{"id":"01KG8AKTZC9N52VBAGNNVA0T8B","cid":"bafkreiemytx6wmmxld7ptjnbktvslozhhepeno4yaybhpcmqcdpih56dwa","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":7406,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:14.842Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 2","source_file":"01KG89J1GP71YDJ60P8SRH97MF","start_line":7336,"text":"men, with the gallows in their eyes, and a whining lie in their mouths;\r\nyoung boys, hollow-eyed and decrepit; and puny mothers, holding up puny\r\nbabes in the glare of the sun, formed the main features of the scene.\r\n\r\nBut these were diversified by instances of peculiar suffering, vice, or\r\nart in attracting charity, which, to me at least, who had never seen\r\nsuch things before, seemed to the last degree uncommon and monstrous.\r\n\r\nI remember one cripple, a young man rather decently clad, who sat\r\nhuddled up against the wall, holding a painted board on his knees. It\r\nwas a picture intending to represent the man himself caught in the\r\nmachinery of some factory, and whirled about among spindles and cogs,\r\nwith his limbs mangled and bloody. This person said nothing, but sat\r\nsilently exhibiting his board. Next him, leaning upright against the\r\nwall, was a tall, pallid man, with a white bandage round his brow, and\r\nhis face cadaverous as a corpse. He, too, said nothing; but with one\r\nfinger silently pointed down to the square of flagging at his feet,\r\nwhich was nicely swept, and stained blue, and bore this inscription in\r\nchalk:—\r\n\r\n_“I have had no food for three days;\r\nMy wife and children are dying.”_\r\n\r\n\r\nFurther on lay a man with one sleeve of his ragged coat removed,\r\nshowing an unsightly sore; and above it a label with some writing.\r\n\r\nIn some places, for the distance of many rods, the whole line of\r\nflagging immediately at the base of the wall, would be completely\r\ncovered with inscriptions, the beggars standing over them in silence.\r\n\r\nBut as you passed along these horrible records, in an hour’s time\r\ndestined to be obliterated by the feet of thousands and thousands of\r\nwayfarers, you were not left unassailed by the clamorous petitions of\r\nthe more urgent applicants for charity. They beset you on every hand;\r\ncatching you by the coat; hanging on, and following you along; and,\r\n_for Heaven’s sake,_ and _for God’s sake,_ and _for Christ’s sake,_\r\nbeseeching of you but _one ha’penny._ If you so much as glanced your\r\neye on one of them, even for an instant, it was perceived like\r\nlightning, and the person never left your side until you turned into\r\nanother street, or satisfied his demands. Thus, at least, it was with\r\nthe sailors; though I observed that the beggars treated the town’s\r\npeople differently.\r\n\r\nI can not say that the seamen did much to relieve the destitution which\r\nthree times every day was presented to their view. Perhaps habit had\r\nmade them callous; but the truth might have been that very few of them\r\nhad much money to give. Yet the beggars must have had some inducement\r\nto infest the dock walls as they did.\r\n\r\nAs an example of the caprice of sailors, and their sympathy with\r\nsuffering among members of their own calling, I must mention the case\r\nof an old man, who every day, and all day long, through sunshine and\r\nrain, occupied a particular corner, where crowds of tars were always\r\npassing. He was an uncommonly large, plethoric man, with a wooden leg,\r\nand dressed in the nautical garb; his face was red and round; he was\r\ncontinually merry; and with his wooden stump thrust forth, so as almost\r\nto trip up the careless wayfarer, he sat upon a great pile of monkey\r\njackets, with a little depression in them between his knees, to receive\r\nthe coppers thrown him. And plenty of pennies were tost into his\r\npoor-box by the sailors, who always exchanged a pleasant word with the\r\nold man, and passed on, generally regardless of the neighboring\r\nbeggars.\r\n\r\nThe first morning I went ashore with my shipmates, some of them greeted\r\nhim as an old acquaintance; for that corner he had occupied for many\r\nlong years. He was an old man-of-war’s man, who had lost his leg at the\r\nbattle of Trafalgar; and singular to tell, he now exhibited his wooden\r\none as a genuine specimen of the oak timbers of Nelson’s ship, the\r\nVictory.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 2"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJRM0ZKTWBK3WTY03DCB7","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1GP71YDJ60P8SRH97MF","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKTZCQS2C2J1P42TXFYPC","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AKTZCKER8301WC45TDN5A","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:17.388Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:31.124Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}