The making of the desk occupied four hours, as he bestowed extra pains upon it, and he sold it to a slaughterer for 3s. 6d. He then broke his fast on bread and water, bought material for a second desk and went to work again, and so he proceeds now; toiling and half-starving, and struggling to get 20s. a-head of the world to buy more wood at one time, and not pause so often in his work. “Perhaps,” said my informant, “he’ll marry, as most of the small masters do, some foolish servant-of-all-work, who has saved 3l. or 4l., and that will be his capital.”

Another general cabinet-maker commenced business on 30s., a part of which he expended in the material for a 4-foot chest of drawers.

For the article when completed he received 25s., toiling at it for 27 or 28 hours. The tradesman from whom I derived this information, and who was familiar with every branch of the trade, calculated that three-fifths of the working cabinet-makers of London make for the warehouses—in other words, that there are 3000 small masters in the trade. The most moderate computation was that the number so employed exceed one half of the entire body of the 5000 metropolitan journeymen.

The next point in this inquiry is concerning the industry and productiveness of this class of workmen. Of over-work, as regards excessive labour, and of over-production from scamped workmanship, I heard the following accounts which different operatives, both in the fancy and general cabinet trade concurred in giving, while some represented the labour as of longer duration by at least an hour, and some by two hours a day, than I have stated.

The labour of the men who depend entirely on the slaughter-houses for the purchase of their articles, with all the disadvantages that I described in a former letter, is usually seven days a week the year through. That is seven days—for Sunday-work is all but universal—each of 13 hours, or 91 hours in all, while the established hours of labour in the honourable trade are six days of the week, each of 10 hours, or 60 hours in all. Thus 50 per cent is added to the extent of the production of low-priced cabinet work merely from over-hours, but in some cases I heard of 15 hours for seven days in the week, or 105 hours in all. The exceptions to this continuous toil are from one to three hours once or twice in the week, when the workman is engaged in purchasing his material of a timber merchant, who sells it in small quantities, and from six to eight hours when he is employed in conveying his goods to a warehouse, or from warehouse to warehouse for sale. Concerning the hours of labour I had the following minute particulars from a garret-master who was a chairmaker.

“I work from 6 every morning to 9 at night—some work till 10—I breakfast at 8, which stops me for 10 minutes. I can breakfast in less time, but it’s a rest; my dinner takes me say 20 minutes at the outside, and my tea 8 minutes. All the rest of the time I’m slaving at my bench. How many minutes’ rest is that, sir? 38. Well, say three-quarters of an hour, and that allows a few sucks at a pipe when I rest; but I can smoke and work too. I have only one room to work and eat in, or I should lose more time. Altogether I labour 14¼ hours every day, and I must work on Sundays at least 40 Sundays in the year. One may as well work as sit fretting. But on Sundays I only work till it’s dusk, or till five or six in summer. When it’s dusk I take a walk; I’m not well-dressed enough for a Sunday walk when its light, and I can’t wear my apron very well on that day to hide patches. But there’s eight hours that I reckon I take up every week in dancing about to the slaughterers’. I’m satisfied that I work very nearly 100 hours a-week the year through, deducting the time taken up by the slaughterers and buying stuff—say eight hours a-week, it gives more than 90 hours a-week for my work, and there’s hundreds labour as hard as I do just for a crust.”

