right is, that any freeman may employ his own servants in the porterage
of his own goods, and even that has been disputed. The first mention of
the privileged porters is in the early part of the 16th century.

[Illustration: STREET PORTER WITH KNOT.

[_From a Photograph._]]

It is almost impossible to classify the especial functions of the
different classes of porters; for they seem to have become especial
functions through custom and prescriptive right, and they are not
defined precisely in any legitimate or municipal enactment. Even at the
present time, what constitutes the business of a fellowship-porter,
what of a ticket-porter, and on what an unprivileged porter (known as
a foreigner, because a non-freeman) may be employed, are matters of
dispute.

A reference to city enactments, and the aid of a highly intelligent
member of the fraternity of ticket-porters, enables me to give the
following account, which is the more interesting, as it relates
to a class of labourers whose numbers, with the exception of the
fellowship-porters, have been limited since 1838, and who must
necessarily die out from want of renewal. In the earliest common
council enactments (June 27, 1606) on the subject of porterage,
the distinctions given, or rather intimated incidentally,
are--“Tackle-house porter, porter-packer of the gooddes of English
merchants, streete-porter, or porter to the packer for the said
citie for strangers’ goods.” As regards the term ticket porter, not
mentioned in this enumeration, I have to observe that all porters are
necessarily ticket-porters, which means that they can produce a ticket
or a document, showing that they are duly qualified, and have been
“admitted and allowed to use the feate of a porter,” by being freemen
of the city and members of a porter’s company or fellowship. In some
of the older city documents tackle and ticket-porters are mentioned
as if constituting one class; and they did constitute one class when
their labour was identical, as to a great extent it was. In 1712 they
are mentioned or indicated as one body, although the first clause
of the common council enactment sets out that several controversies
and quarrels have lately arisen between the tackle-house porters and
the ticket-porters touching the labour or work to them respectively
belonging, notwithstanding the several acts of this court heretofore
made. As these acts were vague and contradictory, the controversies
were a natural consequence.

The tackle-porters were employed in the weighing of goods for any
purpose of shipping, duty, or sale, which was formerly carried on
in public in the city. But there was a city officer known as the
master-weigher, styled “Mr. Weigher,” in the old acts, and the
profits of the weighing thus carried on publicly in the city went to
the hospitals. In 1607 it was enacted (I give the old orthography,
with its many contractions), “that no p’son or p’sons usinge the
feate of a porter, or being a forreynor, inholder, wharfinger, or
keye-keeper, where any merchaunts’ gooddes are to bee landed or laidd,
or such-like, shall at any time after the making and publishing of
this acte, have, use, keepe, or use within the said citie or l’b’ties
thereof, any manner triangle, with beams, scales, and weightes, or
any other balance, in any sorte, to weigh any the goods, wares, or
merchandize, of any merchant or merchants, p’son or p’sons whatsoever,
within the said citie or lib’ties thereof, whereby the proffyte
cominge and growinge to the hospitals of the said cytie, by weighinge
at the yron beams or at the great beame at the weigh-house, or the
proffytes of the Mr. Weigher and porters of the same weigh-house,
may in anywise be impeached, hindered, or diminished.” The privilege
of “weighinge” fell gradually into desuetude; but there is no record
of the precise periods. However, a vestige of it still remains; as I
shall show in my account of the markets, as it properly comes under
that head. There were 24 tackle-porters appointed; each of the 12
great city companies appointing two. These 12 companies are--the
Mercers’, Grocers’, Drapers’, Fishmongers’, Gold-smiths’, Skinners’,
Ironmongers’, Vintners’, and Clothworkers’. The 24 appointed porters
were known, it appears, as “maister-porters;” but as it was impossible
that they could do all the work required, they called to them the aid
of “fellowes,” freemen of the city, and members of their society,
who in time seem to have been known simply as ticket-porters. If a
sufficiency of these fellows, or ticket-porters, could not be made
available on any emergency, the maisters could employ any “foreign
porter not free of this cyttie, using the feate of a porter-packer of
the goods of English merchants, or the feate of a streete-porter, at
the tyme of the making of this acte (1607), and which at this present
is commemorante in the same citye or suburbes thereof, charged with
familye, or, being a single man, bringing a good certificate in the
wryting, under the handes of the churchwardens of the parish where he
is resident, or other substantiall neighbours, to the number of fower,
of his good conversacon and demeanor.” This employment, however, was
not to be to the prejudice of the privileged porters; and that the
employment of foreigners was resorted to jealously, and only through
actual necessity, is sufficiently shown by the whole tenor of the
enactments on the subject. The very act which I have just cited, as
permitting the employment of foreigners, contains a complaint in its
preamble that the toleration of these men caused many “of badd and
lewde condition daylie to resorte from the most parte of this realme
to the said cytie, suburbs and places adjoining, procuring themselves
small habytacons, namely, one chamber-roome for a poor foreignere and
his familye in a small cottage, with some other as poore as himself,
to the great increase and pestringe of this cyttie with poor people;
many of them provinge shifters, lyvinge by cozeninge, stealinge and
imbeazellinge men’s goods, as opportunity may serve them.” A somewhat
curious precedent as regards the character of the dwellings, being
in “one chamber-roome,” &c., for the abodes of the workmen, for the
slop-tailors and others in our day, as I have shown in my previous
letters.

The ticket-porters in 1846 are described as 3000 persons and upwards,
which sufficiently shows their importance; and in 1712 a Common
Council enactment provides that they shall have and enjoy the work
or labour of unshipping, landing, carrying and housing of pitch,
tar, soap, ashes, clapboards, wainscot, fir-poles, masts, deals,
oars, chests, tables, flax and hemp, brought hither from Dantzic,
Melvyn, or any other part or place of the countries commonly called
the east countries. Also of the imports from Ireland, “from any of
the plantations belonging to Great Britain, and of all manner of
coast-goods, (except lead).” The tackle-house porters were, by the same
enactment, to “have and enjoy the work and labour of the shipping and
all goods imported and belonging to the South Sea Company, or to the
Company of Merchants trading to the East Indies, and of all other goods
and merchandizes coming from other ports not before mentioned.” The
functions of the tackle-house and ticket-porters are by this regulation
in 1712 made identical as to labour, with merely the distinction as
to the place from which the goods were received: and as the number of
tackle-house porters was properly 24, with them must be included, I
presume, all such ticket-porters, but not to the full number; nor is
it likely that they will be renewed in case of death. The tackle-house
porters that are still in existence, I was told, are gentlemen. One
is a wharfinger, and claims and enjoys the monopoly of labour on his
own wharf. “The tackle-house porters, or most of them, were labourers
within these twenty years.” The tackle-house and ticket-porters still
enjoy, by law, the right to man the work, wherever porterage is
required; or, in other words, to execute the labour themselves, or to
engage men to do it, no matter whether the work relate to shipping, to
the markets, or to mere street-porterage, such as the conveyance of
parcels for hire by men’s labour. The number of the ticket-porters was,
20 years ago, about 600. At that time to become free of the company,
which has no hall but assembles at Guildhall, cost upwards of 40_l._,
but soon afterwards the expense was reduced to 6_l._ 3_s._ 4_d._ By
a resolution of the Common Council, no new ticket-porters have been
appointed since 1838. Previously to becoming a ticket-porter a man
must have taken up his freedom, no matter in what character, and must
produce certificates of good character and security of two freemen,
householders of good credit, each in 100_l._, so that the owner of any
articles entrusted to the ticket-porter may be indemnified in case of
loss. The ticket-porters are not the mere labourers people generally
imagine they are, but are, or were, for their number does now not
exceed 100, decayed tradesmen, who resorted to this means of livelihood
when others had failed. They are also the sons of ticket-porters.
Any freeman of the city, by becoming a member of the Tackle-House
and Ticket-Porters’ Company, was entitled to act as a ticket-porter.
They are still recognised at the markets and the wharfs, but their
privileges are constantly, and more and more infringed. From a highly
intelligent member of their body I had the following statement:--

“It may be true, or it may not, that ticket-porters are not wanted now;
but 15 or 16 years ago a committee of the Common Council, the Market
Committee I believe it was, resolved that the ticket-porters ought to
be upheld, and that 50_l._ should be awarded to us; but we never got
it, it was stopped by some after-resolution. Put it this way, sir. To
get bread for myself and my children I became a ticket-porter, having
incurred great expense in taking up my freedom and all that. Well,
for this expense I enjoyed certain privileges, and enjoy them still
to some extent; but that’s only because I’m well known, and have had
great experience in porterage, and quickness, as it is as much art as
strength. But, supposing that railways have changed the whole business
of the times, are the privileges I have secured with my own money,
and under the sanction of all the old laws of the city, to be taken
from me? If the privileges, though they may not be many, of the rich
city companies are not to be touched, why are mine? Every day they
are infringed. A railway-waggon, for instance, carries a load of meat
to Newgate Market. Ticket-porters have the undoubted right to unload
the meat and carry it to its place of sale; but the railway servants
do that, though only freemen employ their own servants in porterage,
and that only with their own goods, or goods they are concerned in. I
fancy that railway companies are not freemen, and don’t carry their
own property to market for sale. If we complain to the authorities, we
are recommended to take the law of the offenders, and we can only take
it of the person committing the actual offence. And so we may sue a
beggar, whom his employers may send down their line an hour after to
Hull or Halifax, as the saying is. If we are of no further use, don’t
sacrifice, but compensate us, and let us make the best of it, though
we are none of us so young as we were; some are very old, and none are
under 40, because no new members have been made for some years. If a
man’s house be a hindrance to public business, he must be paid a proper
price for it before it can be removed, and so ought we. The Palace
Court people were compensated, and ought not we, who work hard for an
honest living, and have bought the right to work in our portering,
according to the laws of the city, that secure the goldsmiths in their
right of assaying, and all the rich companies in possession of their
lands and possessions? and so it ought to be with our labour.”

The porter-packers have been unknown in the business of the city
for some years; their avocation “in the packinge and shippinge of
strangers’ gooddes,” having barely survived the expiring of the East
India Company’s charter in 1834.

The street porters, or men who occupy, or rather did occupy (for they
are not now always to be found there,) the principal business parts of
the city, are of course ticket-porters, and by the law have exclusive
right of all porterage by hire from “aliens or foreigners” in the
streets, (a freeman may employ his own servant), even to the carrying
of a parcel of the burden of which any one may wish to relieve himself.
They usually, but not always, wear white aprons, and display their
tickets as badges. They do not confine themselves to the streets, but
resort to the wharfs in the fruit or any busy season, and to the meat
and fish-markets, whenever they think there is the chance of a job,
and the preference, as is not unfrequently the case, likely to fall
to them, for they are known to be trusty and experienced men. This
shifting of labour from one place to another renders it impossible to
give the number of ticket-porters working in any particular locality.

The fellowship-porters seem to have sprung into existence in
consequence of the misunderstandings of the tackle and ticket-porters,
and in this way, fellowships, or gangs of porters, were confined, or
confined themselves, to the porterage of coal, corn, malt and indeed,
all grain, salt, fruit, and wet fish (conceded to them after many
disputes by the ticket-porters of Billingsgate), and their privileges
are not infringed to any such extent as those of the ticket-porters.

The payments of ticket-porters were settled in 1799.

To or from any of the quays, wharfs, stairs, lanes, or alleys at the
waterside, between the Tower and London Bridge to any part of Lower
Thames-street, Beer-lane, Water-lane, Harp-lane, St. Dunstan’s-hill,
St. Mary-hill, Love-lane, Botolph-lane, Pudding-lane, and
Fish-street-hill:

For any load or parcel by knot or hand--

  Not exceeding   1/2 cwt.     0_s._   4_d._
        „       1      „       0     6
        „       1-1/2  „       0     9
        „       2      „       1     0

For the like weights, and not exceeding Poplar, Bow-church,
Bishop Bonner’s Farm, Kingsland-turnpike, Highbury-place, (Old)
Pancras-church, Portman-square, Grosvenor-square, Hyde-park-corner,
Buckingham-gate, Westminster Infirmary, Tothill-fields Bridewell,
Strutton-ground, Horseferry, Vauxhall, Walworth-turnpike, and places of
the like distance--

  Not exceeding   1/2 cwt.     2_s._   9_d._
        „       1      „       3     3
        „       1-1/2  „       3     9
        „       2      „       5     0

I cite these regulations to show the distances to which porters were
sent half a century ago, and the charges. These charges, however, were
not always paid, as the persons employing parties often made bargains
with them, and some twenty years ago the legalised charges were reduced
1_d._ in every 3_d._ The street-porters complain that any one may now,
or at all events does now, ply for hire in the city, and get higher
prices than them.

All ticket-porters pay 8_s._ yearly towards the funds of their society,
which is called quarterage. Out of this a few small pensions are
granted to old women, the widows of ticket-porters.

The difference of the functions of the ticket and fellowship-porters
seems to be this--that the ticket-porters carry dry goods, or those
classed by weight or bulk, the fellowship-porters carry measured goods.

