[-v-]
PREFACE.
THE prefatory remarks to the present volume need be but few. It is not claimed for it that in the strict sense of the term it is new. The material of which it is mainly composed has already seen service in the "serried columns" of certain daily newspapers, but, with all respect for the reader's superior judgment, I would submit that it is not worn-out material, and that remade-up in the handier form of book shape, it may, perhaps, " serve a turn, both as regards entertainment and usefulness. As one whose delight it is to do his humble endeavour towards exposing and extirpating social abuses, and those hole-and-corner evils which afflict society, I cannot but be painfully aware of the many chances of success which are lost to the newspaper correspondent through his inability to hold public attention sufficiently long to any particular subject to secure for it that amount of consideration which it may deserve. There is hardly anything more stale than " yesterday's paper." It passes away almost as absolutely as yesterday itself; it is eclipsed by the teeming broadsheet of to-day, and is no better than bygone; and so the ill which was aimed at, and which for a brief space was dragged to light, slinks back to its old lurking [-vi-] place, a little hurt, perhaps, but strong still to lick its wounds and sharpen its claws for fresh mischief. This is repeated with such lamentable frequency that, after all, it may be said that for the greater part the matter herein contained is "as good as new, inasmuch as it exactly represents a condition of affairs still existing. It is only by perseveringly and persistently proclaiming the existence of evils that one may hope to rouse those who hold the power to apply proper remedies, and it is not without hope of assisting this desirable end that the papers herein collected under the title of the "Wilds of London, are now added to the somewhat numerous list of kindred volumes I have from time to time been encouraged to set before an indulgent public.
JAMES GREENWOOD.
UPPER HOLLOWAY,
August, 1874.
[-1-]
A VISIT TO "TIGER BAY."
Everybody addicted to the perusal of police reports, as
faithfully chronicled by the daily press, has read of Tiger Bay, and of the
horrors perpetrated there-of unwary mariners betrayed to that craggy and hideous
shore by means of false beacons, and mercilessly wrecked and stripped and
plundered - of the sanguinary fights of white men and plug-lipped Malays and
ear-ringed Africans, with the tigresses who swarm in the "Bay," giving
it a name. "God bless my soul!" remarks the sitting magistrate, as
evidence of a savage assault in the shape of an ear snapped off a human head by
human teeth, and decently wrapped in a cool cabbage-leaf; is exposed to his
gaze,. along with a double-handful of towzled female hair, tendered on behalf of
the defendant as proof of provocation "God bless my soul! it must be a very
shocking neighbourhood?" "It is, indeed, sir,"
replied Mr. Inspector; "at times it is unsafe for our men to perambulate it
except in gangs of three. "A private individual, however, suitably attired,
and of modest mien, may safely venture where a policeman dare not show his head;
so, being curious to become an eyewitness of what the [-2-]
terrible "Bay" was like, I turned into Ratcliffe Highway at
eight o'clock one Monday evening.
The earlier part of my exploration was disappointing. In the
first place it was so densely foggy that the names affixed at the street corners
could not be made out; and in the second, not even the policeman on his beat
could inform me where Tiger Bay was. Under the circumstances, it was a ticklish
inquiry to make of the police, but the member of the force to whom I addressed
myself; as good luck willed, was a very civil fellow, and not disinclined to
conversation.
"There ain't no place of that name hereabout," said
he, "you must ha' been misdirected."
"I think you must forget, policeman," I replied.
" Unless the newspapers are wrong-which is hardly likely - Tiger Bay is a
tolerably well-known place in this district."
"Pish the newspapers!" returned Mr.
Policeman in tones of such profound contempt as naturally grated harshly on my
sensibilities, "what's the newspapers ? There's a precious lot appears in
'em that never appears out of 'em. Because they call places out of
their names it doesn't follow that I'm to encourage 'em."
"But can you direct me to the neighbourhood the
newspapers have spoken of as Tiger Bay?" I mildly insinuated, "the
locality where sailors are so shamefully used by ruffianly men and women."
"Oh! if she-tigers make Tiger Bays, you haven't got far
to travel," replied the Policeman, yielding slightly ; "that's
one" (pointing to a black and narrow avenue on the opposite side of the
way), " and two turnins higher up there's another. Brunswick Street is
another. Brunswick Gardens is a goodish bit further up-little prayer-meeting
place at the corner of it. P'raps that's the Tiger Bay you want. I'd rather you
want it than me. They'd have the hair off a man's head if they could get a penny
a pound for it. About one in the morning or a little after
[-3-]
is the time for a fellow to take a walk through Brunswick Street."*
(* Since this paper was written, Brunswick Street has been swept away by railway
improvements.)
"Why one in the morning, policeman ?"
