The following statement of his business, his sentiments, and, indeed,
of the subjects which concerned him, or about which he was questioned,
was given to me by a street-sweeper, so he called himself, for I have
found some of these men not to relish the appellation of “scavager.”
He was a short, sturdy, somewhat red-faced man, without anything
particular in his appearance to distinguish him from the mass of
mere labourers, but with the sodden and sometimes dogged look of a
man contented in his ignorance, and--for it is not a very uncommon
case--rather proud of it.
“I don’t know how old I am,” he said--I have observed, by the by, that
there is not any excessive vulgarity in these men’s tones or accent
so much as grossness in some of their expressions--“and I can’t see
what that consarns any one, as I’s old enough to have a jolly rough
beard, and so can take care of myself. I should think so. My father
was a sweeper, and I wanted to be a waterman, but father--he hasn’t
been dead long--didn’t like the thoughts on it, as he said they was
all drownded one time or ’nother; so I ran away and tried my hand as a
Jack-in-the-water, but I was starved back in a week, and got a h---- of
a clouting. After that I sifted a bit in a dust-yard, and helped in any
way; and I was sent to help at and larn honey-pot and other pot making,
at Deptford; but honey-pots was a great thing in the business. Master’s
foreman married a relation of mine, some way or other. I never tasted
honey, but I’ve heered it’s like sugar and butter mixed. The pots was
often wanted to look like foreign pots; I don’t know nothing what was
meant by it; some b---- dodge or other. No, the trade didn’t suit me at
all, master, so I left. I don’t know why it didn’t suit me; cause it
didn’t. Just then, father had hurt his hand and arm, in a jam again’
a cart, and so, as I was a big lad, I got to take his place, and gave
every satisfaction to Mr. ----. Yes, he was a contractor and a great
man. I can’t say as I knows how contracting’s done; but it’s a bargain
atween man and man. So I got on. I’m now looked on as a stunning good
workman, I can tell you.
“Well, I can’t say as I thinks sweeping the streets is hard work. I’d
rather sweep two hours than shovel one. It tires one’s arms and back
so, to go on shovelling. You can’t change, you see, sir, and the same
parts keeps getting gripped more and more. Then you must mind your eye,
if you’re shovelling slop into a cart, perticler so; or some feller
may run off with a complaint that he’s been splashed o’ purpose. _Is_
a man ever splashed o’ purpose? No, sir, not as I knows on, in coorse
not. [Laughing.] Why should he?
“The streets _must_ be done as they’re done now. It always was so, and
will always be so. Did I ever hear what London streets were like a
thousand years ago? It’s nothing to me, but they must have been like
what they is now. Yes, there was always streets, or how was people that
has tin to get their coals taken to them, and how was the public-houses
to get their beer? It’s talking nonsense, talking that way, a-asking
sich questions.” [As the scavager seemed likely to lose his temper, I
changed the subject of conversation.]
“Yes,” he continued, “I have good health. I never had a doctor but
twice; once was for a hurt, and the t’other I won’t tell on. Well, I
think nightwork’s healthful enough, but I’ll not say so much for it as
you may hear some on ’em say. I don’t like it, but I do it when I’s
obligated under a necessity. It pays one as overwork; and werry like
more one’s in it, more one may be suited. I reckon no men works harder
nor sich as me. O, as to poor journeymen tailors and sich like, I knows
they’re stunning badly off, and many of their masters is the hardest of
beggars. I have a nephew as works for a Jew slop, but I don’t reckon
that _work_; anybody might do it. You think not, sir? Werry well, it’s
all the same. No, I won’t say as I could make a veskit, but I’ve sowed
my own buttons on to one afore now.
“Yes, I’ve heered on the Board of Health. They’ve put down some
night-yards, and if they goes on putting down more, what’s to become
of the night-soil? I can’t think what they’re up to; but if they don’t
touch wages, it may be all right in the end on it. I don’t know that
them there consarns does touch wages, but one’s naterally afeard on
’em. I could read a little when I was a child, but I can’t now for want
of practice, or I might know more about it. I yarns my money gallows
hard, and requires support to do hard work, and if wages goes down,
one’s strength goes down. I’m a man as understands what things belongs.
