# How contagion and infection are spread, through the sweating system in the tailoring trade/Deputation to the Home Secretary

THE SWEATING SYSTEM.
DEPUTATION TO THE HOME SECRETARY.
On the afternoon of Friday, March 16th, a deputation, composed of representatives from the Amalgamated Society of Tailors and the National Tailors' Associations of Scotland, waited upon Mr. Cross, at the Home Office, for the purpose of urging upon the Government the urgent necessity for legislation in regard to what is known as the "sweating system," i.e., the giving out of work by all tailoring establishments, including even the large ones, for execution at the homes of the journeymen tailors.
Mr. Macdonald, M.P., and Mr. Blake, M.P., introduced the deputation. With Mr. Cross was Mr. Redgrave, Inspector of Factories. The vice-president, treasurer, and secretary of the Parliamentary Committee of the Trades Union Congress, accompanied the deputation, which included Mr. A. W. Bailey, President of the Amalgamated Society; Mr. P. Shorrocks, General Secretary; Mr. H. Wright, Mr. H. Harry, Mr. D. Stainsby, Mr. L. Drohan, Mr. J. Mc.Whinnie, Donald Mc.Allan, John Skimmings, George M. Benbow, William Blake, Thomas Wells, Patrick Hooban, Michael O'Loughlan, and A. J. Holian.
Mr. Macdonald, M.P., introducing the deputation, said: Sir, I have the honour of introducing to you a body of gentlemen from the Amalgamated Tailors of the United Kingdom. They represent 335 branches and over 300 towns in England, Ireland, and Wales. There are also here representatives from the tailors of Scotland—the appointed deputies of associations representing nearly every town in Scotland. The object that they have in view is to lay before you some facts connected with what is called the "sweating system," and they do so in the hope that you will be able to take into consideration that matter in your proposed bill on the Consolidation of the Factory and Workshop Act. It is not for me to know what the provisions of that bill are, or whether this subject lies within the four corners or lines of that bill, but I would say this, that it is a subject that for many years to my knowledge has engaged the especial and earnest attention of the Tailors of the United Kingdom. It has not only engaged their attention, but it has engaged the attention of a number of other earnest thinkers and workers in the cause of sanitary reform, and whether or not you will be able to deal with the subject in your Consolidated Act, I trust, sir, that you will be able to consider it, and not only consider, but deal with it in the manner in which you have dealt with quite a number of subjects in connection with social and sanitary reform since you came into office, and with which your name will long be associated. It would be imprudent as well as impolitic to detain you with any remarks of mine. Gentlemen are here who are enabled and entitled to speak on the subject with far greater force than I can lay claim to. Without further preface, therefore, I will call upon Mr. Bailey to state his views.
​Mr. Bailey, of Preston, said: Sir, I address you as the President of the Amalgamated Society of Tailors, in application with the associations of Scotland. We are aware that this is both a difficult and delicate matter for any Minister of State to deal with, and we are also well aware that the rights of a citizen are to be considered and respected, but at the same time we think, that where it can be proved that a number of people living in small rooms are engaged in this work, under conditions physically and morally of a deplorable nature, some steps should be taken by which either sanitary inspectors, or inspectors under the Factory and Workshop Act, should be able to inquire into and remedy this state of things. We are well aware that this is now becoming an important question, and we trust that when the facts and figures are laid before you they will convince you that it is a question which requires the serious consideration of those friends who are so anxious for the sanitary and social condition of this country.
Mr. Wright, of Glasgow, said: I beg, sir, to endorse all that has been said as to the extent of this evil. In Scotland, for a great number of years past, we have carefully considered this question, and at every meeting of our association it has been brought under discussion. Nor have we lost any opportunity of calling the attention of the public to this matter, for it is the general body of the community who should complain of a system by which everything of a contagious character existing in the rooms of the sweaters is conveyed to the homes of the customers. I might state a great number of cases from my own personal experience, in which I have actually seen the garments in the course of making up covering the beds in which fever patients lay. These are facts which have come under my own observation; and though we have informed the sanitary inspectors of the evil, with a view of its remedy, we have failed to obtain their interference. Therefore, our opinion is, that if an employer should please to give his workmen the work to take home, he should be bound to make provision by which that home should be registered; and we have simply to ask if you can see your way to introduce some clause in the bill you contemplate bringing forward by which it may be compulsory upon an employer to register any house or shop in which his work is done. We do not think it is right to interfere in the way in which the work is done, but that it is only for the Government to see that their inspectors have power to prevent the spread of contagion. At all events, the fact of a contagious disease being in the house of a workman might be made known, and then the public could defend themselves. I may mention one or two other cases. I visited a house in Glasgow where, in a room some 6 feet by 8 feet, a man and his wife and boy lived and worked. Just before I came the mother and child had been removed to a fever hospital, and there had been nothing to cover the boy but the clothes on which the father was engaged. Then, in another house I visited, I went into the attic, which was divided in two by a screen. In one division there was no furniture; this was a sort of workshop and kitchen, the other was the sleeping apartment, and here a man and his wife and two sons lived. Now, we ​believe that such a state of things not only tends to injure the public generally, but it also tends very much to lower the morality of a people; and we humbly suggest that if you can see your way to introduce any clause in that bill, you will take whatever steps in your wisdom seems best to place these homes and workshops under the inspection of Government officials.
