If you’ve watched my previous video about gangs of thieves in Victorian London,
you will already be familiar with John Bartholomew Gough. Check out that video
for a brief introduction to his incredible life story. Suffice to say that,
like Jack London decades later, Gough visited London and set about exploring
the city – with an equal interest in both its wealth and the life of people living
in poverty. He recorded his experiences and the conversations he witnessed with
everyday people so that we can hear this genuine first-hand account of 19th Century
life in the metropolis today. In this video we learn how the poor skilfully took advantage
of the city and its people to make some money to survive. Some of these methods
were crafty, underhand or downright dangerous, but all go to demonstrate
the lengths many had to go to just to ‘turn a penny’ and survive on London’s streets.
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In London there is an immense variety of methods for making money.
A lady was one day driving along one of the green lanes that are still to be met with
in the vicinity of London, and saw a poor woman gathering some chestnut-leaves.
She stopped and asked for what purpose; the reply was, that the leaves were sold
to the fruiterers in Covent Garden, to put in their baskets of fruit. On another occasion,
it came out that women and children tore down the placards in the streets at night,
and thus made a trifle by selling them as waste paper. One man dives in the sewers
for what may be washed away. A capitalist buys up all the dust and ashes of the city,
and they are sifted by women so covered in soot and grimy, that you could scarcely
tell them to be women at all. There is no waste in London; everything is picked up
and turned to account. One man buys old bones; another, old rags; another buys
cigar-ends for snuff, — in short, there is nothing so mean or filthy but is made
merchandise by the poor of London. One man advertises for old postage-stamps
that have been used, on the pretence that some crusty old parent will not let his
daughter marry till she has collected a million. The pretence is a hoax;
the old stamps are pasted together, and in some of the obscure parts of the town
are offered you at a reduced price. The post-office authorities have issued a new pattern
of stamp, because nearly one-third received had been cancelled and renewed.
There are five or six hundred boys and girls called "mud larks," who live by searching
the mud of the Thames for bones, coals, and other articles. You often see men who
may be called " Jack-of-all-trades," who run" errands," " 'old yer 'orse,"
— reminding you of Billy Downey, in the "Unfinished Gentleman,"
who sold clothes-props and pins. Then in the literary line, carrying round newspapers,
spreading knowledge and information. Then in the "vagabone" line, an "actor,"
performing the "hind legs of the elephant fifty-three successful nights," till the chap
"wot done the forelegs" and he happened to get into a fight and the "consequence wos,
they upset the "ole concern," and in course he got the bag from the theatre;
and now he "'olds 'orsses, runs errands, blacks boots," and makes himself generally
useful. Not long since, some children were poisoned by drinking some belladonna.
It appears they had stolen it out of a case in the street off Covent Garden,
had put it in a bottle with water, and sold it to other children at a pin for a spoonful,
thinking the belladonna was Spanish liquorice; and in this way had carried on an
active business. Some of these little urchins are too restless and irritable to be easily
reclaimed; the monotony of decent life is almost insupportable.
If you reclaim them, many will contrive to get away again.
A gentleman by the name of Driver, who had been for years engaged in endeavouring
to reclaim these little rascals, says that on one occasion he met some of them,
all dirt and rags, near the Nelson Monument. Said he: "I addressed myself
principally to one boy, whom some time before I had pulled from underneath
a tarpaulin in Covent Garden Market in the middle of a winter's night.
He had been twice under my care for short periods, but gave the preference to a
street life. I said, 'Well, Jim, are you not tired of this sort of life? 'No,' he answered with a
grin, 'not yet; and when I am, sir, I will come to you.' 'Very well,' I replied;
'I suppose you will have your game out first.' 'Now, sir, I'll tell you the real truth. I'd come
to you tomorrow, if you'd give me an ounce of 'bacca a week,
some ha'pence in my pocket to spend, and an hour's holiday every day;
it would not be worth my while to do it under that — it would not, indeed, sir! ' "
All these ragged urchins have an object — and, I fear, but one object — of terror,
and that is a policeman. They will teach their dogs to bark furiously at the word
"Bobby" or "Peeler." They will tease them in all possible ways. A policeman brought
a boy before a magistrate on a charge of insulting him. "What did he say to you?"
"Oh, he said nothing to me." "What did he do?" "Well, he pointed at me,
and asked another boy if he ever see a rabbit-pie made out of mutton."
"Oh, I cannot entertain such a charge as that." At every accident to a policeman their
delight is uncontrollable. "Jem, hi! Look 'ere! come 'ere! such a lark! Hooray!
Oh my! 'ere's a perleeceman fell down on a slide! Hooray!! "
To a flashily dressed snob they are very provoking. "Oh my! hi! there goes
eightpence out of a shilling! "If on horseback, so much the worse.
"Hi there! you'll tumble off the shop-board! "If he is a timid rider,
"Billy, see, 'ere's a swell; let's frighten 'is 'orss!" As witty a thing as I ever heard,
was a remark made by one boy to another, as a showily dressed person passed,
evidently vain of his appearance: "Hi! 'ow does that 'ere chap's hat stay up,
without nothing underit?" Ask this ragged little wretch, "Can you read?"
"No; but I can stand on my 'ed and drink a glass of gin." A judicious old lady said,
when a boy accosted her with "Stand on my 'ed, ma'am, for a penny,"
"No, little boy; there's a penny for keeping right side upwards." Another boy,
— "Now, my little man, what would you say, if I should give you a penny?"
"Yeh, that you was a jolly old brick." "Punch" gives some very graphic descriptions
of this class of boys. A stroll through the streets amazes you at the variety of
methods for "turning a penny." Everything is a penny, — cigar lights, pencils,
sham jewellery, ingenious puzzles, and very questionable publications,
which yield enormous profits, one of them realizing for the ignoble owner many
thousands a year. At one time it is the "Devil" that is put for sale at the price of one
penny; at another, "London Life," "London Gossip," or "Town Talk." There is always
a great sale of prints and photographs, all at one penny. The run on the evening papers
— particularly when there has been a sensational murder, or a divorce case with
spicy details — is immense; and as edition after edition is worked off,
the streets are filled with men and women, lads and girls, offering them for sale.
In this way a good deal of money is made, especially by the venders who manage to
get first in the neighbourhood of the Exchange and the Mansion House,
and thus reach a class of customers who are not particular in the matter of change.
Unprotected females, as they walk down Cheapside, are exceedingly annoyed by the
impertinence of some of these fellows, who thrust the "Matrimonial News" before them,
as they bawl in stentorian tones, "Want an 'usband, marm? Lot's of 'usbands to be had.
Only a penny!" One thing to be noted is the temporary character of these penny
saleable articles. Some are to be met with all the year round, such as studs,
cigar lights, pocket-books, diaries, almanacs, beetles (which, attached to an
India-rubber string, dance about as if they were alive), India-rubber balls, specimens
of geology, steel pens, note-paper, German toys, refreshing drinks, bird-whistles, etc.
Others are dependent on the season, and you get wonderful flowers, — camellias
made of turnips, — apples, pears, oranges, walnuts, and slices of pineapple;
and the costermongers who thus cater for the million are indeed a blessing,
as they supply the poor of the metropolis with cheap fruit. In the summer you have
the retailer of sherbet and the penny ice and shell-fish; in the winter the same man
deals in roasted chestnuts or baked potatoes, or keeps a coffee-stall.
All the year round, some enterprising individuals supply the public,
who need to have their blood purified, with penny sarsaparilla drinks.
When Lord Beaconsfield came back from the Berlin Congress,
there was a card hawked about called the "European Mystery,"
and the puzzle was to find Lord Beaconsfield in the picture.