“I could refer to the screwing down of other things by the government
authorities, but the above will be sufficient to show _how cruelly the
workpeople employed in making up this clothing are oppressed; and some
of the men will tell you they are tired of life. Last week I found one
man making a country police coat, who said his wife and child were out
begging_.”
* * * * *
The last mentioned of the several modes of cheapening labour is the
“_small-master system_” of work, that is to say, the operatives taking
to make up materials on their own account rather than for capitalist
employers. In every trade where there are _small_ masters, trades into
which it requires but little capital to embark, there is certain to be
a cheapening of labour. Such a man works himself, and to get work, to
meet the exigences of the rent and the demands of the collectors of the
parliamentary and parochial taxes, he will often underwork the very
journeymen whom he occasionally employs, doing “the job” in such cases
with the assistance of his family and apprentices, at a less rate of
profit than the amount of journeymen’s wages.
Concerning these garret masters I said, when treating of the Cabinet
trade, in the _Chronicle_, “The cause of the extraordinary decline of
wages in the Cabinet trade (even though the hands decreased and the
work increased to an unprecedented extent) will be found to consist
in the increase that has taken place within the last 20 years of what
are called ‘garret masters’ in the cabinet trade. These garret masters
are a class of small ‘trade-working masters,’ the same as the ‘chamber
masters’ in the shoe trade, supplying both capital and labour. They are
in manufacture what ‘the peasant proprietors’ are in agriculture--their
own employers and their own workmen. There is, however, this one marked
distinction between the two classes--the garret master cannot, like
the peasant proprietor, _eat_ what he produces; the consequence is,
that he is obliged to convert each article into food immediately he
manufactures it--no matter what the state of the market may be. The
capital of the garret master being generally sufficient to find him in
materials for the manufacture of only one article at a time, and his
savings being but barely enough for his subsistence while he is engaged
in putting those materials together, he is compelled, the moment the
work is completed, to part with it for whatever he can get. He cannot
afford to keep it even a day, for to do so is generally to remain a
day unfed. Hence, if the market be at all slack, he has to force a
sale by offering his goods at the lowest possible price. What wonder,
then, that the necessities of such a class of individuals should have
created a special race of employers, known by the significant name of
‘slaughter-house men’--or that these, being aware of the inability
of the ‘garret masters’ to hold out against any offer, no matter how
slight a remuneration it affords for their labour, should continually
lower and lower their prices, until the entire body of the competitive
portion of the cabinet trade is sunk in utter destitution and misery?
Moreover, it is well known how strong is the stimulus among peasant
proprietors, or, indeed, any class working for themselves, to extra
production. So it is, indeed, with the garret masters; their industry
is almost incessant, and hence a greater quantity of work is turned
out by them, and continually forced into the market, than there would
otherwise be. What though there be a brisk and a slack season in the
cabinet-maker’s trade as in the majority of others?--slack or brisk,
the garret masters must produce the same excessive quantity of goods.
In the hope of extricating himself from his overwhelming poverty, he
toils on, producing more and more--and yet the more he produces the
more hopeless does his position become; for the greater the stock that
he thrusts into the market, the lower does the price of his labour
fall, until at last, he and his whole family work for less than half
what he himself could earn a few years back by his own unaided labour.”
The small-master system of work leads, like the domestic system, with
which, indeed, it is intimately connected, to the employment of
wives, children, and apprentices, as a means of assistance and extra
production--for as the prices decline so do the small masters strive by
further labour to compensate for their loss of income.
* * * * *
Such, then, are the several modes of work by which labour is cheapened.
There are, as we have seen, but two ways of _directly_ effecting this,
viz., first by making men do more work for the same pay, and secondly,
by making them do the same work for less pay. The way in which men are
made to do more, it has been pointed out, is, by causing them either to
work longer or quicker, or else by employing fewer hands in proportion
to the work; or engaging them only for such time as their services are
required, and discharging them immediately afterwards. These constitute
the several modes of economizing labour, which lowers the rate of
remuneration (the ratio of the pay to the work) rather than the pay
itself. The several means by which this result is attained are termed
“systems of work, production, or engagement,” and such are those above
detailed.
