Before proceeding to give an account of the London Dock itself, let
me thus publicly tender my thanks to Mr. Powles, the intelligent
and obliging secretary, for the ready manner in which he placed the
statistics of the company at my service. Had I experienced from the
deputy-superintendent the same courtesy and consideration, the present
exposition of the state of the labourers employed in the London Dock
would, doubtless, have been more full and complete. But the one
gentleman seemed as anxious to withhold information as the other was
to impart it. Indeed, I found in the first instance, that the orders
given by the deputy-superintendent throughout the dock to each of
the different officers were, that no answers should be made to any
inquiries I might put to them; and it was not until I had communicated
my object to the secretary that I was able to obtain the least
information concerning even the number of hands employed at different
times, or the amount of wages paid to them.
I shall now give a brief statement of the character, condition, and
capacity of the London Dock. After which, the description of the kind
of labour performed there; and then the class of labourers performing
it will follow in due order.
The London Dock occupies an area of ninety acres, and is situated
in the three parishes of St. George, Shadwell, and Wapping. The
population of those three parishes in 1841 was 55,500, and the number
of inhabited houses 8000, which covered a space equal to 338 acres.
This is in the proportion of twenty-three inhabited houses to an acre
and seven individuals to each house. The number of persons to each
inhabited house is, despite of the crowded lodging-houses with which
it abounds, not beyond the average for all London. I have already
shown that Bethnal-green, which is said to possess the greatest number
of low-rented houses, had only, upon an average, seventeen inhabited
houses to each acre, while the average through London was but 5·5
houses per acre. So that it appears that in the three parishes of
St. George’s-in-the-East, Shadwell, and Wapping, the houses are more
than four times more crowded than in the other parts of London, and
more numerous by half as many again than those even in the low-rented
district of Bethnal-green. This affords us a good criterion as to the
character of the neighbourhood, and, consequently, of the people living
in the vicinity of the London Dock.
The courts and alleys round about the dock swarm with low
lodging-houses; and are inhabited either by the dock-labourers,
sack-makers, watermen, or that peculiar class of the London poor
who pick up a living by the water-side. The open streets themselves
have all more or less a maritime character. Every other shop is
either stocked with gear for the ship or for the sailor. The windows
of one house are filled with quadrants and bright brass sextants,
chronometers, and huge mariners’ compasses, with their cards trembling
with the motion of the cabs and waggons passing in the street. Then
comes the sailors’ cheap shoe-mart, rejoicing in the attractive
sign of “Jack and his Mother.” Every public-house is a “Jolly Tar,”
or something equally taking. Then come sailmakers, their windows
stowed with ropes and lines smelling of tar. All the grocers are
provision-agents, and exhibit in their windows the cases of meat and
biscuits; and every article is warranted to keep in any climate. The
corners of the streets, too, are mostly monopolised by slopsellers;
their windows parti-coloured with bright red-and-blue flannel
shirts; the doors nearly blocked up with hammocks and “well-oiled
nor’-westers;” and the front of the house itself nearly covered with
canvas trousers, rough pilot-coats, and shiny black dreadnoughts.
The passengers alone would tell you that you were in the maritime
districts of London. Now you meet a satin-waistcoated mate, or a black
sailor with his large fur cap, or else a Custom-house officer in his
brass-buttoned jacket.
The London Dock can accommodate 500 ships, and the warehouses will
contain 232,000 tons of goods. The entire structure cost 4,000,000_l._
in money: the tobacco warehouses alone cover five acres of ground. The
wall surrounding the dock cost 65,000_l._ One of the wine-vaults has an
area of seven acres, and in the whole of them there is room for stowing
60,000 pipes of wine. The warehouses round the wharfs are exposing from
their extent, but are much less lofty than those at St. Katherine’s;
and being situated at some distance from the dock, goods cannot be
craned out of the ship’s hold and stowed away at one operation.
According to the last half-yearly report, the number of ships which
entered the dock during the six months ending the 31st of May last was
704, measuring upwards of 195,000 tons. The amount of earnings during
that period was 230,000_l._ and odd, and the amount of expenditure
nearly 121,000_l._ The stock of goods in the warehouses last May was
upwards of 170,000 tons.
