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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Seven Curses of London, by James Greenwood
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Seven Curses of London
+
+
+Author: James Greenwood
+
+
+
+Release Date: May 5, 2014  [eBook #45585]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SEVEN CURSES OF LONDON***
+
+
+Transcribed from the [1869] edition by David Price, email
+ccx074@pglaf.org
+
+                          [Picture: Book cover]
+
+      [Picture: Yours truly James Greenwood (picture of Greenwood)]
+
+
+
+
+
+                                   THE
+                         SEVEN CURSES OF LONDON.
+
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                           BY JAMES GREENWOOD,
+                          The “Amateur Casual.”
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                                 LONDON:
+                          STANLEY RIVERS AND CO.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+
+                       I.  Neglected Children.
+                              CHAPTER I.
+                           STARTLING FACTS.
+The Pauper Population.—Pauper Children.—Opinions                page 1
+concerning their proper Treatment.—A Hundred Thousand
+Children loose in London Streets.—Neglected
+Babies.—Juvenile “Market Prowlers”
+                             CHAPTER II.
+      RESPECTING THE PARENTAGE OF SOME OF OUR GUTTER POPULATION.
+Who are the Mothers?—The Infant Labour-Market.—Watch             p. 13
+London and Blackfriars Bridges.—The Melancholy Types.—The
+Flashy, Flaunting “Infant.”—Keeping Company.—Marriage.—The
+Upshot
+                             CHAPTER III.
+                            BABY-FARMING.
+“Baby-Farmers” and Advertising “Child-Adopters.”—“F. X.”         p. 29
+of Stepney.—The Author’s Interview with Farmer Oxleek.—The
+Case of Baby Frederick Wood
+                             CHAPTER IV.
+                            WORKING BOYS.
+The London Errand-Boy.—His Drudgery and Privations.—His          p. 58
+Temptations.—The London Boy after Dark.—The Amusements
+provided for him
+                              CHAPTER V.
+                     THE PROBLEM OF DELIVERANCE.
+Curious Problem.—The best Method of Treatment.—The “Child        p. 76
+of the Gutter” not to be entirely abolished.—The genuine
+Alley-bred Arab.—The Poor Lambs of the Ragged Flock.—The
+Tree of Evil in our midst.—The Breeding Places of Disease
+and Vice
+                      II.  Professional Thieves.
+                             CHAPTER VI.
+                    THEIR NUMBER AND DIFFICULTIES.
+Twenty Thousand Thieves in London.—What it means.—The            p. 85
+Language of “Weeds.”—Cleverness of the Pilfering
+Fraternity.—A Protest against a barbarous Suggestion.—The
+Prisoner’s great Difficulty.—The Moment of Leaving
+Prison.—Bad Friends.—What becomes of Good Resolutions and
+the Chaplain’s Counsel?—The Criminal’s Scepticism of Human
+Goodness.—Life in “Little Hell.”—The Cow-Cross Mission.
+                             CHAPTER VII.
+                HOMES AND HAUNTS OF THE BRITISH THIEF.
+The Three Classes of Thieving Society.—Popular                  p. 108
+Misapprehensions.—A True Picture of the London Thief.—A
+Fancy Sketch of the “Under-ground Cellar.”—In Disguise at
+a Thieves’ Raffle.—The Puzzle of “Black Maria.”—Mr.
+Mullins’s Speech and his Song
+                            CHAPTER VIII.
+                          JUVENILE THIEVES.
+The Beginning of the Downhill Journey.—Candidates for           p. 124
+Newgate Honours.—Black Spots of London.—Life from the
+Young Robber’s Point of View.—The Seedling Recruits the
+most difficult to reform.—A doleful Summing-up.—A Phase of
+the Criminal Question left unnoticed.—Budding
+Burglars.—Streams which keep at full flood the Black Sea
+of Crime.—The Promoters of “Gallows Literature.”—Another
+Shot at a Fortress of the
+Devil.—“Poison-Literature.”—“Starlight Sall.”—“Panther
+Bill”
+                             CHAPTER IX.
+                     THE THIEF NON-PROFESSIONAL.
+The Registered and the Unregistered Thieves of the London       p. 144
+Hunting-ground.—The Certainty of the Crop of Vice.—Omnibus
+Drivers and Conductors.—The “Watchers.”—The London General
+Omnibus Company.—The Scandal of their System.—The
+Shopkeeper Thief.—False Weights and Measures.—Adulteration
+of Food and Drink.—Our Old Law, “I am as honest as I can
+afford to be!”—Rudimentary Exercises in the Art of Pillage
+                              CHAPTER X.
+                 CRIMINAL SUPPRESSION AND PUNISHMENT.
+Lord Romilly’s Suggestion concerning the Education of the       p. 173
+Children of Criminals.—Desperate Criminals.—The Alleys of
+the Borough.—The worst Quarters not, as a rule, the most
+noisy.—The Evil Example of “Gallows Heroes,” “Dick
+Turpin,” “Blueskin,” &c.—The Talent for “Gammoning Lady
+Green.”—A worthy Governor’s Opinion as to the best way of
+“Breaking” a Bad Boy.—Affection for “Mother.”—The Dark
+Cell and its Inmate.—An Affecting Interview
+                             CHAPTER XI.
+     ADULT CRIMINALS AND THE NEW LAW FOR THEIR BETTER GOVERNMENT.
+Recent Legislation.—Statistics.—Lord Kimberley’s “Habitual      p. 183
+Criminals” Bill.—The Present System of
+License-Holders.—Colonel Henderson’s Report.—Social
+Enemies of Suspected Men.—The Wrong-headed Policeman and
+the Mischief he may cause.—Looking out for a Chance.—The
+last Resource of desperate Honesty.—A Brotherly
+Appeal.—“Ginger will settle her.”—Ruffians who should be
+shut up
+                     III.  Professional Beggars.
+                             CHAPTER XII.
+                      THE BEGGAR OF OLDEN TIME.
+“Only a Beggar.”—The Fraternity 333 Years ago.—A savage         p. 211
+Law.—Origin of the Poor-Laws.—Irish Distinction in the
+Ranks of Beggary.—King Charles’s Proclamation.—Cumberland
+Discipline
+                            CHAPTER XIII.
+               THE WORK OF PUNISHMENT AND RECLAMATION.
+The Effect of “The Society for the Suppression of               p. 221
+Mendicity.”—State Business earned out by Individual
+Enterprise.—“The Discharged Prisoners’ Aid Society.”—The
+quiet Work of these Societies.—Their Mode of Work.—Curious
+Statistics.—Singular Oscillations.—Diabolical Swindling
+                             CHAPTER XIV.
+                          BEGGING “DODGES.”
+The Variety and Quality of the Imposture.—Superior              p. 242
+Accomplishments of the Modern Practitioner.—The Recipe for
+Success.—The Power of “Cheek.”—“Chanting” and the “Shallow
+Lay.”—Estimates of their Paying Value.—The Art of touching
+Women’s Hearts.—The Half-resentful Trick.—The Loudon
+“Cadger.”—The Height of the “Famine Season.”
+                             CHAPTER XV.
+                     GENTEEL ADVERTISING BEGGARS.
+The Newspaper Plan and the delicate Process.—Forms of              259
+Petition.—Novel Applications of Photography.—Personal
+Attractions of the Distressed.—Help, or I perish!
+                          IV.  Fallen Women.
+                             CHAPTER XVI.
+                             THIS CURSE.
+The Difficulty in handling it.—The Question of its              p. 271
+Recognition.—The Argyll Rooms.—Mr. Acton’s Visit
+there.—The Women and their Patrons.—The Floating
+Population of Windmill-street.—Cremorne Gardens in the
+Season
+                            CHAPTER XVII.
+             THE PLAIN FACTS AND FIGURES OF PROSTITUTION.
+Statistics of Westminster, Brompton, and Pimlico.—Methods       p. 281
+of conducting the nefarious Business.—Aristocratic
+Dens.—The High Tariff.—The Horrors of the Social Evil.—The
+Broken Bridge behind the Sinner.—“Dress Lodgers.”—There’s
+always a “Watcher.”—Soldiers and Sailors.—The “Wrens of
+the Curragh”
+                            CHAPTER XVIII.
+                THE PRESENT CONDITION OF THE QUESTION.
+The Laws applying to Street-walkers.—The Keepers of the         p. 304
+Haymarket Night-houses.—Present Position of the
+Police-magistrates.—Music-hall
+Frequenters.—Refreshment-bars.—Midnight
+Profligacy—“Snuggeries.”—Over-zealous Blockheads.
+                             CHAPTER XIX.
+                             SUGGESTIONS.
+Ignoring the Evil.—Punishment fit for the “Deserter” and        p. 324
+the Seducer.—The “Know-nothing” and “Do-nothing”
+Principle.—The Emigration of Women of Bad Character
+                    V.  The Curse of Drunkenness.
+                             CHAPTER XX.
+                              ITS POWER.
+The crowning Curse.—No form of sin or sorrow in which it        p. 332
+does not play a part.—The “Slippery Stone” of
+Life.—Statistics.—Matters not growing worse.—The Army
+Returns.—The System of Adulteration
+                             CHAPTER XXI.
+                        ATTEMPTS TO ARREST IT.
+The Permissive Liquors Bill.—Its Advocates and their            p. 351
+Arguments.—The Drunkenness of the Nation.—Temperance Facts
+and Anecdotes.—Why the Advocates of Total Abstinence do
+not make more headway.—Moderate Drinking.—Hard
+Drinking.—The Mistake about childish Petitioners
+                        VI.  Betting Gamblers.
+                            CHAPTER XXII.
+         “ADVERTISING TIPSTERS” AND “BETTING COMMISSIONERS.”
+The Vice of Gambling on the increase among the                  p. 377
+Working-classes.—Sporting “Specs.”—A “Modus.”—Turf
+Discoveries.—Welshers.—The Vermin of the
+Betting-field.—Their Tactics.—The Road to Ruin
+                       VII.  Waste of Charity.
+                            CHAPTER XXIII.
+                       METROPOLITAN PAUPERISM.
+Parochial Statistics.—The Public hold the                       p. 421
+Purse-strings.—Cannot the Agencies actually at work be
+made to yield greater Results?—The need of fair
+Rating.—The Heart and Core of the Poor-law Difficulty.—My
+foremost thought when I was a “Casual.”—Who are most
+liable to slip?—“Crank-work.”—The Utility of
+Labour-yards.—Scales of Relief.—What comes of breaking-up
+a Home
+                            CHAPTER XXIV.
+                           THE BEST REMEDY.
+Emigration.—The various Fields.—Distinguish the                 p. 455
+Industrious Worker in need of temporary Relief.—Last Words
+
+
+
+I.—Neglected Children.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+STARTLING FACTS.
+
+
+_The Pauper Population_.—_Pauper Children_.—_Opinions concerning their
+proper Treatment_.—_A Hundred Thousand Children loose in London
+Streets_.—_Neglected Babies_.—_Juvenile_ “_Market Prowlers_.”
+
+IT is a startling fact that, in England and Wales alone, at the present
+time, the number of children under the age of sixteen, dependent more or
+less on the parochial authorities for maintenance, amounts to three
+hundred and fifty thousand.
+
+It is scarcely less startling to learn that annually more than a hundred
+thousand criminals emerge at the doors of the various prisons, that, for
+short time or long time, have been their homes, and with no more
+substantial advice than “to take care that they don’t make their
+appearance there again,” are turned adrift once more to face the world,
+unkind as when they last stole from it.  This does not include our
+immense army of juvenile vagrants.  How the information has been arrived
+at is more than I can tell; but it is an accepted fact that, daily,
+winter and summer, within the limits of our vast and wealthy city of
+London, there wander, destitute of proper guardianship, food, clothing,
+or employment, a _hundred thousand_ boys and girls in fair training for
+the treadmill and the oakum shed, and finally for Portland and the
+convict’s mark.
+
+It is these last-mentioned hundred thousand, rather than the four hundred
+and fifty thousand previously mentioned, that are properly classed under
+the heading of this first chapter.  Practically, the three hundred and
+fifty thousand little paupers that cumber the poor-rates are without the
+category of neglected ones.  In all probability, at least one-half of
+that vast number never were victims of neglect, in the true sense of the
+term.  Mr. Bumble derives his foster children from sources innumerable.
+There are those that are born in the “house,” and who, on some pretext,
+are abandoned by their unnatural mother.  There are the “strays,”
+discovered by the police on their beats, and consigned, for the present,
+to the workhouse, and never owned.  There is the offspring of the
+decamping weaver, or shoemaker, who goes on tramp “to better himself;”
+but, never succeeding, does not regard it as worth while to tramp home
+again to report his ill-luck.  These, and such as these, may truly
+ascribe their pauperism to neglect on somebody’s part; but by far the
+greater number are what they are through sheer misfortune.  When death
+snatches father away from the table scarcely big enough to accommodate
+the little flock that cluster about it—snatches him away in the lusty
+prime of life, and without warning, or, worse still, flings him on a bed
+of sickness, the remedies for which devour the few pounds thriftily laid
+aside for such an emergency, and, after all, are of no avail, what other
+asylum but the workhouse offers itself to mother and children?  How many
+cases of this kind the parish books could reveal, one can only guess;
+quite enough, we may be sure, to render unpalatable that excessive amount
+of caution observed by those in power against “holding out a premium” to
+pauperism.  It is somewhat amazing to hear great authorities talk
+sometimes.  Just lately, Mr. Bartley, reading at the Society of Arts a
+paper entitled, “The training and education of pauper children,” took
+occasion to remark:—
+
+    “These children cannot be looked upon exactly in the same way as
+    paupers proper, inasmuch as their unfortunate position is entirely
+    due to circumstances over which they could have no control.  They are
+    either the offspring of felons, cripples, and idiots, or orphans,
+    bastards, and deserted children, and claim the protection of the law,
+    frequently from their tenderest years, from having been deprived of
+    the care of their natural guardians without fault or crime of their
+    own.  Such being their condition, they must either steal or starve in
+    the streets, or the State must take charge of them.  It may further
+    be affirmed that, in a strictly commercial point of view, it is more
+    economical to devote a certain amount in education and systematic
+    training than by allowing them to grow up in the example of their
+    parents and workhouse companions, to render their permanent support,
+    either in a prison or a workhouse, a burden on the industrious
+    classes.  The State, in fact, acknowledges this, and accordingly a
+    provision is theoretically supplied for all pauper children, not only
+    for their bodily wants, but, to a certain extent, for their mental
+    improvement.  At the same time, it is also necessary that the extreme
+    should not be run into, viz., that of treating them so liberally as
+    to hold out a premium to pauperism.  In no case should their comfort
+    be better than, nor in fact as good as, an industrious labourer has
+    within his reach.”
+
+Mr. Bartley is a gentleman whose knowledge of the subject he treats of
+exceeds that of most men; moreover, he is a man who, in his acts and
+nature, shows himself actuated by a kind heart, governed by a sound head;
+but, with all deference, it is difficult to agree altogether with the
+foregoing remarks of his: and they are the better worth noticing, because
+precisely the same sentiment breathes through almost every modern, new,
+and improved system of parochial reform.  Why should these unfortunate
+creatures, “their unfortunate position being entirely due to
+circumstances over which they had no control,” be made less comfortable
+in their condition than the industrious labourer,—who, by the way, may be
+an agricultural labourer, with his starvation wages of nine shillings a
+week and his damp and miserable hovel of two rooms to board and lodge his
+numerous family?  What sort of justice is it to keep constantly before
+their unoffending eyes the humiliating fact that they have no standing
+even on the bottom round of the social ladder, and that their proper
+place is to crouch meekly and uncomplainingly at the foot of it?  Even
+supposing that they, the pauper children, are “either the offspring of
+felons, cripples, and idiots, or orphans, bastards, and deserted
+children,” which is assuming to the verge of improbability, still, since
+it is acknowledged that the state in which we discover them “is due to no
+fault or crime of their own,” why should we hesitate to make them
+commonly comfortable?  To fail so to do when it is in our power, and
+when, according to their innocence and helplessness, it is their due, is
+decidedly at variance with the commonly-understood principles of
+Christian charity.  It will be needless, however, here to pursue the
+subject of pauper management, since another section of this book has been
+given to its consideration.  Anyhow, our three hundred and fifty thousand
+pauper children can have no claim to be reckoned among the “neglected.”
+They are, or should be, a class whose hard necessity has been brought
+under the notice of the authorities, and by them considered and provided
+for.
+
+There are other neglected children besides those already enumerated, and
+who are not included in the tenth part of a million who live in the
+streets, for the simple reason that they are too young to know the use of
+their legs.  They are “coming on,” however.  There is no present fear of
+the noble annual crop of a hundred thousand diminishing.  They are so
+plentifully propagated that a savage preaching “civilization” might
+regard it as a mercy that the localities of their infant nurture are such
+as suit the ravening appetites of cholera and typhus.  Otherwise they
+would breed like rabbits in an undisturbed warren, and presently swarm so
+abundantly that the highways would be over-run, making it necessary to
+pass an Act of Parliament, improving on the latest enacted for dogs,
+against the roaming at large of unmuzzled children of the gutter.
+Observe the vast number of “city Arabs,” to be encountered in a walk,
+from Cheapside to the Angel at Islington, say.  You cannot mistake them.
+There are other children who are constantly encountered in the street,
+male and female, who, though perhaps neither so ragged and dirty as the
+genuine juvenile vagrants, are even more sickly and hungry looking; but
+it is as easy to distinguish between the two types—between the
+_home-owning_ and the _homeless_, as between the sleek pet dog, and the
+cur of the street, whose ideas of a “kennel” are limited to that
+represented by the wayside gutter, from which by good-luck edibles may be
+extracted.  Not only does the youthful ragamuffin cry aloud for remedy in
+every street and public way of the city, he thrusts his ugly presence on
+us continuously, and appeals to us in bodily shape.  In this respect, the
+curse of neglected children differs widely from any of the others,
+beggars alone excepted, perhaps.  And even as regards beggars, to see
+them is not always to believe in them as human creatures helpless in the
+sad condition in which they are discovered, and worthy of the best help
+we can afford to bestow on them.  It is next to impossible by outward
+signs merely to discriminate between the impostor and the really
+unfortunate and destitute.  The pallid cheek and the sunken eye, may be a
+work of art and not of nature, and in the cunning arrangement of rags, so
+as to make the most of them, the cheat must always have an advantage over
+the genuine article.  Weighing the evidence _pro._ and _con._, the object
+of it creeping even at his snail’s pace may be out of sight before we
+arrive at what appears to us a righteous verdict, and our scrupulous
+charity reserved for another, occasion.  But no such perplexing doubts
+and hesitation need trouble us in selecting the boy gutter bred and born
+from the one who lays claim to a home, even though it may be no more than
+a feeble pretence, consisting of a family nightly gathering in some dirty
+sty that serves as a bedroom, and a morning meeting at a board spread
+with a substitute for a breakfast.  In the latter there is an expression
+of countenance utterly wanting in the former; an undescribable shyness,
+and an instinctive observance of decency, that has been rain-washed and
+sun-burnt out of the gipsy of the London highway since the time of his
+crawling out of the gooseberry sieve, with a wisp of hay in it that
+served him as a cradle.
+
+And here I can fancy I hear the incredulous reader exclaim, “But that is
+mere imagery of course; ragamuffin babies never are cradled in gooseberry
+sieves, with a wisp of hay to lie on.”  Let me assure you, dear madam, it
+is not imagery, but positive fact.  The strangest receptacles do duty as
+baby cradles at times.  In another part of our book, it will be shown
+that a raisin-box may be so adapted, or even an egg-box; the latter with
+a bit of straw in it as a cradle for an invalid baby with a broken thigh!
+But as regards the gooseberry sieve, it is a fact that came under the
+writer’s immediate observation.  Accompanied by a friend, he was on a
+visit of exploration into the little-known regions of Baldwin’s Gardens,
+in Leather Lane, and entering a cellar there, the family who occupied it
+were discovered in a state of dreadful commotion.  The mother, a tall,
+bony, ragged shrew, had a baby tucked under one arm, while she was using
+the other by the aid of a pair of dilapidated nozzleless bellows in
+inflicting a tremendous beating on a howling young gentleman of about
+eleven years old.  “Tut! tut! what is the matter, Mrs. Donelly?  Rest
+your arm a moment, now, and tell us all about it.”  “Matther! shure it’s
+matther enough to dhrive a poor widdy beyant her sinses!”  And then her
+rage turning to sorrow, she in pathetic terms described how that she left
+that bad boy Johnny only for a few moments in charge of the “darlint
+comfortable ashleap in her bashket,” and that he had neglected his duty,
+and that the baste of a donkey had smelt her out, and “ate her clane out
+o’ bed.”
+
+I have had so much experience in this way, that one day I may write a
+book on the Haunts and Homes of the British Baby.  It was not long after
+the incident of the gooseberry sieve, that I discovered in one small room
+in which a family of six resided, three little children, varying in age
+from three to eight, perhaps, stark naked.  It was noon of a summer’s
+day, and there they were nude as forest monkeys, and so hideously dirty
+that every rib-bone in their poor wasted little bodies showed plain, and
+in colour like mahogany.  Soon as I put my head in at the door they
+scattered, scared as rabbits, to the “bed,” an arrangement of
+evil-smelling flock and old potato-sacks, and I was informed by the
+mother that they had not a rag to wear, and had been in their present
+condition for _more than three months_.
+
+Let us return, however, to the hordes of small Arabs found wandering
+about the streets of the city.  To the mind of the initiated, instantly
+recurs the question, “whence do they all come”?  They are not imported
+like those other pests of society, “German band boys or organ grinders;”
+they must have been babies once upon a time; where did they grow up?  In
+very dreary and retired regions, my dear sir, though for that matter if
+it should happen that you are perambulating fashionable Regent-street or
+aristocratic Belgravia, when you put to yourself the perplexing question,
+you may be nigher to a visible solution of the mystery than you would
+care to know.  Where does the shoeless, ragged, dauntless, and often
+desperate boy of the gutter breed?  Why, not unfrequently as close almost
+to the mansions of the rich and highly respectable as the sparrows in
+their chimney stacks.  Nothing is more common than to discover a hideous
+stew of courts and alleys reeking in poverty and wretchedness almost in
+the shadow of the palatial abodes of the great and wealthy.  Such
+instances might be quoted by the dozen.
+
+It is seldom that these fledglings of the hawk tribe quit their nests or
+rather their nesting places until they are capable, although on a most
+limited scale, of doing business on their own account.  Occasionally a
+specimen may be seen in the vicinity of Covent Garden or Farringdon
+Market, seated on a carriage extemporized out of an old rusty teatray and
+drawn along by his elder relatives, by means of a string.  It may not be
+safely assumed, however, that the latter are actuated by no other than
+affectionate and disinterested motives in thus treating their infant
+charge to a ride.  It is much more probable that being left at home in
+the alley by their mother, who is engaged elsewhere at washing or
+“charing,” with strict injunctions not to leave baby for so long as a
+minute, and being goaded to desperation by the thoughts of the plentiful
+feed of cast-out plums and oranges to be picked up in “Common Garden” at
+this “dead ripe” season of the year, they have hit on this ingenious
+expedient by which the maternal mandate may be obeyed to the letter, and
+their craving for market refuse be at the same time gratified.
+
+By-the-bye, it may here be mentioned as a contribution towards solving
+the riddle, “How do these hundred thousand street prowlers contrive to
+exist?” that they draw a considerable amount of their sustenance from the
+markets.  And really it would seem that by some miraculous dispensation
+of Providence, garbage was for their sake robbed of its poisonous
+properties, and endowed with virtues such as wholesome food possesses.
+Did the reader ever see the young market hunters at such a “feed” say in
+the month of August or September?  It is a spectacle to be witnessed only
+by early risers who can get as far as Covent Garden by the time that the
+wholesale dealing in the open falls slack—which will be about eight
+o’clock; and it is not to be believed unless it is seen.  They will
+gather about a muck heap and gobble up plums, a sweltering mass of decay,
+and oranges and apples that have quite lost their original shape and
+colour, with the avidity of ducks or pigs.  I speak according to my
+knowledge, for I have seen them at it.  I have seen one of these gaunt
+wolfish little children with his tattered cap full of plums of a sort one
+of which I would not have permitted a child of mine to eat for all the
+money in the Mint, and this at a season when the sanitary authorities in
+their desperate alarm at the spread of cholera had turned bill stickers,
+and were begging and imploring the people to abstain from this, that, and
+the other, and especially to beware of fruit unless perfectly sound and
+ripe.  Judging from the earnestness with which this last provision was
+urged, there must have been cholera enough to have slain a dozen strong
+men in that little ragamuffin’s cap, and yet he munched on till that
+frowsy receptacle was emptied, finally licking his fingers with a relish.
+It was not for me to forcibly dispossess the boy of a prize that made him
+the envy of his plumless companions, but I spoke to the market beadle
+about it, asking him if it would not be possible, knowing the
+propensities of these poor little wretches, so to dispose of the
+poisonous offal that they could not get at it; but he replied that it was
+nothing to do with him what they ate so long as they kept their hands
+from picking and stealing; furthermore he politely intimated that “unless
+I had nothing better to do” there was no call for me to trouble myself
+about the “little warmint,” whom nothing would hurt.  He confided to me
+his private belief that they were “made inside something after the
+orsestretch, and that farriers’ nails wouldn’t come amiss to ’em if they
+could only get ’em down.”  However, and although the evidence was rather
+in the sagacious market beadle’s favour, I was unconverted from my
+original opinion, and here take the liberty of urging on any official of
+Covent Garden or Farringdon Market who may happen to read these pages the
+policy of adopting my suggestion as to the safe bestowal of fruit offal
+during the sickly season.  That great danger is incurred by allowing it
+to be consumed as it now is, there cannot be a question.  Perhaps it is
+too much to assume that the poor little beings whom hunger prompts to
+feed off garbage do so with impunity.  It is not improbable that, in many
+cases, they slink home to die in their holes as poisoned rats do.  That
+they are never missed from the market is no proof of the contrary.  Their
+identification is next to impossible, for they are like each other as
+apples in a sieve, or peas in one pod.  Moreover, to tell their number is
+out of the question.  It is as incomprehensible as is their nature.  They
+swarm as bees do, and arduous indeed would be the task of the individual
+who undertook to reckon up the small fry of a single alley of the
+hundreds that abound in Squalor’s regions.  They are of as small account
+in the public estimation as stray street curs, and, like them, it is only
+where they evince a propensity for barking and biting that their
+existence is recognised.  Should death to-morrow morning make a clean
+sweep of the unsightly little scavengers who grovel for a meal amongst
+the market offal heaps, next day would see the said heaps just as
+industriously surrounded.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+RESPECTING THE PARENTAGE OF SOME OF OUR GUTTER POPULATION.
+
+
+_Who are the Mothers_?—_The Infant Labour Market_.—_Watch London and
+Blackfriars Bridges_.—_The Melancholy Types_.—_The Flashy_, _Flaunting_
+“_Infant_.”—_Keeping Company_.—_Marriage_.—_The Upshot_.
+
+INSTRUCTIVE and interesting though it may be to inquire into the haunts
+and habits of these wretched waifs and “rank outsiders” of humanity, of
+how much importance and of useful purpose is it to dig yet a little
+deeper and discover who are the parents—the mothers especially—of these
+babes of the gutter.
+
+Clearly they had no business there at all.  A human creature, and more
+than all, a _helpless_ human creature, endowed with the noblest shape of
+God’s creation, and with a soul to save or lose, is as much out of place
+grovelling in filth and contamination as would be a wild cat crouching on
+the hearth-rug of a nursery.  How come they there, then?  Although not
+bred absolutely in the kennel, many merge into life so very near the edge
+of it, that it is no wonder if even their infantine kickings and
+sprawlings are enough to topple them over.  Some there are, not vast in
+number, perhaps, but of a character to influence the whole, who are
+dropped into the gutter from such a height that they may never crawl out
+of it—they are so sorely crippled.  Others, again, find their way to the
+gutter by means of a process identical with that which serves the
+conveyance to sinks and hidden sewers of the city’s ordinary refuse and
+off-scourings.  Of this last-mentioned sort, however, it will be
+necessary to treat at length presently.
+
+I think that it may be taken as granted that gross and deliberate
+immorality is not mainly responsible for our gutter population.  Neither
+can the poverty of the nation be justly called on to answer for it.  On
+the contrary, unless I am greatly mistaken, the main tributary to the
+foul stream has its fountain-head in the keen-witted, ready-penny
+commercial enterprise of the small-capital, business-minded portion of
+our vast community.
+
+In no respect are we so unlike our forefathers as in our struggles after
+“mastership” in business, however petty.  This may be a sign of
+commercial progress amongst us, but it is doubtful if it tends very much
+to the healthful constitution of our humanity.  “Work hard and win a
+fortune,” has become a dry and mouldy maxim, distasteful to modern
+traders, and has yielded to one that is much smarter, viz., “There is
+more got by scheming than by hard work.”
+
+By scheming the labour of others, that is; little children—anyone.  It is
+in the infant labour market especially that this new and dashing spirit
+of commercial enterprise exercises itself chiefly.  There are many kinds
+of labour that require no application of muscular strength; all that is
+requisite is dexterity and lightness of touch, and these with most
+children are natural gifts.  They are better fitted for the work they are
+set to than adults would be, while the latter would require as wages
+shillings where the little ones are content with pence.  This, perhaps,
+would be tolerable if their earnings increased with their years; but such
+an arrangement does not come within the scheme of the sweaters and
+slop-factors, Jew and Christian, who grind the bones of little children
+to make them not only bread, but luxurious living and country houses, and
+carriages to ride in.  When their “hands” cease to be children, these
+enterprising tradesmen no longer require their services, and they are
+discharged to make room for a new batch of small toilers, eager to engage
+themselves on terms that the others have learned to despise, while those
+last-mentioned unfortunates are cast adrift to win their bread—somehow.
+
+Anyone curious to know the sort of working young female alluded to may be
+gratified a hundred times over any day of the week, if he will take the
+trouble to post himself, between the hours of twelve and two, at the foot
+of London or Blackfriars bridge.  There he will see the young girl of the
+slop-shop and the city “warehouse” hurrying homeward on the chance of
+finding a meagre makeshift—“something hot”—that may serve as a dinner.
+
+It is a sight well worth the seeking of any philanthropic person
+interested in the present condition and possible future of the infant
+labour market.  How much or how little of truth there may be in the
+lament one occasionally hears, that our endurance is failing us, and that
+we seldom reach the ripe old age attained by our ancestors, we will not
+here discuss; at least there can be no doubt of this—that we grow old
+much earlier than did our great grandfathers; and though our “three-score
+years and ten” may be shortened by fifteen or twenty years, the downhill
+portion of our existence is at least as protracted as that of the hale
+men of old who could leap a gate at sixty.  This must be so, otherwise
+the ancient law, defining an infant as “a person under the age of
+fourteen,” could never have received the sanction of legislators.  Make
+note of these “infants” of the law as they come in knots of two and
+three, and sometimes in an unbroken “gang,” just as they left the
+factory, putting their best feet foremost in a match against time; for
+all that is allowed them is one hour, and within that limited period they
+have to walk perhaps a couple of miles to and fro, resting only during
+that brief space in which it is their happy privilege to exercise their
+organs of mastication.
+
+Good times indeed were those olden ones, if for no other reason than that
+they knew not such infants as these!  Of the same stuff in the main, one
+and all, but by no means of the same pattern.  Haggard, weary-eyed
+infants, who never could have been babies; little slips of things, whose
+heads are scarcely above the belt of the burly policeman lounging out his
+hours of duty on the bridge, but who have a brow on which, in lines
+indelible, are scored a dreary account of the world’s hard dealings with
+them.  Painfully puckered mouths have these, and an air of such sad, sage
+experience, that one might fancy, not that these were young people who
+would one day grow to be old women, but rather that, by some inversion of
+the natural order of things, they had once been old and were growing
+young again—that they had seen seventy, at least, but had doubled on the
+brow of the hill of age, instead of crossing it, and retraced their
+steps, until they arrived back again at thirteen; the old, old heads
+planted on the young shoulders revealing the secret.
+
+This, the most melancholy type of the grown-up neglected infant, is,
+however, by no means the most painful of those that come trooping past in
+such a mighty hurry.  Some are dogged and sullen-looking, and appear as
+though steeped to numbness in the comfortless doctrine, “What can’t be
+cured must be endured;” as if they had acquired a certain sort of surly
+relish for the sours of existence, and partook of them as a matter of
+course, without even a wry face.  These are not of the sort that excite
+our compassion the most; neither are the ailing and sickly-looking little
+girls, whose tender constitutions have broken down under pressure of the
+poison inhaled in the crowded workroom, and long hours, and countless
+trudgings, early and late, in the rain and mire, with no better covering
+for their shoulders than a flimsy mantle a shower would wet through and
+through, and a wretched pair of old boots that squelch on the pavement as
+they walk.  Pitiful as are these forlorn ones to behold, there is, at
+least, a grim satisfaction in knowing that with them it cannot last.  The
+creature who causes us most alarm is a girl of a very different type.
+
+This is the flashy, flaunting “infant,” barely fourteen, and with scarce
+four feet of stature, but self-possessed and bold-eyed enough to be a
+“daughter of the regiment”—of a militia regiment even.  She consorts with
+birds of her own feather.  Very little experience enables one to tell at
+a glance almost how these girls are employed, and it is quite evident
+that the terrible infant in question and her companions are engaged in
+the manufacture of artificial flowers.  Their teeth are discoloured, and
+there is a chafed and chilblainish appearance about their nostrils, as
+though suffering under a malady that were best consoled with a
+pocket-handkerchief.  The symptoms in question, however, are caused by
+the poison used in their work—arsenite of copper, probably, that deadly
+mineral being of a “lovely green,” and much in favour amongst artificial
+florists and their customers.  Here they come, unabashed by the throng,
+as though the highway were their home, and all mankind their brothers;
+she, the heroine with a bold story to tell, and plenty of laughter and
+free gesticulation as sauce with it.  She is of the sort, and, God help
+them! they may be counted by hundreds in London alone, in whom keen wit
+would appear to be developed simultaneously with ability to walk and
+talk.  Properly trained, these are the girls that grow to be clever,
+capable women—women of spirit and courage and shrewd discernment.  The
+worst of it is that the seed implanted will germinate.  Hunger cannot
+starve it to death, or penurious frosts destroy it.  Untrained, it grows
+apace, overturning and strangling all opposition and asserting its
+paramount importance.
+
+This is the girl who is the bane and curse of the workroom crowded with
+juvenile stitchers or pasters, or workers in flowers or beads.  Her
+constant assumption of lightheartedness draws them towards her, her
+lively stories are a relief from the monotonous drudgery they are engaged
+on.  Old and bold in petty wickedness, and with audacious pretensions to
+acquaintance with vice of a graver sort, she entertains them with stories
+of “sprees” and “larks” she and her friends have indulged in.  She has
+been to “plays” and to “dancing rooms,” and to the best of her ability
+and means she demonstrates the latest fashion in her own attire, and
+wears her draggletail flinders of lace and ribbon in such an easy and
+old-fashionable manner, poor little wretch, as to impress one with the
+conviction that she must have been used to this sort of thing since the
+time of her shortcoating; which must have been many, many years ago.  She
+has money to spend; not much, but sufficient for the purchase of
+luxuries, the consumption of which inflict cruel pangs on the hungry-eyed
+beholders.  She is a person whose intimacy is worth cultivating, and they
+do cultivate it, with what result need not be here described.
+
+At fifteen the London factory-bred girl in her vulgar way has the worldly
+knowledge of the ordinary female of eighteen or twenty.  She has her
+“young man,” and accompanies him of evenings to “sing-songs” and raffles,
+and on high days and holidays to Hampton by the shilling van, or to
+Greenwich by the sixpenny boat.  At sixteen she wearies of the
+frivolities of sweethearting, and the young man being agreeable the pair
+embark in housekeeping, and “settle down.”
+
+Perhaps they marry, and be it distinctly understood, whatever has been
+said to the contrary, the estate of matrimony amongst her class is not
+lightly esteemed.  On the contrary, it is a contract in which so much
+pride is taken that the certificate attesting its due performance is not
+uncommonly displayed on the wall of the living-room as a choice print or
+picture might be; with this singular and unaccountable distinction that
+when a _clock_ is reckoned with the other household furniture, the
+marriage certificate is almost invariably hung under it.  It was Mr.
+Catlin of the Cow Cross Mission who first drew my attention to this
+strange observance, and in our many explorations into the horrible courts
+and alleys in the vicinity of his mission-house he frequently pointed out
+instances of this strange custom; but even he, who is as learned in the
+habits and customs of all manner of outcasts of civilisation as any man
+living, was unable to explain its origin.  When questioned on the subject
+the common answer was, “They say that it’s lucky.”
+
+It is the expense attending the process that makes matrimony the
+exception and not the rule amongst these people.  At least this is their
+invariable excuse.  And here, as bearing directly on the question of
+“neglected infants,” I may make mention of a practice that certain
+well-intentioned people are adopting with a view to diminishing the
+prevalent sin of the unmarried sexes herding in their haunts of poverty,
+and living together as man and wife.
+
+The said practice appears sound enough on the surface.  It consists
+simply in marrying these erring couples gratis.  The missionary or
+scripture reader of the district who, as a rule, is curiously intimate
+with the family affairs of his flock, calls privately on those young
+people whose clock, if they have one, ticks to a barren wall, and makes
+the tempting offer—banns put up, service performed, beadle and pew opener
+satisfied, and all free!  As will not uncommonly happen, if driven into a
+corner for an excuse, the want of a jacket or a gown “to make a
+’spectable ’pearance in” is pleaded; the negociator makes a note of it,
+and in all probability the difficulty is provided against, and in due
+course the marriage is consummated.
+
+This is all very well as far as it goes, but to my way of thinking the
+scheme is open to many grave objections.  In the first place the instinct
+that incites people to herd like cattle in a lair is scarcely the same as
+induces them to blend their fortunes and live “for better, for worse”
+till the end of their life.  It requires no great depth of affection on
+the man’s part to lead him to take up with a woman who, in consideration
+of board and lodging and masculine protection will create some semblance
+of a home for him.  In his selection of such a woman he is not governed
+by those grave considerations that undoubtedly present themselves to his
+mind when he meditates wedding himself irrevocably to a mate.  Her
+history, previous to his taking up with her, may be known to him, and
+though perhaps not all that he could wish, she is as good to him as she
+promised to be, and they get along pretty well and don’t quarrel very
+much.
+
+Now, although not one word can be urged in favour of this iniquitous and
+shocking arrangement, is it quite certain that a great good is achieved
+by inducing such a couple to tie themselves together in the sacred bonds
+of matrimony?  It is not a marriage of choice as all marriages should be.
+If the pair had been bent on church marriage and earnestly desired it, it
+is absurd to suppose that the few necessary shillings, the price of its
+performance, would have deterred them.  If they held the sacred ceremony
+of so small account as to regard it as well dispensed with as adopted, it
+is no very great triumph of the cause of religion and morality that the
+balance is decided by a gown or a jacket, in addition to the good will of
+the missionary (who, by-the-bye, is generally the distributor of the alms
+of the charitable) being thrown into the scale.
+
+To be sure the man is not compelled to yield to the persuasions of those
+who would make of him a creditable member of society; he is not compelled
+to it, but he can hardly be regarded as a free agent.  If the pair have
+children already, the woman will be only too anxious to second the
+solicitation of her friend, and so secure to herself legal protection in
+addition to that that is already secured to her through her mate’s
+acquired regard for her.  Then it is so difficult to combat the simple
+question, “Why not?” when all is so generously arranged—even to the
+providing a real gold ring to be worn in place of the common brass
+make-believe—and nothing remains but to step round to the parish church,
+where the minister is waiting, and where in a quarter of an hour, the
+great, and good, and lasting work may be accomplished.  The well-meaning
+missionary asks, “Why not?”  The woman, urged by moral or mercenary
+motives, echoes the momentous query, and both stand with arms presented,
+in a manner of speaking, to hear the wavering one’s objection.  The
+wavering one is not generally of the far-seeing sort.  In his heart he
+does not care as much as a shilling which way it is.  He does not in the
+least trouble himself from the religious and moral point of view.  When
+his adviser says, “Just consider how much easier your conscience will be
+if you do this act of justice to the woman whom you have selected as your
+helpmate,” he wags his head as though admitting it, but having no
+conscience about the matter he is not very deeply impressed.  Nine times
+out of ten the summing-up of his deliberation is, “I don’t care; it won’t
+cost _me_ nothing; let ’em have their way.”
+
+But what, probably, is the upshot of the good missionary’s endeavours and
+triumph?  In a very little time the gilt with which the honest adviser
+glossed the chain that was to bind the man irrevocably to marriage and
+morality wears off.  The sweat of his brow will not keep it bright; it
+rusts it.  He feels, in his own vulgar though expressive language, that
+he has been “bustled” into a bad bargain.  “It is like this ’ere,” a
+matrimonial victim of the class once confided to me; “I don’t say as she
+isn’t as good as ever, but I’m blowed if she’s all that better as I was
+kidded to believe she would be.”
+
+“But if she is as good as ever, she is good enough.”
+
+“Yes, but you haven’t quite got the bearing of what I mean, sir, and I
+haint got it in me to put it in the words like you would.  Good enough
+before isn’t good enough now, cos it haint hoptional, don’t you see?  No,
+you don’t.  Well, look here.  S’pose I borrer a barrer.  Well, it’s good
+enough and a conwenient size for laying out my stock on it.  It goes
+pooty easy, and I pays eighteen pence a week for it and I’m satisfied.
+Well, I goes on all right and without grumbling, till some chap he ses to
+me, ‘What call have you got to borrer a barrer when you can have one of
+your own; you alwis _want_ a barrer, don’t you know, why not make this
+one your own?’  ‘Cos I can’t spare the money,’ I ses.  ‘Oh,’ he ses,
+‘I’ll find the money and the barrer’s yourn, if so be as you’ll promise
+and vow to take up with no other barrer, but stick to this one so long as
+you both shall live.’  Well, as aforesaid, it’s a tidy, useful barrer,
+and I agrees.  But soon as it’s _mine_, don’t you know, I ain’t quite so
+careless about it.  I overhauls it, in a manner of speaking, and I’m more
+keerful in trying the balance of it in hand when the load’s on it.  Well,
+maybe I find out what I never before troubled myself to look for.
+There’s a screw out here and a bolt wanted there.  Here it’s weak, and
+there it’s ugly.  I dwells on it in my mind constant.  I’ve never got
+that there barrer out of my head, and p’raps I make too much of the weak
+pints of it.  I gets to mistrust it.  ‘It’s all middling right, just now,
+old woman—old barrer, I mean,’ I ses to myself, ‘but you’ll be a playing
+me a trick one day, I’m afraid.’  Well, I go on being afraid, which I
+shouldn’t be if I was only a borrower.”
+
+“But you should not forget that the barrow, to adopt your own ungallant
+figure of speech, is not accountable for these dreads and suspicions of
+yours; it will last you as long and as well as though you had continued a
+borrower; you will admit that, at least!”
+
+“I don’t know.  _Last_, yes!  That’s the beggaring part of it.  Ah, well!
+p’raps it’s all right, but I’m blest if I can stand being haunted like I
+am now.”
+
+Nothing that I could say would add force to the argument of my
+costermonger friend, as set forth in his parable of the “barrer.”
+Applying it to the question under discussion, I do not mean to attribute
+to the deceptiveness of the barrow or to its premature breaking down, the
+spilling into the gutter of all the unhappy children there discovered.
+My main reason for admitting the evidence in question was to endeavour to
+show that as a pet means of improving the morality of our courts and
+alleys, and consequently of diminishing the gutter population, the modern
+idea of arresting fornication and concubinage, by dragging the pair there
+and then to church, and making them man and wife, is open to serious
+objections.  The state of matrimony is not good for such folk.  It was
+never intended for them.  It may be as necessary to healthful life as
+eating is, but no one would think of taking a man starved, and in the
+last extremity for lack of wholesome aliment, and setting before him a
+great dish of solid food.  It may be good for him by-and-by, but he must
+be brought along by degrees, and fitted for it.  Undoubtedly a great
+source of our abandoned gutter children may be found in the shocking
+herding together of the sexes in the vile “slums” and back places of
+London, and it is to be sincerely hoped that some wise man will presently
+devise a speedy preventive.
+
+In a recent report made to the Commissioners of Sewers for London, Dr.
+Letheby says: “I have been at much pains during the last three months to
+ascertain the precise conditions of the dwellings, the habits, and the
+diseases of the poor.  In this way 2,208 rooms have been most
+circumstantially inspected, and the general result is that nearly all of
+them are filthy or overcrowded or imperfectly drained, or badly
+ventilated, or out of repair.  In 1,989 of these rooms, all in fact that
+are at present inhabited, there are 5,791 inmates, belonging to 1,576
+families; and to say nothing of the too frequent occurrence of what may
+be regarded as a necessitous overcrowding, where the husband, the wife,
+and young family of four or five children are cramped into a miserably
+small and ill-conditioned room, there are numerous instances where adults
+of both sexes, belonging to different families, are lodged in the same
+room, regardless of all the common decencies of life, and where from
+three to five adults, men and women, besides a train or two of children,
+are accustomed to herd together like brute beasts or savages; and where
+every human instinct of propriety and decency is smothered.  Like my
+predecessor, I have seen grown persons of both sexes sleeping in common
+with their parents, brothers and sisters, and cousins, and even the
+casual acquaintance of a day’s tramp, occupying the same bed of filthy
+rags or straw; a woman suffering in travail, in the midst of males and
+females of different families that tenant the same room, where birth and
+death go hand in hand; where the child but newly born, the patient cast
+down with fever, and the corpse waiting for interment, have no separation
+from each other, or from the rest of the inmates.  Of the many cases to
+which I have alluded, there are some which have commanded my attention by
+reason of their unusual depravity—cases in which from three to four
+adults of both sexes, with many children, were lodging in the same room,
+and often sleeping in the same bed.  I have note of three or four
+localities, where forty-eight men, seventy-three women, and fifty-nine
+children are living in thirty-four rooms.  In one room there are two men,
+three women, and five children, and in another one man, four women, and
+two children; and when, about a fortnight since, I visited the back room
+on the ground floor of No. 5, I found it occupied by one man, two women,
+and two children; and in it was the dead body of a poor girl who had died
+in childbirth a few days before.  The body was stretched out on the bare
+floor, without shroud or coffin.  There it lay in the midst of the
+living, and we may well ask how it can be otherwise than that the human
+heart should be dead to all the gentler feelings of our nature, when such
+sights as these are of common occurrence.
+
+“So close and unwholesome is the atmosphere of some of these rooms, that
+I have endeavoured to ascertain, by chemical means, whether it does not
+contain some peculiar product of decomposition that gives to it its foul
+odour and its rare powers of engendering disease.  I find it is not only
+deficient in the due proportion of oxygen, but it contains three times
+the usual amount of carbonic acid, besides a quantity of aqueous vapour
+charged with alkaline matter that stinks abominably.  This is doubtless
+the product of putrefaction, and of the various fœtid and stagnant
+exhalations that pollute the air of the place.  In many of my former
+reports, and in those of my predecessor, your attention has been drawn to
+this pestilential source of disease, and to the consequence of heaping
+human beings into such contracted localities; and I again revert to it
+because of its great importance, not merely that it perpetuates fever and
+the allied disorders, but because there stalks side by side with this
+pestilence a yet deadlier presence, blighting the moral existence of a
+rising population, rendering their hearts hopeless, their acts ruffianly
+and incestuous, and scattering, while society averts her eye, the
+retributive seeds of increase for crime, turbulence and pauperism.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+BABY-FARMING.
+
+
+“_Baby-Farmers_” _and Advertising_ “_Child Adopters_.”—“_F. X._” _of
+Stepney_.—_The Author’s Interview with Farmer Oxleek_.—_The Case of Baby
+Frederick Wood_.
+
+ALTHOUGH it is not possible, in a book of moderate dimensions, such as
+this, to treat the question of neglected children with that extended care
+and completeness it undoubtedly deserves, any attempt at its
+consideration would be glaringly deficient did it not include some
+reference to the modern and murderous institution known as “baby
+farming.”
+
+We may rely on it that we are lamentably ignorant both of the gigantic
+extent and the pernicious working of this mischief.  It is only when some
+loud-crying abuse of the precious system makes itself heard in our
+criminal courts, and is echoed in the newspapers, or when some
+adventurous magazine writer in valiant pursuit of his avocation, directs
+his inquisitive nose in the direction indicated, that the public at large
+hear anything either of the farmer or the farmed.
+
+A year or so ago a most atrocious child murder attracted towards this
+ugly subject the bull’s-eye beams of the press, and for some time it was
+held up and exhibited in all its nauseating nakedness.  It may be safely
+asserted that during the protracted trial of the child murderess, Mrs.
+Winser, there was not one horrified father or mother in England who did
+not in terms of severest indignation express his or her opinion of how
+abominable it was that such scandalous traffic in baby flesh and blood
+should, through the law’s inefficiency, be rendered possible.  But it was
+only while we, following the revolting revelations, were subject to a
+succession of shocks and kept in pain, that we were thus virtuous.  It
+was only while our tender feelings were suffering excruciation from the
+harrowing story of baby torture that we shook in wrath against the
+torturer.  Considering what our sufferings were (and from the manner of
+our crying out they must have been truly awful) we recovered with a speed
+little short of miraculous.  Barely was the trial of the murderess
+concluded and the court cleared, than our fierce indignation subsided
+from its bubbling and boiling, and quickly settled down to calm and
+ordinary temperature.  Nay it is hardly too much to say that our
+over-wrought sympathies as regards baby neglect and murder fell so cold
+and flat that little short of a second edition of Herod’s massacre might
+be required to raise them again.
+
+This is the unhappy fate that attends nearly all our great social
+grievances.  They are overlooked or shyly glanced at and kicked aside for
+years and years, when suddenly a stray spark ignites their smouldering
+heaps, and the eager town cooks a splendid supper of horrors at the gaudy
+conflagration; but having supped full, there ensues a speedy distaste for
+flame and smoke, and in his heart every one is chiefly anxious that the
+fire may burn itself out, or that some kind hand will smother it.  “We
+have had enough of it.”  That is the phrase.  The only interest we ever
+had in it, which was nothing better than a selfish and theatrical
+interest, is exhausted.  We enjoyed the bonfire amazingly, but we have no
+idea of tucking back our coat-sleeves and handling a shovel or a pick to
+explore the unsavoury depth and origin of the flareup, and dig and dam to
+guard against a repetition of it.  It is sufficient for us that we have
+endured without flinching the sensational horrors dragged to light; let
+those who dragged them forth bury them again; or kill them; or be killed
+by them.  We have had enough of them.
+
+Great social grievances are not to be taken by storm.  They merely bow
+their vile heads while the wrathful blast passes, and regain their
+original position immediately afterwards.  So it was with this business
+of baby-farming, and the tremendous outcry raised at the time when the
+wretch Winser was brought to trial.  There are certain newspapers in
+whose advertisement columns the baby-farmer advertises for “live stock”
+constantly, and at the time it was observed with great triumph by certain
+people that since the vile hag’s detection the advertisements in question
+had grown singularly few and mild.  But the hope that the baby-farmer had
+retired, regarding his occupation as gone, was altogether delusive.  He
+was merely lying quiet for a spell, quite at his ease, making no doubt
+that business would stir again presently.  Somebody else was doing his
+advertising, that was all.  If he had had any reasonable grounds for
+supposing that the results of the appalling facts brought to light would
+be that the Legislature would bestir itself and take prompt and
+efficacious steps towards abolishing him, it would have been different.
+But he had too much confidence in the sluggardly law to suppose anything
+of the kind.  He knew that the details of the doings of himself and his
+fellows would presently sicken those who for a time had evinced a relish
+for them, and that in a short time they would bid investigators and
+newspapers say no more—they had had enough of it!  When his sagacity was
+verified, he found his way leisurely back to the advertising columns
+again.
+
+I have spoken of the baby-farmers as masculine, but that was merely for
+convenience of metaphor.  No doubt that the male sex have a considerable
+interest in the trade, but the negociators, and ostensibly the
+proprietors, are women.  As I write, one of the said newspapers lies
+before me.  It is a daily paper, and its circulation, an extensive one,
+is essentially amongst the working classes, _especially amongst working
+girls and women_.
+
+The words italicised are worthy particular attention as regards this
+particular part of my subject.  Here is a daily newspaper that is mainly
+an advertising broadsheet.  It is an old-established newspaper, and its
+advertisement columns may be said fairly to reflect the condition of the
+female labour market over vast tracts of the London district.  Column
+after column tells of the wants of servants and masters.  “Cap-hands,”
+“feather-hands,” “artificial flower-hands,” “chenille-hands,” hands for
+the manufacture of “chignons” and “hair-nets” and “bead work,” and all
+manner of “plaiting” and “quilling” and “gauffering” in ribbon and net
+and muslin, contributing towards the thousand and one articles that stock
+the “fancy” trade.  There are more newspapers than one that aspire as
+mediums between employers and employed, but this, before all others, is
+_the_ newspaper, daily conned by thousands of girls and women in search
+of work of the kind above mentioned, and it is in this newspaper that the
+baby-farmer fishes wholesale for customers.
+
+I write “wholesale,” and surely it is nothing else.  To the uninitiated
+in this peculiar branch of the world’s wickedness it would seem that, as
+an article of negociation, a baby would figure rarer than anything, and
+in their innocence they might be fairly guided to this conclusion on the
+evidence of their personal experience of the unflinching love of parents,
+though never so poor, for their children; yet in a single number of this
+newspaper published every day of the week and all the year round, be it
+borne in mind, appear no less than _eleven_ separate advertisements,
+emanating from individuals solicitous for the care, weekly, monthly,
+yearly—anyhow, of other people’s children, and that on terms odorous of
+starvation at the least in every meagre figure.
+
+It is evident at a glance that the advertisers seek for customers and
+expect none other than from among the sorely pinched and poverty-stricken
+class that specially patronise the newspaper in question.  The
+complexion, tone, and terms of their villanously cheap suggestions for
+child adoption are most cunningly shaped to meet the possible
+requirements of some unfortunate work-girl, who, earning while at liberty
+never more than seven or eight shillings a week, finds herself hampered
+with an infant for whom no father is forthcoming.  There can scarcely be
+imagined a more terrible encumbrance than a young baby is to a working
+girl or woman so circumstanced.  Very often she has a home before her
+disaster announced itself—her first home, that is, with her parents—and
+in her shame and disgrace she abandons it, determined on hiding away
+where she is unknown, “keeping herself to herself.”  She has no other
+means of earning a livelihood excepting that she has been used to.  She
+is a “cap-hand,” or an “artificial flower-hand,” and such work is always
+entirely performed at the warehouse immediately under the employer’s eye.
+What is she to do?  She cannot possibly carry her baby with her to the
+shop and keep it with her the livelong day.  Were she inclined so to do,
+and could somehow contrive to accomplish the double duty of nurse and
+flower-weaver, it would not be allowed.  If she stays at home in the
+wretched little room she rents with her infant she and it must go hungry.
+It is a terrible dilemma for a young woman “all but” good, and honestly
+willing to accept the grievous penalty she must pay if it may be
+accomplished by the labour of her hands.  Small and puny, however, the
+poor unwelcome little stranger may be, it is a perfect ogre of rapacity
+on its unhappy mother’s exertions.  Now and then an instance of the
+self-sacrificing devotion exhibited by those unhappy mothers for their
+fatherless children creeps into print.  There was held in the parish of
+St. Luke’s, last summer, an inquest on the body of a neglected infant,
+aged seven months.  The woman to whose care she was confided had got
+drunk, and left the poor little thing exposed to the cold, so that it
+died.  The mother paid the drunken nurse four-and-sixpence a week for the
+child’s keep, and it was proved in evidence that she (the mother) had
+been earning at her trade of paper-bag making never more than
+six-and-threepence per week during the previous five months.  That was
+four-and-sixpence for baby and _one-and-ninepence_ for herself.
+
+I don’t think, however, that the regular baby-farmer is a person
+habitually given to drink.  The successful and lucrative prosecution of
+her business forbids the indulgence.  Decidedly not one of the eleven
+advertisements before mentioned read like the concoctions of persons
+whose heads were muddled with beer or gin.  Here is the first one:—
+
+    NURSE CHILD WANTED, OR TO ADOPT.—The Advertiser, a Widow with a
+    little family of her own, and a moderate allowance from her late
+    husband’s friends, would be glad to accept the charge of a young
+    child.  Age no object.  If sickly would receive a parent’s care.
+    Terms, Fifteen Shillings a month; or would adopt entirely if under
+    two months for the small sum of Twelve pounds.
+
+Women are shrewder than men at understanding these matters, and the
+advertisement is addressed to women; but I doubt if a man would be far
+wrong in setting down the “widow lady with a little family of her own,”
+as one of those monsters in woman’s clothing who go about seeking for
+babies to devour.  Her “moderate allowance,” so artlessly introduced, is
+intended to convey to the unhappy mother but half resolved to part with
+her encumbrance, that possibly the widow’s late husband’s friends settle
+her butcher’s and baker’s bills, and that under such circumstances the
+widow would actually be that fifteen shillings a month in pocket, for the
+small trouble of entering the little stranger with her own interesting
+little flock.  And what a well-bred, cheerful, and kindly-behaved little
+flock it must be, to have no objection to add to its number a young child
+aged one month or twelve, sick or well!  Fancy such an estimable person
+as the widow lady appraising her parental care at so low a figure as
+three-and-ninepence a week—sevenpence farthing a day, including Sundays!
+But, after all, that is not so cheap as the taking the whole and sole
+charge of a child, sick or well, mind you, to nourish and clothe, and
+educate it from the age of two months till twelve years, say!  To be
+sure, the widow lady stipulates that the child she is ready to “adopt”
+must be under two months, and we all know how precarious is infantine
+existence, and at what a wonderfully low rate the cheap undertakers bury
+babies in these days.
+
+Another of the precious batch of eleven speaks plainer, and comes to the
+point without any preliminary walking round it:—
+
+    ADOPTION.—A person wishing a lasting and comfortable home for a young
+    child of either sex will find this a good opportunity.  Advertisers
+    having no children of their own are about to proceed to America.
+    Premium, Fifteen pounds.  Respectable references given and required.
+    Address F. X—.
+
+All that is incomplete in the above is the initials; but one need not ask
+for the “O” that should come between the “F” and “X.”  After perusing the
+pithy advertisement, I interpreted its meaning simply this:—Any person
+possessed of a child he is anxious to be rid of, here is a good chance
+for him.  Perhaps “F. X.” is going to America; perhaps he’s not.  That is
+_his_ business.  The party having a child to dispose of, need not trouble
+itself on that score.  For “respectable references” read “mutual
+confidence.”  I’ll take the child, and ask no questions of the party, and
+the party shall fork over the fifteen pounds, and ask no questions of me.
+That will make matters comfortable for both parties, ’specially if the
+meeting is at a coffee-house, or at some public building, for if I don’t
+know the party’s address, of course he can have no fear that I shall turn
+round on him, and return the child on his hands.  The whole affair might
+be managed while an omnibus is waiting to take up a passenger.  A simple
+matter of handing over a bulky parcel and a little one—the child and the
+money—and all over, without so much as “good night,” if so be the party
+is a careful party, and wouldn’t like even his voice heard.
+
+It may be objected that the seduced factory girl is scarcely likely to
+become the victim of “F. X.,” inasmuch as she never had fifteen pounds to
+call her own in the whole course of her life, and is less likely than
+ever to grow so rich now.  And that is quite true, but as well as a
+seduced, there must be a seducer.  Not a man of position and means,
+probably; more likely the fast young son of parents in the butchering, or
+cheesemongering, or grocery interest—a dashing young blade, whose ideas
+of “seeing life” is seeking that unwholesome phase of it presented at
+those unmitigated dens of vice, the “music halls,” at one of which
+places, probably, the acquaintance terminating so miserably, was
+commenced.  Or, may be, instead of the “young master,” it is the shopman
+who is the male delinquent; and, in either case, anything is preferable
+to a “row,” and an exposure.  Possibly the embarrassed young mother, by
+stress of necessity, and imperfect faith in the voluntary goodness of her
+lover, is driven to make the best of the defensive weapons that chance
+has thus placed in her hands, and her urging for “some little assistance”
+becomes troublesome.  This being the case, and the devil stepping in with
+“F. X.’s” advertisement in his hand, the difficulty is immediately
+reduced to one of raising fifteen pounds.  No more hourly anxiety lest
+“something should turn up” to explode the secret under the very nose of
+parents or master, no more restrictions from amusements loved so well
+because of a dread lest that pale-faced baby-carrying young woman should
+intrude her reproachful presence, and her tears, into their midst.  Only
+one endeavour—a big one, it is true, but still, only one—and the ugly
+ghost is laid at once and for ever!  Perhaps the young fellow has friends
+of whom he can borrow the money.  May be he has a watch, and articles of
+clothing and jewellery, that will pawn for the amount.  If he has
+neither, still he is not entirely without resources.  Music-halls and
+dancing-rooms cannot be patronised on bare journeyman’s wages, and
+probably already the till has bled slightly—let it bleed more copiously!
+And the theft is perpetrated, and “F. X.” releases the guilty pair of the
+little creature that looks in its helplessness and innocence so little
+like a bugbear.  And it isn’t at all unlikely that, after all, papa
+regards himself as a fellow deserving of condemnation, perhaps, but
+entitled to some pity, and, still more, of approval for his
+self-sacrificing.  Another fellow, finding himself in such a fix, would
+have snapped his fingers in Polly’s face, and told her to do her worst,
+and be hanged to her; but, confound it all, he was not such a brute as
+_that_.  Having got the poor girl into trouble, he had done all he could
+to get her out of it—clean out of it, mind you.  Not only had he done all
+that he could towards this generous end, but considerably more than he
+ought; he had risked exposure as a thief, and the penalty of the
+treadmill, and all for her sake!  And so thick-skinned is the young
+fellow’s morality, that possibly he is really not aware of the
+double-dyed villain he has become; that to strip his case of the specious
+wrappings in which he would envelop it, he is nothing better than a mean
+scoundrel who has stooped to till-robbery in order to qualify himself as
+an accessory to child murder, or worse—the casting of his own offspring,
+like a mangy dog, on the streets, to die in a gutter, or to live and grow
+up to be a terror to his kind—a ruffian, and a breeder of ruffians.  Nor
+need it be supposed that this last is a mere fancy sketch.  There can be
+no doubt that if the history of every one of the ten thousand of the
+young human pariahs that haunt London streets could be inquired into, it
+would be found that no insignificant percentage of the whole were
+children abandoned and left to their fate by mock “adopters,” such as “F.
+X.”
+
+It is these “adopters” of children who should be specially looked after,
+since, assuming that heartless roguery is the basis of their business
+dealing, it becomes at once manifest that their main source of profit
+must lie in their ability to get rid of their hard bargains as soon as
+possible.  From fifteen to five-and-twenty pounds would appear to be the
+sums usually asked, and having once got possession of the child, every
+day that the mockery of a _bonâ fide_ bargain is maintained, the value of
+the blood-money that came with it diminishes.  The term “blood-money,”
+however, should be accepted in a qualified sense.  It is quite common for
+these people to mention as one of the conditions of treaty that a sickly
+child would not be objected to, and provided it were very sickly, it
+might in ordinary cases have a fair chance of dying a natural death; but
+the course commonly pursued by the professional childmonger is not to
+murder it either by sudden and violent means, or by the less merciful
+though no less sure process of cold, neglect, and starvation.  Not only
+does death made public (and in these wide-awake times it is not easy to
+hide a body, though a little one, where it may not speedily be found)
+attract an amount of attention that were best avoided, but it also
+entails the expenses of burial.  A much easier way of getting rid of a
+child,—especially if it be of that convenient age when it is able to walk
+but not to talk, is to convey it to a strange quarter of the town and
+there abandon it.
+
+And there is something else in connection with this painful phase of the
+question of neglected children that should not be lost sight of.  It must
+not be supposed that every child abandoned in the streets is discovered
+by the police and finds its way first to the station-house, and finally
+to the workhouse.  Very many of them, especially if they are
+pretty-looking and engaging children, are voluntarily adopted by
+strangers.  It might not be unreasonably imagined that this can only be
+the case when the cruel abandonment takes place in a neighbourhood
+chiefly inhabited by well-to-do people.  And well would it be for the
+community at large if this supposition were the correct one; then there
+would be a chance that the poor neglected little waif would be well cared
+for and preserved against the barbarous injustice of being compelled to
+fight for his food even before he had shed his milk-teeth.  But wonderful
+as it may seem, it is not in well-to-do quarters that the utterly
+abandoned child finds protection, but in quarters that are decidedly the
+worst to do, and that, unfortunately, in every possible respect than any
+within the city’s limits.  The tender consideration of poverty for its
+kind is a phase of humanity that might be studied both with instruction
+and profit by those who, through their gold-rimmed spectacles regard
+deprivation from meat and clothes and the other good things of this world
+as involving a corresponding deficiency of virtue and generosity.  They
+have grown so accustomed to associate cherubs with chubbiness, and
+chubbiness with high respectability and rich gravies, that they would, if
+such a thing were possible, scarcely be seen conversing with an angel of
+bony and vulgar type.  Nevertheless, it is an undoubted fact, that for
+one child taken from the streets in the highly respectable West-end, and
+privately housed and taken care of, there might be shown fifty who have
+found open door and lasting entertainment in the most poverty-stricken
+haunts of London.
+
+In haunts of vice too, in hideous localities inhabited solely by loose
+women and thieves.  Bad as these people are, they will not deny a hungry
+child.  It is curious the extent to which this lingering of nature’s
+better part remains with these “bad women.”  Love for little children in
+these poor creatures seems unconquerable.  It would appear as though
+conscious of the extreme depth of degradation to which they have fallen,
+and of the small amount of sympathy that remains between them and the
+decent world, they were anxious to hold on yet a little longer, although
+by so slender a thread as unreasoning childhood affords.  As everyone can
+attest, whose duty it has been to explore even the most notorious sinks
+of vice and criminality, it is quite common to meet with pretty little
+children, mere infants of three or four years old, who are the pets and
+toys of the inhabitants, especially of the women.  The frequent answer to
+the inquiry, “Who does the child belong to?” is, “Oh, he’s anybody’s
+child,” which sometimes means that it is the offspring of one of the
+fraternity who has died or is now in prison, but more often that he is a
+“stray” who is fed and harboured there simply because nobody owns him.
+
+But as may be easily understood, the reign of “pets” of this sort is of
+limited duration.  By the time the curly-headed little boy of four years
+old grows to be six, he must indeed be an inapt scholar if his two years’
+attendance at such a school has not turned his artless simplicity into
+mischievous cunning, and his “pretty ways” into those that are both
+audacious and tiresome.  Then clubbing takes the place of caressing, and
+the child is gradually left to shift for himself, and we meet him shortly
+afterwards an active and intelligent nuisance, snatching his hard-earned
+crust out of the mire as a crossing sweeper, fusee, or penny-paper
+selling boy, or else more evilly inclined, he joins other companions and
+takes up the trade of a whining beggar.  Even at that tender age his eyes
+are opened to the ruinous fact that as much may be got by stealing as by
+working, and he “tails on,” a promising young beginner, to the army of
+twenty thousand professional thieves that exact black mail in London.
+
+Supposing it to be true, and for my part I sincerely believe it, that the
+ranks of neglected children who eventually become thieves, are recruited
+in great part from the castaways of the mock child adopter, then is
+solved the puzzle how it is that among a class the origin of almost every
+member of which can be traced back to the vilest neighbourhood of
+brutishness and ignorance, so many individuals of more than the average
+intellect are discovered.  Any man who has visited a reformatory for boys
+must have observed this.  Let him go into the juvenile ward or the
+school-room of a workhouse, either in town or country, and he will find
+four-fifths of the lads assembled wearing the same heavy stolid look,
+indicative of the same desperate resignation to the process of learning
+than which for them could hardly be devised a punishment more severe.
+But amongst a very large proportion of the boys who have been rescued not
+merely from the gutter but out of the very jaws of the criminal law, and
+bestowed in our reformatories, how different is their aspect!
+Quick-witted, ready of comprehension, bold-eyed, shrewdly-observant, one
+cannot but feel that it is a thousand pities that such boys should be
+driven to this harbour of refuge—that so much good manhood material
+should come so nigh to being wrecked.  But how is it that with no more
+promising nurses than squalor and ignorance the boys of the reformatory
+should show so much superior to the boys whom a national institution,
+such as a workhouse is, has adopted, and had all to do with since their
+infancy?  The theory that many of the boys who by rapid steps in crime
+find their way to a reformatory, are bastard children, for whose
+safe-keeping the baby farmer was once briefly responsible, goes far
+towards solving the riddle.  The child-adopting fraternity is an
+extensive one, and finds clients in all grades of society, and there can
+be little doubt that in instances innumerable, while Alley Jack is paying
+the penalty of his evil behaviour by turning for his bread on the
+treadmill, his brothers, made legitimate by the timely reformation and
+marriage of Alley Jack’s father, are figuring in their proper sphere, and
+leisurely and profitably developing the intellect they inherit from their
+brilliant papa.  Alley Jack, too, has his share of the family talent—all
+the brain, all the sensitiveness, all the “blood” of the respectable
+stock a reckless sprig of which is responsible for Jack’s being.  It is
+only in the nature of things to suppose that Jack’s blood is tainted with
+the wildness of wicked papa; and here we have in Alley Jack a type of
+that bold intellectual villain whose clique of fifty or so, as Lord
+Shaftesbury recently declared, is more to be dreaded than as many hundred
+of the dull and plodding sort of thief, the story of whose exploits
+figure daily in the newspapers.
+
+We have, however, a little wandered away from the subject in hand, which
+is not concerning neglected children who have become thieves, but
+neglected children, simply, whose future is not as yet ascertained.
+Speaking of the professional child farmer, it has been already remarked
+that his sole object, as regards these innocents that are adopted for a
+sum paid down, is to get rid of them as secretly and quickly as possible.
+And assuming the preservation of health and life in the little mortal to
+be of the first importance, there can be no question that he has a better
+chance of both, even though his treacherous “adopter” deserts him on a
+doorstep, than if he were so kindly cruel as to tolerate his existence at
+the “farm.”  It is those unfortunate infants who are not “adopted,” but
+merely housed and fed at so much per week or month, who are the greater
+sufferers.  True, it is to the interest of the practitioners who adopt
+this branch of baby-farming to keep life in their little charges, since
+with their death terminates the more or less profitable contract entered
+into between themselves and the child’s parent or guardian; but no less
+true is it that it is to the “farmers’” interest and profit to keep down
+their expenditure in the nursery at as low an ebb as is consistent with
+the bare existence of its luckless inhabitants.  The child is welcome to
+live on starvation diet just as long as it may.  It is very welcome
+indeed to do so, since the longer it holds out, the larger the number of
+shillings the ogres that have it in charge will be enabled to grind out
+of its poor little bones.  These are not the “farmers” who append to
+their advertisements the notification that “children of ill-health are
+not objected to.”  They are by far too good judges for that.  What they
+rejoice in is a fine, robust, healthy-lunged child, with whom some such
+noble sum as a shilling a day is paid.  Such an article is as good as a
+gift of twenty pounds to them.  See the amount of privation such a child
+can stand before it succumbs!  The tenacity of life in children of
+perfectly sound constitution is proverbial.  A ha’p’orth of bread, and a
+ha’p’orth of milk daily will suffice to keep the machinery of life from
+coming to a sudden standstill.  By such a barely sufficient link will the
+poor little helpless victim be held to life, while what passes as natural
+causes attack and gradually consume it, and drag it down to its grave.
+This, in the baby-farmer’s estimation, is a first-rate article—the pride
+of the market, and without doubt the most profitable.  The safest too.
+Children will pine.  Taken from their mother, it is only to be expected
+that they should.  Therefore, when the poor mother, who is working of
+nights as well as days, that “nurse’s money” may be punctually paid,
+visits her little one, and finds it thin and pale and wasting, she is not
+amazed, although her conscience smites her cruelly, and her heart is fit
+to break.  She is only too thankful to hear “nurse” declare that she is
+doing all she can for the little darling.  It is her only consolation,
+and she goes away hugging it while “nurse” and her old man make merry
+over gin bought with that hard, hard-earned extra sixpence that the poor
+mother has left to buy baby some little comfort.
+
+I trust and hope that what is here set down will not be regarded as mere
+tinsel and wordy extravagance designed to produce a “sensation” in the
+mind of the reader.  There is no telling into whose hands a book may
+fall.  Maybe, it is not altogether impossible eyes may scan this page
+that have been recently red with weeping over the terrible secret that
+will keep but a little longer, and for the inevitable launching of which
+provision must be made.  To such a reader, with all kindliness, I would
+whisper words of counsel.  Think not “twice,” but many times before you
+adopt the “readiest” means of shirking the awful responsibility you have
+incurred.  Rely on it, you will derive no lasting satisfaction out of
+this “readiest” way, by which, of course, is meant the way to which the
+villanous child-farmer reveals an open door.  Be righteously courageous,
+and take any step rather, as you would I am sure if you were permitted to
+raise a corner and peep behind the curtain that conceals the hidden
+mysteries of adopted-child murder.
+
+As a volunteer explorer into the depths of social mysteries, once upon a
+time I made it my business to invade the den of a child-farmer.  The
+result of the experiment was printed in a daily newspaper or magazine at
+the time, so I will here make but brief allusion to it.  I bought the
+current number of the newspaper more than once here mentioned, and
+discovering, as usual, a considerable string of child-adopting and
+nursing advertisements, I replied to the majority of them, professing to
+have a child “on my hands,” and signing myself “M. D.”  My intention
+being to trap the villains, I need not say that in every case my reply to
+their preliminary communications was couched in such carefully-considered
+terms as might throw the most suspicious off their guard.  But I found
+that I had under-estimated the cunning of the enemy.  Although the
+innocent-seeming bait was made as attractive and savoury as possible, at
+least half of the farmers to whom my epistles were addressed vouchsafed
+no reply.  There was something about it not to their liking, evidently.
+
+Three or four of the hungry pike bit, however, one being a lady signing
+herself “Y. Z.”  In her newspaper advertisement, if I rightly remember,
+persons whom it concerned were to address, “Y. Z.,” Post Office, —
+Street, Stepney.  “Y. Z.” replying to mine so addressed, said that, as
+before stated, she was willing to adopt a little girl of weakly
+constitution at the terms I suggested, her object being chiefly to secure
+a companion for her own little darling, who had lately, through death,
+been deprived of his own dear little sister.  “Y. Z.” further suggested
+that I should appoint a place where we could “meet and arrange.”
+
+This, however, was not what I wanted.  It was quite evident from the tone
+of the lady’s note that she was not at all desirous that the meeting
+should take place at her abode.  Again I was to address, “Post Office.”
+To bring matters to a conclusion, I wrote, declaring that nothing could
+be done unless I could meet “Y. Z.” at her own abode.  No answer was
+returned to this my last, and it was evidently the intention of “Y. Z.”
+to let the matter drop.
+
+I was otherwise resolved, however.  I had some sort of clue, and was
+resolved to follow it up.  By what subtle arts and contrivance I managed
+to trace “Y. Z.” from “Post Office” to her abode need not here be
+recited.  Armed with her real name and the number of the street in which
+she resided, I arrived at the house, and at the door of it just as the
+postman was rapping to deliver a letter to the very party I had come
+uninvited to visit.  I may say that the house was of the small four or
+five-roomed order, and no more or less untidy or squalid than is commonly
+to be found in the back streets of Stepney or Bethnal Green.
+
+“Oxleek” was the original of “Y. Z.,” and of the slatternly,
+ragged-haired girl who opened the door I asked if that lady was at home.
+The young woman said that she was out—that she had “gone to the Li-ver.”
+The young woman spoke with a rapid utterance, and was evidently in a
+mighty hurry to get back to some business the postman’s knock had
+summoned her from.
+
+“I beg your pardon, miss, gone to the —”
+
+“Li-ver; where you pays in for young uns’ berryins and that,” she
+responded; “she ain’t at home, but he is.  I’ll call him.”
+
+And so she did.  And presently a husky voice from the next floor called
+out, “Hullo! what is it?”
+
+“Here’s a gentleman wants yer, and here’s a letter as the postman jest
+left.”
+
+“Ask him if he’s the doctor; I’ve got the young un, I can’t come down,”
+the husky voice was again heard to exclaim.
+
+To be sure I was not a doctor, not a qualified practitioner that is to
+say, but as far as the Oxleek family knew me I was “M.D.;” and pacifying
+my grumbling conscience with this small piece of jesuitism, I blandly
+nodded my head to the young woman when she recited to me Mr. Oxleek’s
+query.
+
+“Then you’d better go up, and p’raps you wouldn’t mind taking this letter
+up with you,” said she.
+
+I went up; it was late in the evening and candlelight, in the room on the
+next floor that is, but not on the stairs; but had it been altogether
+dark, I might have discovered Mr. Oxleek by the stench of his tobacco.  I
+walked in at the half-open door.
+
+There was Mr. Oxleek by the fire, the very perfection of an indolent,
+ease-loving, pipe-smoking, beer-soaking wretch as ever sat for his
+portrait.  He was a man verging on fifty, I should think, with a pair of
+broad shoulders fit to carry a side of beef, and as greasy about the
+cuffs and collar of his tattered jacket as though at some early period of
+his existence he had carried sides of beef.  But that must have been many
+years ago, for the grease had all worn black with age, and the shoulders
+of the jacket were all fretted through by constant friction against the
+back of the easy-chair he sat in.  He wore slippers—at least, he wore
+_one_ slipper; the other one, all slouched down at heel, had slipped off
+his lazy foot a few inches too far for easy recovery, and there it lay.
