London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. 1

by Henry Mayhew

On a former occasion (in the Morning Chronicle) I mentioned that I received a letter informing me that a woman, residing in one of the courts about Saffron-hill, was making braces, and receiving only 1s. for four dozen of them. I was assured she was a most deserving character, strictly sober, and not receiving parochial relief. “Her husband,” my informant added, “was paralysed, and endeavoured to assist his family by gathering green food for birds. They are in deep distress, but their character is irreproachable.” I found the couple located up a court, the entrance to which was about as narrow as the opening to a sentry-box, and on each side lolled groups of labourers and costermongers, with short black pipes in their mouths. As I dived into the court, a crowd followed me to see whither I was going. The brace-maker lived on the first floor of a crazy, fœtid house. I ascended the stairs, and the banisters, from which the rails had all been purloined, gave way in my hands. I found the woman, man, and their family busy at their tea-dinner. In a large broken chair, beside the fire-place, was the old paralysed man, dressed in a ragged greasy fustian coat, his beard unshorn, and his hair in the wildest disorder. On the edge of the bed sat a cleanly looking woman, his wife, with a black apron on. Standing by the table was a blue-eyed laughing and shoeless boy, with an old camlet cape pinned over his shoulders. Next him was a girl in a long grey pinafore, with her hair cut close to her head, with the exception of a few locks in front, which hung down over her forehead like a dirty fringe. On a chair near the window stood a basket half full of chickweed and groundsel, and two large cabbages. There was a stuffed linnet on the mantel-piece and an empty cage hanging outside the window. In front of the window-sill was the small imitation of a gate and palings, so popular among the workpeople. On the table were a loaf, a few mugs of milkless tea and a small piece of butter in a saucer. I had scarcely entered when the mother began to remove the camlet cape from the boy’s shoulders, and to slip a coarse clean pinafore over his head instead. At present I have only to deal with the trade of the husband, who made the following statement:

“I sell chickweed and grunsell, and turfs for larks. That’s all I sell, unless it’s a few nettles that’s ordered. I believe they’re for tea, sir. I gets the chickweed at Chalk Farm. I pay nothing for it. I gets it out of the public fields. Every morning about seven I goes for it. The grunsell a gentleman gives me leave to get out of his garden: that’s down Battle-bridge way, in the Chalk-road, leading to Holloway. I gets there every morning about nine. I goes there straight. After I have got my chickweed, I generally gathers enough of each to make up a dozen halfpenny bunches. The turfs I buys. A young man calls here with them. I pay 2d. a dozen for ’em to him. He gets them himself. Sometimes he cuts ’em at Kilburn Wells; and Notting-hill he goes to sometimes, I believe. He hires a spring barrow, weekly, to take them about. He pays 4d. a day, I believe, for the barrow. He sells the turfs to the bird-shops, and to such as me. He sells a few to some private places. I gets the nettles at Highgate. I don’t do much in the nettle line—there ain’t much call for it. After I’ve gathered my things I puts them in my basket, and slings ’em at my back, and starts round London. Low Marrabun I goes to always of a Saturday and Wednesday. I goes to St. Pancras on a Tuesday. I visit Clerkenwell, and Russell-square, and round about there, on a Monday. I goes down about Covent-garden and the Strand on a Thursday. I does High Marrabun on a Friday, because I aint able to do so much on that day, for I gathers my stuff on the Friday for Saturday. I find Low Marrabun the best of my beats. I cry ‘chickweed and grunsell’ as I goes along. I don’t say ‘for young singing birds.’ It is usual, I know, but I never did. I’ve been at the business about eighteen year. I’m out in usual till about five in the evening. I never stop to eat. I’m walking all the time. I has my breakfast afore I starts, and my tea when I comes home.” Here the woman shivered. I turned round and found the fire was quite out. I asked them whether they usually sat without one. The answer was, “We most generally raise a pennyworth, some how, just to boil the kettle with.” I inquired whether she was cold, and she assured me she wasn’t. “It was the blood,” she said, “that ran through her like ice sometimes.” “I am a walking ten hours every day—wet or dry,” the man continued. “I don’t stand nice much about that. I can’t go much above one mile and a half an hour, owing to my right side being paralysed. My leg and foot and all is quite dead. I goes with a stick.” [The wife brought the stick out from a corner of the room to show me. It was an old peculiarly carved one, with a bird rudely cut out of wood for the handle, and a snake twisting itself up the stick.] “I walk fifteen miles every day of my life, that I do—quite that—excepting Sunday, in course. I generally sell the chickweed and grunsell and turfs, all to the houses, not to the shops. The young man as cut the turf gathers grunsell as well for the shops. They’re tradespeople and gentlefolks’ houses together that I sells to—such as keeps canaries, or goldfinches, or linnets. I charge ½d. a bunch for chickweed and grunsell together. It’s the regular charge. The nettles is ordered in certain quantities; I don’t get them unless they’re ordered: I sells these in three-pennn’orths at a time. Why, Saturday is my best day, and that’s the reason why I can’t spare time to gather on that day. On Saturday I dare say I gets rid on two dozen bunches of chickweed and grunsell. On the other days, sometimes, I goes out and don’t sell above five or six bunches; at other times I get rid on a dozen; that I call a tidy day’s work for any other day but a Saturday, and some days I don’t sell as much as a couple of bunches in the whole day. Wednesday is my next best day after Saturday. On a Wednesday, sometimes, I sell a dozen and a half. In the summer I does much better than in winter. They gives it more to the birds then, and changes it oftener. I’ve seed a matter of eight or nine people that sell chickweed and grunsell like myself in the fields where I goes to gather it. They mostly all goes to where I do to get mine. They are a great many that sells grunsell about the streets in London, like I do. I dare say there is a hundred, and far more nor that, taking one place with another. I takes my nettles to ladies’ houses. They considers the nettles good for the blood, and drinks ’em at tea, mostly in the spring and autumn. In the spring I generally sells three threepenn’orths of ’em a week, and in the autumn about two threepenn’orths. The ladies I sell the nettles to are mostly sickly, but sometimes they aint, and has only a breaking out in the skin, or in their face. The nettles are mostly taken in Low Marrabun. I gathers more than all for Great Titchfield-street. The turfs I sell mostly in London-street, in Marrabun and John-street, and Carburton-street, and Portland-street, and Berners, and all about there. I sells about three dozen of turfs a week. I sells them at three and four a penny. I charges them at three a penny to gentlefolks and four a penny to tradespeople. I pays 2d. a dozen for ’em and so makes from 1d. to 2d. a dozen out of ’em. I does trifling with these in the winter—about two dozen a week, but always three dozen in the summer. Of the chickweed and grunsell I sells from six to seven dozen bunches a week in the summer, and about four or five dozen bunches in the winter. I sells mostly to regular customers, and a very few to chance ones that meet me in the street. The chance customers come mostly in the summer times. Altogether I should say with my regular and chance customers I make from 4s. to 5s. a week in the summer, and from 3s. to 4s. in the winter. That’s as near as I can tell. Last Monday I was out all day, and took 1½d.; Tuesday I took about 5½d.; Wednesday I got 9½d.; Thursday I can’t hardly recollect, not to tell the truth about it. But oh, dear me, yes I wasn’t allowed to go out on that day. We was given to understand nothing was allowed to be sold on that day. They told us it were the Thanksgiving-day. I was obliged to fast on that day. We did have a little in the morning, a trifle, but not near enough. Friday I came home with nigh upon 6d., and Saturday I got 1s., and 3d. after when I went out at night. I goes into Leather-lane every Saturday night, and stands with my basket there, so that altogether, last week I made 3s. 1½d. But that was a slack week with me, owing to my having lost Thursday. If it hadn’t been for that I should have made near upon 4s. We felt the loss very severely. Prices have come down dreadful with us. The same bunches as I sell now for ½d. I used to get 1d. for nine or ten years ago. I dare say I could earn then, take one day with another, such a thing as 7s. a week, summer and winter through. There’s so many at it now to what there was afore, that it’s difficult to get a living, and the ladies are very hard with a body. They tries to beat me down, and particular in the matter of turfs. They tell me they can buy half-a-dozen for 1d., so I’m obligated to let ’em have three or four. There’s a many women at the business. I hardly know which is the most, men or women. There’s pretty nigh as much of one as the other, I think. I am a bed-sacking weaver by trade. When I worked at it I used to get 15s. a week regularly. But I was struck with paralysis nearly nineteen years ago, and lost the use of all one side, so I was obleeged to turn to summut else. Another grunseller told me on the business, and what he got, and I thought I couldn’t do no better. That’s a favourite linnet. We had that one stuffed there. A young man that I knew stuffed it for me. I was very sorry when the poor thing died. I’ve got another little linnet up there.” “I’m particular fond of little birds,” said the wife. “I never was worse off than I am now. I pays 2s. a week rent, and we has, take one time with another, about 3s. for the four of us to subsist upon for the whole seven days; yes, that, take one time with another, is generally what I do have. We very seldom has any meat. This day week we got a pound of pieces. I gave 4d. for ’em. Everything that will pledge I’ve got in pawn. I’ve been obliged to let them go. I can’t exactly say how much I’ve got in pledge, but you can see the tickets.” [The wife brought out a tin box full of duplicates. They were for the usual articles—coats, shawls, shirts, sheets, handkerchiefs, indeed almost every article of wearing-apparel and bedding. The sums lent were mostly 6d. and 9d., while some ran as high as 2s. The dates of many were last year, and these had been backed for three months.] “I’ve been paying interest for many of the things there for seven years. I pay for the backing 2½d., that is 1d. for the backing, and 1½d. for the three months’ interest. I pay 6d. a year interest on every one of the tickets. If its only 3d., I have to pay ½d. a month interest just the same, but nothing for the ticket when we put it in.” The number of duplicates was 26, and the gross sum amounted to 1l. 4s. 8d. One of the duplicates was for 4d.; nine were for 6d., two for 9d., nine were for 1s., two for 1s. 6d., one for 1s. 3d., one for 1s. 7d. and two for 2s. “The greatest comfort I should like to have would be something more on our beds. We lay dreadful cold of a night, on account of being thin clad. I have no petticoats at all. We have no blankets—of late years I haven’t had any. The warm clothing would be the greatest blessing I could ask. I’m not at all discontented at my lot. That wouldn’t mend it. We strive and do the best we can, and may as well be contented over it. I think its God’s will we should be as we are. Providence is kind to me, even badly off as we are. I know it’s all for the best.”