As you enter the dock the sight of the forest of masts in the distance,
and the tall chimneys vomiting clouds of black smoke, and the many
coloured flags flying in the air, has a most peculiar effect; while
the sheds with the monster wheels arching through the roofs look like
the paddle-boxes of huge steamers. Along the quay you see, now men
with their faces blue with indigo, and now gaugers, with their long
brass-tipped rule dripping with spirit from the cask they have been
probing. Then will come a group of flaxen-haired sailors chattering
German; and next a black sailor, with a cotton handkerchief twisted
turban-like round his head. Presently a blue-smocked butcher, with
fresh meat and a bunch of cabbages in the tray on his shoulder; and
shortly afterwards a mate, with green paroquets in a wooden cage.
Here you will see sitting on a bench a sorrowful-looking woman, with
new bright cooking tins at her feet, telling you she is an emigrant
preparing for her voyage. As you pass along this quay the air is
pungent with tobacco; on that it overpowers you with the fumes of
rum; then you are nearly sickened with the stench of hides, and huge
bins of horns; and shortly afterwards the atmosphere is fragrant with
coffee and spice. Nearly everywhere you meet stacks of cork, or else
yellow bins of sulphur, or lead-coloured copper-ore. As you enter this
warehouse, the flooring is sticky, as if it had been newly tarred,
with the sugar that has leaked through the casks; and as you descend
into the dark vaults, you see long lines of lights hanging from the
black arches, and lamps flitting about midway. Here you sniff the fumes
of the wine, and there the peculiar fungus-smell of dry rot; then the
jumble of sounds as you pass along the dock blends in anything but
sweet concord. The sailors are singing boisterous nigger songs from
the Yankee ship just entering; the cooper is hammering at the casks on
the quay; the chains of the cranes, loosed of their weight, rattle as
they fly up again; the ropes splash in the water; some captain shouts
his orders through his hands; a goat bleats from some ship in the
basin; and empty casks roll along the stones with a heavy drum-like
sound. Here the heavily-laden ships are down far below the quay, and
you descend to them by ladders; whilst in another basin they are high
up out of the water, so that their green copper sheathing is almost
level with the eye of the passenger; while above his head a long line
of bowsprits stretches far over the quay; and from them hang spars and
planks as a gangway to each ship.
This immense establishment is worked by from one to three thousand
hands, according as the business is either brisk or slack. Out of this
number there are always 400 to 500 permanent labourers, receiving
on an average 16_s._ 6_d._ per week, with the exception of coopers,
carpenters, smiths, and other mechanics, who are paid the usual
wages of those crafts. Besides these are many hundred--from 1000 to
2500--casual labourers, who are engaged at the rate of 2_s._ 6_d._ per
day in the summer and 2_s._ 4_d._ in the winter months. Frequently,
in case of many arrivals, extra hands are hired in the course of the
day, at the rate of 4_d._ per hour. For the permanent labourers a
recommendation is required; but for the casual labourers no character
is demanded. The number of the casual hands engaged by the day depends,
of course, upon the amount of work to be done; and I find that the
total number of labourers in the dock varies from 500 to 3000 and odd.
On the 4th May, 1849, the number of hands engaged, both permanent and
casual, was 2794; on the 26th of the same month it was 3012; and on the
30th it was 1189. These appear to be the extreme of the variation for
that year: the fluctuation is due to a greater or less number of ships
entering the dock. The lowest number of ships entering the dock in any
one week last year was 29, while the highest number was 141. This rise
and fall is owing to the prevalence of easterly winds, which serve to
keep the ships back, and so make the business slack. Now, deducting
the lowest number of hands employed from the highest number, we have
no less than 1823 individuals who obtain so precarious a subsistence
by their labour at the docks, that by the mere shifting of the wind
they may be all deprived of their daily bread. Calculating the wages
at 2_s._ 6_d._ per day for each, the company would have paid 376_l._
10_s._ to the 3012 hands employed on the 26th of May 1849; while only
148_l._ 12_s._ 6_d._ would have been paid to the 1189 hands engaged on
the 30th of the same month. Hence, not only would 1823 hands have been
thrown out of employ by the chopping of the wind, but the labouring
men dependent upon the business of the docks for their subsistence
would in one day have been deprived of 227_l._ 17_s._ 6_d._ This will
afford the reader some faint idea of the precarious character of the
subsistence obtained by the labourers employed in this neighbourhood,
and, consequently, as it has been well proved, that all men who obtain
their livelihood by irregular employment are the most intemperate and
improvident of all.
