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

by Mayhew, Henry

  There are a great many beggars of this class, and they nearly all pursue the same method. They are most successful among tradesmen of the middle class, and among the poor working people. One of them told me that the wives of working men were, according to his experience, the most tender-hearted in London. “The upper classes, the swells, aint no good,” he said; “they subscribe to the Mendicity Society, and they thinks every beggar an imposture. The half-and-half swells, shopmen and the likes, aint got no hearts, and they aint got no money, and what’s the good. Tradesmen that aint over well off have a fellow feeling; but the workmen’s wives out a-marketing of a Saturday night are no trouble. They always carries coppers—change out of sixpence or a something—in their hands, and when I goes in where they are a havin’ their daffies—that’s drops o’ gin, sir—they looks at me, and says, ‘Poor man!’ and drops the coppers, whatever it is, into my hand, and p’raps asks me to have a half-pint o’ beer besides. They’re good souls, the workmen’s wives.”

  There is a well-known beggar of this class who dresses in a most unexceptionable manner. His black clothes are new and glossy, his hat and boots are good, and to heighten the effect he wears a spotless white choker. He is known at the west end by the name of the “Bishop of London.” His aspect is decidedly clerical. He has a fat face, a double chin, his hat turns up extensively at the brim, and, as I have said, he wears a white neck-cloth. When he enters a bar the company imagine that he is about to order a bottle of champagne at least; but when he looks round and produces the inevitable box of matches, the first impression gives way either to compassion or extreme wonder. So far as my experience serves me, this dodge is not so successful as the one I have just described. A person with the most ordinary reasoning powers must know that a man who possesses clothes like those need not be in want of bread; but if the power of reasoning were universally allotted to mankind, there would be a poor chance for the professional beggar. There never was a time or place in which there were not to be found men anxious to avoid labour, and yet to live in ease and enjoyment, and there never was a time in which other men were not, from their sympathy, their fears, or their superstition, ready to assist the necessitous, or those who appeared to be so, and liable to be imposed upon or intimidated, according as the beggar is crafty or bold.

  As a rule the burnt-out tradesmen whom I have described are impostors, who make more by begging than many of those who relieve them earn by hard and honest labour. The petitions which they leave at houses are very cleverly drawn out. They are generally the composition of the professional screevers, whose practices I shall have to describe by-and-by. They have a circumstantial account of the fire by which the applicant “lost his all,” and sometimes furnish an inventory of the goods that were destroyed. They are attested by the names of clergymen, churchwardens, and other responsible persons, whose signatures are imitated with consummate art in every variety of ink. Some specimens of these petitions and begging letters will be found under the head of “Dependants of Beggars.”

  Lucifer Droppers.

  The lucifer droppers are impostors to a man—to a boy—to a girl. Men seldom, if ever, practise this “dodge.” It is children’s work; and the artful way in which boys and girls of tender years pursue it, shows how systematically the seeds of mendicancy and crime are implanted in the hearts of the young Arab tribes of London. The artfulness of this device is of the most diabolical kind; for it trades not alone upon deception, but upon exciting sympathy with the guilty at the expense of the innocent. A boy or a girl takes up a position on the pavement of a busy street, such as Cheapside or the Strand. He, or she—it is generally a girl—carries a box or two of lucifer matches, which she offers for sale. In passing to and fro she artfully contrives to get in the way of some gentleman who is hurrying along. He knocks against her and upsets the matches which fall in the mud. The girl immediately begins to cry and howl. The bystanders, who are ignorant of the trick, exclaim in indignation against the gentleman who has caused a poor girl such serious loss, and the result is that either the gentleman, to escape being hooted, or the ignorant passers-by, in false compassion, give the girl money. White peppermint lozenges are more often used than lucifers. It looks a hopeless case, indeed, when a trayful of white lozenges fall in the mud.

  Bodily Afflicted Beggars.

