The great unwashed, by the journeyman engineer, author of 'Some habits and customs of the ...

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Part I. THE GREAT UNWASHED IN THEIR PUBLIC RELATIONS

PAGH

WobkinoMen 1

WoBKiNO Men's Homes and Wives 28

WoBKiNO Men and Politics 61

The Wobkino Classes and the Chubch .... 79

Tbade Unionism on its Tbial 97

Part H.

phases of the inner life of the great

unwashed.

Cu b Coub t 12S

My Club-house 161 a wobkman's mobnino call 176

Satubday Tbading 201

Veby Cheap Litebatubb 217

Easteb with the Unwashed 234

Out op Collab 246

Tbamps and Tbamping 256

In the Bia Shop 284

THE GREAT UNWASHED.

Part I.

THE GREAT UNWASHED IN THETR PUBLIC RELATIONS.

WOEKING MEN.

For a long time "the working man" was, if not the sole, at any rate the most prominent, subject of public observation and discussion; and though " questions of the day" occasionally put him, comparatively speaking, in the shade, he always remains a stock " object of interest," and from time to time again comes with a rush into the very foremost place in public interest in connection with questions in which he either is or is said to be specially interested. From being thus situated, he has been spoken and written about and at to an incalculable

B

2 The Ghreat Unwashed.

extent; but to those who best know the working classes — the better educated and more intelligent members, namely, of those classes — ^most of this talk only proves that those who utter it either do not understand or wilAilly misrepresent the subject. Those who profess to be the champions of the working man, and the exponents of his opinions, speak with so great an assumption of authority, and in such a Sir- Oracle strain, as to impress most people outside the working classes with the belief that all that they say is gospeL The contrary, however, is the case. The oratorical and pen-and-ink portraits of their hero, which professional and self-constituted "friends of the working man" give to the public, bear about the same relation to working men of real life as the virtuous peasant of the blood-and-thunder drama, who "dangs" his buttons, defeats the machinations of " the libertine lord," and finally marries the Watteau-costumed " rose of the village," and in conjunction with her receives the benedictory layingon of hands, and " Bless ye, my children I" of the heavy father, does to ordinary agricultural labourers. The best of these portraits are idealised from obseiTations necessarily superficial and generally made with

Worhing Men. 8

ft view to their suiting some preconceived theory, while others are ^' adapted" to the interests of parties, or boldly evolved from an inner consciousness or a rich imagination, by persons who wish to father their own interested designs upon the working man. Thus, agriculturists, when trying to obtain a repeal of the (to them) obnoxious malt -tax, sentimentahse over " the poor man's glass of beer ;" those who seek to legalise marriage with a deceased wife's sister assert that it is chiefly in the interests of the working classes that they do so ; and the gang of roughs who, headed by the notorious Finlen, stormed the Home Office and held a rowdy meeting in it, as a matter of course also professed to be acting upon behalf of the working classes.

Now, such proceedings as these inflict great injury upon the working classes as they actually exist, since they place them in a false position in the estimation of other sections of society. The working man, as bodied forth by his professional friends, is endowed with such a number and variety of talents and virtues as are certainly not to be found in any other man. He is, on their showing, the salt of the earth, the only one man who has an absolute right to be in, or is really necessary to carrying on the work of, the world. In short, according to the gospel preached by his " friends,** the working man is a perfect being ; but working men as found in the cottage or workshop are unfortunately not able to "act as sich," and are consequently set-down as impostors, or unworthy members of the general body, whenever persons who have been under the impression that the noisy spouters or frothy writers who profess to represent working-class opinion really do so, happen to come across examples of the genuine article.

Again, working men have become so habituated to and so careless of all kinds of fanatical schemes and demands being fathered upon them, that those who notice such matters at all take them upon the grin-and-bear-it principle; and this silence upon their part, this want of active protest or repudiation, is naturally construed Into acquiescence in the designs of those who are using them as a lev.er, and they are accordingly regarded as grasping, dissatisfied, unjust, and unreasonable.