It will be easy to judge what may be the condition and morals of
a class who to-day, as a body, may earn near upon 400_l._, and
to-morrow only 150_l._ I had hoped to have been able to have shown the
fluctuations in the total amount of wages paid to the dock-labourers
for each week throughout the whole year; and so, by contrasting the
comparative affluence and comfort of one week with the distress and
misery of the other, to have afforded the reader some more vivid
idea of the body of men who are performing, perhaps, the heaviest
labour, and getting the most fickle provision of all. But still I will
endeavour to impress him with some faint idea of the struggle there
is to gain the uncertain daily bread. Until I saw with my own eyes
this scene of greedy despair, I could not have believed that there
was so mad an eagerness to work, and so biting a want of it, among
so vast a body of men. A day or two before I had sat at midnight in
the room of the starving weaver; and as I heard him tell his bitter
story, there was a patience in his misery that gave it more an air of
heroism than desperation. But in the scenes I have lately witnessed the
want has been positively tragic, and the struggle for life partaking
of the sublime. The reader must first remember what kind of men the
casual labourers generally are. They are men, it should be borne in
mind, who are shut out from the usual means of life by the want of
character. Hence, you are not astonished to hear from those who are
best acquainted with the men, that there are hundreds among the body
who are known thieves, and who go to the docks to seek a living; so
that, if taken for any past offence, their late industry may plead for
some little lenity in their punishment.
He who wishes to behold one of the most extraordinary and least-known
scenes of this metropolis, should wend his way to the London Dock
gates at half-past seven in the morning. There he will see congregated
within the principal entrance masses of men of all grades, looks, and
kinds. Some in half-fashioned surtouts burst at the elbows, with the
dirty shirts showing through. Others in greasy sporting jackets, with
red pimpled faces. Others in the rags of their half-slang gentility,
with the velvet collars of their paletots worn through to the canvas.
Some in rusty black, with their waistcoats fastened tight up to the
throat. Others, again, with the knowing thieves’ curl on each side of
the jaunty cap; whilst here and there you may see a big-whiskered Pole,
with his hands in the pockets of his plaited French trousers. Some loll
outside the gates, smoking the pipe which is forbidden within; but
these are mostly Irish.
Presently you know, by the stream pouring through the gates and the
rush towards particular spots, that the “calling foremen” have made
their appearance. Then begins the scuffling and scrambling forth of
countless hands high in the air, to catch the eye of him whose voice
may give them work. As the foreman calls from a book the names, some
men jump up on the backs of the others, so as to lift themselves high
above the rest, and attract the notice of him who hires them. All are
shouting. Some cry aloud his surname, some his christian name, others
call out their own names, to remind him that they are there. Now the
appeal is made in Irish blarney--now in broken English. Indeed, it is
a sight to sadden the most callous, to see thousands of men struggling
for only one day’s hire; the scuffle being made the fiercer by the
knowledge that hundreds out of the number there assembled must be left
to idle the day out in want. To look in the faces of that hungry crowd
is to see a sight that must be ever remembered. Some are smiling to
the foreman to coax him into remembrance of them; others, with their
protruding eyes, eager to snatch at the hoped-for pass. For weeks many
have gone there, and gone through the same struggle--the same cries;
and have gone away, after all, without the work they had screamed for.
From this it might be imagined that the work was of a peculiarly light
and pleasant kind, and so, when I first saw the scene, I could not
help imagining myself. But, in reality, the labour is of that heavy
and continuous character that you would fancy only the best fed could
stand it. The work may be divided into three classes. 1. Wheel-work, or
that which is moved by the muscles of the legs and weight of the body;
2. jigger, or winch-work, or that which is moved by the muscles of the
arm. In each of these the labourer is stationary; but in the truck
work, which forms the third class, the labourer has to travel over a
space of ground greater or less in proportion to the distance which the
goods have to be removed.
The wheel-work is performed somewhat on the system of the treadwheel,
with the exception that the force is applied inside instead of outside
the wheel. From six to eight men enter a wooden cylinder or drum, upon
which are nailed battens, and the men laying hold of ropes commence
treading the wheel round, occasionally singing the while, and stamping
time in a manner that is pleasant, from its novelty. The wheel is
generally about sixteen feet in diameter and eight to nine feet broad;
and the six or eight men treading within it, will lift from sixteen to
eighteen hundred weight, and often a ton, forty times in an hour, an
average of twenty-seven feet high. Other men will get out a cargo of
from 800 to 900 casks of wine, each cask averaging about five hundred
weight, and being lifted about eighteen feet, in a day and a half. At
trucking each man is said to go on an average thirty miles a-day, and
two-thirds of that time he is moving 1-1/2 cwt. at six miles and a-half
per hour.
