Part 46
--------------------------------+----------------+---------------+---------+---------+--------- |Yearly Increase |Yearly Increase|Number of|Number of|Number of | of Population | of Inhabited |People to|Inhabited| Persons |per annum, from | Houses, from |the Acre,|Houses to| to each | 1841-51. | 1841-51. | 1851. |the Acre,| House, | | | | 1851. | 1851. --------------------------------+----------------+---------------+---------+---------+--------- WEST DISTRICTS. | | | | | Kensington | 4,509·2 | 633·0 | 15·2 | 2·2 | 6·9 Chelsea | 1,630·0 | 198·1 | 72·4 | 9·7 | 7·4 St. George’s, | | | | | Hanover-square | 655·0 | 11·6 | 67·1 | 8·0 | 8·3 Westminster | 880·7 | 20·8 | 80·4 | 8·2 | 9·8 St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields |_decr._ 57·5[12]|_decr._11·6[12]| 94·3 | 8·9 | 10·5 St. James’s, Westminster | 103·1[12]| 13·0[12]| 220·7 | 20·9 | 10·5 NORTH DISTRICTS. | | | | | Marylebone | 1,926·6 | 178·6 | 105·8 | 10·3 | 9·8 Hampstead | 187·7 | 30·8 | 5·7 | ·8 | 6·9 St. Pancras | 3,722·9 | 396·5 | 64·3 | 7·2 | 8·9 Islington | 3,937·5 | 505·0 | 31·5 | 4·4 | 7·0 Hackney | 1,609·6 | 719·2 | 14·7 | 2·3 | 5·9 CENTRAL DISTRICTS. | | | | | St. Giles’s | _decr._31·6[12]|_decr._18·1[12]| 216·2 | 19·1 | 11·3 Strand | 77·9 |_decr._38·9[12]| 272·2 | 24·1 | 11·2 Holborn | 203·9 |_decr._ 8·6[12]| 247·7 | 24·0 | 10·3 Clerkenwell | 790·6 | 31·3 | 202·2 | 22·6 | 8·9 St. Luke’s | 415·0 | 3·6 | 225·2 | 26·7 | 8·4 East and West London | 433·0 |_decr._27·6[12]| 318·4 | 32·7 | 9·7 London City |_decr._ 10·1[12]|_decr._59·2[12]| 151·0 | 19·8 | 7·6 EAST DISTRICTS. | | | | | Shoreditch | 2,564·5 | 279·1 | 176·1 | 24·8 | 7·0 Bethnal-green | 1,596·4 | 158·8 | 118·6 | 17·5 | 6·7 Whitechapel | 787·7 |_decr._ ·2[12]| 252·3 | 27·9 | 9·0 St. George’s-in-the-East | 695·9 | 16·6 | 210·3 | 26·7 | 7·8 Stepney | 1,983·8 | 198·2 | 43·9 | 6·4 | 6·7 Poplar | 1,598·6 | 181·6 | 37·7 | 5·5 | 6·8 SOUTH DISTRICTS. | | | | | St. Saviour’s, St. Olave’s, and | | | | | St. George’s, Southwark | 730·7 | 13·8 | 181·2 | 23·7 | 7·6 Bermondsey | 1,312·6 | 142·1 | 77·6 | 11·2 | 6·7 Newington | 1,011·2 | 109·8 | 102·8 | 16·6 | 6·1 Lambeth | 2,316·8 | 272·9 | 38·2 | 5·6 | 6·7 Wandsworth | 1,085·2 | 183·1 | 4·7 | ·7 | 6·1 Camberwell | 1,473·7 | 257·4 | 12·4 | 2·0 | 5·8 Rotherhithe | 383·8 | 41·4 | 25·7 | 4·1 | 6·2 Greenwich | 1,827·9 | 242·8 | 21·7 | 3·1 | 6·8 Lewisham | 1,178·0 | 197·0 | 2·1 | ·3 | 5·6 --------------------------------+----------------+---------------+---------+---------+--------- Total for all London | 41,327·1 | 4,498·5 | 31·8 | 4·1 | 7·6 --------------------------------+----------------+---------------+---------+---------+---------
By the above table we perceive that St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields, St. James’s, Westminster, St. Giles’s, the Strand, and the City have all decreased both in population and houses since 1841. The population has diminished most of all in St. James’s, and the houses the most in the City. The suburban districts, however, such as Chelsea, Marylebone, St. Pancras, Islington, Hackney, Shoreditch, Bethnal-green, Stepney, Poplar, Bermondsey, Newington, Lambeth, Wandsworth, Camberwell, Greenwich, and Lewisham, have all increased greatly within the last ten years, both in dwellings and people. The greatest increase of the population, as well as houses, has been in Kensington, where the yearly addition has been 4500 people, and 630 houses.
