My informant was satisfied that he had put his expenditure at the highest. I also ascertained that an industrious wife, who was able to attend to her household matters, could wash the clothes of a small tradesman’s family,—for a man, his wife, and four small children,—“well,” at the following rate:—
| 1 lb. soap | 4½d. or 5d. |
| Soda and starch | 0½ |
| ¼ cwt. coals (extra) | 3½ |
| 8½d. |
or less than 1½d. per head.
In this calculation it will be seen the cheapest soap is reckoned, and that there is no allowance for the wife’s labour. When I pointed out the latter circumstance, my informant said: “I look on it that the washing labour is part of the wife’s keep, or what she gives in return for it; and that as she’d have to be kept if she didn’t do it, why there shouldn’t be no mention of it. If she was working for others it would be quite different, but washing is a family matter; that’s my way of looking at it. Coke, too, is often used instead of coals; besides, a bit of bacon, or potatoes, or the tea-kettle, will have to be boiled, and that’s managed along with the hot water for the suds, and would have to be done anyhow, especially in winter.”
One decent woman, who had five children, “all under eight,” told me she often sat up half, and sometimes the whole night to wash, when busy other ways. She was not in poverty, for she earned “a good bit” in going out to cook, and her husband was employed by a pork-butcher.
I may further add, that a great many single men wash their own clothes. Many of the street-sellers in particular do this; so do such of the poor as live in their own rooms, and occasionally the dwellers in the low lodging-houses. One street-seller of ham sandwiches, whose aprons, sleeves, and tray-cloth, were remarkably white, told me that he washed them himself, as well as his shirt, &c., and that it was the common practice with his class. This washing—his aprons, tray-cloths, shirts, and stockings included—cost him, every three weeks, 4¼d. or 5d. for 1 lb. of soap, which is less than 1½d. a week. Among such people it is considered that the washing of a shirt is, as they say, “a penn’orth of soap, and the stockings in,” meaning that a penny outlay is sufficient to wash for both.
But not only does Mr. Bullar’s estimate exceed the truth as regards the cost of washing among the poorer classes, but it also errs in the proportion they are said to bear to the other ranks of society. That gentleman speaks of “the poorer half of the inhabitants of the metropolis,” as if the rich and poor were equal in numbers! but with all deference, it will be found that the ratio between the well-to-do and the needy is as 1 to 2, that is to say, the property and income-tax returns teach us there are at least two persons with an income below 150l. per annum, to every one having an income above it. Hence, the population of London being, within a fraction, 2,400,000; the numbers of the metropolitan well-to-do and needy would be respectively 800,000 and 1,600,000, and, allowing the cost of the washing of the former to average 1s. per head (adults and children), and, the washing of the labouring classes to come to 2d. a head, young and old (the expense of the materials, when the work is done at home, average, it has been shown, about 1½d. for each member of the family), we shall then have the following statement:—
| Annual cost of washing for 800,000 people, at 1s. per head per week | £2,080,000 |
| Annual cost of washing for 1,600,000 people, at 2d. per head per week | 693,333 |
| Total cost of washing of metropolis | £2,773,333 |
I am convinced, low as the estimate of 2d. a week may appear for all whose incomes are under 150l. a year, from many considerations, that the above computation is rather over than under the truth. As, for instance, Mr. Hawes has said concerning the consumption of soap in the metropolis,—“Careful inquiry has proved that the quantity used is much greater than that indicated by the Excise returns; but reducing the results obtained by inquiry in one uniform proportion, the quantity used by the labouring classes earning from 10s. to 30s. per week is 10 lbs. each per annum, including every member of the family. Dividing the population of the metropolis into three classes: (1) the wealthy; (2) the shopkeepers and tradesmen; (3) labourers and the poor, and allowing 15 lbs., 10 lbs., and 4 lbs. to each respectively, the consumption of the metropolis will be nearly 200 tons per week.” The cost of each ton of soap Mr. Hawes estimates at 45l.
Professor Clarke, however, computes the metropolitan consumption of soap at 250 tons per week, and the cost per ton at 50l.