menu_book Chapter 89

section eighty nine of london labour and the london poor volume three by henry mayhew this librivox recording is in the public domain recording by gillian henry london vagrants part twelve The large number of Irish found among the inmates of these establishments is one of the peculiar features of the refuges. By the returns above given, it will be seen that they constitute more than one half of the total applicants. Such being the fact, I selected two from the more decent as types of the better class of immigrants and subjoin their narratives. One of these men had a half-shrewd, half-stolid look, and was clad in very dirty fustion.

His beard was some days old, and he looked ill-fed and wretched. His children, for he had two boys with him, ten and twelve years old, were shoeless, their white skins being a contrast to their dirty dress, as the former appeared through the holes in their jackets. They looked on with a sort of vacant wonder, motionless and without a word. the father said i've been knocking about in england days four years from place to place i'm telling you the truth sir note this he often repeated end note i came out to better myself to knock out something better

but i wish to gad i'd been buried before i buried my wife and children i didn't answer i was a labourer in ireland working in farms and gardens for anybody my wages weren't much only three shillings a week on my dared house not that is a house rent-free and two meals of iddles a day sometimes teddies and milk for meals and sometimes teddies and fish and sometimes i often teddies and nothing my wife and me and four children came from kirk it was in the county kirk i lived to where's i don't know the name of the part they've such quare names there shouldn't they have sir it cast me half a crown a piece for the sex of us i raised the money partly by digging up a garden i had and selling what stuff there was when the rest was made up by the farmers in the neighbourhood giving their truppance or sixpence a piece to me So the time I'd live, I wasn't on the pallor rate, but I said might.

When I got to Wales, I had only sixpence left. I went to the workhouse for a night's lodging, to be sure what else. I started next day for London, with my wife and children, bigging as we came, and going from workhouse to workhouse. And very badly, we got along.

It finished a fart night to get to London. When we got to London, that's about four years ago, We got work at pays picking my wife and me In the gardens of Elt That is for the summer

In the winter we selled oranges in the streets where she lived And we had nothing from the perishes We can't complain of the living till this time, sir It was better than I knew in Ireland I don't know what we got

She managed all Last Adam we went to the Hab County To Ellis' farm I don't know the town nearest And there my wife and two children

died of the cholera at the farm. The three of them weren't awake ill. The parish kept them and buried them. Since that, I've been worse after never and will always be worse after never,

for I've lost a good wife. Since her death, I jabbed a belt in the country, living for a bit, me and a chertle, till the frost came, and then we came to London.

I was necking a belt for a fart night and begged a little, but Sarah much agat the thought. How do I know this place, Moosea? All the neighbours know about it.

The younger man, who was tall and gaunt, more intelligent than the other, and less squalid in his appearance, said, I been in England two years in August. I can't a bit of my living.

I tell the person in London, Ireland, that it was thirty pounds a year rent and forty acres. That was in the county Kirk, particularly main. I rented a land of a middleman,

and he was very severe. My family and I couldn't live under him. I had a wife and three children. We all came to England from Cork to Bristol. I kept a little substance back to pay my way to England. The voyage cost 25 shillings. From Bristol I went to Cardiff as I got no work at Bristol. At Cardiff I worked in the railway at two shillings and sixpence a day. I did well for a couple of months. i would like to continue at that at a shilling a day here better than in ireland these times i worked in kerth of town with a bricklayer after i'd done on the railway at twelve shillings a week

i next year had a twelve months work and an half with a farmer near bristol at ten shillings a week and was still plenty comfortable we made for london at the hay harvest we had a little money to start with regarding all hay work and the a trifle of work at the dags in cairn harvest near brighton i worked for six weeks making ten shillings an acre for coating wheat by piecework and seven shillings for oats and two shillings for only days work I made £4 altogether. I get back to London with £30.

I could get no work at all, but five days' work at a stowing yard, at a shilling a day. I sell a few things in the streets, oranges and apples, sold on my wife. It helped to keep us. I was gone at last, so I got in here with one child, a fine boy. My wife's got three with her.

