are shades of respectability and social and commercial standing even in rookery circles. There are families to whom rookery tradespeople will give credit, and fam

only in association with high festival occasions, as, for instance, when the money brought back from the hopping is being "knocked down." By people of the Slinger genus- and a great many hop-ilies to whom they will not, and the Slinger pickers are of that genus-such money family is severely relegated to the latter is very speedily knocked down, and that category. As a consequence, when the in ways that would earn the sternest dis- mother is out of work or "on the drink," approval of thrift societies. But when it the household would often be totally with is considered how hard they live, and often out food, or the means of procuring it, how hard they starve, in a general way, it were it not for the broken victuals or odd is scarcely matter for wonder, though it coppers brought home by young Slinger. may be for regret, that when opportuni- He quite appreciates his importance in ties serve they should go upon the princi- this connection, and on that and other ple of living like lords according to grounds assumes a very independent tone their notions of lordly living for a day in relation to his parents. Whether such or two in the year. The paucity of do- a child owes obedience to such parents is mestic means and appliances in the Slinger a question of morals which need not be household has, like many other evils, a discussed here. However that may be, touch of compensatory good about it. he yields them very little obedience, and Though the family revolve in a limited no reverence, though he will stand by orbit, they are frequently changing their them or stick up for them in a clannish, place of abode, and when making a move blood-is-thicker-than-water spirit. Thus, they have commonly good reasons for if he found his father engaged in fight wishing to

Fold their tents like the Arabs,
And silently steal away.

This it is easy for them to do. They have simply to shake the straw out of the "tick," roll it and the bed-clothes into a bundle which the wife can as easily carry under her arm as can the husband the two cut-down chairs, and there they are. Mrs. Slinger, like her husband, is given to drink, and in respect to her son there is a good deal of literal truth in the grim joke which speaks of gutter children as being "weaned on gin and winkles." In regard to drink, she goes upon different lines from her husband. For weeks, and sometimes for months at a stretch, she will confine herself to her sober two or three pots of malt or "goes" of spirits per diem. Then she has a break-out, and drinks hard and continually until she is pulled up by an attack of delirium tremens, or, as she and her neighbors style it, a "fit of the shakes."

Slinger is free of his parents' home after a fashion. If there is food about and to spare · which is not often the case he can have of what is to spare, and it is always open to him to "kennel" in the parental room by night, if he feels so disposed. In a general way, however, he is expected to "scratch for himself,” and this expectation, unlike the supposition as to his father's looking for work, is no fiction, but a stern reality. He must scratch, or starve. The senior Slingers are better known than trusted. There

with another loafer, he would - his sense
of fair play being imperfectly developed
-harass the enemy's rear. He would
attack any boy, slang any woman, and
"eave arf a brick at" any man whom he
found "molesting" his mother when she
was disguised in liquor. At the same
time he will himself unreservedly speak
of "our old feller" or "our old hen "
as he familiarly calls his parents hav
ing been "properly tight," and will glee-
fully narrate and consumedly laugh over
any strange pranks they may have played
when in their cups.

"Shan't" is the word most familiar in his mouth as a reply to any parental command that does not exactly chime in with his personal feelings or plans. "Dry up!" is the slangy and impatient exclamation with which he cuts short the occasional attempts of his mother to lecture him. If his father threatensas when drunk he frequently does to "quilt' him, or skin him alive, or the like, he will, if he is out of arm's reach, and a retreat secure, retort with "Will yer, old feller? oh no yer won't, though. Yer ain't a going to knock me about for nothink, so I tells yer." Sometimes the father, by going upon the principle of a word and a blow, and the blow first, manages to seize and thrash the boy. At such times Slinger is heard to mutter of a good time coming, when he will be able and willing punch the expletive "old 'ed" of his progenitor. For, sad to say, the vernacular of my Arab is not only larded with slang, but full of strange oaths and dreadful im

to

precations. Happily, however, his curs- experience that towards eleven o'clock a ing is mere "poll-parroting." He knows great thirst, combined with a peculiar not what he says; is incapable of realizing "sinking," will fall upon them, and that the horror excited in the minds of others their first desire in life for the moment will at hearing such words falling from the lips of one so young.

