Now, comparing these returns with those of the year before last, we find that the decrease of intemperance in the metropolis has been most extraordinary. In the year 1831, 1 in every 48 individuals was drunk; in 1832 the number increased to 1 in 46; whereas in 1833 it decreased to 1 in 50; and in 1848 the average had again fallen to 1 individual to every 110. This decrease of intemperance was attended with a similar decrease in the number of metropolitan beer-shops. In 1833 there were 1182, and in 1848 only 779 beer-shops in London. Whether this decrease preceded or succeeded, and so was the cause or the consequence of the increased sobriety of the people, it is difficult to say. The number of public-houses in London, however, had increased during the same period from 4073 to 4275. Upon the cause and effect of this I leave others to speculate.

Of the total, 16,461 persons, male and female, who were charged with being intoxicated in the year 1848, no less than one individual in every seven belonged to the labouring class: and, excluding the females from the number, we shall find that, of the males, every fourth individual that was taken up for drunkenness was a labouring man. Taking the whole population of London, temperate and intemperate, only 1 in every 110 is a drunkard; but with the labouring classes the average is as high as 1 in every 22. Of course, where the habit of drinking is excessive, we may expect to find also excessive pugnacity. That it is the tendency of all intoxicating liquors to increase the irritability of the individual is well known. We might infer therefore, à priori, that the greater number of common assaults would be committed by the greatest drunkards. In 1848 there were 7780 individuals assaulted in London, and nearly one-fourth of these, or 1882, were attacked by labouring men, one in every 26 of the entire body of labourers having been charged with this offence. The “simple larceny,” of which the labouring classes appear, by the same returns, to be more guilty than any other body of individuals, is also explained by their inordinate intemperance. When a man’s bodily energy is destroyed by drink, labour is so irksome to him that he would sooner peril his liberty than work. What wonder, then, that as many as 1 in every 28 labourers should be charged with theft? Whereas, of the rest of the population there are only 1 in every 226 individuals. Thus, of the labouring classes, 1 in every 22 is charged with being drunk; 1 in every 26 with committing an assault; and 1 in every 28 with being guilty of simple larceny.

For the truth of the connexion existing between drink, pugnacity, and theft, I would refer to the statement of one of the most intelligent and experienced of the coal whippers,—one, indeed, to whose unceasing and heroic exertions that class principally owe their redemption:—“The children of the coal-whippers,” he told me, “were, under the old system, almost reared in the tap-room.” He himself had known as many as 500 youths that were transported; and this, be it remembered, out of a class numbering only 2000 men.

Such, then, are the proved consequences of an inordinate use of intoxicating liquors. It becomes, therefore, the duty of every one who is anxious for the well-being of the people, to diminish the occasions for drinking wherever possible. To permit the continuance of certain systems of employment and payment, which are well known, both to tempt and compel the men to indulge in intoxicating liquors, is at once to breed the very crimes that it is the office of Government to suppress. The custom pursued by the coal-merchants of paying the labourers in their employ in public-houses, as I lately exposed, appeared bad enough. The “backer,” jaded and depressed with his excessive work through the day, was entrapped into the public-house in the evening, under the pretence of receiving his wages. Once inside he was kept waiting there hour after hour by the publican (who of course was out of silver, and had to send some distance for it). Beer is called for by the men in the meantime. Under the influence of the stimulant, the fatigue and the depression begin to leave the labourers, the burden that is still on their backs (it will be remembered that such is the description of the men themselves) is shaken off, and their muscles no longer ache and are stiff, but relax, while their flagging spirits gradually revive under the potent charm of the liquor. What wonder, then, that the poor creatures finding it so easy, and when the habit is once formed, so pleasant, a cure for their ills, should be led to follow up one draught with another and another? This system appeared to me to be vicious enough, and to display a callousness on the part of the employers that quite startled me. But the system under which the ballast-labourers are now suffering, is an infamy hardly to be credited as flourishing in these days. I have, therefore, been at considerable pains to establish such a mass of evidence upon the subject as shall make all earnest men look upon the continuance of such a system as a national dishonour.

Meeting of the Ballast-Heavers’ Wives.

Before dealing with the Lumpers, or those who discharge the timber from ships—in contradistinction to the stevedores, or those who stow the cargoes of vessels,—I will give the following report of a meeting of the ballast-heavers’ wives. It is the wife and children who are the real sufferers from the intemperance of the working-man; and being anxious to give the public some idea of the amount of misery entailed upon these poor creatures by the compulsory and induced drunkenness of the husbands, I requested as many as could leave their homes to meet me at the British and Foreign School, in Shakespeare-walk, Shadwell. The meeting consisted of the wives of ballast-heavers and coal-whippers. The wives of the coal-whippers had come there to contrast their present state with their past, with a view of showing the misery they had endured when their husbands were under the same thraldom to the publican as the ballast-heavers are now, and the comparative happiness which they have experienced since they were freed from it. They had attended unsolicited, in the hope, by making their statements public, of getting for the ballast-heavers the same freedom from the control of the publican which the coal-whippers had obtained.

