The man to whom I have just referred has for some years past rented a house near the Potteries, for which he pays seven shillings per week. The eldest girl, now fourteen years old, has been in a place for the last four years, and is so fond of it, (the father tells me,) that when she comes home for a holiday, nothing can induce her to stay a minute beyond the time appointed for her return.
“I got a holiday,” said he, “last autumn, and I took my wife and children to the Crystal Palace. We had a beautiful day there, and see’d enough in that little time to give us something to talk about ever since. The only trouble we had was, my girl was in a kind of a fidget, for fear she shouldn’t get back to her place in time.”
I asked this man a great many questions about his mode of life. He said:—
“Our trade would do very well, if it wasn’t for the number of hours we have to work, and if we could get our Sundays to ourselves. There is just now a strike among the men; they want to get sixpence a thousand more upon the bricks than they at present receive: and as I know how to reckon very well, I know that the masters could give us that, and still get a handsome profit for themselves. If we could get that, then we should only work from six to six; and we shouldn’t, in that case, have to dry our sand on Sundays; we could then get all that we wanted ready on Saturday evening. I don’t hold with these strikes, ma’am; they are not the right sort of thing. It isn’t much use, either, for men to stand out against their masters; for until they have learnt to save money, they can’t hold out no time hardly without hurting themselves dreadful. The day the men turned out, a gentleman was riding by, and he stopped and asked me what it was all about; and so I told him. He says to me, ‘Do you take any part in it?’ And I says, ‘No, sir, I don’t feel comfortable about it at all; but, sir, for all that I don’t like this _way_ of doing it, I don’t think the men are asking for more than they should; they only want the masters to be as considerate of them as they are of their horses.’ ‘What do you mean?’ the gentleman says. ‘Why, sir, I mean this, that the horse employed in our brick-field is brought in at six o’clock in the morning, he has a proper time for rest in the day, and he is always taken off again at six in the evening; but the men must work fifteen and sixteen hours to get a living out of it; and this hurts their bodies and souls too, sir; for it isn’t many men can think much as works like that. I am a stronger man than most, sir, and I save myself a deal by not drinking; but it hurts me, I find, and as soon as I can get a little money in hand, I shall try and get out of it, and take to selling coals, or something of that kind.’ You know, ma’am,” the man continued, “I think over all these things a deal, and I do wish masters would listen to what we have got to say; for though we ain’t so wise, like, as they are, we think we could make some things plainer to them. When this was first talked of among the men, I did wish master would let me talk to him about it. I think, if he would have heard how we ’splained all, things wouldn’t have been as they are now. It seems to me, that God have planned out this world for us all to depend upon one another, and we ought never to stand to one another as we do now. You know, ma’am, when we working-men look at all these fine houses and gardens about, and see all the fine furniture that goes into them, we know that it is all done by our labour, and that the great people couldn’t do without us, any more than we could do without them. And it do seem to me, the world would be a deal happier, and better, too, than it is, if we felt that sort of thing to one another; felt, I mean, that we were all wanted, like, to make the world go on right.”