Part 125

_Of the causes which influence children to follow this or that course of business_ when a street career has been their choice or their lot, I have little to say. It seems quite a matter of chance, even where a preference may exist. A runaway lad meets with a comrade who perhaps sells fuzees, and he accordingly begins on fuzees. One youth, of whom I have given an account (but he was not of child’s estate), began his street career on fly-papers. When children are sent into the streets to sell on account of their parents, they, of course, vend just what their parents have supplied to them. If “on their own hook,” they usually commence their street career on what it is easiest to buy and easiest to sell; a few nuts or oranges bought in Duke’s-place, lucifer-boxes, or small wares. As their experience increases they may become general street-sellers. The duller sort will continue to carry on the trades that any one with ordinary lungs and muscles can pursue. “All a fellow wants to know to sell potatoes,” said a master street-seller to me, “is to tell how many tanners make a bob, and how many yenaps a tanner.” [How many sixpences make a shilling, and how many pence a sixpence.] The smarter and bolder lads ripen into patterers, or street-performers, or fall into theft. For the class of adventurous runaways, the patterer’s, or, rather, the paper-working patterer’s life, with its alternations of town and country, fairs and hangings, the bustle of race-grounds and the stillness of a village, has great attractions. To a pattering and chaunting career, moreover, there is the stimulus of that love of approbation and of admiration, as strong among the often penniless professionals of the streets as on the boards of the opera house.

Perhaps there is not a child of either sex, now a street-seller, who would not to-morrow, if they thought they could clear a penny or two a day more by it, quit their baskets of oranges and sell candle-ends, or old bones, or anything. In a street career, and most especially when united with a lodging-house existence, there is no daintiness of the senses and no exercise of the tastes: the question is not “What do I like best to sell?” but “What is likely to pay me best?” This cannot be wondered at; for if a child earn but 5_d._ a day on apples, and can make 6_d._ on onions, its income is increased by 20 per cent.

The trades which I have specified as in the hands of street-children are carried on by both sexes. I do not know that even the stock in trade which most taxes the strength is more a boy’s than a girl’s pursuit. A basket of oranges or of apples is among the heaviest of all the stocks hawked by children; and in those pursuits there are certainly as many, or rather more, girls than boys. Such articles as fly-papers, money-bags, tins, fuzees, and Christmasing, are chiefly the boys’ sale; cut-flowers, lavender, water-cresses, and small wares, are more within the trading of the girls.

The callings with which children do not meddle are those which require “patter.” Some of the boys very glibly announce their wares, and may be profuse now and then in commendations of their quality, cheapness, and superiority, but it requires a longer experience to patter according to the appreciation of a perhaps critical street audience. No child, for instance, ventures upon the sale of grease-removing compositions, corn-salve, or the “Trial and Execution of Thomas Drory,” with an “Affecting Copy of Werses.”

A gentleman remarked to me that it was rather curious that boys’ playthings, such as marbles and tops, were not hawked by street juveniles, who might be very well able to recommend them. I do not remember to have seen any such things vended by children.

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_Education_ is, as far as I have been able to ascertain, more widely extended among street children than it was twelve or fifteen years ago. The difficulty in arriving at any conclusion on such a subject is owing to the inability to find any one who knew, or could even form a tolerably accurate judgment of what was the state of education among these juveniles even twelve years back.

Perhaps it may be sufficiently correct to say that among a given number of street children, where, a dozen years ago, you met twenty who could read, you will now meet upwards of thirty. Of sixteen children, none apparently fifteen years of age, whom I questioned on the subject, nine admitted that they could not read; the other seven declared that they could, but three annexed to the avowal the qualifying words--“a little.” Ten were boys and six were girls, and I spoke to them promiscuously as I met them in the street. Two were Irish lads, who were “working” oranges in company, and the bigger answered--“Shure, thin, we _can_ rade, your honour, sir.” I have little doubt that they could, but in all probability, had either of those urchins thought he would be a penny the better by it, he would have professed, to a perfect stranger, that he had a knowledge of algebra. “Yis, sir, I do, thin,” would very likely be his response to any such inquiry; and when told he could not possibly know anything about it, he would answer, “Arrah, thin, but I didn’t understand your honour.”

To the Ragged Schools is, in all probability, owing this extension of the ability to read. It appears that the attendance of the street children at the Ragged School is most uncertain; as, indeed, must necessarily be the case where the whole time of the lad is devoted to obtaining a subsistence. From the best information I can collect, it appears that the average attendance of these boys at these schools does not exceed two hours per week, so that the amount of education thus acquired, if education it may be called, must necessarily be scanty in the extreme; and is frequently forgotten as soon as learned.

