Part 129

“The first Sunday I went at it, I took eighteenpence. I began at nine o’clock in the morning and stopped till four in the afternoon. The publican give fourpence, and the baker sixpence, and the butcher threepence, so that altogether I got above a half-crown. I stopped at this crossing a year, and I always knocked up about two shillings or a half-crown on the Sunday. I very seldom got anythink from the ladies; it was most all give by the gentlemen. Little children used sometimes to give me ha’pence, but it was when their father give it to ’em; the little children like to do that sort of thing.

“The way I come to leave this crossing was this here: the road was being repaired, and they shot down a lot of stones, so then I couldn’t sweep no crossing. I looked out for another place, and I went opposite the Duke of Sutherland public-house in the Lorrimore-road. I swept there one Sunday, and I got about one-and-sixpence. While I was sweeping this crossing, a gentleman comes up to me, and he axes me if I ever goes to chapel or church; and I tells him, ‘Yes;’ I goes to church, wot I’d been brought up to; and then he says, ‘You let me see you at St. Michael’s Church, Brixton, and I’ll ’courage you, and you’ll do better if you come up and sweep in front there of a Sunday instead of where you are; you’ll be sure to get more money, and get better ’couraged. It don’t matter what you do,’ he says, ‘as long as it brings you in a honest crust; anythink’s better than thieving.’ And then the gent gives me sixpence and goes away.

“As soon as he’d gone I started off to his church, and got there just after the people was all in. I left my broom in the churchyard. When I got inside the church, I could see him a-sitten jest agin the communion table, so I walks to the free seats and sets down right close again the communion table myself, for his pew was on my right, and he saw me directly and looked and smiled at me. As he was coming out of the church he says, says he, ‘As long as I live, if you comes here on a Sunday reg’lar I shall always ’courage you.’

“The next Sunday I went up to the church and swept the crossing, and he see me there, but he didn’t give me nothink till the church was over, and then he gave me a shilling, and the other people give me about one-and-sixpence; so I got about two-and-sixpence altogether, and I thought that was a good beginning.

“The next Sunday the gen’elman was ill, but he didn’t forget me. He sent me sixpence by his servant, and I got from the other people about two shillings more. I never see that gentleman after, for he died on the Saturday. His wife sent for me on the Sunday; she was ill a-bed, and I see one of the daughters, and she gave me sixpence, and said I was to be there on Monday morning. I went on the Monday, and the lady was much worse, and I see the daughter again. She gave me a couple of shirts, and told me to come on the Friday, and when I went on that day I found the old lady was dead. The daughter gave me a coat, and trousers, and waistcoat.

“After the daughters had buried the father and mother they moved. I kept on sweeping at the church, till at last things got so bad that I come away, for nobody give me nothink. The houses about there was so damp that people wouldn’t live in ’em.

“So then I come up into Lorrimore-road, and there I’ve been ever since. I don’t get on wonderful well there. Sometimes I don’t get above sixpence all day, but it’s mostly a shilling or so. The most I’ve took is about one-and-sixpence. The reason why I stop there is, because I’m known there, you see. I stands there all the week selling highsters, and the people about there give me a good many jobs. Besides, the road is rather bad there, and they like to have a clean crossing of a Sunday.

“I don’t get any more money in the winter (though it’s muddier) than I do in the summer; the reason is, ’cause there isn’t so many people stirring about in the winter as there is in the summer.

“One broom will carry me over three Sundays, and I gives twopence-ha’penny a-piece for ’em. Sometimes the people bring me out at my crossing--’specially in cold weather--a mug of hot tea and some bread and butter, or a bit of meat. I don’t know any other crossing-sweeper; I never ’sociates with nobody. I always keeps my own counsel, and likes my own company the best.

“My wife’s been dead five months, and my mother six months; but I’ve got a little boy seven year old; he stops at school all day till I go home at night, and then I fetches him home. I mean to do something better with him than give him a broom: a good many people would set him on a crossing; but I mean to keep him at school. I want to see him read and write well, because he’ll suit for a place then.

“There’s some art in sweeping a crossing even. That is, you mustn’t sweep too hard, ’cos if you do, you wears a hole right in the road, and then the water hangs in it. It’s the same as sweeping a path; if you sweeps too hard you wears up the stones.

