London Labour and the London Poor: Selection (Classics) Read online

  The patterers or oratorical street-sellers include among their class many itinerant traders, other than the wandering ‘paper-workers’ – as those vending the several articles of street-literature are generally denominated. The Cheap Jacks, or oratorical hucksters of hardware at fairs and other places, are among the most celebrated and humorous of this class. The commercial arts and jests of some of these people, display considerable cleverness. Many of their jokes, it is true, are traditional – and as purely a matter of parrotry as the witticisms of the ‘funny gentlemen’ on the stage, but their ready adaptation of accidental circumstances to the purposes of their business, betrays a modicum of wit far beyond that which falls to the share of ordinary ‘low comedians’. The street-vendors of cough drops – infallible cures for the toothache and other ailments – also belong to the pattering class. These are, as was before stated, the remains of the obsolete mountebanks of England and the saltinbanque of France – a class of al fresco orators who derived their names from the bench – the street pulpit, rostrum, or platform – that they ascended, in order the better to deliver their harangues. The street jugglers, actors, and showmen, as well as the street-sellers of grease-removing compositions, corn-salve, razor-paste, plating-balls, waterproof blacking, rat poisons, sovereigns sold for wagers, and a multiplicity of similar street-trickeries – such as oratorical begging – are other ingenious and wordy members of the same chattering, jabbering, or ‘pattering’ fraternity. These will all be spoken of under the head of the different things they respectively sell or do. For the present we have only to deal with that portion of the ‘pattering’ body who are engaged in the street sale of literature – or the ‘paper-workers’ as they call themselves. The latter include the ‘running patterers’, or ‘death-hunters’; being men (no women) engaged in vending last dying speeches and confessions – in hawking ‘se-cond edi-tions’ of newspapers – or else in ‘working’, that is to say, in getting rid of what are technically termed ‘cocks’; which, in polite language, means accounts of fabulous duels between ladies of fashion – of apochryphal elopements, or fictitious love-letters of sporting noblemen and certain young milliners not a hundred miles from the spot – ‘cooked’ assassinations and sudden deaths of eminent individuals – pretended jealous affrays between Her Majesty and the Prince Consort (but these papers are now never worked) – or awful tragedies, including mendacious murders, impossible robberies, and delusive suicides.

  The sellers of these choice articles, however, belong more particularly to that order or species of the pattering genus known as ‘running patterers’, or ‘flying stationers’, from the fact of their being continually on the move while describing the attractions of the ‘papers’ they have to sell. Contradistinguished from them, however, are the ‘standing patterers’, or those for whose less startling announcements a crowd is necessary, in order that the audience may have time to swallow the many marvels worked by their wares. The standing patterers require, therefore, what they term a ‘pitch’, that is to say a fixed locality, where they can hold forth to a gaping multitude for, at least, some few minutes continuously. They are mainly such street-sellers as deal in nostrums and the different kinds of street ‘wonders’. Occasionally, however, the running patterer (who is especially literary) transmigrates into a standing one, betaking himself to ‘board work’, as it is termed in street technology, and stopping at the corners of thoroughfares with a large pictorial placard raised upon a pole, and glowing with a highly-coloured exaggeration of the interesting terrors of the pamphlet he has for sale. This is either ‘The Life of Calcraft, the Hangman’, ‘The Diabolical Practices of Dr — on his Patients when in a state of Mesmerism’, or ‘The Secret Doings at the White House, Soho’, and other similar attractively-repulsive details. Akin to this ‘board work’ is the practice of what is called ‘strawing’, or selling straws in the street, and giving away with them something that is either really or fictionally forbidden to be sold, – as indecent papers, political songs, and the like. This practice, however, is now seldom resorted to, while the sale of ‘secret papers’ is rarely carried on in public. It is true, there are three or four patterers who live chiefly by professing to dispose of ‘sealed packets’ of obscene drawings and cards for gentlemen; but this is generally a trick adopted to extort money from old debauchees, young libertines, and people of degraded or diseased tastes; for the packets, on being opened, seldom contain anything but an odd number of some defunct periodical. There is, however, a large traffic in such secret papers carried on in what is called ‘the public-house trade’, that is to say, by itinerant ‘paper-workers’ (mostly women), who never make their appearance in the streets, but obtain a livelihood by ‘busking’, as it is technically termed, or, in other words, by offering their goods for sale only at the bars and in the tap-rooms and parlours of taverns. The excessive indulgence of one appetite is often accompanied by the disease of a second; the drunkard, of course, is super-eminently a sensualist, and is therefore easily taken by anything that tends to stimulate his exhausted desires: so sure is it that one form of bestiality is a necessary concomitant of another. There is another species of patterer, who, though usually included among the standing patterers, belongs rather to an intermediate class, viz., those who neither stand nor ‘run’, as they descant upon what they sell; but those walk at so slow a rate that, though never stationary, they can hardly be said to move. These are the reciters of dialogues, litanies, and the various street ‘squibs’ upon passing events; they also include the public pro-pounders of conundrums, and the ‘hundred and fifty popular song’ enumerators – such as are represented in the engraving here given. Closely connected with them are the ‘chaunters’, or those who do not cry, but (if one may so far stretch the English language) sing the contents of the ‘papers’ they vend.

