 | OF THE STREET-IRISH. London Labour and the London Poor, volume 1 |  |
THE HOMES OF THE STREET-IRISH.
In almost all of the poorer districts of London
are to be found "nests of Irish" — as they are
called — or courts inhabited solely by the Irish
costermongers. These people form separate
colonies, rarely visiting or mingling with the
English costers. It is curious, on walking
through one of these settlements, to notice
the manner in which the Irish deal among
themselves — street-seller buying of street-seller.
Even in some of the smallest courts there may
be seen stalls of vegetables, dried herrings, or
salt cod, thriving, on the associative principle,
by mutual support.
The parts of London that are the most thickly
populated with Irish lie about Brook-street, Rat-
cliff-cross, down both sides of the Commercial-
road, and in Rosemary-lane, though nearly all
the "coster-districts" cited at p. 47, have their
Irish settlements — Cromer-street, Saffron-hill
and King-street, Drury-lane, for instance, being
thickly peopled with the Irish; but the places
I have mentioned above are peculiarly distin-
guished, by being almost entirely peopled by
visitors from the sister isle.
The same system of immigration is pursued
in London as in America. As soon as the first
settler is thriving in his newly chosen country,
a certain portion of his or her earnings are
carefully hoarded up, until they are sufficient
to pay for the removal of another member of
the family to England; then one of the friends
left "at home" is sent for; and thus by degrees
the entire family is got over, and once more
united.
Perhaps there is no quarter of London where
the habits and habitations of the Irish can be
better seen and studied than in Rosemary-lane,
and the little courts and alleys that spring from
it on each side. Some of these courts have other
courts branching off from them, so that the loca-
lity is a perfect labyrinth of "blind alleys;" and
when once in the heart of the maze it is difficult
to find the path that leads to the main-road.
As you walk down "the lane," and peep through
the narrow openings between the houses, the
place seems like a huge peep-show, with dark
holes of gateways to look through, while the
court within appears bright with the daylight;
and down it are seen rough-headed urchins
running with their feet bare through the pud-
dles, and bonnetless girls, huddled in shawls,
lolling against the door-posts. Sometimes
you see a long narrow alley, with the houses
so close together that opposite neighbours are
talking from their windows; while the ropes,
stretched zig-zag from wall to wall, afford
just room enough to dry a blanket or a couple
of shirts, that swell out dropsically in the
wind.
I visited one of the paved yards round which
the Irish live, and found that it had been turned
into a complete drying-ground, with shirts,
gowns, and petticoats of every description and
colour. The buildings at the end were com-
pletely hidden by "the things," and the air felt
damp and chilly, and smelt of soap-suds. The
gutter was filled with dirty gray water emptied
from the wash-tubs, and on the top were the
thick bubbles floating about under the breath of
the boys "playing at boats" with them.
It is the custom with the inhabitants of these
courts and alleys to assemble at the entrance
with their baskets, and chat and smoke away the
morning. Every court entrance has its little
group of girls and women, lolling listlessly
against the sides, with then heads uncovered,
and their luxuriant hair fuzzy as oakum. It is
peculiar with the Irish women that — after having
been accustomed to their hoods — they seldom
wear bonnets, unless on a long journey. Nearly
all of them, too, have a thick plaid shawl, which
they keep on all the day through, with their
hands covered under it. At the mouth of the
only thoroughfare deserving of the name of
street — for a cart could just go through it — were
congregated about thirty men and women, who
rented rooms in the houses on each side of the
road. Six women, with baskets of dried her-
rings, were crouching in a line on the kerb-
stone with the fish before them; their legs were
drawn up so closely to their bodies that the shawl
covered the entire figure, and they looked very
like the podgy "tombolers" sold by the Italian
boys. As all their wares were alike, it was puz-
zling work to imagine how, without the strongest
opposition, they could each obtain a living. The
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two brass buttons. One old dame, with a face
wrinkled like a dried plum, had her cloak placed
over her head like a hood, and the grisly hair
hung down in matted hanks about her face, her
black eyes shining between the locks like those
of a Skye terrier; beside her was another old
woman smoking a pipe so short that her nose
reached over the bowl.
After looking at the low foreheads and long
bulging upper lips of some of the group, it was
pleasant to gaze upon the pretty faces of the
one or two girls that lolled against the wall.
Their black hair, smoothed with grease, and
shining almost as if "japanned," and their large
gray eyes with the thick dark fringe of lash,
seemed out of place among the hard features
of their companions. It was only by looking at
the short petticoats and large feet you could
assure yourself that they belonged to the same
class.
In all the houses that I entered were traces of
household care and neatness that I had little
expected to have seen. The cupboard fastened
in the corner of the room, and stocked with mugs
and cups, the mantelpiece with its images, and
the walls covered with showy-coloured prints of
saints and martyrs, gave an air of comfort that
strangely disagreed with the reports of the cabins
in "ould Ireland." As the doors to the houses
were nearly all of them kept open, I could, even
whilst walking along, gain some notion of the
furniture of the homes. In one house that I
visited there was a family of five persons, living
on the ground floor and occupying two rooms.
