For years the evil was felt and complained
of, but no effort was made to remedy it, or to cleanse these worse than
Augean stables. As the place is now partially, if not altogether, swept
away, and a wide and airy street passes through the midst of its foul
recesses, a slight sketch may be given of its former appearance. Entering a narrow street, guarded by posts and cross-bars, a few steps
from the crowded thoroughfare brought you into a frightful region, the
refuge, it was easy to perceive, of half the lawless characters
infesting the metropolis. The coarsest ribaldry assailed your ears, and
noisome odours afflicted your sense of smell. As you advanced, picking
your way through kennels flowing with filth, or over putrescent heaps of
rubbish and oyster-shells, all the repulsive and hideous features of the
place were displayed before you. There was something savagely
picturesque in the aspect of the place, but its features were too
loathsome to be regarded with any other feeling than disgust. The houses
looked as sordid, and as thickly crusted with the leprosy of vice, as
their tenants. Horrible habitations they were, in truth. Many of them
were without windows, and where the frames were left, brown paper or tin
supplied the place of glass; some even wanted doors, and no effort was
made to conceal the squalor within. On the contrary, it seemed to be
intruded on observation. Miserable rooms, almost destitute of furniture;
floors and walls caked with dirt, or decked with coarse flaring prints;
shameless and abandoned-looking women; children without shoes and
stockings, and with scarcely a rag to their backs: these were the chief
objects that met the view. Of men, few were visible--the majority being
out on business, it is to be presumed; but where a solitary straggler
was seen, his sinister looks and mean attire were in perfect keeping
with the spot. So thickly inhabited were these wretched dwellings, that
every chamber, from garret to cellar, swarmed with inmates. As to the
cellars, they looked like dismal caverns, which a wild beast would shun. Clothes-lines were hung from house to house, festooned with every kind
of garment. Out of the main street branched several alleys and passages,
all displaying the same degree of misery, or, if possible, worse, and
teeming with occupants. Personal security, however, forbade any attempt
to track these labyrinths; but imagination, after the specimen afforded,
could easily picture them. It was impossible to move a step without
insult or annoyance. Every human being seemed brutalised and degraded;
and the women appeared utterly lost to decency, and made the street ring
with their cries, their quarrels, and their imprecations. It was a
positive relief to escape from this hotbed of crime to the world
without, and breathe a purer atmosphere. Such being the aspect of the Rookery in the daytime, what must it have
been when crowded with its denizens at night! Yet at such an hour it
will now be necessary to enter its penetralia. After escaping from the ruined house in the Vauxhall Road, the two
ruffians shaped their course towards Saint Giles's, running the greater
part of the way, and reaching the Broadway just as the church clock
struck two. Darting into a narrow alley, and heedless of any
obstructions they encountered in their path, they entered a somewhat
wider cross-street, which they pursued for a short distance, and then
struck into an entry, at the bottom of which was a swing-door that
admitted them into a small court, where they found a dwarfish person
wrapped in a tattered watchman's greatcoat, seated on a stool with a
horn lantern in his hand and a cutty in his mouth, the glow of which
lighted up his hard, withered features. This was the deputy-porter of
the lodging-house they were about to enter. Addressing him by the name
of Old Parr, the ruffians passed on, and lifting the latch of another
door, entered a sort of kitchen, at the farther end of which blazed a
cheerful fire, with a large copper kettle boiling upon it. On one side
of the room was a deal table, round which several men of sinister aspect
and sordid attire were collected, playing, at cards. A smaller table of
the same material stood near the fire, and opposite it was a staircase
leading to the upper rooms. The place was dingy and dirty in the
extreme, the floors could not have been scoured for years, and the walls
were begrimed with filth. In one corner, with his head resting on a heap
of coals and coke, lay a boy almost as black as a chimney-sweep, fast
asleep. He was the waiter. The principal light was afforded by a candle
stuck against the wall, with a tin reflector behind it. Before the fire,
with his back turned towards it, stood a noticeable individual, clad in
a velveteen jacket with ivory buttons, a striped waistcoat, drab knees,
a faded black silk neckcloth tied in a great bow, and a pair of ancient
Wellingtons ascending half-way up his legs, which looked
disproportionately thin when compared with the upper part of his square,
robustious, and somewhat pursy frame. His face was broad, jolly, and
good-humoured, with a bottle-shaped nose, fleshy lips, and light grey
eyes, glistening with cunning and roguery. His hair, which dangled in
long flakes over his ears and neck, was of a dunnish red, as were also
his whiskers and beard. A superannuated white castor, with a black
hat-band round it, was cocked knowingly on one side of his head, and
gave him a flashy and sporting look. His particular vocation was made
manifest by the number of dogs he had about him. A beautiful
black-and-tan spaniel, of Charles the Second's breed, popped its short
snubby nose and long silken ears out of each coat-pocket. A pug was
thrust into his breast, and he carried an exquisite Blenheim under
either arm. At his feet reposed an Isle of Skye terrier, and a partly
cropped French poodle, of snowy whiteness, with a red worsted riband
round his throat. This person, it need scarcely be said, was a
dog-fancier, or, in other words, a dealer in, and a stealer of, dogs, as
well as a practiser of all the tricks connected with that nefarious
trade. His self-satisfied air made it evident he thought himself a
smart, clever fellow,--and adroit and knavish he was, no doubt,--while
his droll, plausible, and rather winning manners helped him materially
to impose upon his customers. His real name was Taylor, but he was known
among his companions by the appellation of Ginger. On the entrance of
the Sandman and the Tinker, he nodded familiarly to them, and with a sly
look inquired--"Vell, my 'arties--wot luck?" "Oh, pretty middlin'," replied the Sandman gruffly. And seating himself at the table, near the fire, he kicked up the lad,
who was lying fast asleep on the coals, and bade him fetch a pot of
half-and-half.