London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. 1

by Henry Mayhew

“I am 45 years of age next June,” said the blind tailor. “It is upwards of 30 years since I first went to work at the tailoring trade in London. I learnt my business under one of the old hands at Mr. Cook’s, in Poland-street, and after that went to work at Guthrie’s, in Bond-street. I belonged to the Society held at the Old White Hart. I continued working for the honourable trade and belonging to Society for about 15 years. My weekly earnings then averaged 1l. 16s. a week while I was at work, and for several years I was seldom out of work, for when I got into a shop it was a long time before I got out again. I was not married then. I lived in a first floor back room, well-furnished, and could do very comfortably indeed. I saved often my 15s. or 16s. in a week, and was worth a good bit of money up to the time of my first illness. At one period I had nearly 50l. by me, and had it not been for “vacations” and “slack seasons” I should have put by more; but you see to be out of work even a few weeks makes a large hole in a journeyman’s savings. All this time I subscribed regularly to Society, and knew that if I got superannuated I should be comfortably maintained by the trade. I felt quite happy with the consciousness of being provided for in my old age or affliction then, and if it had not been for that perhaps I might have saved more even than I did. I went on in this way, as I said before, for 15 years, and no one could have been happier than I was—not a working man in all England couldn’t. I had my silver watch and chain. I could lay out my trifle every week in a few books, and used to have a trip now and then up and down the river, just to blow the London smoke off, you know. About 15 years ago my eyes began to fail me without any pain at all; they got to have as it were a thick mist, like smoke, before them. I couldn’t see anything clear. Working by gas-light at first weakened and at last destroyed the nerve altogether. I’m now in total darkness. I can only tell when the gas is lighted by the heat of it.

“It is not the black clothes that is trying to the sight—black is the steadiest of all colours to work at; white and all bright colours makes the eyes water after looking at ’em for any long time; but of all colours scarlet, such as is used for regimentals, is the most blinding, it seems to burn the eyeballs, and makes them ache dreadful. After working at red there’s always flying colours before the eyes; there’s no steady colour to be seen in anything for some time. Everything seems all of a twitter, and to keep changing its tint. There’s more military tailors blind than any others. A great number of tailors go blind, but a great many more has lost their sight since gas-light has come up. Candle-light was not half so pernicious to the sight. Gas-light is so very heating, and there’s such a glare with it that it makes the eyes throb, and shoot too, if you work long by it. I’ve often continued working past midnight with no other light than that, and then my eyes used to feel like two bits of burning coals in my head. And you see, sir, the worst of it was, as I found my sight going bad I was obliged to try it more, so as to keep up with my mates in the shop. At last my eyes got so weak that I was compelled to give up work, and go into the country, and there I stopped, living on my savings, and unable to do any work for fear of losing my sight altogether. I was away about three years, and then all my money was gone, and I was obligated, in spite of my eyes, to go back to work again. But then, with my sight defective as it was, I could get no employment at the honourable trade, and so I had to take a seat in a shop at one of the cheap houses in the city, and that was the ruin of me entirely; for working there, of course I got “scratched” from the trade Society, and so lost all hope of being provided for by them in my helplessness. The workshop at this cheap house was both small and badly ventilated. It was about seven foot square, and so low, that as you sot on the floor you could touch the ceiling with the tip of your finger. In this place seven of us worked—three on each side and one in the middle. Two of my shopmates were boys, or else I am sure it would not have held us all. There was no chimney, nor no window that could be opened to let the air in. It was lighted by a skylight, and this would neither open nor shut. The only means for letting out the foul air was one of them working ventilators—like cockades, you know, sir—fixed in one of the panes of glass; but this wouldn’t work, so there we were, often from 5 in the morning till 10 at night, working in this dreadful place. There was no fire in the winter, though we never needed one, for the workshop was over-hot from the suffocation, and in the summer it was like an oven. This is what it was in the daytime, but mortal tongue can’t tell what it was at night, with the two gas-lights burning away, and almost stifling us. Many a time some of the men has been carried out by the others fainting for air. They all fell ill, every one of them, and I lost my eyes and my living entirely by it. We spoke to the master repeatedly, telling him he was killing us, and though when he came up to the workshop hisself, he was nearly blown back by the stench and heat, he would not let us have any other room to work in—and yet he’d plenty of convenience up stairs. He paid little more than half the regular wages, and employed such men as myself—only those who couldn’t get anything better to do. What with illness and all, I don’t think my wages there averaged above 12s. a week: sometimes I could make 1l. in the week, but then, the next week, maybe I’d be ill, and would get but a few shillings. It was impossible to save anything then—even to pay one’s way was a difficulty, and, at last, I was seized with rheumatics on the brain, and obliged to go into St. Thomas’s Hospital. I was there eleven months, and came out stone blind. I am convinced I lost my eyesight by working in that cheap shop; nothing on earth will ever persuade me to the contrary, and what’s more, my master robbed me of a third of my wages and my sight too, and left me helpless in the world, as, God knows, I am now. It is by the ruin of such men as me that these masters are enabled to undersell the better shops; they get hold of the men whose eyes are just beginning to fail them, like mine did, because they know they can get them to work cheap, and then, just at the time when a journeyman requires to be in the best of shops, have the best of air, and to work as little by gas-light as possible, they puts him into a hole of a place that would stifle a rat, and keeps him working there half the night through. That’s the way, sir, the cheap clothes is produced, by making blind beggars of the workmen, like myself, and throwing us on the parish in our old age. You are right, sir, they not only robs the men but the ratepayers too.