LONDON VAGRANTS.

The evils consequent upon the uncertainty of labour I have already been
at considerable pains to point out. There is still one other mischief
attendant upon it that remains to be exposed, and which, if possible,
is greater than any other yet adduced. Many classes of labour are
necessarily uncertain or fitful in their character. Some work can be
pursued only at certain seasons; some depends upon the winds, as, for
instance, dock labour; some on fashion; and nearly all on the general
prosperity of the country. Now, the labourer who is deprived of his
usual employment by any of the above causes, must, unless he has laid
by a portion of his earnings while engaged, become a burden to his
parish, or the state, or else he must seek work, either of another
kind or in another place. The mere fact of a man’s seeking work in
different parts of the country, may be taken as evidence that he is
indisposed to live on the charity or labour of others; and this feeling
should be encouraged in every rational manner. Hence the greatest
facility should be afforded to all labourers who may be unable to
obtain work in one locality, to pass to another part of the country
where there may be a demand for their labour. In fine, it is expedient
that every means should be given for extending the labour-market for
the working classes; that is to say, for allowing them as wide a field
for the exercise of their calling as possible. To do this involves the
establishment of what are called the “casual wards” of the different
unions throughout the country. These are, strictly speaking, the free
hostelries of the unemployed workpeople, where they may be lodged and
fed, on their way to find work in some more active district. But the
establishment of these gratuitous hotels has called into existence a
large class of wayfarers, for whom they were never contemplated. They
have been the means of affording great encouragement to those vagabond
or erratic spirits who find continuity of application to any task
specially irksome to them, and who are physically unable or mentally
unwilling to remain for any length of time in the same place, or at the
same work--creatures who are vagrants in disposition and principle; the
wandering tribe of this country; the nomads of the present day.

“The right which every person apparently destitute possesses, to
demand food and shelter, affords,” says Mr. Pigott, in the Report on
Vagrancy, “great facilities and encouragement to idle and dissolute
persons to avoid labour, and pass their lives in idleness and pillage.
There can be no doubt that of the wayfarers who, in summer especially,
demand admission into workhouses, the number of those whom the law
contemplates under the titles of ‘idle and disorderly,’ and ‘rogues and
vagabonds,’ greatly exceeds that of those who are honestly and _bonâ
fide_ travelling in search of employment, and that it is the former
class whose numbers have recently so increased as to require a remedy.”

It becomes almost a necessary result of any system which seeks to give
shelter and food to the industrious operative in his way to look for
work, that it should be the means of harbouring and fostering the idle
and the vagabond.

To refuse an asylum to the vagrant is to shut out the traveller; so
hard is it to tell the one from the other.

The prime cause of vagabondism is essentially the non-inculcation
of a habit of industry; that is to say, the faculty of continuous
application at a particular form of work, has not been engendered in
the individual’s mind, and he has naturally an aversion to any regular
occupation, and becomes erratic, wandering from this thing to that,
without any settled or determined object. Hence we find, that the
vagrant disposition begins to exhibit itself precisely at that age
when the first attempts are made to inculcate the habit of continuous
labour among youths. This will be seen by the table in the opposite
page (taken from the Returns of the Houseless Poor), which shows the
greatest number of inmates to be between the ages of fifteen and
twenty-five.

The cause of the greater amount of vagrancy being found among
individuals between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five (and it is
not by the table alone that this fact is borne out), appears to be
the irksomeness of any kind of sustained labour when first performed.
This is especially the case with youth; and hence a certain kind
of compulsion is necessary, in order that the habit of doing the
particular work may be engendered. Unfortunately, however, at this
age the self-will of the individual begins also to be developed, and
any compulsion or restraint becomes doubly irksome. Hence, without
judicious treatment, the restraint may be entirely thrown off by the
youth, and the labour be discarded by him, before any steadiness of
application has been produced by constancy of practice. The cause of
vagrancy then resolves itself, to a great extent, into the harshness of
either parents or employers; and this it will be found is generally
the account given by the vagrants themselves. They have been treated
with severity, and being generally remarkable for their self-will, have
run away from their home or master to live while yet mere lads in some
of the low lodging-houses. Here they find companions of the same age
and character as themselves, with whom they ultimately set out on a
vagabond excursion through the country, begging or plundering on their
way.

Another class of vagrants consists of those who, having been thrown out
of employment, have travelled through the country, seeking work without
avail, and who, consequently, have lived on charity so long, that the
habits of wandering and mendicancy have eradicated their former habits
of industry, and the industrious workman has become changed into the
habitual beggar.

THE AGES OF APPLICANTS FOR SHELTER AT THE CENTRAL ASYLUM,
PLAYHOUSE-YARD, WHITECROSS-STREET, IN THE YEAR 1849.

                  Age.      No. of
                 Months.  Applicants.

  Children under    1         17
  Children of       1          4
       „            2         42
       „            3         21
       „            4         14
       „            5         14
       „            6         26
       „            7         30
       „            8          7
       „            9         14
       „           10          7
       „           11          5
                             ---
                             201

   Age.       No. of
  Years.    Applicants.
    1            28
    2            22
    3            28
    4            30
    5            36
    6            39
    7            56
    8            38
    9            92
   10           108
   11           104
   12           107
   13           177
   14           102
   15           268
   16           259
   17           380
   18           336
   19           385
   20           296
   21           335
   22           386
   23           295
   24           399
   25           122
   26           238
   27           219
   28           238
   29            84
   30           294
   31            56
   32            91
   33           105
   34            98
   35           186
   36            98
   37            63
   38            56
   39            42
   40           117
   41            63
   42            91
   43            49
   44            42
   45            91
   46            28
   47            35
   48            56
   49            84
   50           108
   51            28
   52            46
   53            44
   54            21
   55            49
   56            35
   57            27
   58            35
   59            27
   60            35
   61             7
   62            14
   63             7
   64            14
   65            12
   66             6
   67            10
   68             7
   69             4
   70             7
   71             4
   72             6
   73             7
   74             6
   75             7
   76             6
   77             2
   78             4
   79             0
   80             2

“Having investigated the general causes of depredation, of vagrancy,
and mendicancy,” say the Constabulary Commissioners, in the Government
Reports of 1839 (p. 181), “as developed by examinations of the previous
lives of criminals or vagrants in the gaols, we find that scarcely
in any cases is it ascribable to the pressure of unavoidable want
or destitution, and that in the great mass of cases it arises from
the temptation of obtaining property with a less degree of labour
than by regular industry.” Again, in p. 63 of the same Report, we
are told that “the inquiries made by the most experienced officers
into the causes of vagrancy manifest, that in all but three or four
per cent the prevalent cause was the impatience of steady labour.”
My investigations into this most important subject lead me, I may
add, to the same conclusions. In order to understand the question of
vagrancy thoroughly, however, we must not stop here; we must find out
what, in its turn, is the cause of this impatience of steady labour;
or, in other words, we must ascertain whence comes the desire to
obtain property with a less degree of labour than by regular industry.
Now, all “steady labour”--that is to say, the continuance of any
labour for any length of time--is naturally irksome to us. We are
all innately erratic--prone to wander both in thought and action;
and it is only by a vigorous effort, which is more or less painful
to us at first, that we can keep ourselves to the steady prosecution
of the same object, to the repeated performance of the same acts, or
even to continuous attention to the same subject. Labour and effort
are more or less irksome to us all. There are, however, two means by
which this irksomeness may be not only removed, but transformed into
a positive pleasure. One is, by the excitement of some impulse or
purpose in the mind of the workman; and the other, by the inculcation
of a habit of working. Purpose and habit are the only two modes by
which labour can be rendered easy to us; and it is precisely because
the vagrant is deficient in both that he has an aversion to work for
his living, and wanders through the country without an object, or,
indeed, a destination. A love of industry is not a gift, but a habit;
it is an accomplishment rather than an endowment; and our purposes
and principles do not arise spontaneously from the promptings of our
own instincts and affections, but are the mature result of education,
example, and deliberation. A vagrant, therefore, is an individual
applying himself continuously to no one thing, nor pursuing any one aim
for any length of time, but wandering from this subject to that, as
well as from one place to another, because in him no industrial habits
have been formed, nor any principle or purpose impressed upon his
nature.

Pursuing the subject still further, we shall find that the cause
of the vagrant’s wandering through the country--and indeed through
life--purposeless, objectless, and _unprincipled_, in the literal and
strict meaning of the term, lies mainly in the defective state of our
educational institutions; for the vagrants, as a class, it should
be remembered, are not “educated.” We teach a lad reading, writing,
and arithmetic, and believe that in so doing we are developing the
moral functions of his nature; whereas it is often this ability
to _read merely_--that is to say, to read without the least moral
perception--which becomes the instrument of the youth’s moral
depravity. The “Jack Sheppard” of Mr. Harrison Ainsworth is borrowed
from the circulating library, and read aloud in the low lodging-houses
in the evening by those who have a little education, to their
companions who have none; and because the thief is there furbished up
into the hero--because the author has tricked him out with a sort of
brute insensibility to danger, made “noble blood flow in his veins,”
and tinselled him over with all kinds of showy sentimentality--the poor
boys who listen, unable to see through the trumpery deception, are led
to look up to the paltry thief as an object of admiration, and to make
his conduct the _beau idéal_ of their lives. Of all books, perhaps
none has ever had so baneful an effect upon the young mind, taste, and
principles as this. None has ever done more to degrade literature to
the level of the lowest licentiousness, or to stamp the author and the
teacher as guilty of pandering to the most depraved propensities. Had
Mr. Ainsworth been with me, and seen how he had vitiated the thoughts
and pursuits of hundreds of mere boys--had he heard the names of the
creatures of his morbid fancy given to youths at an age when they
needed the best and truest counsellors--had he seen these poor little
wretches, as I have seen them, grin with delight at receiving the
degrading titles of “Blue skin,” “Dick Turpin,” and “Jack Sheppard,”
he would, I am sure, ever rue the day which led him to paint the most
degraded and abandoned of our race as the most noble of human beings.
What wonder, then, that--taught either in no school at all, or else in
that meretricious one which makes crime a glory, and dresses up vice
as virtue--these poor lads should be unprincipled in every act they
do--that they should be either literally actuated by no principles at
all, or else fired with the basest motives and purposes, gathered from
books which distort highway robbery into an act of noble enterprise,
and dignify murder as justifiable homicide?

Nor are the habits of the young vagrant less cultivated than his
motives. The formation of that particular habit which we term industry,
and by which the youth is fitted to obtain his living as a man, is
perhaps the most difficult part of all education. It commences at an
age when the will of the individual is beginning to develope itself,
and when the docile boy is changed into the impatient young man. Too
great lenity, or too strict severity of government, therefore, becomes
at this period of life dangerous. If the rule be too lax, the restless
youth, disgusted with the monotony of pursuing the same task, or
performing the same acts, day by day, neglects his work--till habits
of indolence, rather than industry, are formed, and he is ultimately
thrust upon the world, without either the means or the disposition
of labouring for his living. If, on the other hand, the authority of
the parent or master be too rigidly exercised, and the lad’s power
of endurance be taxed too severely, then the self-will of the youth
is called into action; and growing restless and rebellious under the
tyranny of his teachers, he throws off their restraint, and leaves
them--with a hatred, instead of a love of labour engendered within
him. That these are two of the primary causes of vagrancy, all my
inquiries have tended to show. The proximate cause certainly lies in
the impatience of steady labour; but the cause of this impatience
is referable to the non-formation of any habit of industry in the
vagrant, and the absence of this habit of industry is usually due to
the neglect or the tyranny of the lad’s parent or master. This is no
theory, be it remembered. Whether it be the master of the workhouse,
where the vagrants congregate every night--whether it be the young
vagrant himself, or the more experienced tramp--that speaks upon
the subject, all agree in ascribing the vagabondism of youth to the
same cause. There is, however, another phase of vagrancy still to be
explained; viz. the transition of the working man into the regular
tramp and beggar. This is the result of a habit of dependence, produced
in the operative by repeated visits to the casual wards of the unions.
A labouring man, or mechanic, deprived of employment in a particular
town, sets out on a journey to seek work in some other part of the
country. The mere fact of his so journeying to seek work shows that
he has a natural aversion to become a burden to the parish. He is no
sooner, however, become an inmate of the casual wards, and breakfasts
and sups off the bounty of the workhouse, than he learns a most
dangerous lesson--he learns how to live by the labour of others. His
sense of independence may be shocked at first, but repeated visits
to the same places soon deaden his feelings on this score; and he
gradually, from continual disuse, loses his habit of labouring, and
ultimately, by long custom, acquires a habit of “tramping” through
the country, and putting up at the casual wards of the unions by the
way. Thus, what was originally designed as a means of enabling the
labouring man to obtain work, becomes the instrument of depriving him
of employment, by rendering it no longer a necessity for him to seek
it; and the independent workman is transformed after a time into the
habitual tramper, and finally into the professional beggar and petty
thief. Such characters, however, form but a small proportion of the
great body of vagabonds continually traversing the country.

