12 Watercress Girl (1851)
Henry Mayhew
In “Watercress Girl,” Mayhew describes his interaction with a young working girl who sells watercress on the street in London. By highlighting her adult-like life, with its lack of leisure and games, Mayhew’s introduction of the child aims to evoke audience sympathy, which then affects how readers understand her throughout the rest of the article. Mayhew writes as though directly reporting the child’s speech, withholding the questions and prompts he has given her and leaving the audience to piece together his voice in the gaps. The questions he leaves out but clearly asks—for example, “Do people pity you?” and “Do you see other watercress sellers crying?”—show his conviction that she lives a difficult and piteous life. Thus, Mayhew’s strategy of interspersing his own observations with the child’s dialogue only allows the audience to understand the child through his lens of interpretation. For example, when the child asks about the parks of London, seemingly not having a previous conception of what they are, Mayhew points out that the girl has likely not left the area of London in which she was raised. Mayhew also describes her lack of proper, warm clothing and the low appetite of the child, who apparently says that “she wasn’t used to meat, only on a Sunday.” The girl also explains her family situation, the other children she has had to look after, the fact that she has been removed from school, the careers of her mother and “father-in-law” (that is, her stepfather), and her experience working for a Jewish family. Finally, she explains her ability to barter but claims to have a limited knowledge of money. Mayhew concludes his article with “A Table Showing the Quantity of Watercresses Sold Wholesale Throughout the Year in London, With the Proportion Retailed In The Streets” to demonstrate how poor the girl’s market is compared to others in the city. Mayhew then describes the different types of watercress bought by different types of people in London areas.
In this piece, Mayhew appeals to logos and pathos to shape the story he tells. At the same time, “Watercress Girl” is shaped by the gaps in age, gender, and class between Mayhew and his subject. Though finding where the girl’s voice ends and Mayhew’s influence begins is sometimes difficult, as we begin to tease the two apart, we might find that his article says more about the audience and author than the watercress girl herself.
The little watercress[1] girl who gave me the following statement, although only eight years of age, had entirely lost all childish ways, and was, indeed, in thoughts and manner, a woman. There was something cruelly pathetic in hearing this infant, so young that her features had scarcely formed themselves, talking of the bitterest struggles of life, with the calm earnestness[2] of one who had endured them all. I did not know how to talk with her. At first I treated her as a child, speaking on childish subjects; so that I might, by being familiar with her, remove all shyness, and get her to narrate her life freely. I asked her about her toys and her games with her companions; but the look of amazement that answered me soon put an end to any attempt at fun on my part. I then talked to her about the parks, and whether she ever went to them. “The parks!” she replied in wonder, “where are they?” I explained to her, telling her that they were large open places with green grass and tall trees, where beautiful carriages drove about, and people walked for pleasure, and children played. Her eyes brightened up a little as I spoke; and she asked, half doubtingly, “Would they let such as me go there—just to look?” All her knowledge seemed to begin and end with water-cresses, and what they fetched. She knew no more of London than that part she had seen on her rounds, and believed that no quarter of the town was handsomer or pleasanter than it was at Farringdon-market or at Clerkenwell, where she lived.[3] Her little face, pale and thin with privation,[4] was wrinkled where the dimples ought to have been, and she would sigh frequently. When some hot dinner was offered to her, she would not touch it, because, if she eat too much, “it made her sick,” she said; “and she wasn’t used to meat, only on a Sunday.”[5]
The poor child, although the weather was severe, was dressed in a thin cotton gown, with a threadbare shawl wrapped round her shoulders. She wore no covering to her head, and the long rusty hair stood out in all directions. When she walked she shuffled along, for fear that the large carpet slippers[6] that served her for shoes should slip off her feet.
“I go about the streets with water-creases, crying, ‘Four bunches a penny, water-creases.’ I am just eight years old—that’s all, and I’ve a big sister, and a brother and a sister younger than I am. On and off, I’ve been very near a twelvemonth in the streets. Before that, I had to take care of a baby for my aunt. No, it wasn’t heavy—it was only two months old; but I minded it for ever such a time—till it could walk. It was a very nice little baby, not a very pretty one; but, if I touched it under the chin, it would laugh. Before I had the baby, I used to help mother, who was in the fur trade; and, if there was any slits in the fur, I’d sew them up. My mother learned me to needle-work and to knit when I was about five. I used to go to school, too; but I wasn’t there long. I’ve forgot all about it now, it’s such a time ago; and mother took me away because the master whacked me, though the missus use’n’t to never touch me. I didn’t like him at all. What do you think? he hit me three times, ever so hard, across the face with his cane, and made me go dancing down stairs; and when mother saw the marks on my cheek, she went to blow him up,[7] but she couldn’t see him—he was afraid. That’s why I left school.
