London Labour and the London Poor: Selection (Classics)

by Henry Mayhew

  A few women street-sellers, however, do attend the Sunday service of the Church of England. One lace-seller told me that she did so because it obliged Mrs —, who was the best friend and customer she had, and who always looked from her pew in the gallery to see who were on the poor seats. A few others, perhaps about an equal number, attend dissenting places of worship of the various denominations – the Methodist chapels comprising more than a half. If I may venture upon a calculation founded on the result of my inquiries, and on the information of others who felt an interest in the matter, I should say that about five female street-sellers attended Protestant places of worship, in the ratio of a hundred attending the Roman Catholic chapels.

  The localities in which the female street-sellers reside are those (generally) which I have often had occasion to specify as the abodes of the poor. They congregate principally, however, in the neighbourhood of some street-market. The many courts in Ray-street, Turnmill-street, Cow-cross, and other parts of Clerkenwell, are full of street-sellers, especially costermongers, some of those costermongers being also drovers. Their places of sale are in Clerkenwell-green, Aylesbury-street, and St John-street. Others reside in Vine-street (late Mutton-hill), Saffron-hill, Portpool Lane, Baldwin’s-gardens, and the many streets or alleys stretching from Leather-lane to Gray’s-inn-lane, with a few of the better sort in Cromer-street. Their chief mart is Leather-lane, now one of the most crowded markets in London. The many who use the Brill as their place of street-traffic, reside in Brill-row, in Ossulston-street, Wilstead-street, Chapel-street, and in the many small intersecting lanes and alleys connected with those streets, and in other parts of Somers-town. The saleswomen in the Cripplegate street-markets, such as Whitecross-street, Fore-street, Golden-lane, &c., reside in Play-house-yard, and in the thick congregation of courts and alleys, approximating to Aldersgate-street, Fore-street, Bunhill-row, Chiswell-street, Barbican, &c., &c. Advancing eastward, the female street-sellers in Shoreditch (including the divisions of the Bishopsgate-streets Within and Without, Norton Folgate, and Holywell-street) reside in and about Artillery-lane, Half-moon-street, and the many narrow ‘clefts’ (as they are called in one of Leigh Hunt’s essays) stretching on the right hand as you proceed along Bishopsgate-street, from its junction with Cornhill; ‘clefts’ which, on my several visits, have appeared to me as among the foulest places in London. On the left-hand side, proceeding in the same direction, the street-sellers reside in Long-alley, and the many yards connected with that, perhaps narrowest, in proportion to its length, of any merely pedestrian thoroughfare in London. Mixed with the poor street-sellers about Long-alley, I may observe, are a mass of the tailors and shoemakers employed by the east-end slop-masters; they are principally Irish workmen, carrying on their crafts many in one room, to economise the rent, while some of their wives are street-sellers.

  The street-sellers in Spitalfields and Bethnal-green are so mixed up as to their abodes with the wretchedly underpaid cabinet-makers who supply the ‘slaughter-houses’; with slop-employed tailors and shoemakers (in the employ of a class, as respects shoemakers, known as ‘garret-masters’ or middle-men, between the workman and the wholesale warehouse-man), bobbin-turners, needle-women, slop-milliners, &c., that I might tediously enumerate almost every one of the many streets known, emphatically enough, as the ‘poor streets’. These poor streets are very numerous, running eastward from Shoreditch to the Cambridge-road, and southward from the Bethnal-green-road to Whitechapel and the Mile End-road. The female street-sellers in Whitechapel live in Wentworth-street, Thrawl-street, Osborne-street, George-yard, and in several of their inter-minglements with courts and narrow streets. The Petticoat-lane street-dealers are generally Jews, and live in the poorer Jewish quarters, in Petticoat-lane and its courts, and in the streets running on thence to Houndsditch. Rosemary-lane has many street-sellers, but in the lane itself and its many yards and blind alleys they find their domiciles. Westward in the metropolis one of the largest street-markets is in Tottenham-court-road; and in the courts between Fitzroy-market and Tottenham-court-road are the rooms of the women vending their street goods. Those occupying the Hampstead-road with their stalls – which is but a continuation of the Tottenham-court-road market – live in the same quarters. In what is generally called the St George’s-market, meaning the stalls at the western extremity of Oxford-street, the women who own those stalls reside in and about Thomas-street, Tom’s-court, and the wretched places – the very existence of which is perhaps unknown to their aristocratic neighbourhood – about Grosvenor-square; some of them lamentably wretched places. It might be wearisome to carry on this enumeration further. It may suffice to observe, that in the populous parts of Southwark, Lambeth, and Newington, wherever there is a street-market, are small or old streets inhabited by the street-sellers, and at no great distance. From the Obelisk at the junction, or approximate junction, of the Westminster, Waterloo, Blackfriars, Borough, and London-roads, in pretty well every direction to the banks of the Thames, are a mass of private-looking streets – as far as the absence of shops constitutes the privacy of a street – old and half-ruinous, or modern and trim, in all of which perhaps may be found street-sellers, and in some of which are pickpockets, thieves, and prostitutes.

