The Strand Magazine, Vol. 01, No. 05, May 1891 An Illustrated Monthly

Child Workers in London. "NOW AND AGAIN A HEAD SHOWED IN THE FORECASTLE HATCH." The captain gazed eagerly, and whilst he stood looking a hoarse voice roared the following weather-worn lines through the forecastle scuttle:— "You Parliament of England, you Lords and Commons too, Consider well what you're about, and what you mean to do; You're now at war with Yankees: I'm sure you'll rue the day You roused the sons of Liberty in North Americay." The time passed, Captain Jones stood at the wheel with his eyes fixed upon the barque. Suddenly he ran to the companion way, picked a telescope out of its brackets, and, kneeling at the rail, directed the glass at the barque. He remained motionless with his eye at the telescope for some minutes, then stood up and sent a glance aloft, and a look that swept the wide platform of his own decks, and his hollow, gaunt countenance wore an expression of perplexity, dismay, and wrath, all combining in a look that made him appear more than ever as though just out of hospital. "By this and by that and by t'other," he roared, using words which, as they cannot be described, must be left to the imagination, "who'd ha' thought it of two such this and that and something else sniggering whelps?" and even as he thus used language which cannot be written, the barque swung her yards so as to fill upon the sails, and letting go Captain Jones's boat, which dropped quietly rocking astern, slided along her course, her flying jibboom end pointing at something west of north. Captain Jones stood looking as though bereft of his reason, and many and awful were the sea-words which leapt from his lips. Again he looked along his deserted decks. There was nothing to be seen in the shape of human nature but a single head showing in the fore-scuttle, and this head appeared to be graphically describing what its eyes beheld to the hidden mob beneath, else how should Captain Jones account for the continuous roar of derisive laughter which saluted his ears? He stood alone upon his deck: either the Only Mate and the carpenter had been kidnapped or they had deserted him; and Captain Jones was perfectly right in not doubting for a moment that they had deserted him. He rushed forwards. "Men," he bawled, "up with ye! You shall have your way. I'm a lonely man. Don't stop to consider. Ye shall have your way, but you must bear a hand." Upon this, up through the hatch, with the agility of a seaman, sprang Black Sam. He was followed by the cook and Peter, and in a jiffy all hands were on deck. "See that barque?" roared the captain. "The mate and Mr. Chips have deserted me for her. They've stolen my boat. No! I'm not going to stop to pick her up. She'll be fifteen pound against Mr. Johnson, and six months atop of it for robbery. I'm going to follow that barque; I'm going to get those two men out of her. If the barque don't surrender 'em I'm going to run her down. Turn to now, my lads, and you shall have your way." "Well, we see you're in a hurry, capt'n," said Black Sam, "and as ye know what our wrongs is, and as ye mean to right 'em in the manner I took the liberty of pointing out yesterday, vy, we'll turn to. Give your orders, and you'll find us willing." "SEE THAT BARQUE?" The captain forthwith gave his orders. His commands would not be understood by the landsman. Enough if I say that in a very short time the Rose , fully clothed in canvas, was standing with her head direct for the barque, an able seaman at her wheel, the captain pacing the quarter-deck, the cook preparing breakfast for the men in the galley, and the sailors, each of them with a glass of grog in him, looking at the distant figure of the barque over the bows. The Rose , as I have said, was a clipper. The wind had somewhat freshened, and in this pursuit the vessel brought it about a point before the beam. Far ahead leaned the barque, tall and unsightly, heeling out to the sun a space of green copper, whilst at this moment a foretopmast studdingsail went slowly soaring to the yardarm. Captain Jones gave a loud laugh of contempt. He knew that his ship could sail three feet to the barque's one, even though the chase should heap the canvas of a Royal George upon herself. He went on to his forecastle and sent a man aft for a large black board, upon which he wrote in chalk:— give 'em up or— I'll run you down. As the Rose overhauled the barque—and had she been a steamer she could not have overtaken her more swiftly—the black board was held on high by a couple of seamen so that it could be read on board the stranger. Captain Jones on the forecastle head watched the chase through his glass. The words " Martha M. Stubbs , Windsor, N.S.," were written in large white letters upon her stern. Nothing was to be seen of Mr. Chips and the Only Mate. A man wearing a fur hat, resembling Robinson Crusoe's, paced the short poop of the barque. He carried a glass in his hand, and to judge by the frequent glances he directed at the Rose , it was to be guessed that he had interpreted the handwriting on the black board. The breeze freshened. Sheets