“Well, sir, as I said, I come out of the hospital stone blind, and have been in darkness ever since, and that’s near upon ten years ago. I often dream of colours, and see the most delightful pictures in the world; nothing that I ever beheld with my eyes can equal them—they’re so brilliant, and clear and beautiful. I see then the features and figures of all my old friends, and I can’t tell you how pleasureable it is to me. When I have such dreams they so excite me that I am ill all the next day. I often see, too, the fields, with the cows grazing on a beautiful green pasture, and the flowers, just at twilight like, closing up their blossoms as they do. I never dream of rivers; nor do I ever remember seeing a field of corn in my visions; it’s strange I never dreamt in any shape of the corn or the rivers, but maybe I didn’t take so much notice of them as of the others. Sometimes I see the sky, and very often indeed there’s a rainbow in it, with all kinds of beautiful colours. The sun is a thing I often dream about seeing, going down like a ball of fire at the close of the day. I never dreamt of the stars, nor the moon—it’s mostly bright colours that I see.

“I have been under all the oculists I could hear of—Mr. Turnbull, in Russell-square, but he did me no good; then I went to Charing-cross, under Mr. Guthrie, and he gave me a blind certificate, and made me a present of half-a-sovereign; he told me not to have my eyes tampered with again, as the optic nerve was totally decayed. Oh, yes; if I had all the riches in the world I’d give them every one to get my sight back, for it’s the greatest pressure to me to be in darkness. God help me! I know I am a sinner, and believe I’m so afflicted on account of my sins. No, sir, it’s nothing like when you shut your eyes; when I had my sight, and closed mine, I remember I could still see the light through the lids, the very same as when you hold your hand up before the candle; but mine’s far darker than that—pitch black. I see a dark mass like before me, and never any change—everlasting darkness, and no chance of a light or shade in this world. But I feel consolated some how, now it is settled; although it’s a very poor comfort after all. I go along the streets in great fear. If a baby have hold of me, I am firm, but by myself, I reel about like a drunken man. I feel very timid unless I have hold of something—not to support me, but to assure me I shall not fall. If I was going down your staircase, sir, I should be all right so long as I touched the bannister, but if I missed that, I’m sure I should grow so giddy and nervous I should fall from the top to the bottom. After losing my sight, I found a great difficulty in putting my food into my mouth, for a long time—six months or better—and I was obliged to have some one to guide my hand, for I used often to put the fork up to my forehead instead of my mouth. Shortly after my becoming quite blind, I found all my other senses much quickened—my hearing—feeling—and reckoning. I got to like music very much indeed; it seemed to elevate me—to animate and cheer me much more than it did before, and so much so now, that when it ceases, I feel duller than ever. It sounds as if it was in a wilderness to me—I can’t tell why, but that’s all I can compare it to; as if I was quite alone with it. My smell and taste is very acute” (he was given some violets to smell)—“Oh, that’s beautiful,” he cried, “very reviving indeed. Often of an evening, I can see things in my imagination, and that’s why I like to sit alone then; for of all the beautiful thoughts that ever a man possessed, there’s none to equal a blind man’s, when he’s by hisself.