This labour, though requiring to be seen to be properly understood,
must still appear so arduous that one would imagine it was not of that
tempting nature, that 3000 men could be found every day in London
desperate enough to fight and battle for the privilege of getting
2_s._ 6_d._ by it; and even if they fail in “getting taken on” at the
commencement of the day, that they should then retire to the appointed
yard, there to remain hour after hour in the hope that the wind might
blow them some stray ship, so that other gangs might be wanted, and the
calling foreman seek them there. It is a curious sight to see the men
waiting in these yards to be hired at 4_d._ per hour, for such are the
terms given in the after part of the day. There, seated on long benches
ranged against the wall, they remain, some telling their miseries and
some their crimes to one another, whilst others doze away their time.
Rain or sunshine, there can always be found plenty ready to catch the
stray 1_s._ or 8_d._ worth of work. By the size of the shed you can
tell how many men sometimes remain there in the pouring rain, rather
than run the chance of losing the stray hours’ work. Some loiter on the
bridges close by, and presently, as their practised eye or ear tells
them that the calling foreman is in want of another gang, they rush
forward in a stream towards the gate, though only six or eight at most
can be hired out of the hundred or more that are waiting there. Again
the same mad fight takes place as in the morning. There is the same
jumping on benches, the same raising of hands, the same entreaties, and
the same failure as before. It is strange to mark the change that takes
place in the manner of the men when the foreman has left. Those that
have been engaged go smiling to their labour. Indeed, I myself met on
the quay just such a chuckling gang passing to their work. Those who
are left behind give vent to their disappointment in abuse of him whom
they had been supplicating and smiling at a few minutes before. Upon
talking with some of the unsuccessful ones, they assured me that the
men who had supplanted them had only gained their ends by bribing the
foreman who had engaged them. This I made a point of inquiring into,
and the deputy-warehousekeeper, of whom I sought the information, soon
assured me, by the production of his book, that he himself was the
person who chose the men, the foreman merely executing his orders: and
this, indeed, I found to be the custom throughout the dock.
At four o’clock the eight hours’ labour ceases, and then comes the
paying. The names of the men are called out of the muster-book, and
each man, as he answers to the cry, has half-a-crown given to him.
So rapidly is this done that, in a quarter of an hour, the whole of
the men have had their wages paid them. They then pour towards the
gate. Here two constables stand, and as each man passes through the
wicket, he takes his hat off, and is felt from head to foot by the
dock-officers and attendant: and yet, with all the want, misery, and
temptation, the millions of pounds of property amid which they work,
and the thousands of pipes and hogsheads of wines and spirits about the
docks, I am informed, upon the best authority, that there are on an
average but thirty charges of drunkenness in the course of the year,
and only eight of dishonesty every month. This may, perhaps, arise
from the vigilance of the superintendents; but to see the distressed
condition of the men who seek and gain employment in the London Dock,
it appears almost incredible, that out of so vast a body of men,
without means and without character, there should be so little vice
or crime. There still remains one curious circumstance to be added in
connexion with the destitution of the dock-labourers. Close to the
gate by which they are obliged to leave, sits on a coping-stone the
refreshment man, with his two large canvas pockets tied in front of
him, and filled with silver and copper, ready to give change to those
whom he has trusted with their dinner that day until they were paid.
As the men passed slowly on in a double file towards the gate, I sat
beside the victualler, and asked him what constituted the general
dinner of the labourers. He told me that he supplied them with
pea-soup, bread and cheese, saveloys, and beer. “Some,” he said, “had
twice as much as others. Some had a pennyworth, some had eatables and a
pint of beer; others, two pints, and others four, and some spend their
whole half-crown in eating and drinking.” This gave me a more clear
insight into the destitution of the men who stood there each morning.
Many of them, it was clear, came to the gate without the means of a
day’s meal, and, being hired, were obliged to go on credit for the very
food they worked upon. What wonder, then, that the calling foreman
should be often carried many yards away by the struggle and rush of the
men around him seeking employment at his hands! One gentleman assured
me that he had been taken off his feet and hurried a distance of a
quarter of a mile by the eagerness of the impatient crowd around him.
