Part 135

Paris, cesspool and sewer system of, 439

---- rag-gatherers of, 141

Paupers, street-sweeping, narratives of, 245

----, number of, in England and Wales, 320

Petticoat-lane, street-sellers of, 36

“Pure” finders, 143

---- ---- narrative of a female, 144

Purl-men, the, 93

“Rag and bottle” shops, 108

Rag-gatherers, 139

Rags, broken metal, bottles, glass, and bone, buyers of, 106

“Ramoneur Company,” the, 373

Rat-killing, 56

River beer-sellers, 93

River finders, 147

Rosemary-lane, street sellers of, 39

Rubbish-carters, the, 281, 289

---- ---- wages and perquisites of, 292

---- ---- social characteristics of, 295

---- ---- casual labourers among, 323

---- ---- scurf trade among, 327

Salt, sellers of, 89

Sand, sellers of, 90

Scavenger, statement of a “regular”, 224

Scavengers, master, of former times, 205

---- ---- oath of, 206

---- working, 216

---- labour and rates of payment, 219

---- “casual hands”, 220

---- habits and diet, 226

---- influence of free trade on their earnings, 228

---- worse paid, the, 232

Scavengery, contractors for, 210

---- contractors, regulations of, 211

---- contractors, premises of, 216

Scavenging, jet and hose system of, 275

Scurf-labourers, 236

Second-hand apparel, sellers of, 25

---- ---- articles, sellers of, 5

---- ---- ---- experience of a dealer in, 11

---- ---- live animals, productions, &c., street-sellers of, their numbers, capital, and income, 97

---- ---- garments, uses of, 29

---- ---- varieties of, 32

---- ---- store-shops, 24

Seven-dials, Dickens’s description of, 35

Sewage, metropolitan, quantity of, 387

---- qualities and uses of, 407

Sewerage, the City, 403

---- new plan of, 411

Sewerage and scavengery, London, history of, 179

Sewers, ancient, 388

---- kinds and characteristics of, 390

---- subterranean character of, 394

---- house-drainage in connection with, 395

---- ventilation of, 423

---- flushing and plunging, 424

---- rats in the, 431

---- management of the, and the late Commission, 414

---- Commissioners, powers of, 416

---- rate, 420

Sewer-hunters, 150

---- ---- numbers of, 152

---- ---- strange tale of, 154

Sewermen and nightmen of London, 383

Shells, sellers of, 91

Shoddy mills, 30

---- fever, 31

Smithfield market, second-hand sellers at, 46

Smoke, evils of, 339

---- ---- scientific opinions upon, 340

Squirrels, sellers of, 77

“Strapping” system, the, illustration of, 304

Street-buyers, the, varieties of, 103

Street-cleansing, modes and characteristics of, 207

---- ---- men and carts employed in, 213

---- ---- pauper labour employed in, 243

---- ---- narratives of individuals, 245

Street-finders or collectors, varieties of, 136

Street-folk, census of, 1

---- ---- capital and trade, 2

---- ---- proscription of, 3

---- ---- rate of increase, 5

Street-muck, or “mac”, 198

---- ---- uses of, 198

---- ---- value of, 199

Street Jews, the, 115

Street-orderlies, the, 253

---- ---- condition of, 261

---- ---- expenditure of, 265

---- ---- earnings of, 266

---- ---- City surveyor’s report of, 271

Street-sweeping, employers, 209

---- ---- parishes, 209

---- ---- philanthropists, 209

Street-sweeping machines, 208

---- ---- hands employed, 238

Streets of London, how paved, 181

---- ---- traffic of, 184

---- ---- dust and dirt of, 185

---- ---- ---- loss and injury from, 185

---- ---- mud of the, 200

---- ---- cost and traffic of, 278

Sweeping chimneys of steam-vessels, 372

Surface-water of the streets of London, 202

---- ---- ---- ---- analysis of, 205

Tan-turf, sellers of, 87

Tea-leaves, buyers of, 133

Telescopes and pocket-glasses, second-hand, sellers of, 22

“Translators” of old shoes, 34

---- extent of the trade, 35

Tumbling boy-sweepers, king of the, 501

Umbrellas and parasols, buyers of, 115

Washing expenses in London, 190

Waste-paper, buyers of, 113

Water, daily supply of the metropolis, 203

Watermen’s Company, form of license, 95

Weapons, second-hand, sellers of, 21

Wet house-refuse, 383

---- ---- ---- means of removing, 385

Women’s second-hand apparel, sellers of, 44

Wrappers or “bale-stuff”, 13

Young Mike the crossing-sweeper, 498

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The definition of a Costermonger strictly includes only such individuals as confine themselves to the sale of the produce of the Green and Fruit Markets: the term is here restricted to that signification.

