Of the Working Nightmen and the Mode of Work.
Nightwork, by the provisions of the Police Act, is not to be commenced before twelve at night, nor continued beyond five in the morning, winter and summer alike. This regulation is known among the nightmen as the “legal hours,” and tends, in a measure, to account for the heterogeneous class of labourers who still seek nightwork; for strong men think little of devoting a part of the night, as well as the working hours of the day, to toil. A rubbish-carter, a very powerfully-built man, told me he was partial to nightwork, and always looked out for it, even when in daily employ, as “it was sometimes like found money.” The scavengers, sweeps, dustmen, and labourers known as ground-workers, are anxious to obtain night-work when out of regular employment; and, ten years and more since, it was often an available and remunerative resource.
Night-work is, then, essentially, and perhaps necessarily, extra-work, rather than a distinct calling followed by a separate class of workers. The generality of nightmen are scavengers, or dustmen, or chimney-sweepers, or rubbish-carters, or pipe-layers, or ground-workers, or coal-porters, carmen or stablemen, or men working for the market-gardeners round London—all either in or out of employment. Perhaps there is not at the present time in the whole metropolis a working nightman who is solely a working nightman.
It is almost the same with the master-nightmen. They are generally master-chimney-sweepers, scavengers, rubbish-carters, and builders. Some of the contractors for the public street scavengery, and the house-dust-bin emptying, are (or have been) among the largest employers of nightmen, but only in their individual trading capacity, for they have no contracts with the parishes concerning the emptying of cesspools; indeed the parish or district corporations have nothing to do with the matter. I have already shown, that among the best-patronised master-nightmen are now the Commissioners of the Court of Sewers.
For how long a period the master and working chimney-sweepers and scavengers have been the master and labouring nightmen I am unable to discover, but it may be reasonable to assume that this connexion, as a matter of trade, existed in the metropolis at the commencement of the eighteenth century.
The police of Paris, as I have shown, have full control over cesspool cleansing, but the police of London are instructed merely to prevent night-work being carried on at a later or earlier period than “the legal hours;” still a few minutes either way are not regarded, and the legal hours, I am told, are almost always adhered to.
Nightwork is carried on—and has been so carried on, within the memory of the oldest men in the trade, who had never heard their predecessors speak of any other system—after this method:—A gang of four men (exclusive of those who have the care of the horses, and who drive the night-carts to and from the scenes of the men’s labours at the cesspools) are set to work. The labour of the gang is divided, though not with any individual or especial strictness, as follows:—
1. The holeman, who goes into the cesspool and fills the tub.
2. The ropeman, who raises the tub when filled.
3. The tubmen (of whom there are two), who carry away the tub when raised, and empty it into the cart.