 Section 88 of London Labour and the London Poor, volume 2 by Henry Mayhew. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Gillian Henry. Crossing Sweepers That portion of the London Street folk who earn a scanty living by sweeping crossings constitute a large class of the metropolitan poor. We can scarcely walk along a street of any extent or pass through a square of the least pretensions to gentility without meeting one or more of these private scavengers. Crossing sweeping seems to be one of those occupations which are resorted to as an excuse for begging. And indeed, as many expressed it to me, it was the last chance left of obtaining an honest crust. The advantages of crossing sweeping as a means of livelihood seem to be, first, the smallness of the capital required in order to commence the business. Secondly, the excuse the apparent occupation it affords for soliciting gratuities without being considered in the light of a street beggar. And thirdly, the benefits arising from being constantly seen in the same place and thus exciting the sympathy of the neighbouring householders till small weekly allowances or pensions are obtained. The first curious point in connection with this subject is what constitutes the property, so to speak, in a crossing. Or the right to sweep a pathway across a certain thoroughfare. A nobleman who has been one of Her Majesty's ministers, whilst conversing with me on the subject of crossing sweepers, expressed to me the curiosity he felt on the subject, saying that he had noticed some of the sweepers in the same place for years. What were the rights of property, he asked, in such cases? And what constituted the title that such a man had to a particular crossing? Why did not the stronger sweepers supplant the weaker? Could a man bequeath a crossing to a son or present it to a friend? How did he first obtain the spot? The answer is that crossing sweepers are, in a measure, under the protection of the police. If the accommodation afforded by a well-swept pathway is evident, the policeman on that district will protect the original sweeper of the crossing from the intrusion of a rival. I have indeed met with instances of men who, before taking to a crossing, have asked for and obtained permission of the police. And one sweeper who gave me his statement had even solicited the authority of the inhabitants before he applied to the inspector at the station house. If a crossing have been vacant for some time, another sweeper may take to it. But should the original proprietor again make his appearance, the officer on duty will generally re-establish him. One man to whom I spoke had fixed himself on a crossing which for years another sweeper had kept clean on the Sunday morning only. A dispute ensued, the one claimant pleading his long sabbath possession and the other his continuous everyday service. The quarrel was referred to the police, who decided that he who was oftener on the ground was the rightful owner. And the option was given to the former possessor that if he would sweep there every day, the crossing should be his. I believe there is only one crossing in London which is in the gift of a householder. And this proprietorship originated in a tradesman having, at his own expense, caused a paved footway to be laid down over the macadamized road in front of his shop so that his customers might run less chance of dirtying their boots when they crossed over to give their orders. Some bankers however keep a crossing sweeper not only to sweep a clean path for the clients visiting their house but to open and shut the doors of the carriages calling at the house. Concerning the causes which lead or drive people to this occupation, they are various. People take to crossing sweeping either on account of their bodily afflictions depriving them of the power of performing rudder work or because the occupation is the last resource left open to them of earning a living and they considered even the scanty subsistence it yields preferable to that of the workhouse. The greater proportion of crossing sweepers are those who, from some bodily infirmity or injury, are prevented from a more laborious mode of obtaining their living. Among the bodily infirmities, the chief are old age, asthma and rheumatism and the injuries mostly consist of loss of limbs. Many of the rheumatic sweepers have been bricklayers labourers. The classification of crossing sweepers is not very complex. They may be divided into the casual and the regular. By the casual I mean such as pursue the occupation only on certain days in the week as for instance those who make their appearance on the Sunday morning as well as the boys who broom in hand travel about the streets sweeping before the foot passengers or stopping an hour at one place and then if not fortunate moving on to another. The regular crossing sweepers are those who have taken up their posts at the corners of streets or squares and I have met with some who have kept to the same spot for more than 40 years. The crossing sweepers in the squares may be reckoned among the most fortunate of the class. With them the crossing is a kind of stand where anyone requiring their services knows they may be found. These sweepers are often employed by the butlers and servants in the neighbouring mansions for running errands, posting letters and occasionally helping in the packing up and removal of furniture or boxes when the family goes out of town. I have met with other sweepers who from being known for years to the inhabitants have at last got to be regularly employed at some of the houses to clean knives, boots, windows and so on. It is not a tall and unfrequent circumstance however for a sweeper to be in receipt of a weekly sum from some of the inhabitants in the district. The crossing itself is in these cases but of little value for chance customers. For were it not for the regular charity of the householders it would be deserted. Broken vitals and old clothes also form part of a sweeper's means of living. Nor are the clothes always old ones. For one or two of this class have for years been in the habit of having new suits presented to them by the neighbours at Christmas. The irregular sweepers mostly consist of boys and girls who have formed themselves into a kind of company and come to an agreement to work together on the same crossings. The principal resort of these is about Trafalgar Square where they have seized upon some three or four crossings which they visit from time to time in the course of the day. One of these gangs I found had appointed its king and captain though the titles were more honoured than privileged. They had framed their own laws respecting each one's right to the money he took and the obedience to these laws was enforced by the strength of the little fraternity. One or two girls whom I questioned told me that they mixed up ballad singing or lace selling with crossing sweeping taking to the broom only when the streets were wet and muddy. These children are usually sent out by their parents and have to carry home at night their earnings. A few of them are orphans with a lodging house for a home. Taken as a class crossing sweepers are among the most honest of the London poor. They all tell you that without a good character and the respect of the neighbourhood there is not a living to be got out of the broom. Indeed those whom I found best to do in the world were those who had been longest at their posts. Among them are many who have been servants until sickness or accident deprived them of their situations and nearly all of them have had their minds so subdued by affliction that they have been tamed so as to be incapable of mischief. The earnings or rather takings of crossing sweepers are difficult to estimate generally speaking that is to strike the average for the entire class. An erroneous idea prevails that crossing sweeping is a lucrative employment all whom I have spoken with agree in saying that some thirty years back it was a good living but they bewail piteously the spirit of the present generation. I have met with some who in former days took their three pounds weekly and there are but few I have spoken to who would not at one period have considered fifteen shillings a bad week's work. But now the takings are very much reduced. The man who was known to this class as having been the most prosperous of all for from one nobleman alone he received an allowance of seven shillings and sixpence weekly assured me that twelve shillings a week was the average of his present gains taking the year round whilst the majority of the sweepers agree that a shilling is a good day's earnings. A shilling a day is the very limit of the average incomes of the London sweepers and this is rather an over than an under calculation. For although a few of the more fortunate who are to be found in the squares or main thoroughfares or opposite the public buildings may earn their twelve or fifteen shillings a week yet there are hundreds who are daily to be found in the by streets of the metropolis who assert that eight pence a day is their average taking and indeed in proof of their poverty they refer you to the workhouse authorities who allow them certain quarter loaves weekly. The old stories of delicate suppers and stockings full of money have in the present day no foundation of truth. The black crossing sweeper who bequeathed five hundred pounds to Miss Weithman would almost seem to be the last of the class whose earnings were above his positive necessities. Lastly concerning the numbers belonging to this large class we may add that it is difficult to reckon up the number of crossing sweepers in London. There are few squares without a couple of these pathway scavengers and in the more respectable squares such as Cavendish or Portman every corner has been seized upon. Again in the principal thoroughfares nearly every street has its crossing and attendant. One of the adult crossing sweepers. A the able bodied sweepers. The elder portion of the London crossing sweepers admit as we have before said of being arranged for the sake of perspicuity into several classes. I shall begin with the able bodied males then proceed to the females of the same class and afterwards deal with the able bodied Irish male and female who take to the London causeways for a living. This done I shall then in due order take up the afflicted or crippled class and finally treat of the juveniles belonging to the same calling. One the able bodied male crossing sweepers part one. The aristocratic crossing sweeper. Billy is the popular name of the man who for many years has swept along crossing that cuts off one corner of Cavendish Square making a shortcut from Old Cavendish Street to the Duke of Portland's mansion. Billy is a merry good tempered kind of man with a face as red as a love apple and cheeks straight with little veins. His hair is white and his eyes are as black and bright as a terrier's. He can hardly speak a sentence without finishing it off with a moist chuckle. His clothes have that peculiar look which arises from being often wet through but still they are decent and far above what his class usually were. The hat is limp in the brim from being continually touched. The day when I saw Billy was a wet one and he had taken refuge from a shower under the Duke of Portland's Stone Gateway. His tweed coat torn and darned was black about the shoulders with the raindrops and his boots grey with mud. But he told me it was no good trying to keep clean shoes such a day as that because the blacking come off in the puddles. Billy is well up in the court guide. He continually stopped in his statement to tell whom my Lord be married or where my Lady C had gone to spend the summer or what was the title of the Marquis so-and-so's Eldest Boy. He was very grateful moreover to all who had assisted him and would stop looking up at the ceiling and God blessing them all with a species of religious fervour. His regret that the good old times had passed when he made hats full of money was unmistakably sincere and when he had occasion to allude to them he always delivered his opinion upon the late war calling it a cut and run affair and saying that it was nothing at all put alongside with the old war when the half-pincen silver coin were twice as big and 20 times more plentiful than during the late campaign. Without the least hesitation he furnished me with the following particulars of his life and calling. I was born in London in Cavendish Square and he added laughing. I ought to have a title for I first came into the world at number three which was Lord Besperos then. My mother went there to do her work for she chaired there and she was took sudden and couldn't go no further. She couldn't have chosen a better place could she? You see I was born in Cavendish Square and I've worked in Cavendish Square sweeping a crossing for now near upon 50 year. Until I was 19, I'm 69 now, I used to sell water creases but they felled off and then I dropped it. Both mother and myself sold water creases after my Lord Bespero died and whilst he lived she wouldn't leave him not for nothing. We used to do uncommon well at one time. There wasn't nobody about then as there is now. I've sold flowers too. They was very good then. They was mostly show carnations and moss roses and such like but no common flowers. It wouldn't have done for me to sell common things at the houses I used to go to. The reason why I took to a crossing was I had an old father and I didn't want him to go to the workers. I didn't wish too to do