  Beggars who excite charity by exhibiting sores and bodily deformities are not so commonly to be met with in London as they were some years ago. The officers of the Mendicity Society have cleared the streets of nearly all the impostors, and the few who remain are blind men and cripples. Many of the blind men are under the protection of a Society, which furnishes them with books printed in raised type which they decipher by the touch. Others provide their own books, and are allowed to sit on door steps or in the recesses of the bridges without molestation from the police. It has been found on inquiry that these afflicted persons are really what they appear to be—poor, helpless, blind creatures, who are totally incapacitated from earning a living, and whom it would be heartless cruelty to drive into the workhouse, where no provision is made for their peculiar wants.

  “The bodily afflicted beggars of London exhibit seven varieties. 1. Those having real or pretended sores, vulgarly known as the “Scaldrum Dodge.” 2. Having swollen legs. 3. Being crippled, deformed, maimed, or paralyzed. 4. Being blind. 5. Being subject to fits. 6. Being in a decline. 7. “Shallow Coves,” or those who exhibit themselves in the streets, half-clad, especially in cold weather.

  “First, then, as to those having real or pretended sores. As I have said, there are few beggars of this class left. When the officers of the Mendicity Society first directed their attention to the suppression of this form of mendicancy, it was found that the great majority of those who exhibit sores were unmitigated impostors. In nearly all the cases investigated the sores did not proceed from natural causes, but were either wilfully produced or simulated. A few had lacerated their flesh in reality; but the majority had resorted to the less painful operation known as the “Scaldrum Dodge.” This consists in covering a portion of the leg or arm with soap to the thickness of a plaister, and then saturating the whole with vinegar. The vinegar causes the soap to blister and assume a festering appearance, and thus the passer-by is led to believe that the beggar is suffering from a real sore. So well does this simple device simulate a sore that the deception is not to be detected even by close inspection. The “Scaldrum Dodge” is a trick of very recent introduction among the London beggars. It is a concomitant of the advance of science and the progress of the art of adulteration. It came in with penny postage, daguerreotypes, and other modern innovations of a like description. In less scientific periods within the present century it was wholly unknown; and sores were produced by burns and lacerations which the mendicants inflicted upon themselves with a ruthless hand. An old man who has been a beggar all his life, informed me that he had known a man prick the flesh of his leg all over, in order to produce blood and give the appearance of an ulcerous desease. This man is a cripple and walks about upon crutches, selling stay laces. He is now upwards of seventy years of age. At my solicitation he made the following statement without any apparent reserve.

  Seventy years a Beggar.

