I then proceeded to take the statement of some of the different classes of the men. The first was a coalwhipper, whom the men had selected as one knowing more about their calling than the generality. He told me as follows:—

“I am about forty, and am a married man with a family of six children. I worked under the old system, and that to my sorrow. If I had been paid in money, according to the work I then did, I could have averaged 30s. a-week. Instead of receiving that amount in money, I was compelled to spend in drink 15s. to 18s. per week, when work was good; and the publican even then gave me the residue very grudgingly, and often kept me from eleven to twelve on Saturday night, before he would pay me. The consequences of this system were, that I had a miserable home to go to: I would often have faced Newgate as soon. My health didn’t suffer, because I didn’t drink the liquor I was forced to pay for. I gave most of it away. The liquors were beer, rum, and gin, all prepared the night before, adulterated shamefully for our consumption, as we dursn’t refuse it,—dursn’t even grumble. The condition of my poor wife and children was then most wretched. Now the thing is materially altered, thank God; my wife and children can go to chapel at certain times, when work is pretty good, and our things are not in pawn. By the strictest economy, I can do middling well—very well when compared with what things were. When the new system first came into operation, I felt almost in a new world. I felt myself a free man; I wasn’t compelled to drink; my home assumed a better aspect, and keeps it still. Last Monday night I received 19s. 7d. for my work (five days) in the previous week. I shall now (Thursday) have to wait until Monday next before I can get to work at my business. Sometimes I get a job in idle times at the docks, or otherwise, and wish I could get more. I may make, one week with another, by odd jobs, 1s. a-week. Perhaps for months I can’t get a job. All that time I have no choice but to be idle. One week with another, the year through (at 8d. per ton), I may earn 14s. The great evil is the uncertainty of the work. We have all to take our rotation. This uncertainty has this effect upon many of the men—they are compelled to live on credit. One day a man may receive 19s., and be idle for eight days after. Consequently, we go to the dealer where we have credit. The chandler supplies me with bread, to be paid for next pay-day, charging me a halfpenny a loaf more. A man with a wife and family of six children, as I have, will consume sixteen or seventeen quartern loaves a-week; consequently, he has to pay 8d. a-week extra on account of the irregularity or uncertainty. My rotation would come much oftener but for the backing system and the ‘bonafides.’ I also pay the butcher from a halfpenny to a penny per pound extra for credit when my family requires meat, sometimes a bit of mutton, sometimes a bit of beef. I leave that to the wife, who does it with economy. I this way pay the butcher 6d. a-week extra. The additional cost to me of the other articles, cheese, butter, soap, &c., which I get on credit, will be 6d. a-week. Altogether that will be 3l. 18s. a-year. My rent for a little house with two nice little rooms is 3s. per week; so that the extra charge for credit would just pay my rent. Many coalwhippers deal with tallymen for their wearing apparel, and have to pay enormous prices. I have had dealings with a tallyman, and suffered for it, but for all that I must make application for a supply of blankets from him for my family this winter. I paid him 45s. for wearing apparel—a shawl for my wife, some dresses for the children, a blanket, and other things. Their intrinsic value was 30s. Many of us—indeed most of us, if not all of us—are always putting things in and out of the pawnshops. I know I have myself paid more than 10s. a-year for interest to the pawnbroker. I know some of my fellow-workmen who pay nearly 5l. a-year. I once put in a coat that cost me 3l. 12s. I could only get 30s. on it. I was never able to redeem it, and lost it. The articles lost by the coalwhippers pledged at the pawnshop are three out of four. There are 2000 coalwhippers, and I am sure that each has 50s. in pawn, making 5000l. in a-year. Interest may be paid on one half this amount, 2500l. The other half of the property, at least, is lost. As the pawnbroker only advances one-third of the value, the loss in the forfeiture of the property is 7500l., and in interest 2500l., making a total of 10,000l. lost every year, greatly through the uncertainty of labour. A coalwhipper’s life is one of debt and struggles—it is a round of relieving, paying, and credit. We very rarely have a halfpenny in the pocket when we meet our credit. If any system could possibly be discovered which would render our work and our earnings more certain, and our payments more frequent, it would benefit us as much as we have been benefited by the establishment of the office.”

I visited this man’s cottage, and found it neat and tidy. His children looked healthy. The walls of the lower room were covered with some cheap prints; a few old books, well worn, as if well used, were to be seen; and everything evinced a man who was struggling bravely to rear a large family well on small means. I took the family at a disadvantage, moreover, as washing was going on.

Hearing that accidents were frequent among the class, I was anxious to see a person who had suffered by the danger of the calling. A man was brought to me with his hand bound up in a handkerchief. The sleeve of his coat was ripped open and dangled down beside his injured arm. He walked lame; and on my inquiring whether his leg was hurt, he began pulling up his trousers and unlacing his boot, to show me that it had not been properly set. He had evidently once been a strong, muscular man, but little now remained as evidence of his physical power but the size of his bones. He furnished me with the following statement:—