The vagrants are essentially the non-working, as distinguished from
the hard-working, men of England. They are the very opposite to the
industrious classes, with whom they are too often confounded. Of the
really destitute working-men, among the vagrants seeking relief at the
casual wards, the proportion is very small; the respectable mechanics
being deterred by disgust from herding with the filth, infamy, disease,
and vermin congregated in the tramp-wards of the unions, and preferring
the endurance of the greatest privations before subjecting themselves
to it. “I have had this view confirmed by several unfortunate persons,”
says Mr. Boase, in the Poor-law Report on Vagrancy: “they were
apparently mechanics out of employment, who spoke of the horrors passed
in a tramp-ward, and of their utter repugnance at visiting such places
again.” “The poor mechanic,” says the porter at the Holborn workhouse,
“will sit in the casual wards like a lost man--_scared_. It’s shocking
to think a decent mechanic’s houseless,” he adds; “when he’s beat
out, he’s like a bird out of a cage: he doesn’t know where to go, or
how to get a bit.” But the highest tribute ever paid to the sterling
honesty and worth of the working men of this country, is to be found
in the testimony of the master of the Wandsworth and Clapham Union.
“The destitute mechanics,” he says, “are entirely a different class
from the regular vagrant; they have different habits, and, indeed,
different features. They are strictly honest. During the whole of my
experience, I never knew a distressed artisan who applied for a night’s
shelter commit an act of theft; and I have seen them,” he adds, “in the
last stage of destitution. Occasionally they have sold the shirt and
waistcoat off their backs, before they applied for admittance into the
workhouse; while some of them have been so weak from long starvation,
that they could scarcely reach the gate, and, indeed, had to be kept
for several days in the infirmary, before their strength was recruited
sufficiently to continue their journey.” For myself, I can safely say,
that my own experience fully bears out this honourable declaration
of the virtues of our working men. Their extreme patience under the
keenest privations is a thing that the wisest philosophers might envy;
their sympathy and charity for their poorer brethren far exceeds, in
its humble way, the benevolence and bounty of the rich; while their
intelligence, considering the little time they have for study and
reflection, is almost marvellous. In a word, their virtues are the
spontaneous expressions of their simple natures; and their vices are
the comparatively pardonable excesses, consequent upon the intensity of
their toil. I say thus much in this place, because I am anxious that
the public should no longer confound the honest, independent working
men, with the vagrant beggars and pilferers of the country; and that
they should see that the one class is as respectable and worthy, as the
other is degraded and vicious.

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE VARIOUS CLASSES OF VAGRANTS.

I now come to the characteristics of vagrant life, as seen in the
casual wards of the metropolitan unions. The subject is one of the
most important with which I have yet had to deal, and the facts I have
collected are sufficiently startling to give the public an idea of the
great social bearings of the question; for the young vagrant is the
budding criminal.

Previously to entering upon my inquiry into this subject, I consulted
with a gentleman who had long paid considerable attention to the
question, and who was, moreover, in a position peculiarly fitted for
gaining the greatest experience, and arriving at the correctest notions
upon the matter. I consulted, I say, with the gentleman referred to, as
to the Poor-law officers, from whom I should be likely to obtain the
best information; and I was referred by him to Mr. Knapp, the master of
the Wandsworth and Clapham Union, as one of the most intelligent and
best-informed upon the subject of vagrancy. I found that gentleman all
that he had been represented to me as being, and obtained from him the
following statement, which, as an analysis of the vagrant character,
and a description of the habits and propensities of the young vagabond,
has, perhaps, never been surpassed.

He had filled the office of master of the Wandsworth and Clapham Union
for three years, and immediately before that he was the relieving
officer for the same union for upwards of two years. He was guardian of
Clapham parish for four years previously to his being elected relieving
officer. He was a member of the first board of guardians that was
formed under the new Poor-law Act, and he has long given much attention
to the habits of the vagrants that have come under his notice or care.
He told me that he considered a casual ward necessary in every union,
because there is always a migratory population, consisting of labourers
seeking employment in other localities, and destitute women travelling
to their husbands or friends. He thinks a casual ward is necessary for
the shelter and relief of such parties, since the law will not permit
them to beg. These, however, are by far the smaller proportion of those
who demand admittance into the casual ward. Formerly, they were not
five per cent of the total number of casuals. The remainder consisted
of youths, prostitutes, Irish families, and a few professional
beggars. The youths formed more than one-half of the entire number,
and their ages were from twelve to twenty. The largest number were
seventeen years old--indeed, he adds, just that age when youth becomes
disengaged from parental control. These lads had generally run away,
either from their parents or masters, and many had been reared to a
life of vagrancy. They were mostly shrewd and acute youths; some had
been very well educated. Ignorance, to use the gentleman’s own words,
is certainly not the prevailing characteristic of the class; indeed,
with a few exceptions, he would say it is the reverse. These lads are
mostly distinguished by their aversion to continuous labour of any
kind. He never knew them to work--they are, indeed, essentially the
idle and the vagabond. Their great inclination is to be on the move,
and wandering from place to place; and they appear, he says, to receive
a great deal of pleasure from the assembly and conversation of the
casual ward. They are physically stout, healthy lads, and certainly
not emaciated or sickly. They belong especially to the able-bodied
class, being, as he says, full of health and mischief. When in London,
they live in the day-time by holding horses, and carrying parcels from
the steam-piers and railway termini. Some loiter about the markets in
the hope of a job, and others may be seen in the streets picking up
bones and rags, or along the water-side searching for pieces of old
metal, or anything that may be sold at the marine-store shops. They
have nearly all been in prison more than once, and several a greater
number of times than they are years old. They are the most dishonest
of all thieves, having not the least respect for the property of even
the members of their own class. He tells me he has frequently known
them to rob one another. They are very stubborn and self-willed.
They have often broken every window in the oakum-room, rather than
do the required work. They are a most difficult class to govern, and
are especially restive under the least restraint; they can ill brook
control, and they find great delight in thwarting the authorities of
the workhouse. They are particularly fond of amusements of all kinds.
My informant has often heard them discuss the merits of the different
actors at the minor theatres and saloons. Sometimes they will elect a
chairman, and get up a regular debate, and make speeches from one end
of the ward to the other. Many of them will make very clever comic
orations; others delight in singing comic songs, especially those upon
the workhouse and gaols. He never knew them love reading. They mostly
pass under fictitious names. Some will give the name of “John Russell,”
or “Robert Peel,” or “Richard Cobden.” They often come down to the
casual wards in large bodies of twenty or thirty, with sticks hidden
down the legs of their trousers, and with these they rob and beat those
who do not belong to their own gang. The gang will often consist of
a hundred lads, all under twenty, one-fourth of whom regularly come
together in a body; and in the casual ward they generally arrange
where to meet again on the following night. In the winter of 1846, the
guardians of Wandsworth and Clapham, sympathising with their ragged
and wretched appearance, and desirous of affording them the means of
obtaining an honest livelihood, gave my informant instructions to offer
an asylum to any who might choose to remain in the workhouse. Under
this arrangement, about fifty were admitted. The majority were under
seventeen years of age. Some of them remained a few days--others a few
weeks--none stopped longer than three months; and the generality of
them decamped over the wall, taking with them the clothes of the union.
The confinement, restraint, and order of the workhouse were especially
irksome to them. This is the character of the true vagrant, for whom
my informant considers no provision whatsoever should be made at the
unions, believing as he does that most of them have settlements in or
around London. The casual wards, he tells me, he knows to have been a
great encouragement to the increase of these characters. Several of the
lads that have come under his care had sought shelter and concealment
in the casual wards, after having absconded from their parents. In one
instance, the father and mother of a lad had unavailingly sought their
son in every direction: he discovered that the youth had ran away,
and he sent him home in the custody of one of the inmates; but when
the boy got to within two or three doors of his father’s residence,
he turned round and scampered off. The mother afterwards came to the
union in a state of frantic grief, and said that he had disappeared two
years before. My informant believes that the boy has never been heard
of by his parents since. Others he has restored to their parents, and
some of the young vagrants who have died in the union have, on their
death-beds, disclosed the names and particulars of their families, who
have been always of a highly respectable character. To these he has
sent, and on their visits to their children scenes of indescribable
grief and anguish have taken place. He tells me he is convinced that
it is the low lodging-houses and the casual wards of the unions that
offer a ready means for youths absconding from their homes, immediately
on the least disagreement or restraint. In most of the cases that he
has investigated, he has found that the boys have left home after
some rebuke or quarrel with their parents. On restoring one boy to
his father, the latter said that, though the lad was not ten years
old, he had been in almost every workhouse in London; and the father
bitterly complained of the casual wards for offering shelter to a youth
of such tender years. But my informant is convinced that, even if the
casual wards throughout the country were entirely closed--the low
lodging-houses being allowed to remain in their present condition--the
evil would not be remedied, if at all abated. A boy after running away
from home, generally seeks shelter in one of the cheap lodging-houses,
and there he makes acquaintance with the most depraved of both sexes.
The boys at the house become his regular companions, and he is soon a
confirmed vagrant and thief like the rest. The youths of the vagrant
class are particularly distinguished for their libidinous propensities.
They frequently come to the gate with a young prostitute, and with her
they go off in the morning. With this girl, they will tramp through
the whole of the country. They are not remarkable for a love of
drink,--indeed, my informant never saw a regular vagrant in a state
of intoxication, nor has he known them to exhibit any craving for
liquor. He has had many drunkards under his charge, but the vagrant
is totally distinct, having propensities not less vicious, but of a
very different kind. He considers the young tramps to be generally
a class of lads possessing the keenest intellect, and of a highly
enterprising character. They seem to have no sense of danger, and to
be especially delighted with such acts as involve any peril. They
are likewise characterised by their exceeding love of mischief. The
property destroyed in the union of which my informant is the master has
been of considerable value, consisting of windows broken, sash-frames
demolished, beds and bedding torn to pieces, and rags burnt. They will
frequently come down in large gangs, on purpose to destroy the property
in the union. They generally are of a most restless and volatile
disposition. They have great quickness of perception, but little power
of continuous attention or perseverance. They have a keen sense of the
ridiculous, and are not devoid of deep feeling. He has often known
them to be dissolved to tears on his remonstrating with them on the
course they were following--and then they promise amendment; but in a
few days, and sometimes hours, they would forget all, and return to
their old habits. In the summer they make regular tours through the
country, visiting all places that they have not seen, so that there is
scarcely one that is not acquainted with every part within 100 miles
of London, and many with all England. They are perfectly organised,
so that any regulation affecting their comforts or interests becomes
known among the whole body in a remarkably short space of time. As
an instance, he informs me that on putting out a notice that no
able-bodied man or youth would be received in the casual ward after
a certain day, there was not a single application made by any such
party, the regular vagrants having doubtless informed each other that
it was useless seeking admission at this union. In the winter the
young vagrants come to London, and find shelter in the asylums for the
houseless poor. At this season of the year, the number of vagrants in
the casual wards would generally be diminished one-half. The juvenile
vagrants constitute one of the main sources from which the criminals of
the country are continually recruited and augmented. Being repeatedly
committed to prison for disorderly conduct and misdemeanour, the gaol
soon loses all terrors for them; and, indeed, they will frequently
destroy their own clothes, or the property of the union, in order to
be sent there. Hence they soon become practised and dexterous thieves,
and my informant has detected several burglaries by the property found
upon them. The number of this class is stated, in the Poor-law Report
on Vagrancy, to have been, in 1848, no less than 16,086, and they form
one of the most restless, discontented, vicious, and dangerous elements
of society. At the period of any social commotion, they are sure to be
drawn towards the scene of excitement in a vast concourse. During the
Chartist agitation, in the June quarter of the year 1848, the number of
male casuals admitted into the Wandsworth and Clapham Union rose from
2501 to 3968, while the females (their companions) increased from 579
to 1388.

Of the other classes of persons admitted into the casual wards, the
Irish generally form a large proportion. At the time when juvenile
vagrancy prevailed to an alarming extent, the Irish hardly dared
to show themselves in the casual wards, for the lads would beat
them and plunder them of whatever they might have--either the
produce of their begging, or the ragged kit they carried with them.
Often my informant has had to quell violent disturbances in the
night among these characters. The Irish tramp generally makes his
appearance with a large family, and frequently with three or four
generations together--grandfather, grandmother, father, and mother,
and children--all coming at the same time. In the year ending June,
1848, the Irish vagrants increased to so great an extent that, of the
entire number of casuals relieved, more than one-third in the first
three quarters, and more than two-thirds in the last quarter, were
from the sister island. Of the Irish vagrants, the worst class--that
is the poorest and most abject--came over to this country by way of
Newport, in Wales. The expense of the passage to that port was only
2_s._ 6_d._; whereas the cost of the voyage to Liverpool and London
was considerably more, and consequently the class brought over by that
way were less destitute. The Irish vagrants were far more orderly than
the English. Out of the vast number received into the casual ward of
this union during the distress in Ireland, it is remarkable that not
one ever committed an act of insubordination. They were generally very
grateful for the relief afforded, and appeared to subsist entirely by
begging. Some of them were not particularly fond of work, but they were
invariably honest, says my informant--at least so far as his knowledge
went. They were exceedingly filthy in their habits, and many diseased.

