Various - Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 377, March 1847

The aged, the infirm, the sufferers from chronic disease, the permanently disabled, the several classes of widows, the single women who have one or more children, and those who are chargeable mainly from temporary illness, have been collected and separated from the dense mass of pauperism. Who are those that remain? There is much error abroad upon this question. They are legion, whether they be regarded in connexion with the causes which have led to their impoverishment, or with reference to their various modes of obtaining a livelihood. Reference has already been made to that portion of the population of England who are in a transition state — i. e. those whose ordinary employment has been superseded by more rapid and cheaper methods, and who have thereby lost their ordinary means of livelihood, and been drifted down from stage to stage until they have reached the lowest depth, and have at last been compelled to ask for a morsel of bread at the workhouse door. Then it will appear upon inquiry that each separate locality will present its peculiar species of casual poor, who fall into a state of destitution from the action of peculiar causes. It frequently happens that the individuals were never trained to any ordinary species of labour. At an early period of their lives, they were put in the way to learn a trade, but from early habits of idleness, from the criminal neglect of masters or parents, from natural incapacity for the particular trade, or from an unconquerable dislike to it, they have never been able to earn “salt to their porridge,” as the saying is. They never received a regular or an average amount of wage. If they are tailors, they compete with old women in making “slopwork” for the lower class of salesmen. Or they convert old coat tails into decent cloth caps, and may be industrious enough to supply a tribe of women with a Saturday night’s stock. As cobblers, they ply the craft of “translation” – a trade, even in this lower acceptation of the term, peculiarly liable to abuse. To the unlearned, it may be necessary to state that translation is the act of converting old boots into new ones, and is done with thin strips of varnished leather, and plenty of wax and large nails. There are carpenters, whose ingenuity is confined to the manufacture of money-boxes, cigar-cases, and children’s stools. Smiths, male and female, forge garden rakes, small pokers, and gridirons, as the season may suggest. And then their wives and children, or other men’s wives and children, hawk them for sale in populous neighbourhoods on market evenings. Tin funnels are sold “at the low price of a halfpenny.” Minute and useless candlesticks, wire forks, children’s toys, and old umbrellas, are a few specimens of this miscellaneous merchandise, the sale of which brings bread to hundreds of families. They live in fœtid alleys, are not cleanly, and are sometimes intemperate; hence they are peculiarly liable to the attacks of disease. During illness, there are many things which the sick man craves which a parochial officer cannot grant, and which a medical man could neither recommend nor allow. The desire is gratified by the sale of a useful and indispensable tool; and thus, by degrees, he exits off his own means of subsistence. Then, like manufacturers of a higher grade, he may mistake the public wants, and the articles he has made may remain unsaleable on his hands, or he may fall into the error of over-production like a Manchester house. Then, in seasons when those commodities which constitute the common diet of the poor are scarce and dear, the persons who deal in them who are unable to buy, or uncertain to sell, are thrown back upon the few shillings which compose their capital. In large cities and towns, and in the neighbourhood of great markets, there are crowds of poor persons who gain their livelihood by the purchase and sale of the articles of daily food, and their combined purchases form a large item in the business of those markets. The costermongers, or costardmongers, consist of various grades. That brisk-looking man, who is riding so proudly in his donkey-cart, with his wife at his elbow, may be a very mean person in the estimation of the passer-by, but, in his world, he is a man of importance. He watches the “turns of the market,” and being either in the possession of capital himself, or in a position to command it, he is able to compete with large dealers. He is a money-lender; and, if security be left with him – a poor woman’s marriage certificate, or her wedding-ring is sufficient – he will enable her to buy her “little lot.” Through him many are able to procure a stock at a trifling expenditure, who otherwise would be unable to buy in sufficient quantities to satisfy the original salesman. This class has its peculiar casualties, and in consequence become chargeable to parishes. Their habits may be irregular and intemperate. Or a poor woman may have expended her last farthing in the purchase of a tempting basket of fish. Her child falls ill, or she herself is unable, from the same cause, or from an accidental injury, to stand the necessary number of hours in the drenching rain; and so her stock is spoiled, and she suffers a greater calamity in her sphere than the brewer whose consignment of ale has turned sour on an India voyage.

