Section 32 of London Labour and the London Poor, volume 2 by Henry Mayhew. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Gillian Henry. Of the dustmen of London. Dust and rubbish accumulate in houses from a variety of causes, but principally from the residuum of fires, the white ash and cinders, or small fragments of unconsumed coke, rise to by far the greater quantity. Some notion of the vast amount of this refuse, annually produced in London, may be formed from the fact that the consumption of coal in the metropolis is, according to the official returns, 3,500,000 tonnes per annum, which is at the rate of a little more than 11 tonnes per house. The poorer families, it is true, do not burn more than 2 tonnes in the course of the year, but then many such families reside in the same house, and hence the average will appear in no way excessive. Now the ashes and cinders arising from this enormous consumption of coal, would, it is evident, if allowed to lie scattered about in such a place as London, render ere long not only the back streets, but even the important thoroughfares, filthy and impassable. Upon the officers of the various parishes, therefore, has devolved the duty of saying that the refuse of the fuel consumed throughout London is removed almost as fast as produced. This they do by entering into an agreement for the clearance of the dustbins of the parishioners, as often as required, with some person who possesses all necessary appliances for the purpose, such as horses, carts, baskets and shovels, together with a plot of waste ground, whereon to deposit the refuse. The persons with whom this agreement is made are called dust contractors, and are generally men of considerable wealth. The collection of dust is now, more properly speaking, the removal of it. The collection of an article implies the voluntary seeking after it, and this the dustmen can hardly be said to do, for though they parade the streets shouting for the dust as they go, they do so rather to fulfil a certain duty they have undertaken to perform than in any expectation of profit to be derived from the sale of the article. Formerly the custom was otherwise, but then, as we'll be seen here after, the residuum of the London fuel was far more valuable. Not many years ago it was the practice for the various master dustmen to send in their tenders to the vestry on a certain day appointed for the purpose, offering to pay a considerable sum yearly to the parish authorities for liberty to collect the dust from the several houses. The sum formerly paid to the parish of Shadwell, for instance, though not a very extensive one, amounted to between £400 or £500 per annum. But then there was an immense demand for the article, and the contractors were unable to furnish a sufficient supply from London. Ships were frequently freighted with it from other parts, especially from Newcastle and the Northern ports, and at that time it formed an article of considerable international commerce, the price being from 15 chillings to a pound per children. Of late years, however, the demand has fallen off greatly, while the supply has been progressively increasing, owing to the extension of the metropolis, so that the contractors have not only declined paying anything for liberty to collect it, but now stipulate to receive a certain sum for the removal of it. It need hardly be stated that the parishes always employ the man who requires the least money for the performance of what has now become a matter of duty, rather than an object of desire. Some idea may be formed of the change which has taken place in this business, from the fact that the aforesaid parish of Shadwell, which formerly received the sum of £450 per annum for liberty to collect the dust, now pays the contractor the sum of £240 per annum for its removal. The Court of Sewers of the City of London. In 1846, through the advice of Mr Cochran, the president of the National Philanthropic Association, were able to obtain from the contractors the sum of £5,000 for liberty to clear away the dirt from the streets and the dust from the bins and houses in that district. The year following, however, the contractors entered into a combination and came to a resolution not to bid so high for the privilege. The result was that they obtained their contracts at an expense of £2,200. By acting on the same principle in the year after, they not only offered no premium whatever for the contract, but the city commissioners of Sewers were obliged to pay them the sum of £300 for removing the refuse, and at present the amount paid by the city is as much as £4,900. This is divided among four great contractors and would, if equally apportioned, give them £1,250 each. I sub-join a list of the names of the principal contractors and the parishes for which they are engaged. For four divisions of the city, the contractors Reading, Rook, J Sinut and J Gold, Finsbury Square, J Gold, St Luke's, H Dodd, Shoreditch, H Dodd, Norton Fulgate, J Gold, Bethnal Green, E Newman, Auburn, Pratt and Sewell, Hatton Garden, Pratt and Sewell, Islington, Stroud Brickmaker, St Martin's, William Sinut, Jr., St Maryly Strand, J Gore, St Sepulcher, J Gore, Savoy, J Gore, St Clement Danes, Rook, St James's, Clarkinwell, H Dodd, St John's, Ditto, J Gold, St Margaret's, Westminster, W Hearn, St John's, Ditto, Stapleton and Holdsworth, Lambeth, W Hearn, Chelsea, C Humphreys, St Merlebone, J Gore, Black Friars Bridge, Jenkins, St Paul's Covent Garden, W Sinut, Piccadilly, H Tame, Regent Street and Pal Mall, W Reading, St George's Hanover Square, H Tame, Paddington, C Humphreys, Camden Town, Milton, St Prakras, South West Division, W Stapleton, Southampton Estate, C Starkey, Skinners, Ditto, H North, Brewers, Ditto, C Starkey, Cromer, Ditto, C Starkey, Cullthorpe, Ditto, C Starkey, Bedford, Ditto, Gore, Doughty, Ditto, Martin, Union, Ditto, J Gore, Van Sewel, Harrison, Ditto, Martin, St Anne, Soho, J Gore, Whitechapel, Parsons, Goswell Street, Reading, Commercial Road East, J Sinut, Mile End, Newman, Burra, Hearn, Bermondsey, The Parish, Kensington, H Tame, St Giles in the Fields and St George's Bloomsbury, Reading, Shadwell, Westley, St George's in the East, Westley, Battle Bridge, Starky, Barkley Square, Clutterbuck, St George's Pimlico, Reading, Woods and Forests, Reading, St Buttolef, Westley, St John's Whopping, Westley, Somers Town, H North, Kentish Town, J Gore, Liberty of the Rolls, Pratt and Sewel, Edward Square, Kensington, C Hamfries. All the metropolitan parishes now pay the contractors various amounts for the removal of the dust, and I am credibly informed that there is a system of underletting and jobbing in the dust contracts extensively carried on. The contractor for a certain parish is often a different person from the master doing the work, and who is unknown in the contract. Occasionally the work would appear to be subdivided and underlet a second time. The parish of St Pancras is split into no less than 21 districts, each district having a separate and independent board who are generally at war with each other and make separate contracts for their several divisions. This is also the case in other large parishes, and these and other considerations confirm me in the conclusion that of large and small contractors, jobmasters and middlemen of one kind or the other, throughout the metropolis there cannot be less than the number I have stated, 90. With the exception of Bermondsy there are no parishes who remove their own dust. It is difficult to arrive at any absolute statement as to the gross amount paid by the different parishes for the removal of the entire dust of the metropolis. From Shadwell the contractor, as we have seen receives £250. From the city the four contractors receive as much as £5,000. But there are many small parishes in London which do not pay above a tithe of the last mentioned sum. Let us therefore assume that one with another, the several metropolis in parishes, pay £200 a year each to the dust contractor. According to the returns before given there are 176 parishes in London, hence the gross amount paid for the removal of the entire dust of the metropolis will be between £30,000 and £40,000 per annum. The removal of the dust throughout the metropolis is therefore carried on by a number of persons called contractors who undertake, as has been stated for a certain sum, to cart away the refuse from the houses as frequently as the inhabitants desire it. To ascertain the precise numbers of these contractors is a task of much greater difficulty than might at first be conceived. The London Post Office directory gives the following number of tradesmen connected with the removal of refuse from the houses and streets of the metropolis. Dustmen 9. Scavengers 10. Nightman 14. Sweeps 32. But these numbers are obviously incomplete for even a cursory passenger through London must have noticed a greater number of names upon the various dust carts to be met with in the streets than are here set down. A dust contractor who has been in the business upwards of 20 years stated that from his knowledge of the trade he should suppose that at present there might be about 80 or 90 contractors in the metropolis. Now according to the returns before given, there are within the limits of the Metropolitan Police District 176 parishes and comparing this with my informant statement that many persons contract for more than one parish of which indeed he himself is an instance. There remains but little reason to doubt the correctness of his supposition that there are in all between 80 and 90 dust contractors large and small connected with the metropolis. Assuming the aggregate number to be 88 there would be one contractor to every two parishes. These dust contractors are likewise the contractors for the cleansing of the streets, except where that duty is performed by the street orderlies. They are also the persons who undertake the emptying of the cesspools in their neighbourhood. The latter operation however is effected by an arrangement between themselves and the landlords of the premises and forms part of their parochial contracts. At the office of the street orderlies in Leicester Square they have knowledge of only 30 contractors connected with the metropolis, but this is evidently defective and refers to the large masters alone leaving out of all consideration as it does the host of small contractors scattered up and down the metropolis who are able to employ only two or three carts and six or seven men each many of such small contractors being merely master sweeps