be "to have their lives saved" by means of a hair of the dog that has bitten them. As a scratcher, Slinger naturally turns Of course, they are not allowed to take his attention in the first place to the mat- drink into the shops, but it is possible to ter of food; and here he is fortunate get it smuggled in, and Slinger is known enough to have some specially happy to them as an able, willing, and successful hunting-ground. In the immediate neigh- blockade-runner. Before going in to work borhood of the rookery, within the limits after breakfast, the Lushington who en of which the Slingers confine their pere- gages Slinger's services in this line calls grinations, there is an engineering estab-at a neighboring public-house, pays for a lishment, employing some five or six pint or it may be a quart - of malt hundred "hands." Opposite the work- liquor, and leaves orders that it is to be shop gates are several coffee-shops and put into a well-corked "bottle can and eating-houses of the humbler kind, to delivered to Slinger on demand. At the which numbers of the hands who do not appointed hour, Slinger, with his can congo home to breakfast or dinner resort for cealed about his person - and here the those meals. Such hands are a tolerably circumstance of his garments being many hungry army, and, in an ordinary way, sizes too large comes in handy — goes on make a clean sweep of their provender. watch outside a certain part of the workStill, there are generally a few among shop walls until he receives a signal that them who, from one reason or another, the coast is clear; then he clambers up, are "off their feed" for the passing day, with cat-like agility, hangs on the top of and unable to make a square meal. As the wall with one hand, passes the can in eating-houses of the type here in ques- with another, and drops back without hav tion both prices and quantities are fixed, ing shown his head over the parapet. For any portion of his food that a customer each job of this kind Slinger's charge is a may not be able to eat becomes his by penny-though he sometimes gets more, right of purchase. The more thoughtful that being a point he leaves to the discre and kindly among the hands (and they are tion or generosity of the individuals emthe great majority) exercise this right. If ploying him in this wise. at the conclusion of a meal they have still a "remainder" on hand, they bring it out with them, and bestow it on some one of the half-dozen young Arabs who are "in the know" as to these eating-houses, and have marked them for their own. Of this little band my Arab is chief, partly by right of prescription as having been longer on this "lay" than any of the others, and partly also, and in a greater measure, from having "fought his way to glory - for among his tribe right is awarded but scant acknowledgment unless it is coupled with might. There are few days upon which he works this lay that Slinger does not come in for sufficient food to save him from hunger. Most days he receives enough for a "good rough fill," and occasionally the scraps fall to his lot so plentifully that he is, of his abundance, able to take some home.

It is not always convenient to his clients to pay him down on the nail, and this affords him a legitimate excuse for being at the workshop gate at one o'clock on Saturday, when the men are coming out with their week's pay in their pockets. Some there are among them who do not take such heed for the morrow as in strictness they perhaps ought to do. The claims upon their wages may be fully as many as, or even more than, the amount will meet, but they are exhilarated by having a lump sum in hand. For a mo ment they feel in their degree softened by prosperity, and to this feeling Slinger owes it that he frequently comes in for other odd coppers beside those lawfully (or unlawfully) due to him for blockade. running. Nor is this all. "Now's the day and now's the hour" when workmen decide that their shop caps, or jackets, or overalls, have been worn to a point at which they are no longer worth the trouble and expense of washing and repairs. Garments that it has on this ground been determined to cast off are frequently presented to such waiters upon Providence as Slinger, and that youth being known,