Now it is a necessity of these several systems, though the actual
amount of remuneration is not directly reduced by them, that a cheaper
labour should be obtained for carrying them out. Thus, in contract
or lump work, perhaps, the price may not be immediately lowered; the
saving to the employer consisting chiefly in supervision, he having in
such a case only one man to look to instead of perhaps a hundred. The
contractor, or lumper, however, is differently situated; he, in order
to reap any benefit from the contract, must, since he cannot do the
whole work himself, employ others to help him, and to reap any benefit
from the contract, this of course must be done at a lower price than he
himself receives; so it is with the middleman system, where a profit
is derived from the labour of other operatives; so, again, with the
domestic system of work, where the several members of the family, or
cheaper labourers, are generally employed as assistants; and even so is
it with the small-master system, where the labour of apprentices and
wives and children is the principal means of help. Hence the operatives
adopting these several systems of work are rather the instruments by
which cheap labour is obtained than the cheap labourers themselves. It
is true that a sweater, a chamber master, or garret master, a lumper or
contractor, or a home worker, generally works cheaper than the ordinary
operatives, but this he does chiefly by the cheap labourers he employs,
and then, finding that he is able to underwork the rest of the trade,
and that the more hands he employs the greater becomes his profit, he
offers to do work at less than the usual rate. It is not a necessity
of the system that the middleman operative, the domestic worker, the
lumper, or garret master should be himself underpaid, but simply
that he should employ others who are so, and it is thus that such
systems of work tend to cheapen the labour of those trades in which
they are found to prevail. Who, then, are the cheap labourers?--who
the individuals, by means of whose services the sweater, the smaller
master, the lumper, and others, is enabled to underwork the rest of his
trade?--what the general characteristics of those who, in the majority
of handicrafts, are found ready to do the same work for less pay, and
how are these usually distinguished from such as obtain the higher rate
of remuneration?
_The cheap workmen_ in all trades, I find, are divisible into three
classes:--
1. The unskilful.
2. The untrustworthy.
3. The inexpensive.
First, as regards the _unskilful_. Long ago it has been noticed
how frequently boys were put to trades to which their tastes and
temperaments were antagonistic. Gay, who in his quiet, unpretending
style often elicited a truth, tells how a century and a half ago the
generality of parents never considered for what business a boy was best
adapted--
“But ev’n in infancy decree
What this or t’ other son shall be.”
A boy thus brought up to a craft for which he entertains a dislike
can hardly become a proficient in it. At the present time thousands
of parents are glad to have their sons reared to _any_ business which
their means or opportunities place within their reach, even though
the lad be altogether unsuited to the craft. The consequence is, that
these boys often grow up to be unskilful workmen. There are technical
terms for them in different trades, but perhaps the generic appellation
is “muffs.” Such workmen, however well conducted, can rarely obtain
employment in a good shop at good wages, and are compelled, therefore,
to accept second, third, and fourth-rate wages, and are often driven to
slop work.
Other causes may be cited as tending to form unskilful workmen:
the neglect of masters or foremen, or their incapacity to teach
apprentices; irregular habits in the learner; and insufficient practice
during a master’s paucity of employment. I am assured, moreover, that
hundreds of mechanics yearly come to London _from the country parts_,
whose skill is altogether inadequate to the demands of the “honourable
trade.” Of course, during the finishing of their education they can
only work for inferior shops at inferior wages; hence another cause of
cheap labour. Of this I will cite an instance: a bootmaker, who for
years had worked for first-rate West-end shops, told me that when he
came to London from a country town he was sanguine of success, because
he knew that he was a _ready_ man (a quick workman.) He very soon
found out, however, he said, that as he aspired to do the best work,
he “had his business to learn all over again;” and until he attained
the requisite skill, he worked for “just what he could get:” he was a
cheap, because then an unskilful, labourer.
There is, moreover, the cheaper labour of _apprentices_, the great prop
of many a slop-trader; for as such traders disregard all the niceties
of work, as they disregard also the solidity and perfect finish of any
work (finishing it, as it was once described to me, “just to the eye”),
a lad is soon made useful, and his labour remunerative to his master,
as far as slop remuneration goes, which, though small in a small
business, is wealth in a “monster business.”
There are, again, the “_improvers_.” These are the most frequent in the
dress-making and millinery business, as young women find it impossible
to form a good connection among a wealthier class of ladies in any
country town, unless the “patronesses” are satisfied that their skill
and taste have been perfected in London. In my inquiry (in the course
of two letters in the _Morning Chronicle_) into the condition of the
workwomen in this calling, I was told by a retired dressmaker, who had
for upwards of twenty years carried on business in the neighbourhood
of Grosvenor-square, that she had sometimes met with “improvers” so
tasteful and quick, from a good provincial tuition, that they had
really little or nothing to learn in London. And yet their services
were secured for one, and oftener for two years, merely for board and
lodging, while others employed in the same establishment had not only
board and lodging, but handsome salaries. The improver’s, then, is
generally a cheap labour, and often a very cheap labour too. The same
form of cheap labour prevails in the carpenter’s trade.