who have managed to get on a little in the world and who are now able to contract in a small way for the removal of dust street sweepings and night soil. Moreover many of even the great contractors being unwilling to venture upon an outlay of capital for carts, horses and so on when their contract is only for a year and may pass at the end of that time into the hands of anyone who may underbid them many such I repeat are in the habit of underletting a portion of their contract to others possessing the necessary appliances or of entering into partnership with them the latter is the case in the parish of Shadwell where a person having carts and horses shares the profits with the original contractor. The agreement made on such occasions is of course a secret though the practice by no means uncommon. Indeed there is so much secrecy maintained concerning all matters connected with this business that the inquiry is beset with every possible difficulty. The gentleman who communicated to me the amount paid by the parish of Shadwell and who informed me more over that parishes in his neighbourhood paid twice and three times more than Shadwell did hinted to me the difficulties I should experience at the commencement of my inquiry and I have certainly found his opinion correct to the letter I have ascertained that in one yard intimidation was resorted to and the men were threatened with instant dismissal if they gave me any information but such as was calculated to mislead. I soon discovered indeed that it was impossible to place any reliance on what the contractor said and here I may repeat that the indisputable result of my inquiries has been to meet with far more deception and equivocation from employers generally than from the employed. Working men have little or no motive for misstating their wages. They know well that the ordinary rates of remuneration for their labour are easily ascertainable from other members of the trade and seldom or never object to produce accounts of their earnings wherever they have been in the habit of keeping such things. For employers however, the case is far different. To seek to ascertain from them the profits of their trade is to meet with evasion and prevarication at every turn. They seem to feel that their gains are dishonestly large and hence resort to every means to prevent them being made public. That I have met with many honourable exceptions to this rule I most cheerfully acknowledge but that the majority of tradesmen are either so frank, communicative or truthful as the men in their employ, the whole of my investigations go to prove. I have already, in the morning chronicle, recorded the character of my interviews with an eminent Jew slop tailor, an army clothier and an enterprising free trade staymaker, a gentleman who subscribed his 100 guineas to the leak, and I must in candour confess that now after two years' experience I have found the industrious poor a thousandfold more voracious than the trading rich. With respect to the amount of business done by these contractors or gross quantity of dust collected by them in the course of the year, it would appear that each employs on an average about 20 men, which makes the number of men employed as dustmen throughout the streets of London amount to 1,800. This, as has been previously stated, is grossly at variance with the number given in the census of 1841 which computes the dustmen in the metropolis at only 254. But, as I said before, I have long ceased to place confidence in the government returns on such subjects. According to the above estimate of 254 and deducting from this number the 88 master dustmen there would be only 166 labouring men to empty the 300,000 dustbins of London. And as these men always work in couples, it follows that every two dustmen would have to remove the refuse from about 3,600 houses so that, assuming each bin to require emptying once every six weeks, they would have to cart away the dust from 2,400 houses every month or 600 every week which is at the rate of 100 a day. And as each dustbin contains about half a load, it would follow that at this rate each cart would have to collect 50 loads of dust daily, whereas 5 loads is the average day's work. Computing the London dust contractors at 90 and the inhabited houses at 300,000 it follows that each contractor would have 3,333 houses to remove the refuse from. Now it has been calculated that the ashes and cinders alone from each house average about 3 loads per annum so that each contractor would have in round numbers 10,000 loads of dust to remove in the course of the year. I find from inquiries that every two dustmen carry to the yard about 5 loads a day or about 1,500 loads in the course of the year so that at this rate there must be between 6 and 7 carts and 12 and 14 collectors employed by each master but this is exclusive of the men employed in the yards. In one yard that I visited there were 14 people busily employed. Six of these were women who were occupied in sifting and they were attended by three men who shoveled the dust into their sieves and the foreman who was hard at work loosening and dragging down the dust from the heap ready for the fillers in. Besides these there were two carts and four men engaged in conveying the sifted dust to the barges alongside the wharf. At a larger dust yard that formerly stood on the banks of the Regents Canal I am informed that there were sometimes as many as 127 people at work. It is but a small yard indeed which has not 30 to 40 labourers connected with it. The lesser dustyards have generally from 4 to 8 sifters and 6 or 7 carts. There must therefore be employed in even a small yard 12 collectors or cartmen 6 sifters and 3 fillers in. Besides the foreman or forewoman making altogether 22 persons so that computing the contractors at 90 and allowing 20 men to be employed by each, there would be 1800 men thus occupied in the metropolis which appeared to be very near the truth. One who has been all his life connected with the business estimated that there must be about 10 dustmen to each metropolitan parish, large and small. In Marlubon he believed there were 18 dust carts with 2 men to each out every day. In some small parishes however 2 men are sufficient. There would be more men employed he said but some masters contracted for 2 or 3 parishes and so kept the same men going working them hard and enlarging their regular rounds. Calculating then that 10 men are employed to each of the 176 metropolitan parishes we have 1,760 dustmen in London. The suburban parishes my informant told me were as well dustmened as any he knew for the residents in such parts were more particular about their dust than in busier places. It is curious to observe how closely the number of men engaged in the collection of the dust from the coals burnt in London agrees according to the above estimate with the number of men engaged in delivering the coals to be burnt. The coal whippers who discharged the colliers are about 1,800 and the coal porters who carry the coals from the barges to the merchants wagons are about the same in number. The amount of residuum from coal after burning cannot of course be equal either in bulk or weight to the original substance ensuring that the collection of the dust is a much slower operation than the delivery of the coals the difference is easily accounted for. We may arrive approximately at the quantity of dust annually produced in London in the following manner. The consumption of coal in London per annum is about 3,500,000 tonnes exclusive of what is brought to the metropolis per rail. Coals are made up of the following component parts namely 1. the inorganic and fixed elements that is to say the ashes or the bones as it were of the fossil trees which cannot be burnt 2. coke or the residuary carbon after being deprived of the volatile matter 3. the volatile matter itself given off during combustion in the form of flame and smoke. The relative proportions of these materials in the various kinds of coals are as follows canal or gas coals 40-60% carbon 60-40% volatile 10% ashes Newcastle or house coals 57% carbon 37% volatile 5% ashes Lancashire and Yorkshire coals 50-60% carbon 35-40% volatile 5% ashes Lancashire and Yorkshire coals 35-40% volatile 4% ashes South Welsh or steam coals 81-85% carbon 11-15% volatile 3% ashes Anthrocyte or stone coals 80-95% carbon 0% volatile a little a little percent ashes In the metropolis the Newcastle coal is chiefly used and this we perceive yields 5% ashes and about 57% carbon but a considerable part of the carbon is converted into carbonic acid during combustion if therefore we assume that two thirds of the carbon are thus consumed and that the remaining third remains behind in the form of cinder we shall have about 25% of dust from every ton of coal an enquiry of those who have had long experience in this matter I find that a ton of coal may be fairly set on an average to yield about 1 fourth its weight in dust hence the gross amount of dust annually produced in London would be 900,000 tonnes or about 3 tonnes per house per annum it is impossible to obtain any definite statistics on this part of the subject not one in every 10 of the contractors keeps any account of the amount that comes into the yard an intelligent and communicative gentleman whom I consulted on this matter could give me no information on this subject that was in any way satisfactory I have however endeavoured to check the preceding estimate in the following manner there are in London upwards of 300,000 inhabited houses and each house furnishes a certain quota of dust to the general stock I have ascertained that an average sized house will produce in the course of a year about 3 cartloads of dust while each cart holds about 40 bushels, baskets what the dustmen call a children there are of course many houses in the metropolis which furnish 3 and 4 times this amount of dust but against these may be placed the vast preponderance of small houses in London and the suburbs where there is not one quarter of the quantity produced owing to the small amount of fuel consumed estimating then the average annual quantity of dust from each house at 3 loads or childrens and the houses at 300,000 it follows that the gross quantity collected throughout the metropolis will be about 900,000 childrens per annum the next part of the subject is what becomes of this vast quantity of dust to what use it is applied the dust thus collected is used for two purposes one as a manure for land of a peculiar quality and two for making bricks the