 | STREET-SELLERS OF GREEN STUFF. London Labour and the London Poor, volume 1 |  |
OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF WATER-CRESS.
The dealers in water-cresses are generally very
old or very young people, and it is a trade greatly
in the hands of women. The cause of this is,
that the children are sent out by their parents
"to get a loaf of bread somehow" (to use the
words of an old man in the trade), and the very
old take to it because they are unable to do hard
labour, and they strive to keep away from the
workhouse — ("I'd do anything before I'd go
there — sweep the crossings, or anything: but I
should have had to have gone to the house before,
if it hadn't been for my wife. I'm sixty-two,"
said one who had been sixteen years at the trade).
The old people are both men and women. The
men have been sometimes one thing, and some-
times another. "I've been a porter myself," said
one,"jobbing about in the markets, or wherever I
could get a job to do. Then there's one old man
goes about selling water-cresses who's been a
seafaring man; he's very old, he is — older than
what I am, sir. Many a one has been a good
mechanic in his younger days, only he's got too
old for labour. The old women have, many of
them, been laundresses, only they can't now do
the work, you see, and so they're glad to pick
up a crust anyhow. Nelly, I know, has lost her
husband, and she hasn't nothing else but her
few creases to keep her. She's as good, honest,
hard-working a creature as ever were, for what
she can do — poor old soul! The young people
are, most of them, girls. There are some boys,
but girls are generally put to it by the poor
people. There's Mary Macdonald, she's about
fourteen. Her father is a bricklayer's labourer.
He's an Englishman, and he sends little Mary
out to get a halfpenny or two. He gets some-
times a couple of days' work in the week. He
don't get more now, I'm sure, and he's got three
children to keep out of that; so all on 'em that
can work are obligated to do something. The
other two children are so small they can't do
nothing yet. Then there's Louisa; she's about
twelve, and she goes about with creases like I
do. I don't think she's got ne'er a father. I
know she's a mother alive, and she sells creases
like her daughter. The mother's about fifty odd,
I dare say. The sellers generally go about with
an arm-basket, like a greengrocer's at their side,
or a `shallow' in front of them; and plenty of
them carry a small tin tray before them, slung
round their neck. Ah! it would make your
heart ache if you was to go to Farringdon-mar-
ket early, this cold weather, and see the poor
little things there without shoes and stockings,
and their feet quite blue with the cold — oh, that
they are, and many on 'em don't know how
to set one foot before the t'other, poor things'
You would say they wanted something give to
'em."
The small tin tray is generally carried by the
young children. The cresses are mostly bought
in Farringdon-market: "The usual time to go
to the market is between five and six in the
morning, and from that to seven," said one in-
formant; "myself, I am generally down in the
market by five. I was there this morning at five,
and bitter cold it was, I give you my word. We
poor old people feel it dreadful. Years ago I
didn't mind cold, but I feel it now cruel bad, to
be sure. Sometimes, when I'm turning up my
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'em in my hands or not; can't even pick off a
dead leaf. But that's nothing to the poor little
things without shoes. Why, bless you, I've
seen 'em stand and cry two and three together,
with the cold. Ah! my heart has ached for
'em over and over again. I've said to 'em, I
wonder why your mother sends you out, that I
have; and they said they was obligated to try
and get a penny for breakfast. We buy the
water-cresses by the `hand.' One hand will
make about five halfpenny bundles. There's
more call for 'em in the spring of the year than
what there is in the winter. Why, they're
reckoned good for sweetening the blood in the
spring; but, for my own eating, I'd sooner
have the crease in the winter than I would
have it in the spring of the year. There's an
old woman sits in Farringdon-market, of the
name of Burrows, that's sot there twenty-four
years, and she's been selling out creases to us
all that time.
"The sellers goes to market with a few pence.
I myself goes down there and lays out some-
times my 4d.; that's what I laid out this morn-
ing. Sometimes I lay out only 2d. and 3d.,
according as how I has the halfpence in my
pocket. Many a one goes down to the market
with only three halfpence, and glad to have that
to get a halfpenny, or anything, so as to earn a
mouthful of bread — a bellyful that they can't
get no how. Ah, many a time I walked through
the streets, and picked a piece of bread that the
servants chucked out of the door — may be to
the birds. I've gone and picked it up when I've
been right hungry. Thinks I, I can eat that as
well as the birds. None of the sellers ever goes
down to the market with less than a penny.
