The Claims of Labour Part 6

"Betwixt the wind and their n.o.bility"

you can hardly expect persons, whose perception in such matters is much less nice, to have any care at all. It is evident that the health of towns requires to be watched by scientific men, and improvements constantly urged on by persons who take an especial interest in the subject. If I were a despot, I would soon have a band of Arnotts, Chadwicks, Southwood Smiths, Smiths of Deanston, Joneses, and the like; and one should have gratified a wiser ambition than Augustus if one could say of any great town, Sordidam inveni, purgatam reliqui.

The supply of water is of course one of the chief means for the purification of a town. It is at present, I fear, grievously neglected throughout the country. The Sanitary Report draws attention to the mode of supplying water to Bath, and gas to Manchester: and adduces the latter as an instance "of the practicability of obtaining supplies for the common benefit of a town without the agency of private companies." And Mr. Chadwick, after a lengthened investigation into the subject which will well repay perusal, thus concludes:

"I venture to add, as the expression of an opinion founded on communications from all parts of the kingdom, that as a highly important sanitary measure connected with any general building regulations, whether for villages or for any cla.s.s of towns, arrangements should be made for all houses to be supplied with good water, and should be prescribed as being as essential to cleanliness and health as the possession of a roof or of due s.p.a.ce; that for this purpose, and in places where the supplies are not at present satisfactory, power should be vested in the most eligible local administrative body, which will generally be found to be that having charge of cleansing and structural arrangements, to procure proper supplies for the cleansing of the streets, for sewerage, for protection against fires, as well as for domestic use."

It is possible that some of my readers may think that the wretched state of ventilation, drainage, and building, which I have been commenting upon, is mainly to be accounted for by poverty. It belongs, they may say, to an old country; it is the long acc.u.mulated neglect of ages; it embodies the many vicissitudes of trade which Great Britain has felt; it is a thing which the people would remedy for themselves, if you could only give them more employment and better wages. In answer to this I will refer to an authority quoted by Mr. Chadwick in his Essay on the "Pressure and Progress of the Causes of Mortality," read before the Statistical Society in 1843.

"In abundance of employment, in high wages, and the chief circ.u.mstances commonly reputed as elements of prosperity of the labouring cla.s.ses, the city of New York is deemed pre-eminent. I have been favoured with a copy of '_The Annual Report of the Interments in the City and County of New York for the Year_ 1842,'

presented to the Common Council by Dr. John Griscom, the city inspector, in which it may be seen how little those circ.u.mstances have hitherto preserved large ma.s.ses of people from physical depression. He has stepped out of the routine to examine on the spot the circ.u.mstances attendant on the mortality which the figures represent. He finds that upwards of 33,000 of the population of that city live in cellars, courts, and alleys, of which 6618 are dwellers in cellars. 'Many,' he states, 'of these back places are so constructed as to cut off all circulation of air, the line of houses being across the entrance, forming a _cul de sac_, while those in which the line is parallel with, and at one side of the entrance, are rather more favourably situated, but still excluded from any general visitation of air in currents. As to the influence of these localities upon the health and lives of the inmates, there is, and can be, no dispute; but few are aware of the dreadful extent of the disease and suffering to be found in them. In the damp, dark, and chilly cellars, fevers, rheumatism, contagious and inflammatory disorders, affections of the lungs, skin, and eyes, and numerous others, are rife, and too often successfully combat the skill of the physician and the benevolence of strangers.

"'I speak now of the influence of the locality merely. The degraded habits of life, the degenerate morals, the confined and crowded apartments, and insufficient food, of those who live in more elevated rooms, comparatively beyond the reach of the exhalations of the soil, engender a different train of diseases, sufficiently distressing to contemplate; but the addition to all these causes of the foul influences of the incessant moisture and more confined air of under-ground rooms, is productive of evils which humanity cannot regard without shuddering.'

"He gives instances where the cellar population had been ravaged by fever, whilst the population occupying the upper apartments of the same houses were untouched. In respect to the condition of these places, he cites the testimony of a physician, who states that, 'frequently in searching for a patient living in the same cellar, my attention has been attracted to the place by a peculiar and nauseous effluvium issuing from the door, indicative of the nature and condition of the inmates.' A main cause of this is the filthy external state of the dwellings and defective street cleansing and defective supplies of water, which, except that no provision is made for laying it on the houses of the poorer cla.s.ses, is about to be remedied by a superior public provision."