There is, moreover, the labour of _old men_. A tailor, for instance,
who may have executed the most skilled work of his craft, in his
old age, or before the period of old age, finds his eyesight fail
him,--finds his tremulous fingers have not a full and rapid mastery
of the needle, and he then labours, at greatly reduced rates of
payment, on the making of soldiers’ clothing--“sanc-work,”[56] as it is
called--or on any ill-paid and therefore ill-wrought labour.
The inferior, as regards the quality of the work, and under-paid class
of _women_, in tailoring, for example, again, cheapen labour. It is
cheapened, also, by the employment of _Irishmen_ (in, perhaps, all
branches of skilled or unskilled labour), and of _foreigners_, more
especially of Poles, who are inferior workmen to the English, and who
will work _very_ cheap, thus supplying a low-price labour to those who
seek it.
I may remark further, that if a first-rate workman be driven to slop
work, he soon loses his skill; he can only work slop; this has been
shown over and over again, and so _his_ labour becomes cheap in the
mart.
* * * * *
2. Of _Untrustworthy Labour_ (as a cause of cheap labour) I need not
say much. It is obvious that a drunken, idle, or dishonest workman or
workwoman, when pressed by want, will and must labour, not for the
recompense the labour merits, but for whatever pittance an employer
will accord. There is no reliance to be placed in him. Such a man
cannot “hold out” for terms, for he is perhaps starving, and it is
known that “he cannot be depended upon.” In the sweep’s trade many of
those who work at a lower rate than the rest of the trade are men who
have lost their regular work by dishonesty.
* * * * *
3. The _Inexpensive class_ of workpeople are very numerous. They
consist of three sub-divisions:--
(_a._) Those who have been accustomed to a coarser kind of diet, and
who, consequently, requiring less, can afford to work for less.
(_b._) Those who derive their subsistence from other sources, and who,
consequently, do not live by their labour.
(_c._) Those who are in receipt of certain “aids to their wages,” or
who have other means of living beside their work.
Of course these causes can alone have influence where the wages are
_minimized_ or reduced to the lowest ebb of subsistence, in which case
they become so many means of driving down the price of labour still
lower.
_a._ Those who, being what is designated hard-reared that is to say,
accustomed to a scantier or coarser diet, and who, therefore, “can do”
with a less quantity or less expensive quality of food than the average
run of labourers, can of course live at a lower cost, and so _afford_
to work at a lower rate. Among such (unskilled) labourers are the
peasants from many of the counties, who seek to amend their condition
by obtaining employment in the towns. I will instance the agricultural
labourers of Dorsetshire.
“Bread and potatoes,” writes Mr. Thornton, in his work on
Over-Population and its Remedy, p. 21, “do really form the staple of
their food. As for meat, most of them would not know its taste, if,
once or twice _in the course of their lives_,--on the squire’s having
a son and heir born to him, or on the young gentleman’s coming of
age,--they were not regaled with a dinner of what the newspapers call
‘old English fare.’ Some of them contrive to have a little bacon, in
the proportion, it seems, of _half a pound a week to a dozen persons_,
but they more commonly use fat to give the potatoes a relish; and, as
one of them said to Mr. Austin (a commissioner), ‘they don’t _always_
go without cheese.’”
With many poor Irishmen the rearing has been still harder. I had some
conversation with an Irish rubbish-carter, who had been thrown out
of work (and was entitled to no allowance from any trade society) in
consequence of a strike by Mr. Myers’s men. On my asking him how he
subsisted in Ireland, “Will, thin, sir,” he said, “and it’s God’s
truth, I once lived for days on green things I picked up by the road
side, and the turnips, and that sort of mate I stole from the fields.
It was called staling, but it was the hunger, ’deed was it. That was in
the county Limerick, sir, in the famine and ’viction times; and, glory
be to God, I ’scaped when others didn’t.”
I may observe that the chief local paper, the _Limerick and Clare
Examiner_, published twice a week, gave, twice a week, at the period of
“the famine and evictions,” statements similar to that of my informant.
