“I fust learnt drawing in the mud from a man in Adelaide-street, Strand; he kept a crossing, but he only used to draw ’em close to the kerb-stone. He used to keep some soft mud there, and when a carriage come up to the Lowther Arcade, after he’d opened the door and let the lady out, he would set to work, and by the time she come back he’d have some flowers, or a We Har, or whatever he liked, done in the mud, and underneath he’d write, ‘Please to remember honnest hindustry.’
“I used to stand by and see him do it, until I’d learnt, and when I knowed, I went off and did it at my crossing.
“I was the fust to light up at night though, and now I wish I’d never done it, for it was that which got me turned off my crossing, and a capital one it was. I thought the gentlemen coming from the play would like it, for it looked very pretty. The policeman said I was destructing (obstructing) the thoroughfare, and making too much row there, for the people used to stop in the crossing to look, it were so pretty. He took me in charge three times on one night, cause I wouldn’t go away; but he let me go again, till at last I thought he would lock me up for the night, so I hooked it.
“It was after this as I went to St. Martin’s Church, and I haven’t done half as well there. Last night I took three-ha’pence; but I was larking, or I might have had more.”
As a proof of the very small expense which is required for the toilette of a crossing-sweeper, I may mention, that within a few minutes after Master Gander had finished his statement, he was in possession of a coat, for which he had paid the sum of fivepence.
When he brought it into the room, all the boys and the women crowded round to see the purchase.
“It’s a very good un,” said the Goose. “It only wants just taking up here and there; and this cuff putting to rights.” And as he spoke he pointed to tears large enough for a head to be thrust through.
“I’ve seen that coat before, sum’ares,” said one of the women; “where did you get it?”
“At the chandly-shop,” answered the Goose.
The young sweeper who had been styled by his companions the “King” was a pretty-looking boy, only tall enough to rest his chin comfortably on the mantel-piece as he talked to me, and with a pair of grey eyes that were as bright and clear as drops of sea-water. He was clad in a style in no way agreeing with his royal title; for he had on a kind of dirt-coloured shooting-coat of tweed, which was fraying into a kind of cobweb at the edges and elbows. His trousers too, were rather faulty, for there was a pink-wrinkled dot of flesh at one of the knees; while their length was too great for his majesty’s short legs, so that they had to be rolled up at the end like a washerwoman’s sleeves.
His royal highness was of a restless disposition, and, whilst talking, lifted up, one after another, the different ornaments on the mantel-piece, frowning and looking at them sideways, as he pondered over the replies he should make to my questions.
When I arrived at the grandmother’s apartment the “king” was absent, his majesty having been sent with a pitcher to fetch some spring-water.
The “king” also was kind enough to favour me with samples of his wondrous tumbling powers. He could bend his little legs round till they curved like the long German sausages we see in the ham-and-beef shops; and when he turned head over heels, he curled up his tiny body as closely as a wood-louse, and then rolled along, wabbling like an egg.
“The boys call me Johnny,” he said; “and I’m getting on for eleven, and I goes along with the Goose and Harry, a-sweeping at St. Martin’s Church, and about there. I used, too, to go to the crossing where the statute is, sir, at the bottom of the Haymarket. I went along with the others; sometimes there were three or four of us, or sometimes one, sir. I never used to sweep unless it was wet. I don’t go out not before twelve or one in the day; it ain’t no use going before that; and beside, I couldn’t get up before that, I’m too sleepy. I don’t stop out so late as the other boys; they sometimes stop all night, but I don’t like that. The Goose was out all night along with Martin; they went all along up Piccirilly, and there they climbed over the Park railings and went a birding all by themselves, and then they went to sleep for an hour on the grass—so they says. I likes better to come home to my bed. It kills me for the next day when I do stop out all night. The Goose is always out all night; he likes it.
“Neither father nor mother’s alive, sir, but I lives along with grandmother and aunt, as owns this room, and I always gives them all I gets.
“Sometimes I makes a shilling, sometimes sixpence, and sometimes less. I can never take nothink of a day, only of a night, because I can’t tumble of a day, and I can of a night.
