CHAPTER XIII.
THE REFORMATION – THE RIGHT OF PRIVATE JUDGMENT
The Reformation, like the American Revolution, was originated and conducted to successful issue by wise, good and practical men, whose intuitive judgments and sagacious instincts enabled them to feel their way through the difficulties that environed them. Wise men know that there is too much of complexity in the tangled web of human affairs, to justify the attempt at once to practice and philosophise, to act and to reason. Fools and philosophers too often mar the good works of such men, by pretending to see clearly, and to define accurately, the principles of action which have led to those works. A Washington, a Peel, or a Wellington, never "writes himself down an ass" by appealing to abstract principles to justify measures which are rendered necessary by a thousand minute and peculiar circumstances of the hour, which common sense and experience instinctively appreciate, but which philosophy in vain attempts to detect or to generalize. Common sense never attempts "to expel nature," but suggests and carries through a thousand useful reforms by recurrence to and comparison with the past, and by cautious experimentation.
Common sense sometimes errs by excess of conservation; but it is better to err with Pope, who thought "Whatever is, is right," than with Jefferson, whose every act and word proves that he held that "Whatever is, is wrong.
The Reformation was not the thought and the act of Luther, Calvin, Cranmer and Erasmus; but the thought and the act of society – the vox Populi, vox Dei. Popes and cardinals are not infallible, but society is. Its harmony is its health; and to differ with it is heresy or treason, because social discord inflicts individual misery; and what disturbs and disarranges society, impairs the happiness and well-being of its members.
This doctrine of the infallibility of society, is suggested, though not expressed, in the maxim – Salus populi, est suprema lex. The Puritans, in the early days of New England, acted it out; and if they hung a few troublesome old women, the good that they achieved was more than compensated for by any errors they may have committed. Liberty of the press, liberty of speech, freedom of religion, or rather freedom from religion, and the unlimited right of private judgment, have borne no good fruits, and many bad ones. Infidels, Skeptics, Millerites, Mormons, Agrarians, Spiritual Rappers, Wakemanites, Free Negroes and Bloomers, disturb the peace of society, threaten the security of property, offend the public sense of decency, assail religion, and invoke anarchy. Society has the right, and is in duty bound, to take care of itself; and when public opinion becomes powerless, law should intervene, and punish all acts, words, or opinions, which have become criminal by becoming dangerous or injurious.
We would rejoice to see intolerance of error revived in New England. Laxity of rule and laxity of public opinion is sin of itself, and leads to thousands of sins. New England is culpable for permitting Parker and Beecher to stir up civil discord and domestic broils from the pulpit. These men deserve punishment, for they have instigated and occasioned a thousand murders in Kansas; yet they did nothing more than carry into practice the right of private judgment, liberty of speech, freedom of the press and of religion. These boasted privileges have become far more dangerous to the lives, the property and the peace of the people of this Union, than all the robbers and murderers and malefactors put together.
The Reformation was but an effort of Nature – the vis medicatrix naturæ – throwing off what was false, vicious, or superfluous, and retaining what was good.
The great men of the day but show larger portions of the common thought. Men, and all other social and gregarious animals, have a community of thought, of motions, instincts and intuitions. The social body is of itself a thinking, acting, sentient being. This is eminently observable with the lower animals. Bees and herds perform their evolutions with too much rapidity and precision, to leave any doubt but that one mind and one feeling, either from within or without, directs their movements. The great error of modern philosophy is the ignorance or forgetfulness of this fact. The first departure from it was not the Reformation – for that was preëminently a social idea and a social movement; – but the doctrine of the right of private judgment, which speculative philosophers and vain schismatics attempted to engraft upon it, or deduce from it. Human equality, the social contract, the let-alone and selfish doctrines of political economy, universal liberty, freedom of speech, of the press, and of religion, spring directly from this doctrine, or are only new modes of expressing it. Agrarianism, Free Love, and No Government, are its logical sequences: for the right to judge for ourself implies the right to act upon our judgments, and that can never be done in a world where the private appropriation of all capital, and the interference of government, restricts our free agency, and paralyzes our action on all sides.
