Home Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine - Edwin Waugh
After a little more talk, we bade the old couple good day, and went
to peep at the cellar where they had crept stealthily away, for the
sake of keeping their expenses close to their lessening income. The
place was empty, and the door was open. It was a damp and cheerless
little hole, down in the corner of a dirty court. We went next into
Pole Street, and tried the door of a cottage where a widow woman
lived with her children less than a week before. They were gone, and
the house was cleared out. "They have had neither fire nor candle in
that house for weeks past," said my companion. We then turned up a
narrow entry, which was so dark and low overhead that my companion
only told me just in time to "mind my hat!" There are several such
entries leading out of Pole Street to little courts behind. Here we
turned into a cold and nearly empty cottage, where a middle-aged
woman sat nursing a sick child. She looked worn and ill herself, and
she had sore eyes. She told me that the child was her daughter's.
Her daughter's husband had died of asthma in the workhouse, about
six weeks before. He had not "addled" a penny for twelve months
before he died. She said, "We hed a varra good heawse i' Stanley
Street once; but we hed to sell up an' creep hitherto. This heawse
is 2s. 3d. a week; an' we mun pay it, or go into th' street. Aw
nobbut owed him for one week, an' he said, 'Iv yo connot pay yo mun
turn eawt for thoose 'at will do.' Aw did think o' gooin' to th'
Board," continued she, "for a pair o' clogs. My een are bad; an' awm
ill all o'er, an' it's wi' nought but gooin' weet o' my feet. My
daughter's wortchin'. Hoo gets 5s. 6d. a week. We han to live an'
pay th' rent, too, eawt o' that." I guessed, from the little paper
pictures on the wall, that they were Catholics.
In another corner behind Pole Street, we called at a cottage of two
rooms, each about three yards square. A brother and sister lived
together here. They were each about fifty years of age. They had
three female lodgers, factory operatives, out of work. The sister
said that her brother had been round to the factories that morning,
"Thinking that as it wur a pastime, there would haply be somebody
off; but he couldn't yer o' nought." She said she got a trifle by
charing, but not much now; for folks were "beginnin' to do it for
theirsels." We now turned into Cunliffe Street, and called upon an
Irish family there. It was a family of seven--an old tailor, and his
wife and children. They had "dismissed the relief," as he expressed
it, "because they got a bit o' work." The family was making a little
living by ripping up old clothes, and turning the cloth to make it
up afresh into lads' caps and other cheap things. The old man had
had a great deal of trouble with his family. "I have one girl," said
he, "who has bothered my mind a dale. She is under the influence o'
bad advice. I had her on my hands for many months; an', after that,
the furst week's wages she got, she up, an' cut stick, an' left me.
I have another daughter, now nigh nineteen years of age. The trouble
I have with her I am content with; because it can't be helped. The
poor crayter hasn't the use of all her faculties. I have taken no
end o' pains with her, but I can't get her to count twenty on her
finger ends wid a whole life's tachein'. Fortune has turned her dark
side to me this long time, now; and, bedad, iv it wasn't for
contrivin', an' workin' hard to boot, I wouldn't be able to keep
above the flood. I assure ye it goes agin me to trouble the
gentlemen o' the Board; an' so long as I am able, I will not. I was
born in King's County; an' I was once well off in the city of
Waterford I once had 400 pounds in the bank. I seen the time I
didn't drame of a cloudy day; but things take quare turns in this
world. How-an-ever, since it's no better, thank God it's no worse.
Sure, it's a long lane that has never a turn in it."
CHAPTER X.
"There's nob'dy but the Lord an' me
That knows what I've to bide."
--NATTERIN NAN.