[2] This number includes Men, Women, and Children.

[3] The Watercress trade is carried on in the streets, principally by old people and children. The chief mart to which the street-sellers of cresses resort is Farringdon-market, a place which but few or none of the regular Costermongers attend.

[4] The Chickweed and Groundsell Sellers and the Turf-Cutters’ traffic has but little expense connected with it, and their trade is therefore nearly all profit.

[5] “v. t.” signifies “various times,” of theft and of “restoration.”

[6] The Metropolitan Police District comprises a circle, the radius of which is 15 miles from Charing Cross; the extreme boundary on the N. includes the parish of Cheshunt and South Mimms; on the S., Epsom; on the E., Dagenham and Crayford; and on the W., Uxbridge and Staines.

[7] The inner district includes the parish of St. John, Hampstead, on the N.; Tooting and Streatham on the S.; Ealing and Brentford on the W.; and Greenwich on the E.

The Registrar General’s District is equal, or nearly so, to the inner Metropolitan Police District.

[8] The City of London is bounded on the S. by the River, on the E. by Whitechapel, on the W. by Chancery Lane, and N. by Finsbury.

[9] The area here stated is that of the city without the walls, and includes White Friars precinct and Holy Trinity, Minories, both belonging to other districts.

[10] This area is that of the city within the walls, and does not include White Friars, which belongs to the district.

[11] The area of the districts of St. Saviour and St. Olave is included in that returned for St. George, Southwark.

[12] The population and number of inhabited houses in these districts has decreased annually to this extent since 1841.

[13] This relates merely to the repairs to the wooden pavement, but if a renewal of the blocks be necessary, then the cost approaches that of a new road; and a renewal is considered necessary about once in three years.

[14] “Haunsed” is explained by Strype to signify “made too high,” and the “Redosses” to be “Reredoughs.” A mason informed me that he believed these Redosses were what were known in some old country-houses as “Back-Flues,” or flues connecting any fire-grate in the out-offices with the main chimney. The term “lene” is the Teutonic _Lehn_, and signifies “let, lease,” or literally _loan_.

[15] The reader will remember that in the historical sketch given of the progress of public scavengery, the word “Rakers” occurred in connection with the sworn master scavengers, &c., &c.; the word is now unknown to the trade, except that it appears on city documents.

[16] The parishes marked thus [16] have their dustmen and dust-carts, as well as the rubbish carting and the individuals in the dust-yard, reckoned in the numbers employed by the contractors.

[17] I have computed all the weekly wages at 16_s._, though some of the men are paid only 14_s._ My object in this is to give the contractors the benefit of the difference.

[18] The Saxon _Sceorfa_, which is the original of the English Scurf, means a scab, and scab is the term given to the “cheap men” in the shoemaking trade. Scab is the root of our word _Shabby_; hence Scurf and Scab, deprived of their offensive associations, both mean shabby fellows.

[19] These items wages _must_ include to prevent pauperism, _even with providence_. But this is only on the supposition that the labourer is unmarried; if married, however, and having a family, then his wages should include, moreover, the keep of at least three extra persons, as well as the education of the children. If not, one of two results is self-evident--either the wife must toil, to the neglect of her young ones, and they be allowed to run about and pick their morals and education, as I have before said, out of the gutter, or else the whole family must be transferred to the care of the parish.

[20] I have estimated the whole at 15_s._ a week the year through, gangers, “honourable men,” regular hands and all, so as to allow for the diminished receipts of the casual hands.