"Because they've hooked their fish and carried it home
by that time, and the public houses being shut up, are as drunk as they are
likely to be for that night, That's when the hello begins, not before; when
they've choused the flats of every rap they've got about 'em, and would rather
have their room than their company. Why, you might walk through David's Lane, or
Palmer's Folly, or White Hart Street this time o' night with a dimond pin in
your shirt, as the saying is, and not so much as get it once snatched at. The
tigers, as you call em, are all out hunting."
I expressed my sense of the obligation Mr. Policeman had
conferred on me in terms that not only touched his heart but moved the
forefinger of his right hand as high as the peak of his helmet, and then
ventured further to inquire as to the favourite hunting grounds of the
she-tigers. He was good enough to specify several. "There's the Globe and
Pigeons," said he, "and the Gunboat, and the Malt Shovel, and the
White Swan. However, if you want to find the last mentioned you mustn't ask
after it by the name I've give it, which is the proper name you must ask after
it as Paddy's Goose ; that's what they call it in these parts."
I took leave of my friend, and walked up the Highway not a
little perplexed as to what was to be done. I had come on purpose to view Tiger
Bay - to witness what the constable graphically described as the
"hello" when at its fullest blast. That, however, could not be; it was
not yet nine o'clock, and the "hello" did not commence until one.
Besides, I was bound to confess to my dissatisfied self that I had been a little
out in my calculations as to the nature of the said "hello." I
[-4-] had imagined Tiger Bay to be a region of public, and not private
houses-a place where an unobtrusive individual might spend an hour or so taking
mental notes, nobody troubling his head about the matter; now, however, I had
learned that it was a mere stronghold of dens to which were carried for picking
and plucking the game after it had been run down and tethered, and I did not see
my way quite so clearly. And in this unsettled condition of mind I went along,
when suddenly the enlivening strains of music greeted my ear, and, looking
towards the spot from whence it proceeded, beheld the "Globe and
Pigeons" inscribed on a lamp. This was one of the camps of the
"hunters " Mr. Policeman had mentioned.
Without further reflection on the matter, I crossed over,
and, pushing open the swinging door, found myself in view of a clingy bar (still
adorned with the garlands and mistletoe of Christmas), before which an old
tigress, aged about sixty, and two young ones (one quite a cub-you could see,
when she opened her mouth to swear, that her baby teeth were yet serrated and
ungrown) were drinking gin. A mariner had " stood " the gin, and there
leant against the counter with his face on his folded arms, his cap on the back
of his head, and his favourite fore-lock dabbling in the glass of liquor that
had been generously allotted him out of the half-pint he had paid for. I don't
know whether he was crying, but he spoke as though he was, and with gin in his
heart, gin in his head, gin in his hair, he was murmuring complaints against the
eldest cub of the two on the score of her infidelity. The young tigress was for
growling and showing her claws, but the gray old one wagged her head against any
such premature proceeding, and poured out the cub some more gin, doubtless to
assist her in bearing up against the mariner's unjust aspersions.
Passing this party, I spied a passage, and across the end of
it hanging curtains of dirty chintz, through the chinks of which shone the glare
of gas beyond ; likewise there was to be heard [-5-]
the scraping of feet against the floor, and the twanging of a harp, and the
shrill piping of a cornopean. No one hindering me or requiring to know where I
was going, I approached the calico barrier to the realms of bliss, raised it,
and entered.
If the spectacle revealed was not enchanting, it was at least
highly curious. It was like being "behind the scenes " at a theatre
during the pantomime season. A barn-like, long, narrow building with whitewashed
walls, on which in flaming colours were a series of hideous pictures
illustrative of the domestic habits and customs of the Chinese. There was a big
fire-grate in the place, with a broad mantelpiece, on which reposed short pipes
and splints, and a quart pot with beer in it, and with one of her naked arms
resting lovingly against the pot, and a foot on the fender, stood the most
magnificent female it was ever my lot to behold. Her hair was economized in its
ornamentation of her fair head by a coronet of green leaves anti pearls, and her
maiden blushes were modestly screened from public gaze by a substantial coating
of some ruddy pigment; her bodice was low, as were not her skirts, and
she wore scarlet shoes with brass heels. Yet for all these fairy-like attributes
she was not proud, for with his foot on the fender, and his elbow on the
shelf; and a particularly short and dirty pipe in his mouth, stood a
dirty-faced, unpleasant-looking person (the potman of the establishment), and
she was talking quite familiarly with him.
The dance was just finished as I entered, and the mob,
composed of tigresses and mariners (sailors of colliers as far as I could make
out), mingled freely and partook of each other's beer. As for me, I took a seat
in a corner, but had scarcely settled myself when up came a second fairy, the facsimile
of the first, but shorter and somewhat thicker, and said she to me,
"Did you say bacca?"