The meeting consisted of the wives of ballast-heavers and coal-whippers, thirty-one were present. Of the thirty-one, nine were the wives of coal-whippers, the remaining twenty-two the wives of ballast-heavers. Many others, who had expressed a desire to attend, were prevented by family cares and arrangements; but, small as the meeting was comparatively, it afforded a very fair representation of the circumstances and characters of their husbands. For instance, those who were coal-whippers’ wives appeared comfortable and “well to do.” They wore warm gowns, had on winter-bonnets and clean tidy caps underneath; the ballast-heavers’ wives, on the contrary, were mostly ragged, dejected, and anxious-looking.

An endeavour was made to ascertain in the first instance how many children each person had. This was done by questioning them separately; and from the answers it appeared that they all had families. Eight had one child each, the rest varied from two to eight, and one woman stated that she had twelve children, all of whom were living, but that only four resided now with her and her husband. Five had infants in their arms, and several had children sick, either at home or in some hospital.

In the next place the ballast-heavers’ wives were asked whether their husbands worked under publicans? “All of them,” was the reply, “work under publicans;” and, said one, “Worse luck for us,”—a sentiment that was very warmly concurred in by all the rest.

This fact having been specifically ascertained from each woman, we proceeded to inquire from them separately how much their husbands earned, and how much of their earnings was spent at the publicans’ houses through which they obtained work, or where they were paid.

“My husband,” said the first woman, “works under a publican, and I know that he earns now 12s. or 13s. a-week, but he brings home to me only half-a-crown, and sometimes not so much. He spends all the rest at a public-house where he gets his jobs, and often comes home drunk.”

“My husband,” exclaimed the second, “will sometimes get from 24s. to 28s. a-week, but I never see anything the likes o’ that money from him. He spends it at the publican’s. And when he has earned 24s. he will sometimes bring home only 2s. or 2s. 6d. We are badly off, you may be sure, when the money goes in this way. But my husband cannot help spending it, for he is obliged to get his jobs at the public-house.”

“Last week,” interposed another, “we had not one penny coming into our house; and the week before—which was Christmas week—my husband got two jobs which would come, he told me, to 8s. or 9s. if he had brought it all home; but he only brought me 1s. This was all the money I had to keep me and my five children for the whole week; and I’m sure I don’t know how we got through. This is all owing to the public-house. And when we go to fetch our husbands at eleven or twelve o’clock at night they shut us out, and say they are not there, though we know very well they are inside in a back place. My husband has been kept in that back place many a time till two or three in the morning—then he has been turned out and come home drunk, without 6d. in his pocket, though the same day he has received 8s. or 9s. at the same public-house.”

“They go to the public-house,” added another woman, “to get jobs, and to curry favour they spend their money there, because if they did not spend their money they would never get a job. The men who will drink the greatest quantity of money will get the most jobs. This leaves their families and their wives miserable, and I am sure me and my poor family are miserable enough.”

“But this,” interposed a quiet, elderly woman, “is the beginning of the tenth week, in all of which my husband has only had four jobs, and all I have received of him during that time is 1s. 3½d. a-week, and we stand in 2s. 6d. a-week rent. I am sure I don’t know how we get along. But our publicans are very civil, for my husband works for two. Still, if he does not drink a good part of it away we know very well he will get no more work.”

“It is very little,” said a female with an infant in her arms, “that my husband earns; and of what little he does earn he does not fetch much to me. He got one job last week, heaving 45 tons, and he fetched me home 1s. 6d. for it. I was then in lodgings at 1s. 6d. a-week, but I could not afford them, but now I’m in lodgings at 9d. a-week. This week he has no work yet. In Christmas week my man told me he earned 25s., and I believe he did, but he only fetched me home 8s. or 9s. on Saturday. My husband works for a publican, and it was at his house he spent his money. One day last week he asked the publican to give him a job, and he said, ‘I cannot give you a job, for there is nothing against you on the slate but 1s.,’ and so he got none there. My infant is six weeks old to-day, and this woman by me (appealing to the female next to her) knows well it is the truth that I tell—that for two nights in last week my child and myself were obliged to go to bed breadless. We had nothing neither of those two days. It was the same in one night the week before Christmas, though my husband received that night 8s., but all was spent at the public-house. On Christmas night we could not get any supper. We had no money, and I took the gown off my back and pawned it for 2s. to provide something for us to eat. I have nothing else to say but this—that whatever my husband earns I get little or nothing of it, for it goes to the public-house where he gets his jobs.”

An infirm woman, approaching fifty years of age, who spoke in a tone of sorrowful resignation, said,—“We have had very little money coming in of late. My husband has been very bad for ten weeks back. He throws up blood; I suppose he has strained himself too much. All the money I have had for six weeks to keep us both has been 8s. If he was earning money he would bring it to me.”

