Part 83

“Often after I’ve been walking, my limbs and back ache so badly that I can get no sleep. Across my lines it feels as if I’d got some great weight, and my knees are in a heat, and throb, and feel as if a knife was running into them. When I go up-stairs I have to crawl upon the back of my hands and my knees. I can’t lift nothing to my mouth. The sinews of my hands is all contracted. I am obliged to have things held to my lip for me to drink, like a child. I _can_ use a knife and fork by leaning my arm on the table and then stooping my head to it. I can’t wash nor ondress myself. Sometimes I think of my helplessness a great deal. The thoughts of it used to throw me into fits at one time--very bad. It’s the Almighty’s will that I am so, and I must abide by it. People says, as they passes me in the streets, ‘Poor fellow, it’s a shocking thing;’ but very seldom they does any more than pity me; some lays out a halfpenny or a penny with me, but the most of ’em goes on about their business. Persons looks at me a good bit when I go into a strange place. I _do_ feel it very much, that I haven’t the power to get my living or to do a thing for myself, but I never begged for nothing. I’d sooner starve than I’d do that. I never thought that people whom God had given the power to help theirselves ought to help me. I _have_ thought that I’m as I am--obliged to go on my hands and knees, from no fault of my own. Often I’ve done that, and I’ve over and over again laid in bed and wondered why the Almighty should send me into the world in such a state; often I’ve done that on a wet day, with nothing to eat, and no friend to come a-nigh me. When I’ve gone along the streets, too, and been in pain, I’ve thought, as I’ve seen the people pass straight up, with all the use of their limbs, and some of them the biggest blackguards, cussing and swearing, I’ve thought, Why should I be deprived of the use of mine? and I’ve felt angry like, and perhaps at that moment I couldn’t bring my mind to believe the Almighty was so good and merciful as I’d heard say; but then in a minute or two afterwards I’ve prayed to Him to make me better and happier in the next world. I’ve always been led to think He’s afflicted me as He has for some wise purpose or another that I can’t see. I think as mine is so hard a life in this world, I shall be better off in the next. Often when I couldn’t afford to pay a boy, I’ve not had my boots off for four or five nights and days, nor my clothes neither. Give me the world I couldn’t take them off myself, and then my feet has swollen to that degree that I’ve been nearly mad with pain, and I’ve been shivering and faint, but still I was obliged to go out with my things; if I hadn’t I should have starved. Such as I am can’t afford to be ill--it’s only rich folks as can lay up, not we; for us to take to our beds is to go without food altogether. When I was without never a boy, I used to tie the wet towel round the back of one of the chairs, and wash myself by rubbing my face up against it. I’ve been two days without a bit of anything passing between my lips. I couldn’t go and beg for victuals--I’d rather go without. Then I used to feel faint, and my head used to ache dreadful. I used then to drink a plenty of water. The women sex is mostly more kinder to me than the men. Some of the men fancies, as I goes along, that I can walk. They often says to me, ‘Why, the sole of your boot is as muddy as mine;’ and one on ’em is, because I always rests myself on that foot--the other sole, you see, is as clean as when it was first made. The women never seem frightened on me. My trade is to sell brooms and brushes, and all kinds of cutlery and tin-ware. I learnt it myself. I never was brought up to nothing, because I couldn’t use my hands. Mother was a cook in a nobleman’s family when I were born. They say as I was a love-child. I was not brought up by mother, but by one of her fellow-servants. Mother’s intellects was so weak, that she couldn’t have me with her. She used to fret a great deal about me, so her fellow-servant took me when she got married. After I were born, mother married a farmer in middling circumstances. They tell me as my mother was frightened afore I was born. I never knew my father. He went over to Buonos Ayres, and kept an hotel there--I’ve heard mother say as much. No mother couldn’t love a child more than mine did me, but her feelings was such she couldn’t bear to see me. I never went to mother’s to live, but was brought up by the fellow-servant as I’ve told you of. Mother allowed her 30_l._ a-year. I was with her till two years back. She was always very kind to me--treated me like one of her own. Mother used to come and see me about once a-year--sometimes not so often: she was very kind to me then. Oh, yes; I used to like to see her very much. Whatever I wished for she’d let me have; if I wrote to her, she always sent me what I wanted. I was very comfortably then. Mother died four years ago; and when I lost her I fell into a fit--I was told of it all of a sudden. She and the party as I was brought up with was the only friends as I had in the world--the only persons as cared anything about a creature like me. I was in a fit for hours, and when I came to, I thought what would become of me: I knew I could do nothing for myself, and the only friend as I had as could keep me was gone. The person as brought me up was very good, and said, while she’d got a home I should never want; but, two years after mother’s death, she was seized with the cholera, and then I hadn’t a friend left in the world. When she died I felt ready to kill myself; I was all alone then, and what could I do--cripple as I was? She thought her sons and daughters as I’d been brought up with--like brothers and sisters--would look after me; but it was not in their power--they was only hard-working people. My mother used to allow so much a year for my schooling, and I can read and write pretty well.” (He wrote his name in my presence kneeling at the table; holding the pen almost as one might fancy a bird would, and placing the paper sideways instead of straight before him.) “While mother was alive, I was always foraging about to learn something unbeknown to her. I wanted to do so, in case mother should leave me without the means of getting a living. I used to buy old bedsteads, and take them to a man, and get him to repair them, and then I’d put the sacking on myself; I can hold a hammer somehow in my right