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Title: Lives of Famous London Beggars

Author: John Thomas Smith

Author of introduction, etc.: Francis Douce

Release date: August 7, 2017 [eBook #55285]

Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIVES OF FAMOUS LONDON BEGGARS ***

Transcriber's Note.

There are thirty plates, located at the end of the text, that depict individuals described in it. They have been moved to follow the text that describes them. They are annotated "London Published as the Act directs [date] by J. T. Smith No. 4 Chandos St Covent Garden."

Inconsistencies in hyphenation and spelling have been retained.

ST MARTIN

The Patron Saint of the Beggars. From a rare print in the possession of Thos. Lloyd, Esq.

LIVES OF FAMOUS

LONDON BEGGARS,

WITH

FORTY PORTRAITS OF THE MOST REMARKABLE.

DRAWN FROM LIFE BY

JOHN THOMAS SMITH.

LONDON:

DIPROSE AND BATEMAN, SHEFFIELD STREET,

LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS.

PREFACE.

Mr Granger, at the close of his Biographical History of England, says, "I shall conclude this volume with observing, that Lord Bacon has somewhere remarked, that biography has been confined within too narrow limits; as if the lives of great personages only deserved the notice of the inquisitive part of mankind. I have, perhaps, in the foregoing strictures extended the sphere of it too far. I began with Monarchs, and have ended with Ballad-Singers, Chimney-Sweepers, and Beggars. But they that fill the highest and the lowest classes of human life, seem, in many respects, to be more nearly allied than even themselves imagine. A skilful anatomist would find little or no difference, in dissecting the body of a king and that of the meanest of his subjects; and a judicious philosopher would discover a surprising conformity, in discussing the nature and qualities of their minds."

BEGGARY, of late, particularly for the last six years, had become so dreadful in London, that the more active interference of the legislature was deemed absolutely necessary; indeed, the deceptions of the idle and sturdy were so various, cunning, and extensive, that it was in most instances extremely difficult to discover the real object of charity from the impostor.

Concluding, therefore, from the reduction of the metropolitan beggars, that several curious characters would disappear by being either compelled to industry, or to partake of the liberal parochial rates provided for them in their respective workhouses, it occurred to the author of the present publication, that likenesses of the most remarkable of them, with a few particulars of their habits, would not be unamusing to those to whom they have been a pest for several years.

In order to convince his readers that he does not stand alone as a delineator of mendicants, he begs leave to observe, that several of the very first-rate artists have studied from them.

Michael Angelo Buonarotti often drew from beggars; and report says, that in the early part of his life, when he had not the means of paying them in money, he would make an additional sketch, and, presenting it to the party, desire him to take it to some particular person, who would purchase it. Fuseli, in his life of Michael Angelo, says that "a beggar rose from his hand the patriarch of poverty." The same artist, in one of his lectures, delivered at the Royal Academy, also observes, that "Michael Angelo ennobled his beggars into Patriarchs and Prophets, in the ceiling of the Sistini Chapel."

Annibal Caracci frequently drew subjects in low life. His "Cries of Bologna," etched by Giuseppe Maria Mitelli, pub. 1660, in folio, are evidently from real characters. It will also be recollected, that some of the finest productions of Murillo, Jan Miel, and Drogsloot, are beggars. Callot's twenty-four beggars are evidently from nature; and among Rembrandt's etchings are to be found twenty-three plates of this description.

Sir Joshua Reynolds frequently painted from beggars, and from these people have originated some of his finest pictures, particularly his "Mercury as a Pickpocket," and "Cupid as a Link-boy." His Count Ugolino, was painted from a pavier, soon after he had left St George's Hospital from a severe fever. Mr West painted the portrait of a beggar, on the day when he became a hundred years old; and considered him as a pensioner for several years afterwards. The same person was used also as a model by Copley, Opie, &c. Who can forget the lovely countenance of Gainsborough's Shepherd's Boy, that has once seen Earlom's excellent engraving from it? He was a lad well known as a beggar to those who walked St James's Street thirty years ago. The model for the celebrated picture of the Woodman, by the same artist, is now living in the Borough, at the venerable age of 107.

Mr Nollekens, in 1778, when modelling the bust of Dr Johnson, who then wore a wig, called in a beggar to sit for the hair. The same artist was not equally fortunate in the locks of another great character, for on his application to a beggar for the like purpose, the fellow declined to sit, with an observation that three half-crowns were not sufficient for the trouble.

The late Mr Nathaniel Hone, in the year 1850, painted the portrait of James Turner, a common beggar, who valued his time at a shilling an hour. Captain Baillie has made an etching of this picture.

That truly spirited painter, Mr Ward, made similar overtures to a lame sailor, who thought fit to reject them and prefer his begging occupation.

One of the many fine things produced by Flaxman, is a figure of a blind sailor, Jack Stuart, mentioned in page 19 of this work. The artist has introduced him in a beautiful monument, erected in Campsal Church, to the memory of Misses Yarborough.

Beggars have not only been useful to artists as models, but serviceable to them in other instances. Francis Perrier, who was born of poor parents, when a boy entered into the service of a blind beggar, for the express purpose of getting from France to Rome to pursue his studies in that city; and Old Scheemaker, the sculptor, Nollekens's master, absolutely begged his way from Flanders to Rome for the same purpose.

Though the biographical part of this publication exhibits some curious customs of the London beggars which have fallen within the author's observations, and though it may in some instances be deemed original, yet he confesses that he has adopted the usual craft of the common vender, who invariably puts the best sample into the mouth of the sack. Such, he needs not state the truly interesting Introduction to be; it was written and presented to him by his honoured and valuable friend, FRANCIS DOUCE, Esq.

INTRODUCTION.

THE present work is very far from being offered as a general view of that peculiar branch of pauperism, which includes the many wandering classes of mankind that are supported by the casual and irregular bounty of others, or by means that have at least the appearance of industry or honourable ingenuity; for that would be a task requiring the united efforts of the historian, the legislator, and the antiquary. It may be deemed sufficient to submit to the reader's notice, such accounts and gleanings as immediately relate to the particular characters which are here once more embodied and presented to him by the aid of the graphic art. In the mean time, a slight sketch of the state and progress of mendicity in former ages may be neither unacceptable nor without its use.

The Beggar's calling, if not one of the most respectable, may doubtless be regarded as one of the most ancient. In every part of the globe where man is congregated, the inequality of his condition, the too frequent indolence of his habits, or the shifts to which human misery is occasionally reduced, will compel him to depend for his support on the generosity of his fellow-creatures, and even sometimes lead him to prefer this disgraceful state of existence. The sacred volume has supplied us with evidence of the mendicant profession at an early period. King David, when imprecating curses on the head of his enemy, prays that "his children be continually vagabonds, and beg;" [1] and the story of Ulysses and the beggar Irus, as related in one of the oldest works extant, is known almost to every one.

The state of mendicity among the Greeks and Romans is but obscurely recorded, nor have any specific laws or regulations that they might have framed relating to that subject been transmitted to us. The beggars in Horace, who lamented the death of the musician Tigellinus, were probably of the common kind, though some have supposed them to have been fortune-tellers or prophets. Their dress would be of the ragged sort, the mendicula impluviata of Plautus. We learn from Seneca, that the beggars of his time practised every species of imposture, and even amputated their limbs for the purpose of exciting compassion.

During the middle ages, we meet with a few legislative acts relating to the vagrant classes. In a capitulary of the Emperor Charlemagne, beggars were prohibited from wandering about the country; and another ancient law of the Franks is cited by Beatus Rhenanus in his German chronicle, by which every city is ordered to maintain its own poor, who are nevertheless to be compelled to manual labour, or otherwise not to be entitled to relief; a vagrant life is also strictly prohibited. For a considerable time the kingdom of France was much infested with a set of itinerant beggars, usually known by the appellation of Truands, and their occupation by that of Truandise; from which terms our own language has adopted an obvious word of much significance. These people likewise gave name to one of the streets of Paris, called La Truanderie; and, under pretence of begging alms, committed the most atrocious crimes and excesses practising every kind of fraud and imposture; so that the name gradually became the representative of every thing that was bad and infamous. In later times they were called Argotiers. They assumed the form of a regular government, elected a king, and established a fixed code of laws, and a language peculiar to themselves, constructed probably by some of the debauched and licentious youths who, abandoning their scholastic studies, associated with these vagabonds. The facetious author of a poetical life of the famous French robber Cartouche, has given a very humorous account of the origin of the word Argot, which, at the expense of graver etymologists, he derives from the ship Argos; contending that this jargon, a term that would perhaps have supplied the real and perverted meaning of the other, was either invented by the navigators of that celebrated vessel, for the purpose of deceiving his majesty of Colchos, or constructed by Agamemnon at Argos, and transported afterwards to Troy, where the Greek generals used it to harangue their soldiers. The same writer has likewise compiled a dictionary of the language in question, which is given at the end of Cartouche's history. Their king assumed the title of the Great Chosroes, in imitation of the Persian monarch of that name, and his officers had their several cant denominations contrived with considerable ingenuity. One of these sovereigns thought fit to prefer his own name, and was called Roi de Thunes. This fellow used to be drawn triumphantly through the streets in a little cart by two stout dogs, and at length finished his career on a gibbet at Bourdeaux. The new members of this honourable fraternity were graciously received by the monarch, and consigned to his officers for instruction. These taught them to counterfeit wounds, sores, and ulcers, by means of the juice of celandine and other herbs; to make preparations of grease, &c., for the purpose of hindering dogs from barking, and many other tricks and contrivances essential to the profession of a beggar. The necessary qualifications for an officer at court, was the possession of masks, rags, plaisters, bandages, crutches, and other matters calculated to excite charity and compassion; a candidate for the monarchy, which was elective, must have passed through one or more offices, and have sported a limb in all appearance shockingly diseased, but curable in a day's time. The royal habits were composed of a thousand bits of rag, of various colours. Every year the king held a council of his officers and subjects, who reported their proceedings, and paid him the legal and accustomed tribute money; offences were inquired into, and summary punishment inflicted. Many of the above officers were runaway scholars and debauched priests, who taught the novices the Argot language, and performed other duties which exempted them from the usual tribute to the sovereign. These impostors were divided into numerous classes, assuming various appellations. Those who counterfeited maimed soldiers were called Narquois, corresponding with our Rufflers. The little urchins, who before the establishment of regular hospitals were permitted to beg in groups, and appeared as half-starved, were denominated Orphelins, or Orphans. Fellows assuming the character of broken merchants and tradesmen, called themselves Marcandiers and Rifodés; these, pretending to have been ruined by war, by fire, and other calamities, made use of false certificates of their loss, and were frequently accompanied by their wives and children. The Malingreux were the dropsical and otherwise diseased impostors, who frequented the churches, and demanded alms to enable them to make pilgrimages and perform masses to particular saints. The Hubins shewed certificates of having been bitten by wolves or dogs, and placed themselves under St Hubert's protection. The Coquillarts pretended to have made a pilgrimage to St James or St Michael, and sold their cockle-shells even to those fools who had done so. The Sabouleux counterfeited demoniacs, by means of soap held in the mouth, with which they produced their foam, and exhibited false wounds on their heads and bodies, which they pretended to have inflicted on themselves during their fits. These last were the most faithful subjects of the Great Chosroes, and paid him a much higher tribute than any of the rest. Besides the above, there were the Pietres, the Courtaux, the Polissons, the Capons, the Francmitoux, and a variety of others, all assuming different characters, to defraud the unwary in every possible manner. These particulars have been collected together as exhibiting a general view of the manners and practices of the begging tribe in the kingdom of France, where the regulations concerning them appear to have been very frequent and severe. In the reign of Francis I. many edicts of the court issued against them, by some of which all the beggars in Paris were compelled to clear the city sewers and ditches, and to assist in repairing the fortifications; and for this purpose the police officers seized upon all that were able-bodied and competent to work. Many were banished to the provinces, and if they continued to beg, and refused to assist in the vintage, they were ordered to be hanged. Whipping was the more general punishment; and where licensed, they were not suffered to go about in troops, but confined to travel in Paris only, to prevent robberies and other mischief. Those who could not labour, on account of infirmity, were maintained in hospitals, or by contributions at the churches, where they were not permitted, as at present, to beg, under pain of whipping. In the admirable Pictures of Paris by Mercier, there is an interesting article on the sturdy beggars of that city, where their noisy orgies at their places of rendezvous, when they have stripped themselves of their false limbs and hideous plasters, are eloquently described. He mentions one cruel and wicked practice among these impostors, namely, that when they steal other people's children for want of their own, they distort and even dislocate the members of the unfortunate victims, to give them what they impiously term the arms and legs of God Almighty.

