The “Lumpers” are, if possible, in a more degraded state than the ballast-heavers; they are not, it is true, under the same amount of oppression from the publican, but still they are so besotted with the drink which they are tempted to obtain from the publicans who employ them, as to look upon the man who tricks them out of their earnings rather as a friend than an enemy.

The lumpers make, I am informed, during six months in the year, as much as 24s.; and during the other six months they have nothing to do. Of the 24s. that they earn in their busy time, 20s. it will be seen is spent in the public-house. One master-lumper, who is a publican, employs as many as 100 men. This information I have, not only from the men themselves, but from the managers of the Commercial Docks, where the greater number of the lumpers are engaged. The 100 men in the publican’s employ, as will be seen from the evidence of the wives, spend upon an average 1l. a-week in the house, taking generally but 4s. home to their wives and families: so that no less a sum than 100l. a-week is squandered in the publican-contractor’s house by the working men in drink. There is not only a pay-night, but two “draw-nights” are appointed in the week, as a means of inveigling the men to their master’s tap-room; and indeed the same system, which gives the greatest drunkard the best chance of work, prevails among the lumpers as among the ballast-heavers. The effect of this is, that the lumpers are the most drunken, debased, and poverty-stricken of all the classes of labouring men that I have yet seen; for, earning more than the ballast-heavers, they of course have more to spend in the public-house.

I made it a point of looking more minutely into the state of these men on the Sunday, for I have found that on that day it is easy to tell the habits of men by their external appearance. The greater part that I saw were either intoxicated, or else reeking of liquor as early as eleven o’clock on the Sunday morning. One foreman was decently dressed, it was true; but then he was sent to me, I was credibly informed, by the master-publican, who had heard of my previous investigations, to give me a false impression as to the state of the labourers; the rest of the men that I saw were unwashed and unshaven, even up to five and six in the afternoon of that day. Their clothes were the same tattered and greasy garments that I had seen them in the day before; indeed the wives of the lumpers appeared to be alone alive to the degradation of their husbands. At one house that I visited late on the Sunday evening, I found two of the children in one corner of the small close room on the bare boards, covered with a piece of old carpet, and four more boys and girls stowed away at the top and bottom of the one bed in which the rest of the family slept. Dirty wet clothes were hanging to dry on lines across the room; and the face of the wife, who was alone, in all her squalid misery, was black and gashed with cuts and bruises. Not a step I took but I was dogged by some foreman or other, in the hopes of putting me on the wrong scent. I had arranged with the men on Saturday morning to have a meeting with them on that night after their labour, but on going to the appointed place I found not one labouring man there; and I learnt the next day that the publican had purposely deferred paying them till a late hour, so that they might have no chance of meeting me. On Monday morning, while at the office of the Superintendent of the Commercial Dock Company, one of the lumpers staggered drunk into the room, intent upon making some insolent demand or other. That this drunkenness, with all its attendant vices, is not the fault of the lumpers, but the necessary consequence of the system under which they are employed, no man who has seen the marked difference between the coal-whippers and that class of labourers who still work out of the public-house, can for a moment doubt. The sins of the labouring man, so far as I have seen, are, in this instance, most indisputably the sins of his employer. If he is drunken, it is his master who makes him so: if he is poor, his house bare, his wife ragged, his children half-clothed, half-fed, and wholly uneducated, it is mainly because his master tricks him out of his earnings at the public-house.

Let me now give a description of the lumpers’ labour, and then of their earnings. The timber-trade is divided by the custom of the trade into two classes, called timber and deals. By “timber” is meant what is brought in uncut logs; this is American red pine, yellow pine, elm, ash, oak, and birch. The teak-trade is more recent, and seems to be an exception to the classification I have mentioned: it is generally described as teak; mahogany and dye-woods again are not styled timber. The deals are all sawn ready for the carpenter or joiner’s use. At the Custom-house the distinctions are, hewn and sawn woods; that is, timber and deals. On timber there is now a duty of 1s. per load (a load being fifty cubic feet) and on deals of 2s. The deals are sawn in Canada, where immense steam-mills have been erected for the purpose. The advantage to the trader in having this process effected in Canada rather than in this country, seems to be this: the deals brought over prepared, as I have described, of different lengths, varying from six feet to twenty, while three inches is a usual thickness, are ready for the workman’s purpose, and no refuse-matter forms a part of them. Were the pine brought in logs, the bark and the unevenness of the tree would add to the freight for what was only valueless. Timber and deals require about the same time for their discharge. The largest vessels that enter into this trade in the port of London are to be found in the West India South Dock, formerly the City Canal. On one occasion in this dock a vessel of 800 tons, containing 24,000 deals and ends, was discharged in twenty-six working hours—forty-five men being employed. I am informed that twenty men would discharge a ship of 600 tons of timber and deals in seven days. Forty men will do it in four days. In order to become acquainted with the system of lumping, I went on board a vessel in the river where a gang of twenty men were at work. She was a vessel of 600 tons, from Quebec. She lay alongside the Flora, a Norwegian vessel—the first timber-ship that had reached the port of London since the change in the Navigation Laws had come into operation. The Flora’s cargo was 900 pieces of timber, which would be discharged by her crew, as the lumpers are only employed in British vessels. The vessel that I visited, and which lay next the Flora, had her hold and the between-decks (which might be thirty-eight yards in length) packed closely with deals. She held between 17,000 and 18,000 deals. She was being lightened in the river before going into dock; twenty men were at work in two barges, well moored alongside, close to two portholes in the stern of the ship. There were three men in each barge who received and packed the deals into the barge as they were thrust out of the portholes; the larger deals were carried along by two men as soon as a sufficient clearance had been made to enable them to run along—at first, bent half-double. The two men who carried the deals ran along in a sort of jog-trot motion, keeping time, so that the motion relieved the pressure of the weight; the men all said it was easier to run than to walk with the deals: the shorter deals (ends) were carried, one by each man, who trotted on in the same measured steps,—each man, or each two men employed, delivering his or their deal to one especial man in the barge, so that a constant communication from the ship to the barge was kept up, and the work went on without hitch or stoppage. This same vessel, on a former occasion, was discharged in thirty-six hours, which shows (as there were between 17,000 and 18,000 carryings and deliverings of the deals) how rapidly the work is conducted. The timber is all dragged from the holds or the between-decks of the ship by machines; the lumpers house it from its place in the ship by means of winches, tackles, and dogs—which latter are iron links to lay hold of the logs. Three of these winches and tackles are stationed at equal distances on each side of a large ship, and thus with the aid of crowbars the several pieces of timber are dragged along the hold and then dropped gently into the water, either in the dock or in the river, and floated in rafts to its destination. All “timber” is floated, as a rule. Sometimes when the ship is discharged in dock, timber or deals are let down a slide on to a platform, and so carried to the pile or the waggon. Contractors are employed by the ship-owners in the West India Docks, as they will do some ships cheaper by 10l. than the company could afford to do it. The ship-owners bear the expense of discharging the ship.

