When we consider the spirit of emulation, of imita-
tion, of bravado, of opposition, of just or idle re-
sentment, among boys, according to their training,
companionship, natural disposition, and, above all,
home treatment, it seems most important to ascer-
tain how these feelings and inclinations are fostered
or stimulated by the examples of the free street-
life of other lads to be seen on every side. There
is no doubt that to a large class of boys, whose
parents are not in poverty, the young street ruffian
is a hero.

   If this inquiry be important, as it unquestion-
ably is, concerning boys, how much more impor-
tant is it, when it includes the female children of
the streets; when it relates to the sex who, in all
relations of life, and in all grades of society, are
really the guardians of a people's virtue.

   The investigation is, again, rendered more inte-
resting and more important, when it includes
those children who have known no guidance from
parent, master, or relative, but have been flung
into the streets through neglect, through vicious-
ness, or as outcasts from utter destitution.
Mixed with the children who really sell in the
streets, are the class who assume to sell that they
may have the better chance to steal, or the greater
facility to beg.

   Before I classify what I consider to be the
causes which have driven children to a street
career, with all its hardening consequences, I may
point out that culpability cannot be imputed to
them at the commencement of their course of life.
They have been either untaught, mistaught, mal-
treated, neglected, regularly trained to vice, or
fairly turned into the streets to shift for them-
selves. The censure, then, is attributable to
parents, or those who should fill the place of
parents -- the State, or society. The exceptions
to this culpability as regards parents are to be
found in the instances where a costermonger em-
ploys his children to aid him in his business
occupation, which the parents, in their ignorance
or prejudices, may account as good as any other,
and the youths thus become unfit, perhaps, for
any other than a scrambling street life. A second
exception may be where the children in a poor
family (as continually happens among the Irish in
London) must sell in the streets, that they may
eat in any place.

   In the following details I shall consider all to
be children who are under fifteen years of age.
It is just beyond that age (or the age of puberty)
that, as our prison statistics and other returns
show, criminal dispositions are developed, "self-

Column 2

will" becomes more imperious and headstrong,
that destructive propensity, or taste, which we term
the ruling passion or character of the individual
is educed, and the destiny of the human being,
especially when apart from the moulding and
well-directed care of parents or friends, is influ-
enced perhaps for life.

   The Causes, then, which fill our streets with
children who either manifest. the keen and some-
times roguish propensity of a precocious trader,
the daring and adroitness of the thief, or the
loutish indifference of the mere dull vagabond,
content if he can only eat and sleep, I consider to
be these: --

   After this I shall treat of (a) the pursuits of
the street-trading children; (b) their earnings;
(c) the causes or influences which have induced
children to adopt some especial branch of a street
life; (d) their state of education; (e) their morals,
religion, opinions, and conduct; (f) places and
character of dwellings; (g) diet; (h) amusements;
(i) clothing; (j) propensities.

   Concerning cause 1, viz., "The conduct of
parents, masters, and mistresses," I should have
more to say were I treating of the juvenile crimi-
nals, instead of sellers in the streets. The brute
tyranny of parents, manifested in the wreaking
of any annoyances or disappointments they may
have endured, in the passionate beating and
cursing of their children, for trifling or for no
causes, is among the worst symptoms of a de-
praved nature. This conduct may be the most
common among the poor, for among them are
fewer conventional restraints; but it exists among
and debases other classes. Some parents only
exercise this tyranny in their fits of drunkenness,
and make that their plea in mitigation; but their
dispositions are then only the more undisguisedly
developed, and they would be equally unjust or
tyrannical when sober, but for some selfish fear
which checks them. A boy perhaps endures this
course of tyranny some time, and then finding it
increase he feels its further endurance intolerable,
and runs away. If he have no friends with whom
he can hope to find a shelter, the streets only are
open to him. He soon meets with comrades,
some of whom perhaps had been circumstanced
like himself, and, if not strongly disposed to idle-
ness and vicious indulgencies, goes through a
course of horse-holding, errand-running, parcel-
carrying, and such like, and so becomes, if honestly
or prudently inclined, a street-seller, beginning
with fuzees, or nuts, or some unexpensive stock.
The where to buy and the how to sell he will find

   When I was collecting information concerning
brace-selling I met with a youth of sixteen who
about two years previously had run away from
Birmingham, and made his way to London, with
2s. 6d. Although he earned something weekly, he
was so pinched and beaten by a step-mother (his
father was seldom at home except on Sunday)
that his life was miserable. This went on for
nearly a year, until the boy began to resist, and
one Saturday evening, when beaten as usual, he
struck in return, drawing blood from his step-
mother's face. The father came home before the
fray was well ended; listened to his wife's state-
ment, and would not listen to the boy's, and in
his turn chastised the lad mercilessly. In five
minutes after the boy, with aching bones and a
bitter spirit, left his father's house and made his
way to London, where he was then vending cheap
braces. This youth could neither read nor write,
and seemed to possess no quickness or intelli-
gence. The only thing of which he cared to talk
was his step-mother's treatment of him; all else
was a blank with him, in comparison; this was
the one burning recollection.

   I may here observe, that I heard of several
instances of children having run away and adopted
a street life in consequence of the violence of step-
mothers far more than of step-fathers.

   I cite the foregoing instance, as the boy's career
was exactly that I have described; but the reader
will remember, that in the many and curious nar-
ratives I have collected, how often the adult street-
seller has begun such a life by being a runaway
from domestic tyranny. Had this Birmingham
boy been less honest, or perhaps less dull, it
would have been far easier for him to have be-
come a thief than a street-trader. To the gangs
of young thieves, a new boy, who is not known to
the police is often (as a smart young pickpocket,
then known as the Cocksparrow, described it to
me) "a God-send."

   My readers will remember that in the collected
statements of the street-folk, there are several
accounts of runaways, but they were generally
older than the age I have fixed, and it was neces-
sary to give an account of one who comes within
my classification of a child.

   I did not hear of any girls who had run away
from their homes having become street-sellers
merely. They more generally fall into a course
of prostitution, or sometimes may be ostensibly
street-sellers as a means of accosting men, and,
perhaps, for an attractive pretence to the depraved,
that they are poor, innocent girls, struggling for
an honest penny. If they resort to the low
lodging-houses, where the sexes are lodged indis-
criminately, their ruin seems inevitable.

   2. That the companionship and associations
formed in tender years lead many children to a
street life is so evident, that I may be brief on
the subject. There are few who are in the
habit of noting what they may observe of poor
children in the streets and quieter localities,
who have not seen little boys playing at marbles,

Column 2

or gambling with halfpennies, farthings, or
buttons, with other lads, and who have laid down
their basket of nuts or oranges to take part in
the play. The young street-seller has probably
more halfpence at his command, or, at any rate,
in his possession, than his non-dealing playmates;
he is also in the undoubted possession of what
appears a large store of things for which poor boys
have generally a craving and a relish. Thus the
little itinerant trader is envied and imitated.