fine portion of the house dust called soil and separated from the breeze or coarser portion by sifting is found to be peculiarly fitted breaking up a marshy healthy soil at its first cultivation owing not only to the dry nature of the dust but to its possessing in an eminent degree a highly separating quality almost if not quite equal to sand in former years the demand for this finer dust was very great and barges were continually in the river waiting their turn to be loaded with it for some distant part of the country at that time the contractors were unable to supply the demand and easily got one pound per children for as much as they could furnish and then as I have stated many ships were in the habit of bringing cargos of it from the north and of realising a good profit on the transaction of late years however and particularly I am told since the repeal of the corn laws this branch of the business has dwindled to nothing the contractors say that the farmers do not cultivate their land now as they used it will not pay them and instead therefore of bringing fresh land into tillage and especially such as requires this sort of manure they are laying down that which they previously had in cultivation and turning it into pasture grounds it is principally on this account say the contractors that we cannot sell the dust we collect so well or so readily as formerly there are however some cargos of the dust still taken particularly to the lowlands in the neighbourhood of barking and such other places in the vicinity of the metropolis as are enabled to realise a greater profit by growing for the London markets nevertheless the contractors are obliged now to dispose of the dust at two shelling sixpins per children and sometimes less the finer dust is also used to mix with the clay for making bricks and barge loads are continually shipped off for this purpose the fine ashes are added to the clay in the proportion of one fifth ashes to four fifths clay or sixty children to two hundred and forty cubic yards which is sufficient to make one hundred thousand bricks where much sand is mixed with the clay a smaller proportion of ashes may be used this quantity requires also the addition of about fifteen children or if mild of about twelve children of breeze to aid the burning the ashes are made to mix with the clay by collecting it into a sort of reservoir fitted up for the purpose water in great quantities is let in upon it and it is then stirred till it resembles a fine thin paste in which state the dust easily mingles with every part of it in this condition it is left till the water either soaks into the earth or goes off by evaporation when the bricks are moulded in the usual manner the dust forming a component part of them the ashes or cindered matter which are thus dispersed throughout the substance of the clay become in the process of burning gradually ignited and consumed but the breeze from the French brisee to break or crush that is to say the coarser portion of the ash is likewise used in the burning of the bricks the small spaces left along the lowest courses of the bricks in the kiln or clamp are filled with breeze and a thick layer of the same material is spread on the top of the kilns when full frequently the breeze is mixed with small coals and after having been burnt the ashes are collected and then mixed with the clay to form new bricks the highest price our present given for breeze is three shillings per ton the price of the dust used by the brick makers has likewise been reduced this the contractors account for by saying that there are fewer brick fields than formerly near London as they have been nearly all built over the assert that while the amount of dust and cinders has increased proportionately to the increase of the houses the demand for the article has decreased in a like ratio and that more over the greater portion of the bricks now used in London for the new buildings come from other quarters such dust however as the contractors sell to the brick makers they in general undertake for a certain sum to cart to the brick fields though it often happens that the brick makers cart coming into town with their loads of bricks to new buildings call on their return at the dust yards and carry then a load of dust and cinders back and so save the price of cartage but during the operation of sifting the dust many things are found which are useless for either manure or brick making such as oyster shells old bricks old boots and shoes old tin kettles old rags and bones and so on these are used for various purposes the bricks and so on are sold for sinking beneath foundations where a thick layer of concrete is spread over them many old bricks too are used in making new roads especially where the land is low and marshy the old tin is sold to trunk makers to form the japan fastenings for the corners of their boxes as well as to other persons who remanufacture it into a variety of articles the old shoes are sold to the London shoe makers who use them as stuffing in the insole and the outer one but by far the greater quantity is sold to the manufacturers of Prussian blue that substance being formed out of refuse animal matter the rags and bones are of course disposed of at the usual places the marine store shops a dust heap therefore may be briefly said to be composed of the following things which are severally applied to the following uses one soil or fine dust sold to brick makers for making bricks and to farmers for manure especially for clover two breeze or cinders sold to brick makers for burning bricks three rags bones and old metal sold to marine store dealers four old tin and iron vessels sold to trunk makers for clamps and so on five old bricks and oyster shells sold to builders for sinking foundations and forming roads six old boots and shoes sold to Prussian blue manufacturers seven money and jewelry kept or sold to Jews the dust yards or places where the dust is collected and sifted are generally situated in the suburbs and they may be found all around London sometimes occupying open spaces adjoining back streets and lanes and surrounded by the low mean houses of the poor frequently however they cover a large extent of ground in the fields and there the dust is piled up to a great height and a conical heap and having much the appearance of a volcanic mountain the reason why the dust heaps are confined principally to the suburbs is that more space is to be found in the outskirts than in a cold and central locality moreover the fear of indictments for nuisance has had considerable influence in the matter for it was not unusual for the yards in former times to be located within the boundaries of the city they are now however scattered around London and all was placed as near as possible to the river or to some canal communicating therewith in St George's Shadwell, Ratcliffe Limehouse, Poplar and Blackwell on the north side of the Thames and in Redrith, Bermondsey and Rutherith on the south they are to be found near the Thames the object of this is that by far the greater quantity of the soil or ashes is conveyed in sailing barges holding from 70 to 100 tonnes each to Feversham, Sittingbourne and other places in Kent which are the great brick making manufactories for London these barges come up invariably loaded with bricks and take home in return a cargo of soil other dust yards are situated contiguous to the regents and the Surrey canal and for the same reason as above stated for the convenience of water carriage moreover adjoining the Limehouse Cut which is a branch of the Lee River other dust yards may be found and again travelling to the opposite end of the metropolis we discover them not only at Paddington on the banks of the canal but at Maiden Lane in a similar position sometimes since there was an immense dust heap in the neighbourhood of the Grey's Inn Lane which sold for £20,000 but that was in the days when 15 shillings and £1 per children could easily be procured for the dust according to the present rate not a tithe of that amount could have been realised upon it a visit to any of the large metropolitan dust yards is far from uninteresting near the centre of the yard rises the highest heap composed of what is called the soil or finer portion of the dust used for manure around this heap are numerous lesser heaps consisting of the mixed dust and rubbish carted in and shot down previous to sifting among these heaps are many women and old men with sieves made of iron all busily engaged in separating the breeze from the soil there is likewise another large heap in some other part of the yard composed of the cinders or breeze waiting to be shipped off to the brick fields the whole yard seems alive some sifting and others shoveling the sifted soil onto the heap while every now and then the dust carts return to discharge their loads and proceed again on their rounds for a fresh supply sifts and hens keep up a continual scratching and cackling among the heaps and numerous pigs seem to find great delight in rooting incessantly about after the garbage and awful collected from the houses and markets in a dust yard lately visited the sifters formed a curious sight they were almost up to their middle in dust ranged in a semi-circle in front of that part of the heap which was being worked each had before her a small mound of soil which had fallen through her sif and formed a sort of embankment behind which she stood the appearance of the entire group at their work was most peculiar their coarse, dirty, cotton gowns were tucked up behind them their arms were beared above their elbows their black bonnets crushed and battered like those of fish women over their gowns they wore a strong leather apron extending from their necks to the extremities of their petticoats while over this again was another leather apron, shorter, thickly padded and fastened by a stout string or a strap round the waist in the process of their work they pushed the sif from them and drew it back again with apparent violence striking it against the outer leather apron with such force that it produced each time a hollow sound like a blow on the tenor drum all the women present were middle-aged with the exception of one who was very old 68 years of age she told me and had been at the business from a girl she was the daughter of a dustman the wife or women of a dustman and the mother of several young dustmen sons and grandsons all at work at the dust yards at the east end of the metropolis we now come to speak of the labourer engaged in collecting sifting or