I was once out of work, through a mistake, for a good many weeks,
perhaps five or six or more; I larned then what short grub meant. I got
a drop of beer and a crust sometimes with men as I knowed, or I might
have dropped in the street. What did I do to pass my time when I was
out of work? Sartinly the days seemed wery long; but I went about and
called at dust-yards, till I didn’t like to go too often; and I met men
I know’d at tap-rooms, and spent time that way, and axed if there was
any openings for work. I’ve been out of collar odd weeks now and then,
but when this happened, I’d been on slack work a goodish bit, and was
bad for rent three weeks and more. My rent was 2_s._ a week then; its
1_s._ 9_d._ now, and my own traps.
“No, I can’t say I was sorry when I was forced to be idle that way,
that I hadn’t kept up my reading, nor tried to keep it up, because I
couldn’t then have settled down my mind to read; I know I couldn’t. I
likes to hear the paper read well enough, if I’s resting; but old Bill,
as often wolunteers to read, has to spell the hard words so, that one
can’t tell what the devil he’s reading about. I never heers anything
about books; I never heered of Robinson Crusoe, if it wasn’t once at
the Wic. [Victoria Theatre]; I think there was some sich a name there.
He lived on a deserted island, did he, sir, all by hisself? Well, I
think, now you mentions it, I have heered on him. But one needn’t
believe all one hears, whether out of books or not. I don’t know much
good that ever anybody as I knows ever got out of books; they’re
fittest for idle people. Sartinly I’ve seen working people reading in
coffee-shops; but they might as well be resting theirselves to keep
up their strength. Do I think so? I’m sure on it, master. I sometimes
spends a few browns a-going to the play; mostly about Christmas. It’s
werry fine and grand at the Wic., that’s the place I goes to most; both
the pantomimers and t’ other things is werry stunning. I can’t say how
much I spends a year in plays; I keeps no account; perhaps 5_s._ or so
in a year, including expenses, sich as beer, when one goes out after a
stopper on the stage. I don’t keep no accounts of what I gets, or what
I spends, it would be no use; money comes and it goes, and it often
goes a d----d sight faster than it comes; so it seems to me, though I
ain’t in debt just at this time.
“I never goes to any church or chapel. Sometimes I hasn’t clothes as
is fit, and I s’pose I couldn’t be admitted into sich fine places in
my working dress. I was once in a church, but felt queer, as one does
in them strange places, and never went again. They’re fittest for rich
people. Yes, I’ve heered about religion and about God Almighty. _What_
religion have I heered on? Why, the regular religion. I’m satisfied
with what I knows and feels about it, and that’s enough about it. I
came to tell you about trade and work, because Mr. ---- told me it
might do good; but religion hasn’t nothing to do with it. Yes, Mr.
----’s a good master, and a religious man; but I’ve known masters as
didn’t care a d--n for religion, as good as him; and so you see it
comes to much the same thing. I cares nothing about politics neither;
but I’m a chartist.
“I’m not a married man. I was a-going to be married to a young woman
as lived with me a goodish bit as my housekeeper” [this he said very
demurely]; “but she went to the hopping to yarn a few shillings for
herself, and never came back. I heered that she’d taken up with an
Irish hawker, but I can’t say as to the rights on it. Did I fret about
her? Perhaps not; but I was wexed.
“I’m sure I can’t say what I spends my wages in. I sometimes makes
12_s._ 6_d._ a week, and sometimes better than 21_s._ with night-work.
I suppose grub costs 1_s._ a day, and beer 6_d._; but I keeps no
accounts. I buy ready-cooked meat; often cold b’iled beef, and eats it
at any tap-room. I have meat every day; mostly more than once a day.
Wegetables I don’t care about, only ingans and cabbage, if you can get
it smoking hot, with plenty of pepper. The rest of my tin goes for rent
and baccy and togs, and a little drop of gin now and then.”
The statement I have given is sufficiently explicit of the general
opinions of the “regular scavagers” concerning literature, politics,
and religion. On these subjects the great majority of the regular
scavagers have no opinions at all, or opinions distorted, even when
the facts seem clear and obvious, by ignorance, often united with its
nearest of kin, prejudice and suspiciousness. I am inclined to think,
however, that the man whose narrative I noted down was more dogged in
his ignorance than the body of his fellows. All the intelligent men
with whom I conversed, and whose avocations had made them familiar
for years with this class, concurred in representing them as grossly
ignorant.
