These modes of scavenging may not appear, to those who have paid but
little attention to the matter, to be _very_ widely different means of
effecting the same object. The one, however, removes the refuse from
the streets (sooner or later) _after it has been formed_, whereas the
other removes it _as fast as it is formed_. By the latter method the
streets are never allowed to get dirty--by the former they must be
dirty before they are cleansed.
The plan of street-cleansing _before_ dirtied, or the pre-scavenging
system, is of recent introduction, being the mode adopted by the
“street-orderlies;” that of cleansing after having dirtied, or the
post-scavenging system, is (so far as the more _general_ or common
method is concerned) the same as that pursued two centuries ago. I
shall speak of each of these modes in due course, beginning with that
last mentioned.
By the ordinary method of scavenging, the dirt is still swept or
scraped to one side of the public way, then shovelled into a cart and
conveyed to the place of deposit. In wet weather the dirt swept or
scraped to one side is so liquified that it is known as “slop,” and
is “lifted” into the cart in shovels hollowed like sugar-spoons. The
only change of which I have heard in this mode of scavenging was in
one of the tools. Until about nine years ago birch, or occasionally
heather, brooms or besoms were used by the street-sweepers, but
they soon became clogged in dirty weather, and then, as one working
scavenger explained it to me, “they scattered and drove the dirt to
the sides ’stead of making it go right a-head as you wants it.” The
material now used for the street-sweeper’s broom is known as “bass,”
and consists of the stems or branches of a New Zealand plant, a
substance which has considerable strength and elasticity of fibre, and
both “sweeps” and “scrapes” in the process of scavenging. The broom
itself, too, is differently constructed, having divisions between the
several insertions of bass in the wooden block of the head, so that
clogging is less frequent, and cleaning easier, whereas the birch
broom consisted of a close mass of twigs, and thus scattered while it
swept the dirt. There was, of course, some outcry on the part of the
“established-order-of-things” gentry among scavengers, against the
innovation, but it is now general. As all the scavengers, no matter
how they vary in other respects, work with the brooms described, this
one mention of the change will suffice. No doubt the cleansing of
the streets is accomplished with greater efficiency and with greater
celerity than it was, but the mere process of manual toil is little
altered.
In a work like the present, however, we have more particularly to deal
with the labourers engaged; and, viewing the subject in this light,
we may arrange the several modes of street-cleansing into the four
following divisions:--
1. By paid manual-labourers, or men employed by the contractors, and
paid in the ordinary ways of wages.
2. By paid “Machine”-labourers, differing from the first only or mainly
in the means by which they attain their end.
3. By pauper labourers, or men employed by the parishes in which they
are set to work, and either paid in money or in food, or maintained in
the workhouses.
4. By street-orderlies, or men employed by philanthropists--a body
of workmen with particular regulations and more organized than other
scavengers.
By one or other of these modes of scavengery all the public ways of the
metropolis are cleansed; and the subject is most peculiar, as including
within itself all the several varieties of labour, if we except that
of women and children--viz., manual labour, mechanical labour, pauper
labour, and philanthropic labour.
By these several varieties of labour the highways and by-ways of
the entire metropolis are cleansed, with one exception--the Mews,
concerning which a few words here may not be out of place. _All_ these
localities, whether they be what are styled Private or Gentlemen’s
Mews, or Public Mews, where stables, coach-houses, and dwelling-rooms
above them, may be taken by any one (a good many of such places
being, moreover, public or partial thoroughfares); or whether they be
job-masters’ or cab-proprietors’ mews; are scavenged by the occupants,
for the manure is valuable. The mews of London, indeed, constitute
a world of their own. They are tenanted by one class--coachmen and
grooms, with their wives and families--men who are devoted to one
pursuit, the care of horses and carriages; who live and associate
one among another; whose talk is of horses (with something about
masters and mistresses) as if to ride or to drive were the great ends
of human existence, and who thus live as much together as the Jews in
their compulsory quarters in Rome. The mews are also the “chambers” of
unemployed coachmen and grooms, and I am told that the very sicknesses
known in such places have their own peculiarities. These, however, form
matter for _future_ inquiry.
Concerning the private scavenging of the metropolitan mews, the
_Medical Times_, of July 26, 1851, contains a letter from Mr. C.
