Part 102

The poor woman lodging with the blind street-seller is herself in the same trade, but doing most in boot and stay-laces. She has a sharp and pinched outline of countenance, as if from poverty of diet, and is indeed wretchedly poor, earning only about 6_d._ a day, if so much. She is about the same age as her landlady, or somewhat younger, and has apparently been good-looking, and has still an intelligent expression. She lodged with the blind woman during her husband’s lifetime, when he rented two rooms, letting her one, and she had lived with the present widow in this way about fourteen years. She speaks cheerfully and seems an excellent companion for a blind person. On my remarking that they could neither of them be very cross-tempered to have lived so long together, the lodger said, laughingly, “O, we have a little tiff now and then, sir, as women will, you know; but it’s not often, and we soon are all right again. Poor people like us has something else to think of than tiffs and gossipping.”

THE BLIND STREET-SELLER OF BOOT-LACES.

The character, thoughts, feelings, regrets, and even the dreams, of a very interesting class of street-folk--the blind--are given in the narratives I now proceed to lay before the reader, from blind street-folk; but a few words of general introduction are necessary.

It may be that among the uneducated--among those whose feelings and whose bodies have been subjected to what may be called the wear and tear of poverty and privation--there is a tendency, even when misfortunes the most pitiable and undeserved have been encountered, to fall from misery into mendicancy. Even the educated, or, as the street people more generally describe them, those “who have seen better days,” sometimes, after the ordeal of the streets and the low lodging-houses, become trading mendicants. Among such people there may be, in one capacity or other, the ability and sometimes the opportunity to labour, and yet--whether from irrepressible vagabondism, from utter repugnance to any _settled_ mode of subsistence (caused either by the natural disposition of the individual, or by the utter exhaustion of mind and body driving him to beg)--yet, I say, men of this class become beggars and even “lurkers.”

As this is the case with men who have the exercise of their limbs, and of the several senses of the body, there must be some mitigating plea, if not a full justification, in the conduct of those who beg directly or indirectly, because they _cannot_ and perhaps _never could_ labour for their daily bread--I allude to those afflicted with blindness, whether “from their youth up” or from the calamity being inflicted upon them in maturer years.

By the present law, for a blind man to beg is to be amenable to punishment, and to be subjected to perhaps the bitterest punishment which can be put upon him--imprisonment; to a deprivation of what may be his chief solace--the enjoyment of the fresh air; and to a rupture of the feeling, which cannot but be comforting to such a man, that under his infirmity he still has the sympathies of his fellow-creatures.

It appears to me, then, that the blind have a right to ask charity of those whom God has spared so terrible an affliction, and who in the terms best understood by the destitute themselves, are “well to do;” those whom--in the canting language of a former generation of blind and other beggars--“Providence has blessed with affluence.” This right to solicit aid from those to whom such aid does not even approach to the sacrifice of any idle indulgence--to say nothing of any necessary want--is based on their helplessness, but lapses if it becomes a mere business, and with all the trickiness by which a street business is sometimes characterised.

On this question of moral right, as of political expediency, I quote an authority which must command attention, that of Mr. Stuart Mill:--

Apart from any metaphysical considerations respecting the foundation of morals or of the social union, he says, “It will be admitted to be right, that human beings should help one another; and the more so, in proportion to the urgency of the need; and none needs help so urgently as one who is starving. The claim to help, therefore, created by destitution, is one of the strongest which can exist; and there is _primâ facie_ the amplest reason for making the relief of so extreme an exigency as certain, to those who require it, as, by any arrangements of society, it can be made.

“On the other hand, in all cases of helping, there are two sets of consequences to be considered; the consequences of the assistance itself, and the consequences of relying on the assistance. The former are generally beneficial, but the latter for the most part injurious; so much so, in many cases, as greatly to outweigh the value of the benefit. And this is never more likely to happen than in the very cases where the need of help is the most intense. There are few things for which it is more mischievous, that people should rely on the habitual aid of others, than for the means of subsistence, and unhappily there is no lesson which they more easily learn.” I may here mention, in corroboration of this statement, that I was told by an experienced parochial officer, that there was truth in the saying, “Once a pauper, and always a pauper;” which seems to show that the lesson of relying on the habitual aid of others may not only be learned with ease, but is forgotten with difficulty. “The problem to be solved,” continues Mr. Mill, “is, therefore, one of peculiar nicety, as well as importance; how to give the greatest amount of needful help, with the smallest encouragement to undue reliance on it.