"I did not say bacca, miss; what made you suppose that I
did ?" I replied.
[-6-] "Cause I've got it -
screws and arf ounces, as well; an' cigars; and if you wants any you may as well
have it of me."
And as she spoke she revealed a tumbler with the goods she
mentioned in it. I did say, "bacca" now, seeing that she had rather I
would, and I gave her twopence for "arf a ounce" of it.
Discovering this second one, I looked about me for other
fairies, but no more were discoverable. These were the only two, and they were
the regularly engaged "dancing girls" of the establishment. This was
evident, for on the musician stamping with his foot to notify that he was ready
when his customers were, and no one being in a hurry to respond, the potman
before mentioned called out to one of the fairies, "D'ye hear, Loo? Keep
the game alive;" on which Loo seized on a mariner and danced him to the
middle of the barn.
Her sister was likewise adjured by the authority before
mentioned to keep the "pot bilin', " and though she still held the
glass with the screws and arf ounces in it, and somebody had presented her with
a ham sandwich, which occupied her other hand, she responded to the call with
alacrity, tripping it before her partner, and supping on the bread and bacon the
while. As for the tigresses assembled (a poor lot, by the way, and looking very
shabby contrasted with the fairies), they didn't care a fig for dancing,
preferring to purr and paw their victims to good humour at their ease; but the
victims had come there to dance, and dance they would, so the tigresses were
compelled to rise on their able legs, and stump through a polka or two with
them.
Having my misgivings whether the Globe and Pigeons hunting
ground was a fair representation of its kind, I by-and-by finished my beer, and
slipped out. As I passed the bar I heard one mariner whisper to another that he
had "had enough of this," and was going up to the Gunboat, so, keeping
in his wake, I presently found myself at the hunting ground so named.
[-7-] Along a passage exactly
similar to that pertaining to the Globe and Pigeons (screened by exactly similar
curtains), and except that it was somewhat larger, and had a sort of raised
platform at the end, I found myself in an exactly similar barn, just as dirty as
to its walls, and bespattered with saliva as to its floor, just as uncomfortable
in every possible respect, and as suggestive of the wonder how it could prove
attractive to any class of men possessed of the least degree of sense or
decency. Here the tigresses assembled in greater numbers than at the Globe and
Pigeons, and were of a different class, being better dressed, and ten times
bolder and more foul-mouthed. From what stock they originally sprang is a
mystery. It seems that they must have been from one and the same. Take fifty of
them, and, setting aside trifling variations as regards complexion and colour of
hair anti eyes, they would pass as children of the same parents. The same short,
bull-like throats, the same high cheek-bones and deep-set eyes, the same low
retreating foreheads and straight wide mouths, and capacious nostrils, the same
tremendous muscular development stamps one and all.
The sailors, too, were different from those met at the Globe
and Pigeons, being, as could easily be seen, men in the merchant service. I am
glad that I could make out no man-o-war' s men amongst them, since truth compels
me to declare that a more spoony or weak-minded crew it was never my misfortune
to fall in with. There was not a spark of dash or devil-may-care hilarity
amongst them. There they sat (when they were not engaged in mooning through a
dance), swilling beer, and gin, and rum, and shelling out their hard-earned
money like melancholy idiots as frequently as the muscular tigresses chose to
demand it of them, and submitting to abuse and insolence, and not unfrequently
slaps on the face, tamely as henpecked husbands. Matters in this respect must
have sadly altered since Mr. Dibdin lived and wrote. Once upon a time, as we [-8-]
have reason to believe, there was truth in the maritime stave in which
occur the lines-
"If we've peril on the seas, my boys,
We've pleasure on the shore."
Pleasure! Perilous indeed must be the ordinary occupation of
the man who can find delight and relaxation in being bullied and contemptuously
treated by a brawny-armed, big-knuckled, wretch, whose breath is pestilence and
her language poison. Where amongst all these petticoated creatures was to be met
the kind-hearted "Molly," who studied to an atom of sugar the flavour
of her Thomas's grog, and was so sedulous as to the spotlessness of his
unmentionables? It is scarcely saying too much that not one woman in ten getting
drunk at that Wapping Gunboat would have scrupled to doctor her Thomas's grog
with a dose of laudanumn, while her only care as to the clean or dirty condition
of the before-mentioned unmentionables would be the difference it would make in
the price they would fetch at the " Dolly Shop," after she had stolen
them from him.