The slipshod old tailor shuffled after us to the door, talking about
the signs of the times. His frame was bowed with age and labour, and
his shoulders drooped away. It was drawing near the time when the
grasshopper would be a burden to him. A hard life had silently
engraved its faithful records upon that furrowed face; but there was
a cheerful ring in his voice which told of a hopeful spirit within
him still. The old man's nostrils were dusty with snuff, and his
poor garments hung about his shrunken form in the careless ease
which is common to the tailor's shopboard. I could not help admiring
the brave old wrinkled workman as he stood in the doorway talking
about his secondhand trade, whilst the gusty wind fondled about in
his thin gray hair. I took a friendly pinch from his little wooden
box at parting, and left him to go on struggling with his
troublesome family to "keep above the flood," by translating old
clothes into new. We called at some other houses, where the features
of life were so much the same that it is not necessary to say more
than that the inhabitants were all workless, or nearly so, and all
living upon the charitable provision which is the only thin plank
between so many people and death, just now. In one house, where the
furniture had been sold, the poor souls had brought a great stone
into the place, and this was their only seat. In Cunliffe Street, we
passed the cottage of a boilermaker, whom I had heard of before. His
family was four in number. This was one of those cases of wholesome
pride in which the family had struggled with extreme penury, seeking
for work in vain, but never asking for charity, until their own poor
neighbours were at last so moved with pity for their condition, that
they drew the attention of the Relief Committee to it. The man
accepted relief for one week, but after that, he declined receiving
it any longer, because he had met with a promise of employment. But
the promise failed him when the time came. The employer, who had
promised, was himself disappointed of the expected work. After this;
the boilermaker's family was compelled to fall back upon the Relief
Committee's allowance. He who has never gone hungry about the world,
with a strong love of independence in his heart, seeking eagerly for
work from day to day, and coming home night after night to a
foodless, fireless house, and a starving family, disappointed and
desponding, with the gloom of destitution deepening around him, can
never fully realise what the feelings of such a man may be from
anything that mere words can tell.
In Park Road, we called at the house of a hand-loom weaver. I
learnt, before we went in, that two families lived here, numbering
together eight persons; and, though it was well known to the
committee that they had suffered as severely as any on the relief
list, yet their sufferings had been increased by the anonymous
slanders of some ill-disposed neighbours. They were quiet, well-
conducted working people; and these slanders had grieved them very
much. I found the poor weaver's wife very sensitive on this subject.
Man's inhumanity to man may be found among the poor sometimes. It is
not every one who suffers that learns mercy from that suffering. As
I have said before, the husband was a calico weaver on the hand-
loom. He had to weave about seventy-three yards of a kind of check
for 3s., and a full week's work rarely brought him more than 5s. It
seems astonishing that a man should stick year after year to such
labour as this. But there is a strong adhesiveness, mingled with
timidity, in some men, which helps to keep them down. In the front
room of the cottage there was not a single article of furniture
left, so far as I can remember. The weaver's wife was in the little
kitchen, and, knowing the gentleman who was with me, she invited us
forward. She was a wan woman, with sunken eyes, and she was not much
under fifty years of age. Her scanty clothing was whole and clean.
She must have been a very good-looking woman sometime, though she
seemed to me as if long years of hard work and poor diet had sapped
the foundations of her constitution; and there was a curious
changeful blending of pallor and feverish flush upon that worn face.
But, even in the physical ruins of her countenance, a pleasing
expression lingered still. She was timid and quiet in her manner at
first, as if wondering what we had come for; but she asked me to sit
down. There was no seat for my friend, and he stood leaning against
the wall, trying to get her into easy conversation. The little
kitchen looked so cheerless and bare that dull morning that it
reminded me again of a passage in that rude, racy song of the
Lancashire weaver, "Jone o' Greenfeelt"--
"Owd Bill o' Dan's sent us th' baillies one day,
For a shop-score aw owed him, at aw couldn't pay;
But, he were too lat, for owd Billy at th' Bent
Had sent th' tit an' cart, an' taen th' goods off for rent,--
They laft nought but th' owd stoo;
It were seats for us two,
An' on it keawr't Margit an' me.
"Then, th' baillies looked reawnd 'em as sly as a meawse,
When they see'd at o'th goods had bin taen eawt o' th' heawse;
Says tone chap to tother, 'O's gone,--thae may see,'--
Says aw, 'Lads, ne'er fret, for yo're welcome to me!'
Then they made no moor do,
But nipt up wi' owd stoo,
An' we both letten thwack upo' th' flags.
"Then aw said to eawr Margit, while we're upo' the floor,
'We's never be lower i' this world, aw'm sure;
Iv ever things awtern they're likely to mend,
For aw think i' my heart that we're both at th' fur end;
For meight we ban noan,
Nor no looms to weighve on,
An' egad, they're as good lost as fund.'"
We had something to do to get the weaver's wife to talk to us
freely, and I believe the reason was, that, after the slanders they
had been subject to, she harboured a sensitive fear lest anything
like doubt should be cast upon her story. "Well, Mrs," said my
friend, "let's see; how many are you altogether in this house?"
