Various
Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 461
But however interesting the results, one grows tired at length of the noise and clatter of machinery; and it was with a feeling of relief that we mounted to the packing-room, where all was so light, cheerful, and orderly, as to prove that the good management everywhere perceptible had here put on its pleasantest expression. The most perfect cleanliness prevails. The half-score or more of girls, who work under the superintendence of a forewoman, are all dressed in clean Holland pinafores—an industrial uniform. All were packing as busily as hands could work: one weighed the cocoa; a second placed the paper in the mould, and turned the cocoa into it; a third compressed the contents by means of a machine-moved plunger; while a fourth released the packet, pasted down the loose ends, and laid it aside. This party, by their combined operations, weigh and pack a hundredweight per hour. Some were wrapping the 'homœopathic' in bright envelopes of tinfoil; others boxing the 'bonbons;' others coating the 'roll' with its distinctive paper; while others helped the forewoman to count and sort the orders—all performing their duties with that celerity which can only be attained by long practice. Finally, the respective orders are packed away in boxes of various sizes, from fourteen pounds to a hundredweight; and to give full effect to the system of cleanliness, none but new boxes are used, so that not the slightest ground is afforded for even a suspicion of uncleanliness.
In these professedly enlightened days, commercial progress cannot well be considered apart from moral progress; we want to know not only how work is done, but who and what they are who do it. Are they benefited by the 'mighty developments of commercial enterprise?' We may therefore very properly say a few words respecting the employés in the cocoa-factory. No girl is employed who is not of known good moral character. Some at first are found to be good rather passively than actively, but they have example daily before their eyes, and a spirit of emulation gradually develops their better qualities. Their hours of work are from nine a.m. to seven p.m., with an hour off for dinner—tea is supplied to them on the premises. Their earnings range from 5s. to 9s. per week. Once a week, during the summer season, they have a half-holiday for a little excursion to the country, and twice a week they leave work for evening school an hour before the usual time. With few exceptions, these elevating influences are found to tell favourably on their conduct; and besides the direct benefit to themselves, we may be permitted to take into the account, the benefit to the homes and families to which the girls belong. Accustomed to order and cleanliness through the day, they can hardly fail to carry these virtues with them to their dwellings. The men employed exhibit the good effects of proper management not less than the girls. Some have acquired a steady habit of saving, and with nearly all, from the mere force of example, teetotalism is the rule. Instances of misconduct are rare, and when reproof is called for, it is administered by an appeal to the better feelings in preference to angry demonstration. Factories conducted on such a system must be at once schools of morality and industry.
There is one more point which we feel bound to notice in closing our article. While going about the premises, we were asked to look to the top of the tall engine-chimney, where, to our surprise, none but the faintest whiff of vapour was visible. 'There is no need,' said our conductor, 'that any chimney in Birmingham should smoke more than that. I have told the people so over and over again, but to little use, for they will persist in wasting fuel, and blackening the atmosphere. This is Beddington's patent, and you shall see the effect of it.' The fireman was then told to shut off the apparatus from the flue; immediately a dense black smoke poured from the chimney-top, and when at the murkiest, the order was given: 'Now turn on again.' In five seconds, the smoke had vanished, and the almost imperceptible vapour alone remained. Thus, of the coal consumed daily, not a particle is wasted, and a considerable portion of the atmosphere is saved from deterioration. So perfect an example of what can be done towards the abatement of a nuisance, made us wish to be autocrat for a week—our reign should be signalised by the extinction of smoke!
THE WORKING-CLASSES IN 'THE GOOD OLD TIMES.'
As it has become fashionable in some quarters to hold that the working-classes are ever sinking in position, and that they have lost the comforts, the pleasures, and the freedom of the 'good old times,' it may serve a useful purpose to put together, from authentic sources, some notices of their actual condition among our ancestors. To associate our present working-classes with slavery would seem an insult; and it would be said, that it is a condition to which they could not, under any circumstances, be induced to submit. But although this is true of their present condition, it is equally true, that not only in the rest of Europe, but even in England and Scotland, those who of old held the position of the working-classes, were slaves in the strictest sense of the term. Among our Saxon ancestors, to whose free institutions our historians so often proudly refer, two-thirds of the people—that is, in short, the whole of the working-classes—are computed to have been slaves. Sir Walter Scott, whose descriptions of life and manners are as faithful as they are picturesque, gives an admirable sketch of the slave or thrall of the Saxons in the faithful Gurth, the follower of Ivanhoe. First, we have the account of his close-fitting tunic, made of skin; after which follows that of a part of his dress which, Sir Walter said, was too remarkable to be overlooked. 'It was a brass ring resembling a dog's collar, but without any opening, and soldered fast round his neck, so loose as to form no impediment to his breathing, yet so tight as to be incapable of being removed except by the use of the file. On this singular gorget was engraved in Saxon characters—"Gurth, the son of Beowald, the born thrall of Cedric the Saxon."'
