Part 131
“I was a little boy when the slaves in Jamaica got their freedom: the people were very glad to be free; they do better since, I know, because some of them have got property, and send their children to school. There’s more Christianity there than there is here. The public-house is close shut on Saturday night, and not opened till Monday morning. No fruit is allowed to be sold in the street. I am a Protestant. I don’t know the name of the church, but I goes down to a new-built church, near King’s-cross. I never go in, because of my legs; but I just go inside the door; and sometimes when I don’t go, I read the Testament I’ve got here: in all my sickness I took care of that.
“There are a great many Irish in this place. I would like to get away from it, for it is a very disgraceful place,--it is an awful, awful place altogether. I haven’t been in it very long, and I want to get out of it; it is not fit.
“I pay one-and-sixpence rent. If you don’t go out and drink and carouse with them, they don’t like it; they make use of bad language--they chaff me about my misfortune--they call me ‘Cripple;’ some says ‘Uncle Tom,’ and some says ‘Nigger;’ but I never takes no notice of ’em at all.”
* * * * *
The following is a verbatim copy of the placard which the poor fellow places before him when he begs. He carries it, when not in use, in a little calico bag which hangs round his neck:--
KIND CHRISTIAN FRIENDS
THE UNFORTUNATE
EDWARD ALBERT
WAS COOK ON BOARD THE BARQUE MADEIRA OF GLASGOW CAPTAIN J. DOUGLAS IN FEBRUARY 1851 WHEN AFTER ROUNDING CAPE HORNE HE HAD HIS LEGS AND FEET FROST BITTEN WHEN in that state the master and mate put my Legs and Feet into the Oven as they said to cure me the Oven being hot at the time a fowl was roasting was took away to make room for my feet and legs in consequence of this my feet and legs swelled and burst----Mortification then Ensued after which my legs were amputated Three Inches below the knees soon after my entering the Hospital at Valpariso.
AS I HAVE NO OTHER MEANS TO GET A LIVELYHOOD BUT BY APPEALING TO
A GENEROUS PUBLIC
YOUR KIND DONATIONS WILL BE MOST THANKFULLY RECEIVED.
THE MAIMED IRISH CROSSING-SWEEPER.
He stands at the corner of ---- street, where the yellow omnibuses stop, and refers to himself every now and then as the “poor lame man.” He has no especial mode of addressing the passers-by, except that of hobbling a step or two towards them and sweeping away an imaginary accumulation of mud. He has lost one leg (from the knee) by a fall from a scaffold, while working as a bricklayer’s labourer in Wales, some six years ago; and speaks bitterly of the hard time he had of it when he first came to London, and hobbled about selling matches. He says he is thirty-six, but looks more than fifty; and his face has the ghastly expression of death. He wears the ordinary close cloth street-cap and corduroy trousers. Even during the warm weather he wears an upper coat--a rough thick garment, fit for the Arctic regions. It was very difficult to make him understand my object in getting information from him: he thought that he had nothing to tell, and laid great stress upon the fact of his never keeping “count” of anything.
He accounted for his miserably small income by stating that he was an invalid--“now and thin continually.” He said--
“I can’t say how long I have been on this crossin’; I think about five year. When I came on it there had been no one here before. No one interferes with me at all, at all. I niver hard of a crossin’ bein’ sould; but I don’t know any other sweepers. I makes no fraydom with no one, and I always keeps my own mind.
“I dunno how much I earn a-day--p’rhaps I may git a shilling, and p’rhaps sixpence. I didn’t git much yesterday (Sunday)--only sixpence. I was not out on Saturday; I was ill in bed, and I was at home on Friday. Indeed, I did not get much on Thursday, only tuppence ha’penny. The largest day? I dunno. Why, about a shilling. Well, sure, I might git as much as two shillings, if I got a shillin’ from a lady. Some gintlemen are good--such a gintleman as you, now, might give me a shilling.
“Well, as to weather, I likes half dry and half wit; of course I wish for the bad wither. Every one must be glad of what brings good to him; and, there’s one thing, I can’t make the wither--I can’t make a fine day nor a wit one. I don’t think anybody would interfere with me; certainly, if I was a blaggya’rd I should not be left here; no, nor if I was a thief; but if any other man was to come on to my crossing, I can’t say whether the police _would_ interfere to protect me--p’rhaps they might.
