The Seven Curses of London. James Greenwood
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amongst working girls and women.
The words italicised are worthy particular attention as regards this particular part of my subject. Here is a daily newspaper that is mainly an advertising broadsheet. It is an old-established newspaper, and its advertisement columns may be said fairly to reflect the condition of the female labour market over vast tracts of the London district. Column after column tells of the wants of servants and masters. “Cap-hands,” “feather-hands,” “artificial flower-hands,” “chenille-hands,” hands for the manufacture of “chignons” and “hair-nets” and “bead work,” and all manner of “plaiting” and “quilling” and “gauffering” in ribbon and net and muslin, contributing towards the thousand and one articles that stock the “fancy” trade. There are more newspapers than one that aspire as mediums between employers and employed, but this, before all others, is the newspaper, daily conned by thousands of girls and women in search of work of the kind above mentioned, and it is in this newspaper that the baby-farmer fishes wholesale for customers.
I write “wholesale,” and surely it is nothing else. To the uninitiated in this peculiar branch of the world’s wickedness it would seem that, as an article of negociation, a baby would figure rarer than anything, and in their innocence they might be fairly guided to this conclusion on the evidence of their personal experience of the unflinching love of parents, though never so poor, for their children; yet in a single number of this newspaper published every day of the week and all the year round, be it borne in mind, appear no less than eleven separate advertisements, emanating from individuals solicitous for the care, weekly, monthly, yearly—anyhow, of other people’s children, and that on terms odorous of starvation at the least in every meagre figure.
It is evident at a glance that the advertisers seek for customers and expect none other than from among the sorely pinched and poverty-stricken class that specially patronise the newspaper in question. The complexion, tone, and terms of their villanously cheap suggestions for child adoption are most cunningly shaped to meet the possible requirements of some unfortunate work-girl, who, earning while at liberty never more than seven or eight shillings a week, finds herself hampered with an infant for whom no father is forthcoming. There can scarcely be imagined a more terrible encumbrance than a young baby is to a working girl or woman so circumstanced. Very often she has a home before her disaster announced itself—her first home, that is, with her parents—and in her shame and disgrace she abandons it, determined on hiding away where she is unknown, “keeping herself to herself.” She has no other means of earning a livelihood excepting that she has been used to. She is a “cap-hand,” or an “artificial flower-hand,” and such work is always entirely performed at the warehouse immediately under the employer’s eye. What is she to do? She cannot possibly carry her baby with her to the shop and keep it with her the livelong day. Were she inclined so to do, and could somehow contrive to accomplish the double duty of nurse and flower-weaver, it would not be allowed. If she stays at home in the wretched little room she rents with her infant she and it must go hungry. It is a terrible dilemma for a young woman “all but” good, and honestly willing to accept the grievous penalty she must pay if it may be accomplished by the labour of her hands. Small and puny, however, the poor unwelcome little stranger may be, it is a perfect ogre of rapacity on its unhappy mother’s exertions. Now and then an instance of the self-sacrificing devotion exhibited by those unhappy mothers for their fatherless children creeps into print. There was held in the parish of St. Luke’s, last summer, an inquest on the body of a neglected infant, aged seven months. The woman to whose care she was confided had got drunk, and left the poor little thing exposed to the cold, so that it died. The mother paid the drunken nurse four-and-sixpence a week for the child’s keep, and it was proved in evidence that she (the mother) had been earning at her trade of paper-bag making never more than six-and-threepence per week during the previous five months. That was four-and-sixpence for baby and one-and-ninepence for herself.
I don’t think, however, that the regular baby-farmer is a person habitually given to drink. The successful and lucrative prosecution of her business forbids the indulgence. Decidedly not one of the eleven advertisements before mentioned read like the concoctions of persons whose heads were muddled with beer or gin. Here is the first one:—
NURSE CHILD WANTED, OR TO ADOPT.—The Advertiser, a Widow with a little family of her own, and a moderate allowance from her late husband’s friends, would be glad to accept the charge of a young child. Age no object. If sickly would receive a parent’s care. Terms, Fifteen Shillings a month; or would adopt entirely if under two months for the small sum of Twelve pounds.
Women are shrewder than men at understanding these matters, and the advertisement is addressed to women; but I doubt if a man would be far wrong in setting down the “widow lady with a little family of her own,” as one of those monsters in woman’s clothing who go about seeking for babies to devour. Her “moderate allowance,” so artlessly introduced, is intended to convey to the unhappy mother but half resolved to part with her encumbrance, that possibly the widow’s late husband’s friends settle her butcher’s and baker’s bills, and that under such circumstances the widow would actually be that fifteen shillings a month in pocket, for the small trouble of entering the little stranger with her own interesting little flock. And what a well-bred, cheerful, and kindly-behaved little flock it must be, to have no objection to add to its number a young child aged one month or twelve, sick or well! Fancy such an estimable person as the widow lady appraising her parental care at so low a figure as three-and-ninepence a week—sevenpence farthing a day, including Sundays! But, after all, that is not so cheap as the taking the whole and sole charge of a child, sick or well, mind you, to nourish and clothe, and educate it from the age of two months till twelve years, say! To be sure, the widow lady stipulates that the child she is ready to “adopt” must be under two months, and we all know how precarious is infantine existence, and at what a wonderfully low rate the cheap undertakers bury babies in these days.
Another of the precious batch of eleven speaks plainer, and comes to the point without any preliminary walking round it:—
ADOPTION.—A person wishing a lasting and comfortable home for a young child of either sex will find this a good opportunity. Advertisers having no children of their own are about to proceed to America. Premium, Fifteen pounds. Respectable references given and required. Address F. X—.
All that is incomplete in the above is the initials; but one need not ask for the “O” that should come between the “F” and “X.” After perusing the pithy advertisement, I interpreted its meaning simply this:—Any person possessed of a child he is anxious to be rid of, here is a good chance for him. Perhaps “F. X.” is going to America; perhaps he’s not. That is his business. The party having a child to dispose of, need not trouble itself on that score. For “respectable references” read “mutual confidence.” I’ll take the child, and ask no questions of the party, and the party shall fork over the fifteen pounds, and ask no questions of me. That will make matters comfortable for both parties, ’specially if the meeting is at a coffee-house, or at some public building, for if I don’t know the party’s address, of course he can have no fear that I shall turn round on him, and return the child on his hands. The whole affair might be managed while an omnibus is waiting to take up a passenger. A simple matter of handing over a bulky parcel and a little one—the child and the money—and all over, without so much as “good night,” if so be the party is a careful party, and wouldn’t like even his voice heard.
It may be objected that the seduced factory girl is scarcely likely to become the victim of “F. X.,” inasmuch as she never had fifteen pounds to call her own in the whole course of her life, and is less likely than ever to grow so rich now. And that is quite true, but as well as a seduced, there must be a seducer. Not a man of position and means, probably; more likely the fast young son of parents in the butchering, or cheesemongering, or grocery interest—a dashing young blade, whose ideas of “seeing life” is seeking that unwholesome phase of it presented at those unmitigated dens of vice, the “music halls,” at one of which places, probably, the acquaintance terminating so miserably, was commenced. Or, may be, instead of the “young master,” it is the shopman who is the male delinquent; and, in either case, anything is preferable to a “row,” and an exposure. Possibly the embarrassed