 | OF THE WOMEN STREET-SELLERS. London Labour and the London Poor, volume 1 |  |
14. OF THE WOMEN STREET-SELLERS.
As the volume is now fast drawing to a close, and
a specific account has been furnished of almost every
description of street-seller (with the exception of
those who are the makers of the articles they
vend), I purpose giving a more full and general
history and classification than I have yet done of
the feminine portion of the traders in the streets.
The women engaged in street-sale are of all
ages and of nearly all classes. They are, how-
ever, chiefly of two countries, England and Ire-
land. There are (comparatively) a few Jewesses,
and a very few Scotchwomen and Welchwomen
who are street-traders; and they are so, as it
were, accidentally, from their connection, by mar-
riage or otherwise, with male street-sellers. Of
foreigners there are German broom-women, and a
few Italians with musical instruments.
The first broad and distinctive view of the
female street-sellers, is regarding them nationally,
that is to say, either English or Irish women —
two classes separated by definite characteristics
from each other.
The Irishwomen — to avoid burthening the
reader with an excess of subdivisions — I shall
speak of generally; that is to say, as one homo-
geneous class, referring those who require a more
specific account to the description before given of
the street-sellers.
The Englishwomen selling in the streets ap-
pear to admit of being arranged into four distinct
groups, viz.: —
1. The Wives of Street-Sellers.
2. Mechanics' or Labourers' Wives, who go out
Street-Selling (while their husbands are at work)
as a means of helping out the family income.3. Widows of former Street-Sellers.
4. Single Women.
I do not know of any street-trade carried on
exclusively by women. The sales in which they
are principally concerned are in fish (including
shrimps and oysters), fruit and vegetables (widows
selling on their own account), fire-screens and or-
naments, laces, millinery, artificial flowers (but
not in any great majority over the male traders),
cut flowers, boot and stay-laces and small wares,
wash-leathers, towels, burnt linen, combs, bon-
nets, pin-cushions, tea and coffee, rice-milk, curds
and whey, sheeps'-trotters, and dressed and un-
dressed dolls.
What may be called the "heavier" trades,
those necessitating the carrying of heavy weights,
or the pushing of heavily-laden barrows, are in
the hands of men; and so are, even more exclu-
sively, what may be classed as the more skilled
trades of the streets, viz. the sale of stationery,
of books, of the most popular eatables and
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every branch dependent upon the use of patter.
In such callings as root-selling, crock-bartering,
table-cover selling, mats, game, and poultry, the
wife is the helpmate of her husband; if she trade
separately in these things, it is because there is a
full stock to dispose of, which requires the exer-
tions of two persons, perhaps with some hired
help just for the occasion.
The difference in the street-traffic, as carried on
by Englishwomen and Irishwomen, is marked
enough. The Irishwoman's avocations are the
least skilled, and the least remunerative, but as
regards mere toil, such as the carrying of a heavy
burthen, are by far the most laborious. An Irish-
woman, though not reared to the streets, will carry
heavy baskets of oranges or apples, principally when
those fruits are cheap, along the streets while her
English co-trader (if not a costermonger) may be
vending laces, millinery, artificial flowers, or other
commodities of a "light," and in some degree of
street estimation a "genteel" trade. Some of
the less laborious callings, however, such as that
in wash-leathers, are principally in the hands of
young and middle-aged Irishwomen, while that in
sheeps'-trotters, which does not entail heavy labour,
are in the hands mostly of elderly Irishwomen. The
sale of such things as lucifer-matches and water-
cresses, and any "stock" of general use, and at-
tainable for a few pence, is resorted to by the very
poor of every class. The Irishwoman more readily
unites begging with selling than the English-
woman, and is far more fluent and even eloquent;
perhaps she pays less regard to truth, but she
unquestionably pays a greater regard to chastity.
When the uneducated Irishwoman, however, has
fallen into licentious ways, she is, as I once heard
it expressed, the most "savagely wicked" of any.
After these broad distinctions I proceed to
details.
1. From the best information at my command it
may be affirmed that about one-half of the women
employed in the diverse trades of the streets, are
the wives or concubines (permanently or tempo-
rarily) of the men who pursue a similar mode of
livelihood — the male street-sellers. I may here
observe that I was informed by an experienced
police-officer — who judged from his personal ob-
servation, without any official or even systematic
investigation — that the women of the town, who
survived their youth or their middle age, did not
resort to the sale of any commodity in the streets,
but sought the shelter of the workhouse, or died,
he could not tell where or under what circum-
stances. Of the verity of this statement I have
no doubt, as a street-sale entails some degree of
industry or of exertion, for which the life of those
wretched women may have altogether unfitted them.
In the course of the narratives and statements
I have given, it is shown that some wives pursue
one (itinerant or stationary) calling, while the
husband pursues another. The trades in which
the husband and wife (and I may here remark
that when I speak of "wives," I include all,
so regarded in street life, whether legally united
or not) — the trades in which the woman is,
more than in any others, literally the help-mate
of the man, are the costermonger's (including
the flower, or root, sellers) and the crockery-
ware people. To the costermonger some help is
often indispensable, and that of a wife is the
cheapest and the most honest (to say nothing of
the considerations connected with a home) which can
be obtained. Among the more prosperous coster-
mongers too, especially those who deal in fish,
the wife attends to the stall while the husband
goes "a round," and thus a greater extent of
business is transacted. In the root and crockery-
trades the woman's assistance is necessary when
barter takes place instead of sale, as the husband
may be ignorant of the value of the old female
attire which even "high-hip ladies," as they
were described to me, loved to exchange for a
fuchsia or a geranium; for a glass cream-jug or a
china ornament. Of the married women engaged
in any street trade, I believe nineteen-twentieths
are the wives of men also pursuing some street
avocation.
2. There are, however, large classes of female
street-sellers who may be looked upon as excep-
tions, the wife selling in the streets while the hus-
band is engaged in some manual labour, but they
are only partially exceptions. In the sale of wash-
leathers, for instance, are the wives of many Irish
bricklayers' labourers; the woman may be con-
stantly occupied in disposing of her wares in the
streets or suburbs, and the man labouring at any
building; but in case of the deprivation of work,
such a man will at once become a street-seller,
and in the winter many burly Irish labourers sell
a few nuts or a "baked taties," or a few pairs of
braces, or some article which seems little suitable
for the employment of men of thews and muscle.
In the course of my present inquiry I have, in
only very rare instances, met with a poor Irish-
man, who had not a reason always at his tongue's
end to justify anything he was doing. Ask a
bricklayer's labourer why, in his youth and
strength, he is selling nuts, and he will at once
reply: "Sure thin, your honnur, isn't it better
than doin' nothing? I must thry and make a
pinny, 'til I'm in worruk again, and glory be
to God, I hope that'll be soon."
An experienced man, who knows all the street-
folk trading in Whitechapel and its neighbourhood,
and about Spitalfields, told me that he could count
up 100 married women, in different branches of
open-air commerce, and of them only two had
husbands who worked regularly in-doors. The
husband of one woman works for a slop-tailor,
the other is a bobbin turner; the tailor's wife
sells water-cresses every morning and afternoon;
the turner's wife is a "small-ware woman." The
tailor, however, told my informant that his eye-
sight was failing him, that his earnings became
less and less, that he was treated like dirt, and
would go into some street-trade himself before
long. When the man and his wife are both in
the street-trade, it is the case in three instances
out of four (excluding of course the costermongers,
root-sellers, and crock-man's pursuits) that the
couple carry on different callings.
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In the full and specific accounts I gave of the
largest body of street-sellers, viz., the coster-
mongers, I showed that concubinage among persons
of all ages was the rule, and marriage the exception.
It was computed that, taking the mass of coster-
mongers, only one couple in twenty, living together,
were married, except in Clerkenwell, where the
costers are very numerous, and where the respected
incumbent at certain seasons marries poor persons
gratuitously; there one couple in ten were really
man and wife.
Of the other classes of women street-sellers,
directly the reverse is the case; of those living
as man and wife, one couple in twenty may be
unmarried. An intelligent informant thought
this average too high, and that it was more
probably one in sixteen. But I incline to the
opinion of one in twenty, considering how many
of the street-traders have "seen better days,"
and were married before they apprehended being
driven to a street career. In this enumeration
I include only street-traders. Among such people
as ballad singers, concubinage, though its wrong-
fulness is far better understood than among
ignorant costermongers, is practised even more
fully; and there is often among such classes even
worse than concubinage — a dependance, more or
less, on the wages of a woman's prostitution,
and often a savage punishment to the wretched
woman, if those wages of sin are scant or
wanting.
3. The widows in the street-trades are very
generally the widows of street-sellers. I believe
that very few of the widows of mechanics, when
left unprovided for on their husbands' demise,
resort to street traffic. If they have been needle-
women before marriage, they again seek for em-
ployment at needle-work; if they have been ser-
vants, they become charwomen, or washerwomen,
or again endeavour to obtain a livelihood in
domestic service.
There are some to whom those resources are
but starvation, or a step from starvation, or whom
they fail entirely, and then they "must try the
streets," as they will describe it. If they are young
and reckless, they become prostitutes; if in more
advanced years, or with good principles, they
turn street-sellers; but this is only when desti-
tution presses sharply.
4. The single women in the street-callings are
generally the daughters of street-sellers, but their
number is not a twentieth of the others, excepting
they are the daughters of Irish parents. The coster-
mongers' daughters either help their parents, with
whom they reside, or carry on some similar trade;
or they soon form connections with the other sex,
and easily sever the parental tie, which very pro-
bably has been far too lax or far too severe. I made
many inquiries, but I did not hear of any unmar-
ried young woman, not connected with street-folk
by birth or rearing, such as a servant maid, — en-
deavouring to support herself when out of work
or place by a street avocation. Such a person will
starve on slop millinery or slop shirt-making; or
will, as much or more from desperation than
from viciousness, go upon the town. With the
Irish girls the case is different: brought up to a
street-life, used to whine and blarney, they grow
up to womanhood in street-selling, and as they
rarely form impure connections, and as no one may
be induced to offer them marriage, their life is
often one of street celibacy. A young Irishwoman,
to whom I was referred in the course of my
inquiry among fruit-sellers, had come to London
in the hopes of meeting her brother, with whom
she was to emigrate; but she could learn nothing
of him, and, concluding that he was dead, be-
came an apple-seller. She sat, when I saw her,
on cold wintry days, at the corner of a street in
the Commercial-road, seemingly as much dead as
alive, and slept with an aunt, also a single wo-
man, who was somewhat similarly circumstanced;
and thus these two women lived on about 6d. a
day each. Their joint bed was 1s. a week, and
they contrived to subsist on what remained when
this shilling was paid. The niece referred me,
not without a sense of pride, to her priest, as to
her observance of her religious duties, and de-
clared that where she lodged there were none but
women lodgers, and those chiefly her own coun-
try women. I believe such cases are not un-
common. A few, who have had the education of
ladies (as in the case of an envelope-seller whose
statement I gave), are driven to street-trading, but
it is as a desperate grasp at something to supply
less bitter bread, however little of it, than is sup-
plied in the workhouse. I have many a time
heard poor women say: "God knows, sir, I should
live far better, and be better lodged and better
cared for in the house (they seldom call it work-
house), but I'd rather live on 2d. a day." Into
the question of out and in-door relief I need not
now enter, but the prevalent feeling I have indi-
cated is one highly honourable to the English poor.
I have heard it stated that the utter repugnance
to a workhouse existence was weaker than it used
to be among the poor, but I have not met with
anything to uphold such an opinion.
Such constitute the several classes of women
street-sellers. I shall now proceed to speak of the
habits and characters of this peculiar portion of
the street-folk.
As regards the religion of the women in street-
trades, it is not difficult to describe it. The Irish-
women are Roman Catholics. Perhaps I am justi-
fied in stating that they are all of that faith. The
truth of this assertion is proved, moreover, to as
full a demonstration as it very well can be proved
without actual enumeration, by the fact that the
great majority of the Irish women in the streets are
from the Catholic provinces of Connaught, Lein-
ster, and Munster; there are very few from Ulster,
and not one-twentieth of the whole from any one of
the other provinces. Perhaps, again, it is not
extravagant to estimate that three-fourths of the
women and girls from the sister island, now selling
things in the streets, have been, when in their own
country, connected through their husbands or
parents with the cultivation of the land. It is
not so easy to speak of what the remaining fourth
were before they became immigrants. Some were
the wives of mechanics, who, when their husbands
[Description: 915EAF. Page 460.]
traders, had adopted the same pursuits. I met
with one intelligent man having a stall of very
excellent fruit in Battle-bridge, who had been a
brogue-maker. He had been in business on his
own account in Tralee, but mended the indifferent
profits of brogue-making by a little trade in "dry
goods." This, he told me with a cautious glance
around him and in a half whisper, though it
was twenty-eight years since he left his country,
meant smuggled tobacco. He found it advisable,
on account of being "wanted" by the revenue of-
ficers, to leave Tralee in great haste. He arrived
in London, got employment as a bricklayer's
labourer, and sent for his wife to join him. This
she did, and from her first arrival, sold fruit in the
streets. In two or three years the husband's work
among the builders grew slack, and he then took to
the streets. Another man, a shoemaker, who came
from Dublin to obtain work in London, as he was
considered "a good hand," could not obtain it,
but became a street-seller, and his wife, previously
to himself, had resorted to a street-trade in fruit.
He became a widower and married as "his second,"
the daughter of an Irish carpenter who had been dis-
appointed in emigrating from London, and whose
whole family had become fruit-sellers. A third
man, who had worked at his trade of a tailor
in Cork, Waterford, Wicklow, and Dublin (he
"tramped" from Cork to Dublin) had come
to London and been for many years a street-
seller in different capacities. His wife and
daughter now assist him, or trade independently,
in selling "roots." "Rayther," this man said,
"than put up wid the wages and the ter-ratement (said very emphatically) o' thim slop masters at
the Aist Ind, I'd sill myself as a slave. The
sthraits doesn't degrade a man like thim thieves
o' the worruld." This man knew, personally, ten
Irish mechanics who were street-sellers in London,
as were their wives and families, including some
five-and-twenty females.
I adduce these and the following details some-
what minutely, as they tend to show by what
class of Irish immigrants the streets of the impe-
rial metropolis are stocked with so large a body of
open-air traders.
There is also another class of women who, I am
informed on good authority, sometimes become
street-sellers, though I met with no instance my-
self. The orphan children of poor Irish parents
are, on the demise of their father and mother some-
times taken into a workhouse and placed out as
domestic servants. So, as regards domestic ser-
vants, are the daughters of Irish labourers, by
their friends or the charitable. As the wages of
these young girls are small and sometimes nominal,
the work generally hard, and in no few instances
the food scanty and the treatment severe, domestic
service becomes distasteful, and a street life "on a
few oranges and limmons" is preferred. There is,
moreover, with some of this class another cause
which almost compels the young Irish girl into the
adoption of some street calling. A peevish mistress,
whose numerous family renders a servant neces-
sary, but whose means are small or precarious,
becomes bitterly dissatisfied with the awkward-
ness or stupidity of her Irish handmaiden; the
girl's going, or "teasing to go," every Sunday
morning to mass is annoying, and the girl is often
discharged, or discharges herself "in a huff." The
mistress, perhaps, with the low tyranny dear to
vulgar minds, refuses her servant a character, or,
in giving one, suppresses any good qualities, and
exaggerates the failings of impudence, laziness,
lying, and dirtiness. Thus the girl cannot obtain
another situation, and perforce perhaps she becomes
a street-seller.
The readiness with which young Irish people
thus adapt themselves to all the uncertainties and
hardships of a street life is less to be wondered at
when we consider that the Irish live together, or
at any rate associate with one another, in this
country, preserving their native tastes, habits, and
modes of speech. Among their tastes and habits,
a dislike to a street life does not exist as it does
among English girls.
The poor Irish females in London are for the
most part regular in their attendance at mass, and
this constant association in their chapels is one
of the links which keeps the street-Irish women
so much distinct from the street-English. In the
going to and returning from the Roman Catholic
chapels, there is among these people — I was told
by one of the most intelligent of them — a talk of
family and secular matters, — of the present too
high price of oranges to leave full 6d. a day at two
a penny, and the probable time when cherries
would be "in" and cheap, "plaze God to prosper
them." In these colloquies there is an absence of
any interference by English street-sellers, and an
unity of conversation and interest peculiarly Irish.
It is thus that the tie of religion, working with
the other causes, keeps the Irish in the London
streets knitted to their own ways, and is likely to
keep them so, and, perhaps, to add to their
number.
