London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. 2

by Henry Mayhew

Of the different forms of pauper work, street-sweeping is, I am inclined to believe, the most unpopular of all among the poor. The scavaging is generally done in the workhouse dress, and that to all, except the hardened paupers, and sometimes even to them, is highly distasteful. Neither have such labourers, as I have said, the incentive of that hope of the reward which, however diminutive, still tends to sweeten the most repulsive labour. I am informed by an experienced gangsman under a contractor, that it is notorious that the workhouse hands are the least industrious scavagers in the streets. “They don’t sweep as well,” he said, “and don’t go about it like regular men; they take it quite easy.” It is often asserted that this labour of the workhouse men is applied as a test; but this opinion seems rather to bear on the past than the present.

One man thus employed gave me the following account. He was garrulous but not communicative, as is frequently the case with men who love to hear themselves talk, and are not very often able to command listeners. He was healthy looking enough, but he told me he was, or had been “delicate.” He querulously objected to be questioned about his youth, or the reason of his being a pauper, but seemed to be abounding in workhouse stories and workhouse grievances.

“Street-sweeping,” he said, “degrades a man, and if a man’s poor he hasn’t no call to be degraded. Why can’t they set the thieves and pickpockets to sweep? they could be watched easy enough; there’s always idle fellers as reckons theirselves real gents, as can be got for watching and sitch easy jobs, for they gets as much for them, as three men’s paid for hard work in a week. I never was in a prison, but I’ve heerd that people there is better fed and better cared for than in workusses. What’s the meaning of that, sir, I’d like for to know? You can’t tell me, but I can tell you. The workus is made as ugly as it can be, that poor people may be got to leave it, and chance dying in the street rather.” [Here the man indulged in a gabbled detail of a series of pauper grievances which I had a difficulty in diverting or interrupting. On my asking if the other paupers had the same opinion as to street-sweeping as he had, he replied:—] “To be sure they has; all them that has sense to have a ’pinion at all has; there’s not two sides to it any how. No, I don’t want to be kept and do nothink. I want proper work. And by the rights of it I might as well be kept with nothink to do as —— or ——” [parish officials]. “Have they nothing to do,” I asked? “Nothink, but to make mischief and get what ought to go to the poor. It’s salaries and such like as swallers the rates, and that’s what every poor family knows as knows anythink. Did I ever like my work better? Certainly not. Do I take any pains with it? Well, where would be the good? I can sweep well enough, when I please, but if I could do more than the best man as ever Mr. Darke paid a pound a week to, it wouldn’t be a bit better for me—not a bit, sir, I assure you. We all takes it easy whenever we can, but the work must be done. The only good about it is that you get outside the house. It’s a change that way certainly. But we work like horses and is treated like asses.” [On my reminding him that he had just told me that they all took it easy when they could, and that rather often, he replied:] “Well, don’t horses? But it ain’t much use talking, sir. It’s only them as has been in workusses and in parish work as can understand all the ins and outs of it.”

In giving the above and the following statements I have endeavoured to elicit the feelings of the several paupers whom I conversed with. Poor, ignorant, or prejudiced men may easily be mistaken in their opinions, or in what they may consider their “facts,” but if a clear exposition of their sentiments be obtained, it is a guide to the truth. I have, therefore, given the statement of the in-door pauper’s opinions, querulously as they were delivered, as I believe them to be the sentiments of those of his class who, as he said, had any opinion at all.

It seems indeed, from all I could learn on the subject, that pauper street-work, even at the best, is unwilling and slovenly work, pauper workmen being the worst of all workmen. If the streets be swept clean, it is because a dozen paupers are put to the labour of eight, nine, or ten regular scavagers who are independent labourers, and who may have some “pride of art,” or some desire to show their employers that they are to be depended upon. This feeling does not actuate the pauper workman, who thinks or knows that if he did evince a desire and a perseverance to please, it would avail him little beyond the sneers and ill-will of his mates; so that, even with a disposition to acquire the good opinion of the authorities, there is this obstacle in his way, and to most men who move in a circumscribed sphere it is a serious obstacle.

Of the second mode of pauper scavaging, viz., that performed by out-door paupers, and paid for partly in money and partly in kind, I heard from officials connected with pauper management very strong condemnations, as being full of mischievous and degrading tendencies. The payment to the out-door pauper scavager averages, as I have stated, 9d. a day to a single man, with, perhaps, a quartern loaf; and this, in some cases, is for only three days in the week; while to a married man with a family, it varies between 1s. 1½d. and 1s. 2d. a day, with a quartern, and sometimes two quartern loaves; and this, likewise, is occasionally from three to six days in the week. On this the single or family men must subsist, if they have no other means of earning an addition. The men thus employed are certainly not independent labourers, nor are they, in the full sense of the word as popularly understood, paupers; for their means of subsistence are partly the fruits of their toil; and although they are wretchedly dependent, they seem to feel that they have a sort of right to be set to work, as the law ordains such modicum of relief, in or out of the workhouse, as will only ward off death through hunger. This “three-days-a-week work” is by the poor or pauper labourers looked upon as being, after the in-door pauper work, the worst sort of employment.

