Sinks of London Laid Open Part 1

Sinks of London Laid Open.

by Unknown.

CHAPTER I.

COMMON LODGING HOUSES, CADGERS, &c., &c.

These two subjects are, perhaps now the only ones remaining, in what is termed the "walks of life," of which a correct description has not yet been given. All the old topics, such as the beauties of the country, and the ancient stories of love and heroism, which have afforded so much employment to the pencil, the muse, and the worker-up of novels, have long been considered as the beaten track; and the relaters of fiction, at least those who lay claim to any thing like originality, have been fain to leave the romantic path, with its old castles and wondrous deeds, and so forth, and seek for heroes behind a counter, amidst the common-place details of business, and for scenes amongst the intricate windings of lanes and alleys. In short, novelty is the grand charm for this novel-writing age.

Independent of the hosts of "Military and Naval Sketches of Mr.

Such-a-one," "the Author of So-and-So's Reminiscences," &c., with the usual abundance of matter, that daily crowd from the press, we may notice amongst the really useful works that have lately appeared, the "Old Bailey Experience," "Essays on the Condition of the People," "the Dishonest Practices of Household Servants," and "the Machinery of Crime in England, or the Connection between the Thieves and Flash Houses;" but, valuable as these articles are, and they are certainly of some importance to society, has there any one, we might ask, ever entered into the Common Lodging House,--the Vagabond's Home,--a place that abounds in character and crime? The only information which we have had in these dens of poverty and vice, has been merely through the Police Reports, when some unfortunate defaulter had been taken out of one of those skulking-holes. On such occasions we are told, amongst the usual remarks, that the accommodation in those houses were exceedingly cheap, and that the lodgers herded together indiscriminately, &c.; but how such houses were really conducted, and of the manners and characters of most of the people who frequented them, the public may be said to be almost in perfect ignorance. In like manner with that fraternity called "Cadgers," our knowledge has been equally limited. No correct account has ever yet been given of this idle, but cunning cla.s.s of the community. All that we have been told concerning them, is, to use the common phrase, but mere hearsay.

We remember reading, some few years ago, of one of those begging gentry boasting of being able to make five shillings a day. He considered that sixty streets were easily got through, from sunrise to sunset, and that it was strange indeed if he could not collect a penny in every street. Now, this very same anecdote we read, not many days since, in a new work, ent.i.tled, "A History of the Working Cla.s.ses," as something, of course, just brought to light.

The story, too, in that by-gone piece of notoriety, "Pierce Egan's Life in London," about the beggar's opera, where the lame and the blind, and other disordered individuals, were said to meet nightly, in a place called the "back slums," to throw off their infirmities, and laugh at the credulity of the public, was, not a great many weeks ago, trumped up into a paragraph in one of our weekly journals as a fact just discovered, and the curious were referred to a certain house in St. Giles's, in corroboration thereof. Indeed, we think it would be easy to prove that what little is known of the Common Lodging House, and those people the Cadgers, is neither more nor less than mere reports, and which like the generality of reports, contain not always the truth.

It certainly appears strange that those two subjects, which offer such an abundance of original matter to writers and other observers of mankind, should have remained so long without any other notice than merely that they were known to exist. Seemingly strange, however, as this singularity is, sufficient reasons, perhaps, may be given for it.