anything bad myself and I never would no sir for I've got as good a character as the first nobleman in the land and that's a fine thing isn't it? So as water creases had fell off till he wasn't living to me I had to do something else to help me to live. I saw the crossing sweepers in Westminster making a deal of money so I thought to myself I'll do that and I fixed upon Cabinger Square because I said to myself I'm known there it's where I was born and there I set to work. The very first day I was at work I took ten shillings I never asked nobody I only bowed my head and put my hand to my hat and they knowed what it meant. By Jingo when I took that there I thought to myself what a fool I've been to stop at water creases. For the first ten year I did uncommon well. Give me the old fashioned way they were good times then. I like the old fashioned way give me the old penny pieces and then the 18 penny pieces and the three shelling pieces and the seven shelling pieces give me them I says. The day the old halfpence and silver was cried down that is the old coin was called in to change the currency. My hat wouldn't hold the old silver and halfpence I was given that afternoon. I had such a lot upon my word they broke my pocket. I didn't know the money was altered but a fishmonger says to me have you got any old silver? I said yes I've got a hat full and then says he take him down to Cutsises and change him. I went and I was nearly squeged to death. That was the first time I was liked to be killed but I was nigh killed again when Queen Caroline passed through Cavendish Square after her trial. They took the horses out of her carriage and pulled her along. She kept a chucking money out of the carriage and I went and scrambled for it and I got five and twenty shilling but my hand was a nice smashed through it and says a friend of mine before I went Billy says he don't you go and I was sorry after I did. She was a good woman she was. The yallers that is the King's Party was a guiner and pulled up the paving stones when our funeral passed but the blues was for her. I can remember too the mob at the time of the Lord Castleray Riots. They went to Portman Square and broke all the windows in the house. They pulled up all the rails to protect their cells with. I went to the Bishop of Durham's and hid myself in the coal cellar then. My mother cheered there too. The Bishop of Durham and Lord Harcourt opened their gates and hurried the mob so they had nothing of theirs touched. But whether they did it through fear or not I can't say. The mob was carrying a quart and loaf dipped in Bullock's blood and when I saw it I thought it was a man's head so that frightened me and I ran off. I remember too when Lady Pembroke's house was burnt to the ground. That's about 18 years ago. It was very lucky the family wasn't in town. The housekeeper was a nigh-killed and they had to get her out over the stables and when her ladyship heard she was all right she said she didn't care for the fire since the old dame was saved and she had lived along with the family for many years. No bless you sir. I didn't help at the fire. I'm too much of a coward to do that. All the time the Duke of Portland was alive he used to allow me seven shilling sixpence a week which was a shilling a day and one shilling sixpence for Sundays. He was a little short man and a very good man he was too and it weren't only me as he gave money to but to plenty others. He was the best man in England for that. Lord George Benton too was a good friend to me. He was a great racer he was and then he turned to be a member of parliament and then he made a good man they tell me. But he never come to my crossing without giving me something. He was at the corner of Holly Street he was and he never put foot on my crossing without giving me a sovereign. Perhaps he wouldn't cross more than once or twice a month but when he come my way that was his money. Ah he was a nice fella he was. When he give it to you always put it in my hand and never let nobody see it and that's the way I like to have my fee give me. There's Mrs. D too as lived at number six. She was a good friend of mine and always allowed me a suit of clothes a year but she's dead good lady now. Dr. C and his lady they likewise was very kind friends of mine and gave me every year clothes and new shoes and blankets. I had a bed too if I had wanted it but now they're all dead down to the coachman. The doctor's old butler Mr. K he gave me 25 shillings the day of the funeral and says he, Bill I'm afraid this will be the last. Poor good friends they was all of them and I did feel cut up when I see the hearse going off. There was another gentleman Mr. WT who lives in Harley Street. He never come to me without giving me half a crown. He was a real good gentleman but I haven't seen him for a long time now and perhaps he's dead too. Oh my friends is dropping off. I'm 55 and they was men when I was a boy. All the good gentlemen's gone only the bad ones stop. Another friend of mine is Lord B. He always drops me a shilling when he come by and says he you don't know me but I know you Billy but I do know him for my mother worked for the family many a year and considering I was born in the house I think to myself if I don't know you why I ought. He's a handsome stout young chap and as nice a gentleman as any in the land. One of the best friends I had was Prince E as lived there in Chandus Street the bottom house yonder. I had five sovereigns give me the day as he was married to his beautiful wife. Don't you remember what a talk there was about her diamonds sir? They say she was covered in them. He used to put his hand in his pocket and give me two or three shillings every time he crossed. He was a gentleman as was uncommon fond of the girls sir. He'd go and talk to all the maid servants round about if he was only good looking. I used to go and ring the hairy bells for him and tell the girls to go and meet him in Chapel Street. God bless him. I says he was a pleasant gentleman and a regular gooden for a bit of fun and always looking lively and smiling. I see he's got his old coachman yet though the Prince doesn't live in England at present but his son does and he always gives me a half crown when he comes by too. I get a pretty fine lot of Christmas boxes but nothing like what I had in the old times. Prince E always gives me half a crown and I goes to the butler for it. Pretty near all my friends gives me a box them as knows me and they say Here's your Christmas box Billy. Last Christmas day I took 36 shillings and that was pretty fair. But bless you in the old times I've had my hat full of money. I tells you again I've have had as much as five pounds in old times all in old silver and half pens that was in the old war and not this runaway shabby affair. Every Sunday I have six pins regular from Lord H whether he's in town or not I goes and fetches it. Mrs. D of Harley Street she gives me a shilling every Sunday when she's in town and the parents as knows me gives havens to the little girls to give me. Some of the little lady says here that will do you good. No it's only pennies for six pinces is out of fashion and thank God for the coppers though they are little. I generally when the people's out of town take about two shillings or two shilling six pins on the Sunday. Last Sunday I only took one shilling thruppings but then you see it come on terrain and I didn't stop. When the town's full three people alone gives me more than that. In the season I take five shilling safe on a Sunday or perhaps six shillings for you see it's all like a lottery. I should like you to mention Lady Mild May in Grovner Square Sir whenever I goes to see her but you know I don't go often I'm safe for five shillings and at Christmas I have my regular salary a guinea. She's a very old lady and I've known her for many and many years. When it goes to my lady she always comes out to speak to me at the door and says she oh it is Willie and how do you do Willie and she always shakes hands with me and laughs away. She's a good kind creature. There's no pride in her whatsoever and she never sacks her servants. My crossing has been a good living to me in mind. It's kept the whole of us. And the old time I dare say I've made as much as three pounds a week regular by it. Besides I used to have lots of broken vitals and I can tell you I knowed where to take them to. Ah I've had as much food as I could carry away and regular good stuff, chicken and some things I couldn't guess the name of they were so frenchified. When the families is in town I get a good lot of food given me but you know when the nobility and gentlemen are away the servants is on board wages and cuss them board wages I says. I buried my father and mother as a son ought to. Mother was 73 and father was 65. Good round ages ain't they sir? I shall never live to be that. They are lying in St. John's Wood cemetery along with many of my brothers and sisters which I have buried as well. I've only two brothers living now and poor fellows they're not very well to do. It cost me a good bit of money. I pay two shelling sixpence a year for keeping up the graves of each of my parents and one shelling tuppence for my brothers. There was the Earl of Gainsborough as I should like you to mention as well please sir. He lived in Chandor Street and was a particular nice man and very religious. He always gave me a shelling and a tract. Well you see I did often read the tract. They was all religious and about where your souls was to go to. Very good you know what there was very good. And he used to buy him wholesale at a little shop corner of High Street Mariban. He was a very good kind gentleman and gave away such a deal of money that he got regular known and the little beggar girls followed him at such a rate that he was at last forced to ride about in a cab to get away from him. He's many a time said to me when he stopped to give me my shelling Billy is any of them a following me. He was safe to give to everybody as asked him but you see it worried his soul out and it was a kind soul too to be followed about by a mob. When all the families is in town I has 14 shelling's a week regular as clockwork from my friends as lives round the square and when they're away I don't get sixpence a day and sometimes I don't get a penny a day and that's less. You see some of them like my Lord B is out eight months in the year and some of them such as my Lord H is only three. Then Mrs D she's away three months and then she always gives one shelling a week regular when she's up in London. I don't take four shelling's a week on the crossing. Ah, I wish you'd give me four shelling's for what I take. No, I make up by going off errands. I run for the families and the servants and any of them. Sometimes he sends me to a bankers with a check. Bless you they'd trust me with anything if it was a hatful. I've had a lot of money trusted to me at times. At one time I had as much as 83 pounds to carry for the Duke of Portland. Aye, that was a glow that was. You see the hall porter had had it give to him to carry to the bank and he gets me to do it for him. But the valet's heard of it so he wanted to have a bit of fun and he wanted to put the hall porter in a funk. I met the valet in Hoburn and says he Bill I want to have a lark. So he kept me back and I did not get back till one o'clock. The hall porter offered five pounds reward for me and sends the police. But Mr. Free Brother Lord George's wallet he says I'll make it all right Billy. They sent up to my poor old people and says father Billy wouldn't rob anybody of a nightcap much more 80 pounds. I met the policeman in Hoburn and says he I want you Billy and says I all right here I am. When I got home the hall porter says he oh I am a dead man where's the money? and says I it's lost. Oh it's the juke's not mine says he. Then I pulls it out and says the porter it's a lark of Free Brothers. So he gave me two pounds to make it all right. That was a game and the whole porter says he I really thought you was gone Billy. But says I if everybody carried as good a face as I do everybody would be as honest as any and cowardish square. I had another lark at the Bishop of Durham's. I was a cleaning the knives and a swell mobsman with a green Bay's bag came down the steps and says he to me is Mr. Lewis the butler in? He got the name off quite pat. No says I he's upstairs. Then says he can I step into the pantry? Oh yes says I and shows him in. Bless you he was so well dressed I thought he was a master shoemaker or something but as all the plate was there thinks I I'll just lock the door to make safe. So I fastens him in tight and keeps him there till Mr. Lewis comes. No he didn't take none of the plate for Mr. Lewis come down and then as he didn't know nothing about him we had in a policeman when we find his bag was stuffed with silver teapots and all sorts of things from my Lord Musgraves says Mr. Lewis you did quite right Billy. It wasn't a likely thing I was going to let anybody into a pantry crammed with silver. There was another chap who had pricked a lot of plate. He was an old man and had a bag crammed with silver and was a cutting away with lots of people after him. So I puts my broom across his legs and tumbles him and when he got up he cut away and left the bag. Ah I've seen a good many games in my time that I have. The butler of the house the plate had been stole from gave me two pounds for doing him that turn. Once a gentleman called me and says he my man how long have you been in this square? Says