Rides on Railways

by Samuel Sidney

This railway colony is well worth the attention of those who devote themselves to an investigation of the social condition of the labouring classes.

We have here a body of mechanics of intelligence above average, regularly employed for ten and a-half hours during five days, and for eight hours during the sixth day of the week, well paid, well housed, with schools for their children, a reading-room and mechanics’ institution at their disposal, gardens for their leisure hours, and a church and clergyman exclusively devoted to them. When work is ended, Wolverton is a pure republic—equality reigns. There are no rich men or men of station: all are gentlemen. In theory it is the paradise of Louis Blanc, only that, instead of the State, it is a Company which pays and employs the army of workmen. It is true, that during work hours a despotism rules, but it is a mild rule, tempered by customs and privileges. And what are the results of this colony, in which there are none idle, none poor, and few uneducated? Why, in many respects gratifying, in some respects disappointing. The practical reformer will learn more than one useful lesson from a patient investigation of the social state of this great village.

Those who have not been in the habit of mixing with the superior class of English skilled mechanics will be agreeably surprised by the intelligence, information, and educational acquirements of a great number of the workmen here. They will find men labouring for daily wages capable of taking a creditable part in political, literary, and scientific discussion; but at the same time the followers of George Sand, and French preachers of proletarian perfection will not find their notions of the ennobling effects of manual labour realised.

There are exceptions, but as a general rule, after a hard day’s work, a man is not inclined for study of any kind, least of all for the investigation of abstract sciences; and thus it is that at Wolverton library, novels are much more in demand than scientific treatises.

In Summer, when walks in the fields are pleasant, and men can work in their gardens, the demand for books of any kind falls off.

Turning from the library to the mechanics’ institution, pure science is not found to have many charms for the mechanics of Wolverton. Geological and astronomical lectures are ill attended, while musical entertainments, dissolving views, and dramatic recitations are popular.

It must be confessed that dulness and monotony exercise a very unfavourable influence on this comfortable colony. The people, not being Quakers, are not content without amusement. They receive their appointed wages regularly, so that they have not even the amusement of making and losing money. It would be an excellent thing for the world if the kind, charitable, cold-blooded people of middle age, or with middle-aged heads and hearts, who think that a population may be ruled into an every-day life of alternate work, study, and constitutional walks, without anything warmer than a weak simper from year’s end to year’s end, would consult the residents of Wolverton and Crewe before planning their next parallelogram.

We commend to amateur actors, who often need an audience, the idea of an occasional trip to Wolverton. The audience would be found indulgent of very indifferent performances.

But to turn from generalities to the specialities for which Wolverton is distinguished, we will walk round the workshops by which a rural parish has been colonised and reduced to a town shape.