It was necessary to write somewhat at length of
so large a class of women who are professors of a reli-
gion, but of the others the details may be brief;
for, as to the great majority, religion is almost a
nonentity. For this absence of religious obser-
vances, the women street-sellers make many, and
sometimes, I must confess, valiant excuses. They
must work on a Sunday morning, they will
say, or they can't eat; or else they tell you,
they are so tired by knocking about all the
week that they must rest on a Sunday; or
else they have no clothes to go to church in,
and ar'n't a-going there just to be looked down
upon and put in any queer place as if they had a
fever, and for ladies to hold their grand dresses
away from them as they walked in to their grand
pews. Then, again, some assert they are not used
to sit still for so long a time, and so fall asleep.
I have heard all these causes assigned as reasons
for not attending church or chapel.
A few women street-sellers, however, do attend
the Sunday service of the Church of England.
One lace-seller told me that she did so because it
obliged Mrs. — , who was the best friend and
customer she had, and who always looked from
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poor seats. A few others, perhaps about an equal
number, attend dissenting places of worship of the
various denominations — the Methodist chapels
comprising more than a half. If I may venture
upon a calculation founded on the result of my
inquiries, and on the information of others who
felt an interest in the matter, I should say that
about five female street-sellers attended Protestant
places of worship, in the ratio of a hundred attend-
ing the Roman Catholic chapels.
The localities in which the female street-sellers
reside are those (generally) which I have often had
occasion to specify as the abodes of the poor. They
congregate principally, in the neighbour-
hood of some street-market. The many courts in
Ray-street, Turnmill-street, Cow-cross, and other
parts of Clerkenwell, are full of street-sellers, espe-
cially costermongers, some of those costermongers
being also drovers. Their places of sale are in
Clerkenwell-green, Aylesbury-street, and St. John-
street. Others reside in Vine-street (late Mutton-
hill), Saffron-hill, Portpool Lane, Baldwin's-gar-
dens, and the many streets or alleys stretching
from Leather-lane to Gray's-inn-lane, with a few
of the better sort in Cromer-street. Their chief
mart is Leather-lane, now one of the most crowded
markets in London. The many who use the Brill
as their place of street-traffic, reside in Brill-row,
in Ossulston-street, Wilstead-street, Chapel-street,
and in the many small intersecting lanes and
alleys connected with those streets, and in other
parts of Somers-town. The saleswomen in the
Cripplegate street-markets, such as Whitecross-
street, Fore-street, Golden-lane, &c., reside in
Play-house-yard, and in the thick congregation of
courts and alleys, approximating to Aldersgate-
street, Fore-street, Bunhill-row, Chiswell-street,
Barbican, &c., &c. Advancing eastward, the
female street-sellers in Shoreditch (including the
divisions of the Bishopsgate-streets Within and With-
out, Norton Folgate, and Holywell-street) reside
in and about Artillery-lane, Half-moon-street, and
the many narrow "clefts" (as they are called in
one of Leigh Hunt's essays) stretching on the
right hand as you proceed along Bishopsgate-street,
from its junction with Cornhill; "clefts" which,
on my several visits, have appeared to me as among
the foulest places in London. On the left-hand
side, proceeding in the same direction, the street-
sellers reside in Long-alley, and the many yards
connected with that, perhaps narrowest, in propor-
tion to its length, of any merely pedestrian thorough-
fare in London. Mixed with the poor street-sellers
about Long-alley, I may observe, are a mass of the
tailors and shoemakers employed by the east-end
slop-masters; they are principally Irish workmen,
carrying on their crafts many in one room, to
economise the rent, while some of their wives are
street-sellers.
The street-sellers in Spitalfields and Bethnal-
green are so mixed up as to their abodes with the
wretchedly underpaid cabinet-makers who supply
the "slaughter-houses;" with slop-employed
tailors and shoemakers (in the employ of a class,
as respects shoemakers, known as "garret-
masters" or middle-men, between the workman
and the wholesale warehouse-man), bobbin-turners,
needle-women, slop-milliners, &c., that I might
tediously enumerate almost every one of the many
streets known, emphatically enough, as the "poor
streets." These poor streets are very numerous,
running eastward from Shoreditch to the Cam-
bridge-road, and southward from the Bethnal-
green-road to Whitechapel and the Mile End-road.
The female street-sellers in Whitechapel live in
Wentworth-street, Thrawl-street, Osborne-street,
George-yard, and in several of their intermingle-
ments with courts and narrow streets. The
Petticoat-lane street-dealers are generally Jews,
and live in the poorer Jewish quarters, in Pet-
ticoat-lane and its courts, and in the streets
running on thence to Houndsditch. Rosemary-
lane has many street-sellers, but in the lane itself
and its many yards and blind alleys they find
their domiciles. Westward in the metropolis one
of the largest street-markets is in Tottenham-court-
road; and in the courts between Fitzroy-market
and Tottenham-court-road are the rooms of the
women vending their street goods. Those oc-
cupying the Hampstead-road with their stalls —
which is but a continuation of the Tottenham-
court-road market — live in the same quarters.
In what is generally called the St. George's-
market, meaning the stalls at the western ex-
tremity of Oxford-street, the women who own
those stalls reside in and about Thomas-street,
Tom's-court, and the wretched places — the very
existence of which is perhaps unknown to
their aristocratic neighbourhood — about Grosve-
nor-square; some of them lamentably wretched
places. It might be wearisome to carry on this
enumeration further. It may suffice to observe,
that in the populous parts of Southwark,
Lambeth, and Newington, wherever there is a
street-market, are small or old streets inhabited
by the street-sellers, and at no great distance.
From the Obelisk at the junction, or approximate
junction, of the Westminster, Waterloo, Black-
friars, Borough, and London-roads, in pretty well
every direction to the banks of the Thames, are
a mass of private-looking streets — as far as the
absence of shops constitutes the privacy of a street —
old and half-ruinous, or modern and trim, in all of
which perhaps may be found street-sellers, and in
some of which are pickpockets, thieves, and pros-
titutes.
Of course it must be understood that these
specified localities are the residence of the male,
as well as the female street-sellers, both adults
and children.
The proportion of female street-traders who
reside in lodging-houses may be estimated at
one-tenth of the entire number. This may appear
a small proportion, but it must be remembered
that the costermongering women do not reside in
lodging-houses — so removing the largest class of
street-folk from the calculation of the numbers
thus accommodated — and that the Irish who
pursue street callings with any regularity gene-
rally prefer living, if it be two or three families in
a room, in a place of their own. The female
[Description: 915EAF. Page 462.]
sionally taking their meals there, are usually those
who are itinerant; the women who have a settled
trade, especially a "pitch," reside in preference in
some "place of their own." Of the number in
lodging-houses one half may be regular inmates,
some having a portion of a particular room to
themselves; the others are casual sojourners,
changing their night's shelter as convenience
prompts.
Of the female street-sellers residing in houses
of ill-fame there are not many; perhaps not many
more than 100. I was told by a gentleman whose
connection with parochial matters enabled him to
form an opinion, that about Whitecross-street,
and some similar streets near the Cornwall-road,
and stretching away to the Blackfriars and
Borough-roads — (the locality which of any in
London is perhaps the most rank with prostitu-
tion and its attendant evils) — there might be 600
of those wretched women and of all ages, from 15
to upwards of 40; and that among them he believed
there were barely a score who occupied themselves
with street-sale. Of women, and more especially
of girl, street-sellers, such as flower-girls, those
pursuing immoral courses are far more numerous
than 100, but they do not often reside in houses
notoriously of ill-fame, but in their own rooms
(and too often with their parents) and in low
lodging-houses. For women who are street-sellers,
without the practice of prostitution, to reside in a
house of ill-fame, would be a reckless waste of
money; as I am told that in so wretched a street
as White-horse-street, the rent of a front kitchen
is 4s. 6d. a week; of a back kitchen, 3s. 6d.; of a
front parlour, 6s.; and of a back parlour, 4s. 6d.;
all being meagrely furnished and very small.
This is also accounted one of the cheapest of all
such streets. The rent of a street-seller's un-
furnished room is generally 1s. 6d. or even 1s.
a week; a furnished room is 3s. or 2s. 6d.
The state of education among the female street-
sellers is very defective. Perhaps it may be
said that among the English costers not one
female in twenty can read, and not one in
forty can write. But they are fond of listen-
ing to any one who reads the newspaper or
any exciting story. Among the street-selling
Irish, also, education is very defective. As re-
gards the adults, who have been of woman's
estate before they left Ireland, a knowledge of
reading and writing may be as rare as among
the English costerwomen; but with those who
have come to this country sufficiently young, or
have been born here, education is far more
diffused than among the often more prosperous
English street children. This is owing to the
establishment of late years of many Roman
Catholic schools, at charges suited to the poor, or
sometimes free, and of the Irish parents having
availed themselves (probably on the recommenda-
tion of the priest) of such opportunities for the
tuition of their daughters, which the English
costers have neglected to do with equal chances.
Of the other classes whom I have specified as
street-sellers, I believe I may say that the educa-
tion of the females is about the average of that of
"servants of all work" who have been brought up
amidst struggles and poverty; they can read, but
with little appreciation of what they read, and have
therefore little taste for books, and often little
leisure even if they have taste. As to writing, a
woman told me that at one time, when she was "in
place," and kept weekly accounts, she had been com-
plimented by her mistress on her neat hand, but
that she and her husband (a man of indifferent
character) had been street-sellers for seven or eight
years, and during all that time she had only once
had a pen in her hand; this was a few weeks back,
in signing a petition — something about Sundays,
she said — she wrote her name with great pain and
difficulty, and feared that she had not even spelled
it aright! I may here repeat that I found the
uneducated always ready to attribute their want
of success in life to their want of education; while
the equally poor street-sellers, who were "scholars,"
are as apt to say, "It's been of no manner of use
to me." In all these matters I can but speak
generally. The male street-sellers who have seen
better days have of course been better educated,
but the most intelligent of the street class are the
patterers, and of them the females form no portion.
The diet of the class I am describing is, as regards
its poorest members, tea and bread or bread and
grease; a meal composed of nothing else is their
fare twice or thrice a day. Sometimes there is
the addition of a herring — or a plaice, when plaice
are two a penny — but the consumption of cheap
fish, with a few potatoes, is more common among
the poor Irish than the poor English female street-
sellers. "Indeed, sir," said an elderly woman,
who sold cakes of blacking and small wares, "I
could make a meal on fish and potatoes, cheaper
than on tea and bread and butter, though I don't
take milk with my tea — I've got to like it better
without milk than with it — but if you're a long
time on your legs in the streets and get to your
bit of a home for a cup of tea, you want a bit of
rest over it, and if you have to cook fish it's such
a trouble. O, no, indeed, this time of year there's
no 'casion to light a fire for your tea — and tea
'livens you far more nor a herring — because there's
always some neighbour to give a poor woman a
jug of boiling water." Married women, who may
carry on a trade distinct from that of their hus-
bands, live as well as their earnings and the
means of the couple will permit: what they con-
sider good living is a dinner daily off "good block
ornaments" (small pieces of meat, discoloured and
dirty, but not tainted, usually set for sale on the
butcher's block), tripe, cow-heel, beef-sausages, or
soup from a cheap cook-shop, "at 2d. a pint."
To this there is the usual accompaniment of beer,
which, in all populous neighbourhoods, is "3d.
a pot (quart) in your own jugs." From what I
could learn, it seems to me that an inordinate or
extravagant indulgence of the palate, under any
circumstances, is far less common among the
female than the male street-sellers.
During the summer and the fine months of the
spring and autumn, there are, I am assured, one-third
of the London street-sellers — male and female —
[Description: 915EAF. Page 463.]
other day, I was told by an intelligent itinerant
dealer, there were 300 women, all of whose faces
he believed he had seen at one time or other in
London. The Irish, however, tramp very little
into the country for purposes of trade, but they
travel in great numbers from one place to another
for purposes of mendicancy; or, if they have a
desire to emigrate, they will tramp from London
to Liverpool, literally begging their way, no
matter whether they have or have not any money.
The female street-sellers are thus a fluctuating
body.
The beggars among the women who profess to
be street-traders are chiefly Irishwomen, some of
whom, though otherwise well-conducted, sober
and chaste, beg shamelessly and with any menda-
cious representation. It is remarkable enough,
too, that of the Irishwomen who will thus beg,
many if employed in any agricultural work, or
in the rougher household labours, such as scour-
ing or washing, will work exceedingly hard. To
any feeling of self-respect or self-dependence, how-
ever, they seem dead; their great merit is their
chastity, their great shame their lying and men-
dicancy.
The female street-sellers are again a fluctuating
body, as in the summer and autumn months. A
large proportion go off to work in market-gardens,
in the gathering of peas, beans, and the several
fruits; in weeding, in hay-making, in the corn-
harvest (when they will endeavour to obtain leave
to glean if they are unemployed more profitably),
and afterwards in the hopping. The women, how-
ever, thus seeking change of employment, are the
ruder street-sellers, those who merely buy oranges
at 4d. to sell at 6d., and who do not meddle with
any calling mixed up with the necessity of skill
in selection, or address in recommending. Of
this half-vagrant class, many are not street-sellers
usually, but are half prostitutes and half thieves,
not unfrequently drinking all their earnings, while
of the habitual female street-sellers, I do not think
that drunkenness is now a very prevalent vice.
Their earnings are small, and if they become
habituated to an indulgence in drink, their means
are soon dissipated; in which case they are unable
to obtain stock-money, and they cease to be street-
sellers.
If I may venture upon an estimation, I should
say that the women engaged in street sale —
wives, widows, and single persons — number from
25,000 to 30,000, and that their average earnings
run from 2s. 6d. to 4s. a week.
I shall now proceed to give the histories of
individuals belonging to each of the above class of
female street-sellers, with the view of illustrating
what has been said respecting them generally.
OF A SINGLE WOMAN, AS A STREET-SELLER.
I had some difficulty, for the reasons I have
stated, in finding a single woman who, by her
unaided industry, supported herself on the sale
of street merchandise. There were plenty of
single young women so engaged, but they lived,
or lodged, with their parents or with one parent,
or they had some support, however trifling, from
some quarter or other. Among the street Irish
I could have obtained statements from many
single women who depended on their daily sale
for their daily bread, but I have already given
instances of their street life. One Irishwoman,
a spinster of about 50, for I had some con-
versation with her in the course of a former
inquiry, had supported herself alone, by street
sale, for many years. She sat, literally packed in
a sort of hamper-basket, at the corner of Charles-
street, Leather-lane. She seemed to fit herself
cross-legged, like a Turk, or a tailor on his shop-
board, into her hamper; her fruit stall was close
by her, and there she seemed to doze away life
day by day — for she usually appeared to be wrapped
in slumber. If any one approached her stall, how-
ever, she seemed to awake, as it were, mechanically.
I have missed this poor woman of late, and I
believe she only packed herself up in the way
described when the weather was cold.
A woman of about 26 or 27 — I may again
remark that the regular street-sellers rarely know
their age — made the following statement. She was
spare and sickly looking, but said that her health
was tolerably good.
"I used to mind my mother's stall," she stated,
"when I was a girl, when mother wasn't well or
had a little work at pea-shelling or such like. She
sold sweet-stuff. No, she didn't make it, but
bought it. I never cared for it, and when I was
quite young I've sold sweet-stuffs as I never tasted.
I never had a father. I can't read or write, but
I like to hear people read. I go to Zion Chapel
sometimes of a Sunday night, the singing's so nice.
I don't know what religion you may call it of, but
it's a Zion Chapel. Mother's been dead these —
well I don't know how long, but it's a long time.
I've lived by myself ever since, and kept myself,
and I have half a room with another young woman
who lives by making little boxes. I don't know
what sort of boxes. Pill-boxes? Very likely, sir,
but I can't say I ever saw any. She goes out to
work on another box-maker's premises. She's no
better off nor me. We pays 1s. 6d. a-week
between us; it's my bed, and the other sticks is
her'n. We 'gree well enough. I haven't sold
sweet stuff for a great bit. I've sold small
wares in the streets, and artificials (artificial
flowers), and lace, and penny dolls, and penny
boxes (of toys). No, I never hear anything
improper from young men. Boys has sometimes
said, when I've been selling sweets, `Don't look
so hard at 'em, or they'll turn sour.' I never
ninded such nonsense. I has very few amuse-
ments. I goes once or twice a month, or so, to
the gallery at the Wick (Victoria Theatre), for I
live near. It's beautiful there. O, it's really
grand. I don't know what they call what's played,
because I can't read the bills.