“The Gander taught me tumbling, and he was the first as did it along the crossings. I can tumble quite as well as the Goose; I can turn a caten-wheel, and he can’t, and I can go further on forards than him, but I can’t tumble backards as he can. I can’t do a handspring, though. Why, a handspring’s pitching yourself forards on both hands, turning over in front, and lighting on your feet; that’s very difficult, and very few can do it. There’s one little chap, but he’s very clever, and can tie himself up in a knot a’most. I’m best at caten-wheels; I can do ’em twelve or fourteen times running—keep on at it. It just does tire you, that’s all. When I gets up I feels quite giddy. I can tumble about forty times over head and heels. I does the most of that, and I thinks it’s the most difficult, but I can’t say which gentlemen likes best. You see they are anigh sick of the head-and-heels tumbling, and then werry few of the boys can do caten-wheels on the crossings—only two or three besides me.
“When I see anybody coming, I says, ‘Please, sir, give me a halfpenny,’ and touches my hair, and then I throws a caten-wheel, and has a look at ’em, and if I sees they are laughing, then I goes on and throws more of ’em. Perhaps one in ten will give a chap something. Some of ’em will give you a threepenny-bit or p’rhaps sixpence, and others only give you a kick. Well, sir, I should say they likes tumbling over head and heels; if you can keep it up twenty times then they begins laughing, but if you only does it once, some of ’em will say, ‘Oh, I could do that myself,’ and then they don’t give nothink.
“I know they calls me the King of Tumblers, and I think I can tumble the best of them; none of them is so good as me, only the Goose at tumbling backards.
“We don’t crab one another when we are sweeping; if we was to crab one another, we’d get to fighting and giving slaps of the jaw to one another. So when we sees anybody coming, we cries, ‘My gentleman and lady coming here;’ ‘My lady;’ ‘My two gentlemens;’ and if any other chap gets the money, then we says, ‘I named them, now I’ll have halves.’ And if he won’t give it, then we’ll smug his broom or his cap. I’m the littlest chap among our lot, but if a fellow like the Goose was to take my naming then I’d smug somethink. I shouldn’t mind his licking me, I’d smug his money and get his halfpence or somethink. If a chap as can’t tumble sees a sporting gent coming and names him, he says to one of us tumblers, ‘Now, then, who’ll give us halves?’ and then we goes and tumbles and shares. The sporting gentlemens likes tumbling; they kicks up more row laughing than a dozen others.
“Sometimes at night we goes down to Covent Garden, to where Hevans’s is, but not till all the plays is over, cause Hevans’s don’t shut afore two or three. When the people comes out we gets tumbling afore them. Some of the drunken gentlemens is shocking spiteful, and runs after a chap and gives us a cut with the cane; some of the others will give us money, and some will buy our broom off us for sixpence. Me and Jemmy sold the two of our brooms for a shilling to two drunken gentlemens, and they began kicking up a row, and going before other gentlemens and pretending to sweep, and taking off their hats begging, like a mocking of us. They danced about with the brooms, flourishing ’em in the air, and knocking off people’s hats; and at last they got into a cab, and chucked the brooms away. The drunken gentlemens is always either jolly or spiteful.
“But I goes only to the Haymarket, and about Pall Mall, now. I used to be going up to Hevans’s every night, but I can’t take my money up there now. I stands at the top of the Haymarket by Windmill-street, and when I sees a lady and gentleman coming out of the Argyle, then I begs of them as they comes across. I says—‘Can’t you give me a ha’penny, sir, poor little Jack? I’ll stand on my nose for a penny;’—and then they laughs at that.
“Goose can stand on his nose as well as me; we puts the face flat down on the ground, instead of standing on our heads. There’s Duckey Dunnovan, and the Stuttering Baboon, too, and two others as well, as can do it; but the Stuttering Baboon’s getting too big and fat to do it well; he’s a very awkward tumbler. It don’t hurt, only at larning; cos you bears more on your hands than your nose.
“Sometimes they says—‘Well, let us see you do it,’ and then p’raps they’ll search in their pockets, and say—‘O, I haven’t got any coppers:’ so then we’ll force ’em, and p’raps they’ll pull out their purse and gives us a little bit of silver.
“Ah, we works hard for what we gets, and then there’s the policemen birching us. Some of ’em is so spiteful, they takes up their belt what they uses round the waist to keep their coat tight, and’ll hit us with the buckle; but we generally gives ’em the lucky dodge and gets out of their way.
