Who are to maintain the paupers? The ratepaying traders or the
non-ratepaying workmen?
If the paupers be set to work in a country like Great Britain, they
must necessarily be brought into competition with the self-supporting
workmen, and so be made to share the wage fund with them, decreasing
the price of labour in proportion to the extra number of such pauper
labourers among whom the capital of the trade has to be shared. Hence
the burden of maintaining the paupers will be virtually shifted from
the capitalist to the labourer, the poor-rate being thus really paid
out of the wages of the operatives, instead of the profits of the
traders, as it should be.
And here lies the great wrong of pauper labour. It saddles the poor
with the maintenance of their poorer brethren, while the rich not only
contribute nothing to their support, but are made still richer by the
increased cheapness resulting from the depreciation of labour and their
consequent ability to obtain a greater quantity of commodities for the
same amount of money.
In illustration of this argument let us say the wages of 600
independent scavagers amount, at 15_s._ a week each the year through,
to 23,400_l._ per annum; and let us say, moreover, that the keep of
400 paupers amounts, at 5_s._ a week each, to, altogether, 5200_l._;
hence the total annual expense to the several metropolitan parishes for
cleansing the streets and maintaining 400 paupers would be 23,400_l._ +
5200_l._ = 28,600_l._
If, however, the 400 paupers be set to scavaging work, and made to do
something for their keep, one of two things _must_ follow: (1) either
the 400 extra hands will receive their share of the 23,400_l._ devoted
to the payment of the operative scavagers, in which case the wages of
each of the regular hands will be reduced from 15_s._ to 9_s._ a week;
hence the maintenance of the paupers will be saddled upon the 600
independent operatives, who will lose no less than 9360_l._ per annum,
while the ratepayers will be saved the maintenance of the 400 paupers
and so gain 5200_l._ per annum by the change; (2) or else 400 of the
self-supporting operatives must be thrown out of work, in which case
the displaced labourers will lose no less than 15,600_l._, while the
ratepayers will gain upwards of 5000_l._
The reader is now, I believe, in a position to comprehend the wrong
done to the self-supporting scavagers by the employment of pauper
labour in the cleansing of the streets.
The preparation of the material of the roads of a parish seems, as far
as the metropolis is concerned, at one time to have supplied the chief
“test,” to which parishes have resorted, as regards the willingness
to labour on the part of the able-bodied applicants for relief. When
the casual wards of the workhouses were open for the reception of
all vagrants who sought a night’s shelter, each tramper was required
to break so many stones in the morning before receiving a certain
allowance of bread, soup, or what not for his breakfast; and he then
might be received again into the shelter of this casual asylum. In some
parishes the wards were open without the test of stone-breaking, and
there was a crowded resort to them, especially during the prevalence
of the famine in Ireland and the immigration of the Irish peasants to
England. The favourite resort of the vagrants was Marylebone workhouse,
and Irish immigrants very frequently presented slips of paper on
which some tramper whom they had met with on their way had written
“_Marylebone workhouse_,” as the best place at which they could apply,
and these the simple Irish offered as passports for admission!
Gradually, the asylum of these wards, with or without labour tests,
was discontinued, and in one where the labour test used to be strongly
insisted upon--in St. Pancras--a school for pauper children has been
erected on the site of the stone-yard.
This labour test was unequal when applied to all comers; for what
was easy work to an agricultural labourer, a railway excavator, a
quarryman, or to any one used to wield a hammer, was painful and
blistering to a starving tailor. Nor was the test enforced by the
overseers or regarded by the paupers as a proof of willingness to work,
but simply as a punishment for poverty, and as a means of deterring the
needy from applying for relief. To make labour a punishment, however,
is _not_ to destroy, but really to confirm, idle habits; it is to
give a deeper root to the vagrant’s settled aversion to work. “Well,
I always thought it was unpleasant,” the vagabond will say to himself
“_that_ working for one’s bread, and now I’m _convinced_ of it!” Again,
in many of the workhouses the labour to which the paupers were set was
of a manifestly unremunerative character, being work for mere work’s
sake; and to apply people to unproductive labour is to destroy all the
ordinary motives to toil--to take away the only stimulus to industry,
and remove the very will to work which the labour test was supposed to
discover[22].