I I'm Billy and been here almost all my life. Then he says can I trust you to take a check to scotch the banker? And I answers that's as you like for I wasn't going to press him. It was a heavy check for Mr. Scott as knows me well I well he do. Says Billy I can't give you all in notes you must stop a bit. It nearly filled the bag I had with me I took it all safe back and says he ah I know it would be all right and he give me a half sovereign. I should like you to put these things down because it's a fine thing for my character and I can show my face with any man for being honest that's one good thing. I pays four shillings a week for two rooms one up and one down for I couldn't live in one room. I come to work always near eight o'clock for you see it takes me some time to clean the knives and boots at Lord B's. I get sometimes a shilling and sometimes one shilling six pounds a week for doing that I'm glad I am to have it it's only for the servants I does it not for the quality. When I does anything for the servants it's either cleaning boots and knives or putting letters in the post that's it anything of that kind. They gives me just what they can a penny or tuppence or half a pint of beer when they hadn't got any coppers. Sometimes it gets a few left off clothes but very seldom I have two suits a year give me regular and I goes to a first rate tailor for them though they don't make the prime of course not yet they're very good. Now this quote I liked very well when it was new it was so clean and tidy no the tailor don't show me the pattern books and that sort of thing he knows what's wanted I won't never have none of them washing duck breeches that's the only thing as I refuses and the tailor knows that I look very nice after Christmas I can tell you and I've always got a good tidy suit for Sundays and God bless them as gives them to me. Every Sunday I gets a hot dinner at Lord B's whether he's out of town or in town that's summit. I get spits too give me so that I don't buy a dinner no not once a week. I pay four shillings a week rent and I do say my food morning and night cost me a shilling a day I am sure it does morning and night. At present I don't make 12 shillings a week but take the year round one week with another it might come to 13 shillings or 14 shillings a week I get. Yes I'll own to that. Christmas is my best time then I get more than a pound a week now I don't take four shillings a week on my crossing many's the time I've made my breakfast on a pereath of coffee with a hapny slice of bread and butter what do you think of that? Wet weather does all the harm to me people you see don't like to come out I think I've got the best side of the square and you see my crossing is a long one and saves people a deal of ground for it cuts off the corner it used to be a famous crossing in its time ha but that's gone. I always use what they call the brush brooms that's them with the flat head like a house broom I can't abide them others they don't look well and they wears out ten times as quick as mine I general buys the eights that's ten pence apiece and finds my own handles a broom won't last me more than a fortnight it's such a long crossing but when it was paved before this mucky dam note, macadamising, end note was turned up a broom would last me a full three months I can't abide this mucky dam can you sir? it's sloppy stuff and goes so bad in holes give me the good solid stones as used to be I does a good business round the square when the snow's on the ground I general does each house at so much a week whilst it snows hardwicks gave me a shilling I does only my side and that next Oxford Street I don't go to the others unless somebody comes and orders me for fair play is fair play and they belongs to the other sweepers I does my part and they does theirs it seldom as I has a shop to sweep out and I don't do nothing with shutters I'm getting too old now for to be called in to carry boxes up gentlemen's houses but when I was young I found plenty to do that way there's a man at the corner of Chanda Street and he does the most of that kind of work End of section 88 Section 89 of London Labour and the London Poor Volume 2 by Henry Mayhew this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Gillian Hendry 1. The able-bodied male crossing sweepers Part 2. The bearded crossing sweeper at the exchange Since the destruction by fire of the royal exchange in 1838 there has been added to the curiosities of Cornhill a thick set sturdy and her suit crossing sweeper a man who is as civil by habit as he is independent by nature he has a long flowing beard grey as wood smoke and a pair of fierce mustaches giving a patriarchal air of importance to a marked and observant face which often serves as a painter's model after half an hour's conversation you are forced to admit that his looks do not at all belie him and that the old mariner for such was his profession formerly is worthy in some measure of his beard he wears an old felt hat very battered and discoloured around his neck which is bared in accordance with sailor custom he has a thick blue cotton necker chief tied in a sailor's knot his long iron grey beard is accompanied by a healthy and almost ruddy face he stands against the post all day saying nothing and taking what he can get without solicitation when I first spoke to him he wanted to know to what purpose I intended applying the information that he was prepared to afford and it was not until I agreed to walk with him as far as St. Mary acts that I was enabled to obtain his statement as follows I've had this crossing ever since 38 the exchange was burnt down in that year twice sir I was wondering about trying to get a crust and it was very sloppy so I took and got a broom and while I kept a clean crossing I used to get haypence and pence I got a dockman's wages that's half a crown a day sometimes only a shelling and sometimes more I have taken a crown but that's very rare the best customers I had is dead I used to make a good Christmas but I don't know I have taken a pound or 30 shillings then in the old times I smoke sir I will have tobacco if I can't get grub my old woman takes cares that I have tobacco I have been a sailor and the first ship as ever I was in was the old Colossus 74 but he was only cruising about the channel then and took two prizes I went aboard the old Romewa guard ship we were turned over to her and from her I was drafted over to the Iscramander frigate we went out chasing Boney but he'd give himself up to the old impregnable I was at the taking of Algiers in 1816 in the superb I was in the rock for 74 up the Mediterranean they call it up the Mediterranean but it was the Malta station three years 10 months and 20 days until the ship was paid off then I went to work at the dockyard I had a misfortune soon after that I fell out of a garret window three stories high and that kept me from going to the docks again I lost all my top teeth by that fall I got a scar here one on my chin but I weren't in the hospital more than two weeks I was afraid of being taken up soliciting charity and I knew that sweeping was a safe game they couldn't take me up for sweeping a crossing sometimes I get insulted only in words sometimes I get chaffed by sober people drunken men I don't care for I never listen to him unless they handle me and then although I am 63 this very day sir I think I could show them something I do carry my age well and if you could have seen how I have lived this last winter through sometimes one pound of bread between two of us you'd say I was a strong man to be as I am those who think that sweeping a crossing is idle work make a great mistake in wet weather the traffic that makes it get sloppy as soon as it's cleaned cabs and buses and carriages continually going over the crossing must scatter the mud on it and you must look precious sharp to keep it clean but when I once get in the road I never jump out of it I keeps my eye both ways and if I get in two close quarters I slips round the wheels I've had them almost touch me no sir I never got knocked down in foggy weather of course it's no use sweeping at all parcels it's very few parcels I get to carry now I don't think I get a parcel to carry once in a month there's buses and railways so cheap a man would charge as much for a distance as a cab would take them I don't come to the same crossing on Sundays I go to the corner of Finch Lane as to regular customers I've none to say regular some give me six pins now and then all those who used to give me regular are dead I was a bed when the exchange was burnt down I have had this beard five years I grew it to sit to artists when I got the chance but it don't pay expenses for I have to walk four or five miles and only get a shilling an hour besides I'm often kept nearly two hours and I get nothing for going and nothing for coming but just for the time I'm there at four I wore it I had a pair of large whiskers I went to a gentleman then an artist and he did pay me well he advised me to grow my stashers and the beard but he hasn't employed me since they call me old Jack on the crossing that's all they call me I get more chaff from the boys than anyone else they only say why don't you get shaved? but I take no notice on them old Bill in Lombard Street I know him he used to make a good thing of it but I don't think he makes much now my wife I am married sir doesn't do anything I live in a lodging house and I pay three shillings a week I tell you what we has now when I go home we has a pound of bread a quarter of an ounce of tea and perhaps a red herring I've had a weakness in my legs for two year the veins come down but I keep a bandage in my pocket and when I feel them coming down I put the bandage on till the veins go up again it's through being on my legs so long because I had very strong legs when young and want of good food when you only have a bit of bread and a cup of tea no meat, no vegetables you find it out but I'm as upright as a dart and as listen as ever I was I give struppings for my brooms I wears out three in a week in the wet weather I always lean very hard on my broom especially when the mud is sticky as it is after the roads is watered I am very particular about my brooms I give them away to be burned when many another would use them the sweeper in Portman Square who got permission from the police a wild looking man with long, straggling grey hair which stood out from his head as if he brushed it the wrong way and whiskers so thick and curling that they reminded one of the wool round a sheep's face gave me their accompanying history he was very fond of making use of the term honest crust and each time he did so he Irish-like pronounced it crust he seemed a kind-hearted innocent culture half scared by want and old age I'm blessed if I can tell which is the best crossing in London but mine ain't no great shakes for I don't take three shillings a week not with persons going across taking one week with another but I thought I could get an honest crust at it for I've got a crippled hand which comes of its own accord and I was in St. George's Hospital seven weeks when I come out it was a cripple with me and I thought the crossing was better than going into the workhouse for I likes my liberty I've been on this crossing since last Christmas was a 12 month before that I was a bricklayer and plasterer I've been 32 years in London I can get as good a character as anyone anywhere please God whereas to drunkards and all that I was none of them I was earning 18 shilling a week and sometimes with my overtime I've had 20 shilling and even 23 shilling bricklayers is paid according to all the hours they work beyond 10 for that's the bricklayers day I was among the lime and the sand and the bricks and then my hand come like this note he held out a hand with all the fingers drawn up towards the middle like the claw of a dead bird end note all the sinews have gone as you see yourself sir so that I can't bend it or straighten it for the fingers are like bits of stick and you can't bend them without breaking them when I couldn't lay hold of anything nor lift it up I showed it to master and he sent me to his doctor who gave me something to rub over it but it was swelled up like and then I went to St. George's Hospital and they cut it over and asked me if I could come indoors as an indoor patient and I said yes for I wanted to get it over sooner and go back to my work and earn an honest crust then they scarred it again cut it seven times and I was there many long weeks and when I come out I could not hold any tool so I was forced to keep on pawning and pledging to keep an honest crust in my mouth and sometimes I'd only just be with a morsel to eat and sometimes I'd be hungry and that's the truth what put me up to crossing sweeping was this I had no other thing open to me but the workhouse but of course I'd sooner be out on my liberty though I was entitled to go into the house of course but I'd sooner keep out of it if I could earn an honest crust one of my neighbours persuaded me that I should pick up a good crust at a crossing the man who had been on my crossing was gone dead and as it was empty I went down to the police office in Marley-Bunn Lane and they told me I might take it and give me liberty to stop I was told the man who had been there before me had been on it 14 years and then was good times for gentle and simple and all and it was reported that this man had made a good bit of money at least so it was said I thought I could make a living out of it or an