1. The _foreman_, whose duty is to “look over the men” (one such
over-looker being employed to about every 20 men), and who receives
15_s._ per week.
2. The _barrow-men_, or sweepers, consisting of men and boys; the
former receiving 12_s._ and the latter generally 7_s._ per week.
The _tools and implements_ used, and their cost, are as
follows:--wooden scoops, to throw up the slop, 1_s._ 2_d._ each (they
used to be made of iron, weighing 8 lbs. each, but the men then
complained that the weight “broke their arms”); shovel, 2_s._ 3_d._;
hoe and scraper, 1_s._ 3_d._; hand-broom, 8_d._; scavager’s broom,
1_s._ 2_d._; barrow, 12_s._; covered barrow, 24_s._
In the amount of his receipts, the street-orderly appears to a
disadvantage, as many of the “regular hands” of the contractors receive
16_s._ weekly, and he but 12_s._ The reason for this circumscribed
payment I have already alluded to--the deficiency of funds to carry out
the full purposes of the Association. Contrasted with the remuneration
of the great majority of the pauper scavagers, the street-orderly is
in a state of comparative comfort, for he receives nearly double as
much as the Guardians of the Poor of Chelsea and the Liberty of the
Rolls pay their labourers, and full 25 per cent. more than is paid
by Bermondsey, Deptford, Marylebone, St. James’s, Westminster, St.
George’s, Hanover-square, and St. Andrew’s, Holborn; and, I am assured,
it is the intention of the Council to pay the full rate of wages given
by the more respectable scavagers, viz., 16_s._ a week each man. _If
traders can do this, philanthropists, who require no profit, at least
should be equally liberal._ The labourer never can be benefited by
depreciating the ordinary wages of his trade; and I must in justice
confess, that there are scattered throughout the Report repeated
regrets that the funds of the Association will not admit of a higher
rate of wages being paid.
The street-orderly is not subjected to any fines or drawbacks, and
is paid always in money, every Saturday evening at the office of the
Association. In this respect, however, he does not differ from other
bodies of scavagers.
The usual mode of obtaining employment among the street-orderlies
is by personal application at the office of the Association in
Leicester-square; but sometimes letters, well-penned and well-worded,
are addressed to the president.
The daily number of applicants for employment is far from demonstrative
of that unbroken prosperity of the country, of which we hear so much.
On my inquiring into the number, I ascertained towards the end of
August, that, for the previous fortnight, during fine summer weather,
London being still full of the visitors to the Exhibition, on an
average 30 men, of nearly all conditions of life, applied personally
each day for work at street-sweeping, at 12_s._ a week. Certainly
this labour is not connected with the feeling of pauper degradation,
but it does not look well for the country that in twelve days 360
men should apply for such work. On the year’s average, I am assured,
there are 30 applications daily, but only ten new applicants, as men
call to solicit an engagement again and again. Thus in the year there
are _nine thousand, three hundred, and ninety_ applications, and 3130
individual applicants. In the course of one month last winter, there
were applications from 300 boys in Spitalfields alone, to be set to
work; and I am told, that had they been successful, 3000 lads would
have applied the next month.
When an application is made by any one recommended by subscribers, &c.,
to the Association, or where the case seems worthy of attention, the
names and addresses are entered in a book, with a slight sketch of the
circumstances of the person wishing to become a street-orderly, so that
inquiries may be made. I give a few of the more recent of these entries
and descriptions, which are really “histories in little”:--
“Thomas M’G----, aged 50, W-- L-- street, Chelsea Hospital, single man.
Taught a French and English school in Lyons, France. Driven out of
France at the Revolution of 1848. Penniless.
“Rich. M----, 13, C---- street, H---- garden, 42 years. Married. Can
read and write. Has been a seaman in the royal service ten years.
Chairmaker by trade. Has jobbed as a porter in Rochester, Kent.
“Phil. S----, 1, R-- L-- street, High Holborn. From Killarney, co.
Kerry. Bred a gardener. Fifteen years in constabulary force, for which
he has a character from Col. Macgregor, and received the compensation
of 50_l._, which he bestowed on his father and mother to keep them at
home. Nine months in England, viz., in Bristol, Bath, and London. Aged
35. Can read and write.
“Edw. C----, 79, M---- street, Hackney. Aged 27. Married.
Army-pensioner, 6_d._ a day. Can read and write. Recommended by Rev. T.
Gibson, rector of Hackney.
“Chas. J----, 11, D---- street, Chelsea. Aged 38. Gentleman’s servant.”
In my account of the “regular hands” employed by the contracting
scavagers, I have stated that the street-orderlies were a more
miscellaneous body, as they had not been reared in the same proportion
to street work. They are also, I may add, a better-conducted and
better-informed class than the general run of unskilled labourers, as
they know, before applying for street-orderly work, that inquiries are
made concerning them, and that men of reprobate character will not be
employed.
Many of those employed as orderlies have since returned to their
original employments; others have procured, and been recommended to,
superior situations in life to that of street-orderlies, by the Council
of the Association, but _no instance has occurred of any street-orderly
having returned back to his parish workhouse or stoneyard_. This
certainly looks well.
One street-orderly, I may add, is now a reputable school-master,
and has been so for some time; another is a clerk under similar
circumstances. Another is a good theoretical and practical musician,
having officiated as organist in churches and at concerts; he is also a
neat music copyist. Another tells of his correspondence with a bishop
on theological topics. Another, with a long and well-cultured beard,
has been a model for artists. One had 150_l._ left to him not long
ago, which was soon spent; his wife spent it, he said, and then he
quietly applied to be permitted to be again a street-orderly. Several
have got engagements as seamen, their original calling--indeed, I am
assured, that a few months of street-orderly labour is looked upon as
an excellent ordeal of character, after which the Association affirms
good behaviour on the part of the employed.