Having made myself acquainted with the character and amount of the
labour performed, I next proceeded to make inquiries into the condition
of the labourers themselves, and thus to learn the average amount of
their wages from so precarious an occupation. For this purpose, hearing
that there were several cheap lodging-houses in the neighbourhood, I
thought I should be better enabled to arrive at an average result by
conversing with the inmates of them, and thus endeavouring to elicit
from them some such statements of their earnings at one time and at
another, as would enable me to judge what was their average amount
throughout the year. I had heard the most pathetic accounts from men in
the waiting-yard; how they had been six weeks without a day’s hire. I
had been told of others who had been known to come there day after day
in the hope of getting sixpence, and who lived upon the stray pieces
of bread given to them in charity by their fellow-labourers. Of one
person I was informed by a gentleman who had sought out his history
in pure sympathy, from the wretchedness of the man’s appearance. The
man had once been possessed of 500_l._ a-year, and had squandered it
all away; and through some act or acts that I do not feel myself at
liberty to state, had lost caste, character, friends, and everything
that could make life easy to him. From that time he had sunk and sunk
in the world, until, at last, he had found him, with a lodging-house
for his dwelling-place, the associate of thieves and pickpockets. His
only means of living at this time was bones and rag-grubbing; and for
this purpose the man would wander through the streets at three every
morning, to see what little bits of old iron, or rag, or refuse bone he
could find in the roads. His principal source of income I am informed,
from such a source as precludes the possibility of doubt, was by
picking up the refuse ends of cigars, drying them, and selling them at
one-halfpenny per ounce, as tobacco, to the thieves with whom he lodged.
However, to arrive at a fair estimate as to the character and the
earnings of labourers generally, I directed my guide, after the closing
of the docks, to take me to one of the largest lodging-houses in the
neighbourhood. The young man who was with me happened to know one of
the labourers who was lodging there, and having called him out, I told
him the object of my visit, and requested to be allowed to obtain
information from the labourers assembled within. The man assented, and
directing me to follow him, he led me through a narrow passage into a
small room on the ground floor, in which sat, I should think, at least
twenty or thirty of the most wretched objects I ever beheld. Some were
shoeless--some coatless--others shirtless; and from all these came so
rank and foul a stench, that I was sickened with a moment’s inhalation
of the fetid atmosphere. Some of the men were seated in front of a
table, eating soup out of yellow basins. As they saw me enter, they
gathered round me; and I was proceeding to tell them what information
I wished to gather from them, when in swaggered a drunken man, in a
white canvas suit, who announced himself as the landlord of the place,
asking whether there had been a robbery in the house, that people
should come in without saying “with your leave” or “by your leave.”
I explained to him that I had mistaken the person who had introduced
me for the proprietor of the house, when he grew very abusive, and
declared I should not remain there. Some of the men, however, swore as
lustily that I should; and after a time succeeded in pacifying him. He
then bade me let him hear what I wanted, and I again briefly stated
the object of my visit. I told him I wished to publish the state of
the dock-labourers in the newspapers, on which the man burst into an
ironical laugh, and vowed with an oath that _he_ knowed me, and that
the men were a set of b----y flats to be done in that way. “I know who
you are well enough,” he shouted. I requested to be informed for whom
he took me. “Take you for!” he cried; “why, for a b----y spy! You come
here from the Secretary of State, you know you do, to see how many men
I’ve got in the house, and what kind they are.” This caused a great
stir among the company, and I could see that I was mistaken for one of
the detective police. I was located in so wretched a court, and so far
removed from the street, with a dead wall opposite, that I knew any
atrocity might be committed there almost unheard: indeed, the young
man who had brought me to the house had warned me of its dangerous
character before I went; but, from the kind reception I had met with
from other labourers, I had no fear. At last the landlord flung the
door wide open, and shouted from his clenched teeth, “By G--! if you
ain’t soon mizzled, I’ll crack your b----y skull open for you!” And
so saying, he prepared to make a rush towards me, but was held back
by the youth who had brought me to the place. I felt that it would be
dangerous to remain; and rising, informed the man that I would not
trouble him to proceed to extremities.
