menu_book Chapter 59

section fifty nine of london labour and the london poor volume two by henry mayhew this librivox recording is in the public domain recording by gillian henry of casual labour in general and that of the rubbish carters in particular part two The next means of inducing a quicker rate of working and so economising the number of labourers is by the division and subdivision of labour. In perhaps all the skilled work of London, of the better sort, this is more or less the case. It is the case in a much smaller degree in the country. The nice subdivision makes

the operatives perfect adepts in their respective branches, working at them with a greater and a more assured facility than if their care had to be given to the whole work, and in this manner the work is completed in less time, and consequently by fewer hands. In illustration of the extraordinary increased productiveness induced by the division of labour, I need only cite the well-known cases. It is found, says Mr. Mill, that the productive

power of labour is increased by carrying the separation further and further, by breaking down more and more every process of industry into parts, so that each labourer shall confine himself to an even smaller number of simple operations, and thus in time arise those remarkable cases of what is called the division of labour, with which all readers on subjects of this nature are familiar. Adam Smith's illustration from Pinmaking, though so well known, is so much to

the point that I will venture once more to transcribe it. Quote, The business of making a pin is divided into eighteen distinct operations. One man draws out the wire, another straightens it, a third cuts it, a fourth points it, and a fifth grinds it at the top for receiving the head. To make the head requires two or three distinct operations. To put it on is a peculiar business. To whiten the pins is another.

It is even a trade by itself to put them into the paper. I have seen a small manufactory where ten men only were employed, and where some of them consequently performed two or three distinct operations. But though they were very poor, and therefore but indifferently accommodated with the necessary machinery, they could, when they exerted themselves, make among them about twelve pounds of pins in a day.

There are in a pound upwards of 4,000 pins of a middling size. Those ten persons, therefore, could make among them upwards of 48,000 pins in a day. Each person, therefore, making a tenth part of 48,000 pins might be considered as making 4,800 pins in a day. But if they had all wrought separately and independently,

and without any of them having been educated to this peculiar business, they certainly could not each of them have made twenty, perhaps not one, pin in a day. Monsieur C furnishes a still stronger example of the effects of division of labour, from a not very important branch of industry certainly, the manufacture of playing cards. Quote,

operations, every one of which might be the occupation of a distinct class of workmen. And if there are not 70 classes of workpeople in each card manufactory, it is because the division of labour is not carried so far as it might be, because the same workman is charged with two, three or four distinct operations. The influence of this distribution of employment is immense. I have seen a card manufactory where 30 workmen produced daily 15,500 cards,

being above 500 cards for each labourer, and it may be presumed that if each of these workmen were obliged to perform all the operations himself, even supposing him a practised hand, he would not perhaps complete two cards in a day, and the 30 workmen, instead of 15,500 cards, would make only 60. End quote. One great promoter of the decrease of manual labour is to be found in the economy of labour

from a very different cause to any I have pointed out as tending to the increase of surplus hands and casual labour, namely, to the use of machinery. In this country, the use of machinery has economised the labour both of man and horse to a greater extent than is known in any other land, and that in nearly all departments of commerce or traffic.

The total estimated machine power in the kingdom is 600 million of human beings, and this has been all produced within the last century. In agriculture, for example, the threshing of the corn was the peasants' work of the later autumn and of a great part of the winter, until towards the latter part of the last century. The harvest was hardly considered complete until the corn was threshed by the peasants.

On the first introduction of the threshing machines, they were demolished in many places by the country labourers, whose rage was excited to find that their winter's work, instead of being regular, had become casual. But the use of these machines is now almost universal. It would of course be the height of absurdity to say that threshing machines could possibly increase the number of threshers, even as the reaping machines cannot possibly increase the number of reapers.

Their effect is rather to displace the greater number of labourers so engaged, and hence indeed the economy of them. It is not known what number of men were at any time employed in threshing corn. Their displacement was gradual, and in some of the more remote parts of the provinces, the flails of the threshers may be heard still.

