“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 ’em, and then they comes to me and says, ‘Can you oblige me with a pin?’ and I says, ‘Oh yes, marm; a couple, or three, if you requires them;’ but it turns out very rare that I gets 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 harristocracy; though it’s middling classes—such as is in a middling way like—as is the best friends 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 seventy—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 tail-coat, 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 grease were so thick that the fibre of the cloth was choked up, and it looked as if it had been pieced with bits of leather.
Rubbing his unshorn chin, whereon the bristles stood up like the pegs in the barrel of a musical-box—until it made a noise like a hair-brush, he began his story:—
“I’m known all about in Parliament-street—ay, every bit about them parts,—for more than thirty year. Ay, I’m as well known as the statty itself, all about them parts at Charing-cross. Afore I took to crossing-sweeping I was at coal-work. The coal-work I did was backing and filling, and anythink in that way. I worked at Wood’s, and Penny’s, and Douglas’s. They were good masters, Mr. Wood ’specially; 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 fever, as was brought on by sweating—over-exaction they called it. It left me so weak I wasn’t able to do nothink in the yards.
“I know Mr. G——, the fishmonger, and Mr. J——, the publican. I should think Mr. J—— has knowed me this eight-and-thirty-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 anythink 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 sperrits—a gallon, or half a gallon, or anythink of that sort—a long journey. In fact, I’d get anythink 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 fifty year ago—ay, more than that; but I can’t call to mind exactly, for I’ve had no parents ever since I was eight year old, and now I’m nigh seventy; but it’s as close as I can remember. I was about thirteen at that time. There was no police on then, 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 as ever swept a crossing in Charing-cross; (here, as if proud of the fact, he gave a kind of moist chuckle, which ended in a fit of coughing). I used to make a good bit of money then; but it ain’t worth nothink, now.
“After I left coal-backing, I went back to the old crossing opposite the Adm’ralty gates, and I stopped there until Mr. G—— give 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 afore me. He used to sweep in the day—come about ten or eleven o’clock in the morning, and then at night he turned watchman; for when there was any wenson, as Mr. G—— deals in, hanging out, he was put to watch it. This German worked there, I reckon, about seven year, and when he died I took the crossing.