The following evidence of a lumper was given unwillingly, indeed it was only by a series of cross-questionings that any approximation to the truth could be extracted from him. He was evidently in fear of losing his work; and the tavern to which I had gone to take his statement was filled with foremen watching and intimidating him. He said:

“I am a working lumper, or labourer at discharging timber or deal-ships. I have been sixteen years at the work. I should think that there are more than two hundred men at Deptford who are constantly engaged at the work: there are a great many more working lumpers living at Limehouse, Poplar, and Blackwall. These do the work principally of the West India Docks; and when the work is slack there and brisk at the Commercial, East Country, or Grand Surrey Canal Docks, the men cross the water and get a job on the Surrey side of the river. In the summer a great many Irish labourers seek for work as lumpers. They come over from Ireland in the Cork boats. I should say there are altogether upwards of 500 regular working lumpers; but in the summer there are at least 200 more, owing to the number of Irish who come to England to look for work at that time of the year. The wages of the regular lumpers are not less when the Irish come over in the summer, nor do the men get a less quantity of work to do. There are more timber and deal-ships arriving at that season, so more hands are required to discharge them. The ships begin to arrive in July, and they continue coming in till January. After that time they lay up till March, when they sail for the foreign ports. Between January and July the regular working lumpers have little or nothing to do. During that time there are scarcely any timber or deal ships coming in; and the working lumpers then try to fall in with anything they can, either ballasting a ship, or carrying a few deals to load a timber-carriage, or doing a little ‘tide work.’ Between July and January the work is very brisk. We are generally employed every day for those six months. Sometimes we lose a day after lightening a ship in the river, while the vessel is going into dock. We call it lightening a ship when she is laden too heavy, and draws too much water to enter the docks. In such a case we generally begin discharging the timber or deals in the river, either off Deptford or Blackwall, according as the ship may be for the docks on the Middlesex or Surrey side. In the river we discharge the deals into lighters, whereas when the ship is in the dock we generally discharge along a stage on to the shore. Timber we put overboard in both cases, and leave it for the raftsmen to put together into rafts, and float into the timber-ponds of the different docks. The deals we merely land. It is our duty to put them ashore and nothing more. After that the deal-porters take them and sort them, and pile them. They sort the white from the yellow deals, and each kind into different lengths, and then arrange them in piles all along the dock.

“Our usual time of working is from six to six in the summer time and from daylight to dark in the winter. We always work under a foreman. There are two foremen lumpers to almost every ship that we discharge; and they engage the men, who work in gangs under them. Each gang consists of from 4 to 12 men, according as the size of the ship is large, or she is wanted to be discharged quickly. I have known as many as 30 lumpers engaged on one ship; she was 1000 tons, and wanted to be got out quick, so that she might make another voyage before the winter set in abroad.

“The foreman and men are employed by the master-lumper. Some of the master-lumpers are publicans; some others keep chandlers’ shops, and others do nothing else that I know of. The master pays the working men 3s. 6d. a-day, and the foreman 1s. extra. We are settled with every Saturday night. We have two draw-nights in each week; that is, the master advances either a part or the whole of our earnings, if we please, on Tuesday and Thursday nights. I work under a publican. My master has only gone into the public line very lately. I don’t think he’s been at it more than eighteen months. He has been a master-lumper I should say for these 10 or 12 years past. I worked under him before he had a public-house. Then he paid every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday nights, at the same house he is now proprietor of. The master-lumper always pays the men he employs at the public-house, whether they are publicans or not.

“My master employs, I should say, in the spring season, from 80 to 100 hands regularly: and most of these meet at his house on Tuesday and Thursday nights, and all of them on Saturday night, either to be settled with in full or have a part of their wages advanced. We are usually paid at 7 o’clock in the evening. I have been paid as late as 3 o’clock on Sunday morning; but that was some years ago, and I was all that time in the public-house. We go straight to the public-house after we have done our work.

“At this time of the year we knock off work at dark, that is, at five [I am informed at the Commercial Docks that the usual hour is four] o’clock, and we remain at our master’s until pay-time, that is 7 o’clock. This we do for three nights a-week certain; and after our work at other nights we mostly meet at our master’s public-house. The men generally draw from 2s. to 4s., and on a Thursday night the same sum is advanced to them. The men are not enforced to spend anything in the house. Each man has a little beer while the master is getting ready to pay him on the draw-nights; and he generally remains in the house after he has received his money some time, as he thinks proper. On a draw-night in the brisk season many out of the hundred he employs will stop drinking till 10 o’clock. Some go away immediately after they have drawn their money. At least half stop for some time, that is, till 10 o’clock. Some sit there and spend all they draw. All the beer that the lumpers have on board ship is supplied by the master. He supplies any quantity that is wanted. The reason why he keeps the public-house is to have the right of supplying the men with beer. He wouldn’t, of course, like to see us take beer from any other house than his; if we did he would give us the sack. Every master-lumper works out of a public-house, and the men must have their beer from the house that he works out of; and if they don’t, why they ain’t wanted. We generally take about two pots per man a-day from the house when we go to our work in the morning. On a Saturday night we mostly stop longer than on the draw-nights. Upon an average, the working lumpers I should say spend about 2s. a-day in the season in the public-house. [It will have been seen, that the lumpers’ wives whom I saw declare that the men spend 20s. out of every 24s.] After a hard week’s work I think they have generally 8s. or 9s. out of the 1l. 4s. that they earn at the busiest time of the year. I myself have taken home as little as 5s. [According to this statement, assuming that there are 100 hands—many say that there are more—regularly employed out of this public-house in the spring season, and spending each upon an average from 12s. to 20s., or say 16s. a-week, as much as 80l. a-week is squandered in beer.] I should say, taking all the year round, the men make 10s. 6d. a-week. For at least four months in the year there is no work at all; and for two months more it is very slack. I am a married man with one child: when I am in full work I take home 5s. a-week at the least. My wife and child has to suffer for it all.”

