Comparative Table of Drunkenness of the different Trades in London.
Above the Average.
Below the Average.
| Carvers and Gilders | 125·2 |
| Artificial Flower Makers | 128·1 |
| Bookbinders | 148·6 |
| Greengrocers | 157·4 |
| Watchmakers | 204·2 |
| Grocers | 226·6 |
| Clockmakers | 286·0 |
| Parish officers | 373·0 |
| Clergymen | 417·0 |
| Servants | 585·7 |
The above calculations have been made from the Official Returns of the Metropolitan Police. The causes of the different degrees of intemperance here exhibited, I leave to others to discover.
After the meeting of coalwhippers just described, I requested some of the men who had expressed the various opinions respecting the necessity for drinking some kind of fermented liquor during their work to meet me, so that I might take down their sentiments on the subject more fully. First of all, came two of the most intelligent, who believed malt liquor to be necessary for the performance of their labour. One was a basketman or fireman, and the other an “up-and-down” man, or whipper; the first doing the lighter, and the second the heavier kind of work. The basketman, who I afterwards discovered was a good Greek and Latin scholar, said: “If I have anything like a heavy day’s work to do, I consider three pints of porter a-day necessary. We are not like other labouring men, having an hour to dinner. Often, to save tide, we take only ten minutes to our meals. One thing I wish to remark is, that what renders it necessary to have the three pints of beer in winter, and two pots in summer, is the coal-dust arising from the work, which occasions great thirst. In the summer time the basketman is on the plank all day, and continually exposed to the sun, and in the winter to the inclemency of the weather. What with the labour and the heat, the perspiration is excessive. A basketman with a bad gang of men has no sinecure. In the summer he can wear neither coat nor waistcoat; very few can bear the hat on the head, and they wear nightcaps instead. The work is always done, in summer time, with only the shirt and trousers on. The basketman never takes off his shirt, like the whippers. The necessity for drink in the summer does not arise so much from the extent of the labour, as from the irritation caused by the coal-dust getting into the throat. There is not so much dust from the coals in the winter as in the summer, the coals being more damp in wet than in fine weather. It is merely the thirst that makes the drink requisite, as far as the basketman is concerned. Tea would allay the thirst, but there is no opportunity of having this on board ship. If there were an opportunity of having tea at our work, the basketman might manage to do with it as well as with beer. Water I don’t fancy, especially the water of the river; it is very impure, and at the time of the cholera we were prohibited from drinking it. If we could get pure water, I do not think it would do as well for us, especially in winter time. In winter time it would be too cold, and too great a contrast to the heat of the blood. It would, in my opinion, produce stagnation in the circulation. We have had instances of men dying suddenly through drinking water when in a state of excitement.” [He distinguishes between excitement and perspiration: he calls the basketman’s labour an exciting one, and the whipper’s work a heating one.] “The men who died suddenly were whippers. I never heard of a basketman dying from drinking cold water when at his work; I don’t think they ever tried the experiment. The whippers have done so through necessity, not through choice. Tea is a beverage that I don’t fancy, and I conceive it to be equally expensive, so I prefer porter. When I go off to my work early in the morning, I take about a pint of coffee with me in a bottle, and warm it up on board at the galley-fire for my breakfast; that I find quenches my thirst for the time as well as porter. Porter would be too insipid the first thing in the morning; I never drank coffee through the day while at my work, so I cannot say what the effect would be. I drink porter when at my work, not as giving me greater strength to go through my labour, but merely as a means of quenching my thirst, it being as cheap as any other drink, with the exception of water, and less trouble to procure. Water I consider dangerous at our work, but I can’t say that it is so from my own experience. I was in the hospital about seven years ago, and the doctor there asked me how many pints of beer I was in the habit of drinking per day. This was before the office was established. I told him, on the lowest calculation, six or seven; it was the case then under the old system; and he then ordered me two pints of porter a-day, as I was very weak, and he said I wanted a stimulus. I am not aware that it is the habit of the publicans to adulterate their porter with salt and water. If such is the case, it would, without a doubt, increase rather than diminish the thirst. I have often found that the beer sold by some of the publicans tends more to create than allay thirst. I am confident, that