"I hear what they're called, but I forgets. I
knows Miss Vincent and John Herbert when they
come on. I likes them the best. I'm a going
to leave the streets. I have an aunt a laundress,
because she was mother's sister, and I always
helped her, and she taught me laundressing. I
[Description: 915EAF. Page 464.]
now, because she's lost her daughter Ann, and
I'm known as a good ironer. Another laundress
will employ me next week, so I'm dropping the
streets, as I can do far better. I'm not likely to
be married and I don't want to."
OF A MECHANIC'S WIFE, AS A STREET-SELLER.
A middle-aged woman, presenting what may
be best understood as a decency of appearance,
for there was nothing remarkable in her face or
dress, gave me the following account of her expe-
rience as a street-seller, and of her feelings when
she first became one: —
"I went into service very young in the coun-
try," she said, "but mistress brought me up to
London with her, where master had got a situa-
tion: the children was so fond of me. I saved a
little money in that and other places as girls often
does, and they seems not to save it so much for
themselves as for others. Father got the first bit
of money I saved, or he would have been seized
for rent — he was only a working man (agricultu-
ral labourer) — and all the rest I scraped went
before I'd been married a fortnight, for I got
married when I was 24. O no, indeed, I
don't mean that my money was wasted by my
husband. It was every farthing laid out in the
house, besides what he had, for we took a small
house in a little street near the Commercial-road,
and let out furnished rooms. We did very well
at first with lodgings, but the lodgers were mates
of vessels, or people about the river and the docks,
and they were always coming and going, and the
rooms was often empty, and some went away in
debt. My husband is a smith, and was in mid-
dling work for a good while. Then he got a job
to go with some horses to France, for he can groom
a horse as well as shoe it, and he was a long time
away, three or four months, for he was sent into
another country when he got to France, but I
don't understand the particulars of it. The rooms
was empty and the last lodger went away without
paying, and I had nothing to meet the quarter's
rent, and the landlord, all of a sudden almost, put
in the brokers, for he said my husband would
never come back, and perhaps I should be selling
the furniture and be off to join him, for he
told me it was all a planned thing he knew.
And so the furniture was sold for next to
nothing, and 1l. 6s. was given to me after
the sale; I suppose that was over when all was
paid, but I'd been forced to part with some
linen and things to live upon and pay the rates,
that came very heavy. My husband came back
to an empty house three days after, and he'd been
unlucky, for he brought home only 4l. instead of
10l. at least, as he expected, but he'd been cheated
by the man he went into the other country with.
Yes, the man that cheated him was an Englishman,
and my poor John was put to great trouble and ex-
pense, and was in a strange place without know-
ing a word of the language. But the foreigners
was very kind to him, he said, and didn't laugh
at him when he tried to make hisself understood,
as I've seen people do here many a time. The
landlord gave us 1l. to give up the house, as he
had a good offer for it, and so we had to start
again in the world like.
"Our money was almost all gone before John
got regular work, tho' he had some odd jobs, and
then he had for a good many months the care of
a horse and cart for a tradesman in the City.
Shortly after that he was laid up a week with a
crushed leg, but his master wouldn't wait a week
for him, so he hired another: `I have nothing to
say against John,' says he, when I told his master
of the accident, `and I'm sorry, very sorry, but my
business can't be hindered by waiting for people
getting better of accidents.' John got work at his
own business next, but there was always some
stopper. He was ill, or I was ill, and if there was
10s. in the house, then it went and wasn't enough.
And so we went on for a good many years, I don't
know how many. John kept working among
horses and carts, or at his own business, but what
with travelling abroad, I suppose, and such like,
he got to like best to be in the streets, and he has
his health best that way." (The husband, it is
evident, was afflicted with the restlessness of the
tribe.) "About seven years ago we were very
badly off — no work, and no money, and neither of
of us well. Then I used to make a few women's
plain night-caps and plain morning caps for servants,
and sell them to a shopkeeper, but latterly I couldn't
sell them at all, or get no more than the stuff cost
me, without any profit for labour. So at last —
and it was on a Friday evening of all unlucky
times — my gold wedding-ring that cost 8s. 6d.,
and that I'd stuck to all along, had to be pawned
for 4s. 6d. for rent and bread. That was a shock-
ing time, sir. We've sat in the dark of an even-
ing, for we could get neither coals nor a candle as
we was a little in debt, and John said, it was a
blessing after all perhaps that we hadn't no family,
for he often, both joking and serious, wished for
children, but it wasn't God's will you see that we
should have any. One morning when I woke very
early I found my husband just going out, and when
I asked him what sent him out so soon, he says:
`It's for nothing bad, so don't fret yourself, old
gal.' That day he walked all over London and
called on all the masters as had employed him, or
knowed him, and told them how he was situated,
and said that if he could borrow 20s. up and down,
he could do a little, he knew — the thought of
it came into his mind all of a sudden — in going
about with a horse and cart, that he could hire,
and sell coals to poor people. He raised 8s. 6d.,
I think it was, and started with a quarter of a
ton of coals, and then another quarter when the
first was sold, and he carried it on for three or
four weeks. But the hire of the horse and cart
took all the profit, and the poor people wanted
credit, besides people must cheat to thrive as sells
coals in the street. All this time I could do nothing
— though I tried for washing and charing, but I'm
slow at washing — but starve at home, and be afraid
every knock was the landlord. After that John
was employed to carry a very heavy board over
his shoulder, and so as to have it read on both
sides. It was about an eating-house, and I went
[Description: 915EAF. Page 465.]
for it was as much as a man could do to carry the
board. He had 1s. a day, and I had 6d. That
was my first time in the streets and I felt so
'shamed to come to that. I thought if I met any
people I knew in Essex, or any of my old mis-
tresses, what would they think. Then we had
all sorts of jokes to stand. We both looked
pinched, and young gents used to say, `Do you
dine there yourselves?' and the boys — O, of all
the torments! — they've shouted out, `Excellent
Dining-rooms' that was on the board, sir, `and
two jolly speciments of the style of grub!' I
could have knocked their saucy heads together.
We was resting in the shade one day — and we
were anxious to do our best, for 1s. 6d. a day was
a great thing then — and an old gentleman came up
and said he was glad to get out of the sun. He
looked like a parson, but was a joky man, and
he'd been having some wine, I think, he smelled
of it so. He began to talk to us and ask us
questions, such as you have, sir, and we told him
how we was situated. `God bless you,' says he,
`for I think you're honest folks. People that lie
don't talk like you; here's some loose silver I
have,' and he gave John 5s. 6d. and went away.
We could hardly think it was real; it seemed such
a lot of money just then, to be got clear all at once.
I've never seen him since, and never saw him, as
I knows of, before, but may God Almighty bless
him wherever he is, for I think that 5s. 6d. put new life into us, and brought a blessing. A
relation of John's came to London not long after
and gave him a sovereign and sent him some old
clothes, and very good ones, when he went back.
Then John hired a barrow — it's his own now —
and started as a costermonger. A neighbour of
ourn told him how to do it, and he's done very
well at it since.
"Well, you know, sir, I could'nt like to stay at
home by myself doing of a nothing, and I couldn't
get any charing; besides John says, `Why, can't
you sell something?' So I made some plain
women's caps, and as we lived in Ann's-place,
Waterloo-road, then, I went into the New Cut
with them on a Saturday night. But there was
such crowding, and shoving, and shouting, that
I was kept under and sold only one cap. I
was very much nervoused before I went and
thought again — it was very foolish, I know —
`if I saw anybody from Essex,' for country people
seem to think all their friends in London are
making fortunes! Before I went my landlady
would treat me to a little drop of gin to give me
spirits, and `for luck,' but I think it made me
more nervoused. I very seldom taste any. And
John's very good that way. He takes his pint or
two every now and then, but I know where he
uses, and if it gets late I go for him and he comes
home. The next time I went to sell in the Cut
I got bold, for I knew I was doing nothing but
what was honest; I've sold caps, and millinery,
and laces, and artificial flowers, and such like ever
since. We've saved a little money now, which is
in the bank, thank God, but that's not done by
costering, or by my trade. But my husband buys
a poney every now and then, and grooms and
fattens it up well, and makes it quite another
thing, and so clears a pound or two; he once
cleared 3l. 15s. on it. We don't go to church or
chapel on a Sunday, we're so tired out after the
week's work. But John reads a tract that a young
lady leaves 'till he falls asleep over it."
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
[Description: 915EAF. Page 466.]
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
[Description: 915EAF. Page 467.]
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 A WIDOW, A STREET-SELLER.
A woman, apparently about 50, strong-built
and red-faced, speaking in a loud tone, and what
people of her class account a hearty manner, gave
me the following account. I can readily condense
it, for in her street career there there was nothing
very novel. She was the daughter of a coster-
monger, and she married a costermonger before
she was 20. On my hinting that sometimes
the marriage ceremony was not considered indis-
pensable, the good woman laughed and said,
"married, or as good, it's hall as one — but we
was married." The marriage was not one of unal-
loyed happiness, for the couple often wrangled
and occasionally fought. This was told to me
with some laughter, and with perfect good humour;
for the widow seemed interested to have a
listener. She did not, I feel confident, exaggerate
the merits of the deceased, nor, perhaps, his fail-
ings. He was the best judge of fish in the streets,
she said, and was the neatest hand in cutting it up,
or showing it off; he was not "a bad sort,"
and was very fond of his children. When sober
and at work he was a quiet fellow, without a
cross word for a whole morning, but when drunk,
which was far too often (unless very drunk, and
then he was silly), he went about tearing and
swearing "like one o'clock." But if he saw his
wife take but a glass or two, to do her good, he
went on like a madman, and as if he never
touched it himself. He never had nothing to
say to other women — if he had she would have
clawed their eyes out, and his'n too — he was as
good that way as any nobleman could be, and he
was a fine man to look at; and on a Sunday,
when he dressed hisself, he was beautiful. He
was never in a church in his life, and didn't
trouble hisself about such things; they was no
concern of his'n.
It may be thought that I have treated this
matter too lightly, but the foregoing is really the
substance, and certainly it is the tone, of the
widow's talk, which she poured forth freely, with-
out expressing wonder why any one, a perfect
stranger, cared to listen to such a history. She
needed but a few hints and leading questions to
make her talk on. Nor is this an uncommon
quality even among classes who would be shocked to
be classed, in any respect, with the Widowed Street-
Seller. Their own career, their own sayings and
doings, hopes and disappointments, alone interest
masses of people, and with the simplicity which not
seldom pertains to selfishness, they will readily talk
of all that interests themselves, as if it must neces-
sarily interest others. On the whole, though the
departed costermonger was greatly deplored by
his widow and family, they did very well without
him, and carry on the business to this day. He
died four or five years back.
I have no doubt this widow is a shrewd sales-
[Description: 915EAF. Page 468.]
live mack'rel, eight a shilling, mack'rel!" and at
other times, "Eight a bob, fine mack'rel, mack'rel,
eight a bob, eight a bob!" On my inquiring
as to the cause of this difference in her cries,
the fish-seller laughed and said, "I cries eight
a bob when I sees people as I thinks is likely
to like slang; to others I cries eight a shilling,
which no doubt is the right way of talking."
OF THE CHILDREN STREET-SELLERS OF
LONDON.
When we consider the spirit of emulation, of imita-
tion, of bravado, of opposition, of just or idle re-
sentment, among boys, according to their training,
companionship, natural disposition, and, above all,
home treatment, it seems most important to ascer-
tain how these feelings and inclinations are fostered
or stimulated by the examples of the free street-
life of other lads to be seen on every side. There
is no doubt that to a large class of boys, whose
parents are not in poverty, the young street ruffian
is a hero.
If this inquiry be important, as it unquestion-
ably is, concerning boys, how much more impor-
tant is it, when it includes the female children of
the streets; when it relates to the sex who, in all
relations of life, and in all grades of society, are
really the guardians of a people's virtue.
The investigation is, again, rendered more inte-
resting and more important, when it includes
those children who have known no guidance from
parent, master, or relative, but have been flung
into the streets through neglect, through vicious-
ness, or as outcasts from utter destitution.
Mixed with the children who really sell in the
streets, are the class who assume to sell that they
may have the better chance to steal, or the greater
facility to beg.
Before I classify what I consider to be the
causes which have driven children to a street
career, with all its hardening consequences, I may
point out that culpability cannot be imputed to
them at the commencement of their course of life.
They have been either untaught, mistaught, mal-
treated, neglected, regularly trained to vice, or
fairly turned into the streets to shift for them-
selves. The censure, then, is attributable to
parents, or those who should fill the place of
parents — the State, or society. The exceptions
to this culpability as regards parents are to be
found in the instances where a costermonger em-
ploys his children to aid him in his business
occupation, which the parents, in their ignorance
or prejudices, may account as good as any other,
and the youths thus become unfit, perhaps, for
any other than a scrambling street life. A second
exception may be where the children in a poor
family (as continually happens among the Irish in
London) must sell in the streets, that they may
eat in any place.
In the following details I shall consider all to
be children who are under fifteen years of age.
It is just beyond that age (or the age of puberty)
that, as our prison statistics and other returns
show, criminal dispositions are developed, "self-
will" becomes more imperious and headstrong,
that destructive propensity, or taste, which we term
the ruling passion or character of the individual
is educed, and the destiny of the human being,
especially when apart from the moulding and
well-directed care of parents or friends, is influ-
enced perhaps for life.
The Causes, then, which fill our streets with
children who either manifest. the keen and some-
times roguish propensity of a precocious trader,
the daring and adroitness of the thief, or the
loutish indifference of the mere dull vagabond,
content if he can only eat and sleep, I consider to
be these: —
1. The conduct of parents, masters, and mis-
tresses.2. The companionship and associations formed
in tender years.3. The employment of children by costermon-
gers and others who live by street traffic, and
the training of costermongers' children to a street
life.4. Orphanhood, friendlessness, and utter des-
titution.5. Vagrant dispositions and tastes on the part
of children, which cause them to be runaways.
After this I shall treat of (a) the pursuits of
the street-trading children; (b) their earnings;
(c) the causes or influences which have induced
children to adopt some especial branch of a street
life; (d) their state of education; (e) their morals,
religion, opinions, and conduct; (f) places and
character of dwellings; (g) diet; (h) amusements;
(i) clothing; (j) propensities.
Concerning cause 1, viz., "The conduct of
parents, masters, and mistresses," I should have
more to say were I treating of the juvenile crimi-
nals, instead of sellers in the streets. The brute
tyranny of parents, manifested in the wreaking
of any annoyances or disappointments they may
have endured, in the passionate beating and
cursing of their children, for trifling or for no
causes, is among the worst symptoms of a de-
praved nature. This conduct may be the most
common among the poor, for among them are
fewer conventional restraints; but it exists among
and debases other classes. Some parents only
exercise this tyranny in their fits of drunkenness,
and make that their plea in mitigation; but their
dispositions are then only the more undisguisedly
developed, and they would be equally unjust or
tyrannical when sober, but for some selfish fear
which checks them. A boy perhaps endures this
course of tyranny some time, and then finding it
increase he feels its further endurance intolerable,
and runs away. If he have no friends with whom
he can hope to find a shelter, the streets only are
open to him. He soon meets with comrades,
some of whom perhaps had been circumstanced
like himself, and, if not strongly disposed to idle-
ness and vicious indulgencies, goes through a
course of horse-holding, errand-running, parcel-
carrying, and such like, and so becomes, if honestly
or prudently inclined, a street-seller, beginning
with fuzees, or nuts, or some unexpensive stock.
The where to buy and the how to sell he will find
[Description: 915EAF. Page 469.]
he must sleep when he can pay for a bed.
When I was collecting information concerning
brace-selling I met with a youth of sixteen who
about two years previously had run away from
Birmingham, and made his way to London, with
2s. 6d. Although he earned something weekly, he
was so pinched and beaten by a step-mother (his
father was seldom at home except on Sunday)
that his life was miserable. This went on for
nearly a year, until the boy began to resist, and
one Saturday evening, when beaten as usual, he
struck in return, drawing blood from his step-
mother's face. The father came home before the
fray was well ended; listened to his wife's state-
ment, and would not listen to the boy's, and in
his turn chastised the lad mercilessly. In five
minutes after the boy, with aching bones and a
bitter spirit, left his father's house and made his
way to London, where he was then vending cheap
braces. This youth could neither read nor write,
and seemed to possess no quickness or intelli-
gence. The only thing of which he cared to talk
was his step-mother's treatment of him; all else
was a blank with him, in comparison; this was
the one burning recollection.
