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sherlock60This week, the canon story we’re looking at is The Man with the Twisted Lip and the chosen topic is Begging.
A few facts:
◯ Not only was begging illegal under the Vagrancy Act of 1824 but it was considered a disgraceful act, publicly parading poverty on the street. [Georgina Laragy]
◯ MENDICITY SOCIETY, Office, 13, RED LION SQUARE. The society gives meals and money, supplies mill and other work to applicants, investigates begging-letter cases, and apprehends vagrants and impostors. Each meal consists of ten ounces of bread, and one pint of good soup, or a quarter of a pound of cheese. The affairs of the Society are administered by a Board of forty-eight managers. The Mendicity Society's tickets, given to a street beggar, will procure for him, if really necessitous, food and work. They are a touch-stone to impostures: the beggar by profession throws them aside. This meritorious Society deserves every encouragement. Tickets are furnished to subscribers. [Peter Cunningham, Hand-Book of London, 1850, on The Dictionary of Victorian London]
◯ Excerpt from Charles Dickens (Jr.), Dickens's Dictionary of London, 1879:
...the Society for the Suppression of Mendicity.., which has been established upwards of 6o years, has its office in Red Lion-square, Holborn, where the secretary may be addressed. The plan of the society is stated in its retort to be the issue of printed tickets to be given to street beggars instead of money; which tickets refer them to the society’s office where their cases are investigated and disposed of according to circumstances. Relief in money, blankets, clothing, &c., is afforded to applicants who, upon investigation, are proved to be deserving. The society is in constant communication with the several metropolitan parishes, hospitals, dispensaries, &c. with a view to provide for necessitous and afflicted persons; whilst the managers also have it in their power to offer suitable employment at the society’s labour premises to every able-bodied mendicant referred to the office. [The Dictionary of Victorian London]
◯ Henry Mayhew’s classification of beggars:
Of the beggars there are many distinct species. (1.) The naval and the military beggars; as turnpike sailors and "raw" veterans [i.e. fakes]. (2.) Distressed operative beggars; as pretended starved-out manufacturers, or sham frozen-out gardeners, or tricky hand-loom weavers, &c. (3.) Respectable beggars; as sham broken-down tradesmen, poor ushers or distressed authors, clean family beggars, with children in very white pinafores and their faces cleanly washed, and the ashamed beggars, who pretend to hide their faces with a written petition. (4.) Disaster beggars; as shipwrecked mariners, or blown-up miners, or burnt-out tradesmen, and lucifer droppers. (5.) Bodily afflicted beggars; such as those having real or pretended sores or swollen legs, or being crippled or deformed, maimed, or paralyzed, or else being blind, or deaf, or dumb, or subject to fits, or in a decline and appearing with bandages round the head, or playing the "shallow cove," i. e., appearing half-clad in the streets. (6.) Famished beggars; as those who chalk on the pavement, "I am starving," or else remain stationary, and hold up a piece of paper before their face similarly inscribed. (7.) Foreign beggars, who stop you in the street, and request to know if you can speak French; or destitute Poles, Indians, or Lascars, or Negroes. (8.) Petty trading beggars; as tract sellers, lucifer match sellers, boot lace venders, &c. (9.) Musical beggars; or those who play on some musical instrument, as a cloak for begging-as scraping fiddlers, hurdy-gurdy and clarionet players. (10.) Dependents of beggars; as screevers or the writers of "slums" (letters) and "fakements" (petitions), and referees, or those who give characters to professional beggars. [The Criminal Prisons of London and Scenes of London Life (The Great World of London), by Henry Mayhew and John Binny, 1862]
◯ ...the most effective beggars described in [an excerpt from Henry Mayhew’s Those That Will Not Work, the Fourth Volume of London Labour and The London Poor (London: 1862)] pretend to be the "deserving" poor. The Victorians, both as a matter of law and social attitude, separated the poor into two classes, the "deserving" and "undeserving." The deserving poor include anyone thrown out of work or into financial straights [sic] by events beyond his or her control -- elimination of a job, illness or old age, etc. The undeserving poor were made up of that class of people who declined to work, and made a perceived effort to live off the county dole or by conning honest folk, or who were ill or disabled due to their own folly -- such as by being a drunkard, or catching a social disease. [Roger H. Gray]
