Henry Mayhew, Excerpts from London Labour and
London Poor (1851)
Watercress
Girl.
The little watercress girl who gave me the following statement,
although only eight years of age, had entirely lost all childish
ways, and was, indeed, in thoughts and manner, a woman. There was
something cruelly pathetic in hearing this infant, so young that
her features had scarcely formed themselves, talking of the
bitterest struggles of life, with the calm earnestness of one who
had endured them all. I did not know how to talk with her. At
first I treated her as a child, speaking on childish subjects; so
that I might, by being familiar with her, remove all shyness, and
get her to narrate her life freely. I asked her about her toys and
her games with her companions; but the look of amazement that
answered me soon put an end to any attempt at fun on my part. I
then talked to her about the parks, and whether she ever went to
them. “The parks!” she replied in wonder, “where are they?” I
explained to her, telling her that they were large open places
with green grass and tall trees, where beautiful carriages drove
about, and people walked for pleasure, and children played. Her
eyes brightened up a little as I spoke; and she asked, half
doubtingly, “Would they let such as me go there—just to look?” All
her knowledge seemed to begin and end with water-cresses, and what
they fetched. She knew no more of London than that part she had
seen on her rounds, and believed that no quarter of the town was
handsomer or pleasanter than it was at Farringdon-market or at
Clerkenwell, where she lived. Her little face, pale and thin with
privation, was wrinkled where the dimples ought to have been, and
she would sigh frequently. When some hot dinner was offered to
her, she would not touch it, because, if she eat too much, “it
made her sick,” she said; “and she wasn’t used to meat, only on a
Sunday.”
The poor child, although the weather was severe, was dressed in a
thin cotton gown, with a threadbare shawl wrapped round her
shoulders. She wore no covering to her head, and the long rusty
hair stood out in all directions. When she walked she shuffled
along, for fear that the large carpet slippers that served her for
shoes should slip off her feet.
“I go about the streets with water-creases, crying, ‘Four bunches
a penny, water-creases.’ I am just eight years old—that’s all, and
I’ve a big sister, and a brother and a sister younger than I am.
On and off, I’ve been very near a twelvemonth in the streets.
Before that, I had to take care of a baby for my aunt. No, it
wasn’t heavy—it was only two months old; but I minded it for ever
such a time—till it could walk. It was a very nice little baby,
not a very pretty one; but, if I touched it under the chin, it
would laugh. Before I had the baby, I used to help mother, who was
in the fur trade; and, if there was any slits in the fur, I’d sew
them up. My mother learned me to needle-work and to knit when I
was about five. I used to go to school, too; but I wasn’t there
long. I’ve forgot all about it now, it’s such a time ago; and
mother took me away because the master whacked me, though the
missus use’n’t to never touch me. I didn’t like him at all. What
do you think? he hit me three times, ever so hard, across the face
with his cane, and made me go dancing down stairs; and when mother
saw the marks on my cheek, she went to blow him up, but she
couldn’t see him—he was afraid. That’s why I left school.
“The creases is so bad now, that I haven’t been out with ’em for
three days. They’re so cold, people won’t buy ’em; for when I goes
up to them, they say, ‘They’ll freeze our bellies.’ Besides, in
the market, they won’t sell a ha’penny handful now—they’re ris to
a penny and tuppence. In summer there’s lots, and ’most as cheap
as dirt; but I have to be down at Farringdon-market between four
and five, or else I can’t get any creases, because everyone
almost—especially the Irish—is selling them, and they’re picked up
so quick. Some of the saleswomen—we never calls ’em ladies—is very
kind to us children, and some of them altogether spiteful. The
good one will give you a bunch for nothing, when they’re cheap;
but the others, cruel ones, if you try to bate them a farden less
than they ask you, will say, ‘Go along with you, you’re no good.’
I used to go down to market along with another girl, as must be
about fourteen, ’cos she does her back hair up. When we’ve bought
a lot, we sits down on a door-step, and ties up the bunches. We
never goes home to breakfast till we’ve sold out; but, if it’s
very late, then I buys a penn’orth of pudden, which is very nice
with gravy. I don’t know hardly one of the people, as goes to
Farringdon, to talk to; they never speaks to me, so I don’t speak
to them. We children never play down there, ’cos we’re thinking of
our living. No; people never pities me in the street—excepting one
gentleman, and he says, says he, ‘What do you do out so soon in
the morning?’ but he gave me nothink—he only walked away.
