Dickens's England by R. E. Pritchard Page B

‘appiest couple down the court,
    Me and ’er – ’er and me.
    I must acknowledge that she ’as a black eye now and then,
    But she don’t care a little bit, not she;
    It’s a token of affection – yuss, in fact that is love
    Wiv me and ’er – ’er and me.
    For she’s a lady – yuss, and I’m a gentleman,
    We’re boaf looked up to, and deserves to be;
    For she’s a lady – yuss, and I’m a toff –
    Me and ’er – ’er and me.
    â€˜Cos we keeps straight, we ’as to put up wiv some sneers and slurs,
    Me and ’er – ’er and me;
    Our ’oneymoon ain’t over yet, though we’ve been married years,
    Me and ’er – ’er and me.
    We don’t purfess to be no better than the rest o’ folks,
    But the wife’s a bit pertickler, don’t yer see,
    So we goes to church on Sunday, like the village blacksmith did,
    Me and ’er – ’er and me.
    For she’s a lady – yuss, and I’m a gentleman,
    We’re boaf looked up to, and deserves to be;
    For she’s a lady – yuss, and I’m ’er bloke –
    Me and ’er – ’er and me.
    music-hall song, late Victorian
    THE SAME, ALL THROUGH
    I visited several families of the distressed operatives in Bolton, accompanied by a gentleman well acquainted with the locality. The invariable account given in every place was ‘no work’, and, as a consequence, ‘no food, no furniture and no clothing’. We entered one house tenanted by a young couple whom I at first mistook for brother and sister; they were a husband and wife, about six years married, but fortunately without children. On a table of the coarsest wood, but perfectly clean, stood what we were assured was the only meal they had tasted for twenty-four hours, and the only one they had any reasonable prospect of tasting for twenty-four hours to come. It consisted of two small plates of meal porridge, a thin oaten cake, some tea so diluted that it had scarcely a tinge of colour, and a small portion of the coarsest sugar in the fragment of a broken bowl.
    The husband had been a cotton spinner, but the factory to which he belonged had been closed for several weeks; the wife had also been employed in the same establishment. When in good work the united earnings of both average about 30 s weekly; but for several (I think they said thirteen) weeks they had not been able to earn so many pence. Their furniture had been sold piecemeal to supply pressing necessities, their clothes had been pawned, they had hoped for better times; but they felt their condition was ‘worsening’. The man would have gone to a foreign land, but he could not leave his wife alone to die, and her constitution would not bear the rough travelling which falls to the lot of light pockets.
    My friend asked whether, under the circumstances, he did not lament his early imprudent marriage. He paused, looked fondly at his wife, who reciprocated his gaze with a melancholy smile of enduring affection; tears gathered in his manly eye, and his lip quivered with strong emotion; he dashed the tear aside, mastered his emotions with one convulsive effort, which, however, shook his entire frame, and with calm firmness replied, ‘Never! We have been happy and we have suffered together; she has been the same to me all through.’
    W. Cooke Taylor, Notes of a Tour in the Manufacturing Districts of
    Lancashire (1842)
    HOW TO GET A DIVORCE
    Mr Justice Maule, to a hawker convicted of bigamy (before the Matrimonial Causes Act, 1858):
    â€˜I will tell you what you ought to have done under the circumstances, and if you say you did not know, I must tell you that the law conclusively presumes that you did. You should have instructed your attorney to bring an action against the seducer of your wife for damages; that would have cost you about £100. Having proceeded thus far, you should have