GETTING A START — THE NEW HAND — TOWN AND COUNTRY WORKMEN — PROMOTION — DISCHARGING HANDS — LANGUAGE OF THE SHED — EDUCATION — THE EDUCATED MAN NOT WANTED — GREASING THE FORGE

Formerly, when anyone was desirous of obtaining a start in the factory, he tidied himself up and, arrayed in clean working costume, presented himself at one or other of the main entrances immediately after breakfast-time so as to meet the eyes of the foremen as they returned from the meal. Morning after morning, when work was plentiful, you might have seen a crowd of men and boys around the large doorways, or lining the pavements as the black army filed in, all anxious to obtain a job and looking wonderingly towards the opening of the dark tunnel through which the men passed to arrive at the different sheds. The workmen eyed the strangers curiously, and, very often, with contempt and displeasure: it is singular that those who are safely established themselves dislike to see new hands being put on. They look upon them as interlopers and rivals, and think them to be a menace to their own position.

Those in want of a start were easily recognisable from the rest by reason of their clean and fresh appearance. Many of them were clad in white corduroy trousers, waistcoats of the same material, with cloth jackets and well-shone boots, and they wore a plain red or white muffler around the neck. Some of them were very modest and bashful, and quite uneasy in face of the crowd; the boys especially were astonished to see so many workmen at once passing by like an army.

As soon as the men had disappeared within the entrances the hooter sounded and the great doors were shut. Shortly afterwards the staff clerks came along, the foremen walking between them at the same time. Very often the two classes were not to be distinguished; in such a case the overseers passed by unchallenged. It usually happened, however, that the foremen were known to one or other of the crowd. As they came up the word was sent round and there was a rush to see who should be the first to put the usual question — “Chance of a job, sir?” This was sometimes accompanied with an obsequious bow, or the applicant merely raised his forefinger to his forehead. If the foreman was not in need of hands, he simply said “No” to each applicant and pushed by them all. If he required any he asked them where they came from and what they had been doing, and furthermore questioned them as to their age. If the answers were satisfactory he merely said, “Come along with me,” and conducted the men off, and they followed with alacrity.

The boys hardly ever had the courage to address the foremen. If they could summon up the necessary resolution, however, they said, “Please, sir, will you give me a job?” and if the reply was favourable they followed off in high glee, wondering all the way at the strange surroundings, the busy workmen, and the vast array of machinery. Boys usually had but little difficulty in obtaining a start; they were soon taken on and initiated into the mysteries of the sheds. When the foreman saw them outside he went up to them and asked them if they wanted a job and promptly told them to “Come along.”

When an applicant was taken in hand by the foreman he was conducted to the shop office. From that place he was sent, in company with the office-boy, to the manager’s department, where he had to submit to a whole code of formal questions, and was also required to read the rules of the factory and to subscribe his name to them, pledging himself to their observance. After that he was required to undergo a strict medical examination, though one not so severe as that now in vogue. If he was successful in this he was told to present himself at the shed, and was there informed when he might begin work. This might be at any hour of the day, though it was usually fixed for the early morning — getting a start commonly occupied one day entire. Sometimes it happened that a man’s references were unsatisfactory; in that case, after working for several days, he was discharged and another was brought forward to fill the vacancy.

The boys were always frightened at the thought of one painful ordeal which they were told they would have to undergo. They were seriously informed by their new mates in the shed that they would have to be branded on the back parts with a hot iron stamp containing the initials of the railway company, and very many of the youngsters firmly believed the tale and awaited the operation with dreadful suspense. As time went on, however, and they were not sent for to the offices, they came to discredit the story and smiled at their former credulity.

Different methods are now employed in engaging new hands. They are now seldom taken up from the entrances, but must apply at the works’ Inquiry Office and begin to pass through the official formula in that way, or the foreman is supplied with names from private sources. This is another indication of the times, a further development of system at the works. By reason of it many good and deserving men and boys are precluded from the chance of getting a start in the factory, and many less competent ones are admitted; it affords an excellent opportunity for the exercise of favouritism on the part of the overseer. Whoever now has a mate he would like to introduce into the shed approaches the foreman. If he is a favourite himself room will be made for his friend, somehow or other, but if he is a commoner, and not reckoned among the “lambs,” he will be met with a curt refusal, or his application will be put off indefinitely. The officials do not gain anything by the method; they will not be able to exercise as great a choice in the selection of hands, but must have what is sent them.

