“I come from the county of Corruk, the worst and the poorest part of it—yes, indeed, sir, it is,” said the woman; “and the gintlemen know that I do. When I had it to do, I manufactured at flax and wool. I knit and sewed, to be sure I did; but God Almighty was plazed to deprive me of it. It was there I was married. My husband was a miner. Distress and want, and hunger and poverty—nothing else—druv us to this counthry. It was the will of God—glory be to his holy and blessed name!—to fail the ’taties. To be sure, I couldn’t dig one out of the ground not fit to ate. We lived on ’taties, and milk, and fish, and eggs. We used to have hins then. And the mining failed, too; and the captains came over here. Yes, to be sure; for here they lived, sir. Yes, sir, indeed; and I could tell you that I used to be eight days—yes, that I did—before I could get one ha’porth to ate—barring the wather I boiled and drank to keep the life in myself and children. It was Doctor O’Donovan that paid for our passage. When he see all the hunger, and distress, and want—yes, indeed, sir—that I went through, he gave a letther to the stame-packet office, and then they brought me and my three childer over. It was here that this baby was borrun. My husband was here before me, he was, about seven or eight months. He hadn’t sent me any money, for he couldn’t a penny. He wrote home to see if I lived, for he didn’t think I lived; and then I showed the letther to Dr. O’Donovan. My husband niver got a day’s work since he came over; indeed, he couldn’t give the childer their breakfast the next morning after they came. I came to London-bridge, and met my husband there. Well, indeed, that is nearly three years agone. Oh, thin, I had nothing to do since but what little we done at the harvest. It was tin weeks before Christmas that I came over, and I don’t know what month it was, for I don’t read or write, you know. Oh, thin, indeed, we had to live by begging from that up to harvest time. I had to beg for him sooner than let him die with the hunger. He didn’t do any work, but he’d be glad of a sixpence he’d earn. He’d rather have it that way than if he’d begged tin pound—it would be more plisure. Never a day’s work could he get; and many beside him. Oh, Lord, there is many, sir. He never does anything but at the harvest-time, and then he works at raping the corrun. I know nothing else that he does; and I bind the shaves afther him. Why, indeed, we get work then for about a fortnight or three weeks—it don’t howld a month. Oh no, sir, no; how could my children do anything, but as fast as we’d earn it to ate it? I declare I don’t know how much we’d make a-week then. They got only eight shillings an acre last year for it. I declare I don’t know what we made; but whatever we had, we hadn’t two shillings laving it. Ah, indeed, I had to beg all the rest of my time. My husband doesn’t beg—I’ll tell you the thruth. The thruth is the best. When he has e’er a penny, he tries to sell a handful of oranges; and, indeed, he had to lave off silling, for he couldn’t buy half a hundred of ’em to sill back. He done pritty well when the onions were in season, he did, sir; but there’s so many silling oranges, he can’t sill one of ’em. Now he does nothing, for he has nothing to reach half a hundred of limons with, and that isn’t much. When I gets a pinny to pay for the lodgings, then we lodges and sleeps together; but when I can’t, I must go about this way with my children. When I go out begging, he remains at home in the lodging-house; he has nothing else to do, sir. I always go out with my childer; sure I couldn’t look at ’em die with hunger. Where’s the use of laving them with the husband; what has he to give them? Indeed, if I had left them last night with him, he couldn’t have give them as much as they’d put in their mouths onced. Indeed, I take them out in the cowld to big with me to get a bit of victuals for ’em. Sure God knows I can’t hilp it—he knows I can’t—glory be to his holy name! Indeed, I have a part of the brid I got here last night to carry to my poor husband, for I know he wanted it. Oh, if I’m to go to the gallows, I’m telling you the thruth. Oh, to be sure, yes, sir; there’s many a one would give a bit to the childer when they wouldn’t to me—sure the world knows that; and maybe the childer will get ha’pence, and that will pay my lodging or buy a loaf of brid for ’em. Oh, sir, to be sure, you know I’d get more with all my little childer out than I would with one, and that’s the rason indeed. Yes, indeed, that’s why I take them out! Oh, then, that’s what you want to know! Why, there’s some people wouldn’t believe I’d have so many. Maybe, some days I wouldn’t get a pinny, and maybe I’d git a shilling. I met a gintleman the other day that gave me a shilling together. I’d all my childer out with me then. The sister carries the little fellow on her back, no more would he stop afther me nayther. Only twice I’ve left him at home. Oh thin, indeed, he do cry with the cowld, and often again with the hunger; and some of the people says to me it’s myself that makes him cry; but thin, indeed, it ain’t. Maybe I’ve no home to give my husband, maybe it’s at some union he slept last night. My husband niver goes bigging, he didn’t, sir—I won’t tell a lie—he didn’t, indeed; but he sinds me out in the cowld, and in the wit, and in the hate, too: but thin he can’t help it. He’s the best man that iver put a hat on his hid, and the kindest.”
She persisted in asseverating this, being apparently totally incapable of perceiving the inhumanity of her husband’s conduct.