“Energy and self-dependence are, however,” Mr. Mill proceeds to argue, and, in this respect, it seems to me, to argue to demonstration, “liable to be impaired by _the absence of help, as well as by its excess. It is even more fatal to exertion to have no hope of succeeding by it, than to be assured of succeeding without it._ When the condition of any one is so disastrous that his energies are paralyzed by discouragement, assistance is a tonic, not a sedative: it braces, instead of relaxing the active faculties: always provided that the assistance is not such as to dispense with self-help, by substituting itself for the person’s own labour, skill, and prudence, but is limited to affording him a better hope of attaining success by those legitimate means. This, accordingly, is a test to which all plans of philanthropy and benevolence should be brought, whether intended for the benefit of individuals or of classes, and whether conducted on the voluntary or on the government principle.

“In so far as the subject admits of any general doctrine or maxim, it would appear to be this--_that if assistance is given in such a manner that the condition of the person helped is rendered as desirable as that of another_ (in a similar grade of society) _who succeeds in maintaining himself without help, the assistance, if systematic and capable of being previously calculated upon, is MISCHIEVOUS: but if, while available to everybody, it leaves to all a strong motive to do without it if they can, it is then for the most part BENEFICIAL._”

That the workhouse should bring less comfort and even greater irksomeness and restraint to any able-bodied inmate, than is felt by the poorest agricultural labourer in the worst-paid parts of the country, or the most wretched slop tailor, or shoe-maker, or cabinet maker in London, who supports himself by his own labour, is, I think, a sound principle. However wretched the ploughman may be in his hut, or the tailor in his garret, he is what I have heard underpaid mechanics call, still “his own man.” He is supported by his labour; he has escaped the indignity of a reliance on others.

I need not now enter into the question whether or not the workhouse system has done more harm than good. Some harm it is assuredly doing, for its over-discipline drives people to beg rather than apply for parish relief; and so the public are twice mulct, by having to pay compulsorily, in the form of poor’s-rate, and by being induced to give voluntarily, because they feel that the applicant for their assistance deserves to be helped.

But although the dogma I have cited, respecting the condition of those in a workhouse, may be sound in principle as regards the able-bodied, how does it apply to those who are not able-bodied? To those who _cannot_ work? And above all how does it apply to those to whom nature has denied even the capacity to labour? To the blind, for instance? Yet the blind man, who dreads the injustice of such a creed applied to his misfortune, is subject to the punishment of the mendacious beggar, should he ask a passer-by to pity his afflictions. The law may not often be enforced, but sometimes it is enforced--perhaps more frequently in country than in town--and surely it is so enforced against abstract right and political morality. The blind beggar, “worried by the police,” as I have heard it described, becomes the mendacious beggar, no longer asking, in honesty, for a mite to which a calamity that no prudence could have saved him gave him a fair claim, but resorting to trick in order to increase his precarious gains.

That the blind resort to deceitful representations is unquestionable. One blind man, I am informed, said to Mr. Child the oculist, when he offered to couch him, “Why, that would ruin me!” And there are many, I am assured, who live by the streets who might have their eyesight restored, but who will not.

The public, however, must be warned to distinguish between those determined beggars and the really deserving and helpless blind. To allow their sympathies to be blunted against _all_, because some are bad, is a creed most consolatory to worldly successful selfishness, and alien to every principle of pure morals, as well as to that of more than morals--the spirit of Christianity.

The feelings of the blind, apart from their mere sufferings as poor men, are well described in some of the narratives I give, and the account of a blind man’s dreams is full of interest. Man is blessed with the power of seeing dreams, it should be remembered, _visionally_; but the blind man, to whose statement I invite attention, dreams, it will be seen, like the rest of his fraternity, through the sense of hearing, or of feeling, best known as “touching;” that is to say, by audible or tactile representations.

Some of the poor blind, he told me, are polishers’ wheel-turners, but there is not employment for one in one hundred at this. My informant only knew two so engaged. People, he says, are glad to do it, and will work at as low wages as the blind. Some of the blind, too, blow blacksmiths’ forges at foundries; others are engaged as cutlers’ wheel-turners. “There was one talking to me the other day, and he said he’d get me a job that way.” Others again turn mangles, but at this there is little employment to be had. Another blind acquaintance of my informant’s chops chaff for horses. Many of the blind are basket-makers, learning the business at the blind school, but one-half, I am told, can’t make a living at this, after leaving the school; they can’t do the work so neatly, and waste more rods than the other workers. Other blind people are chair-bottomers, and others make rope mats with a frame, but all of these can scarcely make a living. Many blind people play church organs. Some blind men are shoemakers, but their work is so inferior, it is almost impossible to live by it.

