Kmflett's Blog

The following is an extract from Henry Mayhew’s London Labour and the London Poor (1851) reflecting what we now call the gig economy. However in 2025 some might see the account below as describing foraging

One strong-looking lad, of 16 or 17, gave me the following account: –
      “It’s hard work, is Christmasing; but, when you have neither money nor work, you must do something, and so the holly may come in handy. I live with a elder brother; he helps the masons, and as we had neither of us either work or money, he cut off Tottenham and Edmonton way, and me the t’other side of the water, Mortlake way, as well as I know. We’d both been used to costering, off and on. I was out, I think, ten days altogether, and didn’t make 6s. in it. I’d been out two Christmases before. O, yes, I’d forgot. I made 6d. over the 6s., for I had half a pork-pie and a pint of beer, and the landlord took it out in holly. I meant to have made a quarter of pork do, but I was so hungry -and so would you, sir, if you’d been out a-Christmasing -that I had the t’other quarter. It’s 2d. a quarter. I did better when I was out afore, but I forget what I made. It’s often slow work, for you must wait sometimes ’till no one’s looking, and then you must work away like anything. I’d nothing but a sharp knife, I borrowed, and some bits of cord to tie the holly up. You must look out sharp, because, you see, sir, a man very likely won’t like his holly-tree to be stripped. Wherever there is a berry, we goes for the berries.    They’re poison berries, I’ve heard. Moonlight nights is the thing, sir, when you knows where you are. I never goes for mizzletoe. I hardly knows it when I sees it. The first time I was out, a man got me to go for some in a orchard, and told me how to manage; but I cut my lucky in a minute. Something came over me like. I felt sickish. But what can a poor fellow do? I never lost my Christmas, but a little bit of it once. Two men took it from me, and said I ought to thank them for letting me off without a jolly good jacketing, as they was gardeners. I believes they was men out a-Christmasing, as I were. It was a dreadful cold time that; and I was wet, and hungry, -and thirsty, too, for all I was so wet, – and I’d to wait a-watching in the wet. I’ve got something better to do now, and I’ll never go a-Christmasing again, if I can help it.”
      This lad contrived to get back to his lodging, in town, every night, but some of those out Christmasing, stay two or three days and nights in the country, sleeping in barns, out-houses, carts, or under hay-stacks, inclement as the weather may be, when their funds are insufficient to defray the charge of a bed, or a part of one, at a country “dossing-crib” (low lodginghouse). They resorted, in considerable numbers, to the casual wards of the workhouses, in Croydon, Greenwich, Reigate, Dartford, &c., when that accommodation was afforded them, concealing their holly for the night.
      As in other matters, it may be a surprise to some of my readers to learn in what way the evergreens, used on festive occasions in their homes, may have been procured.