preventing the formation of habits destructive to the health and
prosperity of workmen, is set forth in the evidence of Mr. Peter
Fairbairn, the extensive mechanist of Leeds.
_Mr. Fairbairn_ examined.
“You are a mechanist at Leeds?—I am.
“What number of men do you employ?—Between 500 and 600.
“Have you ever observed any effects produced in the habits of the
labouring classes in respect to drinking intoxicating liquors by the
mode in which they are paid their wages?—Yes, there are two modes in
which wages are most frequently paid, and both these modes are
prejudicial in their effects. The first effect is connected with the
place of payment. Some masters pay at the public-house, others pay the
men at the counting-house after the work is completed. The effects
produced by payment at the public-house are to oblige the workman to
drink. He is kept waiting in the public-house during a long time,
varying from two to three hours, sometimes as much as five hours. The
workman cannot remain in the house without drinking, even if he were
alone, as he must make some return to the landlord for the use of the
room. But the payment of a number of men occupies time in proportion
to their numbers. We find that to pay our own men in the most rapid
way requires from two to three hours. The assembled workmen, of
course, stimulate each other to drink. Out of 100 men, all of whom
will, probably, have taken their quart of porter or ale, above a third
will go home in a state of drunkenness—of drunkenness to the extent of
imbecility. The evil is not confined to the men; the destructive habit
is propagated in their families. At each public-house a proportion of
the poor women, their wives, attend. According to my own observation,
full 10 per cent. of the men have their wives and children in
attendance at the public-house. The poor women have no other mode of
getting money to market with on the Saturday night than attending at
the public-house to get it from their husbands. They may have children
whom they cannot leave at home, and these they bring with them. The
wives are thus led to drink, and they and their children are made
partakers at the scenes of drunkenness and riot; for there are not
unfrequently quarrels leading to fights between the workmen when
intoxicated.
“Do not these late hours, consequent on such a mode of payment, also
lead them to the inferior markets, and prejudice the domestic economy
of the labourer’s household?—Yes, they have the less money to purchase
with, and must purchase an inferior quality of provisions. I have
observed that they do so. They are driven to the inferior shopkeepers
who keep open late; and they are also driven to make purchases on the
Sunday morning. It is only the inferior shopkeepers or hucksters who
will sell on the Sunday morning, and they sell an inferior commodity
at a higher price. Then the Sunday morning is thus occupied; the
husband, and sometimes the wife, is kept in a state of feverish
excitement by the previous night’s debauch: they are kept in a state
of filth and disorder; even the face is unwashed; no clean clothes are
put on, and there is no church attendance, and no decency. Indeed, by
the pressure of the wants created by habits of drinking, there is soon
no means to purchase clean or respectable clothes, and lastly, no
desire to purchase them. The man, instead of cleaning himself, and
appearing at church on the Sunday, or walking out with his family on
the Sunday afternoon in a respectable condition, remains at home in
filth, and in a filthy hovel. Of course there are no contributions to
sick-clubs under such circumstances; and if the workman has been
previously led to join a club, he is almost always in arrear with his
contributions, and is ultimately expelled. On the occurrence of the
disease to which such habits predispose him, there is nothing but the
most abject and complete destitution and pauperism. I have served the
office of churchwarden and overseer in Leeds three years, and, having
attended the weekly Board where applications for relief are made, I
have seen the end of this train of circumstances in the applications
for relief from parties who had previously been in the receipt of good
and sufficient wages (and even high wages) to have prevented such
applications. I have observed the whole train of these consequences in
several large works in London as well as in this town.
“Are there not consequences too to the employers themselves, as well
as to the ratepayers, in connexion with the habits of labourers thus
created?—One consequence of these habits is the loss of time at the
commencement of the week, and the comparative inefficiency of the
workmen when they do come. The workman who has been absent from
drunkenness comes to his work pale, emaciated, shattered, and
unnerved. From my own observation in my own branch of manufacture, I
should say that the quantity and quality of the work executed during
the first day or so would be about one-fifth less than that obtainable
from a steady and attentive workman.
“This deterioration, then, in a large number of workmen engaged in a
manufactory, may be noted as an important item of saving for the
consideration of a provident manufacturer?—Undoubtedly. Another
consideration for the master is the fact that such workmen, the most
idle and dissolute, are the most discontented, and are always the
foremost in mischievous strikes and combinations.
“You have spoken of the consequences of making the public-house a
place of payment; what are the comparative effects of making the
payments at the counting-house?—A considerable reduction of the evil.