The blind people are forced to the streets because, they say, they can do nothing else to get a living; at no trade, even if they know one, can they get a living, for they are not qualified to work against those who can see; and what’s more, labourers’ wages are so low that people can get a man with his eyesight at the same price as they could live upon. “There’s many a blind basket-weaver playing music in the streets ’cause he can’t get work. At the trade I know one blind basket-maker can make 15_s._ a-week at his trade, but then he has a good connection and works for hisself; the work all comes home. He couldn’t make half that working for a shop. At turning wheels there’s nothing to be done; there’s so many seeing men out of employment that’s glad to do the work at the same price as the blind, so that unless the blind will go into the workhouse, they must fly to the streets. The police, I am told, treat the blind very differently: some of the force are very good to them, and some has no feeling at all--they shove them about worse than dogs; but the police is just like other men, good and bad amongst them. They’re very kind to me,” said my blind informant, “and they have a difficult duty to perform, and some persons, like Colonel Cavendish, makes them harsher to us than they would be.” I inquired whether my blind informant had received one of the Census papers to fill up, and he told me that he had heard nothing about them, and that he had certainly made no return to the government about his blindness; but what it was to the government whether he was blind or not, he couldn’t tell. His wife was blind as well as himself, and there was another blind man living in his room, and none of his blind friends, that he had heard of, had ever received any of the papers.

“Some blind people in the streets carry laces. There are some five men and one woman at the West-end do this, and three of these have dogs to lead them; one stands always on Langham-place. One carries cabbage-nets, he is an old man of seventy year, with white hair, and is likewise led by a dog. Another carries matches (he has a large family), and he is often led by one of his boys. There is a blind woman who always sits by the Polytechnic, and has indeed done so since it was built. She gets her living by sewing, making caps and things for ladies. Another blind woman obtains a livelihood by knitting garters and covers for bread trays and backs of chairs. She generally walks about in the neighbourhood of Baker-street, and Portman-square. Many recite a lamentation as they go along, but in many parts of London the police will not allow them to do so.

“It’s a very jealous place, is London. The police is so busy; but many recites the lamentation for all that. It’s a feeling thing--Oh, they’re very touching words.”

The greater part in the streets are musicians; five to one are, or ten to one. My informant thinks, last Thursday week, there were seven blind musicians all playing through the streets together in one band. There are four living in York-court; two in Grafton-court; two in Clement’s-lane; one in Orchard-place; two in Gray’s-buildings; two in Half-Moon-street, in the City, and two in a court hard by; one up by Ball’s-pond; two in Rose-court, Whitechapel; three in Golden-lane; two at Chelsea; three in Westminster; one up at Paddington; one (woman) in Marylebone; one in Westminster; one in Gray’s-inn-lane; one in Whitechapel: in all thirty-one; but my informant was satisfied there must be at least as many more, or sixty blind musicians in all.

In the course of a former inquiry into the character and condition of street performers, I received the following account from a blind musician:--

“The street blind tried, some years back, to maintain a burying and sick club of our own; but we were always too poor. We live in rooms. I don’t know one blind musician who lives in a lodging-house. I myself know a dozen blind men now performing in the streets of London. The blind musicians are chiefly married men. I don’t know one who lives with a woman unmarried. The loss of sight changes a man, he doesn’t think of women, and women don’t think of him. We are of a religious turn, too, generally.

“When we agreed to form the blind club there was not more than a dozen members. These consisted of two basket-makers; one mat-maker; four violin players; myself; and my two mates; and this was the number when it dropped for want of funds; that’s now sixteen years ago. We were to pay 1_s._ a month, and sick members were to have 5_s._ a week when they had paid two years. Our other rules were the same as other clubs. There’s a good many blind who play at sailors dances, Wapping and Deptford way. We seldom hire children to lead us in the streets; we have plenty of our own generally. I have five. Our wives are generally women that have their eyesight; but some blind men marry blind women.”