"We're two families, yo know," replied she; "there's eight on us all
altogether." "Well," continued he,"and how much have you coming in,
now?" He had asked this question so oft before, and had so often
received the same answer, that the poor soul began to wonder what
was the meaning of it all. She looked at us silently, her wan face
flushed, and then, with tears rising in her eyes, she said,
tremulously, "Well, iv yo' cannot believe folk--" My friend stopped
her at once, and said, "Nay, Mrs_, you must not think that I doubt
your story. I know all about it; but my friend wanted me to let you
tell it your own way. We have come here to do you good, if possible,
and no harm. You don't need to fear that." "Oh, well," said she,
slowly wiping her moist forehead, and looking relieved," but yo
know, aw was very much put about o'er th' ill-natur't talk as
somebody set eawt." "Take no notice of them," said my friend; "take
no notice. I meet with such things every day." "Well," continued
she," yo know heaw we're situated. We were nine months an' hesn't a
stroke o' wark. Eawr wenches are gettin' a day for t' sick, neaw and
then, but that's all. There's a brother o' mine lives with us,--he'd
a been clemmed into th' grave but for th' relief; an' aw've been
many a time an' hesn't put a bit i' my meawth fro mornin' to mornin'
again. We've bin married twenty-four year; an' aw don't think at him
an' me together has spent a shillin' i' drink all that time. Why, to
tell yo truth, we never had nought to stir on. My husband does bod
get varra little upo th' hand-loom i' th' best o' times--5s. a week
or so. He weighves a sort o' check--seventy-three yards for 3s." The
back door opened into a little damp yard, hemmed in by brick walls.
Over in the next yard we could see a man bustling about, and singing
in a loud voice, "Hard times come again no more." "Yon fellow
doesn't care much about th' hard times, I think," said I. "Eh, naw,"
replied she. "He'll live where mony a one would dee, will yon. He
has that little shop, next dur; an' he keeps sellin' a bit o' toffy,
an' then singin' a bit, an' then sellin' a bit moor toffy,--an' he's
as happy as a pig amung slutch."
Leaving the weaver's cottage, the rain came on, and we sat a few
minutes with a young shoemaker, who was busy at his bench, doing a
cobbling job. His wife was lying ill upstairs. He had been so short
of work for some time past that he had been compelled to apply for
relief. He complained that the cheap gutta percha shoes were hurting
his trade. He said a pair of men's gutta percha shoes could be
bought for 5s. 6d., whilst it would cost him 7s. 6d. for the
materials alone to make a pair of men's shoes of. When the rain was
over, we left his house, and as we went along I saw in a cottage
window a printed paper containing these words, "Bitter beer. This
beer is made of herbs and roots of the native country." I know that
there are many poor people yet in Lancashire who use decoctions of
herbs instead of tea--mint and balm are the favourite herbs for this
purpose; but I could not imagine what this herb beer could be, at a
halfpenny a bottle, unless it was made of nettles. At the cottage
door there was about four-pennyworth of mauled garden stuff upon an
old tray. There was nobody inside but a little ragged lass, who
could not tell us what the beer was made of. She had only one
drinking glass in the place, and that had a snip out of the rim. The
beer was exceedingly bitter. We drank as we could, and then went
into Pump Street, to the house of a "core-maker," a kind of labourer
for moulders. The core-maker's wife was in. They had four children.
The whole six had lived for thirteen weeks on 3s. 6d. a week. When
work first began to fall off, the husband told the visitors who came
to inquire into their condition, that he had a little money saved
up, and he could manage a while. The family lived upon their savings
as long as they lasted, and then were compelled to apply for relief,
or "clem." It was not quite noon when we left this house, and my
friend proposed that before we went farther we should call upon Mrs
G_, an interesting old woman, in Cunliffe Street. We turned back to
the place, and there we found
"In lowly shed, and mean attire,
A matron old, whom we schoolmistress name,
Who boasts unruly brats with birch to tame."
In a small room fronting the street, the mild old woman sat, with
her bed in one corner, and her simple vassals ranged upon the forms
around. Here, "with quaint arts," she swayed the giddy crowd of
little imprisoned elves, whilst they fretted away their irksome
schooltime, and unconsciously played their innocent prelude to the
serious drama of life. As we approach the open door--
"The noises intermix'd, which thence resound,
Do learning's little tenement betray;
Where sits the dame disguised in look profound,
And eyes her fairy throng, and turns her wheel around."
The venerable little woman had lived in this house fourteen years.