Let me now cite the following table, which I have been at considerable trouble in obtaining, as the only means of arriving at a correct estimate as to the collective earnings of the “journeymen lumpers,” or men generally engaged in discharging the cargoes of the British timber and deal ships. The information has in the three principal instances been derived directly from the books of the Dock Companies, through the courtesy and consideration of the superintendents and directors, to whom I am greatly indebted.

NUMBER OF SHIPS WOOD-LADEN DISCHARGED AT THE DIFFERENT DOCKS IN 1849.

By the above returns it will be seen, that in the course of that year 389 timber and deal ships, of 137,469 tons burthen collectively, were discharged by lumpers. This at 9d. per ton, which is the price usually given by the Dock Companies, would give 5,155l. 1s. 9d. as the gross amount paid to the contractors. The master-lumper derives little or no profit out of this sum directly. This will be evident from the subjoined statement. A gentleman at the West India Docks, who has been all his life connected with the timber trade, informs us that twenty men will discharge a wood-laden ship in seven days. Now,—

This statement is fully borne out by the fact that the master-lumpers will often agree to discharge a ship for 10l. less than the company could possibly afford to do it for with their own men. The question then arises, How is it that the master-lumper is enabled to do this and live? This is easily answered. He is generally either a publican himself or connected with one, and the journeymen in his employ spend at his public-house, according to the account of the wives, five-sixths of their wages in drink, or 1l. out of every 24s. they earn. Say, however, that only four-fifths of the gross earnings are thus consumed, then four thousand and odd out of the 5,155l. will go to the publican, and one thousand and odd pounds to the men.

TIMBER-DOCK LABOURERS.

Having already given an account of the supply and consumption of timber throughout the country generally, I shall now speak of the importations into London, and more especially of the condition of the labourers connected with the foreign and colonial timber trade.

The quantity of colonial and foreign timber that has been brought into the port of London since the year 1843 has been as follows:—

The consumption of the metropolis has been little less than the quantity imported. In the six years above enumerated the total importation of foreign and colonial deals and battens was 27,135,000 pieces, of which 26,695,573 were consumed in London; and the total importation of foreign and colonial timber was 714,900 loads, of which 644,224 were consumed. This gives an average annual importation of 4,522,500 deals and battens, of which only 73,238 have been sent out of the country every year. Of timber, the average annual importation is 119,150 loads, and the average annual exportation only 11,779 loads.

The number of wood-laden ships that have entered the port of London since 1840, together with the countries whence they came, is given below. By this we shall perceive that our trade with Norway in this respect has sunk to exactly one-half of what it was ten years back, while that with Sweden and Finland has been very nearly doubled in the same time. The timber-ships from the Prussian ports have increased little less than one-third, while those from Russia have decreased in the same proportion. The trade with Quebec and Montreal also appears to be much greater than it was in 1840, though compared with 1841 there has been a considerable falling off; that of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia remains very nearly the same as it was at the beginning of the decennial period. Altogether the great change appears to have been the decline of the Norwegian and Russian timber-trade, and the increase of that with Sweden and Prussia. It is also worthy of notice, that notwithstanding the increase of population, the number of wood-laden ships entering the port of London every year has not materially increased within the last ten years.

THE NUMBER OF CARGOES OF TIMBER, DEALS, AND BATTENS, IMPORTED INTO LONDON IN THE FOLLOWING YEARS.

The next step in our inquiry is, What becomes of the 800 wood-laden ships that annually enter the port of London? Whither do they go to be unladen? to what docks, or places of “special security,” are they consigned to be discharged and to have their cargoes delivered or bonded?

For this purpose there are five docks, three of which lie on the Surrey side of the river. These three are the Commercial Docks, the Grand Surrey Canal Dock, and the East Country Dock, and they are almost contiguous to each other, the Surrey Canal Dock lying immediately alongside the Commercial, and the East Country at the upper end of it. They are situated in, and indeed occupy, nearly the whole of that small cape of land which is formed by the bending of the river between the Pool and Limehouse Reach. The docks on the Middlesex side of the river, which are used for the reception and unlading of timber-ships, are the West India and the Regent’s Dock, or the entrance to the Regent’s Canal.

The number of wood-laden ships that have entered the three principal docks for the last ten years is given below. I am informed by Mr. Jones of the Commercial Docks, that for every ship above 100 tons six men are required to sort and pile away. Rafting from ships of the above burden requires one or two men daily, according to circumstances.

THE NUMBER OF WOOD-LADEN SHIPS WHICH ENTERED THE DIFFERENT DOCKS UNDERMENTIONED IN THE FOLLOWING YEARS.

The foreign and colonial timber trade is, then, confined to five of the seven docks belonging to the port of London. Of these five, three—the Commercial, the Grand Surrey Canal, and the East Country—are situate on the Surrey side of the river, occupying altogether an area of 172½ acres, of which 100½ are water and 72 land, and offering accommodation and protection for no less than 678 vessels. Here the principal part of the timber and deal trade is carried on, the Commercial receiving the greatest number of wood-laden vessels, perhaps greater than any other dock in the world. These, together with that portion of the West India Dock which is devoted to the same purpose, make the entire extent of the timber docks attached to the port of London about 250 acres, of which upwards of 140 are water—a space sufficient to give berths to no less than 940 ships.