Another tendency at the works is that to keep out all those who do not live in the borough or within a certain area around the town, or, if they are given the chance of a start, it is only upon condition that they leave their homes and come and live under the shadow of the factory walls. It is said that this rule was first introduced chiefly in deference to the tradesmen and shopkeepers of the town, because they are under the impression that all wages earned in the town should necessarily be spent there, either in the payment of rent or the purchase of provisions and clothes.

When a new hand enters the shed he attracts considerable attention; all eyes are immediately fixed upon him. If he has worked in the factory before he will go about his duties in a very unconcerned manner, but if he is a total stranger to the place he will be shy and awkward, and will need careful and sympathetic instruction; it will be some time before he is entirely used to the new surroundings. If he is rustic in appearance, or seems likely to lend himself to a practical joke, the wags of the place soon single him out and play pranks upon him. It sometimes chances, however, that they have mistaken their man; they may meet with a sudden and unlooked for reprisal and be beaten with their own weapons.

The workmen who come from the villages are usually better-natured and also better-tempered than are those who are strictly of the town, though there are exceptions to the rule. On the whole, however, they make the more congenial mates, and they work much harder and are more conscientious. They dress much more roughly than do their confrÈres of the town; the last-named would not think of wearing corduroys in the shed. There is often a great temperamental difference between the two, and they differ widely in their ideas of and adaptability for work in the shed. The country workman is fresh and tractable, open to receive new ideas and impressions of things. He brings what is practically a virgin mind to the work; he is struck with the entire newness of it all and enters heart and soul into the business. He is usually more active and vigorous, both in brain and body, than is the other, and even where he falls short in actual intelligence and knowledge of things, he more than makes up for it with painstaking effort; he is very proud of his new situation.

The town workman, on the other hand, is often superior, disdainful, and over-dignified. There is little in his surroundings that is really new and strange to him. He has always been accustomed to the crowds of workmen, and if he has not laboured in the shed before he has heard all about it from his friends or parents. His mind has often become so full of the occupations and diversions of the town that it is incapable of receiving new ideas; it is like a slate that has been fully written over and is impossible of containing another sentence or word. Instead of exhibiting shyness or reserve he immediately makes himself familiar and causes his presence to be felt. Before he has been in the shed many days he knows everything and can do everything, in his estimation, and if you attempt to reason with him, or offer any advice as to how to proceed, he will inform you that he “knows all about it without any of your telling.”

Many of the town workmen, and especially those of the more highly skilled classes and journeymen, though village-born themselves, show considerable contempt for the country hand newly arrived in the shed, and even after he has worked there many years and proved himself to be of exceptional ability. They consider him at all times as an interloper and a “waster,” and make no secret of their dislike of and antipathy to him. They often curse him to his face, and tell him that “if it was not for the likes of him“ they would be getting better wages. ”If I could have my way I’d sack every man of you, or make you come into the town to live. All you blokes are fit for is cow-banging and cleaning out the muck-yard; you ought to be made come here and work for ten shillings a week,” they say. All this has but little effect upon the countryman, however, and he seldom deigns to reply to it. Whether his coming to the factory to work was really better for him or not, prudent or otherwise, he does not attempt to argue. There is no law that prohibits a man from changing his occupation and taking another place when he feels inclined so to do.

When the average boy of the town first enters the shed he is not long in finding his way about and taking stock of the other juveniles and men; he is here, there, and everywhere in a few moments. With his shirt-sleeves turned up to the elbow he walks round, whistling or humming a tune, and greeting all indiscriminately with a wink or a nod, and a “What cheer?” or “Pip! pip!” If the men beckon to him — with a sly wink at their mates, intending to ask some ridiculous question or take a rise out of him — the youngster shakes his hand at them and retires straightway with a knowing nod and the expression, “I don’t think,” laying great stress upon the don’t. By and by, however, as he becomes a little more proficient and “cheeky,” the men get hold of him and treat him to a little rough play. They will either twist his arm round till he cries out with the pain, and nearly crush him in a vice-like grip, or dip his head in the nearest bosh of water.