   This attraction to a street career is very strong,
I have ascertained, among the neglected children
of the poor, when the parents are absent at their
work. On a Saturday morning, some little time
since, I was in a flagged court near Drury-lane,
a wretched place, which was full of children of all
ages. The parents were nearly all, I believe,
then at work, or "on the look out for a job," as
porters in Covent Garden-market, and the children
played in the court until their return. In one
corner was a group of four or five little boys gamb-
ling and squabbling for nuts, of which one of the
number was a vendor. A sharp-looking lad was
gazing enviously on, and I asked him to guide me
to the room of a man whom I wished to see. He
did so, and I gave him a penny. On my leaving
the court I found this boy the most eager of the
players, gambling with the penny I had given him.
I had occasion to return there a few hours after,
and the same lad was leaning against the wall,
with his hands in his pockets, as if suffering from
listlessness. He had had no luck with the nut covery,
he told me, but he hoped before long to sell nuts
himself. He did not know his age, but he
appeared to be about eleven. Only last week I
saw this same lad hawking a basket, very indif-
ferently stocked with oranges. He had raised a
shilling, he said, and the "Early Bird" (the nick-
name of a young street-seller) had put him up to
the way to lay it out. On my asking if his
father (a journeyman butcher) knew what he was
doing, he replied that so long as he didn't bother
his father he could do what he pleased, and the
more he kept out of his (the father's) way the
better he would be liked and treated.

   The association of poor boys and girls with the
children of the costermongers, and of the Irish
fruit-sellers, who are employed in itinerant vend-
ing, is often productive of a strong degree of envy
on the part of unemployed little ones, who look
upon having the charge of a basket of fruit, to be
carried in any direction, as a species of independ-
ence.

   3. "The employment of children by coster-
mongers, and others who live by street traffic;
and the training of costermongers' children to a
street life, is the ordinary means of increase among
the street-folk."

   The children of the costermongers become ne-
cessarily, as I have already intimated, street-
dealers, and perhaps more innocently than in any
other manner, by being required, as soon as their
strength enables them, to assist their parents in
their work, or sell trifles, single-handed, for the
behoof of their parents. The child does but obey
his father, and the father does but rear the child

   There are, moreover, a great number of boys,
"anybody's children," as I heard them called,
who are tempted and trained to pursue an open-
air traffic, through being engaged by costermon-
gers or small tradesmen to sell upon commission,
or, as it is termed, for "bunse." In the curious,
and almost in every instance novel, information
which I gave to the public concerning the largest
body of the street-sellers, the costermongers, this
word "bunse" (probably a corruption of bonus,
bone being the slang for good) first appeared in
print. The mode is this: a certain quantity of
saleable, and sometimes of not very saleable, com-
modities is given to a boy whom a costermonger
knows and perhaps employs, and it is arranged
that the young commission-agent is to get a par-
ticular sum for them, which must be paid to the
costermonger; I will say 3s., that being somewhere
about the maximum. For these articles the lad may
ask and obtain any price he can, and whatever he
obtains beyond the stipulated 3s. is his own profit
or "bunse." The remuneration thus accruing to
the boy-vendor of course varies very materially,
according to the season of the year, the nature of
the article, and the neighbourhood in which it
is hawked. Much also depends upon whether the
boy has a regular market for his commodities;
whether he has certain parties to whom he is
known and upon whom he can call to solicit cus-
tom; if he has, of course his facilities for disposing
of his stock in trade are much greater than in the
case of one who has only the chance of attracting
attention and obtaining custom by mere crying
and bawling "Penny a piece, Col-ly-flowers,"
"Five bunches a penny, Red-dish-es," and such
like. The Irish boys call this "having a back,"
an old Hibernian phrase formerly applied to a very
different subject and purpose.

   Another cause of the abundance of street-
dealers among the boyish fraternity, whose
parents are unable or unwilling to support them,
is that some costers keep a lad as a regular
assistant, whose duty it is to pull the barrow of
his master about the streets, and assist him in
"crying" his wares. Sometimes the man and the
boy call out together, sometimes separately and
alternately, but mostly the boy alone has to do
this part of the work, the coster's voice being
generally rough and hoarse, while the shrill sound
of that of the boy re-echoes throughout the street
along which they slowly move, and is far more
likely to strike the ear, and consequently to
attract attention, than that of the man. This
mode of "practising the voice" is, however, per-
fectly ruinous to it, as in almost every case of this
description we find the natural tone completely
annihilated at a very early age, and a harsh,
hoarse, guttural, disagreeable mode of speak-
ing acquired. In addition to the costers there
are others who thus employ boys in the streets:
the hawkers of coal do so invariably, and the
milkmen -- especially those who drive cows or have

Column 2

a cart to carry the milk-pails in. Once in the
streets and surrounded with street-associates, the
boy soon becomes inured to this kind of life, and
when he leaves his first master, will frequently
start in some branch of costermongering for
himself, without seeking to obtain another con-
stant employment.

   This mode of employing lads, and on the whole
perhaps they are fairly enough used by the coster-
mongers, and generally treated with great kind-
ness by the costers' wives or concubines, is, I am
inclined to think, the chief cause of the abund-
ance and even increase of the street-sellers of fish,
fruit, and vegetables.

   4. To "orphanhood, friendlessness, and utter
destitution," the commerce of the streets owes a
considerable portion of its merchants. A child finds
himself or herself an orphan; the parents having
been miserably poor, he or she lives in a place
where street-folk abound; it seems the only road
to a meal and a bed, and the orphan "starts" with
a few lucifer-matches, boot-laces, nuts, or onions.
It is the same when a child, without being an or-
phan, is abandoned or neglected by the parents,
and, perhaps without any injunctions either for or
against such a course, is left to his or her own will
to sell or steal in the streets.

   5. The vagrant dispositions and tastes of lads,
and, it may be, now and then somewhat of a reck-
less spirit of adventure, which in our days has far
fewer fields than it once had, is another cause why
a street-life is embraced. Lads have been known
to run away from even comfortable homes through
the mere spirit of restlessness; and sometimes
they have done so, but not perhaps under the age
of fifteen, for the unrestrained indulgence of licen-
tious passions. As this class of runaways, how-
ever, do not ordinarily settle into regular street-
sellers, but become pickpockets, or trade only
with a view to cloak their designs of theft, I
need not further allude to them under this head.

   I now come to the second part of my subject,
the Pursuits, &c., of the children in street avoca-
tions.

   As I have shown in my account of the women
street-sellers, there is no calling which this body
of juveniles monopolize, none of which they are
the sole possessors; but some are principally in
their hands, and there are others, again, to which
they rarely incline.

   Among the wares sold by the boys and girls of
the streets are: -- money-bags, lucifer-match boxes,
leather straps, belts, firewood (common, and also
"patent," that is, dipped into an inflammable
composition), fly-papers, a variety of fruits, espe-
cially nuts, oranges, and apples; onions, radishes,
water-cresses, cut flowers and lavender (mostly
sold by girls), sweet-briar, India rubber, garters,
and other little articles of the same material, in-
cluding elastic rings to encircle rolls of paper-
music, toys of the smaller kinds, cakes, steel pens
and penholders with glass handles, exhibition
medals and cards, gelatine cards, glass and other
cheap seals, brass watch-guards, chains, and rings;
small tin ware, nutmeg-graters, and other articles

   There are also other things which children sell
temporarily, or rather in the season. This year I
saw lads selling wild birds'-nests with their eggs,
such as hedge-sparrows, minnows in small glass
globes, roots of the wild Early Orchis (Orchis
mascula), and such like things found only out of
town.

