Home Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine - Edwin Waugh
We called at another house in this street. A family of six lived
there. The only furniture I saw in the place was two chairs, a
table, a large stool, a cheap clock, and a few pots. The man and his
wife were in. She was washing. The man was a stiff built, shock-
headed little fellow, with a squint in his eye that seemed to enrich
the good-humoured expression of his countenance. Sitting smiling by
the window, he looked as if he had lots of fun in him, if he only
had a fair chance of letting it off. He told us that he was a
"tackler" by trade. A tackler is one who fettles looms when they get
out of order. "Couldn't you get on at Horrocks's?" said my friend.
"Naw," replied he; "they'n not ha' men-weighvers theer." The wife
said," We're a deal better off than some. He has six days a week upo
th' moor, an' we'n 3s. a week fro th' Relief Committee. We'n 2s. 6d.
a week to pay eawt on it for rent; but then, we'n a lad that gets
4d. a day neaw an' then for puttin' bobbins on; an' every little
makes a mickle, yo known." "How is it that your clock's stopt?" said
I. "Nay," said the little fellow; "aw don't know. Want o' cotton,
happen,--same as everything else is stopt for." Leaving this house
we met with another member of the Relief Committee, who was
overlooker of a mill a little way off. I parted here with the
gentleman who had accompanied me hitherto, and the overlooker went
on with me.
In Newton Street he stopped, and said, "Let's look in here." We went
up two steps, and met a young woman coming out at the cottage door.
"How's Ruth?" said my friend. "Well, hoo is here. Hoo's busy bakin'
for Betty." We went in. "You're not bakin' for yourselves, then?"
said he. "Eh, naw," replied the young woman," it's mony a year sin'
we had a bakin' o' fleawr, isn't it, Ruth?" The old woman who was
baking turned round and said, "Ay; an' it'll be mony another afore
we han one aw deawt." There were three dirty-looking hens picking
and croodling about the cottage floor. "How is it you don't sell
these, or else eat 'em?" said he. "Eh, dear," replied the old woman,
"dun yo want mo kilt? He's had thoose hens mony a year; an' they
rooten abeawt th' heawse just th' same as greadley Christians. He
did gi' consent for one on 'em to be kilt yesterday; but aw'll be
hanged iv th' owd cracky didn't cry like a chylt when he see'd it
beawt yed. He'd as soon part wi' one o'th childer as one o'th hens.
He says they're so mich like owd friends, neaw. He's as quare as
Dick's hat-bant 'at went nine times reawnd an' wouldn't tee. . . .
We thought we'd getten a shop for yon lad o' mine t'other day. We
yerd ov a chap at Lytham at wanted a lad to tak care o' six
jackasses an' a pony. Th' pony were to tak th' quality to Blackpool,
and such like. So we fettled th' lad's bits o' clooas up and made
him ever so daycent, and set him off to try to get on wi' th' chap
at Lytham. Well, th' lad were i' good heart abeawt it; an' when he
geet theer th' chap towd him at he thought he wur very likely for
th' job, so that made it better,--an' th' lad begun o' wearin' his
bit o' brass o' summat to eat, an' sich like, thinkin' he're sure o'
th' shop. Well, they kept him there, dallyin', aw tell yo, an' never
tellin' him a greadley tale, fro Sunday till Monday o' th' neet, an'
then,--lo an' behold,--th' mon towd him that he'd hire't another;
and th' lad had to come trailin' whoam again, quite deawn i'th'
meawth. Eh, aw wur some mad! Iv aw'd been at th' back o' that chap,
aw could ha' punce't him, see yo!" "Well," said my friend, "there's
no work yet, Ruth, is there?" "Wark! naw; nor never will be no moor,
aw believe." "Hello, Ruth!" said the young woman, pointing through
the window, "dun yo know who yon is?" "Know? ay," replied the old
woman; "He's getten aboon porritch neaw, has yon. He walks by me
i'th street, as peart as a pynot, an' never cheeps. But, he's no
'casion. Aw know'd him when his yure stickt out at top ov his hat;
and his shurt would ha' hanged eawt beheend, too,--like a Wigan
lantron,--iv he'd had a shurt."