These constitute the two large and principal classes of vagrants. The
remainder generally consist of persons temporarily destitute, whereas
the others are habitually so. The temporarily destitute are chiefly
railway and agricultural labourers, and a few mechanics travelling
in search of employment. These are easily distinguishable from the
regular vagrant; indeed, a glance is sufficient to the practised eye.
They are the better class of casuals, and those for whom the wards
are expressly designed, but they only form a very small proportion of
the vagrants applying for shelter. In the height of vagrancy, they
formed not one per cent of the entire number admitted. Indeed, such
was the state of the casual wards, that the destitute mechanics and
labourers preferred walking through the night to availing themselves of
the accommodation. Lately, the artisans and labourers have increased
greatly in proportion, owing to the system adopted for the exclusion
of the habitual vagrant, and the consequent decline of their number.
The working man travelling in search of employment is now generally
admitted into what are called the receiving wards of the workhouse,
instead of the tramp-room, and he is usually exceedingly grateful for
the accommodation. My informant tells me that persons of this class
seldom return to the workhouse after one night’s shelter, and this is
a conclusive proof that the regular working-man seldom passes into an
habitual beggar. They are an entirely distinct class, having different
habits, and, indeed, different features, and I am assured that they
are strictly honest. During the whole experience of my informant, he
never knew one who applied for a night’s shelter commit one act of
dishonesty, and he has seen them in the last stage of destitution.
Occasionally they have sold the shirt and waistcoat off their backs
before they applied for admittance into the workhouse, while some of
them have been so weak from long starvation, that they could scarcely
reach the gate. Such persons are always allowed to remain several days
to recruit their strength. It is for such as these that my informant
considers the casual wards indispensable to every well-conducted
union--whereas it is his opinion that the habitual vagrant, as
contradistinguished from the casual vagrant or wayfaring poor, should
be placed under the management of the police, at the charge of the
union.

Let me, however, first run over, as briefly as possible, the several
classes of vagrants falling under the notice of the parish authorities.
The different kinds of vagrants or tramps to be found in the casual
wards of the unions throughout the country, may be described as
follows:--“The more important class, from its increasing numbers,”
says Mr. Boase, in the Poor-law Report upon Vagrancy, “is that of the
regular young English vagabond, generally the native of a large town.
He is either a runaway apprentice, or he has been driven from home
by the cruelty of his parents, or allowed by them to go wild in the
streets: in some cases he is an orphan, and has lost his father and
mother in early life. Having no ties to bind him, he travels about the
country, being sure of a meal, and a roof to shelter him at night. The
youths of this class are principally of from fifteen to twenty-five
years of age. They often travel in parties of two or three--frequently
in large bodies, with young women, as abandoned as themselves, in
company.”

Approaching these in character are the young countrymen who have
absconded--perhaps for some petty poaching offence--and to whom the
facility for leading an idle vagabond life has proved too great a
temptation.

The next class of vagrants is the sturdy English mendicant. He, though
not a constant occupant of the tramp-ward in the workhouse, frequently
makes his appearance there to partake of the shelter, when he has spent
his last shilling in dissipation.

Besides these, there are a few calling themselves agricultural
labourers, who are really such, and who are to be readily
distinguished. There are also a few mechanics--chiefly tailors,
shoemakers, and masons, who are occasionally destitute. The amount of
those really destitute, however, is very small in proportion to the
numbers relieved.

Of the age and sex of tramps, the general proportion seems to be
four-fifths male and one-fifth female.

Of the female English tramps, little can be said, but that they are
in great part prostitutes of the lowest class. The proportion of
really destitute women in the tramp-wards (generally widows with young
children) is greater than that of men--probably from the ability to
brave the cold night wind being less in the female, and the love of the
children getting the shelter, above dread of vile association. Girls of
thirteen or fourteen years old, who run away from masters or factory
employment, often find shelter in the tramp-ward.

The Irish, who, till very recently, formed the majority of the
applicants for casual relief, remain to be described. These can
scarcely be classified in any other way than as those who come to
England to labour, and those who come to beg. The former class,
however, yield readily to their disposition to idleness--the
difficulties of providing supper, breakfast, and lodging for themselves
being removed by the workhouse. This class are physically superior
to the mass of Irish vagrants. It appears that for very many years
considerable numbers of these have annually come to England in
the spring to work at hay-harvest, remaining for corn-harvest and
hop-picking, and then have carried home their earnings in the autumn,
seldom resorting to begging. Since the failure of the potato crop
greater numbers have come to England, and the tramp-ward has been their
principal refuge, and an inducement to many to remain in the country. A
great many harvest men land at Newport and the Welsh ports; but by far
the greater proportion of the Irish in Wales are, or were, women with
small children, old men apparently feeble, pregnant women, and boys
about ten years old. They are brought over by coal-vessels as a return
cargo (living ballast) at very low fares, (2_s._ 6_d._ is the highest
sum), huddled together like pigs, and communicating disease and vermin
on their passage.

Harriet Huxtable, the manager of the tramp-house at Newport,
says:--“There is hardly an Irish family that came over and applied to
me, but we have found a member or two of it ill, some in a shocking
filthy state. They don’t live long, diseased as they are. They are
very remarkable; they will eat salt by basins’ full, and drink a great
quantity of water after. I have frequently known those who could
not have been hungry, eat cabbage-leaves and other refuse from the
ash-heap. I really believe they would eat almost anything.”

“A remarkable fact is, that all the Irish whom I met on my route
between Wales and London,” says Mr. Boase, “said they came from Cork
county. Mr. John, the relieving officer at Cardiff, on his examination,
says, ‘that not 1 out of every 100 of the Irish come from any other
county than Cork.’”

In the township of Warrington, the number of tramps relieved between
the 25th of March, 1847, and the 25th of March, 1848, was:--

  Irish                      12,038
  English                     4,701
  Scotch                        427
  Natives of other places       156
      Making a total of      17,322

Of the original occupations or trades of the vagrants applying
for relief at the different unions throughout the country, there
are no returns. As, however, a considerable portion of these were
attracted to London on the opening of the Metropolitan Asylums for the
Houseless Poor, we may, by consulting the Society’s yearly Reports,
where an account of the callings of those receiving shelter in such
establishments is always given, be enabled to arrive at some rough
estimate as to the state of destitution and vagrancy existing among the
several classes of labourers and artisans for several years.

The following table, being an average drawn from the returns for
seventeen years of the occupation of the persons admitted into the
Asylums for the Houseless Poor, which I have been at considerable
trouble in forming, exhibits the only available information upon this
subject, synoptically arranged:--

  Factory employment              1 in every 3
  Hawkers                                    4
  Labourers (agricultural)                  12
  Seamen                                    12
  Charwomen and washerwomen                 13
  Labourers (general)                       17
  Waddingmakers                             35
  Smiths and ironfounders                   36
  Weavers                                   38
  Brickmakers                               39
  Ropemakers                                41
  Braziers                                  55
  Papermakers and stainers                  58
  Skindressers                              58
  Basketmakers                              62
  Bricklayers, plasterers, and slaters      62
  Gardeners                                 67
  Filecutters                               70
  Sawyers                                   73
  Turners                                   74
  Wireworkers                               75
  Cutlers                                   77
  Harnessmakers and saddlers                80
  Stonemasons                               88
  Dyers                                     94
  Chimneysweeps                             97
  Errand boys                               99
  Porters                                   99
  Painters, plumbers, and glaziers         119
  Cabinetmakers and upholsterers           128
  Shoemakers                               130
  Compositors and printers                 142
  Brushmakers                              145
  Carpenters, joiners, and wheelwrights    150
  Bakers                                   167
  Brassfounders                            177
  Tailors                                  177
  Combmakers                               178
  Coopers                                  178
  Surveyors                                198
  Fellmongers                              203
  Glasscutters                             229
  Bedsteadmakers                           235
  Average for all London                   219
  Butchers                                 248
  Bookbinders                              255
  Mendicants                               256
  Engineers                                265
  Miners                                   267
  Lacemakers                               273
  Poulterers                               273
  Furriers                                 274
  Straw-bonnetmakers                       277
  Trimming and buttonmakers                277
  Ostlers and grooms                       286
  Drovers                                  297
  Hairdressers                             329
  Pipemakers                               340
  Clerks and shopmen                       346
  Hatters                                  350
  Tinmen                                   354
  Tallowchandlers                          364
  Servants                                 377
  Corkcutters                              380
  Jewellers and watchmakers                411
  Umbrella-makers                          415
  Sailmakers                               455
  Carvers and gilders                      500
  Gunsmiths                                554
  Trunkmakers                              569
  Chairmakers                              586
  Fishmongers                              643
  Tanners                                  643
  Musicians                                730
  Leatherdressers and curriers             802
  Coachmakers                              989
  Engravers                              1,133
  Shipwrights                            1,358
  Artists                                1,374
  Drapers                                2,047
  Milliners and dressmakers             10,390

Of the disease and fever which mark the course of the vagrants
wheresoever they go, I have before spoken. The “tramp-fever,” as the
most dangerous infection of the casual wards is significantly termed,
is of a typhoid character, and seems to be communicated particularly
to those who wash the clothes of the parties suffering from it. This
was likewise one of the characteristics of cholera. That the habitual
vagrants should be the means of spreading a pestilence over the country
in their wanderings will not be wondered at, when we find it stated in
the Poor-law Report on Vagrancy, that “in very few workhouses do means
exist of drying the clothes of these paupers when they come in wet, and
it often happens that a considerable number are, of necessity, placed
together wet, filthy, infested with vermin, and diseased, in a small,
unventilated space.” “The majority of tramps, again,” we are told,
“have a great aversion to being washed and cleaned. A regular tramper
cannot bear it; but a distressed man would be thankful for it.”

The cost incurred for the cure of the vagrant sick in 1848, was
considerably more than the expense of the food dispensed to them. Out
of 13,406 vagrants relieved at the Wandsworth and Clapham Union in
1848, there were 332 diseased, or ill with the fever.

The number of vagrants relieved throughout England and Wales in the
same year was 1,647,975; and supposing that the sickness among these
prevailed to the same extent as it did among the casuals at Wandsworth
(according to the Vagrancy Report, it appears to have been much more
severe in many places), there would have been as many as 40,812 sick
in the several unions throughout the country in 1848. The cost of
relieving the 332 sick at Wandsworth was 300_l._; at the same rate, the
expense of the 40,812 sick throughout the country unions would amount
to 36,878_l._ According to the above proportion, the number of sick
relieved in the metropolitan unions would have been 7678, and the cost
for their relief would amount to 6931_l._

Of the tide of crime which, like that of pestilence, accompanies the
stream of vagrants, there are equally strong and conclusive proofs.
“The most prominent body of delinquents in the rural districts,” says
the Report of the Constabulary Commissioners, “are vagrants, and
these vagrants appear to consist of two classes: first, the habitual
depredators, housebreakers, horse-stealers, and common thieves;
secondly, of vagrants, properly so called, who seek alms as mendicants.
Besides those classes who travel from fair to fair, and from town to
town, in quest of dishonest gains, there are numerous classes who make
incursions from the provincial towns upon the adjacent rural districts.”

“The classes of depredators who perambulate the country (says the
same Report) are the vagrants, properly so called. Upwards of 18,000
commitments per annum of persons for the offence of vagrancy, mark the
extent of the body from which they are taken.

“It will be seen that vagrancy, or the habit of wandering abroad,
under colour either of distress, or of some ostensible, though illegal
occupation, having claims on the sympathies of the uninformed,
constitutes one great source of delinquency, and especially of juvenile
delinquency. The returns show that the vagrant classes pervade
every part of the country, rendering property insecure, propagating
pernicious habits, and afflicting the minds of the sensitive with false
pictures of suffering, and levying upon them an offensive impost for
the relief of that destitution for which a heavy tax is legally levied
in the shape of poor’s rates.

“Mr. Thomas Harril, a sergeant of the Bristol police, was asked--‘What
proportion of the vagrants do you think are thieves, that make it a
point to take anything for which they find a convenient opportunity?’
‘We have found it so invariably.’ ‘Have you ever seen the children
who go about as vagrants turn afterwards from vagrancy to common
thieving,--thieving wholly or chiefly?’ ‘We have found it several
times.’ ‘Therefore the suppression of vagrancy or mendicity would be to
that extent the suppression of juvenile delinquency?’ ‘Yes, of course.’

“Mr. J. Perry, another witness, states:--‘I believe vagrancy to be the
first step towards the committal of felony, and I am supported in that
belief by the number of juvenile vagrants who are brought before the
magistrates as thieves.’

