APPENDIX. (continued 4)

By the section of the Act the several requisites hereunder described are directed to be provided and completed within months after this date.

The Commissioners have directed tenders for contracts upon specifications to be taken for the execution of the required works, under a civil engineer, in the most beneficial manner and at the lowest cost.

They are also prepared to take loans on the security of the rates for defraying the expenses of the execution of the works contracted for.

It will be at your option either to repay at once the cost of the requisite works by which the property will be benefited, or to repay it by annual instalments in 30 year, paying 5 per cent. interest on the principal sum expended, or on that part of it that may, from time to time, remain unpaid.

To save the trouble and expense of a double collection, annual instalments and the interest on the principal sums expended will be collected from the tenant with rates. Where the landlord is under any agreement or obligation to cleanse the cesspools, the tenant will be entitled to deduct from the rent the charge for the drainage and apparatus for cleansing. Where the tenant pays rent weekly, or at shorter periods than quarterly, and does not pay rates, the charge for the works in question is required by the statute to be paid by the owner of the tenement, who will levy the amount with the rent, or make his own terms with the tenant for the improvement in question.

The cost of the required improvements or principal sum, which will be charged at the contract prices, together with the annual instalments and interest thereon, and the weekly charge or improved rent that may be due or charged on the weekly tenant, will be as follows:—

First Outlay per Tenement. Annual Instalment for Repayment in 30 years. Annual Interest, commuted at 5 per cent. on Outlay, charged as Rent on Tenant, and Annual Rent of Water. Weekly Charge to the Tenant, or Increased Rent.

£. s. d. s. d. s. d. s. d.

Water-closet Water-tank Drain 10 8 6 6 11 6 8 0 3

Main Sewer 5 12 0 3 9 3 6 0 1½

Water 5 0 0 1

Total 10 8 15 2 0 5½

If the landlord undertake to cleanse the cesspools, then the additional weekly charge on the occupier for the supplies of water and drainage will 454be 2½d. weekly, involving, as the occupier should be informed, the conveniences, cleanliness, and security to health, and saving of medical expenses.

Persons having only interests in property for years or for determinate periods may, by means of the above table, distribute amongst the persons successively interested in the property the portions of the charge to which they are liable.

The surveyor and officers of sewers are charged with the duty of from time to time inspecting and seeing to the sufficiency of the means of drainage and cleansing. By the terms of the contract the contractor is bound to make good the drains for years, but the tenant will be liable to make good any wanton damage.

The Act gives to the owner of the beneficial interest in the premises the option of executing the prescribed works himself, on giving notice on or before the of such his intention, and entering into his surety to execute them within the time prescribed and according to the contract specifications, to the satisfaction of the officer charged with the superintendence of the work.

30.—Extracts from Evidence on the Moral and Physical Evils which may be created by the mode of Hiring and Paying Workmen.

(Extract from Evidence given before a Committee of the House of Commons.)

Charles Saunders.

What is your occupation?—Coal-whipper.

Have the goodness to state to the Committee the manner in which coal whippers are engaged and paid?—I have been in the habit of obtaining a living by coal whipping for the last 10 years, and when I want employment, (me and the likes of me of course,) I have to go to the publican to get a job, to ask him for a job; and he tells me to go and sit down, and he will give me an answer by and by. I go and sit down, and if I have 2d. in my pocket, of course I am obliged to spend it, with a view of getting a job; and, probably, when two or three hours have elapsed, by that time there is about 50 or 60 people come on the same errand to the same person for a job. He keeps us three or four hours there; and then he comes out, and he looks round among us, and he knows those well that can drink the most, and those are the people that obtain employment first. Those that cannot drink a great deal, and think more of their family than others do, cannot obtain any employment; those that drink the most get the most employment. When the men are made up for the ship, we go to work the next day morning, but we have to take what the publican calls the allowance, such as a quartern of rum, or three half-quarterns, or a pot of beer, or what not; then they have to take a pot of beer off in a bottle on board,—what he calls beer, but not fit for a man to drink, generally speaking, what I call poison: I have actually teemed it overboard myself, before I could drink it; I could not drink it, although I have been sweating and as thirsty as a man could be, and have put it overboard, and gone and dipped my bottle in a bucket of water.