“The creases is so bad now, that I haven’t been out with ’em for three days. They’re so cold, people won’t buy ’em; for when I goes up to them, they say, ‘They’ll freeze our bellies.’ Besides, in the market, they won’t sell a ha’penny handful now—they’re ris to a penny and tuppence.[8] In summer there’s lots, and ’most as cheap as dirt; but I have to be down at Farringdon-market between four and five, or else I can’t get any creases, because everyone almost—especially the Irish—is selling them, and they’re picked up so quick. Some of the saleswomen—we never calls ’em ladies—is very kind to us children, and some of them altogether spiteful. The good one will give you a bunch for nothing, when they’re cheap; but the others, cruel ones, if you try to bate them a farden less than they ask you,[9] will say, ‘Go along with you, you’re no good.’ I used to go down to market along with another girl, as must be about fourteen, ’cos she does her back hair up.[10] When we’ve bought a lot, we sits down on a door-step, and ties up the bunches. We never goes home to breakfast till we’ve sold out; but, if it’s very late, then I buys a penn’orth of pudden,[11] which is very nice with gravy. I don’t know hardly one of the people, as goes to Farringdon, to talk to; they never speaks to me, so I don’t speak to them. We children never play down there, ’cos we’re thinking of our living. No; people never pities me in the street—excepting one gentleman, and he says, says he, ‘What do you do out so soon in the morning?’ but he gave me nothink—he only walked away.[12]
“It’s very cold before winter comes on reg’lar—specially getting up of a morning. I gets up in the dark by the light of the lamp in the court.[13] When the snow is on the ground, there’s no creases. I bears the cold—you must; so I puts my hands under my shawl, though it hurts ’em to take hold of the creases, especially when we takes ’em to the pump to wash ’em. No; I never see any children crying—it’s no use.
“Sometimes I make a great deal of money. One day I took 1s. 6d.,[14] and the creases cost 6d.; but it isn’t often I get such luck as that. I oftener makes 3d. or 4d. than 1s.; and then I’m at work, crying, ‘Creases, four bunches a penny, creases!’ from six in the morning to about ten. What do you mean by mechanics?—I don’t know what they are. The shops buys most of me. Some of ’em says, ‘Oh! I ain’t a-goin’ to give a penny for these;’ and they want ’em at the same price as I buys ’em at.
“I always give mother my money, she’s so very good to me. She don’t often beat me; but, when she do, she don’t play with me. She’s very poor, and goes out cleaning rooms sometimes, now she don’t work at the fur. I ain’t got no father, he’s a father-in-law.[15] No;[16] mother ain’t married again—he’s a father-in-law. He grinds scissors, and he’s very good to me. No; I don’t mean by that that he says kind things to me, for he never hardly speaks.[17] When I gets home, after selling creases, I stops at home. I puts the room to rights: mother don’t make me do it, I does it myself. I cleans the chairs, though there’s only two to clean. I takes a tub and scrubbing-brush and flannel, and scrubs the floor—that’s what I do three or four times a week.
“I don’t have no dinner. Mother gives me two slices of bread-and-butter and a cup of tea for breakfast, and then I go till tea, and has the same. We has meat of a Sunday, and, of course, I should like to have it every day. Mother has just the same to eat as we has, but she takes more tea—three cups, sometimes. No; I never has no sweet-stuff; I never buy none—I don’t like it. Sometimes we has a game of ‘honey-pots’[18] with the girls in the court, but not often. Me and Carry H—— carries the little ’uns. We plays, too, at ‘kiss-in-the-ring.’[19] I knows a good many games, but I don’t play at ’em, ’cos going out with creases tires me. On a Friday night, too, I goes to a Jew’s house till eleven o’clock on Saturday night.[20] All I has to do is to snuff the candles and poke the fire. You see they keep their Sabbath then, and they won’t touch anything;[21] so they gives me my wittals and 1½d., and I does it for ’em. I have a reg’lar good lot to eat. Supper of Friday night, and tea after that, and fried fish of a Saturday morning, and meat for dinner, and tea, and supper, and I like it very well.
“Oh, yes; I’ve got some toys at home.[22] I’ve a fire-place, and a box of toys, and a knife and fork, and two little chairs. The Jews gave ’em to me where I go to on a Friday, and that’s why I said they was very kind to me. I never had no doll; but I misses little sister—she’s only two years old. We don’t sleep in the same room; for father and mother sleeps with little sister in the one pair,[23] and me and brother and other sister sleeps in the top room. I always goes to bed at seven, ’cos I has to be up so early.
