London Labour and the London Poor: Selection (Classics) (46 page)

Some of the dustmen are prudent well-behaved men and have decent homes; many of this class have been agricultural labourers, who by distress, or from some other cause, have found their way to London. This was the case with one whom I talked with: he had been a labourer in Essex, employed by a farmer named Izzod, whom he spoke of as being a kind good man. Mr Izzod had a large farm on the Earl of Mornington’s estate, and after he had sunk his capital in the improvement of the land, and was about to reap the fruits of his labour and his money, the farmer was ejected at a moment’s notice, beggared and broken-hearted. This occurred near Roydon, in Essex. The labourer, finding it difficult to obtain work in the country, came to London, and, discovering a cousin of his engaged in a dust-yard, got employed through him at the same place, where he remains to the present day. This man was well clothed, he had good strong lace boots, gray worsted stockings, a stout pair of corduroy breeches, a short smockfrock and fantail. He has kept himself aloof, I am told, from the drunkenness and dissipation of the dustmen. He says that many of the new hands that get to dustwork are mechanics or people who have been ‘better off’, and that these get thinking about what they have been, till to drown
their care they take to drinking, and often become, in the course of a year or so, worse than the ‘old hands’ who have been reared to the business and have ‘nothing at all to think about’.

Among the dustmen there is no ‘Society’ nor ‘Benefit Club’, specially devoted to the class – no provident institution whence they can obtain ‘relief’ in the event of sickness or accident. The consequence is that, when ill or injured, they are obliged to obtain letters of admission to some of the hospitals, and there remain till cured. In cases of total incapacity for labour, their invariable refuge is the workhouse; indeed they look forward (whenever they foresee at all) to this asylum as their resting-place in old age, with the greatest equanimity, and talk of it as ‘the house’ par excellence, or as ‘the big house’, ‘the great house’, or ‘the old house’. There are, however, scattered about in every part of London numerous benefit clubs made up of working-men of every description, such as Old Friends, Odd Fellows, Foresters, and Birmingham societies, and with some one or other of these the better class of dustmen are connected. The general rule, however, is, that the men engaged in this trade belong to no benefit club whatever, and that in the season of their adversity they are utterly unprovided for, and consequently become burdens to the parishes wherein they happen to reside.

I visited a large dust-yard at the east end of London, for the purpose of getting a statement from one of the men. My informant was, at the time of my visit, shovelling the sifted soil from one of the lesser heaps, and, by a great effort of strength and activity, pitching each shovel-full to the top of a lofty mound, somewhat resembling a pyramid. Opposite to him stood a little woman, stoutly made, and with her arms bare above the elbow; she was his partner in the work, and was pitching shovel-full for shovelfull with him to the summit of the heap. She wore an old soiled cotton gown, open in front, and tucked up behind in the fashion of the last century. She had clouts of old rags tied round her ancles to prevent the dust from getting into her shoes, a sort of coarse towel fastened in front for an apron, and a red handkerchief bound tightly round her head. In this trim she worked away, and not only kept pace with the man, but often threw two shovels for his one, although he was a tall, powerful fellow. She smiled when she saw me noticing her, and seemed to continue her work with greater assiduity. I learned that she was deaf, and spoke so indistinctly that no stranger could understand her. She had also a defect in her sight, which latter circumstance had compelled her to abandon the sifting, as she could not well distinguish the various articles found in the dust-heap. The poor creature had therefore taken to
the shovel, and now works with it every day, doing the labour of the strongest men.

From the man above referred to I obtained the following statement: – ‘Father vos a dustie; – vos at it all his life, and grandfather afore him for I can’t tell how long. Father vos allus a rum ’un; – sich a beggar for lush. Vhy I’m blowed if he vouldn’t lush as much as half-a-dozen on ’em can lush now; somehow the dusties hasn’t got the stuff in ’em as they used to have. A few year ago the fellers ’u’d think nothink o’ lushin avay for five or six days without niver going anigh their home. I niver vos at a school in all my life; I don’t know what it’s good for. It may be wery well for the likes o’ you, but I doesn’t know it ’u’d do a dustie any good. You see, ven I’m not out with the cart, I digs here all day; and p’raps I’m up all night, and digs avay agen the next day. Vot does I care for reading, or anythink of that there kind, ven I gets home arter my vork? I tell you vot I likes, though! vhy, I jist likes two or three pipes o’ baccer, and a pot or two of good heavy and a song, and then I tumbles in with my Sail, and I’m as happy as here and there von. That there Sail of mine’s a stunner – a riglar stunner. There ain’t never a voman can sift a heap quickerer nor my Sall. Sometimes she yarns as much as I does; the only thing is, she’s sitch a beggar for lush, that there Sall of mine, and then she kicks up sitch jolly rows, you niver see the like in your life. That there’s the only fault, as I know on, in Sall; but, barring that, she’s a hout-and-houter, and worth a half-a-dozen of t’ other sifters – pick ’em out vare you likes. No, we ain’t married ’zactly, though it’s all one for all that. I sticks to Sall, and Sall sticks to I, and there’s an end on ’t: – vot is it to any von? I rec’lects a-picking the rags and things out of mother’s sieve, when I were a young ’un, and a putting ’em all in the heap jist as it might be there. I vos allus in a dust-yard. I don’t think I could do no how in no other place. You see I vouldn’t be ’appy like; I only knows how to vork at the dust ’cause I’m used to it, and so vos father afore me, and I’ll stick to it as long as I can. I yarns about half-a-bull [2
s
. 6
d
.] a day, take one day with another. Sail sometimes yarns as much, and ven I goes out at night I yarns a bob or two more, and so I gits along pretty tidy; sometimes yarnin more and sometimes yarnin less. I niver vos sick as I knows on; I’ve been queerish of a morning a good many times, but I doesn’t call that sickness; it’s only the lush and nothink more. The smells nothink at all, ven you gits used to it. Lor’ bless you! You’d think nothink on it in a veek’s time, – no, no more nor I do. There’s tventy on us vorks here – riglar. I don’t think there’s von on ’em ‘cept Scratchey Jack can read, but he can do it stunning; he’s out vith the cart now, but he’s the chap as can patter to you as long as he likes.’

Concerning the capital and income of the London dust business, the following estimate may be given as to the amount of property invested in and accruing to the trade.

It has been computed that there are 90 contractors, large and small; of these upwards of two-thirds, or about 35, may be said to be in a considerable way of business, possessing many carts and horses, as well as employing a large body of people; some yards have as many as 150 hands connected with them. The remaining 55 masters are composed of ‘small men’, some of whom are known as ‘running dustmen’, that is to say, persons who collect the dust without any sanction from the parish; but the number belonging to this class has considerably diminished since the great deterioration in the price of ‘brieze’. Assuming, then, that the great and little master dustmen employ on an average between six and seven carts each, we have the following statement as to the capital of the London dust trade:

If, therefore, we assert that the capital of this trade is between 25,000
l
. and 30,000
l
. in value, we shall not be far wrong either way.

Of the annual income of the same trade, it is almost impossible to arrive at any positive results; but, in the absence of all authentic information on the subject, we may make the subjoined conjecture:

Thus it would appear that the total income of the dust trade may be taken at between 145,000
l
. and 150,000
l
. per annum.

Against this we have to set the yearly out-goings of the business, which may be roughly estimated as follows:

The above estimates give us the following aggregate results:

Hence it would appear that the profits of the dust-contractors are very nearly at the rate of 100
l
. per cent, on their expenditure. I do not think I have over estimated the incomings, or under estimated the out-goings; at least I have striven to avoid doing so, in order that no injustice might be done to the members of the trade.

This aggregate profit, when divided among the 90 contractors, will make the clear gains of each master dustman amount to about 800
l
. per annum: of course some derive considerably more than this amount, and some considerably less.

[pp. 409–14] There are many reasons why the chimney-sweepers have ever been a distinct and peculiar class. They have long been looked down upon as the lowest order of workers, and treated with contumely by those who were but little better than themselves. The peculiar nature of their work giving them not only a filthy appearance, but an offensive smell, of
itself, in a manner, prohibited them from associating with other working men; and the natural effect of such proscription has been to compel them to herd together apart from others, and to acquire habits and peculiarities of their own widely differing from the characteristics of the rest of the labouring classes.

Sweepers, however, have not from this cause generally been an hereditary race – that is, they have not become sweepers from father to son for many generations. Their numbers were, in the days of the climbing boys, in most instances increased by parish apprentices, the parishes usually adopting that mode as the cheapest and easiest of freeing themselves from a part of the burden of juvenile pauperism. The climbing boys, but more especially the unfortunate parish apprentices, were almost always cruelly used, starved, beaten, and over-worked by their masters, and treated as outcasts by all with whom they came in contact: there can be no wonder, then, that, driven in this manner from all other society, they gladly availed themselves of the companionship of their fellow-sufferers; quickly inbibed all their habits and peculiarities; and, perhaps, ended by becoming themselves the most tyrannical masters to those who might happen to be placed under their charge.

Notwithstanding the disrepute in which sweepers have ever been held, there are many classes of workers beneath them in intelligence. All the tribe of finders and collectors (with the exception of the dredgermen, who are an observant race, and the sewer-hunters, who, from the danger of their employment, are compelled to exercise their intellects) are far inferior to them in this respect; and they are clever fellows compared to many of the dustmen and scavagers. The great mass of the agricultural labourers are known to be almost as ignorant as the beasts they drive; but the sweepers, from whatever cause it may arise, are known, in many instances, to be shrewd, intelligent, and active.

But there is much room for improvement among the operative chimney-sweepers. Speaking of the men generally, I am assured that there is scarcely one out often who can either read or write. One man in Chelsea informed me that some ladies, in connection with the Rev. Mr Cadman’s church, made an attempt to instruct the sweepers of the neighbourhood in reading and writing; but the master sweepers grew jealous, and became afraid lest their men should get too knowing for them. When the time came, therefore, for the men to prepare for the school, the masters always managed to find out some job which prevented them from attending at the appointed time, and the consequence was that the benevolent designs of the ladies were frustrated.