With respect to the vagabonds of Spain, who will be found to resemble, with small difference, many of the classes above described, it will be sufficient to refer the reader to those excellent novels, Lazarillo de Tormes, and Guzman de Alfarache. The manners of the Italian mendicants and impostors are admirably depicted, with many entertaining stories, in the very curious work of Rafael Frianoro, entitled, "Il vagabondo, overo sferzo de bianti e vagabondi," Viterbo, 1620, 12mo, in which the catalogue of names of the parties, and of the impostures practised, far exceeded those of any other country.

Della Valle, in his travels to the East Indies, informs us, that the beggars there make use of a trumpet to express their wants, frequently terrifying the people into charity by their loud clamours. Of the Chinese mendicants, some particulars will be found in explaining one of the plates of this work.

It would amount to positive negligence, if, in the present sketch, those wanderers that are usually known among ourselves by the appellation of Gypsies, and on the continent by that of Bohemians, on account of their first appearance in that country, were passed over without some notice; but their history has been so learnedly and copiously detailed by M. Grellmann, that it may be thought sufficient on this occasion to advert to the English translation of that excellent work by Mr Raper, published 1787, in quarto.

Nor should the mention of the orders of mendicant friars be omitted, who, no doubt, had their prototypes in the knavish priests of Cybele. Of these persons there were four orders,—viz., the Augustinians, the Carmelites, the Dominicans, and the Minorites. They wandered from place to place, professing poverty, and exciting the charity of others. They had assumed and acquired an unlimited control over the consciences of the deluded victims of their artifice, and at length became particularly odious to the monks and the clergy in general, continuing nevertheless to maintain their power and influence, from the marked favour and protection of the Roman Pontiffs, who regarded them as some of their best friends and supporters. In our own country these people encountered a most bitter and inveterate enemy in the celebrated Wickliffe, who, in his sermons and other works, declaimed against them with much vehement eloquence as thieves, hypocrites, and children of Judas Iscariot; telling them that Christ never commissioned any one to appear in the character of a beggar; and that, although he preferred a state of poverty, he never demanded alms himself, nor allowed of others doing it, but in cases of extreme necessity.

Another set of ecclesiastical mendicants were those pseudo-monks, who, among many other irregularities, scrupled not to take to themselves wives, whilst their brethren contented themselves with concubines. These were branded by the regular monks with the appellation of Beghards, and are specially termed sturdy beggars, in a very bitter invective against them by Felix Hammerlein, a civilian and canon of Zurich, in the fifteenth century, who emphatically calls them the legitimate sons of Belial. Many other writers declaimed against them with great acrimony, and some of the more rigid Papists seem to have classed them among the Lollards, an appellation that has very much arrested the attention of the learned in etymology, though without any certainty as to its origin.

The records of our early history supply few, if any, materials that throw light upon the subject before us; and the laws of the Saxons, as well as those of our British ancestors, are entirely silent as to any regulation concerning vagrants or mendicants of any kind. A curious incident however in the life of Edward the Confessor, as related by his historian Alured of Rievaulx, is worthy of being mentioned. This sovereign is said to have been remarkable for his benevolence to the poor, many of whom he privately supported. Among these was one Ralph, a Norman, a miserable object, whose limbs were shockingly contracted by disease. This man, scarcely able to creep along on his knees, as was the usual practice with such persons, and urged by necessity, the mother of invention, was the first who is reported as making use of a hollow vessel of wood, in the form of a bason, in which he placed his hinder parts, guiding and supporting his crippled limbs by means of his hands, and thus sailed along, as it were, upon the ground. On the king's death he made a pilgrimage to his tomb, and addressing himself to the monarch as if alive, was healed, as says the legend, of his disease.

The next two centuries of English history are equally barren of incident to our purpose. From that time, however, the statute laws of the kingdom furnish abundant regulations concerning the vagrant classes, and it has therefore been thought worth while to submit to the reader's notice the following extracts and abridgments.

The statute of labourers, made in the 23d year of Edw. III., recites that there are many sturdy beggars, who prefer a life of indolence to active labour, and commit theft and other crimes; and therefore, with a view to discourage such practices, and compel these persons to work for their living, it enacts that none, on pain of imprisonment, shall, under colour of pity or of alms, give anything to those who are competent to labour, or presume by such means to "favour them towards their desires."

By Stat. xii. Rich. II. c. 6, every beggar who is able to work shall be put in the stocks, and such as are unable to work shall abide in the cities and towns where they be dwelling at the time of proclaiming this statute; and if the inhabitants shall not be able to maintain them, then the said beggars shall withdraw themselves to other places within the hundred, rape, or wapentake, or to the places of their nativity, within forty days as above, and there continually abide during their lives; and all that go in pilgrimage as beggars, but are able to work, shall be punished with the stocks, unless they have letters testimonial from a justice of the peace. The sheriffs and gaolers are also charged with the custody of beggars, though it does not appear for what particular offence. Religious persons and hermits who beg must have licence from their ordinaries, and scholars of the universities from their chancellors, under the like penalties.

The Stat. xix. Hen. VII., adverting to the rigour of the last-mentioned regulations, and to the great expense of confining vagabonds and beggars in prison, enacts, that an immediate discharge from the gaols shall take place, and all beggars be set in the stocks for a day and a night, without other food than bread and water, and then sent to the place of their nativity, or where they may have resided for the space of three years. It also enacts, that such beggars as are not able to work be passed to their own towns, where only they are to be allowed to beg.

By Stat. xxii. Hen. VIII., persons unable to work are to be licensed by certificate from mayors, sheriffs, bailiffs, or justices, to beg within certain districts; and if they be found begging without such licence, they are to be set in the stocks for three days and three nights, and fed only on bread and water, or else whipped, at the discretion of the magistrate, who is afterwards to give the party a licence and dismiss him. Persons being "whole and mighty in body, and able to labour," and found begging, are to be whipped at the cart's tail till blood come, and then dismissed to their own district, receiving a licence, stating their punishment, and authorising them to beg by the way. Scholars at the universities begging without licence, to be punished as above. Persons wandering about with unlawful games, and fortune-tellers of all kinds, to be punished for the first offence by two days whipping; for the second, by like whipping, with subsequent pillory and loss of one ear; for the third, the like punishment, with loss of the other ear. The licence was in these words,—"Memorandum, that A. B. of Dale, for reasonable considerations, is licensed to beg within the hundred of P. K. in the county of L.;" and the licence after whipping is as follows,—"I. S., whipped for a vagrant strong beggar, at Dale, in the county of L., according to the law, the 22 July, in the 23 year of King Henry the Eighth, was assigned to pass forthwith and directly from thence to Sale, in the county of M., where he saith he was born, or where he last dwelled by the term of three years, and he is limited to be there within fourteen days next ensuing, at his peril," &c.

By this act, persons delivered from gaol, or acquitted of felonies, who could not pay the usual fees, were to be licensed by the keeper to raise such fees by begging for the space of six weeks, on pain of whipping for default of such licence.

By the 27th Hen. VIII., further provisions were made for the labour and employment of vagabonds and beggars. Churchwardens to gather alms for supporting the poor on Sundays and holidays. Begging children, between the ages of five and fourteen years, to be placed under masters of husbandry; and those between the ages of twelve and sixteen to be whipped for running away. Beggars offending again after the first punishment, to be marked by cutting off the upper gristle of the right ear; and if found still loitering in idleness, to be indicted as felons at the quarter sessions, and on conviction to suffer death. The mendicant friars are specially excepted in this act, which provides many additional supports for the poor besides the vast donations from the still existing monasteries, and the almshouses and hospitals.