In the after part of the day, when your work was over, where did you go then?—Then, when we have done our day’s work, we came on shore, and we had to go into the house again; and perhaps we might want a shilling or two to get our families a little support; the landlord would tell us to go and sit down in the tap-room, and he would give us some by and by, and he would keep us there until nine or ten at night; first, we would go for a pint or a pot, or what not, to see whether he was getting ready, for we dare not go empty-handed, without a pot or pint, or to call for something by way of 455excuse; after keeping us there until nine or ten at night, then he would give us 2s. 6d. or 3s.

Were you obliged to spend money in drink?—Yes.

Could you not avoid it by any means?—No.

What would have happened if you had refused to spend money in drink?—Then we could have no employment; and moreover than that, if you had had what you thought was requisite, if he did not think it was sufficient, he would add more than what you had actually contracted for; and if you refused to pay this, and you said, “I have not had but so much, I won’t pay it.” “Oh, won’t you; if you do not, here is your money, what you say it is; go out, and never come in here again.”

Have you known anybody refused employment because they would not contribute to the publican’s demand for drink?—Yes, I could find 50.

Who have lost their employment because they would not drink so much as the publican wished?—Yes, I could.

Could you not engage yourself to the captain of the ship without going to the publican?—No, for the publicans are some of them shipowners, and they are all intermixed through the trade by one thing and another, so that the captain or owner of the ship gives the favour to the publican to employ the whippers.

Mr. Claydon, Master of the Limehouse Workhouse, belonging to the Stepney Union.

With respect to the labouring classes, have you observed whether, with respect to any of them, these ill-regulated inclinations are subjected to unnecessary temptations?—The practice of paying men at public houses, and making the obtaining employment dependent in a certain measure upon drinking, which is the case with the coal-whippers.

Have you ever had occasion as respects the coal-whippers to investigate those cases?—We did at one period, having an opportunity, investigate upwards of 40 cases of coal-whippers.

Those were 40 applicants for relief?—The greater part of them were; 22 of them were in the immediate receipt of relief at the time the others were applicants.

What was the result in those cases?—We took their earnings over a considerable period, and we found that they had earned, taking the average, 18s. 10d. per week. The utmost we could make out that their families had received of that, in any shape, was 12s. 10d. per week. Whatever might have been their family, one-third of it had gone in drink and those charges which were brought against them.

Had any of those men earned more than that?—There were instances in which they had earned 20s. a-day.

And all came upon the pauper list just the same?—Yes, just as destitute as the rest, saving never seems to enter into their calculation at all.

Then with respect to this particular class, notwithstanding their earning wages twice as much as agricultural labourers earn probably, and which agricultural labourers save money, and are depositors in savings-banks, these men made no deposits, and no reserve, but the whole of them fall upon the rates? In one shape or other they receive the public charity, is that so?—Yes, in fact they have not the means possessed by other labourers, of pawning anything. I question whether you could find as much furniture in any one of their houses, as you could pawn for 2s. 6d.

Not even in those cases where they are earning a guinea a-day?—No, they are all alike destitute, and their families look as dirty and as filthy, and are as ill-governed, and their houses are as destitute of furniture as those who earn the smaller sums, there is no difference; and in case of sickness they come at once upon the parish, unless they sometimes assist each other a little; but, however, they have no certain means at all but the parish. 456Their sicknesses are generally short. In most cases they are so ill prepared to bear sickness, that they are cut off very rapidly, and die comparatively young. I do not speak this from actual experience however.

Have you seen the cases of the widows, and the children coming in upon the parish?—Yes, we have 28 cases now. Our present numbers are 425 children, that is from the whole of the Union; there is only a small portion of the Union in the coal-whippers’ district, but we have 28 children directly belonging to them, some of them legitimate, and others illegitimate; all of that origin that we know decidedly that they are the produce of those coal-whippers.