Cochrane, in which that gentleman says:--
“It will be found, that in all the mews throughout the metropolis,
the manure produced from each stable is packed up in a separate
stack, until there is sufficient for a load for some market-gardener
or farmer to remove. The groom or stable-man makes an arrangement,
or agreement as it is called, with the market-gardener, to remove it
at his convenience, and a gratuity of 1_s._ or 1_s._ 6_d._ per load
is usually presented to the stable-man. In some places there are
dung-pits containing the collectings of a fortnight’s dung, which, when
disturbed for removal, casts out an offensive effluvium, as sickening
as it is disgusting to the whole neighbourhood. In consequence of
the arrangement in question, if a third party wished to buy some of
this manure, he could not get it; and if he wished to get rid of any
by giving it away, the stable-man would not receive it, as it would
not be removed sufficiently quick by the farmer. The result is, that
whilst the air is rendered offensive and insalubrious, manure becomes
difficult to be removed or disposed of, and frequently is washed away
into the sewer.
“Of this manure there are always (at a moderate computation) remaining
daily, in the mews and stable-yards of the metropolis, at least 2000
cart-loads.
“To remedy these evils, I would suggest that a brief Act of Parliament
should be passed, giving municipal and parochial authorities the
same complete control over the manure as they have over the ‘ashes,’
with the provision, that owners should have the right of removing it
themselves for their own use; but if they did not do so daily, then the
control to return to the above authorities, who should have the right
of selling it, and placing the proceeds in the parish funds. By this
simple means immense quantities of valuable manure would be saved for
the purposes of agriculture--food would be rendered cheaper and more
abundant--more people would be employed--whilst the metropolis would be
rendered clean, sweet, and healthy.”
I may dismiss this part of the subject with the remark, that I was
informed that the mews’ manure was in regular demand and of ready sale,
being removed by the market-gardeners with greater facility than can
street-dirt, which the contractors with the parishes prefer to vend by
the barge-load.
Having enumerated the four several modes of street-cleansing, I will
now proceed to point out briefly the characteristics of each class of
cleansing. This will also denote the quality of the employers and the
nature of the employment.
1. _The Paid Manual Labourers_ constitute the bulk of those engaged
in scavenging, and the chief pay-masters are the contractors. Many
of these labourers consider themselves the only “regular hands,”
having been “brought up to the business;” but unemployed or destitute
labourers or mechanics, or reduced tradesmen, will often endeavour to
obtain employment in street-sweeping; this is the necessary evil of all
_unskilled_ labour, for since every one can do it (without previous
apprenticeship), it follows that the beaten-out artisans or discarded
trade assistants, beggared tradesmen, or reduced gentlemen, must
necessarily resort to it as their only means of independent support;
and hence the reason why dock labour and street labour, and indeed all
the several forms of unskilled work, have a tendency to be overstocked
with hands--the _unskilled_ occupations being, as it were, the sink for
all the refuse _skilled_ labour and beggared industry of the country.
The “contractors,” like other employers, are separated by their
men into two classes--such as, in more refined callings, are often
designated the “honourable” and “dishonourable” traders--according as
they pay or do not pay what is reputed “fair wages.”
I cannot say that I heard any especial appellation given by the working
scavengers to the better-paying class of employers, unless it were the
expressive style of “good-’uns.” The inferior paying class, however,
are very generally known among their work-people as “scurfs.”
2. _The Street-sweeping Machine Labourers._--Of the men employed as
“attendant” scavengers, for so they may be termed, in connection with
these mechanical and vehicular street-sweepers, little need here be
said, for they are generally of the class of ordinary scavengers. It
may, however, be necessary to explain that each of those machines must
have the street refuse, for the “lick-in” of the machine, swept into a
straight line wherever there is the slightest slope at the sides of a
street towards the foot-path; the same, too, must sometimes be done, if
the pavement be at all broken, even when the progress of the machine
is, what I heard, not very appropriately, termed “plain sailing.”
Sometimes, also, men follow the course of the street-sweeping machine,
to “sweep up” any dirt missed or scattered, as the vehicle proceeds on
a straightforward course, for at all to diverge would be to make the
labour, where the machine alone is used, almost double.