if the working men generally knew that salt and water was invariably mixed with the porter by the publicans, they would no longer hold to the notion that it could quench their thirst; but, to convince them of that, it would be almost necessary that they should see the publican adulterating the beer with their own eyes. If it really is the case that beer is adulterated with salt and water, it must be both injurious and heating to the labouring man. Some of the men who are in the habit of drinking porter at their work, very probably attribute the thirst created by the salt and water in the porter to the thirst created by the coal-dust or the work, and continue drinking it from the force of habit. The habit of drinking is doubtlessly the effect of the old system, when the men were forced to drink by the publicans who paid them. A most miraculous change, and one unparalleled in history, has been produced by altering the old mode of employing and paying the men. The reformation in the morals and character of the men is positively wonderful. The sons are no longer thieves, and the daughters are no longer prostitutes. Formerly it was a competition who could drink the most, for he who could do so got the most work. The introduction for a job was invariably, ‘You know, Mr. So and So, I’m a good drinking man.’ Seeing the benefit that has resulted from the men not drinking so much as formerly, I am of opinion that, though I take my beer every day myself, a great good would ensue if the men would drink even less than they do now, and eat more; it would be more conducive to their health and strength. But they have not the same facility for getting food over their work as there is for getting beer. You see, they can have credit for beer when they can’t get a morsel of food on trust. There are no floating butchers or bakers, like there are floating publicans or purlmen. If there were, and men could have trust for bread and meat while at their work on the river, I am sure they would eat more and drink less, and be all the better for it. It would be better for themselves and for their families. The great evil of the drink is, that when a man has a little he often wants more, and doesn’t know where to stop. When he once passes the ‘rubi-can,’ as I call it, he is lost. If it wasn’t for this evil, I think a pint or two of porter would make them do their work better than either tea or water. Our labour is peculiar. The air is always full of coal-dust, and every nerve and muscle of the body is strained, and every pore of the body open, so that he requires some drink that will counteract the cold.”
The next two that I saw were men who did the heaviest work; that is, “up-and-down men,” or coalwhippers, as they are usually called. They had both of them been teetotalers. One had been so for eight years, and the other had tried it for three months. One who stood at least six feet and a half high, and was habited in a long blue great coat that reached to his heels, and made him look even taller than he was, said,—“I was a strict teetotaler for many years, and I wish I could be so now. All that time I was a coalwhipper at the heaviest work, and I have made one of a gang that have done as many as 180 tons in one day. I drank no fermented liquor the whole of the time; I had only ginger-beer and milk, and that cost me 1s. 6d. It was in the summer time. I didn’t ‘buff it’ on that day; that is, I didn’t take my shirt off. I did this work at the Regent’s Canal; and there was a little milk-shop close on shore, and I used to run there when I was dry. I had about two quarts of milk and five bottles of ginger-beer, or about three quarts of fluid altogether. I found that amount of drink necessary. I perspired very violently; my shirt was wet through, and my flannels wringing wet with the perspiration over the work. The rule among us is, that we do 28 tons on deck, and 28 tons filling in the ship’s hold. We go on in that way throughout the day, spelling at every 28 tons. The perspiration in the summer time streams down our foreheads so rapidly, that it will often get into our eyes before we have time to wipe it off. This makes the eyes very sore. At night, when we get home, we cannot bear to sit with a candle. The perspiration is of a very briny nature, for I often taste it as it runs down to my lips. We are often so heated over our work that the perspiration runs into the shoes; and often, from the dust and heat, jumping up and down, and the feet being galled with the small dust, I have had my shoes full of blood. The thirst produced by our work is very excessive; it is completely as if you had a fever upon you. The dust gets into the throat, and very nearly suffocates you. You can scrape the coal-dust off the tongue with the teeth; and do what you will it is impossible to get the least spittle into the mouth. I have known the coal-dust to be that thick in a ship’s hold, that I have been unable to see my mate, though he was only two feet from me. Your legs totter under you, both before and after you are a teetotaler. I was one of the strongest men