With many of these little traders a natural shrewdness compensates in some measure for the deficiency of education, and enables them to carry on their variety of trades with readiness and dexterity, and sometimes with exactness. One boy with whom I had a conversation, told me that he never made any mistake about the “coppers,” although, as I subsequently discovered, he had no notion at all of arithmetic beyond the capability of counting how many pieces of coin he had, and how much copper money was required to make a “tanner” or a “bob.” This boy vended coat-studs: he had also some metal collars for dogs, or as he said, “for cats aither.” These articles he purchased at the same shop in Houndsditch, where “there was a wonderful lot of other things to be had, on’y some on ’em cost more money.”

In speaking of money, the slang phrases are constantly used by the street lads; thus a sixpence is a “tanner,” a shilling a “bob,” or a “hog;” a crown is “a bull;” a half-crown “a half bull,” &c. Little, as a modern writer has remarked, do the persons using these phrases know of their remote and somewhat classical origin, which may, indeed, be traced to the period antecedent to that when monarchs monopolized the surface of coined money with their own images and superscriptions. They are identical with the very name of money among the early Romans, which was _pecunia_, from _pecus_, a flock. The collections of coin dealers amply show, that the figure of a hog was anciently placed on a small silver coin, and that that of a bull decorated larger ones of the same metal: these coins were frequently deeply crossed on the reverse: this was for the convenience of easily breaking them into two or more pieces, should the bargain for which they were employed require it, and the parties making it had no smaller change handy to complete the transaction. Thus we find that the “half-bull” of the itinerant street-seller or “traveller,” so far from being a phrase of modern invention, as is generally supposed, is in point of fact referable to an era extremely remote. Numerous other instances might be given of the classical origin of many of the flash or slang words used by these people.

I now give the answers I received from two boys. The first, his mother told me, was the best scholar at his school when he was there, and before he had to help her in street sale. He was a pale, and not at all forward boy, of thirteen or fourteen, and did not appear much to admire being questioned. He had not been to a Ragged School, but to an “academy” kept by an old man. He did not know what the weekly charge was, but when father was living (he died last autumn) the schoolmaster used to take it out in vegetables. Father was a costermonger; mother minded all about his schooling, and master often said she behaved to him like a lady. “God,” this child told me, “was our Heavenly Father, and the maker of all things; he knew everything and everybody; he knew people’s thoughts and every sin they committed if no one else knew it. His was the kingdom and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever, Amen. Jesus Christ was our Lord and Saviour; he was the son of God, and was crucified for our sins. He was a God himself.” [The child understood next to nothing of the doctrine of the Trinity, and I did not press him.] “The Scriptures, which were the Bible and Testament, were the Word of God, and contained nothing but what was good and true. If a boy lied, or stole, or committed sins,” he said, “he would be punished in the next world, which endured for ever and ever, Amen. It was only after death, when it was too late to repent, that people went to the next world. He attended chapel, sometimes.”

As to mundane matters, the boy told me that Victoria was Queen of Great Britain and Ireland. She was born May 24, 1819, and succeeded his late Majesty, King William IV., July 20, 1837. She was married to his Royal Highness Prince Albert, &c., &c. France was a different country to this: he had heard there was no king or queen there, but didn’t understand about it. You couldn’t go to France by land, no more than you could to Ireland. Didn’t know anything of the old times in history; hadn’t been told. Had heard of the battle of Waterloo; the English licked. Had heard of the battle of Trafalgar, and of Lord Nelson; didn’t know much about him; but there was his pillar at Charing-cross, just by the candlesticks (fountains). When I spoke of astronomy, the boy at once told me he knew nothing about it. He had heard that the earth went round the sun, but from what he’d noticed, shouldn’t have thought it. He didn’t think that the sun went round the earth, it seemed to go more sideways. Would like to read more, if he had time, but he had a few books, and there was hundreds not so well off as he was.

I am far from undervaluing, indeed I would not indulge in an approach to a scoff, at the extent of this boy’s knowledge. Many a man who piques himself on the plenitude of his breeches’ pocket, and who attributes his success in life to the fulness of his knowledge, knows no more of Nature, Man, and God, than this poor street child.

Another boy, perhaps a few months older, gave me his notions of men and things. He was a thick-limbed, red-cheeked fellow; answered very freely, and sometimes, when I could not help laughing at his replies, laughed loudly himself, as if he entered into the joke.

