“No, my expenses, over and above my living and lodging and washing, and all that, ain’t heavy. Yes, I’m very fond of a good play, very. Some galleries is 6d., and some 3d.; but then there’s refreshment and that, so it costs 1s. a time. Perhaps I go once a week, but only in autumn and winter, when nights get long, and we leave work at half-past five. The last time I was at the play was at the Marylebone, but there was some opera pieces that don’t suit me; such stuff and nonsense. I like something very lively, or else a deep tragedy. Sadler’s Wells is the place, sir. I mean to go there to-morrow night. Yes, I’m very fond of the pantomimes. Concerts I’ve been at, but don’t care for them. They’re as dear at 2d. as an egg a penny, and an egg’s only a bite.
“Well, I’ve gone to church sometimes, but a carman hasn’t time, for he has his horses to attend to on Sunday mornings, and that uses up his morning. No, I never go now. Work must be done. It ain’t my fault. I’m sure, if I could have my wish, I’d never do anything on a Sunday.
“Yes, there’s far too many as undersells us in work. I know that, but I don’t like to think about them or to talk about them.” [He seemed desirous to ignore the very existence of the scurf rubbish-carters.] “They’re Irish many of them. They’re often quarrelsome and blood-thirsty, but I know many decent men among the Irishmen in our gangs. There’s good and bad among them, as there is among the English. There’s very few of the Irish that are carmen; they haven’t been much used to horses.
“I have done a little as a nightman when I worked for Mr. ——. He was a parish contractor, and undertook such jobs, and liked to put strong men on to them. I didn’t like it. I can’t think it’s a healthy trade. I can’t say, but I heard it represented, that in this particular calling there was a great deal of under-contracting going on when the railway undertakings generally received a severe check, and when a great number of hands were thrown out of employment, and sought employment in rubbish-carting generally, and apart from railway-work. These hands suffered greatly for a long time. The tommy-shops and the middle-man system were enough to swallow the largest amount of railway wages, so that very few had saved money, and they were willing to work for very low wages. A good many of these people went to endeavour to find work at the large new docks being erected at Great Grimsby, near Boston, in Lincolnshire. Some of the more prudent were able to raise the means of emigrating, and from one cause or other the pressure of this surplus labour among rubbish-carters and excavators, as regards the metropolis, became relieved.”
Of Casual Labour in General, and that of the Rubbish-Carters in Particular.
The subject of casual labour is one of such vast importance in connection with the welfare of a nation and its people, and one of which the causes as well as consequences seem to be so utterly ignored by economical writers and unheeded by the public, that I purpose here saying a few words upon the matter in general, with the view of enabling the reader the better to understand the difficulties that almost all unskilled and many skilled labourers have to contend with in this country.
By casual labour I mean such labour as can obtain only occasional as contradistinguished from constant employment. In this definition I include all classes of workers, literate and illiterate, skilled and unskilled, whose professions, trades, or callings expose them to be employed temporarily rather than continuously, and whose incomes are in a consequent degree fluctuating, casual, and uncertain.
In no country in the world is there such an extent, and at the same time such a diversity, of casual labour as in Great Britain. This is attributable to many causes—commercial and agricultural, natural and artificial, controllable and uncontrollable.
I will first show what are the causes of casual labour, and then point out its effects.
The causes of casual labour may be grouped under two heads:—