  These traffickers constitute the principal street-sellers of literature, or ‘paper-workers’, of the ‘pattering’ class. In addition to them there are many others vending ‘papers’ in the public thoroughfares, who are mere traders resorting to no other acts for the disposal of their goods than a simple cry or exposition of them; and many of these are but poor, humble, struggling, and inoffensive dealers. They do not puff or represent what they have to sell as what it is not – (allowing them a fair commercial latitude). They are not of the ‘enterprising’ class of street tradesmen. Among these are the street-sellers of stationery – such as note-paper, envelopes, pens, ink, pencils, sealing-wax, and wafers. Belonging to the same class, too, are the street-vendors of almanacs, pocket-books, memorandum and account-books. Then there are the sellers of odd numbers of periodicals and broadsheets, and those who vend either playing cards, conversation cards, stenographic cards, and (Epsom, Ascot, &c.) racing cards. Besides these, again, there are the vendors of illustrated cards, such as those embellished with engravings of the Crystal Palace, Views of the Houses of Parliament, as well as the gelatine poetry cards – all of whom, with the exception of the racing-card sellers (who belong generally to the pattering tribe), partake of the usual characteristics of the street-selling class.

  After these may be enumerated the vendors of old engravings out of inverted umbrellas, and the hawkers of coloured pictures in frames. Then there are the old book-stalls and barrows, and ‘the pinners-up’, as they are termed, or sellers of old songs pinned against the wall, as well as the vendors of manuscript music. Moreover, appertaining to the same class, there are the vendors of playbills and ‘books of the performance’ outside the theatre; and lastly, the pretended sellers of tracts – such as the Lascars and others, who use this kind of street traffic as a cloak for the more profitable trade of begging. The street-sellers of images, although strictly comprised within those who vend fine art productions in the public thoroughfares will be treated of under the head of THE STREET ITALIANS, to which class they mostly belong.

  Of the Sale of Newspapers, Books, &c

  at the Railway Stations

  [pp. 315–16] Although the sale of newspapers at
the railway termini, &c., cannot strictly be classed as a street-sale, it is so far an open-air traffic as to require some brief notice, and it has now become a trade of no small importance.

  The privilege of selling to railway-passengers, within the precincts of the terminus, is disposed of by tender. At present the newsvendor on the North-Western Line, I am informed, pays to the company, for the right of sale at the Euston-square terminus, and the provincial stations, as large a sum as 1,700l. per annum. The amount usually given is of course in proportion to the number of stations, and the traffic of the railway.

  The purchaser of this exclusive privilege sends his own servants to sell the newspapers and books, which he supplies to them in the quantity required. The men thus engaged are paid from 20s. to 30s. a week, and the boys receive from 6s. to 10s. 6d. weekly, but rarely 10s. 6d.

  All the morning and evening papers are sold at the Station, but of the weekly press, those are sent for sale which in the manager’s judgment are likely to sell, or which his agent informs him are ‘asked for’. It is the same with the weekly unstamped publications. The reason seems obvious; if there be more than can be sold, a dead loss is incurred, for the surplusage, as regards newspapers, is only saleable as waste paper.