The more densely-populated districts are, St. James’s, Westminster, St. Giles’s, the Strand, Holborn, Clerkenwell, St. Luke, Whitechapel, and St. George’s-in-the-East, in all of which places there are upwards of 200 people to the acre, while in East and West London, in which the population is the most dense of all, the number of people exceeds 300 to the acre. The least densely populated districts are Hampstead, Wandsworth, and Lewisham, where the people are not more than six, and as few as two to the acre.
The districts in which there are the greatest number of houses to a given space, are St. James’s, Westminster, the Strand, Holborn, Clerkenwell, St. Luke’s, Shoreditch, and St. George’s-in-the-East, in all of which localities there are upwards of 20 dwellings to each acre of ground, while in East and West London, which is the most closely built over of all, the number of houses to each acre are as many as 32. Hampstead and Lewisham appear to be the most open districts; for there the houses are not more than eight and three to every ten acres of ground.
The localities in which the houses are the most crowded with inmates are the Strand and St. Giles’s, where there are more than eleven people to each house, and St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields, and St. James’s, Westminster, and Holborn, where each house has on an average ten inmates, while in Lewisham and Wandsworth the houses are the least crowded, for there we find only five people to every house.
Now, comparing this return with that of the metropolitan police, we have the following results as to the extent and contents of the Metropolis Proper:--
According to According Registrar to Metropolitan General. Police. Area (in statute acres) 74,070 58,880 Parishes 176 179 Number of inhabited houses 307,722 305,525 Population 2,361,640 2,111,629
Hence it will be seen that both the extent and contents of these two returns differ most materially.
1st. The superficies of the Registrar General’s metropolis is very nearly 13 square miles, or 15,190 statute acres, greater than the metropolis of the police commissioners.
2nd. The number of inhabited houses is 2197 more in the one than in the other.
3rd. The population of London, according to the Registrar General’s limits, is 250,011, or a quarter of a million, more than it is according to the limits of the metropolitan police.
It were much to be desired that some more definite and scientific mode, not only of limiting, but of dividing the metropolis, were to be adopted. At present there are, perhaps, as many different metropolises, so to speak, and as many different modes of apportioning the several parts of the whole into districts, as there are public bodies whose operations are specially confined to the capital. The Registrar General has, as we have seen, one metropolis divided into western, northern, central, eastern, and southern districts. The metropolitan police commissioners have another metropolis apportioned into its A divisions, B divisions, and so forth; and the Post Office has a third metropolis parcelled out in a totally different manner; while the London City Mission, the Scripture Readers, the Ragged Schools, and the many other similar metropolitan institutions, all seem to delight in creating a distinct metropolis for themselves, thus tending to make the statistical “confusion worse confounded.”
OF THE DUSTMEN OF LONDON.
Dust and rubbish accumulate in houses from a variety of causes, but principally from the residuum of fires, the white ash and cinders, or small fragments of unconsumed coke, giving rise to by far the greater quantity. Some notion of the vast amount of this refuse annually produced in London may be formed from the fact that the consumption of coal in the metropolis is, according to the official returns, 3,500,000 tons per annum, which is at the rate of a little more than 11 tons per house; the poorer families, it is true, do not burn more than 2 tons in the course of the year, but then many such families reside in the same house, and hence the average will appear in no way excessive. Now the ashes and cinders arising from this enormous consumption of coal would, it is evident, if allowed to lie scattered about in such a place as London, render, ere long, not only the back streets, but even the important thoroughfares, filthy and impassable. Upon the Officers of the various parishes, therefore, has devolved the duty of seeing that the refuse of the fuel consumed throughout London is removed almost as fast as produced; this they do by entering into an agreement for the clearance of the “dust-bins” of the parishioners as often as required, with some person who possesses all necessary appliances for the purpose--such as horses, carts, baskets, and shovels, together with a plot of waste ground whereon to deposit the refuse. The persons with whom this agreement is made are called “dust-contractors,” and are generally men of considerable wealth.
