A remarkably intelligent lad, who, on being spoken to, at once
consented to give all the information in his power, told me the
following story of his life.
It will be seen from this boy’s account, and the one or two following,
that a kind of partnership exists among some of these young sweepers.
They have associated themselves together, appropriated several
crossings to their use, and appointed a captain over them. They have
their forms of trial, and “jury-house” for the settlement of disputes;
laws have been framed, which govern their commercial proceedings, and a
kind of language adopted by the society for its better protection from
its arch-enemy, the policeman.
I found the lad who first gave me an insight into the proceedings of
the associated crossing-sweepers crouched on the stone steps of a door
in Adelaide-street, Strand; and when I spoke to him he was preparing to
settle down in a corner and go to sleep--his legs and body being curled
round almost as closely as those of a cat on a hearth.
The moment he heard my voice he was upon his feet, asking me to “give a
halfpenny to poor little Jack.”
He was a good-looking lad, with a pair of large mild eyes, which he
took good care to turn up with an expression of supplication as he
moaned for his halfpenny.
A cap, or more properly a stuff bag, covered a crop of hair which had
matted itself into the form of so many paint-brushes, while his face,
from its roundness of feature and the complexion of dirt, had an almost
Indian look about it; the colour of his hands, too, was such that you
could imagine he had been shelling walnuts.
[Illustration: THE BOY CROSSING-SWEEPERS.
[_From a Daguerreotype by_ BEARD.]]
He ran before me, treading cautiously with his naked feet, until I
reached a convenient spot to take down his statement, which was as
follows:--
“I’ve got no mother or father; mother has been dead for two years,
and father’s been gone more than that--more nigh five years--he died
at Ipswich, in Suffolk. He was a perfumer by trade, and used to make
hair-dye, and scent, and pomatum, and all kinds of scents. He didn’t
keep a shop himself, but he used to serve them as did; he didn’t hawk
his goods about, neether, but had regular customers, what used to send
him a letter, and then he’d take them what they wanted. Yes, he used to
serve some good shops: there was H----’s, of London Bridge, what’s a
large chemist’s. He used to make a good deal of money, but he lost it
betting; and so his brother, my uncle, did all his. He used to go
up to High Park, and then go round by the Hospital, and then turn up
a yard, where all the men are who play for money [Tattersall’s]; and
there he’d lose his money, or sometimes win,--but that wasn’t often. I
remember he used to come home tipsy, and say he’d lost on this or that
horse, naming wot one he’d laid on; and then mother would coax him to
bed, and afterwards sit down and begin to cry.
“I was not with father when he died (but I was when he was dying),
for I was sent up along with eldest sister to London with a letter to
uncle, who was head servant at a doctor’s. In this letter, mother asked
uncle to pay back some money wot he owed, and wot father lent him, and
she asked him if he’d like to come down and see father before he died.
I recollect I went back again to mother by the Orwell steamer. I was
well dressed then, and had good clothes on, and I was given to the care
of the captain--Mr. King his name was. But when I got back to Ipswich,
father was dead.
“Mother took on dreadful; she was ill for three months afterwards,
confined to her bed. She hardly eat anything: only beaf-tea--I think
they call it--and eggs. All the while she kept on crying.
“Mother kept a servant; yes, sir, we always had a servant, as long
as I can recollect; and she and the woman as was there--Anna they
called her, an old lady--used to take care of me and sister. Sister
was fourteen years old (she’s married to a young man now, and they’ve
gone to America; she went from a place in the East India Docks, and I
saw her off). I used, when I was with mother, to go to school in the
morning, and go at nine and come home at twelve to dinner, then go
again at two and leave off at half-past four,--that is, if I behaved
myself and did all my lessons right; for if I did not I was kept
back till I _did_ them so. Mother used to pay one shilling a-week,
and extra for the copy-books and things. I can read and write--oh,
yes, I mean read and write well--read anything, even old English; and
I write pretty fair,--though I don’t get much reading now, unless
it’s a penny paper--I’ve got one in my pocket now--it’s the _London
Journal_--there’s a tale in it now about two brothers, and one of them
steals the child away and puts another in his place, and then he gets
found out, and all that, and he’s just been falling off a bridge now.
“After mother got better, she sold all the furniture and goods and came
up to London;--poor mother! She let a man of the name of Hayes have the
greater part, and he left Ipswich soon after, and never gave mother the
money. We came up to London, and mother took two rooms in Westminster,
and I and sister lived along with her. She used to make hair-nets, and
sister helped her, and used to take ’em to the hair-dressers to sell.
