Sinks of London Laid Open | Page 7

half; the rest was suspended over his shoulders in shreds. A few tatters were arranged around his nether parts, but they could scarcely be said to cover his nakedness; and as for shoes, stockings, and shirt, they doubtless had been neglected, as being of no professional use. A kind of a hat (which, from a piece of the flap still remaining, showed that it had once possessed a brim) ornamented as villanous a looking head as ever sat upon a pair of shoulders--carrotty hair, that had as much pliancy as a stubble field--a low receding forehead--light grey eyes, rolling about, with as much roguery in them as if each contained a thief--a broad, snubby nose--a projecting chin, with a beard of at least a month's growth--the whole forming no bad resemblance to a rough, red, wiry-haired, vicious terrier dog, whose face had been half-bitten off by hard fighting. He was the very type of a hedge ruffian, and a most proper person to meet any one "by moonlight alone."
----"He looked as if his blood Had crept thro' scoundrels ever since the flood."
The very sight of this model of his tribe brought vagrancy, with all her train, before our eyes, mugger's-carts, tinker's wives, bull dogs, donkeys, creels, kail pots, and all the trumpery of a gipsey's camp. This elegant individual, we found afterwards, answered to the very proper appellation of "Cadger Jack." He was leaning over the table, resting his arms on a bundle of matches, and grumbling heavily about the times, "Cadging," he said, "was gone to the devil! He had been out ever since the morning, and had not yet broke his fast; but if he lived till Monday, he would go to the lord mayor." Here he used some emphatic language, and swore he would not stir until he got relief.
"You will get three months to the tread-mill," observed a woman, sitting opposite (the only one in the room, and a happy compound between the slut and the sot).
He d----d the tread-mill, declared he had played at up and down before now--and would go--they were compelled to give him something--the law did not suffer any man to starve, and so on.
He was rattling on in his way, without any one paying the least attention to what he said, when a lad about fourteen, decently dressed, came in, carrying a box. He placed himself beside the window, and began to display the contents of his trunk, offering for sale several respectable articles of clothing for mere trifles.
"Go home, boy," (said a man who had just come in, with his arms loaded with good things). "What brought you here? do you want to be ruined? you have run away, you young rascal, and stole them things."
The younker, who was the very image of a spoiled child and natural vagabond, replied with all the pertness and insolence of one that had been over indulged, "that the things were his--he had paid for his lodgings, and nobody had anything to do with him."
"When did he come here?" enquired the man, (the landlord by this time had gone out).
"On Thursday," he was answered.
"It is a shame," he said, "to take in so young a boy; he should have a stick laid across his back, and sent home again."
In defence of the landlord, it was argued, that if he did not take him in, others would; and that his things were safe here, which might not be the case elsewhere. This was admitted by our moralizer to be very true.
"Howsomever," observed he, "all I know is this--that if the young dog is not already a thief, I know that he has come to the right place to become one."
"Aye, that he has," drawled out a half naked lusty young fellow, raising himself slowly up from the form where he had been stretched his full length, laying upon his face, the sluggard's favourite position. Hogarth, or Joe Lisle, or any other character hunter, might have taken this youth for the very Son of Idleness. There might alternately be traced in his heavy features sluggard, loon, fool, and rascal. "Aye, that's very true," he observed, "it was coming to St. Giles's that was the ruin of me; and them there lasses," pointing to a ruddy-faced girl, who had just popped her brazen front in at the door, and who, in return for his salutation, politely placed her finger on one side of her nose, then raising the hinder part of her body touched it, in a style that would scarcely be tolerated at St. James's.
"Ah, you imp of Satan!" he bellowed out, as the young vixen scampered away between a dance and a run, and again commenced his story:
"It was coming to St. Giles's, I was saying, was the ruin of me. I robbed my father,