alents, or his
ingenuity. Various and singular are the expedients practised
by numbers in the British capital. Among these the class of
Mud-larks is not the least extraordinary, that is people,
who, on the ebb of the tide re-pair to the river-side, in
quest of any article that the water may have left behind in
the mud. To this description of people belonged Peggy Jones,
the well known Mud-lark at Black Friars. She was a woman,
apparently about forty years of age, with red hair; the
particular object of whose researches was the coals which
accidentally fell from the sides of the lighters. Her
constant resort was the neighbourhood of Blackfriars, where
she was always to be seen, even before the tide was down,
wading into the water, nearly up to the middle, and scraping
together from the bottom, the coals which she felt with her
feet. Numbers of passengers who have passed by that quarter,
particularly over Blackfriars Bridge, have often stopped to
contemplate with astonishment, a female engaged in an
occupation apparently so painful and disagreeable. She
appeared dressed in very short ragged petticoats, without
shoes or stockings, and with a kind of apron made of some
strong substance, that folded like a bag all round her, in
which she collected whatever she was so fortunate as to
find. In these strange habiliments, and her legs encrusted
with mud, she traversed the streets of this metropolis.
Sometimes she was industrious enough to pick up three, and
at others even four loads a day; and as they consisted
entirely of what are termed round coals, she was never at a
loss for customers, whom she charged at the rate of eight-
pence a load. In the collection of her sable treasure, she
was frequently assisted by the coal-heavers, who, when she
happened to approach the lighters, would, as if
undesignedly, kick overboard a large coal, at the same time
bidding her, with apparent surliness, go about her business.
Peggy Jones was not exempt from a failing to which most
individuals of the lower orders are subject, namely,
inebriety. Her propensity to liquor was sometimes indulged
to such a degree, that she would tumble about the streets
with her load, to the no small amusement of mischievous
boys, and others, who, on such occasions, never fa