At the commencement of the reign of Edw. VI., a most severe and extraordinary statute was made for the punishment of vagabonds and relief of poor persons. It does not appear who were the contrivers of this instrument, the preamble and general spirit of which were more in accordance with the tyrannical and arbitrary measures of the preceding reign, than with the mild and merciful character of the infant sovereign, who is well known to have taken a very active part in the affairs of government. It repeals all the former statutes on this subject, and enacts, that if any beggar or other person, not being lame or impotent, and after loitering or idly wandering for the space of three days or more, shall not offer himself to labour, or being engaged in any person's service shall run away or leave his work, it shall be lawful for the master to carry him before a justice of peace, who, on proof of the offence, shall cause the party to be marked with a hot iron with the letter V on the breast, and adjudge him to be his master's slave for the space of two years, who shall feed him "on bread and water, or, at his discretion, on refuse of meat, and cause the said slave to work, by beating, chaining, or otherwise, in such work or labour (how vile soever it be) as he shall put him unto." If the slave should run away, or absent himself for a fortnight without leave, the master may pursue and punish him by chaining or beating, and have his action of damage against any one who shall harbour or detain him. On proof before the justice of the slave's escape, he is to be sentenced to be marked on the forehead or ball of the cheek with a hot iron with the letter S, and adjudged to be his master's slave for ever; and for the second offence of running away, he is to be regarded as a felon and suffer death. The children of beggars to be taken from them, and, with other vagrant children, to be apprenticed by the magistrate to whoever will take them; and if such children so apprenticed run away, they are to be retaken, and become slaves till the age of twenty in females, and twenty-four in males, and punishment by chains, &c., and power to the master to let, sell, or bequeath them, as goods and chattels, for the term aforesaid. If any slave should maim or wound the master in resisting correction, or conspire to wound or murder him, or burn his house or other property, he is to suffer death as a felon, unless the master will consent to retain him as a slave for ever; and if any parent, nurse, or bearer about of children, so become slaves, shall steal or entice them away from the master, such person shall be liable to become a slave to the said master for ever, and the party so stolen or enticed away restored. If any vagrant be brought to a place where he shall state himself to have been born, and it shall be manifest that he was not so born there, for such lie he shall be marked in the face with an S, and become a slave to the inhabitants or corporation of the city for ever. Any master of a slave may put a ring of iron about his neck, arm, or leg, for safe custody; and any person taking or helping to take off such ring, without consent of the master, shall forfeit the sum of ten pounds.

This diabolical statute, after remaining for two years, was repealed, on the ground that, from its extreme severity, it had not been enforced, and instead of it the xxii. Hen. VIII. was revived. The taking apprentices the children of beggars was, however, continued; but instead of slavery for the offence of running away, the punishment of the stocks was substituted. In the last year of King Edward's reign, further provisions for supporting the poor were made, by gathering alms at church by the parish officers, who were "gently to ask and demand of every man and woman what they of their charity will be contented to give weekly toward the relief of the poor, and the same to be written in a register or book." The collectors are empowered to make such of the poor labour as they shall think fit; but none are permitted "to go, or sit openly, a begging."

The last statute that it will be necessary to refer to, is that of the xxxix. Eliz. c. 4, for the punishment and suppression of rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars, by which houses of correction are for the first time established; and all persons calling themselves scholars, and going about begging, fellows pretending losses by sea, persons using unlawful games, fortune-tellers, procurers, collectors for gaols and hospitals, fencers, bearwards, common players of interludes, minstrels (except such players as are licensed by any baron of the realm), jugglers, tinkers, pedlars, common labourers able in body but begging and refusing labour for reasonable wages, persons delivered from gaol and begging for fees, all persons whatever that beg in any manner as wanderers, and all gypsies or pretending to be so, shall be adjudged rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars, and be liable to the punishment of whipping till the blood come, and passed to their respective parishes, and committed to the house of correction until further provision by work, or placing in almshouses. If any of the above persons shall appear to be dangerous to the inferior sort of people, or will not otherwise be reformed, they shall be committed to the house of correction or county gaol, and at the quarter-sessions, if necessary, banished from the kingdom to such places as shall be assigned by the privy council, or otherwise be sent to the galleys of the kingdom for life, with pain of death on returning from banishment. No vagabonds or beggars to be imported from Ireland, Scotland, or the Isle of Man, or, if already here, to be sent back to their respective countries. No diseased poor persons to be suffered to repair to the baths of Bath or Buxton for cure, unless they forbear to beg, and are licensed by two justices; and that the above cities be not charged with finding relief for such persons. This statute not to extend to children under seven years old, nor to glassmen of good behaviour, travelling with licence, and forbearing to beg.

It is impossible to look upon a more finished picture of the general manners of the begging classes, a little before the Reformation, than in the following extract from the once deservedly celebrated satire entitled the Ship of Fools. Although of foreign construction, it is not the less calculated for the meridian of England; and indeed the translator has in some degree adapted it to his own country. The author thus addresses the parties in question:—

"All vacabondes and myghty beggers, the whyche gothe beggynge from dore to dore, and ayleth lytell or nought, with lame men and crepylles, come unto me, and I shall gyve you an almesse saluberryme and of grete vertue. The mendycans be in grete nombre, wherfore I wyll declare unto you some of theyr foolysshe condycyons. These fooles, the whiche be founde in theyr corporal bodyes, wyl nourysh and kepe dyvers chyldren. The monkes have this myschefe and the clerkes also, the whiche have theyr coffers ful of grete rychesses and treasoures. Nevertheles yet they applye themselfe in the offyce of the mendycans, in purchasyng and beggynge on every syde. They be a grete sorte replenysshed with unhappynes, saynge that they lede theyr lyves in grete poverte and calamyte; and therefore, they praye evry man to gyve them theyr good almesse, in release of theyr payne and myserye. And yet they have golde and sylver grete plentye, but they will spende nothinge before the comyn people. Somtyme the cursed taketh the almesse of the poore indygente. I fynde grete fautes in the abbottes, monkes, pryours, chanons, and coventes, for all that they have rentes, tenementes, and possessyons ynough, yet, as folkes devoyde of sense and understondynge, they be never satysfyed with goodes. They goo from vyllage to vyllage and from towne to towne, berynge grete bagges upon theyr neckes, assemblynge so moche goodes that it is grete mervayle, and whan they be in theyr relygyous cloysters, they make them byleve that they have had lytell gyven them or nothynge; for God knoweth they make heven chere in the countre. There is another sort of pardoners, the which bereth relyques aboute with them, in abusynge the pore folkes; for and yf they have but one poore peny in theyr purses they must have it. They garde togyder golde and sylver in every place, lyke as yf it grewe. They make the poore folkes byleve moche gay gere. They sel the feders of the Holy Ghoost. They bere the bones of some deed body aboute, the which, paraventure, is damned. They shewe the heer of some old hors, saynge that it is of the berde of the Innocentes. There is an innumerable syght of suche folkes and of vacabondes in this realme of Englonde, the which be hole of all theyr membres and myghte wynne theyr lyves honestly. Notwithstondynge they go beggynge from dore to dore, because they wyll not werke, and patcheth an olde mautell or an olde gowne with an hondred colours, and byndeth foule cloutes aboute theyr legges, as who say they be sore. And oftentymes they be more rycher than they that gyveth them almesse. They breke theyr chyldrens membres in theyr youthe, because that men sholde have the more pyte of them. They go wepynge and wryngynge of theyr handes, and counterfettynge the sorrowfull, praynge for Goddes sake to gyve them an almesse, and maketh so well the hypocrytes that there is no man the whiche seeth them but that he is abused, and must gyve them an almesse. There is some stronge and puysaunt rybaudes, the whiche wyll not laboure, but lyve, as these beggers, without doynge ony thynge, the whiche be dronke oftentymes. They be well at ease to have grete legges and bellyes eten to the bonis; for they wyll not put noo medycynes therto for to hele them, but soner envenymeth them, and dyvers other begylynges of which I holde my pease. O poore frantyke fooles, the whiche robbeth them that hathe no brede for to ete, and by adventure dare not aske none for shame, the auncyent men, poore wedowes, lazars, and blynde men. Alas! thynke thereon, for truely ye shall gyve accomptes before Hym that created us."

In the year 1566, Thomas Harman, Esq., probably a justice of peace, published a very singular and amusing work, entitled, "A Caveat, or Warning for Common Cursetors (runners) vulgarely called Vagabones;" in which he has described the several sorts of thieving beggars and other rogues with considerable humour, and has collected together a great number of words belonging to what he humorously calls the "leud lousey language of these lewtering luskes and lazy lorrels, wherewith they bye and sell the common people as they pas through the countrey." He says they term this language Pedlar's French, or, Canting, which had not then been invented above thirty years. As the book has lately been reprinted, it will be proper, on this occasion, to use it more sparingly, and to mention only such of Harman's vagabonds as fall under the begging class. These are 1. The Rufflers; particularly mentioned in the Stat. xxvii. Henry VIII. against vagabonds, as fellows pretending to be wounded soldiers. These, says Harman, after a year or two's practice, unless they be prevented by twined hemp, become,—2. Upright Men; still pretending to have served in the wars, and offering, though never intending, to work for their living. They decline receiving meat or drink, and take nothing but money by way of charity, but contrive to steal pigs and poultry at night, chiefly plundering the farmers. Of late, says the author, they have been much whipped at fairs. They attack and rob other beggars that do not belong to their own fraternity, occasionally admitting or installing them into it by pouring a quart of liquor on their pates, with these words, "I do stall thee, W. T., to the rogue, and that from henceforth it shall be lawful for thee to cant for thy living in all places." All sorts of beggars are obedient to them, and they surpass all the rest in pilfering and stealing. 3. Hookers, or Anglers; these knaves beg by day, and pilfer at night, by means of a pole with a hook at the end, with which they lay hold of linen, or any thing hanging from windows or elsewhere. The author relates a curious feat of dexterity practised by one of them at a farm house, where, in the dead of the night, he contrived to hook off the bed-clothes from three men who were lying asleep, leaving them in their shirts, and when they awoke from cold, supposing, to use the author's words, "that Robin Goodfellow had bene with them that night." 4. Rogues; going about with a white handkerchief tied round the head, and pretending to be lame. These people committed various other frauds and impostures, in order to obtain charity. 5. Pallyards; with patched garments, collecting, by way of alms, provisions, or whatever they could get, which they sold for ready money; they are chiefly Welshmen, and make artificial sores by applying spearwort to raise blisters on their bodies, or else arsenic or ratsbane to create incurable wounds. 6. Abraham Men; pretending to be lunatics, who have been a long time confined in Bedlam or some other prison, where they have been unmercifully used with blows, &c. They beg money or provisions at farmers' houses, or bully them by fierce looks or menaces. 7. Traters; or fellows travelling about the country with black boxes at the girdle, containing forged briefs, or licences to beg for hospitals. Some have clouts bound round their legs, and walk as if lame, with staves in their hands. 8. Freshwater Mariners, or Whipjacks; whose ships, says the witty author, were drowned in Salisbury Plain. These counterfeit great losses at sea by shipwreck and piracy, and are chiefly Irishmen, begging with false licences, under the supposed seal of the Admiralty, so artfully constructed as to deceive even the best lawyers. 9. The Counterfeit Crank; who is described at large, with a figure, in another part of this work. 10. Dommerars; chiefly Welshmen, pretending to be dumb, and forcibly keeping down their tongues doubled, groaning for charity, and keeping up their hands most piteously, by which means they procure considerable gains. 11. Demanders for glymmar; who are chiefly women that go about with false licences to beg, as sufferers from fire,—glymmar, in pedlars' language, signifying that element. Many other classes are enumerated in this curious volume, as—priggars of prauncers, swadders, jarkman, patricos, bawdy baskets, autem morts, walking morts, doxies, dells, kynchin morts, and kynchin coes; but all these are rather pilferers than beggars.

