SWEEPING A CROSSING.
“Spare a copper! Spare a copper!” Every Londoner knows the hackneyed phrase. Walking one day from Oxford Circus to Charing Cross, I heard it fourteen times. “Help a poor chap!” “Pity an old sweep!” These were the variations which occasionally broke the monotony of the appeal. Into each outstretched hand I dropped a copper, while fourteen separate and distinct blessings were called down upon my head. When I reached the Strand I found I had distributed just twelve pence and a halfpenny, and I could have taken a hansom for a shilling! It was easy for me to understand why so many pedestrians were obliged to shake their heads at the importunities of the sweeps. It would be much cheaper to ride than to walk if one should hand to each sweep a penny or even a halfpenny, and cabs would be a matter of economy. Only the rich can afford to walk and be generous — or shall I say just? For, to my mind, it is a question whether people have a right to keep their boots clean on a muddy day without paying the man who makes it possible for them to walk dryshod across the street. I hold that the sweep is not a beggar, but a man of business, however humble his line of operations may be. When I walk over his cleanly-swept pathway with unsullied skirts and boots I give him a penny as payment for value received, and in such cases a penny spent is two or three shillings saved in cleaners’ bills.
The sweep is not only a man of business, he is often something of an artist. He has developed cross-sweeping into one of the fine arts, and no one can but admire the geometrical symmetry of his work. The straight lines stretching from corner to corner, the circles and right-angled triangles which he traces along the principal thoroughfares, often transform an ugly crossing into a thing of beauty. I have often wondered that some of the more skilful do not use their talents in a more remunerative profession, although wonderful tales have been told of members of the craft who have grown wealthy with plying the broom for a quarter of a century. Strange stories of men who swept crossings on weekdays and rode in private broughams on Sundays are floating about London. A particularly interesting legend is that of an old man who for many years swept a crossing in the neighbourhood of Marylebone Road. He himself lived in cheap West-End lodgings, but his family had their country house, and fared sumptuously. Two or three times a year he visited them and made an impression on his neighbours with his always up-to-date method of dressing. His frock-coat and top-hat were of the latest make and fashion. When he died there were several thousand pounds to his credit in the bank. Among the ranks of crossing-sweeps the story will doubtless be handed down from father to son as an example of what an ambitious sweep may do if he will.
With an ever-inquiring mind that leads me oftentimes into the amateur detective service in order to get at the bottom of things, the idea of playing the rôle of a crossing-sweep came to me as a matter of course. I would thus have an opportunity to find out if it were really true, as some people assert, that hundreds of London sweeps are growing opulent at the expense of poor but kind-hearted pedestrians.
With this in mind, I stopped to interview an old woman who for the past several years has kept her position on Portland Place, in the vicinity of the Langham Hotel. I first took the precaution to give her a goodly number of pennies ere I proceeded to draw her out on the merits and demerits of her chosen calling. She smiled propitiously, and then I asked if I might hire her crossing for two hours in the afternoon at the rate of a shilling an hour. I had expected she would reply “Yes, lady. Thank you, lady,” and hand me over her broom and stool without further parleying, but, to my astonishment, she eyed me suspiciously and demanded sternly, “What’s yer motive?” I could not reply to her as I had recently done to a London editor, who, when I had proposed to him a subject for a sensational story, put to me the same question. Then I had answered candidly, “Why, to get copy, of course.” I could not thus take the old woman into my confidence.
“What difference can it make about my motive so long as you get your money?” I asked. “See, you may have it in advance,” and I held the shining coins temptingly before her.
She shook her head.
“I wants to know yer motive. Ye looks a fine lady, but ye might be wantin’ to take the bread out of my mouth!”
And so it was true that there were tricks in all trades, street-sweeping included! How, indeed, was she to know that I was not a would-be member of her craft passing myself off for a benevolent lady ? Might I not have a deep-laid scheme to hire her stand for a couple of hours, and then “do” her out of her means of livelihood for the rest of her days ?
“How much money did you take in yesterday ?” I asked.
“Only ninepence, lady, enough to buy sugar and tea and bread, and the landlord was askin’ me for the rent,” she answered in a whining voice.
“Was that a good day’s earnings ?”
“Yes, lady; but sometimes I takes a shillin’ or one and tuppence.”
“Did you ever get two shillings in a day?”
“No, lady, never.”
“Then why not take the money and let me have the crossing from three to five o’clock ? Whatever pennies I receive I’ll give you to-morrow morning.”
My words were smooth and my tones seductive, but all to no avail.
“No, my lady. It do look queer, and I wouldn’t let ye have it for no amount. Ye can’t get a crossing from anybody unless ye tells more about yerself.”
She picked up her broom and began wielding it excitedly over the pavement. Dismissed thus unceremoniously, I decided to go out sweeping on my own account, and commence operations wherever I could. An hour later I emerged from my area gate arrayed in the most suitable garments I could findabout the house. Underneath my bodice, for warmth and inspiration, I wrapped about me a copy of the Times. I wore the black serge dress that had done duty a few months previous, when I held the responsible position of parlourmaid in Kensington, an old light coat, not of the newest cut, and a black cashmere shawl folded into a tippet for my neck. My head-covering was an old felt hat which had the appearance of having been through violent spasms and contortions. In order to disguise myself as much as possible until I could get out of my own neighbourhood, I had drawn a thick black veil over my face. Bearing in mind the story I had heard of the wealthy sweep of Marylebone Road, I wended my way towards the goal of his wondrous success. I hurried along Harley Street and turned off into the Marylebone Road, dragging my newly-purchased brushwood broom after me. My costume was not quite the orthodox thing for a sweep. The white jacket must have looked somewhat peculiar and out of place. What wonder that the butcher and baker boys hooted me as I passed at a rapid gait! “See the dandy sweep ! Has yer got a licence, missus?” one of them called after me. No, I had not a licence ; but I knew there were many other sweeps who also did not possess that important document, and I did not falter. A little fox-terrier, out for his morning constitutional, sniffed scornfully and barked ferociously at my heels, and such incidents tended only to quicken my pace.