shipping off the dust of the metropolis the dustmen, scavengers and nightmen are to a certain extent the same people the contractors generally agree with the various parishes to remove both the dust from the houses and the mud from the streets and the men and their employ being indiscriminately engaged in these two diverse occupations collecting the dust today and often cleansing the streets on the morrow are designated either dustmen or scavengers or their particular avocation at the moment the case is somewhat different however with respect to the nightmen there is no such thing as a contract with the parish for removing the night soil this is done by private agreement with the landlord of the premises whence the soil has to be removed when a cesspool requires emptying the occupying tenant communicates with the landlord who makes an arrangement with a dust contractor or sweep nightmen for the purpose this operation is totally distinct from the regular or daily labour of the dust contractors men who receive extra pay for it sometimes one set go out at night and sometimes another according either to the selection of the master or the inclination of the men there are however some dustmen who have never been at work as nightmen and could not be induced to do so from an invincible antipathy to the employment still such instances are few for the men generally go whenever they can and occasionally engage in night work for employers unconnected with their masters it is calculated that there are some hundreds of men employed nightly in the removal of the night soil of the metropolis during the summer and autumn and as these men have often to work at dust collecting or cleansing the streets on the following day it is evident that the same persons cannot be thus employed every night accordingly the ordinary practice is for the dustmen to take it in turns thus allowing each set to be employed every third night and to have two nights rest in the interim the men therefore who collect the dust on one day may be cleaning the streets on the next especially during wet weather and engaged at night perhaps twice during the week in removing night soil so that it is difficult to arrive at any precise notion as to the number of persons engaged in any one of these branches per se but these labourers not only work indiscriminately at the collection of dust the cleansing of the streets or the removal of night soil but they are employed almost as indiscriminately at the various branches of the dust business with this qualification however that few men apply themselves continuously to any one branch of the business the labourers employed in a dustyard may be divided into two classes those paid by the contractor and those paid by the foremen or forewomen of the dust heap commonly called hill men or hill women they are as follows class one labourers paid by the contractors or one yard foreman or superintendent this duty is often performed by the master especially in small contracts two carters or dust collectors these are called fillers and carriers from the practice of one of the men who go out with the cart filling the basket and the other carrying it on his shoulder to the vehicle three loaders of carts in the dustyard for shipment four carriers of cinders to the cinder heap or bricks to the brick heap foremen or forewomen of the heap class two labourers paid by the hill men or hill women one sifters who are generally women and mostly the wives or concubines of the dustmen but sometimes the wives of badly paid labourers two fillers in or shovelers of dust into the sieves of the sifters one man being allowed to every two or three women three carriers of bones rags, metal and other perquisites to the various heaps these are mostly children of the dustmen a medium sized dustyard will employ about 12 collectors three fillers in, six sifters and one foreman or forewomen while a large yard will afford work to about 150 people there are four different modes of payment prevalent among the several labourers employed at the metropolitan dustyards one by the day two by the peace or load three by the lump four by perquisites first the foreman of the yard where the master does not perform this duty himself is generally one of the regular dustmen picked out by the master for this purpose he has paid the sum of two shilling sixpence per day or 15 shillings per week in large yards there are sometimes two and even three in the yard foreman at the same rate of wages their duty is merely to superintend the work they do not labour themselves and their exemption in this respect is considered and indeed looked on by themselves as a sort of premium for good services second the carters or collectors are generally paid ninepence per load for every load they bring into the yard this is of course peace work for the more hours the men work the more loads will they be enabled to bring and the more pay will they receive there are some yards where the carters get only sixpence per load as for instance at Paddington the Paddington men however are not considered inferior workmen to the rest of their fellows but merely to be worse paid in 1826 or 25 years ago the carters had one shilling sixpence per load but at that time the carters were able to get a pound per children for the soil and breeze or cinders then it began to fall in value and according to the decrease in the price of these commodities so have the wages of the dust collectors been reduced it will be at once seen that the reduction in the wages of the dustmen bears no proportion to the reduction in the price of soil and cinders but it must be borne in mind that whereas the carters are sums for liberty to collect the dust they now are paid large sums to remove it this in some measure helps to account for the apparent disproportion and tends perhaps to equalise the matter the carters therefore have fourpence hapeny each per load when best paid they consider from four to six loads a good day's work for where the contract is large extending over several parishes they often have to travel a long way for a load it thus happens that while the men employed by the whitechapel contractor can when doing their utmost manage to bring only four loads a day to the yard which is situated in a place called the ruins in lower Shadwell the men employed by the Shadwell contractor can easily get eight or nine loads in a day five loads are about an average day's work and this gives them one shelling the menpence hapeny per day each or eleven shelling's thruppings per week in addition to this the men have their perquisites in aid of wages the collectors are in the habit of getting beer or money in loo thereof at nearly all the houses from which they remove the dust the public being thus in a manner compelled to make up the rate of wages which should be paid by the employer so that what is given to benefit the men easily goes to the master who invariably reduces the wages to the precise amount of the perquisites obtained this is the main evil of the perquisite system of payment a system of which the mode of paying waiters may be taken as the special type as an instance of the injurious effects of this mode of payment in connection with the London dustmen the collectors are forced as it were to extort from the public that portion of their fair earnings of which their master deprives them hence how can we wonder they make it a rule when they receive neither beer nor money from a house to make as great a mess as possible the next time they come scattering the dust and cinders about in such a manner that sooner than have any trouble with them people mostly give them what they look for one of the most intelligent men with whom I have spoken gave me the following account of his perquisites last week namely this he received in money and was independent of beer he had on the same week drawn five loads each day to the yard which made his gross earnings for the week wages and perquisites together to be fourteen shillings and a hipney which he considers to be a fair average of his weekly earnings as connected with dust third the loaders of the carts for shipment are the same persons as those who collect the dust but thus employed for the time being the pay for this work is by the peace also tuppence per children between four persons being the usual rate or a hipney per man engaged at this work have no perquisites the barges into which they shoot the soil or breeze as the case may be hold from fifty to seventy children and they consider the loading of one of these barges a good day's work the average cargo is about sixty children which gives them two shilling sixpence per day or somewhat more than their average earnings when collecting fourth the carriers of cinders to the cinder heap I have mentioned that ranged round the sifters in the dust yard are a number of baskets into which are put the various things found among the dust some of these being the property of the master and others the perquisites of the hill man or women as the case may be the cinders and old bricks are the property of the master and to remove them to their proper heaps boys are employed by him at one shelling per day these boys are almost universally the children of dustmen and sifters at work in the yard and thus not only help to increase the earnings of the family but qualify themselves to become the dustmen of a future day fifth the hill man or hill women the hill man enters into an agreement with the contractor to sift all the dust in the yard throughout the year at so much per load and perquisites the usual sum per load is six pence nor have I been able to ascertain that any of these people undertake to do it at a less price such as the amount paid by the contractor for whitechapel the perquisites of the hill man or hill women are rags, bones pieces of old metal old tin or iron vessels old boots and shoes and one half of the money, jewellery or other valuables that may be found by the sifters one or hill women employs the following persons and pays them at the following rates first the sifters are paid one shelling per day when employed but the employment is not constant the work cannot be pursued in wet weather and the services of the sifters are required only when a large heap has accumulated as they can sift much faster than the dust can be collected the employment is therefore precarious the payment has not for the last 30 years at least been more than one shelling per day but the perquisites were greater they formerly were allowed one half of whatever was found of late years