In a street not far from Gordon-square and the New-road, I found this
poor old woman resting from her daily labour. She was sitting on the
stone ledge of the iron railings at the corner of the street, huddled
up in the way seemingly natural to old Irishwomen, her broom hidden
as much as possible under her petticoats. Her shawl was as tidy as
possible for its age. She was sixty-seven years, and had buried two
husbands and five children, fractured her ribs, and injured her groin,
and had nothing left to comfort her but her crossing, her ha’porth of
snuff, and her “drop of biled wather,” by which name she indicated her
“tay.”
She was very civil and intelligent, and answered my inquiries very
readily, and with rather less circumlocution than the Irish generally
display. She seemed much hurt at the closing of the Old St. Pancras
churchyard. “They buried my child where they’ll never bury me, sir,”
she cried.
She told the story of her accident with many involuntary movements
of her hand towards the injured part, and took a sparing pinch of
snuff from a little black snuff-box, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, for
which she said she had given a penny. She proceeded thus:--“I’m an
Irishwoman, sir, and it’s from Kinsale I come, twelve miles beyond
Corruk, to the left-hand side, a seaport town, and a great place for
fish. It’s fifty years the sixteenth of last June since I came in
St. Giles’s parish, and there my ildest child wint did. Buried she
is in Ould St. Pancras churchyarrud, where they’ll never bury me,
sir, for they’ve done away with burying in churchyarruds. That girl
was forty-one year of age the seventeenth of last February, born in
Stratford, below Bow, in Essex. Ah! I was comfortable there; I lived
there three year and abouts. I was in sarvice at Mr. ----’s, a Frinch
gintleman he was, and kept a school, where they taught Frinch and
English both; but I dare say they are all gone did years ago. He was a
very ould gintleman, and so was his lady; she was a North-of-England
lady, but very stout, and had no children but a son and daughter. I was
quite young when my aunt brought me over. My uncle was three year here
before my aunt, and he died at Whitechapel. I was bechuxt sixteen and
seventeen when I come over, and I reckon meself at sixty-seven come
next Christmas, as well as I can guess. I never had a mother, sir; she
died when I was only six months old. My father, sir, was maltster to
Mr. Walker the distiller, in Corruk. Ah! indeed, and my father was well
to do wonst. Early or late, wit or dry, he had a guinea a-week, but he
worruked day and night; he was to attind to the corun, and he would
have four min, or five or six, undther him, according as busy they
might be. My father has been did four-and-twinty year, and I wouldn’t
know a crature if I wint home. Father come over, sir, and wanted me to
go back very bad, but I wouldn’t. I was married thin, and had buried
some of my childer in St. Pancras; and for what should I lave England?
“Oh! sir, I buried three in eight months,--two sons and their father.
My husband was two year and tin months keeping his bed; he has been
did fifteen years to the eighth of last March; but I’ve been married
again.
“Siven childer I’ve had, and ounly two alive, and they’ve got enough
to do to manage for thimsilves. The boy, he follers the market, and my
daughter, she is along with her husband; sure he sills in the streets,
sir. I see very little of her,--she lives over in the Borough.
“I think I’ll be afther going down to Kent, beyant Maidstone, a
hop-picking, if I can git as much as to take me down the road.
“My daughter’s husband and me don’t agree, so I’m bitter not to see
them.
“Ivery day, sir--ivery day in the week I am here. This morunning I was
here at eight--that was earlier than usual, but I came out because I
had not broke my fast with anything but a drop of wather, and that I
had two tumblers of it from the house at the corrunner. I intind to go
home and take two hirrings, and have a drop of biled wather--tay, I
mane, sir.
“I come here at about half-past nine to half-past ten, but I’m gitting
a very bad leg. I goes home about five or six.
“I have taken two ha’pennies this morning; thruppence I took yisterday;
the day before I took, I think, fourpence ha’penny; that was my taking
on Monday; on Sunday I mustered a shilling; on Saturday--I declare,
sir, I forgit--fourpence or thruppence, I suppose, but my frinds is
out of town very much. They gives me a penny rigular every Sunday, or
a ha’penny, and some tuppence. Of a Sunday in the good time I may take
eighteenpence or sixteenpence.
“Oh, yes, of Christmas it’s better, it is--four or five shillings on a
Christmas-day.
“On the Monday fortnight, before last Christmas twelvemonth, I had two
ribs broke, and one fractured, and my grine (groin) bone injured. Oh!
the pains that I feel even now, sir. I lived then in Phillip’s-gardens,
up there in the New-road. The policeman took me to the hospital. It
was eighteen days I niver got off my bid. I came out in the morunning
of the Christmas-eve. I hild on by the railings as I wint along, and I
thought I niver should git home. How I was knocked down was by a cart;
I had my eye bad thin, the lift one, and had a cloth over it. I was
just comin’ out of the archway of the courrut (close by the beer-shop)
away from Mr. ----’s house, when crossing to the green-grocer’s to git
two pound of praties for my supper, I didn’t see the cart comin’. I
was knocked down by the shaft. They called, and they called, and he
wouldn’t stop, and it wint over me, it did. It was loaded with cloth;
I don’t know if it wasn’t a Shoolbred’s cart, but the boy said to
the hospital-doctor and to the policeman it was heavily loaded. The
boy gave me a shilling, and that was all the money I received. For a
twelvemonth I couldn’t hardly walk.
