“I am now thirty-three, and am acquainted with the grocery trade,
both as master and assistant. I served a five-years’ apprenticeship
in a town in Berkshire. The very late hours and the constant
confinement made me feel my apprenticeship a state of slavery. The
other apprentices used to say they felt it so likewise. During my
apprenticeship I consider that I never learnt my trade properly. I knew
as much at the year’s end as at the five years’ end. My father gave
my master fifty pounds premium; the same premium, or more, was paid
with the others. One, the son of a gentleman at ----, paid as much as
eighty pounds. My master made an excellent thing of his apprentices.
Nearly all the grocers in the part of Berkshire I’m acquainted with
do the same. My master was a severe man to us, in respect of keeping
us in the house, and making us attend the Methodist Chapel twice, and
sometimes thrice, every Sunday. We had prayers night and morning. I
attribute my misfortunes to this apprenticeship, because there was a
great discrepancy between profession and practice in the house; so
there could be no respect in the young men for their employer, and they
grew careless. He carried on his business in a way to inspire anything
else than respect. On the cheesemongery side we were always blamed if
we didn’t keep the scale well wetted, so as to make it heavier on one
side than the other--I mean the side of the scale where the butter was
put--that was filled or partly filled with water, under pretence of
preventing the butter sticking, and so the customer was wronged half an
ounce in every purchase. With regard to the bacon, which, on account
of competition, we had to sell cheap--at no profit sometimes--he
used to say to us, ‘You must make the ounces pay;’ that is, we were
expected to add two or more ounces, calculating on what the customer
would put up with, to every six odd ounces in the weight of a piece.
For instance, if a hock of bacon weighed six pounds seven ounces, at
4-1/2_d._ per pound, we were to charge 2_s._ 3_d._ for the six pounds,
and (if possible) adding two ounces to the seven which was the actual
weight, charge each ounce a halfpenny, so getting 2_s._ 7-1/2_d._
instead of 2_s._ 5_d._ This is a common practice in all the cheap
shops I am acquainted with. With his sugars and teas, inferior sorts
were mixed. In grinding pepper, a quantity of rice was used, it all
being ground together. Mustard was adulterated by the manufacturers,
if the price given showed that the adulterated stuff was wanted. The
lowest priced coffee was always half chiccory, the second quality
one-third chiccory; the best was one pound of chiccory to three pounds
of coffee, or one-fourth. We had it either in chiccory-nibs, which
is the root of the endive cultivated in Yorkshire, Prussia, &c., or
else a spurious chiccory powdered, twopence per pound cheaper, the
principal ingredient being parsnips and carrots cut in small pieces,
and roasted like chiccory. A quart of water is the allowance to every
twenty-eight pounds of tobacco. We had to keep pulling it, so as to
keep it loose, for if left to lie long it would mould, and get a very
unpleasant smell. In weighing sugar, some was always spilt loose in
the scale opposite the weight, which remains in the scale, so that
every pound or so is a quarter of an ounce short. This is the practice
only in cutting shops. Often enough, after we have been doing all
these rogueries, we were called into prayers. In my next situation,
with an honourable tradesman in Yorkshire, I found I had to learn my
business over again, so as to carry it on fairly. In two or three
years I went into business in the town where I was apprenticed; but I
had been subjected to such close confinement, and so many unnecessary
restrictions, without any opportunity of improving by reading, that
when I was my own master, and in possession of money, and on the first
taste of freedom, I squandered my money foolishly and extravagantly,
and that brought me into difficulties. I was 150_l._ deficient to meet
my liabilities, and my friends advanced that sum, I undertaking to be
more attentive to business. After that, a man started as a grocer in
the same street, in the ‘cutting’ line, and I had to compete with him,
and he sold his sugar a halfpenny a pound less than it cost, and I was
obliged to do the same. The preparing of the sugar for the market-day
is a country grocer’s week’s work, and all at a loss. That’s the ruin
of many a grocer. My profits dwindled year by year, though I stuck very
close to business; and in eighteen months I gave it up. By that time
other ‘cutting’ shops were opened--none have done any good. I was about
100_l._ bad, which my friends arranged to pay by instalments. After
that I hawked tea. I did no good in that. The system is to leave it at
the working men’s houses, giving a week’s credit, the customers often
taking more. Nothing can be honestly made in that trade. The Scotchmen
in the trade are the only men that can do any good in it. The charge
is six shillings for what’s four shillings in a good shop. About nine
months ago my wife--I had been married seven years--was obliged to
go and live with her sister, a dressmaker, as I was too poor to keep
her or myself either. I then came to London, to try for employment
of any kind. I answered advertisements, and there were always forty
or fifty young men after the same situation. I never got one, except
for a short time at Brentford. I had also a few days’ work at bill
delivery--that is, grocers’ circulars. I was at last so reduced that I
couldn’t pay for my lodgings. Nobody can describe the misery I felt as
I have walked the streets all night, falling asleep as I went along,
and then roused myself up half-frozen, my limbs aching, and my whole
body trembling. Sometimes, if I could find a penny, I might sit up in a
coffee-shop in Russell-street, Covent-garden, till five in the morning,
when I had to roam the streets all day long. Two days I was without
food, and determined to commit some felony to save me from starvation,
when, to my great joy--for God knows what it saved me from, as I was
utterly careless what my fate would be--I was told of this refuge by
a poor man who had been there, who found me walking about the Piazzas
in Covent-garden as a place of shelter. I applied, and was admitted.