There can be little doubt, at least there is none in our mind, that since the commencement of the _Spectator_ and _Tatler_, periodicals have princ.i.p.ally a.s.sisted in developing, if we may so term it, the powers of observation. Intelligent readers of this kind of literature would naturally turn away from the insipid stuff of the rhymer, and the equally sentimental trash of the getter-up of fiction, of which our old magazines were mostly composed, to the more rational parts of the publication, such as original essays, critiques, stories which had really some truth for their foundation, or any thing which bore the stamp of newness. This secret of attraction would, of course, soon be found out, by those most interested in the sale; but the grand introduction of utility was at that period when the _Waverley_ novels made their appearance. Then, instead of the exaggerated imaginings of a diseased brain, with all its superhuman agency, we had History beautifully blended with Fiction, or rather Truth, accurate descriptions of nature, and correct pictures of life, both high and low. We all remember what powerful sensations those literary wonders at first created, and what a crowd of imitators followed in their train. The Magazines soon caught up the tone, and became doubly interesting, with the lives of private soldiers, "Two or Three Years in the Peninsula," and the "Subaltern." The camp and the man-of-war now poured forth their vast stories of anecdote and adventure, in all shapes and sizes--octavo and article--sketches of character, local customs and antiquities, filled up the other attractions of the day; and to read for improvement, while we read for amus.e.m.e.nt, was almost considered the fashionable employment of time.

These excellent topics, doubtless, had their season, and when done, our wholesale dealers in wisdom, the Publishers, well knew that their great patron, the public, would not be content with what had gone before. Something was to be again produced, that would make the press move; and that something, we believe, every one will agree with us, that, notwithstanding the splendour of Genius which the imaginative tribe are endowed with in this mental age, was to be that which was _new_--that, in fact, which would _sell_. This, as might be expected, caused the booksellers and their hacks to look around them, and the tempting gilt which the former held out, (scanty though the quant.i.ty always be!) was yet too keen a spur to the flagging wits of hungry scribblers, to allow them to lie idle. Society was once more ransacked, and that which formerly gave pleasure was now found to be too old for entertainment. Bad practices were discovered to exist amongst those with whom honesty was thought to dwell--the seat of justice was found to be but the seat of corruption--and so high in repute had Unions risen in the land, that they even extended to the very pests of society--the men who lived by plunder. It is to this desire for change, then, that we are indebted for those admirable novels of the French writer Paul de k.o.c.k, which have lately appeared; and wherein are portrayed, with such faithfulness, the plodding manners and steady characters of shop-keepers, instead of the high-toned conversation of polished society or the homely but innocent simplicities of a country life--that old ground-work of fiction. The same may be said of those "Essays on the Condition of the People,"--"Household Servants,"--the "Old Bailey Experience," and those equally instructive articles on the "Machinery of Crime in England, or the Connection between the Thieves and the Flash Houses,"

which all owe their origin to the same cause. It therefore can scarcely excite surprise that the Common Lodging House and Cadger should have remained so long without notice, when, if we take but a little time to reflect, we shall easily perceive that this work of observation is but just now going on, and that the very period in which we now live, is what with justice may be called but--the Age of Inquiry.

The Common Lodging House, as the reader no doubt understands, is a house of accommodation for all cla.s.ses--no matter what may be their appearance or character--only provided that they can procure, when required, the necessary quant.i.ty of coins. In every considerable village in the kingdom there is a lodging-place called the "Beggars'

House;" and in every town, more or less, according to its size or population. In London there are hundreds and thousands of houses of this description, from the poor tenant of a room or cellar, with its two or three shake-down-beds upon the floor, to the more substantial landlord with his ten or twenty houses, and two or three hundred beds.

Among these the houseless wanderer may find shelter, from a penny to three halfpence, twopence, threepence, fourpence, and sixpence a night, on beds of iron, wood, and straw, or on that more lofty couch a hammock; and some (that is, the penny-a-night lodger) have often no softer resting place than the hard floor. This common lodging-house business is a thriving trade; only small capital is required, for an old house will do, no matter how the rain beats in, or the wind whistles through, in a back street or filthy lane, for the more wretched the neighbourhood, the better; old bedsteads and beds, clothes of the coa.r.s.est description, with a few forms, and a table or so, for the kitchen, are all that is necessary for the concern. The front room, or what is usually termed the parlour, is generally fitted up into a shop, or, when this is not the case, there is always some accommodating neighbour, who has the following articles for sale: viz., bacon, b.u.t.ter, cheese, bread, tea, coffee, sugar, tobacco, potatoes, red and salt herrings, smuggled liquors, and table-beer.