“On that Christmas-day I took four-and-tinpence, but I owed it all for
rint and things; and I’m sure it’s a good man that let me run it the
score.
“Is it a shillin’ I iver git? Well, thin, sir, there’s one gintleman,
but he’s out of town--Sir George Hewitt--niver passes without givin’ me
a shillin’.
“I have taken one-and-ninepence on a Sunday, and I’ve taken two
shillin’s. Upon my sowl, I’ve often gone home with three ha’pence and
tuppence. For this month past, put ivery day together, I haven’t taken
three shilling a-week.
“I wear two brooms out in a week in bad wither, and thin p’rhaps I take
four to five shillin’, Sunday included; but for the three year since
here I’ve been on this crossin’, I niver took tin shillin’, sir, niver.
“Yes, there was a man here before me: he had bad eyes, and he was
obligated to lave and go into the worrukhouse; he lost the sight of
one of his eyes when he came back again. I knew him sweepin’ here a
long time. When he come back, I said, ‘Father,’ says I, ‘I wint on
your crossin’.’ ‘Ah,’ says he, ‘you’ve got a bad crossin’, poor woman;
I wouldn’t go on it again, I wouldn’t;’ and I niver seen him since. I
don’t know whether he is living or not.
“A wit day makes fourpence or fippence difference sometimes.
“Indeed, I have heard of crossin’-sweepers makin’ so much and so much.
I hear people talkin’ about it, but, for my parrut, I wouldn’t give
heed to what they say. In Oxford-street, towards the Parruks, there was
a man, years ago, they say, by all accounts left a dale of money.
“I am niver annoyed by boys. I don’t spake to none of them. I was in
sarvice till I got married, thin I used to sill fruit through Kentish
Town, Highgate, and Hampstead; but I niver sould in the streets,
sir, and had my rigular customers like any greengrocer. I had a good
connixion, I had; but, by gitting old and feeble, and sick, and not
being able to go about, I was forrussed to give it up, I was. I
couldn’t carry twelve pound upon my hid--no, not if I was to get a
sov’rin a-day for it, now.
“I niver lave the crossin’. I haven’t got a frind; nor a day’s pleasure
I niver take.
“Oh, yes, sir, I must have a pinch--this is my snuff-box. I take a
ha’porth a-day, and that’s the only comforrut I’ve got--that and a cup
of tay; for I can’t dthrink cocoa or coffee-tay.
“My feeding is a bit of brid and butther. I haven’t bought a bit of
mate these three months. I used to git two penn’orth of bones and mate
at Mrs. Baker’s, down there; but mate is so dear, that they don’t have
’em now, and it’s ashamed I am of botherin’ thim so often. I frequintly
have a hirrin’. Oh dear! no sir. Wather is my dthrink. I can’t afforrud
no beer. Sometimes I have a penn’orth of gin and could water, and I
find it do me a worruld of good. Sometimes I git enough to eat, but
lately, indeed, I can’t git that. I declare I don’t know which people
give the most; the gintlemen give me more in wit wither, for then the
ladies, you see, can’t let their dresses out of their hands.
“I am a Catholic, sir. I go to St. Pathrick’s sometimes, or I go to
Gordon-street Churruch. I don’t care which I go to--it’s all the same
to me; but I haven’t been to churruch for months. I’ve nothing to
charge mysilf wid; and, indeed, I haven’t been to confission for some
year.
“Tradespeople are very kind, indeed they are.
“Yes, I think I’ll go to Kint a hop-pickin’; and as for my crossin’,
I lave it, sir, just as it is. I go five miles beyant Maidstone. I
worruked fifteen years at Mr. ----; he was a pole-puller and binsman in
the hop-ground.
“I’ve not been down there since the year before last. I was too poorly
after that accident. We make about eighteenpence, two shillin’s, or one
shillin’, ’cording as the hops is good. No lodging nor fire to pay; and
we git plinty of good milk chape there. I manage thin to save a little
money to hilp us in the winther.
“I live in ---- street, Siven Dials; but I’m going to lave my son--we
can’t agree. We live in the two-pair back. I pay nothing a-week, only
bring home ivery ha’penny to hilp thim. Sometimes I spind a pinny or
tuppence out on mysilf.
“My son is doin’ very badly. He sills fruit in the sthreets; but he’s
niver been used to it before; and he has pains in his limbs with so
much walking. He has no connixion, and with the sthrawbirries now he’s
forrused to walk about of a night as will as a day, for they won’t keep
till the morrunning; they all go mouldy and bad. My son has been used
to the bricklaying, sir: he can lit in a stove or a copper, or do a bit
of plasther or lath, or the like. His wife is a very just, clane, sober
woman, and he has got three good childer; there is Catherine, who is
named afther me, she is nearly five; Illen, two years and six months,
named after her mother; and Margaret, the baby, six months ould--and
she is called afther my daughter, who is did.”