+A villanously dirty face had Mr. Oxleek, and a beard of at least a
+month’s growth.  It was plain to be seen that one of Mr. Oxleek’s most
+favourite positions of sitting was with his head resting against that
+part of the wall that was by the side of the mantelshelf, for there,
+large as a dinner plate, was the black greasy patch his dirty hair had
+made.  He had been smoking, for there, still smouldering, was his filthy
+little pipe on the shelf, and by the side of it a yellow jug all streaked
+and stained with ancient smears of beer.
+
+He was not quite unoccupied, however; he was nursing a baby!  He, the
+pipe-sucking, beer-swigging, unshaven, dirty, lazy ruffian, was nursing a
+poor little creature less than a year old, as I should judge, with its
+small, pinched face reposing against his ragged waistcoat, in the pocket
+of which his tobacco was probably kept.  The baby wore its bedgown, as
+though it had once been put to bed, and roused to be nursed.  It was a
+very old and woefully begrimed bedgown, bearing marks of Mr. Oxleek’s
+dirty paws, and of his tobacco dust, and of physic clumsily administered
+and spilt.  It would appear too much like “piling up the agony” did I
+attempt to describe that baby’s face.  It was the countenance of an
+infant that had cried itself to sleep, and to whom pain was so familiar,
+that it invaded its dreams, causing its mites of features to twitch and
+quiver so that it would have been a mercy to wake it.
+
+“Evening, sir; take a cheer!” remarked Mr. Oxleek, quite hospitably;
+“this is the young un, sir.”
+
+It was very odd.  Clearly there was a great mistake somewhere, and yet as
+far as they had gone, the proceedings were not much at variance with the
+original text.  I was “M.D.,” and a doctor was expected.  “This was the
+young un,” Mr. Oxleek declared, and a young one, a bereaved young one who
+had lost his darling playmate, was a prominent feature in his wife’s
+letter to me.
+
+“Oh, is that the young one?” I remarked.
+
+“Yes; a heap of trouble; going after the last, I’m afeard.”
+
+“The same symptoms, eh?”
+
+“Just the same.  Reg’ler handful she is, and no mistake.”
+
+This then was _not_ the “young un” Mrs. Oxleek had written about.  This
+was a girl, it seemed.
+
+“Pray, how long is it since a medical man saw the child?” I inquired, I
+am afraid in a tone that roused suspicion in Mr. Oxleek’s mind.
+
+“Oh, you know, when he came last week—you’re come instead of him?  You
+_have_ come instead of him, haven’t you?”
+
+“No, indeed,” I replied.  “I’ve come to talk about that advertisement of
+yours.”
+
+Mr. Oxleek for a moment looked blank, but only for a moment.  He saw the
+trap just as he was about to set his foot in it, and withdrew in time.
+
+“Not here,” he remarked, impudently.
+
+“But I must beg your pardon, it is here.  You forget.  I wrote to you as
+M.D.”
+
+By this time Mr. Oxleek had seized and lit his short pipe, and was
+puffing away at it with great vigour.
+
+“You’re come to the wrong shop, I tell you,” he replied, from behind the
+impenetrable cloud; “we don’t know no ‘M.D.’ nor M.P., nor M. anythink;
+it’s a mistake.”
+
+“Perhaps if I show you your wife’s writing, you will be convinced?”
+
+“No, I shan’t; it’s all a mistake, I tell you.”
+
+I sat down on a chair.
+
+“Will your wife be long before she returns?” I inquired.
+
+“Can’t say—oh, here she comes; _now_ p’raps you’ll believe that you’re
+come to the wrong shop.  My dear, what do we know about M.D.’s, or
+advertising, eh?”
+
+“Nothing.”
+
+Mrs. Oxleek was a short, fat woman, with a sunny smile on her florid
+face, and a general air of content about her.  She had brought in with
+her a pot of beer and a quantity of pork sausages for supper.
+
+“Nothing,” she repeated instantly, taking the cue, “who says that we do?”
+
+“This gentleman’s been a tacklin’ me a good ’un, I can tell you!—says
+that he’s got your writing to show for summat or other.”
+
+“Where is my writing?” asked Mrs. Oxleek, defiantly.
+
+“This is it, if I am not mistaken, ma’am.”  And I displayed it.
+
+“Ah! that’s where it is, you see,” said she, with a triumphant chuckle,
+“you _are_ mistaken.  You are only wasting your time, my good sir.  My
+name isn’t ‘Y. Z.,’ and never was.  Allow me to light you down-stairs, my
+good sir.”
+
+And I did allow her.  What else could I do?  At the same time, and
+although my investigations led to nothing at all, I came away convinced,
+as doubtless the reader is, that there was no “mistake,” and that Mr. and
+Mrs. Oxleek were of the tribe of ogres who fatten on little children.
+
+Singularly enough, as I revise these pages for the press, there appears
+in the newspapers a grimly apt illustration of the above statement.  So
+exactly do the details of the case in question bear out the arguments
+used in support of my views of baby-farming, that I will take the liberty
+of setting the matter before the reader just as it was set before the
+coroner.
+
+    “An investigation of a singular character was held by Mr. Richards on
+    Thursday night, at the Lord Campbell Tavern, Bow, respecting the
+    death of Frederick Wood, aged two years and three months.
+
+    “Miss A. W—, of Hoxton, said deceased was a sickly child, and ten
+    months ago witness took it to Mrs. Savill, of 24, Swayton Road, Bow.
+    She paid her four-and-sixpence a week to take care of the child.  She
+    never saw more than two other babies at Mrs. Savill’s house.  She
+    thought her child was thoroughly attended to.  The deceased met with
+    an accident and its thigh was broken, but the doctor said that the
+    witness need not put herself out in the slightest degree, for the
+    child was getting on very well.  Witness could not get away from
+    business more than once a week to see the child.  She had not seen
+    the child for five weeks.
+
+    “Mrs. Caroline Savill said she was the wife of a porter in the city.
+    The deceased had been with her ten months.  She put him to bed at
+    nine o’clock on Saturday night, and at half-past eight on Sunday
+    morning she said to her daughter, ‘He looks strange,’ and then she
+    put a looking-glass to his mouth and found that he was dead.
+
+    “By the Coroner: She could account for the broken thigh.  Last
+    October when she was taking deceased up to bed, she slipped down and
+    fell upon the child.  She was quite certain that she was sober.  It
+    was a pair of old boots that caused her to slip.  She had eleven
+    children to keep at Bow.
+
+    “A Juryman: You keep, in fact, a baby-farm?
+
+    “Witness: That I must leave to your generosity, gentlemen.  In
+    continuation, witness stated that out of the eleven children _five
+    had died_.  There had been no inquest on either of them.  The
+    deceased’s bed was an egg-box with some straw in it.  The egg-box was
+    a short one, and was sixteen inches wide.  The child could not turn
+    in it.  She never tied deceased’s legs together.  She never
+    discovered that the child’s thigh was broken till the morning
+    following the night when she fell on it.  He cried and she put him to
+    bed.  She fell upon the edge of the stairs and her weight was on him.
+    She sent for a doctor next day.
+
+    “Doctor Atkins said he was called to see the dead body of the
+    deceased last Sunday.  The child had a malformed chest.  Death had
+    arisen from effusion of serum on the brain from natural causes, and
+    not from neglect.  Witness had attended the deceased for the broken
+    thigh.  He believed that the bones had not united when death took
+    place.
+
+    “The jury, after a long consultation, returned a verdict of ‘death
+    from natural causes;’ and they wished to append a censure, but the
+    coroner refused to record it.”
+
+That is the whole of the pretty story of which the reader must be left to
+form his own opinion.  Should that opinion insist on a censure as one of
+its appendages, the reader must of course be held personally responsible
+for it.  It is all over now.  The poor little victim whom a Miss of his
+name placed with the Bow “child-farmer,” “by leave of your generosity,
+gentlemen,” is dead and buried.  It would have been a mercy when his
+unsteady nurse fell on and crushed him on the edge of the stairs, if she
+had crushed his miserable life out, instead of only breaking a thigh.
+Since last October, with one small leg literally in the grave, he must
+have had a dismal time of it, poor little chap, and glad, indeed, must
+his spirit have been when its clay tenement was lifted out of his coffin
+cradle—the egg-box with the bit of straw in it—and consigned to the
+peaceful little wooden house that the cemetery claimed.  It is all over
+with Frederick John Wood; and his mamma, or whoever he was who was at
+liberty only once a week to come and see him, is released from the
+crushing burden his maintenance imposed on her, and Mrs. Savill by this
+time has doubtless filled up the egg-box the little boy’s demise rendered
+vacant.  Why should she not, when she left the coroner’s court without a
+stain on her character?  It is all over.  The curtain that was raised
+just a little has been dropped again, and the audience has dispersed, and
+nobody will think again of the tragedy the darkened stage is ready to
+produce again at the shortest notice, until the coroner’s constable rings
+the bell and the curtain once more ascends.
+
+And so we shall go on, unless the law steps in to our aid.  Why does it
+not do so?  It is stringent and vigilant enough as regards inferior
+animals.  It has a stern eye for pigs, and will not permit them to be
+kept except on certain inflexible conditions.  It holds dogs in leash,
+and permits them to live only as contributors to Her Majesty’s Inland
+Revenue.  It holds its whip over lodging-house keepers, and under
+frightful pains and penalties they may not swindle a lodger of one out of
+his several hundred regulation feet of air; but it takes no heed of the
+cries of its persecuted babes and sucklings.  Anyone may start as a
+professed adopter of children.  Anyone however ignorant, and brutal, and
+given to slipping down stairs, may start as a baby-farmer, with liberty
+to do as she pleases with the helpless creatures placed in her charge.
+What she pleases first of all to do, as a matter of course, is to pare
+down the cost of her charge’s keep, so that she may make a living of the
+parings.  As has been seen, she need not even find them beds to lie on;
+if she be extra economical, an egg-box with a handful of straw will do as
+well.
+
+And is there no remedy for this?  Would it not be possible, at least, to
+issue licences to baby-keepers as they are at present issued to
+cow-keepers?  It may appear a brutal way of putting the matter, but it
+becomes less so when one considers how much at present the brutes have
+the best of it.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+WORKING BOYS.
+
+
+_The London Errand Boy_.—_His Drudgery and Privations_.—_His
+Temptations_.—_The London Boy after Dark_.—_The Amusements provided for
+him_.
+
+THE law takes account of but two phases of human existence,—the child
+irresponsible, and the adult responsible, and overlooks as beneath its
+dignity the important and well-marked steps that lead from the former
+state to the latter.
+
+Despite the illegality of the proceeding, it is the intention of the
+writer hereof to do otherwise, aware as he is, and as every thinking
+person may be, of how critical and all-important a period in the career
+of the male human creature, is “boyhood.”  Amongst people of means and
+education, the grave responsibility of seeing their rising progeny safely
+through the perilous “middle passage” is fully recognized; but it is
+sadly different with the labouring classes, and the very poor.
+
+It is a lamentable fact that at that period of his existence when he
+needs closest watching, when he stands in need of healthful guidance, of
+counsel against temptation, a boy, the son of labouring parents, is left
+to himself, almost free to follow the dictates of his inclinations, be
+they good or had.  Nothing than this can be more injudicious, and as
+regards the boy’s moral culture and worldly welfare, more unjust.  Not,
+as I would have it distinctly understood, that the boy of vulgar breeding
+is by nature more pregnable to temptation than his same age brother of
+genteel extraction; not because, fairly tested with the latter, he would
+be the first to succumb to a temptation, but because, poor fellow,
+outward circumstances press and hamper him so unfairly.
+
+It has recently come to my knowledge that at the present time there is
+striving hard to attract public attention and patronage an institution
+styled the “Errand Boys’ Home.”  It would be difficult, indeed, to
+overrate the importance of such an establishment, properly conducted.
+Amongst neglected children of a larger growth, those of the familiar
+“errand boy” type figure first and foremost.  It would be instructive to
+learn how many boys of the kind indicated are annually drafted into our
+great criminal army, and still more so to trace back the swift downhill
+strides to the original little faltering step that shuffled from the
+right path to the wrong.
+
+Anyone who has any acquaintance with the habits and customs of the
+labouring classes, must be aware that the “family” system is for the
+younger branches, as they grow up, to elbow those just above them in age
+out into the world; not only to make more room at the dinner-table, but
+to assist in its substantial adornment.  The poorer the family, the
+earlier the boys are turned out, “to cut their own grass,” as the saying
+is.  Take a case—one in ten thousand—to be met with to-morrow or any day
+in the city of London.  Tom is a little lad—one of seven or eight—his
+father is a labourer, earning, say, a guinea a week; and from the age of
+seven Tom has been sent to a penny-a-week school; partly for the sake of
+what learning he may chance to pick up, but chiefly to keep him “out of
+the streets,” and to effect a simultaneous saving of his morals and of
+his shoe-leather.  As before stated, Tom’s is essentially a working
+family.  It is Tom’s father’s pride to relate how that he was “turned
+out” at eight, and had to trudge through the snow to work at six o’clock
+of winter mornings; and, that though on account of coughs and chilblains
+and other frivolous and childish ailments, he thought it very hard at the
+time, he rejoices that he was so put to it, since he has no doubt that it
+tended to harden him and make him the man he is.
+
+Accordingly, when Tom has reached the ripe age of ten, it is accounted
+high time that he “got a place,” as did his father before him; and, as
+there are a hundred ways in London in which a sharp little boy of ten can
+be made useful, very little difficulty is experienced in Tom’s launching.
+He becomes an “errand boy,” a newspaper or a printing boy, in all
+probability.  The reader curious as to the employment of juvenile labour,
+may any morning at six or seven o’clock in the morning witness the
+hurried trudging to work of as many Toms as the pavement of our great
+highways will conveniently accommodate, each with his small bundle of
+food in a little bag, to last him the day through.  Something else he may
+see, too, that would be highly comic were it not for its pitiful side.
+As need not be repeated here, a boy’s estimate of earthly bliss might be
+conveniently contained in a dinner-plate of goodly dimensions.  When he
+first goes out to work, his pride and glory is the parcel of food his
+mother makes up for the day’s consumption.  There he has it—breakfast,
+dinner, tea!  Possibly he might get as much, or very nearly, in the
+ordinary course of events at home, but in a piece-meal and ignoble way.
+He never in his life possessed such a wealth of food, all his own, to do
+as he pleases with.  Eight—ten slices of bread and butter, and may
+be—especially if it happen to be Monday—a slice of meat and a lump of
+cold pudding; relics of that dinner of dinners, Sunday’s dinner!
+
+His, all his, with nobody to say nay; but still only wealth in
+prospective!  It is now barely seven o’clock, and, by fair eating, he
+will not arrive at that delicious piece of cold pork with the crackling
+on it until twelve!  It is a keen, bracing morning; he has already walked
+a mile or more; and it wants yet fully an hour and a half to the factory
+breakfast time.  It is just as broad as it is long; suppose he draws on
+his breakfast allowance just to the extent of one slice?  Only one, and
+that in stern integrity: the topmost slice without fee or favour!  But,
+ah! the cruel fragrance of that juicy cut of spare-rib!  It has
+impregnated the whole contents of the bundle.  The crust of that
+abstracted slice is as savoury, almost, as the crisp-baked rind of the
+original.  Six bites—“too brief for friendship, not for fame”—have
+consumed it, and left him, alas! hungrier than ever.  Shall he?
+What—taste of the sacred slice?  No.  It isn’t likely.  The pork is for
+his dinner.  But the pudding—that is a supplemental sort of article; a
+mere extravagance when added to so much perfection as the luscious meat
+embodies.  And out he hauls it; the ponderous abstraction afflicting the
+hitherto compact parcel with such a shambling looseness, that it is
+necessary to pause in one of the recesses of the bridge to readjust and
+tighten it.  But, ah! rash boy!  Since thou wert not proof against the
+temptation lurking in that slice of bread-and-butter, but faintly odorous
+of that maddening flavour, how canst thou hope to save thyself now that
+thou hast tasted of the pudding to which the pork was wedded in the
+baker’s oven?  It were as safe to trust thee at hungry noon with a
+luscious apple-dumpling, and bid thee eat of the dough and leave the
+fruit.  It is all over.  Reason, discretion, the admonitions of a
+troubled conscience, were all gulped down with that last corner, crusty
+bit, so full of gravy.  The bridge’s next recess is the scene of another
+halt, and of an utterly reckless spoliation of the dwindled bundle.  And
+now the pork is consumed, to the veriest atom, and nought remains but
+four reproachful bread slices, that skulk in a corner, and almost demand
+the untimely fate visited on their companions.  Shall they crave in vain?
+No.  A pretty bundle, _this_, to take to the factory for his mates to
+see.  A good excuse will serve his purpose better.  He will engulf the
+four slices as he did the rest, and fold up his bag neatly, and hide it
+in his pocket, and, when dinner-time comes, he will profess that there is
+something nice at home, and he is going there to partake of it; while,
+really, he will take a dismal stroll, lamenting his early weakness, and
+making desperate vows for the future.
+
+It is not, however, with Tom as the lucky owner of a filled food-bag that
+we have here to deal, but with Tom who at least five days out of the six
+is packed off to work with just as much bread and butter as his poor
+mother can spare off the family loaf.  Now “going out to work” is a
+vastly different matter from going from home to school, and innocently
+playing between whiles.  In the first place, the real hard work he has to
+perform (and few people would readily believe the enormous amount of
+muscular exertion these little fellows are capable of enduring), develops
+his appetite for eating to a prodigious extent.  He finds the food he
+brings from home as his daily ration but half sufficient.  What are a
+couple of slices of bread, with perhaps a morsel of cheese, considered as
+a dinner for a hearty boy who has perhaps trudged from post to pillar a
+dozen miles or so since his breakfast, carrying loads more or less heavy?
+He hungers for more, and more is constantly in his sight if he only had
+the means, a penny or twopence even, to buy it.  He makes the
+acquaintance of other boys; he is drawn towards them in hungry, envious
+curiosity, seeing them in the enjoyment of what he so yearns after, and
+they speedily inform him how easy it is to “make” not only a penny or
+twopence, but a sixpence or a shilling, if he has a mind.  And they are
+quite right, these young counsellors of evil.  The facilities for petty
+pilfering afforded to the shopkeeper’s errand-boy are such as favour
+momentary evil impulses.  He need not engage in subtle plans for the
+purloining of a shilling or a shilling’s worth.  The opportunity is at
+his fingers’ ends constantly.  Usually he has the range of the business
+premises.  Few people mistrust a little boy, and he is left to mind the
+shop where the money-till is, and he has free access to the store-room or
+warehouse in which all manner of portable small goods are heaped in
+profusion.  It is an awful temptation.  It is not sufficient to urge that
+it should not be, and that in the case of a lad of well-regulated mind it
+would not be.  It would perhaps be more to the purpose to substitute
+“well-regulated meals” for “well-regulated minds.”  Nine times out of ten
+the confessions of a discovered juvenile pilferer go to prove that he
+sinned for his belly’s sake.  He has no conscience above his waistband,
+poor little wretch; nor can much better be expected, when we consider
+that all his life, his experience and observation has taught him that the
+first grand aim of human ingenuity and industry is to place a hot baked
+dinner on the table of Sundays.  To be sure, in the case of his
+hardworking father he may never have known him resort to any other than
+honest industry; he never found out that his parent was any other than an
+honest man; and so long as his father or his employer does not find him
+out to be any other than an honest boy, matters may run smoothly.
+
+It is least of all my intention to make out that every errand-boy is a
+petty thief; all that I maintain is that he is a human creature just
+budding into existence as it were in the broad furrowed field of life,
+and that his susceptibilities are tender, and should be protected from
+evil influence with even extraordinary care; and that instead of which he
+is but too often left to grow up as maybe.  In their ignorance and hard
+driving necessity, his parents having given him a spell of penny
+schooling, and maintained him until he has become a marketable article,
+persuade themselves that they have done for him the best they can, and
+nothing remains but for him to obey his master in all things, and he will
+grow to be as bright a man as his father before him.
+
+It is only necessary to point to the large number of such children, for
+they are no better, who annually swell our criminal lists, to prove that
+somewhere a screw is sadly loose, and that the sooner it is set right the
+better it will be for the nation.  The Home for Errand Boys is the best
+scheme that has as yet been put forth towards meeting the difficulty.
+Its professed object, I believe, is to afford shelter and wholesome food
+and healthful and harmless recreation for boys who are virtually without
+a home, and who have “only a lodging.”  That is to say, a place to which
+they may retire to sleep come bed-time, and for which they pay what
+appears as a paltry sum when regarded as so many pence per night, but
+which tells up to a considerable sum by the end of a week.
+
+The most important feature, however, of such a scheme as the Home for
+Errand Boys embraces, does not appear in the vaunted advantage of reduced
+cost.  Its main attraction is the promise it holds out to provide its
+lodgers with suitable amusement after work hours and before bed-time.  If
+this were done on an extensive scale, there is no telling how much real
+substantial good might be accomplished.  It is after work hours that boys
+fall into mischief.  There is no reason why these homes should not have
+existence in various parts of London.  One such establishment indeed is
+of little practical use.  If it were possible to establish such places (a
+careful avoidance of everything savouring of the “asylum” and the
+“reformatory” would of course be necessary) in half a dozen different
+spots in the immediate neighbourhood of the city, they would doubtless
+meet with extensive patronage.  They might indeed be made to serve many
+valuable ends that do not appear at a first glance.  If these “homes”
+were established east, west, north, and south, they might be all under
+one management, and much good be effected by recommending deserving
+members for employment.  There might even be a provident fund, formed by
+contributions of a penny or so a week, out of which lads unavoidably out
+of employ could be supported until a job of work was found for them.
+
+Allusion has, in a previous page, been made to that dangerous time for
+working boys—the time between leaving work and retiring to bed.  It would
+be bad enough were the boy left to his own devices for squandering his
+idle time and his hard-earned pence.  This task, however, is taken out of
+his hands.  He has only to stroll up this street and down the next, and
+he will find pitfalls already dug for him; neatly and skilfully dug, and
+so prettily overspread with cosy carpeting, that they do not in the least
+appear like pitfalls.  It may at first sight seem that “neglected
+children” are least of all likely to make it worth the while of these
+diggers of pits, but it should be borne in mind that the term in question
+is here applied in its most comprehensive sense, that there are children
+of all ages, and that there are many more ways than one of neglecting
+children.  It is evident that young boys who are out at work from six
+till six say, and after that spend the evening pretty much how they
+please, are “neglected” in the most emphatic meaning of the term.
+Parents are not apt to think so.  It is little that they have to concede
+him in return for his contributions to the common stock, and probably
+they regard this laxity of supervision as the working boy’s due—as
+something he has earned, and which is his by right.  The boy himself is
+nothing backward in claiming a privilege he sees accorded to so many
+other boys, and it is the least troublesome thing in the world for the
+parents to grant the favour.  All that they stipulate for is that the boy
+shall be home and a-bed in such good time as shall enable him to be up
+and at work without the loss in the morning of so much as an hour; which
+is a loss of just as many pence as may happen.
+
+It may not be here out of place to make more definite allusion to the
+“pitfalls” above-mentioned.  Pitfall broadest and deepest is the
+theatrical exhibition, known as the “penny gaff.”  Some considerable time
+since I wrote on this subject in the columns of the “Morning Star;” and
+as precisely the old order of things prevails, and the arguments then
+used against them apply with equal force now, I will, with the reader’s
+permission, save myself further trouble than that which transcription
+involves.
+
+Every low district of London has its theatre, or at least an humble
+substitute for one, called in vulgar parlance a “gaff.”  A gaff is a
+place in which, according to the strict interpretation of the term, stage
+plays may not be represented.  The actors of a drama may not correspond
+in colloquy, only in pantomime, but the pieces brought out at the “gaff”
+are seldom of an intricate character, and the not over-fastidious
+auditory are well content with an exhibition of dumb show and gesture,
+that even the dullest comprehension may understand.  The prices of
+admission to these modest temples of the tragic muse, are judiciously
+regulated to the means of the neighbourhood, and range from a penny to
+threepence.  There is no “half-price for children,” and for the simple
+reason that such an arrangement would reduce the takings exactly fifty
+per cent.  They are _all_ children who support the gaff.  Costermonger
+boys and girls, from eight or nine to fourteen years old, and errand boys
+and girls employed at factories.  As before mentioned, every district has
+its own “gaff.”  There is one near Peter Street, Westminster; a second in
+the New Cut, at Lambeth; a third in Whitecross Street; a fourth, fifth,
+and sixth between Whitechapel Church and Ratcliff Highway.  It may,
+without fear of contradiction, be asserted, that within a circuit of five
+miles of St. Paul’s, at least twenty of these dangerous dens of amusement
+might be enumerated.
+
+At best of times they are dangerous.  The best of times being when
+current topics of a highly sensational character are lacking, and the
+enterprising manager is compelled to fall back on some comparatively
+harmless stock piece.  But the “gaff” proprietor has an eye to business,
+and is a man unlikely to allow what he regards as his chances to slip by
+him.  He at once perceives a chance in the modern mania that pervades the
+juvenile population for a class of literature commonly known as “highly
+sensational.”  He has no literature to vend, but he does not despair on
+that account.  He is aware that not one in five of the youth who honour
+his establishment with their patronage can read.  If he, the worthy gaff
+proprietor, had any doubts on the subject, he might settle them any day
+by listening at his door while an admiring crowd of “regular customers”
+flocking thereto speculated on the pleasures of the night as foretold in
+glowing colours on the immense placards that adorn the exterior of his
+little theatre.  They can understand the pictures well enough, but the
+descriptive legends beneath them are mysteries to which few possess the
+key.  If these few are maliciously reticent, the despair of the benighted
+ones is painful to witness, as with puckered mouths and knitted brows
+they essay to decipher the strange straight and crooked characters, and
+earnestly consult with each other as to when and where they had seen the
+like.  Failing in this, the gaff proprietor may have heard them exclaim
+in tones of but half-assured consolation, “Ah, well! it doesn’t matter
+what the _reading_ is; the piece won’t be spoke, it’ll be _acted_, so we
+are sure to know all about it when we come to-night.”
+
+Under such circumstances, it is easy enough to understand the agonized
+anxiety of low-lived ignorant Master Tomkins in these stirring times of
+Black Highwaymen, and Spring Heel Jacks, and Boy Detectives.  In the shop
+window of the newsvendor round the corner, he sees displayed all in a
+row, a long line of “penny numbers,” the mere illustrations pertaining to
+which makes his heart palpitate, and his hair stir beneath his ragged
+cap.  There he sees bold highwaymen busy at every branch of their
+delightful avocation, stopping a lonely traveller and pressing a pistol
+barrel to his affrighted head, and bidding him deliver his money or his
+life; or impeding the way of the mail coach, the captain, hat in hand,
+courteously robbing the inside passengers (prominent amongst whom is a
+magnificent female with a low bodice, who evidently is not insensible to
+the captain’s fascinating manner), while members of his gang are seen in
+murderous conflict with the coachman and the guard, whose doom is but too
+surely foreshadowed.  Again, here is a spirited woodcut of a booted and
+spurred highwayman in headlong flight from pursuing Bow Street officers
+who are close at his heels, and in no way daunted or hurt by the contents
+of the brace of pistols the fugitive has manifestly just discharged point
+blank at their heads.
+
+But fairly in the way of the bold rider is a toll-gate, and in a state of
+wild excitement the toll-gate keeper is seen grasping the long bar that
+crosses the road.  The tormenting question at once arises in the mind of
+Master Tomkins—is he pushing it or pulling it?  Is he friendly to the
+Black Knight of the Road or is he not?  Master T. feels that his hero’s
+fate is in that toll-gate man’s hands; he doesn’t know if he should
+vastly admire him or regard him with the deadliest enmity.  From the
+bottom of his heart he hopes that the toll-gate man may be friendly.  He
+would cheerfully give up the only penny he has in his pocket to know that
+it were so.  He would give a penny for a simple “yes” or “no,” and all
+the while there are eight good letter-press pages along with the picture
+that would tell him all about it if he only were able to read!  There is
+a scowl on his young face as he reflects on this, and bitterly he thinks
+of his hardhearted father who sent him out to sell fusees when he should
+have been at school learning his A B C.  Truly, he went for a short time
+to a Ragged School, but there the master kept all the jolly books to
+himself—the “Knight of the Road” and that sort of thing, and gave him to
+learn out of a lot of sober dry rubbish without the least flavour in it.
+Who says that he is a dunce and won’t learn?  Try him now.  Buy a few
+numbers of the “Knight of the Road” and sit down with him, and make him
+spell out every word of it.  Never was boy so anxious after knowledge.
+He never picked a pocket yet, but such is his present desperate spirit,
+that if he had the chance of picking the art of reading out of one, just
+see if he wouldn’t precious soon make himself a scholar?
+
+Thus it is with the neglected boy, blankly illiterate.  It need not be
+supposed, however, that a simple and quiet perusal of the astounding
+adventures of his gallows heroes from the printed text would completely
+satisfy the boy with sufficient knowledge to enable him to spell through
+a “penny number.”  It whets his appetite merely.  It is one thing to
+_read_ about the flashing and slashing of steel blades, and of the gleam
+of pistol barrels, and the whiz of bullets, and of the bold highwayman’s
+defiant “ha! ha!” as he cracks the skull of the coach-guard, preparatory
+to robbing the affrighted passengers; but to be satisfactory the marrow
+and essence of the blood-stirring tragedy can only be conveyed to him in
+bodily shape.  There are many elements of a sanguinary drama that may not
+well be expressed in words.  As, for instance, when Bill Bludjon, after
+having cut the throat of the gentleman passenger, proceeds to rob his
+daughter, and finding her in possession of a locket with some grey hair
+in it, he returns it to her with the observation, “Nay, fair lady, Bill
+Bludjon may be a thief: in stern defence of self he may occasionally shed
+blood, but, Perish the Liar who says of him that he respects not the grey
+hairs of honourable age!”  There is not much in this as set down in
+print.  To do Bill justice, you must see how his noble countenance lights
+as his generous bosom heaves with chivalrous sentiments; how defiantly he
+scowls, and grinds his indignant teeth as he hisses the word
+“_Liar_!”—how piously he turns his eyes heavenward as he alludes to
+“honourable old age.”  It is in these emotional subtleties that the hero
+rises out of the vulgar robber with his villanous Whitechapel cast of
+countenance, and his great hands, hideous with murder stains, must be
+witnessed to be appreciated.  It is the gaff proprietor’s high aim and
+ambition to effect this laudable object, and that he does so with a
+considerable amount of, at least, pecuniary success, is proved by his
+“crowded houses” nightly.
+
+Now that the police are to be roused to increased vigilance in the
+suppression, as well as the arrest of criminality, it would be as well if
+those in authority directed their especial attention to these penny
+theatres.  As they at present exist, they are nothing better than
+hot-beds of vice in its vilest forms.  Girls and boys of tender age are
+herded together to witness the splendid achievements of “dashing
+highwaymen,” and of sirens of the Starlight Sall school; nor is this all.
+But bad as this is, it is really the least part of the evil.  The penny
+“gaff” is usually a small place, and when a specially atrocious piece
+produces a corresponding “run,” the “house” is incapable of containing
+the vast number of boys and girls who nightly flock to see it.  Scores
+would be turned away from the doors, and their halfpence wasted, were it
+not for the worthy proprietor’s ingenuity.  I am now speaking of what I
+was an actual witness of in the neighbourhood of Shoreditch.  Beneath the
+pit and stage of the theatre was a sort of large kitchen, reached from
+the end of the passage, that was the entrance to the theatre by a flight
+of steep stairs.  There were no seats in this kitchen, nor furniture of
+any kind.  There was a window looking toward the street, but this was
+prudently boarded up.  At night time all the light allowed in the kitchen
+proceeded from a feeble and dim gas jet by the wall over the fire-place.
+
+Wretched and dreary-looking as was this underground chamber, it was a
+source of considerable profit to the proprietor of the “gaff” overhead.
+As before stated, when anything peculiarly attractive was to be seen, the
+theatre filled within ten minutes of opening the besieged doors.  Not to
+disappoint the late comers, however, all who pleased might pay and go
+downstairs until the performance just commenced (it lasted generally
+about an hour and a half) terminated.  The prime inducement held out was,
+that “then they would be sure of good seats.”  The inevitable result of
+such an arrangement may be easier guessed than described.  For my part, I
+know no more about it than was to be derived from a hasty glance from the
+stair-head.  There was a stench of tobacco smoke, and an uproar of
+mingled youthful voices—swearing, chaffing, and screaming, in boisterous
+mirth.  This was all that was to be heard, the Babel charitably rendering
+distinct pronouncing of blasphemy or indecency unintelligible.  Nor was
+it much easier to make out the source from whence the hideous clamour
+proceeded, for the kitchen was dim as a coal cellar, and was further
+obscured by the foul tobacco smoke the lads were emitting from their
+short pipes.  A few were romping about—“larking,” as it is termed—but the
+majority, girls and boys, were squatted on the floor, telling and
+listening to stories, the quality of which might but too truly be guessed
+from the sort of applause they elicited.  A few—impatient of the
+frivolity that surrounded them, and really anxious for “the play”—stood
+apart, gazing with scowling envy up at the ceiling, on the upper side of
+which, at frequent intervals, there was a furious clatter of hobnailed
+boots, betokening the delirious delight of the happy audience in full
+view of Starlight Sall, in “silk tights” and Hessians, dancing a Highland
+fling.  Goaded to desperation, one or two of the tormented ones down in
+the kitchen reached up with their sticks and beat on the ceiling a
+tattoo, responsive to the battering of the hobnailed boots before
+mentioned.  This, however, was a breach of “gaff” rule that could not be
+tolerated.  With hurried steps the proprietor approached the kitchen
+stairs, and descried me.  “This ain’t the theeater; you’ve no business
+here, sir!” said he, in some confusion, as I imagined.  “No, my friend, I
+have no business here, but _you_ have a very pretty business, and one for
+which, when comes the Great Day of Reckoning, I would rather you answered
+than me.”  But I only thought this; aloud, I made the gaff proprietor an
+apology, and thankfully got off his abominable premises.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+THE PROBLEM OF DELIVERANCE.
+
+
+_Curious Problem_.—_The Best Method of Treatment_.—_The_ “_Child of the
+Gutter_” _not to be Entirely Abolished_.—_The Genuine Alley-Bred
+Arab_.—_The Poor Lambs of the Ragged Flock_.—_The Tree of Evil in Our
+Midst_.—_The Breeding Places of Disease and Vice_.
+
+THE curious problem—“What is the best method of treatment to adopt
+towards improving the condition of neglected children, and to diminish
+their number for the future?” has been attempted for solution from so
+many points of attack, and by means so various, that a bare enumeration
+of the instances would occupy much more space than these limited pages
+afford.
+
+We may never hope entirely to abolish the child of the gutter.  To a
+large extent, as has been shown, he is a natural growth of vices that
+seem inseparable from our social system: he is of the world, the flesh,
+and the devil; and, until we purge our grosser nature, and become
+angelic, we must tolerate him as we must the result of all our
+ill-breeding.  It is a thousand pities that it should be so, because, as
+I have endeavoured in these pages to show, the neglected child issuing
+from the source here hinted at, is by far the most unmanageable and
+dangerous.  Blood is thicker than any water, not excluding ditch water;
+and the chances are that the unlucky “love-child” will not remain content
+to grovel in the kennel to which an accident of birth consigned him, but,
+out of his rebellious nature, conceive a deadly hatred against the world
+that has served him so shabbily, and do his best to be revenged on it.
+It is not of the neglected child of this breed that I would say a few
+concluding words, but of the genuine alley-bred Arab of the City; the
+worthy descendant of a tribe that has grown so used to neglect that it
+regards it as its privilege, and fiercely resents any move that may be
+taken towards its curtailment.
+
+If ever a distressed creature had friends surely this one has.  From time
+immemorial it has been the pet of the philanthropist.  Unsavoury,
+unsightly bantling as it is, he is never tired of fondling it, spending
+his time and money over it, and holding it up to the commiseration of a
+humane public, and building all manner of homes and asylums for it; but
+he still remains on hand.  If he would grow up, and after being bound
+’prentice to a wholesome trade cease to trouble us, there would be some
+satisfaction in the business; but it never grows up.  It is like the
+borrowed beggar’s brat, that, in defiance of the progress of time, never
+emerges from its bedgown, and never grows too big to be tucked under one
+arm, leaving the other at liberty to arrest the charitable passer-by.
+
+To be sure it is a great consolation to know that despite our
+non-success, the poor little object of our solicitude is in no danger of
+being dropped in hopelessness and abandoned, but it would be encouraging
+to discover that we were making some progress with our main design, which
+can be nothing less than the complete extinction of children of the
+“gutter” tribe, such as we are now discussing.
+
+As it is, we are making scarcely any progress at all.  I am aware that
+statistics are against this statement, that the triumphant reports of
+this and that charity point to a different conclusion.  This home has
+rescued so many little ones from the streets—that asylum can show a
+thousand decently clad and educated children that but for its efforts
+would at this moment be either prowling the streets, picking up a more
+precarious living than the stray dog picks up, or leading the life of a
+petty thief, and rapidly earning his right to penal servitude.
+
+This, and much more, is doubtless true, but there remains the grim fact
+that our filthy byways still swarm with these dirty, ragged,
+disease-stricken little ones, and as plentifully as of yore they infest
+our highways, an eyesore and a shuddering to all decent beholders.  If
+there has occurred any recent diminution in their number, I should
+rejoice to know it; but that such is in the least degree the fact,
+certainly I am not justified in assuming in the face of the urgent
+appeals daily put forth by the wise in such matters, and who never tire
+of urging on the benevolently disposed, that never was there such need as
+now to be up and stirring.
+
+And it can never be otherwise while we limit our charitable doing to
+providing for those poor lambs of the ragged flock as fast as they are
+bred, and cast loose on the chance of their being mercifully kidnapped
+and taken care of.  As with indiscriminate giving to beggars, it may be
+urged that we can never go wrong in ministering to the distress of the
+infantine and helpless.  Opportunities of doing so should perhaps be
+joyfully hailed by us as affording wholesome exercise of our belief in
+the Christian religion, but we may rely on it that the supply of the
+essential ingredient towards the said exercise will never be unequal to
+the demand.  Our charitable exertion flows in too narrow a channel.  It
+is pure, and of depth immeasurable, but it is not broad enough.  We have
+got into a habit of treating our neglected children as an evil
+unavoidable, and one that must be endured with kindly and pious
+resignation.  We have a gigantic tree of evil rooted in our midst, and
+our great care is to collect the ripe seeds it drops and provide against
+their germinating, and we expend as much time and money in the process as
+judiciously applied would serve to tear up the old tree from its
+tenacious holding, and for ever destroy its mischievous power.  No doubt
+it may be justly claimed by the patrons and supporters of homes and
+asylums, that by rescuing these children from the streets they are saved
+from becoming debased and demoralized as were the parents they sprang
+from, and so, in course of time, by a steady perseverance in their
+system, the breed of gutter prowlers must become extinct; but that is a
+tedious and roundabout method of reform that can only be tolerated until
+a more direct route is discovered, and one that can scarcely prove
+satisfactory to those who look forward to a lifetime return for some of
+their invested capital.
+
+We may depend on it that we shall never make much real progress in our
+endeavours to check the growth of these seedlings and offshoots of ragged
+poverty and reckless squalor until we turn our attention with a settled
+purpose to the haunts they are bred in.  Our present system compels us
+even in its first preliminary steps to do violence against nature.  We
+cannot deal with our babies of the gutter effectually, and with any
+reasonable chance of success, until we have separated them entirely from
+their _home_.  We may tame them and teach them to feed out of our hands,
+and to repeat after us the alphabet, and even words of two and three
+syllables.  We may even induce them to shed their bedraggled feathers and
+adopt a more decent plumage; but they can never be other than restless
+and ungovernable, and unclean birds, while they inhabit the vile old
+parent nest.
+
+It is these vile old nests that should be abolished.  While they are
+permitted to exist, while Rosemary Lane, and Peter Street, Westminster,
+and Back Church Lane in Whitechapel, and Cow Cross and Seven Dials, and a
+hundred similar places are tolerated and allowed to flourish, it is
+utterly impossible to diminish the race of children of the gutter.  Why
+should these breeding places of disease and vice and all manner of
+abomination be permitted to cumber the earth?  There is but one opinion
+that these horrid dens are the sources from which are derived two-thirds
+of our neglected ragged urchin population.  Further, it is generally
+conceded, that it is not because of the prevalence of extreme poverty
+there; the filthy little public-houses invariably to be found lurking in
+the neighbourhood of rags and squalor would not be so prosperous if such
+were the case.  It is the pestilential atmosphere of the place that will
+let nothing good live in it.  You may never purify it.  It is altogether
+a rotten carcase; and if you stuff it to the mouth with chloride of lime,
+and whitewash it an inch thick, you will make nothing else of it.  It is
+a sin and a disgrace that human creatures should be permitted to herd in
+such places.  One and all should be abolished, and wholesome habitations
+built in their stead.  Half measures will not meet the case.  That has
+been sufficiently proved but recently, when, not for morality or decency
+sake, but to make room for a railway, a few score of these odious
+hole-and-corner “slums” were razed to the ground.
+
+The result was to make bad worse.  The wretched occupants of the doomed
+houses clung to them with as much tenacity as though each abode were an
+ark, and if they were turned out of it, it would be to drown in the
+surrounding flood.  When the demolishers came with their picks and
+crows—the honest housebreakers,—and mounted to the roof, the garret
+lodgers retreated to the next floor, and so on, debating the ground step
+by step before the inexorable pickaxe, until they were driven into the
+cellar and could go no lower.  Then they had to run for it; but, poor
+purblind wretches, they had lived so long in dungeon darkness, that the
+broad light of day was unbearable.  Like rats disturbed from a drain, all
+they desired was to escape out of sight and hide again; and again, like
+rats, they knew of neighbouring burrows and scuttled to them with all
+speed.
+
+Ousted from Slusher’s Alley, they sought Grimes’s Rents.  Grimes’s Rents
+were already fully occupied by renters, but the present was a calamity
+that might overtake anyone, and the desired shelter was not refused.  It
+was a mere matter of packing a little closer.  The donkey that lodged in
+the cellar was turned into the wash-house, and there was a commodious
+apartment for a large family, and nothing was easier than to rig up an
+old counterpane on an extended string, so converting one chamber into
+two.  Hard as it is to believe, and in mockery of all our Acts of
+Parliament for the better ordering of lodging-houses, and our legal
+enactments regulating the number of cubic feet of air every lodger was
+entitled to and might insist on, in hundreds of cases this condition of
+things exists at the present writing.  Within a stone’s cast of the
+Houses of Parliament, where sit six hundred wise gentlemen empanelled to
+make what laws they please for improving the condition of the people,
+every one of the said six hundred being an educated man of liberal mind,
+and fully recognising the Christian maxim that godliness and cleanliness
+are identical, may be found human creatures housed in places that would
+ruin the health of a country-bred pig were he removed thereto.  In these
+same places parents and grown up and little children herd in the same
+room night and day.  Sickness does not break up the party, or even the
+presence of grim Death himself.  Singularly enough, however, more
+ceremony is observed with new life than with old Death.  A missionary
+friend related to me the case of a family of five inhabiting one small
+room, and the youngest boy, aged thirteen, died.  The domestic
+arrangements, however, were not in the least disturbed by the melancholy
+event; the lad’s coffin was laid against the wall, and meals were cooked
+and eaten and the two beds made and occupied as usual until the day of
+burial.  A little while after, however, the mother gave birth to a child,
+and my friend visiting the family found it grouped on the landing
+partaking of a rough-and-ready tea.  It was voted “undacent to be
+inthrudin’” until next day.  However, the decent scruples of the head of
+the family did not hold out beyond that time, and by the evening of the
+next day the old order of things was quite restored.
+
+How in the name of goodness and humanity can we, under such
+circumstances, hope to be delivered from the curse of neglected children?
+
+
+
+
+II.—Professional Thieves.
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+THEIR NUMBER AND THEIR DIFFICULTIES.
+
+
+_Twenty Thousand Thieves in London_.—_What it Means_.—_The Language of_
+“_Weeds_.”—_Cleverness of the Pilfering Fraternity_.—_A Protest Against a
+Barbarous Suggestion_.—_The Prisoner’s great Difficulty_.—_The Moment of
+Leaving Prison_.—_Bad Friends_.—_What Becomes of Good Resolutions and the
+Chaplain’s Counsel_?—_The Criminal’s Scepticism of Human Goodness_.—_Life
+in_ “_Little Hell_.”—_The Cow Cross Mission_.
+
+THE happily ignorant reader, whose knowledge of the criminal classes is
+confined to an occasional glance through the police court and Sessions
+cases as narrated in his morning newspaper, will be shocked and amazed to
+learn that within the limits of the City of London alone, an army of male
+and female thieves, twenty thousand strong, find daily and nightly
+employment.
+
+It is easy to write “twenty thousand,” and easier still to read the
+words.  Easier than all to pass them by with but a vague idea of their
+meaning, and perhaps a sympathetic shrug of the shoulders for the poor,
+hard-worked policemen who must have such a terrible time of it in keeping
+such an enormous predatory crew in anything like order.  Still, and
+without the least desire to be “sensational,” I would ask the reader,
+does he fully comprehend what twenty thousand thieves in London means?
+Roughly estimating the population of the metropolis as numbering three
+millions, it means that amongst us one person in every hundred and fifty
+is a forger, a housebreaker, a pickpocket, a shoplifter, a receiver of
+stolen goods or what not; a human bird of prey, in short, bound to a
+desperate pursuit of that terrible course of life into which vice or
+misfortune originally casts him; a wily, cunning man-wolf, constantly on
+the watch, seeking whom he may devour.
+
+Almost every member of this formidable host is known to the “police,” but
+unfortunately this advantage is almost counterbalanced by the fact that
+the police are as well known to the majority of the twenty thousand.  To
+their experienced eyes, it is not the helmet and the blue coat that makes
+the policeman.  Indeed, they appear to depend not so much on visual
+evidence as on some subtle power of scent such as the fox possesses in
+discovering the approach of their natural enemy.  They can discover the
+detective in his innocent-looking smock-frock or bricklayer jacket, while
+he is yet distant the length of a street.  They know him by his step, or
+by his clumsy affectation of unofficial loutishness.  They recognise the
+stiff neck in the loose neckerchief.  They smell “trap,” and are superior
+to it.
+
+There is a language current amongst them that is to be met with in no
+dictionary with which I am acquainted.  I doubt if even the “slang
+dictionary” contains more than a few of the following instances that may
+be accepted as genuine.  It will be seen that the prime essential of
+“thieves’ latin” is brevity.  By its use, much may in one or two words be
+conveyed to a comrade while rapidly passing him in the street, or, should
+opportunity serve, during a visit to him while in prison.
+
+To erase the original name or number from a stolen watch, and substitute
+one that is fictitious—_christening Jack_.
+
+To take the works from one watch, and case them in another—_churching
+Jack_.
+
+Poultry stealing—_beak hunting_.
+
+One who steals from the shopkeeper while pretending to effect an honest
+purchase—_a bouncer_.
+
+One who entices another to play at a game at which cheating rules, such
+as card or skittle sharping—_a buttoner_.
+
+The treadmill, _shin scraper_ (arising, it may be assumed, on account of
+the operator’s liability, if he is not careful, to get his shins scraped
+by the ever-revolving wheel).
+
+To commit burglary—_crack a case_, or _break a drum_.
+
+The van that conveys prisoners to gaol—_Black Maria_.
+
+A thief who robs cabs or carriages by climbing up behind, and cutting the
+straps that secure the luggage on the roof—_a dragsman_.
+
+Breaking a square of glass—_starring the glaze_.
+
+Training young thieves—_kidsman_.
+
+To be transported or sent to penal servitude—_lagged_.
+
+Three years’ imprisonment—_a stretch_.
+
+Half stretch—_six months_.
+
+Three months’ imprisonment—_a tail piece_.
+
+To rob a till—_pinch a bob_.
+
+A confederate in the practice of thimble rigging—_a nobbler_.
+
+One who assists at a sham street row for the purpose of creating a mob,
+and promoting robbery from the person—_a jolly_.
+
+A thief who secretes goods in a shop while a confederate distracts the
+attention of the shopkeeper is—_a palmer_.
+
+A person marked for plunder—_a plant_.
+
+Going out to steal linen in process of drying in gardens—_going snowing_.
+
+Bad money—_sinker_.
+
+Passer of counterfeit coins—_smasher_.
+
+Stolen property generally—_swag_.
+
+To go about half-naked to excite compassion—_on the shallow_.
+
+Stealing lead from the roof of houses—_flying the blue pigeon_.
+
+Coiners of bad money—_bit fakers_.
+
+Midnight prowlers who rob drunken men—_bug hunters_.
+
+Entering a dwelling house while the family have gone to church—_a dead
+lurk_.
+
+Convicted of thieving—_in for a ramp_.
+
+A city missionary or scripture reader—_gospel grinder_.
+
+Shop-lifting—_hoisting_.
+
+Hidden from the police—_in lavender_.
+
+Forged bank notes—_queer screens_.
+
+Whipping while in prison—_scroby_ or _claws for breakfast_.
+
+Long-fingered thieves expert in emptying ladies’ pockets—_fine wirers_.
+
+The condemned cell—_the salt box_.
+
+The prison chaplain—_Lady Green_.
+
+A boy thief, lithe and thin and daring, such a one as housebreakers hire
+for the purpose of entering a small window at the rear of a dwelling
+house—_a little snakesman_.
+
+So pertinaciously do the inhabitants of criminal colonies stick to their
+“latin,” that a well-known writer suggests that special religious tracts,
+suiting their condition, should be printed in the language, as an almost
+certain method of securing their attention.
+
+There can be no question that that of the professional thief is a
+bitterly severe and laborious occupation, beset with privations that
+moral people have no conception of, and involves an amount of mental
+anxiety and torment that few human beings can withstand through a long
+lifetime.  Some years ago a clergyman with a thorough acquaintance with
+the subject he was handling, wrote on “Thieves and Thieving,” in the
+“Cornhill Magazine,” and _apropos_ of this benumbing atmosphere of dread,
+that constantly encompasses even the old “professional,” he says:—
+
+    “But if an acquaintance with the thieves’ quarters revealed to me the
+    amazing subtlety and cleverness of the pilfering fraternity, it also
+    taught me the guilty fear, the wretchedness, the moral guilt, and the
+    fearful hardships that fall to the lot of the professional thief.
+    They are never safe for a moment, and this unceasing jeopardy
+    produces a constant nervousness and fear.  Sometimes when visiting
+    the sick, I have gently laid my hand on the shoulder of one of them,
+    who happened to be standing in the street.  The man would ‘start like
+    a guilty thing upon a fearful summons,’ and it would take him two or
+    three minutes to recover his self-possession sufficiently to ask me
+    ‘How are you to-day, sir?’  I never saw the adage, ‘Suspicion always
+    haunts the guilty mind,’ so painfully illustrated as in the thieves’
+    quarter, by the faces of grey-haired criminals, whose hearts had been
+    worn into hardness by the dishonouring chains of transportation.
+    When, in the dusk of the evening, I have spoken to one of them as he
+    stood idly on the public-house steps, I have spoken in a low and
+    altered tone, so that he might not at first recognise me: again the
+    guilty start as the man bent forward, anxiously peering into my
+    face.”
+
+He is never at rest, the wretched professional thief.  He goes about with
+the tools of war perpetually in his hands, and with enemies in the front
+and the rear, and to the right and the left of him.  “Anybody, to hear
+’em talk,” a thief once remarked to me (he was a thief at present in
+possession of liberty; not an incarcerated rogue plying “gammon” as the
+incarcerated rogue loves to ply it), “anybody would think, to hear ’em
+talk, that it was all sugar with us while we were free, and that our
+sufferings did not begin until we were caught, and ‘put away.’  Them that
+think so know nothing about it.  Take a case, now, of a man who is in for
+getting his living ‘on the cross,’ and who has got a ‘kid’ or two, and
+their mother, at home.  I don’t say that it is _my_ case, but you can
+take it so if you like.  _She_ isn’t a thief.  Ask her what she knows
+about me, and she’ll tell you that, wuss luck, I’ve got in co. with some
+bad uns, and she wishes that I hadn’t.  She wishes that I hadn’t,
+p’raps—not out of any sort of Goody-two-shoes feeling, but because she
+loves me.  That’s the name of it; _we_ haint got any other word for the
+feelin’; and she can’t bear to think that I may, any hour, be dragged off
+for six mouths, or a year, p’raps.  And them’s my feelings, too, and no
+mistake, day after day, and Sundays as well as week-days.  She isn’t
+fonder of me than I am of her, I’ll go bail for that; and as for the
+kids, the girl especially, why I’d skid a waggon wheel with my body
+rather than her precious skin should be grazed.  Well, take my word for
+it, I never go out in the morning, and the young ’un sez ‘good bye,’ but
+what I think ‘good bye—yes! p’raps it’s good bye for a longer spell than
+you’re dreaming about, you poor little shaver.’  And when I get out into
+the street, how long am I safe?  Why, only for the straight length of
+that street, as far as I can see the coast clear.  I may find a stopper
+at any turning, or at any corner.  And when you _do_ feel the hand on
+your collar!  I’ve often wondered what must be a chap’s feelings when the
+white cap is pulled over his peepers, and old Calcraft is pawing about
+his throat, to get the rope right.  It must be a sight worse than the
+_other_ feeling, you’ll say.  Well, if it is, I wonder how long the chap
+manages to hold up till he’s let go!”
+
+I am the more anxious to remark on these lingering relics of humanity,
+and, I may almost say virtue, that, if properly sought, may be discovered
+in the most hardened criminals, because, of late, there appears to be a
+growing inclination to treat the habitual criminal as though he had
+ceased to be human, and had degenerated into the condition of the meanest
+and most irreclaimable of predatory animals, fit only to be turned over
+to the tender mercies of a great body of huntsmen who wear blue coats
+instead of scarlet, and carry staves and handcuffs in place of whips and
+horns, and to be pursued to death.  I have already taken occasion in the
+public newspapers, and I have much pleasure in returning to the charge
+here, to exclaim against the barbarous suggestions of a gentleman holding
+high position in the police force, Colonel Fraser, Commissioner of the
+City Police.
+
+Alluding to the Habitual Criminals Bill, Colonel Fraser says:—
+
+    “Parts 1 and 2 of the Bill are chiefly designed to ensure a clearer
+    police supervision than now exists over convicts at large on licence,
+    and to extend it to persons who have been, or may be convicted of
+    felony; but all the pains and penalties to which such persons are
+    liable are made to depend absolutely on proof being forthcoming that
+    the alleged offenders are actual licence holders, or convicted
+    felons, and the great difficulty which so frequently occurs in
+    obtaining this proof will present serious obstacles to a satisfactory
+    working of the statute.
+
+    “Organized as the English police forces are, it will be most
+    difficult for them, notwithstanding the contemplated system of
+    registration, to account satisfactorily for the movements of licence
+    holders, or to obtain an effective supervision over them, if they are
+    determined to evade it.  But the number of these convicts at large is
+    insignificant compared with the swarms of repeatedly-convicted
+    thieves, who give infinitely greater trouble to the police than
+    licence-holders, and who constantly escape with a light sentence,
+    from the impossibility of obtaining ready proof of their former
+    convictions.”
+
+Now comes the remedy for this unsatisfactory state of affairs!
+
+    “As a remedy for this, I would suggest that every convict, on being
+    liberated on licence, and every person after a second conviction of
+    felony, should be marked in prison, on being set free, in such manner
+    as the Secretary of State might direct—as has been the practice in
+    the case of deserters, and men dismissed for misconduct from the
+    army: such marking to be accepted as sufficient proof of former
+    convictions.
+
+    “The precise mode in which this should be effected is matter of
+    detail; but, by a simple combination of alphabetical letters, similar
+    to that employed in distinguishing postage-stamps, no two persons
+    need bear precisely the same mark, and the arrangement of letters
+    might be such as to show at a glance, not only the particular prison
+    in which the offender had been last confined, but also the date of
+    his last conviction.  Copies of these marks, transmitted to the
+    Central Office of Registration in London, would form an invaluable
+    record of the history of habitual criminals, and enable the police to
+    obtain that reliable information as to their antecedents, the want of
+    which now so commonly enables practised offenders to escape the
+    consequences of their misdeeds.
+
+    “Attempts might, and probably would, be made to alter the appearance
+    of the tell-tale imprints; but it would be impossible to efface them,
+    and any artificial discoloration of the skin appearing on the
+    particular part of the arm, or body, fixed upon for the prison mark,
+    should be considered as affording sufficient proof of former
+    convictions; unless the person charged could show—to the satisfaction
+    of the justice before whom he might be brought—that it was produced
+    by legitimate means.”
+
+I have ventured to transcribe, in its integrity, the main portion of
+Colonel Fraser’s “new idea,” thinking that its importance demanded it.
+It is significant of much that is to be regretted, coming from such a
+source.  It is somewhat excusable, maybe, in a common policeman—who
+yesterday may have been an agricultural labourer, or a member of a
+community of which no more in the way of education is expected—if he
+exhibits a kind of unreasoning, watch-dog antagonism towards the criminal
+classes.  He is instructed in all sorts of manœuvres, and paid a guinea a
+week to act _against_ them—to oppose the weight of his officially-striped
+arm, and the full force of his handy staff against them, whenever he
+finds plausible excuse for doing so.  And, possibly, this is a condition
+of affairs one should not be over eager to reform.  The policeman, “too
+clever by half,” is generally an instrument of injustice, and an
+impediment in the way of the law’s impartial acting.  So long as the
+common constable remains a well-regulated machine, and fulfils his
+functions without jarring or unnecessary noise, we will ask no more; but
+without doubt we expect, and we have a right to expect, some display of
+intelligence and humanity on the part of the chief engineer who directs
+and controls these machines.  An official of polite education, and
+possessed of a thorough knowledge of the ways and means and the various
+resources of the enemy it is his duty to provide against, should be
+actuated by some more generous sentiment than that which points towards
+uncompromising extermination.  Colonel Fraser should bear in mind that an
+act of criminality does not altogether change a man’s nature.  He is a
+human creature in which, perhaps through accident, perhaps through
+desperate, and to some extent deliberate culture, certain growths,
+injurious to the welfare of the commonwealth, have growth; but to brand,
+and destroy, and crush under the heel the said creature because of his
+objectionable affections, is much like smashing a set of valuable vases
+because stagnant water has been permitted to accumulate in them.  It may
+be urged that if the said vases or men have secreted criminal vice and
+fouling until their whole substance has become saturated beyond
+possibility of cleansing, then the sooner they are utterly abolished the
+better.  To this I answer that until the best known methods of cleansing
+have been tried on the foul vessels we are not in a position to say that
+they are irreclaimable; and again, even provided that you might discover
+certain such vessels fit for nothing but destruction, it would be a
+monstrous absurdity to issue an edict ordering the annihilation of every
+pot of a like pattern.  And this is pretty much as Colonel Fraser would
+act.
+
+Let the reader for a moment consider what would be the effect if such a
+law as that proposed by the Commissioner of Police for the City of London
+were passed.  In the first place it would, in its immediate operation,
+prove immensely unjust to the milder sort of criminal.  If we started
+anew with our army of twenty thousand to-morrow morning, and every member
+of it had been convicted but once, there would be fairness (admitting
+just for argument sake only that there is any fairness at all about it)
+in holding out the threat that the next man who committed himself should
+be branded.  But, as the case stands, before a month had elapsed we
+should have hundreds of unlucky wretches against whose names but two
+felonious commitments stood, bearing the hateful brand, while thousands
+of the old and wary of the tribe acquainted with the interior of every
+prison in England would, as far as the tell-tale mark is concerned,
+appear as innocent as you or I.  Nor would any “alphabetical postal
+system,” however ingenious and cold-blooded, avoid this difficulty.  The
+only way of doing full justice to the entire body of felons—the young
+beginners and the old practitioners—would be, whenever the latter were
+next taken to search all the prison records for convictions against them,
+and score them in regular order on the delinquents’ writhing flesh.  To
+do this, however, Colonel Fraser would have to abandon his idea of
+branding on the arm.  That member would in many cases afford inadequate
+space, even if you brought the chronicle from the shoulder to the finger
+tips, and “turned over” and continued the length of the criminal’s palm.
+As the newspaper reports frequently show, there are evil doers whose
+catalogues of crimes may scarcely be expressed in a century.
+
+But these are the bad ones already so branded and seared in heart and
+mind that to prick and scorch an inch of their outward skin would be but
+to tickle their vanity, and give them to brag of another scar, got in
+their life-long war against society.  Short of torturing them or killing
+them, it matters little what measures are provided against these
+case-hardened villains.  But there are scores and hundreds who though
+they have earned for themselves the names of criminals, whom to class and
+force to herd with the before-mentioned set would be to incur the
+greatest responsibility, and one that under existing circumstances it
+would be utterly short of wanton brutality to engage in.
+
+As regards the class last mentioned, that is to say, those members who
+have at present made no very desperate acquaintance with crime and its
+punishment, I believe that if they were but judiciously dealt with a very
+large number would be but too glad to escape from their present life of
+misery.  “Many a thief,” says a writer, whose able remarks are the more
+valuable, because they are founded on actual experience and conversation
+with the people he treats of; “many a thief is kept in reluctant bondage
+to crime from the difficulties he finds in obtaining honest employment,
+and earning honest bread.  Many thieves are fond of their criminal
+calling.  They will tell you plainly that they do not intend to work hard
+for a pound a week, when they can easily earn five times as much by
+thieving in less time and live like gentlemen.  But others of them are
+utterly weary of the hazard, disgrace, and suffering attaching to their
+mode of life.  Some of them were once pure, honest, and industrious, and
+when they are sick, or in prison, they are frequently filled with bitter
+remorse, and make the strongest vows to have done with a guilty life.
+
+“Suppose a man of this sort in prison.  His eyes are opened, and he sees
+before him the gulf of remediless ruin into which he will soon be
+plunged.  He knows well enough that the money earned by thieving goes as
+fast as it comes, and that there is no prospect of his ever being able to
+retire on his ill-gotten gains.  He comes out of prison, determined to
+reform.  But where is he to go?  What is he to do?  How is he to live?
+Whatever may have been done for him in prison, is of little or no avail,
+if as soon as he leaves the gaol he must go into the world branded with
+crime, unprotected and unhelped.  The discharged prisoner must be
+friendly with some one, and he must live.  His criminal friends will
+entertain him on the understood condition that they are repaid from the
+booty of his next depredation.  Thus the first food he eats, and the
+first friendly chat he has, becomes the half necessitating initiative of
+future crime.  Frequently the newly discharged prisoner passes through a
+round of riot and drunkenness immediately on his release from a long
+incarceration, as any other man would do in similar circumstances, and
+who has no fixed principles to sustain him.  And so by reason of the
+rebound of newly acquired liberty, and the influence of the old set, the
+man is again demoralized.  The discharged prisoner leaves gaol with good
+resolves, but the moment he enters the world, there rises before him the
+dark and spectral danger of being hunted down by the police, and being
+recognised and insulted, of being shunned and despised by his fellow
+workmen, of being everywhere contemned and forsaken.”
+
+There can be no doubt that to this utter want of friends of the right
+sort at the moment of leaving prison, may be attributed a very large
+percentage of the persistence in a career of crime by those who have once
+made a false step.  In this respect we treat our criminals of
+comparatively a mild character with greater harshness and severity than
+those whose repeated offences have led to their receiving the severest
+sentences of the law.  The convict who is discharged after serving a term
+of five years at Portland, receives ere he quits the gates of Millbank
+prison a money gratuity, varying in amount according to the character
+that was returned with him from the convict establishment.  Nor do the
+chances that are afforded him of quitting his old course of life and
+becoming an honest man end here.  There is the Prisoner’s Aid Society,
+where he may obtain a little more money and a suit of working clothes,
+and if he really shows an inclination to reform, he may be even
+recommended to a situation.  Put for the poor wretch who has given
+society much less offence, who has become a petty thief, probably not
+from choice, but from hard necessity, and who bitterly repents of his
+offences, there is no one to take him by the hand and give or lend him so
+much as an honest half-crown to make a fair start with.  It may be said
+that the convict is most in want of help because he _is_ a convict,
+because he is a man with whom robberies and violence have become so
+familiar, that it is needful to provide him with some substantial
+encouragement lest he slide back into the old groove.  Further, because
+he is a man so plainly branded that the most inexperienced policeman may
+know at a glance what he is; whereas, the man who has been but once
+convicted may, if he have the inclination, push his way amongst honest
+men, and not one of them be the wiser as to the slip he has made.  And
+that would be all very well if he were assisted in rejoining the ranks of
+honest bread-winners, but what is his plight when the prison door shuts
+behind him?  It was his poverty that urged him to commit the theft that
+consigned him to gaol, and now he is turned out of it poorer than ever,
+crushed and spirit-broken, and with all his manliness withered within
+him.  He feels ashamed and disgraced, and for the first few hours of his
+liberty he would willingly shrink back for hiding, even to his prison,
+because, as he thinks, people look at him so.  A little timely help would
+save him, but nothing is so likely as desperate “don’t care” to spring
+out of this consciousness of guilt, and the suspicion of being shunned
+and avoided; and the army of twenty thousand gains another recruit.
+
+This undoubtedly is frequently the case with the criminal guilty of but a
+“first offence.”  Be he man or lad, however, he will be subject to no
+such painful embarrassment on his leaving prison after a second or third
+conviction.  By that time he will have made friends.  He will have found
+a companion or two to “work with,” and they will keep careful reckoning
+of the date of his incarceration as well as of the duration of his term
+of durance.  Make no doubt that they will be on the spot to rejoice with
+him on his release.  They know the exact hour when the prison gate will
+open and he will come forth, and there they are ready to shake hands with
+him.  Ready to “stand treat.”  Ready to provide him with that pipe of
+tobacco for which he has experienced such frequent longing, and to set
+before him the foaming pot of beer.  “Come along, old pal!” say they, “we
+thought that you’d be glad of a drink and a bit of bacca, and we’ve got a
+jolly lot of beef over some baked taters at home!”
+
+What becomes of all his good resolutions—of the chaplain’s wholesome
+counsel now!  “Shut your eyes resolutely to the temptations your old
+companions may hold out to you,” were the parting words of that good man;
+“if they threaten you, bid them defiance.  Let it be the first test of
+your good resolves to tell them plainly and boldly that you have done
+with them and will have no more to do with them!”  Most excellent advice
+truly! but how is the emancipated one to act on it?  How can he find it
+in his heart to dash with cold ingratitude such warmth of generosity and
+good nature?  What claim has he on them that they should treat him so?
+They owe him nothing, and can have no ulterior and selfish object in thus
+expending their time and their money on his comfort.  All that they
+expect in return is, that should either of them fall into trouble similar
+to his, he will exert himself for him in the same manner, and surely that
+is little enough to ask.  Perhaps with the chaplain’s good advice still
+ringing in his ears, a sigh of lingering remorse is blended with the
+outpuffing of that first delicious pipe, but it is promptly swallowed
+down in the draught of free beer, with the grim reflection, perhaps, that
+if those professing to be his friends came to his timely assistance as
+promptly and substantially as did those his enemies, he might have been
+saved the ignominy of entering anew on the old crimeful path.
+
+As I have endeavoured to show, the best time for treating with these
+unhardened criminals for their reform, is just before they leave the
+prison at the expiration of their sentence, or so soon as they have
+crossed its threshold and find themselves free men.  But even if they are
+here missed and allowed to go their sinful way, it is not absolutely
+necessary to postpone the good work until the law lays hold on them
+again.  The dens to which they retire are not impregnable.  They do not
+live in fortified caves, the doors of which are guarded by savage dogs
+and by members of the gang armed with swords and pistols.  It is
+wonderful how docile and respectful they will behave towards folk who
+visit them, treating them as nothing worse than fellow creatures
+suffering under a great misfortune, and not as savage creatures of prey
+who have forfeited all claim to human nature, and are fit only to be
+scourged and branded.  A writer already quoted tells us that during two
+years in one of the largest towns in England he had unlimited access to
+the thieves’ quarter at all hours and under any circumstances—weddings,
+midnight gatherings, “benefit nights,” public houses, he has visited them
+all.  “How I gained the confidence of the criminal fraternity I cannot
+say.  I only sought their welfare, never went amongst them without some
+good errand, never asked questions about their affairs, or meddled with
+things that did not belong to me; and it is due to the thieves themselves
+to say that I never received from any of them, whether drunk or sober, an
+unkind look or a disrespectful word. . . .  I had not pursued my quiet
+mission amongst the thieves many months without discovering the damning
+fact that they had no faith in the sincerity, honesty, or goodness of
+human nature; and that this last and vilest scepticism of the human heart
+was one of the most powerful influences at work in the continuation of
+crime.  They believe people in general to be no better than themselves,
+and that most people will do a wrong thing if it serves their purpose.
+They consider themselves better than many “square” (honest) people who
+practise commercial frauds.  Not having a spark of faith in human nature
+their ease is all but hopeless; and only those who have tried the
+experiment can tell how difficult it is to make a thief believe that you
+are really disinterested and mean him well.  Nevertheless, the agencies
+that are at work for the arrest of crime are all more or less working to
+good purpose, and conducing to a good end.  Had I previously known
+nothing of the zeal and labour that have been expended during the last
+few years in behalf of the criminal population, I should have learned
+from my intercourse with the thieves themselves, that a new spirit was
+getting amongst them, and that something for their good was going on
+outside thievedom.  The thieves, the worst of them, speak gloomily of the
+prospects of the fraternity; just as a Red Indian would complain of the
+dwindling of his tribe before the strong march of advancing
+civilization.”
+
+In every essential particular can I corroborate the above account.  There
+are few worse places in London than certain parts of Cow Cross,
+especially that part of it anciently known as Jack Ketch’s Warren, or
+“Little Hell” as the inhabitants more commonly designate it, on account
+of the number of subjects it produced for the operations of the common
+hangman.  Only that the law is more merciful than of yore, there is
+little doubt that the vile nests in question, including “Bit Alley,” and
+“Broad Yard,” and “Frying Pan Alley,” would still make good its claim to
+the distinguishing title conferred on it.  The place indicated swarms
+with thieves of every degree, from the seven-year old little robber who
+snatches petty articles from stalls and shop-fronts, to the old and
+experienced burglar with a wide experience of convict treatment, British
+and foreign.  Yet, accompanied by a city missionary well known to them, I
+have many a time gone amongst them, feeling as safe as though I was
+walking along Cheapside.  I can give testimony even beyond that of the
+writer last quoted.  “I never asked questions about their affairs, or
+meddled with things that did not concern me,” says the gentleman in
+question.  I can answer for it that my pastor friend of the Cow Cross
+Mission was less forbearing.  With seasoned, middle-aged scoundrels he
+seldom had any conversation, but he never lost a chance of tackling young
+men and lads on the evil of their ways, and to a purpose.  Nor was it his
+soft speech or polished eloquence that prevailed with them.  He was by no
+means a gloomy preacher against crime and its consequences; he had a
+cheerful hopeful way with him that much better answered the purpose.  He
+went about his Christian work humming snatches of hymns in the liveliest
+manner.  One day while I was with him, we saw skulking along before us a
+villanous figure, ragged and dirty, and with a pair of shoulders broad
+enough to carry sacks of coal.  “This,” whispered my missionary friend,
+“is about the very worst character we have.  He is as strong as a tiger,
+and almost as ferocious.  “Old Bull” they call him.”
+
+I thought it likely we would pass without recognising so dangerous an
+animal, but my friend was not so minded.  With a hearty slap on his
+shoulder, the fearless missionary accosted him.
+
+“Well, Old Bull!”
+
+“Ha! ’ow do, Mr. Catlin, sir?”
+
+“As well as I should like to see you, my friend.  How are you getting
+along, Bull?”
+
+“Oh, werry dicky, Mr. Catlin.”  And Bull hung his ears and pawed
+uncomfortably in a puddle, with one slipshod foot, as though in his heart
+resenting being “pinned” after this fashion.
+
+“You find matters going worse and worse with you, ah!”
+
+“They can’t be no worser than they is, that’s _one_ blessin’!”
+
+“Ah, now there’s where you are mistaken, Bull.  They can be worse a
+thousand times, and they _will_, unless you turn over a fresh leaf.  Why
+not, Bull?  See what a tattered, filthy old leaf the old one is!”
+
+(Bull, with an uneasy glance towards the outlet of the alley, but still
+speaking with all respect,) “Ah! it’s all that, guv’nor.”
+
+“Well then, since you _must_ begin on a fresh leaf, why not try the right
+leaf—the honest one, eh, Bull.  Just to see how you like it.”
+
+“All right, Mister Catlin.  I’ll think about it.”
+
+“I wish to the Lord you would, Bull.  There’s not much to laugh at, take
+my word for that.”
+
+“All right, guv’nor, I ain’t a larfin.  I means to be a reg’lar model
+some day—when I get time.  Morning, Mister Catlin, sir.”
+
+And away went “Old Bull,” with a queer sort of grin on his repulsive
+countenance, evidently no better or worse for the brief encounter with
+his honest adviser, but very thankful indeed to escape.
+
+“I’ve been up into that man’s room,” said my tough little, cheerful
+missionary, “and rescued his wife out of his great cruel hands, when
+three policemen stood on the stairs afraid to advance another step.”
+
+He would do more than in his blunt, rough-and-ready way point out to them
+what a shameful waste of their lives it was to be skulking in a filthy
+court all day without the courage to go out and seek their wretched
+living till the darkness of night.  He would offer to find them a job; he
+made many friends, and was enabled to do so, earnestly exhorting them to
+try honest work just for a month, to find out what it was like, and the
+sweets of it.  And many have tried it; some as a joke—as a whimsical feat
+worth engaging in for the privilege of afterwards being able to brag of
+it, and returned to their old practice in a day or two; others have tried
+it, and, to their credit be it spoken, stuck to it.  In my own mind I
+feel quite convinced that if such men as Mr. C., of the Cow Cross
+Mission, who holds the keys not only of the houses in which thieves
+dwell, but, to a large extent, also, a key to the character and
+peculiarities of the thieves themselves, were empowered with proper
+facilities, the amount of good they are capable of performing would very
+much astonish us.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+HOMES AND HAUNTS OF THE BRITISH THIEF.
+
+
+_The Three Classes of Thieving Society_.—_Popular Misapprehensions_.—_A
+True Picture of the London Thief_.—_A Fancy Sketch of the_ “_Under-Ground
+Cellar_.”—_In Disguise at a Thieves’ Raffle_.—_The Puzzle of_ “_Black
+Maria_.”—_Mr. Mullins’s Speech and his Song_.
+
+ALTHOUGH, as most people are aware, the great thief tribe reckons amongst
+its number an upper, and a middle, and a lower class, pretty much as
+corresponding grades of station are recognised amongst the honest
+community, it is doubtful, in the former case, if promotion from one
+stage to another may be gained by individual enterprise and talent and
+industry.  The literature of the country is from time to time enriched by
+bragging autobiographies of villains confessed, as well as by the
+penitent revelations of rogues reclaimed, but, according to my
+observation, it does not appear that perseverance in the humbler walks of
+crime lead invariably to the highway of infamous prosperity.  It seems to
+be an idea too preposterous even to introduce into the pages of Newgate
+romance, daring in their flights of fancy as are the authors affecting
+that delectable line.  We have no sinister antithesis of the well-known
+honest boy who tramped from Bristol to the metropolis with
+twopence-halfpenny in his pocket, and afterwards became Lord Mayor of
+London.  No low-browed ragged little thief, who began his career by
+purloining a halfpenny turnip from a costermonger’s barrow, is
+immortalized in the page of the Newgate Calendar, as finally arrived at
+the high distinction of wearing fashionable clothes, and ranking as the
+first of swell-mobsmen.  It is a lamentable fact, and one that should
+have weight with aspirants for the convict’s mask and badge, that the
+poor, shabby, hard-working thief so remains, till the end of his days.
+There is no more chance of his carrying his shameful figure and miserable
+hang-dog visage into tip-top society of his order, than there is of his
+attaining the summit of that treadwheel, with the ever-recurring steps of
+which he is so painfully familiar.
+
+And if there is a forlorn, abject, harassed wretch in the world it is the
+poor, threadbare, timid London thief.  I believe the popular supposition
+to be that, to turn thief at least ensures for the desperate adventurer
+money to squander for the time being; that however severe may be the
+penalty paid for the luxury, while “luck” lasts the picker of pockets and
+purloiner of his neighbour’s goods has ever at his command means
+wherewith to satisfy the cravings of his vices, however extravagant they
+may be—money to live on the fat of the land and get drunk and enjoy happy
+spells of ease and plenty.  This, no doubt, is the tempting picture the
+devil holds up for the contemplation of heart-sick honesty, when patient
+integrity is growing faint with hunger and long privation; and truly it
+seems not an improbable picture.  What inducement is there for a man to
+persist in a career of dishonesty with its certain and frequent penalties
+of prison and hard labour, unless his perilous avocation ensures him
+spells, albeit brief ones, of intoxicating enjoyment?
