Part 99

I wish the reader to understand that I do not cite this case as a type of the sufferings of this particular class, but rather as an illustration of the afflictions which frequently befall those who are solely dependent on their labour, or their little trade, for their subsistence, and who, from the smallness of their earnings, are unable to lay by even the least trifle as a fund against any physical calamity.

The poor creatures lived in one of the close alleys at the east end of London. On inquiring at the house to which I had been directed, I was told I should find them in “the two-pair back.” I mounted the stairs, and on opening the door of the apartment I was terrified with the misery before me. There, on a wretched bed, lay an aged man in almost the last extremity of life. At first I thought the poor old creature was really dead, but a tremble of the eyelids as I closed the door, as noiselessly as I could, told me that he breathed. His face was as yellow as clay, and it had more the cold damp look of a corpse than that of a living man. His cheeks were hollowed in with evident want, his temples sunk, and his nostrils pinched close. On the edge of the bed sat his heroic wife, giving him drink with a spoon from a tea-cup. In one corner of the room stood the basket of tapes, cottons, combs, braces, nutmeg-graters, and shaving-glasses, with which she strove to keep her old dying husband from the workhouse. I asked her how long her good man had been ill, and she told me he had been confined to his bed five weeks last Wednesday, and that it was ten weeks since he had eaten the size of a nut in solid food. Nothing but a little beef-tea had passed his lips for months. “We have lived like children together,” said the old woman, as her eyes flooded with tears, “and never had no dispute. He hated drink, and there was no cause for us to quarrel. One of my legs, you see, is shorter than the other,” said she, rising from the bed-side, and showing me that her right foot was several inches from the ground as she stood. “My hip is out. I used to go out washing, and walking in my pattens I fell down. My hip is out of the socket three-quarters of an inch, and the sinews is drawn up. I am obliged to walk with a stick.” Here the man groaned and coughed so that I feared the exertion must end his life. “Ah, the heart of a stone would pity that poor fellow,” said the good wife.

“After I put my hip out, I couldn’t get my living as I’d been used to do. I couldn’t stand a day if I had five hundred pounds for it. I must sit down. So I got a little stall, and sat at the end of the alley here with a few laces and tapes and things. I’ve done so for this nine year past, and seen many a landlord come in and go out of the house that I sat at. My husband used to sell small articles in the streets--black lead and furniture paste, and blacking. We got a sort of a living by this, the two of us together. It’s very seldom though we had a bit of meat. We had 1_s._ 9_d._ rent to pay--Come, my poor fellow, will you have another little drop to wet your mouth?” said the woman, breaking off. “Come, my dearest, let me give you this,” she added, as the man let his jaw fall, and she poured some warm sugar and water flavoured with cinnamon--all she had to give him--into his mouth. “He’s been an ailing man this many a year. He used to go of errands and buy my little things for me, on account of my being lame. We assisted one another, you see. He wasn’t able to work for his living, and I wasn’t able to go about, so he used to go about and buy for me what I sold. I am sure he never earned above 1_s._ 6_d._ in the week. He used to attend me, and many a time I’ve sat for ten and fourteen hours in the cold and wet and didn’t take a sixpence. Some days I’d make a shilling, and some days less; but whatever I got I used to have to put a good part into the basket to keep my little stock.” [A knock here came to the door; it was for a halfpenny-worth of darning cotton.] “You know a shilling goes further with a poor couple that’s sober than two shillings does with a drunkard. We lived poor, you see, never had nothing but tea, or we couldn’t have done anyhow. If I’d take 18_d._ in the day I’d think I was grandly off, and then if there was 6_d._ profit got out of that it would be almost as much as it would. You see these cotton braces here” (said the old woman, going to her tray). “Well, I gives 2_s._ 9_d._ a dozen for them here, and I sells ’em for 4-1/2_d._, and oftentimes 4_d._ a pair. Now, this piece of tape would cost me seven farthings in the shop, and I sells it at six yards a penny. It has the _name_ of being eighteen yards. The profit out of it is five farthings. It’s beyond the power of man to wonder how there’s a bit of bread got out of such a small way. And the times is so bad, too! I think I could say I get 8_d._ a day profit if I have any sort of custom, but I don’t exceed that at the best of times. I’ve often sat at the end of the alley and taken only 6_d._, and that’s not much more than 2_d._ clear--it an’t 3_d._ I’m sure. I think I could safely state that for the last nine year me and my husband has earned together 5_s._ a week, and out of that the two of us had to live and pay rent--1_s._ 9_d._ a week. Clothes I could buy none, for the best garment is on me; but I thank the Lord still. I’ve paid my rent all but three weeks, and that isn’t due till to-morrow. We have often reckoned it up here at the fire. Some weeks we have got 5_s._ 3_d._, and some weeks less, so that I judge we have had about 3_s._ to 3_s._ 6_d._ a week to live upon the two of us, for this nine year past. Half-a-hundred of coals would fit me the week in the depths of winter. My husband had the kettle always boiling for me against I came in. He used to sit here reading his book--he never was fit for work at the best--while I used to be out minding the basket. He was so sober and quiet too. His neighbours will tell that of him. Within the last ten weeks he’s been very ill indeed, but still I could be out with the basket. Since then he’s never earnt me a penny--poor old soul, he wasn’t able! All that time I still attended to my basket. He wasn’t so ill then but what he could do a little here in the room for hisself; but he wanted little, God knows, for he couldn’t eat. After he fell ill, I had to go all my errands myself. I had no one to help me, for I’d nothing to pay them, and I’d have to walk from here down to Sun-street with my stick, till my bad leg pained me so that I could hardly stand. You see the hip being put out has drawn all the sinews up into my groin, and it leaves me oncapable of walking or standing constantly; but I thank God that I’ve got the use of it anyhow. Our lot’s hard enough, goodness knows, but we are content. We never complain, but bless the Lord for the little he pleases to give us. When I was away on my errands, in course I couldn’t be minding my basket; so I lost a good bit of money that way. Well, five weeks on Wednesday he has been totally confined to his bed, excepting when I lifted him up to make it some nights; but he can’t bear _that_ now. Still the first fortnight he was bad, I did manage to leave him, and earn a few pence; but, latterly, for this last three weeks, I haven’t been able to go out at all, to do anything.”