Another woman, “Not without the publican’s allowance, I am sure.”

The first woman, “No; the publican’s allowance would be taken off; but the publican, you see, must have a little—I do not know how much it is, but they must have something if they give us their jobs.”

This woman was here asked if her husband ever came home drunk?

“Yes,” she replied; “many a time he comes home drunk; but he must have the drink to get the jobs.”

A number of other women having made statements confirmatory of the above:—

“Do you think,” the meeting was asked, “your husbands would be sober as well as industrious men if they could be got away from the public-house system of employment and payment of wages?”

“God Almighty bless you!” exclaimed one woman, “they would love us and their families all the better for it! We should all be much the better for it.”

“And so say all of us!” was the next and perfectly unanimous exclamation.

“If we could see that day,” said one who had spoken before, “our families would have little to complain of.”

Another added, “The night-houses ought to be closed. That would be one good thing.”

Some inquiries were then made as to whether these poor women were ill-treated by their husbands when they came home in a state of intoxication. There was a good deal of hesitation before any answers could be obtained. At last one woman said, “her husband did certainly beat her, of course; but then,” she added, “he did not know what he was doing.”

“I,” said another, “should not know what it was to have an angry word with my husband if he was always sober. He is a quiet man—very, when the drink is out of him; but we have many words together when he is tipsy; and——” she stopped without completing the sentence.

Several others gave similar testimony; and many declared that it was the public-house system which led their husbands to drink.

One woman here said that the foremen of gangs, as well as the publican, helped to reduce the ballast-heaver’s earnings; for they gave work to men who took lodgings from them, though they did not occupy them.

This was confirmed by another woman, who spoke with great warmth upon the subject. She said that married men who could not afford to spend with the publican and lodge with the foremen in the manner pointed out, would be sure to have no work. Other men went straight from one job to another, while her own husband and other women’s husbands had been three or four weeks without lifting a shovelful of ballast. She considered this was very hard on men who had families.

A question was here asked, whether any women were present whose husbands, in order to obtain work, were obliged to pay for lodgings which they did not use?

One immediately rose and said, “They do it regularly at a publican’s in Wapping; and I know the men that have paid for them have had six jobs together, when my husband has had none for weeks.” “There are now,” added another, “fourteen at that very place who never lodge there, though they are paying for lodgings.”

They were next asked, who had suffered from want owing to their husbands drinking their earnings, as described at the public-houses in question?

“Starvation has been my lot,” said one. “And mine,” added another. “My children,” said a third, “have often gone to bed at night without breaking their fast the whole length of the day.” “And mine,” said one, “have many a time gone without a bit or sup of anything all the day, through their father working for the publican.”

“I cannot,” exclaimed the next, “afford my children a ha’porth of milk a-day.”

“Many a time,” said one, who appeared to be very much moved, “have I put my four children to bed, when the only meal they have had the whole day has been 1lb. of bread; but it’s of no use opening my mouth.”

“I,” said the last, “have been in London twenty-seven years, and during that time I can safely say I have never taken myself a single glass of spirits or anything else; but in that time I have suffered the martyrdom of forty years—all through my husband and the public-house. I have two children who bring me in, one of them 2s. 6d. and the other 6s. 6d. a-week, which is all we have, for my husband gets nearly nothing. If he could bring his earnings home, instead of spending them at a public-house, we should be very comfortable.”

These questions led to one concerning the late-hour system at the public-houses frequented by the ballast-heavers.

“I often go for my husband,” said one, “at one or two o’clock in the morning, after I know he has been paid; but they have kept him in a back apartment away from me, till I have threatened to smash the windows if they did not let him out. I threatened to smash the windows because my children were wanting the money for bread, which he was spending there. If our husbands were inclined to come home sober there is little chance, for they have cards and bagatelle to keep them till they become heady, and when they are become heady, there is nothing left for their families—then the publicans kick our poor men out, and lock the doors.”

This statement was confirmed, and after several other persons had described their feelings,—

The coal-whippers’ wives were asked whether or not their condition and that of their families had been improved since the system of carrying on the trade had been altered by the Legislature?

The answer was a most decisive affirmative. Their husbands, they said, used to spend all, or very nearly all, their earnings with the publicans; but now, when they got a good ship, they brought home the greatest part of their earnings, which was sufficient to make their families comfortable. Their husbands had become quite different men. They used to ill-treat them when they were paid at a public-house—very much so, because of the drink; but now they were very much altered, because they were become sober men to what they were. None were now distressed to provide for their families, and if there was plenty of work they would be quite happy. The improvement, one woman said, must be very great, otherwise there would not be so many institutions and benefit societies, pension societies, and schools for their children.

This declaration was very warmly applauded by the wives of the ballast-heavers. They declared that similar measures would produce similar benefits in their case, and they hoped the day would soon come when they should be secure in the enjoyment of them.

So terminated the proceedings.