I may here observe, that I heard of several
instances of children having run away and adopted
a street life in consequence of the violence of step-
mothers far more than of step-fathers.
I cite the foregoing instance, as the boy's career
was exactly that I have described; but the reader
will remember, that in the many and curious nar-
ratives I have collected, how often the adult street-
seller has begun such a life by being a runaway
from domestic tyranny. Had this Birmingham
boy been less honest, or perhaps less dull, it
would have been far easier for him to have be-
come a thief than a street-trader. To the gangs
of young thieves, a new boy, who is not known to
the police is often (as a smart young pickpocket,
then known as the Cocksparrow, described it to
me) "a God-send."
My readers will remember that in the collected
statements of the street-folk, there are several
accounts of runaways, but they were generally
older than the age I have fixed, and it was neces-
sary to give an account of one who comes within
my classification of a child.
I did not hear of any girls who had run away
from their homes having become street-sellers
merely. They more generally fall into a course
of prostitution, or sometimes may be ostensibly
street-sellers as a means of accosting men, and,
perhaps, for an attractive pretence to the depraved,
that they are poor, innocent girls, struggling for
an honest penny. If they resort to the low
lodging-houses, where the sexes are lodged indis-
criminately, their ruin seems inevitable.
2. That the companionship and associations
formed in tender years lead many children to a
street life is so evident, that I may be brief on
the subject. There are few who are in the
habit of noting what they may observe of poor
children in the streets and quieter localities,
who have not seen little boys playing at marbles,
or gambling with halfpennies, farthings, or
buttons, with other lads, and who have laid down
their basket of nuts or oranges to take part in
the play. The young street-seller has probably
more halfpence at his command, or, at any rate,
in his possession, than his non-dealing playmates;
he is also in the undoubted possession of what
appears a large store of things for which poor boys
have generally a craving and a relish. Thus the
little itinerant trader is envied and imitated.
This attraction to a street career is very strong,
I have ascertained, among the neglected children
of the poor, when the parents are absent at their
work. On a Saturday morning, some little time
since, I was in a flagged court near Drury-lane,
a wretched place, which was full of children of all
ages. The parents were nearly all, I believe,
then at work, or "on the look out for a job," as
porters in Covent Garden-market, and the children
played in the court until their return. In one
corner was a group of four or five little boys gamb-
ling and squabbling for nuts, of which one of the
number was a vendor. A sharp-looking lad was
gazing enviously on, and I asked him to guide me
to the room of a man whom I wished to see. He
did so, and I gave him a penny. On my leaving
the court I found this boy the most eager of the
players, gambling with the penny I had given him.
I had occasion to return there a few hours after,
and the same lad was leaning against the wall,
with his hands in his pockets, as if suffering from
listlessness. He had had no luck with the nut covery,
he told me, but he hoped before long to sell nuts
himself. He did not know his age, but he
appeared to be about eleven. Only last week I
saw this same lad hawking a basket, very indif-
ferently stocked with oranges. He had raised a
shilling, he said, and the "Early Bird" (the nick-
name of a young street-seller) had put him up to
the way to lay it out. On my asking if his
father (a journeyman butcher) knew what he was
doing, he replied that so long as he didn't bother
his father he could do what he pleased, and the
more he kept out of his (the father's) way the
better he would be liked and treated.
The association of poor boys and girls with the
children of the costermongers, and of the Irish
fruit-sellers, who are employed in itinerant vend-
ing, is often productive of a strong degree of envy
on the part of unemployed little ones, who look
upon having the charge of a basket of fruit, to be
carried in any direction, as a species of independ-
ence.
3. "The employment of children by coster-
mongers, and others who live by street traffic;
and the training of costermongers' children to a
street life, is the ordinary means of increase among
the street-folk."
The children of the costermongers become ne-
cessarily, as I have already intimated, street-
dealers, and perhaps more innocently than in any
other manner, by being required, as soon as their
strength enables them, to assist their parents in
their work, or sell trifles, single-handed, for the
behoof of their parents. The child does but obey
his father, and the father does but rear the child
[Description: 915EAF. Page 470.]
This is the case particularly with the Irish, who
often have large families, and bring them with
them to London.
There are, moreover, a great number of boys,
"anybody's children," as I heard them called,
who are tempted and trained to pursue an open-
air traffic, through being engaged by costermon-
gers or small tradesmen to sell upon commission,
or, as it is termed, for "bunse." In the curious,
and almost in every instance novel, information
which I gave to the public concerning the largest
body of the street-sellers, the costermongers, this
word "bunse" (probably a corruption of bonus,
bone being the slang for good) first appeared in
print. The mode is this: a certain quantity of
saleable, and sometimes of not very saleable, com-
modities is given to a boy whom a costermonger
knows and perhaps employs, and it is arranged
that the young commission-agent is to get a par-
ticular sum for them, which must be paid to the
costermonger; I will say 3s., that being somewhere
about the maximum. For these articles the lad may
ask and obtain any price he can, and whatever he
obtains beyond the stipulated 3s. is his own profit
or "bunse." The remuneration thus accruing to
the boy-vendor of course varies very materially,
according to the season of the year, the nature of
the article, and the neighbourhood in which it
is hawked. Much also depends upon whether the
boy has a regular market for his commodities;
whether he has certain parties to whom he is
known and upon whom he can call to solicit cus-
tom; if he has, of course his facilities for disposing
of his stock in trade are much greater than in the
case of one who has only the chance of attracting
attention and obtaining custom by mere crying
and bawling "Penny a piece, Col-ly-flowers,"
"Five bunches a penny, Red-dish-es," and such
like. The Irish boys call this "having a back,"
an old Hibernian phrase formerly applied to a very
different subject and purpose.
Another cause of the abundance of street-
dealers among the boyish fraternity, whose
parents are unable or unwilling to support them,
is that some costers keep a lad as a regular
assistant, whose duty it is to pull the barrow of
his master about the streets, and assist him in
"crying" his wares. Sometimes the man and the
boy call out together, sometimes separately and
alternately, but mostly the boy alone has to do
this part of the work, the coster's voice being
generally rough and hoarse, while the shrill sound
of that of the boy re-echoes throughout the street
along which they slowly move, and is far more
likely to strike the ear, and consequently to
attract attention, than that of the man. This
mode of "practising the voice" is, however, per-
fectly ruinous to it, as in almost every case of this
description we find the natural tone completely
annihilated at a very early age, and a harsh,
hoarse, guttural, disagreeable mode of speak-
ing acquired. In addition to the costers there
are others who thus employ boys in the streets:
the hawkers of coal do so invariably, and the
milkmen — especially those who drive cows or have
a cart to carry the milk-pails in. Once in the
streets and surrounded with street-associates, the
boy soon becomes inured to this kind of life, and
when he leaves his first master, will frequently
start in some branch of costermongering for
himself, without seeking to obtain another con-
stant employment.
This mode of employing lads, and on the whole
perhaps they are fairly enough used by the coster-
mongers, and generally treated with great kind-
ness by the costers' wives or concubines, is, I am
inclined to think, the chief cause of the abund-
ance and even increase of the street-sellers of fish,
fruit, and vegetables.
4. To "orphanhood, friendlessness, and utter
destitution," the commerce of the streets owes a
considerable portion of its merchants. A child finds
himself or herself an orphan; the parents having
been miserably poor, he or she lives in a place
where street-folk abound; it seems the only road
to a meal and a bed, and the orphan "starts" with
a few lucifer-matches, boot-laces, nuts, or onions.
It is the same when a child, without being an or-
phan, is abandoned or neglected by the parents,
and, perhaps without any injunctions either for or
against such a course, is left to his or her own will
to sell or steal in the streets.
5. The vagrant dispositions and tastes of lads,
and, it may be, now and then somewhat of a reck-
less spirit of adventure, which in our days has far
fewer fields than it once had, is another cause why
a street-life is embraced. Lads have been known
to run away from even comfortable homes through
the mere spirit of restlessness; and sometimes
they have done so, but not perhaps under the age
of fifteen, for the unrestrained indulgence of licen-
tious passions. As this class of runaways, how-
ever, do not ordinarily settle into regular street-
sellers, but become pickpockets, or trade only
with a view to cloak their designs of theft, I
need not further allude to them under this head.
I now come to the second part of my subject,
the Pursuits, &c., of the children in street avoca-
tions.
As I have shown in my account of the women
street-sellers, there is no calling which this body
of juveniles monopolize, none of which they are
the sole possessors; but some are principally in
their hands, and there are others, again, to which
they rarely incline.
Among the wares sold by the boys and girls of
the streets are: — money-bags, lucifer-match boxes,
leather straps, belts, firewood (common, and also
"patent," that is, dipped into an inflammable
composition), fly-papers, a variety of fruits, espe-
cially nuts, oranges, and apples; onions, radishes,
water-cresses, cut flowers and lavender (mostly
sold by girls), sweet-briar, India rubber, garters,
and other little articles of the same material, in-
cluding elastic rings to encircle rolls of paper-
music, toys of the smaller kinds, cakes, steel pens
and penholders with glass handles, exhibition
medals and cards, gelatine cards, glass and other
cheap seals, brass watch-guards, chains, and rings;
small tin ware, nutmeg-graters, and other articles
[Description: 915EAF. Page 471.]
able; iron skewers, fuzees, shirt buttons, boot and
stay-laces, pins (and more rarely needles), cotton
bobbins, Christmasing (holly and other evergreens
at Christmas-tide), May-flowers, coat-studs, toy-pot-
tery, blackberries, groundsel and chickweed, and
clothes'-pegs.
There are also other things which children sell
temporarily, or rather in the season. This year I
saw lads selling wild birds'-nests with their eggs,
such as hedge-sparrows, minnows in small glass
globes, roots of the wild Early Orchis (Orchis
mascula), and such like things found only out of
town.
Independently of the vending of these articles,
there are many other ways of earning a penny
among the street boys: among them are found
— tumblers, mud-larks, water-jacks, Ethiopians,
ballad-singers, bagpipe boys, the variety of street
musicians (especially Italian boys with organs),
Billingsgate boys or young "roughs," Covent Gar-
den boys, porters, and shoeblacks (a class recently
increased by the Ragged School Brigade). A
great many lads are employed also in giving away
the cards and placards of advertising and puffing
tradesmen, and around the theatres are children
of both sexes (along with a few old people) offering
play-bills for sale, but this is an occupation less
pursued than formerly, as some managers sell their
own bills inside the house and do not allow any
to pass from the hands of the printer into those of
the former vendors. Again: amid the employ-
ments of this class may be mentioned — the going on
errands and carrying parcels for persons accident-
ally met with; holding horses; sweeping crossings
(but the best crossings are usually in the possession
of adults); carrying trunks for any railway tra-
veller to or from the terminus, and carrying them
from an omnibus when the passenger is not put
down at his exact destination. During the frosty
days of the winter and early spring, some of these
little fellows used to run along the foot-path —
Baker-street was a favourite place for this dis-
play — and keep pace with the omnibuses, not
merely by using their legs briskly, but by throw-
ing themselves every now and then on their hands
and progressing a few steps (so to speak) with
their feet in the air. This was done to attract
attention and obtain the preference if a job were
in prospect; done, too, in hopes of a halfpenny
being given the urchin for his agility. I looked
at the hands of one of these little fellows and the
fleshy parts of the palm were as hard as soling-
leather, as hard, indeed, as the soles of the child's
feet, for he was bare-footed. At the doors of the
theatres, and of public places generally, boys are
always in waiting to secure a cab from the stand,
their best harvest being when the night has
"turned out wet" after a fine day. Boys
wait for the same purpose, lounging all night,
and until the place closes, about the night-
houses, casinos, saloons, &c., and sometimes
without receiving a penny. There are, again,
the very many ways in which street boys
employed to "help" other people, when temporary
help is needed, as when a cabman must finish the
cleaning of his vehicle in a hurry, or when a
porter finds himself over-weighted in his truck.
Boys are, moreover, the common custodians of the
donkeys on which young ladies take invigorating
exercise in such places as Hampstead-heath and
Blackheath. At pigeon-shooting matches they are
in readiness to pick up the dead birds, and secure
the poor fluttering things which are "hard hit" by
the adventurous sportsman, without having been
killed. They have their share again in the pick-
ing of currants and gooseberries, the pottling of
strawberries, in weeding, &c., &c., and though
the younger children may be little employed in
haymaking, or in the more important labours of
the corn harvest, they have their shares, both with
and without the company of their parents, in the
"hopping." In fine there is no business carried
on to any extent in the streets, or in the open air,
but it will be found that boys have their portion.
Thus they are brought into contact with all classes;
another proof of what I have advanced touching
the importance of this subject.
It will be perceived that, under this head, I
have had to speak far more frequently of boys
than of girls, for the boy is far more the child of
the streets than is the girl. The female child can
do little but sell (when a livelihood is to be
gained without a recourse to immorality); the
boy can not only sell, but work.
The many ramifications of child-life and of
child-work in our teeming streets, which I have
just enumerated, render it difficult to arrive at a
very nice estimation of the earnings of the street
boys and girls. The gains of this week are not
necessarily the gains of the next; there is the
influence of the weather; there may be a larger
or a smaller number of hands "taking a turn" at
any particular calling this week than in its pre-
decessor; and, above all, there is that concate-
nation of circumstances, which street-sellers in-
clude in one expressive word — "luck." I mean
the opportunities to earn a few pence, which on
some occasions present themselves freely, and at
others do not occur at all. Such "luck," how-
ever, is more felt by the holders of horses, and
the class of waiters upon opportunity (so to speak),
than by those who depend upon trade.
I believe, however, both in consequence of
what I have observed, and from the concurrent
testimony of persons familiar with the child-life of
London streets, that the earnings of the children,
when they are healthful and active, are about the
same in the several capacities they exercise. The
waiter on opportunity, the lad "on the look-out
for a job," may wait and look out all day boot-
lessly, but in the evening some fortunate chance
may realize him "a whole tanner all in a lump."
In like manner, the water-cress girl may drudge
on from early morning until "cresses" are wanted
for tea, and, with "a connection," and a tolerably
regular demand, earn no more than the boy's 6d.,
and probably not so much.
One of the most profitable callings of the street-
child is in the sale of Christmasing, but that is
only for a very brief season; the most regular
[Description: 915EAF. Page 472.]
things as water-cresses, or any low-priced article
of daily consumption, wherever the youthful
vendor may be known.
I find it necessary to place the earnings of the
street-children higher than those of the aged and
infirm. The children are more active, more
persevering, and perhaps more impudent. They
are less deterred by the weather, and can endure
more fatigue in walking long distances than old
people. This, however, relates to the boys more
especially, some of whom are very sturdy fellows.
The oranges which the street-children now
vend at two a-penny, leave them a profit of 4d.
in the shilling. To take 1s. 6d. with a profit of
6d. is a fair day's work; to take 1s. with a profit
of 4d. is a poor day's work. The dozen bunches
of cut-flowers which a girl will sell on an average
day at 1d. a bunch, cost her 6d., that sum being
also her profit. These things supply, I think, a
fair criterion. The children's profits may be 6d.
a day, and including Sunday trade, 3s. 6d. a
week; but with the drawbacks of bad weather,
they cannot be computed at more than 2s. 6d.
a week the year through. The boys may earn
2d. or 3d. a week on an average more than the
girls, except in such things (which I shall specify
under the next head) as seem more particularly
suited for female traffic.
Of the causes which influence children to follow
this or that course of business when a street career
has been their choice or their lot, I have little to
say. It seems quite a matter of chance, even
where a preference may exist. A runaway lad
meets with a comrade who perhaps sells fuzees,
and he accordingly begins on fuzees. One youth,
of whom I have given an account (but he was not
of child's estate), began his street career on fly-
papers. When children are sent into the streets
to sell on account of their parents, they, of course,
vend just what their parents have supplied to
them. If "on their own hook," they usually
commence their street career on what it is easiest
to buy and easiest to sell; a few nuts or oranges
bought in Duke's-place, lucifer-boxes, or small
wares. As their experience increases they may
become general street-sellers. The duller sort
will continue to carry on the trades that any one
with ordinary lungs and muscles can pursue.
"All a fellow wants to know to sell potatoes,"
said a master street-seller to me, "is to tell how
many tanners make a bob, and how many yenaps
a tauner." [IIow many sixpences make a shil-
ling, and how many pence a sixpence.] The
smarter and bolder lads ripen into patterers, or
street-performers, or fall into theft. For the
class of adventurous runaways, the patterer's, or,
rather, the paper-working patterer's life, with its
alternations of town and country, fairs and hang-
ings, the bustle of race-grounds and the stillness
of a village, has great attractions. To a pattering
and chaunting career, moreover, there is the stimu-
lus of that love of approbation and of admiration,
as strong among the often penniless professionals
of the streets as on the boards of the opera house.
