WASHER-WOMEN, CHAR-WOMEN, AND STREET NURSES.
Plate XXVII.
Perhaps there is not a class of people who work harder than those washer-women who go out to assist servants in what is called a heavy wash; they may be seen in the winter time, shivering at the doors, at three and four o’clock in the morning, and are seldom dismissed before ten at night, this hard treatment being endured for two shillings and sixpence a day. They may be divided into two classes, the industrious, who labour cheerfully to support their little ones, and, too often, an idle and cruel husband; and those that take snuff, drink gin, and propagate the scandal of the neighbourhood, seldom quitting the house of their employer without gaining the secrets of the family, which they acquire by pretending to tell the fortunes of every one in the house to the servants of the family, by the manner in which the grouts of the tea adhere to the sides of the tea-cup. Most of these people, who are generally round-shouldered and lop-sided, are so accustomed to chatter with the servants, that they acquire a habit of keeping their mouths open, either horizontally or perpendicularly; and it is evident from Hollar’s etchings of Leonardo da Vinci’s caricatures that the latter must have studied the grimaces of this class of people. Some of these old washer-women, when they happen to meet with a discreet and silent domestic, will speak to the cat or the dog, and even hold conversation with themselves rather than lose the privilege of utterance.
These wretches are always full of complaints of their coughs, asthmas, or pains in the stomach, but these are mere efforts to procure an extra glass of cordial.
The Char-women are that description of people who go about to clean houses, either by washing the wainscot, scrubbing the floors, or brightening the pots and kettles; they are generally worse drabs, if possible, than the lowest order of washer-women; they will either filch the soap, steal the coals, or borrow a plate, which they never return; and yet the women of this calling who conduct themselves with sobriety and honesty, are great acquisitions to single gentlemen, particularly students in the law.
Few families, however watchful they may be over the conduct of their servants, are aware of the extreme idleness and profligacy of some of them.
If the mistress of a house would for once rise at five o’clock, she might behold a set of squalid beings engaged in whitening the steps of the doors; she may even observe some of them, who have procured keys of the area gates, descend the steps to procure from the kitchen pails of hog-wash, with meat and bread wrapped up in tattered aprons; so that their servants, by thus getting rid of the door-cleaning business, remain in bed after the milkwoman, by the help of a string, has lowered her can into the area. This dishonesty of the servants has been extended, from a few broken crusts, to the more generous gift of half a loaf in a morning.
On the contrary, it is a fact too well known, that there are many servants who rise too early, particularly those who attend to the flattery of men who sneak into houses, pretending to be in love with their charming persons, merely for the purpose of obtaining the surest mode of robbing the house, either then or in future.
There are hundreds of old women who take charge of the children of those who go out for daily hire. These Nurses drag the infants in all sorts of ways about the streets for the whole day, and sometimes treat them very ill, and, imitating the mode usually adopted by the vulgar part of nurses in families, to pacify the squalling and too often hungry infants, terrify them with a threat that Tom Poker, David Stumps, or Bonaparte, are coming to take them away. This custom of frightening children, which was practised in very early times, was made use of by the Spanish nurses after the defeat of the Armada. Burton, in his “Anatomy of Melancholy,” part I, sec. 2: “Education a cause of Melancholy. There is a great moderation to be had in such things as matters of so great moment, to the making or marring of a childe. Some fright their children with beggars, bugbears, and hobgoblins, if they cry or be otherways unruly.”
Among the very few single prints published in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, there is one engraved on wood, measuring twenty inches by thirteen; it contains multitudes of figures, and is so great a rarity, that the author has seen only one impression of it, which is in the truly valuable and interesting collection of prints presented in the most liberal manner to the British Museum by Sir Joseph and Lady Banks.
This print, which has escaped the notice of all the writers on the Graphic Art, is entitled, “Tittle-Tattle, or the several Branches of Gossipping;” at the foot of the print are the following verses, evidently in a type and orthography of a later time:
1.
At childbed when the gossips meet,
Fine stories we are told;
And if they get a cup too much,
Their tongues they cannot hold.
2.
At market when good housewives meet,
Their market being done,
Together they will crack a pot
Before they can get home.
3.
The bakehouse is a place, you know,
Where maids a story hold,
And if their mistresses will prate,
They must not be controll’d.
4.
At alehouse you see how jovial they be,
With every one her noggin;
For till the skull and belly be full
None of them will be jogging.
5.
To Church fine ladies do resort,
New fashions for to spy,
And others go to Church sometimes,
To shew their bravery.
6.
Hot-house makes a rough skin smooth,
And doth it beautify;
Fine gossips use it every week,
Their skins to purify.
7.
At the conduit striving for their turn,
The quarrel it grows great,
That up in arms they are at last,
And one another beat.
8.
Washing at the river’s side
Good housewives take delight;
But scolding sluts care not to work,
Like wrangling queens they fight.
9.
Then gossips all a warning take,
Pray cease your tongue to rattle;
Go knit, and sew, and brew, and bake,
And leave off Tittle-Tattle.
