As much interest has latterly been roused concerning the population
habitually living in the English canal traffic boats, we offer the
following particulars on the subject from the personal observation of a
correspondent. His narrative is as follows:
After allowing one or two barges to pass, the occupants of which seemed
to be surly ill-favoured folks, one at length came in sight which
answered our purpose, and we shall begin with it.
A cleanly dressed woman looked up at us with a pleasant smile upon her
face as we bade her ‘good-day,’ her husband at the same time answering
our salutation heartily. Whilst waiting for the lock to fill he came
to our side and volunteered some sensible remarks on the great saving
of water effected by the use of the side-pound system, which led to a
conversation between us, and eventually to an invitation to step on
board and go with them as far as Brentford. Accordingly we stepped on
board; but at first had some little difficulty in bestowing our person
out of the way of the long tiller, which swept completely over the
available standing-room in rear of the cabin door, and momentarily
threatened to force us overboard.
When at length we were well under way, and the man had relieved his
wife at the helm, she invited us to inspect the interior of their
cabin, apologising for its unfurnished state as compared with other
cabins, on the ground that she did not habitually accompany her husband
on his voyages, preferring to stay at home, when possible, to keep
the house in order. With no little pride, however, she pointed out
the usual arrangement of cupboards, lockers, shelves, hooks, &c., by
which the limited space of nine feet by six was made to contain the
utensils and necessaries for the use of a whole family. As was natural
to a good housewife, she dilated mostly upon the cooking capabilities
of a wonderfully small fire-place, erected close by the doorway, at
which, she averred, she could cook as readily as at home. We looked
sharply round for the sleeping accommodation, but failing to discover
anything resembling a bedstead—other than the tops of the lockers
placed round two sides of the cabin, and which we calculated could not
possibly accommodate more than three persons—were considerably puzzled
to understand how such families as we had seen on the other boats were
disposed of at night. The roof was not high enough to admit of hammocks
being slung; nor was the space between the lockers sufficient to
allow of a bed being made up on the floor. Unable to solve the puzzle
ourselves, we suggested that surely, where there was a family of five
or six children, they did not all sleep in the cabin.
‘Indeed, but they do,’ replied our hostess. ‘And this is how they
manage. The father and mother with the youngest baby sleep at the end
there, with maybe the next youngest at their feet; then a couple of the
children at this side; and another, or two, under here.’
‘Under here’ being the space beneath the father’s bed, a very kennel,
closed on all sides except a portion of the front corresponding to the
width of the floor—about three feet. That children even could sleep
in so confined a space without suffering permanently in health seems
contrary to all natural laws; but as a matter of fact, bargemen and
their families appear to be remarkably healthy. Expressing our surprise
that any person could possibly sleep in so cramped a space, our
informant continued: ‘Bless you! that’s nothing. When there’s a butty,
he sleeps as best he can on the floor.’
‘And pray, what is a butty?’ we inquire.
‘Well, you see, by rights there must be two able-bodied people on board
every boat, besides a lad or a lass to take turn about at driving.
Generally it’s the man’s wife. But sometimes it happens as she’s sick
or what not; and then they have to get a growing lad of sixteen or
seventeen to butty with them for a voyage or two; and then of course he
lives and sleeps on the boat along with the family. Not as you must run
away with the idea that we all of us live entirely in the boats, as a
good many of us have as good homes on shore as you’d wish to put foot
in. But on the other hand, there’s as many more who don’t sleep out of
the boat once a year, and hardly know what the inside of a house is
like.
‘Do I mean to say that children are born in these cabins? Indeed I
do, sir. What is more, many’s the child that is not only born on
board but _dies_ on board too; for as I told you, there’s many that
have no other home than the boat, and no friends but what are boatmen
too. So what _are_ they to do? with their husbands a-travelling all
over the country; Birmingham one week, and Brentford here maybe, the
next. Plenty of ’em indeed have got so used to the boats it would be
downright cruel if they were to be compelled to live in a house ashore
like decent people; because, you see, everything’s so different, and
they’ve become so used to making shift in little room, that they’d be
regularly lost in a house.
