University of Virginia Library

OF THE COUNTRY LODGING-HOUSES.

Concerning the lodging-houses, more especially
in the country, I give the statement of a middle-
aged man, familiar with them for twenty years.
He was recommended to me as possessed of much
humour and a great master of humourous slang: —

"I can tell you all about it, sir; but one lodging-
house is so like another that I can't draw much
distinction. In small country towns, especially
agricultural towns, they are decent places enough,
regular in their hours, and tidy enough. At these
places they have what they call `their own travel-
lers,' persons that they know, and who are always
accommodated in preference. As to the characters
that frequent these places, let us begin with the
Crocusses. They carry about a lot of worms in
bottles, what they never took out of anybody,
though they'll tell you different, or long pieces of
tape in bottles, made to look like worms, and on
that they'll patter in a market place as if on a real
cure, and they've got the cheek to tell the people
that that very worm was taken from Lady — ,
near the town, and referring them to her to prove
it. The one I knew best would commence with a
piece of sponge in a bottle, which he styled the
stomach wolf. That was his leading slum, and
pretty well he sponged them too. When he'd pat-
tered on about the wolf, he had another bottle with
what he called a worm 200 inches long, he bounced
it was, which the day before yesterday he had
from Mrs. — 's girl (some well-known person),
and referred them to her. While he's going on, a
brother Crocus will step up, a stranger to the people,
and say, `Ah, Doctor — , you're right. I had
the pleasure of dining with Mr. — when the
worm was extracted, and never saw a child so
altered in my life.' That's what the Crocus's call
giving a jolly; and after that don't the first
Crocus's old woman serve out the six-penny-
worths? The stuff is to cure every mortal thing
a man can ail — ay, or a woman either. They'd
actually have the cheek to put a blister on a
cork leg. Well, when they're done pattering on
the worm racket, then come the wonderful pills.
Them are the things. These pills, from eight to a
dozen in a box, are charged 4d. to 6d. according to
the flat's appearance — as the Crocus calls his cus-
tomers. The pills meet with a ready sale, and
they're like chip in porridge, neither good nor harm.
It's chiefly the bounciful patter, the cheek they
have, that gets them Crocusses on. It's amazing.
They'll stare a fellow in the face, and make him
believe he's ill whether he is or no. The man I
speak of is a first-rate cove; he trains it and
coaches it from market to market like any gentle-
man. He wears a stunning fawny (ring) on his
finger, an out-and-out watch and guard, and not a
duffer neither — no gammon; and a slap-up suit of
black togs. I've seen the swell bosmen (farmers)
buy the pills to give the people standing about, just
to hear the Crocus patter. Why they've got the
cheek to pitch their stall with their worms opposite
a regular medical man's shop, and say, `Go over
the way and see what he'll do — he'll drive up in
a horse and gig to your door, and make you pay
for it too; but I don't — I've walked here to do
you good, and I will do you good before I leave
you. One trial is all I ask' — and quite enough
too (said my informant). I'll warrant they won't
come a second time; if they do, it's with a stick
in their hands. If he does much business in the
worm-powder way (some have it in cakes for chil-
dren), the Crocus never gives them a chance to
catch him. But if it's only pills, he'll show next
market day, or a month after, and won't he crack
about it then? He says, `One trial is all I ask,'
and one of them got it and was transported. I
knew one of these Crocusses who was once so hard
up from lushing and boozing about that he went
into a field and collected sheep dung and floured
it over, and made his pills of it, and made the
people swallow it at Lutterworth market, in Lei-
cestershire; because there they'll swallow any-
thing. If the Crocus I have mentioned see this
in the paper — as he will, for he's a reading-man —
won't he come out bouncefull? He'll say, `Why
am I thus attacked — why don't the proprietor and
the editor of this paper come forward — if he's
among you? Who made this report? let him
come forward, and I'll refute him face to face.'
And no doubt (my informant remarked), he'd give
him a tidy dose, too, the Crocus would. For my-
self, I'd far rather meet him face to face than his
medicine, either his blue or his pink water.
There's another sort who carry on the crocussing
business, but on a small scale; they're on the
penny and twopenny racket, and are called hedge
crocusses — men who sell corn salve, or `four pills