+
+No wonder that the ignorant, sorely-tempted, out-o’-work labourer should
+take this view of the case, when men, who by station and education—men
+who profess to have gone out of their highly respectable paths in life to
+make such inquiries as should qualify them to discuss the matter in
+solemn Parliamentary conclave, declare that it is so.  A curious
+exhibition of the lamentable credulity of our law makers occurred no
+longer ago than at the second reading of the Habitual Criminals Bill in
+the House of Lords.  Naturally the subject was one concerning which their
+Lordships could know nothing, except by hearsay, and Earl Shaftesbury
+volunteered to put them in possession of such useful information as might
+guide them towards a decision as regarded the projected Bill.
+
+It is only fair to state, however, that his Lordship was not personally
+responsible for his startling statements.  He had them from a
+“practitioner,” from a thief, that is to say.  His Lordship did not
+reveal whether it was a thief at large who was his informant: but that is
+scarcely likely.  Doubtless it was from some weeping villain, with an eye
+to a remission of his sentence, who so frankly confided to the
+soft-hearted Earl the various secrets of that terrible trade it was his
+intention never, _never_ to work at again!  At any rate, whoever the
+“practitioner” was, he succeeded in his design completely, as the
+horror-stricken visage of his lordship, as he delivered himself of the
+astounding revelations, fully attested.
+
+They were to this effect, and the reader will please bear in mind that
+they were not tendered to be received at their worth, but as facts which
+might he relied on.  Within the City of London, Lord Shaftesbury
+declared, “crucibles and melting-pots are kept going all day and all
+night.  I believe that in a very large number of cases the whole of the
+plate is reduced within two or three hours of the robbery to ingots of
+silver.  As for spoons, forks, and jewellery, they are not taken so
+readily to the melting-pot; but to well-known places where there is a
+pipe, similar to that which your lordships may have seen—I hope none may
+have seen it of necessity—in the shop of the pawnbroker.  The thief taps,
+the pipe is lifted up, and in the course of a minute a hand comes out
+covered with a glove, takes up the jewellery, and gives out the money for
+it.”
+
+If that conscienceless “practitioner,” who so scandalously gulled the
+good Earl, happened to be in enjoyment of liberty when the above quoted
+newspaper report was printed, how he must have grinned as he perused it?
+But what an unpleasant reversal of the joke it would be if the mendacious
+statements of the bare-faced villain lead to the passing of a bill
+imposing cruelly severe rules for the government of criminals, and the
+worthy in question should one fine day find himself groaning under the
+same!  The most astounding part of the business however, is, that his
+lordship should have given credit to such a tissue of fudge.  To his
+honour be it stated, he should know better.  As an indefatigable labourer
+amongst the poor and afflicted, his name will be remembered and blest
+long after he has passed from among us.  It is doubtful if any other man
+whose title gives him admission to the House of Lords, could have given
+nearly as much practical information on this painful subject, and there
+can be no question—and this is the most unfortunate part of the
+business—that all that his lordship stated was regarded as real.  Every
+lord present to listen to and discuss the various clauses of Lord
+Kimberley’s Bill, probably took to his vivid imagination the appalling
+picture of the underground cellars (to be reached only by known members
+of the burglarious brotherhood who could give the sign to the guardian of
+the cellar-door), where certain demon-men of the Fagin type presided
+constantly over crucibles and melting-pots, wherein bubbled and hissed
+the precious brew of gold and silver ornaments dissolved, the supply
+being constantly renewed by the bold “cracksmen” who numerously attended
+to bring the goods to market.  Easier still even was it to conjure before
+the mind’s eye the peculiar operations of the “pipe” that Lord
+Shaftesbury so graphically described.  The deserted-looking house in the
+gloomy back street, with the street door always ajar so that customers
+might slip in and out at it in an instant—before even the policeman on
+beat could wink his sleepy eyes in amazement at the unexpected
+apparition; with the sliding panel in the dimly-lighted back kitchen, and
+the “spout” just like a pawnbroker’s, and the “gloved hand,” the fingers
+of it twitching with eager greed for the gold watch, still warm from the
+pocket of its rightful owner!  How was it possible to deal with a subject
+bristling so with horrors with calmness and dignity?  Their lordships had
+been given to understand by the mover of the bill that there were fifteen
+thousand thieves constantly busy in the Metropolis alone, and Lord
+Shaftesbury had informed them that the mysterious “spout” and the
+melting-pot were the chief channels for converting stolen goods into
+ready money.  At this rate, London must be almost undermined by these
+gold-melting cellars—the midnight traveller through the great city might
+plainly hear and wonder at the strange tap-tapping that met his ears—the
+tapping at the “spout” that notified to the owner of the gloved hand that
+a new customer was in attendance?  It would have been not very surprising
+if the Chief Commissioner of Police had been instantly communicated with,
+and given instructions at once to arrest every man and woman of the
+fifteen thousand, and hold them in safe keeping until their lordships had
+resolved on the most efficacious, and at the same time least painful way
+of exterminating them.
+
+Seriously, it is impossible almost to exaggerate the amount of mischief
+likely to result from such false and inflammatory pictures of an evil
+that in its naked self is repulsive enough in all conscience.  On the one
+hand, it excites amongst the people panic and unnecessary alarm, and
+furnishes the undeniable excuse of “self-defence” for any excess of
+severity we may be led into; and on the other hand, it tends to magnify
+the thief’s importance in the eyes of the thief, and to invest his
+melancholy and everlastingly miserable avocations with precisely the same
+kind of gallows-glory as is preached by the authors of “Tyburn Dick” or
+the “Boy Highwayman.”  Curiously enough at the conclusion of his long and
+interesting speech, Lord Shaftesbury went a little out of his way to make
+mention of the literature of the kind just quoted, to remark on its
+intimate bearing on the crime of the country, and to intimate that
+shortly the whole question would be brought under their lordships’
+consideration.  It is doubtful, however, and I say so with extreme
+regret, knowing as I well do how shocking even the suspicion of such a
+thing must be to Lord Shaftesbury, if in any dozen “penny numbers” of the
+pernicious trash in question, the young aspirant for prison fame would
+find as much stimulative matter as was provided in his lordship’s speech,
+or rather speeches, on the Habitual Criminal question.
+
+No, the affairs of those who affect the criminal walks of life are bad
+enough in all conscience, but they are much less romantic than his
+lordship has been led to believe.  Shorn of the melo-dramatic “bandit”
+costume with which they have been temporarily invested they lose nothing
+in appalling effect.
+
+Truly, it is hard to understand, but it is an undoubted fact, that the
+criminal who in police nomenclature is a “low thief” (to distinguish him,
+it may be presumed, from “the respectable thief”) is without exception of
+all men the most comfortless and miserable; and should the reader be so
+inquisitive as to desire to be informed of the grounds on which I arrive
+at this conclusion, I beg to assure him that I do not rely on hearsay,
+neither do I depend on what thieves incarcerated for their offences have
+told me, holding it to be hardly likely that a prisoner in prison would
+vaunt his liking for crime and his eagerness to get back to it.  I have
+mixed with thieves at liberty, an unsuspected spy in their camp, more
+than once.  I will quote an example.
+
+This was many years since, and as at the time I published a detailed
+account of the visit, I may be excused from more than briefly alluding to
+it here.  It was at a thieves’ raffle, held at a public-house in one of
+the lowest and worst parts of Westminster.  I was young in the field of
+exploration then, and from all that I had heard and read made up my mind
+for something very terrible and desperate.  I pictured to myself a band
+of rollicking desperadoes, swaggering and insolent, with plenty of money
+to pay for bottles of brandy and egg-flip unlimited, and plenty of
+bragging discourse of the doughty deeds of the past, and of their
+cold-blooded and desperate intentions for the future.  Likewise, my
+expectations of hope and fear included a rich treat in the shape of
+vocalization.  It was one thing to hear play-actors on the stage, in
+their tame and feeble delineations of the ancient game of “high Toby,”
+and of the redoubtable doings of the Knights of the Road, spout such
+soul-thrilling effusions as “Nix my Dolly Pals,” and “Claude Duval,” but
+what must it be to listen to the same bold staves out of the mouths of
+real “roaring boys,” some of them, possibly, the descendants of the very
+heroes who rode “up Holborn Hill in a cart,” and who could not well hear
+the good words the attendant chaplain was uttering because of the noisy
+exchange of boisterous “chaff” taking place between the short-pipe
+smoking driver, whose cart-seat was the doomed man’s coffin, and the
+gleeful mob that had made holiday to see the fun!
+
+But in all this I was dismally disappointed.  I had procured a ticket for
+the raffle from a friendly police-inspector (goodness only knows how he
+came possessed of them, but he had quite a collection of similar tickets
+in his pocket-book), and, disguised for the occasion, I entered the dirty
+little dram shop, and exhibited my credential to the landlord at the bar.
+So far the business was promising.  The said landlord was as ill-looking
+a villain as could be desired.  He had a broken nose and a wooden leg,
+both of which deformities were doubtless symptomatic of the furious
+brawls in which he occasionally engaged with his ugly customers.  As I
+entered he was engaged in low-whispered discourse with three ruffians who
+might have been brothers of his in a similar way of business, but
+bankrupt, and gone to the dogs.  As I advanced to the bar the four
+cropped heads laid together in iniquity, separated suddenly, and the
+landlord affected a look of innocence, and hummed a harmless tune in a
+way that was quite melodramatic.
+
+I intimated my business, and he replied shortly, “Go on through,” at the
+same time indicating the back door by a jerk of his thumb over his
+shoulder.  Now for it!  On the other side of the back door I discovered a
+stone yard, at the extremity of which was dimly visible in the darkness a
+long, low, dilapidated building, with a light shining through the chinks.
+This, then, was the robber’s den!—a place to which desperate men and
+women who made robbery and outrage the nightly business of their lives,
+resorted to squander in riot and debauchery their ill-gotten gains!  It
+would not have surprised me had I found the doorkeeper armed with a pair
+of “trusty barkers,” and every male guest of the company with a
+life-preserver sticking out at the breast pocket of his coat.
+
+The door was opened in response to my tap at it.  I gave the potman there
+stationed my ticket, and I entered.  I must confess that my first
+sensation as I cast my eye carelessly around, was one of disgust that I
+should have been induced to screw up my courage with so much pains for so
+small an occasion.  The building I found myself in was a skittle-ground,
+furnished with forms and tables; and there were present about thirty
+persons.  As well as I can remember, of this number a third were women,
+young generally, one or two being mere girls of sixteen, or so.  But
+Jenny Diver was not there, nor Poll Maggot, nor Edgeworth Bess.  No lady
+with ringlets curling over her alabaster shoulders found a seat on the
+knee of the gallant spark of her choice.  No Captain Macheath was to be
+seen elegantly taking snuff out of a stolen diamond snuff-box, or
+flinging into the pink satin lap of his lady love a handful of guineas to
+pay for more brandy.  Poor wretches! the female shoulders there assembled
+spoke rather of bone than alabaster, while the washed-out and mended
+cotton frocks served in place of pink satin, and hair of most humble
+fashion surmounted faces by no means expressive either of genuine
+jollity, or even of a desperate determination towards devil-may-careness,
+and the drowning of care in the bowl.  There were no bowls, even, as in
+the good old time, only vulgar pewter porter pots, out of which the
+company thankfully swigged its fourpenny.  There was no appearance of
+hilarity, or joviality even; no more of brag and flourish, or of
+affectation of ease and freedom, than though every man and woman present
+were here locked up “on remand,” and any moment might be called out to
+face that damning piece of kept-back evidence they all along dreaded was
+in store for them.  To be sure it was as yet early in the evening, and
+though the company may have assembled mainly for the purpose of drowning
+“dull care,” that malicious imp being but recently immersed, may have
+been superior at present to their machinations, and able to keep his ugly
+head above the liquid poured out for his destruction.  Or may be, again,
+being a very powerful “dull care,” of sturdy and mature growth, he might
+be able to hold out through many hours against the weak and watery
+elements brought to oppose him.
+
+Anyhow, so far as I was able to observe, there was no foreshadowing of
+the blue and brooding imp’s defeat.  His baneful wings seemed spread from
+one end of the skittle-alley to the other, and to embrace even the
+chairman, who being a Jew, and merely a receiver of stolen goods, might
+reasonably have been supposed to be less susceptible than the rest.
+There would seem to prevail, amongst a large and innocent section of the
+community, a belief that the thief is a creature distinguished no less by
+appearance than by character from the honest host he thrives by.  I have
+heard it remarked more than once, by persons whose curiosity has led them
+to a criminal court when a trial of more than ordinary interest is
+proceeding, that really this prisoner or that did not _look_ like a
+thief, or a forger, or stabber, as the case might be.  “Lord bless us,” I
+once heard an elderly lady exclaim, in the case of an oft-convicted
+scoundrel of the “swell mob” tribe, over whose affecting trial she had
+shed many tears, “Lord bless us!” said she, as the jury found him guilty,
+and sentenced him to two years’ hard labour, “so thin, and genteel, and
+with spectacles on, too!  I declare I should have passed that young man
+twenty times without dreaming of calling out for the police.”  On the
+other hand, there are very many persons less ingenuous than the old lady,
+who invariably regard a man through the atmosphere of crime, real or
+supposed, that envelopes him, and by means of its distorting influence
+make out such a villain as satisfies their sagacity.  Had one of this
+last order been favoured with a private view of the company assembled to
+assist at Mr. Mullins’s raffle, and have been previously informed that
+they were one and all thieves, in all probability they would have
+_appeared_ thieves; but I am convinced that had they been shown to an
+unprepared and unprejudiced observer, his opinion would have been that
+the company gathered in the skittle-alley of the “Curly Badger” were no
+worse than a poor set of out-o’-work tailors, or French polishers, or
+weavers, or of some other craft, the members of which affect the
+gentility that black clothes and a tall hat is supposed to confer on the
+wearer; nor would an hour in their society, such as I spent, have
+sufficed to dissipate the innocent impression.  Their expenditure was of
+the most modest sort, not one man in six venturing beyond the pot of
+beer.  Their conversation, though not the most elegant, was least of all
+concerning the wretched trade they followed; indeed, the subject was
+never mentioned at all, except in melancholy allusion to Peter or Jerry,
+who had been recently “copped” (taken), and was expected to pass “a tail
+piece in the steel” (three months in prison).  There was one observation
+solemnly addressed by one elderly man to another elderly man, the purport
+of which at the time puzzled me not a little.  “Unlucky!  Well you may
+say it.  Black Maria is the only one that’s doin’ a trade now.  Every
+journey full as a tuppenny omblibus!”  I listened intently as prudence
+would permit for further reference to the mysterious female who was doing
+“all the trade,” and “every journey” was “as full as a twopenny omnibus,”
+but nothing in the conversation transpired tending to throw a light on
+the dark lady; so I mentally made a note of it for reference to my friend
+the inspector.  He laughed.  “Well, she has been doing a brisk stroke of
+business of late, I must say,” said he.  “Black Maria, sir, is our van of
+that colour that carries ’em off to serve their time.”
+
+But, as before observed, there was nothing in the demeanour of either the
+men or women present at Mullins’s raffle to denote either that they
+revelled in the nefarious trade they followed, or that they derived even
+ordinary comfort and satisfaction from it.  To be sure, it may have
+happened that the specimens of the thief class assembled before me were
+not of the briskest, but taking them as they were, and bearing in mind
+the spiritless, hang-dog, mean, and shabby set they were, the notion of
+bringing to bear on them such tremendous engines of repression as that
+suggested by the humane Commissioner of the City Police appears nothing
+short of ridiculous.
+
+At the same time, I would have it plainly understood that my pity for the
+thief of this class by no means induces me to advise that no more
+effective means than those which at present exist should be adopted for
+his abolition.  A people’s respect for the laws of the country is its
+chief pillar of strength, and those who have no respect for the laws, act
+as so many rats undermining the said pillar, and although the rats
+assembled at Mullins’s raffle were not of a very formidable breed, their
+hatred of the law, and their malicious defiance of it, was unmistakeable.
+For instance, the article to be raffled was a silk pocket handkerchief,
+and there it was duly displayed hanging across a beam at the end of the
+skittle-ground.  The occasion of the raffle was, that Mr. Mullins had
+just been released after four months’ imprisonment, and that during his
+compulsory absence from home matters had gone very bad, and none the less
+so because poor Mrs. Mullins was suffering from consumption.  In alluding
+to these sad details of his misfortune, Mr. Mullins, in returning thanks
+for the charity bestowed on him, looked the picture of melancholy.
+“Whether she means ever to get on her legs again is more than I can say,”
+said he, wagging his short-cropped head dolefully, “there ain’t much
+chance, I reckon, when you’re discharged from Brompton incurable.  Yes,
+my friends, it’s all agin me lately, and my luck’s regler out.  But
+there’s one thing I must mention” (and here he lifted his head with
+cheerful satisfaction beaming in his eyes), “and I’m sure you as doesn’t
+know it will be very glad to hear it—the handkerchief wot’s put up to
+raffle here is the wery identical one that I was put away for.”  And
+judging from the hearty applause that followed this announcement, there
+can be no doubt that Mr. Mullins’s audience were very glad indeed to hear
+it.
+
+But even after this stimulant, the spirits of the company did not rally
+anything to speak of.  Song singing was started, but nobody sung “Nix my
+Dolly Pals,” or “Claude Duval.”  Nobody raised a roaring chant in honour
+of “ruby wine,” or the flowing bowl, or even of the more humble, though
+no less genial, foaming can.  There was a comic song or two, but the
+ditties in favour were those that had a deeply sentimental or even a
+funereal smack about them.  The gentleman who had enlightened me as to
+Black Maria sang the Sexton, the chorus to which lively stave, “I’ll
+provide you such a lodging as you never had before,” was taken up with
+much heartiness by all present.  Mullins himself, who possessed a fair
+alto voice, slightly damaged perhaps by a four months’ sojourn in the
+bleak atmosphere of Cold Bath Fields, sang “My Pretty Jane,” and a very
+odd sight it was to observe that dogged, jail-stamped countenance of his
+set, as accurately as Mullins could set it, to an expression matching the
+bewitching simplicity of the words of the song.  I was glad to observe
+that his endeavours were appreciated and an encore demanded.
+
+Decidedly the songs, taken as a whole, that the thieves sang that evening
+in the Skittle Saloon of the “Curly Badger” were much less objectionable
+than those that may be heard any evening at any of our London music
+halls, and everything was quiet and orderly.  Of course I cannot say to
+what extent this may have been due to certain rules and regulations
+enforced by the determined looking gentleman who served behind the bar.
+There was one thing, however, that he could not enforce, and that was the
+kindliness that had induced them to meet together that evening.  I had
+before heard, as everybody has, of “honour amongst thieves,” but I must
+confess that I had never suspected that compassion and charity were
+amongst the links that bound them together; and when I heard the
+statement from the chair of the amount subscribed (the “raffle” was a
+matter of form, and the silk handkerchief a mere delicate concealment of
+the free gift of shillings), when I heard the amount and looked round and
+reckoned how much a head that might amount to, and further, when I made
+observation of the pinched and poverty-stricken aspect of the owners of
+the said heads, I am ashamed almost to confess that if within the next
+few days I had caught an investigating hand in my coat-tail pockets, I
+should scarcely have had the heart to resist.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+JUVENILE THIEVES.
+
+
+_The Beginning of the Downhill Journey_.—_Candidates for Newgate
+Honours_.—_Black Spots of London_.—_Life from the Young Robber’s Point of
+View_.—_The Seedling Recruits the most difficult to reform_.—_A doleful
+Summing-up_.—_A Phase of the Criminal Question left unnoticed_.—_Budding
+Burglars_.—_Streams which keep at full flood the Black Sea of
+Crime_.—_The Promoters of_ “_Gallows Literature_.”—_Another Shot at a
+Fortress of the Devil_.—“_Poison-Literature_.”—“_Starlight
+Sall_.”—“_Panther Bill_.”
+
+IT is quite true that, counting prostitutes and receivers of stolen
+goods, there are twenty thousand individuals eating the daily bread of
+dishonesty within the city of London alone; there are many more than
+these.  And the worst part of the business is, that those that are
+omitted from the batch form the most painful and repulsive feature of the
+complete picture.  Shocking enough is it to contemplate the white-haired,
+tottering criminal holding on to the front of the dock because he dare
+not trust entirely his quaking legs, and with no more to urge in his
+defence than Fagin had when it came to the last—“an old man, my lord, a
+very old man;” and we give him our pity ungrudgingly because we are no
+longer troubled with fears for his hostility as regards the present or
+the future.  It is all over with him or very nearly.  The grave yawns for
+him and we cannot help feeling that after all he has hurt himself much
+more than he has hurt us, and when we reflect on the awful account he
+will presently be called on to answer, our animosity shrinks aside, and
+we would recommend him to mercy if it were possible.  No, it is not those
+who have run the length of their tether of crime that we have to fear,
+but those who by reason of their tender age are as yet but feeble
+toddlers on the road that leads to the hulks.  It would be instructive as
+well as of great service if reliable information could be obtained as to
+the beginning of the down-hill journey by our juvenile criminals.
+Without doubt it would be found that in a lamentably large number of
+cases the beginning did not rest in the present possessors at all, but
+that they were bred and nurtured in it, inheriting it from their parents
+as certain forms of physical disease are inherited.
+
+In very few instances are they _trained_ to thieving by a father who
+possibly has gone through all the various phases of criminal punishment,
+from the simple local oakum shed and treadmill to the far-away stone
+quarry and mineral mine, and so knows all about it.  The said human wolf
+and enemy of all law and social harmony, his progenitor, does not take
+his firstborn on his knee as soon as he exhibits symptoms of knowing
+right from wrong, and do his best to instil into his young mind what as a
+candidate for Newgate honours the first principles of his life should be.
+
+This would be bad enough, but what really happens is worse.  To train
+one’s own child to paths of rectitude it is necessary to make him aware
+of the existence of paths of iniquity and wrong, that when inadvertently
+he approaches the latter, he may recognise and shun them.  So on the
+other hand, if by the devil’s agency a child is to be made bold and
+confident in the wrong road, the right must be exhibited to him in a
+light so ridiculous as to make it altogether distasteful to him.  Still a
+comparison is instituted, and matters may so come about that one day he
+may be brought to re-consider the judiciousness of his choice and perhaps
+to reverse his previous decision.  But if he has received no teaching at
+all; if in the benighted den in which he is born, and in which his
+childish intellect dawns, no ray of right and truth ever penetrates, and
+he grows into the use of his limbs and as much brains as his brutish
+breeding affords him, and with no other occupation before him than to
+follow in the footsteps of his father the thief—how much more hopeless is
+his case?
+
+Does the reader ask, are there such cases?  I can answer him in sorrowful
+confidence, that in London alone they may be reckoned in thousands.  In
+parts of Spitalfields, in Flower and Dean Street, and in Kent Street, and
+many other streets that might be enumerated, they are the terror of small
+shopkeepers, and in Cow Cross, with its horrible chinks in the wall that
+do duty for the entrance of courts and alleys—Bit Alley, Frying Pan
+Alley, Turk’s Head-court, and Broad Yard, they swarm like mites in rotten
+cheese.  As a rule, the police seldom make the acquaintance of this
+thievish small fry (if they did, the estimated number of London robbers
+would be considerably augmented); but occasionally, just as a sprat will
+make its appearance along with a haul of mackerel, one reads in the
+police reports of “Timothy Mullins, a very small boy, whose head scarcely
+reached the bar of the dock;” or of “John Smith, a child of such tender
+age that the worthy magistrate appeared greatly shocked,” charged with
+some one of the hundred acts of petty pilfering by means of which the
+poor little wretches contrive to stave off the pangs of hunger.  Where is
+the use of reasoning with Master Mullins on his evil propensities?  The
+one propensity of his existence is that of the dog—to provide against
+certain gnawing pains in his belly.  If he has another propensity, it is
+to run away out of dread for consequences, which is dog-like too.  All
+the argument you can array against this little human waif with one idea,
+will fail to convince him of his guilt; he has his private and
+deeply-rooted opinion on the matter, you may depend, and if he screws his
+fists into his eyes, and does his earnest best to make them water—if when
+in the magisterial presence he contorts his countenance in affected
+agony, it is merely because he perceives from his worship’s tone that he
+wishes to agonize him, and is shrewd enough to know that to “give in
+best,” as he would express it, is the way to get let off easy.
+
+But supposing that he were not overawed by the magisterial presence, and
+felt free to speak what is foremost in his mind unreservedly as he would
+speak it to one of his own set.  Then he would say, “It is all very fine
+for you to sit there, you that have not only had a jolly good breakfast,
+but can afford to sport a silver toothpick to pick your teeth with
+afterwards, it is all very fine for you to preach to me that I never
+shall do any good, but one of these days come to something that’s
+precious bad, if I don’t cut the ways of thieving, and take to honest
+ways.  There’s so many different kinds of honest ways.  _Yours_ is a good
+’un.  I ain’t such a fool as not to know that it’s better to walk in
+honest ways like them _you’ve_ got into, and to wear gold chains and
+velvet waistcoats, than to prowl about in ragged corduroys, and dodge the
+pleeseman, and be a prig: but how am I to get into them sorts of honest
+ways?  Will you give me a hist up to ’em?  Will you give me a leg-up—I’m
+such a little cove, you see—on to the bottom round of the ladder that
+leads up to ’em?  If it ain’t in your line to do so, p’raps you could
+recommend me to a lady or gentleman that would?  No!  Then, however am
+_I_ to get into honest ways?  Shall I make a start for ’em soon as I
+leaves this ere p’lice office, from which you are so werry kind as to
+discharge me?  Shall I let the chances of stealing a turnip off a stall,
+or a loaf out of a baker’s barrow, go past me, while I keep straight on,
+looking out for a honest way?—straight on, and straight on, till I gets
+the hungry staggers (_you_ never had the hungry staggers, Mr.
+Magistrate), and tumble down on the road?  I am not such a fool, thank’e.
+I don’t see the pull of it.  I can do better in dishonest ways.  I’m much
+obliged to YOU.  I’m sure of a crust, though a hard ’un, while I stick to
+the latter, and if I break down, you’ll take care of me for a spell, and
+fatten me up a bit; but s’pose I go on the hunt after them honest ways
+you was just now preaching about, and I miss ’em, what am I then?  A
+casual pauper, half starved on a pint of skilly, or ‘a shocking case of
+destitution,’ and the leading character in a coroner’s inquest!”  All
+this Master Timothy Mullins might urge, and beyond favouring him with an
+extra month for contempt of court, what could the magistrate do or say?
+
+Swelling the ranks of juvenile thieves we find in large numbers the
+thief-born.  Writing on this subject, a reverend gentleman of wisdom and
+experience says, “Some are thieves from infancy.  Their parents are
+thieves in most cases; in others, the children are orphans, or have been
+forsaken by their parents, and in such cases the children generally fall
+into the hands of the professional thief-trainer.  In every low criminal
+neighbourhood there are numbers of children who never knew their parents,
+and who are fed and clothed by the old thieves, and made to earn their
+wages by dishonest practices.  When the parent thieves are imprisoned or
+transported, their children are left to shift for themselves, and so fall
+into the hands of the thief-trainer.  Here, then, is one great source of
+crime.  These children are nurtured in it.  They come under no good moral
+influence; and until the ragged-schools were started, they had no idea of
+honesty, not to mention morality and religion.  Sharpened by hunger,
+intimidated by severe treatment, and rendered adroit by vigilant
+training, this class of thieves is perhaps the most numerous, the most
+daring, the cleverest, and the most difficult to reform.  In a moral
+point of view, these savages are much worse off than the savages of the
+wilderness, inasmuch as all the advantages of civilization are made to
+serve their criminal habits.  The poor, helpless little children
+literally grow up into a criminal career, and have no means of knowing
+that they are wrong; they cannot help themselves, and have strong claims
+on the compassion of every lover of his species.”
+
+Truly enough these seedling recruits of the criminal population are the
+most difficult to reform.  They are impregnable alike to persuasion and
+threatening.  They have an ingrain conviction that it is _you_ who are
+wrong, not them.  That you are wrong in the first place in appropriating
+all the good things the world affords, leaving none for them but what
+they steal; and in the next place, they regard all your endeavours to
+persuade them to abandon the wretched life of a thief for the equally
+poor though more creditable existence of the honest lad, as humbug and
+selfishness.  “No good feeling is ever allowed to predominate; all their
+passions are distorted, all their faculties are perverted.  They believe
+the clergy are all hypocrites, the judges and magistrates tyrants, and
+honest people their bitterest enemies.  Believing these things sincerely,
+and believing nothing else, their hand is against every man, and the more
+they are imprisoned the more is their dishonesty strengthened.”
+
+This is, indeed, a doleful summing up of our present position and future
+prospects as regards so large a percentage of those we build prisons for.
+It is somewhat difficult to avoid a feeling of exasperation when, as an
+honest man, and one who finds it at times a sore pinch to pay rates and
+taxes, one contemplates the ugly, hopeless picture.  Still, we should
+never forget that these are creatures who are criminal not by their own
+seeking.  They are as they were born and bred and nurtured, and the only
+way of relieving society of the pest they are against it, is to take all
+the care we may to guard against the ravages of those we have amongst us,
+and adopt measures for the prevention of their breeding a new generation.
+
+How this may be accomplished is for legislators to decide.  Hitherto it
+has appeared as a phase of the criminal question that has attracted very
+little attention on the part of our law makers.  They appear, however, to
+be waking up to its importance at last.  Recently, in the House of Lords,
+Lord Romilly suggested that the experiment might be tried of taking away
+from the home of iniquity they were reared in the children of twice or
+thrice convicted thieves above the age of ten years; taking them away for
+good and all and placing them under State protection; educating them, and
+giving them a trade.  If I rightly recollect, his lordship’s suggestion
+did not meet with a particularly hearty reception.  Some of his hearers
+were of opinion that it was setting a premium on crime, by affording the
+habitual thief just that amount of domestic relief he in his selfishness
+would be most desirous of.  But Lord Romilly combated this objection with
+the reasonable rejoinder, that by mere occupation the nature of the thief
+was not abased below that of the brute, and that it was fair to assume
+that so far from encouraging him to qualify himself for State patronage,
+his dread of having his children taken from him might even check him in
+his iniquitous career.
+
+One thing, at least, is certain; it would come much _cheaper_ to the
+country if these budding burglars and pickpockets were caught up, and
+caged away from the community at large, before their natures became too
+thoroughly pickled in the brine of rascality.  Boy thieves are the most
+mischievous and wasteful.  They will mount a house roof, and for the sake
+of appropriating the half-a-crown’s worth of lead that forms its gutter,
+cause such damage as only a builder’s bill of twenty pounds or so will
+set right.  The other day a boy stole a family Bible valued at fifty
+shillings, and after wrenching off the gilt clasps, threw the book into a
+sewer; the clasps he sold to a marine store dealer for _twopence
+halfpenny_!  It may be fairly assumed that in the case of boy thieves,
+who are so completely in the hands of others, that before they can “make”
+ten shillings in cash, they must as a rule steal to the value of at least
+four pounds, and sometimes double that sum.  But let us put the loss by
+exchange at its lowest, and say that he gets a fourth of the value of
+what he steals, before he can earn eighteenpence a day, he must rob to
+the amount of two guineas a week—a hundred and nine pounds a year!
+Whatever less sum it costs the State to educate and clothe and teach him,
+the nation would be in pocket.
+
+It would be idle to attempt to trace back to its origin the incentive to
+crime in the class of small criminals here treated of.  Innocent of the
+meaning of the term “strict integrity,” they are altogether unconscious
+of offending against it.  They may never repent, for they can feel no
+remorse for having followed the dictates of their nature.  No possible
+good can arise from piecing and patching with creditable stuff the old
+cloak of sin they were clothed in at their birth, and have worn ever
+since, till it has become a second skin to them.  ‘Before they can be of
+any real service as members of an honest community, they must be
+_reformed_ in the strictest sense of the term.  Their tainted morality
+must he laid bare to the very bones, as it were, and its rotten
+foundation made good from its deepest layer.  The arduousness of this
+task it is hard to overrate; nothing, indeed, can be harder, except it be
+to weed out from an adult criminal the tough and gnarled roots of sin
+that grip and clasp about and strangle his better nature.  And this
+should be the child criminal reformer’s comfort and encouragement.
+
+It must not be imagined, however, that the growth of juvenile criminality
+is altogether confined to those regions where it is indigenous to the
+soil; were it so, our prospects of relief would appear much more hopeful
+than at present, for, as before stated, all that is necessary would be to
+sow the baleful ground with the saving salt of sound and wholesome
+teaching, and the ugly vegetation would cease.
+
+But there are other and more formidable sources from which flow the
+tributary streams that feed and keep at full flood our black sea of
+crime; more formidable, because they do not take the shape of
+irrepressible springs that make for the surface, simply because they are
+impelled thereto by forces they have not the strength to combat against,
+but rather of well planned artificial aqueducts and channels, and on the
+development of which much of intellect is expended.  It is much harder to
+deal with the boy who, well knowing right from wrong, chooses the latter,
+than with the boy who from the beginning has been wrong from not knowing
+what right is.
+
+Moreover, the boy who has been taught right from wrong, the boy who has
+been sent to school and knows how to read, has this advantage over his
+poor brother of the gutter—an advantage that tells with inexpressible
+severity against the community at large; he has trainers who, discovering
+his weakness, make it their profit and business to take him by the hand
+and bring him along in that path of life to which his dishonest
+inclination has called him.
+
+I allude to those low-minded, nasty fellows, the proprietors and
+promoters of what may be truthfully described as “gallows literature.”
+As a curse of London, this one is worthy of a special niche in the temple
+of infamy, and to rank first and foremost.  The great difficulty would be
+to find a sculptor of such surpassing skill as to be able to pourtray in
+one carved stone face all the hideous vices and passions that should
+properly belong to it.  It is a stale subject, I am aware.  In my humble
+way, I have hammered at it both in newspapers and magazines, and many
+better men have done the same.  Therefore it is stale.  For no other
+reason.  The iniquity in itself is as vigorous and hearty as ever, and
+every week renews its brimstone leaves (meanwhile rooting deeper and
+deeper in the soil that nourishes it), but unfortunately it comes under
+the category of evils, the exposure of which the public “have had enough
+of.”  It is very provoking, and not a little disheartening, that it
+should be so.  Perhaps this complaint may be met by the answer: The
+public are not tired of this one amongst the many abuses that afflict its
+soul’s health, it is only tired of being reminded of it.  Explorers in
+fields less difficult have better fortune.  As, for instance, the
+fortunate discoverer of a gold field is.  Everybody would be glad to
+shake him by the hand—the hand that had felt and lifted the weight of the
+nuggets and the yellow chips of dust; nay, not a few would be willing to
+trim his finger nails, on the chance of their discovering beneath enough
+of the auriferous deposit to pay them for their trouble.  But, to be
+sure, in a city of splendid commercial enterprise such as is ours, it can
+scarcely be expected that that amount of honour would be conferred on the
+man who would remove a plague from its midst as on the one whose
+magnificent genius tended to fatten the money-bags in the Bank cellars.
+
+At the risk, however, of being stigmatized as a man with a weakness for
+butting against stone walls, I cannot let this opportunity slip, or
+refrain from firing yet once again my small pop-gun against this fortress
+of the devil.  The reader may have heard enough of the abomination to
+suit his taste, and let him rest assured that the writer has written more
+than enough to suit _his_; but if every man set up his “taste” as the
+goal and summit of his striving, any tall fellow a tip-toe might, after
+all, see over the heads of most of us.  The main difficulty is that the
+tens and hundreds of thousands of boys who stint a penny from its more
+legitimate use to purchase a dole of the pernicious trash in question,
+have _not_ “had enough of it.”  Nothing can be worse than this, except it
+is that the purveyors of letter-press offal have not had enough of it
+either, but, grown prosperous and muscular on the good feeding their
+monstrous profits have ensured them, they are continually opening up
+fresh ground, each patch fouler and more pestilent than the last.
+
+At the present writing I have before me half-a-dozen of these penny
+weekly numbers of “thrilling romance,” addressed to boys, and circulated
+entirely among them—and girls.  It was by no means because the number of
+these poison pen’orths on sale is small that a greater variety was not
+procured.  A year or so since, wishing to write a letter on the subject
+to a daily newspaper, I fished out of one little newsvendor’s shop,
+situated in the nice convenient neighbourhood of Clerkenwell, which, more
+than any other quarter of the metropolis, is crowded with working
+children of both sexes, the considerable number of _twenty-three_ samples
+of this gallows literature.  But if I had not before suspected it, my
+experience on that occasion convinced me that to buy more than a third of
+that number would be a sheer waste of pence.  To be sure, to expect
+honest dealing on the part of such fellows as can dabble in “property” of
+the kind in question, is in the last degree absurd, but one would think
+that they would, for “business” reasons, maintain some show of giving a
+pen’orth for a penny.  Such is not the case, however.  In three instances
+in my twenty-three numbers, I found the self-same story published _twice_
+under a different title, while for at least half the remainder the
+variance from their brethren is so very slight that nobody but a close
+reader would discover it.
+
+The six-pen’orth before me include, “The Skeleton Band,” “Tyburn Dick,”
+“The Black Knight of the Road,” “Dick Turpin,” “The Boy Burglar,” and
+“Starlight Sall.”  If I am asked, is the poison each of these papers
+contains so cunningly disguised and mixed with harmless-seeming
+ingredients, that a boy of shrewd intelligence and decent mind might be
+betrayed by its insidious seductiveness? I reply, no.  The only subtlety
+employed in the precious composition is that which is employed in
+preserving it from offending the blunt nostrils of the law to such a
+degree as shall compel its interference.  If it is again inquired, do I,
+though unwillingly, acknowledge that the artful ones, by a wonderful
+exercise of tact and ingenuity, place the law in such a fix that it would
+not be justified in interfering?  I most distinctly reply, that I
+acknowledge nothing of the kind; but that, on the contrary, I wonder very
+much at the clumsiness of a legislative machine that can let so much
+scoundrelism slip through its cogs and snares.
+
+The daring lengths these open encouragers of boy highwaymen and Tyburn
+Dicks will occasionally go to serve their villanous ends is amazing.  It
+is not more than two or three years since, that a prosperous member of
+the gang, whose business premises were in, or within a few doors of Fleet
+Street, by way of giving a fair start to his published account of some
+thief and murderer, publicly advertised that the buyers of certain
+numbers would be entitled to a chance of a Prize in a grand distribution
+of _daggers_.  Specimens of the deadly weapons (made, it may be assumed,
+after the same fashion as that one with which “flash Jack,” in the
+romance, pinned the police officer in the small of his back) were
+exhibited in the publisher’s shop window, and in due course found their
+way into the hands of silly boys, with minds well primed for “daring
+exploits,” by reading “numbers 2 and 3 given away with number 1.”
+
+It is altogether a mistake, however, to suppose that the poison
+publisher’s main element of success consists in his glorification of
+robbers and cut-throats.  To be sure he can by no means afford to
+dispense with the ingredients mentioned in the concoction of his vile
+brew, but his first and foremost reliance is on lewdness.  Everything is
+subservient to this.  He will picture to his youthful readers a hero of
+the highway, so ferocious in his nature, and so reckless of bloodshed,
+that he has earned among his comrades the flattering nick-name of “the
+Panther.”  He will reveal the bold panther in all his glory, cleaving the
+skull of the obstinate old gentleman in his travelling carriage, who will
+not give up his money, or setting an old woman on the kitchen fire, as a
+just punishment for hiding her guineas in the oven, in fishing them out
+of which the panther burns his fingers; he will exhibit the crafty
+“panther” wriggling his way through the floor boards of his cell, into a
+sewer beneath, and through which he is to make his escape to the river,
+and then by a flourish of his magic pen, he will convey the “panther” to
+the “boudoir” of Starlight Sall, and show you how weak a quality valour
+is in the presence of “those twin queens of the earth,” youth and beauty!
+The brave panther, when he has once crossed the threshold of that
+splendid damsel (who, by the way, is a thief, and addicted to drinking
+brandy by the “bumper”) is, vulgarly speaking, “nowhere.”  The haughty
+curl of his lip, the glance of his eagle eye, “the graceful contour of
+his manly form,” a mere gesture of which is sufficient to quell rising
+mutiny amongst his savage crew, all fall flat and impotent before the
+queenly majesty of Sall.  But there is no fear that the reader will lose
+his faith in Panther Bill, because of this weakness confessed.  As drawn
+by the Author (does the pestiferous rascal so style himself, I wonder?)
+Starlight Sall is a creature of such exquisite loveliness, that Jupiter
+himself might have knelt before her.  She is such a matchless combination
+of perfection, that it is found necessary to describe her charms
+separately, and at such length that the catalogue of the whole extends
+through at least six pages.
+
+It is in this branch of his devilish business that the author of
+“Starlight Sall” excels.  It is evident that the man’s mind is in his
+work, and he lingers over it with a loving hand.  Never was there such a
+tender anatomist.  He begins Sall’s head, and revels in her auburn
+tresses, that “in silken, snaky locks wanton o’er her shoulders, white as
+eastern ivory.”  He is not profound in foreheads, and hers he passes over
+as “chaste as snow,” or in noses, Sall’s being described briefly as
+“finely chiselled;” but he is well up in the language of eyes—the bad
+language.  He skirmishes playfully about those of Sall, and discourses of
+her eyebrows as “ebon brow,” from which she launches her excruciating
+shafts of love.  He takes her by the eye-lashes, and describes them as
+the “golden fringe that screens the gates of paradise,” and finally he
+dips into Sall’s eyes, swimming with luscious languor, and pregnant with
+tender inviting to Panther Bill, who was consuming in ardent affection,
+as “the rippling waves of the bright blue sea to the sturdy swimmer.”  It
+is impossible here to repeat what else is said of the eyes of Starlight
+Sall, or her teeth, “like rich pearls,” or of her “pouting coral lips, in
+which a thousand tiny imps of love are lurking.”  Bear it in mind that
+this work of ours is designed for the perusal of thinking men and women;
+that it is not intended as an amusing work, but as an endeavour to
+pourtray to Londoners the curses of London in a plain and unvarnished
+way, in hope that they may be stirred to some sort of absolution from
+them.  As need not be remarked, it would be altogether impossible to the
+essayer of such a task, if he were either squeamish or fastidious in the
+handling of the material at his disposal; but I _dare_ not follow our
+author any further in his description of the personal beauties of
+Starlight Sall.  Were I to do so, it would be the fate of this book to be
+flung into the fire, and every decent man who met me would regard himself
+justified in kicking or cursing me; and yet, good fathers and mothers of
+England—and yet, elder brothers and grown sisters, tons of this bird-lime
+of the pit is vended in London every day of the Christian year.
+
+Which of us can say that _his_ children are safe from the contamination?
+Boys well-bred, as well as ill-bred, are mightily inquisitive about such
+matters, and the chances are very clear, sir, that if the said bird-lime
+were of a sort not more pernicious than that which sticks to the fingers,
+we might at this very moment find the hands of my little Tom and your
+little Jack besmeared with it.  Granted, that it is unlikely, that it is
+in the last degree improbable, even; still, the remotest of probabilities
+have before now shown themselves grim actualities, and just consider for
+a moment the twinge of horror that would seize on either of us were it to
+so happen!  Let us for a moment picture to ourselves our fright and
+bewilderment, if we discovered that our little boys were feasting off
+this deadly fruit in the secrecy of their chambers!  Would it then appear
+to us that it was a subject the discussion of which we had “had enough
+of”?  Should we be content, _then_, to shrug our shoulders after the old
+style, and exclaim impatiently against the barbarous taste of writers who
+were so tiresomely meddlesome?  Not likely.  The pretty consternation
+that would ensue on the appalling discovery!—the ransacking of boxes and
+cupboards, to make quite sure that no dreg of the poison, in the shape of
+an odd page or so, were hidden away!—the painful examination of the
+culprit, who never till now dreamt of the enormity of the thing he had
+been doing!—the reviling and threatening that would be directed against
+the unscrupulous news-agent who had supplied the pernicious pen’orth!
+Good heavens! the tremendous rumpus there would be!  But, thank God,
+there is no fear of _that_ happening.
+
+Is there not?  What are the assured grounds of safety?  Is it because it
+stands to reason that all such coarse and vulgar trash finds its level
+amongst the coarse and vulgar, and could gain no footing above its own
+elevation?  It may so stand in reason, but unfortunately it is the
+unreasonable fact that this same pen poison finds customers at heights
+above its natural low and foul water-line almost inconceivable.  How
+otherwise is it accountable that at least a _quarter of a million_ of
+these penny numbers are sold weekly?  How is it that in quiet suburban
+neighbourhoods, far removed from the stews of London, and the pernicious
+atmosphere they engender; in serene and peaceful semi-country towns where
+genteel boarding schools flourish, there may almost invariably be found
+some small shopkeeper who accommodatingly receives consignments of
+“Blue-skin,” and the “Mysteries of London,” and unobtrusively supplies
+his well-dressed little customer with these full-flavoured articles?
+Granted, my dear sir, that your young Jack, or my twelve years old
+Robert, have minds too pure either to seek out or crave after literature
+of the sort in question, but not unfrequently it is found without
+seeking.  It is a contagious disease, just as cholera and typhus and the
+plague are contagious, and, as everybody is aware, it needs not personal
+contact with a body stricken to convey either of these frightful maladies
+to the hale and hearty.  A tainted scrap of rag has been known to spread
+plague and death through an entire village, just as a stray leaf of
+“Panther Bill,” or “‘Tyburn Tree” may sow the seeds of immorality amongst
+as many boys as a town can produce.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+THE THIEF NON-PROFESSIONAL.
+
+
+_The Registered and the Unregistered Thieves of the London
+Hunting-ground_.—_The Certainty of the Crop of Vice_.—_Omnibus Drivers
+and Conductors_.—_The_ “_Watchers_.”—_The London General Omnibus
+Company_.—_The Scandal of their System_.—_The Shopkeeper Thief_.—_False
+Weights and Measures_.—_Adulteration of Food and Drink_.—_Our Old Law_,
+“_I am as honest as I can afford to be_!”—_Rudimentary Exercises in the
+Art of Pillage_.
+
+THERE are unregistered as well “registered” thieves.  How many of the
+former make London their hunting-ground, it were much more difficult to
+enumerate.  Nor is it so much out of place as might at first appear, to
+class both phases of rascality under one general heading.  We have to
+consider the sources from which are derived our army of London thieves.
+It is not as though the plague of them that afflicts was like other
+plagues, and showed itself mild or virulent, according to well-defined
+and ascertained provocatives.  On the contrary, the crop of our
+crime-fields is even more undeviating than our wheat or barley crops.  A
+grain of corn cast into the ground may fail, but the seeds of vice
+implanted in kindly soil is bound to germinate, unless the nature of the
+soil itself is altered.  As already stated, the number of our London
+thieves has somewhat decreased of late years, but it is merely to the
+extent of six or seven per cent.  If it is twenty thousand at the present
+time, this day twelvemonths, allowing for the increased population, it
+will be nineteen thousand, say.
+
+Appalling as are the criminal returns for the city of London, it would be
+a vain delusion to imagine that when the “twenty thousand” have passed in
+review before us, the whole of the hideous picture has been revealed.
+The Government statistics deal only with “professional criminals;” that
+class of persons, that is to say, who have abandoned all idea of living
+honestly, and who, weighing the probable consequences, resign themselves
+to a life of systematic depredation, and study existing facilities, and
+likely new inventions, just as the ingenious joiner or engineer does in
+an honest way.
+
+The all-important question being, what are the main sources from which
+are derived with such steadiness and certainty, recruits for the great
+criminal army, it would be as well to inquire how much of dishonesty is
+permitted amongst us unchecked, simply because it does not take precisely
+that shape and colour it must assume before it so offends us that we
+insist on the law’s interference.  It should perhaps tend to make us more
+tender in our dealings with thieves denounced as such, and convicted, and
+sent to prison, when we consider the thousands of men of all grades who
+know honesty by name only, and who would at the merest push of adversity
+slip off the straight path on which for years past they have been no
+better than barefaced impostors and trespassers, and plunge at once into
+the miry ways of the professed thieves.  It ceases to be a wonder how
+constantly vacancies in the ranks of crime are filled when we reflect on
+the flimsy partition that screens so many seemingly honest men, and the
+accidental rending of which would disclose a thief long practised, and
+cool, and bold through impunity.  There are whole communities of men,
+constituting complete branches of our social economy, on whom the taint
+of dishonesty rests, and their masters are fully aware of it, and yet
+year after year they are allowed to continue in the same employment.
+Nay, I think that I may go as far as to assert that so complete is the
+disbelief in the honesty of their servants by these masters, that to the
+best of their ability they provide against loss by theft by paying the
+said servants very little wages.  A notable instance of this is furnished
+by the omnibus conductors in the service of the General Omnibus Company.
+It is not because the company in question conducts its business more
+loosely than other proprietors of these vehicles that I particularize it,
+but because it is a public company in the enjoyment of many privileges
+and monopolies, and the public have an undoubted right to expect fair
+treatment from it.  I don’t know how many omnibuses, each requiring a
+conductor, are constantly running through the streets of London, but
+their number must be very considerable, judging from the fact that the
+takings of the London General Omnibus Company alone range from nine to
+ten thousand pounds weekly.  Now it is well known to the company that
+their conductors rob them.  A gentleman of my acquaintance once submitted
+to the secretary of the company an ingenious invention for registering
+the number of passengers an omnibus carried on each journey, but the
+secretary was unable to entertain it.  “It is of no use to us, sir,” said
+he.  “The machine we want is one that will make our men _honest_, and
+that I am afraid is one we are not likely to meet with.  They _will_ rob
+us, and we can’t help ourselves.”  And knowing this, the company pay the
+conductor four shillings a day, the said day, as a rule, consisting of
+_seventeen hours_—from eight one morning till one the next.  The driver,
+in consideration it may be assumed of his being removed from the
+temptation of handling the company’s money, is paid six shillings a day,
+but his opinion of the advantage the conductor still has over him may be
+gathered from the fact that he expects the latter to pay for any
+reasonable quantity of malt or spirituous liquor he may consume in the
+course of a long scorching hot or freezing cold day, not to mention a
+cigar or two and the invariable parting glass when the cruelly long day’s
+work is at an end.
+
+It would likewise appear that by virtue of this arrangement between the
+omnibus conductor and his employers, the interference of the law, even in
+cases of detected fraud, is dispensed with.  It is understood that the
+London General Omnibus Company support quite a large staff of men and
+women watchers, who spend their time in riding about in omnibuses, and
+noting the number of passengers carried on a particular journey, with the
+view of comparing the returns with the conductor’s receipts.  It must,
+therefore, happen that the detections of fraud are numerous; but does the
+reader recollect ever reading in the police reports of a conductor being
+prosecuted for robbery?
+
+To be sure the Company may claim the right of conducting their business
+in the way they think best as regards the interests of the shareholders,
+but if that “best way” involves the countenancing of theft on the part of
+their servants, which can mean nothing else than the encouragement of
+thieves, it becomes a grave question whether the interests of its
+shareholders should be allowed to stand before the interests of society
+at large.  It may be that to prosecute a dishonest conductor is only to
+add to the pecuniary loss he has already inflicted on the Company, but
+the question that much more nearly concerns the public is, what becomes
+of him when suddenly and in disgrace they turn him from their doors?  No
+one will employ him.  In a few weeks his ill-gotten savings are
+exhausted, and he, the man who for months or years, perhaps, has been
+accustomed to treat himself generously, finds himself without a sixpence,
+and, what is worse, with a mark against his character so black and broad
+that his chances of obtaining employment in the same capacity are
+altogether too remote for calculation.  The respectable barber who
+declined to shave a coal-heaver on the ground that he was too vulgar a
+subject to come under the delicate operations of the shaver’s razor, and
+who was reminded by the grimy one that he had just before shaved a baker,
+justified his conduct on the plea that his professional dignity compelled
+him to draw a line _somewhere_, and that he drew it at bakers.  Just so
+the London General Omnibus Company.  They draw the line at thieves rash
+and foolish.  So long as a servant of theirs is content to prey on their
+property with enough of discretion as to render exposure unnecessary, he
+may continue their servant; but they make it a rule never again to employ
+a man who has been so careless as to be found out.
+
+As has been shown, it is difficult to imagine a more satisfactory
+existence than that of an omnibus conductor to a man lost to all sense of
+honesty; on the other hand it is just as difficult to imagine a man so
+completely “floored” as the same cad disgraced, and out of employ.  It is
+easy to see on what small inducements such a man may be won over to the
+criminal ranks.  He has no moral scruples to overcome.  His larcenous
+hand has been in the pocket of his master almost every hour of the day
+for months, perhaps years past.  He is not penitent, and if he were and
+made an avowal to that effect, he would be answered by the incredulous
+jeers and sneers of all who knew him.  The best that he desires is to
+meet with as easy a method of obtaining pounds as when he cheerfully
+drudged for eighteen hours for a wage of four-shillings.  This being the
+summit of his ambition, presently he stumbles on what appears even an
+easier way of making money than the old way, and he unscrupulously
+appears not in a new character, but in that he has had long experience
+in, but without the mask.
+
+I should wish it to be distinctly understood, that I do not include _all_
+omnibus conductors in this sweeping condemnation.  That there are honest
+ones amongst them I make no doubt; at the same time I have no hesitation
+in repeating that in the majority of cases it is expected of them that
+they will behave dishonestly, and they have no disinclination to
+discredit the expectation.  I believe too, that it is much more difficult
+for a man to be honest as a servant of the company than if he were in the
+employ of a “small master.”  It is next to impossible for a man of
+integrity to join and work harmoniously in a gang of rogues.  The odds
+against his doing so may be calculated exactly by the number that
+comprise the gang.  It is not only on principle that they object to him.
+Unless he “does as they do,” he becomes a witness against them every time
+he pays his money in.  And he does as they do.  It is so much easier to
+do so than, in the condition of a man labouring hard for comparatively
+less pay than a common road-scraper earns, to stand up single handed to
+champion the cause of honesty in favour of a company who are
+undisguisedly in favour of a snug and comfortable compromise, and has no
+wish to be “bothered.”
+
+It is a great scandal that such a system should be permitted to exist;
+and a body of employers mean enough to connive at such bargain-making,
+can expect but small sympathy from the public if the dishonesty it
+tacitly encourages picks it to the bones.  What are the terms of the
+contract between employer and employed?  In plain language these: “We are
+perfectly aware that you apply to us well knowing our system of doing
+business, and with the deliberate intention of robbing us all you safely
+can; and in self-defence, therefore, we will pay you as what you may, if
+you please, regard as wages, _two-pence three farthings an hour_, or four
+shillings per day of seventeen hours.  We know that the probabilities
+are, that you will add to that four shillings daily to the extent of
+another five or six.  It is according to our calculation that you will do
+so.  Our directors have arrived at the conclusion, that as omnibus
+conductors, of the ordinary type, you cannot be expected to rob us of a
+less sum than that, and we are not disposed to grumble so long as you
+remain so moderate; but do not, as you value your situation with all its
+accompanying privileges, go beyond that.  As a man who only robs us of
+say, five shillings a day, we regard you as a fit and proper person to
+wait on our lady and gentleman passengers; to attend to their convenience
+and comfort, in short, as a worthy representative of the L. G. O. C.  But
+beware how you outstrip the bounds of moderation as we unmistakably
+define them for you!  Should you do so, we will kick you out at a
+moment’s notice, and on no consideration will we ever again employ you.”
+
+Taking this view of the case, the omnibus conductor, although entitled to
+a foremost place in the ranks of thieves non-professional, can scarcely
+be said to be the least excusable amongst the fraternity.  There are many
+who, looking down on the “cad” from their pinnacle of high
+respectability, are ten times worse than he is.  Take the shopkeeper
+thief for instance.  He is by far a greater villain than the half-starved
+wretch who snatches a leg of mutton from a butcher’s hook, or some
+article of drapery temptingly flaunting outside the shop of the clothier,
+because in the one case the crime is perpetrated that a soul and a
+woefully lean body may be saved from severance, and in the other case the
+iniquity is made to pander to the wrong-doer’s covetous desire to grow
+fat, to wear magnificent jewellery, and to air his unwieldy carcase
+annually at Margate.
+
+He has enough for his needs.  His deservings, such as they are, most
+liberally attend him; but this is not enough.  The “honest penny” is very
+well to talk about; in fact, in his cleverly assumed character of an
+upright man, it is as well to talk about it loudly and not unfrequently,
+but what fudge it is if you come to a downright blunt and “business” view
+of the matter to hope ever to make a fortune by the accumulation of
+“honest pennies!”  Why, thirty of the shabby things make no more than
+half-a-crown if you permit each one to wear its plain stupid face,
+whereas if you plate it neatly and tender it—backed by your reputation
+for respectability, which your banking account of course proves beyond a
+doubt—it will pass as genuine silver, and you make two and five-pence at
+a stroke!  You don’t call it “making,” you robbers of the counter and
+money-till, that is a vulgar expression used by “professional” thieves;
+you allude to it as “cutting it fine.”  Neither do you actually plate
+copper pennies and pass them off on the unwary as silver half-crowns.
+Unless you were very hard driven indeed, you would scorn so low and
+dangerous a line of business.  Yours is a much safer system of robbery.
+You simply palm off on the unwary customer burnt beans instead of coffee,
+and ground rice instead of arrowroot, and a mixture of lard and turmeric
+instead of butter.  You poison the poor man’s bread.  He is a drunkard,
+and you are not even satisfied to delude him of his earnings for so long
+a time as he may haply live as a wallower in beer and gin, that is beer
+and gin as originally manufactured; you must, in order to screw a few
+halfpence extra and daily out of the poor wretch, put grains of paradise
+in his gin and coculus indicus in his malt liquor!  And, more insatiable
+than the leech, you are not content with cheating him to the extent of
+twenty-five per cent. by means of abominable mixtures and adulteration,
+you must pass him through the mill, and cut him yet a little finer when
+he comes to scale!  You must file your weights and dab lumps of grease
+under the beam, and steal an ounce or so out of his pound of bacon.  If
+you did this after he left your premises, if you dared follow him
+outside, and stealthily inserting your hand into his pocket abstracted a
+rasher of the pound he had just bought of you, and he caught you at it,
+you would be quaking in the grasp of a policeman in a very short time,
+and branded in the newspapers as a paltry thief, you would never again
+dare loose the bar of your shop shutters.  But by means of your dishonest
+scales and weights, you may go on stealing rashers from morning till
+night, from Monday morning till Saturday night that is, and live long to
+adorn your comfortable church pew on Sundays.
+
+I must be excused for sticking to you yet a little longer, Mr. Shopkeeper
+Thief, because I hate you so.  I hate you more than ever, and you will be
+rejoiced when I tell you why.  A few months since, there seemed a chance
+that your long career of cruel robbery was about to be checked.  An
+excellent lord and gentleman, Lord E. Cecil, made it his business to call
+the attention of the House of Commons to the state of the law with
+respect to false weights and measures, and the adulterations of food and
+drinks.  His lordship informed honourable members that the number of
+convictions for false weights and measures during the past year amounted
+to the large number of _thirteen hundred_, and this was exclusive of six
+districts, namely: Southwark, Newington, St. George’s, Hanover Square,
+Paddington, and the Strand, which for reasons best known to the local
+authorities, made no return whatever.  In Westminster alone, and within
+six months, a hundred persons were convicted, and it was found that of
+these twenty-four or nearly one-fourth of the whole were licensed
+victuallers, and forty-seven were dairymen, greengrocers, cheesemongers,
+and others, who supplied the poor with food, making in all seventy per
+cent. of provision dealers.  In the parish of St. Pancras, the
+convictions for false weights and measures exceed those of every other
+parish.  But in future, however much the old iniquity may prevail, the
+rogue’s returns will show a handsome diminution.  This has been managed
+excellently well by the shrewd vestrymen themselves.  When the last batch
+of shopkeeper-swindlers of St. Pancras were tried and convicted, the ugly
+fact transpired that not a few of them were gentlemen holding official
+positions in the parish.  This was serious.  The meddlesome fellows who
+had caused the disagreeable exposure were called a “leet jury,” whose
+business it was to pounce on evil doers whenever they thought fit, once
+in the course of every month.  The vestry has power over this precious
+leet jury, thank heaven! and after sitting in solemn council, the
+vestrymen, some of them doubtless with light weights confiscated and
+deficient gin and beer measures rankling in their hearts, passed a
+resolution, that in future the leet jury was to stay at home and mind its
+own business, until the vestry clerk gave it liberty to go over the
+ground carefully prepared for it.
+
+Alluding to the scandalous adulteration of food, Lord E. Cecil remarked,
+“The right hon. gentleman, the President of the Board of Trade, in one of
+his addresses by which he had electrified the public and his
+constituents, stated that the great panacea for the ills of the working
+class was a free breakfast table.  Now he, Lord E. Cecil, was the last
+person in the world to object to any revision of taxation if it were
+based upon really sound grounds.  But with all due deference to the right
+hon. gentleman, there was one thing of even more importance, namely, a
+breakfast table free from all impurities.”  And then his lordship
+proceeded to quote innumerable instances of the monstrous and dangerous
+injustice in question, very much to the edification of members assembled,
+if reiterated “cheers,” and “hear, hear,” went for anything.  This was
+promising, and as it should be.  As Lord Cecil remarked, “when I asked
+myself why it is that this great nation which boasts to be so practical,
+and which is always ready to take up the grievances of other people, has
+submitted so tamely to this monstrous and increasing evil, the only
+answer I could give was that what was everybody’s business had become
+nobody’s business.”  Doubtless this was the view of the case that every
+member present on the occasion took, and very glad they must have been
+when they found that what was everybody’s business had become somebody’s
+business at last.
+
+And what said the President of the Board of Trade when he came to reply
+to the motion of Lord Cecil: “That in the opinion of the House it is
+expedient that Her Majesty’s Government should give their earliest
+attention to the wide-spread and most reprehensible practice of using
+false weights and measures, and of adulterating food, drinks, and drugs,
+with a view of amending the law as regards the penalties now inflicted
+for those offences, and of providing more efficient means for the
+discovery and prevention of fraud”?  Did the right hon. President
+promptly and generously promise his most cordial support for the laudable
+object in view?  No.  Amazing as it may appear to the great host of
+working men that furnish the shopkeeping rogue with his chief prey, and
+who to a man are ready to swear by the right hon. gentleman, he did
+nothing of the kind.  He started by unhesitatingly expressing his opinion
+that the mover of the question, quite unintentionally of course, had much
+exaggerated the whole business.  And further, that although there might
+be particular cases in which great harm to health and much fraud might
+possibly be shown, yet general statements of the kind in question were
+dangerous, and almost certain to be unjust.
+
+“Now, I am prepared to show,” continued the hon. gentleman, “that the
+exaggeration of the noble lord—I do not say intentional exaggeration, of
+course—is just as great in the matter of weights and measures as in that
+of adulteration.  Probably he is not aware that in the list of persons
+employing weights that are inaccurate—I do not say fraudulent; no
+distinction is drawn between those who are intentionally fraudulent and
+those who are accidentally inaccurate, and that the penalty is precisely
+the same and the offence is just as eagerly detected.  Now the noble lord
+will probably be surprised to hear that many persons are fined annually,
+not because their weights are too small, but because they are too large.”
+
+Probably, however, his lordship, who has evidently given much attention
+to the subject, is master of this as well as all other branches of it,
+and is not so much surprised as it may be assumed the less knowing
+President of the Board of Trade was when the anomaly was brought under
+his notice.  Probably Lord Cecil is aware, that in a very large number of
+businesses, articles are bought as well as sold by weight by the same
+shopkeeper and at the same shop, in such case it is nothing very
+wonderful to discover a weight of seventeen ounces to the pound.
+Moreover, it may be unknown to Mr. Bright, but it is quite a common trick
+with the dishonest shopkeeper to have means at hand for adjusting his
+false weights at the very shortest notice.  It is not a difficult
+process.  Weights are, as a rule, “justified” or corrected by means of
+adding to, or taking from, a little of the lead that is for this purpose
+sunk in the hollow in which the weight-ring is fixed.  This leaden plug
+being raised by the point of a knife, nothing is easier than to add or
+withdraw a wedge of the same material.  The knife point raises the leaden
+lid, the knife handle forces it down at a blow, and the trick is done.
+At the same time, the coolest rogue with a knowledge that the “leet” is
+only next door, cannot always manage his conjuring deftly, and this may
+in not a few instances account for the weight _more_ than just.  Besides,
+taking the most liberal view of the matter, it would be manifestly
+dangerous to allow a system of “averages” to do duty for strict and rigid
+justice.  The relations between customer and shopkeeper would speedily
+fall into a sad muddle if the latter were permitted to excuse himself for
+selling fifteen ounces instead of a full pound of butter to-day, on the
+ground that he has a seventeen ounce weight somewhere about, and the
+probability that what he is short to-day the customer had over and above
+in the pound of lard he bought yesterday.
+
+Again, let us listen to Mr. Bright as an advocate of self-protection.
+“If the corporations and the magistrates have not sufficient interest in
+the matter, if the people who elect the corporation care so little about
+it, I think that is fair evidence that the grievance is not near so
+extensive and injurious and burdensome as it has been described by the
+noble lord.  My own impression with regard to adulteration is, that it
+arises from the very great and, perhaps, inevitable competition in
+business; and that to a large extent it is prompted by the ignorance of
+customers.  As the ignorance of customers generally is diminishing, we
+may hope that before long the adulteration of food may also diminish.  It
+is quite impossible that you should have the oversight of the shops of
+the country by inspectors, and it is quite impossible that you should
+have persons going into shops to buy sugar, pickles, and cayenne pepper,
+to get them analysed, and then to raise complaints against shopkeepers
+and bring them before magistrates.  If men in their private business were
+to be tracked by government officers and inspectors every hour in the
+day, life would not be worth having, and I should recommend them to
+remove to another country where they would not be subject to such
+annoyance.”
+
+With a knowledge of the source from which this expression of opinion as
+to commercial morality emanates, one is apt to mistrust once reading it.
+Surely a line has been inadvertently skipped, a line that contains the
+key of the puzzle, and reveals the refined sarcasm that lurks beneath the
+surface.  But no—twice reading, thrice reading, fails to shed any new
+lights on the mystery.  Here is Mr. John Bright, the President of the
+Board of Trade, the working man’s champion, and the staunch upholder of
+the right of those who sweat in honest toil, to partake plentifully of
+untaxed food and drink, putting forth an extenuation for those who, under
+guise of honest trading, filch from the working man, and pick and steal
+from his loaf, from his beer jug, from his sugar basin, from his
+milk-pot, in short, from all that he buys to eat or drink.  “My own
+impression is,” says the Right Hon. President, “that adulteration arises
+from competition in business.”  Very possibly, but does _that_ excuse it?
+We are constantly reminded that “competition is the soul of trade,” but
+we should be loth to think that such were the fact if the term
+“competition” is to be regarded as synonymous with adulteration, or, in
+plain language, robbery.  “It is quite impossible that you should have
+persons going about endeavouring to detect the dishonest tradesman in his
+peculations, with a view to his punishment.”  Why is it impossible?  Must
+not the repose of this sacred “soul of business” be disturbed, on so
+trivial a pretext as the welfare of the bodies of a clodhopping people,
+who are not commercial?  So far from its being “impossible” to substitute
+vigilant measures for the detection of the petty pilferer who robs the
+poor widow of a ha’porth of her three penn’orth of coals, or the
+fatherless child of a slice out of its meagre allowance of bread, it
+should be regarded by the Government as amongst its chief duties.  Other
+nations find it not impossible.  In France a commissary of police has the
+right to enter any shop, and seize any suspected article, bearing of
+course all the responsibility of wrongful seizure.  In Prussia, as Lord
+Cecil informed the House, “whoever knowingly used false weights and
+measures was liable to imprisonment for three months, to be fined from
+fifty to a thousand thalers, and to suffer the temporary loss of his
+rights of citizenship.  Secondly, where false weights and measures were
+not regularly employed, a fine of thirty thalers may be imposed, or the
+delinquent sent to prison for four weeks.  Thirdly, the adulteration of
+food or drink is punishable with a fine of 150 thalers, or six weeks’
+imprisonment.  Fourthly, if poisonous matter or stuff be employed, the
+offender is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding ten years.
+Fifthly, where adulteration was proved to have caused severe physical
+injury, a sentence of from ten to twenty years’ imprisonment might be
+passed.  And yet in this country offences of this nature could only be
+punished by the imposition of a penalty of a fine of £5, with costs.”
+These are not laws of yesterday.  They have stood the test of many years,
+and French and Prussians find it not “impossible” to continue their
+salutary enforcement.  But it is curious the extraordinary view men in
+authority amongst us at times take of the licence that should be
+permitted the “trader.”  I remember once being present at a County Court,
+and a case tried was that between a wholesale mustard dealer and a
+cookshop keeper.  The cookshop keeper declined to pay for certain mustard
+delivered to him on the ground that his customers would not eat it.
+Indeed, it could hardly be called mustard at all, being little else than
+flour coloured with turmeric, and, backed by medical testimony, the
+defendant mainly relied on this point, _i.e._, that it was not mustard at
+all, for a verdict.  But the judge would not hear of this; in his summing
+up he remarked that it was idle to contend that the stuff was _not_
+mustard; _it was mustard in a commercial sense_, whatever might be its
+quality, and thereon gave a verdict for the plaintiff, and for the amount
+claimed.
+
+I must confess that at the time I had my doubts as to this being sound
+law, but after the declaration of the President of the Board of Trade, I
+am bound to admit the possibility of my being mistaken.  “Competition is
+the soul of commerce;” competition is the parent of adulteration;
+adulteration is theft as a rule,—murder as an exception.  The loaf that
+is composed of inferior flour, rice, potatoes, and alum, is the “wheaten
+bread” of “commerce.”  The poisonous liquid composed of a little malt and
+hops, eked out with treacle and _coculus indicus_, is the beer of
+“commerce.”  And, according to the same ruling, a lump of lard stuck
+under the butter-shop scale, or the inch snipped off the draper’s yard,
+or the false bottom to the publican’s pot, constitute the weights and
+measures of “commerce.”  All these little harmless tricks of trade are,
+it seems, within the scope of a tradesman’s “private business,” and
+according to the President of the Board of Trade, if a tradesman in
+pursuit of his private business is to be watched and spied over for the
+malicious purpose of bringing him within the grasp of the law, why the
+sooner he quits the country, and settles amongst a more easy-going
+people, with elbow-room proper for his commercial enterprise, the better
+for him.
+
+Undoubtedly, the better for him and the better for us.  I would make this
+difference, however.  When his iniquity was discovered, he should not go
+altogether unrewarded for his past services.  He should be assisted in
+his going abroad.  He should not be called on to pay one penny for his
+outward passage, and, what is more, he should be supplied with
+substantial linsey-wolsey clothing, and his head should be cropped quite
+close, so that the scorching sun of Bermuda or Gibraltar might not upset
+his brain for future commercial speculation.
+
+It needs, however, something more persuasive than the “mustard of
+commerce” to induce us to swallow with satisfaction the President’s
+assertion, that “to a large extent adulteration is promoted by the
+ignorance of customers,” nor are we immensely consoled by the suggestion
+that “as the ignorance of the customer diminishes, the adulteration of
+food will also diminish.”  Decidedly this is a bright look out for the
+ignorant customer!  There is to be no help for him, no relief.  He must
+endure to be cheated in weight and measure, and slowly poisoned in the
+beer he drinks, and the bread he eats, until he finds time and money to
+provide himself with a scientific education, and becomes an accomplished
+scholar in chemistry, able to detect adulteration at sight or smell.  Is
+this what the President of the Board of Trade means, or what is it?  He
+cannot mean that the imposture is endured because the consumer will not
+take the trouble to avail himself of the laws made for his protection,
+because he is distinctly informed that although there are such laws, they
+are rendered inoperative because of the “impossibility” of having
+inspectors and detectives going about prying into the “private business”
+of the shopkeeper, and annoying him.  If the ignorance of the honest man
+is to be regarded as the fair opportunity of the rogue, then there
+appears no reason why the immunity enjoyed by the fraudulent shopkeeper
+should not likewise be the indulgence allowed to the professional thief.
+It is the “ignorance of the customer” that enables the cheat to impose on
+him bad money for good, or a forged signature for one that is genuine.
+It is the ignorance of the green young man from the country as regards
+the wicked ways of London, that enables the skittle sharper to fleece him
+with ease and completeness.  Undoubtedly, if we were all equally “wide
+awake,” as the vulgar saying is, if no one had the advantage of his
+neighbour as regards cunning, and shrewdness, and suspicion, and all the
+other elements that constitute “a man of the world,” then the trade of
+cheating would become so wretched a one that even ingrain rogues would
+for their life-sake cultivate the sort of honesty that was prevalent as
+the best policy, though very much against their natural inclination; but
+it might possibly be found that there are thousands and tens of thousands
+of simple people who would prefer to remain in “ignorance,” having no
+desire to become “men of the world” in the sense above indicated, and
+electing for their souls’-sake to be lambs with a fleece to lose, than
+ravening wolves, whose existence depends on the fleecing of lambs.
+
+_Apropos_ of the practice of cheating by means of the adulteration of
+foods and drinks, it may not be out of place here to mention that during
+the discussion a member in whom Mr. Bright expressed great confidence,
+announced that the use of alum in bread, so far from being injurious, was
+_positively beneficial_.  Doctor Letheby, however, is of a somewhat
+different opinion.  Recently, at the Society of Arts, he read a paper on
+the subject.  Here are his opinions on the matter:
+
+    “By the addition of alum, inferior and even damaged flour may be made
+    into a tolerable looking loaf.  It is the property of alum to make
+    the gluten tough, and to prevent its discoloration by heat, as well
+    as to check the action of the yeast or ferment upon it.  When,
+    therefore, it is added to good flour, it enables it to hold more
+    water, and so to yield a larger number of loaves; while the addition
+    of it to bad flour prevents the softening and disintegrating effect
+    of the yeast on the poor and inferior gluten, and so enables it to
+    bear the action of heat in the progress of baking.  According to the
+    quality of flour, will be the proportion of alum, and hence the
+    amount will range from 2 ozs. to 8 ozs. per sack of flour.  These
+    proportions will yield from 9 to 37 grains of alum in the quartern
+    loaf, quantities which are easily detected by chemical means.
+    Indeed, there is a simple test by which much smaller quantities of it
+    may be readily discovered.  You have only to dip a slice of the bread
+    into a weak solution of logwood in water, and if alum be present, the
+    bread will speedily acquire a red or purplish tint.  Good bread
+    should not exhibit any black specks upon its upper crust; it should
+    not become sodden and wet at the lower part by standing; it should
+    not become mouldy by keeping in a moderately dry place; it should be
+    sweet and agreeable to the taste and smell; it should not give, when
+    steeped, a ropy, acid liquor; and a slice of it taken from the centre
+    of the loaf should not lose more than forty-five per cent. by
+    drying.”
+
+Again, speaking of the cruelty and dishonesty of the various
+“sophistications” practised by the vendors of food as regards the
+inefficacy of the laws made for its suppression, the good doctor says:
+
+    “Parliament has attempted to deal with the matter by legislation, as
+    in the ‘Act for Preventing the Adulteration of Articles of Food or
+    Drink’ of 1860; but as the Act is only permissive, little or no
+    effect has been given to it.  Even in those places, as in the City of
+    London, where it has been put into operation, and public analysts
+    have been appointed, no good has resulted from it; in fact, it stands
+    upon the statute-book as a dead letter.  Speaking of the City, I may
+    say that every inducement has been offered for the effective working
+    of the Act, but nothing has come of it.  In olden times, the remedies
+    for such misdemeanours were quick and effectual.  In the _Assisa
+    panis_, for example, as set forth in _Liber Albus_, there are not
+    only the strictest regulations concerning the manner in which the
+    business of the baker is to be conducted, but there are also
+    penalties for failing in the same.  ‘If any default,’ it says, ‘shall
+    be found in the bread of a baker in the city, the first time, let him
+    be drawn upon a hurdle from the Guildhall to his own house through
+    the great streets where there be most people assembled; and through
+    the great streets which are most dirty, with the faulty loaf hanging
+    about his neck.  If a second time he shall be found committing the
+    same offence, let him be drawn from the Guildhall, through the great
+    street of Chepe in manner aforesaid to the pillory, and let him be
+    put upon the pillory and remain there at least one hour in the day;
+    and the third time that such default shall be found, he shall be
+    drawn, and the oven shall be pulled down, and the baker made to
+    forswear the trade within the city for ever.’  It further tells us,
+    that William de Stratford suffered this punishment for selling bread
+    of short weight, and John de Strode ‘for making bread of filth and
+    cobwebs.’  One hoary-headed offender was excused the hurdle on
+    account of his age and the severity of the season; and it would seem
+    that the last time the punishment was inflicted was in the sixteenth
+    year of the reign of Henry VI., when Simon Frensshe was so drawn.  A
+    like punishment was awarded to butchers and vintners for fraudulent
+    dealings; for we are told that a butcher was paraded through the
+    streets with his face to the horse’s tail for selling measly bacon at
+    market, and that the next day he was set in the pillory with two
+    great pieces of his measly bacon over his head, and a writing which
+    set forth his crimes.  In the judgments recorded in _Liber Albus_
+    there are twenty-three cases in which the pillory was awarded for
+    selling putrid meat, fish, or poultry; thirteen for unlawful dealings
+    of bakers, and six for the misdemeanours of vintners and wine
+    dealers.  Verily we have degenerated in these matters.”
