CHAPTER V.

HIDDEN DEPTHS.

FINDING it necessary to have a companion with me who had a perfect knowledge of the English Metropolis, I paid a visit to the headquarters of the police in the Old Jewry, and procured from Inspector Bailey, the Chief of Police, the aid of a detective to accompany me in my nightly adventures. Shortly after midnight Sergeant Moss and myself passed through Gracechurch into Fenchurch street, by towering warehouses, and along Aldgate into High street, Whitechapel. Until we got well up into Whitechapel we had not met more than three or four persons, and they were principally individuals who had taken more ale or strong liquor than was good for their equilibrium. One person, who was evidently out of his latitude, accosted the detective and demanded of him, in a menacing but rather ludicrous way:

"I s'ay ole fel', whish ish Goodman's Feelsh? I wansh to go to Somshseet sthreeths. Goodman's Feelsh, ole boy. Show we waysh and give shixpensh, ole fel?"

"Go along and turn off to your left, and when you get home eat an onion, and it will do you good p'raps," said he, as he tried to dodge the drunken fellow, who seemed well dressed, and had some jewelry on his person.

"Eesh an onionsh. Sir, yer a gentlesmansh--ole boy. Blesh you. Blesh you," and he staggered away into the darkness, rolling like a yawl-boat in the breakers.

We turned off the Whitechapel road into Baker street, up Charles into Wellington street. The neighborhood was a poor desolate one, and every building, and every stone in the street, with the offal in the gutters, spoke of poverty and wretchedness.

Now and then a policeman spoke to us and looked sharply at me, but always they seemed civil and obliging.

The district we were now traversing was a kind of debatable land between Whitechapel and Bethnal Green. The streets, or rather lanes, ran across and along at angles and in circles of a perfect maze tending to confound ways that were well calculated to puzzle a stranger.

The lanes were, with few exceptions, not more than two or three hundred feet long, and the odor from the cellars and lodging houses was miasmatic. Shouts and yells and curses came from drunken male brutes who passed us, and now and then a wretched looking outcast of a woman, hideous with filth and bloated with gin, stole like a shadow from some of the low public houses that were, in accordance with the beer-house act, putting up their shutters.

A woman passed us with a stone bottle in one hand and a herring in the other, while we stood looking up and down the narrow street. Her eyes were bloodshot and her face seamed with dissipation and wretchedness, while she grasped the stone bottle hard, and seemed ready to defend her precious property with her life.

"Wot have you got there," said my companion seizing the stone jug and holding it to his nose. The woman was almost frenzied at this attempt, as she believed it was, to deprive her of what was far dearer to her than her life. "Give me back my gin!" she screamed, and dashed forward like a tigress to claw his eyes out. The sergeant seemed satisfied, and handed her back the stone vessel with a motion of disgust.

"That'll do, ole lady," said he, "I'd rather you'd drink that White Satan nor me. I pitys yer precious witles, that's hall, when you drinks it. Where do you live?"

[Sidenote: AN EXPLORATION.]

"I live's in 'Purty Bill's lodgin.' I'll show it to you for a brown. Come along." We followed her for a short distance, and now and then, as we passed the doorways and courts, some low blackguard would vent a little of his vile or rough humor upon our devoted heads, merely to keep his intellect in play.

"I say, ye pair of duffers, give us tuppence to get a pot o' beer, wont ye; come here, and I'll cash yer check hif you 'ave no small change," said a cut-throat looking rascal of large build who was lying across a door that seemed to open into the earth somewhere. He half rose; fell back on the broken cavern door stupefied with liquor, and began to snore like a wild beast gorged with blood.

"This is an awful district, sir," said the detective. "They doesn't stand on ceremony with you here."

We passed further down the dark street, and a very dark street it was. The atmosphere was very different from that which hung over London Bridge. The air was noisome, and the collected offal in the gutters sent up a frightful stench to the heavens. At the end of the street was a cul de sac, and before we came to it my conductor stopped at a passage, dim under the midnight sky, which ran back for some distance; I could not tell how far, owing to the darkness.

