Part 36

“The sellers goes to market with a few pence. I myself goes down there and lays out sometimes my 4_d._; that’s what I laid out this morning. Sometimes I lay out only 2_d._ and 3_d._, according as how I has the halfpence in my pocket. Many a one goes down to the market with only three halfpence, and glad to have that to get a halfpenny, or anything, so as to earn a mouthful of bread--a bellyful that they can’t get no how. Ah, many a time I walked through the streets, and picked a piece of bread that the servants chucked out of the door--may be to the birds. I’ve gone and picked it up when I’ve been right hungry. Thinks I, I can eat that as well as the birds. None of the sellers ever goes down to the market with less than a penny. They won’t make less than a pennorth, that’s one ‘hand,’ and if the little thing sells that, she won’t earn more than three halfpence out of it. After they have bought the creases they generally take them to the pump to wet them. I generally pump upon mine in Hatton-garden. It’s done to make them look nice and fresh all the morning, so that the wind shouldn’t make them flag. You see they’ve been packed all night in the hamper, and they get dry. Some ties them up in ha’porths as they walks along. Many of them sit down on the steps of St. Andrew’s Church and make them up into bunches. You’ll see plenty of them there of a morning between five and six. Plenty, poor little dear souls, sitting there,” said the old man to me. There the hand is parcelled out into five halfpenny bunches. In the summer the dealers often go to market and lay out as much as 1_s._ “On Saturday morning, this time of year, I buys as many as nine hands--there’s more call for ’em on Saturday and Sunday morning than on any other days; and we always has to buy on Saturdays what we want for Sundays--there an’t no market on that day, sir. At the market sufficient creases are bought by the sellers for the morning and afternoon as well. In the morning some begin crying their creases through the streets at half-past six, and others about seven. They go to different parts, but there is scarcely a place but what some goes to--there are so many of us now--there’s twenty to one to what there used to be. Why, they’re so thick down at the market in the summer time, that you might bowl balls along their heads, and all a fighting for the creases. There’s a regular scramble, I can assure you, to get at ’em, so as to make a halfpenny out of them. I should think in the spring mornings there’s 400 or 500 on ’em down at Farringdon-market all at one time--between four and five in the morning--if not more than that, and as fast as they keep going out, others keep coming in. I think there is more than a thousand, young and old, about the streets in the trade. The working classes are the principal of the customers. The bricklayers, and carpenters, and smiths, and plumbers, leaving work and going home to breakfast at eight o’clock, purchase the chief part of them. A great many are sold down the courts and mews, and bye streets, and very few are got rid of in the squares and the neighbourhood of the more respectable houses. Many are sold in the principal thoroughfares--a large number in the City. There is a man who stands close to the Post-office, at the top of Newgate-street, winter and summer, who sells a great quantity of bunches every morning. This man frequently takes between 4_s._ and 5_s._ of a winter’s morning, and about 10_s._ a day in the summer.” “Sixteen years ago,” said the old man who gave me the principal part of this information, “I could come out and take my 18_s._ of a Saturday morning, and 5_s._ on a Sunday morning as well; but now I think myself very lucky if I can take my 1_s._ 3_d._, and it’s only on two mornings in the week that I can get that.” The hucksters of watercresses are generally an honest, industrious, striving class of persons. The young girls are said to be well-behaved, and to be the daughters of poor struggling people. The old men and women are persons striving to save themselves from the workhouse. The old and young people generally travel nine and ten miles in the course of the day. They start off to market at four and five, and are out on their morning rounds from seven till nine, and on their afternoon rounds from half-past two to five in the evening. They travel at the rate of two miles an hour. “If it wasn’t for my wife, I must go to the workhouse outright,” said the old watercress man. “Ah, I do’nt know what I should do without her, I can assure you. She earns about 1_s._ 3_d._ a day. She takes in a little washing, and keeps a mangle. When I’m at home I turn the mangle for her. The mangle is my own. When my wife’s mother was alive she lent us the money to buy it, and as we earnt the money we paid her back so much a week. It is _that_ what has kept us together, or else we shouldn’t have been as we are. The mangle we give 50_s._ for, and it brings us in now 1_s._ 3_d._ a day with the washing. My wife is younger than I am. She is about thirty-five years old. We have got two children. One is thirteen and the other fifteen. They’ve both got learning, and are both in situations. I always sent ’em to school. Though I can’t neither read nor write myself, I wished to make them some little scholards. I paid a penny a week for ’em at the school. Lady M---- has always given me my Christmas dinner for the last five years, and God bless her for it--that I _do_ say indeed.”