She made these nets for two or three years, though she was suffering
with a bad breast;--she died of that--poor thing!--for she had what
doctors calls cancer--perhaps you’ve heard of ’em, sir,--and they had
to cut all round here (making motions with his hands from the shoulder
to the bosom). Sister saw it, though I didn’t.
“Ah! she was a very good, kind mother, and very fond of both of us;
though father wasn’t, for he’d always have a noise with mother when he
come home, only he was seldom with us when he was making his goods.
“After mother died, sister still kept on making nets, and I lived with
her for some time, until she told me she couldn’t afford to keep me
no longer, though she seemed to have a pretty good lot to do; but she
would never let me go with her to the shops, though I could crochet,
which she’d learned me, and used to run and get her all her silks and
things what she wanted. But she was keeping company with a young man,
and one day they went out, and came back and said they’d been and got
married. It was him as got rid of me.
“He was kind to me for the first two or three months, while he was
keeping her company; but before he was married he got a little cross,
and after he was married he begun to get more cross, and used to send
me to play in the streets, and tell me not to come home again till
night. One day he hit me, and I said I wouldn’t be hit about by him,
and then at tea that night sister gave me three shillings, and told me
I must go and get my own living. So I bought a box and brushes (they
cost me just the money) and went cleaning boots, and I done pretty well
with them, till my box was stole from me by a boy where I was lodging.
He’s in prison now--got six calendar for picking pockets.
“Sister kept all my clothes. When I asked her for ’em, she said they
was disposed of along with all mother’s goods; but she gave me some
shirts and stockings, and such-like, and I had very good clothes, only
they was all worn out. I saw sister after I left her, many times. I
asked her many times to take me back, but she used to say, ‘It was not
her likes, but her husband’s, or she’d have had me back;’ and I think
it was true, for until he came she was a kind-hearted girl; but he said
he’d enough to do to look after his own living; he was a fancy-baker by
trade.
“I was fifteen the 24th of last May, sir, and I’ve been sweeping
crossings now near upon two years. There’s a party of six of us, and
we have the crossings from St. Martin’s Church as far as Pall Mall.
I always go along with them as lodges in the same place as I do. In
the daytime, if it’s dry, we do anythink what we can--open cabs, or
anythink; but if it’s wet, we separate, and I and another gets a
crossing--those who gets on it first, keeps it,--and we stand on each
side and take our chance.
“We do it in this way:--if I was to see two gentlemen coming, I should
cry out, ‘Two toffs!’ and then they are mine; and whether they give
me anythink or not they are mine, and my mate is bound not to follow
them; for if he did he would get a hiding from the whole lot of us. If
we both cry out together, then we share. If it’s a lady and gentleman,
then we cries, ‘A toff and a doll!’ Sometimes we are caught out in this
way. Perhaps it is a lady and gentleman and a child; and if I was to
see them, and only say, ‘A toff and a doll,’ and leave out the child,
then my mate can add the child; and as he is right and I wrong, then
it’s his party.
“If there’s a policeman close at hand we mustn’t ask for money; but we
are always on the look-out for the policemen, and if we see one, then
we calls out ‘Phillup!’ for that’s our signal. One of the policemen at
St. Martin’s Church--Bandy, we calls him--knows what Phillup means, for
he’s up to us; so we had to change the word. (At the request of the
young crossing-sweeper the present signal is omitted.)
“Yesterday on the crossing I got threepence halfpenny, but when it’s
dry like to-day I do nothink, for I haven’t got a penny yet. We never
carries no pockets, for if the policemen find us we generally pass the
money to our mates, for if money’s found on us we have fourteen days in
prison.
“If I was to reckon all the year round, that is, one day with another,
I think we make fourpence every day, and if we were to stick to it we
should make more, for on a very muddy day we do better. One day, the
best I ever had, from nine o’clock in the morning till seven o’clock
at night, I made seven shillings and sixpence, and got not one bit of
silver money among it. Every shilling I got I went and left at a shop
near where my crossing is, for fear I might get into any harm. The
shop’s kept by a woman we deals with for what we wants--tea and butter,
or sugar, or brooms--anythink we wants. Saturday night week I made
two-and-sixpence; that’s what I took altogether up to six o’clock.
“When we see the rain we say together, ‘Oh! there’s a jolly good rain!
we’ll have a good day to-morrow.’ If a shower comes on, and we are at
our room, which we general are about three o’clock, to get somethink to
eat--besides, we general go there to see how much each other’s taken in
the day--why, out we run with our brooms.