[21] The usual argument in favour of machinery, viz., that “by reducing prices it extends the market, and so, causing a greater demand for the commodities, induces a greater quantity of employment,” would also be an argument in favour of over population, since this, by cheapening labour, must have the same effect as machinery on prices, and, consequently (according to the above logic), induce a greater quantity of employment! But granting that machinery really does benefit the labourer in cases _where the market, and therefore the quantity of work, is largely extensible_, surely it cannot but be an injury in those callings where _the quantity of work is fixed_. Such is the fact with the sawing of wood, the reaping of corn, the threshing of corn, the sweeping of the streets, &c., and hence the evil of mechanical labour applied to such trades.

[22] Mr. Sidney Herbert informed me, that when he was connected with the Ordnance Department the severest punishment they could discover for idleness was the piling and unpiling of cannon shot; but surely this was the consummation of official folly! for idleness being simply an aversion to work, it is almost self-evident that it is _impossible_ to remove this aversion by making labour inordinately irksome and repulsive. Until we understand the means by which work is made pleasant, and can discover other modes of employing our paupers and criminals, all our workhouse and prison discipline is idle tyranny.

[23] This is done at the Model Prison, Pentonville.

[24] The number of men here given as employed by the parishes in the scavaging of the streets will be found to differ from that of the table at page 213; but the present table includes all the parish-men employed throughout London, whereas the other referred to only a portion of the localities there mentioned.

[25] To the honourable conduct of the above-named contractors to their men, I am glad to be able to bear witness. All the men speak in the highest terms of them.

[26] This is Mr. Mills’s second _fundamental_ proposition respecting capital (see “Principles of Pol. Econ.” p. 82, vol. i.). “What I intend to assert is,” says that gentleman, “that the portion (of capital) which is destined to the maintenance of the labourers may--supposing no increase in anything else--be indefinitely increased, without creating an impossibility of finding them employment--in other words, if there are human beings capable of work, and food to feed them, they may always be employed in producing something.”

[27] Mr. Cochrane is said, in the Reports of the National Philanthropic Association, to have expended no less than 6000_l._ of his fortune in the institution of the Street-Orderly system of scavaging.

[28] A street-orderly in St. Martin’s-lane recovered a piece of broad-cloth from a man who had just stolen it from a warehouse; others in Drury-lane detected several thefts from provision-shops. Two orderlies in Holborn saved the lives of the guard and driver of one of Her Majesty’s mail-carts, the horse having become unmanageable in consequence of the shafts being broken. In St. Mary’s Church, Lambeth, a gentleman having fallen down in apoplexy, the orderlies who were attending Divine service, carried him out into the air, and promptly procured him medical aid, but unhappily life was extinct. Many instances have occurred, however, in which they have rendered essential service to the public and to individuals.

[29] The wages paid are not stated.

[30] At p. 183 the sum of 18,225_l._ is said to be expended in repairs _annually_; it should have been _weekly_.

[31] At p. 185 the traffic of London Bridge is stated to be 13,000 conveyances per hour, instead of per 12 hours.

[32] The _core_ in this term may be a corruption of the Saxon _Carr_, a rock, rather than that which would at first suggest itself as its origin, viz., the Latin _cor_, the heart. _Hard-core_ would therefore mean hard rock-like rubbish, instead of lumps of rubbish having a hard nucleus or heart.

[33] The term _rubbish_ is a polite corruption of the original word _rubbage_, which is still used by uneducated people; _ish_ is an _adjectival_ termination, as whitish, slavish, brutish, &c., and is used only in connection with such substantives as are derived from adjectives, as English, Scottish, &c. Whereas the affix age is strictly substantival, as sewage, garbage, wharfage, &c., and is found applied only to adjectives derived from substantives, as _savage_. A like polite corruption is found in the word _pudding_, which should be strictly _pudden_; the addition of the g is as gross a mistake as saying _garding_ for _garden_. There is no such verb as to _pud_ whence could come the substantival participle _pudding_; and the French word from which we derive our term is _poudin_ without the _g_, like _jardin_, the root of our _garden_.

[34] This is the Saxon _sceard_, which means a sheard, remnant, or fragment, and is from the verb _sceran_, signifying both to shear and to share or divide. The low Dutch _schaard_ is a piece of pot, a fragment.

[35] Lord Bacon’s Hist. of King Henry VII., Works, vol. v. p. 61.

[36] 25th Henry VIII. cap. 13.