“I was a coalwhipper. I had a wife and two children. Four months ago, coming off my day’s work, my foot slipped, and I fell and broke my leg. I was taken to the hospital, and remained there ten weeks. At the time of my accident I had no money at all by me, but was in debt to the amount of 10s. to my landlord. I had a little furniture, and a few clothes of myself and wife. While I was in the hospital, I did not receive anything from our benefit society, because I had not been able to keep up my subscription. My wife and children lived while I was in the hospital by pawning my things, and going from door to door to every one she knowed to give her a bit. The men who worked in the same gang as myself, made up 4s. 6d. for me, and that, with two loaves of bread that they had from the relieving officer, was all they got. While I was in the hospital the landlord seized for rent the few things that my wife had not pawned, and turned her and my two little children into the street. One was a boy three years old, and the other a baby just turned ten months. My wife went to her mother, and she kept her and my little ones for three weeks, till she could do so no longer. My mother, poor old woman, was most as bad off as we were. My mother only works on the ground, out in the country, at gardening. She makes about 7s. a-week in the summer, and in the winter she has only 9d. a-day to live upon; but she had at least a shelter for her child, and she willingly shared that with her daughter and her daughter’s children. She pawned all the clothes she had, to keep them from starving; but at last everything was gone from the poor old woman, and then I got my brother to take my family in. My brother worked at garden-work, the same as my mother-in-law did. He made about 15s. a-week in the summer, and about half that in the winter time. He had a wife and two children of his own, and found it hard enough to keep them, as times go. But still he took us all in, and shared what he had with us, rather than let us go to the workhouse. When I was told to leave the hospital—which I was forced to do upon my crutches, for my leg was very bad still—my brother took me in too. He had only one room, but he got in a bundle of straw for me, and we lived and slept there for seven weeks. He got credit for more than a pound’s worth of bread, and tea, and sugar for us; and now he can’t pay, and the man threatens to summon him for it. After I left my brother’s, I came to live in the neighbourhood of Wapping, for I thought I might manage to do a day’s work at coalwhipping, and I couldn’t bear to live upon his little earnings any longer—he could scarcely keep himself then. At last I got a ship to deliver; but I was too weak to do the work, and in pulling at the ropes my hands got sore, and festered for want of nourishment.” [He took the handkerchief off and showed that it was covered with plaster. It was almost white from deficient circulation.] “After this I was obliged to lay up again, and that’s the only job of work I’ve been able to do for these last four months. My wife can’t do anything; she is a delicate, sickly little woman as well, and has the two little children to mind, and to look after me likewise. I had one pennyworth of bread this morning. We altogether had half-a-quartern loaf among the four of us, but no tea nor coffee. Yesterday we had some bread, and tea, and butter; but wherever my wife got it from I don’t know. I was three days but a short time back without a taste of food.” [Here he burst out crying.] “I had nothing but water that passed my lips. I had merely a little at home, and that my wife and children had. I would rather starve myself than let them do so: indeed, I’ve done it over and over again. I never begged: I’ll die in the streets first. I never told nobody of my life. The foreman of my gang was the only one besides God that knew of my misery; and his wife came to me and brought me money and brought me food, and himself, too, many a time.” [“I had a wife and five children of my own to maintain, and it grieved me to my heart,” said the man who sat by, “to see them want, and I unable to do more for them.”] “If any accident occurs to any of us who are not upon the society, they must be as bad off as I am. If I only had a little nourishment to strengthen me, I could do my work again; but, poor as I am, I can’t get strength to do it, and not being totally incapacitated from ever resuming my labour, I cannot get any assistance from the superannuation fund of our men.”

I told the man I wished to see him at his own home, and he and the foreman who had brought him to me, and who gave him a most excellent character, led me into a small house in a court near the Shadwell entrance to the London Docks. When I reached the place I found the room almost bare of furniture. A baby lay sprawling on its back on a few rags beside the handful of fire. A little shoeless boy, with only a light washed-out frock to cover him, ran shyly into a corner of the room as we entered. There was only one chair in the room, and that had been borrowed down stairs. Over the chimney hung to dry a few ragged infant’s chemises that had been newly washed. In front of the fire, on a stool, sat the thinly-clad wife; and in the corner of the apartment stood a few old tubs. On a line above these were two tattered men’s shirts, hanging to dry, and a bed was thrown on some boxes. On a shelf stood a physic-bottle that the man had got from the parish doctor, and in the empty cupboard was a slice of bread—all the food, they said, they had in the world, and they knew not where on earth to look for more.

I next wished to see one of the improvident men, and was taken to the lodging of one who made the following statement:—

“I have been a coalwhipper for twenty years. I worked under the old publican’s system, when the men were compelled to drink. In those days 18s. didn’t keep me in drink. I have now been a teetotaler for five years. I have the bit of grub now more regular than I had. I earn less than 13s. a-week. I have four children, and have buried four. My rent is 1s. 6d.” [“To-night,” interrupted the wife, “if he won’t part with his coat or boots, he must go without his supper.”] “My wife,” the man continued, “works at bespoke work—stay-making, but gets very little work, and so earns very little—perhaps 1s. 6d. a week.”

This family resided in a wretched part of Wapping, called, appropriately enough, “the Ruins.” Some houses have been pulled down, and so an open space is formed at the end of a narrow airless alley. The wet stood on the pavement of the alley, and the cottage in which the whipper I visited lived, seemed with another to have escaped when the other houses were pulled down. The man is very tall, and almost touched the ceiling of his room when he stood upright in it. The ceiling was as wet as a newly-washed floor. The grate was fireless, the children barefoot, and the bedstead (for there was a bedstead) was bedless, and all showed cheerless poverty. The dwelling was in strong contrast with that of the provident whipper whom I have described.