“I am a capital hand at bargaining—but only at buying watercreases. They can’t take me in. If the woman tries to give me a small handful of creases, I says, ‘I ain’t a goin’ to have that for a ha’porth,’[24] and I go to the next basket, and so on, all round. I know the quantities very well. For a penny I ought to have a full market hand, or as much as I could carry in my arms at one time, without spilling. For 3d. I has a lap full, enough to earn about a shilling; and for 6d. I gets as many as crams my basket. I can’t read or write, but I knows how many pennies goes to a shilling,[25] why, twelve, of course, but I don’t know how many ha’pence there is, though there’s two to a penny. When I’ve bought 3d. of creases, I ties ’em up into as many little bundles as I can. They must look biggish, or the people won’t buy them, some puffs them out as much as they’ll go. All my money I earns I puts in a club and draws it out to buy clothes with. It’s better than spending it in sweet-stuff,[26] for them as has a living to earn. Besides it’s like a child to care for sugar-sticks, and not like one who’s got a living and vittals to earn.[27] I aint a child, and I shan’t be a woman till I’m twenty, but I’m past eight, I am. I don’t know nothing about what I earns during the year, I only know how many pennies goes to a shilling, and two ha’pence goes to a penny, and four fardens goes to a penny. I knows, too, how many fardens goes to tuppence—eight. That’s as much as I wants to know for the markets.”
The market returns I have obtained show the following result of the quantity vended in the streets, and of the receipts by the cress-sellers:—[28]
A Table SHOWING THE QUANTITY OF WATERCRESSES SOLD WHOLESALE THROUGHOUT THE YEAR IN LONDON, WITH THE PROPORTION RETAILED IN THE STREETS.
| Market. |
Quantity sold wholesale. |
Proportion retailed in the Streets. |
| Covent Garden[29] | 1,578,000 bunches | one-eighth. |
| Farringdon | 12,960,000 ” | one-half. |
| Borough[30] | 180,000 ” | one-half. |
| Spital Fields[31] | 180,000 ” | one-half. |
| Portman[32] | 60,000 ” | one-third. |
| Total | 14,958,000 ” |
From this sale the street cress-sellers receive:—
| Market. |
Bunches. |
Receipts. |
| Covent Garden | 6,480,000 ½d. per bunch | £13,500 |
| Farringdon | 16,450 ” | 34 |
| Borough | 90,000 ” | 187 |
| Spital Fields | 90,000 ” | 187 |
| Portman | 20,000 ” | 41 |
| Total | 14,958,000 ” | £13,949 |
The discrepancy in the quantity sold in the respective markets is to be accounted for by the fact, that Farringdon is the water-cress market to which are conveyed the qualities, large-leaved and big-stalked, that suit the street-folk. Of this description of cress they purchase one-half of all that is sold in Farringdon; of the finer, and smaller, and brown-leaved cress sold there, they purchase hardly any. At Covent Garden only the finer sorts of cress are in demand, and, consequently, the itinerants[33] buy only an eighth in that market, and they are not encouraged there. They purchase half the quantity in the Borough, and the same in Spitalfields, and a third at Portman. I have before mentioned that 500 might be taken as the number supported by the sale of “creases;” that is, 500 families, or at least 1,000 individuals. The total amount received is nearly 14,000l., and this apportioned among 1,000 street-sellers, gives a weekly receipt of 5s. 5d., with a profit of 3s. 3d. per individual.
The discrepancy is further accounted for because the other market salesmen buy cresses at Farringdon; but I have given under the head of Farringdon all that is sold to those other markets to be disposed to the street-sellers, and the returns from the other markets are of the cresses carried direct there, apart from any purchases at Farringdon.
1. What are the effects of Mayhew writing the speech of the watercress girl in an accent? What reasons might have informed his choice present her speech as accented?
2. What could Mayhew’s treatment of the girl’s discussion of monetary and familial topics in his interview mean as a representation of Victorian middle-class/working-class relations and perspectives?