hand. I used to polish them on my knees. I made a bench to my height out of two old chairs. I used to know what I should get for the bedsteads, and so could tell what I could afford to give the man to do up the parts as I couldn’t manage. It was so I got to learn something like a business for myself. When the person died as had brought me up, I _could_ do a little; I had then got the means. Before her death I had opened a kind of shop for things in the general line; I sold tin-ware, and brass-work, and candlesticks, and fire-irons, and all old furniture, and gown-prints as well. I went into the tally business, and that ruined me altogether. I couldn’t get my money in; there’s a good deal owing to me now. Me and a boy used to manage the whole. I used to make all my account-books and everything. My lodgers didn’t pay me my rent, so I had to move from the house, and live on what stock I had. In my new lodging I went on as well as I could for a little while; but about eighteen months ago I could hold on no longer. Then I borrowed a little, and went hawking tin-ware and brushes in the country. I sold baking-dishes, Dutch ovens, roasting-jacks, skewers and gridirons, teapots and saucepans, and combs. I used to exchange sometimes for old clothes. I had a barrow and a boy with me; I used to keep him, and give him 1_s._ a week. I managed to get just a living that way. When the winter came on I gave it up; it was too cold. After that I was took bad with a fever; my stock had been all gone a little while before, and the boy had left because I couldn’t keep him, and I had to do all for myself. All my friends was dead, and I had no one to help me, so I was obligated to lay about all night in my things, for I couldn’t get them off alone; and that and want of food brought on a fever. Then I was took into the workhouse, and there I stopped all the summer, as I told you. I can’t say they treated me bad, but they certainly didn’t use me well. If I could have worked after I got better, I could have had tea; but ’cause I couldn’t do nothing, they gave me that beastly gruel morning and night. I had meat three times a week. They would have kept me there till now, but I would die in the streets rather than be a pauper. So I told them, if they would give me the means of getting a stock, I would try and get a living for myself. After refusing many times to let me have 10_s._, they agreed to give me 5_s._ Then I came out, but I had no home, and so I crawled about till I met with the people where I am now, and they let me sit up there till I got a room of my own. Then some of my friends collected for me about 15_s._ altogether, and I did pretty well for a little while. I went to live close by the Blackfriars-road, but the people where I lodged treated me very bad. There was a number of girls of the town in the same street, but they was too fond of their selves and their drink to give nothing. They used to buy things of me and never pay me. They never made game of me, nor played me any tricks, and if they saw the boys doing it they would protect me. They never offered to give me no victuals; indeed, I shouldn’t have liked to have eaten the food they got. After that I couldn’t pay my lodgings, and the parties where I lodged turned me out, and I had to crawl about the streets for four days and nights. This was only a month back. I was fit to die with pain all that time. If I could get a penny I used to go into a coffee-shop for half-a-pint of coffee, and sit there till they drove me out, and then I’d crawl about till it was time for me to go out selling. Oh! dreadful, dreadful, it was to be all them hours--day and night--on my knees. I couldn’t get along at all, I was forced to sit down every minute, and then I used to fall asleep with my things in my hand, and be woke up by the police to be pushed about and druv on by them. It seemed like as if I was walking on the bare bones of my knees. The pain in them was like the cramp, only much worse. At last I could bear it no longer, so I went afore Mr. Secker, the magistrate, at Union Hall, and told him I was destitute, and that the parties where I had been living kept my bed and the few things I had, for 2_s._ 6_d._ rent, that I owed them. He said he couldn’t believe that anybody would force me to crawl about the streets, for four days and nights, cripple as I was, for such a sum. One of the officers told him I was a honest and striving man, and the magistrate sent the officer, with the money, to get my things, but the landlady wouldn’t give them till the officer compelled her, and then she chucked my bed out into the middle of the street. A neighbour took it in for me and took care of it till I found out the tinman who had before let me sit up in his house. I should have gone to him at first, but he lived farther than I could walk. I am stopping with him now, and he is very kind to me. I have still some relations living, and they are well to do, but, being a cripple, they despise me. My aunt, my mother’s sister, is married to a builder, in Petersham, near Richmond, and they are rich people--having some houses of their own besides a good business. I have got a boy to wheel me down on a barrow to them, and asked assistance of them, but they will have nothing to do with me. They won’t look at me for my affliction. Six months ago they gave me half-a-crown. I had no lodgings nor victuals then; and _that_ I shouldn’t have had from them had I not said I was starving and must go to the parish. This winter I went to them, and they shut the door in my face. After leaving my aunt’s, I went down to Ham Common, where my father-in-law lives, and there his daughter’s husband sent for a policeman to drive me away from the place. I told the husband I had no money nor food; but he advised me to go begging, and said I shouldn’t have a penny of them. My father-in-law was ill up-stairs at the time, but I don’t think he would have treated me a bit better--and all this they do because the Almighty has made me a cripple. I can, indeed, solemnly say, that there is nothing else against me, and that I strive hard and crawl about till my limbs ache enough to drive me mad, to get an honest livelihood. With a couple of pounds I could, I think, manage to shift very well for myself. I’d get a stock, and go into the country with a barrow, and buy old metal, and exchange tin ware for old clothes, and, with that, I’m almost sure I could get a decent living. I’m accounted a very good dealer.”

