Now and then, during the meal-hour, a hardy workman will strip himself and bathe in the big bosh used for cooling the furnace tools. In the evening, after a hard sweating at the fires, many of the young men will pay a visit to the baths in the town. Little Jim and his mates, who have no coppers to squander upon the luxury of a dip under cover, betake themselves to the clay-pits in a neighbouring brick-field. There they dive down among the fishes and forget about the punishment they have suffered to-day, and which is certainly awaiting them on the morrow.
The majority of the workmen go out of the sheds to have their food. In very many workshops they are not permitted, under any consideration, to remain in to meals. On the score of health this is as it should be; it forces the workman, whether he likes it or not, to breathe a little fresh air. It also removes him from his surroundings for the time, and affords him some refreshment in that way. The sheds in which the men are allowed to have their meals unmolested are the smiths’ shops, the steam-hammer shops, and the rolling mills shed. In all these places the men perspire considerably, and they would be very liable to take a chill, especially in the winter months, if they were forced to go out into the cold air to meals. Mess-rooms are provided for the men of some shops, and tea is brewed and food cooked for as many as like to repair to them. Very many will not patronise them, however, because they do not like eating their food in public; they say it is “like being among a lot of cattle.” Such as these take their food in their hand and eat it as they walk about, or perhaps they visit a coffee tavern or an inn of the town. During fine weather a large number have their meals in the recreation field underneath the trees. Their little sons or daughters bring the food from home, with hot tea in a mug or bottle, and meet them outside the entrances. Then they sit down together in the shade of the elm-trees and enjoy the repast.
The forgers and furnacemen do not eat much food in the shed during the summer months. The heat of the fires and the fumes from the oil furnaces impair their appetites, and large quantities of bread and other victuals are thrown out in the yard for the rats and birds. Rooks and sparrows are the only regular feathered inhabitants of the yard, if, indeed, the rooks can be so called, for they have their nests a long way off. They merely obtain their food about the yard during the day and go home to bed at night. The sparrows build their nests almost anywhere, though their favourite place seems to be in the sockets made in the walls for containing the lamp brackets. As the lamps are removed during the summer months, the holes afford a convenient resting-place for the ubiquitous passeres.
No starlings frequent the yard; they prefer a quieter and more natural habitation. A robin, even, is an unusual visitor, while martins and swallows never visit the precincts of the factory. The sweet chelidon — the darling stranger from the far-off shores of the blue Mediterranean — shuns the unearthly noise and smother of the factory altogether; her delight is in places far removed from the whirling of wheels and the chu-chuing of engines.
The rooks seem perfectly inured to the smoke and steam and the life of the factory yard; at all hours of the day they may be seen scavenging around the sheds, picking up any stray morsel that happens to be lying about. Four of these frequent the yard regularly. Summer and winter they are to be seen strutting up and down over the ashes of the track, or perched upon the tops of the high lamps. Once, during a gale, I saw a rook try to alight upon the summit of a lamp, eighty feet high — on the small curved iron stay that crowns the whole like a bow. Although it secured a footing on the top, it could not balance itself to rest there, but was forced to keep its two wings entirely expanded in order to maintain any equilibrium at all. This it did for nearly two minutes, but the force of the wind was so great that it could not keep its balance and was presently blown away. To view it there, with wings outstretched, brought to mind a bird of a much nobler reputation than that of Master Rook; it was worthy of the traditions of the eagle.
It is instructive to note the various types of men and to consider how they compare with one another. Big, fat workmen invariably make better mates than do small, thin ones. Their temper is certain to be more genial, and they are usually more open and simple, hearty and free; everything with them, to use a time-honoured phrase, seems to go “as easy as an old cut shoe.” Even Cæsar, though very thin himself, wished to have about him men who were fat and sleek — he was suspicious of the lean and hungry-looking Cassius. Fat workmen, as a rule, seem incapable of much worry. If anything goes amiss they look upon it with the greatest unconcern and lightly brush it aside, while the thin, small individual is forever fretting and grieving over some trivial thing or other. It is noteworthy that hairy men, as well as being considerably stronger, are usually better-tempered than are those who are lacking in this respect. The little person is proverbially vain and conceited and “thinks great things” of himself, as the Greeks would have said, while the words of the old rhyme are uniformly true and applicable: —
“Long and lazy,
Black and proud,
Fair and foolish,
Little and loud.”
Small pride is discovered in the individual of sixteen or seventeen stone weight. Nor are size and bulk in a workman always indicative of the greatest prowess. Very many men of no more than five feet or less in stature, and of correspondingly small proportions, are veritable lions in strength.
Of all styles of workmen soever the dandy, or, as he is vulgarly called, the “swanker,” is usually the least proficient at his trade. There is another who would delight to stand with his hands behind him, or perhaps to walk about like it: he is certain to be of the self-conscious type, one not extra fond of making unnatural exertions. This one, whenever an opportunity presents itself, would stand with his thumbs thrust in the arm-holes of his waistcoat and complacently look upon all around him; you may know him for one who would rather see you do a job than do it himself. That one yonder is fond of standing with his arms folded, and another would thrust his hands deep into his trousers pockets at every stray opportunity. Such as these may come in time to draw as much wages as the best workmen on the premises, or they may even obtain more, but they will never be experts themselves; they are too choice, and too dilatory. Your capital workman never adopts any of these attitudes. Walking or standing, pausing, resting, or viewing any other operation, his hands are down by his sides — free, and in the most advantageous position for rendering assistance to himself, or to others, as the case may be.
The men of one department or shed — except in the case of a fire — never help those of another, no matter how great the difficulty may be, unless they have been officially lent, and this is of extremely rare occurrence. One might think that where two sheds stand side by side, help would occasionally be given, when it was required, but such is the condition of things, and so rigid is the system imposed at the works, that this is completely out of the question. The men of two contingent sheds, though they may have been working close together for twenty or thirty years, are almost total strangers. They may see each other now and then, and recognise one another by sight, but they do not think of exchanging conversations.