“People going to their offices at six or seven in the morning gives me a ha’penny or a penny; if they don’t, I must go without it. I go at five, and stand there till eleven or twelve, till I find it is no use being there any longer. Oh, the gentlemen give me the most, I’m sure; the ladies don’t give me nothing.
“At Christmas I get a few things—a gentleman gave me these boots I’ve got on, and a ticket for a half-quartern loaf and a hundred of coals. I have got as much as five shillings at Christmas—but those times will never come back again. I get no more than two shillings and sixpence at Christmas now.
“My husband, Thomas —— was his name, was a chimley-sweep. He did a very good business—it was all done by his sons. We had a boy with us, too, just as a friendly boy. I was a mother and a mistress to him. I’ve had eleven children. I’m grandmother to fifteen, and a great-grandmother, too. They won’t give me a bite of bread, though, any of ’em, I’ve got four children living, as far as I know, two abroad and two home here with families. I never go among ’em. It is not in my power to assist ’em, so I never go to distress ’em.
“I get two shilling a-week from the parish, and I have to pay out of that for a quartern loaf, a quartern of sugar, and an ounce of tea. The parish forces it on me, so I must take it, and that only leaves me one shilling and fourpence. A shilling of it goes for my lodging. I lodge with people who knew my family and me, and took a liking to me; they let me come there instead of wandering about the streets.
“I stand on my crossing till I’m like to drop over my broom with tiredness. Yes, sir, I go to church at St. George’s in the Borough. I go there every Sunday morning, after I leave my roads. They’ve taken the organ and charity children away that used to be there when I was a girl, so it’s not a church now, it’s a chapel. There’s nothing but the preacher and the gentlefolks, and they sings their own psalms. There are gatherings at that church, but whether it’s for the poor or not I don’t know. I don’t get any of it.
“It was a great loss to me when my husband died; I went all to ruin then. My father belonged to Scotland, at Edinboro’. My mother came from Yorkshire. I don’t know where Scotland is no more than the dead. My father was a gentleman’s gardener and watchman. My mother used to go out a-chairing, and she was drowned just by Horsemonger Lane. She was coming through the Halfpenny Hatch, that used to be just facing the Crown and Anchor, in the New Kent-road; there was an open ditch there, sir. She took the left-hand turning instead of the right, and was drownded. My father died in St. Martin’s Workhouse. He died of apoplexy fit.
“I used to mind my father’s place till mother died. His housekeeper I was—God help me! a fine one too. Thank the Lord, my husband was a clever man; he had a good seat of business. I lost my right hand when he died. I couldn’t carry it on. There was my two sons went for sogers, and the others were above their business. He left a seat of business worth a hundred pound; he served all up the New Kent-road. He was beloved by all his people. He used to climb himself when I first had him, but he left it off when he got children. I had my husband when I was fifteen, and kept him forty years. Ah! he was well-beloved by all around, except his children, and they behaved shameful. I said to his eldest son, when he lay in the hospital, (asking your pardon, sir, for mentioning it)—I says to his eldest son, ‘Billy,’ says I, ‘your father’s very bad—why don’t you go to see him?’ ‘Oh,’ says he, ‘he’s all right, he’s gettin’ better;’ and he was never the one to go and see him once; and he never come to the funeral.
“Billy thought I should come upon him after his death, but I never troubled him for as much as a crumb of bread.
“I never get spoken to on my roads, only some people say, ‘Good morning,’ ‘There you are, old lady.’ They never asks me no questions whatsomever. I never get run over, though I am very hard of hearing; but I am forced to have my eyes here, there, and everywhere, to keep out of the way of the carts and coaches.
“Some days I goes to my crossing, and earns nothink at all: other days it’s sometimes fourpence, sometimes sixpence. I earned fourpence to-day, and I had a bit of snuff out of it. Why, I believe I did yearn fivepence yesterday—I won’t tell no story. I got ninepence on Sunday—that was a good day; but, God knows, that didn’t go far. I yearned so much I couldn’t bring it home on Saturday—it almost makes me laugh,—I yearned sixpence.
“I goes every morning, winter or summer, frost or snow; and at the same hour (five o’clock); people certainly don’t think of giving so much in fine weather. Nobody ever mislested me, and I never mislested nobody. If they gives me a penny, I thanks ’em; and if they gives me nothing, I thanks ’em all the same.
“If I was to go into the House, I shouldn’t live three days. It’s not that I eat much—a very little is enough for me; but it’s the air I should miss: to be shut up like a thief, I couldn’t live long, I know.”
This old dame is remarkable from the fact of being the chief support of a poor deaf cripple, who is as much poorer than the crossing-sweeper as she is poorer than Mrs. ——, in —— street, who allows the sweeper sixpence a-week. The crossing-sweeper is a rather stout old woman, with a carneying tone, and constant curtsey. She complains, in common with most of her class, of the present hard times, and reverts longingly to the good old days when people were more liberal than they are now, and had more to give. She says:—
“I was on my crossing before the police was made, for I am not able to work, and only get helped by the people who knows me. Mr. ——, in the square, gives me a shilling a-week; Mrs. ——, in —— street, gives me sixpence; (she has gone in the country now, but she has left it at the oil-shop for me); that’s what I depinds upon, darlin’, to help pay my rent, which is half-a-crown. My rent was three shillings, till the landlord didn’t wish me to go, ’cause I was so punctual with my money. I give a corner of my room to a poor cretur, who’s deaf as a beadle; she works at the soldiers’ coats, and is a very good hand at it, and would earn a good deal of money if she had constant work. She owed as good as twelve shillings and sixpence for rent, poor thing, where she was last, and the landlord took all her goods except her bed; she’s got that, so I give her a corner of my room for charity’s sake. We must look to one another: she’s as poor as a church mouse. I thought she would be company for me, still a deaf person is but poor company to one. She had that heavy sickness they call the cholera about five years ago, and it fell in her side and in the side of her head too—that made her deaf. Oh! she’s a poor object. She has been with me since the month of February. I’ve lent her money out of my own pocket. I give her a cup of tea or a slice of bread when I see she hasn’t got any. Then the people up-stairs are kind to her, and give her a bite and a sup.