“She’s been stopping by me, minding me here night and day all that time,” mumbled the old man, who now for the first time opened his gray glassy eyes and turned towards me, to bear, as it were, a last tribute to his wife’s incessant affection. “She has been most kind to me. Her tenderness and care has been such that man never knew from woman before, ever since I lay upon this sick bed. We’ve been married five-and-twenty years. We have always lived happily--very happily, indeed--together. Until sickness and weakness overcome me I always strove to help myself a bit, as well as I could; but since then she has done all in her power for me--worked for me--ay, she has worked for me, surely--and watched over me. My creed through life has been repentance towards God, faith in Jesus Christ, and love to all my brethren. I’ve made up my mind that I must soon change this tabernacle, and my last wish is that the good people of this world will increase her little stock for her. She cannot get her living out of the little stock she has, and since I lay here it’s so lessened, that neither she nor no one else can live upon it. If the kind hearts would give her but a little stock more, it would keep her old age from want, as she has kept mine. Indeed, indeed, she does deserve it. But the Lord, I know, will reward her for all she has done to me.” Here the old man’s eyelids dropped exhausted.

“I’ve had a shilling and a loaf twice from the parish,” continued the woman. “The overseer came to see if my old man was fit to be removed to the workhouse. The doctor gave me a certificate that he was not, and then the relieving officer gave me a shilling and a loaf of bread, and out of that shilling I bought the poor old fellow a sup of port wine. I bought a quartern of wine, which was 4_d._, and I gave 5_d._ for a bit of tea and sugar, and I gave 2_d._ for coals; a halfpenny rushlight I bought, and a short candle, that made a penny--and that’s the way I laid out the shilling. If God takes him, I know he’ll sleep in heaven. I know the life he’s spent, and am not afraid; but no one else shall take him from me--nothing shall part us but death in this world. Poor old soul, he can’t be long with me. He’s a perfect skeleton. His bones are starting through his skin.”

I asked what could be done for her, and the old man thrust forth his skinny arm, and laying hold of the bed-post, he raised himself slightly in his bed, as he murmured “If she could be got into a little parlour, and away from sitting in the streets, it would be the saving of her.” And, so saying, he fell back overcome with the exertion, and breathed heavily.

