Here, then, we find the annual loss to these men through the system of “driving” to be 195l. per annum.

But A is not the only driver in the scavagers’ trade; out of the 19 masters having contracts for scavaging, as cited in the table given at pp. 213, 214, there are 4 who are regular drivers; and, making the same calculation as above, we have the following results:—

Thus we find that the gross sum of which the men employed by these drivers are deprived, is no less than 1136l. per annum.

2. The second or indirect mode of reducing the wages of the men in the scavaging trade is by Grinding; that is to say, by making the men do the same amount of work for less pay. It requires nothing but a practical illustration to render the injury of this particular mode of reduction apparent to the public.

B is a master scavager (a small contractor, though the instances are not confined to this class), and a “Grinder.” He pays 1s. a week less than the “regular wages” of the honourable trade. He employs six men; hence the amount that the workmen in his pay are mulct of every year is as follows:—

Here the loss to the men is 11l. 14s. per annum, and there is but one such grinder among the 19 master scavagers who have contracts at present.

3. The third and last method of reducing the earnings of the men as above enumerated, is by a combination of both the systems before explained, viz., by grinding and driving united, that is to say, by not only paying the men a smaller wage than the more honourable masters, but by compelling them to work longer hours as well. Let me cite another illustration from the trade.

C is a large contractor, and both a grinder and driver. He employs 28 men, and not only pays them less wages, but makes them work longer hours than the better class of employers. The men in his pay, therefore, are annually mulct of the following sums.

Here the annual loss to the men employed by this one master is 292l. 19s. 6d.

Among the 19 master scavagers there are altogether 7 employers who are both grinders and drivers. These employ among them no less than 111 hands; hence, the gross amount of which their workmen are yearly defrau—no, let me adhere to the principles of political economy, and say deprived—is as under:—

Here we perceive the gross loss to the operatives from the system of combined grinding and driving to be no less than 1164l. 3s. per annum.

Now let us see what is the aggregate loss to the working men from the several modes of reducing their wages as above detailed.

Now this is a large sum of money to be wrested annually out of the workmen—that it is so wrested is demonstrated by the fact cited at p. 174 in connection with the dust trade.

The wages of the dustmen employed by the large contractors, it is there stated, have been increased within the last seven years from 6d. to 8d. per load. This increase in the rate of remuneration was owing to complaints made by the men to the Commissioners of Sewers, that they were not able to live on their earnings; an inquiry took place, and the result was that the Commissioners decided upon letting the contracts only to such parties as would undertake to pay a fair price to their workmen. The contractors accordingly increased the remuneration of the labourers as mentioned.

Now political economy would tell us that the Commissioners interfered with wages in a most reprehensible manner—preventing the natural operation of the law of Supply and Demand; but both justice and benevolence assure us that the Commissioners did perfectly right. The masters in the dust trade were forced to make good to the men what they had previously taken from them, and the same should be done in the scavaging trade—the contracts should be let only to these masters who will undertake to pay the regular rate of wages, and employ their men only the regular hours; for by such means, and by such means alone, can justice be done to the operatives.

This brings me to the cause of the reduction of wages in the scavaging trade. The scurf trade, I am informed, has been carried on among the master scavagers upwards of 20 years, and arose partly from the contractors having to pay the parishes for the house-dust and street-sweepings, brieze and street manure at that period often selling for 30s. the chaldron or load. The demand for this kind of manure 20 years ago was so great, that there was a competition carried on among the contractors themselves, each out-bidding the other, so as to obtain the right of collecting it; and in order not to lose anything by the large sums which they were induced to bid for the contracts, the employers began gradually to “grind down” their men from 17s. 6d. (the sum paid 20 years back) to 17s. a week, and eventually to 15s., and even 12s. weekly. This is a curious and instructive fact, as showing that even an increase of prices will, under the contract system, induce a reduction of wages. The greed of traders becomes, it appears, from the very height of the prices, proportionally intensified, and from the desire of each to reap the benefit, they are led to outbid one another to such an extent, and to offer such large premiums for the right of appropriation, as to necessitate a reduction of every possible expense in order to make any profit at all upon the transaction. Owing, moreover, to the surplus labour in the trade, the contractors were enabled to offer any premiums and reduce wages as they pleased; for the casually-employed men, when the wet season was over, and their services no longer required, were continually calling upon the contractors, and offering their services at 2s. and 3s. less per week than the regular hands were receiving. The consequence was, that five or six of the master scavagers began to reduce the wages of their labourers, and since that time the number has been gradually increasing, until now there are no less than 21 scurf masters (8 of whom have no contracts) out of the 34 contractors; so that nearly three-fifths of the entire trade belong to the grinding class. Within the last seven or eight years, however, there has been an increase of wages in connection with the city operative scavagers. This was owing mainly to the operatives complaining to the Commissioners that they could not live upon the wages they were then receiving—12s. and 14s. a week. The circumstances inducing the change, I am informed, were as follows:—one of the gangers asked a tradesman in the city to give the street-sweepers “something for beer,” whereupon the tradesman inquired if the men could not find beer out of their wages, and on being assured that they were receiving only 12s. a week, he had the matter brought before the Board. The result was, that the wages of the operatives were increased from 12s. to 15s. and 16s. weekly, since which time there has been neither an increase nor a decrease in their pay. The cheapness of provisions seems to have caused no reduction with them.

