“We are paid by the piece, and the price varies according to size from
1_s._ 6_d._ to 10_s._ the thousand. Quebec staves, 6 feet long by 2
inches thick and a few inches broad, are 10_s._ the thousand; and other
sizes are paid in the same proportion, down to 1_s._ 6_d._ We pack the
bigger staves about our shoulders, resting one stave on another, more
like a Jack-in-the-green than anything else, as our head comes out in
the middle of ’em. Of the biggest, five is a good load, and we pack all
sizes alike, folding our arms to hold the smaller staves better. Take
it altogether, we make at stave-work what the deal-porters do at their
work; and, indeed, we are deal-porters when staves isn’t in. There’s
most staves comes to the Surrey Canal Dock.”
A man who had worked at the West India Dock as a deal-porter informed
me that the prices paid were the same as were paid by the Commercial
and East Country Dock Companies before the reduction; but the supply of
labour was uncertain and irregular, chiefly at the spring and fall, and
in British-American ships. As many as 100 men, however, my informant
stated, had been so employed at this dock, making from 15_s._ to 25_s._
a-week, or as much as 30_s._ on occasions, and without the drawback of
any compulsory or “expected drinking.” Such, as far as I could learn,
is the condition of the labourers employed at these timber docks, where
the drinking system and the payment of men in public-houses are not
allowed. Concerning the state of the men employed at the other docks
where the public-house system still continues, I had the following
details.
A deal-porter at the Surrey Canal Dock stated: “I have worked a good
many years in the Surrey Dock. There were four contractors at the
Surrey Canal, but now there’s one, and he pays the publican where we
gets our beer all that’s owing to us deal-porters, and the publican
pays us every Saturday night. I can’t say that we are compelled to take
beer, certainly not when at our work in the dock, but we’re expected to
take it when we’re waiting. I can’t say either that we are discharged
if we don’t drink, but if we don’t we are kept waiting late on a
Saturday night, on an excuse of the publican’s having no change, or
something like that; and we feel that, somehow or other, if we don’t
drink we’ll be left in the back-ground. Why don’t the superintendent
see us paid in the dock? He pays the company’s labourers in the dock;
they’re corn-turners and rafters, and they are paid early, too. We now
have 4_s._ 4_d._ a day of from 8 to 4, and 5_s._ 8_d._ from 6 to 6.
It used to be, till four months back, I think, 4_s._ 10_d._ and 6_s._
4_d._ In slack times, say six months in the year, we earns from 10_s._
to 12_s._ a-week; in the brisk time 30_s._, and sometimes more; but
30_s._ is about the average. We are all paid at the public-house. We
gathers from after five or so on the Saturday night. We are kept now
and then till 12, and after 12, and it has been Sunday morning before
we’ve got paid. There is more money spent, in course, up to 12 than
up to 10. To get away at 1/2 past 9 is very early. I should say that
half our earnings, except in our best weeks, goes to the publican for
drink--more than half oft enough; if it’s a bad week, all our earnings,
or more. When it waxes late the wives, who’ve very likely been without
Saturday’s dinner or tea, will go to the publican’s for their husbands,
and they’ll get to scold very likely, and then they’ll get beaten very
likely. We are chiefly married men with families. Pretty well all the
deal-porters at the dock are drunkards; so there is misery enough for
their families. The publican gives credit two following weeks, and
encourages drinking, in course; but he does it quietly. He’ll advance
any man at work 1_s._ a night in money, besides trusting him for drink.
I don’t know how many we are; I should say from 50 to 200. In old age
or accident, in course, we comes to the parish.”
Other men whom I saw corroborated this statement, and some of their
wives expressed great indignation at the system pursued in paying the
labourers. None of them objected to their husbands having four pints
of beer when actually at their work in the dock; it was against the
publicans’ temptations on Saturday and other nights that they bitterly
inveighed.
At the earnest entreaty of a deal-porter’s wife, I called on Saturday
evening at the public house where the men were waiting to be paid. I
walked into the tap-room as if I had called casually, and I was then
unknown to all the deal-porters. The tap-room I found small, dark,
dirty, and ill-ventilated. What with the tobacco-smoke and the heat of
the weather, the room was most disagreeably close and hot. As well as
I could count--for although it was a bright summer’s evening the smoke
and gloom rendered it somewhat difficult--there were 24 men in this
tap-room, which is fitted up with boxes, and the number completely
filled the apartment. In an adjoining room, where was a small bar,
there were some six or eight more deal-porters lounging about. These
numbers, however, fluctuated, for men kept coming in and going out; but
all the time I was present there might have been thirty men in the two
hot, dirty little rooms. They were strong-looking men enough, and all
sun-burnt; but amongst them were some with pinched features and white
lips. There they sat, each man with his beer before him; there was not
the slightest hilarity amongst them: there was not the least semblance
of a convivial Saturday-night’s gathering. The majority sat in silence.