and tacks strained to the increased pressure. The Rose , with foam midway to the hawsepipe, went shearing alongside the barque within pistol shot. "Hard up!" shrieked the man in the Robinson Crusoe cap, and the fellow at the helm made the spokes spin like the driving wheel of a locomotive. "Hard up and into him!" roared Captain Jones, and round fizzed the wheel of the Rose in true firework fashion. For the next two hours the Rose was occupied in endeavouring to run down the barque, the barque on her side cutting a hundred nimble nautical capers to evade the shearing stem of the enraged Jones. But at the end of two hours it had become plain to the man in the Robinson Crusoe hat that the Rose was in earnest. He then gave up, backed his maintopsail yard, and sent the Only Mate and Mr. Chips aboard the Rose in a boat pulled by two men. Captain Jones at once put Mr. Chips into irons and sent the Only Mate to his cabin. He then called to the two fellows who were sitting in the boat under the gangway: "Are ye undermanned?" "Fearful—ly," was the answer. "I thought so," said Captain Jones. "Step on board, my livelies, and have a glass of grog afore you return." The two men cheerfully crawled over the side, but instead of giving them a glass of grog apiece, Captain Jones ordered them forward to turn to with the rest of his crew, and with his own hand let go the line which held the barque's boat to the Rose . Sail was then trimmed, and in less than three hours the barque was hull down, though still in pursuit of the Rose . The Only Mate admitted, with a countenance of hate and loathing, that he was sick of the Rose , sick of Captain Jones, that he hadn't any intention of working a big vessel of 700 tons single-handed with old Chips, the carpenter, and that when he boarded the Nova Scotiaman and heard that she was very short-handed, he accepted the captain's handsome offer of a number of dollars for the rest of the run to Windsor, as did Mr. Chips. The Only Mate added that both he and Mr. Chips were in debt to the Rose as it was, and that Captain Jones would have been welcome to their clothes and nautical instruments had the Nova Scotiaman succeeded in getting clear off. Captain Jones's troubles were not yet at an end. He wished to put into Lisbon, but the crew refused to work the ship unless he returned to England. "STEP ON BOARD, MY LIVELIES." "We're not going to be converted into blooming distressed mariners," said the crew of the Rose . "No Consuls for us. We know them gents. They'll find everything all right, stores sweet, crew plentiful, ship tight, and we know how it'll be: a blooming Portugee jail, then a trip home, and a blooming magisterial inquiry, and six weeks' o' quod;" and so blooming, they forced Captain Jones to sail his ship home. He arrived at Swansea, and handed the Only Mate and Mr. Chips over into the hands of justice. He offered to ship two more hands if his old crew would sail with him, but they said no, not if he shipped two hundred more hands; and so they were taken before the magistrates, who found the captain in the right, and punished the men by a term of imprisonment far in excess of any penalty of jail and hard labour which they would have inflicted upon a man who had merely broken his wife's skull with his heel, or who had only been systematically starving and cruelly beating his child of ten ever since the neighbours could remember. Captain Jones shipped a fresh crew and another Only Mate and a new carpenter, but though he stopped his leak he did not ship fresh stores. He sailed out of Swansea Bay October 11, 1869, and has not since been heard of. Child Workers in London. This article does not profess to be an exhaustive account of all the employments in which London children are engaged. The limits of a magazine article do not allow of a full and detailed account of this very comprehensive subject. No individual or body of individuals has any precise information about the hundreds of children engaged as ballet dancers, acrobats, models, and street venders, to give only a few names in the vast army of child workers. A CHILD NURSE. Nothing can be harder and drearier than the lot of little servants, employed in many cases in lodging-houses. They are on their feet all day long, at everyone's beck and call, and never expected to be tired or to sit down properly for a meal; the food is of the poorest quality; they have heavy weights to drag up and down stairs in the shape of coal-scuttles, and the inevitable strapping baby; their sleeping apartment is as often as not a disgraceful hole, and such requisites to health as are generally considered necessary in the shape of exercise, fresh air, and baths are unknown quantities. There is a strong prejudice against the "factory girl" in many quarters, and "service" is indiscriminately extolled as far more suitable for a respectable girl of the lower classes. It would be, if there were any chance of the docker's child or the coster's child obtaining a decent situation; but, as a matter of fact, the life of the much-pitied match-worker is infinitely easier than that of these