The Coalbackers.

I conclude with the statement of a coalbacker, or coalporter—a class to which the term coalheaver is usually given by those who are unversed in the mysteries of the calling. The man wore the approved fantail, and well-tarred short smock-frock, black velveteen knee breeches, dirty white stockings, and lace-up boots.

“I am a coalbacker,” he said. “I have been so these twenty-two years. By a coalbacker, I mean a man who is engaged in carrying coals on his back from ships and craft to the waggons. We get 2¼d. for every fifth part of a ton, or 11¼d. per ton among five men. We carry the coals in sacks of 2 cwt., the sack usually weighs from 14lbs. to 20lbs., so that our load is mostly 238lbs. We have to carry the load from the hold of the ship, over four barges, to the waggon. The hold of a ship is from sixteen to twenty feet deep. We carry the coals this height up a ladder, and the ship is generally from sixty to eighty feet from the waggon. This distance we have to travel over planks, with the sacks on our backs. Each man will ascend this height and travel this distance about ninety times in a day; hence he will lift himself, with 2 cwt. of coals on his back, 1460 feet, or upwards of a quarter of a mile high, which is three times the height of St. Paul’s, in twelve hours. And besides this, he will travel 6300 feet, or 1¼ miles, carrying the same weight as he goes. The labour is very hard—there are few men who can continue at it.” My informant said it was too much for him; he had been obliged to give it up eight months back; he had overstrained himself at it, and been obliged to lay up for many months. “I am forty-five years of age,” he continued, “and have as many as eight children. None of them bring me in a sixpence. My eldest boy did, a little while back, but his master failed, and he lost his situation. My wife made slop-shirts at a penny each, and could not do more than three a-day. How we have lived through all my illness, I cannot say. I occasionally get a little job, such as mending the hats of my fellow-workmen: this would sometimes bring me in about 2s. in the week, and then the parish allowed four quartern loaves of bread and 2s. 6d. a-week for myself, wife, and eight children. Since I have overstrained myself, I have not done more than two days’ work altogether. Sometimes my mates would give me an odd seven tons to do for them, for I was not able to manage more.” Such accidents as overstraining are very common among the coalbackers. The labour of carrying such a heavy weight from the ship’s hold is so excessive, that after a man turns forty he is considered to be past his work, and to be very liable to such accidents. It is usually reckoned that the strongest men cannot last more than twenty years at the business. Many of the heartiest of the men are knocked up through the bursting of blood-vessels and other casualties, and even the strongest cannot continue at the labour three days together. After the second day’s work, they are obliged to hire some unemployed mate to do the work for them. The coalbackers work in gangs of five men, consisting of two shovel-men and three backers, and are employed to deliver the ship by the wharfinger. Each gang is paid 11¼d. per ton, which is at the rate of 2¼d. per ton for each of the five men. The gang will do from thirty to forty tons in the course of the day. The length of the day depends upon the amount of work to be done, according to the wharfinger’s orders. The coalbackers are generally at work at five o’clock in the morning, winter and summer. In the winter time, they have to work by the light of large fires in hanging caldrons, which they call bells. Their day’s work seldom ends before seven o’clock in the evening. They are paid every night, and a man after a hard day’s work will receive 6s. Strong, hearty men, who are able to follow up the work, can earn from 25s. to 30s. per week. But the business is a fluctuating one. In the summer time there is little or nothing to do. The earnings during the slack season are about one half what they are during the brisk. Upon an average, their earnings are 1l. a-week all the year round. The class of coalbackers is supposed to consist of about 1500 men. They have no provident or benefit society. Between seventeen and eighteen years ago, each gang used to have 1s. 0½d. per ton, and about a twelvemonth afterwards it fell to the present price of 11¼d. per ton. About six weeks back, the merchants made an attempt to take off the odd farthing; the reason assigned was the cheapness of provisions. They nearly carried it; but the backers formed a committee among themselves, and opposed the reduction so strongly that the idea was abandoned. The backers are paid extra for sifting, at the rate of 2d. per sack. For this office they usually employ a lad, paying him at the rate of 10s. per week. Upon this they will usually clear from 2s. to 4s. per week. The most injurious part of the backer’s work is carrying from the ship’s hold. That is what they object to most of all, and consider they get the worst paid for. They do a great injury to the coalwhippers, and the backers say it would be as great a benefit to themselves as to the coalwhippers, if the system was done away with. By bringing the ships up alongside the wharf, the merchant saves the expense of whipping and lightering, together with the cost of barges, &c. Many of the backers are paid at the public-house; the wharfinger gives them a note to receive their daily earnings of the publican, who has the money from the merchant. Often the backers are kept waiting an hour at the public-house for their money, and they have credit through the day for any drink they may choose to call for. While waiting, they mostly have two or three pots of beer before they are paid; and the drinking once commenced, many of them return home drunk, with only half their earnings in their pockets. There is scarcely a man among the whole class of backers, but heartily wishes the system of payment at the public-house may be entirely abolished. The coalbackers are mostly an intemperate class of men. This arises chiefly from the extreme labour and the over-exertion of the men, the violent perspiration and the intense thirst produced thereby. Immediately a pause occurs in their work, they fly to the public-house for beer. One coalbacker made a regular habit of drinking sixteen half-pints of beer, with a pennyworth of gin in each, before breakfast every morning. The sum spent in drink by the ‘moderate’ men varies from 9s. to 12s. per week, and the immoderate men on the average spend 15s. a-week. Hence, assuming the class of coalbackers to be 2000 in number, and to spend only 10s. a-week in drink each man, the sum that would be annually expended in malt liquors and spirits by the class would amount to no less than 52,000l. The wives and children of the coalbackers are generally in great distress. Sometimes no more than one quarter of the men’s earnings is taken home at night.

