London Labour and the London Poor: Selection (Classics) (71 page)

I am not at liberty to continue this man’s statement at present: it would be a breach of the trust reposed in me. Suffice it, he was in after days tried for his life. Altogether it was a most extraordinary statement; and, from confirmations I received, was altogether truthful. He declared that he was so sick of the life he was now leading, that he would, as a probation, work on any kind of land anywhere for nothing, just to get out of it. He pronounced the lodging-houses the grand encouragements and concealments of crime, though he might be speaking against himself, he said, as he had always hidden safely there during the hottest search. A policeman once walked through the ward in search of him, and he was in bed. He knew the policeman well, and was as well known to the officer, but he was not recognised. He attributed his escape to the thick, bad atmosphere of the place giving his features a different look, and to his having shaved off his whiskers, and pulled his nightcap over his head. The officer, too, seemed half-sick, he said.

It ought also to be added, that this man stated that the severity of the Governments in this penal colony was so extreme, that men thought little of giving others a knock on the head with an axe, to get hanged out of the way. Under the discipline of Captain Macconochie, however, who introduced better order with a kindlier system, there wasn’t a man but what would have laid down his life for him.

Lives of the Boy Inmates of the Casual Wards of the London Workhouses

[pp. 398–402] An intelligent-looking boy, of sixteen years of age, whose dress was a series of ragged coats, three in number – as if one was to
obviate the deficiency of another, since one would not button, and another was almost sleeveless – gave me the following statement. He had long and rather fair hair, and spoke quietly. He said:

‘I’m a native of Wisbeach, in Cambridgeshire, and am sixteen. My father was a shoe-maker, and my mother died when I was five years old, and my father married again. I was sent to school, and can read and write well. My father and step-mother were kind enough to me. I was apprenticed to a tailor three years ago, but I wasn’t long with him; I runned away. I think it was three months I was with him when I first runned away. It was in August – I got as far as Boston in Lincolnshire, and was away a fortnight. I had 4
s
. 6
d
. of my own money when I started, and that lasted two or three days. I stopped in lodging-houses until my money was gone, and then I slept anywhere – under the hedges, or anywhere. I didn’t see so much of life then, but I’ve seen plenty of it since. I had to beg my way back from Boston, but was very awkward at first. I lived on turnips mainly. My reason for running off was because my master ill-used me so; he beat me, and kept me from my meals, and made me sit up working late at nights for a punishment: but it was more to his good than to punish me. I hated to be confined to a tailor’s shopboard, but I would rather do that sort of work now than hunger about like this. But you see, sir, God punishes you when you don’t think of it. When I went back my father was glad to see me, and he wouldn’t have me go back again to my master, and my indentures were cancelled. I stayed at home seven months, doing odd jobs, in driving sheep, or any country work, but I always wanted to be off to sea. I liked the thoughts of going to sea far better than tailoring. I determined to go to sea if I could. When a dog’s determined to have a bone, it’s not easy to hinder him. I didn’t read stories about the sea then, not even “Robinson Crusoe” – indeed I haven’t read that still, but I know very well there is such a book. My father had no books but religious books; they were all of a religious turn, and what people might think dull, but they never made me dull. I read Wesley’s and Watts’s hymns, and religious magazines of different connexions. I had a natural inclination for the sea, and would like to get to it now. I’ve read a good deal about it since – Clark’s “Lives of Pirates”, “Tales of Shipwrecks”, and other things in penny numbers (Clark’s I got out of a library though). I was what people called a deep boy for a book; and am still. Whenever I had a penny, after I got a bellyful of victuals, it went for a book, but I haven’t bought many lately. I did buy one yesterday – the “Family Herald” – one I often read when I can get it. There’s good reading in it; it elevates your mind – anybody that has a mind for studying. It has good tales in it. I never read “Jack
Sheppard” – that is, I haven’t read the big book that’s written about him; but I’ve often heard the boys and men talk about it at the lodging-houses and other places. When they haven’t their bellies and money to think about they sometimes talk about books; but for such books as them – that’s as “Jack” – I haven’t a partiality. I’ve read “Windsor Castle”, and “The Tower” – they’re by the same man. I liked “Windsor Castle”, and all about Henry VIII and Herne the hunter. It’s a book that’s connected with history, and that’s a good thing in it. I like adventurous tales. I know very little about theatres, as I was never in one.

