The diet of the regular working scavager (or nightman) seems generally to differ from that of mechanics, and perhaps of other working men, in the respect of his being fonder of salt and strong-flavoured food. I have before made the same remark concerning the diet of the poor generally. I do not mean, however, that the scavagers are fond of such animal food as is called “high,” for I did not hear that nightmen or scavagers were more tolerant of what approached putridity than other labouring men, and, despite their calling, might sicken at the rankness of some haunches of venison; but they have a great relish for highly-salted cold boiled beef, bacon, or pork, with a saucer-full of red pickled cabbage, or dingy-looking pickled onions, or one or two big, strong, raw onions, of which most of them seem as fond as Spaniards of garlic. This sort of meat, sometimes profusely mustarded, is often eaten in the beer-shops with thick “shives” of bread, cut into big mouthfuls with a clasp pocket-knife, while vegetables, unless indeed the beer-shop can supply a plate of smoking hot potatoes, are uncared for. The drink is usually beer. The same style of eating and the same kind of food characterize the scavager and nightman, when taking his meal at home with his wife or family; but so irregular, and often of necessity, are these men’s hours, that they may be said to have no homes, merely places to sleep or dose in.
A working scavager and nightman calculated for me his expenses in eating and drinking, and other necessaries, for the previous week. He had earned 15s., but 1s. of this went to pay off an advance of 5s. made to him by the keeper of a beer-shop, or, as he called it, a “jerry.”
| Daily. | Weekly. | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| d. | s. | d. | |
| Rent of an unfurnished room | 1 | 9 | |
| Washing (average) | 3 | ||
| [The man himself washed the dress in which he worked, and generally washed his own stockings.] | |||
| Shaving (when twice a week) | 1 | ||
| Tobacco | 1 | 7 | |
| [Short pipes are given to these men at the beer-shops, or public-houses which they “use.”] | |||
| Beer | 4 | 2 | 4 |
| [He usually spent more than 4d. a day in beer, he said, “it was only a pot;” but this week more beer than usual had been given to him in nightwork.] | |||
| Gin | 2 | 1 | 2 |
| [The same with gin.] | |||
| Cocoa (pint at a coffee-shop). | 1½ | 10½ | |
| Bread (quartern loaf) (sometimes 5½d.) | 6 | 3 | 6 |
| Boiled salt beef (¾ lb. or ½ lb. daily, “as happened,” for two meals, 6d. per pound, average) | 4 | 2 | 4 |
| Pickles or Onions | 0¼ | 1¾ | |
| Butter | 1 | ||
| Soap | 1 | ||
| 13 | 2¼ | ||
Perhaps this informant was excessive in his drink. I believe he was so; the others not drinking so much regularly. The odd 9d., he told me, he paid to “a snob,” because he said he was going to send his half-boots to be mended.
This man informed me he was a “widdur,” having lost his old ’oman, and he got all his meals at a beer or coffee-shop. Sometimes, when he was a street-sweeper by day and a nightman by night, he had earned 20s. to 22s.; and then he could have his pound of salt meat a day, for three meals, with a “baked tatur or so, when they was in.” I inquired as to the apparently low charge of 6d. per pound for cooked meat, but I found that the man had stated what was correct. In many parts good boiled “brisket,” fresh cut, is 7d. and 8d. per lb., with mustard into the bargain; and the cook-shop keepers (not the eating-house people) who sell boiled hams, beef, &c., in retail, but not to be eaten on the premises, vend the hard remains of a brisket, and sometimes of a round, for 6d., or even less (also with mustard), and the scavagers like this better than any other food. In the brisk times my informant sometimes had “a hot cut” from a shop on a Sunday, and a more liberal allowance of beer and gin. If he had any piece of clothing to buy he always bought it at once, before his money went for other things. These were his proceedings when business was brisk.