“When I was moderate inclined,” said one of them to me, “I used to have a glass of rum the first thing when I came out of a morning, just to keep the cold out—that might be as early as about five o’clock in the morning, and about seven o’clock I should want half a pint of beer with gin in it, or a pint without. After my work I should be warm, and feel myself dry; then I should continue to work till breakfast-time; then I should have another half pint with gin in it, and so I should keep on through the day, having either some beer or gin every two hours. I reckon that unless a man spent about 1s. 6d. to 2s. in drink, he would not be able to continue his labour through the day. In the evening, he is tired with his work, and being kept at the public-house for his pay, he begins drinking there, and soon feels unwilling to move, and he seldom does so until all his wages are gone.” My informant tells me that he thinks the class would be much improved if the system of paying the men at the public-house was done away, and the men paid weekly instead of daily. The hard drinking he thinks a necessity of the hard labour. He has heard, he says, of coalbackers being teetotalers, but none were able to keep the pledge beyond two months. If they drink water and coffee, it will rather increase than quench their thirst. Nothing seems to quench the thirst of a hard-working man so well as ale.

“The only difference between the pay of the basketman and the whipper is the 1½d. in the pound which the former receives for carrying the money from the captain of the ship to the clerk of the pay-office. He has also for this sum to keep a correct account of the work done by the men every day, and to find security for his honesty to the amount of 10l. To obtain this, they usually pay 2s. 6d. a-year to the Guarantee Society, and they prefer doing this to seeking the security of some baker or publican in the neighbourhood, knowing that if they did so, they would be expected to become customers of the parties.”

I now resume my inquiry whether stimulating drinks are necessary for the performance of severe labour.

I have already published the statement of a coalbacker, who declared that it was an absolute necessity of that kind of labour that the men engaged in backing coals from the hold of a ship should, though earning only 1l. per week, spend at least 12s. weekly in beer and spirits, to stimulate them for their work. This sum, the man assured me, was a moderate allowance, for 15s. was the amount ordinarily expended by the men in drink every week. Now if this quantity of drink be a necessity of the calling, it follows that the men pursuing the severest labour of all—doing work that cripples the strongest in from twelve to twenty years—are the worst paid of all labourers, their actual clear gains being only from 5s. to 8s. per week. This struck me as being so terrible a state of things that I could hardly believe it to be true, though I was assured by several coalwhippers who were present on the occasion, that the coalbacker who had made the statement had in no way exaggerated the account of the sufferings of his fellow-workmen. I determined, nevertheless, upon inquiring into the question myself, and ascertaining, by the testimony and experience of different classes of individuals engaged in this, the greatest labour, perhaps, performed by any men, whether drink was really a necessity or luxury to the working man.

Accordingly, I called a meeting of the coalwhippers, that I might take their opinion on the subject, when I found that out of eighty individuals only four were satisfied that fermented liquors could be dispensed with by the labouring classes. I was, however, still far from satisfied upon the subject, and I determined, as the question is one of the greatest importance to the working men,—being more intimately connected with their welfare, physical, intellectual, and moral, than any other,—to give the subject my most patient and unbiassed consideration. I was anxious, without advocating any opinion upon the subject, to collect the sentiments of the coal labourers themselves; and in order that I might do so as impartially as possible, I resolved upon seeing—1st, such men as were convinced that stimulating liquors were necessary to the labouring man in the performance of his work; 2ndly, such men as once thought differently, and, indeed, had once taken the pledge to abstain from the use of all fermented liquors, but had been induced to violate their vow in consequence of their health having suffered; and 3rdly, such men as had taken the pledge and kept it without any serious injury to their constitutions. To carry the subject out with the fulness and impartiality that its importance seemed to me to demand, I further determined to prosecute the inquiry among both classes of coal labourers—the coalwhippers and coalbackers as well. The result of these investigations I shall now subjoin. Let me, however, in the first place, lay before the reader the following

Comparative Table of Drunkenness of the different Trades in London.

Above the Average.

Below the Average.

The above calculations have been made from the Official Returns of the Metropolitan Police. The causes of the different degrees of intemperance here exhibited, I leave to others to discover.

