The boys are an interesting group, and one that is well worthy of consideration. They are of all sorts and sizes, of many grades and walks in life. There is the country labourer’s lad, who formerly worked on the land amid the horses and cattle; the town labourer’s lad, who has been errand-boy or who sold newspapers on the street corner; the small shopkeeper’s lad, the fitter’s lad, tall and pale, in clean blue overalls, and the enginedriver’s lad, fresh from school, whose one ambition is to emulate his father and, like him, drive an engine, only one that is two or three times as big and powerful. There are tall and short boys, boys fat and lean, pale and robust-looking, ragged and well-kept, with sad and merry faces. And what pranks they play with one another, and would play, if they were not curbed and checked with the ever watchful eye of the shop foreman! They are always ready for some game or other — football, hide-and-seek, or “ierky” — at any time of the day, and whatever they do, it does not seem to tire them down; they are still fresh and active, cheerful and vivacious.
Many of them begin the day well with running regularly to work, perhaps for two or three miles. At five minutes past six in the morning they commence at the lathe, and when breakfast-time comes they scamper off, food in hand, and play about the yard, or in the recreation field beyond. From nine till one their labour is continuous; there they stand, bound as with chains to the machines they serve, for ever watchful, so as not to spoil the cut and waste the axle, which would mean an enforced holiday for them. When one o’clock comes, smothered with oil and with faces like those of sweeps — often blackened purposely to give themselves the appearance of having perspired much — they race off as before, and play recklessly until it is time to return to the shed. And after the day’s work is finished and they go home in the evening, they wash away the grime and oil and play about the streets and lanes till bed-time, utterly indifferent to the wearisome occupation awaiting them on the morrow. Their sleep is sound and sweet, for their hearts are happy and light. Of the cares of life they know nothing; the future is full of hope for them; all the world is before them. Their chief concern is for the holidays. All these are anticipated and awaited with great joy and eagerness; it is by this alone that they discover the extreme tedium of the daily drudgery of the workshop.
The boys’ foreman is an experienced official, shrewd, keen, and very severe; a good judge of character, cautious, and careful, civil enough, but unbending in a decision, a very good formative agent, one who will exercise a healthy restraint upon the intractables and encourage the timid, but who exploits them all for the good of the firm. His keen eyes and sound judgment enable him to at once sum up a lad’s capabilities. He takes the youth and sets him where he will show to the best advantage, instructs him on many of the crucial points, advises him as to the best means of getting on, and very often furnishes him with hints of a personal nature which — whatever the lad may think of them at the time — bear fruit in after life. If the youngster is inclined to be wild and incorrigible he tries his best to reform him, and gives him sound advice. He has also been known to administer a corrective cuff in the ear and a vigorous boot in the posterior, but he usually succeeds in bringing out the good points and suppressing, if not entirely eradicating, the bad.
Whenever he walks up or down the shed the boys fix their attention more firmly upon their machines, for they feel his keen, penetrating eyes upon them, and they know that nothing ever escapes his notice. If there is a slackness at any point the word is passed rapidly on — “Look out, here’s J — —y coming,” and the overseer is sometimes amused with the various expedients resorted to in order to deceive him and cover up the juvenile shortcomings. As to wages, prices, and systems, they are not altogether his fault. If he could suit himself he might possibly be willing to pay more, but he is always being pressed by the staff to reduce prices and expenses, and, like the other foremen, he is not prepared to offer effective resistance. Being an official of long standing, however, he is secure in his place, and has no occasion to betray his hands to the firm, as is too often the case with young foremen, who wish to secure personal notice and advantage. That is one of the most damning features of all, and is becoming more and more a practice at the works. One young “under-strapper” I knew is in the habit of standing over the boys at the lathe, watch in hand, for four hours without once moving, and, by his manner and language, compelling them to run at an excessive rate so as to cut their prices. Without doubt he is deserving of the birch rod, though the managers, who allow it, are the more to blame.
A short way from the canal, north of the road-waggon shed, is the rubbish heap, at which most of the old wood refuse and lumber, with hundreds of tons of sawdust, are brought to be burned. At one time all this was consumed in the boiler furnaces, but since the amount of refuse has enormously increased it has been found expedient to transport some part of it there and so do away with it. One small furnace is used for the purpose, and by far the greater part of it, especially the sawdust, is burned in big heaps upon the ground. This is a slovenly, as well as a dangerous method, and the inconvenience resulting to the men in the sheds is considerable. If the wind is in the west the dense clouds of smoke sweep along the ground and are blown straight in through the open doors upon the stampers, and are a source of extreme discomfort and disgust. There is always plenty of smother in the shed, arising from the oil furnaces, without receiving any addition from outside. Once the workshop is filled with the bluish vapour it takes hours to disperse, for, though there are doors all round and hundreds of ventilators on the roof, they do not carry off the nuisance. Very often the smoke will travel from end to end of the shed, like a current of water, but just as it reaches the doorway and you think it is going to pass outside, it suddenly whirls round like a wheel and traverses the whole length of the place, and so on, over and over again.
If the wind is in the north, then the road-waggon builders must suffer the persecuting clouds of smoke and be tormented with smarting and burning eyes at work; and if it should blow from over the town, across the rolling downs from the south, the smother is carried high over the fence and sweeps along the recreation field to the discomfort of small boys and lovers, or of whoever happens to be passing that way. If the nuisance arose from any other quarter complaints might be made and steps taken towards the mitigation of it. As it is, no one, not even a member of the local bodies and the Corporation, summons up the courage to make a protest, for everyone bows down before the company’s officials and representatives in the railway town and fears to raise objections to anything that may be done by the people at the works.
[CHAPTER V]
“THE FIELD” — “CUTTING-DOWN” — THE FLYING DUTCHMAN — THE FRAME SHED — PROMOTION — RIVET BOYS — THE OVERSEER
On the north the factory yard is bounded by a high board fence that runs along close behind the shed and divides the premises from the recreation grounds, which are chiefly the haunt of juveniles during the summer months and the resort of football players and athletes in the winter. Here also the small children come after school and wander about the field among the buttercups, or sit down amid the long grass in the sunshine, or swing round the Maypole, under the very shadow of the black walls, with only a thin fence to separate them from the busy factory. The ground beneath their feet shakes with the ponderous blows of the steam-hammers; the white clouds of steam from the exhaust pipes shoot high into the air. Dense volumes of blackest smoke tower out of the chimneys, whirling round and round and over and over, or roll lazily away in a long line out beyond the town and fade into the distance.