The labour test, then, or setting the poor to work as a proof of
their willingness to labour, appears to be as foolish as it is
vicious; the objections to it being--(1) the inequality of the test
applied to different kinds of work-people; (2) the tendency of it to
confirm rather than weaken idle habits by making labour inordinately
repulsive; (3) the removal of the ordinary stimulus to industry by the
unproductiveness of the work to which the poor are generally applied.
And now, having dealt with the subject of parish labour as a test of
the willingness to work on the part of the applicants for relief, I
will proceed to deal with that portion of the work itself which is
connected with the cleansing of the streets.
And first as to the employment of paupers at all in the streets. If
pauperism be a disgrace, then it is unjust to turn a man into the
public thoroughfares, wearing the badge of beggary, to be pointed
at and scorned for his poverty, especially when we are growing so
particularly studious of our criminals that we make them wear masks
to prevent even their faces being seen[23]. Nor is it consistent with
the principles of an enlightened national morality that we should
force a body of honest men to labour upon the highways, branded with
a degrading garb, like convicts. Neither is it _wise_ to do so, for
the shame of poverty soon becomes deadened by the repeated exposure to
public scorn; and thus the occasional recipient of parish relief is
ultimately converted into the hardened and habitual pauper. “Once a
pauper always a pauper,” I was assured was the parish rule; and here
lies the _rationale_ of the fact. Not long ago this system of employing
_badged_ paupers to labour in the public thoroughfares was carried to
a much more offensive extent than it is even at present. At one time
the pauper labourers of a certain parish had the attention of every
passer-by attracted to them while at their work, for on the back of
each man’s garb--a sort of smock-frock--was marked, with sufficient
prominence, “CLERKENWELL. STOP IT!” This public intimation that the
labourers were not only paupers, but regarded as thieves, and expected
to purloin the parish dress they wore, attracted public attention, and
was severely commented upon at a meeting. The “STOP IT!” therefore was
cancelled, and the frocks are now _merely_ lettered “CLERKENWELL.”
Before the alteration the men very generally wore the garment inside
out.
The present dress of the parish scavagers is usually a loose
smock-frock, costing 1_s._ 6_d._ to 2_s._, and a glazed hat of about
the same price. In some cases, however, the men may wear these things
or not, at their option.
The pauper scavagers employed by the several metropolitan parishes may
be divided into three classes:--
1. The in-door paupers, who receive no wages whatever (their lodging,
food, and clothing being considered to be sufficient remuneration for
their labour).
2. The out-door paupers, who are paid partly in money and partly in
kind, and employed in some cases three days and in others six days in
the week.
These may be subdivided into--(_a_) the single men, who receive, or
rather used to receive, 9_d._ and a quartern loaf for each of the
three or more days they were so employed; (_b_) the married men with
families, who receive 7_s._ and 3 quartern loaves a week to 1_s._
1-1/2_d._ and 1 quartern loaf for each day’s labour.
3. The unemployed labourers of the district, who are set to scavaging
work by the parish, and paid a regular money wage--the employment
being constant, and the rate of remuneration ranging from 1_s._ 3_d._
to 2_s._ 6_d._ a day for each of the six days, or from 7_s._ 6_d._ to
15_s._ a week.