‘Well, after that seven months – I was kindly treated all the time – I runned away again to get to sea; and hearing so much talk about this big London, I comed to it. I couldn’t settle down to anything but the sea. I often watched the ships at Wisbeach. I had no particular motive, but a sort of pleasure in it. I was aboard some ships, too; just looking about, as lads will. I started without a farthing, but I couldn’t help it. I felt I must come. I forgot all I suffered before – at least, the impression had died off my mind. I came up by the unions when they would take me in. When I started, I didn’t know where to sleep any more than the dead; I learned it from other travellers on the road. It was two winters ago, and very cold weather. Sometimes I slept in barns, and I begged my way as well as I could. I never stole anything then or since, except turnips; but I’ve been often tempted. At last I got to London, and was by myself. I travelled sometimes with others as I came up, but not as mates – not as friends. I came to London for one purpose just by myself. I was a week in London before I knew where I was. I didn’t know where to go. I slept on door-steps, or anywhere. I used often to stand on London-bridge, but I didn’t know where to go to get to sea, or anything of that kind. I was sadly hungered, regularly starved; and I saw so many policemen, I durstn’t beg – and I dare not now, in London. I got crusts, but I can hardly tell how I lived. One night I was sleeping under a railway-arch, somewhere about Bishopsgate-street, and a policeman came and asked me what I was up to? I told him I had no place to go to, so he said I must go along with him. In the morning he took me and four or five others to a house in a big street. I don’t know where; and a man – a magistrate, I suppose he was – heard what the policeman had to say, and he said there was always a lot of lads there about the arches, young thieves, that gave him a great deal of trouble, and I was one associated with them. I declare I didn’t know any of the other boys, nor any boys in London – not a soul; and I was under the arch by myself, and only that night. I never saw the policeman himself before that, as I know of. I got fourteen days of it, and they took me in an omnibus, but I don’t
know to what prison. I was committed for being a rogue and something else. I didn’t very well hear what other things I was, but “rogue” I know was one. They were very strict in prison, and I wasn’t allowed to speak. I was put to oakum some days, and others on a wheel. That’s the only time I was ever in prison, and I hope it will always be the only time. Something may turn up – there’s nobody knows. When I was turned out I hadn’t a farthing given to me. And so I was again in the streets, without knowing a creature, and without a farthing in my pocket, and nothing to get one with but my tongue. I set off that day for the country. I didn’t try to get a ship, because I didn’t know where to go to ask, and I had got ragged, and they wouldn’t hear me out if I asked any people about the bridges. I took the first road that offered, and got to Greenwich. I couldn’t still think of going back home. I would if I had had clothes, but they were rags, and I had no shoes but a pair of old slippers. I was sometimes sorry I left home, but then I began to get used to travelling, and to beg a bit in the villages. I had no regular mate to travel with, and no sweethearts. I slept in the unions whenever I could get in – that’s in the country. I didn’t never sleep in the London workhouses till afterwards. In some country places there were as many as forty in the casual wards, men, women, and children; in some, only two or three. There used to be part boys, like myself, but far more bigger than I was; they were generally from eighteen to twenty-three: London chaps, chiefly, I believe. They were a regularly jolly set. They used to sing and dance a part of the nights and mornings in the wards, and I got to sing and dance with them. We were all in a mess; there was no better or no worse among us. We used to sing comic and sentimental songs, both. I used to sing “Tom Elliott”, that’s a sea song, for I hankered about the sea, and “I’m Afloat”. I hardly know any but sea-songs. Many used to sing indecent songs; they’re impudent blackguards. They used to sell these songs among the others, but I never sold any of them, and I never had any, though I know some, from hearing them often. We told stories sometimes; romantic tales, some; others blackguard kind of tales, about bad women; and others about thieving and roguery; not so much about what they’d done themselves, as about some big thief that was very clever at stealing, and could trick anybody. Not stories such as Dick Turpin or Jack Sheppard, or things that’s in history, but inventions. I used to say when I was telling a story – for I’ve told one story that I invented till I learnt it –

[I give this story to show what are the objects of admiration with these vagrants.]