   Independently of the vending of these articles,
there are many other ways of earning a penny
among the street boys: among them are found
-- tumblers, mud-larks, water-jacks, Ethiopians,
ballad-singers, bagpipe boys, the variety of street
musicians (especially Italian boys with organs),
Billingsgate boys or young "roughs," Covent Gar-
den boys, porters, and shoeblacks (a class recently
increased by the Ragged School Brigade). A
great many lads are employed also in giving away
the cards and placards of advertising and puffing
tradesmen, and around the theatres are children
of both sexes (along with a few old people) offering
play-bills for sale, but this is an occupation less
pursued than formerly, as some managers sell their
own bills inside the house and do not allow any
to pass from the hands of the printer into those of
the former vendors. Again: amid the employ-
ments of this class may be mentioned -- the going on
errands and carrying parcels for persons accident-
ally met with; holding horses; sweeping crossings
(but the best crossings are usually in the possession
of adults); carrying trunks for any railway tra-
veller to or from the terminus, and carrying them
from an omnibus when the passenger is not put
down at his exact destination. During the frosty
days of the winter and early spring, some of these
little fellows used to run along the foot-path --
Baker-street was a favourite place for this dis-
play -- and keep pace with the omnibuses, not
merely by using their legs briskly, but by throw-
ing themselves every now and then on their hands
and progressing a few steps (so to speak) with
their feet in the air. This was done to attract
attention and obtain the preference if a job were
in prospect; done, too, in hopes of a halfpenny
being given the urchin for his agility. I looked
at the hands of one of these little fellows and the
fleshy parts of the palm were as hard as soling-
leather, as hard, indeed, as the soles of the child's
feet, for he was bare-footed. At the doors of the
theatres, and of public places generally, boys are
always in waiting to secure a cab from the stand,
their best harvest being when the night has
"turned out wet" after a fine day. Boys
wait for the same purpose, lounging all night,
and until the place closes, about the night-
houses, casinos, saloons, &c., and sometimes
without receiving a penny. There are, again,
the very many ways in which street boys
employed to "help" other people, when temporary
help is needed, as when a cabman must finish the

Column 2

cleaning of his vehicle in a hurry, or when a
porter finds himself over-weighted in his truck.
Boys are, moreover, the common custodians of the
donkeys on which young ladies take invigorating
exercise in such places as Hampstead-heath and
Blackheath. At pigeon-shooting matches they are
in readiness to pick up the dead birds, and secure
the poor fluttering things which are "hard hit" by
the adventurous sportsman, without having been
killed. They have their share again in the pick-
ing of currants and gooseberries, the pottling of
strawberries, in weeding, &c., &c., and though
the younger children may be little employed in
haymaking, or in the more important labours of
the corn harvest, they have their shares, both with
and without the company of their parents, in the
"hopping." In fine there is no business carried
on to any extent in the streets, or in the open air,
but it will be found that boys have their portion.
Thus they are brought into contact with all classes;
another proof of what I have advanced touching
the importance of this subject.

   It will be perceived that, under this head, I
have had to speak far more frequently of boys
than of girls, for the boy is far more the child of
the streets than is the girl. The female child can
do little but sell (when a livelihood is to be
gained without a recourse to immorality); the
boy can not only sell, but work.

   The many ramifications of child-life and of
child-work in our teeming streets, which I have
just enumerated, render it difficult to arrive at a
very nice estimation of the earnings of the street
boys and girls. The gains of this week are not
necessarily the gains of the next; there is the
influence of the weather; there may be a larger
or a smaller number of hands "taking a turn" at
any particular calling this week than in its pre-
decessor; and, above all, there is that concate-
nation of circumstances, which street-sellers in-
clude in one expressive word -- "luck." I mean
the opportunities to earn a few pence, which on
some occasions present themselves freely, and at
others do not occur at all. Such "luck," how-
ever, is more felt by the holders of horses, and
the class of waiters upon opportunity (so to speak),
than by those who depend upon trade.

   I believe, however, both in consequence of
what I have observed, and from the concurrent
testimony of persons familiar with the child-life of
London streets, that the earnings of the children,
when they are healthful and active, are about the
same in the several capacities they exercise. The
waiter on opportunity, the lad "on the look-out
for a job," may wait and look out all day boot-
lessly, but in the evening some fortunate chance
may realize him "a whole tanner all in a lump."
In like manner, the water-cress girl may drudge
on from early morning until "cresses" are wanted
for tea, and, with "a connection," and a tolerably
regular demand, earn no more than the boy's 6d., and probably not so much.

   One of the most profitable callings of the street-
child is in the sale of Christmasing, but that is
only for a very brief season; the most regular

   I find it necessary to place the earnings of the
street-children higher than those of the aged and
infirm. The children are more active, more
persevering, and perhaps more impudent. They
are less deterred by the weather, and can endure
more fatigue in walking long distances than old
people. This, however, relates to the boys more
especially, some of whom are very sturdy fellows.

   The oranges which the street-children now
vend at two a-penny, leave them a profit of 4d. in the shilling. To take 1s. 6d. with a profit of
6d. is a fair day's work; to take 1s. with a profit
of 4d. is a poor day's work. The dozen bunches
of cut-flowers which a girl will sell on an average
day at 1d. a bunch, cost her 6d., that sum being
also her profit. These things supply, I think, a
fair criterion. The children's profits may be 6d. a day, and including Sunday trade, 3s. 6d. a
week; but with the drawbacks of bad weather,
they cannot be computed at more than 2s. 6d. a week the year through. The boys may earn
2d. or 3d. a week on an average more than the
girls, except in such things (which I shall specify
under the next head) as seem more particularly
suited for female traffic.

   Of the causes which influence children to follow
this or that course of business when a street career
has been their choice or their lot, I have little to
say. It seems quite a matter of chance, even
where a preference may exist. A runaway lad
meets with a comrade who perhaps sells fuzees,
and he accordingly begins on fuzees. One youth,
of whom I have given an account (but he was not
of child's estate), began his street career on fly-
papers. When children are sent into the streets
to sell on account of their parents, they, of course,
vend just what their parents have supplied to
them. If "on their own hook," they usually
commence their street career on what it is easiest
to buy and easiest to sell; a few nuts or oranges
bought in Duke's-place, lucifer-boxes, or small
wares. As their experience increases they may
become general street-sellers. The duller sort
will continue to carry on the trades that any one
with ordinary lungs and muscles can pursue.
"All a fellow wants to know to sell potatoes,"
said a master street-seller to me, "is to tell how
many tanners make a bob, and how many yenaps
a tauner." [IIow many sixpences make a shil-
ling, and how many pence a sixpence.] The
smarter and bolder lads ripen into patterers, or
street-performers, or fall into theft. For the
class of adventurous runaways, the patterer's, or,
rather, the paper-working patterer's life, with its
alternations of town and country, fairs and hang-
ings, the bustle of race-grounds and the stillness
of a village, has great attractions. To a pattering
and chaunting career, moreover, there is the stimu-
lus of that love of approbation and of admiration,
as strong among the often penniless professionals
of the streets as on the boards of the opera house.

