 | STREET-SELLERS OF GREEN STUFF. London Labour and the London Poor, volume 1 |  |
OF WATERCRESS-SELLING, IN FARRINGDON-
MARKET.
The first coster-cry heard of a morning in the
London streets is that of "Fresh wo-orter-
creases." Those that sell them have to be on
their rounds in time for the mechanics' break-
fast, or the day's gains are lost. As the stock-
money for this calling need only consist of a few
halfpence, it is followed by the very poorest of
the poor; such as young children, who have been
deserted by their parents, and whose strength is
not equal to any very great labour, or by old
men and women, crippled by disease or accident,
who in their dread of a workhouse life, linger
on with the few pence they earn by street-
selling.
As winter draws near, the Farringdon cress-
market begins long before daylight. On your
way to the City to see this strange sight, the
streets are deserted; in the squares the blinds
are drawn down before the windows, and the
shutters closed, so that the very houses seem
asleep. All is so silent that you can hear the
rattle of the milkmaids' cans in the neighbour-
ing streets, or the noisy song of three or four
drunken voices breaks suddenly upon you, as if
the singers had turned a corner, and then dies
away in the distance. On the cab-stands, but
one or two crazy cabs are left, the horses dozing
with their heads down to their knees, and the
drawn-up windows covered with the breath of
the driver sleeping inside. At the corners of the
streets, the bright fires of the coffee-stalls sparkle
in the darkness, and as you walk along, the
policeman, leaning against some gas-lamp, turns
his lantern full upon you, as if in suspicion that
one who walks abroad so early could mean no
good to householders. At one house there stands
a man, with dirty boots and loose hair, as if he
had just left some saloon, giving sharp single
knocks, and then going into the road and looking
up at the bed-rooms, to see if a light appeared
in them. As you near the City, you meet, if
it be a Monday or Friday morning, droves of
sheep and bullocks, tramping quietly along to
Smithfield, and carrying a fog of steam with
them, while behind, with his hands in his
pockets, and his dog panting at his heels, walks
the sheep-drover.
At the principal entrance to Farringdon-mar-
ket there is an open space, running the entire
length of the railings in front, and extending
from the iron gates at the entrance to the sheds
down the centre of the large paved court before
the shops. In this open space the cresses are
sold, by the salesmen or saleswomen to whom
they are consigned, in the hampers they are
brought in from the country.
The shops in the market are shut, the gas-
lights over the iron gates burn brightly, and
every now and then you hear the half-smothered
crowing of a cock, shut up in some shed or bird-
fancier's shop. Presently a man comes hurry-
ing along, with a can of hot coffee in each hand,
and his stall on his head, and when he has
arranged his stand by the gates, and placed his
white mugs between the railings on the stone
wall, he blows at his charcoal fire, making the
bright sparks fly about at every puff he gives.
By degrees the customers are creeping up, dressed
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before the gates, stamping to warm their feet,
and rubbing their hands together till they grate
like sandpaper. Some of the boys have brought
large hand-baskets, and carry them with the
handles round their necks, covering the head
entirely with the wicker-work as with a hood;
others have their shallows fastened to their
backs with a strap, and one little girl, with the
bottom of her gown tattered into a fringe like a
blacksmith's apron, stands shivering in a large
pair of worn-out Vestris boots, holding in her
blue hands a bent and rusty tea-tray. A few
poor creatures have made friends with the coffee-
man, and are allowed to warm their fingers at
the fire under the cans, and as the heat strikes
into them, they grow sleepy and yawn.
The market — by the time we reach it — has
just begun; one dealer has taken his seat, and
sits motionless with cold — for it wants but a
month to Christmas — with his hands thrust deep
into the pockets of his gray driving coat. Before
him is an opened hamper, with a candle fixed
in the centre of the bright green cresses, and as
it shines through the wicker sides of the basket,
it casts curious patterns on the ground — as a
night shade does. Two or three customers, with
their "shallows" slung over their backs, and
their hands poked into the bosoms of their
gowns, are bending over the hamper, the light
from which tinges their swarthy features, and
they rattle their halfpence and speak coaxingly
to the dealer, to hurry him in their bargains.
Just as the church clocks are striking five,
a stout saleswoman enters the gates, and in-
stantly a country-looking fellow, in a wagoner's
cap and smock-frock, arranges the baskets he
has brought up to London. The other ladies
are soon at their posts, well wrapped up in warm
cloaks, over their thick shawls, and sit with
their hands under their aprons, talking to the
loungers, whom they call by their names. Now
the business commences; the customers come in
by twos and threes, and walk about, looking at
the cresses, and listening to the prices asked.
Every hamper is surrounded by a black crowd,
bending over till their heads nearly meet, their
foreheads and cheeks lighted up by the candle
in the centre. The saleswomen's voices are
heard above the noise of the mob, sharply
answering all objections that may be made to
the quality of their goods. "They're rather
spotty, mum," says an Irishman, as he examines
one of the leaves. "No more spots than a new-
born babe, Dennis," answers the lady tartly, and
then turns to a new comer. At one basket, a
street-seller in an old green cloak, has spread
out a rusty shawl to receive her bunches, and
by her stands her daughter, in a thin cotton
dress, patched like a quilt. "Ah! Mrs. Dol-
land," cried the saleswoman in a gracious tone,
"can you keep yourself warm? it bites the
fingers like biling water, it do." At another
basket, an old man, with long gray hair stream-
ing over a kind of policeman's cape, is bitterly
complaining of the way he has been treated by
another saleswoman. "He bought a lot of her,
the other morning, and by daylight they were
quite white; for he only made threepence on
his best day." "Well, Joe," returns the lady,
"you should come to them as knows you, and
allers treats you well."
