Account of the Casual Labourers.
In the foregoing narratives frequent mention has been made of the Casual Labourers at the timber-docks; and I now proceed to give some short account of the condition and earnings of this most wretched class. On the platform surrounding the Commercial Dock basins are a number whom I have heard described as “idlers,” “pokers,” and “casual labourers.” These men are waiting in hopes of a job, which they rarely obtain until all the known hands have been set to work before them. The casual labourers confine themselves to no particular dock, but resort to the one which they account the most likely to want hands; and some even of the more regularly employed deal-porters change their docks occasionally for the same reason. These changes of locality puzzle the regular deal-porters in the estimation of the number of hands in their calling at the respective docks. On my visits the casual labourers were less numerous than usual, as the summer is the season when such persons consider that they have the best chance in the country. But I saw groups of 10 and 20 waiting about the docks; some standing alone, and some straggling in twos and threes, as they waited, all looking dull and listless. These men, thus wearisomely waiting, could not be called ragged, for they wore mostly strong canvas or fustian suits—large, and seemingly often washed jackets, predominating; and rents, and tatters are far less common in such attire than in woollen-cloth garments. From a man dressed in a large, coarse, canvas jacket, with worn corduroy trousers, and very heavy and very brown laced-leather boots, I had the following statement, in a somewhat provincial tone:—
“My father was a small farmer in Dorsetshire. I was middling educated, and may thank the parson for it. I can read the Bible and spell most of the names there. I was left destitute, and I had to shift for myself—that’s nine year ago, I think. I’ve hungered, and I’ve ordered my bottle of wine since, sir. I got the wine when railways was all the go; and I was a navvy; but I didn’t like wine-drinking; I drank it just for the fun of the thing, or mayhap because gentlemen drink it. The port was like rather rough beer, but stronger, certainly. Sherry I only had once or twice, and liked good ale better. I shifted my quarters every now and then till within two or three years ago, and then I tried my hand in London. At first Mr. —— (a second cousin of my father he was) helped me now and then, and he gave me odd jobs at portering for himself, as he was a grocer, and he got me odd jobs from other people besides. When I was a navvy I should at the best time have had my 50s. a-week, and more if it hadn’t been for the tommy-shops; and I’ve had my 15s. a-week in portering in London for my cousin; but sometimes I came down to 10s., and sometimes to 5s. My cousin died sudden, and I was very hard up after that. I made nothing at portering some weeks. I had no one to help me; and in the spring of last year—and very cold it often was—I’ve walked after 10, 11, or 12 at night, many a mile to lie down and sleep in any bye-place. I never stole, but have been hard tempted. I’ve thought of drowning myself, and of hanging myself, but somehow a penny or two came in to stop that. Perhaps I didn’t seriously intend it. I begged sometimes of an evening. I stayed at lodging-houses, for one can’t sleep out in bad weather, till I heard from one lodger that he took his turn at the Commercial Dock. He worked at timber, or corn, or anything; and so I went, about the cholera time last year, and waited, and run from one dock to another, because I was new and hadn’t a chance like the old hands. I’ve had 14s. a-week sometimes; and many’s the week I’ve had three, and more’s the week I’ve had nothing at all. They’ve said, ‘I don’t know you.’ I’ve lived on penny loaves—one or two a-day, when there was no work, and then I’ve begged. I don’t know what the other people waiting at any of the docks got. I didn’t talk to them much, and they didn’t talk much to me.”
THE DOCK-LABOURERS.
I shall now pass to the labourers at the docks. This transition I am induced to make, not because there is any affinity between the kinds of work performed at the two places; but because the docks constitute, as it were, a sort of home colony to Spitalfields, to which the unemployed weaver migrates in the hope of bettering his condition. From this it would be generally imagined that the work at the docks was either better paid, less heavy, or more easily, and therefore more regularly, obtained. So far from such being the fact, however, the labour at the docks appears to be not only more onerous, but doubly as precarious as that of weaving; while the average earnings of the entire class seems to be less. What, then, it will be asked, constitutes the inducement for the change? Why does the weaver abandon the calling of his life, and forsake an occupation that at least appears to have, and actually had in the days of better prices, a refining and intellectual tendency? Why does he quit his graceful art for the mere muscular labour of the human animal? This, we shall find, arises purely from a desire for some out-of-door employment. And it is a consequence of all skilled labour—since the acquirement of the skill is the result of long practice—that if the art to which the operative has been educated is abandoned, he must take to some unskilled labour as a means of subsistence. I pass, then, to the consideration of the incomings and condition of the dock-labourers of the metropolis, not because the class of labour is similar to that of weaving, but because the two classes of labourers are locally associated. I would rather have pursued some more systematic plan in my inquiries; but in the present state of ignorance as to the general occupation of the poor, system is impossible. I am unable to generalise, not being acquainted with the particulars; for each day’s investigation brings me incidentally into contact with a means of living utterly unknown among the well-fed portion of society. All I can at present assert is, that the poor appear to admit of being classified according to their employments under three heads—artizans, labourers, and petty traders; the first class consisting of skilled, and the second of unskilled workmen; while the third comprises hawkers, costermongers, and such other small dealers, who are contradistinguished from the larger ones by bringing their wares to the consumer instead of leaving the consumer to seek the wares. Of the skilled workmen few are so poorly paid for their labour as not to obtain a sufficiency for the satisfaction of their wants. The amount of wages is generally considered above the sum required for the positive necessaries of life; that is to say, for appeasing an appetite or allaying a pain, rather than gratifying a desire. The class of Spitalfields weavers, however, appear to constitute a striking exception to the rule, from what cause I do not even venture to conjecture. But with the unskilled labourer the amount of remuneration is seldom much above subsistence-point, if it be not very frequently below it. Such a labourer, commercially considered, is, as it were, a human steam-engine, supplied with so much fuel in the shape of food, merely to set him in motion. If he can be made to perform the same amount of work with half the consumption, why a saving of one-half the expense is supposed to be effected. Indeed, the grand object in the labour-market of the present day appears to be to economise human fuel. If the living steam-engine can be made to work as long and as well with a less amount of coal, just so much the better is the result considered.
The dock-labourers are a striking instance of mere brute force with brute appetites. This class of labour is as unskilled as the power of a hurricane. Mere muscle is all that is needed; hence every human locomotive is capable of working there. All that is wanted is the power of moving heavy bodies from one place to another. Mr. Stuart Mill tells us that labour in the physical world is always and solely employed in putting objects in motion; and assuredly, if this be the principle of physical labour, the docks exhibit the perfection of human action. Dock-work is precisely the office that every kind of man is fitted to perform, and there we find every kind of man performing it. Those who are unable to live by the occupation to which they have been educated, can obtain a living there without any previous training. Hence we find men of every calling labouring at the docks. There are decayed and bankrupt master-butchers, master-bakers, publicans, grocers, old soldiers, old sailors, Polish refugees, broken-down gentlemen, discharged lawyers’ clerks, suspended government clerks, almsmen, pensioners, servants, thieves—indeed, every one who wants a loaf, and is willing to work for it. The London Dock is one of the few places in the metropolis where men can get employment without either character or recommendation, so that the labourers employed there are naturally a most incongruous assembly. Each of the docks employs several hundred hands to ship and discharge the cargoes of the numerous vessels that enter; and as there are some six or seven of such docks attached to the metropolis, it may be imagined how large a number of individuals are dependent on them for their subsistence. At a rough calculation, there must be at least 20,000 souls getting their living by such means.