We passed into the court, which seemed to yawn wider as one progressed, between three-storied, tumble-down, dirty brick buildings, and finally we found ourselves in a yard about a hundred feet square, from the opposite side of whose buildings clothes lines depended covered with canvass jackets, ragged highlows, aprons, and two or three sou'westers, beside a lot of female articles of under-linen. There were barrows, hand carts, small jackass carts and baskets, with a few empty barrels piled up in a confused mass in the corner of the yard. Cabbage leaves, bones of fish and animals, potato skins--the remains of carniverous appetites--were strewed all round.

The detective had by this time lit a lantern which he had concealed in his breast, and thus I was enabled to look around me. He said, "This is a rum spot; but never mind, it's safe enough. Now dy'e see that cellar--that's where we are a goin' to spend an hour or two. Come along."

He pointed in the direction of the cellar, or rather an opening in the ground, at the further corner of the yard, from whose bowels issued slanting streaks of light, shouts of laughter, and yells indicative of mad revelry. Groping our way carefully over the heaps of rubbish, and around the vehicles and barrels, we arrived at the cellar, which had for an opening an aperture about six feet wide by five feet in length. The broken wooden stairs leading to the bottom had some fifteen steps.

We descended and found the door at the lowest step barring the entrance. It was fastened, and had a dirty, impenetrable pane of glass as a watchhole for the use of those inside, so that nothing could be seen from the outside of the door. We gave the door a kick, and then the shouting and laughing seemed to stop very suddenly, and there was a hustling and running about inside which betokened preparation.

A face appeared at the pane of glass, and, after a scrutiny of a minute or two, the door went back on its hinges with a grating sound. A big bullet-head protruded itself, and a voice said:

"Who is that ere? Wot does you want, and who the d----l send you at this time o' night a disturbin' of honest people in their comfortable beds?"

"Bill, it's 'Faking Johnny' as wants to hold a few moments conversation with you. The queen has just sent me with a patent of nobility for you, from Buckingham Palace. You are to be made a barronnight right hoff when you reforms," said the detective, in a jocular way, as he descended into the cellar and faced the proprietor of the den, who held a half-penny candle above his head to get a look at us both.

The master of the mansion finally recognized my companion, but did not seem at all well pleased with his visit.

"Well," he said, in a very gruff voice, "is hit bizness or pleasure? Vich? Kase, hif hits bizness you must 'elp yourself."

[Sidenote: "PURTY BILL."]

"Oh, pleasure by all means, Purty Bill," said the sergeant, "myself and friend here, who is a son of Henry Clay, as was President of the United States of America, just wants to see how the fun is goin' on to-night, and as I knew you kept a fust-class place, Bill, I thought I would bring him around to see you. He has called on the Queen, Mr. Bright, Mr. Gladstone, the Hemperor of the French, and he expressed a great desire to see 'Purty Bill;' so here we are."

The hideous vagabond seemed touched by this piece of insidious flattery, and said in a modified tone:

"Oh, well, that's fair enough. I don't hask hanything better. But ye see I thought you might ha' wanted some of my lodgers, and so many of them have been done for lately that they are getting suspicious of my honesty, and I have to be careful. Come this way," and he held the half-penny candle over his head, which gave me a chance to observe him. The man was about six feet two inches in height, and much in form of shoulders like an ox, with loins like a prize-fighter. The face was pitted terribly with small-pox, his entire face was seared, and even the corners of his eyebrows seemed eaten away by the awful disease. Hence his name of "Purty Bill." His eyes were of a greenish blue, and his attire was that of a costermonger; a smock of canvass, and knee breeches and huge shoes, whose heavy nails made rapid incisions in the clay floor of the long, dark passage through which we had to pass until we came to still another door. This door was not a door; in fact it was only a few planks strongly nailed together, and was not more than four feet high, so that we were all compelled, as "Purty Bill" lifted the latch, to put our feet in first, and making half circles of our bodies, we entered, and after descending three or four flagged steps we were at last in the cellar and establishment proper over which "Purty Bill" claimed a proprietary interest.

