Page images
PDF
EPUB

means necessary, and the most pernicious test that could possibly be applied.

Although many confess that there is a difference between mendicity and mendacity, yet others with equal truth assert that the difference is all my they assert that in the majority of instances the beggar, instead of calling himself mend I can't should rather take the name of mend I won't; that alms should never be given without qualms; and that "Date obolum Belisario," may in most instances be safely rendered "Give me the price of a glass of gin." There must, consequently, be a false as well as a true indigence; and this is a fact too notorious to require demonstration. It is necessary, therefore, to separate the artificial from the real, and to mark the phases of pretended indigence before we investigate the nature of the true.

Experience brings us acquainted with three classes of the pretended indigent; among the first and largest class, indigence is a trade; in the . second, it is the apathy of indolence; in the third, it is the pure result of debauchery and demoralisation. Every branch of trade, except the manufacture of books and dramas, opens a path to fortune in London, and that of indigence is far from being the least lucrative. We take almost at random two cases from the Reports of the Mendicity Society. "No. 31,238.-J. F. a native of Ireland, forty years of age, and of particularly strong and healthy appearance, who had been long known to the society as a common impostor, was apprehended in King Street, St. James's, in company with a woman whom he pretended to be his wife, and two decently-attired children. From their appearance, and the tale they told, strangers would be induced to suppose that they had but just arrived in London in search of employment, but that the woman had been suddenly taken ill from mere exhaustion, and that they were in a state of total destitution. This artifice the man pursued in various parts of the metropolis, frequently with different women; and when apprehended, which they had been several times, resisted the officers most violently. On being searched, he was always found to have a considerable sum of money about his person."

"No. 29,826.-J. D. S. a man of colour, and a native of Bengal, who had been known to the Society's officers many years, and by whom he had been apprehended no less than eighteen times, was again taken into custody by one of them, begging in Leather Lane, apparently in a state of extreme misery and destitution,-indeed almost in a state of nudity. It will, however, be scarcely credited, that so far from being in distress, he was well known to be, and admitted that he was, the landlord of two lodging-houses in St. Giles's, which yielded him ample means of support; and when apprehended, upon being searched, no less a sum than 18s. 1d. was found upon his person; and upon a similar occasion, which occurred previously, as much as nine pounds was found sewed up in his tattered garments."

The profession of false indigence has two advantages; it is very lucrative, and it is not laborious. Cant is by no means an expensive stock in trade, and there never was an age when it bore a higher price in the market; besides the cant of mock benevolence opened a market for the cant of false indigence. Somebody or other has said that people who have little or no morality of their own, are kind enough to take the morals of the poor under their special protection; with more truth it may be said that childless dowagers and venerable spinsters, having no families of their own, and having a large stock of domestic

affection on hand, adopt pet schemes of what they are pleased to call charity; most, if not all, of which might be described as joint-stock companies for the propagation of humbug. They bear the same relation to impostors as paid puffs to quack medicines, creating a factitious want for the species of excitement which the traders on indigence are ready to supply. Hence the mendicant profession is one in which the practitioners make rapid progress; the dismal whine is carried to the highest perfection; the running accompaniment of sighs, tears, and groans is arranged with more skill than the musical accompaniments of any opera produced on the English stage for the last twenty years; pathetic tales are composed sufficient to stock a score of circulating libraries, and an insinuating eloquence is formed possessing a greater power of accommodating itself to times and circumstances than is of late days displayed at the bar or in the pulpit. There are schools of eloquence in St. Giles's where the coarseness of Billingsgate and the pathos of the Asylum chapel are taught in harmonious union, and where the professors beat the fishwoman and the popular preacher hollow.

Pretended indigence is not contented with counterfeiting misery, it has wondrous skill in assuming the aspect of disease; the cholera was quite a fortune to the class. It is not recorded by whom the connexion between the blue stage and blue ruin was first discovered, but many dupes can testify that the discovery soon became more profitable to the tribe of impostors than the Daguerrotype is likely to be to its patentee. The shrieks, the writhings, the contortions exhibited, more particularly in the outskirts of London, the quantities of brandy given as specifics for the disease, the amount of money bestowed as a bribe to carry the sickness elsewhere, could not easily be calculated; one neighbourhood, however, was early restored to health by an Irish gentleman, whose porch and steps were very convenient for such exhibitions; he vowed that "he would murder any person who had the impudence to die at his door!" and when the resolution was made public, cholera, which had been hitherto rife around him, suddenly disappeared.