She's in a lodging and grazing lane. She's starving, I'm afraid. But she wished me to come in here with a child, as I could do nothing at night time. I don't know how money came over about the time I did.

To gently give poor men money, our dad gave it to them. To send them over here, to free the land from its expenses. To complete the picture of this Irish destitution, I add the following. One wretched creature had come to the refuge with her four children. she herself was habited in a large blue cloth cloak her toes were through the end of her shoes and her gown clung tight to her limbs telling that she was utterly destitute of underclothing

In her arms she carried an infant, round which were wound some old woolen rags. As the little thing sucked at its mother's breast, it breathed so hard that it needed no words to tell of its long exposure to the cold. Though the mother was half-clad, still there was the little bit of clean net inside the old rusty straw bonnet. The children were respectively eleven, six and three years old. The eldest, a good-looking grey-eyed girl, who stood with her forefinger in her mouth, half simple, was covered with a tattered plaid shawl.

This, at her mother's bidding, she drew from her shoulder with an ostentation of poverty, to show that what had before appeared a gown beneath was nothing more than a bombazine petticoat. On her feet were a pair of women's old fashionable shoes, tied on with string. These had been given in charity to her by a servant a week back. The next child, a boy, laughed as I looked at him, and seemed, though only six years old, to have been made prematurely knowing by his early street education.

He put out his foot as he saw my eye glance downwards to his shoes to show me that he had one boot and one shoe on. he was clad in all kinds of rags and held in his hand a faded velvet cap the youngest boy was almost a dwarf he was three years old but so stunted that he seemed scarce half that age i come from the county of kirk the worst and the poorest part of it yes indeed sir it is said the woman on the gentleman now did i do on i had it to do i manufactured a flux and wool oi naetan saad to be sure i did but god o mighty was pleased to de ploy me of it it was there i was married my husband was a miner distressed and want and hunger and poverty nothing else draw of us to this country it was the well of god glad he be to his early and blessed name to fare the taties to be sure i couldn't dig one out o the ground not fit to eat we lived on taties and milk and fish and eggs we used to have innsden

on the morning fell too when the captains came over here used to be sure for where they lived sir yes sir indeed when i could tell you that i used to be eight days yes that i did before i could get one haper to eat for in the water i wired and drank to keep the life and myself and children it was dr adenivan that paid for our passage when i say all the younger and the stress and want isn't it so that i went through he gave a letter to the stone packet office and then they brought me and my three childer over it was here that this baby was born my husband was ere 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 say if i lived for i didn't think i lived and then i showed a letter to dr danivan my husband never got a day's work since he came over and i couldn't give the children their breakfast the next morning after they came I came to London Bridge and met my husband there, where indeed that is nearly three years ago.

And I had nothing to do since, but what little we done at the harvest. It was ten 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. And indeed we had to love by begging from that up to harvest time. I had to beg for him, sooner than let him die with the hunger. It 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 ten pound. It would be my pleasure. Never a day's work could he get, on money beside him. Ah, Lord, there is money, sir. He never does anything but at the harvest time, and any works that reap in the curtain,

when I know nothing else that it does. When I bind the shaves after I bind it, we get work then for about a first night or three weeks. It ain't hard a month. I know, sir, no.

How could my children do anything but as fast as we learn it to eat it? I declare, I don't know how much we'd make a week then to get 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 leaving it Oh indeed, I had to bake all the rest of my time My husband doesn't bake, I'll tell you the truth The truth is the best

When he has our penny, he tries to sell a handful of oranges On a date, he had to leave half selling For he couldn't buy over a hundred of them to sell back It done pretty well when the onions were in season, it did so. But there's so many selling oranges, you can't sell one of them.

Now it was nothing, for it has nothing to reach over a hundred lemons with, and that isn't much. When I gets a penny to pay for the legends, then we latches 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 laden house. He has nothing else to do, sir.