“My husband was a soldier; he fought at the battle of Waterloo. His pension was ninepence a-day. All my family are dead, except my grandson, what’s in New Orleans. I expect him back this very month that now we have: he gave me four pounds before he went, to carry me over the last winter.
“If the Almighty God pleases to send him back, he’ll be a great help to me. He’s all I’ve got left. I never had but two children in all my life.
“I worked in noblemen’s houses before I was married to my husband, who is dead; but he came to be poor, and I had to leave my houses where I used to work.
“I took twopence-halfpenny yesterday, and threepence to-day; the day before yesterday I didn’t take a penny. I never come out on Sunday; I goes to Rosomon-street Chapel. Last Saturday I made one shilling and sixpence; on Friday, sixpence. I dare say I make three shillings and sixpence a-week, besides the one shilling and sixpence I gets allowed me. I am forced to make a do of it somehow, but I’ve no more strength left in me than this ould broom.”
She is to be found any day between eight in the morning and seven in the evening, sweeping away in a convulsive, jerky sort of manner, close to —— square, near the Foundling. She may be known by her pinched-up straw bonnet, with a broad, faded, almost colourless ribbon. She has weak eyes, and wears over them a brownish shade. Her face is tied up, because of a gathering which she has on her head. She wears a small, old plaid cloak, a clean checked apron, and a tidy printed gown.
She is rather shy at first, but willing and obliging enough withal; and she lives down Little —— Yard, in Great —— street. The “yard” that is made like a mousetrap—small at the entrance, but amazingly large inside, and dilapidated though extensive.
Here are stables and a couple of blind alleys, nameless, or bearing the same name as the yard itself, and wherein are huddled more people than one could count in a quarter of an hour, and more children than one likes to remember,—dirty children, listlessly trailing an old tin baking-dish, or a worn-out shoe, tied to a piece of string; sullen children, who turn away in a fit of sleepy anger if spoken to; screaming children, setting all the parents in the “yard” at defiance; and quiet children, who are arranging banquets of dirt in the reeking gutters.
The “yard” is devoted principally to costermongers.
The crossing-sweeper lives in the top-room of a two-storied house, in the very depth of the blind alley at the end of the yard. She has not even a room to herself, but pays one shilling a-week for the privilege of sleeping with a woman who gets her living by selling tapes in the streets.
“Ah!” says the sweeper, “poor woman, she has a hard time of it; her husband is in the hospital with a bad leg—in fact, he’s scarcely ever out. If you could hear that woman cough, you’d never forget it. She would have had to starve to-day if it hadn’t been for a person who actually lent her a gown to pledge to raise her stock-money, poor thing.”
The room in which these people live has a sloping roof, and a small-paned window on each side. For furniture, there were two chairs and a shaky, three-legged stool, a deal table, and a bed rolled up against the wall—nothing else. In one corner of the room lay the last lump remaining of the seven pounds of coals. In another corner there were herbs in pans, and two water-bottles without their noses. The most striking thing in that little room was some crockery, the woman had managed to save from the wreck of her things; among this, curiously enough, was a soup-tureen, with its lid not even cracked.
There was a piece of looking-glass—a small three-cornered piece—forming an almost equilateral triangle,—and the oldest, and most rubbed and worn-out piece of a mirror that ever escaped the dust-bin.
The fireplace was a very small one, and on the table were two or three potatoes and about one-fifth of a red herring, which the poor street-seller had saved out of her breakfast to serve for her supper. “Take my solemn word for it, sir,” said the sweeper, “and I wouldn’t deceive you, that is all she will get besides a cup of weak tea when she comes home tired at night.”
The statement of this old sweeper is as follows:—
“My name is Mary ——. I live in —— yard. I live with a person of the name of ——, in the back attic; she gets her living by selling flowers in pots in the street, but she is now doing badly. I pay her a shilling a-week.
“My parents were Welsh. I was in service, or maid-of-all-work, till I got married. My husband was a seafaring man when I married him. After we were married, he got his living by selling memorandum-almanack books, and the like, about the streets. He was driven to that because he had no trade in his hand, and he was obliged to do something for a living. He did not make much, and over-exertion, with want of nourishment, brought on a paralytic stroke. He had the first fit about two years before he had the second; the third fit, which was the last, he had on the Monday, and died on the Wednesday week. I have two children still living. One of them is married to a poor man, who gets his living in the streets; but as far as lays in his power he makes a good husband and father. My other daughter is living with a niece of mine, for I can’t keep her, sir; she minds the children.
“My father was a journeyman shoemaker. He was killed; but I cannot remember how—I was too young. I can’t recollect my mother. I was brought up by an uncle and aunt till I was able to go to service. I went out to service at five, to mind children under a nurse, and I was in service till I got married. I had a great many situations; you see, sir, I was forced to keep in place, because I had nowhere to go to, my uncle and aunt not being able to keep me. I was never in noblemen’s families, only trades-people’s. Service was very hard, sir, and so I believe it continues.
“I am fifty-five years of age, and I have been on the crossing fourteen years; but just now it is very poor work indeed. Well, if I wishes for bad weather, I’m only like other people, I suppose. I have no regular customers at all; the only one I had left has lost his senses, sir. Mr. H——, he used to allow us sixpence a-week; but he went mad, and we don’t get it now. By us, I mean the three crossing-sweepers in the square where I work.
“Indeed, I like the winter-time, for the families is in. Though the weather is more severe, yet you do get a few more ha’pence. I take more from the staid elderly people than from the young. At Christmas, I think I took about eleven shillings, but certainly not more. The most I ever made at that season was fourteen shillings. The worst about Christmas is, that those who give much then generally hold their hand for a week or two.
“A shilling a-day would be as much as I want, sir. I have stood in the square all day for a ha’penny, and I have stood here for nothing. One week with another, I make two shillings in the seven days, after paying for my broom. I have taken threppence ha’penny to-day. Yesterday—let me see—well, it was threppence ha’penny, too; Monday I don’t remember; but Sunday I recollect—it was fippence ha’penny. Years ago I made a great deal more—nearly three times as much.
“I come about eight o’clock in the morning, and go away about six or seven; I am here every day. The boys used to come at one time with their brooms, but they’re not allowed here now by the police.
“I should not think crossings worth purchasing, unless people made a better living on them than I do.”