The Quarterly Review, which has been recently sporting on this manor, and has been tolerably successful in bringing down game, mentions a case of pretended pregnancy and parturition ending in the delivery of a pillow, a volley of oaths, and a Billingsgate oration. Such cases are far from rare; one was decided very recently without the intervention of the police, by the accidental presence of a medical practitioner, whose experienced eye at once detected the fraud. But the pretence was some short time since made to serve the purpose of ingenious larceny; the woman was brought into a warehouse by the compassionate owner, she contrived to substitute a package of goods for her stuffing of straw, and made her escape.

Many good sort of people, who suppose that bestowing alms is something like opening a banking account with heaven, will not accept of anything short of blindness or a broken limb as security. The consequent frauds practised upon them are generally known; but there is another species of claim made to compassion, in which, though detection is much easier, yet artifice is more common, and more successful : this is the exhibition of children. One case came under my own observation. Some months ago a man appeared in Camden Town, who went through the streets appealing to compassion in language that had all the semblance of truth and nature. He stated that he was a handloom weaver destitute of employment; that his parish had refused

him relief except on the condition of parting from his children, the dear survivors of his beloved wife; adding, as he pointed to a very interesting little girl," How could I part from this darling?" There was some excitement about the New Poor Law in the parish of St. Pancras at the time, and consequently the man reaped a plentiful harvest. He was soon after seen' in Camberwell relating the same story in the same words, but with a wholly different set of children, the interesting girl having been exchanged for a deformed and sickly-looking boy. The person by whom the discovery was made, stated that he was afraid to give the impostor into custody on account of the impression his appeals against the severity of the Poor Laws had produced on the mistaken sympathies of the multitude. tudes of similar cases may be found in the Mendicity Reports; two, however, will suffice.

Multi

"No. 32,341.-W. H. a strong, healthy man, about forty-five years of age, with a woman, whom he called his wife, and four children, were found by the Society's officers begging about the streets, and making a most lamentable tale of distress. Upon being taken before the magistrates and examined, it was found that they were not married, and that none of the children belonged to either of them, but had been borrowed from three different families for the sole purpose of begging." "No. 15,153.-J. H. with a family of six children. She was sitting on the steps of a door, with three of her children, in the New Road, her head reclining upon her hand, and apparently very ill; the constables, suspecting imposition, watched her for some time; at length she was observed to go with two other women into a gin-shop in the neighbourhood, where they all remained about half an hour; they came out, and separated, the woman, as heretofore, having taken up her usual position: presently the same two women, who had before accompanied her, again came up, and a crowd having by this time collected, they began to vociferate loudly for assistance, saying the woman was very ill, and some one ought to take charge of her; the constables immediately took her into custody, experiencing, however, great resistance from a mistaken humanity."

We have more than once witnessed the farce of the sick woman enacted with unpleasant variations; "the artful dodgers" belonging to her hopeful family, took advantage of the opportunity for plying their own branch of industry, and we are unwilling witnesses of their success. It is unnecessary to multiply examples of these frauds, nomen illis legio, they are so countless and varied that simple-minded benevolence cannot escape from their snares. Can it resist the first emotions produced by the aspect of calamities apparently so overwhelming? Can cold mistrust withstand the first warm impulses of compassion? Is not doubt felt to be a kind of wrong to the sufferer, since it unites the injury of suspicion to the indifference of refusal? Pretended indigence knows its stronghold; in this mighty Babylon it is impossible for individuals to bestow the toil and time necessary for inquiry, to say nothing of the risk they would run, not merely from the impostors, but from their besotted patrons. Benevolence in any large community must be organised in order to be efficient; alms indiscriminately bestowed are in nine cases out of ten given to depraved imposture. But the evil does not stop here; mendicancy is a fruitful source of juvenile delinquency; the children hired out to excite compassion are placed in a course of immoral training, which soon qualify them

for graduating in the college of Newgate, the only normal school for instructing the rising generation which it has yet pleased the collective wisdom of Great Britain to establish. As we shall have occasion to investigate the entire question of youthful crime, it will be sufficient at present to quote one case from the Mendicity Reports.

"No. 15,138.-W. N. a child seven years' old, and born in London: he was apprehended begging by the constables of the society. The examination of this infant displayed a scene of vice almost unparalleled ; it could hardly be supposed so young a mind could have been so readily and completely depraved; he was thoroughly acquainted with the slang terms used by thieves and beggars; and it appeared from the communications he made that his two brothers and himself procured considerable sums by begging and singing songs at different public houses. The mother had followed the same trade, and, as he said, spent in drink both what she herself collected, and whatever her children brought her."

Here, then, is direct evidence that indiscriminate benevolence not only supported the parent in profligacy, but aided in training the children to vice and crime.

