“I wouldn’t like him to know how badly I am off. He knows I would do
nothing wrong. He wouldn’t suspect me; he never would. He knows me too
well. I have no clothes but what are detained for 2_s._ 6_d._, and
what I have on. I have on just this shawl and an old cotton gown, but
it’s not broke, and my under-clothing. All my wish is to get out to my
husband. I care for nothing else in this world.”
Next comes the tale of a young girl who worked at velvet embossing.
She was comely, and modestly spoken. By her attire it would have
been difficult to have told that she was so utterly destitute as I
afterwards discovered. She was scrupulously neat and clean in her
dress; indeed it was evident, even from her appearance, that she
belonged to a better class than the ordinary inmates of the Asylum.
As she sat alone in the long, unoccupied wards, she sighed heavily,
and her eyes were fixed continually on the ground. Her voice was very
sorrowful. Her narrative was as follows:--
“I have been out of work for a very long while, for full three months
now, and all the summer I was only on and off. I mostly had my work
given out to me. It was in pieces of 100 yards, and sometimes less,
and I was paid so much for the dozen yards. I generally had 3-1/2_d._,
and sometimes 1-1/2_d._, according to what it was; 3-1/2_d._ was the
highest price that I had. I could, if I rose at five in the morning,
and sat up till twelve, earn between 1_s._ and 1_s._ 3_d._ in a day. I
had to cut the velvet after it had been embossed. I could, if a diamond
pattern, do five dozen yards in a-day, and if a leaf pattern, I could
only do three dozen and a-half. I couldn’t get enough of it to do, even
at these prices. Sometimes I was two days in the week without work, and
sometimes I had work for only one day in the week. They wanted, too,
to reduce the 1-1/2_d._ diamond work to 1_d._ the dozen yards; and so
they would have done, only the work got so slack that we had to leave
it altogether. That is now seven weeks ago. Before that, I did get a
little to do, though it was very little, and since then I have called
almost every week at the warehouse, but they have put me off, telling
me to come in a fortnight or a week’s time. I never kept acquaintance
with any of the other young women working at the warehouse, but I dare
say about twenty-five were thrown out of work at the same time as I
was. Sometimes I made 6_s._ a-week, and sometimes only 3_s._, and for
the last fortnight I got 1_s._ 6_d._ a-week, and out of that I had my
own candles to find, and 1_s._ 6_d._ a-week to pay for my lodgings.
After I lost my work, I made away with what little clothes I had,
and now I have got nothing but what I stand upright in.” [The tears
were pouring down the cheeks of the poor girl; she was many minutes
afterwards before she could answer my questions, from sobbing.] “I
can’t help crying,” she said, “when I think how destitute I am. Oh,
yes, indeed, [she cried through her sobs,] I have been a good girl in
all my trials. I might have been better off if I had chosen to take to
that life. I need not have been here if I had chosen to part with my
character. I don’t know what my father was. I believe he was a clerk
in one of the foreign confectionery houses. He deserted my mother two
months before I was born. I don’t know whether he is dead or not, for
I never set eyes on him. If he is alive, he is very well off. I know
this from my aunt, who was told by one of his fellow-clerks that he
had married a woman of property and gone abroad. He was disappointed
with my mother. He expected to have had a good bit of money with her;
but after she married him, her father wouldn’t notice her. My mother
died when I was a week old, so I do not recollect either of my parents.
When my aunt, who was his own sister, wrote to him about myself, my
brother and sister, he sent word back that the children might go to the
workhouse. But my aunt took pity on us, and brought us all up. She had
a little property of her own. She gave us a decent education, as far as
lay in her power. My brother she put to sea. My father’s brother was a
captain, and he took my brother with him. The first voyage he went (he
was fourteen), a part of the rigging fell on him and the first mate,
and they were both killed on the spot. My sister went as lady’s-maid
to Lady ----, and went abroad with her, now eighteen months ago, and I
have never heard of her since. The aunt who brought me up is dead now.
She was carried off two years and three months ago. If she had lived I
should never have wanted a friend. I remained with her up to the time
of her death, and was very happy before that time. After that I found
it very hard for a poor lone girl like me to get an honest living. I
have been struggling on ever since, parting with my clothes, and often
going for two days without food. I lived upon the remainder of my
clothes for some little time after I was thrown entirely out of work;
but at last I got a fortnight in debt at my lodgings, and they made me
leave; that’s a week and three days ago now. Then I had nowhere but
the streets to lay my head. I walked about for three days and nights
without rest. I went into a chapel. I went there to sit down and pray;
but I was too tired to offer up any prayers, for I fell asleep. I had
been two nights and three days in the streets before this, and all I
had during that time was a penny loaf, and that I was obliged to beg
for. On the day that I was walking about, it thawed in the morning, and
froze very hard at night. My shoes were very bad, and let in water;
and as the night came on, my stockings froze to my feet. Even now I
am suffering from the cold of those nights. It is as much as I can do
to bend my limbs at present. I have been in the Asylum a week, and
to-night is my last night here. I have nowhere to go, and what will
become of me the Lord God only knows.” [Again she burst out crying most
piteously.] “My things are not fit to go into any respectable workroom,
and they won’t take me into a lodging either, unless I’ve got clothes.
I would rather make away with myself than lose my character.” [As she
raised her hand to wipe away her tears, I saw that her arms were bare;
and on her moving the old black mantle that covered her shoulders, I
observed that her gown was so ragged that the body was almost gone from
it, and it had no sleeves.] “I shouldn’t have kept this,” she said, “if
I could have made away with it.” She said that she had no friend in the
world to help her, but that she would like much to emigrate.
I afterwards inquired at the house at which this poor creature had
lodged, as to whether she had always conducted herself with propriety
while living there. To be candid, I could hardly believe that any
person could turn a young friendless girl into the streets because she
owed two weeks’ rent; though the girl appeared too simple and truthful
to fabricate such a statement. On inquiry, I found her story true from
the beginning to the end. The landlady, an Irishwoman, acknowledged
that the girl was in her debt but 3_s._; that she had lodged with her
for several months, and always paid her regularly when she had money;
but she couldn’t afford, she said, to keep people for nothing. The girl
had been a good, well-behaved, modest girl with her.