At last I found a crossing over which there seemed to be no presiding genius, but I no sooner commenced operations than an angry-looking individual appeared, broom in hand, and shook it in my face. “Hi, there! what ye doing with my pitch ? Ye’d better move on.” As I did not know just what was the etiquette in vogue between members of the sweep brigade, I concluded it better to move on, and proceeded to Baker Street Station.
Many people were passing to and fro, and I thought it might be well to make a pathway of my own, a brand new one that no one could claim. I plied my broom most vigorously right and left, and did my best to clear a footroad across the mud for the patrons of the Underground Railway. In spite of my efforts, my work showed amateurishness. The style of broom I had chosen was an awkward one for me to handle, and for a while I only succeeded in spattering mud about. After great trouble and perseverance I made a path which looked as if a snake had wriggled across the road, and left a scalloped track behind him. When I stepped back upon the pavement to view my handiwork I felt that I had really earned a few pennies, for the route I had made was useful and ornamental as well.
The railway passengers began to cross over, but I did not hold out my hand for coppers, neither did I importune any one. I had determined to stand on all the dignity I had left, feeling that the labourer was worthy of his hire. People walked on my crossing, but nobody offered me payment. They took particular pains to keep themselves in the path, even in its most waggly parts. I began to despise them, and in my heart I called them paupers, to patronise my crossing and not be willing to pay for the privilege. They had no more right to take advantage of the track I had prepared than they had to go into a restaurant and eat a dinner for which they refused to pay. I felt that they were the beggars, not I. In my opinion, there was but one alternative for the person who was unwilling or unable to pay, and that was to go round on the outside through the mud. There was only one man who seemed to give the matter a thought. He put his hand into his pocket and pulled out a penny, then put it back again. He had probably expected to contribute a halfpenny, and found that he had not that coin in his possession.
In an hour I had become disgusted with the Baker Street Station neighbourhood, and I had grave doubts concerning the truthfulness of the wealthy sweep story. I could see no chance of riding in broughams or keeping country houses if I stuck to cross-sweeping in that vicinity, so I pulled my shawl about me, trying as best I could to cover up my white coat, and dragged my broom to Regent Street. I attracted little attention as I walked from Oxford Circus to Piccadilly. It was about one o’clock and many of the crossings were deserted. The sweeps were perhaps taking lunch. No one presided over the Vigo Street crossing, and I took up my stand there. But I did not attempt to sweep, thinking that, if the owner of the crossing suddenly made his appearance, I could deny any accusations he might make against my honesty by saying that I had simply stopped to rest a bit.
As I leaned on my broom I became intensely interested in the people who passed me. It was gloomy, muddy, and wet, and I took it for granted that those who walked on such a day walked because they could not afford to ride. A woman journalist of some fame but small fortune went by, clasping an envelope, which from its size and appearance I felt quite positive must contain manuscript. I did not ask her for a copper, for I was somehow under the impression that she was carrying her copy to Fleet Street because she had no stamps to send it by post.
“Belong here?” asked a man, sidling up to me. I recognised him as a sweep from across the way.
“Oh, no, I’m only resting,” I answered wearily.
“It’s hard times,” he continued with an attempt at being sociable. “I’ve only took in tuppence today, but I’ve done some big splashing on the rest of ’em.”
“Splashing ! What for? ” I asked.
“Well, ye must be a new un if ye don’t know that trick! When I asks a man or a woman for a copper and they doesn’t give it, I just splashes ’em ; that’s all.”
What a pity I had not heard that before I took my stand near Baker Street Station!
The sweep went back to his stand, and I continued to view the procession of bedrabbled humanity that passed me. “Poor girl !” I heard someone say in pitying tones, and, looking up, I saw a much-painted and powdered, gaudily-dressed woman near me. “Take this,” and she thrust a threepenny-bit into my hand. I managed to stammer out “Thank-you ” as she sauntered on. It needed not a second look to tell me the class to which she belonged. Society, the pulpit, and the press number her among the “fallen.” I have since been told that it is from these women that crossing-sweeps obtain most of their pennies.
About two o’clock the rain began to fall, and, as I was not provided with an umbrella, I feared that a prolonged experiment in the street-sweeping line might unfit me for future explorations in various directions, so I turned my face homewards, with only the threepenny-bit as the result of my morning’s work.
I have since taken the trouble to interview between twenty and thirty sweeps on the subject of taking out licences. I find that the majority of them do not approve of the licence system, which asks them to invest five shillings before they commence business. The matter of the licence is often neglected — perhaps I should say forgotten — till a policeman or other official gives them a gentle reminder.
I have also attempted to inspire them with a sense of the dignity of their calling, and have found it rather a difficult task, although they all agree with me that people who patronise their crossings should pay for it. Some of them have confidentially admitted that the stories of suffering wives, and children down with the measles or scarlet-fever, are invented to reach the sympathies of the public ; but they justify themselves in the belief that they are doing evil that good may come, and that what pennies they receive are given in charity. I have recommended to them that they get some sort of halfpenny-in-the-slot machine and place it in such a position that passers-by must see it and feel it incumbent upon them to contribute a halfpenny.
I am sure that such an arrangement would serve the purpose much better than the present method of collecting their dues.