  Of course it must be understood that these specified localities are the residence of the male, as well as the female street-sellers, both adults and children.

  The proportion of female street-traders who reside in lodging-houses may be estimated at one-tenth of the entire number. This may appear a small proportion, but it must be remembered that the costermongering women do not reside in lodging-houses – so removing the largest class of street-folk from the calculation of the numbers thus accommodated – and that the Irish who pursue street callings with any regularity generally prefer living, if it be two or three families in a room, in a place of their own. The female street-folk sleeping in lodging-houses, and occasionally taking their meals there, are usually those who are itinerant; the women who have a settled trade, especially a ‘pitch’, reside in preference in some ‘place of their own’. Of the number in lodging-houses one half may be regular inmates, some having a portion of a particular room to themselves; the others are casual sojourners, changing their night’s shelter as convenience prompts.

  Of the female street-sellers residing in houses of ill-fame there are not many; perhaps not many more than 100. I was told by a gentleman whose connection with parochial matters enabled him to form an opinion, that about Whitecross-street, and some similar streets near the Cornwall-road, and stretching away to the Blackfriars and Borough-roads – (the locality which of any in London is perhaps the most rank with prostitution and its attendant evils) – there might be 600 of those wretched women and of all ages, from 15 to upwards of 40; and that among them he believed there were barely a score who occupied themselves with street-sale. Of women, and more especially of girl, street-sellers, such as flower-girls, those pursuing immoral courses are far more numerous than 100, but they do not often reside in houses notoriously of ill-fame, but in their own rooms (and too often with their parents) and in low lodging-houses. For women who are street-sellers, without the practice of prostitution, to reside in a house of ill-fame, would be a reckless waste of money; as I am told that in so wretched a street as White-horse-street, the rent of a front kitchen is 4s. 6d. a week; of a back kitchen, 3s. 6d.; of a front parlour, 6s.; and of a back parlour, 4s. 6d.; all being meagrely furnished and very small. This is also accounted one of the cheapest of all such streets. The rent of a street-seller’s unfurnished room is generally 1s. 6d. or even 1s. a week; a furnished room is 3s. or 2s. 6d.

  The state of education among the female street-sellers is very defective. Perhaps it may be said that among the English costers not one female in twenty can read, and not one in forty can write. But they are fond of listening to any one who reads the newspaper or any exciting story. Among the street-selling Irish, also, education is very defective. As regards the adults, who have been of woman’
s estate before they left Ireland, a knowledge of reading and writing may be as rare as among the English costerwomen; but with those who have come to this country sufficiently young, or have been born here, education is far more diffused than among the often more prosperous English street children. This is owing to the establishment of late years of many Roman Catholic schools, at charges suited to the poor, or sometimes free, and of the Irish parents having availed themselves (probably on the recommendation of the priest) of such opportunities for the tuition of their daughters, which the English costers have neglected to do with equal chances. Of the other classes whom I have specified as street-sellers, I believe I may say that the education of the females is about the average of that of ‘servants of all work’ who have been brought up amidst struggles and poverty; they can read, but with little appreciation of what they read, and have therefore little taste for books, and often little leisure even if they have taste. As to writing, a woman told me that at one time, when she was ‘in place’, and kept weekly accounts, she had been complimented by her mistress on her neat hand, but that she and her husband (a man of indifferent character) had been street-sellers for seven or eight years, and during all that time she had only once had a pen in her hand; this was a few weeks back, in signing a petition – something about Sundays, she said – she wrote her name with great pain and difficulty, and feared that she had not even spelled it aright! I may here repeat that I found the uneducated always ready to attribute their want of success in life to their want of education; while the equally poor street-sellers, who were ‘scholars’, are as apt to say, ‘It’s been of no manner of use to me.’ In all these matters I can but speak generally. The male street-sellers who have seen better days have of course been better educated, but the most intelligent of the street class are the patterers, and of them the females form no portion.

