Thus we perceive that the beneficial effects of cheapness are defeated by the dearth of employment among labourers.
It is impossible to come to precise statistics in this matter, but all concurrent evidence, as regards the unskilled work of which I now treat, shows that labour is attainable at almost any rate.
Another drawback to the benefits of cheap food I heard of first in my inquiries (for the Letters on Labour and the Poor, in the Morning Chronicle) among the boot and shoemakers—their rents had been raised in consequence of their landlords’ property having been subjected to the income tax. Numbers of large houses are now let out in single rooms, in the streets off Tottenham-court-road, and near Golden-square, as well as in many other quarters—to men, who, working for West-end tradesmen, must live, for economy of time, near the shops from which they derive their work. Near and in Cunningham-street and other streets, two men, father and son, rent upwards of 30 houses, the whole of which they let out in one or two rooms, it is believed at a very great profit; in fact they live by it.
The rent of these houses, among many others, was raised when the income tax was imposed, the sub-lettors declaring, with what truth no one knew, that the rents were raised to them. It is common enough for capitalists to fling such imposts on the shoulders of the poor, and I heard scavagers complain, that every time they had to change their rooms, they had either to pay more rent by 2d. or 3d. a week, or put up with a worse place. One man who lived at the time of the passing of the Income Tax Bill in Shoe-lane, found his rent raised suddenly 3d. a week, a non-resident landlord or agent calling for it weekly. He was told that the advance was to meet the income tax. “I know nothing about what income tax means,” he said, “but it’s some —— roguery as is put on the poor.” I heard complaints to the same purport from several working scavagers, and the lettors of rooms are the most exacting in places crowded with the poor, and where the poor think or feel they must reside “to be handy for work.” What connection there may be between the questions of Free Trade and the necessity of the income tax, it is not my business now to dilate upon, but it is evident that the circumstances of the country are not sufficiently prosperous to enable parliament to repeal this “temporary” impost.
From a better informed class than the scavagers, I might have derived data on which to form a calculation from account books, &c., but I could hear of none being kept. I remember that a lady’s shoemaker told me that the weekly rents of the ten rooms in the house in which he lived were 4s. 3d. higher than before the income tax, which “came to the same thing as an extra penny on over 50 loaves a week.” It is certain that the great tax-payers of London are the labouring classes.
I have endeavoured to ascertain the facts in connection with this complex subject in as calm and just a manner as possible, leaning neither to the Protectionist nor the Free-Trade side of the question, and I must again in honesty acknowledge, that to the constant hands among the scavagers and dustmen of the metropolis, the repeal of the Corn Laws appears to have been an unquestionable benefit.
I shall conclude this exposition of the condition and earnings of the working scavagers employed by the more honourable masters, with an account of the average income and expenditure of the better-paid hands (regular and casual, as well as single and married), and first, of the unmarried regular hand.
The following is an estimate of the income and expenditure of an unmarried operative scavager regularly employed, working for a large contractor:—
| WEEKLY INCOME. | WEEKLY EXPENDITURE. | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| £ | s. | d. | £ | s. | d. | ||
| Constant Wages. | Rent | 0 | 2 | 0 | |||
| Nominal weekly wages | 0 | 16 | 0 | Washing and mending | 0 | 0 | 10 |
| Perquisites | 0 | 2 | 0 | Clothes, and repairing ditto | 0 | 0 | 10 |
| Actual weekly wages | 0 | 18 | 0 | Butcher’s meat | 0 | 3 | 6 |
| Bacon | 0 | 0 | 8 | ||||
| Vegetables | 0 | 0 | 4 | ||||
| Cheese | 0 | 0 | 4 | ||||
| Beer | 0 | 3 | 0 | ||||
| Spirits | 0 | 1 | 0 | ||||
| Tobacco | 0 | 0 | 10½ | ||||
| Butter | 0 | 0 | 7½ | ||||
| Sugar | 0 | 0 | 4 | ||||
| Tea | 0 | 0 | 3 | ||||
| Coffee | 0 | 0 | 3 | ||||
| Fish | 0 | 0 | 4 | ||||
| Soap | 0 | 0 | 2 | ||||
| Shaving | 0 | 0 | 1 | ||||
| Fruit | 0 | 0 | 4 | ||||
| Keep of 2 dogs | 0 | 0 | 6 | ||||
| Amusements, as skittles, &c. | 0 | 1 | 9 | ||||
| 0 | 18 | 0 | |||||