[37] 5 & 6 Edw. VI., cap. 5.

[38] Eden’s Hist. of the Poor, vol. i. p. 118.

[39] Latimer’s Sermons, p. 100.

[40] Pictorial History of England, vol. ii. p. 900.

[41] Reports of the “Commissioner” of the _Times_ Newspaper, in June, 1845.

[42] I have here included those engaged in Trade and Commerce, and employers as well as the employed among the _producers_.

[43] The amount of the population from 1570 to 1750, as here given, is copied from Rickman’s tables, as published by the Registrar-General.

[44] The population at the decennial term, as here given, is the amended calculation of the Registrar-General, as given in the new census tables.

[45] From returns furnished by the clergy.

[46] The returns here cited are copied from those given by the Registrar-General in the new census.

[47] Returns obtained through an inquiry instituted by the Irish House of Lords.

[48] The population from 1754-1788 is estimated from the “hearth money” returns.

[49] Newenham’s Inquiry into the Population of Ireland.

[50] Estimate from incomplete census.

[51] First complete census.

[52] The _official_ value was established long ago; it represents a price put upon merchandise or commodities; it is in reality a fixed value, and serves to indicate the relative extent of imports and exports in different years. The _declared_ value is simply the market price.

[53] The official returns as to the number of paupers are most incomplete and unsatisfactory. In the 10th annual Report of the Poor Law Commissioners, p. 480 (1844), a table is printed which is said to give the returns from the earliest period for which authentic Parliamentary documents have been received, and this sets forth the number of paupers in England and Wales, for the _entire twelve months_ in the years 1803, 1813, 1814, and 1815; then comes a long interval of “no returns,” and after 1839 we have the numbers for only _three months_ in each year, from 1840 up to 1843; in the first annual Report (1848) these returns for one quarter in each year are continued up to 1848; and then we get the returns for only two days in each year, the 1st of July and the 1st of January, so that to come to any conclusion amid so much inconsistency is utterly impossible. The numbers above given would have been continued to the present period, could any comparison have been instituted. The numbers for the periods (not above given) are--

1803 1,040,716} 1813 1,426,065} Number of paupers for the 1814 1,402,576} entire twelve months. 1815 1,319,851} 1849 (1st Jan.) 940,851 } „ (1st July) 846,988 } 1850 (1st Jan.) 889,830 } Number of paupers for two „ (1st July) 796,318 } separate days in each year. 1851 (1st Jan.) 829,440 }

[54] It might at first appear that, when the work is shifted to the Continent, there would be a proportionate decrease of the aggregate quantity at home, but a little reflection will teach us that the foreigners must take something from us in _exchange_ for their work, and so increase the quantity of our work in certain respects as much as they depress it in others.

[55] The Great Exhibition, I am informed, produced a very small effect on the consumption of porter; and, according to the official returns, 160,000 gallons less spirits were consumed in the first nine months of the present year, than in the corresponding months of the last: thus showing that any occupation of mind or body is incompatible with intemperate habits, for drunkenness is essentially the vice of idleness, or want of something better to do.

[56] The term _sanc_ in “sanc-work” is the Norman word for blood (Latin, _sanguis_; French, _sang_), so that “sanc-work” means, literally, bloody work, this called either from the sanguinary trade of the soldier, or from the blood-red colour of the cloth.

[57] “Reredos, dossel (_retable_, Fr.; _postergule_, Ital.),” according to Parker’s Glossary of Architecture, was “the wall or screen at the back of an altar, seat, &c.; it was usually ornamented with panelling, &c., especially behind an altar, and sometimes was enriched with a profusion of niches, buttresses, pinnacles, statues, and other decorations, which were often painted with brilliant colours.

“The open fire-hearth, frequently used in ancient domestic halls, was likewise called a reredos.

“In the description of Britain prefixed to Holinshed’s ‘Chronicles,’ we are told that formerly, before chimneys were common in mean houses, ‘each man made his fire against a reredosse in the hall, where he dined and dressed his meat.’”

