THE OLD CANAL--THE ASH-WHEELERS--THE BRICK-LAYERS--RIVAL
FOREMEN--THE ROAD-WAGGON BUILDERS--THE WHEEL SHED--BOY
TURNERS--THE RUBBISH HEAP.
West of the workshop the yard is bounded by a canal that formerly
connected the railway town with the ancient borough town of Cricklade,
eight miles distant. But things are different now from what they were at
the time the cutting was made, for great changes have taken place during
the last half century in all matters pertaining to transport. Then the
long barges, drawn by horses, mules, and donkeys, and laden with corn,
stone, coal, timber, gravel, and other materials, proceeded regularly by
day and night, up and down the canal to their destinations--north to
Gloucester, west to Bristol, east to Abingdon, and thence to far-off
London. At that time, instead of being filled with mud, weeds, and
refuse, and overgrown with masses of rank vegetation--grasses, flags,
water-parsnip, and a score of other aquatic plants--the channel was
broad and free, and full of clear, limpid water. The cattle came to
drink in the meadows; there the clouds were mirrored, floating in fields
of azure. The fish leapt and played in the sunshine, making innumerable
rings on the surface, and the swallows skimmed swiftly along, dipping
now and then to snatch up a sweet mouthful to carry home to their young
in the nest under the eaves of the neighbouring cottage or shed.
Occasionally, too, a steamboat passed through the locks out beyond the
town and proceeded on its way to the Thames or Avon. The dredger plied
up and down to prevent the accumulation of mud and refuse, and the
towpaths and bridges were kept in good repair. The railway had not
everything its own way then. The fever of haste had not taken hold of
every part of the community, and a few, at least, could await the
arrival of the barges and so save a considerable sum in the conveyance
of their goods. But now all that is changed. Goods must be loaded,
whirled rapidly away and delivered in a few hours, for no one can wait.
The pace of the freight trains has been increased almost to express
speed. Every possible means that could be thought of have been devised
to facilitate transport, and the barges have disappeared from this
neighbourhood. Here and there at the wharves may still be seen a few
rotten old hulks, falling to pieces and embedded in the mud; the bridges
are shattered and dilapidated and the lock gates are broken. The
towpaths are overgrown with bushes and become almost impassable, and the
channel is blocked up.
The only person who benefits by the change is the botanist. He, from
time to time, may be seen busily engaged in grappling for rare specimens
of weeds and grasses, or the less learned student of wild flowers comes
to gather what treasures he may from the wilderness: the beautiful
flowering rush, golden iris, graceful water plantain, arrowhead, water
violet, figwort, skull-cap, gipsy wort, and celery-leaved crowfoot.
Formerly, too, the works derived a considerable quantity of water
through the canal, but that has long ceased to be. There is no water at
hand now, and supplies have had to be sought for among the Cotswold
Hills, at a great distance from the town. The engines at the old
pumping station, near the canal path, once so familiar a feature to
travellers that way, are silent now and will be heard there no more.
They, too, have become a thing of the past.
The factory premises extend along both banks of the canal and are
protected on the far side by a high wall, while that part nearest the
workshop is open to the water’s edge. On this side, first of all, is a
high platform, called the stage, which is used to load the ashes and
refuse, slag and clinkers from the furnaces and forges. This refuse is
wheeled out twice daily--at six in the morning and again in the evening
after the furnaces have been clinkered--by labourers, upon whom the duty
devolves. To remove the clinker properly and economically from the grate
of the furnace the fire must have been damped for a short while. This
allows the whitehot coals to cling together underneath, and they form a
kind of arch above the bars. When this has been accomplished the
furnaceman inserts a strong steel bar at the bottom, resting it upon the
“bridge,” and, with a heavy sledge, breaks the clinker, working along
from side to side. That is in a compact layer or mass, often six or
eight inches deep, considerably thicker in the corners, and it is very
tough while it is hot. After it has been thoroughly broken up, several
of the fire bars are removed together, beginning at one side, and the
heavy clinker drops through, spluttering and hissing, into the deep
boshes of water disposed underneath. If the fire has not been
sufficiently damped it is loose and hollow, and as soon as the bars are
removed the white-hot coals rush through into the water, raising clouds
of hot, blinding dust and dense volumes of steam.
Immediately the furnaceman, warned of the fall, springs backwards and
escapes from the pit, or, if he is tardy in his movements, he is caught
in the hot vapour and scalded severely. Sometimes the fall is very
sudden and he has no time to escape. Then his face and arms take the
full force of the rushing steam and he is certain to receive painful
injuries. When the operation of clinkering is over the men bring their
wheel-barrows and, with the aid of long-handled shovels, remove the
refuse from the pits and run it outside and upon the stage. This is hot
work, whenever it is performed; the men are always sure of a wet shirt
at the task. Whatever the weather may be, wet or fine, frost or snow,
they come to it stripped to the waist and quickly run their
wheel-barrows to and fro. If the rain should pelt in torrents it makes
little or no difference to them, they still go on with their work,
half-naked and bare-headed. Hardy and strong as they may be, this is
bound to affect their health, sooner or later. It is not an uncommon
thing to find one or other of them breaking down at an early age, a
physical wreck, unfit for further service.
The ash-wheelers belong to the same class as the coalies and are
sometimes identical with them. They are usually some of the strongest
men in the shed, new hands, perhaps, who have not yet earned for
themselves an installation into the ranks of the regular machine staff.
Sometimes, however, they have proved themselves smart with the shovel
and wheel-barrow and have been considered too serviceable to shift to
other employment, for, as it is well known that “the willing horse must
draw double,” so the workman who is willing to perform a hard duty
without murmuring and complaint is always imposed upon and forced to do
extra. The natural fool or the systematic skulker is pitied and
respected. Once his general conduct is understood he is taken for what
he is worth, and no more is expected of him. In time he is rewarded. He
may come to be a checker, a clerk, or an inspector; while the sterling
fellow, the hard worker, the “sticker,” as he is called, may stop and
work himself to death like a slave. Thus, deserving men, because they
have proved themselves adepts at the work, have been kept on the
ash-barrows for ten or twelve years, sweating their lives away for the
sum of eighteen shillings a week. Several, however, disgusted with the
business, have left the shed and gone back to work on the farms, in the
pure surroundings of the fields and villages. This branch of work has
recently been overhauled and estimated at the piece rate, and the wages
somewhat improved, though the amount of work to each man has been almost
doubled. The refuse and clinker from the furnaces are transported to
various parts and used for filling up hollows, and for the making of
banks and beds of yards and sidings.
Beyond the stage, lodged on the ground, are two old iron vans that were
formerly used in the goods traffic. They have no windows or lights of
any kind, merely a double door opening outwardly. These are the cabins
and stores of the bricklayers, and they contain cement, fireclay, and
firebricks for the furnaces and forges. A permanent staff of bricklayers
is kept in each department at the works to carry out whatever repairs
are necessary from time to time and to see to the construction and
renovation of the furnaces. If there is any building on a large scale
required, such as a new shed, stores, or offices, extra hands are put on
from the town and afterwards discharged when the work is done. This
procedure gives the officials an opportunity of selecting the best men,
so that it often happens that new hands, temporarily engaged, become
fixtures if they have shown exceptional skill at their trade and are
otherwise suitable. In that case some of the old hands must go, and it
needs not to be said that such an opportunity is welcomed by the
foreman, as it provides him with an excuse for removing undesirables
without being too much blamed himself.
The bricklayers are a distinct class and do not mingle well with the
other men at the works. Their having to do with bricks and mortar,
instead of with iron and steel, seems to exclude them from the general
hive, and the fact of their being dressed in canvas suits and overalls,
and smeared with cement and fireclay, instead of being blackened with
soot and oil, tends to emphasise the distinction. As with the rest of
the staff, they are recruited from all parts of the country, and some of
them have served a rural apprenticeship. In shrewdness and intelligence
they do not rank with the machinists; that is to say, they may be smart
at their trade, but they do not discover extraordinary faculties beyond
that. Perhaps the nature of their toil has something to do with it, for
that is at best a dull and uninspiring vocation. There is no magic
required in the setting together of bricks and mortar, and little
exertion of the intellect is needed in patching up old walls and
buildings. They are nevertheless very jealous of their craft, such as it
is, and deeply resent any intrusion into their ranks other than by the
gates of the usual apprenticeship. Occasionally it happens that a
bricklayer’s labourer, who has been for many years in attendance on his
mate, shows an aptitude for the work, so that the foreman, in a busy
period, is induced to equip him with the trowel. In that case he at once
becomes the subject of sneering criticism; whatever work he does is
condemned, and he is hated and shunned by his old mates and companions.
The foreman, too, takes advantage of his position and pays him less than
the trade rate of wages, so that, after all, he is really made to feel
that he is not a journeyman.
Very often, when there is no building to be done, the bricklayers must
turn their hands to other work, such as navvying, whitewashing,
painting, and so on, all which falls under their particular department.
Armed with pick and shovel, or pot and brush, they must dig foundations
and drains, or scale the walls and roof and cleanse or decorate the
shed. This is always productive of much grumbling and sarcastic comment,
but it is better than being suspended. On the whole the bricklayers have
a fairly comfortable billet at the works and they are not subject to
frequent loss of time through wet weather and other accidents, as are
their fellows of the town, though they do not receive as much in wages.
It is astonishing what a prodigious amount of work the labourers will
get through in a short time, and apparently with little exertion, when
they are digging out drains and foundations for new furnaces,
steam-hammers, or other machinery. These foundations are generally huge
pits, twelve or fifteen feet deep and double the size square. Stripped
to the waist in the heat of the workshop, and armed with the heavy graft
tool, with a stout iron plate fixed underneath their right foot, they
will dig for hours without resting and yet seem to be always fresh and
vigorous. Occasionally, as they throw up the solid clay, some workman of
the shed will steal along to examine the fossil remains, pebbles, and
flints, that were embedded in the earth, and slip back to his place at
the steam-hammer, preserving some relic or other for future examination.
The sturdy labourer, however, keeps digging out the clay and hurling it
up to the light. He knows nothing of geological data, theories and
opinions, and cares not to inquire. He is there to dig the pit and not
to trouble himself about the nature of soils and deposits, and though
you should talk to him ever so learnedly of old time submersions,
accretions, and formations, he only answers you with a blank stare or an
unsympathetic grin. His private opinion is that you are something of a
lunatic.
There is one among the bricklayers’ labourers that is remarkable. This
is the silent man, generally known as Herbert. The story goes that
Herbert was once in love and thought to take a wife. But the course of
true love did not run smooth in his case, and, in the end, the young
lady jilted Herbert. That is according to the story. It may or may not
have been true; perhaps Herbert could tell, but he is not at all
communicative. Whatever the circumstances were, they made a profound
impression upon Herbert’s mind and he has never been the same man since.
Now he does not speak to any except his near workmate, and only then to
answer the most necessary questions. It is useless for an outsider to
attempt to make him speak; he ignores all your attentions. To cause him
to smile would be akin to working a miracle. The set features never
relax. The eyes are vacant and expressionless, the mouth is firm and
stern, and the whole countenance rigid.
Yet Herbert is a fine-looking man. His features are regular--almost
classic--his face is bronzed with working out of doors, and he is a
picture of health. In height he is medium. His shoulders are broad and
square, his arms strong and muscular, and he has the endurance of an ox.
Would you tire Herbert? That is impossible. Whatever labour you set him
to do he performs it without a murmur. He does the work of three
ordinary men. Must he dig? He will dig, dig, dig, and throw up the huge
spits of heavy clay as high as his head, one might say for ever. Must he
wheel away the debris? He will pile up the wheel-barrow till it is
ready to break down under the weight, and trundle it off and up to the
stage without the slightest exertion and be back again in a breath. He
will lift enormous weights and strike tremendous blows with the sledge.
He is tireless in his use of the pick and shovel; in fact, whatever you
set Herbert to do he accomplishes it all in about a fifth of the time
ordinarily required for the purpose. He is the butt of his masters and
of his work-mates. Whatever uncommonly laborious task there is to be
done Herbert is the man to do it, and the more he does the more he must
do, though he does not know it, or if he does, he shows no indication of
the knowledge. Now and again the foreman stands by and watches him
approvingly, and this stimulates him to fresh efforts. He revels in the
work and, whatever he thinks about it all, he is still silent and
inexplicable.
This sort of thing is all right from the point of view of the foreman,
but it is very inconvenient and unfair to the other labourers who are
sane in their minds and mortal in their bodies, for everything they do
is adjudged according to the standard of this indefatigable Hercules.
The overseer, used to seeing him slaving endlessly, thinks light of the
others’ efforts, and imagines that they are not doing their share of the
toil, so uneven is the comparison of their labours. In reality, such a
man as Herbert is a danger and an enemy of his kind, though as he is
quite unconscious of his conduct and does it all with the best
intentions he must be forgiven. Such a one is more to be pitied than
blamed.
The foremen of the bricklayers are not bricklayers themselves, and never
have been, but were selected apparently without any consideration of
their specific abilities. This one was a shunter, another was a
carpenter, a third was a waggon-builder, and so on. Perhaps So-and-so
and So-and-so went to school together, or worked formerly in the same
shed; or consanguinity is the cause, for blood is thicker than water in
the factory, as elsewhere. Accordingly, it often comes about that the
most fitting person to take the responsible position is thrust aside at
the last moment for an utter stranger, one who has no knowledge whatever
of the work he is to supervise. With a certain amount of “pushfulness,”
however, and an extraordinary confidence in himself and his abilities,
the new man is able to make a pretence of knowledge and, somehow or
other, the work proceeds. Very often it would go on for months just as
well without the foreman to interfere, and in many cases even better,
for it is the chargemen and gangers who have the actual control of
operations and who possess the real and intimate knowledge of the work.
Should an aspirant to the post of foreman through his own merits be set
aside for a stranger--as is sometimes the case--there is bound to be
jealousy existing between the two for ever afterwards, which now and
again breaks out into heated scenes and may result in brawls and
dismissals. Of the workmen, some will take the one side, and some the
other; they are mutually distrustful, and have recourse to whispering
and tale-telling. If it has been proved that one workman is guilty of
getting another his discharge by any unfair means he is not forgiven by
his mates. The dismissed man, in such a case, will frequently wait for
his informer outside the gates, and will not be satisfied until he has
given him a good thrashing. Perhaps he will walk boldly in through the
entrance with the other men and take him unaware at his work and punish
him on the spot. It is superfluous to say that this is not tolerated by
the officials, and anyone who is so bold as to do it must be prepared to
stand the consequences and appear at the Borough Police Court.
Now and again a foreman, who has been guilty of some underhanded action,
is taken to task by the exasperated victim and treated to a little
surprise combat of fisticuffs. Perhaps the foreman is a sneak or a
bully, or both, and has carried his tyrannical behaviour too far for
human endurance; or private jealousy may have impelled him to some
cowardly turn or other, and the workman, driven to desperation, takes
the law into his own hands and gives him a thrashing. This--provided the
reprisal was merited--will be a source of huge delight to the other men
in the shed, and everyone will rejoice to see the offender “taken down a
notch,” as they say; but if it was merely an exhibition of unwarrantable
temper on the workman’s part, the overseer will be commiserated with and
defended. Whether right or wrong the pugnacious one is dismissed. His
services are no longer required at the shed; he must seek occupation
elsewhere.
Running along for some distance near the canal is a shed in which the
road-waggons are made--trollies, vans, and cars for use in the goods
yards and stations about the line--and inside this, and parallel with
it, is the wheel shop, where the wheels, tyres, and axles are turned and
fitted up for the waggons and carriages. Besides the making of new work
in the first-named of these sheds, there is always a considerable amount
of repairs to be carried out. A great part of this is done outside, in
fine weather, in order to give increased room within doors.
The road-waggon builders are of a sturdy type. Many of them are inclined
to be old-fashioned and primitive in their methods, and they are solid
in character. This is accounted for by the fact that the greater part of
the older hands received their initial training in small yards, in
little country towns and villages, where they worked among farmers and
rustics. The work they did there was necessarily very solid and
strong--such as heavy carts and waggons for the farms--and everything
had to be done by hand, slowly and laboriously perhaps, but efficiently
and well. This taught them the practical side of their trade, as how to
be self-sufficing and independent of machinery, which are the most
valuable features of a good apprenticeship and are of great service to
the workman in after years. By and by, when the time came for them to
leave the scene of their apprentice days--for few masters will pay the
journeyman’s rate of wages to any who, at the end of their term, have
not gone further afield for new experience--they shifted out for
themselves. Some went one way and some another. This one went to London,
that one to Bristol, and others came to the railway town. Whatever
peculiarities of workmanship they acquired in their youth they brought
with them and practised in their new sphere, and so the individual style
is maintained in spite of totally different methods and processes.
At the present time--in large factories, at any rate--there is machinery
for everything, and this is highly destructive of the purely personal
faculty in manufacture. But in the case of the road-waggon builder,
though a great many, or perhaps all, of the parts have been shaped for
him by steam power, there yet remains the fitting up and building of the
vehicle, which is reasonably a task requiring considerable care and
skill. The iron frame of the locomotive or railway waggon may be clapped
together quite easily, for there is no very elaborate fitting or joining
to be done. Good strong rivets are the chief things required there. The
wooden bodies of the vans and cars, however, must be fitted and built
with the nicest precision and finish, or the materials would shrink away
and the parts would gape open, or fall to pieces. Thus, the road-waggon
builder, as well as the carriage body-maker, must be a craftsman of the
first order, and while some journeymen may be at liberty to sacrifice
their dearly gained experience and individual characteristics in the
face of newer methods and improved mechanical processes, it is well for
him to hold fast to what he has found useful and good in the past.
The workmen of every shed have their own particular tone and style
collectively as well as individually; different trades and atmospheres
apparently producing different characteristics and temperaments.
Accordingly, the men of one shed are well-known for one quality, while
those of another are noted for something quite different. These are
famed for steadiness, civility, and correct behaviour; those for noise,
rudeness, horseplay, and even ruffianism. The men of some sheds are
remarkable for their extreme docility and their almost childish
obedience to the slightest and most insignificant rules of the factory,
counting every official as a thing superhuman and nearly to be
worshipped. Others are notorious for ideas quite the reverse of this,
for riotous conduct within and without the shed, an utter contempt of
the laws of the factory, for thieving, fighting, and other propensities.
These characteristics are determined as much by the kind of work done in
the sheds and the quality of the overseer, as by the men’s own nature
and temperament. Most foremen are excessively autocratic and severe with
their men, denying them the slightest privilege or relaxation of the
iron laws of the factory. Others are of a wheedling, pseudo-fatherly
type, who, by a combination of professed paternal regard and a cunning
manipulation of the reins, contrive to make everything they do appear
just and reasonable and so hold their men in complete subjection. Some
foremen, again, are of the ceremonious order, who, from pure vanity,
will insist upon the complete observance of the most trivial detail and
drive their workmen half-way to distraction. A few, on the other hand,
are generous and humane. They hold the reins slack, and, without the
knowledge of their chiefs, grant a few small privileges and are rewarded
with the confidence of the workmen and a willingness to labour on their
part amounting to enthusiasm. For, as the horse that is tightly breeched
draws none too well, neither do those men work best who are rigidly kept
down under the iron rod of the overseer. Discipline there is bound to
be, as everyone knows, but there is no excuse for treating a man as
though he were a wild beast, or an infant just out of the cradle.
Whatever dissatisfaction exists about the works is chiefly owing to the
behaviour of the officials, for they force the workmen into rebellion.
If the directors of the company are anxious for the welfare of their
staff--as they profess to be--let them instruct their managers and
foremen to show themselves a little more tolerant and kindly disposed to
the men in the sheds. Actions speak louder than words, and kindness
shown to workmen is never forgotten.
The wheel shop is a large building, containing many rows of lathes for
the wheels, tyres, and axles, which are nearly all tended by boys. The
lines of shafting stretch in the roof, up and down from end to end of
the place, and the pulleys whirl round almost noiselessly overhead.
Everything is spotlessly clean, for there are no furnaces belching out
their smoke, dust, and flames. The temperature is low and the shed, even
in the hottest part of the summer, is cool in comparison with the other
premises round about. In the winter it is heated with steam from the
boilers and the exhaust from the shop engines. This prevents the boys
from catching cold. The heavy steel axles and tyres are exceedingly
chill in the winter, especially in frosty weather.
The boys come from all parts, from town and country alike, immediately
after leaving school, and go straight to the lathes. There are labourers
to fix the wheels and tyres in the machines, and the boys attend to the
tools, working carefully to the gauges provided. Coming to the work at a
time when their minds are in a receptive state, they soon master the
principal parts of the business and before long become highly skilled
and proficient. Their wages are no more than five or six shillings a
week for a start, with yearly rises of one or two shillings until they
reach a pound or twenty-two shillings. Upon arriving at this
stage--unless work is plentiful--they are usually removed from the lathe
and set labouring, or otherwise transferred or discharged as too
expensive for the work. Sometimes, after this, they migrate to other
towns and earn double or treble the wages they received before, for good
wheel- and axle-turners are in constant demand and a clever workman may
be sure of securing a high rate of remuneration.
The boys are an interesting group, and one that is well worthy of
consideration. They are of all sorts and sizes, of many grades and walks
in life. There is the country labourer’s lad, who formerly worked on the
land amid the horses and cattle; the town labourer’s lad, who has been
errand-boy or who sold newspapers on the street corner; the small
shopkeeper’s lad, the fitter’s lad, tall and pale, in clean blue
overalls, and the enginedriver’s lad, fresh from school, whose one
ambition is to emulate his father and, like him, drive an engine, only
one that is two or three times as big and powerful. There are tall and
short boys, boys fat and lean, pale and robust-looking, ragged and
well-kept, with sad and merry faces. And what pranks they play with one
another, and would play, if they were not curbed and checked with the
ever watchful eye of the shop foreman! They are always ready for some
game or other--football, hide-and-seek, or “ierky”--at any time of the
day, and whatever they do, it does not seem to tire them down; they are
still fresh and active, cheerful and vivacious.
Many of them begin the day well with running regularly to work, perhaps
for two or three miles. At five minutes past six in the morning they
commence at the lathe, and when breakfast-time comes they scamper off,
food in hand, and play about the yard, or in the recreation field
beyond. From nine till one their labour is continuous; there they stand,
bound as with chains to the machines they serve, for ever watchful, so
as not to spoil the cut and waste the axle, which would mean an enforced
holiday for them. When one o’clock comes, smothered with oil and with
faces like those of sweeps--often blackened purposely to give themselves
the appearance of having perspired much--they race off as before, and
play recklessly until it is time to return to the shed. And after the
day’s work is finished and they go home in the evening, they wash away
the grime and oil and play about the streets and lanes till bed-time,
utterly indifferent to the wearisome occupation awaiting them on the
morrow. Their sleep is sound and sweet, for their hearts are happy and
light. Of the cares of life they know nothing; the future is full of
hope for them; all the world is before them. Their chief concern is for
the holidays. All these are anticipated and awaited with great joy and
eagerness; it is by this alone that they discover the extreme tedium of
the daily drudgery of the workshop.