   Perhaps there is not a child of either sex, now
a street-seller, who would not to-morrow, if they
thought they could clear a penny or two a day
more by it, quit their baskets of oranges and sell
candle-ends, or old bones, or anything. In a
street career, and most especially when united
with a lodging-house existence, there is no dainti-
ness of the senses and no exercise of the tastes:
the question is not "What do I like best to sell?"
but "What is likely to pay me best?" This can-
not be wondered at; for if a child earn but 5d. a
day on apples, and can make 6d. on onions, its
income is increased by 20 per cent.

   The trades which I have specified as in the
hands of street-children are carried on by both
sexes. I do not know that even the stock in
trade which most taxes the strength is more a
boy's than a girl's pursuit. A basket of oranges
or of apples is among the heaviest of all the
stocks hawked by children; and in those pursuits
there are certainly as many, or rather more, girls
than boys. Such articles as fly-papers, money-
bags, tins, fuzees, and Christmasing, are chiefly
the boys' sale; cut-flowers, lavender, water-cresses,
and small wares, are more within the trading of
the girls.

   The callings with which children do not meddle
are those which require "patter." Some of the
boys very glibly announce their wares, and may be
profuse now and then in commendations of their
quality, cheapness, and superiority, but it requires
a longer experience to patter according to the
appreciation of a perhaps critical street audience.
No child, for instance, ventures upon the sale of
grease-removing compositions, corn-salve, or the
"Trial and Execution of Thomas Drory," with an
"Affecting Copy of Werses."

   A gentleman remarked to me that it was rather
curious that boys' playthings, such as marbles
and tops, were not hawked by street juveniles,
who might be very well able to recommend them.
I do not remember to have seen any such things
vended by children.

   Education is, as far as I have been able to
ascertain, more widely extended among street
children than it was twelve or fifteen years ago.
The difficulty in arriving at any conclusion on
such a subject is owing to the inability to find any
one who knew, or could even form a tolerably
accurate judgment of what was the state of educa-
tion among these juveniles even twelve years
back.

   Perhaps it may be sufficiently correct to say that
among a given number of street children, where, a
dozen years ago, you met twenty who could read,
you will now meet upwards of thirty. Of sixteen
children, none apparently fifteen years of age,
whom I questioned on the subject, nine admitted
that they could not read; the other seven declared
that they could, but three annexed to the avowal
the qualifying words -- "a little." Ten were boys
and six were girls, and I spoke to them pro-
miscuously as I met them in the street. Two were
Irish lads, who were "working" oranges in com-
pany, and the bigger answered -- "Shure, thin, we

   To the Ragged Schools is, in all probability,
owing this extension of the ability to read.
It appears that the attendance of the street
children at the Ragged School is most uncertain;
as, indeed, must necessarily be the case where the
whole time of the lad is devoted to obtaining a
subsistence. From the best information I can
collect, it appears that the average attendance of
these boys at these schools does not exceed two
hours per week, so that the amount of education
thus acquired, if education it may be called, must
necessarily be scanty in the extreme; and is
frequently forgotten as soon as learned.

   With many of these little traders a natural
shrewdness compensates in some measure for the
deficiency of education, and enables them to carry
on their variety of trades with readiness and dex-
terity, and sometimes with exactness. One boy
with whom I had a conversation, told me that
he never made any mistake about the "coppers,"
although, as I subsequently discovered, he had no
notion at all of arithmetic beyond the capability
of counting how many pieces of coin he had, and
how much copper money was required to make a
"tanner" or a "bob." This boy vended coat-
studs: he had also some metal collars for dogs, or
as he said, "for cats aither." These articles he
purchased at the same shop in Houndsditch,
where "there was a wonderful lot of other things
to be had, on'y some on 'em cost more money."

   In speaking of money, the slang phrases are
constantly used by the street lads; thus a six-
pence is a "tanner;" a shilling a "bob," or a
hog;" a crown is "a bull;" a half-crown "a half
bull," &c. Little, as a modern writer has re-
marked, do the persons using these phrases know
of their remote and somewhat classical origin,
which may, indeed, be traced to the period ante-
cedent to that when monarchs monopolized the
surface of coined money with their own images
and superscriptions. They are identical with the
very name of money among the early Romans,
which was pecunia, from pecus, a flock. The
collections of coin dealers amply show, that the
figure of a hog was anciently placed on a small
silver coin, and that that of a bull decorated
larger ones of the same metal: these coins were
frequently deeply crossed on the reverse: this was
for the convenience of easily breaking them into
two or more pieces, should the bargain for which
they were employed require it, and the parties
making it had no smaller change handy to com-
plete the transaction. Thus we find that the
"half-bull" of the itinerant street-seller or " tra-
veller," so far from being a phrase of modern in-
vention, as is generally supposed, is in point of

Column 2

fact referable to an era extremely remote. Numerous
other instances might be given of the classical
origin of many of the flash or slang words used by
these people.

   I now give the answers I received from two
boys. The first, his mother told me, was the
best scholar at his school when he was there, and
before he had to help her in street sale. He was
a pale, and not at all forward boy, of thirteen or
fourteen, and did not appear much to admire being
questioned. He had not been to a Ragged School,
but to an "academy" kept by an old man. He did
not know what the weekly charge was, but when
father was living (he died last autumn) the school-
master used to take it out in vegetables. Father
was a costermonger; mother minded all about his
schooling, and master often said she behaved to
him like a lady. "God," this child told me, "was
our Heavenly Father, and the maker of all
things; he knew everything and everybody; he
knew people's thoughts and every sin they com-
mitted if no one else knew it. His was the king-
dom and the power, and the glory, for ever and
ever, Amen. Jesus Christ was our Lord and
Saviour; he was the son of God, and was cru-
cified for our sins. He was a God himself."
[The child understood next to nothing of the
doctrine of the Trinity, and I did not press him.]
"The Scriptures, which were the Bible and Tes-
tament, were the Word of God, and contained
nothing but what was good and true. If a boy lied,
or stole, or committed sins," he said, "he would
be punished in the next world, which endured
for ever and ever, Amen. It was only after
death, when it was too late to repent, that people
went to the next world. He attended chapel,
sometimes."

