[20] I have estimated the whole at 15s. a week the year through, gangers, “honourable men,” regular hands and all, so as to allow for the diminished receipts of the casual hands.
[21] The usual argument in favour of machinery, viz., that “by reducing prices it extends the market, and so, causing a greater demand for the commodities, induces a greater quantity of employment,” would also be an argument in favour of over population, since this, by cheapening labour, must have the same effect as machinery on prices, and, consequently (according to the above logic), induce a greater quantity of employment! But granting that machinery really does benefit the labourer in cases where the market, and therefore the quantity of work, is largely extensible, surely it cannot but be an injury in those callings where the quantity of work is fixed. Such is the fact with the sawing of wood, the reaping of corn, the threshing of corn, the sweeping of the streets, &c., and hence the evil of mechanical labour applied to such trades.
[22] Mr. Sidney Herbert informed me, that when he was connected with the Ordnance Department the severest punishment they could discover for idleness was the piling and unpiling of cannon shot; but surely this was the consummation of official folly! for idleness being simply an aversion to work, it is almost self-evident that it is impossible to remove this aversion by making labour inordinately irksome and repulsive. Until we understand the means by which work is made pleasant, and can discover other modes of employing our paupers and criminals, all our workhouse and prison discipline is idle tyranny.
[23] This is done at the Model Prison, Pentonville.
[24] The number of men here given as employed by the parishes in the scavaging of the streets will be found to differ from that of the table at page [213]; but the present table includes all the parish-men employed throughout London, whereas the other referred to only a portion of the localities there mentioned.
[25] To the honourable conduct of the above-named contractors to their men, I am glad to be able to bear witness. All the men speak in the highest terms of them.
[26] This is Mr. Mills’s second fundamental proposition respecting capital (see “Principles of Pol. Econ.” p. 82, vol. i.). “What I intend to assert is,” says that gentleman, “that the portion (of capital) which is destined to the maintenance of the labourers may—supposing no increase in anything else—be indefinitely increased, without creating an impossibility of finding them employment—in other words, if there are human beings capable of work, and food to feed them, they may always be employed in producing something.”
[27] Mr. Cochrane is said, in the Reports of the National Philanthropic Association, to have expended no less than 6000l. of his fortune in the institution of the Street-Orderly system of scavaging.
[28] A street-orderly in St. Martin’s-lane recovered a piece of broad-cloth from a man who had just stolen it from a warehouse; others in Drury-lane detected several thefts from provision-shops. Two orderlies in Holborn saved the lives of the guard and driver of one of Her Majesty’s mail-carts, the horse having become unmanageable in consequence of the shafts being broken. In St. Mary’s Church, Lambeth, a gentleman having fallen down in apoplexy, the orderlies who were attending Divine service, carried him out into the air, and promptly procured him medical aid, but unhappily life was extinct. Many instances have occurred, however, in which they have rendered essential service to the public and to individuals.
[29] The wages paid are not stated.