Chapter 62 of 137 · 3703 words · ~19 min read

Part 62

It is difficult to state, however, without positive inquiry, whether this extra number of hands be due to diminished employment in the agricultural districts, since the repeal of the Corn Laws, or whether it be due to the insufficiency of occupation generally for the increasing population. One thing at least is evident, that the increase of the trades alluded to cannot be said to arise directly from diminished agricultural employment, for but few farm labourers have entered these businesses since the change from Protection to Free Trade. If, therefore, Free-Trade principles _have_ operated injuriously in reducing the work of the unskilled labourers, street-sellers, and the poorer classes generally, it can have done so only _indirectly_; that is to say, by throwing a mass of displaced country labour into the towns, and so displacing other labourers from their ordinary occupations, as well as by decreasing the wages of working-men generally. Hence it becomes almost impossible, I repeat, to tell whether the increasing difficulty that the poor experience in living by their labour, is a consequence or merely a concomitant of the repeal of the Corn Laws; if it be a consequence, of course the poor are no better for the alteration; if, however, it be a coincidence rather than a necessary result of the measure, the circumstances of the poor are, of course, as much improved as they would have been impoverished provided that measure had never become law. I candidly confess I am as yet without the means of coming to any conclusion on this part of the subject.

Nor can it be said that in the scavagers’ trade wages have in any way declined since the repeal of the Corn Laws; so that were it not for the difficulty of obtaining employment among the _casual_ hands, this class must be allowed to have been considerable gainers by the reduction in the price of food, and even as it is, the _constant_ hands must be acknowledged to be so.

I will now endeavour to reduce to a tabular form such information as I could obtain as to the expenditure of the labourer in scavaging before and after the establishment of Free Trade. I inquired, the better to be assured of the accuracy of the representations and accounts I received from labourers, the price of meat then and now. A butcher who for many years has conducted a business in a populous part of Westminster and in a populous suburb, supplying both private families with the best joints, and the poor with their “little bits” their “block ornaments” (meat in small pieces exposed on the chopping-block), their purchases of liver, and of beasts’ heads. In 1845, the year I take as sufficiently prior to the Free-Trade era, my informant from his recollection of the state of his business and from consulting his books, which of course were a correct guide, found that for a portion of the year in question, mutton was as much as 7-1/2_d._ per lb. (Smithfield prices), now the same quality of meat is but 5_d._ This, however, was but a temporary matter, and from causes which sometimes are not very ostensible or explicable. Taking the butcher’s trade that year as a whole, it was found sufficiently conclusive, that meat was generally 1_d._ per lb. higher then than at present. My informant, however, was perfectly satisfied that, although situated in the same way, and with the same class of customers, he did _not_ sell so much meat to the poor and labouring classes as he did five or six years ago, _he believed not by one-eighth_, although perhaps “pricers of his meat” among the poor were more numerous. For this my informant accounted by expressing his conviction that the labouring men spent their money in drink more than ever, and were a longer time in recovering from the effects of tippling. This supposition, from what I have observed in the course of the present inquiry, is negatived by facts.

Another butcher, also supplying the poor, said they bought less of him; but he could not say exactly to what extent, perhaps an eighth, and he attributed it to less work, there being no railways about London, fewer buildings, and less general employment. About the wages of the labourers he could not speak as influencing the matter. From this tradesmen also I received an account that meat generally was 1_d._ per lb. higher at the time specified. Pickled Australian beef was four or five years ago very low--3_d._ per lb.--salted and prepared, and “swelling” in hot water, but the poor “couldn’t eat the stringy stuff, for it was like pickled ropes.” “It’s better now,” he added, “but it don’t sell, and there’s no nourishment in such beef.”

But these tradesmen agreed in the information that poor labourers bought less meat, while one pronounced Free Trade a blessing, the other declared it a curse. I suggested to each that cheaper fish might have something to do with a smaller consumption of butcher’s meat, but both said that cheap fish was the great thing for the Irish and the poor needle-women and the like, who were never at any time meat eaters.

From respectable bakers I ascertained that bread might be considered 1_d._ a quartern loaf dearer in 1845 than at present. Perhaps the following table may throw a fuller light on the matter. I give it from what I learned from several men, who were without accounts to refer to, but speaking positively from memory; I give the statement per week, as for a single man, without charge for the support of a wife and family, and without any help from other resources.