In slacker times his diet was on another footing. He then made his supper, or second meal, for tea he seldom touched, on “fagots.” This preparation of baked meats costs 1d. hot—but it is seldom sold hot except in the evening—and ¾d., or more frequently two for 1½d., cold. It is a sort of cake, roll, or ball, a number being baked at a time, and is made of chopped liver and lights, mixed with gravy, and wrapped in pieces of pig’s caul. It weighs six ounces, so that it is unquestionably a cheap, and, to the scavager, a savoury meal; but to other nostrils its odour is not seductive. My informant regretted the capital fagots he used to get at a shop when he worked in Lambeth; superior to anything he had been able to meet with on the Middlesex side of the water. Or he dined off a saveloy, costing 1d., and bread; or bought a pennyworth of strong cheese, and a farthing’s worth of onions. He would further reduce his daily expenditure on cocoa (or coffee sometimes) to 1d., and his bread to three-quarters of a loaf. He ate, however, in average times, a quarter of a quartern loaf to his breakfast (sometimes buying a halfpennyworth of butter), a quarter or more to his dinner, the same to his supper, and the other, with an onion for a relish, to his beer. He was a great bread eater, he said; but sometimes, if he slept in the daytime, half a loaf would “stand over to next day.” He was always hungriest when at work among the street-mud, or night-soil, or when he had finished work.
On my asking him if he meant that he partook of the meals he had described daily, he answered “no,” but that was mostly what he had; and if he bought a bit of cold boiled, or even roast pork, “what offered cheap,” the expense was about the same. When he was drinking, and he did “make a break sometimes,” he ate nothing, and “wasn’t inclined to,” and he seemed rather to plume himself on this, as a point of economy. He had tasted fruit pies, but cared nothing for them; but liked four penn’orth of a hot meat or giblet pie on a Sunday. Batter-pudding he only liked if smoking hot; and it was “uncommon improved,” he said, “with an ingan!” Rum he preferred to gin, only it was dearer, but most of the scavagers, he thought, liked Old Tom (gin) best; but “they was both good.”
Of the drinking of these men I heard a good deal, and there is no doubt that some of them tope hard, and by their conduct evince a sort of belief that the great end of labour is beer. But it must be borne in mind that if inquiries are made as to the man best adapted to give information concerning any rude calling (especially), some talkative member of the body of these working men, some pot-house hero who has persuaded himself and his ignorant mates that he is an oracle, is put forward. As these men are sometimes, from being trained to, and long known in their callings, more prosperous than their fellows, their opinions seem ratified by their circumstances. But in such cases, or in the appearance of such cases, it has been my custom to make subsequent inquiries, or there might be frequent misleadings, were the statements of these men taken as typical of the feelings and habits of the whole body. The statement of the working scavager given under this head is unquestionably typical of the character of a portion of his co-workers, and more especially of what was, and in the sort of hereditary scavagers I have spoken of is, the character of the regular hands. There are now, however, many checks to prolonged indulgence in “lush,” as every man of the ruder street-sweeping class will call it. The contractors must be served regularly; the most indulgent will not tolerate any unreasonable absence from work, so that the working scavagers, at the jeopardy of their means of living, must leave their carouse at an hour which will permit them to rise soon enough in the morning.
The beer which these men imbibe, it should be also remembered, they regard as a proper part of their diet, in the same light, indeed, as they regard so much bread, and that among them the opinion is almost universal, that beer is necessary to “keep up their strength;” there are a few teetotallers belonging to the class; one man thought he knew five, and had heard of five others.
I inquired of the landlord of a beer-shop, frequented by these men, as to their potations, but he wanted to make it appear that they took a half-pint, now and then, when thirsty! He was evidently tender of the character of his customers. The landlord of a public house also frequented by them informed me that he really could not say what they expended in beer, for labourers of all kinds “used his tap,” and as all tap-room liquor was paid for on delivery in his and all similar establishments, he did not know the quantity supplied to any particular class. He was satisfied these men, as a whole, drank less than they did at one time; though he had no doubt some (he seemed to know no distinctions between scavagers, dustmen, and nightmen) spent 1s. a day in drink. He knew one scavager who was dozing about not long since for nearly a week, “sleepy drunk,” and the belief was that he had “found something.” The absence of all accounts prevents my coming to anything definite on this head, but it seems positive that these men drink less than they did. The landlord in question thought the statement I have given as to diet and drink perfectly correct for a regular hand in good earnings. I am assured, however, and it is my own opinion, after long inquiry, that one-third of their earnings is spent in drink.