After considering this account of the State of New York, it will hardly do to say, that, even under favourable circ.u.mstances, you can leave the great ma.s.s of the people to take care of those structural arrangements with regard to their habitations, which only the scientific research of modern times has taught any persons to regard with due attention.

We have now gone over some of the princ.i.p.al places where the employer of labour may find scope for benevolent exertion. It has been a most inartificial division of the subject, but still one that may be retained in the memory, which is a strange creature, not always to be bound by logic, but led along by minute ties of a.s.sociation, among which those of place are very strong and clinging. I now venture to discuss a branch of the subject which can hardly be referred to any particular spot, unless, indeed, I were to name the manufacturer's own house as the fit ground for it: I mean the social intercourse between the employers and the employed.

Some persons will, perhaps, be startled at the phrase; hardly, however, those who have come thus far with me. By social intercourse I do not merely mean that which will naturally take place in the ordinary charities, such as visiting the sick, managing clothing societies, and the like: but that intercourse which includes an interchange of thought, an occasional community of pursuit, and an opportunity of indirect instruction; which may be frequent and extensive enough to avoid the evil effects of a sense of perpetual condescension on one side, and timidity on the other; and which may give the employer some chance at least of learning the general wants and wishes of his people, and also of appreciating their individual characters.

This matter is not an easy one. It requires tact, patience, discretion, and the application of several of the maxims mentioned in the preceding chapter. I am not sure however, that it is any sacrifice whatever in the way of pleasure. The manufacturer's family who occasionally give an evening to social intercourse with their people, will not, perhaps, find that evening less amusing than many that they may pa.s.s with their equals.

The advantage, to the rising generation of working people, of some intercourse with their betters, would be very great. I must here quote the authority of one who has fully expressed in action the benevolent views which he has indicated in the following words. "No humble cottage youth or maiden will ever acquire the charm of pleasing manners by rules, or lectures, or sermons, or legislation, or any other of those abortive means by which we from time to time endeavour to change poor human nature, if they are not permitted to _see_ what they are taught they should practise, and to hold intercourse with those whose manners are superior to their own." This intercourse will probably lead to something like accomplishments among the young people. Some of them will profit more than others from the manners and accomplishments which they will observe. And such differences will create a higher order of love among the working people. The manners of one s.e.x will become different from the manners of the other; and the difference of individuals in each s.e.x will be brought into play. All this is favourable to morality. When people work at the same kind of work, have no different pursuits to call out the different qualities of the two s.e.xes, and have all of them manners of the same rude stamp, you can hardly expect that there will be much to enn.o.ble them in their affections.

But, in themselves, the accomplishments and acquirements, which working people may attain from social intercourse with their betters, are great things. The same kind-hearted employer, whom I have quoted before, speaks thus upon the subject. "Another point which has appeared to me of great importance is to provide as many resources as possible of interest and amus.e.m.e.nt for their leisure hours; something to which they may return with renewed relish when their daily work is done; which may render their homes cheerful and happy, and may afford subjects of thought, conversation and pursuit among them." Moreover, a habit of attention, and even scientific modes of thought, are often called out in young people when they are learning some game. Besides to do anything, or know anything, which is harmless, is beneficial. A man will not be a worse workman because he can play at cricket, or at chess; or because he is a good draughtsman, or can touch some musical instrument with skill. He is likely to have more self-respect, and to be a better citizen. He cannot succeed in anything without attention and endurance. And these are the qualities which will enable him to behave reasonably in the vicissitudes of trade, or to prepare as much as possible against them.

In the Report on the condition of children and young persons employed in Mines and Manufactures, there is some remarkable evidence given by a man who had himself risen from the state of life which he describes. It leads us to perceive the great good which any improvement in the domestic accomplishments of the women might be expected to produce. He says,

"Children during their childhood toil throughout the day, acquiring not the least domestic instruction to fit them for wives and mothers.

I will name one instance; and this applies to the general condition of females doomed to, and brought up amongst, shop-work. My mother worked in a manufactory from a very early age. She was clever and industrious; and, moreover, she had the reputation of being virtuous.