After the meeting of coalwhippers just described, I requested some of the men who had expressed the various opinions respecting the necessity for drinking some kind of fermented liquor during their work to meet me, so that I might take down their sentiments on the subject more fully. First of all, came two of the most intelligent, who believed malt liquor to be necessary for the performance of their labour. One was a basketman or fireman, and the other an “up-and-down” man, or whipper; the first doing the lighter, and the second the heavier kind of work. The basketman, who I afterwards discovered was a good Greek and Latin scholar, said: “If I have anything like a heavy day’s work to do, I consider three pints of porter a-day necessary. We are not like other labouring men, having an hour to dinner. Often, to save tide, we take only ten minutes to our meals. One thing I wish to remark is, that what renders it necessary to have the three pints of beer in winter, and two pots in summer, is the coal-dust arising from the work, which occasions great thirst. In the summer time the basketman is on the plank all day, and continually exposed to the sun, and in the winter to the inclemency of the weather. What with the labour and the heat, the perspiration is excessive. A basketman with a bad gang of men has no sinecure. In the summer he can wear neither coat nor waistcoat; very few can bear the hat on the head, and they wear nightcaps instead. The work is always done, in summer time, with only the shirt and trousers on. The basketman never takes off his shirt, like the whippers. The necessity for drink in the summer does not arise so much from the extent of the labour, as from the irritation caused by the coal-dust getting into the throat. There is not so much dust from the coals in the winter as in the summer, the coals being more damp in wet than in fine weather. It is merely the thirst that makes the drink requisite, as far as the basketman is concerned. Tea would allay the thirst, but there is no opportunity of having this on board ship. If there were an opportunity of having tea at our work, the basketman might manage to do with it as well as with beer. Water I don’t fancy, especially the water of the river; it is very impure, and at the time of the cholera we were prohibited from drinking it. If we could get pure water, I do not think it would do as well for us, especially in winter time. In winter time it would be too cold, and too great a contrast to the heat of the blood. It would, in my opinion, produce stagnation in the circulation. We have had instances of men dying suddenly through drinking water when in a state of excitement.” [He distinguishes between excitement and perspiration: he calls the basketman’s labour an exciting one, and the whipper’s work a heating one.] “The men who died suddenly were whippers. I never heard of a basketman dying from drinking cold water when at his work; I don’t think they ever tried the experiment. The whippers have done so through necessity, not through choice. Tea is a beverage that I don’t fancy, and I conceive it to be equally expensive, so I prefer porter. When I go off to my work early in the morning, I take about a pint of coffee with me in a bottle, and warm it up on board at the galley-fire for my breakfast; that I find quenches my thirst for the time as well as porter. Porter would be too insipid the first thing in the morning; I never drank coffee through the day while at my work, so I cannot say what the effect would be. I drink porter when at my work, not as giving me greater strength to go through my labour, but merely as a means of quenching my thirst, it being as cheap as any other drink, with the exception of water, and less trouble to procure. Water I consider dangerous at our work, but I can’t say that it is so from my own experience. I was in the hospital about seven years ago, and the doctor there asked me how many pints of beer I was in the habit of drinking per day. This was before the office was established. I told him, on the lowest calculation, six or seven; it was the case then under the old system; and he then ordered me two pints of porter a-day, as I was very weak, and he said I wanted a stimulus. I am not aware that it is the habit of the publicans to adulterate their porter with salt and water. If such is the case, it would, without a doubt, increase rather than diminish the thirst. I have often found that the beer sold by some of the publicans tends more to create than allay thirst. I am confident, that if the working men generally knew that salt and water was invariably mixed with the porter by the publicans, they would no longer hold to the notion that it could quench their thirst; but, to convince them of that, it would be almost necessary that they should see the publican adulterating the beer with their own eyes. If it really is the case that beer is adulterated with salt and water, it must be both injurious and heating to the labouring man. Some of the men who are in the habit of drinking porter at their work, very probably attribute the thirst created by the salt and water in the porter to the thirst created by the coal-dust or the work, and continue drinking it from the force of habit. The habit of drinking is doubtlessly the effect of the old system, when the men were forced to drink by the publicans who paid them. A most miraculous change, and one unparalleled in history, has been produced by altering the old mode of employing and paying the men. The reformation in the morals and character of the men is positively wonderful. The sons are no longer thieves, and the daughters are no longer prostitutes. Formerly it was a competition who could drink the most, for he who could do so got the most work. The introduction for a job was invariably, ‘You know, Mr. So and So, I’m a good drinking man.’ Seeing the benefit that has resulted from the men not drinking so much as formerly, I am of opinion that, though I take my beer every day myself, a great good would ensue if the men would drink even less than they do now, and eat more; it would be more conducive to their health and strength. But they have not the same facility for getting food over their work as there is for getting beer. You see, they can have credit for beer when they can’t get a morsel of food on trust. There are no floating butchers or bakers, like there are floating publicans or purlmen. If there were, and men could have trust for bread and meat while at their work on the river, I am sure they would eat more and drink less, and be all the better for it. It would be better for themselves and for their families. The great evil of the drink is, that when a man has a little he often wants more, and doesn’t know where to stop. When he once passes the ‘rubi-can,’ as I call it, he is lost. If it wasn’t for this evil, I think a pint or two of porter would make them do their work better than either tea or water. Our labour is peculiar. The air is always full of coal-dust, and every nerve and muscle of the body is strained, and every pore of the body open, so that he requires some drink that will counteract the cold.”

