Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a beggar who gains money for performing small jobs; thus kedger’s coffee-house/hotel, a centre for beggars.

1823		‘Jon Bee’ Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc. 107: Kedger — he is a beggar who does not ask for alms outright, but performs some trivial office, and expects a fee, or casts himself in the way of being offered one. ‘To live upon the kedge,’ is said of those who pester soft-hearted people with petitions containing exaggerated statements of distress. ‘Kedger’s coffee-house,’ the daily resort of every kind of beggars. ‘Kedger’s hotel,’ the same nightly.
1851		Melville Moby Dick (1907) 236: On Tower Hill, as you go down to the London docks, you may have seen a crippled beggar (or kedger, as the sailors say) holding a painted board before him, representing the tragic scene in which he lost his leg.