FORTRAIT OF A LONDON BEGGAR.

Samoa Times and South Sea Gazette, Volume 2, Issue 55, 19 October 1878, Page 4

FORTRAIT OF A LONDON BEGGAR.

(drawn by himself.) Downright beggary is a winter trade ; J never re-sort to it in summer, mid only on suitable days in winter. I wait for it bitterly cold day, with a north wind driving snow or sleet before it. I dress it. .suitable Blyle—in the most ragged raiment I can pick up. I dispense with stockings for the occasion, and take good • '■. re, while affecting to make the mest of my scanty garb, to let glimpses of my naked breast appear. My uoot.l are well down at heel (tad broken in half a dozen places. In this guise I sally forth at a good round pace, untd I roach some such street an Bishopsgato-street Without, about hall-past eight in the morning, when clerks &a, are beginning to troop along to employment, Here I assume tiio proper wouchiug [slang for ' begging "j pose - stoop my bead, bend my shoulders, contract my breast, and shiver along, glancing neither to tho right nor to the left, but keeping my eyes fixed on the ground and chafing my ringers as I limp past. To look at, I am tho incarnation of all that is forlon ; and I toll you f cannot get to tho end of liishopsgate-stivct without being stopped by a dozen peoplo, all of whom thrust something into my hand. Most give copper jßomo, however, give silver, Quitting bishopagote, 1 traverse nil the busy Stroota in tho neighbourhood of the bank, (nkiug good can in every instance to direct my course against the "living si re una pouring from 'bus and railway station, i (lieu inako for tho West-end by the the shortcut route, reaching rav destination about 12 o'clock or turnabouts. Hero J continue my stroll, never asking, but always receiving, until t o'clock strike. Then back I go to tho city to itch tho business stoanung home, By'

j half-past 6 ray days work i-> dona, and for ‘ the most part well done. I seldom make lens than 30s. on such a day, often very much more. Every penny of it is fairly i earned too. My miserable appeal anco is not altogether sham. lam drenched and | frozen in a very real way. Indeed was 'it not that 1 feel well, and take a nip of brandy every hour or so, should never i be able to stick it out through the whole | of such a winter day as I describe. In i refn •siting himsel f, however, a fellow has ! to be careful. He must not allow him- 1 self to become intoxicated while on his | | beat; that would bo to spoil the rest ofl i, the day. A good begging winter day does not come abovo twice in a mouth, and ought to be made the most of. 1 There are a good many sorts of indirect j bogging. A very usual one is to go! • along the more respectable suburban; : streets early in the morning. I say the i more respectable, meaning he middle-1 • class streets ; for the most respectable .as well as the least so are hen; to be i avoided. Between 7 and 8 o’clock a m., 1 tbe housemaids are sure to bo at the front ; doors, heating the mats ; and we mouthers lak" the work of their hands, receiving .in r turn broken victuals and coppers, - and macing aeo’iaint.tnccs that •"■•■ ! 0 turn out useful. In London, many 1 female servants seldom n main long in I i one situation ; just long enough to get s “ togged ’’ nud fed up. Then my lady i. must have a spree for a few days. So ;> she gives notice, and, her time being up, r takes her pleasure. When all is spent f she betakes herself t) a registry otHce - for -rv-mis, and soon obtains another ;. siUufci: . fids is the general course, i, Now am! then, however, your frisky cook k housemaid, prolongs her gambols until g she not only gets rid of her cash, but d deposits most of her spare articles of dress with the pawnbroker. She is now in-

capable of helping herself. She falls in with such a one as I, and we strike up a partnership. Having made our bargain, we take furnished apartment —as good as our appearance will allow us to engage. Suppose 1 have been in luck just before, and that she has a tolerable amount of good clothing left, wo slip into lodgings of the better class. Here the game is to 'ret into debt with all the tradesmen round about. We generally wind up by stripping the lodgings and pawning the goods. Suppose us, however, located, as happens much more frequently, in u tumble d.wn tenement of a squalid-looking street. The room is about the worst in the house, with furniture to match Our lodging is wretched lit the extreme, but it is admirably adapted for our purpose. There are half a dozen rival religious establishments in the neighbourhood, and each lias its charitable organizations. In fact, nothin ; religious can hope for success in a very ■ poor quarter unless it ho recommended ■ by a plentiful distribution of alms. All | ■ those establishments we try in turn, hj ... ' ing of course u very plausible story ; . • tell. lam a mechanic who has been di--i aided by an accident, my wife is an invalid, and whenever it may ho ne •cssary > we borrow a family of young children. ■ We receive the usual amount of visiting • and sermonizing, and at least the usual . dole of aims, which we supplement by -• various devices of our own. In the end, i one or other of us wearies of the part--1 nership, and departs without taking leave. " Tins kind of temporary marriage is ! rather popular among us, and there are ; fow of us who cannot count among their • acquaintances at least one female who is ! ready to enter into it. We try the trick 1 mostly in July and August, when the r swell people are out of town and there is i nothing better to be done. We might f carry it on all the year round for that ~ matter. London s so large, and conf tains so many religious districts, that it s would take half a lifetime to go round them all, lin list not omit to mention, that, when working the religious dodge, tho wife always docs her best to entrap the scripture reader, missionary, or