Perhaps there is not a child of either sex, now
a street-seller, who would not to-morrow, if they
thought they could clear a penny or two a day
more by it, quit their baskets of oranges and sell
candle-ends, or old bones, or anything. In a
street career, and most especially when united
with a lodging-house existence, there is no dainti-
ness of the senses and no exercise of the tastes:
the question is not "What do I like best to sell?"
but "What is likely to pay me best?" This can-
not be wondered at; for if a child earn but 5d. a
day on apples, and can make 6d. on onions, its
income is increased by 20 per cent.
The trades which I have specified as in the
hands of street-children are carried on by both
sexes. I do not know that even the stock in
trade which most taxes the strength is more a
boy's than a girl's pursuit. A basket of oranges
or of apples is among the heaviest of all the
stocks hawked by children; and in those pursuits
there are certainly as many, or rather more, girls
than boys. Such articles as fly-papers, money-
bags, tins, fuzees, and Christmasing, are chiefly
the boys' sale; cut-flowers, lavender, water-cresses,
and small wares, are more within the trading of
the girls.
The callings with which children do not meddle
are those which require "patter." Some of the
boys very glibly announce their wares, and may be
profuse now and then in commendations of their
quality, cheapness, and superiority, but it requires
a longer experience to patter according to the
appreciation of a perhaps critical street audience.
No child, for instance, ventures upon the sale of
grease-removing compositions, corn-salve, or the
"Trial and Execution of Thomas Drory," with an
"Affecting Copy of Werses."
A gentleman remarked to me that it was rather
curious that boys' playthings, such as marbles
and tops, were not hawked by street juveniles,
who might be very well able to recommend them.
I do not remember to have seen any such things
vended by children.
Education is, as far as I have been able to
ascertain, more widely extended among street
children than it was twelve or fifteen years ago.
The difficulty in arriving at any conclusion on
such a subject is owing to the inability to find any
one who knew, or could even form a tolerably
accurate judgment of what was the state of educa-
tion among these juveniles even twelve years
back.
Perhaps it may be sufficiently correct to say that
among a given number of street children, where, a
dozen years ago, you met twenty who could read,
you will now meet upwards of thirty. Of sixteen
children, none apparently fifteen years of age,
whom I questioned on the subject, nine admitted
that they could not read; the other seven declared
that they could, but three annexed to the avowal
the qualifying words — "a little." Ten were boys
and six were girls, and I spoke to them pro-
miscuously as I met them in the street. Two were
Irish lads, who were "working" oranges in com-
pany, and the bigger answered — "Shure, thin, we
[Description: 915EAF. Page 473.]
that they could, but in all probability, had either
of those urchins thought he would be a penny the
better by it, he would have professed, to a per-
fect stranger, that he had a knowledge of algebra.
"Yis, sir, I do, thin," would very likely be his
response to any such inquiry; and when told he
could not possibly know anything about it, he
would answer, "Arrah, thin, but I didn't under-
stand your honour."
To the Ragged Schools is, in all probability,
owing this extension of the ability to read.
It appears that the attendance of the street
children at the Ragged School is most uncertain;
as, indeed, must necessarily be the case where the
whole time of the lad is devoted to obtaining a
subsistence. From the best information I can
collect, it appears that the average attendance of
these boys at these schools does not exceed two
hours per week, so that the amount of education
thus acquired, if education it may be called, must
necessarily be scanty in the extreme; and is
frequently forgotten as soon as learned.
With many of these little traders a natural
shrewdness compensates in some measure for the
deficiency of education, and enables them to carry
on their variety of trades with readiness and dex-
terity, and sometimes with exactness. One boy
with whom I had a conversation, told me that
he never made any mistake about the "coppers,"
although, as I subsequently discovered, he had no
notion at all of arithmetic beyond the capability
of counting how many pieces of coin he had, and
how much copper money was required to make a
"tanner" or a "bob." This boy vended coat-
studs: he had also some metal collars for dogs, or
as he said, "for cats aither." These articles he
purchased at the same shop in Houndsditch,
where "there was a wonderful lot of other things
to be had, on'y some on 'em cost more money."
In speaking of money, the slang phrases are
constantly used by the street lads; thus a six-
pence is a "tanner;" a shilling a "bob," or a
hog;" a crown is "a bull;" a half-crown "a half
bull," &c. Little, as a modern writer has re-
marked, do the persons using these phrases know
of their remote and somewhat classical origin,
which may, indeed, be traced to the period ante-
cedent to that when monarchs monopolized the
surface of coined money with their own images
and superscriptions. They are identical with the
very name of money among the early Romans,
which was pecunia, from pecus, a flock. The
collections of coin dealers amply show, that the
figure of a hog was anciently placed on a small
silver coin, and that that of a bull decorated
larger ones of the same metal: these coins were
frequently deeply crossed on the reverse: this was
for the convenience of easily breaking them into
two or more pieces, should the bargain for which
they were employed require it, and the parties
making it had no smaller change handy to com-
plete the transaction. Thus we find that the
"half-bull" of the itinerant street-seller or "tra-
veller," so far from being a phrase of modern in-
vention, as is generally supposed, is in point of
fact referable to an era extremely remote. Numerous
other instances might be given of the classical
origin of many of the flash or slang words used by
these people.
I now give the answers I received from two
boys. The first, his mother told me, was the
best scholar at his school when he was there, and
before he had to help her in street sale. He was
a pale, and not at all forward boy, of thirteen or
fourteen, and did not appear much to admire being
questioned. He had not been to a Ragged School,
but to an "academy" kept by an old man. He did
not know what the weekly charge was, but when
father was living (he died last autumn) the school-
master used to take it out in vegetables. Father
was a costermonger; mother minded all about his
schooling, and master often said she behaved to
him like a lady. "God," this child told me, "was
our Heavenly Father, and the maker of all
things; he knew everything and everybody; he
knew people's thoughts and every sin they com-
mitted if no one else knew it. His was the king-
dom and the power, and the glory, for ever and
ever, Amen. Jesus Christ was our Lord and
Saviour; he was the son of God, and was cru-
cified for our sins. He was a God himself."
[The child understood next to nothing of the
doctrine of the Trinity, and I did not press him.]
"The Scriptures, which were the Bible and Tes-
tament, were the Word of God, and contained
nothing but what was good and true. If a boy lied,
or stole, or committed sins," he said, "he would
be punished in the next world, which endured
for ever and ever, Amen. It was only after
death, when it was too late to repent, that people
went to the next world. He attended chapel,
sometimes."
As to mundane matters, the boy told me that
Victoria was Queen of Great Britain and Ireland.
She was born May 24, 1819, and succeeded his
late Majesty, King William IV., July 20, 1837.
She was married to his Royal Highness Prince
Albert, &c., &c. France was a different country
to this: he had heard there was no king or queen
there, but didn't understand about it. You
couldn't go to France by land, no more than you
could to Ireland. Didn't know anything of the
old times in history; hadn't been told. Had
heard of the battle of Waterloo; the English
licked. Had heard of the battle of Trafalgar,
and of Lord Nelson; didn't know much about
him; but there was his pillar at Charing-cross,
just by the candlesticks (fountains). When
I spoke of astronomy, the boy at once told me he
knew nothing about it. He had heard that the
earth went round the sun, but from what he'd
noticed, shouldn't have thought it. He didn't
think that the sun went round the earth, it seemed
to go more sideways. Would like to read more,
if he had time, but he had a few books, and there
was hundreds not so well off as he was.
I am far from undervaluing, indeed I would not
indulge in an approach to a scoff, at the extent of
this boy's knowledge. Many a man who piques
himself on the plenitude of his breeches' pocket,
and who attributes his success in life to the fulness
[Description: 915EAF. Page 474.]
Man, and God, than this poor street child.
Another boy, perhaps a few months older, gave
me his notions of men and things. He was a
thick-limbed, red-cheeked fellow; answered very
freely, and sometimes, when I could not help
laughing at his replies, laughed loudly himself, as
if he entered into the joke.
Yes, he had heer'd of God who made the
world. Couldn't exactly recollec' when he'd
heer'd on him, but he had, most sarten-ly. Didn't
know when the world was made, or how anybody
could do it. It must have taken a long time. It
was afore his time, "or yourn either, sir."
Knew there was a book called the Bible; didn't
know what it was about; didn't mind to know;
knew of such a book to a sartinty, because a
young 'oman took one to pop (pawn) for an old
'oman what was on the spree — a bran new 'un — but
the cove wouldn't have it, and the old 'oman said he
might be d — d. Never heer'd tell on the deluge;
of the world having been drownded; it couldn't,
for there wasn't water enough to do it. He
weren't a going to fret hisself for such things as
that. Didn't know what happened to people after
death, only that they was buried. Had seen a
dead body laid out; was a little afeared at first;
poor Dick looked so different, and when you
touched his face, he was so cold! oh, so cold!
Had heer'd on another world; wouldn't mind if
he was there hisself, if he could do better, for
things was often queer here. Had heered on it
from a tailor — such a clever cove, a stunner — as
went to 'Straliar (Australia), and heer'd him say
he was going into another world. Had never
heer'd of France, but had heer'd of Frenchmen;
there wasn't half a quarter so many on 'em as of
Italians, with their earrings like flash gals.
Didn't dislike foreigners, for he never saw none.
What was they? Had heer'd of Ireland. Didn't
know where it was, but it couldn't be very far,
or such lots wouldn't come from there to London.
Should say they walked it, aye, every bit of the
way, for he'd seen them come in, all covered with
dust. Had heer'd of people going to sea, and had
seen the ships in the river, but didn't know nothing
about it, for he was very seldom that way. The sun
was made of fire, or it wouldn't make you feel so
warm. The stars was fire, too, or they wouldn't
shine. They didn't make it warm, they was too
small. Didn't know any use they was of. Didn't
know how far they was off; a jolly lot higher than
the gas lights some on 'em was. Was never in a
church; had heer'd they worshipped God there;
didn't know how it was done; had heer'd sing-
ing and playing inside when he'd passed; never
was there, for he had'nt no togs to go in, and
wouldn't be let in among such swells as he had
seen coming out. Was a ignorant chap, for he'd
never been to school, but was up to many a move,
and didn't do bad. Mother said he would make
his fortin yet.
Had heer'd of the Duke of Wellington; he
was Old Nosey; didn't think he ever seed him,
but had seed his statty. Hadn't heer'd of the
battle of Waterloo, nor who it was atween; once
lived in Webber-row, Waterloo-road. Though he
had heerd speak of Buonaparte; didn't know
what he was; thought he had heer'd of Shake-
speare, but didn't know whether he was alive or
dead, and didn't care. A man with something like
that name kept a dolly and did stunning; but he
was sich a hard cove that if he was dead it
wouldn't matter. Had seen the Queen, but didn't
recollec' her name just at the minute; oh! yes,
Wictoria and Albert. Had no notion what the
Queen had to do. Should think she hadn't such
power [he had first to ask me what `power' was]
as the Lord Mayor, or as Mr. Norton as was the
Lambeth beak, and perhaps is still. Was never
once before a beak and didn't want to. Hated
the crushers; what business had they to interfere
with him if he was only resting his basket in a
street? Had been once to the Wick, and once to
the Bower: liked tumbling better; he meant to
have a little pleasure when the peas came in.
The knowledge and the ignorance of these two
striplings represent that of street children gene-
rally. Those who may have run away from a
good school, or a better sort of home as far as
means constitute such betterness, of course form
exceptions. So do the utterly stupid.
The Morals, Religion, and Opinions of the
street-trading children are the next topic. Their
business morals have been indicated in the course
of my former statements, and in the general tone
of the remarks and conversation of street-sellers.
As traders their morals may be lax enough.
They give short weight, and they give short mea-
sure; they prick the juice out of oranges; and
brush up old figs to declare they're new. Their
silk braces are cotton, their buck-leather braces
are wash-leather, their sponge is often rotten, and
their salves and cures quackeries.
Speak to any one of the quicker-witted street-
sellers on the subject, and though he may be
unable to deny that his brother traders are guilty
of these short-comings, he will justify them all
by the example of shopkeepers. One man, espe-
cially, with whom I have more than once con-
versed on the subject, broadly asserts that as a
whole the streets are in all matters of business
honester than the shops. "It ain't we," runs
the purport of his remarks, "as makes coffee out
of sham chickory; it ain't we as makes cigars out
of rhubarb leaves; we don't make duffers handker-
chiefs, nor weave cotton things and call them silk.
If we quacks a bit, does we make fortins by it as
shopkeepers does with their ointments and pills!
If we give slang weights, how many rich shop-
keepers is fined for that there? And how many's
never found out? And when one on 'em's fined,
why he calculates how much he's into pocket,
between what he's made by slanging, and what
he's been fined, and on he goes again. He didn't
know that there ever was short weight given in
his shop: not he! No more do we at our stalls
or barrows! Who 'dulterates the beer? Who
makes old tea-leaves into new? Who grinds rice
among pepper? And as for smuggling — but nobody
thinks there's any harm in buying smuggled
things. What we does is like that pencil you're
[Description: 915EAF. Page 475.]
rich people does. O, don't tell me, sir, a gentle-
man like you that sees so much of what's going on,
must know we're better than the shopkeepers are."
To remarks such as these I have nothing to
answer. It would be idle to point out to such
casuists, that the commission of one wrong can
never justify another. The ignorant reverse the
doctrine of right, and live, not by rule, but by
example. I have unsparingly exposed the
rogueries and trickeries of the street people, and it
is but fair that one of them should be heard in
explanation, if not in justification. The trade
ethics of the adult street-folk are also those of
the juveniles, so on this subject I need dwell no
longer.
What I have said of the religion of the women
street-sellers applies with equal truth to the
children. Their religious feelings are generally
formed for them by their parents, especially their
mothers. If the children have no such direction,
then they have no religion. I did not question
the street-seller before quoted on this subject of
the want of the Christian spirit among his fra-
ternity, old or young, or he would at once have
asked me, in substance, to tell him in what class
of society the real Christian spirit was to be found?
As to the opinions of the street-children I can
say little. For the most part they have formed
no opinions of anything beyond what affects their
daily struggles for bread. Of politics such
children can know nothing. If they are any-
thing, they are Chartists in feeling, and are in
general honest haters of the police and of most
constituted authorities, whom they often confound
with the police officer. As to their opinions
of the claims of friendship, and of the duty of
assisting one another, I believe these children feel
and understand nothing about such matters. The
hard struggles of their lives, and the little sym-
pathy they meet with, make them selfish. There
may be companionship among them, but no
friendship, and this applies, I think, alike to boys
and girls. The boy's opinion of the girl seems to
be that she is made to help him, or to supply
gratification to his passions.
There is yet a difficult inquiry, — as to the
opinions which are formed by the young females
reared to a street-life. I fear that those opinions are
not, and cannot be powerfully swayed in favour of
chastity, especially if the street-girl have the quick-
ness to perceive that marriage is not much honoured
among the most numerous body of street-folk. If she
have not the quickness to understand this, then her
ignorance is in itself most dangerous to her virtue.
She may hear, too, expressions of an opinion that
"going to church to be wed" is only to put money
into the clergyman's, or as these people say the
"parson's," pocket. Without the watchful care
of the mother, the poor girl may form an illicit
connection, with little or no knowledge that she is
doing wrong; and perhaps a kind and indulgent
mother may be herself but a concubine, feeling
little respect for a ceremony she did not scruple to
dispense with. To such opinions, however, the
Irish furnish the exception.
The Dwelling-places of the street-children are
in the same localities as I specified regarding the
women. Those who reside with their parents or
employers sleep usually in the same room with
them, and sometimes in the same bed. Nearly
the whole of those, however, who support them-
selves by street-trade live, or rather sleep, in the
lodging-houses. It is the same with those who live
by street-vagrancy or begging, or by street-theft;
and for this lazy or dishonest class of children
the worst description of lodging-houses have the
strongest attractions, as they meet continually with
"tramps" from the country, and keep up a con-
stant current of scheming and excitement.