It was now so late that I felt it would be imprudent to venture into
another such house that night; so, having heard of the case of a
dock-labourer who had formerly been a clerk in a Government office, I
made the best of my way to the place where he resided.
He lived in a top back-room in a small house, in another dismal court.
I was told by the woman who answered the door to mount the steep
stairs, as she shrieked out to the man’s wife to show me a light. I
found the man seated on the edge of a bed, with six young children
grouped round him. They were all shoeless, and playing on the bed
was an infant with only a shirt to cover it. The room was about 7
feet square, and, with the man and his wife, there were eight human
creatures living in it. In the middle of the apartment, upon a chair,
stood a washing-tub foaming with fresh suds, and from the white
crinkled hands of the wife it was plain that I had interrupted her in
her washing. On one chair, close by, was a heap of dirty linen, and on
another was flung the newly-washed. There was a saucepan on the handful
of fire, and the only ornaments on the mantelpiece were two flat-irons
and a broken shaving-glass. On the table at which I took my notes
there was the bottom of a broken ginger-beer bottle filled with soda.
The man was without a coat, and wore an old tattered and greasy black
satin waistcoat. Across the ceiling ran strings to hang clothes upon.
On my observing to the woman that I supposed she dried the clothes in
that room, she told me that they were obliged to do so, and it gave
them all colds and bad eyes. On the floor was a little bit of matting,
and on the shelves in the corner one or two plates. In answer to my
questionings the man told me he had been a dock-labourer for five or
six years. He was in Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. When there he had
150_l._ a-year. Left through accepting a bill of exchange for 871_l._
He was suspended eight years ago, and had petitioned the Lords of the
Treasury, but never could get any answer. After that he was out for two
or three years, going about doing what he could get, such as writing
letters. “Then,” said the wife, “you went into Mr. What’s-his-name’s
shop.” “Oh, yes,” answered the man, “I had six months’ employment at
Camberwell. I had 12_s._ a-week and my board there.”
Before this they had lived upon their things. He had a good stock of
furniture and clothing at that time. The wife used to go out for a
day’s work when she could get it. She used to go out shelling peas in
the pea season--washing or charing--anything she could get to do. His
father was a farmer, well to do. He should say the old man was worth a
good bit of money, and he would have some property at his death.
“Oh, sir,” said the woman, “we have been really very bad off indeed;
sometimes without even food or firing in the depth of winter. It is not
until recently that we have been to say very badly off, because within
the last four years has been our worst trouble. We had a very good
house--a seven-roomed house in Walworth--and well furnished and very
comfortable. We were in business for ourselves before we went there. We
were grocers, near Oxford-street. We lived there at the time when Aldis
the pawnbroker’s was burnt down. We might have done well if we had not
given so much credit.”
“I’ve got,” said the husband, “about 90_l._ owing me down there now.
It’s quite out of character to think of getting it. At Clerkenwell I
got a job at a grocer’s shop. The master was in the Queen’s-bench
Prison, and the mistress employed me at 12_s._ a-week until he went
through the Insolvent Debtor’s Court. When he passed the Court the
business was sold, and of course he didn’t want me after that. I’ve
done nothing else but this dock-labouring work for this long time. Took
to it first because I found there was no chance of anything else. The
character with the bill transaction was very much against me: so, being
unable to obtain employment in a wholesale house, or anywhere else, I
applied to the docks. They require no character at all there. I think
I may sometimes have had 7 or 8 days altogether. Then I was out for a
fortnight or three weeks perhaps; and then we might get a day or two
again, and on some occasion such a thing as--well, say July, August,
September, and October. I was in work one year almost the whole of
those months--three years ago I think that was. Then I did not get
anything, excepting now and then, not more than about three days’ work
until the next March; that was owing to the slack time. The first year
I might say that I might have been employed about one-third of the
time. The second year I was employed six months. The third year I was
very unfortunate. I was laid up for three months with bad eyes and a
quinsey in the throat, through working in an ice ship. I’ve scarcely
had anything to do since then. That is nearly 18 months ago; and since
then I have had casual employment, perhaps one, and sometimes two days
a-week. It would average 5_s._ a-week the whole year. Within the last
few weeks I have, through a friend, applied at a shipping-merchant’s,
and within the month I have had five days’ work with them, and nothing
else, except writing a letter, which I had 2_d._ for--that’s all the
employment I’ve met with myself. My wife has been at employment for the
last three months, she has a place she goes to work at. She has 3_s._
a-week for washing, for charing, and for mangling: the party my wife
works for has a mangle, and I go sometimes to help; for if she has got
6_d._ worth of washing to do at home, than I go to turn the mangle for
an hour instead of her,--she’s not strong enough.”
