 | OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF MANUFACTURED ARTICLES. London Labour and the London Poor, volume 1 |  |
OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF "SMALL-WARE,"
OR TAPE, COTTON, ETC.
The street-sellers of tape and cotton are usually
elderly females; and during my former inquiry I
was directed to one who had been getting her
living in the street by such means for nine years.
I was given to understand that the poor woman
was in deep distress, and that she had long been
supporting a sick husband by her little trade, but
I was wholly unprepared for a scene of such start-
ling misery, sublimed by untiring affection and
pious resignation, as I there discovered.
I wish the reader to understand that I do not
cite this case as a type of the sufferings of this
particular class, but rather as an illustration of the
afflictions which frequently befall those who are
solely dependent on their labour, or their little
trade, for their subsistence, and who, from the
smallness of their earnings, are unable to lay by
even the least trifle as a fund against any physical
calamity.
The poor creatures lived in one of the close
alleys at the east end of London. On inquiring
at the house to which I had been directed, I was
told I should find them in "the two-pair back."
I mounted the stairs, and on opening the door of
the apartment I was terrified with the misery
before me. There, on a wretched bed, lay an aged
man in almost the last extremity of life. At
first I thought the poor old creature was really
dead, but a tremble of the eyelids as I closed the
door, as noiselessly as I could, told me that he
breathed. His face was as yellow as clay, and it
had more the cold damp look of a corpse than that
of a living man. His cheeks were hollowed in
with evident want, his temples sunk, and his nos-
trils pinched close. On the edge of the bed sat his
heroic wife, giving him drink with a spoon from a
tea-cup. In one corner of the room stood the
basket of tapes, cottons, combs, braces, nutmeg-
graters, and shaving-glasses, with which she strove
to keep her old dying husband from the work-
house. I asked her how long her good man
had been ill, and she told me he had been confined
to his bed five weeks last Wednesday, and that it
was ten weeks since he had eaten the size of a
nut in solid food. Nothing but a little beef-tea
had passed his lips for months. "We have lived
like children together," said the old woman, as her
eyes flooded with tears, "and never had no dis-
pute. He hated drink, and there was no cause for
us to quarrel. One of my legs, you see, is shorter
than the other," said she, rising from the bed-side,
and showing me that her right foot was several
inches from the ground as she stood. "My hip
is out. I used to go out washing, and walk-
ing in my pattens I fell down. My hip is out
of the socket three-quarters of an inch, and the
sinews is drawn up. I am obliged to walk with
a stick." Here the man groaned and coughed so
that I feared the exertion must end his life. "Ah,
the heart of a stone would pity that poor fellow,"
said the good wife.
"After I put my hip out, I couldn't get my
living as I'd been used to do. I couldn't
stand a day if I had five hundred pounds for
it. I must sit down. So I got a little stall,
and sat at the end of the alley here with a few
laces and tapes and things. I've done so for this
nine year past, and seen many a landlord come in
and go out of the house that I sat at. My husband
used to sell small articles in the streets — black lead
and furniture paste, and blacking. We got a sort
of a living by this, the two of us together. It's
very seldom though we had a bit of meat. We
had 1s. 9d. rent to pay — Come, my poor fellow,
will you have another little drop to wet your
mouth?" said the woman, breaking off. "Come,
my dearest, let me give you this," she added,
as the man let his jaw fall, and she poured some
warm sugar and water flavoured with cinnamon —
all she had to give him — into his mouth. "He's
been an ailing man this many a year. He used
to go of errands and buy my little things for
me, on account of my being lame. We assisted
one another, you see. He wasn't able to work for
his living, and I wasn't able to go about, so he
used to go about and buy for me what I sold. I
am sure he never earned above 1s. 6d. in the week.
He used to attend me, and many a time I've sat
for ten and fourteen hours in the cold and wet
and didn't take a sixpence. Some days I'd make
a shilling, and some days less; but whatever I got
I used to have to put a good part into the basket
to keep my little stock." [A knock here came to
the door; it was for a halfpenny-worth of darning
cotton.] "You know a shilling goes further with
a poor couple that's sober than two shillings does
with a drunkard. We lived poor, you see, never
had nothing but tea, or we couldn't have done
anyhow. If I'd take 18d. in the day I'd think
I was grandly off, and then if there was 6d. profit
got out of that it would be almost as much as it
would. You see these cotton braces here" (said
the old woman, going to her tray). "Well, I gives
2s. 9d. a dozen for them here, and I sells 'em for
4½d., and oftentimes 4d. a pair. Now, this piece
of tape would cost me seven farthings in the shop,
and I sells it at six yards a penny. It has the
name of being eighteen yards. The profit out of
it is five farthings. It's beyond the power of man
to wonder how there's a bit of bread got out of
such a small way. And the times is so bad, too!
I think I could say I get 8d. a day profit if
I have any sort of custom, but I don't exceed
that at the best of times. I've often sat at the
end of the alley and taken only 6d., and that's
not much more than 2d. clear — it an't 3d. I'm
[Description: 915EAF. Page 386.]
last nine year me and my husband has earned to-
gether 5s. a week, and out of that the two of us
had to live and pay rent — 1s. 9d. a week. Clothes
I could buy none, for the best garment is on me;
but I thank the Lord still. I've paid my rent all
but three weeks, and that isn't due till to-morrow.