“To do it properly, you must put the end of the broom-handle in the palm of your right hand, and lay hold of it with your left, about halfway down; then you takes half your crossing, and sweeps on one side till you gets over the road; then you turns round and comes back doing the other half. Some people holds the broom before ’em, and keeps swaying it back’ards and for’ards to sweep the width of the crossing all in one stroke, but that ain’t sich a good plan, ’cause you’re apt to splash people that’s coming by; and besides, it wears the road in holes and wears out the broom so quick. I always use my broom steady. I never splash nobody.

“I never tried myself, but I’ve seen some crossin’-sweepers as could do all manner of things in mud, sich as diamonds, and stars, and the moon, and letters of the alphabet; and once in Oxford-street I see our Saviour on his cross in mud, and it was done well, too. The figure wasn’t done with the broom, it was done with a pointed piece of stick; it was a boy as I see doin’ it, about fifteen. He didn’t seem to take much money while I was a-looking at him.

“I don’t think I should a took to crossin’ sweeping if I hadn’t got married; but when I’d got a couple of children (for I’ve had a girl die; if she’d lived she’d a been eight year old now,) I found I must do a somethin’, and so I took to the broom.”

_B. The Afflicted Crossing-Sweepers._

THE WOODEN-LEGGED SWEEPER.

This man lives up a little court running out of a wide, second-rate street. It is a small court, consisting of some half-dozen houses, all of them what are called by courtesy “private.”

I inquired at No. 3 for John ----; “The first-floor back, if you please, sir;” and to the first-floor back I went.

Here I was answered by a good-looking and intelligent young woman, with a baby, who said her husband had not yet come home, but would I walk in and wait? I did so; and found myself in a very small, close room, with a little furniture, which the man called “his few sticks,” and presently discovered another child--a little girl. The girl was very shy in her manner, being only two years and two months old, and as her mother said, very ailing from the difficulty of cutting her teeth, though the true cause seemed to be want of proper nourishment and fresh air. The baby was a boy--a fine, cheerful, good-tempered little fellow, but rather pale, and with an unnaturally large forehead. The mantelpiece of the room was filled with little ornaments of various sorts, such as bead-baskets, and over them hung a series of black profiles--not portraits of either the crossing-sweeper or any of his family, but an odd lot of heads, which had lost their owners many a year, and served, in company with a little red, green, and yellow scripture-piece, to keep the wall from looking bare. Over the door (inside the room) was nailed a horse-shoe, which, the wife told me, had been put there by her husband, for luck.

A bed, two deal tables, a couple of boxes, and three chairs, formed the entire furniture of the room, and nearly filled it. On the window-frame was hung a small shaving-glass; and on the two boxes stood a wicker-work apology for a perambulator, in which I learnt the poor crippled man took out his only daughter at half-past four in the morning.

“If some people was to see that, sir,” said the sweeper, when he entered and saw me looking at it, “they would, and in fact they _do_ say, ‘Why, you can’t be in want.’ Ah! little they know how we starved and pinched ourselves before we could get it.”

There was a fire in the room, notwithstanding the day was very hot; but the window was wide open, and the place tolerably ventilated, though oppressive. I have been in many poor people’s “places,” but never remember one so poor in its appointments and yet so _free_ from effluvia.

The crossing-sweeper himself was a very civil sort of man, and in answer to my inquiries said:--

“I know that I do as I ought to, and so I don’t feel hurt at standing at my crossing. I have been there four years. I found the place vacant. My wife, though she looks very well, will never be able to do any hard work; so we sold our mangle, and I took to the crossing: but we’re not in debt, and nobody can’t say nothing to us. I like to go along the streets free of such remarks as is made by people to whom you owes money. I had a mangle in ---- Yard, but through my wife’s weakness I was forced to part with it. I was on the crossing a short time before that, for I knew that if I parted with my mangle and things before I knew whether I could get a living at the crossing I couldn’t get my mangle back again.

“We sold the mangle only for a sovereign, and we gave two-pound-ten for it; we sold it to the same man that we bought it of. About six months ago I managed for to screw and save enough to buy that little wicker chaise, for I can’t carry the children because of my one leg, and of course the mother can’t carry them both out together. There was a man had the crossing I’ve got; he died three or four years before I took it; but he didn’t depend on the crossing--he did things for the tradespeople about, such as carpet-beating, messages, and so on.

“When I first took the crossing I did very well. It happened to be a very nasty, dirty season, and I took a good deal of money. Sweepers are not always civil, sir.

