Part 80
_The abodes of the better description of rubbish-carters_ are not generally in those localities which are crowded with the poor. They reside in the streets off the Edgeware and Harrow-roads, as building has been carried on to a very great extent in Westbourne, Maida-hill, &c.; in Portland-town, Camden-town, Somers-town, about King’s-cross; in Islington, Pentonville, and Clerkenwell; off the Commercial and Mile-end-roads; in Walworth, Camberwell, Kennington, and Newington; and, indeed, in all the quarters where building has been prosecuted on an extensive scale. I was in some of their apartments, and found them tidy and comfortable-looking: one was especially so. Some stone-fruit on the mantel-shelf shone as if newly painted, and the fender and fire-irons glittered from their brightness to the fire of the small grate. The husband, however, was in good earnings, and the wife cleared about 5_s._ weekly on superior needlework. There was one thing painful to observe--the contrast between the robust and sun-burnt look of the husband, and the delicate and pallid, not to say sickly, appearance of the wife. The rents for unfurnished apartments vary from 2_s._ to 5_s._, but rarely the latter, unless the wife take in a little washing. I heard of some at 2_s._, but very few; 2_s._ 6_d._ to 3_s._ 6_d._ are common prices.
_I heard of no partiality for amusements among the rubbish-carters_, beyond what my informant spoke of--a visit to the play. Some, I was told, but principally the younger men, never missed going to a fair, which was not too far off. I think not quite one-half of those I spoke to, with the best earnings, had been to the Exhibition. Of the worst paid, I am told, not one in 50 went; one man told me that he had no amusements but his pipe and his beer. Some of them, I was assured, drank half a gallon of beer in a day, but at intervals, so as not to be intoxicated. “A hand at cribbage” is a favourite public-house game among a few of these men; but not above one in half-a-dozen, I was assured, “knew the cards,” and not one in two dozen played them.
These, then, are the characteristics of the labouring rubbish-carters employed in the honourable trade.
A fine-looking man, upwards of six feet in stature and of proportionate bulk, with so smart a set to his bushy whiskers, and a look of such general tidiness (after he had left off work in the evening), that he might have been taken for a life-guardsman had it not been for a slight slouch of the shoulders, and a very unmilitary gait, gave me the following account:--
“I’m a London man,” he said, “and though I’m not yet 25, I’ve kept myself for the last five years. I’ve worked at rubbish-carting and general ground-work (digging for pipe-laying, &c.,) as we nearly all do, but mainly at rubbish-carting, and I’m at that now. My friends are in the same line, so I helped them: I was big enough, and was brought up that way. O, yes, I can read and write, but I haven’t time, or very seldom, to read anything but a newspaper now and again. I’m a carman now, and have a very good master. I’ve served him, more or less, for three years. I have had 25_s._ a week, and I have had 29_s._, but that included over-work. Two hours extra work a day makes an extra day in the week, you see, sir. O, yes, I might have saved money, and I’m trying to save 25_l._ now to see if I can’t raise a horse and cart, and begin for myself in a small way, general jobbing. I’ve been used to cart mould, and gravel, and turf for gentlemen’s gardens, or when gardens have been laid out in new buildings, as well as rubbish, for the same master. Last year I set to work in hard earnest in the same way, and this is where it is that always stops me. Mr. ---- [his employer] is very busy now, and things look pretty well about here [Camden-town], but I don’t know how it is in other parts. It was the same last year, but trade fell off in the winter, and I was three months out of work. O, that’s a common case, especial with young men, for of course the old hands has the preference. That’s where it is, you see, sir; it’s a _uncertain_ trade. It’s always that new shoes is wanted, but it ain’t always new houses. My money all went, and then all my things went to the pawn, and when I got fairly to work again, I had a shirt and a shilling left, and owed some little matters. I’d saved well on to 50_s._, and could have gone on saving, but for being thrown out. Then, when you get into regular wages again, there’s your uncle to meet, and there’s always something wanted--a pair of half-boots, or a new shirt, or a new tool, or something; so one loses heart about it, and I can’t abear not to appear respectable.
“I pay 2_s._ a week for my lodging, but it’s only for half a bed. The house is let out that way to single men like me, so each bed brings in 4_s._ a week. There’s two beds in the room where I sleep; I don’t know how many in all. Why, yes, it’s a respectable sort of a place, but I don’t much like it. There’s plenty such places; some’s decent and some’s not. Oh, certainly, a place of your own’s best, if it’s ever so humble, but it wouldn’t suit a man like me. I may work one week at Paddington, and the next at Bow, and if I had a furnished room at Paddington, what good would it be if I went to work at Bow? Only the bother and expense of removing my sticks again and again. O, people that find lodgings for such as me, know that well enough, and makes a prey of us, of course.
“I take my meals at a public-house or a coffee-shop. O yes, I live well enough. I have meat every day to dinner; a man like me must keep up his strength, and you can’t do that without good meat. It’s all nonsense about vegetables and all that, as if men’s stomachs were like cows’. I have bread and butter and tea or coffee for breakfast and tea, sometimes a few cresses with it just to sweeten the blood, which is the proper use of vegetables. A pint of beer or so for supper, but I don’t care about supper, though now and then I take a bit of bread and cheese with a nice fresh onion to it. Well, I’m sure I can’t say what I lay out in my living in a week; sometimes more and sometimes less. I keep no account; I pay my way as I go on. Some weeks when I get my Saturday night’s wage, I have from 2_s._ 6_d._ to 6_s._ 6_d._ left from last Saturday night’s money, but that’s only when I’ve had nothing to lay out beyond common. Now, last week I was 4_s._ 9_d._ to the good, and this week I shall be about the ditto; but then I want a waistcoat and a silk handkerchief for my neck for Sunday wear; so I must draw on my Saturday night. There’s a gentleman takes care of my money for me, and I carry him what I have over in a week, and he takes care of it for me. I did a good deal of work about his houses--he has a block of them--and his own place, and I’ve gardened for him; and from what I’ve heard, my money’s safer with him than with a Savings’ Bank. When I want to draw he likes to be satisfied what it’s for, and he’s lent me as much as 33_s._ in different sums, when I was hard up. He’s what I call a real gentleman. He says if I ever go to him tipsy to draw, and says it quite solemn like, he’ll take me by the scruff of the neck and kick me out; though [laughing] he can’t be much above five foot, and has gray hairs, and seems a feeble sort of a man, I mean of a gentleman. He enters all I pay in a book. Here it is, sir, for this year, if you’d like to see it. I wasn’t able to put anything by for a goodish bit. I lost my book once, but I knew how much, and so did Mr. ----, and he put it down in a lump.
£ _s._ _d._ July 18 In hand 1 3 0 25 Received 0 3 6 Aug. 9 „ 0 3 6 23 „ 0 5 0 Sept. 13 „ 0 9 6 20 „ 0 4 0 27 „ 0 4 0 ------------- £2 12 6
“If I can’t save a little to start myself on when I’m a single man, I can’t ever after, I fancy; so I’m a trying.
“No, my expenses, over and above my living and lodging and washing, and all that, ain’t heavy. Yes, I’m very fond of a good play, very. Some galleries is 6_d._, and some 3_d._; but then there’s refreshment and that, so it costs 1_s._ a time. Perhaps I go once a week, but only in autumn and winter, when nights get long, and we leave work at half-past five. The last time I was at the play was at the Marylebone, but there was some opera pieces that don’t suit me; such stuff and nonsense. I like something very lively, or else a deep tragedy. Sadler’s Wells is the place, sir. I mean to go there to-morrow night. Yes, I’m very fond of the pantomimes. Concerts I’ve been at, but don’t care for them. They’re as dear at 2_d._ as an egg a penny, and an egg’s only a bite.
“Well, I’ve gone to church sometimes, but a carman hasn’t time, for he has his horses to attend to on Sunday mornings, and that uses up his morning. No, I never go now. Work must be done. It ain’t my fault. I’m sure, if I could have my wish, I’d never do anything on a Sunday.
“Yes, there’s far too many as undersells us in work. I know that, but I don’t like to think about them or to talk about them.” [He seemed desirous to ignore the very existence of the scurf rubbish-carters.] “They’re Irish many of them. They’re often quarrelsome and blood-thirsty, but I know many decent men among the Irishmen in our gangs. There’s good and bad among them, as there is among the English. There’s very few of the Irish that are carmen; they haven’t been much used to horses.
“I have done a little as a nightman when I worked for Mr. ----. He was a parish contractor, and undertook such jobs, and liked to put strong men on to them. I didn’t like it. I can’t think it’s a healthy trade. I can’t say, but I heard it represented, that in this particular calling there was a great deal of under-contracting going on when the railway undertakings generally received a severe check, and when a great number of hands were thrown out of employment, and sought employment in rubbish-carting generally, and apart from railway-work. These hands suffered greatly for a long time. The tommy-shops and the middle-man system were enough to swallow the largest amount of railway wages, so that very few had saved money, and they were willing to work for very low wages. A good many of these people went to endeavour to find work at the large new docks being erected at Great Grimsby, near Boston, in Lincolnshire. Some of the more prudent were able to raise the means of emigrating, and from one cause or other the pressure of this surplus labour among rubbish-carters and excavators, as regards the metropolis, became relieved.”
OF CASUAL LABOUR IN GENERAL, AND THAT OF THE RUBBISH-CARTERS IN
## PARTICULAR.
The subject of casual labour is one of such vast importance in connection with the welfare of a nation and its people, and one of which the causes as well as consequences seem to be so utterly ignored by economical writers and unheeded by the public, that I purpose here saying a few words upon the matter in general, with the view of enabling the reader the better to understand the difficulties that almost all unskilled and many skilled labourers have to contend with in this country.
By _casual_ labour I mean such labour as can obtain only _occasional_ as contradistinguished from _constant_ employment. In this definition I include all classes of workers, literate and illiterate, skilled and unskilled, whose professions, trades, or callings expose them to be employed temporarily rather than continuously, and whose incomes are in a consequent degree fluctuating, casual, and uncertain.
In no country in the world is there such an extent, and at the same time such a diversity, of casual labour as in Great Britain. This is attributable to many causes--commercial and agricultural, natural and artificial, controllable and uncontrollable.
I will first show what are the causes of casual labour, and then point out its effects.
The causes of casual labour may be grouped under two heads:--
I. _The Brisk and Slack Seasons, and Fit Times_, or periodical increase and decrease of work in certain occupations.
II. _The Surplus Hands_ appertaining to the different trades.
First, as to the briskness or slackness of employment in different occupations. This depends in different trades on different causes, among which may be enumerated--
A. The weather.
B. The seasons of the year.
C. The fashion of the day.
D. Commerce and accidents.
I shall deal with each of these causes _seriatim_.
A. The labour of thousands is influenced by the _weather_; it is suspended or prevented in many instances by stormy or rainy weather; and in some few instances it is promoted by such a state of things.
Among those whose labour cannot be executed on _wet days_, or executed but imperfectly, and who are consequently deprived of their ordinary means of living on such days, are--paviours, pipe-layers, bricklayers, painters of the exteriors of houses, slaters, fishermen, watermen (plying with their boats for hire), the crews of the river steamers, a large body of agricultural labourers (such as hedgers, ditchers, mowers, reapers, ploughmen, thatchers, and gardeners), costermongers and all classes of street-sellers (to a great degree), street-performers, and showmen.
With regard to the degree in which agricultural (or indeed in this instance woodland) labour may be influenced by the weather, I may state that a few years back there had been a fall of oaks on an estate belonging to Col. Cradock, near Greta-bridge, and the poor people, old men and women, in the neighbourhood, were selected to strip off the bark for the tanners, under the direction of a person appointed by the proprietor: for this work they were paid by the basket-load. The trees lay in an open and exposed situation, and the rain was so incessant that the “barkers” could scarcely do any work for the whole of the first week, but kept waiting under the nearest shelter in the hopes that it would “clear up.” In the first week of this employment nearly one-third of the poor persons, who had commenced their work with eagerness, had to apply for some temporary parochial relief. A rather curious instance this, of a parish suffering from the casualty of a very humble labour, and actually from the attempt of the poor to earn money, and do work prepared for them.
On the other hand, some few classes may be said to be benefited by the rain which is impoverishing others: these are cabmen (who are the busiest on _showery_ days), scavagers, umbrella-makers, clog and patten-makers. I was told by the omnibus people that their vehicles filled better in hot than in wet weather.
But the labour of thousands is influenced also by the _wind_; an easterly wind prevailing for a few days will throw out of employment 20,000 dock labourers and others who are dependent on the shipping for their employment; such as lumpers, corn-porters, timber-porters, ship-builders, sail-makers, lightermen, watermen, and, indeed, almost all those who are known as ’long-shoremen. The same state of things prevails at Hull, Bristol, Liverpool, and all our large ports.
_Frost_, again, is equally inimical to some labourers’ interests; the frozen-out market-gardeners are familiar to almost every one, and indeed all those who are engaged upon the land may be said to be deprived of work by severely cold weather.
In the weather alone, then, we find a means of starving thousands of our people. Rain, wind, and frost are many a labourer’s natural enemies, and to those who are fully aware of the influence of “the elements” upon the living and comforts of hundreds of their fellow-creatures, the changes of weather are frequently watched with a terrible interest. I am convinced that, altogether, a wet day deprives not less than 100,000, and probably nearer 200,000 people, including builders, bricklayers, and agricultural labourers, of their ordinary means of subsistence, and drives the same number to the public-houses and beer-shops (on this part of the subject I have collected some curious facts); thus not only decreasing their income, but positively increasing their expenditure, and that, perhaps, in the worst of ways.
Nor can there be fewer dependent on the winds for their bread. If we think of the vast number employed either directly or indirectly at the various ports of this country, and then remember that at each of these places the prevalence of a particular wind must prevent the ordinary arrival of shipping, and so require the employment of fewer hands; we shall have some idea of the enormous multitude of men in this country who can be starved by “a nipping and an eager air.” If in London alone there are 20,000 people deprived of food by the prevalence of an easterly wind (and I had the calculation from one of the principal officers of the St. Katherine Dock Company), surely it will not be too much to say that throughout the country there are not less than 50,000 people whose living is thus precariously dependent.