however the hill man has gradually reduced the perquisites first one thing and then another until the only one they have now remaining is half of whatever money or other valuable article may be found in the process of sifting these valuables the sifters often pocket if able to do so and perceived but if discovered in the attempt they are immediately discharged second the fillers in or shovelers of dust into the sifts of sifters are in general any poor fellows who may be struggling about in search of employment they are sometimes however the grown up boys of dustmen not yet permanently engaged by the contractor these are paid two shelling per day by their labour but they are considered more as casualty men though it often happens if hands are wanted that they are regularly engaged by the contractors and become regular dustmen for the remainder of their lives third the little fellows the children of the dustmen who follow their mothers to the yard and help them to pick rags bones and so on out of the sif and put them into the baskets as soon as they are able to carry the weight between two of them to the separate heaps are paid thruppins or fourpins per day for this work by the hillman end of section 32 section 33 of London Labour and the London Poor volume 2 by Henry Mayhew this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Gillian Henry of the dustmen continued the wages of the dustmen increased within the last seven years from sixpins per load to eightpins among the large contractors the small masters however still continued to pay sixpins per load this increase in the rate of remuneration was owing to the men complaining to the commissioners that they were not able to live upon what they earned at sixpins an enquiry was made into the truth of the men's assertion and the result was that the commissioners decided upon letting the contracts to such parties only as would undertake to pay a fair price to their workmen the contractors accordingly increased the remuneration of the labourers since that principle masters have paid eightpins per load to the collectors it is right I should add that I could not hear though I made special enquiries on the subject that the wages had been in any one instance reduced since free trade has come into operation the usual hours of labour vary according to the mode of payment the collectors or men out with the cart being paid by the load work as long as the light lasts the fillers in and sifters on the other hand being paid by the day work the ordinary hours namely from six to six with the regular intervals for meals the summer is the worst time for all hands for then the dust decreases in quantity the collectors however are up for the slackness at this period by night work and being paid by the piece or load at the dust business are not discharged when their employment is less brisk it has been shown that the dustmen who perambulate the streets usually collect five loads in a day this at ninepins per load leaves them about one shilling tenpins hypny each and so makes their weekly earnings amount to about eleven shillings thruppins per week they are requisites from the houses once they remove the dust and further the dust collectors are frequently employed at the night work which is always a distinct matter from the dust collecting and so on and paid for independent of their regular weekly wages so that from all I can gather the average wages of the men appear to be nearer one pound a week than fifteen shillings some admitted to me that in busy times they often earned twenty five shillings a week then again dust work as with the weaving of silk is a kind of family work the husband, wife and children unfortunately all work at it the consequence is that the earnings of the whole have to be added together in order to arrive at a notion of the aggregate gains the following may therefore be taken as a fair average of the earnings of a dustmen and his family when in full employment the elder boys when able to earn they set up for themselves and do not allow their wages to go into the common purse man five loads per day or thirty loads per week at fourpence hipney per load eleven shillings thruppence perquisites or beer money two shillings ninepence hipney night work for two nights a week five shillings total nineteen shillings and a hipney woman or sifter per week six shillings perquisites say thruppence a day one shillings sixpence total seven shillings sixpence child thruppence per day carrying rags, bones and so on one shillings sixpence total one pound eight shillings and a hipney these are the earnings it should be born in mind of a family in full employment perhaps it may be fairly said that the earnings of the single men are on an average fifteen shillings a week and one pound for the family men all the year round now when we remember that the wages of many agricultural labourers are but eight shillings a week and the earnings of many needle women not sixpence a day it must be confessed that the remuneration of the dustmen and even of the dust women is comparatively high this certainly is not due to what Adam Smith in his chapter on the difference of wages terms the disagreeableness of the employment the wages of labour he says vary with the ease or hardship the cleanliness or dirtiness the honourableness or dishonourableness of the employment nevertheless it will be seen when we come to treat of the night men that the most offensive and perhaps the least honourable of all trades is far from ranking among the best paid that the disagreeableness of the occupation may in a measure tend to decrease the competition among the labourers there cannot be the least doubt but that it will consequently induce as political economy would have us believe a larger amount of wages to accrue to each of the labourers is certainly another of the many assertions of that science which must be pronounced not proven for the dustmen are paid if anything less certainly not more than the usual rate of payment to the London labourers and if the earnings rank high as times go it is because all the members of the family from the very earliest age are able to work at the business and so add to the general gains the dustmen are generally speaking a hereditary race when children they are reared in the dustyard and are habituated to the work gradually as they grow up which almost as a natural consequence they follow the business for the remainder of their lives these may be said to be born and bred dustmen the numbers of the regular men are however from time to time recruited from the ranks of the many ill paid labourers with which London abounds when hands are wanted for any special occasion an employer has only to go to any of the dot gates to find at all times hundreds of starving riches anxiously watching for the chance of getting something to do even at the rate of fourpence per hour as the operation of emptying a dustbin requires only the ability to handle a shovel which every labouring man can manage all workmen however unskilled can at once engage in the occupation and it often happens that the men thus casually employed remain at the calling for the remainder of their lives there are no houses of call whence the men are taken on when wanting work there are certainly public houses which are denominated houses of call in the neighbourhood of every dust yard but these are merely the drinking shops of the men whether they resort of an evening after the labour of the day is accomplished and whence they are furnished in the course of the afternoon with beer but such houses cannot be said to constitute the dustmen's labour market as in the tailoring and other trades they being never resorted to as hiring places but rather used by the men only when hired if a master have not enough hands he usually inquires among his men who mostly know some who owing perhaps to the failure of their previous master in getting his usual contract are only casually employed at other places such men are immediately engaged in preference to others but if these cannot be found the contractors at once have recourse to the system already stated the manner in which the dust is collected is very simple the filler and the carrier perambulate the streets with a heavily built high box cart coated with a thick crust of filth and drawn by a clumsy looking horse these men used before the passing of the late street act to ring a dull sounding bell so as to give notice to housekeepers of their approach but now they merely cry in a hoarse unmusical voice DUST OYE two men accompany the cart which is furnished with a short ladder and two shovels and baskets these baskets one of the men fills from the dustbin and then helps them alternately as fast as they are filled upon the shoulder of the other man who carries them one by one to the cart placed immediately alongside the pavement in front of the house where they are at work the carrier mounts up the side of the cart by means of the ladder discharges into it the contents of the basket on his shoulder and then returns below for the other basket which his mate has filled for him in the interim this process is pursued till all is cleared away and repeated at different houses till the cart is fully loaded and then make the best of their way to the dust yard where they shoot the contents of the cart onto the heap and again proceed on their regular rounds the dustmen in their appearance very much resemble the wagoners of the coal merchants they generally wear knee brooches with ankle boots or gaiters short dirty smock frocks or coarse grey jackets and fantail hats in one particular however first sight distinguishable from the coal merchants men for the latter are invariably black from coal dust while the dustmen on the contrary are grey with ashes in their personal appearance the dustmen are mostly tall stalwart fellows there is nothing sickly looking about them and yet a considerable part of their time is passed in the yards and in the midst of Ifluvia most offensive zymotic theorists as unhealthy to those unaccustomed to them nevertheless the children who may be said to be reared in the yard and to have inhaled the stench of the dust heap with their first breath are healthy and strong it is said moreover that during the plague in London the dustmen were the persons who carted away the dead and it remains a tradition among the class to the present day that not one of them died of the plague even during its greatest ravages in Paris too it is well known that during the cholera of 1849 the quarter of Belleville where