In modern times the evil of mawkish sensibility has been summoned to the aid of foolish benevolence. There are people who can contrive to be exceedingly charitable at the expense of their neighbours. When they hear it proposed to apply some test to distinguish between true and false indigence, between real and pretended poverty, they exclaim that the principles of charity are violated, that social duty is sacrificed, that hardness of heart is openly avowed and sanctioned. The impostors and multitudes of them are to be found enrolled beneath the banners both of benevolence and indigence - propagate the delusion, fools repeat the cry, and genuine philanthropy is drowned by the clamour. No one can read the cases that have been cited, without feeling that it is to the full as much the duty of Christian charity to withhold from pretended indigence as to relieve real want; but the investigation of each case personally involves too much labour, and the delegation of it to others is wounding to pride. "Long life to Folly!" exclaims imposture; and "Long life to Knavery!" is the virtual, though not over virtuous, reply of good-hearted people. It is a general rule, admitting no exception, and therefore in itself an exception to every general rule, that those who are denominated " good-hearted people' are utterly destitute of head.

[ocr errors]

But false indigence does not always present itself in rags: it frequently comes before you with a respectable aspect, and under the forms which belong to good society. Lord Chancellor Clare had a theory, that every man with three names in 1798 was a rebel. Without investigating the facts of his lordship's reasoning, it must be confessed that suspicion in many instances attaches itself to the homines trium literarum, especially if the second name has anything of an aristocratic sound. We find almost invariably that the class of genteel mendicants who go about petitioning for subscriptions, and make a livelihood by combining begging with other forms of swindling, have their second name quite aristocratic. Robert Mortimer Hopkins, or Charles Gower Pipkins, are frequently found at the end of petitions and the beginning of indictments. They are all clever fellows; they have invented reverses far more interesting than vulgar misfortunes; they are the victims of political tumults, the chances of war, or com

mercial revolutions. They display wondrous aptitude in availing themselves of circumstances, such as the late campaigns of the British auxiliary legion in Spain, and the delay of payment by the Spanish government. There are throughout the country more persons claiming credit or relief as officers of the late legion than there were soldiers under General Evans from beginning to end. As during the Continental war every beggar was either a soldier or a sailor, so now many of the well-dressed livers on their wits claim connection with the legion, and in too many instances have their claim allowed; while the character of those who really served is seriously injured by the proceedings of the pretenders. The petition-impostors are almost sure of extensive success when they have gained their first dupes. These serve as witnesses to the truth of their statements, and as decoys for others. Their number, however, is very limited; it has been sensibly diminished since the higher classes have begun to refer such cases for investigation to the committee of the Mendicity Society. We do occasionally hear of instances where, on the strength of an aristocratic second name, and a plausible story, credit is obtained from the tradesman and charity from the nobleman. The worst result is, the injury done to those who are really distressed by the disgraceful arts of these plausible impostors. We speak what we know, when we assert that there are in middle, and even in what may be called genteel life, examples of greater suffering, misery, and destitution, endured with an iron pride that breaks before it bends, than can be found in the lowest haunts of wretchedness. Against such misery the heart is too often steeled by the arts of those impostors, who believe that honest industry is inconsistent with gentility, and who are disposed to exclaim with the Indian, "Pig only gentleman: he no work.' They reverse the feelings of the discharged steward: it is "to dig," not "to beg," that they are ashamed. For obvious reasons, it is inexpedient to dwell farther on this form of pretended indigence. Indeed, it is so closely connected with swindling, that it more properly belongs to a different part of the subject.

The last, but far the most extensive case of pretended indigence, which we have to examine, is that of begging letters, an evil, by the way, likely to be much extended by the increased facilities of the Post Office. Few persons would believe the extent of the talent and ingenuity displayed in these productions. If a proper collection of them was made, they would form unrivalled stock in trade for a new Minerva Press. In fact, the composition of such letters is a regular and Jucrative branch of the literary profession. Like the genteel petitioners, the letter-writers exhibit great skill in seizing on the popular topics of the day, such as the outcry against the New Poor Law and the Factory system. Whether they have borrowed from Mrs. Trollope, or Mrs. Trollope from them may be difficult to determine; but there is a very striking similarity between the romantic statements of both. Such letters, indeed, are often sent by parents who place their children to work in the mines until they are old enough to work in the factory; and there can be little doubt that many of the dupes who joined in the preposterous outcry raised against juvenile labour, were deceived by the ingenious devices of the letter-manufacturers. We refer to the reports of the Factory Commissioners for an exposure of many of these frauds. Henry Mackenzie's novels, especially Julia de Roubigne, appear to be the favourite models of the London letter-writers; and, from the fol

« PreviousContinue »