The woman sat down beside me, and went on. “What shocked him most was that I was obligated in his old age to go and ask for relief at the parish. You see, he was always a spiritful man, and it hurted him sorely that he should come to this at last, and for the first time in his lifetime. The only parish money that ever we had was this, and it _does_ hurt him every day to think that he must be buried by the parish after all. He was always proud, you see.”

I told the kind-hearted old dame that some benevolent people had placed certain funds at my disposal for the relief of such distress as hers; and I assured her that neither she nor her husband should want for anything that might ease their sufferings.

The day after the above was written, the poor old man died. He was buried out of the funds sent to the “Morning Chronicle,” and his wife received some few pounds to increase her stock; but in a few months the poor old woman went mad, and is now, I believe, the inmate of one of the pauper lunatic asylums.

OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF LACE.

This trade is carried on both by itinerants and at stands, or “pitches.” The itinerants, of whom I will first treat, are about forty in number (thirty women and ten men). They usually carry their lace in boxes, or cases. It is not uncommon for the women to represent themselves as lacemakers from Marlow, or some other place in Buckinghamshire, or from Honiton, in Devonshire, while the men assert they are from Nottingham. I am informed that there are among these itinerant lace-sellers two women and one man who really have been lacemakers. They all buy their wares at the haberdashery swag-shops.

The lace, which is the principal staple of this trade, is “edgings,” or the several kinds of cheap lace used for the bordering of caps and other female requirements. Among street-people the lace is called “driz,” and the sellers of it “driz-fencers.” It gained this slang name, I was informed, many years ago, when it was sold, and often to wealthy ladies, as rare and valuable lace, smuggled from Mechlin, Brussels, Valenciennes, or any foreign place famous, or once famous, for its manufacture. The pretended smuggled lace trade is now unknown in London, and is very little practised in the country. There is, however, still some smuggling connected with lace-selling. Two, and sometimes three, female lace-sellers are also “jigger-workers.” They carry about their persons pint bladders of “stuff,” or “jigger stuff” (spirit made at an illicit still). “I used to supply them with it until lately,” one street-trader told me, “from a friend that kept a ‘jigger,’ and a tidy sale some of them had. Indeed, I’ve made the stuff myself. I knew one woman, six or seven years back, that did uncommon well at first, but she got too fond of the stuff, and drank herself into the work’us. They never carried gin, for brandy was most asked for. They sold the brandy at 2_s._ 6_d._ the pint; rum at 1_s._ 6_d._; and whiskey at 2_s._; sometimes higher, and always trying for 6_d._ a pint profit, at least. O yes, sir; I know they got the prices I’ve mentioned, though they seem high; for you must remember that the jigger spirit is above proof, and a pint will make two pints of gin-palace stuff. They sold it, I’ve heard them say, to ladies that liked a drop on the sly; and to some as pretended they bought that way for economy; yes, and to shopkeepers and publicans too. One old lady used to give 3_s._ for three yards of driz, and it was well enough understood, without no words, that a pint of brandy was part of them three yards. But the trade that way is nothing to what it was, and gets less and less every year.”

From a middle-aged woman selling laces I had the following account:--

“I’ve been in the trade about six years, sir. Ten years back or more I was in place, and saved a little money, as a servant of all work. I married a house-painter, but trade got bad, and we both had illnesses; and my husband, though he’s as good a man as need be, can’t stick to anything very long at a time.” (A very common failing, by the bye, with the street-folk.) “It seems not in his nature. When we was reduced very low he got on a cab--for he can turn his hand to almost anything--and after that we came to street-selling. He’s now on jewellery, and I think it suits him as well or better than anything he’s tried; I do my part, and we get on middling. If we’re ever pushed it’s no use fretting. We had one child, and he died when he wanted just a month of three years old, and after I’d lost him I said I would never fret for trifles no more. My heart was broke for a long time--it was indeed. He was the loveliest boy ever seen, and everybody said so. I went into lace, because my husband got to know all about it, and I had no tie at home then. I was very shy and ashamed at first to go into houses, but that wears off, and I met with some nice people that bought of me and was very civil, so that encourages one. I sell nothing but lace. I never cleared more than 2_s._ 6_d._ in a day, and that only once. I suppose I clear from 3_s._ 6_d._ to 4_s._ 6_d._ a week now; perhaps, take it altogether, rather more than 4_s._ I have a connection, and go to the houses in and about the Regent’s Park, and all the small streets near it, and sometimes Maida Hill way. I once tried a little millinery made-up things, but it didn’t suit somehow, and I didn’t stick to it. You see, sir, I sell my lace to very few but servant maids and small shopkeepers’ wives and daughters; but then they’re a better sort of people than those as has to buy everything ready made like servants has. They can use their own needles to make themselves nice and smart, and they buy of such as me to do it cheap, and they’re not often such beaters down as them that buys the ready-made. I can do nothing, or next to nothing, in very wet weather. If I’m in the habit of going into a nice kitchen, perhaps the housemaid flies at me for ‘bringing in all that dirt.’ My husband says all women is crossest in bad weather, and perhaps servants is.