“What is it I say to shabby people? Well, by J----, they’re all shabby, I think. I don’t see any difference; but what can I do? I can’t insult thim, and I was niver insulted mysilf, since here I’ve been, nor, for the matter of that, ever had an angry worrud spoken to me.
“Well, sure, I dunno who’s the most liberal; if I got a fourpinny bit from a moll I’d take it. Some of the ladies are very liberal; a good lady will give a sixpence. I never hard of sweepin’ the mud back again; and as for the boys annoying me, I has no coleaguein’ with boys, and they wouldn’t be allowed to interfere with me--the police wouldn’t allow it.
“After I came from Wales, where I was on one leg, selling matches, then it was I took to sweep the crossin’. A poor divil must put up with anything, good or bad. Well, I was a laborin’ man, a bricklayer’s labourer, and I’ve been away from Ireland these sixteen year. When I came from Ireland I went to Wales. I was there a long time; and the way I broke my leg was, I fell off a scaffold. I am not married; a lame man wouldn’t get any woman to have him in London at all, at all. I don’t know what age I am. I am not fifty, nor forty; I think about thirty-six. No, by J----, it’s not mysilf that iver knew a well-off crossin’-sweeper. I don’t dale in them at all.
“I got a dale of friends in London assist me (but only now and thin). If I depinded on the few ha’pence I get, I wouldn’t live on ’em; what money I get here wouldn’t buy a pound of mate; and I wouldn’t live, only for my frinds. You see, sir, I can’t be out always. I am laid up nows and thins continually. Oh, it’s a poor trade to big on the crossin’ from morning till night, and not get sixpence. I couldn’t do with it, I know.
“Yes, sir, I smoke; it’s a comfort, it is. I like any kind I’d get to smoke. I’d like the best if I got it.
“I am a Roman Catholic, and I go to St. Patrick’s, in St. Giles’s; a many people from my neighbourhood go there. I go every Sunday, and to Confession just once a-year--that saves me.
“By the Lord’s mercy! I don’t get broken victuals, nor broken mate, not as much as you might put on the tip of a forruk; they’d chuck it out in the dust-bin before they’d give it to me. I suppose they’re all alike.
“The divil an odd job I iver got, master, nor knives to clane. If I got their knives to clane, p’rhaps I might clane them.
“My brooms cost threepence ha’penny; they are very good. I wear them down to a stump, and they last three weeks, this fine wither. I niver got any ould clothes--not but I want a coat very bad, sir.
“I come from Dublin; my father and mother died there of cholera; and when they died, I come to England, and that was the cause of my coming.
“By my oath it didn’t stand me in more than eighteenpence that I took here last week.
“I live in ---- lane, St. Giles’s Church, on the second landing, and I pay eightpence a week. I haven’t a room to mysilf, for there’s a family lives in it wid me.
“When I goes home I just smokes a pipe, and goes to bid, that’s all.”
II.--JUVENILE CROSSING-SWEEPERS.
_A. The Boy Crossing-Sweepers._
BOY CROSSING-SWEEPERS AND TUMBLERS.
A remarkably intelligent lad, who, on being spoken to, at once consented to give all the information in his power, told me the following story of his life.
It will be seen from this boy’s account, and the one or two following, that a kind of partnership exists among some of these young sweepers. They have associated themselves together, appropriated several crossings to their use, and appointed a captain over them. They have their forms of trial, and “jury-house” for the settlement of disputes; laws have been framed, which govern their commercial proceedings, and a kind of language adopted by the society for its better protection from its arch-enemy, the policeman.
I found the lad who first gave me an insight into the proceedings of the associated crossing-sweepers crouched on the stone steps of a door in Adelaide-street, Strand; and when I spoke to him he was preparing to settle down in a corner and go to sleep--his legs and body being curled round almost as closely as those of a cat on a hearth.
The moment he heard my voice he was upon his feet, asking me to “give a halfpenny to poor little Jack.”
He was a good-looking lad, with a pair of large mild eyes, which he took good care to turn up with an expression of supplication as he moaned for his halfpenny.
A cap, or more properly a stuff bag, covered a crop of hair which had matted itself into the form of so many paint-brushes, while his face, from its roundness of feature and the complexion of dirt, had an almost Indian look about it; the colour of his hands, too, was such that you could imagine he had been shelling walnuts.
[Illustration: THE BOY CROSSING-SWEEPERS.
[_From a Daguerreotype by_ BEARD.]]