We sometimes think the burning of the Alexandrian Library was a providential purification, just as the fictitious burning, by Cervantes, of Don Quixote's library ridded the world of the useless rubbish of the Middle Ages, by the ridicule so successfully attached to it. Sure we are, that a fire that would consume all the theological and other philosophical speculations of the last two centuries, would be a happy God-send.
Our Revolution, so wise in its conception and so glorious in its execution, was the mere assertion by adults of the rights of adults, and had nothing more to do with philosophy than the weaning of a calf. It was the act of a people seeking national independence, not the Utopian scheme of speculative philosophers, seeking to establish human equality and social perfection.
But the philosophers seized upon it, as they had upon the Reformation, and made it the unwilling and unnatural parent of the largest and most hideous brood of ills that had ever appeared at one birth, since the opening of the box of Pandora. Bills of Rights, Acts of Religious Freedom and Constitutions, besprinkled with doctrines directly at war with all stable government, seem to be the basis on which our institutions rest. But only seem to be; for, in truth, our laws and government are either old Anglo-Saxon prescriptive arrangements, or else the gradual accretions of time, circumstance and necessity. Throw our paper platforms, preambles and resolutions, guaranties and constitutions, into the fire, and we should be none the worse off, provided we retained our institutions – and the necessities that begat, and have, so far, continued them.
All government proceeds ab extra. Neither individuals nor societies can govern themselves, any more than the mouse can live in the exhausted receiver, or the clown lift himself by the lappel of his pantaloons. The South is governed by the necessity of keeping its negroes in order, which preserves a healthy conservative public opinion. Had the negroes votes, the necessity would be removed, because the interest of the governing class would cease to be conservative. The necessity, the governing power ab extra, would be removed. The little republics of ancient Greece were able to preserve the most artificial social arrangements, under the necessities which slavery and foreign hostile pressure from without begat. They were afraid of change, because insurrection was dangerous.
If government on paper were really useless and harmless, we should say nothing about it. But it is fraught with danger, first because we are apt to rely on it for safety and security of rights, and secondly because it rarely suits the occasion. Men and societies are endowed by Providence generally with sufficient knowledge and judgment to act correctly or prudently under circumstances as they arise; but they cannot foresee or provide for the future, nor lay down rules for other people's conduct. All platforms, resolutions, bills of rights and constitutions, are true in the particular, false in the general. Hence all legislation should be repealable, and those instruments are but laws. Fundamental principles, or the higher law, are secrets of nature which God keeps to himself. The vain attempt of "frequent recurrence to them," is but the act of the child who builds card houses, for the pleasure of knocking them down. Recurrence to fundamental principles and appeals to the higher law, are but the tocsin of revolution that may upset everything, but which will establish nothing, because no two men are agreed as to what the higher law, alias "fundamental principles," is.
Moses, and Lycurgus, and Solon, and Numa, built their institutions to last, enjoined it on the people never to change them, and threw around them the sanctity of religion, to ward off the sacrilegious hand of future innovation. "A frequent recurrence to fundamental principles," and the kicking down of card houses, was not part of their science of government. We have often thought, that of all the lost arts, the art of government was the only one whose loss we would deplore, or whose recovery is worth the pains of study and research.
To us it seems that "first causes," "fundamental principles," and the "higher law," mean one and the same thing: An "ignis fatuus," that it is dangerous to pursue, and hopeless to overtake.
We may be doing Mr. Jefferson injustice, in assuming that his "fundamental principles" and Mr. Seward's "higher law," mean the same thing; but the injustice can be very little, as they both mean just nothing at all, unless it be a determination to inaugurate anarchy, and to do all sorts of mischief. We refer the reader to the chapter on the "Declaration of Independence," &c., in our Sociology, for a further dissertation on the fundamental powder-cask abstractions, on which our glorious institutions affect to repose. We say affect, because we are sure neither their repose nor their permanence would be disturbed by the removal of the counterfeit foundation.