Yes, he had heer’d of God who made the world. Couldn’t exactly recollec’ when he’d heer’d on him, but he had, most sarten-ly. Didn’t know when the world was made, or how anybody could do it. It must have taken a long time. It was afore his time, “or yourn either, sir.” Knew there was a book called the Bible; didn’t know what it was about; didn’t mind to know; knew of such a book to a sartinty, because a young ’oman took one to pop (pawn) for an old ’oman what was on the spree--a bran new ’un--but the cove wouldn’t have it, and the old ’oman said he might be d----d. Never heer’d tell on the deluge; of the world having been drownded; it couldn’t, for there wasn’t water enough to do it. He weren’t a going to fret hisself for such things as that. Didn’t know what happened to people after death, only that they was buried. Had seen a dead body laid out; was a little afeared at first; poor Dick looked so different, and when you touched his face, he was so cold! oh, so cold! Had heer’d on another world; wouldn’t mind if he was there hisself, if he could do better, for things was often queer here. Had heered on it from a tailor--such a clever cove, a stunner--as went to ’Straliar (Australia), and heer’d him say he was going into another world. Had never heer’d of France, but had heer’d of Frenchmen; there wasn’t half a quarter so many on ’em as of Italians, with their earrings like flash gals. Didn’t dislike foreigners, for he never saw none. What was they? Had heer’d of Ireland. Didn’t know where it was, but it couldn’t be very far, or such lots wouldn’t come from there to London. Should say they walked it, aye, every bit of the way, for he’d seen them come in, all covered with dust. Had heer’d of people going to sea, and had seen the ships in the river, but didn’t know nothing about it, for he was very seldom that way. The sun was made of fire, or it wouldn’t make you feel so warm. The stars was fire, too, or they wouldn’t shine. They didn’t make it warm, they was too small. Didn’t know any use they was of. Didn’t know how far they was off; a jolly lot higher than the gas lights some on ’em was. Was never in a church; had heer’d they worshipped God there; didn’t know how it was done; had heer’d singing and playing inside when he’d passed; never was there, for he had’nt no togs to go in, and wouldn’t be let in among such swells as he had seen coming out. Was a ignorant chap, for he’d never been to school, but was up to many a move, and didn’t do bad. Mother said he would make his fortin yet.

Had heer’d of the Duke of Wellington; he was Old Nosey; didn’t think he ever seed him, but had seed his statty. Hadn’t heer’d of the battle of Waterloo, nor who it was atween; once lived in Webber-row, Waterloo-road. Thought he had heerd speak of Buonaparte; didn’t know what he was; thought he had heer’d of Shakespeare, but didn’t know whether he was alive or dead, and didn’t care. A man with something like that name kept a dolly and did stunning; but he was sich a hard cove that if _he_ was dead it wouldn’t matter. Had seen the Queen, but didn’t recollec’ her name just at the minute; oh! yes, Wictoria and Albert. Had no notion what the Queen had to do. Should think she hadn’t such power [he had first to ask me what ‘power’ was] as the Lord Mayor, or as Mr. Norton as was the Lambeth beak, and perhaps is still. Was never once before a beak and didn’t want to. Hated the crushers; what business had they to interfere with him if he was only resting his basket in a street? Had been once to the Wick, and once to the Bower: liked tumbling better; he meant to have a little pleasure when the peas came in.

The knowledge and the ignorance of these two striplings represent that of street children generally. Those who may have run away from a good school, or a better sort of home as far as means constitute such betterness, of course form exceptions. So do the utterly stupid.

_The Morals, Religion, and Opinions of the street-trading children_ are the next topic. Their business morals have been indicated in the course of my former statements, and in the general tone of the remarks and conversation of street-sellers.

As traders their morals may be lax enough. They give short weight, and they give short measure; they prick the juice out of oranges; and brush up old figs to declare they’re new. Their silk braces are cotton, their buck-leather braces are wash-leather, their sponge is often rotten, and their salves and cures quackeries.