The various stock-ideas of the working classes to which senseless or self-interested demagogues have given rise are as injurious to the classes in question as they are misleading to others. Those who admire or court, and those who fear or contemn, the working classes, alike speak of ^^ the working man," and in the mode of reasoning which the use of this phrase indicates lies the chief source of the prevailing ignorance and misconception concerning the working classes. The absolute generalisation implied in the phrase becomes in this case mere idealism, and is totally inadequate to convey a just and comprehensive idea of those to whom it is applied. In no other section of society are there so many and such widely-differing castes as among the working classes. There are working men and working men in such infinite variety, that any one man embodying the distinguishing characteristics of the various types that go to make up the aggregation would be simply a monster of inconsistency. There is no typical working man. The phrase ^'the working man," though neat enough as a figure of speech, is utterly erroneous and misleading when employed, as it generally is, as a synonym for the working classes. People who talk of the working man would, if questioned upon the point, be found to have in their mind's-eye either an ideal conception, or some particular type of working man who is m many respects himself alone, and not a generally representative in-* dividuaL

A list of the various kinds of working men would tjc almost as long as the Homeric catalogue of ships ; so that, in speaking of them, some generalisation is necessary ; but ^^ the working man" is altogether too restrictive and non-characteristic. To be properly estimated, working men must be separated into at least three leading sections, the representatives of which may be respectively styled the educated working man, the intelligent artisan of the popular phrase, and Mr. Lowe's working man. The differences existing between those sections are marked and in kind, wlilln ilioso between the subdivisions that come under km*\\ of ihi^n arc only in degree. An acquaintance wllJi ilios<i »i3(!ti()nfl, therefore, will incidentally inyolvM II ^^iuwra) knowledge of the working classes; Mill I now \tr<)\i(mii to give, so far as my abilities will liMi'Mill uu^f «om« account of the distinguishing cha- |'M«*lMrl«lli<« oCoiujIi of these types.

TliM (lr«l- nC tliom iH emphatically the best, and (llMliyli Mol, llio wIrnngOHt, is yet a large and rapidly- IlifM'MllHln^ fllvlMlun I and as it to a great extent makes \\\\ III Ifini'al WMl^Itt for Its comparative want of num-

WbrJdnff Men. 7

bers, its influence in modifying opinion upon those questions which more particularly affect the social position or poUtical interests of the working classes is now beginning to have a perceptible effect. The educated working man is the stock intelligent artisan improved and tempered by education. He is, unfortunately for his class, an accidental being, owing his existence not to any marked individual superiority in point of intellect, or to any national or other system of education applied to the working classes, but to some happy accident of taste or circumstance which leads to his continuing the work of education beyond the schoolhouse. From this point commences the divergence between the artisan who is intelligent in the educational as well as natural meaning of the word, and the artisan who is intelligent in the latter sense only. Among the working classes the work of education can only be begun at school ; but the general body of them do not recognise this important fact. Without reflecting upon the subject, they have from tradition and habit come to believe that education should be and is begun, continued, and ended in school. Entertaining this belief, and entering upon a new phase of life on leaving school, they allow the work of education to lapse ; the result being

6 The Great Dnuxuhed.

that when they become men in years they are still children in the matter of education, and however intelligent, naturally lack that expansion of mind and increase of knowledge which education gives. There are learned working men — men who are **up" in abstruse sciences and various dead and modem languages — ^but they are exceptional ; and I wish it to be understood that, in speaking of educated working men, I use the phrase not in a scholarly but general sense — ^the sense in which an educated man means one who, in addition to possessing at least average mental capacity, is a well-read, well-informed member of society, who has kept and is keeping pace with the progress of the age; a man who, having class, interests, is yet capable of taking a broad and tolerant view of questions affecting those interests, and of clearly expressing and giving reasons for his own sentiments upon such questions; a man who can find his greatest gratification in intellectual pursuits and pleasures, and in his daily life displays in some greater or lesser degree that refinement which education gives. It is of men of this type that the educated section *of the working classes consists. In the majority of instances, these men have in early youth happened to acquire a taste for reading. (I