  The books sold at railways are nearly all of the class best known as ‘light reading’, or what some account light reading. The price does not often exceed 1s.; and among the books offered for sale in these places are novels in one volume, published at 1s. – sometimes in two volumes, at 1s. each; ‘monthly parts’ of works issued in weekly numbers; shilling books of poetry; but rarely political or controversial pamphlets. One man, who understood this trade, told me that ‘a few of the pamphlets about the Pope and Cardinal Wiseman sold at first; but in a month or six weeks, people began to say, “A shilling for that! I’m sick of the thing.”’

  The large sum given for the privilege of an exclusive sale, shows that the number of books and papers sold at railway stations must be very considerable. But it must be borne in mind, that the price, and consequently the profit on the daily newspapers, sold at the railways, is greater than elsewhere. None are charged less than 6d., the regular price at the news-agent’s shop being 5d., so that as the cost price is 4d. the profit is double. Nor is it unusual for a passenger by an early train, who grows impatient for his paper, to cry out, ‘A shilling for the Times!’ This, however, is only the case, I am told, with those who start very early in the morning; for the daily papers are obtained for the railway stations from among the earliest impressions, and can be had at the accustomed price as early as six o’clock, although, if there be exciting news and a great demand, a larger amount may be given.

  OF THE LOW LODGING-HOUSES OF LONDON

  [pp. 269–72] The patterers, as a class, usually frequent the low lodging-houses. I shall therefore now proceed to give some further information touching the abodes of these people – reminding the reader that I am treating of patterers in general, and not of any particular order, as the ‘paper workers’.

  In applying the epithet ‘low’ to these places, I do but adopt the word commonly applied, either in consequence of the small charge for lodging, or from the character of their frequenters. To some of these domiciles, however, as will be shown, the epithet, in an opprobrious sense, is unsuited.

  An intelligent man, familiar for some years with some low lodging-house life, specified the quarters where those abodes are to be found, and divided them into the following districts, the correctness of which I caused to be ascertained.

  Drury-lane District. Here the low lodging-houses are to be found principally in the Coalyard, Charles-street, King-street, Parker-street, Short’s-gardens, Great and Little Wyld-streets, Wyld-court, Lincoln-court, Newton-street, Star-court.

  Gray’s-inn District. Fox-court, Charlotte-buildings, Spread Eagle-court, Portpool-lane, Bell-court, Baldwin’s-gardens, Pheasant-court, Union-buildings, Laystall-street, Cromer-street, Fulwood’s-rents (High Holborn).

  Chancery-lane. Church-passage, and the Liberty of the Rolls.

  Bloomsbury. George-street, Church-lane, Queen-street, Seven-dials, Puckeridge-street (commonly called the Holy Land).

  Saffron-hill and Clerkenwell. Peter-street, Cow-cross, Turnmill-street, Upper and Lower Whitecross-street, St Helen’s-place, Playhouse-yard, Chequer-alley, Field-lane, Great Saffron-hill.

  Westminster. Old and New Pye-streets, Ann-street, Orchard-street, Perkins’s-rents, Rochester-row.

  Lambeth. Lambeth-walk, New-cut.

  Marylebone. York-court, East-street.

  St Pancras. Brooke-street.

  Paddington. Chapel-street, Union-court.

  Shoreditch. Baker’s-rents, Cooper’s-gardens.

  Islington. Angel-yard.

  Whitechapel, Spitalfields, &c. George-yard, Thrawl-street, Flower and Dean-street, Wentworth-street, Keate-street, Rosemary-lane, Glasshouse-yard, St George-street, Lambeth-street, Whitechapel, High-street.

  Borough. Mint-street, Old Kent-street, Long-lane, Bermondsey.

  Stratford. High-street.

  Limehouse. Hold (commonly called Hole).

  Deptford. Mill-lane, Church-street, Gifford-street.

  There are other localities (as in Mile-end, Ratcliffe-highway, Shadwell, Wapping, and Lisson-grove), where low lodging-houses are to be found; but the places I have specified may be considered the districts of these hotels for the poor. The worst places, both as regards filth and immorality, are in St Giles’s and Wentworth-street, Whitechapel. The best are in Orchard-street, Westminster (the thieves having left it in consequence of the recent alterations and gone to New Pye-street), and in the Mint, Borough. In the last-mentioned district, indeed, some of the proprietors of the lodging-houses have provided considerable libraries for the use of the inmates. In the White Horse, Mint-street, for instance, there is a collection of 500 volumes, on all subjects, bought recently, and having been the contents of a circulating library, advertised for sale in the Weekly Dispatch.