It was one of the strangest sights I ever saw--the interior of this Wild Beast's Den. It was a huge cellar formerly used as a brewery, of perhaps a hundred by seventy-five feet in dimension.

The ceiling, or, rather, the rough, unplaned beams which supported the roof above us, gave an appearance of great strength to the place. There was a large fireplace in the center of the cellar, around which fifty or sixty persons sat, of all ages and of both sexes. The floor was of damp clay, smooth and trodden by the feet of countless thieves, vagabonds, and prostitutes. The corners of the cellar were buried in darkness, while the center of the cavern, near the fireplace, was bright with the flames of a fire of logs, which threw a flickering light on the wooden beams, the broken chairs and stools, the pewter pots in the hands of the lodgers, and on many faces stained with dirt and ploughed up with crime and misery. There were thirty or forty berths roughly constructed as they are in the emigrant steerage of a Liverpool packet, and a heap of dirty straw in each indicated that they were used as beds by the occupants of the apartments. There was a large black pot hanging from a big hook, which depended from the brick chimney, and from this pot came a steaming odor of soup, or stew of some kind. The majority of the lodgers were sitting on the bare ground, which was dry and hardened near the fire, while at a distance from its flame the ground was rather damp and the lodgers sat on broken stools or on ragged pieces of matting, broken pieces of willow ware, logs of wood, bundles of rags, or any other article, or articles, that were convertible into seats for the time being.

[Sidenote: "WONT YOU TAKE SOMETHING?"]

The room was lighted by four or five candles, which were stuck in glass bottles, the bottles being fastened to the joists which supported the berths in which the lodgers slept. The people nearest the fire had fragments of food in their hands and were evidently preparing for a grand midnight feast. Some of them were peeling potatoes, and one old fellow with rheumy eyes had a piece of bacon of five or six pounds weight between his crossed knees on a board, which he was cutting into small square lumps, and as he hacked a piece off he threw it at random into the large pot. A young girl was engaged in carving a huge cabbage-head, and her assistant was scraping carrots and parsnips. Every one seemed interested about the pot, and every one seemed to have some contribution for the feast, which I found was a co-operative one.

"Purty Bill" bustled about and found two broken stools for myself and conductor, and placed them near the fire, saying in a hospitable way:

"Gent's, this ere night is werry wet, and you might as well dry yourselves. Sit up nearer the fire. Won't ye take somethink?" and he put his huge paws on the detectives knee in a friendly way. "This is agoin to be a topper of a meal to-night, and all of us will welcome ye gents to our 'umble board. So make yerselves at 'ome, and peck a bit when it's biled."

"Wot's the idea of getting up this cram at this time of the morning, Bill? It's near two o'clock. Won't it interfere with yer lodgers' precious digestion?"

"Hinterfere with it? Wot, vith one of my lodgers? Rayther! No. Vy there's Kicking Billy as heats six blessed meals a day, and then he's all the time a lookin' for sangwiches and pigs trotters a-tween meals. Urt their digestion hindeed? Vy they 'av got stomax like them ere hanimals wot performs at Hastleys. You knows Slap-Up Peter. You used to be a stone swallower in the purfession," and the proprietor touched a man who was squatted on his haunches, smoking a dirty stump of clay pipe, with his foot. Slap-Up Peter drew the pipe out of his mouth, shook the ashes from it, dusted the venerable relic with a greasy red handkerchief, carefully placed it in his breeches pocket, and said:

"Vy don't ye keep yer big feet to yerself? Wot hanimals do you mean? Do you mean cammomiles?"

"Yes, them hanimals vith the 'umps on their hugly backs. You see, sir, Slap-Up Peter has had a good eddycation in his time, and he knows the names of the hanimals, 'cos he used to travel with the circus afore he went on the tramp to swallow stones and snakes."

"Peter," said the detective, "you must 'ave quite an 'istry. Could you tell us somethink about your past life, my boy?"

Slap-Up Peter had a melancholy face. The skin was tanned, the eyes large, black, and bulging, and the nose like a hawk's. His clothes were worn and greasy; his face was gaunt, and when he moved his body the bones seemed to creak and grate as if they had been joined together by metallic hinges. There was something mournful about the man--some queer story attached to him, I felt.