honest crust but it's a very poor living I can assure you when I went to it first I'd done pretty fair for a crust but it's only three shillings to me now My mrs. has such bad health or she used to help me with her needle I can assure you sir it's only one day a week as I have a bit of dinner and I often go without breakfast and supper too I haven't got any regular customers that allow me anything when the families is in town sometimes they give me half a crown or six pence now and then perhaps once a fortnight or a month they've got footmen and servant maids so they never want no parcels taken they make them do it but sometimes I get a penny for posting a letter from one of the maids or something like that the best day for us is Sunday sometimes I get a shilling and when the families is in town 18 pence but when the families is away and the weather so fine there's no mud and only working people going to the chapels they never looks at me and then I'll only get a shilling another who got permission to sweep an old Irishman who comes from Cork was spoken off to us as a crossing sweeper who had formally obtained permission before exercising his calling but I found upon questioning him that it was but little more than a true hibernian piece of conciliation on his part and indeed that out of fear of competition he had asked leave of the servants and policemen in the neighborhood it seems somewhat curious and illustrative of the rights of property among crossing sweepers that three or four intending sweepers when they found themselves forestalled by the old man in question had no idea of supplanting the Irishman and merely remarked well you're lucky to get it so soon for we meant to take it in reply to our questions the man said I came here in January last I knew the old man was dead who used to keep the crossing and I thought I would like the kind of work for I am getting blind and hard of hearing likewise I've got no parish since the passing of the last act I've never lived long enough in any one parish for that I applied to Maribon and they offered to send me back to Ireland but I'd get no one to go to no friends or relations or if I have they're as poor there as I am myself sir there was an old man here before me he used to have a stool to rest himself on and when he died last Christmas a man as knew him and me asked me whether I would take it or no and I said I would his broom and stool were in the cold cellar at this corner house Mr. Blanks where he used to leave them at night times and they gave them up to me but I didn't use the stool sir it might be an obstruction to the passersby and sir it looks as if it was infirmity but place the Lord I'll get and make a stool for myself against the hard winter I will being a carpenter by trade I didn't ask the gentle folks permission to come here but I asked the police and the servants and such as that I asked the servants at the corner house I don't know whether they could have kept me away if I had not asked soon after I came here the gentle folks some of them stopped and spoke to me so says they you've taken the place of the old man that did yes I have says I very well says they and they give me a hipney that was all that occurred upon my taking to the crossing but there were some others who would have taken it if I had not they told me I was lucky in getting it so soon or they would have had it but I don't know who they are I am 73 years old the second of June last my wife is about the same age and very much afflicted with the rheumatis and she injured herself two years ago by falling off a chair while she was taking some clothes off the line not to deceive you sir I get a shilling a week from one of my children and nine pins from another and it'll help from some of the others I have seven children living and have had ten they're very much scattered two are abroad one is in the Tenth Hussars he is kind to me the one who allows me nine pins is a basket maker at Redden and the shilling I get from my daughter a servant sir or if my son died in the creamy he was in the Thirteenth Light Dragoons and died at Scootery on the 25th of May they could not help me more than they try to do sir I only make about two shilling a week here sir and sometimes I don't take three hipneys a day on Sundays I take about seven pins, nine pins or ten pins Cordon as I see the people who give regular weather makes no difference to me for though the sum is small I am a regular pensioner like her there I go to Summers Town Chapel being a Catholic for I'm not ashamed to own my religion before any man when I go it is at seven in the evening sometimes I go to St Patrick's Chapel Soho Square I have not been to Confession for two or three years the last time was to Mr Stanton at St Patrick's there's a poor woman sir who goes past here every Friday to get her pay from the parish and as sure as she comes back again she gives me a hipney she does indeed sometimes the baker or the greengrocer gives me a hipney for minding their baskets I'm perfectly satisfied it's no use to grumble and I might be worse off sir yes I go off errands sometimes which water now and then and post letters but I do know what jobs such as helping the servants to clean the knives and such like no they wouldn't let me behind the shadow of their doors a third who asked leave this one was a mild and rather intelligent man in a well-worn black dress coat and waistcoat a pair of moleskin trousers and a blue and white cotton neckerchief I found him sweeping the crossing at the end of blank place opposite the church he every now and then regaled himself with a pinch of snuff which seemed to light up his care worn face he seemed very willing to afford me information he said I've been on this crossing for years I am a bricklayer by trade but you see how my fingers have gone it's all romantic sir I took a great many colds I had a great deal of underground work and that tries a man very much how did I get the crossing well I took it I came as a casualty no one ever interfered with me if one man leaves a crossing well another takes it yeah some crossings is worth a good deal of money there was a black and regent street at the corner of conduit street I think who had two or three houses at least I've heard so for I know for a certainty that the man in Cavendish Square used to get so much a week from the Duke of Portland he got a shelling a day and 18 pence on Sundays I don't know why he got more on Sundays I don't know whether he gets it since the old Duke's death the boys worry me I mean the little boys with brooms they are an abusive set and give me a good deal of annoyance they are so very cheeky they watch the police away but if they see the police coming they bolt like a shot there are a great many Irish lads among them there were not nearly so many boys about a few years ago I once made 18 pence in one day that was the best day I ever made it was very bad weather but take the year through I don't make more than six pence a day I haven't worked at Brick Lane for a matter of six year what did I do for the two years before I took the crossing sweeping? why sir, I had saved a little money and managed to get on somehow yes I have had my troubles but I never had what I call great ones excepting my wife's blindness she was blind sir for 11 year and so I had to fight for everything she has been dead two years come September I have seven children five boys and two girls they are all grown up and got families yes they ought among them to do something for me but if you have to trust the children you will soon find out what that is if they want anything off you they know where to find you but if you want anything of them it's no go I think I made more money when first I swept this crossing than I do now it's not a good crossing sir oh no but it's handy home you see when a shower of rain comes on I can run home and needn't go into a public house but it's a poor neighborhood oh yes indeed sir I'm always here certainly I'm laid up sometimes for a day with my feet I'm subject to the romantic gout you see well I don't know whether so much standing has anything to do with it yes sir I have heard of what you call shutting up shop I never heard it called by that name before though but there's lots of sweepers I sweep back the dirt before leaving at night I know they do some of them I never did it myself I don't care about it I always think there's the trouble of sweeping it back in the morning people liberal? no sir, I don't think there are many liberal people about if people were liberal I should make a good deal of money sometimes after I get home I read a book if I can borrow one what do I read? well, novels when I can get them what did I read last night? well, Reynolds Miscellany before that I read The Pilgrim's Progress I've read it three times over but there's always something new in it well, weather makes very little difference in this neighbourhood my rent is two and sixpence a week I have a little relief from the parish how much? two and sixpence how much does my living cost? well, I am forced to live on what I can get I manage as well as I can if I have a good week I spend it I get more nourishment then, that's all I used to smoke, sir, a great deal but I haven't touched a pipe for a matter of forty years yes sir, I take snuff, scotch and drapea mixed if I go without a meal of vitals I must have my snuff I take an ounce a week, sir it costs fourpence that there is the only luxury I get unless somebody gives me a half pint of beer I very rarely get an odd job this is not the neighbourhood for them things yes sir, I go to church on Sunday I go to All Souls in Langham Place the church with the sharp spire I go in the morning once a day is quite enough for me in the afternoon I generally take a walk in the park or I go to see one of my young ones they won't come to the old crossing sweeper so I go to them a Regent Street crossing sweeper a man who had stationed himself at the end of Regent Street near the county fire office gave me the following particulars he was a man far superior to the ordinary run-off sweepers and as we'll be seeing had formerly been a gentleman's servant his costume was of that peculiar miscellaneous description which showed that it had from time to time been given to him in charity a dress coat so marvellously tight that the stitches were stretching open a waistcoat with a remnant of embroidery and a pair of trousers which wrinkled like a groom's top boot had all evidently been part of the wardrobe of the gentleman whose errands he had run his boots were the most curious portion of his toilet for they were large enough for a fisherman and the portion unoccupied by the foot had gone flat and turned up like a Turkish slipper he spoke with a tone and manner which showed some education once or twice whilst I was listening to his statement he insisted upon removing some dirt from my shoulder and on leaving he by force seized my hat and brushed it all which habits of attention he had contracted whilst in service I was surprised to see stuck in the wristband of his coat sleeve a row of pins arranged as neatly as in the papers sold at the Mercers since the Irish have come so much the boys I mean my crossing has been completely cut up he said and yet it is in as good a spot as could well be from the county fire office Mr Beaumont as owns it to Swan and Edgar's it ought to be one of the first crossings in the kingdom but these Irish have spiled it I should think as far as I can guess I've been on it eight year if not better but it was some time before I got known you see it does a feather good to be some time on a crossing but it all depends of course whether you're honest or not for it's according to your honesty as you get rewarded by rewarded I means you get a character given to you by word of mouth for instance a party wants me to do a job for him and they says can you get any lady or gentlemen to speak for you and I says yes and I gets my character by word of mouth that's what I calls being rewarded before ever I took a room in hand the good times had gone for crossings and sweepers the good times was 30 year back in the regular season when they the gentry are in town I have taken from one and six pins to two shillings a day but every day is not alike for people stop at home on wet days but you see in winter time the crossings ain't no good and then we turn off to shoveling snow so that you see a shilling a day is even too high for us to take regular all the year round now I ain't taking a shilling no nor a blessed bit of silver for these three days all the qualities out of town it ain't what a man gets on a crossing as keeps him that ain't worth mentioning I don't think I take six pins a day regular all the year round mind on the crossing no I'd take my solemn oath I don't if he was to put down four pins it would be nearer the mark I'll tell you the use of a crossing to such as me and my likes it's our shop and it ain't what we gets the sweeping but it's a place like for us to stand and then people as once as comes and fetches us in the summer I do a good deal in jobs I do anything in the portering line or if I'm called to do boots and shoes or clean knives and forks then I does that but that's only when people's busy for I've only got one regular place I goes to and that's in A Street, Piccadilly I goes messages, parcels, letters and anything that's required either for the master of the hotel or the gents that uses there now there's one party at Swan and Edgar's and I goes to take parcels for him sometimes