London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. 3

by Henry Mayhew

The London Carmen

Are of two kinds, public and private. The private carmen approximate so closely to the character of servants, that I purpose dealing at present more particularly with the public conveyers of goods from one part of the metropolis to another. The metropolitan public master-carmen are 207 in number, of whom fifteen are licensed to ply on the stands in the city. The carmen here enumerated must be considered more in the light of the owners of vans and other vehicles for the removing of goods than working men. It is true that some drive their own vehicles; but many are large proprietors, and belong to the class of employers rather than operatives.

I shall begin my account of the London carmen with those appertaining to the unlicensed class, or those not resident in the city. The modern spring van is, as it were, the landau, or travelling carriage of the working classes. These carriages came into general use between twenty and thirty years ago, but were then chiefly employed by the great carriers for the more rapid delivery of the lighter bales of goods, especially of drapery and glass goods and of parcels. They came into more general use for the removal of furniture in 1830, or thereabouts; and a year or two after were fitted up for the conveyance of pleasure-parties. The van is usually painted yellow, but some are a light brown or a dark blue picked out with red. They are fourteen feet in length on the average, and four and a half feet in breadth, and usually made so as, by the adjustment of the shafts, to be suitable for the employment of one, two, three, or four horses,—the third horse, when three are used, being yoked in advance of the pair in the shafts. The seats are generally removable, and are ranged along the sides of the vehicle, across the top, and at the two corners at the end, as the extremity of the van from the horses is called, the entrance being at the end, usually by means of iron steps, and through a kind of gate which is secured by a strong latch. The driver sits on a box in front, and on some vans seems perched fearfully high. A wooden framework surmounts the body of the carriage, and over it is spread an awning, sometimes of strong chintz patterned, sometimes of plain whity-brown calico—the side portions being made to draw like curtains, so as to admit the air and exclude the sun and rain at pleasure. If there be a man in attendance besides the driver, he usually sits at the end of the vehicle close to the gate, or rides on the step or on a projection fixed behind. A new van costs from 50l. to 80l. The average price of a good van-horse is from 16l. to 18l. The harness, new and good, costs from 5l. to 5l. 10s. for two horses. The furniture-van of the latter end of the week is the pleasure-van of the Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday—those being the days devoted to excursions, unless in the case of a club or society making their “annual excursion,” and then any day of the week is selected except Sunday; but Sunday on the whole is the principal day. The removal of the seats and of the apparatus for the awning converts the pleasure into the furniture-van. The uses to which the same vehicle is put are thus many a time sadly in contrast. On the Saturday the van may have been used to convey to the brokers or the auctioneers the furniture seized in some wretched man’s dwelling, leaving behind bare walls and a wailing family; and on the Sunday it rings with the merriment of pleasure-seekers, who loudly proclaim that they have left their cares behind them.

The owners usually, perhaps, I might say always, unite some other calling along with the business of van-proprietorship; they are for the most part greengrocers, hay and corn-dealers, brokers, beershop-keepers, chandlers, rag-and-bottle shopkeepers, or dairymen. Five-sixths of them, however, are greengrocers, or connected with that trade. It is not unusual for these persons to announce that, besides their immediate calling of a greengrocer, they keep a furniture-van, go pleasure-excursions, beat carpets (if in the suburbs), and attend evening parties. Many of them have been gentlemen’s servants. They are nearly all married men or widowers with families, and are as a body not unprosperous. Their tastes are inexpensive, though some drink pretty freely; and their early rising necessitates early going to bed, so there is little evening expenditure. I am told their chief enjoyments are a visit to Astley’s, and to the neighbouring horse-races. Their enjoyment of the turf, however, is generally made conducive to their profits, as they convey vans full to Hampton, Egham, and Epsom races. A few van-men, however, go rather further in turf-business, and bet a little; but these, I am assured, are the exceptions. The excursions are more frequently to Hampton Court than to any other place. The other favourite resorts are High Beach, Epping Forest, and Rye House, Hertfordshire. Windsor is but occasionally visited; and the shorter distances, such as Richmond, are hardly ever visited in pleasure-vans. Indeed the superior cheapness of the railway or the steamboat has confined the pleasure-excursions I am speaking of to the longer distances, and to places not so easily accessible by other means.