“It’s very cold before winter comes on reg’lar—specially getting
up of a morning. I gets up in the dark by the light of the lamp in
the court. When the snow is on the ground, there’s no creases. I
bears the cold—you must; so I puts my hands under my shawl, though
it hurts ’em to take hold of the creases, especially when we takes
’em to the pump to wash ’em. No; I never see any children
crying—it’s no use.
“Sometimes I make a great deal of money.[152] One day I took 1s.
6d., and the creases cost 6d.; but it isn’t often I get such luck
as that. I oftener makes 3d. or 4d. than 1s.; and then I’m at
work, crying, ‘Creases, four bunches a penny, creases!’ from six
in the morning to about ten. What do you mean by mechanics?—I
don’t know what they are. The shops buys most of me. Some of ’em
says, ‘Oh! I ain’t a-goin’ to give a penny for these;’ and they
want ’em at the same price as I buys ’em at.
“I always give mother my money, she’s so very good to me. She
don’t often beat me; but, when she do, she don’t play with me.
She’s very poor, and goes out cleaning rooms sometimes, now she
don’t work at the fur. I ain’t got no father, he’s a
father-in-law. No; mother ain’t married again—he’s a
father-in-law. He grinds scissors, and he’s very good to me. No; I
dont mean by that that he says kind things to me, for he never
hardly speaks. When I gets home, after selling creases, I stops at
home. I puts the room to rights: mother don’t make me do it, I
does it myself. I cleans the chairs, though there’s only two to
clean. I takes a tub and scrubbing-brush and flannel, and scrubs
the floor—that’s what I do three or four times a week.
“I don’t have no dinner. Mother gives me two slices of
bread-and-butter and a cup of tea for breakfast, and then I go
till tea, and has the same. We has meat of a Sunday, and, of
course, I should like to have it every day. Mother has just the
same to eat as we has, but she takes more tea—three cups,
sometimes. No; I never has no sweet-stuff; I never buy none—I
don’t like it. Sometimes we has a game of ‘honey-pots’ with the
girls in the court, but not often. Me and Carry H—— carries the
little ’uns. We plays, too, at ‘kiss-in-the-ring.’ I knows a good
many games, but I don’t play at ’em, ’cos going out with creases
tires me. On a Friday night, too, I goes to a Jew’s house till
eleven o’clock on Saturday night. All I has to do is to snuff the
candles and poke the fire. You see they keep their Sabbath then,
and they won’t touch anything; so they gives me my wittals and
1½d., and I does it for ’em. I have a reg’lar good lot to eat.
Supper of Friday night, and tea after that, and fried fish of a
Saturday morning, and meat for dinner, and tea, and supper, and I
like it very well.
“Oh, yes; I’ve got some toys at home. I’ve a fire-place, and a box
of toys, and a knife and fork, and two little chairs. The Jews
gave ’em to me where I go to on a Friday, and that’s why I said
they was very kind to me. I never had no doll; but I misses little
sister—she’s only two years old. We don’t sleep in the same room;
for father and mother sleeps with little sister in the one pair,
and me and brother and other sister sleeps in the top room. I
always goes to bed at seven, ’cos I has to be up so early.
“I am a capital hand at bargaining—but only at buying
watercreases. They can’t take me in. If the woman tries to give me
a small handful of creases, I says, ‘I ain’t a goin’ to have that
for a ha’porth,’ and I go to the next basket, and so on, all
round. I know the quantities very well. For a penny I ought to
have a full market hand, or as much as I could carry in my arms at
one time, without spilling. For 3d. I has a lap full, enough to
earn about a shilling; and for 6d. I gets as many as crams my
basket. I can’t read or write, but I knows how many pennies goes
to a shilling, why, twelve, of course, but I don’t know how many
ha’pence there is, though there’s two to a penny. When I’ve bought
3d. of creases, I ties ’em up into as many little bundles as I
can. They must look biggish, or the people won’t buy them, some
puffs them out as much as they’ll go. All my money I earns I puts
in a club and draws it out to buy clothes with. It’s better than
spending it in sweet-stuff, for them as has a living to earn.
Besides it’s like a child to care for sugar-sticks, and not like
one who’s got a living and vittals to earn. I aint a child, and I
shan’t be a woman till I’m twenty, but I’m past eight, I am. I
don’t know nothing about what I earns during the year, I only know
how many pennies goes to a shilling, and two ha’pence goes to a
penny, and four fardens goes to a penny. I knows, too, how many
fardens goes to tuppence—eight. That’s as much as I wants to know
for the markets.”
Source:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/55998/55998-h/55998-h.htm