In answer to my inquiries concerning the character of this man, I received the following written communication:

“I have known C---- A---- twelve years; the last six years he has dealt with me for tinware. I have found him honest in all his dealings with me, sober and industrious.

“C---- H----, Tinman.”

From the writer of the above testimonial I received the following account of the poor cripple:--

“He is a man of generous a disposition, and very sensitive for the afflictions of others. One day while passing down the Borough he saw a man afflicted with St. Vitus’s dance shaking from head to foot, and leaning on the arm of a woman who appeared to be his wife.” The cripple told my informant that he should never forget what he felt when he beheld that poor man. “I thought,” he said, “what a blessing it is I am not like him.” Nor is the cripple, I am told, less independent than he is generous. In all his sufferings and privations he never pleads poverty to others; but bears up under the trials of life with the greatest patience and fortitude. When in better circumstances he was more independent than at present, having since, through illness and poverty, been much humbled.

“His privations have been great,” adds my informant. “Only two months back, being in a state of utter destitution and quite worn out with fatigue, he called at the house of a person (where my informant occupied a room) about ten o’clock at night, and begged them to let him rest himself for a short while, but the inhuman landlady and her son laid hold of the wretched man, the one taking him by the arms and the other by the legs, and literally hurled him into the street. The next morning,” my informant continued, “I saw the poor creature leaning against a lamp-post, shivering with the cold, and my heart bled for him; and since that he has been living with me.”

OF THE SWAG-SHOPS OF THE METROPOLIS.

By those who are not connected with the street trade, the proprietors of the swag-shops are often called “warehousemen” or “general dealers,” and even “slaughterers.” These descriptions apply but partially. “Warehousemen” or “general dealers” are vague terms, which I need not further notice. The wretchedly under-paid and over-worked shoe-makers, cabinet-makers and others call these places “slaughter-houses,” when the establishment is in the hands of tradesmen who buy their goods of poor workmen without having given orders for them. On Saturday afternoons pale-looking men may be seen carrying a few chairs, or bending under the weight of a cheffonier or a chest of drawers, in Tottenham-court Road, and thoroughfares of a similar character in all parts. These are “small masters,” who make or (as one man said to me, “No, sir, I don’t make these drawers, I put them together, it can’t be called making; it’s not workmanship”) who “put together” in the hastiest manner, and in any way not positively offensive to the eye, articles of household furniture. The “slaughterers” who supply all the goods required for the furniture of a house, buy at “starvation prices” (the common term), the artificer being often kept waiting for hours, and treated with every indignity. One East-end “slaughterer” (as I ascertained in a former inquiry) used habitually to tell that he prayed for wet Saturday afternoons, because it put 20_l._ extra into his pocket! This was owing to the damage sustained in the appearance of any painted, varnished, or polished article, by exposure to the weather; or if it had been protected from the weather, by the unwillingness of the small master to carry it to another slaughter-house in the rain. Under such circumstances--and under most of the circumstances of this unhappy trade--the poor workman is at the mercy of the slaughterer.