Are the same observations as to the causes of the pauperism of the adults to be taken as to the causes of the pauperism of the children?—Yes. The observation is universal. The children cannot have produced it themselves, but they have the same habits and the same proneness to indulge the appetites, in fact I think there is a remarkable deficiency in the consideration of most parents, in that matter, even of respectable parents; they let their children go to the confectioners and buy drams, for they are drams in another form, peppermint and cloves, and so on, made up into articles of confectionary, and nothing is so likely to produce a depraved appetite, the transition is so natural from that to ardent spirit.

With respect to the residences of those classes, the coal-whippers especially, have you observed whether you have bad any cases of sickness arising from their state of filthiness, or traceable to it?—I do not know whether we can attribute it to that, but nothing can be more likely, although it is impossible to say, for the coal-whipper is very little at home, still nothing can be conceived more destitute, or more disgusting than their abodes.

What are the sorts of children you receive in the house from them with respect to training or education, that is, of those classes of coal-whippers?—They are completely uneducated; the generality of them are very untractable.

Allowed to run about wild?—Completely.

No care taken of them?—Not the ordinary care of cleanliness. I had three in last night, and notwithstanding all our anxiety after economy we were obliged to burn every rag of their clothes. To cleanse them was out of the question entirely; that is the case with half that come in to the workhouse.

Mr. Sargeant, the relieving officer of the same district.

Is it not your duty to visit the houses, and to inquire into the cases of applicants for relief? Yes, it is.

In doing so, you must trace the causes of the application for relief?—Yes.

What is the chief cause you find precede the application for relief?—Excessive drink.

In respect to those trammels which it is described that the coal-whippers are in, what is the consequence as to their households? how do you find, when you visit those cases, that their houses are provided?—I would rather sleep in my coal-hole than in any of their hovels. I went into six houses yesterday, each house contains four rooms, and in some of those houses there were 30 souls. In the least house there were 17.

How many sleep in the same room?—In one room there were four widows and two children, in the most wretched place imaginable.

Are quarrels between man and wife frequent?—Yes; through drink.

Are separations frequent? Yes; separations through drink on the part of the wife.

How many cases have you of wives separated from their husbands in the same way? I have had 15.

The wives, then, have imbibed the habits of the husbands? Yes.

Is there no cleanliness on a Sunday? Oh dear, no!

457No attendance to church? No.

As to the children, what is their condition? The children of most abject wretchedness. Those poor children are sent out to scour the streets, to pick up and do anything else they can; and not particular to thieving.

What the condition of the girls?—The girls, when infants of seven years of age, are turned out into the streets with fruit and all sorts of things; when they arrive at the age of 14, go to stay stitching; then they sit in doors at home with their mother, and so on, until the age of 15 or 16, when they generally become prostitutes. I see it, because I am always amongst them. I have tried to get them to send those girls out to service, when they say, “Mr. Sargeant, what am I to do? my husband earns but little, I am obliged to depend upon what my daughter can do and myself.”

Mr. Rooke, the relieving officer of St. George’s in the East.

I know the poor population of our parish well. I know that a large proportion of the juvenile delinquents in our streets are coal-whippers’ children; I have known some of them to be transported. I know also that the girls, who are coal-whippers’ children, turn out prostitutes; it is seldom that any of them turn out to be good servants. Delirium tremens is a frequent complaint amongst the coal-whippers, and it sometimes extends to madness. There is one girl, for example, Margaret Harley, aged 25, the daughter of a coal-whipper, who, for the last 10 years, has always been either in a prison, in our workhouse, or the lunatic asylum; I do not believe that during that time she has been 10 months out of either of those places. I know a large proportion of the prostitutes in our district who, as the children of these improvident classes, have either been inmates of the house or otherwise chargeable to the public.

LONDON:

Printed by William Clowes and Sons, Stamford Street,

For Her Majesty’s Stationery Office.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

Added page numbers for the major headings in the Contents.

Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling.

Archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as printed.