The true greatness of Mr. Jefferson was his fitness for revolution. He was the genius of innovation, the architect of ruin, the inaugurator of anarchy. His mission was to pull down, not to build up. He thought everything false as well in the physical, as in the moral world. He fed his horses on potatoes, and defended harbors with gun-boats, because it was contrary to human experience and human opinion. He proposed to govern boys without the authority of masters or the control of religion, supplying their places with Laissez-faire philosophy, and morality from the pages of Lawrence Sterne. His character, like his philosophy, is exceptional – invaluable in urging on revolution, but useless, if not dangerous, in quiet times.
We would not restrict, control, or take away a single human right or liberty, which experience showed was already sufficiently governed and restricted by public opinion. But we do believe that the slaveholding South is the only country on the globe, that can safely tolerate the rights and liberties which we have discussed.
The annals of revolutionary Virginia were illustrated by three great and useful men. The mighty mind of Jefferson, fitted to pull down; the plastic hand of Madison to build up, and the powerful arm of Washington to defend, sustain and conserve.
We are the friend of popular government, but only so long as conservatism is the interest of the governing class. At the South, the interests and feelings of many non-property holders, are identified with those of a comparatively few property holders. It is not necessary to the security of property, that a majority of votes should own property; but where the pauper majority becomes so large as to disconnect the mass of them in feeling and interest from the property holding class, revolution and agrarianism are inevitable. We will not undertake to say that events are tending this way at the North. The absence of laws of entail and primogeniture may prevent it; yet we fear the worst; for, despite the laws of equal inheritance and distribution, wealth is accumulating in few hands, and pauperism is increasing. We shall attempt hereafter to show that a system of very small entails might correct this tendency.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE NOMADIC BEGGARS AND PAUPER BANDITTI OF ENGLAND
Under various names, such as Proletariat in France, Lazzaroni in Italy, Leperos in Mexico, and Gypsies throughout all Europe, free society is disturbed and rendered insecure, by the class, a description of which we shall draw from the British writers. We do not hesitate to assign to the Gypsies the same origin with the rest. They are all the outgrowth of runaway and emancipated serfs. The time of the appearance of the Gypsies is coeval with the universal liberation and escape of the villeins.
If this diluvies of society is by nature vicious, nomadic and incapable of any self-control, it is obvious they should be enslaved. If emancipation of their ancestors and the throwing them upon the world without property or other means of support, made them and their posterity, from necessity, beggars, Pariahs and Ishmaelites, they should be restored to slavery, unless some better disposition of them can be discovered.
North British Review, "Literature and Labor Question," February No. 1851. The passage we quote is from a work of Mr. Mayhew:
"That we, like the Hottentots, Kaffirs, and Fins, are surrounded by wandering hordes, the 'sonquas' and 'fingons' of this country, paupers, beggars and outcasts, possessing nothing but what they acquire by depredation from the industrious, provident and civilized portion of the community; that the heads of these nomads are remarkable for a greater development of the jaws and cheek bones, than of the skull, and that they have a secret language of their own – an English 'cuzecat,' or 'slang,' as it is called, for the concealment of their designs; these are points of coincidence so striking, that, when placed before the mind, they make us marvel why the analogy has been so long unobserved. The resemblance once discovered, however, becomes of great service in enabling us to use the moral characteristics of the nomadic races of other countries, as a means of comprehending more readily those of the vagabonds and outcasts of our own. * * * The nomad there is distinguished from the civilized man by his repugnance to regular and continuous labor – by his want of providence in laying up a store for the future; by his inability to perceive consequences ever so slightly removed from immediate apprehension; by his passion for stultifying herbs and roots, and when possible, for intoxicating fermented liquors; for his extraordinary powers of enduring privation; by his comparative insensibility to pain; by an immoderate love of gaming; frequently risking his own personal liberty on a single cast; by his love of libidinous dances; by the pleasure which he experiences in witnessing the sufferings of sentient creatures; by his delight in warfare and all perilous sports; by his desire for vengeance; by the looseness of his notions as to property; by the absence of chastity among his women, and his disregard of female honor; and lastly by his vague sense of religion, his rude idea of a Creator, and utter absence of all appreciation of the mercy of the Divine Spirit.