The country lad behaves in a manner quite the reverse of this. He remains strictly near his machine or steam-hammer, and is usually too bashful to speak, unless it be to his immediate mates. He is afraid of strangers, and it will be some weeks before he ventures to walk to the other end of the shed. Even when he does this it will be not to converse with the other boys and men, but in order to watch the machines, the furnaces, and steam-hammers. There he will stand with great attention and view the several operations, and if anyone shouts out at him he will move quietly away and watch something else with the same earnestness, or go back to his own place. His conduct is altogether different from that of the other, and he is often singular in turning up his shirt-sleeves inside, and right up to the very shoulders. Before the town boy goes home from the shed he is careful to wash off the black from his face, comb his hair, and tidy himself up. The country boy, on the other hand, wears his livery home with him; he likes everyone to see that he has been engaged at a hot, black job. In a word, town boys are ashamed of the badge of their work, while country boys are proud of it.

Perhaps, when the village boy starts in the shed, one or two kindly disposed workmen will immediately take notice of him, and, calling him to them, will ask him where he comes from, and upon what kind of work he was before engaged, and all about himself, and so win him over with their friendliness; no matter how long he remains in the shed he does not forget their former kindness to him. In contradistinction to this the wags of the shed make him a ready mark for their diversions, running away with his cap, or sending him on many ridiculous errands and confounding him with stupid questions and conundrums. One favourite jest was to send him to the engine-house after a “bucket of blast,” and another was to despatch him for the “toe punch.” The “toe punch” consisted of a vigorous kick in the posterior, which the youngster, if he obeyed the instructions given, was most certain to receive; but he very soon came to know what was intended and sturdily refused to run any more errands.

A great alteration, physically and morally, usually takes place in the man or boy newly arrived from the country into the workshop. His fresh complexion and generally healthy appearance soon disappear; his bearing, style of dress and all undergo a complete change. In a few weeks’ time, especially if his work is at the fires, he becomes thin and pale, or blue and hollow-eyed. His appetite fails; he is always tired and weary. For the first time in his life he must go to the surgery and obtain medicine, or stay at home on the sick list. His firm carriage — unless he is very careful of it — leaves him; he comes to stoop naturally and walks with a slouching gait. His dress, from being clean, tidy, and well-fitting, partakes of the colour of soot and grease and hangs on his limbs; I know cases in which men have lost ten pounds in weight in a fortnight and regained it all in a little more than a week’s absence from the shed. The change in character and morals is often as pronounced as is the physical transformation; the newcomer, especially if he is a juvenile, is speedily initiated into the vices prevalent in the factory and taught the current slang phrases and expressions. Some of the workmen are greatly to blame in respect of this, and are guilty of almost criminal behaviour in their dealings with young boys. They use the most filthy language in their presence, purposely teaching them to swear, and sometimes also producing obscene pictures and books for their perusal. The foremen are not free from blame and responsibility in this matter. Many of them use the most foul language, and curse the men openly before the youngsters upon the slightest provocation. There is a species of Continental picture card that is far too popular in some of the offices; where the example is set by superiors it is small wonder that the rank and file are affected with the contagion. The managers themselves are guilty of coarse language and vulgar expressions. Certain remarks of theirs are frequently repeated and circulated in the sheds, and do not tend to improve the morals of the workmen, or to increase respect for those who made them.

Promotion among the workmen is very slow and tedious, unless there happens to be an influence at work somewhere behind, which is often the case. It is superfluous to say, moreover, that the cleverest man is not the one usually advanced; that would be contrary to all precedent at the factory. He is more usually the very individual to be kept under; the foreman will be sure to keep him in the background and hide his light underneath the bushel, or try his best to snuff it out altogether. The only material advancement possible to a workman, besides being appointed overseer, is that of being raised to the position of chargeman. A few privileges attach to the post of chargeman, especially if there is a big gang; his wages are higher, and he draws a sum called percentage, equal to 10 per cent. of his own weekly wages, deducted out of the “balance” earned by the gang.