They won't make less than a pennorth, that's
one `hand,' and if the little thing sells that, she
won't earn more than three halfpence out of it.
After they have bought the creases they gene-
rally take them to the pump to wet them. I
generally pump upon mine in Hatton-garden.
It's done to make them look nice and fresh all
the morning, so that the wind shouldn't make
them flag. You see they've been packed all
night in the hamper, and they get dry. Some
ties them up in ha'porths as they walks along.
Many of them sit down on the steps of St.
Andrew's Church and make them up into
bunches. You'll see plenty of them there of a
morning between five and six. Plenty, poor
little dear souls, sitting there," said the old man
to me. There the hand is parcelled out into five
halfpenny bunches. In the summer the dealers
often go to market and lay out as much as 1s.
"On Saturday morning, this time of year, I
buys as many as nine hands — there's more call
for 'em on Saturday and Sunday morning than
on any other days; and we always has to buy
on Saturdays what we want for Sundays — there
an't no market on that day, sir. At the market
sufficient creases are bought by the sellers for
the morning and afternoon as well. In the
morning some begin crying their creases through
the streets at half-past six, and others about
seven. They go to different parts, but there is
scarcely a place but what some goes to — there
are so many of us now — there's twenty to one
to what there used to be. Why, they're so thick
down at the market in the summer time, that
you might bowl balls along their heads, and all
a fighting for the creases. There's a regular
scramble, I can assure you, to get at 'em, so as
to make a halfpenny out of them. I should
think in the spring mornings there's 400 or 500
on 'em down at Farringdon-market all at one
time — between four and five in the morning — if
not more than that, and as fast as they keep
going out, others keep coming in. I think
there is more than a thousand, young and old,
about the streets in the trade. The working
classes are the principal of the customers. The
bricklayers, and carpenters, and smiths, and
plumbers, leaving work and going home to
breakfast at eight o'clock, purchase the chief
part of them. A great many are sold down
the courts and mews, and bye streets, and
very few are got rid of in the squares and
the neighbourhood of the more respectable
houses. Many are sold in the principal
thoroughfares — a large number in the City.
There is a man who stands close to the Post-
office, at the top of Newgate-street, winter and
summer, who sells a great quantity of bunches
every morning. This man frequently takes
between 4s. and 5s. of a winter's morning, and
about 10s. a day in the summer." "Sixteen
years ago," said the old man who gave me the
principal part of this information, "I could
come out and take my 18s. of a Saturday morn-
ing, and 5s. on a Sunday morning as well; but
now I think myself very lucky if I can take my
1s. 3d., and it's only on two mornings in the
week that I can get that." The hucksters of
watercresses are generally an honest, indus-
trious, striving class of persons. The young
girls are said to be well-behaved, and to be the
daughters of poor struggling people. The old
men and women are persons striving to save
themselves from the workhouse. The old and
young people generally travel nine and ten
miles in the course of the day. They start off
to market at four and five, and are out on their
morning rounds from seven till nine, and on
their afternoon rounds from half-past two to five
in the evening. They travel at the rate of two
miles an hour. "If it wasn't for my wife, I
must go to the workhouse outright," said the
old watercress man. "Ah, I do'nt know what
I should do without her, I can assure you. She
earns about 1s. 3d. a day. She takes in a little
washing, and keeps a mangle. When I'm at
home I turn the mangle for her. The mangle
is my own. When my wife's mother was alive
she lent us the money to buy it, and as we
earnt the money we paid her back so much a
week. It is that what has kept us together, or
else we shouldn't have been as we are. The
mangle we give 50s. for, and it brings us in now
1s. 3d. a day with the washing. My wife is
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years old. We have got two children. One is
thirteen and the other fifteen. They've both got
learning, and are both in situations. I always
sent 'em to school. Though I can't neither
read nor write myself, I wished to make them
some little scholards. I paid a penny a week
for 'em at the school. Lady M — has always
given me my Christmas dinner for the last five
years, and God bless her for it — that I do say
indeed."
| STREET-SELLERS OF GREEN STUFF. London Labour and the London Poor, volume 1 | |