London Labour and the London Poor: Selection (Classics) (75 page)

‘I have been a navvy for about eighteen years. The first work that I done was on the Manchester and Liverpool. I was a lad then. I used to grease the railway waggons, and got about 1
s
. 6
d
. a day. There we had a tommy-shop, and we had to go there to get our bit of victuals, and they used to charge us an extra price. The next place I had after that was on the London and Brummagem. There I went as horse-driver, and had 2
s
. 6
d
. a day. Things was dear then, and at the tommy-shop they was much dearer; for there was tommy-shops on every line then; and indeed every contractor and sub-contractor had his shop that he forced his men to deal at, or else he wouldn’t have them in his employ. At the tommy-shop we was charged half as much again as we should have had to pay elsewhere; and it’s the same now, wherever these tommy-shops is. What the contractors, you see, can’t make out of the company, they fleeces out of the men. Well, sir, I worked on that line through all the different contracts till it was finished: sometimes I was digging, sometimes shovelling. I was mostly at work at open cuttings. All this time I was getting from 2
s
. 6
d
. to 3
s
. and 3
s
. 6
d
. a day; that was the top price; and if I’d had the ready-money to lay out myself, I could have done pretty well, and maybe have put a penny or two by against a rainy day: but the tommy-shop and the lodging-house took it all out of us. You see, the tommy-shop found us in beer, and they would let us drink away all our earnings there if we pleased, and when pay-time
came we should have nothing to take. If we didn’t eat and drink at the tommy-shop we should have no work. Of an evening, we went to the tommy-shop after the drink, and they’d keep drawing beer for us there as long as we’d have anything coming to us next pay-day (we were paid every fortnight, and sometimes every month), and when we had drunk away all that would be coming to us, why they’d turn us out. The contractor, who keeps these tommy-shops, is generally a gentleman, a man of great property, who takes some four, five, or seven lengths to do. Well, with such goings on, in course there wasn’t no chance in the world for us to save a halfpenny. We had a sick fund among ourselves, but our masters never cared nothing about us further than what they could get out of us at their tommy-shops. They were never satisfied if a man didn’t spend all his money with them; if we had a penny to take at the month’s end, they didn’t like it; and now the half of us has to walk about and starve, or beg, or go to the union. After I left the Brummagem line, I went on to the Great Western. I went to work at Maidenhead. There it was on the same system, and on the same rules – the poor man being fleeced and made drunk by his master. Sometimes the contractor would lot the work out to some sub-contractor, and he, after the men had worked for a month, would run away, and we should never see the colour of his money. After the Great Western, I went into Lancashire, on the Manchester and Oldham branch. I started there to work at nights, and there I worked a month for the contractors, when they went bankrupt, and we never received a farthing but what we had got out of the tommy-shop. Well, I came away from there, and got on to the London and Brighton, and I worked all up and down that, saving the tunnels; and it was the same there – the tommy-shop and imposition was wherever we went. Well, from there I went on to the London and Dover. It was monthly payments on that. There, too, I worked for a month, when the sub-contractor runned away with all the men’s money – 900
l
., sir, it were calculated. After that another party took it, and it was the same all the way up and down – the tommy-shop and beer as much as we liked, on credit. Then I went on to the London and Cambridge, and there it was the same story over and over again. Just about this time, railway work began to get slack, and then farmers’ work was slack too; and you see that made things worse for the navvies, for all came to look for employment on the railroads. This is about seven years ago. After that some more fresh lines started throughout Lancashire and Yorkshire, and trade being bad in them parts, all the weavers applied for work on the railways, and the regular navvies had a hard time of it then. But we managed to get on somehow – kept lingering
on – till about three years agone, when trade got a little bit better. That was about the time when things was very dear, and our wages was rose to 3
s
. 6
d
. a day.: they’d been only 2
s
. 6
d
. and 3
s
. before that; and we did much better when our pay was increased, because we had the ready-money then, and there was no tommy-shops that summer, for the company wouldn’t have them on that line. At the end of that year the work was all stopped, on account of the Chartist rising, and then there was hundreds of men walking about begging their bread from door to door, with nothing to do. After this, (that’s two years ago, the back end of this year,) I went to work on the London and York. Here we had only 2
s
. 9
d
. a day. and we had only four days’ work in the week to do besides; and then there was a tommy-shop, where we were forced to get our victuals and drink: so you see we were very bad off then. I stopped on this line (for work was very scarce, and I thought myself lucky to have any) till last spring. Then all the work on it stopped, and I dare say 2,000 men were thrown out of employ in one day. They were all starving, the heap of them, or next door to it. I went away from there over to the Brummagem and Beechley branch line. But there I found things almost as bad as what I left before. Big, strong, able-bodied men were working for 1
s
. 8
d
. a day, and from that to 2
s
.: that was the top price; for wages had come down, you see, about one-half, and little or no work to do at that price; and tommy-shop and beer, sir, as before, out of the little we did get. The great cause of our wages being cut down was through the work being so slack in the country; everybody was flocking to them parts for employment, and the contractors, seeing a quantity of men walking backwards and forwards, dropped the wages: if one man wouldn’t work at the price, there was hundreds ready to do it. Besides, provisions was very cheap, and the contractors knew we could live on less, and do their work quite as well. Whenever provisions goes down our wages does, too; but when they goes up, the contractors is very slow in rising them. You see, when they find so many men walking about without work, the masters have got the chance of the poor man. Three year agone this last winter – I think it was ’46 – provisions was high and wages was good; and in the summer of the very same year, food got cheap again, and our wages dropped from 3
s
. 6
d
. to 3
s
. and 2
s
. 9
d
. The fall in our wages took place immediately the food got cheaper. The contractors said, as we could live for less, we must do the work for less. I left the Brummagem and Beechley line, about two months before the Christmas before last, and then I came to Copenhagen-fields, on the London and York – the London end, sir; and there I was till last March, when we were all paid off, about 600 on us; and I went back
to Barnet, and there I worked till the last seven weeks, and had 2
s
. 9
d
. a day for what, four years ago, I had 3
s
. 6
d
. for; and I could only have three or four days’ work in the week then. Whilst I was there, I hurted my leg, and was laid up a month. I lived all that time on charity; on what the chaps would come and give me. One would give a shilling, another sixpence, another a shilling, just as they could spare it; and poorly they could do that, God knows! I couldn’t declare on to the sick fund, because I hadn’t no bones broken. Well, when I come to look for work, and that’s three weeks agone, when I could get about again, the work was all stopped, and I couldn’t get none to do. Then I come to London, and I’ve looked all about for a job, and I can’t find nothing to do. I went to a lodging-house in the Borough, and I sold all my things – shovel and grafting-tool and all, to have a meal of food. When all my things was gone, I didn’t know where to go. One of my mates told me of this Refuge, and I have been here two nights. All that I have had to eat since then is the bread night and morning they gives us here. This will be the last night I shall have to stop here, and after that I don’t know what I shall do. There’s no railway work – that is, there’s none to speak of, seeing the thousands of men that’s walking about with nothing to do, and not knowing where to lay their heads. If I could get any interest, I should like to go away as an emigrant. I shouldn’t like to be sent out of my native country as a rogue and a vagabone; but I’m tired of stopping here and if I can’t get away, why I must go home and go to the parish, and it’s hard for a young man that’s willing and able like me to work, and be forced to want because he can’t get it. I know there is thousands – thousands, sir, like I am – I know there is, in the very same condition as I am at this moment: yes, I know there is.’ [This he said with a very great feeling and emphasis.] ‘We are all starving. We are all willing to work, but it ain’t to be had. This country is getting very bad for labour; it’s so overrun with Irish that the Englishman hasn’t a chance in his own land to live. Ever since I was nine years old I’ve got my own living, but now I’m dead beat, though I’m only twenty-eight next August.’

The next man to whom I spoke was tall and hale-looking, except that his features were pinched, and his eyes had a dull lack-lustre look, common to men suffering from cold and hunger. His dress was a coarse jacket, fustian trousers, and coarse, hard-worn shoes. He spoke without any very provincial accent.

‘I am now forty-eight, and have been a farm-labourer all my life. I am a single man. When I was a boy of twelve, I was put to dig, or see after the birds, or break clods, or anything, on a farm at Croland, in Lancashire.
I had very little school before that, and can neither read nor write. I was then living with my parents, poor people, who worked on the land whenever they could get a day’s work. We had to live very hard, but at hay and harvest times we had meat, and lived better. I had 3
s
. a week as a boy. When I grew up to fourteen I left home. I thought my father didn’t use me well: perhaps it was my own fault. I might have been a bad boy; but he was severe when he did begin with me, though he was generally quiet. When his passion was up, there was no bearing it. Anyhow, I started into the world at fourteen to do the best I could for myself – to make my fortune if I could. Since then, I have had work in all sorts of counties; Midland counties, principally. When a boy, I got employment readily enough at bird-scaring, or hay-making; but I soon grew up, and took a man’s place very early, and I could then do any kind of farmer’s work, except ploughing or seeding. They have men on purpose for that. Farm work was far better in my younger days than it is now. For a week, when hired by the day, I never get more than 15
s
., regular work. For taken work (by the job), I have made as much as 42
s
. in a week; that is, in reaping and mowing, when I could drop on such jobs in a difficult season, when the weather was uncertain. I talk of good times. The last good job I had was three years ago, come next summer. Now I should be glad to get 9
s
. a week, constant work: anything but what I’m doing now. As I went about from place to place, working for farmers, I generally lodged at the shepherds’ houses, or at some labourer’s. I never was in a lodging-house when I was in work, only when money runs low one must have shelter. At some lodging-houses I’ve had a good feather-bed; others of them are bad enough: the best, I think, are in Norfolk. I have saved a bit of money several times – indeed, year after year, until the last three or four years; but what I saved in the summer, went in the winter. In some summers, I could save nothing. It’s how the season comes. I never cared for drink. I’ve done middling till these last two seasons. My health was good, to be sure; but when a man’s in health his appetite is good also; and when I’m at regular work I don’t eat half so much as when I’m knocking about idle, and get hold of a meal. I often have to make up for three or four days then. The last job I had was six weeks before Christmas, at Boston, in Lincolnshire. I couldn’t make 1
s
. 6
d
. a day on account of the weather. I had 13
s
., how ever, to start with, and I went on the road, not standing for a straight road, but going where I heard there was a chance of a job, up or down anywhere, here or there, but there was always the same answer, “Nobody wanted – no work for their own constant men.” I was so beat out as soon as my money was done – and it lasted ten days – that I parted with my
things one by one. First my waist-coat, then my stockings (three pair of them), then three shirts. I got 2
s
. 4
d
. for three shirts, and 6
d
. a pair for my stockings. My clothes were done, and I parted with my pocket-knife for 2
d
., and with my ‘bacco-box for 1½
d
. After I left Boston, I got into Leicestershire, and was at Cambridge, and Wisbeach, and Lynn, and Norwich; and I heard of a job among brickmakers at Low Easthrop, in Suffolk, but it was no go. The weather was against it, too. It was when the snow set in. And then I thought I would come to London, as God in his goodness might send me something to do. I never meant anything slinking. I’m only happy when I’m at work, but here I am destitute. Some days as I walked up I had nothing to eat. At others I got half-pennies or pennies from men like myself that I saw at work. I’ve given shillings away that way myself at times. Sometimes I had to take to the road, but I’m a very poor beggar. When I got to London I was a stranger, and lodged here the first night – that’s a week ago. A policeman sent me here. I’ve tried every day to get work – labouring-work for builders, or about manure-carts, or anything like that, as there’s no farming in London, but got none; so but for this place I had starved. When this place is closed I must tramp into the country. There are very many farm-labourers now going from farm to farm, and town to town, to seek work, more than ever I saw before. I don’t know that the regular farm-workmen come so much to London. As I travelled up from Suffolk I lay rough often enough. I got into stables, or any places. Such places as this save many a man’s life. It’s saved mine, for I might have been found dead in the street, as I didn’t know where to go.’