and in his way popular, fares very well in | to bribe him off, to induce him to turn his this respect. Some such gifts are only attention as a snatcher to some other fit to be sold as rags; others are in such establishment than theirs. His snatcha condition that they can still be utilized ings are not altogether confined to goods for wear by an Arab. Thus it comes exposed for sale. He will snatch from that Slinger is often to be seen going women shopping, and more especially about clad in engineering costume. Very from those of them who may be so unwise much clad in it, it might be said, for he as to place some of their purchases upon has to don the clothes subject only to the pavement whilst they make others. such alterations as he can himself make A favorite form of raiding with Slinger is in them, and these alterations consist to lie in wait outside a sweetstuff shop, merely in cutting "lumps" off sleeves or and snatch from children as they come legs, or the skirts of jackets. out of it, absorbed in loving contemplation of the delectable wares in which they have been investing their pocket pence. Judged technically, Slinger as a snatcher is rather bold than discreet. He has repeatedly been captured, either after pursuit or red-handed in the act. More than once he has been in the hands of the police, but only in their hands. The value of the property snatched is so small that it is not worth the while of any one to incur the trouble and loss of time that would be involved in "charging" him. He is dealt with on the short shrift prin ciple. Either the constable or the robbed tradesman gives him a sound shaking or cuffing, and sends him about his business.

on

If by chance the coffee-houses fail Slinger, or for any reason he has not resorted to them for a day, there are one or two trades-people in the neighborhood upon whom he can generally count as good" for a little food. Their gifts are ostensibly made in pure charity, and doubtless there is some touch of "divine pity" in the spirit that moves the givers. Broadly, however, these donations in kind are of the nature of blackmail. Partly because business premises are very small, and partly because it is the trade custom, shop stock is a good deal exposed in rookery quarters. This the Slinger tribe regard as a providential arrangement on their behalf. The presence of my Arab So far as Slinger has any business, it is near a shop is looked upon by the shop- that of "rusting"-ie. collecting. keeper in much the same light as the the chiffonnier system-old metal and presence of a fox in the vicinity of a hen- disposing of it to the marine-store dealers. roost would be looked upon by a farmer. In his character of a "ruster," Slinger It is known that he is watching for probably could, an' he would, account "chances." He is a snatcher as well as for the mysterious disappearance from a scratcher. In the matter of "doing a "houses to let" of their more portable spatch," or, in plain English, stealing, and easily accessible metal fixtures. In Slinger's desire is not to leave undone, the open pursuit of his calling he rakes but to keep unknown. If he "spots about the foreshore of the river, makes chance, if he thinks he can do a snatch expeditions to workshops and factories safely, he will do it, with a clear con- whose refuse is cast out of doors, and penscience. With him doing a snatch is no etrates into lanes and alleys into which mere euphemism, no mere slangy para- back gates of better-class houses open, phrase of "convey the wise do call it." and in which consequently there is to be He has no sense of moral restraint or found a good deal of flotsam and jetsam moral wrongdoing in this connection. of household wreckage. Though "rust He has never heard that it is a sin to steal is the primary object of his explorations a pin, and if any one propounded that of rubbish heaps, all is fish that comes to doctrine to him his reply would probably his net. In the "utilization of waste subbe, "Get out; yer ain't a going to stuff stances" field of labor he is in his degree me like that." Or he might even more an all-round hand. Bottles, jam-pots, preemphatically and tersely answer, "Yer served-provision tins, old boots, rags and lie.' Knowing his views and practice as bones - his capacious rusting-sack hath a snatcher, the fat and scant-o'-breath old stomach for them all. Occasionally, too, widow who keeps the small general shop, if he comes across a locality, as he someand the cripple proprietor of the fried fish times does, in which there are a few good and baked potato emporium, occasionally wasteful servants, he will devote a special make him small gifts from the staler por-field-day to the collection of coals and cintions of their edible stock. These gifts are professedly charitable offerings; but the real purpose of those making them is

a

ders. These he can sell to the neighbors of his parents, though, with a view to his own personal comfort, he generally gives

