CHAPTER XXXVIII.

THE HISTORY OF JACOB SMITH.

"My earliest recollections are associated with the occupation of playing all day long in the streets, in company with other infants. This was in Upper Whitecross Street, St. Luke's; where I and those other children lived with a woman, who pretended to keep a boarding-school at which she received children to live with her altogether for one shilling and eightpence a-week each: but she used to turn us all out early in the morning with a piece of hard mouldy bread to nibble for our breakfast, and fetch us home again when it grew dusk in the evening. She would then give us each another piece of bread for supper, and we went to bed. But what a bed! A few old sacks thrown over a heap of straw in a little room about six feet long by four and a half in width, served upwards of a dozen children as a sleeping-room. There we used to cry ourselves to rest, famished with insufficiency of food—and awake again in the morning to undergo fresh privations.

"I said there were about twelve of us under the care of this Mother Maggs—as she was called. They chiefly belonged to very poor parents, who were engaged all day long at work, and were therefore glad to get rid of their children, who would otherwise only be an encumbrance to them. Some few were, however, the illegitimate offspring of poor servant-girls in place; but nearly all had parents who came to see them from time to time and perhaps gave them a few pence. I was not, however, so fortunate as the rest; for no one ever came to see me—at least that I was aware of—until I was about nine years old; and I heard that the twenty-pence a-week allowed for my board and lodging, was left regularly for Mother Maggs at the neighbouring chandler's shop every Saturday morning. Mother Maggs seemed to think that I had really no friends—for, though she bullied us all pretty well, she bullied _me_ ten thousand times more than the rest.

"The habit of turning a dozen little children, some of whom were only just able to walk, into the street in the way I have described, was not likely to be always unattended with disagreeable consequences. Sometimes a child was run over, and either severely wounded or killed. In the latter case, no Coroner's Inquest ever sate on the body: the exposure of Mother Maggs's neglect towards us, would have drawn the attention of the parochial authorities towards her. But when a death happened in that way, the old woman used to put the body into a sack and carry it some distance into the country, where she would sink it in a pond or ditch. Often, however, the corpse of a dead child has been allowed to remain in our room till it was quite putrid, Mother Maggs not having time or inclination to remove it before. And, on those occasions, we _who were alive in that room_ were so frightened to be with the dead body in the dark, that we shrieked and screamed till the noise reached the old woman's ears in the public-house next door; and so savage was she at being disturbed in her gin and her gossip, that she has half murdered us by way of making us hold our tongues!

"Sometimes a child was lost; and if the parents, on being informed of it, expressed regret or anger, Mother Maggs would take some trouble to find it again: if not, she did not put herself out of the way respecting the matter. In addition to her boarding-house for children, she let out lodgings to persons of either sex; and, as she was not particular so long as she got paid, her house was nothing more or less than a common brothel. She was always saying she had no time to do any thing which ought to be done: and if being all day in the public-house was a necessary duty, she certainly had no time for other purposes. Though not often tipsy, she was never actually sober—but in a constant state of muzziness. Liquor did not improve her temper: on the contrary it made her irritable—sometimes ferocious; and I have seen her fight with other women until her face was covered with long seams made by the finger-nails, and pouring with blood.

"You cannot suppose that _all_ these things which I have just told you or that I am going to tell you directly, in connexion with Mother Maggs's establishment, were noticed or understood by me when I was quite a child there: but you must remember that I stayed at that den until I was nine, and in the course of those years all I saw made a deep impression on my mind; and what was then dark and unintelligible to me, has since been made clear and plain by experience and by reflection on those scenes and circumstances.

"You will wonder how my wretched companions and myself managed to live, since we only had a piece of bread each, night and morning. We kept body and soul together in a variety of ways, chiefly feeding, like swine, upon all the offal and remnants of vegetables, cooked or raw, that we found in the street. There was a dust-bin in the court where Mother Maggs's house was in Whitecross Street; and every day, just upon one o'clock, we used to crowd round it, waiting till the neighbours came to empty their potato-peelings or the refuse of their meals into that general receptacle. Then we would greedily appropriate to our use the scraps which not even the very poorest of the poor chose to eat. The potato-peelings (most poor families skin their potatoes after they are boiled) were quite a dainty to us: the heads and bones of fish and such-like refuse were also welcome to our empty stomachs. Then we were accustomed to go prowling about the street to snatch a slice of raw bacon or a bit of cheese from the board in front of a butter-shop; or steal a turnip or a carrot from an old woman's stall; or else lay unlawful hands upon the horses' flesh in the cats'-meat shops. This last article of food was much fancied by us. It was comparatively easy to steal; and when we did get such a prize as a large lump of carrion, with a stick thrust through it, we felt as happy for the time being as if we had found a treasure. Then we used to conceal ourselves in some dark court, and take a bite round—each in his turn—until it was all gone. I am afraid I disgust you with these details; but you desired me to tell my story in my own way—and I want you to understand the dreadful mode of life which thousands of poor children lead in the wealthiest city in the world. I am sure, when I have thought of it all since, and when I see little boys and girls paddling in that neglected manner about the streets, my blood runs cold at the idea that while some human beings are riding in their carriages and living in palaces, others are prowling in the low neighbourhoods, happy if they can steal a lump of putrid carrion!

"You may next ask what we did for clothes—it being very clear that Mother Maggs could not supply us with wearing apparel out of twenty-pence a-week. Well—the fact is we scarcely had any clothes on at all. As for a cap or shoes and stockings, I declare solemnly I never wore any one of those articles from the earliest period of my recollection until I was nine years old. A little ragged frock, and that was all: yes, that was all—summer or winter! But where did even the ragged frock come from? I really hardly know: I am at a loss to say exactly how we did get even that one garment each. Sometimes a child would be taken away by its parents, who might, perhaps, bring it some decent clothing: then the cast-off rags in this case would fall to the lot of the most ragged of those who were left behind. Now and then a slop-seller in the neighbourhood would give one of us some old frock which was useless to himself: and occasionally we would steal one, when we could. You may ask me why we did not steal shoes also? So we did, if an opportunity served: but then we could do without shoes, and the eldest of the lot of us was on those occasions commissioned to sell the plunder at a rag-shop, to afford means to buy a little better food than usually fell in our way. These occurrences were, however, rare—so rare, that they constituted perfect holidays in the hideous monotony of our famished lives;—for the shopkeepers in poor neighbourhoods are constantly on the alert to watch the movements of the juvenile prowlers.

"The ages of the children under the care of Mother Maggs averaged from three to ten; and the eldest of course bullied the youngest, while Mrs. Maggs bullied us all. Misery did not make us little ones friendly together. On the contrary, we fought, quarrelled, and ill-treated each other as much as we could. I must relate to you one anecdote—although I now shudder when I think of it, and have often since shed tears of repentance. There was one boy, named Tib Tucker, about eight years old, who used to behave in a more merciless manner towards me than the rest