WorJdng Meru 9

say happened advisedly, for it is no part^f any existing system of working-class education to create or lead up to that taste for reading which is the germ of all real education among working men.) This taste has gone with them into the workshop, and expanded with increased opportunities for obtaining access to books. It has in many instances led to the men availing themselves of the means of self-education now within the reach of all classes, to systematically improve their education in a technical as well as general sense ; and even where this has not been the case, a diversified reading in standard and current literature has had the effect of making these men highly intelUgent members of society; has, so to speak, lifted them out of that narrower circle in which the ideas of other sections of their class revolve, and, in increasing their knowledge, has given them broader and juster views of life. In the reading-rooms now attached to many large workshops, in mechanics' institutions, free libraries, and a marvellously cheap literature, working men have abundant means of gaining general knowledge, and making themselves acquainted with the history of past, as well as of passing, times and opinions ; and the educated section of the working classes hare availed themselyes of their opportunities in these respects. As the means b j which this general education can be achieved have rapidly increased of late years, a large proportion of the educated section of the working classes are at present young men, and it is perhaps more owing to this circumstance than to the comparative smallness of their number, that their influence has hitherto been but little felt in things political.

Among his mates, the educated working man is usually a man of mark. He is looked upon as a kind of animated encyclopaedia, all such debated questions as it is supposed a " scholard" can decide being referred to him. He is expected to draw up all such documents as workshop notices, petitions, and subscription-lists, and to take a leading part in the matters to which they refer. But while trusting to him, and allowing him to exercise a considerable amount of influence in some matters, his mates are ^^ down on him" in regard to others. They are inclined to think — and sometimes not altogether without reason — ^that he is a bit of a prig, or, as they put It, that he tries to " come the grand" over them.

WorJdnff Men. 11

The general tone of workshop life is, it must be confessed, apt to grate harshly upon a mind which is undergoing a process of refinement by education, and some of the better-educated among the working classes firequently give expression to their feelings on this point with an amount of impatience and contempt which is scarcely justifiable, and is certainly neither politic nor brotherly.

Again, as a principle, it ought to be the aim of educated working men to improve their class; but while the fact of their being educated does incidentally lead to the improvement of the body of which they are a part, their individual object is, as a rule, to improve themselves out of the working classes. This desire is commendable in itself, and may arise from the loftiest motives; but still, if a man is constantly expressing his intention to "get out of the shop" if possible, it is not surprising that many of his shopmates should attribute it rather to snobbishness than to what they would call such a *' flowery" sentiment as a noble ambition.

Although from prudential reasons, and with a view to being so far as they can independent, educated working men are generally members of tradeunions and benefit-societies, they are seldom what are called good members. They do not fiequent the club-house on those ordinary lodge-nights when the little formal business to be transacted is often made the pretext for a more than convivial meeting ; and on special-business nights, when they do attend, it is often with a view to taking-up some position of antagonism to the general body, to hold them to some rule they are inclined to over-ride, to ^^ want to know, you know," concerning doubtful official proceedings, or to tax the costs of delegates. By the delegate class and professional " working men's friends*' educated working men are simply hated. Being inclined to look suspiciously upon friendship as a trade, they do not listen unquestioningly to the voice of the charmer. Their admiration for polysyllables is limited, and they would rather that their alleged friends should tell them something more definite, even if less forcible, than that they will move heaven and earth in their behalf; indeed, upon the whole, they would infinitely prefer an occasional deed to all the " tall talk" to which their friends treat their class. They do not beUeve in lending themselves to demonstrations and movements which, though said to farther the interests of their class, are really intended to show, and do show, the power of the agitators who organise them. And they not only object to support associations of which these same agitators are the irresponsible managers, or subscribe to the testimonial subscription-lists which are so constantly circulating among the working classes as to suggest the existence of a mutual-testimonial society among " the friends of the people," but sometimes, by exploding the clap-trap of demagogues, by showing that, divested of stock phrases and ^^ high-falutin" periods, their orations mean nothing, they prevent others from falling under their sway, and so "the working man's friend" by profession abhors them.