little drudges. At eight o'clock the factory girl is at any rate free to get out into the open air for a couple of hours, or to sit down and rest. The little "general" is never free. One child told me—she was the daughter of a docker who was the happy owner of eleven children, and was herself an under-fed, anæmic-looking creature—that she got up at six every morning to "make the gen'l'm's brakfast—it was a lodging-house; after that there's the steps, 'ouse work, peeling potatoes, and sich like, till dinner. I never sits down till we 'ave a cup o' tea after the lodgers 'ave 'ad their suppers. But the missis—oh, she is a nice, kind laidy, and she works with me, she do." "I suppose," I said, "you are able to get out on Sundays?" "Once a month I goes 'ome, but I nusses the baby on Sunday, as we ain't so busy. 'E's such a beauty; I'll ask missis if I can bring 'im down; e' can't walk by 'isself." And off darted the little maid to the top of the house as if she were not on her thin legs from morn to night, returning presently with a huge and well-fed baby, about three times as fat as herself. I am bound to say this girl seemed contented, and, as lodging-house landladies go, her mistress seemed a fairly good one; but what a life of exhaustive and unremitting labour, even under these conditions, for a child of thirteen; and what a life of horrors if her mistress had been a brutal or cruel woman! The usual payment is 2s. 6d. a week, but I found in a number of cases the girls only received 1s., or even 9d., their mistresses deducting the rest of their salary for the payment of the clothes which they have been compelled to buy for them on arrival, the little servant being too often in possession of a hat with feathers, a fur boa, and a brass locket, which, with the garments she stands up in, form her entire outfit. A pathetic little story was told me about a bright-faced girl I happened to come across. "I got to know of her," said my informant, a lady who does much quiet good, and whose name is unknown to newspaper readers, "last year. A friend of mine whose Sunday-school she attended in Deptford asked me to look her up. I happened quite by chance to call in at the coffee-tavern where she was to act as servant, a few moments after she had arrived, and I was told I might go up to the 'bedroom.' Well, I won't go into particulars about that 'bedroom.' It was nearly dark, and I found the poor little soul sitting on the only available piece of furniture in the room—her own little tin hat-box. I shall not easily forget that dazed, bewildered look with which she met me. It was all so strange; everyone had been too busy to attend to her, and, though she had come from a wretched home, where the playful father had been in the habit of making her a target for his boot-shying, still there had been familiar faces round her. She seemed to realise in the sort of way young people do not, as a rule, the intense loneliness of her lot; and, when I put my arm round her, she clung to me with such sobs that I could hardly help crying too." Fortunately, sensitive child-servants are tolerably rare, and I am bound to say I failed to find any answering to this description. They were generally what one might describe as decidedly "independent!" One girl—she was barely fifteen—told me she had been in six places. "Are you so fond of change?" I asked. "'Tain't that so much," returned the young lady; "but I can't put up with 'cheek,' and some o' my missises do go on awful. I says: 'Ave yer jaw, and 'ave done with it.'" ON THE ROPE. This certainly was rather an awful specimen; but she could not have been very bad, as her present mistress—who, I presume, has not up to the present "cheeked" her—assured me that the girl handed over her 2s. 6d. a week regularly to her mother. This seems to be the usual practice with the girls. Their mothers buy their clothes, and give them a shilling on Bank Holidays and a few pence every week to spend on themselves. A large proportion of these little drudges marry dockers and labourers generally, and, as their training has not been exactly of the kind to render them neat, thrifty housewives, it is perhaps not surprising that their cuisine and domestic arrangements altogether leave much to be desired. There is perhaps no form of entertainment more popular amongst a large class of playgoers than that afforded by the clever acrobat, of whose private life the public has only the vaguest knowledge. The general impression, derived from sensational stories in newspapers and romances, is that the profession of the gymnast is a disreputable one, involving a constant danger of life and limb; and that young acrobats can only be made proficient in the art by the exercise of severity and cruelty on the part of trainers. The actual facts are that the owners, or, as they are called, "fathers," of "troupes" are, in a number of cases, respectable householders, who, when not travelling over Europe and America, occupy little villas in the neighbourhood of Brixton and Clapham; that the danger is immensely exaggerated, particularly in the case of boys, who are always caught