In order to ascertain as accurately as possible, the actual washing expenses of labouring men and their families whose washing was done at home, Mr. John Bullar, the Honorary Secretary to the Association for the Promotion of Baths and Washhouses, tells us in a Report presented to Parliament, “that inquiries were made of several hundred families of labouring men, and it was found that, taking the wife’s labour as worth 5s. a week! the total cost of washing at home, for a man and wife and four children, averaged very closely on 2s. 6d. a week, = 5d. a head. The cost of coals, soda, soap, starch, blue, and sometimes water, was rather less than one-third of the amount. The time occupied was rarely less than two days, and more often extended into a third day, so that the value of the labour was rather more than two-thirds of the amount.
“The cost of washing to single men among the labouring classes, whose washing expenditure might be expected to be on a very low scale, such as hod-men and street-sweepers, was found to be 4½d. a head.
“The cost of washing to very small tradesmen could not be safely estimated at much more than 6d. a head a week.
“It may, perhaps,” continues the Report, “be safe to reckon the weekly washing expenses of the poorer half of the inhabitants of the metropolis at not exceeding 6d. a head; but the expenditure for washing rapidly increases as the inquiry ascends into what are called the ‘middle classes.’
“The washing expenses of families in which servants are employed may be considered as double that of the servants’, and, therefore, as ranging from 1s. 6d. to 5s. a week a head.
“There is considerable difficulty in ascertaining with any exactness the washing expenditure of private families, but the conclusion is that, taking the whole population, the washing bills of London are nearly 1s. a week a head, or 5,000,000l. a year.
“Of course,” adds Mr. Bullar, “I give this as but a rough estimate, and many exceptions may easily be taken to it; but I feel pretty confident that it is not very far from the truth.”
As I before stated, I am in no way disposed to go to the extent of the calculation here made. It appears to me that in parliamentary investigations by the agency of select committees, or by gentlemen appointed to report on any subject, there is an aptitude to deal with the whole body of the people as if they were earning the wages of well and regularly-employed labourers, or even mechanics. To suppose that the starving ballast-heaver, the victim of a vicious truck system, which condemns him to poverty and drunkenness, or the sweep, or the dustman, or the street-seller—all very numerous classes—expends 1s. a week in his washing, is far beyond the fact. Still less is expended in the washing of these people’s children. Even the well-conducted artizan, with two clean shirts a week (costing him 6d.), with the washing of stockings, &c. (costing 1d. or 2d.), does not expend 1s. a week; so that, though the washing bills of many ladies and of some gentlemen may average 10s. weekly, if we consider how few are rich and how many poor, the extra payment seems insufficient to make up the average of the weekly shilling for the washing of all classes.
A prosperous and respectable master greengrocer, who was what may be called “particular” in his dress, as he had been a gentleman’s servant, and was now in the habit of waiting upon the wealthy persons in his neighbourhood, told me that the following was the average of his washing bill. He was a bachelor; all his washing was put out, and he considered his expenditure far above the average of his class, as many used no night-shirt, but slept in the shirts they wore during the day, and paid only 3d., and even less, per shirt to their washer-woman, and perhaps, and more especially in winter, made one shirt last the week.
| Two shirts (per week) | 7d. |
| Stockings | 1 |
| Night-shirt (worn two weeks generally, average per week) | 0¾ |
| Sheets, blankets, and other household linens or woollens | 2 |
| Handkerchiefs | 0¼ |
| 11d. |