In the vicinity of cathedrals and abbeys, in districts where dowagers and elderly maiden ladies most do congregate, and in there is always to be found a great number of kindly-disposed people, who have wherewithal to make life flow smoothly, leisure to listen to tales of wo, and the ability and inclination liberally to relieve. Now wherever these benevolent persons may be located, there will a troop of jackals herd, and run them down. Wherever public or private charities exist, there do these persons thrive. Their organisation, the degree to which they endure occasional privations and exposure, the recklessness with which they endanger the health and lives of those connected with them, is so passing strange, and, if fully expatiated upon, would be a chapter in the history of man and society, so disgusting, as to be unfit and morally unsafe to publish. Among the beings who infest these neighbourhoods, are men and women of keen wit – too keen, in truth – who have been well educated. Clerks who have been discharged for peculation. Women who, from the turbulence of their passions, have descended from the position of governesses, and who possess talent and tact equal to any emergency. They can write petitions in the highest style of excellence, as regards composition and penmanship. And they can also write letters on dirty slips of paper, in such a manner as that the homely phrase and the supposed ignorance of the petitioner shall be correctly sustained. They know all the charitable people of the district. They know the species of distress each person is most likely to relieve, and the days and hours they are most likely to be seen. They are in a position to instruct the several members of the fraternity as to the habits and foibles of the “gentlefolks.” One is open-handed, but apt to exact a large degree of humility, and must be approached with deference. Another, if applied to at the wrong time, may give liberally to rid himself of their importunities. Another is rough and noisy; but if the applicant can endure it – which these people can, but decent people cannot – a largess is certain. With one, clean linen, a well-starched front, or a neat cap-border, is a desideratum, because it is supposed to indicate that the wearers were once in a better sphere. Another will only relieve those who are clothed in well-patched rags, or “real misery;” and then the appearance must be that of squalid destitution.

“Those back-streets to peace so dear,”

It happened the other day that an individual, in the regular exercise of his duty, was engaged in making inquiries in one of these neighbourhoods. The cooped-up dwellings were situated in the centre of a mass of buildings, round which a carriage might roll in five minutes, and yet nothing would appear to excite suspicions that within the area of a few hundred yards, so much real distress, and so much deceit, vice, and crime were in existence. The visitor has left the crowded thoroughfare, and entered a narrow cutting which leads to the heart of the mass of houses. In former days the street was the abode of the wealthy. Many of these aristocratic dwellings are still standing. They large and high. The rooms were once magnificent. Their great size is still visible, notwithstanding the partitions which now divide them. The elaborate, quaint, and, in some instances, beautiful style of ornament on the ceilings, the massive mouldings, and richly carved chimney-pieces, satisfy the observer that, in former days, they were the abodes of wealth and luxury. They are now tottering with age: the other day, the interior of one of them fell inwards. These houses may be entered, one after another, without intrusion. To the uninitiated, the rooms present the appearance of an unoccupied hospital. All the rooms on the upper floors are entirely filled with beds. If they are entered at the close of a cold winter evening, the aspect is cold and desolate. If you pause on the landing, you may hear sounds of voices. The whole of the occupants of these rooms are congregated at the bottom of the building. You should not enter, for, at the sight of a stranger, they would instantly reassume their several characters. If you look through a chink in the partition, you will see an assemblage of men, women, and children, in whose aspect and mien – if you can read the biography of a human being by studying the lines on the countenance – you may read many a tale and strange eventful history, – illustrating the adage that “truth is stranger than fiction.” If the hour be midnight, and the season winter, the large hall will be lit up by a blazing fire. Around it are grouped men and women of all ages. Some are dressed as sailors. In a corner, some Malays are eating their mess alone. They pay their threepence, and are not disturbed: – they are supposed, with truth, to be unacquainted with the rules of English boxing, and to carry knives. Their white dresses and turbans, their dark but bright and expressive countenances, their jet-black hair, and strange language, give an air of romance to the scene. There are widows with children, traveling tinkers, and knife-grinders. All these are talking, laughing, shouting, singing, and crying in discordant chorus. There is no lack of good cheer; and it is but justice to add, that the less fortunate, providing they are “no sneaks,” are allowed a share. At the door, or busily employed among the guests, is mine host, and his female companion: – “old cadgers” both, but stalwart, and able to maintain the “respectability” of the house.