VAGABONDS AND BEGGARS.

Colonist, Volume IV, Issue 324, 27 November 1860, Page 4

VAGABONDS AND BEGGARS.

The Book of Vagabonds and Beggars : toith a

Vocabulary of their Language. Edited by Martin Luther in the year 1528. Now first translated into English, with Introduction and Notes, by John Camden Hotten. There are only two classes in society who have any claim to the title of vagabonds, or wanderers ; and they are the very cream. of the cream and the very dirt of the dirt. The aristocracy at one end of the stick of civilization, the tramps at the other, divide the trade of travelling—the profession of cosmopolitanism between them. While the middle classes go on, from year to year, in a steady mill-horse kind of circle—from suburb to office, from office to suburb—tbe Right Honorabio Sir James Baggs, Bart,, is flying with his family from country to country ; and " Jem Baggs," with bis clarionet, is moving on from village to village. There is no difference in principle and habit between the two men, except that they run ou different levels. The tramps' lodging-bouse conducts.the same kind of business as the hotel of a thousand beds, and the table-d'hute is only a higher order of " cook-shop." To be here to-day, and somewhere else to-morrow; to live like a commercial traveller, without the annoyance of samples or transactions; to mix with many men, hear many languages, and see many places; to. feel that you have no master, no settled hours of work, and possess the liberty to come and go, fire attractions for all real vagabonds, whether dirty or decorated. The philosophy at the bottom of all this is a determination to break the monotony of life. Half the crimes in the world, half the sickness, and half the actions, are produced by a want of mental activity, a restles9 desire to do something that is not precisely ivork ; a feeling that it is necessary to kill time. There are few miuds that can settle down in a parochial compass, can feed upon tbe natural history of the place they live in, or rest contented with a "journey round their room." They want excitement, action, change; perhaps, as Mr. Maybew suggests in his' London Labor,' because they feel a great determination of blood to the surface of their bodies, and consequently a less quantity sent to their brains.

The thorough vagabond never changes his character or habits. You may start a distressed epic poet in the coal, coke, and potato line, but you can never convert a real vagabond, and stop his wandering. Hundreds of people must be familiar with this fact in their own family circles, without going to history. When you go to history, it only proves the same thing. There is the nortorious case of Mr. Bampfylde Moore Carew, who is known as the " King of the Beggars." He came of an ancient and honorable family in Devonshire. He ran away from school at the age of fifteen, and joined a gang of gipsies ; and though many attempts were made to reclaim him, he lived with these wanderers until his death.

The people of the backwoods —half farmers half hunters—never care to come back within the borders of civilzation; and thousands of the settlers (or unsettlers, as they ought to be called) in the Western States of North America, prefer to pull up stakes, and go further back amongst the Indians every ten years, rather than remain in a district becoming planted with industrious emigrants. There are people, even in London, who show something of this feeling, who are always moving their homes from place to place, and who are the first to try and live amongst the " carcases" of a new neighborhood. This vagabondism is at the bottom of most voyages of discovery ; of most expeditions of conquest; of most plans of colonisation. It animated the invasion of England by the Romans (to go no further b?ck); the Norman occupation; the seizure of India by the Anglo-Saxon rulers, and hundreds of similar starting points in history. These are its grandest manifestations, —the occasions on which the beggar, tbe pirate, and the brigand mostly work iv masses, and so become elevated to tbe rank of heroes. If you wish to see vagabondism in its meaner aud more individual form, you must tramp about tbe country with an observing eye, or dip into old English writers, like Barman, Harrison, and Decker.

As a pioture of vagabondism in Central Europs, during the early part of the sixteenth century, this volume is a useful contribution to the history of manners and customs. It is interesting as being connected with the name of Martin Luther, and edited by him during the most stormy period of his life: and it is doubly interesting, because it tells us nothing extraordinary or new. The theorists have argued, and the dramatists —those worthy of tbe name— have felt, that human nature is the same in all ages and in all countries; and here is another proof that they are right. The rogues and vagabonds of Germany in Luther's time, are the same rogues and vagabonds we see to-day, with the same tricks and the same love of deception. As tbe translator says—