[Sidenote: PETER AND JUDY.]

"Tell ye me 'istry, is it? Vell, I don't mind if I do; but them as hears my story mout give me somethink to drink first, for I ham werry dry. I lost my woice speaking on the Histablished Church bill tother night in Parlymint, and I've been 'oarse hever since."

"Well, take a drop, Peter," said Kicking Billy, a one-eyed and one-legged, and rascally looking fellow, who sat with his crutches between his knees, toasting his shin at the fire, and he handed a bottle to Slap-Up Peter, who took it without saying a word, and lifting it to his mouth, took a deep, deep draught without winking.

"Look at that fellow that they call Kicking Billy--the one-legged fellow, I mean," said the detective to me. "He's a returned burglar, that fellow, and has served fourteen years. This place is full of thieves. They are nearly all thieves, and this is a thieves feast," he whispered in my ear.

"My name is Peter Wilson, and I've been in the show business for sixteen years, come Christmas, man and boy. I'm thirty-eight years of age now, and they called me Slap-Up Peter when I fust began jumpin', as a hacrobat in the penny gaffs. Cos wy, I had a way of turnin' myself over a chair and coming back-handed on a somerset that used to take well, but now so many does it that the haudience don't mind it a bit. I jumped for four years, and wos counted pretty good in my line until I dislocated my wrist a doin' of the Pyramids of Hegypt, and then I vos laid hup and couldn't jump for six months and hover; so I thought I'd leave the bus'ness and happear in another character. I got married to--"

"More fool you," said Kicking Billy, sententiously, taking a drink.

"Well, hit didn't cost you nothing, no more than it did for the government to support you in Botany Bay for fourteen years. So you needn't hinterrupt me again."

"Go hon, Peter, and never mind him, its only 'is chaff."

"Well, as I wos saying," continued Slap-Up Peter, "I got married, and maybe it was rayther foolish, for when we were spliced, Judy and I--she wos an Irish gal and a good worker--we went into our cash account and found that we had only one pun six shillings and height pence, not a blessed brown more. I said to Judy--she wor a good gal--

"Judy, we can't keep 'ause on twenty-six shillings capital, that's shure. That's all our fortune in silver and gold, and it won't last long. So wot will we do?"

"'Well, Peter,' said she, 'I didn't marry you for the dirty money; I married you cos' you were sich a good jumper and hacrobat, and I'll stick to you now when you can't jump any more;' for you see, Billy, my wrist was two years afore it got well."

"'Let us pad the hoof together,' said Judy, 'and we'll do the best we can. Let us two work the southern counties and we'll get long French or Hitalyan names, and we'll pick up a shillin here and there.' Cos you see," said Peter, "Judy had been born and bred in Shoreditch, and she knew all the wandering play-actors and showmen, and she wor hup to all their affs. So I next came out as 'Signor Hokenfokos, the fiery salamander of Naples, and my wife, the Baroness Padila, who had to leave her country on account of the wiolent love vich the king's son would persist in making hup to her, and she had to leave all her property, to the amount of six millions, behind her.' This was a good lay and we made from three to eight shillings a day down in Devonshire and Cornwall, wherever we could get a crowd together. I used to swaller hot iron bars, pokers, and red hot coals, and my wife used to play the hurdy-gurdy while I was swallerin' the hot coals. I improved at this werry much in two years, and then, after I had vorked the hot coals out, Judy said to me one day:

"'Peter, why don't you try and swaller snakes and swords? They are better than coals, and not so dangerous.'"

[Sidenote: SNAKE SWALLOWING.]

"'Yes, but I don't know how,' I said, 'and I don't like snakes at all, they are so precious slimy.' You see sir, even then I didn' know what it was to get used to a thing. Well, I commenced to swallow knives at first, and I had to oil them--that's the trick you see--with sweet oil as good as I could find at eighteen pence a pint, and I had to rub this on with a piece of shammy cloth. This oil lets the knife down easily, and when I wos well drilled there wos no danger at all--only I had to be sober. My swallow was hawful bad with the hirritation for two months, but I got over that; for when I felt my throat sore I took sugar and lemon juice, and gorgled my throat and that took the soreness away."