Now there are but two “efficient causes” to account for the reduction of wages among the scurf employers in the scavagers’ trade:—(1) The employers may diminish the pay of their men from a disposition to “grind” out of them an inordinate rate of profit. (2) The price paid for the work may be so reduced that, consistent with the ordinary rate of profit on capital, and remuneration for superintendence, greater wages cannot be paid. If the first be the fact, then the employers are to blame, and the parishes should follow the example of the Commissioners of Sewers, and let the work to those contractors only who will undertake to pay the “regular wages” of the honourable trade; but if the latter be the case, as I strongly suspect it is, though some of the masters seem to be more “grasping” than the rest—but in the paucity of returns on this matter, it is difficult to state positively whether the price paid for the labour of the working scavager is in all the parishes proportional to the price paid to the employers for the work (a most important fact to be solved)—if, however, I repeat, the decrease of the wages be mainly due to the decrease in the sums given for the performance of the contract, then the parishes are to blame for seeking to get their work done at the expense of the working men.

The contract system of work, I find, necessarily tends to this diminution of the men’s earnings in a trade. Offer a certain quantity of work to the lowest bidder, and the competition will assuredly be maintained at the operative’s expense. It is idle to expect that, as a general rule, traders will take less than the ordinary rate of profit. Hence, he who underbids will usually be found to underpay. This, indeed, is almost a necessity of the system, and one which the parochial functionaries more than all others should be guarded against—seeing that a decrease of the operative’s wages can but be attended with an increase of the very paupers, and consequently of the parochial expenses, which they are striving to reduce.

A labourer, in order to be self-supporting and avoid becoming a “burden” on the parish, requires something more than bare subsistence-money in remuneration for his labour, and yet this is generally the mode by which we test the sufficiency of wages. “A man can live very comfortably upon that!” is the exclamation of those who have seldom thought upon what constitutes the minimum of self-support in this country. A man’s wages, to prevent pauperism, should include, besides present subsistence, what Dr. Chalmers has called “his secondaries;” viz., a sufficiency to pay for his maintenance: 1st, during the slack season; 2nd, when out of employment; 3rd, when ill; 4th, when old[19]. If insufficient to do this, it is evident that the man at such times must seek parochial relief; and it is by the reduction of wages down to bare subsistence, that the cheap employers of the present day shift the burden of supporting their labourers when unemployed on to the parish; thus virtually perpetuating the allowance system or relief in aid of wages under the old Poor Law. Formerly the mode of hiring labourers was by the year, so that the employer was bound to maintain the men when unemployed. But now journey-work, or hiring by the day, prevails, and the labourers being paid—and that mere subsistence-money—only when wanted, are necessitated to become either paupers or thieves when their services are no longer required. It is, moreover, this change from yearly to daily hirings, and the consequent discarding of men when no longer required, that has partly caused the immense mass of surplus labourers, who are continually vagabondizing through the country begging or stealing as they go—men for whom there is but some two or three weeks’ work (harvesting, hop-picking, and the like) throughout the year.

That there is, however, a large system of jobbing pursued by the contractors for the house-dust and cleansing of the streets, there cannot be the least doubt. The minute I have cited at page 210 gives us a slight insight into the system of combination existing among the employers, and the extraordinary fluctuations in the prices obtained by the contractors would lead to the notion that the business was more a system of gambling than trade. The following returns have been procured by Mr. Cochrane within the last few days:—

A more specific and later return is as follows:—

“From the above return,” says Mr. Cochrane, “it may be inferred that the annual sums paid for cleansing in each year of 1844 and 1843 did not exceed 2281l., as this would make up the eight years’ average calculation of 4643l.”