the night soil and refuse of the city is deposited escaped the freest from the pestilence and in London the dustmen boast that during both the recent visitations of the cholera they were altogether exempt from the disease look at that fellow sir said one of the dustcontractors to me pointing to his son who was a stout red cheeked young man of about twenty do you see anything ailing about him well he has been in the yard since he was born there stands my house just at the gate so you see he hadn't far to travel and when quite a child he used to play and root away here among the dust all his time I don't think he ever had a day's illness in his life the people about the yard are all used to the smell and don't complain about it it's all stuff and nonsense all this talk about dust yards being unhealthy I've never done anything else all my days and I don't think I look very ill I shouldn't wonder now but what I'd be set down as being fresh from the seaside by those very fellows that write all this trash about a matter that they don't know just that about his fingers contemptuously in the air strutted about apparently satisfied that he had the best of the argument he was in fact a stout jolly red-faced man indeed the dustman as a class appeared to be healthy strong men and extraordinary instances of longevity are common among them I heard of one dustman who lived to be one hundred and fifteen years old another named Wood died at one hundred and the well-known Richard Tyrrell died only a short time back at the advanced age of ninety-seven the misfortune is that we have no large series of facts on this subject so that the longevity and health of the dustman might be compared with those of other classes in almost all their habits the dustmen are similar to the costumongers with the exception that they seem to want their cunning and natural sharpness and that they have little or no predilection for gaming costumongers however are essentially traders and all trade is a species of gambling the risking of a certain sum of money to obtain more hence spring perhaps the gambling propensities of all low traders such as costars and due clothes men and hence too that natural sharpness which characterizes the same classes on the contrary have regular employment and something like regular wages and therefore rest content with what they can earn in their usual way of business very few of them understand cards and I could not learn that they ever play at pitch and toss I remarked however a number of parallel lines such as are used for playing shove hipney on a deal table in the tap room frequented by them the great amusement of their evening seems to be to smoke as many pipes of tobacco and drink as many pots of beer as possible I believe it will be found that all persons in the habit of driving horses such as cab men bus men stage coach drivers and so on are peculiarly partial to intoxicating drinks the cause of this I leave others to determine merely observing that there would seem to be two reasons for it the first is their frequent stopping at public houses to water or change their horses so that the idea of drinking is repeatedly suggested to their minds even if the practice be not expected of them while the second reason is that being out continually in the wet they resort to stimulating liquors as a preventive to colds until at length a habit of drinking is formed moreover from the mere fact of passing continually through the air they are enabled to drink a greater quantity with comparative impunity be the cause however what it may the dustmen spend a large proportion of their earnings in drink there is always some public house in the neighborhood of the dust yard where they obtain credit from one week to another and here they may be found every night from the moment their work is done drinking and smoking their long pipes their principal amusement consisting in chaffing each other this chaffing consists of a species of scurrilous jokes supposed to be given and taken in good part and the noise and uproar occasion thereby increases as the night advances and as the men get heated with liquor sometimes the joking ends in a general quarrel the next morning however they are all as good friends as ever they usually agree in laying the blame on the cussed drink one half at least of the dustmen's earning is I am assured expended in drink both men and women assisting in squandering their money in this way they usually live in rooms for which they pay from one shilling sixpence to two shillings per week rent three or four dustmen and their wives frequently lodging in the same house these rooms are cheerless looking and almost unfurnished and are always situated in some low street or lane not far from the dustyard the men have rarely any clothes but those in which they work for their breakfast the dustmen on their rounds mostly go to some cheap coffee house where they get a pint or half pint of coffee taking their bread with them as a matter of economy their midday meal is taken in the public house and is almost always bread and cheese and beer or else a savalloy or a piece of fat pork or bacon and at night they mostly wind up by deep potations at their favourite house of call there are many dustmen now advanced in years born and reared at the east end of London who have never in the whole course of their lives been as far west as temple bar who know nothing whatever of the affairs of the country and who have never attended their worship as an instance of the extreme ignorance of these people I may mention that I was furnished by one of the contractors with the address of a dustman whom his master considered to be one of the most intelligent men in his employ being desirous of hearing his statement from his own lips I sent for the man and after some conversation with him was proceeding to note down what he said he started up exclaiming no no I'll have none of that there work I'm not such a bee fool as you take me to be I doesn't understand it I tells you and I'll not have it now that's plain and so saying he ran out of the room and descended the entire flight of stairs in two jumps I followed him to explain but unfortunately the pencil was still in one hand and the book in the other and immediately I made my appearance at the door he took to his heels again with three others who seemed to be waiting for him there one of the most difficult points in my labours is to make such men as these comprehend the object or use of my investigations among twenty men whom I met in one yard there were only five who could read and only two out of that five could write even imperfectly these two are looked up to by their companions as prodigies of learning and are listened to as oracles on all occasions being believed to understand every subject thoroughly it need hardly be added however that their requirements are of the most meager character the dustmen are very partial to a song and always prefer one of the dog roll street ballads with what they call a jolly chorus in which during their festivities they all join with tentorian voices at the conclusion there is usually a loud stamping of feet and rattling of quart pots on the table expressive of their approbation the dustmen never frequent the tuppany hops but sometimes make up a party for the theatre they generally go on a body with their wives if married and their gals if single they are always to be found in the gallery and greatly enjoy the melodrama performed at the second class minor theatres especially if there be plenty of murdering scenes in them the garrick previous to its being burnt was a favourite resort of the east end dustmen since that period they have patronised the pavilion and the city of London the politics of the dustmen are on a par with their literary attainments they cannot be said to have any I cannot say that they are chartists for they have no very clear knowledge of what the charter requires they certainly have a confused notion that it is something against the government and that the enactment of it would make them all right but as to the nature of the benefits which it would confer upon them or in what manner it would be likely to operate upon their interest they have not as a body the slightest idea they have a deep rooted antipathy to the police the magistrates and all connected with the administration looking upon them as their natural enemies they associate with none but themselves and in the public houses where they resort there is a room set apart for the special use of the dusties as they are called where no others are allowed to intrude except introduced by one of themselves or at the special desire of the majority of the party and on such occasions the stranger is treated with great respect and consideration as to the morals of these people it may easily be supposed that they are not of an over street character one of the contractors said to me I just trust one of them as far as I could fling a bull by the tail but then he added with a callousness that proved the laxity of discipline among the men was due more to his neglect of his duty to them than from any special perversity on their parts that's none of my business they do my work and that's all I want with them and all I care about you see they're not like other people they're reared to it their fathers before them were dustmen and when lads they go into the yard as sifters and when they grow up they take to the shovel and go out with the carts they learn all they know in the dustyards and you may judge from that what their learning is likely to be anything among the dust you may be sure that neither you nor I will ever hear anything about it ignorant as they are they know a little too much for that they know as well as here and there one where the dolly shop is but as I said before that's none of my business let everyone look out for themselves as I do and then they need not care for anyone note with such masters professing such principles though it should be stated that the sentiments expressed on this occasion are but similar to what I hear from the lower class of traders every day how can it be expected that these poor fellows can be above the level of the mere beasts of burden that they use end note as to their women continued the master I don't trouble my head about such things I believe the dustmen are as good to them as other men their lives would be as good as other women if they only had the chance of the best but you see they're all such fellows for drink that they spend most of their money that way and then