   As to mundane matters, the boy told me that
Victoria was Queen of Great Britain and Ireland.
She was born May 24, 1819, and succeeded his
late Majesty, King William IV., July 20, 1837.
She was married to his Royal Highness Prince
Albert, &c., &c. France was a different country
to this: he had heard there was no king or queen
there, but didn't understand about it. You
couldn't go to France by land, no more than you
could to Ireland. Didn't know anything of the
old times in history; hadn't been told. Had
heard of the battle of Waterloo; the English
licked. Had heard of the battle of Trafalgar,
and of Lord Nelson; didn't know much about
him; but there was his pillar at Charing-cross,
just by the candlesticks (fountains). When
I spoke of astronomy, the boy at once told me he
knew nothing about it. He had heard that the
earth went round the sun, but from what he'd
noticed, shouldn't have thought it. He didn't
think that the sun went round the earth, it seemed
to go more sideways. Would like to read more,
if he had time, but he had a few books, and there
was hundreds not so well off as he was.

   I am far from undervaluing, indeed I would not
indulge in an approach to a scoff, at the extent of
this boy's knowledge. Many a man who piques
himself on the plenitude of his breeches' pocket,
and who attributes his success in life to the fulness

   Another boy, perhaps a few months older, gave
me his notions of men and things. He was a
thick-limbed, red-cheeked fellow; answered very
freely, and sometimes, when I could not help
laughing at his replies, laughed loudly himself, as
if he entered into the joke.

   Yes, he had heer'd of God who made the
world. Couldn't exactly recollec' when he'd
heer'd on him, but he had, most sarten-ly. Didn't
know when the world was made, or how anybody
could do it. It must have taken a long time. It
was afore his time, "or yourn either, sir."
Knew there was a book called the Bible; didn't
know what it was about; didn't mind to know;
knew of such a book to a sartinty, because a
young 'oman took one to pop (pawn) for an old
'oman what was on the spree -- a bran new 'un -- but
the cove wouldn't have it, and the old 'oman said he
might be d -- d. Never heer'd tell on the deluge;
of the world having been drownded; it couldn't,
for there wasn't water enough to do it. He
weren't a going to fret hisself for such things as
that. Didn't know what happened to people after
death, only that they was buried. Had seen a
dead body laid out; was a little afeared at first;
poor Dick looked so different, and when you
touched his face, he was so cold! oh, so cold!
Had heer'd on another world; wouldn't mind if
he was there hisself, if he could do better, for
things was often queer here. Had heered on it
from a tailor -- such a clever cove, a stunner -- as
went to 'Straliar (Australia), and heer'd him say
he was going into another world. Had never
heer'd of France, but had heer'd of Frenchmen;
there wasn't half a quarter so many on 'em as of
Italians, with their earrings like flash gals.
Didn't dislike foreigners, for he never saw none.
What was they? Had heer'd of Ireland. Didn't
know where it was, but it couldn't be very far,
or such lots wouldn't come from there to London.
Should say they walked it, aye, every bit of the
way, for he'd seen them come in, all covered with
dust. Had heer'd of people going to sea, and had
seen the ships in the river, but didn't know nothing
about it, for he was very seldom that way. The sun
was made of fire, or it wouldn't make you feel so
warm. The stars was fire, too, or they wouldn't
shine. They didn't make it warm, they was too
small. Didn't know any use they was of. Didn't
know how far they was off; a jolly lot higher than
the gas lights some on 'em was. Was never in a
church; had heer'd they worshipped God there;
didn't know how it was done; had heer'd sing-
ing and playing inside when he'd passed; never
was there, for he had'nt no togs to go in, and
wouldn't be let in among such swells as he had
seen coming out. Was a ignorant chap, for he'd
never been to school, but was up to many a move,
and didn't do bad. Mother said he would make
his fortin yet.

   Had heer'd of the Duke of Wellington; he
was Old Nosey; didn't think he ever seed him,
but had seed his statty. Hadn't heer'd of the
battle of Waterloo, nor who it was atween; once

Column 2

lived in Webber-row, Waterloo-road. Though he
had heerd speak of Buonaparte; didn't know
what he was; thought he had heer'd of Shake-
speare, but didn't know whether he was alive or
dead, and didn't care. A man with something like
that name kept a dolly and did stunning; but he
was sich a hard cove that if he was dead it
wouldn't matter. Had seen the Queen, but didn't
recollec' her name just at the minute; oh! yes,
Wictoria and Albert. Had no notion what the
Queen had to do. Should think she hadn't such
power [he had first to ask me what `power' was]
as the Lord Mayor, or as Mr. Norton as was the
Lambeth beak, and perhaps is still. Was never
once before a beak and didn't want to. Hated
the crushers; what business had they to interfere
with him if he was only resting his basket in a
street? Had been once to the Wick, and once to
the Bower: liked tumbling better; he meant to
have a little pleasure when the peas came in.

   The knowledge and the ignorance of these two
striplings represent that of street children gene-
rally. Those who may have run away from a
good school, or a better sort of home as far as
means constitute such betterness, of course form
exceptions. So do the utterly stupid.

   The Morals, Religion, and Opinions of the
street-trading children are the next topic. Their
business morals have been indicated in the course
of my former statements, and in the general tone
of the remarks and conversation of street-sellers.

   As traders their morals may be lax enough.
They give short weight, and they give short mea-
sure; they prick the juice out of oranges; and
brush up old figs to declare they're new. Their
silk braces are cotton, their buck-leather braces
are wash-leather, their sponge is often rotten, and
their salves and cures quackeries.

   Speak to any one of the quicker-witted street-
sellers on the subject, and though he may be
unable to deny that his brother traders are guilty
of these short-comings, he will justify them all
by the example of shopkeepers. One man, espe-
cially, with whom I have more than once con-
versed on the subject, broadly asserts that as a
whole the streets are in all matters of business
honester than the shops. "It ain't we," runs
the purport of his remarks, "as makes coffee out
of sham chickory; it ain't we as makes cigars out
of rhubarb leaves; we don't make duffers handker-
chiefs, nor weave cotton things and call them silk.
If we quacks a bit, does we make fortins by it as
shopkeepers does with their ointments and pills!
If we give slang weights, how many rich shop-
keepers is fined for that there? And how many's
never found out? And when one on 'em's fined,
why he calculates how much he's into pocket,
between what he's made by slanging, and what
he's been fined, and on he goes again. He didn't
know that there ever was short weight given in
his shop: not he! No more do we at our stalls
or barrows! Who 'dulterates the beer? Who
makes old tea-leaves into new? Who grinds rice
among pepper? And as for smuggling -- but nobody
thinks there's any harm in buying smuggled
things. What we does is like that pencil you're

   To remarks such as these I have nothing to
answer. It would be idle to point out to such
casuists, that the commission of one wrong can
never justify another. The ignorant reverse the
doctrine of right, and live, not by rule, but by
example. I have unsparingly exposed the
rogueries and trickeries of the street people, and it
is but fair that one of them should be heard in
explanation, if not in justification. The trade
ethics of the adult street-folk are also those of
the juveniles, so on this subject I need dwell no
longer.

   What I have said of the religion of the women
street-sellers applies with equal truth to the
children. Their religious feelings are generally
formed for them by their parents, especially their
mothers. If the children have no such direction,
then they have no religion. I did not question
the street-seller before quoted on this subject of
the want of the Christian spirit among his fra-
ternity, old or young, or he would at once have
asked me, in substance, to tell him in what class
of society the real Christian spirit was to be found?