◯ ...uncertain employment destroys all habits of prudence; and where there is no prudence, the present affluence cannot be made to provide for the future want. Since it is the very necessity of those who depend upon their daily work for their daily food, that if such work is not to be obtained, they must be either paupers, beggars, or thieves, it cannot be wondered at that the great majority of the population round about the port of London, where work is of such a precarious nature, should consist principally of these three classes. [The Morning Chronicle : Labour and the Poor, 1849-50; Henry Mayhew - Letter IV, Tuesday, October 30, 1849]
◯ First, of the Beggars. Throughout my investigation I have observed one unfailing characteristic of this class. The dull vagrant boy - vagrant from choice, necessity, tyranny, or example, sinks into the mere beggar; the acuter and more daring lad, step by step, becomes the expert thief. The beggars I conversed with - the mere beggars - were silly, dull fellows, some of them utterly ignorant of the tricks and "lurks [schemes] resorted to by their brethren. They were what their sharp half-brothers, and thieves, would call "soft." Some beggars were really half fools, and even some who practised all the tricks of the trade did it as a part acquired by rote. The "lurks are clearly originated by the acuter class, who do not confine themselves to begging. Among the thieves was every degree of acuteness, from the sharpness of mere cunning to the full development of astute roguery in educated men. The beggars, as a class, are generally unable to read and write, but the thieves are not only more intelligent, but better educated. [The Morning Chronicle : Labour and the Poor, 1849-50; Henry Mayhew - Letter XXXI, Thursday, January 31, 1850]
◯ The pull of the asylum and the workhouse was strong, but many thousands of [Victorian] people with disabilities stayed in their communities. The social investigator Henry Mayhew (1812-1887) described the disabled beggars of the London streets in 1862, including the "idiotic looking youth… shaking in every limb" and the "crab-like man without legs strapped to a board (who) walks upon his hands". [Historic England]
◯ Extract from the Illustrated London News, December 1848:
At a period of feasts, when the paupers in the Union Workhouses are embraced in the large circle of our sympathies, and cared for a little more liberally than usual, let us draw a circle around the circle, and include within it the beggars in the streets.
It may be wrong, as a rule, to encourage street beggars by donations of any kind; but Christmas is an exceptional period and though, possibly, in being charitable to all we may be charitable to many worthless persons, the good Will and good Day will consecrate the deed. [The Scrap Album]
◯ ‘I do not mean that any beggar in the streets of London could earn £700 a year – which is less than my average takings – but I had exceptional advantages in my power of making up, and also in a facility of repartee, which improved by practice and made me quite a recognised character in the City. All day a stream of pennies, varied by silver, poured in upon me, and it was a very bad day in which I failed to take two pounds.’
The remarkable tale of the man with the twisted lip is an interesting glimpse into perceptions of poverty in Victorian London. While marvelling at the explanation, neither Watson as narrator nor any other character present, questions its validity. Are we, the twenty-first century reader, then meant to infer that it was possible for a beggar to make this amount of money in 1890s London? [Georgina Laragy]
◯ A large sum to be made by two beggars in one week is one pound, or 10 shillings a piece - one for looking out [‘give warning when the policeman is approaching’], and one for "standing shallow" [that is to say, to stand with very little clothing on, shivering and shaking, sometimes with bandages round his legs, and sometimes with his arm in a sling]. The average earnings of such persons are certainly below eight shillings per week. If the report of the constabulary force commissioners states that 20 shillings per week is the average sum earned, I am told, the statement must have been furnished by parties who had either some object in over-rating the amount, or else who had no means of obtaining correct information on the subject. From all my informant has seen as to the earnings of those who make a trade of picking pockets and begging, he is convinced that the amount is far below what is generally believed to be the case. [The Morning Chronicle : Labour and the Poor, 1849-50; Henry Mayhew - Letter V, Friday, November 2, 1849]
Some useful resources:
The Dictionary of Victorian London Main index. Click on ‘Crime’ and then on ‘Beggars and Vagrants’.