WATERCRESS GIRL.

The little watercress girl who gave me the following statement, although only eight years of age, had entirely lost all childish ways, and was, indeed, in thoughts and manner, a woman. There was something cruelly pathetic in hearing this infant, so young that her features had scarcely formed themselves, talking of the bitterest struggles of life, with the calm earnestness of one who had endured them all. I did not know how to talk with her. At first I treated her as a child, speaking on childish subjects; so that I might, by being familiar with her, remove all shyness, and get her to narrate her life freely. I asked her about her toys and her games with her companions; but the look of amazement that answered me soon put an end to any attempt at fun on my part. I then talked to her about the parks, and whether she ever went to them. “The parks!” she replied in wonder, “where are they?” I explained to her, telling her that they were large open places with green grass and tall trees, where beautiful carriages drove about, and people walked for pleasure, and children played. Her eyes brightened up a little as I spoke; and she asked, half doubtingly, “Would they let such as me go there--just to look?” All her knowledge seemed to begin and end with water-cresses, and what they fetched. She knew no more of London than that part she had seen on her rounds, and believed that no quarter of the town was handsomer or pleasanter than it was at Farringdon-market or at Clerkenwell, where she lived. Her little face, pale and thin with privation, was wrinkled where the dimples ought to have been, and she would sigh frequently. When some hot dinner was offered to her, she would not touch it, because, if she eat too much, “it made her sick,” she said; “and she wasn’t used to meat, only on a Sunday.”

The poor child, although the weather was severe, was dressed in a thin cotton gown, with a threadbare shawl wrapped round her shoulders. She wore no covering to her head, and the long rusty hair stood out in all directions. When she walked she shuffled along, for fear that the large carpet slippers that served her for shoes should slip off her feet.

“I go about the streets with water-creases, crying, ‘Four bunches a penny, water-creases.’ I am just eight years old--that’s all, and I’ve a big sister, and a brother and a sister younger than I am. On and off, I’ve been very near a twelvemonth in the streets. Before that, I had to take care of a baby for my aunt. No, it wasn’t heavy--it was only two months old; but I minded it for ever such a time--till it could walk. It was a very nice little baby, not a very pretty one; but, if I touched it under the chin, it would laugh. Before I had the baby, I used to help mother, who was in the fur trade; and, if there was any slits in the fur, I’d sew them up. My mother learned me to needle-work and to knit when I was about five. I used to go to school, too; but I wasn’t there long. I’ve forgot all about it now, it’s such a time ago; and mother took me away because the master whacked me, though the missus use’n’t to never touch me. I didn’t like him at all. What do you think? he hit me three times, ever so hard, across the face with his cane, and made me go dancing down stairs; and when mother saw the marks on my cheek, she went to blow him up, but she couldn’t see him--he was afraid. That’s why I left school.

“The creases is so bad now, that I haven’t been out with ’em for three days. They’re so cold, people won’t buy ’em; for when I goes up to them, they say, ‘They’ll freeze our bellies.’ Besides, in the market, they won’t sell a ha’penny handful now--they’re ris to a penny and tuppence. In summer there’s lots, and ’most as cheap as dirt; but I have to be down at Farringdon-market between four and five, or else I can’t get any creases, because everyone almost--especially the Irish--is selling them, and they’re picked up so quick. Some of the saleswomen--we never calls ’em ladies--is very kind to us children, and some of them altogether spiteful. The good one will give you a bunch for nothing, when they’re cheap; but the others, cruel ones, if you try to bate them a farden less than they ask you, will say, ‘Go along with you, you’re no good.’ I used to go down to market along with another girl, as must be about fourteen, ’cos she does her back hair up. When we’ve bought a lot, we sits down on a door-step, and ties up the bunches. We never goes home to breakfast till we’ve sold out; but, if it’s very late, then I buys a penn’orth of pudden, which is very nice with gravy. I don’t know hardly one of the people, as goes to Farringdon, to talk to; they never speaks to me, so I don’t speak to them. We children never play down there, ’cos we’re thinking of our living. No; people never pities me in the street--excepting one gentleman, and he says, says he, ‘What do you do out so soon in the morning?’ but he gave me nothink--he only walked away.