“We buy most bread,” said the wife, “and a bit of firing, and I do
manage on a Saturday night to get them a bit of meat for Sunday if I
possibly can; but what with the soap, and one thing and another, that’s
the only day they do get a bit of meat, unless I’ve a bit given me. As
for clothing, I’m sure I can’t get them any unless I have that given
me, poor little things.”
“Yes, but we have managed to get a little bread lately,” said the man.
“When bread was 11_d._ a loaf, that was the time when we was worse
off. Of course we had the seven children alive then. We buried one
only three months ago. She was an afflicted little creature for 16 or
17 months: it was one person’s work to attend to her, and was very
badly off for a few months then. We’ve known what it was sometimes
to go without bread and coals in the depth of winter. Last Christmas
two years we did so for the whole day, until the wife came home in the
evening and brought it might be 6_d._ or 9_d._ according how long she
worked. I was looking after them. I was at home ill. I have known us
to sit several days and not have more than 6_d._ to feed and warm the
whole of us for the whole of the day. We’ll buy half-a-quartern loaf,
that’ll be 4-1/2_d._ or sometimes 5_d._, and then we have a penny for
coals, that would be pretty nigh all that we could have for our money.
Sometimes we get a little oatmeal and make gruel. We had hard work to
keep the children warm at all. What with their clothes and what we had,
we did as well as we could. My children is very contented; give ’em
bread, and they’re as happy as all the world. That’s one comfort. For
instance, to-day we’ve had half-a-quartern loaf, and we had a piece
left of last night’s after I had come home. I had been earning some
money yesterday. We had 2 oz. of butter, and I had this afternoon a
quarter of an oz. of tea and a pennyworth of sugar. When I was ill
I’ve had two or three of the children round me at a time, fretting for
want of food. That was at the time I was ill. A friend gave me half
a sovereign to bury my child. The parish provided me with a coffin,
and it cost me about 3_s._ besides. We didn’t have her taken away
from here, not as a parish funeral exactly. I agreed that if he would
fetch it, and let it stand in an open space that he had got there,
near his shop, until the Saturday, which was the time, I would give
the undertaker 3_s._ to let a man come with a pall to throw over the
coffin, so that it should not be seen exactly it was a parish funeral.
Even the people in the house don’t know, not one of them, that it was
buried in that way. I had to give 1_s._ 6_d._ for a pair of shoes
before I could follow my child to the grave, and we paid 1_s._ 9_d._
for rent, all out of the half sovereign. I think there’s some people at
the docks a great deal worse off than us. I should say there’s men go
down there and stand at that gate from 7 to 12, and then they may get
called in and earn 1_s._, and that only for two or three days in the
week, after spending the whole of their time there.”
The scenes witnessed at the London Dock were of so painful a
description, the struggle for one day’s work--the scramble for
twenty-four hours’ extra-subsistence and extra-life were of so tragic a
character, that I was anxious to ascertain if possible the exact number
of individuals in and around the metropolis who live by dock labour.
I have said that at one of the docks alone I found that 1823 stomachs
would be deprived of food by the mere chopping of the breeze. “It’s
an ill wind,” says the proverb, “that blows nobody good;” and until
I came to investigate the condition of the dock-labourer I could not
have believed it possible that near upon 2000 souls in one place alone
lived, chameleon-like, upon the air, or that an easterly wind, despite
the wise saw, could deprive so many of bread. It is indeed “a nipping
and an eager air.” That the sustenance of thousands of families should
be as fickle as the very breeze itself; that the weathercock should be
the index of daily want or daily ease to such a vast number of men,
women, and children, was a climax of misery and wretchedness that I
could not have imagined to exist; and since that I have witnessed such
scenes of squalor, and crime, and suffering, as oppress the mind even
to a feeling of awe.
The docks of London are to a superficial observer the very focus of
metropolitan wealth. The cranes creak with the mass of riches. In the
warehouses are stored goods that are as it were ingots of untold gold.