in the business; I was able to carry 7 cwt. on my back for fifty yards, and I could lift nine half-hundreds with my right-arm. After finishing my day’s work I was like a child with weakness. When we have done 14 or 28 tons, we generally stop for a drop of drink, and then I have found that anything that would wet my mouth would revive me. Cold tea, milk, or ginger-beer, were refreshing, but not so much as a pint of porter. Cold water would give a pain in the inside, so that a man would have to lie down and be taken ashore, and, perhaps, give up work altogether. Many a man has been taken to the hospital merely through drinking cold water over his work. They have complained of a weight and coldness in the chest; they say it has chilled the fat of the heart. I can positively state,” continued the man, “that during the whole of eight years I took no fermented drink. My usual drink was cold tea, milk, ginger-beer, or coffee, whichever I could catch: the ginger-beer was more lively than the milk; but I believe I could do more work upon the milk. Tea I found much better than coffee. Cold tea was very refreshing; but if I didn’t take it with me in a bottle, it wasn’t to be had. I used to take a quart of cold tea with me in a bottle, and make that do for me all day, as well as I could. The ginger-beer was the most expensive, and would cost me a shilling, or more than that if I could get it. The milk would cost me sixpence or eightpence. For tea and coffee the expense would be about twopence the day. But often I have done the whole day’s work without any drink, because I would not touch beer, and then I was more fit to be carried home than walk. I have known many men scarcely able to crawl up the ladder out of the hold, they were so fatigued. For myself, being a very strong man, I was never so reduced, thank God. But often, when I’ve got home, I’ve been obliged to drink three pints of milk at a stretch, before I could touch a bit of victuals. As near as I can guess it used to cost me, when at work, a shilling a-day for ginger-beer, milk, and other teetotal drinks. When I was not at work my drink used to cost me little or nothing. For eight years I stuck to the pledge, but I found myself failing in strength and health; I found that I couldn’t go through a day’s work as clever as I used before I left off drink, and when first I was a teetotaler. I found myself failing in every inch of my carcase, my limbs, my body and all. Of my own free-will I gave it up. I did not do it in a fit of passion, but deliberately, because I was fully satisfied that it was injuring my health. Shortly after taking the pledge I found I could have more meat than I used to have before, and I found that I neither got strong nor weak upon it. After about five years my appetite began to fail, and then I found my strength leaving me; so I made up my mind to alter the system. When I returned to beer, I found myself getting better in health and stronger daily. Before I was a teetotaler I used to drink heavy, but after teetotalism I was a temperate man. I am sure it is necessary for a hard-working man that he should drink beer. He can’t do his work so well without it as he can with it, in moderation. If he goes beyond his allowance he is better without any. I have taken to drinking beer again within the last twelve months. As long as a man does not go beyond his allowance in beer, his drink will cost him quite as much when he is teetotaler as it will when he has not taken the pledge. The difference between the teetotal and fermented drinks I find to be this:—When I drank milk it didn’t make me any livelier; it quenched my thirst, but didn’t give me any strength. But when I drank a pint or a quart of beer, it did me so much good after a day’s labour, that after drinking it I could get up and go to my work again. This feeling would continue for a considerable time; indeed, I think the beer is much better for a hard-working man than any unfermented drink. I defy any man in England to contradict me in what I say, and that is—a man who takes his reasonable quantity of beer, and a fair share of food, is much better with it than without.”
Another man, who had been a teetotaler for three months at one time, and seven years at another, was convinced that it was impossible for a hard-working man to do his work as well without beer as with. “He had tried it twice, and he spoke from his own experience, and he would say that a little—that is, two pints, or three for a very hard day’s labour,—would never hurt no man. Beyond that a man has no right to go; indeed, anything extra only makes him stupid. Under the old system, I used to be obliged to buy rum; and, over and over again, I’ve had to pay fifteen-pence for half-a-pint of rum in a ginger-beer bottle; and have gone into the street and sold it for sixpence, and got a steak with the money. No man can say drink has ruined my constitution, for I’ve only had two pennyworth of antibilious pills in twenty-five years; and I will say, a little beer does a man more good than harm, and too much does a man more harm than good.”
