 Section 62 of London Labour and the London Poor, volume 2 by Henry Mehue. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Gillian Henry. The effects of casual labour in general. Having now pointed out the causes of casual labour, I proceed to set forth its effects. All casual labour, as I have said, is necessarily uncertain labour and wherever uncertainty exists, there can be no foresight or providence. Had the succession of events in nature been irregular, had it been ordained by the creator that similar causes and their similar circumstances should not be attended with similar effects, it would have been impossible for us to have had any knowledge of the future or to have made any preparations concerning it. Had the seasons followed each other fitfully, had the sequences in the external world been variable instead of invariable, and what are now termed constants from the regularity of their succession being changed into inconstants, what provision could even the most prudent of us have made? Where all was dark and unstable, we could only have guessed instead of reasoned as to what was to come and who would have deprived himself of present enjoyment to avoid future privations which could appear neither probable nor even possible to him. Providence therefore is simply the result of certainty and whatever tends to increase our faith in the uniform sequences of outward events as well as our reliance on the means we have of avoiding the evils connected with them necessarily tends to make us more prudent. Where the means of sustenance and comfort are fixed the human being becomes conscious of what he has to depend upon and if he feel assured that such means may fail him in old age or in sickness and be fully impressed with the certainty of suffering from either he will immediately proceed to make some provision against the time of adversity or infirmity. If however his means be uncertain, abundant at one time and deficient at another a spirit of speculation or gambling with the future will be induced and the individual gets to believe in luck and fate as the arbiters of his happiness rather than to look upon himself as the architect of his fortunes trusting to chance rather than his own powers and foresight to relieve him at the hour of necessity. The same result will necessarily ensue if from defective reasoning powers the ordinary course of nature be not sufficiently apparent to him or if being in good health he grow too confident upon its continuance and either from this or other causes is led to believe that death will overtake him before his powers of self-support decay. The ordinary effects of uncertain labour then are to drive the labourers to improvidence, recklessness and populism. Even in the classes which we do not rank among labourers as for instance authors, artists, musicians, actors uncertainty or irregularity of employment and remuneration produces a spirit of wastefulness and carelessness. The steady and daily accruing gains of trade and of some of the professions form a certain and staple income while in other professions where a large sum may be realised at one time and then no money be earned until after an interval incomeings are rapidly spent and the interval is one of suffering. This is part of the very nature, the very essence of the casualty of employment and the delay of remuneration. The past privation gives a zest to the present enjoyment while the present enjoyment renders the past privation faint as a remembrance and unimpressive as a warning. Want of Providence writes Mr Porter on the part of those who live by the labour of their hands and whose employments so often depend upon circumstances beyond their control is a theme which is constantly brought forward by many whose lot in life has been cast beyond the reach of want. It is indeed greatly to be wished for their own sakes that the habit were general among labouring classes of saving some part of their wages when fully employed against less prosperous times. But it is difficult for those who are placed in circumstances of ease to estimate the amount of virtue that is implied in this self-denial. It must be a hard trial for one who has recently perhaps seen his family enduring want to deny them the small amount of indulgences which are at the best of times placed within their reach. It is easy enough for men in smooth circumstances to say the privation is a man's own fault since to avoid it he has but to apportion the sum he may receive in a lump over the interval of non-recompense which he knows will follow. Such a course as this, experience and human nature have shown not to be easy, perhaps with a few exceptions not to be possible. It is the starving and not the well-fed man that is in danger of surfiting himself. When pestilence or revolution are rendering life and property casualties in a country, the same spirit of improvident recklessness breaks forth. In London, on the last visitation of the plague in the reign of Charles II, a sort of plague club indulged in the wildest excesses in the very heart of the pestilence. To these orgies no one was admitted who had not been bereft of some relative by the pest. In Paris, during the reign of terror in the first revolution the famous guillotine club was composed of none but those who had lost some near relative by the guillotine. When they met for their half frantic revels everyone wore some symbol of death, breastpins in the form of guillotines, rings with death's heads and such like. The duration of their own lives these guillotine club-ists knew to be uncertain. Not merely in the ordinary uncertainty of nature but from the character of the times and this feeling of the jeopardy of existence from the practice of violence and bloodshed wrought the effects I have described. Life was more than naturally casual. When the famine was at the worst in Ireland it was remarked in the cork examiner that in that city there never had been seen more street larking or street gambling among the poor lads and young men who were really starving. This was a natural result of the casualty of labour and the consequent casualty of food. Persons it should be remembered do not ensure houses or shops that are doubly or trebly hazardous they gamble on the uncertainty. Mr Porter in his Progress of the Nation cites a fact bearing immediately upon the present subject. The formation of a canal which has been in progress during the last five years in the north of Ireland this was written in 1847 has afforded steady employment to a portion of the peasantry who before that time were suffering all the evils so common in that country which result from the precariousness of employment. Such work as they could previously get came at uncertain intervals and was sought by so many competitors that the remuneration was of the scantiest amount. In this condition of things the men were improvident to recklessness. Their wages insufficient for the comfortable sustenance of their families were wasted in procuring for themselves a temporary forgetfulness of their misery at the whisky shop and the men appeared to be sunk into a state of hopeless degradation. From the moment however that work was offered to them which was constant in its nature and certain in its duration and on which their weekly earnings would be sufficient to provide for their comfortable support men who had been idle and disillute were converted into sober hardworking labourers and proved themselves kind and careful husbands and fathers and it is stated as a fact that notwithstanding the distribution of several hundred pounds weekly in wages the whole of which must be considered as so much additional money placed in their hands the consumption of whisky was absolutely and permanently diminished in the district. During the comparatively short period in which the construction of this canal was in progress some of the most careful labourers men who most probably before then never knew what it was to possess five shillings at any one time saved sufficient money to enable them to emigrate to Canada. There can hardly be a stronger illustration of the blessing of constant and the curse of casual labour we have competence and frugality as the results of one system poverty and extravagance as the results of the other and among the very same individuals. In the evidence given by Mr Galloway the engineer before a parliamentary committee he remarks that when employers are competent to show their men that their business is steady and certain and when men find that they are likely to have permanent employment they have always better habits and more settled notions which will make them better men and better workmen and will produce great benefits to all who are interested in their employment. Moreover, even if payment be assured to a working man regularly but deferred for long intervals so as to make the returns lose all appearance of regularity he will rarely be found able to resist the temptation of a tavern and perhaps a long-continued carouse or of some other extravagance to his taste when he receives a month's dues at once. I give an instance of this in the following statement For some years after the peace of 1815 the staffs of the militias were kept up but not in any active service. During the war the militias performed what are now the functions of the regular troops in the three kingdoms their stations being changed more frequently than those of any of the regular regiments at the present day indeed they only differed from the regulars in name. There was the same military discipline and the sole difference was that the militia men who were balloted for periodically could not, by the laws regulating their embodiment be sent out of the United Kingdom for purposes of warfare the militias were embodied for 28 days training once in four years, seldom less after the peace and the staff acted as the drill sergeants they were usually steady orderly men working at their respective crafts when not on duty after the militias disembodiment and some who had not been brought up to any handicraft turned out perhaps from their military habits of early rising and orderliness very good gardeners both on their own account and as assistants in gentlemen's grounds no few of them saved money yet these men with very few exceptions when they received a month's pay fooled away a part of it in tippling and idleness to which they were not at all addicted when attending regularly to their work with its regular returns if they got into any trouble in consequence of their carousel it was looked upon as a sort of legitimate excuse why you see sir, it was the 24th the 24th of each month being the pension day the thoughtless extravagance of sailors when on the return to port they receive in one sum the wages they have earned by severe toil amid storms and dangers during a long voyage I need not speak off it is a thing well known these soldiers and seamen cannot be said to have been casually employed but the results were the same as if they had been so employed the money came to them in a lump at so long an interval as to appear uncertain and was consequently squandered I may cite the following example as to the effects of uncertain earnings upon the household outlay of labourers who suffer from the casualties of employment induced by the season of the year in the long fine days of summer the little daughter of a working brick maker I was told used to order chops and other choice dainties of a butcher saying please sir father don't care for the price just a now but he must have his chops good line chops sir and tender please cos he's a brick maker in the winter it was oh please sir here's a fourpony bit and you must send father something cheap he don't care what it is so long as it's cheap it's winter and he hasn't no work sir cos he's a brick maker I have spoken of the tendency of casual labour to induce intemperate habits in confirmation of this I am unable to give the following account as to the increase of the sale of malt liquor in the metropolis consequent upon wet weather the account is derived from the personal observations of a gentleman long familiar with the brewing trade in connection with one of the largest houses in short I may state that the account is given on the very best authority there are nine large brewers in London of these the two firms transacting the greatest extent of business supply daily one thousand barrels each firm to their customers the seven others among them dispose altogether of three thousand barrels daily all these five thousand barrels a day are solely for town consumption and this may be said to be the average supply the year through but the public house sale is far from regular after a wet day the sale of malt liquor principally beer, porter to the metropolitan retailers is from five hundred to one thousand barrels more than when a wet day has not occurred that is to say the supply increases from five thousand barrels to five thousand five hundred and six thousand such of the publicans as keep small stocks go the next day to their brewers to order a further supply those who have better furnished sellers may not go for two or three days after but the result is the same the reason for this increased consumption is obvious when the weather prevents workmen from prosecuting their respective callings they have recourse to drinking to pass away the idle time anyone who has made himself familiar with the habits of the working classes has often found them crowding a public house during a hard rain especially in the neighbourhood of new buildings or any public open-air work the street sellers themselves prevented from plying their trades outside are busy in such times in the publics offering for sale services, belts, hose, tobacco boxes nuts of different kinds apples and so on a bargain may then be struck for so much and a half pint of beer and so the consumption is augmented by the trade in other matters now taking 750 barrels as the average of the extra sale of beer in consequence of wet weather we have a consumption beyond the demands of the ordinary trade in malt liquor of 27,000 gallons or 216,000 pints this at Tupensa Pint is 3,000 pounds for a day needless and often prejudicial outlay caused by the casualty of the weather and the consequent casualty of labour a sensor of morals might say that these men should go home under such circumstances but their homes may be at a distance and may present no great attractions the single men among them may have no homes merely sleeping places and even the most prudent may think it advisable to wait a while under shelter in hopes of the weather improving so that they could resume their labour and only an hour or so will be deducted from their wages besides there is the attraction to the labourer of the warmth discussion, freedom and excitement of the public house that the great bulk of the consumers of this additional beer are of the classes I have mentioned is I think plain enough from the increase being experienced only in that beverage the consumption of gin being little affected by the same means indeed the statistics showing the ratio of beer and gin drinking are curious enough where this the place to enter into them the most gin as a general rule being consumed in the most depressed years it is a fact worth notice said a statistical journal entitled facts and figures published in 1841 as illustrative of the tendency of the times of pressure to increase spirit drinking that whilst under the privations of last year, 1840 the poorer classes paid £2,628,286 tax for spirits in 1836 a year of the greatest prosperity the tax on British spirits amounted only to £2,390,188 so true is it that to impoverish is to demoralise the numbers whom by in the course of a wet day these 750 barrels cannot of course be ascertained but the following calculations may be presented the class of men I have described rarely have spare money but if known to a landlord they probably may obtain credit until the Saturday night now putting their extra beer drinking on wet days for in fine days there is generally a pint or more consumed daily per working man putting I say the extra potations at a pot, quart each man we find 108,000 consumers out of 2 million people or discarding the women and children not 1 million a number doubling and trebling and quadrupling the male adult population of many a splendid continental city of the data I have given I may repeat no doubt can be entertained nor as it seems to me can any doubt be entertained that the increased consumption is directly attributable to the individuality of labour note 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 9 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 end note of the scurf trade among the rubbish characters before proceeding to treat of the cheap or scurf labourers among the rubbish characters I shall do as I have done in connection with the casual labourers of the same trade say a few words on that kind of labour in general both as to the means by which it is obtained and as to the distinctive qualities of the scurf or lower priced labourers for experience teaches me that the mode by which labour is cheap and is more or less similar in all trades and it will therefore save much time and space if I hear as with the casual labourers give the general facts in connection with this part of my subject in the first place then there are but two direct modes of cheapening labour namely one by making the workmen do more work for the same pay two by making them do the same work for less pay the first of these modes is what is technically termed driving especially when effected by compulsory overwork and it is called the economy of labour when brought about by more elaborate and refined processes such as the division of labour the large system of production the invention of machinery and the temporary as contradistinguished from the permanent mode of hiring each of these modes of making workmen do more work for the same pay can have but the same depressing effect on the labour market for not only is the rate of remuneration or ratio of the work to the pay reduced when the operative is made to do a greater quantity of work for the same amount of money but unless the means of disposing of the extra products be proportionately increased it is evident that just as many workmen must be displaced thereby as the increased term or rate of working exceeds the extension of the markets that is to say if 4,000 work people be made to produce each twice as many as formerly either by extending the hours of labour or increasing their rate of labouring then if the markets or means of disposing of the extra products be increased only one half 1,000 hands must according to Cocker be deprived of their ordinary employment and these competing with those who are in work will immediately tend to reduce the wages of the trade generally so that not only will the rate of wages be decreased since each will have more work to do but the actual earnings of the workmen will be diminished likewise of the economy of labour itself as a means of cheapening work there is no necessity for me to speak here it is indeed generally admitted that to economise labour without proportionally extending the markets for the products of such labour is to deprive a certain number of workmen of their ordinary means of living and under the head of labour so many instances have been given of this principle that it would be worrisome to the reader where I to do other than allude to the matter at present there are however several other means of causing a workmen to do more than his ordinary quantity of work these are 1 by extra supervision when the workmen are paid by the day of this mode of increased production an instance has already been cited in the account of the strapping shops given at page 304 volume 2 2 by increasing the workmen's interest in his work as in peace work where the payment of the operative is made proportional to the quantity of work done by him of this mode examples have already been given at page 303 volume 2 3 by large quantities of work given out at one time as in lump work and contract work 4 by the domestic system of work or giving out materials to be made up at the homes of the work people 5 by the middleman system of labour 6 by the prevalence of small masters 7 by a reduced rate of pay as forcing operatives to labour both longer and quicker in order to make up the same amount of income of several of these modes of work I have already spoken citing facts as to their pernicious influence upon the greater portion of those trades where they are found to prevail I have already shown how by extra supervision by increased interest in the work as well as by decreased pay operatives can be made to do more work than they otherwise would and so be the cause unless the market be proportionately extended of depriving some of their fellow labourers of their fair share of employment it now only remains for me to set forth the effect of those modes of employment which have not yet been described namely the domestic system the middleman system and the contract and lump system as well as the small master system of work let me begin with the first of the last mentioned modes of cheapening labour namely the domestic system of work defined by investigation that in trades where the system of working on the master's premises has been departed from and a man is allowed to take his work home there is invariably a tendency to cheapen labour these home workers whenever opportunity offers will use other men's ill paid labour or else employ the members of their family to enhance their own profits the domestic system moreover naturally induces overwork and Sunday work as well as tends to change journeymen into trading operatives living on the labour of their fellow workmen when the work is executed off the master's premises of course there are neither definite hours nor days for labour and the consequence is the generality of home workers labour early and late Sundays as well as work days availing themselves at the same time of the cooperation of their wives and children thus the trade becomes overstocked with work people by the introduction of a vast number of new hands into it as well as by the overwork of the men themselves who thus obtain employment when I was among the tailors I received from a journeyman to whom I was referred by the trade society as the one best able to explain the cause of the decline of that trade the following lucid account of the evils of this system of labour the principal cause of the decline of our trade is the employment given to workmen at their own homes or in other words to the sweaters the sweater is the greatest evil in the trade as the sweating system increases the number of hands to an almost incredible extent wives, sons daughters and extra women all working long days that is labouring from 16 to 18 hours per day and Sundays as well by this system two men obtain as much work as would give employment to three or four men working regular hours in the shop consequently the sweater being enabled to get the work done by women and children at a lower price than the regular workman obtains the greater part of the garments to be made while men who depend upon the shop for their living are obliged to walk about idle a greater quantity of work is done under the sweating system at a lower price consider that the decline of my trade dates from the change of day work into peace work according to the old system the journeyman was paid by the day and consequently must have done his work under the eye of his employer it is true that work was given out by the master before the change from day work to peace work was regularly acknowledged in the trade but still it was morally impossible for work to be given out and not be paid by the peace increase in the wages of the workman from the introduction of peace work and giving out garments to be made off the premises of the master the effect of this was that the workman making the garment knowing that the master could not tell whom he got to do his work for him employed women and children to help him and paid them little or nothing for their labour this was the beginning of the sweating system the workman gradually became transformed from journeyman into middlemen living by the labour of others employers soon began to find that they could get garments made at a less sum than the regular price and those tradesmen who were anxious to force their trade by underselling their more honourable neighbours readily availed themselves of this means of obtaining cheap labour the middleman's system of work is so much akin to the domestic system of which indeed it is but a necessary result that it forms a natural sender to the above of this indirect mode of employing workmen I said in the chronicle when treating of the timber porters at the docks quote the middleman's system is the one crying evil of the day whether he goes by the name of sweater chamber master lumper or contractor it is this trading operative who is the great means of reducing the wages of his fellow working men to make a profit out of the employment of his brother operatives he must of course obtain a lower class and consequently cheaper labour hence it becomes a business with him to hunt out the lowest grades of working men that is to say those who are either morally or intellectually inferior in the craft the drunken, the dishonest the idle, the vagabond and the unskillful these are the instruments that he seeks because these being unable to obtain employment at the regular wages of the sober, honest, industrious and skillful portion of the trade he can obtain their labour at a lower rate than what is usually paid hence drunkards tramps men without character or station, apprentices children all suit him indeed the more degraded the labourers the better they answer his purpose for the cheaper he can get their work and consequently the more he can make out of it boy labour or thief labour said a middleman on a large scale to me what do I care so long as I can get my work done cheap that this seeking out of cheap and inferior labour really takes place and is a necessary consequence of the middleman system we have merely to look into the conditions of any trade where it is extensively pursued I have shown in my account of the tailors trade printed in the chronicle that the wives of the sweaters not only parade the streets of London on the lookout for youths raw from the country but that they make periodical trips to the poorest provinces of Ireland in order to obtain workmen at the lowest possible rate I have shown moreover that foreigners are annually imported from the continent for the same purpose and that among the chamber masters in the shoe trade the child market at Bethnal Green as well as the work houses are continually ransacked for the means of obtaining a cheaper kind of labour all my investigations go to prove that it is chiefly by means of this middleman system that the wages of the working men are reduced it is this contractor this trading operative who is invariably the prime mover in the reduction of the wages of his fellow workmen he uses the most degraded of the class means of underselling the worthy and skillful labourers and of ultimately dragging the better down to the abasement of the worst he cares not whether the trade to which he belongs is already overstocked with hands for be those hands as many as they may and the ordinary wages of his craft down to bare subsistence point it matters not a drop to him he can live solely by reducing them still lower and so he immediately sets about drafting or importing a fresh and cheaper stock into the trade if men cannot subsist on lower prices then he takes apprentices or hires children if women of chastity cannot afford to labour at the price he gives then he has recourse to prostitutes or if workmen of character and worth refuse to work at less than the ordinary rate then he seeks out the moral refuse of the trade those whom none else will employ or else he flies to find labour meet for his purpose to the workhouse and the jail backed by this cheap and refuse labour he offers his work at lower prices and so keeps on reducing and reducing the wages of his brethren until all sink in poverty, wretchedness and vice go where we will look into whatever poorly paid craft we please we shall find this trading operative this middleman or contractor at the bottom of the degradation the contract system or lump work as it is called is but a corollary as it were of the foregoing for it is an essential part of the middleman system that the work should be obtained by the trading operative in large quantities so that those upon whose labour he lives should be kept continually occupied or of course that he can obtain work for the greater his profit when a quantity of work usually paid for by the peace is given out at one time the natural tendency is for the peace work to pass into lump work that is to say if there be in a trade a number of distinct parts each requiring perhaps from the division of labour a distinct hand for the execution of it or if each of these parts bear a different price it is frequently the case that the master will contract with some one workman for the execution of the whole agreeing to give a certain price for the job in the lump and allowing the workman to get whom he pleases to execute it this is the case with the peace working masters in the coach building trade but it is not essential to the contract or lump system of work that other hands should be employed the main distinction between it and peace work being that the work is given out in large quantities and a certain allowance or reduction of price effected from that cause alone it is this contract or lump work which constitutes the great evil of the carpenters as well as of many other trades and as in those crafts so in this we find that the lower the wages are reduced the greater becomes the number of trading operatives or middlemen and workmen find the difficulty of living by their labour increased that they take to scheming and trading upon the labour of their fellows in the slop trade where the pay is the worst these creatures are bound the most and so in the carpenters trade where the wages are the lowest as among the speculative builders there the system of contracting and subcontracting is found in full force off this contract or lump work I received the following account from the foreman to a large speculating builder when I was inquiring into the condition of the London carpenters the way in which the work is done is mostly by letting and subletting the masters usually prefer to let work because it takes all the trouble off their hands they know what they are to get for the job and of course they let it as much under that figure as they possibly can they are again without the least trouble how the work is done or by whom it's no matter to them so long as they can make what they want out of the job and have no bother about it some of our largest builders are taking to this plan and a party who used to have one of the largest shops in London as within the last three years discharged all the men in his employ he had 200 at least and has now merely an office and none but clerks and accountants in his pay he has taken to letting his work out instead of doing it at home the parties to whom the work is let by the speculating builders are generally working men and these men in their turn look out for other working men who will take the job cheaper than they will and so I leave you sir and the public to judge what the party who really executes the work gets for his labour and what is the quality of work that he is likely to put into it the speculating builder generally employs an overlooker to see that the work is done sufficiently well to pass the surveyor that's all he cares about whether it's done by thieves or drunkards or boys it's no matter to him the overlooker of course sees after the first party to whom the work is let and this party in his turn looks after the several hands that the job takes it in the lump and he again lets it to others in the piece I have known instances of it having been let again a third time but this is not usual the party who takes the job in the lump from the speculator usually employs a foreman whose duty it is to give out the materials and to make working drawings the men to whom it is sublet only find labour while the lumper or first contractor sees for both labour and materials it is usual in contract work for the first party who takes the job to be bound in a large sum for the due and faithful performance of his contract he then in his turn finds out a subcontractor who is mostly a small builder who will also bind himself that the work shall be properly executed and there the binding ceases those party to whom the job is afterwards let or sublet employing foreman or overlookers to see that their contract is carried out the first contractor has scarcely any trouble whatsoever he merely engages a gentleman who rides about in a gig to see that what is done is likely to pass muster the subcontractor has a little more trouble and so it goes on as it gets down and down of course I need not tell you that the first contractor who does the least of all gets the most of all the poor wretch of a working man who positively executes the job is obliged to slave away every hour night after night to get a bare living out of it and this is the contract system a tradesman or a speculator will contract for a certain sum to complete the skeleton of a house and render it fit for habitation he will sublet the flooring to some working joiner who will in very many cases allow himself by working early and late the regular journeyman's wages of 30 shelling's a week or perhaps rather more now this subcontractor cannot complete the work within the requisite time by his own unaided industry and he employs men to assist him often subletting again and such assistant men will earn perhaps but 4 shelling's a day it is the same with the doors the staircases the stairs the window frames the room skirtings the closets in short all parts of the building the subletting is accomplished without difficulty old men are sometimes employed in such work and will be glad of any remuneration to escape the work house while stronger workmen are usually sanguine that by extra exertion though the figure is low they may make a tidy thing out of it after all the day labour is cheapened lump work piecework work by the job are all portions of the contract system the principle is the same here is this work to be done what will you undertake to do it for in number after number off the builder will be found statements headed blind builders one firm responding to an advertisement for estimates of the building of a church sends in an offer to execute the work in the best style for £5,000 another firm may offer to do it for somewhere about £3,000 the first mentioned firm would do the work well paying the honourable rate of wages the underworking firm must resort to the scamping and subletting system I have alluded to it appears that the building of churches and chapels of all denominations is one of the greatest encouragements of the work the same system prevails in many trades with equally pernicious effects if you will allow me says a correspondent I would state that there is one cause of hardship and suffering to the labouring or handicraftsmen which to my mind is far more productive of distress and poor grinding than any other or than all the causes put together I allude to the contract system and especially in reference to printing depend upon it sir the father of wickedness himself could not devise a more malevolent or dishonest course than that now very generally pursued by those who should be of all others the friends of the poor and working man the government and the great west end clubs have reduced their transactions to such a low level in this respect that it seems to be the only question with them who will work lowest with the goods at the lowest figure and this too totally irrespective of the circumstance whether it may not reduce wages or bankrupt the contractor no matter whether a party who has executed the work required for years be noted for paying a fair and remunerating price to his workmen or sub tradesmen and bears the character of a responsible and trustworthy man all this is as nothing for somebody who may be efficient in all these points will do what is needful at so much less and then unless willing to reduce the wages of his work people the long employed tradesmen has but the alternative of losing his business or cheating his creditors and then to give a smack to the whole affair the stationery office of the government or the committee of the club will congratulate themselves and their auditors on the fact that a diminution in expenses has been affected a result commemorated perhaps by an addition of salary to the officials in the former case and of a cordial vote of thanks in the latter I do not write without book I can assure you on these matters for I have long and earnestly watched the subject and could fill many a page with the details of the ruinous effects of the contract system in connection with the army clothing Mr. Pierce the army clothier followed evidence before the select committee on army and navy appointments quote when the contract for soldiers great coats was opened Mr. Maverly took it at the same price 13 shillings in December 1808 this shows the effect of wild competition in February following Esdale's house who were accoutrements makers and not clothiers got knowledge of what was Mr. Maverly's price and they entered at 12 shelling sixpence Hapney a month afterwards it was evidently then a struggle for the price and how the quality the least good if we may use such a term could pass Mr. Maverly did not like to be outbidden by Estales Estales stopped subsequently and Mr. Maverly bid 12 shelling sixpence three months after and Mr. Dixon bid again and got the contract for 11 shelling fivepence in October and in December of that year another public tender took place and Mr. A and D Koch took it at 11 shelling fivepence Hapney and they subsequently broke it went on in this sort of way changing hands every two or every three months by bidding against each other presently though it was calculated that the great coat was to wear four years it was found that those great coats were so clear and quality that they wore only two years and representations were accordingly made to the commander in chief when it was found necessary that great care should be taken to go back to the original good quality that had been established by the Duke of York end quote Mr. Shaw another army clothier and a gentleman with whose friendship I am proud to say I have been honoured since the commencement of my inquiries a gentleman actuated by the most kindly and Christian impulses and of whom the work people speak in terms of the highest admiration and regard this gentleman impressed with a deep sense of the evils of the contract system to the underpaid and overworked operatives of his trade addressed a letter to the chairman of the committee on army navy and ordinance estimates from which the following are extracts quote my lord my object more particularly is to request your lordship will submit to the committee as an evidence of the evils of contracts the great quote sent herewith made similar to those supplied to the army and I would respectfully appeal to them as men gentlemen as Christians whether five pins the price now being given to poor females for making up these quotes is a fair and just price for six seven and eight hours work my lord the misery amongst the work people is most distressing of a mass of people willing to work who cannot obtain it and of a mass especially women most iniquitously paid for their labour who are in a state of oppression disgraceful to the legislature the government the church and the consuming public I would therefore most humbly and earnestly call upon your lordship and the other members of the committee to recommend an immediate stop to be put to the system of contracting now pursued by the different government departments as being one of false economy as a system most oppressive to the poor and being most injurious in every way to the best interests of the country end quote in another place the same excellent gentleman says quote I could refer to the screwing down of other things by the government authorities but the above will be sufficient to show how cruelly the work people employed in making up this clothing are oppressed and some of the men will tell you they are tired of life last week I found one man making a country police quote who said his wife and child were out begging end quote the last mentioned of the several modes of cheapening labour is the small master system of work that is to say the operatives taking to make up materials on their own account rather than for capitalist employers in every trade where there are small masters trades into which it requires but little capital to embark there is certain to be a cheapening of labour such a man works himself and to get work to meet the exigencies of the rent and the demands of the collectors of the parliamentary and parochial taxes he will often underwork the very journeyman whom he occasionally employs doing the job in such cases with the assistance of his family and apprentices at a less rate of profit than the amount of journeyman's wages concerning these garret masters I said when treating of the cabinet trade in the chronicle quote the cause of the extraordinary decline of the wages in the cabinet trade even though the hands decreased and the work increased to an unprecedented extent will be found to consist in the increase that has taken place within the last 20 years of what are called garret masters in the cabinet trade these garret masters are a class of small trade working masters the same as the chamber masters in the shoe trade supplying both capital and labour they are in manufacture what the peasant proprietors are in agriculture their own employers and their own workmen there is however this one marked distinction between the two classes the garret master cannot like the peasant proprietor eat what he produces the consequence is that he is obliged to convert each article into food immediately he manufactures it no matter what the state of the market may be the capital of the garret master being generally sufficient to find him in materials for the manufacture of only one article at a time and his savings being but barely enough for his subsistence while he is engaged in putting those materials together he is compelled the moment the work is completed to part with it for whatever he can get he cannot afford to keep it even a day for to do so is generally to remain a day unfed hence if the market be a tall slack he has to force a sale by offering his goods at the lowest possible price what wonder then that the necessities of such a class of individuals should have created a special race of employers known by the significant name of slaughterhouse men or that these being aware of the inability of the garret masters to hold out against any offer no matter how slight a remuneration it affords for their labour should continually lower and lower their prices until the entire body of the competitive portion of the cabinet trade is sunk into utter destitution and misery moreover it is well known how strong is the stimulus among peasant proprietors or indeed any class working for themselves to extra production so it is indeed with the garret masters their industry is almost incessant and hence a greater quantity of work is turned out by them and continually forced into the market than there would otherwise be what though there be a brisk and a slack season in the cabinet makers trade as in the majority of others slack or brisk the garret masters must produce the same excessive quantity of goods in the hope of extricating himself with his overwhelming poverty he toils on producing more and more and yet the more he produces the more hopeless does his position become for the greater the stock that he thrusts into the market the lower does the price of his labour fall until at last he and his whole family work for less than half what he himself could earn a few years back by his own unaided labour end quote the small master system of work leads like the domestic system with which indeed it is intimately connected to the employment of wives, children and apprentices as a means of assistance and extra production for as the prices decline so do the small masters strive by further labour to compensate for their loss of income end of section 62 section 63 part 2 such then are the several modes of work by which labour is cheapened there are as we have seen but two ways of directly effecting this namely first by making men do more work for the same pay and secondly by making men do more work for the same pay and secondly by making men do more work for the same pay and secondly by making them do the same work for less pay the way in which men are made to do more it has been pointed out is by causing them either to work longer or quicker or else by employing fewer hands in proportion to the work or engaging them only for such time as their services are required and discharging them immediately afterwards these constitute the several modes of economising labour which lowers the rate of remuneration the ratio of the pay to the work rather than the pay itself the several means by which this result is attained are termed systems of work production or engagement and such are those above detailed now it is a necessity of these several systems though the actual amount of remuneration is not directly reduced by them that a cheaper labour should be obtained for carrying them out thus in contract or lump work perhaps the price may not be immediately lowered the saving to the employer consisting chiefly in supervision he having in such a case only one man to look to instead of perhaps a hundred the contractor or lumper however is differently situated he in order to reap any benefit from the contract must since he cannot do the whole work himself employ others to help him and to reap any benefit from the contract this of course must be done at a lower price than he himself receives so it is with the middleman system where profit is derived from the labour of other operatives so again with the domestic system of work where the several members of the family or cheaper labourers are generally employed as assistants and even so is it with the small master system where the labour of apprentices and wives and children is the principal means of help hence the operatives adopting these several systems of work are rather the instruments by which cheap labour is obtained than the cheap labourers themselves it is true that a sweater a chamber master or garret master a lumper or contractor or a home worker actually works cheaper than the ordinary operatives but this he does chiefly by the cheap labourers he employs and then finding that he is able to underwork the rest of the trade and that the more hands he employs the greater becomes his profit he offers to do work at less than the usual rate it is not a necessity of the system that the middleman operative the domestic worker the lumper or garret master underpaid but simply that he should employ others who are so and it is thus that such systems of work tend to cheapen the labour of those trades in which they are found to prevail who then are the cheap labourers who the individuals by means of whose services the sweater the smaller master the lumper and others is unable to underwork the rest of his trade what the general characteristics of those who in the majority of handicrafts are found ready to do the same work for less pay and how are these usually distinguished from such as obtain the higher rate of remuneration the cheap workmen in all trades I find are divisible into three classes one the unskillful two the untrustworthy three the inexpensive first as regards the unskillful a boy has been noticed how frequently boys were put to trades to which their tastes and temperaments were antagonistic gay who in his quiet and pretending style often elicited a truth tells how a century and a half ago the generality of parents never considered for what business a boy was best adapted but even an infancy decree what this or Tother son shall be a boy thus brought up to a craft for which he entertains a dislike and hardly become a proficient in it at the present time thousands of parents are glad to have their sons reared to any business which their means or opportunities place within their reach even though the lad be altogether unsuited to the craft the consequences that these boys often grow up to be unskillful workmen there are technical terms for them in different trades perhaps the generic appellation is muffs such workmen however well conducted can rarely obtain employment in a good shop at good wages and are compelled therefore to accept second, third and fourth rate wages and are often driven to slop work other causes may be cited as tending to form unskillful workmen the neglect of masters or foremen or their incapacity to teach apprentices irregular habits in the learner and insufficient practice during a master's posity of employment I am assured moreover that hundreds of mechanics yearly come to London from the country parts whose skill is altogether inadequate to the demands of the honourable trade of course during the finishing of their education they can only work for inferior shops at inferior wages hence another cause of cheap labour of this I will cite an instance a bootmaker who for years had worked for first rate West End shops told me that when he came to London from a country town he was sanguine of success because he knew that he was a ready man a quick workman he very soon found out however he said that as he aspired to do the best work he had his business to learn all over again and until he attained the requisite skill he worked for just what he could get he was a cheap because then an unskillful labourer there is moreover the cheaper labour of apprentices the great prop of many a slop trader for as such traders disregard all the niceties of work as they disregard also the solidity and perfect finish of any work finishing it as it was once described to me just to the eye a lad is soon made useful and his labour remunerative to his master as far as slop remuneration goes which though small in a small business is wealth in a monster business there are again the improver's these are the most frequent in the dressmaking and millinery business as young women find it impossible to form a good connection with the class of ladies in any country town unless the patronesses are satisfied that their skill and taste have been perfected in London in my inquiry in the course of two letters in the morning chronicle into the condition of the work women in this calling I was told by a retired dressmaker who had for upwards of 20 years carried on business in the neighbourhood of Grovener Square that she had sometimes met with improvers so tasteful and quick from a good provincial tuition that they had really little or nothing to learn in London and yet their services were secured for one and oftener for two years merely for board and lodging while others employed in the same establishment had not only board and lodging but handsome salaries the improver's then is generally a cheap labour and often a very cheap labour too the same form of cheap labour prevails in the Carpenters trade there is moreover the labour of old men a tailor for instance who may have executed the most skilled work of his craft in his old age or before the period of old age finds his eyesight fail him finds his tremulous fingers have not a full and rapid mastery of the needle and he then labours at greatly reduced rates of payment making of soldiers clothing sane work as it is called or on any ill paid and therefore ill wrought labour note the term sane in sane work is the norman word for blood Latin Sanguis French Song so that sane work means literally bloody work this called either from the sanguinary trade of the soldier or from the blood red colour of the cloth note the inferior as regards the quality of the work and underpaid class of women in tailoring for example again cheapen labour it is cheapened also by the employment of Irishmen in perhaps all branches of skilled or unskilled labour and of foreigners more especially of Poles who are inferior workmen to the English and who will work very cheap thus supplying a low price labour to those who seek it I may remark further that if a first rate workmen 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 market two of untrustworthy labour as a cause of cheap labour I need not say much it is obvious that a drunken idle or dishonest workmen or work women when pressed by want will and must labour not for the recompense the labour merits but for whatever pitons 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 sweeps 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 three, the inexpensive class of work people are very numerous they consist of three subdivisions 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 overpopulation and its remedy page 21 Do really farm 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 squires having a son and heir born to him or on the young gentleman's coming of age they are 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 a long conversation with an Irish rubbish character 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 men on my asking him how he subsisted in Ireland will then sir he said I once lived for days on green things I picked up by the roadside and the turnips and that sort of mate I stole from the fields sailing but it was the hunger did was it that was in the county Limerick sir in the famine and viction times and glory be to God I escaped when others didn't I may observe that the chief local paper the Limerick and Claire 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 various dole rather than again be subjected to the pangs of hunger in my inquiries among the costar mongers one of them said of the Irish in his trade and without any bitterness they'll work for nothing and live one 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 be those who derive their subsistence from other sources can of course afford to work cheaper 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 needle women 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 work houses 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 women residing with their parents and often in comfortable homes at no cost to themselves will and do undersell the regular needle women 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 see the last mentioned class or those who are in possession of what may be called aids to wages are differently circumstance 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 and so on 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 turned the wheels for turners at present the allotment of gardens which yield a partial support to the allotee 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 than 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 page 31 there are the following remarks on the subject quote, 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 a quote states small allowances of one shilling sixpence or two shillings 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 unable 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 ninepence shirts from one shilling to one shilling sixpence per dozen the women all declare that they cannot possibly after working from 12 to 15 hours per day earn more than one shilling sixpence per week the manufacturers assert that by steady work four shillings to six shillings a week may be earned under ordinary circumstances in the meantime the demand for work women increases and it is by no means unusual to see hand bills posted over the town requiring from 500 to 1000 additional stitchers end quote such then is the character of the cheap workers in all trades go where we will we shall find the low priced labour 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 the cheap labour of the rubbish carters trade appears to be a consequence of two distinct antecedents namely casual labour and the prevalence of the contract system among builders 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 page 290 volume 2 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 shillings weekly when in work in Hampstead however the rate of their wages is uniformly 20 shillings a week in Lambuth but less uniformly it is 19 shillings in Wandsworth 17 shillings in Islington 16 shillings and in Greenwich 14 shillings and 12 shillings the character of the work whether executed for 12 shillings or 20 shillings weekly is the same then can a rubbish carter who works at Hampstead earn 8 shillings 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 unscaled 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 unskillful 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 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 unable and experienced hand and one unused to the toil or one inadequate from want of alertness or body strength or any other cause to its full and quick execution that to good men in a week have done as much work as three indifferent hands thus two men at 18 shillings 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 shillings a week each the misfortune however is that the 12 shillings a week men have a tendency to reduce the 16 shillings to their level with regard to the difference between the wages of Hampstead and Greenwich I am informed that stationary working rubbish characters 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 woodland it is not in the line of resort of the class of men who seek the casual labour in harvesting and so on 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 scurff labourers differs somewhat from that of the honourable part of the trade the work executed by the scurff 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 scurff master cannot always meet defined 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 scurff employed labour are nominally the same as the regular trade but as an Irish Carter said it's rarely the hours the master pleases and they're often as long as it's light the scurff labourer is often paid with a days higher and no notice beyond I'm informed that scurff labourers generally work an hour a day without extra immigration longer than those in the honourable trade the rubbish carters employed by the scurff 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 receiving 15 shillings 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 shillings or 13 shillings 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 the 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 ahead 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 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 and you're heart out then I got to do subcontracting as you call it no it weren't that it was underworking 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 ten shilling sixpence for a day's work horse and cart or four shillings alone those are the regular terms then I'd say I'd go out for eight shilling sixpence and be my own carman and so perhaps I'd get the job and masters often say I know I shall lose at ten shilling sixpence 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 knackers and I sold the other and my carts and have worked ever since as a labouring man mainly at pipe work oh yes and rubbish curting I get eighteen shillings 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 subcontracting if I'm at work in Cannon Street I don't know what's doing at Notting Hill or beyond Bow and Stratford now 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 underfed beyond a certain pitch or they couldn't work at all there's not as much underwork about horse labour these small men are among the scurff 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 where it continuous but it is not continuous and three fourths of those engaged in it have only six months work at it in the scurff 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 scavengery 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 and so on and so on of the better paid rubbish carters would have but to be repeated if I described those of the underpaid the latter may be more reckless when they have the means of enjoyment but their diet amusements and expenditure would be the same where 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 savalloy 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 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 shop near the edge where 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 charring is far better than needlework far if a young woman has conducted herself well in service she can get charring 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 charring and did far better than a sister I have who is a capital shirt maker there's broken vitals sometimes for your children it's a hard world sir but there's a many good people in it one woman before mentioned earned not less than five shillings weekly in superior shirt making as it was described to me which was evidently looked upon as a handsome remuneration for such another earned three shilling sixpence another two shilling sixpence and others with uncertain employ two shillings one shilling sixpence and in some weeks nothing needlework however is I am informed not the work of one tenth of the rubbish Carter's wives whatever the earnings of the husband from all I could learn to the wives of the underpaid rubbish Carter's earned more from ten to twenty percent than those of the better paid the earnings of a char women in average employ as regards the wives of the rubbish Carter's is about four shillings weekly without the exhausting toil of the needle woman and with the advantage of sometimes receiving broken meat dripping fat and so on and so on the wives of the Irish laborers in this trade are often all the year street sellers some of wash leathers some of cabbage nets and some of fruit clearing perhaps from sixpence to ninepence a day if used to street trading as the majority of them are the underpaid laborers in this trade are chiefly poor Irishman the Irish workmen in this branch of the trade have generally been brought up on the land as they call it in their own country and after the sufferings of many of them during the famine twelve shillings a week is regarded as a rise in the world from one of this class I learned the following particulars he seemed a man of twenty six or twenty eight I was brought up on the land sir he said not far from Cullen in the county Wexford I lived with my father and mother and sure we were badly off sure than we were father and mother the heaven be father and some friends raised me the means to come to this country well then indeed sir and I can't see how they raised them God reward them I got to Liverpool and walked to London where I had some relations I sold oranges in the streets the first day I was in London God help me I was glad to do anything to get a male's mate I've lived on sixpence a day sometimes I have indeed there was tuppence for the lodging and fourpence for the mate and bread and butter did I live harder than that in Ireland your honor well then I have I've lived on a dish of potatoes that might cost a penny there where things is beautiful and cheap not like this country no no I wouldn't care to go back I have no friends there now then I got engaged by a man yes he was a rubbish carter to help him to fill his cart and then we shot it on some new garden grounds and had to shovel it about to make the grounds level before the top soil was put on for the beautiful flowers and the gravel walks Tim yes he was a countryman of mine but a cork man said he'd made a bad bargain for he was bad off and he only cleared fourpence a load and he'd divide it with me we did six loads in a day and I got one shilling every night for a week that was a rise but one Sunday evening I was talking with people as lived in the same court and I told how I was helping Tim and two Englishmen came to find four men as they wanted for work and old Reagan told them what I was working for and one of them said I was a me Irish fool and old Reagan said so and words came on and then there was a fight and the police came and then the fight was harder I was taken to the station and had a month I had two black eyes next morning but was willing to forget and forgive no I'm not fond of fighting I'm a passable man glory be to God and I think I was put on oh yes and indeed in your honour it was a fair fight I inquired of an English rubbish character as to these fair fights he knew nothing of the one in question but had seen such fights they were usually among the Irish themselves but sometimes Englishmen were drawn into them fair fights sir he said why the Irish's don't stand up to you like men they don't fight like Christians sir not a bit of it they kick and scratch and bite and tear like devils or cats or women they're soon settled if you can get an honest knock at them but it isn't easy I served my month continued my Irish informant and it ain't a bad place at all the prison I told the gentlemen that had charge of us that I was a Roman Catholic God be praised and couldn't go to his prayers oh very well Pat says he and next day the priest came and we were shown into him and very angry he was and said our conduct was a disgraced religion and to our country and to him do I think he was right sir God knows he was or he wouldn't have said so I hadn't been out of prison two hours before I was hired for a job at ten shillings a week it was in the city and I carried old bricks and rubbish along planks from the inside of a place as was pulled down but the outside all but the roof was standing until the window frames and the door posts and what other timber there was was sold it was dreadful hard work carrying the basket of rubbish on your back to the cart the dust came through and stuck to my neck for I was wet all over with sweat and so every man was allowed a pint of beer a day and I thought never anything was so sweet I don't know who gave it the master I suppose well then sir I don't know who was the master it was John Riley has engaged me but he's no master yes then and I've been working that way ever since I've sometimes had 14 shillings a week and sometimes 10 shillings and sometimes 12 shillings a man like me must take what he can get and I will take it I've been out of work sometimes but not so much as some for I'm young and strong no I can't save no money and I have nothing just now to save it for when I'm out of work I sell fruit in the streets this statement then as regards the Irish labourers shows the quality of the class employed the English labourers working on the same terms of the usual class of men so working broken down men unable or accounting themselves unable to do better and so accepting any offer affording the means of their daily bread end of section 63