life as shown among these poor people was the manifest fact that
so many of them had come down from a higher position, or were qualified
for it. And this is characteristic of such places. In his "London
Labour and the London Poor," vol. i. p. 217, Mahew tells of a low
lodging-house "in which there were at one time five university men, three
surgeons, and several sorts of broken-down clerks." The majority of
these cases are the result of parents having risen from poverty and
raised their families to "gentility." The sons are deprived by their
bringing up of the vulgar pluck and coarse energy by which the father
rose, and yet are expected to make their way in the world, with nothing
but a so-called "education," which is too often less a help than a
hindrance. In the race of life no man is so heavily handicapped as a
young "gentleman." The humblest and raggedest of all the inmates of this
house were two men who got their living by _shelkin gallopas_ (or selling
ferns), as it is called in the Shelta, or tinker's and tramp's slang.
One of these, whom I have described in another chapter as teaching me
this dialect, could conjugate a French verb; we thought he had studied
law. The other was a poor old fellow called Krooty, who could give the
Latin names for all the plants which he gathered and sold, and who would
repeat poetry very appropriately, proving sufficiently that he had read
it. Both the fern-sellers spoke better English than divers Lord Mayors
and Knights to whom I have listened, for they neither omitted _h_ like
the lowly, nor _r_ like the lofty ones of London.

The tinker's wife was afflicted with a nervous disorder, which caused her
great suffering, and made it almost impossible for her to sell goods, or
contribute anything to the joint support. Her husband always treated her
with the greatest kindness; I have seldom seen an instance in which a man
was more indulgent and gentle. He made no display whatever of his
feelings; it was only little by little that I found out what a heart this
imperturbable rough of the road possessed. Now the Palmer, who was
always engaged in some wild act of unconscious benevolence, bought for
her some medicine, and gave her an order on the first physician in the
town for proper advice; the result being a decided amelioration of her
health. And I never knew any human being to be more sincerely grateful
than the tinker was for this kindness. Ascertaining that I had tools for