when they fall; and that the training and discipline need not be any severer than that employed by a schoolmaster to enforce authority. "Of course," said a trainer of long experience to me, "I sometimes get an idle boy, just as a schoolmaster gets an idle pupil, and I have my own methods of making him work. But I would lay a heavy wager that even a lazy lad sheds less tears in his training with me than a dull schoolboy at a public school. I have never met with a single boy who didn't delight in his dexterity and muscle; and you will find acrobats as a whole enjoy a higher average of health than any other class." There are no "Schools of Gymnastics" for training acrobats in London, the regular method being that the head of each troupe—which usually consists of five or six persons, including one or more members of the family, the acrobatic instinct being strongly hereditary—trains and exhibits his own little company. The earlier a boy begins, of course, the better; and, as a general rule, the training commences at seven or eight years old. Many of the children are taken from the very lowest dregs of humanity, and are bound over by their parents to the owner of a troupe for a certain number of years. The "father" undertakes to teach, feed, and clothe the boy, whilst the parents agree not to claim him for a stipulated number of years. A boy is rarely of any good for the first couple of years, and it takes from five to six years to turn out a finished gymnast. "ONE OF THE YOKOHAMA TROUPE." "Is it true," I asked of the head of the celebrated "Yokohama Troupe," "that the bones of the boys are broken whilst young?" Mr. Edwin Bale, who is himself a fine specimen of the healthy trapezist, smiled pityingly at my question, and asked me to come and watch his troupe practise. All gymnasts practise regularly for two hours or more every day. The "Yokohama Troupe" includes three boys, all well-fed looking and healthy, one of them being Edwin, the fifteen-year-old son of Mr. Bale, a strikingly handsome and finely-developed boy, who has been in the profession since he was two. "SHOULDER AND LEGS." "FULL SPREAD." The first exercise that young boys learn is "shoulder and legs," which is practised assiduously till performed with ease and rapidity. After this comes "splits." This exercise looks as if it ought to be not only uncomfortable but painful; but a strong proof that it is neither was afforded me involuntarily by one of the little boys. He did it repeatedly for his own benefit when off duty! After this the boy learns "flip-flap," "full-spread," and a number of intricate gymnastics with which the public is familiar. In all these performances boys are very much in request, partly because they are more popular with the public, and partly because in a variety of these gymnastic exhibitions men are disqualified from taking any part in them owing to their weight. In the figure technically known as "full spread" (shown in illustration), it is essential that the topmost boy shall be slightly made and light in weight; but even under these conditions the strain on the principal "supporter" is enormous. As regards danger, so far as I have been able to learn from a good deal of testimony on the point, there is very little of any kind. The only really dangerous gymnastic turn is the "somersault," which may have serious results, unless done with dexterity and delicacy. There is no doubt that exercise of this kind is beneficial to the boys' health. Several boys in excellent condition, with well-developed muscles and chests, assured me they were often in the "'orspital" before they became acrobats. THROWING KNIVES. Their improved physique is possibly in a great measure due to the capital feeding they get, it being obviously to the advantage of the "father" to have a robust, rosy-faced company. Master Harris, of the "Yokohama Troupe," informed me that he generally has meat twice a day, a bath every evening (gymnasts are compelled by the nature of their work to keep their skins in good condition by frequent bathing), that Mrs. Bale was as kind to him as his own mother, and that he thought performing "jolly." He further informed me that he got three shillings a week for pocket-money, which was put into the bank for him. BALL EXERCISE. Another boy in the same troupe told me he had over £9 in the bank. Of course, all companies are not so well looked after as the boys in Mr. Bale's troupe; but I have failed to discover a single case where the boys seemed ill-used. Where the troupe travelled about Europe, the lads were exceptionally intelligent, and several of them could talk fair French and German. A really well-equipped acrobat is nearly always sure of work, and can often obtain as much as £30 a week, the usual payment being from £20 to £25 a week. As a rule, the boys remain with the master who has given them their training, and who finds it worth while, when they are grown up, to pay them a good salary. A troupe gets as much as £70 or £80 a day when hired out for fêtes or public entertainments. There is one point which will possibly interest the temperance folk, and which I must