The original word would appear to be _dosel_ or _rere-dosel_; for Kelham, in his “Norman Dictionary,” explains the word _doser_ or _dosel_ to signify a hanging or canopy of silk, silver, or gold work, under which kings or great personages sit; also the back of a chair of state (the word being probably a derivative of the Latin _dorsum_, the back. _Dos_, in slang, means a _bed_, a “dossing crib” being a sleeping-place, and has clearly the same origin). A _rere-dos_ or _rere-dosel_ would thus appear to have been a _screen_ placed _behind_ anything. I am told, that in the old houses in the north of England, erections at the back of the fire may, to this day, occasionally be seen, with an aperture behind for the insertion of plates, and such other things as may require warming.

A correspondent says there is “a ‘reredos,’ or open fire-hearth, now to be seen in the extensive and beautiful ruins of the Abbey of St. Agatha, in the North Riding of Yorkshire. The ivy now hangs over and

## partially conceals this reredos; but its form is tolerably perfect,

and the stones are still coloured by the action of the fire, which was extinguished, I need hardly say, by the cold water thrown on such places by Henry VIII.”

[58] It has been notorious for many years, that flowers will not bloom in any natural luxuriance, and that fruit will not properly ripen, in the heart of the city. Whilst this is an unquestionable fact, it is also a fact, that greatly as suburban dwellings have increased, and truly as London may be said to have “gone into the country,” the greater quantity of the large, excellent, unfailing, and cheap supply of the fruits and vegetables in the London “green” markets are grown within a circle of from ten to twelve miles from St. Paul’s. In the course of my inquiries (in the series of letters on Labour and the Poor in the _Morning Chronicle_) into the supply, &c., to the “green markets” of the metropolis, I was told by an experienced market-gardener, who had friends and connections in several of the suburbs, that he fancied, and others in the trade were of the same opinion, that no gardening could be anything but a failure if attempted within “where the fogs went.” My informant explained to me that the fogs, so peculiar to London, did not usually extend beyond three or four miles from the heart of the city. He was satisfied, he said, that within half a mile or so of this reach of fog the gardener’s labours might be crowned with success. He knew nothing of any scientific reason for his opinion, but as far as a purely London fog extended (without regard to any mist pervading the whole country as well as the neighbourhood of the capital), he thought it was the boundary within which there could be no proper growth of fruit or flowers. That the London fog has its _limits_ as regards the manifestation of its greatest density, there can be no doubt. My informant was frequently asked, when on his way home, by omnibus drivers and others whom he knew, and met on their way to town a few miles from it: “How’s the fog, sir? _How far?_”

The extent of the London fog, then, if the information I have cited be correct, may be considered as indicating that portion of the metropolis where the population, and consequently the smoke, is the thickest, and within which agricultural and horticultural labours cannot meet with success. “The nuisance of a November fog in London,” Mr. Booth stated to the Smoke Committee, “is most assuredly increased by the smoke of the town, arising from furnaces and private fires. It is vapour saturated with particles of carbon which causes all that uneasiness and pain in the lungs, and the uneasy sensations which we experience in our heads. I have no doubt of the density of these fogs arising from this carbonaceous matter.”

The loss from the impossibility of promoting vegetation in the district most subjected to the fog is nothing, as the whole ground is already occupied for the thousand purposes of a great commercial city. The matter is, however, highly curious, as a result of the London smoke.

Concerning the frequency of fogs in the district of the immediate neighbourhood of the metropolis, it is stated in Weale’s “London,” that fogs “appear to be owing, 1st, to the presence of the river; and, 2ndly, to the fact that the superior temperature of the town produces results precisely similar to those we find to occur upon rivers and lakes. The cold damp currents of the atmosphere, which cannot act upon the air of the country districts, owing to the equality of their specific gravity, when they encounter the warmer and lighter strata over the town, displace the latter, intermixing with it and condensing the moisture. Fogs thus are often to be observed in London, whilst the surrounding country is entirely free from them. The peculiar colour of the London fogs appears to be owing to the fact that, during their prevalence, the ascent of the coal smoke is impeded, and that it is thus mixed with the condensed moisture of the atmosphere. As is well known, they are often so dense as to require the gas to be lighted in midday, and they cover the town with a most dingy and depressing pall. They also frequently exhibit the peculiarity of increasing density after their first formation, which appears to be owing to the descent of fresh currents of cold air towards the lighter regions of the atmosphere.