Before dealing with the Lumpers, or those who discharge the timber from
ships--in contradistinction to the stevedores, or those who stow the
cargoes of vessels,--I will give the following report of a meeting of
the ballast-heavers’ wives. It is the wife and children who are the
real sufferers from the intemperance of the working-man; and being
anxious to give the public some idea of the amount of misery entailed
upon these poor creatures by the compulsory and induced drunkenness of
the husbands, I requested as many as could leave their homes to meet me
at the British and Foreign School, in Shakespeare-walk, Shadwell. The
meeting consisted of the wives of ballast-heavers and coal-whippers.
The wives of the coal-whippers had come there to contrast their
present state with their past, with a view of showing the misery they
had endured when their husbands were under the same thraldom to the
publican as the ballast-heavers are now, and the comparative happiness
which they have experienced since they were freed from it. They had
attended unsolicited, in the hope, by making their statements public,
of getting for the ballast-heavers the same freedom from the control of
the publican which the coal-whippers had obtained.
The meeting consisted of the wives of ballast-heavers and
coal-whippers, thirty-one were present. Of the thirty-one, nine were
the wives of coal-whippers, the remaining twenty-two the wives of
ballast-heavers. Many others, who had expressed a desire to attend,
were prevented by family cares and arrangements; but, small as the
meeting was comparatively, it afforded a very fair representation of
the circumstances and characters of their husbands. For instance,
those who were coal-whippers’ wives appeared comfortable and “well to
do.” They wore warm gowns, had on winter-bonnets and clean tidy caps
underneath; the ballast-heavers’ wives, on the contrary, were mostly
ragged, dejected, and anxious-looking.
An endeavour was made to ascertain in the first instance how many
children each person had. This was done by questioning them separately;
and from the answers it appeared that they all had families. Eight had
one child each, the rest varied from two to eight, and one woman stated
that she had twelve children, all of whom were living, but that only
four resided now with her and her husband. Five had infants in their
arms, and several had children sick, either at home or in some hospital.
In the next place the ballast-heavers’ wives were asked whether their
husbands worked under publicans? “All of them,” was the reply, “work
under publicans;” and, said one, “Worse luck for us,”--a sentiment that
was very warmly concurred in by all the rest.
This fact having been specifically ascertained from each woman, we
proceeded to inquire from them separately how much their husbands
earned, and how much of their earnings was spent at the publicans’
houses through which they obtained work, or where they were paid.
“My husband,” said the first woman, “works under a publican, and I know
that he earns now 12_s._ or 13_s._ a-week, but he brings home to me
only half-a-crown, and sometimes not so much. He spends all the rest at
a public-house where he gets his jobs, and often comes home drunk.”
“My husband,” exclaimed the second, “will sometimes get from 24_s._ to
28_s._ a-week, but I never see anything the likes o’ that money from
him. He spends it at the publican’s. And when he has earned 24_s._
he will sometimes bring home only 2_s._ or 2_s._ 6_d._ We are badly
off, you may be sure, when the money goes in this way. But my husband
cannot help spending it, for he is obliged to get his jobs at the
public-house.”
“Last week,” interposed another, “we had not one penny coming into
our house; and the week before--which was Christmas week--my husband
got two jobs which would come, he told me, to 8_s._ or 9_s._ if he
had brought it all home; but he only brought me 1_s._ This was all
the money I had to keep me and my five children for the whole week;
and I’m sure I don’t know how we got through. This is all owing to
the public-house. And when we go to fetch our husbands at eleven or
twelve o’clock at night they shut us out, and say they are not there,
though we know very well they are inside in a back place. My husband
has been kept in that back place many a time till two or three in the
morning--then he has been turned out and come home drunk, without 6_d._
in his pocket, though the same day he has received 8_s._ or 9_s._ at
the same public-house.”
“They go to the public-house,” added another woman, “to get jobs, and
to curry favour they spend their money there, because if they did not
spend their money they would never get a job. The men who will drink
the greatest quantity of money will get the most jobs. This leaves
their families and their wives miserable, and I am sure me and my poor
family are miserable enough.”
“But this,” interposed a quiet, elderly woman, “is the beginning of the
tenth week, in all of which my husband has only had four jobs, and all
I have received of him during that time is 1_s._ 3-1/2_d._ a-week, and
we stand in 2_s._ 6_d._ a-week rent. I am sure I don’t know how we get
along. But our publicans are very civil, for my husband works for two.
Still, if he does not drink a good part of it away we know very well he
will get no more work.”
“It is very little,” said a female with an infant in her arms, “that my
husband earns; and of what little he does earn he does not fetch much
to me. He got one job last week, heaving 45 tons, and he fetched me
home 1_s._ 6_d._ for it. I was then in lodgings at 1_s._ 6_d._ a-week,
but I could not afford them, but now I’m in lodgings at 9_d._ a-week.
This week he has no work yet. In Christmas week my man told me he
earned 25_s._, and I believe he did, but he only fetched me home 8_s._
or 9_s._ on Saturday. My husband works for a publican, and it was at
his house he spent his money. One day last week he asked the publican
to give him a job, and he said, ‘I cannot give you a job, for there is
nothing against you on the slate but 1_s._,’ and so he got none there.
My infant is six weeks old to-day, and this woman by me (appealing to
the female next to her) knows well it is the truth that I tell--that
for two nights in last week my child and myself were obliged to go to
bed breadless. We had nothing neither of those two days. It was the
same in one night the week before Christmas, though my husband received
that night 8_s._, but all was spent at the public-house. On Christmas
night we could not get any supper. We had no money, and I took the gown
off my back and pawned it for 2_s._ to provide something for us to eat.