not forget. The boys have constantly before them moderation in the persons of their elders. "Directly an acrobat takes to drinking," said Mr. Bale, impressively, "he is done for. I rarely take a glass of wine. I can't afford to have my nerves shaky." Altogether there are worse methods of earning a livelihood than those of the acrobat; and, à propos of this point, an instructive little story was told me which sentimental, fussy people would do well to note. There was a certain little lad belonging to a troupe the owner of which had rescued him from the gutter principally out of charity. The boy was slight and delicate-looking, but good feeding and exercise improved him wonderfully, and he was becoming quite a decent specimen of humanity when some silly people cried out about the cruelty of the late hours, and so on, and insisted that he should be at school all day. The lad, who was well fed, washed, and clothed, was handed back to the care of his parents. He now certainly attends school during the day, but he is running about the gutter every evening, barefooted, selling matches till midnight! On the subject of ballet children there is also a great deal of wasted sentiment. All sorts and descriptions of children are employed in theatres, from the respectable tradesman's child to the coster's child in Drury-lane; but the larger proportion are certainly of the very poorest class, and it must be remembered that these children would not be tucked up safely in their little beds, if they were not earning a few badly-wanted shillings; they would be running about the London streets. FIRST STEPS. Mr. D'Auban—who has turned out a number of our best dancers, such as Sylvia Grey, Letty Lind, and others—was kind enough to call a rehearsal of his children, who are now performing at the Lyric, Prince of Wales, Drury-Lane, and other theatres, so that I was enabled to see a very representative gathering of these useful little bread-winners. Whatever else may be urged against the employment of children in theatres, there is not the least doubt that dancing is a pure pleasure to them. Out of all the little girls I questioned, not a single one would admit that she ever felt "tired." A good many of the children belong to theatrical families, and have been on the stage since they were babies; they were distinguished by a calmness and self-possession which the other little ones lacked; but in the matter of dancing there was very little difference, and it was difficult to believe that a large proportion of the children now playing in "La Cigale," knew nothing about dancing six months ago. Mr. D'Auban has no apprentices, no agreements, and no charges, and he says he can make any child of fair intelligence a good dancer in six months. The classes begin in May, and, as soon as it is known that Mr. D'Auban wants children, he is besieged by parents with little maids of all sizes. The School Board only allows them to attend two days a week; but Mr. D'Auban says: "Everything I teach them once is practised at home and brought back perfect to me." The children wear their ordinary dress, and practising shoes of any kind are allowed. First the positions are mastered, then chassés, pirouettes, and all the rest of the rhythmic and delicate movements of which ballets consist. FINISHING STEPS. Many of these graceful little dancers are the real bread-winners of the family. Little Minnie Burley, whose charming dancing in the "Rose and the Ring" will be remembered, though only eleven years old, has for more than a year practically supported herself and her mother by her earnings. The mother suffers from an incurable spinal complaint, and, beyond a little help which she gets from another daughter who is in service, has nothing to live upon but the little one's earnings. During the double performance of the "Rose and the Ring," Minnie earned £1 5s. a week; now she is earning as a Maypole dancer in "Maid Marian" 12s. a week; but her engagement will soon end, and the poor little maiden, who has the sense and foresight of a woman of thirty, is getting rather anxious. She is a serious-faced, dark-eyed child, very sensible, very self-possessed, and passionately fond of dancing. Her mother is devoted to her, and keeps her exquisitely neat. I asked her whether she did not feel a little nervous about the child coming home alone every night from the Strand. "No," said Mrs. Burley, "you see, she comes by 'bus, and she knows how to take care of herself—she knows she is not to let anyone talk to her." A FIGURE OF PAVANNE. Minnie is a type of dozens of other hard-working, modest little girls who are supporting themselves, and very often their families, by dancing. As a rule, the mothers fetch the children, or make arrangements for several to come home together. Many of them, whose husbands have been out of work, or who are widows, or deserted, have assured me they could not possibly have got through the winter without the children's earnings, whilst the children themselves are immensely proud of "helping" mother. The pride they take in their parts is also very amusing. One small girl ran after me