Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton FamineWaugh, Edwin
History
Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine
Waugh, Edwin
Cotton famine, 1861-1864; Labor -- England -- Lancashire; Working class -- England -- Lancashire
and here and there was a pinched face which told its own tale. I got
into talk with a quiet, hardy-looking man, dressed in soil-stained
corduroy. He was a kind of overlooker. He told me that there were
from eighty to ninety factory hands employed in that quarry. "But,"
said he, "it varies a bit, yo known. Some on 'em gets knocked up
neaw an' then, an' they han to stop a-whoam a day or two; an' some
on 'em connot ston gettin' weet through--it mays 'em ill; an' here
an' theer one turns up at doesn't like the job at o'--they'd rayther
clem. There is at's both willin' an' able; thoose are likely to get
a better job, somewheer. There's othersome at's willin' enough, but
connot ston th' racket. They dun middlin', tak 'em one wi' another,
an' considerin' that they're noan use't to th' wark. Th' hommer fo's
leet wi' 'em; but we dunnot like to push 'em so mich, yo known--for
what's a shillin' a day? Aw know some odd uns i' this delph at never
tastes fro mornin' till they'n done at neet,--an' says nought abeawt
it, noather. But they'n families. Beside, fro wake lads, sick as
yon, at's bin train't to nought but leet wark, an' a warm place to
wortch in, what con yo expect? We'n had a deeal o' bother wi 'em
abeawt bein' paid for weet days, when they couldn't wortch. They wur
not paid for weet days at th' furst; an' they geet it into their
yeds at Shorrock were to blame. Shorrock's th' paymaister, under th'
Guardians, But, then, he nobbut went accordin' to orders, yo known.
At last, th' Board sattle't that they mut be paid for weet and dry,-
-an' there's bin quietness sin'. They wortchen fro eight till five;
an', sometimes, when they'n done, they drilln o' together i'th road
yon--just like sodiurs--an' then they walken away i' procession. But
stop a bit;--just go in yon, an' aw'll come to yo in a two-thre
minutes." He returned, accompanied by the paymaster, who offered to
conduct me through the other delphs. Running over his pay-book, he
showed me, by figures opposite each man's name, that, with not more
than a dozen exceptions, they had all families of children, ranging
in number from two to nine. He then pointed out the way over a
knoll, to the next quarry, which is called "Hacking's Gillies'
Delph," saying that he would follow me thither. I walked on,
stopping for him on the nearest edge of the quarry, which commanded
a full view of the men below. They seemed to be waiting very hard
for something just then, and they stared at me, as the rest had
done; but in a few minutes, just as I began to hear the paymaster's
footsteps behind me, the man at the nearest end of the quarry called
"Shorrock!" and a sudden activity woke up along the line. Shorrock
then pointed to a corner of the delph where two of these poor
fellows had been killed the week before, by stones thrown out from a
fall of earth. We went down through the delph, and up the slope, by
the place where the older men were at work in the poorhouse grounds.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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