She was regarded as an excellent match for a working man. She was married early. She became the mother of eleven children: I am the eldest. To the best of her ability she performed the important duties of a wife and mother. She was lamentably deficient in domestic knowledge; in that most important of all human instruction, how to make the home and the fireside to possess a charm for her husband and children, she had never received one single lesson. She had children apace. As she recovered from her lying-in, so she went to work, the babe being brought to her at stated times to receive nourishment. As the family increased, so any thing like comfort disappeared altogether. The power to make home cheerful and comfortable was never given to her. She knew not the value of cheris.h.i.+ng in my father's mind a love of domestic objects. Not one moment's happiness did I ever see under my father's roof. All this dismal state of things I can distinctly trace to the entire and perfect absence of all training and instruction to my mother. He became intemperate; and his intemperance made her necessitous. She made many efforts to abstain from shop-work; but her pecuniary necessities forced her back into the shop. The family was large, and every moment was required at home. I have known her, after the close of a hard day's work, sit up nearly all night for several nights together was.h.i.+ng and mending of clothes. My father could have no comfort here. These domestic obligations, which in a well-regulated house (even in that of a working man, where there are prudence and good management) would be done so as not to annoy the husband, to my father were a source of annoyance; and he, from an ignorant and mistaken notion, sought comfort in an alehouse.

"My mother's ignorance of household duties; my father's consequent irritability and intemperance; the frightful poverty; the constant quarrelling; the pernicious example to my brothers and sisters; the bad effect upon the future conduct of my brothers; one and all of us being forced out to work so young that our feeble earnings would produce only 1_s._ a-week; cold and hunger, and the innumerable sufferings of my childhood, crowd upon my mind and overpower me.

They keep alive a deep anxiety for the emanc.i.p.ation of the thousands of families in this great town and neighbourhood, who are in a similar state of horrible misery. My own experience tells me that the instruction of the females in the work of a house, in teaching them to produce cheerfulness and comfort at the fireside, would prevent a great amount of misery and crime. There would be fewer drunken husbands and disobedient children. As a working man, within my own observation, female education is disgracefully neglected. I attach more importance to it than to any thing else."

This evidence is the more significant, because, one sees that the poor woman had the material of character out of which the most engaging qualities might have been formed. Let her have seen better things in early life, and even if her schooling had been somewhat deficient, had she but enjoyed the advantage of such social intercourse with her betters as we are now considering, that poor woman might have been a source of joy and hope to her family, instead of a centre of repulsion.

Dr. Cooke Taylor, in his "Tour in the Manufacturing Districts," has given a table, which I subjoin, "showing the degree of instruction, age, and s.e.x; of the persons taken into custody, summarily convicted, or held to bail, and tried and convicted, in Manchester, in the year 1841." The table was formed on statistical details furnished by Sir Charles Shaw.

It shows a state of facts which has been deduced from other tables of a like nature, but the facts are of such moment, that they can hardly be kept too much in mind; especially when we consider that there are large towns in which, as I have said before, half at least of the juvenile population is growing up without education of any kind whatever. {147} If such are the favourable results even of that small and superficial education, which by the way I would rather call instruction than education, described in the second and third headings of the table, what may we not expect from a training where the youth or maiden finds in her employers not only instructors, but friends and occasional companions?

What store of labour on the part of judges, jailors, and policemen, must be saved by even a few of such employers.

TOTAL IN THE YEAR 1841. Degree of Instruction

1. Neither Read nor 2. Read only or 3. Read and Write 4. Superior Write. Read & Write well. Instruction.

imperfectly.

M. & F. Male. Fem. Male. Fem. Male. Fem. Male. Fem. Male. Fem.

1st Cla.s.s Taken into 13345 9925 3420 4901 2070 3944 1218 873 119 207 13 Custody

2nd Cla.s.s Summarily 2138 1661 447 795 265 660 198 193 14 13 . .

Convicted or held to Bail

3rd Cla.s.s Tried and 24 645 179 277 100 276 72 82 7 10 . .

Convicted

AGES.

Under 10 10 Years, & 15 Years, & 20 Years, & 25 Years, & 30 Years, & 40 Years, & 50 Years & 60 Years, & Years of age. under 15. under 20. under 25. under 30. under 40. under 50. under 60. upwards.

Male. Fem. Male. Fem. Male. Fem. Male. Fem. Male. Fem. Male. Fem. Male. Fem. Male. Fem. Male. Fem.

1st 62 6 681 83 1581 656 2425 909 1805 755 1775 582 1018 284 422 85 156 60 Cla.s.s

2nd 4 . . 151 17 302 84 418 150 264 93 327 75 129 39 49 14 17 5 Cla.s.s

3rd . . . . 30 2 150 54 196 61 97 21 109 25 43 11 15 3 5 2 Cla.s.s

Some persons may object to encouraging anything like refinement amongst the operatives; and others, who would hardly object in open terms, find it difficult to reconcile themselves to the idea of it. Whatever there is in this repugnance that arises from any selfish motive should be instantly cast aside. Do not let us be meanly afraid that the cla.s.ses below us will tread too closely on our heels. What a disgrace it is, if, with our much larger opportunities of leisure, with professions that demand a perpetual exercise of the intellectual faculties, we cannot preserve, on the average, an intellectual superiority fully equivalent to the difference of rank and station. Let the vast tracts now left barren smile with cultivation: the happier lands, which the rivers of civilization have enriched for ages, will still maintain their supremacy.