I always go out with my children. Sure I couldn't look at them, though I would hunger. Where is the yes for leaving them with the husband? What is he to give them? Indeed, if I had left them last night with them, I couldn't have given them as much as they'd put in their mouths once.

indeed i take them out in the cold to beg with me to get a bit of widows for them sure god knows i can't help it he knows i can't gladly be to his only name indeed i have a part of the bread i got here last night to carry to my poor husband for i know he wanted it oh if i am to go to the gallows i am telling you the truth ought to be sure yes sir there's my new one would give a bit to the childer when they wouldn't to me sure the world knows that or maybe the childer will get the eapens and that'll pay me laden or buy a loaf of bread for them i said to be sure you know i'd get mad wi all my little childer out then i would with one and that's the reason i did isn't it that's why i take a moat 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 penny and maybe i'd get a shilling

we met a gentleman the other day that gave me a shilling together i'd all my children out with me then the sister carries the little fellow on her back no more would he stop after me neither only twice i've left him at him i did indeed he do cry with the cold and the afternoon again with the hunger and some of the paper says to me it's myself that makes him cry but then indeed it ain't maybe i've no harm to give my husband maybe it's at sam yanion he slept last night my husband never goes begging he didn't sir i want to lie he didn't indeed but he sends me out in the cold and in the wet and in the aid too but then he can't help it he's the best man that ever put a hat on his head and the kindest she persisted in asseverating this being apparently totally incapable of perceiving the inhumanity of her husband's conduct it ain't farce me it ain't indeed but he sits oider at home while i go out

oh if you know what i suffers ah yes he'd rather work if i got a guinea in gold 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 once for begging. My children was taken away from me and sent to some union. I don't know the day about it. That was the time my husband was selling the lemons.

He never came to speak for me when I was going to prison and he doesn't know whether I'm in prison tonight. I beg your honour's pardon. He would care, but he can't help me. I thought I'd end my life in the prison,

but I wouldn't be allowed to speak a word. The poor man, my husband, can't help it. He was never quite a lazy in his country. But Gerda Moiti placed to deprive him his work. And what can he do?

The next was a rather tall and well-spoken woman of 58. When I was young, she said, I used to go out to days' works or charring, and sometimes as a laundress. I went charring 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 charred when he was out of work. He died 18 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've 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 twenty shillings 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 five pounds on a raffle for a silk handkerchief among the shoemakers,

and ten shillings from the Mendicity Society, and a few shillings from the clergyman of the parish. The trade buried him. I didn't get one chilling as his widow, only five pounds 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 shoebinding. One time I have earned 15 shillings a week at shoebinding for blank Regent Street. Now I can only earn five shillings with full work. I have seldom earned three shillings 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 22. My mother died six years ago. My father I never knew, for I am 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 pastry cooks, for their sweetmeats, and for cents.

My aunt assisted me. She is now poor and a widow. I could never earn more than three shillings or four shillings 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 pillboxes. I could earn at the Macintoshes only four shillings a week, and my tea, when in full work. And when work was bad, I earned only two shillings and sixpence. It was eightpence a day and my tea. I partied 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 to the streets all that cold night. I feel the cold of that night in my limbs still. I thought it would never 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. It was not difficult to see, by the looks of the poor woman whom I next addressed, the distress and privation she had endured. Her eyes were full of tears, and there was a plaintiveness in her voice that was most touching. She was clad in rusty black, and had on a black straw bonnet with a few old crepe flowers in it. But still,

in all her poverty, there was a neatness in her appearance that told she was much unused to such abject misery as had now come upon her. Hers was indeed a wretched story, the victim of her husband's ill-treatment and neglect. I have been working at needlework ever since the end of August. My husband is living, but he has deserted me, and I don't know where he is at present. He had been a gentleman's servant, but he could attend to a garden, and of late years he had done so.

I have been married nine years next April. I never did live happily with him. He drank a very great deal, and when tipsy, he used to beat me sorely. He had been out of work for a long time before he got his last situation, and there he had 18 shillings a week. He lost his place before that through drink.

