Morning journal and courier., 1886-10-08
THE LARRIKIN OF LONDON.

Fatless, Capless and Ttreless, He
Gives Chase to the Four-Wheeler.
ILondon Correspondence Of the San Francisco
Chronicle
The several societies and the many anna
teur philanthropists who have made the fate
of the small boy the object of their care
have nearly cleared the great London streets
of the gamin and canine. They still
to be seen in the slums fighting in their rags
for a rotten apple or dancing in their tatters
around hurdy-gurdy, but they have been
killed philanthropically and societied off the
thoroughfares. t'Poor Jo" is thing of
the past and the places he occupied are
filed by the bootblack brigade, the news
boys and the organized street cleaners
There is one youth, however, that neither
the policeman, the philanthropist nor the
novel writer has been able to suppress, and
that is the larrikin.
I had an experience with him when less
than two hours in London, and after that
studied the habits of the beast with much
interest. We were making for quiet lodg
ing house in Islington, ourselves inside and
our baggage on top of a "growler," and
were about six or seven streets from the
place when 1 saw the slimmest of youths
dart around corner and give chase to the
four-wheeler. Fatless, capless and tireless
he kept up run along the sidewalk, dodg
ing his way among the passers-by as though
he were creased, watching each turn of the
hack with a keen eye and darting down
whichever street the cabby steered his ricke-
ty horse. When the house was reached
there at the area gate stood the skeleton
youth. When the horse was pulled up, with
all four feet stuck out like the legs of
chair, the fleet lad rang the bell. By the
ho1 oil ta5 ha had trIlO on
the pavement, and by the time our identity
had been established with the landlady he
had carried our trunks up stairs to our apart
ments.
Then came the explanation. He was not
messenger attached to the lodging house as
a convenience for guests; neither was he the
hack drivers son. He was a larrlkin, a
gaunt hunter of baggage laden strangers. He
had marked us for his prey, had chased
down the quarry and his price was sixpence.
After that saw him often-that is those OF
his kind. His favorite hunting grounds
were the great lodging notwithstanding
ton, Camberwell, Brixton, Stoke Newington,
Camden Town, ETC., and four-wheeler with
trunks on the roof and people looking Curl
ouslY out of the windows was sure sign OF
fair game. His distinctive conduct was the
precipitancy with which he did everything.
No matter how long the run might have
been, he would dart at the impediments and
haul them off as though fresh from lounge.
Old ladies were a great catch for him, and
he would so s'fy around" and bang things
about that they would deliver up backsheesh
before they thoroughly knew what they were
doing. Sometimes they would chase down
the same prize and So bewilder the victim
with sham quarreling that they would be
paid for the sake of peace. No attempt
seems to be made to abolish these Bedouins
of the London desert, yet they are as truly
plunderers as their brethren of Arabia. The
city Arabs, as the gamins used to be called,
were not nearly as knavish as these fell
lows, for what the one begged these extort.