This description of the scavagers’ ignorance, &c., it must be
remembered, applies only to the “regular hands.” Those who have
joined the ranks of the street-sweepers from other callings are more
intelligent, and sometimes more temperate.
The system of concubinage, with a great degree of fidelity in the
couple living together without the sanction of the law--such as I have
described as prevalent among the costermongers and dustmen--is also
prevalent among the regular scavagers.
I did not hear of habitual unkindness from the parents to the children
born out of wedlock, but there is habitual neglect of all or much
which a child should be taught--a neglect growing out of ignorance. I
heard of two scavagers with large families, of whom the treatment was
sometimes very harsh, and at others mere petting.
Education, or rather the ability to read and write, is not common
among the adults in this calling, so that it cannot be expected to be
found among their children. Some labouring men, ignorant themselves,
but not perhaps constituting a class or a clique like the regular
scavagers, try hard to procure for their children the knowledge, the
want of which they usually think has barred their own progress in life.
Other ignorant men, mixing only with “their own sort,” as is generally
the case with the regular scavagers, and in the several branches of
the business, often think and say that what _they_ did without their
children could do without also. I even heard it said by one scavager
that it wasn’t right a child should ever think himself wiser than
his father. A man who knew, in the way of his business as a private
contractor for night-work, &c., a great many regular scavagers, “ran
them over,” and came to the conclusion that about four or five out of
twenty could read, ill or tolerably well, and about three out of forty
could write. He told me, moreover, that one of the most intelligent
fellows generally whom he knew among them, a man whom he had heard
read well enough, and always understood to be a tolerable writer, the
other day brought a letter from his son, a soldier abroad with his
regiment in Lower Canada, and requested my informant to read it to
him, as “that kind of writing,” although plain enough, was “beyond
him.” The son, in writing, had availed himself of the superior skill of
a corporal in his company, so that the letter, on family matters and
feelings, was written by deputy and read by deputy. The costermongers,
I have shown, when themselves unable to read, have evinced a fondness
for listening to exciting stories of courts and aristocracies, and have
even bought penny periodicals to have their contents read to them. The
scavagers appear to have no taste for this mode of enjoying themselves;
but then their leisure is far more circumscribed than that of the
costermongers.
It must be borne in mind that I have all along spoken of the regular
(many of them hereditary) scavagers employed by the more liberal
contractors.
There are yet accounts of habitations, statements of wages, &c., &c.,
to be given, in connection with men working for the honourable masters,
before proceeding to the scurf-traders.
The working scavagers usually reside in the neighbourhood of the
dust-yards, occupying “second-floor backs,” kitchens (where the
entire house is sublet, a system often fraught with great extortion),
or garrets; they usually, and perhaps always, when married, or what
they consider “as good,” have their own furniture. The rent runs from
1_s._ 6_d._ to 2_s._ 3_d._ weekly, an average being 1_s._ 9_d._ or
1_s._ 10_d._ One room which I was in was but barely furnished,--a
sort of dresser, serving also for a table; a chest; three chairs (one
almost bottomless); an old turn-up bedstead, a Dutch clock, with the
minute-hand broken, or as the scavager very well called it when he
saw me looking at it, “a stump;” an old “corner cupboard,” and some
pots and domestic utensils in a closet without a door, but retaining
a portion of the hinges on which a door had swung. The rent was 1_s._
10_d._, with a frequent intimation that it ought to be 2_s._ The place
was clean enough, and the scavager seemed proud of it, assuring me that
his old woman (wife or concubine) was “a good sort,” and kept things as
nice as ever she could, washing everything herself, where “other old
women lushed.” The only ornaments in the room were three profiles of
children, cut in black paper and pasted upon white card, tacked to the
wall over the fire-place, for mantel-shelf there was none, while one of
the three profiles, that of the eldest child (then dead), was “framed,”
with a glass, and a sort of bronze or “cast” frame, costing, I was
told, 15_d._ This was the apartment of a man in regular employ (with
but a few exceptions).
Another scavager with whom I had some conversation about his labours
as a nightman, for he was both, gave me a full account of his own
diet, which I find to be sufficiently specific as to that of his class
generally, but only of the regular hands.
[Illustration: THE LONDON SCAVENGER.
[_From a Daguerreotype by_ BEARD.]]