CHAPTER XII.
"Oh, reason not the deed; our basest beggars
Are in the poorest things superfluous:
Allow not nature more than nature needs,
Man's life is cheap as beast's."
--King Lear.
A short fit of rain came on whilst we were in the cottage in Newton
Street, so we sat a little while with Ruth, listening to her quaint
tattle about the old man and his feathered pets; about the children,
the hard times, and her own personal ailments;--for, though I could
not help thinking her a very good-hearted, humorous old woman,
bravely disposed to fight it out with the troubles of her humble
lot, yet it was clear that she was inclined to ease her harassed
mind now and then by a little wholesome grumbling; and I dare say
that sometimes she might lose her balance so far as to think, like
"Natterin' Nan," "No livin' soul atop o't earth's bin tried as I've
bin tried: there's nob'dy but the Lord an' me that knows what I've
to bide."
Old age and infirmity, too, had found Ruth out, in her penurious
obscurity; and she was disposed to complain a little, like Nan,
sometimes, of "the ills that flesh is heir to:"-
"Fro' t' wind i't stomach, rheumatism,
Tengin pains i't gooms,
An' coughs, an' cowds, an' t' spine o't back,
I suffer martyrdom.
"Yet nob'dy pities mo, or thinks
I'm ailin' owt at all;
T' poor slave mun tug an' tew wi't wark,
Wolivver shoo can crawl."
Old Ruth was far from being as nattle and querulous as the famous
ill-natured grumbler so racily pictured by Benjamin Preston, of
Bradford; but, like most of the dwellers upon earth, she was a
little bit touched with the same complaint. When the rain was over,
we came away. I cannot say that the weather ever "cleared up" that
day; for, at the end of every shower, the dark, slow-moving clouds
always seemed to be mustering for another downfall. We came away,
and left the "cant" old body "busy bakin' for Betty," and "shooing"
the hens away from her feet, and she shuffled about the house. A few
yards lower in Newton Street, we turned up a low, dark entry, which
led to a gloomy little court behind. This was one of those
unhealthy, pent-up cloisters, where misery stagnates and broods
among the "foul congregation of pestilential vapours" which haunt
the backdoor life of the poorest parts of great towns. Here, those
viewless ministers of health--the fresh winds of heaven--had no free
play; and poor human nature inhaled destruction from the poisonous
effluvia that festered there. And, in such nooks as this, there may
be found many decent working people, who have been accustomed to
live a cleanly life in their humble way in healthy quarters, now
reduced to extreme penury, pinching, and pining, and nursing the
flickering hope of better days, which may enable them to flee from
the foul harbour which strong necessity has driven them to. The dark
aspect of the day filled the court with a tomb-like gloom. If I
remember aright, there were only three or four cottages in it. We
called at two of them. Before we entered the first, my friend said,
"A young couple lives here. They are very decent people. They have
not been here long; and they have gone through a great deal before
they came here." There were two or three pot ornaments on the
cornice; but there was no furniture in the place, save one chair,
which was occupied by a pale young woman, nursing her child. Her
thin, intelligent face looked very sad. Her clothing, though poor,
was remarkably clean; and, as she sat there, in the gloomy, fireless
house, she said very little, and what she said she said very
quietly, as if she had hardly strength to complain, and was even
half-ashamed to do so. She told us, however, that her husband had
been out of work six months. "He didn't know what to turn to after
we sowd th' things," said she; "but he's takken to cheer-bottomin',
for he doesn't want to lie upo' folk for relief, if he can help it.
