The White Slaves of England

by John C. Cobden

"'I was brought up as a type-founder; my father, who was one, learnt me his trade; but he died when I was quite a young man, or I might have been better perfected in it. I was comfortably off enough then, and got married. Very soon after that I was taken ill with an abscess in my neck, you can see the mark of it still,' [He showed me the mark.] 'For six months I wasn't able to do a thing, and I was a part of the time, I don't recollect how long, in St. Bartholomew's Hospital. I was weak and ill when I came out, and hardly fit for work; I couldn't hear of any work I could get, for there was a great bother in the trade between master and men. Before I went into the hospital, there was money to pay to doctors; and when I came out I could earn nothing, so every thing went; yes, sir, every thing. My wife made a little matter with charing for families she'd lived in, but things are in a bad way if a poor woman has to keep her husband. She was taken ill at last, and then there was nothing but the parish for us. I suffered a great deal before it come to that. It was awful. No one can know what it is but them that suffers it. But I didn't know what in the world to do. We lived then in St. Luke's, and were passed to our own parish, and were three months in the workhouse. The living was good enough, better than it is now, I've heard, but I was miserable.' ['And I was very miserable,' interposed the wife, 'for I had been brought up comfortable; my father was a respectable tradesman in St. George's-in-the-East, and I had been in good situations.'] 'We made ourselves,' said the husband, 'as useful as we could, but we were parted of course. At the three months' end, I had 10s. given to me to come out with, and was told I might start costermongering on it. But to a man not up to the trade, 10s. won't go very far to keep up costering. I didn't feel master enough of my own trade by this time to try for work at it, and work wasn't at all regular. There were good hands earning only 12s. a week. The 10s. soon went, and I had again to apply for relief, and got an order for the stone-yard to go and break stones. Ten bushels was to be broken for 15d. It was dreadful hard work at first. My hands got all blistered and bloody, and I've gone home and cried with pain and wretchedness. At first it was on to three days before I could break the ten bushels. I felt shivered to bits all over my arms and shoulders, and my head was splitting. I then got to do it in two days, and then in one, and it grew easier. But all this time I had only what was reckoned three days' work in a week. That is, you see, sir, I had only three times ten bushels of stones given to break in a week, and earned only 3s. 9d. Yes, I lived on it, and paid 1s. 6d. a week rent, for the neighbours took care of a few sticks for us, and the parish or a broker wouldn't have found them worth carriage. My wife was then in the country with a sister. I lived upon bread and dripping, went without fire or candle (or had one only very seldom) though it wasn't warm weather. I can safely say that for eight weeks I never tasted one bite of meat, and hardly a bite of butter. When I couldn't sleep of a night, but that wasn't often, it was terrible, very. I washed what bits of things I had then, myself, and had sometimes to get a ha'porth of soap as a favour, as the chandler said she 'didn't make less than a penn'orth.' If I ate too much dripping, it made me feel sick. I hardly know how much bread and dripping I ate in a week. I spent what money I had in it and bread, and sometimes went without. I was very weak, you may be sure, sir; and if I'd had the influenza or any thing that way, I should have gone off like a shot, for I seemed to have no constitution left. But my wife came back again and got work at charing, and made about 4s. a week at it; but we were still very badly off. Then I got to work on the roads every day, and had 1s. and a quartern loaf a day, which was a rise. I had only one child then, but men with larger families got two quartern loaves a day. Single men got 9d. a day. It was far easier work than stone-breaking too. The hours were from eight to five in winter, and from seven to six in summer. But there's always changes going on, and we were put on 1s. 1½d. a day and a quartern loaf, and only three days a week. All the same as to time of course. The bread wasn't good; it was only cheap. I suppose there was twenty of us working most of the times as I was. The gangsman, as you call him, but that's more for the regular hands, was a servant of the parish, and a great tyrant. Yes, indeed, when we had a talk among ourselves, there was nothing but grumbling heard of. Some of the tales I've heard were shocking; worse than what I've gone through. Everybody was grumbling, except perhaps two men that had been twenty years in the streets, and were like born paupers. They didn't feel it, for there's a great difference in men. They knew no better. But anybody might have been frightened to hear some of the men talk and curse. We've stopped work to abuse the parish officers as might be passing. We've mobbed the overseers; and a number of us, I was one, were taken before the magistrate for it: but we told him how badly we were off, and he discharged us, and gave us orders into the workhouse, and told 'em to see if nothing could be done for us. We were there till next morning, and then sent away without any thing being said.'"

"'It's a sad life, sir, is a parish worker's. I wish to God I could get out of it. But when a man has children he can't stop and say, "I can't do this," and "I won't do that." Last week, now, in costering, I lost 6s. [he meant that his expenses, of every kind, exceeded his receipts by 6s.,] and though I can distil nectar, or any thing that way, [this was said somewhat laughingly,] it's only when the weather's hot and fine that any good at all can be done with it. I think, too, that there's not the money among working-men that there once was. Any thing regular in the way of pay must always be looked at by a man with a family.

"'Of course the streets must be properly swept, and if I can sweep them as well as Mr. Dodd's men, for I know one of them very well, why should I have only 1s. 4½d. a week and three loaves, and he have 16s., I think it is. I don't drink, my wife knows I don't, [the wife assented,] and it seems as if in a parish a man must be kept down when he is down, and then blamed for it. I may not understand all about it, but it looks queer."'

The third system of parish work, where the labourer is employed regularly, and paid a certain sum out of the parochial fund, is superior to either of the other modes; but still, the labourers are very scantily paid, subjected to a great deal of tyranny by brutal officers, and miserably provided. They endure the severest toil for a wretched pittance, without being able to choose their masters or their employment. No slaves could be more completely at the mercy of their masters.

The common practice of apprenticing children born and reared in workhouses, to masters who may feed, clothe, and beat them as they please, is touchingly illustrated in Dickens's famous story of Oliver Twist. After Oliver had been subjected for some time to the tender mercies of guardians and overseers in the workhouse, it was advertised that any person wanting an apprentice could obtain him, and five pounds as a premium. He narrowly escaped being apprenticed to a sweep, and finally fell into the hands of Mr. Sowerberry, an undertaker. In the house of that dismal personage, he was fed upon cold bits, badly clothed, knocked about unmercifully, and worked with great severity. Such is the common fate of parish apprentices; and we do not think a more truthful conception of the beauties of the system could be conveyed than by quoting from the experience of Dickens's workhouse boy:—

"Oliver had not been within the walls of the workhouse a quarter of an hour, and had scarcely completed the demolition of a second slice of bread, when Mr. Bumble, who had handed him over to the care of an old woman, returned, and, telling him it was a board night, informed him that the board had said he was to appear before it forthwith.

"Not having a very clearly defined notion what a live board was, Oliver was rather astounded by this intelligence, and was not quite certain whether he ought to laugh or cry. He had no time to think about the matter, however; for Mr. Bumble gave him a tap on the head with his cane to wake him up, and another on his back to make him lively, and, bidding him follow, conducted him into a large whitewashed room, where eight or ten fat gentlemen were sitting round a table, at the top of which, seated in an armchair rather higher than the rest, was a particularly fat gentleman with a very round, red face.

"'Bow to the board,' said Bumble. Oliver brushed away two or three tears that were lingering in his eyes, and seeing no board but the table, fortunately bowed to that.

"'What's your name, boy?' said the gentleman in the high chair.