Some add the savoury profession of the cook to that of the huckster, and dish up a little roast and boiled beef, mutton, pork, vegetables, &c. The whole of these, the reader may be a.s.sured, are of a very moderate quality: they are retailed to the lodgers at very profitable prices, and in the smallest quant.i.ties, such as a halfpenny worth of b.u.t.ter, bacon, cheese, tea, coffee, sugar, tobacco, &c.; and, for the trifling sum of one penny, the poor epicure may gratify his palate with a taste of beef, mutton, and so on. Very little credit is given in those creditable places, and that only to those who are well-known; they who have not that advantage, often are compelled to take the handkerchief off their necks, the coat, and even the very skirts off their backs, to give to the cautious housekeeper, before they can procure a night's lodging, or a morsel of food; indeed, in the country, it is a common thing, when a traveller (which is the respectable appellation by which the alms-seeking gentry designate themselves) seeks for a night's lodging, for the landlord to refuse admittance, unless the applicant carries a bundle, which is looked upon as a kind of security, should he not have the desirable in his pocket.

It may naturally be supposed that, where there are such little outlays and such large returns, that good round sums must be produced; indeed, there are few who commence this kind of life, but soon secure to themselves an independency. There are many whom we could mention, who have acc.u.mulated such large fortunes by the encouragement of vagrancy, as now to be the proprietors of vast property in houses, and who still carry on large establishments by means of deputies, and in their deputies' names, while they themselves live in fashionable style on the borders of the town. The servants that are kept in those houses are in general men, they being considered better adapted to keep peace and quietness than women. It is customary with lodgers, who have anything of value, to deposit it with the landlord, and, in most cases, it is returned with safety. There are some whose character stands so high for honesty, that twenty pounds and upwards may be entrusted with them; but there are those again with whom it would not be prudent to leave a rag, and who often colleague with ruffians to get up a row during the night, to rob the lodgers, they of course coming in for a share of the booty. It is true, too, that in a great many of those houses men and women scorn all restraint, and hate any thing in the shape of a barrier. As regards cleanliness very little can be said for any; they all abound, more or less, with those small creeping things, which are said to be so prolific on the other side of the Tweed, and in the _dear country_. To delineate, however, the characters of the different houses, comes not at present within our limits; that of itself would fill volumes with the most extraordinary interest; and what then would be the descriptions of the crowds who frequent such houses--the thousands and tens of thousands who exist in this country by what is called their wits--whose trade is imposture, and whose whole life one continued exercise of the intellects? The flash letter-writer and the crawling supplicant; the pretended tradesmen, who live luxuriously on the tales of others, and the real claimant of charity, whose honest shame will hardly allow him to beg for sufficient to procure the hard comforts of a bed of straw; the match seller and ballad-singer, whose convenient profession unite the four lucrative callings of begging, selling, singing, and stealing; gangs of shipwrecked sailors, or rather, fellows whose iron const.i.tutions enable them for the sake of sympathy, to endure the most inclement weather, in almost a state of nudity, and among them only one perhaps ever heard the roar of the ocean; jugglers, coiners, tramps (mechanics seeking work), strolling players, with all the hangers-on of fairs, races, a.s.sizes, stable-yards; besides the hosts of Irish who yearly migrate from sweet Erin to happy England, to beg, labour, and steal. Here then, is a wide field for speculation, a vast common in life, where a character may be almost picked up at every step--mines of vice and misery as yet unexplored. A road that has never yet been trodden by the man of the pen, and very rarely by him of the pencil. If a few straggling mendicants, or some solitary wretch, have occasionally been sketched, the great centre of the sons of Cain--the outcast's home--has never yet been entered; that place has remained sacred to the tell-tale eye of each observer. But enough of this: we will now enter among these new scenes, and in order to give a correct view of the ways and doings of this strange life, will at once introduce the reader to the head-quarters of the cadgers--St.