The next two “whippers” that I saw were both teetotalers. One had taken the pledge eight months before, and the other four years; and they had both kept it strictly. One had been cellarman at a public-house, and he said, “I neither take spruce nor any of the cordials: water is my beverage at dinner.” The other had been an inveterate drunkard. The cellarman is now a basketman, and the other an up-and-down man, or whipper, in the same gang. The basketman said, “I can say this from my own experience,—that it is not necessary for a working man, doing the very hardest labour, to drink fermented liquors. I was an up-and-down man for two years, without tasting a drop of beer or spirits. I have helped to whip 189 tons of coal in one day, without any; and that in the heat of summer. What I had with me was a bottle of cocoa; and I took with that plenty of steak, potatoes, and bread. If the men was to take more meat and less beer, they would do much better. It’s a delusion to think beer necessary. Often, the men who say the beer is necessary will deliver a ship, aye, and not half-a-dozen half-pints be drank aboard. The injury is done ashore. The former custom of our work—the compulsory system of drinking that we were under,—has so imbedded the idea of drink in the men, that they think it is actually necessary. It’s not the least to be wondered at, that there’s so many drunkards among them. I do not think we shall ever be able to undo the habit of drinking among the whippers in this generation. As far as I am concerned, since I’ve been a teetotaler, I have enjoyed a more regular state of health than I used before. Now that I am a basketman, I drink only water with my dinner; and during my work I take nothing. I have got a ship in hands—going to work on Monday morning. I shall have to run backwards and forwards on a one-and-twenty-foot plank, and deliver 300 tons of coals: and I shall do that upon water. That man,” pointing to the teetotaler who accompanied him, “will be in it, and he’ll have to help to pull the coals twenty foot above the deck; and he’ll do it all upon water. When I was a coalwhipper myself, I used to drink cocoa. I took it cold with me of a morning, and warmed it aboard. They prophesied it would kill me in a week; and I know it’s done me every good in life. I have drunk water when I was a-working up-and-down, and when I was in the highest perspiration, and never found it injure me. It allays the thirst more than anything. If it didn’t allay the thirst I should want to drink often: but if I take a drink of water from the cask I find my thirst immediately quenched. Many of the men who drink beer will take a drink of water afterwards, because the beer increases their thirst, and heats them. That, I believe, is principally from the salt water in it: in fact, it stands to reason, that if beer is half brine it can’t quench thirst. Ah! it’s shocking stuff the purlmen make up for them on the river. When I was drinking beer at my employment, I used seldom to exceed three pints of beer a-day: that is what I took on board. What I had on shore was not, of course, to help me to do my labour. I know the beer used to inflame my thirst, because I’ve had to drink water after it over and over again. I never made a habit of drinking,—not since the establishment of the office. Previous to that, of course, I was obliged to drink. I’ve got ‘jolly’ now and then, but I never made a habit of it. It used to cost me about two shillings or two shillings and sixpence a-week, on the average, for drink, at the uttermost; because I couldn’t afford more. Since I’ve taken the pledge, I’m sure it hasn’t cost me sixpence a-week. A teetotaler feels less thirst than any other man. I don’t know what natural thirst is, except I’ve been eating salt provisions. I belong to a total abstinence society, and there are about a dozen coalwhippers, and about the same number of coalbackers, members of it. Some have been total abstainers for twelve years, and are living witnesses that fermented drinks are not necessary for working men. There are about two hundred to two hundred and fifty coalwhippers, I have been given to understand, who are teetotalers. Those coalwhippers who have been total abstainers for twelve years, are not weaker or worse in health for the want of beer.” [This statement was denied by a person present; but a gentleman, who was intimately acquainted with the whole body, mentioned the names of several men who had been, some ten years, and some upwards of twelve years, strict adherents to the principles of teetotalism.] “The great quantity of drinking is carried on ashore. I should say the men generally drink twice as much ashore as they do afloat. Those who drink beer are always thirsty. Through drinking over their work, a thirst is created aboard, which they set to drinking, when ashore, to allay; and, after a hard day’s labour, a very little overcomes a man. One or two pots of beer, and the man is loth to stir. He is tired; and the drink, instead of refreshing him, makes him sleepy and heavy. The next morning after drinking he is thirstier still; and then he goes to work drinking again. The perspiration will start out of him in large drops, like peas. You will see it stream down his face and his hands, with the coal-dust sticking to them, just like as if he had a pair of silk gloves on him. It’s a common saying with us, about such a man, that ‘he’s got the gloves on.’ The drunkards always perspire the most over their work. The prejudice existing among the men in favour of drink is such, that they believe they would die without it. I am quite astonished to see such an improvement among them as there is; and I do think that, if the clergymen of the neighbourhood did their duty, and exerted themselves, the people would be better still. At one time there were as many as five hundred coalwhippers total abstainers; and the men were much better clothed, and the homes and appearance of the whippers were much more decent. What I should do if I drank, I don’t know. I got 1l. for clearing a ship last week, and shan’t get any more till Monday night; and I have six children and a wife to keep out of that. For this last fortnight I have only made 10s. a-week, so I am sure I couldn’t even afford a shilling a-week for drink, without robbing my family.”