"The nomadic races of England are of many distinct kinds – from the habitual vagrant, half beggar, half thief, sleeping in barns, tents, and casual wards, to the mechanic on the tramp, obtaining his bed and supper from the trade societies in the different towns on his way to seek work. Between these two extremes, there are several mediate varieties, consisting of pedlars, show-men, harvest men, and all that large class who live by either selling, showing, or doing something through the country. There are, so to speak, the rural nomads – not confining their wanderings to any one particular locality, but ranging often from one end of the land to the other. Besides these, there are urban and suburban travellers, or those who follow some itinerant occupation in and about the large towns. Such are in the metropolis, more particularly the pickpockets, the beggars, the prostitutes, the street sellers, the street performers, the cab-men, the coachmen, the watermen, the sailors, and such like. In each of these classes, according as they partake more or less of the family vagabond, doing nothing whatever for their living, but moving from place to place, preying upon the earnings of the more industrious part of the community – so will the attributes of the nomad tribe be found to be more or less marked."
To the same effect, read the following from July No. 1852, of Edinburgh Review, in article on "Mendicity; its causes and statistics:"
There live, then, in the midst and about all the English population, a distinct population, fearful in numbers, constantly and rapidly increasing, having a language, manners, and customs of its own – living, in nine cases out of ten, in a course of life the most immoral and profligate; and yet so living, and so increasing, in spite of the laws, in spite of the municipal arrangements of the last few years, so favorable to their detection and punishment; in spite of the new poor-law arrangements; and in spite of the general feeling that the poor-rates and the union ought to provide for all real cases of destitution and misery. This population has its signs, free-masonry, its terms of art, its correspondence, its halting-houses, its barns still kept open, and even well-strawed by farmers and country gentlemen; its public-houses, its well-known and even recognized lodging houses; and its manifold plans to extract or extort, to win or to scold, out of its reluctant but deceived victims, sums amounting, we are inclined to believe, to not less than £1,375,000; being one-third of the total amount of poor-rates! This sum may at first appear utterly extravagant; but it will not be found to be so when it is remembered, that on an average each begging family extorts £55 per annum from the public. The annual poor law expenditure for the year ending in March, 1840, in England, was, in round numbers, £4,300,000. In England, including the three ridings of Yorkshire, there are forty-two counties. The population of those counties is nearly fifteen millions. If we take at this moment a rough and general, though a tolerably correct estimate of that population, with its dense misery in towns and cities, and its diffused but not less individually intense misery in the agricultural districts, we may fairly calculate that one out of every one hundred is a beggar or lives in a state of practical vagrancy – looking in one form or other, to alms for support. The one-hundredth part of the population is 150,000; and if each begging family, raising £55 per annum from the public by alms, be estimated as consisting of six, we shall have 25,000 English begging families, raising £55 per annum each, or the total sum of £1,375,000. But we believe that we have underrated, instead of overstated the facts of the case in these calculations. In London alone and its vicinity, in spite of all the efforts of the police, a very large part of that sum is extorted; and we have not taken into consideration the wholesale mendicity which is now deplorably manifest in the larger English manufacturing towns. We have also omitted all Irish mendicants; and yet they are nearly in the proportion of one to three in the English agricultural districts. Naturally anxious as we are to avoid even the appearance of exaggeration, we are still bound to state, that the estimate we have made is greatly deficient, and that we have understated the real statistics.
The begging population of England, existing and increasing in spite of municipal police, and notwithstanding the penalties of the vagrant act, is divided into several classes; and we now propose to draw upon a little pamphlet, mentioned at the head of this article, which has been recently published at Birmingham, and which contains very accurate details of the mendicant population – written by one who long frequented the haunts of the vagrant community. The portion of the community to which his details extend, belong principally to the hereditary and professional class of beggars.
The writer of this family thus proceeds with his descriptive details:
'In order fully to explain each individual character, I shall begin with those vagrants who generally obtain the most, and are considered of the first class, and are by some termed 'Silver Beggars,' but by travelers Lurkers.