[Description: 915EAF. Page 424.]

a penny,' to cure anything, and go from house to
house in the country. But as the hedge crocus is
shickery togged, he makes poorly out. Respectable
people won't listen to him, and it's generally the
lower order that he gulls. These hedge fellows
are slow and dull; they go mouching along as if
they were croaking themselves. I've seen the
head crocus I've mentioned at four markets in
one week, and a town on a Saturday night, clear
from 5l. to 7l. — all clear profit, for his fakement
costs him little or nothing. For such a man's
pound, the hedge fellow may make 1s. The next
I'll tell you about is durynacking, or duryking.
The gipsies 9and they're called Romanies) are
the leading mob at this racket, but they're well
known, and I needn't say anything about
those ladies. But there're plenty of trav-
elling women who go about with a basket
and a bit of driss (lace) in it, gammy lace, for a
stall-off (a blind), in case they meet the master,
who would order them off. Up at a bosken
(farm-house) they'll get among the servant girls,
being pretty well acquainted with the neighbour-
hood by inquiries on the road, as to the number
of daughters and female servants. The first in-
quiry is for the missus or a daughter, and if they
can't be got at they're on to the slaveys. Sup-
pose they do get hold of one of the daughters,
they commence by offering the driss, which, as it
is queer stuff, wouldn't be picked up by an agri-
cultural young lady, as the durynacker very well
knows. Then she begins, `Ah! my sweet young
lady, my blessed looking angel' — if she's as ugly
as sin, and forty; they say that, and that's the
time you get them to rights, when they're old
and ugly, just by sweetening them, and then they
don't mind tipping the loaver (money) — `I know
you dont want this stuff (she'll continue), there's
something on your mind. I see you're in love;
but the dear handsome gentleman — he'll not
slight you, but loves you as hard as a hammer.'
This is thrown out as a feeler, and the young
lady is sure to be confused; then the durrynacker
has hold of her mauly (hand) in a minute. It's
all up with the girl, once the woman gets a grip.
She's asked in directly, and of course the sisters
(if she has any) and the slavey are let into the
secret, and all have their fortunes told. The for-
tune-teller may make a week's job of it, according
as the loaver comes out. She'll come away with
her basket full of eggs, bacon, butter, tea and
sugar, and all sorts of things. I have seen them
bring the scran in! Every one is sure to have
handsome husbands, thumping luck, and pretty
children. The durrynacker, too, is not particular,
if there's a couple of silver spoons — she doesn't
like odd ones; and mind you, she always carries a
basket — big enough too. I know a man on this
lurk, but he works the article with a small glass
globe filled full of water, and in that he shows
girls their future husbands, and kids them on to
believe they do see them — ay, and the church
they're to be married in — and they fancy they do
see it as they twist the globe this way and that,
while he twists the tin out of them, and no flies.
He actually had the cheek, though he knew
I was fly to every fake, to try to make me
believe that I could see the place where Smith
O'Brien had the fight in Ireland! `Don't you
see them cabbages, and a tall man in a green
velvet cap among them, holloring out, "I'm the
King of Munster?"' I don't know any other male
durrynacker worth noticing; the women have
all the call. Young women won't ask their for-
tunes of men. The way the globe man does is to
go among the old women and fiddle (humbug)
them, and, upon my word, three-parts of them are
worse than the young ones. Now I'll tell you
about the tat (rag) gatherers; buying rags they
call it, but I call it bouncing people. Two men I
lodged with once, one morning hadn't a farthing,
regularly smashed up, not a feather to fly with,
they'd knocked down all their tin lushing. Well,
they didn't know what to be up to, till one hit
upon a scheme. `I've got it, Joe,' says he. He
borrows two blue plates from the lodging-house
keeper, a washing jug and basin. Off they goes,
one with the crockery, and the other with a bag.
They goes into the by-courts in Windsor, be-
cause this bouncing caper wouldn't do in the main
drag. Up goes the fellow with a bag, and hollas
out, `Now, women, bring out your copper, brass,
white rags, old flannel, bed-sacking, old ropes,
empty bottles, umbrellas — any mortal thing — the
best price is given;' and the word's hardly out,
when up comes his pal, hollaring, `Sam, holloa!
stop that horse,' as if he'd a horse and cart pass-
ing the court, and then the women bring out their
umbrellas and things, and the're all to be ex-
changed for crockery such as he shows, and all
goes into the bag, and the bagman goes off with
the things, leaving the other to do the bounce,
and he keeps singing out for the horse and cart
with the load of crockery, gammoning there is
one, that the ladies may have their choice, and he
then hurries down to quicken his cart-driver's
movements, and hooks it, leaving the flats com-
pletely stunned. Oh! it does give them a ferry-
cadouzer. Two other men go about on this lurk,
one with an old cracked plate under his waistcoat,
and the other with a bag. And one sings out,
`Now, women, fourpence a pound for your white
rags. None of your truck system, your needles
and thread for it. I don't do it that way;
ready money, women, is the order of the day
with me.' Well, one old mollesher (woman),
though she must have known her rags would only
bring 2d. a lb. at a fair dealer's, if there be one,
brought out 8 lbs. of white rags. He weighs
them with his steelyards, and in they went to the
bag. The man with the bag steps it immediately,
and the other whips out his flute quite carelessly,
and says — `Which will you have marm, Jem Crow,
or the Bunch of Roses?' The old woman says
directly, `What do you mean, 8 times 4 is 32,
and 32 pence is 2s. 8d.; never mind, I won't be
hard, give me half-a-crown.' Well, when she
finds there's no money, out she hollars, and he
plays his distracted flute to drown her voice, and
backs himself manfully out of the court. I have
known these men get on so that I have seen them
with a good horse and cart. There's another class