Since the streets have been cleansed daily, it will be seen that the average has been 7188l. The smallest amount, in 1846, was 6034l.; and the largest, in 1847, 8014l.; which was a sudden increase of 1980l.

Here, then, we perceive an immediate increase in the price paid for scavaging between 1846 and 1847 of nearly 33 per cent., and since the wages of the workmen were not proportionately increased in the latter year by the employers, it follows that the profits of the contractors must have been augmented to that enormous extent. The only effectual mode of preventing this system of jobbing being persevered in, at the expense of the workmen, is by the insertion of a clause in each parish contract similar to that introduced by the Commissioners of Sewers—that at least a fair living rate of wages shall be paid by each contractor to the men employed by him. This may be an interference with the freedom of labour, according to the economists’ “cant” language, but at least it is a restriction of the tyranny of capital, for free labour means, when literally translated, the unrestricted use of capital, which is (especially when the moral standard of trade is not of the highest character) perhaps the greatest evil with which a State can be afflicted.

Let me now speak of the Scurf labourers. The moral and social characteristics of the working scavagers who labour for a lower rate of hire do not materially differ from those of the better paid and more regularly employed body, unless, perhaps, in this respect, that there are among them a greater proportion of the “casuals,” or of men reared to the pursuit of other callings, and driven by want, misfortune, or misconduct, to “sweep the streets;” and not only that, but to regard the “leave to toil” in such a capacity a boon. These constitute, as it were, the cheap labourers of this trade.

Among the parties concerned in the lower-priced scavaging, are the usual criminations. The parish authorities will not put up any longer with the extortions of the contractors. The contractors cannot put up any longer with the stinginess of the parishes. The working scavagers, upon whose shoulders the burthen falls the heaviest—as it does in all depreciated tradings—grumble at both. I cannot aver, however, that I found among the men that bitter hatred of their masters which I found actuating the mass of operative tailors, shoemakers, dressmakers, &c., toward the slop capitalists who employed them.

I have pointed out in what the “scurf” treatment of the labourers was chiefly manifested—in extra work for inferior pay; in doing eight or nine days’ work in six; and in being paid for only six days’ labour, and not always at the ordinary rate even for the lighter toil—not 2s. 8d., but 2s. 6d. or even 2s. 4d. a day. To the wealthy, this 2d. or 4d. a day may seem but a trifling matter, but I heard a working scavager (formerly a house-painter) put it in a strong light: “that 3d. or 4d. a day, sir, is a poor family’s rent.” The rent, I may observe, as a result of my inquiries among the more decent classes of labourers, is often the primary consideration: “You see, sir, we must have a roof over our heads.”

A scavager, working for a scurf master, gave me the following account. He was a middle-aged man, decently dressed, for when I saw him, he was in his “Sunday clothes,” and was quiet in his tones, even when he spoke bitterly.

