Part 90

I may remark further, that if a first-rate workman be driven to slop work, he soon loses his skill; he can only work slop; this has been shown over and over again, and so _his_ labour becomes cheap in the mart.

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2. Of _Untrustworthy Labour_ (as a cause of cheap labour) I need not say much. It is obvious that a drunken, idle, or dishonest workman or workwoman, when pressed by want, will and must labour, not for the recompense the labour merits, but for whatever pittance an employer will accord. There is no reliance to be placed in him. Such a man cannot “hold out” for terms, for he is perhaps starving, and it is known that “he cannot be depended upon.” In the sweep’s trade many of those who work at a lower rate than the rest of the trade are men who have lost their regular work by dishonesty.

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3. The _Inexpensive class_ of workpeople are very numerous. They consist of three sub-divisions:--

(_a._) Those who have been accustomed to a coarser kind of diet, and who, consequently, requiring less, can afford to work for less.

(_b._) Those who derive their subsistence from other sources, and who, consequently, do not live by their labour.

(_c._) Those who are in receipt of certain “aids to their wages,” or who have other means of living beside their work.

Of course these causes can alone have influence where the wages are _minimized_ or reduced to the lowest ebb of subsistence, in which case they become so many means of driving down the price of labour still lower.

_a._ Those who, being what is designated hard-reared that is to say, accustomed to a scantier or coarser diet, and who, therefore, “can do” with a less quantity or less expensive quality of food than the average run of labourers, can of course live at a lower cost, and so _afford_ to work at a lower rate. Among such (unskilled) labourers are the peasants from many of the counties, who seek to amend their condition by obtaining employment in the towns. I will instance the agricultural labourers of Dorsetshire.

“Bread and potatoes,” writes Mr. Thornton, in his work on Over-Population and its Remedy, p. 21, “do really form the staple of their food. As for meat, most of them would not know its taste, if, once or twice _in the course of their lives_,--on the squire’s having a son and heir born to him, or on the young gentleman’s coming of age,--they were not regaled with a dinner of what the newspapers call ‘old English fare.’ Some of them contrive to have a little bacon, in the proportion, it seems, of _half a pound a week to a dozen persons_, but they more commonly use fat to give the potatoes a relish; and, as one of them said to Mr. Austin (a commissioner), ‘they don’t _always_ go without cheese.’”

With many poor Irishmen the rearing has been still harder. I had some conversation with an Irish rubbish-carter, who had been thrown out of work (and was entitled to no allowance from any trade society) in consequence of a strike by Mr. Myers’s men. On my asking him how he subsisted in Ireland, “Will, thin, sir,” he said, “and it’s God’s truth, I once lived for days on green things I picked up by the road side, and the turnips, and that sort of mate I stole from the fields. It was called staling, but it was the hunger, ’deed was it. That was in the county Limerick, sir, in the famine and ’viction times; and, glory be to God, I ’scaped when others didn’t.”

I may observe that the chief local paper, the _Limerick and Clare Examiner_, published twice a week, gave, twice a week, at the period of “the famine and evictions,” statements similar to that of my informant.

Now, would not a poor man, reared as the Limerick peasant I have spoken of, who was actually driven to eat the grass, which biblical history shows was once a signal punishment to a great offender--would not such a man work for the veriest dole, rather than again be subjected to the pangs of hunger? In my inquiries among the costermongers, one of them said of the Irish in his trade, and without any bitterness, “they’ll work for nothing, and live on less.” The meaning is obvious enough, although the assertion is, of course, a contradiction in itself.

“This department of labour,” says Mr. Baines, in his History of the Hand-Loom Weavers, is “greatly overstocked, and the price necessarily falls. The evil is aggravated by the multitudes of Irish who have flocked into Lancashire, some of whom, having been linen weavers, naturally resort to the loom, and others learn to weave as the easiest employment they can adopt. Accustomed to a wretched mode of living in their own country, they are contented with wages that would starve an English labourer. They have, in fact, so lowered the _rate_ of wages as to drive many of the English out of the employment, and to drag down those who remain in it to their own level.”

_b._ Those who derive their subsistence from other sources can, of course, afford to work cheaper than those who have to live by their labour. To this class belongs the labour of wives and children, who, being supposed to be maintained by the toil of the husband, are never paid “living wages” for what they do; and hence the misery of the great mass of needlewomen, widows, unmarried and friendless females, and the like, who, having none to assist them, are forced to starve upon the pittance they receive for their work. The labour of those who are in prisons, workhouses, and asylums, and who consequently have their subsistence found them in such places, as well as the work of prostitutes, who obtain their living by other means than work, all come under the category of those who can afford to labour at a lower rate than such as are condemned to toil for an honest living. It is the same with apprentices and “improvers,” for whose labour the instruction received is generally considered to be either a sufficient or partial recompense, and who consequently look to other means for their support. Under the same head, too, may be cited the labour of amateurs, that is to say, of persons who either are not, or who are too proud to acknowledge themselves, regular members of the trade at which they work. Such is the case with very many of the daughters of tradesmen, and of many who are considered _genteel_ people. These young women, residing with their parents, and often in comfortable homes, at no cost to themselves, will, and do, undersell the regular needlewomen; the one works merely for pocket-money (often to possess herself of some article of finery), while the other works for what is called “the bare life.”

_c._ The last-mentioned class, or those who are in possession of what may be called “aids to wages,” are differently circumstanced. Such are the men who have other employment besides that for which they accept less than the ordinary pay, as is the case with those who attend at gentlemen’s houses for one or two hours every morning, cleaning boots, brushing clothes, &c., and who, having the remainder of the day at their own disposal, can afford to work at any calling cheaper than others, because not solely dependent upon it for their living.

The army and navy pensioners (non-commissioned officers and privates) were, at one period, on the disbanding of the militia and other forces, a very numerous body, but it was chiefly the military pensioners whose position had an effect upon the labour of the country. The naval pensioners found employment as fishermen, or in some avocation connected with the sea. The military pensioners, however, were men who, after a career of soldiership, were not generally disposed to settle down into the drudgery of regular work, even if it were in their power to do so; and so, as they always had their pensions to depend upon, they were a sort of universal jobbers, and jobbed cheaply. At the present time, however, this means of cheap labour is greatly restricted, compared with what was the case, the number of the pensioners being considerably diminished. Many of the army pensioners turn the wheels for turners at present.

The allotment of gardens, which yield a partial support to the allottee, are another means of cheap labour. The allotment demands a certain portion of time, but is by no means a thorough employment, but merely an “aid,” and consequently a _means_, to low wages. Such a man has the advantage of obtaining his potatoes and vegetables at the cheapest rate, and so can afford to work cheaper than other men of his class. It was the same formerly with those who received “relief” under the old Poor-Law.

And even under the present system it has been found that the same practice is attended with the same result. In the Sixth Annual Report of the Poor-Law Commissioners, 1840, at p. 31, there are the following remarks on the subject:--

“Whilst upon the subject of relief to widows in aid of wages, we must not omit to bring under your Lordship’s notice an illustration of the _depressing effect_ which is produced by the practice of giving relief in aid of wages to widows upon the earnings of females. Colonel A’Court states:--

“‘As regards females, the instance to which I have alluded presents itself in the Portsea Island Union, where, from the insufficiency of workhouse accommodation, as well as from benevolent feelings, small allowances of 1_s._ 6_d._ or 2_s._ a week are given to widows with or without small children, or to married women deserted by their husbands. _Having this certain income, however small, they are enabled to work at lower wages than those who do not possess this advantage._ The consequence is, that competition has enabled the shirt and stay manufacturers, who abound in the Union, and who furnish in great measure the London as well as many foreign markets with these articles of their trade, to get their work done at the extraordinary low prices of--stays, complete, 9_d._; shirts, from 1_s._ to 1_s._ 6_d._ per dozen.

“‘The women all declare that they cannot possibly, after working from twelve to fifteen hours per day, earn more than 1_s._ 6_d._ per week. The manufacturers assert that, by steady work, 4_s._ to 6_s._ a week may be earned under ordinary circumstances.

“‘In the meantime _the demand for workwomen increases_, and it is by no means unusual to see hand-bills posted over the town requiring from 500 to 1000 additional stitchers.’”

Such, then, is the character of the cheap workers in all trades; go where we will, we shall find the low-priced labour of the trade to consist of either one or other of the three classes above-mentioned; while the _means_ by which this labour is brought into operation will be generally by one of the “systems of work” before specified.

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The cheap labour of the rubbish-carters’ trade appears to be a consequence of two distinct antecedents, viz., casual labour and the prevalence of the contract system among builder’s work. The small-master system also appears to have some influence upon it.

First as regards the influence of casual labour in reducing the ordinary rate of wages.

The tables given at p. 290, vol. ii., showing the wages paid to the rubbish-carters, present what appears, and indeed is, a strange discrepancy of payment to the labourers in rubbish-carting. About three-fourths of the rubbish-carters throughout London receive 18_s._ weekly, when in work; in Hampstead, however, the rate of their wages is (uniformly) 20_s._ a week; in Lambeth (but less uniformly), it is 19_s._; in Wandsworth, 17_s._; in Islington, 16_s._; and in Greenwich, 14_s._ and 12_s._ The character of the work, whether executed for 12_s._ or 20_s._ weekly, is the same; why, then, can a rubbish-carter, who works at Hampstead, earn 8_s._ a week more than one who works at Greenwich? An employer of rubbish-carters, and of similar labourers, on a large scale, a gentleman thoroughly conversant with the subject in all its industrial bearings, accounts for the discrepancy in this manner:--

After the corn and the hop-harvests have terminated, there is always an influx of unskilled labourers into Gravesend, Woolwich, and Greenwich. These are the men who, from the natural bent of their dispositions, or from the necessity of their circumstances, resort to the casual labour afforded by the revolution of the seasons, when to gather the crops before the weather may render the harvest precarious and its produce unsound, is a matter of paramount necessity, and the increase of hands employed during this season is, as a consequence, proportionately great. The chief scene of such labour in the neighbourhood of the metropolis, is in the county of Kent; and on the cessation of this work, of course there is a large amount of labour “turned adrift,” to seek, the next few days, for any casual employment that may “turn up.” In this way, I am assured, a large amount of cheap and unskilled labour is being constantly placed at the command of those masters who, so to speak, occupy the line of march to London, and are, therefore, first applied to for employment by casual labourers; who, when engaged, are employed as inferior, or unskilful, workmen, at an inferior rate of remuneration. Greenwich may be looked upon as the first stage or halt for casual labourers, on their way to London.

My informant assured me, as the result of his own observations, that an English labourer would, as a general rule, execute more work by one-sixth, in a week, than an Irish labourer (a large proportion of the casual hands are Irish); that is, the extent of work which would occupy the Irishman six, would occupy the Englishman but five days, were it so calculated. The Englishman was, however, usually more skilled and persevering, and far more to be depended upon. So different was the amount of work, even in rubbish-carting, between an able and experienced hand and one unused to the toil, or one inadequate from want of alertness or bodily strength, or any other cause, to its full and quick execution, that two “good” men in a week have done as much work as three indifferent hands. Thus two men at 18_s._ weekly each are as cheap (only employers cannot always see it), when they are thorough masters of their business, as three unready hands at 12_s._ a week each. The misfortune, however, is, that the 12_s._ a week men have a tendency to reduce the 16_s._ to their level.

With regard to the difference between the wages of Hampstead and Greenwich, I am informed that stationary working rubbish-carters are not too numerous in Hampstead, which is considered as rather “out of the way;” and as that metropolitan suburb is surrounded in every direction by pasture-land and wood-land, it is not in the line of resort of the class of men who seek the casual labour in harvesting, &c., of which I have spoken; it is rarely visited by them, and consequently, the regular hands are less interfered with than elsewhere, and wages have not been deteriorated.

The mode of work among the scurf labourers differs somewhat from that of the honourable part of the trade; the work executed by the scurf masters being for the most part on a more limited scale than that of the others. To meet the demands of builders or of employers generally, when “time” is an object, demands the use of relays of men, and of strong horses. This demand the smaller or scurf master cannot always meet. He may find men, but not always horses and carts, and he will often enough undertake work beyond his means and endeavour to aggrandise his profits by screwing his labourers. The _hours of scurf-employed labour_ are nominally the same as the regular trade, but as an Irish carter said, “it’s ralely the hours the masther plases, and they’re often as long as it’s light.” The _scurf labourer is often paid by the day_, with “a day’s hire, and no notice beyond.” I am informed that scurf labourers generally work an hour a day, without extra remuneration, longer than those in the honourable trade.

The rubbish-carters employed by the scurf masters are not, as a body, I am assured, so badly paid as they were a few years back. It is rarely that labouring men can advance any feasible reason for the changes in their trade.

_One of the main causes of the deteriorated wages_ of the rubbish-carters is the system of contracting and subletting. This, however, is but a branch of the ramified system of subletting in the construction of the “scamped” houses of the speculative builders. The building of such houses is sublet, literally from cellar to chimney. The rubbish-carting may be contracted for at a certain sum. The contractor may sublet it to men who will do it for one-fourth less perhaps, and who may sublet the labour in their turn. For instance, the calculation may be founded on the working men’s receiving 15_s._ weekly. A contractor, a man possessing a horse, perhaps, and a couple of carts, and hiring another horse, will undertake it on the knowledge of his being able to engage men at 12_s._ or 13_s._ weekly, and so obtain a profit; indeed the reduction of price in such cases must all come out of the labour.

This subletting, I say, is but a small part of a gigantic system, and it is an unquestionable cause of the grinding down of the rubbish-carters’ wages, and that by a class who have generally been working men themselves, and risen to be the owners of one or two carts and horses.