"Tell us about the snakes, Peter," said Purty Bill. "That's a good story, sir," to the author.

"Ah! that was the most unlikely thing I hever took to. It went aginst my stomach hawful to swaller the snakes at first, and I don't believe I'd ever have done it if it hadn't been for Judy, who said to me, when I kicked agin it,--

"'Wot difference does it make, Peter, whether you swallow red hot coals or snakes? The snakes has their stings all taken out, and its nothing more than swallowin' a sausage or pork saveloy.'"

"Well, I went at it with a very bad 'art, and my old woman used to play 'Boney's March Across the Halps,' and the 'Death of Nelson,' whenever I swallowed a snake. You see I generally took a snake about fourteen or fifteen inches, or maybe a foot and a half long. The sting is out, you know, and I takes the head and puts the snake in, and if he doesn't go down why I pinches his tail, and then he rolls down the throat. It made me sea-sick at first, and the people in Sussex thought I was the devil out and out, and a good many hexamined my feet, which were in tights, to see if I had cloven feet. A goodish lot of people thinks that the snake goes entirely down the throat, but it stands to reason that the snake is more frightened than the man, and he does not go down, and hif he did he would be glad to come up, I can tell you."

"Don't you put somethink in your throat," said a boy of fourteen, who was known among the confraternity as 'Teddy the Kinchin;' "I mean, to make the snake sick if he'd go too far."

[Sidenote: SLAP-UP-PETER'S SONG.]

"No, that's no use at all; you see he doesn't go hall the way down. He is afraid, is the snake, and if you cough he'll come up and draw himself up and coil in a bunch in your mouth. But the duffers who pay their money think that the snake is in your stomach. It stands to reason that he'd get sick. It makes a man retch, and the first snake I swallowed I threw up and had awful vomits, but the next one I rather relished it, and it did me a sight o' good, like an oyster does after ye 'ave been drinkin at night and take's tuppence worth of natives in the morning. Well, when I began snake-swallowing it was rather new, and I had it all my own way for a long time, but finally, lots of men began to swallow snakes, and coal swallowing was not as good as it used to be; so I took to ballad singing, Judy and I. By this time we had sixty pounds saved, and we were doing well, but I made the acquaintance of a lot of Doncaster men, who knew I had the money, and before I could say 'Jack Robinson,' the money was all gone. Judy was in her confinement then, and she took on so bad about it that she died in child-bed, and the kid as well, and I've been on the tramp ever since, and now I do an odd turn at anything that turns up, but mostly I sing ballads, and make sometimes a shilling a day, and sometimes eightpence and ninepence a day. Times have changed for me. Worse luck."

Here the snake-swallower's story ended.

"Slap-Up Peter, will you give us a song? and I'll give you a drink, me oul wiper," said the crippled Kicking Billy to the snake-swallower.

"Well, Billy, I don't mind if I do," said Slap-Up Peter, draining the tin skillet to the last greasy drop.

The thieves, loafers, and women gathered around the fire in a half circle, and Purty Bill heaped logs very liberally, while Slap-Up Peter chanted in a hoarse voice the song, an extract of which I give below, as near as I remember it with my recollections of the scene, the choking smoke, the blazing fire, and the band of outcasts and outlaws in the den in Whitechapel:

'Twas down in Whitechapel that once I used to dwell, And of all the coves that knocked about, I was the greatest swell, My highlows were the cheese, with breeches to the knees, Oh, my toggery was quite correct--my coat was Irish frieze, My togs from Bond street came, it's a nobby slap-up street, In a fashionable locality--the swells the girls there meet; Nicol's my man for shirts, with his I cut a shine, His shop's in far famed Regent street, he's a pal-o'-mine. Rum too-rul-um, Happy-go-Bill, Inyuns and greens who'll buy, Rum too-rul-um, Happy-go-Bill, Inyuns and greens who'll buy.