As every trade or profession had its patron saint, so the beggars made choice of St Martin, who appears to have had a great regard for them. This person was originally a soldier of rank in the armies of the Emperors Constantius and Julian, but preferring a religious life, he applied to Saint Hilary, of Poitou, who appointed him his sub-deacon; and soon afterwards becoming a saint himself, he of course acquired the power of working miracles, many of which, with much other legendary matter, have been related by his credulous but elegant historian, Sulpitius Severus, and transferred, with due additions and improvements, into that grand repertory of pious frauds, the Golden Legend, and some other works of similar authority. It is related of him, that when a soldier, as he passed by one of the gates of Amiens in winter time, he met a poor naked man, on whom none would bestow alms. Martin drew out his sword, and cutting his mantle asunder in the middle, gave one half to the poor man, having nothing else to bestow on him, contenting himself with the remainder to keep him from the cold. On the ensuing night he saw the Saviour of the world in heaven, clothed with that part which he had given to the poor man, and exclaiming to the angels that surrounded him, "Martin, yet new in the faith, hath covered me with this vesture." Ever afterwards he became particularly attached to beggars and poor people. The cripples and lepers seem, however, to have made exclusive choice of St Giles for their patron, to whom the hospitals and other places for their relief were usually dedicated. So the parish church of Cripplegate was dedicated to him; and the ward itself, named after a very ancient gate to which the crippled beggars particularly resorted. There would be some difficulty to account for their preference of this Saint, as he does not appear to have been either lame or leprous. He was a noble Christian, born at Athens, a man of singular charity, giving largely to the poor, and on one occasion doing more than St Martin, by giving the whole of his coat to a diseased and naked beggar, who is said to have been immediately healed on putting it on.

As an exemplification of the legend of Saint Martin might be acceptable to many readers, it has been thought fit to select, as an appropriate embellishment, one of the oldest figures of the Saint that remain, and to place it before the title of the work. This print has been copied with scrupulous fidelity from an ancient engraving in copper, in the truly valuable collection of Thomas Lloyd, Esq., by a German artist, whose name unfortunately has not been preserved, and who probably executed it between the years 1460 and 1470. In this instance the story has not been correctly adhered to, for the designer of the print has there introduced a couple of beggars; an error that is sufficiently compensated by the variety it affords of the mendicant costume, one of these fellows making use of a creeper and dish, the other of a crutch. A later print of this subject, and of extreme curiosity on all accounts, may likewise be consulted. It is from a design by Jerom Bosche, an artist of grotesque celebrity, and represents Saint Martin in a boat full of beggars, with crowds of others on shore, in every possible form and attitude. It is accompanied with the following inscription, in the Flemish language: "The good Saint Martin is here represented among the crippled, nasty, wretched tribe, distributing to them his cloak, instead of money; the miserable crew contending for the spoil."

In the year 1741, a spirited presentment to the Court of King's Bench was made by the Grand Jury of Middlesex, against the unusual swarms of sturdy and clamorous beggars, as well as the many frightful objects exposed in the streets; in which they state, that notwithstanding a very strong presentment to the same effect had been made by a former jury in 1728, they had found the evil rather increased than remedied. This they ascribe to negligence in the proper officers, and trust that a proper remedy will be applied, and themselves not troubled with the poor, at the same time that they are every day more and more loaded with taxes to provide for them; and that his Majesty's subjects may have the passage of the streets, as in former happy times, free and undisturbed, and be able to transact the little business to which the decay of trade has reduced them, without molestation.

In the last session of the present Parliament, the matter has been again taken up with a degree of skill and vigour that reflects great honour on its conductors; and we may indulge a hope to see the streets of the Metropolis freed from the many public and disgusting nuisances that have increased with its population, and the real objects of charity and compassion humanely and properly cherished and protected, as well as the vast and oppressive expense of supporting them reduced.

Already we perceive the alarm has been taken by the members of the mendicant tribes; and it may not be too much to add, that the interest and curiosity of the present work are likely to augment, in proportion as the characters that have led to its composition shall decrease in numbers. That they should entirely disappear, may be more than can be reasonably expected.

The figure above represents an English Beggar about the middle of the fifteenth century, and has been copied from a Pontifical among the Lansdowne MSS. in the British Museum, on one of the margins of which the illuminator has rather strangely introduced it.

[1]   Psal. cix. 10. The passage in 1 Samuel ii. 8, "He lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill," has not been used, because the original word does not seem to mean a common beggar. Strictly rendered, it signifies a poor person, or one in want.

MENDICANT WANDERERS THROUGH THE

STREETS OF LONDON.

SAILORS, according to the old adage, find a port in every storm. The appeal of "My worthy heart, stow a copper in Jack's locker,—for poor Jack has not had a quid to-day," is as piercingly felt by the lowly cottager as the British Admiral.

Who can recollect Bigg's pathetic picture of the "Shipwrecked Sailor-boy," or Mrs Ludlam's charming poem of "The Lost Child," without shedding the tear of sympathy?

The public are not, however, to conclude, that because a fellow sports a jacket and trousers, he must have been a seaman; for there are many fresh-water sailors, who never saw a ship but from London Bridge. Such an impostor was Jack Stuart, Flaxman's model, whose effigy is attached to the capital letter of this page. Jack's latter history is truly curious. After lingering for nearly three months, he died on the 15th of August 1815, aged 35. His funeral was attended by his wife and faithful dog, Tippo, as chief mourners, accompanied by three blind beggars in black cloaks; namely, John Fountain, George Dyball, and John Jewis. Two blind fiddlers, William Worthington and Joseph Symmonds, preceded the coffin, playing the 104th Psalm. The whimsical procession moved on, amidst crowds of spectators, from Jack's house, in Charlton Gardens, Somers Town, to the churchyard of St Pancras, Middlesex. The mourners afterwards returned to the place from whence the funeral had proceeded, where they remained the whole of the night, dancing, drinking, swearing, and fighting, and occasionally chaunting Tabernacle hymns; for it must be understood, that most of the beggars are staunch Methodists. The person from whom these particulars were obtained, and who was one of the party, thought himself extremely happy that he came off with a pair of black eyes only. The conduct of this man's associates in vice was however powerfully contrasted by the extraordinary attachment and fidelity of Jack's cur, Tippo, his long and stedfast guide, who, after remaining three days upon his master's grave, refusing every sort of food, died with intermitting sighs and howling sorrow. The dog of Woollett, the engraver, died nearly a similar death.

The following plate exhibits Stuart's pupil, George Dyball, a fellow of considerable notoriety. He sometimes dresses as a sailor, in nankeen waistcoat and trousers; but George, like his master, never was a seaman. Stuart taught him to maund, by allowing him to kneel at a respectful distance, and repeat his supplications.

Dyball was remarkable for his leader, Nelson, whose tricks displayed in an extraordinary degree the sagacity and docility of the canine race. This dog would, at a word from his master, lead him to any part of the town he wished to traverse, and at so quick a pace, that both animals have been observed to get on much faster than any other streetwalkers. His business was to make a response to his master's "Pray pity the Blind" by an impressive whine, accompanied with uplifted eyes and an importunate turn of the head; and when his eyes have not caught those of the spectators, he has been seen to rub the tin box against their knees, to enforce his solicitations. When money was thrown into the box, he immediately put it down, took out the contents with his mouth, and, joyfully wagging his tail, carried them to his master. After this, for a moment or two, he would venture to smell about the spot; but as soon as his master uttered "Come, Sir," off he would go, to the extent of his string, with his tail between his legs, apprehensive of the effects of his master's corrective switch. This animal was presented to Dyball by Joseph Symmonds, the blind fiddler, who received him of James Garland, another blind beggar, who had taught him his tricks. Unfortunately for Dyball, this treasure has lately been stolen from him, as is supposed by some itinerant player, and he is now obliged to depend on a dog of inferior qualifications, though George has declared him to "Shew very pretty for tricks."

This custom of teaching dogs to beg with cans in their mouths is not new. A few years since, there was such an animal in a booth at Bartholomew Fair, who made his supplications in favour of an Italian rope-dancer. The practice is indeed very ancient, as appears in a truly curious illuminated copy of the Speculum Humanæ Salvationis, written in the early part of the fifteenth century, in the possession of a friend of the author.

PLATE I.

George Dyball, a blind beggar of considerable notoriety, and his dog Nelson.

The next plate is of a beggar well known at fairs near the Metropolis. He is certainly blind, and perhaps one of the most cunning and witty of his tribe; for in order that his blindness may be manifest, he literally throws up his eyeballs, as if desirous of exemplifying the following lines in Hudibras:—

"As men of inward light are wont

To turn their optics in upon't."

He is a foreigner, and probably a Frenchman; at all events he professed to be so on the commencement of the war; but having acquired a tolerable stock of English, and perhaps not choosing to return home, he now declares himself "A poor Spaniard Man."

Sometimes he will, by an artful mode of singing any stuff that comes into his head, and by merely sounding the last word of a line, so contrive to impose upon the waggoners and other country people, as to make them believe that he fought in the field of Waterloo.

"Poor fellow," exclaimed a spectator, "he has been in the battle of Waterloo." "Yes, my belove friends," returned the mendicant, "De money de money go very low too."