I gave the poor creature a small piece of silver for her trouble, and asked her if that, with the threepence halfpenny, made a good day. She answered heartily—
“I should like to see such another day to-morrow, sir.
“Yes, winter is very much better than summer, only for the trial of standing in the frost and snow, but we certainly do get more then. The families won’t be in town for three months to come yet. Ah! this neighbourhood is nothing to what it was. By God’s removal, and by their own removal, the good families are all gone. The present families are not so liberal nor so wealthy. It is not the richest people that give the most. Tradespeople, and ’specially gentlefolks who have situations, are better to me than the nobleman who rides in his carriage.
“I always go to Trinity Church, Gray’s-inn-road, about two doors from the Welsh School—the Rev. Dr. Witherington preaches there. I always go on Sunday afternoon and evening, for I can’t go in the morning; I can’t get away from my crossing in time. I never omit a day in coming here, unless I’m ill, or the snow is too heavy, or the weather too bad, and then I’m obligated to resign.
“I have no friends, sir, only my children; my uncle and aunt have been dead a long time. I go to see my children on Sunday, or in the evening, when I leave here.
“After I leave I have a cup of tea, and after that I go to bed; very frequently I’m in bed at nine o’clock. I have my cup of tea if I can anyway get it; but I’m forced to go without that sometimes.
“When my sight was better, I used to be very partial to reading; but I can’t see the print, sir, now. I used to read the Bible, and the newspaper. Story-books I have read, too, but not many novels. Yes, Robinson Crusoe I know, but not the Pilgrim’s Progress. I’ve heard of it; they tell me it is a very interesting book to read, but I never had it. We never have any ladies or Scripture-readers come to our lodgings; you see, we’re so out, they might come a dozen times and not find us at home.
“I wear out three brooms in a-week; but in the summer one will last a fortnight. I give threepence ha’penny for them; there are twopenny-ha’penny brooms, but they are not so good, they are liable to have their handles come out. It is very fatiguing standing so many hours; my legs aches with pain, and swells. I was once in Middlesex Hospital for sixteen weeks with my legs. My eyes have been weak from a child. I have got a gathering in my head from catching cold standing on the crossing. I had the fever this time twelvemonth. I laid a fortnight and four days at home, and seven weeks in the hospital. I took the diarrhœa after that, and was six weeks under the doctor’s hands. I used to do odd jobs, but my health won’t permit me now. I used to make two or three shillings a-week by ’em, and get scraps and things. But I get no broken victuals now.
“I never get anything from servants; they don’t get more than they know what to do with.
“I don’t get a drop of beer once in a month.
“I don’t know but what this being out may be the best thing, after all; for if I was at home all my time, it would not agree with me.”
“Yes, sir, I knew him for many year, though I never spoke to him in all my life. He was a stoutish, thickset man, about my build, and used to walk with his broom up and down—so.”
Here “Old John” imitated the halt and stoop of an old man.
“He used to touch his hat continually,” he went on. “‘Please remember the poor black man,’ was his cry, never anything else. Oh yes, he made a great deal of money. People gave more then than they do now. Where they give one sixpence now, they used to give ten. It’s just the same by our calling. Lived humbly? Yes, I think he did; at all events, he seemed to do so when he was on his crossing. He got plenty of odds-and-ends from the corner there—Alderman Waithman’s, I mean; he was a very sober, quiet sort of man. No, sir, nothing peculiar in his dress. Some blacks are peculiar in their dress; but he would wear anything he could get give him. They used to call him Romeo, I think. Cur’ous name, sir; but the best man I ever knew was called Romeo, and he was a black.
“The crossing-sweeper had his regular customers; he knew their times, and was there to the moment. Oh yes, he was always. Hail, rain, or snow, he never missed. I don’t know how long he had the crossing. I remember him ever since I was a postboy in Doctors’ Commons; I knew him when I lived in Holborn, and I haven’t been away from this neighbourhood since 1809.
“No, sir, there’s no doubt about his leaving the money to Miss Waithman. Everybody round about here knows it; just ask them, sir. Miss Waithman (an old maid she were, sir) used to be very kind to him. He used to sweep from Alderman Waithman’s (it’s the Sunday Times now) across to the opposite side of the way.
“When he died, an old man, as had been a soldier, took possession of the crossing. How did he get it? Why, I say, he took it. First come, first sarved, sir; that’s their way. They never sell crossings. Sometimes (for a lark) they shift, and then one stands treat—a gallon of beer, or something of that sort. The perlice interfered with the soldier—you know the sweepers is all forced to go if the perlice interfere; now with us, sir, we are licensed, and they can’t make us move on. They interfered, I say, with the old soldier, because he used to get so drunk. Why, at a public-house close at hand, he would spent seven, eight, and ten shillings on a night, three or four days together. He used to gather so many blackguards round the crossing, they were forced to move him at last. A young man has got it now; he has had it three year. He is not always here, sometimes away for a week at a stretch; but, you see, he knows the best times to come, and then he is sure to be here. The little boys come with their brooms now and then, but the perlice always drive them away.”
This man, a native of “County Corruk,” has been in England only two years and a half. He wears a close-fitting black cloth cap over a shock of reddish hair; round his neck he has a coloured cotton kerchief, of the sort advertised as “Imitation Silk.” His black coat is much torn, and his broom is at present remarkably stumpy. He waits quietly at the post opposite St. ——’s Church, to receive whatever is offered him. He is unassuming enough in his manner, and, as will be seen, not even bearing any malice against his two enemies, “The Swatestuff Man” and “The Switzer.” He says:—
“I’ve been at this crossin’ near upon two year. Whin I first come over to England (about two years and a half ago), I wint a haymakin’, but, you see, I couldn’t get any work; and afther thrampin’ about a good bit, why my eyesight gettin’ very wake, and I not knowin’ what to do, I took this crossin’.
“How did I get it?—Will, sir, I wint walkin’ about and saw it, and nobody on it. So one mornin’ I brought a broom wid me and stood here. Yes, sir, I was intherfered wid. The man with one arm—a Switzer they calls him—he had had the crossin’ on Sundays for a long while gone, and he didn’t like my bein’ here at all, at all. ‘B——y Irish’ he used to call me, and other scandalizin’ names; and he and the swatestuff man opposite, who was a friend of his, tried everythin’ they could to git me off the crossin’. But sure I niver harrumed them at all, at all.