and he won't trust anybody but me for you see I'm known to be trustworthy and then he reckons me as safe as the bank there that's just it I got to the hotel only lately you see when the peace was on and the soldiers was coming home from the Krimi then the governor he was exceeding busy so he gave me two shillings a day and my board but that wasn't regular for as he wants me he comes and fetches me it's a nigh impossible to say what I makes it don't turn out regular Sundays a shilling or one and sixpence other days nothing at all not salt to my porridge you see when I helps the party at the hotel I gets my food and that's a lift I've never put down what I made in the course of the year but I've got enough to find food and remit for myself and family so I think I may say I gets about six shillings a week but it ain't more I've been abroad a good deal I was in Cape Town Table Bay one and 20 miles from Simons Town for you see the French man's of war comes in at Cape Town and the English man's of war comes in at Simons Town I was a gentleman servant over there and a very good place it was and if anybody was to have told me years back that I was to have come to what I am now I could never have credited it but misfortunes has brought me to what I am I come to England thinking to better myself if so be it was the opportunity besides I was tired of Africa and anxious to see my native land I was very hard up I very hard up indeed before I took to the cross and in preference to turning out dishonest I says I'll buy a broom and go and sweep and get an honest livelihood there was a Jewish lady and her husband used to live in the Succos and I knowed them and the family very fine sons they was and I went into the shop to ask them to let me work before the shop and they give me their permission so to do and says she I'll allow you thruppings a week they've been good friends to me and send me a messages and wherever they be may they do well I says I sometimes get clothes give to me but it's only at Christmas times or after it's over and that helps me along it does so indeed whenever I sees a pin or a needle I picks it up sometimes I finds as many as a dozen a day and I always sticks them either in my cuff or in my waistcoat very often a lady sees them and then they comes to me and says can you oblige me with a pin and I says oh yes ma'am a couple or three if you requires them but it turns out very rare that I get a trifle for anything like that I only does it to be obliging besides it makes you friends like I can't tell who's got the best crossing in London I'm no judge of that it isn't a broom as can keep a man now they're going out of town so fast all the aristocracy though it's middling classes such as is in a middling way like as is the best friend to me a tradesman's crossing sweeper a man who had worked at crossing sweeping as a boy when he first came to London and again when he grew too old to do his work as a labourer in a coal yard gave me a statement of the kind of life he led and the earnings he made he was an old man with a forehead so wrinkled that the dark waved lines reminded me of the grain of oak his thick hair was despite his great age which was nearly 70 still dark and as he conversed with me he was continually taking off his hat and wiping his face with what appeared to be a piece of flannel about a foot square his costume was of what might be called the all sorts kind and from constant wear it had lost its original colour and had turned into a sort of dirty green grey hue it consisted of a waistcoat of tweed fastened together with buttons of glass, metal and bone a tailcoat turned brown with weather a pair of trousers repaired here and there with big stitches like the teeth of a comb and these formed the extent of his wardrobe around the collar of the coat and waistcoat and on the thighs of the pantaloons the layers of greys were so thick that the fibre of the cloth was choked up and it looked as if it had been pierced with bits of leather rubbing his unshorne chin where on the bristles stood up like the pegs in the barrel of a musical box until it made a noise like a hairbrush he began his story I'm known all about in Parliament Street I every bit about them parts for more than 30 years I am as well known as the study itself all about them parts at Charin Cross before I took to crossing sweeping I was at coal work the coal work I did was backing and filling and anything in that way I worked at woods and pennies and ducklaces they were good masters, Mr Wood especially but the work was too much for me as I got old there was plenty of coal work in them times indeed I've yearned as much as nine shillings of a day that was the time as the meters was on now men can hardly earn a living at coal work I left the coal work because I was took ill with a favour and was brought on by sweating over exaction they called it it left me so weak I wasn't able to do nothing in the yards I know Mr G, the fishmonger and Mr J, the publican I should think Mr J has known me this 8 and 30 year and they put me on to the crossing you see when I was odd man at a coal job I'd go and do whatever there was to be done in the neighbourhood if there was anything as Mr G's men couldn't do such as carrying fish home to a customer when the other men were busy I was sent for or Mr J would send me with spirits a gallon or half a gallon or anything of that sort a long journey in fact I'd get anything as come handy I had done crossing sweeping as a boy before I took to coal work when I first come out of the country my own head first put me up to the notion and that's more than 50 years ago I am more than that but I can't call to mind exactly for I've had no parents ever since I was 8 year old and now I'm 970 but it's as close as I can remember I was about 13 at that time there was no police on them and I saw a good bit of road as was dirty and says I that's a good spot to keep clean and I took it I used to go up to the tops of the houses to throw over the snow and I've often been obliged to get men to help me I suppose I was about the first person has ever swept a crossing in Charing Cross note here as if proud of the fact he gave a kind of moist chuckle which ended in a fit of coughing and note I used to make a good bit of money then but it ain't worth nothing now after I left coal backing I went back to the old crossing opposite the Admiralty Gates and I stopped there until Mr G gives me the one I'm on now and thank him for it I says Mr G had the crossing paved as leads to his shop to accommodate the customers he had a German there to sweep it for me he used to sweep it in the day come about 10 or 11 o'clock in the morning and then at night he turned watchman when there was any wensen as Mr G deals in hanging out he was put to watch it this German worked there I reckon about 7 year and when he died I took the crossing the crossing ain't much of a living for anybody that is what I takes on it but then I've got regular customers as gives me money there's Mr G he gives me a shilling a week and there's Captain R of the Admiralty he gives me six pence of fortnight and another captain of the name of R he gives me four pence every Sunday I forgot Mr O the secretary at the Admiralty he gives me six pence now and then besides I do a lot of odd jobs for different people they knows where to come and find me when they wants me they gets me to carry letters or a partial or a box or anything of that there I has a bit of vitals too give me every now and then but as for money it's very little as I get on the crossings perhaps seven or eight shillings a week regular customers and all I never heard of anybody as was leaving a crossing selling it no never my crossing ain't a regular one as anybody could have if I was to leave it depends upon whether Mr G would like to have the party as to who gets it there's no such thing as turning a regular sweeper out the police stops that I've been known to them for years and they are very kind to me as they come by they says Jimmy how are you? you see my crossing comes handy for them for it's against Scotland Yard and when they turns out in their clean boots it saves their blacking Lord G used to be at the Admiralty but he ain't there now I don't know why he left but he's gone he used to give me six pence every now and then when he come over I was new to my crossing when Mr Drummond was shot but I wasn't new enough to hear the pistol but I didn't see nothing I know the late Sir Robert Peale oh certainly but he seldom crossed over my crossing though whenever he did he'd give me something the presence of Robert goes over to the chapel in Spring Gardens when he's in town but he keeps on the other side of the way so I never have anything from him he's the very picture of his father and I know him from that only his father were rather stouter than he is I don't know none of the members of Parliament they most of them keeps on shifting so so I hasn't no time to recognise him the watering carts ain't no friends of ours they make dirt and no pay for cleaning it there's so much traffic with coaches and carts going right over my crossing that a fine or wet day don't make much difference to me for people are afraid to cross for fear of being run over I'm forced to have my eyes about me and dodge the vehicles I never heard as I can tell on of a crossing sweeper being run over two the able bodied female crossing sweepers the old woman over the water she is the widow of a sweep as respectable and industrious a man I was told as any in the neighbourhood of the borough he was a short man sir very short said my informant and had a weakness for top boots white hats and leather breeches and in that unsweep like costume he would parade himself up and down the Dover and New Kent roads he had a capital connection or as his widow terms it seat of business and left behind him a good name and reputation that would have kept the seat of business together if it had not been for the misconduct of the children two of whom sons have been transported while a daughter went wrong though she Richard Queacher paid a fearful penalty I learned for her frailties having been burnt to death in the middle of the night through a careless habit of smoking in bed the old sweeper herself 80 years of age and almost beyond labour very deaf and rather feeble to all appearance yet manages to get out every morning between four and five so as to catch the workmen and timekeepers on their way to the factories she has the true obsequious curtsy but is said to be very strong in her likes and dislikes she bears a good character though sometimes inclining I was informed towards the other half pint but never guilty of any excess she is somewhat profuse in her scriptural ejaculations and professions of gratitude her statement was as follows 15 years I've been on the crossing come next Christmas my husband died in Guy's hospital of the cholera three days after he got in and I took to the crossing some time after I had nothing to do I am 80 years of age and I couldn't do hard work I have nothing but what the great God above pleases to give me the poor women who had the crossing before me was killed and so I took it the gentleman who was the foreman of the road gave me the grant to take it I didn't ask him for poor people as once a bit of bread they goes on the crossings as they likes but he never interfered with me the first day I took six pints but them good times is all gone they'll never come back again the best times I used to take a shilling a day and now I don't take but a few pence the winter is as bad as the summer for poor people haven't got it to give and gentle folks get very near now people are not so liberal as they used to be and they never will be again to do a hard day's washing I couldn't I used to go to a lady's house to do a bit of washing when I had my strength but I can't do it now people going to their offices at six or seven in the morning gives me a hipney or a penny if they don't I must go without it I go at five and stand there till eleven or twelve till I find it is no use being there any longer oh the gentleman give me the most I'm sure the ladies don't give me nothing at Christmas I get a few things a gentleman gave me these boots I've got on and a ticket for a half-quarter loaf and a hundred of coals I've got as much as five shillings at Christmas but those times will never come back again I get no more than two shillings in six pence at Christmas now my husband Thomas Blank was his name was a chimney sweep he did a very good business it was all done by his sons we had a boy with us too just as a friendly boy I was a mother and a mistress to him I've had eleven children I'm grandmother to fifteen and a great grandmother too they won't give me a bite of bread though any of them I've got four children living as far as I know two abroad and two home here with families I never go among them it is not in my power to assist him so I never go to distress him I get two shilling a week from the parish and I have to pay out of that for a quarter loaf a quarter of sugar and an ounce of tea the parish forces it on me so I must take it and that only leaves me one shilling in four pence a shilling off it goes for my lodging I lodged with people who knew my family and me and took a liking to me they let me come there instead of wondering about the streets I stand on my crossing till I'm like to drop over my broom with tiredness yes sir I go to church at St. George's in the borough I go there every Sunday morning after I leave my roads they've