My informant was satisfied that there were at least 100 blind men and women getting their living in the streets, and about 500 throughout the country. There are many who stay continually in Brighton, Bristol, Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Plymouth, and indeed all large towns. “There are a great many blind people, I am told,” he said, “in Cornwall. It’s such a humane place for them; the people has great feeling for the blind; they’re very religious there, and a many lose their sight in the mines, and that’s what makes them have a feeling for others so.” This man heard a calculation made some time back, that there were 5000 blind people, including those in schools and asylums, within five miles round St. Paul’s. The most of the blind have lost their sight by the small-pox--nine out of every ten of the musicians have done so; since the vaccination has been discovered, I am told the cases of blindness from small-pox have been considerably increased. “Oh, that was a very clever thing--very,” said the blind boot-lace seller to me. Those who have not lost their sight by the small-pox, have gone blind from accidents, such as substances thrown or thrust in the eyes, or inflammation induced from cold and other ailments. My informant was not acquainted with one blind person in the streets who had been born blind. One of his acquaintance who had been blind from birth caught the small-pox, and obtained his sight after recovery at eight years old. “The great majority have lost their sight at an early age--when mere children, indeed; they have consequently been trained to no employment; those few who have” (my informant knew two) “been educated in the blind schools as basket-makers, are unable to obtain employment at this like a seeing person. Why, the time that a blind man’s feeling for the hole to have a rod through, a seeing man will have it through three or four times. The blind people in the streets mostly know one another; they say they have all a feeling of brotherly love for another, owing to their being similarly afflicted. If I was going along the street, and had a guide with me that could see, they would say, ‘Here’s a blind man or blind woman coming;’ I would say, ‘Put me up to them so as I’ll speak to them;’ then I should say, as I laid my hand upon them, ‘Holloa, who’s this?’ they’d say, ‘I’m blind.’ I should answer, ‘So am I.’ ‘What’s your name?’ would be the next question. ‘Oh, I have heard tell of you,’ most like, I should say. ‘Do you know so and so?’ I would say, ‘Yes, he’s coming to see me,’ or perhaps, ‘I’m going to see him on Sunday:’ then we say, ‘Do you belong to any of the Institutions?’ that’s the most particular question of all; and if he’s not a traveller, and we never heard tell of one another, the first thing we should ask would be, ‘How did you lose your sight?’ You see, the way in which the blind people in the streets gets to know one another so well, is by meeting at the houses of gentlemen when we goes for our pensions.”

The boot, shoe, and stay laces, are carried by the blind, I am told “seldom for sale;” for it’s very few they sell of them. “They have,” they say, “to prevent the police or mendicity from interfering with them, though the police do not often show a disposition to obstruct them.” “The officers of the Mendicity Society,” they tell me, “are their worst enemies.” These, however, have desisted from molesting them, because the magistrates object to commit a blind man to prison. The blind never ask anybody for anything, they tell me their cry is simply “Bootlace! Bootlace!” When they do sell, they charge 1-1/2_d._ per pair for the leather boot-laces, 1_d._ per pair the silk boot-laces, and 1/2_d._ per pair for the cotton boot-laces, and 1/2_d._ each for the stay-laces. They generally carry black laces only, because the white ones are so difficult to keep clean. For the stay-laces they pay 2_d._ a dozen, and for the boot-laces 5_d._ a dozen, for the leather or for the silk ones; and 1-1/4_d._ for the cotton; each of the boot-laces is double, so that a dozen makes a dozen pair. They buy them very frequently at a swag-shop in Compton-street. My informant carried only the black-cotton laces, and doesn’t sell six-penny worth in a week. He did not know of a blind boot lace-seller that sold more than he did.

“Formerly the blind people in the street used to make a great deal of money; up to the beginning of the peace, and during all the war, the blind got money in handfuls. Where there was one blind man travelling then, there’s ten now. If they didn’t take 2_l._ and 2_l._ 10_s._ a day in a large town, it was reckoned a bad day’s work for the musicianers. Almost all the blind people then played music. In war time there was only one traveller (tramp); there are 100 now. There was scarcely a common lodging-house then in one town out of the three; and now there’s not a village hardly in the country but what there’s one, and perhaps two or three. Why the lodging-houses coin money now. Look at a traveller’s house where there’s twenty beds (two in each bed), at 3_d._ each, and that’s 10_s._ you know. There was very few blind beggars then, and what there was done well. Certainly, done well; they could get hatfuls of money almost, but then money was of no valley scarcely; you could get nothing for it most; but now if you get a little, you can buy a plenty with it. What is worth 6_d._ now fetched 2_s._ then. I wasn’t in the streets then, I wish I had been, I should have made a fortin, I think I should. The blind beggars then could get 2_l._ a day if they went to look for it.” “I myself,” said one, “when I first began, have gone and sat myself down by the side of the road and got my 1_l._, all in half-pence. When I went to Braintree, I stood beside a public-house, the ‘Orange Tree,’ just by where the foot-people went on to the fair ground, and I took 15_s._ a day for two days only, standing there a pattering my lamentation from 1 o’clock till the dusk in the evening. This is what I said:--