beside me. When he went away to fight, I followed among others—I was with the baggage. I never fought myself, but I have heard the men (Sepoys) say that the prince, or general, or colonel, liked nothing so well as fighting, except tiger-hunting. He was a wonderful man, and his soldiers liked him very much. I travelled over a great part of India with Europeans. I went up country as far as Secunderabad, and learned to speak English very well—so well that, when I was quite a young man, I was often employed as interpreter, for I caught up different Indian languages quickly. At last I got to interpret so well that I was recommended to——, a great native prince who was coming over to England. I was not his interpreter, but interpreter to his servants. We came to London. We
stopped in an hotel in Vere-street, Oxford-street. We stayed here some time. Then my chief went over to Paris, but he did not take all his servants with him. I stopped at the hotel to interpret for those who remained. It was during this time that I formed a connexion with a white woman. She was a servant in the hotel. I broke my caste, and from that moment I knew that it would not do for me to go back to India. The girl fell in the family-way, and was sent out of the house. My fellow-servants knew of it, and as many of them hated me, I knew that they would tell my master on his return. I also knew that by the English laws in England I was a free man, and that my master could not take me back against my will. If I had gone back, I should have been put to death for breaking my caste. When my master returned from France, he sent for me. He told me that he had heard of my breaking my caste, and of the girl, but that he should take no notice of it; that I was to return to Calcutta with him, where he would get me employment with some European officer; that I need not fear, as he would order his servants to keep silent on the subject. I salaamed and thanked him, and said I was his slave for ever; but at the same time I knew that he would break his word, and that when he had me in his power, he would put me to death. He was a very severe man about caste. I attended to all my duties as before, and all believed that I was going back to India—but the very morning that my master started for the coast, I ran away. I changed my clothes at the house of a girl I knew—not the same one as I had known at the hotel, but another. This one lived at Seven Dials. I stopped in-doors for many days, till this girl, who could read newspapers, told me that my master had sailed away. I felt very glad, for though I knew my master could not force me to go back with him, yet I was afraid for all that, for he knew the King and the Queen, and had been invited by the Lord Mayor to the City. I liked England better than India, and English women have been very kind to me. I think English women are the handsomest in the world. The girl in whose house I hid, showed me how to beg. She persuaded me to turn Christian, because she thought that it would do me good—so I turned Christian. I do not know what it means, but I am a Christian, and have been for many years. I married that girl for some time. I have been married several times. I do not mean to say that I have ever been to church as rich folks do; but I have been married without that. Sometimes I do well, and sometimes badly. I often get a pound or two by interpreting. I am not at all afraid of meeting any Indian who knew me, for if they said anything I did not like, I should call out “Police!” I know the law better than I did. Every thing is free in England. You can do what you like, if you can pay, or are not found out. I do not like policemen. After the mutiny in 1857 I did very badly. No one would look at a poor Indian then—much less give to him. I knew that the English would put it down soon, because I know what those rascals over there are like. I am living now in Charles Street, Drury Lane. I have been married to my present wife six years. We have three children and one dead. My eldest is now in the hospital with a bad arm. I swept a crossing for two years; that was just before the mutiny. All that knew me used to chaff me about it, and call me Johnny Sepoy. My present wife is Irish, and fought two women about it. They were taken to Bow-street by a policeman, but the judge would not hear them. My wife is a very good wife to me, but she gets drunk too often. If it were not for that, I should like her better. I ran away from her once, but she came after me with all the children. Sometimes I make twelve shillings a week. I could make much more by interpreting, but I do not like to go among the nasty natives of my country. I believe I am more than fifty years of age.”
Negro Beggars.
The negro beggar so nearly resembles the Hindoo that what I have said of one, I could almost say of the other. There are, however, these points of difference. The negro mendicant, who is usually an American negro, never studies the picturesque in his attire. He relies on the abject misery and down-trodden despair of his appearance, and generally represents himself as a fugitive slave—with this exception, his methods of levying contributions are precisely the same as his lighter-skinned brother’s.