“I buy my lace near Shoreditch. It’s a long walk, but I think I’m best used there. I buy generally a dozen yards, from 3-1/2_d._ to 1_s._, and sometimes up to 2_s._ I sell the commoner at 1_d._ a yard, and three yards 2_d._; and the better at 2_d._ and 3_d._ a yard. It’s a poor trade, but it’s doing something. My husband seldom earns less than 12_s._ a week, for he’s a good salesman, and so we pay 2_s._ rent regular every Monday for an unfurnished room, and has the rest to live on. I have sold in the Brill on a Saturday night, but not often, nor lately I don’t like it; I haven’t tongue enough.”

In addition to the itinerants there are about seventy stationary lace sellers, and not less than eighty on the Saturday evenings. The best pitches are, I am told, near the Borough-market; in Clare-market; the New Cut (on Saturday nights); Walworth-road; Tooley-street; and Dockhead, Bermondsey. From the best information at my command, it appears that at least half of these traders sell only lace, or rarely anything else. The others sell also net for making caps and “cauls,” which are the plain portion at the back, to be trimmed or edged according to the purchaser’s taste. Some sell also, with their lace, cap ribbons--plain or worked collars--and muslin, net, or worked undersleeves. Braid and gimp were formerly sold by them, but are now in no demand. The prices run from 2_d._ to 6_d._ for lace articles, and about the same for net, &c. per yard; the lowest priced are most sold.

In this stationary trade are as many men and youths as women and girls. One woman, who had known street-selling for upwards of twenty years, said she could not do half so well now as she could twenty years ago, for the cheaper things got the cheaper people would have them. “Why, twenty year ago,” she exclaimed, “I bought a lot of ‘leno’ cheap--it was just about going out of fashion for caps then, I think--and one Saturday night in the Cut, I cleared 15_s._ on it. I don’t clear that in a fortnight now. I have sold to women of the town, as far as I’ve known them to be of that sort, but very seldom. It’s not often you’ll catch _them_ using a needle for theirselves. They do use their needles, I know. You can see some of them sewing at their doors and windows in Granby-street, Waterloo-road, or could lately--for I haven’t passed that way for some time--but I believe it’s all for money down, for the slop-shops. It suits the slop-shops to get work cheap anyway; and it suits the women to have some sort of occupation, which they needn’t depend upon for their living.”

The stationary lace sellers, for the most part, display their goods on stalls, but some spread them on a board, or on matting on the ground. Some of the men gather an audience by shouting out, “Three yards a penny, edging!” As at this rate the lace-seller would only clear 1/2_d._ in a dozen yards, the cry is merely uttered to attract attention. A few who patter at the trade--but far fewer than was once the case--give short measure. One man, who occasionally sold lace, told me, that when he was compelled to sell for “next to no profit, and a hungry Sunday coming,” he gave good shop measure, thirty full inches to a yard. His yard wand was the correct length, “but I can do it, sir,” he said with some exultation, “by palming,” and he gave a jerk to his fingers, to show how he caught in the lace, and “clipped it short.”

Calculating that 100 persons in this trade each take 10_s._ 6_d._ weekly, the profit being about cent. per cent., we find 2,730_l._ expended in the streets in lace and similar commodities.

OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF JAPANNED TABLE-COVERS.

This trade, like several others, as soon as the new commodities became in established demand, and sufficiently cheap, was adopted by street-sellers. It has been a regular street-trade between four and five years. Previously, when the covers were dearer, the street-sellers were afraid to speculate much in them; but one man told me that he once sold a table-cover for 8_s._, and at another time for 10_s._