“We’re always sure to make money if there’s mud--that’s to say, if we
look for our money, and ask; of course, if we stand still we don’t.
Now, there’s Lord Fitzhardinge, he’s a good gentleman, what lives
in Spring-gardens, in a large house. He’s got a lot of servants and
carriages. Every time he crosses the Charing-cross crossing he always
gives the girl half a sovereign.” (This statement was taken in June
1856.) “He doesn’t cross often, because, hang it, he’s got such a lot
of carriages, but when he’s on foot he always does. If they asks him
he doesn’t give nothink, but if they touches their caps he does. The
housekeeper at his house is very kind to us. We run errands for her,
and when she wants any of her own letters taken to the post then she
calls, and if we are on the crossing we takes them for her. She’s a
very nice lady, and gives us broken victuals. I’ve got a share in that
crossing,--there are three of us, and when he gives the half sovereign
he always gives it to the girl, and those that are in it shares it. She
would do us out of it if she could, but we all takes good care of that,
for we are all cheats.
“At night-time we tumbles--that is, if the policemen ain’t nigh. We
goes general to Waterloo-place when the Opera’s on. We sends on one
of us ahead, as a looker-out, to look for the policeman, and then we
follows. It’s no good tumbling to gentlemen _going_ to the Opera; it’s
when they’re coming back they gives us money. When they’ve got a young
lady on their arm they laugh at us tumbling; some will give us a penny,
others threepence, sometimes a sixpence or a shilling, and sometimes a
halfpenny. We either do the cat’un-wheel, or else we keep before the
gentleman and lady, turning head-over-heels, putting our broom on the
ground and then turning over it.
“I work a good deal fetching cabs after the Opera is over; we general
open the doors of those what draw up at the side of the pavement for
people to get into as have walked a little down the Haymarket looking
for a cab. We gets a month in prison if we touch the others by the
columns. I once had half a sovereign give me by a gentleman; it was
raining awful, and I run all about for a cab, and at last I got one.
The gentleman knew it was half a sovereign, because he said--‘Here, my
little man, here’s half a sovereign for your trouble.’ He had three
ladies with him, beautiful ones, with nothink on their heads, and
only capes on their bare shoulders; and he had white kids on, and his
regular Opera togs, too. I liked him very much, and as he was going
to give me somethink the ladies says--‘Oh, give him somethink extra!’
It was pouring with rain, and they couldn’t get a cab; they were all
engaged, but I jumped on the box of one as was driving along the line.
Last Saturday Opera night I made fifteen pence by the gentlemen coming
from the Opera.
“After the Opera we go into the Haymarket, where all the women are who
walk the streets all night. They don’t give us no money, but they tell
the gentlemen to. Sometimes, when they are talking to the gentlemen,
they say, ‘Go away, you young rascal!’ and if they are saucy, then we
say to them, ‘We’re not talking to you, my doxy, we’re talking to the
gentleman,’--but that’s only if they’re rude, for if they speak civil
we always goes. They knows what ‘doxy’ means. What is it? Why that
they are no better than us! If we are on the crossing, and we says to
them as they go by, ‘Good luck to you!’ they always give us somethink
either that night or the next. There are two with bloomer bonnets, who
always give us somethink if we says ‘Good luck.’ Sometimes a gentleman
will tell us to go and get them a young lady, and then we goes, and
they general gives us sixpence for that. If the gents is dressed finely
we gets them a handsome girl; if they’re dressed middling, then we gets
them a middling-dressed one; but we usual prefers giving a turn to
girls that have been kind to us, and they are sure to give us somethink
the next night. If we don’t find any girls walking, we knows where to
get them in the houses in the streets round about.
“We always meet at St. Martin’s steps--the ‘jury house,’ we calls
’em--at three o’clock in the morning, that’s always our hour. We
reckons up what we’ve taken, but we don’t divide. Sometimes, if we owe
anythink where we lodge, the women of the house will be waiting on the
steps for us: then, if we’ve got it, we pay them; if we haven’t, why it
can’t be helped, and it goes on. We gets into debt, because sometimes
the women where we live gets lushy; then we don’t give them anythink,
because they’d forget it, so we spends it ourselves. We can’t lodge at
what’s called model lodging-houses, as our hours don’t suit them folks.