In pp. 246, 247, I give a table of the wages paid by each of the
metropolitan parishes. This has been collected at great trouble in
order to arrive at the truth on this most important matter, and for
which purpose the several parishes have been personally visited. It
will be seen on reference to this document, that there is only one
parish at present that employs its in-door paupers in the scavaging of
the public streets; and 3 parishes employing 48 out-door paupers, who
are paid partly in money and partly in bread; the money remuneration
ranging from 1_s._ 1-1/2_d._ a day (paid by Clerkenwell) to 7_s._
a week (paid by Chelsea), and moreover 31 parishes employing 408
applicants for relief (paupers they cannot be called), and paying them
wholly in money, the remuneration ranging from 15_s._ per week to 7_s._
6_d._ (paid by the Liberty of the Rolls), and the employment from 6
to 3 days weekly. As a general rule it was found that the greatest
complaints were made by the authorities as to the idleness of the poor,
and by the poor as to the tyranny of the authorities, in those parishes
where the remuneration was the least. In St. Luke’s, Chelsea, for
instance, where the remuneration is but 7_s._ a week and three loaves,
the criminations and recriminations by the parish functionaries and
the paupers were almost equally harsh and bitter. I should, however,
observe that the men employed in this parish spoke in terms of great
commendation of Mr. Pattison the surveyor, saying he always gave them
to understand that they were free labourers, and invariably treated
them as such. The men at work for Bermondsey parish also spoke very
highly of their superintendent, who, it seems, has interested himself
to obtain for them a foul-weather coat. Some of the highway boards or
trusts take all the pauper labourers sent them by the parish, while
others give employment only to such as please them. These boards
generally pay good wages, and are in favour with the men.
The mode of working, as regards the use of the implements and the
manual labour, is generally the same among the pauper scavagers as I
have described in connection with the scavagers generally.
The consideration of what is the rate of parish pay to the poor who
are employed as scavagers, is complicated by the different modes in
which the employment is carried out, for, as we see, there is--1st, the
scavaging labour, by workhouse inmates, without any payment beyond the
cost of maintenance and clothing; 2nd, the “short” or three-days-a-week
labour, with or without “relief” in the bestowal of bread; and 3rd, the
six days’ work weekly, with a money wage and no bread, nor anything in
the form of payment in kind or of “relief.”
Let me begin with the first system of labour above mentioned, viz.
the employment of the in-door paupers without wages of any kind,
their food, lodging, and clothing being considered as equivalents for
their work. The principal evil in connection with this form of parish
work is its compulsory character, the men regarding it not as so much
work given in exchange for such and such comforts, but as something
_exacted_ from them; and, to tell the truth, it is precisely the
counterpart of slavery, being equally deficient in all inducement to
toil, and consequently requiring almost the same system of compulsion
and supervision in order to keep the men at their labour. All interest
in the work is destroyed, there being no reward connected with it; and
consequently the same organized system of setting to work is required
as with cattle. There are but two inducements to voluntary action--pain
to be avoided or pleasure to be derived--or, in other words, the
attractiveness and repulsiveness of objects. Take away the pecuniary
attraction of labour, and men become mere beasts of burden, capable
of being set to work only by the dread of some punishment; hence the
system of parish labour, which has no reward directly connected with
it, must necessarily be tyrannical, and so tend to induce idleness and
a hatred of work altogether.
Of the different forms of pauper work, street-sweeping is, I am
inclined to believe, the most unpopular of all among the poor. The
scavaging is generally done in the workhouse dress, and that to all,
except the hardened paupers, and sometimes even to them, is highly
distasteful. Neither have such labourers, as I have said, the incentive
of that hope of the reward which, however diminutive, still tends to
sweeten the most repulsive labour. I am informed by an experienced
gangsman under a contractor, that it is notorious that the workhouse
hands are the least industrious scavagers in the streets. “They don’t
sweep as well,” he said, “and don’t go about it like regular men; they
take it quite easy.” It is often asserted that this labour of the
workhouse men is applied as a _test_; but this opinion seems rather to
bear on the past than the present.
One man thus employed gave me the following account. He was garrulous
but not communicative, as is frequently the case with men who love to
hear themselves talk, and are not very often able to command listeners.
He was healthy looking enough, but he told me he was, or had been
“delicate.” He querulously objected to be questioned about his youth,
or the reason of his being a pauper, but seemed to be abounding in
workhouse stories and workhouse grievances.
“Street-sweeping,” he said, “degrades a man, and if a man’s poor he
hasn’t no call to be degraded. Why can’t they set the thieves and
pickpockets to sweep? they could be watched easy enough; there’s
always idle fellers as reckons theirselves real gents, as can be got
for watching and sitch easy jobs, for they gets as much for them, as
three men’s paid for hard work in a week. I never was in a prison, but
I’ve heerd that people there is better fed and better cared for than
in workusses. What’s the meaning of that, sir, I’d like for to know?