I have nothing else to say but this--that whatever my husband earns I
get little or nothing of it, for it goes to the public-house where he
gets his jobs.”
An infirm woman, approaching fifty years of age, who spoke in a tone
of sorrowful resignation, said,--“We have had very little money coming
in of late. My husband has been very bad for ten weeks back. He throws
up blood; I suppose he has strained himself too much. All the money I
have had for six weeks to keep us both has been 8_s._ If he was earning
money he would bring it to me.”
Another woman, “Not without the publican’s allowance, I am sure.”
The first woman, “No; the publican’s allowance would be taken off; but
the publican, you see, must have a little--I do not know how much it
is, but they must have something if they give us their jobs.”
This woman was here asked if her husband ever came home drunk?
“Yes,” she replied; “many a time he comes home drunk; but he must have
the drink to get the jobs.”
A number of other women having made statements confirmatory of the
above:--
“Do you think,” the meeting was asked, “your husbands would be sober as
well as industrious men if they could be got away from the public-house
system of employment and payment of wages?”
“God Almighty bless you!” exclaimed one woman, “they would love us and
their families all the better for it! We should all be much the better
for it.”
“And so say all of us!” was the next and perfectly unanimous
exclamation.
“If we could see that day,” said one who had spoken before, “our
families would have little to complain of.”
Another added, “The night-houses ought to be closed. That would be one
good thing.”
Some inquiries were then made as to whether these poor women were
ill-treated by their husbands when they came home in a state of
intoxication. There was a good deal of hesitation before any answers
could be obtained. At last one woman said, “her husband did certainly
beat her, of course; but then,” she added, “he did not know what he was
doing.”
“I,” said another, “should not know what it was to have an angry word
with my husband if he was always sober. He is a quiet man--very, when
the drink is out of him; but we have many words together when he is
tipsy; and----” she stopped without completing the sentence.
Several others gave similar testimony; and many declared that it was
the public-house system which led their husbands to drink.
One woman here said that the foremen of gangs, as well as the publican,
helped to reduce the ballast-heaver’s earnings; for they gave work to
men who took lodgings from them, though they did not occupy them.
This was confirmed by another woman, who spoke with great warmth upon
the subject. She said that married men who could not afford to spend
with the publican and lodge with the foremen in the manner pointed
out, would be sure to have no work. Other men went straight from one
job to another, while her own husband and other women’s husbands had
been three or four weeks without lifting a shovelful of ballast. She
considered this was very hard on men who had families.
A question was here asked, whether any women were present whose
husbands, in order to obtain work, were obliged to pay for lodgings
which they did not use?
One immediately rose and said, “They do it regularly at a publican’s in
Wapping; and I know the men that have paid for them have had six jobs
together, when my husband has had none for weeks.” “There are now,”
added another, “fourteen at that very place who never lodge there,
though they are paying for lodgings.”
They were next asked, who had suffered from want owing to their
husbands drinking their earnings, as described at the public-houses in
question?
“Starvation has been my lot,” said one. “And mine,” added another.
“My children,” said a third, “have often gone to bed at night without
breaking their fast the whole length of the day.” “And mine,” said one,
“have many a time gone without a bit or sup of anything all the day,
through their father working for the publican.”
“I cannot,” exclaimed the next, “afford my children a ha’porth of milk
a-day.”
“Many a time,” said one, who appeared to be very much moved, “have I
put my four children to bed, when the only meal they have had the whole
day has been 1lb. of bread; but it’s of no use opening my mouth.”
“I,” said the last, “have been in London twenty-seven years, and during
that time I can safely say I have never taken myself a single glass
of spirits or anything else; but in that time I have suffered the
martyrdom of forty years--all through my husband and the public-house.
I have two children who bring me in, one of them 2_s._ 6_d._ and
the other 6_s._ 6_d._ a-week, which is all we have, for my husband
gets nearly nothing. If he could bring his earnings home, instead of
spending them at a public-house, we should be very comfortable.”
These questions led to one concerning the late-hour system at the
public-houses frequented by the ballast-heavers.
“I often go for my husband,” said one, “at one or two o’clock in the
morning, after I know he has been paid; but they have kept him in
a back apartment away from me, till I have threatened to smash the
windows if they did not let him out. I threatened to smash the windows
because my children were wanting the money for bread, which he was
spending there. If our husbands were inclined to come home sober there
is little chance, for they have cards and bagatelle to keep them till
they become heady, and when they are become heady, there is nothing
left for their families--then the publicans kick our poor men out, and
lock the doors.”
This statement was confirmed, and after several other persons had
described their feelings,--
The coal-whippers’ wives were asked whether or not their condition and
that of their families had been improved since the system of carrying
on the trade had been altered by the Legislature?
The answer was a most decisive affirmative. Their husbands, they
said, used to spend all, or very nearly all, their earnings with the
publicans; but now, when they got a good ship, they brought home the
greatest part of their earnings, which was sufficient to make their
families comfortable. Their husbands had become quite different men.
They used to ill-treat them when they were paid at a public-house--very
much so, because of the drink; but now they were very much altered,
because they were become sober men to what they were. None were now
distressed to provide for their families, and if there was plenty of
work they would be quite happy. The improvement, one woman said, must
be very great, otherwise there would not be so many institutions and
benefit societies, pension societies, and schools for their children.
This declaration was very warmly applauded by the wives of the
ballast-heavers. They declared that similar measures would produce
similar benefits in their case, and they hoped the day would soon come
when they should be secure in the enjoyment of them.
So terminated the proceedings.