‘How do they get on when they’re sick? Well, you see, it’s mostly a
town that we tie up at, at night, and there’s generally a doctor to
be found, however late it may be; and they get medicine that way. I
once lost a little girl on board. She was taken a little queer on the
Sunday night before we were to start on this very same voyage on the
Monday morning. It so happened that the master couldn’t get a butty,
and so we’d arranged as I should come down with him; though of course
we never dreamt as there was anything serious the matter with little
Polly, or I wouldn’t have stirred with her. All day Monday and Tuesday
the child got so much worse, that when we tied up at night I made the
master take her to a doctor and get some medicine for her. Of course we
were obliged to go on the next day, with little Polly getting worse and
worse every hour, so that at night we were afraid to take her on shore,
and had to pay a doctor to come on board and see her. I hardly liked
the thought of going on the next day; but we were on a time voyage, by
which the master was bound to be in Brentford on a certain day, and so
we had to go on. But before night little Polly died. All that evening
my master tried to get somebody to take his boat on; but it was a busy
time just then, and there wasn’t a boatman to be got for love or money.
We had some thoughts of going on ourselves; but almost as soon as it
was daylight the next morning a policeman came on board and stopped
us, saying, as no doctor had attended the child, there’d have to be
an inquest. It was no use me a-shewing him the medicine bottles, and
saying as two doctors had seen her; he wouldn’t believe us. Nor it
wasn’t till two days afterwards, after my master had been to the last
doctor and got him to give him a letter to the coroner, that we could
get leave to bury the child; which we did, with not a soul belonging to
her following her except my husband in his working clothes, I myself
being too poorly to keep the poor man company in seeing the last of her.
‘As for children being born in the cabins, sir, I know several women
who have had large families all born on board the boat while it was
making its voyage, with perhaps nobody at all to attend on them except
their husband, or some woman from another boat which chanced to be
working mates with them.
‘Both my lads can read and write; but there’s nine out of ten as you
see on the boats can’t tell “A” from a bull’s foot, and on that account
the new Act is sure to do good. But my husband can tell you more about
that than I can, and he’ll have done for a mile or two when we get
through this next lock.’
‘None such easy work after all—is it, sir?’ inquired the husband, as
after passing through several locks all within a few score paces of
each other, at every one of which he had been very hard at work opening
and closing sluices, he stepped on board the barge and took the helm
from his wife. ‘There is them as thinks we bargees have nought to do
all day except lean our arms on the tiller, smoke our pipes, and chaff
anybody we come across. But you can see for yourself, sir, as we have
all our work at times.’
Having expressed our conviction that on that point he was right, we
requested him to enlighten us on several matters connected with his
particular class, which he willingly did somewhat as follows.
‘About our earnings? Well, I suppose we can’t grumble as times go.
Take it all the year round, one week with another, I and the lads earn
perhaps a couple of pounds. We get paid mostly by the voyage—so much
a ton from one place to another; and if we could only get loaded up
as soon as we emptied, we shouldn’t make a bad thing of it; but the
worst of it is the waiting about for a load when one voyage is finished
before we can start on another. The boats the master finds; but the
horse is my own; and out of what I make I have to feed him, which must
be on the best of corn and hay that can be got for money; otherwise,
he’d never be able to get through the tramp, tramp, for five-and-twenty
or thirty miles—sometimes more—which he has to do day after day,
wet and fine. Look at that corn, sir! Better you won’t find in any
gentleman’s stable, I’ll warrant. And I find that in the long-run it
comes the cheapest, for where those as feeds their horses on anything,
wear out two or three, I don’t use up one. Of course we don’t walk the
whole day through, alongside the horse; but we take it turn about, five
or six miles at a spell; though sometimes when we are working quick
voyages, night and day that is—owners finding relays of horses—we have
regular hours to drive, like watches on board ship; but there ain’t
much of that kind of work now. Our day’s work is mostly over by dark,
sometimes sooner, sometimes later, all depending on the place we choose
to tie up at, or the time we have to wait to pass the locks.