He doesn't get much above a cheer, or happen two in a week, one week
wi' another, an' even then he doesn't olez get paid, for folks ha'
not brass. It runs very hard with us, an' I'm nobbut sickly." The
poor soul did not need to say much; her own person, which evinced
such a touching struggle to keep up a decent appearance to the last,
and everything about her, as she sat there in the gloomy place,
trying to keep the child warm upon her cold breast, told eloquently
what her tongue faltered at and failed to express.
The next place we called at in this court was a cottage kept by a
withered old woman, with one foot in the grave. We found her in the
house, sallow, and shrivelled, and panting for breath. She had three
young women, out of work, lodging with her; and, in addition to
these, a widow with her two children lived there. One of these
children, a girl, was earning 2s. 6d. a week for working short time
at a mill; the other, a lad, was earning 3s. a week. The rest were
all unemployed, and had been so for several months past. This 5s.
6d. a week was all the seven people had to live upon, with the
exception of a trifle the sickly old woman received from the Board
of Guardians. As we left the court, two young fellows were lounging
at the entry end, as if waiting for us. One of them stepped up to my
friend, and whispered something plaintively, pointing to his feet. I
did not catch the reply; but my friend made a note, and we went on.
Before we had gone many yards down the street a storm of rain and
thunder came on, and we hurried into the house of an old Irishwoman
close by. My friend knew the old woman. She was on his list of
relief cases. "Will you let us shelter a few minutes, Mrs _?" said
he. "I will, an' thank ye," replied she. "Come in an' sit down.
Sure, it's not fit to turn out a dog. Faith, that's a great storm.
Oh, see the rain! Thank God it's not him that made the house that
made the pot! Dear, dear; did ye see the awful flash that time? I
don't like to be by myself, I am so terrified wi' the thunder. There
has been a great dale o' wet this long time." "There, has," replied
my friend; "but how have ye been getting on since I called before?"
"Well," said the old woman, sitting down, "things is quare with us
as ever they can be, an' that you know very well." There was a young
woman reared against the table by the window. My friend turned
towards her, and said, "Well, and how does the Indian meal agree
with you?" The young woman blushed, and smiled, but said nothing;
but the old woman turned sharply round and replied, "Well, now, it
is better nor starvation; it is chape, an' it fills up--an' that's
all." "Is your son working?" inquired my friend. "Troth, he is,"
replied she. "He does be gettin' a day now an' again at the breek-
croft in Ribbleton Lone. Faith, it is time he did somethin', too,
for he was nine months out o' work entirely. I am got greatly into
debt, an' I don't think I'll ever be able to get over it any more. I
don't know how does poor folk be able to spind money on drink such
times as thim; bedad, I cannot do it. It is bard enough to get mate
of any kind to keep the bare life in a body. Oh, see now; but for
the relief, the half o' the country would die out." "You're a native
of Ireland, missis," said I. "Troth, I am," replied she; "an' had a
good farm o' greawnd in it too, one time. Ah! many's the dark day I
went through between that an' this. Before thim bad times came on,
long ago, people were well off in ould Ireland. I seen them wid as
many as tin cows standin' at the door at one time. . . . Ah, then!
but the Irish people is greatly scattered now! . . . But, for the
matter of that, folk are as badly off here as anywhere in the world,
I think. I dunno know how does poor folk be able to spind money for
dhrink. I am a widow this seventeen year now, an' the divle a man or
woman uvver seen me goin' to a public-house. I seen women goin' a
drinkin' widout a shift to their backs. I dunno how the divvle they
done it. Begorra, I think, if I drunk a glass of ale just now, my
two legs would fail from under me immadiately--I am that wake." The
old woman was a little too censorious, I think. There is no doubt
that even people who are starving do drink a little sometimes. The
wonder would be if they did not, in some degree, share the follies
of the rest of the world. Besides, it is a well-known fact, that
those who are in employ, are apt, from a feeling of misdirected
kindness, to treat those who are out of work to a glass of ale or
two, now and then; and it is very natural, too, that those who have
been but ill-fed for a long time are not able to stand it well.