Giles's.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER II.

ST. GILES'S--THE CADGER'S HEAD-QUARTERS.

The house, or rather establishment (for it contains no less than eight houses, having a moderate-sized court within its boundary, in which stands a large gas lamp) to which we intend to conduct the reader, is situate at No. 13, ---- Street, St. Giles's. The proprietor being what is called a gentleman--a man of property--and, like all men of property, of course, wishes not to have his name mentioned but in a respectable way--we therefore, with all respect for the power of wealth, will accommodate him with a dash.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

This cavern was opened some forty years ago, by a man of the name of ----, a native of that cautious country, "_Canny, tak care o'

yoursel_." The Scotchman, with the characteristic foresight of his countrymen, soon saw that to set up prudence in the midst of wanton waste, was a sure and ready way to acc.u.mulate the _bawbees_.

Accordingly, he took a shop and house at the aforesaid number, and commenced giving shelter to the wild and the profligate. Trade thrived, and, ere long, Sawney had reason to bless the day he crossed the border. He not only grew a rich but a _braw_ man--put his sons to respectable professions, and expended as much in setting them up in the world, as might have made them no common lairds in the land of thistles, and finally gave up the ghost, breathing his last breath amidst the air of plenty, leaving his money-making craft to his eldest son, who still carries on this establishment, as well as two others, one in the Broadway, St. Giles's, and the other in Long Acre, through the means of a deputy, and in the deputy's name, while he himself takes his ease in elegant style, a little way out of town, and is reputed to be the possessor of a great number of houses besides.

This grand cadging rendezvous, then, is under the superintendence of a deputy, and is kept up in his name; he is a.s.sisted by his wife and under deputy (men-servants), and a few female domestics. This man--that is, the leader of the band--hails we believe from Cambridgeshire. He is of a slight make, with a shrewd cast of the eye.

Formerly he figured in a gentleman's family, and has still much of the air and dress of a lackey: he is nevertheless well adapted for his situation; is affable and free, gambles, and is the companion of the lodgers in the house, but knows them not in the street. When any of the inmates chance to meet him in one of their alms-seeking rambles, and present their hat, to see if he will set an example to unwilling people, he never drops in more than one poor penny; his wife, however, is considered a trump (a generous woman), and never has the collection-box held to her, but invariably lets fall a _tanner_, to shew that she is a _Gemman's_ wife. These people have the reputation of being honest: anything intrusted to them, of whatever value, is certain of being returned. Robbery and petty thefts are here very rare, and fights are never allowed in the house, if the landlord is at home. There are two kitchens, one for the males and the other for the females: the men are not permitted to visit the women, and, until after eleven at night, the time the women's kitchen is cleared, very few of the latter are allowed to disturb their masculine neighbours; those who have that privilege, are the select few, who are pleased to term themselves _wives_. There are sleeping apartments, too, for the different s.e.xes, and rooms for those who pa.s.s as married people; and when any of the fair part of the inmates happen, in their perambulations, to meet with a friend of the opposite gender, and find, as they sometimes do, that it will be necessary to have a little private communion before they part, the landlord has so far sympathized with such persons, as to provide a room or two for their particular use. In short, this place, besides being a common lodging house, adds to it that now very necessary convenience--a brothel.

There are considerably more than one hundred beds in this house, made of wood and iron, distributed three and six in a room; the single ones are fourpence, and the double ones sixpence; and when we add the profits of this to that of the other two establishments, it must be allowed that the whole must amount to a gentlemanlike sum.

It is now our duty to enter this abode; and though accustomed to those retreats of vice and crime, we actually did pay a visit to this very house, one Sat.u.r.day evening, and there remained until Monday morning, taking, from first to last, careful notes of the most extraordinary characters and their ways, in order that our first sketch might be a correct picture of the manner in which these outcasts of society spend the last, the best, and the first part of the week.