I don’t know how I can get a place without clothes. I have one child
with my wife, and she supports him and herself very indifferently by
dressmaking.”
A soldier’s wife, speaking with a strong Scotch accent, made the
following statement. She had altogether a decent appearance, but her
features--and there were the remains of prettiness in her look--were
sadly pinched. Her manners were quiet, and her voice low and agreeable.
She looked like one who had “seen better days,” as the poor of the
better sort not unfrequently say in their destitution, clinging to the
recollection of past comforts. She wore a very clean checked cotton
shawl, and a straw bonnet tolerably entire. The remainder of her dress
was covered by her shawl, which was folded closely about her, over a
dark cotton gown.
“I was born twenty miles from Inverness, (she said), and have been a
servant since I was eleven. I always lived in good places--the best
of places. I never was in inferior places. I have lived as cook,
housemaid, or servant-of-all-work, in Inverness, Elgin, and Tain,
always maintaining a good character. I thank God for that. In all my
distress I’ve done nothing wrong, but I didn’t know what distress was
when in service. I continued in service until I married; but I was
not able to save much money, because I had to do all I could for my
mother, who was a very poor widow, for I lost my father when I was two
years old. Wages are very low in Scotland to what they are in England.
In the year 1847 I lived in the service of the barrack-master of Fort
George, twelve miles below Inverness. There I became acquainted with
my present husband, a soldier, and I was married to him in March,
1847, in the chapel at Fort George. I continued two months in service
after my marriage. My mistress wouldn’t let me away; she was very kind
to me; so was my master: they all were. I have a written character
from my mistress.” [This, at my request, she produced.] “Two months
after, the regiment left Fort George for Leith, and there I lived
with my husband in barracks. It is not so bad for married persons in
the artillery as in the line (we were in the artillery), in barracks.
In our barrack-rooms no single men were allowed to sleep where the
married people were accommodated. But there were three or four married
families in our room. I lived two years in barracks with my husband, in
different barracks. I was very comfortable. I didn’t know what it was
to want anything I ought to have. My husband was a kind, sober man.”
[This she said very feelingly.] “His regiment was ordered abroad, to
Nova Scotia. I had no family. Only six soldiers’ wives are allowed
to go out with each company, and there were seventeen married men in
the company to which my husband belonged. It’s determined by lot. An
officer holds the tickets in his cap, and the men draw them. None of
the wives are present. It would be too hard a thing for them to see. My
husband drew a blank.” She continued:--
“It was a sad scene when they embarked at Woolwich last March. All the
wives were there, all crying and sobbing, you may depend upon that; and
the children, too, and some of the men; but I couldn’t look much at
them, and I don’t like to see men cry. My husband was sadly distressed.
I hoped to get out there and join him, not knowing the passage was so
long and expensive. I had a little money then, but that’s gone, and
I’m brought to misery. It would have cost me 6_l._ at that time to
get out, and I couldn’t manage that, so I stayed in London, getting a
day’s work at washing when I could, making a very poor living of it;
and I was at last forced to part with all my good clothes after my
money went; and my husband, God bless him! always gave me his money to
do what I thought best with it. I used to earn a little in barracks
with my needle, too. I was taken ill with cholera at the latter end
of August. Dear, dear, what I suffered! And when I was getting better
I had a second attack, and that was the way my bit of money all went.
I was then quite destitute; but I care nothing for that, and would
care nothing for anything if I could get out to my husband. I should
be happy then. I should never be so happy since I was born before.
It’s now a month since I was entirely out of halfpence. I can’t beg;
it would disgrace me and my husband, and I’d die in the streets first.
Last Saturday I hadn’t a farthing. I hadn’t a thing to part with. I had
a bed by the night, at 3_d._ a-night, not a regular lodging-house; but
the mistress wouldn’t trust me no longer, as I owed her 2_s._ 6_d._,
and for that she holds clothes worth far more than that. I heard of
this Asylum, and got admitted, or I must have spent the night in the
street--there was nothing else for me; but, thank God! I’ve been spared
that. On Christmas day I had a letter from my husband.”