Life in a Railway Factory

by Alfred Williams

The boys hardly ever had the courage to address the foremen. If they could summon up the necessary resolution, however, they said, “Please, sir, will you give me a job?” and if the reply was favourable they followed off in high glee, wondering all the way at the strange surroundings, the busy workmen, and the vast array of machinery. Boys usually had but little difficulty in obtaining a start; they were soon taken on and initiated into the mysteries of the sheds. When the foreman saw them outside he went up to them and asked them if they wanted a job and promptly told them to “Come along.”

When an applicant was taken in hand by the foreman he was conducted to the shop office. From that place he was sent, in company with the office-boy, to the manager’s department, where he had to submit to a whole code of formal questions, and was also required to read the rules of the factory and to subscribe his name to them, pledging himself to their observance. After that he was required to undergo a strict medical examination, though one not so severe as that now in vogue. If he was successful in this he was told to present himself at the shed, and was there informed when he might begin work. This might be at any hour of the day, though it was usually fixed for the early morning — getting a start commonly occupied one day entire. Sometimes it happened that a man’s references were unsatisfactory; in that case, after working for several days, he was discharged and another was brought forward to fill the vacancy.

The boys were always frightened at the thought of one painful ordeal which they were told they would have to undergo. They were seriously informed by their new mates in the shed that they would have to be branded on the back parts with a hot iron stamp containing the initials of the railway company, and very many of the youngsters firmly believed the tale and awaited the operation with dreadful suspense. As time went on, however, and they were not sent for to the offices, they came to discredit the story and smiled at their former credulity.

Different methods are now employed in engaging new hands. They are now seldom taken up from the entrances, but must apply at the works’ Inquiry Office and begin to pass through the official formula in that way, or the foreman is supplied with names from private sources. This is another indication of the times, a further development of system at the works. By reason of it many good and deserving men and boys are precluded from the chance of getting a start in the factory, and many less competent ones are admitted; it affords an excellent opportunity for the exercise of favouritism on the part of the overseer. Whoever now has a mate he would like to introduce into the shed approaches the foreman. If he is a favourite himself room will be made for his friend, somehow or other, but if he is a commoner, and not reckoned among the “lambs,” he will be met with a curt refusal, or his application will be put off indefinitely. The officials do not gain anything by the method; they will not be able to exercise as great a choice in the selection of hands, but must have what is sent them.

Another tendency at the works is that to keep out all those who do not live in the borough or within a certain area around the town, or, if they are given the chance of a start, it is only upon condition that they leave their homes and come and live under the shadow of the factory walls. It is said that this rule was first introduced chiefly in deference to the tradesmen and shopkeepers of the town, because they are under the impression that all wages earned in the town should necessarily be spent there, either in the payment of rent or the purchase of provisions and clothes.

When a new hand enters the shed he attracts considerable attention; all eyes are immediately fixed upon him. If he has worked in the factory before he will go about his duties in a very unconcerned manner, but if he is a total stranger to the place he will be shy and awkward, and will need careful and sympathetic instruction; it will be some time before he is entirely used to the new surroundings. If he is rustic in appearance, or seems likely to lend himself to a practical joke, the wags of the place soon single him out and play pranks upon him. It sometimes chances, however, that they have mistaken their man; they may meet with a sudden and unlooked for reprisal and be beaten with their own weapons.

The workmen who come from the villages are usually better-natured and also better-tempered than are those who are strictly of the town, though there are exceptions to the rule. On the whole, however, they make the more congenial mates, and they work much harder and are more conscientious. They dress much more roughly than do their confrères of the town; the last-named would not think of wearing corduroys in the shed. There is often a great temperamental difference between the two, and they differ widely in their ideas of and adaptability for work in the shed. The country workman is fresh and tractable, open to receive new ideas and impressions of things. He brings what is practically a virgin mind to the work; he is struck with the entire newness of it all and enters heart and soul into the business. He is usually more active and vigorous, both in brain and body, than is the other, and even where he falls short in actual intelligence and knowledge of things, he more than makes up for it with painstaking effort; he is very proud of his new situation.

The town workman, on the other hand, is often superior, disdainful, and over-dignified. There is little in his surroundings that is really new and strange to him. He has always been accustomed to the crowds of workmen, and if he has not laboured in the shed before he has heard all about it from his friends or parents. His mind has often become so full of the occupations and diversions of the town that it is incapable of receiving new ideas; it is like a slate that has been fully written over and is impossible of containing another sentence or word. Instead of exhibiting shyness or reserve he immediately makes himself familiar and causes his presence to be felt. Before he has been in the shed many days he knows everything and can do everything, in his estimation, and if you attempt to reason with him, or offer any advice as to how to proceed, he will inform you that he “knows all about it without any of your telling.”

Many of the town workmen, and especially those of the more highly skilled classes and journeymen, though village-born themselves, show considerable contempt for the country hand newly arrived in the shed, and even after he has worked there many years and proved himself to be of exceptional ability. They consider him at all times as an interloper and a “waster,” and make no secret of their dislike of and antipathy to him. They often curse him to his face, and tell him that “if it was not for the likes of him“ they would be getting better wages. ”If I could have my way I’d sack every man of you, or make you come into the town to live. All you blokes are fit for is cow-banging and cleaning out the muck-yard; you ought to be made come here and work for ten shillings a week,” they say. All this has but little effect upon the countryman, however, and he seldom deigns to reply to it. Whether his coming to the factory to work was really better for him or not, prudent or otherwise, he does not attempt to argue. There is no law that prohibits a man from changing his occupation and taking another place when he feels inclined so to do.

When the average boy of the town first enters the shed he is not long in finding his way about and taking stock of the other juveniles and men; he is here, there, and everywhere in a few moments. With his shirt-sleeves turned up to the elbow he walks round, whistling or humming a tune, and greeting all indiscriminately with a wink or a nod, and a “What cheer?” or “Pip! pip!” If the men beckon to him — with a sly wink at their mates, intending to ask some ridiculous question or take a rise out of him — the youngster shakes his hand at them and retires straightway with a knowing nod and the expression, “I don’t think,” laying great stress upon the don’t. By and by, however, as he becomes a little more proficient and “cheeky,” the men get hold of him and treat him to a little rough play. They will either twist his arm round till he cries out with the pain, and nearly crush him in a vice-like grip, or dip his head in the nearest bosh of water.