London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. 2

by Henry Mayhew

The present dress of the parish scavagers is usually a loose smock-frock, costing 1s. 6d. to 2s., and a glazed hat of about the same price. In some cases, however, the men may wear these things or not, at their option.

The pauper scavagers employed by the several metropolitan parishes may be divided into three classes:—

1. The in-door paupers, who receive no wages whatever (their lodging, food, and clothing being considered to be sufficient remuneration for their labour).

2. The out-door paupers, who are paid partly in money and partly in kind, and employed in some cases three days and in others six days in the week.

These may be subdivided into—(a) the single men, who receive, or rather used to receive, 9d. and a quartern loaf for each of the three or more days they were so employed; (b) the married men with families, who receive 7s. and 3 quartern loaves a week to 1s. 1½d. and 1 quartern loaf for each day’s labour.

3. The unemployed labourers of the district, who are set to scavaging work by the parish, and paid a regular money wage—the employment being constant, and the rate of remuneration ranging from 1s. 3d. to 2s. 6d. a day for each of the six days, or from 7s. 6d. to 15s. a week.

In pp. [246, 247], I give a table of the wages paid by each of the metropolitan parishes. This has been collected at great trouble in order to arrive at the truth on this most important matter, and for which purpose the several parishes have been personally visited. It will be seen on reference to this document, that there is only one parish at present that employs its in-door paupers in the scavaging of the public streets; and 3 parishes employing 48 out-door paupers, who are paid partly in money and partly in bread; the money remuneration ranging from 1s. 1½d. a day (paid by Clerkenwell) to 7s. a week (paid by Chelsea), and moreover 31 parishes employing 408 applicants for relief (paupers they cannot be called), and paying them wholly in money, the remuneration ranging from 15s. per week to 7s. 6d. (paid by the Liberty of the Rolls), and the employment from 6 to 3 days weekly. As a general rule it was found that the greatest complaints were made by the authorities as to the idleness of the poor, and by the poor as to the tyranny of the authorities, in those parishes where the remuneration was the least. In St. Luke’s, Chelsea, for instance, where the remuneration is but 7s. a week and three loaves, the criminations and recriminations by the parish functionaries and the paupers were almost equally harsh and bitter. I should, however, observe that the men employed in this parish spoke in terms of great commendation of Mr. Pattison the surveyor, saying he always gave them to understand that they were free labourers, and invariably treated them as such. The men at work for Bermondsey parish also spoke very highly of their superintendent, who, it seems, has interested himself to obtain for them a foul-weather coat. Some of the highway boards or trusts take all the pauper labourers sent them by the parish, while others give employment only to such as please them. These boards generally pay good wages, and are in favour with the men.

The mode of working, as regards the use of the implements and the manual labour, is generally the same among the pauper scavagers as I have described in connection with the scavagers generally.

The consideration of what is the rate of parish pay to the poor who are employed as scavagers, is complicated by the different modes in which the employment is carried out, for, as we see, there is—1st, the scavaging labour, by workhouse inmates, without any payment beyond the cost of maintenance and clothing; 2nd, the “short” or three-days-a-week labour, with or without “relief” in the bestowal of bread; and 3rd, the six days’ work weekly, with a money wage and no bread, nor anything in the form of payment in kind or of “relief.”

Let me begin with the first system of labour above mentioned, viz. the employment of the in-door paupers without wages of any kind, their food, lodging, and clothing being considered as equivalents for their work. The principal evil in connection with this form of parish work is its compulsory character, the men regarding it not as so much work given in exchange for such and such comforts, but as something exacted from them; and, to tell the truth, it is precisely the counterpart of slavery, being equally deficient in all inducement to toil, and consequently requiring almost the same system of compulsion and supervision in order to keep the men at their labour. All interest in the work is destroyed, there being no reward connected with it; and consequently the same organized system of setting to work is required as with cattle. There are but two inducements to voluntary action—pain to be avoided or pleasure to be derived—or, in other words, the attractiveness and repulsiveness of objects. Take away the pecuniary attraction of labour, and men become mere beasts of burden, capable of being set to work only by the dread of some punishment; hence the system of parish labour, which has no reward directly connected with it, must necessarily be tyrannical, and so tend to induce idleness and a hatred of work altogether.