“An officer, appointed specially to take measures against vagrancy in
Manchester, was asked,--‘Does your experience enable you to state that
the large proportion of vagrants are thieves too, whenever they come
in the way of thieving?’ ‘Yes, and I should call the larger proportion
there thieves.’ ‘Then, from what you have observed of them, would
you say that the suppression of vagrancy would go a great way to the
suppression of a great quantity of depredation?’ ‘I am sure of it.’”

The same valuable Report furnishes us with a table of the numbers and
character of the known depredators and suspected persons frequenting
five of the principal towns; from which it appears that in these towns
alone there are 28,706 persons of known bad character. According to
the average proportion of these to the population, there will be in
the other large towns nearly 32,000 persons of a similar character,
and upwards of 69,000 of such persons dispersed throughout the rest of
the country. Adding these together, we shall have as many as 130,000
persons of known bad character living in England and Wales, without the
walls of the prisons. To form an accurate notion of the total number
of the criminal population, we must add to the above amount the number
of persons resident within the walls of the prisons. These, according
to the last census, are 19,888, which, added to the 130,000 above
enumerated, gives within a fraction of 150,000 individuals for the
entire criminal population of the country.

In order to arrive at an estimate of the number of known depredators,
or suspected persons, continually tramping through the country, we must
deduct from the number of persons of bad character without the walls
of the prisons, such as are not of migratory habits; and it will be
seen on reference to the table above given, that a large proportion of
the classes there specified have usually some fixed residence (those
with an asterisk set before them may be said to be non-migratory).
As many as 10,000 individuals out of the 20,000 and odd above given
certainly do not belong to the tramping tribe; and we may safely say
that there must be as many as 35,000 more in the country, who, though
of known bad character, are not tramps like the rest. Hence, in order
to ascertain the number of depredators and suspected persons belonging
to the tramping or vagrant class, we must deduct 10,000 + 35,000 from
85,000, which gives us 40,000 for the number of known bad characters
continually traversing the country.

This sum, though arrived at in a very different manner from the
estimate given in my last letter, agrees very nearly with the amount
there stated. We may therefore, I think, without fear of erring greatly
upon the matter, assert that our criminal population, within and
without the walls of the prisons, consists of 150,000 individuals, of
whom nearly one-third belong to the vagrant class; while, of those
without the prison walls, upwards of one half are persons who are
continually tramping through the country.

The number of commitments for vagrancy throughout the country is
stated, in the Constabulary Report, at upwards of 18,000 per annum.
This amount, large as it is, will not surprise when we learn from Mr.
Pigott’s Report on Vagrancy to the Poor-law Commissioners, that “it is
becoming a system with the vagrants to pass away the cold months by
fortnightly halts in different gaols. As soon as their fourteen days
have expired they make their way to some other union-house, and commit
the same depredation there, in order to be sent to gaol again.”

“There are some characters,” say the officers of the Derby Union,
in the same Report, “who come on purpose to be committed, avowedly.
These have generally itch, venereal disease, and lice, all together.
Then there are some who tear their clothes for the purpose of being
committed.”

I shall now give as full an account as lies in my power of the
character and consequences of vagrancy. That it spreads a moral
pestilence through the country, as terrible and as devastating as
the physical pest which accompanies it wherever it is found, all the
evidence goes to prove. Nevertheless, the facts which I have still
to adduce in connexion with that class of vagrancy which does not
necessarily come under the notice of the parish authorities, are of so
overpowering a character, that I hope and trust they may be the means
of rousing every earnest man in the kingdom to a sense of the enormous
evils that are daily going on around him.

The number of vagrants taken into custody by the police, according to
the Metropolitan Criminal Returns for 1848, was 5598; they belonged to
the trades cited in the subjoined table, where I have calculated the
proportionate number of vagrants furnished by each of the occupations,
according to the total number of individuals belonging to the class.

  Toolmakers               1 in every 33·9
  Labourers                           45·9
  Weavers                             75·6
  Cutlers                             82·1
  French polishers                   109·7
  Glovers, &c.                       112·8
  Corkcutters                        114·2
  Brassfounders                      119·1
  Smiths                             129·1
  Bricklayers                        143·4
  Papermakers, stainers, &c.         188·1
  Fishmongers                        207·3
  Curriers                           211·6
  Masons                             231·4
  Tinkers and tinmen                 236·3
  Sawyers                            248·1
  Carvers and gilders                250·3
  Hatters and trimmers               250·4
  Musicians                          292·0
  Turners, &c.                       308·8
  Shoemakers                         310·5
  Surveyors                          326·5
  Average for all London             334·7
  Gardeners                          341·8
  Tobacconists                       344·6
  Painters                           359·5
  Bakers                             364·4
  Tailors                            373·2
  Milliners                          451·7
  Clerks                             453·7
  Printers                           461·6
  Sweeps                             516·5
  Opticians                          536·0
  Saddlers                           542·7
  Coach and cabmen                   542·8
  Glassmakers, &c.                   580·5
  Butchers                           608·0
  Laundresses                        623·8
  Coachmakers                        709·3
  Grocers                            712·2
  General and marine storedealers    721·2
  Jewellers                          922·7
  Artificial flowermakers           1025·0
  Brushmakers                       1077·5
  Ironmongers                       1177·0
  Watchmakers                       1430·0
  Engineers                         1433·3
  Dyers                             1930·0
  Servants                          2444·9
  Drapers                           2456·5
  Bookbinders                       2749·5

The causes and encouragements of vagrancy are two-fold,--_direct_
and _indirect_. The roving disposition to which, as I have shown,
vagrancy is _directly_ ascribable, proceeds (as I have said) partly
from a certain physical conformation or temperament, but mainly from a
non-inculcation of industrial habits and moral purposes in youth. The
causes from which the vagabondism of the young _indirectly_ proceeds
are:--

1. The neglect or tyranny of parents or masters. (This appears to be a
most prolific source.)

2. Bad companions.

3. Bad books, which act like the bad companions in depraving the taste,
and teaching the youth to consider that approvable which to all rightly
constituted minds is morally loathsome.

4. Bad amusements--as penny-theatres, where the scenes and characters
described in the bad books are represented in a still more attractive
form. Mr. Ainsworth’s “Rookwood,” with Dick Turpin “in his habit as he
lived in,” is now in the course of being performed nightly at one of
the East-end saloons.

5. Bad institutions--as, for instance, the different refuges scattered
throughout the country, and which, enabling persons to live without
labour, are the means of attracting large numbers of the most idle
and dissolute classes to the several cities where the charities are
dispensed. Captain Carroll, C.B., R.N., chief of police, speaking of
the Refuges for the Destitute in Bath, and of a kindred institution
which distributes bread and soup, says,--“I consider those institutions
an attraction to this city for vagrants.” At Liverpool, Mr. Henry
Simpson said of a Night Asylum, supported by voluntary contributions,
and established for several years in this town--“This charity was
used by quite a different class of persons from those for whom it was
designed. A vast number of abandoned characters, known thieves and
prostitutes, found nightly shelter there.” “The chief inducement to
vagrancy in the town,” says another Report, speaking of a certain
part of the North Riding of York, “is the relief given by mistaken
but benevolent individuals, more particularly by the poorer class.
Instances have occurred where the names of such benevolent persons have
been found in the possession of vagrants, obtained, no doubt, from
their fellow-travellers.”

6. Vagrancy is largely due to, and, indeed, chiefly maintained by the
low lodging-houses.

STATEMENTS OF VAGRANTS.

The first vagrant was one who had the thorough look of a
“professional.” He was literally a mass of rags and filth. He was,
indeed, exactly what in the Act of Henry VIII. is denominated a
“valiant beggar.” He stood near upon six feet high, was not more
than twenty five, and had altogether the frame and constitution of
a stalwart labouring man. His clothes, which were of fustian and
corduroy, tied close to his body with pieces of string, were black and
shiny with filth, which looked more like pitch than grease. He had no
shirt, as was plain from the fact that, where his clothes were torn,
his bare skin was seen. The ragged sleeves of his fustian jacket were
tied like the other parts of his dress, close to his wrists, with
string. This was clearly to keep the bleak air from his body. His cap
was an old, brimless “wide-awake,” and when on his head gave the man a
most unprepossessing appearance. His story was as follows:--