[Description: 915EAF. Page 425.]

of rag bloaks, who have bills printed with the
Queen's Arms at the top, if you please, `By royal
authority' — that's their own authority, and they
assume plenty of it. Well, this bill specifies the best
prices for rags, left-off clothes, &c. One fellow goes
and drops these bills at the kens (houses), the other
comes after him, and as the man who drops marks
every house where a bill has been taken, the
second man knows where to call. Any house
where he gets a call commences the caper. Well,
anything to be disposed of is brought out, often in
the back yard. The party of the house produces
the bill, which promises a stunning tip for the old
lumber. The man keeps sorting the things out,
and running them down as not so good as he ex-
pected; but at the same time he kids them on by
promising three times more than the things are
worth. This is a grand racket — the way he
fakes them, and then he says, `Marm (or sir, as it
may be), I shall give you 15s. for the lot,' which
stuns the party, for they never expected to get
anything like that — and their expectations is not
disappointed, for they don't. Then he turns round
directly, and commences sorting more particularly
than before, putting the best and the easiest to
carry altogether. He starts up then, and whips a
couple of bob, or half a bull (2s. 6d.) into the
woman's hand, saying, `I always like to bind a
bargain, marm — one of the fairest dealing men
travelling. Do save all your old lumber for me.'
Of a sudden he begins searching his pockets, and
exclaims, `Dear me, I haven't enough change in
my pocket, but I'll soon settle that — my mate has
it outside. I'll just take a load out to the cart,
and come back for the others with the money;'
and so he hooks it, and I've no occasion to tell
you he never comes back; and that's what he calls
having them on the knock."

The other inmates at the lodging-houses which
my informant described are of the class concerning
whom full information is or will be given in other
portions of this or the following letters. His de-
scription of the lodging-houses, too, was a corrobo-
ration of the statement I give to-day. All the
classes described meet and mix at the lodging-
houses.

I shall reserve what I have to say concerning
the influence of the low lodging-houses of Lon-
don and the country till the conclusion of the
present volume.