It seems somewhat curious that, considering the
filth and noisomeness of some of these lodging-
houses, the children who are inmates suffer only
the average extent of sickness and mortality com-
mon to the districts crammed with the poor. Per-
haps it may be accounted for by the circumstance
of their being early risers, and their being in the
open air all day, so that they are fatigued at the
close of the day, and their sleep is deep and un-
broken. I was assured by a well-educated man,
who was compelled to resort to such places, that
he has seen children sleep most profoundly in a
lodging-house throughout a loud and long-continued
disturbance. Many street-children who are either
"alone in the world," or afraid to return home
after a bad day's sale, sleep in the markets or
under the dry arches.
There are many other lads who, being unable
to pay the 1d., 2d., or 3d. demanded, in pre-
payment, by the lodging-house keepers, pass the
night in the streets, wherever shelter may be
attainable. The number of outcast boys and girls
who sleep in and about the purlieus of Covent
Garden-market each night, especially during the
summer months, has been computed variously, and
no doubt differs according to circumstances; but
those with whom I have spoken upon the sub-
ject, and who of all others are most likely to
know, consider the average to be upwards of
200.
The Diet of the street-children is in some
cases an alternation of surfeit and inanition, more
especially that of the stripling who is "on his
own hook." If money be unexpectedly attained,
a boy will gorge himself with such dainties as he
loves; if he earn no money, he will fast all day
patiently enough, perhaps drinking profusely of
water. A cake-seller told me that a little while
before I saw him a lad of twelve or so had con-
sumed a shilling's worth of cakes and pastry, as
he had got a shilling by "fiddling;" not, be it
understood, by the exercise of any musical skill,
for "fiddling," among the initiated, means the
holding of horses, or the performing of any odd
jobs.
Of these cakes and pastry — the cakes being
from two to twelve a penny, and the pastry, tarts,
and "Coventrys" (three-cornered tarts) two a penny
— the street-urchins are very fond. To me they
seemed to possess no recommendation either to the
nose or the palate. The "strong" flavour of
[Description: 915EAF. Page 476.]
to the palate of an itinerant youth, as is the high
gout of the grouse or the woodcock to the fashion-
able epicure. In this respect, as in others which
I have pointed out, the "extremes" of society
"meet."
These remarks apply far more to the male than
to the female children. Some of the street-boys
will walk a considerable distance, when they are
in funds, to buy pastry of the Jew-boys in the
Minories, Houndsditch, and Whitechapel; those
keen traders being reputed, and no doubt with
truth, to supply the best cakes and pastry of any.
A more staple article of diet, which yet partakes
of the character of a dainty, is in great demand by
the class I treat of — pudding. A halfpenny or
a penny-worth of backed plum, boiled plum (or
plum dough), currant or plum batter (batter-
pudding studded with raisins), is often a dinner.
This pudding is almost always bought in the shops;
indeed, in a street apparatus there could hardly
be the necessary heat diffused over the surface
required; and as I have told of a distance being
travelled to buy pastry of the Jew-boys, so is it
traversed to buy pudding at the best shops. The
proprietor of one of those shops, upon whom I
called to make inquiries, told me that he sold
about 300 pennyworths of pudding in a day. Two-
thirds of this quantity he sold to juveniles
under fifteen years of age; but he hadn't no-
ticed particularly, and so could only guess. This
man, when he understood the object of my
inquiry, insisted upon my tasting his "batter,"
which really was very good, and tasted — I do not
know how otherwise to describe it — honest. His
profits were not large, he said, and judging from
the size and quality of his oblong halfpenny and
pennyworth's of batter pudding, I have no doubt
he stated the fact. "There's many a poor man
and woman," he said, "aye, sir, and some that
you would think from their appearance might go
to an eating-house to dine, make a meal off my
pudding, as well as the street little ones. The
boys are often tiresome: `Master,' they'll say,
`can't you give us a plummier bit than this?' or,
`Is it just up? I likes it 'ot, all 'ot.' "
The "baked tatur," from the street-dealer's can
more frequently than from the shops, is another
enjoyable portion of the street child's diet. Of
the sale to the juvenile population of pickled
whelks, stewed eels, oysters, boiled meat puddings,
and other articles of street traffic, I have spoken
under their respective heads.
The Irish children who live with their parents
fare as the parents fare. If very poor, or if bent
upon saving for some purpose, their diet is tea and
bread and butter, or bread without butter. If not
so very poor, still tea, &c., but sometimes with a
little fish, and sometimes with a piece of meat on
Sundays; but the Sunday's meat is more common
among the poor English than the poor Irish street-
traders; indeed the English street-sellers generally
"live better" than the Irish. The coster-boys
often fare well and abundantly.
The children living in the lodging-houses, I
am informed, generally, partake only of such
meals as they can procure abroad. Sometimes of
a night they may partake of the cheap beef or
mutton, purveyed by some inmate who has been
"lifting flesh" (stealing meat) or "sawney"
(bacon). Vegetables, excepting the baked potato,
they rarely taste. Of animal food, perhaps, they
partake more of bacon, and relish it the most.
Drinking is not, from what I can learn, common
among the street boys. The thieves are generally
sober fellows, and of the others, when they are
"in luck," a half-pint of beer, to relish the bread
and saveloy of the dinner, and a pennyworth of
gin "to keep the cold out," are often the extent
of the potations. The exceptions are among the
ignorant coster-lads, who when they have been
prosperous in their "bunse," drink, and ape the
vices of men. The girls, I am told, are generally
fonder of gin than the boys. Elderwine and
gingerbeer are less popular among children than
they used to be. Many of the lads smoke.
The Amusements of the street-children are such
as I have described in my account of the coster-
mongers, but in a moderate degree, as those who
partake with the greatest zest of such amusements
as the Penny Gaff (penny theatre) and the Two-
penny Hop (dance) are more advanced in years.
Many of the Penny Gaffs, however, since I last
wrote on the subject, have been suppressed, and
the Twopenny Hops are not half so frequent as
they were five or six years back. The Jew-boys
of the streets play at draughts or dominoes in
coffee-shops which they frequent; in one in the
London-road at which I had occasion to call were
eight of these urchins thus occupied; and they
play for money or its equivalent, but these
sedentary games obtain little among the other and
more restless street-lads. I believe that not one-
half of them "know the cards," but they are fond
of gambling at pitch and toss, for halfpennies or
farthings.
The Clothing of the street-children, however
it may vary in texture, fashion, and colour, has
one pervading characteristic — it is never made
for the wearers. The exceptions to this rule
seem to be those, when a child has run away and
retains, through good fortune or natural acuteness,
the superior attire he wore before he made the
choice — if choice he had — of a street life; and
where the pride of a mother whose costermonger
husband is "getting on," clothes little Jack or
Bill in a new Sunday suit. Even then the suit
is more likely to be bought ready-made than
"made to measure," nor is it worn in business
hours until the gloss of novelty has departed.
The boys and girls wear every variety of cloth-
ing; it is often begged, but if bought is bought
from the fusty stocks of old clothes in Petticoat
and Rosemary-lanes. These rags are worn by the
children as long as they will hold, or can be tied
or pinned together, and when they drop off from
continued wear, from dirt, and from the ravages
of vermin, the child sets his wits to work to
procure more. One mode of obtaining a fresh
supply is far less available than it was three or
four years back. This was for the lads to denude
[Description: 915EAF. Page 477.]
the casual-ward of a workhouse, as it were com-
pel the parish-officers to provide them with fresh
apparel.
This mode may be successful in parts of the
country still, but it is not so, or to a very limited
extent, in town. The largest, and what was ac-
counted by the vagrants the most liberal, of all
the casual wards of the metropolitan workhouses,
that of Marylebone, has been closed above two
years. So numerous were the applicants for ad-
mission, and so popular among the vagrants was
Marylebone workhouse, that a fever resulted, and
attacked that large establishment. It was not
uncommon for the Irish who trudged up from
Liverpool, to be advised by some London vagrant
whom they met, to go at once, when they reached
the capital, to Marylebone workhouse, and that
the Irishman might not forget a name that was
new to him, his friendly adviser would write it
down for him, and a troop of poor wretched Irish
children, with parents as wretched, would go to
Marylebone workhouse, and in their ignorance or
simplicity, present the address which had been
given to them, as if it were a regular order for
admission! Boys have sometimes committed of-
fences that they might get into prison, and as
they contrived that their apparel should be unfit
for purposes of decency, or perhaps their rags had
become unfit to wear, they could not be sent
naked into the streets again, and so had clothing
given to them. A shirt will be worn by one of
those wretched urchins, without washing, until it
falls asunder, and many have no shirts. The
girls are on the whole less ragged than the boys,
the most disgusting parts of their persons or ap-
parel — I speak here more of the vagrant or the
mixed vagrant trading and selling girl (often a
child prostitute) than of the regular street-seller —
the worst particular of these girls' appearance, I
repeat, is in their foul and matted hair, which
looks as if it would defy sponge, comb, and brush
to purify it, and in the broken and filthy boots
and stockings, which they seem never to button or
to garter.
The Propensities of the street-children are
the last division of my inquiry, and an ample
field is presented, alike for wonder, disgust, pity,
hope, and regret.
Perhaps the most remarkable characteristic of
these wretched children is their extraordinary
licentiousness. Nothing can well exceed the ex-
treme animal fondness for the opposite sex which
prevails amongst them; some rather singular
circumstances connected with this subject have
come to my knowledge, and from these facts it
would appear that the age of puberty, or some-
thing closely resembling it, may be attained at a
much less numerical amount of years than that at
which most writers upon the human species have
hitherto fixed it. Probably such circumstances as
the promiscuous sleeping together of both sexes,
the example of the older persons indulging in the
grossest immorality in the presence of the young,
and the use of obscene expressions, may tend to
produce or force an unnatural precocity, a pre-
cocity sure to undermine health and shorten life.
Jealousy is another characteristic of these children,
and perhaps less among the girls than the boys.
Upon the most trivial offence in this respect, or
on the suspicion of an offence, the "gals" are
sure to be beaten cruelly and savagely by their
"chaps." This appears to be a very common case.
The details of filthiness and of all uncleanness
which I gave in a recent number as things of
course in certain lodging-houses, render it unne-
cessary to dwell longer upon the subject, and
it is one from which I willingly turn to other
matters.
In addition to the licentious, the vagabond pro-
pensities of this class are very striking. As soon
as the warm weather commences, boys and girls,
but more especially boys, leave the town in shoals,
traversing the country in every direction; some
furnished with trifling articles (such as I have
already enumerated) to sell, and others to beg-
ging, lurking, or thieving. It is not the street-
sellers who so much resort to the tramp, as those
who are devoid of the commonest notions of
honesty; a quality these young vagrants some-
times respect when in fear of a gaol, and the
hard work with which such a place is identified
in their minds — and to which, with the peculiar
idiosyncrasy of a roving race, they have an insu-
perable objection.
I have met with boys and girls, however, to
whom a gaol had no terrors, and to whom, when
in prison, there was only one dread, and that a
common one among the ignorant, whether with or
without any sense of religion — superstition. "I
lay in prison of a night, sir," said a boy who was
generally among the briskest of his class, "and
think I shall see things." The "things" repre-
sent the vague fears which many, not naturally
stupid, but untaught or ill-taught persons, enter-
tain in the dark. A girl, a perfect termagant in
the breaking of windows and such like offences,
told me something of the same kind. She spoke
well of the treatment she experienced in prison,
and seemed to have a liking for the matron and
officials; her conduct there was quiet and respectful.
I believe she was not addicted to drink.
Many of the girls, as well as the boys, of course
trade as they "tramp." They often sell, both in
the country and in town, little necklaces, com-
posed of red berries strung together upon thick
thread, for dolls and children: but although I
have asked several of them, I have never yet
found one who collected the berries and made the
necklaces themselves; neither have I met with a
single instance in which the girl vendors knew
the name of the berries thus used, nor indeed
even that they were berries. The invariable re-
ply to my questions upon this point has been that
they "are called necklaces;" that "they are just
as they sells 'em to us;" that they "don't know
whether they are made or whether they grow;"
and in most cases, that they "gets them in Lon-
don, by Shoreditch;" although in one case a little
brown-complexioned girl, with bright sparkling
eyes, said that "she got them from the gipsies."
[Description: 915EAF. Page 478.]
that she was rather superior in intellect to most
of her class; but I soon found that she was not a
whit above the others, unless, indeed, it were in
the possession of the quality of cunning.
Some of the boys, on their country excursions,
trade in dominoes. They carry a variety of
boxes, each differing in size and varying accord-
ingly in price: the lowest-priced boxes are
mostly 6d. each (sometimes 4d., or even 3d.), the
highest 1s. An informant told me that these
boxes are charged to him at the rate of 20 to 25
per cent. less; but if, as is commonly the case, he
could take a number at a time, he would have
them at a smaller price still. They are very
rudely made, and soon fall to pieces, unless
handled with extreme care. Most of the boys
who vend this article play at the game them-
selves, and some with skill; but in every case,
I believe, there is a willingness to cheat, or
take advantage, which is hardly disguised; one
boy told me candidly that those who make the
most money are considered to be the cleverest,
whether by selling or cheating, or both, at the
game; nor can it be said that this estimation of
cleverness is peculiar to these children.
At this season of the year great numbers of the
street-children attend the races in different parts
of the country, more especially at those in the
vicinity of a large town. The race-course of Wolver-
hampton, for instance, is usually thronged with
them during the period of the sport. While taking
these perigrinations they sometimes sleep in the
low lodging-houses with which most of our pro-
vincial towns abound: frequently "skipper it" in
the open air, when the weather is fine and warm,
and occasionally in barns or outhouses attached to
farms and cottages. Sometimes they travel in
couples — a boy and a girl, or two boys or two
girls; but the latter is not so common a case as
either of the former. It is rare that more than
two may be met in company with each other,
except, indeed, of a night, and then they usually
herd together in numbers. The boys who carry
dominoes sometimes, also, have a sheet of paper
for sale, on which is rudely printed a representa-
tion of a draught-board and men — the latter of
which are of two colours (black and white) and
may be cut out with a pair of scissors; thus form-
ing a ready means of playing a game so popular
in rustic places. These sheets of paper are sold
(if no more can be got for them) at a penny each.
The boy who showed them to me said he gave
a halfpenny a piece for them, or 6d. for fifteen.
He said he always bought them in London, and
that he did not know any other place to get them
at, nor had "ever heard any talk of their being
bought nowhere else."
The extraordinary lasciviousness of this class
which I have already mentioned, appears to con-
tinue to mark their character during their vaga-
bondizing career in the country as fully as in
town; indeed, an informant, upon whom I think
I may rely, says, that the nightly scenes of youth-
ful or even childish profligacy in the low lodging-
houses of the small provincial towns quite equal
— even if they do not exceed — those which may
be witnessed in the metropolis itself. Towards
the approach of winter these children (like the
vagrants of an older growth) advance towards
London; some remain in the larger towns, such as
Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield,
&c., but the greater proportion appear to return
to the metropolis, where they resume the life they
had previously led, anything but improved in
education, morals, manners, or social position
generally, by their summer's excursion.
The language spoken by this rambling class is
peculiar in its construction: it consists of an odd
medley of cockneyfied English, rude provincial-
isms, and a large proportion of the slang commonly
used by gipsies and other "travellers," in con-
veying their ideas to those whom they wish to
purchase their commodities.
Among the propensities of the street-boys I do
not think that pugnacity, or a fondness, or even a
great readiness, for fighting, is a predominant
element. Gambling and thieving may be rife
among a class of these poor wretches; and it may
not unfrequently happen that force is resorted to
by one boy bigger than another to obtain the
halfpence of which the smaller child is known to
be possessed. Thus quarrels among them are very
frequent, but they rarely lead to fighting. Even
in the full swing and fury of their jealousy, it
does not appear that these boys attack the object
of their suspicions, but prefer the less hazardous
course of chastising the delinquent or unjustly
suspected girl. The girls in the low lodging-
houses, I was told a little time since, by a woman
who used to frequent them, sometimes, not often,
scratched one another until the two had bloody
faces; and they tried to bite one another
now and then, but they seldom fought. What
was this poor woman's notion of a fight between
two girls, it may not be very easy to comprehend.
The number of children out daily in the streets
of London, employed in the various occupations I
have named, together with others which may
possibly have been overlooked — including those
who beg without offering any article for sale —
those who will work as light porters, as errand
boys and the like, for chance passengers, has been
variously calculated; probably nothing like exact-
itude can be hoped for, much less expected, in
such a speculation, for when a government census
has been so frequently found to fail in correctness
of detail, it appears highly improbable that the
number of those so uncertain in their places of
resort and so migratory in their habits, can be
ascertained with anything like a definite amount
of certainty by a private individual. Taking the
returns of accommodation afforded to these children
in the casual wards of workhouses, refuges for the
destitute and homeless poor; of the mendicity and
other societies of a similar description, and those
of our hospitals and gaols, — and these sources of
information upon this subject can alone be confi-
dently relied upon, — and then taking into the
calculation the additional numbers, who pass the
night in the variety of ways I have already
enumerated, I think it will be found that the
[Description: 915EAF. Page 479.]
this city, and often dependent upon their own
exertions for the commonest necessaries of life,
may be estimated at some thousands, but nearer
10,000 than 20,000.