starve the poor women and knock them about at a shocking rate so that they have the life of dogs or worse I don't wonder at anything they do yes they're all married as far as I know that is they live together as man and wife though they're not very particular certainly about the ceremony the fact is a regular dustman don't understand much about such matters and I believe don't care much either from all I could learn on this subject it would appear that for one dustman that is married twenty live with women but remain constant to them indeed both men and women abide faithfully by each other and for this reason the women earns nearly half as much as the man and women were careful and prudent they might I am assured live well and comfortable but by far the greater portion of the earnings of both go to the publican for I am informed on competent authority that a dustman will not think of sitting down for a spree without his women the children as soon as they are able to go into the yard help their mothers in picking out the rags bones and so on from the sieve and in putting them in the basket they are never sent to school and as soon as they are sufficiently strong are mostly employed in some capacity or other by the contractor and in due time become dustman themselves some of the children in the neighbourhood of the river are mudlarks and others are bone grubbers and rag gatherers on a small scale neglected and thrown on their own resources at an early age without any but the most depraved to guide them it is no wonder that many of them turn thieves to this state of the case there are however some few exceptions some of the dustmen are prudent well behaved men and have decent homes many of this class have been agricultural labourers who by distress or from some other cause have found their way to London this was the case with one whom I talked with he had been a labourer in Essex employed by a farmer named Izzod whom he spoke of as being a kind good man Mr Izzod had a large farm on the Earl of Mornington's estate and after he had sunk his capital in the improvement of the land and was about to reap the fruits of his labour and his money the farmer was ejected at a moment's notice beggard and broken hearted this occurred near Roydon in Essex the labourer finding it difficult to obtain work in the country came to London and during a cousin of his engaged in a dust yard got employed through him at the same place where he remained to the present day this man was well clothed he had good strong lace boots grey worsted stockings a stout pair of corduroy breeches a short smock frock and fantail he has kept himself aloof I am told from the drunkenness and dissipation of the dustmen he says that many of the new hands that get to dustwork are mechanics or people who have been better off and that these get thinking about what they have been till to drown their care they take to drinking and often become in the course of a year or so worse than the old hands who have been reared to the business and have nothing at all to think about among the dustmen there is no society nor benefit club specially devoted to the class no provident institution whence they can obtain relief in the event of sickness or accident the consequence is that when ill or injured they are obliged to obtain letters of admission to some of the hospitals and there remain till cured in cases of total incapacity for labour their invariable refuge is the workhouse indeed they look forward whenever they foresee at all to this asylum as their resting place in old age with the greatest equanimity and talk of it as the house par excellence or as the big house the great house or the old house there are however scattered about in every part of London numerous benefit clubs made up of working men of every description such as old friends odd fellows foresters and Birmingham societies and with some one or other of these the better class of dustmen are connected the general rule however is that the men engaged in this trade belong to no benefit club whatever and that in the season of their adversity they are utterly unprovided for and consequently become burdens to the parishes wherein they happen to reside I visited a large dust yard at the east end of London for the purpose of getting a statement from one of the men my informant was at the time of my visit to the old soil from one of the lesser heaps and by a great effort of strength and activity pitching each shovel full to the top of a lofty mound somewhat resembling a pyramid opposite to him stood a little woman stoutly made and with her arms bare above the elbow she was his partner in the work and was pitching shovel full for shovel full with him to the summit of the heap she wore an old soiled cotton gown open in front and tucked up behind in the fashion of the last century she had clout of old rags tied round her ankles to prevent the dust from getting into her shoes a sort of course towel fastened in front for an apron and a red handkerchief bound tightly around her head in this trim she worked away and not only kept pace with the man but often threw two shovels for his one although he was a tall full fellow she smiled when she saw me noticing her and seemed to continue her work with greater assiduity I learned that she was deaf and spoke so indistinctly that no stranger could understand her she had also a defect in her sight which latter circumstance had compelled her to abandon the sifting as she could not well distinguish the various articles found in the dust heap the poor creature had therefore taken to the shovel and now works with it every day doing the labour of the strongest men from the man above referred to I obtained the following statement father was a dusty was at it all his life and grandfather for him for I can't tell how long father was all as a rumble such a beggar for lush why I'm bloat if he wouldn't lush as much as half a dozen on them can lush now somehow the dusties haven't got the stuff them as they used to have a few year ago the fellers would think nothing of lushing away for five or six days without never going an eye their home I never was at a school in all my life I don't know what it's good for it may be very well for the likes of you but I doesn't know it and do a dusty any good you see when I'm not out with the cart I digs here all day and perhaps I'm up all night and digs away again the next day what does I care for feeding or anything of that their kind when I gets home after my work I tell you what I like though why I just likes two or three pipes of backer and a pot or two of good heavy and a song and then I tumbles in with my sal and I'm as happy as here and there von that their salamines a stunner a regular stunner there ain't never a woman can sift a heap quicker in or my sal sometimes she yarns as much as I the only thing is she's such a beggar for lush that there's salamine and then she kicks up such jolly rows you never see the like in your life that there's the only fault as I know on in sal but barring that she's a hout and howter and worth a half a dozen of tether shifters pick him out very likes no we ain't married exactly though it's all one for all that I sticks to sal and sal sticks to I and there's an end what is it to anyone I recollects a picking the rags and things out of mother's sieve when I were a youngin and a putting them all in the heap just as it might be there I was always in a dust yard I don't think I could do no how and no other place you see I wouldn't be happy like I only knows how to work at the dust cause I'm used to it and sal was fatherer for me and I'll stick to it as long as I can I yarns about half a bull note two shelling six pins and note a day take one day with another sal sometimes yarns as much and when I goes out at night I yarns a bob or two more and so I gets along pretty tidy sometimes yarning more and sometimes yarning less I never was sick as I knows on I've been queried of a morning a good many times but I doesn't call that sickness it's only the lush and nothing more the smells nothing at all when it's used to it Lord bless you you'd think nothing on it in a week's time no no more than I do there's twenty of us works here Riggler I don't think there's one on them except scratchy Jack can read but he can do it stunning he's out with the cart now but he's the chap as can patter to you as long as he likes concerning the capital and income of the London dust business the following estimate may be given as to the amount of property invested in and accruing to the trade it has been computed that there are ninety contractors large and small of these upwards of two thirds or about thirty five may be said to be in a considerable way of business possessing many carts and horses as well as employing a large body of people some yards have as many as one hundred and fifty hands connected with them the remaining fifty five masters are composed of small men some of whom are known as running dustmen that is to say persons who collect the dust without any sanction from the parish but the number belonging to this class has considerably diminished since the great deterioration in the price of breeze assuming then that the great and little master dustmen employ on an average between six and seven carts each we have the following statement as to the capital of the London first trade six hundred carts at twenty pounds each twelve thousand pounds six hundred horses at twenty five pounds each fifteen thousand pounds six hundred sets of harness at two pounds per set one thousand two hundred pounds six hundred ladders at five shillings each one hundred and fifty pounds one thousand two hundred baskets at two shillings one hundred and twenty pounds one thousand two hundred shovels at two shillings each one hundred and twenty pounds being a total capital of twenty eight thousand five hundred and ninety pounds if therefore we assert that the capital of this trade is between twenty five thousand pounds and thirty thousand pounds in value we shall not be far wrong either way of the annual income of the same almost impossible to arrive at any positive results but in the absence of all authentic information on the subject we may make the subjoined conjecture income of the London dust trade some paid to contractors for the removal of dust from the one hundred and seventy six metropolitan parishes at two hundred pounds each parish thirty five thousand two hundred pounds some obtained for nine hundred loads of dust at two shilling six pounds per load one hundred and twelve thousand