Now, would not a poor man, reared as the Limerick peasant I
have spoken of, who was actually driven to eat the grass, which
biblical history shows was once a signal punishment to a great
offender--would not such a man work for the veriest dole, rather than
again be subjected to the pangs of hunger? In my inquiries among the
costermongers, one of them said of the Irish in his trade, and without
any bitterness, “they’ll work for nothing, and live on less.” The
meaning is obvious enough, although the assertion is, of course, a
contradiction in itself.
“This department of labour,” says Mr. Baines, in his History of the
Hand-Loom Weavers, is “greatly overstocked, and the price necessarily
falls. The evil is aggravated by the multitudes of Irish who have
flocked into Lancashire, some of whom, having been linen weavers,
naturally resort to the loom, and others learn to weave as the easiest
employment they can adopt. Accustomed to a wretched mode of living in
their own country, they are contented with wages that would starve an
English labourer. They have, in fact, so lowered the _rate_ of wages as
to drive many of the English out of the employment, and to drag down
those who remain in it to their own level.”
_b._ Those who derive their subsistence from other sources can, of
course, afford to work cheaper than those who have to live by their
labour. To this class belongs the labour of wives and children, who,
being supposed to be maintained by the toil of the husband, are never
paid “living wages” for what they do; and hence the misery of the
great mass of needlewomen, widows, unmarried and friendless females,
and the like, who, having none to assist them, are forced to starve
upon the pittance they receive for their work. The labour of those who
are in prisons, workhouses, and asylums, and who consequently have
their subsistence found them in such places, as well as the work of
prostitutes, who obtain their living by other means than work, all come
under the category of those who can afford to labour at a lower rate
than such as are condemned to toil for an honest living. It is the same
with apprentices and “improvers,” for whose labour the instruction
received is generally considered to be either a sufficient or partial
recompense, and who consequently look to other means for their support.
Under the same head, too, may be cited the labour of amateurs, that
is to say, of persons who either are not, or who are too proud to
acknowledge themselves, regular members of the trade at which they
work. Such is the case with very many of the daughters of tradesmen,
and of many who are considered _genteel_ people. These young women,
residing with their parents, and often in comfortable homes, at no cost
to themselves, will, and do, undersell the regular needlewomen; the one
works merely for pocket-money (often to possess herself of some article
of finery), while the other works for what is called “the bare life.”
_c._ The last-mentioned class, or those who are in possession of what
may be called “aids to wages,” are differently circumstanced. Such are
the men who have other employment besides that for which they accept
less than the ordinary pay, as is the case with those who attend at
gentlemen’s houses for one or two hours every morning, cleaning boots,
brushing clothes, &c., and who, having the remainder of the day at
their own disposal, can afford to work at any calling cheaper than
others, because not solely dependent upon it for their living.
The army and navy pensioners (non-commissioned officers and privates)
were, at one period, on the disbanding of the militia and other forces,
a very numerous body, but it was chiefly the military pensioners
whose position had an effect upon the labour of the country. The
naval pensioners found employment as fishermen, or in some avocation
connected with the sea. The military pensioners, however, were men
who, after a career of soldiership, were not generally disposed to
settle down into the drudgery of regular work, even if it were in
their power to do so; and so, as they always had their pensions
to depend upon, they were a sort of universal jobbers, and jobbed
cheaply. At the present time, however, this means of cheap labour is
greatly restricted, compared with what was the case, the number of the
pensioners being considerably diminished. Many of the army pensioners
turn the wheels for turners at present.
The allotment of gardens, which yield a partial support to the
allottee, are another means of cheap labour. The allotment demands a
certain portion of time, but is by no means a thorough employment,
but merely an “aid,” and consequently a _means_, to low wages. Such a
man has the advantage of obtaining his potatoes and vegetables at the
cheapest rate, and so can afford to work cheaper than other men of his
class. It was the same formerly with those who received “relief” under
the old Poor-Law.