“I am a carpet-weaver by trade. I served my time to it. My father was a
clerk in a shoe-thread manufactory at ----. He got 35_s._ a-week, and
his house, coals, and candles found him. He lived very comfortably;
indeed, I was very happy. Before I left home, I knew none of the cares
of the world that I have known since I left him. My father and mother
are living still. He is still as well off as when I was at home. I know
this, because I have heard from him twice, and seen him once. He won’t
do anything to assist me. I have transgressed so many times, that he
won’t take me in hand any more. I will tell you the truth, you may
depend upon it; yes, indeed, I would, even if it were to injure myself.
He has tried me many times, but now he has given me up. At the age of
twenty-one he told me to go from home and seek a living for myself. He
said he had given me a home ever since I was a child, but now I had
come to manhood I was able to provide for myself. He gave me a good
education, and I might have been a better scholar at the present time,
had I not neglected my studies. He put me to a day-school in the town
when I was eight years old, and I continued there till I was between
twelve and thirteen. I learnt reading, writing, and ciphering. I was
taught the catechism, the history of England, geography, and drawing.
My father was a very harsh man when he was put out of his way. He
was a very violent temper when he was vexed, but kind to us all when
he was pleased. I have five brothers and six sisters. He never beat
me more than twice, to my remembrance. The first time he thrashed me
with a cane, and the last with a horsewhip. I had stopped out late
at night. I was then just rising sixteen, and had left school. I am
sure those thrashings did me no good, but made me rather worse than
before. I was a self-willed lad, and determined, if I couldn’t get my
will in one way, I would have it another. After the last thrashing he
told me he would give me some trade, and after that he would set me
off and get rid of me. Then I was bound apprentice as a carpet-weaver
for three years. My master was a very kind one. I runned away once.
The cause of my going off was a quarrel with one of the workmen that
was put over me. He was very harsh, and I scarce could do anything
to please him; so I made up my mind to leave. The first place I went
when I bolted was to Crewkerne, in Somersetshire. There I asked for
employment at carpet-weaving. I got some, and remained there three
days, when my father found out where I was, and sent my brother and a
special constable after me. They took me from the shop where I was at
work, and brought me back to ----, and would have sent me to prison
had I not promised to behave myself, and serve my time out as I ought.
I went to work again; and when the expiration of my apprenticeship
occurred, my father said to me, ‘Sam, you have a trade at your fingers’
ends: you are able to provide for yourself.’ So then I left home. I
was twenty-one years of age. He gave me money, 3_l._ 10_s._, to take
me into Wales, where I told him I should go. I was up for going about
through the country. I made my father believe I was going into Wales to
get work; but all I wanted was, to go and see the place. After I had
runned away once from my apprenticeship, I found it very hard to stop
at home. I couldn’t bring myself to work somehow. While I sat at the
work, I thought I should like to be away in the country: work seemed
a burden to me. I found it very difficult to stick to anything for a
long time; so I made up my mind, when my time was out, that I’d be off
roving, and see a little of life. I went by the packet from Bristol to
Newport. After being there three weeks, I had spent all the money that
I had brought from home. I spent it in drinking--most of it, and idling
about. After that I was obliged to sell my clothes, &c. The first thing
I sold was my watch; I got 2_l._ 5_s._ for that. Then I was obliged to
part with my suit of clothes. For these I got 1_l._ 5_s._ With this
I started from Newport to go farther up over the hills. I liked this
kind of life much better than working, while the money lasted. I was
in the public-house three parts of my time out of four. I was a great
slave to drink. I began to like drink when I was between thirteen and
fourteen. At that time my uncle was keeping a public-house, and I used
to go there, backwards and forward, more or less every week. Whenever
I went to see my uncle he gave me some beer. I very soon got to like
it so much, that, while an apprentice, I would spend all I could get
in liquor. This was the cause of my quarrels with my father, and when
I went away to Newport I did so to be my own master, and drink as much
as I pleased, without anybody saying anything to me about it. I got up
to Nant-y-glô, and there I sought for work at the iron-foundry, but I
could not get it. I stopped at this place three weeks, still drinking.
The last day of the three weeks I sold the boots off my feet to get
food, for all my money and clothes were now gone. I was sorry then that
I had ever left my father’s house; but, alas! I found it too late.
I didn’t write home to tell them how I was off; my stubborn temper
would not allow me. I then started off barefoot, begging my way from
Nant-y-glô to Monmouth. I told the people that I was a carpet-weaver
by trade, who could not get any employment, and that I was obliged to
travel the country against my own wish. I didn’t say a word about the
drink--that would never have done. I only took 2-1/2_d._ on the road,
19 miles long; and I’m sure I must have asked assistance from more than
a hundred people. They said, some of them, that they had ‘nout’ for me;
and others did give me a bit of ‘bara caws,’ or ‘bara minny’ (that is,
bread and cheese, or bread and butter). Money is very scarce among the
Welsh, and what they have they are very fond of. They don’t mind giving
food; if you wanted a bagful you might have it there of the working
people. I inquired for a night’s lodging at the union in Monmouth. That
was the first time I ever asked for shelter in a workhouse in my life.
I was admitted into the tramp-room. Oh, I felt then that I would much
rather be in prison than in such a place, though I never knew what the
inside of a prison was--no, not then. I thought of the kindness of my
father and mother. I would have been better, but I knew that, as I had
been carrying on, I never could expect shelter under my father’s roof
any more; I knew he would not have taken me in had I gone back, or I
would have returned. Oh, I was off from home, and I didn’t much trouble
my head about it after a few minutes; I plucked up my spirits and soon
forgot where I was. I made no male friends in the union; I was savage
that I had so hard a bed to lie upon; it was nothing more than the bare
boards, and a rug to cover me. I knew very well it wasn’t my bed, but
still I thought I ought to have a better. I merely felt annoyed at its
being so bad a place, and didn’t think much about the rights of it. In
the morning I was turned out, and after I had left I picked up with a
young woman, who had slept in the union over-night. I said I was going
on the road across country to Birmingham, and I axed her to go with me.
I had never seen her before. She consented, and we went along together,
begging our way. We passed as man and wife, and I was a carpet-weaver
out of employment. We slept in unions and lodging-houses by the way. In
the lodging-houses we lived together as man and wife, and in the unions
we were separated. I never stole anything during all this time. After I
got to Birmingham I made my way to Wolverhampton. My reason for going
to Wolverhampton was, that there was a good many weavers there, and I
thought I should make a good bit of money by begging of them. Oh, yes,
I have found that I could always get more money out of my own trade
than any other people. I did so well at Wolverhampton, begging, that I
stopped there three weeks. I never troubled my head whether I was doing
right or wrong by asking my brother-weavers for a portion of their
hard earnings to keep me in idleness. Many a time I have given part of
my wages to others myself. I can’t say that I would have given it to
them if I had known they wouldn’t work like me. I wouldn’t have worked
sometimes if I could have got it. I can’t tell why, but somehow it was
painful to me to stick long at anything. To tell the truth, I loved a
roving, idle life. I would much rather have been on the road than at my
home. I drank away all I got, and feared and cared for nothing. When
I got drunk over-night, it would have been impossible for me to have
gone to work in the morning, even if I could have got it. The drink
seemed to take all the work out of me. This oftentimes led me to think
of what my father used to tell me, that ‘the bird that can sing and
won’t sing ought to be made to sing.’ During my stay in Wolverhampton
I lived at a tramper’s house, and there I fell in with two men well
acquainted with the town, and they asked me to join them in breaking
open a shop. No, sir, no, I didn’t give a thought whether I was doing
right or wrong at it. I didn’t think my father would ever know anything
at all about it, so I didn’t care. I liked my mother best, much the
best. She had always been a kind, good soul to me, often kept me from
my father’s blows, and helped me to things unknown to my father. But
when I was away on the road I gave no heed to her. I didn’t think of
either father or mother till after I was taken into custody for that
same job. Well, I agreed to go with the other two; they were old hands
at the business--regular housebreakers. We went away between twelve and
one at night. It was pitch dark. My two pals broke into the back part
of the house, and I stopped outside to keep watch. After watching for
about a quarter of an hour, a policeman came up to me and asked what I
was stopping there for. I told him I was waiting for a man that was in
a public-house at the corner. This led him to suspect me, it being so
late at night. He went to the public-house to see whether it was open,
and found it shut, and then came back to me. As he was returning he saw
my two comrades coming through the back window (that was the way they
had got in). He took us all three in custody; some of the passers-by
assisted him in seizing us. The other two had six months’ imprisonment
each, and I, being a stranger, had only fourteen days. When I was sent
to prison, I thought of my mother. I would have written to her, but
couldn’t get leave. Being the first time I ever was nailed, I was very
downhearted at it. I didn’t say I’d give it up. While I was locked up,
I thought I’d go to work again, and be a sober man, when I got out.
These thoughts used to come over me when I was ‘on the stepper,’ that
is, on the wheel. But I concealed all them thoughts in my breast. I
said nothing to no one. My mother was the only one that I ever thought
upon. When I got out of prison, all these thoughts went away from
me, and I went again at my old tricks. From Wolverhampton I went to
Manchester, and from Manchester I came to London, begging and stealing
wherever I had a chance. This is not my first year in London. I tell
you the truth, because I am known here; and if I tell you a lie, you’ll
say ‘You spoke an untruth in one thing, and you’ll do so in another.’
The first time I was in London, I was put in prison fourteen days for
begging, and after I had a month at Westminster Bridewell, for begging
and abusing the policeman. Sometimes I’d think I’d rather go anywhere,
and do anything, than continue as I was; but then I had no clothes, no
friends, no house, no home, no means of doing better. I had made myself
what I was. I had made my father and mother turn their backs upon me,
and what could I do, but go on? I was as bad off then as I am now, and
I couldn’t have got work then if I would. I should have spent all I got
in drink then, I know. I wrote home twice. I told my mother I was hard
up; had neither a shoe to my foot, a coat to my back, nor a roof over
my head. I had no answer to my first letter, because it fell into the
hands of my brother, and he tore it up, fearing that my mother might
see it. To the second letter that I sent home my mother sent me an
answer herself. She sent me a sovereign. She told me that my father was
the same as when I first left home, and it was no use my coming back.
She sent me the money, bidding me get some clothes and seek for work. I
didn’t do as she bade. I spent the money--most part in drink. I didn’t
give any heed whether it was wrong or right. Soon got, soon gone; and I
know they could have sent me much more than that if they had pleased.
It was last June twelvemonth when I first came to London, and I stopped
till the 10th of last March. I lost the young woman when I was put
in prison in Manchester. She never came to see me in quod. She cared
nothing for me. She only kept company with me to have some one on the
road along with her; and I didn’t care for her, not I. One half of
my time last winter I stopped at the ‘Straw-yards,’ that is, in the
asylums for the houseless poor here and at Glasshouse. When I could get
money I had a lodging. After March I started off through Somersetshire.
I went to my father’s house then. I didn’t go in. I saw my father at
the door, and he wouldn’t let me in. I was a little better dressed than
I am now. He said he had enough children at home without me, and gave
me 10_s._ to go. He could not have been kind to me, or else he would
not have turned me from his roof. My mother came out to the garden in
front of the house, after my father had gone to his work, and spoke to
me. She wished me to reform my character. I could not make any rash
promises then. I had but very little to say to her. I felt myself at
that same time, for the very first time in my life, that I was doing
wrong. I thought, if I could hurt my mother so, it must be wrong to go
on as I did. I had never had such thoughts before. My father’s harsh
words always drove such thoughts out of my head; but when I saw my
mother’s tears, it was more than I could stand. I was wanting to get
away as fast as I could from the house. After that I stopped knocking
about the country, sleeping in unions, up to November. Then I came to
London again, and remained up to this time. Since I have been in town I
have sought for work at the floor-cloth and carpet manufactory in the
Borough, and they wouldn’t even look at me in my present state. I am
heartily tired of my life now altogether, and would like to get out of
it if I could. I hope at least I have given up my love of drink, and I
am sure, if I could once again lay my hand on some work, I should be
quite a reformed character. Well, I am altogether tired of carrying on
like this. I haven’t made 6_d._ a-day ever since I have been in London
this time. I go tramping it across the country just to pass the time,
and see a little of new places. When the summer comes I want to be
off. I am sure I have seen enough of this country now, and I should
like to have a look at some foreign land. Old England has nothing new
in it now for me. I think a beggar’s life is the worst kind of life
that a man can lead. A beggar is no more thought upon than a dog in the
street, and there are too many at the trade. I wasn’t brought up to a
bad life. You can see that by little things--by my handwriting; and,
indeed, I should like to have a chance at something else. I have had
the feelings of a vagabond for full ten years. I know, and now I am
sure, I’m getting a different man. I begin to have thoughts and ideas
I never had before. Once I never feared nor cared for anything, and
I wouldn’t have altered if I could; but now I’m tired out, and if I
haven’t a chance of going right, why I must go wrong.”

The next was a short, thick-set man, with a frequent grin on his
countenance, which was rather expressive of humour. He wore a very
dirty smock-frock, dirtier trousers, shirt, and neckerchief, and broken
shoes. He answered readily, and as if he enjoyed his story.

“I never was at school, and was brought up as a farm labourer at
Devizes,” he said, “where my parents were labourers. I worked that
way three or four years, and then ran away. My master wouldn’t give
me money enough--only 3_s._ 6_d._ a-week,--and my parents were very
harsh; so I ran away, rather than be licked for ever. I’d heard people
say, ‘Go to Bath,’ and I went there; and I was only about eleven
then. I’m now twenty-three. I tried to get work on the railway there,
and I did. I next got into prison for stealing three shovels. I was
hard-up, having lost my work, and so I stole them. I was ten weeks
in prison. I came out worse than I went in, for I mixed with the old
hands, and they put me up to a few capers. When I got out I thought I
could live as well that way as by hard work; so I took to the country.
I began to beg. At first I took ‘No’ for an answer, when I asked for
‘Charity to a poor boy;’ but I found that wouldn’t do, so I learned
to stick to them. I was forced, or I must have starved, and that
wouldn’t do at all. I did middling; plenty to eat, and sometimes a
drop to drink, but not often. I was forced to be merry, because it’s
no good being down-hearted. I begged for two years,--that is, steal
and beg together: I couldn’t starve. I did best in country villages
in Somersetshire; there’s always odds and ends to be picked up there.
I got into scrapes now and then. Once, in Devonshire, me and another
slopt at a farm-house, and in the morning we went egg-hunting. I must
have stowed three dozen of eggs about me, when a dog barked, and we
were alarmed and ran away, and in getting over a gate I fell, and there
I lay among the smashed eggs. I can’t help laughing at it still: but I
got away. I was too sharp for them. I have been twenty or thirty times
in prison. I have been in for stealing bread, and a side of bacon,
and cheese, and shovels, and other things; generally provisions. I
generally learn something new in prison. I shall do no good while I
stop in England. It’s not possible a man like me can get work, so I’m
forced to go on this way. Sometimes I haven’t a bit to eat all day. At
night I may pick up something. An uncle of mine once told me he would
like to see me transported, or come to the gallows. I told him I had
no fear about the gallows; I should never come to that end: but if I
were transported I should be better off than I am now. I can’t starve,
and I won’t; and I can’t ’list, I’m too short. I came to London the
other day, but could do no good. The London hands are quite a different
set to us. We seldom do business together. My way’s simple. If I see
a thing, and I’m hungry, I take it if I can, in London or anywhere. I
once had a turn with two Londoners, and we got two coats and two pair
of trousers; but the police got them back again. I was only locked
up one night for it. The country’s the best place to get away with
anything, because there’s not so many policemen. There’s lots live
as I live, because there’s no work. I can do a country policeman,
generally. I’ve had sprees at the country lodging-houses--larking, and
drinking, and carrying on, and playing cards and dominoes all night
for a farthing a game; sometimes fighting about it. I can play at
dominoes, but I don’t know the cards. They try to cheat one another.
Honour among thieves! why there’s no such thing; they take from one
another. Sometimes we dance all night--Christmas time, and such times.
Young women dance with us, and sometimes old women. We’re all merry;
some’s lying on the floor drunk; some’s jumping about, smoking; some’s
dancing; and so we enjoy ourselves. That’s the best part of the life.
We are seldom stopped in our merry-makings in the country. It’s no good
the policemen coming among us; give them beer, and you may knock the
house down. We have good meat sometimes; sometimes very rough. Some are
very particular about their cookery, as nice as anybody is. They must
have their pickles, and their peppers, and their fish-sauces (I’ve had
them myself), to their dishes. Chops, in the country, has the call;
or ham and eggs--that’s relished. Some’s very particular about their
drink, too; won’t touch bad beer; same way with the gin. It’s chiefly
gin (I’m talking about the country), very little rum; no brandy: but
sometimes, after a good day’s work, a drop of wine. We help one another
when we are sick, where we’re knowed. Some’s very good that way. Some
lodging-house keepers get rid of anybody that’s sick, by taking them to
the relieving-officer at once.”