the whole length of a street. She reached me breathless, saying, "Don't forget I'm principal butterfly." Another small mite gave me a most crushing reply. She made some allusion to her mother, and I said innocently, "I suppose your mother is a dresser?" She looked daggers at me, and said indignantly, "My mother's a lady wots in the ballet." AT PLAY. The wages of the children range from 6s. to 16s. a week, and, as their engagements often last for four months at a time, it will be seen that their money is a valuable, and in many instances an essential, addition to the mother's purse. AT TEA. Child models, being required almost exclusively in the daytime, are, thanks to the vigilance of the School Board authorities, becoming more and more scarce. The larger number of them comes from "model families," the mother having sat herself, and having from an early age accustomed her children to "sitting." The children of these families have no difficulty in obtaining regular work; they get a reputation in the painting world, and one artist recommends them to another. In the neighbourhood of Fitzroy-square, Holland-park, and St. John's Wood these families abound, and are mostly in very respectable circumstances. A pretty little girl, whose mother is a well-known model, and who has herself figured in several of Millais' pictures, told me with condescension that she had so many engagements she didn't know which artist to go to first. AT THE LYRIC. Mary M——, whose face is familiar to admirers of Miss Kate Greenaway's pictures, is, except for a couple of months in the summer, never out of work. She is a beautiful child of fourteen, the daughter of a cab-driver, who is not always in regular employment; and, as Mary has a tribe of little brothers, her earnings are of the utmost usefulness. For several months she has been sitting to three artists, and making the very respectable sum of £1 10s. a week. In her spare moments Mary takes music lessons, and her great ambition is to become an illustrator in black and white. All her earnings are cheerfully handed over to her mother, who is as careful of her little daughter's welfare as she can be. "I don't sit as a nude model," Mary said, "but only for my head, and mother doesn't let me go into any studio." As a matter of fact, children are not used as nude models to any great extent; they do not sit still enough, and their limbs are too thin and unformed to be of much use. Besides the regular professional models, who get 5s. a day, and are pretty sure of engagements, except in the summer, there is a fairly large class of street children who call at the different artists' studios, and are taken on occasionally. "I get any number," said a well-known artist. "They come down to me, and are kind enough to suggest ideas. One small girl said to me the other day, 'Could you do me in a blue dress, sir; mother says it would go well with my golden 'air.'" Many artists prefer these children to the regular model, who get a stereotyped expression and artificial poses from long habit. Mr. T. B. Kennington, whose pictures of poor London children are familiar to the public, told me that he always actually paints from the class of children that he depicts on his canvas. The boy who figured in that painful and powerful picture of his, "Widowed and Fatherless," is a real little London waif. His mother is said to have been pitched out of the window by her husband, and the boy, whose sad face arrests the attention of the most careless observer, lives with his grandmother, who does washing. "Do you make the children 'put on' this sad expression?" I asked Mr. Kennington. "No, indeed; my great difficulty is to make them smile, except momentarily. Haven't you ever noticed how very melancholy children look in repose?" This may be true about children who are constantly half-starved and ill-treated, but surely it is not true of children in general, or even of the majority of children of the lower classes, who contrive to wear an air of marvellous brightness, in spite of cold, hunger, and even blows. "Sitting" does not seem to be an occupation that commends itself to children, who naturally dislike keeping perfectly still in one position. Nearly all the little models prefer ladies, who keep them quiet by telling them stories, and bestowing sweets and cakes on them; whereas male painters have less persuasive methods of making them do what they want. These latter, however, make many attempts to reform the manners and morals of their small models, many of whom, they say, evince an appalling amount of depravity. Mr. F. W. Lawson, who painted some veritable little slum waifs, in his series of pictures called "Children of the Great Cities," told a good little story of one of his attempts in this direction. His model was a small, bright-faced, black-eyed street boy. "Well, Fred, what have you been doing to-day?" asks Mr. Lawson. "Playing on Battersea Bridge, sir, and chucking stones at mad old Jimmy," was the reply of the urchin, who then proceeded with much gusto to describe the details of this sport. Mr. Lawson, on learning that mad old Jimmy added blindness