+
+And while we are on the subject of thieves non-professional, and their
+easy conversion to the article legally stamped and recognised, it may not
+be amiss briefly to remark on the odd ideas of honesty entertained and
+practised by thousands of our hard-fisted, and except for the singular
+weakness hinted at, quite worthy and decent “journeymen.”  It is curious
+how much of hallucination prevails amongst us on the subject of “common
+honesty.”  It is as though there were several qualities of that virtue,
+“common,” “middling,” and “superfine,” as there are in household bread;
+and that, carrying out the simile, although the “superfine” is
+undoubtedly nicer, and what one would always use if he could afford it,
+the honesty dubbed “common” is equally wholesome, and on the whole the
+only sort on which it is possible for a working man to exist.
+
+“I am as honest as I can afford to be,” is an observation common in the
+mouth of those who really and truly earn their bread and acquire a
+creditable reputation by the sweat of their brow.  It never seems to
+occur to them that such an admission is equal to a confession of
+dishonesty, and since it is simply a matter of degree, that the common
+thief on the same grounds may claim the privilege of shaking them by the
+hand as their equal.  The man who fixes the standard of his honesty at no
+greater height becomes an easy prey to temptation.  “If he is as honest
+as he can afford to be,” and no more, it simply means that his means not
+being equal to his necessities he has already admitted the thin end of
+the wedge of dishonesty to make good the gap, and that should the said
+gap unhappily widen, the wedge must enter still further in until a total
+splitting up of the system ensues, and the wedge itself becomes the only
+steadfast thing to cling to.
+
+That this melancholy consummation is not more frequently attained is the
+great wonder, and would tend to show that many men adopt a sort of
+hobbling compromise, walking as it were with one foot on the path of
+rectitude, and the other in the miry way of petty theft, until they get
+to the end of life’s tether and both feet slip into the grave.
+
+It is a fact at once humiliating, but there it stands stark and stern,
+and will not be denied, that there are daily pursuing their ordinary
+business, and passing as honest, hundreds and thousands of labouring
+folk, who, if their various malversations were brought to light, and they
+were prosecuted, would find themselves in prison ere they were a day
+older.  Nor should this startle us very much, as we are well aware of it,
+and mayhap are in no small degree responsible for it, since it is mainly
+owing to our indolent disregard that the evil has become so firmly
+established; at the same time it should be borne in mind, that this no
+more excuses those who practise and profit on our indifference to small
+pilferings than a disinclination to prosecute a professional pickpocket
+mitigates the offence of the delinquent.
+
+The species of dishonesty alluded to, as not coming within the official
+term “professional,” has many aliases.  Ordinarily it is called by the
+cant name of “perks,” which is a convenient abbreviation of the word
+“perquisites,” and in the hands of the users of it, it shows itself a
+word of amazing flexibility.  It applies to such unconsidered trifles as
+wax candle ends, and may be stretched so as to cover the larcenous
+abstraction by our man-servant of forgotten coats and vests.  As has been
+lately exposed in the newspapers, it is not a rare occurrence for your
+butler or your cook to conspire with the roguish tradesman, the latter
+being permitted to charge “his own prices,” on condition that when the
+monthly bill is paid, the first robber hands over to the second
+two-shillings or half-a-crown in the pound.  It is not, however, these
+sleek, and well-fed non-professional thieves that I would just now speak
+of, but rather of the working man—the journeyman tailor for example.
+
+Did anyone ever yet hear of a working tailor who was proof against
+misappropriation of his neighbour’s goods, or as he playfully designates
+it, “cabbage?”  Is it not a standard joke in the trade this “cabbage?”
+Did one ever hear of a tailor being shunned by his fellow-workmen, or
+avoided by his neighbours, on account of his predilection for “cabbage?”
+Yet what is it but another word for “theft?”  If I entrust a builder with
+so much timber, and so much stone, and so many bricks, to build me a
+house, and I afterwards discover that by clever dodging and scheming he
+has contrived to make me believe that all the material I gave him has
+been employed in my house, whereas he has managed to filch enough to
+build himself a small cottage, do I accept his humorous explanation that
+it is only “cabbage,” and forgive him?  No.  I regard it as my duty to
+afford him an opportunity of explaining the matter to a magistrate.  But
+if I entrust my tailor with stuff for a suit, and it afterwards comes to
+my knowledge that he has “screwed” an extra waistcoat out of it, which he
+keeps or sells for his own benefit, do I regard it as a serious act of
+robbery?  I am ashamed to say that I do not; I may feel angry, and
+conceive a contempt for tailors, but I take no steps to bring the rogue
+to justice.  I say to myself, “It is a mean trick, but they all do it,”
+which is most unjust to the community of tailors, because though I may
+suspect that they all do it, I have no proof of the fact, whereas I have
+proof that there is a dishonest tailor in their guild, and I have no
+right to assume but that they would regard it as a favour if I would
+assist them in weeding him out.
+
+And it is almost as good a joke as the calling downright theft by the
+comical name of “cabbage,” that the tailor will do this and all the time
+insist on his right to be classed with honest men.  He insists on this
+because he was never known to steal anything besides such goods as
+garments are made out of.  As he comes along bringing your new suit home
+he would think it no sin to call at that repository for stolen goods the
+“piece broker’s,” and sell there a strip of your unused cloth for a
+shilling, but you may safely trust him in the hall where the hats and
+umbrellas and overcoats are.  He would as soon think of breaking into
+your house with crowbars and skeleton keys, as of abstracting a
+handkerchief he saw peeping out of a pocket of one of the said coats.
+
+As with the tailor, so it is with the upholsterer, and the dressmaker,
+and the paperhanger, and the plumber, and all the rest of them.  I don’t
+say that every time they take a shred of this, or a pound weight of that,
+that they have before their eyes the enormity of the offence they are
+about to commit.  What they do they see no great harm in.  Indeed, point
+out to them and make it clear that their offence has but to be brought
+fairly before the criminal authorities to ensure them a month on the
+treadmill, and they would as a rule be shocked past repeating the
+delinquency.  And well would it be if they were shocked past it, ere
+misfortune overtake them.  It is when “hard up” times set in, and it is
+difficult indeed to earn an honest penny, that these rudimentary
+exercises in the art of pillage tell against a man.  It is then that he
+requires his armour of proof against temptation, and lo! it is full of
+holes and rust-eaten places, and he falls at the first assault of the
+enemy.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+CRIMINAL SUPPRESSION AND PUNISHMENT.
+
+
+_Lord Romilly’s Suggestion concerning the Education of the Children of
+Criminals_.—_Desperate Criminals_.—_The Alleys of the Borough_.—_The
+worst Quarters not_, _as a rule_, _the most Noisy_.—_The Evil Example of_
+“_Gallows Heroes_,” “_Dick Turpin_,” “_Blueskin_,” _&c._—_The Talent for_
+“_Gammoning Lady Green_.”—_A worthy Governor’s Opinion as to the best way
+of_ “_Breaking_” _a Bad Boy_.—_Affection for_ “_Mother_.”—_The Dark Cell
+and its Inmate_.—_An Affecting Interview_.
+
+NO less an authority than Lord Romilly, discoursing on the alarming
+prevalence and increase of crime, especially amongst the juveniles of the
+criminal class, remarks: “It is a recognised fact, that there is a great
+disposition on the part of children to follow the vocation of their
+father, and in the case of the children of thieves there is no
+alternative.  They become thieves, because they are educated in the way,
+and have no other trade to apply themselves to.  To strike at the root of
+the evil, I would suggest, that if a man committed felony, all his
+children under the age, say of ten, should be taken from him, and
+educated at the expense of the State.  It might perhaps be said, that a
+man who wanted to provide for his children, need in that case only to
+commit felony to accomplish his object, but I believe that the effect
+would be just the contrary.  I believe that no respectable person would
+commit felony for such a purpose, and that if we knew more about the
+feelings of thieves, we should find that they had amongst them a species
+of morality, and displayed affection for their children.  My opinion is,
+that to take their children away from them would be an effectual mode of
+punishment; and though the expense might be great, it would be repaid in
+a few years by the diminution in crime.”
+
+Although Lord Romilly’s opinions on this subject may be somewhat in
+advance of those commonly prevalent, there can be no question that they
+tend in the right direction.  Crime may be suppressed, but it can never
+be exterminated by simply lopping the flourishing boughs and branches it
+puts forth; it should be attacked at the root, and the thief child is the
+root of the adult growth, tough, strong-limbed, and six feet high.
+Precisely the same argument as that used as regards the abolition of
+neglected children applies in the case of the infant born in crime.  The
+nest in which for generations crime has bred should be destroyed.  It is
+only, however, to the initiated that the secluded spots where these nests
+may be found is known.  A correspondent of the _Times_ lately made an
+exploration, from the report of which the following is an extract.
+
+    “I was shown in the east and south sides of London what I may almost
+    say were scores of men, about whom the detectives, who accompanied
+    me, expressed grave doubts as to my life being safe among them for a
+    single hour, if it were known I had £20 or £30 about me; and above
+    all, if the crime of knocking me on the head could be committed under
+    such circumstances as would afford fair probabilities of eluding
+    detection.  I don’t mean to say that these desperate criminals are
+    confined to any particular quarter of London; unfortunately they are
+    not, or if they were, there is only one particular quarter in which
+    we should wish to see them all confined, and that is Newgate.  But no
+    matter how numerous they may be elsewhere, there is certainly one
+    quarter in which they are pre-eminently abundant, and that is around
+    the alleys of the Borough.  Here are to be found, not only the lowest
+    description of infamous houses, but the very nests and nurseries of
+    crime.  The great mass of the class here is simply incorrigible.
+    Their hand is against every man; their life is one continuous
+    conspiracy against the usages of property and safety of society.
+    They have been suckled, cradled and hardened in scenes of guilt,
+    intemperance, and profligacy.  Here are to be found the lowest of the
+    low class of beershops in London, and probably in the world, the
+    acknowledged haunts of “smashers,” burglars, thieves and forgers.
+    There is hardly a grade in crime, the chief representatives of which
+    may not be met among the purlieus of the Borough.  There are people
+    who have been convicted over and over again, but there are also
+    hundreds of known ruffians who are as yet unconvicted, and who, by
+    marvellous good luck, as well as by subtle cunning, have managed up
+    to the present time to elude detection.  It is the greatest error to
+    suppose that all, or even a majority of the criminal classes are
+    continually passing through the hands of justice.  Griffith, the
+    hank-note forger, who was tried, I think, in 1862, stated in prison
+    that he had carried on the printing of counterfeit notes for more
+    than 15 years.  Of course this man was sedulous in concealing his
+    occupation from the police, but there are hundreds of others who
+    almost openly follow equally criminal and far more dangerous pursuits
+    with whom the police cannot interfere.  Our present business should
+    be to look up these vagabonds, and our future vocation to destroy
+    their recognised haunts.  It is no good killing one wasp when we
+    leave the nest untouched.  Thieves, it must be remembered, are a
+    complete fraternity, and have a perfect organization among
+    themselves.  The quarter round Kent Street, in the Borough, for
+    instance, is almost wholly tenanted by them, and the houses they
+    occupy are very good property, for thieves will pay almost any amount
+    of rent, and pay it regularly, for the sake of keeping together.  The
+    aspect of this quarter is low, foul and dingy.  Obscurity of language
+    and conduct is of course common to all parts of it, but it is not as
+    a rule a riotous neighbourhood.  Thieves do not rob each other, and
+    they have a wholesome fear of making rows, lest it should bring the
+    police into their notorious territory.  These haunts are not only the
+    refuges and abiding places of criminals, but they are the training
+    colleges for young thieves.  Apart from the crimes which arise, I
+    might say almost naturally from passion or poverty—apart also from
+    the mere relaxation of moral culture, caused by the daily exhibition
+    of apparent success in crime, it is known that an organized
+    corruption is carried on by the adult thieves among the lads of
+    London.”
+
+It is by laying hands on these children, and providing them with
+employment, the pleasurable exercise of which shall of itself convince
+them how infinitely superior as a “policy” honesty is to be preferred to
+that which consigned their father to Portland, that we may do more good
+than by the concoction of as many legislative enactments as have had
+birth since Magna Charta.  Of the children who are not the progeny of
+thieves, but who somehow find their way into the criminal ranks, it is
+undoubtedly true that pernicious literature, more than once alluded to in
+these pages, does much to influence them towards evil courses.  This is a
+belief that is justified, not alone by observation and inference, but by
+the confession of juvenile prisoners themselves.  It is a fact that at
+least fifty per cent. of the young thieves lodged in gaol, when
+questioned on the subject, affect that it was the shining example
+furnished by such gallows heroes as “Dick Turpin” and “Blueskin,” that
+first beguiled them from the path of rectitude, and that a large
+proportion of their ill-gotten gains was expended in the purchase of such
+delectable biographies.
+
+This, however, is ground that should be trod with caution.  Useful as
+such revelations may be in guiding us towards conclusions on which
+vigorous action may be based, it should be constantly borne in mind that
+it is not all pure and untainted truth that proceeds from the mouths of
+the juvenile habitual criminal in gaol any more than from his elders
+under the same conditions.  A talent for gammoning “Lady Green,” as the
+prison chaplain is irreverently styled, is highly appreciated amongst the
+thieving fraternity.  Boys are as quick-witted as men in their way, and
+on certain matters much quicker.  They are less doggedly obstinate than
+most adults of the same class, and more keenly alive to mischief,
+especially when its practice may bring them some benefit.  I have
+witnessed several instances of this, and many others have been brought
+under my notice by prison officials.  As, for instance, in a certain gaol
+that shall be nameless, the governor has a fixed conviction that the one
+huge fountain head of juvenile depravity is the tobacco pipe.  And ample
+indeed are his grounds for such conclusion, since almost every boy that
+comes into his custody testifies to his sagacity.  His old customers
+never fail.  He invariably questions the male delinquent on the subject,
+and as invariably he gets the answer he expects, and which favours his
+pet theory: “It is all through smoking, sir; I never knowed what bad
+’abits was afore I took to ‘bacca.’”  The probabilities, however, are
+that the little villains are aware of the governor’s weakness, and humour
+it.
+
+It would seem so the more, because these same boys when quartered in
+another gaol, the master of which rode a hobby of another pattern, alter
+their tune so as to meet the emergency.  There is a prison in the suburbs
+of London, one of the largest, and as far as I have had opportunity of
+judging, one of the best managed and conducted; but the governor of it
+has his boy-weakness.  He is quite convinced in his own mind that the
+main spring of crime is the perusal of the sort of literature herein
+alluded to.  This is a fact generally known among the juvenile criminal
+population, and they never fail to make the most of it when the time
+comes.  I went the rounds of his gaol with this governor on one occasion,
+when the “boy wing” was occupied by about forty tenants, and in each case
+was the important question put, and in the majority of cases it was
+answered, “It was them there penny numbers what I used to take in, sir,”
+or words to that effect, and the little humbug was rewarded by a pat on
+the head, and an admonition “always to speak the truth.”
+
+The same gentleman has another peculiarity; it does not deserve to be
+stigmatised a weakness, its nature is so amiable.  He has a firm belief
+that the best way of “breaking” a bad boy, is to appeal to his bygone
+affection for his mother.  “The boy who is callous to an appeal of that
+sort is past hope in my opinion,” said the worthy governor, and in
+justice to the lads at the time in his keeping, I must confess that there
+was not a callous one amongst them, for they all most dutifully wept, in
+some cases bellowed as loudly as the stern restriction of the silent
+system would permit, as soon as the delicate subject was broached.
+
+The effect of this talisman was curiously exhibited in the case of a boy,
+about as depraved and hardened a little wretch as it is possible to
+imagine.  He had only been admitted the previous day, and already he was
+incarcerated in a dark cell for outrageous conduct.
+
+I had never before seen a dark cell, and therefore had no idea of the
+horrible place it was.  A cell within a cell.  The interior of the first
+is so black that when the governor entered it I speedily lost sight of
+him, and I was only made aware of his opening an inner door by hearing
+the key clicking in the lock.
+
+“Come out here, lad,” he exclaimed firmly, but kindly.
+
+The lad came out, looming like a small and ragged patch of twilight in
+utter blackness until he gradually appeared before us.  He was not a big
+lad, not more than thirteen years old, I should say, with a short-cropped
+bullet-head, and with an old hard face with twice thirteen years of vice
+in it.
+
+The prison dress consisted of a sort of blouse and trousers, both of a
+stout woollen material of slate colour.  It was evening, and evidently,
+the captive, hopeless of release that night, had, previously to our
+disturbing him, composed himself for slumber.  His method, doubtless
+derived from frequent experience of so disposing his attire as to get as
+much warmth out of it as possible, was somewhat curious: he had released
+his trousers of their braces, so that they descended below his feet, and
+the collar of his blouse was pulled up high over his ears.  Owing to his
+embarrassed habiliments, he shambled out of the pitchy blackness at a
+snail’s pace, his white cotton braces trailing behind like a tail, and
+completing his goblin-like appearance.
+
+“This is a very bad lad, sir,” remarked the governor sternly; “he only
+came in yesterday, and to-day while out for exercise with the others, he
+must misconduct himself, and when the warder reproved him, he must swear
+some horrible oath against him.  It is for that he is here.  How many
+times have you been here, lad?”
+
+_Lad_ (gulping desperately).  “Three times, sir!”
+
+_Governor_ (sternly).  “What! speak the truth, lad.”
+
+_Lad_ (with a determined effort to gouge tears out of his eyes with his
+knuckles).  “Four times, sir.”
+
+_Governor_.  “Four times! and so you’ll go on till you are sent away, I’m
+afraid.  Can you read, lad?”
+
+_Lad_ (with a penitential wriggle).  “Yes, sir; I wish as I couldn’t,
+sir.”
+
+_Governor_.  “Ah! why so?”
+
+_Lad_ (with a doleful wag of his bullet-head).  “Cos then I shouldn’t
+have read none of them highwaymen’s books, sir; it was them as was the
+beginning of it.”
+
+_Governor_.  “Ah!” (a pause)  “Have you a mother, my lad?”
+
+_Lad_.  “Boo-oh!”
+
+_Governor_.  “Answer me, my lad, have you a mother?”
+
+_Lad_ (convulsively clasping the corners of his collars, and hiding his
+eyes in them).  “Ye-ye-ess, sir!”
+
+_Governor_.  “Ah, I thought so! where does she live?”
+
+_Lad_.  “Man-manchester, please, sir!” (a tremulous sniff, indicative of
+the impending explosion).
+
+_Governor_.  “And what do you think would be her feelings could she see
+you as you now are?”
+
+_Lad_.  “Boo-ooh” (here a writhe so agonized that a hand had to be spared
+from his eyes to save his trousers from slipping down).  “Boo-ooh!  I was
+just a thinkin’ on her when you opened the cell, sir!  Boo-oo-ooh!”
+
+_Governor_.  “You were thinking of your mother, eh?  Well, well, I’m glad
+to hear that.  If I let you go back to your own cell, will you promise
+never to swear again?”
+
+_Lad_.  “Booh! yes, sir.”
+
+_Governor_.  “You may go, then.”
+
+And with a countenance almost radiant with his unexpected stroke of good
+luck, the incorrigible young thief grasped his trouser legs, and scuttled
+up the long dim corridor till, except for his white tail, he was lost in
+the darkness.
+
+“They don’t like the dark cell,” remarked the humane governor, as he
+gazed after the retreating figure; “anything rather than that.”
+
+“The younger prisoners especially, I should say,” I returned.
+
+“Oh, I don’t know that,” said the governor, at the same time, however,
+shaking his head rather as a man who _did_ know, but did not care to say.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+ADULT CRIMINALS AND THE NEW LAW FOR THEIR BETTER GOVERNMENT.
+
+
+_Recent Legislation_.—_Statistics_.—_Lord Kimberley’s_ “_Habitual
+Criminals_” _Bill_.—_The Present System of Licence-Holders_.—_Colonel
+Henderson’s Report_.—_Social Enemies of Suspected Men_.—_The Wrong-Headed
+Policeman and the Mischief he may Cause_.—_Looking Out for a
+Chance_.—_The Last Resource of Desperate Honesty_.—_A Brotherly
+Appeal_.—“_Ginger will Settle Her_.”—_Ruffians who should be Imprisoned
+for Life_.
+
+REGARDING the terms professional thief and habitual criminal as
+synonymous, now that we come to consider briefly what are at present the
+means adopted for the reformation of criminals and the suppression and
+punishment of crime, and what the most recent and plausible suggestions
+for amendment and improvement, we find the work already done to our hand,
+and naught remains but to cull from the shoals of evidence _pro_ and
+_con_ that have been lately set before the public.
+
+The total cost of our prisons and prisoners for the year 1867, was
+£657,129, distributed as follows: (1) Extraordinary charges for new
+buildings, &c., £177,553 19s. 9d.  (2) Ordinary charges £108,218 15s.
+11d.  (3) Officers’ salaries, &c., £213,285 15s. 5d., and (4) Prisoners’
+diet, sick allowances, clothing, &c., £158,071 5s. 3d.  The average
+yearly charge per prisoner under each head of costs, was as follows:—(1)
+Extraordinary charges £9 17s. 4d.  (2.) Ordinary annual charges £6 0s.
+3d. (making together £15 17s. 7d.).  (3) Officers and attendants £11 17s.
+1d.  (4) Prisoners’ diet £6 11s. 1d., and clothing £2 4s. 7d. (together
+£8 15s. 8d.), making a total per prisoner of £36 10s. 4d., or omitting
+the extraordinary charge for buildings, &c., £26 13s.  The average of £36
+10s. 4d. is higher than the corresponding average for 1865–6 by £2 1s.
+8d.  The average of £26 13s. is higher than the corresponding average by
+15s. 1d.  These averages are calculated upon the total amounts under each
+head of expenditure, and the total daily average number in all the
+prisons.  The average cost per prisoner naturally shows great variation
+in different prisons.  The highest is at Alnwick, viz.: £114 3s. 2d.
+against £110 1s. 2d. in 1865–6, £108 2s. 5d. in 1864–5, and £88 15s. 11d.
+in 1863–4, _with a daily average of one prisoner in each year_!  At
+Oakham, the average cost for 1866–7 is £80 13s. 3d., with a daily average
+of 10 prisoners against £93 16s. 2d. in 1865–6, and £87 1s. 9d. in
+1864–5, with the daily average of 8 prisoners in each of those years; at
+Appleby £70 2s. with a daily average of 6 prisoners; at Ilford £51 6s.
+with a daily average of 20 prisoners.  The lowest averages are as
+follows: At Hull £16 17s., with a daily average of 173 prisoners; at
+Salford £16 17s. 8d., with a daily average of 568 prisoners; at Liverpool
+£18 8s. 9d. with a daily average of 952 prisoners; at Devonport £18 12s.
+4d., with a daily average of 58 prisoners; at Durham £18 16s. 9d., with a
+daily average of 433 prisoners; and at Manchester £19 1s. 3d., with a
+daily average of 631 prisoners.  The following are the comparative costs
+per prisoner for the whole of the prisons for each of the last six
+years:—£24 3s. 4d., £23 7s. 5d., £23 7s. 10d., £24 3s. 3d., £25 17s.
+11d., and £26 13s.
+
+The total number of police and constabulary for the same year, is set
+down at 24,073 as against 23,728 in the year preceding.  The total cost
+for the year is £1,920,505 12s. 2d. as against £1,827,105 16s. 7d. in
+1866, an increase of upwards of 5 per cent. following an increase of
+£78,647 17s. 1d., or 4.5 per cent. upon the amount for 1864–5.  As
+compared with the total costs for 1856–7, the first year for which
+returns were made under the Act; the increase in 1866–7 amounts to
+£654,926, or upwards of 51 per cent.  The increase in the number of the
+police and constabulary during the same period is 4,886, or upwards of 25
+per cent.
+
+The number of persons committed for trial in 1867 was less than the
+number for any of the four years immediately preceding 1866.  The
+increase in 1867, as compared with 1866, is in the number of males, viz.,
+328.  In the number of females there is a _decrease_ of 206.  The
+following are the numbers committed for trial in each of the last 20
+years:—
+
+   1848     30,349     1855     25,972     1862     20,001
+   1849     27,816     1856     19,437     1863     20,818
+   1850     26,813     1857     20,269     1864     19,506
+   1851     27,960     1858     17,855     1865     19,614
+   1852     27,510     1859     16,674     1866     18,849
+   1853     27,057     1860     15,999     1867     18,971
+   1854     29,359     1861     18,326
+
+As already intimated in these pages, Lord Kimberley is responsible for
+introducing the broad and important subject of Criminal Law Reform to the
+legislature for its reconsideration and reformation.  In introducing this
+bill for the suppression of crime, his lordship reminded the peers
+assembled that in the year 1853, after a very full discussion with
+respect to transportation it was resolved, partly on account of the evils
+of the system, and partly on account of the strong remonstrances of our
+Australian colonists to whom our convicts had been sent, that it should,
+to a considerable extent cease, and that accordingly an Act was passed
+imposing for the first time the sentence of penal servitude as a
+substitute for transportation in the greater number of cases.  From that
+time transportation was limited to Western Australia and the Bermudas.
+The numbers sent to Western Australia did not average more than 460 per
+annum.  The colonists, however, despite this moderate consignment, felt
+by no means flattered by the distinction conferred on them, and in
+consideration of their strong remonstrances, in the course of a few years
+transportation to Australia entirely ceased.
+
+Penal servitude was the arrangement substituted, and the chief feature of
+it was the ticket-of-leave.  The system promised well, but no sooner was
+it fairly at work than the public took alarm at the number of convicts
+scattered over the country holding these tickets, and then another change
+was resolved on.  A commission, presided over by Lord Carnarvon, was
+appointed to examine the whole question of penal servitude, and the
+result was a report containing several important recommendations.
+Foremost of these was that sentences of penal servitude which had been as
+short as three years, should not, in future, be passed for shorter terms
+than seven years.  Another, almost equally important, was to the effect
+that convicts sentenced to penal servitude should be subjected in the
+first place to nine months separate imprisonment, and then to labour on
+public works for the remainder of the term for which they were sentenced,
+but with a power of earning by industry and good conduct an abridgment of
+this part of punishment.  The provision under which police supervision
+has since been carried out, and the conditions under which licences
+should be earned by good conduct, were also laid down.  As further stated
+by his lordship, when the Act of 1864 was under consideration, great
+doubts were expressed whether it was possible to carry out a satisfactory
+system by which the good conduct of convicts and their industry when
+employed on public works could be so measured that they should earn an
+abridgment of their sentences.  Experience, however, showed that the
+system in its working was to a great extent successful, especially when
+the management of the business in question fell into the hands of Colonel
+Henderson, who succeeded the late Sir Joshua Jebb.  Under Colonel
+Henderson’s supervision it has been found possible to exact from convicts
+the really hard and patient industry which is necessary before they can
+obtain a remission of their sentences.  The value of the work performed
+by convicts at the three convict prisons—Portsmouth, Portland, and
+Chatham—was during the year 1868, £106,421; while the cost of maintaining
+those establishments was £110,532, so that the earnings nearly equalled
+the whole expense to which the country was put; indeed, as regards
+Chatham, where there are great facilities for remunerative work in making
+bricks for public works, there was an actual profit.  In 1867 the average
+daily number of convicts at Chatham was 990, and the value of their
+labour was £40,898 7s., while the cost of their maintenance and
+supervision was £35,315 18s., there being thus a surplus of £5,582 9s.
+Under this new and improved system, in which the feature last quoted
+shows so satisfactorily, crime decreased.  In 1865–6 the indictable
+offences committed numbered 50,549, and in 1866–7 they were 55,538,
+showing an increase of 4,989, or something under 10 per cent.  From 1856
+to 1862, the convictions excluding summary ones, the annual average was
+13,859, while in 1867 the number was 14,207.  His Lordship explained that
+he began with 1856, because in the previous year the Criminal
+Jurisdiction Act was passed, enabling a considerable number of crimes to
+be dealt with summarily.  Although this shows an apparent increase from
+13,859 to 14,207, it must be remembered that in the interval the
+population increased by nearly two and a-half millions, so that there is
+a decrease rather than an increase in proportion to the population.
+Satisfactory, however, as was this result, it appeared to Lord Kimberley
+that, as we naturally obtain fresh experience from year to year, fresh
+opportunities of committing crime being discovered, and fresh means of
+meeting these offences, it is necessary from time to time to re-adjust
+our system, and make it more complete.  Another reason for carefully
+scrutinising, and seeing whether we cannot improve our system, is the
+complete cessation of transportation; for though during the last few
+years we have not sent out to our colonics any very large number of
+convicts, it is obvious that for 500 convicts a year to remain in this
+country involves a considerable increase of the convict population.  The
+number of males now on licence is 1,566, and of females 441, in 1870 it
+will probably be 1,705, and about ten years hence it will probably be
+something under 3,000.
+
+These, however, form but a small portion of the great criminal class.  Of
+this latter the average of 1865–6, 1864–5 and 1863–4, shows the following
+results:
+
+Known thieves and depredators 22,959, receivers of stolen goods 3,095,
+prostitutes 27,186, suspected persons 29,468, vagrants and tramps 32,938,
+making a total of 122,646.  In the metropolis alone there were in 1866–7,
+14,648 persons living by dishonest means, and 5,628 prostitutes.  The
+number in 1865–6 being 14,491 and 5,554.
+
+The above being in the main Lord Kimberley’s grounds of justification for
+bringing forward his “Habitual Criminals’ Bill,” let us take its first
+provision, that applying to convicts, who on the strength of a
+ticket-of-leave are in the enjoyment of conditional liberty, and inquire
+what is precisely the system it is intended to supersede, and what are
+the practical results of the workings of this last mentioned system,
+viz.: that which on the recommendation of the committee, under the
+presidency of Lord Carnavon, became law in 1864.  The following
+memorandum as to the present system of licence holders reporting
+themselves to the police, under the Penal Servitude Amendment Act, 1864,
+was issued recently by Colonel Henderson, Commissioner of Police of the
+Metropolis:—
+
+    “A male licence holder is required personally to report himself at
+    the principal police-station of the district in which he resides
+    within three days of his liberation.  A printed descriptive form of
+    the licence holder is sent from the prison to the police with the
+    address where the man, previous to his liberation, stated he intended
+    to reside.  The officer on duty, when the licence holder reports
+    himself, instructs him in what he is required to do, and also
+    delivers to him a printed notice.  No further steps are then taken by
+    the police for a month from that date, when, if the licence holder
+    again reports himself, he is considered as complying with the law.
+
+    “After inquiry to ascertain if the address given is a correct one, no
+    further supervision is kept over him by the police, and his lodgings
+    are not again visited.
+
+    “If a licence holder neglects to report himself as above, or is seen,
+    or suspected of leading an irregular life, then the police make quiet
+    inquiry, and, as is frequently the case, if it is found that he has
+    left the address he was living at, his description is inserted in the
+    _Police Gazette_ with directions for apprehension.
+
+    “The employers are never informed by the police that they are
+    employing a licence holder.
+
+    “Licence holders apprehended for offences have complained to the
+    magistrates that the police harass them, but on investigation such
+    statements have always proved to be without foundation.
+
+    “No case has ever been known of police levying black mail on licence
+    holders.
+
+    “The Discharged Prisoners’ Aid Society, 39, Charing Cross, with the
+    sanction of the Secretary of State, undertakes the care of licence
+    holders.
+
+    “The licence holders who wish to place themselves under the care of
+    this Society are required to report themselves, on liberation, at the
+    King Street Police Station, Westminster, where they are served with a
+    notice.
+
+    “A messenger from Millbank Prison accompanies the licence holders to
+    the police-station, and after this form is gone through, all local
+    police supervision ceases until a report is made from the Society to
+    the Commissioner.
+
+    “Of 368 male licence holders discharged into the Metropolitan Police
+    district in 1868, 290 placed themselves under the care of the
+    Discharged Prisoners’ Aid Society, either on discharge or
+    subsequently.
+
+    “There have been difficulties in consequence of this divided
+    jurisdiction, but in the event of this bill passing, the supervision
+    of convicts who place themselves in charge of the Prisoners’ Aid
+    Society, will be carried on by the police, in conjunction with the
+    officers of the Society, and can be so arranged as to avoid any undue
+    interference with the men; in fact, it is quite as much the interest
+    of the police to endeavour to assist licence holders to get honest
+    work, as to arrest them if they misconduct themselves, and for this
+    purpose it would be quite sufficient if the licence holder were bound
+    by the conditions of his licence to report change of residence and
+    employment, the monthly report being of no particular value, so long
+    as proper supervision is exercised by the police.
+
+    “As regards the arrest of licence holders, or of persons who have
+    been twice convicted of felony, it is clear all must depend on the
+    personal knowledge of the police constable of the person and
+    antecedents of the suspected person.
+
+    “Under ordinary circumstances, no constable interferes with any
+    licence holder, nor would he arrest any man on suspicion, without
+    previously reporting the circumstances to the Commissioner, who would
+    order quiet inquiry to be made, and give instructions, if necessary,
+    for the man’s arrest.
+
+    “Identification would be rendered more easy than at present, by the
+    proposed central registration.”
+
+As the law at present stands, then, in the event of a ticket of leave man
+failing to comply with the police regulations, and on his being conveyed
+before a magistrate, it is provided that if the magistrate is satisfied
+that he is not earning an honest living, he may be committed to undergo
+his original term of imprisonment.  Under the restrictions of the
+proposed new Bill, however, much more stringent arrangements are
+suggested.  The onus of proving his honesty will rest with the man who
+holds the ticket.  “A licence holder may at any time be summoned by a
+police constable before a magistrate, and called upon to show that he is
+earning an honest livelihood, the burden of proof resting on him; if he
+cannot prove his honesty, he may be committed to undergo his original
+sentence of Penal Servitude.”
+
+Now it is evident on the face of it that the above quoted clause of the
+proposed “Habitual Criminals Bill” is beset by many grave objections.  In
+the first place, to vest such an amount of irresponsible power in the
+police is a step hardly warranted by one’s experience of the intelligence
+and integrity of the “force,” satisfactory on the whole as it may be.
+There can be no question that as a rule the superintendents and
+inspectors and sergeants are in every respect equal to the duties imposed
+on them; only for the unenviable notoriety lately achieved by a
+functionary still higher in command, commissioners also might have been
+included in the favourable list.
+
+It is equally true, too, that the great majority of the men of the
+“force” discharge their duty with efficiency; at the same time it is
+undeniable that there are exceptions to the good rule.  But too
+frequently do our criminal records remind us that virtue’s perfect armour
+is not invariably represented by the helmet and the coat of blue.  Only
+lately there occurred an alarming instance of this.  A gang of plunderers
+and receivers of stolen goods was apprehended, and presently there
+appeared on the scene an individual, then an inspector of railway
+detective police, and formerly holding a responsible position in the
+Metropolitan force, taking on himself, with a coolness that bespoke his
+long experience, the office of screening the thief and arranging his
+escape from the law’s righteous grasp.  Richards is this fellow’s name,
+and he was evidently well known to a large circle of acquaintance, whose
+fame is recorded in the records of the Old Bailey.  With amazing audacity
+Mr. Richards addressed himself to the two detective policemen who had the
+case in hand, and offered them ten pounds each if they would accommodate
+his clients by committing perjury when the day of trial came.  Happily
+the integrity of the two officers was proof against the tempting bribe,
+and the unfortunate negotiator found himself even deeper in the mire than
+those his disinterested good nature would have aided.  At the same time
+one cannot refrain from asking, is this the first time that Mr. Richards
+has evinced his obliging disposition, and the still more important
+question, does he stand alone, or are there others of his school?  As is
+the case with all large communities, the police force must include in its
+number men malicious, prejudiced, wrong-headed and foolish.  Probably
+there are no serious grounds for the alarm that under the convenient
+cloak the clause in question provides, the policeman, unscrupulous and
+dishonest, might by levying black mail on the poor wretches so completely
+in his power, reap a rich and iniquitous harvest, and render nugatory one
+of the Bill’s prime provisions.  This is an objection that carries no
+great weight.  No law that could be passed could put the criminal, the
+burglar, and the house-breaker more at the mercy of the dishonest
+policeman than he now is.  As repeatedly appears in our criminal reports,
+the sort of odd intimacy that commonly exists between the thief and his
+natural enemy, the policeman, is very remarkable; the latter is as well
+acquainted with the haunts of the former as he is with the abodes of his
+own friends and relatives.  Should the enemies meet in the street, the
+acquaintance is acknowledged by a sort of confident
+“I-can-have-you-whenever-I-want-you” look on the one part, and a half
+devil-may-care, half deprecatory glance on the other.  When the crisis
+arrives, and the thief is “wanted,” he is hailed as Jack, Tom, or Bill,
+and the capture is effected in the most comfortable and business-like
+manner imaginable.
+
+Under such an harmonious condition of affairs, nothing could be easier,
+were they both agreed, than bribery and corruption of the most villanous
+sort, and, taking Colonel Henderson’s word, “that no case has ever been
+known of police levying black mail on licence holders,” and further,
+considering the inadequate pay the policeman receives for the amount of
+intelligent and vigilant service required of him, the country may be
+congratulated on possessing, on the whole, such an almost unexceptionally
+good servant.
+
+It is the wrong-headed policeman, probably, who would work the greatest
+amount of mischief in this direction.  The busy, over-zealous man,
+neither malicious, dishonest, nor vindictive, but simply a little too
+anxious to win for himself a character for “shrewdness and intelligence.”
+This would probably be the young policeman, desirous of making up for his
+lack of experience by a display of extraordinary sagacity.  To such a
+man’s home-bred, unofficially cultivated ideas of right and wrong, it
+would appear of small use “suspecting” an individual, unless he
+immediately set about testing him with the utmost severity to know the
+extent to which the suspicion was justified.
+
+To be sure, an attempt is made in the Bill, as it passed the Lords, to
+guard against the weaknesses and shortcomings of constables by making it
+incumbent on them to obtain the written authority of a superior before
+they arrest and take a man before a magistrate; but really this may mean
+just nothing at all.  It may be assumed that all the evidence a director
+of police would require before he granted a written authority, would be
+the declaration of the policeman applying for it that he had fair grounds
+for making the application.  Undoubtedly he would be expected to make out
+a good case; but that, as an over-zealous and prejudiced man, he would be
+sure to do.  The superintendent, or whoever it was that had power to
+issue a written warrant for a “suspect’s” apprehension, could not, by
+examination of the prisoner, convince himself of the justice of the act
+of his subordinate, to do which would be to usurp the magisterial office.
+And the process would probably be attended with this disadvantage,—that
+the said written order for arrest would wear an importance that really
+did not belong to it.  If a man were arrested simply on the authority of
+a common policeman, the chances are that the magistrate would scrutinise
+the case narrowly, and be guided to a conviction solely by the evidence
+and his own discretion; but the case would come under the new act before
+him to a large extent prejudiced.  He is instructed that the warrant that
+legalised the man’s apprehension was not issued in vague supposition that
+it might he justifiable: an official of the law—a man high in
+authority—has sanctioned the arrest, and here is his written testimony
+that he considered the step expedient.
+
+Again, let us for a moment contemplate the difficulties that must always
+attend the proving of his honesty by a man who, according to the high
+authority of the Lord Chancellor, has “no character to lose.”  “As to
+what was said about the injury done to a man’s character by supervision,
+he must observe that a man’s character was gone after two convictions.
+It was idle to say that after two convictions a man had a character.”
+
+In the case of a man against whom nothing criminal was ever suspected, it
+might be easy enough for him to prove his honesty any day, or any hour of
+the day, he might be called on to do so; but it is altogether different
+with the individual who dare not even lay claim to a character for
+honesty, to prove that the suspicions entertained against him are
+unfounded.  It should be borne in mind that the difficulties of the poor
+wretch’s condition almost preclude the possibility of his making a show
+of earning his bread in a worthy manner.  In the majority of cases he
+will be found to be a man without a trade, or, if he has one, he will
+probably sink it, and endeavour to keep out of sight of all who knew him
+and the story of his downfall, by hiding amongst the great multitude who
+turn their hands to any rough-and-ready labour that will bring them a
+shilling.  There are hundreds and thousands of men in London, and indeed
+in all great cities, who “pick up” a living somehow—anyhow, and who,
+though they all the time are honest fellows, would find it difficult to
+account for, and bring forward evidence to show, how they were engaged
+last Monday, and again on Wednesday, and what they earned, and whom they
+earned it of.  Such men “job about,” very often in localities that, in
+the case of a man under police supervision, to be seen there would be to
+rouse suspicions as to his intentions.  For instance, many a shilling or
+sixpence is “picked up” by men who have nothing better to do, by hanging
+about railway stations and steamboat wharves, and looking out for
+passengers who have luggage they wish carried.  But supposing that a man,
+a “ticket-of-leave,” was to resort to such a means of obtaining a
+livelihood, and that he was seen “hanging about” such places day after
+day by a watchful detective who knew who and what he was,—with what
+amount of credulity would the authorities receive his statement that he
+was “looking out for a chance to carry somebody’s trunk or carpetbag”!
+In all probability the naïve assertion would provoke a smile on the face
+of the magistrate who heard the case, and there would be “laughter” in
+court.
+
+Again, as is well known, hundreds of men seek work at the docks.  It
+might be supposed by their innocent lordships that nothing could be
+easier than for a man to prove his employment at such gigantic and
+sternly-regulated establishments as the London or St. Katherine Docks,
+with their staff of liveried officials and responsible gate-keepers.  The
+dock-labourer, on his admittance, is furnished with a ticket, and when he
+leaves he is searched so as to make sure that he has stolen none of the
+valuable goods scattered in every direction.  But it is a fact that no
+system can be looser or more shambling or shabbier than that which rules
+in the drudgery departments of these great emporiums for ship-loading and
+warehousing.  Every morning the dock-gates are besieged by a mob
+clamorous as that which in the old time swarmed about the door of the
+casual-ward; and if rags and patches and hunger-pinched visages go for
+anything, the quality of both mobs is much of a sort.  It is only men who
+can find nothing else to do who apply at the docks for work, for the pay
+is but threepence an hour, and the labour, hoisting-out and landing goods
+from the holds of ships, is cruelly hard; and it is not uncommon to
+employ a man for an hour and a half or two hours, and then discharge him.
+But it is better than nothing, and it is the “ready penny”—emphatically
+the penny—that the miserable, shamefaced, twice-convicted man, with some
+remnant of conscience and good intent remaining in him, would seek as the
+last resource of desperate honesty, all other sources failing him.  But
+it would be next to impossible for him to prove that he had been working
+at the docks; no one knows him there.  He might be there employed twenty
+times, and each time in a different gang, and under a different ganger.
+His workmates for the time are strangers, bearing not names, but numbers.
+Were it to save his life, he would find it hard to prove that he
+occasionally found a “job” at the docks, and, despite all his honest
+exertions, he would he liable to have his ticket revoked, and be sent
+back to finish to its full length his original sentence.
+
+Again, it might even happen that a suspected man able to prove his
+honesty would find himself almost in as complete a fix as the one who,
+through circumstances over which he had no control, was unable to do so.
+Under the existing system, we have Colonel Henderson’s word for it,
+masters are never informed by the police that they are employing a
+license-holder; but he would cease to be assured this immense advantage
+if Lord Kimberley has his way with him.  As Earl Shaftesbury pertinently
+remarks: “A holder of the ticket-of-leave goes before a magistrate; and
+what happens?  He proves that he is earning an honest livelihood, and the
+magistrate dismisses him.  He returns to his work, and his employer
+dismisses him also.  It has occurred before now that men have been
+dismissed by their employers under somewhat similar circumstances.  How
+can you compensate a man for such a loss as that?  You cannot do it; and
+yet you expose men who may be earning an honest livelihood to the danger
+of that happening to them if they refuse a demand for hush-money, or in
+any other way give offence to a dishonest police-constable.  I know at
+the present moment a young man who, though convicted, is now in
+respectable employment, and in the receipt of good wages.  He is living
+in terror, lest, under the circumstances to which I have referred, he may
+be brought before a police-magistrate.  Depend on it that hundreds of men
+in that position are now watching the progress of this Bill.
+
+“On the authority of the late Sir Richard Mayne it has been stated that
+the police have, through the clause that insists on convicts reporting
+themselves monthly, been enabled to furnish employment to a good many of
+the ticket-of-leave men; this, however, is very doubtful.  That some
+situations may have been obtained for these men through the exertions of
+the police and the Discharged Prisoners’ Aid Society may be true; but of
+this I am certain, that whatever returns the police may make of the
+places they have obtained for released convicts, they have not obtained
+anything like the number that those men obtained for themselves before
+the adoption of so stringent a provision.”
+
+There is undoubtedly a depth of criminality to which it is possible for a
+man to descend, putting himself utterly beyond reach of anything but
+human compassion.  His conversion is quite hopeless, and he is no better
+than a predatory wild-beast, whose ferocity will endure just as long as
+his brute-strength remains; he would probably bite his best friend at his
+dying gasp.  The sort of ruffian here alluded to will perhaps be better
+understood by aid of the following illustration, “drawn from life” not
+many months since.  It is a case of a ruffian committed for trial for
+“garotting” and nearly murdering a gentleman.  The delectable epistle was
+written by garotter “Bill” to his brother; and was intrusted to a
+prisoner, who had served his time and was about to quit the gaol, for
+hand-delivery.  Either out of fear or forgetfulness, however, the letter
+was left behind and discovered by the authorities.
+
+    “Dundee Prison, July 18th, 1868.—Dear Brother, the only thing I am
+    afraid of is that moll; if you can manage to square her I fear
+    nothing; but if she swears she saw me have him by the throat it will
+    not go well with me, for they are most d—d down on garotting.  Then
+    again, if she says she saw him with that amount of money, by —! they
+    might put me in for the robbery too; and there is seven years dead
+    certain.  You don’t know what a b— like that will say.  It can surely
+    to God be squared between so many of you, and only the moll to come
+    against me.  If the bloke is in town he could be easily squared, I
+    think; you could get him sweet, put the gloves on him, and things
+    like that, and get him to say he cannot swear to me in court; that
+    would be all that was wanted; or it is very easy giving that moll a
+    dose.  Put Ginger up to it; who the h— would take notice of a w—
+    kicking the bucket?  I would do it for you.  If any of them is
+    squared, tell Ginger to just sign M. H. at the bottom of her letter,
+    so as I may know.  I think it would be a good idea for my mother to
+    get the bloke privately, and make an appeal to him; he would have a
+    little feeling for her, I think; if you was getting him into the
+    Garrick the wifey could talk to him so fine.  If you only had one of
+    them squared that’s all that is wanted; for I am certain there is no
+    more against me than them two.  Set your brains to work, and stick at
+    nothing; tell them not to be afraid of perjury in this case; they
+    can’t be brought in for it nohow; swear black is white; I must get
+    off if they do the right thing; swear to anything; swear the b— wigs
+    off their heads; there is no danger of being brought in for perjury
+    in this case, not a d—d bit.—BILL.”
+
+At the head of the letter the following was written across the page:
+
+    “Poison the moll if she will not do what’s right; by C—! I would
+    think d—d little of doing it to save my brother!  Ginger will fix her
+    if you tell her to.”
+
+The following was written inside the envelope of the letter:
+
+    “They must not forget about me having a sore hand; that might help me
+    too, as it would not be very likely I could seize him by the throat
+    and compress the same, as it is stated in my indictment.  That will
+    be a good point, I think, he being a stout man.  Tell them to be sure
+    and stick to not seeing the bloke, and that I slept in the house that
+    night; not likely that I could hold him with one hand; they can swear
+    that my right hand was very sore, not fit to be used anyhow, as it
+    was, and no mistake.”
+
+It came out in the course of the evidence that the meaning of the word
+“bloke” was “a man whom a woman might pick up in the street;” that “moll”
+was the name for a woman; and that “Ginger” was a nickname for one of the
+female witnesses.
+
+To ruffians of this school, if to any, applies Lord Carnarvon’s terrible
+suggestion of imprisonment for life, without hope, or possibility even,
+of release.
+
+    “It is idle to say that the subject of so many convictions is not
+    absolutely and hopelessly hardened: they belong to a class of persons
+    on whom punishment is only wasted, and the only thing is to shut them
+    up for the rest of their lives, and keep them out of the possibility
+    of doing any harm to society.  I believe that such a course is best
+    for them and for society, and that no objection to it can be
+    reasonably urged.  The convict-establishments of this country are
+    already paying their way, and the surplus cost is very light; on the
+    other hand, if you look at the cost which a criminal puts the State
+    to in his detection, trial, and other criminal proceedings, it is
+    perfectly clear that the cheapest course for the country would be to
+    shut him up.  As far as the man himself is concerned it is also the
+    most humane and the kindest course.  He exchanges a most miserable
+    state of life outside the prison-walls, for one of comparative
+    cleanliness and order inside.  And if you calculate the time which
+    such a man has spent in prison—broken only by the shorter intervals
+    during which he has been let loose and again recaptured—it will be
+    found that the difference between the period actually spent in prison
+    and a lifelong sentence would really be very slight in amount.”
+
+As need not be mentioned, however, habitual criminals of the type above
+quoted are by far the exception, and not the rule.  Experience teaches us
+that to become a ticket-of-leave man is not invariably to be converted
+from a human creature to a callous brute,—blind and deaf in vice, and
+doggedly determined so to continue to the last; give him a fair chance to
+amend, and in very many cases he will embrace it, thankfully even.  The
+statistics of the Prisoners’ Aid Society encourage us to hope better of
+even the worst of the criminal class.  As has already been shown, the
+convicts themselves recognise and gratefully appreciate the advantages
+held out to them by the humanitarians whose head-quarters are by Charing
+Cross.  Of 368 male convicts discharged in one year, only 78 neglected to
+make application for the bounty.  It appears from the Society’s most
+recent return that the total number of discharged prisoners assisted by
+the association since May 1857 was 5,798, but the average number had
+recently decreased, because fewer prisoners had of late been released on
+license.  The number of those who had applied to the Society during the
+first six months of last year (1868) was 145, of whom 26 had emigrated;
+44 had found good and constant employment in the metropolis; 15 had gone
+to sea; 25 had been sent to places beyond the Metropolitan
+Police-district, and placed under the supervision of the local police,
+and 35 had been classed as unsatisfactory and bad: but these included all
+those who were known to be in honest employment, but were so classed
+because they failed to report themselves to the police, as required by
+the Act.
+
+It remains to be seen whether the Commons will give countenance to the
+new and severe measures sought by the Lords to be adopted against the
+convicted man at liberty under ticket-license.  One thing is certain, it
+would be better to do away altogether with tickets-of-leave than use them
+as stumbling-blocks to a man’s reformation.  The only object of a
+ticket-of-leave is to give the holder a chance of returning to honest
+courses some months earlier than, under the rigid term of his sentence,
+he would be enabled to.  Undoubtedly it is necessary to guard against, as
+far as possible, an abuse of the privilege.  Full and sufficient
+opportunity should be allowed a man to follow honest pursuits, if he be
+so inclined; but it is only fair that the authorities should reserve to
+themselves the power of holding him in tether, so to say, so as to be
+able to haul him back to fast anchorage, should his ill-behaviour make
+such a step desirable; but meanwhile the tether-line should run slack and
+free—it should by no means be wound about a man’s hands so as to impede
+his honest use of them, or about his neck so as to strangle him.  At
+Wakefield we are informed there is an organisation by which every
+prisoner on his discharge—whether on a ticket-of-leave or otherwise—could
+find a home for six or twelve months, till he is able to find employment
+for himself, or till an employer came to look for him.  Eighty per cent
+of the persons attached to the Wakefield establishment had engaged in,
+and settled down to, honest employment.  Surely such a result should
+encourage those in authority to found similar institutions in other parts
+of the country.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+To return, however, to the projected Habitual Criminals’ Bill.  It is not
+the ticket-of-leave man alone who has reasons for quaking lest it should
+become law; quaking for fear of injustice, not justice, that is to say.
+The class its stern provisions chiefly, and, as I venture to opine,
+cruelly affect are those unfortunates who have suffered two distinct
+terms of imprisonment.  From the date of his second conviction a man is
+to be subject to police supervision for a term of seven years.  They have
+the advantage over the ticket-of-leave man, that they are not required to
+report themselves periodically at a police-station; but, like the
+criminal of deeper dye, any day within their seven years of supervision
+they are liable to be arrested by the police and taken before a
+magistrate, to prove that they are not deriving a livelihood from
+dishonest sources.  Should they fail in doing so, they are to be
+committed to prison for a year.  Of the question itself, “What is an
+habitual criminal?” remarks the _Times_, commenting on the communication
+of its correspondent, “we say, take a walk with the police, and they will
+show you the class in all its varieties as easily as you could be shown
+the animals in the Zoological Gardens.  Here they are,—men about whose
+character and calling nobody would ever pretend to entertain a doubt.  We
+have been all perplexing ourselves with the possible fate of some
+contrite convict disposed to become respectable, but thwarted in his
+efforts by the intervention of the police.  Why, among the real genuine
+representatives of crime—among the people described by our
+correspondent—there is not a man who dreams, or ever would dream, of any
+honest calling . . .  The profession has its grades, like any other; and
+so here is a company of first-class thieves, and another company
+representing the opposite end of the scale.  At one establishment they
+are fashionably attired, and not altogether ill-mannered; at another the
+type is that of Bill Sykes himself, even to his bulldog.  But through all
+these descriptions, whether of house or inmate, host or guest, high or
+low, thief or receiver, there runs one assumption which we press upon our
+readers as practically decisive of the question before us.  It is this:
+that about ‘the habitual criminality’ of the whole class there is not, in
+the mind of any human creature concerned, the smallest doubt whatever. .
+. .  The practice of the past generation was simple: some petty offence
+commonly began, then as now, a criminal career.  It was detected and
+punished, and the criminal was sent back to his place in society.  A
+second, and perhaps a third, act of deeper guilt followed, and the
+graduate in crime was condemned to transportation beyond seas.  As long
+as this punishment retained any terrors it may have been efficient; but
+long before it was abandoned it had come to be recognised as an
+acknowledged benefit rather than a penalty by those who were sentenced to
+it.  The result was the constant secretion of a criminal class on one
+hand, and the removal on the other to another sphere when they became
+ripe for the voyage—the removal being viewed as an encouragement to the
+commission of similar offences.  We must make the painful acknowledgment
+that part of this dismal cycle cannot be materially altered.  When a man
+is convicted of his first criminal act, we cannot know whether it is an
+isolated deed or whether it is the first-fruit of a lifetime.  When he
+has gone from less to greater, and has proved himself indurated in crime,
+we are forced to protect society by removing him from it. . . .  Nor does
+the proposal involve that extensive and minute system of police
+_espionage_ of which some people have been apprehensive.  An honest man
+can always keep out of such questionable circumstances; and unless he
+places himself within them, he is as independent of the police as any
+unconvicted Englishman.  When a man has been twice convicted, it is
+surely no great hardship to deprive him of the privilege of attempting
+and plotting crime with impunity.”
+
+
+
+
+III.—Professional Beggars.
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+THE BEGGAR OF OLDEN TIME.
+
+
+“_Only a Beggar_”—_The Fraternity_ 333 _Years ago_—_A Savage Law_—_Origin
+of the Poor-Laws_—_Irish Distinction in the Ranks of Beggary_—_King
+Charles’s Proclamation_—_Cumberland Discipline_.
+
+WERE it not that the reader’s sound and simple sense renders it quite
+unnecessary, it might be of importance to premise that to be “only a
+beggar” does not constitute a human being a curse against his species.
+There are those amongst the greatest and most famous who have been
+beggars, and many of the mightiest, groaning under the crushing burden of
+distracting power and unruly riches, have bemoaned their fate and envied
+the careless beggar whose dwindled strength was at least equal to
+carrying his slender wallet, whose heart was as light as his stomach, and
+whose wildest dreams of wealth never soared vastly above a cosy barn to
+sleep in, a warm old cast-off coat, and a sixpence.  To be sure, in many
+instances these dissatisfied ones may not have given any steadfast
+consideration as regards such a decided change of state as might happen
+to suit them.  It is related of a King of Scotland that, wearying of the
+cares of government, he slipped away from his palace and its cloying
+luxuries, to taste the delights that attach to the existence of ragged
+roving mendicants; but though his majesty affected to have enjoyed
+himself very much, and discoursed afterwards gravely of the great moral
+profit it brought him, it is not recorded that he persevered for any very
+long time in the pursuit of the newly-discovered blessing, or that he
+evinced any violent longing to return to it.  Perhaps, having convinced
+himself of the advantages of poverty, he generously resolved to leave it
+to his subjects, contenting himself with such occasional glimpses of it
+as might be got by looking out o’ window.
+
+It is now 333 years ago since the beggar ceased to be dependent on
+voluntary charity, and the State insisted on his support by the parishes.
+In the year 1536 was passed an Act of Parliament abolishing the
+mendicant’s right to solicit public alms.  Under a penalty of twenty
+shillings a month for every case of default, the parochial authorities
+were bound to provide work for the able-bodied.  A poor’s-rate, as we now
+understand the term, was not then thought of, the money required for
+pauper relief being chiefly derived from collections in the churches, a
+system that to a limited extent enabled the clergy to exercise their
+pious influences as in the old times, and before the destruction of
+monasteries and religious houses by Henry VIII.  It was the wholesale
+spoliation in question, that occurred immediately after the Reformation,
+that first made known to the people at large the vast numbers of beggars
+that were amongst them.  The Act of 27 Henry VIII. c. 25, prohibited
+indiscriminate almsgiving.
+
+What the charitable townsman had to give, he was bound to distribute
+within the boundaries of the parish in which he resided.  Under the old
+and looser condition of affairs the beggar derived the greater part of
+his gettings from the traveller; but the obnoxious Act effectually cut
+off from him this fruitful source of supply, since it provided that any
+parishioner or townsman who distributed alms out of his proper district,
+should forfeit to the State ten times the amount given.  Whether the
+recipient of the bounty was in a position to act as “informer,” with the
+customary advantage of receiving half the penalty, is not stated.
+
+Against sturdy beggars the law was especially severe.  On his first
+conviction he was whipped, the second led to the slicing-off of his right
+ear, and if after that he was deaf to the law’s tender admonitions,
+sentence of death was executed on him.
+
+This savage law, however, remained in force not more than ten years; one
+of the earliest Acts of Edward VI. was to mitigate the penalties
+attaching to beggary.  Even under this humane King’s ruling, however, a
+beggar’s punishment was something very far beyond a joke.  Every person
+able to work, and not willing, and declining a “job,” though for no more
+tempting wages than his bare meat and drink, was liable to be branded on
+the shoulder, and any man willing to undertake the troublesome charge
+might claim the man as his slave for two years.  His scale of diet during
+that time was more meagre than that allotted to the pauper in our own
+times.  If the slave’s master was a generous man, he might bestow on him
+the scraps from his table, or such meat-offal as his dogs had no relish
+for; but in law he was only bound to provide him with a sufficiency of
+bread and water.  If such hot feeding did not provoke him to arouse and
+set to work with a will, his master might chain him and flog him to
+death’s door; and so long as he did not drive him beyond that, the law
+would hold him harmless.  Sometimes the poor wretch so goaded would run
+away, but in the event of his being recaptured, he was branded on the
+cheek, and condemned to lifelong servitude; and if this did not cure his
+propensity for “skedaddling,” he was hanged offhand.  Any employer having
+a fancy for such a commodity as an incorrigible runaway might have the
+man so condemned as his slave for life; but if no one offered, he was
+chained at the legs and set to work to keep the highways in repair.
+
+It was speedily found, however, that under such mild laws it was
+impossible to keep the begging fraternity in a proper frame of mind; and
+after a trial of it for three years the old Act of Henry was restored in
+full force.
+
+In 1551 there dawned symptoms of the system that has taken more than
+three hundred years to develop, and even now can scarcely lay claim to
+perfection.  Collectors were appointed whose duty it was to make record
+of the name, residence, and occupation of all who apparently were able to
+give, as well as of those whose helpless distress entitled them to
+relief.  In the words of the ancient enactment, the said collectors were
+to “gently ask every man and woman, that they of their charity will give
+weekly to the relief of the poor.”  To give, however, was optional, and
+not compulsory; no more severe pressure was brought to bear against a
+grudger than that the minister or churchwardens were sent to him to
+exhort him to charity; but so many curmudgeons remained inexorable that
+the voluntary system remained in force no longer than twelve years; and
+then the statute regulating poor’s relief was remodelled, and it was
+declared good law that any person able to contribute, and declining to do
+so, might be summoned before a justice, who would tax him according to
+his discretion, and commit him to gaol if he still remained obdurate.
+
+This last Act was passed in 1563, but nine years afterwards, we find the
+Government once again urged to repair what evidently had all this time
+remained an unsatisfactory business.  It is evident that the arrangements
+made for the support of the impotent poor tended to loosen the shackles
+invented for the suppression of the professional beggar.  The
+last-mentioned individual was found to be flourishing again, and it was
+deemed advisable to make still shorter his restricted tether.  A law was
+passed enacting that “all persons whole and mighty in body, able to
+labour, not having land or master, nor using any lawful merchandise,
+craft, or mystery, and all common labourers, able in body, loitering and
+refusing to work for such reasonable wage as is commonly given, should
+for the first offence be grievously whipped, and burned through the
+gristle of the right ear with a hot iron of the compass of an inch
+about.”
+
+This mild and moderate mandate was promulgated under the sanction of the
+virgin Queen Elizabeth, and it is to be observed that during the same
+beneficent reign were passed laws in connection with labour and labourers
+that, were they revived, would go hard with trade-unionists and strikers
+in general.  By the statutes 39 of Elizabeth, cap. 3 and 4 (1598), to
+refuse to work at the recognised and ordinary wages subjected the
+malcontent to be “openly whipped until his body should be bloody, and
+forthwith sent from parish to parish, the most straight way to the parish
+where he was born, there to put himself to labour, as a true subject
+ought to do.”  Under the same Acts of Elizabeth, the overseers of the
+poor in every parish were empowered to raise by “taxation of every
+inhabitant, parson, vicar, and other, and of every occupier of lands,
+houses, tithes, mines, &c., such sums of money as they shall require for
+providing a sufficient stock of flax, hemp, wool, and other ware or stuff
+to set the poor on work, and also competent sums for relief of lame,
+blind, old, and impotent persons.”  By virtue of the Acts in question,
+justices were empowered to commit to prison the able-bodied who would not
+work; and churchwardens and overseers were charged to build suitable
+houses, at the cost of the parish, for the reception of the impotent poor
+only.
+
+As, however, is observed by Mr. Halliday (to whose excellent account of
+the _Origin and History of the Poor-Laws_ I stand indebted for much of
+the material employed in this summary) “these simple provisions were in
+course of time greatly perverted, and many abuses were introduced into
+the administration of the poor-law.  One of the most mischievous
+practices was that which was established by the justices for the county
+of Berks in 1795, when, in order to meet the wants of the labouring
+population—caused by the high price of provisions—an allowance in
+proportion to the number of his family was made out of the parish fund to
+every labourer who applied for relief.  This allowance fluctuated with
+the price of the gallon loaf of second flour, and the scale was so
+adjusted as to return to each family the sum which in a given number of
+loaves would cost beyond the price, in years of ordinary abundance.  This
+plan was conceived in a spirit of benevolence, but the readiness with
+which it was adopted in all parts of England clearly shows the want of
+sound views on the subject.  Under the allowance-system the labourer
+received a part of his means of subsistence in the form of a parish-gift,
+and as the fund out of which it was provided was raised from the
+contributions of those who did not employ labourers as well as of those
+who did, their employers, being able in part to burden others with the
+payment for their labour, had a direct interest in perpetuating the
+system.  Those who employed labourers looked upon the parish contribution
+as part of the fund out of which they were to be paid, and accordingly
+lowered their rate of wages.  The labourers also looked on the fund as a
+source of wage.  The consequence was, that the labourer looked to the
+parish, and as a matter of right, without any regard to his real wants;
+and he received the wages of his labour as only one and a secondary
+source of the means of subsistence.  His character as a labourer became
+of less value, his value as a labourer being thus diminished under the
+combined operation of these two causes.”
+
+In the olden time, as at present, it appears that the Irish figured
+conspicuously in the ranks of beggary.  As is shown by the recent
+returns, there are haunting the metropolis nearly three mendicants
+hailing from the Emerald Isle to one of any other nation; and that it was
+so so long ago as the reign of King Charles II. the following
+proclamation will sufficiently attest:
+
+    “A Proclamation for the speedy rendering away of Irishe Beggars out
+    of this Kingdome into their owne Countrie and for the Suppressing and
+    Ordering of Rogues and Vagabonds according to the Laws.
+
+    “Whereas this realme hath of late been pestered with great numbers of
+    Irishe beggars who live here idly and dangerously, and are of ill
+    example to the natives of this Kingdome; and whereas the multitude of
+    English rogues and vagabonds doe much more abound than in former
+    tymes—some wandering and begging under the colour of soldiers and
+    mariners, others under the pretext of impotent persons, whereby they
+    become a burden to the good people of the land—all which happeneth by
+    the neglect of the due execution of the lawes formerly with great
+    providence made for relief of the true poor and indigent and for the
+    punishment of sturdy rogues and vagabonds: for the reforming thereof
+    soe great a mischiefe, and to prevent the many dangers which will
+    ensue by the neglect thereof; the King, by the advice of his Privy
+    Council and of his judges, commands that all the laws and statutes
+    now in force for the punishment of rogues and vagabonds be duly putt
+    in execution; and more particularly that all Irishe beggars which now
+    are in any part of this Kingdome, wandering or begging under what
+    pretence soever, shall forthwith depart this realme and return to
+    their owne countries and there abide.”
+
+The authorities of Cumberland and Westmoreland appear to have hit on an
+expedient that has proved successful in diminishing the number of tramps
+that formerly infested those counties.  A recently published report
+states: “In consequence of frequent and general complaints from the
+people of these two counties, as to the numerous robberies committed by
+tramping vagrants, it was determined, at the end of the year 1867, to
+enforce the Vagrant Act strictly.  The result has been that, in the year
+ending at Michaelmas 1868, 524 persons were apprehended in the two
+counties for begging from house to house, and 374 of them were committed
+to prison.  The effect has been, to a certain extent, like that which
+occurred in the time of the cattle-plague; when the police told the
+tramps at the frontier that they must either stop or must be disinfected,
+and they turned hack.  The daily average number of tramps and vagrants in
+the two counties in the year ending at Michaelmas 1868 was only 150,
+making a total decrease of 6935 in the year; and various petty larcenies,
+burglaries, and other crimes decreased remarkably.  The chief constable
+has reported that the course adopted has been attended with most
+beneficial results, in checking professional mendicancy and preventing
+crime; and he is persuaded that if the law were generally and uniformly
+carried into effect, tramping vagrancy, as a trade, would be very soon
+put an end to.  He says that, as a rule, the condition of the hands will
+enable the police to judge between the professional tramp and the working
+man really travelling in search of work, and that all difficulty might be
+removed by requiring the latter to procure a certificate from the head of
+the police of the starting-place, which would protect him against
+apprehension, and which might also guarantee certain relief at appointed
+places along his route.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+THE WORK OF PUNISHMENT AND RECLAMATION.
+
+
+_The Effect of_ “_The Society for the Suppression of Mendicity_”—_State
+Business carried out by Individual Enterprise_—“_The Discharged
+Prisoners’ Aid Society_”—_The quiet Work of these Societies_—_Their Mode
+of Work_—_Curious Statistics_—_Singular Oscillations_—_Diabolical
+Swindling_.
+
+THE Society for the Suppression of Mendicity has done more towards
+checking imposture, and bringing evildoers to punishment, than the
+Government itself, notwithstanding all the elaborate and expensive
+machinery at its command.  Nor, by the way, is this a solitary instance
+of business peculiarly its own being shirked by the State, and handed
+over to be dealt with by the skill, energy, and perseverance of a few
+private individuals.  A kindred association to that, the province of
+which is the better government of the beggars of London, is that which
+devotes its energies to the reclamation of returned convicts.  Anyone at
+all acquainted with the matter is aware of the immense amount of lasting
+and substantial good that the “Discharged Prisoners’ Aid Society” has
+accomplished.  That the individuals chiefly concerned—the returned
+convicts themselves—fully appreciate the advantages held out by the said
+Society is sufficiently proved by the fact, that out of 368
+licence-holders discharged into the metropolis, 290 placed themselves in
+its hands.  No doubt such arrangements do prove as convenient as
+economical as regards the Government; but whether it is just to inflict a
+responsibility of such magnitude on private individuals is another
+question; or whether the easement it confers is cheaply purchased by our
+rulers at the cost of so unmistakable a confession of their incapacity.
+
+So quietly and unobtrusively do these self-constituted guardians of
+public morality perform the arduous duties they undertake, that it may be
+safely assumed not one person in a thousand is aware what their prime
+objects are, let alone the means by which they are accomplished.  As
+regards the Mendicity Society, there can be no doubt what is the popular
+impression.  It is commonly regarded as a sort of amateur detective
+association for the discovery of fraudulent begging,—a Society that has
+in its employ certain cunning individuals of the detested breed of
+“spies,” who earn their wages by lurking in shady places, and peeping
+over men’s shoulders, and covertly listening to their private
+conversation.  The full extent of the Society’s usefulness, according to
+vulgar prejudice, is represented by the unfortunate “cadger” pounced on
+in the act of receiving alms, and carried before a magistrate to account
+for that enormous iniquity.  People, however, who know no more of the
+Society than this, know only of the smallest and least important of its
+functions.  It is a poor’s-relief association on an extensive scale.  It
+has its labour-sheds for testing the genuineness of the mendicants that
+apply at the office, to say nothing of a real treadmill of its own.
+Moreover it proclaims its ability to offer suitable employment to _every_
+able-bodied mendicant referred to it.  The following is the Society’s
+method of dealing.  The plan of the institution is to provide subscribers
+with tickets, which are intended to be distributed to street-beggars
+only, and which will insure admission to the Society’s office, where the
+applicant is examined by the sitting or assistant manager, who directs
+such immediate relief as in his judgment may appear proper.
+
+If the applicant appears deserving, and is without lodging, money
+sufficient to procure one for the night is given.  In cases where the
+applicant appears to have an immediate claim on any London parish, the
+pauper is referred to the overseers of such parish.  If, as in some
+cases, it is requisite for the applicant to return on a subsequent day,
+he is furnished with a return-ticket, which introduces him again to the
+office for further relief.  In the mean time inquiry is made, if
+practicable, into the character of the pauper, by which the sitting
+manager is governed in awarding proper relief.  Men are sent to the
+Society’s premises to chop wood, and women and children to the
+oakum-room.  During the time they are employed, men receive eightpence,
+and women fourpence per day, for lodging-money, and two meals, and one
+meal for each member of the family; and on Saturdays double allowance of
+money, with an extra meal to take home for each, that they may have no
+excuse for begging on Sunday.  Each meal in winter consists of a pint of
+nutritious soup, and a sixth of a four-pound loaf of good bread; and in
+summer one quarter of a pound of cheese, and the same proportion of
+bread.  At the end of a week, if they apply, the order for work may be
+renewed, until they have been employed a month, when the case is
+discharged, unless the sitting manager considers an extension of
+employment desirable; in which case it is laid before the committee, who
+renew the order for another month, or give such other relief as they
+think most likely to prevent the necessity of a recurrence to
+street-begging.  In order to check repeated applications from the same
+persons, those who habitually resort to the refuges for the houseless, or
+the metropolitan workhouses, for lodging, and to the Society for food, if
+males, have to perform three hours’ work at the mill; if females, three
+hours’ work at oakum-picking, before food is given them; and the men may
+also, if practicable, have three days’ work at stone-breaking.
+Applicants of this description making more than six applications within
+one year are refused further relief, unless on investigation they are
+found deserving of assistance.
+
+Persons who have not been six months in London are not considered objects
+of the charity; but food is given to persons passing through London in
+search of work, to assist them on their way.  In the case of mendicants
+incapable of labour, the amount of daily allowance is 6_d._ for a single
+man, 9_d._ for a man, his wife, and young child, and 1_s._ in any other
+case; but this allowance may be doubled on Saturday night, at the
+discretion of the sitting or assistant-manager.  Labourers at the mill
+receive 6_d._ per day, and the wife and children of persons employed may
+receive a meal.  The wives of men employed either at the mill or
+stone-yard may also have work, and receive wages, provided that their
+joint earnings do not exceed one shilling per day.
+
+The Society’s “Report” recently issued shows the kind and the extent of
+the business transacted through its officials up to the close of the year
+1867.  It contains much that is interesting as well as instructive, and
+not a little that is puzzling.  We are informed that within the year 644
+vagrants were arrested and taken before a magistrate, and that of this
+number 311 were committed, and 333 discharged.  From the commencement to
+the close of the year 1867, upwards of 10,000 cases of “casual” relief
+passed through the hands of the Society, as well as between 400 and 500
+cases that are alluded to as “registered”—a term, it may be assumed, that
+distinguishes the ordinary casual case from that which demands
+investigation and private inquiry.  Amongst the whole number, 44,347
+meals were distributed, and a considerable sum of money and some clothes;
+it being no uncommon occurrence for the management to rig-out the ragged,
+hard-up unfortunate applying for relief, and to start him in the world in
+a way that, if he has the intention, gives him a fair chance of
+recovering a decent position.
+
+The most curious part of the affair, however, appears in the plain and
+simple tabulated statement that represents the yearly number of vagrants
+relieved and set to work, and consigned to proper punishment, since the
+time of the Mendicity Society’s first establishment.  In the first year
+of the Society’s existence, when the scheme was new, and the vagrant crop
+dead-ripe for gathering, and the officers eager to get at their new and
+novel employment, 385 “sturdy beggars” were caught and sent to gaol.  It
+is consoling to know that in the last year (1867) this number was
+decreased considerably, and that no more than 311 were sentenced.  This
+may appear no vast reduction, but when we consider not only the
+enormously-increased population since 1818, and, what is of equal
+significance, the advance of intellect and cleverness and cunning amongst
+this as every other community doomed to live by the exercise of its wits,
+the result is one on which the country may be congratulated.
+
+When, however, we come to regard the long column that at a glance reveals
+the figures that pertain to vagrant committals for fifty successive
+years, a decided damper is thrown on one’s hopes that the trade of the
+shiftless roving vagabond is becoming surely though slowly extinguished.
+As might be expected of a class so erratic in its movements, it would be
+difficult to measure them by any fixed standard; but one is scarcely
+prepared to discover the awful amount of uncertainty that prevails as
+regards the going and coming of these impostor tramps, when there is a
+dearth of them, and when their swarming may be expected.  They are like
+cholera or plague, and have their seasons of sloth, and again of general
+prevalence and virulence.  The laws that govern the movements of the
+professional beggar are inscrutable.  You may make war on him and thin
+his ranks, and prosecute him and persecute him, and by the end of the
+year be able to show in plain unmistakable figures that he is not half
+the formidable fellow he was last year; that you have blunted his sting
+and decreased his dimensions.  You still prosecute the war of
+extermination, and next year you are in a position to reveal in
+black-and-white further glorious results.  The thousand has become seven
+hundred, and again the seven hundred four.  At this rate, ere two more
+years are elapsed, you may strip the rags from your last beggar’s back,
+and hang them on the city gate as a scarecrow and a caution against a
+revival of the detestable trade.
+
+But alas for our delusive hopes!  Come another year—that which showed our
+seven hundred beggars dwindled down to four—and without any apparent
+cause the enemy, crippled and more than half killed as it seemed,
+reappears on the stage hale and sound, and with years of life in him yet.
+The four hundred has grown to six.  There are no means of accounting for
+it.  Depression of trade and poverty widely prevailing will not do so,
+for such are times of prosperity and fattening with the professional
+beggar.  When “giving” is the order of the day, and benevolence,
+sickening at the sight of privation and distress that seems endless,
+shuts her eyes and bestows her gifts on all comers, then is the cadger’s
+harvest, then he may pursue his shameful avocation with comparative
+impunity.  If we required evidence of this, it is furnished by the
+Society’s statistics.  In 1865, which was an ordinarily fair year with
+the working man, the number of vagrant committals reached 586, while in
+the year following, when destitution prevailed so enormously, and the
+outcries of famine were so generously responded to through the length and
+breadth of the land, the number of begging impostors who got into trouble
+were only 372.
+
+It will be as well, perhaps, that the reader should have set before him
+the figures for the various years precisely as they stand in the
+Society’s last issued Report.  As will be seen, for some reason that is
+not explained, there are no returns for the four years 1830 to 1833
+inclusive.  Appended to the “committed vagrant list” is a record of the
+number of cases specially inquired into and “registered,” as well as a
+statement of the number of meals that were in each year distributed.
+
+ Years.    Cases registered.   Vagrants committed.    Meals given.
+1818                    3,284                   385           16,827
+1819                    4,682                   580           33,013
+1820                    4,546                   359           46,407
+1821                    2,336                   324           28,542
+1822                    2,235                   287           22,232
+1823                    1,493                   193           20,152
+1824                    1,441                   195           25,396
+1825                    1,096                   381           19,600
+1826                      833                   300           22,972
+1827                      806                   403           35,892
+1828                    1,284                   786           21,066
+1829                      671                   602           26,286
+1830                      848                     —          105,488
+1831                    1,285                     —           79,156
+1832                    1,040                     —           73,315
+1833                      624                     —           37,074
+1834                    1,226                   652           30,513
+1835                    1,408                 1,510           84,717
+1836                      946                 1,004           68,134
+1837                    1,087                 1,090           87,454
+1838                    1,041                   873          155,348
+1839                    1,055                   962          110,943
+1840                      706                   752          113,502
+1841                      997                 1,119          195,625
+1842                    1,223                 1,306          128,914
+1843                    1,148                 1,018          167,126
+1844                    1,184                   937          174,229
+1845                    1,001                   868          165,139
+1846                      980                   778          148,569
+1847                      910                   625          239,171
+1848                    1,161                   979          148,661
+1849                    1,043                   905           64,251
+1850                      787                   570           94,106
+1851                    1,150                   900          102,140
+1852                      658                   607           67,985
+1853                      419                   354           62,788
+1854                      332                   326           52,212
+1855                      235                   239           52,731
+1856                      325                   293           49,806
+1857                      354                   358           54,074
+1858                      329                   298           43,836
+1859                      364                   305           40,256
+1860                      430                   350           42,912
+1861                      446                   335           73,077
+1862                      542                   411           47,458
+1863                      607                   451           45,477
+1864                      413                   370           55,265
+1865                      774                   586           52,137
+1866                      481                   372           38,131
+1867                      488                   311           44,347
+                       54,767                27,609        3,713,726
+
+Assuming that the Society constantly employs the same number of officers,
+and that they are always maintained in the same condition of activity, it
+is difficult to account for the disparity displayed by the above-quoted
+figures.  It would almost seem that the mendicity constabulary were
+gifted with a prescience of what was about to happen; that they know, by
+the barking of dogs or some other unmistakable token, when “the beggars
+are coming to town,” and sallied out, as fishermen do at the approach of
+herrings or mackerel, prepared, and fully determined to make a good haul.
