I have now to deal with what throughout the whole course of my inquiry
into the state of London Labour and the London Poor I have considered
the great object of investigation--the condition and characteristics of
the working men; and what is more immediately the “labour question,”
the relation of the labourer to his employer, as to rates of payment,
modes of payment, hiring of labourers, constancy or inconstancy of
work, supply of hands, the many points concerning wages, perquisites,
family work, and parochial or club relief.
First, I shall give an account of the class employment, together with
the labour season and earnings of the labourers, or “economical” part
of the subject. I shall then pass to the social points, concerning
their homes, general expenditure, &c., and then to the more moral and
intellectual questions of education, literature, politics, religion,
marriage, and concubinage of the men and of their families. All this
will refer, it should be remembered, only to the working scavagers in
the honourable or better-paid trade; the cheaper labourers I shall
treat separately as a distinct class; the details in both cases I shall
illustrate with the statement of men of the class described.
The first part of this multifarious subject appertains to the division
of labour. This in the scavaging trade consists rather of that kind of
“gang-work” which Mr. Wakefield styles “simple co-operation,” or the
working together of a number of people at the same thing, as opposed
to “complex co-operation,” or the working together of a number at
_different branches_ of the same thing. Simple co-operation is of
course the ruder kind; but even this, rude as it appears, is far from
being barbaric. “The savages of New Holland,” we are told, “never help
each other even in the most simple operations; and their condition is
hardly superior--in some respects it is inferior--to that of the wild
animals which they now and then catch.”
As an instance of the advantages of “simple co-operation,” Mr.
Wakefield tells us that “in a vast number of simple operations
performed by human exertion, it is quite obvious that two men working
together will do more than four, or four times four men, each of whom
should work alone. In the lifting of heavy weights, for example, in the
felling of trees, in the gathering of much hay and corn during a short
period of fine weather, in draining a large extent of land during the
short season when such a work may be properly conducted, in the pulling
of ropes on board ship, in the rowing of large boats, in some mining
operations, in the erection of a scaffolding for a building, and in the
breaking of stones for the repair of a road, so that the whole road
shall always be kept in good repair--in all these simple operations,
and thousands more, it is absolutely necessary that many persons should
work together at the same time, in the same place, and in the same way.”
To the above instances of simple co-operation, or gang-working, as it
may be briefly styled in Saxon English, Mr. Wakefield might have added
dock labour and scavaging.
The principle of complex co-operation, however, is not entirely unknown
in the public cleansing trade. This business consists of as many
branches as there are distinct kinds of refuse, and these appear to be
four. There are (1) the wet and (2) the dry _house_-refuse (or dust and
night-soil), and (3) the wet and (4) the dry _street_-refuse (or mud
and rubbish); and in these four different branches of the one general
trade the principle of complex co-operation is found commonly, though
not invariably, to prevail.
The difference as to the class employments of the general body
of public cleansers--the dustmen, street-sweepers, nightmen, and
rubbish-carters--seems to be this:--any nightman will work as a dustman
or scavager; but it is not all the dustmen and scavagers who will work
as nightmen. The reason is almost obvious. The avocations of the
dustman and the nightman are in some degree hereditary. A rude man
provides for the future maintenance of his sons in the way which is
most patent to his notice; he makes the boy share in his own labour,
and grow up unfit for anything else.
The regular working scavagers are then generally a distinct class from
the working dustmen, and are all paid by the week, while the dustmen
are paid by the load. In very wet weather, when there is a great
quantity of “slop” in the streets, a dustman is often called upon to
lend a helping hand, and sometimes when a working scavager is out of
employ, in order to keep himself from want, he goes to a “job of dust
work,” but seldom from any other cause.
In a parish where there is a crowded population, the dustman’s labours
consume, on an average, from six to eight hours a day. In scavagery,
the average hours of daily work are twelve (Sundays of course
excepted), but they sometimes extended to fifteen, and even sixteen
hours, in places of great business traffic; while in very fine dry
weather, the twelve hours may be abridged by two, three, four, or even
more. Thus it is manifest that the consumption of time alone prevents
the same working men being simultaneously dustmen and scavagers. In the
more remote and quiet parishes, however, and under the management of
the smaller contractors, the opposite arrangement frequently exists;
the operative is a scavager one day, and a dustman the next. This is
not the case in the busier districts, and with the large contractors,
unless exceptionally, or on an emergency.
If the scavagers or dustmen have completed their street and house
labours in a shorter time than usual, there is generally some sort
of employment for them in the yards or wharfs of the contractors,
or they may sometimes avail themselves of their leisure to enjoy
themselves in their own way. In many parts, indeed, as I have shown,
the street-sweeping must be finished by noon, or earlier.
Concerning the _division of labour_, it may be said, that the principle
of complex co-operation in the scavaging trade exists only in its
rudest form, for the characteristics distinguishing the labour of the
working scavagers are far from being of that complicated nature common
to many other callings.
