5th. The hill-man or hill-woman. The hill-man enters into an agreement with the contractor to sift all the dust in the yard throughout the year at so much per load and perquisites. The usual sum per load is 6d., nor have I been able to ascertain that any of these people undertake to do it at a less price. Such is the amount paid by the contractor for Whitechapel. The perquisites of the hill-man or hill-woman, are rags, bones, pieces of old metal, old tin or iron vessels, old boots and shoes, and one-half of the money, jewellery, or other valuables that may be found by the sifters.
The hill-man or hill-woman employs the following persons, and pays them at the following rates.
1st. The sifters are paid 1s. per day when employed, but the employment is not constant. The work cannot be pursued in wet weather, and the services of the sifters are required only when a large heap has accumulated, as they can sift much faster than the dust can be collected. The employment is therefore precarious; the payment has not, for the last 30 years at least, been more than 1s. per day, but the perquisites were greater. They formerly were allowed one-half of whatever was found; of late years, however, the hill-man has gradually reduced the perquisites “first one thing and then another,” until the only one they have now remaining is half of whatever money or other valuable article may be found in the process of sifting. These valuables the sifters often pocket, if able to do so unperceived, but if discovered in the attempt, they are immediately discharged.
2nd. “The fillers-in,” or shovellers of dust into the sieves of sifters, are in general any poor fellows who may be straggling about in search of employment. They are sometimes, however, the grown-up boys of dustmen, not yet permanently engaged by the contractor. These are paid 2s. per day for their labour, but they are considered more as casualty men, though it often happens, if “hands” are wanted, that they are regularly engaged by the contractors, and become regular dustmen for the remainder of their lives.
3rd. The little fellows, the children of the dustmen, who follow their mothers to the yard, and help them to pick rags, bones, &c., out of the sieve and put them into the baskets, as soon as they are able to carry a basket between two of them to the separate heaps, are paid 3d. or 4d. per day for this work by the hill-man.
The wages of the dustmen have been increased within the last seven years from 6d. per load to 8d. among the large contractors—the “small masters,” however, still continue to pay 6d. per load. This increase in the rate of remuneration was owing to the men complaining to the commissioners that they were not able to live upon what they earned at 6d.; an enquiry was made into the truth of the men’s assertion, and the result was that the commissioners decided upon letting the contracts to such parties only as would undertake to pay a fair price to their workmen. The contractors, accordingly, increased the remuneration of the labourers; since then the principal masters have paid 8d. per load to the collectors. It is right I should add, that I could not hear—though I made special enquiries on the subject—that the wages had been in any one instance reduced since Free-trade has come into operation.
The usual hours of labour vary according to the mode of payment. The “collectors,” or men out with the cart, being paid by the load, work as long as the light lasts; the “fillers-in” and sifters, on the other hand, being paid by the day, work the ordinary hours, viz., from six to six, with the regular intervals for meals.
The summer is the worst time for all hands, for then the dust decreases in quantity; the collectors, however, make up for the “slackness” at this period by nightwork, and, being paid by the “piece” or load at the dust business, are not discharged when their employment is less brisk.
It has been shown that the dustmen who perambulate the streets usually collect five loads in a day; this, at 8d. per load, leaves them about 1s. 8d. each, and so makes their weekly earnings amount to about 10s. per week. Moreover, there are the “perquisites” from the houses whence they remove the dust; and further, the dust-collectors are frequently employed at the night-work, which is always a distinct matter from the dust-collecting, &c., and paid for independent of their regular weekly wages, so that, from all I can gather, the average wages of the men appear to be rather more than 15s. Some admitted to me, that in busy times they often earned 25s. a week.