But if a threshing machine, for they are of different power, do the work, as has been stated, of six labourers, the economisation or displacement of manual labour is at once shown to be the economisation and displacement of the whole labour for a season of a countryside, thus increasing surplus hands. In other matters, in the unloading vessels by cranes, in all branches of manufacturers, and even in such minor matters as the grinding of coffee berries and the cutting and splitting of wood for lucifer matches,

an immense amount of manual labour has been minimised, economised or displaced by steam machinery. On my inquiry into the condition of the London Sawyers, I found that the labour of 2,000 men had been displaced by the steam sawmills of the metropolis alone.

At one of the largest builders, I saw machines for making mortises and tenons, for sticking mouldings and indeed performing all the operations of the carpenter. one such machine doing the work perhaps of a hundred men. I asked the probable influence that such an instrument was likely to have on the men. Ruin them all, was the laconic reply of the superintendent of the business.

Within the last year, casks have been made by machinery, a feat that the Coopers declared impossible. Wheels also have been lately produced by steam. I need, however, as I have so recently touched upon the subject, do no more than call attention to the information I have given,

page 240, volume 2, concerning the use of machinery in lieu of human labour. It is there shown that if the public street-sweeping were effected throughout the metropolis by the machines, nearly 196 of the 275 manual labourers

now scavenging for the parish contractors would be thrown out of work and deprived of £7,438, pounds out of their joint earnings in the year. It is the fashion of political economists to insist on the general proposition that machinery increases the demand for labour rather than

decreases it. When they write unguardedly, however, they invariably betray a consciousness that the benefits of machinery to manual labourers are not quite so invariable as they would otherwise make out. Here, for instance, is a confession from the pamphlet on The Employer and Employed, published by the Messrs' Chambers, gentlemen who surely cannot be accused of being averse to economical doctrines. It is true the pamphlet is intended to show the evils of strikes to

working men, but it likewise points out the evils of mechanical power to the same class, when applied to certain operations. Strikes also lead to the superseding of hand labour by machines, says this little work. In 1831, on the occasion of a strike at Manchester, several of the capitalists, afraid of their business being driven to other countries, had recourse to the celebrated machinists Messrs. Sharp and Co. of Manchester, requesting them to direct the inventive talents

of their partner, Mr. Roberts, to the construction of a self-acting mule in order to emancipate the trade from galling slavery and impending ruin. Under assurances of the most liberal encouragement in the adoption of his invention, Mr. Roberts suspended his professional pursuits as an engineer and set his fertile genius to construct a spinning automaton. In the course of a few months, he produced a machine called the Self-Acting Mule, which in 1834 was in

operation in upwards of 60 factories, doing the work of the head spinners so much better than they could do it themselves as to leave them no chance against it. In his work on the philosophy of manufacturers, Dr. Ewer observes on the same subject, quote, the elegant art of calico printing, which embodies in its operations the most elegant problems of chemistry as well as mechanics, had been for a long period the sport of foolish

journeymen, who turned the liberal means of comfort it furnished them into weapons of warfare against their employers and the trade itself. They were, in fact, by their delirious combinations, plotting to kill the goose which laid the golden eggs of their industry, or to force it to fly off to a foreign land, where it might live without molestation. In the spirit of Egyptian taskmasters, the operative printers dictated to the manufacturers the number and quality of the

apprentices to be admitted into the trade, the hours of their own labour, and the wages to be paid them. At length capitalists sought deliverance from this intolerable bondage in the resources of science, and were speedily reinstated in their legitimate dominion of the head over the inferior members. The four-colour and five-colour machines, which now render calico printing an unerring and expeditious process are mounted in all great establishments. It was under the high pressure

of the same despotic confederacies that self-acting apparatus for executing the dying and rinsing operations has been devised, end quote. The croppers of the west riding of Yorkshire and the hecklers or flaxdressers can unfold a tale of woe on this subject. Their earnings exceeded those of most mechanics, but the frequency of strikes among them, and the irregularities in their hours and times of working, compelled masters to substitute machinery for their manual labour.