Some years ago it was a common thing to see a negro with tracts in his hand, and a placard upon his breast, upon which was a wood-cut of a black man, kneeling, his wrists heavily chained, his arms held high in supplication, and round the picture, forming a sort of proscenium or frame, the words: “Am I not a man and a brother?” At the time that the suppression of the slave trade created so much excitement, this was so excellent a “dodge” that many white beggars, fortunate enough to possess a flattish or turned-up nose, dyed themselves black and “stood pad” as real Africans. The imposture, however, was soon detected and punished.
There are but few negro beggars to be seen now. It is only common fairness to say that negroes seldom, if ever, shirk work. Their only trouble is to obtain it. Those who have seen the many negroes employed in Liverpool, will know that they are hard-working, patient, and, too often, underpaid. A negro will sweep a crossing, run errands, black boots, clean knives and forks, or dig, for a crust and a few pence. The few impostors among them are to be found among those who go about giving lectures on the horrors of slavery, and singing variations on the “escapes” in that famous book ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin.’ Negro servants are seldom read of in police reports, and are generally found to give satisfaction to their employers. In the east end of London negro beggars are to be met with, but they are seldom beggars by profession. Whenever they are out of work they have no scruples, but go into the streets, take off their hats, and beg directly.
I was accosted by one in Whitechapel, from whom I obtained the following statement:—
“My father was a slave, so was my mother. I have heard my father say so. I have heard them tell how they got away, but I forget all about it. It was before I was born. I am the eldest son. I had only one brother. Three years after his birth my mother died. My father was a shoe-black in New York. He very often had not enough to eat. My brother got a place as a servant, but I went out in the streets to do what I could. About the same time that my father, who was an old man, died, my brother lost his place. We agreed to come to England together. My brother had been living with some Britishers, and he had heard them say that over here niggers were as good as whites; and that the whites did not look down on them and illtreat them, as they do in New York. We went about and got odd jobs on the quay, and at last we hid ourselves in the hold of a vessel, bound for Liverpool. I do not know how long we were hid, but I remember we were terribly frightened lest we should be found out before the ship got under weigh. At last hunger forced us out, and we rapped at the hatches; at first we were not heard, but when we shouted out, they opened the hatches, and took us on deck. They flogged us very severely, and treated us shamefully all the voyage. When we got to Liverpool, we begged and got odd jobs. At last we got engaged in a travelling circus, where we were servants, and used to ride about with the band in beautiful dresses, but the grooms treated us so cruelly that we were forced to run away from that. I forget the name of the place that we were performing at, but it was not a day’s walk from London. We begged about for some time. At last, my brother—his name is Aaron—got to clean the knives and forks at a slap-bang (an eating-house) in the city. He was very fortunate, and used to save some bits for me. He never takes any notice of me now. He is doing very well. He lives with a great gentleman in Harewood-square, and has a coat with silver buttons, and a gold-laced hat. He is very proud, and I do not think would speak to me if he saw me. I don’t know how I live, or how much I get a week. I do porter’s work mostly, but I do anything I can get. I beg more than half the year. I have no regular lodging. I sleep where I can. When I am in luck, I have a bed. It costs me threepence. At some places they don’t care to take a man of colour in. I sometimes get work in Newgate-market, carrying meat, but not often. Ladies give me halfpence oftener than men. The butchers call me ‘Othello,’ and ask me why I killed my wife. I have tried to get aboard a ship, but they won’t have me. I don’t know how old I am, but I know that when we got to London, it was the time t
he Great Exhibition was about. I can lift almost any weight when I have had a bit of something to eat. I don’t care for beer. I like rum best. I have often got drunk, but never when I paid for it myself.”
The London Underworld in the Victorian Period: Authentic First-Person Accounts by Beggars, Thieves and Prostitutes: v. 1 Page 53
