Part 127

“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.”

THE OLD WOMAN CROSSING-SWEEPER WHO HAD A PENSIONER.

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.”

THE CROSSING-SWEEPER WHO HAD BEEN A SERVANT-MAID.

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.

[Illustration: THE CROSSING-SWEEPER THAT HAS BEEN A MAID-SERVANT.

[_From a Photograph._]]

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.”

STATEMENT OF “OLD JOHN,” THE WATERMAN AT THE FARRINGDON-STREET CAB-STAND, CONCERNING THE OLD BLACK CROSSING-SWEEPER WHO LEFT £800 TO MISS WAITHMAN.

“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.”

3. THE ABLE-BODIED IRISH CROSSING-SWEEPER.

THE OLD IRISH CROSSING-SWEEPER.