The seven curses of London

by James Greenwood

“O, he sells ’em to the others for what they’ll give for ’em, to put along with theirs. A halfpenny or a penny—anything. He’s glad to take it; it’s that or none.”

“And do you have many come here who can’t break half a yard of granite in a day?”

“Lots of ’em. But they don’t come again; one taste of Paddington is enough for ’em.”

What does the reader think of the “labour-test” in this case?

An institution has, it appears, been established by the Birmingham guardians since the autumn of 1867, for the employment of able-bodied women in oakum-picking for out-door relief, the result of which has been, that not only has the workhouse been relieved of a large number of troublesome inmates of this class, with whom it was previously crowded, but the applications for relief have diminished in a proportionate ratio. Every effort is made to induce the women thus employed to seek for more profitable employment, and the applications at the establishment for female labour are said to be numerous. The superintendent, who was formerly matron at the Birmingham workhouse, reports to Mr. Corbett, that “from the opening of the establishment about fifteen months ago, nineteen have been hired as domestic servants, ten have obtained engagements in other situations, and two have married.” In addition to these, some forty have obtained temporary employment, of whom three only have returned to work for relief at the end of the year. The total estimated saving on orders issued for work, as compared with the maintenance of the women as inmates of the workhouse, during the year ending 29th September last, is calculated to have been 646l. 0s. 7d. Indeed, so satisfactory has been the working of the system during the first year of its existence, that the guardians have resolved to apply the same test to the male applicants for relief, and a neighbouring house has been engaged and fitted-up for putting a similar plan in operation with respect to men. The total number of orders issued during the first twelve months after this establishment for female labour was opened was 719; of which, however, only 456 were used, the other applicants either not being in want of the relief asked for, or having found work elsewhere. Each woman is required to pick 3 lbs. of oakum per diem, for which she receives 9d., or 4s. 6d. per week; and if she has one or more children, she is allowed at the rate of 3d. a-day additional relief for each child. The highest number paid for during any week has been 95 women and 25 children. Some days during the summer there has been but one at work, and in the last week of December last there were but eleven. The house is said to be “virtually cleared of a most troublesome class of inmates.”

The guardians of St. Margaret and St. John, Westminster, have, it appears, adopted a system embracing that pursued both at Manchester and Birmingham, and have provided accommodation for employing able-bodied women out of the workhouse both in oakum-picking and needlework; and, say the committee, “a similar course will probably be found advantageous in other metropolitan parishes or unions, whenever the number of this class who are applicants for relief exceeds the accommodation or the means of employment which can be found for them within the workhouse. At the same time we would especially urge that provision should be made in every workhouse for a better classification of the able-bodied women, and for the steady and useful employment of this class of inmates. Those who are not employed in the laundry and washhouse, or in scrubbing, bed-making, or other domestic work, should be placed under the superintendence of a firm and judicious task-mistress, and engaged in mending, making, and cutting-out all the linen and clothing required for the workhouse and infirmary; and much work might be done in this way for the new asylums about to be built under the provisions of the Metropolitan Poor Act.” This plan of a large needle-room presided over by an efficient officer has been found most successful in its results at the new workhouse of the Manchester guardians, as well in improving the character of the young women who remain any time in the house, and fitting them for home duties after they leave, as in deterring incorrigible profligates from resorting to the workhouse, as they were in the habit of doing. Many now come into our metropolitan workhouses who can neither knit nor sew nor darn a stocking. This they can at least be taught to do; and we gather from the experience of Manchester, that while at first to the idle and dissolute the enforced silence and order of the needle-room is far more irksome than the comparative license and desultory work of the ordinary oakum-room, those who of necessity remain in the house are found by degrees to acquire habits of order and neatness, and thus become better fitted for domestic duties. The following scale of relief for able-bodied paupers, relieved out of the workhouse and set to work pursuant to the provisions of the Out-door Relief Regulation Order, is recommended for adoption by the various Boards of Guardians represented at a recent conference held under the presidency of Mr. Corbett:

For a man with wife and one child, 6d. and 4 lbs. of bread per day; for a man with wife and two children, 7d. and 4 lbs. of bread per day; for a man with wife and three children, 7d. and 6 lbs. of bread per day; for a man with wife and four children, 8d. and 6 lbs. of bread per day; for a man with wife and five children, 9d. and 6 lbs. of bread per day; single man, 4d. and 2 lbs. of bread per day; single women or widows, 4d. and 2 lbs. of bread per day, with an additional 3d. per day for each child; widowers with families to be relieved as if with wife living.