Oh, sir, perhaps he'd give me all his money at the end of the week within three shillings, but then he'd have more than half of it back again. Not every week alike, of course, but that was mostly the case, and in particular for the last year and a half, for since then he had been worse. While he was with me, I have gone out for a day's charring occasionally, but then I found I was no forerder at the week's end, and so I didn't strive so much as I might

have done, for if I earned two shillings, he'd be sure to have it from me. I was a servant before he married me, in a respectable tradesman's family. I lived three years and a half at my master's house out of town, and that was where I fell in with my husband. He was a shopman then. I lived with him more than eight years, and always acted a wife's part to him. I never drank myself, and was never untrue to him. But he has been too untrue to me, and I have had to suffer for it.

I bore all his unkindness until August last, when he treated me so badly. I cannot mention to you how, but he deceived me and injured me in the worst possible manner. I have one child, a boy, seven years old last September. But this boy is with him, and I don't know where. I have striven to find him out, but cannot. When I found out how he had deceived me, we had words, and he then swore he wouldn't come home any more to me, and he has kept to his oath,

for I haven't set eyes on him since. My boy was down at a friend's house at Cambridge, and they gave him up to the father without my knowledge. When he went away I had no money in the house, nothing but a few things, tables and chairs and a bed in a room. I kept them as long as I could but at last they went to find me in food. After he had gone I got a bit of needlework. I worked at the dressmaking and several different kinds of work since he left me. Then I used to

earn about five shillings a week, sometimes not so much. Sometimes I have made only two shillings, and lately, that is, within the last six weeks, I have earned scarcely anything. About October last, I was obliged to sell my things to pay off my rent and get myself something to eat. After that, I went to lodge with a person, and there I stopped till very lately, when I had scarce nothing, and couldn't afford to pay my rent.

Then I was turned out of there and I went and made shift with a friend by lying down on the boards beside her children. I lay down with my clothes on. I had nothing to cover me and no bed under me.

They was very poor people. At last my friend and her husband didn't like to have people about in the room where they slept. And besides, I was so poor I was obliged to beg a bit of what they had

and they was so poor they couldn't afford to spare it to me. They were very good and kind to me so long as they could hold out anyhow. But at last I was obliged to leave and walk about the streets. This I did for two whole nights, last Sunday and Monday nights. It was bitter cold and freezing sharp. I did go and sit on the stairs of a lodging house on Monday night till I was that cold I could scarcely move a limb. On Tuesday night I slept in the borough. A lady in the street gave me

thruppence. I asked her if she could give me a ticket to go anywhere. I told her I was in the deepest distress, and she gave me all the hapence she had, and I thought I would go and have a night's lodging with the money. All these three days and nights I had only a piece of bread to keep down my hunger. Yesterday I was walking about these parts, and I see a lot of people standing about here, and I asked them if there was anything being given away. They told me it was the refuge,

or else I shouldn't have known there was such a place. Had I been aware of it, I shouldn't have been out in the streets all night as I was on Sunday and Monday. When I leave here, and they'll only keep me for three nights. I don't know what I shall do, for I have so partied with my things that I ain't respectable enough to go after needlework, and they do look at you so. My clothes are all gone to live upon. If I could make myself look a little decent, I might perhaps get some

work. I wish I could get into service again. I wish I'd never left it indeed. But I want things. If I can't get any things, I must try in such as I have got on. And if I can't get work, I shall be obliged to see if the parish will do anything for me. But I am afraid they won't. I am thirty-three years old, and very miserable indeed.

From the opening of the Refugees for the Houseless in 1820 until 1852, as many as 189,223 homeless individuals received nightly shelter there, being an average of upwards of 6,000 a year. Some of these have remained three or four nights in the same establishment, so that altogether no less than 1,141,558 nights lodgings were afforded to the very poor. and £2,778,153 or nearly 25,000 hundredweight of bread distributed among them.

End of section 89