The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1848-02-01 00:00:00

IRISH MENDICANCY IN LONDON

We had our own share last year—a lion's share—in the
burthens induced by the invasion of wretched Irish pau-
pers, and vicious and filthy Irish beggars. For their
maintenance we exhausted our parish funds ; and the rate-
payers of our town are still groaning under the pressure
which was the result. Our dock quays and streets were
crowded with a famishing peasantry, driven from their
homes to prey upon our own industrious people ; and with
sturdy beggars who were told that we were able to sup-
port every vagrant, who, unwilling to work, found the
sources of charity in his own country, for a time, closed.
Our complaints with respect to the preference with which
we were favoured (?) met with little sympathy from her
majesty's ministers, or from the community at large. We
were gravely told that Ireland sent us a large quantity of
her corn, her pork, her butter, and her poultry, and that
it was little wonder that her people followed to eat it ;
and that the least we could do was to find them knives
and forks, clean table cloths, and the other necessary ap-
purtenances. Our port was the entrance gate by which
Irish produce found its way into the stomach of John
Bull, who, by the bye, it was forgotten had punctually
paid for his dinners and suppers so received ; and it was
urged as not unreasonable—and by a cabinet minister, if
we remember right, that our port ought to be happy to
keep a people who had thus extensively traded with us,
although that people had at the time our money in their
pockets. We were unreasonable enough, too, to com-
plain that Ireland was converting Liverpool into her fever
hospital. We appealed to the valuable lives of our towns-
men—in addition to our funds—sacrificed in the effort to
cure the sickness of the filthy lazars disembarked upon
our dock quays. We asked for the aid of government
and the nation in this dreadful emergency. We asked in
vain. All that we received was the loan of a few hulks
for floating hospitals ; and we had to pay even for their
transport here and their fitting up.
The tables seem to be turning, as they generally do in
the long run, however imperfectly some people may sup-
pose the affairs of this world of ours to be governed. The
plague has penetrated to the manufacturing districts long
ago ; and at length, and in most seasonable time, it has
reached the metropolis itself. We quote a very graphic
description of the invasion—and we can vouch, from its
likeness to the picture presented here, for its perfect faith-
fulness—from the columns of the London Times :
Everybody must have observed the increase of mendi-
cancy in the metropolis. It is not a very agreeable topic
to talk about, but cannot be easily forgotten while the liv-
ing subjects obtrude themselves so numerously and so ener-
getically on one's notice. The great thoroughfares " are
alive" with beggars. To be sure the poor creatures are in
motion, like mites in a cheese ; for the policeman's "move
on" just prevents them from absolutely blockading the
pavement. But it is only a hideous mockery of life and
business. You see an ill-clad wretch before you, walking
on, as if work, engagements, a home, a family, hope and
comfort, were in prospect. The instant you come up to
him, he turns round with some form of entreaty or com-
plaint ; and then you see he is a homeless, friendless,
placeless outcast, without aim or hope in existence. Then
there are wretched women with infants in their arms, or
children at their sides, the lame, the maimed, diseased,
young women, little Oils, and every class of suffering, ex-
cent, to the best of our observation, the aged. No small
proportion betray the Celtic origin in their accent, their
costume, and, .it must be added, their winning address.
Some affect to sell picture books, or flowers, real or arti-
ficial, according to the season, or anything that may dis-
guise their vocation; or they swarm around you asking for
tickets to some benevolent association, the tickets being as
much a pretence as the flowers. The most miserable fea-
ture of the case is, that many look as if they had seen
better days. Others, indeed, to all appearance, have never
been anything better than they are. One sad thought,
however, embraces the whole class ; and that is, how
quickly such poor creatures must pass to the grave.
" Of their numbers we can form no idea, but it must be
something enormous. In one particular quarter mile of
pavement sheltered from the wind, and blessed with the
sun, if any there be, there cannot be less than fifty some-
times, of all ages and sexes. Ladies turr.ing out after
lunch to do a little shopping, or get a little health, have to
run the gauntlet past, or rather through, whole files of
mendicants, many of whom, whenever an opportunity oc-
curs, will appeal to fear as well as to pity. Again, three
or four groups will perform the circuit of a square at equal
distances, all day long, and thus keep up the continual
appearance of progress. They do not cease with the day ;
indeed, whither they go at night we cannot tell. There
are, however, beggars in the street all night long. There
are miserable creatures too old, too ailing, and too ugly,
either for work or for vice, who glean the last vestige of
alms till two or three in the morning, when, we presume,
they finish the night on a door-step, if they cannot do
better. Where the day-beggars stow themselves at night
one is almost afraid to conjecture. It would take barracks
to hold them with the most moderate regard to decency
and health. Their numbers we cannot estimate ; but were
we told there are 50,000 professed beggars, who do nothing
but beg, we should not be surprised."

The mendicancy in our streets is such as must convey
to foreigners a very unfavourable opinion of our charitable
institutions. Moreover, the nuisance to passengers and
injury to shopkeepers is enormous. Many people will
not enter a pastry cook's shop, for fear that some poor
creatures should take a stand at the door, watch them eat
their bun, and attempt to make a prize out of the half-
pence given in change. There are also whole rows of
shops the custom of which is considerably injured by the
cordon of beggars occupying the pavement. Few ladies
like to encounter twenty squalid supplicants before they
can purchase a pair of kid gloves or a few yards of
riband."

Our readers will recognise the features of the picture.
They will recall to mind the half dozen men, women, and
children who were wont to beset every pastry cook's door,

and to hover about our eating-houses: But in one respect
the resemblance fails. There was no "pretence" offered
here for the mendicancy—no requests for tickets for soup ;
no flowers, or tracts. The beggars at present afflicting
the London people must have learned a little policy since
they were first imported. When they, landed here, they
came direct from the quays to the parish-office ; and,
when relieved there, into our streets and to our doors.
They are, however, quite in a mind with out own supply
of the commodity as to their disincl.nation to be sent home.
They prefer even an English prison to Ireland ; and not a
few, as we find from the London police reports, are just
now resorting to the plan of committing petty thefts, or
breaking windows, in order to be enabled to sojourn,
during this inclement weather, in domiciles which, how-
ever distasteful to our own poor, are something like Para-
dise in the estimation of the vagrant Irish.
We do most cordially congratulate the country, and the
people of Liverpool in particular, upon this movement of
our Celtic brethren southwards. We may now expect the
sympathy, on any future occasion of such a visitation to
Liverpool, which the experience of fellow suffering creates.
Chesham Place, we trust, will not be without its daily,
visitation, in order that its noble occupant, Lord John
Russell, may learn what it is to be pestered with a crowd
of wretched beings whose very contact is COntugi",
•