Their trades, in consequence, have been in a great measure superseded. It must then be admitted that machinery, in some cases at least, does displace manual labour, and so tend to produce a surplusage of labourers, even as overwork, Sunday work, scamping work, strapping work, piece work, minutely divided work, and so on, have the same effect so long as the quantity of work to be done remains unaltered. The extensibility of the market is the one circumstance which determines

whether the economy of labour produced by these means is a blessing or a curse to the nation. to apply mechanical power, the division of labour, the large system of production, or indeed any other means of enabling a less number of labourers to do the same amount of work, when the quantity of work to be done is limited in its nature, as, for instance, the threshing of corn, the sawing of wood, and so on,

is necessarily to make either paupers or criminals, of those who were previously honest, independent men, living by the exercise of their industry in that particular direction. Economise your labour one half in connection with a particular article and you must sell twice the quantity of that article

or displace a certain number of the labourers. That is to say, suppose it requires 400 men to produce 4,000 commodities in a given time. Then if you enable 200 men to produce the same quantity in the same time, you must get rid of 8,000 commodities. or deprive a certain number of labourers of their ordinary means of living.

Indeed, the proposition is almost self-evident, though generally ignored by social philosophers. Economise your labour at a greater rate than you expand your markets, and you must necessarily increase your paupers and criminals in precisely the same ratio.

The division of labour, says Mr Mill, following Adam Smith, is limited by the extent of the market. if by the separation of pin making into 10 distinct employments 48,000 pins can be made in a day, this separation will only be advisable if the number of accessible consumers is such as to require every day something like 48,000 pins.

If there is a demand for only 25,000, the division of labour can be advantageously carried but to the extent which will every day produce that smaller number. Again, as regards the large system of production, the same authority says, The possibility of substituting the large system of production for the small

depends of course on the extent of the market. The large system can only be advantageous when a large amount of business is to be done. It implies therefore either a populous and flourishing community, or a great opening for exportation. But these are mere glimmerings of the broad incontrovertible principle

that the economisation of labour at a greater rate than the expansion of the markets is necessarily the cause of surplus labour in a community. The effect of machinery in depriving the families of agricultural labourers of their ordinary sources of income is well established. Those countries, writes Mr Thornton,

in which the class of agricultural labourers is most depressed, have all one thing in common. Each of them was formerly the seat of a flourishing manufacture, carried on by the cottagers at their own homes, which has now decayed or been withdrawn to other situations. Thus, in Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire, the wives and children of labouring men had formerly very profitable occupation in making lace. During the last war, a tolerable lacemaker, working eight hours a day, could easily earn ten shillings or twelve shillings a week.

The profits of this employment have been since so much reduced by the use of machinery that a pillow-lacemaker must now work 12 hours daily to earn 2 shillings sixpence a week. The last of the conditions above cited as causing the same or a greater amount of work to be executed with a less quantity of labour is the large system of production. Mr. Babbage and Mr. Mill have so well and fully pointed out the economy of labour, effected in this manner, that I cannot do better than quote from them upon this subject. Even when no additional subdivision of the work, says Mr. Mill, would follow an enlargement of the

operation, there will be good economy in enlarging them to the point at which every person to whom it is convenient to assign a special occupation, will have full employment in that occupation. This point is well illustrated by Mr. Babbage. If machines be kept working through the 24 hours, note, which is evidently the only economical mode of employing them, end note, it is necessary that some person shall attend to admit the workmen at the time they relieve each other, and whether the

porter or other servant so employed admit one person or twenty, his rest will be equally disturbed. It will also be necessary occasionally to adjust or repair the machine, and this can be done much better by a workman accustomed to machine making than by the person who uses it. Now, since the good performance and the duration of machines depend to a very great extent upon correcting every shake or imperfection in their parts as soon as they appear, the prompt attention of a