“One night, two gentlemen, officers they was, was standing in the Haymarket, and a drunken man passed by. There was snow on the ground, and we’d been begging of ’em, and says one of them—‘I’ll give you a shilling if you’ll knock that drunken man over.’ We was three of us; so we set on him, and soon had him down. After he got up he went and told the policemen, but we all cut round different ways and got off, and then met again. We didn’t get the shilling, though, cos a boy crabbed us. He went up to the gentleman, and says he—‘Give it me, sir, I’m the boy;’ and then we says—‘No, sir, it’s us.’ So, says the officer—‘I sharn’t give it to none of you,’ and puts it back again in his pockets. We broke a broom over the boy as crabbed us, and then we cut down Waterloo-place, and afterwards we come up to the Haymarket again, and there we met the officers again. I did a caten-wheel, and then says I—‘Then won’t you give me un now?’ and they says—‘Go and sweep some mud on that woman.’ So I went and did it, and then they takes me in a pastry-shop at the corner, and they tells me to tumble on the tables in the shop. I nearly broke one of ’em, they were so delicate. They gived me a fourpenny meat-pie and two penny sponge-cakes, which I puts in my pocket, cos there was another sharing with me. The lady of the shop kept on screaming—‘Go and fetch me a police—take the dirty boy out,’ cos I was standing on the tables in my muddy feet, and the officers was a bursting their sides with laughing; and says they, ‘No, he sharn’t stir.’
“I was frightened, cos if the police had come they’d been safe and sure to have took me. They made me tumble from the door to the end of the shop, and back again, and then I turned ’em a caten-wheel, and was near knocking down all the things as was on the counter.
“They didn’t give me no money, only pies; but I got a shilling another time for tumbling to some French ladies and gentlemen in a pastry-cook’s shop under the Colonnade. I often goes into a shop like that; I’ve done it a good many times.
“There was a gentleman once as belonged to a ‘suckus,’ (circus) as wanted to take me with him abroad, and teach me tumbling. He had a little mustache, and used to belong to Drury-lane play-house, riding on horses. I went to his place, and stopped there some time. He taught me to put my leg round my neck, and I was just getting along nicely with the splits (going down on the ground with both legs extended), when I left him. They (the splits) used to hurt worst of all; very bad for the thighs. I used, too, to hang with my leg round his neck. When I did anythink he liked, he used to be clapping me on the back. He wasn’t so very stunning well off, for he never had what I calls a good dinner—grandmother used to have a better dinner than he,—perhaps only a bit of scrag of mutton between three of us. I don’t like meat nor butter, but I likes dripping, and they never had none there. The wife used to drink—ay, very much, on the sly. She used when he was out to send me round with a bottle and sixpence to get a quartern of gin for her, and she’d take it with three or four oysters. Grandmother didn’t like the notion of my going away, so she went down one day, and says she—‘I wants my child;’ and the wife says—‘That’s according to the master’s likings;’ and then grandmother says—‘What, not my own child?’ And then grandmother began talking, and at last, when the master come home, he says to me—‘Which will you do, stop here, or go home with your grandmother?’ So I come along with her.
“I’ve been sweeping the crossings getting on for two years. Before that I used to go caten-wheeling after the busses. I don’t like the sweeping, and I don’t think there’s e’er a one of us wot likes it. In the winter we has to be out in the cold, and then in summer we have to sleep out all night, or go asleep on the church-steps, reg’lar tired out.
“One of us’ll say at night—‘Oh, I’m sleepy now, who’s game for a doss? I’m for a doss;’—and then we go eight or ten of us into a doorway of the church, where they keep the dead in a kind of airy-like underneath, and there we go to sleep. The most of the boys has got no homes. Perhaps they’ve got the price of a lodging, but they’re hungry, and they eats the money, and then they must lay out. There’s some of ’em will stop out in the wet for perhaps the sake of a halfpenny, and get themselves sopping wet. I think all our chaps would like to get out of the work if they could; I’m sure Goose would, and so would I.
