“I’m a Sunday crossing-sweeper,” said an oyster-stall keeper, in
answer to my inquiries. “I mean by that, I only sweep a crossing on a
Sunday. I pitch in the Lorrimore-road, Newington, with a few oysters on
week-days, and I does jobs for the people about there, sich as cleaning
a few knives and forks, or shoes and boots, and windows. I’ve been in
the habit of sweeping a crossing about four or five years.
“I never knowed my father, he died when I was a baby. He was a
’terpreter, and spoke seven different languages. My father used to go
with Bonaparte’s army, and used to ’terpret for him. He died in the
South of France. I had a brother, but he died quite a child, and my
mother supported me and a sister by being cook in a gentleman’s family:
we was put out to nurse. My mother couldn’t afford to put me to school,
and so I can’t read nor write. I’m forty-one years old.
“The fust work I ever did was being boy at a pork-butcher’s. I used to
take out the meat wot was ordered. At last my master got broke up, and
I was discharged from my place, and I took to sellin’ a few sprats. I
had no thoughts of taking to a crossing then. I was ten year old. I
remember I give two shillings for a ‘shallow;’ that’s a flat basket
with two handles; they put ’em a top of ‘well-baskets,’ them as can
carry a good load. A well-basket’s almost like a coffin; it’s a long
un like a shallow, on’y it’s a good deal deeper--about as deep as a
washin’ tub. I done very fair with my sprats till they got dear and
come up very small, so then I was obliged to get a few plaice, and
then I got a few baked ’taters and sold them. I hadn’t money enough
to buy a tin--I could a got one for eight shillings--so I put ’em in
a cross-handle basket, and carried ’em round the streets, and into
public-houses, and cried ‘Baked taters, all hot!’ I used only to do
this of a night, and it brought me about four or five shillings a-week.
I used to fill up the day by going round to gentlemen’s houses where
I was known, to run for errands and clean knives and boots, and that
brought me sich a thing as four shillings a-week more altogether.
“I never had no idea then of sweeping a crossing of a Sunday; but at
last I was obliged to push to it. I kept on like this for many years,
and at last a gentleman named Mr. Jackson promised to buy me a tin, but
he died. My mother went blind through a blight; that was the cause of
my fust going out to work, and so I had to keep her; but I didn’t mind
that: I thought it was my duty so to do.
“About ten years ago I got married; my wife used to go out washing
and ironing. I thought two of us would get on better than one, and
she didn’t mind helpin’ me to keep my mother, for I was determined my
mother shouldn’t go into the workhouse so long as I could help it.
“A year or two after I got married, I found I must do something more to
help to keep home, and then I fust thought of sweepin’ a crossing on
Sundays; so I bought a heath broom for twopence-ha’penny, and I pitched
agin’ the Canterbury Arms, Kennington; it was between a baker’s shop
and a public-house and butcher’s; they told me they’d all give me
something if I’d sweep the crossing reg’lar.
“The best places is in front of chapels and churches, ’cause you can
take more money in front of a church or a chapel than wot you can in a
private road, ’cos they look at it more, and a good many thinks when
you sweeps in front of a public-house that you go and spend your money
inside in waste.
“The first Sunday I went at it, I took eighteenpence. I began at
nine o’clock in the morning and stopped till four in the afternoon.
The publican give fourpence, and the baker sixpence, and the butcher
threepence, so that altogether I got above a half-crown. I stopped at
this crossing a year, and I always knocked up about two shillings or a
half-crown on the Sunday. I very seldom got anythink from the ladies;
it was most all give by the gentlemen. Little children used sometimes
to give me ha’pence, but it was when their father give it to ’em; the
little children like to do that sort of thing.
“The way I come to leave this crossing was this here: the road was
being repaired, and they shot down a lot of stones, so then I couldn’t
sweep no crossing. I looked out for another place, and I went opposite
the Duke of Sutherland public-house in the Lorrimore-road. I swept
there one Sunday, and I got about one-and-sixpence. While I was
sweeping this crossing, a gentleman comes up to me, and he axes me if
I ever goes to chapel or church; and I tells him, ‘Yes;’ I goes to
church, wot I’d been brought up to; and then he says, ‘You let me see
you at St. Michael’s Church, Brixton, and I’ll ’courage you, and you’ll
do better if you come up and sweep in front there of a Sunday instead
of where you are; you’ll be sure to get more money, and get better
’couraged. It don’t matter what you do,’ he says, ‘as long as it brings
you in a honest crust; anythink’s better than thieving.’ And then the
gent gives me sixpence and goes away.