- Watercress are “hardy perennial aquatic or semiaquatic plants” that are “widely cultivated for use as a peppery-tasting salad vegetable” (“Watercress, N.” def. 1.). ↵
- The girl speaks in a tone that “show[s] sincere and intense feeling or conviction” ( “Earnest, Adj.” def. 1.a.). ↵
- Farringdon-market is a market in the Farringdon Without ward of London. Clerkenwell is a central area of London, now known as the Islington Borough. ↵
- Mayhew uses this word to describe how the girl lacks “food and other essentials for well-being” (“Privation, N.” def. 3.). ↵
- The indirect discourse is placed in quotation marks, a common practice in nineteenth-century writing. Here, Mayhew blends the girl’s speech with a third-person description of her words, such that the girl’s first statement in the piece is both her own words and his paraphrase of her words. Throughout the piece, Mayhew frequently uses irony, indirect discourse, and free indirect discourse to capture his observations. –E.Z. ↵
- Footwear partially “made of carpet-like material” (“Carpet Slipper, N.”). ↵
- This phrase means that she is engaging in “a quarrel” with him (“Blow-up, N.”). ↵
- A ha’penny is a half-penny coin, while tuppence (or two pence) means two pennies (“Twopence, N.” def. 1.). ↵
- The phrase try to bate them means to lower the price of purchasing the watercress (“Bate, V.(2)” def. 4.a.). A farden is a coin worth a quarter of a penny (“Farthing, N.” def. 1.a.). This phrase and the spelling of farthing as farden is meant to imitate the girl’s accent. ↵
- Hairstyles like this one were a common way for girls of lower or middle classes to show their womanhood and indicate that they were willing to participate in courting (Vanden Bossche 83). ↵
- A penn’orth means something worth the cost of a penny (“Pennyworth, N.” def. 1.a.). Pudden refers to a dish likely made from animal “entrails [...] stuffed with a mixture of minced meat, suet, oatmeal, seasoning, etc., and boiled” (“Pudding, N.” def. I.1.a.). Once again, the spelling of the girl’s speech is Mayhew’s attempt to represent her accent. ↵
- Through this anecdote, Mayhew suggests a lack of connection or understanding between different classes and may attempt to produce a sense of guilt in his readers. ↵
- In the nineteenth century, it was common for impoverished people to live in a court, a “small confined yard [...] accessed through a narrow entry off a street” created by the bordering buildings (“Court, N.(1)” def. III.16.c.). ↵
- One shilling, six pennies. ↵
- Historically, father-in-law could refer to a stepfather (“Father-in-law, N.” def. 2.). The girl uses the term to indicate that the man is not biologically her father but instead serves as a father figure in the family’s domestic life. She subsequently explains that he is not married to her mother. ↵
- Mayhew’s voice is in the gaps, where we can tell that he has asked a question and that she is answering it but we aren’t actually told the question. –K.H. ↵
- The child’s extended answers indicate a response to multiple prompted questions on this topic. This interaction suggests that Mayhew takes interest in her “father-in-law” because it does not align with Victorian middle-class family values. ↵
- Honey-pots is a game which involves children hugging their legs while crouching, “while two other players select one to ‘buy,’“ and pick up the child they choose, who is then “shaken or swung, in an attempt to make him or her let go his or her grip” (“Honey-pot, N.” def. 4.a.). ↵
- During kiss-in-the-ring, children hold hands in a circle. A child is selected to go “round outside the ring” and must choose another child to tap while running, who will them have to chase the first child “kissing him or her when caught” (“Kiss-in-the-ring, N.”). ↵
- The fact that girl is working for a Jewish family shows positive relationships between people of different faiths, and a lack of segregation. This article was written about 20 years after laws that prevented religious diversity, such as Jewish people’s ability to be elected to parliament, were abolished. The population of Jewish people in Britain steadily increased in the Victorian era. Protestant influence led to an increase of Jewish leaders practicing English-language teachings, a change that demonstrates religious collaboration (Krueger 141–142). ↵
- Jewish halakha (religious law) prohibits certain actions on Shabbat, which lasts from Friday sunset to Saturday sunset. For instance, Orthodox Jews are forbidden from lighting fires during this period. As a result, it became common for Jewish people to hire a Gentile servant to complete crucial but prohibited tasks: in the girl’s case, extinguishing candles and keeping the house heated (“Shabbat Goy”). –E.Z. ↵
- Although Mayhew begins by describing the girl’s lack of childlike qualities, including details like her enjoyment of toys shows her personality and humanity to his readers. ↵
- The phrase one pair means that the room is “situated on the first floor” of the house. The term refers to the room’s location “above ‘one pair’ or flight of stairs” (“One-pair, Adj.”). ↵
- A ha’porth is a short form of “halfpennyworth.” ↵
- A shilling is “1/20 of a pound sterling”(“Shilling, N.” def. 1.a.). ↵
- That is, candy (“Sweet-stuff, N.”). ↵
- Here Mayhew includes a demonstration of the girl’s pride about her lack of childlike desires for things like candy, which gives a sense of her personality to his readers. It also highlights what Mayhew continually brings to the audience’s attention: that she is being deprived of what his audience would consider an appropriate childhood. ↵
- By introducing this table, Mayhew contrasts the girl’s limited understanding of monetary value with more in-depth research on the markets. This table suggests his personal authority on the matter and contributes to his piece’s persuasive authority by appealing to logos. However, considering the moments when Mayhew emphasizes the child’s humanity, this chart may simply be included to provide additional information about the article’s topics and to demonstrate the poverty of Farringdon market compared to other markets in London. ↵
- A district on the East side of London’s West End. ↵
- A market in Southwark. ↵
- A market in the area of Spitalfields, Central London. ↵
- An area of London’s West End. ↵
- An itinerant is a person who “travels from place to place” possibly as a part of their work (“Itinerant, N.”). ↵