The van will hold from twenty to thirty grown persons. “Twenty, you see, sir,” I was told, “is a very comfortable number, not reckoning a few little ’uns over; but thirty, oh, thirty’s quite the other way.” The usual charge per head for “a comfortable conveyance to Hampton Court and back,” including all charges connected with the conveyance, is 2s. (children going for nothing, unless they are too big for knees, and then sometimes half price). Instead of 2s. perhaps the weekly-payment speculator receives 2s. 6d. or 2s. 3d.; and if he can engage a low-priced van he may clear 9d. or 1s. per head, or about 1l. in all. On this subject and on that of under-selling, as it was described to me, I give the statement of a very intelligent man, a prosperous van-proprietor, who had the excellent characteristic of being proud of the kindly treatment, good feeding, and continued care of his horses, which are among the best employed in vans.

The behaviour of these excursionists is, from the concurrent testimony of the many van-proprietors and drivers whom I saw, most exemplary, and perhaps I shall best show this by at once giving the following statement from a very trustworthy man:—

“I have been in the van-trade for twenty years, and have gone excursions for sixteen years. Hampton Court has the call for excursions in vans, because of free-trade in the palace: there’s nothing to pay for admission. A party makes up an excursion, and one of them bargains with me, say for 2l. It shouldn’t be a farthing less with such cattle as mine, and everything in agreement with it. Since I’ve known the trade, vans have increased greatly. I should say there’s five now where there was one sixteen years ago, and more. There’s a recommendable and a respectable behaviour amongst those that goes excursions. But now on an excursion there’s hardly any drunkenness, or if there is, it’s through the accident of a bad stomach, or something that way. The excursionists generally carry a fiddler with them, sometimes a trumpeter, or else some of them is master of an instrument as goes down. They generally sings, too, such songs as, ‘There’s a Good Time coming,’ and, ‘The Brave Old Oak.’ Sometimes a nigger-thing, but not so often. They carry always, I think, their own eatables and drinkables; and they take them on the grass very often. Last Whit-Monday I counted fifty vans at Hampton, and didn’t see anybody drunk there. I reckoned them earlyish, and perhaps ten came after, at least; and every van would have twenty and more.” Sixty vans would, at this moderate computation, convey 1200 persons. “They walk through the Palace at Hampton, and sometimes dance on the grass after that, but not for long. It soon tires, dancing on the grass. A school often goes, or a club, or a society, or any party. I generally do Hampton Court in three hours with two horses. I reckon it’s fourteen miles, or near that, from my place. If I go to High Beach there’s the swings for the young ones, and the other merry-makings. At Rye House it’s country enjoyment—mere looking about the real country. The Derby day’s a great van-day. I’m sure I couldn’t guess to one hundred—not, perhaps, to twice that—how many pleasure-vans go to the Derby. It’s extra charge—3l. 10s. for the van to Epsom and back. It’s a long distance; but the Derby has a wonderful draw. I’ve taken all sorts of excursions, but it’s working-people that’s our great support. They often smoke as they come back, though it’s against my rules. They often takes a barrel of beer with them.”

It is not easy to ascertain the number of vans used for pleasure-excursions, but the following is the best information to be obtained on the subject. There is not more than one-sixth of the greengrocers who have their own vans: some keep two vans and carts, besides two or three trucks; others, three vans and carts and trucks. These vans, carts, and trucks are principally used in the private transactions of their business. Sometimes they are employed in the removal of furniture. The number of vans employed in the metropolis is as follows:—

Those kept by greengrocers, about	450
By others for excursions	1000
Total	1450

The season for the excursion trips commences on Whit-Monday, and continues till the latter end of September.

Table showing the average number of pleasure-vans hired each week throughout the season, and the decrease since railway excursions.

		Before the Railway, Excursion trips.	Since the Railway, Excursion trips.
Hampton Court,	Sunday	50	10
„	Monday	80	30
„	Tuesday	20	10
Rye House,	weekly	35	12
High Beach	„	40	20
		225	82

From this it appears that before the railway trips there were 225 pleasure-excursions by vans every week during five months of the year (or 4500 such excursions in the course of the twelve months), and only 1640 since that time. This is exclusive of those to Epsom-races, at which there were nearly 200 more.

When employed in the removal of furniture the average weight carried by these vans is about two tons, and they usually obtain about two loads on an average per week. The party engaged to take charge of the van is generally a man employed by the owner, in the capacity of a servant. The average weekly salary of these servants is about 18s. Some van-proprietors will employ one man, and some as many as nine or ten. These men look after the horses and stables of their employers. A van proprietor takes out a post-horse license, which is 7s. 6d. a-year; and for excursions he is also obliged to take out a stage-carriage license for each van that goes out with pleasure-parties. Such license costs 3l. 3s. per year; and besides this they have to pay to the excise 1½d. per mile for each excursion they take. The van-horses number about three to each van, so that for the whole 1450 vans as many as 4350 horses are kept.

Calculating the pleasure-excursions by van in the course of the year at from 1500 to 2000—and that twenty persons is the complement carried on each occasion—we have a pleasure-excursion party of between 30,000 and 40,000 persons annually: and supposing that each excursionist spends 3s. 6d., the sum spent every year by the working-classes in pleasure-excursions by spring-vans alone will amount to very nearly 7000l.

The above account relates only to the conveyance of persons by means of the London vans. Concerning the removal of goods by the same means, I obtained the following information from the most trustworthy and experienced members of the trade.

“The charge for the use of spring-vans for the conveyance of furniture and other damageable commodities is 1s. 6d. an hour, when one man is employed assisting in packing, unpacking, conveying the furniture into its place of destination, and sometimes helping to fix it. If two men are employed in this labour, 2s. an hour is the charge. If the furniture is conveyed a considerable distance the carman’s employer may at his option pay 6d. a mile instead of 1s. 6d. an hour, but the engagement by the hour ensues in nine cases out of ten.”

The conveyance of people on pleasure excursions and the removal of furniture constitute the principal business of the west-end and suburb carmen. The city carmen, however, constitute a distinct class. They are the licensed carmen, and none others are allowed by the city authorities to take up in the precincts of the city of London, though any one can put down therein; that is to say, the unlicensed carman may convey a houseful of furniture from the Strand to Fleet-street, but he may not legally carry an empty box from Fleet-street to the Strand. The city carmen, as I have said, must be licensed, and the law sanctions the following rates of payment for carriage:

“By order of Quarter Sessions, held at Guildhall, Midsummer, 49th George III., all goods, wares, and merchandise whatsoever, weighing 14 cwt. or under, shall be deemed half a load; and from 14 cwt. to 26 cwt. shall be deemed a load; from any part of the city of London the rates for carrying thereof shall be as follow. For any place within and to the extension of half a mile, for half a load and under, 2s. 7d.; above half a load and not exceeding a load, 4s. 2d.; from half a mile to a mile, for half a load or under, 3s. 4d.; for above half a load and not exceeding a load, 5s. 2d.; a mile, to one mile and a half, for half a load or under, 4s. 2d.; for above half a load and not exceeding a load, 5s. 11d.; and so on, according to distance.”

The other distances and weights are in relative proportion. These regulations, however, are altogether disregarded; as are those which limit the cartage for hire within the city to the carmen licensed by the city, who must be freemen of the Carmen’s Company, the only company in London whose members are all of the trade incorporated. Instead of the prices I have cited, the matter is now one of bargain. Average charges are 1s. 6d. an hour for vans, and 1s. for carts, or 4s. and 4s. 6d. per ton from the West India Docks to any part of the city; and in like proportion from the other docks and localities. The infringers of the city carmen’s privileges are sometimes called pirates; but within these three or four years no strenuous attempts have been made to check them. One carman told me that he had complained to the City Chamberlain, who told him to punish the offenders; but as it was left to individual efforts nothing was done, and the privileges, except as regards standings, are almost or altogether a dead letter. Fourteen years ago it cost 100l. to become free of the Carmen’s Company. Ten years ago it cost 32l. odd; and within these five years the cost has been reduced to 11l. The carmen who resort to the stands pay 5s. yearly for that privilege. The others are not required to do so; but every year they have to register the names of their servants, with a bond of security, who are employed on goods “under bond;” and it is customary on these occasions to give the toll-keeper 5s., which is equal to a renewal of the license. Until ten years ago there were only 400 of these conveyances licensed in the city. The figures called “carroons” ran from 1 to 400; and were sold by their possessors, on a disposal of their property and privilege, as if freehold property, being worth about 100l. a carroon. No compensation was accorded when the restriction as to numbers was abolished. The principal standings are in Coleman-street, Bread-street, Bishopsgate-street, Dowgate-hill, Thames-street, and St. Mary Axe. The charges do not differ from those I have given; but some of the employers of these carmen drive very hard bargains. A car of the best build costs from 60l. to 70l. The best horses cost 40l.; the average price being 20l. at the least. The wages of the carmen’s servants vary from 16s. to 21s. a-week, under the best masters; and from 12s. to 14s. under the inferior. These men are for the most part from the country.

The Porters, &c.

I now approach the only remaining part of this subject, viz. the conveyance of goods and communications by means of the porters, messengers, and errand-boys of the metropolis. The number of individuals belonging to this class throughout Great Britain in 1841 amounted to 27,552, of whom 24,092 were located in England; 3,296 in Scotland; 113 in Wales; and 51 in the British isles. Of the 27,500 porters, messengers, and errand-boys in Great Britain, very nearly one-fifth, or 4,965, were lads under 20 years of age. The number of individuals engaged in the same occupation in the metropolis was, in 1841, no less than 13,103, or very nearly half the number of porters, &c. throughout Great Britain. Of this number 2,726, or more than a fifth of the class, may be considered to represent the errand-boys, these being lads under 20 years of age.

At present, however, I purpose dealing solely with the public porters of the metropolis. Those belonging to private individuals appear to partake (as I said of the carmen’s assistants) more of the character of servants paid out of the profits of the trade than labourers whose wages form an integral portion of the prime cost of a commodity.

The metropolitan porters are, like the carmen, of two classes; the ticketed, and unticketed. I shall begin with the former.

The privileged porters of the city of London were at one period, and until within these twenty years, a numerous, important, and tolerably prosperous class. Prescriptive right, and the laws and by-laws of the corporation of the city of London, have given to them the sole privilege of porterage of every description, provided it be carried on in the precincts of the city. The only exception to this exclusive right is, that any freeman may employ his own servants in the porterage of his own goods, and even that has been disputed. The first mention of the privileged porters is in the early part of the 16th century.

STREET PORTER WITH KNOT.

[From a Photograph.]

It is almost impossible to classify the especial functions of the different classes of porters; for they seem to have become especial functions through custom and prescriptive right, and they are not defined precisely in any legitimate or municipal enactment. Even at the present time, what constitutes the business of a fellowship-porter, what of a ticket-porter, and on what an unprivileged porter (known as a foreigner, because a non-freeman) may be employed, are matters of dispute.

A reference to city enactments, and the aid of a highly intelligent member of the fraternity of ticket-porters, enables me to give the following account, which is the more interesting, as it relates to a class of labourers whose numbers, with the exception of the fellowship-porters, have been limited since 1838, and who must necessarily die out from want of renewal. In the earliest common council enactments (June 27, 1606) on the subject of porterage, the distinctions given, or rather intimated incidentally, are—“Tackle-house porter, porter-packer of the gooddes of English merchants, streete-porter, or porter to the packer for the said citie for strangers’ goods.” As regards the term ticket porter, not mentioned in this enumeration, I have to observe that all porters are necessarily ticket-porters, which means that they can produce a ticket or a document, showing that they are duly qualified, and have been “admitted and allowed to use the feate of a porter,” by being freemen of the city and members of a porter’s company or fellowship. In some of the older city documents tackle and ticket-porters are mentioned as if constituting one class; and they did constitute one class when their labour was identical, as to a great extent it was. In 1712 they are mentioned or indicated as one body, although the first clause of the common council enactment sets out that several controversies and quarrels have lately arisen between the tackle-house porters and the ticket-porters touching the labour or work to them respectively belonging, notwithstanding the several acts of this court heretofore made. As these acts were vague and contradictory, the controversies were a natural consequence.

The tackle-porters were employed in the weighing of goods for any purpose of shipping, duty, or sale, which was formerly carried on in public in the city. But there was a city officer known as the master-weigher, styled “Mr. Weigher,” in the old acts, and the profits of the weighing thus carried on publicly in the city went to the hospitals. In 1607 it was enacted (I give the old orthography, with its many contractions), “that no p’son or p’sons usinge the feate of a porter, or being a forreynor, inholder, wharfinger, or keye-keeper, where any merchaunts’ gooddes are to bee landed or laidd, or such-like, shall at any time after the making and publishing of this acte, have, use, keepe, or use within the said citie or l’b’ties thereof, any manner triangle, with beams, scales, and weightes, or any other balance, in any sorte, to weigh any the goods, wares, or merchandize, of any merchant or merchants, p’son or p’sons whatsoever, within the said citie or lib’ties thereof, whereby the proffyte cominge and growinge to the hospitals of the said cytie, by weighinge at the yron beams or at the great beame at the weigh-house, or the proffytes of the Mr. Weigher and porters of the same weigh-house, may in anywise be impeached, hindered, or diminished.” The privilege of “weighinge” fell gradually into desuetude; but there is no record of the precise periods. However, a vestige of it still remains; as I shall show in my account of the markets, as it properly comes under that head. There were 24 tackle-porters appointed; each of the 12 great city companies appointing two. These 12 companies are—the Mercers’, Grocers’, Drapers’, Fishmongers’, Gold-smiths’, Skinners’, Ironmongers’, Vintners’, and Clothworkers’. The 24 appointed porters were known, it appears, as “maister-porters;” but as it was impossible that they could do all the work required, they called to them the aid of “fellowes,” freemen of the city, and members of their society, who in time seem to have been known simply as ticket-porters. If a sufficiency of these fellows, or ticket-porters, could not be made available on any emergency, the maisters could employ any “foreign porter not free of this cyttie, using the feate of a porter-packer of the goods of English merchants, or the feate of a streete-porter, at the tyme of the making of this acte (1607), and which at this present is commemorante in the same citye or suburbes thereof, charged with familye, or, being a single man, bringing a good certificate in the wryting, under the handes of the churchwardens of the parish where he is resident, or other substantiall neighbours, to the number of fower, of his good conversacon and demeanor.” This employment, however, was not to be to the prejudice of the privileged porters; and that the employment of foreigners was resorted to jealously, and only through actual necessity, is sufficiently shown by the whole tenor of the enactments on the subject. The very act which I have just cited, as permitting the employment of foreigners, contains a complaint in its preamble that the toleration of these men caused many “of badd and lewde condition daylie to resorte from the most parte of this realme to the said cytie, suburbs and places adjoining, procuring themselves small habytacons, namely, one chamber-roome for a poor foreignere and his familye in a small cottage, with some other as poore as himself, to the great increase and pestringe of this cyttie with poor people; many of them provinge shifters, lyvinge by cozeninge, stealinge and imbeazellinge men’s goods, as opportunity may serve them.” A somewhat curious precedent as regards the character of the dwellings, being in “one chamber-roome,” &c., for the abodes of the workmen, for the slop-tailors and others in our day, as I have shown in my previous letters.

The ticket-porters in 1846 are described as 3000 persons and upwards, which sufficiently shows their importance; and in 1712 a Common Council enactment provides that they shall have and enjoy the work or labour of unshipping, landing, carrying and housing of pitch, tar, soap, ashes, clapboards, wainscot, fir-poles, masts, deals, oars, chests, tables, flax and hemp, brought hither from Dantzic, Melvyn, or any other part or place of the countries commonly called the east countries. Also of the imports from Ireland, “from any of the plantations belonging to Great Britain, and of all manner of coast-goods, (except lead).” The tackle-house porters were, by the same enactment, to “have and enjoy the work and labour of the shipping and all goods imported and belonging to the South Sea Company, or to the Company of Merchants trading to the East Indies, and of all other goods and merchandizes coming from other ports not before mentioned.” The functions of the tackle-house and ticket-porters are by this regulation in 1712 made identical as to labour, with merely the distinction as to the place from which the goods were received: and as the number of tackle-house porters was properly 24, with them must be included, I presume, all such ticket-porters, but not to the full number; nor is it likely that they will be renewed in case of death. The tackle-house porters that are still in existence, I was told, are gentlemen. One is a wharfinger, and claims and enjoys the monopoly of labour on his own wharf. “The tackle-house porters, or most of them, were labourers within these twenty years.” The tackle-house and ticket-porters still enjoy, by law, the right to man the work, wherever porterage is required; or, in other words, to execute the labour themselves, or to engage men to do it, no matter whether the work relate to shipping, to the markets, or to mere street-porterage, such as the conveyance of parcels for hire by men’s labour. The number of the ticket-porters was, 20 years ago, about 600. At that time to become free of the company, which has no hall but assembles at Guildhall, cost upwards of 40l., but soon afterwards the expense was reduced to 6l. 3s. 4d. By a resolution of the Common Council, no new ticket-porters have been appointed since 1838. Previously to becoming a ticket-porter a man must have taken up his freedom, no matter in what character, and must produce certificates of good character and security of two freemen, householders of good credit, each in 100l., so that the owner of any articles entrusted to the ticket-porter may be indemnified in case of loss. The ticket-porters are not the mere labourers people generally imagine they are, but are, or were, for their number does now not exceed 100, decayed tradesmen, who resorted to this means of livelihood when others had failed. They are also the sons of ticket-porters. Any freeman of the city, by becoming a member of the Tackle-House and Ticket-Porters’ Company, was entitled to act as a ticket-porter. They are still recognised at the markets and the wharfs, but their privileges are constantly, and more and more infringed. From a highly intelligent member of their body I had the following statement:—

“It may be true, or it may not, that ticket-porters are not wanted now; but 15 or 16 years ago a committee of the Common Council, the Market Committee I believe it was, resolved that the ticket-porters ought to be upheld, and that 50l. should be awarded to us; but we never got it, it was stopped by some after-resolution. Put it this way, sir. To get bread for myself and my children I became a ticket-porter, having incurred great expense in taking up my freedom and all that. Well, for this expense I enjoyed certain privileges, and enjoy them still to some extent; but that’s only because I’m well known, and have had great experience in porterage, and quickness, as it is as much art as strength. But, supposing that railways have changed the whole business of the times, are the privileges I have secured with my own money, and under the sanction of all the old laws of the city, to be taken from me? If the privileges, though they may not be many, of the rich city companies are not to be touched, why are mine? Every day they are infringed. A railway-waggon, for instance, carries a load of meat to Newgate Market. Ticket-porters have the undoubted right to unload the meat and carry it to its place of sale; but the railway servants do that, though only freemen employ their own servants in porterage, and that only with their own goods, or goods they are concerned in. I fancy that railway companies are not freemen, and don’t carry their own property to market for sale. If we complain to the authorities, we are recommended to take the law of the offenders, and we can only take it of the person committing the actual offence. And so we may sue a beggar, whom his employers may send down their line an hour after to Hull or Halifax, as the saying is. If we are of no further use, don’t sacrifice, but compensate us, and let us make the best of it, though we are none of us so young as we were; some are very old, and none are under 40, because no new members have been made for some years. If a man’s house be a hindrance to public business, he must be paid a proper price for it before it can be removed, and so ought we. The Palace Court people were compensated, and ought not we, who work hard for an honest living, and have bought the right to work in our portering, according to the laws of the city, that secure the goldsmiths in their right of assaying, and all the rich companies in possession of their lands and possessions? and so it ought to be with our labour.”

The porter-packers have been unknown in the business of the city for some years; their avocation “in the packinge and shippinge of strangers’ gooddes,” having barely survived the expiring of the East India Company’s charter in 1834.

The street porters, or men who occupy, or rather did occupy (for they are not now always to be found there,) the principal business parts of the city, are of course ticket-porters, and by the law have exclusive right of all porterage by hire from “aliens or foreigners” in the streets, (a freeman may employ his own servant), even to the carrying of a parcel of the burden of which any one may wish to relieve himself. They usually, but not always, wear white aprons, and display their tickets as badges. They do not confine themselves to the streets, but resort to the wharfs in the fruit or any busy season, and to the meat and fish-markets, whenever they think there is the chance of a job, and the preference, as is not unfrequently the case, likely to fall to them, for they are known to be trusty and experienced men. This shifting of labour from one place to another renders it impossible to give the number of ticket-porters working in any particular locality.

The fellowship-porters seem to have sprung into existence in consequence of the misunderstandings of the tackle and ticket-porters, and in this way, fellowships, or gangs of porters, were confined, or confined themselves, to the porterage of coal, corn, malt and indeed, all grain, salt, fruit, and wet fish (conceded to them after many disputes by the ticket-porters of Billingsgate), and their privileges are not infringed to any such extent as those of the ticket-porters.

The payments of ticket-porters were settled in 1799.

To or from any of the quays, wharfs, stairs, lanes, or alleys at the waterside, between the Tower and London Bridge to any part of Lower Thames-street, Beer-lane, Water-lane, Harp-lane, St. Dunstan’s-hill, St. Mary-hill, Love-lane, Botolph-lane, Pudding-lane, and Fish-street-hill:

For any load or parcel by knot or hand—

Not exceeding	½	cwt.	0s.	4d.
„	1	„	0	6
„	1½	„	0	9
„	2	„	1	0

For the like weights, and not exceeding Poplar, Bow-church, Bishop Bonner’s Farm, Kingsland-turnpike, Highbury-place, (Old) Pancras-church, Portman-square, Grosvenor-square, Hyde-park-corner, Buckingham-gate, Westminster Infirmary, Tothill-fields Bridewell, Strutton-ground, Horseferry, Vauxhall, Walworth-turnpike, and places of the like distance—

Not exceeding	½	cwt.	2s.	9d.
„	1	„	3	3
„	1½	„	3	9
„	2	„	5	0

I cite these regulations to show the distances to which porters were sent half a century ago, and the charges. These charges, however, were not always paid, as the persons employing parties often made bargains with them, and some twenty years ago the legalised charges were reduced 1d. in every 3d. The street-porters complain that any one may now, or at all events does now, ply for hire in the city, and get higher prices than them.

All ticket-porters pay 8s. yearly towards the funds of their society, which is called quarterage. Out of this a few small pensions are granted to old women, the widows of ticket-porters.

The difference of the functions of the ticket and fellowship-porters seems to be this—that the ticket-porters carry dry goods, or those classed by weight or bulk, the fellowship-porters carry measured goods.

LONDON VAGRANTS.

The evils consequent upon the uncertainty of labour I have already been at considerable pains to point out. There is still one other mischief attendant upon it that remains to be exposed, and which, if possible, is greater than any other yet adduced. Many classes of labour are necessarily uncertain or fitful in their character. Some work can be pursued only at certain seasons; some depends upon the winds, as, for instance, dock labour; some on fashion; and nearly all on the general prosperity of the country. Now, the labourer who is deprived of his usual employment by any of the above causes, must, unless he has laid by a portion of his earnings while engaged, become a burden to his parish, or the state, or else he must seek work, either of another kind or in another place. The mere fact of a man’s seeking work in different parts of the country, may be taken as evidence that he is indisposed to live on the charity or labour of others; and this feeling should be encouraged in every rational manner. Hence the greatest facility should be afforded to all labourers who may be unable to obtain work in one locality, to pass to another part of the country where there may be a demand for their labour. In fine, it is expedient that every means should be given for extending the labour-market for the working classes; that is to say, for allowing them as wide a field for the exercise of their calling as possible. To do this involves the establishment of what are called the “casual wards” of the different unions throughout the country. These are, strictly speaking, the free hostelries of the unemployed workpeople, where they may be lodged and fed, on their way to find work in some more active district. But the establishment of these gratuitous hotels has called into existence a large class of wayfarers, for whom they were never contemplated. They have been the means of affording great encouragement to those vagabond or erratic spirits who find continuity of application to any task specially irksome to them, and who are physically unable or mentally unwilling to remain for any length of time in the same place, or at the same work—creatures who are vagrants in disposition and principle; the wandering tribe of this country; the nomads of the present day.

“The right which every person apparently destitute possesses, to demand food and shelter, affords,” says Mr. Pigott, in the Report on Vagrancy, “great facilities and encouragement to idle and dissolute persons to avoid labour, and pass their lives in idleness and pillage. There can be no doubt that of the wayfarers who, in summer especially, demand admission into workhouses, the number of those whom the law contemplates under the titles of ‘idle and disorderly,’ and ‘rogues and vagabonds,’ greatly exceeds that of those who are honestly and bonâ fide travelling in search of employment, and that it is the former class whose numbers have recently so increased as to require a remedy.”

It becomes almost a necessary result of any system which seeks to give shelter and food to the industrious operative in his way to look for work, that it should be the means of harbouring and fostering the idle and the vagabond.

To refuse an asylum to the vagrant is to shut out the traveller; so hard is it to tell the one from the other.

The prime cause of vagabondism is essentially the non-inculcation of a habit of industry; that is to say, the faculty of continuous application at a particular form of work, has not been engendered in the individual’s mind, and he has naturally an aversion to any regular occupation, and becomes erratic, wandering from this thing to that, without any settled or determined object. Hence we find, that the vagrant disposition begins to exhibit itself precisely at that age when the first attempts are made to inculcate the habit of continuous labour among youths. This will be seen by the table in the opposite page (taken from the Returns of the Houseless Poor), which shows the greatest number of inmates to be between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five.

The cause of the greater amount of vagrancy being found among individuals between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five (and it is not by the table alone that this fact is borne out), appears to be the irksomeness of any kind of sustained labour when first performed. This is especially the case with youth; and hence a certain kind of compulsion is necessary, in order that the habit of doing the particular work may be engendered. Unfortunately, however, at this age the self-will of the individual begins also to be developed, and any compulsion or restraint becomes doubly irksome. Hence, without judicious treatment, the restraint may be entirely thrown off by the youth, and the labour be discarded by him, before any steadiness of application has been produced by constancy of practice. The cause of vagrancy then resolves itself, to a great extent, into the harshness of either parents or employers; and this it will be found is generally the account given by the vagrants themselves. They have been treated with severity, and being generally remarkable for their self-will, have run away from their home or master to live while yet mere lads in some of the low lodging-houses. Here they find companions of the same age and character as themselves, with whom they ultimately set out on a vagabond excursion through the country, begging or plundering on their way.

Another class of vagrants consists of those who, having been thrown out of employment, have travelled through the country, seeking work without avail, and who, consequently, have lived on charity so long, that the habits of wandering and mendicancy have eradicated their former habits of industry, and the industrious workman has become changed into the habitual beggar.