Where a widow with one or more young children dependent on her and incapable of contributing to his, her, or their livelihood, can be properly relieved out of the workhouse, that she be ordinarily allowed relief at the rate of 1s. and one loaf for each child; the relief that may be requisite for the mother beyond this to be determined according to the special exigency of the case. That widows without children should, as a rule, after a period not exceeding three months from the commencement of their widowhood, be relieved only in the workhouse. Where the husband of any woman is beyond the seas, or in custody of the law, or in confinement in an asylum or licensed house as a lunatic or idiot, such woman should be dealt with as a widow; but where a woman has been recently deserted by her husband, and there are grounds for supposing he has gone to seek for work, although out-door relief may be ordered for two or three weeks, to give him time to communicate with his family, yet, after such reasonable time has elapsed, the wife and family should, as a rule, be taken into the workhouse, and proceedings taken against the husband. That the weekly relief to an aged or infirm man or woman be from 2s. 6d. to 3s. 6d. weekly, partly in money and partly in kind, according to his or her necessity; that the weekly relief to aged and infirm couples be 4s. to 5s., in money or in kind, according to their necessities; that when thought advisable, relief in money only may be given to those of the out-door poor who are seventy years of age and upwards.

It appears from a recent statement that the guardians of Eversham union applied not long since for the sanction of the Poor-law Board to a scheme for boarding-out the orphan children of the workhouse with cottagers at 3s. a-week, and 10s. a-quarter for clothing; the children to be sent regularly to school, and to attend divine worship on Sundays; with the provision that after ten years of age the children may be employed in labour approved by the guardians, and the wages divided between the guardians and the person who lodges and clothes them, in addition to the above payments. In a letter dated the 3d April 1869, the Secretary of the Poor-law Board states that, provided they could be satisfied that a thorough system of efficient supervision and control would be established by the guardians, and the most rigid inquiry instituted at short intervals into the treatment and education of the children, the Board have come to the conclusion that they ought not to discourage the guardians from giving the plan a fair trial, though they cannot be insensible to the fact that a grave responsibility is thereby incurred. The Secretary mentions particulars regarding which especial care should be taken, such as the health of the children to be placed out, the condition of the persons to whom they are intrusted, and the necessary periodical inspection. The Board will watch the experiment with the greatest interest, but with some anxiety. They request the guardians to communicate to them very fully the detailed arrangements they are determined to make. The Board cannot approve the proposed arrangement as to wages. The guardians have no authority to place out children to serve in any capacity and continue them as paupers. If they are competent to render service, they come within the description of able-bodied persons, and out-door relief would not be lawful. Upon entering into service, they would cease to be paupers, and would have the protection of the provisions of the Act of 1851 relating to young persons hired from a workhouse as servants, or bound out as pauper apprentices. The hiring-out of adults by the guardians is expressly prohibited by 56 George III., c. 129.

The great principle of the Poor-law is to make people do anything rather than go into the workhouse, and the effect is to cause people to sell their furniture before they will submit to the degradation; for degradation it is to an honest hardworking man, and no distinction is made. The effect of the Poor-law has been to drive men away from the country to the large towns, and from one large town to another, till eventually they find their way up to London, and we are now face to face with the large army of vagabonds and vagrants thus created. A man, once compelled to break-up his house, once driven from the locality to which he was attached, and where his family had lived perhaps for centuries, became of necessity a vagrant, and but one short step was needed to make him a thief.