The Man with the Book; or, The Bible Among the People. John Matthias Weylland
the Missionary; but he could get no further, as at the mention of the Book exclamations of doubt and of abuse were uttered. He tried to proceed, but was cried down. As he turned away, the man who opened the door, said, with angry looks, "Now mind, Guv'nor, I am master here, and I live in the next room, and my children knows nothing of superstition, and if you come here with your cant I'll pitch you down." There was a momentary pause, which enabled the visitor to exclaim in a clear ringing voice, "This day has salvation come to this house," and he then descended to the next landing.
Upon the back-room door was a rusty old padlock, showing that the lodgers—costermongers—were out; but the front-room door was partly open. "Come in," said a feeble voice; and the visitor, though nearly stopped by the offensiveness of the room, stepped in, and found it a death chamber. A woman and child were upon the bed in a high state of fever; and stark upon the floor, with face uncovered, lay the body of a boy of six years. The scene so shocked the inexperienced visitor, that he with sorrow expressed his regret at finding them in such a position, and inquired about the husband. "He is a chanter, sir," she replied, "and is out in the streets singing about the man who was hung on Monday morning. He was cut up when Bobby died in the night, and said that he would leave off singing when he had got half-a-crown, and come home." While words of consolation were being read, the "chanter" entered the room: his clothes were threadbare, his face pallid, and his voice husky. The stranger put his hand kindly upon the arm of the poor man, and expressed his sympathy for the bereavement he had suffered, and added, "I have read to your wife from the Bible, and am about to pray: let us kneel down." At the mention of prayer an expression of contempt passed over the man's face, and he hurriedly left the room. Prayer was however offered, and the visitor descended to the parlours: oh, such parlours!
The back was occupied by an aged woman, who no doubt collected bones and rags from the streets, as the floor was nearly covered with them. She was frying fish which was partly putrid, and was so earnest in declaring her poverty (no doubt truthfully) that the visitor had to assure her that he had no temporal relief to bestow. The same plea of poverty was urged by three drunken-looking women who stood at the next door; upon his telling them that he had no money to give, but that he hoped to make them happy with the true riches, they shut the door in his face; and stepping out he breathed the refreshing air of the Court.
Two more houses were passed through with varied success, and the visitor left for rest and refreshment. Upon his return it was evident that his fame had spread, as there were groups of persons ready to look at him, and in that look there was a hostile expression. True to his instructions, he merely gave tracts to several women who asked for them, and then made his way to the fourth house. Though all the front doors were open, and had the appearance of never being closed night or day, that door was shut and fastened, and peals of laughter could be heard inside, while the Missionary in vain knocked for admission. He went to the next house, but was brought to a pause while ascending the upper stairs by the barking of dogs. The door of the front attic was opened by a woman: at the sight of the stranger she screamed her command for silence, and the brutes became dumb. As she opened the door half way a curious sight presented itself: upon the bed were five or six puppies of various breeds, and chained to the floor was a white bull terrier of savage mien, while an ugly cur raised his nose to the edge of the basket in which he was reposing, and sustained a growl of low note. Bobbing a curtsey, she said in a plaintive tone, "I can't ask you in, sir, as the dogs are werry savage; but though I does try to get a honest living, a ticket is as acceptable to me as to them wretches what has got into the first floor." In answer to the inquiry, "How do you live?" she replied, "I brings up little dogs for fancy men, and takes in sick uns to nurse, and I earns my money I can tell you: why that ere bull-dog has the mange, and I have to rub him in with doctor's stuff, and if I didn't muzzle him, and pull his chain tight to the floor, he'd tear me to pieces; and then I have to get up in the night to feed the puppies with milk." When the matter of religion was referred to, she in an angry tone said, that she "knowed what was right, and didn't want to be preached at." The sagacious friends of man understood that altered tone of voice, and recommenced growling and barking. As it was hopeless trying to make himself heard at the next room, the visitor descended to make acquaintance with the abused in the first floor.
Both doors were open, and the lodgers were in evident expectation of a visit. In the front room were three men and four women: the men had cotton handkerchiefs of a reddish colour about their necks, their hair being arranged in the peculiar curl round the ear known in their circle as the Newgate cut. One of them, with an air of blandness, offered the visitor a chair, and said, "I am always glad to see a Missionary gent. Where I comes from, near Petticoat Lane, is one of them, maybe you knows him: he's werry good to chaps that gets into trouble. Now this woman has got a boy as is always unlucky: he went a lifting and got nabbed first time, and got a week, as he wasn't known; after that he hopped over a wall for something, and a Bobby was down on him, and for that he got a month; and then he relieved a gent of his ticker, and for that he's doing four months upon the mill, and I think that he ought to be reformed. He'll be out on Monday, and if you will tell me where you live, I will bring him to you, and you can put him somewhere. If you doesn't he'll be into trouble again, because, as I says, he's unlucky." The reasons given were not likely to stimulate zeal, but the Missionary arranged to see the young thief immediately after his discharge from prison. A friendly conversation, followed, and several young girls and juvenile thieves, who came in from the other room, remained to hear the Bible read. The evil consequences of sin were pointed out to them, and the way of salvation was explained. Deep emotion was expressed by several of these depraved persons, and there was a friendly parting.
Upon the ground floor a fragrance redolent of sea-weeds filled the air, and was a pleasant relief from the state of the atmosphere upstairs. The cause of this strange perfume was apparent upon the door of the back room being opened by an old man, who appeared as if he was undergoing a salivating process. The floor was covered with baskets and trays with piles of whelks upon them, some of which were cooked and some were not. As the man was rather deaf, it was difficult to make him understand the object of the visit; but when he did so, he asked the stranger in. He refused an offered tract, with the remark, "I ain't got no larning, Mister, and I burns every bit of paper I gits, so it 'ould be smoke if you comed for it. I cooks these whelks for chaps and women as stands with stalls, and gets a penny a kettleful." When told "that at his age the great matter was not his business, but his fitness for a better world," he laughed and said, "All I want is to die easy, so I moves the things, and puts my mattress the right way, as we never knows what may be, and they says as it's hard to die the cross-way of boards." He was told that "to pray to the great God in the name of Jesus for pardon and His Holy Spirit, was the way for old people to be made happy, and to die easy." But he looked vacant, as though the subjects of pardon and immortality were strange to him. Upon his saying that cooking was over early in the evening, the visitor showed him the Bible, and said, "This was written by the good Father in heaven, and I will come some evening and read out of it." He looked pleased as he approached his fish-kettle, and the visitor was then glad to make his escape from a kind of warm sea-fog.
The next house was filled with beggars. The rooms were filthy; and upon entering them in succession, the women and children commenced in the cadgers' whine to beg. "Why don't you wash your children?" was inquired of a mother, whose four little ones were as black as sweeps. "We haven't a penny," was the reply, "to buy soap with, and the little dears are so uncomfortable like when they wakes up, until they rubs their faces well with their hands, which freshens them up." Their hard begging prevented religious conversation. In the front parlour a man, clothed in filthy raiment, was smoking his pipe, while the wife was engaged in sweeping with an almost hairless broom. An attempt to speak to them upon the Gospel message provoked an outburst of low abuse from them both: the woman, who was evidently from the Emerald Isle, followed the visitor to the door, giving a long sweep with her broom; and then flourishing it over his head as he stepped into the Court, exclaimed, "Och, and sure and that's the way I sweep out rubbish!" After failing to convey religious instruction to the people at the next house, where the woman and youth abused, and the children yelled as he passed out, the young Missionary