rience that life is not all beer and skittles, he is content to take the rough with the smooth, the kicks with the halfpence in a philosophic spirit. As a camp-follower, he is not afraid of venturing far afield. Young as he is, he has done his Derby. He tramped to Epsom with an "Old Aunt Sally " party, assisted them in the management of the game during the day, and camped out with them on the downs by night. He often sleeps out even when in his own district. His parents take no particular notice of his doing so, regarding it

them up for home consumption. But | ing already discovered from painful expewhile rusting is considered his special line, he by no means confines himself exclusively to it. He will hire himself out as extra bawler and general assistant to "barrer" greengrocers, fish-hawkers, hearth-stone venders, and the like. He is always ready to hold a horse, or open the door of a cab; and from time to time he tries his luck at the railway stations as one of the " carry yer parcel" brigade. When the local soup-kitchen is open he provides himself with a beer-can, and spends a good part of his mornings hanging about the gates of that earthly para-merely as a matter of taste, or of passing dise. He begs drops from the fortunate ticket-holders as they come out, and when successful in his appeals, drinks up each drop as it is given, so that his can is ever empty and stands as a mute witness in justification of his horse-leech cry of Give! give! He sticks to his post to the end, in the hope that each morning may prove one of those red-letter ones on which, there being a surplus of soup after the ticket-holders have been supplied, there is a free distribution on the principle of first come, first served.

convenience upon his part. The practice probably inflicts very little hardship upon him, as wherever or whatever may be the places of shelter to which he resorts when out o' nights - a point your Arab always keeps to himself - they would have to be very wretched places indeed if they were not, to say the least of it, as comfortable and healthy as the parental living and sleeping apartment.

Once Slinger attempted to take a comparatively high flight in the way of business. Having by some means amassed During those parts of the summer in capital to the extent of one shilling, he which he is in town Slinger frequently was in an evil moment induced to embark resorts to a highroad much traversed by in the newspaper trade. Being utterly excursion vans. There he tosses, and uneducated, and therefore largely depentumbles, and grimaces, and turns cart- dent upon others, he was so unfortunate as wheels, for the delectation of the bold to fall into the hands of a clique of trade beanfeasters, who encourage him by cop-competitors, who, partly for a "lark," and pers, or perhaps by a delusive expecta- partly from trade-unionist motives, set tion of coppers which are not given. On him calling "a'penny Hekkers a penny the return journey, when the feasters are each, or two for three-a'pence, and anelated, some of the more good-natured nouncing battles, murders, and sudden among them will, if they have any scraps deaths that had not taken place. Of of food left in their hampers, throw them course, might have been purchasers out to the Slinger kind. But occasionally thought that Slinger was trying to have a some brutal ruffian, upon whom the bad "lark" with them, and he did little or no drink has done its bad office, will, when trade. In the course of a week his capital the Arabs ask for bread give them a stone was gone, and with this loss, and the in the literal sense of shying a bottle at gain of a pair of beautiful black eyes rethem. Once Slinger was severely gashed ceived in combat with one of the youths in this way, and more than once he has who had played tricks upon him, he renarrowly escaped getting under the tired from the business in disgust, and wheels of the vans, so that it is quite on betook him to rusting again. the cards that some day he will be butchered to make a cockney holiday. On bank holidays, and other high festival days, Slinger considers it worth his while to make his way to some haunt of holidaymakers, where he constitutes himself a camp-follower (self-attached) of the army of pleasure-seekers. Like other classes of camp-followers, he is suspected of predatory proclivities, and, as a consequence, comes in for a few good kicks; but he also gets some halfpence, and hav

As already indicated, Slinger is suffi ciently brave in his own fashion; but it cannot be said of him that he is chival rous where the softer sex is concerned. It could scarcely be expected that he would be. In the home circles in which he moves, wife (or paramour) beating and fights between women are common currences, and Slinger, like his betters, unconsciously adapts himself to his environment. Even now, if he has a quarrel with a girl, his talk is of "slogging" her,