She was seventy-three years of age, and a native of Limerick. She
was educated at St Ann's School, in Dublin, and she had lived
fourteen years in the service of a lady in that city. The old dame
made an effort to raise her feeble form when we entered, and she
received us as courteously as the finest lady in the land could have
done. She told us that she charged only a penny a-week for her
teaching; but, said she, "some of them can't pay it." "There's a
poor child," continued she, "his father has been out of work eleven
months, and they are starving but for the relief. Still, I do get a
little, and I like to have the children about me. Oh, my case is not
the worst, I know. I have people lodging in the house who are not so
well off as me. I have three families living here. One is a family
of four; they have only 3s. a-week to live upon. Another is a family
of three; they have 6s. a-week from a club, but they pay me 2s. a-
week. for rent out of that. . . . . I am very much troubled with my
eyes; my sight is failing fast. If I drop a stitch when I'm
knitting, I can't see to take it up again. If I could buy a pair of
spectacles, they would help me a good dale; but I cannot afford till
times are better." I could not help thinking how many kind souls
there are in the world who would be glad to give the old woman a
pair of spectacles, if they knew her.
CHAPTER XI.
We talked with the old schoolmistress in Cunliffe Street till it was
"high twelve" at noon, and then the kind jailer of learning's little
prison-house let all her fretful captives go. The clamorous elves
rushed through the doorway into the street, like a stream too big
for its vent, rejoicing in their new-found freedom and the open face
of day. The buzz of the little teaching mill was hushed once more,
and the old dame laid her knitting down, and quietly wiped her weak
and weary eyes. The daughters of music were brought low with her,
but, in the last thin treble of second childhood, she trembled forth
mild complaints of her neighbours' troubles, but very little of her
own. We left her to enjoy her frugal meal and her noontide reprieve
in peace, and came back to the middle of the town. On our way I
noticed again some features of street life which are more common in
manufacturing towns just now than when times are good. Now and then
one meets with a man in the dress of a factory worker selling
newspapers, or religious tracts, or back numbers of the penny
periodicals, which do not cost much. It is easy to see, from their
shy and awkward manner, that they are new to the trade, and do not
like it. They are far less dexterous, and much more easily "said,"
than the brisk young salesmen who hawk newspapers in the streets of
Manchester. I know that many of these are unemployed operatives
trying to make an honest penny in this manner till better days
return. Now and then, too, a grown-up girl trails along the street,
"with wandering steps and slow," ragged, and soiled, and starved,
and looking as if she had travelled far in the rainy weather,
houseless and forlorn. I know that such sights may be seen at any
time, but not near so often as just now; and I cannot help thinking
that many of these are poor sheep which have strayed away from the
broken folds of labour. Sometimes it is an older woman that goes by,
with a child at the breast, and one or two holding by the skirt of
her tattered gown, and perhaps one or two more limping after, as she
crawls along the pavement, gazing languidly from side to side among
the heedless crowd, as if giving her last look round the world for
help, without knowing where to get it, and without heart to ask for
it. It is easy to give wholesale reasons why nobody needs to be in
such a condition as this; but it is not improbable that there are
some poor souls who, from no fault of their own, drop through the
great sieve of charity into utter destitution. "They are well kept
that God keeps." May the continual dew of Heaven's blessing gladden
the hearts of those who deal kindly with them!
After dinner I fell into company with some gentlemen who were
talking about the coming guild--that ancient local festival, which
is so clear to the people of Preston, that they are not likely to
allow it to go by wholly unhonoured, however severe the times may
be. Amongst them was a gray-haired friend of mine, who is a genuine
humorist. He told us many quaint anecdotes. One of them was of a man
who went to inquire the price of graves in a certain cemetery. The
sexton told him that they were 1 pound on this side, and 2 pounds on
the other side of the knoll. "How is it that they are 2 pounds on
the other side?" inquired the man. "Well, becose there's a better
view there," replied the sexton. There were three or four millowners
in the company, and, when the conversation turned upon the state of
trade, one of them said, "I admit that there is a great deal of
distress, but we are not so badly off yet as to drive the operatives
to work for reasonable wages. For instance, I had a labourer working
for me at 10s. a-week; he threw up my employ, and went to work upon
the moor for 1s. a-day. How do you account for that? And then,
again, I had another man employed as a watchman and roller coverer,
at 18s. a-week. I found that I couldn't afford to keep him on at
18s., so I offered him 15s. a-week; but he left it, and went to work
on the moor at 1s. a-day; and, just now, I want a man to take his
place, and cannot get one." Another said, "I am only giving low
wages to my workpeople, but they get more with me than they can make
on the moor, and yet I cannot keep them." I heard some other things
of the same kind, for which there might be special reasons; but
these gentlemen admitted the general prevalence of severe distress,
and the likelihood of its becoming much worse.