And even under the present system it has been found that the same
practice is attended with the same result. In the Sixth Annual Report
of the Poor-Law Commissioners, 1840, at p. 31, there are the following
remarks on the subject:--
“Whilst upon the subject of relief to widows in aid of wages, we must
not omit to bring under your Lordship’s notice an illustration of the
_depressing effect_ which is produced by the practice of giving relief
in aid of wages to widows upon the earnings of females. Colonel A’Court
states:--
“‘As regards females, the instance to which I have alluded presents
itself in the Portsea Island Union, where, from the insufficiency of
workhouse accommodation, as well as from benevolent feelings, small
allowances of 1_s._ 6_d._ or 2_s._ a week are given to widows with
or without small children, or to married women deserted by their
husbands. _Having this certain income, however small, they are enabled
to work at lower wages than those who do not possess this advantage._
The consequence is, that competition has enabled the shirt and stay
manufacturers, who abound in the Union, and who furnish in great
measure the London as well as many foreign markets with these articles
of their trade, to get their work done at the extraordinary low prices
of--stays, complete, 9_d._; shirts, from 1_s._ to 1_s._ 6_d._ per dozen.
“‘The women all declare that they cannot possibly, after working from
twelve to fifteen hours per day, earn more than 1_s._ 6_d._ per week.
The manufacturers assert that, by steady work, 4_s._ to 6_s._ a week
may be earned under ordinary circumstances.
“‘In the meantime _the demand for workwomen increases_, and it is by no
means unusual to see hand-bills posted over the town requiring from 500
to 1000 additional stitchers.’”
Such, then, is the character of the cheap workers in all trades; go
where we will, we shall find the low-priced labour of the trade to
consist of either one or other of the three classes above-mentioned;
while the _means_ by which this labour is brought into operation will
be generally by one of the “systems of work” before specified.
* * * * *
The cheap labour of the rubbish-carters’ trade appears to be a
consequence of two distinct antecedents, viz., casual labour and
the prevalence of the contract system among builder’s work. The
small-master system also appears to have some influence upon it.
First as regards the influence of casual labour in reducing the
ordinary rate of wages.
The tables given at p. 290, vol. ii., showing the wages paid to the
rubbish-carters, present what appears, and indeed is, a strange
discrepancy of payment to the labourers in rubbish-carting. About
three-fourths of the rubbish-carters throughout London receive 18_s._
weekly, when in work; in Hampstead, however, the rate of their wages
is (uniformly) 20_s._ a week; in Lambeth (but less uniformly), it is
19_s._; in Wandsworth, 17_s._; in Islington, 16_s._; and in Greenwich,
14_s._ and 12_s._ The character of the work, whether executed for
12_s._ or 20_s._ weekly, is the same; why, then, can a rubbish-carter,
who works at Hampstead, earn 8_s._ a week more than one who works at
Greenwich? An employer of rubbish-carters, and of similar labourers,
on a large scale, a gentleman thoroughly conversant with the subject
in all its industrial bearings, accounts for the discrepancy in this
manner:--
After the corn and the hop-harvests have terminated, there is always an
influx of unskilled labourers into Gravesend, Woolwich, and Greenwich.
These are the men who, from the natural bent of their dispositions, or
from the necessity of their circumstances, resort to the casual labour
afforded by the revolution of the seasons, when to gather the crops
before the weather may render the harvest precarious and its produce
unsound, is a matter of paramount necessity, and the increase of hands
employed during this season is, as a consequence, proportionately
great. The chief scene of such labour in the neighbourhood of the
metropolis, is in the county of Kent; and on the cessation of this
work, of course there is a large amount of labour “turned adrift,”
to seek, the next few days, for any casual employment that may “turn
up.” In this way, I am assured, a large amount of cheap and unskilled
labour is being constantly placed at the command of those masters who,
so to speak, occupy the line of march to London, and are, therefore,
first applied to for employment by casual labourers; who, when engaged,
are employed as inferior, or unskilful, workmen, at an inferior rate of
remuneration. Greenwich may be looked upon as the first stage or halt
for casual labourers, on their way to London.
My informant assured me, as the result of his own observations, that
an English labourer would, as a general rule, execute more work by
one-sixth, in a week, than an Irish labourer (a large proportion of
the casual hands are Irish); that is, the extent of work which would
occupy the Irishman six, would occupy the Englishman but five days,
were it so calculated. The Englishman was, however, usually more
skilled and persevering, and far more to be depended upon. So different
was the amount of work, even in rubbish-carting, between an able and
experienced hand and one unused to the toil, or one inadequate from
want of alertness or bodily strength, or any other cause, to its full
and quick execution, that two “good” men in a week have done as much
work as three indifferent hands. Thus two men at 18_s._ weekly each are
as cheap (only employers cannot always see it), when they are thorough
masters of their business, as three unready hands at 12_s._ a week
each. The misfortune, however, is, that the 12_s._ a week men have a
tendency to reduce the 16_s._ to their level.