[24] TABLE SHOWING THE NUMBER OF MEN EMPLOYED BY THE METROPOLITAN PARISHES AND HIGHWAY BOARDS IN SCAVAGING, AS WELL AS THE NUMBER OF HOURS PER DAY AND NUMBER OF DAYS PER WEEK, TOGETHER WITH THE AMOUNT OF WAGES ACCRUING TO EACH, AND THE TOTAL ANNUAL WAGES OF THE WHOLE.

Parishes.	No. of married men employed by parishes daily in scavaging the streets.	Number of single men employed by parishes daily in scavaging the streets.	Number of Superintendents employed by parishes.	Number of Foremen or Gangers employed by parishes.	Daily or weekly wages of the married parish-men.
Paid in Money (by Parishes).					s.
Greenwich	7	1	1	1	15
Walworth	12	8		3	15
Newington
Lambeth	30		1	5	15
Poplar	20			4	15
St. Ann’s, Soho	4	1			15
Rotherhithe	4			1	14
Wandsworth	6			1	12
Hackney	12	4		4	12
St. Mary’s, Paddington	8	5	1	2	12
St. Giles’s, and St. George’s, Bloomsbury	20	4		4	12
St. Pancras (South-west Division)	10		2		12
St. Clement Danes	6	2		1	11
St. Paul’s, Covent-garden	2	5		1	11
St. James’s, Westminster	6			1	10
Ditto	6			1	10
Ditto	6			1	9
St. Andrew’s, Holborn	10		1	1	9
Marylebone	80	15	1	10	9
St. George’s, Hanover-square	30	6	1	4	9s. a week.
Liberty of the Rolls	1				7s. 6d.
Bermondsey	13	1	1		1s. 4d. per day.
Paid in Money (by Highway Boards).
St. James’s, Clerkenwell (1st Division)	5				15
Islington	7	1		1	15
Commercial Road East	4	1	1		15
Hampstead	4			1	15
Highgate	3	2		1	14
Kensington	6	1		1	12
Lewisham	4			1	12
Camberwell	10			1	12
Christchurch, Lambeth	6			1	12
Woolwich	5			1	12
Deptford	4			1	9
Paid partly in kind.
St. Luke’s, Chelsea	27	9		3	7s., and on an average 3 loaves each, at 4d. a loaf.
Hans-town „	6			1	7s., and average 3 loaves per head.
St. James’s, Clerkenwell	6				1s. 1½d. a day, and 1 quartern loaf.
Paid wholly in kind.
St. Pancras (Highways)	10		1		estimated expense of food, 2s. 4d. weekly.
Total	400	66	8	62

Daily or weekly wages of the single parish-men.	Weekly wages of the Superintendents employed by parishes.	Weekly wages of Foremen or Gangers employed by parishes.	Number of hours per day each parish-man is employed to sweep the streets.	Number of days in the week each parish-man is employed in sweeping the streets.	Total annual wages of the whole, including the estimated value of food and clothes.
s.	s.	s.			£.	s.	d.
15	30s. and a house to live in.	18	10	6	456	16	0
14		18	12	6	899	12	0
	20	18	10	6	1456	0	0
		18	10	6	967	4	0
15			12	6	195	0	0
		16	10	6	187	4	0
		18	10	6	234	0	0
10		18	10	6	665	12	0
10	20	15	12	6	509	12	0
12		18	12	6	936	0	0
		18	12	6	93	12	0
11		15	10	6	267	16	0
11		13	12	6	234	0	0
		12	10	6	187	4	0
		12	10	6	187	4	0
		12	10	6	166	12	0
	15	12	10	6	304	4	0
9	18	16	10	6	2685	16	0
9s. a week.	20	16	10	6	1060	16	0
			10	6	19	10	0
1s. 4d. per day.	28s. and clothing.		10	5	321	3	4
			10	6	195	0	0
15		18	10	6	405	0	0
15	100l. a year.		12	6	295	0	0
		18	10	6	202	10	0
14		18	10	6	228	16	0
12		18	12	6	265	4	0
		18	10	6	171	12	0
		18	12	6	358	16	0
		15	10	6	226	4	0
		18	10	6	202	16	0
		18	10	3	140	8	0
7		14	10	6	834	12	0
		14	10	6	161	4	0
			10	3	70	4	0
	21s. and food.		8	4	128	5	4
					15,919	8	8

From a married man employed by the parish under this mode, I had the following account.