workman resident on the spot will considerably reduce the expenditure arising from the wear and tear of the machinery. But in the case of a single lace frame or a single loom, this would be too expensive a plan. Here then arises another circumstance which tends to enlarge the extent of the factory. It ought to consist of such a number of machines as shall occupy the whole time of one workman in keeping them in order. If extended beyond that number, the same principle

of economy would point out the necessity of doubling or tripling the number of machines in order to employ the whole time of two or three skilful workmen, where one portion of the workman's labour consists in the exertion of mere physical force, as in weaving, and in many similar arts, it will soon occur to the manufacturer that if that part were executed by a steam engine, the same man might, in the case of weaving, attend to two or more looms at once. And since we already

suppose that one or more operative engineers have been employed, the number of looms may be so that their time shall be fully occupied in keeping the steam engine and the looms in order. Pursuing the same principles, the manufactory becomes gradually so enlarged that the expense of lighting during the night amounts to a considerable sum, and as there are already attached to the establishment persons who are up all night

and can therefore constantly attend to it, and also engineers to make and keep in repair any machinery, The addition of an apparatus for making gas to light the factory leads to a new extension, at the same time that it contributes, by diminishing the expense of lighting and the risk of accidents from fire, to reduce the cost of manufacturing. Long before a factory has reached this extent, it will have been found necessary to establish an accountant's department,

with clerks to pay the workmen and to see that they arrived at their stated times, and this department must be in communication with the agents who purchase the raw produce and with those who sell the manufactured article. It will cost these clerks and accountants little more time and trouble to pay a large number of workmen than a small number,

to check the accounts of large transactions than of small. If the business doubled itself, it would probably be necessary to increase, but certainly not to double, the number either of accountants or of buying and selling agents. Every increase of business would enable the whole to be carried on with a proportionally smaller amount of labour. As a general rule, the expenses of a business do not increase by any means

proportionally to the quantity of business. Let us take, as an example, a set of operations which we are accustomed to see carried on by one great establishment, that of the post office. Suppose that the business, let us say only of the London letter post, instead of being centralised in a single concern, were divided among five or six competing companies. Each of these would be obliged to maintain almost as large an establishment as is now sufficient for the

whole, since each must arrange for receiving and delivering letters in all parts of the town, Each must send letter carriers into every street and almost every alley, and this too as many times in the day as is now done by the post office, if the service is to be as well performed. Each must have an office for receiving letters in every neighbourhood,

with all subsidiary arrangements for collecting the letters from the different offices and redistributing them. I say nothing of the much greater number of superior officers who would be required to check and control the subordinates, implying not only a greater cost in salaries for such responsible officers, but the necessity perhaps of being satisfied in many instances

with an inferior standard of qualification and so failing in the object. But this refers solely to the large system of business as applied to purposes of manufacture and distribution. In connection with agriculture, there is the same saving of labour effected. The large farmer, says Mr Mill, has some advantage in the article of buildings.

It does not cost so much to house a great number of cattle in one building as to lodge them equally well in several buildings. There is also some advantage in implements. A small farmer is not so likely to possess expensive instruments, but the principal agricultural implements, even when of the best construction, are not expensive.

It may not answer to a small farmer to own a threshing machine for the small quantity of corn he has to thresh, but there is no reason why such a machine should not in every neighbourhood be owned in common or provided by some person to whom the others pay a consideration for its use. The large farmer can make some saving in cost of carriage, there is nearly as much trouble in carrying a small portion of produce to market as a much greater produce in bringing home a small as a much larger quantity of manure and articles of daily consumption there is also the greater cheapness of buying things in large quantities

a short time ago i went into buckinghamshire to look into the allotment system and in one parish of 1800 acres i found that some years ago there were seventeen farmers who occupied upon the average one hundred acres each and who previous to the immigration of the irish harvestmen constantly employed six men apiece, or in the aggregate upwards of 100 hands. Now, however, the farmers in the same parish occupy to the extent of 300 acres each, and respectively employ only six men, and a few extra hands at harvest time. Thus the number of hands employed by this system has been decreased one half.