+
+It is a pity that, despite the good work it accomplishes, the Society for
+the Suppression of Mendicity should have weighty reasons for lamenting
+the falling-off of public support it has of late experienced.  Nothing
+could be more promising than its launching.  It took the field with a
+staff of eight constables only, and an income of 4,384_l._; nor could it
+be said to disappoint the expectations of its patrons.  In its first year
+of operation it prosecuted 385 professional vagrants.  Its success
+progressed.  After a lapse of twenty-five years, in 1842 we find it with
+an income of 6,576_l._; and that prosperity had not dulled its energy
+appears from the fact that in the year last mentioned there occurred, in
+the deep waters where that slippery and voracious fish, the incorrigible
+beggar, lurks for prey, the splendid catch of over thirteen hundred.
+Encouraged by so fair a stroke of business, and the kindness and
+generosity of an appreciative public, the Society then added a new branch
+to their business—the begging-letter branch; which, it should be
+understood, did not originally come within the scope of its operations in
+any shape.
+
+At the expiration of another quarter of a century, however, we find that,
+instead of an increase of income to the extent of one-third, as occurred
+in the first quarter of a century of the Society’s existence, its
+resources have fallen off to the extent of nearly one-half, as compared
+with the income of 1842.
+
+This is as it should not be.  As has been shown, feeding the deserving
+poor as well as punishing the inveterate vagrant comprises a prominent
+feature of the Society’s business, and this it is impossible to do
+without adequate funds.  It might be supposed that the passing of the
+Houseless Poor Act would have diminished the number of applicants to this
+and other charitable societies; but there is a large class of persons
+temporarily thrown out of work to whom the casual wards of workhouses are
+useless, and who do not apply for assistance there.  The number of this
+class who applied with tickets at the Society’s office during the past
+year was more _than double the number of such applicants in the preceding
+year_, being, in 1866, 4,378; but in 1867, 10,532.  Among these poor
+persons 44,347 meals, consisting of 7,389 four-pound loaves, upwards of
+four tons of cheese and 785 gallons of soup, have been distributed.  In
+addition to this amount of food, 65_l._ 7_s._, in small sums of money,
+has been given to those whose cases seemed suitable for such relief.
+
+The apprehended cases were 644, as compared with 693 such cases in 1866;
+but though a diminished constabulary force was employed for part of the
+year, yet nearly as large a number of old offenders was committed by the
+magistrate, being 311 compared with 372 in 1866.  The number of
+begging-letters referred to the office for inquiry during the past year
+was 2,019, being somewhat fewer than the return of such applications for
+the year 1866.  Of the 2,019 letters 790 were from unknown applicants;
+620 from persons previously known to the Society’s officials, but
+requiring a more recent investigation; and 609 from persons too well
+known to require any investigation.
+
+The following cases that have occurred during the past year will show the
+mode in which the Society deals with the very different classes of
+applicants brought within the sphere of its operations:
+
+    “No. 617.  F. J.—This young man, 24 years of age, came to the office
+    with a subscriber’s ticket.  He stated that he had been employed last
+    as a bookkeeper at Manchester, and left that situation in April, and
+    had since been in London seeking a situation, in which he had failed,
+    and having no friends here, had become destitute.  He was a
+    well-spoken single man, and appeared to be truthful in his statements
+    and anxious to return to Manchester, where he had relatives who would
+    assist him.  At the instance of the presiding manager some old
+    clothes were given him, which improved his appearance, and thirty
+    shillings were handed to a constable to pay his fare, which was done,
+    and the balance was given to him.  A few days after he wrote from
+    Manchester a letter, in which he stated that he had every prospect of
+    obtaining employment, and expressed much gratitude for what had been
+    done for him at this office.”
+
+    “No. 883.  S. F.—This woman, 37 years of age, applied to the Society
+    with a subscriber’s ticket, alleging her distress to have been caused
+    by the desertion of her husband and her own inability to procure
+    employment, owing to the want of decent clothing.  She was sent to
+    the Society’s oakum-room to work, and while there saved enough money
+    to purchase several articles of wearing apparel.  Inquiry was made;
+    and it being found that her statements were true and her character
+    good, a situation was found her, in which she still is, apparently
+    giving satisfaction to her employers, and likely to obtain a
+    respectable living for the future.”
+
+    “No. 169,150.  S. W. G.—This poor woman, the widow of a labourer, and
+    aged 45 years, had done her best to bring up her family in credit, by
+    keeping a small coal and greengrocery shop, making ginger-beer, &c.
+    during the summer months; and several of the children were nearly
+    providing for themselves, when she lost her sight, and was found in a
+    state of distress.  Her eldest daughter had been obliged to leave her
+    situation to look to the house; but having a knowledge of the
+    sewing-machine and a prospect of obtaining work at home, it was
+    decided to recommend the case for liberal relief, in order that a
+    machine might be obtained and the daughter thus enabled to assist in
+    rearing the younger children at home, which object there is reason to
+    hope has been accomplished.”
+
+    “No. 54,494.  C. T., _alias_ S.—A well-dressed woman was apprehended
+    on a warrant, charging her with obtaining charitable contributions by
+    false pretences; she had been known to the Society’s officers for
+    years, and a number of complaints had been lodged at the office
+    against her during that time; when apprehended on previous occasions
+    no one could be found willing to appear against her.  In the present
+    instance she had applied to a lady residing at Rutland-gate for a
+    loan of 2_l._ to enable her to take her brother to Scotland, whom she
+    represented as having just left the Brompton Hospital very ill, and
+    that she had been advised to get him to his native air, where they
+    had friends.  To strengthen her appeal she mentioned the names of two
+    or three persons known to the lady to whom she was applying, and as
+    having been sent by one of them to her; on the faith of the
+    representations made she was assisted with 2_l._ 6_s._; but
+    subsequent inquiry convinced this lady that the statement was false.
+    At the time the prisoner was taken into custody she had 5_l._ 8_s._
+    5½_d._ on her person; and being made acquainted with the charge
+    confessed herself guilty of these offences, and offered to repay the
+    money; but on the case being stated to the magistrate he sentenced
+    her to three months’ imprisonment, and the money found in her
+    possession to be applied to her maintenance while there.”
+
+    “No. 42,064.  T. B., with a number of aliases, was again apprehended
+    by one of the Society’s constables; he had been known as a
+    begging-letter impostor for upwards of twenty years, and during that
+    period had been three times transported, and as many times liberated
+    on tickets-of-leave.  On this occasion (in company with a woman whom
+    he represented as a district visitor) he applied to a gentleman
+    residing in Eaton-square, stating he was ‘Mr. Bond,’ one of the
+    overseers of St. Marylebone parish, and gave in his card to that
+    effect.  On obtaining an interview, he said he and the lady with him
+    had interested themselves on behalf of a ‘Mrs. Cole,’ a widow with
+    six children, a native of Ledbury in Herefordshire, who wished to
+    return home, where she would be able to obtain a living for herself
+    and family, and he was seeking subscriptions to purchase the family a
+    little clothing and funds to defray the expense of their transit.
+    The gentleman knowing Ledbury well, and believing the prisoner’s
+    statement to be true, gave him 10_s._; but afterwards finding that he
+    had been imposed on, obtained a warrant for his apprehension, and the
+    case being clearly proved, he was sentenced to three months’
+    imprisonment; and the magistrate remarked that a more hardened
+    criminal had never been brought before him, and that the Home
+    Secretary should be applied to to cause him to finish his unexpired
+    term of two years and three months.”
+
+    “No. 54,889.  M. W.—A woman with an infant in her arms was
+    apprehended by one of the Society’s constables for endeavouring to
+    obtain money by false pretences from a gentleman residing in
+    Portland-place, by stating that her husband was at the Bournemouth
+    Sanatorium, and produced a letter purporting to be from the medical
+    officer of the institution, which was as follows: ‘National
+    Sanatorium, Bournemouth, Hants.—The resident surgeon wishes to inform
+    Mrs. W. that her husband, having ruptured a blood-vessel, is in a
+    very precarious state.  James W. is very desirous of seeing his wife,
+    and begs she will come as early as possible.’  This note was signed
+    as by the resident medical officer.  She stated to the prosecutor
+    that having no means of paying her railway fare, she had applied to
+    him for assistance, as he had been kind to her husband on previous
+    occasions.  Being apprehended and detained for inquiries, she
+    admitted the truth of the charge made against her; and the case being
+    clearly proved, she was sentenced to three months’ imprisonment.  The
+    prisoner and her husband had been carrying on this system of
+    imposition for a long time, but owing to parties declining to come
+    forward to prosecute, had not previously been convicted.”
+
+But there remains yet to notice one member of the begging-letter-writing
+fraternity, compared with whom all the rest are mere innocent and
+harmless scribblers.  After an experience so long and varied, and so many
+conflicts sharp and severe with their natural enemies the officers of the
+“Society,” and so many exposures and defeats, it might be reasonably
+hoped that the professional beggar whose genius takes an epistolary turn
+must find his ingenuity well-nigh exhausted; but, as recent revelations
+have disclosed, the machinery brought against him for his suppression has
+but sharpened his wits and rendered him more formidable than ever.
+Although but recently discovered, it is hard to say for how long a time
+this diabolical desire for swindling the unwary has existed.  Very
+possibly, many a “dodge” of minor calibre has been invented and run the
+length of its tether, and died the death of all dodges, while the one in
+question has lurked in the dark, and grown fat and prospered.
+
+It would be next to impossible for the imagination most fertile in wicked
+invention to conceive anything more devilish and mischievous, or an evil
+that might be perpetrated with less fear of detection.  The mainspring of
+the pretty scheme is not to impose on the benevolence and credulity of
+the living, but to blast and vilify the character of the dead.  To
+obliterate from the hearts of those who were nearest and dearest to
+him—the husband dead and buried—all kindly remembrance of him; to tear,
+as it were, from his poor honest body the white shroud in which tender
+hands had enveloped it, and show him to have lived and died a traitor, a
+hypocrite, and an impostor, false to that very last breath with which he
+bade his wife, his “only darling,” farewell; and this that some
+cold-blooded ruffian may extort from the wronged man’s duped indignant
+survivors a few miserable pounds or shillings, as the case may be.
+
+The process by which the villany in question may be accomplished is much
+more simple than would at first appear.  The prime condition of the
+impostor’s success is that he must reside at a long distance from those
+it is his intention to dupe.  The swindler lives in France or Germany,
+sometimes as far away as America.  The first “move” is to look into the
+newspaper obituary notices for a likely victim.  A gentleman who dies
+young, leaving a wife and a numerous family to bemoan their bitter
+bereavement, is not uncommonly the case fixed on.  If, during his
+lifetime, he was a man who, from his station in life, must have been
+tolerably well known, so much the better.  It is a woman who writes the
+letter.  She writes of course to the individual as though not in the
+least suspecting that he is dead.  The following _genuine_ copy of such a
+letter will, better than anything, illustrate the cold, cruel, subtle
+villany essential to the success of the “Dead-man’s lurk,” as in the
+profession it is styled:
+
+    “My ever-dearest Robert,—It is only after enduring the sickening
+    disappointment that has attended my last three letters sent to the
+    old address, that I venture to write to your private abode, in the
+    fervent hope that this my desperate appeal to your oft-tried
+    generosity may fall into no other hands but your own.
+
+    “I cannot think that my boy’s father can have grown cold towards her
+    whose whole life is devoted to him, who fled from home and friends,
+    and took up her abode in a foreign land and amongst strangers, that
+    her darling might not be troubled,—that his _home_ might be peace.
+    Alas! what is _my_ home?  But I will not upbraid you.  Were I alone,
+    I would be content to die rather than cause you a single pang of
+    uneasiness; but, as my dear Robert knows, I am _not_ alone.  God
+    still spares our boy to me, though I much fear that the doctor’s
+    prediction that he would get the better of his ailments when he had
+    turned the age of ten will not be verified.  Sometimes as I sit of
+    nights—long, weary, thoughtful nights—watching my sick darling, and
+    thinking of those old times of brief bitter sweetness, I wish that
+    you could see him, so like your own dear self; but the thought is at
+    once hushed, when I reflect on the pain it would cause you to
+    contemplate our poor _fatherless_ boy.  I am almost tempted to thank
+    God that he cannot remain much longer on earth; but it is hard,
+    cruelly hard, to see him suffer from _want_ as well as from his
+    painful malady.  Do, for the sake of the _old times_, send me a
+    little money, though only a few pounds.  There is no other resource
+    for us but the workhouse.  At any rate, pray send me an answer to
+    this, and relieve the dreadful suspense that haunts me.
+
+    “P.S.  As I have been, from reasons too painful to disclose to you,
+    compelled to quit the lodgings in V.-street, please direct
+    Post-office, —.  Yours, ever true and faithful,
+
+                                                             ELIZABETH —.”
+
+As it happened, the gentleman to whom this villanous epistle was
+addressed had, till within a few years of his demise, resided in a
+far-away quarter of the globe, and under such conditions as rendered a
+ten-years-ago intimacy with any English Elizabeth utterly impossible; but
+unfortunately his survivors were content to treat the attempted imposture
+with silent contempt, and a likely opportunity of bringing to proper
+punishment one of a gang of the most pestiferous order of swindlers it is
+possible to conceive was lost.  It was probably only the _very_ peculiar
+and exceptionally conclusive evidence that the letter could not apply to
+Mr. Robert —, that saved his friends from painful anxiety, and perhaps
+robbery.  It is so much less troublesome to hush-up such a matter than to
+investigate it.  To be sure, no one would have for a moment suspected,
+from the precise and proper behaviour of the man dead and gone, that he
+could ever have been guilty of such wickedness and folly; but it is so
+hard to read the human heart.  Such things have happened; and now that
+one calls to mind—
+
+That is the most poisonous part of it,—“now that one calls to mind!”
+What is easier than to call to mind, out of the ten thousand remembrances
+of a man whose society we have shared for twenty years or more, one or
+two acts that at the time were regarded as “strange whims,” but now,
+regarded in the light that the damnable letter sheds on them, appear as
+parts of the very business so unexpectedly brought to light?  Perhaps the
+man was privately charitable, and in benevolent objects expended a
+portion of his income, without making mention of how, when, and where, or
+keeping any sort of ledger account.  How his means so mysteriously
+dwindled in his hands was a puzzle even to his most intimate
+friends—_now_ it is apparent where the money went!  But there, it is no
+use discussing that now; he has gone to answer for all his sins, and it
+is to be devoutly wished that God, in the infinite stretch of His mercy,
+will forgive him even this enormous sin.  Meanwhile it will never do to
+have this base creature coming as a tramping beggar, perhaps with her
+boy, and knocking at the door, desperately determined on being cared for
+by the man who was the cause of her ruin and her banishment.  Better to
+send her ten pounds, with a brief note to the effect that Mr. — is now
+dead, and it will be useless her troubling again. This is what did _not_
+happen in the case quoted, and for the reasons given; but it might, and
+in very many cases it doubtless has happened; and it would be worth a
+whole year’s catch of common begging-letter impostors if the Society for
+the Suppression of Mendicity could trap a member of the “Dead-lurk” gang,
+and hand him over to the tender mercies of the law.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+BEGGING “DODGES.”
+
+
+_The Variety and Quality of the Imposture_—_Superior Accomplishments of
+the Modern Practitioner_—_The Recipe for Success_—_The Power of_
+“_Cheek_”—“_Chanting_” _and the_ “_Shallow Lay_”—_Estimates of their
+Paying Value_—_The Art of touching Women’s Hearts_—_The Half-resentful
+Trick_—_The London_ “_Cadger_”—_The Height of_ “_The Famine Season_.”
+
+THE “dodges” to which an individual resolved on a vagrant life will
+resort are almost past reckoning; and, as a natural consequence, the
+quality of the imposture in modern practice is superior to that which
+served to delude our grandfathers.
+
+It can be no other.  As civilisation advances, and our machinery for the
+suppression and detection of fraud improves, so, if he would live at all,
+must the professional impostor exert all the skill and cunning he is
+endowed with to adjust the balance at his end of the beam.  It is with
+vagrancy as with thieving.  If our present system of police had no more
+formidable adversaries to deal with than lived and robbed in the days of
+those famous fellows, Richard Turpin and Master Blueskin, Newgate might,
+in the course of a few years, be converted into a temperance hotel, and
+our various convict establishments into vast industrial homes for the
+helplessly indigent.  So, if the well-trained staff under the captaincy
+of that shrewd scenter of make-believe and humbug—Mr. Horsford—was called
+on to rout an old-fashioned army of sham blindness, and cripples whose
+stumps were fictitious; and of clumsy whining cadgers, who made filthy
+rags do duty for poverty, who painted horrid sores on their arms and
+legs, and employed a mild sort of whitewash to represent on their
+impudent faces the bloodless pallor of consumption,—we might reasonably
+hope to be rid of the whole community in a month.
+
+It is scarcely too much to say, that the active and intelligent
+opposition brought to bear of late years against beggars has caused the
+trade to be taken up by a class of persons of quite superior
+accomplishments.  I well recollect, on the memorable occasion of my
+passing a night in the society of tramps and beggars, hearing the matter
+discussed seriously and at length, and that by persons who, from their
+position in life, undoubtedly were those to whose opinion considerable
+weight attached.  The conversation began by one young fellow, as he
+reclined on his hay-bed and puffed complacently at his short pipe,
+relating how he had “kidded” the workhouse authorities into the belief
+that he had not applied for relief at that casual-ward for at least a
+month previously, whereas he had been there for three successive nights.
+Of course this was a joke mightily enjoyed by his audience; and a friend,
+wagging his head in high admiration, expressed his wonder as to how the
+feat could be successfully accomplished.  “How!” replied the audacious
+one; “why, with cheek, to be sure.  Anything can be done if you’ve only
+got cheek enough.  It’s no use puttin’ on a spurt of it, and knocking
+under soon as you’re tackled.  Go in for it up to the heads of your —
+soul bolts.  Put it on your face so gallus thick that the devil himself
+won’t see through it.  Put it into your eyes and set the tears a-rollin’.
+Swear God’s truth; stop at nothing.  They’re bound to believe you.  There
+ain’t nothing else left for ’em.  They think that there’s an end
+somewhere to lyin’ and cheekin’, and they’re — fools enough to think that
+they can tell when that end shows itself.  Don’t let your cheek have any
+end to it.  _That’s_ where you’re right, my lads.”
+
+I have, at the risk of shocking the reader of delicate sensibilities,
+quoted at full the terms in which my ruffianly “casual” chamber-fellow
+delivered himself of his opinion as to the power of “cheek” illimitable,
+because from the same experienced source presently proceeded as handsome
+a tribute to the efficiency of the officers of the Mendicity Society as
+they could desire.
+
+“What shall you do with yerself to-morrow?” one asked of another, who,
+weary of song and anecdote and blasphemy, preparatory to curling down for
+the night was yawning curses on the parochial authorities for supplying
+him with no warmer rug.  “It ain’t much you can do anyhows atween the
+time when you finish at the crank and go out, till when you wants to come
+in agin.  It feels like frost; if it is, I shall do a bit of chanting, I
+think.”  (“Chanting” is vagrant phraseology for street singing.)
+
+“I’m with you,” replied his friend; “unless it’s cold enough to work the
+shaller; that’s the best game.  ’Taint no use, though, without its
+perishin’ cold; that’s the wust on it.”
+
+(It may be here mentioned that the “shaller,” or more properly “shallow”
+dodge, is for a beggar to make capital of his rags and a disgusting
+condition of semi-nudity; to expose his shoulders and his knees and his
+shirtless chest, pinched and blue with cold.  A pouncing of the exposed
+parts with common powder-blue is found to heighten the frost-bitten
+effect, and to excite the compassion of the charitable.)
+
+“There you are wrong,” broke in the advocate of “cheek;” “that isn’t the
+wust of it.  The wust of it is, that there’s no _best_ of it.  It don’t
+matter what you try; all games is a-growing stale as last week’s tommy”
+(bread).
+
+“It’s ’cos people get so gallus ’ard-’arted, that’s wot it is,” remarked
+with a grin a young gentleman who shared the bed of the ‘cheeky’ one.
+
+“No, that ain’t it, either; people are as soft-’arted and as green as
+ever they was; and so they would shell-out like they used to do, only for
+them —” (something too dreadful for printing) “lurchers of the S’ciety.
+It’s all them.  It ain’t the reg’lar p’lice.  They’re above beggars,
+’cept when they’re set on.  It’s them Mendikent coves, wot gets their
+livin’ by pokin’ and pryin’ arter every cove like us whenever they sees
+him in the street.  They gives the public the ‘office’” (information),
+“and the public believes ’em, bust ’em!”
+
+These observations evidently set the “cheeky” one thinking on times past;
+for he presently took up the subject again.
+
+“Things ain’t wot they was one time.  Talkin’ about the shallow lay; Lor’
+bless yer, you should have knowed what it was no longer ago than when I
+was a kid, and used to go out with my old woman.  Ah, it was summat to
+have winter then!  I’ve heerd my old woman say often that she’d warrant
+to make enough to live on all the rest of the year, if she only had three
+months’ good stiff frost.  I recollect the time when you couldn’t go a
+dozen yards without hearing the flying up of a window or the opening of a
+door, and there was somebody a-beckoning of you to give you grub or
+coppers.  It was the grub that beat us.”
+
+“How d’ye mean?  Didn’t you get enough of it?”
+
+“Hark at him! enough of it!  We got a thunderin’ sight too much of it.  A
+little of it was all very well, ’specially if it was a handy-sized meaty
+bone, wot you could relish with a pint of beer when you felt peckish;
+but, bust ’em, they used to overdo it.  It don’t look well, don’t you
+know, to carry a bag or anythink, when you are on the shallow lay.  It
+looks as though you was a ‘reg’lar,’ and that don’t ‘act.’  The old gal
+used to stow a whacking lot in a big pocket she had in her petticut, and
+I used to put away a ‘dollop’ in the busum of my shirt, which it was tied
+round the waist-bag hid underneath my trousers for the purpose.  But,
+Lor’ bless yer, sometimes the blessed trade would go that aggravatin’
+that we would both find ourselves loaded-up in no time.  Lor, how my old
+woman would swear about the grub sometimes!  It used to make me larf; it
+was a reg’lar pantermime.  She’d be reg’lar weighed down, and me stuffed
+so jolly full that I daren’t so much as shiver even, lest a lump of tommy
+or meat should tumble out in front, and all the while we’d be pattering
+about us not having eat a mouthful since the day afore yesterday.  Then
+somebody ’ud beckon us; and p’r’aps it was a servant-gal, with enough in
+a dish for a man and his dawg.  And the old woman ’bliged to curtchy and
+look pleased!  They ought to have heard her!  ‘D— and b— ’em!’ my old gal
+used to say between her teeth, ‘I wish they had them broken wittles
+stuffed down their busted throats; why the — can’t they give us it in
+coppers!’  But she couldn’t say that to them, don’t yer know; she had to
+put on a grateful mug, and say, ‘Gord bless yer, my dear!’ to the gal, as
+though, if it hadn’t been for that lot of grub turning up that blessed
+minute, she must have dropped down dead of starvation.”
+
+“But scran fetched its price in them times, didn’t it, Billy?  There was
+drums where you might sell it long afore your time, don’t you know,
+Billy?”
+
+“Course I know.  It fetched its price, cert’inly, when you could get away
+to sell it; but what I’m speaking of is the inconwenience of it.  We
+didn’t want no grub, don’t you see; it was the sp’iling of us.  S’pose
+now we was served like what I just told you; got reg’lar loaded-up when
+we was a couple of miles away.  What was we to do?  We couldn’t go on a
+swearin’ as how we was starvin’ with wittles bustin’ out of us all round.
+We was ’bliged to shoot the load afore we could begin ag’in.  Sometimes
+we had to do the ‘long trot’” (go home) “with it, and so sp’iled a whole
+arternoon.  If we got a chance, we shot it down a gully, or in a dunghole
+in a mews.  Anythink to get rid of it, don’t you see.  I should like to
+have just now the rattlin’ lot of grub we’ve been ’bliged to get rid of
+in that there way.”
+
+Despite the decline of the trade of “shallowing,” however, as the reader
+must have observed, it is one that is regarded as worth resorting to in
+“season.”  A more favourite “dodge” at the present is to appear before
+the public not in rags and tatters and with patches of naked flesh
+disgustingly visible, but in sound thorough labour-stained attire, and
+affect the style either of the ashamed unaccustomed beggar or that of the
+honest working mechanic, who, desperately driven by stress of poverty,
+shapes his loud-mouthed appeal in tones of indignant remonstrance that
+rich and prosperous England should permit a man such as he is to be
+reduced to the uncomfortable plight in which you now behold him.  He is a
+solitary cadger, and gets himself up in a manner so artful, that it is
+only when you pay attention to his “speech,” and find that he repeats
+precisely the same words over and over again, that you begin to have a
+suspicion that he is not exactly what he seems.  Like the “shallow cove,”
+he prefers a very cold or a very wet and miserable day.  He does not
+enter a street walking in the middle of the road, as the common
+“chanting” or “pattering” beggar does; he walks on the pavement with slow
+and hesitating gait, and at frequent intervals casts hasty and nervous
+glances behind him, as though fearful that he is watched or followed.
+Possibly he is so afraid.  At all events, should a policeman by rare
+chance steal round the corner, his steps will increase in length, and he
+will pass out of the street just as an ordinary pedestrian might; but
+should he be free to play his “little game,” he will set about it as
+follows.
+
+After looking about him several times, he proceeds to make himself
+remarkable to any person or persons who may happen to be gazing
+streetward from the window.  He will stand suddenly still, and button-up
+his coat as though determined on some desperate action.  With a
+loud-sounding “hem!” he clears his throat and advances towards the
+roadway; but, alas, before his feet touch the pavement’s boundary his
+courage falters, and he dashes his hand across his eyes and shakes his
+head, in a manner that at once conveys to beholders the impression that,
+much as he desires it, he is unequal to the performance of what a moment
+ago he contemplated and thought himself strong enough to perform.  At
+least, if this is not made manifest to the beholder, the actor has missed
+his object.  On he goes again just a few faltering steps—a very few—and
+then he cries “hem!” again, louder and fiercer than before, and dashes
+into the middle of the road.
+
+If you had pushed him there, or set your dog at him and he had bounded
+there to escape its fangs, the injured look he casts up at you could not
+be surpassed.  He says not a word for a full minute; he simply folds his
+arms sternly and glares at you up at the window, as though he would say
+not so much “What do you think of me standing here?” as “What do you
+think of yourself, after having driven me to do a thing so ignominious
+and shameful?”  These necessary preliminaries accomplished, in a loud
+impassioned voice he opens:
+
+“WHAT!”—(a pause of some seconds’ duration)—“WHAT! will a man not do to
+drive away from his door the WOLF that assails the wife of his bosom and
+his innocent horfspring?”
+
+He appears to await an answer to this, as though it were a solemn
+conundrum; though from the moody contraction of his eyebrows and the
+momentary scorn that wrinkles the corners of his mouth as he still gazes
+all round at the windows, he seems to be aware that it is one which on
+account of your complete ignorance of such matters you will never guess.
+
+“Doubtless, my friends, you are astonished to see me in this humiliating
+attitude, addressing you like a common beggar.  But what else am I?  What
+is the man who implores you to spare him from your plenty—ay, and your
+luxury—a _penny_ to save from starving those that are dearer to him than
+his HEART’S blood, but a beggar?  But, my friends, a man may be a beggar,
+and still be not ashamed.  _I_ am not ashamed.  I might be, if it was for
+myself that I asked your charity; but I would not do so.  I would die
+sooner than I would stoop to do it; but what is a HUSBAND to do, when he
+has a wife weak and ill from her confinement; who is dying by HINCHES for
+that nourishment that I have not to give her?”  (Here a violent blowing
+of his nose on a clean cotton pocket-handkerchief.)  “What, my dear
+friends, is a FATHER to do, when his little ones cry to him for BREAD?
+Should he feel ashamed to beg for them?  Ask yourselves that question,
+you who have good warm fires and all that the heart can desire.  I am
+_not_ ashamed.  It is a desperate man’s last resource; and I ask you
+again, as my fellow-creatures, will you turn away from me and deny me the
+small assistance I beg of you?”
+
+Generally he is successful.  Women—young mothers and old mothers
+alike—find it hard to resist the artless allusion to the wife, “weak and
+ill from her confinement,” and the amazingly well-acted sudden outburst
+of emotion that the actor is so anxious to conceal under cover of blowing
+his nose.  To be sure he is not a prepossessing person, and his style of
+appeal is somewhat coarse and violent; but that stamps it, in the eyes of
+the unwary, as genuine.  If he “knew the trade,” he would know that he
+should be meek and insinuating, not loud-mouthed and peremptory.  In
+short, his behaviour is exactly that of a man—a hard-working fellow when
+he has it to do—driven to desperation, and with a determination to raise
+enough to buy a loaf somehow.  It would be a monstrous thing to refuse
+such a poor fellow because of his blunt inapt way of asking; and so the
+halfpence come showering down.  It is several months ago since I last saw
+this worthy; but I have no doubt that his wife has not yet recovered from
+her confinement, that his children are yet crying for bread, and that he
+is still not ashamed to solicit public charity to save them from
+starving.
+
+There are other types of the shy, blunt-spoken beggar, who affect almost
+to resent the charity they solicit.  These abound, as indeed do all
+street-beggars, chiefly in the severest months of winter.  As long as one
+can remember, gangs of men have perambulated the highways in the frosty
+months, but until recently they were invariably “chanters,” with a legend
+of coming “all the way from Manchester.”  But song is eschewed in modern
+times.  It is found better to avoid old-fashioned forms, and appear as
+men destitute and down-trodden perhaps, but still with self-respect
+remaining in them.  There is no occasion for them to give you a song for
+your money; they are not called on to give a lengthy and humiliating
+explanation as to how they came there; _you_ know all about it.  You must
+have read in the newspapers, “that, owing to the many stoppages of public
+and private works, there are at the present time hundreds of able-bodied
+and deserving labouring men wandering the streets of London, driven to
+the hard necessity of begging their bread.”  Well, these are of the
+number.  Observe the unmistakable token of their having laboured on a
+“public work,” to wit, a railway-cutting, in the clay baked on their
+“ankle-jacks” and fustian trousers.  Regard that able-bodied individual,
+the leader of the gang, with his grimy great fists and the smut still on
+his face, and for a moment doubt that he is a deserving labouring man.
+He is an engineer, out of work since last Christmas, and ever since so
+hard-up that he has been unable to spare a penny to buy soap with.  If
+you don’t believe it, ask him.  But to this or any other detail himself
+or his mates will not condescend in a general way.  All that they do, is
+to spread across the street, and saunter along with their hands in their
+pockets, ejaculating only, “Out of work!”  “Willin’ to work, and got no
+work to do!”  If you followed them all day, you would find no change in
+their method of operation, excepting the interval of an hour or so at
+midday spent in the tap-room of a public-house.  If you followed them
+after that, your steps in all probability would be directed towards
+Keate-street, Spitalfields, or Mint-street in the Borough, in both of
+which delightful localities common lodging-houses abound; and if you were
+bold enough to cross the threshold and descend into the kitchen, there
+you would discover the jolly crew sitting round a table, and dividing the
+handsome spoil of the day, while they drank “long lasting to the frost”
+in glasses of neat rum.
+
+At the same time, I should be very sorry for the reader to misunderstand
+me, as wishing to convey to him the impression that in every instance the
+gangs of men to be met with in the streets in winter-time are vagrants
+and impostors.  It is not difficult to imagine a company of hard-up poor
+fellows genuinely destitute; mates, perhaps, on the same kind of work,
+resorting to this method of raising a shilling rather than apply at the
+workhouse for it.  An out-o’-work navvy or a bricklayer would never think
+of going out to beg alone, whereas he would see no great amount of
+degradation in joining a “gang.”  He thus sinks his individuality, and
+becomes merely a representative item of a depressed branch of industry.
+There can be no doubt that a sixpence given to such a man is well
+bestowed for the time being; but it would be much better, even though it
+cost many sixpences, if the labourer were never permitted to adopt this
+method of supplying his needs.  In the majority of cases, it may be, the
+out-o’-work man who resorted to the streets to beg for money would, when
+trade improved, hurry back to work, and be heartily glad to forget to
+what misfortune had driven him; but there are a very large number of
+labourers who, at the best of times, can live but from hand to mouth as
+the saying is, and from whom it is desirable to keep secret how much
+easier money may be got by begging than working.  To a man who has to
+drudge at the docks, for instance, for threepence an hour—and there are
+thousands in London who do so—it is a dangerous experience for him to
+discover that as much may be made on an average by sauntering the
+ordinary length of a street, occasionally raising his hand to his cap.
+Or he may know beforehand, by rumour, what a capital day’s work may be
+done at “cadging,” and in bitter sweat of underpaid labour complain that
+he is worse off than a cadger.  It is as well to provide against giving
+such a man an excuse for breaking the ice.
+
+There are, however, other impostors amongst the begging fraternity
+besides those who adopt the professional dress of vagrancy, and
+impudently endeavour publicly to proclaim their sham distress and
+privation.  The terrible condition of want into which thousands of the
+working population of London were plunged the winter before last
+developed the “cadger” in question in a very remarkable degree.  This
+personage is not a demonstrative cheat.  His existence is due entirely to
+the growing belief in decent poverty, and in the conviction that in
+frosty “hard-up” times much more of real destitution is endured by those
+whose honest pride will not permit them to clamour of their wants, and so
+make them known.  There can be no doubt but that this is perfectly true,
+and, despite all that horridly blunt philanthropists say to the contrary,
+it is a quality to be nurtured rather than despised.  As everybody knows,
+of late years it _has_ been nurtured to a very large extent.  At the
+East-end of the town, in Poplar and Shadwell, where, owing to the
+slackness in the trade pertaining to the building of ships, poverty was
+specially prevalent, quite a small army of benevolently-disposed private
+individuals were daily employed going from house to house, and by
+personal inquiry and investigation applying the funds at their disposal
+quietly and delicately, and to the best of then ability judiciously.
+There can be no question that by these means a vast amount of good was
+done, and many a really decent family provided with a meal that otherwise
+would have gone hungry; but an alarming percentage of evil clung to the
+skirts of the good.  It is a positive fact that in the most squalid
+regions—those, indeed, that were most notorious for their poverty—the
+value of house-property increased considerably.  The occupants of
+apartments, who during the previous summertime were unable to meet the
+weekly exactions of the collector, now not only met current demands, but
+by substantial instalments rapidly paid-up arrears of rent.  Landlords
+who for months past had been glad to take what they could get, now became
+inexorable, and would insist on one week being paid before the next was
+due.  They could afford to indulge in this arbitrary line of behaviour
+towards their tenants.  Rents were “going up;” rooms that at ordinary
+times would realise not more than 2_s._ or 2_s._ 3_d._ each, now were
+worth 3_s._ 6_d._  Ragman’s-alley and Squalor’s-court and Great and
+Little Grime’s-street were at a premium.  They were localities famous in
+the newspapers.  Everybody had read about them; everybody had heard the
+story of the appalling heart-rending misery that pervaded these
+celebrated places.  Day after day gentlefolks flocked thereto, and
+speedily following these visitations came tradesmen’s porters bearing
+meat and bread and groceries.  To be a Squalor’s-alleyite was to be a
+person with undoubted and indisputable claims on the public purse, and to
+be comfortably provided for.  To be a denizen of Great Grime’s-street was
+to reside in an almshouse more fatly endowed than the Printers’ or the
+Drapers’ or the Fishmongers’.
+
+It was impossible for such a paradise to exist without its fame being
+blown to the most distant and out-of-the-way nooks of the town.  North,
+west, and south the cadgers and impostors heard of it, and enviously
+itched to participate in the good things.  And no wonder!  Here was bread
+and meat and coals being furnished to all who asked for them, at the rate
+of twenty shillingsworth a-week at the least; nay, they were provided
+without even the asking for.  It was unnecessary to cross the threshold
+of your door to look after them, for those whose happy task it was to
+distribute the prizes came knocking, and in the tenderest terms made
+offer of their assistance.  All that was needful was to secure a lodging
+in Ragman’s-court or Little Grime’s-street, and pay your rent regularly,
+and sit down and await the result.  And lodgings were so secured.  It is
+positively true that at the height of the “famine season” at the East-end
+of London, when day after day saw the columns of the daily newspapers
+heavily laden with the announced subscriptions of the charitable,
+hundreds of questionable characters, “working men” in appearance, quitted
+other parts of the metropolis, and cheerfully paid much more rent than
+they had been accustomed to pay, for the privilege of squatting down in
+the midst of what was loudly and incessantly proclaimed to be “a colony
+of helpless out-o’-works, famine-stricken, and kept from downright
+starvation only by the daily and hourly efforts of the charitable.”
+
+This much might of course be expected of the professed beggar and the
+cadger by education and breeding; but it would be interesting to learn
+how many shiftless ones—those semi-vagabonds who labour under the
+delusion that they are idle men only because work is denied them, and who
+are continually engaged in the vague occupation of “looking for a
+job”—gave way before the great temptation, and became downright cadgers
+from that time.  With such folk the barrier to be broken down is of the
+flimsiest texture, and once overcome, it is difficult indeed to erect it
+again.  Not sweeter to the industrious is the bread of their labour than
+to the idle and dissolute the loaf unearned, and the free gift of tobacco
+to be smoked at ease in working hours.  It is terribly hard to struggle
+out of a slough of laziness in which a man has lain for a length of time,
+with nothing to do but open his mouth and permit other people to feed
+him.  It is extremely unlikely that such a man would make the struggle
+while there remained but half a chance of his maintaining his comfortable
+position.  Having grown so far used to the contamination of mire, he
+would be more likely to struggle a little deeper into it, if he saw what
+he deemed his advantage in doing so, and by swift degrees he would
+speedily be engulfed in that hopeless bog of confirmed beggary from which
+there is no return save those of the prison statician.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+GENTEEL ADVERTISING BEGGARS.
+
+
+_The Newspaper Plan and the delicate Process_—_Forms of Petition_—_Novel
+Applications of Photography_—_Personal Attractions of the
+Distressed_—_Help_, _or I perish_!
+
+BESIDES those I have enumerated, there are at least two other specimens
+of the beggar tribe that deserve mention.  They are genteel impostors
+both.  One avails himself of the advertising columns of the newspaper to
+apprise the benevolent of his modest desires, while the other prefers the
+more private and delicate process insured by our modern postal system.
+Both affect the “reduced gentleman,” and display in their appeals an
+amount of artlessness and simple confidence in the charity of their
+fellow-creatures that tells unmistakably of their ample possession of
+that Christian virtue, while at the same time it conveys to the reader an
+idea of the select and highly-exclusive position they should properly
+occupy, and from which they have so disastrously descended.  It is
+evident at a glance that they know nothing of the rough-and-ready ways of
+the world, or of its close-fistedness or proneness to suspicion.  We know
+this, and pity them; otherwise we might be inclined to class them with
+those “cheeky” ones in whose praise the young gentleman before mentioned,
+of “shallow” extraction, was so hearty, and to treat their impudent
+attempts as they deserve.  But the touching simplicity of the unfortunate
+creatures at once disarms us of suspicion.  For instance, who could
+refrain from immediately responding to the subjoined “petition,” which is
+copied strictly from the original?  It was delivered through the post,
+and was attached as a fly-leaf to a card on which was affixed the
+portraits of six young children, each of whom had evidently been “got up”
+with extreme care, as regards hair-curling and arrangements of dress and
+ribbons, for the photographic process.
+
+    “_Children to save_.—Advertisement sent to a few taken from the
+    London Directory.  The father of these British-born Protestant
+    children is an elderly gentleman, ruined by competition in business,
+    and past beginning life again; and the mother is in a very precarious
+    state of health.  To seek for adopters is against parental instinct;
+    and besides it might ultimately come to that, as by the time their
+    schooling is over, in ten or fifteen years, they would most likely be
+    orphans, and their willing adopters would be quite welcome to it
+    (_sic_).  At present the father, in his alarm for the fate of these
+    creatures, seeks for some that would pay, not to the father, but to
+    good boarding-schools, for their clothing, keeping, and tuition, and
+    after school-time to see that they should not want.  Willing
+    benefactors are therefore requested to state what they would feel
+    inclined to do for each child, by one of the numbers given at foot,
+    to ‘Alphabet, till called for, at the Post-office, No. 1
+    Liverpool-street, Moorfields, E.C.,’ enclosing card or addressed
+    envelope to insure correct address, if a reply should be wished.”
+
+Another method of applying the photographic art to the bolstering-up of a
+spurious begging petition takes a form even more outrageous than that
+which was adopted to exhibit the personal attractions of the distressed
+six British-born Protestant children.  In the second case it is the
+portrait of a handsome young lady, aged about twenty, with a profusion of
+lovely hair, and an expression of countenance strikingly artless and
+captivating.  Accompanying the portrait was a note, as follows:
+
+    “Dear Sir,—I am sure, when you learn the cause, that you will pardon
+    the liberty I take in addressing myself to you.  I am impelled to do
+    so, not only on account of your known humanity, but because I have
+    seen you and read in your face that you will not turn a deaf ear to
+    an appeal frankly and trustingly made to you.  The fact is, my dear
+    sir, I am absolutely in want of a sixpence to procure a meal.  I am
+    the only child of a father whom _misfortune_ has reduced to a
+    condition of abject beggary.  Mother I have none.  One day I may have
+    an opportunity of narrating to you the peculiar causes of our present
+    embarrassment.  I should feel it incumbent on me to do so, were I so
+    fortunate as to make you our creditor for a small sum.  Pray spare me
+    the pain of detailing more minutely the purport of this letter.  I am
+    aware of the boldness of the step I am taking, but the misery of my
+    wretched father must plead for me in excuse.  I enclose my likeness
+    (taken, alas, in happier times, though scarcely six months since), so
+    that you may see that I am not a _common beggar_.  Should my appeal
+    move your compassion towards me, will you kindly send a note
+    addressed, Adelaide F. T., Post-office, —?”
+
+The gentleman to whom the above artful concoction was addressed is well
+known for his philanthropy, and his name appears frequently in the
+newspapers.  He is an elderly gentleman, and has grown-up sons and
+daughters, consequently he was not a likely person to be trapped by the
+lovely Adelaide, who would “feel it incumbent on her to seek out and
+personally thank her benefactor,” in the event of his forwarding to her a
+pound or so.  But it might have been different, if, instead of a
+plain-sailing shrewd man of the world, he had been a person afflicted
+with vanity.  Here was this poor young handsome creature, who had seen
+him and read in his face that which induced her to make to him such a
+pitiful avowal of her poverty—her _peculiar_ poverty!  Why, the story of
+the “peculiar cause” that led to the sudden downfall of such a family
+must be worth a pound to listen to!  Was it justifiable to dishonour the
+promise his face had assured to the poor young woman?  These or similar
+reflections might have betrayed the better judgment of a less experienced
+person than Mr. L—.  As it was, the artful note served but to ponder over
+as one of the latest curiosities in the begging-letter line; while as for
+the portrait, it furnished ample food for moralising on how marvellously
+deceptive appearances were—especially female appearances.
+
+And if this were the end of the story, the good reader, with all his
+honest British inclination for giving the accused the benefit of a doubt,
+might be tempted to exclaim, “And, after all, who knows but that the
+appeal to this known philanthropist might have been genuine?  To be sure,
+the shape it assumed was one that might well excite the suspicion of an
+individual alive to the surpassing cleverness and cunning of begging
+impostors; but at the same time there was sufficient of probability in
+the application to protect it from the stigma of impudent fraud.”  Such
+readers will be glad to hear that all doubts on the matter were set at
+rest, and in the following singular, and for one party concerned somewhat
+unpleasant, manner.  The portrait in question fell into the hands of a
+relative of Mr. L—, a gentleman with a hard heart for begging impostors,
+and sturdy resolution to put them down and punish them whenever he
+encountered them.  He was particularly set against mendicants of the
+genteel class, and was very severe in his strictures on the abominable
+cheat attempted by “Adelaide F. T.”  One afternoon, while walking along
+Oxford-street, lo, the original of the pictured culprit appeared before
+him, artlessly and innocently gazing into a linendraper’s window, and
+accompanied by another lady.  The resemblance between the first lady and
+the photograph was so striking as to place her identity beyond a doubt;
+yet in order to make _quite_ sure, our friend withdrew the latter from
+his pocketbook, and covertly compared it with the original.  It was as
+certain as that he had eyes in his head.  There was the hair of golden
+hue massed behind and raised from the temples; there was the straight
+nose, the small winning mouth, and the delicately-rounded chin.  The
+stern exposer of imposture, however, was not to be moved to mercy by a
+pretty face; his course of duty was plain before him, and stepping up to
+the lady, he addressed with undisguised severity, “Miss Adelaide T., I
+believe?”  “You are mistaken, sir.”  “Not at all, madam; a friend of mine
+was lately favoured with a letter from you enclosing your likeness.”  It
+was scarcely to be wondered at, that an expression of terror took
+possession of the lady’s face, though it was misinterpreted by the
+gentleman.  Thinking that she was addressed by a drunken man or a maniac,
+the lady prudently retreated into the shop the window of which she had
+been regarding.  More than ever convinced that he was not mistaken, L—’s
+friend followed her; and goodness knows what serious consequences might
+have ensued, had not the lady been a known customer of the draper as the
+daughter of a gentleman of wealth and station.  This, of course, led to
+an explanation, and to the most earnest and humble apologies on the part
+of the pursuer of imposture.  The photograph was produced, and
+undoubtedly it was a likeness of the lady.  How it had got into the hands
+of the designing “Adelaide F. T.” no one could tell, but doubtless it was
+selected on account of its beauty and prepossessing artlessness.  An
+endeavour was made to secure the cheats; but from some cause or another
+they took alarm, and the decoy letter, addressed “Post-office —,”
+remained there until it was returned through the Dead-letter Office.
+
+By the bye, the idea of begging “not for myself, but for another,” is a
+dodge not confined to the epistolary impostor.  In the neighbourhood in
+which I reside, some little time since there made her appearance a very
+fine specimen of disinterested generosity of the kind in question: a
+little old lady dressed in black, with kid-gloves on her hands, and a
+cloak soberly trimmed with black crape.  She knocked the knock of a
+person used to the genteel fingering of a knocker, and might she be
+permitted to speak with the lady of the house?  It happened that, at that
+moment, the gentleman of the house was going out, and he, hearing the
+application, suggested that possibly he might do as well.  Undoubtedly,
+though it was a trivial matter with which to occupy the attention of a
+gentleman.  The simple fact was, that the little old lady was bound on a
+mission of charity for a poor soul recently left destitute with nine
+small children: her aim being the purchase of a mangle and a few
+washing-tubs, that the widow might earn an honourable livelihood for her
+numerous brood.  “I am too poor to supply her with _all_ the money out of
+my own slender little purse,” said the old lady, “but I have plenty of
+leisure, and I think that you will agree with me, sir, it cannot be
+employed more worthily.  I do not ask for any large sum on the poor
+creature’s behalf; I only ask one single penny.  I will not take more
+than a penny.  I put the pence in this little bag, you see, and by
+perseverance I trust that I shall soon accomplish my aim.”  As the little
+old lady spoke, she cheerfully produced from the folds of her cloak a
+stout linen bag heavy with copper money, and containing, I should say, at
+least twelve shillings.  The little old lady’s manner was plausible and
+smooth, and well calculated to impose on the “lady of the house” nine
+times out of ten.  But unfortunately for her it had been my lot to make
+the acquaintance of many strange little old ladies as well as of
+gentlemen, and I had my suspicions.  I closed the outer door and
+confronted her on the mat.  “I beg your pardon, but have we not met
+before?” I asked her.  She looked up suddenly and sharply, with no little
+alarm on her wizened old face.  “I—I think not, sir,” she faltered.  “Do
+you happen to know a gentleman named Horsford?” was my next inquiry.  The
+little old lady looked still more embarrassed.  “I did not come here to
+discuss my own affairs, sir,” said she with a sorry affectation of
+indignation, “nor to answer questions that bear no relation to my
+charitable object.  I wish you a good-morning, sir!”  And with that she
+opened the door, and let herself out; and descending the steps quickly,
+trotted up the street with guilty speed, and turned the corner, and was
+out of sight before I could make up my mind what to do with her.
+
+Of advertising beggars there is a large variety.  A great many of them
+breathe a pious spirit, or rather gasp;—for it is seldom that these
+distressed ones muster courage to cry out until they have endured their
+distress even to death’s-door.  Not unfrequently the headings or
+“catch-lines” of these printed appeals are culled from the Bible.  Here
+is one, for example:
+
+    “‘HELP, OR I PERISH!’—The advertiser (in his sixty-seventh birthday)
+    was once blessed with a handsome fortune.  Drink—he confesses it—has
+    been the cause of his ruin.  He still drinks; not now for pleasure
+    and in luxury, but to benumb the gnawing of an aroused conscience.
+    Unless this horrid propensity is checked, the advertiser feels that
+    he must perish body and soul!  Who will save him?  He has two sons in
+    Canada, who are striving men and total abstainers, and who would
+    receive him with open arms, could he but raise money enough to
+    purchase some poor outfit, and to pay for the voyage.—Address, X.,
+    Prescott-street, Whitechapel.”
+
+One cannot help reflecting, that, before contributing towards a fund to
+assist the emigration of the aged toper—who appears only to have awoke to
+a sense of his abasement now that he is stinted of his gin—he would like
+to have the opinion of those striving men, his sons, the total abstainers
+in Canada.  Possibly they would prefer to honour him at a distance.
+According to the ingenious old gentleman’s own showing, he only regards
+his sons as possible props to keep him out of a drunkard’s grave; and if,
+fettered under the weight imposed on them, they sank with their father
+into the same dishonourable sepulchre, it would turn out to be money
+decidedly ill invested.  All this, supposing the appeal to be genuine,
+which in all probability it is not.  Were it investigated, the only
+truthful hit in the appeal would very likely he found to consist in the
+three words, “he still drinks.”
+
+Here is another of more recent date, in the emigration line:
+
+    “A lady has an opportunity of going to America, where she could
+    obtain a good situation as governess, but has not the means of
+    procuring an outfit.  She would be very thankful to anyone who would
+    lend her 10_l._, which she would promise to return with interest at
+    the end of the year.”
+
+This is cool, but almost feverish compared with the annexed:
+
+    “‘MONEY WITHOUT SECURITY!’—Doubtless these mocking words have struck
+    many readers besides the advertiser.  In his desperate situation he
+    has often put to himself the question, Is there to be found in this
+    cruel world a good Samaritan who would confer on a fellow-creature a
+    boon so precious?  Is there one who, blessed with means, can find
+    delight in raising from the slough of despond a poor wretch stranded
+    on the bank of the black river of despair?  Is there one who will
+    account it cheap by _lending_ ten pounds, for three months, at
+    twenty-five per cent interest, to elevate to manly altitude a human
+    creature who, for want of such a sum, is groaning in the dust?  If
+    so, let him send a Beam of Sunshine to G. S. R., No. 17 Model Lodging
+    Houses, —.”
+
+One cannot but ask the question, is G. S. R. a madman, or simply an
+idiot, who can regard it as a “joke” to waste five shillings for the
+privilege of seeing so many lines of empty rubbish in print?  Or, again,
+are there really any grounds of five shillingsworth for supposing that
+amongst the fifty thousand readers of a daily newspaper one may be met
+with silly or eccentric or whimsical enough to entertain G. S. R.’s
+proposition?  It is hard to believe in such a possibility.  Still, there
+_are_ strange people in the world; every day furnishes evidence of this
+fact.  Not more than a month ago it came to light that an old lady
+residing at Clapham has for years past been in the habit of paying an
+organ-grinder thirty shillings a-week—a half-sovereign on the evening of
+every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday—to come and play for half-an-hour
+under her window.  Supposing a rupture between the lady and her musician,
+and she had put an advertisement in the _Times_—“A lady, a resident in a
+quiet suburb, is desirous of engaging with an organ-grinder.  Terms of
+service, three half-hours per week, 75_l._ a-year”—who would have
+regarded it but as a silly joke?
+
+Here is another begging advertisement of the simple and affecting type:
+
+    “A WIDOW’S ONLY COMFORT.—The advertiser begs the kind assistance of
+    the kind-hearted and benevolent to rescue her pianoforte from the
+    hands of the broker.  It is but a poor old affair (valued only at
+    12_l._), but it has been her only consolation and solace since the
+    death of a darling only daughter, whose instrument it was, and it
+    would break her heart to part with it.  Its music and her prayers
+    should combine to thank any one who was generous enough to restore it
+    to her.  Address — Colebrook-row.”
+
+One more instance, and we will have done with the advertising beggar:
+
+    “TO THE AGED AND UNPROTECTED.—A young man, aged twenty-two,
+    well-built, good-looking, and of a frank and affectionate
+    disposition, is desirous of acting the part of a son towards any aged
+    person or persons who would regard his companionship and constant
+    devotion as an equivalent for his maintenance and clothes and support
+    generally.  The parents of the advertiser are both dead, and he has
+    not a relative in the wide world.  Affluence is not aimed at, no more
+    than that degree of comfort that moderate means insure.  Address, O.
+    D., —.”
+
+Although it is difficult without a struggle to feel an interest in this
+young gentleman’s welfare, we cannot help feeling curious to know what
+success his advertisement brought him.  Is he still a forlorn orphan,
+wasting his many virtues and manly attributes on a world that to him is a
+wilderness; or has he happily succeeded in captivating “some aged person
+or persons,” and is he at the present time acting the part of a son
+towards them, and growing sleek and fat “on that degree of comfort that
+moderate means insure”?  Were his initials J. D. instead of O. D., we
+might imagine that it was our ancient friend Jeremiah Diddler turned up
+once more.  O. D. stand for Old Diddler, but Jeremiah the ancient must be
+aged considerably more than twenty-two.  We may rest assured, however,
+that the advertiser is an offshoot of that venerable family.
+
+
+
+
+IV.—Fallen Women.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+THIS CURSE.
+
+
+_The Difficulty in handling it_—_The Question of its Recognition_—_The
+Argyll Rooms_—_Mr. Acton’s visit there_—_The Women and their
+Patrons_—_The Floating Population of Windmill-street_—_Cremorne Gardens
+in the Season_.
+
+THE only explanation that can be offered to the supersensitive reader,
+who will doubtless experience a shock of alarm at discovering this page’s
+heading, is, that it would be simply impossible to treat with any
+pretension to completeness of the curses of London without including it.
+
+Doubtless it is a curse, the mere mention of which, let alone its
+investigation, the delicate-minded naturally shrinks from.  But it is a
+matter for congratulation, perhaps, that we are not all so
+delicate-minded.  Cowardice is not unfrequently mistaken for daintiness
+of nature.  It is so with the subject in question.  It is not a pleasant
+subject—very far from it; but that is not a sufficient excuse for letting
+it alone.  We should never forget that it is our distaste for meddling
+with unsavoury business that does not immediately and personally concern
+us, that is the evil-doers’ armour of impunity.  The monstrous evil in
+question has grown to its present dimensions chiefly because we have
+silently borne with it and let it grow up in all its lusty rankness under
+our noses; and rather than pluck it up by the roots, rather than
+acknowledge its existence even, have turned away our heads and inclined
+our eyes skyward, and thanked God for the many mercies conferred on us.
+
+And here the writer hastens to confess, not without a tingling sense of
+cowardice too, perhaps, that it is not his intention to expose this
+terrible canker that preys on the heart and vitals of society in all its
+plain and bare repulsiveness.  Undoubtedly it is better at all times to
+conceal from the public gaze as much as may be safely hid of the blotches
+and plague-spots that afflict the social body; but if to hide them, and
+cast white cloths over them, and sprinkle them with rose-water answers no
+other purpose (beyond conciliating the squeamish) than to encourage
+festering and decay, why then it becomes a pity that the whole foul
+matter may not be brought fairly to board, to be dealt with according to
+the best of our sanitary knowledge.
+
+The saving, as well as the chastening, hand of the law should be held out
+to the countless host that constitute what is acknowledged as
+emphatically _the_ social evil.  It has been urged, that “to take this
+species of vice under legal regulation is to give it, in the public eye,
+a species of legal sanction.”  Ministers from the pulpit have preached
+that “it can never be right to regulate what it is wrong to do and wrong
+to tolerate.  To license immorality is to protect and encourage it.
+Individuals and houses which have a place on the public registers
+naturally regard themselves, and are regarded by others, as being under
+the law’s guardianship and authority,—not, as they ought to be, under its
+ban and repression.”
+
+Against this grim and essentially unchristian doctrine, let us set the
+argument of a learned and brilliant writer, who some years since was
+courageous enough to shed a little wholesome light on this ugly subject,
+from the pages of a popular magazine.
+
+    “It is urged that the ‘tacit sanction’ given to vice, by such a
+    _recognition_ of prostitution as would be involved in a system of
+    supervision, registration, or license, would be a greater evil than
+    all the maladies (moral and physical) which now flow from its
+    unchecked prevalence.  But let it be considered that by ignoring we
+    do not abolish it, we do not even conceal it; it speaks aloud; it
+    walks abroad; it is a vice as patent and as well-known as
+    drunkenness; it is already ‘tacitly sanctioned’ by the mere fact of
+    its permitted, or connived-at, existence; by the very circumstance
+    which stares us in the face, that the legislative and executive
+    authorities, seeing it, deploring it, yet confess by their inaction
+    their inability to check it, and their unwillingness to prohibit it,
+    and virtually say to the unfortunate prostitutes and their
+    frequenters, ‘As long as you create no public scandal, but throw a
+    decent veil over your proceedings, we shall not interfere with you,
+    but shall regard you as an inevitable evil.’  By an attempt to
+    regulate and control them, the authorities would confess nothing more
+    than they already in act acknowledge, viz. their desire to mitigate
+    an evil which they have discovered their incompetency to suppress.
+    By prohibiting the practice of prostitution _under certain
+    conditions_, they do not legalise or authorise it under all other
+    conditions; they simply announce that, _under these certain
+    conditions_, they feel called upon promptly to interfere.  The
+    legislature does not forbid drunkenness, knowing that it would be
+    futile to do so: but if a man, when drunk, is disorderly, pugnacious,
+    or indecent, or in other mode compromises public comfort or public
+    morals, it steps forward to arrest and punish him; yet surely by no
+    fair use of words can it be represented as thereby sanctioning
+    drunkenness when unaccompanied by indecorous or riotous behaviour,
+    for it merely declares that in the one case interference falls within
+    its functions, and that in the other case it does not.”
+
+No living writer, however, _dare_ bring the subject before the public as
+it should be brought.  A penman bolder than his brethren has but to raise
+the curtain that conceals the thousand-and-one abominations that find
+growth in this magnificent city of ours, but an inch higher than
+“decorum” permits, than the eyes of outraged modesty immediately take
+refuge behind her pocket-handkerchief, and society at large is aghast at
+the man’s audacity, not to say “indecency.”  Warned by the fate of such
+daring ones, therefore, it shall be the writer’s care to avoid all
+startling revelations, and the painting of pictures in their real
+colours, and to confine himself to plain black-and-white inoffensive
+enumerations and descriptions, placing the plain facts and figures before
+the reader, that he may deal with them according to his conscience.
+
+It should incline us to a merciful consideration of the fallen-woman when
+we reflect on the monotony of misery her existence is.  She is to herself
+vile, and she has no other resource but to flee to the gin-measure, and
+therein hide herself from herself.  She has no pleasure even.  Never was
+there made a grimmer joke than that which designates her life a short and
+_merry_ one.  True, she is found at places where amusement and wild
+reckless gaiety is sought; but does she ever appear amused, or, while she
+remains sober, recklessly gay?  I am not now alluding to the low
+prostitute, the conscienceless wretch who wallows in vice and mire and
+strong liquor in a back street of Shadwell, but to the woman of some
+breeding and delicacy, the “well-dressed” creature, in fact, who does not
+habitually “walk the streets,” but betakes herself to places of popular
+resort for persons of a “fast” turn, and who have money, and are desirous
+of expending some of it in “seeing life.”  Such a woman would be a
+frequent visitant at the Argyll Rooms, for instance; let us turn to Mr.
+Acton, and see how vastly she enjoys herself there.
+
+    “The most striking thing to me about the place was an upper gallery
+    fringed with this sort of company.  A sprinkling of each class seemed
+    to be there by assignation, and with no idea of seeking
+    acquaintances.  A number of both sexes, again, were evidently
+    visitors for distraction’s sake alone; the rest were to all intents
+    and purposes in quest of intrigues.
+
+    “The utter indifference of the stylish loungers in these shambles
+    contrasted painfully with the anxious countenances of the many
+    unnoticed women whom the improved manners of the time by no means
+    permit to make advances.  I noticed some very sad eyes, that gave the
+    lie to laughing lips, as they wandered round in search of some
+    familiar face in hope of friendly greeting.  There was the sly
+    triumph of here and there a vixenish hoyden with her leash of patrons
+    about her, and the same envy, hatred, and malice of the neglected
+    ‘has-been’ that some have thought they saw in everyday society.  The
+    glory of the ascendant harlot was no plainer than the discomfiture of
+    her sister out of luck, whom want of elbow-room and excitement threw
+    back upon her vacant self.  The affectation of reserve and gentility
+    that pervaded the pens of that upper region seemed to me but to lay
+    more bare the skeleton; and I thought, as I circulated among the
+    promiscuous herd to groundlings, that the sixpenny balcony would
+    better serve to point a moral than the somewhat more natural, and at
+    all events far more hilarious, throng about me.  As far as regarded
+    public order, it seemed an admirable arrangement; to the proprietor
+    of the rooms, profitable; of most of its cribbed and cabined
+    occupants, a voluntary martyrdom; in all of them, in making more
+    plain their folly and misfortunes, a mistake.
+
+    “The great mass of the general company were on that occasion
+    males—young, middle-aged, and old, married and single, of every shade
+    of rank and respectability; and of these again the majority seemed to
+    have no other aim than to kill an hour or two in philosophising,
+    staring at one another and the women about them, and listening to
+    good music, without a thought of dancing or intention of ultimate
+    dissipation.  A few had come with companions of our sex to dance, and
+    many had paid their shillings on speculation only.  Some pretty
+    grisettes had been brought by their lovers to be seen and to see; and
+    once or twice I thought I saw ‘a sunbeam that had lost its way,’
+    where a modest young girl was being paraded by a foolish swain, or
+    indoctrinated into the charms of town by a designing scamp.  There
+    were plenty of dancers, and the casual polka was often enough, by
+    mutual consent, the beginning and end of the acquaintance.  There was
+    little appearance of refreshment or solicitation, and none whatever
+    of ill-behaviour or drunkenness.  It was clear that two rills of
+    population had met in Windmill-street—one idle and vicious by
+    profession or inclination, the other idle for a few hours on
+    compulsion.  Between them there was little amalgamation.  A few dozen
+    couples of the former, had there been no casino, would have concocted
+    their amours in the thoroughfares; the crowd who formed the other
+    seemed to seek the place with no definite views beyond light music
+    and shelter.  Many, whose thorough British gravity was proof against
+    more than all the meretriciousness of the assembly, would, I fancy,
+    have been there had it been confined to males only.  I am convinced
+    they were open to neither flirtation nor temptation, and I know
+    enough of my countryman’s general taste to affirm that they ran
+    little hazard of the latter.”
+
+Again, Cremorne Gardens “in the season” would seem a likely place to seek
+the siren devoted to a life mirthful though brief.  Let us again
+accompany Mr. Acton.
+
+    “As calico and merry respectability tailed off eastward by penny
+    steamers, the setting sun brought westward hansoms freighted with
+    demure immorality in silk and fine linen.  By about ten o’clock age
+    and innocence—of whom there had been much in the place that day—had
+    retired, weary of amusement, leaving the massive elms, the
+    grass-plots, and the geranium-beds, the kiosks, temples, ‘monster
+    platforms,’ and ‘crystal circle’ of Cremorne to flicker in the
+    thousand gaslights there for the gratification of the dancing public
+    only.  On and around that platform waltzed, strolled, and fed some
+    thousand souls, perhaps seven hundred of them men of the upper and
+    middle class, the remainder prostitutes more or less _prononcées_.  I
+    suppose that a hundred couples—partly old acquaintances, part
+    improvised—were engaged in dancing and other amusements, and the rest
+    of the society, myself included, circulated listlessly about the
+    garden, and enjoyed in a grim kind of way the ‘selection’ from some
+    favourite opera and the cool night breeze from the river.
+
+    “The extent of disillusion he has purchased in this world comes
+    forcibly home to the middle-aged man who in such a scene attempts to
+    fathom former faith and ancient joys, and perhaps even vainly to
+    fancy he might by some possibility begin again.  I saw scores, nay
+    hundreds, about me in the same position as myself.  We were there,
+    and some of us, I feel sure, hardly knew why; but being there, and it
+    being obviously impossible to enjoy the place after the manner of
+    youth, it was necessary, I suppose, to chew the cud of sweet and
+    bitter fancies; and then so little pleasure came, that the Britannic
+    solidity waxed solider than ever even in a garden full of music and
+    dancing, and so an almost mute procession, not of joyous revellers,
+    but thoughtful careworn men and women, paced round and round the
+    platform as on a horizontal treadmill.  There was now and then a bare
+    recognition between passers-by: they seemed to touch and go like ants
+    in the hurry of business.  I do not imagine for a moment they could
+    have been aware that a self-appointed inspector was among them; but,
+    had they known it never so well, the intercourse of the sexes could
+    hardly have been more reserved—_as a general rule_, be it always
+    understood.  For my part I was occupied, when the first chill of
+    change was shaken off, in quest of noise, disorder, debauchery, and
+    bad manners.  Hopeless task!  The picnic at Burnham Beeches, that
+    showed no more life and merriment than Cremorne on the night and time
+    above mentioned, would be a failure indeed, unless the company were
+    antiquarians or undertakers.  A jolly burst of laughter now and then
+    came bounding through the crowd that fringed the dancing-floor and
+    roved about the adjacent sheds in search of company; but that gone
+    by, you heard very plainly the sigh of the poplar, the surging gossip
+    of the tulip-tree, and the plash of the little embowered fountain
+    that served two plaster children for an endless shower-bath.  The
+    function of the very band appeared to be to drown not noise, but
+    stillness.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+THE PLAIN FACTS AND FIGURES OF PROSTITUTION.
+
+
+_Statistics of Westminster_, _Brompton_, _and Pimlico_—_Methods of
+conducting the nefarious Business_—_Aristocratic Dens_—_The High
+Tariff_—_The Horrors of the Social Evil_—_The Broken Bridge behind the
+Sinner_—“_Dress Lodgers_”—_There’s always a_ “_Watcher_”—_Soldiers and
+Sailors_—_The_ “_Wrens of the Curragh_.”
+
+LET US in the first place consider the extent to which the terrible
+malady in question afflicts us.  I am not aware if more recent returns
+have been made than those I have at hand.  Were it possible to obtain
+exact statistics of this as of almost every other branch of social
+economy, I should have been at the trouble of inquiring for them further
+than I have; but I find that the calculations made differ so widely one
+from the other, and are, as a whole, so irreconcilable with probability,
+that it will be better to take an authentic return, albeit ten years old,
+and make allowance for time since.  The Metropolitan-Police authorities
+are responsible for the accompanying figures.
+
+It appears that at the date above indicated there were within the
+Metropolitan-Police district the enormous number of 8600 prostitutes, and
+they were distributed as follows:
+
+                                          Brothels.     Prostitutes.
+Within the districts of Westminster,              153              524
+Brompton, and Pimlico, there are
+St. James, Regent-street, Soho,                   152              318
+Leicester-square
+Marylebone, Paddington, St.                       139              526
+John’s-wood
+Oxford-street, Portland-place,                    194              546
+New-road, Gray’s-inn-lane
+Covent-garden, Drury-lane, St. Giles’s             45              480
+Clerkenwell, Pentonville, City-road,              152              349
+Shoreditch
+Spitalfields, Houndsditch,                        471             1803
+Whitechapel, Ratcliff
+Bethnal-green, Mile-end, Shadwell to              419              965
+Blackwall
+Lambeth, Blackfriars, Waterloo-road               377              802
+Southwark, Bermondsey, Rotherhithe                178              667
+Islington, Hackney, Homerton                      185              445
+Camberwell, Walworth, Peckham                      65              228
+Deptford and Greenwich                            148              401
+Kilburn, Portland, Kentish, and Camden             88              231
+Towns
+Kensington, Hammersmith, Fulham                    12              106
+Walham-green, Chelsea, Cremorne                    47              209
+
+Without entering into repulsive detail, I will endeavour to give the
+reader some idea of the different methods under which the nefarious
+business is conducted.  The “houses of ill-fame” differ as widely in the
+extent and quality of their dealings as the houses of honesty and fair
+commerce.  There are houses of “ill-fame” in the most fashionable
+quarters of the town, just as there are in Wapping—houses that are let
+and sub-let until they reach a rental as high as three and four hundred
+pounds a-year.  It is not in those aristocratic dens of infamy, however,
+that women suffer most; none but the most costly wares are on sale at
+such establishments, and it is to the interest of the hucksters who
+traffic in them to deal with them delicately as circumstances will
+permit, to humour and coax and caress them as pet animals are coaxed and
+humoured.  Nor would the creatures themselves tolerate anything in the
+shape of brutal treatment at the hands of those who harbour them.  They
+“know their value,” and as a rule are exacting, imperious, and insolent
+towards their “landlords.”  Unlike their sister unfortunates lower sunk
+in iniquity, they would experience no difficulty in procuring new
+“lodgings.”  The doors of a hundred establishments such as that she now
+honours with residence are open to her.  With a handsome face and a full
+purse, the whole of the devilish crew of brothel-keepers are her slaves,
+her fawning, cringing slaves, ready to lick the dust from her shoes, so
+that she pays regularly her rent of ten guineas a-week, and fails not to
+induce her “friends” to drink champagne at a guinea a bottle.
+
+Possibly the gay lady may come to the “bitter end” some day, but at
+present, except from the moral point of view, she is not an object for
+commiseration.  She at least has all that she deliberately bargains
+for—fine clothes, rich food, plenty of money, a carriage to ride in, the
+slave-like obedience of her “inferiors,” and the fulsome adulation of
+those who deal with her for her worth.  Very often (though under the
+circumstances it is doubtful if from any aspect this is an advantage) she
+finds a fool with money who is willing to marry her; but whether she is
+content to accept the decent change, and to abide by it, of course
+depends on her nature.  Whether her husband adheres to his rash bargain
+is a question that time only can solve.  He at least, if he be a vicious
+man as well as a fool, may argue that she will be little the worse than
+when he found her if he leaves her; while possibly she may gather
+consolation from the same method of argument.
+
+Anyway, she has a long way to descend before she may be branded as
+“common.”  At present she is not even included in the police-returns.
+Any blue-coated guardian of the peace, in humble hope of earning a
+sixpence, would be only too eager to touch his hat to her and open her
+carriage-door to-morrow, and that even at the door of her genteel
+residence, which is in a neighbourhood much too respectable to permit it
+to be stigmatised as a “brothel.”
+
+The police-report just quoted specifies that the 8600 prostitutes
+infesting the metropolis include 921 well-dressed and living in houses of
+ill-fame.  This on the face of it, however, is significant of how very
+little the police really know of the matter they venture to report on.
+The women here alluded to are of the unobtrusive and orderly sort, the
+mainstay of whose occupation is to pass as respectable persons.  They
+would be the last to resort for permanent lodging at houses whose fame
+was so ill that the greenest policeman on beat could point them out.  It
+is altogether too hard to fasten the imputation of infamous on the
+holders of the houses in which this class of unfortunate seeks lodging.
+In very many cases the women are actuated by a twofold reason in gaining
+admission to the house of a householder who does not suspect her real
+character.  In the first place, and as already stated, she wishes to pass
+in the immediate neighbourhood as respectable; and in the next place she
+not unnaturally seeks to evade payment of the monstrously high rate of
+rent that the common brothel-keeper would impose on her.  Moreover, the
+peculiar branch of the terrible business she essays prospers under such
+management, where it would not if it were otherwise conducted.  As a
+body, the women in question must be regarded as human creatures who have
+not gone _altogether_ to the bad; and though in grim truth it may be in
+the highest degree absurd for anyone to cast herself deliberately into a
+sea of abomination, and then to affect a mincing manner of seriousness,
+much allowance should be made for the possibility that the fatal leap was
+not taken with cool forethought, or that the urging to it was due to some
+devilish genius whom there was no resisting.  Anyhow, it would be hard on
+them, poor wretches, to compel them to give up their endeavours to
+conceal their degradation if, apart from mercenary motives, they are
+heartily desirous of concealing it.
+
+    “A vast proportion of those who, after passing through the career of
+    kept mistresses, ultimately come upon the town, fall in the first
+    instance from a mere exaggeration and perversion of one of the best
+    qualities of a woman’s heart.  They yield to desires in which they do
+    not share, from a weak generosity which cannot refuse anything to the
+    passionate entreaties of the man they love.  There is in the warm
+    fond heart of woman a strange and sublime unselfishness, which men
+    too commonly discover only to profit by,—a positive love of
+    self-sacrifice, an active, so to speak, an _aggressive_ desire to
+    show their affection by giving up to those who have won it something
+    they hold very dear.  It is an unreasoning and dangerous yearning of
+    the spirit, precisely analogous to that which prompts the surrenders
+    and self-tortures of the religious devotee.  Both seek to prove their
+    devotion to the idol they have enshrined, by casting down before his
+    altar their richest and most cherished treasures.  This is no
+    romantic or over-coloured picture; those who deem it so have not
+    known the better portion of the sex, or do not deserve to have known
+    them.”
+
+It would soften the hearts of many, and hold the hands of those who would
+break down the bridge behind the sinner, could they know the awful misery
+that frequently attends the life of a fallen woman.  The 921 questionably
+quoted as “well dressed, and living in houses of ill-fame,” do not at all
+represent the horrors of the social evil in all its ghastly integrity.
+Such women are at least free to a certain extent to act as they please.
+No restriction is set on their movements; they may remain at home or go
+abroad, dress as they please, and expend their miserable gains according
+to their fancy.  But they have sisters in misfortune to whom the smallest
+of these privileges is denied.  They are to be found amongst the unhappy
+2216 who are described as “well dressed, and walking the streets.”
+Unlike the gay lady, who makes her downynest in the topmost branches of
+the deadly upas-tree, and is altogether above suspicion or vulgar
+reproach, this poor wretch is without a single possession in the wide
+world.  She is but one of a thousand walking the streets of London, the
+most cruelly used and oppressed of all the great family to which they own
+relationship.  They are bound hand and foot to the harpies who are their
+keepers.  They are infinitely worse off than the female slaves on a
+nigger-plantation, for they at least may claim as their own the rags they
+wear, as well as a share of the miserable hut common to the gang after
+working-hours.  But these slaves of the London pavement may boast of
+neither soul nor body, nor the gaudy skirts and laces and ribbons with
+which they are festooned.  They belong utterly and entirely to the devil
+in human shape who owns the den that the wretched harlot learns to call
+her “home.”  You would never dream of the deplorable depth of her
+destitution, if you met her in her gay attire.  Splendid from her
+tasselled boots to the full-blown and flowery hat or bonnet that crowns
+her guilty head, she is absolutely poorer than the meanest beggar that
+ever whined for a crust.
+
+These women are known as “dress lodgers.”  They are poor wretches who
+somehow or another are reduced to the lowest depths of destitution.
+Sometimes illness is the cause.  Sometimes, if a girl gets into a bad
+house, and is as yet too new to the horrible business to conform without
+remonstrance to the scandalous extortions practised by the
+brothel-keeper, she is “broken down and brought to it” by design and
+scheming.  A girl not long since confided to a clergyman friend of mine
+the following shocking story.  Rendered desperate by the threats of the
+wretch who owned her, she applied to him for advice.  “I was bad enough
+before, I don’t deny it; but I wasn’t a thief.  I hadn’t been used to
+their ways for more than a month, and had a good box of clothes and a
+silver watch and gold chain, when I went to lodge there, and it was all
+very well while I spent my money like a fool, bought gin, and treated ’em
+all round; but when I wouldn’t stand it any longer, and told her (the
+brothel-keeper) plain that I would pay her the rent and no more (nine
+shillings a-week for a small back room), she swore that she’d break me
+down, and ‘bring me to her weight.’  I didn’t know that at the time; I
+didn’t hear of it till afterwards.  She was fair enough to my face, and
+begged me not to leave her, flattering me, and telling me she would be
+ruined when her customers found out that the prettiest woman had left
+her.  That’s how she quieted me, till one day, when I came home, she
+accused me of robbing a gentleman the night before of a diamond
+shirt-pin, and there was a fellow there who said he was a ‘detective,’
+and though my box was locked he had opened it before I came home, and
+swore that he had found the pin, which he showed me.  It was all a lie.