“He don’t force me—he don’t, indeed—but he sits idle at home while I go out. Ah, if you knew what I suffers! Oh, yes, he’d rather work, if I’d got a guinea in gowld for him to-night; and yesterday morning he prayed to God Almighty to put something in his way to give him a day’s work. I was in prison onced for bigging. My children was taken away from me, and sint to some union. I don’t know the name of it. That was the time my husband was silling the limons. He niver came to spake for me when I was going to prison, and he doesn’t know whether I’m in prisin to-night. Ah, I beg your honour’s pardon, he would care, but he can’t help me. I thought I’d ind my life in the prisin, for I wouldn’t be allowed to spake a word. The poor man, my husband, can’t help it. He was niver counted lazy in his counthry; but God Almighty plazed to deprive him of his work, and what can he do?”
The next was a rather tall and well-spoken woman of fifty-eight.
“When I was young,” she said, “I used to go out to day’s works, or charing, and sometimes as a laundress. I went charing till five years ago, sometimes doing middling, often very badly, when I burst a blood-vessel in lifting a weight—a pail of water to fill a copper. I fell down all at once, and bled at the ears and nose. I was taken to St. Bartholomew’s, and was there four months. When I came out, I took to sell things in the street. I could do nothing else. I have no friends in London—none in the world. Sometimes I picked up a living by selling laces, and iron-holders, and memorandum-books, in the City. I made the memorandum-books myself—penny books. The pincushions I made myself. I never had anything from my parish, or rather my husband’s—that’s Bristol. He was a bricklayer, but I chared when he was out of work. He died eighteen years ago. I was known by ladies and others in the City, who would sometimes give me a sixpence for a lace. I was working two months back—it was the general thanksgiving-day—when I was working at a fishmonger’s in Gresham-street, and fell down the cellar stairs and broke my arm. I was again three weeks in Bartholomew’s hospital. I have been destitute ever since. I have made away with everything. A little quilt is all I have left, and that would have gone last night if I hadn’t got in here.”
The poor woman whom I next accosted was a widow (her husband having died only a few months before). She had altogether what I may call a faded look; even her widow’s cap was limp and flat, and her look was miserably subdued. She said:—
“My husband was a journeyman shoemaker. Sometimes he would earn 20s. a-week; but we were badly off, for he drank; but he did not ill-use me—not much. During his last illness we raised 5l. on a raffle for a silk handkerchief among the shoemakers, and 10s. from the Mendicity Society, and a few shillings from the clergyman of the parish. The trade buried him. I didn’t get 1s. as his widow—only 5l. to bury him; but there was arrears of rent to pay, and about a month after his death I hadn’t a farthing, and I took the cholera, and was eight days in St. Bartholomew’s, the parish officers sending me there in a cab. I lived in furnished lodgings before that, and had nothing to call my own, when I had pawned my black for my husband. When I got out I helped a neighbour at shoe-binding. One time I have earned 15s. a-week at shoe-binding for ——, Regent-street. Now I can only earn 5s. with full work. I have seldom earned 3s. of late weeks. I had to leave my neighbour, because I felt that I was a burden, and was imposing upon her. I then had a shelter with a young woman I once lodged with, but I couldn’t stay there any longer. She was poor, and had nothing for me to do. So, on Saturday last, I had no work, no money, no friends, and I thought I would try and get in here, as another poor woman had done. Here I’ve had a shelter.”
A pretty, pleasant-spoken young woman, very tidy in her poor attire, which was an old cloak wrapped close round her, to cover her scanty dress, gave me the following statement very modestly:—
“I am twenty-two; my mother died six years ago; my father I never knew, for I’m an unlawful child. My mother had a small income from my father, and kept me at school. I can’t even guess who my father was. I am an only child. I was taken from school to wait upon my mother; very kind indeed she was to me, but she died in three weeks after I came from school. She’d been in a consumption for six years; she fretted sadly about me. She never told me I was an unlawful child. My aunt, my mother’s sister, told me one day afterwards. My mother always said my father lived in the country. I loved my mother, so I seldom spoke of my father, for she would say, ‘I don’t wish to hear about him.’ There was nothing for me at my mother’s death, so I put myself to learn fancy-box-making for grocers and pastrycooks, for their sweetmeats, and for scents. My aunt assisted me. She is now poor, and a widow. I could never earn more than 3s. or 4s. a-week at box-making, the pay is so bad. I lived this way for four or five years, lodging with my aunt, and giving her all I earned, and she kept me for it. I then went to learn the Macintosh-coat-making. I went into lodgings, my aunt being unable to help me any longer, as at my uncle’s death she could only keep a room for herself and children. She makes pill-boxes. I could earn at the Macintoshes only 4s. a-week and my tea, when in full work, and when work was bad, I earned only 2s. 6d. It was 8d. a-day and my tea. I parted with a good box of clothes to keep myself; first one bit of dress went, and another. I was exposed to many a temptation, but I have kept my character, I am happy to say. On Monday night I was in the streets all night—I hardly knew in what part, I was so miserable—having no place to put my head in, and frightened to death almost. I couldn’t pay my lodgings, and so lost them—I was locked out. I went to the station-house, and asked to sit there for a shelter, but the policeman said it was no place for me, as I was not guilty of any offence; they could do nothing for me: they were all very civil. I walked the streets all that cold night; I feel the cold of that night in my limbs still. I thought it never would be over. I wasn’t exposed to any insults. I had to walk about all Tuesday, without a bite either Monday or Tuesday. On Tuesday evening I got admitted into this place, and was very thankful. Next day I tried for work, but got none. I had a cup of tea from my aunt to live on that day.”
This girl wished to get into the parish, in order to be sent out as an emigrant, or anything of that kind; but her illegitimacy was a bar, as no settlement could be proved.