The system of paying percentage is very unpopular with the rank and file of the workmen; whether the chargeman’s behaviour is good or bad, he is heartily hated by most of the men in consequence of it. Foremen they must tolerate, but a chargeman they fully despise. They do not like to think that any of their earnings go to pay for his supervision, although in most cases he is quite a necessary individual. In times past the chargeman used to pay the piecework “balance” to the men, having received the money in a bulk from the company, and he was often guilty of scandalous robbery and cheating. The chargeman could and did pay the gang what amount he pleased, and kept several pounds a week extra for himself. All that is past and done with now. The “balance” is paid to the man with his day wages; no opportunity of cheating him is given to the chargeman.

As soon as it becomes known that it is intended to discharge a number of hands considerable anxiety is evidenced by the rank and file, and especially by the unskilled of the shed. They begin to quake and tremble and to be full of apprehension, for it is usually men of their class who are chosen to go, together with any who may be old and feeble, those who are subject to periodical attacks of illness, who have met with an accident at some time or other, those who are awkward and clumsy, dwellers in country places, and those whom the foreman owes a grudge. It can generally be surmised beforehand by the men themselves who will be in the number of unfortunates. Groups of workmen gather and discuss the situation quietly; there is great suspense until the notices are actually issued. Sometimes as many as a hundred men of the same shed have received their notices of dismissal in one day. The notices are written out upon special forms and the clerk of the shed, or the office-boy, carries them round to the men; it is a dramatic moment. Although fully expecting to receive the dreaded “bit of paper,” the men hope against hope; they are quite dazed when the clerk approaches and hands it to them, for they know full well what it means. The young men may not care a scrap. To them all the world is open. They have plenty of other opportunities; but to those who are subject to illness — contracted on the premises — or who are getting on in life and are becoming old and grey and unfit for further service, it is little less than tragedy. One day’s notice is served out to the men; they are quickly removed from the shed and are presently forgotten.

Of the number discharged a great many loiter about the town for several weeks, unable to find any sort of employment. These scatter about among the villages and try to obtain work on the farms; those are assisted by their relatives and kindred in various parts of the country to leave the locality altogether. Some find their way into the workhouse and end their days there, and others develop into permanent loafers and outcasts and beg their food from door to door, picking up stray coppers around the station yard or in the market-place.

Great relief is felt in the shed when the discharging is over. A common remark of the workman who is left is, “Ah well! ’Twill be better for we as be left. ’Tis better to sack a few than to keep us all on short time here.” That is invariably the view of the well-established in the factory. Occasionally, when a workman knows he has been selected for dismissal through spite, or personal malice, he may go to the overseer and “have it out with him,” but there is no remedy. The foreman has had the whole batch in his eye for some time past. Whatever little indiscretion is committed he records it and the man is marked. The overseer boasts openly that he shall “get his own back,” sooner or later. “We don’t forget it, mate, you bet, not we! His time’ll come all right, some day.” After the last great discharge of hands at the factory, in the year 1909, when a thousand men were dismissed in order to “reduce expenses,” it was reported that every manager at the works was granted a substantial increase in salary. In less than a month, for some inscrutable reason, a number of new hands, equivalent to those who had been discharged, were put on again.

The speech of the workmen in the sheds necessarily varies according to the country or locality which gave them birth or to the part in which they were settled before coming to the railway town, and to the degrees of culture existing among them. The majority, including foremen, fitters, smiths, and other journeymen and labourers, speak a common language, plain, direct, and homely; there is little pretence to fine words and “swell” phrases. The average workman detests nothing more than to be bound to a mate who is always giving himself airs, who lays stress upon his claim to superior knowledge of grammar and other matters, and who makes use of affected or artificial language and “jaw-breakers,” as the men call them. Sometimes a new-comer to the shed may attempt to make an impression with a magnificent style of diction, though he is only mocked and ridiculed for his pains, and he soon conforms to the general rule and habit of the workshop. Even if he really possesses culture, it is soon effaced and swallowed up amid the unsympathetic environment of the shed. Occasionally one meets with an individual — it may be a workman or a clerk — who can never speak simply, but tries to express everything in ridiculous and fantastic language, and who at all times looks upon himself as a perfect hero. The blunt and matter-of-fact workmen take an entirely different view of him and his jargon, however; they look upon him as a perfect fool or an idiot.