Above and below ground you see piles upon piles of treasure that the
eye cannot compass. The wealth appears as boundless as the very sea it
has traversed. The brain aches in an attempt to comprehend the amount
of riches before, above, and beneath it. There are acres upon acres
of treasure, more than enough, one would fancy, to stay the cravings
of the whole world, and yet you have but to visit the hovels grouped
round about all this amazing excess of riches to witness the same
amazing excess of poverty. If the incomprehensibility of the wealth
rises to sublimity, assuredly the want that co-exists with it is
equally incomprehensible and equally sublime. Pass from the quay and
warehouses to the courts and alleys that surround them, and the mind
is as bewildered with the destitution of the one place as it is with
the superabundance of the other. Many come to see the riches, but few
the poverty, abounding in absolute masses round the far-famed port of
London.
According to the official returns, there belonged to this port on
the 31st of December, 1842, very nearly 3000 ships, of the aggregate
burden of 600,000 tons. Besides that there were 239 steamers, of 50,000
tons burden; and the crews of the entire number of ships and steamers
amounted to 35,000 men and boys. The number of British and foreign
ships that entered the port of London during the same year was 6400 and
odd, whose capacity was upwards of a million and a quarter of tons, and
the gross amount of customs duly collected upon their cargoes was very
nearly 12,000_l._ of money. So vast an amount of shipping and commerce,
it has been truly said, was never concentrated in any other single port.
Now, against this we must set the amount of misery that co-exists
with it. We have shown that the mass of men dependent for their bread
upon the business of only one of the docks are, by the shifting of
the breeze, occasionally deprived in one day of no less than 220_l._,
the labourers at the London Dock earning as a body near upon 400_l._
to-day, and to-morrow scarcely 150_l._ These docks, however, are
but one of six similar establishments--three being on the north and
three on the south side of the Thames--and all employing a greater
or less number of hands, equally dependent upon the winds for their
subsistence. Deducting, then, the highest from the lowest number
of labourers engaged at the London Dock--the extremes according
to the books are under 500 and over 3000--we have as many as 2500
individuals deprived of a day’s work and a living by the prevalence
of an easterly wind; and calculating that the same effect takes
place at the other docks--the East and West India for instance, St.
Katherine’s, Commercial, Grand Surrey, and East Country, to a greater
or less extent, and that the hands employed to load and unload the
vessels entering and quitting all these places are only four times
more than those required at the London Dock, we have as many as
12,000 individuals or families whose daily bread is as fickle as the
wind itself; whose wages, in fact, are one day collectively as much
as 1500_l._ and the next as low as 500_l._, so that 8000 men are
frequently thrown out of employ, while the earnings of the class to day
amount to 1000_l._ less than they did yesterday.
It would be curious to take an average number of days that easterly
winds prevail in London throughout the year, and so arrive at an
estimate of the exact time that the above 8000 men are unemployed
in the course of twelve months. This would give us some idea of the
amount of their average weekly earnings. By the labourers themselves
I am assured that, taking one week with another, they do not gain
5_s._ weekly throughout the year. I have made a point of visiting and
interrogating a large number of them, in order to obtain some definite
information respecting the extent of their income, and have found in
only one instance an account kept of the individual earnings. In that
case the wages averaged within a fraction of 13_s._ per week, the
total sum gained since the beginning of the year being 25_l._ odd. I
should state, however, that the man earning thus much was pointed out
to me as one of the most provident of the casual labourers, and one,
moreover, who is generally employed. “If it is possible to get work,
he’ll have it,” was said of him; “there’s not a lazy bone in his skin.”
Besides this he had done a considerable quantity of piece-work, so that
altogether the man’s earnings might be taken as the very extreme made
by the best kind of “extra hands.”
The man himself gives the following explanation as to the state of the
labour-market at the London Dock. “He has had a good turn of work,”
he says, since he has been there. “Some don’t get half what he does.
He’s not always employed, excepting when the business is in anyway
brisk, but when a kind of a slack comes the recommended men get the
preference of the work, and the extras have nothing to do. This is
the best sumner he has had since he has been in London. Has had a good
bit of piece-work. Obliged to live as he does because he can’t depend
on work. Isn’t certain of the second day’s work. He’s paid off every
night, and can’t say whether or not they’ll want him on the morrow.”
The account of his wages was written in pencil on the cover of an old
memorandum-book, and ran as follows:
£. _s._ _d._
Earned by day-work from 1st Jan. to 1st } 16 11 6
Aug. 1849 }