“It’s very cold before winter comes on reg’lar--specially getting up of a morning. I gets up in the dark by the light of the lamp in the court. When the snow is on the ground, there’s no creases. I bears the cold--you must; so I puts my hands under my shawl, though it hurts ’em to take hold of the creases, especially when we takes ’em to the pump to wash ’em. No; I never see any children crying--it’s no use.

“Sometimes I make a great deal of money. One day I took 1_s._ 6_d._, and the creases cost 6_d._; but it isn’t often I get such luck as that. I oftener makes 3_d._ or 4_d._ than 1_s._; and then I’m at work, crying, ‘Creases, four bunches a penny, creases!’ from six in the morning to about ten. What do you mean by mechanics?--I don’t know what they are. The shops buys most of me. Some of ’em says, ‘Oh! I ain’t a-goin’ to give a penny for these;’ and they want ’em at the same price as I buys ’em at.

“I always give mother my money, she’s so very good to me. She don’t often beat me; but, when she do, she don’t play with me. She’s very poor, and goes out cleaning rooms sometimes, now she don’t work at the fur. I ain’t got no father, he’s a father-in-law. No; mother ain’t married again--he’s a father-in-law. He grinds scissors, and he’s very good to me. No; I dont mean by that that he says kind things to me, for he never hardly speaks. When I gets home, after selling creases, I stops at home. I puts the room to rights: mother don’t make me do it, I does it myself. I cleans the chairs, though there’s only two to clean. I takes a tub and scrubbing-brush and flannel, and scrubs the floor--that’s what I do three or four times a week.

“I don’t have no dinner. Mother gives me two slices of bread-and-butter and a cup of tea for breakfast, and then I go till tea, and has the same. We has meat of a Sunday, and, of course, I should like to have it every day. Mother has just the same to eat as we has, but she takes more tea--three cups, sometimes. No; I never has no sweet-stuff; I never buy none--I don’t like it. Sometimes we has a game of ‘honey-pots’ with the girls in the court, but not often. Me and Carry H---- carries the little ’uns. We plays, too, at ‘kiss-in-the-ring.’ I knows a good many games, but I don’t play at ’em, ’cos going out with creases tires me. On a Friday night, too, I goes to a Jew’s house till eleven o’clock on Saturday night. All I has to do is to snuff the candles and poke the fire. You see they keep their Sabbath then, and they won’t touch anything; so they gives me my wittals and 1-1/2_d._, and I does it for ’em. I have a reg’lar good lot to eat. Supper of Friday night, and tea after that, and fried fish of a Saturday morning, and meat for dinner, and tea, and supper, and I like it very well.

“Oh, yes; I’ve got some toys at home. I’ve a fire-place, and a box of toys, and a knife and fork, and two little chairs. The Jews gave ’em to me where I go to on a Friday, and that’s why I said they was very kind to me. I never had no doll; but I misses little sister--she’s only two years old. We don’t sleep in the same room; for father and mother sleeps with little sister in the one pair, and me and brother and other sister sleeps in the top room. I always goes to bed at seven, ’cos I has to be up so early.

“I am a capital hand at bargaining--but only at buying watercreases. They can’t take me in. If the woman tries to give me a small handful of creases, I says, ‘I ain’t a goin’ to have that for a ha’porth,’ and I go to the next basket, and so on, all round. I know the quantities very well. For a penny I ought to have a full market hand, or as much as I could carry in my arms at one time, without spilling. For 3_d._ I has a lap full, enough to earn about a shilling; and for 6_d._ I gets as many as crams my basket. I can’t read or write, but I knows how many pennies goes to a shilling, why, twelve, of course, but I don’t know how many ha’pence there is, though there’s two to a penny. When I’ve bought 3_d._ of creases, I ties ’em up into as many little bundles as I can. They must look biggish, or the people won’t buy them, some puffs them out as much as they’ll go. All my money I earns I puts in a club and draws it out to buy clothes with. It’s better than spending it in sweet-stuff, for them as has a living to earn. Besides it’s like a child to care for sugar-sticks, and not like one who’s got a living and vittals to earn. I aint a child, and I shan’t be a woman till I’m twenty, but I’m past eight, I am. I don’t know nothing about what I earns during the year, I only know how many pennies goes to a shilling, and two ha’pence goes to a penny, and four fardens goes to a penny. I knows, too, how many fardens goes to tuppence--eight. That’s as much as I wants to know for the markets.”

