I had a conversation, recently, with a man who has for the last seven or eight years acted as a kind of leader in a brick-field. During all this time he has been a “teetotaller;” and though his work has been as hard as that of any man in the field, and sometimes even harder, he is in perfectly good health, and what is still more unusual, retains the full possession of his intellectual faculties. I say, unusual; for in most cases when this hard work is accompanied with hard drinking, the brickmaker does actually very nearly realise the old woman’s complimentary description of, “He has no more sense than the clay he works on.” His life thus literally resembles that of the brute: every bone, muscle, and sinew is exerted to its utmost extent. The only change from work is eating, drinking, and sleeping; and when this has gone on for several years, all intellectual power seems extinct.
The man to whom I have just referred has for some years past rented a house near the Potteries, for which he pays seven shillings per week. The eldest girl, now fourteen years old, has been in a place for the last four years, and is so fond of it, (the father tells me,) that when she comes home for a holiday, nothing can induce her to stay a minute beyond the time appointed for her return.
“I got a holiday,” said he, “last autumn, and I took my wife and children to the Crystal Palace. We had a beautiful day there, and see’d enough in that little time to give us something to talk about ever since. The only trouble we had was, my girl was in a kind of a fidget, for fear she shouldn’t get back to her place in time.”
I asked this man a great many questions about his mode of life. He said:—
“Our trade would do very well, if it wasn’t for the number of hours we have to work, and if we could get our Sundays to ourselves. There is just now a strike among the men; they want to get sixpence a thousand more upon the bricks than they at present receive: and as I know how to reckon very well, I know that the masters could give us that, and still get a handsome profit for themselves. If we could get that, then we should only work from six to six; and we shouldn’t, in that case, have to dry our sand on Sundays; we could then get all that we wanted ready on Saturday evening. I don’t hold with these strikes, ma’am; they are not the right sort of thing. It isn’t much use, either, for men to stand out against their masters; for until they have learnt to save money, they can’t hold out no time hardly without hurting themselves dreadful. The day the men turned out, a gentleman was riding by, and he stopped and asked me what it was all about; and so I told him. He says to me, ‘Do you take any part in it?’ And I says, ‘No, sir, I don’t feel comfortable about it at all; but, sir, for all that I don’t like this way of doing it, I don’t think the men are asking for more than they should; they only want the masters to be as considerate of them as they are of their horses.’ ‘What do you mean?’ the gentleman says. ‘Why, sir, I mean this, that the horse employed in our brick-field is brought in at six o’clock in the morning, he has a proper time for rest in the day, and he is always taken off again at six in the evening; but the men must work fifteen and sixteen hours to get a living out of it; and this hurts their bodies and souls too, sir; for it isn’t many men can think much as works like that. I am a stronger man than most, sir, and I save myself a deal by not drinking; but it hurts me, I find, and as soon as I can get a little money in hand, I shall try and get out of it, and take to selling coals, or something of that kind.’ You know, ma’am,” the man continued, “I think over all these things a deal, and I do wish masters would listen to what we have got to say; for though we ain’t so wise, like, as they are, we think we could make some things plainer to them. When this was first talked of among the men, I did wish master would let me talk to him about it. I think, if he would have heard how we ’splained all, things wouldn’t have been as they are now. It seems to me, that God have planned out this world for us all to depend upon one another, and we ought never to stand to one another as we do now. You know, ma’am, when we working-men look at all these fine houses and gardens about, and see all the fine furniture that goes into them, we know that it is all done by our labour, and that the great people couldn’t do without us, any more than we could do without them. And it do seem to me, the world would be a deal happier, and better, too, than it is, if we felt that sort of thing to one another; felt, I mean, that we were all wanted, like, to make the world go on right.”
I told him, I thought many masters of the present day felt just what he said, and honoured and valued their servants, and wished very much that they should have proper time for improving themselves, and making their own homes comfortable; “but,” I said, “you know as well as I do, that when men get this time, they do not always make a right use of it.”
“Ah, that’s how it is, you see, ma’am; and I am always a-telling ’em how they do stand in their own way, and hurt theirselves. Though we can’t have everything we want to get, there is a good many of ’em needn’t be half so bad off as they are; but you see, ma’am, there is a great deal of bad management at home, sometimes, and that always keeps a man down. I have looked after this thing so long, that I can pretty well tell whether a man has got a good home or not, afore I ask him. He always holds up his head, and doesn’t seem afraid of anybody; and if things do go cross with him, he does not get reckless, like, about it, and he takes the world kinder, like, than other people. I am so thankful to have this nice place to myself here, and to be able to send my children to school, and see ’em growing up the right way, that I never envies nobody. If master were to offer me his carriage, and to change places with him, I wouldn’t; for I know I’m happy now, and I mightn’t be then.”
I asked him what he supposed to be the cause why so many working-men had such wretched homes.
“Why, ma’am,” he answered, “there is so many things, I hardly know what to say. The drink seems the chief thing; but there is many a man that wouldn’t drink, if he could bear himself without it. There are so many women who don’t seem to know how to manage no more than nothing; and when they take to drinking and going to the pawn-shop, then there is nothing but misery for them all. There’s many a woman in our place who has only one decent gown, and that’s most always in the pawn-shop; she just gets it out of a Saturday night, when the money comes in, and by Monday sometimes the money is a’most gone, and she puts it in again. Some of our poor fellows have got but one shirt; and I have known a man give it to his wife on Monday morning to wash, and she has taken it off to the pawn-shop, and got some drink with the money she got. Sometimes when the wife does try to go on right, the man don’t; he takes to all the bad ways, and leads her a dog’s life: it is only when they both pull one way that it all goes right.”
After the distress of the winter, to which I have before referred, I thought it a good time to endeavour to make some impression upon them as to the urgent necessity of making provision for the future, so that there might not be a constant repetition of such terrible calamities. I therefore addressed the following letter to them, and sent a copy to each man in the Potteries:—