‘Do I think that railways will do away with canals in time? No, sir;
I don’t. Because, you see, there’s lots of goods as don’t well bear
the packing and unpacking as is necessary for railway travelling, as
can be put straight on board a barge and never be shaken even, till
they are unloaded just at the very place where they are wanted. And
lots of other goods there are that _we_ can carry cheaper than the
railway, where a day or two more on the road don’t matter. Besides
which, there’s plenty of brickfields, collieries, ironworks, and such
like just on the canal banks and some distance from railroads, that
will always use barges to save the expense of carting; so that I don’t
think canals will go out of fashion yet awhile. And that’s why I’m
glad to hear as they’re passing an Act to do something for the poor
children. You see it’s just this way, sir: our people as a rule don’t
know how to read and write themselves, most of ’em having been on the
boats since they could remember, and therefore they don’t see why they
shouldn’t have the advantage of their children’s assistance in working
the barge, the same as _their_ fathers had.
‘There’s another way in which I think the Act will do good, and that
is this. It will teach our women perhaps to have a little more decency
about them than some of the worst of them have. If you’ll believe me,
sir, I see scenes on the canal sometimes, when some of the worst of
them have been paid, as I can’t bear to look at, though not nearly so
commonly now as I used to. And then again, it doesn’t always follow as
because a man and woman work the same boat that they are married. In
fact, in my opinion it would be a good thing if the lasses were not
allowed on board after they had grown up to be twelve or thirteen, as
it stands to reason that they’re nearly sure to grow up bargewomen. And
after all’s said and done, it’s no fitting life for a woman to lead. As
you’ve seen for yourself, there’s a good deal of hard work attached to
it, even on a fine day like this; but in winter-time it’s simply cruel
to a woman who has a young baby. However, I suppose when our children
are compelled to go to school, as they say this new Act compels them,
there’ll be a stop put to a good deal of what’s wrong about us, and
perhaps folks may not have so good a reason for looking upon us as
something worse than themselves. People seem to think that generally
we are a regular bad lot; but I fancy if they knew a little more about
us, they’d see that, though there _are_ some bad ones amongst us, take
us all in all we are no worse than most of our neighbours. We seem
somehow to have got a name for interfering with people as we chance to
come across; but you may see for yourself, sir, that we have quite as
much as we can do to mind our own business, and a bargeman can no more
afford to neglect his business than anybody else, if he means to do any
good in the world.
‘What becomes of us when we get old? Well, most of us stick to the
barges as long as we can; and when we are obliged to give up, if we
haven’t put by enough to keep us comfortable, which I’m sorry to say as
there ain’t many of us do, there’s generally a lock to be got or a job
of some sort at the docks; all depending on the sort of character we’ve
kept.
‘Here we are, sir, at our journey’s end for this time,’ he added, as
the boat slowly floated into a small open basin, there to remain for
the night. The boatman’s wife, being already shawled and armed with
a capacious basket, stepped on shore as soon as the boat came near
enough; and with a cheerful ‘good-night’ to us, went away to do her
marketing before the shops should close.
Tying up the boat, my bargee friend sent off the boys with the horse
to its stable, and proceeded to gather together and stow away in their
respective lockers the odds and ends which had been in use during the
day; remarking as he did so, that though there were watchmen kept in
every dock, it often happened that the barges were robbed of any loose
things which might be left about, and therefore it was that most of
the boats had a dog on board, who made a better policeman than all the
watchmen. With a last glance round he took from one of the cupboards
a dirty paper, and unfolding it for our inspection, said: ‘There, you
see, reading and writing would be of some use to us after all; for
according to what tonnage is put down there, we get paid. And as you
see, wherever we pay tolls they put down the time we pass, so that if
we get drinking or loitering about for a day the owners know it, and
make up our character according.
‘Yes; I’m going to sleep on board; but I must go and report our arrival
at the office, and see as the horse is all right first. And as for what
I’ve told you, I’m sure you’re very welcome to know it, especially
if it will only make you believe as if something was done to give
our children a little reading and writing, and to stop so many lads
and lasses being crammed together in the boats, there might be less
respectable people than bargees.’
An unclouded moon was shining upon the calm water of the canal and upon
the gaudily painted cabins of some twelve or thirteen barges, which lay
motionless in the basin, displaying no other sign of human habitation
than the thin columns of smoke which issued from their stove-pipes, as
we bade our friend ‘good-night,’ and started on our homeward walk, well
satisfied with the experience we had gained while spending an hour or
two with some of ‘our canal population.’