"That's a fine melojous voice of yours," said Purty Bill to the singer.

"He's used to it," said one of the women.

Here's Spuds at Thrums a pound, they're prime 'uns as I've found, Oh, I've Reds and Dukes and Flukes and Blues, I sells in going my round. My greens are superfine, full blown and hearty are mine, Oh, come make a deal with me, my dear; don't wait, you'll find 'em prime. My inyuns now are new, you'll find what I says is true, In fact, the Queen, since these she's seen has cartloads just a few; My carrots are long and red, you'll find they're well bred, My vegetables are the cheese, bunch for you--penny-a-head. Rum too-rul-um, &c.

"Now give us the last werse with all the 'armony," said Teddy the Kinchin, in a piping voice.

"I vill, vith moosh plesh-yar, as the Frenchman said," returned Slap-Up Peter.

Jerry, my moke's a bird, of him perhaps you've heard, He knows his way about, he does, to match him's quite absurd; Just see him cock his eye when grub time's getting nigh, He likes his feed, he does indeed, he lives on cabbage-pie. Now any girl that's kind, and a husband wants to find, I'm ready made and so's my trade, that's if I'm to her mind; So down to Whitechapel we'll trudge again to dwell, And of all the coves that knock about I'll be the greatest swell. Rum too-rul-um, &c.

"That's wot I call a topper of a song. It's so werry sentimental that it makes a gal peep. The lines are werry touchin'," said a young gal of sixteen or seventeen years of age, who was not badly dressed nor bad-looking, and who went by the name of "Bilking Bet." She was a favorite, and several of them called upon her to sing. She had just the same mock modesty, this young woman with the brassy face, as if she had been a fashionable lady at the West End, with a jointure and a coach and six.

"Wot's that young gal's name, Bill," said the detective to the boss of the thieves.

He did not seem inclined to tell at first, but said sullenly, "you don't want her do you? No? Well then that's 'Bilking Bet,' she used to be a 'coster gal but now she's on the cross."

"Oho!" said Serjeant Moss, "that's the gal as was hup before Mr. Knox at Marlboro street the other morning for snatching a lady's purse in a push."

"Yes," said Purty Bill, "but there was no proof aginst the gal. She was brought out has hinnocent as the new-born baby. She wor."

[Sidenote: THE COSTER GAL.]

"Of course, Bill, you had that done and cooked. One of those nice little halybi's as you halways 'ave ready just to suit your customers. 'Bilking Bet' was down in Wales a waitin upon her poor sick mother, who was down with the scarlet fever, and not expected to live. My Heye? Eh, Bill, one of your old tricks? But, I say, Bill, don't you get ketched, cos its over the water to Charly with ye hif I ketch ye."

This conversation was carried on in the corner of the room, from which we could see that the group around the fire were preparing to hear a song from "Bilking Bet," who cleared her throat twice with a pull at a gin bottle--no glasses here to annoy a person--and began, in a mellow and not unpleasing voice, the following slang song which is common among the London costermongers, but is seldom heard among the thieves. The song, no doubt, she owed to her early costermonger associations, before she became a pickpocket. She was now one of the most expert in London, and was the kept mistress of a well known burglar, who had, two days before I saw her, broken open a tea shop in the Old Bailey, near Ludgate Hill.

The song was as follows:

"THE COSTER' GAL."

Some chaps they talk of damsels fine, Being angels bright and fair, But they should only see my girl, She is beyond compare, She is the finest girl that's out, Her name is Dinah Denny, When you are out you'll hear her shout "New Walnuts, twelve a penny!"

Chorus.--S'help me never none so clever, As my Dinah Denny, Can shout about, all round about "New Walnuts, twelve a penny."

Her voice is like a dove, And bright is her black eye, I think she does me truly love, She looks at me so sly. She sports the smartest side spring boots, Eclipse her cannot many, And shows feet small, while she does call "New Walnuts, twelve a penny."

Chorus, &c.

Rich noblemen may dress their wives In silk or satin dress, But Dinah I like quite as well In her Manchester print, "Express," We're going to be wed, and then If offspring we have many, We'll be nuts on, and christen them "New Walnuts, twelve a penny."