One habit of speech is particularly noticeable amongst the men, that is the adding the suffix “fied” to a number of words; you often hear them make use of such expressions as “Monday-fied,” “sweaty-fied,” “bossy-fied,” “silly-fied,” and so on. Another peculiarity is the adding the letter y to a surname, usually a monosyllable, and especially to those ending in dentals and labials, such as Webb-y, Smith-y, Legg-y, Lane-y, Nash-y, Brooks-y; you never find the termination used with such words as Fowler, Foster, Matthews, Jerrom, or Johnson. This is no more than an extension of the rule which is responsible for such forms as Tommy, Annie, Betty, Teddy, or Charlie.

If one workman asks another how he is feeling, he usually receives for an answer — “Rough and ready, like a rat-catcher’s dog,” or “Passable,” or “Among the Middlings,” or “In the pink, mate!” as the case may be, with the common addition of “Ow’s you?” A few are still to be found, and these among the town dwellers, too, who can neither read nor write. I especially remember one youth, of a very respectable family, of good appearance and fairly well-to-do, who could not write his name or read a letter. Such cases as this are happily rare now. Where there is an illiterate workman, if the cause of his deficiency be carefully sought out, it will usually be found to have been entirely through his own fault.

As for the fruits of education exhibited among the men in the sheds generally, that is rather a difficult and delicate matter to touch upon. One thing, however, is obvious to any who care to pay the slightest attention to it: extremely little of those subjects taught with such assiduity at school remains with the individual in after life — such things as grammar, composition, history, geography, arithmetic, and chemistry are universally forgotten. The boys of the town are especially remarkable for shortness of memory and general forgetfulness; they have few powers of mental retention, and are almost incapable of concentrating upon a matter. You have often to instruct them upon each trivial detail half-a-dozen times, and before you can turn round they have forgotten it again. The least occurrence is sufficient to distract their attention. Scolding will not help matters, it is really a natural defect. When I have had occasion to reprove boys for apparent carelessness and neglect they have more than once replied — “I can’t help it. I forgot it.” There is great truth in the first of those sentences.

Sport and play, and especially football, claims the attention of the juveniles. The love of the last-named pastime has come to be almost a disease of late years — old and young, male and female, of every rank and condition, are afflicted with it. Whatever leisure the youngsters have is spent in kicking about something or other amid the dirt and dust; from one week’s end to another they are brimful of the fortunes of the local football team. Many a workman boasts that he has denied himself a Sunday dinner in order to find the money necessary for him to attend Saturday’s match. Politics, religion, the fates of empires and governments, the interest of life and death itself must all yield to the supreme fascination and excitement of football.

There is an almost total lack of spontaneous interest in anything — with the exception of sport and politics — that happens in the world without the factory walls and the immediate vicinity of the town. The great business of life is entirely ignored; small inclination is discoverable — even if there were opportunities — to pay attention to anything but the ordinary duties and routine of the shed. The beauties of wood and field, or hill and down, scarcely appeal to the average working man. Though magnificent downlands and historical relics are within easy reach of the town’s-people, few are tempted to walk so far from the smoky atmosphere of the factory as to visit them; a great indifference to the compelling attractions of Nature apparently exists. Yet, on the other hand, if you should happen to enter the shed with a handful of common wild flowers — willow-herb, rosebay, bell flower, oxeye, and so on — you would immediately be surrounded by a crowd of boys, and men, too, full of admiration for the lovely strangers, and all eagerly inquiring after their names, thereby discovering an innate passion for them, though lack of opportunity and other circumstances had almost obliterated it. Every man, woman, and child, though they may not be well aware of it, is a nature-lover at heart; they all have a fond regard for the simple, natural things of the earth — birds, plants, and flowers. The men of the shed are always eager to listen to and take part in political discussions, but they are, as a rule, totally indifferent to the interest of literature. At the same time, if you have anything to tell them of birds, flowers, and animals, life on the farm, haymaking, reaping, threshing, ploughing, and so on, they are full of attention: they evidently derive great pleasure from the relation of these simple matters and occupations.