  Of lodging-houses for ‘travellers’ the largest is known as the Farm House, in the Mint: it stands away from any thoroughfare, and lying low is not seen until the visitor stands in the yard. Tradition rumour states that the house was at one time Queen Anne’s, and was previously Cardinal Wolsey’s. It was probably some official residence. In this lodging-house are forty rooms, 200 beds (single and double), and accommodation for 200 persons. It contains three kitchens, – of which the largest, at once kitchen and sitting-room, holds 400 people, for whose uses in cooking there are two large fire-places. The other two kitchens are used only on Sundays; when one is a preaching-room, in which missionaries from Surrey Chapel (the Rev. James Sherman’s), or some minister or gentleman of the neighbourhood, officiates. The other is a reading-room, supplied with a few newspapers and other periodicals; and thus, I was told, the religious and irreligious need not clash. For the supply of these papers each person pays 1d. every Sunday morning; and as the sum so collected is more than is required for the expenses of the reading-room, the surplus is devoted to the help of the members in sickness, under the management of the proprietor of the lodging-house, who appears to possess the full confidence of his inmates. The larger kitchen is detached from the sleeping apartments, so that the lodgers are not annoyed with the odour of the cooking of fish and other food consumed by the poor; for in lodging-houses every sojourner is his own cook. The meal in most demand is tea, usually with a herring, or a piece of bacon.

  The yard attached to the Farm House, in Mint-street, covers an acre and a half; in it is a washing-house, built recently, the yard itself being devoted to the drying of the clothes – washed by the customers of the establishment. At the entrance to this yard is a kind of porter’s lodge, in which reside the porter and his wife who act as the ‘deputies’ of the lodging-house. This place has been commended in sanitary reports, for its cleanliness, good order, and care for decency, and for a proper division of the sexes. On Sundays there is no charge for lodging to known customers; but this is a genera
l practice among the low lodging-houses of London.

  In contrast to this house I could cite many instances, but I need do no more in this place than refer to the statements, which I shall proceed to give; some of these were collected in the course of a former inquiry, and are here given because the same state of things prevails now. I was told by a trustworthy man that not long ago he was compelled to sleep in one of the lowest (as regards cheapness) of the lodging-houses. All was dilapidation, filth, and noisomeness. In the morning he drew, for purposes of ablution, a basinfull of water from a pailfull kept in the room. In the water were floating alive, or apparently alive, bugs and lice, which my informant was convinced had fallen from the ceiling, shaken off by the tread of some one walking in the rickety apartments above!

  ‘Ah, sir,’ said another man with whom I conversed on the subject, ‘if you had lived in the lodging-houses, you would say what a vast difference a penny made, – it’s often all in all. It’s 4d. in the Mint House you’ve been asking me about; you’ve sleep and comfort there, and I’ve seen people kneel down and say their prayers before they went to bed. Not so many, though. Two or three in a week at nights, perhaps. And it’s wholesome and sweet enough there, and large separate beds; but in other places there’s nothing to smell or feel but bugs. When daylight comes in the summer – and it’s often either as hot as hell or as cold as icicles in those places; but in summer, as soon as it’s light, if you turn down the coverlet, you’ll see them a-going it like Cheapside when it’s throngest.’ The poor man seemed to shudder at the recollection.

  One informant counted for me 180 of these low lodging-houses; and it is reasonable to say that there are, in London, at least 200 of them. The average number of beds in each was computed for me, by persons cognizant of such matters from long and often woeful experience, at 52 single or 24 double beds, where the house might be confined to single men or single women lodgers, or to married or pretendedly married couples, or to both classes. In either case, we may calculate the number that can be, and generally are, accommodated at 50 per house; for children usually sleep with their parents, and 50 may be the lowest computation. We have thus no fewer than 10,000 persons domiciled, more or less permanently, in the low lodging-houses of London – a number more than doubling the population of many a parliamentary borough.