London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. 3

by Henry Mayhew

To ascertain that there was no provident fund—no provision whatever for sickness—I investigated the case of a man who, in consequence of illness occasioned by his trade, was afflicted with a pulmonary complaint. This man was formerly one of the wine-cellarmen in the London Dock; he was then made a permanent man at the St. Katherine’s Dock, and was dismissed for having taken a lighted pipe in while at his work; and for the last fourteen years and upwards he has been a ballast-heaver. I now give his wife’s statement:—“My husband has been ill for three months, and he has been six weeks in Guy’s Hospital, and I am afraid he’ll never get out again, for he kept up as long as he could for the sake of the children. We have five at home; one of them (twelve years old) I hope to get to sea, having two older sons at sea, and being the mother of twelve children altogether. I will tell you what led to my poor husband’s illness; he was a kind husband to me. I consider it was his hard work that made him ill, and his not getting his rights—not his money when entitled to it. After doing a heavy day’s work he had to go and sit in a cold tap-room, drinking bad beer; but it wasn’t beer—muck, I call it—and he had to wait to be paid, ay, and might have had to wait till the day after, and then come home cold and have to go to bed without a bit of victuals. His illness is owing to that; no horse could stand it long. Ballast-men are worse than slaves in the West Indies. When at work he earned what the others did. He only drank what he couldn’t help—the worst of stuff. No drink, no work. Six weeks ago he went to the hospital, I conveying him. When I returned home I found three strange men had turned my four children into the street, doing it in a brutal way. I rushed into the house, and one said, ‘Who are you?’ I seized the fellow who said this by the handkerchief, and put him out. One of them said, ‘Be off, you old Irish hag, you have no business here; we have possession.’ When I saw the children in the street, passion made me strong, and so I put him out. The collector of the rent, who employed the broker, is a publican, for whom my husband worked as a ballast-heaver until he was unable to work from illness. I was given into custody for an assault, and taken before Mr. Yardley. He considered the assault proved, and as an honest woman I couldn’t deny it, and so I had fourteen days with bread and water. The children were placed in the workhouse, where they were well treated. I was very glad they were so taken care of. As soon as I got out I went to see about my children; that was the first thing I did. I couldn’t rest till I did that. I brought them home with me, though it was only to bread and water, but I was with them. I only owed about 15s. rent, and had been four years in the house at the time the publican put the broker in. We paid 6s. 6d. a-week; it was no use asking such a man as that any mercy. He was in the habit of employing ballast-heavers for many years; and if that doesn’t harden a man’s heart, nothing will. In general these ballast publicans are cruel and greedy. At present I go out washing or charing, or doing anything I can to maintain my children, but work’s very slack. I’ve had a day and a-half this fortnight, earning 2s. 6d., that’s all for a fortnight; the parish allows me four loaves of bread a-week. The children, all boys, just get what keeps a little life in them. They have no bed at night, and are starved almost to death, poor things. I blame the system under which my husband had to work—his money going in drink—for leaving me destitute in the world. On Christmas-day we lived on a bit of workhouse bread—nothing else, and had no fire to eat it by. But for the money gone in drink we might have had a decent home, and wouldn’t so soon have come to this killing poverty. I have been tenderly reared, and never thought I should have come to this. May God grant the system may be done away with, for poor people’s sake.”

I now give the statement of two women, the wives of ballast-heavers, that I may further show how the wives and families of these men are affected by the present system.

“I have been 11 years married,” said one, “and have had five children, four being now living.”

The other woman had been married 23 years, but has no children living.

“We are very badly off,” said the woman with a family, “my husband drinking hard. When I first knew him—when we were sweethearts in a country part of Ireland—he was a farm-labourer and I was a collier’s daughter, he was a sober and well-behaved man. Two years after we were married, and he was a sober man those two years still. We came to London to better ourselves, worse luck. The first work he got was ballast-heaving. Then he was obligated to drink or he couldn’t get work; and so, poor man, he got fond of it. This winter oft enough he brings me and the children home 2s. or 1s. 6d. after a job; and on that we may live for two or three days,—we’re half starved, in course. The children have nothing to eat. It’s enough to tear any poor woman’s heart to pieces. What’s gone into the publican’s till would get the children bread, and bedding, and bits of clothes. Nothing but his being employed at ballast-heaving made him a drunkard, for he is a drunkard now. He often comes home and ill-uses me, but he doesn’t ill-use the children. He beats me with his fists; he strikes me in the face; he has kicked me. When he was a sober man he was a kind, good husband; and when he’s sober now, poor man, he’s a kind, good husband still. If he was a sober man again with his work, I’d be happy and comfortable to what I am now. Almost all his money goes in drink.”

“We can’t get shoes to our feet,” said the second woman.

“When my husband is sober and begins to think,” (continued the first,) “he wishes he could get rid of such a system of drinking,—he really does wish it, for he loves his family, but when he goes out to work he forgets all that. It’s just the drink that does it. I would like him to have a fair allowance at his work, he requires it; and beyond that it’s all waste and sin: but he’s forced to waste it, and to run into sin, and so we all have to suffer. We are often without fire. Much in the pawn-shop do you say, sir? Indeed I haven’t much out.”

“We,” interposed the elder woman, “haven’t a stitch but what’s in pawn except what wouldn’t be taken. We have 50s. worth in pawn altogether—all for meat and fire.”

“I can’t, I daren’t,” the younger woman said, “expect anything better while the present system of work continues. My husband’s a slave, and we suffer for it.”

The elder woman made a similar statement. After his score is paid, she said, her husband has brought her 4s., 3s., 2s., 1s., and often nothing, coming home drunk with nothing at all. Both women stated that the drink made their husbands sick and ill, and for sickness there was no provision whatever. They could have taken me to numbers of women situated and used as they were. The rooms are four bare walls, with a few pieces of furniture and bedding such as no one would give a penny for. The young woman was perfectly modest in manner, speech, and look, and spoke of what her husband was and still might be with much feeling. She came to me with a half-clad and half-famished child in her arms.