The next two that I saw were men who did the heaviest work; that is, “up-and-down men,” or coalwhippers, as they are usually called. They had both of them been teetotalers. One had been so for eight years, and the other had tried it for three months. One who stood at least six feet and a half high, and was habited in a long blue great coat that reached to his heels, and made him look even taller than he was, said,—“I was a strict teetotaler for many years, and I wish I could be so now. All that time I was a coalwhipper at the heaviest work, and I have made one of a gang that have done as many as 180 tons in one day. I drank no fermented liquor the whole of the time; I had only ginger-beer and milk, and that cost me 1s. 6d. It was in the summer time. I didn’t ‘buff it’ on that day; that is, I didn’t take my shirt off. I did this work at the Regent’s Canal; and there was a little milk-shop close on shore, and I used to run there when I was dry. I had about two quarts of milk and five bottles of ginger-beer, or about three quarts of fluid altogether. I found that amount of drink necessary. I perspired very violently; my shirt was wet through, and my flannels wringing wet with the perspiration over the work. The rule among us is, that we do 28 tons on deck, and 28 tons filling in the ship’s hold. We go on in that way throughout the day, spelling at every 28 tons. The perspiration in the summer time streams down our foreheads so rapidly, that it will often get into our eyes before we have time to wipe it off. This makes the eyes very sore. At night, when we get home, we cannot bear to sit with a candle. The perspiration is of a very briny nature, for I often taste it as it runs down to my lips. We are often so heated over our work that the perspiration runs into the shoes; and often, from the dust and heat, jumping up and down, and the feet being galled with the small dust, I have had my shoes full of blood. The thirst produced by our work is very excessive; it is completely as if you had a fever upon you. The dust gets into the throat, and very nearly suffocates you. You can scrape the coal-dust off the tongue with the teeth; and do what you will it is impossible to get the least spittle into the mouth. I have known the coal-dust to be that thick in a ship’s hold, that I have been unable to see my mate, though he was only two feet from me. Your legs totter under you, both before and after you are a teetotaler. I was one of the strongest men in the business; I was able to carry 7 cwt. on my back for fifty yards, and I could lift nine half-hundreds with my right-arm. After finishing my day’s work I was like a child with weakness. When we have done 14 or 28 tons, we generally stop for a drop of drink, and then I have found that anything that would wet my mouth would revive me. Cold tea, milk, or ginger-beer, were refreshing, but not so much as a pint of porter. Cold water would give a pain in the inside, so that a man would have to lie down and be taken ashore, and, perhaps, give up work altogether. Many a man has been taken to the hospital merely through drinking cold water over his work. They have complained of a weight and coldness in the chest; they say it has chilled the fat of the heart. I can positively state,” continued the man, “that during the whole of eight years I took no fermented drink. My usual drink was cold tea, milk, ginger-beer, or coffee, whichever I could catch: the ginger-beer was more lively than the milk; but I believe I could do more work upon the milk. Tea I found much better than coffee. Cold tea was very refreshing; but if I didn’t take it with me in a bottle, it wasn’t to be had. I used to take a quart of cold tea with me in a bottle, and make that do for me all day, as well as I could. The ginger-beer was the most expensive, and would cost me a shilling, or more than that if I could get it. The milk would cost me sixpence or eightpence. For tea and coffee the expense would be about twopence the day. But often I have done the whole day’s work without any drink, because I would not touch beer, and then I was more fit to be carried home than walk. I have known many men scarcely able to crawl up the ladder out of the hold, they were so fatigued. For myself, being a very strong man, I was never so reduced, thank God. But often, when I’ve got home, I’ve been obliged to drink three pints of milk at a stretch, before I could touch a bit of victuals. As near as I can guess it used to cost me, when at work, a shilling a-day for ginger-beer, milk, and other teetotal drinks. When I was not at work my drink used to cost me little or nothing. For eight years I stuck to the pledge, but I found myself failing in strength and health; I found that I couldn’t go through a day’s work as clever as I used before I left off drink, and when first I was a teetotaler. I found myself failing in every inch of my carcase, my limbs, my body and all. Of my own free-will I gave it up. I did not do it in a fit of passion, but deliberately, because I was fully satisfied that it was injuring my health. Shortly after taking the pledge I found I could have more meat than I used to have before, and I found that I neither got strong nor weak upon it. After about five years my appetite began to fail, and then I found my strength leaving me; so I made up my mind to alter the system. When I returned to beer, I found myself getting better in health and stronger daily. Before I was a teetotaler I used to drink heavy, but after teetotalism I was a temperate man. I am sure it is necessary for a hard-working man that he should drink beer. He can’t do his work so well without it as he can with it, in moderation. If he goes beyond his allowance he is better without any. I have taken to drinking beer again within the last twelve months. As long as a man does not go beyond his allowance in beer, his drink will cost him quite as much when he is teetotaler as it will when he has not taken the pledge. The difference between the teetotal and fermented drinks I find to be this:—When I drank milk it didn’t make me any livelier; it quenched my thirst, but didn’t give me any strength. But when I drank a pint or a quart of beer, it did me so much good after a day’s labour, that after drinking it I could get up and go to my work again. This feeling would continue for a considerable time; indeed, I think the beer is much better for a hard-working man than any unfermented drink. I defy any man in England to contradict me in what I say, and that is—a man who takes his reasonable quantity of beer, and a fair share of food, is much better with it than without.”

Another man, who had been a teetotaler for three months at one time, and seven years at another, was convinced that it was impossible for a hard-working man to do his work as well without beer as with. “He had tried it twice, and he spoke from his own experience, and he would say that a little—that is, two pints, or three for a very hard day’s labour,—would never hurt no man. Beyond that a man has no right to go; indeed, anything extra only makes him stupid. Under the old system, I used to be obliged to buy rum; and, over and over again, I’ve had to pay fifteen-pence for half-a-pint of rum in a ginger-beer bottle; and have gone into the street and sold it for sixpence, and got a steak with the money. No man can say drink has ruined my constitution, for I’ve only had two pennyworth of antibilious pills in twenty-five years; and I will say, a little beer does a man more good than harm, and too much does a man more harm than good.”