“My father,” he said, “was once in business as a butcher, but he failed, and was afterwards a journeyman butcher, but very much respected, I know, and I used to job and help him. O dear, yes! I can read and write, but I have very seldom to write, only I think one never forgets it, it’s like learning to swim, that way; and I read sometimes at coffee-shops. My father died rather sudden, and me and a brother had to look out. My brother was older than me, he was 20 or 21 then, and he went for a soldier, I believe to some of the Ingees, but I’ve never heard of him since. I got a place in a knacker’s yard, but I didn’t like it at all, it was so confining, and should have hooked it, only I left it honourable. I can’t call to mind how long that’s back, perhaps 16 or 18 years, but I know there was some stir at the time about having the streets and yards cleaner. A man called and had some talk with the governor, and says he, says the governor, says he, ‘if you want a handy lad with his besom, and he’s good for nothing else’—but that was his gammon—‘here’s your man;’ so I was engaged as a young sweeper at 10s. a week. I worked in Hackney, but I heard so much about railways, that I saved my money up to 10s., and popped [pledged] a suit of mourning I’d got after my father’s death for 22s., and got to York, both on foot and with lifts. I soon got work on a rail; there was great call for rails then, but I don’t know how long it’s since, and I was a navvy for six or seven years, or better. Then I came back to London. I don’t know just what made me come back, but I was restless, and I thought I could get work as easy in London as in the country, but I couldn’t. I brought 21 gold sovereigns with me to London, twisted in my fob for safeness, in a wash-leather bag. They didn’t last so long as they ought to. I didn’t care for drinking, only when I was in company, but I was a little too gay. One night I spent over 12s. in the St. Helena Gardens at Rotherhithe, and that sort of thing soon makes money show taper. I got some work with a rubbish carter, a regular scurf. I made only about 8s. a week under him, for he didn’t want me this half day or that whole day, and if I said anything, he told me I might go and be d——d, he could get plenty such, and I knew he could. I got on then with a gangsman I knew, at street-sweeping. I had 15s. a week, but not regular work, but when the work wer’n’t regular, I had 2s. 8d. a day. I then worked under another master for 14s. a week, and was often abused that I wasn’t better dressed, for though that there master paid low wages, he was vexed if his men didn’t look decent in the streets. I’ve heard that he said he paid the best of wages when asked about it. I had another job after that, at 15s., and then 16s. a week, with a contractor as had a wharf; but a black nigger slave was never slaved as I was. I’ve worked all night, when it’s been very moonlight, in loading a barge, and I’ve worked until three and four in the morning that way, and then me and another man slept an hour or two in a shed as joined his stables, and then must go at it again. Some of these masters is ignorant, and treats men like dirt, but this one was always civil, and made his people be civil. But, Lord, I hadn’t a rag left to my back. Everything was worn to bits in such hard work, and then I got the sack. I was on for Mr. —— next. He’s a jolly good ’un. I was only on for him temp’ry, but I was told it was for temp’ry when I went, so I can’t complain. I’m out of work this week, but I’ve had some jobs from a butcher, and I’m going to work again on Monday. I don’t know at what wages. The gangsmen said they’d see what I could do. It’ll be 15s., I expect, and over-work if it’s 16s.

“Yes, I like a pint of beer now and then, and one requires it, but I don’t get drunk. I dusted for a fortnight once while a man was ill, and got more beer and twopences give me than I do in a year now; aye, twice as much. My mate and me was always very civil, and people has said, ‘there’s a good fellow, just sweep together this bit of rubbish in the yard here, and off with it.’ That was beyond our duty, but we did it. I have very little night-work, only for one master; he’s a sweep as well. I get 2s. 6d. a job for it. Yes, there’s mostly something to drink, but you can’t demand nothing. Night-work’s nothing, sir; no more ain’t a knacker’s yard.

“I pay 2s. a week rent, but I’m washed for and found soap as well. My landlady takes in washing, and when her husband, for they’re an old couple, has the rheumatics, I make a trifle by carrying out the clothes on a barrow, and Mrs. Smith goes with them and sees to the delivery. I’ve my own furniture.

“Well, I don’t know what I spend in my living in a week. I have a bit of meat, or a saveloy or two, or a slice of bacon every day, mostly when I’m at work. I sometimes make my own meals ready in my room. No, I keep no accounts. There’d be very little use or pleasure in doing it when one has so little to count. When I’m past work, I suppose I must go to the workhouse. I sometimes wish I’d gone for a soldier when I was young enough. I shouldn’t have minded going abroad. I’d have liked it better than not, for I like to be about; yes, I like a change.

“I go to chapel every Sunday night, and have regularly since Mr. —— (the butcher) gave me this cast-off suit. I promised him I would when I got the togs.

“Things would be well enough with me if I’d constant work and fair pay. I don’t know what makes wages so low. I suppose it’s rich people trying to get all the money they can, and caring nothing for poor men’s rights, and poor men’s sometimes forced to undersell one another, ’cause half a loaf you know, sir, is better than no bread at all” (a proverb, by the way, which has wrought no little mischief).

In conclusion, I may remark, that although I was told, in the first instance, there was sub-letting in street sweeping, I could not hear of any facts to prove it. I was told, indeed, by a gentleman who took great interest in parochial matters, with a view to “reforms” in them, that such a thing was most improbable, for if a contractor sub-let any of his work it would soon become known, and as it would be evident that the work could be accomplished at a lower rate, the contractor would be in a worse position for his next contract.

Of the Street-Sweeping Machine, and the Street-Sweepers employed with it.