I now come to speak of the condition and earnings of the labourers connected with the timber and hard-wood trade. Of these, it appears there are 1030 men casually employed at all the timber docks, of whom only 132 obtain work all the year round. How the 900 casual deal-porters and rafters live during the six months of the year that the slack season usually lasts in the timber trade, I cannot conceive. As not a sixpence of their earnings is saved in the brisk season, their fate in the winter is to suffer privations and afflictions which they only know.

I shall begin with the state of the dock-labourers employed at the foreign and hard-wood trade. This trade is confined mainly, if not solely, to the West India Dock.

Concerning this branch of the wood trade, I give below the statement of a man who has worked at it for many years, and in doing so, I wish to draw attention to the latter part of the narrative, as a proof of what I have repeatedly asserted respecting the regard exhibited by the authorities of the West India Dock, and in particular by Mr. Knight, the superintendent, for the welfare of all the men, whether directly or even indirectly employed by them.

This indirect employment of workmen, however, is the great bane of the industrious classes. Whether the middleman goes by the name of sweater, chamber-master, lumper, or contractor, it is this trading operative who is the great means of reducing the wages of his fellow working-men. To make a profit out of the employment of his brother-operatives he must obtain a lower-class labour. He cares nothing about the quality of the work, so long as the workmen can get through it somehow, and will labour at a cheaper rate. Hence it becomes a business with him to hunt out the lowest grades of working men—the drunken, the dishonest, the idle, the vagabond, and the unskilful men—because these, being unable to obtain employment at the regular wages of the sober, honest, industrious, and skilful portion of the trade, he can obtain their labour at a lower rate than what is usually paid. “Boy-labour or thief-labour,” said a middleman on a large scale, “what do I care, so long as I can get my work done cheap.” I have already shown that the wives of the sweaters not only parade the streets of London on the look-out for youths raw from the country, but that they make periodical trips to the poorest provinces of Ireland, in order to obtain workmen at the lowest possible rate. I have shown, moreover, that foreigners are annually imported from the Continent for the same purpose, and that among the chamber-masters in the shoe trade, the child-market at Bethnal-green, as well as the workhouses, are continually ransacked for the means of obtaining a cheaper kind of labour. All my investigations go to prove that it is chiefly by means of the middleman-system that the wages of the working men are reduced. This contractor—this trading operative—uses the most degraded of the class as a means of underselling the worthy and skilful labourers, and of ultimately dragging the better down to the abasement of the worst. If men cannot subsist on lower prices, then he takes apprentices or hires children; or if workmen of character and worth refuse to work at less than the ordinary rate, then he seeks out the moral refuse of the trade, those whom none else will employ; or else he flies to the workhouse and the gaol to find labour meet for his purpose. Backed by this cheap and refuse labour, he offers his work at lower prices, and so keeps on reducing and reducing the wages of his brethren until all sink in poverty, wretchedness, and vice. I am therefore the more anxious to impress upon the minds of those gentlemen who are actuated by a sincere regard for the interests and comforts of the men in their employ, the evils of such a system; for, however great may be the saving of trouble effected by it, yet, unless it be strictly watched (as I must confess it is at the West India and Commercial Docks) it can only be maintained by the employment of a cheaper and worse class labourer, and therefore must result in the degradation of the workmen. I have said thus much, because I find this contract system the general practice at all the wood-docks, and because I am convinced that the gentlemen to whom the management of those docks is entrusted, Mr. Knight, Mr. Jones, and Mr. Cannan, have the welfare of the men in their employ sincerely at heart.

Of the evils of lumping, or discharging wood-ships by contract, I have already treated at considerable length. Under that system, it will be remembered, I showed that the contractor, who is commonly a publican, makes his profit, not by cheapening the labourer, but by intoxicating him. Like the contractor for ballast, he gets his money out of the drunkenness of the workmen, and by this means is enabled to undersell the dock proprietors; or, in other words, to discharge the wood-laden ships at a less rate than they could possibly afford to do it for by the fair and honourable employment of their men. Of the effects of this system—the drunkenness of the men, the starvation of the wives, the squalor and ignorance of the children, the wretchedness and desolation of the homes, I have already treated at some length: and it will be seen hereafter that in those docks where the supervision that is maintained at the West India and Commercial is not kept up, the labourers are reduced to almost the same state of poverty and destitution.

But to return. A man living in a small room in a poor neighbourhood, but in a tidy apartment, and with a well kept little garden at the back, gave me the following account of his earnings and labour in the mahogany department of the West India Docks:—

“I have worked in the West India Docks for eleven years, and for the last half of that time in the mahogany part of the wood-yard. Before that, I was eleven years in the merchant service as able seaman; but I got married, and thought I could do better in the docks; for, after all, what is 18l. a-year, supposing I had the luck to be at sea nine months every year at 2l. a-month—what is 18l. a-year, sir, to keep a wife and family on, as well as a man himself when he’s ashore? At the West India Docks, we unload the mahogany, or logwood, or fancy wood from the ships, and pile them wherever they’re ordered. We work in gangs of six or seven, with a master at the head of the gang; the logs are got out of the hold with a purchase and a jigger, and heaved ashore by a crane on to a truck, and we drag the truck to the place to stow the timber. In the wood-yards a machine lifts the timber up, by us men turning handles to work the machine, and puts it into its place in the warehouse. We are paid 2s. 6d. a-day, working from eight to four. If only employed for four hours—and we’re not set to work for less than four hours—we have 1s. 4d. If I could get 2s. 6d. a-day all the year through, I’d be a happy man; but I can’t. Me, and such as me, earns 10s., 11s., or as far as 15s. a-week when we are wanted. But take the year through, I make between 9s. and 10s. a-week; out of that I have to keep a wife and four children. I’ve lost one child, and my wife can get little or nothing most times to do with her needle; and if she does get work, what can she make at five farthings or three-halfpence a shirt for the slop-shops? My eldest child, however, does make 1s. or 1s. 6d. a-week. I live on bread and butter, with a drop of beer now and then, six days out of the seven. On Sundays we mostly have a shilling’s worth of meat—bullock’s head generally. Sometimes our work is very hard, with heavy lifting. A weakly man’s no use, and I’ve wondered how I have the strength I have on bread and butter. We are all paid in the dock, and there’s nobody allowed to get the men to drink, or to traffic with them anyhow, but in a fair, regular way. There’s plenty hang about every day who would work a day’s work for 2s.: there’s a good many Irish. I don’t know that there’s any foreigners, without it be on the sugar side. Sometimes a hundred men are employed in our part of the business; to-day there was from forty to fifty at work, and a hundred more was to be had if they’d been wanted. Jobs often come in in a lump—all at once, or none at all; very often with the wind. We run backwards and forwards to the sugar-side or the Surrey Dock, as we expect to be wanted. We don’t know what the foremen of the gangs get, but the company won’t allow them to underpay us; and I have nothing to complain about, either of them or the company, though we’re bad off. The foreman can pick his men. Many of us has to go to the parish. Once I earned only 3s. in three weeks. Our best time is from June or July, continuing on for two, three, four, or five months, as happens. We live half the year and starve the t’other. There’s very few teetotalers among us—men want beer if they live upon bread and butter; there’s many I know lives on a meal a-day, and that’s bread and butter. There’s no drunkards among our men. We’re mostly married men with families; most poor men is married, I think. Poor as I am, a wife and family’s something to cling to like.”