‘“You see, mates, there was once upon a time, and a very good time
it was, a young man, and he runned away, and got along with a gang of thieves, and he went to a gentleman’s house, and got in, because one of his mates sweethearted the servant, and got her away, and she left the door open.” [‘But don’t,’ he expostulated, ‘take it all down that way; it’s foolishness. I’m ashamed of it – it’s just what we say to amuse ourselves.’] “And the door being left open, the young man got in and robbed the house of a lot of money, 1000
l
., and he took it to their gang at the cave. Next day there was a reward out to find the robber. Nobody found him. So the gentleman put out two men and a horse in a field, and the men were hidden in the field, and the gentleman put out a notice that anybody that could catch the horse should have him for his cleverness, and a reward as well; for he thought the man that got the idol. was sure to try to catch that there horse, because he was so bold and clever, and then the two men hid would nab him. This here Jack (that’s the young man) was watching, and he saw the two men, and he went and caught two live hares. Then he hid himself behind a hedge, and let one hare go, and one man said to the other, “There goes a hare,” and they both run after it, not thinking Jack’s there. And while they were running he let go the t ’other one, and they said, “There’s another hare,” and they ran different ways, and so Jack went and got the horse, and took it to the man that offered the reward, and got the reward; it was 100
l
.; and the gentleman said “D—n it, Jack’s done me this time.” The gentleman then wanted to serve out the parson, and he said to Jack, “I’ll give you another 100
l
. if you’ll do something to the parson as bad as you’ve done to me.” Jack said, “Well, I will;” and Jack went to the church and lighted up the lamps, and rang the bells, and the parson he got up to see what was up. Jack was standing in one of the pews like an angel, when the parson got to the church. Jack said, “Go and put your plate in a bag; I’m an angel come to take you up to heaven.” And the parson did so, and it was as much as he could drag to church from his house in a bag; for he was very rich. And when he got to the church Jack put the parson in one bag, and the money stayed in the other; and he tied them both together, and put them across his horse, and took them up hills and through water to the gentleman’s, and then he took the parson out of the bag, and the parson was wringing wet. Jack fetched the gentleman, and the gentleman gave the parson a horsewhipping, and the parson cut away, and Jack got all the parson’s money and the second 100
l
., and gave it all to the poor. And the parson brought an action against the gentleman for horsewhipping him, and they both were ruined. That’s the end of it.” That’s the sort of story that’s liked best, sir. Sometimes there was fighting in the casual-wards. Sometimes I was in it, I was like
the rest. We jawed each other often, calling names and coming to fight at last. At Romsey a lot of young fellows broke all the windows they could get at, because they were too late to be admitted. They broke them from the outside. We couldn’t get at them from inside. I’ve carried on begging, and going from union to union to sleep, until now. Once I got work in Northampton with a drover. I kept working when he’d a job, from August last to the week before Christmas. I always tried to get a ship in a seaport, but couldn’t. I’ve been to Portsmouth, Plymouth, Bristol, Southampton, Ipswich, Liverpool, Brighton, Dover, Shoreham, Hastings, and all through Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, and Suffolk – not in Norfolk – they won’t let you go there. I don’t know why. All this time I used to meet boys like myself, but mostly bigger and older; plenty of them could read and write, some were gentlemen’s sons, they said. Some had their young women with them that they’d taken up with, but I never was much with them. I often wished I was at home again, and do now, but I can’t think of going back in these rags; and I don’t know if my father’s dead or alive [his voice trembled], but I’d like to be there and have it over. I can’t face meeting them in these rags, and I’ve seldom had better, I make so little money. I’m unhappy at times, but I get over it better than I used, as I get accustomed to this life. I never heard anything about home since I left. I have applied at the Marine Society here, but it’s no use. If I could only get to sea, I’d be happy; and I’d be happy if I could get home, and would, but for the reasons I’ve told you.’