'Lurkers are persons who go about with briefs, containing false statements of losses by fire, shipwrecks, accidents, &c. The seals and signatures of two or more magistrates are affixed to those briefs, and they are so well written, that thousands of persons are daily imposed upon by them. As there are so many different ways used by these persons, it will be necessary to explain each of them separately.'
The writer then enters into details as to 'the Fire-Lurkers,' or those, 'who go about begging for loss by fire.' They have false briefs, pretended to be signed by two magistrates and the clergyman of the place where the fire is alleged to have taken place. The documents are accompanied by a sham subscription-book, and the brief is called, in the mendicant's parlance, 'a sham,' whilst the subscription-book they name 'a delicate.' With this 'sham and delicate' the 'lurkers,' or beggars, proceed all over the country; and the author states that one man, with whom he was acquainted, 'had been a fire-lurker for fourteen years, and had travelled through every county in England, and the greater part of Wales.'
Then there is,
'The Shipwrecked Sailor's Lurk.– Persons who go on this lurk, generally represent themselves as captains or masters of merchant ships, which have been wrecked, and they have, of course, lost all their property; and their pretended loss always amounts to many hundred pounds, sometimes even to thousands. This class of impostors are very respectably dressed, having moustaches, gold chains, &c.; they have either a well-written brief, or one partly printed and filled up with writing and the seals and signatures of two or three magistrates are placed at the bottom. I have seen briefs of this description from almost every part of the kingdom.'
He goes on to say, that one named Captain Johnstone had 'followed the lurk of a shipwrecked captain for many years, had been over every county in England and Wales many times, and obtained not only hundreds, but thousands of pounds.' He relates various anecdotes of the most successful 'Lurkers' in this department.
'The Foreigner's Lurk.– Considerable numbers proceed on this lurk, representing themselves as foreigners in distress… Of late years, by far the greatest number have represented themselves as Polish noblemen or gentlemen, who had been driven by the tyranny of Russia from their native country to seek a refuge… Their briefs have the names and seals of two magistrates attached, and are always well written. Whenever they present their briefs, they affect not to be able to speak a word of English, and the few words they utter are spoken in broken accent… One of these lurkers, known among mendicants by the nickname of 'Lord Dundas,' had often got several pounds in a day… There are also many females who go on the foreigner's lurk… I knew a female who went on the foreigner's lurk, who dressed very well; she had a boy with her, and often succeeded in getting two or three pounds in a day. When she called on any one, she pattered (spoke) in French, and affected not to be able to converse in the English language.'
4. 'The Accident Lurk.– Lurkers of this description have a sham and delicate, (brief and book,) and the sham states, that by some dreadful accident the bearer has lost all, or at least the greater part of his property, sometimes by storm, and at other times by a flood, or in some other way: but, in whatever way the accident has happened, the bearer has always suffered a very considerable loss, and is deprived of the means of supporting himself and family. The sums raised vary from five shillings to a pound per day.'
5. 'The Sick Lurk.– This is worked in so many different ways, that it will be necessary to say a little on each. It would seem, 1st, That a common method of imposing upon the public is, by applying blistering ointment to the arms, causing them to have the appearance of having been badly scalded. 2d, That others go about with hands and arms tied up, said to be injured by lightning, or by some other deplorable accident. 3d, Others affect fits. 4th, Others affect pregnancy and destitution. 5th, Others obtain alms by the husband remaining at home and affecting indisposition, in case any one should visit his lodgings to examine into the merits of the case, whilst the wife goes out begging for wine, rags, clothes, &c., for the sham invalid. 6th, Others pretend to have bad wounds, and beg for linen rags and small bottles to contain medicine necessary for their cure. I saw a man who got, in one day, by this means, thirteen pounds' weight of white rags, and more than five dozen of phial bottles. Rags and bottles sell well. 7th, Others affect to have children confined with scarlet fever, &c. &c., and beg for them. They state that they have obtained a note to take their children to an infirmary or to an hospital, and want a few clothes and a little money.'
