 | OF THE WOMEN STREET-SELLERS. London Labour and the London Poor, volume 1 |  |
OF AN IRISHWOMAN, AS A STREET-SELLER.
I have before had occasion to remark the aptitude
of the poor Irish in the streets of London not so
much to lie, which may be too harsh a word when
motives and idiosyncrasy are considered, but to
exaggerate, and misrepresent, and colour in such
a way that the truth becomes a mere incident in
the narrative, instead of being the animating
principle throughout. I speak here not as regards
any direct question or answer on one specific
point, but as regards a connected statement. Pre-
suming that a poor Irishwoman, for instance, had
saved up a few shillings, very likely for some
laudable purpose, and had them hidden about her
person, and was asked if she had a farthing in
the world, she would reply with a look of most
stolid innocence, "Sorra a fardin, sir." This of
course is an unmitigated lie. Then ask her why
she is so poor and what are her hopes for the
future, and a very slender substratum of truth
will suffice for the putting together of a very
ingenious history, if she think the occasion re-
quires it.
It is the same when these poor persons are
questioned as to their former life. They have
heard of societies to promote emigration, and if
they fancy that any inquiries are made of them
with a view to emigration, they will ingeniously
shape their replies so as to promote or divert that
object, according to their wishes. If they think
the inquiries are for some charitable purpose, their
tale of woe and starvation is heart-rending. The
probability is that they may have suffered much,
and long, and bravely, but they will still exag-
gerate. In one thing, however, I have found
them understate the fact, and that I believe prin-
cipally, or wholly, when they had been previously
used to the most wretched of the Irish hovels. I
mean as to their rooms. "Where do you live,"
may be asked. "Will, thin, in Paraker-street
(Parker-street) Derwry-lane?" "Have you a
decent room?" "Shure, thin, and it is dacint
for a poor woman." On a visit, perhaps the
room will be found smoky, filthy, half-ruinous,
and wretched in every respect. I believe, how-
ever, that if these poor people could be made
to comprehend the motives which caused their
being questioned for the purposes of this work,
the elucidation of the truth — motives which they
cannot be made to understand — they would speak
with a far greater regard to veracity. But they
will suspect an ulterior object, involving some
design on the part of the querist, and they will
speak accordingly. To what causes, social or
political, national, long-rooted, or otherwise, this
spirit may be owing, it is not now my business to
inquire.
At the outset of my inquiries amongst the poor
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where there is a better degree of intelligence,
makes it almost impossible to be angry with them
even when you listen to a story of which you
believe not one-sixth — at the outset of my inquiries,
I say, I was told by an Irish gentleman that I
was sure to hear the truth if I had authority to
use the name of their priest. I readily obtained
the consent of reverend gentlemen to use their
names and for any purpose of inquiry, a courtesy
which I thankfully acknowledge. I mention this
more especially, that it may not be thought that
there has been exaggeration in my foregoing or in
the following statement, where the Irish are the
narrators. I have little doubt of their truth.
It may be but proper to remark, in order that
one class of poor people may not be unduly depre-
ciated, while another class is, perhaps, unduly ap-
preciated, that the poor Irishman is much more
imaginative, is readier of wit and far readier of
speech, than an Englishman of a corresponding
grade; and were the untaught Englishman
equally gifted in those respects, who will avouch
that his regard for the truth would be much more
severe?
Of the causes which induced a good-looking
Irish woman to become a street-seller I had the
following account, which I give in its curious
details: —
"'Deed thin, sir, it's more than 20 long years
since I came from Dublin to Liverpool wid my
father and mother, and brother William that's
dead and gone, rest his soul. He died when he
was fourteen. They was masons in Ireland.
Was both father and mother masons, sir? Well,
then, in any quiet job mother helped father, for
she was a strong woman. They came away
sudden. They was in some thrubble, but I never
knew what, for they wouldn't talk to me about it.
We thravelled from Liverpool to London, for there
was no worruk at Liverpool; and he got worruk
on buildings in London, and had 18s. a week; and
mother cleaned and worruked for a greengrocer, as
they called him — he sold coals more than any-
thing — where we lodged, and it wasn't much, she
got, but she airned what is such a thrubble to
poor people, the rint. We was well off, and
I was sent to school; and we should have been
better off, but father took too much to the dhrop,
God save him. He fell onste and broke his leg;
and though the hospital gintlemen, God bless them
for good Christians, got him through it, he got
little worruk when he came out again, and died in
less than a year. Mother wasn't long afther
him; and on her death-bed she said, so low I
could hardly hear her, `Mary, my darlint, if
you starruve, be vartuous. Rimimber poor Illen's
funeral.' When I was quite a child, sir, I went
wid mother to a funeral — she was a relation — and
it was of a young woman that died after her child
had been borrun a fortnight, and she wasn't mar-
ried; that was Illen. Her body was brought out
of the lying-in hospital — I've often heard spake
of it since — and was in the churchyard to be
buried; and her brother, that hadn't seen her for
a long time, came and wanted to see her in her
coffin, and they took the lid off, and then he
currused her in her coffin afore him; she'd been so
wicked. But he wasn't a good man hisself, and
was in dhrink too; still nobody said anything, and
he walked away. It made me ill to see Illen in
her coffin, and hear him curruse, and I've remim-
bered it ever since.