3. _The Pauper, or Parish-employed Scavengers_ present characteristics
peculiarly their own, as regards open-air labour in London. They are
employed less to cleanse the streets, than to prevent their being
chargeable to the poor’s rate as out-door recipients, or as inmates of
the workhouses. When paid, they receive a lower amount of wages than
any other scavengers, and they are sometimes paid in food as well as
in money, while a difference may be made between the wages of the
married and of the unmarried men, and even between the married men who
have and have not children; some, again, are employed in scavenging
without any money receipt, their maintenance in the workhouse being
considered a sufficient return for the fruits of their toil.
Some of these men are feeble, some are unskilful (even in tasks
in which skill is but little of an element), and most of them are
dissatisfied workmen. Their ranks comprise, or may comprise, men who
have filled very different situations in life. It is mentioned in the
second edition of one of the publications of the National Philanthropic
Association, “Sanatory Progress” (1850), “that the once high-salaried
cashier of a West-end bank died lately in St. Pancras-workhouse;--that
the architect of several of the most fashionable West-end club-houses
is now an inmate of St. James’s-workhouse;--and that the architect of
St. Pancras’ New Church lately died in a back garret in Somers-town.”
“These recent instances (a few out of many)” says the writer,
“prove that ‘wealth has wings,’ and that Genius and Industry have
but leaden feet, when overtaken by Adversity. A late number of the
_Globe_ newspaper states that, ‘among the police constables on the
Great Western Railway, there are at present eight members of the
Royal College of Surgeons, and three solicitors;’--and the _Limerick
Examiner_, a few weeks ago, announced the fact, that ‘a gentlewoman is
now an inmate of the workhouse of that city, whose husband, a few years
ago, filled the office of High Sheriff of the county.’”
I do not know that either the cashier or the architect in the two
workhouses in question was employed as a street-sweeper.
This second class, then, are situated differently to the paid
street-sweepers (or No. 1 of the present division), who may be
considered, more or less, independent or self-supporting labourers,
while the paupers are, of course, dependent.
4. _The “Street Orderlies.”_--These men present another distinct body.
They are not merely in the employment, but many of them are under the
care, of the National Philanthropic Association, which was founded by,
and is now under the presidency of, Mr. Cochrane. The objects of this
society, as far as regards the street orderlies’ existence as a class
of scavengers, are sufficiently indicated in its title, which declares
it to be “For the Promotion of Street Cleanliness and the Employment
of the Poor; so that able-bodied men may be prevented from burthening
the parish rates, and preserved independent of workhouse alms and
degradation. Supported by the contributions of the benevolent.”
The street orderlies, men and boys, are paid a fixed weekly wage, a
certain sum being stopped from those single men who reside in houses
rented for them by the association, where their meals, washing, &c.,
are provided. Among them are men of many callings, and some educated
and accomplished persons.
The system of street orderlyism is, moreover, distinguished by one
attribute unknown to any other mode; it is an effort, persevered in,
despite of many hindrances and difficulties, to amend our street
scavengery, indeed to reform it altogether; so that dust and dirt may
be checked in their very origination.
The corporation, if I may so describe it, of the street orderlies,
presents characteristics, again, varying from the other orders of what
can only be looked upon either as the self-supporting or pauper workers.
These, then, are the several modes or methods of street-scavengery, and
they show the following:--
_CLASSES OF STREET-SWEEPING EMPLOYERS._
(1.) _Traders_, who undertake contracts for scavengery as a
speculation. Under this denomination may be classed the contractors
with parishes, districts, boards, liberties, divisions and subdivisions
of parishes, markets, &c.
(2.) _Parishes_, who employ the men as a matter of parochial policy,
with a view to the reduction of the rates, and with little regard to
the men.
(3.) _Philanthropists_, who seek, more particularly, to benefit the
men whom they employ, while they strive to promote the public good by
increasing public cleanliness and order.
Under the head of “Traders” are the contractors with the parishes,
&c., and the proprietors of the sweeping-machines, who are in the same
capacity as the “regular contractors” respecting their dealings with
labourers, but who substitute mechanical for manual operations.
Of these several classes of masters engaged in the scavengery of the
metropolis I have much to say, and, for the clearer saying of it, I
shall treat each of the several varieties of labour separately.