Go-cart, Billies in bowls, or Sledge-beggars, are denominations for those cripples whose misfortunes will not permit them to travel in any other way; and these are next presented to the reader's notice.

Men of this class are to be found in every country. The little fellow above depicted in the cart is copied from Luca Carlevarij's 100 Views in Venice, a set of long quarto plates, most spiritedly etched, and published in 1703.

Hogarth, whose active eye caught Nature in all her garbs, has introduced in his Wedding of the Industrious Apprentice, a cripple well known in those days under the appellation of Philip in the Tub, a fellow who constantly attended weddings, and retailed the ballad of "Jesse, or the Happy Pair."

Dublin has ever been famous for a Billy in the Bowl. A very remarkable fellow of this class, well known in that city, and who thought proper to leave Ireland on the Union, was met in London by a Noble Lord, who observed, "So you are here too!" "Yes, my Lord," replied the beggar, "the Union has brought us all over."

The back view of the person exhibited in the following plate, is that of Samuel Horsey, who, in December 1816, had been a London beggar for thirty-one years. Of this man there are various opinions, and it is much to be doubted if the truth can be obtained even from his own mouth. He states that Mr Abernethy cut off his legs in St Bartholomew's Hospital, but he does not declare from what cause; so that being deprived of the power of gaining a subsistence by labour, he was forced to become a beggar. By some persons he is styled the King of the Beggars, but certainly without the least foundation. He says that no one has been less acquainted with beggars than himself; and as for his having the command of a district, that he utterly denies. His walks, or rather movements, are not always confined; on some days he slides to Charing Cross, but is oftener to be seen at the door of Mr Coutts's banking-house, perhaps with an idea that persons just after they have received money are more likely to bestow charity.

Of all other men, Horsey has the most dexterous mode of turning, or rather swinging himself, into a gin-shop. He dashes the door open by forcibly striking the front of his sledge and himself against it.

He was once seen in a most perilous situation, when he lodged in a two-pair of stairs back room, in Wharton's Court, Holborn. He had placed himself on the window-sill, in order to clean the outside upper panes, and was attached as usual to his sledge, when unfortunately he broke a square. On this occasion he let loose the volley of oaths which at other times he can so forcibly discharge; nor did his rage subside after he had launched himself into the room again; indeed he was heard at intervals to vociferate in this way for several hours.

The very extraordinary torso etched in the next plate is that of John Mac Nally, of the county of Tyrone. This poor fellow lost the use of his legs by a log, that crushed both his thighs, when an apprentice at Cork.

His head, shoulders, and chest, which are exactly those of Hercules, would prove valuable models for the artist.

Mac, who is well known about Parliament Street, Whitehall, and the Surrey foot of Westminster Bridge, after scuttling along the streets for some time upon a sledge, discovered the power of novelty, and trained two dogs, Boxer and Rover, to draw him in a truck, by which contrivance he has increased his income beyond all belief.

Though this man's dogs when coupled have occasional snarlings, particularly when one scratches himself with an overstrained exertion, the other feeling at the same time an inclination to dose, yet, when their master has been dead drunk, and become literally a log on his truck, they have very cordially united their efforts to convey him to his lodgings in St Ann's Lane, Westminster, and perhaps with more safety than if he had governed them, frequently taking a circuitous route during street repairs in order to obtain the clearest path.

The figure in the box is that of a Jew mendicant, who has unfortunately lost the use of his legs, and is placed every morning in the above vehicle, so that he may be drawn about the neighbourhood of Petticoat Lane, and exhibited as an object of charity. His venerable appearance renders it impossible for a Jew or a Christian to pass without giving him alms, though he never begs but of his own people; a custom highly creditable to the Jews, and even more attentively observed by that truly honourable Society of Friends, vulgarly called Quakers, who neither suffer their poor to beg, nor become burthensome to any but themselves.

About forty-eight years ago, when the sites of Portland Place, Devonshire Street, &c., were fields, the famous Tommy Lowe, then a singer at Mary-le-bone Gardens, raised a subscription to enable an unfortunate man to run a small chariot, drawn by four muzzled mastiffs, from a pond near Portland Chapel—called Cockney Ladle, which supplied Mary-le-bone Basin with water—to the Farthing Pie-house, a building remaining at the end of Norton Street, and now the sign of the Green Man, in order to accommodate children with a ride for a halfpenny. And it is rather extraordinary, that the son of that very man, a few years since, and after the death of his wife, harnessed a spaniel to a small cart, but large enough to hold his infant, which the animal drew after the father from lamp to lamp through the very streets above mentioned. The dog became so accustomed to his task, that as soon as he heard his master cover a lamp, away he would scamper to the next, and there wait the arrival of the ladder.