  “I have been a beggar ever since I was that high—ever since I could walk. No, I was not born a cripple. I was thirty years of age before I broke my leg. That was an accident. A horse and cart drove over me in Westminster. Well; yes I was drunk. I was able-bodied enough before that. I was turned out to beg by my mother. My father, I’ve heard, was a soldier; he went to Egypt, or some foreign part, and never came back. I never was learnt any trade but begging, and I couldn’t turn my hand to nothing else. I might have been learnt the shoemaking; but what was the use? Begging was a better trade then; it isn’t now though. There was fine times when the French war was on. I lived in Westminster then. A man as they called Copenhagen Jack, took a fancy to me, and made me his valet. I waited upon, fetched his drink, and so forth. Copenhagen Jack was a ca
ptain; no not in the army, nor in the navy neither. He was the captain of the Pye-Street beggars. There was nigh two hundred of them lived in two large houses, and Jack directed them. Jack’s word was law, I assure you. The boys—Jack called them his boys, but there was old men among them, and old women too—used to come up before the captain every morning before starting out for the day, to get their orders. The captain divided out the districts for them, and each man took his beat according to his directions. It was share and share alike, with an extra for the captain. There was all manner of “lays”; yes, cripples and darkies. We called them as did the blind dodge, darkies,—and “shakers” them as had fits,—and shipwrecked mariners, and—the scaldrum dodge, no; that’s new; but I know what you mean. They did the real thing then—scrape the skin off their feet with a bit of glass until the blood came. Those were fine times for beggars. I’ve known many of ’em bring in as much as thirty shillings a day, some twenty, some fifteen. If a man brought home no more than five or six shillings, the captain would enter him, make a note of him, and change his beat. Yes, we lived well. I’ve known fifty sit down to a splendid supper, geese and turkeys, and all that, and keep it up until daylight, with songs and toasts. No; I didn’t beg then; but I did before, and I did after. I begged after, when the captain came to misfortune. He went a walking one day in his best clothes, and got pressed, and never came back, and there was a mutiny among them in Pye-Street, and I nearly got murdered. You see, they were jealous of me, because the captain petted me. I used to dress in top-boots and a red coat when I waited on the captain. It was his fancy. Romancing? I don’t know what you mean. Telling lies, oh! It’s true by——. There’s nothing like it nowadays. The new police and this b——Mendicity Society has spoilt it all. Well, they skinned me; took off my fine coat and boots, and sent me out on the orphan lay in tatters. I sat and cried all day on the door steps, for I was really miserable now my friend was gone, and I got lots of halfpence, and silver too, and when I took home the swag, they danced round me and swore that they would elect me captain if I went on like that; but there was a new captain made, and when they had their fun out, he came and took the money away, and kicked me under the table. I ran away the next day, and went to a house in St. Giles’s, where I was better treated. There was no captain there; the landlord managed the house, and nobody was master but him. There was nigh a hundred beggars in that house, and some two or three hundred more in the houses next it. The houses are not standing now. They were taken down when New Oxford-street was built; they stood on the north side. Yes; we lived well in St. Giles’s—as well as we did in Westminster. I have earned 8, 10, 15, ay, 30 shillings a day, and more nor that sometimes. I can’t earn one shilling now. The folks don’t give as they did. They think every body an imposture now. And then the police won’t let you alone. No; I told you before, I never was anything else but a beggar. How could I? It was the trade I was brought up to. A man must follow his trade. No doubt I shall die a beggar, and the parish will bury me.”

  Having swollen Legs.

  Beggars who lie on the pavement and expose swollen legs, are very rarely to be met with now. The imposture has been entirely suppressed by the police and the officers of the Mendicity Society. This is one of the shallowest of all the many “dodges” of the London beggars. On reflection any one, however slightly acquainted with the various forms of disease, must know that a mere swelling cannot be a normal or chronic condition of the human body. A swelling might last a few days, or a week; but a swelling of several years’ standing is only to be referred to the continued application of a poisonous ointment, or to the binding of the limb with ligatures, so as to confine the blood and puff the skin.

  Cripples.

  Various kinds of cripples are still to be found, begging in the streets of London. As a rule the police do not interfere with them, unless they know them to be impostors. A certain number of well-known cripples have acquired a sort of prescriptive right to beg where they please. The public will be familiar with the personal appearance of many of them. There is the tall man on crutches, with his foot in a sling, who sells stay laces; the poor wretch without hands, who crouches on the pavement and writes with the stumps of his arms; the crab-like man without legs, who sits strapped to a board, and walks upon his hands; the legless man who propels himself in a little carriage, constructed on the velocipede principle; the idiotic-looking youth, who “stands pad with a fakement,” shaking in every limb as if he were under the influence of galvanism. These mendicants are not considered to be impostors, and are allowed to pursue begging as a regular calling. I cannot think, however, that the police exercise a wise discretion in permitting some of the more hideous of these beggars to infest the streets. Instances are on record of nervous females having been seriously frightened, and even injured, by seeing men without legs or arms crawling at their feet. A case is within my own knowledge, where the sight of a man without legs or arms had such an effect upon a lady in the family way that her child was born in all respects the very counterpart of the object that alarmed her. It had neither legs nor arms. This occurrence took place at Brighton about eleven years ago. I have frequently seen ladies start and shudder when the crab-like man I have referred to has suddenly appeared, hopping along at their feet. I am surprised that there is no home or institution for cripples of this class. They are certainly deserving of sympathy and aid; for they are utterly incapacitated from any kind of labour. Impostors are constantly starting up among this class of beggars; but they do not remain long undetected. A man was lately found begging, who pretended that he had lost his right arm. The deception at the first glance was perfect. His right sleeve hung loose at his side, and there appeared to be nothing left of his arm but a short stump. On being examined at the police office, his arm was found strapped to his side, and the stump turned out to be a stuffing of bran. Another man simulated a broken leg by doubling up that limb and strapping his foot and ankle to his thigh. Paralysis is frequently simulated with success until the actor is brought before the police surgeon, when the cheat is immediately detected.