6. 'The Deaf and Dumb Lurk.– I have known many persons of both sexes, who have acted as if deaf and dumb, and by this means succeeded very well in obtaining money, food, &c. Many of them pretend to tell fortunes, and frequently get something considerable by such practices. They carry a slate and pencil with them, to write questions and answers.'
It would appear from the pamphlet before us, that sometimes these deaf and dumb lurkers affect even in the lodging-houses to be thus afflicted; but in such cases they are generally found out by their fellow vagrants.
7. 'The Servants' Lurk.– There are considerable numbers who go on the servants' lurk, or as servants out of place; and both males and females frequently succeed well in imposing on servants and others by false statements and tales of distress… The greater part of those who go on this lurk are neatly dressed, and have exactly the appearance of servants in gentlemen's families… Many of them have the Court Guide, which, as it contains a list of the nobility and gentry, enables them to do the thing completely.'
8. 'Collier's Lurk.– This is followed by thousands who were never in a coal-pit, and numbers of such are daily imposing upon the public as colliers out of employ. They generally say they have been thrown out of work by some accident, such as the flooding of the works or the falling in of the pit… They often go in parties from two to seven or eight… Others have printed papers, which are left at each house, and called for again in a few hours… Others have written statements of the pretended masters of the accidents, and the supposed signatures of the works are affixed to them… Some of those obtain as much as fourteen or fifteen shillings per diem.'
9. 'The Weaver's Lurk.– There are at the present time great numbers who go on this lurk, many of them having printed papers or small handbills, and leave one at each house, and then call again for them, and to receive what persons are disposed to give… I have seen men who represented themselves as weavers of every kind, and from all the manufacturing parts of the kingdom – men who I well knew had never been near a loom, but had been born and bred vagrants.'
10. 'The Cotton Spinner's Lurk.– There are many going on this lurk with printed papers or small handbills also… Some who go on this lurk carry sewing cotton for sale, alleged to be their own spinning… One man I know, who travels on this lurk, has been doing so for twelve years. He sometimes obtains as much as from twelve to fifteen shillings in one day.'
11. 'The Calenderer's Lurk.– Those who go on this lurk represent themselves as calenderer's out of employ, through the depression of trade and improvement in machinery. They, like sham weavers and colliers, have false papers, which are printed, some in poetry.'
The sums raised by these descriptions of 'lurks' must be immense, especially where the individuals have a good address, and can explain and enforce the written and printed appeals they take with them.
'High-Fliers,' or begging letter writers, are, it would seem, the next in order of importance, after the Lurkers. 'These begging letter-writers scribble false statements of their having been unfortunate in business, or suffered great losses, which have reduced them to a state of extreme distress. In London, but especially in the watering and sea-bathing places, these letters procure as much as from five to one pound per day.'
'Shallow Coves' are 'impostors begging through the country as shipwrecked sailors. They generally choose winter, and always go nearly naked. Their object in doing so is to obtain left-off clothes… They have a long, pitiful got-up tale of pretended distress, which they shout through the streets, of having been shipwrecked, &c… Shallow Coves generally go in companies, (or, technically speaking, in school) of from two to ten. There is generally one selected to be the spokesman… As Shallow Coves only call at respectable houses, they often obtain a great deal of money.'
'Shallow Motts' are females who, like the Shallow Coves, go nearly naked. They also adopt that mode of begging in order to obtain wearing apparel… They plead long and severe sickness, but only ask for clothes. The clothes are disposed of as soon as possible, none being ever kept for their own use… I knew one of these who in ten days obtained at Kingston-upon-Thames between seven and eight pounds' worth of clothes.
'Cadgers' are those who make begging their trade, and depend upon it for their support. Cadgers on the downright are those who beg from door to door, and Cadgers on the fly are those who beg as they pass along the tober, (road.) Cadging on the fly is a profitable occupation in the vicinity of bathing-places and large towns. A person of this description generally gets many shillings in the course of the clay. Cadging on the downright (from door to door) is like all other trades, getting worse; but still thousands do very well at it, and frequently get more food than they can consume… I have often seen food, which many working people would gladly have eaten, shamefully and wantonly wasted.
