This man, a native of “County Corruk,” has been in England only two
years and a half. He wears a close-fitting black cloth cap over a shock
of reddish hair; round his neck he has a coloured cotton kerchief, of
the sort advertised as “Imitation Silk.” His black coat is much torn,
and his broom is at present remarkably stumpy. He waits quietly at the
post opposite St. ----’s Church, to receive whatever is offered him.
He is unassuming enough in his manner, and, as will be seen, not even
bearing any malice against his two enemies, “The Swatestuff Man” and
“The Switzer.” He says:--
[Illustration: THE IRISH CROSSING-SWEEPER.
[_From a Photograph._]]
“I’ve been at this crossin’ near upon two year. Whin I first come over
to England (about two years and a half ago), I wint a haymakin’, but,
you see, I couldn’t get any work; and afther thrampin’ about a good
bit, why my eyesight gettin’ very wake, and I not knowin’ what to do, I
took this crossin’.
“How did I get it?--Will, sir, I wint walkin’ about and saw it, and
nobody on it. So one mornin’ I brought a broom wid me and stood here.
Yes, sir, I _was_ intherfered wid. The man with one arm--a Switzer they
calls him--he had had the crossin’ on Sundays for a long while gone,
and he didn’t like my bein’ here at all, at all. ‘B----y Irish’ he used
to call me, and other scandalizin’ names; and he and the swatestuff man
opposite, who was a friend of his, tried everythin’ they could to git
me off the crossin’. But sure I niver harrumed them at all, at all.
“Yis, sir, I have my rigular custhomers: there’s Mr. ----, he’s gone
to Sydenham; he’s very kind, sir. He gives me a shilling a-month. He
left worrud with the sarvint while he’s away to give me a shilling on
the first day in every month. He gave me a letter to the Eye Hospital,
in Goulden Square, because of the wakeness of my eyesight; but they’ll
niver cure it at all, at all, sir, for wake eyes runs in my family. My
sister, sir, has wake eyes; she is working at Croydon.
“Oh no, indeed, and it isn’t the gintlefolks that thry to get me off
the crossin’; they’d rather shupport me, sir. But the poor payple it is
that don’t like me.
“Eighteenpince I’ve made in a day, and more: niver more than two
shillings, and sometimes not sixpence. Will, sir, I am not like the
others; I don’t run afther the ladies and gintlemen--I don’t persevere.
Yestherday I took sixpence, by chance, for takin’ some luggage for a
lady. The day before yestherday I took three ha’pence; but I think I
got somethin’ else for a bit of worruk thin.
“Yes, winther is better than summer. I don’t know which people is the
most liberal. Sure, sir, I don’t think there’s much difference. Oh yes,
sir, young men are very liberal sometimes, and so are young ladies.
Perhaps old ladies or old gintlemen give the most at a time,--sometimes
sixpence,--perhaps more; but thin, sir, you don’t git anything else for
a long time.
“The boy-sweepers annoy me very much, indeed; they use such
scandalizin’ worruds to me, and throw dirrut, they do. They know whin
the police is out of the way, so I git no purtiction.
“Sure, sir, and I think it right that ivery person should attind the
worruship to which he belongs. I am a Catholic, sir, and attind mass
at St. Pathrick’s, near St. Giles’s, ivery Sunday, and I thry to be at
confission wonst a month.
“Whin first I took to the crossin’, I was rather irrigular; but that
was because of the Switzer man--that’s the man with the one arm; he
used to say he would lock me up, and iverything. But I have been
rigular since.
“I come in the morruning just before eight, in time to catch the
gintlefolks going into prayers; and I leave at half-past seven to eight
at night. I wait so late because I have to bring a gintleman wather for
his flowers, and that I do the last thing.
“I live, sir, in ---- lane, behind St. Giles’s Church, in the
first-flure front, sir; and I pay one-and-threepence a-week. There
are three bids in the room. In one bid, a man, his wife, his mother,
and their little girl--Julia, they call her--sleep; in the other bid,
there’s a man and his wife and child. Yes, I am single, and have the
third bid to myself. I come from County Corruk; the others in the room
are all Irish, and come from County Corruk too. They sill fruit in the
sthreet; in the winther they sill onions, and sometimes oranges.
“There a Scotch gintleman as brings me my breakfast every morning;
indeed, yes, and he brings it himself, he does. He has gone to
Scotland now, but he will be back in a week. He brings me some bread
and mate, and a pinny for a half pint of beer, sir. He has done it
almost all the time I have been here.
“The Switzer man, sir, took out boards for the _Polytickner_, or some
place like that. He got fifteen shillings a-week, and used to come here
on Sundays. Yes, sir, _I_ come here on Sundays; but it is not better
than other days. Some people says to me, they would rather I went to
church; but I tells ’em I do; and sure, sir, afther mass, there’s no
harrum in a little sweepin’ between whiles.
“No, sir, there’s not a crossin’-sweeper in Ould Ireland. Well, sir, I
niver was in Dublin; but I’ve been in Corruk, sir, and they don’t have
any crossin’ sweepers there.
“Whin I git home of a night, sir, I am very tired; but I always offer
up my devotions before sleepin’. Ah, sir, I should niver have swipt
crossin’s if a friend of mine hadn’t died; he was collector of tolls in
Clarnykilts, and I used to be with him. He lost his situation, and so I
came to England.
“The Switzer man, I think he used to sweep at eight o’clock,
just as the people were goin’ to prayers. Oh, sir, he was always
black-geyardin’ me. ‘Go back to your own counthry,’ says he--a furriner
himsilf, too.
“Will, yes sir, I do wish for bad weather; a good wit day, and a dry
day afther, is the best.
“Sure and they can’t turn me off my crossin’ only for my bad conduct,
and I thry to be quiet and take no notice.
“Yis, sir, I have always been a church-goer, and I am seventy-five. I
used to have some good rigular customers, but somehow I haven’t seen
anythin’ of them for this last twelvemonth. Ah! it’s in the betther
neighbourhoods that people give rigularly. I niver get any broken
victuals. Three-and-sixpence is the outside of my earnings, taking one
week with the other.
“What is the laste I ever took? Will, sir, for three days I haven’t
taken a farthin’. The worust week I iver had was thirteen or fourteen
pence altogether; the best week I iver had was the winter before
last--that harrud winter, sir, I remember takin’ seven shillings thin;
but the man at Portman-square makes the most.
“Well, sir, I belave there’s some of every nation in the world as
sweeps crossin’s in London.”