A watercress girl, eight years old

c. 1850 · London, England · Her words as the journalist Henry Mayhew took them down. She bought cresses at the market before dawn and sold them in the streets

I knows a good many games, but I don’t play at ’em, ’cos going out with creases tires me.

Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor, vol. 1, "Watercress Girl"

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A watercress girl, eight years old

c. 1850 · London, England · Said after explaining that she puts her earnings in a club to buy clothes, and that sweets are for children, not for someone with a living to earn

I aint a child, and I shan’t be a woman till I’m twenty, but I’m past eight, I am.

Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor, vol. 1, "Watercress Girl"

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