Mr. H. Harry, of Manchester, said: Sir, I hold in my hand a tabulated statement and report of the committee which was appointed last year in Manchester to ascertain the facts relating to this sweating system. We visited over a thousand houses where this work is done, and the condition of the people and their dwellings was something horrible. The average size of the rooms was 9 by 12 feet, and in these four to five persons lived, making these garments in the midst of all the domestic arrangements, half-naked children, and surrounded by filth and wretchedness. I can assure you that, speaking from the facts and circumstances which came under our observation in the course of that inquiry, it seems quite within the scope of the Workshops Act that governmental interference should take place. We found somewhere near 1,300 people engaged in this kind of work, so that if any disease existed among them there was the liability if not certainty of its being spread from those homes among the enormous number of people in whose midst these clothes came. Moreover, we think that, in particular, attention should be called to the fact that all the circumstances surrounding the places in which the sweaters work are such as to foster and spread disease, the situation of the places likewise facilitating the spread of disease to a fearful extent.
Mr. D. Stainsby, of London, said: Sir, I shall speak more particularly of workshops in which this system of sweating is carried on, situated in Regent Street, or rather in streets lying immediately at the back of Regent Street, such as Carnaby Street, Cross Street, Broad Street, Edencourt, and others. These localities abound with places where the work from the principal West-end shops is executed; and these shops, I wish to give you to understand, are patronised by our aristocracy. In visiting these houses we found a man and his wife with male and female helps, all working together in one room, and in some cases there was a bed in the same room. In a place on the other side of Regent Street, in a court that abounds with tailors working in their own homes, I found in a top room, the roof of which was so low that the man had to stoop, a man and his wife both working at this trade in the direst misery. I may mention that the already existing appliances for the prevention of such evils as those we complain of are entirely inoperative as regards our workshops, and I may support that statement by citing a case that came under my personal knowledge, where a man, upon his return from the hospital, far from wholly recovered from smallpox, resumed his occupation of making up garments. I knew the man well. I shall never forget the sight he presented. A woman at the same time returned from the hospital to the same place. I am therefore able to say, from my own observation of this matter, that it is ​highly necessary the Government should take it up, and do something for the benefit of all concerned.
Mr. Drohan, of Liverpool, said: In the first place, I wish to state that in what I am about to say I am expressing not only my own opinions, but those of a very large number of my own trade, and also the views of the public press of various places as regards this question. I have just to reiterate, to a certain extent, what my friend from Manchester said. We in Liverpool had a somewhat similar inspection, in the course of which we visited 800 men and 200 women, employing 250 machines. Five cases are specially worthy of note, but I will just state two. In one case we found a man and his family and his assistants all working together in one room, about 10 feet by 8, as far as we could judge, situated in a very low and dirty locality. There were two rooms—one in which the family lived, the other the workroom. In one we found the man sitting in bed working at his occupation of sweater; and there was a plank laid across from bedpost to bedpost on which the garments were laid. In another bed a child lay covered with the clothing on which the workers were engaged. There was also a machine in the room, so that the place being small there was scarcely room for the persons to stand or sit at the little table in the middle of the room. Another case which came under the notice of the deputation I may also mention. Here we found a man and wife, with two men and two women, working together. They had two machines, which took up the greater portion of the room; indeed, so cramped were they for space, that while one man sat on the table, another sat underneath it, where he had scarcely any light, and the third sat on the hearthstone among the coal and cinders. In addition to these two cases, I may mention that we found in all 38 persons working in rooms and houses totally unfit for habitation by any human being, and surrounded by circumstances utterly degrading, physically and morally. We do hope, sir, you will be able to deal with this evil, for it is a very serious matter; and although we have called attention to it in the public press, there have been no remedial steps whatever taken in regard to it.