With regard to the difference between the wages of Hampstead and
Greenwich, I am informed that stationary working rubbish-carters
are not too numerous in Hampstead, which is considered as rather
“out of the way;” and as that metropolitan suburb is surrounded in
every direction by pasture-land and wood-land, it is not in the
line of resort of the class of men who seek the casual labour in
harvesting, &c., of which I have spoken; it is rarely visited by them,
and consequently, the regular hands are less interfered with than
elsewhere, and wages have not been deteriorated.
The mode of work among the scurf labourers differs somewhat from
that of the honourable part of the trade; the work executed by the
scurf masters being for the most part on a more limited scale than
that of the others. To meet the demands of builders or of employers
generally, when “time” is an object, demands the use of relays of men,
and of strong horses. This demand the smaller or scurf master cannot
always meet. He may find men, but not always horses and carts, and
he will often enough undertake work beyond his means and endeavour
to aggrandise his profits by screwing his labourers. The _hours of
scurf-employed labour_ are nominally the same as the regular trade, but
as an Irish carter said, “it’s ralely the hours the masther plases, and
they’re often as long as it’s light.” The _scurf labourer is often paid
by the day_, with “a day’s hire, and no notice beyond.” I am informed
that scurf labourers generally work an hour a day, without extra
remuneration, longer than those in the honourable trade.
The rubbish-carters employed by the scurf masters are not, as a body, I
am assured, so badly paid as they were a few years back. It is rarely
that labouring men can advance any feasible reason for the changes in
their trade.
_One of the main causes of the deteriorated wages_ of the
rubbish-carters is the system of contracting and subletting. This,
however, is but a branch of the ramified system of subletting in the
construction of the “scamped” houses of the speculative builders. The
building of such houses is sublet, literally from cellar to chimney.
The rubbish-carting may be contracted for at a certain sum. The
contractor may sublet it to men who will do it for one-fourth less
perhaps, and who may sublet the labour in their turn. For instance,
the calculation may be founded on the working men’s receiving 15_s._
weekly. A contractor, a man possessing a horse, perhaps, and a couple
of carts, and hiring another horse, will undertake it on the knowledge
of his being able to engage men at 12_s._ or 13_s._ weekly, and so
obtain a profit; indeed the reduction of price in such cases must all
come out of the labour.
This subletting, I say, is but a small part of a gigantic system,
and it is an unquestionable cause of the grinding down of the
rubbish-carters’ wages, and that by a class who have generally been
working men themselves, and risen to be the owners of one or two carts
and horses.
From one of these men, now a working carter, I had the following
account, which further illustrates the mode of labour as well as of
employment.
“I got a little a-head,” he stated, “from railway jobbing and such
like, and my father-in-law, as soon as I got married, made me a present
of 20_l._ unexpected. I started for myself, thinking to get on by
degrees, and get a fresh horse and cart every year. But it couldn’t be
done, sir. If I offered to take a contract to cart the rubbish and dig
it, a builder would say,--‘I can’t wait; you haven’t carts and horses
enough from your own account, and I can’t wait. If you have to hire
them I can do that myself.’ I was too honest, sir, in telling the plain
truth, or I might have got more jobs. It’s not a good trade in a small
way, for if your horses aren’t at work, they’re eating their heads off,
and you’re fretting your heart out. Then I got to do sub-contracting,
as you call it. No, it weren’t that, it was under-working. I’d go to
Mr. V---- as I knew, and say, ‘You’re on such a place, sir, have you
room for me?’ ‘I think not,’ he’d say, ‘I’ve only the regular thing
and no advantages--10_s._ 6_d._ for a day’s work, horse and cart, or
4_s._ a load.’ Those are the regular terms. Then I’d say, ‘Well, sir,
I’ll do it for 8_s._ 6_d._, and be my own carman;’ and so perhaps I’d
get the job, and masters often say: ‘I know I shall lose at 10_s._
6_d._, but if I don’t, you shall have something over.’ Get anything
over! Of course not, sir. I could have lived if I had constant work
for two horses and carts, for I would have got a cheap man; such as me
must get cheap men to drive the second cart, and under my own eye,
whenever I could; but one of my poor horses broke his leg, and had to
be sent to the knacker’s, and I sold the other and my carts, and have
worked ever since as a labouring man; mainly at pipe-work. O, yes, and
rubbish-carting. I get 18_s._ a week now, but not regular.