For two or three centuries after the Conquest, there is no doubt that the peasantry were liable to be bought and sold as slaves. Even in Magna Charta, there is a prohibition that a guardian shall not 'waste the men or cattle' in the estate of the ward: there is here no consideration for the men who might be 'wasted;' it is all for the property of the ward, which is not to be injured through the cupidity or carelessness of his guardian. Sir Frederic Eden, the historian of the poor-law, adduces many instances in which slaves had been sold—thus in 1283, a slave and his family were sold by the Abbey of Dunstable for 13s. 4d.
The distinguishing feature of Britain at the present day is, that she is in advance of all the other nations of Europe in uniting order with freedom. Our ancestors may be said to have led us on to this proud position, by the gradual emancipation of the peasantry from slavery. We soon find, in the contests with European powers, the great distinction between the Briton even of the humblest rank and the Frenchman or German. The great victories gained by the English over the French—Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt—have been supposed almost fabulous, from the inequality of the contending forces—the small number on the victorious side, the vast host conquered by it. But we cease to wonder when we examine the different qualities of the combatants. At Agincourt, the English army, which was completely victorious, amounted to only 9000 men; while that of France, which was routed, amounted to 50,000: at Poitiers, the disproportion was nearly as great: and at Crecy, the conquered force more than doubled that of the conquerors. We have not lately seen, nor are we likely to see, contests with such results in European warfare. But we see it in Oriental conflicts; and the late battles of our troops with the Afghans and Sikhs were somewhat of the same character, from the immense superiority of European over Asiatic discipline. The reason of the superiority of the English over the French in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, is plain enough to any one who has studied the history of the people, though it may be incomprehensible to those who have only studied the history of courts and armies. It arose from the growing freedom of the British. Before the introduction of firearms, the great dependence of an army was generally in the men-at-arms, as they were called, or the knights and others who were sheathed in plate armour, mounted on strong horses, and provided with costly weapons. The knight and his horse were like a movable fortification; the peasantry or serfs who went along with them to battle, half-naked and half-fed, with rude and trifling arms, were looked upon as mere dross in comparison with the men-at-arms. One man-at-arms was considered equal to ten or even twenty of them; and when knights were not engaged in encountering each other, it was deemed as a sort of amusement for a few of them, with their heavy horses and armour, to ride down multitudes of these abject serfs.
So it was in the rest of Europe, but not in England. The English bowman, or billman, who carried a large axe or bill, was a strong, healthy, well-fed man; and though he had not perfect freedom, according to our modern acceptation of the term, he had an existence worth struggling for, and not entirely at the command of an imperious lord. Hence he was sometimes not much inferior, as a combatant, to the mail-clad man-at-arms. Now, at the battle of Crecy, the French, though the wretched serfs were so numerous, had only about 8000 men-at-arms; and though the English had not a third of that number of the higher kind of warriors, yet they had nearly 30,000 sturdy bowmen and billmen. A characteristic illustration of the contempt with which the poor slaves were viewed occurred in that very battle. A party of cross-bowmen hesitated to advance—they felt tired, the fatigue of the march being beyond their strength. On this, the Count of Alençon cried out: 'Kill the lazy scoundrels!' A number of the men-at-arms rushed in among them, to chastise them, and this produced a confusion which assisted the English to their victory.