However, this fellow is now and then detected, in consequence of a picture, which is painted on a tin plate and fastened to his breast, being the portrait of and worn many years ago by a marine, who had lost his sight at Gibraltar. His hair, which is sometimes bushy, is now and then closely put under his hat, or tied in a tail; and when he alters his voice, he becomes a different character—the form of a decrepit vender of matches. The seated beggar in this plate is frequently to be seen at the wall of Privy Chambers; he never asks charity, nor goes any great distance from Westminster, where he resides.

PLATE II.

A blind beggar well known at fairs near the metropolis; declares himself "a poor Spaniard man."

The following plate of a walking beggar, attended by a boy, was taken from a drawing made in West Smithfield. The object of it is well known about Finsbury Square and Bunhill Row; sometimes he stands at the gates of Wesley's meeting-house. His cant is, "Do, my worthy, tender-hearted Christians, remember the blind; pray pity the stone dark blind." The tricks of the boy that attended this man when the drawing was made, brought to mind the sportive Lazarillo De Tormes, when he was the guide of a beggar; from which entertaining history there are two very spirited etchings by Thomas Wyck,—the one, where he defrauds his master when partaking of the bunch of grapes; and the other, where he revenges a thrashing received from his master by causing him to strike his head against a pillar, and tumble into a ditch that he was attempting to leap.

PLATE III.

Blind beggar attended by a boy. From a drawing made in West Smithfield. Well known about Finsbury Square and Bunhill Row. His cant is, "Do, my worthy tender-hearted Christians, remember the blind; pray, pity the stone-dark blind."

The next subject is a tall blind man, with a long staff, with which he strikes the curbstones. He is seldom to be seen in any particular place, and was drawn when he stood against the wall of Mr Whitbread's brewhouse.

He is frequently a vender of the penny religious tracts, dispersed by a society of Methodists, though perhaps with little use, for they are often purchased by people who are actually going to the gin-shop. It is here stated, on credible authority, that there are no less than 27,000 of the Methodist and 21,500 of the Evangelical Magazines published every month; and it is also reported, that not less than 800 Methodistical meeting-houses have been erected in England within the last year.

PLATE IV.

Tall blind beggar, with a long staff, with which he strikes the curb-stones. Drawn while standing against the wall of Whitbread's Brewery.

The beggar portrayed in the next plate is a blind man, who remains for many hours successively with his legs in one position. He observes a profound silence when on his stand, but makes noise enough when he attends the Tabernacle Walk on the Sabbath; on the week days, however, he is frequently heard singing obscene songs. He is introduced, with his wife, in the background of George Dyball's plate.

PLATE V.

Blind beggar, who observes a profound silence when on his stand, but makes noise enough when he attends the Tabernacle Walk on the Sabbath.

The next plate affords a remarkable instance of sobriety in a blind man, who never tasted gin in his life. He was some years since to be found on the historically and beggarly-famed road of Bethnal Green, and obtained an honest livelihood by trafficking in halfpenny ballads.

PLATE VI.

Blind man, who never tasted gin in his life. Frequented Bethnal Green Road, and obtained an honest livelihood by trafficking in halfpenny ballads.

The ensuing etching is of Charles Wood, a blind man, with an organ and a dancing dog, which he declares to be "The real learned French dog, Bob," and extols his tricks by the following never-failing address, "Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the real learned French dog; please to encourage him; throw any thing down to him, and see how nimbly he'll pick it up, and give it to his poor blind master. Look about, Bob; be sharp; see what you're about, Bob." Money being thrown, Bob picks it up, and puts it into his master's pocket. "Thank ye, thank ye, my good masters; should any more Ladies and Gentlemen wish to encourage the poor dog, he's now quite in the humour; he'll pick it up almost before you can throw it down." It is needless to add, that this man, whose station is against Privy Garden Wall, makes what is called "a pretty penny" by his learned French friend.

This little animal is of so interesting a nature, that it has been thought worth while to give a side view of him, in order to exhibit the true cut of his tail.

PLATE VII.

Charles Wood, a blind man, with an organ and a dancing dog. "The real learned French dog, Bob." Money being thrown, Bob picks it up, and puts it into his master's pocket.

The two succeeding plates are of a class that must ensure attention from the gaping multitude, and are commonly termed industrious beggars.

The female figure is that of Priscilla, an inhabitant of St James, Clerkenwell, who is often to be seen in the summer seated against the wall of the Reservoir of the New River Water-works, Spa-fields, and employed in the making of patchwork quilts. She threads her own needle, cuts her own patches, and fits them entirely herself.

PLATE VIII.

Priscilla, an inhabitant of St James, Clerkenwell, seated against the wall of the New River Water Works, Spa-fields, and employed in the making of patchwork quilts.

The other plate exhibits the portrait of Taylor, a blind shoemaker, who lost his sight eighteen years since by a blight. This harmless man, who lives at No. 6 Saffron Hill, maintains a family by his attention to his stands, which are sometimes at Whitehall, and the wall by Whitfield's Chapel, Tottenham Court Road. This meritorious pair may be justly regarded as true objects of compassion, as they never associate with the common street-beggars.

PLATE IX.

Taylor, a blind shoemaker, at the wall by Whitefield's Chapel, Tottenham Court Road.

The next plate, which will close the series of blind beggars, exhibits the portrait of William Kinlock. He was employed many years ago to turn a wheel for a four-post bedstead turner in Oxford Street, but afterwards lost his sight at Gibraltar, under the great Lord Heathfield. His stands are at Furnival's Inn and Portugal Street, near which latter place he resides.

PLATE X.

William Kinlock, a blind beggar, who lost his sight at Gibraltar.

INDUSTRIOUS beggars are sometimes confounded with sturdy impostors. Of the latter description is the man whose figure is given in the next plate. His employment is to cut a chain out of a piece of ash, which chain he calls "Turkish Moorings."

After this fellow had agreed to accept two shillings for half an hour's sitting for the present work, he had not been seated in the kitchen ten minutes before he began to nestle, and growled a hope that he might not be detained long, adding that he could get twice the money in less time either at Charing Cross or Hyde Park Corner. In order to soften the brute, he had the offer of bread, cheese, and small beer. He said he never took any. At this moment the servant being employed in making a veal pie, he was asked whether he would accept of a steak, and take it to a public-house for his lunch. After slowly turning his head, without giving the least motion of his body, he sneeringly observed, that the veal had no fat.

It was then determined to keep him the full time; and after a few close questions, he observed, that no one dared to keep him in prison; that he worked with tools, and was not a beggar. True it was, indeed, that his hat was on the ground; and if people would put money into it, surely it was not for him to turn it out. As to his chains, few persons would give him his price; they were five shillings a yard; nor did he care much to sell them, for if he did he should have nothing to show. After turning his money over several times, and for which he did not condescend to make the least acknowledgement, he exclaimed on leaving the house, "Now that you have draughted me off, I suppose you'll make a fine deal of money of it."

PLATE XI.

Chain maker, who said he was not a beggar; and if people would put money into his hat, surely it was not for him to turn it out.

The annexed representation is of a fellow whose figure was recently copied in Holborn, and although he was so scandalously intoxicated in the middle of the day that it was with the greatest difficulty he could stand, yet many people followed to give him money, because the inscription on his hat declared him to be "OUT OF EMPLOYMENT." Such are the effects of imposture, and the mischief of ill-directed benevolence. As a contrast to the two preceding characters, see the next plate, which affords the portraits of two truly industrious persons, Joseph Thake and his son. These people are natives of Watford, in Hertfordshire, who finding it impossible to procure work, and being determined not to beg, employed themselves in making puzzles. The boy learned the art when under a shepherd in Cambridgeshire. These specimens of ingenuity are made of pieces of willow, which contain small stones, serving for children's rattles, or as an amusement for grown persons who, unacquainted with the key, after taking them to pieces are puzzled to put them together again. When honest Thake and his son had filled a sack, they trudged to the great City, where they took their station in St Paul's Churchyard, vending their toys at the moderate price of sixpence a piece.

Their rustic simplicity quickly procured them customers; among whom the author's friend, Mr Henry Pocknell, after purchasing a few specimens of their handy-work, procured for him the pleasure of imitating his example.

The worthy parent transferred the money to his son, who requested that he might have the satisfaction of presenting his benefactor with a bird.

PLATE XII.

Joseph Thake and his son, who made rattle puzzles, and sold them in St Paul's Churchyard at sixpence a piece.

The succeeding plate displays the effigy of Joseph Johnson, a black, who in consequence of his having been employed in the merchant service only, is not entitled to the provision of Greenwich. His wounds rendering him incapable of doing further duty on the ocean, and having no claim to relief in any parish, he is obliged to gain a living on shore; and in order to elude the vigilance of the parochial beadles, he first started on Tower Hill, where he amused the idlers by singing George Alexander Stevenson's "Storm." By degrees he ventured into the public streets, and at length became what is called a "Regular Chaunter." But novelty, the grand secret of all exhibitions, from the Magic Lantern to the Panorama, induced Black Joe to build a model of the ship Nelson, to which, when placed on his cap, he can, by a bow of thanks, or a supplicating inclination to a drawing-room window, give the appearance of sea-motion. Johnson is as frequently to be seen in the rural village as in great cities; and when he takes a journey, the kindhearted waggoner will often enable him in a few hours to visit the marketplaces of Staines, Romford, or St Albans, where he never fails to gain the farmer's penny, either by singing "The British Seaman's Praise," or Green's more popular song of "The Wooden Walls of Old England."

PLATE XIII.

Joseph Johnson, a black sailor, with a model of the ship Nelson on his cap.

The following plate presents the portrait of another black man of great notoriety, Charles M'Gee, a native of Ribon, in Jamaica, born in 1744, and whose father died at the great age of 108. This singular man usually stands at the Obelisk, at the foot of Ludgate Hill. He has lost an eye, and his woolly hair, which is almost white, is tied up behind in a tail, with a large tuft at the end, horizontally resting upon the cape of his coat. Charles is supposed to be worth money. His stand is certainly above all others the most popular, many thousands of persons crossing it in the course of the day. He has of late on the working-days sported a smart coat, presented to him by a city pastry-cook. On a Sunday he is a constant attendant at Rowland Hill's meeting-house, and on that occasion his apparel is appropriately varied.

PLATE XIV.

Charles M'Gee, a notorious black man, whose father died at the age of 108. He usually stood at the Obelisk, at the foot of Ludgate Hill.