The diet of the regular working scavager (or nightman) seems generally
to differ from that of mechanics, and perhaps of other working men,
in the respect of his being fonder of salt and _strong-flavoured_
food. I have before made the same remark concerning the diet of
the poor generally. I do not mean, however, that the scavagers are
fond of such animal food as is called “high,” for I did not hear that
nightmen or scavagers were more tolerant of what approached putridity
than other labouring men, and, despite their calling, might sicken at
the rankness of some haunches of venison; but they have a great relish
for highly-salted cold boiled beef, bacon, or pork, with a saucer-full
of red pickled cabbage, or dingy-looking pickled onions, or one or
two big, strong, raw onions, of which most of them seem as fond as
Spaniards of garlic. This sort of meat, sometimes profusely mustarded,
is often eaten in the beer-shops with thick “shives” of bread, cut
into big mouthfuls with a clasp pocket-knife, while vegetables, unless
indeed the beer-shop can supply a plate of smoking hot potatoes, are
uncared for. The drink is usually beer. The same style of eating and
the same kind of food characterize the scavager and nightman, when
taking his meal at home with his wife or family; but so irregular, and
often of necessity, are these men’s hours, that they may be said to
have no homes, merely places to sleep or dose in.
A working scavager and nightman calculated for me his expenses in
eating and drinking, and other necessaries, for the previous week. He
had earned 15_s._, but 1_s._ of this went to pay off an advance of
5_s._ made to him by the keeper of a beer-shop, or, as he called it, a
“jerry.”
Daily. Weekly.
_d._ _s._ _d._
Rent of an unfurnished room 1 9
Washing (average) 3
[The man himself washed
the dress in which he
worked, and generally
washed his own stockings.]
Shaving (when twice a week) 1
Tobacco 1 7
[Short pipes are given to
these men at the beer-shops,
or public-houses
which they “use.”]
Beer 4 2 4
[He usually spent more than
4_d._ a day in beer, he said,
“it was only a pot;” but
this week more beer than
usual had been given to
him in nightwork.]
Gin 2 1 2
[The same with gin.]
Cocoa (pint at a coffee-shop). 1-1/2 10-1/2
Bread (quartern loaf) (sometimes
5-1/2_d._) 6 3 6
Boiled salt beef (3/4 lb. or 1/2 lb.
daily, “as happened,” for
two meals, 6_d._ per pound,
average) 4 2 4
Pickles or Onions 0-1/4 1-3/4
Butter 1
Soap 1
--------------------
13 2-1/4
Perhaps this informant was excessive in his drink. I believe he was
so; the others not drinking so much regularly. The odd 9_d._, he told
me, he paid to “a snob,” because he said he was going to send his
half-boots to be mended.
This man informed me he was a “widdur,” having lost his old ’oman, and
he got all his meals at a beer or coffee-shop. Sometimes, when he was
a street-sweeper by day and a nightman by night, he had earned 20_s._
to 22_s._; and then he could have his pound of salt meat a day, for
_three_ meals, with a “baked tatur or so, when they was in.” I inquired
as to the apparently low charge of 6_d._ per pound for cooked meat, but
I found that the man had stated what was correct. In many parts good
boiled “brisket,” fresh cut, is 7_d._ and 8_d._ per lb., with mustard
into the bargain; and the cook-shop keepers (not the eating-house
people) who sell boiled hams, beef, &c., in retail, but not to be eaten
on the premises, vend the hard remains of a brisket, and sometimes of a
round, for 6_d._, or even less (also with mustard), and the scavagers
like this better than any other food. In the brisk times my informant
sometimes had “a hot cut” from a shop on a Sunday, and a more liberal
allowance of beer and gin. If he had any piece of clothing to buy he
always bought it at once, before his money went for other things. These
were his proceedings when business was brisk.