She is an arrant thief, the modern Molly of Wapping, as it
was my painful lot to witness in the same Gunboat dancing-room. There was a
young man there, not a common sailor I should judge from the cut of his clothes,
and, being a fool like the rest, he went on melting his money in a rum measure
until he came to the last of it. But he was youthful and gallant. So when a
siren, with an arm which, delivered straight from the shoulder, might have
floored a prize-fighter, tweaked him imperiously by his budding beard, and
demanded "another jorum," he told her that he hadn't another shot in
the locker, but she might take his jacket, and sell it if she liked. "If I
like!"replied the tigress, with a laugh louder than the dance music ;
" why, I'd sell your life if I had the chance." So he took off his
heavy pilot jacket, and while her companions yelled at the fun, she ran off; and
in less than two minutes re-[-9-]turned without the
jacket, and with what might have been a shilling's worth of rum and water. that
this was all the poor young man got for his property I am certain, for presently
he made the unwelcome discovery that he had run out of tobacco. " Damme,
Eva (Heaver, it should have been) I've got no baccy !" "Then
you're lucky in havin' a wesket as is as good as money," responded the
gentle Eva, and instantly acting on the hint the gallant young fellow divested
himself of this article of apparel, as well as the other (I was glad to perceive
that he wore a coloured woollen shirt beneath), and, stepping fleetly off with
it, his sweetheart promptly returned with half an ounce of tobacco as its
equivalent. There was an old tigress of the Jewish persuasion who witnessed this
little stroke of business, and even she called "shame ;" but on being
threatened with a " oner in the mouth " if she did not confine her
attention to her own affairs, she prudently had no more to say about it.
I may as well mention that the amusements provided at this
establishment differed materially from that offered at the Globe and Pigeons.
Besides dancing, at the Gunboat there was clog-hornpiping and comic singing. For
some time I had noticed a wretched-looking little boy with a monstrously big
head, attired in a tight-fitting dress of some light-coloured material and with
wooden shoes on his feet. He crept chose to the fire, looking very unhappy and
sleepy anti surly, and I very much pitied the child (he could not have been more
than eight years old) and wished it had been in my power to send him to bed, as
a poor little drudge who had been hard at it all day cleaning pots and kettles
and running about with beer. But lo! he presently turned out to be one of the
"talented company." "Master Whatyercallem will oblige with a clog
dance," cried the landlord (who was likewise M.C. and evidently on the best
terms with the tigresses), and at once the young gentleman, whose name I
couldn't catch, shuffled to the platform end of the room and commenced wearily
footing it to [-10-] the soul-stirring music
emitted from the piano. "Chuck it out, Bill! chuck it out," the M.C.
called in a sharp reproving tone, and Bill "chucked it out"
spitefully, as though it was his malicious design to split his clogs and put his
proprietor to the expense of buying him a new pair. However, he made a
tremendous clatter, and appeared to give general satisfaction.
The comic singing was performed by the waiter, a poor object
in shabby black, lame of a leg, and with a wen on his forehead. "Mr. Sidney
Barry will be the next entertainment" was announced, and, limping to the
stage and hunting out an old white hat from amongst some lumber that happened to
be there, Mr. Barry put it on, and with a stick in his hand proceeded to make an
entertainment of himself. His song was an Irish song entitled "Paddy don't
care," and its success with the audience seemed to depend entirely on the
singer's ability to deliver himself of a roaring devil-may-care laugh and
dealing a terrific whack to the floor boards at the close of each verse. The
waiter had no voice for singing, but long practice had made his drunken laugh
perfection itself, and he was tolerably strong in the arm, so that the applause
was universal, and quite a brisk shower of copper money fell on the platform as
the reward of his exertions.
Quitting the Gunboat, I discovered and looked in at the other
hunting grounds Mr. Policeman had mentioned, but in the main they were all
alike. There was the spoony sailor, and there was the tigress of the Bay. At
some of the larger houses, such as Paddy's Goose, anti the Angel and Crown, and
the Sailors' Saloon, her coat was sleeker and glossier-she sported amber and
satin and blue and ermine (very favourite with the well-to-do, middle-aged, and
corpulent tigresses), but she was still the same heartless, cold-blooded animal,
with a mouth brimming with blasphemy, and claws concealed beneath her dainty kid
glove ready for rending and pillage. I don't see what is to be done with her,
but decidedly she is a person [-11-] to be put down
- or at least checked in her depredations on the kind-hearted donkey in the
blue-jacket, who, knowing woman in no other shape (for your tigress in brown
serge or blue satin infests every port), is content to pay homage to her in
this, and wag his head good humouredly while she bullies him, and call it a
"spree" when she robs him, and goes to sea again and again, filling
his glass to her amongst his foc'sall mates a thousand miles at sea, and toasts
her as "Faithful Poll of Wapping."