The consideration which I have devoted to this
branch of my subject has been considerable, but
still not, in my own opinion, commensurate to the
importance of its nature. Steps ought most un-
questionably to be taken to palliate the evils and
miseries I have pointed out, even if a positive
remedy be indeed impossible.
Each year sees an increase of the numbers of
street-children to a very considerable extent, and
the exact nature of their position may be thus
briefly depicted: what little information they
receive is obtained from the worst class — from
cheats, vagabonds, and rogues; what little amuse-
ment they indulge in, springs from sources the
most poisonous — the most fatal to happiness and
welfare; what little they know of a home is neces-
sarily associated with much that is vile and base;
their very means of existence, uncertain and pre-
carious as it is, is to a great extent identified with
petty chicanery, which is quickly communicated by
one to the other; while their physical sufferings
from cold, hunger, exposure to the weather, and
other causes of a similar nature, are constant, and
at times extremely severe. Thus every means by
which a proper intelligence may be conveyed to
their minds is either closed or at the least tainted,
while every duct by which a bad description of
knowledge may be infused is sedulously cultivated
and enlarged. Parental instruction; the comforts
of a home, however humble — the great moral
truths upon which society itself rests; — the influ-
ence of proper example; the power of education;
the effect of useful amusement; are all denied to
them, or come to them so greatly vitiated, that
they rather tend to increase, than to repress, the
very evils they were intended to remedy.
The costers invariably say that no persons under
the age of fifteen should be allowed by law to vend
articles in the streets; the reason they give for
this is — that the children under that period of life
having fewer wants and requiring less money to
live than those who are older, will sell at a less
profit than it is fair to expect the articles sold should
yield, and thus they tersely conclude, "they per-
vents others living, and ruins theirselves."
There probably is truth in this remark, and I
must confess that, for the sake of the children
themselves, I should have no objection to see
the suggestion acted upon; and yet there imme-
diately rises the plain yet startling question — in
such a case, what is to become of the children?
I now cite the histories of street-lads belonging
to the several classes above specified, as illustra-
tions of the truth of the statements advanced
concerning the children street-sellers generally.
OF CHILDREN SENT OUT AS STREET-SELLERS BY
THEIR PARENTS.
Of the boys and girls who are sent out to sell in
the streets by parents who are themselves street-
traders, I need say but little under this head. I
have spoken of them, and given some of their state-
ments in other divisions of this work (see the
accounts of the coster boys and girls). When, as
is the case with many of the costermongers, and
with the Irish fruit-sellers, the parents and
children follow the same calling, they form one
household, and work, as it were, "into one another's
hands." The father can buy a larger, and con-
sequently a cheaper quantity, when he can avail
himself of a subdivision of labour as inexpensive
as that of his own family — whom he must main-
tain whether employed or unemployed — in order
to vend such extra quantity. I have already
noticed that in some families (as is common with
rude tribes) costermongering seems an hereditary
pursuit, and the frequent and constant employ-
ment of children in street traffic is one reason why
this hereditary pursuit is perpetuated, for street
commerce is thus at a very early age made part
and parcel of the young coster's existence, and he
very probably acquires a distaste for any other
occupation, which may entail more of restraint
and irksomeness. It is very rarely that a coster-
monger apprentices his son to any handicraft busi-
ness, although a daughter may sometimes be placed
in domestic service. The child is usually "sent
out to sell."
There is another class of children who are "sent
out" as are the children of the costers, and some-
times with the same cheap and readily attained
articles — oranges and lemons, nuts, chestnuts,
onions, salt (or fresh) herrings, winks, or shrimps,
and, more rarely, with water-cresses or cut-flowers.
Sometimes the young vendors offer small wares —
leather boot-laces, coat-studs, steel pens, or such
like. These are often the children, not of street
sales-people, but of persons in a measure connected
with a street life, or some open-air pursuit; the
children of cabmen deprived of their licences, or of
the hangers-on of cabmen; of the "supers" (super-
numeraries) of the theatres who have irregular or
no employment, or, as they would call it, "en-
gagement," with the unhappy consequence of irre-
gular or no "salary:" the children, again, of street
performers, or Ethiopians, or street-musicians,
are "sent out to sell," as well as those of the
poorer class of labourers connected with the river
— ballast-heavers, lumpers, &c.; of (Irish) brick-
layers' labourers and paviours' assistants; of
market-porters and dock-labourers; of coal-heavers
out of work, and of the helpers at coal-wharfs,
and at the other wharfs; of the Billingsgate
"roughs;" and of the many classes of the labour-
ing, rather than the artisan poor, whose earnings
are uncertain, or insufficient, or have failed them
altogether.
With such classes as these (and more especially
with the Irish), as soon as Pat or Biddy is big
enough to carry a basket, and is of sufficiently
ripened intellect to understand the relative value
of coins, from a farthing to a shilling, he or she
must do something "to help," and that something
is generally to sell in the streets. One poor woman
who made a scanty living in working on corn sacks
and bags — her infirmities sometimes preventing her
working at all — sent out three children, together
[Description: 915EAF. Page 480.]
wares. "They like it," she said, "and always
want to be off into the streets; and when my
husband (a labourer) was ill in the hospital, the
few pence they brought in was very useful; but
now he's well and at work again and we want to
send the eldest — she's nine — to school; but they
all will go out to sell if they can get hold of any
stock. I would never have sent them at all if I
could have helped it, but if they made 6d. a day
among the three of them, perhaps it saved their
lives when things were at the worst." If a poor
woman, as in this instance, has not been used to
street-selling herself, there is always some neigh-
bour to advise her what to purchase for her
children's hawking, and instruct her where.
From one little girl I had the following account.
She was then selling boot-laces and offered them
most perseveringly. She was turned nine, she
said, and had sold things in the streets for two
years past, but not regularly. The father got his
living in the streets by "playing;" she seemed
reluctant to talk about his avocation, but I found
that he was sometimes a street-musician, or street-
performer, and sometimes sung or recited in public
houses, and having "seen better days," had it
appears communicated some feeling of dislike for
his present pursuits to his daughter, so that I dis-
continued any allusion to the subject. The mother
earned 2s. or 2s. 6d. weekly, in shoe-binding, when
she had employment, which was three weeks out
of four, and a son of thirteen earned what was
sufficient to maintain him as an (occasional)
assistant in a wholesale pottery, or rather pot-
shop.
"It's in the winter, sir, when things are far
worst with us. Father can make very little then
— but I don't know what he earns exactly at any
time — and though mother has more work then,
there's fire and candle to pay for. We were very
badly off last winter, and worse, I think, the winter
before. Father sometimes came home and had
made nothing, and if mother had no work in hand
we went to bed to save fire and candle, if it was
ever so soon. Father would die afore he would
let mother take as much as a loaf from the parish.
I was sent out to sell nuts first: `If it's only 1d.
you make,' mother said, `it's a good piece of
bread.' I didn't mind being sent out. I knew
children that sold things in the streets. Perhaps
I liked it better than staying at home without a
fire and with nothing to do, and if I went out I saw
other children busy. No, I wasn't a bit frightened
when I first started, not a bit. Some children — but
they was such little things — said: `O, Liz, I wish
I was you.' I had twelve ha'porths and sold them
all. I don't know what it made; 2d. most likely.
I didn't crack a single nut myself. I was fond of
them then, but I don't care for them now. I could
do better if I went into public-houses, but I'm
only let go to Mr. Smith's, because he knows
father, and Mrs. Smith and him recommends me
and wouldn't let anybody mislest me. Nobody
ever offered to. I hear people swear there some-
times, but it's not at me. I sell nuts to children
in the streets, and laces to young women. I have
sold nuts and oranges to soldiers. They never say
anything rude to me, never. I was once in a
great crowd, and was getting crushed, and there
was a very tall soldier close by me, and he lifted
me, basket and all, right up to his shoulder, and
carried me clean out of the crowd. He had stripes
on his arm. `I shouldn't like you to be in such
a trade,' says he, `if you was my child.' He didn't
say why he wouldn't like it. Perhaps because it
was beginning to rain. Yes, we are far better off
now. Father makes money. I don't go out in
bad weather in the summer; in the winter,
though, I must. I don't know what I make.
I don't know what I shall be when I grow up.
I can read a little. I've been to church five or
six times in my life. I should go oftener and so
would mother, if we had clothes."
I have no reason to suppose that in this case
the father was an intemperate man, though some of
the parents who thus send their children out are
intemperate, and, loving to indulge in the idleness
to which intemperance inclines them, are forced to
live on the labour of their wives and children.
OF A "NEGLECTED" CHILD, A STREET-SELLER.
Of this class perhaps there is less to be said than
of others. Drunken parents allow their children
to run about the streets, and often to shift for
themselves. If such parents have any sense of
shame, unextinguished by their continued be-
sottedness, they may feel relieved by not having
their children before their eyes, for the very sight
of them is a reproach, and every rag about such
helpless beings must carry its accusation to a
mind not utterly callous.
Among such children there is not, perhaps,
that extreme pressure of wretchedness or of priva-
tion that there is among the orphans, or the utterly
deserted. If a "neglected child" have to shift,
wholly or partly, for itself, it is perhaps with the
advantage of a shelter; for even the bare room of
the drunkard is in some degree a shelter or roof.
There is not the nightly need of 2d. for a bed, or
the alternative of the Adelphi arches for nothing.
I met with one little girl ten or eleven years of
age, whom some of the street-sellers described to
me as looking out for a job every now and then. She
was small-featured and dark-eyed, and seemed
intelligent. Her face and hands were brown as if
from exposure to the weather, and a lack of soap;
but her dress was not dirty. Her father she de-
described as a builder, probably a bricklayer's
labourer, but he could work, she said, at drains or
such like. "Mother's been dead a long time,"
the child continued, "and father brought another
woman home and told me to call her mother, but
she soon went away. I works about the streets,
but only when there's nothing to eat at home.
Father gets drunk sometimes, but I think not so
oft as he did, and then he lies in bed. No, sir.
not all day, but he gets up and goes out and
gets more drink, and comes back and goes to
bed again. He never uses me badly. When
he's drinking and has money, he gives me some
now and then to get bread and butter with,
or a halfpenny pudding; he never eats anything
[Description: 915EAF. Page 481.]
very quiet man. Sometimes he's laid in bed
two or three days and nights at a time. I goes
to school when father has money. We lives
very well then. I've kept myself for a whole
week. I mind people's stalls, if they're away a
bit, and run for them if they're wanted; and I go
errands. I've carried home flower-pots for a lady.
I've got a halfpenny on a day, and a penny, and
some bread perhaps, and I've lived on that. I
should like very well to have a pitch of my own.
I think I should like that better than place. But
I have a sister who has a place in the country;
she's far older than I am, and perhaps I shall get
one. But father's at work now, and he says he'll
take the pledge. Five or six times I've sold
oranges, and ingans as well, and carried the money
to Mrs. — , who gave me all I took above 4d. for myself."
It could surprise no one if a child so neglected
became so habituated to a street life, that she
could not adapt herself to any other. I heard of
other children thus or similarly neglected, but
boys far more frequently than girls, who traded re-
gularly in apples, oranges, &c., on their own
account. Some have become regular street-sellers,
and even in childhood have abandoned their
homes and supported themselves.
OF A HIRED COSTER BOY.
One shell-fish seller, who has known street-com-
merce and street-folk for many years, thought,
although he only hazarded an opinion, that
there was less drinking among the young costers,
and less swearing, than he had known in a pre-
ceding generation.
A young coster boy living with his parents,
who had a good business, told me that he would
never be nothing but a "general dealer," (which
among some of these people is the "genteel"
designation for a costermonger,) as long as he
lived, unless, indeed, he rose to a coal shed and
a horse and cart; a consummation, perhaps with
the addition of a green-grocery, a fried fish,
and a gingerbeer trade, not unfrequently arrived
at by the more prudent costermongers. This
boy could neither read nor write; he had been
sent to school, and flogged to school (he grinned
as he told me) by his mother, who said his
father wouldn't have been "done" so often by fine
folks, when he sold "grass" (asparagus) and such
things as cost money, if he could have kept
'count. But his father only laughed, and said
nothing, when the boy "cut away" from school,
which he did so continuously, that the school-
master at length declined the charge of the young
coster's further education. This stripling, who
was about fourteen, seemed very proud of a pair
of good half-boots which his mother had bought
him, and which he admired continually as he
glanced at his feet. His parents, from his account,
were indulgent, and when they got farthings in
change or in any manner, kept them for him;
and so he got treats, and smart things to wear
now and then. "We expects to do well," he
said, for he used the "we" when he spoke of
his parents' business, "when it's peas and
new potatoes, cheap enough to cry. It's my
dodge to cry. I know a man as says, `May
month ought to be ashamed on itself, or things 'ud
a been herlier.' Last week I sung out, it was
the same man's dodge, he put me up to it — `Here's
your Great Exhibition mackarel.' People laughed,
but it weren't no great good. I've been to Penny
Gaffs, but not this goodish bit. I likes the sing-
ing best as has a stunnin chorus. There's been a
deal of hard up lately among people as is general
dealers. Things is getting better, I think, and
they must. It wouldn't do at all if they didn't.
It's no use your a-asking me about what I
thinks of the Queen or them sort of people, for I
knows nothing about them, and never goes among
them."
The Hired boys, for the service of the coster-
mongers, whether hired for the day, or more per-
manently, are very generally of the classes I have
spoken of. When the New Cut, Lambeth, was a
great street-market, every morning, during the
height of the vegetable and fruit seasons, lads
used to assemble in Hooper-street, Short-street,
York-street, and, indeed, in all the smaller streets
or courts, which run right and left from the "two
Cuts." When the costermonger started thence,
perhaps "by the first light," to market, these boys
used to run up to his barrow, "D'you want me,
Jack?" or, "Want a boy, Bill?" being their con-
stant request. It is now the same, in the lo-
calities where the costermongers live, or where they
keep their ponies, donkeys, and barrows, and
whence they emerge to market. It is the same at
Billingsgate and the other markets at which these
traders make their wholesale purchases. Boys
wait about these marts "to be hired," or, as they
may style it, to "see if they're wanted." When
hired, there is seldom any "wage" specified, the
lads seeming always willing to depend upon the
liberality of the costermonger, and often no doubt
with an eye to the chances of "bunse." A sharp
lad thus engaged, who may acquit himself to a
costermonger's liking, perhaps continues some
time in the same man's employ. I may observe,
that in this gathering, and for such a purpose,
there is a resemblance to the simple proceedings
of the old times, when around the market cross
of the nearest town assembled the population
who sought employment, whether in agricultural
or household labour. In some parts of the north
of England these gatherings are still held at the
two half-yearly terms of May-day and Martinmas.
A lad of thirteen or fourteen, who did not look
very strong, gave me the following account: "I
helps, you see, sir, where I can, for mother (who
sells sheep's-trotters) depends a deal on her trotters,
but they're not great bread for an old'oman, and
there's me and Neddy to keep. Father's abroad
and a soger. Do I know he is? Mother says so,
sir. I looks out every morning when the coster-
mongers starts for the markets. and wants boys
for their barrows. I cried roots last: `Here's
your musks, ha'penny each. Here's yer all agro'in'
and all a blo'in'.' I got my grub and 3d. I takes
the tin home. If there's a cabbage or two left,
[Description: 915EAF. Page 482.]
nor school. I should think so. One sees life.
Well, I don't know wot one sees perticler; but
it's wot people calls life. I was a week at
school once. I has a toss up sometimes when
I has a odd copper for it. I'aven't'ad any rig'lar
work as yet. I shall p'raps when it's real
summer." [Said, May 24th.] "This is the Queen's
birthday, is it, sir? Werry likely, but she's
nothing to me. I can't read, in coorse not, after a
week's schooling. Yes, I likes a show. Punch is
stunnin', but they might make more on the dog. I
would if I was a Punch. O, I has tea, and bread
and butter with mother, and gets grub as I jobs
besides. I makes no bargain. If a cove's scaly,
we gets to know him. I hopes to have a barrer
of my own some day, and p'raps a hass. Can I
manage a hass? In coorse, and he don't want no
groomin'. I'd go to Hepsom then; I've never been
yet, but I've been to Grinnage fairs. I don't
know how I can get a barrer and a hass, but I
may have luck."