“Yis, sir, I have my rigular custhomers: there’s Mr. ——, he’s gone to Sydenham; he’s very kind, sir. He gives me a shilling a-month. He left worrud with the sarvint while he’s away to give me a shilling on the first day in every month. He gave me a letter to the Eye Hospital, in Goulden Square, because of the wakeness of my eyesight; but they’ll niver cure it at all, at all, sir, for wake eyes runs in my family. My sister, sir, has wake eyes; she is working at Croydon.
“Oh no, indeed, and it isn’t the gintlefolks that thry to get me off the crossin’; they’d rather shupport me, sir. But the poor payple it is that don’t like me.
“Eighteenpince I’ve made in a day, and more: niver more than two shillings, and sometimes not sixpence. Will, sir, I am not like the others; I don’t run afther the ladies and gintlemen—I don’t persevere. Yestherday I took sixpence, by chance, for takin’ some luggage for a lady. The day before yestherday I took three ha’pence; but I think I got somethin’ else for a bit of worruk thin.
“Yes, winther is better than summer. I don’t know which people is the most liberal. Sure, sir, I don’t think there’s much difference. Oh yes, sir, young men are very liberal sometimes, and so are young ladies. Perhaps old ladies or old gintlemen give the most at a time,—sometimes sixpence,—perhaps more; but thin, sir, you don’t git anything else for a long time.
“The boy-sweepers annoy me very much, indeed; they use such scandalizin’ worruds to me, and throw dirrut, they do. They know whin the police is out of the way, so I git no purtiction.
“Sure, sir, and I think it right that ivery person should attind the worruship to which he belongs. I am a Catholic, sir, and attind mass at St. Pathrick’s, near St. Giles’s, ivery Sunday, and I thry to be at confission wonst a month.
“Whin first I took to the crossin’, I was rather irrigular; but that was because of the Switzer man—that’s the man with the one arm; he used to say he would lock me up, and iverything. But I have been rigular since.
“I come in the morruning just before eight, in time to catch the gintlefolks going into prayers; and I leave at half-past seven to eight at night. I wait so late because I have to bring a gintleman wather for his flowers, and that I do the last thing.
“I live, sir, in —— lane, behind St. Giles’s Church, in the first-flure front, sir; and I pay one-and-threepence a-week. There are three bids in the room. In one bid, a man, his wife, his mother, and their little girl—Julia, they call her—sleep; in the other bid, there’s a man and his wife and child. Yes, I am single, and have the third bid to myself. I come from County Corruk; the others in the room are all Irish, and come from County Corruk too. They sill fruit in the sthreet; in the winther they sill onions, and sometimes oranges.
“There a Scotch gintleman as brings me my breakfast every morning; indeed, yes, and he brings it himself, he does. He has gone to Scotland now, but he will be back in a week. He brings me some bread and mate, and a pinny for a half pint of beer, sir. He has done it almost all the time I have been here.
“The Switzer man, sir, took out boards for the Polytickner, or some place like that. He got fifteen shillings a-week, and used to come here on Sundays. Yes, sir, I come here on Sundays; but it is not better than other days. Some people says to me, they would rather I went to church; but I tells ’em I do; and sure, sir, afther mass, there’s no harrum in a little sweepin’ between whiles.
“No, sir, there’s not a crossin’-sweeper in Ould Ireland. Well, sir, I niver was in Dublin; but I’ve been in Corruk, sir, and they don’t have any crossin’ sweepers there.
“Whin I git home of a night, sir, I am very tired; but I always offer up my devotions before sleepin’. Ah, sir, I should niver have swipt crossin’s if a friend of mine hadn’t died; he was collector of tolls in Clarnykilts, and I used to be with him. He lost his situation, and so I came to England.
“The Switzer man, I think he used to sweep at eight o’clock, just as the people were goin’ to prayers. Oh, sir, he was always black-geyardin’ me. ‘Go back to your own counthry,’ says he—a furriner himsilf, too.
“Will, yes sir, I do wish for bad weather; a good wit day, and a dry day afther, is the best.
“Sure and they can’t turn me off my crossin’ only for my bad conduct, and I thry to be quiet and take no notice.
“Yis, sir, I have always been a church-goer, and I am seventy-five. I used to have some good rigular customers, but somehow I haven’t seen anythin’ of them for this last twelvemonth. Ah! it’s in the betther neighbourhoods that people give rigularly. I niver get any broken victuals. Three-and-sixpence is the outside of my earnings, taking one week with the other.
“What is the laste I ever took? Will, sir, for three days I haven’t taken a farthin’. The worust week I iver had was thirteen or fourteen pence altogether; the best week I iver had was the winter before last—that harrud winter, sir, I remember takin’ seven shillings thin; but the man at Portman-square makes the most.
“Well, sir, I belave there’s some of every nation in the world as sweeps crossin’s in London.”
In a street not far from Gordon-square and the New-road, I found this poor old woman resting from her daily labour. She was sitting on the stone ledge of the iron railings at the corner of the street, huddled up in the way seemingly natural to old Irishwomen, her broom hidden as much as possible under her petticoats. Her shawl was as tidy as possible for its age. She was sixty-seven years, and had buried two husbands and five children, fractured her ribs, and injured her groin, and had nothing left to comfort her but her crossing, her ha’porth of snuff, and her “drop of biled wather,” by which name she indicated her “tay.”
She was very civil and intelligent, and answered my inquiries very readily, and with rather less circumlocution than the Irish generally display. She seemed much hurt at the closing of the Old St. Pancras churchyard. “They buried my child where they’ll never bury me, sir,” she cried.