The next two “whippers” that I saw were both teetotalers. One had taken the pledge eight months before, and the other four years; and they had both kept it strictly. One had been cellarman at a public-house, and he said, “I neither take spruce nor any of the cordials: water is my beverage at dinner.” The other had been an inveterate drunkard. The cellarman is now a basketman, and the other an up-and-down man, or whipper, in the same gang. The basketman said, “I can say this from my own experience,—that it is not necessary for a working man, doing the very hardest labour, to drink fermented liquors. I was an up-and-down man for two years, without tasting a drop of beer or spirits. I have helped to whip 189 tons of coal in one day, without any; and that in the heat of summer. What I had with me was a bottle of cocoa; and I took with that plenty of steak, potatoes, and bread. If the men was to take more meat and less beer, they would do much better. It’s a delusion to think beer necessary. Often, the men who say the beer is necessary will deliver a ship, aye, and not half-a-dozen half-pints be drank aboard. The injury is done ashore. The former custom of our work—the compulsory system of drinking that we were under,—has so imbedded the idea of drink in the men, that they think it is actually necessary. It’s not the least to be wondered at, that there’s so many drunkards among them. I do not think we shall ever be able to undo the habit of drinking among the whippers in this generation. As far as I am concerned, since I’ve been a teetotaler, I have enjoyed a more regular state of health than I used before. Now that I am a basketman, I drink only water with my dinner; and during my work I take nothing. I have got a ship in hands—going to work on Monday morning. I shall have to run backwards and forwards on a one-and-twenty-foot plank, and deliver 300 tons of coals: and I shall do that upon water. That man,” pointing to the teetotaler who accompanied him, “will be in it, and he’ll have to help to pull the coals twenty foot above the deck; and he’ll do it all upon water. When I was a coalwhipper myself, I used to drink cocoa. I took it cold with me of a morning, and warmed it aboard. They prophesied it would kill me in a week; and I know it’s done me every good in life. I have drunk water when I was a-working up-and-down, and when I was in the highest perspiration, and never found it injure me. It allays the thirst more than anything. If it didn’t allay the thirst I should want to drink often: but if I take a drink of water from the cask I find my thirst immediately quenched. Many of the men who drink beer will take a drink of water afterwards, because the beer increases their thirst, and heats them. That, I believe, is principally from the salt water in it: in fact, it stands to reason, that if beer is half brine it can’t quench thirst. Ah! it’s shocking stuff the purlmen make up for them on the river. When I was drinking beer at my employment, I used seldom to exceed three pints of beer a-day: that is what I took on board. What I had on shore was not, of course, to help me to do my labour. I know the beer used to inflame my thirst, because I’ve had to drink water after it over and over again. I never made a habit of drinking,—not since the establishment of the office. Previous to that, of course, I was obliged to drink. I’ve got ‘jolly’ now and then, but I never made a habit of it. It used to cost me about two shillings or two shillings and sixpence a-week, on the average, for drink, at the uttermost; because I couldn’t afford more. Since I’ve taken the pledge, I’m sure it hasn’t cost me sixpence a-week. A teetotaler feels less thirst than any other man. I don’t know what natural thirst is, except I’ve been eating salt provisions. I belong to a total abstinence society, and there are about a dozen coalwhippers, and about the same number of coalbackers, members of it. Some have been total abstainers for twelve years, and are living witnesses that fermented drinks are not necessary for working men. There are about two hundred to two hundred and fifty coalwhippers, I have been given to understand, who are teetotalers. Those coalwhippers who have been total abstainers for twelve years, are not weaker or worse in health for the want of beer.” [This statement was denied by a person present; but a gentleman, who was intimately acquainted with the whole body, mentioned the names of several men who had been, some ten years, and some upwards of twelve years, strict adherents to the principles of teetotalism.] “The great quantity of drinking is carried on ashore. I should say the men generally drink twice as much ashore as they do afloat. Those who drink beer are always thirsty. Through drinking over their work, a thirst is created aboard, which they set to drinking, when ashore, to allay; and, after a hard day’s labour, a very little overcomes a man. One or two pots of beer, and the man is loth to stir. He is tired; and the drink, instead of refreshing him, makes him sleepy and heavy. The next morning after drinking he is thirstier still; and then he goes to work drinking again. The perspiration will start out of him in large drops, like peas. You will see it stream down his face and his hands, with the coal-dust sticking to them, just like as if he had a pair of silk gloves on him. It’s a common saying with us, about such a man, that ‘he’s got the gloves on.’ The drunkards always perspire the most over their work. The prejudice existing among the men in favour of drink is such, that they believe they would die without it. I am quite astonished to see such an improvement among them as there is; and I do think that, if the clergymen of the neighbourhood did their duty, and exerted themselves, the people would be better still. At one time there were as many as five hundred coalwhippers total abstainers; and the men were much better clothed, and the homes and appearance of the whippers were much more decent. What I should do if I drank, I don’t know. I got 1l. for clearing a ship last week, and shan’t get any more till Monday night; and I have six children and a wife to keep out of that. For this last fortnight I have only made 10s. a-week, so I am sure I couldn’t even afford a shilling a-week for drink, without robbing my family.”

