Dickens's England (27 page)

The piedealers usually make the pies themselves. The meat is bought in pieces, of the same part as the sausage-makers purchase – the ‘stickings' – at about 3
d
the pound. ‘People, when I go into [public] houses,' said one man, ‘often begin crying, “Mee-yow,” or “Bow-wow-wow!” at me, but there's nothing of that kind now. Meat, you see, is so cheap.'

COFFEE-STALL KEEPERS

The coffee-stall keepers generally stand at the corner of a street. In the fruit and meat markets there are usually two or three coffee-stalls, and one or two in the streets leading to them; in Covent Garden there are no less than four coffee-stalls. Indeed, the stalls abound in all the great thoroughfares, and the most in those not accounted ‘fashionable' and great ‘business' routes, but such as are frequented by working people, on the way to their day's labour. The best ‘pitch' in London is supposed to be at the corner of Duke Street, Oxford Street. The proprietor of that stall is said to take full 30
s
of a morning, in halfpence [720 halfpennies, £1 10s]. . . . It is a large truck on four wheels, and painted a bright green. The cans are four in number, and of bright polished tin, mounted with brass plates. There are compartments for bread and butter, sandwiches and cake. It is lighted by three large oil-lamps, with bright brass mountings, and covered in with an oilcloth roof. . . .

Some of the stall-keepers make their appearance at twelve at night, and some not till three or four in the morning. Those that come out at midnight are for the accommodation of the ‘night-walkers' – ‘fast gentlemen' and loose girls; and those that come out in the morning are for the accommodation of the working men.

It is, I may add, piteous enough to see a few young and good-looking girls, some with the indelible mark of habitual depravity on their countenances, clustering together for warmth round a coffee-stall, to which a penny expenditure, or the charity of the proprietor, has admitted them. The thieves do not resort to the coffee-stalls, which are so immediately under the eye of the policeman. . . .

OF THE TRADES AND LOCALITIES OF THE STREET-JEWS

The trades which the Jews most affect, I was told by one of themselves, are those in which, as they describe it, ‘there's a chance'; that is, they prefer a trade in such commodity as is not subjected to a fixed price, so that there may be abundant scope for speculation, and something like a gambler's chance for profit or loss. . . .

Of course a wealthy Jew millionaire – merchant, stock-jobber or stockbroker – resides where he pleases – in a villa near the Marquis of Hertford's in the Regent's Park, a mansion near the Duke of Wellington's in Piccadilly, a house and grounds at Clapham or Stamford Hill; but these are exceptions. The quarters of the Jews are not difficult to describe. The trading class in the capacity of shopkeepers, warehousemen, or manufacturers, are the thickest in Houndsditch, Aldgate and the Minories, more especially as regards the ‘swag-shops' and the manufacture and sale of wearing apparel. The Hebrew dealers in second-hand garments and second-hand wares generally, are located about Petticoat Lane . . .

Fifty years ago the appearance of the street-Jews, engaged in the purchase of second-hand clothes, was different to what it is at the present time. The Jew then had far more of the distinctive garb and aspect of a foreigner. He not infrequently wore the gabardine, which is never seen now in the streets, but some of the long loose frock coats worn by the Jew clothes buyers resemble it. At that period, too, the Jew's long beard was far more distinctive than it is in this hirsute generation.

In other respects the street-Jew is unchanged. Now, as during the last century, he traverses every street, square and road, with the monotonous cry, sometimes like a bleat, of ‘Clo'! Clo'!' . . .

MUDLARKS

There is another class who may be termed river-finders, although their occupation is connected only with the shore; they are commonly known by the name of ‘mudlarks', from being compelled, in order to obtain the articles they seek, to wade sometimes up to their middle through the mud left on the shore by the retiring tide. These poor creatures are certainly about the most deplorable in their appearance of any I have met with in the course of my inquiries. They may be seen of all ages, from mere childhood to positive decrepitude, crawling among all the barges at the various wharfs along the river; it cannot be said that they are clad in rags, for they are scarcely half covered by the tattered indescribable things that serve them for clothing; their bodies are grimed with the foul soil of the river, and their torn garments stiffened up like boards with dirt of every possible description. . . .