Beggars On The Dictionary of Victorian London.
"Beggars & Cheats" - A Victorian Guide to Those That Will Not Work Extracts from Henry Mayhew's Those That Will Not Work, the Fourth Volume of London Labour and The London Poor (London: 1862), on Euro Docs.
A Dictionary of Victorian London: An A-Z of the Great Metropolis By Lee Jackson. A review page on Google Books.
Sherlock Holmes and the story of the rich beggar By Georgina Laragy, on Poverty and Public Health in Belfast. A brief look at TWIS itself.
1873-1877: Street Life in London By Alex Q. Arbuckle, on Mashable. Collection of Victorian photographs: From 1873 to 1877, Scottish photographer John Thomson collaborated with journalist Adolphe Smith to document the lives of London’s urban poor…
The Daily Life of Disabled People in Victorian England On Historic England.
146: Victorian reports of crime as a source on minorities By Jeffrey Green.
Boxing Day On The Scrap Album.
Dickens and the ‘Criminal Class’ By Dr Patrica Pulham & Dr Brad Beaven, on The University of Portsmouth’s website.
Vagrancy Act 1824 On Wikipedia.
Professional Beggars in London An extract from the novel The Mysteries of London by G. W. M. Reynolds, on The Victorian Web.
Philanthropy in Victorian Hastings By Helena Wojtczak, on The Victorian Web.
The Street Beggar From Sketches of London Life and Character, by Albert Smith et. al., [1849], on The Victorian Web.
The working classes and the poor By Liza Picard, on The British Library website.
Slums and Slumming in Late-Victorian London By Dr Andrzej Diniejko, D. Litt.; Contributing Editor, Poland, on The Victorian Web.
Devil’s Acre On Wikipedia.
English Poor Laws On Wikipedia.
1834 Poor Law On The National Archives.
Please feel free to discuss this topic in the comments.
Please also feel free to comment about the canon story itself or any related aspects outside this week’s theme. For example, any reactions, thoughts, theories, fic recs, favourite adaptations of the canon story… Or any other contribution you wish to make. And if you have any suggestions for fic prompts springing from this week's story, please feel free to share those in the comments as well.
A few facts:
◯ Not only was begging illegal under the Vagrancy Act of 1824 but it was considered a disgraceful act, publicly parading poverty on the street. [Georgina Laragy]
◯ MENDICITY SOCIETY, Office, 13, RED LION SQUARE. The society gives meals and money, supplies mill and other work to applicants, investigates begging-letter cases, and apprehends vagrants and impostors. Each meal consists of ten ounces of bread, and one pint of good soup, or a quarter of a pound of cheese. The affairs of the Society are administered by a Board of forty-eight managers. The Mendicity Society's tickets, given to a street beggar, will procure for him, if really necessitous, food and work. They are a touch-stone to impostures: the beggar by profession throws them aside. This meritorious Society deserves every encouragement. Tickets are furnished to subscribers. [Peter Cunningham, Hand-Book of London, 1850, on The Dictionary of Victorian London]
◯ Excerpt from Charles Dickens (Jr.), Dickens's Dictionary of London, 1879:
...the Society for the Suppression of Mendicity.., which has been established upwards of 6o years, has its office in Red Lion-square, Holborn, where the secretary may be addressed. The plan of the society is stated in its retort to be the issue of printed tickets to be given to street beggars instead of money; which tickets refer them to the society’s office where their cases are investigated and disposed of according to circumstances. Relief in money, blankets, clothing, &c., is afforded to applicants who, upon investigation, are proved to be deserving. The society is in constant communication with the several metropolitan parishes, hospitals, dispensaries, &c. with a view to provide for necessitous and afflicted persons; whilst the managers also have it in their power to offer suitable employment at the society’s labour premises to every able-bodied mendicant referred to the office. [The Dictionary of Victorian London]
◯ Henry Mayhew’s classification of beggars:
Of the beggars there are many distinct species. (1.) The naval and the military beggars; as turnpike sailors and "raw" veterans [i.e. fakes]. (2.) Distressed operative beggars; as pretended starved-out manufacturers, or sham frozen-out gardeners, or tricky hand-loom weavers, &c. (3.) Respectable beggars; as sham broken-down tradesmen, poor ushers or distressed authors, clean family beggars, with children in very white pinafores and their faces cleanly washed, and the ashamed beggars, who pretend to hide their faces with a written petition. (4.) Disaster beggars; as shipwrecked mariners, or blown-up miners, or burnt-out tradesmen, and lucifer droppers. (5.) Bodily afflicted beggars; such as those having real or pretended sores or swollen legs, or being crippled or deformed, maimed, or paralyzed, or else being blind, or deaf, or dumb, or subject to fits, or in a decline and appearing with bandages round the head, or playing the "shallow cove," i. e., appearing half-clad in the streets. (6.) Famished beggars; as those who chalk on the pavement, "I am starving," or else remain stationary, and hold up a piece of paper before their face similarly inscribed. (7.) Foreign beggars, who stop you in the street, and request to know if you can speak French; or destitute Poles, Indians, or Lascars, or Negroes. (8.) Petty trading beggars; as tract sellers, lucifer match sellers, boot lace venders, &c. (9.) Musical beggars; or those who play on some musical instrument, as a cloak for begging-as scraping fiddlers, hurdy-gurdy and clarionet players. (10.) Dependents of beggars; as screevers or the writers of "slums" (letters) and "fakements" (petitions), and referees, or those who give characters to professional beggars. [The Criminal Prisons of London and Scenes of London Life (The Great World of London), by Henry Mayhew and John Binny, 1862]
◯ ...the most effective beggars described in [an excerpt from Henry Mayhew’s Those That Will Not Work, the Fourth Volume of London Labour and The London Poor (London: 1862)] pretend to be the "deserving" poor. The Victorians, both as a matter of law and social attitude, separated the poor into two classes, the "deserving" and "undeserving." The deserving poor include anyone thrown out of work or into financial straights [sic] by events beyond his or her control -- elimination of a job, illness or old age, etc. The undeserving poor were made up of that class of people who declined to work, and made a perceived effort to live off the county dole or by conning honest folk, or who were ill or disabled due to their own folly -- such as by being a drunkard, or catching a social disease. [Roger H. Gray]
◯ ...uncertain employment destroys all habits of prudence; and where there is no prudence, the present affluence cannot be made to provide for the future want. Since it is the very necessity of those who depend upon their daily work for their daily food, that if such work is not to be obtained, they must be either paupers, beggars, or thieves, it cannot be wondered at that the great majority of the population round about the port of London, where work is of such a precarious nature, should consist principally of these three classes. [The Morning Chronicle : Labour and the Poor, 1849-50; Henry Mayhew - Letter IV, Tuesday, October 30, 1849]
◯ First, of the Beggars. Throughout my investigation I have observed one unfailing characteristic of this class. The dull vagrant boy - vagrant from choice, necessity, tyranny, or example, sinks into the mere beggar; the acuter and more daring lad, step by step, becomes the expert thief. The beggars I conversed with - the mere beggars - were silly, dull fellows, some of them utterly ignorant of the tricks and "lurks [schemes] resorted to by their brethren. They were what their sharp half-brothers, and thieves, would call "soft." Some beggars were really half fools, and even some who practised all the tricks of the trade did it as a part acquired by rote. The "lurks are clearly originated by the acuter class, who do not confine themselves to begging. Among the thieves was every degree of acuteness, from the sharpness of mere cunning to the full development of astute roguery in educated men. The beggars, as a class, are generally unable to read and write, but the thieves are not only more intelligent, but better educated. [The Morning Chronicle : Labour and the Poor, 1849-50; Henry Mayhew - Letter XXXI, Thursday, January 31, 1850]
◯ The pull of the asylum and the workhouse was strong, but many thousands of [Victorian] people with disabilities stayed in their communities. The social investigator Henry Mayhew (1812-1887) described the disabled beggars of the London streets in 1862, including the "idiotic looking youth… shaking in every limb" and the "crab-like man without legs strapped to a board (who) walks upon his hands". [Historic England]
◯ Extract from the Illustrated London News, December 1848:
At a period of feasts, when the paupers in the Union Workhouses are embraced in the large circle of our sympathies, and cared for a little more liberally than usual, let us draw a circle around the circle, and include within it the beggars in the streets.
