3 ft. of solid ⅝ mahogany1s.0d.
2 ft. of solid ⅜ cedar for bottom, &c.06
Mahogany top03
Bead cedar for interior06
Lining04
Lock and key (no ward to lock)02
Hinges01
Glue and springs01½
211½

The making of the desk occupied four hours, as he bestowed extra pains upon it, and he sold it to a slaughterer for 3s. 6d. He then broke his fast on bread and water, bought material for a second desk and went to work again, and so he proceeds now; toiling and half-starving, and struggling to get 20s. a-head of the world to buy more wood at one time, and not pause so often in his work. “Perhaps,” said my informant, “he’ll marry, as most of the small masters do, some foolish servant-of-all-work, who has saved 3l. or 4l., and that will be his capital.”

Another general cabinet-maker commenced business on 30s., a part of which he expended in the material for a 4-foot chest of drawers.

3 ft. 6 inches of cedar for ends4s.0d.
Sets of mahogany veneers for three big and two little drawers24
Drawer sweep (deal to veneer the front upon)26
Veneer for top13
Extras (any cheap wood) for inside of drawers, partitioning, &c.50
5 locks18
8 knobs, 1s., glue, sprigs, &c.14
Set of four turned feet, beech-stained16
197

For the article when completed he received 25s., toiling at it for 27 or 28 hours. The tradesman from whom I derived this information, and who was familiar with every branch of the trade, calculated that three-fifths of the working cabinet-makers of London make for the warehouses—in other words, that there are 3000 small masters in the trade. The most moderate computation was that the number so employed exceed one half of the entire body of the 5000 metropolitan journeymen.

The next point in this inquiry is concerning the industry and productiveness of this class of workmen. Of over-work, as regards excessive labour, and of over-production from scamped workmanship, I heard the following accounts which different operatives, both in the fancy and general cabinet trade concurred in giving, while some represented the labour as of longer duration by at least an hour, and some by two hours a day, than I have stated.

The labour of the men who depend entirely on the slaughter-houses for the purchase of their articles, with all the disadvantages that I described in a former letter, is usually seven days a week the year through. That is seven days—for Sunday-work is all but universal—each of 13 hours, or 91 hours in all, while the established hours of labour in the honourable trade are six days of the week, each of 10 hours, or 60 hours in all. Thus 50 per cent is added to the extent of the production of low-priced cabinet work merely from over-hours, but in some cases I heard of 15 hours for seven days in the week, or 105 hours in all. The exceptions to this continuous toil are from one to three hours once or twice in the week, when the workman is engaged in purchasing his material of a timber merchant, who sells it in small quantities, and from six to eight hours when he is employed in conveying his goods to a warehouse, or from warehouse to warehouse for sale. Concerning the hours of labour I had the following minute particulars from a garret-master who was a chairmaker.

“I work from 6 every morning to 9 at night—some work till 10—I breakfast at 8, which stops me for 10 minutes. I can breakfast in less time, but it’s a rest; my dinner takes me say 20 minutes at the outside, and my tea 8 minutes. All the rest of the time I’m slaving at my bench. How many minutes’ rest is that, sir? 38. Well, say three-quarters of an hour, and that allows a few sucks at a pipe when I rest; but I can smoke and work too. I have only one room to work and eat in, or I should lose more time. Altogether I labour 14¼ hours every day, and I must work on Sundays at least 40 Sundays in the year. One may as well work as sit fretting. But on Sundays I only work till it’s dusk, or till five or six in summer. When it’s dusk I take a walk; I’m not well-dressed enough for a Sunday walk when its light, and I can’t wear my apron very well on that day to hide patches. But there’s eight hours that I reckon I take up every week in dancing about to the slaughterers’. I’m satisfied that I work very nearly 100 hours a-week the year through, deducting the time taken up by the slaughterers and buying stuff—say eight hours a-week, it gives more than 90 hours a-week for my work, and there’s hundreds labour as hard as I do just for a crust.”

This excessive toil, however, is but one element of over-production. Scamping adds at least 200 per cent to the productions of the cabinet-maker’s trade. I have ascertained several cases of this over-work from scamping, and adduce two. A very quick hand, a little master, working as he called it “at a slaughtering pace” for a warehouse, made 60 plain writing desks in a week of 90 hours, whilst a first-rate workman, also a quick hand, made 18 in a week of 70 hours. The scamping hand said he must work at the rate he did to make 14s. a-week from a slaughter-house, and so used to such style of work had he become, that though a few years back he did west-end work in the best style, he could not now make 18 desks in a week, if compelled to finish them in the style of excellence displayed in the work of the journeyman employed for the honourable trade. Perhaps, he added, he couldn’t make them in that style at all. The frequent use of rosewood veneers in the fancy cabinet, and their occasional use in the general cabinet trade, gives, I was told, great facilities for scamping. If, in his haste, the scamping hand injure the veneer, or if it has been originally faulty, he takes a mixture of gum shellac and “colour,” (colour being a composition of Venetian red and lamp black) which he has already by him, rubs it over the damaged part, smooths it with a slightly heated iron, and so blends it with the colour of the rosewood that the warehouseman does not detect the flaw. Indeed, I was told that very few warehousemen are judges of the furniture they bought, and they only require it to look well enough for sale to the public, who know even less than themselves. In the general cabinet trade I found the same ratio of scamping, compared with the products of skilled labour in the honourable trade. A good workman made a 4-foot mahogany chest of drawers in five days, working the regular hours, and receiving at piece-work price 35s. A scamping hand made five of the same size in a week, and had time to carry them for sale to the warehouses, wait for their purchase or refusal, and buy material. But for the necessity of doing this the scamping hand could have made seven in the 91 hours of his week, of course in a very inferior manner. They would hold together for a time, I was assured, and that was all; but the slaughterers cared only to have them viewy and cheap. These two cases exceed the average, and I have cited them to show what can be done under the scamping system.

I now come to show how this scamp work is executed, that is to say, by what helps or assistants when such are employed. As in all trades where lowness of wages is the rule, the apprentice system prevails among the cheap cabinet-workers. It prevails, however, among the garret-masters, by very many of them having one, two, three, or four apprentices, and so the number of boys thus employed through the whole trade is considerable. This refers principally to the general cabinet trade. In the fancy trade the number is greater, as the boys’ labour is more readily available, but in this trade the greatest number of apprentices is employed by such warehousemen as are manufacturers, as some at the east end are—or rather by the men that they constantly keep at work. Of these men one has now 8, and another 14 boys in his service, some apprenticed, some merely engaged and discharged at pleasure. A sharp boy, thus apprenticed, in six or eight months becomes handy, but four out of five of the workmen thus brought up can do nothing well but their own particular branch, and that only well as far as celerity in production is considered.