THE STREET PROWLERS OF LONDON.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 14, Issue 748, 30 December 1869, Page 4

THE STREET PROWLERS OF LONDON.

(From " The Seven Curses of London," by James Greenwood, the Amateur Casual, It may be mentioned as a contribution towards solving the riddle, "How do these hundred thousand street prowlers contrive to exist V that they draw a considerable amount of their sustenance from the markets. And really it would seem that by some miraculous dispensation of pro vidence, garbage was for their sake robbed of its poisonous properties, and endowed with virtues such as wholesome food possesses. Did the reader ever see the young markethunters at such a " feed " say in the month of August or September 1 It is a spectacle only to be witnessed by early risers who can get as far as Covent Garden by the time that the wholesale dealing in the open falls slack—which will be about 8 o'clock; and it is not to be believed unless it is seen. They will gather about a muck-heap and gobble up plums, a sweltering mass of decay, and oranges and apples that have quite lost their original shape and color with the avidity of ducks or pigs. I speak according to my knowledge, for I have seen them at it. I have seen one of these gaunt wolfish little children with his tattered cap full of plums of a sort one of which I would not have permitted a child of mine to ear, for all the money in the Mint, and this at a reason when the sanitary authorities, in desperace alarm at.the spread of cholera, have turned billstickers, and were begging and imploring the people to abstain from this, that, and tha other, and especially to beware of fruit unless perfectly sound and ripe, Judging from the earnestness with which this last provision was urged, there must have been cholera enough to have slain a dozen strong men in that little ragamuffin's cap, and yet he munched on till that frowsv reeepta-l pie was emptied, finally licking his lingers with a relish. It was not for'me to forcibly dispossess the boy of a prize which made him the envy of his pi u ml ess companions, but I spoke to the market beadle about it, asking him if would not be possible, knowing the propensities of those poor little wretches, so to dispose of the poisonous offal that they could not; get at if ; but he replied that it had nothing to do with him what they ate so long as they kept their hands from picking and stealing; furthermore he politely intimated that " unless I had nothing better to (do," there was no call for me to trouble about the " little warmints," whom nothing would hurt. He confided to me his private belief they were " made inside something after the orsestrech, and that farriers' nails wouldn't come amiss to 'em if they could only get 'em down." However, and although the evidence was rather in the sagapious market beadle's favor, I was unconverted from my original opinion, and here take the liberty of urging on any official of Covent Garden pi' Farringdon market who may happen to read these pages the policy of adopting my suggestion as to the safe bestowal of fruit offal during the sickly season. That great danger is incurred by allowing it to be con g uiaec[ as it now is there cannot be a

question. Perhaps it is too much to assume that the poor little beings whom hunger prompts ■ to feed off garbage do so vith impunity. Ifc is not improbable that in many cases, they slink home to die in their holes as poisoned rats do. That they are never missed from the market is no proof to the contrary. Their identification is next to impossible, for they are as like a* apples in a sieve, or peas in a pod. Moreover, to tell their number is put of the question. It is as incomprehensible as is their nature. They swarm as bees do, and arduous indeed would be the task of the individual who undertook to reckon up the small fry of a single alley of the hundreds that abound in Squalor's regions. They are of as small account in the public estimation as stray street curs, and, like them it is only when they evince a propensity for barking and biting that their existence is recognised. Should death to-morrow morning make a clean sweep of these unsightly little scavengers who grovel for a meal amongst the market offal-heaps, next day would see the said heaps just as industriously surrounded. .