In politics, too, educated working men sometimes hold opinions that are regarded by other sections of the working classes as traitorous. But though occasionally looked upon with suspicion, and having their peculiar faults and weakness, theirs, as I have said, is undoubtedly the best division of the working classes, and has a beneficial influence upon the general body.

In dwelling upon some of the chief points of difference between the educated workman and the stock intelligent artisan, I have inferentially indicated some of the distinguishing characteristics of the latter, so that it will not be necessary to describe him separately at any great length. The representative intelligent artisan is a man who has in him " the makings" of a first-rate member of society. He is really intelligent in the primary meaning of the term, and from constantly being face to face with the realities of life — Home of them very unpleasant realities — ^he acquires «hrewdnes8 ; and these qualities of intelligence and shrewdness, I take it, make up that " rough common KCUHo" which is put forward as his strong point, and of which, according to his admirers and flatterers^ he poH»o«sos a monopoly. Now this rough common sense Im undoubtedly a fine thing, but imless it is supplelliuntud by education, it will not, in a highly-civilised Htati) of society, place a man on a level with the age Im wliicli he lives ; and this, strange as it may aphiiur, i« j)reci«ely the case of the intelligent artisan. 11m Ihw rough common sense, but lacking that knowlitdfjit iumI that expansion of mind which education MMtll a« i l*"'^^ spoken of alone can give to a man in llU r»M*k of life, he retains opinions which, in com- HHI'Unii with those held on the same subjects by better-educated men, are bigoted, narrow-minded, and unjust. He is still influenced by stale, and as they relate to the present times false, traditions, and is easily led by any taking shibboleth which chimes in with, or neatly embodies what either are, or political wire-pullers tell him are, his views. The intelligent artisan is preeminently the political working man, not because he has any special bent towards politics or really knows anything about them, but because he is the most easily influenced by professional agitators. He is an impulsive man, imused to reasoning or drawing fine distinctions, and knows nothing of poUtical economy or the constitution of society beyond the facts involving the abstract injustice to himself, that he who works hard, and whose labour is the active agent in the production of the national wealth, has often to endure great hardships for lack of a trifling portion of the riches he helps to create, while others who in no visible way aid in the work of production can command a superabundance of every good thing produced by the labour of others. And knowing and bitterly feeling all this without being able to reason upon it, and yet wishing to amend such a state of things, he eagerly believes in the universal remedies

16 TAe Great Unwashed.

which poUtical quacks assure him will have the desired effect.

In the matter of political opinion it is a noticeable

fact that while the intelligent artisan is perfectly

I

honest in holding his own views, he is altogether incapable of behoving that another man in his own rank of life can honestly entertain views at variance with his ; those who differ from him he looks upon as toadies or traitors. Nor will he be argued with. Once during my apprenticeship, when I was not so well aware of the last-mentioned circumstance as I subsequently became, I imprudently entered into an argument upon a phase of the bloated-aristocrat question with a thorough-going intelligent artisan. A nobleman who had taken a leading part in the politics of the county in which his estates and our workshops were situated had died. He had been a good man, a just landlord, a kind and liberal benefactor to the poor, and had hved a blameless private and honourable public life. On his death being mentioned among a group of us in the workshop, I, remembering these things, observed that many would miss him. To this my shopmate indignantly took exception, arguing that all aristocrats were encumbrances uponj / '