He ran before me, treading cautiously with his naked feet, until I reached a convenient spot to take down his statement, which was as follows:--
“I’ve got no mother or father; mother has been dead for two years, and father’s been gone more than that--more nigh five years--he died at Ipswich, in Suffolk. He was a perfumer by trade, and used to make hair-dye, and scent, and pomatum, and all kinds of scents. He didn’t keep a shop himself, but he used to serve them as did; he didn’t hawk his goods about, neether, but had regular customers, what used to send him a letter, and then he’d take them what they wanted. Yes, he used to serve some good shops: there was H----’s, of London Bridge, what’s a large chemist’s. He used to make a good deal of money, but he lost it betting; and so his brother, my uncle, did all his. He used to go up to High Park, and then go round by the Hospital, and then turn up a yard, where all the men are who play for money [Tattersall’s]; and there he’d lose his money, or sometimes win,--but that wasn’t often. I remember he used to come home tipsy, and say he’d lost on this or that horse, naming wot one he’d laid on; and then mother would coax him to bed, and afterwards sit down and begin to cry.
“I was not with father when he died (but I was when he was dying), for I was sent up along with eldest sister to London with a letter to uncle, who was head servant at a doctor’s. In this letter, mother asked uncle to pay back some money wot he owed, and wot father lent him, and she asked him if he’d like to come down and see father before he died. I recollect I went back again to mother by the Orwell steamer. I was well dressed then, and had good clothes on, and I was given to the care of the captain--Mr. King his name was. But when I got back to Ipswich, father was dead.
“Mother took on dreadful; she was ill for three months afterwards, confined to her bed. She hardly eat anything: only beaf-tea--I think they call it--and eggs. All the while she kept on crying.
“Mother kept a servant; yes, sir, we always had a servant, as long as I can recollect; and she and the woman as was there--Anna they called her, an old lady--used to take care of me and sister. Sister was fourteen years old (she’s married to a young man now, and they’ve gone to America; she went from a place in the East India Docks, and I saw her off). I used, when I was with mother, to go to school in the morning, and go at nine and come home at twelve to dinner, then go again at two and leave off at half-past four,--that is, if I behaved myself and did all my lessons right; for if I did not I was kept back till I _did_ them so. Mother used to pay one shilling a-week, and extra for the copy-books and things. I can read and write--oh, yes, I mean read and write well--read anything, even old English; and I write pretty fair,--though I don’t get much reading now, unless it’s a penny paper--I’ve got one in my pocket now--it’s the _London Journal_--there’s a tale in it now about two brothers, and one of them steals the child away and puts another in his place, and then he gets found out, and all that, and he’s just been falling off a bridge now.
“After mother got better, she sold all the furniture and goods and came up to London;--poor mother! She let a man of the name of Hayes have the greater part, and he left Ipswich soon after, and never gave mother the money. We came up to London, and mother took two rooms in Westminster, and I and sister lived along with her. She used to make hair-nets, and sister helped her, and used to take ’em to the hair-dressers to sell. She made these nets for two or three years, though she was suffering with a bad breast;--she died of that--poor thing!--for she had what doctors calls cancer--perhaps you’ve heard of ’em, sir,--and they had to cut all round here (making motions with his hands from the shoulder to the bosom). Sister saw it, though I didn’t.
“Ah! she was a very good, kind mother, and very fond of both of us; though father wasn’t, for he’d always have a noise with mother when he come home, only he was seldom with us when he was making his goods.
“After mother died, sister still kept on making nets, and I lived with her for some time, until she told me she couldn’t afford to keep me no longer, though she seemed to have a pretty good lot to do; but she would never let me go with her to the shops, though I could crochet, which she’d learned me, and used to run and get her all her silks and things what she wanted. But she was keeping company with a young man, and one day they went out, and came back and said they’d been and got married. It was him as got rid of me.
“He was kind to me for the first two or three months, while he was keeping her company; but before he was married he got a little cross, and after he was married he begun to get more cross, and used to send me to play in the streets, and tell me not to come home again till night. One day he hit me, and I said I wouldn’t be hit about by him, and then at tea that night sister gave me three shillings, and told me I must go and get my own living. So I bought a box and brushes (they cost me just the money) and went cleaning boots, and I done pretty well with them, till my box was stole from me by a boy where I was lodging. He’s in prison now--got six calendar for picking pockets.