   As to the opinions of the street-children I can
say little. For the most part they have formed
no opinions of anything beyond what affects their
daily struggles for bread. Of politics such
children can know nothing. If they are any-
thing, they are Chartists in feeling, and are in
general honest haters of the police and of most
constituted authorities, whom they often confound
with the police officer. As to their opinions
of the claims of friendship, and of the duty of
assisting one another, I believe these children feel
and understand nothing about such matters. The
hard struggles of their lives, and the little sym-
pathy they meet with, make them selfish. There
may be companionship among them, but no
friendship, and this applies, I think, alike to boys
and girls. The boy's opinion of the girl seems to
be that she is made to help him, or to supply
gratification to his passions.

   There is yet a difficult inquiry, -- as to the
opinions which are formed by the young females
reared to a street-life. I fear that those opinions are
not, and cannot be powerfully swayed in favour of
chastity, especially if the street-girl have the quick-
ness to perceive that marriage is not much honoured
among the most numerous body of street-folk. If she
have not the quickness to understand this, then her
ignorance is in itself most dangerous to her virtue.
She may hear, too, expressions of an opinion that
"going to church to be wed" is only to put money
into the clergyman's, or as these people say the
"parson's," pocket. Without the watchful care
of the mother, the poor girl may form an illicit
connection, with little or no knowledge that she is
doing wrong; and perhaps a kind and indulgent
mother may be herself but a concubine, feeling
little respect for a ceremony she did not scruple to
dispense with. To such opinions, however, the
Irish furnish the exception.

   The Dwelling-places of the street-children are
in the same localities as I specified regarding the
women. Those who reside with their parents or
employers sleep usually in the same room with
them, and sometimes in the same bed. Nearly
the whole of those, however, who support them-
selves by street-trade live, or rather sleep, in the
lodging-houses. It is the same with those who live
by street-vagrancy or begging, or by street-theft;
and for this lazy or dishonest class of children
the worst description of lodging-houses have the
strongest attractions, as they meet continually with
"tramps" from the country, and keep up a con-
stant current of scheming and excitement.

   It seems somewhat curious that, considering the
filth and noisomeness of some of these lodging-
houses, the children who are inmates suffer only
the average extent of sickness and mortality com-
mon to the districts crammed with the poor. Per-
haps it may be accounted for by the circumstance
of their being early risers, and their being in the
open air all day, so that they are fatigued at the
close of the day, and their sleep is deep and un-
broken. I was assured by a well-educated man,
who was compelled to resort to such places, that
he has seen children sleep most profoundly in a
lodging-house throughout a loud and long-continued
disturbance. Many street-children who are either
"alone in the world," or afraid to return home
after a bad day's sale, sleep in the markets or
under the dry arches.

   There are many other lads who, being unable
to pay the 1d., 2d., or 3d. demanded, in pre-
payment, by the lodging-house keepers, pass the
night in the streets, wherever shelter may be
attainable. The number of outcast boys and girls
who sleep in and about the purlieus of Covent
Garden-market each night, especially during the
summer months, has been computed variously, and
no doubt differs according to circumstances; but
those with whom I have spoken upon the sub-
ject, and who of all others are most likely to
know, consider the average to be upwards of
200.

   The Diet of the street-children is in some
cases an alternation of surfeit and inanition, more
especially that of the stripling who is "on his
own hook." If money be unexpectedly attained,
a boy will gorge himself with such dainties as he
loves; if he earn no money, he will fast all day
patiently enough, perhaps drinking profusely of
water. A cake-seller told me that a little while
before I saw him a lad of twelve or so had con-
sumed a shilling's worth of cakes and pastry, as
he had got a shilling by "fiddling;" not, be it
understood, by the exercise of any musical skill,
for "fiddling," among the initiated, means the
holding of horses, or the performing of any odd
jobs.

   Of these cakes and pastry -- the cakes being
from two to twelve a penny, and the pastry, tarts,
and "Coventrys" (three-cornered tarts) two a penny
-- the street-urchins are very fond. To me they
seemed to possess no recommendation either to the
nose or the palate. The "strong" flavour of

   These remarks apply far more to the male than
to the female children. Some of the street-boys
will walk a considerable distance, when they are
in funds, to buy pastry of the Jew-boys in the
Minories, Houndsditch, and Whitechapel; those
keen traders being reputed, and no doubt with
truth, to supply the best cakes and pastry of any.

   A more staple article of diet, which yet partakes
of the character of a dainty, is in great demand by
the class I treat of -- pudding. A halfpenny or
a penny-worth of backed plum, boiled plum (or
plum dough), currant or plum batter ( batter-
pudding studded with raisins), is often a dinner.
This pudding is almost always bought in the shops;
indeed, in a street apparatus there could hardly
be the necessary heat diffused over the surface
required; and as I have told of a distance being
travelled to buy pastry of the Jew-boys, so is it
traversed to buy pudding at the best shops. The
proprietor of one of those shops, upon whom I
called to make inquiries, told me that he sold
about 300 pennyworths of pudding in a day. Two-
thirds of this quantity he sold to juveniles
under fifteen years of age; but he hadn't no-
ticed particularly, and so could only guess. This
man, when he understood the object of my
inquiry, insisted upon my tasting his "batter,"
which really was very good, and tasted -- I do not
know how otherwise to describe it -- honest. His
profits were not large, he said, and judging from
the size and quality of his oblong halfpenny and
pennyworth's of batter pudding, I have no doubt
he stated the fact. "There's many a poor man
and woman," he said, "aye, sir, and some that
you would think from their appearance might go
to an eating-house to dine, make a meal off my
pudding, as well as the street little ones. The
boys are often tiresome: `Master,' they'll say,
`can't you give us a plummier bit than this?' or,
`Is it just up? I likes it 'ot, all 'ot.' "

   The "baked tatur," from the street-dealer's can
more frequently than from the shops, is another
enjoyable portion of the street child's diet. Of
the sale to the juvenile population of pickled
whelks, stewed eels, oysters, boiled meat puddings,
and other articles of street traffic, I have spoken
under their respective heads.

   The Irish children who live with their parents
fare as the parents fare. If very poor, or if bent
upon saving for some purpose, their diet is tea and
bread and butter, or bread without butter. If not
so very poor, still tea, &c., but sometimes with a
little fish, and sometimes with a piece of meat on
Sundays; but the Sunday's meat is more common
among the poor English than the poor Irish street-
traders; indeed the English street-sellers generally
"live better" than the Irish. The coster-boys
often fare well and abundantly.

   The children living in the lodging-houses, I
am informed, generally, partake only of such

Column 2

meals as they can procure abroad. Sometimes of
a night they may partake of the cheap beef or
mutton, purveyed by some inmate who has been
"lifting flesh" (stealing meat) or "sawney"
(bacon). Vegetables, excepting the baked potato,
they rarely taste. Of animal food, perhaps, they
partake more of bacon, and relish it the most.