Until the introduction of the machines now seen in London, I believe that no mechanical contrivances for sweeping the streets had been attempted, all such work being executed by manual labour, and employing throughout the United Kingdom a great number of the poor. The street-sweeping machine, therefore, assumes an importance as another instance of the displacement, or attempted displacement, of the labour of man by the mechanism of an engine.

The street-sweeping machines were introduced into London about five years ago, after having been previously used, under the management of a company, in Manchester, the inventor and maker being Mr. Whitworth, of that place. The novelty and ingenuity of the apparatus soon attracted public attention, and for the first week or two the vehicular street-sweeper was accompanied in its progress by a crowd of admiring and inquisitive pedestrians, so easily attracted together in the metropolis. In the first instance the machines were driven through the streets merely to display their mode and power of work, and the drivers and attendants not unfrequently came into contact with the regular scavagers, when a brisk interchange of street wit took place, the populace often enough encouraging both sides. At present the street-sweeping machine proceeds on its line of operation as little noticed, except by visitors, and foreigners especially, as any other vehicle. The body of the sweeping machine, although the sizes may not all be uniform, is about 5 feet in length, and 2 feet 8 inches or 3 feet in width; the height is about 5 feet 6 inches or 6 feet, and the form that of a covered cart, with a rounded top. The sides of the exterior are of cast iron, the top being of wood. At the hinder part of the cart is fixed the sweeping-machine itself, covered by sloping boards which descend from the top of the cart, projecting slightly behind the vehicle to the ground; under the sloping boards is an endless chain of brushes as wide as the cart, 16 in number, placed at equal distances, and so arranged, that when made to revolve, each brush in turn passes over the ground, sweeping the mud along with it to the bottom sloping board, and so carrying it up to the interior of the cart. The chain of brushes is set in motion, over the surface of the pavement, by the agency of three cog wheels of cast iron; these are worked by the rotation of the wheels of the cart, the cogs acting upon the spindles to which the brooms are attached. The spindles, brushes, and the sloped boards can be raised or lowered by the winding of an instrument called the broom winder; or the whole can be locked. The brooms are raised when any acclivity is to be swept, and lowered at a declivity. The vehicle must be water-tight, in order to contain the slop.

When full the machine holds about half a cart load or half a ton of dirt; this is emptied by letting down the back in the manner of a trap door. If the contents be solid, they have to be forked out; if more sloppy, they are “shot” out, as from a cart, the interior generally being roughly scraped to complete the emptying.

The districts which have as yet been cleansed by the machines are what may be considered a government domain, being the public thoroughfares under the control of the Commissioners of the Woods and Forests, running from Westminster Abbey to the Regent-circus in Piccadilly, and including Spring-gardens, Carlton-gardens, and a portion of the West Strand, where they were first employed in London; they have been used also in parts of the City; and are at present employed by the parish of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. The company by whom the mechanical street-sweeping business is carried on employ 12 machines, 4 water carts, 19 horses, and 24 men. They have also the use, but not the sole use, of two wharfs and barges at Whitefriars and Millbank. The machines altogether collect about 30 cart-loads of street-dirt a day, which is equivalent to four or five barge-loads in a week, if all were boated. Two barges per week are usually sent to Rochester, the others up the river to Fulham, &c. The average price is 5l. 10s. to 6l. per barge load, but when the freight has been chiefly dung, as much as 8l. has been paid for it by a farmer.

The street-sweeping machine seems to have commanded the approbation of the General Board of Health, although the Board’s expression of approval is not without qualification. “Even that efficient and economical implement,” says one of the Reports, “the street-sweeping machine, leaves much filth between the interstices of the stones and some on the surface.” One might have imagined, however, that an efficient and economical implement would not have left this “much filth” in its course; but the Board, I presume, spoke comparatively.

The reason of the circumscribed adoption of the machine—I say it with some reluctance, but from concurrent testimony—appears to be that it does not sweep sufficiently clean. It sweeps the surface, but only the surface; not cleansing what the scavagers call the “nicks” and “holes,” and the Board of Health the “interstices,” in the pavement.

One man is obliged to go along with each machine, to sweep the ridge of dirt invariably left at the edge of the track of the vehicle into the line of the next machine, so that it may be “licked up.” In fine weather this work is often light enough. It is also the occupation of the accompanying scavager to sweep the dirt from the sloping edges of the public ways into the direct course of the machine, for the brushes are of no service along such slopes; he must also sweep out the contents of any hole or hollow there may be in the streets, as is frequently the case when the pavement has been disturbed in the relaying or repairing of the gas or water pipes. But for this arrangement, I was told, the brushes would pass “clean over” such places, or only disturb without clearing away the dirt. Indeed irregularities of any kind in the pavement are great obstructions to the efficiency of the street-sweeping machine.

