Stokers and pokers

A Railway Town.

Having now concluded our rough sketch of the workshops of the locomotive and coach departments at Crewe,—in both of which the Company’s artificers and workmen toil both winter and summer from six in the morning till half-past five in the evening, except on Saturdays, when they leave off at four,—our readers will, we hope, feel sufficiently interested in their welfare to inquire, as we anxiously did, a little into their domestic history and comforts. About a hundred yards from the two establishments we have just left there stands a plain neat building, erected by the Company, containing baths, hot, cold, and shower, for the workmen, as well as for their wives and daughters, the hours allotted for each sex being stated on a board, which bluntly enough explains that the women may wash while the men are working, and vice versâ. For this wholesome luxury the charge for each person is 1½d.; and although we do not just at present recollect the exact price of yellow soap per bar, of sharp white sand per bushel, of stout dowlas-towelling per yard, or the cost of warming a few hundred gallons of water, yet, as we stood gazing into one of these baths, we could not help thinking that if that Hercules who works the steam-hammer can, on Saturday night after his week’s toil, be scrubbed perfectly clean and white for three half-pence, he can have no very great reason to complain, for surely, except by machinery, the operation could scarcely be effected much cheaper! To a medical man the Company gives a house and a surgery, in addition to which he receives from every unmarried workman 1d. per week; if married, but with no family, 1½d. per week; if married, and with a family, 2d. per week; for which he undertakes to give attendance and medicine to whatever men, women, children, or babies of the establishment may require them. A clergyman, with an adequate salary from the Company, superintends three large day-schools for about three hundred boys, girls, and infants. There is also a library and mechanic’s institute, supported by a subscription of about 10s. a year, at which a number of very respectable artificers, whose education when young was neglected, attend at night to learn, ab initio, reading, writing, and arithmetic. There is likewise a vocal and instrumental class, attended by a number of workmen, with their wives and daughters.

The town of Crewe contains 514 houses, one church, three schools, and one town-hall, all belonging to the Company; and as the birth, growth, and progress of a railway town is of novel interest, our readers will, we think, be anxious to learn at what speed our railway stations are now turning into towns, just as many of our ancient post-houses formerly grew into post towns. Although the new houses at Crewe were originally built solely for railway servants, yet it was soon found necessary to construct a considerable number for the many shopkeepers and others who were desirous to join the new settlement, and accordingly, of the present population of 8000, about one-half are strangers. Not only are the streets, which are well lighted by gas, much broader than those of Wolverton, but the houses are, generally speaking, of a superior description, and, although all are new, yet it is curious to observe how insidiously old customs, old fashions, old wants, and even old luxuries, have become domiciled. Many of the shops have large windows, which eagerly attempt to look like plate-glass. In the shoemakers’ shops, contrasted with thick railway boots and broad railway shoes, there hang narrow-soled Wellingtons and Bluchers, as usual scarcely half the gauge or breadth of the human foot. The Company’s workmen began by having a cheap stout dancing-master of their own; but the aristocracy of Crewe very naturally requiring higher kicks, we found a superior and more elegant artist giving lessons in the town-hall—a splendid room capable of containing 1000 persons.

It would of course be quite irregular for 8000 persons to live together without the luxury of being enabled occasionally to bite and tickle each other with the sharp teeth and talons of the law, and accordingly we observed, appropriately inscribed in large letters on the door of a very respectable looking house,

GRIFFIN, Attorney.

Mankind are so prone to draw distinctions where no real differences exist, that among our readers there are probably many who conceive that, although they themselves are fully competent to enjoy Fanny Kemble’s readings from Shakspeare, such a mental luxury would be altogether out of character at New Crewe! In short, that shops full of smiths and other varieties of workmen (particularly him of the steam-hammer, and most especially the artificer we saw squatted in the boiler), although all exceedingly useful in their ways, could not possibly appreciate the delicate intonations of voice or the poetical beauties to which we have alluded. Now, without the smallest desire to oppose this theory, we will simply state, that while, during the men’s dinner-hour, we were strolling through the streets of Crewe, we observed on the walls of a temporary theatre, surrounded by a crowd of gaping mouths and eager unwashed faces, a very large placard, of which the following is a copy:—

The town and shops of Crewe are well lighted by gas from the Company’s works, which create about 30,000 cubic feet per day—the foot-paths of the streets being of asphalt, composed of the Company’s coal-tar mixed up with gravel and ashes from the workshops. The town is governed by a council of fifteen members, two-thirds of whom are nominated by the workmen and inhabitants, and one-third by the directors. Their regulations are all duly promulgated “by order of the council.”

Although our limits do not allow us to enter into many statistical details, we may mention that the number of persons employed on account of the London and North-Western Railway Company, including those occupied in the collection and delivery of goods, is as follows:—