Payments to large numbers at the counting-house is still, however,
attended with much inconvenience and evil. The payment of the number
of men employed at our works (between five and six hundred) would, as
I have stated, occupy between two and three hours. This mode of
payment, therefore, implies the keeping of a large crowd together
during that time. During that time appointments are made of meetings
at public-houses to drink that would not otherwise take place. It also
generates discontent: it gives an opportunity, by assembling a crowd,
for any discontented or mischievous person to operate upon a large
mass of people. Formerly the business of my manufactory, and the
welfare of the working people, were very seriously interrupted by
strikes; and I could not help observing the facilities which such
meetings gave to such mischievous persons.
“What is the mode of payment which you have adopted?—I send the pay
clerk into each room in the manufactory immediately after the dinner
hour, and he pays each man individually. Each man is scarcely taken
from his work half a minute. I may observe, that some masters, to save
themselves trouble, so as to avoid the inconvenience of getting small
change, will pay several men together. This again leads to the
public-house, where the men commonly go to get change to divide the
money amongst them; I therefore avoid paying any two men together, and
subjecting them to temptation as well as inconvenience and cost. Each
of my workmen being paid in the shop, without the loss of a minute,
may go at once directly home at the time when the work closes. He is
thus afforded an opportunity of going at once to the market at an
early hour, and is subjected to no factitious inducements to drink,
disorder, improvidence, and destitution.
“What is the average time thus saved to each of the 550 workmen in
your manufactory, as compared with the more ordinary mode of
payment?—About an hour and a half, or half the three hours of payment.
“Then, by this means, instead of bringing 550 persons to the one
person, the pay clerk, sending that one person to the 550 persons, you
save to them upwards of 800 hours of inconvenient waiting?—Just so.
“How many persons, on the average, have you absent from work on the
Monday morning?—Not more than from four to five, until eight o’clock
in the morning; and on the return to work after dinner from one to two
persons.
“That is from one to two persons the entire day during the Monday, out
of between five and six hundred workpeople?—Yes.
“What number would have been absent on the Monday under the ordinary
circumstances?—About 30 per cent., or one-third, would be drunk on the
Saturday night; and full 10 per cent. would not make their appearance
until the Tuesday morning. Instead of only two absent during the whole
of the day, I should have more than 50; or, in other words, more than
50 families not only distressed by what is spent in drink, but losing
one-sixth of their earnings, and I as a master losing from their
deteriorated work on the days when they do return. I beg leave further
to observe, that mere education in reading or writing, precepts or
preaching, are of very little avail against the temptations to drink
held out to working men; and I am confident that if employers could be
made to see and attend to their mutual interests, by a little care in
the removal of temptations, they might generally prevent the most
fruitful cause of disorder, destitution, and pauperism, at least as
extensively as I have prevented those consequences to my workmen and
their families by the adoption of the means I have described.”
In the course of a report on the sanitary condition of the labouring
classes in the town of Lancaster, received from _Dr. De Vitrie_, the
effects of an amended practice are thus noticed:—
“An excellent example is shown in this neighbourhood by the wealthy
manufacturers and tradesmen almost universally paying their men’s
weekly wages on a Friday evening (or, what is still better, early on
Saturday morning) instead of Saturday, thus putting it into the power
of all to spend their money to the best advantage at Saturday’s
market, and obviating the great temptation which formerly existed of
spending their earnings, or a large proportion of them, in the
public-houses and beer-shops after the termination of the week’s
labour. It may be said that such parties are as likely to dissipate on
a Friday as on a Saturday evening. The propensity I grant may be the
same, but there is no intervening day of rest to shake off the effects
of intemperance and indulgence, and as workmen must resume their
labours on the Saturday, hence it is that such a regulation exercises
not only a salutary but a provident influence.”
The _Rev. Whitwell Elwin_ observes—
“Where gain was dependant on the growth of better habits, I have seen,
with the agency of judicious individuals, encouraging cases of
complete reformation: an intelligent engineer in this neighbourhood
was about paying off a man whose profligacy had left him without a
decent covering, and who often depended for his victuals upon the
generosity of his fellow-workmen. He begged hard to be retained, and
his master at last consented, on condition that he himself should lay
out his wages for the next three months. He provided the man with good
lodgings, allowed him tea, sugar, and bread and butter night and
morning; meat, and either bread or potatoes, with a pint of beer every
day for his dinner; and before the appointed time was up, bought him
with the surplus a new suit of clothes. The man was so sensible of the
advantage of the change, that he became one of the most thrifty and
valuable workmen; and his master has often since tried the same
experiment with the same success. If we could collect all the
philanthropy and much of the self-interest of the country into wise
and profitable channels, we might, I believe in a twelvemonth, do much
towards regenerating the most wretched classes.”