“I don’t see my early home, but occurrences that has recently took place. I see them all plain before me, in colours as vivid as if I had my sight again, and the people all dressed in the fashion of my time; the clothes seem to make a great impression on me, and I often sit and see in my mind master tailors trying a coat on a gentleman, and pulling it here and there. The figures keep passing before me like soldiers, and often I’m so took by them that I forget I’m blind, and turn my head round to look after them as they pass by me. But that sort of thinking would throw me into a melancholly—it’s too exciting while it lasts, and then leaves me dreadful dull afterwards. I have got much more melancholy since my blindness; before then, I was not seriously given, but now I find great consolation in religion. I think my blindness is sent to try my patience and resignation, and I pray to the Almighty to give me strength to bear with my affliction. I was quick and hot-tempered before I was blind, but since then, I have got less hasty like; all other troubles appears nothing to me. Sometimes I revile against my affliction—too frequently—but that is at my thoughtless moments, for when I’m calm and serious, I feel thankful that the Almighty has touched me with his correcting rod, and then I’m happy and at peace with all the world. If I had run my race, and not been stopped, I might never have believed there was a God. My wife works at the ‘sank work.’ She makes soldiers’ coats; she gets 1s. 1d. for making one, and that’s nearly a day and a half’s work; then she has to find her own trimmings, and they’re 1d. It takes her 16 hours to finish one garment, and the over-work at that is beginning to make her like as I was myself. If she takes up a book to read to me now, it’s all like a dirty mass before her, and that’s just as my sight was before I lost it altogether. She slaves hard to help me; she’s anxious and willing—indeed too much so. If she could get constant work, she might perhaps make about 7s. a week; but as it is, her earnings are, take one week with another, not more than 3s. Last week she earned 5s.; but that was the first job of work she’d had to do for two months. I think the two of us make on an average about 8s.; and out of that there is three people to keep—our two selves and our boy. Our rent is 2s. 6d., so that after paying that, we has about 5s. 6d. left for food, firing, and clothing for the whole of us. How we do it I can’t tell; but I know we live very, very hard: mostly on pieces of bread that the men gives to me and my boy, as we go round to the workshops. If we was any of us to fall ill, we must all go to the parish; if my boy was to go sick, I should be left without any one to lead me about, and that would be as bad as if I was laid-up myself; and if anything was to happen to my wife, I’d be done clean altogether. But yet the Lord is very good, and we’d get out of that, I dare say. If anything was to drive me to the parish, I should lose all hopes of getting some help from the blind institutions; and so I dread the workhouse worse than all. I’d sooner die on the step of a door, any time, than go there and be what they call well kept. I don’t know why I should have a dislike to going there, but yet I do possess it. I do believe, that any one that is willing to work for their bread, hates a workhouse; for the workhouse coat is a slothful, degrading badge. After a man has had one on his back, he’s never the same. I would’nt go for an order for relief so long as I could get a halfpenny loaf in twenty-four hours. If I could only get some friend to give me a letter of recommendation to Mr. Day’s Charity for the Blind, I should be happy for the rest of my days. I could give the best of references to any one who would take pity on me in my affliction.”

The Public-House Hawkers of Metal Spoons, etc.