She told the story of her accident with many involuntary movements of her hand towards the injured part, and took a sparing pinch of snuff from a little black snuff-box, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, for which she said she had given a penny. She proceeded thus:—“I’m an Irishwoman, sir, and it’s from Kinsale I come, twelve miles beyond Corruk, to the left-hand side, a seaport town, and a great place for fish. It’s fifty years the sixteenth of last June since I came in St. Giles’s parish, and there my ildest child wint did. Buried she is in Ould St. Pancras churchyarrud, where they’ll never bury me, sir, for they’ve done away with burying in churchyarruds. That girl was forty-one year of age the seventeenth of last February, born in Stratford, below Bow, in Essex. Ah! I was comfortable there; I lived there three year and abouts. I was in sarvice at Mr. ——’s, a Frinch gintleman he was, and kept a school, where they taught Frinch and English both; but I dare say they are all gone did years ago. He was a very ould gintleman, and so was his lady; she was a North-of-England lady, but very stout, and had no children but a son and daughter. I was quite young when my aunt brought me over. My uncle was three year here before my aunt, and he died at Whitechapel. I was bechuxt sixteen and seventeen when I come over, and I reckon meself at sixty-seven come next Christmas, as well as I can guess. I never had a mother, sir; she died when I was only six months old. My father, sir, was maltster to Mr. Walker the distiller, in Corruk. Ah! indeed, and my father was well to do wonst. Early or late, wit or dry, he had a guinea a-week, but he worruked day and night; he was to attind to the corun, and he would have four min, or five or six, undther him, according as busy they might be. My father has been did four-and-twinty year, and I wouldn’t know a crature if I wint home. Father come over, sir, and wanted me to go back very bad, but I wouldn’t. I was married thin, and had buried some of my childer in St. Pancras; and for what should I lave England?
“Oh! sir, I buried three in eight months,—two sons and their father. My husband was two year and tin months keeping his bed; he has been did fifteen years to the eighth of last March; but I’ve been married again.
“Siven childer I’ve had, and ounly two alive, and they’ve got enough to do to manage for thimsilves. The boy, he follers the market, and my daughter, she is along with her husband; sure he sills in the streets, sir. I see very little of her,—she lives over in the Borough.
“I think I’ll be afther going down to Kent, beyant Maidstone, a hop-picking, if I can git as much as to take me down the road.
“My daughter’s husband and me don’t agree, so I’m bitter not to see them.
“Ivery day, sir—ivery day in the week I am here. This morunning I was here at eight—that was earlier than usual, but I came out because I had not broke my fast with anything but a drop of wather, and that I had two tumblers of it from the house at the corrunner. I intind to go home and take two hirrings, and have a drop of biled wather—tay, I mane, sir.
“I come here at about half-past nine to half-past ten, but I’m gitting a very bad leg. I goes home about five or six.
“I have taken two ha’pennies this morning; thruppence I took yisterday; the day before I took, I think, fourpence ha’penny; that was my taking on Monday; on Sunday I mustered a shilling; on Saturday—I declare, sir, I forgit—fourpence or thruppence, I suppose, but my frinds is out of town very much. They gives me a penny rigular every Sunday, or a ha’penny, and some tuppence. Of a Sunday in the good time I may take eighteenpence or sixteenpence.
“Oh, yes, of Christmas it’s better, it is—four or five shillings on a Christmas-day.
“On the Monday fortnight, before last Christmas twelvemonth, I had two ribs broke, and one fractured, and my grine (groin) bone injured. Oh! the pains that I feel even now, sir. I lived then in Phillip’s-gardens, up there in the New-road. The policeman took me to the hospital. It was eighteen days I niver got off my bid. I came out in the morunning of the Christmas-eve. I hild on by the railings as I wint along, and I thought I niver should git home. How I was knocked down was by a cart; I had my eye bad thin, the lift one, and had a cloth over it. I was just comin’ out of the archway of the courrut (close by the beer-shop) away from Mr. ——’s house, when crossing to the green-grocer’s to git two pound of praties for my supper, I didn’t see the cart comin’. I was knocked down by the shaft. They called, and they called, and he wouldn’t stop, and it wint over me, it did. It was loaded with cloth; I don’t know if it wasn’t a Shoolbred’s cart, but the boy said to the hospital-doctor and to the policeman it was heavily loaded. The boy gave me a shilling, and that was all the money I received. For a twelvemonth I couldn’t hardly walk.
“On that Christmas-day I took four-and-tinpence, but I owed it all for rint and things; and I’m sure it’s a good man that let me run it the score.
“Is it a shillin’ I iver git? Well, thin, sir, there’s one gintleman, but he’s out of town—Sir George Hewitt—niver passes without givin’ me a shillin’.
“I have taken one-and-ninepence on a Sunday, and I’ve taken two shillin’s. Upon my sowl, I’ve often gone home with three ha’pence and tuppence. For this month past, put ivery day together, I haven’t taken three shilling a-week.
“I wear two brooms out in a week in bad wither, and thin p’rhaps I take four to five shillin’, Sunday included; but for the three year since here I’ve been on this crossin’, I niver took tin shillin’, sir, niver.
“Yes, there was a man here before me: he had bad eyes, and he was obligated to lave and go into the worrukhouse; he lost the sight of one of his eyes when he came back again. I knew him sweepin’ here a long time. When he come back, I said, ‘Father,’ says I, ‘I wint on your crossin’.’ ‘Ah,’ says he, ‘you’ve got a bad crossin’, poor woman; I wouldn’t go on it again, I wouldn’t;’ and I niver seen him since. I don’t know whether he is living or not.
“A wit day makes fourpence or fippence difference sometimes.
“Indeed, I have heard of crossin’-sweepers makin’ so much and so much. I hear people talkin’ about it, but, for my parrut, I wouldn’t give heed to what they say. In Oxford-street, towards the Parruks, there was a man, years ago, they say, by all accounts left a dale of money.
“I am niver annoyed by boys. I don’t spake to none of them. I was in sarvice till I got married, thin I used to sill fruit through Kentish Town, Highgate, and Hampstead; but I niver sould in the streets, sir, and had my rigular customers like any greengrocer. I had a good connixion, I had; but, by gitting old and feeble, and sick, and not being able to go about, I was forrussed to give it up, I was. I couldn’t carry twelve pound upon my hid—no, not if I was to get a sov’rin a-day for it, now.
“I niver lave the crossin’. I haven’t got a frind; nor a day’s pleasure I niver take.
“Oh, yes, sir, I must have a pinch—this is my snuff-box. I take a ha’porth a-day, and that’s the only comforrut I’ve got—that and a cup of tay; for I can’t dthrink cocoa or coffee-tay.