One employer of numerous labourers in a well-conducted establishment
stated to me that after long experience he found it necessary, for the
protection of the workpeople, as well as the efficiency of the
establishment, invariably to discharge every workman who was guilty of
drunkenness; and that the first visible sign to excite suspicion of the
habits of intoxication was the absence of personal cleanliness, then a
pallid countenance, on which inquiry was made. Another employer of
numerous labourers, _Mr. William Fairbairn_, of Manchester (the brother
of Mr. Fairbairn, of Leeds), who has had between one and two thousand
workpeople engaged in the manufactories of machinery in the firm of
which he is the first partner, stated, in answer to the question,—
“What are their habits in respect to sobriety?—I may mention that I
strictly prohibit on my works the use of beer or fermented liquors of
any sort, or of tobacco. I enforce the prohibition of fermented
liquors so strongly that, if I found any man transgressing the rule in
that respect, I would instantly discharge him without allowing him
time to put on his coat.
“Have you any peculiar grounds for adopting this course?—No; but as
respects myself I wish to have an orderly set of workmen; and in the
next place I am decidedly of opinion that it is better for the men
themselves and for their families.
“Are you aware that it is a prevalent opinion that strong drink is
necessary as a stimulus for the performance of labour?—I am aware that
that was a prevalent opinion amongst employers of labour, but it is
now very generally abandoned; there are nevertheless some foundries in
which there is drinking throughout the works all day long. It is
observable, however, of the men employed as workmen, that they do not
work so well; their perceptions are clouded, and they are stupified
and heavy. I have provided water for the use of the men in every
department of the works. In summer time the men engaged in the
strongest work, such as the strikers to the heavy forges, drink water
very copiously. In general the men who drink water are really more
active, and do more work, and are more healthy than the workmen who
drink fermented liquors. I observed on a late journey to
Constantinople that the boatmen or rowers to the caiques, who are
perhaps the first rowers in the world, drink nothing but water; and
they drink that profusely during the hot months of the summer. The
boatmen and water-carriers of Constantinople are decidedly in my
opinion the finest men in Europe as regards their physical
development, and they are all water drinkers: they may take a little
sherbet, but in other respects are what we should call in this
country, tee-totallers.
“What is their diet?—Chiefly bread; now and then a cucumber, with
cherries, figs, dates, mulberries, or other fruits which are abundant
there; now and then a little fish.
“Do they ever use animal food?—Occasionally I believe the flesh of
goats, but I never saw them eating any other than the diet I have
described.
“Did they appear to eat more than the European workmen?—About the
same; if anything, more moderate as respects the quantity.”
I have collected much other information to the same effect. In the
Appendix, I have given, as a contrast, an instance of arrangements which
tend to promote the habit of drinking, and the consequences, a part of
which are met and dealt with by the administrators of relief from the
poor’s rates, in the shape of claims to relief on the ground of sickness
and consequent destitution; and another part of which fall as disorders
and crimes to be encountered by the police.
I submit here one important instance of the exercise of a wise influence
on the habits of the agricultural population:—
In a form of lease used in leasing the Highland property of the Duke of
Sutherland, which appears to be ably devised to ensure progressive
improvement, care for the moral welfare of the population is not
omitted. The poverty, disorder, and crime engendered by the destructive
habit of whisky drinking, fostered by the practice of illicit
distillation, is encountered by a clause which provides that if the
tenant “distill whiskey, or shall permit any one to distill whisky, or
shall sell or permit the same to be sold on the said premises hereby
set, or on any part of the said estate, or shall contravene any of the
regulations the said proprietors have established for the management
thereof, and that if he or they shall be convicted of any of the said
offences before the sheriff, depute, or substitute, or any two of his
Majesty’s justices of the peace for the said county; then, in either of
these events or cases, this agreement shall be, _ipso facto_, void and
null, and the said tenant shall be forthwith removable by summary
process before the judge ordinary, whereupon decree shall be pronounced
upon relevant proof of the fact.”
The lease ensures the improvement of the tenements, and provides that
“no earthen houses or huts are permitted to be built on any
consideration.” The one provision is the proper complement of the other;
and Mr. Hill gives his testimony to the excellent effect which the
support given to the law, and the prevention of whisky drinking, produce
on the habits of the population.
_Employers’ Influence on the Health of Workpeople by the Promotion of
Personal Cleanliness._
I proceed to another instance of the power of the employers to protect
the health, as well as the morals of their workpeople, by influencing
their habits of personal cleanliness.
But I shall first submit a few instances of the extent and prevalence of
personal uncleanliness amongst whole classes of workpeople.