At two o'clock I sallied forth again, under convoy of another member
of the Relief Committee, into the neighbourhood of Messrs Horrocks,
Miller, and Co.'s works. Their mill is known as "Th' Yard Factory."
Hereabouts the people generally are not so much reduced as in some
parts of the town, because they have had more employment, until
lately, than has been common elsewhere. But our business lay with
those distressed families who were in receipt of relief, and, even
here, they were very easy to find. The first house we called at was
inhabited by a family of five--man and wife and three children. The
man was working on the moor at one shilling a-day. The wife was
unwell, but she was moving about the house. They had buried one girl
three weeks before; and one of the three remaining children lay ill
of the measles. They had suffered a great deal from sickness. The
wife said, "My husband is a peawer-loom weighver. He had to come
whoam ill fro' his wark; an' then they shopped his looms, (gave his
work to somebody else,) an' he couldn't get 'em back again. He'll
get 'em back as soon as he con, yo may depend; for we don't want to
bother folk for no mak o' relief no lunger than we can help." In
addition to the husband's pay upon the moor, they were receiving 2s.
a week from the Committee, making altogether 8s. a week for the
five, with 2s. 6d. to pay out of it for rent. She said, "We would
rayther ha' soup than coffee, becose there's moor heytin' in it." My
friend looked in at the door of a cottage in Barton Street. There
was a sickly-looking woman inside. "Well, missis," said my friend,
jocularly, "how are you? because, if you're ill, I've brought a
doctor here." "Eh," replied she, "aw could be ill in a minute, if aw
could afford, but these times winnot ston doctors' bills. Besides,
aw never were partial to doctors' physic; it's kitchen physic at aw
want. Han yo ony o' that mak' wi' yo?" She said," My husban' were
th' o'erlooker o' th'weighvers at "Owd Tom's.' They stopt to fettle
th' engine a while back, an' they'n never started sin'. But aw guess
they wi'n do some day." We had not many yards to go to the next
place, which was a poor cottage in Fletcher's Row, where a family of
eight persons resided. There was very little furniture in the place,
but I noticed a small shelf of books in a corner by the window. A
feeble woman, upwards of seventy years old, sat upon a stool tending
the cradle of a sleeping infant. This infant was the youngest of
five children, the oldest of the five was seven years of age. The
mother of the three-weeks-old infant had just gone out to the mill
to claim her work from the person who had been filling her place
during her confinement. The old woman said that the husband was "a
grinder in a card-room when they geet wed, an' he addled about 8s. a
week; but, after they geet wed, his wife larn't him to weighve upo'
th' peawer-looms." She said that she was no relation to them, but
she nursed, and looked after the house for them. "They connot afford
to pay mo nought," continued she, "but aw fare as they fare'n, an'
they dunnot want to part wi' me. Aw'm not good to mich, but aw can
manage what they wanten, yo see'n. Aw never trouble't noather teawn
nor country i' my life, an' aw hope aw never shall for the bit o'
time aw have to do on." She said that the Board of Guardians had
allowed the family 10s. a week for the two first weeks of the wife's
confinement, but now their income amounted to a little less than one
shilling a head per week.
Leaving this house, we turned round the corner into St Mary's Street
North. Here we found a clean-looking young working man standing
shivering by a cottage door, with his hands in his pockets. He was
dressed in well-mended fustian, and he had a cloth cap on his head.
His face had a healthy hunger-nipt look. "Hollo," said my friend, "I
thought you was working on the moor." "Ay," replied the young man,
"Aw have bin, but we'n bin rain't off this afternoon." "Is there
nobody in?" said my friend. "Naw, my wife's gone eawt; hoo'll not be
mony minutes. Hoo's here neaw." A clean little pale woman came up,
with a child in her arms, and we went in. They had not much
furniture in the small kitchen, which was the only place we saw, but
everything was sweet and orderly. Their income was, as usual in
relief cases, about one shilling a head per week. "You had some
lodgers," said my friend. "Ay," said she,"but they're gone." "How's
that?" "We had a few words. Their little lad was makin' a great
noise i' the passage theer, an' aw were very ill o' my yed, an' aw
towd him to go an' play him at tother side o' th' street,--so, they
took it amiss, an' went to lodge wi' some folk i' Ribbleton Lone."