The Timber and Deal Trade.

I now come to the timber and deal trade. The labourers connected with this portion of the trade are rafters or raftsmen, and deal or stave-porters; these are either permanently or casually employed. I shall give an account of each, as well as of the system pursued at each of the docks, beginning with the Commercial, because it does the most extensive business in this branch of the wood-trade; and here let me acknowledge the obligations I am under to Mr. Jones, the intelligent and courteous superintendent, for much valuable information.

The working lumpers, as I before explained, are the labourers employed to discharge all wood-laden vessels, except foreign ships, which are discharged by their own crews; the vessels unladen by the lumpers are discharged sometimes in the dock, and sometimes (when too heavily laden) in the river. The cargoes of wood-laden vessels are termed either landed or rafted goods; the “landed” goods are deals, battens, sleepers, wainscot logs, and indeed all but hewn timber, which is “rafted.” When a vessel is unladen in the river, the landed goods are discharged by lumpers, who also load the lighters, whereas in dock the lumpers discharge them into the company’s barges, which are loaded by them as well. With smaller vessels, however, which occasionally go alongside, the lumpers discharge directly to the shore, where the goods are received by the company’s porters. The lumpers never work on shore. Of the porters working on shore there are two kinds, viz. deal and stave-porters, whose duty it is to receive the landed goods and to pile and sort them, either along the quay or in the building ground, if duty has to be paid upon them.

The hewn-timber, or rafted goods, the lumpers thrust through the porthole into the water, and there the raftsman receives them, puts them into lengths and sizes, and then arranges them in floats—there being eighteen pieces to a float. If the ship is discharged in the river, the rafter floats the timber to the docks, and then to the ponds of the company. If, however, the ship is discharged in dock, then the raftman floats the timber only from the main dock to the ponds.

The rafters are all freemen, for otherwise they could not work on the river; they must have served seven years to a waterman, and they are obliged to pay 3s. a-year to the Waterman’s Company for a license. There are sixteen or seventeen rafters (all preferable men) employed by the Commercial Dock Company, and in busy times there are occasionally as many as forty casual rafters, or “pokers,” as they are called, from their poking about the docks for a job: these casual men are not capable of rafting a ship, nor are they free watermen, they are only employed to float the timber from the ship up to the ponds and stow it, or to attend to deliveries. The skill of the rafter lies in gauging and sorting the timber according to size, quality, and ownership, and making it up into floats. It is only an experienced rafter who can tell the different sizes, qualities, and owners of the timber; this the pokers, or casual rafters, are unable to do. The pokers, again, cannot float the timber from the river to the ponds; this is owing to two reasons: first, they are not allowed to do so on account of not being free watermen; and, secondly, they are unable to do so from the difficulty of navigation. The pokers work exclusively in the docks; neither the rafters nor pokers work under contractors, but the deal and stave-porters invariably do.

The following statement of a rafter at the Commercial Dock I had from a prudent, well-behaved, sober man. He was in company with another man, employed in the same capacity at the same docks, and they both belonged to the better class of labouring men:—

“I am a rafter at the Commercial Dock. I have been working at that dock for the last six years, in the same capacity, and before that I was rafter at the Surrey Dock for between five and six years. I served my apprenticeship to a waterman. I was bound when I was sixteen. We are not allowed to work till we have served two years. In my apprenticeship I was continually engaged in timber-towing, lightering, and at times sculling; but that I did only when the other business was slack. After my time was out I went lightering; and about a dozen years after that I took to rafting. I had been a rafter at the Surrey Canal before then—while I was in my apprenticeship indeed. I had 18s. a-week when I first commenced rafting at the Surrey Canal; but that, of course, all went to my master. I was with the Surrey Canal about two years as rafter, and then I joined another party at 30s. a-week in the same capacity; this party rented a wharf of the Surrey Canal Company, and I still worked in the dock. There I worked longer time—four hours longer; the wages would have been as good at the Surrey Canal at outside work as they were with the second party I joined. The next place that I went to as rafter was the Commercial Dock, where I am now, and have been for the last six years. I am paid by the week. When I work at the dock I have 1l. 1s. a-week, and when I am rafting short-hour ships (i.e. ships from which we work only from eight till four) I get 4s. per day. When I am working long-hour ships (i.e. ships at which the working lasts from six till six) I get 5s. a-day; the other rafters employed by the company are paid the same. Our wages have remained the same ever since I have been in the business; all the other men have been lowered, such as carpenters, labourers, watchmen, deal-porters and the like; but we are not constant men, or else I dare say ours would have been reduced too. They have lowered the wages of the old hands, who have been there for years, 1s. a-week. Formerly they had 1l. 1s., now they get 1l.; the men are dissatisfied. The wages of the casual dock-labourers have been reduced a great deal more than those of the constant men; three months ago they all had 18s. a-week, and now the highest wages paid to the casual labourers is 15s. The reason why the wages of the rafters have not been lowered is, I take it, because we are freemen, and there are not so many to be had who could supply our places. Not one of a hundred lightermen and watermen are able to raft. We are only employed at certain times of the year. Our busy time begins at July, and ends in October. We are fully employed about four months in the year, and get during that time from 1l. 1s. to 30s. a-week, or say 25s. upon an average. The rest of our time we fills up as we can. Some of the rafters has boats, and they look out for a job at sculling; but that’s poor enough now.”