+I had been with a gentleman the night before, but he wore a scarf with a
+ring to it; that I could swear to.  But it was no use saying anything; I
+was the thief, they said, and I was to be taken into custody.  What was I
+to do?  I begged of the detective not to take me; I implored Mother H— to
+intercede for me, and she pretended to.  She went into another room with
+the detective, and then she came back and told me that the man would take
+ten pounds down to hush it up.  I’ve seen that man since; he is a ‘bully’
+at a bad house in the Waterloo-road, but I truly believed that he was a
+private-clothes policeman, as he said he was.  Of course I didn’t have
+ten pounds, nor ten shillings hardly; but Mother H— said that she would
+lend the money ‘on security;’ and I made over to her—sold to her, in
+fact—in writing, every scrap of clothes that I had in my box and on my
+back.  ‘Let’s have them too, Meg,’ Mother H— said, ‘and then you’re safe
+not to run away.’  I made over to her the box as well, and my watch, and
+gave her an I O U besides for five pounds, and then she ‘squared’ it with
+the detective, and he went off.
+
+“That’s how I came to be a ‘dress lodger.’  She didn’t wait long before
+she opened her mind to me.  She up and told me that very night: ‘You’ve
+got a new landlady now, my fine madam,’ said she; ‘you’ve got to _work_
+for your living now; to work for _me_, d’ye understand?  You can’t
+work—can’t earn a penny without you dress spicy, and every rag you’ve got
+on is _mine_; and if you say one wry word, I’ll have ’em off and bundle
+you out.’  So what could I do or say?” continued the poor wretch, tears
+streaming down her really handsome face; “all the girls there were ‘dress
+lodgers,’ and I believe that they were glad to see me brought to their
+level.  They only laughed to hear Mother H— go on so.  I’ve been a ‘dress
+lodger’ ever since, not being able to get a shilling for myself, for she
+takes away all I get, and besides is always threatening to strip me and
+turn me out, and to sue me for the five pounds I owe her.”
+
+My informant asked her, “How does she exercise this amount of control
+over you?  She is not always with you; you leave her house to walk the
+streets, I suppose?”
+
+“So I do, but not alone.  Dress lodgers are never allowed to do that,
+sir.  I haven’t been one long, but long enough to find that out.  There’s
+always a ‘watcher.’  Sometimes it’s a woman—an old woman, who isn’t fit
+for anything else—but in general it’s a man.  He watches you always,
+walking behind you, or on the opposite side of the way.  He never loses
+sight of you, never fear.  You daren’t so much as go into a public for a
+drain of gin but he is in after you in a minute, and must have his glass
+too, though he isn’t allowed to do it—to have the gin, I mean; and _you_
+ain’t allowed it either, not a drop, if the old woman knows it.  You’re
+supposed to walk about and look for your living, and the watcher is
+supposed to see that you do do it—to take care that you look sharp, and
+above all that you don’t take customers anywhere but _home_.  And what do
+you get for it all?  You’re half fed, and bullied day and night, and
+threatened to be stripped and turned out; and when you’re at home, the
+watcher is generally hanging about, and he’ll ‘down’ you with a ‘one’r’
+in the back or side (he won’t hit you in the face, for fear of spoiling
+it) if Mother H— only gives him the wink, though perhaps you’ve risked
+getting into trouble, and stood many a glass of gin to him the night
+before.”
+
+It is difficult, indeed, to imagine a human creature more deplorably
+circumstanced than the one whose sad story is above narrated, and who is
+only “one of a thousand.”  There are those of the sisterhood who appear
+in a more hideous shape, as, for instance, the horde of human tigresses
+who swarm in the pestilent dens by the riverside at Ratcliff and
+Shadwell.  These may have fallen lower in depravity, indeed they are
+herded in the very mud and ooze of it, but they do not _suffer_ as the
+gaily-bedizened “dress lodger” does.  They are almost past human feeling.
+Except when they are ill and in hospital, they are never sober.  As soon
+as her eyes are open in the morning, the she-creature of “Tiger Bay”
+seeks to cool her parched mouth out of the gin-bottle; and “— your eyes,
+let us have some more gin!” is the prayer she nightly utters before she
+staggers to her straw, to snore like the worse than pig she is.
+
+Soldiers’ women are different from sailors’ women.  As a rule, they are
+much more decent in appearance, and they are insured against habits of
+bestial intoxication by the slender resources of the men on whose bounty
+they depend.  It is not possible to dip very deeply into the wine-cup or
+even the porter-pot on an income of about fourpence-halfpenny per diem,
+and it painfully illustrates what a wretched trade prostitution may
+become that it is driven even to the barracks.
+
+Beyond the barracks; out on to the wild bleak common, where, winter and
+summer, the military tents are pitched.
+
+A year or so since there appeared in the pages of the _Pall Mall Gazette_
+three graphic and astounding letters concerning the dreadful condition of
+a colony of women who “squatted” amongst the furze of Curragh Common, and
+subsisted on such miserable wage as the soldiers there quartered could
+afford to pay them.  These creatures are known in and about the great
+military camp and its neighbourhood as “wrens.”  They do not live in
+houses, or even huts, but build for themselves “nests” in the bush.  To
+quote the words of the writer in question, these nests “have an interior
+space of about nine feet long by seven feet broad; and the roof is not
+more than four and a half feet from the ground.  You crouch into them as
+beasts crouch into cover, and there is no standing upright till you crawl
+out again.  They are rough misshapen domes of furze, like big rude
+birds’-nests, compacted of harsh branches, and turned topsy-turvy upon
+the ground.  The walls are some twenty inches thick, and they do get
+pretty well compacted—much more than would be imagined.  There is no
+chimney—not even a hole in the roof, which generally slopes forward.  The
+smoke of the turf-fire which burns on the floor of the hut has to pass
+out at the door when the wind is favourable, and to reek slowly through
+the crannied walls when it is not.  The door is a narrow opening, nearly
+the height of the structure—a slit in it, kept open by two rude posts,
+which also serve to support the roof.  To keep it down and secure from
+the winds that drive over the Curragh so furiously, sods of earth are
+placed on top, here and there, with a piece of corrugated iron (much used
+in the camp, apparently—I saw many old and waste pieces lying about) as
+an additional protection from rain.  Sometimes a piece of this iron is
+placed in the longitudinal slit aforesaid, and then you have a door as
+well as a doorway.  Flooring there is none of any kind whatever, nor any
+attempt to make the den snugger by burrowing down into the bosom of the
+earth.  The process of construction seems to be to clear the turf from
+the surface of the plain to the required space, to cut down some bushes
+for building material, and to call in a friendly soldier or two to rear
+the walls by the simple process of piling and trampling.  When the nest
+is newly made, as that one was which I first examined, and if you happen
+to view it on a hot day, no doubt it seems tolerably snug shelter.  A
+sportsman might lie there for a night or two without detriment to his
+health or his moral nature.  But all the nests are not newly made; and if
+the sun shines on the Curragh, bitter winds drive across it, with
+swamping rains for days and weeks together, and miles of snow-covered
+plain sometimes lie between this wretched colony of abandoned women and
+the nearest town.  Wind and rain are their worst enemies (unless we
+reckon-in mankind) and play ‘old gooseberry’ with the bush-dwellings.
+The beating of the one and the pelting of the other soon destroy their
+bowery summer aspect.  They get crazy, they fall toward this side and
+that, they shrink in and down upon the outcast wretches that huddle in
+them, and the doorposts don’t keep the roof up, and the clods don’t keep
+it down.  The nest is nothing but a furzy hole, such as, for comfort, any
+wild-beast may match anywhere, leaving cleanliness out of the question.”
+
+In each of these wretched lairs, the writer—who, be it borne in mind, was
+an eye-witness of what he describes—goes on to inform us, companies of
+these awful “birds,” varying in number from three to six, eat, drink,
+sleep, cook, and receive company.  As regards the furniture and domestic
+utensils with which each hut is provided, “the most important piece of
+furniture was a wooden shelf running along the back of the nest, and
+propped on sticks driven into the earthen floor.  Some mugs, some plates,
+some cups and saucers, a candlestick; two or three old knives and forks,
+battered and rusty; a few dull and dinted spoons; a teapot (this being
+rather a rich establishment), and several other articles of a like
+character, were displayed upon the shelf; and a grateful sight it was.  I
+declare I was most thankful for the cups and saucers; and as for the
+teapot, it looked like an ark of redemption in crockery-ware.  If they
+were not—as I told myself when my eyes first rested on them—the only
+human-looking things in the place, they did give one a comfortable
+assurance that these wretched and desperate outcasts had not absolutely
+broken with the common forms and habits of civilised life.
+
+    “Beneath it was heaped an armful of musty straw, originally smuggled
+    in from the camp stables: this, drawn out and shaken upon the earth,
+    was the common bed.  A rough wooden box, such as candles are packed
+    in, stood in a corner; one or two saucepans, and a horrid old
+    tea-kettle, which had all the look of a beldame punished by drink,
+    were disposed in various nooks in the furzy walls; a frying-pan was
+    stuck into them by the handle, in company with a crooked stick of
+    iron used as a poker; and—undoubtedly _that_ was there—a cheap little
+    looking-glass was stuck near the roof.  These things formed the whole
+    furniture and appointments of the nest, if we exclude a petticoat or
+    so hung up at intervals.  There was not a stool in the place; and as
+    for anything in the shape of a table, there was not room even for the
+    idea of such a thing.  Except for the cups and saucers, I doubt
+    whether any Australian native habitation is more savage or more
+    destitute: _he_ can get an old saucepan or two, and knows how to
+    spread a little straw on the ground.  Nor were any of the other nests
+    (and I believe I looked into them all) better or differently
+    furnished.  The only difference was in the quantity of crockery.  In
+    every one the candle-box was to be found.  I discovered that it was
+    the receptacle of those little personal ornaments and cherished
+    trifles which women, in every grade of life, hoard with a sort of
+    animal instinct.  In every one an upturned saucepan was used for a
+    seat, when squatting on the earth became too tiresome.  In all, the
+    practice is to sleep with your head under the shelf (thus gaining
+    some additional protection from the wind) and your feet to the
+    turf-fire, which is kept burning all night near the doorway.  Here
+    the use of the perforated saucepan becomes apparent.  It is placed
+    over the burning turf when the wrens dispose themselves to rest, and
+    as there is no want of air in these dwellings, the turf burns well
+    and brightly under the protecting pot.  Another remembrance of a
+    decent life is seen in the fact, that the women always undress
+    themselves to sleep upon their handful of straw, their day-clothes
+    serving to cover them.”
+
+The “wrens” themselves are described as being almost all young, and all,
+without an exception, Irish.  They range from seventeen to twenty-five
+years old, and almost all come out of cabins in country places.
+Occasionally a delicate-looking “wren” may be met, but as a rule they are
+sturdy, fine-limbed women, full of health and strength; many are
+good-looking.  In their style of dress, no less than undress, they are
+peculiar.  “All day they lounge in a half-naked state, clothed simply in
+one frieze petticoat, and another, equally foul, cast loosely over then
+shoulders; though, towards evening, they put on the decent attire of the
+first girl I met there.  These bettermost clothes are kept bright and
+clean enough; the frequency with which they are seen displayed on the
+bushes to dry, shows how often they are washed, and how well.  These
+observations apply to the cotton gown, the stockings, the white petticoat
+alone; frieze and flannel never know anything of soap-and-water at all,
+apparently.  The ‘Curragh-petticoat’ is familiarly known for miles and
+miles round; its peculiarity seems to be that it is starched, but not
+ironed.  The difference in the appearance of these poor wretches when the
+gown and petticoat are donned, and when they are taken off again (that is
+to say, the moment they come back from the ‘hunting-grounds’), answers
+precisely to their language and demeanour when sober and when tipsy.”
+The communistic principle governs each “nest;” and share-and-share alike
+is the rule observed.  “None of the women have any money of their own;
+what each company get is thrown into a common purse, and the nest is
+provisioned out of it.  What they get is little indeed: a few halfpence
+turned out of one pocket and another when the clean starched frocks are
+thrown off at night, make up a daily income just enough to keep body and
+soul together.”
+
+Inquiry careful and judicious disclosed to the daring literary
+investigator that the “wrens” take it in turns to do the marketing and
+keep house while their sisters are abroad “on business.”  As need not be
+mentioned, it is the youngest and best-looking women who engage in the
+money-getting branch.  Considering how severe are their privations, and
+the unceasing life of wretchedness they lead, it is not without surprise
+that we hear that many of the “wrens” have occupied the ground they still
+squat on during the past eight or nine years.  “I asked one of these
+older birds how they contrived their sleeping-accommodation before
+‘nests’ were invented.  Said she, ‘We’d pick the biggest little bush we
+could find, and lay under it, turnin’ wid the wind.’  ‘Shifting round the
+bush as the wind shifted?’  ‘Thrue for ye.  And sometimes we’d wake wid
+the snow covering us, and maybe soaked wid rain.’  ‘And how did you dry
+your clothes?’  ‘We jist waited for a fine day.’”
+
+The above and much more information concerning the habits and customs of
+these bushwomen of the Curragh was obtained in the daytime; but this was
+not enough for the plucky _Pall-Mall_ adventurer.  He was well aware that
+the wren was a night-bird, and could only be seen in her true colours by
+candle-glimmer within her nest, or by the light of the stars or moon
+while abroad hunting for prey.  Setting out after dark, our friend made
+his way across the common towards the nests he had visited the day
+before, and particularly to one known as No. 2 nest, the inmates of which
+had shown themselves very civil and obliging.
+
+“As I approached it,” says the writer, “I saw but one wretched figure
+alone.  Crouched near the glowing turf, with her head resting upon her
+hands, was a woman whose age I could scarcely guess at, though I think,
+by the masses of black hair that fell forward upon her hands and backward
+over her bare shoulders, that she must have been young.  She was
+apparently dozing, and taking no heed of the pranks of the frisky little
+curly-headed boy whom I have made mention of before; he was playing on
+the floor.  When I announced myself by rapping on the bit of corrugated
+iron which stood across the bottom of the doorway, the woman started in
+something like fright; but she knew me at a second glance, and in I went.
+‘Put back the iron, if ye plaze,’ said the wren as I entered; ‘the wind’s
+blowing this way to-night, bad luck to it!’ . . .  I wanted to know how
+my wretched companion in this lonely, windy, comfortless hovel, came from
+being a woman to be turned into a wren.  The story began with ‘no father
+nor mother,’ an aunt who kept a whisky-store in Cork, an artilleryman who
+came to the whisky-store and saw and seduced the girl.  By and by his
+regiment was ordered to the Curragh.  The girl followed him, being then
+with child.  ‘He blamed me for following him,’ said she.  ‘He’d have
+nothing to do with me.  He told me to come here, and do like other women
+did.  And what could I do?  My child was born here, in this very place;
+and glad I was of the shelter, and glad I was when the child died—thank
+the blessed Mary!  What could I do with a child?  His father was sent
+away from here, and a good riddance.  He used me very bad.’  After a
+minute’s silence the woman continued, a good deal to my surprise, ‘I’ll
+show you the likeness of a betther man, far away, one that never said a
+cross word to me—blessed’s the ground he treads upon!’  And fumbling in
+the pocket of her too scanty and dingy petticoat, she produced a
+photographic portrait of a soldier, enclosed in half-a-dozen greasy
+letters.  ‘He’s a bandsman, sir, and a handsome man he is; and I believe
+he likes me too.  But they have sent him to Malta for six years; I’ll
+never see my darlint again.’  And then this poor wretch, who was half
+crying as she spoke, told me how she had walked to Dublin to see him just
+before he sailed, ‘because the poor craythur wanted to see me onst more.’
+
+“From this woman, so strangely compounded, I learned that she had
+suffered so much privation last winter, that she had made up her mind not
+to stay in the bush another such a season.  ‘At the first fall of snow
+I’ll go to the workhouse, that I will!’ she said in the tone of one who
+says that in such an event he is determined to cut his throat.  ‘Why,
+would you belave it, sir?—last winter the snow would be up as high as our
+little house, and we had to cut a path through it to the min, or we’d
+been ruined intirely.’
+
+“. . .  Presently the report of a gun was heard.  ‘Gunfire!’ cried my
+companion.  ‘They’ll be back soon now, and I hope it’s not drunk they
+are.’  I went out to listen.  All was dead quiet, and nothing was to be
+seen but the lights in the various bushes, till suddenly a blaze broke
+out at a distance.  Some dry furze had been fired by some of the soldiers
+wandering on the common, and in search of whom the picket presently came
+round, peeping into every bush.  Presently the sound of distant voices
+was heard; it came nearer and nearer, and its shrillness and confusion
+made it known to me that it was indeed a party of returning wrens, far
+from sober.  They were, in fact, mad drunk; and the sound of their voices
+as they came on through the dense darkness, screaming obscene sounds
+broken by bursts of horrible laughter, with now and then a rattling
+volley of oaths which told that fighting was going on, was staggering.  I
+confess I now felt uncomfortable.  I had only seen the wren sober, or
+getting sober; what she might be in that raging state of drunkenness I
+had yet to find out, and the discovery threatened to be very unpleasant.
+The noise came nearer, and was more shocking because you could
+disentangle the voices and track each through its own course of swearing,
+or of obscene singing and shouting, or of dreadful threats, which dealt
+in detail with every part of the human frame.  ‘Is this your lot?’ I
+asked my companion with some apprehension, as at length the shameful crew
+burst out of the darkness.  ‘Some of ’em, I think.’  But no, they passed
+on; such a spectacle as made me tremble.  I felt like a man respited when
+the last woman went staggering by.  Again voices were heard, this time
+proceeding from the women belonging to the bush where I was spending such
+an uncomfortable evening.  Five in all,—two tipsy and three comparatively
+sober,—they soon presented themselves at the door; one of them was
+Billy’s mother.  At the sound of her voice the child woke up and cried
+for her.  She was the most forbidding-looking creature in the whole
+place; but she hastened to divest herself outside of her crinoline and
+the rest of her walking attire (nearly all she had on), and came in and
+nursed the boy very tenderly.  The other wrens also took off gown and
+petticoat, and folding them up, made seats of them within the nest.  Then
+came the important inquiry from the watching wren, ‘What luck have you
+had?’ to which the answer was, ‘Middling.’  Without the least scruple
+they counted up what they had got amongst them—a poor account.  It was
+enough to make a man’s heart bleed to hear the details, and to see the
+actual money.
+
+“In order to continue my observations a little later in a way agreeable
+to those wretched outcasts, I proposed to ‘stand supper,’ a proposition
+which was joyfully received, of course.  Late as it was, away went one of
+the wrens to get supper, presently returning with a loaf, some bacon,
+some tea, some sugar, a little milk, and a can of water.  The women
+brought all these things in such modest quantities that my treat cost no
+more (I got my change, and I remember the precise sum) than two shillings
+and eightpence-halfpenny.  The frying-pan was put in requisition, and
+there seemed some prospect of a ‘jolly night’ for my more sober nest of
+wrens.  One of them began to sing—not a pretty song; but presently she
+stopped to listen to the ravings of a strong-voiced vixen in an adjoining
+bush.  ‘It’s Kate,’ said one, ‘and she’s got the drink in her—the devil
+that she is.’  I then heard that this was a woman of such ferocity when
+drunk that the whole colony was in terror of her.  One of the women near
+me showed me her face, torn that very night by the virago’s nails, and a
+finger almost bitten through.  As long as the voice of the formidable
+creature was heard, everyone was silent in No. 2 nest—silent out of fear
+that she would presently appear amongst them.  Her voice ceased: again a
+song was commenced; then the frying-pan began to hiss; and that sound it
+was, perhaps, that brought the dreaded virago down upon us.  She was
+heard coming from her own bush, raging as she came.  ‘My God, there she
+is!’ one of the women exclaimed.  ‘She’s coming here; and if she sees you
+she’ll tear every rag from your back!’  The next moment the fierce
+creature burst into our bush, a stalwart woman full five feet ten inches
+high, absolutely mad with drink.  Her hair was streaming down her back;
+she had scarcely a rag of clothing on; and the fearful figure made at me
+with a large jug, intended to be smashed upon my skull.  I declare her
+dreadful figure appalled me.  I was so wonder-stricken, that I believe
+she might have knocked me on the head without resistance; but, quick as
+lightning, one of the women got before me, spreading out her petticoat.
+‘Get out of it!’ she shouted in terror; ‘run!’  And so I did.  Covered by
+this friendly and grateful wren, I passed out of the nest, and made my
+way homeward in the darkness.  One of the girls stepped out to show me
+the way.  I parted from her a few yards from the nest, and presently
+‘lost myself’ on the common.  It was nearly two o’clock when I got to
+Kildare from my last visit to that shameful bush-village.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+THE PRESENT CONDITION OF THE QUESTION.
+
+
+_The Laws applying to Street-walkers_—_The Keepers of the Haymarket
+Night-houses_—_Present Position of the Police-magistrates_.—_Music-hall
+Frequenters_—_Refreshment-bars_—_Midnight
+Profligacy_—“_Snuggeries_”—_Over-zealous Blockheads_.
+
+SIX or seven years since, such alterations were made in the laws applying
+to nocturnal street-walkers and disorderly persons generally, as enabled
+the London magistrates, with the assistance of the police, to reduce the
+great Haymarket disgrace to manageable dimensions.  To completely abolish
+so renowned and prodigious a nuisance at a blow was more than could be
+expected; but the public generally were quite satisfied with the gradual
+and successful working of the plans adopted for the final extinction of
+the infamous “oyster-shops,” and cafés, and wine-shops, that in the olden
+time made night hideous from St. James’s-street to Piccadilly.  Suddenly,
+however, the good work has received a serious check.  According to the
+usual custom, the keeper of a refreshment-house, on being summoned before
+the magistrate (Mr. Knox) for an infringement of the Act, was fined for
+the offence; and nothing else was expected but that the fine would be
+paid, and, except for its salutary effect, there an end of it.  But it
+would seem that the fined “night-house” keeper had cunning advisers, who
+assured him that the conviction was bad, and that he had only to appeal
+to a superior court to insure its being set aside.  The course suggested
+was adopted, and crowned with success.  Mr. Knox’s decision was reversed,
+it not being clearly shown that the loose women discovered on the
+premises were really assembled for an immoral purpose.
+
+The _Times_, commenting on this, says: “It is matter for general regret,
+since its probable result will be that in future the keepers of the
+Haymarket ‘night-houses’ will do pretty much what they please, without
+let or hindrance.  It was decided by Sir William Bodkin and his brother
+magistrates sitting at the Middlesex Sessions, on an appeal brought from
+Marlborough-street, that no case is made out against the keeper of a
+‘night-house,’ unless the police can prove that the women found in the
+house were assembled there for an immoral purpose; it was possible they
+might be there merely for the legitimate purpose of refreshment, and not
+in prosecution of their wretched trade.  It is perfectly obvious that
+this interpretation of the law, whether or not true to the letter,
+utterly violates the spirit.  The character of the women who frequent
+these ‘night-houses’ is perfectly well known.  They have, moreover, but
+one possible object in frequenting them.  It is clear, therefore, that
+they come within the spirit of the law against harbouring improper
+characters quite as much as if they visited these houses actually in
+company of men; and hence it follows that no new principle of
+legislation, requiring long consideration and repeated discussion, would
+be introduced if the law were made to reach them.  We should, in fact, be
+not making a new law, but giving an old law its proper effect—an effect
+actually given it, as Mr. Knox points out, for seven years, and latterly
+with admirable results.  Under these circumstances, we can see no
+objection to replacing the law on its former satisfactory footing by the
+simple expedient of a short clause in the Habitual Criminals’ Bill.  The
+Bill already deals with the low beer-houses, which are the favourite
+resorts of certain dangerous classes of the community; and the addition
+of a few words would enable it to deal with such ‘night-houses’ as those
+we have been discussing.  This would not interfere with subsequent more
+mature and more comprehensive legislation on the subject, while it would
+obviate the delay which has driven the police authorities to desperation,
+and which threatens to give a fresh lease to a grave national scandal,
+just as it was in the way of being repressed.”
+
+The old law alluded to by the _Times_ is the Act of Parliament of the 2d
+and 3d Vict. cap. 47, and is entitled “An Act for further empowering the
+Police in and near the Metropolis;” being an amendment of Sir Robert
+Peel’s original statute, the 10th Geo. IV.  Clauses 44, 52, 54, 58, and
+63, bear especially on the penalties incurred by disorderly fallen women.
+
+The 44th clause runs as follows:
+
+    “And whereas it is expedient that the provisions made by law for
+    preventing disorderly conduct in the houses of licensed victuallers
+    be extended to other houses of public resort; be it enacted that
+    every person who shall have or keep any house, shop, room, or place
+    of public resort within the Metropolitan-Police district, wherein
+    provisions, liquors, or refreshments of any kind shall be sold or
+    consumed (whether the same shall be kept or retailed therein, or
+    procured elsewhere), and who shall wilfully or knowingly permit
+    drunkenness or other disorderly conduct in such house, shop, room, or
+    place, or knowingly suffer any unlawful games or any gaming
+    whatsoever therein, or knowingly suffer or permit _prostitutes_, or
+    persons of notoriously bad character, to meet together and remain
+    therein, shall for every such offence be liable to a penalty of not
+    more than five pounds.”
+
+The 52d clause of the same statute provides:
+
+    “That it shall be lawful for the Commissioners of Police from time to
+    time, and as occasion may require, to make regulation for the route
+    to be observed by all carts, carriages, horses, and persons, and for
+    preventing obstructions of the streets or thoroughfares within the
+    Metropolitan-Police district, in all times of public processions,
+    public rejoicings, or illuminations; and also to give directions to
+    the constables for keeping order and for preventing any obstruction
+    of the thoroughfares in the immediate neighbourhood of her Majesty’s
+    palaces and public offices, the High Court of Parliament, the courts
+    of law and equity, the police-courts, the theatres, and other places
+    of public resort, and in any case when the streets or thoroughfares
+    may be thronged or may be liable to be obstructed.”
+
+The 54th clause provides, in continuation:
+
+    “That every person who, after being made acquainted with the
+    regulations or directions which the Commissioner of Police shall have
+    made for regulating the route of horses, carts, carriages, and
+    persons during the time of divine service, and for preventing
+    obstructions during public processions, and on other occasions
+    hereinbefore specified, shall wilfully disregard, or not conform
+    himself thereto, shall be liable to a penalty of not more than forty
+    shillings.  And it shall be lawful for any constable belonging to the
+    Metropolitan-Police force to take into custody, _without warrant_,
+    any person who shall commit any such offence within view of any such
+    constable.”
+
+The same 54th clause also provides:
+
+    “That every common prostitute or night-walker, loitering, or being in
+    any thoroughfare or public place, for the purpose of prostitution or
+    solicitation, to the annoyance of the inhabitants or passengers,
+    shall be liable to a penalty of not more than forty shillings, and to
+    be dealt with in the same manner.”
+
+And again, that “every person who shall use any profane, indecent, or
+obscene language to the annoyance of the inhabitants or passengers;” and
+also “every person who shall use any threatening, abusive, or insulting
+words or behaviour with intent to provoke a breach of the peace, or
+whereby a breach of the peace may be occasioned,” may be also so dealt
+with.  The 58th clause enacts:
+
+    “That every person who shall be found drunk in any street or public
+    thoroughfare within the said district, and who while drunk shall be
+    guilty of any riotous or indecent behaviour, and also every person
+    who shall be guilty of any violent or indecent behaviour in any
+    police station-house, shall be liable to a penalty of not more than
+    forty shillings for every such offence or may be committed, if the
+    magistrate by whom he is convicted shall think fit, instead of
+    inflicting upon him any pecuniary fine, to the House of Correction
+    for any time not more than seven days.”
+
+The 63rd clause enacts:
+
+    “That it shall be lawful for any constable belonging to the
+    Metropolitan-Police district, and for all persons whom he shall call
+    to his assistance, to take into custody, without a warrant, any
+    person who within view of such constable, shall offend in any manner
+    against this Act, and whose name and residence shall be unknown to
+    such constable, and cannot be ascertained by such constable.”
+
+The police are, under the same Act, empowered to deal with disorder,
+drunkenness, disorderly conduct brawling, loitering and obstruction,
+whether coming by prostitutes or others.  Habitual loitering upon certain
+fixed spots they already keep in check, generally speaking, without
+tyranny; and next comes to be considered what can be done in case of what
+is called “solicitation” or importunity, a prominent feature in the
+general hill of indictment against prostitution.
+
+To a person uninitiated in the law’s subtleties, it would seem that the
+clauses of the Act of Parliament above quoted armed the police with all
+necessary authority, and that all that was requisite was to compel the
+observance of the said clauses, strictly and without favour, to insure a
+considerable mitigation of the great evil.  Indeed, as has been shown,
+believing themselves justified in the course they have been for years
+pursuing, the police have undoubtedly effected a vast and important
+change in the aspect of the Haymarket and its neighbourhood after
+midnight.  The result, however, of the Assistant-Judge’s decision appears
+to have put the worthy and indefatigable Mr. Knox quite out of heart, as
+may be gathered from the subjoined newspaper account of the last case
+that was brought before him:
+
+    “Rose Burton, keeper of a refreshment-house in Jermyn-street, lately
+    known as Kate Franks, appeared to answer two summonses for harbouring
+    prostitutes.  The police gave the usual evidence.  They visited the
+    house at night.  They found men and women there; the women known
+    prostitutes, some taking refreshment.  There was no disorder, and the
+    usual signal by ringing a bell had been given when the police
+    presented themselves at the house.  For the defence it was urged,
+    that the evidence was similar to that given before the Middlesex
+    magistrates on appeal, after hearing which they quashed the
+    conviction, and that the magistrate should dismiss the summonses.
+    Mr. Knox said he must send the case to the Sessions in order to get a
+    clear declaration of what was meant.  If the judgment of the Court
+    was against him, he must wash his hands of the matter.  He should
+    inflict the reduced fine of 10_s._ in order that the conviction
+    should be taken to the Sessions.  Mr. Froggatt asked for a decision
+    in the second case.  Mr. Knox would act in it the same as in the last
+    case.  It was, so to say, a last desperate effort.  If he failed, his
+    honest determination was to take no further trouble in the matter;
+    but to report to the Home Office that the efforts to reform the
+    condition of the Haymarket had entirely broken down.  Mr. Edward
+    Lewis, after some consultation with Mr. Allen jun. and Mr. Froggatt,
+    said that, owing to technical difficulties, it would be impossible to
+    get an appeal to Quarter Sessions before the 24th July.  Mr. Knox
+    said that would be too late for Parliament to deal with the matter,
+    as the session would most probably close early in August.  There was
+    no help for it; the nighthouse-keepers must go on in their own way;
+    the police might give up their supervision and refrain from taking
+    out summonses, as he certainly should decline to convict.  He should
+    cancel the three convictions that day, and dismiss the summonses; he
+    was powerless, and therefore disinclined to enforce what for seven
+    years had been considered as law, but what had been suddenly upset at
+    Quarter Sessions.  Mr. Knox then requested Mr. Superintendent Dunlop
+    to communicate what had occurred to the Commissioners of Police.”
+
+At the same time, it is no more than fair to lay before the reader the
+explanation given by the Assistant-Judge on the last occasion of the
+matter coming before him.  It should be understood that the case in
+question was not that of “Rose Burton,” but of another of the fraternity
+who had been fined by Mr. Knox.  The party in question gave notice of
+appeal, and the police authorities intimated their intention of
+supporting the magistrate in his conviction.  From some unexplained
+cause, however, at the last moment the Commissioners of Police withdrew
+altogether from the case, leaving it all undefended to be dealt with by
+Mr. Bodkin.  The judgment of the learned Assistant-Judge was as follows:
+
+    “There are two cases in the paper of appeals against convictions by
+    Mr. Knox for causing or allowing prostitutes to assemble; and upon
+    these two cases being called, counsel intimated that the solicitors
+    of the Commissioners of Police had written a letter to say that they
+    should not support these convictions.  Under those circumstances no
+    other course was open to us but to quash them.  But I mention the
+    fact now because these convictions have been the subject of
+    considerable comment and of interrogation in the House of Commons.  I
+    can only say that there is no law in these cases at all.  It is
+    entirely a question of fact, and each case must stand upon its own
+    merits.  On one occasion we quashed a conviction on the hearing, and
+    upon that decision a great deal has been said.  The sole evidence
+    there was, that a policeman went into the house between twelve and
+    one and found men and women having refreshment, some of the women
+    being prostitutes.  No question was asked; and there was nothing to
+    show that the person who kept the house knew they were prostitutes.
+    There was nothing to show that any warning had been previously given
+    against harbouring or encouraging them to come.  There was no ringing
+    of any bell to give notice of the approach of the police.  In fact,
+    there was nothing but the mere incident that the police, before the
+    hour of one, when these houses should be closed, found persons in
+    them taking refreshments—some of those persons being prostitutes.
+    Although I do not shrink from taking on myself the chief
+    responsibility, there were many magistrates present who formed their
+    own opinion upon the question, which was a question of fact; and it
+    seemed so clearly not to be a case which satisfied the requirements
+    of the law, that we did not call upon the counsel for the appellants,
+    but at once quashed the conviction.  Indeed, after all that has been
+    said, I have no hesitation in stating that if another case came here,
+    and was presented to us in such a bald and unsatisfactory manner, we
+    should again quash the conviction.  We are as desirous as Mr. Knox to
+    put an end to any nuisance, whether in the Haymarket or elsewhere;
+    but we cannot forget that we are in a court of law, bound to act upon
+    such testimony as is sworn before us, and not to embark upon
+    inquiries of another kind.  There was not a tittle of evidence as to
+    ringing a bell, or of anything more than persons taking refreshment
+    within the hours allowed by law, some of those persons being
+    ‘unfortunates.’  I do not think that any bench of magistrates in the
+    kingdom could, under the circumstances, have arrived at a different
+    conclusion.  If other cases come before us, we shall treat them as we
+    treated the last, according to the effect of the sworn evidence in
+    court, and in no other way.  I am very sorry if our decision should
+    have induced Mr. Knox, for whom I entertain a great respect, to
+    abstain from convicting in other cases, unless those were cases of
+    the same bald and unsatisfactory character as that which we decided.”
+
+From one point of view maybe it is difficult to overrate the importance
+of this judgment, especially if, as the _Times_ predicts, it will have
+the effect of giving the keepers of the Haymarket haunts of infamy
+liberty to do pretty much as they please.  Laying too much stress on this
+Haymarket business, however, may be harmful in another direction.  It may
+lead the public to the decidedly wrong conclusion that the well-known
+thoroughfare indicated, and the taverns and refreshment-houses it
+contains, are the head-quarters, the one main source, from which flows
+the prodigious stream of immorality that floods the town with
+contamination.
+
+Now this is very far from being the fact.  The extent to which the
+Haymarket haunts are criminal is equalled, and in many cases far
+excelled, in a dozen different parts of London every night between the
+hours of ten and one—and that without remonstrance or hindrance on the
+part of the police authorities or anyone else.  I allude to the London
+music-halls.  One of the most disreputable was burnt down the other day;
+and it would be a matter for rejoicing—for public thanksgiving almost—if
+the score or so of similar places of popular amusement, polluting every
+quarter of the metropolis, shared a similar fate.  To be sure, the
+music-halls keep within the letter of the law in the matter of closing
+their doors before one o’clock; but in every other respect their
+operation is as mischievous as any of the prosecuted dens at the
+West-end.  And I beg of the reader to distinctly understand that I am not
+quoting from hearsay.  There is not a single music-hall—from the vast
+“Alhambra” in Leicester-square, to the unaristocratic establishment in
+the neighbourhood of Leather-lane, originally christened the “Raglan,”
+but more popularly known as the “Rag”—that I have not visited.  And I am
+bound to confess that the same damning elements are discoverable in one
+and all.
+
+At the same time it must be admitted—shameful and disgraceful as the
+admission is—that it is not the music-hall of the vulgar East-end or
+“over the water” that presents in special prominence the peculiar
+features here spoken of, and which, in plain language, are licentiousness
+and prostitution.  He who would witness the perfection to which these
+twin curses may be wrought under the fostering influences of “music,”
+&c., must visit the west, and not the east or south, of the metropolis.
+He must make a journey to Leicester-square, and to the gorgeous and
+palatial Alhambra there to be found.  What he will there discover will
+open his eyes to what a farcical thing the law is, and how within the
+hour it will strain at gnats, and bolt entire camels without so much as a
+wry face or a wince, or a wink even.
+
+I speak fearlessly, because all that I describe may be witnessed
+to-night, to-morrow, any time, by the individual adventurous and curious
+enough to go and see for himself.  There is no fear of his missing it; no
+chance of his fixing on a wrong night.  It is _always_ the same at the
+music-hall.  Its meat is other men’s poison; and it can fatten and
+prosper while honesty starves.  The bane and curse of society is its main
+support; and to introduce the purging besom would be to ruin the
+business.
+
+At the same time, I would wish it to be distinctly understood, that I do
+not desire to convey to the reader the impression that the numerical
+majority of music-hall frequenters are persons of immoral tendencies.  On
+the contrary, I am well convinced that such places are the resort of a
+vast number of the most respectable portion of the working-class.  This,
+I believe, is a fact carefully treasured by music-hall proprietors, and
+elaborately displayed by them whenever their morality is attacked.  They
+point to the well-filled body of the hall, the sixpenny part, where
+artisans and working-men congregate, and not unfrequently bring with them
+their wives and daughters; and triumphantly inquire, “Is it likely that
+the music-hall can be what slanderers represent, when it is so
+patronised?”  And it is quite true that a very large number of honest and
+intelligent folk are attracted thither in search of harmless amusement.
+Let them bless God for their ignorance of the world’s wicked ways if they
+succeed in finding it.  It is not impossible.  Provided they look neither
+to the right nor left of them, but pay their sixpence at the door, and
+march to the seats apportioned them; and, still at eyes right, direct
+their gaze and their organs of hearing towards the stage, from which the
+modern “comic vocalist” doles out to a stolen tune feeble jingling
+idiotcies of “his own composing,”—if they are steadfast to this, they may
+come away not much the worse for the evening’s entertainment.  But let
+him not look about him, especially if he have his wife or daughters with
+him, or he may find himself tingling with a feeling it was never his
+misfortune to experience before.
+
+The honest believer in the harmlessness of music-halls would, if he
+looked about him as he sat in the sixpenny “pit,” discover in more
+quarters than one that which would open his innocent eyes.  If his vision
+were directed upwards towards the boxes and balconies, there he would
+discover it.  Brazen-faced women blazoned in tawdry finely, and curled
+and painted, openly and without disguise bestowing their blandishments on
+“spoony” young swells of the “commercial” and shopman type, for the sake
+of the shilling’s-worth of brandy-and-water that steams before them, and
+in prospect of future advantages.  There is no mistaking these women.
+They do not go there to be mistaken.  They make no more disguise of their
+profession than do cattle-drovers in the public markets.  They are there
+in pursuit of their ordinary calling, and, splendid creatures though they
+appear, it is curious to witness the supreme indifference to them of the
+door-keepers as they flaunt past them.  It makes good the old proverb
+about the familiarity that breeds contempt; besides, as a customer in
+simple, the painted free-drinking lady is not desirable.  I should not
+for a moment wish to impute without substantial proof so dastardly a
+feature of “business” to any spirited music-hall proprietor in
+particular; but I am positively assured by those who should know, that on
+certain recognised nights loose women are admitted to these places
+_without payment_.  I know as a fact, too, that it is no uncommon thing
+for these female music-hall frequenters to enlist the services of cabmen
+on “spec,” the latter conveying their “fare” to the Alhambra or the
+Philharmonic without present payment, on the chance that she will in the
+course of the evening “pick up a flat,” who will with the lady require
+his services to drive them to the Haymarket or elsewhere.  How much of
+extortion and robbery may be committed under such a convenient cloak it
+is not difficult to guess.  The evidence not being quite so
+unobjectionable as it might be, I will not mention names; but I was
+recently informed with apparent sincerity by one of those poor bedizened
+unfortunates—a “dress lodger” possibly—that a certain music-hall
+proprietor issued to women of her class “weekly tickets” at half-price,
+the main condition attaching to the advantage being that the holder did
+not “ply” in the low-priced parts of the hall; that is to say, amongst
+those who could afford to pay for nothing more expensive than pints of
+beer.
+
+But it is at the refreshment-bars of these palatial shams and impostures,
+as midnight and closing time approaches, that profligacy may be seen
+reigning rampant.  Generally at one end of the hall is a long strip of
+metal counter, behind which superbly-attired barmaids vend strong
+liquors.  Besides these there are “snuggeries,” or small private
+apartments, to which bashful gentlemen desirous of sharing a bottle of
+wine with a recent acquaintance may retire.  But the unblushing immodesty
+of the place concentrates at this long bar.  Any night may here be found
+_dozens_ of prostitutes enticing simpletons to drink, while the men who
+are _not_ simpletons hang about, smoking pipes and cigars, and merely
+sipping, not drinking deeply, and with watchful wary eyes on the pretty
+game of fox-and-goose that is being played all round about them.  No one
+molests them, or hints that their behaviour is at variance with “the
+second and third of Victoria, cap. 47.”  Here they are in dozens, in
+scores, prostitutes every one, doing exactly as they do at the infamous
+and prosecuted Haymarket dens, and no one interferes.  I say, doing all
+that the Haymarket woman does; and it must be so, since the gay patroness
+of the music-halls does simply all she can to lure the dupe she may at
+the moment have in tow.  She entices him to drink; she drinks with him:
+she ogles, and winks, and whispers, and encourages like behaviour on his
+part, her main undisguised object being to induce him to prolong the
+companionship after the glaring gaslight of the liquor-bar is lowered,
+and its customers are shown to the outer door.  If that is not “knowingly
+suffering prostitutes to meet together” for the more convenient
+prosecution of their horrible trade, what else is it?  And yet the
+cunning schemes and contrivances for misleading and throwing dust in the
+eyes of the police are not practised here.  There are no scouts and
+“bells,” the former causing the latter to chime a warning on the approach
+of the enemy.  The enemy, the police, that is to say, are on the spot.
+In almost every case there will be found in the music-hall lobby an
+intelligent liveried guardian of the public peace, here stationed that he
+may take cognisance of suspicious-looking persons, and eject improper
+characters.  Should he happen, as is most likely, to be a policeman whose
+“beat” is in the neighbourhood, he will by sight be quite familiar with
+every loose woman who for a mile round in the streets plies her lawless
+trade.  He recognises them, as with a nod of old acquaintance they pass
+the money-taker; he saunters to the bar, where the women gather to prime
+their prey, and he witnesses their doings, but he takes no notice, and
+never complains.
+
+To be sure, the man is not to blame; were he ordered to disperse
+congregations of prostitutes wherever he found them, and to warn the
+persons who dispense liquors to them—just as is expected of him in the
+case of the ordinary public-house—that they are harbouring bad
+characters, and must cease to do so, undoubtedly the policeman would
+perform his duty.  Until he receives express orders on the subject,
+however, he is helpless, and very properly so.  Although one would desire
+to see ample powers for the suppression of prostitution placed in the
+hands of the police, it is highly necessary that the said power, in the
+hands of ordinary constable X, should be scrupulously watched by those
+who are set in authority over him.  Policemen make sad mistakes at times,
+as witness the following monstrous instance, furnished by the
+police-reports not more than a month since:
+
+At Southwark, Mrs. Catherine C—, aged twenty-eight, the wife of a
+respectable man in the employ of the South-Eastern Railway Company, but
+who was described on the charge-sheet as a prostitute, was charged by
+Jas. Benstead, police-constable 17 M Reserve, with soliciting
+prostitution near the London-bridge railway terminus.  The constable said
+that about ten o’clock on the previous night he was on duty near the
+railway terminus, when he saw the prisoner accost a gentleman.  Believing
+her to be a prostitute, he went up to the gentleman, and from what he
+said he took her into custody for soliciting him.  The prisoner here said
+she had been most cruelly used.  She was a respectable married woman, and
+lived with her husband in the Drummond-road, Bermondsey.  She had been to
+see her sister at Peckham, and had a return-ticket for the Spa-road; but
+when she arrived at the London-bridge terminus, she was too late for the
+train; consequently she determined to walk home, and as soon as she
+turned into Duke-street, a gentleman stopped her and asked her whether
+there was an omnibus left there for Whitechapel.  She told him she did
+not know, and as soon as he left, the constable came up and took her into
+custody.  She had been locked up all night.  The prisoner here produced
+the half of a return-ticket for the magistrate’s inspection.  The husband
+of the prisoner said he was in the employ of the South-Eastern Railway
+Company, and resided at No. 190 Drummond-road, Bermondsey.  His wife left
+home on the previous afternoon to visit her sister at Peckham, and he
+expected her home at ten o’clock.  He was surprised at her absence, and
+as soon as he ascertained she was locked up, he went to the
+police-station, but was not permitted to see her.  He could produce
+several witnesses to prove the respectability of his wife.  Mr. Burcham
+ordered the prisoner to be discharged immediately.
+
+And so terminated the case as far as the magistrate was concerned; but
+one cannot help feeling curious to know whether no more was done in the
+matter.  The outraged and cruelly-used woman was discharged, but was
+Reserve-constable James Benstead permitted to retain his situation in the
+police-force?  How did the monstrous “mistake” arise?  It is evident that
+the poor young woman spoke the truth; Mr. Burcham settled that point by
+ordering her immediate discharge.  From any point of view, James Benstead
+showed himself utterly unworthy to remain a constable.  In interfering
+with a decently-dressed woman, who must have been a stranger to him,
+simply because he saw her “accost a gentleman,” he exhibited himself in
+the light of an over-zealous blockhead.  If the woman’s statement is to
+be believed, he told a wicked and malicious lie when he said that he took
+her into custody “on account of what the gentleman told him.”  Where one
+is left in the dark, to solve a mystery as one best may, it is not
+impossible that one may guess wide of the mark; but it will under such
+conditions occur to the recollection that before now “unfortunates,” new
+to the life, have given deadly offence to policemen by not “paying their
+footing,” as black-mail of a certain abominable kind is called; and
+blundering James Benstead may have sustained a pecuniary disappointment.
+It is to be sincerely hoped that that secret tribunal before which erring
+policemen are arraigned (where is it?) will not let so flagrant a case
+pass without notice; and if, after close investigation, policeman James
+Benstead is proved to be the dangerous person he appears, that he may be
+promptly stripped of his official uniform.  Even supposing that James
+Benstead is nothing worse than a blundering Jack-in-office, he is just of
+the sort to bring the law into contempt and ridicule, and the sooner he
+is cashiered the better.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+SUGGESTIONS.
+
+
+_Ignoring the Evil_—_Punishment fit for the_ “_Deserter_” _and the
+Seducer_—_The_ “_Know-nothing_” _and_ “_Do-nothing_” _Principle_—_The
+Emigration of Women of Bad Character_.
+
+IT is easy enough to understand, if one finds the courage to face this
+worst of all social evils, and inquire calmly into the many shapes its
+origin takes, how very possible it is that there may be living in a state
+of depravity scores and hundreds of women who are what they are out of no
+real _fault_ of their own.  “Then why do they not turn, and reform their
+infamous lives?” the indignant reader may ask.  “They may if they will.
+Is there not this, that, and the other asylum open to them?”  Perhaps so.
+Only perhaps.  But for reasons hinted at in the commencement of this
+chapter, it might be clearly enough shown that, “this, that, and
+t’other,” to a very large extent, really and truly represent the
+substantiality of the asylums to which the curse is admitted for
+purgation.  We have foolishly and blindly ignored the evil, and
+consequently we have not been free to provide adequately for the
+reception of those who have lived in it, and are now desirous of
+returning, if they may, to decent life.  We have some asylums of the
+kind; but in capacity they are about as well adapted to perform the
+prodigious amount of work ready for them as a ten-gallon filter would be
+to purify the muddy waters of the Thames.
+
+Undoubtedly there are thousands of debased and wanton wretches for whom
+the doors of such houses of reform and refuge, did they exist in plenty,
+might in vain stand open.  But let the reader for a moment consider how
+many there are at this moment whose fall was mainly due to misplaced
+trust and foolish confidence, and who are kept in their degradation out
+of a sort of mad and bitter spite against themselves.  As everyone can
+vouch who has taken an interest in these fallen ones, and kindly
+questioned them on their condition and their willingness to turn from it,
+nothing is more common in their mouths than the answer, “I don’t care.
+It’s a life good enough for me.  A pretty image I should appear in
+well-bred company, shouldn’t I?  It’s no use your preaching to me.  I’ve
+made my bed, and I must lie on it.”  And it would be found in countless
+cases that these poor wretches did not in the original “make their bed,”
+as they call it, and that it reveals a wonderful amount of forgiving and
+generosity in them to profess that they did.  If we could discover the
+truth, we might get at the real bed-makers—the villanous conjurers of
+couches of roses that were so speedily to turn to thorns and briars—in
+the seducer and the base deserter.  If ever the Legislature finds courage
+enough to take up this great question in earnest, it is to be hoped that
+ample provision will be made for the proper treatment of the heartless
+scoundrel.  As says a writer in an old number of the _Westminster
+Review_:
+
+    “The _deserter_, not the seducer, should be branded with the same
+    kind and degree of reprobation with which society now visits the
+    coward and the cheat.  The man who submits to insult rather than
+    fight; the gambler who packs the cards, or loads the dice, or refuses
+    to pay his debts of honour, is hunted from among even his
+    unscrupulous associates as a stained and tarnished character.  _Let
+    the same measure of retributive justice be dealt to the seducer who
+    deserts the woman who has trusted him_, _and allows her to come upon
+    the town_.  We say the deserter—not the seducer; for there is as wide
+    a distinction between them as there is between the gamester and the
+    sharper.  Mere seduction will never be visited with extreme severity
+    among men of the world, however correct and refined may be their
+    general tone of morals; for they will always make large allowances on
+    the score of youthful passions, favouring circumstances, and excited
+    feeling.  Moreover, they well know that there is a wide
+    distinction—that there are all degrees of distinction—between a man
+    who commits a fault of this kind, under the influence of warm
+    affections and a fiery temperament, and the cold-hearted, systematic
+    assailer of female virtue, whom all reprobate and shun.  It is
+    universally felt that you cannot, with any justice, class these men
+    in the same category, nor mete out to them the same measure of
+    condemnation.  But the man who, when his caprice is satisfied, casts
+    off his victim as a worn-out garment or a damaged toy; who allows the
+    woman who trusted his protestations to sink from the position of his
+    companion to the loathsome life of prostitution, because his
+    seduction and desertion has left no other course open to her; who is
+    not ready to make any sacrifice of place, of fortune, of reputation
+    even, in order to save one whom he has once loved from such an abyss
+    of wretched infamy—must surely be more stained, soiled, and hardened
+    in soul, more utterly unfitted for the company or sympathy of
+    gentlemen or men of honour, than any coward, any gambler, any cheat!”
+
+I may not lay claim to being the discoverer of this well-written outburst
+of manly indignation.  It is quoted by a gentleman—a medical
+gentleman—who has inquired deeper and written more to the real purpose on
+this painful subject than any other writer with whom I am acquainted.  I
+allude to Dr. Acton.  The volume that contains it is of necessity not one
+that might be introduced to the drawing-room, but it is one that all
+thinking men would do well to procure and peruse.  Dr. Acton handles a
+tremendously difficult matter masterly and courageously; and while really
+he is of as delicate a mind as a lady, he does not scruple to enunciate
+his honest convictions respecting the prevalent evil of prostitution, as
+though it were an evil as commonly recognised and as freely discussed as
+begging or thieving.  In his introductory pages he says:
+
+    “To those who profess a real or fictitious ignorance of prostitution,
+    its miseries and its ill-effects, and those again who plead
+    conscience for inaction, I have this one reply.  Pointing to the
+    outward signs of prostitution in our streets and hospitals, I inquire
+    whether we can flatter ourselves that the subject has drifted into a
+    satisfactory state on the ‘know-nothing’ and ‘do-nothing’ principle.
+    I hint at the perilous self-sufficiency of the Pharisee, and the
+    wilful blindness of the Levite who ‘passed by on the other side,’ and
+    I press upon them that, after reading this work and testing its
+    author’s veracity, they should either refute its arguments or be
+    themselves converted. . . .  I have little to say in the way of
+    apology for my plain-speaking.  The nature of the subject has forced
+    this upon me.  To have called things here treated of by another than
+    their right name would have been in any writer an absurdity, in me a
+    gross one.  The experiences I have collected may to optimists and
+    recluses appear exaggerated.  The visions I have indulged in may be
+    hard to grasp.  But this more complicated knot demands a swordsman,
+    not an infant.  The inhabitants of a provincial city demanded of Lord
+    Palmerston that the angel of pestilence should be stayed by a day of
+    national prayer and fasting.  ‘I will fast with you and pray with
+    you,’ was the statesman’s answer; ‘but let us also drain, scrub,
+    wash, and be clean.’”
+
+If by this taste of the preface to Dr. Acton’s book I induce my male
+readers to dip into it for themselves, I shall feel that I have done the
+cause the worthy writer has at heart good service.  It will be something
+if the brief quotation bespeaks attention to the other extracts from the
+same genuine source that herein appear.  On the subject of seduction and
+desertion, Mr. Acton writes:
+
+    “If I could not get imprisonment of the male party to a seduction
+    substituted for the paltry fine of half-a-crown a-week, I would at
+    least give to the commonwealth, now liable to a pecuniary damage by
+    bastardy, some interest in its detection and punishment.  The
+    union-house is now often enough the home of the deserted mother and
+    the infant bastard; and the guardians of the poor ought, I think, to
+    have the right, in the interest of the commune, to act as bastardy
+    police, and to be recouped their charges.  I would not allow the
+    maintenance of an illegitimate child to be at the expense of any but
+    the father.  I would make it the incubus on him, not on its mother;
+    and I would not leave his detection, exposure, and money loss at the
+    option of the latter.  A young man who has a second and third
+    illegitimate child, by different women, has not lived without adding
+    some low cunning to his nature.  It often happens that a fellow of
+    this sort will, for a time, by specious promises and presents to a
+    girl he fully intends ultimately to desert, defer making any payments
+    for or on account of her child.  If he can for twelve months, and
+    without entering into any shadow of an agreement (and we may all
+    guess how far the craft of an injured woman will help her to one that
+    would hold water), stave-off any application on her part to the
+    authorities, her claim at law is barred; and she herself, defied at
+    leisure, becomes in due course chargeable to her parish or union.
+    But not thus should a virtuous state connive at the obligations of
+    paternity being shuffled on to its public shoulders, when, by a very
+    trifling modification of the existing machinery, they might be
+    adjusted on the proper back, permanently or temporarily, as might be
+    considered publicly expedient.  I would enact, I say, by the help of
+    society, that, in the first place, the seduction of a female,
+    properly proved, should involve the male in a heavy pecuniary fine,
+    according to his position—not at all by way of punishment, but to
+    strengthen, by the very firm abutment of the breeches-pocket, both
+    him and his good resolutions against the temptations and force of
+    designing woman.  I would not offer the latter, as I foresee will be
+    instantaneously objected, this bounty upon sinfulness—this incentive
+    to be a seducer; but, on the contrary, the money should be due to the
+    community, and recoverable in the county-court or superior court at
+    the suit of its engine, the union; and should be invested by the
+    treasurer of such court, or by the county, or by some public trustee
+    in bastardy, for the benefit of the mother and child.  The child’s
+    portion of this deodand should be retained by such public officer
+    until the risk of its becoming chargeable to the community
+    quasi-bastard should be removed by the mother’s marriage or
+    otherwise; and the mother’s share should be for her benefit as an
+    emigration-fund or marriage-portion.”
+
+“We cannot imagine,” says another authority, “that anyone can seriously
+suppose that prostitution would be made either more generally attractive
+or respectable by the greater decency and decorum which administrative
+supervision would compel it to throw over its exterior.  We know that the
+absence of these does not deter one of irregular passions from the low
+pursuit; and we know, moreover, wherever these are needed for the behoof
+of a more scrupulous and refined class of fornicators, they are to be
+found.  We are convinced also that much of the permanent ruin to the
+feelings and character which results from the habit of visiting the
+haunts of prostitution is to be attributed to the coarse language and the
+brutal manners which prevail there; and that this vice, like many others,
+would lose much of its evil by losing all of grossness that is separable
+from it.  Nor do we fear that the improvement in the _tone_ of
+prostitution which would thus result would render its unhappy victims
+less anxious to escape from it.  Soften its horrors and gild its
+loathsomeness as you may, there will always remain enough to revolt all
+who are not wholly lost.  Much too—everything almost—is gained, if you
+can retain _any_ degree of self-respect among the fallen.  The more of
+this that remains, the greater chance is there of ultimate redemption; it
+is always a mistaken and a cruel policy to allow vice to grow desperate
+and reckless.”  It is for the interest of society at large, as well as
+for that of the guilty individual, that we should never break down the
+bridge behind such a sinner as the miserable “unfortunate” even.
+
+
+
+
+V.—The Curse of Drunkenness.
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+ITS POWER.
+
+
+_The crowning Curse_—_No form of sin or sorrow in which it does not play
+a part_—_The_ “_Slippery Stone_” _of Life_—_Statistics_—_Matters not
+growing worse_—_The Army Returns_—_The System of Adulteration_.
+
+WHATEVER differences of opinion may arise as to the extent and evil
+operation of the other curses that, in common with all other cities,
+afflict the city of London, no sane man will contest the fact that
+drunkenness has wrought more mischief than all other social evils put
+together.  There is not a form of human sin and sorrow in which it does
+not constantly play a part.  It is the “slippery stone” that in countless
+instances has betrayed the foot careless or over-confident, and the
+downhill-path is trod never to be retraced.  As Dr. Guthrie writes:
+“Believe me, it is impossible to exaggerate, impossible even truthfully
+to paint, the effect of this evil, either on those who are addicted to it
+or on those who suffer from it; crushed husbands, broken-hearted wives,
+and, most of all, those poor innocent children that are dying under
+cruelty and starvation, that shiver in their rags upon our streets, that
+walk unshod the winter snows, and, with their matted hair and hollow
+cheeks, and sunken eyes, glare out on us wild and savage-like from
+patched and filthy windows.  Nor is the curse confined to the lowest
+stratum of society.  Much improved as are the habits of the upper and
+middle classes, the vice may still be met in all classes of society.  It
+has cost many a servant her place, and yet greater loss—ruined her
+virtue; it has broken the bread of many a tradesman; it has spoiled the
+coronet of its lustre, and sunk the highest rank into contempt.”
+
+It is satisfactory, however, to discover that matters are not growing
+worse.
+
+In the number of persons “summarily proceeded against” for divers
+offences, we find a steady decrease during the last three years in the
+numbers charged with “drunkenness” and being “drunk and disorderly,” the
+respective figures being 105,310, 104,368, and 100,357, showing a
+diminution in the three years of nearly 5,000 cases per annum.  In the
+total number of inquests for 1867, viz. 24,648, there is a decrease of
+278, as compared with the number in the preceding year.  In the verdicts
+of murder there is a decrease of 17, and of manslaughter 44, or 19.7 per
+cent, following a decrease of 59, or 20.9 per cent, as compared with the
+number in 1865.  Under “natural death,” as compared with the numbers for
+1866, there is a decrease of 51, or 13.6 per cent, in the verdicts “from
+excessive drinking,” following a decrease of 12 in 1866, as compared with
+the number in 1865.  The number of persons committed or bailed for trial
+for indictable offences during the year, as shown in the police-returns,
+was 19,416, and of these it may be calculated that about 14,562 (75 per
+cent being about the usual proportion) would be convicted.  To this
+number is to be added (in order to show the total number of convictions
+during the year) 335,359 summary convictions before the magistrates
+(280,196 males and 55,163 females).  A large proportion of these cases
+were, it is true, for offences of a trifling character.  They include,
+however, 74,288 cases of “drunkenness” and being “drunk and disorderly”
+(59,071 males and 15,217 females), and 10,085 offences against the
+Licensed Victuallers’ and Beer Acts, viz. 6,506 by beershop-keepers
+(5,792 males and 714 females); 3,258 by licensed victuallers (2,944 males
+and 314 females); the remaining 321 (293 males and 28 females) consisting
+of other offences under the above Acts.  The total number of convictions
+for offences against the Refreshment Houses’ Act was 3,032, viz. 2,871
+males and 161 females.
+
+This as regards civilians and those over whom the police have control.
+The army-returns, however, are not so favourable.
+
+The last annual report of Lieutenant-Colonel Henderson, R.E., the
+Inspector-General of Military Prisons, reveals the startling fact that,
+“during four years the committals for drunkenness have steadily increased
+as follows: 1863, 882; 1864, 1,132; 1865, 1,801; 1866, 1,926.”
+
+The Inspector-General observes that the explanation of this increase “is
+to be found in the fact that soldiers who formerly were summarily
+convicted and sentenced to short periods of imprisonment in regimental
+cells by their commanding officers for drunkenness are now tried by
+court-martial and sentenced to imprisonment in a military prison.”  But
+precisely the same explanation was given, in the report for the preceding
+year, of the increase of the committals in 1865 over those in 1864.
+Therefore, however applicable this consideration might have been to a
+comparison with former periods when drunkenness was not dealt with by
+court-martial, it totally fails to account for the further increase which
+has occurred since the change was made.
+
+It must not be supposed that the 1,926 cases in the year 1866 were cases
+of simple drunkenness, such as we see disposed of in the police-courts by
+a fine of five shillings.  The offence was “habitual drunkenness,” of
+which there are several definitions in the military code; but much the
+largest portion of the committals are for having been drunk “for the
+fourth time within 365 days.”  In order, therefore, to form a just idea
+of the prevalence of this vice in the army, we must add to the cases
+brought before a court-martial the far more numerous instances in which
+the offenders are discovered less than four times a year, and are
+punished by their commanding officers, or in which they are not
+discovered at all.  Drunkenness is _the_ vice of the army.  The state of
+feeling which pervaded society two generations ago still survives in the
+army.  That species of “good fellowship,” which is only another name for
+mutual indulgence in intoxicating drink, is still in the ascendant in the
+most popular of English professions, and from this vantage-ground it
+exercises an injurious influence over the moral condition of the entire
+community.
+
+The following order, relative to the punishment of drunkenness in the
+army, as directed by the Horse Guards, has just been published:
+
+    “First and second acts, admonition or confinement to barracks at the
+    discretion of the commanding officer.  For every subsequent act of
+    drunkenness within three months of former act, 7_s._ 6_d._; if over
+    three and within six months, 5_s._; if over six and within nine
+    months, 2_s._ 6_d._; if over nine and within twelve months, company
+    entry; if over twelve months, to be treated as the first act.  When
+    the four preceding acts have been committed in twelve months, 2_s._
+    6_d._ to be added to the foregoing amounts, and the _maximum_ daily
+    stoppage is to be 2_d._”
+
+Drink, strong drink, is responsible for very much of the misery that
+afflicts our social state; but it is scarcely fair to much-abused
+Alcohol—a harmless spirit enough except when abused—to attribute to it
+all the ruin that flows from the bottle and the public-house gin-tap.
+Alcohol has enough to answer for; but there can be no doubt that for one
+victim to its intoxicating qualities, two might be reckoned who have
+“come to their deathbed” through the various deadly poisons it is the
+publican’s custom to mix with his diluted liquors to give them a
+fictitious strength and fire.  Let us here enumerate a few of the
+ingredients with which the beer-shop-keeper re-brews his beer, and the
+publican “doctors” his gin and rum and whisky.
+
+As is well known, the most common way of adulterating beer is by means of
+_cocculus indicus_.  This is known “in the trade” as “Indian berry,” and
+is the fruit of a plant that grows on the coast of Malabar.  It is a
+small kidney-shaped, rough, and black-looking berry, of a bitter taste,
+and of an intoxicating or poisonous quality.  It is extensively used to
+increase the intoxicating properties of the liquor.
+
+Fox-glove is a plant with large purple flowers, possessing an intensely
+bitter nauseous taste.  It is a violent purgative and vomit; produces
+languor, giddiness, and even death.  It is a poison, and is used on
+account of the bitter and intoxicating qualities it imparts to the liquor
+among which it is mixed.
+
+Green copperas, a mineral substance obtained from iron, is much used to
+give the porter a frothy top.  The green copperas is supposed to give to
+porter in the pewter-pot that peculiar flavour which drinkers say is not
+to be tasted when the liquor is served in glass.
+
+Hartshorn shavings are the horns of the common male deer rasped or
+scraped down.  They are then boiled in the worts of ale, and give out a
+substance of a thickisk nature like jelly, which is said to prevent
+intoxicating liquor from becoming sour.
+
+Henbane, a plant of a poisonous nature, bearing a close resemblance to
+the narcotic poison, opium.  It produces intoxication, delirium, nausea,
+vomiting, feverishness, and death, and appears chiefly to be used to
+increase the intoxicating properties of intoxicating liquors; or, in
+other words, to render them more likely to produce these effects in those
+who use these liquors.
+
+Jalap, the root of a sort of convolvulus, brought from the neighbourhood
+of Xalapa, in Mexico, and so called Jalap.  It is used as a powerful
+purgative in medicine.  Its taste is exceedingly nauseous; and is of a
+sweetish bitterness.  It is used to prevent the intoxicating liquor from
+turning sour; and probably to counteract the binding tendency of some of
+the other ingredients.
+
+Multum is a mixture of opium and other ingredients, used to increase the
+intoxicating qualities of the liquor.
+
+Nut-galls are excrescences produced by the attacks of a small insect on
+the tender shoots of a tree which grows in Asia, Syria, and Persia.  They
+are of a bitter taste, and are much used in dyeing.  They are also used
+to colour or fine the liquor.
+
+Nux vomica is the seed of a plant all parts of which are of a bitter and
+poisonous nature.  The seeds of this plant are found in the fruit, which
+is about the size of an orange.  The seeds are about an inch round and
+about a quarter of an inch thick.  They have no smell.  It is a violent
+narcotic acrid poison, and has been used very extensively in the
+manufacture of intoxicating ale, beer, and porter.
+
+Opium is the thickened juice of the white poppy, which grows most
+abundantly in India, though it also grows in Britain.  It is the most
+destructive of narcotic poisons, and it is the most intoxicating.  It has
+been most freely used in the manufacture of intoxicating liquors, because
+its very nature is to yield a larger quantity of intoxicating matter than
+any other vegetable.
+
+Oil of vitriol, or sulphuric acid, is a mineral poison of a burning
+nature.  In appearance it is oily and colourless, and has no smell.  It
+is used to increase the heating qualities of liquor.
+
+Potash is made from vegetables mixed with quicklime, boiled down in pots
+and burnt—the ashes remaining after the burning being the potash.  It is
+used to prevent the beer souring, or to change it, if it has become sour.
+
+Quassia is the name of a tree which grows in America and the West Indies.
+Both the wood and the fruit are of an intensely bitter taste.  It is used
+instead of hops to increase the bitter in the liquor.
+
+Wormwood is a plant or flower with downy leaves, and small round-headed
+flowers.  The seed of this plant has bitter and stimulating qualities,
+and is used to increase the exciting and intoxicating qualities of
+liquors.
+
+Yew tops, the produce of the yew-tree.  The leaves are of an extremely
+poisonous nature, and so are the tops, or berries and seeds.  It is used
+to increase the intoxicating properties of the liquors.
+
+The quantities of cocculus-indicus berries, as well as of black extract,
+brought into this country for adulterating malt liquors, are enormous.
+The berries in question are ostensibly destined for the use of tanners
+and dyers.  Most of the articles are transmitted to the consumer in their
+disguised state, or in such a form that their real nature cannot possibly
+be detected by the unwary.  An extract, said to be innocent, sold in
+casks containing from half a cwt. to five cwt. by the brewers’ druggists,
+under the name of “bittern,” is composed of calcined sulphate of iron
+(copperas), extract of cocculus-indicus berries, extract of quassia and
+Spanish liquorice.  This fraud constitutes by far the most censurable
+offence committed by unprincipled brewers.
+
+To both ale and porter an infusion of hops is added, and in general
+porter is more highly hopped than ale.  New ale and porter, which are
+free from acid, are named mild; those which have been kept for some time,
+and in which acid is developed, are called hard.  Some prefer hard beer;
+and to suit this taste, the publicans are accustomed, when necessary, to
+convert mild beer into hard by a summary and simple process, to wit, the
+addition of sulphuric acid.  Again, others prefer mild beer; and the
+publicans, when their supply of this is low, and they have an abundance
+of old or hard beer, convert the latter into mild, by adding to it soda,
+potash, carbonate of lime, &c.  Various other adulterations are
+practised.  The narcotic quality of hop is replaced by cocculus indicus;
+sweetness and colour by liquorice (an innocent fraud); thickness by
+lint-seed; a biting pungency by caraway-seed and cayenne-pepper.  Quassia
+is also said to be used, with the latter view.  Treacle is likewise
+employed to give sweetness and consistency; while to give beer a frothy
+surface, sulphate of iron and alum are had recourse to.  Such is the
+wholesome beverage of which nine-tenths of the English people daily
+partake!
+
+Nor is the more aristocratic and expensive liquid that assumes the name
+of wine exempt from the “doctor’s” manipulations.  Mr. Cyrus Redding, in
+his evidence before a select committee, describes the mode by which wines
+are made by manufacturers in London.  He stated that brandy cowl—that is,
+washings of brandy-casks—colouring, probably made of elder-berries,
+logwood, salt-of-tartar, gum-dragon, tincture of red sanders or cudbear,
+were extensively used in preparing an article which sells as port.  The
+entire export of port-wine is 20,000 pipes, and yet 60,000, as given in
+evidence, are annually consumed in this country.  As regards champagne,
+the same authority says, “In England, champagne has been made from white
+and raw sugar, crystallised lemon or tartaric acid, water, homemade
+grape-wine, or perry, and French brandy.  Cochineal or strawberries have
+been added to imitate the pinks.  Such a mixture at country balls or
+dinners passes off very well; but no one in the habit of drinking the
+genuine wine can be deceived by the imposition.  The bouquet of real
+champagne, which is so peculiar, it is repeated, cannot be imitated—it is
+a thing impossible.  Acidity in wine was formerly corrected in this
+country by the addition of quicklime, which soon falls to the bottom of
+the cask.  This furnished a clue to Falstaff’s observation, that there
+was ‘lime in the sack,’ which was a hit at the landlord, as much as to
+say his wine was little worth, having its acidity thus disguised.  As to
+the substances used by various wine-doctors for flavouring wine, there
+seems to be no end of them.  Vegetation has been exhausted, and the
+bowels of the earth ransacked, to supply trash for this quackery.  Wines
+under the names of British madeira, port, and sherry are also made, the
+basis of which is pale salt, sugar-candy; French brandy and port-wine are
+added to favour the deception.  So impudently and notoriously are the
+frauds avowed, that there are books published called _Publicans’ Guides_,
+and _Licensed Victuallers’ Director’s_, in which the most infamous
+receipts imaginable are laid down to swindle their customers.  The
+various docks on the Thames do not secure purchasers from the
+malpractices of dishonest dealers; in this many are deceived.  It has
+been naturally, yet erroneously, imagined that wine purchased in the
+docks must be a pure article.  Malaga sherry is constantly shipped to
+England for the real sherry of Xeres, Figueras for port, and so on.
+Port-wine being sent from the place of its growth to Guernsey and Jersey,
+and there reshipped, with the original quantity tripled for the English
+market, the docks are no security.”
+
+Professor C. A. Lee, of New York, informs us that “a cheap Madeira is
+made by extracting the oils from common whisky, and passing it through
+carbon.  There are immense establishments in this city where the whisky
+is thus turned into wine.  In some of those devoted to this branch of
+business, the whisky is rolled-in in the evening, but the wine goes out
+in the broad daylight, ready to defy the closest inspection.  A grocer,
+after he had abandoned the nefarious traffic in adulterations, assured me
+that he had often purchased whisky one day of a country merchant, and
+before he left town sold the same whisky back to him turned into wine, at
+a profit of from 400 to 500 per cent.  The trade in empty wine-casks in
+this city with the Custom-house mark and certificate is immense; the same
+casks being replenished again and again, and always accompanied by that
+infallible test of genuineness, the Custom-house certificate.  I have
+heard of a pipe being sold for twelve dollars.  There is in the
+neighbourhood of New York an extensive manufactory of wine-casks, which
+are made so closely to imitate the foreign as to deceive experienced
+dealers.  The Custom-house marks are easily counterfeited, and
+certificates are never wanting.  I have heard,” said Dr. Lee, “dealers
+relate instances in which extensive stores were filled by these
+artificial wines; and when merchants from the country asked for genuine
+wines, these have been sold them as such, assuring them there could be no
+doubt of their purity.  It is believed,” he observes, “that the annual
+importation of what is called port-wine into the United States far
+exceeds the whole annual produce of the Alto-Douro.”
+
+Mr. James Forrester, an extensive grower of wines in the Alto-Douro and
+other districts of the north of Portugal, and another witness, stated
+that there was a mixture called jeropiga, composed of two-thirds ‘must,’
+or grape-juice, and one-third brandy, and which brandy is about twenty
+per cent above British brandy-proof, used for bringing up character in
+ports.  He further declared that sweetening-matter, in every variety, and
+elder-berry dye, is administered for the purpose of colouring it and
+giving it a body.  Moreover, Mr. Forrester testified that, by the present
+Portuguese law, _no unsophisticated port-wine is allowed to reach this
+country_.  “If any further colouring-matter be absolutely requisite by
+the speculator—I would not suppose by the merchants (for the merchants
+generally do not like, unless they are obliged, to sell very common
+wines, and do not like to have recourse to these practices)—then the
+elder-berry is, I believe, the only dye made use of in this country, and
+_costs an enormous lot of money_.”
+
+Dr. Munroe of Hull, the author of _The Physiological Action of Alcohol_,
+and other scientific works, gives evidence as follows of the danger
+attending the use of alcoholic drinks as medicine:
+
+    “I will relate a circumstance which occurred to me some years ago,
+    the result of which made a deep impression on my mind.  I was not
+    then a teetotaler—would that I had been!—but I conscientiously,
+    though erroneously, believed in the health-restoring properties of
+    stout.  A hard-working, industrious, God-fearing man, a teetotaler of
+    some years’ standing, suffering from an abscess in his hand, which
+    had reduced him very much, applied to me for advice.  I told him the
+    only medicine he required was rest; and to remedy the waste going on
+    in his system, and to repair the damage done to his hand, he was to
+    support himself with a bottle of stout daily.  He replied, ‘I cannot
+    take it, for I have been some years a teetotaler.’  ‘Well,’ I said,
+    ‘if you know better than the doctor, it is no use applying to me.’
+    Believing, as I did then, that the drink would really be of service
+    to him, I urged him to take the stout as a medicine, which would not
+    interfere with his pledge.  He looked anxiously in my face, evidently
+    weighing the matter over in his mind, and sorrowfully replied,
+    ‘Doctor, I was a drunken man once; I should not like to be one
+    again.’
+
+    “He was, much against his will, prevailed on to take the stout, and
+    in time he recovered from his sickness.  When he got well, I of
+    course praised up the virtues of stout as a means of saving his life,
+    for which he ought ever to be thankful; and rather lectured him on
+    being such a fanatic (that’s the word) as to refuse taking a bottle
+    of stout daily to restore him to his former health.  I lost sight of
+    my patient for some months; but I am sorry to say that on one fine
+    summer’s day, when driving through one of our public thoroughfares, I
+    saw a poor, miserable, ragged-looking man leaning against the door of
+    a common public-house drunk, and incapable of keeping an erect
+    position.  Even in his poverty, drunkenness, and misery, I discovered
+    it was my teetotal patient whom I had, not so long ago, persuaded to
+    break his pledge.  I could not be mistaken.  I had reason to know him
+    well, for he had been a member of a Methodist church; an
+    indefatigable Sunday-school teacher; a prayer-leader whose earnest
+    appeals for the salvation of others I had often listened to with
+    pleasure and edification.  I immediately went to the man, and was
+    astonished to find the change which drink in so short a time had
+    worked in his appearance.  With manifest surprise, and looking
+    earnestly at the poor wretch, I said, ‘S—, is that you?’  With a
+    staggering reel, and clipping his words, he answered, ‘Yes, it’s me.
+    Look at me again.  Don’t you know me?’  ‘Yes, I know you,’ I said,
+    ‘and am grieved to see you in this drunken condition.  I thought you
+    were a teetotaler?’
+
+    “With a peculiar grin upon his countenance, he answered, ‘I was
+    before I took your medicine.’  ‘I am sorry to see you disgracing
+    yourself by such conduct.  I am ashamed of you.’  Rousing himself, as
+    drunken people will at times, to extraordinary effort, he scoffingly
+    replied, ‘Didn’t you send me here for my medicine?’ and with a
+    delirious kind of chuckle he hiccupped out words I shall never
+    forget.  ‘Doctor, your medicine cured my body, but it damned my
+    soul!’
+
+    “Two or three of his boozing companions, hearing our conversation,
+    took him under their protection, and I left him.  As I drove away, my
+    heart was full of bitter reflections, that I had been the cause of
+    ruining this man’s prospects, not only of this world, but of that
+    which is to come.
