Some inquiries were then made as to whether these poor women were ill-treated by their husbands when they came home in a state of intoxication. There was a good deal of hesitation before any answers could be obtained. At last one woman said, “her husband did certainly beat her, of course; but then,” she added, “he did not know what he was doing.”
“I,” said another, “should not know what it was to have an angry word with my husband if he was always sober. He is a quiet man—very, when the drink is out of him; but we have many words together when he is tipsy; and——” she stopped without completing the sentence.
Several others gave similar testimony; and many declared that it was the public-house system which led their husbands to drink.
One woman here said that the foremen of gangs, as well as the publican, helped to reduce the ballast-heaver’s earnings; for they gave work to men who took lodgings from them, though they did not occupy them.
This was confirmed by another woman, who spoke with great warmth upon the subject. She said that married men who could not afford to spend with the publican and lodge with the foremen in the manner pointed out, would be sure to have no work. Other men went straight from one job to another, while her own husband and other women’s husbands had been three or four weeks without lifting a shovelful of ballast. She considered this was very hard on men who had families.
A question was here asked, whether any women were present whose husbands, in order to obtain work, were obliged to pay for lodgings which they did not use?
One immediately rose and said, “They do it regularly at a publican’s in Wapping; and I know the men that have paid for them have had six jobs together, when my husband has had none for weeks.” “There are now,” added another, “fourteen at that very place who never lodge there, though they are paying for lodgings.”
They were next asked, who had suffered from want owing to their husbands drinking their earnings, as described at the public-houses in question?
“Starvation has been my lot,” said one. “And mine,” added another. “My children,” said a third, “have often gone to bed at night without breaking their fast the whole length of the day.” “And mine,” said one, “have many a time gone without a bit or sup of anything all the day, through their father working for the publican.”
“I cannot,” exclaimed the next, “afford my children a ha’porth of milk a-day.”