A really fine-looking lad of eighteen gave me the following statement.
He wore a sort of frock-coat, very thin, buttoned about him, old
cloth trousers, and bad shoes. His shirt was tolerably good and clean,
and altogether he had a tidy look and an air of quickness, but not of
cunning:--

“My father,” he said, “was a bricklayer in Shoreditch parish, and my
mother took in washing. They did pretty well; but they’re dead and
buried two years and a half ago. I used to work in brick-fields at
Ball’s-pond, living with my parents, and taking home every farthing
I earned. I earned 18_s._ a-week, working from five in the morning
until sunset. They had only me. I can read and write middling; when my
parents died, I had to look out for myself. I was off work, attending
to my father and mother when they were sick. They died within about
three weeks of each other, and I lost my work, and I had to part with
my clothes; before that I tried to work in brick-fields, and couldn’t
get it, and work grew slack. When my parents died I was thirteen; and I
sometimes got to sleep in the unions; but that was stopped, and then I
took to the lodging-houses, and there I met with lads who were enjoying
themselves at push-halfpenny and cards; and they were thieves, and they
tempted me to join them, and I did for once--but only once. I then went
begging about the streets and thieving, as I knew the others do. I used
to pick pockets. I worked for myself, because I thought that would be
best. I had no fence at all--no pals at first, nor anything. I worked
by myself for a time. I sold the handkerchiefs I got to Jews in the
streets, chiefly in Field-lane, for 1_s._ 6_d._, but I have got as much
as 3_s._ 6_d._ for your real fancy ones. One of these buyers wanted to
cheat me out of 6_d._, so I would have no more dealings with him. The
others paid me. The ‘Kingsmen’ they call the best handkerchiefs--those
that have the pretty-looking flowers on them. Some are only worth 4_d._
or 5_d._, some’s not worth taking. Those I gave away to strangers,
boys like myself, or wore them myself, round my neck. I only threw one
away, but it was all rags, though he looked quite like a gentleman
that had it. Lord-mayor’s day and such times is the best for us. Last
Lord-mayor’s day I got four handkerchiefs, and I made 11_s._ There was
a 6_d._ tied up in the corner of one handkerchief; another was pinned
to the pocket, but I got it out, and after that another chap had him,
and cut his pocket clean away, but there was nothing in it. I generally
picked my men--regular swells, or good-humoured looking men. I’ve
often followed them a mile. I once got a purse with 3_s._ 6_d._ in it
from a lady when the Coal Exchange was opened. I made 8_s._ 6_d._ that
day--the purse and handkerchiefs. That’s the only lady I ever robbed.
I was in the crowd when Manning and his wife were hanged. I wanted
to see if they died game, as I heard them talk so much about them at
our house. I was there all night. I did four good handkerchiefs and a
rotten one not worth picking up. I saw them hung. I was right under
the drop. I was a bit startled when they brought him up and put the
rope round his neck and the cap on, and then they brought her out. All
said he was hung innocently; it was she that should have been hung by
herself. They both dropped together, and I felt faintified, but I soon
felt all right again. The police drove us away as soon as it was over,
so that I couldn’t do any more business; besides, I was knocked down
in the crowd and jumped upon, and I won’t go to see another hung in a
hurry. He didn’t deserve it, but she did, every inch of her. I can’t
say I thought, while I was seeing the execution, that the life I was
leading would ever bring me to the gallows. After I’d worked by myself
a bit, I got to live in a house where lads like me, big and little,
were accommodated. We paid 3_d._ a-night. It was always full; there was
twenty or twenty-one of us. We enjoyed ourselves middling. I was happy
enough: we drank sometimes, chiefly beer, and sometimes a drop of gin.
One would say, ‘I’ve done so much,’ and another, ‘I’ve done so much;’
and stand a drop. The best I ever heard done was 2_l._ for two coats
from a tailor’s, near Bow-church, Cheapside. That was by one of my
pals. We used to share our money with those who did nothing for a day,
and they shared with us when we rested. There never was any blabbing.
We wouldn’t do one another out of a farthing. Of a night some one would
now and then read hymns, out of books they sold about the streets--I’m
sure they were hymns; or else we’d read stories about Jack Sheppard and
Dick Turpin, and all through that set. They were large thick books,
borrowed from the library. They told how they used to break open the
houses, and get out of Newgate, and how Dick got away to York. We used
to think Jack and them very fine fellows. I wished I could be like
Jack (I did then), about the blankets in his escape, and that old
house in West-street--it is a ruin still. We played cards and dominoes
sometimes at our house, and at pushing a halfpenny over the table along
five lines. We struck the halfpenny from the edge of the table, and
according to what line it settled on was the game--like as they play
at the Glasshouse--that’s the ‘model lodging-house’ they calls it.
Cribbage was always played at cards. I can only play cribbage. We have
played for a shilling a game, but oftener a penny. It was always fair
play. That was the way we passed the time when we were not out. We used
to keep quiet, or the police would have been down upon us. They knew of
the place. They took one boy there. I wondered what they wanted. They
catched him at the very door. We lived pretty well; anything we liked
to get, when we’d money: we cooked it ourselves. The master of the
house was always on the look-out to keep out those who had no business
there. No girls were admitted. The master of the house had nothing to
do with what we got. I don’t know of any other such house in London; I
don’t think there are any. The master would sometimes drink with us--a
larking like. He used us pretty kindly at times. I have been three
times in prison, three months each time; the Compter, Brixton, and
Maidstone. I went down to Maidstone fair, and was caught by a London
policeman down there. He was dressed as a bricklayer. Prison always
made me worse, and as I had nothing given me when I came out, I had to
look out again. I generally got hold of something before I had been an
hour out of prison. I’m now heartily sick of this life. I wish I’d been
transported with some others from Maidstone, where I was tried.”

A cotton-spinner (who had subsequently been a soldier), whose
appearance was utterly abject, was the next person questioned. He was
tall, and had been florid-looking (judging by his present complexion).
His coat--very old and worn, and once black--would not button, and
would have hardly held together if buttoned. He was out at elbows, and
some parts of the collar were pinned together. His waistcoat was of a
match with his coat, and his trousers were rags. He had some shirt, as
was evident by his waistcoat, held together by one button. A very dirty
handkerchief was tied carelessly round his neck. He was tall and erect,
and told his adventures with heartiness.

“I am thirty-eight,” he said, “and have been a cotton-spinner, working
at Chorlton-upon-Medlock. I can neither read nor write. When I was a
young man, twenty years ago, I could earn 2_l._ 10_s._, clear money,
every week, after paying two piecers and a scavenger. Each piecer had
7_s._ 6_d._ a-week--they are girls; the scavenger--a boy to clean the
wheels of the cotton-spinning machine--had 2_s._ 6_d._ I was master
of them wheels in the factory. This state of things continued until
about the year 1837. I lived well and enjoyed myself, being a hearty
man, noways a drunkard, working every day from half-past five in the
morning till half-past seven at night--long hours, that time, master. I
didn’t care about money as long as I was decent and respectable. I had
a turn for sporting at the wakes down there. In 1837, the ‘self-actors’
(machines with steam power) had come into common use. One girl can mind
three pairs--that used to be three men’s work--getting 15_s._ for the
work which gave three men 7_l._ 10_s._ Out of one factory 400 hands
were flung in one week, men and women together. We had a meeting of the
union, but nothing could be done, and we were told to go and mind the
three pairs, as the girls did, for 15_s._ a-week. We wouldn’t do that.
Some went for soldiers, some to sea, some to Stopport (Stockport), to
get work in factories where the ‘self-actors’ wern’t agait. The masters
there wouldn’t have them--at least, some of them. Manchester was full
of them; but one gentleman in Hulme still won’t have them, for he says
he won’t turn the men out of bread. I ’listed for a soldier in the
48th. I liked a soldier’s life very well until I got flogged--100
lashes for selling my kit (for a spree), and 150 for striking a
corporal, who called me an English robber. He was an Irishman. I was
confined five days in the hospital after each punishment. It was
terrible. It was like a bunch of razors cutting at your back. Your
flesh was dragged off by the cats. Flogging was then very common in
the regiment. I was flogged in 1840. To this day I feel a pain in the
chest from the triangles. I was discharged from the army about two
years ago, when the reduction took place. I was only flogged the times
I’ve told you. I had no pension and no friends. I was discharged in
Dublin. I turned to, and looked for work. I couldn’t get any, and made
my way for Manchester. I stole myself aboard of a steamer, and hid
myself till she got out to sea, on her way from Dublin to Liverpool.
When the captain found me there, he gave me a kick and some bread,
and told me to work, so I worked for my passage twenty-four hours. He
put me ashore at Liverpool. I slept in the union that night--nothing
to eat and nothing to cover me--no fire; it was winter. I walked to
Manchester, but could get nothing to do there, though I was twelve
months knocking about. It wants a friend and a character to get work. I
slept in unions in Manchester, and had oatmeal porridge for breakfast,
work at grinding logwood in the mill, from six to twelve, and then
turn out. That was the way I lived chiefly; but I got a job sometimes
in driving cattle, and 3_d._ for it,--or 2_d._ for carrying baskets in
the vegetable markets; and went to Shoedale Union at night. I would
get a pint of coffee and half-a-pound of bread, and half-a-pound of
bread in the morning, and no work. I took to travelling up to London,
half-hungered on the road--that was last winter--eating turnips out
of this field, and carrots out of that, and sleeping under hedges and
haystacks. I slept under one haystack, and pulled out the hay to cover
me, and the snow lay on it a foot deep in the morning. I slept for all
that, but wasn’t I froze when I woke? An old farmer came up with his
cart and pitchfork to load hay. He said: ‘Poor fellow! have you been
here all night?’ I answered, ‘Yes.’ He gave me some coffee and bread,
and one shilling. That was the only good friend I met with on the
road. I got fourteen days of it for asking a gentleman for a penny;
that was in Stafford. I got to London after that, sleeping in unions
sometimes, and begging a bite here and there. Sometimes I had to walk
all night. I was once forty-eight hours without a bite, until I got
hold at last of a Swede turnip, and so at last I got to London. Here
I’ve tried up and down everywhere for work as a labouring man, or in
a foundry. I tried London Docks, and Blackwall, and every place; but
no job. At one foundry, the boiler-makers made a collection of 4_s._
for me. I’ve walked the streets for three nights together. Here, in
this fine London, I was refused a night’s lodging in Shoreditch and
in Gray’s-inn-lane. A policeman, the fourth night, at twelve o’clock,
procured me a lodging, and gave me 2_d._ I couldn’t drag on any longer.
I was taken to a doctor’s in the city. I fell in the street from hunger
and tiredness. The doctor ordered me brandy and water, 2_s._ 6_d._,
and a quartern loaf, and some coffee, sugar, and butter. He said, what
I ailed was hunger. I made that run out as long as I could, but I was
then as bad off as ever. It’s hard to hunger for nights together. I was
once in ‘Steel’ (Coldbath-fields) for begging. I was in Tothill-fields
for going into a chandler’s shop, asking for a quartern loaf and half
a pound of cheese, and walking out with it. I got a month for that. I
have been in Brixton for taking a loaf out of a baker’s basket, all
through hunger. Better a prison than to starve. I was well treated
because I behaved well in prison. I have slept in coaches when I had a
chance. One night on a dunghill, covering the stable straw about me to
keep myself warm. This place is a relief. I shave the poor people and
cut their hair, on a Sunday. I was handy at that when I was a soldier.
I have shaved in public-houses for halfpennies. Some landlords kicks
me out. Now, in the days, I may pick up a penny or two that way, and
get here of a night. I met two Manchester men in Hyde Park on Saturday,
skating. They asked me what I was. I said, ‘A beggar.’ They gave me
2_s._ 6_d._, and I spent part of it for warm coffee and other things.
They knew all about Manchester, and knew I was a Manchester man by my
talk.”

The statement I then took was that of a female vagrant--a young girl
with eyes and hair of remarkable blackness. Her complexion was of
the deepest brunette, her cheeks were full of colour, and her lips
very thick. This was accounted for. She told me that her father was a
mulatto from Philadelphia. She was short, and dressed in a torn old
cotton gown, the pattern of which was hardly discernible from wear. A
kind of half-shawl, patched and mended in several places, and of very
thin woollen texture, was pinned around her neck; her arms, which, with
her hands, were full and large, were bare. She wore very old broken
boots and ragged stockings. Her demeanour was modest.

