Of the “Casual Hands” among the Scavagers.
Of the scavagers proper there are, as in all classes of unskilled labour, that is to say, of labour which requires no previous apprenticeship, and to which any one can “turn his hand” on an emergency, two distinct orders of workmen, “the regulars and casuals” to adopt the trade terms; that is to say, the labourers consist of those who have been many years at the trade, constantly employed at it, and those who have but recently taken to it as a means of obtaining a subsistence after their ordinary resources have failed. This mixture of constant and casual hands is, moreover, a necessary consequence of all trades which depend upon the seasons, and in which an additional number of labourers are required at different periods. Such is necessarily the case with dock labour, where an easterly wind prevailing for several days deprives thousands of work, and where the change from a foul to a fair wind causes an equally inordinate demand for workmen. The same temporary increase of employment takes place in the agricultural districts at harvesting time, and the same among the hop growers in the picking season; and it will be hereafter seen that there are the same labour fluctuations in the scavaging trade, a greater or lesser number of hands being required, of course, according as the season is wet or dry.
This occasional increase of employment, though a benefit in some few cases (as enabling a man suddenly deprived of his ordinary means of living to obtain “a job of work” until he can “turn himself round”), is generally a most alarming evil in a State. What are the casual hands to do when the extra employment ceases? Those who have paid attention to the subject of dock labour and the subject of casual labour in general, may form some notion of the vast mass of misery that must be generally existing in London. The subject of hop-picking again belongs to the same question. Here are thousands of the very poorest employed only for a few days in the year. What, the mind naturally asks, do they after their short term of honest independence has ceased? With dock labour the poor man’s bread depends upon the very winds; in scavaging and in street life generally it depends upon the rain; and in market-gardening, harvesting, hop-picking, and the like, it depends upon the sunshine. How many thousands in this huge metropolis have to look immediately to the very elements for their bread, it is overwhelming to contemplate; and yet, with all this fitfulness of employment we wonder that an extended knowledge of reading and writing does not produce a decrease of crime! We should, however, ask ourselves whether men can stay their hunger with alphabets or grow fat on spelling books; and wanting employment, and consequently food, and objecting to the incarceration of the workhouse, can we be astonished—indeed is it not a natural law—that they should help themselves to the property of others?
Concerning the “regular hands” of the contracting scavagers, it may, perhaps, be reasonable to compute that little short of one-half of them have been “to the manner born.” The others are, as I have said, what these regular hands call “casuals,” or “casualties.” As an instance of the peculiar mixture of the regular and casual hands in the scavaging trade, I may state that one of my informants told me he had, at one period, under his immediate direction, fourteen men, of whom the former occupations had been as follows:—
| 7 | Always Scavagers (or dustmen, and six of them nightmen when required). |
| 1 | Pot-boy at a public-house (but only as a boy). |
| 1 | Stable-man (also nightman). |
| 1 | Formerly a pugilist, then a showman’s assistant. |
| 1 | Navvy. |
| 1 | Ploughman (nightman occasionally). |
| 2 | Unknown, one of them saying, but gaining no belief, that he had once been a gentleman. |
| 14 |
In my account of the street orderlies will be given an interesting and elaborate statement of the former avocations, the habits, expenditure, &c., of a body of street-sweepers, 67 in number. This table will be found very curious, as showing what classes of men have been driven to street-sweeping, but it will not furnish a criterion of the character of the “regular hands” employed by the contractors.
The “casuals” or the “casualties” (always called among the men “cazzelties”), may be more properly described as men whose employment is accidental, chanceful, or uncertain. The regular hands of the scavagers are apt to designate any new comer, even for a permanence, any sweeper not reared to or versed in the business, a casual (“cazzel”). I shall, however, here deal with the “casual hands,” not only as hands newly introduced into the trade, but as men of chanceful and irregular employment.
These persons are now, I understand, numerous in all branches of unskilled labour, willing to undertake or attempt any kind of work, but perhaps there is a greater tendency on the part of the surplus unskilled to turn to scavaging, from the fact that any broken-down man seems to account himself competent to sweep the streets.
To ascertain the number of these casual or outside labourers in the scavaging trade is difficult, for, as I have said, they are willing in their need to attempt any kind of work, and so may be “casuals” in divers departments of unskilled labour.