to his other infirmities, spoke strongly about the cruelty and cowardice of such an entertainment; and ended up by telling the story of a heroic deed performed by a blind man. "When I looked up," said Mr. Lawson, "I saw the boy's eyes were full of tears, and I thought to improve the occasion by asking, 'And now, Freddy, what will you do if you meet mad old Jimmy again?' The little scamp looked up with a wink, and said, chuckling, 'Chuck stones at 'im, sir.'" Professional models, especially those who have sat to eminent artists, have an exaggerated idea of their comeliness, and they will draw your attention to their good points with much frankness. "I've got beautiful 'air," said one little girl, modestly pointing to her curly chestnut locks; whilst a small boy, usually called the "Saint," from having figured in several religious pictures, requested me to observe his "fine froat," as if he had been a prize beast. In London, owing to the numerous restrictions imposed upon employers, there are only a comparatively small number of children working in factories. Girls of thirteen and upward are employed in confectionery, collar, jam, and match and other factories where skilled labour is not required, whilst small boys are principally found at rope works, foundries, and paper-mills, where their chief business is to attend to the machinery. It is almost impossible to mistake the factory-girl, and even at a glance one notes certain characteristics which distinguish her from her sister workers. Contrast her, for instance, with the theatre child out of Drury-lane. The little actress may be as poor as the Mile-end factory-girl, but in nine cases out of ten she will be very neatly clad, with spotless petticoats and well-made boots and stockings. If you watch her, you will notice she walks gracefully, and instinctively assumes, whenever she can, a picturesque and taking attitude. The little factory-girl is decently enough attired so far as her frock is concerned, but she, or her mother, cares nothing about her boots, which are invariably cheap and untidy, whilst any superfluous coin is devoted to the adornment of her hat, an article of great importance amongst factory-girls—young as well as old. But a still more characteristic feature, which, so far as I know, is peculiar to factory-girls, is their curious method of walking, which is carefully cultivated and imitated by the young ones. It is a sort of side "swing" of the skirts, and has one of the ugliest effects that can be produced, especially when executed by half a dozen young ladies walking abreast on the pavement. PACKING CHOCOLATE. PICKING SWEETS. At Messrs. Allen's chocolate and sweet factories, in Mile-end, some two hundred women and girls are employed. Referring to the strike, I asked a highly respectable, intelligent-looking girl why she joined it: "Well, I don't hardly know," was the candid reply. "It was all done in a rush, and the other girls asked me to come out." This girl was earning, by the bye, 17s. a week. FLOWER SELLER. The quite young girls are principally employed in packing chocolate into boxes, covering it with silver paper, which operation they perform with great dexterity, labelling, and other easy work of this nature. The rooms are large and well ventilated, and each department is under the care of a forewoman, who not only keeps a sharp look-out on the work, but exercises what control she can over behaviour and conversation. The discipline did not strike me as particularly severe, considering that the girls left their work en masse , as soon as one of their number had announced, referring to the artist, "She's takin' Em'ly's likeness." The hours, from 8 to 7, are certainly too long for girls in delicate health; but the work itself is light, and a capital dining-room is provided on the premises, where the girls can cook their dinners and make themselves tea. Nor are the prospects at all bad. Here is Alice C——, a girl of fourteen, the daughter of a flower carman, not always in work. She is a packer, and gets 6s. a week, which she hands over to her mother. She says she likes doing things with her hands, and would not like to be in service, as then she wouldn't have her Sundays to herself. If she stays on at Messrs. Allen's, her wages will be steadily raised to 18s. a week; and, if she ultimately becomes a piece-worker, she may make as much as 24s. or 25s. a week. Considering that a good many educated women are teaching in High Schools for salaries of £65 per annum, this is surely not bad. Of course all factories are not as well managed as these chocolate works, and where the hardship comes in is where hands are turned off at certain periods of the year, or when the work itself, like match-making, is injurious to health. Still more unfortunate is the lot of some of the little girl workers who assist their mothers at home in tailoring, button-holing, and dolls'-clothes making. The united work of mother and child yields only a wretched pittance, and, carried on as it is in a room where sleeping, eating, and living go on, is, of all forms of labour, the saddest and most unhealthy. Meals