You can’t tell me, but I can tell you. The workus is made as ugly as
it can be, that poor people may be got to leave it, and chance dying
in the street rather.” [Here the man indulged in a gabbled detail of a
series of pauper grievances which I had a difficulty in diverting or
interrupting. On my asking if the other paupers had the same opinion
as to street-sweeping as he had, he replied:--] “To be sure they has;
all them that has sense to have a ’pinion at all has; there’s not two
sides to it any how. No, I don’t want to be kept and do nothink. I want
_proper_ work. And by the rights of it I might as well be kept with
nothink to do as ---- or ----” [parish officials]. “Have they nothing
to do,” I asked? “Nothink, but to make mischief and get what ought to
go to the poor. It’s salaries and such like as swallers the rates, and
that’s what every poor family knows as knows anythink. Did I ever like
my work better? Certainly not. Do I take any pains with it? Well, where
would be the good? I can sweep well enough, when I please, but if I
could do more than the best man as ever Mr. Darke paid a pound a week
to, it wouldn’t be a bit better for me--not a bit, sir, I assure you.
We all takes it easy whenever we can, but the work _must_ be done. The
only good about it is that you get outside the house. It’s a change
that way certainly. But we work like horses and is treated like asses.”
[On my reminding him that he had just told me that they all took it
easy when they could, and _that_ rather often, he replied:] “Well,
don’t horses? But it ain’t much use talking, sir. It’s only them as has
been in workusses and in parish work as can understand all the ins and
outs of it.”
In giving the above and the following statements I have endeavoured to
elicit the _feelings_ of the several paupers whom I conversed with.
Poor, ignorant, or prejudiced men may easily be mistaken in their
opinions, or in what they may consider their “facts,” but if a clear
exposition of their sentiments be obtained, it is a guide to the
truth. I have, therefore, given the statement of the in-door pauper’s
opinions, querulously as they were delivered, as I believe them to be
the sentiments of those of his class who, as he said, had any opinion
at all.
It seems indeed, from all I could learn on the subject, that pauper
street-work, even at the best, is unwilling and slovenly work, pauper
workmen being the worst of all workmen. If the streets be swept clean,
it is because a dozen paupers are put to the labour of eight, nine,
or ten regular scavagers who are independent labourers, and who may
have some “pride of art,” or some desire to show their employers that
they are to be depended upon. This feeling does not actuate the pauper
workman, who thinks or knows that if he did evince a desire and a
perseverance to please, it would avail him little beyond the sneers and
ill-will of his mates; so that, even with a disposition to acquire the
good opinion of the authorities, there is this obstacle in his way, and
to most men who move in a circumscribed sphere it is a serious obstacle.
Of the second mode of pauper scavaging, viz., that performed by
out-door paupers, and paid for partly in money and partly in kind,
I heard from officials connected with pauper management very strong
condemnations, as being full of mischievous and degrading tendencies.
The payment to the out-door pauper scavager averages, as I have
stated, 9_d._ a day to a single man, with, perhaps, a quartern loaf;
and this, in some cases, is for only three days in the week; while
to a married man with a family, it varies between 1_s._ 1-1/2_d._
and 1_s._ 2_d._ a day, with a quartern, and sometimes two quartern
loaves; and this, likewise, is occasionally from three to six days
in the week. On this the single or family men must subsist, if they
have no other means of earning an addition. The men thus employed
are certainly not independent labourers, nor are they, in the full
sense of the word as popularly understood, paupers; for their means
of subsistence are partly the fruits of their toil; and although they
are wretchedly dependent, they seem to feel that they have a sort of
right to be set to work, as the law ordains such modicum of relief, in
or out of the workhouse, as will only ward off death through hunger.
This “three-days-a-week work” is by the poor or pauper labourers
looked upon as being, after the in-door pauper work, the worst sort of
employment.