This man's portrait, when in his 73d year, was drawn on the 9th of October 1815, in the parlour of a public-house, the sign of the Twelve Bells, opposite to the famous well of St Brigit, which gave name to the ancient palace of our kings, Bridewell; but which has, ever since the grant of Edward VI., been a house of correction for vagabonds, &c. It is a truly curious circumstance, that this establishment gave name to other prisons of a similar kind; for instance, Clerkenwell Bridewell, and Tothill-fields' Bridewell. Over the entrance of the latter, the following inscription has been placed:—

HERE ARE SEVERAL SORTS OF WORK

FOR THE POOR OF THIS PARISH OF ST.

MARGARET'S, WESTMINSTER;

AS ALSO THE COUNTY, ACCORDING TO

LAW, AND FOR SUCH AS WILL BEG, AND

LIVE IDLE IN THIS CITY AND LIBERTY

OF WESTMINSTER, ANNO 1655.

Black people, as well as those destitute of sight, seldom fail to excite compassion. Few persons, however humble their situation, can withhold charity from the infant smiling upon features necessarily dead to its supplications, and deeply shrouded from the prying eyes of the vulgar by the bonnet, placarded with

PRAY PITY THE BLIND AND FATHERLESS!

A lady, on seeing this woodcut, composed the following lines:—

Lo! yonder Widow, reft of sight,

A Mother, who ne'er knew

The joys which Parents' eyes delight

When first their Babes they view.

Close to her breast, with cherub smile,

The cherish'd Infant lies;

And t'wards those darkened orbs the while

Lifts its unconscious eyes.

Then, Stranger, pause, and yield a gift

To Misery's Children due;

Lo! e'en yon grasping Miser's thrift

Now drops like hallowed dew.   M. P.

Doctor Johnson, who generally gave to importunate beggars, never failed to relieve the silent blind.

Black men are extremely cunning, and often witty; they have mostly short names, such as Jumbo, Toby, &c., but the last seems of late to be the most fashionable, for it has not only been used by the master of Mr Punch, the street-strolling puppet, as a name for that merry little fellow's dog, but by the proprietor of the Sapient Pig.

The last negro beggar called Toby, was a character well known in this Metropolis. He was destitute of toes, had his head bound with a white handkerchief, and bent himself almost double to walk upon two hand-crutches, with which he nearly occupied the width of the pavement. Master Toby generally affected to be tired and exhausted whenever he approached a house where the best gin was to be procured; and was perhaps of all the inhabitants of Church Lane, St Giles's, the man who expended the most money in that national cordial.

But this man was nothing when compared with a Lascar, who lately sold halfpenny ballads, and whose gains enabled him to spit his goose, or broil a duck; for it is well known, that upon an average he made not less than fifteen shillings per day.

The author of this little work sincerely regrets the loss of a sketch that he made from a black man, whose countenance and figure were the most interesting of any of the tribe. He was nearly six feet in height, rather round in the shoulders, and usually wore a covering of green baize; indeed altogether he brought to recollection that exquisite statue of Cicero, in the Pomfret collection of marbles at Oxford, so beautifully engraved by Sherwin. This fellow, who had often been taken up, has not been seen for several months.

Go-cart, Billies in bowls, or Sledge-beggars, are denominations for those cripples whose misfortunes will not permit them to travel in any other way; and these are next presented to the reader's notice.

Men of this class are to be found in every country. The little fellow above depicted in the cart is copied from Luca Carlevarij's 100 Views in Venice, a set of long quarto plates, most spiritedly etched, and published in 1703.

Hogarth, whose active eye caught Nature in all her garbs, has introduced in his Wedding of the Industrious Apprentice, a cripple well known in those days under the appellation of Philip in the Tub, a fellow who constantly attended weddings, and retailed the ballad of "Jesse, or the Happy Pair."

Dublin has ever been famous for a Billy in the Bowl. A very remarkable fellow of this class, well known in that city, and who thought proper to leave Ireland on the Union, was met in London by a Noble Lord, who observed, "So you are here too!" "Yes, my Lord," replied the beggar, "the Union has brought us all over."

The back view of the person exhibited in the following plate, is that of Samuel Horsey, who, in December 1816, had been a London beggar for thirty-one years. Of this man there are various opinions, and it is much to be doubted if the truth can be obtained even from his own mouth. He states that Mr Abernethy cut off his legs in St Bartholomew's Hospital, but he does not declare from what cause; so that being deprived of the power of gaining a subsistence by labour, he was forced to become a beggar. By some persons he is styled the King of the Beggars, but certainly without the least foundation. He says that no one has been less acquainted with beggars than himself; and as for his having the command of a district, that he utterly denies. His walks, or rather movements, are not always confined; on some days he slides to Charing Cross, but is oftener to be seen at the door of Mr Coutts's banking-house, perhaps with an idea that persons just after they have received money are more likely to bestow charity.

Of all other men, Horsey has the most dexterous mode of turning, or rather swinging himself, into a gin-shop. He dashes the door open by forcibly striking the front of his sledge and himself against it.

He was once seen in a most perilous situation, when he lodged in a two-pair of stairs back room, in Wharton's Court, Holborn. He had placed himself on the window-sill, in order to clean the outside upper panes, and was attached as usual to his sledge, when unfortunately he broke a square. On this occasion he let loose the volley of oaths which at other times he can so forcibly discharge; nor did his rage subside after he had launched himself into the room again; indeed he was heard at intervals to vociferate in this way for several hours.

PLATE XV.

Samuel Horsey, a London beggar for more than thirty-one years. Frequented the neighbourhood of Charing Cross and Coutts's Bank.

The very extraordinary torso etched in the next plate is that of John Mac Nally, of the county of Tyrone. This poor fellow lost the use of his legs by a log, that crushed both his thighs, when an apprentice at Cork.

His head, shoulders, and chest, which are exactly those of Hercules, would prove valuable models for the artist.

Mac, who is well known about Parliament Street, Whitehall, and the Surrey foot of Westminster Bridge, after scuttling along the streets for some time upon a sledge, discovered the power of novelty, and trained two dogs, Boxer and Rover, to draw him in a truck, by which contrivance he has increased his income beyond all belief.

Though this man's dogs when coupled have occasional snarlings, particularly when one scratches himself with an overstrained exertion, the other feeling at the same time an inclination to dose, yet, when their master has been dead drunk, and become literally a log on his truck, they have very cordially united their efforts to convey him to his lodgings in St Ann's Lane, Westminster, and perhaps with more safety than if he had governed them, frequently taking a circuitous route during street repairs in order to obtain the clearest path.

PLATE XVI.

John MacNally, of Tyrone County, with his two dogs Boxer and Rover, who drew him in a truck. Well known about Parliament Street and Whitehall.

The figure in the box is that of a Jew mendicant, who has unfortunately lost the use of his legs, and is placed every morning in the above vehicle, so that he may be drawn about the neighbourhood of Petticoat Lane, and exhibited as an object of charity. His venerable appearance renders it impossible for a Jew or a Christian to pass without giving him alms, though he never begs but of his own people; a custom highly creditable to the Jews, and even more attentively observed by that truly honourable Society of Friends, vulgarly called Quakers, who neither suffer their poor to beg, nor become burthensome to any but themselves.

PLATE XVII.

A Jew Beggar, who has lost the use of his legs, and was drawn in a box about the neighbourhood of Petticoat Lane.

About forty-eight years ago, when the sites of Portland Place, Devonshire Street, &c., were fields, the famous Tommy Lowe, then a singer at Mary-le-bone Gardens, raised a subscription to enable an unfortunate man to run a small chariot, drawn by four muzzled mastiffs, from a pond near Portland Chapel—called Cockney Ladle, which supplied Mary-le-bone Basin with water—to the Farthing Pie-house, a building remaining at the end of Norton Street, and now the sign of the Green Man, in order to accommodate children with a ride for a halfpenny. And it is rather extraordinary, that the son of that very man, a few years since, and after the death of his wife, harnessed a spaniel to a small cart, but large enough to hold his infant, which the animal drew after the father from lamp to lamp through the very streets above mentioned. The dog became so accustomed to his task, that as soon as he heard his master cover a lamp, away he would scamper to the next, and there wait the arrival of the ladder.

Street-crossing sweepers next make their appearance; the first on the list being William Tomlins, whose stand is very productive, as it includes both Albemarle and St James Streets. Of this man there is nothing further remarkable, beyond his attention to his pitch, for so the beggars and ballad-singers call their stands. He appears to be alive to the receipt of every penny, and will not suffer himself by any means to be diverted from his solicitations; as a strong proof of which, he refused to hold the horse of a gentleman who called to him for that purpose, and from this it may be inferred that he thought begging a better occupation.

PLATE XVIII.

William Tomlins, a crossing-sweeper, who stood at Albemarle and St James's Streets.

The next character portrayed is a constant sweeper of the crossing at the top of Ludgate Hill. This man finds it his interest to wear a cloth round his head, as he is on that account frequently noticed by elderly maiden city dames, who mistake him for one of their own sex.

PLATE XIX.

Sweeper of the crossing at the top of Ludgate Hill.

The crossing from Charles Street to Rathbone Place is swept by Daniel Cropp, as filthy a looking fellow as any of his tribe. In order to render himself noticed, he literally combs his hair with his opened fingers. He at present differs from the etching, by wearing a fireman's jacket.

PLATE XX.

Daniel Cropp, sweeper of the crossing from Charles Street to Rathbone Place.

The next plate represents a lad who occasionally sweeps the crossing at the end of Princes Street, Hanover Square, and wears a large waistcoat, surmounted by a soldier's jacket.

PLATE XXI.

Lad who swept the crossing at the end of Princes Street, Hanover Square.

At the time he was drawn, he was so sickly that his person was not recognised as a vender of matches, in which character he had two years before been selected as a subject for this work, and whose portrait as such is given in the following plate. The boy occasionally sings the old match song, and at certain hours finds it his interest to exercise his broom at the above station.

PLATE XXII.

Vendor of matches.

The subjects of the next two plates are unfortunate mendicants. The first is a silver-haired man, of the name of Lilly, who lost his leg in some repairs at Westminster. Poets' Corner, in the Abbey, is the place where he is mostly to be seen.

PLATE XXIII.

"Lilly," who lost his leg in some repairs at Westminster. Mostly to be seen at Poets' Corner in the Abbey.

The second plate is the portrait of William Frasier, deprived of both his hands in the field of battle. His allowance as a maimed soldier not being sufficient to maintain his large family, he is obliged to depend on the benevolence of such of the public who purchase boot-laces of him. When this poor fellow's portrait was taken, he lodged in Market Lane, in the house formerly occupied by Torre, the print-seller, who was the original fireworker at Mary-le-bone Gardens.

