LONDON PRIDE!

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 2739, 1 February 1890, Page 5 (Supplement)

LONDON PRIDE!

[By James Greenwood, nv Bristol Times.] A DAY'S The supremacy of the Great City over all others and in every possible respect is maintained sometimes in places where one would least expect to hear it discussed. It was at East Farleigh, in Kent, that my cockney ears were last year pridefully tickled by one who was bragging of it. He was neither a merchant prince nor a millionaire, but a heavy jowled, lazy-looking lout of middle age, wearing a tattered and mouldy looking moleskin jacket, nether garments of patched corduroy, and a greasy old woollen shirt tied at the throat with a atrand of hemp in lieu of a collar stud.

He was one of the army of " hoppers" engaged in the vast hop gardens in the neighbourhood in question, and with a few boon companions he was cc asoling himself for the fatigues of the day by investing his earnings in quarts of ale as vile—for I tasted it—as ever a conscienceless publican imposed on his customers. I myself had not been at work stripping the fruitful vine. Business, the nature of which need not be here communicated, pledged me for the nonce to pass muster as a hopper among those who were bo employed, and no one challenged my right to a seat on one of the many settles that in the cool of the evening were ranged outside the beershop. The man in mouldy moleskin was fearless in expressing his opinions. As for instance, while the growling among the company was general respecting the hardship of having to pick hops at the low rate of " six a shilling," he exclaimed impatiently, and with the manner of one who knew all about it.

" Why you haint got no more sense than a lot of hafrican hidols ! Isn't it better to be picking 'em in plenty for six bushels a shiling than three for the same money ? When they hang scarce it is like—and he paused but for a single moment for a simile at once brilliant and intelligible to his hearers—liko katching fleas in a blanket."

" What do yon say, mats ?" he remarked to mo, noticing that I nodded my head approvingly. I made answer that I agreed with hyn, and in further proof of it handed him the pewter from which I had been taking dread sips, each one followed by a reproachful internal twinge. I was grateful for the greediness that, prompted him to swig off the vinegariwh decoction all but about a tablespoouful," after which he engaged me in a friendly chat.

'• What might your line be now ?" Your regular line I mean," he presently inquired. By way of escaping a downright tarradiddle I replied that I was in the waste paper business.

"I thought it was aummat o' that," he replied coolly, and at the same time glancing at my hands, " by the look of your daddies. When you say waste paper you mean screening, of course? Well, I never heard that name for it," he continued with a laugh, " but it ia more waste paper thananythingel.se, no doubt. I never do anythiug in the begging letter way myself, so I can't give you i job. It may be gen-teel, but unless you are a top-sawyer at it I am jolly well sure it don't pay as well as chirping, especially if a chap has the gift of the gab to do serious patter as well." From which I gathered that when in town and ic pursuit of his professional duties my friend was a street beggar, and that the " line" ho affected was a combination of the lyrical with the elocutionary. " You find it a better game in London than in the provinces" ? He laughed derisively. "Is there any likeness atween the two ! No more than between stale crusts and plum cake. I tell you there is no place in England for my trade or yours like London, and that in spite of the police, and the charity organisers, and the Mendicity Society, and all the whole rut of 'em. I've travelled the north through and through, and most parts of the south and west as well, so I know. And my werdicfc is, that for the man who knows his book— I'm speaking of him mind, and not of the duffer who never was taught it—ifc is London against all the world—ifc _is a place for a man to be proud of. Ifc is the only place alive, even on the beastilest fine day the sun ever sinned on, he can pick up a crown easy and comfortable.' "Then why do you come hopping?" I ventured. " You can't earn a crown a day down here." "Ican't earn half a one," he replied, with a yawn, and lazily stretching out his long legs and arms. " I don't want to. I didn't come down here to work, but for a bit of a holiday. I can earn enough to pay for my beer and bacca before dinner, so that I am only the cost of sjrub and lodging what you call out o' pocket. But I must get back to business ! I've been here more than three weeks, and am just on stumped out. D'ye know Weevil-street, Westminster ?" "To be sure I do."

" That's where I live. Any morning— specially if it's a wet un—that you happen to be coming that way you may see me, about ten o'clock, just turning out, and if you are good to stand another pint now, if ever I see you there, I'll stand you one." Our pewter measure was replenished at my expense, and Mr Moleskin (I will so call him, not knowing his real same) insisted on our shaking hands as a binder for tho agreement to which he stood pledged. It passed quite out of my mind, however, until I happened, at the fall of the year, one wet and miserable morning, to be in the neighbourhood of Westminster Abbey. " Big Ben " was booming ten o'clock, and in an instant it flashed to my mind that if I had made an appointment to meet Mr Moleskin, of East Farleigh, Kent, and Weevilstreet, Westminster, I should have been in good time for it. Why not look him up ? I had an hour to spare, and the opportunity might not oacur again. Weevil-street was not five minutes distant, at the back of the Abbey, and not far from Tothill-street Prison.

