The subdivisions of this trade I need not give, they are as numerous as the articles of the cabinet-maker’s calling.
I have mentioned that the black houses, or linendrapers at the west end of London, were principally supplied from the east end. In the neighbourhood of Tottenham-court-road and Oxford-street, for instance, most of my readers will have had their attention attracted by the dust-coloured appearance of some poor worker in wood carrying along his skeleton of an easy chair, or a sofa, or a couch, to dispose of in some shop. Often, too, a carter has to be employed for the same purpose, at the rate of 1s. 6d. an hour; and thus two hours will exhaust the very fullest value of a long day’s labour. From a furniture-carter of this description I received some most shocking details of having to “busk” it, as this taking about goods for sale is called by those in the trade.
From a pale, feeble-looking man whom I met on a Saturday evening at the west end, carrying a mahogany chiffonier, I had the following statement:—
GARRET-MASTER; OR CHEAP FURNITURE MAKER.
[From a Sketch.]
“I have dragged this chiffonier with me,” he said, “from Spitalfields, and have been told to call again in two hours (it was then half-past 7). I am too tired to drag it to another linendraper’s, and indeed I shouldn’t have so good a chance there; for if we go late, the manager considers we’ve been at other places, and he’ll say, ‘You needn’t bring me what others have refused.’ I was brought up as a general hand at ——, but was never in society, which is a great disadvantage. I feel that now. I used to make my 25s. or 28s. a-week six or seven years back; but then I fell out of employ, and worked at chair-making for a slaughter-house, and so got into the system, and now I can’t get out of it. I have no time to look about me, as, if I’m idle, I can’t get bread for my family. I have a wife and two children. They’re too young to do anything; but I can’t afford to send them to school, except every now and then 1d. or 2d. a-week, and so they may learn to read, perhaps. The anxiety I suffer is not to be told. I’ve nothing left to pawn now; and if I don’t sell this chiffonier I must take it back, and must go back to a house bare of everything, except, perhaps, 3s. or 2s. 6d. my wife may have earned by ruining her health for a tailor’s sweater; and 1s. 6d. of that must go for rent. I ought to have 2l. for this chiffonier, for it’s superior mahogany to the run of such things; but I ask only 35s., and perhaps may be bid 28s., and get 30s.; and it may be sold, perhaps, by the linendraper for 3l. 3s. or 3l. 10s. Of course we’re obliged to work in the slightest manner possible; but, good or bad, there’s the same fault found with the article. I have already lost 3½ hours; and there’s my wife anxiously looking for my return to buy bread and a bit of beast’s head for to-morrow. It’s hard to go without a bit o’ meat on Sundays; and, indeed, I must sell at whatever price—it don’t matter, and that the linendraper depends upon.”
I now subjoin a statement of a garret-master—a maker of loo tables—who was endeavouring to make a living by a number of apprentices:—
“I’m now 41,” he said, “and for the last ten or twelve years have been working for a linendraper who keeps a slaughter-house. Before that I was in a good shop, Mr. D——’s, and was a general hand, as we were in the fair trade. I have often made my 50s. a-week on good work of any kind: now, with three apprentices to help me, I make only 25s. Work grew slack; and rather than be doing nothing, as I’d saved a little money, I made loo tables, and sold them to a linendraper, a dozen years back or so, and so somehow I got into the trade. For tables that, eighteen years ago, I had in a good shop 30s. for making, now 5s. is paid; but that’s only in a slaughterer’s own factory, when he has one. I’ve been told often enough by a linendraper, ‘Make an inferior article, so as it’s cheap: if it comes to pieces in a month, what’s that to you or me?’ Now, a 4-foot loo is an average; and if for profit and labour—and it’s near two days’ work—I put on 7s., I’m bid 5s. less. I’ve been bid less than the stuff, and have on occasions been forced to take it. That was four years ago; and I then found I couldn’t possibly live by my own work, and I had a wife and four children to keep; so I got some apprentices. I have now three, and two of them are stiff fellows of 18, and can do a deal of work. For a 4-foot loo table I have only 1l., though the materials cost from 11s. to 13s., and it’s about two days’ work. There’s not a doubt of it that the linendrapers have brought bad work into the market, and have swamped the good. For work that, ten or twelve years ago, I had 3l. 5s. to 3l. 10s. from them, I have now 30s. Of course, it’s inferior in quality in proportion, but it doesn’t pay me half as well. I know that men like me are cutting one another’s throats by competition. Fourteen years ago we ought to have made a stand against this system; but, then, we must live.”