five hundred pounds total income one hundred and forty seven thousand seven hundred pounds thus it would appear that the total income of the dust trade may be taken at between one hundred and forty five thousand pounds and one hundred and fifty thousand pounds per annum against this we have to set the yearly outgoings of the business to be roughly estimated as follows expenditure of the London dust trade wages of one thousand eight hundred labourers at ten shillings a week each including sifters and carriers forty six thousand eight hundred pounds keep of six hundred horses at ten shillings a week each fifteen thousand six hundred pounds wear and tear of stock in trade four thousand pounds rent for ninety yards at one hundred pounds a year each large and small nine thousand pounds total seventy five thousand four hundred pounds the above estimates give us the following aggregate results total yearly incomeings of the London dust trade one hundred and forty seven thousand seven hundred pounds total yearly outgoings seventy five thousand four hundred pounds total yearly profit seventy two thousand three hundred pounds hence it would appear that the profits of the dust contractors are very nearly at the rate of one hundred pounds per cent on their expenditure I do not think I have overestimated the incomeings or underestimated the outgoings at least I have striven to avoid doing so in order that no injustice might be done to the members of the trade this aggregate profit when divided among the ninety contractors will make the clear gains of each master dustman amount to about eight hundred pounds per annum of course some derive considerably more than this amount and some considerably less of the London sewerage and scavengery the subject I have now to treat principally as regards street labour but generally in its sanitary social and economical bearings may really be termed vast it is of the cleansing of a capital city with its thousands of miles of streets and roads on the surface and its thousands of miles of sewers and drains under the surface of the earth and first let me deal with the subject in a historical point of view public scavengery or street cleansing from the earliest periods of our history since municipal authority regulated the internal economy of our cities has been an object of some attention in the records of all our civic corporations may be found bylaws or some equivalent measure to enforce the cleansing of the streets but these regulations were little enforced it was ordered that the streets should be swept but often enough men were not employed by the authorities to sweep them until after the great fire of London and in many parts for years after that the tradesman's apprentice swept the dirt from the front of his master's house and left it in the street to be removed at the leisure of the scavenger this was in the streets most famous for the wealth and commercial energy of the inhabitants the streets inhabited by the poor until about the beginning of the present century were rarely swept at all the unevenness of the pavement the accumulation of wet and mud the want of footpaths and sometimes even of grates and kennels made Cooper in one of his letters describe a perambulation of some of these streets as going by water even this state of things was however an improvement in the accounts of the London street broils and fights from the reign of Henry III more especially during the war of the roses down to the civil war which terminated in the beheading of Charles I the invention is more or less made of the competence having availed themselves of the shelter of the rubbish in the streets these mounds of rubbish were then kinds of street barricades opposing the progress of passengers like the piles of overturned omnibuses and other vehicles of the modern French street competence there is no doubt that in the older times these mounds were composed first of the earth dug out for the foundation of some building of some well or later on the formation of some drain for these works were often long in hand not only from the interruptions of civil strife and from want of funds but from indifference owing to the long delay in their completion and were often altogether abandoned after dusk the streets of the capital of England could not be traversed without lanterns or torches this was the case until the last 40 50 years in nearly all the smaller towns of England but there the darkness was the principal obstacle in the inferior parts of old London however there were the additional inconveniences of broken limbs and robbery it would be easy to adduce instances from the olden writers in proof of all the above statements but it seems idle to cite proofs of what is known to all the care of the streets however as regards the removal of the dirt or as the weather might be the dust and mud seems never to have been much of a national consideration it was left to the corporations and the parishes each of these had its own special arrangements for the collection and removal of dirt in its own streets and as each parochial or municipal system generally differed in some respect rather taken as a whole there was no one general mode or system adopted to all this the street management of our own days in the respect of scavengery and as I shall show of sewage presents a decided improvement this improvement in street management is not attributable to any public agitation to any public and far less national manifestation of feeling it was debated sometimes in courts of common council in ward and parochial meetings but the public generally seem to have taken no express interest in the matter the improvement seems to have established itself gradually from the improved tastes and habits of the people although generally left to the local powers the subject of street cleansing and management however has not been entirely overlooked by parliament among parliamentary enactments is the measure best known as Michael Angelo Taylor's Act passed early in the present century which requires all householders every morning to remove from the front of their premises any snow which may have fallen during the night and so on and so on the late police acts also embrace subordinately the subject of street management on the other hand the sewers have long been the object of national care quote the daily great damages and losses which have happened in many and diverse parts of this realm note I give the spirit of the preamble of several acts of parliament end note as well by the reason of the outrageous flowings, surges and course of the river in and upon the marsh grounds and other low places here to fore through public wisdom one and made profitable for the great commonwealth of this realm as also by occasion of land waters and other outrageous springs in and upon meadows, pastures and other low grounds adjoining to rivers floods and other water courses end quote caused parliamentary attention to be given to the subject until towards the latter part of the last century however the streets even of the better order were often flooded during heavy and continuous rains owing to the sewers and drains having been choked so that the sewage formed its way through the gratings into streets and yards flooding all the underground apartments and often the ground floors of the houses as well as the public thoroughfares with filth it is not many months since the neighbourhood of so modern a locality as Waterloo Bridge was flooded in this manner and boats were used in the Belvedere and York roads on the first of August 1846 after a tremendous storm of thunder, hail and rain miles of the capital were literally under water hundreds of publicans beer sellers contained far more water than beer and the damage done was enormous these facts show that though much has been accomplished towards the efficient sewage of the metropolis much remains to be accomplished still the first statute on the subject of the public sewage was as early as the ninth year of the reign of Henry III there were enactments also in most of the succeeding reigns but they were all partial and conflicting and related more to the local deciderata than to any system of sewage for the public benefit until the reign of Henry VIII when the bill of sewers was passed in 1531 this act provided for a more general system of sewage in the cities and towns of the kingdom requiring the main channels to be of certain depths and dimensions according to the localities situation and so on in many parts of the country the sewage is still carried on according to the provisions in the act of Henry VIII but these provisions were modified altered or explained by many subsequent statutes any uniformity which might have arisen from the observance of the same principles of sewage was effectively checked by the measures adopted in London more especially during the last 100 years as the metropolis increased new sewage became necessary and new local bodies were formed for its management these were known as the commissions of sewers and the members of those bodies acted independently one of another under the authority of their own act of parliament each having its own board engineers, clerks, officers and workmen each commission was confined to its own district and did what was accounted best for its own district with little regard to any general plan of sewage so that London was and in a great measure is sewered upon different principles as to the size of the sewers and drains the rates of inclination and so on and so on in 1847 there were eight of these districts and bodies the city of London the Tower Hamlets St. Catharines, Poplar and Blackwell Hoburn and Finsbury Westminster and part of Middlesex Surrey and Kent and Greenwich in 1848 these several bodies were concentrated by act of parliament and entitled the Metropolitan Commission of Sewers but the city of London as appears to be the case with every parliamentary measure affecting the metropolis presents an exception as it retains a separate jurisdiction and is not under the control of the general commissioners but the Parliament has given authority over such matters the management of the Metropolitan Scavengery and Sewerage therefore differs in this respect the scavengery is committed to the care of the several parishes each making its own contract the Sewerage is consigned by Parliament to a body of commissioners in both instances however the expenses are paid out of local rates I shall now proceed to treat of each of these subjects beginning with the cleansing of the streets