“Ah, very poor work, indeed,” said an old weather-beaten man who was present, and had had 40 years’ experience at the business. “When I first joined it, it was in the war time,” he added, “and then I was scarcely a day idle, and now I can’t get work for better than half my time.”

“For the other eight months,” continued the other man, “I should think the rafters upon an average make 5s. a-week. Some of them has boats, and some gets a job at timber-towing; but some (and that’s the greatest number) has nothing at all to turn their hands to excepting the casual dock labour; that is, anything they can chance to get hold of. I don’t think those who depend upon the casual labour of the docks after the fall season is over (the fall ships are the last that come) make 5s. a-week, take one man with another. I should say, more likely, their weekly earnings is about 4s. There are about 16 rafters at the Commercial Docks, and only one single man among the number. They none of them save any money during the busy season. They are in debt when the brisk time comes, and it takes them all the summer to get clear; which perhaps they does by the time the fall ships have done, and then, of course, they begin going on in the old strain again. A rafter’s life is merely getting into debt and getting clear of it,—that is it—and that is a great part of the life of all the labourers along shore.”

He then produced the following account of his earnings for the last year:—

1850.

This gives an average for the seventy-two weeks above cited of 18s. 6¼d. per week.

“Where I get 1l.” the man continued, after I had copied his accounts, “many don’t get 5s. I know many friends on the river, and I get a number of odd jobs which others can’t. In the last six years my earnings have been much about the same; but others, I am sure, don’t make half what I do—I have earned 1l. 8s. when I know they have been walking about and not earned a penny. In busy times, as many as forty pokers are employed; sometimes for as many as five weeks in the year. They get 3s. 6d. a-day from six to six. After they are out of work they do as best they can. It’s impossible to tell how one-half of them live. Half their time they are starving. The wives of the rafters go some of them charing; some are glove-makers, and others dressmakers. None that I know of do slopwork.”

I now come to the deal and stave-porters. First, as to those employed at the Commercial Docks.

From a man who has an excellent character given to him by his employers I had the following account:—

“At our dock,” he said, “timber and corn are the principal articles; but they are distinct branches and have distinct labourers. I am in the deal part; when a foreign timber-ship comes to the dock, the timber is heaved out of the porthole by the crew themselves. The deal ships, too, are sometimes unloaded by the foreigners themselves, but not often; three or four out of a dozen may. Ours is very dangerous work: we pile the deals sometimes ninety deals high—higher at the busiest time, and we walk along planks, with no hold, carrying the deals in our hands, and only our firm tread and our eye to depend upon. We work in foggy weather, and never stop for a fog; at least, we haven’t for eight or nine years, to my knowledge. In that sort of weather accidents are frequent. There was last year, I believe, about thirty-five falls, but no deaths. If it’s a bad accident, the deal-porters give 6d. a-piece on Saturday night, to help the man that’s had it. There’s no fund for sickness. We work in gangs of five usually, sometimes more. We are paid for carrying 100 of 12-feet deals, 1s. 9d.; 14 feet, 2s. 2d.; 20 and 21 feet, 3s.; 22 feet, 3s. 8d.; and from 24 to 27 feet, 4s. 3d. That’s at piece-work. We used to have 3d. per 100 more for every sort, but it was reduced three or four months back,—or more, may be. In a general way we are paid nothing extra for having to carry the deals beyond an average distance, except for what we call long runs: that’s as far, or about as far, as the dock extends from the place we start to carry the deals from. One week with another, the year through, we make from 12s. to 15s.; the 15s. by men who have the preference when work is slack. We’re busiest from July to Christmas. I’m the head of a gang or team of five, and I’m only paid as they are; but I have the preference if work is slack, and so have the men in my team. Five men must work at the Commercial, or none at all. We are paid in the dock at the contractor’s office (there are three contractors), at four o’clock every Saturday evening. Drinking is kept down in our dock, and with my contractor drunkards are discharged. The men are all satisfied but for the lowering of their wages. No doubt they can get labour cheaper still, there’s so many idlers about. A dozen years back, or so, they did pay us in a public-house. Our deal-porters are generally sober men. The beer-men only come into the dock twice a-day—ten in the morning, and half-past three in the afternoon—and the men never exceed a pint at a time.”

An older man, in the same employ, said:—

“I’ve known deal-portering for twenty years back, and then, at the Commercial Dock, men was paid in a public-house, and there was a good deal of drunkenness. The men weren’t compelled to drink, but was expected to. In that point it’s far better now. When I was first a deal porter I could make half as much more as I do now. I don’t complain of any body about the dock; it ain’t their fault; but I do complain uncommon about the times, there’s so little work and so many to snap at it.”

From a stave-porter at the same dock I had the following account:—

“We are paid by the piece, and the price varies according to size from 1s. 6d. to 10s. the thousand. Quebec staves, 6 feet long by 2 inches thick and a few inches broad, are 10s. the thousand; and other sizes are paid in the same proportion, down to 1s. 6d. We pack the bigger staves about our shoulders, resting one stave on another, more like a Jack-in-the-green than anything else, as our head comes out in the middle of ’em. Of the biggest, five is a good load, and we pack all sizes alike, folding our arms to hold the smaller staves better. Take it altogether, we make at stave-work what the deal-porters do at their work; and, indeed, we are deal-porters when staves isn’t in. There’s most staves comes to the Surrey Canal Dock.”