* * * * *

The market returns I have obtained show the following result of the quantity vended in the streets, and of the receipts by the cress-sellers:--

A TABLE SHOWING THE QUANTITY OF WATERCRESSES SOLD WHOLESALE THROUGHOUT THE YEAR IN LONDON, WITH THE PROPORTION RETAILED IN THE STREETS.

---------------+---------------------+-------------- | | Proportion | Quantity sold | retailed in Market. | wholesale. | the Streets. ---------------+---------------------+-------------- Covent Garden | 1,578,000 bunches | one-eighth. Farringdon | 12,960,000 „ | one-half. Borough | 180,000 „ | one-half. Spitalfields | 180,000 „ | one-half. Portman | 60,000 „ | one-third. | ---------- | Total | 14,958,000 „ | ---------------+---------------------+--------------

From this sale the street cress-sellers receive:--

Bunches. Receipts. Farringdon 6,480,000 1/2_d._ per bunch £13,500 Covent Garden 16,450 „ 34 Borough 90,000 „ 187 Spitalfields 90,000 „ 187 Portman 20,000 „ 41 ------- £13,949 -------

The discrepancy in the quantity sold in the respective markets is to be accounted for by the fact, that Farringdon is the water-cress market to which are conveyed the qualities, large-leaved and big-stalked, that suit the street-folk. Of this description of cress they purchase one-half of all that is sold in Farringdon; of the finer, and smaller, and brown-leaved cress sold there, they purchase hardly any. At Covent Garden only the finer sorts of cress are in demand, and, consequently, the itinerants buy only an eighth in that market, and they are not encouraged there. They purchase half the quantity in the Borough, and the same in Spitalfields, and a third at Portman. I have before mentioned that 500 might be taken as the number supported by the sale of “creases;” that is, 500 families, or at least 1,000 individuals. The total amount received is nearly 14,000_l._, and this apportioned among 1,000 street-sellers, gives a weekly receipt of 5_s._ 5_d._, with a profit of 3_s._ 3_d._ per individual.

The discrepancy is further accounted for because the other market salesmen buy cresses at Farringdon; but I have given under the head of Farringdon _all_ that is sold to those other markets to be disposed to the street-sellers, and the returns from the other markets are of the cresses carried _direct_ there, apart from any purchases at Farringdon.

OF GROUNDSEL AND CHICKWEED SELLERS.

On a former occasion (in the _Morning Chronicle_) I mentioned that I received a letter informing me that a woman, residing in one of the courts about Saffron-hill, was making braces, and receiving only 1_s._ for four dozen of them. I was assured she was a most deserving character, strictly sober, and not receiving parochial relief. “Her husband,” my informant added, “was paralysed, and endeavoured to assist his family by gathering green food for birds. They are in deep distress, but their character is irreproachable.” I found the couple located up a court, the entrance to which was about as narrow as the opening to a sentry-box, and on each side lolled groups of labourers and costermongers, with short black pipes in their mouths. As I dived into the court, a crowd followed me to see whither I was going. The brace-maker lived on the first floor of a crazy, fœtid house. I ascended the stairs, and the banisters, from which the rails had all been purloined, gave way in my hands. I found the woman, man, and their family busy at their tea-dinner. In a large broken chair, beside the fire-place, was the old paralysed man, dressed in a ragged greasy fustian coat, his beard unshorn, and his hair in the wildest disorder. On the edge of the bed sat a cleanly looking woman, his wife, with a black apron on. Standing by the table was a blue-eyed laughing and shoeless boy, with an old camlet cape pinned over his shoulders. Next him was a girl in a long grey pinafore, with her hair cut close to her head, with the exception of a few locks in front, which hung down over her forehead like a dirty fringe. On a chair near the window stood a basket half full of chickweed and groundsel, and two large cabbages. There was a stuffed linnet on the mantel-piece and an empty cage hanging outside the window. In front of the window-sill was the small imitation of a gate and palings, so popular among the workpeople. On the table were a loaf, a few mugs of milkless tea and a small piece of butter in a saucer. I had scarcely entered when the mother began to remove the camlet cape from the boy’s shoulders, and to slip a coarse clean pinafore over his head instead. At present I have only to deal with the trade of the husband, who made the following statement: