WORK IN THE LONDON DOCKS.
In the metropolis there is always to be found a vast amount of ‘labour unattached,’ recruited from men in nearly every rank of life. To form an idea of the surplusage in the labour market, advertise for a ‘light-porter,’ and you will have at least two hundred applications before eleven o’clock the next day. If you desire a clerk at a salary of, say, twenty shillings a week, half a thousand eager candidates will apply for the vacancy. While if you have anything of a superior sort to offer, such as the secretaryship of a charitable institution, or hospital, suitable to the talents of retired military officers and others, probably a thousand competitors will offer themselves to your discrimination. Of course many people will be surprised that such numbers should prefer living in semi-idleness, hunting after any opportunity that offers, rather than exert themselves to obtain employment in less crowded localities; but then in London there is the great magnet of the ‘lucky chance’ constantly before their eyes. If one obtains a situation at a pound a week, there are constantly opportunities of bettering one’s self, especially in large firms, who carefully select and promote their men according to capability and merit. Then, again, a man may be starving in a garret, poorly dressed, existing somehow by borrowing a shilling or two occasionally when you meet him in the street; but in a month or two may be in a good position in an insurance company or an actuary’s office. But as bread must be obtained somehow until the golden opportunity offers itself, a number of men who have seen better days are compelled by sheer necessity to fly to that paradise of the destitute, the Docks.
The great Dock Companies in London, fully aware of the superabundance of labour always in the market, do not employ, permanently, one-third of the men they require, since they are usually able to procure at least twice as many hands as they need at a moment’s notice. Indeed so great is the competition for even Dock employment, that unless you are known to one of the foremen, or in some way furnished with an introduction to one of the Company’s officials, you stand a very poor chance of obtaining work, save occasionally, when a sudden pressure of business comes on and they are glad to accept any one that offers. Sometimes a huge ship comes in requiring to be discharged in a few days; and everybody who can work may, by offering himself, obtain employment for a brief period; but, the time of pressure over, he will present himself at the Dock-gates day after day in vain. The Company’s foremen of course give the preference to their regular hands, and the stranger who has helped them in their time of need is passed over. So the best thing you can do if you desire employment at the Docks is to obtain a letter of recommendation from some broker or merchant who does business with the Company, and according to the influence he possesses so will your work be regulated. It will require great influence to enable you to be placed on the ‘permanent’ or ‘extra-permanent’ staff; and the utmost you can hope for is to obtain employment by the day so long as any ships are at work, with the prospect of losing a few days now and then when things are dull.
The clock has struck a quarter past seven in the morning, and already may be seen clustered round the Dock-gates small groups of men, with hands invariably in their pockets and short pipes in their mouths, discussing the prospect of work for the day, and the only chance they have of obtaining a meal of food and a night’s lodging. These are the ‘chance’ or ‘odd-time’ men, who if they are not taken on the first thing, loiter about the entrance all day, waiting a ‘call’ from one of the foremen; sometimes making two, four, or five hours, as the case may be. Of all this class of men, it may be truly said that they are waiters upon Providence, for they are usually the last selected; and as to their garments (their sole earthly possession), very few of them could obtain a shilling for all they wear from head to foot. Indeed so dilapidated are some of their shoes, that it is no uncommon thing for them to be paid off after an hour’s work or so, because their feet will not retain a footing upon a slippery floor. It also occurs at times that they come in to work so famished that they sink exhausted after a little exertion, though in this case the foremen who employ them are generally kind-hearted enough to advance a few pence to obtain a little food to enable them to hold out the day. As the clock nears the half-hour (7.30 A.M.) the regular ‘outsiders’ come up. These men are in better condition than the others; but there is a seedy, ragged appearance about most of them, which tells the unmistakable tale that their chief earnings go to the public-house. And now there is a stir. A small wicket in the gate is open, and a foreman comes out, and calling out the names of the men he requires, they pass in. These are engaged by the half-hour, and are liable to be dismissed as soon as their work is completed, let the time be what it may. Usually they remain at work the whole day; but, should any unforeseen occurrence—such as stoppage of a ship’s discharge on account of weather, or a break-down in some of the machinery for removing cargo—prevent them labouring, the word is passed to ‘wash up,’ and they are paid off at once, perhaps an hour or two after they have been engaged.
After this crew come the Company’s ‘recommended’ men, persons who through the influence of some merchant obtain employment. With them also arrive the ‘extra-permanent’ men; and these two classes always have a preference when any work is going on. They are engaged by the day and paid by the day; and each man on entering receives a numbered ticket about the size of a railway ticket, which will entitle him to receive his wages in rotation at the pay-box in the afternoon. The pay for all alike is fivepence per hour; but the highest class of all, the ‘permanent’ men, receive twenty shillings per week all the year round, be the hours long or short, and are always certain of their money whether the Company can find work for them or not. In the months of November, December, January, and February, the work is from nine to four, and the remainder of the year from eight to four, with extra pay for overtime to all alike when any is to be made. Thus it will be seen that with pretty constant employment a fair living is to be made at the Docks; but in addition, many men make something extra in the evenings, either as ‘supers’ at one of the theatres, chairmen at those convivial meetings known as ‘Free-and-Easies,’ or in some other capacity. In short, at the Docks, as elsewhere, it is only the idle and disreputable class that starves; for the Company’s officials naturally select the best men first, and only employ the ‘duffers’ when they cannot possibly do without them.