“All the boys call me the King, because I tumbles so well, and some calls me ‘Pluck,’ and some ‘Judy.’ I’m called ‘Pluck,’ cause I’m so plucked a going at the gentlemen! Tommy Dunnovan—‘Tipperty Tight’—we calls him, cos his trousers is so tight he can hardly move in them sometimes,—he was the first as called me ‘Judy.’ Dunnovan once swallowed a pill for a shilling. A gentleman in the Haymarket says—‘If you’ll swallow this here pill I’ll give you a shilling;’ and Jimmy says, ‘All right, sir;’ and he puts it in his mouth, and went to the water-pails near the cab-stand and swallowed it.
“All the chaps in our gang likes me, and we all likes one another. We always shows what we gets given to us to eat.
“Sometimes we gets one another up wild, and then that fetches up a fight, but that isn’t often. When two of us fights, the others stands round and sees fair play. There was a fight last night between ‘Broke his Bones’—as we calls Antony Hones—and Neddy Hall—the ‘Sparrow,’ or ‘Spider,’ we calls him,—something about the root of a pineapple, as we was aiming with at one another, and that called up a fight. We all stood round and saw them at it, but neither of ’em licked, for they gived in for to-day, and they’re to finish it to-night. We makes ’em fight fair. We all of us likes to see a fight, but not to fight ourselves. Hones is sure to beat, as Spider is as thin as a wafer, and all bones. I can lick the Spider, though he’s twice my size.”
I was anxious to see the room in which the gang of boy crossing-sweepers lived, so that I might judge of their peculiar style of house-keeping, and form some notion of their principles of domestic economy.
I asked young Harry and “the Goose” to conduct me to their lodgings, and they at once consented, “the Goose” prefacing his compliance with the remark, that “it wern’t such as genilmen had been accustomed to, but then I must take ’em as they was.”
The boys led me in the direction of Drury-lane; and before entering one of the narrow streets which branch off like the side-bones of a fish’s spine from that long thoroughfare, they thought fit to caution me that I was not to be frightened, as nobody would touch me, for all was very civil.
The locality consisted of one of those narrow streets which, were it not for the paved cartway in the centre would be called a court. Seated on the pavement at each side of the entrance was a costerwoman with her basket before her, and her legs tucked up mysteriously under her gown into a round ball, so that her figure resembled in shape the plaster tumblers sold by the Italians. These women remained as inanimate as if they had been carved images, and it was only when a passenger went by that they gave signs of life, by calling out in a low voice, like talking to themselves, “Two for three haarpence—herrens,”—“Fine hinguns.”
The street itself is like the description given of thoroughfares in the East. Opposite neighbours could not exactly shake hands out of window, but they could talk together very comfortably; and, indeed, as I passed along, I observed several women with their arms folded up like a cat’s paws on the sill, and chatting with their friends over the way.
Nearly all the inhabitants were costermongers, and, indeed, the narrow cartway seemed to have been made just wide enough for a truck to wheel down it. A beershop and a general store, together with a couple of sweeps,—whose residences were distinguished by a broom over the door,—formed the only exceptions to the street-selling class of inhabitants.
As I entered the place, it gave me the notion that it belonged to a distinct coster colony, and formed one large hawkers’ home; for everybody seemed to be doing just as he liked, and I was stared at as if considered an intruder. Women were seated on the pavement, knitting, and repairing their linen; the doorways were filled up with bonnetless girls, who wore their shawls over their head, as the Spanish women do their mantillas; and the youths in corduroy and brass buttons, who were chatting with them, leant against the walls as they smoked their pipes, and blocked up the pavement, as if they were the proprietors of the place. Little children formed a convenient bench out of the kerb-stone; and a party of four men were seated on the footway, playing with cards which had turned to the colour of brown paper from long usage, and marking the points with chalk upon the flags.
The parlour-windows of the houses had all of them wooden shutters, as thick and clumsy-looking as a kitchen flap-table, the paint of which had turned to the dull dirt-colour of an old slate. Some of these shutters were evidently never used as a security for the dwelling, but served only as tables on which to chalk the accounts of the day’s sales.
Before most of the doors were costermongers’ trucks—some standing ready to be wheeled off, and others stained and muddy with the day’s work. A few of the costers were dressing up their barrows, arranging the sieves of waxy-looking potatoes—and others taking the stiff herrings, browned like a meerschaum with the smoke they had been dried in, from the barrels beside them, and spacing them out in pennyworths on their trays.