Street-crossing sweepers next make their appearance; the first on the list being William Tomlins, whose stand is very productive, as it includes both Albemarle and St James Streets. Of this man there is nothing further remarkable, beyond his attention to his pitch, for so the beggars and ballad-singers call their stands. He appears to be alive to the receipt of every penny, and will not suffer himself by any means to be diverted from his solicitations; as a strong proof of which, he refused to hold the horse of a gentleman who called to him for that purpose, and from this it may be inferred that he thought begging a better occupation.

The next character portrayed is a constant sweeper of the crossing at the top of Ludgate Hill. This man finds it his interest to wear a cloth round his head, as he is on that account frequently noticed by elderly maiden city dames, who mistake him for one of their own sex.

The crossing from Charles Street to Rathbone Place is swept by Daniel Cropp, as filthy a looking fellow as any of his tribe. In order to render himself noticed, he literally combs his hair with his opened fingers. He at present differs from the etching, by wearing a fireman's jacket.

The next plate represents a lad who occasionally sweeps the crossing at the end of Princes Street, Hanover Square, and wears a large waistcoat, surmounted by a soldier's jacket.

At the time he was drawn, he was so sickly that his person was not recognised as a vender of matches, in which character he had two years before been selected as a subject for this work, and whose portrait as such is given in the following plate. The boy occasionally sings the old match song, and at certain hours finds it his interest to exercise his broom at the above station.

The subjects of the next two plates are unfortunate mendicants. The first is a silver-haired man, of the name of Lilly, who lost his leg in some repairs at Westminster. Poets' Corner, in the Abbey, is the place where he is mostly to be seen.

The second plate is the portrait of William Frasier, deprived of both his hands in the field of battle. His allowance as a maimed soldier not being sufficient to maintain his large family, he is obliged to depend on the benevolence of such of the public who purchase boot-laces of him. When this poor fellow's portrait was taken, he lodged in Market Lane, in the house formerly occupied by Torre, the print-seller, who was the original fireworker at Mary-le-bone Gardens.

London has of late been gradually losing many of its old street customs, particularly that pleasing one of the milkmaid's garland, so richly decorated with articles of silver and bunches of cowslips. The garland was of a pyramidal form, and placed upon a horse carried by two chairmen, adorned with ribbons and tulips. The plate consisted of pint mugs, quart tankards, and large dishes, sometimes to the value of five hundred pounds, hired of silversmiths for the purpose. The milkwoman and her pretty maids, in their Nancy Dawson petticoats, would dance to the fiddler's jigs of "Paddy O'Rafferty," or "Off she goes," before the doors of their customers; but now, instead of this innocent scene of May-day gaiety, the streets are infested by such fellows as the one exhibited in the adjoining plate, who have been dismissed, perhaps for their indecent conduct, from the public places of entertainment. These men hire old dresses, and join the Chimney Sweeper's, Cinder-sifter's, or Bunter's Garland, or Jack in the Green, &c., and exhibit all sorts of grimace and ribaldry to extort money from their numerous admirers.

Few persons, particularly those in elevated life, can witness, or even entertain a true idea of the various modes by which the lowest classes gain a livelihood. It is scarcely to be believed that some few years ago a woman, of the name of Smith, regularly went over London early in the morning, to strike out the teeth of dead dogs that had been stolen and killed for the sake of their skins. These teeth she sold to bookbinders, carvers, and gilders, as burnishing tools.

There are women who, on Sunday mornings when there are no carts about, frequent Thames Street, and the adjoining lanes inhabited by Lisbon merchants, to pick up from the kennels the refuse of lemons, after they have been squeezed for their juice. These they sell to the Jew distillers, who extract a further portion of liquor, and thus afford them the means of selling, at a considerably reduced price, lemon drops to the lower order of confectioners.

It is seldom that the common beggars eat the food given to them; and it is a well-known fact, that they sell their broken bread to the lowest order of the biscuit bakers, who grind it for the purpose of making "tops and bottoms," &c.

This was also the practice in former days, as appears in an old ballad, from which the following is an extract:—

THE BEGGAR'S WEDDING;
OR, THE JOVIAL CREW.
Printed with allowance, October 19, 1676.