“My feeding is a bit of brid and butther. I haven’t bought a bit of mate these three months. I used to git two penn’orth of bones and mate at Mrs. Baker’s, down there; but mate is so dear, that they don’t have ’em now, and it’s ashamed I am of botherin’ thim so often. I frequintly have a hirrin’. Oh dear! no sir. Wather is my dthrink. I can’t afforrud no beer. Sometimes I have a penn’orth of gin and could water, and I find it do me a worruld of good. Sometimes I git enough to eat, but lately, indeed, I can’t git that. I declare I don’t know which people give the most; the gintlemen give me more in wit wither, for then the ladies, you see, can’t let their dresses out of their hands.
“I am a Catholic, sir. I go to St. Pathrick’s sometimes, or I go to Gordon-street Churruch. I don’t care which I go to—it’s all the same to me; but I haven’t been to churruch for months. I’ve nothing to charge mysilf wid; and, indeed, I haven’t been to confission for some year.
“Tradespeople are very kind, indeed they are.
“Yes, I think I’ll go to Kint a hop-pickin’; and as for my crossin’, I lave it, sir, just as it is. I go five miles beyant Maidstone. I worruked fifteen years at Mr. ——; he was a pole-puller and binsman in the hop-ground.
“I’ve not been down there since the year before last. I was too poorly after that accident. We make about eighteenpence, two shillin’s, or one shillin’, ’cording as the hops is good. No lodging nor fire to pay; and we git plinty of good milk chape there. I manage thin to save a little money to hilp us in the winther.
“I live in —— street, Siven Dials; but I’m going to lave my son—we can’t agree. We live in the two-pair back. I pay nothing a-week, only bring home ivery ha’penny to hilp thim. Sometimes I spind a pinny or tuppence out on mysilf.
“My son is doin’ very badly. He sills fruit in the sthreets; but he’s niver been used to it before; and he has pains in his limbs with so much walking. He has no connixion, and with the sthrawbirries now he’s forrused to walk about of a night as will as a day, for they won’t keep till the morrunning; they all go mouldy and bad. My son has been used to the bricklaying, sir: he can lit in a stove or a copper, or do a bit of plasther or lath, or the like. His wife is a very just, clane, sober woman, and he has got three good childer; there is Catherine, who is named afther me, she is nearly five; Illen, two years and six months, named after her mother; and Margaret, the baby, six months ould—and she is called afther my daughter, who is did.”
“I’m a Sunday crossing-sweeper,” said an oyster-stall keeper, in answer to my inquiries. “I mean by that, I only sweep a crossing on a Sunday. I pitch in the Lorrimore-road, Newington, with a few oysters on week-days, and I does jobs for the people about there, sich as cleaning a few knives and forks, or shoes and boots, and windows. I’ve been in the habit of sweeping a crossing about four or five years.
“I never knowed my father, he died when I was a baby. He was a ’terpreter, and spoke seven different languages. My father used to go with Bonaparte’s army, and used to ’terpret for him. He died in the South of France. I had a brother, but he died quite a child, and my mother supported me and a sister by being cook in a gentleman’s family: we was put out to nurse. My mother couldn’t afford to put me to school, and so I can’t read nor write. I’m forty-one years old.
“The fust work I ever did was being boy at a pork-butcher’s. I used to take out the meat wot was ordered. At last my master got broke up, and I was discharged from my place, and I took to sellin’ a few sprats. I had no thoughts of taking to a crossing then. I was ten year old. I remember I give two shillings for a ‘shallow;’ that’s a flat basket with two handles; they put ’em a top of ‘well-baskets,’ them as can carry a good load. A well-basket’s almost like a coffin; it’s a long un like a shallow, on’y it’s a good deal deeper—about as deep as a washin’ tub. I done very fair with my sprats till they got dear and come up very small, so then I was obliged to get a few plaice, and then I got a few baked ’taters and sold them. I hadn’t money enough to buy a tin—I could a got one for eight shillings—so I put ’em in a cross-handle basket, and carried ’em round the streets, and into public-houses, and cried ‘Baked taters, all hot!’ I used only to do this of a night, and it brought me about four or five shillings a-week. I used to fill up the day by going round to gentlemen’s houses where I was known, to run for errands and clean knives and boots, and that brought me sich a thing as four shillings a-week more altogether.
“I never had no idea then of sweeping a crossing of a Sunday; but at last I was obliged to push to it. I kept on like this for many years, and at last a gentleman named Mr. Jackson promised to buy me a tin, but he died. My mother went blind through a blight; that was the cause of my fust going out to work, and so I had to keep her; but I didn’t mind that: I thought it was my duty so to do.
“About ten years ago I got married; my wife used to go out washing and ironing. I thought two of us would get on better than one, and she didn’t mind helpin’ me to keep my mother, for I was determined my mother shouldn’t go into the workhouse so long as I could help it.
“A year or two after I got married, I found I must do something more to help to keep home, and then I fust thought of sweepin’ a crossing on Sundays; so I bought a heath broom for twopence-ha’penny, and I pitched agin’ the Canterbury Arms, Kennington; it was between a baker’s shop and a public-house and butcher’s; they told me they’d all give me something if I’d sweep the crossing reg’lar.
“The best places is in front of chapels and churches, ’cause you can take more money in front of a church or a chapel than wot you can in a private road, ’cos they look at it more, and a good many thinks when you sweeps in front of a public-house that you go and spend your money inside in waste.
“The first Sunday I went at it, I took eighteenpence. I began at nine o’clock in the morning and stopped till four in the afternoon. The publican give fourpence, and the baker sixpence, and the butcher threepence, so that altogether I got above a half-crown. I stopped at this crossing a year, and I always knocked up about two shillings or a half-crown on the Sunday. I very seldom got anythink from the ladies; it was most all give by the gentlemen. Little children used sometimes to give me ha’pence, but it was when their father give it to ’em; the little children like to do that sort of thing.
“The way I come to leave this crossing was this here: the road was being repaired, and they shot down a lot of stones, so then I couldn’t sweep no crossing. I looked out for another place, and I went opposite the Duke of Sutherland public-house in the Lorrimore-road. I swept there one Sunday, and I got about one-and-sixpence. While I was sweeping this crossing, a gentleman comes up to me, and he axes me if I ever goes to chapel or church; and I tells him, ‘Yes;’ I goes to church, wot I’d been brought up to; and then he says, ‘You let me see you at St. Michael’s Church, Brixton, and I’ll ’courage you, and you’ll do better if you come up and sweep in front there of a Sunday instead of where you are; you’ll be sure to get more money, and get better ’couraged. It don’t matter what you do,’ he says, ‘as long as it brings you in a honest crust; anythink’s better than thieving.’ And then the gent gives me sixpence and goes away.