There are some places, moreover, wholly unsweepable by the machine; in many parts of St. Martin’s parish, for instance, there are localities where the machine cannot be introduced; such are—St. Martin’s-court; the flagged ways about the National Gallery; and the approach, alongside the church, to the Lowther Arcade; the pavement surrounding the fountains which adorn the “noblest site in Europe;” and a variety of alleys, passages, yards, and minor streets, which must be cleansed by manual labour.

In fair weather, again, water carts are indispensable before machine sweeping, for if the ground be merely dry and dusty, the set of brooms will not “bite.”

We now come to estimate the relative values of the mechanical and manual labour applied to the scavaging of the streets. The average progress of the street-sweeping machine, in the execution of the scavagers’ work, is about two miles an hour. It must not be supposed, however, that two streets each a mile in length, could be swept in one hour; for to do this the vehicle would have to travel up and down those streets as many times as the streets are wider than the machine. The machines, sometimes two, sometimes three or four, follow alongside each other’s tracks in sweeping a street, so as to leave no part unswept. Thus, supposing a street half a mile long and nine yards wide, and that each machine swept a breadth of a yard, then three such machines, driven once up, and once again down, and once more up such a street, would cleanse it in three quarters of an hour. To do this by manual labour in the same or nearly the same time, would require the exertions of five men. Each machine has been computed to have mechanical power equal to the industry of five street-sweepers; and such, from the above computation, would appear to be the fact. I do not include the drivers in this enumeration, as of course the horse in the scavagers’ cart, and in the machine require alike the care of a man, and there is to each vehicle (whether mechanical or not) one hand (besides the carman) to sweep after the ordinary work. Hence every two men with the machine do the work of seven men by hand.

Having, then, ascertained the relative values of the two forces employed in cleansing the streets, let me now proceed to set forth what is “the economy of labour” resulting from the use of the sweeping machine. In the following table are given the number of men at present engaged by the machine company in the cleansing of those districts where the machine is in operation, as well as the annual amount of wages paid to the machine labourers; these facts are then collocated with the number of manual labourers that would be required to do the same work under the ordinary contract system (assuming every two labourers with the machine to do the work of seven labourers by hand), as well as the amount of wages that would be paid to such manual labourers; and finally, the number of men and amount of wages under the one system of street-cleansing is subtracted from the other, in order to arrive at the number of street-sweepers at present displaced by machine labour, and the annual loss in wages to the men so displaced; or, to speak economically, the last column represents the amount by which the Wage Fund of the street-sweepers is diminished by the employment of the machine.

TABLE SHOWING THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE NUMBER OF MEN AT PRESENT ENGAGED IN STREET-SWEEPING BY MACHINES, AND THE NUMBER THAT WOULD BE REQUIRED TO SWEEP THE SAME DISTRICTS BY HAND, TOGETHER WITH THE ANNUAL AMOUNT OF WAGES ACCRUING TO EACH.

Hence, we perceive that no less than 60 street-sweepers are deprived of work by the street-sweeping machine, and that the gross Wage Fund of the men is diminished by the employment of mechanical labour no less than 2277l. per annum.

But let us suppose the street-sweeping machine to come into general use, and all the men who are at present employed by the contractors, both large and small, to sweep the street by hand to be superseded by it, what would be the result? how much money would the manual labourers be deprived of per annum, and how many self-supporting labourers would be pauperized thereby? The following table will show us: in the first compartment given below we have the number of manual labourers employed throughout London by the large and small contractors, and the amount of wages annually received by them[20]; in the second compartment is given the number of men that would be required to sweep the same districts by the machine, and the amount of wages that would be received by them at the present rate; and the third and last compartment shows the gross number of hands that would be displaced, and the annual loss that would accrue to the operatives by the substitution of mechanical for manual labour in the sweeping of the streets.

TABLE SHOWING THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE NUMBER OF CONTRACTORS’ MEN AT PRESENT EMPLOYED TO SWEEP THE STREETS BY HAND, AND THE NUMBER THAT WOULD BE REQUIRED TO SWEEP THE SAME DISTRICTS BY MACHINE WORK, TOGETHER WITH THE AMOUNT OF WAGES ACCRUING TO EACH.

