see also Charles Manby Smith in The Little World of London - click here
I fell in talk with a
neat pleasant looking young woman who stood next me.
Her father, it gradually appeared, is a
farmer near Lutterworth; & she, his only daughter, is a
draper's shopwoman. ... I offered her my arm & umbrella and I
found she was ready to tell me all I wanted to know about the
life of the shop. . . .
Her employer, whom she called 'the
Master' and 'our old gentleman', is a bachelor, and keeps eight
attendants for his shop, four male, four female. These all,
except one man, live in the house, but not with the master. They
have a common sittingroom for meals, down stairs in the cellar
next the kitchen; and a common drawingroom parlour, at the top of
the house. In these they all, young men and young women, sit
together, the men however breakfasting & dining at a
different time. There is no elder person present, but the cook
downstairs has a certain authority. 'We have to get our meals as
we can', she said: 'sometimes when you've gone down to get
dinner, the shopbell rings, and up you've to come without tasting
a thing. The "young ladies" begin work at eight, and go
on till nine at night-you don't go out of the shop all day except
downstairs for meals; ... I stand behind the counter-we have one
counter & the men the other. Our customers is chiefly ladies;
and Ladies are so tiresome .
'We've not many gentlemen customers', she
went on, 'ours is mostly a ladies' shop: but sometimes a
gentleman might come in for gloves or that. Yes, if he asked me
to put the gloves on for him, I should, of course; but not
without. And if he wanted to joke me, I should say "one of
the young men'll attend to you, Sir". Our old gentleman is
very particular about us joking with the young men, or the
travellers ... he's very particular who you go with: if I was to
stop out meals of a Sunday without asking, he'd have ever so many
questions about where I'd been when I got home. "Eliza"
he says sometimes, "what 'ud your father an' mother say tome
if I didn't keep an eye to you?". . ...
'We go out for a walk sometimes after
shop hours, from halfpast nine; the men don't often go with us;
they try to, but we don't want 'em. I think we like 'em very
well, but there's no sweethearting between us. We sit with them
of an evening upstairs after supper, and talk; yes, we talk about
the customers a good deal, what's happened in the day; that's the
chief of what we talk about, I think. I never go out to any
amusements hardly; not dancing rooms, no! our old gentleman mould
be in a way if I was to go to them. On Sundays we all dine with
the master; we go to church, and have to be in at meals, unless
we ask leave; but we have the evenings to ourselves, from half
past six till eleven; and then I go and see some friends in
Pimlico sometimes, or else for a walk, like tonight. . .
'Yes, we're prenticed first; it's
according the premium you pay; I was prentice two years, but
some's three. ... They rise you [in salary] every year,
according; if they didn't rise 'em, they'd go. And of course
there's board & lodging besides. Yes, it's much better than
service; but the men get a deal more than us. We have to dress
nicely for the shop, of course; but he dont like us to be too
smart.' It seemed strange enough that Eliza should prefer such a
life as she described, to the freshness and freedom of a farm:
that however is the foolishness of half educated girls: and I was
much pleased, not only with her story but with herself.
Arthur Munby Diary 1861