I learned, moreover, from a clergyman there, who had resided in Wiltshire, that the same thing was going on in that county also, that small farms were giving way to large farms, and that at least half the labourers had been displaced. The agricultural labourers at the time of taking the last census were 1,500,000 in number, so that if this system be generally carried out, there must be 750,000 labourers and their families, or 3 million people, deprived of

their living by it. Sir James Graham, in his evidence before the Committee on Criminal Commitments, has given us some curious particulars as to the decrease of the number of hands required for agricultural purposes, where the large system of production is pursued in place of the small. He has told us how many hands he was enabled to get rid of by these means. The proportion of labour displaced, it will be seen, amounted to about 10% of the labouring population. In answer to a

question relative to the increase of population in his district, he replied, quote, I have myself taken very strong means to prevent it, for it so happens that my whole estate came out of lease in the year 1822, after the currency of a lease of 14 years, and by consolidation of farms and the destruction of cottages, I have diminished upon my own property the population to the extent of from 300 to 400 souls. On how many acres? On about 30,000 acres. Note, this is at the rate of one in

every 100 acres. End note. What was the whole extent of population? It was under 4,000 before I reduced it. What became of those 300 or 400? The greater part of them, being small tenants, were enabled to find farms on the estates of other proprietors, who pursued the opposite course of subdividing their estates for the purpose of obtaining higher nominal rents. Others have become day-labourers, and as day-labourers I have reason to know they are more thriving than they were on

my estate as small farmers, subject to a high rent, which their want of capital seldom enabled them to pay. Two or three of these families went to America. Have you any out of work? None entirely out of work, some only partially employed. But since the dispersion of this large mass of population, the supply of labour has not much exceeded the demand. For whenever I removed a family, I pulled down the house, and the parochial jealousy respecting settlements is an ample check on the

influx of strangers. End quote. Similar to the influence of the large system of production in its displacement of labourers, as enabling a large quantity of work to be executed by one establishment with a smaller number of hands than would be required were the amount of work to be divided into a number of smaller establishments. Similar to this mode of economising labour is that mode of work which,

by altering the produce rather than the mode of production, and by substituting an article that requires less labour for one that required more, gets rid of a large quantity of labour and consequently adds to the surplusage of labourers. An instance of this is in the substitution of pasturage for tillage.

plough less and graze more says sir j graham the great economist of labour simply because fewer people will be required to attend to the land but this plan of grazing instead of ploughing was adopted in this country some centuries back and with what effect to the labourers and the people at large the following extract from the work of mr thornton on overpopulation will show the extension of the woollen manufacture was raising the price of wool and the little attendance which sheep require was an additional motive for causing sheep farming to be preferred to tillage arable land therefore began to be converted into pasture and the seemingly interminable cornfields which like those of germany at this day probably extended for miles without having their even surface broken by fences or any other visible boundaries disappeared after being sown with grass they were surrounded and divided by inclosures to prevent the sheep from straying and to do away with the necessity of having shepherds always on the watch

by these changes the quantity of work to be done upon a farm was exceedingly diminished and most of the servants whom it had been usual to board and lodge in the manor and farm-houses were dismissed this was not all the married farm servants were ousted from their cottages which were pulled down and their gardens and fields were annexed to the adjoining meadows the small farmers were treated in the same way as their leases fell in and were sent to join the daily increasing crowd of competitors for work that was daily increasing in quantity even freeholders were in some instances ejected from their lands this social revolution had probably commenced even before the prosperity of the peasantry had reached its climax but in fourteen eighty seven it attracted the notice of parliament and an act was passed to restrain its progress for already it was observed that inclosures were becoming more frequent whereby arable land which could not be manured without people and families was turned into pasture which was easily rid by a few herdsmen

