John Bartholomew Gough lived an incredibly eventful life – one that would lead
him from England to America and back again, where upon he would set down in his
autobiography a revealing first-hand account of the desperate lives
of people he met in 19th Century London. Originally from Kent, England, he arrived in
New York in 1829 and worked as a book binder, but fell in with immoral company and
drink. He lost his job and set himself up as a singer and story teller, touring US east coast
cities. Gough was later reduced to a miserable state when he lost his wife and
child, whilst still batting his demons. By chance, he would meet a Quaker
and this set him on a path to temperance and a life of lecturing to audiences on
abstinence and moral virtues. This would include a return visit to England in 1878,
allowing him to explore places tourists feared to tread in a city where enormous
wealth was juxtaposed with squalid poverty, smoke, dirt and fog. In this video you will
hear the account of Gough’s visit to the notorious Ratcliffe Highway in the East End
– a dark heart of vice and crime between the city and its docklands.
This slum area saw a steady stream of sailors and immigrants coming and going
who were accommodated with drink, music and female company in the low theatres,
inns and seedy dens of its backstreets. And now I pose a question
– you will learn how thieves would trick provincials from their money. If it were you,
how would you react to the thief’s attempt to part you from your money, whilst
avoiding the attention of a baying mob? Let me know in the comments section.
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Ratcliffe Highway lies contiguous to the port of London, and always has a strong
offensive, sickening odour of fish fried in oil. As we pass down the street, you notice the
shops, and the character of the wares: enormous boots, oil-skin caps, coats and
trousers, rough woollen shirts, compasses and charts, huge silver watches and glaring
jewellery, fried fish, second- hand clothes. Everything has a nautical adaptation.
The ballad-singers deal in nautical songs. See that poor, half-naked man,
with an old tarpaulin on his head. Round him gather a crowd of men,
women and children as he bawls more fact than poetry.
Hartley Coleridge said "There is certainly nothing so lugubrious as the cracked voice
of a ballad-singer in a dull, ill-lighted back street, on a rainy night in November."
Up and down Ratcliffe Highway, the sailors of every country stroll. Men who worship a
hundred gods and men who worship none. Now let us walk carefully,
taking no notice of any remarks as we explore. Here is where poor Jack is
"taken in and done for." Whatever Jack may be at sea,
on shore he is often the weakest and simplest of men, and there is but little need
to cover the hook with bait to catch him. When ashore, he seems to
have but one idea, that is to spend as much money in as short a time as possible.
Every few yards we come to a beer-house, or gin-shop, doorways temptingly open;
from the upper rooms come the tramp of feet and the sound of the violin.
Attached to many of the houses is a crew of infamous women to tempt Jack in to treat
them. His drink is drugged, and against their villainy he has no chance.
It is said that many so-called respectable people have made fortunes there.
Grog and dancing meet us at every turn. "Women — wild-eyed, boisterous,
cheeks red with rouge, flabby with intemperance, decked with ribbons
of the highest hue, all coarse, insolent, unlovely — dancing in the beer-shop,
drinking at the bar, all bent on victimizing the poor sailor.
Let us take a peep into this Music Hall. See how crowded it is with sailors
and women seated with pots of porter before them; every tar, and some of the
women, with pipes, listening to songs, and witnessing performances of a very
questionable moral character, and not very artistic. Some of these places of
amusement are too low to be described yet licensed by Act of Parliament.
By-and-by the grog will do its work. Then unruly tongues are loosed; there are
quarrels and blows; heads broken; cries of "police!" victims for the hospital, station-
house, or lunatic asylum; and perhaps some poor wretch, maddened by drink and shame,
plunges into the muddy waters of the nearest neighbouring dock, seeking vainly
the oblivion never found in the dancing, drinking-houses of Ratcliffe Highway.
I made some explorations among the beggars and thieves of London;
sometimes with police officers, at other times with city missionaries in the thieves'
district. You get more information in company with a missionary than with a
policeman; for while the latter knows almost every thief in the city,
the thief knows every policeman, whether in uniform or not, and they are generally
reticent while in their presence. Come with me, and I will show you where
the lowest class live; come down this narrow street, as we advance,
picking our way through kennels, stumbling over heaps of rubbish and oyster-shells.
All the repulsive and hideous features of the place are disclosed before us.
Every human being seems brutalized and degraded. We go down this dark
and noisome alley; as the detective lifts the latch of the door, we enter a sort of kitchen,
— this is a thieves' ken or lodging-house. On one side there is a long table,
at which sit a number of men of sinister aspect. The principal light is afforded by a
candle stuck against the wall. In one corner, with his head resting on a heap of coals,
lies a boy covered head to toe in its dust as if a chimney- sweeper,
— that is the waiter. ''Here's some company come to see you, lads!
Here you, stand up and take off your cap." You see the thief cowers before the
representative of law, lawless as he is. Let the officer simply say,
"My lad, I want you," he would probably turn to the others and say, "Goodbye, coves,"
and march off without another word. As we turn to leave them, we see by the
expression of their faces that we are not wanted. They have but very little mercy on
their victims. I was told that a countryman was leaning on the parapet of one of the
bridges in London, when he was accosted by a thief:
"Nice river." "Aye ….I’se been looking at it awhile; wot lots of ships!"
"Lord love ye, them ain't ships, they are boats; wos you never in London before?"
"No, I never was." "You'll have to look out sharp." "Why, what for?"
"For the thieves; the pickpockets who will get all your money."
"No, they won't. I aren't afeard of a pick- pocket."
"Perhaps you ain't got no money." "Oh, I have. I got a sovereign."
"Where do you keep it?" "Ah, that's telling." "Oh, I knows; you keep it in yer handkerchief
back of yer neck." "No, I don't." "Then you keeps it in yer stocking."
"No, I don't. I don't mind telling where I do keep it; ha! ha! I've got it in my mouth,
right against me cheek, away back; and no thief will get that, I know."
"You're a deep one, you are. Good day." In a short time, a boy runs up against the
country-man, and drops a handful of coppers, with one or two pieces of silver,
— "Oh, dear! oh, dear! my money," — and commences to pick it up,
assisted by the country-man and others, who gather as a crowd will gather at a
moment's notice in London. Still, when all the pieces had been returned to the boy,
he cried, "Oh, my money ! my money!" Someone said, "Have you not got your
money?" "Oh, no; I 'ad a sovereign! I 'ad a sovereign!" Up steps the thief,
who had come, mingling with the crowd. "You've lost a sovereign, 'ave ye?"
"Yes, sir. Oh, dear! oh, dear!" "Why, I see that chap there,"
pointing to the country-man, "pick up something, and put it in his mouth."
At this the countryman stands bewildered, till someone cries out,
"Find out whether he's got it;" another catches him by the throat,
and squeezing him till nearly choking, to save himself from strangulation he ejects
the sovereign, which is given to the boy, with a great deal of sympathy.
The poor countryman is hustled by the crowd, and may consider
himself lucky if he escapes a ducking in the river.