“I wish I had gone to one of the squares, though. But I think after ---- street is paved with stone I shall do better. I am certain I never taste a bit of meat from one week’s end to the other. The best day I ever made was five-and-sixpence or six shillings; it was the winter before last. If you remember, the snow laid very thick on the ground, and the sudden thaw made walking so uncomfortable, that I did very well. I have taken as little as sixpence, fourpence, and even twopence. Last Thursday I took two ha’pence all day. Take one week with the other, seven or eight shillings is the very outside.

“I don’t know how it is, but some people who used to give me a penny, don’t now. The boys who come in wet weather earn a great deal more than I do. I once lost a good chance, sir, at the corner of the street leading to Cavendish-square. There’s a bank, and they pay a man seven shillings a-week to sweep the crossing: a butcher in Oxford Market spoke for me; but when I went up, it unfortunately turned out that I was not fit, from the loss of my leg. The last man they had there they were obliged to turn away--he was so given to drink.

“I think there are some rich crossing-sweepers in the city, about the Exchange; but you won’t find them now during this dry weather, except in by-places. In wet weather, there are two or three boys who sweep near my crossing, and take all my earnings away. There’s a great able-bodied man besides--a fellow strong enough to follow the plough. I said to the policeman, ‘Now, ain’t this a shame?’ and the policeman said, ‘Well, _he_ must get his living as well as you.’ I’m always civil to the police, and they’re always civil to me--in fact, I think sometimes I’m too civil--I’m not rough enough with people.

“You soon tell whether to have any hopes of people coming across. I can tell a gentleman directly I see him.

“Where I stand, sir, I could get people in trouble everlasting; there’s all sorts of thieving going on. I saw the other day two or three respectable persons take a purse out of an old lady’s pocket before the baker’s shop at the corner; but I can’t say a word, or they would come and throw me into the road. If a gentleman gives me sixpence, he don’t give me any more for three weeks or a month; but I don’t think I’ve more than three or four gentlemen as gives me that. Well, you can scarcely tell the gentleman from the clerk, the clerks are such great swells now.

“Lawyers themselves dress very plain; those great men who don’t come every day, because they’ve clerks to do their business for them, they give most. People hardly ever stop to speak unless it is to ask you where places are--you might be occupied at that all day. I manage to pay my rent out of what I take on Sunday, but not lately--this weather religious people go pleasuring.

“No, I don’t go now--the fact is, I’d like to go to church, if I could, but when I come home I am tired; but I’ve got books here, and they do as well, sir. I read a little and write a little.

“I lost my leg through a swelling--there was no chloroform then. I was in the hospital three years and a half, and was about fifteen or sixteen when I had it off. I always feel the sensation of the foot, and more so at change of weather. I feel my toes moving about, and everything; sometimes, it’s just as if the calf of my leg was itching. I _feel_ the rain coming; when I see a cloud coming my leg shoots, and I know we shall have rain.

“My mother was a laundress--my father has been dead nineteen years my last birthday. My mother was subject to fits, so I was forced to stop at home to take care of the business.

“I don’t want to get on better, but I always think, if sickness or anything comes on----

“I am at my crossing at half-past eight; at half-past eleven I come home to dinner. I go back at one or two till seven.

“Sometimes I mind horses and carts, but the boys get all that business. One of these little customers got sixpence the other day for only opening the door of a cab. I don’t know how it is they let these little boys be about; if I was the police, I wouldn’t allow it.

“I think it’s a blessing, having children--(referring to his little girl)--that child wants the gravy of meat, or an egg beaten up, but she can’t get it. I take her out every morning round Euston-square and those open places. I get out about half-past four. It is early, but if it benefits her, that’s no odds.”

ONE-LEGGED SWEEPER AT CHANCERY-LANE.

“I don’t know what induced me to take that crossing, except it was that no one was there, and the traffic was so good--fact is, the traffic is too good, and people won’t stop as they cross over, they’re very glad to get out of the way of the cabs and the omnibuses.

“Tradespeople never give me anything--not even a bit of bread. The only thing I get is a few cuttings, such as crusts of sandwiches and remains of cheese, from the public-house at the corner of the court. The tradespeople are as distant to me now as they were when I came, but if I should pitch up a tale I should soon get acquainted with them.

“We have lived in this lodging two years and a half, and we pay one-and-ninepence a-week, as you may see from the rent-book, and that I manage to earn on Sundays. We owe four weeks now, and, thank God, it’s no more.

“I was born, sir, in ---- street, Berkeley-square, at Lord ----’s house, when my mother was minding the house. I have been used to London all my life, but not to this part; I have always been at the west-end, which is what I call the best end.