'Cadgers Children' (kiddies) 'are so well instructed in the arts of imposition by their parents, that they frequently obtain more in money and food than grown-up cadgers.'
'Cadgers' Screeving. – There are many cadgers who write short sentences with chalk on the flags, and some of them can do it remarkably well; these are called screevers. I have seen the following sentences frequently written by them in places where there were numbers passing by, and where they thought it would be likely to get plenty of half-pence, (browns,) and now and then a tanner or a bob, (sixpence or a shilling,)
"Hunger is a sharp thorn, and biteth keen."
"I cannot get work, and to beg I am ashamed."
I have known them by this means obtain seven shillings a day.
'Cadgers' Sitting Pad.– Whenever cadgers stand or sit, either in towns or by the road side, to beg, they call it sitting or standing pad; and this often proves a very profitable method. Some of them affect blindness; whilst others represent themselves as unable to follow any employment, in consequence of being subject to fits. Some cadgers save very considerable sums of money; but these are very few, compared with the great number who live by this trade of beggary.
'Match-sellers' never entirely depend upon selling matches, for they cadge as well; in fact, they only carry matches as a cloak for begging, and never offer them at any house where they expect to get more without them… Match-sellers, as well as all other cadgers, often get what they call 'a back-door cant;' that is, anything they can carry off where they beg, or offer their matches for sale.'
'Cross Coves,' though they beg their bread, can tell a long story about being out of employ through the badness of trade, &c., yet get what they call on the cross, (by theft.)… One of their chief modes of getting things on the cross is by shoplifting, (called grabbing,)… Another method is to star the glaze, (i. e. break or cut the window.)
'Prigs (or pickpockets) are another class of vagrants, and they frequent races, fairs, and prize-fights… Like cross coves, they are generally young men who have been trained to vagrancy, and have been taught the arts of their profession in their childhood.'
'Palmers are another description of beggars, who visit shops under pretence of collecting harp half-pence; and to induce shopkeepers to search for them, they offer thirteen-pence for a shilling's worth, when many persons are silly enough to empty a large quantity of copper on their counters to search for the half-pence wanted. The palmer is sure to have his hand amongst it; and while he pretends to search for the harps, he contrives to conceal as many as possible in the palm of his hand, and whenever he removes his hand from the coppers on the counter, always holds his fingers out straight, so that the shopkeeper has not the least suspicion that he is being robbed. Sums varying from five to fifteen shillings per diem are frequently got in this way, by characters of that description.'
Extract from Edinburgh Review, Jan. No. 1844:
IRISH PEASANTRY
It is obvious that the insecurity of a community in which the bulk of the population form a conspiracy against the law, must prevent the importation of capital; must occasion much of what is accumulated there to be exported; and must diminish the motives and the means of accumulation. Who will send his property to a place where he cannot rely on its being protected? Who will voluntarily establish himself in a country which to-morrow may be in a state of disturbance? A state in which, to use the words of Chief Justice Bushe, 'houses, and barns, and granaries are leveled, crops are laid waste, pasture lands are ploughed, plantations are torn up, meadows are thrown open to cattle, cattle are maimed, tortured, killed; persons are visited by parties of banditti, who inflict cruel torture, mutilate their limbs, or beat them almost to death; men who have in any way become obnoxious to the insurgents, or opposed their system, or refused to participate in their outrages, are deliberately assassinated in the open day; and sometimes the unoffending members of a family are indiscriminately murdered by burning the habitation." A state in which even those best able to protect themselves, the gentry, are forced to build up all their lower windows with stone and mortar; to admit light only into one sitting-room, and not into all the windows of that room, to fortify every other inlet by bullet proof barricadoes; to station sentinels around during all the night, and the greater part of the day; and to keep fire-arms in all the bedrooms, and even on the side-table at breakfast and dinner time. Well might even Bishop Doyle exclaim – "I do not blame the absentees; I would be an absentee myself if I could."