_Mr. John Kennedy_, in the course of the examinations of some colliers
in Lancashire, asked one of them—
“How often do the drawers (those employed in drawing coals) wash their
bodies?—None of the drawers ever wash their bodies. I never wash my
body; I let my shirt rub the dirt off; my shirt will show that. I wash
my neck and ears, and face, of course.
“Do you think it usual for the young women (engaged in the colliery)
to do the same as you do?—I do not think it is usual for the lasses to
wash their bodies; my sisters never wash themselves, and seeing is
believing; they wash their faces, necks, and ears.
“When a collier is in full dress, he has white stockings, and very
tall shirt necks, very stiffly starched, and ruffles?—That is very
sure, sir; but they never wash their bodies underneath; I know that;
and their legs and bodies are as black as your hat.”
One labourer remembered that a particular event took place at Easter,
“because it was then he washed his feet.” The effects of these habits
are seen at the workhouse on almost every one of the paupers admitted.
When it is necessary to wash them on their admission, they usually
manifest an extreme repugnance to the process. Their common feeling was
expressed by one of them when he declared that he considered it “equal
to robbing him of a great coat which he had had for some years.” The
filthy condition in which they are found on admission into the hospitals
is frequently sufficient to account for the state of disease in which
they appear, and the act of cleansing them is itself the most efficient
cure. The out-door service of the union medical officers amidst such a
population is often most painful and disgusting: _e. g._—
_Mr. J. F. Handley_, medical officer of the Chipping Norton union,
states in his report—
“When the small pox was prevalent in this district, I attended a man,
woman, and five children, all lying ill with the confluent species of
that disorder, in one bed-room, and having only two beds amongst them.
The walls of the cottage were black, the sheets were black, and the
patients themselves were blacker still; two of the children were
absolutely sticking together. It was indeed a gloomy scene. I have
relished many a biscuit and glass of wine in Mr. Grainger’s
dissecting-room when ten dead bodies were lying on the tables under
dissection, but was entirely deprived of appetite during my attendance
upon these cases. The smell on entering the apartments was exceedingly
nauseous, and the room would not admit of free ventilation.”
Such conditions of the population, of habitual personal and domestic
filth, are not necessary to any occupation; they are not the necessary
consequence of poverty, and are the type of neglect and indolence; this
is proved by the example of men engaged in the same occupations with
improved habits. The medical officers of the Merthyr Tydvill union, in
their returns, represent the health of the colliery population to be
very good, a circumstance which is ascribed to their habitual
cleanliness.
_Mr. J. L. Roberts_, surgeon, states—
“The colliers in our district invariably, on their return from the
pits in the evening to their houses, strip to the skin, and wash
themselves perfectly clean in a tub of lukewarm water, and wipe with
towels until the cuticle is dry. The miners are not so particular. I
firmly believe that the health of other workmen employed generally
about the ironworks is not so permanently good as the colliers; they,
generally speaking, not undergoing complete ablution as the colliers
do. Generally, the colliers are quite free from any cutaneous disease,
or at least not so much affected with psora, &c., as the generality of
their fellow-workmen. Cutaneous diseases are frequent amongst children
from want of cleanliness.”
In the places of work where there is the greatest need for cleanliness,
in every place where there is a steam-engine, hot water, which is
commonly allowed to run waste, is already provided in abundance for warm
or tepid baths, not only for the workpeople, but, where there are
numerous engines, for the whole population. If the same hot water arose
at the same heat and abundance from any natural spring, baths would be
erected, and medical treatises would be written in commendation of its
medicinal virtues, which, the better opinion appears now to be, are
ascribable, in the majority of instances, simply to the hot water, and
to its application in cases where it had not before been used. Hot or
tepid baths are deemed of more importance for the labouring classes in
winter than are cold baths in summer, and they might be generally
provided for the working classes in the manufacturing districts at a
cost utterly inconsiderable.
A few years since a gentleman, observing some ditches in London, in the
neighbourhood of the City-road, smoking with clean hot water running
away from the steam-engine of a manufactory, directed attention to the
waste, and suggested the expediency of using that water to supply public
warm or tepid baths. After a time the suggestion was acted upon as a
private speculation, and large swimming-baths were constructed; one,
with superior accommodation and decorations at 1_s._; another, with less
costly fittings-up, at 6_d._ the bath. These were luxurious tepid baths,
kept at a heat of 84°. The example appears to have been followed in
Westminster by the establishment of similar tepid swimming-baths, where
only 3_d._ is charged to persons of the working-class. As many as 2000
and 3000 of this class have resorted to these baths in one day, and the
bath at the lowest charge is stated to make the best return for the
capital invested in it. Similar establishments are, we believe, in
progress in other parts of the metropolis. _Mr. Samuel Greg_, at
Bollington, has formed baths for the use of his workpeople, which he
thus describes:—