The boards were strewn with red sand, and the
front apartment had three beds in it, with the
printed curtains drawn closely round. In a
dark room, at the back, lived the family itself.
It was fitted up as a parlour, and crowded to
excess with chairs and tables, the very staircase
having pictures fastened against the wooden
partition. The fire, although it was midday,
and a warm autumn morning, served as much
for light as for heat, and round it crouched the
mother, children, and visitors, bending over the
flame as if in the severest winter time. In a
room above this were a man and woman lately
arrived in England. The woman sat huddled
up in a corner smoking, with the husband
standing over her in, what appeared at first, a
menacing attitude; I was informed, however,
that they were only planning for the future.
This room was perfectly empty of furniture, and
the once white-washed walls were black, except-
ing the little square patches which showed
where the pictures of the former tenants had
hung. In another room, I found a home so
small and full of furniture, that it was almost a
curiosity for domestic management. The bed,
with its chintz curtains looped up, filled one
end of the apartment, but the mattress of it
served as a long bench for the visitors to sit on.
The table was so large that it divided the room
in two, and if there was one picture there must
have been thirty — all of "holy men," with yellow
glories round their heads. The window-ledge
was dressed out with crockery, and in a tumbler
were placed the beads. The old dame herself
was as curious as her room. Her shawl was
fastened over her large frilled cap. She had a
little "button" of a nose, with the nostrils enter-
ing her face like bullet holes. She wore over
her gown an old pilot coat, well-stained with
fish slime, and her petticoats being short, she
had very much the appearance of a Dutch fish-
erman or stage smuggler.
Her story was affecting — made more so,
perhaps, by the emotional manner in which she
related it. Nine years ago "the father" of
the district — "the Blissed Lady guard him!" —
had found her late at night, rolling in the
gutter, and the boys pelting her with orange-
peel and mud. She was drunk — "the Lorrud
pass by her" — and when she came to, she
found herself in the chapel, lying before the
sanctuary, "under the shadow of the holy cross."
Watching over her was the "good father,"
trying to bring back her consciousness. He
spoke to her of her wickedness, and before she
left she took the pledge of temperance. From
that time she prospered, and the 1s. 6d. the
"father" gave her "had God's blissin' in it,"
for she became the best dressed woman in the
court, and in less than three years had 15l. in
the savings' bank, "the father — Heaven chirish
him" — keeping her book for her, as he did for
other poor people. She also joined "the Asso-
ciation of the Blissed Lady," (and bought her-
self the dress of the order "a beautiful grane
vilvit, which she had now, and which same
cost her 30s."), and then she was secure against
want in old age and sickness. But after nine
years prudence and comfort, a brother of hers
returned home from the army, with a pension of
1s. a day. He was wild, and persuaded her to
break her pledge, and in a short time he got all
her savings from her and spent every penny. She
could'nt shake him off, "for he was the only
kin she had on airth," and "she must love her
own flish and bones." Then began her misery.
"It plased God to visit her ould limbs with
aches and throubles, and her hips swole with
the cowld," so that she was at last forced into
a hospital, and all that was left of her store was
"aten up by sufferin's." This, she assured
me, all came about by the "good father's"
leaving that parish for another one, but now he
had returned to them again, and, with his help
and God's blessing, she would yet prosper once
more.
Whilst I was in the room, the father entered,
and "old Norah," half-divided between joy
at seeing him and shame at "being again a
beggar," laughed and wept at the same time.
She stood wiping her eyes with the shawl, and
groaning out blessings on "his rivirince's hid,"
begging of him not "to scould her for she was
a wake woman." The renegade brother was
had in to receive a lecture from "his rivirince."
A more sottish idiotic face it would be difficult
to imagine. He stood with his hands hanging
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two small eyes stared in the face of the priest, as
he censured him, without the least expression
even of consciousness. Old Norah stood by,
groaning like a bagpipe, and writhing while the
father spoke to her "own brother," as though
every reproach were meant for her.
The one thing that struck me during my visit
to this neighbourhood, was the apparent listless-
ness and lazy appearance of the people. The
boys at play were the only beings who seemed
to have any life in their actions. The women
in their plaid shawls strolled along the pave-
ments, stopping each friend for a chat, or
joining some circle, and leaning against the wall
as though utterly deficient in energy. The men
smoked, with their hands in their pockets, lis-
tening to the old crones talking, and only now
and then grunting out a reply when a question
was directly put to them. And yet it is curious
that these people, who here seemed as inactive
as negroes, will perform the severest bodily
labour, undertaking tasks that the English are
almost unfitted for.
To complete this account, I subjoin a brief
description of the lodging-houses resorted to
by the Irish immigrants on their arrival in
this country.
| OF THE STREET-IRISH. London Labour and the London Poor, volume 1 | |