and that tenancies for years lives and at will whereupon most of the yeomanry lived were turned into demesnes lord bacon's history of king henry the seventh works volume five page sixty one and note in fifteen thirty three note twenty fifth henry the eighth cap thirteen and note an act was passed strongly condemning the practice of accumulating farms which it was declared had reduced a marvellous multitude of the people to poverty and misery and left them no alternative but to steal or to die pitifully of cold and hunger in this act it was stated that single farms might be found with flocks of from ten thousand to twenty thousand sheep upon them and it was ordained that no man should keep more than two thousand sheep except upon his own land or rent more than two farms Two years later it was enacted that the king should have a moiety of the profits of land converted, subsequently to a date specified, from tillage to pastures, until a suitable house was erected and the land was restored to tillage.

In 1552, a law was made, which required that on all estates, as large a quantity of land as had been kept in tillage for four years together at any time since the accession of Henry VIII, should be so continued in tillage. But these and many subsequent enactments of the same kind had not the smallest effect in checking the consolidation of farms. We find Roger Asham in Queen Elizabeth's reign lamenting the dispersion of families, the ruin of houses,

the breaking up and destruction of the noble yeomanry, the honour and strength of England. Harrison also speaks of towns pulled down for sheep walks and of the tenements that had fallen either down or into the Lord's hands, or had been brought and united together by other men,

so that in some one manner seventeen, eighteen, or twenty houses were shrunk. Note Eden's History of the Poor, Volume 1, page 118. End note. Where have been a great many householders and inhabitants, says Bishop Latimer, there is now but a shepherd and his dog.

note latimer's sermons page one hundred and note and in a curious tract published in fifteen eighty one by one william stafford a husbandman is made to exclaim marry these enclosures do and undo us all for they make us pay dearer for our land that we occupy and causeth that we can have no land to put to tillage all is taken up for pasture either for sheep or for grazing of cattle insomuch that i have known of late a dozen ploughs within less compass than six miles about me laid down within this seven years and where threescore persons or upwards had their livings now one man with his cattle hath all those sheep is the cause of all our mischief for they have driven husbandry out of the country by which was increased before all kinds of victuals and now altogether sheep sheep sheep .

While numbers of persons were thus continually driven from their homes and deprived of their means of livelihood, we need not be at a loss to account for the increase of vagrancy without ascribing it to the increase of population." As an instance, within our time, of the same mode of causing a

a surplusage of labourers, and so adding to the quantity of casual labour in the kingdom, namely by the extension of pasturage and consequent diminution of tillage. We may cite the clearances, as they were called, which took place some few years back in the highlands of Scotland. It is only within the last few years, says the author above quoted, that the straths and glens of Sutherland have been cleared of their inhabitants, and that the whole country has

been converted into one immense sheep walk, over which the traveller may proceed for 40 miles together without seeing a tree or a stone wall or anything but a heath dotted with sheep and lambs. Note, reports of the commissioner of the Times newspaper in June 1845. End note.

The example of Sutherland is imitated in the neighbouring counties. During the last four years, some hundreds of families have been weeded out of Rothshire, and nearly 400 more have received notice to quit next year. Similar notice has been given to 34 families in Cromartie, and only the other day 18 families, who were living in peace and comfort in Glencalvy in Rothshire,

were expelled from the farms occupied for ages by themselves and their forefathers to make room for sheep. End quote. and still we are told to plough less and graze more. We now come to the last mentioned of the circumstances inducing a surplusage of labourers,

and consequently augmenting the amount of casual labour throughout the kingdom, namely by altering the mode of hiring the labourers. At page 236 of the present volume, I have said in connection with this part of the subject,