The collection of “dust,” is now, more properly speaking, the removal of it. The collection of an article implies the voluntary seeking after it, and this the dustmen can hardly be said to do; for though they parade the streets shouting for the dust as they go, they do so rather to fulfil a certain duty they have undertaken to perform than in any expectation of profit to be derived from the sale of the article.
Formerly the custom was otherwise; but then, as will be seen hereafter, the residuum of the London fuel was far more valuable. Not many years ago it was the practice for the various master dustmen to send in their tenders to the vestry, on a certain day appointed for the purpose, offering to pay a considerable sum yearly to the parish authorities for liberty to collect the dust from the several houses. The sum formerly paid to the parish of Shadwell, for instance, though not a very extensive one, amounted to between 400_l._ or 500_l._ per annum; but then there was an immense demand for the article, and the contractors were unable to furnish a sufficient supply from London; ships were frequently freighted with it from other parts, especially from Newcastle and the northern ports, and at that time it formed an article of considerable international commerce--the price being from 15_s._ to 1_l._ per chaldron. Of late years, however, the demand has fallen off greatly, while the supply has been progressively increasing, owing to the extension of the metropolis, so that the Contractors have not only declined paying anything for liberty to collect it, but now stipulate to receive a certain sum for the removal of it. It need hardly be stated that the parishes always employ the man who requires the least money for the performance of what has now become a matter of duty rather than an object of desire. Some idea may be formed of the change which has taken place in this business, from the fact, that the aforesaid parish of Shadwell, which formerly received the sum of 450_l._ per annum for liberty to collect the dust, now pays the Contractor the sum of 240_l._ per annum for its removal.
The Court of Sewers of the City of London, in 1846, through the advice of Mr. Cochrane, the president of the National Philanthropic Association, were able to obtain from the contractors the sum of 5000_l._ for liberty to clear away the dirt from the streets and the dust from the bins and houses in that district. The year following, however, the contractors entered into a combination, and came to a resolution not to bid so high for the privilege; the result was, that they obtained their contracts at an expense of 2200_l._ By acting on the same principle in the year after, they not only offered no premium whatever for the contract, but the City Commissioners of Sewers were obliged to pay them the sum of 300_l._ for removing the refuse, and at present the amount paid by the City is as much as 4900_l._! This is divided among four great contractors, and would, if equally apportioned, give them 1250_l._ each.
I subjoin a list of the names of the principal contractors and the parishes for which they are engaged:--
DISTRICTS CONTRACTED NAMES OF FOR. CONTRACTORS.
{ Redding. Four divisions of the City. { Rook. { J. Sinnott. { J. Gould. Finsbury-square J. Gould. St. Luke’s H. Dodd. Shoreditch Ditto. Norton Folgate J. Gould. Bethnal-green E. Newman. Holborn Pratt and Sewell. Hatton-garden Ditto. Islington Stroud, Brickmaker. St. Martin’s Wm. Sinnott, Junior. St. Mary-le-Strand J. Gore. St. Sepulchre Ditto. Savoy Ditto. St. Clement Danes Rook. St. James’s, Clerkenwell H. Dodd. St. John’s, ditto J. Gould. St. Margaret’s, Westminster W. Hearne. St. John’s, ditto Stapleton and Holdsworth. Lambeth W. Hearne. Chelsea C. Humphries. St. Marylebone J. Gore. Blackfriars-bridge Jenkins. St. Paul’s, Covent-garden W. Sinnott. Piccadilly H. Tame. Regent-street and Pall-mall W. Ridding. St. George’s, Hanover-sq. H. Tame. Paddington C. Humphries. Camden-town Milton. St. Pancras, S.W. Division W. Stapleton. Southampton estate C. Starkey. Skinner’s ditto H. North. Brewer’s ditto C. Starkey. Cromer ditto Ditto. Calthorpe ditto Ditto. Bedford ditto Gore. Doughty ditto Martin. Union ditto J. Gore. Foundling ditto Pratt and Sewell. Harrison ditto Martin. St. Ann’s, Soho J. Gore. Whitechapel Parsons. Goswell-street Redding. Commercial-road, East J. Sinnott. Mile-end Newman. Borough Hearne. Bermondsey The parish. Kensington H. Tame. St. Giles’s-in-the-Fields and St. George’s, Bloomsbury Redding. Shadwell Westley. St. George’s-in-the-East Ditto. Battle-bridge Starkey. Berkeley-square Clutterbuck. St. George’s, Pimlico Redding. Woods and Forests Ditto. St. Botolph Westley. St. John’s, Wapping Ditto. Somers-town H. North. Kentish-town J. Gore. Rolls (Liberty of the) Pratt and Sewell. Edward-square, Kensington C. Humphries.
