4800 sacks for the 100 vans at
3_s._ 6_d._ each 840 0 0
3600 sacks for the 300 carts 630 0 0
3000 „ „ 500 donkey carts 525 0 0
1652 „ „ 550 trucks and backers 288 15 0
300 „ „ 50 women 52 10 0
--------------
£18,336 5 0
--------------
Which being added to the value of vans,
carts, and horses employed in the
street-sale of coals, viz. 6,865
--------
gives a capital of £252,015
--------
employed in the street-sale of coal and coke.
The profits of both these trades added
together, namely, that on coals 43,758
and the profit on coke 280,000
--------
shows a total profit of £323,758
to be divided among 1710 persons, who compose the class of itinerant
coal and coke vendors of the metropolis.
The following statement as to the street-sale of coke was given by a
man in good circumstances, who had been engaged in the business for
many years:--
“I am a native of the south of Ireland. More nor twenty years ago I
came to London. I had friends here working in a gas factory, and afther
a time they managed to get me into the work too. My business was to
keep the coals to the stokers, and when they emptied the retorts to
wheel the coke in barrows and empty it on the coke heap. I worked for
four or five years, off and on, at this place. I was sometimes put
out of work in the summer-time, because they don’t want as many hands
then. There’s not near so much gas burned in summer, and then, of
course, it takes less hands to make it. Well, at last I got to be a
stoker; I had betther wages thin, and a couple of pots of beer in the
day. It was dhreadful hard work, and as hot, aye, as if you were in
the inside of an oven. I don’t know how I ever stood it. Be me soul,
I don’t know how anybody stands it; it’s the divil’s place of all you
ever saw in your life, standing there before them retorts with a long
heavy rake, pullin out the red-hot coke for the bare life, and then
there’s the rake red-hot in your hands, and the hissin and the bubblin
of the wather, and the smoke and the smell--it’s fit to melt a man like
a rowl of fresh butther. I wasn’t a bit too fond of it, at any rate,
for it ’ud kill a horse; so I ses to the wife, ‘I can’t stand this much
longer, Peggy.’ Well, behold you, Peggy begins to cry and wring her
hands, thinkin we’d starve; but I knew a grate dale betther nor that,
for I was two or three times dhrinkin with some of thim that carry the
coke out of the yard in sacks to sell to the poor people, and they had
twice as much money to spind as me, that was working like a horse from
mornin to night. I had a pound or two by me, for I was always savin,
and by this time I knew a grate many people round about; so off I goes,
and asks one and another to take a sack of coke from me, and bein
knoun in the yard, and standin a dhrop o’ dhrink now and thin for the
fillers, I alway got good measure, and so I used to make four sacks out
of three, and often three out of two. Well, at last I got tired carryin
sacks on me back all day, and now I know I was a fool for doin it at
all, for it’s asier to dhrag a thruck with five or six sacks than to
carry one; so I got a second-hand thruck for little or nothin, and thin
I was able to do five times as much work in half the time. At last,
I took a notion of puttin so much every Sathurday night in the savin
bank, and faith, sir, that was the lucky notion for me, although Peggy
wouldn’t hear of it at all at all. She swore the bank ’ud be broke,
and said she could keep the goold safer in her own stockin; that thim
gintlemin in banks were all a set of blickards, and only desaved the
poor people into givin them their money to keep it thimselves. But in
spite of Peggy I put the money in, and it was well for me that I did
so, for in a short time I could count up 30 or 40 guineas in bank, and
whin Peggy saw that the bank wasn’t broke she was quite satisfied; so
one day I ses to myself, What the divil’s the use of me breakin my
heart mornin, noon, and night, dhraggin a thruck behind me, whin ever
so little a bit of a horse would dhrag ten time as much as I can? so
off I set to Smithfield, and bought a stout stump of a horse for 12_l._
10_s._, and thin wint to a sale and bought an ould cart for little or
nothin, and in less nor a month I had every farthin back again in the
bank. Well, afther this, I made more and more every day, and findin
that I paid more for the coke in winther than in summer, I thought as
I had money if I could only get a place to put a good lot in summer to
sell in winther it would be a good thing; so I begun to look about, and
found this house for sale, so I bought it out and out. It was an ould
house to be sure; but it’s sthrong enough, and dune up well enough for
a poor man--besides there’s the yard, and see in that yard there’s a
hape o’ coke for the winther. I’m buyin it up now, an it ’ill turn a
nice pinny whin the could weather comes again. To make a long story
short, I needn’t call the king my cousin. I’m sure any one can do well,
if he likes; but I don’t mane that they can do well brakin their heart
workin; divil a one that sticks to work ’ill ever be a hapenny above a
beggar; and I know if I’d stuck to it myself I’d be a grate dale worse
off now than the first day, for I’m not so young nor near so sthrong as
I was thin, and if I hadn’t lift it off in time I’d have nothin at all
to look to in a few years more but to ind my days in the workhouse--bad
luck to it.”