“As soon as he’d gone I started off to his church, and got there just after the people was all in. I left my broom in the churchyard. When I got inside the church, I could see him a-sitten jest agin the communion table, so I walks to the free seats and sets down right close again the communion table myself, for his pew was on my right, and he saw me directly and looked and smiled at me. As he was coming out of the church he says, says he, ‘As long as I live, if you comes here on a Sunday reg’lar I shall always ’courage you.’
“The next Sunday I went up to the church and swept the crossing, and he see me there, but he didn’t give me nothink till the church was over, and then he gave me a shilling, and the other people give me about one-and-sixpence; so I got about two-and-sixpence altogether, and I thought that was a good beginning.
“The next Sunday the gen’elman was ill, but he didn’t forget me. He sent me sixpence by his servant, and I got from the other people about two shillings more. I never see that gentleman after, for he died on the Saturday. His wife sent for me on the Sunday; she was ill a-bed, and I see one of the daughters, and she gave me sixpence, and said I was to be there on Monday morning. I went on the Monday, and the lady was much worse, and I see the daughter again. She gave me a couple of shirts, and told me to come on the Friday, and when I went on that day I found the old lady was dead. The daughter gave me a coat, and trousers, and waistcoat.
“After the daughters had buried the father and mother they moved. I kept on sweeping at the church, till at last things got so bad that I come away, for nobody give me nothink. The houses about there was so damp that people wouldn’t live in ’em.
“So then I come up into Lorrimore-road, and there I’ve been ever since. I don’t get on wonderful well there. Sometimes I don’t get above sixpence all day, but it’s mostly a shilling or so. The most I’ve took is about one-and-sixpence. The reason why I stop there is, because I’m known there, you see. I stands there all the week selling highsters, and the people about there give me a good many jobs. Besides, the road is rather bad there, and they like to have a clean crossing of a Sunday.
“I don’t get any more money in the winter (though it’s muddier) than I do in the summer; the reason is, ’cause there isn’t so many people stirring about in the winter as there is in the summer.
“One broom will carry me over three Sundays, and I gives twopence-ha’penny a-piece for ’em. Sometimes the people bring me out at my crossing—’specially in cold weather—a mug of hot tea and some bread and butter, or a bit of meat. I don’t know any other crossing-sweeper; I never ’sociates with nobody. I always keeps my own counsel, and likes my own company the best.
“My wife’s been dead five months, and my mother six months; but I’ve got a little boy seven year old; he stops at school all day till I go home at night, and then I fetches him home. I mean to do something better with him than give him a broom: a good many people would set him on a crossing; but I mean to keep him at school. I want to see him read and write well, because he’ll suit for a place then.
“There’s some art in sweeping a crossing even. That is, you mustn’t sweep too hard, ’cos if you do, you wears a hole right in the road, and then the water hangs in it. It’s the same as sweeping a path; if you sweeps too hard you wears up the stones.
“To do it properly, you must put the end of the broom-handle in the palm of your right hand, and lay hold of it with your left, about halfway down; then you takes half your crossing, and sweeps on one side till you gets over the road; then you turns round and comes back doing the other half. Some people holds the broom before ’em, and keeps swaying it back’ards and for’ards to sweep the width of the crossing all in one stroke, but that ain’t sich a good plan, ’cause you’re apt to splash people that’s coming by; and besides, it wears the road in holes and wears out the broom so quick. I always use my broom steady. I never splash nobody.
“I never tried myself, but I’ve seen some crossin’-sweepers as could do all manner of things in mud, sich as diamonds, and stars, and the moon, and letters of the alphabet; and once in Oxford-street I see our Saviour on his cross in mud, and it was done well, too. The figure wasn’t done with the broom, it was done with a pointed piece of stick; it was a boy as I see doin’ it, about fifteen. He didn’t seem to take much money while I was a-looking at him.
“I don’t think I should a took to crossin’ sweeping if I hadn’t got married; but when I’d got a couple of children (for I’ve had a girl die; if she’d lived she’d a been eight year old now,) I found I must do a somethin’, and so I took to the broom.”
This man lives up a little court running out of a wide, second-rate street. It is a small court, consisting of some half-dozen houses, all of them what are called by courtesy “private.”
I inquired at No. 3 for John ——; “The first-floor back, if you please, sir;” and to the first-floor back I went.
Here I was answered by a good-looking and intelligent young woman, with a baby, who said her husband had not yet come home, but would I walk in and wait? I did so; and found myself in a very small, close room, with a little furniture, which the man called “his few sticks,” and presently discovered another child—a little girl. The girl was very shy in her manner, being only two years and two months old, and as her mother said, very ailing from the difficulty of cutting her teeth, though the true cause seemed to be want of proper nourishment and fresh air. The baby was a boy—a fine, cheerful, good-tempered little fellow, but rather pale, and with an unnaturally large forehead. The mantelpiece of the room was filled with little ornaments of various sorts, such as bead-baskets, and over them hung a series of black profiles—not portraits of either the crossing-sweeper or any of his family, but an odd lot of heads, which had lost their owners many a year, and served, in company with a little red, green, and yellow scripture-piece, to keep the wall from looking bare. Over the door (inside the room) was nailed a horse-shoe, which, the wife told me, had been put there by her husband, for luck.
A bed, two deal tables, a couple of boxes, and three chairs, formed the entire furniture of the room, and nearly filled it. On the window-frame was hung a small shaving-glass; and on the two boxes stood a wicker-work apology for a perambulator, in which I learnt the poor crippled man took out his only daughter at half-past four in the morning.
“If some people was to see that, sir,” said the sweeper, when he entered and saw me looking at it, “they would, and in fact they do say, ‘Why, you can’t be in want.’ Ah! little they know how we starved and pinched ourselves before we could get it.”