In slacker times his diet was on another footing. He then made his
supper, or second meal, for tea he seldom touched, on “fagots.” This
preparation of baked meats costs 1_d._ hot--but it is seldom sold
hot except in the evening--and 3/4_d._, or more frequently two for
1-1/2_d._, cold. It is a sort of cake, roll, or ball, a number being
baked at a time, and is made of chopped liver and lights, mixed with
gravy, and wrapped in pieces of pig’s caul. It weighs six ounces, so
that it is unquestionably a cheap, and, to the scavager, a savoury
meal; but to other nostrils its odour is not seductive. My informant
regretted the capital fagots he used to get at a shop when he worked
in Lambeth; superior to anything he had been able to meet with on the
Middlesex side of the water. Or he dined off a saveloy, costing 1_d._,
and bread; or bought a pennyworth of strong cheese, and a farthing’s
worth of onions. He would further reduce his daily expenditure on
cocoa (or coffee sometimes) to 1_d._, and his bread to three-quarters
of a loaf. He ate, however, in average times, a quarter of a quartern
loaf to his breakfast (sometimes buying a halfpennyworth of butter), a
quarter or more to his dinner, the same to his supper, and the other,
with an onion for a relish, to his beer. He was a great bread eater,
he said; but sometimes, if he slept in the daytime, half a loaf would
“stand over to next day.” He was always hungriest when at work among
the street-mud, or night-soil, or when he had finished work.
On my asking him if he meant that he partook of the meals he had
described daily, he answered “no,” but that was _mostly_ what he had;
and if he bought a bit of cold boiled, or even roast pork, “what
offered cheap,” the expense was about the same. When he was drinking,
and he did “make a break sometimes,” he ate nothing, and “wasn’t
inclined to,” and he seemed rather to plume himself on this, as a point
of economy. He had tasted fruit pies, but cared nothing for them;
but liked four penn’orth of a hot meat or giblet pie on a Sunday.
Batter-pudding he only liked if smoking hot; and it was “uncommon
improved,” he said, “with an ingan!” Rum he preferred to gin, only it
was dearer, but most of the scavagers, he thought, liked Old Tom (gin)
best; but “they was both good.”
Of the drinking of these men I heard a good deal, and there is no
doubt that some of them tope hard, and by their conduct evince a sort
of belief that the great end of labour is beer. But it must be borne
in mind that if inquiries are made as to the man best adapted to give
information concerning any rude calling (especially), some talkative
member of the body of these working men, some pot-house hero who has
persuaded himself and his ignorant mates that he is an oracle, is put
forward. As these men are sometimes, from being trained to, and long
known in their callings, more prosperous than their fellows, their
opinions seem ratified by their circumstances. But in such cases, or in
the appearance of such cases, it has been my custom to make subsequent
inquiries, or there might be frequent misleadings, were the statements
of these men taken as typical of the feelings and habits of the _whole_
body. The statement of the working scavager given under this head is
unquestionably typical of the character of a portion of his co-workers,
and more especially of what was, and in the sort of hereditary
scavagers I have spoken of _is_, the character of the regular hands.
There are now, however, many checks to prolonged indulgence in “lush,”
as every man of the ruder street-sweeping class _will_ call it. The
contractors must be served regularly; the most indulgent will not
tolerate any unreasonable absence from work, so that the working
scavagers, at the jeopardy of their means of living, must leave their
carouse at an hour which will permit them to rise soon enough in the
morning.
The beer which these men imbibe, it should be also remembered, they
regard as a proper part of their diet, in the same light, indeed, as
they regard so much bread, and that among them the opinion is almost
universal, that beer is necessary to “keep up their strength;” there
are a few teetotallers belonging to the class; one man thought he
_knew_ five, and had _heard_ of five others.
I inquired of the landlord of a beer-shop, frequented by these men,
as to their potations, but he wanted to make it appear that they took
a half-pint, _now and then_, when thirsty! He was evidently tender
of the character of his customers. The landlord of a public house
also frequented by them informed me that he really could not say what
they expended in beer, for labourers of all kinds “used his tap,”
and as all tap-room liquor was paid for on delivery in his and all
similar establishments, he did not know the quantity supplied to any
particular class. He was satisfied these men, as a whole, drank less
than they did at one time; though he had no doubt some (he seemed to
know no distinctions between scavagers, dustmen, and nightmen) spent
1_s._ a day in drink. He knew one scavager who was dozing about not
long since for nearly a week, “sleepy drunk,” and the belief was that
he had “found something.” The absence of all accounts prevents my
coming to anything definite on this head, but it seems positive that
these men drink less than they did. The landlord in question thought
the statement I have given as to diet and drink perfectly correct for a
regular hand in good earnings. I am assured, however, and it is my own
opinion, after long inquiry, that one-third of their earnings is spent
in drink.