Mr. J. Mc.Whinnie, of Edinburgh, said; Sir, I do not know that any of the previous speakers have impressed this important consideration upon you, that while the aristocratic and wealthy go to large, showy shops, with plate-glass fronts, and are there measured and try their clothes on, they do not know nor have they the least idea that the garments are actually made in the lowest, filthiest slums of the city, by which means diseases of all kinds are spread. Hence we contend for some reform taking place. We could quote cases by hundreds, but we want the assistance of the Government to trace these cases to their source for the purpose of exposing them. I will instance one. Two of my acquaintances were asked one Saturday night if they would go and assist in completing a big order for a large establishment in Edinburgh. Now, these two men had been drinking, and, therefore, it may be supposed they would not be over particular, yet the moment they entered the house they came out, for there was but one room in the ​place, and on the table a child lay dead from smallpox. In the midst of it all the father and mother were at work on clothes certainly intended for people residing in the most fashionable quarters of the city, I did what I could in the matter. I obtained the assistance of two doctors, and we found, in addition to the dead child, two brothers ill with the smallpox. Now, we want the authority of an Act of Parliament in order to effectually trace these cases. We may see, as we sometimes do in the papers, "Mr. So-and-so is ill with fever—how he got it none can tell." But we could tell, sir; we can guess now with certainty, but we could tell positively if we had the means of probing the matter to the bottom. We know that garments are made up frequently in places rife with contagion, the clothes imbibe it, and the moment they become warm—that is breathed through, the wearer dancing, perhaps—they give out the infection. You may have your suspicions, and go and question the employer, but there inquiry stops at present. We therefore ask for legislative interference on this most vital question.
Mr. Peter Shorrocks, of Manchester, General Secretary to the Amalgamated Society of Tailors, said: Sir, we feel that this question is not only a sanitary question, or a question affecting the physical condition of the people, but that it is also a moral question. I may tell you that we know as a fact that in rooms where 15 to 18 males and females are working together the most private arrangements are carried on as to sleeping and undressing in each other's presence whilst work is pursued, thus demoralising those affected. I have here two cases with reference to nine dwellings in Camden Court, in the city, containing twelve families each, and each family numbers from three to six members. The hours of labour range from 12 to 18 per day, and the places are in a most filthy state. Sir, such facts as these must show that the people need protection from themselves. The Factory and Workshops Act regulates to some extent the hours of labour in the places specified in the Act, but in the homes of the sweaters they extend to 16 or even 18 hours per day. Reports have frequently appeared in the papers calling attention to this gross evil, but without effect. I have here with me two such reports, one from the Sanitary Record, December 2, 1874, and another from the Lancet [extracts from which he read], both showing cases in which direct contagion has been carried from the operatives to the individuals that have to wear the garments. Since, sir, it was known that you had kindly consented to receive a deputation on this subject, I have had letters bearing directly upon the question from Windsor, Ashton, Wrexham, Carlisle, Dublin, Derby, Oxford, Cambridge, and many other towns, all giving illustrations of the deteriorating effects of the existing circumstances as regards our trade; and we think a clause might be inserted in your proposed bill for the consolidation and amendment of the Factory and Workshops Act that would meet the case. The operation of the Artisan's Dwelling Act do not touch the evil, while the sanitary inspectors will not visit these cases, and the officers under the Factory and Workshops Act are not able to interfere.
Mr. Cross said: Well, Mr. Macdonald, of course it will not do for ​me at the present moment to state to this deputation or any deputation what are the provisions of the Bill which I propose shortly to bring before Parliament; though I am afraid that, owing to the state of public business, I shall not be able to introduce it before Easter. I am very glad to have heard all that you have had to say. I suppose I am to understand that your object in coming here to-day is simply this, namely, to impress upon me the fact that disease is propagated by persons working at this particular trade of making up clothes in houses in which there is contagious disease.
Mr. Macdonald, M.P., replied: Yes, that is all, sir; it is not a trades question.
Mr. Cross: I was merely asking for information. Now, how would you deal with such a case as this: suppose a working tailor, whose house was full of disease—would you let him work as usual in the workshop?
Mr. Bailey: Oh, no.
Mr. Mc.Whinnie, of Edinburgh: If disease were to break out in his house, and it were known, he would be requested by both men and masters to leave the shop until a clean bill of health was received and his place disinfected.
Mr. Cross: That is what I wanted to know. Then the object of your deputation to-day is this—that a workman, wherever he may be employed (whether in a workshop or in his own house), if he should be living with a wife or child suffering from a contagious disease, he should be prevented from spreading that disease.
Mr. Wright (Glasgow): The same thing takes place in Glasgow.
Mr. Macdonald: I have to thank you, sir, on behalf of the deputation, for your courtesy in receiving it, and listening to its representations. This is a subject I hope you will consider at some future time.
The deputation then withdrew.
Though the interview was of short duration, it was thought to be most satisfactory, and that good results must follow. Resolved:—That a vote of thanks is due and is hereby accorded to the deputation for their creditable efforts on the subject on which they were appointed.
Resolved:—That a vote of thanks is due and hereby tendered to the Trades Union Congress Parliamentary Committee for their disinterested and successful efforts in bringing about the interview; and that we request their valuable assistance in the future in assisting us to bring the subject to a successful issue.
Resolved:—That the thanks of the Conference be tendered to Alexander Macdonald, Esq., M.P. for Stafford; and to Thomas Blake, Esq., M.P. for Leominster, for their kindly assistance in accompanying the deputation to the Home Office, and sympathy with us in our efforts for the benefit of our trade.