You might guess what each costermonger had taken out that day by the heap of refuse swept into the street before the doors. One house had a blue mound of mussel-shells in front of it—another, a pile of the outside leaves of broccoli and cabbages, turning yellow and slimy with bruises and moisture.
Hanging up beside some of the doors were bundles of old strawberry pottles, stained red with the fruit. Over the trap-doors to the cellars were piles of market-gardeners’ sieves, ruddled like a sheep’s back with big red letters. In fact, everything that met the eye seemed to be in some way connected with the coster’s trade.
From the windows poles stretched out, on which blankets, petticoats, and linen were drying; and so numerous were they, that they reminded me of the flags hung out at a Paris fête. Some of the sheets had patches as big as trap-doors let into their centres; and the blankets were—many of them—as full of holes as a pigeon-house.
As I entered the court, a “row” was going on; and from a first-floor window a lady, whose hair sadly wanted brushing, was haranguing a crowd beneath, throwing her arms about like a drowning man, and in her excitement thrusting her body half out of her temporary rostrum as energetically as I have seen Punch lean over his theatre.
“The willin dragged her,” she shouted, “by the hair of her head, at least three yards into the court—the willin! and then he kicked her, and the blood was on his boot.”
It was a sweep who had been behaving in this cowardly manner; but still he had his defenders in the women around him. One with very shiny hair, and an Indian kerchief round her neck, answered the lady in the window, by calling her a “d——d old cat;” whilst the sweep’s wife rushed about, clapping her hands together as quickly as if she was applauding at a theatre, and styled somebody or other “an old wagabones as she wouldn’t dirty her hands to fight with.”
This “row” had the effect of drawing all the lodgers to the windows—their heads popping out as suddenly as dogs from their kennels in a fancier’s yard.
The room where the boys lodged was scarcely bigger than a coach-house; and so low was the ceiling, that a fly-paper suspended from a clothes-line was on a level with my head, and had to be carefully avoided when I moved about.
One corner of the apartment was completely filled up by a big four-post bedstead, which fitted into a kind of recess as perfectly as if it had been built to order.
The old woman who kept this lodging had endeavoured to give it a homely look of comfort, by hanging little black-framed pictures, scarcely bigger than pocket-books, on the walls. Most of these were sacred subjects, with large yellow glories round the heads; though between the drawing representing the bleeding heart of Christ, and the Saviour bearing the Cross, was an illustration of a red-waistcoated sailor smoking his pipe. The Adoration of the Shepherds, again, was matched on the other side of the fireplace by a portrait of Daniel O’Connell.
A chest of drawers was covered over with a green baize cloth, on which books, shelves, and clean glasses were tidily set out.
Where so many persons (for there were about eight of them, including the landlady, her daughter, and grandson) could all sleep, puzzled me extremely.
The landlady wore a frilled nightcap, which fitted so closely to the skull, that it was evident she had lost her hair. One of her eyes was slowly recovering from a blow, which, to use her own words, “a blackgeyard gave her.” Her lip, too, had suffered in the encounter, for it was swollen and cut.
“I’ve a nice flock-bid for the boys,” she said, when I inquired into the accommodation of her lodging-house, “where three of them can slape aisy and comfortable.”
“It’s a large bed, sir,” said one of the boys, “and a warm covering over us; and you see it’s better than a regular lodging-house; for, if you want a knife or a cup, you don’t have to leave something on it till it’s returned.”
The old woman spoke up for her lodgers, telling me that they were good boys, and very honest; “for,” she added, “they pays me rig’lar ivery night, which is threepence.”
The only youth as to whose morals she seemed to be at all doubtful was “the Goose,” “for he kept late hours, and sometimes came home without a penny in his pocket.”
A little girl, who worked by herself at her own crossing, gave me some curious information on the subject.
This child had a peculiarly flat face, with a button of a nose, while her mouth was scarcely larger than a button-hole. When she spoke, there was not the slightest expression visible in her features; indeed, one might have fancied she wore a mask and was talking behind it; but her eyes were shining the while as brightly as those of a person in a fever, and kept moving about, restless with her timidity. The green frock she wore was fastened close to the neck, and was turning into a kind of mouldy tint; she also wore a black stuff apron, stained with big patches of gruel, “from feeding baby at home,” as she said. Her hair was tidily dressed, being drawn tightly back from the forehead, like the buy-a-broom girls; and as she stood with her hands thrust up her sleeves, she curtseyed each time before answering, bobbing down like a float, as though the floor under her had suddenly given way.