And remember this, that every insight you give the humbler cla.s.ses into the vast expanse of knowledge, you give them the means of estimating with a deference founded on reason, those persons who do possess knowledge of any kind. Let us have faith that knowledge must in the long run lead to good; and let us not fancy that our prosperity as a cla.s.s depends upon the ignorance of those beneath us. Has not our partial enlightenment taught us in some measure to be reconciled to the fact of there being cla.s.ses above us? And why should we fear that knowledge, which smoothes so many of the rugged things in life, should be found unavailing to soften the inequalities of social distinction? It is the ignorant barbarians who can pluck the Roman Senate by the beard; and who, in the depth of savageness, can see nothing in s.e.x, age, station, or office, to demand their veneration. Make the men around you more rational, more instructed, more helpful, more hopeful creatures if you can; above all things treat them justly: and I think you may put aside any apprehension of disturbing the economy of the various orders of the state. And if it can be so disturbed, let it be.

What I have said above is not drawn from airy fancies of my own. Such things as I have suggested, have been done. I could mention one man, who might not, however, thank me for naming him, who has devoted himself to the social improvement of his working people: and, without such an example, I should never, perhaps, have thought of, or ventured to put forward, the above suggestions with respect to the social intercourse between masters and men. It is the same benevolent manufacturer from whose letters to Mr. Horner I have made extracts before. The general system on which he has acted may be best explained in his own words. "In all plans for the education of the labouring cla.s.ses my object would be _not to raise any individuals among them above their condition_, _but to elevate the condition itself_. For I am not one of those who think that the highest ambition of a working man should be to rise above the station in which Providence has placed him, or that he should be taught to believe that because the humblest, it is therefore the least happy and desirable condition of humanity. This is, indeed, a very common notion among the working cla.s.ses of the people, and a very natural one; and it has been encouraged by many of their superiors, who have interested themselves in the cause of popular improvement, and have undertaken to direct and stimulate their exertions. Examples have constantly been held up of men who by unusual ability and proficiency in some branch of science had raised themselves above the condition of their birth, and risen to eminence and wealth; and these instances have been dwelt upon and repeated, in a manner, that, whether intentionally or not, produces the impression that positive and scientific knowledge is the summum bonum of human education, and that to rise above our station in life, should be the great object of our exertion. This is not my creed. I am satisfied that it is an erroneous one, in _any_ system of education for _any_ cla.s.s of men. Our object ought to be, not to produce a few clever individuals, distinguished above their fellows by their comparative superiority, but to make the great ma.s.s of individuals on whom we are operating, virtuous, sensible, well-informed, and well-bred men." And again he states that his object is "to show to his people and to others, that there is nothing in the nature of their employment, or in the condition of their humble lot, that condemns them to be rough, vulgar, ignorant, miserable, or poor:-that there is nothing in either that forbids them to be well-bred-well-informed, well-mannered-and surrounded by every comfort and enjoyment that can make life happy;-in short, to ascertain and to prove what the condition of this cla.s.s of people might be made-what _it ought to be_ made-what is the interest of all parties that _it should be_ made."

Before concluding this chapter, I must say a few more words on the general subject of interference. No one can be more averse than I am to unnecessary interference, or more ready to perceive the many evils which attend it. There is, however, the danger of carrying non-interference into inhumanity. Mankind are so accustomed to the idea that government mainly consists in coercion, that they sometimes find it difficult to consider interference, even as applied to benevolent undertakings, and for social government, in any other than a bad light. But take the rule of a father, which is the type of all good government, that under which the divine jurisdiction has been graciously expressed to us. Consider how a wise father will act as regards interference. His anxiety will not be to drag his child along, undeviatingly, in the wake of his own experience; but rather, to endue him with that knowledge of the chart and compa.s.s, and that habitual observation of the stars, which will enable the child, himself, to steer safely over the great waters. Such a father will not be unreasonably solicitous to a.s.similate his son's character or purposes to his own. He will not fall into the error of supposing that experience is altogether a transferable commodity. The greatest good which he designs for his son will, perhaps, be that which he can give him indirectly, and which he may never speak to the youth about. He will seek to surround him with good opportunities and favourable means: and even when he interferes more directly, he will endeavour, in the first instance, to lead rather than to compel, so that some room for choice may still be left. Not thinking that his own power, his own dignity, his own advantage are the chief objects for him to look to, his imagination will often be with those whom he rules; and he will thus be able to look at his own conduct with their eyes, not with his. This, alone, will keep him from a multiplicity of errors. Now the same principles, actuated by the same kind of love, should be at the bottom of all social government.