Quote, and the consequent discarding of men when no longer required that has partly caused the immense mass of surplus labourers who are continually vagabondising through the country begging or stealing as they go men for whom there is but some two or three weeks work harvesting hop picking and the like throughout the year End quote. Blackstone, in treating of the laws relating to master and servant, the greater part of the farm labourers or farm servants, as they were then called, being included under the latter head, tells us at page 425 of his first volume, quote, the first sort of servants acknowledged by

the laws of England are menial servants, so called from being intermenia or domestic. The contract between them and their masters arises upon the hiring. If the hiring be generally, without any particular time limited, the law construes it to be a hiring for a year. Common law 42. Upon a principle of natural equity, that the servant shall serve, and the master maintain him, throughout all the revolutions of the respective seasons, as well when there is work to be done, as when there

is not. End quote. Mr. Thornton says, Until recently it had been common for farm servants, even when married and living in their own cottages, to take their meals with their master, and what was of more consequence, in every farmhouse many unmarried servants of both sexes were lodged as well as boarded. The latter, therefore, even if ill-paid, might be tolerably housed and fed, and many of them fared no doubt much better than they could have done if they

had been left to provide for themselves, with treble their actual wages. Formerly throughout the kingdom, and it is a custom still prevalent in some parts, more especially in the north, single men and women seeking engagements as farm servants, congregated at what were called the hirings, held usually on the three consecutive market days, which were nearest to May Day and Martin this day. The hiring was thus at two periods of the year, but the engagement was

usually for the twelve-month. By the concurrent consent, however, of master and servant, when the hiring took place, either side might terminate it at the expiration of the six months by giving due notice, or a further hiring for a second twelve-month could be legally effected without the necessity of again going to the hirings the servants even before their term of service had expired could attend a hiring generally held under the authority of the town's charter as a matter of right the master and mistress having no authority to prevent them The market cross was the central point for the holding of the hirings, and the men and women, the latter usually the most numerous, stood in rows round the cross.

The terms being settled, the master or mistress gave the servant a piece of money, known as a God's penny, the Hansel penny. The offer and acceptance of this God's penny being a legal ratification of the agreement, without any other step. In the old times, such engagements had almost always, as shown in the term God's penny, a character of religious obligation. At the earliest period, the hirings were held in the churchyards, afterwards by the market cross.

I have spoken of this matter more in the past than the present tense, for the system is greatly changed as regards the male farm servant, though little as regards the female. Now, the male farm labourers, instead of being hired for a specific term, are more generally hired by week, by job, or by day. Indeed, even half a day's work is known.

At one period, it was merely the married country labourers, residing in their own cottages, who were temporarily engaged. But it is now the general body, married and unmarried, old and young, with a few exceptions. Formally the farmer was bound to find work for six or twelve months,

for both terms existed, for his hired labourers. If the land did not supply it, still the man must be maintained and be paid his full wages when due. By such a provision the labour and wage of the hired husbandman were regular and rarely casual.

But this arrangement is now seldom entered into, and the hired husbandman's labour is consequently generally casual and rarely regular. This principle of hiring labourers only for so long as they are wanted, as contradistinguished from the principle of natural equity, spoken of by Blackstone, which requires that the servant shall serve and the master maintain him

throughout all the revolutions of the respective seasons, as well when there is work to be done as when there is not, has been the cause perhaps of more casual labour and more pauperism and crime in this country than perhaps any other of the antecedents before mentioned. The harvest is now collected solely by casual labourers, by a horde of squalid immigrants,

or the tribe of natural and forced vagabonds who are continually begging or stealing their way throughout the country. Our hops are picked, our fruit and vegetables gathered by the same precarious bands, wretches who perhaps obtain some three months' harvest labour in the course of the year. The ships at our several ports are discharged by the same casual hands, who may be seen at our docks scrambling like hounds for the occasional bit of bread that is vouchsafed to them.

Their numbers loiter throughout the day, even on the chance of an hour's employment. for the term of hiring has been cut down to the finest possible limits, so that the labourer may not be paid for even a second longer than he is wanted. And since he gets only bare subsistence money when employed, what, we should ask ourselves, must be his lot when unemployed.

End of section 59