“I’m twelve years old, please sir, and my name is Margaret R——, and I sweep a crossing in New Oxford-street, by Dunn’s-passage, just facing Moses and Sons’, sir; by the Catholic school, sir. Mother’s been dead these two year, sir, and father’s a working cutler, sir; and I lives with him, but he don’t get much to do, and so I’m obligated to help him, doing what I can, sir. Since mother’s been dead, I’ve had to mind my little brother and sister, so that I haven’t been to school; but when I goes a crossing-sweeping I takes them along with me, and they sits on the steps close by, sir. If it’s wet I has to stop at home and take care of them, for father depends upon me for looking after them. Sister’s three and a-half year old, and brother’s five year, so he’s just beginning to help me, sir. I hope he’ll get something better than a crossing when he grows up.
“First of all I used to go singing songs in the streets, sir. It was when father had no work, so he stopped at home and looked after the children. I used to sing the ‘Red, White, and Blue,’ and ‘Mother, is the Battle over?’ and ‘The Gipsy Girl,’ and sometimes I’d get fourpence or fivepence, and sometimes I’d have a chance of making ninepence, sir. Sometimes, though, I’d take a shilling of a Saturday night in the markets.
“At last the songs grew so stale people wouldn’t listen to them, and, as I carn’t read, I couldn’t learn any more, sir. My big brother and father used to learn me some, but I never could get enough out of them for the streets; besides, father was out of work still, and we couldn’t get money enough to buy ballads with, and it’s no good singing without having them to sell. We live over there, sir, (pointing to a window on the other side of the narrow street).
“The notion come into my head all of itself to sweep crossings, sir. As I used to go up Regent-street I used to see men and women, and girls and boys, sweeping, and the people giving them money, so I thought I’d do the same thing. That’s how it come about. Just now the weather is so dry, I don’t go to my crossing, but goes out singing. I’ve learnt some new songs, such as ‘The Queen of the Navy for ever,’ and ‘The Widow’s Last Prayer,’ which is about the wars. I only go sweeping in wet weather, because then’s the best time. When I am there, there’s some ladies and gentlemen as gives to me regular. I knows them by sight; and there’s a beer-shop where they give me some bread and cheese whenever I go.
“I generally takes about sixpence, or sevenpence, or eightpence on the crossing, from about nine o’clock in the morning till four in the evening, when I come home. I don’t stop out at nights because father won’t let me, and I’m got to be home to see to baby.
“My broom costs me twopence ha’penny, and in wet weather it lasts a week, but in dry weather we seldom uses it.
“When I sees the busses and carriages coming I stands on the side, for I’m afeard of being runned over. In winter I goes out and cleans ladies’ doors, general about Lincoln’s-inn, for the housekeepers. I gets twopence a door, but it takes a long time when the ice is hardened, so that I carn’t do only about two or three.
“I carn’t tell whether I shall always stop at sweeping, but I’ve no clothes, and so I carn’t get a situation; for, though I’m small and young, yet I could do housework, such as cleaning.
“No, sir, there’s no gang on my crossing—I’m all alone. If another girl or a boy was to come and take it when I’m not there, I should stop on it as well as him or her, and go shares with ’em.”
I was told that a little girl formed one of the association of young sweepers, and at my request one of the boys went to fetch her.
She was a clean-washed little thing, with a pretty, expressive countenance, and each time she was asked a question she frowned, like a baby in its sleep, while thinking of the answer. In her ears she wore instead of rings loops of string, “which the doctor had put there because her sight was wrong.” A cotton velvet bonnet, scarcely larger than the sun-shades worn at the sea-side, hung on her shoulders, leaving exposed her head, with the hair as rough as tow. Her green stuff gown was hanging in tatters, with long three-cornered rents as large as penny kites, showing the grey lining underneath; and her mantle was separated into so many pieces, that it was only held together by the braiding at the edge.