"I was thin fifteen, I believe, and hadn't any
friends that had any tie to me. I was lone, sir.
But the neebours said, `Poor thing, she's left on
the shuckrawn' (homeless); and they helped me,
and I got a place. Mistress was very kind at
first, that's my first mistress was, and I had the
care of a child of three years old; they had only
one, because mistress was busy making waistcoats.
Master was a hatter, and away all day, and they
was well off. But some women called on mistress
once, and they had a deal of talkin', and bla-
dherin', and laughin', and I don't know how
often I was sent out for quarterns of gin. Then
they all went out together; and mistress came
home quite tipsy just afore master, and went up-
stairs, and had just time to get into bed; she
told me to tell master she had one of her sick
head-aches and was forced to go to bed; she
went on that way for three or four days, and
master and she used to quarrel of a night, for I
could hear them. One night he came home
sooner than common, and he'd been drinking, or
perhaps it might be thrubble, and he sent me to
bed wid the child; and sometime in the night, I
don't know what time, but I could only see from
a gas-lamp that shined into the room, he came
in, for there was no fastenin' inside the door, it
was only like a closet, and he began to ask me
about mistress. When he larned she'd been
drinking wid other women, he used dreadful lan-
guage, and pulled me out of bed, and struck me
with a stick that he snatched up, he could see it
in the gas-light, it was little Frank's horse, and
swore at me for not telling him afore. He only
struck me onste, but I screamed ever so often, I
was so frightened. I dressed myself, and lay
down in my clothes, and got up as soon as it
was light — it was summer time — and thought I
would go away and complain to some one. I
would ask the neebours who to complain to.
When I was going out there was master walk-
ing up and down the kitchen. He'd never
been to bed, and he says, says he, `Mary,
where are you going?' So I told him, and he
begged my pardon, and said he was ashamed of
what he'd done, but he was half mad; then he
began to cry, and so I cried, and mistress came
home just then, and when she saw us both crying
together, she cried, and said she wasn't wanted, as
we was man and wife already. Master just gave
her a push and down she fell, and he ran out.
She seemed so bad, and the child began to cry,
that I couldn't lave thin; and master came home
drunk that night, but he wasn't cross, for he'd
made out that mistress had been drinking with
some neebours, and had got to her mother's, and
that she was so tipsy she fell asleep, they let her
stay till morning, and then some woman set her
home, but she'd been there all night. They made
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kind to me when I left, and paid me all that was
owing, and gave me a good pair of shoes, too; for
they was well off.
"I had a many places for seven years; after
that, and when I was out of a place, I stayed wid
a widder, and a very dacint woman, she was wid
a daughter working for a bookbinder, and the old
woman had a good pitch with fruit. Some of my
places was very harrud, but shure, again, I met
some as was very kind. I left one because they
was always wanting me to go to a Methodist
chapel, and was always running down my religion,
and did all they could to hinder my ever going
to mass. They would hardly pay me when I
left, because I wouldn't listen to them, they said
— the haythens! — when they would have saved
my soul. They save my soul, indeed! The likes
o'thim! Yes, indeed, thin, I had wicked offers
sometimes, and from masters that should have
known better. I kept no company wid young
men. One mistress refused me a karackter, be-
cause I was so unhandy, she said; but she
thought better of it. At last, I had a faver
(fever), and wasn't expected for long (not ex-
pected to live); when I was getting well, every-
thing went to keep me. What wasn't good
enough for the pawn went to the dolly (dolly-
shop, generally a rag and bottle shop, or a marine
store). When I could get about, I was so shabby,
and my clothes hung about me so, that the shops
I went to said, `Very sorry, but can't recommend
you anywhere;' and mistresses looked strange
at me, and I didn't know what to do and was
miserable. I'd been miserable sometimes in
place, and had many a cry, and thought how
`lone' I was, but I never was so miserable as
this. At last, the old woman I stayed along wid
— O, yes, she was an Irishwoman — advised me
to sill fruit in the streets, and I began on straw-
berries, and borrowed 2s. 6d. to do it wid. I had
my hilth better than ever thin; and after I'd sold
fruit of all kinds for two years, I got married. My
husband had a potato can thin. I knew him be-
cause he lived near, and I saw him go in and out,
and go to mass. After that he got a porter's place
and dropped his can, and he porters when he has a
chance still, and has a little work in sewing sacks
for the corn-merchants. Whin he's at home at
his sacks, as he is now, he can mind the children
— we have two — and I sells a few oranges to
make a thrifle. Whin there's nothing ilse for
him to do, he sills fruit in the sthreets, and thin
I'm at home. We do middlin, God be praised."
There is no doubt my informant was a modest,
and, in her way, a worthy woman. But it may
be doubted if any English girl, after seven years
of domestic service, would have so readily adapted
herself to a street calling. Had an English girl
been living among, and used to the society of
women who supported themselves by street
labour, her repugnance to such a life might have
been lessened; but even then, I doubt if she,
who had the virtue to resist the offers told of
by my Irish informant, could have made the at-
tempt to live by selling fruit. I do not mean
that she would rather have fallen into immoral
courses than honestly live upon the sale of straw-
berries, but that she would have struggled on and
striven to obtain any domestic labour in preference
to a street occupation.
| OF THE WOMEN STREET-SELLERS. London Labour and the London Poor, volume 1 | |