  A Blind Beggar.

  A blind beggar, led by a dog, whom I accosted in the street, made the following voluntary statement. I should mention that he seemed very willing to answer my questions, and while he was talking kept continually feeling my clothes with his finger and thumb. The object of this, I fancy, must have been to discover whether I was what persons of his class call a “gentleman” or a poor man. Whether he had any thoughts of my being an officer I cannot say.

  “I am sixty years of age: you wouldn’t think it, perhaps, but I am. No, I was not born blind; I lost my sight in the smallpox, five and twenty years ago. I have been begging on the streets eighteen years. Yes, my dog knows the way home. How did I teach him that? why, when I had him first, the cabmen and busmen took him out to Camden Town, and Westminster, and other places, and then let him go. He soon learnt to find his way home. No, he is not the dog I had originally; that one died; he was five and twenty years old when he died. Yes, that was a very old age for a dog. I had this one about five years ago. Don’t get as much as I used to do? No, no, my friend. I make about a shilling a-day, never—scarcely never—more, sometimes less—a good deal less; but some folks are very kind to me. I live at Poole’s-place, Mount Pleasant. There are a good many engineers about there, and their wives are very kind to me; they have always a halfpenny for me when I go that way. I have my beats. I don’t often come down this way (Gower-street), only once a month. I always keep on this side of Tottenham Court-road; I never go over the road; my dog knows that. I am going down there,” (pointing); “that’s Chenies-street. Oh, I know where I am: next turning to the right is Alfred-street, the next to the left is Francis-street, and when I get to the end of that the dog will stop; but I know as well as him. Yes, he’s a good dog, but never the dog I used to have; he used always to stop when there was anybody near, and pull when there was nobody. He was what I call a steady dog, this one is young and foolish like; he stops som
etimes dead, and I goes on talking, thinking there is a lady or gentleman near; but it’s only other dogs that he’s stopping to have a word with. No, no, no, sir.” This he said when I dropped some more coppers into his hat, having previously given him a penny. “I don’t want that. I think I know your voice, sir; I’m sure I’ve heard it before. No! ah, then I’m mistaken.” Here again he felt my coat and waistcoat with an inquiring touch: apparently satisfied, he continued, “I’ll tell you, sir, what I wouldn’t tell to every one; I’ve as nice a little place at Mount Pleasant as you would desire to see. You wouldn’t think I was obliged to beg if you saw it. Why, sir, I beg many times when I’ve as much as sixteen shillings in my pocket; leastwise not in my pocket, but at home. Why you see, sir, there’s the winter months coming on, and I lays by what I can against the wet days, when I can’t go out. There’s no harm in that, sir. Well, now, sir, I’ll tell you: there’s a man up there in Sussex-street that I know, and he said to me just now, as I was passing the public house, ‘Come in, John, and have a drop of something.’ “No, thank ye,’ says I, ‘I don’t want drink; if you want to give me anything give me the money.’ “No,’ says he, ‘I won’t do that, but if you come in and have something to drink I’ll give you sixpence.’ Well, sir, I wouldn’t go. It wouldn’t do, you know, for the likes of me, a blind man getting his living by begging, to be seen in a public-house; the people wouldn’t know, sir, whether it was my money that was paying for it or not. I never go into a public-house; I has my drop at home. Oh, yes, I am tired—tired of it; but I’ll tell you, sir, I think I’ll get out of it soon. Do you know how that is, sir? Well, I think I shall get on to Day and Martin’s Charity in October; I’m promised votes, and I’m in hopes this time. God bless you, sir.”