Some women gain a living by going from house to house and begging phials. They pretend that they have an order for medicines at the dispensary, for their dear husband, or only child, but know not in what way to get it without a bottle, as they are obliged to take one of their own; at the same time, some will beg white linen rags to dress wounds with. These they soon turn into money at the old iron shops,—the "dealers in marine stores."

Those who beg old shoes, such as Grannee Manoo, make as much as six or seven shillings a day. They sell them to the people who live in cellars in Monmouth Street, or stalls in Food and Raiment Alley, Rosemary Lane, &c. These persons give them new soles, and are called Translators. In Mountsorrel, Leicestershire, a cobbler of the name of Bates styles himself a translator.

The plate of two Bone-pickers is the next to be described. The physiognomy of the fellow who is stitching patches together to tack to his coat, which consists of some hundreds of bits of old velvet, carpets, &c., would baffle the skill of either Lavater or Spurzheim; it has the mixture of the idiot, the goat, and the bull-dog. Such a visage might have been useful to Spagnolet, or his pupil Salvator. In order to discover a few of the habits of this character, he was followed for several hours through many streets, alleys, and courts, in the parish of St Martin's in the Fields. On his arrival at Moor's Yard, which is said to have been a place for the execution of public criminals in early times, he was accused of stealing door mats, and with some difficulty extricated his tatters from the tugs of a couple of dogs. In Hartshorn Lane, in the Strand, at one time the residence of Ben Jonson, he was seen to take up a brick, and throw it at two curs fighting for a bone, which he picked up and put into his bag. These bones are bought by the burners at Haggerstone, Shoreditch, and Battlebridge, at two shillings per bushel, in which half a bushel is given over, that being bone measure.

Bill Row and John Taylor, two grubbers, are introduced in the next plate. These men, with Stephen Lloyd, form the sum total of their description in London. They procure a livelihood by whatever they find in grubbing out the dirt from between the stones with a crooked bit of iron, in search of nails that fall from horse-shoes, which are allowed to be the best iron that can be made use of for gun-barrels; and though the streets are constantly looked over at the dawn of day by a set of men in search of sticks, handkerchiefs, shawls, &c., that may have been dropped during the night, yet these grubbers now and then find rings that have been drawn off with the gloves, or small money that has been washed by the showers between the stones. These men are frequently employed to clear gully-holes and common sewers, the stench of which is so great that their breath becomes pestilential; and its noxious quality on one occasion had so powerful an effect on a man of the name of Dixie, as to deprive him of two of his senses, smelling and tasting, and yet Ned Flowers followed this calling for forty years.

But there is still a more wretched class of beings than the grubbers, who never know the comfort of dry clothes,—they are, like the leech, perpetually in water. The occupation of these draggle-tail wretches commences on the banks of the Thames at low water. They go up to their knees in mud, to pick up the coals that fall from the barges when at the wharfs. Their flesh and dripping rags are like the coals they carry in small bags across their shoulders, and which they dispose of, at a reduced price, to the meanest order of chandler-shop retailers.

The environs produce characters equally curious with those of London, particularly among that order of people called Simplers, whose business it is to gather and supply the city markets with physical herbs. Such an innocent instance of rustic simplicity is William Friday, whose portrait is exhibited in the following plate. This man starts from Croydon, with champignons, mushrooms, &c., and is alternately snail-picker, leech-bather, and viper-catcher.

The man whose portrait is given in the succeeding plate, mimics the notes of the common English birds by means of a folded bit of tin, similar to that used by Mr Punch's orator, and which is held between the teeth; but in order to engage the attention of the credulous, he pretends, as his lips are nearly closed, to draw his tones from two tobacco-pipes, using one for the fiddle, the other for the bow, and never fails to collect an attentive audience, either in the street or tap-room.

Musicians of this description were at one time very numerous. Gravelot, when he kept a drawing-school in the Strand, made sketches of several. One particularly picturesque, was of a blind chaunter of the old ballads of "There was a wealthy Lawyer," or "O Brave Nell," and has been admirably etched by Miller. This man accompanied his voice by playing upon a catgut string drawn over a bladder, and tied at both ends of a mop-stick; but the boys continually perplexing him by pricking his bladder, and a pampered prodigal having with a sword let out all his wind, he fortunately hit upon a mode of equally charming the ear by substituting a tin tea-canister.

PLATE XXX.

A blind chaunter of the old ballads, who accompanied his voice by playing upon a catgut string drawn over a tea canister, and tied at both ends of a mop stick.