As for general culture, it may at once be said that the educated man is not wanted at the factory. What is more, the managers will not have him if they can by any means avoid it; there is a great antipathy to him on the part of the staff in and out of the shed. Where a workman is known to possess any intellectual abilities above those commonly found and has the courage to raise his voice in any matter or to interest himself in things pertaining to the town, or if he has in any way access to the ear of the public, he is certain to be marked for it; at the first convenient opportunity he will be shifted off the premises. Every workman who desires to improve himself in any direction other than in that which tends to promote the interests of the company is looked upon with suspicion; he is immediately included in the number of “undesirables.”

Several years ago the manager of a department, who was at the time Chairman of the local Educational Authority, sent for me in order to see whether I might be of any use to him in his office. After a lengthy interview he expressed his disappointment at being unable to offer me any position, and took care to point out to me the folly of my ways. My intellectual qualifications were beyond his consideration, said he. I was so full of many matters as to be quite worthless to him. He must have certificates. What was the use of my trying, anyhow? He would quote two words to me — Cui bono? The world was full of better men than I. What was the good of literature? His advice to me was to go back to my furnace, look after my wife and family, and trouble no more about it.

At the forge, however, the steady persistence of my efforts towards self-improvement was not appreciated. Day after day the foreman of the shed came or sent someone with oil or grease to obliterate the few words of Latin or Greek which I had chalked upon the back of the sooty furnace in order to memorise them. Even my tool-boxes and cupboard, always considered more or less private and sacred, were periodically smeared with fat and the operation was often carried out in a very offensive manner. The plan was not successful, however, and I was often more amused than annoyed, though it was most seriously intended by the overseer, who always said he was acting under the manager’s orders. At one time he had caused the furnace back to be tarred. Before the tar had completely dried I innocently chalked upon it several words that figured in my studies for the day. By the next morning the characters had become permanent. The colour of the chalk had set, and as often as the overseer or his agent came with the oil-pot and removed the dust and soot, thinking to baffle me, he was confronted with the Horatian precept, Nil desperandum, a quotation from the Hecuba, and Sta???s?? a?t?? (Crucify him) from the New Testament. The one most appreciated at the works is he who remains silent and slavishly obeys every order, who is willing to cringe and fawn like a dog, to swear black is white and white is black at the bidding of his chief, to fulfil every instruction without ever questioning the wisdom or utility of it, to be, in a word, as clay in the potter’s hand, a mere tool and a puppet.

Where the cultured person does exist in the shed he must generally suffer exquisite tortures. There can be no culture without a higher sensibility, and he will be thereby rendered less able to endure the hardships of the toil, and the otherwise brutal and callous environments of the place. As for the view, held in some quarters, that education will make a man happier at work and better satisfied with his lot and condition, that is pure myth and fallacy, and the sooner it is dispensed with the better. On the other hand, it will most certainly produce dissatisfaction, but such, perhaps, as will speedily wake him up to his real needs and requirements — a larger freedom, and the attainment of a fuller and better life. Any kind of education that tends to make the workman at all subjective to his lot is worthless and retrograde; he must be roused up to battle towards perfection of conditions and must himself be prepared to make some sort of sacrifice towards the accomplishment of that end, unless he is content to occupy the same level for ever. Nor will it be sufficient for him to have obtained higher wages and greater leisure if he does not attempt to derive something more than a mere physical or material benefit from them. Whatever advantage is gained in the future must be turned to sterling account — to the acquisition of useful knowledge and the increase of mental strength and fitness, otherwise the battle will have been fought greatly in vain.