  The diet of the class I am describing is, as regards its poorest members, tea and bread or bread and grease; a meal composed of nothing else is their fare twice or thrice a day. Sometimes there is the addition of a herring – or a plaice, when plaice are two a penny – but the consumption of cheap fish, with a few potatoes, is more common among the poor Irish than the poor English female street-sellers. ‘Indeed, sir,’ said an elderly woman, who sold cakes of blacking and small wares, ‘I could make a meal on fish and potatoes, cheaper than on tea and bread and butter, though I don’t take milk with my tea – I’ve got to like it better without milk than with it – but if you’re a long time on your legs in the streets and get to your bit of a home for a cup of tea, you want a bit of rest over it, and if you have to cook fish it’s such a trouble. 0, no, indeed, this time of year there’s no ’casion to light a fire for your tea – and tea ’livens you far more nor a herring – because there’s always some neighbour to give a poor woman a jug of boiling water.’ Married women, who may carry on a trade distinct from that of their husbands, live as well as their earnings and the means of the couple will permit; what they consider good living is a dinner daily off ‘good block ornaments’ (small pieces of meat, discoloured and dirty, but not tainted, usually set for sale on the butcher’s block), tripe, cow-heel, beef-sausages, or soup from a cheap cook-shop, ‘at 2d. a pint’. To this there is the usual accompaniment of beer, which, in all populous neighbourhoods, is ‘3d. a pot (quart) in your own jugs’. From what I could learn, it seems to me that an inordinate or extravagant indulgence of the palate, under any circumstances, is far less common among the female than the male street-sellers.

  During the summer and the fine months of spring and autumn, there are, I am assured, one-third of the London street-sellers – male and female – ‘tramping’ the country. At Maidstone Fair the other day, I was told by an intelligent itinerant dealer, there were 300 women, all of whose faces he believed he had seen at one time or other in London. The Irish, however, tramp very little into the country for purposes of trade, but they travel in great numbers from one place to another for purposes of mendicancy; or, if they have a desire to emigrate, they will tramp from London to Liverpool, literally begging their way, no matter whether they have or have not any money. The female street-sellers are thus a fluctuating body.

  The beggars among the women who profess to be street-traders are chiefly Irishwomen, some of whom, though otherwise well-conducted, sober and chaste, beg shamelessly and with any mendacious representation. It is remarkable enough, too, that of the Irishwomen who will thus beg, many if employed in any agricultural work, or in the rougher household labours, such as scouring or washing, will work exceedingly hard. To any feeling of self-respect or self-dependence, however, they seem dead; their great merit is their chastity, their great shame their lying and mendicancy.

  The female street-sellers are again a fluctuating body, as in the summer and autumn months. A large proportion go off to work in market-gardens, in the gathering of peas, beans, and the several fruits; in weeding, in haymaking, in the corn-harvest (when they will endeavour to obtain leave to glean if they are unemployed more profitably), and afterwards in the hopping. The women, however, thus seeking change of employment, are the ruder street-sellers, those who merely buy oranges at 4d. to sell at 6d., and who do not meddle with any calling mixed up with the necessity of skill in selection, or address in recommending. Of this half-vagrant class, many are not street-sellers usually, but are half prostitutes and half thieves, not unfrequently drinking all their earnings, while of the habitual female street-sellers, I do not think that drunkenness is now a very prevalent vice. Their earnings are small, and if they become habituated to an indulgence in drink, their means are soon dissipated; in which case they are unable to obtain stock-money, and they cease to be street-sellers.