" The stroller, or «Master of the Black Art,' is yet occasionally heard of in our rural districts. The simple farmer believes him to be weather and cattle wise, and should bis crops be backward, bis cow ' Spot' not ' let down her milk' with her accustomed readiness, he crosses the fellow's hand with a piece of silver, in order that thiDgs may be righted. The Wiltners, or finders of pretended silver fingers, are now-a-days represented by the ' Fawney Riggers,' or droppers of counterfeit gold rings—described iv works treating of the ways of vagabonds. ' Card-Sharpers,' or Jouers, are, unfortunately for the pockets of the simple, still to be met with on public race-courses and at fairs. The over-Sonzen-goers, or pretended distressed gentry, who went about' neatly dressed,' with false letters, would seem to have been the origin of our modern ' Begging-Letter Writers.' Those half-famished looking impostors, with clean aprons, or carefully brushed threadbare coats, who stand on tbe curbs of our thorouhgfares, and beg with a few sticks of sealing-wax in their hands, were known in Luther's time as Goose-shearers. * * Another class, known amongst London street-folk as ' Shivering-Jem-mies,—fellows who expose themselves halfnaked, on a cold day, to excite pity aud procure alms—were known in Luther's time as Schwan-felders, —only in those days, people being not quite so modest now, they stripped themselves entirely naked before commencing to shiver at the church-doors. Those wretches, who are occasionally brought before the police magistrates, accused of maiming children, on purpose that they may the better excite pity and obtain money, are, unfortunately, not peculiar to our civilized age. These fellows committed like cruelties centuries ago. , Borrowers of children, too, —those pretended fatheis of numerous and starving families of urchins, now often heard howliug iv the streets on a wet day, the children beiDg arranged right aud left according to height,—existed iv olden time,—

only then the loan -4to but for- "All Soule/ or other Feaßt day, when the people wereinagood humor. The trick of placing soap in the mouth to produce froth, and falling down before, passers-by as though in a fit, common enough in London-streets a few years ago, is also described as one of the old manceuyers of beggars." As the history of this little book may net be familiar to every antiquarian .reader, we give it in Mr. Hotten's words:—

"The 'Liber Vagatorum,' or ' The Book of Vagabonds,' was probably written shortly after 1509, that year being mentioned in the work; it is tbe earliest book on beggars and their secret language of which we have any record, — preceding by half a century any similar work issued in this country. Nothing is known of the autber other than that it was written by one who styled himself a ' Reverend Magister, nomine expertus iv truffis,' —which proficiency in roguery, as Luther remarks, ' tbe iittle book very well proves, even though he had not given himself such a name.' None of tbe early impressions bears a date, but the first edition is known to have been printed at Augsburg, about the year 1512-14, by Erhart Oeglin, or Ocellus. It is a small quarto, consisting of 12 leaves. The title:—Liber Vagatorum; der Betler Orden: is printed in red. The title-page of this, as of most of the early editions, is embellished with a wood-cut, —a facsimile of which is given in this.translation. The picture, representing a beggar and his family, explains itself. At the foot of the title is printed in black: Getrucht zu Augspurg durch Erhart Oeglin. Tbe little book was frequently reprinted without any other variations than printers' blunders (one edition having an error iv the first word, ' Lieber Vagatorum') until 1528, when Luther edited an edition, supplying a preface, and correcting some of tbe passages. In 1529 anether edition, with Luther's preface, appeared at Wittemberg, and from this, comparing it occasionally with the first edition by Ocellus, the present English version has been made. Nearly all the editions contain the same matter; nor do those issued under Luther's authority furnish us with additional information. With regard to tbe Vocabulary, however, I have made, in a few instances, slight variations, as given in two editions of the s Liber Vagatorum/ preserved in tbe Library at Munich."

* It makes slang literature quite respectable, to find a dictionary of cant terms edited by a great religious reformer, and its preface wound up with the ejaculation.—" So help us God! Amen." The impostors gibbeted in the book after this pious wish, amount to more than thirty distinct orders of vagabonds. As friars were beggars, and beggars were friars in the sixteenth century, there is nothing remarkable in Luther's connexion with this volume. The translator (author and publisher rolled into one) has added much in the way of elucidation, and evidently possesses a thorough knowledge of all matters connected with cant literature. The book is carefully got up in tbe Roxburghe style, and is not unpleasing to those who are not bitten with bibliomania.