I believe that we shall be better able in practice to place wise limits to interference by regulating and enlightening the animus which prompts it, than by laying down rules for its action determined upon abstract considerations. The attempt to fix such rules is not to be despised; but if the persons, or society, about to interfere on any occasion, desired a good object from right motives, I think they would have the best chance of keeping themselves from using wrong means. In many cases, an unwise interference takes place from a partial apprehension of the good to be aimed at: enlarge and exalt the object; let it not be one-sided; and probably the mode of attaining it will partake largely of the wisdom shown in the choice of it. If, for instance, a government saw that it had to encourage, not only judicious physical arrangements, but mental and moral development, amongst those whom it governs, it would be very cautious of suppressing, or interfering with, any good thing which the people would accomplish for themselves. The same with a private individual, an employer of labour for instance, if he values the independence of character and action in those whom he employs, he will be careful in all his benevolent measures, to leave room for their energy to work. What does he want to produce? Something vital, not something mechanical. It is often a deficiency of benevolence, and not an overflow, that makes people interfering in a bad sense. Frequently the same spirit which would make a man a tyrant in government, would make him a busy-body, a meddler, or a pedantic formalist, in the relations of ordinary life. I have taken the instance of father and son, which might be supposed by many as one in which extreme interference was not only justifiable, but requisite. In stating how necessary it is even there to be very careful as regards the extent and mode of interference, I leave my readers to estimate how essential it must be in all other cases where the relation is not of that closely connected character. I believe that the parental relation will be found the best model on which to form the duties of the employer to the employed; calling, as it does, for active exertion, requiring the most watchful tenderness, and yet limited by the strictest rules of prudence from intrenching on that freedom of thought and action which is necessary for all spontaneous development.

CHAPTER IV.

SOURCES OF BENEVOLENCE.

There is a common phrase which is likely to become a most powerful antagonist to any arguments that have been put forward in the foregoing pages: and I think it would be good policy for me to commence the attack, and endeavour to expose its weakness in the first instance. If you propose any experiment for remedying an evil, it is nearly sure to be observed that your plan is well enough in theory, but that it is not practical. Under that insidious word "practical" lurk many meanings.

People are apt to think that a thing is not practical, unless it _has_ been tried, is immediate in its operation, or has some selfish end in view. Many who do not include, either avowedly, or really, the two latter meanings, incline, almost unconsciously perhaps, to adopt the former, and think that a plan, of which the effects are not foreknown, cannot be practical. Every new thing, from Christianity downwards, has been suspected, and slighted, by such minds. All that is greatest in science, art, or song, has met with a chilling reception from them. When this apprehensive timidity of theirs is joined to a cold or selfish spirit, you can at best expect an Epicurean deportment from them.

Warming themselves in the sun of their own prosperity, they soothe their consciences by saying how little can be done for the unfed, s.h.i.+vering, mult.i.tude around them. Such men may think that it is practical wisdom to make life as palatable as it can be, taking no responsibility that can be avoided, and shutting out a.s.siduously the consideration of other men's troubles from their minds. Such, however, is not the wisdom inculcated in that religion which, as Goethe well says, is grounded on "Reverence for what is under us," and which teaches us "to recognize humility and poverty, mockery and despite, disgrace and wretchedness, suffering and death, as things divine."

There is a cla.s.s of men utterly different from those above alluded to, who, far from entertaining any Epicurean sentiments, are p.r.o.ne to view with fear the good things of this world. And, indeed, seeing the multiform suffering which is intertwined with every variety of human life, a man in present ease and well-being may naturally feel as if he had not his share of what is hard to be endured. The fanatic may seek a refuge from prosperity, or strive to elevate his own nature, by self-inflicted tortures; but one, who adds wisdom to sensibility, finds in his own well-being an additional motive for benevolent exertions. It is surely bad management when a man does not make a large part of his self-sacrifices subservient to the welfare of his fellow-men. In active life nothing avails more than self-denial; and there its trials are varying and multifarious: but ascetics, by placing their favourite virtue in retirement, made it dwindle down into one form only of self-restraint.