taken the organ and charity children away that used to be there when I was a girl so it's not a church now it's a chapel there's nothing but the preacher and the gentle folks and they sing their own psalms there are gatherings at that church but whether it's for the poor or not I don't know I don't get any of it it was a great loss to me when my husband died I went all to ruin then my father belonged to Scotland at Edinburgh my mother came from Yorkshire I don't know where Scotland is no more than the dead my father was a gentleman's gardener and watchman my mother used to go out of chairing and she was drowned just by a horse monger lane she was coming through the Hapney Hatch that used to be just facing the crown and anchor in the New Kent Road there was an open ditch there sir she took a left hand turning instead of the right and was grounded my father died in St. Martin's Workhouse he died of apoplexy fit I used to mind my father's place till mother died his housekeeper I was God help me a fine one too thank the Lord my husband was a clever man he had a good seat of business I lost my right hand when he died I couldn't carry it on there was my two sons went for soldiers and the others were above their business he left a seat of business worth a hundred pound he served all up the New Kent Road he was beloved by all his people he used to climb himself when I first had him but he left it off when he got children I had my husband when I was 15 and kept him 40 years ah he was well beloved by all around except his children and they behaved shameful I said to his eldest son when he lay in the hospital asking your pardon sir for mentioning it I said to his eldest son Billy says I your father's very bad why don't you go and see him oh he says he he's alright he's getting better and he was never the one to go and see him once and he never come to the funeral Billy thought I should come upon him after his death but I never troubled him for as much as a crumb of bread I never get spoken to in my roads only some people say good morning there you are old lady they never ask me no questions whatsoever I never get run over though I am very hard of hearing but I am forced to have my eyes here there and everywhere to keep out of the way of the carts and coaches some days I goes to my crossing and earns nothing at all other days it's sometimes four pints sometimes six pints I earned four pints today and I had a bit of snuff out of it why I believe I did earn five pints yesterday I won't tell no story I got nine pints on Sunday that was a good day but God knows that didn't go far I earned so much I couldn't bring it home on Saturday it almost makes me laugh I earned six pints I goes every morning winter or summer frost or snow and at the same hour five o'clock people certainly don't think of giving so much in fine weather nobody ever mislisted me and I never mislisted nobody if they gives me a penny I thanks them and if they gives me nothing I thanks them all the same if I was to go into the house I shouldn't live three days it's not that I eat much a very little is enough for me but it's the air I should miss to be shut up like a thief I couldn't live long I know the old woman crossing sweeper who had a pensioner this old dame is remarkable from the fact of being the chief support of a poor deaf cripple who is as much poorer than the crossing sweeper as she is poorer than Mrs. Blank in Blank Street who allows the sweeper six pints a week the crossing sweeper is a rather stout old woman with a carnying tone and constant curtsy she complains in common with most of her class of the present hard times and reverts longingly to the good old days when people were more liberal than they are now and had more to give she says I was on my crossing before the police was made for I am not able to work and only get helped by the people who knows me Mr. Blank in the square gives me a shilling a week Mrs. Blank in Blank Street gives me six pints she has gone in the country now but she has left it at the oil shop for me that's what I depends upon darling to help pay my rent which is half a crown my rent was three shillings till the landlord didn't wish me to go because I was so punctual with my money I give a corner of my room to a poor creature who's deaf as a beetle she works at the soldier's coats and is a very good hand at it and would earn a good deal of money if she had constant work she owed as good as 12 shillings and six pints for rent poor thing where she was last and the landlord took all her goods except her bed she's got that so I give her a corner of my room for charity's sake we must look to one another she's as poor as a church mouse I thought she would be company for me still a deaf person is but poor company to one she had that heavy sickness they called a cholera about five years ago and it fell on her side and on the side of her head too that made her deaf oh she's a poor object she has been with me since the month of February I've lent her money out of my own pocket I give her a cup of tea or a slice of bread when I see she hasn't got any then the people upstairs are kind to her and give her a bite and a sup my husband was a soldier he fought at the battle of Waterloo his pension was nine pints a day all my family are dead except my grandson what's in New Orleans I expect him back this very month that now we have he gave me four pounds before he went to carry me over the last winter if the Almighty God pleases to send him back he'll be a great help to me he's all I've got left I never had but two children in all my life I worked in Nobleman's houses before I was married to my husband who was dead but he came to be poor and I had to leave my houses where I used to work I took Tuppence Haytony yesterday and Thruppence today the day before yesterday I didn't take a penny I never come out on Sunday I goes to Rosamund Street Chapel last Saturday I made one shelling in sixpence on Friday sixpence I dare say I make three shelling in sixpence a week besides the one shelling in sixpence I get to love me I'm forced to make a do of it somehow but I've no more strength left in me than this old broom the crossing sweeper who had been a servant maid she is to be found any day between eight in the morning and seven in the evening sweeping away in a convulsive jerky sort of manner close to blank square near the foundling she may be known by her pinched up straw bonnet with a broad faded almost colourless ribbon she has weak eyes and wears over them a brownish shade her face is tied up because of a gathering which she has on her head she wears a small old plaid cloak a clean checked apron and a tidy printed gown she is rather shy at first but willing and obliging enough with all and she lives down little blank yard in Great Blank Street the yard that is made like a mousetrap small at the entrance but amazingly large inside and dilapidated though extensive here are stables and a couple of blind alleys nameless or bearing the same name as the yard itself and wherein are huddled more people than one could count in a quarter of an hour and more children than one likes to remember dirty children listlessly trailing an old tin baking dish or a worn out shoe tied to a piece of string sullen children who turn away in a fit of sleepy anger if spoken to screaming children setting all the parent in the yard at defiance and quiet children who are arranging banquets of dirt in the reeking gutters the yard is devoted principally to cost amongers the crossing sweeper lives in the top room of a two-storey house in the very depth of the blind alley at the end of the yard she has not even a room to herself but pays one shilling a week for the privilege of sleeping with a woman who gets her living by selling tapes in the street ah says the sweeper poor woman she has a hard time of it her husband is in the hospital with a bad leg in fact he's scarcely ever out if you could hear that woman cough you'd never forget it she would have had to starve today if it hadn't been for a person who actually lent her a gown to pledge to raise her stock money poor thing the room in which these people live has a sloping roof and a small pained window on each side for furniture there were two chairs and a shaky three-legged stool a deal table and a bed rolled up against the wall nothing else in one corner of the room lay the last lump remaining of the seven pounds of coals in another corner there were herbs in pans and two water bottles without their noses the most striking thing in that little room was some crockery the women had managed to save from the wreck of her things among this curiously enough was a soup tureen with its lid not even cracked there was a piece of looking glass a small three-cornered piece forming an almost equilateral triangle and the oldest and most rubbed and worn-out piece of mirror that ever escaped the dustbin the fireplace was a very small one and on the table were two or three potatoes and about one-fifth of a red herring which the poor street seller had saved out of her breakfast to serve for her supper take my solemn word for it sir said the sweeper and I wouldn't deceive you that is all she will get besides a cup of weak tea when she comes home tired at night the statement of this old sweeper is as follows my name is Mary Blank I live in Blankyard I live with a person of the name of Blank in the back attic she gets her living by selling flowers and pots in the street but she is now doing badly I pay her a shilling a week my parents were Welsh I was in service or made of all work till I got married my husband was a seafaring man when I married him after we were married he got his living by selling Memorandum Almanac books and the like about the streets he was driven to that because he had no trade in his hand and he was obliged to do something for a living he did not make much and overexertion with want of nourishment brought on a paralytic stroke he had the first fit about two years before he had the second the third fit which was the last he had on the Monday and died on the Wednesday week I have two children still living one of them is married to a poor man who gets his living in the streets but as far as lays in his power he makes a good husband and father my other daughter is living with a niece of mine for I can't keep her sir she mines the children my father was a journeyman shoemaker he was killed but I cannot remember how I was too young I cannot recollect my mother I was brought up by an uncle and aunt till I was able to go to service I went out to service at five to mine children under a nurse and I was in service till I got married I had a great many situations you see sir I was forced to keep in place because I had nowhere to go to my uncle and aunt not being able to keep me I was never in nobleman's families only trades people's service was very hard sir and so I believe it continues I am 55 years of age and I have been on the crossing 14 years but just now it is very poor work indeed well if I wishes for bad weather I'm only like other people I suppose I have no regular customers at all the only one I had left has lost his senses sir Mr H he used to allow six pence a week but he went mad and we don't get it now by us I mean the three crossing sweepers in the square where I work indeed I like the winter time for the families is in though the weather is more severe yet you do get a few more haypence I take more from the stayed elderly people than from the young at Christmas I think I took about 11 shillings but certainly not more the most I ever made at that season was 14 shillings the worst about Christmas is that those who give much then generally hold their hand for a week or two a shilling a day would be as much as I want sir I have stood in the square all day for a hypny and I've stood there for nothing one week with another I make two shillings in the seven days after paying for my broom I've taken Thruppen's hypney today yesterday let me see well it was Thruppen's hypney too Monday I don't remember but Sunday I recollect it was Thippen's hypney years ago I made a great deal more nearly three times as much I come about eight o'clock in the morning and go away about six or seven I'm here every day the boys used to come at one time with their brims but they're not allowed here now by the police I should not think crossings worth purchasing unless people made a better living on them than I do I gave the poor creature a small piece of silver for her trouble and asked her if that with the Thruppen's hypney made a good day she answered heartily I should like to see such another day tomorrow sir yes winter is very much better than summer only for the trial of standing in the frost and snow but we certainly do get more then the families won't be in town for three months to come yet ah this neighborhood is nothing to what it was by God's removal and by their own removal the good families are all gone the present families are not so liberal nor so wealthy it is not the richest people that give the most tradespeople and specially gentle folks who have situations are better to me than the nobleman who rides in his carriage I always go to Trinity Church, Grey's Inn Road about two doors from the Welsh school the Reverend Dr Witherington preaches there I always go on Sunday afternoon and evening for I can't go in the morning I can't get away from my crossing in time I never omit a day in coming here unless I'm ill or the snow is too heavy or the weather too bad and then I'm obligated to resign I have no friends