The record-union., 1891-08-01
WAKEMAN'S WANDERINGS.
Description of Life Among the
Lowly of Liverpool.
A City of Nearly a Million Souls, and
Yet Labor, and Plenty of 1t, Is the
Rule Wages Paid TO Clerks and
Laborers The Piratical Cab-DrI-
vers.

| lRegular Correspondence of RECoRD-UNIoN.
Copyright, 1891
LIVERPOOL, July 21, 1891.
! With its outlying boroughs and sub
,urbs, Liverpool houses well nigh q mill
ion souls. Its maritime interests are
enormous, and commercially it no doubt
ranks as the second city in the empire.
1t is hard, practical city. Its business
men and factors are grim, severe fellows,
stern of decision as New York million
aires, and restless, diligent and uncon-
| querable as the men who have set tho
killing pace in Chicago.
There is little room for pleasant things
in Liverpool. Its chief, and almost sole
gallery of paintings, was given the city
by graduated rumseller, whom Victoria,
out of surprise and wonder, no doubt,
made baronet. Although one OF the
| worlds greatest depots for the book col
| lector, it has but one library of note
available to the public. Charities are
done in a perfunctory, petulant manner,
although the helpless were most ill-man-
nered in selecting busy Liverpool to
| starve in. And its hundreds of thou
sands of working men and women
are treated with less consideration than
cattle.
! With a few shining examples it is city
of commercial Gradgrinds on the one
hand and public-house devil-fish on the
other. The lowly have a sad lot between
/ them. Nobody here wants it that way,
Nobody here believes it is that way. A
| few men, like Sir James Poole, are en-
deavoring to help the masses to better
| things, and are finding little time from
| business affairs to do something practical
and good. But as rule the men who
own great fleets, who exchange half the
English-speaking worlds raw and man
utactured products, push forward in their
money-grabbing career like automatons
of stone, and their fellow humans are
counted as coal, iron or cotton are COM
puted in loss or gain.
! In studying the condition of the lowly
of any great city, the demand for labor,
wages paid, and the cost of living, are the
| first things to be considered. These
things indicate how the people might
live if possessed of all prudence and So
! briefly. How they really live and why, is
another matter,
There is seldom a dearth of labor in
any great seaport. Liverpool has always
| stood high in percentage Of labor demand.
| The city has never been subject to the re-
lentless overcrowding Of manufacturing
towns like Leeds, Manchester and Bir-
mingham, or the destructive greed of tre-
mendous and endless immigration as at
| New York. 1t is the greatest entrepot in
Europe. The landing, handling and re-
| shipment of nearly all North and South
American products exported to Europe,
and the reshipment to all quarters of the
globe of the greater part of the stipend
Gus quantities of British manufactures,
are done at this one port. Its warehouses
and docks are almost inconceivably nu-
merous and extensive. Fifty thousand
men are alone constantly required in the
various forms of dock labor This fact
will sufficiently indicate the almost meas
ureless business ramifications requiring
! uninterrupted service.
| Steady labor and plenty of it is the rule.
| The least possible wages upon which the
workers may exist also prevail. The
| best paid men, among the 10000 laborers
employed upon the docks, are the steve
| doreS, who load and unload the ships
Jumpers" they are called-who get five
shillings per day, and the dock porters,
or goods" handlers, who receive a six
pence less. 'Lorrymen," or cartmen,
with two horses tandem earn thirty shill-
ings, and, with one horse, twenty-six
shillings. The police are paid from twen-
| ty to thirty-two shillings, with CORE
| spending deductions to eventually pay
tor their own pensioning when too old
| for further service. A gateman at the
| Exchange Railway Station told me he
! had been in the same service sixteen
years and had never received above
nineteen shillings per week, and no
manner of employe about these great sta
! tions is paid upwards of twenty shill-
! ings.
! All grades of clerks, porters and sales
men, and women about the markets, re-
ceive from eight to eighteen shillings.
! Tramcar drivers get as high as twenty
! four shillings, but conductors never
above twenty-one. BARRIERS, caretakers
or janitors and watchmen, milkmen,
| bakers men, grocery and market trap
| drivers, express and railway package and
| freight collectors, receive only from ten
to eighteen shillings, while corporation
| day IaborOrS are paid from sixteen to
twenty shillings per week.
| Liverpool cabmen are the most woebe-
gone lot of their kind in the world. Cab
| owners occasionally rent hanson or
! brougham to trustworthy fellow at a
stated sum, but there are not fifty, out OF
nearly 5000, that have arrived at this dig
nifty in their calling. The remainder get
| from twelve to eighteen shillings per
week. One pities these fellows. They
are lame, halt, blind, veinous-nosed and
! palsied, without sufficient spirit for GEN
/ uine viciousneSS. i had thought the Ha-
vana cocheros the most beggarly set OF
these fellows ON earth. But if you wish
! to observe at one study all that could be
seen in all the British workhouses, refor-
matories and hospitals for incurables,
station yourself anywhere on Crosshall
street, opposite the municipal buildings.
near st. Georges Hall, or at the landings
on any steamer arrival day, and cast a
/ glance down along line of waiting Liv-
! erpool cabmen. / have asked several
cab owners why, in the name of hu-
man existence, such mockery of wages is
/ paid.
| III IL Z
rob US juss so much hany'ow," is the uni
versal rejoinder.
''Couldn't you book them for each
| trip and fare?''
so aye, some hon us does that VERY
| thing. Then they rob the fare (passen-
ger) at th' hend o the journey, an picks
oop back-fare hon us beside. Theys a
passel o. pirates, is theyr'
| The clerks of Liverpool are not to be
envied. Male clerks employed in the
| great warehouses, reineries, insurance
| offices, in the gigantic cotton trade, and
in the myriad shipping offices, are the
| victims of most iniquitous system. It
is true that few head clerks, accountants
/ and Office managers receive from twenty
to forty shillings per week, and manage
to lead comparatively comfortable lives
| But fully ninety per cent. give their best
! years, from. sixteen and eighteen to thirty,
at from six to eighteen and twenty shilI-
! 1ngS per week. They are deluded into
this sort of slavery by the glittering hope
of advancement" Tremendous wealth
and its power are all about them. They
| slave like beasts and dream of ultimate
! place among the money kings of Liver
| pool. After years of faithful service, and
at q time of life when no new career is
possible, they are met by the stone-wall
of Indifference on the part of their en-
ployers, helplessly see the posts of trust
about and above them filed by still
cheaper imported help from Germany