There was a fire in the room, notwithstanding the day was very hot; but the window was wide open, and the place tolerably ventilated, though oppressive. I have been in many poor people’s “places,” but never remember one so poor in its appointments and yet so free from effluvia.
The crossing-sweeper himself was a very civil sort of man, and in answer to my inquiries said:—
“I know that I do as I ought to, and so I don’t feel hurt at standing at my crossing. I have been there four years. I found the place vacant. My wife, though she looks very well, will never be able to do any hard work; so we sold our mangle, and I took to the crossing: but we’re not in debt, and nobody can’t say nothing to us. I like to go along the streets free of such remarks as is made by people to whom you owes money. I had a mangle in —— Yard, but through my wife’s weakness I was forced to part with it. I was on the crossing a short time before that, for I knew that if I parted with my mangle and things before I knew whether I could get a living at the crossing I couldn’t get my mangle back again.
“We sold the mangle only for a sovereign, and we gave two-pound-ten for it; we sold it to the same man that we bought it of. About six months ago I managed for to screw and save enough to buy that little wicker chaise, for I can’t carry the children because of my one leg, and of course the mother can’t carry them both out together. There was a man had the crossing I’ve got; he died three or four years before I took it; but he didn’t depend on the crossing—he did things for the tradespeople about, such as carpet-beating, messages, and so on.
“When I first took the crossing I did very well. It happened to be a very nasty, dirty season, and I took a good deal of money. Sweepers are not always civil, sir.
“I wish I had gone to one of the squares, though. But I think after —— street is paved with stone I shall do better. I am certain I never taste a bit of meat from one week’s end to the other. The best day I ever made was five-and-sixpence or six shillings; it was the winter before last. If you remember, the snow laid very thick on the ground, and the sudden thaw made walking so uncomfortable, that I did very well. I have taken as little as sixpence, fourpence, and even twopence. Last Thursday I took two ha’pence all day. Take one week with the other, seven or eight shillings is the very outside.
“I don’t know how it is, but some people who used to give me a penny, don’t now. The boys who come in wet weather earn a great deal more than I do. I once lost a good chance, sir, at the corner of the street leading to Cavendish-square. There’s a bank, and they pay a man seven shillings a-week to sweep the crossing: a butcher in Oxford Market spoke for me; but when I went up, it unfortunately turned out that I was not fit, from the loss of my leg. The last man they had there they were obliged to turn away—he was so given to drink.
“I think there are some rich crossing-sweepers in the city, about the Exchange; but you won’t find them now during this dry weather, except in by-places. In wet weather, there are two or three boys who sweep near my crossing, and take all my earnings away. There’s a great able-bodied man besides—a fellow strong enough to follow the plough. I said to the policeman, ‘Now, ain’t this a shame?’ and the policeman said, ‘Well, he must get his living as well as you.’ I’m always civil to the police, and they’re always civil to me—in fact, I think sometimes I’m too civil—I’m not rough enough with people.
“You soon tell whether to have any hopes of people coming across. I can tell a gentleman directly I see him.
“Where I stand, sir, I could get people in trouble everlasting; there’s all sorts of thieving going on. I saw the other day two or three respectable persons take a purse out of an old lady’s pocket before the baker’s shop at the corner; but I can’t say a word, or they would come and throw me into the road. If a gentleman gives me sixpence, he don’t give me any more for three weeks or a month; but I don’t think I’ve more than three or four gentlemen as gives me that. Well, you can scarcely tell the gentleman from the clerk, the clerks are such great swells now.
“Lawyers themselves dress very plain; those great men who don’t come every day, because they’ve clerks to do their business for them, they give most. People hardly ever stop to speak unless it is to ask you where places are—you might be occupied at that all day. I manage to pay my rent out of what I take on Sunday, but not lately—this weather religious people go pleasuring.
“No, I don’t go now—the fact is, I’d like to go to church, if I could, but when I come home I am tired; but I’ve got books here, and they do as well, sir. I read a little and write a little.
“I lost my leg through a swelling—there was no chloroform then. I was in the hospital three years and a half, and was about fifteen or sixteen when I had it off. I always feel the sensation of the foot, and more so at change of weather. I feel my toes moving about, and everything; sometimes, it’s just as if the calf of my leg was itching. I feel the rain coming; when I see a cloud coming my leg shoots, and I know we shall have rain.
“My mother was a laundress—my father has been dead nineteen years my last birthday. My mother was subject to fits, so I was forced to stop at home to take care of the business.
“I don’t want to get on better, but I always think, if sickness or anything comes on——
“I am at my crossing at half-past eight; at half-past eleven I come home to dinner. I go back at one or two till seven.
“Sometimes I mind horses and carts, but the boys get all that business. One of these little customers got sixpence the other day for only opening the door of a cab. I don’t know how it is they let these little boys be about; if I was the police, I wouldn’t allow it.
“I think it’s a blessing, having children—(referring to his little girl)—that child wants the gravy of meat, or an egg beaten up, but she can’t get it. I take her out every morning round Euston-square and those open places. I get out about half-past four. It is early, but if it benefits her, that’s no odds.”
“I don’t know what induced me to take that crossing, except it was that no one was there, and the traffic was so good—fact is, the traffic is too good, and people won’t stop as they cross over, they’re very glad to get out of the way of the cabs and the omnibuses.
“Tradespeople never give me anything—not even a bit of bread. The only thing I get is a few cuttings, such as crusts of sandwiches and remains of cheese, from the public-house at the corner of the court. The tradespeople are as distant to me now as they were when I came, but if I should pitch up a tale I should soon get acquainted with them.
“We have lived in this lodging two years and a half, and we pay one-and-ninepence a-week, as you may see from the rent-book, and that I manage to earn on Sundays. We owe four weeks now, and, thank God, it’s no more.
“I was born, sir, in —— street, Berkeley-square, at Lord ——’s house, when my mother was minding the house. I have been used to London all my life, but not to this part; I have always been at the west-end, which is what I call the best end.
“I did not like the idea of crossing-sweeping at first, till I reasoned with myself, Why should I mind? I’m not doing any hurt to anybody. I don’t care at all now—I know I’m doing what I ought to do.
“A man had better be killed out of the way than be disabled. It’s not pleasant to know that my wife is suckling that great child, and, though she is so weakly, she can’t get no meat.