This excessive toil, however, is but one element of over-production. Scamping adds at least 200 per cent to the productions of the cabinet-maker’s trade. I have ascertained several cases of this over-work from scamping, and adduce two. A very quick hand, a little master, working as he called it “at a slaughtering pace” for a warehouse, made 60 plain writing desks in a week of 90 hours, whilst a first-rate workman, also a quick hand, made 18 in a week of 70 hours. The scamping hand said he must work at the rate he did to make 14s. a-week from a slaughter-house, and so used to such style of work had he become, that though a few years back he did west-end work in the best style, he could not now make 18 desks in a week, if compelled to finish them in the style of excellence displayed in the work of the journeyman employed for the honourable trade. Perhaps, he added, he couldn’t make them in that style at all. The frequent use of rosewood veneers in the fancy cabinet, and their occasional use in the general cabinet trade, gives, I was told, great facilities for scamping. If, in his haste, the scamping hand injure the veneer, or if it has been originally faulty, he takes a mixture of gum shellac and “colour,” (colour being a composition of Venetian red and lamp black) which he has already by him, rubs it over the damaged part, smooths it with a slightly heated iron, and so blends it with the colour of the rosewood that the warehouseman does not detect the flaw. Indeed, I was told that very few warehousemen are judges of the furniture they bought, and they only require it to look well enough for sale to the public, who know even less than themselves. In the general cabinet trade I found the same ratio of scamping, compared with the products of skilled labour in the honourable trade. A good workman made a 4-foot mahogany chest of drawers in five days, working the regular hours, and receiving at piece-work price 35s. A scamping hand made five of the same size in a week, and had time to carry them for sale to the warehouses, wait for their purchase or refusal, and buy material. But for the necessity of doing this the scamping hand could have made seven in the 91 hours of his week, of course in a very inferior manner. They would hold together for a time, I was assured, and that was all; but the slaughterers cared only to have them viewy and cheap. These two cases exceed the average, and I have cited them to show what can be done under the scamping system.

I now come to show how this scamp work is executed, that is to say, by what helps or assistants when such are employed. As in all trades where lowness of wages is the rule, the apprentice system prevails among the cheap cabinet-workers. It prevails, however, among the garret-masters, by very many of them having one, two, three, or four apprentices, and so the number of boys thus employed through the whole trade is considerable. This refers principally to the general cabinet trade. In the fancy trade the number is greater, as the boys’ labour is more readily available, but in this trade the greatest number of apprentices is employed by such warehousemen as are manufacturers, as some at the east end are—or rather by the men that they constantly keep at work. Of these men one has now 8, and another 14 boys in his service, some apprenticed, some merely engaged and discharged at pleasure. A sharp boy, thus apprenticed, in six or eight months becomes handy, but four out of five of the workmen thus brought up can do nothing well but their own particular branch, and that only well as far as celerity in production is considered.

I have before alluded to the utter destitution of the cheap workers belonging to the cabinet trade, and I now subjoin the statement of a man whom I found last winter in the Asylum for the Houseless Poor.

“I have been out of work a twelvemonth, as near as I can reckon. When I was in work I was sometimes at piece-work and sometimes at day-work. When I first joined the trade (I never served my time, my brother learnt me) there was plenty of work to do. For this last twelvemonth I have not been able to get anything to do, not at my own trade. I have made up one dozen of mahogany chairs on my own account. The wood and labour of them cost me 1l. 5s., I had to pay for a man to do the carving and sweeping of them, and I had to give 1l. for the wood. I could get it much cheaper now, but then I didn’t know anything about the old broken ship-wood that is now used for furniture. The chairs I made I had to sell at a sacrifice. I was a week making them, and got only 2l. for the dozen when they were done. By right I should have had at least 50s. for them, and that would have left 25s. for my week’s work, but as it was I had only 15s. clear money, and I have worked at them much harder than is usual in the trade. There are two large houses in London that are making large fortunes in this manner. About a fortnight after I found out that I couldn’t possibly get a living at this work, and as I didn’t feel inclined to make the fortunes of the large houses by starving myself, I gave up working at chair-making on my own account. I then made a few clothes-horses. I kept at that for about six months. I hawked them in the streets, but I was half-starved by it. Some days I sold them, and some I was without taking a penny. I never in one day got rid of more than half-a-dozen, and they brought 3s., out of which there was the wood and the other materials to pay for, and they would be 1s. 6d. at least. If I could get rid of two or three in a day I thought I did pretty well, and my profit on these was about 9d., not more. At last I became so reduced by the work that I was not able to buy any more wood, and the week after that I was forced to quit my lodging. I owed three weeks’ rent, at 1s. 6d. a week, and was turned out in consequence. I had no things for them to seize, they had all gone long before. Then I was thrown upon the streets. I had no friends (my brothers are both out of the country) and no home. I was sleeping about anywhere I could. I used to go and sit at the coffee-houses where I knew my mates were in the habit of going, and they would give me a bit of something to eat, and make a collection to pay for a bed for me. At last this even began to fail me, my mates could do no more for me. Then I applied to some of the unions, but they refused to admit me into the casual ward on account of my not being a traveller. I was a whole week walking in the streets without ever lying to rest. I used to go to Billingsgate to get a nap for a few minutes, and then I used to have a doze now and then on a door-step and under the railway arches. At this time I had scarcely any food at all, not even bread. At last I was fairly worn out, and being in the neighbourhood, I applied at St. Luke’s, and told them I was starving. They said they could do nothing for me, and advised me to apply at the Houseless Poor Asylum. I did so, and was admitted directly. I have been four nights in the Asylum already, and I don’t know what I shall do when I leave. My tools are all gone; they are sold, and I have no money to buy new ones. There are hundreds in the trade like me, walking about the streets with nothing to do and no place to put their heads in.”