PLATE XXIV.

William Frasier, deprived of both his hands in the field of battle. Maintains his family by the sale of boot-laces.

London has of late been gradually losing many of its old street customs, particularly that pleasing one of the milkmaid's garland, so richly decorated with articles of silver and bunches of cowslips. The garland was of a pyramidal form, and placed upon a horse carried by two chairmen, adorned with ribbons and tulips. The plate consisted of pint mugs, quart tankards, and large dishes, sometimes to the value of five hundred pounds, hired of silversmiths for the purpose. The milkwoman and her pretty maids, in their Nancy Dawson petticoats, would dance to the fiddler's jigs of "Paddy O'Rafferty," or "Off she goes," before the doors of their customers; but now, instead of this innocent scene of May-day gaiety, the streets are infested by such fellows as the one exhibited in the adjoining plate, who have been dismissed, perhaps for their indecent conduct, from the public places of entertainment. These men hire old dresses, and join the Chimney Sweeper's, Cinder-sifter's, or Bunter's Garland, or Jack in the Green, &c., and exhibit all sorts of grimace and ribaldry to extort money from their numerous admirers.

PLATE XXV.

May-Day Gaiety.—These men hire old dresses, and join the Cinder-sifter's or Bunter's Garland, or Jack in the Green, &c., and exhibit all sorts of grimace and ribaldry, to extort money from their numerous admirers.

Few persons, particularly those in elevated life, can witness, or even entertain a true idea of the various modes by which the lowest classes gain a livelihood. It is scarcely to be believed that some few years ago a woman, of the name of Smith, regularly went over London early in the morning, to strike out the teeth of dead dogs that had been stolen and killed for the sake of their skins. These teeth she sold to bookbinders, carvers, and gilders, as burnishing tools.

There are women who, on Sunday mornings when there are no carts about, frequent Thames Street, and the adjoining lanes inhabited by Lisbon merchants, to pick up from the kennels the refuse of lemons, after they have been squeezed for their juice. These they sell to the Jew distillers, who extract a further portion of liquor, and thus afford them the means of selling, at a considerably reduced price, lemon drops to the lower order of confectioners.

It is seldom that the common beggars eat the food given to them; and it is a well-known fact, that they sell their broken bread to the lowest order of the biscuit bakers, who grind it for the purpose of making "tops and bottoms," &c.

This was also the practice in former days, as appears in an old ballad, from which the following is an extract:—

THE BEGGAR'S WEDDING;

OR, THE JOVIAL CREW.

Printed with allowance, October 19, 1676.

"Then Tom a Bedlam winds his horn at best,

Their trumpet 'twas to bring away their feast;

Pickt marybones they had, found in the street,

Carrots kickt out of kennels with their feet;

Crusts gathered up for bisket, twice so dry'd;

Alms-tubs, and olla podridas, beside

Many such dishes more; but it would cumber

Any to name them, more than I can number.

Then comes the banquet, which must never fail,

That the town gave, of whitebread and strong ale.

All were so tipsie, that they could not go,

And yet would dance, and cry'd for music hoe:

With tonges and gridirons they were play'd unto,

And blind men sung, as they are us'd to do.

Some whistled, and some hollow sticks did sound,

And so melodiously they play around:

Lame men, lame women, manfully cry advance,

And so, all limping, jovially did dance."

Some women gain a living by going from house to house and begging phials. They pretend that they have an order for medicines at the dispensary, for their dear husband, or only child, but know not in what way to get it without a bottle, as they are obliged to take one of their own; at the same time, some will beg white linen rags to dress wounds with. These they soon turn into money at the old iron shops,—the "dealers in marine stores."

Those who beg old shoes, such as Grannee Manoo, make as much as six or seven shillings a day. They sell them to the people who live in cellars in Monmouth Street, or stalls in Food and Raiment Alley, Rosemary Lane, &c. These persons give them new soles, and are called Translators. In Mountsorrel, Leicestershire, a cobbler of the name of Bates styles himself a translator.

The plate of two Bone-pickers is the next to be described. The physiognomy of the fellow who is stitching patches together to tack to his coat, which consists of some hundreds of bits of old velvet, carpets, &c., would baffle the skill of either Lavater or Spurzheim; it has the mixture of the idiot, the goat, and the bull-dog. Such a visage might have been useful to Spagnolet, or his pupil Salvator. In order to discover a few of the habits of this character, he was followed for several hours through many streets, alleys, and courts, in the parish of St Martin's in the Fields. On his arrival at Moor's Yard, which is said to have been a place for the execution of public criminals in early times, he was accused of stealing door mats, and with some difficulty extricated his tatters from the tugs of a couple of dogs. In Hartshorn Lane, in the Strand, at one time the residence of Ben Jonson, he was seen to take up a brick, and throw it at two curs fighting for a bone, which he picked up and put into his bag. These bones are bought by the burners at Haggerstone, Shoreditch, and Battlebridge, at two shillings per bushel, in which half a bushel is given over, that being bone measure.

PLATE XXVI.

Two bone-pickers, one of them stitching patches together to tack to his coat.

Bill Row and John Taylor, two grubbers, are introduced in the next plate. These men, with Stephen Lloyd, form the sum total of their description in London. They procure a livelihood by whatever they find in grubbing out the dirt from between the stones with a crooked bit of iron, in search of nails that fall from horse-shoes, which are allowed to be the best iron that can be made use of for gun-barrels; and though the streets are constantly looked over at the dawn of day by a set of men in search of sticks, handkerchiefs, shawls, &c., that may have been dropped during the night, yet these grubbers now and then find rings that have been drawn off with the gloves, or small money that has been washed by the showers between the stones. These men are frequently employed to clear gully-holes and common sewers, the stench of which is so great that their breath becomes pestilential; and its noxious quality on one occasion had so powerful an effect on a man of the name of Dixie, as to deprive him of two of his senses, smelling and tasting, and yet Ned Flowers followed this calling for forty years.

PLATE XXVII.

Bill Row and John Taylor, two grubbers.

But there is still a more wretched class of beings than the grubbers, who never know the comfort of dry clothes,—they are, like the leech, perpetually in water. The occupation of these draggle-tail wretches commences on the banks of the Thames at low water. They go up to their knees in mud, to pick up the coals that fall from the barges when at the wharfs. Their flesh and dripping rags are like the coals they carry in small bags across their shoulders, and which they dispose of, at a reduced price, to the meanest order of chandler-shop retailers.

The environs produce characters equally curious with those of London, particularly among that order of people called Simplers, whose business it is to gather and supply the city markets with physical herbs. Such an innocent instance of rustic simplicity is William Friday, whose portrait is exhibited in the following plate. This man starts from Croydon, with champignons, mushrooms, &c., and is alternately snail-picker, leech-bather, and viper-catcher.

PLATE XXVIII.

William Finley,—is alternately snail-picker, leech-bather, and viper-catcher.

The man whose portrait is given in the succeeding plate, mimics the notes of the common English birds by means of a folded bit of tin, similar to that used by Mr Punch's orator, and which is held between the teeth; but in order to engage the attention of the credulous, he pretends, as his lips are nearly closed, to draw his tones from two tobacco-pipes, using one for the fiddle, the other for the bow, and never fails to collect an attentive audience, either in the street or tap-room.

PLATE XXIX.

Street musician, who mimics the notes of the common English birds by means of a folded bit of tin, which is held between the teeth; but in order to engage the attention of the credulous, he pretends to draw his tones from two tobacco pipes.

Musicians of this description were at one time very numerous. Gravelot, when he kept a drawing-school in the Strand, made sketches of several. One particularly picturesque, was of a blind chaunter of the old ballads of "There was a wealthy Lawyer," or "O Brave Nell," and has been admirably etched by Miller. This man accompanied his voice by playing upon a catgut string drawn over a bladder, and tied at both ends of a mop-stick; but the boys continually perplexing him by pricking his bladder, and a pampered prodigal having with a sword let out all his wind, he fortunately hit upon a mode of equally charming the ear by substituting a tin tea-canister.

PLATE XXX.

A blind chaunter of the old ballads, who accompanied his voice by playing upon a catgut string drawn over a tea canister, and tied at both ends of a mop stick.

Thomas King, a most excellent painter of conversation-scenes, who lived at the time of Hogarth, and assisted him in his large pictures of Paul before Felix in Lincoln's Inn Hall, and the Good Samaritan in Bartholomew's Hospital, has left portraits of several of these singular beings,—such as Maddox, the balancer of a straw; but particularly that of Matthew Skeggs, who played a concerto upon a broomstick, in the character of Signor Bumbasto, at the little theatre in the Haymarket. These portraits have been engraved by Houston. That of Skeggs was published by himself, at the sign of the Hoop and Bunch of Grapes, in St Alban's Street, now a part of Waterloo Place. Since their time, Mr Meadows, the comedian, has been particularly famous for his imitations of birds; and some of the lowest description of street vagabonds have produced tones by playing upon their chins with their knuckles. Another hero of the knuckle, was the famous Buckhorse, the friend of Ned Shuter, and who formerly sold sticks in Covent Garden. This fellow grew so callous to the blow of the knuckle, as to place his head firmly against a wall, and suffer, for a shilling, any wretch to strike him with his doubled fist, with all his strength, in his face, which became at last more like a Good-Friday bun than any thing human. Of this man there are many portraits.

Of Scottish, Welsh, and Irish mendicants there are now very few in London; perhaps their full number does not exceed fifty, unless by including that lower order of street-musicians who so frequently distract the harmonious ear with their droning bag-pipes, screaming clarionets, and crazy harps. These people, with match, tooth-pick, and cotton-ball venders, may be considered but as one remove from beggary.

The lowest class of the Scotch are bakers' men; the women are laundresses. The Welshmen, of whom London never had many, are principally employed by the potters of Lambeth, at which place they have an old established house of worship. It is a cheerful sight to behold their women, who are remarkable for their cleanliness, and, like the Scotch, are generally pictures of vigorous health. These will go in trains of twenty or thirty persons, from Hammersmith to Covent Garden Market, joining in one national melody, and perfuming the air with their baskets of ripe strawberries.