“Well, sir, I’m sure I can’t say, and I think no man could say, how
much there’s doing in sub-contracting. If I’m at work in Cannon-street,
I don’t know what’s doing at Notting-hill, or beyond Bow and Stratford.
No, I’m satisfied there’s not so much of it as there was, but it’s done
so on the sly; who knows how much is done still, or how little? It’s a
system as may be carried on a long time, and is carried on, as far as
men’s labour goes, but it’s different where there’s horses, and stable
rent. They can’t be screwed, or under-fed, beyond a certain pitch, or
they couldn’t work at all, and so there’s not as much under-work about
horse-labour.”
These small men are among the scurf and petty rubbish-carters, and are
often the means of depressing the class to which they have belonged.
The employment in the honourable trade at rubbish-carting would be
one of the best among unskilled labourers, were it continuous. But it
is not continuous, and three-fourths of those engaged in it have only
six months’ work at it in the year. In the scurf-masters’ employ, the
work is really “casual,” or, as I heard it quite as often described,
“chance.” In both departments of this trade, the men out of work look
for a job in scavagery, and very generally in night-work, or, indeed,
in any labour that offers. The Irish rubbish-carters will readily
become hawkers of apples, oranges, walnuts, and even nuts, when out of
employ, so working in concert with their wives. I heard of only four
instances of a similar resource by the English rubbish-carters.
What I have said of the education, religion, politics, concubinage,
&c., &c., of the better-paid rubbish-carters would have but to be
repeated, if I described those of the under-paid. The latter may be
more reckless when they have the means of enjoyment, but their diet,
amusements, and expenditure would be the same, were their means
commensurate. As it is, they sometimes live very barely and have hardly
any amusements at their command. Their dinners, when single men, are
often bread and a saveloy; when married, sometimes tea and bread and
butter, and occasionally some “block ornaments;” the Irish being the
principal consumers of cheap fish.
The labour of the wives of the rubbish-carters is far more frequently
that of char-women than of needle-women, for the great majority
of these women before their marriage were servant-maids. All the
information I received was concurrent in that respect. The wife of a
carman who keeps a chandler’s shop near the Edgeware-road, greatly
resorted to by the class to which her husband belonged, told me that
out of somewhere about 25 wives of rubbish-carters or similar workmen,
whom she knew, 20 had been domestic servants; what the others had been
she did not know.
“I can tell you, sir,” said the woman, “charing is far better than
needle-work; far. If a young woman has conducted herself well in
service, she can get charing, and then if she conducts herself well
again, she makes good friends. That’s, of course, if they’re honest,
sir. I know it from experience. My husband--before we were able to open
this shop--was in the hospital a long time, and I went out charing,
and did far better than a sister I have, who is a capital shirt-maker.
There’s broken victuals, sometimes, for your children. It’s a hard
world, sir, but there’s a many good people in it.”
One woman (before mentioned) earned not less than 5_s._ weekly in
superior shirt-making, as it was described to me, which was evidently
looked upon as a handsome remuneration for such toil. Another earned
3_s._ 6_d._; another 2_s._ 6_d._; and others, with uncertain employ,
2_s._, 1_s._ 6_d._, and in some weeks nothing. Needle-work, however,
is, I am informed, not the work of one-tenth of the rubbish-carters’
wives, whatever the earnings of the husband. From all I could learn,
too, the wives of the under-paid rubbish-carters earned more, by
from 10 to 20 per cent., than those of the better-paid. The earnings
of a charwoman in average employ, as regards the wives of the
rubbish-carters, is about 4_s._ weekly, without the exhausting toil of
the needle-woman, and with the advantage of sometimes receiving broken
meat, dripping, fat, &c., &c. The wives of the Irish labourers in this
trade are often all the year street-sellers, some of wash-leathers,
some of cabbage-nets, and some of fruit, clearing perhaps from 6_d._ to
9_d._ a day, if used to street-trading, as the majority of them are.
The under-paid labourers in this trade are chiefly poor Irishmen. The
Irish workmen in this branch of the trade have generally been brought
up “on the land,” as they call it, in their own country, and after the
sufferings of many of them during the famine, 12_s._ a week is regarded
as “a rise in the world.”