OC

of "knocking corners off" her, "landing | sentimental pen-and-ink pictures of Arabs her one on the nose," and so forth. On than mine; and it may be that there have another point, too, his environment seems been individual Arabs who have justified likely to mould him evilly. If there is these pleasanter portraits. Broadly speakanything in the law of hereditary trans- ing, however, the characteristics of my mission, the "drink craving" is in all Arab are the badge of all his tribe. He probability inborn with Slinger, and all is drawn from the life, and that not from his surroundings tend to develop it in a single sitting, not as the result of a him. He is witness to scenes of drinking morning's "slumming" by way of pastime, and drunkenness every day of his life, and or a flying visit to a low quarter under has probably no conception that they are police protection. I have known Slinger not an ordained and integral feature of from his infancy upwards, and have had every-day life. If, when themselves in a daily and still existing - experience the maudlin stage of drunkenness, his amongst his class, extending over a period parents want to show an unwonted tender- of twelve years. I have drawn him, both ness towards him, they give him of their personally and as a type, in his habit, as drink; and when carrying drink for others he lives, with all his imperfections on his he takes toll in the shape of a good sip, head; but in doing so I have wrought in which evidently goes down with a relish no unkindly or unpitying spirit. highly suggestive of the strength of the craving growing with his growth.

He

From The National Review. LETTERS FROM AN IDLE WOMAN'S POSTBAG. 1884.

BY LADY JOHN MANNERS.

ment of a lady who died from the prick of a needle. No monuments have as yet been erected to those martyrs who succumb to the pin-pricks of the Penny Post.

Selina. — Mother! Here are the let

ters

that arrived while you were away. Did you like your two days' holiday? Idle Woman. Every one was very kind, but the meeting father went to attend began at six and lasted till eleven yesterday. My hostess and I were in the gallery. About three hundred men were smoking. I am afraid you may perceive an atmosphere of tobacco and rose-water about my hair. I have been sprinkling it with rose-water, but the tobacco is the stronger. Father drove straight from the railway station to a meeting. We may send for him at midnight, but he don't think he will get back till two or three in the morning.

My Arab, as I have said, is a tough little customer; nevertheless, his wretched mode of life tells upon him at times. has few opportunities, and probably little inclination, to practise the virtue of personal cleanliness, and neglect upon this point brings its own punishment, in the In one of our old cathedrals may be seen the monushape of frequent outbreaks of skin-disease. In the winter season, if the weather proves severe, it finds out his weak spots. His feet, though case-hardened, swell and "chap," and he suffers from neuralgic affections. At such times he is to be seen painfully limping about, with his face bandagedor, as he graphically describes it, "with his head in a sling"-and looking, and doubtless feeling, "the picture of misery." But the point in connection with him which affords "food for saddest contemplation lies in the fact that, wretched little creature though he be, he is a highly fortunate example of his class. There are hundreds, nay thousands, of children who are to the full as badly off as he in relation to parents and home, and surroundings generally, but whose sufferings are more and greater than his, because they lack his capacity for self-help. What will become of Slinger if he lives to attain to manhood is of course an open question, though within a very limited range. If very fortunate, he may get into "trouble" while he is still young enough to be sent to an industrial school or reformatory. If this does not befall, the open question will be narrowed to whether it will be the criminal or the no-visiblemeans-of-support section of society that he will go to swell. To one or the other of them he is certain to gravitate.

I have seen much prettier and more

Selina. There are about forty letters for him and several telegrams, answer paid.

Idle Woman.·

We must not have him

pursued; in fact he happened to say he was going to several meetings. Now for

my

letters.

To the Honble. Mrs. Maunder, London.
MADAM,

We propose holding a bazaar for our Hospital, in June. We think a novelty would draw. We have not decided whether to represent a Tyrolean village, a New