We have often reckoned it up here at the fire.
Some weeks we have got 5s. 3d., and some weeks
less, so that I judge we have had about 3s. to
3s. 6d. a week to live upon the two of us, for this
nine year past. Half-a-hundred of coals would
fit me the week in the depths of winter. My hus-
band had the kettle always boiling for me against
I came in. He used to sit here reading his
book — he never was fit for work at the best —
while I used to be out minding the basket. He
was so sober and quiet too. His neighbours will
tell that of him. Within the last ten weeks he's
been very ill indeed, but still I could be out with
the basket. Since then he's never earnt me a
penny — poor old soul, he wasn't able! All that
time I still attended to my basket. He wasn't so
ill then but what he could do a little here in the
room for hisself; but he wanted little, God knows,
for he couldn't eat. After he fell ill, I had to go
all my errands myself. I had no one to help me,
for I'd nothing to pay them, and I'd have to walk
from here down to Sun-street with my stick, till
my bad leg pained me so that I could hardly
stand. You see the hip being put out has drawn
all the sinews up into my groin, and it leaves me
oncapable of walking or standing constantly;
but I thank God that I've got the use of it any-
how. Our lot's hard enough, goodness knows,
but we are content. We never complain, but bless
the Lord for the little he pleases to give us. When
I was away on my errands, in course I couldn't be
minding my basket; so I lost a good bit of money
that way. Well, five weeks on Wednesday he has
been totally confined to his bed, excepting when I
lifted him up to make it some nights; but he can't
bear that now. Still the first fortnight he was
bad, I did manage to leave him, and earn a few
pence; but, latterly, for this last three weeks, I
haven't been able to go out at all, to do any-
thing."
"She's been stopping by me, minding me
here night and day all that time," mumbled the
old man, who now for the first time opened his
gray glassy eyes and turned towards me, to bear,
as it were, a last tribute to his wife's incessant
affection. "She has been most kind to me. Her
tenderness and care has been such that man never
knew from woman before, ever since I lay upon
this sick bed. We've been married five-and-
twenty years. We have always lived happily —
very happily, indeed — together. Until sickness
and weakness overcome me I always strove to
help myself a bit, as well as I could; but since
then she has done all in her power for me —
worked for me — ay, she has worked for me,
surely — and watched over me. My creed through
life has been repentance towards God, faith in
Jesus Christ, and love to all my brethren. I've
made up my mind that I must soon change this
tabernacle, and my last wish is that the good
people of this world will increase her little stock
for her. She cannot get her living out of the little
stock she has, and since I lay here it's so lessened,
that neither she nor no one else can live upon it.
If the kind hearts would give her but a little stock
more, it would keep her old age from want, as she
has kept mine. Indeed, indeed, she does deserve
it. But the Lord, I know, will reward her for
all she has done to me." Here the old man's
eyelids dropped exhausted.
"I've had a shilling and a loaf twice from
the parish," continued the woman. "The over-
seer came to see if my old man was fit to be
removed to the workhouse. The doctor gave me
a certificate that he was not, and then the re-
lieving officer gave me a shilling and a loaf of
bread, and out of that shilling I bought the poor
old fellow a sup of port wine. I bought a quartern
of wine, which was 4d., and I gave 5d. for a bit
of tea and sugar, and I gave 2d. for coals; a half-
penny rushlight I bought, and a short candle, that
made a penny — and that's the way I laid out the
shilling. If God takes him, I know he'll sleep
in heaven. I know the life he's spent, and am
not afraid; but no one else shall take him from
me — nothing shall part us but death in this world.
Poor old soul, he can't be long with me. He's a
perfect skeleton. His bones are starting through
his skin."
I asked what could be done for her, and the
old man thrust forth his skinny arm, and
laying hold of the bed-post, he raised himself
slightly in his bed, as he murmured "If she could
be got into a little parlour, and away from sitting
in the streets, it would be the saving of her."
And, so saying, he fell back overcome with the
exertion, and breathed heavily.
The woman sat down beside me, and went on.
"What shocked him most was that I was obli-
gated in his old age to go and ask for relief at
the parish. You see, he was always a spiritful
man, and it hurted him sorely that he should
come to this at last, and for the first time in his
lifetime. The only parish money that ever we
had was this, and it does hurt him every day
to think that he must be buried by the parish
after all. He was always proud, you see."
I told the kind-hearted old dame that some be-
nevolent people had placed certain funds at my
disposal for the relief of such distress as hers;
and I assured her that neither she nor her hus-
band should want for anything that might ease
their sufferings.
The day after the above was written, the poor
old man died. He was buried out of the funds
sent to the "Morning Chronicle," and his wife re-
ceived some few pounds to increase her stock;
but in a few months the poor old woman went
mad, and is now, I believe, the inmate of one of
the pauper lunatic asylums.
| OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF MANUFACTURED ARTICLES. London Labour and the London Poor, volume 1 | |