The second teetotaler, who had been an inveterate drunkard in his time, stated as follows. Like most of the coalwhippers, he thought once that he could not do his work without beer. He used to drink as much as he could get. He averaged two pots at his work, and when he came on shore he would have two pots more.

“He had been a coalwhipper for upwards of twenty years, and for nineteen years and three months of that time he was a hard drinker,—a regular stiff ’un,” said he; “I not only used,” he added, “to get drunk, but I taught my children to do so,—I have got sons as big as myself, coalbackers, and total abstainers. Often I have gone home on a Sunday morning drunk myself, and found two of my sons drunk,—they’d be unable to sit at the table. They were about fourteen then, and when they went out with me I used to teach them to take their little drops of neat rum or gin. I have seen the youngest ‘mop up’ his half-quartern as well as I did. Then I was always thirsty; and when I got up of a morning I used to go stalking round to the first public-house that was open, to see if I could get a pint or a quartern. My mouth was dry and parched, as if I had got a burning fever. If I had no work that day I used to sit in a public-house and spend all the money I’d got. If I had no money I would go home and raise it somehow. I would ask the old woman to give me the price of a pint, or perhaps the young uns were at work, and I was pretty safe to meet them coming home. Talk about going out of a Sunday! I was ashamed to be seen out. My clothes were ragged, and my shoes would take the water in at one end and let it out at the other. I keep my old rags at home, to remind me of what I was—I call them the regimentals of the guzzler. I pawned everything I could get at. For ten or twelve years I used a beer-shop regularly. That was my house of call. Now my home is very happy. All my children are teetotalers. My sons are as big as myself, and they are at work carrying 1¾ cwt. to 2 cwt. up a Jacob’s ladder, thirty-three steps high. They do this all day long, and have been doing so for the last seven days. They drink nothing but water or cold tea, and say they find themselves the better able to do their work. Coalbacking is about the hardest labour a man can perform. For myself, too, I find I am quite as able to do my work without intoxicating drinks as I was with them. There’s my basketman,” said he, pointing to the other teetotaler, “and he can tell you whether what I say is true or not. I have helped to whip 147 tons of coal in the heat of summer. The other men were calling for beer every time they could see or hear a purlman, but I took nothing—I don’t think I perspired so much as they did. When I was in the drinking custom, I have known the perspiration run down my arms and legs as if I’d been in a hot bath. Since I’ve taken the pledge I scarcely perspire at all. I’ll work against any man that takes beer, provided I have a good teetotal pill—that is, a good pound of steak, with plenty of gravy in it. That’s the stuff to work upon—that’s what the working man wants—plenty of it, and less beer, and he’d beat a horse any day. I am satisfied the working man can never be raised above his present position until he can give over drinking. That is the reason why I am sticking to the pledge, that I may be a living example to my class that they can and may work without beer. It has made my home happy, and I want it to make every other working man’s as comfortable. I tried the principle of teetotalism first on board a steam-boat. I was stoker, and we burnt 27 cwt. of coals every hour we were at sea—that’s very nearly a ton and a-half per hour. There, with the heat of the fire, we felt the effects of drinking strong brandy. Brandy was the only fermented drink we were allowed. After a time I tried what other stimulants we could use. The heat in the hold, especially before the fires, was awful. There were nine stokers and four coal-trimmers. We found that the brandy that we drank in the day made us ill, our heads ached when we got up in the morning, so four of us agreed to try oatmeal and water as our drink, and we found that suited us better than intoxicating liquor. I myself got as fat as a bull upon it. It was recommended to me by a doctor in Falmouth, and we all of us tried it eight or nine voyages. Some time after I left the company I went to strong drink again, and continued at it till the 1st of May last, and then my children’s love of drink got so dreadful that I got to hate myself as being the cause of it. But I couldn’t give up the drinking. Two of my mates, however, urged me to try. On the 1st of May I signed the pledge. I prayed to God on the night I went to give me strength to keep it, and never since have I felt the least inclination to return. When I had left off a fortnight I found myself a great deal better; all the cramps that I had been loaded with when I was drinking left me. Now I am happy and comfortable at home. My wife’s about one of the best women in the world. She bore with me in all my troubles, and now she glories in my redemption. My children love me, and we club all our earnings together, and can always on Sunday manage a joint of sixteen or seventeen pounds. My wife, now that we are teetotalers, need do no work; and, in conclusion, I must say that I have much cause to bless the Lord that ever I signed the teetotal pledge.

“After I leave my work,” added the teetotaler, “I find the best thing I can have to refresh me is a good wash of my face and shoulders in cold water. This is twice as enlivening as ever I found beer. Once a fortnight I goes over to Goulston-square, Whitechapel, and have a warm bath. This is one of the finest things that ever was invented for the working man. Any persons that use them don’t want beer. I invited a coalwhipper-man to come with me once. ‘How much does it cost?’ he asked. I told him, ‘A penny.’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’d sooner have half-a-pint of beer. I haven’t washed my body for these twenty-two years, and don’t see why I should begin to have anything to do with these new-fangled notions at my time of life.’ I will say, that a good wash is better for the working man than the best drink.”

The man ultimately made a particular request that his statement might conclude with a verse that he had chosen from the Temperance Melodies:—