 | OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF STATIONERY, LITERATURE,
AND THE FINE ARTS. London Labour and the London Poor, volume 1 |  |
OF THE DEATH AND FIRE HUNTERS.
I have described the particular business of the
running patterer, who is known by another and
a very expressive cognomen — as a " Death
Hunter." This title refers not only to his vend-
ing accounts of all the murders that become
topics of public conversation, but to his being a
" murderer" on his own account, as in the sale
of " cocks" mentioned incidentally in this nar-
rative. If the truth be saleable, a running pat-
terer prefers selling the truth, for then — as one
man told me — he can " go the same round com-
fortably another day." If there be no truths
for sale — no stories of criminals' lives and loves
to be condensed from the diffusive biographies
in the newspapers — no " helegy" for a great
man gone — no prophecy and no crim. con. — the
death hunter invents, or rather announces, them.
He puts some one to death for the occasion,
which is called " a cock." The paper he sells
may give the dreadful details, or it may be a
religious tract, "brought out in mistake,"
should the vendor be questioned on the subject;
or else the poor fellow puts on a bewildered look
and murmurs, " O, it's shocking to be done
this way — but I can't read." The patterers pass
along so rapidly that this detection rarely
happens.
One man told me that in the last eight or ten
years, he, either singly or with his " mob," had
twice put the Duke of Wellington to death,
once by a fall from his horse, and the other time
by a " sudden and myst-erious" death, without
any condescension to particulars. He had twice
performed the same mortal office for Louis
Phillipe, before that potentate's departure from
France; each death was by the hands of an
assassin; " one was stabbing, and the other a
shot from a distance." He once thought of
poisoning the Pope, but was afraid of the street
Irish. He broke Prince Albert's leg, or arm,
(he was not sure which), when his royal high-
ness was out with his harriers. He never had
much to say about the Queen; " it wouldn't
go down," he thought, and perhaps nothing had
lately been said. " Stop, there, sir," said another
patterer, of whom I inquired as to the correct-
ness of those statements, (after my constant
custom in sifting each subject thoroughly,)
"stop, stop, sir. I have had to say about the
Queen lately. In coorse, nothing can be said
against her, and nothing ought to; that's true
enough, but the last time she was confined, I
cried her accounchement (the word was pronounced
as spelt to a merely English reader, or rather
more broadly) of three! Lord love you, sir, it
would have been no use crying one; people's so
used to that; but a Bobby came up and he
stops me, and said it was some impudence about
the Queen's coachman! Why look at it, says I,
fat-head — I knew I was safe — and see if there's
[Description: 915EAF. Page 229.]
man! And he looked, and in coorse there was
nothing. I forget just now what the paper was about." My first-mentioned informant had ap-
prehended Feargus O'Connor on a charge of
high treason. He assassinated Louis Napoleon,
" from a fourth edition of the Times," which
" did well." He caused Marshal Haynau to
die of the assault by the draymen. He made
Rush hang himself in prison. He killed Jane
Wilbred, and put Mrs. Sloane to death; and
he announced the discovery that Jane Wilbred
was Mrs. Sloane's daughter.
This informant did not represent that he had
originated these little pieces of intelligence, only
that he had been a party to their sale, and a
party to originating one or two. Another patterer
and of a higher order of genius — told me that
all which was stated was undoubtedly correct,
" but me and my mates, sir," he said, " did
Haynau in another style. A splendid slum,
sir! Capital! We assassinated him — mys-te-
rious. Then about Rush. His hanging hisself
in prison was a fake, I know; but we've had
him lately. His ghost appeared — as is shown in
the Australian papers — to Emily Sandford, and
threatened her; and took her by the neck, and
there's the red marks of his fingers to be seen
on her neck to this day!" The same informant
was so loud in his praise of the " Ass-sass-sina-
tion" of Haynau that I give the account. I
have little doubt it was his own writing. It is
confused in passages, and has a blending of the
" I" and the " we:" —
" We have just received upon undisputed authority,
that, that savage and unmanly tyrant, that enemy to
civil and religious liberty, the inhuman Haynau has
at last finished his career of guilt by the hand of an
assassin, the term assassin I have no doubt will greet
harshly upon the ears of some of our readers, yet never
the less I am compelled to use it although I would
gladly say the average of outraged innocence, which
would be a name more suitable to one who has been
the means of ridden the world of such a despicable
monster."