consist of bread and tea, and work is prolonged till midnight by the light of one candle, with the consequence that the children are prematurely aged and diseased. This is the most painful kind of child-labour that I have come across, and would be unbearable, if it were not ennobled by the touching affection that almost invariably exists between the worn-out mother and her old-woman-wise little daughter. The lot of the child-vender in the streets would be almost as hard, if it were not, at any rate, healthier. Terrible as are the extremes of weather to which the little flower-girl or newspaper boy is exposed, the life is in the open air, and a hundred times preferable, even if it results in death from exposure, to existence in a foul-smelling garret where consumption works its deadly way slowly. Children find an endless variety of ways of earning a living in the streets. There are the boot-black boys, who form a useful portion of the community; newspaper boys, of whom the better sort are careful little capitalists, with an immense fund of intelligence and commercial instinct; "job chaps," who hang about railway stations on the chance of earning a few pence in carrying bags; flower-girls, match-girls, crossing-sweepers, who can make a fair living, if they are industrious; and lastly, although this enumeration by no means exhausts the list—street prodigies, such as pavement painters and musicians. All Londoners must be familiar with the figure of little Master Sorine, who sits perched up on a high stool diligently painting away at a marine-scape in highly coloured chalks. This clever little artist of eleven is the principal support of his parents, who do a little in the waste-paper line when there is anything to be done. As a rule, Master Sorine is finishing his marine picture or landscape when I pass by, so that I have not had an opportunity of judging of his real ability; but his mother, who keeps guard over him, assures me that he can draw "anything he has seen"—an assertion which I shall one day test. The little fellow is kept warm by a pan of hot charcoal under his seat, which would seem to suggest rather an unequal distribution of heat. However, he seems to think it is "all right." His artistic efforts are so much appreciated by the multitude that on a "good day" he earns no less than 9s. or 10s., which mounts up to a respectable income, as he "draws in public" three days a week. Master Sorine, however, is exceptionally fortunate, and indeed there is something particularly taking about his little stool, and his little cap, and the business-like air with which he pursues his art studies. Nothing can be said in praise of such "loafing" forms of earning a livelihood as flower-selling, when the unhappy little vender has nothing but a few dead flowers to cover her begging; or of "sweeping," when the "crossing" of the young gentleman of the broom is often dirtier than the surrounding country. Now and again one comes across industrious, prosperous sweepers, who evince a remarkable amount of acuteness and intelligence. It may have been chance, but each of the three crossing-sweepers I questioned were "unattached," disdained anything in the way of families, and declined to name their residences on the ground that they were "jes' thinkin' o' movin'." This is a very precarious method of earning a livelihood, and is generally supplemented by running errands and hopping in summer. In a wealthy neighbourhood, frequented by several members of Parliament, who were regular customers, a very diligent young sweeper told me he made on an average in winter 2s. 6d. a week; but he added contemptuously: "Business ain't what it used to be. Neighbour'ood's goin' down, depend on it. I'm thinkin' of turnin' it up." This young gentleman supplemented his income by successful racing speculations, obtaining his information about "tips" from his good-natured clients. It seems sad to think how much good material is lost in these smart street boys, whose ability and intelligence could surely be turned to better account. The most satisfactory point—and one which no unprejudiced person can fail to recognise—in connection with the subject of child-labour is that healthy children do not feel it a hardship to work; and that, therefore, considering, in addition, how materially their earnings add to their own comfort, all legislation in the direction of restriction and prohibition ought to be very carefully considered. I must express my best thanks to Mr. Redgrave, of the Home Office, for his help in obtaining entrance to factories, and to Mr. Hugh Didcott, the well-known theatrical agent, for his kind services in the matter of acrobats.

Related documents

• The Strand Magazine, Vol. 17, No. 97, January to June 1899 An Illustrated Monthly#53654
• The Strand Magazine, Vol. 01, Issue 02, February 1891 An Illustrated Monthly#51160
• The Strand Magazine, Vol. 07, Issue 38, February, 1894 An Illustrated Monthly#53097
• The Strand Magazine, Vol. 01, No. 03, March 1891 An Illustrated Monthly#49924
• The Strand Magazine, Vol. 05, Issue 28, April 1893 An Illustrated Monthly#40560