  If I may venture upon an estimation, I should say that the women engaged in street sale – wives, widows, and single persons – number from 25,000 to 30,000, and that their average earnings run from 2s. 6d. to 4s. a week.

  I shall now proceed to give the histories of individuals belonging to each of the above class of female street-sellers, with the view of illustrating what has been said respecting them generally.

  Of a Single Woman, as a Street-seller

  [pp. 517–18] I had some difficulty, for the reasons I have stated, in finding a single woman who, by her unaided industry, supported herself on the sale of street merchandise. There were plenty of single young women so engaged, but they lived, or lodged, with their parents or with one parent, or they had some support, however trifling, from some quarter or other. Among the street-sellers I could have obtained statements from many single women who depended on their daily sale for their daily bread, but I have already given instances of their street life. One Irishwoman, a spinster of about 50, for I had some conversation with her in the course of a former inquiry, had supported herself alone, by street sale, for many years. She sat, literally packed in a sort of hamper-basket, at the corner of Charles-street, Leather-lane. She seemed to fit herself cross-legged, like a Turk, or a tailor on his shop-board, into her hamper; her fruit stall was close by her, and there she seemed to doze away life day by day – for she usually appeared to be wrapped in slumber. If any one approached her stall, however, she seemed to awake, as it were, mechanically. I have missed this poor woman of late, and I believe she only packed herself up in the way described when the weather was cold.

  A woman of about 26 or 27 – I may again remark that the regular street-sellers rarely know their age – made the following statement. She was spare and sickly looking, but said that her health was tolerably good.

  ‘I used to mind my mother’s stall,’ she stated, ‘when I was a girl, when mother wasn’t well or had a little work at pea-shelling or such like. She sold sweet-stuff. No, she didn’t make it, but bought it. I never cared for it, and when I was quite young I’ve sold sweet-stuffs as I never tasted. I never had a father. I can’t read or write, but I like to hear people read. I go to Zion Chapel sometimes of a Sunday night, the singing’s so nice. I don’t know what religion you may call it of, but it�
��s a Zion Chapel. Mother’s been dead these – well I don’t know how long, but it’s a long time. I’ve lived by myself ever since, and kept myself, and I have half a room with another young woman who lives by making little boxes. I don’t know what sort of boxes. Pill-boxes? Very likely, sir, but I can’t say I ever saw any. She goes out to work on another box-maker’s premises. She’s no better off nor me. We pays 1s. 6d. a-week between us; it’s my bed, and the other sticks is her’n. We ’gree well enough. I haven’t sold sweet stuff for a great bit. I’ve sold small wares in the streets, and artificials (artificial flowers), and lace, and penny dolls, and penny boxes (of toys). No, I never hear anything improper from young men. Boys has sometimes said, when I’ve been selling sweets, “Don’t look so hard at ’em, or they’ll turn sour.” I never minded such nonsense. I has very few amusements. I goes once or twice a month, or so, to the gallery at the Wick (Victoria Theatre), for I live near. It’s beautiful there. O, it’s really grand. I don’t know what they call what’s played, because I can’t read the bills.

  ‘I hear what they’re called, but I forgets. I knows Miss Vincent and John Herbert when they come on. I likes them the best. I’m a going to leave the streets. I have an aunt a laundress, because she was mother’s sister, and I always helped her and she taught me laundressing. I work for her three and sometimes four days a-week now, because she’s lost her daughter Ann, and I’m known as a good ironer. Another laundress will employ me next week, so I’m dropping the streets, as I can do far better. I’m not likely to be married and I don’t want to.’

  Of a Mechanic’s Wife, as a Street-seller

  [pp. 518–21] A middle-aged woman, presenting what may be best understood as a decency of appearance, for there was nothing remarkable in her face or dress, gave me the following account of her experience as a street-seller, and of her feelings when she first became one: