Employed 168 days
Delivered 9874-1/2 tons
Amount earned £37 19 0
Deduct waterage 1 8 0
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Gross earnings £36 11 0
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Average weekly earnings 0 14 0-1/2
The above accounts are rather above than under the average.
[Illustration: GANG OF COAL-WHIPPERS AT WORK BELOW BRIDGE.
[_From a Sketch._]]
I then proceeded to take the statement of some of the different classes
of the men. The first was a coalwhipper, whom the men had selected as
one knowing more about their calling than the generality. He told me as
follows:--
“I am about forty, and am a married man with a family of six children.
I worked under the old system, and that to my sorrow. If I had been
paid in money, according to the work I then did, I could have averaged
30_s._ a-week. Instead of receiving that amount in money, I was
compelled to spend in drink 15_s._ to 18_s._ per week, when work was
good; and the publican even then gave me the residue very grudgingly,
and often kept me from eleven to twelve on Saturday night, before
he would pay me. The consequences of this system were, that I had a
miserable home to go to: I would often have faced Newgate as soon. My
health didn’t suffer, because I didn’t drink the liquor I was forced
to pay for. I gave most of it away. The liquors were beer, rum, and
gin, all prepared the night before, adulterated shamefully for our
consumption, as we dursn’t refuse it,--dursn’t even grumble. The
condition of my poor wife and children was then most wretched. Now the
thing is materially altered, thank God; my wife and children can go to
chapel at certain times, when work is pretty good, and our things are
not in pawn. By the strictest economy, I can do middling well--very
well when compared with what things were. When the new system first
came into operation, I felt almost in a new world. I felt myself a free
man; I wasn’t compelled to drink; my home assumed a better aspect, and
keeps it still. Last Monday night I received 19_s._ 7_d._ for my work
(five days) in the previous week. I shall now (Thursday) have to wait
until Monday next before I can get to work at my business. Sometimes
I get a job in idle times at the docks, or otherwise, and wish I could
get more. I may make, one week with another, by odd jobs, 1_s._ a-week.
Perhaps for months I can’t get a job. All that time I have no choice
but to be idle. One week with another, the year through (at 8_d._ per
ton), I may earn 14_s._ The great evil is the uncertainty of the work.
We have all to take our rotation. This uncertainty has this effect upon
many of the men--they are compelled to live on credit. One day a man
may receive 19_s._, and be idle for eight days after. Consequently, we
go to the dealer where we have credit. The chandler supplies me with
bread, to be paid for next pay-day, charging me a halfpenny a loaf
more. A man with a wife and family of six children, as I have, will
consume sixteen or seventeen quartern loaves a-week; consequently,
he has to pay 8_d._ a-week extra on account of the irregularity or
uncertainty. My rotation would come much oftener but for the backing
system and the ‘bonafides.’ I also pay the butcher from a halfpenny
to a penny per pound extra for credit when my family requires meat,
sometimes a bit of mutton, sometimes a bit of beef. I leave that to
the wife, who does it with economy. I this way pay the butcher 6_d._
a-week extra. The additional cost to me of the other articles, cheese,
butter, soap, &c., which I get on credit, will be 6_d._ a-week.
Altogether that will be 3_l._ 18_s._ a-year. My rent for a little
house with two nice little rooms is 3_s._ per week; so that the extra
charge for credit would just pay my rent. Many coalwhippers deal with
tallymen for their wearing apparel, and have to pay enormous prices.
I have had dealings with a tallyman, and suffered for it, but for all
that I must make application for a supply of blankets from him for my
family this winter. I paid him 45_s._ for wearing apparel--a shawl for
my wife, some dresses for the children, a blanket, and other things.
Their intrinsic value was 30_s._ Many of us--indeed most of us, if not
all of us--are always putting things in and out of the pawnshops. I
know I have myself paid more than 10_s._ a-year for interest to the
pawnbroker. I know some of my fellow-workmen who pay nearly 5_l._
a-year. I once put in a coat that cost me 3_l._ 12_s._ I could only
get 30_s._ on it. I was never able to redeem it, and lost it. The
articles lost by the coalwhippers pledged at the pawnshop are three
out of four. There are 2000 coalwhippers, and I am sure that each has
50_s._ in pawn, making 5000_l._ in a-year. Interest may be paid on one
half this amount, 2500_l._ The other half of the property, at least,
is lost. As the pawnbroker only advances one-third of the value, the
loss in the forfeiture of the property is 7500_l._, and in interest
2500_l._, making a total of 10,000_l._ lost every year, greatly through
the uncertainty of labour. A coalwhipper’s life is one of debt and
struggles--it is a round of relieving, paying, and credit. We very
rarely have a halfpenny in the pocket when we meet our credit. If any
system could possibly be discovered which would render our work and
our earnings more certain, and our payments more frequent, it would
benefit us as much as we have been benefited by the establishment of
the office.”
I visited this man’s cottage, and found it neat and tidy. His children
looked healthy. The walls of the lower room were covered with some
cheap prints; a few old books, well worn, as if well used, were to be
seen; and everything evinced a man who was struggling bravely to rear a
large family well on small means. I took the family at a disadvantage,
moreover, as washing was going on.
Hearing that accidents were frequent among the class, I was anxious to
see a person who had suffered by the danger of the calling. A man was
brought to me with his hand bound up in a handkerchief. The sleeve of
his coat was ripped open and dangled down beside his injured arm. He
walked lame; and on my inquiring whether his leg was hurt, he began
pulling up his trousers and unlacing his boot, to show me that it had
not been properly set. He had evidently once been a strong, muscular
man, but little now remained as evidence of his physical power but the
size of his bones. He furnished me with the following statement:--
“I was a coalwhipper. I had a wife and two children. Four months ago,
coming off my day’s work, my foot slipped, and I fell and broke my
leg. I was taken to the hospital, and remained there ten weeks. At
the time of my accident I had no money at all by me, but was in debt
to the amount of 10_s._ to my landlord. I had a little furniture, and
a few clothes of myself and wife. While I was in the hospital, I did
not receive anything from our benefit society, because I had not been
able to keep up my subscription. My wife and children lived while I
was in the hospital by pawning my things, and going from door to door
to every one she knowed to give her a bit. The men who worked in the
same gang as myself, made up 4_s._ 6_d._ for me, and that, with two
loaves of bread that they had from the relieving officer, was all they
got. While I was in the hospital the landlord seized for rent the few
things that my wife had not pawned, and turned her and my two little
children into the street. One was a boy three years old, and the other
a baby just turned ten months. My wife went to her mother, and she
kept her and my little ones for three weeks, till she could do so no
longer. My mother, poor old woman, was most as bad off as we were. My
mother only works on the ground, out in the country, at gardening.
She makes about 7_s._ a-week in the summer, and in the winter she has
only 9_d._ a-day to live upon; but she had at least a shelter for
her child, and she willingly shared that with her daughter and her
daughter’s children. She pawned all the clothes she had, to keep them
from starving; but at last everything was gone from the poor old woman,
and then I got my brother to take my family in. My brother worked at
garden-work, the same as my mother-in-law did. He made about 15_s._
a-week in the summer, and about half that in the winter time. He had
a wife and two children of his own, and found it hard enough to keep
them, as times go. But still he took us all in, and shared what he
had with us, rather than let us go to the workhouse. When I was told
to leave the hospital--which I was forced to do upon my crutches, for
my leg was very bad still--my brother took me in too. He had only one
room, but he got in a bundle of straw for me, and we lived and slept
there for seven weeks. He got credit for more than a pound’s worth of
bread, and tea, and sugar for us; and now he can’t pay, and the man
threatens to summon him for it. After I left my brother’s, I came to
live in the neighbourhood of Wapping, for I thought I might manage
to do a day’s work at coalwhipping, and I couldn’t bear to live upon
his little earnings any longer--he could scarcely keep himself then.
At last I got a ship to deliver; but I was too weak to do the work,
and in pulling at the ropes my hands got sore, and festered for want
of nourishment.” [He took the handkerchief off and showed that it was
covered with plaster. It was almost white from deficient circulation.]
“After this I was obliged to lay up again, and that’s the only job of
work I’ve been able to do for these last four months. My wife can’t do
anything; she is a delicate, sickly little woman as well, and has the
two little children to mind, and to look after me likewise. I had one
pennyworth of bread this morning. We altogether had half-a-quartern
loaf among the four of us, but no tea nor coffee. Yesterday we had some
bread, and tea, and butter; but wherever my wife got it from I don’t
know. I was three days but a short time back without a taste of food.”
[Here he burst out crying.] “I had nothing but water that passed my
lips. I had merely a little at home, and that my wife and children had.
I would rather starve myself than let them do so: indeed, I’ve done it
over and over again. I never begged: I’ll die in the streets first. I
never told nobody of my life. The foreman of my gang was the only one
besides God that knew of my misery; and his wife came to me and brought
me money and brought me food, and himself, too, many a time.” [“I had a
wife and five children of my own to maintain, and it grieved me to my
heart,” said the man who sat by, “to see them want, and I unable to do
more for them.”] “If any accident occurs to any of us who are not upon
the society, they must be as bad off as I am. If I only had a little
nourishment to strengthen me, I could do my work again; but, poor as I
am, I can’t get strength to do it, and not being totally incapacitated
from ever resuming my labour, I cannot get any assistance from the
superannuation fund of our men.”
I told the man I wished to see him at his own home, and he and the
foreman who had brought him to me, and who gave him a most excellent
character, led me into a small house in a court near the Shadwell
entrance to the London Docks. When I reached the place I found the
room almost bare of furniture. A baby lay sprawling on its back on a
few rags beside the handful of fire. A little shoeless boy, with only
a light washed-out frock to cover him, ran shyly into a corner of the
room as we entered. There was only one chair in the room, and that had
been borrowed down stairs. Over the chimney hung to dry a few ragged
infant’s chemises that had been newly washed. In front of the fire, on
a stool, sat the thinly-clad wife; and in the corner of the apartment
stood a few old tubs. On a line above these were two tattered men’s
shirts, hanging to dry, and a bed was thrown on some boxes. On a shelf
stood a physic-bottle that the man had got from the parish doctor, and
in the empty cupboard was a slice of bread--all the food, they said,
they had in the world, and they knew not where on earth to look for
more.
I next wished to see one of the improvident men, and was taken to the
lodging of one who made the following statement:--
“I have been a coalwhipper for twenty years. I worked under the old
publican’s system, when the men were compelled to drink. In those days
18_s._ didn’t keep me in drink. I have now been a teetotaler for five
years. I have the bit of grub now more regular than I had. I earn less
than 13_s._ a-week. I have four children, and have buried four. My rent
is 1_s._ 6_d._” [“To-night,” interrupted the wife, “if he won’t part
with his coat or boots, he must go without his supper.”] “My wife,”
the man continued, “works at bespoke work--stay-making, but gets very
little work, and so earns very little--perhaps 1_s._ 6_d._ a week.”
This family resided in a wretched part of Wapping, called,
appropriately enough, “the Ruins.” Some houses have been pulled down,
and so an open space is formed at the end of a narrow airless alley.
The wet stood on the pavement of the alley, and the cottage in which
the whipper I visited lived, seemed with another to have escaped when
the other houses were pulled down. The man is very tall, and almost
touched the ceiling of his room when he stood upright in it. The
ceiling was as wet as a newly-washed floor. The grate was fireless,
the children barefoot, and the bedstead (for there was a bedstead) was
bedless, and all showed cheerless poverty. The dwelling was in strong
contrast with that of the provident whipper whom I have described.