We pays threepence a-night for lodging. Food, if we get plenty of
money, we buys for ourselves. We buys a pound of bread, that’s twopence
farthing--best seconds, and a farthing’s worth of dripping--that’s
enough for a pound of bread--and we gets a ha’porth of tea and a
ha’porth of sugar; or if we’re hard up, we gets only a penn’orth of
bread. We make our own tea at home; they lends us a kittle, teapot, and
cups and saucers, and all that.
“Once or twice a-week we gets meat. We all club together, and go into
Newgate Market and gets some pieces cheap, and biles them at home. We
tosses up who shall have the biggest bit, and we divide the broth, a
cupful in each basin, until it’s lasted out. If any of us has been
unlucky we each gives the unlucky one one or two halfpence. Some of us
is obliged at times to sleep out all night; and sometimes, if any of us
gets nothink, then the others gives him a penny or two, and _he_ does
the same for us when _we_ are out of luck.
“Besides, there’s our clothes: I’m paying for a pair of boots now. I
paid a shilling off Saturday night.
“When we gets home at half-past three in the morning, whoever cries
out ‘first wash’ has it. First of all we washes our feet, and we all
uses the same water. Then we washes our faces and hands, and necks, and
whoever fetches the fresh water up has first wash; and if the second
don’t like to go and get fresh, why he uses the dirty. Whenever we come
in the landlady makes us wash our feet. Very often the stones cuts our
feet and makes them bleed; then we bind a bit of rag round them. We
like to put on boots and shoes in the daytime, but at night-time we
can’t, because it stops the tumbling.
“On the Sunday we all have a clean shirt put on before we go out, and
then we go and tumble after the omnibuses. Sometimes we do very well
on a fine Sunday, when there’s plenty of people out on the roofs of
the busses. We never do anythink on a wet day, but only when it’s
been raining and then dried up. I have run after a Cremorne bus, when
they’ve thrown us money, as far as from Charing-cross right up to
Piccadilly, but if they don’t throw us nothink we don’t run very far.
I should think we gets at that work, taking one Sunday with another,
eightpence all the year round.
“When there’s snow on the ground we puts our money together, and goes
and buys an old shovel, and then, about seven o’clock in the morning,
we goes to the shops and asks them if we shall scrape the snow away. We
general gets twopence every house, but some gives sixpence, for it’s
very hard to clean the snow away, particular when it’s been on the
ground some time. It’s awful cold, and gives us chilblains on our feet;
but we don’t mind it when we’re working, for we soon gets hot then.
“Before winter comes, we general save up our money and buys a pair of
shoes. Sometimes we makes a very big snowball and rolls it up to the
hotels, and then the gentlemen laughs and throws us money; or else we
pelt each other with snowballs, and then they scrambles money between
us. We always go to Morley’s Hotel, at Charing-cross. The police in
winter times is kinder to us than in summer, and they only laughs at
us;--p’rhaps it is because there is not so many of us about then,--only
them as is obligated to find a living for themselves; for many of the
boys has fathers and mothers as sends them out in summer, but keeps
them at home in winter when it’s piercing cold.
“I have been to the station-house, because the police always takes us
up if we are out at night; but we’re only locked up till morning,--that
is, if we behaves ourselves when we’re taken before the gentleman. Mr.
Hall, at Bow-street, only says, ‘Poor boy, let him go.’ But it’s only
when we’ve done nothink but stop out that he says that. He’s a kind old
gentleman; but mind, it’s only when you have been before him two or
three times he says so, because if it’s a many times, he’ll send you
for fourteen days.
“But we don’t mind the police much at night-time, because we jumps
over the walls round the place at Trafalgar-square, and they don’t
like to follow us at that game, and only stands looking at you over
the parrypit. There was one tried to jump the wall, but he split his
trousers all to bits, and now they’re afraid. That was Old Bandy as
bust his breeches; and we all hate him, as well as another we calls
Black Diamond, what’s general along with the Red Liners, as we calls
the Mendicity officers, who goes about in disguise as gentlemen, to
take up poor boys caught begging.
“When we are talking together we always talk in a kind of slang. Each
policeman we gives a regular name--there’s ‘Bull’s Head,’ ‘Bandy
Shanks,’ and ‘Old Cherry Legs,’ and ‘Dot-and-carry-one;’ they all knows
their names as well as us. We never talks of crossings, but ‘fakes.’ We
don’t make no slang of our own, but uses the regular one.
“A broom doesn’t last us more than a week in wet weather, and they
costs us twopence halfpenny each; but in dry weather they are good for
a fortnight.”