[24] TABLE SHOWING THE NUMBER OF MEN EMPLOYED BY THE METROPOLITAN
PARISHES AND HIGHWAY BOARDS IN SCAVAGING, AS WELL AS THE NUMBER OF
HOURS PER DAY AND NUMBER OF DAYS PER WEEK, TOGETHER WITH THE AMOUNT OF
WAGES ACCRUING TO EACH, AND THE TOTAL ANNUAL WAGES OF THE WHOLE.
-----------------------------------------+------------+------------+---------------+------------+--------------------------
| No. of | Number of | | |
| married men| single men | Number of | Number of | Daily or weekly
| employed | employed |Superintendents| Foremen | wages of the
PARISHES. | by parishes| by parishes| employed | or Gangers | married
| daily in | daily in | by parishes. | employed | parish-men.
| scavaging | scavaging | |by parishes.|
|the streets.|the streets.| | |
-----------------------------------------+------------+------------+---------------+------------+--------------------------
_Paid in Money (by Parishes)._ | | | | | _s._
Greenwich | 7 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 15
| | | | |
Walworth }| 12 | 8 | | 3 | 15
Newington }| | | | |
Lambeth | 30 | | 1 | 5 | 15
Poplar | 20 | | | 4 | 15
St. Ann’s, Soho | 4 | 1 | | | 15
Rotherhithe | 4 | | | 1 | 14
Wandsworth | 6 | | | 1 | 12
Hackney | 12 | 4 | | 4 | 12
St. Mary’s, Paddington | 8 | 5 | 1 | 2 | 12
St. Giles’s, and St. George’s, Bloomsbury| 20 | 4 | | 4 | 12
St. Pancras (South-west Division) | 10 | | 2 | | 12
St. Clement Danes | 6 | 2 | | 1 | 11
St. Paul’s, Covent-garden | 2 | 5 | | 1 | 11
St. James’s, Westminster | 6 | | | 1 | 10
Ditto | 6 | | | 1 | 10
Ditto | 6 | | | 1 | 9
St. Andrew’s, Holborn | 10 | | 1 | 1 | 9
Marylebone | 80 | 15 | 1 | 10 | 9
St. George’s, Hanover-square | 30 | 6 | 1 | 4 | 9_s._ a week.
Liberty of the Rolls | 1 | | | | 7s. 6d.
Bermondsey | 13 | 1 | 1 | | 1_s._ 4_d._ per day.
_Paid in Money (by Highway Boards)._ | | | | |
St. James’s, Clerkenwell (1st Division) | 5 | | | | 15
Islington | 7 | 1 | | 1 | 15
Commercial Road East | 4 | 1 | 1 | | 15
Hampstead | 4 | | | 1 | 15
Highgate | 3 | 2 | | 1 | 14
Kensington | 6 | 1 | | 1 | 12
Lewisham | 4 | | | 1 | 12
Camberwell | 10 | | | 1 | 12
Christchurch, Lambeth | 6 | | | 1 | 12
Woolwich | 5 | | | 1 | 12
Deptford | 4 | | | 1 | 9
_Paid partly in kind._ | | | | |
St. Luke’s, Chelsea | 27 | 9 | | 3 | 7_s._, and on an average
| | | | | 3 loaves each,
| | | | | at 4d. a loaf.
Hans-town „ | 6 | | | 1 | 7_s._, and average 3
| | | | | loaves per head.
St. James’s, Clerkenwell | 6 | | | |1_s._ 1-1/2_d._ a day, and
| | | | | 1 quartern loaf.
_Paid wholly in kind._ | | | | |
St. Pancras (Highways) | | 10 | 1 | | estimated expense
| | | | | of food, 2_s._ 4_d._
| | | | | weekly.
-----------------------------------------+------------+------------+---------------+------------+--------------------------
Total | 400 | 66 | 8 | 62 |
-----------------------------------------+------------+------------+---------------+------------+--------------------------
--------------------+--------------------+-------------+------------+------------+-----------------
| | | Number of | Number of | Total annual
Daily or weekly | Weekly wages | Weekly wages| hours per | days in the| wages of
wages of the | of the |of Foremen or| day each | week each | the whole,
single | Superintendents | Gangers | parish-man | parish-man | including the
parish-men. | employed by | employed by | is employed| is employed| estimated
| parishes. | parishes. |to sweep the| in sweeping| value of food
| | | streets. |the streets.| and clothes.
