Of the Probable Means of Reformation. · 2

But a still larger class than all, are the beaten-out mechanics and artizans, who, from want of employment in their own trade, take to make up small things (as clothes-horses, tin-ware, cutlery, brushes, pails, caps, and bonnets) on their own account. The number of artizans in the London streets speaks volumes for the independence of the working-men of this country; as well as for the difficulty of their obtaining employment at their own trades. Those who are unacquainted with the sterling pride of the destitute English mechanic, know not what he will suffer before becoming an inmate of a workhouse, or sinking to the debasement of a beggar. That handicraftsmen do occasionally pass into “lurkers” I know well; but these, I am convinced, have gradually been warped to the life by a long course of tramping, aided by the funds of their societies, and thus becoming disused to labour, have, after forfeiting all claims upon the funds of their trade, adopted beggary as a means of subsistence. But, that this is the exception rather than the rule, the following is sufficient to show:

“The destitute mechanics,” said the Master of the Wandsworth and Clapham Union to me, “are entirely a different class from the regular vagrants; they have different habits, and indeed different features. During the whole of my experience I never knew a distressed artizan who applied for a night’s shelter, commit an act of theft; and I have seen them,” he added, “in the last stage of destitution. Occasionally they have sold the shirt and waistcoat off their backs before they applied for admittance into the workhouse, while some of them have been so weak from long starvation that they could scarcely reach the gate, and indeed had to be kept for several days in the Infirmary before their strength was recruited sufficiently to continue their journey.” “The poor mechanic,” said another of my informants, “will sit in the casual ward like a lost man, scared. It’s shocking to think a decent mechanic’s houseless. When he’s beat out he’s like a bird out of a cage; he doesn’t know where to go, or how to get a bit.”

I shall avail myself of another occasion to discuss the means of improving the condition of the street-people.