After leaving the old Irishwoman's house, we called upon a man who
had got his living by the sale of newspapers. There was nothing
specially worthy of remark in this case, except that he complained
of his trade having fallen away a good deal. "I used to sell three
papers where I now sell one," said he. This may not arise from there
being fewer papers sold, but from there being more people selling
them than when times were good. I came back to Manchester in the
evening. I have visited Preston again since then, and have spent
some time upon Preston Moor, where there are nearly fifteen hundred
men, principally factory operatives, at work. Of this I shall have
something to say in my next paper.
CHAPTER XIII.
"The rose of Lancaster for lack of nurture pales."
--BLACKBURN BARD.
It was early on a fine morning in July when I next set off to see
Preston again; the long-continued rains seemed to be ended, and the
unclouded sun flooded all the landscape with splendour. All nature
rejoiced in the change, and the heart of man was glad. In Clifton
Vale, the white-sleeved mowers were at work among the rich grass,
and the scent of new hay came sweetly through our carriage windows.
In the leafy cloughs and hedges, the small birds were wild with joy,
and every garden sent forth a goodly smell. Along its romantic vale
the glittering Irwell meandered, here, through nooks, "o'erhung wi'
wildwoods, thickening green;" and there, among lush unshaded
pastures; gathering on its way many a mild whispering brook, whose
sunlit waters laced the green land with freakish lines of trembling
gold. To me this ride is always interesting, so many points of
historic interest line the way; but it was doubly delightful on that
glorious July morning. And I never saw Fishergate, in Preston, look
better than it did then. On my arrival there I called upon the
Secretary of the Trinity Ward Relief Committee. In a quiet bye-
street, where there are four pleasant cottages, with little gardens
in front of them, I found him in his studious nook, among books,
relief tickets, and correspondence. We had a few minutes' talk about
the increasing distress of the town; and he gave me a short account
of the workroom which has been opened in Knowsley Street, for the
employment of female factory operatives out of work. This workroom
is managed by a committee of ladies, some of whom are in attendance
every day. The young women are employed upon plain sewing. They have
two days' work a week, at one shilling a day, and the Relief
Committee adds sixpence to this 2s. in each case. Most of them are
merely learning to sew. Many of them prove to be wholly untrained to
this simple domestic accomplishment. The work is not remunerative,
nor is it expected to be so; but the benefit which may grow out of
the teaching which these young women get here--and the evil their
employment here may prevent, cannot be calculated. I find that such
workrooms are established in some of the other towns now suffering
from the depression of trade. Some of these I intend to visit
hereafter. I spent an interesting half-hour with the secretary,
after which I went to see the factory operatives at work upon
Preston Moor.
Preston Moor is a tract of waste land on the western edge of the
town. It belongs to the corporation. A little vale runs through a
great part of this moor, from south-east to north-west; and the
ground was, until lately, altogether uneven. On the town side of the
little dividing vale the land is a light, sandy soil; on the other
side, there is abundance of clay for brickmaking. Upon this moor
there are now fifteen hundred men, chiefly factory operatives, at
work, levelling the land for building purposes, and making a great
main sewer for the drainage of future streets. The men, being almost
all unused to this kind of labour, are paid only one shilling per
day; and the whole scheme has been devised for the employment of
those who are suffering from the present depression of trade. The
work had been going on several months before I saw it, and a great
part of the land was levelled. When I came in sight of the men,
working in scattered gangs that fine morning, there was, as might be
expected, a visible difference between their motions and those of
trained "navvies" engaged upon the same kind of labour. There were
also very great differences of age and physical condition amongst
them--old men and consumptive-looking lads, hardly out of their
teens. They looked hard at me as I walked down the central line, but
they were not anyway uncivil. "What time is 't, maister?" asked a
middle-aged man, with gray hair, as he wiped his forehead. "Hauve-
past ten," said I. "What time says he?" inquired a feeble young
fellow, who was resting upon his barrow. "Hauve-past ten, he says,"
replied the other. "Eh; it's warm!" said the tired lad, lying down
upon his barrow again. One thing I noticed amongst these men, with
very rare exceptions, their apparel, however poor, evinced that
wholesome English love of order and cleanliness which generally
indicates something of self-respect in the wearer--especially among
poor folk. There is something touching in the whiteness of a well-
worn shirt, and the careful patches of a poor man's old fustian
coat.