It may be wrong, as a rule, to encourage street beggars by donations of any kind; but Christmas is an exceptional period and though, possibly, in being charitable to all we may be charitable to many worthless persons, the good Will and good Day will consecrate the deed. [The Scrap Album]
◯ ‘I do not mean that any beggar in the streets of London could earn £700 a year – which is less than my average takings – but I had exceptional advantages in my power of making up, and also in a facility of repartee, which improved by practice and made me quite a recognised character in the City. All day a stream of pennies, varied by silver, poured in upon me, and it was a very bad day in which I failed to take two pounds.’
The remarkable tale of the man with the twisted lip is an interesting glimpse into perceptions of poverty in Victorian London. While marvelling at the explanation, neither Watson as narrator nor any other character present, questions its validity. Are we, the twenty-first century reader, then meant to infer that it was possible for a beggar to make this amount of money in 1890s London? [Georgina Laragy]
◯ A large sum to be made by two beggars in one week is one pound, or 10 shillings a piece - one for looking out [‘give warning when the policeman is approaching’], and one for "standing shallow" [that is to say, to stand with very little clothing on, shivering and shaking, sometimes with bandages round his legs, and sometimes with his arm in a sling]. The average earnings of such persons are certainly below eight shillings per week. If the report of the constabulary force commissioners states that 20 shillings per week is the average sum earned, I am told, the statement must have been furnished by parties who had either some object in over-rating the amount, or else who had no means of obtaining correct information on the subject. From all my informant has seen as to the earnings of those who make a trade of picking pockets and begging, he is convinced that the amount is far below what is generally believed to be the case. [The Morning Chronicle : Labour and the Poor, 1849-50; Henry Mayhew - Letter V, Friday, November 2, 1849]
Some useful resources:
The Dictionary of Victorian London Main index. Click on ‘Crime’ and then on ‘Beggars and Vagrants’.
Beggars On The Dictionary of Victorian London.
"Beggars & Cheats" - A Victorian Guide to Those That Will Not Work Extracts from Henry Mayhew's Those That Will Not Work, the Fourth Volume of London Labour and The London Poor (London: 1862), on Euro Docs.
A Dictionary of Victorian London: An A-Z of the Great Metropolis By Lee Jackson. A review page on Google Books.
Sherlock Holmes and the story of the rich beggar By Georgina Laragy, on Poverty and Public Health in Belfast. A brief look at TWIS itself.
1873-1877: Street Life in London By Alex Q. Arbuckle, on Mashable. Collection of Victorian photographs: From 1873 to 1877, Scottish photographer John Thomson collaborated with journalist Adolphe Smith to document the lives of London’s urban poor…
The Daily Life of Disabled People in Victorian England On Historic England.
146: Victorian reports of crime as a source on minorities By Jeffrey Green.
Boxing Day On The Scrap Album.
Dickens and the ‘Criminal Class’ By Dr Patrica Pulham & Dr Brad Beaven, on The University of Portsmouth’s website.
Vagrancy Act 1824 On Wikipedia.
Professional Beggars in London An extract from the novel The Mysteries of London by G. W. M. Reynolds, on The Victorian Web.
Philanthropy in Victorian Hastings By Helena Wojtczak, on The Victorian Web.
The Street Beggar From Sketches of London Life and Character, by Albert Smith et. al., [1849], on The Victorian Web.
The working classes and the poor By Liza Picard, on The British Library website.
Slums and Slumming in Late-Victorian London By Dr Andrzej Diniejko, D. Litt.; Contributing Editor, Poland, on The Victorian Web.
Devil’s Acre On Wikipedia.
English Poor Laws On Wikipedia.
1834 Poor Law On The National Archives.
Please feel free to discuss this topic in the comments.
Please also feel free to comment about the canon story itself or any related aspects outside this week’s theme. For example, any reactions, thoughts, theories, fic recs, favourite adaptations of the canon story… Or any other contribution you wish to make. And if you have any suggestions for fic prompts springing from this week's story, please feel free to share those in the comments as well.
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