All the metropolitan parishes now pay the contractors various amounts for the removal of the dust, and I am credibly informed that there is a system of underletting and jobbing in the dust contracts extensively carried on. The contractor for a certain parish is often a different person from the master doing the work, who is unknown in the contract. Occasionally the work would appear to be subdivided and underlet a second time.
The parish of St. Pancras is split into no less than 21 districts, each district having a separate and independent “Board,” who are generally at war with each other, and make separate contracts for their several divisions. This is also the case in other large parishes, and these and other considerations confirm me in the conclusion that of large and small dust-contractors, job-masters, and middle-men, of one kind or the other, throughout the metropolis, there cannot be less than the number I have stated--90. With the exception of Bermondsey, there are no parishes who remove their own dust.
It is difficult to arrive at any absolute statement as to the gross amount paid by the different parishes for the removal of the entire dust of the metropolis. From Shadwell the contractor, as we have seen, receives 250_l._; from the city the four contractors receive as much as 5000_l._; but there are many small parishes in London which do not pay above a tithe of the last-mentioned sum. Let us, therefore, assume, that one with another, the several metropolitan parishes pay 200_l._ a year each to the dust contractor. According to the returns before given, there are 176 parishes in London. Hence, the gross amount paid for the removal of the entire dust of the metropolis will be between 30,000_l._ and 40,000_l._ per annum.
The removal of the dust throughout the metropolis, is, therefore, carried on by a number of persons called Contractors, who undertake, as has been stated, for a certain sum, to cart away the refuse from the houses as frequently as the inhabitants desire it. To ascertain the precise numbers of these contractors is a task of much greater difficulty than might at first be conceived.
The London Post Office Directory gives the following number of tradesmen connected with the removal of refuse from the houses and streets of the metropolis.
Dustmen 9 Scavengers 10 Nightmen 14 Sweeps 32
But these numbers are obviously incomplete, for even a cursory passenger through London must have noticed a greater number of names upon the various dust carts to be met with in the streets than are here set down.
A dust-contractor, who has been in the business upwards of 20 years, stated that, from his knowledge of the trade, he should suppose that at present there might be about 80 or 90 contractors in the metropolis. Now, according to the returns before given, there are within the limits of the Metropolitan Police District 176 parishes, and comparing this with my informant’s statement, that many persons contract for more than one parish (of which, indeed, he himself is an instance), there remains but little reason to doubt the correctness of his supposition--that there are, in all, between 80 or 90 dust-contractors, large and small, connected with the metropolis. Assuming the aggregate number to be 88, there would be one contractor to every two parishes.
These dust-contractors are likewise the contractors for the cleansing of the streets, except where that duty is performed by the Street-Orderlies; they are also the persons who undertake the emptying of the cesspools in their neighbourhood; the latter operation, however, is effected by an arrangement between themselves and the landlords of the premises, and forms no part of their parochial contracts. At the office of the Street Orderlies in Leicester Square, they have knowledge of only 30 contractors connected with the metropolis; but this is evidently defective, and refers to the “large masters” alone; leaving out of all consideration, as it does, the host of small contractors scattered up and down the metropolis, who are able to employ only two or three carts and six or seven men each; many of such small contractors being merely master sweeps who have managed to “get on a little in the world,” and who are now able to contract, “in a small way,” for the removal of dust, street-sweepings, and night-soil. Moreover, many of even the “great contractors” being unwilling to venture upon an outlay of capital for carts, horses, &c., when their contract is only for a year, and may pass at the end of that time into the hands of any one who may underbid them--many such, I repeat, are in the habit of underletting a portion of their contract to others possessing the necessary appliances, or of entering into partnership with them. The latter is the case in the parish of Shadwell, where a person having carts and horses shares the profits with the original contractor. The agreement made on such occasions is, of course, a secret, though the practice is by no means uncommon; indeed, there is so much secrecy maintained concerning all matters connected with this business, that the inquiry is beset with every possible difficulty. The gentleman who communicated to me the amount paid by the parish of Shadwell, and who informed me, moreover, that parishes in his neighbourhood paid twice and three times more than Shadwell did, hinted to me the difficulties I should experience at the commencement of my inquiry, and I have certainly found his opinion correct to the letter. I have ascertained that in one yard intimidation was resorted to, and the men were threatened with instant dismissal if they gave me any information but such as was calculated to mislead.
