A spare, sad-looking man, very poorly dressed, gave me the following
statement. He is well-known by his coloured drawings upon the
flag-stones:--
“I was usher in a school for three years, and had a paralytic stroke,
which lost me my employment, and was soon the cause of great poverty.
I was fond of drawing, and colouring drawings, when a child, using
sixpenny boxes of colours, or the best my parents could procure me,
but I never had lessons. I am a self-taught man. When I was reduced
to distress, and indeed to starvation, I thought of trying some mode
of living, and remembering having seen a man draw mackerel on the
flags in the streets of Bristol 20 years ago, I thought I would try
what I could do that way. I first tried my hand in the New Kent-road,
attempting a likeness of Napoleon, and it was passable, though I can do
much better now; I made half-a-crown the first day. I saw a statement
in one of your letters that I was making 1_l._ a-day, and was giving
14_d._ for a shilling. I never did: on the contrary, I’ve had a pint
of beer given to me by publicans for supplying them with copper. It
doesn’t hurt me, so that you need not contradict it unless you like.
The Morning Chronicle letters about us are frequently talked over
in the lodging-houses. It’s 14 or 15 years since I started in the
New Kent-road, and I’ve followed up ‘screeving,’ as it’s sometimes
called, or drawing in coloured chalks on the flag-stones, until now.
I improved with practice. It paid me well; but in wet weather I have
made nothing, and have had to run into debt. A good day’s work I reckon
8_s._ or 10_s._ A very good day’s work? I should be glad to get it now.
I have made 15_s._ in a day on an extraordinary occasion, but never
more, except at Greenwich fair, where I’ve practised these 14 years.
I don’t suppose I ever cleared 1_l._ a-week all the year round at
screeving. For 1_l._ a-week I would honestly work my hardest. I have
a wife and two children. I would draw trucks or be a copying clerk,
or do anything for 1_l._ a-week to get out of the streets. Or I would
like regular employment as a painter in crayons. Of all my paintings
the Christ’s heads paid the best, but very little better than the
Napoleon’s heads. The Waterloo-bridge-road was a favourite spot of mine
for a pitch. Euston-square is another. These two were my best. I never
chalked ‘starving’ on the flags, or anything of that kind. There are
two imitators of me, but they do badly. I don’t do as well as I did 10
years ago, but I’m making 15_s._ a-week all the year through.”