The boys’ foreman is an experienced official, shrewd, keen, and very
severe; a good judge of character, cautious, and careful, civil enough,
but unbending in a decision, a very good formative agent, one who will
exercise a healthy restraint upon the intractables and encourage the
timid, but who exploits them all for the good of the firm. His keen eyes
and sound judgment enable him to at once sum up a lad’s capabilities. He
takes the youth and sets him where he will show to the best advantage,
instructs him on many of the crucial points, advises him as to the best
means of getting on, and very often furnishes him with hints of a
personal nature which--whatever the lad may think of them at the
time--bear fruit in after life. If the youngster is inclined to be wild
and incorrigible he tries his best to reform him, and gives him sound
advice. He has also been known to administer a corrective cuff in the
ear and a vigorous boot in the posterior, but he usually succeeds in
bringing out the good points and suppressing, if not entirely
eradicating, the bad.
Whenever he walks up or down the shed the boys fix their attention more
firmly upon their machines, for they feel his keen, penetrating eyes
upon them, and they know that nothing ever escapes his notice. If there
is a slackness at any point the word is passed rapidly on--“Look out,
here’s J----y coming,” and the overseer is sometimes amused with the
various expedients resorted to in order to deceive him and cover up the
juvenile shortcomings. As to wages, prices, and systems, they are not
altogether his fault. If he could suit himself he might possibly be
willing to pay more, but he is always being pressed by the staff to
reduce prices and expenses, and, like the other foremen, he is not
prepared to offer effective resistance. Being an official of long
standing, however, he is secure in his place, and has no occasion to
betray his hands to the firm, as is too often the case with young
foremen, who wish to secure personal notice and advantage. That is one
of the most damning features of all, and is becoming more and more a
practice at the works. One young “under-strapper” I knew is in the habit
of standing over the boys at the lathe, watch in hand, for four hours
without once moving, and, by his manner and language, compelling them to
run at an excessive rate so as to cut their prices. Without doubt he is
deserving of the birch rod, though the managers, who allow it, are the
more to blame.
A short way from the canal, north of the road-waggon shed, is the
rubbish heap, at which most of the old wood refuse and lumber, with
hundreds of tons of sawdust, are brought to be burned. At one time all
this was consumed in the boiler furnaces, but since the amount of refuse
has enormously increased it has been found expedient to transport some
part of it there and so do away with it. One small furnace is used for
the purpose, and by far the greater part of it, especially the sawdust,
is burned in big heaps upon the ground. This is a slovenly, as well as a
dangerous method, and the inconvenience resulting to the men in the
sheds is considerable. If the wind is in the west the dense clouds of
smoke sweep along the ground and are blown straight in through the open
doors upon the stampers, and are a source of extreme discomfort and
disgust. There is always plenty of smother in the shed, arising from the
oil furnaces, without receiving any addition from outside. Once the
workshop is filled with the bluish vapour it takes hours to disperse,
for, though there are doors all round and hundreds of ventilators on the
roof, they do not carry off the nuisance. Very often the smoke will
travel from end to end of the shed, like a current of water, but just
as it reaches the doorway and you think it is going to pass outside, it
suddenly whirls round like a wheel and traverses the whole length of the
place, and so on, over and over again.
If the wind is in the north, then the road-waggon builders must suffer
the persecuting clouds of smoke and be tormented with smarting and
burning eyes at work; and if it should blow from over the town, across
the rolling downs from the south, the smother is carried high over the
fence and sweeps along the recreation field to the discomfort of small
boys and lovers, or of whoever happens to be passing that way. If the
nuisance arose from any other quarter complaints might be made and steps
taken towards the mitigation of it. As it is, no one, not even a member
of the local bodies and the Corporation, summons up the courage to make
a protest, for everyone bows down before the company’s officials and
representatives in the railway town and fears to raise objections to
anything that may be done by the people at the works.