------------------+----------------------+----------------+------------ | | | Saving | Before Free | After Free | since | Trade. | Trade. | Free | | | Trade. ------------------+----------------------+----------------+------------ Rent | 1_s._ 6_d._ | 1_s._ 6_d._ | ... Bread (5 loaves) | 2_s._ 11_d._ | 2_s._ 6_d._ | 5_d._ Butter (1/2 lb.) | 5_d._ | 5_d._ | ... Tea (2 oz.) | 8_d._ | 8_d._ | ... Sugar (1/2 lb.) | 3_d._ | 2_d._ | 1_d._ Meat (3 lb.) | 1_s._ 6_d._ | 1_s._ 3_d._ | 3_d._ Bacon (1 lb.) | 5_d._ | 5_d._ | ... Fish (a dinner |3_d._, or 1_s._ 6_d._ |2_d._, or 1_s._ | a day, 6 days) | weekly. | weekly. | 6_d._ Potatoes or | | | Vegetables | | | (1/2_d._ a day) | 3-1/2_d._ | 3-1/2_d._ | ... Beer (pot) | 3-1/2_d._ | 3-1/2_d._ | ... ------------------+----------------------+----------------+------------ Total saving, per week, since Free Trade | 1_s._ 3_d._ ----------------------------------------------------------+------------

In butter, bacon, potatoes, &c., and beer, I could hear of no changes, except that bacon might be a trifle cheaper, but instead of a good quality selling better, although cheaper, there was a demand for an inferior sort.

In the foregoing table the weekly consumption of several necessaries is given, but it is not to be understood that one man consumes them all in a week; they are what may generally be consumed when such things are in demand by the poor, one week after another, or one day after another, forming an aggregate of weeks.

Thus, Free Trade and cheap provisions are an unquestionable benefit, if unaffected by drawbacks, to the labouring poor.

The above statement refers only to a fully employed hand.

The following table gives the change since Free Trade in the earnings of casual hands, and relates to the past and the present expenditure of a scavager. The man, who was formerly a house painter, said he could bring me 50 men similarly circumstanced to himself.

Here, then, we find a positive saving in the expenditure of 1_s._ 5_d._ per week in this man’s wages, since the cheapening of food.

His earnings, however, tell a different story.

--------------------+------------+------------- | 1845. | 1851. --------------------+------------+------------- | _s._ _d._ | _s._ _d._ Earnings of 6 days | 15 0 | Ditto 3 days | | 7 6 +------------+------------- Weekly Income | 15 0 | 7 6 Expenditure | 7 3 | 5 10 +------------+------------- Difference | 7 9 | 1 8 --------------------+------------+------------

Thus we perceive that the beneficial effects of cheapness are defeated by the dearth of employment among labourers.

It is impossible to come to _precise_ statistics in this matter, but all concurrent evidence, as regards the unskilled work of which I now treat, shows that labour is attainable at almost any rate.

Another drawback to the benefits of cheap food I heard of first in my inquiries (for the Letters on Labour and the Poor, in the _Morning Chronicle_) among the boot and shoemakers--their rents had been raised in consequence of their landlords’ property having been subjected to the income tax. Numbers of large houses are now let out in single rooms, in the streets off Tottenham-court-road, and near Golden-square, as well as in many other quarters--to men, who, working for West-end tradesmen, must live, for economy of time, near the shops from which they derive their work. Near and in Cunningham-street and other streets, two men, father and son, rent upwards of 30 houses, the whole of which they let out in one or two rooms, it is believed at a very great profit; in fact they live by it.

The rent of these houses, among many others, was raised when the income tax was imposed, the sub-lettors declaring, with what truth no one knew, that the rents were raised to them. It is common enough for capitalists to fling such imposts on the shoulders of the poor, and I heard scavagers complain, that every time they had to change their rooms, they had either to pay more rent by 2_d._ or 3_d._ a week, or put up with a worse place. One man who lived at the time of the passing of the Income Tax Bill in Shoe-lane, found his rent raised suddenly 3_d._ a week, a non-resident landlord or agent calling for it weekly. He was told that the advance was to meet the income tax. “I know nothing about what income tax means,” he said, “but it’s some ---- roguery as is put on the poor.” I heard complaints to the same purport from several working scavagers, and the lettors of rooms are the most exacting in places crowded with the poor, and where the poor think or feel they must reside “to be handy for work.” What connection there may be between the questions of Free Trade and the necessity of the income tax, it is not my business now to dilate upon, but it is evident that the circumstances of the country are not sufficiently prosperous to enable parliament to repeal this “temporary” impost.

From a better informed class than the scavagers, I might have derived data on which to form a calculation from account books, &c., but I could hear of none being kept. I remember that a lady’s shoemaker told me that the weekly rents of the ten rooms in the house in which he lived were 4_s._ 3_d._ higher than before the income tax, which “came to the same thing as an extra penny on over 50 loaves a week.” It is certain that the great tax-payers of London are the labouring classes.

I have endeavoured to ascertain the facts in connection with this complex subject in as calm and just a manner as possible, leaning neither to the Protectionist nor the Free-Trade side of the question, and I must again in honesty acknowledge, that to the _constant_ hands among the scavagers and dustmen of the metropolis, the repeal of the Corn Laws appears to have been an unquestionable benefit.

I shall conclude this exposition of the condition and earnings of the working scavagers employed by the more honourable masters, with an account of the average income and expenditure of the better-paid hands (regular and casual, as well as single and married), and first, of the unmarried regular hand.

The following is an estimate of the income and expenditure of an _unmarried_ operative scavager _regularly_ employed, working for a large contractor:--

WEEKLY INCOME. | WEEKLY EXPENDITURE. £ _s._ _d._ | £ _s._ _d._ _Constant Wages._ | Rent 0 2 0 Nominal weekly wages 0 16 0 | Washing and mending 0 0 10 Perquisites 0 2 0 | Clothes, and repairing ------------ | ditto 0 0 10 Actual weekly wages 0 18 0 | Butcher’s meat 0 3 6 | Bacon 0 0 8 | Vegetables 0 0 4 | Cheese 0 0 4 | Beer 0 3 0 | Spirits 0 1 0 | Tobacco 0 0 10-1/2 | Butter 0 0 7-1/2 | Sugar 0 0 4 | Tea 0 0 3 | Coffee 0 0 3 | Fish 0 0 4 | Soap 0 0 2 | Shaving 0 0 1 | Fruit 0 0 4 | Keep of 2 dogs 0 0 6 | Amusements, as | skittles, &c. 0 1 9 | ------------- | 0 18 0

The subjoined represents the income of an _unmarried_ operative scavager _casually_ employed by a small master scavager six months during the year, at 15_s._ a week, and 20 weeks at sand and rubbish carting, at 12_s._ a week.

_Casual Wages._ £ _s._ _d._ Nominal weekly wages at scavaging, 16_s._ for 26 weeks during the year 20 16 0 Perquisites, 2_s._ for 26 weeks during the year 2 12 0 ---------------- Actual weekly wages for 26 weeks during the year 0 16 0 Nominal and actual weekly wages at rubbish carting, 12_s._ for 20 weeks more during the year 12 0 0 ---------------- Average casual or constant weekly wages throughout the year 0 15 4-1/2

The expenditure of this man when in work was nearly the same as that of the regular hand; the main exceptions being that his rent was 1_s._ instead of 2_s._, and no dogs were kept. When in work he saved nothing, and when out of work lived as he could.

The _married_ scavagers are differently circumstanced from the _unmarried_; their earnings are generally increased by those of their family.

The labour of the wives and children of the scavagers is not unfrequently in the capacity of sifters in the dust-yards, where the wives of the men employed by the contractors have the preference, and in other but somewhat rude capacities. One of their wives I heard of as a dresser of sheep’s trotters; two as being among the most skilful dressers of tripe for a large shop; one as “a cat’s-meat seller” (her father’s calling); but I still speak of the regular scavagers--I could not meet with one woman “working a slop-needle.” One, indeed, I saw who was described to me as a “feather dresser to an out-and-out negur,” but the woman assured me she was neither badly paid nor badly off. Perhaps by such labour, as an average on the part of the wives, 9_d._ a day is cleared, and 1_s._ “on tripe and such like.” Among the “casual’s” wives there are frequent instances of the working for slop shirt-makers, &c., upon the coarser sorts of work, and at “starvation wages,” but on such matters I have often dwelt. I heard from some of these men that it was looked upon as a great thing if the wife’s labour could clear the week’s rent of 1_s._ 6_d._ to 2_s._

The following may be taken as an estimate of the income and outlay of a _better paid and fully_ employed operative scavager, with his wife and two children:--

WEEKLY INCOME OF THE FAMILY. | WEEKLY EXPENDITURE OF THE FAMILY. £ _s._ _d._| £ _s._ _d._ Nominal weekly | Rent 0 3 0 wages of man, | Candle 0 0 3-1/2 16_s._ | Bread 0 2 1 Perquisites, 2_s._ | Butter 0 0 10 Actual weekly | Sugar 0 0 8 wages of man 0 18 0 | Tea 0 0 10 Nominal weekly | Coffee 0 0 4 wages of wife, | Butcher’s meat 0 3 6 6_s._ | Bacon 0 1 2 Perquisites in | Potatoes 0 0 10 coal and wood, | Raw fish 0 0 4 1_s._ 4_d._ | Herrings 0 0 4 Actual weekly | Beer (at home) 0 2 0 wages of wife. 0 7 4 | „ (at work) 0 1 6 Nominal weekly | Spirits 0 1 0 wages of boy. 0 3 0 | Cheese 0 0 6 ----------- | Flour 0 0 3 1 8 4 | Suet 0 0 3 | Fruit 0 0 3 | Rice 0 0 0-1/2 | Soap 0 0 6 | Starch 0 0 0-1/2 | Soda and blue 0 0 1 | Dubbing 0 0 0-1/2 | Clothes for the | whole family, | and repairing | ditto 0 2 0 | Boots and shoes | for ditto, ditto 0 1 6 | Milk 0 0 7 | Salt, pepper, and | mustard 0 0 1 | Tobacco 0 0 9 | Wear and tear of | bedding, crocks, | &c. 0 0 3 | Schooling for | girl 0 0 3 | Baking Sunday’s | dinner 0 0 2 | Mangling 0 0 3 | Amusements and | sundries 0 1 0 | -------------- | 1 7 6

