The washers-down are generally raw youths and many of them are of the shifty type — the kind that will not settle anywhere for long together. The drabness of their employment forces them to seek some means of breaking the monotony of it, and they often indulge in noise and horseplay, singing and shouting at the top of their voices and slopping the water over each other. This brings them into trouble with the officials, and occasions them to take many a forced holiday, but they do not care about that, and when they arrive back upon the scene they practise their old games as boldly as before. Having no trade, and receiving but a scant amount in wages, they do not feel to be bound down hand and foot to the employment, and even if they should be discharged altogether they will not have lost very much. Their youthfulness, too, renders them buoyant and independent; all the world is open to them if they decide to hand in their notices.
The cushion-beaters, formerly well known about the yard, have quite disappeared now. At whatever time you were outside the shed, in fine weather, you might have heard their rods beating on the cushions in perfect rhythm and order. They were taken from the coaches and laid upon stools in the open air, and the beater held a rod, usually of hazel, in each hand. With them he alternately smote the cushion, keeping up the effort for a long time, until every particle of dust was removed and blown away. His dexterity in the use of the rods and the ability to prolong the operation were a source of great interest to the youths; all the small boys of the shed stole out at intervals to see him at work. Now the dust is removed from the cushions and paddings by means of a vacuum arrangement. This is in the form of a tube, with an aperture several inches in diameter and having strong suctional powers created by the exhaust steam from the engine in the shed. It is passed to and fro over the surface of the cushion, and the dust is thereby extracted and received into the apparatus. So strong is the suction within that it will sometimes draw the buttons from the upholstering if they are loose or frayed. The quantity of dust extracted from one carriage often amounts to a pound in weight.
Old customs and systems die hard at the works and, whatever their own opinion of the matter may be, the officials are not considered by the workmen to be of a very progressive type. Many of the methods employed, both in manufacture and administration, are extremely old-fashioned and antiquated; an idea has to be old and hoary before it stands a chance of being admitted and adopted here. Small private firms are usually a long way ahead of railway companies in the matter of methods and processes, and they pay better wages into the bargain. They have to face competition and to cater for the markets, while railway companies, being both the producers and consumers of their wares, can afford to choose their own way of manufacturing them. In addition to this, the heads of small firms usually have an interest in the concern whereas the managers of railway works are otherwise placed; it makes no difference to them what they spend or waste, and they are always able to cover up their shortcomings. Their prodigality and mismanagement would ruin a hundred small firms in as many months, though the outside world knows little or nothing about it. But if the officials creep they urge the rank and file along at a good rate and make a pretence of being smart and business-like. The fact of a workman being engaged prosecuting a worn-out method for the production of an article does not make the task lighter or more congenial for him, rather the opposite. Real improvement in manufacture not only expedites production, but also simplifies the toil to the workman, and the newer methods are the better, generally speaking.
In everything, then, except in smart management and supervision, railway sheds now resemble contract premises. Piecework prices are cut to the lowest possible point; it is all push, drive, and hustle. No attempt is made to regulate the amount of work to be done, and short time is frequent and often of long duration. This is not arranged as it was formerly, when the whole department, or none at all, was closed down. Now even a solitary shed, a portion of it, or a mere gang is closed or suspended if there is a slackness at any point. Consequently, one part of the works is often running at break-neck speed, while another is working but three or four days a week and the men are in a half-starved condition. In one shed fresh hands are being put on, while from others they are being discharged wholesale. Transfers from one shop to another are seldom made, and never from department to department. One would think that the various divisions of the works were owned by separate firms, or people of different nationalities, such formidable barriers appear to exist between them.
The chiefs of the departments are usually more or less rivals and are often at loggerheads, each one trying to outdo the other in some particular direction and to bring himself into the notice of the directors. The same, with a little modification, may be said of the foremen of the several divisions, while the workmen are about indifferent in this respect. For them, all beyond their own sheds, except a few personal friends or relations, are total strangers. Though they may have been employed at the works for half a century, they have never gone beyond the boundary of their own department, and perhaps not as far as that, for trespassing from shed to shed is strictly forbidden and sharply punished where detected. Thus, the workman’s sphere is very narrow and limited. There is no freedom; nothing but the same coming and going, the still monotonous journey to and fro and the old hours, month after month, and year after year. It is no wonder that the factory workmen come to lead a dull existence and to lose interest in all life beyond their own smoky walls and dwellings. It would be a matter for surprise if the reverse condition prevailed.
[CHAPTER IV]
THE OLD CANAL — THE ASH-WHEELERS — THE BRICK-LAYERS — RIVAL FOREMEN — THE ROAD-WAGGON BUILDERS — THE WHEEL SHED — BOY TURNERS — THE RUBBISH HEAP.
West of the workshop the yard is bounded by a canal that formerly connected the railway town with the ancient borough town of Cricklade, eight miles distant. But things are different now from what they were at the time the cutting was made, for great changes have taken place during the last half century in all matters pertaining to transport. Then the long barges, drawn by horses, mules, and donkeys, and laden with corn, stone, coal, timber, gravel, and other materials, proceeded regularly by day and night, up and down the canal to their destinations — north to Gloucester, west to Bristol, east to Abingdon, and thence to far-off London. At that time, instead of being filled with mud, weeds, and refuse, and overgrown with masses of rank vegetation — grasses, flags, water-parsnip, and a score of other aquatic plants — the channel was broad and free, and full of clear, limpid water. The cattle came to drink in the meadows; there the clouds were mirrored, floating in fields of azure. The fish leapt and played in the sunshine, making innumerable rings on the surface, and the swallows skimmed swiftly along, dipping now and then to snatch up a sweet mouthful to carry home to their young in the nest under the eaves of the neighbouring cottage or shed.
Occasionally, too, a steamboat passed through the locks out beyond the town and proceeded on its way to the Thames or Avon. The dredger plied up and down to prevent the accumulation of mud and refuse, and the towpaths and bridges were kept in good repair. The railway had not everything its own way then. The fever of haste had not taken hold of every part of the community, and a few, at least, could await the arrival of the barges and so save a considerable sum in the conveyance of their goods. But now all that is changed. Goods must be loaded, whirled rapidly away and delivered in a few hours, for no one can wait. The pace of the freight trains has been increased almost to express speed. Every possible means that could be thought of have been devised to facilitate transport, and the barges have disappeared from this neighbourhood. Here and there at the wharves may still be seen a few rotten old hulks, falling to pieces and embedded in the mud; the bridges are shattered and dilapidated and the lock gates are broken. The towpaths are overgrown with bushes and become almost impassable, and the channel is blocked up.