From these battles, and a multitude of other sources, we can see the great superiority, in freedom and condition of living, of the humbler class in England over that in France; and yet, at the same time, it is difficult in the nineteenth century to believe in the extent of tyranny exercised, down to a comparatively recent period, over the working-classes in Britain. We may judge of the tyrannical interference of the government with the freedom of labour by the Statute of Labourers, passed in 1349. One of the frightful famines of the middle ages had occurred, and labourers were scarce in comparison with the means of employment. It is said that the same phenomenon has now in some measure recurred in Ireland; but there is little chance of our statesmen treating it as those of the fourteenth century did. Justice says, that the labourer is entitled to obtain the value of his labour, be it much or little. Parliament, however, fixed the amount which it thought the reasonable price of labour—the rate at which the members of the legislature desired to have it; and endeavoured, by penalties and persecution, to obtain it at that rate. The statute commences by abusing the labourers for taking advantage of the scarcity of hands to demand high wages—as if there ever were human beings, employed in the ordinary affairs of life, who would not take what wages or profits they could obtain; and as if labourers were like missionaries, and other devotees, who are not led by any mercenary motive. The statute then enacts, that every person able in body, and under the age of sixty, not having means of maintaining himself, is bound to serve whoever shall be willing to employ him, at the wages which were usually paid during the six years preceding the plague; and if he refuses, and it is proved by two witnesses before the sheriff, bailiff, lord, or constable of the village where the refusal is given, he is to be committed to jail, and continue there till he finds surety to enter into service in terms of the act.
It is always observable, that laws interfering with freedom of trade go on increasing in strictness, because the confusion which the first attempt creates is always attributed to the deficiency of the law instead of its excess. The Statute of Labourers was of course insufficient to put everything right between employers and employed; and so, two years afterwards, another and stricter Statute of Labourers was passed (23 Ed. III., ch. 1-8.) This statute not only regulated the wages of husbandry, and the times when peasant-labourers were to work, but fixed the precise amount which each kind of artisan was bound to work for. The account given of it by Mr Daines Barrington, in his observations on the statutes, may be quoted as among the clearest and briefest. The reader will of course remember, that the coins mentioned by him bore a much higher value than coins of the same denomination at present. 'The common labourer in the hay-harvest is only to have 1d. a day, except a mower, who, if he mow by the acre, is to have 5d. per acre, or otherwise 5d. a day. A reaper is to have in time of corn-harvest 2d., the first week in August, and 3d. till the end of the month; and they are likewise neither to ask meat nor any other perquisite or indulgence. The law likewise requires that they shall repair to the next town or village, carrying their scythe or sickle openly in their hands, and shall there be hired in some public place.... The second chapter directs that no man in harvest—before settled to be in the month of August—shall leave the village in which he lived during the winter, except the inhabitants of Staffordshire, Derbyshire, Lancashire, Craven, and the marches of Wales and Scotland—the occasion of which is, that there are large tracts of mountain or moorland in all these counties and districts, where nothing can be raised but oats, which are not usually ripe till October; and, consequently, if they were not employed in more early harvest, they would be without employment during the months of August and September.'
But the English peasantry and artisans had now acquired too much real independence to submit silently to these arbitrary regulations. The celebrated insurrection of Wat Tyler, which took place thirty years afterwards, was a concentrated embodiment of popular discontent. However turbulent and dangerous might be the form in which the mob demanded redress, the demands themselves were in many respects very reasonable. Thus, the brief statement of them by Hume, the historian, is, that they 'required a general pardon, the abolition of slavery, freedom of commerce in market-towns without toll or impost, and a fixed rent on lands, instead of the services due by villenage'—that is to say, they desired that they should be tenants, paying rent in money or services, and not serfs bound to remain on the soil. The insurrection was crushed, and the insurgents obtained no immediate redress. Parliament, however, considered the whole circumstances before the conclusion of Richard II.'s reign. Wat Tyler's rebellion was nearly contemporary with several other risings throughout Europe of the enslaved working-classes against their tyrants. In France, they formed the dreaded bands of the Jacquerie, who desolated the most fruitful portions of that fine country. They committed great cruelties; but in the end they were crushed by the chivalry of the upper ranks. In the results of the two insurrections, however, there was a marked difference between England and France. Advance and improvement have ever, fortunately, characterised the legislation of this country. In France, and other parts of the continent, the insurgents were crushed with terrible slaughter, and then they were subjected to stricter and sterner laws, to prevent them from breaking out again—laws so strict and stern, that the French peasantry and working-classes were kept in chain by them till the Revolution of 1788. In England, on the other hand, the parliament which met after Tyler's insurrection was put down, took into consideration the state of the country; and the tyrannical and oppressive laws against the peasantry and working-classes were modified.