Altogether I am inclined to believe, that we shall not be over the truth if we assert there are between 100,000 and 200,000 individuals and their families, or half a million of people, dependent on the elements for their support in this country.
* * * * *
But this calculation refers to those classes only who are deprived of a certain number of _days’_ work by an alteration of the weather, a cause that is essentially _ephemeral_ in its character. The other series of natural events influencing the demand for labour in this country are of a more _continuous_ nature--the stimulus and the depression enduring for weeks rather than days. I allude to the _second_ of the four circumstances above-mentioned as inducing briskness or slackness of employment in different occupations, viz.:--
B. The seasons.
These are the seasons of the year, and not the arbitrary seasons of fashion, of which I shall speak next.
The following classes are among those exposed to the uncertainty of employment, and consequently of income, from the above cause, since it is only in particular seasons that particular works, such as buildings, will be undertaken, or that open-air pleasure excursions will be attempted: carpenters, builders, brickmakers, painters, plasterers, paper-hangers, rubbish-carters, sweeps, and riggers and lumpers, the latter depending mainly on the arrival of the timber ships to the Thames (and this, owing to the ice in the Baltic Sea and in the river St. Lawrence, &c., takes place only at certain seasons of the year), coal-whippers and coal-porters (the coal trade being much brisker in winter), market-porters, and those employed in summer in steam-boat, railway, van, and barge excursions.
Then there are the casualties attending agricultural labour, for, although the operations of nature are regular “even as the seed time follows the harvest,” there is, almost invariably, a smaller employment of labour after the completion of the haymaking, the sheep-shearing, and the grain-reaping labours.
For the hay and corn harvests it is well known that there is a periodical immigration of Irishmen and women, who clamour for the _casual_ employment; others, again, leave the towns for the same purpose; the same result takes place also in the fruit and pea-picking season for the London green-markets; while in the winter such people return some to their own country, and some to form a large proportion of the casual class in the metropolis. A tall Irishman of about 34 or 35 (whom I had to see when treating of the religion of the street Irish) leaves his accustomed crossing-sweeping at all or most of the seasons I have mentioned, and returns to it for the winter at the end of October; while his wife and children are then so many units to add to the casualties of the street sale of apples, nuts, and onions, by overstocking the open-air markets.
The autumnal season of hop-picking is the grand rendezvous for the vagrancy of England and Ireland, the stream of London vagrancy flowing freely into Kent at that period, and afterwards flowing back with increased volume. Men, women, and children are attracted to the hop harvest. The season is over in less than a month, and then the casual labourers engaged in it (and they are nearly all casual labourers) must divert their industry, or their endeavours for a living, into other channels, swelling the amount of casualty in unskilled work or street-trade.
Numerically to estimate the influence of the seasons on the labour-market of this country is almost an overwhelming task. Let us try, however: there are in round numbers one million agricultural labourers in this country; saying that in the summer four labourers are employed for every three in the winter, there would be 250,000 people and their families, or say 1,000,000 of individuals, deprived of their ordinary subsistence in the winter time; this, of course, does not include those who come from Ireland to assist at the harvest-getting--how many these may be I have no means of ascertaining. Added to these there are the natural vagabonds, whom I have before estimated at another hundred thousand (see p. 408, vol. i.), and who generally help at the harvest work or the fruit or hop-picking.
Then there are the carpenters, who are 163,000 in number; the builders, 9200; the brickmakers, 18,000; the painters, 48,200; the coal-whippers, 9200; the coal-miners, 110,000; making altogether 350,000 people, and estimating that for every four hands employed in the brisk season, there are only three required in the slack, we have 80,000 more families, or 300,000 people, deprived of their living by the casualty of labour; so that if we assert that there are, at the least, including agricultural labourers, 1,250,000 people thus deprived of their usual means of living, we shall not be very wide of the truth.
The next cause of the briskness or slackness of different employments is--
C. Fashion.
The London fashionable season is also the parliamentary season, and is the “briskest” from about the end of February to the middle of July.
The workmen most affected by the aristocratic, popular, or general fashions, are--
Tailors, ladies’ habit-makers, boot and shoe-makers, hatters, glovers, milliners, dress-makers, mantua-makers, drawn and straw bonnet-makers, artificial flower-makers, plumassiers, stay-makers, silk and velvet weavers, saddlers, harness-makers, coach-builders, cabmen, job-coachmen, farriers, livery stable keepers, poulterers, pastry-cooks, confectioners, &c., &c.