Speak to any one of the quicker-witted street-sellers on the subject, and though he may be unable to deny that his brother traders are guilty of these short-comings, he will justify them all by the example of shopkeepers. One man, especially, with whom I have more than once conversed on the subject, broadly asserts that as a whole the streets are in all matters of business honester than the shops. “It ain’t _we_,” runs the purport of his remarks, “as makes coffee out of sham chickory; it ain’t _we_ as makes cigars out of rhubarb leaves; _we_ don’t make duffers handkerchiefs, nor weave cotton things and call them silk. If we quacks a bit, does _we_ make fortins by it as shopkeepers does with their ointments and pills! If we give slang weights, how many rich shopkeepers is fined for that there? And how many’s never found out? And when one on ’em’s fined, why he calculates how much he’s into pocket, between what he’s made by slanging, and what he’s been fined, and on he goes again. _He_ didn’t know that there ever was short weight given in his shop: not _he_! No more do _we_ at our stalls or barrows! Who ’dulterates the beer? Who makes old tea-leaves into new? Who grinds rice among pepper? And as for smuggling--but nobody thinks there’s any harm in buying smuggled things. What _we_ does is like that pencil you’re writing with to a great tree, compared to what the rich people does. O, don’t tell me, sir, a gentleman like you that sees so much of what’s going on, must know _we’re_ better than the shopkeepers are.”

To remarks such as these I have nothing to answer. It would be idle to point out to such casuists, that the commission of one wrong can never justify another. The ignorant reverse the doctrine of right, and live, not by rule, but by example. I have unsparingly exposed the rogueries and trickeries of the street people, and it is but fair that one of them should be heard in explanation, if not in justification. The trade ethics of the adult street-folk are also those of the juveniles, so on this subject I need dwell no longer.

What I have said of the religion of the women street-sellers applies with equal truth to the children. Their religious feelings are generally formed for them by their parents, especially their mothers. If the children have no such direction, then they have no religion. I did not question the street-seller before quoted on this subject of the want of the Christian spirit among his fraternity, old or young, or he would at once have asked me, in substance, to tell him in what class of society the real Christian spirit was to be found?

As to the opinions of the street-children I can say little. For the most part they have formed no opinions of anything beyond what affects their daily struggles for bread. Of politics such children can know nothing. If they are anything, they are Chartists in feeling, and are in general honest haters of the police and of most constituted authorities, whom they often confound with the police officer. As to their opinions of the claims of friendship, and of the duty of assisting one another, I believe these children feel and understand nothing about such matters. The hard struggles of their lives, and the little sympathy they meet with, make them selfish. There may be companionship among them, but no friendship, and this applies, I think, alike to boys and girls. The boy’s opinion of the girl seems to be that she is made to help _him_, or to supply gratification to his passions.

There is yet a difficult inquiry,--as to the opinions which are formed by the young females reared to a street-life. I fear that those opinions are not, and cannot be powerfully swayed in favour of chastity, especially if the street-girl have the quickness to perceive that marriage is not much honoured among the most numerous body of street-folk. If she have not the quickness to understand this, then her ignorance is in itself most dangerous to her virtue. She may hear, too, expressions of an opinion that “going to church to be wed” is only to put money into the clergyman’s, or as these people say the “parson’s,” pocket. Without the watchful care of the mother, the poor girl may form an illicit connection, with little or no knowledge that she is doing wrong; and perhaps a kind and indulgent mother may be herself but a concubine, feeling little respect for a ceremony she did not scruple to dispense with. To such opinions, however, the Irish furnish the exception.

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_The Dwelling-places of the street-children_ are in the same localities as I specified regarding the women. Those who reside with their parents or employers sleep usually in the same room with them, and sometimes in the same bed. Nearly the whole of those, however, who support themselves by street-trade live, or rather sleep, in the lodging-houses. It is the same with those who live by street-vagrancy or begging, or by street-theft; and for this lazy or dishonest class of children the worst description of lodging-houses have the strongest attractions, as they meet continually with “tramps” from the country, and keep up a constant current of scheming and excitement.

It seems somewhat curious that, considering the filth and noisomeness of some of these lodging-houses, the children who are inmates suffer only the average extent of sickness and mortality common to the districts crammed with the poor. Perhaps it may be accounted for by the circumstance of their being early risers, and their being in the open air all day, so that they are fatigued at the close of the day, and their sleep is deep and unbroken. I was assured by a well-educated man, who was compelled to resort to such places, that he has seen children sleep most profoundly in a lodging-house throughout a loud and long-continued disturbance. Many street-children who are either “alone in the world,” or afraid to return home after a bad day’s sale, sleep in the markets or under the dry arches.

There are many other lads who, being unable to pay the 1_d._, 2_d._, or 3_d._ demanded, in pre-payment, by the lodging-house keepers, pass the night in the streets, wherever shelter may be attainable. The number of outcast boys and girls who sleep in and about the purlieus of Covent Garden-market each night, especially during the summer months, has been computed variously, and no doubt differs according to circumstances; but those with whom I have spoken upon the subject, and who of all others are most likely to know, consider the average to be upwards of 200.

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