“I did not like the idea of crossing-sweeping at first, till I reasoned with myself, Why should I mind? I’m not doing any hurt to anybody. I don’t care at all now--I know I’m doing what I ought to do.

“A man had better be killed out of the way than be disabled. It’s not pleasant to know that my wife is suckling that great child, and, though she is so weakly, she can’t get no meat.

[Illustration: THE ONE-LEGGED SWEEPER AT CHANCERY-LANE.

[_From a Photograph._]]

“I’ve been knocked down twice, sir--both times by cabs. The last time it was a fortnight before I could get about comfortably again. The fool of a fellow was coming along, not looking at his horse, but talking to somebody on the cab-rank. The place was as free as this room, if he had only been looking before him. Nobody hollered till I was down, but plenty hollered then. Ah, I often notice such carelessness--it’s really shameful. I don’t think those ‘shofuls’ (Hansoms) should be allowed--the fact is, if the driver is not a tall man he can’t see his horse’s head.

“A nasty place is end of ---- street: it narrows so suddenly. There’s more confusion and more bother about it than any place in London. When two cabs gets in at once, one one way and one the other, there’s sure to be a row to know which was the first in.”

THE MOST SEVERELY-AFFLICTED OF ALL THE CROSSING-SWEEPERS.

Passing the dreary portico of the Queen’s Theatre, and turning to the right down Tottenham Mews, we came upon a flight of steps leading up to what is called “The Gallery,” where an old man, gasping from the effects of a lung disease, and feebly polishing some old harness, proclaimed himself the father of the sweeper I was in search of, and ushered me into the room where he lay a-bed, having had a “very bad night.”

The room itself was large and of a low pitch, stretching over some stables; it was very old and creaky (the sweeper called, it “an old wilderness”), and contained, in addition to two turn-up bedsteads, that curious medley of articles which, in the course of years, an old and poor couple always manage to gather up. There was a large lithograph of a horse, dear to the remembrance of the old man from an indication of a dog in the corner. “The very spit of the one I had for years; it’s a real portrait, sir, for Mr. Hanbart, the printer, met me one day and sketched him.” There was an etching of Hogarth’s in a black frame; a stuffed bird in a wooden case, with a glass before it; a piece of painted glass, hanging in a place of honour, but for which no name could be remembered, excepting that it was “of the old-fashioned sort.” There were the odd remnants, too, of old china ornaments, but very little furniture; and, finally, a kitten.

The father, worn out and consumptive, had been groom to Lord Combermere. “I was with him, sir, when he took Bonyparte’s house at Malmasong. I could have had a pension then if I’d a liked, but I was young and foolish, and had plenty of money, and we never know what we may come to.”

The sweeper, although a middle-aged man, had all the appearance of a boy--his raw-looking eyes, which he was always wiping with a piece of linen rag, gave him a forbidding expression, which his shapeless, short, bridgeless nose tended to increase. But his manners and habits were as simple in their character as those of a child; and he spoke of his father’s being angry with him for not getting up before, as if he were a little boy talking of his nurse.

He walks, with great difficulty, by the help of a crutch; and the sight of his weak eyes, his withered limb, and his broken shoulder (his old helpless mother, and his gasping, almost inaudible father,) form a most painful subject for compassion.

The crossing-sweeper gave me, with no little meekness and some slight intelligence, the following statement:--

“I very seldom go out on a crossin’ o’ Sundays. I didn’t do much good at it. I used to go to church of a Sunday--in fact, I do now when I’m well enough.

“It’s fifteen year next January since I left Regent-street. I was there three years, and then I went on Sundays occasionally. Sometimes I used to get a shilling, but I have given it up now--it didn’t answer; besides, a lady who was kind to me found me out, and said she wouldn’t do any more for me if I went out on Sundays. She’s been dead these three or four years now.

“When I was at Regent-street I might have made twelve shillings a-week, or something thereabout.

“I am seven-and-thirty the 26th day of last month, and I have been lame six-and-twenty years. My eyes have been bad ever since my birth. The scrofulous disease it was that lamed me--it come with a swelling on the knee, and the outside wound broke about the size of a crown piece, and a piece of bone come from it; then it gathered in the inside and at the top. I didn’t go into the hospital then, but I was an out-patient, for the doctor said a close confined place wouldn’t do me no good. He said that the seaside would, though; but my parents couldn’t afford to send me, and that’s how it is. I _did_ go to Brighton and Margate nine years after my leg was bad, but it was too late then.