When the tide is sufficiently low they scatter themselves along the shore, separating from each other, and soon disappear among the craft lying about in every direction. . . . The mudlarks themselves, however, know only those who reside near them, and whom they are accustomed to meet in their daily pursuits; indeed, with but few exceptions, these people are dull, and apparently stupid; this is observable particularly among the boys and girls, who, when engaged in searching the mud, hold but little converse one with another. The men and women may be passed and re-passed, but they notice no one; they never speak, but with a stolid look of wretchedness they plash their way through the mire, their bodies bent down while they peer anxiously about, and occasionally stoop to pick up some paltry treasure that falls in their way.

The mudlarks collect whatever they happen to find, such as coals, bits of old iron, rope, bones, and copper nails that drop from ships while lying or repairing along the shore. . . .

At one of the stairs in the neighbourhood of the Pool [of London], I collected about a dozen of these unfortunate children; there was not one of them over twelve years of age, and many of them were but six. . . . The muddy slush was dripping from their clothes and utensils, and forming a puddle in which they stood. There did not appear to be among the whole group as many filthy cotton rags to their backs as, when stitched together, would have been sufficient to form the material of one shirt. On questioning one, he said his father was a coal-backer; he had been dead eight years; the boy was nine years old. His mother was alive; she went out charing and washing when she could get any such work to do. She had one shilling a day when she could get employment, but that was not often; he remembered once to have had a pair of shoes, but it was a long time since. ‘It is very cold in winter,' he said, ‘to stand in the mud without shoes,' but he did not mind it in summer. He had been three years mudlarking, and supposed he should remain a mudlark all his life. What else could he be? For there was nothing else he knew
how
to do. Some days he earned one penny, and some days four pence; he never earned eight pence in one day, that would have been a ‘jolly lot of money'. . . . Some time ago he had gone to the Ragged School, but he no longer went there, for he forgot it. He could neither read nor write, and did not think he could learn if he tried ‘ever so much'. He didn't know what religion his father and mother were, nor did he know what religion meant. God was God, he said. He had heard he was good, but didn't know what good he was to him. . . . London was England, and England, he said, was in London, but he couldn't tell in what part. He could not tell where he would go to when he died, and didn't believe anyone could tell
that.
. . .

As for the females growing up under such circumstances, the worst may be anticipated of them; and in proof of this I have found, upon inquiry, that very many of the unfortunate creatures who swell the tide of prostitution in Ratcliff Highway, and other low neighbourhoods in the east of London, have originally been mudlarks; and only remained at that occupation till such time as they were capable of adopting the more easy and more lucrative life of the prostitute. . . .

DUST THOU ART . . .

A dust-heap . . . may be briefly said to be composed of the following things, which are severally applied to the following uses:

1. ‘Soil', or fine dust, sold to brickmakers for making bricks, and to farmers for manure, especially for clover.

2. ‘Brieze', or cinders, sold to brickmakers for burning bricks.

3. Rags, bones and old metal, sold to marine-store dealers.

4. Old tin and iron vessels, sold for ‘clamps' to trunks, etc., and for making copperas.

5. Old bricks and oyster shells, sold to builders for sinking foundations and forming roads.

6. Old boots and shoes, sold to Prussian-blue manufacturers.

7. Money and jewellery, kept, or sold to Jews.

The dustyards, or places where the dust is collected and sifted, are generally situated in the suburbs, and they may be found all round London . . . frequently, however, they cover a large extent of ground in the fields, and there the dust is piled up to a great height in a conical heap, and having much the appearance of a volcanic mountain. . . . Some time since there was an immense dust-heap in the neighbourhood of Gray's Inn Lane, which sold for £20,000; but that was in the days when 15
s
and £1 per chaldron [32–36 bushels, dry measure] could easily be procured for the dust. . . .