From one of these men, now a working carter, I had the following account, which further illustrates the mode of labour as well as of employment.

“I got a little a-head,” he stated, “from railway jobbing and such like, and my father-in-law, as soon as I got married, made me a present of 20_l._ unexpected. I started for myself, thinking to get on by degrees, and get a fresh horse and cart every year. But it couldn’t be done, sir. If I offered to take a contract to cart the rubbish and dig it, a builder would say,--‘I can’t wait; you haven’t carts and horses enough from your own account, and I can’t wait. If you have to hire them I can do that myself.’ I was too honest, sir, in telling the plain truth, or I might have got more jobs. It’s not a good trade in a small way, for if your horses aren’t at work, they’re eating their heads off, and you’re fretting your heart out. Then I got to do sub-contracting, as you call it. No, it weren’t that, it was under-working. I’d go to Mr. V---- as I knew, and say, ‘You’re on such a place, sir, have you room for me?’ ‘I think not,’ he’d say, ‘I’ve only the regular thing and no advantages--10_s._ 6_d._ for a day’s work, horse and cart, or 4_s._ a load.’ Those are the regular terms. Then I’d say, ‘Well, sir, I’ll do it for 8_s._ 6_d._, and be my own carman;’ and so perhaps I’d get the job, and masters often say: ‘I know I shall lose at 10_s._ 6_d._, but if I don’t, you shall have something over.’ Get anything over! Of course not, sir. I could have lived if I had constant work for two horses and carts, for I would have got a cheap man; such as me must get cheap men to drive the second cart, and under my own eye, whenever I could; but one of my poor horses broke his leg, and had to be sent to the knacker’s, and I sold the other and my carts, and have worked ever since as a labouring man; mainly at pipe-work. O, yes, and rubbish-carting. I get 18_s._ a week now, but not regular.

“Well, sir, I’m sure I can’t say, and I think no man could say, how much there’s doing in sub-contracting. If I’m at work in Cannon-street, I don’t know what’s doing at Notting-hill, or beyond Bow and Stratford. No, I’m satisfied there’s not so much of it as there was, but it’s done so on the sly; who knows how much is done still, or how little? It’s a system as may be carried on a long time, and is carried on, as far as men’s labour goes, but it’s different where there’s horses, and stable rent. They can’t be screwed, or under-fed, beyond a certain pitch, or they couldn’t work at all, and so there’s not as much under-work about horse-labour.”

These small men are among the scurf and petty rubbish-carters, and are often the means of depressing the class to which they have belonged.

The employment in the honourable trade at rubbish-carting would be one of the best among unskilled labourers, were it continuous. But it is not continuous, and three-fourths of those engaged in it have only six months’ work at it in the year. In the scurf-masters’ employ, the work is really “casual,” or, as I heard it quite as often described, “chance.” In both departments of this trade, the men out of work look for a job in scavagery, and very generally in night-work, or, indeed, in any labour that offers. The Irish rubbish-carters will readily become hawkers of apples, oranges, walnuts, and even nuts, when out of employ, so working in concert with their wives. I heard of only four instances of a similar resource by the English rubbish-carters.

What I have said of the education, religion, politics, concubinage, &c., &c., of the better-paid rubbish-carters would have but to be repeated, if I described those of the under-paid. The latter may be more reckless when they have the means of enjoyment, but their diet, amusements, and expenditure would be the same, were their means commensurate. As it is, they sometimes live very barely and have hardly any amusements at their command. Their dinners, when single men, are often bread and a saveloy; when married, sometimes tea and bread and butter, and occasionally some “block ornaments;” the Irish being the principal consumers of cheap fish.

The labour of the wives of the rubbish-carters is far more frequently that of char-women than of needle-women, for the great majority of these women before their marriage were servant-maids. All the information I received was concurrent in that respect. The wife of a carman who keeps a chandler’s shop near the Edgeware-road, greatly resorted to by the class to which her husband belonged, told me that out of somewhere about 25 wives of rubbish-carters or similar workmen, whom she knew, 20 had been domestic servants; what the others had been she did not know.

“I can tell you, sir,” said the woman, “charing is far better than needle-work; far. If a young woman has conducted herself well in service, she can get charing, and then if she conducts herself well again, she makes good friends. That’s, of course, if they’re honest, sir. I know it from experience. My husband--before we were able to open this shop--was in the hospital a long time, and I went out charing, and did far better than a sister I have, who is a capital shirt-maker. There’s broken victuals, sometimes, for your children. It’s a hard world, sir, but there’s a many good people in it.”