Page "Martin Chuzzlewit" Paragraph 26

Sarah Gamp ( also known as Sairey or Mrs. Gamp ) is an alcoholic who works as a monthly nurse, ( midwife ), and layer-out of the dead.

Even in a house of mourning, Mrs. Gamp manages to enjoy all the hospitality a house can afford, with little regard for the person to whom she is there to minister ; and she is often much the worse for drink.

In her nursing activities, she constantly refers to a Mrs Harris, who is in fact " a phantom of Mrs Gamp's brain ... created for the express purpose of holding visionary dialogues with her on all manner of subjects, and invariably winding up with a compliment to the excellence of her nature.

" She habitually carries with her a battered black umbrella: so popular with the Victorian public was the character that Gamp became a slang word for an umbrella in general.