the face of the earth, and consequently could not possibly be missed when taken from it. Waiving the main point, I said, " Well, his ^dow will miss him, anyway;" but to this more limited proposition my friend also demurred. "Not she," he answered; *^she's got plenty of money, she had no need to care ; if it had been a working man, then you might have talked about his wife missing him." Still I suggested it was possible that natural feeling might exist even in an aristocrat, and that a wealthy as well as a poor woman might mourn for the loss of a good husband; whereupon my opponent, utterly outraged by the propounding of such an imorthodox idea, and my persistence in continuing the controversy, seized a heavy piece of wood and knocked me down with it. The lesson was an unpleasant one, but coupled with some after experience of a rather milder kind, it proved effectual, and taught me never to argue with a man whose poUtical creed consists solely of class cries and ideas. Of the intelligent artisan's weakness on these points, of his impatience of contradiction, and the fixedness of his idea that all political beliefs save his own are wrong in themselves and dishonestly held, those who trade upon the credulity of the working classes are fiilly aware. Indeed they have been chiefly instramental in developing these feelings, and they continue to pander tp them. And thus it comes that the less-educated portions of the working classes, ha\dng unfortunately accepted their flatterers as their teachers, have not yet come to understand that one of the most needed of the many improvements necessary to any material and permanent elevation of their class is self-improvement.

It is for the behoof of the intelligent artisan that those terrifically "scathing" organs which profess to be the sole advocates of working-class rights still exist. It is for him that the Billingsgatish style of journalism is still maintained, and that the great '^ Alphabet" Crusher writes of the Reform Bill in this many-adjectived strain : " It is a bill ostensibly designed to enlarge the liberties of the befooled downtrodden and plundered millions, but really and cunningly intended to extend and perpetuate the tyrannies of the politically privileged, morally depraved, physically polluted, and intellectually sterile caste." Though not so ambitious as his educated brother, the intelligent artisan is less contented. The educated workman has in his leisure hours many means of rais-

WorJdng Men. 19

ing himself above whatever is petty in his surroundings, while the intelligent artisan, wanting such means, is, if at all thoughtfully inclined, given to brood over the teachings of those who, with a view to supporting their own self-assumed character of the working man's only friend, tell him that the hand of every other man is designedly against him. In this way he often becomes a thoroughly discontented man, and regards other sections of society in a spirit of blind unreasoning antagonism^

But while he has many faults, the intelligent artisan has also many virtues. He is earnest and honest in his political beliefs, upright in his dealings with his fellow-men, and sober, industrious, prudent, and independent in his mode of life. Though bigoted in opinion, he is not selfish ; for while he will make great personal sacrifices in support of his principles, it is on behalf of his class rather than of himself individually that he fights for those principles. His opinions upon social and political questions, though often wrong and unjust, are only so in being extreme, as they are generally founded on facts. His rough common sense protects him from entertaining opinions that are utterly untenable ; but on the other hand.

his too great admiration of self-seeking spouters who can " speak Uke a book," and too ready credence of their bombastic vapourings, lead to his views becoming exaggerated and impracticable. And while his virtues are innate, are part of the man, his faults are in a great measure accidental and superficial ; and as they arise chiefly from a want of education, there is every prospect of their being eradicated.

Notwithstanding government apathy upon the subject, and the want of any effectively-organised national system, education has of late years made very considerable progress among the working classes, and will in all probabiHty advance still more rapidly in future ; so that among the rising 'generation we may reasonably calculate upon seeing the simply intelligent artisan merged into the educated workman. The recent transfer to the working classes of a large additional share of the electoral powers of the country will also be greatly instrumental in improving the intelligent artisan. In the first blush of his new power he will be almost certain to send to parliament some of those friends of his who talk about doing such tremendous things for him ; and the difference which he will then see between the promises and performances of that class of gentry will not only enlighten him as to the hollowness of their pretentions, but likewise tend generally to make him more practical in his political aims and aspirations.