“As soon as he’d gone I started off to his church, and got there just
after the people was all in. I left my broom in the churchyard. When I
got inside the church, I could see him a-sitten jest agin the communion
table, so I walks to the free seats and sets down right close again
the communion table myself, for his pew was on my right, and he saw
me directly and looked and smiled at me. As he was coming out of the
church he says, says he, ‘As long as I live, if you comes here on a
Sunday reg’lar I shall always ’courage you.’
“The next Sunday I went up to the church and swept the crossing, and he
see me there, but he didn’t give me nothink till the church was over,
and then he gave me a shilling, and the other people give me about
one-and-sixpence; so I got about two-and-sixpence altogether, and I
thought that was a good beginning.
“The next Sunday the gen’elman was ill, but he didn’t forget me. He
sent me sixpence by his servant, and I got from the other people about
two shillings more. I never see that gentleman after, for he died on
the Saturday. His wife sent for me on the Sunday; she was ill a-bed,
and I see one of the daughters, and she gave me sixpence, and said I
was to be there on Monday morning. I went on the Monday, and the lady
was much worse, and I see the daughter again. She gave me a couple of
shirts, and told me to come on the Friday, and when I went on that
day I found the old lady was dead. The daughter gave me a coat, and
trousers, and waistcoat.
“After the daughters had buried the father and mother they moved. I
kept on sweeping at the church, till at last things got so bad that I
come away, for nobody give me nothink. The houses about there was so
damp that people wouldn’t live in ’em.
“So then I come up into Lorrimore-road, and there I’ve been ever since.
I don’t get on wonderful well there. Sometimes I don’t get above
sixpence all day, but it’s mostly a shilling or so. The most I’ve took
is about one-and-sixpence. The reason why I stop there is, because I’m
known there, you see. I stands there all the week selling highsters,
and the people about there give me a good many jobs. Besides, the road
is rather bad there, and they like to have a clean crossing of a Sunday.
“I don’t get any more money in the winter (though it’s muddier) than
I do in the summer; the reason is, ’cause there isn’t so many people
stirring about in the winter as there is in the summer.
“One broom will carry me over three Sundays, and I gives
twopence-ha’penny a-piece for ’em. Sometimes the people bring me
out at my crossing--’specially in cold weather--a mug of hot tea
and some bread and butter, or a bit of meat. I don’t know any other
crossing-sweeper; I never ’sociates with nobody. I always keeps my own
counsel, and likes my own company the best.
“My wife’s been dead five months, and my mother six months; but I’ve
got a little boy seven year old; he stops at school all day till I go
home at night, and then I fetches him home. I mean to do something
better with him than give him a broom: a good many people would set him
on a crossing; but I mean to keep him at school. I want to see him read
and write well, because he’ll suit for a place then.
“There’s some art in sweeping a crossing even. That is, you mustn’t
sweep too hard, ’cos if you do, you wears a hole right in the road, and
then the water hangs in it. It’s the same as sweeping a path; if you
sweeps too hard you wears up the stones.
“To do it properly, you must put the end of the broom-handle in the
palm of your right hand, and lay hold of it with your left, about
halfway down; then you takes half your crossing, and sweeps on one
side till you gets over the road; then you turns round and comes back
doing the other half. Some people holds the broom before ’em, and keeps
swaying it back’ards and for’ards to sweep the width of the crossing
all in one stroke, but that ain’t sich a good plan, ’cause you’re apt
to splash people that’s coming by; and besides, it wears the road in
holes and wears out the broom so quick. I always use my broom steady. I
never splash nobody.
“I never tried myself, but I’ve seen some crossin’-sweepers as could
do all manner of things in mud, sich as diamonds, and stars, and the
moon, and letters of the alphabet; and once in Oxford-street I see our
Saviour on his cross in mud, and it was done well, too. The figure
wasn’t done with the broom, it was done with a pointed piece of stick;
it was a boy as I see doin’ it, about fifteen. He didn’t seem to take
much money while I was a-looking at him.
“I don’t think I should a took to crossin’ sweeping if I hadn’t got
married; but when I’d got a couple of children (for I’ve had a girl
die; if she’d lived she’d a been eight year old now,) I found I must do
a somethin’, and so I took to the broom.”
_B. The Afflicted Crossing-Sweepers._