+
+    “You may rest assured I did not sleep much that night.  The drunken
+    aspect of that man haunted me, and I found myself weeping over the
+    injury I had done him.  I rose up early the next morning and went to
+    his cottage, with its little garden in front, on the outskirts of the
+    town, where I had often seen him with his wife and happy children
+    playing about, but found, to my sorrow, that he had removed some time
+    ago.  At last, with some difficulty, I found him located in a low
+    neighbourhood, not far distant from the public-house he had
+    patronised the day before.  Here, in such a home as none but the
+    drunkard could inhabit, I found him laid upon a bed of straw,
+    feverish and prostrate from the previous day’s debauch, abusing his
+    wife because she could not get him some more drink.  She, standing
+    aloof with tears in her eyes, broken down with care and grief, her
+    children dirty and clothed in rags, all friendless and steeped in
+    poverty!  What a wreck was there!
+
+    “Turned out of the church in which he was once an ornament, his
+    religion sacrificed, his usefulness marred, his hopes of eternity
+    blasted, now a poor dejected slave to his passion for drink, without
+    mercy and without hope!
+
+    “I talked to him kindly, reasoned with him, succoured him till he was
+    well, and never lost sight of him or let him have any peace until he
+    had signed the _pledge_ again.
+
+    “It took him some time to recover his place in the church; but I have
+    had the happiness of seeing him restored.  He is now more than ever a
+    devoted worker in the church; and the cause of temperance is pleaded
+    on all occasions.
+
+    “Can you wonder, then, that I never order strong drink for a patient
+    now?”
+
+One of the most terrible results of hard drinking is that kind of
+insanity that takes the name of “delirium tremens;” and its
+characteristic symptoms may be described as follows: Muscular
+tremors—more especially of the hands and of the tongue when
+protruded—along with complete sleeplessness, and delirium of a muttering,
+sight-seeing, bustling, abrupt, anxious, apprehensive kind.  The
+afflicted patient has not the ability to follow out a train of thought,
+to explain fully an illusion or perverted sensation, or to perform any
+act correctly; for he may be one moment rational and the next incoherent,
+now conscious of his real condition and of surrounding realities, and
+then again suddenly excited by the most ridiculous fancies—principally of
+a spectral kind—such as strange visitors in the shape of human beings,
+devils, cats, rats, snakes, &c.; or by alarming occurrences, such as
+robberies, fires, pursuits for crimes, and the like.  He is easily
+pleased and satisfied by gentleness and indulgence, and much fretted and
+agitated by restraint and opposition.  The face is generally of a pale
+dirty colour and wearing an anxious expression; eyes startled but
+lustreless, sometimes considerably suffused, and the pupils not
+contracted unless considerable doses of opium have been administered, or
+very decided arachnitic symptoms have supervened; skin warm and moist,
+often perspiring copiously; tongue sometimes loaded, but generally pale
+and moist, occasionally remarkably clean; appetite small, but the patient
+will often take whatever is presented to him; thirst by no means urgent,
+and seldom or never any craving for spirituous liquors; urine scanty and
+high-coloured, and, in some cases which Dr. Munroe (from whose volume
+this description is derived) tested, containing a large quantity of
+albumen, which, however, disappears immediately after the paroxysm is
+over; alvine evacuations bilious and offensive; and the pulse generally
+ranges from 98 to 120, generally soft, but of various degrees of fulness
+and smallness, according to the strength of the patient and the stage of
+the affection.  The precursory symptoms are by no means peculiar or
+pathognomonic, but common to many febrile affections, implicating the
+sensorium in the way of repeatedly-disturbed and sleepless nights, with
+perhaps more of a hurried and agitated manner than usual for some days
+previously.  The paroxysm which is distinguished by the phenomena above
+described—occurring with remarkable uniformity, independently of age and
+constitution—usually runs its course, if uncomplicated and properly
+treated, on the second or third day, though sometimes earlier, and it
+seldom extends beyond the fifth day.  It then terminates in a profound
+natural sleep, which may continue for many hours, and from which, if it
+even lasts for six hours, the patient awakes weak and languid, but quite
+coherent.  The casualties of the disease are convulsions or coma, which,
+if not immediately fatal, are apt to leave the sufferer a wreck for the
+remainder of life.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+ATTEMPTS TO ARREST IT.
+
+
+_The Permissive Liquors Bill_—_Its Advocates and their Arguments_—_The
+Drunkenness of the Nation_—_Temperance Facts and Anecdotes_—_Why the
+Advocates of Total Abstinence do not make more headway_—_Moderate
+Drinking_—_Hard Drinking_—_The Mistake about childish Petitioners_.
+
+THERE has recently appeared on the temperance stage a set of well-meaning
+gentlemen, who, could they have their way, though they would sweep every
+public-house and beershop from the face of the land, are yet good-natured
+enough to meet objectors to their extreme views a “third” if not
+“half-way.”  Sir Wilfred Lawson is the acknowledged head and champion of
+the party, and its news on the all-important subject are summed up in a
+Permissive Prohibitory Liquor Bill.  It may be mentioned that the said
+Bill was rejected in the House of Commons by a very large majority, and
+is therefore, for the present, shelved.  It stands, however, as an
+expression of opinion on the part of eighty-seven members of parliament,
+backed by 3,337 petitions, more or less numerously signed, from various
+parts of the kingdom, as to what should be done to check the advancing
+curse of drunkenness, and, as such, its merits may be here discussed.
+
+The Permissive Prohibitory Liquors Bill, as Sir Wilfred Lawson describes
+it, provides that no public-houses shall be permitted in any district,
+provided that two-thirds of its population agree that they should be
+dispensed with.  If there are thirty thousand inhabitants of a parish,
+and twenty thousand of them should be of opinion that public-houses are a
+nuisance that should be abolished, the remaining ten thousand may
+grumble, but they must submit, and either go athirst or betake themselves
+to an adjoining and more generous parish.
+
+Sir W. Lawson, in moving the second reading of his Bill, said “that no
+statistics were needed to convince the House of Commons of the amount of
+drunkenness, and consequent poverty and crime, existing in this country;
+and even if here and there drunkenness might be diminishing, that did not
+affect his argument, which rested upon the fact that drunkenness in
+itself was a fertile and admitted source of evil.  The Bill was called a
+‘Permissive Bill;’ but had the rules of the House permitted, it might
+with truth be called a Bill for the Repression of Pauperism and of Crime.
+The measure was no doubt unpopular in the House, but it was a consolation
+to him that, although honourable members differed in opinion as to the
+efficacy of the remedy proposed, they all sympathised with the object its
+promoters had in view.  The trouble to which he feared honourable members
+had been put during the last few days in presenting petitions and
+answering letters showed the depth and intensity of the interest taken in
+the question out of doors.  No less than 3,337 petitions had been
+presented in favour of the Bill.  It would be remembered that in the
+parliament before last a bill similar in its character had been defeated
+by an overwhelming majority, all the prominent speakers in opposition to
+it at that time declaring that they based their hopes as to the
+diminution of drunkenness upon the spread of education.  He agreed in
+that opinion, but the education, to be successful, must be of the right
+sort; and while an army of schoolmasters and clergyman were engaged in
+teaching the people what was good, their efforts, he feared, were greatly
+counteracted by that other army of 150,000 publicans and beersellers
+encouraging the people to drinking habits.  All these dealers in drink
+had been licensed and commissioned by the Government, and were paid by
+results; they had, consequently, a direct pecuniary interest in promoting
+the consumption of as large an amount of drink as possible.  Naturally,
+if a man entered into a trade, he wished to do as large a trade as
+possible; and he had always felt that the advocates of temperance did
+more harm than good in using hard language against the beersellers, when
+it was the law which enabled them to engage in the trade, which was
+primarily responsible for the result.”
+
+The honourable member explained that the Bill did not in any way
+interfere with or touch the licensing system as at present existing;
+where it was the wish of the inhabitants that licenses should be granted,
+licenses would continue to be granted as at present.  But what the
+measure sought to do was, to empower the inhabitants of a neighbourhood,
+or the great majority of them, to vote within that neighbourhood the
+granting of any licenses at all—to crystallise public opinion, as it
+were, into law.  The first objection that had been taken to the measure
+was, that it would be impossible to carry out prohibition in England; but
+why should that be impossible in this country which had been successfully
+carried out in America, in Canada, and in Nova Scotia?  All he had to say
+upon the revenue question was, that no amount of revenue to be derived
+from the sale of intoxicating drinks should be allowed for a moment to
+weigh against the general welfare of the people; and that, if the present
+Bill were passed, such a mass of wealth would accumulate in the pockets
+of the people, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would meet with no
+difficulty in obtaining ample funds for carrying on the government of the
+country.  It was further objected that great inconvenience would be
+inflicted upon the minority by the operation of the Bill; but there,
+again, the balance of advantage and disadvantage must be looked at, and
+the convenience of the few should not be allowed to counterbalance the
+benefit that would be conferred upon the great mass of the people.  Then
+it was said that every year there would be a great fight upon the
+question; but was not an annual moral contest better than nightly
+physical conflicts at the doors of the public-houses?  The movement in
+favour of prohibiting the sale of liquor had proceeded from the poor, and
+it had been supported by what he might call the aristocracy of the
+working-classes.  He asked the House whether it would not be wise, when
+the future of this country must be in the hands of the working-classes,
+to pay some attention to their demand for a straightforward measure of
+this sort, which was intended to put an end to an acknowledged evil of
+great magnitude.
+
+“What,” says the _Times_, when commenting on Sir Wilfred Lawson’s
+argument, “would it matter to Sir Wilfred Lawson, or to any of the
+gentlemen who figure on the temperance platform, if all the public-houses
+of their districts were closed to-morrow?  Their own personal comfort
+would be in no way affected; not one of them probably enters a
+public-house, except at canvassing times, from one year’s end to another.
+But it would matter a great deal to those humbler and poorer classes of
+the population who make daily use of the public-house.  If it were
+closed, their comfort would be most materially affected.  A large
+proportion of them use strong liquor without abusing it, and have
+therefore as much right to it, both legal and moral, as they have to
+their meat or clothes.  Many of them could not get through the work by
+which they gain their own and their children’s bread without it; and
+their only means of procuring it is provided by the present public-house
+system.  They have not usually capital enough to lay in for themselves a
+stock of liquor; and even if they had, this plan would be not only
+wasteful and inconvenient, but would tempt them to commit the very crime
+which it was employed to avoid.  They find it both cheaper and more
+comfortable to get their liquor in small quantities as they want it, and
+they can only do this at a public-house.  Besides, it should not be
+forgotten—though well-to-do reformers are very apt, from their
+inexperience, to forget it—that to many of these poor people living in
+overcrowded, ill-ventilated, ill-lighted rooms, the public-house is the
+only place in which they can enjoy a quiet evening in pleasant, and
+perhaps instructive, intercourse with their neighbours after a hard day’s
+work.  To drive them from this genial place of resort would be in some
+cases almost as great a hardship as it would be to the rich man to turn
+him out of both private house and club.  We shall perhaps be told that
+all this may be true, but that the question reduces itself to a choice of
+evils, and that, on the whole, much more misery results to the poorer
+classes from the use of the public-house than would result if they were
+deprived of it.  But, even if we grant this for the sake of argument, it
+seems to us strangely unjust to debar one man forcibly from a privilege
+at once pleasant and profitable to him, simply because another abuses it.
+The injustice, too, is greatly heightened by the fact that those who take
+the most prominent and influential part in debarring him feel nothing of
+the suffering they inflict.”
+
+Following Sir Wilfred Lawson in the House of Commons came Mr. Besley, who
+declared that something like one hundred millions sterling was annually
+expended in this country in intoxicating drinks; and in our prisons, our
+lunatic asylums, and our workhouses, large numbers of the victims of
+intemperate indulgence in those drinks were always to be found.  Mr.
+Besley believed that the present mode of restricting the sale of liquors
+was anything but a satisfactory one.  In this respect the people would be
+the best judges of their own wants—of what their own families and their
+own neighbourhoods required; and he believed that if the decision was
+placed in their hands, as it would be by this Bill, the evils of
+intoxication would be very much mitigated.  He did not entertain the hope
+that we should ever make people sober by Act of Parliament, but he did
+believe that it was in the power of the Legislature to diminish the evil
+to a very great extent.  Supposing the expenditure on intoxicating drinks
+were reduced one-half, how usefully might not the fifty millions thus
+saved be employed in the interests of the poor themselves!  He believed
+that dwellings for the poor would be among the first works undertaken
+with that money.  For fifty millions they might erect 250,000 dwellings,
+costing 200_l._ each, and this was an expenditure which would cause an
+increased demand for labour in a variety of trades.
+
+I cannot do better than wind up these brief extracts by reproducing the
+loudly-applauded objections of the Home Secretary, Mr. Bruce, to the
+Permissive Prohibitory Liquor Bill.
+
+    “The most complete remedy for drunkenness was to be found in the
+    cultivation among the people of a better appreciation of their own
+    interests, rather than in legislation.  This had undoubtedly been the
+    cause of the almost complete disappearance of drunkenness among the
+    upper classes, coupled with an increased desire for and consequent
+    supply of intellectual amusement among them.  But, although education
+    in its largest sense was the true remedy for drunkenness, there was
+    no reason against the introduction of repressive or preventive
+    measures in behalf of those in our manufacturing districts,
+    especially that large class irregularly employed and often
+    oscillating between starvation and occasional well-doing, to whom
+    drunkenness was a refuge from despair.  The question was, in whom
+    should the power of restriction be reposed?  Some thought in the
+    resident ratepayers, others in the magistrates, and others in a body
+    elected for the purpose.  He could not say which proposal should be
+    adopted, but confessed that there was some reason in the demand, that
+    the number of public-houses should be uniformly regulated according
+    to the population.  He had been asked whether he would undertake to
+    deal with the matter.  To deal with the matter in the manner proposed
+    by the honourable baronet would at once deprive some portion of the
+    people of means of enjoyment, and the owners of public-houses of
+    their property.  That would be a proceeding unnecessary and unjust,
+    because, although the admitted evils of drunkenness were very
+    grievous, there was no doubt that public-houses, especially when well
+    managed, really did furnish to a large portion of the people a means
+    of social comfort and enjoyment.  His objection to the Bill was, that
+    it would not only cause a great deal of disturbance in many parts of
+    the country, but would almost inevitably cause riot.  Certainly the
+    rigorous treatment proposed by the Bill was unsuited to people whose
+    only pleasures were sensuous.  The honourable member proposed that a
+    majority of two-thirds of the ratepayers of a borough should be able
+    to put the Bill in operation; but in this proposal he ignored a large
+    proportion of those most interested.  Two-thirds of the ratepayers
+    left much more than one-third of the population on the other side,
+    and the more important portion of the population as regards this
+    matter, because it was made up in a great measure by those who lived
+    in all the discomfort of lodgings.  Again, it was suggested that the
+    settlement of the question might in each case be left to a majority
+    of the population; but here, again, it might be said that the
+    question would probably be decided by a majority of persons least
+    interested in the question—interested, that was, only as regards
+    peace and order, and careless how far the humbler classes of society
+    were deprived of their pleasure.  What the Legislature had to do was,
+    not to deprive the people of means of innocent enjoyment, but to
+    prevent that means being used to foster crime and gross
+    self-indulgence.”
+
+However much one might feel disposed, in the main, to agree with Sir
+Wilfred Lawson and his colleagues, it is not easy to grant him the
+position he assumes at the commencement of his argument, that “statistics
+are unnecessary.”  It is a singular fact, and one that everyone taking an
+interest in the great and important question of the drunkenness of the
+nation must have noticed, that amongst the advocates of total-abstinence
+principles “statistics” invariably are regarded as “unnecessary.”  This
+undoubtedly is a grave mistake, and one more likely than any other to
+cast a deeper shade of distrust over the minds of doubters.  It would
+seem either that the great evil in question is so difficult of access in
+its various ramifications as to defy the efforts of the statistician, or
+else that total abstainers, as a body, are imbued with the conviction
+that the disasters arising from the consumption of intoxicating drinks
+are so enormous, and widespread, and universally acknowledged, that it
+would be a mere waste of time to bring forward figures in proof.
+Perhaps, again, the drunkard is such a very unsavoury subject, that the
+upright water-drinker, pure alike in mind and body, has a repugnance to
+so close a handling of him.  If this last forms any part of the reason
+why the question of beer-drinking _v._ water-drinking should not be laid
+before us as fairly and fully as two and two can make it, the objectors
+may be referred to social subjects of a much more repulsive kind,
+concerning which many noble and large-hearted gentlemen courageously busy
+themselves, and studiously inquire into, with a view to representing them
+exactly as they are discovered.  In proof of this, the reader is referred
+to the sections of this book that are devoted to the consideration of
+Professional Thieves, and of Fallen Women.
+
+There can be no question that, in a matter that so nearly affects the
+domestic economy of a people, statistics are not only necessary but
+indispensable.  No man’s word should be taken for granted, where so much
+that is important is involved.  The man may be mistaken; but there is no
+getting away from figures.  A man, in his righteous enthusiasm, may
+exaggerate even, but a square old-fashioned 4 can never be exaggerated
+into a 5, or a positive 1 be so twisted by plausible argument as to
+falsely represent 2.  Yet, somehow, those who urge even so complete a
+revolution in the ancient and sociable habit of drinking as to make it
+dependent on the will of Brown and Robinson whether their neighbour Jones
+shall partake of a pint of beer out of the publican’s bright pewter,
+afford us no figures in support of their extreme views.
+
+Nor is this deficiency observable only in those unaccustomed persons who
+mount the platform to make verbal statements, and with whom the handling
+of large and complicated numbers might be found inconvenient.  Practised
+writers on teetotalism exhibit the same carelessness.  I have before me
+at the present moment a goodly number of total-abstinence volumes, but
+not one furnishes the desired information.  Among my books I find, first,
+John Gough’s _Orations_; but that able and fervent man, although he
+quotes by the score instances and examples that are enough to freeze the
+blood and make the hair stand on end of the horrors that arise from
+indulgence in alcoholic drinks, deals not in statistics.  Dr. James
+Miller writes an excellent treatise on alcohol and its power; but he
+deals in generalities, and not in facts that figures authenticate.  Here
+is a volume containing a _Thousand Temperance Facts and Anecdotes_; but
+in the whole thousand, not one of either tells us of how many customers,
+on a certain evening, visited a single and well-used public-house, went
+in sober, and came out palpably drunk.  It would be coming to the point,
+if such information—quite easy to obtain—was set before us.  Lastly, I
+have the _Temperance Cyclopædia_.  Now, I thought, I am sure, in some
+shape or another, to find here what I seek; but I searched in vain.  The
+volume in question is a bulky volume, and contains about seven hundred
+pages, in small close type.  In it you may read all about the physical
+nature of intemperance, and the intellectual nature of intemperance, and
+of the diseases produced by the use of alcohol, and of the progress of
+intemperance amongst the ancient Greeks and Romans, together with the
+history and origin of the teetotal cause in America; but as to the number
+of drunkards brought before the magistrates and fined, or of the number
+of crimes shown at the time of trial to have been committed through
+drunkenness, the _Cyclopædia_ is dumb.  This last is an oversight the
+more to be deplored because we very well know that if the said numbers
+were exhibited, they would make a very startling display.  It may be
+urged that, since we already have the testimony of magistrates, and
+jail-governors, and judges, of the enormous amount of crime that is
+attributable to strong drinks, it is unreasonable to ask for more; but
+this objection may be fairly met by the answer, that magistrates
+themselves, even when discussing the temperance question, occasionally
+make unreasonable remarks; as did a metropolitan magistrate the other
+day, who in open court declared, that “if publicans were compelled to
+shut up their shops, there would be no further use for his.”  He must
+have known better.  If it were as the worthy magistrate stated, it was
+equivalent to saying that teetotalers never appeared at his bar; but I
+think that he would hardly have ventured to that length.
+
+In my belief, it is the tremendous steam and effervescence of language
+indulged in by the advocates of total abstinence that keeps them from
+making more headway.  The facts they give us, like the drunkard’s grog,
+are generally “hot and strong,” though with very, _very_ little of the
+sugar of forbearance.  I find, for instance, in the temperance records
+before me, frequent allusion to the great number of drunkards who nightly
+are thrown out at the doors of public-houses where they have been passing
+the evening, and left to wallow in the kennel.  Not only do we read of
+this in books, we have it from the mouths of preachers in the pulpit, and
+speakers on public platforms and in temperance lecture-halls.  But I
+venture to declare that whoever believes anything of the kind, believes
+what is not true.  Every man has a right to speak according to his
+experience; and I speak from mine.  I think that I may lay claim to as
+extensive a knowledge of the ways of London—especially the bye and ugly
+ways—as almost any man; and I can positively say that it has never once
+been my lot to witness the throwing (“throwing” is the expression) of a
+man from a public-house-door, followed by his helpless wallowing in the
+kennel.  What is more, it was by no means necessary for me to witness
+such a hideous and disgusting spectacle to convince me of the evils of
+intemperance, and of how necessary it was to reform the existing laws as
+applying to the reckless granting of licenses in certain neighbourhoods.
+It is quite enough, more than enough, to satisfy me of what a terrible
+curse a bestial indulgence in gin and beer is, when I see a human
+creature turned helpless from the public-house, and left to stagger home
+as he best may.  To my eyes, he is then no better than a pig; and if he
+took to wallowing in the gutter, it would be no more than one might
+expect; but he does _not_ “wallow in the gutter;” and it is not necessary
+to picture him in that wretched predicament in order to bring home to the
+decent mind how terrible a bane strong drink is, or to shock the man
+already inclined to inebriation into at once rushing off to a teetotal
+club and signing the pledge.
+
+And now I must be permitted to remark that no man more than myself can
+have a higher appreciation of the efforts of those who make it the duty
+of their lives to mitigate the curse of drunkenness.  What vexes me is,
+the wrong-headed, and not unfrequently the weak and ineffectual, way in
+which they set about it.  As I view the matter, the object of the
+preacher of total abstinence is not so much the reclamation of the
+drunkard already steeped and sodden, as the deterring from reckless
+indulgence those who are not averse to stimulative liquors, but are by no
+means drunkards.  Therefore they appeal as a rule to men who are in the
+enjoyment of their sober senses, and in a condition to weigh with a
+steady mind the arguments that are brought forward to induce them to
+abandon alcoholic stimulants altogether.  Now, it must be plain to these
+latter—sound-headed men, who drink beer, not because they are anxious to
+experience the peculiar sensations of intoxication, but because they
+conscientiously believe that they are the better for drinking it—it must
+be evident to these that teetotal triumphs, exhibited in the shape of
+converted drunkards, are at best but shallow affairs.  “Any port in a
+storm,” is the wrecked mariner’s motto; and no doubt the wretched
+drunkard, with his poor gin-rotted liver, and his palsied limbs, and his
+failing brain, with perhaps a touch of _delirium tremens_ to spur him on,
+might be glad, indeed, to escape to a teetotal harbour of refuge; and it
+is not to be wondered at, if, reclaimed from the life of a beast and
+restored to humanity, he rejoices, and is anxious to publish aloud the
+glad story of his redemption.  As a means of convincing the working man
+of the wrong he commits in drinking a pint of fourpenny, the upholder of
+total-abstinence principles delights to bring forth his “brand from the
+burning”—the reclaimed drunkard—and get him, with a glibness that
+repetition insures, to detail the particulars of his previous horrible
+existence—how he drank, how he swore, how he blasphemed, how he broke up
+his home, and brutally ill-treated his wife and children.  All this, that
+he may presently arrive at the climax, and say, “This I have been, and
+_now_ look at me!  I have a black coat instead of a ragged fustian
+jacket; my shirt-collar is whiter and more rigid in its purity even than
+your own.  See what teetotalism has done for me, and adopt the course I
+adopted, and sign the pledge.”
+
+To which the indulger in moderate and honest four-penny replies, “I see
+exactly what teetotalism has done for you, and you can’t be too grateful
+for it; but there is no demand for it to do so much for me.  If I was
+afire, as you say that you once were, and blazing in the consuming flames
+of drunkenness,—to use your own powerful language—no doubt I should be as
+glad as you were to leap into the first water-tank that presented itself.
+But I am not blazing and consuming.  I am no more than comfortably warm
+under the influence of the pint of beer I have just partaken of; and
+though I am glad indeed to see _you_ in the tank, if you have no
+objection, I will for the present keep outside of it.”
+
+Again, from the tone adopted by certain total-abstinence professors,
+people who are compelled to take such matters on hearsay—the very people,
+by the way, who would be most likely, “for his good,” to join the
+majority of two-thirds that is to shut up taverns—would be made to
+believe that those who frequent the public-house are drunkards as a rule;
+that though occasionally a few, who have not at present dipped very deep
+in the hideous vice, may be discovered in the parlour and the taproom
+bemusing themselves over their beer, the tavern is essentially the resort
+of the man whose deliberate aim and intention is to drink until be is
+tipsy, and who does do so.  The moderate man—the individual who is in the
+habit of adjourning to the decent tavern-parlour, which is his “club,” to
+pass away an hour before supper-time with a pipe and a pint of ale and
+harmless chat with his friends—is well aware of this exaggerated view of
+his doings; and it is hardly calculated to soften his heart towards those
+who would “reform” him, or incline him to listen with any amount of
+patience to their arguments.  He feels indignant, knowing the imputation
+to be untrue.  He is not a drunkard, and he has no sympathy with
+drunkards.  Nay, he would be as forward as his teetotal detractor, and
+quite as earnest, in persuading the wretched reckless swiller of beer and
+gin to renounce his bestial habit.  It is a pity that so much
+misunderstanding and misrepresentation should exist on so important a
+feature of the matter in debate, when, with so little trouble, it might
+be set at rest.  If public-houses are an evil, it must be mainly because
+the indolent and the sensual resort thither habitually for convenience of
+drinking until they are drunk.  Is this so?  I have no hesitation in
+saying that in the vast majority of cases it is not.  The question might
+easily be brought to the test; and why has it not been done?  Let a
+hundred public-houses in the metropolis be selected at random, and as
+many impartial and trustworthy men be deputed to keep watch on the said
+public-houses every night for a week.  Let them make note particularly of
+those who are not dram-drinkers, but who go to the public-house for the
+purpose of passing an hour or so there; let them mark their demeanour
+when they enter and again when they emerge; and I have no doubt that, by
+a large majority, the working man in search simply of an hour’s evening
+amusement and sociable society will be acquitted of anything approaching
+sottishness, or such an inclination towards mere tipsiness even, as calls
+for the intervention of the Legislature.
+
+And now, while we are on the subject of statistics, and the peculiar
+influences it is the custom of the total abstainer to bring to bear
+against his erring brother the moderate drinker, I may mention what
+appears to me the highly objectionable practice of enlisting the
+cooperation of boys and girls—mere little children—in the interest of
+their cause.  In the parliamentary discussion on the Permissive
+Prohibitory Liquor Bill, Colonel Jervis remarked, on the subject of the
+3,337 petitions that were presented in its support: “I do not know
+whether the petitions that have been presented in its favour are properly
+signed; but certainly I have seen attached to one of those petitions
+which come from my neighbourhood names that I do not recognise.  The
+signatures might, perhaps, be those of Sunday-school children; but I do
+not think that petitions from children should carry a Bill of this kind.”
+Were it any other business but teetotal business, one might feel disposed
+to pass by as meaningless the hint conveyed in Colonel Jervis’s words.
+None but those, however, who are conversant with the strange methods
+total abstainers will adopt to gain their ends will be inclined to attach
+some weight to them.  The children are a weapon of great strength in the
+hands of the teetotal.  Almost as soon as they begin to lisp, they are
+taught sentences condemnatory of the evils that arise from an indulgence
+in strong drink; soon as they are able to write, their names appear on
+the voluminous roll of total abstainers.  At their feasts and picnics
+they carry banners, on which is inscribed their determination to refrain
+from what they have never tasted; and over their sandwiches Tommy Tucker,
+in his first breeches, pledges Goody Twoshoes in a glass from the crystal
+spring, and expresses his intention of dying as he has lived—a total
+abstainer.  I am not a bachelor, but a man long married, and with a
+“troop of little children at my knee,” as numerous, perhaps, as that
+which gathered about that of “John Brown,” immortalised in song.  But I
+must confess that I do chafe against children of a teetotal tendency one
+occasionally is introduced to.  I have before made allusion to a
+recently-published volume entitled _A Thousand Temperance Facts and
+Anecdotes_.  This is the title given on the cover; the title-page,
+however, more liberally reveals the nature of its contents.  Thereon is
+inscribed, “One Thousand Temperance Anecdotes, Facts, Jokes, Biddies,
+Puns, and Smart Sayings; suitable for Speakers, Penny Readings,
+Recitations, &c.”  And, to be sure, it is not in the least objectionable
+that the teetotaler should have his “comic reciter;” nor can there be a
+question as to the possibility of being as funny, as hilarious even, over
+a cup of wholesome, harmless tea as over the grog-glass.  But I very much
+doubt if any but total abstainers could appreciate some of the witticisms
+that, according to the book in question, occasionally issue from the
+mouths of babes and sucklings.  Here is a sample:
+
+    “A CHILD’S ACUMEN.—‘Pa, does wine make a beast of a man?’
+
+    ‘Pshaw, child, only once in a while!’
+
+    ‘Is that the reason why Mr. Goggins has on his sign—Entertainment for
+    man and beast?’
+
+    ‘Nonsense, child, what makes you ask?’
+
+    ‘Because ma says that last night you went to Goggins’s _a man_, and
+    came back _a beast_! and that he entertained you.’
+
+    ‘That’s mother’s nonsense, dear!  Run out and play; papa’s head
+    aches!’”
+
+I may have a preposterous aversion to a development of cuteness of a
+certain sort in children, but I must confess that it would not have
+pained me much had the above brilliant little anecdote concluded with a
+reference to something else being made to ache besides papa’s head.
+
+Again: “Two little boys attended a temperance meeting at Otley in
+Yorkshire, and signed a pledge that they should not touch nor give strong
+drink to anyone.  On going home, their father ordered them to fetch some
+ale, and gave them a can for the purpose.  They obeyed; but after getting
+the ale neither of them felt inclined to carry it; so they puzzled
+themselves as to what they could do.  At last they hit upon an expedient.
+A long broom-handle was procured, and slinging the can on this, each took
+one end of the broom-handle, and so conveyed the liquor home without
+spilling it.”
+
+One realty cannot see what moral lesson is to be deduced from these two
+“funny” teetotal stories, unless it is intended to show that, from the
+lofty eminence of total abstinence, a child may with impunity look down
+upon and “chaff” and despise his beer-drinking parent.  It would rather
+seem that too early an indulgence in teetotal principles is apt to have
+an effect on the childish mind quite the reverse of humanising.  Here is
+still another instance quoted from the “smart-saying” pages:
+
+    “Two poor little children attending a school in America, at some
+    distance from their home, were shunned by the others because their
+    father was a drunkard.  The remainder at dinner-time went into the
+    playground and ate their dinner; but the poor twins could only look
+    on.  If they approached near those who were eating, the latter would
+    say, ‘You go away; your father is a drunkard.’  But they were soon
+    taught to behave otherwise; and then it was gratifying to see how
+    delicate they were in their attention to the two little
+    unfortunates.”
+
+If such contemptible twaddle enters very largely into the educational
+nourishment provided for the young abstainer, we may tremble for the next
+generation of our beer-imbibing species.  It appears, moreover, that
+those doughty juveniles, when they are well trained, will fearlessly
+tackle the enemy, alcohol, even when he is found fortified within an
+adult being; and very often with an amount of success that seems _almost_
+incredible.  However, the veracious little book of temperance anecdotes
+vouches for it, and no more can be said.  Here following is an affecting
+instance of how, “once upon a time,” a band of small teetotal female
+infants were the means of converting from the error of his ways a
+full-blown drunkard:
+
+    “We used to furnish little boys and girls with pledge-books and
+    pencils, and thus equipped, they got us numerous signatures.  A man
+    was leaning, much intoxicated, against a tree.  Some little girls
+    coming from school saw him there, and at once said to each other,
+    ‘What shall we do for him?’  Presently one said, ‘O, I’ll tell you:
+    let’s sing him a temperance song.’  And so they did.  They collected
+    round him, and struck up, ‘Away, away with the bowl!’  And so on, in
+    beautiful tones.  The poor drunkard liked it, and so would you.
+    ‘Sing again, my little girls,’ said he.  ‘We will,’ said they, ‘if
+    you will sign the temperance pledge.’  ‘No, no,’ said he, ‘we are not
+    at a temperance meeting; besides, you’ve no pledges with you.’  ‘Yes,
+    we have, and pencils too;’ and they held them up to him.  ‘No, no, I
+    won’t sign now; but do sing to me!’  So they sang again, ‘The drink
+    that’s in the drunkard’s bowl is not the drink for me.’  ‘O, do sing
+    again!’ he said.  But they were firm this time, and declared they
+    would go away if he did not sign.  ‘But,’ said the poor fellow,
+    striving to find an excuse, ‘you’ve no table.  How can I write
+    without a table?’  At this one quiet, modest, pretty little creature
+    came up timidly, with one finger on her lips, and said, ‘You can
+    write upon your hat, while we hold it for you.’  The man signed; and
+    he narrated these facts before 1,500 children, saying, ‘Thank God for
+    those children!—they came to me as messengers of mercy.’”
+
+It is to be hoped this affecting, not to say romantic, episode in the
+history of “conversions,” will not be so lightly read that its chief
+beauties will be missed.  It presents a picture full of the loveliest
+“bits” that to be thoroughly enjoyed should be lingered over.  First of
+all, let us take the drunkard, too “far gone” for locomotion, leaning
+“against a tree.”  Leaning against a tree, with an idiotic leer on his
+flushed and tipsy face, and maybe trying to recall to his bemuddled
+memory the burden of the drinking-song that he recently heard and
+participated in in the parlour of the village alehouse.  “What shall we
+do with him?”  “O, I’ll tell you: let us sing him a temperance song.”
+There you have a prime bit of the picture complete.  The sot with his
+back to the tree, the swaying green boughs of which have tilted his
+battered hat over his left eye, and the band of little girls gathered in
+a semicircle about him, and rousing him to consciousness by the first
+thrilling note of “Away, away with the bowl!”  The words sound as though
+they would go best with a hunting-tune, a sort of “Heigh-ho, tantivy!”
+and one can imagine the intoxicated one first of all mistaking it for
+that roistering melody, and gently snapping his thumbs at it, he being
+for the present somewhat hampered as regards his vocal abilities.  One
+can imagine him chuckling tipsily and snapping his thumbs—feebler and
+still more feeble as he discovers his error.  It is _not_ a hunting-song;
+it is a temperance ditty of the first, the purest water!  His heart is
+touched.  His now disengaged thumbs seek the corners of his eyes, and the
+scalding tears steal shimmering down his red-hot nose!  “Sing—sing it
+again!” he gasps.  But no; the artless chanters have gained a step, and
+they mean to retain it.  “Not till you sign the pledge,” say they.
+However, he begs so hard that they concede to the extent of a verse and a
+half.  Still he is obdurate; but he gradually yields, till, driven into a
+corner, he falters, “But you have no table.”  Then comes the crowning
+triumph of the picture—the incident of the hat.  “You can write upon your
+hat—we will hold it for you.”  And the deed was done!
+
+The same volume reveals another story of so similar a kind that it would
+almost seem that the children of the first story had confided their
+miraculous experience to the children of the second story.
+
+    “A CRYSTAL-PALACE INCIDENT.—The following pleasing incident was
+    related to me by a youthful member of the choir, at the recent
+    Crystal-Palace _fête_.  It seems that some of the young choristers
+    were amusing themselves in the grounds, and saw a poor man lying on
+    the grass partially intoxicated.  Their medals attracted his
+    attention, and he began to dispute the motto, “Wine is a mocker.”
+    This led to conversation, and the children endeavoured to induce him
+    to become an abstainer, and sang several melodies.  One of the
+    conductors was also present.  The man seemed much affected during the
+    singing, and cried, my young informant said, until he was quite
+    sober.  He confessed that he had once been a teetotaler for three
+    years, during which time he had been much benefited; but had broken
+    his pledge through the influence of his companions.  However, he was
+    happily prevailed upon to sign again, and to put down his name in a
+    pledge-book at hand, and before they separated he thanked the young
+    people heartily, saying, ‘I did not come here expecting to sign the
+    pledge.  I shall now be able to go home to my wife and children and
+    tell them; and to-morrow I shall be able to go to my work, instead of
+    being at the public-house.’  What a blessing it may prove to that
+    wife and family should the poor man keep to his resolution!  Let no
+    child despair of doing something towards reclaiming the drunkard, but
+    let all endeavour, by loving, gentle persuasion whenever opportunity
+    offers, to help to make the wretched drunkard blessed by living
+    soberly.”
+
+I should be sorry indeed to “make fun” of any attempt earnestly and
+heartily made by anyone for a fellow-creature’s good, but really there is
+so much that is of questionable sincerity in such effusions as those
+above quoted, that one feels by no means sure it is not intended as a
+joke.  Just, for instance, take that one feature of the drunkard “lying
+on the grass,” and “crying himself sober,” while, led by their conductor,
+the youthful members of the choir sang him all the songs they knew!  Such
+a scene would make the fortune of a farce with Mr. Toole to play the
+tipsy man.
+
+
+
+
+VI.—Betting Gamblers.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+“ADVERTISING TIPSTERS” AND “BETTING COMMISSIONERS.”
+
+
+_The Vice of Gambling on the increase among the
+Working-classes_—_Sporting_ “_Specs_”—_A_ “_Modus_”—_Turf
+Discoveries_—_Welshers_—_The Vermin of the Betting-field_—_Their
+Tactics_—_The Road to Ruin_.
+
+THERE can be no doubt that the vice of gambling is on the increase
+amongst the English working-classes.  Of this no better proof is afforded
+than in the modern multiplication of those newspapers specially devoted
+to matters “sportive.”  Twenty years ago there were but three or four
+sporting newspapers published in London; now there are more than a dozen.
+It would, however, be unfair to regard the rapid growth of these
+questionable prints as an undoubted symptom of the deepening depravity of
+the masses.  The fact is this: that though the national passion for
+gambling, for betting, and wagering, and the excitement of seeing this or
+that “event” decided, has increased of late, it is chiefly because the
+people have much more leisure now than of yore.  They must have amusement
+for their disengaged hours, and they naturally seek that for which they
+have the greatest liking.
+
+It is a comforting reflection, however, that in their sports and pastimes
+Englishmen, and especially Londoners, of the present generation, are less
+barbarous than those of the last.  Setting horse-racing aside, anyone who
+now takes up for perusal the ordinary penny sporting paper will find
+therein nothing more repugnant to his sensibilities, as regards human
+performers, than records of swimming, and cricket, and running, and
+walking, and leaping; and as regards four-footed creatures, the discourse
+will be of dogs “coursing” or racing, or killing rats in a pit.  In the
+present enlightened age we do not fight cocks and “shy” at hens tied to a
+stake at the Shrove-Tuesday fair; neither do we fight dogs, or pit those
+sagacious creatures to bait bulls.  In a newspaper before me, not a
+quarter of a century old, there is a minute and graphic account of a
+bull-baiting, at which in the pride of his heart the owner of a bull-dog
+did a thing that in the present day would insure for him twelve months of
+hard labour on the treadmill, but which in the “good old time” was merely
+regarded as the act of a spirited sportsman.  A white bull-dog, “Spurt”
+by name, had performed prodigies of valour against a bear brought before
+him and before a crowded audience.  Finally, however, the exhausted
+creature bungled in a delicate act of the performance, and those who had
+bet against the dog exasperated its master by clapping their hands.
+“D’ye think that he can’t do it?” roared the dog’s owner; “why, I’ll take
+ten to one in twenties that he does it on three legs—with one foot
+chopped off.”  “Done!” somebody cried.  Whereon the valiant bulldog owner
+called for a cleaver, and setting the left fore-paw of his faithful dog
+on the ledge of the pit, he hacked it off at a blow.  Then instantly he
+urged the creature at the bear again, and, raging with pain, it at once
+sprang at its shaggy opponent and pinned it.
+
+It cannot be denied that occasionally there still appears in the sporting
+newspapers some brief account of a “mill” that has recently taken place
+between those once highly-popular gentlemen—the members of the “P.R.”
+But public interest in this department of “sport” is fast dying out; and
+not one reader in a hundred would care to wade through column after
+column of an account of how the Brompton Bison smashed the snout of the
+Bermondsey Pet; and how the latter finally gained the victory by
+battering his opponent’s eyes until he was blind and “came up groggy,”
+and could not even see his man, let alone avoid the sledgehammer blows
+that were still pounding his unhappy ribs.  There are left very few
+indeed of those individuals who, as “sportsmen,” admire
+Raw-Head-and-Bloody-Bones as master of the ceremonies.
+
+All the while, however, it is to be feared that the sporting newspaper of
+the present day reveals the existence of really more mischief, more
+substantial immorality and rascality than ever appeared in their pages
+before.  As a quarter of a century since pugilism was the main feature
+with the sporting press, now it is horse-racing; not for its sake, but
+for the convenient peg it affords to hang a bet on.  It may be safely
+asserted that among Londoners not one in five hundred could mention the
+chief qualities a racer should possess; but this goes for nothing; or
+perhaps it might be said that it goes for everything.  It is each man’s
+faith in the ignorance of his neighbour, and his high respect for his own
+sagacity and his “good luck,” wherein resides the secret of the
+horse-betting mania at the present time afflicting the nation.
+
+As the reader will have remarked, so rapidly has the disease in question
+spread during the past few years that Government has at last thought fit
+to interpose the saving arm of the law between the victim and the
+victimiser.  Numerous as are the sporting papers, and to the last degree
+accommodating in acting as mediums of communication between the ignorant
+people who stand in need of horsey counsel and the “knowing ones” of the
+turf who, for a small consideration, are ever ready to give it, it was
+discovered by certain bold schemers that a yet wider field of operation
+was as yet uncultivated.  To be sure, what these bold adventurers
+meditated was contrary to law, and of that they were well aware, and at
+first acted on the careful Scotch maxim of not putting out their hand
+farther than at a short notice they could draw it back again.  Success,
+however, made them audacious.  Either the law slept, or else it
+indolently saw what they were up to and winked, till at last, growing
+each week more courageous, the new gambling idea, that took the name of
+“Spec,” became of gigantic dimensions.
+
+Throughout lower London, and the shady portions of its suburbs, the
+window of almost every public-house and beer-shop was spotted with some
+notice of these “Specs.”  There were dozens of them.  There were the
+“Deptford Spec,” and the “Lambeth Spec,” and the “Great Northern Spec,”
+and the “Derby Spec;” but they all meant one and the same thing—a
+lottery, conducted on principles more or less honest, the prize to be
+awarded according to the performances of certain racehorses.  All on a
+sudden, however, the officers of the law swooped down on the gambling
+band, and carried them, bag and baggage, before a magistrate to answer
+for their delinquency.
+
+At the examination of the first batch at Bow-street, as well as at their
+trial, much curious information was elicited.  It appeared that the
+originator of the scheme lived at Deptford, and that he had pursued it
+for so long as six or seven years.
+
+The drawings were on Saturday nights, when the great majority of the
+working-people had received their wages, and when, it having been noised
+abroad that these lotteries were going on, they were likely to attend and
+to expend their money in the purchase of such of the tickets as had not
+been sold already.
+
+If all the tickets were not sold, a portion of each prize was deducted,
+and the holders of prizes were paid in proportion to the number of
+tickets that were sold; and, as it was impossible to know what number of
+tickets had actually been sold, it could not be determined whether the
+distribution had or had not been carried out with fairness, or how much
+had been deducted to pay for expenses, and to afford a profit to the
+promoters of the concern.  Several cabloads of tickets, result-sheets,
+&c. were seized at the residences of the managers of the “spec.”
+
+There were numerous “partners” in the firm, and they were frequently at
+the chief’s residence, and were instrumental in carrying out the
+lotteries.  One or other was always present at the drawing of the numbers
+and at the distribution of the prizes.  One partner was a stationer in
+the Strand, and at his shop were sold the tickets for these lotteries,
+and also what are termed the “result-sheets,” which were sold at one
+penny each, and each of which contained the results of a “draw,” setting
+forth which of the ticket-holders had been fortunate enough to draw the
+several prizes, and also advertising the next “spec” or lottery.  Each of
+these “specs” related to a particular race, and the tickets were
+substantially alike.  Each had on the top the words “Deptford Spec,” with
+a number and letter, and in the corner the name of a race, as “Newmarket
+Handicap Sweep,” “Liverpool Grand National Steeplechase.”  In each of
+these there were 60,000 subscribers, and in that for the Thousand Guineas
+75,000.  The prizes varied in proportion; but in one they were £500 for
+the first horse, £300 for the second, and £150 for the third.  Among the
+starters was to be divided £500, and among the non-starters £600.  There
+were also 200 prizes of £1, and 300 prizes of 10_s._  It was stated on
+the tickets that the prizes would go with the stakes, and that the
+result-sheets would be published on the Monday after the draw.  There was
+also a stipulation that, in the event of any dispute arising, it should
+be referred to the editors of the _Era_, _Bell’s Life_, and the _Sporting
+Times_, and the decision of the majority to be binding.  If the numbers
+were not filled up, the prizes were to be reduced in proportion; with
+some other details.  There was no printer’s name to the tickets or
+result-sheets.
+
+The detective police-officers, in whose hands the getting-up of evidence
+for the prosecution had been intrusted, proved that, after they purchased
+their tickets, they went up the stairs in a public-house about a quarter
+to seven o’clock.  They went into the club-room, where about sixty or
+seventy persons had assembled, and where the managers of the lotteries
+were selling tickets.  The witness purchased one, and paid a shilling for
+it.  It had the same form as the others, and the draw was to be held that
+night.  Someone got up and said (reading from several sheets of paper in
+his hand), “4,200 tickets not sold;” this he repeated twice.  He then
+proceeded to read from the papers the numbers of the tickets unsold.  The
+reading occupied about half-an-hour.  After the numbers were read out,
+they commenced to undo a small bundle of tickets, which they placed upon
+the table.  They fetched down some more bundles similar to the first, and
+continued undoing them until they had undone about a bushel.  The tickets
+were all numbered.  They then proceeded to place all the tickets in a
+large wheel-of-fortune, after mixing them up well with a quantity of sand
+to prevent their sticking together.  The wheel was a kind of barrel
+revolving on axles, with a hole for the hand.  One of the managers asked
+if any gentleman had got a sporting paper.  No one answered, so he
+produced one himself; he (witness) believed the _Sporting Life_.  He
+said, “Will any gentleman read the names of the horses for the Grand
+National?”  The names of the horses were then read out by those at the
+table, while tickets were drawn for each till all the horses were called.
+The tickets were then put down on the table, and the defendants proceeded
+to undo another packet.  They undid a heap, about a quarter the bulk of
+the first lot.  They put these into another wheel-of-fortune.  Having
+done so, two boys about fourteen or fifteen years old came into the room,
+and after divesting themselves of their jackets and tucking up their
+sleeves, each went to the wheels, which were turned by some of the
+persons in the room.  One of the managers called out the numbers of the
+tickets and the name of the horse to each prize.
+
+It need only be mentioned, in proof of the popularity enjoyed by these
+“specs,” that within a fortnight afterwards a similar scene was enacted
+at the same public-house.  A detective went to the Bedford Arms, where he
+heard that a distribution of prizes was to be made.  He went into the
+club-room.  The managers were there, with about forty prizeholders.  A
+person produced a ticket and handed it to one of the directors, who,
+after examining it, said “All right,” and paid the money—405_l._—which
+consisted of cheques, notes, and gold.  The holder of the prize got
+405_l._ for a 500_l._ prize, it being supposed all the tickets were not
+sold, and a reduction was made in proportion.  About forty prizes were
+given away in this manner during the evening.  After the prizes were
+drawn, each person was asked to put something in the bowl for the two
+boys.
+
+The prisoners were committed for trial, but were lucky enough to escape
+punishment.  For years they had been defying the law, and feathering
+their nests on the strength of the silly confidence reposed in them by
+the thousands of dupes who ran after their precious “specs;” and the
+sentence of the judge was in effect no more severe than this—it bade them
+beware how they so committed themselves for the future.  Of course the
+released lottery-agents promised that they _would_ beware, and doubtless
+they will.  Without being called on to do so, they even volunteered an
+act of noble generosity.  As before stated, the police had found in their
+possession and seized a large sum of money—fourteen hundred pounds.  This
+the good gentlemen of the lottery suggested might be distributed amongst
+the charities of that parish their leader honoured with his residence,
+and with the Recorder’s sanction, and amid the murmured plaudits of a
+crowded court, the suggestion was adopted.  The oddest part of the
+business was, however, that the benevolent gentlemen gave away what
+didn’t belong to them, the fourteen hundred pounds representing the many
+thousand shillings the believers in “specs” had intrusted to their
+keeping.  However, everybody appeared to think that the discharged
+“speculators” had behaved honourably, not to say nobly, and there the
+case ended.
+
+The “spec” bubble exploded, the police authorities show symptoms of
+bringing the machinery of the law to bear on a wider-spread and more
+insidious mischief of the same breed.  With the betting infatuation there
+has naturally sprung up a swarm of knowing hungry pike ready to take
+advantage of it.  These are the advertising tipsters, the “turf
+prophets,” and the “betting commissioners.”  Driven from the streets,
+where for so long they publicly plied their trade, they have resorted to
+the cheap sporting press to make known their amiable intentions and
+desires, and the terms on which they are still willing, even from the
+sacred privacy of their homes, to aid and counsel all those faint-hearted
+ones who despair of ruining themselves soon enough without such friendly
+help.
+
+Were it not for the awful amount of misery and depravity it involves, it
+would be amusing to peruse the various styles of address from the
+“prophet” to the benighted, and to mark the many kinds of bait that are
+used in “flat-catching,” as the turf slang has it, as well as the
+peculiar method each fisherman has in the sort and size of hook he uses,
+and the length of line.
+
+Entitled to rank foremost in this numerous family is an unassuming but
+cheerful and confident gentleman, who frequently, and at an expensive
+length, advertises himself as the happy originator and proprietor of what
+he styles a “Modus.”  It is described as an instrument of “beauty, force,
+and power,” and it is, doubtless, only that its owner, if he kept it all
+to himself, and set it going at full blast, would undoubtedly win all the
+money in the country, and so put an end to the sport, that he is induced
+to offer participation in its working at the small equivalent of a few
+postage-stamps.  In his modest description of his wonderful “Modus,” Mr.
+M. says:
+
+    “In daily realising incomparably rich winnings with this Modus,
+    another great and distinguished victory was very successfully
+    achieved at Newmarket Spring Meeting.  Mr. M.’s distinguished Winning
+    Modus, for beauty, force, and power, has never yet failed in clearly
+    realising treasures of weekly winnings and successes.  For this
+    reason, this week’s eminent and moneyed success was the result with
+    this Modus at the Newmarket Spring Meeting.  For acquiring an
+    ascendency over any other capital-making turf discovery, either
+    secret or public, it is truly marvellous.  In fact, this Winning
+    Modus never deteriorates in its character, immense riches, or
+    winnings, for it is strikingly and truthfully infallible and
+    never-failing.  At any rate, it will win 18,000_l._ or 20,000_l._ for
+    any investor ere the final close of the season.  Do not think this
+    anywise fiction, for it is strict verity.  Mr. M. takes this
+    opportunity to respectfully thank his patronisers for their
+    compliments, congratulations, and presents.  It is needless to remind
+    his patrons that an illustrious and rich success will easily be
+    achieved at Chester next week, when Mr. M.’s Winning Modus will again
+    realise its infallible success in thousands.”
+
+It is to be assumed that Mr. M. has already by means of his own “Modus”
+fished out of the risky waters of gambling a few of these “18,000_l._ or
+20,000_l._” he speaks so lightly of; and doubtless the reader’s first
+reflection will be, that he should hasten to expend a trifle of his
+immense winnings in securing for himself at least as fair a knowledge of
+the English language as is possessed by a “dame-school” scholar of six
+years old.  It is evident that Mr. M. has all the money at his command
+which he is ever likely to require, or, of course, he would not reveal
+his precious secret on such ridiculously easy terms.  He would patent it,
+and come down heavily on any rash person who infringed his rights, more
+valuable than those that rest in Mr. Graves, or even Mr. Betts, the great
+captain of “capsules.”  No, he has won all the money he is ever likely to
+need; indeed, how can a man ever be poor while he retains possession of
+that wonderful talismanic “Modus,” a touch of which converts a
+betting-book into a solid, substantial gold-mine?  Still, he is exacting
+as regards the gratitude of those whom his invention enriches.  It is his
+pride to record as many instances as possible of the dutiful thankfulness
+of his fellow-creatures, and as, with pity and regret, he is aware that
+the only earnest of a man’s sincerity is that which takes the shape of
+the coinage of the realm, he is compelled, though sorely against his own
+confiding and generous nature, to attach much weight to thankofferings of
+a pecuniary nature.  Every week he appends to his sketch of the working
+of his “Modus” a list of those “patronisers” from whom he has most
+recently heard.  It may be urged by unbelievers that in this there is no
+novelty, since from time immemorial the quacks of other professions have
+done precisely the same thing; but it must be admitted that this should
+at least be taken as proof of Mr. M.’s indifference to the evil opinion
+of the censorious.  Let us take the testimonials for the week of the
+Chester Races, which, as he says, “are promiscuously selected from a vast
+number:”
+
+    “SIR,—For distinction, honour, and fame, your marvellous winning
+    Modus is worthy of its renown.  I am happy in asserting it has won me
+    4,220_l._ nett so quickly and readily this season.  Accept the
+    200_l._ enclosed.—I am, &c.
+
+                                                        M. ARTHUR PORSON.”
+
+    “Mr. M. undoubtedly considers his winning Modus an infallible one.
+    Mr. G. Melville certainly considers it is too.  At any rate, Mr.
+    Melville is the very fortunate winner of upwards of 6,400_l._
+    6,400_l._ at once is a tangible criterion as to its great worth for
+    procuring these heavy winnings.  Mr. Melville forwards a sum of money
+    with his congratulations, as a present.  Mr. M. will please accept
+    the same.”
+
+    “SIR,—Do me a favour in accepting the enclosed cheque for 50_l._
+    Through the instrumentality of your certainly very successful winning
+    Modus, I am, to my infinite pleasure, quickly becoming a certain and
+    never-failing winner of thousands; for already has its golden agency
+    marvellously won me 3,400_l._
+
+                                                     “C. CONYERS GRESHAM.”
+
+In conclusion, this benefactor of his species says: “For this successful
+winning ‘Modus,’ and its infinite riches, forward a stamped directed
+envelope, addressed Mr. M., Rugby.”  That is all.  Forward a directed
+envelope to Rugby, and in return you shall be placed, booted and spurred,
+on the road to infinite riches.  If, starting as a beggar, you allow your
+head to be turned by the bewildering pelting of a pitiless storm of
+sovereigns, and ride to the devil, Mr. M. is not to blame.
+
+The astounding impudence of these advertising dodgers is only equalled by
+the credulity of their dupes.  How long Mr. M. has presented his precious
+“Modus” to the sporting public through the columns of “horsey”
+newspapers, I cannot say; but this much is certain: that according to his
+success has been the proportion of vexation and disappointment he has
+caused amongst the geese who have trusted him.  We are assured that
+impostors of the M. school reap golden harvests; that thousands on
+thousands weekly nibble at his baits; consequently thousands on thousands
+weekly have their silly eyes opened to the clumsy fraud to which they
+have been the victims.  But M. of Rugby flourishes still; he still vaunts
+the amazing virtues, and the beauty, force, and power of his “Modus,” and
+brags of this week’s eminent and moneyed success as though it were a
+matter of course.  Mr. M. of Rugby is less modest than some members of
+his fraternity.  Here is an individual who affects the genteel:
+
+    “A CARD.—Private Racing Information!!—A gentleman who has been a
+    breeder and owner of racehorses, and now in a good commercial
+    position, attained by judicious betting, enjoying rare opportunities
+    of early intelligence from most successful and dangerous stables,
+    being himself debarred by partnership restrictions from turf
+    speculations on his own account, thinks he might utilise the great
+    advantages at his disposal by leaving himself open to correspondence
+    with the racing public.  This is a genuine advertisement, and worth
+    investigating.—Address, —, Post-office, Stafford.  Unquestionable
+    references.  Directed envelopes.  No ‘systems’ or other fallacies.”
+
+It will be observed that, despite the good position attained by the
+advertiser by “judicious betting,” not only was he glad to escape from
+the field where his fortune was founded, and to take refuge in the dull
+jog-trot regions of commerce, but his “partners” prohibit him in future
+from collecting golden eggs from any racing mare’s-nest whatsoever.  He
+has made a fat pocket by the judicious exercise of a peculiar and
+difficult science he is well versed in; but still he is tolerated by his
+brother-members of the firm only on the distinct understanding that he
+never does it again.  Perhaps he has grown over-rich, and the rest and
+seclusion is necessary to the complete restoration of his health.
+Perhaps he owes to “Modus”—but no, the retired breeder and owner of
+racehorses distinctly informs us that he has no faith in “systems” or
+other fallacies: “lying excepted,” is the amendment that at once occurs
+to the individual of common sense.
+
+Education is reckoned as a prime essential to success in most trades; but
+in that of betting it would appear unnecessary, in order to realise a
+fortune for himself or his fellow-mortals, that an advertising tipster or
+betting-man should be master of the English language, let alone of the
+cardinal virtues.  Here is a member of the Manchester Subscription-rooms,
+in proof:
+
+    “George D—y, member of the Manchester Subscription-rooms, attends
+    personally all the principal race-meetings.  Some persons having used
+    the above name, G. D. gives notice that he has not anyone betting for
+    him, and anyone doing so are welshers.”
+
+Another gentleman eschews prophecy, and would throw “Modus” to the dogs,
+only that possibly his natural instincts peculiarly qualify him for
+knowing that to do so would be to cast an undeserved indignity on those
+respectable creatures.  He goes in for “secret information.”  He does not
+seek to mystify his readers by adopting a _nom-de-plume_, such as “Stable
+Mouse,” or “Earwig,” or “Spy in the Manger.”  He boldly owns his identity
+as John —, of Leicester-square, London, and arrogates to himself an
+“outsider” that is to beat anything else in the field.  “Do not be
+guided,” says this frank and plain-spoken sportsman—“do not be guided by
+the betting, but back my outsider, whose name has scarcely ever been
+mentioned in the quotations, because the very clever division to which it
+belongs have put their money on so quietly that their secret is known to
+only a few.  I am in the swim, and know that the horse did not start for
+one or two races it could have won easily, but has been expressly saved
+for this.  I have several other absolute certainties, and guarantee to be
+particularly successful at Chester.  Terms: fourteen stamps the full
+meeting.  Many of the minor events will be reduced to certainties; and in
+order to take advantage of it, I am willing to telegraph the very latest,
+without charge, to those who will pay me honourably from winnings; or I
+will invest any amount remitted to me, guaranteeing to telegraph before
+the race is run the full particulars.—John G., Leicester-square, London.”
+
+What a pity it is that those who flatter themselves that they are
+intellectually qualified to embark in one of the most hazardous and
+difficult ways of making money should not be at the pains of carefully
+reading and deliberating on barefaced attempts at imposture, such as are
+disclosed in the above!  John G. is one of the “clever division,” he
+says.  So much for his honesty, when he admits that he is in the “swim”
+with men who have been tampering with the same wonderful “outsider,” and
+so manœuvering as to throw dust in the eyes of unsuspecting persons.  So
+much for the wealth and position of the “swim,” when John G., a confessed
+member of it, is ready to betray his confederates for the small
+consideration of fourteenpence, or less, should you fall short of that
+amount of faith in his integrity.  He will “leave it to you, sir,” as
+does the sweeper who clears the snow from your door, or the industrious
+wretch who brushes the dust from your coat on the racecourse.  Or he will
+invest any sum you may feel disposed to intrust to him.  There is not the
+least doubt of it; and what is more, you may rest assured that he will
+invest it so as to make sure of a substantial return.  How else is he to
+cut a respectable figure at Epsom or Ascot, and join the bold-faced,
+leather-lunged gang, who, with a little money-pouch slung at their side,
+and a little, a _very_ little money within the pouch, elbow their way
+through the press, bawling, “I’ll lay” on this, that, or t’other?
+
+J. G. of Leicester-square is not the only advertising tipster who
+professes to be “in the swim,” and on that account to be in a position to
+act as a traitor to his friends, and the benefactor of the strange
+public.  Here is the announcement of another gentleman.
+
+    “GREAT EVENTS!—Enormous odds!!—Two horses have been expressly saved;
+    and one of the best judges on the turf tells me they are the greatest
+    certainties he ever knew.  As for another event, it is quite at the
+    mercy of the owner of a certain animal.  I do not hesitate to say
+    that there never was, and never will be, a better chance of pulling
+    off a large stake at a trifling risk; for I can obtain the enormous
+    odds of 1,840_l._ to 1_l._, or 920_l._ to 10_s._, or 460_l._ to
+    5_s._; or I will send the secret for fourteen stamps.”
+
+Here is a Munchausen fit to shake hands with and claim as a brother J. G.
+of Leicester-square.  He knows of a forthcoming race, and he likewise
+knows of a man who intends to run in it a certain horse that will hold
+the equine contest at his mercy.  It is but reasonable to assume that the
+noble animal in question will obey the dictates of his nature, and not
+give way to weak forbearance or foolish generosity.  Undoubtedly,
+therefore, it will win the race; and the advertiser, if he puts 5_s._ on
+it, is _sure_ of bagging 460_l._!  And yet he is found competing in the
+same dirty field with a score of his kindred, clamouring for
+fourteenpence in postage-stamps.
+
+“Stable secrets! stable secrets!” shrieks the “Sporting Doctor;” secrets
+so very precious that he cannot possibly betray them for less than
+fivepence each.  Send fifteen stamps, and receive in return the “true and
+certain winners of the Chester, the Derby, and the Oaks.”  The “Sporting
+Doctor” hails from a back-street in the Blackfriars-road.  The
+“Barber-poet” of Paddington, in touching terms, implores his noble
+patrons to assist him in advising his fellow-creatures of the “good
+things he has for them.”  “Show my circulars to your friends,” he says;
+“it will be to my interest for you to do so.  I will give 100_l._ to any
+charitable institution, if the advice I give is not in every instance the
+best that money can obtain.”  The next tipster on the list goes farther
+than this.  He boldly avows he will forfeit a large sum of money unless
+he “spots” the identical winners “first and second.”  Of course, nothing
+can be more transparent than bombast of this sort; but here it is in
+black-and-white:
+
+    “Mr. Ben W. will forfeit 500_l._ if he does not send first and second
+    for the Chester Cup.  Send four stamps and stamped envelope, and
+    promise a present, and I will send you the Chester Cup, Great
+    Northern, Derby, and Oaks winners.—Address, —, Waterloo-road,
+    London.”
+
+Mr. Benjamin W.’s suggestion of a “promised present” is, however, no
+novelty with the advertising tipster.  Many of the fraternity ask a
+cash-down payment for the “tip” they send—a sum barely sufficient to buy
+them a pint of beer—professing to rely contentedly on the generosity of
+their “patronisers,” as Mr. Modus styles them.  Occasionally are appended
+to the advertisements gentle remonstrances and reminders that the
+confidence the tipster reposed in his patroniser seems to have been
+misplaced.  The latter is requested “not to forget what is due from one
+gentleman, though in a humble sphere, to another.”  One gentleman becomes
+quite pathetic in an appeal of this kind:
+
+    “The winners of Great Northern, Derby, and Oaks for thirteen stamps,
+    or one event four stamps, with promise of present from winnings.
+    Send a stamped envelope without delay.  Gentlemen are requested to
+    act honourably, and send me the promised percentage on the Two
+    Thousand, for the labourer is worthy of his hire.—Address, —
+    Cumberland-street, Chelsea, London.”
+
+Another gentleman, blessed with an amount of coolness and candour that
+should insure him a competency if every horse were swept off the face of
+the earth to-morrow, publishes the following; and the reader will please
+bear in mind that these various advertisements are clipped out of the
+sporting papers, and copied to the letter:
+
+    “TAKE NOTICE!!—I never advertise unless I am confident of success.  I
+    have now a real good thing for Derby at 100 to 1; sure to get a
+    place, for which 25 to 1 can be obtained.—Enclose 1_s._ stamps and
+    stamped addressed envelope, and secure this moral.—Remember Perry
+    Down.—Address, H— Post-office, Reading.”
+
+It may be remarked, that everything that is highly promising becomes, in
+the slang of the advertising tipster, a “moral;” but there are two
+dictionary definitions of the term—one affecting its relation to good or
+bad human life, and the other which is described as “the instruction of a
+fable.”  It is possibly in this last sense that the tipster uses the
+word.  “Send for my ‘moral’ on the Great Northern Handicap,” writes Mr.
+Wilson of Hull.  “It is said that the golden ball flies past every man
+once in his lifetime!” cries “Quick-sight” of John-street, Brixton.  “See
+it in my moral certainty for the Derby.  See it, and fail not to grasp
+it.  Fourteen stamps (uncut) will secure it.”
+
+This should indeed be glad news for those unfortunates whose vision has
+hitherto been gladdened in the matter of golden balls only by seeing them
+hanging in triplet above the pawnbroker’s friendly door.  Fancy being
+enabled to grasp the golden ball—the ball that is to stump out poverty,
+and send the bails of impecuniosity flying into space never to return, at
+the small cost of fourteen postage-stamps!  They must be uncut, by the
+way, or their talismanic virtue will be lost.  The worst of it is, that
+you are unable either to see it or grasp it until Quicksight sees and
+grasps your fourteen stamps; and if you should happen to miss the golden
+ball after all, it is doubtful if he would return you your poor
+one-and-twopence as some consolation in your disappointment.  He would
+not do this, but he would be very happy to give you another chance.  His
+stock of “golden balls” is very extensive.  He has been supplying them,
+or rather the chance of grasping them, at fourteenpence each any time
+during this five years, and he is doubtless in a position to “keep the
+ball rolling” (the golden ball) until all his customers are supplied.
+
+By the way, it should be mentioned, that the advertiser last quoted, as
+well as several others here instanced, terminate their appeals by begging
+the public to beware of welshers!
+
+Does the reader know what is a “welsher”—the creature against whose
+malpractices the sporting public are so emphatically warned?  Probably he
+does not.  It is still more unlikely that he ever witnessed a “welsher”
+hunt; and as I there have the advantage of him, it may not be out of
+place here to enlighten him on both points.  A “welsher” is a person who
+contracts a sporting debt without a reasonable prospect of paying it.
+There is no legal remedy against such a defaulter.  Although the law to a
+large extent countenances the practice of betting, and will even go the
+length of lending the assistance of its police towards keeping such order
+that a multitude may indulge in its gambling propensities comfortably, it
+will not recognise as a just debt money owing between two wagerers.  It
+is merely “a debt of honour,” and the law has no machinery that will
+apply thereto.  The consequence is, that amongst the betting fraternity,
+when a man shows himself dishonourable, he is punished by the mob that at
+the time of the discovery of his defalcation may happen to surround him;
+and with a degree of severity according to the vindictiveness and
+brutality of the said mob.  On the occasion of my witnessing a “welsher
+hunt,” I was present at the races that in the autumn of 1868 were held in
+Alexandra-park at Muswell-hill.  As the race for the Grand Prize was
+decided, looking down from the gallery of the stand, I observed a sudden
+commotion amongst the perspiring, bawling, leather-lunged gentry, who
+seek whom they may devour, in the betting-ring below, and presently there
+arose the magical cry of “Welsher!”  I have heard the sudden cry of
+“Fire!” raised in the night, and watched its thrilling, rousing effect on
+the population; but that was as nothing compared with it.  Instantly, and
+as though moved by one deadly hate and thirst for vengeance, a rush was
+made towards a man in a black wide-awake cap, and with the regular
+betting-man’s pouch slung at his side, and who was hurrying towards the
+gate of the enclosure.  “Welsher! welsher!” cried the furious mob of the
+ring, making at the poor wretch; and in an instant a dozen fists were
+directed at his head and face, and he was struck down; but he was a
+biggish man and strong, and he was quickly on his legs, to be again
+struck down and kicked and stamped on.  He was up again, however, without
+his hat, and with his face a hideous patch of crimson, and hustled
+towards the gate, plunging like a madman to escape the fury of his
+pursuers; but the policeman blocked the way, and they caught him again,
+and some punched at his face, while others tore off his clothes.  One
+ruffian—I cannot otherwise describe him—plucked at the poor devil’s shirt
+at the breast, and tore away a tattered handful of it, which he flung
+over to the great yelling crowd now assembled without the rails; another
+tore away his coat-sleeves, and tossed them aloft; and in the same way he
+lost his waistcoat and one of his boots.  It seemed as though, if they
+detained him another moment, the man must be murdered, and so the
+policeman made way for him to escape.
+
+From the frying-pan into the fire.  “Welsher! welsher!”  The air rang
+with the hateful word, and, rushing from the gate, he was at once
+snatched at by the foremost men of the mouthing, yelling mob outside, who
+flung him down and punched and beat him.  Fighting for his life, he
+struggled and broke away, and ran; but a betting-man flung his tall stool
+at him, and brought him to earth again for the twentieth time, and again
+the punching and kicking process was resumed.  How he escaped from these
+was a miracle, but escape he did; and with the desperation of a rat
+pursued by dogs, dived into an empty hansom cab, and there lay crouched
+while fifty coward hands were stretched forward to drag him out, or,
+failing in that, to prog and poke at him with walking-sticks and
+umbrellas.  At last, a mounted policeman spurred his horse forward and
+came to the rescue, keeping his steed before the place of refuge.  Then
+the furious mob, that was not to be denied, turned on the policeman, and
+only his great courage and determination saved him from being unhorsed
+and ill-treated.  Then other police came up, and the poor tattered
+wretch, ghastly, white, and streaming with blood, was hauled out and
+dragged away insensible, with his head hanging and his legs trailing in
+the dust, amid the howling and horrible execrations of five thousand
+Englishmen.
+
+The next consideration was what to do with him.  To convey him off the
+premises was impossible, since a space of nearly a quarter of a mile had
+to be traversed ere the outer gate could be reached.  There was no
+“lock-up” at the new grand stand, as at Epsom and elsewhere.  Nothing
+remained but to hustle him through a trap-door, and convey him by an
+underground route to a cellar, in which empty bottles were deposited.
+And grateful indeed must have been the stillness and the coolness of such
+a sanctuary after the fierce ordeal he had so recently undergone.
+Whether water was supplied him to wash his wounds, or if a doctor was
+sent for, is more than I can say.  There he was allowed to remain till
+night, when he slunk home; and within a few days afterwards a local
+newspaper briefly announced that the “unfortunate man, who had so rashly
+roused the fury of the sporting fraternity at Alexandra races, was dead”!
+
+To a close observer of the system that rules at all great horseracing
+meetings, nothing is so remarkable as the child-like reliance with which
+the general public intrusts its bettings to the keeping of the
+“professionals,” who there swarm in attendance.  In the case of the
+bettors of the “ring” they may be tolerably safe, since it is to the
+interest of all that the atmosphere of that sacred enclosure, only to be
+gained at the cost of half-a-guinea or so, should be kept passably sweet.
+Besides, as was mentioned in the case of the unfortunate “welsher” at
+Alexandra races, the said enclosure is bounded by high railings; and the
+salutary effect of catching and killing a “welsher” is universally
+acknowledged.  As regards the betting men themselves, it enables them to
+give vent to reckless ferocity that naturally waits on disappointed
+greed, while the public at large are impressed with the fact that strict
+principles of honour amongst gamblers really do prevail, whatever may
+have been said to the contrary.  But at all the principal races the
+greatest number of bets, if not the largest amounts of money, are risked
+outside the magic circle.  It is here that the huckster and small pedlar
+of the betting fraternity conjure with the holiday-making shoemaker or
+carpenter for his half-crown.  For the thousandth time one cannot help
+expressing amazement that men who have to work so hard for their
+money—shrewd, hard-headed, sensible fellows as a rule—should part with it
+on so ludicrously flimsy a pretext.  Here—all amongst the refreshment
+bustle, from which constantly streamed men hot from the beer and spirit
+counters—swarmed hundreds of these betting harpies; some in carts, but
+the majority of them perched on a stool, each with a bit of paper, on
+which some name was printed, stuck on his hat, and with a money-bag slung
+at his side, and a pencil and a handful of tickets.  This was all.  As
+often as not the name and address on the betting man’s hat or money-bag
+was vaguely expressed as “S. Pipes, Nottingham,” or “John Brown,
+Oxford-street;” and who Pipes or Brown was not one man in a thousand had
+the least idea.  Nor did they inquire, the silly gulls.  It was enough
+for them they saw a man on a stool, ostensibly a “betting man,” bawling
+out at the top of his great, vulgar, slangy voice what odds he was
+prepared to lay on this, that, or t’other; and they flocked round—enticed
+by terms too good to be by any possibility true, if they only were cool
+enough to consider for a moment—and eagerly tendered to the rogue on the
+stool their crowns and half-crowns, receiving from the strange Mr. Pipes
+or Mr. Brown nothing in exchange but a paltry little ticket with a number
+on it.  This, for the present, concluded the transaction; and off went
+the acceptor of the betting man’s odds to see the race on which the stake
+depended.  In very many cases the exchange of the little ticket for the
+money concluded the transaction, not only for the present, but for all
+future; for, having plucked all the gulls that could be caught, nothing
+is easier than for Pipes to exchange hats with Brown and to shift their
+places; and the pretty pair may with impunity renounce all
+responsibility, and open a book on the next race on the programme.  To be
+sure it is hard to find patience with silly people who _will_ walk into a
+well; and when they follow the workings of their own free will, it is
+scarcely too much to say they are not to be pitied.  But when a cheat or
+sharper is permitted standing room that he may pursue his common
+avocation, which is to cheat and plunder the unwary public, the matter
+assumes a slightly different complexion.
+
+Of all manner of advertising betting gamblers, however, none are so
+pernicious, or work such lamentable evil against society, as those who,
+with devilish cunning, appeal to the young and inexperienced—the factory
+lad and the youth of the counting-house or the shop.  Does anyone doubt
+if horseracing has attractions for those whose tender age renders it
+complimentary to style them “young men”?  Let him on the day of any great
+race convince himself.  Let him make a journey on the afternoon of
+“Derby-day,” for instance, to Fleet-street or the Strand, where the
+offices of the sporting newspapers are situated.  It may not be generally
+known that the proprietors of the _Sunday Times_, _Bell’s Life_, and
+other journals of a sporting tendency, in their zeal to outdo each other
+in presenting the earliest possible information to the public, are at the
+trouble and expense of securing the earliest possible telegram of the
+result of a horserace, and exhibiting it enlarged on a broad-sheet in
+their shop-windows.  Let us take the _Sunday Times_, for instance.  The
+office of this most respectable of sporting newspapers is situated near
+the corner of Fleet-street, at Ludgate-hill; and wonderful is the
+spectacle there to be seen on the afternoon of the great equine contest
+on Epsom downs.  On a small scale, and making allowance for the absence
+of the living provocatives of excitement, the scene is a reproduction of
+what at that moment, or shortly since, has taken place on the racecourse
+itself.  Three o’clock is about the time the great race is run at Epsom,
+and at that time the Fleet-street crowd begins to gather.  It streams in
+from the north, from the east, from the south.  At a glance it is evident
+that the members of it are not idly curious merely.  It is not composed
+of ordinary pedestrians who happen to be coming that way.  Butcher-lads,
+from the neighbouring great meat-market, come bareheaded and perspiring
+down Ludgate-hill, and at a pace that tells how exclusively their eager
+minds are set on racing: all in blue working-smocks, and with the grease
+and blood of their trade adhering to their naked arms, and to their
+hob-nailed boots, and to their hair.  Hot and palpitating they reach the
+obelisk in the middle of the road, and there they take their stand, with
+their eyes steadfastly fixed on that at present blank and innocent window
+that shall presently tell them of their fate.
+
+I mention the butcher-boys first, because, for some unknown reason, they
+undoubtedly are foremost in the rank of juvenile bettors.  In the days
+when the Fleet-lane betting abomination as yet held out against the
+police authorities, and day after day a narrow alley behind the squalid
+houses there served as standing room for as many “professional” betting
+men, with their boards and money-pouches, as could crowd in a row, an
+observer standing at one end of the lane might count three blue frocks
+for one garment of any other colour.  But though butcher-boys show
+conspicuously among the anxious Fleet-street rush on a Derby-day, they
+are not in a majority by a long way.  To bet on the “Derby” is a mania
+that afflicts all trades; and streaming up Farringdon-street may he seen
+representatives of almost every craft that practises within the City’s
+limits.  There is the inky printer’s-boy, hot from the “machine-room,”
+with his grimy face and his cap made of a ream wrapper; there is the
+jeweller’s apprentice, with his bibbed white apron, ruddy with the powder
+of rouge and borax; and the paper-stainer’s lad, with the variegated
+splashes of the pattern of his last “length” yet wet on his ragged
+breeches; and a hundred others, all hurrying pell-mell to the one spot,
+and, in nine cases out of ten, with the guilt of having “slipped out”
+visible on their streaming faces.  Take their ages as they congregate in
+a crowd of five hundred and more (they are expected in such numbers that
+special policemen are provided to keep the roadway clear), and it will be
+found that more than half are under the age of eighteen.  Furthermore, it
+must be borne in mind that in the majority of cases a single lad
+represents a score or more employed in one “office” or factory.  They
+cast lots who shall venture on the unlawful mission, and it has fallen on
+him.  Again, and as before mentioned, the _Sunday Times_ is but one of
+ten or a dozen sporting newspapers published between Ludgate-hill and St.