Well, then, on Sat.u.r.day afternoon, upon a certain day, we directed our steps to that well known spot of this mighty part of the world--the Rookery, the appropriate t.i.tle given to that modern Sodom, St.

Giles's. On entering this region of sin, we, of course, had the usual difficulties of foot-pa.s.sengers to encounter, in picking and choosing our way among the small but rich dung heaps--the flowing channels and those pitfalls, the cellers, which lie gaping open, like so many man-traps, ready to catch the unwary traveller. At length, however, we reached No. 13, ---- Street, which was pointed out to us by a damsel standing in one of the many groups which are usually collected there, discussing the queries of that city, as being the habitation that we were in search of.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER III.

THE CADGING HOUSE.

As this is the first attempt that has been made to describe a Cadging House, we perhaps may be excused in being somewhat particular. The outside of this dwelling was more cleanly and decent than we had been led to expect. The window of the low front room, which was large and rather bowed, still retained the remains of its former shop-like appearance, was modestly screened in the inside by a green curtain; and the step of the door was nicely scoured and sanded.

On entering, we were struck with the establishment-like appearance of the room. Rows of common tin tea-pots were ranged along the dresser.

As for the shelves, they literally lined the walls, well filled with plates, dishes, and tea-ware. The landlady came forward to meet us, a tall, genteel woman, with the manners of one apparently used to better society. After putting down our groat, and giving into her hand a certain garment wrapped in a handkerchief, in case of accidents, we were told that the men's kitchen was in the next house, the first door on the right hand side, in the entry. By this, we found that the threshold on which we then stood, was no less than the high quarters set apart for the barrack-master himself. Accordingly, we sallied out for No. 12: but, before going in, we took the liberty to make a survey of this "Vagabond's Home!" and, in troth, it did well deserve that name.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The low front room or parlour, whose fate it was now to be the Cadger's Kitchen, had certainly the same shop-like appearance as that of No. 13--but there the likeness ended. The door, which led into the street, instead of having the clean, welcome, and open look of its neighbour, was fast nailed up, and bore evident marks that many a sick man had leaned against it. The door-light--the window above the door--had been taken out, or what is more likely, knocked out, and its place supplied with a wooden shutter, which was raised up during the day, to let in the light, and air: and as for the window itself, with the exception of a few panes of gla.s.s in the centre, here and there patched with brown paper, it was almost wholly made up with squares of wood--giving ocular proof that gla.s.s was of a very brittle nature in St. Giles's.

After satisfying ourselves thus far, we proceeded to explore the interior. A narrow pa.s.sage ran between the houses, and led into a tolerably large court, which, with those two, contained the number of houses already stated. At the foot of this entry stood two or three Moll Flanders looking husseys, who, it may be supposed, did not neglect a pa.s.sing salute. Farther up the yard, were some half-dozen fellows, in parti-coloured dresses, (and not over particular about shoes and stockings) smoking their cutties, and gambling at pitch-penny.

