“That is from one to two persons the entire day during the Monday, out of between five and six hundred workpeople?—Yes.
“What number would have been absent on the Monday under the ordinary circumstances?—About 30 per cent., or one-third, would be drunk on the Saturday night; and full 10 per cent. would not make their appearance until the Tuesday morning. Instead of only two absent during the whole of the day, I should have more than 50; or, in other words, more than 50 families not only distressed by what is spent in drink, but losing one-sixth of their earnings, and I as a master losing from their deteriorated work on the days when they do return. I beg leave further to observe, that mere education in reading or writing, precepts or preaching, are of very little avail against the temptations to drink held out to working men; and I am confident that if employers could be made to see and attend to their mutual interests, by a little care in the removal of temptations, they might generally prevent the most fruitful cause of disorder, destitution, and pauperism, at least as extensively as I have prevented those consequences to my workmen and their families by the adoption of the means I have described.”
In the course of a report on the sanitary condition of the labouring classes in the town of Lancaster, received from Dr. De Vitrie, the effects of an amended practice are thus noticed:—
“An excellent example is shown in this neighbourhood by the wealthy manufacturers and tradesmen almost universally paying their men’s weekly wages on a Friday evening (or, what is still better, early on Saturday morning) instead of Saturday, thus putting it into the power of all to spend their money to the best advantage at Saturday’s market, and obviating the great temptation which formerly existed of spending their earnings, or a large proportion of them, in the public-houses and beer-shops after the termination of the week’s labour. It may be said that such parties are as likely to dissipate on a Friday as on a Saturday evening. The propensity I grant may be the same, but there is no intervening day of rest to shake off the effects of intemperance and indulgence, and as workmen must resume their labours on the Saturday, hence it is that such a regulation exercises not only a salutary but a provident influence.”
The Rev. Whitwell Elwin observes—
“Where gain was dependant on the growth of better habits, I have seen, with the agency of judicious individuals, encouraging cases of complete reformation: an intelligent engineer in this neighbourhood was about paying off a man whose profligacy had left him without a decent covering, and who often depended for his victuals upon the generosity of his fellow-workmen. He begged hard to be retained, and his master at last consented, on condition that he himself should lay out his wages for the next three months. He provided the man with good lodgings, allowed him tea, sugar, and bread and butter night and morning; meat, and either bread or potatoes, with a pint of beer every day for his dinner; and before the appointed time was up, bought him with the surplus a new suit of clothes. The man was so sensible of the advantage of the change, that he became one of the most thrifty and valuable workmen; and his master has often since tried the same experiment with the same success. If we could collect all the philanthropy and much of the self-interest of the country into wise and profitable channels, we might, I believe in a twelvemonth, do much towards regenerating the most wretched classes.”
One employer of numerous labourers in a well-conducted establishment stated to me that after long experience he found it necessary, for the protection of the workpeople, as well as the efficiency of the establishment, invariably to discharge every workman who was guilty of drunkenness; and that the first visible sign to excite suspicion of the habits of intoxication was the absence of personal cleanliness, then a pallid countenance, on which inquiry was made. Another employer of numerous labourers, Mr. William Fairbairn, of Manchester (the brother of Mr. Fairbairn, of Leeds), who has had between one and two thousand workpeople engaged in the manufactories of machinery in the firm of which he is the first partner, stated, in answer to the question,—
“What are their habits in respect to sobriety?—I may mention that I strictly prohibit on my works the use of beer or fermented liquors of any sort, or of tobacco. I enforce the prohibition of fermented liquors so strongly that, if I found any man transgressing the rule in that respect, I would instantly discharge him without allowing him time to put on his coat.
“Have you any peculiar grounds for adopting this course?—No; but as respects myself I wish to have an orderly set of workmen; and in the next place I am decidedly of opinion that it is better for the men themselves and for their families.
“Are you aware that it is a prevalent opinion that strong drink is necessary as a stimulus for the performance of labour?—I am aware that that was a prevalent opinion amongst employers of labour, but it is now very generally abandoned; there are nevertheless some foundries in which there is drinking throughout the works all day long. It is observable, however, of the men employed as workmen, that they do not work so well; their perceptions are clouded, and they are stupified and heavy. I have provided water for the use of the men in every department of the works. In summer time the men engaged in the strongest work, such as the strikers to the heavy forges, drink water very copiously. In general the men who drink water are really more active, and do more work, and are more healthy than the workmen who drink fermented liquors. I observed on a late journey to Constantinople that the boatmen or rowers to the caiques, who are perhaps the first rowers in the world, drink nothing but water; and they drink that profusely during the hot months of the summer. The boatmen and water-carriers of Constantinople are decidedly in my opinion the finest men in Europe as regards their physical development, and they are all water drinkers: they may take a little sherbet, but in other respects are what we should call in this country, tee-totallers.