[My informant complained bitterly, and not
without reason, of the printer. " Average,"
for instance (which I have italicised), should be
" avenger." The " average of outraged inno-
cence!"]
" It appears by the Columns of the Corour le Con-
stituonal of Brussels," runs the paper, "that the even-
ing before last, three men one of which is supposed to
be the miscreant, Haynau entered a Cafe in the Neigh-
bourhood of Brussels kept by a man in the name of
Priduex, and after partaking of some refreshments
which were ordered by his two companions they de-
sired to be shown to their chambers, during their stay
in the public or Travellers Room, they spoke but little
and seemed to be very cautious as to joining in the
conversations which was passing briskly round the
festive board, which to use the landlord's own words
was rather strange, as his Cafe was mostly frequented
by a set of jovial fellows, M. Priduex goes on to
state that after the three strangers had retired to rest
some time a tall and rathernoble looking man enveloped
in a large cloak entered and asked for a bed, and after
calling for some wine he took up a paper and appeared
to be reading it very attentively, in due time he was
shown to bed and all passed on without any appear-
ance of anything wrong until about 6 o'clock in the
morning, when the landlord and his family, were
roused by a noise over head and cries of murder, and
upon going up stairs to ascertain the cause, he disco-
vered the person who was [known] to be Marshal
Haynau, lying on his bed with his throat cut in a
frightful manner, and his two companions standing by
his bed side bewailing his loss. On the table was dis-
covered a card, on which was written these words
` Monster, I am avenged at last. Suspicion went upon
the tall stranger, who was not anywhere to be found,
the Garde arms instantly were on the alert, and are
now in active persuit of him but up to the time of our
going to press nothing further has transpired."
It is very easy to stigmatise the death-hunter
when he sets off all the attractions of a real or
pretended murder, — when he displays on a board,
as does the standing patterer, " illustrations" of
" the 'dentical pick-axe" of Manning, or the
stable of Good, — or when he invents or embel-
lishes atrocities which excite the public mind.
He does, however, but follow in the path of
those who are looked up to as " the press," — as
the " fourth estate." The conductors of the
Lady's Newspaper sent an artist to Paris to give
drawings of the scene of the murder by the
Duc de Praslin, — to " illustrate" the blood-
stains in the duchess's bed -chamber. The
Illustrated London News is prompt in depicting
the locality of any atrocity over which the
curious in crime may gloat. The Observer, in
costly advertisements, boasts of its 20 columns
(sometimes with a supplement) of details of
some vulgar and mercenary bloodshed, — the
details being written in a most honest depre-
cation of the morbid and savage tastes to which
the writer is pandering. Other weekly papers
have engravings — and only concerning murder
— of any wretch whom vice has made notorious.
Many weekly papers had expensive telegraphic
despatches of Rush's having been hung at
Norwich, which event, happily for the interest
of Sunday newspapers, took place in Norwich
at noon on a Saturday. [I may here remark,
that the patterers laugh at telegraphs and ex-
press trains for rapidity of communication,
boasting that the press strives in vain to rival
them, — as at a " hanging match," for instance,
the patterer has the full particulars, dying
speech, and confession included — if a confes-
sion be feasible — ready for his customers the
moment the drop falls, and while the criminal
may still be struggling, at the very scene of
the hanging. At a distance he sells it before
the hanging. " If the Times was cross-examined
about it," observed one patterer, " he must con-
fess he's outdone, though he's a rich Times, and
we is poor fellows." But to resume — ]
A penny-a-liner is reported, and without con-
tradiction, to have made a large sum by having
hurried to Jersey in Manning's business, and by
being allowed to accompany the officers when
they conducted that paltry tool of a vindictive
woman from Jersey to Southampton by steamer,
and from Southampton to London by " special
engine," as beseemed the popularity of so dis-
tinguished a rascal and homicide; and next
morning the daily papers, in all the typo-
graphical honour of " leads" and " a good
place," gave details of this fellow's — this Man-
ning's — conversation, looks, and demeanour.