Some dozed; others drank or sipped at their pint measures, as if they
must do it to while away the time. These deal-porters were generally
dressed in corduroy, fustian, or strong, coarse, blue woollen jackets,
with trousers of similar material, open big woollen waistcoats, and
with coloured cotton handkerchiefs rolled round some thick substance in
the way of a stock, and tied loosely round their necks over a striped
cotton or loose linen shirt. All had rough bristly beards, intimating
that their shaving was confined to the Sunday mornings. With respect
to the system pursued at this dock in the payment of the deal-porters,
it is right that I should state that I heard from many deal-porters
praises of the superintendent, though certainly not of the contractor
or the publican. I am glad to be able to state, however, that it is the
determination of the company to attempt--and that, indeed, they are
now attempting--the abolition of the system of public-house payment.
Mr. M‘Cannan, the superintendent of these docks, to whom I am indebted
for many favours and courtesies, informed me that an arrangement was
once made for the payment of the deal-porters in “an old box” (a sort
of wooden office) within the dock; but the impatience and struggling
of the men who had to wait a little while for their week’s earnings
almost demolished the frail timbers of the old box, and the attempt was
abandoned. Within the dock the supply of beer is now limited to three
times a-day, with a “vend” of half-a-pint a man each visit.
A middle-aged man, sunburnt and with much of the look of a seaman,
gave me an account of his labour as a deal-porter at the East Country
Dock. His room, and he with his wife and children had but one, was very
sparely furnished, the principal article being a large clean bed. He
complained that his poverty compelled him to live in the neighbourhood
of some low lodging-houses, which caused all sorts of bad characters to
resort to the locality, while cries of “murder” were not uncommon in
the night.
“I have been a deal-porter,” he said, “nearly twenty years, and for
the last few years I have worked at the East Country Dock. Sometimes
we work single-handed, sometimes in gangs of two, three, or four. The
distance the deals have to be carried has a good deal to do with it,
as to the number of the gang. We’re paid nothing extra for distance.
Mr. ---- contracts with the Dock Company to do all the deal-portering.
There are three gangs regularly employed, each with a master or
foreman, or ganger, over them. They have always the preference. If
three ships was to unload in one day, there would be one for each
gang, and when more hands are wanted the men of the regular gangs are
put over deal-porters such as me, who are not regularly employed, but
on the look-out for piece-work or a day’s work. We reckon when that
happens that the gangers’ men have 9_s._ for our 4_s._ We are paid at
a public-house. The house belongs to the company. We pay 4_d._ a-pot
for our beer, and we’re expected to drink not less than four pints
a-day. We’re not obliged, you understand, but we’re expected to drink
this; and if we don’t do as we’re expected, why we’re not wanted next
time, that’s all. But we’re only expected to take our regular beer
when work’s brisk. We’re not encouraged to run into debt for drink and
work it out. Indeed, if a man be 1_s._ or 1_s._ 6_d._ in debt to the
publican, he can’t get credit for a bit of bread and cheese, or a drink
of beer. We have good beer, but sometimes we’d rather be without it.
But we can’t do without some. Many deal-porters, I know, are terrible
drunkards. We are paid the same as at the Commercial Dock, and were
reduced about the same time. If I had a regular week’s work now and no
stop, I could make 26_s._, less by 8_d._ a-day, or 4_s._ a-week, for
beer. We’re not expected to drink any gin. Before wages came down I
could have made 30_s._ Our beer-money is stopped out of our earnings
by the masters and paid to the publican. It’s very seldom, indeed, we
get a regular week’s work, and take it the year through I don’t clear
12_s._ a-week. To-day, there was only 16 men at work, but sometimes
there’s 80. From June to Christmas is the best time. Sometimes we may
wait three or four days for a job. The regular pay for the Custom-house
hours, from 8 to 4, is 4_s._ a-day to a deal-porter, but there’s plenty
to do it for what they can catch. Lots of Irish, sir? they’ll work for
anything, and is underselling all of us, because an Englishman and his
family can’t live like them. In the winter my family and me lived on
4_s._ or 5_s._ a-week, but I kept clear of the parish, though plenty
of us have to come on the parish. Much in pawn, sir? I have so; look
at my place. It was a nice place once. Most of what you may call the
regular hands has been brought up as deal-porters. I don’t know how
many you may call regular at our dock, it varies; working and waiting
for a turn; but we’ve no regular turn at work; there’s 100 perhaps, or
near about it. Ours is very hard and very dangerous work. Last year one
man was killed by a fall, and two had broken legs, and two had broken
thighs; but it was an easy year for accidents. There is no fund to help
or to bury us, only the parish. In a bad case we’re carried to the
Dreadnought, or some hospital. We are all of us dissatisfied. I wish I
could have 2_s._ 6_d._ a-day for regular work, and I’d live 20 years
longer than I shall now, with nothing to do one day and tearing my soul
out with slaving work the others.”
The result of all my inquiries shows that the deal-porters in nowise
exaggerated the hardness or the danger of their labours. I saw them
at work, walking along planks, some sloping from an elevated pile
of timber to one somewhat more elevated, the plank vibrating as two
men carrying a deal trod slowly and in measure along it, and so they
proceed from one pile to another, beginning, perhaps, from the barge
until the deals have been duly deposited. From a distance, when only
the diminished thickness of the plank is visible, they appear to be
walking on a mere stick; the space so traversed is generally short, but
the mode of conveyance seems rude and primitive.