There are no “pitches,” or stands, for the sale of groundsel in the streets; but, from the best information I could acquire, there are now 1,000 itinerants selling groundsel, each person selling, as an average, 18 bunches a day. We thus have 5,616,000 bunches a year, which, at ½d. each, realise 11,700l.—about 4s. 2d. per week per head of sellers of groundsel. The “oldest hand” in the trade is the man whose statement and likeness I give. The sale continues through the year, but “the groundsel” season extends from April to September; in those months 24 bunches, per individual seller, is the extent of the traffic, in the other months half that quantity, giving the average of 18 bunches.

The capital required for groundsel-selling is 4d. for a brown wicker-basket; leather strap to sling it from the shoulder, 6d.; in all, 10d. No knife is necessary; they pluck the groundsel.

Chickweed is only sold in the summer, and is most generally mixed with groundsel and plantain. The chickweed and plantain, together, are but half the sale of groundsel, and that only for five months, adding, to the total amount, 2,335l. But this adds little to the profits of the regular itinerants; for, when there is the best demand, there are the greatest number of sellers, who in winter seek some other business. The total amount of “green stuff” expended upon birds, as supplied by the street-sellers, I give at the close of my account of the trade of those purveyors.

Many of the groundsel and chickweed-sellers—for the callings are carried on together—who are aged men, were formerly brimstone-match sellers, who “didn’t like to take to the lucifers.”

On the publication of this account in the Morning Chronicle, several sums were forwarded to the office of that journal for the benefit of this family. These were the means of removing them to a more comfortable home, of redeeming their clothing, and in a measure realizing the wishes of the poor woman.

Of Turf Cutting and Selling.

A man long familiar with this trade, and who knew almost every member of it individually, counted for me 36 turf-cutters, to his own knowledge, and was confident that there were 40 turf-cutters and 60 sellers in London; the addition of the sellers, however, is but that of 10 women, who assist their husbands or fathers in the street sales,—but no women cut turf,—and of 10 men who sell, but buy of the cutters.

The turf is simply a sod, but it is considered indispensable that it should contain the leaves of the “small Dutch clover,” (the shamrock of the Irish), the most common of all the trefoils. The turf is used almost entirely for the food and roosting-place of the caged sky-larks. Indeed one turf-cutter said to me: “It’s only people that don’t understand it that gives turf to other birds, but of course if we’re asked about it, we say it’s good for every bird, pigeons and chickens and all; and very likely it is if they choose to have it.” The principal places for the cutting of turf are at present Shepherd’s Bush, Notting Hill, the Caledonian Road, Hampstead, Highgate, Hornsey, Peckham, and Battersea. Chalk Farm was an excellent place, but it is now exhausted, “fairly flayed” of the shamrocks. Parts of Camden Town were also fertile in turf, but they have been built over. Hackney was a district to which the turf-cutters resorted, but they are now forbidden to cut sods there. Hampstead Heath used to be another harvest-field for these turf-purveyors, but they are now prohibited from “so much as sticking a knife into the Heath;” but turf-cutting is carried on surreptitiously on all the outskirts of the Heath, for there used to be a sort of feeling, I was told, among some real Londoners that Hampstead Heath yielded the best turf of any place. All the “commons” and “greens,” Paddington, Camberwell, Kennington, Clapham, Putney, &c. are also forbidden ground to the turf-cutter. “O, as to the parks and Primrose Hill itself—round about it’s another thing—nobody,” it was answered to my inquiry, “ever thought of cutting their turf there. The people about, if they was only visitors, wouldn’t stand it, and right too. I wouldn’t, if I wasn’t in the turf-cutting myself.”