As I lounged about amongst the men, a mild-eyed policeman came up,
and offered to conduct me to Jackson, the labour-master, who had
gone down to the other end of the moor, to look after the men at
work at the great sewer--a wet clay cutting--the heaviest bit of
work on the ground. We passed some busy brickmakers, all plastered
and splashed with wet clay --of the earth, earthy. Unlike the
factory operatives around them, these men clashed, and kneaded, and
sliced among the clay, as if they were working for a wager. But they
were used to the job, and working piece-work. A little further on,
we came to an unbroken bit of the moor. Here, on a green slope we
saw a poor lad sitting chirruping upon the grass, with a little
cloutful of groundsel for bird meat in his hand, watching another,
who was on his knees, delving for earth-nuts with an old knife.
Lower down the slope there were three other lads plaguing a young
jackass colt; and further off, on the town edge of the moor, several
children from the streets hard by, were wandering about the green
hollow, picking daisies, and playing together in the sunshine. There
are several cotton factories close to the moor, but they were quiet
enough. Whilst I looked about me here, the policeman pointed to the
distance and said, "Jackson's comin' up, I see. Yon's him, wi' th'
white lin' jacket on." Jackson seems to have won the esteem of the
men upon the moor by his judicious management and calm
determination. I have heard that he had a little trouble at first,
through an injurious report spread amongst the men immediately
before he undertook the management. Some person previously employed
upon the ground had "set it eawt that there wur a chap comin' that
would make 'em addle a hauve-a-creawn a day for their shillin'." Of
course this increased the difficulty of his position; but he seems
to have fought handsomely through all that sort of thing. I had met
him for a few minutes once before, so there was no difficulty
between us.
"Well, Jackson," said I, "heaw are yo gettin' on among it?" "Oh,
very well, very well," said he," We'n more men at work than we had,
an' we shall happen have more yet. But we'n getten things into
something like system, an' then tak 'em one with another th' chaps
are willin' enough. You see they're not men that have getten a
livin' by idling aforetime; they're workin' men, but they're strange
to this job, an' one cannot expect 'em to work like trained honds,
no moor than one could expect a lot o' navvies to work weel at
factory wark. Oh, they done middlin', tak 'em one with another." I
now asked him if he had not had some trouble with the men at first.
"Well," said he, "I had at first, an' that's the truth. I remember
th' first day that I came to th' job. As I walked on to th' ground
there was a great lump o' clay coom bang into my earhole th' first
thing; but I walked on, an' took no notice, no moor than if it had
bin a midge flyin' again my face. Well, that kind o' thing took
place, now an' then, for two or three days, but I kept agate o'
never mindin'; till I fund there were some things that I thought
could be managed a deal better in a different way; so I gav' th' men
notice that I would have 'em altered. For instance, now, when I coom
here at first, there was a great shed in yon hollow; an' every
mornin' th' men had to pass through that shed one after another, an'
have their names booked for th' day. The result wur, that after
they'd walked through th' shed, there was many on 'em walked out at
t'other end o' th' moor straight into teawn a-playin' 'em. Well, I
was determined to have that system done away with. An', when th' men
fund that I was gooin' to make these alterations, they growled a
good deal, you may depend, an' two or three on 'em coom up an' spoke
to me abeawt th' matter, while tother stood clustered a bit off.
