Nightwork, by the provisions of the Police Act, is not to be commenced
before twelve at night, nor continued beyond five in the morning,
winter and summer alike. This regulation is known among the nightmen
as the “legal hours,” and tends, in a measure, to account for the
heterogeneous class of labourers who still seek nightwork; for
strong men think little of devoting a part of the night, as well
as the working hours of the day, to toil. A rubbish-carter, a very
powerfully-built man, told me he was partial to nightwork, and always
looked out for it, even when in daily employ, as “it was sometimes like
found money.” The scavengers, sweeps, dustmen, and labourers known as
ground-workers, are anxious to obtain night-work when out of regular
employment; and, ten years and more since, it was often an available
and remunerative resource.
Night-work is, then, essentially, and perhaps necessarily,
extra-work, rather than a distinct calling followed by a separate
class of workers. The generality of nightmen are scavengers, or
dustmen, or chimney-sweepers, or rubbish-carters, or pipe-layers,
or ground-workers, or coal-porters, carmen or stablemen, or men
working for the market-gardeners round London--all either in or out
of employment. Perhaps there is not at the present time in the whole
metropolis a working nightman who is _solely_ a working nightman.
It is almost the same with the master-nightmen. They are generally
master-chimney-sweepers, scavengers, rubbish-carters, and builders.
Some of the contractors for the public street scavengery, and the
house-dust-bin emptying, are (or have been) among the largest employers
of nightmen, but only in their individual trading capacity, for
they have no contracts with the parishes concerning the emptying
of cesspools; indeed the parish or district corporations have
nothing to do with the matter. I have already shown, that among the
best-patronised master-nightmen are now the Commissioners of the Court
of Sewers.
For how long a period the master and working chimney-sweepers and
scavengers have been the master and labouring nightmen I am unable to
discover, but it may be reasonable to assume that this connexion, as a
matter of trade, existed in the metropolis at the commencement of the
eighteenth century.
The police of Paris, as I have shown, have full control over cesspool
cleansing, but the police of London are instructed merely to prevent
night-work being carried on at a later or earlier period than “the
legal hours;” still a few minutes either way are not regarded, and the
legal hours, I am told, are almost always adhered to.
Nightwork is carried on--and has been so carried on, within the memory
of the oldest men in the trade, who had never heard their predecessors
speak of any other system--after this method:--A gang of four men
(exclusive of those who have the care of the horses, and who drive
the night-carts to and from the scenes of the men’s labours at the
cesspools) are set to work. The labour of the gang is divided, though
not with any individual or especial strictness, as follows:--