The subjoined, on the other hand, gives the income and outlay of a _casually employed_ operative scavager (_better paid_) with his wife and two boys in constant work:--

WEEKLY INCOME OF THE FAMILY. | WEEKLY EXPENDITURE OF THE FAMILY. £ _s._ _d._ | £ _s._ _d._ Nominal wages | Rent 0 3 6 of man at scavaging | Candle 0 0 6 for six | Soap 0 0 4 months, at 16_s._ | Soda, starch, and weekly. | blue 0 0 2-1/2 Ditto at rubbish | Bread 0 2 6 carting three | Butter 0 0 9 months, 12_s._ | Dripping 0 0 5 weekly. | Sugar 0 0 8 Average casual | Tea 0 0 8 wages throughout | Coffee 0 0 6 the year 0 15 0 | Butcher’s meat 0 3 6 Nominal weekly | Bacon 0 1 0 wages of wife, | Potatoes 0 1 0 6_s._ (constant). | Cheese 0 0 6 Perquisites in | Raw fish 0 0 4 wood and coal, | Herrings 0 0 3 1_s._ 4_d._ | Fried fish 0 0 3 Actual weekly | Flour 0 0 3 wages of wife 0 7 4 | Suet 0 0 2 Nominal weekly | Fruit 0 0 6 wages of two | Rice 0 0 1-1/2 boys, 7_s._ the | Beer (at home) 0 2 0 two. | „ (at work) 0 1 9 Perquisites for | Spirits 0 1 0 running on | Tobacco 0 0 9 messages, 1_s._ | Pepper, salt, and the two | mustard 0 0 1 (constant). | Milk 0 0 7 Actual weekly | Clothes for man, wages of the | wife, and family 0 2 0 two boys. 0 8 0 | Repairing ditto ----------- | for ditto 0 0 6 1 10 4 | Boots and shoes | for ditto 0 1 6 | Repairing ditto | for ditto 0 0 8 | Wear and tear of | bedding, crocks, | &c. 0 0 3 | Baking Sunday’s | dinner 0 0 2 | Mangling 0 0 2 | Amusements, | sundries, &c. 0 1 0 | --------------- | 1 10 4

OF THE WORSE PAID SCAVAGERS, OR THOSE WORKING FOR SCURF[18] EMPLOYERS.

There are in the scavagers’ trade the same distinct classes of employers as appertain to all other trades; these consist of:--

1. The large capitalists. 2. The small capitalists.

As a rule (with some few honourable and dishonourable exceptions, it is true) I find that the large capitalists in the several trades are generally the employers who pay the higher wages, and the small men those who pay the lower. The reasons for this conduct are almost obvious. The power of the capital of the “large master” must be contended against by the small one; and the usual mode of contention in all trades is by reducing the wages of the working men. The wealthy master has, of course, many advantages over the poor one. (1) He can pay ready money, and obtain discounts for immediate payment. (2) He can buy in large quantities, and so get his stock cheaper. (3) He can purchase what he wants in the best markets, and that _directly_ of the producer, without the intervention and profit of the middleman. (4) He can buy at the best times and seasons; and “lay in” what he requires for the purposes of his trade long before it is needed, provided he can obtain it “a bargain.” (5) He can avail himself of the best tools and mechanical contrivances for increasing the productiveness or “economizing the labour” of his workmen. (6) He can build and arrange his places of work upon the most approved plan and in the best situations for the manufacture and distribution of the commodities. (7) He can employ the highest talent for the management or design of the work on which he is engaged. (8) He can institute a more effective system for the surveillance and checking of his workmen. (9) He can employ a large number of hands, and so reduce the secondary expenses (of firing, lighting, &c.) attendant upon the work, as well as the number of superintendents and others engaged to “look after” the operatives. (10) He can resort to extensive means of making his trade known. (11) He can sell cheaper (even if his cost of production be the same), from employing a larger capital, and being able to “do with” a less rate of profit. (12) He can afford to give credit, and so obtain customers that he might otherwise lose.