A man who had worked at the West India Dock as a deal-porter informed me that the prices paid were the same as were paid by the Commercial and East Country Dock Companies before the reduction; but the supply of labour was uncertain and irregular, chiefly at the spring and fall, and in British-American ships. As many as 100 men, however, my informant stated, had been so employed at this dock, making from 15s. to 25s. a-week, or as much as 30s. on occasions, and without the drawback of any compulsory or “expected drinking.” Such, as far as I could learn, is the condition of the labourers employed at these timber docks, where the drinking system and the payment of men in public-houses are not allowed. Concerning the state of the men employed at the other docks where the public-house system still continues, I had the following details.

A deal-porter at the Surrey Canal Dock stated: “I have worked a good many years in the Surrey Dock. There were four contractors at the Surrey Canal, but now there’s one, and he pays the publican where we gets our beer all that’s owing to us deal-porters, and the publican pays us every Saturday night. I can’t say that we are compelled to take beer, certainly not when at our work in the dock, but we’re expected to take it when we’re waiting. I can’t say either that we are discharged if we don’t drink, but if we don’t we are kept waiting late on a Saturday night, on an excuse of the publican’s having no change, or something like that; and we feel that, somehow or other, if we don’t drink we’ll be left in the back-ground. Why don’t the superintendent see us paid in the dock? He pays the company’s labourers in the dock; they’re corn-turners and rafters, and they are paid early, too. We now have 4s. 4d. a day of from 8 to 4, and 5s. 8d. from 6 to 6. It used to be, till four months back, I think, 4s. 10d. and 6s. 4d. In slack times, say six months in the year, we earns from 10s. to 12s. a-week; in the brisk time 30s., and sometimes more; but 30s. is about the average. We are all paid at the public-house. We gathers from after five or so on the Saturday night. We are kept now and then till 12, and after 12, and it has been Sunday morning before we’ve got paid. There is more money spent, in course, up to 12 than up to 10. To get away at ½ past 9 is very early. I should say that half our earnings, except in our best weeks, goes to the publican for drink—more than half oft enough; if it’s a bad week, all our earnings, or more. When it waxes late the wives, who’ve very likely been without Saturday’s dinner or tea, will go to the publican’s for their husbands, and they’ll get to scold very likely, and then they’ll get beaten very likely. We are chiefly married men with families. Pretty well all the deal-porters at the dock are drunkards; so there is misery enough for their families. The publican gives credit two following weeks, and encourages drinking, in course; but he does it quietly. He’ll advance any man at work 1s. a night in money, besides trusting him for drink. I don’t know how many we are; I should say from 50 to 200. In old age or accident, in course, we comes to the parish.”

Other men whom I saw corroborated this statement, and some of their wives expressed great indignation at the system pursued in paying the labourers. None of them objected to their husbands having four pints of beer when actually at their work in the dock; it was against the publicans’ temptations on Saturday and other nights that they bitterly inveighed.

At the earnest entreaty of a deal-porter’s wife, I called on Saturday evening at the public house where the men were waiting to be paid. I walked into the tap-room as if I had called casually, and I was then unknown to all the deal-porters. The tap-room I found small, dark, dirty, and ill-ventilated. What with the tobacco-smoke and the heat of the weather, the room was most disagreeably close and hot. As well as I could count—for although it was a bright summer’s evening the smoke and gloom rendered it somewhat difficult—there were 24 men in this tap-room, which is fitted up with boxes, and the number completely filled the apartment. In an adjoining room, where was a small bar, there were some six or eight more deal-porters lounging about. These numbers, however, fluctuated, for men kept coming in and going out; but all the time I was present there might have been thirty men in the two hot, dirty little rooms. They were strong-looking men enough, and all sun-burnt; but amongst them were some with pinched features and white lips. There they sat, each man with his beer before him; there was not the slightest hilarity amongst them: there was not the least semblance of a convivial Saturday-night’s gathering. The majority sat in silence. Some dozed; others drank or sipped at their pint measures, as if they must do it to while away the time. These deal-porters were generally dressed in corduroy, fustian, or strong, coarse, blue woollen jackets, with trousers of similar material, open big woollen waistcoats, and with coloured cotton handkerchiefs rolled round some thick substance in the way of a stock, and tied loosely round their necks over a striped cotton or loose linen shirt. All had rough bristly beards, intimating that their shaving was confined to the Sunday mornings. With respect to the system pursued at this dock in the payment of the deal-porters, it is right that I should state that I heard from many deal-porters praises of the superintendent, though certainly not of the contractor or the publican. I am glad to be able to state, however, that it is the determination of the company to attempt—and that, indeed, they are now attempting—the abolition of the system of public-house payment. Mr. M‘Cannan, the superintendent of these docks, to whom I am indebted for many favours and courtesies, informed me that an arrangement was once made for the payment of the deal-porters in “an old box” (a sort of wooden office) within the dock; but the impatience and struggling of the men who had to wait a little while for their week’s earnings almost demolished the frail timbers of the old box, and the attempt was abandoned. Within the dock the supply of beer is now limited to three times a-day, with a “vend” of half-a-pint a man each visit.

A middle-aged man, sunburnt and with much of the look of a seaman, gave me an account of his labour as a deal-porter at the East Country Dock. His room, and he with his wife and children had but one, was very sparely furnished, the principal article being a large clean bed. He complained that his poverty compelled him to live in the neighbourhood of some low lodging-houses, which caused all sorts of bad characters to resort to the locality, while cries of “murder” were not uncommon in the night.