--------------------+--------------------+-------------+------------|------------+-----------------
_s._ | _s._ | _s._ | | | £. _s._ _d._
15 | 30_s._ and a house | 18 | 10 | 6 | 456 16 0
| to live in. | | | |
14 | | 18 | 12 | 6 | 899 12 0
| | | | |
| 20 | 18 | 10 | 6 | 1456 0 0
| | 18 | 10 | 6 | 967 4 0
15 | | | 12 | 6 | 195 0 0
| | 16 | 10 | 6 | 187 4 0
| | 18 | 10 | 6 | 234 0 0
10 | | 18 | 10 | 6 | 665 12 0
10 | 20 | 15 | 12 | 6 | 509 12 0
12 | | 18 | 12 | 6 | 936 0 0
| | 18 | 12 | 6 | 93 12 0
11 | | 15 | 10 | 6 | 267 16 0
11 | | 13 | 12 | 6 | 234 0 0
| | 12 | 10 | 6 | 187 4 0
| | 12 | 10 | 6 | 187 4 0
| | 12 | 10 | 6 | 166 12 0
| 15 | 12 | 10 | 6 | 304 4 0
9 | 18 | 16 | 10 | 6 | 2685 16 0
9_s._ a week. | 20 | 16 | 10 | 6 | 1060 16 0
| | | 10 | 6 | 19 10 0
1_s._ 4_d._ per day.|28_s._ and clothing.| | 10 | 5 | 321 3 4
| | | | |
| | | 10 | 6 | 195 0 0
15 | | 18 | 10 | 6 | 405 0 0
15 | 100_l._ a year. | | 12 | 6 | 295 0 0
| | 18 | 10 | 6 | 202 10 0
14 | | 18 | 10 | 6 | 228 16 0
12 | | 18 | 12 | 6 | 265 4 0
| | 18 | 10 | 6 | 171 12 0
| | 18 | 12 | 6 | 358 16 0
| | 15 | 10 | 6 | 226 4 0
| | 18 | 10 | 6 | 202 16 0
| | 18 | 10 | 3 | 140 8 0
| | | | |
7 | | 14 | 10 | 6 | 834 12 0
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | 14 | 10 | 6 | 161 4 0
| | | | |
| | | 10 | 3 | 70 4 0
| | | | |
| | | | |
| 21_s._ and food. | | 8 | 4 | 128 5 4
| | | | |
| | | | |
--------------------+--------------------+-------------+------------+------------+-----------------
| | | | |15,919 8 8
--------------------+--------------------+-------------|------------+------------+-----------------
From a married man employed by the parish under this mode, I had the
following account.
He was an intelligent-looking man, of about 35, but with nothing very
particular in his appearance unless it were a head of very curly hair.
He gave me the statement in his own room, which was larger than I have
usually found such abodes, and would have been very bare, but that it
was somewhat littered with the vessels of his trade as a street-seller
of Nectar, Persian Sherbet, Raspberryade, and other decoctions of
coloured ginger-beer, with high-sounding names and indifferent flavour:
in the summer he said he could live better thereby, with a little
costering, than by street-sweeping, but being often a sickly man he
could not do so during the uncertainties of a winter street trade. His
wife, a decent looking woman, was present occasionally, suckling one
child, about two years old--for the poor often protract the weaning of
their children, as the mother’s nutriment is the _cheapest_ of all food
for the infant, and as the means of postponing the further increase of
their family--whilst another of five or six years of age sat on a bench
by her side. There was nothing on the walls in the way of an ornament,
as I have seen in some of the rooms of the poor, for the couple had
once been in the workhouse, and might be driven there again, and with
such apprehensions did not care, perhaps, to make a home otherwise than
they found it, even if the consumption of only a little spare time were
involved.