As she conversed with me, she played with the strings of her bonnet, rolling them up as if curling them, on her singularly small and also singularly dirty fingers.
“I’ll be fourteen, sir, a fortnight before next Christmas. I was born in Liquorpond-street, Gray’s Inn-lane. Father come over from Ireland, and was a bricklayer. He had pains in his limbs and wasn’t strong enough, so he give it over. He’s dead now—been dead a long time, sir. I was a littler girl then than I am now, for I wasn’t above eleven at that time. I lived with mother after father died. She used to sell things in the streets—yes, sir, she was a coster. About a twelvemonth after father’s death, mother was taken bad with the cholera, and died. I then went along with both grandmother and grandfather, who was a porter in Newgate Market; I stopped there until I got a place as servant of all-work. I was only turned, just turned, eleven then. I worked along with a French lady and gentleman in Hatton Garden, who used to give me a shilling a-week and my tea. I used to go home to grandmother’s to dinner every day. I hadn’t to do any work, only just to clean the room and nuss the child. It was a nice little thing. I couldn’t understand what the French people used to say, but there was a boy working there, and he used to explain to me what they meant.
“I left them because they was going to a place called Italy—perhaps you may have heerd tell of it, sir. Well, I suppose they must have been Italians, but we calls everybody, whose talk we don’t understand, French. I went back to grandmother’s, but, after grandfather died, she couldn’t keep me, and so I went out begging—she sent me. I carried lucifer-matches and stay-laces fust. I used to carry about a dozen laces, and perhaps I’d sell six out of them. I suppose I used to make about sixpence a-day, and I used to take it home to grandmother, who kept and fed me.
“At last, finding I didn’t get much at begging, I thought I’d go crossing-sweeping. I saw other children doing it. I says to myself, ‘I’ll go and buy a broom,’ and I spoke to another little girl, who was sweeping up Holborn, who told me what I was to do. ‘But,’ says she, ‘don’t come and cut up me.’
“I went fust to Holborn, near to home, at the end of Red Lion-street. Then I was frightened of the cabs and carriages, but I’d get there early, about eight o’clock, and sweep the crossing clean, and I’d stand at the side on the pavement, and speak to the gentlemen and ladies before they crossed.
“There was a couple of boys, sweepers at the same crossing before I went there. I went to them and asked if I might come and sweep there too, and they said Yes, if I would give them some of the halfpence I got. These was boys about as old as I was, and they said, if I earned sixpence, I was to give them twopence a-piece; but they never give me nothink of theirs. I never took more than sixpence, and out of that I had to give fourpence, so that I did not do so well as with the laces.
“The crossings made my hands sore with the sweeping, and, as I got so little, I thought I’d try somewhere else. Then I got right down to the Fountings in Trafalgar-square, by the crossing at the statey on ’orseback. There were a good many boys and girls on that crossing at the time—five of them; so I went along with them. When I fust went they said, ‘Here’s another fresh ’un.’ They come up to me and says, ‘Are you going to sweep here?’ and I says, ‘Yes;’ and they says, ‘You mustn’t come here, there’s too many;’ and I says, ‘They’re different ones every day,’—for they’re not regular there, but shift about, sometimes one lot of boys and girls, and the next day another. They didn’t say another word to me, and so I stopped.
“It’s a capital crossing, but there’s so many of us, it spiles it. I seldom gets more than sevenpence a-day, which I always takes home to grandmother.
“I’ve been on that crossing about three months. They always calls me Ellen, my regular name, and behaves very well to me. If I see anybody coming, I call them out as the boys does, and then they are mine.
“There’s a boy and myself, and another strange girl, works on our side of the statey, and another lot of boys and girls on the other.
“I like Saturdays the best day of the week, because that’s the time as gentlemen as has been at work has their money, and then they are more generous. I gets more then, perhaps ninepence, but not quite a shilling, on the Saturday.
“I’ve had a threepenny-bit give to me, but never sixpence. It was a gentleman, and I should know him again. Ladies gives me less than gentlemen. I foller ’em, saying, ‘If you please, sir, give a poor girl a halfpenny;’ but if the police are looking, I stop still.
“I never goes out on Sunday, but stops at home with grandmother. I don’t stop out at nights like the boys, but I gets home by ten at latest.”