With regard to the last and worst type of working man, it will, perhaps, be as well to say as little as is consistent with a desire to avoid any concealment or shirking of the subject. If, when in the course of his famous speech Mr. Lowe asked the House of Commons whether, if they wished to find drunkenness, ignorance, violence, and venality, they would go to the top or bottom of the social tree to seek them, he intended to assert by implication that they were special and prominent characteristics of the working classes generally — if his language amounted to a statement to this effect, then he said what he must have known to be substantially untrue. It would be absurd to suppose that a man of his great ability and knowledge of the world did not know that any description of the working classes of this country that attributed to them, as distinguishing traits, such very imdesirable qualities, would be manifestly false. It requires no special knowledge of them to be aware of this. Their post-office savingsbanks, their building, cooperative, and benefit clubs, and the general tenor of their life, even as it comes before outsiders, sufficiently refute any such general description of their body. K, however, Mr. Lowe only meant to say — as he has distinctly stated he did, and as, impartially considered in relation to the circumstances to which it referred, his speech seems to me to say for him — that a large amount of ignorance, drunkenness, venality, and violence would be found among the poorer sections of the working classes, he simply stated what every respectable artisan knows — though, if he considers that he owes it to his class to stand up for the idealised type of working man, he may not be prepared to admit-to be a truth. A painful truth, certainly ; and, for aught I know to the contrary, stated with unnecessary bitterness, but still a truth. Although it would be a gross libel upon the working classes to describe them as generally drunken and ignorant, a great amount of drunkenness and ignorance Mlill exists among them; and though this, of course, to Houio extent tells against the entire body, a large proportion of it will be found centred in the poorer Mtiutiouti of tiiem. So that, taking the lower portions

WorMng Men. 23

of the working classes apart from the general body, it is unhappily an ower true tale to say that ignorance and drunkenness prevail among them to a marked extent. Not that these poorer sections are inherently more vicious than the more fortunately situated members of their own class, or than the wealthier grades of society, but because, as a rule, an almost brutish state of ignorance is an inevitable result of the abject poverty which surrounds them from their birth upwards; and this poverty, with the ignorance resulting from it, are the natural parents of drunkenness, violence, and venaUty. The prevalence among them of such obnoxious characteristics is perhaps less the fault of the poorer orders of the working classes than of adverse circumstances arising out of an imsatisf actory state of society ; but from whatever cause or combination of causes such prevalence may arise, certain it is that it exists, and those who so blusteringly deny it are no true friends to the classes concerned. I am quite of opinion that he is an ill bird who fouls his own nest; but I also think that he is a very silly and wrong-headed bird who, finding his nest foul, hesitates to point out the blot with a view to its remova^ To admit that among the woiking cksses there is a section to whom Mr. Lowe's unpleasant and much-abused description applies with truth may be painful, but it is necessary; for in this^ as in other evils, the first step towards remedying it must be an uncompromising acknowledgment of its exist* ence.

This worst division of the working classes is ha^ pily also the least, though, when its characteristics are considered, it must still be considered a grievously large one. The working man of this type has much in common with the rough, with whom, indeed, he is often confounded. He is frequently compelled to live in the low, disreputable neighbourhoods in which the roughs take up their quarters. His household is generally dirty and overcrowded ; and it is probably this circumstance that in a great measure leads — in the first instance, at any rate — to his habitually loafing about public-houses and at street-comers when he is not at work. He is usually given to drunkenness, and often to wife-beating. He allows his children to "hang as they grow," not even taking the -negative precaution of abstaining from blasphemous and indecent discourse in their presence ; and it would be mere fatuity to attempt to deny that he would barter a vote for drink, or for a consideration take part in a physical exposition of any political opinions. It is principally in connection with these latter points that this type of working man is reprobated by other classes of society ; but it is upon these matters that he is really least dangerous, and least difficult to deal with.