   Drinking is not, from what I can learn, common
among the street boys. The thieves are generally
sober fellows, and of the others, when they are
"in luck," a half-pint of beer, to relish the bread
and saveloy of the dinner, and a pennyworth of
gin "to keep the cold out," are often the extent
of the potations. The exceptions are among the
ignorant coster-lads, who when they have been
prosperous in their "bunse," drink, and ape the
vices of men. The girls, I am told, are generally
fonder of gin than the boys. Elderwine and
gingerbeer are less popular among children than
they used to be. Many of the lads smoke.

   The Amusements of the street-children are such
as I have described in my account of the coster-
mongers, but in a moderate degree, as those who
partake with the greatest zest of such amusements
as the Penny Gaff (penny theatre) and the Two-
penny Hop (dance) are more advanced in years.
Many of the Penny Gaffs, however, since I last
wrote on the subject, have been suppressed, and
the Twopenny Hops are not half so frequent as
they were five or six years back. The Jew-boys
of the streets play at draughts or dominoes in
coffee-shops which they frequent; in one in the
London-road at which I had occasion to call were
eight of these urchins thus occupied; and they
play for money or its equivalent, but these
sedentary games obtain little among the other and
more restless street-lads. I believe that not one-
half of them "know the cards," but they are fond
of gambling at pitch and toss, for halfpennies or
farthings.

   The Clothing of the street-children, however
it may vary in texture, fashion, and colour, has
one pervading characteristic -- it is never made
for the wearers. The exceptions to this rule
seem to be those, when a child has run away and
retains, through good fortune or natural acuteness,
the superior attire he wore before he made the
choice -- if choice he had -- of a street life; and
where the pride of a mother whose costermonger
husband is "getting on," clothes little Jack or
Bill in a new Sunday suit. Even then the suit
is more likely to be bought ready-made than
"made to measure," nor is it worn in business
hours until the gloss of novelty has departed.

   The boys and girls wear every variety of cloth-
ing; it is often begged, but if bought is bought
from the fusty stocks of old clothes in Petticoat
and Rosemary-lanes. These rags are worn by the
children as long as they will hold, or can be tied
or pinned together, and when they drop off from
continued wear, from dirt, and from the ravages
of vermin, the child sets his wits to work to
procure more. One mode of obtaining a fresh
supply is far less available than it was three or
four years back. This was for the lads to denude

   This mode may be successful in parts of the
country still, but it is not so, or to a very limited
extent, in town. The largest, and what was ac-
counted by the vagrants the most liberal, of all
the casual wards of the metropolitan workhouses,
that of Marylebone, has been closed above two
years. So numerous were the applicants for ad-
mission, and so popular among the vagrants was
Marylebone workhouse, that a fever resulted, and
attacked that large establishment. It was not
uncommon for the Irish who trudged up from
Liverpool, to be advised by some London vagrant
whom they met, to go at once, when they reached
the capital, to Marylebone workhouse, and that
the Irishman might not forget a name that was
new to him, his friendly adviser would write it
down for him, and a troop of poor wretched Irish
children, with parents as wretched, would go to
Marylebone workhouse, and in their ignorance or
simplicity, present the address which had been
given to them, as if it were a regular order for
admission! Boys have sometimes committed of-
fences that they might get into prison, and as
they contrived that their apparel should be unfit
for purposes of decency, or perhaps their rags had
become unfit to wear, they could not be sent
naked into the streets again, and so had clothing
given to them. A shirt will be worn by one of
those wretched urchins, without washing, until it
falls asunder, and many have no shirts. The
girls are on the whole less ragged than the boys,
the most disgusting parts of their persons or ap-
parel -- I speak here more of the vagrant or the
mixed vagrant trading and selling girl (often a
child prostitute) than of the regular street-seller --
the worst particular of these girls' appearance, I
repeat, is in their foul and matted hair, which
looks as if it would defy sponge, comb, and brush
to purify it, and in the broken and filthy boots
and stockings, which they seem never to button or
to garter.

   The Propensities of the street-children are
the last division of my inquiry, and an ample
field is presented, alike for wonder, disgust, pity,
hope, and regret.

   Perhaps the most remarkable characteristic of
these wretched children is their extraordinary
licentiousness. Nothing can well exceed the ex-
treme animal fondness for the opposite sex which
prevails amongst them; some rather singular
circumstances connected with this subject have
come to my knowledge, and from these facts it
would appear that the age of puberty, or some-
thing closely resembling it, may be attained at a
much less numerical amount of years than that at
which most writers upon the human species have
hitherto fixed it. Probably such circumstances as
the promiscuous sleeping together of both sexes,
the example of the older persons indulging in the
grossest immorality in the presence of the young,
and the use of obscene expressions, may tend to

Column 2

produce or force an unnatural precocity, a pre-
cocity sure to undermine health and shorten life.
Jealousy is another characteristic of these children,
and perhaps less among the girls than the boys.
Upon the most trivial offence in this respect, or
on the suspicion of an offence, the "gals" are
sure to be beaten cruelly and savagely by their
"chaps." This appears to be a very common case.

   The details of filthiness and of all uncleanness
which I gave in a recent number as things of
course in certain lodging-houses, render it unne-
cessary to dwell longer upon the subject, and
it is one from which I willingly turn to other
matters.

   In addition to the licentious, the vagabond pro-
pensities of this class are very striking. As soon
as the warm weather commences, boys and girls,
but more especially boys, leave the town in shoals,
traversing the country in every direction; some
furnished with trifling articles (such as I have
already enumerated) to sell, and others to beg-
ging, lurking, or thieving. It is not the street-
sellers who so much resort to the tramp, as those
who are devoid of the commonest notions of
honesty; a quality these young vagrants some-
times respect when in fear of a gaol, and the
hard work with which such a place is identified
in their minds -- and to which, with the peculiar
idiosyncrasy of a roving race, they have an insu-
perable objection.

   I have met with boys and girls, however, to
whom a gaol had no terrors, and to whom, when
in prison, there was only one dread, and that a
common one among the ignorant, whether with or
without any sense of religion -- superstition. "I
lay in prison of a night, sir," said a boy who was
generally among the briskest of his class, "and
think I shall see things." The "things" repre-
sent the vague fears which many, not naturally
stupid, but untaught or ill-taught persons, enter-
tain in the dark. A girl, a perfect termagant in
the breaking of windows and such like offences,
told me something of the same kind. She spoke
well of the treatment she experienced in prison,
and seemed to have a liking for the matron and
officials; her conduct there was quiet and respectful.
I believe she was not addicted to drink.

   Many of the girls, as well as the boys, of course
trade as they "tramp." They often sell, both in
the country and in town, little necklaces, com-
posed of red berries strung together upon thick
thread, for dolls and children: but although I
have asked several of them, I have never yet
found one who collected the berries and made the
necklaces themselves; neither have I met with a
single instance in which the girl vendors knew
the name of the berries thus used, nor indeed
even that they were berries. The invariable re-
ply to my questions upon this point has been that
they "are called necklaces;" that "they are just
as they sells 'em to us;" that they "don't know
whether they are made or whether they grow;"
and in most cases, that they "gets them in Lon-
don, by Shoreditch;" although in one case a little
brown-complexioned girl, with bright sparkling
eyes, said that "she got them from the gipsies."

