Mr Butterworth describes scenes of' a similar sort, but has attention enough to accuracy to say, that he is only credibly informed of the things which be states. Not a question is put to him about the sources whence his information is derived ; much less are any of the persons who gave it brought be fore the Committee, who ought not to have been contented with the hearsay, when they might have had the original evidence. Mr Butterworth did, in deed, volunteer (for he was not provoked to it by any interrogation) the description of one person. " I know," be said, " a sober hackney-coachman, upon whose veracity I can depend, who has 1y conveyed beggars to their lodgings ; and former ly, when he plied in St Giles's, has been milled to the public houses which they haunt, to take them from thence, being so intoxicated they could not walk home." If this information of the hackney coachman was of any value, how wrong it was not to call the hackney-coachman, and get his own in formation (ran himself? According to what appears from Mr Butterworth's words, he might have convey ed a beggar from those houses, either twice or two hundred times in his life.
This is a very imperfect mode of collecting evi dence.
The only person who gives anything that resem bles the evidence of his own observation upon the subject is Mr Sampson Stevenson. He was asked, —" Have you had an opportunity of making observe tionajon the character of street beggars ?—A great deal ; not only before I was officer, but having been led by being officer to look into the matter, I have made great observations, because there was a house which those kind of people used, not above eight yards from my own house ; complaint being made, the nuisance was done away." " Have you had an opportunity of making particu lar inquiry into the character of individual beggars! —I have; in fact, I made inquiry, not only of the landlord, but of some of those who seemed to be of a superior class, or petition writers; that was before I was overseer. A year or two ago this house lost its licence ; it not only encouraged those kind of people, but people guilty of felonies, and so on. This threw them into other quarters ; and they made their residence at a public-house called The Foun tain, in King-street, Seven Dials, where they assem bled not only at night, but in a morning they started upon their daily occupations, as they express it ; i have seen them come in. As it is a house, the landlord of which is very respectable, and has a family, I have gone into the bar on purpose to see their manner of going on ; that is very near the tap room : They come at night, perhaps individuals, and likewise those sailors, or pretended sailors, in s body ; but those who go one and two together come Woo: those who are sailors never take any thing on their backs like knapsacks, for they only beg or extort money ; but the others beg clothing, or anything they can get, and they always have a knapsack to put it in ; they will come loaded with shoes and various habiliments, which, being near Monmouth-street, the place where they translate old shoes into new ones, they sell, and likewise the clothing. I have heard them say, that they have
made Se. or as. a-day in begging shoes, for some times they got shoes that really were very good ones and their mode of exciting charity for shoes is, in variably, to go barefooted, and scarify their feet and heels with something or another to cause the blood as it were to flow. I have seen them to that. situ*. don many times ; and thus they sally out to their different departments, but invariably changing routes each day, for one is scarcely ever seen in the some direction two days together, but another takes his situation. I have seen them .myeelf; I never saw them outside : bat I have seen considerable sums of money pulled out and shared amongst them, both collectively and- those who go two or three 'to ' gether. Victuals I do not think I ever saw brought into that plade, for I rather think they throw it away when they get it. Mostly shoes and clothing, and such things as those, which they sell immedi ately. They' stop as long as the house they use is open, and get violently drunk, and quarrel with one another, and very frequently fight ; after that they are not allowed to remain, if they were, the licence would be stopped ; and very likely there are houses in St Giles's where they spend the other part, if they have any left.
" What is their general character ?-,-They are peo ple that are initiated in this mode of begging ; one teaches another their modes of extorting, for I can call it nothhig else but extorting : And they are of the worst of characters, characters, whose bias , phemy it is almost • impossible to repeat ; they will follow you in a street for a length of space, and if they do not receive money, they give a great torrent of abuse, even all the time you may hear them. Most of them have no lodgings. There are houses where there are forty or fifty of them, like a jail, the porter stands at the door and takettthe money ; for 3d. they have clean straw, or something like it ; for those who pay 4d. there is something more de cent ; for 6d. they have a bed ; they are all locked in for the night, lest they should take the property. In the morning there is a general muster below. I have asked country paupers who have come for re lief, how they have been entertained, they say, Very badly : they have gone there. The servants go and ' examine all the places, to see that all is free from 4 felony ; and then they are, let out into the street, just as you would open the door of a jail, and let out forty or fifty of them together, and at night they come again ; they have no settled habitations, but those places to which they resort ; but there are numbers of those houses in St Giles's." Most of the statements in this declaration are very loose and vague. Yet not a question is put by the Committee to ascertain how fin' the witness had ac tually seen and heard, and how far he merely con .