These saleswomen often call to each other
from one end of the market to the other. If any
quarrel take place at one of the hampers, as
frequently it does, the next neighbour is sure
to say something. "Pinch him well, Sally,"
cried one saleswoman to another; "pinch him
well; I do when I've a chance." "It's no
use," was the answer; "I might as well try to
pinch a elephant."
One old wrinkled woman, carrying a basket
with an oilcloth bottom, was asked by a buxom
rosy dealer, "Now, Nancy, what's for you?"
But the old dame was surly with the cold, and
sneering at the beauty of the saleswoman, an-
swered, "Why don't you go and get a sweet-
heart; sich as you aint fit for sich as we." This
caused angry words, and Nancy was solemnly
requested "to draw it mild, like a good soul."
As the morning twilight came on, the paved
court was crowded with purchasers. The sheds
and shops at the end of the market grew every
moment more distinct, and a railway-van,
laden with carrots, came rumbling into the
yard. The pigeons, too, began to fly on to the
sheds, or walk about the paving-stones, and
the gas-man came round with his ladder to turn
out the lamps. Then every one was pushing
about; the children crying, as their naked feet
were trodden upon, and the women hurry-
ing off, with their baskets or shawls filled with
cresses, and the bunch of rushes in their hands.
In one corner of the market, busily tying up
their bunches, were three or four girls seated on
the stones, with their legs curled up under them,
and the ground near them was green with the
leaves they had thrown away. A saleswoman,
seeing me looking at the group, said to me,
"Ah! you should come here of a summer's
morning, and then you'd see 'em, sitting tying
up, young and old, upwards of a hundred poor
things as thick as crows in a ploughed field."
As it grew late, and the crowd had thinned;
none but the very poorest of the cress-sellers
were left. Many of these had come without
money, others had their halfpence tied up care-
fully in their shawl-ends, as though they dreaded
the loss. A sickly-looking boy, of about five,
whose head just reached above the hampers,
now crept forward, treading with his blue naked
feet over the cold stones as a cat does over wet
ground. At his elbows and knees, his skin
showed in gashes through the rents in his
clothes, and he looked so frozen, that the buxom
saleswoman called to him, asking if his mother
had gone home. The boy knew her well, for
without answering her question, he went up to
her, and, as he stood shivering on one foot,
said, "Give us a few old cresses, Jinney," and
in a few minutes was running off with a green
bundle under his arm. All of the saleswomen
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stall an old dame, whose rags seemed to be
beyond credit, was paying for some cresses she
had long since been trusted with, and excusing
herself for the time that had passed since the
transaction. As I felt curious on the point
of the honesty of the poor, I asked the sales-
woman when she was alone, whether they lost
much by giving credit. "It couldn't be much,"
she answered, "if they all of them decamped."
But they were generally honest, and paid back,
often reminding her of credit given that she
herself had forgotten. Whenever she lost any-
thing, it was by the very very poor ones;
"though it aint their fault, poor things," she
added in a kindly tone, "for when they keeps
away from here, it's either the workhouse or the
churchyard as stops them."
As you walk home — although the apprentice
is knocking at the master's door — the little
water-cress girls are crying their goods in every
street. Some of them are gathered round the
pumps, washing the leaves and piling up the
bunches in their baskets, that are tattered and
worn as their own clothing; in some of the
shallows the holes at the bottom have been laced
up or darned together with rope and string, or
twigs and split laths have been fastened across;
whilst others are lined with oilcloth, or old pieces
of sheet-tin. Even by the time the cress-market
is over, it is yet so early that the maids are beat-
ing the mats in the road, and mechanics, with
their tool-baskets swung over their shoulders, are
still hurrying to their work. To visit Farring-
don-market early on a Monday morning, is the
only proper way to judge of the fortitude and
courage and perseverance of the poor. As
Douglas Jerrold has beautifully said, "there is
goodness, like wild honey, hived in strange
nooks and corners of the earth." These poor
cress-sellers belong to a class so poor that their
extreme want alone would almost be an excuse
for theft, and they can be trusted paying the
few pence they owe even though they hunger
for it. It must require no little energy of con-
science on the part of the lads to make them
resist the temptations around them, and refuse
the luring advice of the young thieves they meet
at the low lodging-house. And yet they prefer
the early rising — the walk to market with naked
feet along the cold stones — the pinched meal —
and the day's hard labour to earn the few
halfpence — to the thief's comparatively easy
life. The heroism of the unknown poor is
a thing to set even the dullest marvelling, and
in no place in all London is the virtue of the
humblest — both young and old — so conspicuous
as among the watercress-buyers at Farringdon-
market.
| STREET-SELLERS OF GREEN STUFF. London Labour and the London Poor, volume 1 | |