John Thomas Smith

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 {28} 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 {6} 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 ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”