sir, only my children my uncle and aunt have been dead a long time I go to see my children on Sunday or in the evening when I leave here after I leave I have a cup of tea and after that I go to bed very frequently I'm in bed at nine o'clock I have my cup of tea if I can anyway get it but I'm forced to go without that sometimes when my sight was better I used to be very partial to reading but I can't see the prints are now I used to read the Bible and the newspaper storybooks I've read too but not many novels yes Robinson Crusoe I know but not the Pilgrim's Progress I've heard of it, they tell me it's a very interesting book to read but I never had it we never have any ladies or scripture readers come to our lodgings you see we're so out they might come a dozen times and not find us at home I wear out three brooms in a week but in the summer one will last a fortnight I give Thruppin's hypny for them there are too many hypny brooms but they are not so good they're liable to have their handles come out it is very fatiguing standing so many hours my legs aches with pain and swells I was once in Middlesex Hospital for 16 weeks with my legs my eyes have been weak from a child I have got a gathering in my head from catching cold standing on the crossing I had the fever this time 12 months I laid a fortnight in four days at home and seven weeks in the hospital I took the diarrhea after that and was six weeks under the doctor's hands I used to do odd jobs but my health won't permit me now I used to make two or three shillings a week by him I get scraps and things but I get no broken vitals now I never get anything from servants they don't get more than they know what to do with I don't get a drop of beer once in a month I don't know about what this being out may be the best thing after all for if I was at home all my time it would not agree with me Statement of Old John, the waterman at the Farndon Street cab stand concerning the old black crossing sweeper who left £800 to Miss Waithman Yes sir, I knew him for many years though I never spoke to him in all my life he was a stoutish thick-set man about my build and used to walk with his broom up and down so note here Old John limited the halt and stoop of an old man end note he used to touch his hat continually he went on please remember the poor black man was his cry never anything else well yes he made a great deal of money people gave more then than they do now where they give one sixpence now they used to give ten it's just the same by our calling lived humbly yes I think he did at all events he seemed to do so when he was on his crossing he got plenty of odds and ends from the corner there Olderman Waithman's I mean he was a very sober quiet sort of man no sir nothing peculiar in his dress some blacks are peculiar in their dress but he would wear anything he could get given they used to call him Romeo I think curious name sir but the best man I ever knew was called Romeo and he was a black the crossing sweeper had his regular customers he knew their times and was there to the moment oh yes he was always hail rain or snow he never missed I don't know how long he had the crossing I remember him ever since I was a post boy in Drs. Commons I knew him when I lived in Hoburn and I haven't been away from this neighborhood since 1809 no sir there's no doubt about his leaving the money to Miss Waithman everybody around here knows it just ask them sir Miss Waithman an old maid she were sir used to be very kind to him he used to sweep from Olderman Waithman's it's the Sunday Times now across to the opposite side of the way when he died an old man as had been a soldier took possession of the crossing how did he get it? why? I say he took it first come first serve sir that's their way they never sell crossings sometimes for a lark they shift and then one stands treat a gallon of beer or something of that sort the police interfered with the soldier you know the sweepers is all forced to go if the police interfere now with us sir we are licensed and they can't make us move on they interfered I say with the old soldier because he used to get so drunk why at a public house close at hand he would spend seven, eight and ten shillings on a night three or four days together he used to gather so many blaggards around the crossing they were forced to move him at last a young man has got it now he has had it three year he's not always here sometimes away for a week at a stretch but you see he knows the best times to come and then he is sure to be here the little boys come with their brooms now and then but the police always drive them away end of section eighty nine section ninety of London Labour and the London poor volume two by Henry Mayhew this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Gillian Henry three the able-bodied Irish crossing sweeper the old Irish crossing sweeper this man a native of County Cork has been in England only two years and a half he wears a close-fitting black cloth cap over a shock of reddish hair round his neck he has a coloured cotton kerchief of the sort advertised as imitation silk his black coat is much torn and his broom is at present remarkably stumpy he waits quietly at the post opposite St. Blank's church to receive whatever is offered him he is unassuming enough in his manner and as will be seen he is not even bearing any malice against his two enemies the sweet stuff man and the sweet sir he says I've been at this crossing there upon two year when I first come over to England about two years and a half ago I went to hay-making but you see I couldn't get any work and after tramping about a good bit why my eyesight getting very weak and I not know what to do I took this crossing how did I get it? well sir I went walking about and saw it and nobody on it one morning I brought a broom with me and stood here yes sir I was interreared with the man with one arm as sweet sir they called him he had had the crossing on Sundays for a long while gone and he didn't like my being here at all at all B. Blank why? Irish he used to call me and other scandalising names and he and the sweet stuff man opposite who was a friend of his tried everything they could to get me off the crossing but sure I never harmed them at all at all yes sir I have my regular customers there's Mr. Blank he's gone to Sydney him he's very kind sir he gives me a shill in a month he left worried with the serpent while he's away to give me a shill in on the first day on every month he gave me a letter to the eye hospital in Golden Square because of my weakness in my eyesight but they'll never cure it at all at all sir for weak eyes runs in my family my sister sir has weak eyes she is working at Croydon all I know indeed and it isn't the gentle folks that try to get me off the crossing they'd rather support me sir but the poor people it is that don't like me 18 pints I've made in a day and more never more than two shillings and sometimes not sixpence well sir I am not like the others I don't run after the ladies and gentlemen I don't persevere yesterday I took sixpence by chance for taking good luggage for a lady the day before yesterday I took three havens but I think I got something else for a bit of work then yes winter is better than summer I don't know which people is the most liberal sure sir I don't think there's much difference oh yes their young men are very liberal sometimes and so are young ladies perhaps old ladies are all gentle and give them most at a time sometimes sixpence perhaps more but then sir you don't get anything else for a long time the boysweepers annoy me very much indeed they use such scandalising words to me and through dirt they do they know when the police is out of the way so I get no protection sure sir and I think it's right that every person should attend the worship to which he belongs I am a catholic sir and attend mass at St Patrick's near St Giles's every Sunday and I try to be its confession once a month when first I took to the crossing I was rather irregular but that was because of the Switzer man that's the man with the one arm he used to say he would lock me up in everything but I have been regular since I come in the morning just before eight and time to catch the gentle folks going into prayers and I leave at half past seven to eight at night I wait so late because I have to bring a gentleman water for his flowers and that I do the last thing I live sir in Blank Lane behind St Giles's church in the first floor front sir and I pay one and threepence a week there are three bids in the room in one bid a man his wife his mother and their little girl Julia they call her sleep in the other bid there's a man in his wife and child yes I am single and have the third bid to myself I come from County Cork the others in the room are all Irish and come from County Cork too they sell fruit on the street in the winter they sell onions and sometimes oranges there's a Scottish gentleman who brings me my breakfast every morning indeed yes and he brings it himself he does he has gone to Scotland now but he will be back in a week he brings me some bread and meat and a penny for a half pint of beer sir he has done it almost all the time I have been here the Switzer man sir took out boards for the polytichner or some place like that he got 15 shillings a week and used to come here on Sundays yes sir I come here on Sundays but it is not better than other days some people says to me they would rather I went to church but I tells them I do and sure sir after mass there's no harm in a little sweeping between wiles no sir there's not a crossing sweeper in old Ireland well sir I never was in Dublin but I've been in Cork sir and they don't have any crossing sweepers there when I get home of a night sir I am very tired but I always offer up my devotions before sleeping ah sir I should never have swept crossings if a friend of mine hadn't died he was collector of towels in Clarny kilts and I used to be with him he lost his situation and so I came to England this was a man I think he used to sweep at 8 o'clock just as the people were going to prayers oh sir he was always black-eyed in me go back to your own country he says he a foreigner himself too well yes sir I do wish for bad weather a good wit day and a dry day after is the best sure and they can't turn me off my crossing only for my bad conduct and I try to be quiet and take no notice yes sir I have always been a churchgoer and I am 75 I used to have some good regular customers but somehow I haven't seen anything of them for this last 12 months ah it's in the better neighbourhoods that people give regularly I never get any broken vitals three and six pints is the outside of my earnings taking one week with the other what is the least I ever took well sir for three days I haven't taken a far then the worst week I ever had was 13 or 14 pints altogether the best week I ever had was the winter before last that hard winter sir I remember taking seven shillings then but the man at Portman Square makes the most well sir I believe there's some of every nation in the world as sweeps crossings in London the female Irish crossing sweeper in a street not far from Gordon Square and the new road I found this poor old woman resting from her daily labour she was sitting on the stone ledge of the iron railings at the corner of the street huddled up in the way seemingly natural to old Irish women her broom hidden as much as possible under her petticoats her shawl was as tidy as possible for its age she was 67 years and had buried two husbands and five children fractured her ribs and injured her groin and had nothing left to comfort her but her crossing her hay berth of snuff and her drop of biled water by which name she indicated her TAY she was very civil and intelligent and answered my inquiries very readily and with rather less circumlocution than the Irish generally display she seemed much hurt at the closing of the old St Pancras churchyard they buried my child where they'll never bury me sir she cried she told the story of her accident with many involuntary movements of her hand towards the injured part and took a sparing pinch of snuff from a little black snuff box inlaid with mother of pearl for which she said she had given a penny she proceeded thus I'm an Irish woman sir and it's from Kinsey like him 12 miles beyond Kirk to the left hand side a seaport town and a great place for fish it's 50 years the 16th of last June since I came in St Gels's parish and there my eldest child went dead buried she is in Alts and Pancras churchyard where they'll never bury me sir for they've done away with burying in churchyards that girl was 41 years of age the 17th of last February born in Stratford below Bow in Essex ah I was comfortable there I lived there for a year in abouts I was in service at Mr. Blanks a French gentleman he was and kept to school where they taught French and English both but adersey they are all gone did years ago he was a very old gentleman and so was his lady she was a north of England lady but very stout and had no children but a son and a daughter I was quite young when my aunt brought me over I am close three year here before my aunt and he died at Whitechapel I was beshuckst 16 and 17 when I come over and I reckon myself at 67 come next Christmas as well as I can guess I never had a mother sir she died when I was only six months old my father sir was maltster to Mr. Walker the distiller in Cork ah indeed and my father was well to do once early or late, with or dry he had a guinea week but