I knew beforehaud that it was a squalid aud disreputable place, connected from a street to a " no thoroughfare " in

consequence of one end of it having been boarded in for building improvements. This increased my chance of waylaying Mr Moleskin, sapposing he still resided at the address he had given me, and, continued faithful to his habit of turning out for the business of the day about ten o'clook a.m. A thick drizzle of rain was still falling, the wind waa guaty and chill, the pavements and roadways thickly carpeted with slushy mire. Had it not been for Mr Moleskin's avowed preference for a wet day, 1 should have regarded the possibilities of falling in with him as remote. Prom the opposite side of the way I had an uninterrupted view of Weevil-street, which does not consist of more than a couple of score of houses ; but during a quarter of an hour's watchiug no one emerged therefrom that bore the least resemblance to him. It was bad weather for poor folk, more especially for those who, despite ill-health and bodily ailments, were compelled, all illclad and unprepared to face it. Suoh was my thought as I saw coming out of a house, about the middle of the street, a decent poor fellow, who wore his skrimptng black coat buttoned tightly about his thin body, and a white woollen comforter round his neck, as though suffering from some form of chest dieease. His face was clean, and that he was unaccustomed to the ways of Weevilites waa further shown by his having blacked his boots, Such boots. The soles had separated from the uppers, leathers, and an attempt had been'male to sew them together with white twine, but not so effectually as to conceal the wearer's unfortunate toos, several of which were nakedly visible. He was comingr straight across the muddy road where I was standing beneath the shelter of my umbrella, when midway he was Beized with a fit of coughing that brought him to a standstill, with his hand pressed against his side. I had already separated a sixpence from some loose change in my pocket when he more nearly approached and lo ! it was Mr Moleskin !

I could not be mistaken. There may be many men of the same height and complexion afflicted with a hair lip, but not with a droop in his left eyelid as well, and a oarrotty tuft to his chin. By these tokens I knew it could be no other than the free-and-easy berry-brown hopper whose aequiantance I had made at k East Farleigh the previous September. Evidently from his brisk manner he was bent on business. He was not immediately troubled with his bad cough again, so that I am disposed to think that what I had witnessed was merely a rehearsal. I kept him in sight until we arrived near the more respectable parts of Chelsea, and first having fortified himself at a corner public-house he shortly afterwards stepped into the road. But he did not immediately begin either to "chirp" or "to patter." He gazed timidly this way'and that, and hung his head like a man who is overwhelmed with shame. And then, in full view of the windows on both sides of the way, he made a beginning. A man suffering from asthma might have selected a song that was easier to sing than " The Anchor's Weighed," and this lie found before he had completed the first three lines, "Her bosom heaved with many a sigh," aud then, requiring a higher note than any of the preceding, his cough came ou with such violence that he found it necessary to hold ou to a friendly lamp-post while he wrestled with it. But he did not give iu. Poscssed with the desperation of despair, he wiped his perspiriug brow on hi 3 ragged handkerchief, and, stepping back into the road again made another attempt. " Rer bosom heaved with many a ." No, he could not manage it, and this time the ragged handkerchief was produced to wipe, not his brow, but his eyes.

As a piece of acting it was perfection, and had he possessed as much talent for stage business generally any theatrical manager in Loudon would have thought Mr Moleskin cheap at ten pounds a week. He did not overdo it. As suddenly as he had broken down, ho dashed the tears from his eyes with two mystic dabs with the ragged handkerchief, and with an almost defiant face gazed about him.

" Fellow-creeters! " he exclaimed, in impassioned tones, "for poor orushod worm though I am, you are my fellowcreeters, and J. claim you as sioh. Let me ask you one question—ham I to starve ?" And as thuugh pausing for a reply, he gazed round and expectantly at the house windows. No response being given, he continued,

" Don't mako no mistake, my friends, I am not a common beggar. I woolled I were, for then I should be able to whine and tell lies, which, as a honest man, I scorn to do. I don't beg of you, I honly tell you that I am litery starving, when I ought to be iu the orspital with my bad cough " (here a brief specimen cf it) " and the pangs of hasma, which only them that suffers can be aware of. But while life remains, however painful, my hungeron wife with her hate little ones shall have the benefit of it, even though I perish under your very windows in the hact of imploring you to give a trifle to save us. My fellow-creetures, I have no moro to say, which no more I am sure can be required by ihem that havo arts in their boosums."

His emotion was again too much for him when he reached the peroration of his speech, and his eyes needed much wiping. But he must havo left at least a corner of his eyes uncovered the while, for the creak of an opened street door instantly secured his attention. Another door and still another, with a servant girl at each, the flushed face of a sympathetic cook at an area-railing with a parcel seemingly of bread and meat and something wrapped in paper, resulted from Mr Moleskin's pathetic appeal. What the total whs, I am of course "unable to say, but without the value of the food, it should have been at least sixpence, and not more than fifteen minutes had elapsed since the clever impostor stepped into the road. He did not tarry longer in the street. Briefly returning thanks, he wentj'off 'with the bread and meat in his hand, as though hurrying horns to feed his wife and her eight famishing litttle ones.

But bis pace slackened when he arrived at the next turning, and by the time I had him in sight again the food had disappeared, and inches deep in the icy slush of the road he had just broken down after his fresh attempt at " The Anchor's weighed," and was coughing badly. It would have been no moro than the rascal's deservinsrs had I directed the attention of the police to him. But we had drunk from the same oup ! -So I left him to pursue his well-begau day's " chirping."