In a dustyard lately visited, the sifters formed a curious sight; they were almost up to their middle in dust, ranged in a semi-circle in front of that part of the heap which was being ‘worked'; each had before her a small amount of soil which had fallen through her sieve and formed a sort of embankment, behind which she stood. The appearance of the entire group at their work was most peculiar. Their coarse dirty cotton gowns were tucked up behind them, their arms were bared above their elbows, their black bonnets crushed and battered like those of fish-women; over their gowns they wore a strong leathern apron, extending from their necks to the extremities of their petticoats, while over this, again, was another leathern apron, shorter, thickly padded, and fastened by a stout string or strap round the waist. In the process of their work they pushed the sieve from them and drew it back again with apparent violence, striking it against the outer leathern apron with such force that it produced each time a hollow sound, like a blow on the tenor drum. All the women present were middle-aged, with the exception of one who was very old – 68 years of age she told me – and had been at the business from a girl. She was the daughter of a dustman, the wife or woman of a dustman, and the mother of several young dustmen – sons and grandsons – all at work at the dustyards at the east end of the metropolis. . . .

THE DUSTMAN'S TALE

‘Father vos a dustie; – vos at it all his life, and grandfather afore him for I can't tell how long. . . . I never vos at a school in all my life; I don't know what it's good for. It may be wery well for the likes o' you, but I doesn't know it 'u'd do a dustie any good. You see, ven I'm not out with the cart, I digs here all day; and p'raps I'm up all night, and digs avay agen the next day. Vot does I care for reading, or anythink of that there kind, ven I gets home arter my vork? I tell you vot I likes, though! Vhy, I jist likes two or three pipes o' baccer, and a pot or two of good heavy [beer, porter] and a song, and then I tumbles in with my Sall, and I'm as happy as here and there von. That there Sall of mine's a stunner – a riglar stunner. There ain't never a voman can sift a heap quickerer nor my Sall. Sometimes she yarns as much as I does; the only thing is, she's sitch a beggar for lush [drink], that there Sall of mine, and then she kicks up sitch jolly rows, you niver see the like in your life. That there's the only fault as I know on in Sall; but, barring that, she's a hout-and-houter, and worth half a dozen of t'other sifters – pick 'em out vare you likes. No, we ain't married 'zactly, though it's all one for all that. I sticks to Sall, and Sall sticks to I, and there's an end on't: – vot is it to any von?'

Henry Mayhew,
London Labour and the London Poor
(2 vols, 1851–2; 4 vols, 1861–2)

A rumour broke through the thin smoke

Enwreathing abbey, tower and palace,

The parks, the squares, the thoroughfares,

The million-peopled lanes and alleys,

An ever-muttering prisoned storm,

The heart of London beating warm.

John Davidson, ‘London' (late Victorian)

I
n 1801, London's population was already one-tenth that of England and Wales; by 1901, at over 6.5 million, it was about one-fifth. There was a continuous flow of immigrants: the Irish constituted the largest minority, of over 6 per cent; next were the Jews from central Europe, some 46,000 by 1881; of course, most incomers were country people from southern England (over 20 per cent), seeking better wages and a more stimulating life.

There was plenty to do: in London were a quarter of England's wholesale and retail dealers, government employees and professionals, 40 per cent of banking (London was the world's greatest money market: it seemed a city of clerks). University and other colleges, great museums, large shops and two-thirds of the country's arts and entertainment business had grown up there. Remarkably, one third of London's working population consisted of manufacturing workers – 13 per cent of the national manufacturing force. Though essentially a great mercantile and administrative centre, in 1851 London was the largest industrial city in the world. Until the 1860s, it was England's chief ship-building centre (Brunel's iron steamer, the
Great Eastern,
in 1851; the first iron-clad warship,
Warrior,
in 1860). Other industries included metal goods, clock-making, furniture, chemicals, printing, leather-working, tailoring, dress-making and brewing. The docks dominated East London, from the earlier East India and West India Docks to the later Victoria and Tilbury Docks down river, down, in Joseph Conrad's words, ‘a waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth'.