I soon discovered, indeed, that it was impossible to place any reliance on what some of the contractors said; and here I may repeat that the indisputable result of my inquiries has been to meet with far more deception and equivocation from employers generally than from the employed; working men have little or no motive for mis-stating their wages; they know well that the ordinary rates of remuneration for their labour are easily ascertainable from other members of the trade, and seldom or never object to produce accounts of their earnings, whenever they have been in the habit of keeping such things. With employers, however, the case is far different; to seek to ascertain from them the profits of their trade is to meet with evasion and prevarication at every turn; they seem to feel that their gains are dishonestly large, and hence resort to every means to prevent them being made public. That I have met with many honourable exceptions to this rule, I most cheerfully acknowledge; but that the _majority_ of tradesmen are neither so frank, communicative, nor truthful, as the men in their employ, the whole of my investigations go to prove. I have already, in the _Morning Chronicle_, recorded the character of my interviews with an eminent Jew slop-tailor, an army clothier, and an enterprising free-trade stay-maker (a gentleman who subscribed his 100 guineas to the League), and I must in candour confess that now, after two years’ experience, I have found the industrious poor a thousand-fold more veracious than the trading rich.
With respect to the amount of business done by these contractors, or gross quantity of dust collected by them in the course of the year, it would appear that each employs, on an average, about 20 men, which makes the number of men employed as dustmen through the streets of London amount to 1800. This, as has been previously stated, is grossly at variance with the number given in the Census of 1841, which computes the dustmen in the metropolis at only 254. But, as I said before, I have long ceased to place confidence in the government returns on such subjects. According to the above estimate of 254, and deducting from this number the 88 master-dustmen, there would be only 166 labouring men to empty the 300,000 dustbins of London, and as these men always work in couples, it follows that every two dustmen would have to remove the refuse from about 3600 houses; so that assuming each bin to require emptying once every six weeks they would have to cart away the dust from 2400 houses every month, or 600 every week, which is at the rate of 100 a day! and as each dust-bin contains about half a load, it would follow that at this rate each cart would have to collect 50 loads of dust daily, whereas 5 loads is the average day’s work.
Computing the London dust-contractors at 90, and the inhabited houses at 300,000, it follows that each contractor would have 3333 houses to remove the refuse from. Now it has been calculated that the ashes and cinders alone from each house average about three loads per annum, so that each contractor would have, in round numbers, 10,000 loads of dust to remove in the course of the year. I find, from inquiries, that every two dustmen carry to the yard about five loads a day, or about 1500 loads in the course of the year, so that at this rate, there must be between six and seven carts, and twelve and fourteen collectors employed by each master. But this is exclusive of the men employed in the yards. In one yard that I visited there were fourteen people busily employed. Six of these were women, who were occupied in sifting, and they were attended by three men who shovelled the dust into their sieves, and the foreman, who was hard at work loosening and dragging down the dust from the heap, ready for the “fillers-in.” Besides these there were two carts and four men engaged in conveying the sifted dust to the barges alongside the wharf. At a larger dust-yard, that formerly stood on the banks of the Regent’s-canal, I am informed that there were sometimes as many as 127 people at work. It is but a small yard, which has not 30 to 40 labourers connected with it; and the lesser dust-yards have generally from four to eight sifters, and six or seven carts. There are, therefore, employed in a medium-sized yard twelve collectors or cartmen, six sifters, and three fillers-in, besides the foreman or forewoman, making altogether 22 persons; so that, computing the contractors at 90, and allowing 20 men to be employed by each, there would be 1800 men thus occupied in the metropolis, which appears to be very near the truth.