he worked day and night he was to attend to the quorum and he would have four men or five or six under him according as busy they might be my father has been did four and twenty year and I wouldn't know a crater if I went home father come over sir and wanted me to go back very bad but I wouldn't I was married then and had buried some of my children in St. Pancras and for what should I leave England oh sir I buried three and eight months two sons and their father my husband was two year and ten months keeping his bed he has been dead fifteen years to the eighth of last March but I've been married again seven children I've had and only two alive and they've got enough to do to manage for themselves the boy he follows the market and my daughter she is along with her husband sure he stills in the streets sir I see very little of her she lives over in the borough I think I'll be after going down to Kent Vianne to Maidstone a hop picking if I can get as much as to take me down the road my daughter's husband and me don't agree so I'm bitter not to see them every day sir every day in the week I am here this morning I was here at eight that was earlier than usual but I came out because I had not broke my fast with anything but a drop of water and that I had two tumblers of it from the house at the corner I intend to go home and take two herons and have a drop of boiled water day I mean sir I come here at about half past nine to half past ten but I'm getting a very bad leg I goes home about five or six I have taken two hapenies this morning thruppens I took yesterday the day before I took I think fourpence hapeny that was my taking on Monday on Sunday I mustered a shelling on Saturday I declare sir I forget fourpence or thruppence I suppose but my friends is out of town very much they gives me a penny regular every Sunday or a hapeny and sometimes thuppence of a Sunday in the good time I may take 18 pence or 16 pence oh yes of Christmas it's better it is four or five shillings on a Christmas day on the Monday fortnight before last Christmas 12 month I had two ribs broke and one fractured and my grind bone not groin and not injured oh the pains that I feel even now sir I lived then in Phillips Gardens up there in the new road the policeman took me to the hospital it was 18 days I never got off my bed I came out in the morning of the Christmas Eve I held on by the railings as I went along and I thought I never should get home how I was knocked down was by a cart I had my eye bad then the left one and had a cloth over it I was just coming out of the archway of the court close by the beer shop away from Mr. Blank's house went crossing to the green roses to get two pound of pretties for my supper and I didn't see the cart coming I was knocked down by the shaft they called and they called and he wouldn't stop and it went over me it did it was loaded with cloth I don't know if it wasn't a school bread's cart but the boy said to the hospital doctor and to the policeman it was heavily loaded the boy gave me a shilling and that was all the money I received for a 12 month I couldn't hardly walk on that Christmas day I took four intents but I owed it all for inton things and I'm sure it's a good man that let me run at the score is it a shilling I ever get? well then sir there's one gentleman but he's out of town Sir George Hewitt never passes without giving me a shilling I have taken one and nine pence on a Sunday and I've taken two shillings upon my soul I've often gone home with three haypence and tuppence for this month passed put every day together I haven't taken three shilling a week I wear two brooms out in a week in bad weather and then perhaps I take four to five shilling Sunday included but for the three years since here I've been on this crossing I never took ten shillings sir never yes there was a man here before me he had bad eyes and he was obligated to leave and go into the work house he lost the sight of one of his eyes when he came back again I knew him sweeping here a long time when he come back I said father says I I went on your crossing ah says he you've got a bad crossing poor woman I wouldn't go on it again I wouldn't and I never seen him since I don't know whether he is living or not a week day makes four pence or five pence difference sometimes indeed I have heard of crossing sweepers making so much and so much I hear people talking about it but for my part I wouldn't give heed to what they say in Oxford Street towards the parks there was a man years ago they say by all accounts left a dail of money I am never annoyed by boys I don't speak to none of them I was in service till I got married then I used to sell fruit through Kentish town Highgate and Hampstead but I never sold in the street sir and had my regular customers like any green grocer I had a good connection I had but by getting old and feeble and sick and not being able to go about I was forced to give it up I was I couldn't carry 12 pound upon my head no not if I was to get a sovereign a day for it now I never leave the crossing I haven't got a friend nor a day's pleasure I never take oh yes sir I must have a pinch this is my snuff box I take a haperth a day and that's the only comfort I've got with that in a cup of tea where I can't drink cocoa or coffee day my feeding is a bit of bread and butter I haven't bought a bit of mate these three months I used to get two pennearth of bones and mate at Mrs Baker's down there but mate is so dear that they don't have them now and it's a shame I am of bothering them so often I frequently have a hearing oh dear no sir water is my drink I can't afford no beer sometimes I have a pennearth of gin and cold water and I find it do me a world of good sometimes I get enough to eat but lately indeed I can't get that I declare I don't know which people give the most the gentlemen give me more in width weather for then the ladies you see can't let their dresses out of their hands I am a Catholic sir I go to St Patrick's sometimes or I go to Gordon Street Church I don't care which I go to it's all the same to me but I haven't been to church for months I have nothing to charge myself with and indeed I haven't been to Confession for some year Traits people are very kind indeed they are yes I think I'll go to Kintahop picking and as for my crossing I'll leave it sir just as it is I go five miles beyond Maidstone I worked 15 years at Mr Blank he was a pole puller and binsman in the hop ground I've not been down there since the year before last I was too poorly after that accident we make about 18 pins, two shillings or one shilling Gordon as the hops is good no lodging nor fire to pay and we get plenty of good milk and chape there I managed then to save a little money to help us in the winter I live in Blank Street seven dials but I'm going to leave my son we can't agree we live in the two pair back I pay nothing a week only bring home every hipney to help them sometimes I spend a penny or tuppence out on myself my son is doing very badly he sells fruit in the streets but he's never been used to it before and he has pains in his limbs with so much walking he has no connection and with those troberies now he's forced to walk about of a night as well as a day for they won't keep till the morning they all go mouldy and bad my son has been used to the brick lanes there he can let in a stove or a copper or do a bit of plaster or lath or the like his wife was a very just claimed sober woman and he has got three good children there is Catherine who is named after me she is nearly five Ellen two years and six months named after her mother and Margaret the baby six months old and she is called after my daughter who is dead four the occasional crossing sweepers the Sunday crossing sweeper I'm a Sunday crossing sweeper said an oyster stallkeeper in answer to my inquiries I mean by that I only sweep a crossing on a Sunday I pitch in the Lorimer Road Newington with a few oysters on weekdays and I does jobs for the people about there such 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 know my father he died when I was a baby he was a interpreter and spoke seven different languages my father used to go with Bonaparte's army and used to interpret 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 41 years old the first work I ever did was being boy at a pork butcher's I used to take out the meat what was ordered at last my master got broke up and I was discharged from my place and I took to selling a few sprouts I had no thoughts of taking to a crossing then I was 10 year old I remember I gave two shillings for a shallow that's a flat basket with two handles they put them atop of well baskets them as can carry a good load a well basket's almost like a coffin it's a long and like a shallow only it's a good deal deeper about as deep as a washing tub I done very fair with my sprouts till they got dear and come up very small so then I was obliged to get a few place and then I got a few baked taters and sold them I hadn't money enough to buy a tin I could have got one for eight shillings so I put them in a cross handle basket and carried them 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 such 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 first 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 helping 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 first thought of sweeping a crossing on Sundays so I bought a heath broom for Tuppence-Hapney and I pitched again the Canterbury Arms, Kennington it was between a baker's shop and a public house and butchers they told me they'd all give me something if I'd sweep the crossing wriggler the best places is in front of chapels and churches because you can take more money in front of a church or a chapel than what you can in a private road because 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 and waste the first Sunday I went at it I took 18 pence I began at nine o'clock in the morning and stopped till four in the afternoon the public can give four pence and the baker six pence and the butcher thruppence 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 anything from the ladies it was most all give by the gentlemen little children used sometimes to give me haypence but it was when their father give it to him 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's public house in the Lauriemore Road I swept there one Sunday and I got about one and six pence while I was sweeping this crossing a gentleman comes up to me and he asks me if I ever goes to chapel or church and I tells him yes I goes to church what 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 be better courageed it don't matter what you do he says as long as it brings you in an honest crust anything's better than thieving and then the gent gives me six pence 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 room in the churchyard when I got inside the church I could see him I sitting just again the communion table so I walked to the free seats and sits 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 as he as long as I live if he comes here on a Sunday regular I shall always courage you the next Sunday I went up to the church and swept the crossing and he sees me there but he didn't give me nothing till the church was over and then he gave me a shilling and the other people give me about one in six pence so I got about two in six pence altogether and I thought that was a good beginning the next Sunday the gentleman was ill but he didn't forget me he sent me six pence 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 a Sunday she was ill a bed and I see one of the daughters and she gave me six pence 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 gave me nothing the houses about there was so damp that people wouldn't live in them so then I come up into Lorimer Road and there I've been ever since I don't get on wonderful well there sometimes I don't get above six pence all day but it's mostly a shilling or so the most I've took is about one in six pence the reason why I stopped there is because I'm known there you see I stand there all the week selling heisters 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 because there isn't so many people staring about in the winter as there is in the summer one broom will carry me over three Sundays and I give toughens hit me a piece for him sometimes the people bring me out at my crossing especially 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 associates 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 because 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 sweep 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 left about halfway down then you take half your crossing and sweeps on one side till he gets over the road then you turn round and comes back doing the other half some people holds the broom before him and keeps swaying it backwards and forwards to sweep the width of the crossing all in one stroke but that ain't such a good plan because you're up 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 crossing sweepers as could do all manner of things in mud such as diamonds and stars on 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 seen doing it about 15 he didn't seem to take much money while I was looking at him I don't think I should have took to crossing sweeping if I hadn't got married but when I got a couple of children for I've had a girl die if she'd lived she'd have been 8 years old now I found I must do something and so I took to the broom End of section 90