I shall now conclude with the following statement as to the effects produced by the slop cabinet business upon the honourable part of the trade. I derived my information from Mr. ——, one of the principal masters at the west-end, and who has the highest character for consideration for his men. “Since the establishment of slaughter houses, and aptly indeed,” said my informant, “from my knowledge of their effects upon the workmen, have they been named—the demand for articles of the best cabinet-work, in the manufacture of which the costliest woods and the most skilled labour London can supply are required, has diminished upwards of 25 per cent. The demand, moreover, continues still to diminish gradually. The result is obvious. Only three men are now employed in this trade in lieu of four as formerly, and the men displaced may swell the lists of the underpaid, and even of the slop-workers. The expense incurred by some of the leading masters in the honourable trade is considerable, and for objects the designs of which inferior masters pirate from us. The designs for new styles of furniture add from 5 to 10 per cent to the cost of the most elaborate articles that we manufacture. The first time any of these novel designs comes to the hammer by the sale of a gentleman’s effects they are certain of piracy, and so the pattern descends to the slaughter-houses. These great houses are frequently offered prices, and by very wealthy persons, that are an insult to a tradesman wishing to pay a fair price to his workmen. For instance, for an 8-foot mahogany bookcase, after a new design, and made to the very best style of art, the material being the choicest, and everything about in admirable keeping, the price is 50 guineas. ‘O dear!’ some rich customer will say, ‘50 guineas! I’ll give you 20, or, indeed, I’ll give you 25.’” (I afterwards heard from a journeyman that this would be the cost of the labour alone.) The gentleman I saw spoke highly of the intelligence and good conduct of the men employed, only society men being at work on his premises. He feared that the slop-trade, if not checked, would more and more swamp the honourable trade.

The Doll’s-Eye Maker.

A curious part of the street toy business is the sale of dolls, and especially that odd branch of it, doll’s-eye making. There are only two persons following this business in London, and by the most intelligent of these I was furnished with the following curious information:—

“I make all kinds of eyes,” the eye-manufacturer said, “both dolls’ and human eyes; birds’ eyes are mostly manufactured in Birmingham, and as you say, sir, bulls’ eyes at the confectioner’s. Of dolls’ eyes there are two sorts, the common and the natural, as we call it. The common are simply small hollow glass spheres, made of white enamel, and coloured either black or blue, for only two colours of these are made. The bettermost dolls’ eyes, or the natural ones, are made in a superior manner, but after a similar fashion to the commoner sort. The price of the common black and blue dolls’ eyes is five shillings for twelve dozen pair. We make very few of the bettermost kind, or natural eyes for dolls, for the price of those is about fourpence a pair, but they are only for the very best dolls. Average it throughout the year, a journeyman doll’s-eye maker earns about thirty shillings a-week. The common dolls’ eyes were twelve shillings the twelve dozen pairs twenty-five years ago, but now they are only five shillings. The decrease of the price is owing to competition, for though there are only two of us in the trade in London, still the other party is always pushing his eyes and underselling our’n. Immediately the demand ceases at all, he goes round the trade with his eyes in a box, and offers them at a lower figure than in the regular season, and so the prices have been falling every year. There is a brisk and a slack season in our business, as well as in most others. After the Christmas holidays up to March we have generally little to do, but from that time eyes begin to look up a bit, and the business remains pretty good till the end of October. Where we make one pair of eyes for home consumption, we make ten for exportation; a great many eyes go abroad. Yes, I suppose we should be soon over-populated with dolls if a great number of them were not to emigrate every year. The annual increase of dolls goes on at an alarming rate. As you say, sir, the yearly rate of mortality must be very high, to be sure, but still it’s nothing to the rate at which they are brought into the world. They can’t make wax dolls in America, sir, so we ship off a great many there. The reason why they can’t produce dolls in America is owing to the climate. The wax won’t set in very hot weather, and it cracks in extreme cold. I knew a party who went out to the United States to start as doll-maker. He took several gross of my eyes with him, but he couldn’t succeed. The eyes that we make for Spanish America are all black. A blue-eyed doll wouldn’t sell at all there. Here, however, nothing but blue eyes goes down; that’s because it’s the colour of the Queen’s eyes, and she sets the fashion in our eyes as in other things. We make the same kind of eyes for the gutta-percha dolls as for the wax. It is true, the gutta-percha complexion isn’t particularly clear; nevertheless, the eyes I make for the washable faces are all of the natural tint, and if the gutta-percha dolls look rather bilious, why I ain’t a going to make my eyes look bilious to match.

