“I’m twelve years old, please sir, and my name is Margaret R——, and I sweep a crossing in New Oxford-street, by Dunn’s-passage, just facing Moses and Sons’, sir; by the Catholic school, sir. Mother’s been dead these two year, sir, and father’s a working cutler, sir; and I lives with him, but he don’t get much to do, and so I’m obligated to help him, doing what I can, sir. Since mother’s been dead, I’ve had to mind my little brother and sister, so that I haven’t been to school; but when I goes a crossing-sweeping I takes them along with me, and they sits on the steps close by, sir. If it’s wet I has to stop at home and take care of them, for father depends upon me for looking after them. Sister’s three and a-half year old, and brother’s five year, so he’s just beginning to help me, sir. I hope he’ll get something better than a crossing when he grows up.
“First of all I used to go singing songs in the streets, sir. It was when father had no work, so he stopped at home and looked after the children. I used to sing the ‘Red, White, and Blue,’ and ‘Mother, is the Battle over?’ and ‘The Gipsy Girl,’ and sometimes I’d get fourpence or fivepence, and sometimes I’d have a chance of making ninepence, sir. Sometimes, though, I’d take a shilling of a Saturday night in the markets.
“At last the songs grew so stale people wouldn’t listen to them, and, as I carn’t read, I couldn’t learn any more, sir. My big brother and father used to learn me some, but I never could get enough out of them for the streets; besides, father was out of work still, and we couldn’t get money enough to buy ballads with, and it’s no good singing without having them to sell. We live over there, sir, (pointing to a window on the other side of the narrow street).
“The notion come into my head all of itself to sweep crossings, sir. As I used to go up Regent-street I used to see men and women, and girls and boys, sweeping, and the people giving them money, so I thought I’d do the same thing. That’s how it come about. Just now the weather is so dry, I don’t go to my crossing, but goes out singing. I’ve learnt some new songs, such as ‘The Queen of the Navy for ever,’ and ‘The Widow’s Last Prayer,’ which is about the wars. I only go sweeping in wet weather, because then’s the best time. When I am there, there’s some ladies and gentlemen as gives to me regular. I knows them by sight; and there’s a beer-shop where they give me some bread and cheese whenever I go.
“I generally takes about sixpence, or sevenpence, or eightpence on the crossing, from about nine o’clock in the morning till four in the evening, when I come home. I don’t stop out at nights because father won’t let me, and I’m got to be home to see to baby.
“My broom costs me twopence ha’penny, and in wet weather it lasts a week, but in dry weather we seldom uses it.
“When I sees the busses and carriages coming I stands on the side, for I’m afeard of being runned over. In winter I goes out and cleans ladies’ doors, general about Lincoln’s-inn, for the housekeepers. I gets twopence a door, but it takes a long time when the ice is hardened, so that I carn’t do only about two or three.
“I carn’t tell whether I shall always stop at sweeping, but I’ve no clothes, and so I carn’t get a situation; for, though I’m small and young, yet I could do housework, such as cleaning.
“No, sir, there’s no gang on my crossing—I’m all alone. If another girl or a boy was to come and take it when I’m not there, I should stop on it as well as him or her, and go shares with ’em.”