At a few minutes before eight we are all at our posts; men are on board ship commencing to roll out the bales of merchandise from the ‘hold;’ the ponderous hydraulic ‘ram’ swings out from the warehouse, and three or four bales are hooked on and hoisted ashore. It is (we will say) a large Australian wool ship; and as soon as the bales are landed, they are pounced upon by a man with stencil-plate and brush, who with nimble fingers marks the name of the ship on each. Then an individual with stentorian lungs (probably a broken-down auctioneer) shouts out to the check clerk at the table the mark on each particular bale, and this is recorded in a book called a ‘tally-sheet.’ Next, a couple of muscular men attack with axes the iron bands with which the bales are clamped, and sever them, so that the wool expands to nearly double its size; for it is all pressed by hydraulic machinery previous to being stowed in the ship, in order to economise space. The bales thus released are now trotted off by active truckmen to the scales, where they are weighed, marked, and sorted in different piles according to their mark. All this is done in less time than it takes to read about it, amid a storm of shouts, execrations, commands, and other noises in every conceivable variety.
Let us take a walk round the Docks and warehouses and inspect the vast piles of merchandise lying about in every direction. Yonder is a ship discharging brandy, with a vigilant Custom-house officer watching every cask as it comes ashore. In another place they are emptying on the floor hogshead after hogshead of coffee, to be weighed for duty. That sedate-looking man with a needle in his hand sewing up rice-bags has been a schoolmaster, and can write excellent hexameters. A little farther on, a solicitor, unfortunately struck off the rolls, is wheeling a truck; and farther on a once prosperous merchant is assisting to push along a hogshead of sugar. The conclusion one arrives at, after making the round of the Docks, is, that nearly everything we eat and drink is manipulated first by the dirty classes, who shovel our necessaries about at their pleasure, and tread over them as if they were so much dirt. See those dingy men with garments tattered and patched stooping and working on those sloppy floors. They are scraping up the molasses which has filtered out from the sugar-casks, and putting it into tubs. This will be all sent away to the sugar-boilers’, and converted into cheap sugar, and go to localities where it will be bought by housekeepers who study economy in the kitchen. This sort of sugar always has a lumpy clear appearance, with a slight clammy taste in the mouth, and can be detected with a little practice at a glance. It is usually sold alone, but is often mixed with better sugar, in order to make that half-penny difference in the pound so tempting to certain housewives.
We are warned that it is noon by the tinkling of a bell, which resounds all over the Dock; and at the first stroke everything is dropped out of hand immediately, and to the cry of ‘Bell ho!’ every one rushes out of the warehouses for dinner. A few of the more provident have brought some in their pockets; but the majority go straight to the old man or old woman who is permitted by the Company to supply them with bread, cheese, beer, soup, and pudding, all of an indifferent sort; and if they have any money, buy something to eat; and if they have none, try and borrow a penny or two from somebody else; or cajole the refreshment caterer into giving them credit until four o’clock. Very few of them have knives wherewith to cut their food decently; they gnaw it anyhow; in fact their chief rule seems to be to buy nothing that they are not absolutely compelled to buy, for fear the vendor should cheat them; and if some of them could observe this rule so far as the beer-shop is concerned, they would make their fortunes, many of them possessing talents, as experts in ‘tasting,’ of no common order.
Their meal finished, some now creep on board ship to smoke, a thing they are not allowed to do in the warehouses; others of a larcenous disposition, prowl about the cook’s galley to appropriate anything they can, such as meat, knives, brushes, in short any small portable articles, which they either devour, or else sell at any price to somebody else. At twenty minutes past twelve the bell again summons them to work, and each man crawls slowly back to his post, the majority of cheeks indicating apparently the existence of gum-boil to the uninitiated, but which abnormal appearance is due solely to the companionable ‘quid’ of tobacco.
By this time a number of vans are in the yard waiting to take away goods, and the foremen are pretty nearly sure to want some extra hands to assist. Consequently out they go to the gates, and select as many as they require from the forest of palms held up before them. In this way work goes on until a few minutes before four, when all parties knock off, unless the ship should have to work an hour or two longer. At the pay-box the men arrange themselves in numerical order, and are paid with great celerity by the cashier, the exact amount due to each man being handed to him as he passes the window. At the exit gate are stationed two of the Company’s constables, who search any one they have cause to suspect, for in spite of the utmost vigilance and the aid of a large staff of police, pilfering is constantly going on within the Docks, and it requires great watchfulness to prevent the men taking anything out. As it is, things are occasionally smuggled out, though, when an offender is convicted, he usually meets with a severe penalty.
The London and St Katherine’s Docks (now amalgamated under one Company) cover an area of about forty-five acres, and have nearly as much warehouse accommodation as all the other Dock companies put together. The capital embarked in them, inclusive of loans and debentures, may be stated at about eight millions sterling, and the employés of all classes about three thousand daily. The annual imports into these Docks are seldom less than seventy millions, the exports being also considerable. With all this enormous trade and this vast amount of business, things are managed with great, though of course not perfect accuracy; every man knows his place, and there are seldom any mistakes but such as will occur at times from unavoidable hurry and confusion.