Well; I was beginnin' to tell 'em plain an' straight-forrud what I
would have done, when one o' these three sheawted out to th' whole
lot, "Here, chaps, come an' gether reawnd th' devil. Let's yer what
he's for!" 'Well,' said I, 'come on, an' you shall yer,' for aw felt
cawmer just then, than I did when it were o'er. There they were,
gethered reawnd me in a minute,--th' whole lot,--I were fair hemmed
in. But I geet atop ov a bit ov a knowe, an' towd 'em a fair tale,--
what I wanted, an' what I would have, an' I put it to 'em whether
they didn't consider it reet. An' I believe they see'd th' thing in
a reet leet, but they said nought about it, but went back to their
wark, lookin' sulky. But I've had very little bother with 'em sin'.
I never see'd a lot o' chaps so altered sin' th' last February, as
they are. At that time no mortal mon hardly could walk through 'em
'beawt havin' a bit o' slack-jaw, or a lump o' clay or summat flung
a-him. But it isn't so, neaw. I consider th' men are doin' very
weel. But, come; yo mun go deawn wi' me a-lookin' at yon main
sewer."
CHAPTER XIV.
"Oh, let us bear the present as we may,
Nor let the golden past be all forgot;
Hope lifts the curtain of the future day,
Where peace and plenty smile without a spot
On their white garments; where the human lot
Looks lovelier and less removed from heaven;
Where want, and war, and discord enter not,
But that for which the wise have hoped and striven--
The wealth of happiness, to humble worth is given.
"The time will come, as come again it must,
When Lancashire shall lift her head once more;
Her suffering sons, now down amid the dust
Of Indigence, shall pass through Plenty's door;
Her commerce cover seas from shore to shore;
Her arts arise to highest eminence;
Her products prove unrivall'd, as of yore;
Her valour and her virtue--men of sense
And blue-eyed beauties--England's pride and her defence."
--BLACKBURN BARD.
Jackson's office as labour-master kept him constantly tramping about
the sandy moor from one point to another. He was forced to be in
sight, and on the move, during working hours, amongst his fifteen
hundred scattered workmen. It was heavy walking, even in dry
weather; and as we kneaded through the loose soil that hot forenoon,
we wiped our foreheads now and then. "Ay," said he, halting, and
looking round upon the scene, "I can assure you, that when I first
took howd o' this job, I fund my honds full, as quiet as it looks
now. I was laid up for nearly a week, an' I had to have two doctors.
But, as I'd undertakken the thing, I was determined to go through
with it to th' best o' my ability; an' I have confidence now that we
shall be able to feight through th' bad time wi' summat like
satisfaction, so far as this job's consarned, though it's next to
impossible to please everybody, do what one will. But come wi' me
down this road. I've some men agate o' cuttin' a main sewer. It's
very little farther than where th' cattle pens are i' th' hollow
yonder; and it's different wark to what you see here. Th' main sewer
will have to be brought clean across i' this direction, an' it'll be
a stiffish job. Th' cattle market's goin' to be shifted out o' yon
hollow, an' in another year or two th' whole scene about here will
be changed." Jackson and I both remembered something of the troubles
of the cotton manufacture in past times. We had seen something of
the "shuttle gatherings," the "plug-drawings," the wild starvation
riots, and strikes of days gone by; and he agreed with me that one
reason for the difference of their demeanour during the present
trying circumstances lies in their increasing intelligence. The
great growth of free discussion through the cheap press has done no
little to work out this salutary change. There is more of human
sympathy, and of a perception of the union of interests between
employers and employed than ever existed before in the history of
the cotton trade. Employers know that their workpeople are human
beings, of like feelings and passions with themselves, and like
themselves, endowed with no mean degree of independent spirit and
natural intelligence; and working men know better than beforetime
that their employers are not all the heartless tyrants which it has
been too fashionable to encourage them to believe. The working men
have a better insight into the real causes of trade panics than they
used to have; and both masters and men feel more every day that
their fortunes are naturally bound together for good or evil; and if
the working men of Lancashire continue to struggle through the
present trying pass of their lives with the brave patience which
they have shown hitherto, they will have done more to defeat the
arguments of those who hold them to be unfit for political power
than the finest eloquence of their best friends could have done in
the same time.