Chorus, &c.

"Now I think that's werry neat and happropriate to the hoccasion," said a cockney lodger who had successfully begged two-pence from the detective to pay for his lodging, which he handed over to "Purty Bill" as soon as he got the pennies.

"I moves we put Bilking Bet in the cheer? Wot dye say, gentlemen and ladies hall, to the proposition?"

"Hall right. Bet take the cheer and give us some of yer 'Ouse of Commons."

"Bilking Bet" was escorted to the middle of the group, placed standing on a three-legged stool without any visible back, and assuming as stately an air as she was capable of, the young girl, with the most perfect sang froid, began:

[Sidenote: "TEDDY THE KINCHIN'S SONG."]

"Me lords and gentlemen, and likewise the ladies. Me noble pickpockets, gonoffs, blokes, and pinchers. I am with you this hevening, for what purpose, I hask? FOR WOT PURPOSE I HASK? Why, to be present at the feast which takes place hannerally among the members of our noble purfession--shall I say dignified purfession? No; I won't."

"But ye have said it, Bet," said Kicking Billy.

"Hear! hear! Shut up, will ye, and let the gal tork," said Slap-Up Peter.

"Well," said Bet, broken down in her attempt at a speech, "I move that we have a song from 'Teddy the Kinchin.' Will he hoblige?"

"He will! he will!" said a dozen voices.

"I am sorry, me blokes, that my woice is so werry much out of tune in singing at Her Majesty's Hopera in the Haymarket, but howsumbever, as I have given hup my hengagement at that 'ouse, I'll fake you a few werses to show wot I wonce wos when I wos in woice," said this cheerful young blackguard and thief, who had a pair of eyes like a ferret, and could not have been more than seventeen years of age, as he stood there dressed in the height of his idea of the fashion, with a flashy velvet coat and satin scarf, showing a huge pin. He sang, after clearing his throat with a long drink of gin, as follows:

"TEDDY THE KINCHIN'S SONG."

I am a curious comical cove Everybody does own O, Hey ricketty Barlow, Cock-a-doodle-do! I was born one day when father was out, And mother she wasn't at home O, Hey ricketty Barlow, &c. I went to school and played the fool, At learning was a shy man. Hey ricketty Barlow, &c. The boys they used to hollo out, "There goes a Simple Simon!" Hey ricketty Barlow, &c. Oh lor! oh my! I'm a Simple Simon, Oh lor! oh my! cock-a-doodle-do! Where ere I go the folks they know, And call me "Simple Simon;" Hey ricketty Barlow, &c.

"Haltogether, please," said the Kinchin.

I used to "kick" the cobbler out, And rip up people's pockets, Hey ricketty Barlow, &c. And I was very fond of throwing stones And lumps of mud at coppers, Hey ricketty Barlow, &c. But now I'm going to settle down, Won't I cut a shine O, Hey ricketty Barlow, &c. I'll marry a gal with lots of Tin, And won't I spend her rhino, Hey ricketty Barlow, &c. Oh lor! oh my! &c.

"Now, once more, and a good haltogether please," and the young pickpocket sat down amid thunders of applause from every one in the cellar belonging to the band of thieves.

[Sidenote: TEDDY THE KINCHIN.]

The thieves stew was now declared ready for consumption by the _chef de cuisine_, and as I at least felt no appetite for such a rich dish, we left this underground den of infamy just as a few faint streaks of the coming dawn began to gild the spire of St. Boldolph's ancient church.

"That Purty Bill is one of the greatest scoundrels in London. He is a fence, and we've got him once or twice, but he minds himself now, and we are after his tricks every day. His cellar used to be a brewery, that's why he's got so much room underground, and his game is to let out lodgings, at two pence a night, for a blind, and then they can stay all day at this place until twelve o'clock at night, and if they cannot pay sure for the next night's lodging in advance, unless they are in very good circumstances, he clubs them out, and they have got to pad the hoof until daybreak, and sleep where they can. Good night." And we parted for that twenty-four hours.