The subscribers to the funds not unfrequently recommend destitute
persons to the good offices of the Association, apart from their
employment as street-orderlies. Thus, it is only a few weeks ago,
that twelve Spanish refugees, none of them speaking English, were
recommended to the Association; one of them it was ultimately enabled
to establish as a waiter in an hotel resorted to by foreigners, another
as an interpreter, another as a gentleman’s servant, and another (with
a little boy, his son) in shoe-blacking in Leicester-square.
Thus among street-orderlies are to be found a great diversity of career
in life, and what may be called adventures.
One great advantage, however, which the orderly possesses over his
better paid brethren is in the greater probability of his “rising out
of the street.” This is very rarely the case with an ordinary scavager.
I now give the following account from one of the street-orderlies, a
tall, soldierly-looking man:--
“I’m 42 now,” he said, “and when I was a boy and a young man I was
employed in the _Times_ machine office, but got into a bit of a row--a
bit of a street quarrel and frolic, and was called on to pay 3_l._,
something about a street-lamp: that was out of the question; and
as I was taking a walk in the park, not just knowing what I’d best
do, I met a recruiting sergeant, and enlisted on a sudden--all on a
sudden--in the 16th Lancers. When I came to the standard, though, I was
found a little bit too short. Well, I was rather frolicsome in those
days, I confess, and perhaps _had rather a turn for a roving life_,
so when the sergeant said he’d take me to the East India Company’s
recruiting sergeant, I consented, and was accepted at once. I was
taken to Calcutta, and served under General Nott all through the
Affghan war. I was in the East India Company’s artillery, 4th company
and 2nd battalion. Why, yes, sir, I saw a little of what you may call
‘service.’ I was at the fighting at Candahar, Bowlinglen, Bowling-pass,
Clatigillsy, Ghuznee, and Caboul. The first real warm work I was in
was at Candahar. I’ve heard young soldiers say that they’ve gone into
action the first time as merry as they would go to a play. Don’t
believe them, sir. Old soldiers will tell you quite different. You
_must_ feel queer and serious the first time you’re in action: it’s
not fear--it’s nervousness. The crack of the muskets at the first fire
you hear in real hard earnest is uncommon startling; you see the flash
of the fire from the enemy’s line, but very little else. Indeed, oft
enough you see nothing but smoke, and hear nothing but balls whistling
every side of you. And then you get excited, just as if you were at
a hunt; but after a little service--I can speak for myself, at any
rate--you go into action as you go to your dinner.
[Illustration: THE ABLE-BODIED PAUPER STREET-SWEEPER.
[_From a Daguerreotype by_ BEARD.]]
“I served during the time when there was the Affghanistan retreat;
when the 44th was completely cut up, before any help could get up to
them. We suffered a good deal from want of sufficient food; but it
was nothing like so bad, at the very worst, as if you’re suffering in
London. In India, in that war time, if you suffered, you were along
with a number in just the same boat as yourself; and there’s always
something to hope for when you’re an army. It’s different if you’re
walking the streets of London by yourself--I felt it, sir, for a little
bit after my return--and if you haven’t a penny, you feel as if there
wasn’t a hope. If you have friends it may be different, but I had none.
It’s no comfort if you know hundreds are suffering as you are, for
you can’t help and cheer one another as soldiers can.
“Well, sir, as I’ve told you, I saw a good deal of service all through
that war. Indeed I served thirteen years and four months, and was then
discharged on account of ill health. If I’d served eight months longer
that would have been fourteen years, and I should have been entitled
to a pension. I believe my illness was caused by the hardships I went
through in the campaigns, fighting and killing men that I never saw
before, and until I was in India had never heard of, and that I had no
ill-will to; certainly not, why should I? they never did me any wrong.
But when it comes to war, if you can’t kill them they’ll kill you. When
I got back to London I applied at the East India House for a pension,
but was refused. I hadn’t served my time, though that wasn’t my fault.
“I then applied for work in the _Times_ machine office, and they
were kind enough to put me on. But I wasn’t master of the work, for
there was new machinery, wonderful machinery, and a many changes. So
I couldn’t be kept on, and was some time out of work, and very badly
off, as I’ve said before, and then I got work as a scavenger. O, I knew
nothing about sweeping before that. I’d never swept anything except
the snow in the north of India, which is quite a different sort of
thing to London dirt. But I very soon got into the way of it. I found
no difficulty about it, though some may pretend there is an art in it.
I had 15_s._ a week, and when I was no longer wanted I got employment
as a street-orderly. I never was married, and have only myself to
provide for. I’m satisfied that the street-orderly is far the best
plan for street-cleaning. Nothing else can touch it, in my opinion,
and I thought so before I was one of them, and I believe most working
scavengers think so now, though they mayn’t like to say so, for fear it
might go again their interest.
“Oh, yes, I’m sometimes questioned by gentlemen that may be passing in
the streets while I’m at work, all about our system. They generally
say, ‘and a very good system, too.’ One said once, ‘It shows that
scavengers can be decent men; they weren’t when I was first in London,
above 40 years ago.’ Well, I sometimes get the price of a pint of beer
given to me by gentlemen making inquiries, but very seldom.”
Until about eighteen months ago none but unmarried men were employed
by the Association, and these all resided in one locality, and under
one general superintendence or system. The boarding and lodging of the
men has, however, been discontinued about fifteen months; for I am
told it was found difficult to encourage industrial and self-reliant
pursuits in connection with public eleemosynary aid. Married men are
now employed, and all the street-orderlies reside at their own homes;
the adults, married or single, receiving 12_s._ a week each; the boys,
6_s._; while to each man is gratuitously supplied a blouse of blue
serge, costing 2_s._ 6_d._, and a glazed hat, costing the same amount.