Still these classes remained for centuries in a condition so closely bordering on actual slavery, that a close, practical contemplation of it would certainly be sufficiently startling to the workmen of the present day. The celebrated statute of Elizabeth for the relief of the poor, passed in 1597, shews us, in sufficiently distinct terms, the position of the workman at that period. Various kinds of vagrants or impostors are, in the first place, enumerated, much resembling the same class at the present day—such as persons pretending to be shipwrecked sailors, fortune-tellers, players, bear-keepers, musicians, &c. And then we have 'all wandering persons and common labourers, being persons able in body, using loitering and refusing to work for such reasonable wages as is taxed or commonly given in such parts where such persons do or shall happen to dwell or abide, not having living otherwise to maintain themselves.' Among the punishments attached to this offence are, that the offender 'be stripped naked from the middle upward, and shall be openly whipped until his or her body be bloody.' In fact, the whole poor-law legislation which followed this enactment, down to the act of 1834, treated the peasant in a great measure as a slave. Doubtless the workhouse-test, which requires that the able-bodied man who gets relief shall give labour for it, involves slavery within the bounds of the workhouse. But this, fortunately, now only applies to a few. The evil of the old system was, that while it was less stringent in giving relief, and afforded much more assistance to the able-bodied class of workmen, it necessarily established a control over their motions, and this control made an unpleasantly near approach to slavery. Instead of workmen going with the eagerness of energy and hope to the employer who gave them most wages, they too often went to the employer to whom the parish sent them. The degrading spectacle of labourers set up to auction in the parish pound was frequently exhibited. Apart from the poor-law system, the actual feudal serfdom, which gave landowners great powers over the peasantry on their estates, was not abolished until the reign of Charles II.
We have a similar history of matters in Scotland. Thus, not to go further back, an act passed immediately on the restoration of the Stuarts, empowered justices of peace to fix the rate of wages to be paid to labourers, workmen, or servants; and if they refused to work at the legal wages so established, they might be imprisoned and scourged. It was not an uncommon thing, at the commencement of the last century, to see advertisements in the newspapers for the apprehension of runaway servants. The power of the higher over the working-classes was so great, that at one time, before the idea of a traffic in negroes was suggested, young people were kidnapped even in the streets of cities, and sent out as slaves to the plantations. Instances have been given where their parents have seen them driven in herds on board ship, yet dared not interfere. The power which the landholders in Scotland possessed over their vassals, down to the middle of the eighteenth century, was a condition of things necessary to the two rebellions. The humble clansmen were not properly rebels; they were paying obedience to their chiefs, who possessed power over them almost unlimited. The notorious Lovat had managed to seduce an English servant to the Highlands, and when once there, the poor fellow found that he was a slave, and could not possibly escape. It was not until the present century that two classes of workmen in Scotland were emancipated from a species of slavery—colliers and saltmakers. It is startling to read of them in the work which is still the principal law authority in Scotland—Erskine's Institute. He speaks of them as 'necessary servants,' and says: 'In this class of necessary servants may be reckoned colliers, coal-bearers, salters, and other workmen necessary for carrying on of collieries and salt-works. These are by law itself, without any paction, bound, merely by their entering upon work, in a colliery or salt-manufactory, to the perpetual service thereof; and if the owner sell or alienate the ground on which the works stand, the right of the service of these colliers, salters, &c., passes over to the purchaser.' What was this but modified slavery?—and the consideration that it actually existed within Great Britain until a recent period, and excited no sort of compassion, should temper any observations we might be inclined to make on the subject of slavery in distant countries.
We cannot but rejoice that in the present day there exists not the slightest relict of serfdom in any part of the United Kingdom. Every man is now his own master, and has his own responsibilities. We say, we are glad of this, because without such liberty of personal action, there can be no social progress. At the same time, it appears undeniable that the legislature, in emancipating the humbler classes, has strangely neglected to go one step further—that is, to make sure of their being educated, and so rendered capable of improving their condition to some purpose. It is in this great shortcoming that a blot rests on our institutions. When is that blot to be removed?