Chapter 4 She leaned forward, and watched the lighted shops, the crowded pavements, and listened hungrily to the noise of traffic. She was so absorbed in doing this that she gave the conductor absently the coppers for a twopenny ticket, and omitted to answer his caustic reference to her outstretched foot. When he had gone…
Chapter 3 If Number Eighteen, Lucella Road, had been able or had found it convenient, to keep up the fine excitement that attended Mord Em’ly’s first evening, it would have met that young woman’s demands. She was not long in discovering that, in effect, the sisters lived, for the most part, a monotonous, uneventful, economical…
Chapter 2 All the members of the Gilliken Gang possessed the privilege which the London girl demands—that of having their evenings for their very own. Some were engaged in a large mineral water factory in Albany Road; two walked over Blackfriars Bridge to the City every morning; the remainder did nothing of a definite character….
Chapter 1 The members of the Gilliken Gang, who, in the slow, thick stream of traffic in Walworth Road, had been noticeable only for the peculiar whistle given when one happened to be for the moment out of sight of her colleagues, turned into Trafalgar Street, and the leader, a round, white-faced young woman of…
AMONG THE LAUNDRY-GIRLS. CHAPTER I.WHY AND HOW I BECAME ONE OF THEM. THE laundry question is like the domestic servant problem. It interests everyone in all classes of society. If it is true that “civilised man cannot live without cooks,” it is equally true that he cannot do without a laundress. Indeed, a man’s happiness…
A DAY WITH THE FLOWER-GIRLS. “VIOLETS, sweet violets! A penny a bunch!” From ten o’clock in the morning until the first hour of midnight this cry of the flower-sellers may be heard in the London streets. It usually issues from female throats, although occasionally the clamour is reinforced by a masculine voice, which, however, could…
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…
The “Almighty Dollar” in London Society CHAPTER I.Advertising for a Chaperon Americans are accused of having a too implicit confidence in the purchasing power of their country’s coin. In fact, certain foreigners have been known to say that the God referred to in the motto, “In God we trust,” engraved on the silver dollar, is…
Investigative reporter Elizabeth Banks goes undercover to work as a Victorian maid.
Chapter I The Two Little Girls who Laughed “I don’t want to — I don’t want to — I don’t want to — go to college — go to college — go to college. I don’t want to — go to college.” The words chanted themselves monotonously over and over in Elinor’s brain, keeping time…