Of all people the poor Irish are the most anxious to gain employment, and are truly valuable examples of industry. They sleep less than other labourers; for at the dawn of day they assemble in flocks at their usual stands for hire,—namely, Whitechapel, Queen Street, Cheapside, and on the spot formerly occupied by St Giles's pound, at the ends of Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road. The most laborious of them are chairmen, paviers, bricklayers' labourers, potato-gatherers, and basket-men; and, to the eternal disgrace of the commonalty of the English, these people, as well as the Scotch and Welsh, are guilty of very few excesses, particularly in that odious practice of drinking, a vice so much increased by the accommodation of seats in gin-shops, which are the first opened and last shut in London.

The Irish carry immense loads. A hod of bricks, weighing one hundred and ten pounds, is carried one hundred and twenty times at least in the course of the day, and sometimes up a ladder of the height of five stories, and all for two shillings and ninepence per day. The pavier's rammer, of more than half a hundred weight, is raised not fewer than two thousand times in the course of the day. What Englishman could do this? With respect to loads on the head, the Irish surpass all others. Leary makes nothing of carrying two hundred weight from the Fox under the Hill, near the Adelphi, to Covent Garden, many times on a market morning; and yet, extraordinary as this may appear, his feats have been more than equalled by a female. A man of the name of Eglesfield, who has sold flowers in Covent Garden for the last thirty-six years, knew an Irish girl who would often walk under the weight of two hundred pounds. He declares that she brought a load of one hundred and a half from Newgate Market to Covent Garden on her head, without once pitching, though it must be observed that this was not potato-weight, which has always one hundred and twenty-six pounds to the hundred.

The following woodcut represents the humane manner in which cripples are conveyed from door to door in many parts of Ireland. The following description has been kindly furnished to the Author by a friend, who has frequently assisted in the conveyance, and takes no ordinary interest in the condition of the poor.

In the country parts of Ireland, beggars are treated with great tenderness and pious hospitality. Many of them are recognised as descended from ancient and powerful septs, which decayed in the revolutions of property and influence. During many years after the invasion of King Henry, the houses of hospitality (so amply described in Sir John Davis's Tracts) which were established by the Chiefs for their poor relations and the traveller, were still kept open; and to this hour, some gentry and farmers provide the itinerant beggars with a bed as well as food. The alms are generally given in meal, flax, wool, milk, or potatoes, but seldom in money, except in cities or towns. After receiving a night's lodging or alms, long and devout prayers are distinctly uttered at the door of the benefactor. Like the players in Hamlet, they are the brief chronicles of the times, and their praises of the good frequently contribute to matrimonial connections. In some parts of the country the beggars have a particular day in the week for appearing abroad, when they are plentifully supplied for the remaining six; and those who, from loss of limbs, or other infirmity, are unable to walk, are seated upon barrows, and carried or wheeled from door to door, by the servants of each house or the casual passenger, an act of piety which is not unfrequently performed by members of respectable families. The beggars are seen in crowds near places of Catholic worship, or pilgrimage, and many of them are distinguished for great piety and temperance. The English traveller is sometimes surprised at seeing a venerable figure, clothed in a hair-cloth shirt or tunic, repeating his orisons on the side of a road, with naked shivering limbs, and a beard which for years has been unconscious of a razor. Yet in Ireland, as in other places, there are pretended objects, and beggars who misapply the benefactions of the charitable. They receive no interruption from the police, except in Dublin, where a large close cart frequently returns to the workhouse full of discontented mendicants, who have an extraordinary aversion to restraint upon their freedom, or compulsion to attend the established worship, which is generally different from their own.

This class of the Irish are by no means unacquainted with the use of wit and waggery. The celebrated Dr O'Leary used to entertain his friends with some instances of their ingenuity. As he was riding to Maynooth College, a beggar accosted him for alms, declaring that he had not received a farthing for three days. The good Doctor gave him some silver, and being accosted on his return, in the evening, with a similar story, he upbraided the petitioner with his falsehood, telling him that he was Dr O'Leary. "Oh, long life to your reverence," said the beggar, "who would I tell my lies to, except my clargy?"

The parts in and near London mostly inhabited by the Irish poor, are Calmel Buildings, Orchard Street; Petty France, Westminster; Paddy's Land, near Plaistow; forty houses on the Rumford Road; and in the parish of St Giles in the Fields. This latter place, which is their principal residence, is called their colony, and is styled by them "The Holy Land;" in the centre of it there is a mass of building called "Rats' Castle."

In the time of Queen Elizabeth, St Giles's was the rendezvous of the beggars; for in "A Caveat, or Warning, for Common Cursitors, vulgarely called Vagabones, set forth by Thomas Harman, Esquire," 1567, it appears that Nicoles Genynges, the cranke, went over "the water into St George's fields," and not, according to the expectation of Mr Harman, who caused him to be dogged, toward Holborn, or St Giles's in the Fields.

It appears from a very early plan of St Giles's in the Fields, in the possession of Mr Parton, vestry clerk of that parish, that the lowest class of its inhabitants live on a portion of sixteen acres formerly called "Pittaunce Croft" (the allowance), which extended from a large mansion called Tottenhall, the fragments of which were of late supposed to have been parts of a palace of King John; they have been recently taken down. This house of Tottenhall was formerly inhabited by a Prebendary of St Paul's; it stood on the north side of that part of the road called "Tottenham Court," leading from the north end of Tottenham Court Road to Battle Bridge. The sixteen acres commenced from the above house, and went on southerly to St Giles's Church, and from thence easterly along the north side of the High Street to Red Lion Fields (now Red Lion Square).

The streets, lanes, alleys, and courts, forming the nest of houses inhabited by thieves, beggars, and the poor labouring Irish, are encompassed by a portion of the south side of Russell Street, formerly called Leonard Street, commencing from Tottenham Court Road, parts of the west sides of Charlotte and Plumtree Streets, and a part of the north and round the east of High Street to the first mentioned station of Russell Street. To the honour of Scotland, not one Scotch beggar is to be found in the dregs or lees of St Giles's. However wretched and depraved the inhabitants of this spot may now be, they certainly were worse fifty years ago, for it appears that there was then no honour among thieves; the sheets belonging to the lodging-houses, where a bed at that time was procured for twopence, having the names of the owners painted on them in large characters of red lead, in order to prevent their being bought if stolen,—as for instance,

JOHN LEA,

LAWRENCE LANE.

STOP THIEF.

At the same period, the shovels, pokers, tongs, gridirons, and purl pots of the public-houses, particularly those of the Maidenhead Inn, in Dyott Street (now changed to George Street), and which was then kept by a man of the name of Jordan, were all chained to the fire-place. At this house the beggars, after a good day's maunding, would bleed the dragon, a large silver tankard so called, and which was to be filled with punch only. There is now a house, the sign of the Rose and Crown, in Church Lane, which was formerly called the Beggars' Opera; and there was another house so denominated, the sign of the Weaver's Arms, in Church Lane, Whitechapel.

The last cook-shop where the knives and forks were chained to the table, was on the south side of High Street. It was kept about forty years ago by a man of the name of Fussell.

Perhaps the only waggery in public-house customs now remaining, is in the tap-room of the Apple Tree, opposite to Cold Bath Fields Prison. There are a pair of handcuffs fastened to the wires as bell-pulls, and the orders given by some of the company, when they wish their friends to ring, are, to "agitate the conductor."

Most of the kitchens in High Street, from St Giles's Church to the entrance of Holborn, were sausage, sheep's head, roley poley pudding, pancake, and potatoe cellars. The last heroine of the frying-pan exhibited a short nose and shining red face, and was known by the appellation of "Little Fanny." She had fried and boiled for Mrs Markham, now living in the same house, thirty-three years. Her face had become so ardent by frequent wipings, that for many years it would not bear a touch.

It was the opinion of Sir Nathaniel Conant, when that able and active magistrate attended the Committee of the House of Commons, that extensive as mendicity has been of late, it is by no means to be compared with what it was thirty years ago.

It is very obvious that since the proceedings of the Committee for inquiring into the state of mendicity, the common beggars have decreased considerably in their numbers; and although they are still extremely numerous, it appears that where our wonderful Metropolis is molested with one beggar, there are twenty to be met with in almost every capital on the continent.

England, justly claiming the palm for the encouragement of every art and science, has ever been foremost in almsgiving, not only to her own people, but to those of almost every part of the globe. Nor can any other country boast such parochial poorhouses. The vast improvements of the streets and public edifices, great as they are, by no means keep pace with them either as to comfort or expense, of which Marylebone and Pancras are examples; and to the honour of these parishes, as well as that of St James, their concerns are regulated, examined, and audited by independent characters of the highest integrity.

Notwithstanding the great benefit of these asylums for the destitute, and the laws for the punishment of beggars, the sympathetic heart of the true Christian, a character unpolluted by the cant of crafty sectarists, is ever open to the tale of the distressed, from a respect for that excellent doctrine of St Paul, that

CHARITY NEVER FAILETH.

The following eulogium on this virtue, is extracted from Mr Hamilton's appeal in behalf of a religious community which had been deprived of its property during the French Revolution:—

"CHARITY is an emanation from the choicest attribute of the Deity; it is, as it were, a portion of the Divinity engrafted upon the human stock; it cancels a multitude of transgressions in the possessor, and gives him a foretaste of celestial joys. It whetted the pious Martin's sword, when he divided his garment with the beggar; and swelled the royal Alfred's bosom, while a pilgrim was the partner of his meal. It influenced the sorrowing widow to cast her mite into the treasury; and held a Saviour on the Cross, when he could have summoned Heaven to his rescue. Its practice was dictated by the law, its neglect has been censured by the prophets; and when the Lord of the vineyard sent his only Son, he came not to destroy the law, but to fulfil it. Other virtues may have a limit here, but Charity extends beyond the grave. Faith may be lost in endless certainty, and Hope may perish in the fruition of its object, but Charity shall live for countless ages, for ever blessing and for ever blessed!"

THE END.

A Soap-eater, copied from a rare print of the time of Queen Elizabeth

A Tom of Bedlam copied from an Old Drawing of the time of Edw. 6th. in the possession of Fran. Douce Esq.

Copied from a Drawing of the time of Henry VIIth in the possession of Francis Douce, Esq.

PLATE XXXI.

Beggars leaving town for their workhouse.

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Table of Contents

LIVES OF FAMOUS LONDON BEGGARS,

PREFACE.

INTRODUCTION.

MENDICANT WANDERERS THROUGH THE STREETS OF LONDON.

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