“Sister kept all my clothes. When I asked her for ’em, she said they was disposed of along with all mother’s goods; but she gave me some shirts and stockings, and such-like, and I had very good clothes, only they was all worn out. I saw sister after I left her, many times. I asked her many times to take me back, but she used to say, ‘It was not her likes, but her husband’s, or she’d have had me back;’ and I think it was true, for until he came she was a kind-hearted girl; but he said he’d enough to do to look after his own living; he was a fancy-baker by trade.
“I was fifteen the 24th of last May, sir, and I’ve been sweeping crossings now near upon two years. There’s a party of six of us, and we have the crossings from St. Martin’s Church as far as Pall Mall. I always go along with them as lodges in the same place as I do. In the daytime, if it’s dry, we do anythink what we can--open cabs, or anythink; but if it’s wet, we separate, and I and another gets a crossing--those who gets on it first, keeps it,--and we stand on each side and take our chance.
“We do it in this way:--if I was to see two gentlemen coming, I should cry out, ‘Two toffs!’ and then they are mine; and whether they give me anythink or not they are mine, and my mate is bound not to follow them; for if he did he would get a hiding from the whole lot of us. If we both cry out together, then we share. If it’s a lady and gentleman, then we cries, ‘A toff and a doll!’ Sometimes we are caught out in this way. Perhaps it is a lady and gentleman and a child; and if I was to see them, and only say, ‘A toff and a doll,’ and leave out the child, then my mate can add the child; and as he is right and I wrong, then it’s his party.
“If there’s a policeman close at hand we mustn’t ask for money; but we are always on the look-out for the policemen, and if we see one, then we calls out ‘Phillup!’ for that’s our signal. One of the policemen at St. Martin’s Church--Bandy, we calls him--knows what Phillup means, for he’s up to us; so we had to change the word. (At the request of the young crossing-sweeper the present signal is omitted.)
“Yesterday on the crossing I got threepence halfpenny, but when it’s dry like to-day I do nothink, for I haven’t got a penny yet. We never carries no pockets, for if the policemen find us we generally pass the money to our mates, for if money’s found on us we have fourteen days in prison.
“If I was to reckon all the year round, that is, one day with another, I think we make fourpence every day, and if we were to stick to it we should make more, for on a very muddy day we do better. One day, the best I ever had, from nine o’clock in the morning till seven o’clock at night, I made seven shillings and sixpence, and got not one bit of silver money among it. Every shilling I got I went and left at a shop near where my crossing is, for fear I might get into any harm. The shop’s kept by a woman we deals with for what we wants--tea and butter, or sugar, or brooms--anythink we wants. Saturday night week I made two-and-sixpence; that’s what I took altogether up to six o’clock.
“When we see the rain we say together, ‘Oh! there’s a jolly good rain! we’ll have a good day to-morrow.’ If a shower comes on, and we are at our room, which we general are about three o’clock, to get somethink to eat--besides, we general go there to see how much each other’s taken in the day--why, out we run with our brooms.
“We’re always sure to make money if there’s mud--that’s to say, if we look for our money, and ask; of course, if we stand still we don’t. Now, there’s Lord Fitzhardinge, he’s a good gentleman, what lives in Spring-gardens, in a large house. He’s got a lot of servants and carriages. Every time he crosses the Charing-cross crossing he always gives the girl half a sovereign.” (This statement was taken in June 1856.) “He doesn’t cross often, because, hang it, he’s got such a lot of carriages, but when he’s on foot he always does. If they asks him he doesn’t give nothink, but if they touches their caps he does. The housekeeper at his house is very kind to us. We run errands for her, and when she wants any of her own letters taken to the post then she calls, and if we are on the crossing we takes them for her. She’s a very nice lady, and gives us broken victuals. I’ve got a share in that crossing,--there are three of us, and when he gives the half sovereign he always gives it to the girl, and those that are in it shares it. She would do us out of it if she could, but we all takes good care of that, for we are all cheats.
“At night-time we tumbles--that is, if the policemen ain’t nigh. We goes general to Waterloo-place when the Opera’s on. We sends on one of us ahead, as a looker-out, to look for the policeman, and then we follows. It’s no good tumbling to gentlemen _going_ to the Opera; it’s when they’re coming back they gives us money. When they’ve got a young lady on their arm they laugh at us tumbling; some will give us a penny, others threepence, sometimes a sixpence or a shilling, and sometimes a halfpenny. We either do the cat’un-wheel, or else we keep before the gentleman and lady, turning head-over-heels, putting our broom on the ground and then turning over it.