As regards the act of sweeping or scraping the streets, the labour is
performed by the _gangsman_ and his _gang_. The gangsman usually loads
the cart, and occasionally, when a number are employed in a district,
acts as a foreman by superintending them, and giving directions; he is
a working scavager, but has the office of overlooker confided to him,
and receives a higher amount of wage than the others.
For the completion of the street-work there are the _one-horse carmen_
and the _two-horse carmen_, who are also working scavagers, and so
called from their having to load the carts drawn by one or two horses.
These are the men who shovel into the cart the dirt swept or scraped
to one side of the public way by the gang (some of it mere slop),
and then drive the cart to its destination, which is generally their
master’s yard. Thus far only does the street-labour extend. The carmen
have the care of the vehicles in cleaning them, greasing the wheels,
and such like, but the horses are usually groomed by stablemen, who are
not employed in the streets.
The division of labour, then, among the working scavagers, may be said
to be as follows:--
1st. The _ganger_, whose office it is to superintend the gang, and
shovel the dirt into the cart.
2nd. The gang, which consists of from three to ten or twelve men, who
sweep in a row and collect the dirt in heaps ready for the ganger to
shovel into the cart.
3rd. The carman (one-horse or two-horse, as the case may be), who
attends to the horse and cart, brushes the dirt into the ganger’s
shovel, and assists the ganger in wet sloppy weather in carting the
dirt, and then takes the mud to the place where it is deposited.
There is only one _mode of payment_ for the above labours pursued among
the master scavagers, and that is by the week.
1st. The ganger receives a weekly salary of 18_s._ when working for an
“honourable” master; with a “scurf,” however, the ganger’s pay is but
16_s._ a week.
2nd. The gang receive in a large establishment each 16_s._ per week,
but in a small one they usually get from 14_s._ to 15_s._ a week. When
working for a small master they have often, by working over hours, to
“make eight days to the week instead of six.”
3rd. The one-horse carman receives 16_s._ a week in a large, and 15_s._
in a small establishment.
4th. The two-horse carman receives 18_s._ weekly, but is employed only
by the larger masters.
On the opposite page I give a table on this point.
Some of these men are paid by the day, some by the week, and some on
Wednesdays and Saturdays, perhaps in about equal proportions, the
“casuals” being mostly paid by the day, and the regular hands (with
some exceptions among the scurfs) once or twice a week. The chance
hands are sometimes engaged for a half day, and, as I was told, “jump
at a bob and a joey (1_s._ 4_d._), or at a bob.” I heard of one
contractor who not unfrequently said to any foreman or gangsman who
mentioned to him the applications for work, “O, give the poor devils a
turn, if it’s only for a day now and then.”
_Piece-work_, or, as the scavagers call it, “by the load,” _did_ at one
time prevail, but not to any great extent. The prices varied, according
to the nature and the state of the road, from 2_s._ to 2_s._ 6_d._ the
load. The system of piece-work was never liked by the men; it seems
to have been resorted to less as a system, or mode of labour, than to
insure assiduity on the part of the working scavagers, when a rapid
street-cleansing was desirable. It was rather in the favour of the
working man’s _individual_ emoluments than otherwise, as may be shown
in the following way. In Battle-bridge, four men collect five loads
in dry, and six men seven loads in wet weather. If the average piece
hire be 2_s._ 3_d._ a load, it is 2_s._ 9-3/4_d._ for each of the five
men’s day’s work; if 2_s._ 2_d._ a load, it is 2_s._ 8-1/2_d._ (the
regular wage, and an extra halfpenny); if 2_s._, it is 2_s._ 6_d._; and
if less (which has been paid), the day’s wage is not lower than 2_s._
At the lowest rates, however, the men, I was informed, could not be
induced to take the necessary pains, as they _would_ struggle to “make
up half-a-crown;” while, if the streets were scavaged in a slovenly
manner, the contractor was sure to hear from his friends of the parish
that he was not acting up to his contract. I could not hear of any men
now set to piece-work within the precincts of the places specified in
the table. This extra work and scamping work are the two great evils of
the piece system.
In their payments to their men the contractors show a superiority to
the practices of some traders, and even of some dock-companies--the
men are never paid at public-houses; the payment, moreover, is always
in money. One contractor told me that he would like all his men to be
teetotallers, if he could get them, though he was not one himself.
But these remarks refer only to the _nominal_ wages of the scavagers;
and I find the nominal wages of operatives in many cases are widely
different (either from some additions by way of perquisites, &c.,
or deductions by way of fines, &c., but oftener the latter) from
the _actual_ wages received by them. Again, the average wages, or
gross yearly income of the casually-employed men, are very different
from those of the constant hands; so are the gains of a particular
individual often no criterion of the general or average earnings of
the trade. Indeed I find that the several varieties of wages may be
classified as follows:--