After detailing at such length the material advantages of this interesting
and important community, we should not be doing right if we did not present
the reverse of the medal in certain drawbacks and deficiencies which
seriously interfere with the prosperity and progress of "the hardware
village."
The Birmingham public are so often in the habit of hearing from their
favourite orators that they are the most intelligent, moral, and intellectual
people in the world,--that their town is the healthiest, and their opinions
the soundest, of any community in England, that it is not extraordinary if
they overlook blots which are plain enough to a stranger. Perhaps they are
quite right; perhaps they are more honest, more sensible, more sound
politicians, than any other British community. Perhaps, too, they are
cleaner, more sober, and better educated than the towns of A, B, and C; but,
without entering into comparisons, which, in such cases, are of no practical
benefit, we shall proceed to show that, with all their excellent industrious,
intelligent, and ingenious qualities, the people of Birmingham are much more
dirty, drunken, and uneducated than they ought to be, considering that the
town is in a very healthy situation; that the mass of the population is
engaged in skilled employments, and that patriots, bearded and unbearded, are
plentiful, who seem to have a great deal of influence, for good or evil.
First, then, as to drunkenness, the great parent of British poverty and
crime--drunkenness, which is a greater tax upon us than the National Debt; let
us see what share that has in the grievances of Birmingham.
It appears that in 1850 there were, including hotels, taverns, gin-shops, and
beer-shops, altogether 1293 establishments for the supply of intoxicating
liquors. The total number of houses in the borough being 43,000, it results
that in every 33 houses one is a wine, beer, or spirit shop. That as the
number of bakers' and chandlers' shops is only 871, there are 422 more shops
engaged in selling drink than in selling bread, and if only four persons be
supposed to be supported by selling liquors, that will be more than twice as
many as are engaged in the gun trade, viz., 2400. Or to put the calculation
in another form, if we allow the sum of 50 pounds per annum as the wages of
the five thousand persons who live by the sale of intoxicating drinks, it
will be found that the people of Birmingham must expend at least a quarter of
a million on wine, beer, and spirits.
That too much is so expended is proved by the police returns, which show that
out of 3400 persons taken into custody in 1849, nearly half the offences
arose from intoxication.
In other respects, considering the population, the crime of Birmingham is
rather below than above average. It cannot be said that it is either a
brutal or dishonest, but it is essentially a drunken town. The causes of the
prevalence of this degrading vice are several, and may be traced out very
clearly.
Metal work is hard and thirsty work, but it may be doubted whether what is
really drunk while at work, or immediately after work, does harm. But it has
long been, and still is, the habit of the mechanics in a number of trades, to
make a holiday of Monday; it has even a local name--it is called Shackling
day, "Shackling" being a term which can be perfectly translated by the French
verb, flaner. A Shackler must drink, if not smoke.
The more plentiful and pressing the work is, the more determined are the men
engaged to make Saint Monday, and very often Tuesday and Wednesday also.
The time so lost when trade is at high water, and the losses imposed on the
manufacturer by the consequent non-fulfilment of contracts, eventually form a
second drawback on the earnings of the workman, in addition to the day's
wages lost, and the days' wages spent on "shackling days."
Secondly, it has been proved that a large percentage of the married women
engaged in work factories are compelled so to work to support their families
in consequence of the improvidence of their husbands.
Thirdly, in the same way children, from a very early age,--seven years, and
even younger,--work in order to support their improvident parents.
Women engaged in work all day cannot keep comfortable houses for their
husbands. An uncomfortable home drives a husband, no matter of what rank, to
the tavern or the club.
The custom of sending children to work from the time they can earn sixpence
a-week, renders education impossible. In the evenings they are only fit to
sleep: on Sundays, in fine weather, the majority very naturally prefer
walking in the fields to the dry task of acquiring knowledge, the value of
which they are not sufficiently educated to appreciate.
The effect of the want of education and the habit of idle Mondays on the male
population is sufficiently lamentable. A man who can neither read nor write,
in addition to the abstract pleasure Saxons have in drinking, finds an
occupation and a substitute for ideas in a pot and pipe. The effect on the
female population is even more baneful. They are so fully occupied that they
have neither time to write, nor to cook, to read nor to sew, and they become
wives and mothers with no better qualification for their important duties
than girls educated in a fashionable school, without being able to obtain the
assistance of servants and governesses.
Wives engaged in factories are obliged to leave their children to the care of
strangers or elder children, themselves scarcely above the age of children.
One consequence is, that according to the report of a committee of physicians
and surgeons in 1840: "The ratio of infant mortality in Birmingham is very
considerable, greatly exceeding that of the metropolis, and of the
agricultural districts, though not as high as in some provincial towns."
"Severe burns and scalds, particularly the former, are so numerous, that in
the general hospital two rooms are devoted for their reception."
We have not been able to obtain any precise statistics of education among the
operative classes; but we find that among criminals upwards of ninety per
cent. are either totally or very imperfectly educated, and that of 15,000
young persons between the age of ten and fifteen engaged in manufacture, not
more than 1,000 have an opportunity of education, except from Sunday schools.
In Sunday schools the instruction is confined to reading the scriptures and
religious books, except in the schools attached to the meeting-houses of the
Society of Friends and the Unitarians, the conductors of which have had the
good sense to accommodate their plans to the peculiar wants of a
manufacturing district.
No general movement seems to have been attempted to correct this crying evil
of infant employment and neglected education, none of the patriots, bearded
or shaven, have ventured to exert their strong lungs in so unpopular a cause:
it is so much easier to stand on your own dunghill and abuse the lord of the
manor than to put on an apron and a cap, mix up the lime and water, and
whitewash your own cottage. But several manufacturers have honourably
distinguished themselves by beginning the work of reformation at home.
Mr. Gillet, the pen manufacturer, whose work is principally done by females,
admits no girls into his shops under thirteen; he makes ability to read
indispensable, and gives a preference in obtaining employment to those who
can write; and requires a certificate of regular attendance from a Sunday
school teacher.
Mr. Winfield, who employs nearly five hundred hands, of whom few are women,
established an evening school in 1844, at a charge of a penny a week, for his
own work people, in which reading, writing, arithmetic, English grammar,
geography, and drawing, are taught, with occasional lectures on the
principles of mechanics, natural philosophy, and history. A small library is
attached to the school.
"When the school was first established, it was remarked that scarcely a boy
knew his companion except by a nickname, and that fights on entering and
leaving school were of common occurrence. At present the practice of
nicknames has disappeared, and a fight does not take place once in three
months.
"The proceedings of the evening commenced with a hymn. An orphan boy,
fourteen years of age, a self-taught musician, placed himself before a small
organ, provided by Mr. Winfield, and played the evening hymn. All the boys
accompanied him with their voices, and sang very creditably; after this they
were formed into their usual classes.
"The school labours under great disadvantages; the hours of attendance are
not sufficiently long; even these few hours are infringed on when trade is
brisk, and the men, working over-hours, require the boys to assist them; and
from physical exhaustion of the boys after the labour of the day, they
sometimes fall asleep over their books.
"A hymn is sung, a prayer said, and the bible read without comment, no
catechism or doctrinal point is introduced. The school includes the sons of
people of the Church of England, Roman Catholics, Wesleyans, Presbyterians,
and Unitarians."
Messrs. Peyton & Barlow, metal-bedstead makers, Mr. Bacchus, glass-maker, Mr.
Middlemore, currier, and Messrs. Chance, glassmakers, have also established
schools for the parties in their employ.
Mr. William Chance is an earnest philanthropist; he has established a ragged
school, at his own expense, in Birmingham, open to all, and at his works in
Spon Lane, West Bromwich, one school for his workmen alone, and another open
to the neighbourhood.
The first school, in Spon Lane, is divided into three departments, for
infants, for girls, and for boys. A weekly charge of 3d. is made, for which
books and stationery are provided; punctual attendance and cleanliness are
conditions insisted upon. The number of scholars, of whom one-third are from
Messrs. Chance's works, has steadily increased from the time of opening. The
boys are instructed in reading, writing, arithmetic, grammar, geography, and
the elements of drawing. The girls are taught plain needlework instead of
drawing. No catechism is taught, but the bible is read without comment. One-
half are the children of parents in communion with the Church of England, and
the other half of Dissenters. In 1850 it contained 190 boys, 80 girls, and
150 infants.
It is difficult to rate too highly the advantage the operative classes obtain
from the preliminary training afforded by infant schools. But infant schools
are useless, if the education is to cease at seven years old.
The other school is strictly confined to the boys and men employed in the
glass works. It opened July, 1850, with 110 scholars, all boys from twelve
years of age, before which none are admitted into the manufactory. By
degrees the men, at first deterred by shame, began to attend, and at present
a considerable number avail themselves of the advantage for commencing or
extending the imperfect education they had obtained at Sunday Schools.
These schools are not self-supporting, but are found, even in a commercial
point of view, to repay the philanthropic firm by whom they have been founded
and supported.
The Birmingham Free and Industrial School, founded in 1847 by the energetic
exertions of the Hon. and Rev. Grantham Yorke, Rector of St. Philip, includes
a day school for boys and girls above seven years of age; two industrial
classes; and an asylum for deserted and orphans. The scholars are not of the
class to which we are specially calling attention. We shall, therefore,
content ourselves with mentioning the existence of such a School for the
refuse population of this large town.
The deficient education of the working classes, consequent on unregulated
infant labour, would alone be sufficient to account for the prevalence of the
idle custom of losing at least one day every week in busy times, and the
drinking habits, which are a blot upon a population of superior intelligence.
But a still more demoralizing influence exists in the state of the dwellings
of the working classes in Birmingham, which, although at first sight very
attractive in appearance, forming neat courts of cottages, compared with the
crowded lodging-houses of many manufacturing towns, are, nevertheless,
lamentably deficient in two essentials for health and decency, viz.,
efficient drainage, and a sufficient supply of wholesome water.
In two thousand courts, inhabited by fifty thousand people, the supply of
water is either obtained at great loss of time from wells, often dirty,
sometimes fetid, or purchased at an extravagant rate from itinerant water-
carriers.
A Private Water Company exists, but has scarcely been called upon at all to
supply the houses of the working classes. Under these circumstances, with a
clean external appearance, the filth in which fifty thousand people live
seems to be only understood by the local Medical Inspectors, whose reports
have hitherto produced so little effect, it is not extraordinary that after
long hours of toil, the inhabitants fly to the bright saloons of gin shops,
and the snug tap-rooms of beer shops.
We have dwelt thus at length upon the moral, and educational, and sanitary
shortcomings of a town which can, no doubt, draw comparisons, very much to
its own advantage, with other manufacturing district towns, because
Birmingham is in a position to set an example, to lead the way in an all-
important reform without consulting the opinions of the Ministers or the
Parliament of the day. Birmingham may, if it pleases, go far toward
affording every working man the means of drinking and washing in an ample
supply of clean water, of living in a well-drained cottage, and of sending
his children to school for two hours every day, without waiting for the
decision of Parliament upon all the crotchets of the Chartists, or plans of
the Financial Reform Association.
Pity it is that none of the well-applauded Brummagem patriots have pluck
enough to battle a little unpopularity in so honest a cause. But clap-trap
costs less trouble than work, and gets more cheers.
It is the misfortune of Birmingham to be sacrificed to the disagreements of
two rival factions, one calling itself Conservative, and the other Radical,
both filling the pockets and doing the work of lawyers at the expense of the
ratepayers.
Nothing can be done until the municipal Corporation obtains the powers now
vested in several sets of virtually irresponsible Commissioners. When these
wars of the Pots and Kettles are ended, the ratepayers will be able to turn
their undivided attention to local reforms without having their minds
distracted by those little legal squabbles, under cover of which business is
neglected, and pockets are picked. It is to be hoped that the session of
1851 will settle this point.
The whole kingdom is interested in the good government and prosperity of its
greatest inland town. {113}