“We’re always sure to make money if there’s mud—that’s to say, if we look for our money, and ask; of course, if we stand still we don’t. Now, there’s Lord Fitzhardinge, he’s a good gentleman, what lives in Spring-gardens, in a large house. He’s got a lot of servants and carriages. Every time he crosses the Charing-cross crossing he always gives the girl half a sovereign.” (This statement was taken in June 1856.) “He doesn’t cross often, because, hang it, he’s got such a lot of carriages, but when he’s on foot he always does. If they asks him he doesn’t give nothink, but if they touches their caps he does. The housekeeper at his house is very kind to us. We run errands for her, and when she wants any of her own letters taken to the post then she calls, and if we are on the crossing we takes them for her. She’s a very nice lady, and gives us broken victuals. I’ve got a share in that crossing,—there are three of us, and when he gives the half sovereign he always gives it to the girl, and those that are in it shares it. She would do us out of it if she could, but we all takes good care of that, for we are all cheats.
“At night-time we tumbles—that is, if the policemen ain’t nigh. We goes general to Waterloo-place when the Opera’s on. We sends on one of us ahead, as a looker-out, to look for the policeman, and then we follows. It’s no good tumbling to gentlemen going to the Opera; it’s when they’re coming back they gives us money. When they’ve got a young lady on their arm they laugh at us tumbling; some will give us a penny, others threepence, sometimes a sixpence or a shilling, and sometimes a halfpenny. We either do the cat’un-wheel, or else we keep before the gentleman and lady, turning head-over-heels, putting our broom on the ground and then turning over it.
“I work a good deal fetching cabs after the Opera is over; we general open the doors of those what draw up at the side of the pavement for people to get into as have walked a little down the Haymarket looking for a cab. We gets a month in prison if we touch the others by the columns. I once had half a sovereign give me by a gentleman; it was raining awful, and I run all about for a cab, and at last I got one. The gentleman knew it was half a sovereign, because he said—‘Here, my little man, here’s half a sovereign for your trouble.’ He had three ladies with him, beautiful ones, with nothink on their heads, and only capes on their bare shoulders; and he had white kids on, and his regular Opera togs, too. I liked him very much, and as he was going to give me somethink the ladies says—‘Oh, give him somethink extra!’ It was pouring with rain, and they couldn’t get a cab; they were all engaged, but I jumped on the box of one as was driving along the line. Last Saturday Opera night I made fifteen pence by the gentlemen coming from the Opera.
“After the Opera we go into the Haymarket, where all the women are who walk the streets all night. They don’t give us no money, but they tell the gentlemen to. Sometimes, when they are talking to the gentlemen, they say, ‘Go away, you young rascal!’ and if they are saucy, then we say to them, ‘We’re not talking to you, my doxy, we’re talking to the gentleman,’—but that’s only if they’re rude, for if they speak civil we always goes. They knows what ‘doxy’ means. What is it? Why that they are no better than us! If we are on the crossing, and we says to them as they go by, ‘Good luck to you!’ they always give us somethink either that night or the next. There are two with bloomer bonnets, who always give us somethink if we says ‘Good luck.’ Sometimes a gentleman will tell us to go and get them a young lady, and then we goes, and they general gives us sixpence for that. If the gents is dressed finely we gets them a handsome girl; if they’re dressed middling, then we gets them a middling-dressed one; but we usual prefers giving a turn to girls that have been kind to us, and they are sure to give us somethink the next night. If we don’t find any girls walking, we knows where to get them in the houses in the streets round about.
“We always meet at St. Martin’s steps—the ‘jury house,’ we calls ’em—at three o’clock in the morning, that’s always our hour. We reckons up what we’ve taken, but we don’t divide. Sometimes, if we owe anythink where we lodge, the women of the house will be waiting on the steps for us: then, if we’ve got it, we pay them; if we haven’t, why it can’t be helped, and it goes on. We gets into debt, because sometimes the women where we live gets lushy; then we don’t give them anythink, because they’d forget it, so we spends it ourselves. We can’t lodge at what’s called model lodging-houses, as our hours don’t suit them folks. We pays threepence a-night for lodging. Food, if we get plenty of money, we buys for ourselves. We buys a pound of bread, that’s twopence farthing—best seconds, and a farthing’s worth of dripping—that’s enough for a pound of bread—and we gets a ha’porth of tea and a ha’porth of sugar; or if we’re hard up, we gets only a penn’orth of bread. We make our own tea at home; they lends us a kittle, teapot, and cups and saucers, and all that.
“Once or twice a-week we gets meat. We all club together, and go into Newgate Market and gets some pieces cheap, and biles them at home. We tosses up who shall have the biggest bit, and we divide the broth, a cupful in each basin, until it’s lasted out. If any of us has been unlucky we each gives the unlucky one one or two halfpence. Some of us is obliged at times to sleep out all night; and sometimes, if any of us gets nothink, then the others gives him a penny or two, and he does the same for us when we are out of luck.
“Besides, there’s our clothes: I’m paying for a pair of boots now. I paid a shilling off Saturday night.
“When we gets home at half-past three in the morning, whoever cries out ‘first wash’ has it. First of all we washes our feet, and we all uses the same water. Then we washes our faces and hands, and necks, and whoever fetches the fresh water up has first wash; and if the second don’t like to go and get fresh, why he uses the dirty. Whenever we come in the landlady makes us wash our feet. Very often the stones cuts our feet and makes them bleed; then we bind a bit of rag round them. We like to put on boots and shoes in the daytime, but at night-time we can’t, because it stops the tumbling.
“On the Sunday we all have a clean shirt put on before we go out, and then we go and tumble after the omnibuses. Sometimes we do very well on a fine Sunday, when there’s plenty of people out on the roofs of the busses. We never do anythink on a wet day, but only when it’s been raining and then dried up. I have run after a Cremorne bus, when they’ve thrown us money, as far as from Charing-cross right up to Piccadilly, but if they don’t throw us nothink we don’t run very far. I should think we gets at that work, taking one Sunday with another, eightpence all the year round.
“When there’s snow on the ground we puts our money together, and goes and buys an old shovel, and then, about seven o’clock in the morning, we goes to the shops and asks them if we shall scrape the snow away. We general gets twopence every house, but some gives sixpence, for it’s very hard to clean the snow away, particular when it’s been on the ground some time. It’s awful cold, and gives us chilblains on our feet; but we don’t mind it when we’re working, for we soon gets hot then.