Passing the dreary portico of the Queen’s Theatre, and turning to the
right down Tottenham Mews, we came upon a flight of steps leading up
to what is called “The Gallery,” where an old man, gasping from the
effects of a lung disease, and feebly polishing some old harness,
proclaimed himself the father of the sweeper I was in search of, and
ushered me into the room where he lay a-bed, having had a “very bad
night.”
The room itself was large and of a low pitch, stretching over some
stables; it was very old and creaky (the sweeper called, it “an old
wilderness”), and contained, in addition to two turn-up bedsteads, that
curious medley of articles which, in the course of years, an old and
poor couple always manage to gather up. There was a large lithograph
of a horse, dear to the remembrance of the old man from an indication
of a dog in the corner. “The very spit of the one I had for years;
it’s a real portrait, sir, for Mr. Hanbart, the printer, met me one
day and sketched him.” There was an etching of Hogarth’s in a black
frame; a stuffed bird in a wooden case, with a glass before it; a piece
of painted glass, hanging in a place of honour, but for which no name
could be remembered, excepting that it was “of the old-fashioned sort.”
There were the odd remnants, too, of old china ornaments, but very
little furniture; and, finally, a kitten.
The father, worn out and consumptive, had been groom to Lord
Combermere. “I was with him, sir, when he took Bonyparte’s house at
Malmasong. I could have had a pension then if I’d a liked, but I was
young and foolish, and had plenty of money, and we never know what we
may come to.”
The sweeper, although a middle-aged man, had all the appearance of
a boy--his raw-looking eyes, which he was always wiping with a piece
of linen rag, gave him a forbidding expression, which his shapeless,
short, bridgeless nose tended to increase. But his manners and habits
were as simple in their character as those of a child; and he spoke of
his father’s being angry with him for not getting up before, as if he
were a little boy talking of his nurse.
He walks, with great difficulty, by the help of a crutch; and the sight
of his weak eyes, his withered limb, and his broken shoulder (his old
helpless mother, and his gasping, almost inaudible father,) form a most
painful subject for compassion.
The crossing-sweeper gave me, with no little meekness and some slight
intelligence, the following statement:--
“I very seldom go out on a crossin’ o’ Sundays. I didn’t do much good
at it. I used to go to church of a Sunday--in fact, I do now when I’m
well enough.
“It’s fifteen year next January since I left Regent-street. I was there
three years, and then I went on Sundays occasionally. Sometimes I
used to get a shilling, but I have given it up now--it didn’t answer;
besides, a lady who was kind to me found me out, and said she wouldn’t
do any more for me if I went out on Sundays. She’s been dead these
three or four years now.
“When I was at Regent-street I might have made twelve shillings a-week,
or something thereabout.
“I am seven-and-thirty the 26th day of last month, and I have been lame
six-and-twenty years. My eyes have been bad ever since my birth. The
scrofulous disease it was that lamed me--it come with a swelling on the
knee, and the outside wound broke about the size of a crown piece, and
a piece of bone come from it; then it gathered in the inside and at the
top. I didn’t go into the hospital then, but I was an out-patient, for
the doctor said a close confined place wouldn’t do me no good. He said
that the seaside would, though; but my parents couldn’t afford to send
me, and that’s how it is. I _did_ go to Brighton and Margate nine years
after my leg was bad, but it was too late then.
“I have been in Middlesex Hospital, with a broken collar-bone, when I
was knocked down by a cab. I was in a fortnight there, and I was in
again when I hurt my leg. I was sweeping my crossin’ when the top came
off my crutch. I fell back’ards, and my leg doubled under me. They had
to carry me there.
“I went into the Middlesex Hospital for my eyes and leg. I was in a
month, but they wouldn’t keep me long, there’s no cure for me.
“My leg is very painful, ’specially at change of weather. Sometimes
I don’t get an hour’s sleep of a night--it was daylight this morning
before I closed my eyes.
“I went on the crossing first because my parents couldn’t keep me, not
being able to keep theirselves. I thought it was the best thing I could
do, but it’s like all other things, it’s got very bad now. I used to
manage to rub along at first--the streets have got shockin’ bad of late.
“To tell the truth, I was turned away from Regent-street by Mr. Cook,
the furrier, corner of Argyle Street. I’ll tell you as far as I was
told. He called me into his passage one night, and said I must look out
for another crossin’, for a lady, who was a very good customer of his,
refused to come while I was there; my heavy afflictions was such that
she didn’t like the look of me. I said, ‘Very well;’ but because I come
there next day and the day after that, he got the policeman to turn
me away. Certainly the policeman acted very kindly, but he said the
gentleman wanted me removed, and I must find another crossing.
“Then I went down Charlotte-street, opposite Percy Chapel, at the
corner of Windmill-street. After that I went to Wells-street, by
getting permission of the doctor at the corner. He thought that it
would be better for me than Charlotte-street, so he let me come.
“Ah! there ain’t so many crossing-sweepers as there was; I think
they’ve done away with a great many of them.
“When I first went to Wells-street, I did pretty well, because there
was a dress-maker’s at the corner, and I used to get a good deal from
the carriages that stopped before the door. I used to take five or six
shillings in a day then, and I don’t take so much in a week now. I tell
you what I made this week. I’ve made one-and-fourpence, but it’s been
so wet, and people are out of town; but, of course, it’s not always
alike--sometimes I get three-and-sixpence or four shillings. Some
people gives me a sixpence or a fourpenny-bit; I reckons that all in.
“I am dreadful tired when I comes home of a night. Thank God my other
leg’s all right! I wish the t’other was as strong, but it never will be
now.
“The police never try to turn me away; they’re very friendly, they’ll
pass the time of day with me, or that, from knowing me so long in
Oxford-street.
“My broom sometimes serves me a month; of course, they don’t last long
now it’s showery weather. I give twopence-halfpenny a piece for ’em, or
threepence.
“I don’t know who gives me the most; my eyes are so bad I can’t see. I
think, though, upon an average, the gentlemen give most.
“Often I hear the children, as they are going by, ask their mothers for
something to give to me; but they only say, ‘Come along--come along!’
It’s very rare that they lets the children have a ha’penny to give me.
“My mother is seventy the week before next Christmas. She can’t do much
now; she does though go out on Wednesdays or Saturdays, but that’s to
people she’s known for years who is attached to her. She does her work
there just as she likes.
“Sometimes she gets a little washing--sometimes not. This week she had
a little, and was forced to dry it indoors; but that makes ’em half
dirty again.
“My father’s breath is so bad that he can’t do anything except little
odd jobs for people down here; but they’ve got the knack now, a good
many on ’em, of doin’ their own.
“We have lived here fifteen years next September; it’s a long time to
live in such an old wilderness, but my old mother is a sort of woman
as don’t like movin’ about, and I don’t like it. Some people are
everlasting on the move.
“When I’m not on my crossin’ I sit poking at home, or make a job of
mending my clothes. I mended these trousers in two or three places.
“It’s all done by feel, sir. My mother says it’s a good thing we’ve got
our feeling at least, if we haven’t got our eyesight.”