   Some of the boys, on their country excursions,
trade in dominoes. They carry a variety of
boxes, each differing in size and varying accord-
ingly in price: the lowest-priced boxes are
mostly 6d. each (sometimes 4d., or even 3d.), the
highest 1s. An informant told me that these
boxes are charged to him at the rate of 20 to 25
per cent. less; but if, as is commonly the case, he
could take a number at a time, he would have
them at a smaller price still. They are very
rudely made, and soon fall to pieces, unless
handled with extreme care. Most of the boys
who vend this article play at the game them-
selves, and some with skill; but in every case,
I believe, there is a willingness to cheat, or
take advantage, which is hardly disguised; one
boy told me candidly that those who make the
most money are considered to be the cleverest,
whether by selling or cheating, or both, at the
game; nor can it be said that this estimation of
cleverness is peculiar to these children.

   At this season of the year great numbers of the
street-children attend the races in different parts
of the country, more especially at those in the
vicinity of a large town. The race-course of Wolver-
hampton, for instance, is usually thronged with
them during the period of the sport. While taking
these perigrinations they sometimes sleep in the
low lodging-houses with which most of our pro-
vincial towns abound: frequently "skipper it" in
the open air, when the weather is fine and warm,
and occasionally in barns or outhouses attached to
farms and cottages. Sometimes they travel in
couples -- a boy and a girl, or two boys or two
girls; but the latter is not so common a case as
either of the former. It is rare that more than
two may be met in company with each other,
except, indeed, of a night, and then they usually
herd together in numbers. The boys who carry
dominoes sometimes, also, have a sheet of paper
for sale, on which is rudely printed a representa-
tion of a draught-board and men -- the latter of
which are of two colours (black and white) and
may be cut out with a pair of scissors; thus form-
ing a ready means of playing a game so popular
in rustic places. These sheets of paper are sold
(if no more can be got for them) at a penny each.
The boy who showed them to me said he gave
a halfpenny a piece for them, or 6d. for fifteen.
He said he always bought them in London, and
that he did not know any other place to get them
at, nor had "ever heard any talk of their being
bought nowhere else."

   The extraordinary lasciviousness of this class
which I have already mentioned, appears to con-
tinue to mark their character during their vaga-
bondizing career in the country as fully as in
town; indeed, an informant, upon whom I think
I may rely, says, that the nightly scenes of youth-
ful or even childish profligacy in the low lodging-
houses of the small provincial towns quite equal

Column 2

-- even if they do not exceed -- those which may
be witnessed in the metropolis itself. Towards
the approach of winter these children (like the
vagrants of an older growth) advance towards
London; some remain in the larger towns, such as
Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield,
&c., but the greater proportion appear to return
to the metropolis, where they resume the life they
had previously led, anything but improved in
education, morals, manners, or social position
generally, by their summer's excursion.

   The language spoken by this rambling class is
peculiar in its construction: it consists of an odd
medley of cockneyfied English, rude provincial-
isms, and a large proportion of the slang commonly
used by gipsies and other "travellers," in con-
veying their ideas to those whom they wish to
purchase their commodities.

   Among the propensities of the street-boys I do
not think that pugnacity, or a fondness, or even a
great readiness, for fighting, is a predominant
element. Gambling and thieving may be rife
among a class of these poor wretches; and it may
not unfrequently happen that force is resorted to
by one boy bigger than another to obtain the
halfpence of which the smaller child is known to
be possessed. Thus quarrels among them are very
frequent, but they rarely lead to fighting. Even
in the full swing and fury of their jealousy, it
does not appear that these boys attack the object
of their suspicions, but prefer the less hazardous
course of chastising the delinquent or unjustly
suspected girl. The girls in the low lodging-
houses, I was told a little time since, by a woman
who used to frequent them, sometimes, not often,
scratched one another until the two had bloody
faces; and they tried to bite one another
now and then, but they seldom fought. What
was this poor woman's notion of a fight between
two girls, it may not be very easy to comprehend.

   The number of children out daily in the streets
of London, employed in the various occupations I
have named, together with others which may
possibly have been overlooked -- including those
who beg without offering any article for sale --
those who will work as light porters, as errand
boys and the like, for chance passengers, has been
variously calculated; probably nothing like exact-
itude can be hoped for, much less expected, in
such a speculation, for when a government census
has been so frequently found to fail in correctness
of detail, it appears highly improbable that the
number of those so uncertain in their places of
resort and so migratory in their habits, can be
ascertained with anything like a definite amount
of certainty by a private individual. Taking the
returns of accommodation afforded to these children
in the casual wards of workhouses, refuges for the
destitute and homeless poor; of the mendicity and
other societies of a similar description, and those
of our hospitals and gaols, -- and these sources of
information upon this subject can alone be confi-
dently relied upon, -- and then taking into the
calculation the additional numbers, who pass the
night in the variety of ways I have already
enumerated, I think it will be found that the

   The consideration which I have devoted to this
branch of my subject has been considerable, but
still not, in my own opinion, commensurate to the
importance of its nature. Steps ought most un-
questionably to be taken to palliate the evils and
miseries I have pointed out, even if a positive
remedy be indeed impossible.

   Each year sees an increase of the numbers of
street-children to a very considerable extent, and
the exact nature of their position may be thus
briefly depicted: what little information they
receive is obtained from the worst class -- from
cheats, vagabonds, and rogues; what little amuse-
ment they indulge in, springs from sources the
most poisonous -- the most fatal to happiness and
welfare; what little they know of a home is neces-
sarily associated with much that is vile and base;
their very means of existence, uncertain and pre-
carious as it is, is to a great extent identified with
petty chicanery, which is quickly communicated by
one to the other; while their physical sufferings
from cold, hunger, exposure to the weather, and
other causes of a similar nature, are constant, and
at times extremely severe. Thus every means by
which a proper intelligence may be conveyed to
their minds is either closed or at the least tainted,
while every duct by which a bad description of
knowledge may be infused is sedulously cultivated
and enlarged. Parental instruction; the comforts
of a home, however humble -- the great moral
truths upon which society itself rests; -- the influ-
ence of proper example; the power of education;
the effect of useful amusement; are all denied to
them, or come to them so greatly vitiated, that
they rather tend to increase, than to repress, the
very evils they were intended to remedy.

   The costers invariably say that no persons under
the age of fifteen should be allowed by law to vend
articles in the streets; the reason they give for
this is -- that the children under that period of life
having fewer wants and requiring less money to
live than those who are older, will sell at a less
profit than it is fair to expect the articles sold should
yield, and thus they tersely conclude, "they per-
vents others living, and ruins theirselves."

   There probably is truth in this remark, and I
must confess that, for the sake of the children
themselves, I should have no objection to see
the suggestion acted upon; and yet there imme-
diately rises the plain yet startling question -- in
such a case, what is to become of the children?

   I now cite the histories of street-lads belonging
to the several classes above specified, as illustra-
tions of the truth of the statements advanced
concerning the children street-sellers generally.