“I am now eighteen,” she stated. “My father was a coloured man. He
came over here as a sailor, I have heard, but I never saw him; for my
mother, who was a white woman, was not married to him, but met him at
Oxford; and she married afterwards a box-maker, a white man, and has
two other children. They are living, I believe, but I don’t know where
they are. I have heard my mother say that my father--that’s my own
father--had become a missionary, and had been sent out to America from
England as a missionary, by Mr. ----. I believe that was fifteen years
ago. I don’t know who Mr. ---- was, but he was a gentleman, I’ve heard
my mother say. She told me, too, that my father was a good scholar,
and that he could speak seven different languages, and was a very
religious man. He was sent out to Boston, but I never heard whether he
was to stay or not, and I don’t know what he was to missionary about.
He behaved very well to my mother, I have heard her say, until she took
up with the other man (the box-maker), and then he left her, and gave
her up, and came to London. It was at Oxford that they all three were
then; and when my father got away, or came away to London, my mother
followed him (she told me so, but she didn’t like to talk about it),
as she was then in the family way. She didn’t find him; but my father
heard of her, and left some money with Mr. ---- for her, and she got
into Poland-street workhouse through Mr. ---- I’ve heard. While there,
she received 1_s._ 6_d._ a-week, but my father never came to see her
or me. At one time, my father used to live by teaching languages. He
had been in Spain, and France, and Morocco. I’ve heard, at any rate,
that he could speak the Moors’ language, but I know nothing more. All
this is what I’ve heard from my mother and my grandmother--that’s my
mother’s mother. My grandfather and grandmother are dead. He was a
sawyer. I have a great grandmother living in Oxford, now ninety-two,
supported by her parish. I lived with my grandmother at Oxford, who
took me out of pity, as my mother never cared about me, when I was four
months old. I remained with her until I was ten, and then my mother
came from Reading, where she was living, and took me away with her. I
lived with her and my stepfather, but they were badly off. He couldn’t
get much to do at his trade as a box-maker, and he drank a great deal.
I was with them about nine months, when I ran away. He beat me so; he
never liked me. I couldn’t bear it. I went to Pangbourne, but there
I was stopped by a man my stepfather had sent--at least I suppose
so--and I was forced to walk back to Reading--ten miles, perhaps. My
father applied to the overseer for support for me, and the overseer
was rather harsh, and my father struck him, and for that he was sent
to prison for three months. My mother and her children then got into
the workhouse, but not until after my stepfather had been some time in
prison. Before that she had an allowance, which was stopped; I don’t
know how much. I was in the workhouse twenty-one days. I wasn’t badly
treated. My mother sweared my parish, and I was removed to St. James’s,
Poland-street, London. I was there three weeks, and then I was sent to
New Brentford--it was called the Juvenile Establishment--and I went
to school. There was about 150 boys and girls; the boys were sent
to Norwood when they were fifteen. Some of the girls were eighteen,
kept there until they could get a place. I don’t know whether they all
belonged to St. James’s, or to different parishes, or how. I stayed
there about two years. I was very well treated, sufficient to eat;
but we worked hard at scrubbing, cleaning, and making shirts. We made
all the boys’ clothes as well, jackets and trousers, and all. I was
then apprenticed a maid-of-all-work, in Duke-street, Grosvenor-square,
for three years. I was there two years and a half, when my master
failed in business, and had to part with me. They had no servant
but me. My mistress was sometimes kind, pretty well. I had to work
very hard. She sometimes beat me if I stopped long on my errands.
My master beat me once for bringing things wrong from a grocer’s. I
made a mistake. Once my mistress knocked me down-stairs for being
long on an errand to Pimlico, and I’m sure I couldn’t help it, and my
eye was cut. It was three weeks before I could see well. [There is
a slight mark under the girl’s eye still.] They beat me with their
fists. After I left my master, I tried hard to get a place; I’m sure I
did, but I really couldn’t; so to live, I got watercresses to sell up
and down Oxford-street. I stayed at lodging-houses. I tried that two
or three months, but couldn’t live. My mother had been ‘through the
country,’ and I knew other people that had, through meeting them at the
lodging-houses. I first went to Croydon, begging my way. I slept in the
workhouse. After that I went to Brighton, begging my way, but couldn’t
get much, not enough to pay my lodgings. I was constantly insulted,
both in the lodging-houses and in the streets. I sung in the streets at
Brighton, and got enough to pay my lodgings, and a little for food. I
was there a week, and then I went to the Mendicity, and they gave me a
piece of bread (morning and night) and a night’s lodging. I then went
to Lewes and other places, begging, and got into prison at Tunbridge
Wells for fourteen days, for begging. I only used to say I was a poor
girl out of place, could they relieve me? I told no lies. I didn’t pick
my oakum one day, it was such hard stuff; three and a half pounds of
it to do from nine to half-past three: so I was put into solitary for
three days and three nights, having half a pound of bread and a pint
of cold water morning and night; nothing else, and no bed to sleep
on. I’m sure I tell you the truth. Some had irons on their hands if
they were obstropolous. That’s about two months ago. I’m sorry to say
that during this time I couldn’t be virtuous. I know very well what it
means, for I can read and write, but no girl can be so circumstanced
as I was. I seldom got money for being wicked; I hated being wicked,
but I was tricked and cheated. I am truly sorry for it, but what could
a poor girl do? I begged my way from London to Hastings, and got here
on Saturday last, and having no money, came here. I heard of this
asylum from a girl in Whitechapel, who had been here. I met her in a
lodging-house, where I called to rest in the daytime. They let us rest
sometimes in lodging-houses in the daytime. I never was in any prison
but Tunbridge Wells, and in Gravesend lock-up for being out after
twelve at night, when I had no money to get a lodging. I was there one
Saturday night, and got out on Sunday morning, but had nothing given me
to eat--I was in by myself. It’s a bad place--just straw to sleep on,
and very cold. I told you I could read and write. I learnt that partly
at Oxford, and finished my learning at the Juvenile Establishment at
Brentford. There I was taught, reading, writing, sums, marking, sewing,
and scrubbing. Once I could say all the multiplication table, but I’ve
forgot most of it. I know how to make lace, too, because I was taught
by a cousin in Oxford, another grandchild of my grandmother’s. I can
make it with knitting-needles. I could make cushion-lace with pins, but
I’m afraid I’ve forgot how now. I should like, if I could to get into
service again, here or abroad. I have heard of Australia, where I have
a cousin. I am sure I could and would conduct myself well in service,
I have suffered so much out of it. I am sure of it. I never stole
anything in my life, and have told all I have done wrong.”

STATEMENT OF A RETURNED CONVICT.

I shall now give the statement of a man who was selected at random
from amongst a number such as himself, congregated in one of the
most respectable lodging-houses. He proved, on examination, to be a
returned convict, and one who had gone through the severest bodily and
mental agony. He had lived in the bush, and been tried for his life.
He was an elderly-looking man, whose hair was just turning grey, and
in whose appearance there was nothing remarkable, except that his
cheek-bones were unusually high, and that his face presented that
collected and composed expression which is common to men exposed to
habitual watchfulness from constant danger. He gave me the following
statement. His dress was bad, but differed in nothing from that of a
long-distressed mechanic. He said:--

“I am now 43 (he looked much older), and had respectable parents, and
a respectable education. I am a native of London. When I was young I
was fond of a roving life, but cared nothing about drink. I liked to
see ‘life,’ as it was called, and was fond of the company of women.
Money was no object in those days; it was like picking up dirt in
the streets. I ran away from home. My parents were very kind to me;
indeed, I think I was used too well, I was petted so, when I was
between 12 and 13. I got acquainted with some boys at Bartlemy-fair a
little before that, and saw them spending lots of money and throwing
at cock-shies, and such-like; and one of them said, ‘Why don’t you
come out like us?’ So afterwards I ran away and joined them. I was not
kept shorter of money than other boys like me, but I couldn’t settle.
I couldn’t fix my mind to any regular business but a waterman’s, and
my friends wouldn’t hear of that. There was nine boys of us among the
lot that I joined, but we didn’t all work together. All of ’em came
to be sent to Van Dieman’s Land as transports except one, and he was
sent to Sydney. While we were in London it was a merry life, with
change of scene, for we travelled about. We were successful in nearly
all our plans for several months. I worked in Fleet Street, and could
make 3_l._ a-week at handkerchiefs alone, sometimes falling across a
pocket-book. The best handkerchiefs then brought 4_s._ in Field-lane.
Our chief enjoyments were at the ‘Free and Easy,’ where all the thieves
and young women went, and sang and danced. I had a young woman for a
partner then; she went out to Van Dieman’s Land. She went on the lift
in London (shopping and stealing from the counter). She was clever at
it. I carried on in this way for about 15 months, when I was grabbed
for an attempt on a gentleman’s pocket by St. Paul’s Cathedral, on
a grand charity procession day. I had two months in the Old Horse
(Bridewell). I never thought of my parents at this time--I wouldn’t.
I was two years and a half at this same trade. One week was very like
another,--successes and escapes, and free-and-easies, and games of
all sorts, made up the life. At the end of the two years and a half I
got into the way of forged Bank-of-England notes. A man I knew in the
course of business, said, ‘I would cut that game of ‘smatter-hauling,’
(stealing handkerchiefs), and do a little soft,’ (pass bad notes). So
I did, and was very successful at first. I had a mate. He afterwards
went out to Sydney, too, for 14 years. I went stylishly dressed as a
gentleman, with a watch in my pocket, to pass my notes. I passed a
good many in drapers’ shops, also at tailors’ shops. I never tried
jewellers, they’re reckoned too good judges. The notes were all
finnies, (5_l._ notes), and a good imitation. I made more money at
this game, but lived as before, and had my partner still. I was fond
of her; she was a nice girl, and I never found that she wronged me in
any way. I thought at four months’ end of retiring into the country
with gambling-tables, as the risk was becoming considerable. They hung
them for it in them days, but that never daunted me the least in life.
I saw Cashman hung for that gunsmith’s shop on Snow-hill, and I saw
Fauntleroy hung, and a good many others, but it gave me no uneasiness
and no fear. The gallows had no terror for people in my way of life.
I started into the country with another man and his wife--his lawful
wife--for I had a few words with my own young woman, or I shouldn’t
have left her behind me, or, indeed, have started at all. We carried
gambling on in different parts of the country for six months. We made
most at the E. O. tables,--not those played with a ball, they weren’t
in vogue then, but throwing dice for prizes marked on a table. The
highest prize was ten guineas, but the dice were so made that no prize
could be thrown; the numbers were not regular as in good dice, and
they were loaded as well. If anybody asked to see them, we had good
dice ready to show. All sorts played with us. London men and all were
taken in. We made most at the races. My mate and his wife told me that
at the last Newmarket meeting we attended, 65_l._ was made, but they
rowed in the same boat. I know they got a deal more. The 65_l._ was
shared in three equal portions, but I had to maintain the horse and
cart out of my own share. We used to go out into the roads (highway
robbery) between races, and if we met an ‘old bloke’ (man) we ‘propped
him’ (knocked him down), and robbed him. We did good stakes that way,
and were never found out. We lived as well as any gentleman in the
land. Our E. O. table was in a tilted cart. I stayed with this man and
his wife two months. She was good-looking, so as to attract people. I
thought they didn’t use me altogether right, so at Braintree I gave
another man in the same way of business 25_l._ for his kit--horse,
harness, tilted-cart, and table. I gave him two good 5_l._ notes
and three bad ones, for I worked that way still, not throwing much
of a chance away. I came to London for a hawker’s stock, braces and
such-like, to sell on the road, just to take the down off (remove
suspicion). In the meantime, the man that I bought the horse, &c., of,
had been nailed passing a bad note, and he stated who he got it from,
and I was traced. He was in a terrible rage to find himself done,
particularly as he used to do the same to other people himself. He got
acquitted for that there note after he had me ‘pinched’ (arrested).
I got ‘fullied’ (fully committed). I was tried at the ‘Start’ (Old
Bailey), and pleaded guilty to the minor offence, (that of utterance,
not knowing the note to be forged), or I should have been hanged for
it then. It was a favourable sessions when I was tried. Thirty-six
were cast for death, and only one was ‘topped’ (hanged), the very
one that expected to be ‘turned up’ (acquitted) for highway robbery.
I was sentenced to 14 years’ transportation. I was ten weeks in the
Bellerophon hulk at Sheerness, and was then taken to Hobart Town, Van
Dieman’s Land, in the Sir Godfrey Webster. At Hobart Town sixty of
us were picked out to go to Launceston. There (at Launceston) we lay
for four days in an old church, guarded by constables; and then the
settlers came there from all parts, and picked their men out. I got a
very bad master. He put me to harvest work that I had never even seen
done before, and I had the care of pigs as wild as wild boars. After
that I was sent to Launceston with two letters from my master to the
superintendent, and the other servants thought I had luck to get away
from Red Barks to Launceston, which was 16 miles off. I then worked in
a Government potato-field; in the Government charcoal-works for about
11 months; and then was in the Marine department, going by water from
Launceston to George Town, taking Government officers down in gigs,
provisions in boats, and such-like. There was a crew of six (convicts)
in the gigs, and four in the watering-boats. All the time I consider I
was very hardly treated. I hadn’t clothes half the time, being allowed
only two slop-suits in a year, and no bed to lie on when we had to stay
out all night with the boats by the river Tamar. With 12 years’ service
at this my time was up, but I had incurred several punishments before
it was up. The first was 25 lashes, because a bag of flour had been
burst, and I picked up a capfull. The flogging is dreadfully severe,
a soldier’s is nothing to it. I once had 50 lashes, for taking a hat
in a joke when I was tipsy; and a soldier had 300 the same morning. I
was flogged as a convict, and he as a soldier; and when we were both
at the same hospital after the flogging, and saw each other’s backs,
the other convicts said to me, ‘D---- it, you’ve got it this time;’
and the soldier said, when he saw my back, ‘You’ve got it twice as bad
I have.’ ‘No,’ said the doctor, ‘ten times as bad--he’s been flogged;