[Description: 915EAF. Page 230.]
healthful public instructor, we have no right to
blame the death-hunter, who is but an imitator
— a follower — and that for a meal. So strong
has this morbid feeling about criminals become,
that an earl's daughter, who had " an order" to
see Bedlam, would not leave the place until
she had obtained Oxford's autograph for her
album! The rich vulgar are but the poor
vulgar — without an excuse for their vulgarity.
" Next to murders, fires are tidy browns," I
was told by a patterer experienced both in
" murders " and " fires." The burning of the
old Houses of Parliament was very popular
among street-sellers, and for the reason which
ensures popularity to a commercial people; it
was a source of profit, and was certainly made
the most of. It was the work of incendiaries, —
of ministers, to get rid of perplexing papers, —
of government officers with troublesome accounts
to balance, — of a sporting lord, for a heavy
wager, — of a conspiracy of builders, — and of " a
unsuspected party." The older " hands" with
whom I conversed on the subject, all agreed in
stating that they " did well" on the fire. One
man said, " No, sir, it wasn't only the working
people that bought of me, but merchants and
their clerks. I s'pose they took the papers home
with 'em for their wives and families, which is
a cheap way of doing, as a newspaper costs 3d.
at least. But stop, sir, — stop; there wasn't no
threepennies then, — nothing under 6d., if they
wasn't more; I can't just say, but it was better
for us when newspapers was high. I never
heard no sorrow expressed, — not in the least.
Some said it was a good job, and they wished
the ministers was in it." The burning of the
Royal Exchange was not quite so beneficial to
the street-sellers, but " was uncommon tidy."
The fire at the Tower, however, was almost as
great a source of profit as that of the Houses of
Parliament, and the following statement shows
the profit reaped.
My informant had been a gentleman's ser-
vant, his last place being with a gentleman in
Russell-square, who went to the East Indies,
and his servant was out of a situation so long
that he " parted with everything." When he
was at the height of his distress, he went to see
the fire at the Tower, as he " had nothing better
to do." He remained out some hours, and
before he reached his lodging, men passed him,
crying the full and true particulars of the fire.
" I bought one," said the man, " and changed
my last shilling. It was a sudden impulse, for
I saw people buy keenly. I never read it, but
only looked at the printer's name. I went to
him at the Dials, and bought some, and so I
went into the paper trade. I made 6s. or 7s.
some days, while the Tower lasted; and 3s. and
4s. other days, when the first polish was off. I
sold them mostly at 1d. a piece at first. It was
good money then. The Tower was good, or
middling good, for from 14 to 20 days. There
was at least 100 men working nothing but the
Tower. There's no great chance of any more
great buildings being burnt; worse luck. People
don't care much about private fires. A man in
this street don't heed so much who's burnt to
death in the next. But the foundation-stone of
the new Royal Exchange — fire led to that — was
pretty fair, and portraits of Halbert went off, so
that it was for two or three days as good as the
Tower. Fires is our best friends next to mur-
ders, if they're good fires. The hopening of the
Coal Exchange was rather tidy. I've been in
the streets ever since, and don't see how I could
possibly get out of them. At first I felt a great
degradation at being driven to the life. I shun-
ned grooms and coachmen, as I might be known
to them. I didn't care for others. That sort
of feeling wears out though. I'm a widower
now, and my family feels, as I did at first, that
what I'm doing is ` low.' They won't assist —
though they may give me 1s. now and then — but
they won't assist me to leave the streets. They'll
rather blame me for going into them, though
there was only that, or robbing, or starving.
The fire at Ben. Caunt's, where the poor chil-
dren was burnt to hashes, was the best of the
private house fires that I've worked, I think.
I made 4s. on it one day. He was the champion
once, and was away at a fight at the time, and
it was a shocking thing, and so people bought."
After the burning of York Minster by Jona-
than Martin, I was told by an old hand, the
(street) destruction of the best known public
buildings in the country was tried; such as
Canterbury Cathedral, Dover Castle, the Brigh-
ton Pavilion, Edinburgh Castle, or Holyrood
House — all known to " travelling" patterers —
but the success was not sufficiently encouraging.
It was no use, I was told, firing such places as
Hampton Court or Windsor Castle, for unless
people saw the reflection of a great fire, they
wouldn't buy.
| OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF STATIONERY, LITERATURE,
AND THE FINE ARTS. London Labour and the London Poor, volume 1 | |