We next proceeded to the kitchen--and a den-like retreat it was--dark and gloomy from the partial light let in by the few remnants of gla.s.s, it seemed well calculated to harbour felon thoughts. The room itself was moderate enough in size--a good fire, and an excellent grate, containing a copper of boiling water, always kept full by a pipe conveyed to it from a cask raised on one side of the fire-place, was all that we could see that approached to anything like luxury or comfort. Beneath this cask lay a heap of c.o.ke and coal, and a coal-heaver's shovel leaned against the wall, at the service of any one who loved a cheerful hearth. The floor and walls did not differ much in colour, the former being of a dusky hue, that knew of no other purifier save the birchen broom; and the latter, a dirty red--a daub long since and clumsily made. A cuckoo-clock ticked on one side of an old cupboard, and before the window was spread a large deal table, at which sat the landlord playing at cards with a couple of ruffian-like fellows. A small table (whose old-fashioned, crooked, mahogany legs, showed that it had once been in a more honoured place; but the rough deal covering with which it had been repaired, denoted that it was now only fit for _cadger's plate_)--stood at the other end of the room, behind the door. A man, in a decent but faded suit of clothes, sat on one side--his arms were stretched over the table, and his head half-buried within them--he was, apparently, asleep. The white ap.r.o.n, that was wrapped round his waist, clearly proclaimed to what cla.s.s he belonged--the "Begging Tradesmen." A few things, tied to a blue handkerchief, rested on one side of his head; and a parcel of ballads, his whole stock-in-trade, lay on the other. Before the fire, warming his back, stood a short, thick-set man, humming the air of a vulgar ditty; his hands were thrust into the pockets of a velvet shooting-jacket, ornamented with large ivory b.u.t.tons, such as are commonly worn by cabmen and other tap-room blackguards. His countenance was by far too dark and sinister-looking to be honest, and, as he occasionally favoured us with a few oblique and professional glances from beneath a white _castor_, half-pulled over his brow, it instinctively, as it were, reminded us of "my lord--the prisoner at the bar."

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On a form against the wall, sat a tall and aged man, with a beard like a hermit, all fluttering in rags--the very emblem of wretchedness. He was relieving his uneasiness by giving his back every now and then, a comfortable rub against the wall. A little on one side of this forlorn being, at the head of the table where the landlord sat, was a character that could hardly escape the notice of the most obtuse observer, a stout active young man, in the very perfect costume of a cadger. The upper part of his person was decorated with a piece of a garment that had once been a coat, and of which there yet remained a sleeve and a half; the rest was suspended over his shoulders in shreds. A few tatters were arranged around his nether parts, but they could scarcely be said to cover his nakedness; and as for shoes, stockings, and shirt, they doubtless had been neglected, as being of no professional use. A kind of a hat (which, from a piece of the flap still remaining, showed that it had once possessed a brim) ornamented as villanous a looking head as ever sat upon a pair of shoulders--carrotty hair, that had as much pliancy as a stubble field--a low receding forehead--light grey eyes, rolling about, with as much roguery in them as if each contained a thief--a broad, snubby nose--a projecting chin, with a beard of at least a month's growth--the whole forming no bad resemblance to a rough, red, wiry-haired, vicious terrier dog, whose face had been half-bitten off by hard fighting. He was the very type of a hedge ruffian, and a most proper person to meet any one "by moonlight alone."

----"He looked as if his blood Had crept thro' scoundrels ever since the flood."

The very sight of this model of his tribe brought vagrancy, with all her train, before our eyes, mugger's-carts, tinker's wives, bull dogs, donkeys, creels, kail pots, and all the trumpery of a gipsey's camp.

This elegant individual, we found afterwards, answered to the very proper appellation of "Cadger Jack." He was leaning over the table, resting his arms on a bundle of matches, and grumbling heavily about the times, "Cadging," he said, "was gone to the devil! He had been out ever since the morning, and had not yet broke his fast; but if he lived till Monday, he would go to the lord mayor." Here he used some emphatic language, and swore he would not stir until he got relief.

"You will get three months to the tread-mill," observed a woman, sitting opposite (the only one in the room, and a happy compound between the s.l.u.t and the sot).

He d----d the tread-mill, declared he had played at up and down before now--and would go--they were compelled to give him something--the law did not suffer any man to starve, and so on.

He was rattling on in his way, without any one paying the least attention to what he said, when a lad about fourteen, decently dressed, came in, carrying a box. He placed himself beside the window, and began to display the contents of his trunk, offering for sale several respectable articles of clothing for mere trifles.

"Go home, boy," (said a man who had just come in, with his arms loaded with good things). "What brought you here? do you want to be ruined? you have run away, you young rascal, and stole them things."