“I have been a deal-porter,” he said, “nearly twenty years, and for the last few years I have worked at the East Country Dock. Sometimes we work single-handed, sometimes in gangs of two, three, or four. The distance the deals have to be carried has a good deal to do with it, as to the number of the gang. We’re paid nothing extra for distance. Mr. —— contracts with the Dock Company to do all the deal-portering. There are three gangs regularly employed, each with a master or foreman, or ganger, over them. They have always the preference. If three ships was to unload in one day, there would be one for each gang, and when more hands are wanted the men of the regular gangs are put over deal-porters such as me, who are not regularly employed, but on the look-out for piece-work or a day’s work. We reckon when that happens that the gangers’ men have 9s. for our 4s. We are paid at a public-house. The house belongs to the company. We pay 4d. a-pot for our beer, and we’re expected to drink not less than four pints a-day. We’re not obliged, you understand, but we’re expected to drink this; and if we don’t do as we’re expected, why we’re not wanted next time, that’s all. But we’re only expected to take our regular beer when work’s brisk. We’re not encouraged to run into debt for drink and work it out. Indeed, if a man be 1s. or 1s. 6d. in debt to the publican, he can’t get credit for a bit of bread and cheese, or a drink of beer. We have good beer, but sometimes we’d rather be without it. But we can’t do without some. Many deal-porters, I know, are terrible drunkards. We are paid the same as at the Commercial Dock, and were reduced about the same time. If I had a regular week’s work now and no stop, I could make 26s., less by 8d. a-day, or 4s. a-week, for beer. We’re not expected to drink any gin. Before wages came down I could have made 30s. Our beer-money is stopped out of our earnings by the masters and paid to the publican. It’s very seldom, indeed, we get a regular week’s work, and take it the year through I don’t clear 12s. a-week. To-day, there was only 16 men at work, but sometimes there’s 80. From June to Christmas is the best time. Sometimes we may wait three or four days for a job. The regular pay for the Custom-house hours, from 8 to 4, is 4s. a-day to a deal-porter, but there’s plenty to do it for what they can catch. Lots of Irish, sir? they’ll work for anything, and is underselling all of us, because an Englishman and his family can’t live like them. In the winter my family and me lived on 4s. or 5s. a-week, but I kept clear of the parish, though plenty of us have to come on the parish. Much in pawn, sir? I have so; look at my place. It was a nice place once. Most of what you may call the regular hands has been brought up as deal-porters. I don’t know how many you may call regular at our dock, it varies; working and waiting for a turn; but we’ve no regular turn at work; there’s 100 perhaps, or near about it. Ours is very hard and very dangerous work. Last year one man was killed by a fall, and two had broken legs, and two had broken thighs; but it was an easy year for accidents. There is no fund to help or to bury us, only the parish. In a bad case we’re carried to the Dreadnought, or some hospital. We are all of us dissatisfied. I wish I could have 2s. 6d. a-day for regular work, and I’d live 20 years longer than I shall now, with nothing to do one day and tearing my soul out with slaving work the others.”

The result of all my inquiries shows that the deal-porters in nowise exaggerated the hardness or the danger of their labours. I saw them at work, walking along planks, some sloping from an elevated pile of timber to one somewhat more elevated, the plank vibrating as two men carrying a deal trod slowly and in measure along it, and so they proceed from one pile to another, beginning, perhaps, from the barge until the deals have been duly deposited. From a distance, when only the diminished thickness of the plank is visible, they appear to be walking on a mere stick; the space so traversed is generally short, but the mode of conveyance seems rude and primitive.

Account of the Casual Labourers.

In the foregoing narratives frequent mention has been made of the Casual Labourers at the timber-docks; and I now proceed to give some short account of the condition and earnings of this most wretched class. On the platform surrounding the Commercial Dock basins are a number whom I have heard described as “idlers,” “pokers,” and “casual labourers.” These men are waiting in hopes of a job, which they rarely obtain until all the known hands have been set to work before them. The casual labourers confine themselves to no particular dock, but resort to the one which they account the most likely to want hands; and some even of the more regularly employed deal-porters change their docks occasionally for the same reason. These changes of locality puzzle the regular deal-porters in the estimation of the number of hands in their calling at the respective docks. On my visits the casual labourers were less numerous than usual, as the summer is the season when such persons consider that they have the best chance in the country. But I saw groups of 10 and 20 waiting about the docks; some standing alone, and some straggling in twos and threes, as they waited, all looking dull and listless. These men, thus wearisomely waiting, could not be called ragged, for they wore mostly strong canvas or fustian suits—large, and seemingly often washed jackets, predominating; and rents, and tatters are far less common in such attire than in woollen-cloth garments. From a man dressed in a large, coarse, canvas jacket, with worn corduroy trousers, and very heavy and very brown laced-leather boots, I had the following statement, in a somewhat provincial tone:—

“My father was a small farmer in Dorsetshire. I was middling educated, and may thank the parson for it. I can read the Bible and spell most of the names there. I was left destitute, and I had to shift for myself—that’s nine year ago, I think. I’ve hungered, and I’ve ordered my bottle of wine since, sir. I got the wine when railways was all the go; and I was a navvy; but I didn’t like wine-drinking; I drank it just for the fun of the thing, or mayhap because gentlemen drink it. The port was like rather rough beer, but stronger, certainly. Sherry I only had once or twice, and liked good ale better. I shifted my quarters every now and then till within two or three years ago, and then I tried my hand in London. At first Mr. —— (a second cousin of my father he was) helped me now and then, and he gave me odd jobs at portering for himself, as he was a grocer, and he got me odd jobs from other people besides. When I was a navvy I should at the best time have had my 50s. a-week, and more if it hadn’t been for the tommy-shops; and I’ve had my 15s. a-week in portering in London for my cousin; but sometimes I came down to 10s., and sometimes to 5s. My cousin died sudden, and I was very hard up after that. I made nothing at portering some weeks. I had no one to help me; and in the spring of last year—and very cold it often was—I’ve walked after 10, 11, or 12 at night, many a mile to lie down and sleep in any bye-place. I never stole, but have been hard tempted. I’ve thought of drowning myself, and of hanging myself, but somehow a penny or two came in to stop that. Perhaps I didn’t seriously intend it. I begged sometimes of an evening. I stayed at lodging-houses, for one can’t sleep out in bad weather, till I heard from one lodger that he took his turn at the Commercial Dock. He worked at timber, or corn, or anything; and so I went, about the cholera time last year, and waited, and run from one dock to another, because I was new and hadn’t a chance like the old hands. I’ve had 14s. a-week sometimes; and many’s the week I’ve had three, and more’s the week I’ve had nothing at all. They’ve said, ‘I don’t know you.’ I’ve lived on penny loaves—one or two a-day, when there was no work, and then I’ve begged. I don’t know what the other people waiting at any of the docks got. I didn’t talk to them much, and they didn’t talk much to me.”