curate. Should she succeed, ho becomes our humble servant, and we prey upon the charities he dispenses to our heart’s content. There are places where you can got a bed for fourpenco, with the use of the kitchen, where a rousing fire is blazing, and cooking utensils; and the fellow must be a wretched hand at the mouching* trade who cannot raise that much in the course houses. They are very well for low thieves, costermongers, day labourers, thriftless mechanics, and broken-down swells. There is not one of these dens which has not its proportion of men who havo fallen from good positions. Oddly enough fully one halt of them arc “ doctors.” In a tolerably long experience I never met with above two parsons in such places, hut lots of “ officers,” of course. There is plenty to interest a man in a common lodging-house, if ho only knows how to uso his eyes. Then there is much variety in these places themselves. They arc respectable, semirospectablc, low, very low, diabolical. A good moucher, such ns your humble servant, rather shuns the common lodginghouse. lie ought for many reasons to havo a deu of his own. If not, it is cosy to improvise one. This is how it is done' i go to any suburb 1 like ; and go where 1 wiil I am sure to find what 1 want—a street of jerry built six-room cottages, three-fourths of which are untonautod. I select n suitable house ; and it is the easiest thing in the world to effect an entry. The same key will open all the doors in the street; and the thing is such

a common affair that you may pick up a duplicate for a peon) on the tray of any nurine-st,:. Hare I pick out a back room at thai and find two or three chuuis to with me. Ea hj mai pick tion e ..'..• :. • . . begs it from abU • • . from •' • ■di .' :;Uu- 8d Til a i I a bundle of Er> . there • i'. rtal le by far t ling-hou —for an out] ... how »o in-... : ~: . J'.. : ,.-..;i thing is how to enjoy it Oarl L thee '- housemaids, and wj i • ; supplied us with plenty of victu i ! •■ • iub I igethor for a gallon or s i of I ear and of gin. Thus wo spend the night like lords and ladies, lolling on • ai straw boforc the fire and sipping our liquor. Match-selling is not a bad trade at tiinos Everybody smokes that you moot, and plenty of people want a light. Throe nights in the week are particularly good at tho East; the pay-nights, Friday and Saturday, and the pleasure night, Sunlay. VVe get tour boxes for a penny, . I - * : . : them at a halfpenny a box. i >ii it wol evening a fellow is sure of a j. :.:.".• i box, winch is good profit. A crowded thoroughfare, like High-street, Whiteehapel, Bethnal Green-road, or Kate] hi) hwav, is best during the early part of the evening. Those who sell matches late at night go from one public-house to another, and make tho trade a covering: for several other trades. It is easy to pass had silver in change at such a time, and in such places, and sometimes to pick a pocket, too. There is another variety of match selling peculiar to the Westend. Here the seller must be a young woman prepossesing in appearance, and of superior carriage andaddress. She must be pretty well dressed ton. There are hundreds of other dodges which I have not time to mention; one, however, I must not forget. When anyone of us falls sick he goes to the workhouse infirmary, as none of your respectabb hospitals will have anything to do with him, unless he happens to meet with an accident, or is alilicted with a rare disease. In the former case they must admit him ; in the latter they are only too eager to . ' hold of run. Then it may perhaps be all tho bettor for scion :e, but it is all the woi. ."i theaubji ■: When any of my acquaintances go t. lie •'■ nkhouse infirmary I never fail t.. visit them. It does the poor fellows good, and it serves myself too. They seldom go to s'icli a place unless they are very low indeed, and they do not often get well again I .h'. i_v .is:' such of my friends '. ' .ke iciugein th ■ workhouse iniiimary I to, another, reason, lleie I learn a good I many secrets worth money. It is asUnishing what revelations arc undo sometimes l.y a dying vagabond. The most shift 1-: s and unlucky moucher of ins time will turn out to have been a man of birth and education. And such ■ torics as they have to tell ! They make olio 'open one's mouth as well as one's eyes. Then are produced papers and tokens carefully preserved, for a moment like this. Then, too, messages are communicated—words of farewell, and often words of reproach, to be told to tho ears for which they were iutonded only when tho lips from whence they issued are for ever silent. I don't care so much for tho stories ; but token and papers establishing the identity of the individual aro always • valuable. It pays to pass one's self olf i as a man who is in tho grave, when ho has high-placed relatives. I don't mean ; that it would pay to go about openly in his name; what I mean is this—-to use the knowle Ige you have obtained of him and the proofs be had placed in your hands in writing in his name to his re- . latives for money, while you keep out of the way.—Pall Mall Gazette.

The best protected life is the ono protected by suffering. The wealth of a soul is measured- byhow much it can feel; its poverty by how little. In matters of conscience first thoughts aro best. In matters of prudence last thoughts are best. Kindness .seems to know of some secrot fountain of joy in tho soul which it can touch, without revealing its locality, and cause to send its waters upward and overflow the heart. Nothing, says Brodie, in all tho world, is so good as usefulness, whioh gives to tho individual's own character a finish an influence which mere station cannot give; which also binds him to his fellows and then to him. In a lone street of Florence, Michael Angelo found a flno block of marble imbedded in the mire. He dug atout it, soiling his holiday attire, for, said he, " there's an angel in if!" He felt that it was his mission to let the angel out, and he did it. When tho probationers in the school of Pythagoras grew weary in trying to bo helpful to others, and preferred to bo idle and self seeking, tlioy were troatod as dead. Obsequies were performed and tomlw were raised, with inscriptions to warn others of their wretched end, Everything, says Hugh Millor, is writing Natuiv's history, from pebble to planet. Tho scratches of the rolling rock, the chamicbj of tho rivers, the falling rain, tho buried fern, tho footprint in the snow and ovcry act of man inscribes (ho map of hor march. The air is full of j audi, tho nky is full of tokens, and the ground is full I of momorauda and signatures which, | are inoru or loss legible to the intelligout. I