Here we find that nearly 200 men would be pauperized, losing upwards of 7000l. per annum, if the street-sweeping machine came into general use throughout London. But, before the introduction of machines, the thoroughfares of St. Martin’s parish were swept only once a week in dry weather, and three times a week in sloppy weather, and since the introduction of the machines they have been swept daily; allowing, therefore, the extra cleansing to have arisen from the extra cheapness of the machine work—though it seems to have been the result of improved sanatory regulations, for in parts where the machine has not been used the same alteration has taken place—making such allowance, however, it may, perhaps, be fair to say, that the same increase of cleansing would take place throughout London; that is to say, that the streets would be swept by the machines, were they generally used, twice as often as they are at present by hand. At this rate 158 machine men, instead of 79 as above calculated, would be required for the work; so that, reckoning for the increased employment which might arise from the increased cheapness of the work, we see that, were the street-sweeping machines used throughout the metropolis, nearly 120 of the 275 manual labourers now employed at scavaging by the large and small contractors, would be thrown out of work, and deprived of no less a sum than 4680l. per annum.

This amount, of course, the parishes would pocket, minus the sum that it would cost them to keep the displaced scavagers as paupers, so that in this instance, at least, we perceive that, however great a benefit cheapness may be to the wealthy classes, to the poorer classes it is far from being of the same advantageous character; for, just as much as the rate-payers are the gainers in the matter of street-cleansing must the labourers be the losers—the economy of labour in a trade where there are too many labourers already, and where the quantity of work does not admit of indefinite increase, meaning simply the increase of pauperism[21].

The “labour question” as connected with the sweeping-machine work, requires but a brief detail, as it presents no new features. The majority of the machine men may be described as having been “general (unskilled) labourers” before they embarked in their present pursuits: labourers for builders, brick-makers, rubbish-carters, the docks, &c.

Among them there is but one who was brought up as a mechanic; the others have all been labourers, brick-makers, and what I heard called “barrow-workers” on railways, the latter being the most numerous.

Employment is obtained by application at the wharfs. There is nothing of the character of a trade society among the machine-men; nothing in the way of benefit or sick clubs, unless the men choose to enrol themselves in a general benefit society, of which I did not hear one instance.

The payment is by the week, and without drawback in the guise or disguise of fines, or similar inflictions for the use of tools, &c.; the payment, moreover, is always in money.

The only perquisite is in the case of anything being found in the streets; but the rule as to perquisites seems to be altogether an understanding among the men. The disposal of what may be picked up in the streets appears, moreover, to be very much in the discretion of the picker up. If anything be found in the contents of the vehicle, when emptied, it is the perquisite of the driver, who is also the unloader; he, however, is expected to treat the men “on the same beat” out of any such “treasure trove,” when the said treasure is considerable enough to justify such bounty. Odd sixpences, shillings, or copper coin, I was informed, were found almost every week, but I could ascertain no general average. One man, some time ago, found a purse inside the vehicle containing 20s., and “spent it out and out all on hisself,” in a carouse of three days. He lost his situation in consequence.

The number of men employed by the company in this trade is 24, and these perform all the work required in the driving and attendance upon the machines in the street, in loading the barges, grooming the horses, &c. There is, indeed, a twenty-fifth man, but he is a blacksmith, and his wages of 35s. weekly are included in the estimate as to wear and tear given below, for he shoes the horses and repairs the machines.

The rate of wages paid by the machine company is 16s. a week, so that the full amount of wages is paid to the men.

But though the company cannot be ranked among the grinders of the scavaging trade, they must be placed among “the drivers.”

I am assured, by those who are familiar with such labour, that the 24 men employed by the machine masters do the work of upwards of 30 in the honourable trade, with a corresponding saving to their employers, from an adherence to the main point of the scurf system, the overworking of the men without extra payment.

It has been before stated that, in dry weather, the roads require to be watered before being swept, so that the brushes may bite. In summer the machine-men sometimes commence this part of their business at three in the morning; and at the other periods of the year, sometimes at early morning, when moonlight. In summer the hours of labour in the streets are from three, four, five, or six in the morning, to half-past four in the afternoon; in winter, from light to light, and after street there may be yard and barge work.

The saving by this scurf system, then, is:—