I describe this matter more fully than I might have deemed necessary, had I not found that both the “small masters” spoken of--for I called upon some of them again--and the street-sellers, very frequently confounded the “swag-shop” and the “slaughter-house.” The distinction I hold to be this:--The slaughterer buys as a rule, with hardly an exception, the furniture, or whatever it may be, made for the express purpose of being offered to him on speculation of sale. The swag shop-keeper _orders_ his goods as a rule, and buys, as an exception, in the manner in which the slaughterer buys ordinarily. The slaughterer sells by retail; the swag-shop keeper only by wholesale.

Most of the articles, of the class of which I now treat, are “Brummagem made.” An experienced tradesman said to me: “All these low-priced metal things, fancy goods and all, which you see about, are made in Birmingham; in nineteen cases out of twenty at the least. They may be marked London, or Sheffield, or Paris, or any place--you can have them marked North Pole if you will--but they’re genuine Birmingham. The carriage is lower from Birmingham than from Sheffield--that’s one thing.”

The majority of the swag-shop proprietors are Jews. The wares which they supply to the cheap shops, the cheap John’s, and the street-sellers, in town and country, consist of every variety of article, apart from what is eatable, drinkable, or wearable, in which the trade class I have specified can deal. As regards what is wearable, indeed, such things as braces, garters, &c., form a portion of the stock of the swag-shop.

In one street (a thoroughfare at the east-end of London) are twenty-three of these establishments. In the windows there is little attempt at display; the design aimed at seems to be rather to _crowd_ the window--as if to show the amplitude of the stores within, “the wonderful resources of this most extensive and universal establishment”--than to tempt purchasers by exhibiting tastefully what may have been tastefully executed by the artificer, or what it is desired should be held to be so executed.

In one of these windows the daylight is almost precluded from the interior by what may be called a perfect wall of “pots.” A street-seller who accompanied me called them merely “pots” (the trade term), but they were all pot ornaments. Among them were great store of shepherdesses, of greyhounds of a gamboge colour, of what I heard called “figures” (allegorical nymphs with and without birds or wreaths in their hands), very tall-looking Shaksperes (I did not see one of these windows without its Shakspere, a sitting figure), and some “pots” which seem to be either shepherds or musicians; from what I could learn, at the pleasure of the seller, the buyer, or the inquirer. The shepherd, or musician is usually seated under a tree; he wears a light blue coat, and yellow breeches, and his limbs, more than his body, are remarkable for their bulk; to call them merely fat does not sufficiently express their character, and in some “pots,” they are as short and stumpy as they are bulky. On my asking if the dogs were intended for Italian greyhounds, I was told, “No, they are German.” I alluded however to the species of the animal represented; my informant to the place of manufacture, for the pots were chiefly German. A number of mugs however, with the Crystal Palace very well depicted upon them, were unmistakably English. In another window of the same establishment was a conglomeration of pincushions, shaving-brushes, letter-stamps (all in bone), cribbage-boards and boxes (including a pack of cards), necklaces, and strings of beads.

The window of a neighbouring swag-shop presented, in the like crowding, and in greater confusion, an array of brooches (some in coloured glass to imitate rubies, topazes, &c., some containing portraits, deeply coloured, in purple attire, and red cheeks, and some being very large cameos), time-pieces (with and without glasses), French toys with moveable figures, telescopes, American clocks, musical boxes, shirt-studs, backgammon-boards, tea-trays (one with a nondescript bird of most gorgeous green plumage forming a sort of centrepiece), razor-strops writing-desks, sailors’ knives, hair-brushes, and tobacco-boxes.