From one of this class I learned the following particulars. He seemed a
man of 26 or 28:--
“I was brought up on the land, sir,” he said, “not far from Cullin, in
the county Wexford. I lived with my father and mother, and shure we
were badly off. Shure, thin, we were. Father and mother--the Heavens be
their bed--died one soon after another, and some friends raised me the
manes to come to this country. Well, thin, indeed, sir, and I can’t say
how they raised them, God reward them. I got to Liverpool, and walked
to London, where I had some relations. I sold oranges in the strates
the first day I was in London. God help me, I was glad to do anything
to get a male’s mate. I’ve lived on 6_d._ a-day sometimes. I have
indeed. There was 2_d._ for the lodging, and 4_d._ for the mate, the
tay and bread and butter. Did I live harder than that in Ireland, your
honour? Well, thin, I have. I’ve lived on a dish of potatoes that might
cost a penny there, where things is bhutiful and chape. Not like this
country. No, no. I wouldn’t care to go back. I have no friends there
now. Thin I got ingaged by a man--yis, he was a rubbish-carter--to
help him to fill his cart, and then we shot it on some new garden
grounds, and had to shovel it about to make the grounds livil, afore
the top soil was put on, for the bhutiful flowers and the gravel walks.
Tim--yis, he was a counthryman of mine, but a Cor-rk man--said he’d
made a bad bargain, for he was bad off, and he only clared 4_d._ a
load, and he’d divide it wid me. We did six loads in a day, and I got
1_s._ every night for a wake. This was a rise. But one Sunday evening
I was standing talking with people as lived in the same coort, and
I tould how I was helping Tim. And two Englishmen came to find four
men as they wanted for work, and ould Ragin (Regan) tould them what I
was working for. And one of ’em said, I was ‘a b---- Irish fool,’ and
ould Ragin said so, and words came on, and thin there was a fight, and
the pelleece came, and thin the fight was harder. I was taken to the
station, and had a month. I had two black eyes next morning, but was
willin’ to forget and forgive. No, I’m not fond of fightin’. I’m a
paceable man, glory be to God, and I think I was put on. Oh, yis, and
indeed thin, your honour, it was a fair fight.”
I inquired of an English rubbish-carter as to these fair fights. He
knew nothing of the one in question, but had seen such fights. They
were usually among the Irish themselves, but sometimes Englishmen were
“drawn into them.” “Fair fights! sir,” he said, “why the Irishes don’t
stand up to you like men. They don’t fight like Christians, sir; not a
bit of it. They kick, and scratch, and bite, and tear, like devils, or
cats, or women. They’re soon settled if you can get an honest knock at
them, but it isn’t easy.”
“I sarved my month,” continued my Irish informant, “and it ain’t a bad
place at all, the prison. I tould the gintleman that had charge of us,
that I was a Roman Catholic, God be praised, and couldn’t go to his
prayers. ‘O very well, Pat,’ says he. And next day the praste came, and
we were shown in to him, and very angry he was, and said our conduc’
was a disgrace to religion, and to our counthry, and to him. Do I think
he was right, sir? God knows he was, or he wouldn’t have said so.
“I hadn’t been out of prison two hours before I was hired for a job, at
10_s._ a week. It was in the city, and I carried old bricks and rubbish
along planks, from the inside of a place as was pulled down; but the
outside, all but the roof, was standin’ until the windor frames, and
the door posts, and what other timbers there was, was sould. It was
dreadful hard work, carrying the basket of rubbish on your back to the
cart. The dust came through, and stuck to my neck, for I was wet all
over wid sweatin’ so. Every man was allowed a pint of beer a day, and
I thought nivver anything was so sweet. I don’t know who gave it. The
masther, I suppose. Will, thin, sir, I don’t know who was the masther;
it was John Riley as ingaged me, but _he’s_ no masther. Yis, thin,
and I’ve been workin’ that way ivver since. I’ve sometimes had 14_s._
a week, and sometimes 10_s._, and sometimes 12_s._ A man like me
must take what he can get, and I will take it. I’ve been out of work
sometimes, but not so much as some, for I’m young and strong. No, I
can’t save no money, and I have nothing just now to save it for. When
I’m out of work, I sell fruit in the streets.”
This statement, then, as regards the Irish labourers, shows the
quality of the class employed. The English labourers, working on the
same terms, are of the usual class of men so working,--broken-down
men, unable, or accounting themselves unable, to “do better,” and so
accepting any offer affording the means of their daily bread.