The public-house hawkers are never so prosperous as those who confine their calling to private houses; they are often invited to partake of drink; are not the most industrious class of hawkers, and, to use their own language, are more frequently hard up than those who keep away from tap-room selling. The profits of the small hawkers in public-houses vary considerably. Some of them, when they have earned a shilling or two, are content to spend it before they leave the tap-room, and so they lose both their stock and profit. I do not mean to infer that this is the case with the whole of the public-house hawkers, for some among them strive hard to better their condition, and occasionally succeed; but there are too many who are content to drawl out their existence by always suffering to-morrow to provide for itself. The man who gave me the routine of small hawkers’ business I found in a tap-room in Ratcliffe Highway. He was hawking tea-spoons, and all the stock he possessed was half-a-dozen. These he importuned me to purchase with great earnestness. He prayed of me to lay out a trifle with him. He had not taken a penny the whole day he said, and had nothing to eat. “What’s much worse for such as me,” he added, “I’m dying for a glass of rum.” I might have his tea-spoons, he told me, at any price. If I would but pay for a glass of rum for him they should be mine. I assured him some bread and cheese would do him more good, as he had not eaten anything that day; but still he would have the rum. With a trembling hand he threw the liquor down his throat, smacked his lips, and said “that there dram has saved my life.” A few minutes afterwards he sold his spoons to a customer for sixpence; and he had another glass of rum. “Now,” said he, “I’m all right for business; if I’d twopence more I could buy a dozen tea-spoons, and I should earn a ‘bob’ or two yet before I went to bed.” After this he grew communicative, and told me he was as good a hawker as there was in London, and he thought he could do more than any other man with a small stock. He had two or three times resolved to better himself, and had ‘put in the pin,’ meaning he had made a vow to refrain from drinking; but he had broken out again and gone on in his old course until he had melted the whole of his stock, though twice it had, during his sobriety, amounted to 5l., and was often worth between 2l. and 3l. It was almost maddening when he came to his senses, he said, to find he had acted so foolishly; indeed, it was so disheartening to discover all the result of his good resolutions dissipated in a moment, that he declared he never intended to try again. After having drunk out his stock, he would if possible commence with half-a-dozen Britannia metal tea-spoons; these cost him 6d., and would sell for 9d. or 1s. When one half-dozen were disposed of he would procure another, adding a knife, or a comb or two. If entirely destitute, he would stick a needle in a cork, and request to know of “the parties” assembled in some tap-room, if they wanted anything in the ironmongery line, though the needle was all the stock he had. This was done for the purpose of “raising the wind;” and by it he would be sure to obtain a glass or two of ale if he introduced himself with his “ironmongery establishment” among the sailors. Sometimes he would manage to beg a few pence, and then he would purchase a knife, pair of braces, or half-a-dozen tea-spoons, and begin to practise his trade in a legitimate manner. In answer to my inquiry he said he had not always been a hawker. His father had been a soldier, and he had worked in the armoury. His father had been discharged upon a pension, and he (the hawker) left the army with his parents. He had never enlisted while his father was a soldier, but he had since. His mother adopted the business of a hawker upon the receipt of his father’s first quarter’s pension; and then he used to accompany her on her rounds. With the pension and the mother’s exertions they managed to subsist tolerably well. “Being the only child, I was foolishly spoilt by my parents,” he said; “and when I was a very young man—15 or 16—I became a great trouble to them. At 18 I enlisted in the 7th Fusileers, remained in the regiment three months, and then, at my own request, was bought off. My mother sold off most of her stock of goods to raise the money (twenty pounds). When I returned home I could not think of trudging by my mother’s side, as I had been used to do when carrying the goods; nor did I feel inclined to exert myself in any way for my own support. I considered my mother had a right to keep me without my working, and she, poor thing, thought so too. I was not only supported in idleness, but my mother would give me many a shilling, though she could ill afford it, for me to spend with my companions. I passed most of my time in a skittle ground. I was not what you might term a skittle sharp, for I never entered into a plot to victimise any person, although I confess I have often bet upon the ‘greenness’ of those who were silly enough to make wagers that they could not possibly win. Sometimes, after I had lost the trifle supplied me by my mother, I would return, and be blackguard enough to assume the bully unless my demands on her for a further supply were attended to. Poor thing, she was very meek, and with tears in her eyes she would grant my request. I often weep when I think how I treated her” (here the tears trickled down the man’s cheek), “and yet, badly as I used her, in my heart I loved her very much. I got tired of the skittle grounds in consequence of getting into a hobble relative to a skittle swindle: some sharpers had obtained a flat; I was speculating in a small way, betting pennies and twopences in such a manner as always to win; I was practising upon the flat upon my own account, without having any connection with the others; they fleeced their dupe out of several pounds, and he made a row about it. The police interfered, and I was singled out as one of the gang; the principals were also apprehended; they got six months each, and I was accommodated with a month’s board and lodging at the expense of the nation. I thought this at the time unjust, but I was as culpable as any of them, for at the time I only regretted I had not more money to stake larger wagers, and envied the other parties who were making a better thing of the business than I was. When I came out of jail, my poor mother treated me as a martyr. She thought I was as innocent as a child. Shortly after my release from prison my father died, and with him went the pension of course. I was then obligated to do something for myself. A few shillings’ worth of goods only were procured—for my father’s funeral and my extravagances had sadly crippled my mother’s means. I behaved very well for a short time. My mother then was often ill, and she never recovered the death of my father. In about a year after my father died I lost my mother; our stock of goods had dwindled down to a very poor lot, and I was obligated to ask relief of the parish towards her funeral expenses. When all was over, the value of my goods and cash did not amount to 20s. Ten years have elapsed since my mother’s death, and I don’t think I have ever been, during the whole period, sober for a month together.”

While I sat in this tap-room, I counted in the course of an hour and a quarter,—4 hawkers of sheep’s trotters, who visited the place; 3 sellers of shrimps, pickled whelks, and periwinkles; 2 baked potato-sellers; 8 song-hawkers; the same number with lucifer matches; and 3 with braces, &c. Not one of these effected a sale.

Of the Street-Sellers of Jewellery.

The jewellery now sold in the streets far exceeds, both in cheapness and quality, what was known even ten years ago. Fifty years ago the jewellery itinerant trade was almost entirely, if not entirely, in the hands of Jews, who at any rate professed to sell really gold articles, and who asked large prices; but these traders have lost their command over this, as I have shown that they have over other street callings, as not a twelfth of the street-jewellers are now Jews. A common trade among such street and country itinerant jewellers was in large watch seals, the bodies of which were of lead, more or less thickly plated with gold, and which were unsaleable even as old metal until broken to pieces,—but not always saleable then. The street or itinerant trade was for a long time afterwards carried on only by those who were regularly licensed as hawkers, and who preferred “barter” or “swopping” to actual sale, the barter being usually for other and more solid articles of the goldsmith’s trade.