“I also make human eyes. These are two cases; in the one I have black and hazel, and in the other blue and grey.” [Here the man took the lids off a couple of boxes, about as big as binnacles, that stood on the table: they each contained 190 different eyes, and so like nature, that the effect produced upon a person unaccustomed to the sight was most peculiar, and far from pleasant. The whole of the 380 optics all seemed to be staring directly at the spectator, and occasioned a feeling somewhat similar to the bewilderment one experiences on suddenly becoming an object of general notice; as if the eyes, indeed, of a whole lecture-room were crammed into a few square inches, and all turned full upon you. The eyes of the whole world, as we say, literally appeared to be fixed upon one, and it was almost impossible at first to look at them without instinctively averting the head. The hundred eyes of Argus were positively insignificant in comparison to the 380 belonging to the human eye-maker.] “Here you see are the ladies’ eyes,” he continued, taking one from the blue-eye tray. “You see there’s more sparkle and brilliance about them than the gentlemen’s. Here’s two different ladies’ eyes; they belong to fine-looking young women, both of them. When a lady or gentleman comes to us for an eye, we are obliged to have a sitting just like a portrait-painter. We take no sketch, but study the tints of the perfect eye. There are a number of eyes come over from France, but these are generally what we call misfits; they are sold cheap, and seldom match the other eye. Again, from not fitting tight over the ball like those that are made expressly for the person, they seldom move ‘consentaneously,’ as it is termed, with the natural eye, and have therefore a very unpleasant and fixed stare, worse almost than the defective eye itself. Now, the eyes we make move so freely, and have such a natural appearance, that I can assure you a gentleman who had one of his from me passed nine doctors without the deception being detected.

“There is a lady customer of mine who has been married three years to her husband, and I believe he doesn’t know that she has a false eye to this day.

“The generality of persons whom we serve take out their eyes when they go to bed, and sleep with them either under their pillow, or else in a tumbler of water on the toilet-table at their side. Most married ladies, however, never take their eyes out at all.

“Some people wear out a false eye in half the time of others. This doesn’t arise from the greater use of them, or rolling them about, but from the increased secretion of the tears, which act on the false eye like acid on metal, and so corrodes and roughens the surface. This roughness produces inflammation, and then a new eye becomes necessary. The Scotch lose a great many eyes, why I cannot say; and the men in this country lose more eyes, nearly two to one. We generally make only one eye, but I did once make two false eyes for a widow lady. She lost one first, and we repaired the loss so well, that on her losing the other eye she got us to make her a second.

“False eyes are a great charity to servants. If they lose an eye no one will engage them. In Paris there is a charitable institution for the supply of false eyes to the poor; and I really think, if there was a similar establishment in this country for furnishing artificial eyes to those whose bread depends on their looks, like servants, it would do a great deal of good. We always supplies eyes to such people at half-price. My usual price is 2l. 2s. for one of my best eyes. That eye is a couple of guineas, and as fine an eye as you would wish to see in any young woman’s head.

“I suppose we make from 300 to 400 false eyes every year. The great art in making a false eye is in polishing the edges quite smooth. Of dolls’ eyes we make about 6000 dozen pairs of the common ones every year. I take it that there are near upon 24,000 dozen, or more than a quarter of a million, pairs of all sorts of dolls’ eyes made annually in London.”