+Clement Danes; and in the vicinity of every office may be met a similar
+crowd.  Let the reader bear these facts in mind, and he may arrive at
+some faint idea of the prevalence of the horse-gambling evil amongst the
+rising generation.
+
+The significance of these various facts is plain to the advertising
+tipster, and he shapes his baits accordingly.  He never fails to mention,
+in apprising his youthful admirers, that, in exchange for the last “good
+thing,” postage-stamps will be taken.  Well enough the cunning
+unscrupulous villain knows that in the commercial world postage-stamps
+are articles of very common use, and that at many establishments they are
+dealt out carelessly, and allowed to lie about in drawers and desks for
+the “common use.”  There is temptation ready to hand!  “Send fourteen
+stamps to Dodger, and receive in return the _certain_ tip as to who will
+win the Derby.”  There are the stamps, and the ink, and the pen, and the
+envelope, and nothing remains but to apply them to the use Dodger
+suggests.  It is not stealing, at least it does not seem like stealing,
+this tearing fourteen stamps from a sheet at which everybody in the
+office has access, and which will be replaced without question as soon as
+it is exhausted.  It is at most only “cribbing.”  What is the difference
+between writing a private note on the office paper and appropriating a
+few paltry stamps?  It would be different if the fourteenpence was in
+hard money—a shilling and two penny-pieces.  No young bookkeeper with any
+pretensions to honesty would be guilty of stealing _money_ from his
+master’s office—but a few stamps!  Dodger knows this well enough, and
+every morning quite a bulky parcel of crummy-feeling letters are
+delivered at his residence in some back street in the Waterloo-road.
+
+This is the way that Dodger angles for “flat-fish” of tender age:
+
+    “GREAT RESULTS FROM SMALL EFFORTS!—In order to meet the requirements
+    of those of humble means, W. W—n, of Tavistock-street, is prepared to
+    receive small sums for investment on the forthcoming great events.
+    Sums as low as two-and-sixpence in stamps (uncut) may be sent to the
+    above address, and they will be invested with due regard to our
+    patron’s interest.  Recollect that at the present time there are Real
+    Good things in the market at 100 to 1, and that even so small a sum
+    put on such will return the speculator twelve pounds ten shillings,
+    less ten per cent commission, which is Mr. W.’s charge.”
+
+    “Faint heart never won a fortune!  It is on record that the most
+    renowned Leviathan of the betting world began his career as
+    third-hand in a butcher’s shop!  He had a ‘fancy’ for a horse, and
+    was so strongly impressed with the idea that it would win, that he
+    begged and borrowed every farthing he could raise, and even pawned
+    the coat off his back!  His pluck and resolution was nobly rewarded.
+    The horse he backed was at 70 to 1, and he found himself after the
+    race the owner of nearly a thousand pounds!  Bear this in mind.
+    There are as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it.  Lose no
+    time in forwarding fourteen stamps to Alpha, John-street, Nottingham;
+    and wait the happy result.”
+
+What is this but a plain and unmistakable intimation, on the part of the
+advertising blackguard, that his dupes should _stick at nothing_ to raise
+money to bet on the “forthcoming great event”?  Pawn, beg,
+borrow—_anything_, only don’t let the chance slip.  Butcher-boys, think
+of the luck of your Leviathan craftsman, and at once take the coat off
+your back, or if you have not a garment good enough, your master’s coat
+out of the clothes-closet, and hasten to pawn it.  Never fear for the
+happy result.  Long before he can miss it, you will be able to redeem it,
+besides being in a position to snap your fingers at him, and, if you
+please, to start on your own “hook” as a bookmaker.
+
+Another of these “youths’ guide to the turf” delicately points out that,
+if bettors will only place themselves in his hands, he will “pull them
+through, and land them high and dry,” certainly and surely, and with a
+handsome return for their investments.  “No knowledge of racing matters
+is requisite on the part of the investor,” writes this quack; “indeed, as
+in all other business affairs of life, ‘a little knowledge is a dangerous
+thing.’  Better trust _entirely_ to one who has made it the one study of
+his existence, and can read off the pedigree and doings of every horse
+that for the past ten years has run for money.  Large investments are not
+recommended.  Indeed, the beginner should in no case ‘put on’ more than a
+half-sovereign, and as low as half-a-crown will often be sufficient, and
+in the hands of a practised person like the advertiser be made to go as
+far as an injudiciously invested pound or more.”
+
+It would be interesting to know in how many instances these vermin of the
+betting-field are successful, how many of them there are who live by
+bleeding the simple and the infatuated, and what sort of living it is.
+Not a very luxurious one, it would seem, judging from the shady quarters
+of the town from which the “tipster” usually hails; but then we have to
+bear in mind the venerable maxim, “Light come, light go,” and its
+probable application to those harpies who hanker after “uncut” stamps and
+receive them in thousands.  That very many of them find it a game worth
+pursuing, there can be no doubt, or they would not so constantly resort
+to the advertising columns of the newspapers.  How much mischief they
+really do, one can never learn.  The newspaper announcement is, of
+course, but a preliminary to further business: you send your stamps, and
+what you in most cases get in return is not the information for which you
+imagined you were bargaining, but a “card of terms” of the tipster’s
+method of doing business.  There is nothing new or novel in this.  It is
+an adaptation of the ancient dodge of the medical quack who advertises a
+“certain cure” for “all the ills that flesh is heir to,” on receipt of
+seven postage-stamps; but all that you receive for your sevenpence is a
+printed recipe for the concoction of certain stuffs, “to be had only” of
+the advertiser.
+
+And well would it be for the gullible public if the mischief done by the
+advertising fraternity of horse-racing quacks was confined to the
+“fourteen uncut stamps” they have such an insatiable hunger for.  There
+can be no doubt, however, that this is but a mild and inoffensive branch
+of their nefarious profession.  In almost every case they combine with
+the exercise of their supernatural gift of prophecy the matter-of-fact
+business of the “commission agent,” and, if rumour whispers true, they
+make of it at times a business as infernal in its working as can well be
+imagined.  They can, when occasion serves, be as “accommodating” as the
+loan-office swindler or the 60-per-cent bill-discounter, and a profit
+superior to that yielded by either of these avocations may be realised,
+and that with scarce any trouble at all.  No capital is required,
+excepting a considerable stock of impudence and a fathomless fund of
+cold-blooded rascality.
+
+Judging from the fact that the species of villany in question has never
+yet been exposed in a police-court, it is only fair to imagine that it is
+a modern invention; on that account I am the more anxious to record and
+make public an item of evidence bearing on the subject that, within the
+past year, came under my own observation.
+
+It can be scarcely within the year, though, for it was at the time when
+an audacious betting gang “squatted” in the vicinity of Ludgate-hill,
+and, owing to some hitch in the law’s machinery, they could not easily be
+removed.  First they swarmed in Bride-lane, Fleet-street.  Being
+compelled to “move on,” they migrated to a most appropriate site, the
+waste land on which for centuries stood the infamous houses of Field-lane
+and West-street, and beneath which flowed the filthy Fleet-ditch.  But
+even this was accounted ground too good to be desecrated by the foot of
+the gambling blackleg, and they were one fine morning bundled off it by a
+strong body of City police.  After this they made a desperate stand on
+the prison side of the way in Farringdon-street, and for some months
+there remained.
+
+It was at this time that I made the acquaintance of the subject of the
+present little story.  I had noticed him repeatedly, with his pale
+haggard face and his dull eyes, out of which nothing but weariness of
+life looked.  He was a tall slim young fellow, and wore his patched and
+seedy clothes as though he had been used to better attire; and, despite
+the tell-tale shabbiness of his boots and his wretched tall black hat, he
+still clung to the respectable habit of wearing black kid-gloves, though
+it was necessary to shut his fists to hide the dilapidations at their
+finger-tips.
+
+He was not remarkable amongst the betting blackguards he mingled with on
+account of the active share he took in the questionable business in which
+they were engaged; on the contrary, he seemed quite out of place with
+them, and though occasionally one would patronise him with a nod, it was
+evident that he was “nothing to them,” either as a comrade or a gull to
+be plucked.  He appeared to be drawn towards them by a fascination he
+could not resist, but which he deplored and was ashamed of.  It was
+customary in those times for the prosperous horse-betting gambler to
+affect the genteel person who could afford to keep a “man,” and to press
+into his service some poor ragged wretch glad to earn a sixpence by
+wearing his master’s “card of terms” round his neck for the inspection of
+any person inclined to do business.  The tall shabby young fellow’s chief
+occupation consisted in wandering restlessly from one of these
+betting-card bearers to another, evidently with a view to comparing
+“prices” and “odds” offered on this or that horse; but he never bet.  I
+don’t believe that his pecuniary affairs would have permitted him, even
+though a bet as low as twopence-halfpenny might be laid.
+
+I was always on the look-out for my miserable-looking young friend
+whenever I passed that way, and seldom failed to find him.  He seemed to
+possess for me a fascination something like that which horse-betting
+possessed for him.  One afternoon, observing him alone and looking even
+more miserable than I had yet seen him, as he slouched along the miry
+pavement towards Holborn, I found means to start a conversation with him.
+My object was to learn who and what he was, and whether he was really as
+miserable as he looked, and whether there was any help for him.  I was
+prepared to exercise all the ingenuity at my command to compass this
+delicate project, but he saved me the trouble.  As though he was glad of
+the chance of doing so, before we were half-way up Holborn-hill he turned
+the conversation exactly into the desired groove, and by the time the
+Tottenham-court-road was reached (he turned down there), I knew even more
+of his sad history than is here subjoined.
+
+“What is the business pursuit that takes me amongst the betting-men?  O
+no, sir, I’m not at all astonished that you should ask the question; I’ve
+asked it of myself so often, that it doesn’t come new to me.  I pursue no
+business, sir.  What business _could_ a wretched scarecrow like I am
+pursue?  Say that _I_ am pursued, and you will be nearer the mark.
+Pursued by what I can never get away from or shake off: damn it!”
+
+He uttered the concluding wicked word with such decisive and bitter
+emphasis, that I began to think that he had done with the subject; but he
+began again almost immediately.
+
+“I wish to the Lord I had a business pursuit!  If ever a fellow was tired
+of his life, I am.  Well—yes, I _am_ a young man; but it’s precious small
+consolation that that fact brings me.  Hang it, no!  All the longer to
+endure it.  How long have I endured it?  Ah, now you come to the point.
+For years, you think, I daresay.  You look at me, and you think to
+yourself, ‘There goes a poor wretch who has been on the downhill road so
+long that it’s time that he came to the end of it, or made an end to it.’
+There you are mistaken.  Eighteen months ago I was well dressed and
+prosperous.  I was second clerk to —, the provision merchants, in St.
+Mary Axe, on a salary of a hundred and forty pounds—rising twenty each
+year.  Now look at me!
+
+“You need not ask me how it came about.  You say that you have seen me
+often in Farringdon-street with the betting-men, so you can give a good
+guess as to how I came to ruin, I’ll be bound.  Yes, sir, it was
+horse-betting that did my business.  No, I did not walk to ruin with my
+eyes open, and because I liked the road.  I was trapped into it, sir, as
+I’ll be bound scores and scores of young fellows have been.  I never had
+a passion for betting.  I declare that, till within the last two years, I
+never made a bet in my life.  The beginning of it was, that, for the fun
+of the thing, I wagered ten shillings with a fellow-clerk about the Derby
+that was just about to come off.  I never took any interest in
+horseracing before; but when I had made that bet I was curious to look
+over the sporting news, and to note the odds against the favourite.  One
+unlucky day I was fool enough to answer the advertisement of a
+professional tipster.  He keeps the game going still, curse him!  You may
+read his name in the papers this morning.  If I wasn’t such an infernal
+coward, you know, I should kill that man.  If I hadn’t the money to buy a
+pistol, I ought to steal one, and shoot the thief.  But, what do you
+think?  I met him on Monday, and he chaffed me about my boots.  It was
+raining at the time.  ‘I wish I had a pair of waterproofs like yours,
+Bobby.  You’ll never take cold while they let all the water out at the
+heel they take in at the toe!’  Fancy me standing _that_ after the way he
+had served me!  Fancy this too—me borrowing a shilling of him, and saying
+‘Thank you, sir,’ for it!  Why, you know, I ought to be pumped on for
+doing it!
+
+“Yes, I wrote to ‘Robert B—y, Esq., of Leicester,’ and sent the
+half-crown’s worth of stamps asked for.  It doesn’t matter what I got in
+return.  Anyhow, it was something that set my mind on betting, and I
+wrote again and again.  At first his replies were of a distant and
+business sort; but in a month or so after I had written to him to
+complain of being misguided by him, he wrote back a friendly note to say
+that he wasn’t at all surprised to hear of my little failures—novices
+always did fail.  They absurdly attempt what they did not understand.
+‘Just to show you the difference,’ said he, ‘just give me a commission to
+invest a pound for you on the Ascot Cup.  All that I charge is seven and
+a half per cent on winnings.  Try it just for once; a pound won’t break
+you, and it may open your eyes to the way that fortunes are made.’  I
+ought to have known then, that either he, or somebody in London he had
+set on, had been making inquiries about me, for the other notes were sent
+to where mine were directed from—my private lodgings—but this one came to
+me at the warehouse.
+
+“Well, I sent the pound, and within a week received a post-office order
+for four pounds eight as the result of its investment.  The same week I
+bet again—two pounds this time—and won one pound fifteen.  That was over
+six pounds between Monday and Saturday.  ‘This _is_ the way that fortunes
+are made,’ I laughed to myself, like a fool.
+
+“Well, he kept me going, I don’t exactly recollect how, between Ascot and
+Goodwood, which is about seven weeks, not more.  Sometimes I won,
+sometimes I lost, but, on the whole, I was in pocket.  I was such a fool
+at last, that I was always for betting more than he advised.  I’ve got
+his letters at home now, in which he says, ‘Pray don’t be rash; take my
+advice, and bear in mind that great risks mean great losses, as well as
+great gains, at times.’  Quite fatherly, you know!  The infernal
+scoundrel!
+
+“Well, one day there came a telegram to the office for me.  I was just in
+from my dinner.  It was from B—y.  ‘Now you may bag a hundred pounds at a
+shot,’ said he.  ‘The odds are short, but the result _certain_.  Never
+mind the money just now.  You are a gentleman, and I will trust you.  You
+know that my motto has all along been ‘Caution.’  Now it is ‘Go in and
+win.’  It is _sure_.  Send me a word immediately, or it may be too late;
+and, if you are wise, put a ‘lump’ on it.’
+
+“That was the infernal document—the death-warrant of all my good
+prospects.  It was the rascal’s candour that deceived me.  He had all
+along said, ‘Be cautious, don’t be impatient to launch out;’ and now this
+patient careful villain saw his chance, and advised, ‘Go in and win.’  I
+was quite in a maze at the prospect of bagging a hundred pounds.  To win
+that sum the odds were so short on the horse he mentioned, that fifty
+pounds had to be risked.  But he said that there was _no_ risk, and I
+believed him.  I sent him back a telegram at once to execute the
+commission.
+
+“The horse lost.  I knew it next morning before I was up, for I had sent
+for the newspaper; and while I was in the midst of my fright, up comes my
+landlady to say that a gentleman of the name of B—y wished to see me.
+
+“I had never seen him before, and he seemed an easy fellow enough.  He
+was in a terrible way—chiefly on my account—though the Lord only knew how
+much _he_ had lost over the ‘sell.’  He had come up by express purely to
+relieve my anxiety, knowing how ‘funky’ young gentlemen sometimes were
+over such trifles.  Although he had really paid the fifty in hard gold
+out of his pocket, he was in no hurry for it.  He would take my bill at
+two months.  It would be all right, no doubt.  He had conceived a liking
+for me, merely from my straightforward way of writing.  Now that he had
+had the pleasure of seeing me, he shouldn’t trouble himself a fig if the
+fifty that I owed him was five hundred.
+
+“I declare to you that I knew so little about bills, that I didn’t know
+how to draw one out; but I was mighty glad to be shown the way and to
+give it him, and thank him over and over again for his kindness.  That
+was the beginning of my going to the devil.  If I hadn’t been a fool, I
+might have saved myself even then, for I had friends who would have lent
+or given me twice fifty pounds if I had asked them for it.  But I _was_ a
+fool.  In the course of a day or two I got a note from B—y, reminding me
+that the way out of the difficulty was by the same path as I had got into
+one, and that a little judicious ‘backing’ would set me right before even
+my bill fell due.  And I was fool enough to walk into the snare.  I
+wouldn’t borrow to pay the fifty pounds, but I borrowed left and right,
+of my mother, of my brothers, on all manner of lying pretences, to follow
+the ‘advice’ B—y was constantly sending me.  When I came to the end of
+their forbearance, I did more than borrow; but that we won’t speak of.
+In five months from the beginning, I was without a relative who would own
+me or speak to me, and without an employer—cracked up, ruined.  And
+there’s B—y, as I said before, with his white hat cocked on one side of
+his head, and his gold toothpick, chaffing me about my old boots.  What
+do I do for a living?  Well, I’ve told you such a precious lot, I may as
+well tell you that too.  Where I lodge it’s a ‘leaving-shop,’ and the old
+woman that keeps it can’t read or write, and I keep her ‘book’ for her.
+That’s how I get a bit of breakfast and supper and a bed to lie on.”
+
+[Since the above was written, the police, under the energetic guidance of
+their new chief, have been making vigorous and successful warfare against
+public gamblers and gambling agents.  The “spec” dodge has been
+annihilated, “betting-shops” have been entered and routed, and there is
+even fair promise that the worst feature of the bad business, that which
+takes refuge behind the specious cloak of the “commission-agent,” may be
+put down.  That it may be so, should be the earnest wish of all
+right-thinking men, who would break down this barrier of modern and
+monstrous growth, that blocks the advancement of social purity, and
+causes perhaps more ruin and irreparable dismay than any other two of the
+Curses herein treated of.]
+
+
+
+
+VII.—Waste of Charity.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+METROPOLITAN PAUPERISM.
+
+
+_Parochial Statistics_—_The Public hold the Purse-strings_—_Cannot the
+Agencies actually at work be made to yield greater results_?—_The Need of
+fair Rating_—_The heart and core of the Poor-law Difficulty_—_My foremost
+thought when I was a_ “_Casual_”—_Who are most liable to
+slip_?—“_Crank-work_”—_The Utility of Labour-yards_—_Scales of
+Relief_—_What comes of breaking-up a Home_.
+
+THE following is a return of the number of paupers (exclusive of lunatics
+in asylums and vagrants) on the last day of the fifth week of April 1869,
+and total of corresponding week in 1868:
+
+Unions and single                            Paupers.                           Corresponding
+  Parishes (the                                                                    Total in
+latter marked *).                                                                   1868.
+                       In-door.             Out-door.             Total 5th
+                      Adults and                                  week Apr.
+                      Children.                                     1869.
+                                     Adults.       Children
+                                                  under 16.
+WEST DISTRICT:
+  * Kensington                 809       1,379           1,545           3,733           2,874
+  Fulham                       364         988             696           2,048           1,537
+  * Paddington                 460       1,004             660           2,124           1,846
+  * Chelsea                    702         896             744           2,342           2,272
+  * St. George,                753         852             642           2,247           2,127
+  Hanover-square
+  * St. Margaret             1,131       1,791           1,313           4,285           5,742
+  and St. John
+  Westminster                1,101         749             558           2,408           1,874
+Total of West                5,320       7,659           6,158          19,137          18,272
+Dist.
+NORTH DISTRICT:
+  * St.                      2,221       2,587           1,374           6,182           5,902
+  Marylebone
+  * Hampstead                  143         126              57             326             347
+  * St. Pancras              2,141       3,915           2,847           8,903           8,356
+  * Islington                  909       1,996           1,590           4,495           4,792
+  Hackney                      695       2,909           2,952           6,556           5,385
+    Total of North           6,109      11,533           8,820          26,462          24,782
+             Dist.
+CENTRAL DISTRICT:
+  *St. Giles and               869         587             538           1,994           2,246
+  St. George,
+  Bloomsbury
+  Strand                     1,054         647             387           2,088           3,069
+  Holborn                      554         947             781           2 282           2,724
+  Clerkenwell                  713         999             642           2,354           2,863
+  * St. Luke                   965       1,245           1,045           3,255           3,165
+  East London                  838       1,038             906           2,782           2,813
+  West London                  598         701             542           1,841           1,965
+  City of London             1,034       1,191             632           2,857           3,019
+  Total of Central           6,625       7,355           5,473          19,453          21,864
+                D.
+EAST DISTRICT:
+  * Shoreditch               1,440       1,966           1,770           5,176           5,457
+  * Bethnal Green            1,510       1,265           1,389           4,164           5,057
+  Whitechapel                1,192       1,234           1,700           4,126           4,315
+  * St.                      1,192       1,585           1,565           4,342           3,967
+  George-in-the-
+  E.
+  Stepney                    1,072       1,600           1,533           4,205           4,650
+  * Mile End Old               547       1,228           1,055           2,830           2,705
+  Town
+  Poplar                     1,014       2,807           2,793           6,614           9,169
+     Total of East           7,967      11,685          11,805          31,457          35,320
+             Dist.
+SOUTH DISTRICT:
+  St. Saviour,                 537         678             678           1,893           2,000
+  Southwk.
+  St. Olave,                   478         393             464           1,335           1,349
+  Southwark
+  * Bermondsey                 712         554             752           2,018           1,860
+  * St. George,                660       1,260           1,646           3,566           4,120
+  Southwk.
+  * Newington                  891       1,450           1,330           3,671           3,676
+  * Lambeth                  1,503       2,777           3,401           7,681           8,369
+  Wandsworth &                 887       1,678           1,439           4,004           3,876
+  Clapham
+  * Camberwell                 865       1,537           1,492           3,894           3,360
+  * Rotherhithe                288         638             518           1,444           1,338
+  Greenwich                  1,447       2,799           2,314           6,560           5,933
+  Woolwich                —              2,506           2,173           4,679           3,110
+  Lewisham                     320         595             394           1,309           1,253
+    Total of South           8,588      16,865          16,601          42,054          40,244
+             Dist.
+Total of the                34,609      55,097          48,857         138,563         140,482
+Metropolis
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                    TOTAL PAUPERISM OF THE METROPOLIS.
+                     (Population in 1861, 2,802,000.)
+
+         YEARS.               Number of Paupers.        Total.
+                           In-door.      Out-door.
+Fifth week of April 1869        34,609       103,954     138,563
+„     „     „ 1868              34,455       106,027     140,482
+„     „     „ 1867              32,728        96,765     129,493
+„     „     „ 1866              30,192        71,372     101,564
+
+This as regards parochial charity.  It must not be imagined, however,
+from this source alone flows all the relief that the nation’s humanity
+and benevolence provides for the relief of its poor and helpless.
+Besides our parochial asylums there are many important charities of
+magnitude, providing a sum of at least 2,000,000_l._ a-year for the
+relief of want and suffering in London, independently of legal and local
+provision to an amount hardly calculable.  We content ourselves with
+stating one simple fact—that all this charity, as now bestowed and
+applied, fails to accomplish the direct object in view.  If the
+2,000,000_l._ thus contributed did in some way or other suffice, in
+conjunction with other funds, to banish want and suffering from the
+precincts of the metropolis, we should have very little to say.  But the
+fact is that, after all these incredible efforts to relieve distress,
+want and suffering are so prevalent that it might be fancied charity was
+dead amongst us.  Now that, at any rate, cannot be a result in which
+anybody would willingly acquiesce.  If the money was spent, and the poor
+were relieved, many people probably would never trouble themselves to
+inquire any further; but though the money is spent, the poor are not
+cured of their poverty.  In reality this very fact is accountable in
+itself for much of that accumulation of agencies, institutions, and
+efforts which our statistics expose.  As has been recently remarked: “A
+certain expenditure by the hands of a certain society fails to produce
+the effect anticipated, and so the result is a new society, with a new
+expenditure, warranted to be more successful.  It would be a curious item
+in the account if the number and succession of fresh charities, year
+after year, could be stated.  They would probably be found, like
+religious foundations, taking some new forms according to the discoveries
+or presumptions of the age; but all this while the old charities are
+still going on, and the new charity becomes old in its turn, to be
+followed, though not superseded, by a fresh creation in due time.”
+
+If it be asked what, under such circumstances, the public can be expected
+to do, we answer, that it may really do much by easy inquiry and natural
+conclusions.  Whenever an institution is supported by voluntary
+contributions, the contributors, if they did but know it, have the entire
+control of the establishment in their hands; they can stop the supplies,
+they hold the purse, and they can stipulate for any kind of information,
+disclosure, or reform at their pleasure.  They can exact the publication
+of accounts at stated intervals, and the production of the balance-sheet
+according to any given form.  It is at their discretion to insist upon
+amalgamation, reorganisation, or any other promising measure.  There is
+good reason for the exercise of these powers.  We have said that all this
+charity fails to accomplish its one immediate object—the relief of the
+needy; but that is a very imperfect statement of the case.  The fact is
+that pauperism, want, and suffering are rapidly growing upon us in this
+metropolis, and we are making little or no headway against the torrent.
+The administration of the Poor-law is as unsuccessful as that of private
+benevolence.  Legal rates, like voluntary subscriptions, increase in
+amount, till the burden can hardly be endured; and still the cry for aid
+continues.  Is nothing to be done, then, save to go on in the very course
+which has proved fruitless?  Must we still continue giving, when giving
+to all appearances does so little good?  It would be better to survey the
+extent and nature of agencies actually at work, and to see whether they
+cannot be made to yield greater results.
+
+Confining ourselves, however, to what chiefly concerns the hardly-pressed
+ratepayers of the metropolis, its vagrancy and pauperism, there at once
+arises the question, How can this enormous army of helpless ones be
+provided for in the most satisfactory manner?—This problem has puzzled
+the social economist since that bygone happy age when poor-rates were
+unknown, and the “collector” appeared in a form no more formidable than
+that of the parish priest, who, from his pulpit, exhorted his
+congregation to give according to their means, and not to forget the
+poor-box as they passed out.
+
+It is not a “poor-box” of ordinary dimensions that would contain the
+prodigious sums necessary to the maintenance of the hundred thousand
+ill-clad and hungry ones that, in modern times, plague the metropolis.
+Gradually the sum-total required has crept up, till, at the present time,
+it has attained dimensions that press on the neck of the striving people
+like the Old Man of the Sea who so tormented Sinbad, and threatened to
+strangle him.
+
+In London alone the cost of relief has doubled since 1851.  In that year
+the total relief amounted to 659,000_l._; in 1858 it had increased to
+870,000_l._; in 1867 to 1,180,000_l._; and in 1868 to 1,317,000_l._  The
+population within this time has increased from 2,360,000 to something
+like 3,100,000, the estimated population at the present time; so that
+while the population has increased by only 34 per cent, the cost of
+relief has exactly doubled.  Thirteen per cent of the whole population of
+London were relieved as paupers in 1851, and in 1868 the percentage had
+increased to 16.  In 1861 the Strand Union had a decreasing population of
+8,305, and in 1868 it relieved one in every five, or 20 per cent, of that
+population.  Besides this, the cost of relief per head within the
+workhouse had much increased within the last 15 years.  The cost of food
+consumed had increased from 2_s._ 9_d._ per head, per week, in 1853, to
+4_s._ 11_d._ in 1868; while we have the authority of Mr. Leone Levi for
+the statement that a farm-labourer expended only 3_s._ a-week on food for
+himself.
+
+In 1853 the population of England and Wales was in round numbers
+18,404,000, and in 1867 21,429,000, being an increase of 3,000,000.  The
+number of paupers, exclusive of vagrants, in receipt of relief in England
+and Wales was, in 1854, 818,000, and in 1868 1,034,000, showing an
+increase of 216,000.  The total amount expended in relief to the poor and
+for other purposes, county and police-rates, &c., was, in 1853,
+6,854,000_l._, and in 1867 10,905,000_l._, showing an increase of
+4,000,000_l._  This total expenditure was distributable under two heads.
+The amount expended in actual relief to the poor was, in 1853,
+4,939,000_l._, as against 6,959,000_l._ in 1867, being an increase of
+2,020,000_l._  The amount expended, on the other hand, for other
+purposes, county- and police-rates, &c., was, in 1853, 1,915,000_l._,
+against 3,945,000_l._ in 1867.
+
+And now comes the vexed question, Who are the people who, amongst them,
+in the metropolis alone, contribute this great sum of _thirteen hundred
+thousand pounds_, and in what proportion is the heavy responsibility
+divided?  This is the most unsatisfactory part of the whole business.
+If, as it really appears, out of a population of two millions and
+three-quarters there must be reckoned a hundred and forty thousand who
+from various causes are helpless to maintain themselves, nothing remains
+but to maintain them; at the same time it is only natural that every man
+should expect to contribute his fair share, and no more.  But this is by
+no means the prevailing system.  Some pay twopence; others tenpence, as
+the saying is.
+
+By an examination of the statistics as to the relative contributions of
+the different unions, we find the discrepancy so great as to call for
+early and urgent legislation; and despite the many and various arguments
+brought to bear against amalgamation and equalisation, there is no other
+mode of dealing with this great and important question that appears more
+just, or more likely to lead to the wished-for result.  That the reader
+may judge for himself of the magnitude of the injustice that exists under
+the present system will not require much more evidence than the following
+facts will supply.  The metropolis is divided into five districts, and
+these again into unions to the number of six-and-thirty, many of which in
+their principal characteristics differ greatly from each other.  We find
+the West and Central Districts relieve each between 19,000 and 20,000
+poor, the Eastern District about 32,000, and the North District some
+27,000; but the Southern District by far exceeds the rest, as the report
+states that there are in receipt of relief no less than 43,000 paupers.
+These bare statistics, however, though they may appear at first sight to
+affect the question, do not influence it so much as might be imagined;
+the weight of the burden is determined by the proportion that the
+property on which the poor-rate is levied bears to the expenditure in the
+different unions.  For example, St. George’s, Hanover-square, contributes
+about the same amount (viz. 30,000_l._) to the relief of paupers as St.
+George’s-in-the-East; but take into consideration the fact that the
+western union contains a population of about 90,000, and property at the
+ratable value of nearly 1,000,000_l._, and the eastern union has less
+than 50,000 inhabitants, and the estimated value of the property is only
+180,000_l._; the consequence is that the poor-rate in one union is
+upwards of five times heavier than the other, being 8_d._ in the pound in
+St. George’s, Hanover-square, and no less than 3_s._ 5¾_d._ in St.
+George’s-in-the-East.  The reader may imagine that this great discrepancy
+may arise in some degree from the fact that the two unions mentioned are
+at the extreme ends of the metropolis; but even where unions are
+contiguous to one another the same contrasts are found.  The City of
+London is situated between the unions of East London and West London: in
+the two latter the rates are not very unequal, being about 2_s._ 11_d._
+in one and 3_s._ 1_d._ in the other; but in the City of London, one of
+the richest of the thirty-six unions in the metropolis, the poor-rate is
+only 7_d._ in the pound.  The cause of this is that, if the estimates are
+correct, the City of London Union contains just ten times the amount of
+rateable property that the East London does, the amounts being
+1,800,000_l._ and 180,000_l._ respectively.  Again, Bethnal Green does
+not contribute so much as Islington, and yet its poor-rates are four
+times as high.  In general, however, we find that in unions contiguous to
+one another, the rates do not vary in amount to any great extent.  In the
+North, for instance, they range from 1_s._ to 1_s._ 7_d._, Hampstead
+being the exception, and below the shilling.  In the South they are
+rather higher, being from 1_s._ 2_d._ to 2_s._ 11_d._, Lewisham alone
+being below the shilling.  In the East, as might be expected, the figures
+are fearfully high, all, with one exception, being above 2_s._ 6_d._, and
+in the majority of cases exceeding 3_s._  Bethnal Green, that most
+afflicted of all unions, is the highest, reaching the enormous sum of
+3_s._ 11_d._ in the pound, being nearly seven times the amount of the
+rate in the City of London.  In the Central District, which is situated
+in an intermediate position, the rates range from 1_s._ 11_d._ to 3_s._,
+the City itself being excluded.
+
+No one who reads the foregoing statistics can fail to be struck with the
+inequality and mismanagement that they exhibit.  No one can deny that
+this state of affairs urgently needs some reorganisation or reform, for
+who could defend the present system that makes the poor pay most, and the
+rich least, towards the support and maintenance of our poor?
+
+There appears to be a very general impression that the sum levied for the
+relief of the poor goes entirely to the relief of the poor; but there is
+a great distinction between the sum levied and the sum actually expended
+for that purpose.  Taking the average amount of poor-rates levied
+throughout England and Wales for the same periods, it is found that for
+the ten years ending 1860 the average was 7,796,019_l._; for the seven
+years ending 1867, 9,189,386_l._; and for the latest year, 1868, when a
+number of other charges were levied nominally under the same head,
+11,054,513_l._  To gain an idea of the amount of relief afforded, it was
+necessary to look to the amount which had actually been expended.  For
+the ten years ending 1860 the average amount expended for the relief of
+the poor was 5,476,454_l._; for the seven years ending 1867,
+6,353,000_l._; and in the latest year, 7,498,000_l._  Therefore the
+amount actually expended in the relief of the poor was, in the ten years
+ending 1860, at the average annual rate of 5_s._ 9½_d._ per head upon the
+population; for the seven years ending 1867, 6_s._ 1_d._; and for the
+year 1868, 6_s._ 11½_d._  The average number of paupers for the year
+ending Lady-day 1849 was 1,088,659, while in 1868 they had decreased to
+992,640.  Thus, in 1849 there were 62 paupers for every 1,000 of the
+population, and in 1868 there were but 46 for every 1,000, being 16 per
+1,000 less in the latter than in the former year.  In 1834, the rate per
+head which was paid for the relief of the poor was 9_s._ 1_d._  If we
+continued in 1868 to pay the same rate which was paid in 1849, the
+amount, instead of being 6,960,000_l._ would be 9,700,000_l._, showing a
+balance of 2,740,000_l._ in favour of 1868.
+
+The very heart and core of the poor-law difficulty is to discriminate
+between poverty deserving of help, and only requiring it just to tide
+over an ugly crisis, and those male and female pests of every civilised
+community whose natural complexion is dirt, whose brow would sweat at the
+bare idea of earning their bread, and whose stock-in-trade is rags and
+impudence.  In his capacity of guardian of the casual ward, Mr. Bumble is
+a person who has no belief in decent poverty.  To his way of thinking,
+poverty in a clean shirt is no more than a dodge intended to impose on
+the well-known tenderness of his disposition.  Penury in a tidy cotton
+gown, to his keen discernment, is nothing better than “farden pride”—a
+weakness he feels it is his bounden duty to snub and correct whenever he
+meets with it.  It is altogether a mistake to suppose that all the worthy
+strivers in the battle for bread, and who, through misfortune and
+sickness, sink in the rucks and furrows of that crowded field, find their
+way, by a sort of natural “drainage system,” to the workhouse.  There are
+poorer folks than paupers.  To be a pauper is at least to have a coat to
+wear, none the less warm because it is made of gray cloth, and to have an
+undisputed claim on the butcher and the baker.  It is the preservers of
+their “farden pride,” as Bumble stigmatises it, but which is really
+bravery and noble patience, who are most familiar with the scratching at
+their door of the gaunt wolf FAMINE; the hopeful unfortunates who are
+content to struggle on, though with no more than the tips of their
+unlucky noses above the waters of tribulation—to struggle and still
+struggle, though they sink, rather than acknowledge themselves no better
+than the repulsive mob of cadgers by profession Mr. Bumble classes them
+with.
+
+I have been asked many times since, when, on a memorable occasion, I
+volunteered into the ranks of pauperism and assumed its regimentals, what
+was the one foremost thought or anxiety that beset me as I lay in that
+den of horror.  Nothing can be more simple or honest than my answer to
+that question.  This was it—_What if it were true_?  What if, instead of
+your every sense revolting from the unaccustomed dreadfulness you have
+brought it into contact with, it were your lot to grow used to, and
+endure it all, until merciful death delivered you?  What if these
+squalid, unsightly rags, the story of your being some poor devil of an
+engraver, who really could not help being desperately hard-up and shabby,
+were all _real_?  And why not?  Since in all vast commercial communities
+there must always exist a proportion of beggars and paupers, what have I
+done that I should be exempt?  Am I—are all of us here so comfortably
+circumstanced because we deserve nothing less?  What man dare rise and
+say so?  Why, there are a dozen slippery paths to the direst ways of
+Poverty that the smartest among us may stumble on any day.  Again, let us
+consider who are they who are most liable to slip.  Why, that very class
+that the nation is so mightily proud of, and apt at bragging about!  The
+working man, with his honest horny hand and his broad shoulders, who
+earns his daily bread by the sweat of his brow!  We never tire of
+expressing our admiration for the noble fellow.  There is something so
+manly, so admirable in an individual standing up, single-handed and
+cheerful-hearted, and exclaiming, in the face of the whole world, “With
+these two hands, and by the aid of the strength it has pleased God to
+bless me with, my wife and my youngsters and myself eat, drink, and are
+clothed, and no man can call me his debtor!”  He is a fellow to admire;
+we can afford to admire him, and we do—for just so long as he can
+maintain his independence and stand without help.  But should misfortune
+in any of its hundred unexpected shapes assail him, should he fall sick
+or work fail him, and he be unable to keep out the wolf that presently
+eats up his few household goods, rendering him homeless, _then_ we turn
+him and his little family over to the tender mercies of Mr. Bumble, who
+includes him in the last batch of impostors and skulkers that have been
+delivered to his keeping.  I don’t say that, as matters are managed at
+present, we can well avoid doing so; but that does not mitigate the poor
+fellow’s hardship.
+
+It is to be hoped that we are gradually emerging from our bemuddlement;
+but time was, and that at no very remote period, when to be poor and
+houseless and hungry were accounted worse sins against society than
+begging or stealing, even—that is to say, if we may judge from the method
+of treatment in each case pursued; for while the ruffian who lay wait for
+you in the dark, and well-nigh strangled you for the sake of as much
+money as you might chance to have in your pocket, or the brute who
+precipitated his wife from a third-floor window, claimed and was entitled
+to calm judicial investigation into the measure of his iniquity and its
+deserving, the poor fellow who became a casual pauper out of sheer
+misfortune and hard necessity was without a voice or a single friend.
+The pig-headed Jack-in-office, whom the ratepayers employed and had
+confidence in, had no mercy for him.  They never considered that it was
+_because_ he preferred to stave off the pangs of hunger by means of a
+crust off a parish loaf rather than dine on stolen roast beef, that he
+came knocking at the workhouse-gate, craving shelter and a mouthful of
+bread!  But _one_ idea pervaded the otherwise empty region that Bumble’s
+cocked-hat covered, and that was, that the man who would beg a parish
+loaf was more mean and contemptible than the one who, with a proper and
+independent spirit, as well as a respect for the parochial purse, stole
+one; and he treated his victim accordingly.
+
+Vagrancy has been pronounced by the law to be a crime.  Even if regarded
+in its mildest and least mischievous aspect, it can be nothing less than
+obtaining money under false pretences.  It is solely by false pretences
+and false representations that the roving tramp obtains sustenance from
+the charitable.  We have it on the authority of the chief constable of
+Westmoreland, that ninety-nine out of every hundred professional
+mendicants are likewise professional thieves, and practise either trade
+as occasion serves.  The same authority attributes to men of this
+character the greater number of burglaries, highway robberies, and petty
+larcenies, that take place; and gives it as his opinion, that if the
+present system of permitting professional tramps to wander about the
+country was done away with, a great deal of crime would be prevented, and
+an immense good conferred on the community.
+
+There can be no question that it is, as a member of parliament recently
+expressed it, “the large charitable heart of the country” that is
+responsible in great part for the enormous amount of misapplied alms.
+People, in giving, recognised the fact that many of those whom they
+relieved were impostors and utterly unworthy of their charity; but they
+felt that if they refused to give, some fellow-creature, in consequence
+of their refusal, might suffer seriously from the privations of hunger
+and want of shelter.  As long as they felt that their refusal might
+possibly be attended with these results, so long would they open their
+hand with the same readiness that they now did.  The only remedy for this
+is, that every destitute person in the country should find food and
+shelter forthcoming immediately on application.  Vagrancy, says the
+authority here quoted, is partly the result of old habits and old times,
+when the only question the tramp was asked was, “Where do you belong to?”
+Instead of that being the first question, it should be the last.  The
+first question should be, “Are you in want, and how do you prove it?”
+
+In 1858 the number of vagrants was 2416; in 1859, 2153; in 1860, 1941; in
+1861, 2830; in 1862, 4234; in 1863, 3158; in 1864, 3339; in 1865, 4450;
+in 1866, 5017; in 1867, 6129; and in 1868, 7946.
+
+There can be no doubt, however, that a vast number of tramps circulate
+throughout the country, of whom we have no returns.  “Various means,”
+says the writer above alluded to, “have been tried to check them, but in
+vain.  If I venture to recommend any remedy, it must be, that repression,
+if applied, must be systematic and general.  It is not of the slightest
+use putting this repression in force in one part of the country while the
+remainder is under a different system.  The whole country must be under
+the same general system, tending to the same general result.  In the
+first place, let all the inmates of the casual wards be placed under the
+care of the police.  Let them be visited by the police morning and night.
+Let lists be made out and circulated through the country; and in no case,
+except upon a ticket given by the police, let any relief be given more
+than once; and unless a man is able to satisfy the police that his errand
+was good, and that he was in search of work, let him be sent back
+summarily without relief.  It is the habit of all this class to make a
+regular route, and they received relief at every casual ward, thus laying
+the whole country under contribution.”
+
+True as this argument may be in the main, we cannot take kindly to the
+idea, that every unfortunate homeless wretch who applies at night to the
+casual ward for a crust and shelter shall be treated as a professional
+tramp until he prove himself a worthy object for relief.
+
+It is not a little remarkable, that, however legislators may disagree as
+to the general utility of the Poor-law under its present aspect, they are
+unanimous in approving of the “labour test;” whereas, according to the
+opportunities I have had of observing its working, it is, to my thinking,
+one of the faultiest wheels in the whole machine.  The great error
+chiefly consists in the power it confers on each workhouse-master to
+impose on the tested such work, both as regards quantity and quality, as
+he may see fit.  I have witnessed instances in which the “labour test,”
+instead of proving a man’s willingness to work for what he receives,
+rather takes the form of a barbarous tyranny, seemingly calculated as
+nothing else than as a test of a poor fellow’s control of his temper.
+Where is the use of testing a man’s willingness to work, if he is
+compelled in the process to exhaust his strength and waste his time to an
+extent that leaves him no other course but to seek for his hunger and
+weariness to-night the same remedy as he had recourse to last night?
+They manage these things better in certain parts of the country and in
+model metropolitan parishes, but in others the “test” system is a mere
+“farce.”  I found it so at Lambeth in 1866; and when again I made a tour
+of inspection, two years afterwards, precisely the same process was
+enforced.  This was it.  At night, when a man applied for admittance to
+the casual ward, he received the regulation dole of bread, and then went
+to bed as early as half-past eight or nine.  He was called up at seven in
+the morning, and before eight received a bit more bread and a drop of
+gruel.  This was the “breakfast” with which he was fortified previous to
+his displaying his prowess as a willing labourer.
+
+The chief of the work done by the “casual” at the workhouse in question
+is “crank-work.”  The crank is a sort of gigantic hand-mill for grinding
+corn.  A series of “cranks” or revolving bars extend across the
+labour-shed in a double or triple row, although by some means the result
+of the joint labour of the full number of operatives, forty or fifty in
+number, is concentrated at that point where the power is required.  Let
+us see how “crank-work” of this sort is applicable as a test of a man’s
+willingness and industry.
+
+It may be safely taken that of the, say, forty-five “casuals” assembled,
+two-thirds, or thirty, will belong to that class that is, without doubt,
+the very worst in the world—the hulking villanous sort, too lazy to work
+and too cowardly to take openly to the trade of thieving, and who make an
+easy compromise between the two states, enacting the parts of savage
+bully or whining cadger, as opportunity serves.  Thirty of these, and
+fifteen real unfortunates who are driven to seek this shabby shelter only
+by dire necessity.  In the first place, we have to consider that the
+out-and-out vagrant is a well-nurtured man, and possesses the full
+average of physical strength; whereas the poor half-starved wretch, whose
+poverty is to be pitied, is weak through long fasting and privation.  But
+no selection is made.  Here is an extended crank-handle, at which six
+willing men may by diligent application perform so much work within a
+given time.  It must be understood that the said work is calculated on
+the known physical ability of the able-bodied as well as the
+willing-minded man; and it is in this that the great injustice consists.
+Let us take a single crank.  It is in charge of six men, and, by their
+joint efforts, a sack of corn, say, may be ground in an hour.  But joint
+effort is quite out of the question.  Even while the taskmaster is
+present the vagrants of the gang at the crank—four out of six, be it
+remembered—will make but the merest pretence of grasping the bar and
+turning it with energy; they will just close their hands about it, and
+increase the labour of the willing minority by compelling them to lift
+their lazy arms as well as the bar.  But as soon as the taskmaster has
+departed, even a pretence of work ceases.  The vagrants simply stroll
+away from the work and amuse themselves.  Nevertheless, the work has to
+be done; the sack of corn must be ground before the overnight batch of
+casuals will be allowed to depart.  But the vagrants are in no hurry; the
+casual ward serves them as a sort of handy club-room in which to while
+away the early hours of tiresome morning, and to discuss with each other
+the most interesting topics of the day.  It is their desire, especially
+if it should happen to be a wet, cold, or otherwise miserable morning, to
+“spin-out” the time as long as possible; and this they well know may best
+be done by leaving the weak few to struggle through the work apportioned
+to the many; and they are not of the sort to be balked when they are bent
+in such a direction.
+
+The result is, as may be frequently observed, that the labour-shed is not
+cleared until nearly eleven o’clock in the morning, by which time the
+honest and really industrious minority have proved their worthiness of
+relief to an extent that leaves them scarcely a leg to stand on.  They
+have been working downright hard since eight o’clock.  The slice of bread
+and the drop of gruel they received in the morning is exhausted within
+them; their shaky and enfeebled limbs are a-tremble with the unaccustomed
+labour; and, it being eleven o’clock in the day, it is altogether too
+late to hope to pick-up a job, and nothing remains for a poor fellow but
+to saunter idly the day through, bemoaning the desperate penalty he is
+compelled to pay for a mouthful of parish bread and the privilege of
+reposing in an uncomfortable hovel, till night comes again, and once more
+he is found waiting at the casual gate.
+
+It may be said that no one desires this, that it is well understood by
+all concerned that a workhouse is a place intended for the relief of the
+really helpless and unable, and not for the sustenance of imposture and
+vagrancy; but that under the present system it is impossible to avoid
+such instances of injustice as that just quoted.  This, however, is not
+the case.  It has been shown in numerous cases that it is possible to
+economise pauper-labour so that it shall be fairly distributed, and at
+the same time return some sort of profit.
+
+It appears that in Liverpool and Manchester corn-grinding by _hand-mills_
+is chiefly used, as a task for vagrants or able-bodied in-door poor.  In
+the absence of other more suitable employment, there is no reason why
+they should not be so employed.  As, however, but one person can be
+employed at the same time on one mill, and the cost of each mill,
+including fixing, may be roughly stated at from 3_l._ to 4_l._, it is
+clear that no very large number of persons is likely to be thus employed
+in any one yard.  Despite this and other minor objections, however, it
+appears that corn-grinding is as good a labour-test as you can have in
+workhouses.  It is not remunerative; it is a work that is disliked; it is
+really hard; and being one by which there is no actual loss by
+accumulation of unsaleable stock, it has much to commend it.  At the
+establishments in question a fairly strong able-bodied man is required to
+grind 120 lbs. of corn daily, and this is sufficient to occupy him the
+whole day.  The male vagrants at Liverpool are required to grind 30 lbs.
+of corn each at night, and 30 lbs. the following morning.  At Manchester
+the task for male vagrants is 45 lbs. each, of which one half is required
+to be ground at night, and the remainder the next morning.  At the
+Liverpool workhouse they have 36 of these mills; at Manchester, 40 at the
+new or suburban workhouse for able-bodied inmates, and 35 at the house of
+industry adjoining the old workhouse.  The mills at the latter are
+chiefly used for vagrants, but upon these able-bodied men in receipt of
+out-door relief are also occasionally employed.  The ordinary task-work
+for these last is, however, either farm-labour at the new workhouse, or
+oakum-picking at the house of industry, according to the nature of their
+former pursuits.  During the cotton famine there was also a large
+stone-yard, expressly hired and fitted-up for this class.  Another large
+building was set apart during that period for the employment of adult
+females in receipt of relief in sewing and knitting, and in cutting-out
+and making-up clothing; a stock of materials being provided by the
+guardians, and an experienced female superintendent of labour placed in
+charge of the establishment.
+
+The experiment of selecting a limited number of men from the stone-yard,
+and setting them to work in scavenging the streets, has now been tried
+for rather more than six months by the vestry of St. Luke’s, City-road,
+with a fair amount of success; the men (fifteen from the stone-yard, and
+ten from the workhouse) were entirely withdrawn from the relief-lists,
+and employed by the vestry at the same rate of wages as the contractor
+who previously did the work was in the habit of paying.  Of these men,
+according to the latest report, fourteen are still thus employed, and
+four have obtained other employment.  The remaining seven were
+discharged—three as physically incapable, and four for insubordination.
+The conduct of the majority under strict supervision is said to have been
+fairly good, though not first-rate; and it is undoubtedly something
+gained to have obtained useful work from fourteen out of twenty-five, and
+to have afforded four more an opportunity of maintaining themselves by
+other independent labour.
+
+At the same time it is clear that such a course is open to two
+objections: first, it must have a tendency to displace independent
+labour; and secondly, if these paupers are (as in St. Luke’s) at once
+employed for wages, it would, unless guarded by making them pass through
+a long probationary period of task-work, tend to encourage poor persons
+out of employ to throw themselves on the rates, in order thus to obtain
+remunerative employment.  The better course would seem to be, where
+arrangements can be made by the local authorities, for the local Board to
+provide only the requisite implements and superintendence, and for the
+guardians in the first instance to give the labour of the men to the
+parish, paying them the ordinary relief for such work as task-work.  If
+this were done—and care taken to put them on as extra hands only, to
+sweep the pavements, or such other work as is not ordinarily undertaken
+by the contractors—there can be no doubt that an outlet might be thus
+afforded for some of the better-conducted paupers, after a period of real
+probationary task-work, to show themselves fit for independent
+employment, and so to extricate themselves from the pauper ranks.
+
+    “It would undoubtedly conduce much to the utility of these
+    labour-yards if the guardians comprising the labour or out-door
+    relief committee would, as they now do in some unions, frequently
+    visit the yard, and thus by personal observation make themselves
+    acquainted with the conduct and characters of the paupers, with the
+    nature of the superintendence bestowed upon them, and with the manner
+    in which the work is performed.  A channel of communication may thus
+    be formed between employers of labour when in want of hands and those
+    unemployed workmen who may by sheer necessity have been driven to
+    apply for and accept relief in this unpalatable form.  The guardians
+    themselves, frequently large employers of labour, are for the most
+    part well acquainted with those who are compelled to apply for parish
+    work; and when they see a steady and willing worker in the yard will
+    naturally inquire into his antecedents.  Where the result of these
+    inquiries is satisfactory, they will, it may be expected, gladly
+    avail themselves of the earliest opportunity of obtaining for such a
+    one employment in his previous occupation, or in any other which may
+    appear to be suited to his capacity.  The personal influence and
+    supervision of individual guardians can scarcely be overrated; and
+    thus a bond of sympathy will gradually arise between the guardians
+    and the deserving poor, which, coupled with the enforcement of real
+    work, will, it may be hoped, prove not without an ultimate good
+    effect upon even those hardened idlers who have been hitherto too
+    often found in these yards the ringleaders in every species of
+    disturbance.”
+
+The above-quoted is the suggestion of the Chairman of the Poor-law Board,
+and well indeed would it be, for humanity’s sake, that it should be
+regarded.  As matters are at present arranged, the labour-system is
+simply disgusting.  Take Paddington stone-yard, for instance.  Unless it
+is altered since last year, the peculiar method of doing business there
+adopted is this: a man gets an order for stone-breaking, the pay for
+which is, say, eighteenpence a “yard.”  At most workhouses, when a man is
+put to this kind of labour he is paid by the bushel: and that is quite
+fair, because a poor fellow unused to stone-breaking usually makes a sad
+mess of it.  He takes hammer in hand, and sets a lump of granite before
+him with the idea of smashing it into fragments; but this requires
+“knack,” that is to be acquired only by experience.  The blows he deals
+the stone will not crack it, and all that he succeeds in doing for the
+first hour or two is to chip away the corners of one lump after another,
+accumulating perhaps a hatful of chips and dust.  By the end of the day,
+however, he may have managed to break four bushels, and this at
+eighteenpence a “yard” would be valued at sixpence, and he would be paid
+accordingly.
+
+But not at Paddington.  I had some talk with the worthy yard-master of
+that establishment, and he enlightened me as to their way of doing
+business there.  “Bushels!  No; we don’t deal in bushels here,” was his
+contemptuous reply to a question I put to him.  “I can’t waste my time in
+measuring up haporths of stuff all day long.  It’s half a yard or none
+here, and no mistake.”
+
+“Do you mean, that unless a man engages to break at least half a yard,
+you will not employ him?”
+
+“I mean to say, whether he engages or not, that he’s got to do it.”
+
+“And suppose that he fails?”
+
+“Then he don’t get paid.”
+
+“He doesn’t get paid for the half-yard, you mean?”
+
+“He doesn’t get paid at all.  I don’t never measure for less than a
+half-yard, and so he can’t be paid.”
+
+“But what becomes of the few bushels of stone he has been able to break?”
+
+“O, he sells ’em to the others for what they’ll give for ’em, to put
+along with theirs.  A halfpenny or a penny—anything.  He’s glad to take
+it; it’s that or none.”
+
+“And do you have many come here who can’t break half a yard of granite in
+a day?”
+
+“Lots of ’em.  But they don’t come again; one taste of Paddington is
+enough for ’em.”
+
+What does the reader think of the “labour-test” in this case?
+
+An institution has, it appears, been established by the Birmingham
+guardians since the autumn of 1867, for the employment of able-bodied
+women in oakum-picking for out-door relief, the result of which has been,
+that not only has the workhouse been relieved of a large number of
+troublesome inmates of this class, with whom it was previously crowded,
+but the applications for relief have diminished in a proportionate ratio.
+Every effort is made to induce the women thus employed to seek for more
+profitable employment, and the applications at the establishment for
+female labour are said to be numerous.  The superintendent, who was
+formerly matron at the Birmingham workhouse, reports to Mr. Corbett, that
+“from the opening of the establishment about fifteen months ago, nineteen
+have been hired as domestic servants, ten have obtained engagements in
+other situations, and two have married.”  In addition to these, some
+forty have obtained temporary employment, of whom three only have
+returned to work for relief at the end of the year.  The total estimated
+saving on orders issued for work, as compared with the maintenance of the
+women as inmates of the workhouse, during the year ending 29th September
+last, is calculated to have been 646_l._ 0_s._ 7_d._  Indeed, so
+satisfactory has been the working of the system during the first year of
+its existence, that the guardians have resolved to apply the same test to
+the male applicants for relief, and a neighbouring house has been engaged
+and fitted-up for putting a similar plan in operation with respect to
+men.  The total number of orders issued during the first twelve months
+after this establishment for female labour was opened was 719; of which,
+however, only 456 were used, the other applicants either not being in
+want of the relief asked for, or having found work elsewhere.  Each woman
+is required to pick 3 lbs. of oakum per diem, for which she receives
+9_d._, or 4_s._ 6_d._ per week; and if she has one or more children, she
+is allowed at the rate of 3_d._ a-day additional relief for each child.
+The highest number paid for during any week has been 95 women and 25
+children.  Some days during the summer there has been but one at work,
+and in the last week of December last there were but eleven.  The house
+is said to be “virtually cleared of a most troublesome class of inmates.”
+
+The guardians of St. Margaret and St. John, Westminster, have, it
+appears, adopted a system embracing that pursued both at Manchester and
+Birmingham, and have provided accommodation for employing able-bodied
+women out of the workhouse both in oakum-picking and needlework; and, say
+the committee, “a similar course will probably be found advantageous in
+other metropolitan parishes or unions, whenever the number of this class
+who are applicants for relief exceeds the accommodation or the means of
+employment which can be found for them within the workhouse.  At the same
+time we would especially urge that provision should be made in every
+workhouse for a better classification of the able-bodied women, and for
+the steady and useful employment of this class of inmates.  Those who are
+not employed in the laundry and washhouse, or in scrubbing, bed-making,
+or other domestic work, should be placed under the superintendence of a
+firm and judicious task-mistress, and engaged in mending, making, and
+cutting-out all the linen and clothing required for the workhouse and
+infirmary; and much work might be done in this way for the new asylums
+about to be built under the provisions of the Metropolitan Poor Act.”
+This plan of a large needle-room presided over by an efficient officer
+has been found most successful in its results at the new workhouse of the
+Manchester guardians, as well in improving the character of the young
+women who remain any time in the house, and fitting them for home duties
+after they leave, as in deterring incorrigible profligates from resorting
+to the workhouse, as they were in the habit of doing.  Many now come into
+our metropolitan workhouses who can neither knit nor sew nor darn a
+stocking.  This they can at least be taught to do; and we gather from the
+experience of Manchester, that while at first to the idle and dissolute
+the enforced silence and order of the needle-room is far more irksome
+than the comparative license and desultory work of the ordinary
+oakum-room, those who of necessity remain in the house are found by
+degrees to acquire habits of order and neatness, and thus become better
+fitted for domestic duties.  The following scale of relief for
+able-bodied paupers, relieved out of the workhouse and set to work
+pursuant to the provisions of the Out-door Relief Regulation Order, is
+recommended for adoption by the various Boards of Guardians represented
+at a recent conference held under the presidency of Mr. Corbett:
+
+For a man with wife and one child, 6_d._ and 4 lbs. of bread per day; for
+a man with wife and two children, 7_d._ and 4 lbs. of bread per day; for
+a man with wife and three children, 7_d._ and 6 lbs. of bread per day;
+for a man with wife and four children, 8_d._ and 6 lbs. of bread per day;
+for a man with wife and five children, 9_d._ and 6 lbs. of bread per day;
+single man, 4_d._ and 2 lbs. of bread per day; single women or widows,
+4_d._ and 2 lbs. of bread per day, with an additional 3_d._ per day for
+each child; widowers with families to be relieved as if with wife living.
+
+Where a widow with one or more young children dependent on her and
+incapable of contributing to his, her, or their livelihood, can be
+properly relieved out of the workhouse, that she be ordinarily allowed
+relief at the rate of 1_s._ and one loaf for each child; the relief that
+may be requisite for the mother beyond this to be determined according to
+the special exigency of the case.  That widows without children should,
+as a rule, after a period not exceeding three months from the
+commencement of their widowhood, be relieved only in the workhouse.
+Where the husband of any woman is beyond the seas, or in custody of the
+law, or in confinement in an asylum or licensed house as a lunatic or
+idiot, such woman should be dealt with as a widow; but where a woman has
+been recently deserted by her husband, and there are grounds for
+supposing he has gone to seek for work, although out-door relief may be
+ordered for two or three weeks, to give him time to communicate with his
+family, yet, after such reasonable time has elapsed, the wife and family
+should, as a rule, be taken into the workhouse, and proceedings taken
+against the husband.  That the weekly relief to an aged or infirm man or
+woman be from 2_s._ 6_d._ to 3_s._ 6_d._ weekly, partly in money and
+partly in kind, according to his or her necessity; that the weekly relief
+to aged and infirm couples be 4_s._ to 5_s._, in money or in kind,
+according to their necessities; that when thought advisable, relief in
+money only may be given to those of the out-door poor who are seventy
+years of age and upwards.
+
+It appears from a recent statement that the guardians of Eversham union
+applied not long since for the sanction of the Poor-law Board to a scheme
+for boarding-out the orphan children of the workhouse with cottagers at
+3_s._ a-week, and 10_s._ a-quarter for clothing; the children to be sent
+regularly to school, and to attend divine worship on Sundays; with the
+provision that after ten years of age the children may be employed in
+labour approved by the guardians, and the wages divided between the
+guardians and the person who lodges and clothes them, in addition to the
+above payments.  In a letter dated the 3d April 1869, the Secretary of
+the Poor-law Board states that, provided they could be satisfied that a
+thorough system of efficient supervision and control would be established
+by the guardians, and the most rigid inquiry instituted at short
+intervals into the treatment and education of the children, the Board
+have come to the conclusion that they ought not to discourage the
+guardians from giving the plan a fair trial, though they cannot be
+insensible to the fact that a grave responsibility is thereby incurred.
+The Secretary mentions particulars regarding which especial care should
+be taken, such as the health of the children to be placed out, the
+condition of the persons to whom they are intrusted, and the necessary
+periodical inspection.  The Board will watch the experiment with the
+greatest interest, but with some anxiety.  They request the guardians to
+communicate to them very fully the detailed arrangements they are
+determined to make.  The Board cannot approve the proposed arrangement as
+to wages.  The guardians have no authority to place out children to serve
+in any capacity and continue them as paupers.  If they are competent to
+render service, they come within the description of able-bodied persons,
+and out-door relief would not be lawful.  Upon entering into service,
+they would cease to be paupers, and would have the protection of the
+provisions of the Act of 1851 relating to young persons hired from a
+workhouse as servants, or bound out as pauper apprentices.  The
+hiring-out of adults by the guardians is expressly prohibited by 56
+George III., _c._ 129.
+
+The great principle of the Poor-law is to make people do anything rather
+than go into the workhouse, and the effect is to cause people to sell
+their furniture before they will submit to the degradation; for
+degradation it is to an honest hardworking man, and no distinction is
+made.  The effect of the Poor-law has been to drive men away from the
+country to the large towns, and from one large town to another, till
+eventually they find their way up to London, and we are now face to face
+with the large army of vagabonds and vagrants thus created.  A man, once
+compelled to break-up his house, once driven from the locality to which
+he was attached, and where his family had lived perhaps for centuries,
+became of necessity a vagrant, and but one short step was needed to make
+him a thief.
+
+It would be a grand step in the right direction, if a means could be
+safely adopted that would save a man driven to pauperism from breaking-up
+his home.  The experiment has, it appears, been successfully adopted in
+Manchester, and may prove generally practicable.  The guardians in that
+city have provided rooms in which the furniture or other household goods
+of persons compelled to seek a temporary refuge in the house may be
+stored.  It would not do, of course, to enable people to treat the
+workhouse as a kind of hotel, to which they might retire without
+inconvenience, and where they might live upon the ratepayers until a
+pressure was passed.  Perhaps the confinement and the separation of
+family-ties which the workhouse involves would sufficiently prevent the
+privilege being abused; but even if such a convenience would need some
+limitation in ordinary times, it might be readily granted on an occasion
+of exceptional pressure, and it would then produce the greatest
+advantages both to the poor and to the ratepayers.  The worst consequence
+of the workhouse test is, that if a poor man under momentary pressure is
+forced to accept it and break-up his home, it is almost impossible for
+him to recover himself.  The household goods of a poor man may not be
+much, but they are a great deal to him; once gone, he can rarely replace
+them, and the sacrifice frequently breaks both his own and his wife’s
+spirit.  If the danger of thus making a man a chronic pauper were
+avoided, the guardians might offer the test with much less hesitation;
+relief might be far more stringently, and at the same time more
+effectually, administered.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+THE BEST REMEDY.
+
+
+_Emigration_—_The various Fields_—_Distinguish the industrious Worker in
+need of temporary Relief_—_Last Words_.
+
+ALL other remedies considered, we come back to that which is cheapest,
+most lasting, and in every way the best—emigration.  This, of course, as
+applying to unwilling and undeserved pauperism.  These are the sufferers
+that our colonies are waiting to receive with open arms.  They don’t want
+tramps and vagrants.  They won’t have them, well knowing the plague such
+vermin would be in a land whose fatness runs to waste.  But what they are
+willing to receive, gladly and hospitably, are men and women, healthy,
+and of a mind to work honestly for a liberal wage.  New Zealand has room
+for ten thousand such; so has Australia and Canada.
+
+It would be a happy alteration, if some milder term than “pauper” might
+be invented to distinguish the industrious worker, temporarily
+distressed, so as to be compelled to avail himself of a little parochial
+assistance, from the confirmed and habitual recipient of the workhouse
+dole.  As was pertinently remarked by Colonel Maude, at a recent meeting
+held in the rooms of the Society of Arts, and at which the policy of
+assisting willing workers to emigrate to New Zealand was argued:
+
+    “There are people who are fond of putting forward the offensive
+    doctrine, that a man who is a ‘pauper,’ as they call him, has thereby
+    become unfit ever again to exercise the self-reliance and
+    independence in any other country necessary to procure him a living,
+    the want of which qualities has brought him to the abject condition
+    he is now in.  Like most sweeping generalities, this is both false
+    and cruel.  The condition of the wage-paid class is, in the nature of
+    things, more dependent than that of any other; and without for a
+    moment depreciating the wisdom of frugality and thrift, I would ask
+    some of those who are in the enjoyment of independent incomes,
+    whether their position would not be almost as desperate if their
+    income were suddenly withdrawn?  And this is constantly happening to
+    large masses of our artisans, in many cases entirely without fault of
+    their own; and then how does the State deal with them?  It says, ‘If
+    you will wait until you have parted with your last penny and your
+    last article of furniture, and then come to us, we will assist you,
+    but only then, and only in the following manner: The allowance of
+    food, clothing, and shelter which we will give you shall be the least
+    which experience proves will keep body and soul together.  We will
+    break the law of God and of nature by separating you from your
+    family.  We will prevent you seeking for work elsewhere by confining
+    you in a house where employers are not likely to search for you, and
+    whence you cannot go to seek it yourself.  The nature of the work you
+    shall perform shall not be that in which you are proficient, but
+    shall be of the most uninteresting and useless kind.  Owing to the
+    small quantity of food we give you, you will not be able to exert
+    your powers to their best advantage.  By resorting to us for
+    assistance, you will be lowered in the estimation of your
+    fellow-workmen; and in all probability, as experience tells us, you
+    will return to us again and again, until you become a confirmed and
+    helpless pauper.’
+
+    “We are fond of pointing to Paris, and of showing how dearly the
+    French pay for their system of providing work for the people; but if
+    it be true, as I have lately heard, that there are one million of
+    paupers at this moment in England—and besides these, I am in a
+    position to state that there cannot be less than one million persons
+    who would be glad of permanent employment at reasonable wages—I do
+    not think we have much to boast of.  Besides, does anyone doubt that
+    if the French Emperor were possessed of our illimitable colonies,
+    with their endless varieties of climate, he would very soon transfer
+    his surplus population to them, and be very glad of the chance?  And
+    we ought to consider the cost of our paupers.  Let us take it at
+    10_l._ a head per annum.  As a matter of economy, it would pay very
+    well to capitalise this tax, and at two years’ purchase we could
+    deport large numbers in great comfort, and thus save a good deal of
+    money to the ratepayers, even supposing none of the money were ever
+    refunded; but I hope to show how that amount would be more than
+    repaid.  But I suppose that some people will say, ‘Your system, then,
+    is transportation?’  My answer might be, ‘If you are not ashamed to
+    impose the humiliating and unpleasant condition which you at present
+    force upon an applicant for relief, surely when you have satisfied
+    yourselves that his lot will be much happier and brighter in the new
+    home which you offer him, all your compunctions should vanish.’”
+
+I have ventured to quote Colonel Maude at length, because he is a man
+thoroughly conversant with the subject he treats of, and all that he
+asserts may be implicitly relied on.  And still once again I am tempted
+to let another speak for me what perhaps I should speak for myself—the
+concluding words of this my last chapter.  My justification is, that all
+that the writer expresses is emphatically also my opinion; and I am quite
+conscious of my inability to convey it in terms at once so graphic and
+forcible.  The gentleman to whom I am indebted is the writer of a leader
+in the _Times_:
+
+    “Here is a mass of unwilling pauperism, stranded, so to speak, by a
+    receding tide of prosperity on the barren shores of this metropolis.
+    Something must be done with it.  The other object is more important,
+    but not so pressing.  It is, that people who cannot get on well at
+    home, and who find all their difficulties amounting only to this—that
+    they have not elbow-room, and that the ground is too thickly
+    occupied—should be directed and even educated to follow the
+    instructions of Providence, and go to where there is room for them.
+    There is no reason why every child in this kingdom should not have
+    the arguments for and against emigration put before it in good time,
+    before it arrives at the age when choice is likely to be
+    precipitated, and change of mind rendered difficult.  Children in
+    these days are taught many things, and there really seems no reason
+    why they should not be taught something about the colonies, in which
+    five millions of the British race are now prospering, increasing, and
+    multiplying, not to speak of the United States.  But we must return
+    to the object more immediately pressing.  It is surrounded by
+    difficulties, as was confessed at the Mansion House, and as is
+    evident on the facts of the case.  But we believe it to be a case for
+    combined operation.  Everything seems to be ready—the good men who
+    will take the trouble, the agency, the willing guardians, the public
+    departments, or, at least, their functionaries—and the colonics will
+    not complain if we send them men willing to work, even though they
+    may have to learn new trades.  The Boards of Guardians and the
+    Government will contribute, as they have contributed.  But they
+    cannot, in sound principle, do more.  The public must come forward.
+    Sorry as we are to say the word, there is no help for it.  This is
+    not a local, it is a national affair.  Chance has thrown these poor
+    people where they are.  It would be a good opportunity thrown away,
+    if this work were not done out of hand, one may say.  Here are some
+    thousands attracted to the metropolis by its specious promises of a
+    long and solid prosperity.  They cannot go back.  They must now be
+    passed on.  Where else to but to the colonies?
+
+    “It must be evident by this time to the poor people themselves that
+    they may wait and wait for years and years without getting the
+    employment that suits them best.  The metropolitan ratepayers are
+    losing temper, and making themselves heard.  The colonies are all
+    calling for more men and more women, and more children approaching
+    the age of work.  Several members of the Government attended the
+    meeting, either in person or by letter, with promises of money,
+    advice, and aid.  There is the encouragement of successful millions,
+    who within our own lifetime have established themselves all over the
+    world.  Every cause that operated forty years ago operates now with
+    tenfold force.  At that date the only notion of an emigrant was a
+    rough, misanthropical sort of man, who had read _Robinson Crusoe_,
+    and who fancied a struggle for existence in some remote corner, with
+    a patch of land, some small cattle, constant hardships, occasional
+    disasters and discoveries, welcome or otherwise.  It was not doubted
+    for a moment that arts and sciences and accomplishments must be left
+    behind.  There could be no Muses or Graces in that nether world.  The
+    lady, so devoted as to share her husband’s fortune in that
+    self-exile, would have to cook, bake, brew, wash, sew, mend, and
+    darn, if indeed she could spare time from the still more necessary
+    toil of getting something eatable out of the earth, the river, or the
+    sea.  That was the prevailing picture of emigrant life; and when
+    missionary tracts and Mr. Burford’s dioramas indicated houses,
+    streets, and public buildings, it was still surmised that these were
+    flattering anticipations of what there was to be, just as one may see
+    rows of semi-detached villas, picturesque drives, shrubberies,
+    miniature lakes, and gothic churches in the window of a land-agent’s
+    office, representing the golden futurity of a site now covered by
+    cattle or corn.  Forty years have passed, and where there might be
+    then a few hard settlers, there are now cities, towns, and villages
+    which England might be proud of; railways, and every possible
+    application of art and science on a scale often exceeding our own.
+    Large congregations meet in handsome churches, stocks and shares are
+    bought and sold, machinery rattles and whizzes, ladies walk through
+    show-rooms full of the last Parisian fashions, dinners are given
+    worthy of our clubs, and operas are performed in a style worthy of
+    Covent Garden, in places where, forty, years ago, men were eating
+    each other.”
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                                 THE END.
+
+
+
+
+ADVERTISEMENTS
+
+
+              Second Edition, price 7s. 6_d._, nearly ready,
+
+                          ROBERTS ON BILLIARDS.
+
+                             BY JOHN ROBERTS,
+                           CHAMPION OF ENGLAND.
+
+                          EDITED BY HENRY BUCK,
+
+                _Author of_ “_The Board of Green Cloth_.”
+
+             WITH TWENTY DIAGRAMS, SHOWING IN A NOVEL MANNER
+                      THE MODE OF “PLAYING BREAKS.”
+
+                              CONTENTS.
+   CHAP.                                  CHAP.
+      I.  PRELIMINARY REMARKS.             XII.  CANNONS.
+     II.  STANDARD GAMES: ENGLISH.        XIII.  PLAYING BREAKS.
+    III.  „ AMERICAN.                      XIV.  A PRACTICAL LESSON.
+     IV.  „ FRENCH.                         XV.  POOL AND PYRAMIDS.
+      V.  INCIDENTS IN MY CAREER.          XVI.  BETTING AND
+                                                 CUSTOMARY
+                                                 REGULATIONS.
+     VI.  SCREW AND THE SIDE TWIST.       XVII.  CURIOSITIES OF THE
+                                                 GAME.
+    VII.  PLAYERS I HAVE MET.            XVIII.  HANDICAPS.
+   VIII.  ROOMS AND TABLES.                XIX.  DEFINITIONS OF
+                                                 TERMS.
+     IX.  STRENGTH.                         XX.  RULES: ENGLISH,
+                                                 AMERICAN, FRENCH.
+      X.  LOSING HAZARDS.                  XXI.  CELEBRATED MATCHES.
+     XI.  WINNING HAZARDS.                XXII.  SHARP PRACTITIONERS.
+
+PALL MALL GAZETTE.—“Of the many works on Billiards submitted to our
+notice lately, that written by Mr. ROBERTS is the best . . .  We do not
+doubt that every one practising for a month, with the diagrams by his
+side, would make more progress than he could boast in a year with the aid
+of any other book that we are acquainted with.”
+
+LAND AND WATER.—“By a series of twenty admirably coloured plates, all the
+most likely strokes are demonstrated . . .  Well printed and unique of
+its kind, and deserving of a place in every young man’s library.”
+
+SPORTING LIFE.—“On the whole the book may be described as the most
+generally interesting on the games we have seen.  The part of it that is
+original is well written, and the extracts are well selected and
+amusing.”
+
+THE SPORTSMAN.—“The Champion must be commended for having produced what
+will become a standard work, and as it is moderate in price, it will
+doubtless meet with a large sale.”
+
+MANCHESTER GUARDIAN.—“He is best in the second part of the volume, which
+gives valuable hints on play.  These hints have accompanying diagrams,
+the execution of which leaves nothing to be desired . . .  We must give
+Mr. ROBERTS credit for using great brevity, plainness, and clearness of
+speech.  What he professes to teach he knows thoroughly, and can put into
+the fewest words.”
+
+THE FIELD.—“The qualification which contributes most to Mr. ROBERTS’S
+success is the judgment by which he is enabled to calculate
+consequences—to select the most favourable stroke when several are open
+to him, and to play it with such knowledge of strength and angles as to
+leave an easy stroke to follow.  It is this acquired judgment only that
+any work on Billiards can teach, and to this Mr. ROBERTS wisely confines
+his instructions. . . .  The plates are well executed in colours, and the
+positions are clearly defined.”
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                       LONDON: STANLEY RIVERS & CO.
+
+      _Publishers of Scientific Amusements and Pastimes of Society_,
+                     8 PALSGRAVE PLACE, STRAND, W.C.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                             _In the Press_.
+              In crown octavo, cloth gilt, price 7_s._ 6_d._
+
+                         STICK TO IT AND CONQUER:
+
+               ENCOURAGEMENTS FOR YOUNG MEN IN THE EARLIER
+                          DAYS OF THEIR CAREER;
+
+                                  WITH A
+
+                           Treasury of Anecdote
+
+                             ILLUSTRATIVE OF
+
+                  ENGLISH PLUCK, ENDURANCE, AND SUCCESS.
+
+                                  BY THE
+              EDITOR OF “HINTS ON THE CULTURE OF CHARACTER.”
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                                 PART I.
+                            EMBARKING ON LIFE.
+
+ By the Rev. J. R. VERNON, M.A., author of “The Harvest of a Quiet Eye.”
+
+                                 PART II.
+                    MORAL COURAGE IN MOMENTS OF TRIAL.
+
+                                PART III.
+                     THE QUIET HEROISM OF DAILY LIFE.
+
+By the Rev. FREDERICK ARNOLD, author of “The Path on Earth to the Gate of
+                                 Heaven.”
+
+                                 PART IV.
+                         ENGLISH CHARACTERISTICS:
+          A Treasury of Choice Anecdote and Biographical Notes.
+
+   1.  STATESMEN.            7.  MEN OF ART.
+   2.  MEN OF PEACE.         8.  MEN OF BUSINESS.
+   3.  MEN OF WAR.           9.  MEDICAL MEN.
+   4.  MEN OF LAW.          10.  PIONEERS & TRAVELLERS.
+   5.  MEN OF LETTERS.      11.  ENGINEERS.
+   6.  MEN OF SCIENCE.      12.  INVENTORS.
+    13.  MEN OF ENTERPRISE, SOCIAL & PHILANTHROPIC.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                       LONDON: STANLEY RIVERS & CO.
+
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SEVEN CURSES OF LONDON***
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