OF AN ORPHAN BOY, A STREET-SELLER.
From one of this class I had the following account.
It may be observed that the lad's statement con-
tains little of incident, or of novelty, but this is
characteristic of many of his class. With many
of them, it may indeed be said, "one day certifieth
another." It is often the same tale of labour and
of poverty, day after day, so that the mere
uniformity makes a youth half oblivious of the
past; the months, or perhaps years, seem all
alike.
This boy seemed healthy, wore a suit of cor-
duroy, evidently not made for him, and but little
patched, although old; he was in good spirits.
"I believe I'm between fifteen and sixteen,"
he said, "and mother died more than two year
ago, nearer three, perhaps. Father had gone dead
a long time afore; I don't remember him." [I am
inclined to think that this story of the death of the
father is often told by the mother of an illegitimate
child to her offspring, through a natural repugnance
to reveal her shame to her child. I do not
know, however, that it was the case in this
instance.] "I don't remember about mother's
funeral, for I was ill myself at the time. She
worked with her needle; sometimes for a dress-
maker, on "skirts," and sometimes for a tailor, on
flannels. She sometimes worked all night, but
we was wery badly off — we was so. She had
only me. When mother died there was nothing
left for me, but there was a good woman — she
was a laundress and kept a mangle — and she said,
`well, here's a old basket and a few odd things;
give the kid the basket and turn the bits of old
traps into money, and let him start on muffins, and
then he must shift for hisself.' So she tuk me to a
shop and I was started in the muffin line. I didn't
do so bad, but it's on'y a winter trade, isn't
muffins. I sold creases next — no, not creases,
cherries; yes, it was creases, and then cherries,
for I remembers as 'ow'Ungerford was the first
market I ever was at; it was so. Since then, I've
sold apples, and oranges, and nuts, and chestnuts
— but they was dear the last time as I had'em —
and spring garters a penny a pair, and glass pens;
yes, and other things. I goes to market, mostly to
Common Gard'n, and there's a man goes there
what buys bushels and bushels, and he'll let me
have any little lot reas'nable; he will so. There's
another will, but he ain't so good to a poor kid.
Well, I doesn't know as 'ow one trade's better
nor another; I think I've done as much in
one as in another. But I've done better lately;
I've sold more oranges, and I had a few
sticks of rhubarb. I think times is mending,
but others says that's on'y my luck. I sleeps
with a boy as is younger nor I am, and pays 9d.
a week. Tom's father and mother — he's a coal-
heaver, but he's sometimes out of work — sleeps in
the same room, but we has a good bed to our-
selves. Tom's father knew my mother. There's
on'y us four. Tom's father says sometimes if his
rheumatics continues, he and all on'em must go
into the house. Most likely I should then go to
a lodging-house. I don't know that some on 'em's
bad places. I've heer'd they was jolly. I has no
amusements. Last year I helped a man one day,
and he did so well on fruit, he did so, for he got
such a early start, and so cheap, that he gave me
3d. hextra to go to the play with. I didn't go.
I'd rather go to bed at seven every night than
anywhere else. I'm fond of sleep. I never wakes
all night. I dreams now and then, but I never
remembers a dream. I can't read or write; I
wish I could, if it would help me on. I'm
making 3s. 6d. a week now, I think. Some weeks
in winter I didn't make 2s."
This boy, although an orphan at a tender age,
was yet assisted to the commencement of a busi-
ness by a friend. I met with another lad who
was left under somewhat similar circumstances.
The persons in the house where his mother had
died were about to take him to the parish officers,
and there seemed to be no other course to be
pursued to save the child, then nearly twelve,
from starvation. The lad knew this and ran away.
It was summer time, about three years ago, and
the little runaway slept in the open air whenever
he could find a quiet place. Want drove him
to beg, and several days he subsisted on one penny
which he begged. One day he did not find any
one to give him even a halfpenny, and towards
the evening of the second he became bold, or even
desperate, from hunger. As if by a sudden im-
pulse he went up to an old gentleman, walking
slowly in Hyde-park, and said to him, "Sir, I've
lived three weeks by begging, and I'm hungering
now; give me sixpence, or I'll go and steal." The
gentleman stopped and looked at the boy, in whose
tones there must have been truthfulness, and in
whose face was no doubt starvation, for without
uttering a word he gave the young applicant a
shilling. The boy began a street-seller's life on
lucifer-matches. I had to see him for another
purpose a little while ago, and in the course of
some conversation he told me of his start in the
streets. I have no doubt he told the truth, and I
should have given a more detailed account of him,
but when I inquired for him, I found that he had
[Description: 915EAF. Page 483.]
turned, having probably left London on a country
tour. But for the old gentleman's bounty he
would have stolen something, he declared, had it
been only for the shelter of a prison.
OF THE LIFE OF AN ORPHAN GIRL, A STREET-
SELLER.
"Father was a whitesmith," she said, "and mother
used to go out a-washing and a-cleaning, and me
and my sister (but she is dead now) did nothing;
we was sent to a day school, both of us. We lived
very comfortable; we had two rooms and our own
furniture; we didn't want for nothing when
father was alive; he was very fond on us both,
and was a kind man to everybody. He was took
bad first when I was very young — it was con-
sumption he had, and he was ill many years, about
five years, I think it was, afore he died. When
he was gone mother kept us both; she had plenty
of work; she couldn't a-bear the thought of our
going into the streets for a living, and we was
both too young to get a place anywhere, so we
stayed at home and went to school just as when
father was alive. My sister died about two year
and a half ago; she had the scarlet-fever dreadful,
she lay ill seven weeks. We was both very fond
of her, me and mother. I often wish she had
been spared, I should not be alone in the world
as I am now. We might have gone on together,
but it is dreadful to be quite alone, and I often
think now how well we could have done if she
was alive.
"Mother has been dead just a year this month;
she took cold at the washing and it went to her chest;
she was only bad a fortnight; she suffered great
pain, and, poor thing, she used to fret dreadful, as
she lay ill, about me, for she knew she was going to
leave me. She used to plan how I was to do when
she was gone. She made me promise to try to get
a place and keep from the streets if I could, for
she seemed to dread them so much. When she
was gone I was left in the world without a
friend. I am quite alone, I have no relation at
all, not a soul belonging to me. For three months
I went about looking for a place, as long as my
money lasted, for mother told me to sell our
furniture to keep me and get me clothes. I could
have got a place, but nobody would have me
without a character, and I knew nobody to give
me one. I tried very hard to get one, indeed I
did; for I thought of all mother had said to me
about going into the streets. At last, when my
money was just gone, I met a young woman in
the street, and I asked her to tell me where I
could get a lodging. She told me to come with
her, she would show me a respectable lodging-
house for women and girls. I went, and I have
been there ever since. The women in the house
advised me to take to flower-selling, as I could get
nothing else to do. One of the young women took
me to market with her, and showed me how to
bargain with the salesman for my flowers. At
first, when I went out to sell, I felt so ashamed I
could not ask anybody to buy of me; and many
times went back at night with all my stock, with-
out selling one bunch. The woman at the lodg-
ing-house is very good to me; and when I have a
bad day she will let my lodging go until I can
pay her. She always gives me my dinner, and a
good dinner it is, of a Sunday; and she will often
give me a breakfast, when she knows I have no
money to buy any. She is very kind, indeed, for
she knows I am alone. I feel very thankful to
her, I am sure, for all her goodness to me.
During the summer months I take 1s. 6d. per
day, which is 6d. profit. But I can only sell
my flowers five days in the week — Mondays
there is no flowers in the market: and of the 6d.
a day I pay 3d. for lodging. I get a halfpenny-
worth of tea; a halfpenny-worth of sugar; one
pound of bread, 1½d.; butter, ½d. I never tastes
meat but on Sunday. What I shall do in the
winter I don't know. In the cold weather last
year, when I could get no flowers, I was forced
to live on my clothes, I have none left now but
what I have on. What I shall do I don't know
— I can't bear to think on it."
OF TWO RUNAWAY STREET-BOYS.
I endeavoured to find a boy or girl who belonged
to the well-educated classes, had run away, and
was now a street-seller. I heard of boys of this
class — one man thought he knew five, and was
sure of four — who now lived by street-selling, my
informant believed without having any recourse to
theft, but all these boys were absent; they had
not returned from Epsom, or had not returned to
their usual haunts, or else they had started for
their summer's excursion into the country. Many
a street-seller becomes as weary of town after
the winter as a member of parliament who sits
out a very long session; and the moment the
weather is warm, and "seems settled," they are
off into the country. In this change of scene
there is the feeling of independence, of freedom;
they are not "tied to their work;" and this
feeling has perhaps even greater charms for the
child than the adult.
The number of lads of a well-educated class,
who support themselves by street-selling, is not
large. I speak of those whom I have classed as
children under fifteen years of age. If a boy run
away, scared and terrified by the violence of a
parent, or maddened by continuous and sometimes
excessive severity, the parent often feels compunc-
tion, and I heard of persons being sent to every
lodging-house in London, and told to search every
dry arch, to bring back a runaway. On these
occasions the street-sellers willingly give their
aid; I have even heard of women, whose de-
gradation was of the lowest, exerting themselves
in the recovery of a runaway child, and that often
unsolicited and as often unrecompensed.
The children who are truants through their own
vicious or reckless propensities, or through the in-
ducements of their seniors, become far more fre-
quently, thieves or lurkers, rather than street-
sellers. As to runaway girls of a well-educated
class, and under fifteen, I heard of none who were
street-sellers.
[Description: 915EAF. Page 484.]
I now give instances of two runaway lads, who
have been dishonest, and honest.
The one, when he told me his history, was a
slim and rather tall young man of 23 or 24,
with a look, speech, and air, anything but vulgar.
He was the son of a wealthy jeweller, in a town
in the West of England, and ran away from home
with an adult member of his father's establish-
ment, who first suggested such a course, taking
with them money and valuables. They came to
London, and the elder thief, retaining all the
stolen property, at once abandoned the child, then
only ten, and little and young-looking for his age.
He fell into the hands of some members of the
swell-mob, and became extremely serviceable to
them. He was dressed like a gentleman's son,
and was innocent-looking and handsome. His
appearance, when I saw him, showed that this
must have been the case as regards his looks. He
lived with some of the swell-mobsmen — then a more
prosperous people than they are now — in a good
house in the Southwark-Bridge-road. The women
who resided with the mobsmen were especially
kind to him. He was well fed, well lodged, well
clad, and petted in everything. He was called
"the kid," a common slang name for a child, but
he was the kid. He "went to work" in Regent-
street, or wherever there were most ladies, and
his appearance disarmed suspicion. He was,
moreover, highly successful in church and chapel
practice. At length he became "spotted." The
police got to know him, and he was apprehended,
tried, and convicted. He was, however — he be-
lieved through the interest of his friends, of whose
inquiries concerning him he had heard, but of that
I know nothing — sent to the Philanthropic Asy-
lum, then in St. George's-road. Here he remained
the usual time, then left the place well clothed, and
with a sum of money, and endeavoured to obtain
some permanent employment. In this endeavour
he failed. Whether he exerted himself strenuously
or not I cannot say, but he told me that the very
circumstance of his having been "in the Philan-
thropic" was fatal to his success. His "character"
and "recommendations" necessarily showed where
he had come from, and the young man, as he
then was, became a beggar. His chief practice
was in "screeving," or writing on the pavement.
Perhaps some of my readers may remember
having noticed a wretched-looking youth who
hung over the words "I AM STARVING,"
chalked on the footway on the Surrey side of
Waterloo Bridge. He lay huddled in a heap,
and appeared half dead with cold and want, his
shirtless neck and shoulders being visible through
the rents in his thin jean jacket; shoe or stocking
he did not wear. This was the rich jeweller's son.
Until he himself told me of it — and he seemed
to do so with some sense of shame — I could
not have believed that the well-spoken and well-
looking youth before me was the piteous object I
had observed by the bridge. What he is doing
now I am unable to state.
Another boy, who thought he was not yet fif-
teen, though he looked older, gave me the follow-
ing account. He was short but seemed strong,
and his career, so far, is chiefly remarkable for his
perseverance, exercised as much, perhaps, from in-
sensibility as from any other quality. He was
sufficiently stupid. If he had parents living, he
said, he didn't know nothing about them; he had
lived and slept with an old woman who said she
was his grandmother, and he'd been told that she
weren't no relation; he didn't trouble himself
about it. She sold lucifer-boxes or any trifle
in the streets, and had an allowance of 2s.
weekly, but from what quarter he did not know.
About four years ago he was run over by a cab,
and was carried to the workhouse or the hospital;
he believed it was Clerkenwell Workhouse, but
he weren't sure. When he recovered and was
discharged he found the old woman was dead, and
a neighbour went with him to the parish officers,
by whom — as well as I could understand him —
he was sent to the workhouse, after some inquiry.
He was soon removed to Nor'ud. On my asking
if he meant Norwood, he replied, "no, Nor'ud,"
and there he was with a number of other children
with a Mr. Horbyn. He did not know how long
he was there, and he didn't know as he had any-
thing much to complain of, but he ran away. He
ran away because he thought he would; and he
believed he could get work at paper-staining. He
made his way to Smithfield, near where there was
a great paper-stainer's, but he could not get any
work, and he was threatened to be sent back, as
they knew from his dress that he had run away.
He slept in Smithfield courts and alleys, fitting
himself into any covered corner he could find. The
poor women about were kind to him, and gave
him pieces of bread; some knew that he had run
away from a workhouse and was all the kinder.
"The fust browns as ivver I yarned," he said, "was
from a drover. He was a going into the country to
meet some beasts, and had to carry some passels
for somebody down there. They wasn't 'evvy,
but they was orkerd to grip. His old 'oman luk
out for a young cove to 'elp her old man, and saw
me fust, so she calls me, and I gets the job. I
gived the greatest of satisfaction, and had sixpence
giv me, for Jim (the drover) was well paid, as
they was vallyble passels, and he said he'd taken
the greatest of care on 'em, and had engaged a
poor lad to 'elp him." On his return the child
slept in a bed, in a house near Gray's-inn-lane,
for the first time since he had run away, he be-
lieved about a fortnight. He persevered in look-
ing out for odd jobs, without ever stealing, though
he met some boys who told him he was a fool not
to prig. "I used to carry his tea from his old
'oman," he went on, "to a old cove as had a
stunnin' pitch of fruit in the City-road. But my
best friend was Stumpy; he had a beautiful
crossin' (as a sweeper) then, but he's dead now
and berried as well. I used to talk to him and
whistle — I can just whistle" [here he whistled
loud and shrill, to convince me of his perfection
in that street accomplishment] " — and to dance
him the double-shuffle" [he favoured me with a
specimen of that dance], "and he said I hinterested
him. Well, he meant he liked it, I s'pose. When
he went to rest hisself, for he soon got tired, over
[Description: 915EAF. Page 485.]
and his broom for nuff'n. One boy used to say to
Stumpy, `I'll give you 1d. for your crossin'
while you's grubbin.' But I had it for nuff'n,
and had all I yarned; sometimes 1d., sometimes
2d., but only once 3½d. I've been 'elping Old
Bill with his summer cabbages and flowers (cauli-
flowers), and now he's on live heels. I can sing
'em out prime, but you `eared me. I has my bit
o'grub with him, and a few browns, and Old Bill
and Young Bill, too, says I shall have better to
do, but I can't until peas. I sleeps in a loft with
'ampers, which is Old Bill's; a stunnin' good bed.
I've cried for and 'elped other costers. Stumpy
sent me to 'em. I think he'd been one hisself, but
I was always on the look-out. I'll go for some
bunse soon. I don't know what I shall do time
to come, I nivver thinks on it. I could read mid-
dlin', and can a little now, but I'm out of practice."
I have given this little fellow's statement some-
what fully, for I believe he is a type of the most
numerous class of runaway urchins who ripen, so
to speak, into costermongers, after "helping" that
large body of street-traders.
I heard of one boy who had been discharged
from Brixton, and had received 6d. to begin the
world with, as it was his first offence, on his way
back to London, being called upon suddenly as
soon as he had reached the New Cut (then the
greatest of all the street-markets) to help a coster-
monger. This gave the boy a start, and he had
since lived honestly.
| OF THE WOMEN STREET-SELLERS. London Labour and the London Poor, volume 1 | |